From: Mr Jack Nelson Date: Thu, 18 Feb 16 18:56:55 +0000 Subject: IF YOU FAIL TO SEND THE $50 THIS WEEK YOUR $2.500, 000.00 IS GONE To: FEDERAL MINISTRY OF FINANCE NATIONAL HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY COMPLEX SENATE HOUSE - UPPER CHAMBERS WUSE DISTRICT, LAGOS/NIGERIA Our Ref: FGN /SNT/STB get back to us via email (officeof@gmail.com) IF YOU FAIL TO SEND THE $50 THIS WEEK YOUR $2.500, 000.00 IS GONE I have to inform you again, that we are not playing over this, I know my reason for the continuous sending of this notification to you, the fact is that you can't seem to trust any one again over this payment for what you have been in cantered in many months ago, but I want you to trust me, I cannot scam you for $50 it is for bank processing of your payment, the fees of $50 is clearly written to you before, I did not invent the bill to defraud you of $50 it is an official bank payment processing fee, and the good part of this, is that you will never, ever be disturbed again over any kind of payment, this is final, and the forms from there becomes effective once we submit your payment application processing fee and pay the form fee of $50 I don't want you to loose this fund this time, because you may never get another such good opportunity, the federal government is keen and very determined to pay your overdue debts, this is not a fluke, I would not want you to loose this fund out of ignorance, I will send you all the documents as soon as bank payment processing fee is paid, you have to trust me, you will get your fund, find a way to get $50 you will not loose it,instead it will bring your financial breakthrough, find the money and send it to our bursary. The reason why am sending you this because I want you to receive your USD2.5M immediately we are trying to round up for this payment program.The processing charges which was initially on the high price has been cut down by the payout bank considering the poor economic situations that make it difficult for the middle class citizens to meet up with the processing charges of their entitlement. Upon the confirmation of your processing charges you will get your $2.500, 000.00 into your account within 15hrs. Here is the payment information through western union money transfer or money gram money transfer finally my advice to you is not to abandon this transaction because of the requirement of ($50) Account Officer Info: Receiver's first Name: ALEX OBINO City:::::::::::::: Cotonou Country: ::::::::Benin Republic Text Question: ::::::what for Answer::::::::my bills Amount required: :::::::$50 Sender's Name::::: MTCN Number#: Sender's address: As soon as the payment is received today, you will receive your $2.5M the same today without any delay. get back to us via email (officeof@gmail.com) Best Regards Mr Jack Nelson 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.... , , , , . Air Force Gets Its Own Combat Dive Badge After Using the Navy's for Years Air Force officials said there is a notable distinction between Navy divers and their divers, which was a key reason for... RENA, Norway U.S. Marines with the Combined Arms Company and members of the Norwegian Army took to the firing line as part of their integration during a live-fire exercise in Rena, Norway, Feb. 18, 2016. The Marines are conducting this training to improve their abilities in cold weather environments. U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Kyle Lloyd, the master gunner for the tanks of Combined Arms Company, said After pulling the tanks out of the caves, we zeroed all the weapon systems to prove they would be ready if ever needed. The M1A1 Abrams Tanks were joined by the Norwegian Leopard 2 Tanks as the Marines zeroed their weapon systems. Lloyd talked about the integration and working alongside the Norwegian Army, They know they can rely on us and we can rely on them. The mix of forces provided insight into different capabilities as well as similarities. It is important for us to train with our allies and see how the equipment works in this environment, said Norwegian Army 1st Lt. Nagnus Babsvik, the tank platoon commander with Telemark Battalion. This week, we have shown an American tank platoon how we operate." While in Rena, the Marines conducted an ice driving course, testing their maneuverability skills on the icy Norwegian terrain. We dont get this kind of training on Camp Lejeune, said Lloyd. Driving in the snow and hills is something we never do at Camp Lejeune, being out there and learning how to drive in very slick conditions was fun to do. The Combined Arms Company is comprised of multiple vehicles with multiple capabilities, including amphibious assault vehicles, M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks and light armored vehicles. If we were ever to be a combined unit, we all know the limitations and capabilities of the weapon systems that we have. Wed have the same idea of how we train and how we fight, said Lloyd. Telemark Battalion operates in this environment quite frequently, said Babsvik. Its a good thing that the Marines can come here and learn from us. The Marines and Norwegian Army are working together as part of Exercise Cold Response, a joint NATO and allied country exercise comprised of 12 countries and approximately 16,000 troops. SAN DIEGO -- If Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Scott Swift has regrets about last October's "innocent passage" transit of the guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen near the Subi reef and other regions in the territorially contested Spratly islands in the South China Sea, it's that the Navy wasn't clearer about its intent with the mission. "We lost control of the message for the Lassen piece, we didn't get out there and describe exactly what we're doing," Swift told an audience at the AFCEA West Conference in San Diego on Thursday. "[But] my view is innocent passage was absolutely the right mechanism to use to challenge those excessive claims." White House and Defense Department officials were initially tight-lipped about that freedom of navigation operation, which China quickly denounced as a provocation. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter ultimately explained the mission in a Dec. 21 letter to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, a Republican from Arizona, but the two months of silence that preceded the letter led to confusion and speculation about what the transit meant and whose territorial claims were being challenged. By contrast, Swift said, the freedom of navigation transit of the guided missile destroyer Curtis Wilbur near the Paracel island chain in the South China Sea last month featured a strong messaging strategy and clear intent. Defense Department officials provided near real-time information about the operation, which took the Curtis Wilbur within 12 nautical miles of the Chinese-claimed Triton island, challenging attempts from Taiwan, China and Vietnam to restrict navigational rights in the region. The right of a ship to pass through territorial waters without prior notification is one of the tenets of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. "It would be unfair not to recognize that there were multiple country claims that were being challenged with both those transits," Swift said. "The element with both the Lassen freedom of navigation operation and the Curtis Wilbur freedom of navigation was a requirement to either seek authority before you could enter territorial waters or to announce your intention to enter territorial waters. ... What we were challenging was prior authorities needed to be sought and approved or prior notification. That's what the legal precedent was." He emphasized that both FONOPs were "agnostic" regarding the opposing territorial claims, challenging only attempts to restrict navigation in the region. While Swift declined to comment on specific missions, he said the U.S. would continue to conduct freedom of navigation operations. When and where the next South China Sea transit will take place, he said, is a decision that will be made at the national level, with oversight by U.S. Pacific Command Commander Adm. Harry Harris. "All I can say is that the Pacific Fleet is ready," he said. "We are an extensive force that is ready to conduct the spectrum of operations at any given time really at a moment's notice." -- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@monster.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HopeSeck. The storied rivalry between the Cardinals and Cubs has the opportunity to capture the nations attention in 2016 as both clubs enter the year with lofty expectations on the heels of excellent 2015 campaigns, writes Jon Paul Morosi of FOX Sports. Morosi opines that St. Louis vs. Chicago has added meaning this year with the Cubs prying Jason Heyward and John Lackey away from the Cardinals and the subsequent comments from Heyward and St. Louis skipper Mike Matheny adding to the feud. Morosi spoke to both Ryan Theriot and Mark DeRosa two now-retired players that experienced both sides of the Cubs/Cardinals rivalry about what matchups between the two teams were like from a player perspective and about what it would mean for a player to be on a team that finally succeeds in bringing a World Series victory to the Cubs for the first time since 1908. Heres more from the division Royal Dutch Shell has embarked on a detailed review of BG Groups assets in Myanmar after the international oil giant completed a US$53 billion acquisition of its British rival on February 15. The two companies have been in discussions about the sale since 2014, but their Myanmar assets have not yet been combined, officials said. This week saw the birth of a new player in the global energy industry in the midst of some of the toughest market conditions seen in decades, Shell chief executive Ben van Beurden said in a statement. Both parties have informed Myanmar authorities of their plans informally, and the transfer of assets is still in process, said an official from the Ministry of Energy. There will be no objection. We are going to approve their merger. At the moment, it is still being processed, and no change has been seen in their assets. In 2013 bidding rounds, Royal Dutch Shell won three deepwater blocks, and BG Group won four, in collaboration with Australias Woodside Energy. Production sharing contracts were signed last year and together the two giants committed to invest more than $2 billion in Myanmar over the next six to eight years. Shell will begin a detailed review of BG Groups portfolio of assets following the finalisation of the merger on February 15, an official from Shell Myanmar said. We will not be in a position to discuss our plans until this process is finalised in the coming months. Shell looks forward to working with key stakeholders in Myanmar to ensure as seamless a transition as possible, said Yasuko Yoshida, Shells country representative in Myanmar. Shell launched 3D seismic campaigns in around 10,000 square kilometres of its Myanmar deepwater blocks last month. BG Group operates blocks A-4 and AD-2, where it owns 45 percent and 55pc respectively, and began seismic campaigns in both blocks last November, according to the Ministry of Energy. The company also holds a 45pc stake in blocks A-7 and AD-5, which are operated by Woodside Energy. All four blocks are located in the Rakhine Basin. Following its acquisition of BG Group, Shell plans to spend $33 billion in capital investment over the coming year less than the combined annual spending of both companies in recent years. Over the next three years we plan to sell assets, as well as make significant savings in overlapping costs and reduced spending on exploration, said Mr van Beurden. The company has already announced plans to cut staff and contractors as a result of falling international oil prices. The price per barrel of Brent crude has dropped almost 70pc since mid-2014 to $34.98 yesterday, according to Bloomberg data. The combined value of Shell and BGs existing and potential energy projects will create a company more able to brave the cycles in the oil industry, said Mr van Beurden. Shell has three areas of business in Myanmar investing in offshore exploration, developing an LNG terminal and distributing petroleum products. The company signed an agreement with Italian-Thai Development (ITD) and LNG Plus International (LNGP) last August to develop an LNG receiving and re-gasification terminal in Dawei special economic zone in southern Myanmar. The LNG terminal is a part of a $1.7 billion deal to develop the first phase of the much-delayed Dawei project according to a Reuters report published last August. A new law is being drafted to promote Myanmars rubber sector, as the commoditys international value plummets and a number of plantations across the country are forced out of business. The law is being drawn up under Myanmars National Export Strategy, said U Khine Myint, secretary of the Myanmar Rubber Planting and Producing Association (MRPPA). The five-year strategy, unveiled last year, aims to boost yield and value-add in beans, pulses and oilseeds, fisheries, forestry products, textiles and garments, rice, rubber, and tourism. In particular, the plan notes that the rubber sector has been plagued by quality and productivity issues. Myanmar imports more than it exports, and we want to promote rubber as a good product for export, so we are trying to improve the quality of local products and to open the countrys first rubber market in Mawlamyine, Mon State, said U Win Myint, director of the commerce ministrys Trade Promotion Department. The new law must include procedures for planting, producing and exporting. A committee should be set up to oversee the market, said U Khine Myint. The law will govern the private rubber sector and will be drafted by the commerce, industry and agriculture ministries, in consultation with the MRPPA, U Khine Myint said. We cant open our rubber market until the law is in place, he said, adding that his association is now looking at international rubber laws for guidance. The market will be built in a compound on Ministry of Commerce-owned land, and will be managed by the MRPPA along with the commerce and agriculture ministries. Exporters will be able to buy through an auction system farmers can refuse to sell if they are not happy with the bid, though traders will be blacklisted if they dont buy at their bid price. Most of Myanmars rubber is farmed in Mon State, though Tanintharyi, Bago and Ayeyarwady regions are also major rubber producers. The Japanese government is working with the local industry to help improve rubber quality and has set up a quality-testing laboratory in Yangon. Local businesspeople hope that with better quality control they can sell the commodity to Japan and other foreign markets. For now, most of Myanmars rubber farmers depend heavily on China, where economic growth is set to slow to 6.3 percent in 2016 according to International Monetary Fund projections. China has the worlds largest automobile market, which uses rubber for tyres, but as the economy slows, demand has fallen, sending global rubber prices spiralling toward a six-year low. As a result, some Myanmar plantation owners say they are suspending production until prices rebound, as tapping their rubber trees is no longer cost effective. In fiscal year 2015, Myanmar exported 75,000 tonnes of rubber. This fiscal year to end-January, exports totalled almost 65,000 tonnes, said U Khine Myint, who targets 90,000 tonnes by the end of the year. This year, prices are much lower, so the value of our exports will not be higher than last year, he said. Official export figures are also likely to understate the true value of the industry, as many companies smuggle rubber across to China to avoid paying taxes, he added. Translation by Khine Thazin Han Grand Andaman Islands Company has become Myanmars first private company to hold a licence to work alongside military-owned conglomerate Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Limited (UMEHL) harvesting birds nests on a number of islands in Tanintharyi Region. The company, which also owns a casino resort in the Andaman Sea, won three out of four lots in a tender issued by the Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry to produce swiftlet birds nests on the Moscow Islands, the Yay Aye Islands, the Kasai Hla and the Kaunt Ngar Islands, and the Mali Islands. Birds nests are harvested across Southeast Asia, partly for local consumption but mainly for export to China and Hong Kong, where they are considered a delicacy and believed to have healing powers. Made from the saliva of swiftlets, the nests are typically eaten as part of a soup. U Tin Thein, director of the Tanintharyi Region forestry department, said UMEHL has been in the birds nest business for years. An open tender system was launched in 2013 but UMEHL has been the sole winner for the past two years, and has sub-contracted a company called Padamyar Yaung Chi to harvest the nests, which can be dangerous work. [In this round] of the three companies bidding UMEHL, Padamyar Yaung Chi and Grand Andaman Islands UMEHL was granted one lot and Grand Andaman won the remaining three, he said. Last financial year, UMEHL won all four lots at a price of more than K620 million. This year, the value of total bids on the four lots reached K1.8 billion, he said. The tender was opened and the winners announced on February 9. The winning companies were required to deposit 25 percent of the total investment into state-owned Myanma Economic Bank the same day, said U Win Naing, deputy director of the forestry department. The first lot includes eight islands in Dawei district, the second includes 10 islands in Myeik district, the third is nine islands in Kawthaung district and the fourth is a group of five islands in Myeik. Grand Andaman Islands is not just looking to harvest birds nests, but will also try to develop the islands into tourist destinations, said U Tin Thein. Two of the islands in each lot won by Grand Andaman will become forestry conservation areas, and they will not collect nests there, to prevent against extinction, he said. Tender winners have no right to use the islands natural resources apart from birds nests, he added. Income from harvesting the nests will contribute to the regional government budget, which will go toward developing the region, said U Tin Thein. When entering the birds nest business, the company must ensure it is working sustainably and conserving the resource for the long term, he said. The contracts will be signed over the next few days, and the companies will be able to collect nests until the first week of November this year. The Chinese firm behind a controversial Myanmar copper mine said yesterday it plans to start operations in May, a move expected to pose an early challenge to a new National League for Democracy government. Angry farmers and activists have repeatedly clashed with authorities in recent years over the Letpadaung copper mine in the central town of Monywa. Several bloody police crackdowns on protests have stirred anti-China sentiment and public alarm over the project, which is a joint venture with the corporate arm of Myanmars military. After years of construction the mine will swing into operation just weeks after Daw Aung San Suu Kyis new government is formed, threatening to thrust the sensitive issue of Myanmars relationship with its giant neighbour and key trading partner China to the fore. We can start production in May, said Dong Yun Fei, Myanmar spokesperson of the Chinese firm Wanbao. We will start to run our production under the new government and I hope for a better future with them, he said, adding that there are still some problems with local people. Some of them protest sometimes. The question of how to handle this problem is the business of the government. Only they can solve it, he said. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is carrying the hopes of a nation following a huge election landslide won by her National League for Democracy (NLD) in historic 2015 elections. The party will form a government in April, finalising a prolonged and delicate political transition in a country ruled for decades by a repressive junta that was shunned by Western nations but courted by Beijing. Outgoing President U Thein Sein suspended a multi-billion dollar Chinese-backed dam soon after coming into power, signalling a realignment in the countrys relationship with Beijing, which had for years sheltered the junta from the full force of Western opprobrium. But other major infrastructure projects have continued, including the Letpadaung mine and a huge oil and gas pipeline that traverses Myanmar from the southwestern coast to the northern border with China. Letpadaung has been dogged with controversy since 2012 when police tried to clear a protest camp using phosphorous canisters, causing outrage after it left dozens of people with severe burn wounds, including several monks. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi led an official probe into that incident, which attracted the ire of activists after it recommended construction be allowed to continue. Wanbao has defended the project and denied any wrongdoing, saying last year that Myanmar stands to receive US$140 million a year in tax from the project. But protests have continued and crackdowns have also spurred bouts of anti-China demonstrations in Yangon and other major cities. International operators Ooredoo and Telenor have expressed concerns to the government that a long-awaited fourth mobile operator will be given unfair advantage, while a source close to the licensing process believes the concerns are unfounded. Both international operators have raised the issue of a level playing field in discussions. In an interview with The Myanmar Times earlier this week, Telenor Myanmar CEO Petter Furberg said the government must guarantee that the new operator will be held to the same standards as foreign entrants were three years ago. The operator will combine a consortium of 11 local companies, a foreign partner and a government stakeholder, and is expected to be licensed later this year. Whats important is that we were invited in on the basis that there would be four players, and that the fourth player would have the same terms as we had, he said. The government has to ensure the fourth player comes in with the same roll-out requirements and with the same licence fee payments as we have paid. Mr Furberg said it would shift the picture significantly if an operator was only required to roll-out its network in Myanmars cities. But a source close to the licencing process has called these concerns unfounded, pointing out that one of the Myanmar-led fourth operators main mandates will be to ensure everyone in the country, especially those outside the cities, can access mobile services. U Zaw Oo, an adviser to the president involved in the tender process, earlier expressed hope the fourth operator would emphasise their operations in rural areas, as previously reported by The Myanmar Times. Revealed: The seven foreign applicants for fourth telecoms licence Meanwhile, Ooredoo Myanmar CEO Rene Meza said he saw no indicators that fairness would be an issue. However, the company brought the subject up with the government to ensure discussions on a level playing field from the fees all the way to the licence obligations ... are taken into consideration when a final decision is made. There has to be a level playing field that gives [existing foreign investors] the reassurance that our investments are secure and will ultimately give us the return we expected when we decided to come to Myanmar, he said. Mr Furberg said Telenor believed the government would make sure the fourth operator would be made to pay an equal licensing fee to an international operator. However, the source close to the licensing process said this is unlikely, as the value of the licence has fallen since Telenor and Ooredoo paid for access to Myanmar then a greenfield market. Even at the time, he added, some applicants proposed to pay less. Telenor committed to pay US$500 million for its licence, while Ooredoo declined to provide figures. However, The Global New Light of Myanmar reported on July 10 of last year that the company was required to pay more than $1 billion in tax to provide services in Myanmar. While the new Myanmar-led telco whose foreign partner will own up to 49 percent of the company may leverage advantages such as local knowledge and enter a more sophisticated telecoms landscape with less infrastructure to deploy, it may also have a hard time with user acquisition in a market that has seen millions connected over the last two years. They will come late and market share will be much harder to gain back. The more you wait, the lower the fees, as your expectations fall about how much profit you can make, said the source close to the licensing process. Seven firms have submitted non-binding expressions of interest in bids to potentially join the venture that will become the fourth nationwide mobile operator in the Myanmar market. Additional reporting by Clare Hammond Fashion pop-up event will hit La Carovana in Yangon on February 20, bringing with it nine of Myanmars up-and-coming brands and labels. Hosted by Pun Projects, the Yangon Fashion Market is billed as a must-see event for the citys millennials. We wanted to have a pop-up shopping event to promote young, contemporary designers based in Yangon and coming out of Myanmar, Thu Thu, the Pun Projects director, said. Its to appeal to a younger generation with mainly ready-to-wear and accessories. Starting at 11am on February 20, the event will give shoppers the chance to peruse the latest ready-to-wear designs from the countrys most popular designers. Headlining the lineup is Steven Oo, who Thu Thu described as the biggest name we have secured. His label has the biggest following in Myanmar right now, she said. I would say hes the hottest trendsetter. He will be showcasing his 00:55 menswear line, which features bold hats and layered black, alongside his One Gray Day knitwear collection for men and women. Alongside Steven Oo will be Min Khant and his MKU line of customised uniforms, as well as Mo Homs Mon Precieux New York. Mo Hom, one of the veterans of the Myanmar design world, has focused her newest designs on feminine, flowy dresses. Shes been in the Yangon fashion scene for longer than anyone else, Thu Thu said. Charlotte Barjous Vestige line is also expected to be there, as well as Vestiges large inventory of accessories. Rag and Denim by The Avenue, Amazing Grace, APTK and CiCi will round out the options, offering a bevy of daywear and casual wear geared toward the younger audience. Depending on the success of the event, Thu Thu said she hopes to make Yangon Fashion Market a quarterly event. We always like to get involved in interesting projects, she said. The market will be held at La Carovana, 22 Kabar Aye Pagoda Road, Bahan township, Yangon, on February 20 and 21 from 11am to 8pm. For more information visit the Yangon Fashion Market Facebook page. On October 2015, artist Ma Ei staged a performance piece at Yangons Gallery 65 that was highly unusual for Myanmar: For three days, she made herself the centre of a public display focusing on menstruation. During the performance, titled Period, the 37-year-old artist occupied a room in the gallery that was bathed in blood-red light, furnished with a bed, desk and chair, and decorated with posters featuring handwritten lists of symptoms of menstruation and ways to relieve them. Wearing a nightgown, she talked, slept and handed out sanitary pads to visitors. She brewed fresh ginger tea said to induce menstruation and relieve cramps which she shared with audience members. All of this in a country where menstruation remains a taboo subject and a source of shame for women who have not been given the opportunity to learn differently. Indeed, such is the state of sex education a term commonly avoided in favour of euphemisms like daily healthcare or family education that even the neutral clinical word vagina is considered vulgar. At the time of the performance, Ma Ei said her aim was to encourage people to talk about womens bodies and sexuality, and, as she told The Myanmar Times, to help men understand how women feel when they are on their period. During her career as a performance artist, which started in 2008, Ma Ei has not shied away from controversy, thriving on confrontational pieces that can make some viewers feel uncomfortable. She is among the growing number of women who are establishing reputations as invaluable contributors to Myanmars evolving art scene. The youngest are now benefiting from the struggles of pioneering women who have spent years fighting against gender discrimination in the art world. Among these courageous innovators is Phyu Mon, 53, a conceptual artist whose diverse talents include painting, digital photography, performance and poetry. She is also organiser of the Blue Wind Multimedia Festival, inaugurated in 2010 as the first womens art festival in Myanmar. Phyu Mon began painting in her hometown of Katha, Sagaing Region, when she was 10 years old. Due to the towns remoteness, few art books were available, and there were no artists in town except for her teacher, Katha Ba Thaung. Katha Ba Thaung taught me about impressionism and expressionism, and repeatedly reminded me to never stop learning because art is limitless, Phyu Mon said. She later attended Mandalay University in the hope that it would expand her creative horizons, but what she mostly encountered were people who looked down on the few women artists at the university. As female artists, we were ignored by teachers and accused of going against traditional culture. We were told we were not elegant women, she said. It didnt help that male artists refused to offer support, and even seemed to be afraid of the women. I asked if I could accompany a group of male artists when they went outside to make landscape paintings, because I also wanted to make beautiful art based on the environment, she said. I told them I didnt mind that they drank alcohol while they painted, which was something that other women didnt like. But the men didnt allow me to follow because they felt confused about working alongside women artists. Phyu Mon added that cultural pressure is the biggest devil of female artists in Myanmar. It can destroy your career and drive you to become a normal housewife. However, she said that in recent years the situation has improved for women as new ideas have been introduced to Myanmar through cultural exchanges, including workshops run locally by international artists. Its easy for female artists to get depressed from all the cultural pressure, but now there are ways for us to fight these feelings by studying new art forms and holding discussions at workshops. But we still need more art education, Phyu Mon said. Khin Than Phyu, 64, publisher and chief editor of Art in Myanmar magazine, said she had trouble convincing her parents to allow her to take art classes at night while attending Yangon University in the late 1970s. At that time, even men were belittled for being artists. They were thought of as people with no income not even enough food who wasted their time making nonsensical things, she said, adding that for women the situation was even worse. Everyone said women should not be artists, and that we should not go outside to paint with male artists. Still, Khin Than Phyu persisted, inspired by groundbreaking women such as illustrator Nang Nang and painter Ma Thanegi, who shattered the taboo against women artists working outdoors. Others who challenged the male monopoly on the visual arts were Daw Tin Tin San, Daw Khin Myint Myint and Daw Nwe Nwe Yee. I continued because I had been interested in drawing since I was young. My favourite subject was biology because I loved the lessons where we drew pictures of organic cells, she said. She later honed her skills by copying portraits from books and magazines, and then developed an impressionistic style because, she explained, she was not good at realism. She was invited to participate in several group exhibitions, and held her first solo show in 1993. She has also developed an interest in environmental issues, and now makes mixed-media works by using real sand on the canvas to create coastal scenes. Khin Than Phyu said there are now many young female artists in Myanmar who are able to study without discrimination and who are dedicated to their own creative ideas. In the past, women could not really push new ideas because of the tension surrounding their presence in the art world, but today its totally different. There are more women with different ideas and different artistic qualities, she said. But she added that the pressure for women artists to fit into traditionally accepted roles has not completely disappeared. Most women artists are busier than men because people still think they should be good housewives, so they try to balance their domestic chores with their art, Khin Than Phyu said. Among Khin Than Phyus inspirations as a young artist was Daw Nwe Nwe Yee, now 76 years old and working as an art and religion teacher at the Indonesian embassy in Yangon. In December 2015 she organised an exhibition of works by 132 women artists from around the country. Like the other women interviewed for this story, Daw Nwe Nwe Yee developed an interest in art when she was very young. I was always punished in school for drawing pictures throughout my exercise books, and sometimes on my friends books, she said. She also fought with her parents to win permission to study art, and when she attended school in Yangon she faced familiar forms of discrimination from people who said women should not be artists. Everyone said women need to stay inside the home and do their chores, but many of us were working outside too. There are many female teachers, engineers, vendors, et cetera, but under our culture we also need to finish our housework and be perfect parents for our children, she said. Daw Nwe Nwe Yee found a way to combine her passion for drawing with cultural expectations by using watercolours and acrylics to create still-life paintings of objects around her house. But this delicate balancing act has not always gone smoothly. My husband is also an artist, and one evening during our early married days he was out of the house and I was in the kitchen cooking. The rice pot was on the stove and I was waiting for the water to boil, when my attention was caught by a lawkanat [prince of peace] statue that we had received as a wedding gift, which was sitting on the cupboard. I needed to draw it at once, so I got out my canvas and paints, and focused on the sculpture, she said. I finished my drawing around the time my husband returned. I showed him my new work and he was glad to see it, but then I remembered the rice pot. All the water had boiled away and the rice was a black mess. What was bad for dinner that night turned out to be good for Daw Nwe Nwe Yees art career: She sold the drawing to a publishing house that used it in a calendar. The image was reproduced many times, and was copied by many artists. Such was the drawings fame that Daw Nwe Nwe Yee became known by the nickname Lawkanat. In addition to her artwork and domestic chores Daw Nwe Nwe Yee also enjoyed a 30-year career as an art teacher in government schools, a job from which she has now retired. It allowed her to witness firsthand the gradual growth in the number of female art students. Now at the National University of Arts and Culture there are more female students than male students, she said. I think women artists are entering a new period of creativity. Im glad to know that the young generation enjoys a better situation than I did for learning and honing their creative talent. Many of them still face the stress of fitting in with cultural expectations, but more and more they are learning to relax and see the world with reborn minds. Simple, real, good food: Kimberly Ellicott is a chef who believes in letting the quality of fresh ingredients speak for themselves. Cooking with passion is second nature to Ellicott as she has been preparing food professionally for over 15 years. A native of the state of Maine in the northeastern United States, she creates comfort dishes that fill the belly and the soul. Fahrenheit restaurant in Yangon is Ellicotts newest adventure, where as head chef she designs Mexican-Asian fusion dishes to delight every palate. From sweets to full entrees, Ellicott uses fresh, local ingredients to create unique dishes, such as pad thai chimichangas, Myanmar curry tacos and chilli chocolate sundaes. This week Ellicott presents her recipe for ceviche a popular, refreshing Central and Latin American seafood dish made from fresh raw seafood cured in lime juice and seasoned with local spices. Hot chillies add a bit of heat to make this perfect for Southeast Asian palates. Seafood ceviche lb peeled and cleaned prawn lb sea bass fillet 5-6 juiced limes 1 cup diced tomato 2 small diced green peppers 2 small diced onions 2 tbsp minced coriander 2 tbsp white vinegar 3 chopped chillies tbsp oregano Salt and pepper to taste Cut each prawn lengthwise and then cut in half again in the middle, creating quartered sections. Slice the sea bass into 2-inch by one-quarter-inch pieces. Place the sea bass slices and prawn pieces in a large mixing bowl, and mix in the lime juice until all pieces are covered. Place in the fridge for 30 minutes. Dice the tomatoes, green peppers and onion. In a new bowl, mix together the diced vegetables and add in the coriander, vinegar, chilli and oregano. Remove the seafood from the fridge and strain in a colander. Let it sit in the colander for 15 minutes to ensure that all the juice has been strained. Place the seafood into the vegetable-and-spice mixture and combine well. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cover the bowl and place it in the fridge for at least two hours. As it chills the flavours will marry, so the longer it stays in the fridge, the better it will be. The ceviche will keep for up to two days. Two young women who were the focus of a Myanmar Times investigation this month into mass abductions of civilians by ethnic armed groups have been freed by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). Ma Nang Htwe Yin and Nang Kyan Kham, both 20-year-old ethnic Shan pre-school teachers, were released by the powerful armed group on February 14 seven weeks after they were abducted by the KIA on their way to a festival in Nant Onn in northern Shan State and forced to join their troops. Speaking by telephone from her village of Mong Paine in Muse township, Ma Nang Htwe Yin said she was happy to be home, and wanted to rest after gruelling military training in the jungle. She said she and other recruits were slapped for making mistakes during drills, particularly those who did not understand the instructions made in Kachin language. However, two 17-year-old TaAng (Palaung) girls abducted on the same night, and who are considered child soldiers under international law, are still being held by the KIA. Ma Nang Htwe Yin said the last time she had passed the two teenagers in the jungle during training the TaAng girls broke down in tears. In total 21 people were kidnapped by the KIA from a cluster of villages on the same night. The abductions of December 28 highlight what villagers say is an upsurge in forced recruitment by ethnic armed groups including of people from different ethnic backgrounds. The rise comes in the wake of intensified fighting in northern Shan following the signing by some ethnic armed groups of a so-called nationwide ceasefire agreement with the government last October. The freed girls said more than 100 young people were undergoing KIA training in the jungle alongside them during their time in captivity. Many were believed to be forced recruits. The case has raised concerns that international organisations have failed to put effective procedures in place to tackle forced recruitment by ethnic armed groups or allow victims and families to report cases. Repeated calls to the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Myanmar to report the abductions went unanswered. No local or international body contacted by The Myanmar Times was able to give a figure for the number of forced adult and child recruits serving in ethnic armed forces in Myanmar. Child Soldiers International, a UK-registered human rights organisation, gives a conservative estimate of 1000 child soldiers serving in the KIA alone. It appears that piecemeal deals between armed groups and ethnic activists may be the best hope most people have of securing release. But with tensions rising between Shan, Kachin and TaAng groups amid inter-ethnic fighting in the wake of the ceasefire agreement, such negotiations are unpredictable. A TaAng youth activist, who is trying to help the families of all those taken on December 28, said, I heard that the Shan girls have been released, but the TaAng teenage girls are still with the troops. Pressure from a [Shan armed] organisation and publicity helped in the case of the two Shan girls. I will talk to TaAng organisations and see if they can do something. A KIA source informed The Myanmar Times of the two womens release the day after they were freed, following what is understood to have been negotiations between the Shan State Progress Party/Shan State Army-North and the KIA. Villagers said the KIA had sent instructions to the young womens fathers to meet the troops as they passed along a road on the evening of February 14. The men were asked to sign a paper saying they had received their daughters back. Ma Nang Htwe Yin said she still feared that the troops might return and force her to do more training to work as a nurse or seamstress. She had not encountered actual fighting during her time with the KIA, but she said it had been a very difficult experience. It was tough training for a girl, she said, explaining that the trainees had to walk long distances over demanding jungle terrain. They were often exhausted, having been woken in the night by officers in drills designed to test their alertness. They were also given weapons training and taught how to lay landmines, using dummies. I guess they will not take us back and I dont want to be connected with war. I dont want war. I have decided to join the Tiger Head [Shan Nationalities League for Democracy] party and will do politics, she said. However, she expressed concern for her two 17-year-old TaAng friends, Ah Nyoi and Thin Thin Hlaing, who remain captive. On the way to the jungle we met with another troop unit which Ah Nyoi and Thin Thin Hlaing had been assigned to. When Ah Nyoi saw us she cried so much. On February 7 The Myanmar Times passed details of Ah Nyoi and Thin Thin Hlaings abduction to the United Nations Childrens Fund, which heads a task force on grave violations against children, including use of child soldiers. However, as of yesterday no one had followed up the case with the girls families or village head despite offers from The Myanmar Times to put them in contact. After being contacted again by The Myanmar Times yesterday, Emman-uelle Compingt, a child protection specialist with UNICEFs Emergency Response and Child and Armed Conflict section, asked for contact numbers to be passed to her directly and gave assurances the case would be followed up. However, she refused to give details on how many cases of child soldiers in ethnic armed groups UNICEF had directly intervened in, or how many releases it had managed to secure. According to Ms Compingt, the task force has accelerated its dialogue with the KIO/KIA on ending the use of child soldiers. The KIA has publically committed to ending the practice, but its leaders acknowledge that at ground level children are still being recruited. The last session of the ILOs Governing Body in November 2015 listed progress with respect to the elimination of forced labour. However, its report while addressing the use of forced labour by the Myanmar military made no direct mention of forcible recruitment by ethnic armed groups, although it is likely thousands of people are affected. Praising the impact of the peace process on reducing forced labour in conflict areas, the report records that up to the end of August 2015 it had been dealing with an average of 24.5 complaints of all types of forced labour a month down on 33 per month in 2014. However with phone lines repeatedly unanswered at the ILOs Myanmar offices, and reports of forced abductions by ethnic armed groups on the rise, the low figure could be interpreted as representing a systemic failure to recognise a major forced labour concern, rather than an actual drop in cases. That even such a high-profile case has failed to generate concerted efforts by international organisations to secure the release of the captives underscores the plight of affected families across the region. Ko Mong Myo Aung, a TaAng rights activist, said, No one [from international or local organisations or the government] had come to the village to enquire about the case. And while Ma Nang Htwe Yin and Nang Kyan Kham and their parents are celebrating their reunion, their neighbours are still waiting without outside support for their childrens return. This story draws on a two-part Myanmar Times investigation into abductions and forced recruitment in ethnic areas of Shan State. Read Part I and Part II of the investigation Members of parliament are calling on armed groups engaged in fighting in Shan State to drop their weapons and head to the negotiating table. Shan Nationalities League for Democracy representative U Sai Wan Hlaing Kham said yesterday that some members of the TaAng National Liberation Army want to stop fighting and talk politics. The TNLA has clashed with the Restoration Council of Shan State repeatedly since February 7, displacing more than 5000 in northern Shan State. Despite holding arms, not all are willing to go to war, said the MP, who represents Shan State Constituency 3 in the Amyotha Hluttaw. Thats why we have to try for more inclusive ceasefire discussions. Of more than 20 ethnic armed groups in Myanmar, only eight including the RCSS signed the nationwide ceasefire agreement with the government last October. U Sai Wan Hlaing Kham said this showed participation in the peace process was still weak. Their fighting will only negatively impact the public in the end. There needs to be a push for peace as quickly as possible, he said. Amyotha Hluttaw representative U Aung Kyaw Soe from Kayah States constituency 7 said clashes will solve nothing for either side. This outbreak of clashes is not a good thing. It is occurring very close to the moment of transferring power. The TNLA should consider what they are doing to their own people, he told The Myanmar Times yesterday. During a discussion of an emergency ceasefire proposal in parliament on February 17, military MPs accused the TNLA of provoking the fighting to grab more territory from the Palaung Self-Administered Zone. However, they also said the RCSS had violated the terms of the nationwide ceasefire agreement. The TNLA and the Union Peacemaking Working Committee held bilateral ceasefire talks in northern Shan State in July 2013. The meeting was unsuccessful, however, and clashes broke out soon afterward. Translation by Zar Zar Soe Refugees from fighting between two ethnic armed groups in northern Shan State are still flowing into the government-controlled town of Kyaukme amid reports that the Tatmadaw is stepping up its presence in the conflict zone. Relief workers are sending vehicles to war-torn villages to help civilians who are mostly women and children reach the relative safety of Kyaukme, where local charities and government departments are struggling to deal with nearly 4000 IDPs. Fighting began in the first week of February with the latest clashes reported on the night of February 17 near Nyaung Maung village between units of the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) and the TaAng National Liberation Army (TNLA), according to RCSS liaison officer Ma Nan Moe. TNLA troops were shooting inside the village and used villagers as cover, so we didnt shoot back because we were worried about their safety, she told The Myanmar Times yesterday. More than 200 people were said to have fled villages in the conflict zone yesterday. A rescue committee in Kyaukme sent five vehicles to pick them up. Sai Than Maung, a senior official of the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy who is also a member of the towns refugee rescue committee, said the villagers had been trapped in the middle of the fighting for two weeks, hiding from the TNLA. He said a head monk had been detained in his house in Nyaung Maung but villagers had managed eventually to get to a safe place to be picked up. According to the RCSS, government forces have taken control of villages around Tot Sang and are imposing strict checks on people moving in and out. This follows a similar pattern in Namkham township to the north where the Tatmadaw moved into Law Naw village after what the TNLA alleged were attacks by the RCSS on its positions. The RCSS says the Tatmadaw has not been involved in the fighting in Kyaukme. Official media have barely reported the conflict and the Tatmadaw has remained silent, except for statements by military MPs in parliament on February 17. They accused both ethnic armed groups of breaching military codes of conduct but singled out the TNLA as an illegal and rebel group that should relinquish its arms. The RCSS signed the nationwide ceasefire agreement with the government last October, while the TNLA was shut out of the peace process. The TNLA last week alleged that the Tatmadaw had attacked its fighters and accused the RCSS of working with government forces. The RCSS denies it is helping the Tatmadaw. Kyaukme township officials say refugee numbers are swelling daily. By yesterday morning a total of 3860 people were sheltering in 18 camps in Kyaukme and one in Minelon. Many of the camps are Buddhist monasteries. For the moment we are coping with the refugees but we might have needs later. The Shan State government is supporting refugees in every camp, said U Myo Saung, Kyaukme township deputy administrator. Local charities have been boosted by organisations arriving from other parts of Myanmar. The ministry of education is helping refugee students sit their exams. The government, private donors, local civil society organisations, the Myanmar Red Cross Society, the UN and partners have provided relief materials, the UN said in a statement. It also noted that more than 1000 IDPs had taken shelter further north in Mong Wee village in Namkham township following clashes between the RCSS and TNLA. Buildings where IDPs are staying are crowded and additional assistance is reportedly needed. The area is difficult to access due to the security situation, the UN said. As allegations spread of atrocities committed by both armed groups, ethnic Shan and Palaung (TaAng) civilians are speaking increasingly of their fear of hostility between the two communities, who live side by side in many villages. Daw Nan Tin Tin Aye, an ethnic Palaung principal of a middle school in Par Lin village, said her students have to sit their exams in Tot Sang village, which is mostly ethnic Shan. Tot Sangs inhabitants have accused TNLA soldiers of burning down houses. Even though the fighting has stopped there and calm has returned, she said she would not dare enter the village because she is afraid of hatred among the villagers toward ethnic Palaung. We are all Myanmar citizens, we should not hate each other. I am so worried that conflicts tend to become conflicts based on nationalism, she said. Sai Win Khing, who is from Mine Gone village, where the TNLA is alleged to have taken and later executed seven residents, said he felt the TNLA targeted them because they were ethnic Shan. He fled to Kyaukme on February 16. I do not hate Palaung but I feel afraid of the TNLA. Because we are Shan, they dont like us, he said. U Tin Maung Thein, a member of the National League for Democracy, said the conflict was turning into one of nationalism rather than being based on the interests of two armed groups. With a Nobel Peace Laureate poised to lead the next government, human rights activists are concerned they are in line for a major disappointment. Andrew MacGregor, from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said he feared we are in a honeymoon period. How long is it going to last? he said yesterday at a Human Rights Defenders Forum in Yangon. He added that while expectations are high, frustrations over a lack of rapid changes may surface further down the road. Despite the democratic elections, the commander-in-chief is constitutionally ensured the right to appoint the ministers of home affairs, border and security affairs, and defence, and military MPs hold 25 percent of all seats in state and union parliaments. In power-sharing negotiations, it is believed that Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has demanded to appoint chief ministers in Rakhine, Kachin and Shan states, home to most of the nations IDPs. Ko Zaw Moe, from the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, does not expect much in terms of reconciliation. But I would like a confession, he said. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, in her new role as a pragmatic politician rather than a human rights activist, has reassured the old guard that she will not persecute them once in office. Will the human rights situation change? I dont think so, Ko Zaw Moe said. As the police force will remain under military control, arbitrary arrests are likely to continue, he said. The new government will advocate a strong rule of law and human rights, but they have a great challenge in [working on this with] the police force and the military, said Ko Zaw Moe. According to the AAPP, about 85 political prisoners remain in jail and nearly 400 people are facing politically motivated charges. Though the NLD has named releasing all political prisoners as a priority, an amnesty to release those facing trial needs approval from the National Defence and Security Council, where the military holds a majority. Others fear that the military is not the only threat to progress, and disagree with the way the NLD has so far handled its affairs. On February 1, when Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and over 100 former political prisoners clad in orange NLD shirts entered the hluttaw, it was a sour moment for some activists who had aspired to walk the marble halls together with the party. In the run-up to the elections, the NLD rejected many long-time activists who had applied to contest the polls under the partys banner, including U Ko Ko Gyi, one of the leaders of the popular uprising of 1988 who spent more than 15 years in prison for his political activities. Another 20 members of the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society were also rejected for not being loyal to the party. In 2012, the NLD and the CBOs [community-based organisations] and the CSOs [civil society organisations] had a deal to promote each others interests but, in 2015, gaps have increased and the NLD refused to nominate candidates from these organisations, said U Zarni, a former political prisoner and also a member of the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society. He added that he is concerned that activists will have to monitor former colleagues who now sit in parliament. We might fight with old friends. Representatives of the government, diplomats, development agencies and civil society came together on February 17 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the United Nations Development Programme. At the UN offices in Natmauk Road, Yangon, amid exhibitions of photos and publications, former and current staff related their reminiscences, some in person and some in a video specially produced for the occasion. Renata Dessallien, UNDP resident representative and UN resident and humanitarian coordinator, told participants that the organisation had undergone three distinct phases during its time in Myanmar. At present, UNDP is responding to Myanmars transition and development needs, focusing on democratic governance, the rule of law, local governance and disaster risk reduction. Earlier this week, UNDP launched the Parliamentary Induction Programme, which will allow the new members of parliament to better represent the people they serve and build a stronger, safer, more equitable and unified Myanmar. She said the first phase lasted from the late 1960s to the early 1990s, when the UNDP had worked on technical assistance and development projects mostly through UN specialised agencies. In addition to the aquaculture project, we were engaged in diversifying crops, promoting forest management, setting up telecommunication systems and bringing the first computers to the country, she said. The second phase was that of Human Development Initiatives, which started in the early 1990s and ended in 2012 and was known for UNDPs strong community-level presence, when it helped to establish livelihoods, provide access to safe drinking water and first introduced micro-finance and microcredit services. The third and current phase started in 2012 with the historic opening of the country and the lifting of most international sanctions. As a result, restrictions on UNDP were also lifted, she said. U Hla Myint Hpu, retired program manager of UNDP Myanmar, who worked from 1990 to 2006, said the organisation had overcome the challenges posed during the 1990s. He said the UNDP was not only a risk taker, but also an innovative organisation, implementing projects like conservation in Bagan in 1990. Efforts to include Bagan archaeological sites on the World Heritage List are continuing. A Thai court yesterday agreed to delay an appeal hearing for two Myanmar men sentenced to death for the murder of two British tourists. The hearing has been pushed back to March 24 at the defence teams request. It is the second time the defence has applied for and received an extension to give them more time to prepare their case. U Sein Htay, chair of the Migrant Worker Rights Network, which has been assisting the defence team, said he did not think any further extensions would be needed. The appeal will be finished before the second extension deadline, he said He said the second deferral was requested so that the team would have more time to translate some of the court documents from Thai into English so they can be reviewed by Western forensic analysts. The case largely rests on hotly contested DNA evidence, which the Thai court ruled on December 24 proved the Myanmar defendants guilty beyond reasonable doubt. The defence has pored over nearly 4000 pages of court records and assembled more than 100 points to dispute. The extra time to prepare is allowing us to put together the strongest appeal that we can. We are trying our best for these two men, said U Sein Htay. The defence team is collaborating with Australian DNA expert Jane Taupin to question the prosecutors claim that forensic samples led to a 100 percent match with the defendants. Rakhine natives Ko Zaw Linn and Ko Wai Phyo were convicted and given the death penalty for the murders of two British backpackers on the Thai holiday island Koh Tao. In what could threaten government efforts to maintain security in Shan States Kokang region, the main ethnic Chinese armed group in the border area says it is expanding its military capability with total victory as its goal. The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) held a leadership meeting of the armed groups political wing and declared in a Chinese-language statement that it had decided to establish a new infantry brigade, designated as 511, to meet the combat and growth needs of the military. Military analysts say such a Chinese-type brigade might have 500 to 1000 soldiers. The MNDAA, which recruits fighters in China, claimed last year to have more than 5000 fighters but its forces were severely depleted in months of heavy combat with the Tatmadaw. The statement, which follows months of silence from the group, also said Peng Deren, a senior member of the armed group and son of its octogenarian founder, Peng Jia-sheng, had pledged to effectively improve and strengthen the partys leadership, achieve the national democratic revolution and win total victory. Political commentator U Than Soe Naing said the statement boded ill for the Kokang region, which was put under martial law for nine months after intense fighting erupted a year ago, resulting in the exodus of tens of thousands of mainly ethnic Chinese civilians from their homes. The gradual reduction of military activities of the Kokang group that we have witnessed was due to pressure from China over its border security. The reinforcement of the Kokang armed group is not good for the future of Kokang region, he said. Last February the MNDAA tried to regain the Kokang self-administered areas capital Laukkai, which had previously been governed by Peng Jia-sheng. It fought government troops for months with help from its allies, the TaAng National Liberation Army and the Arakan Army. With air strikes and heavy artillery, the Tatmadaw eventually forced the MNDAA to the fringes of the frontier with China. But it bore a heavy toll, both in terms of casualties and damage to the militarys relations with China, which it suspected of aiding the MNDAA. Those three groups - the MNDAA, TNLA and AA - were excluded by the government from the peace process that led to the signing last October of the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement. As a result, other influential armed ethnic groups, including the Kachin Independence Army, refused to sign. U Than Soe Naing said the government should reconsider its approach to the peace process, or risk a fresh deterioration of the situation in Kokang. Unless the MNDAA are brought to the table for peace talks, they will remain active, and civilians will continue to be at risk, he said. Government officials declined to comment on the statement, saying they had not seen it. Since the outbreak of hostilities in the Kokang region, U Thein Seins administration has refused to negotiate with the MNDAA, insisting instead that the group surrender unconditionally. The communique, written in a style redolent of the revolutionary rhetoric of the Chinese Communist Party, followed a plenary meeting of the armed groups political wing attended by 19 senior party officials. The meeting unanimously reaffirmed Mr Peng as general secretary of the group. It is not clear where the meeting took place, though the MNDAA is known to have close links with quasi-independent enclaves on the border controlled by other ethnic armed groups enjoying economic ties with China. The plenary also approved setting up a strategic research body and appointed an official responsible for planning and personnel in charge of organisational matters and recruitment. The MNDAA belongs to the United Nationalities Federal Council, a grouping of ethnic armed organisations outside the nationwide ceasefire agreement. Council members yesterday launched four days of talks in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The head of the United Nationalities Federal Council warned at the opening of a four-day summit in Chiang Mai that members should consider the consequences of their actions more carefully in future. The meeting is expected to focus on recent fighting in Shan State as well as a review of the groups policies. Leader NBan La, who is also a senior member of the Kachin Independence Organisation, admitted that the UNFC and its members had made mistakes in the past, and it was important they learn from these experiences. I have observed that some decisions were taken too lightly and not based on thorough thinking, NBan La said, without giving specific examples. We are working for our country and for our people. If we do something wrong, it could harm our country and our people. There were some deficiencies in the past but we should try to minimise these in future, he said. We have seen some parts of the UNFCs tasks were successful while some other parts were not. Those are the lessons we have learned. The UNFC is an umbrella organisation for nine ethnic armed groups, including the TaAng National Liberation Army, which is currently fighting the Restoration Council of Shan State in northern Shan State. Last year, the group expelled two members the Chin National Front and the Pa-O National Liberation Army after they signed the nationwide ceasefire agreement with the government. The four-day meeting will also include a review of the structure of the UNFC, which is controlled by the KIO. U Tun Zaw, joint general secretary of the UNFC, said last night that the first days talks had focused on the current political trends in Myanmar. He declined to comment further. Supporters of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday reacted strongly to comments by Minister for Information U Ye Htut seemingly quashing efforts by the National League of Democracy to appoint its leader as president. In an interview with Voice of America during an ASEAN gathering hosted by President Barack Obama in California, U Ye Htut said the outgoing military-backed government was opposed to any attempt to suspend article 59(f) of the constitution which bars the NLD leader from the presidency because her sons are foreign nationals. It was the first time that a senior government figure had expressly ruled out such a move, which NLD MPs have said they are considering in parliament. In his interview, carried by state media yesterday, the minister also said, If the two sons want their mother to become president, they and their wives can apply for Myanmar citizenship according to the 1982 Immigration Law. This is in fact their family matter. U Tun Tun Hein, an NLD central executive committee member, called the comments highly inappropriate. If we carefully read the constitutions section 59(f), its limitation includes even the spouses of the daughters and sons of the president. And the citizenship application is not an easy process in such a situation, he said. U Ye Htut was making a flippant comment, he added. Amending the constitution involves a lengthy process and would also require military support, as the Tatmadaw retains a veto over changes to the charter. NLD MPs, backed by the partys legal advisers, have been considering an attempt to use a simple majority to suspend 59(f) so that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi can succeed U Thein Sein when his five-year term ends on March 30. U Ye Htut said the constitution had no provisions to suspend an article. What I am talking about is that were against the suspension of article 59(f), he was quoted as saying. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi met Senior General Min Aung Hlaing on February 17 for their third round of power-sharing talks since the NLDs sweeping election victory last November. It is not known if they discussed the constitutional issue or the alternative of her nominating a proxy. She has not publicly commented on suspending a section of the constitution, but has previously said she would rule above the president. Parliament has set March 17 as the deadline for the two chambers and the military bloc to name their respective candidates. U Ko Ni, a Supreme Court advocate who has led the legal argument for suspending article 59(f), blasted U Ye Htuts comments. The comments are too unreasonable. That is a personal affair not related to the constitutional matter, he said of the citizenship of her two sons by her late British husband. He pointed out that 59(f) was drafted by the former military junta with the express intention of barring her from the presidency. U Ko Ni said the militarys intention was simply to block her path to the presidency. In fact, the two sons were once Myanmar citizens. When Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was put under house arrest in 1989, they withdrew the citizenship of the two sons, he said. It is not the desire of the two sons but of more than 50 million citizens of the country that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi becomes president, U Ko Ni added. He also noted that no such limitations on presidential qualifications were included in the 1947 and 1974 constitutions. U Ko Ni, who had been among Daw Aung San Suu Kyis legal advisors, said he was no longer connected to the NLD. He did not elaborate. The surge in fighting in northern Shan State in recent weeks has highlighted what a disaster the nationwide ceasefire agreement has been. International organisations who supported it must answer questions about their role, but right now urgent help is required for those suffering the consequences. Hostilities have broken out between previously cooperating ethnic armed groups the TaAng National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS) in the wake of last Octobers ceasefire part with the government and the Tatmadaw. While the RCSS signed the agreement, the TNLA was excluded from doing so by the government. The greatest fears about the NCA have become manifest: Rather than being a step toward peace, the NCA has exacerbated conflict in this country, split ethnic relations and started what has been described as a new war. Organisations that spent large amounts of international cash and pushed for the deal in the face of warnings from key figures, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, bear a responsibility for what is happening to people on the ground now. At least 5000 people have fled their homes to IDP camps in the past couple of weeks alone, with countless others believed to have sought shelter in the homes of friends and relatives. Communities are being torn apart, not only by dispersal but by increasing intercommunal tensions between people of Shan and TaAng ethnic backgrounds. Villages have been bereft of young people as they abandon their homes to avoid forced conscription. Reports of beatings and even executions of civilians, landmine laying, and troops commandeering property and food illustrate further the impact this new conflict is having on the lives of ordinary people. Men and women are both suffering the consequences of this violence, but women and girls living in IDP camps are at particular risk. The UN describes IDP women as one of the most vulnerable groups in the world. Displacement poses some very specific threats to girls and women related to immediate living conditions including: increased risk of sexual violence; medical dangers related to reproductive health issues; and nutrition needs of pregnant women and nursing mothers. A UN Security Council open debate paper from 2014 makes the following observation, which sums up the longer-term impact of displacement. Even though each refugee and IDP situation is unique, displacement and statelessness exacerbate existing gender inequalities, amplifying the discrimination and hardship faced by women and girls, it stated. Through a combination of factors, including gender-based discrimination in access to resources, education and employment, poor reproductive health care and exclusion from decision-making processes, refugee and IDP women constitute one of the most vulnerable groups in the world. The conflict in northern Shan shows little sign of easing in the near future. This country is already dealing with hundreds of thousands of people still displaced by historic conflicts and renewed fighting after long-term ceasefires broke down in 2011. The very last thing the people of Myanmar needed was for that number to be added to because of a deal designed to give kudos to certain power holders and justify the activities of certain organisations. But that is what has happened. The very least that those who supported and pushed for the NCA can do is ensure that new IDPs and other people affected by the conflict get as much practical support as possible not just in terms of basic food and shelter, but also in protecting everyone, particularly the most vulnerable, from further harm. 19.02.2016 LISTEN Accra, 19th February, 2016: Award winning actress and TV presenter Joselyn Dumas joined a team from Airtel Ghana led by Managing Director, Lucy Quist to mentor over 300 pupils from the Mataheko Cluster of Schools in Mataheko, a suburb of Accra. The mentoring session, which is part of the Smartphone Networks Evolve with STEM initiative is meant to transform mindsets about Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) and to empower young people to believe they have the potential to be the best they can be. Joselyn Dumas who signed up as a volunteer for the Evolve with STEM initiative encouraged young people to dream, aspire and challenge themselves to be the best in whatever they set their minds to She also encouraged participants to take STEM seriously as it impacts every aspect of their lives. The award winning actress shared her personal experience with STEM as a child and now as a professional, reiterating the critical role these disciplines play in her daily life and how it empowers young people to develop critical thinking and problem solving skills. She said as future leaders of this country, you must believe in yourself. You must believe that you possess in you all the talent, ability and brain power to be whatever you dream of becoming. All you need to do is work hard to achieve your dream. But remember also that whatever your dreams are, STEM empowers you to achieve these by shaping your thinking and improving your problem solving skills. Commenting on her participation after the session, Joselyn said Interacting with these young people brings me a lot of joy but most importantly knowing that I am contributing to impact their lives through the Evolve with STEM initiative is truly gratifying. I am grateful to Airtel Ghana and Lucy Quist for the opportunity to join this amazing initiative that is set to make a remarkable difference in the lives of these youngsters A team from the Ghana Robotics Academy Foundation led by Dr. Yaw Okraku-Yirenkyi taught the pupils how to programme robots to undertake complex tasks and maneuvers. This they did using basic science and mathematical principles a clear demonstration of how what they are taught in class can be applied in real life. Managing Director of Airtel thanked GRAF and Joselyn Dumas for supporting the Evolve with STEM initiative. She said We at Airtel Ghana are grateful to Joselyn for her enthusiasm and support towards this initiative. She was one of the first people to sign up for this project when we first launched in December and having her here today to inspire these young people is commendable. We also extend our profound gratitude to the GRAF for bringing the theories of distance and measurements that our young people learn in the classroom every day to life. It has been such an immersive experience for the children and I am confident they have learnt a lot today. She continued, We cannot over emphasize the fact that we need STEM to accelerate our development in all areas and the need to positively inspire and empower young minds for the future. This is what Evolve with STEM is all about. Evolve with STEM is an Airtel Ghana CSR initiative spearheaded by Managing Director and current CIMG Marketing Woman of the Year, Lucy Quist. The initiative which is under the auspices of the Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana (CIMG) is also supported by the Exploratory, an initiative of the African Women Advocacy Project and the Ghana Robotics Academy Foundation. Airtel Ghana is renowned for its contribution to education in Ghana having received several awards in CSR including Best CSR Company for Education at the Ghana CSR Excellence Awards 2015. About Bharti Airtel Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company ranks amongst the top 3 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the company's product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, mobile commerce, fixed line services, high speed DSL broadband, IPTV, DTH, enterprise services including national & international long distance services to carriers. In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services and mobile commerce. Bharti Airtel had over 335 million customers across its operations at the end of August 2015. To know more please visit, www.airtel.com About Airtel in Africa Airtel is driven by the vision of providing affordable and innovative mobile services to all. Airtel has 17 operations in Africa: Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Airtel International is a Bharti Airtel company. For more information, please visit www.airtel.com , or like the Airtel Ghana Facebook page via www.facebook.com/airtelgh or follow us on Twitter via the handle @airtelghana. 19.02.2016 LISTEN PANAFEST brand ambassador, Adu Safowaah Regina, who was adjudged Ghana's Most Promising Star at the 2015 Kumawood Akoben Film Festival Awards (KAFF Awards), has been nominated for the 2015 African Broadcaster Awards by the Nigerian Broadcaster Merit Awards. Regina Adu Safowaah, one of Ghana's fast rising actresses, has played supporting roles in over 15 movies, including 'Contract', 'House of Gold', 'Today's Woman', Circles of Pleasure, among others. Nominated for the category of African Broadcaster of the Year 2015, Regina is hopeful to bring the award home. Her nomination comes weeks after she was adjudged the Most Promising Star at the Kumawood Akoben Film Festival Awards (KAFF) 2015, which was held last month at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Kumasi. The Nigerian Broadcasters Merit Awards (NBMA) which will be held in Abuja, Nigeria on Saturday, February 27, is an event organised annually to recognise excellence of professionals in the African/Nigerian broadcast industry. She has been nominated alongside Peace Hyde and Anita Erskine in the same category. . Safowaah, host of Market Plus on Cine Plus Television, a channel on Multi TV and the Chocho Concert Party, won the Best New Actress Award at the City People Awards in Nigeria held in August 16, 2015 at the plush Timesquare Event Centre, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria. A graduate from the University College of Management Studies, Safowaah is one of the fresh faces to watch out for in the Ghanaian movie industry in the near future. The actress, who chose acting because she loves to educate and entertain people, started her acting career in March 2012. When asked how she felt when she received the nomination for the African Broadcaster Of The Year 2015, she said, I became happy and excited. Fans of Adu Safowaah Regina can vote for her by visiting nigerianbroadcatersmeritawards.com or in Nigeria via shortcode: type nbma, insert a space, type the nominee's shortcode and send to 33811 on MTN, Airtel, Etisalat and GLO. Votes from the public comprise 60 percent of the final result, while the other 40 percent is based on research, survey and agency reports. By George Clifford Owusu Cynthia Lumor 19.02.2016 LISTEN Ten individuals engaged in an extraordinary charity activity in Ghana would tonight compete for a cash amount of GH100,000, courtesy MTN, at the finals of the 2015 edition of MTN Heroes of Change. The ten finalists were shortlisted from a list of over one thousand nominations received nationwide to compete in the 'Heroes of Change' programme which seeks to unearth and give recognition to individuals in society who are making a positive impact within the areas of health, education and economic empowerment. The overall winner of 'Heroes of Change' will this year receive an amount of GH100,000 while each of the category winners for the three focus areas will receive GH20,000. The other seven finalists will be given GH5000 each to support their works. In addition to these prizes, the public will have the benefit of donating to any of the ten shortlisted projects through SMS and MTN Mobile Money. This way, the public gets a chance to support the work of the identified heroes who will be showcased on TV. The winner for last year, Dr Abrokwa Yankyera, a plastic surgeon and founder of the Graft Foundation, received a cash prize of GH50,000. This enabled him to treat more patients in the Volta and Eastern Regions of Ghana. The ten shortlisted finalists include Dr Emmanuel Bidzaikin who established the only hospital in Nakpanduri, a community in the Northern Region. The 37-year-old doctor funds the hospital from his private purse and donations from individuals, especially Emmanuel Quartey, founder of the JAYNII Streetwise Foundation in Accra. . The rest are Isaac Adjaottor, a community health worker at Ada Foah who is into rural community development, and Nayina Karim, a 46-year-old social entrepreneur. He established a rehabilitation centre for malnourished children at Karaga in the Northern Region. Also on the list is Nicholas Kuma, who has established a child advocacy group which provides education, healthcare and other needs a child might have. She is based at Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region. Another finalist is Pastor Joseph Jehu-Appiah, a pastor at the Victory Bible Church (Elohim Sanctuary). He set up the Mephibosheth Training Centre solely dedicated to caring for disabled children within the society. The children are schooled at the centre and are provided clothes, food and shelter. There are also Paul Semeh, a social worker in Accra, who has established the Streetwise Children Empowerment Fund, and Paulina Opei, aged 57, a nurse by profession. She has an orphanage at Anwia Nkwanta in the Ashanti Region for abandoned children. There is also Salome Francois, founder of the New Horizon School at Cantonments in Accra. It is a not-for-profit charity institution that provides day school education for children and vocational training and employment for adults who have intellectual disability. Persons with other disabilities like spastic, cerebral palsy, visual impairment, hearing impairment, etc are also admitted so long as their primary disability is learning difficulty. Another finalist, Yvonne Boaduaa, runs an NGO called Nyakonton Rehab at Begero in the Eastern Region. She self-finances the facility which provides training and housing to persons living with disability. The aim is to equip them with some vocational and technical skills needed to earn a living. The beneficiaries use these skills to make items, sell them and use the profit for their upkeep. Sorry, we can't find the content you're looking for at this URL. The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has described the Founder of the International Central gospel Church (ICCG), Mensah Otabil, as a threat to national security and a secret supporter of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). The Communications Director of the NDC, Solomon Nkansah,said on Thursday that Pastor Otabil was openly biased against the ruling party and was inciting the public against the government. His comments come after Pastor Otabil called on Ghanaians to demand better of government. 'We can't just be happy because a road has been tarred. We can't just be happy that we didn't have electricity now we have electricity. We can't be happy with minimals', he said, adding: 'citizens must have an appetite for better,' Pastor Otabil said. The Pastor's comments have drawn condemnation from members of the NDC, with Mr Nkansah accusing him of misleading the public 'under the guise of the Bible'. 'If we condemn him some of you in the media think we've said something abominable, but what this man has said is very frightening. It amounts to inciting the public against the government. Under the guise of the Bible, he says all sorts of things against those he is not in support of. But you know what; God is bigger than him and so whenever he says such things people don't listen to him. I am ashamed and scandalized as a Christian that a man of God can speak like Pastor Mensah Otabil has done,' he told Accra-based Kasapa FM. Mr Nkansah added: 'If he doesn't know, he should check the constitution and he'll realize that minority rules the country but they are voted into power by the majority of Ghanaians. We cannot all be President and MPs that is why we vote for one person to rule and enact laws respectively 'These are the men who are a threat to national security and co-existence. Because you don't support the NDC government, you are inciting the public against the government. During the NPP regime he didn't preach this way, he rather preached with the Ghana flag, why is he preaching this way now. The last time it was generational thinkers, today it's about revolt against minority rule. We can continue to countenance such worrying conducts of this Pastor." Pastor Otabil, who spoke at a book launch, had also called on the State to stop 'monopolising' and 'hijacking' business opportunities from citizens and rather be an 'enabler' for private organisations and individuals to do business and also run the country. He said: 'I think one of the biggest problems nations like ours face is that the state, which should be an enabler, most of the time, becomes an agent of suffocation. 'There's too much impact of the state in the lives of the peoplewe have to get to the point where it's not the state running the country, it's the people running the country, its entrepreneurs running the country, its businessmen [running the country]. 'The state should get out of hospitals, the state should get out of the schools, the state should get out because they mess up everything they get involved in and get individuals to run the place.' Read More: Don't be happy with just tarred roads, electricity - Otabil tells Ghanaians 18.02.2016 LISTEN The Pope has questioned US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trumps Christianity over his call to build a border wall with Mexico. Pope Francis said a person who thinks only about building walls and not of building bridges, is not Christian. The New York businessman supports deporting nearly 11 million undocumented immigrants. Calling himself a proud Christian, Mr Trump blamed Mexico for the Popes remarks, calling them disgraceful. Mr Trump has alleged that Mexico sends rapists and criminals to the US. Pope Francis made the comments at the end of a trip to Mexico. A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel, he said. He declined to say whether Americans should vote for Mr Trump, who is leading the Republican race for president. I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and I will give him the benefit of the doubt, the Pope said. The Pope also said in response to a question about whether contraception could be used to prevent Zika virus that for some cases the lesser of two evils can be used. He said abortion is a crime, an absolute evil, but that avoiding pregnancy is not. Addressing a rally in South Carolina, Mr Trump responded to the Popes comments. For a religious leader to question a persons faith is disgraceful. I am proud to be a Christian, Mr Trump said. No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another mans religion or faith. [The pope] said negative things about me. Because the Mexican government convinced him that Trump is not a good guy, he said. He also said the Vatican is the so-called Islamic States ultimate trophy, and if and when the group attacks it the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened. . Jerry Falwell Jr, the president of conservative Christian Liberty University and a Trump supporter, told CNN the Pope went too far, Jesus never intended to give instructions to political leaders on how to run a country, he said. Earlier this month, Mr Trump called Pope Francis a very political person in an interview with Fox News . I dont think he understands the danger of the open border we have with Mexico, Mr Trump said. And I think Mexico got him to do it because Mexico wants to keep the border just the way it is, because theyre making a fortune and were losing. American Catholics are seen as an important voting bloc in US elections. Many support Republican candidates because of their opposition to abortion and gay marriage. Rival Republican candidates Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush are practising Catholics. Mr Trump has been courting the evangelical Christian vote, often successfully, but his fellow Republican rivals have tried to argue his religiosity is not sincere. Ted Cruzs campaign is now running an advertisement featuring an old television interview Mr Trump gave in which he said he was very pro-choice when it comes to abortion. In January Mr Trump faced ridicule after flubbing a Bible verse when giving a speech to a Christian university in Virginia. He has said he is a Presbyterian Christian but has had trouble recalling his favourite Bible verse when asked. He has referred to communion, the Christian sacrament meant to signify Jesus last supper, as having the little wine and the little cracker. -bbc Accra, Feb. 18, GNA - The oil and gas policy developed by National Democratic Congress (NDC), seeking to boost transparency in the energy field, holds prospects to accelerate the passage of the Right to Information (RTI) bill into law, an expert says. The ruling NDC with three other political parties last week stated their positions on the proper management of the country's oil and gas resources to ensure transparency in the sector and derive optimum benefit towards improving living conditions of Ghanaians. Dr Kwame Ampofo, Chairman of the Energy Commission, who described the policy as one of its kind, told the Ghana News Agency that the NDC's policy position sought to bridge gaps in the country's oil and gas resources management. The policy paper, he noted, centred on improving information access to increase transparency and competitive bidding of oil blocks as well as stripping off the enormous powers vested in the energy minister for allocating and awarding oil blocks. He said it has fused into the party's policy document comprehensive standards and elements of verification, connecting oil and gas resources management to the RTI bill. 'I think additional elements are the issues of verification, the stakeholders must be able to verify what the administrators of the sector [oil and gas] are doing, so we are going to ensure that certain legislations [RTI] are passed to enhance the areas of monitoring, evaluation and establishment of accountability,' he said. 'For the oil and gas sector to be properly managed, you need to have transparency, you need to have accountability and you have to have free access to information,' he said. Dr Ampofo said though the passage of the RTI bill has taken a relatively long period to be passed into law, it was in the domain of Parliament and the Executive, but the policy [oil and gas] could push for the speedy passage of the bill to add to records of numerous laws passed. 'We are now going to actively push the passage of that bill because we want it to be in existence, make it more accessible to the public and those who want to find information to make it easier,' he said. He said this is the first time we are actually compiling such a document and linking it up with RTI to the management of the oil and gas sector. 'We are not going to guarantee that within the shortest possible time that it will be passed but we are saying that now it is part of the NDC policy that in connection with the management of the oil and gas sector we need to pass this bill,' Dr Ampofo. He said with the RTI, having become a core part of a policy position, would facilitate the easy passage of the bill, stressing that 'once we have this paper, it is going to push for the passage of the bill.' Ghana's RTI has been lingering between the Executive and Parliament over a decade drawing 25 professional bodies including Ghana Bar Association, Polytechnic Teachers Association and Ghana Medical Association in 2014 to issue a communique urging the Attorney-General and Parliament to pass the bill into law without delay. GNA Parys (South Africa) (AFP) - Two black men are beaten to death in the middle of a cattle pasture in South Africa after white farmers hunt them down to avenge an attack on an elderly landowner. A month later, four of the farmers stand squeezed in the dock of Parys town magistrates court, charged with the double murder. Outside the court, about 200 black protesters chant "Kill the farmers" at khaki-clad white protesters who vow to defend themselves against what they say is a "genocide" of their people. The killing last month of Seun Tangasha, 29, and Samuel Tjexa, 35, has lit a tinderbox of anger over racism, crime, poverty and land ownership issues that afflict modern South Africa. For many blacks, the court case has highlighted the alleged mistreatment of workers by white farmers, who stand accused of forming vigilante groups to carry out extrajudicial murders. For many whites, it is about how farmers are forced to fight back against a deadly crime wave of farm attacks that left many landowners in fear of their lives. Anna Jubeba, Tangasha's aunt, told AFP that his "family are very angry and very sad" over his killing. "These farmers must go to jail for life," she said, speaking in their sparsely-furnished house in an impoverished township on the outskirts of Parys. "The courts see these guys killing black people, but they are let out on bail because they are white. No one has come to help us. The police haven't even come to our house." The upcoming murder trial will rest on the events of January 6, when Tangasha and Tjexa arrived at an isolated farm where they worked as casual labourers for Lodewikus van der Westhuizen, 73. - 'Left for dead' - According to the police, the two men demanded that van der Westhuizen hand over 20,000 rand ($1,250) in what may have been a long-running dispute over unpaid wages. When he refused, Tangasha and Tjexa allegedly hit him over the head with a gun before he pressed a panic button that alerted neighbouring landowners who rushed to his aid. The two men then fled on foot as between 40 and 60 farm vehicles joined a high-speed hunt to catch them across the huge fields and straight dirt roads of Free State province. "The farmers found Tjexa and Tangasha eight kilometres (five miles) away from van der Westhuizen's farm," police said in a statement. "The two were subsequently beaten up and left for dead." Tangasha -- also known as Simon Jubeba -- was declared dead on arrival at hospital, while Tjexa died soon after. Accused of their murder are van der Westhuizen's son Boeta, his cousin Anton Loggerberg, and their neighbours Stephanus and Johannes Cilliers. Outside the court hearing, police erected barbed wire fences to separate a handful of white protesters and two rival black protests by the ruling ANC party and the opposition EFF party. "We have to show that we support the accused men because of all the farm attacks. Farmers are killed constantly," said Andre Pienaar, 55, who goaded black protesters as they abused him across the wire barricade. "There is a genocide going on to wipe out our farmers. We are demonstrating that we are not scared," added Pienaar, a farm security consultant dressed in para-military fatigues. Some white protesters waved flags of the old Boer Republic from more than 100 years ago -- symbols of their contempt for the new post-apartheid South Africa. Adding further fuel to the explosive case, Hendrick Prinsloo, a white policeman, was recently added to the list of accused murderers. Police investigators allege that Prinsloo "joined in the feast" of beating Tangasha and Tjexa, instead of rescuing them. - 'Truth must come out' - Kobus Dannhauser, a neighbouring farmer and chairman of Parys Agricultural Union, told AFP he was appalled at both the display of old Boer flags and the "Kill the farmers" chants. "The law must be allowed to go its way and the truth must come out. A life is a life," he said at the large farmhouse on his 10,000-hectare (25,000-acre) property. "This is not about racism. This was either a wage dispute or a farm attack. "Last year South Africa had the most farm attacks ever, but that doesn't excuse that these guys lost their lives. We totally condemn it. "The first farmers who caught (Tangasha and Tejexa) tied them up. I think emotions were high, and they did it roughly. Then what happened? That is what I want to hear from the court." "Politicians are trying to exploit the case by having these rallies outside court," he added. Afriforum, an Afrikaner lobby group, says a record 64 farmers and farm workers -- both black and white -- were murdered last year in 318 attacks, though the police decline to confirm their figures. The court hearing extended the suspects' bail for further police investigations, and the case was adjourned until April 15. Protesters from all sides vowed to attend every day of the murder trial. "This is about entrenched racism in the farming community and ill-treatment of our farm workers," regional ANC secretary Moshe Tladi said as the crowds dispersed. "The big farmers are all white. Reform is needed." A former commander of the Motor Traffic and Transport Division (MTTD), Victor Tandoh, has attributed over speeding by drivers to fear of passengers to speak out against the practices. He insists the habit of Ghanaians to keep to themselves when drivers flout road traffic regulations has been major factor fueling road carnage in the country. The retired police commander says the habit of some passengers to lash out at others who speak against careless driving must stop. It is unfortunate, passengers are not united, they are divided; everyone with his own mind, he observed. Mr Tandoh spoke on Multi TVs news analysis programme, PM Express, Thursday evening. Victor Tandoh He was commenting on the rising incidents of road accidents on the back of a gory road accident at Kintampo in the Brong Ahafo Region, Wednesday evening, when a Metro Mass bus colided with a truck transporting tomatoes. The fatal accident has claimed more than 60 lives and injured scores. A survivor of the accident told Police the Metro Mass bus that was traveling from Kumasi in the Ashanti Region had been overspeeding. Mr Tandoh told show host Nana Ansah IV that the environment in which drivers mates, who eventually train to become drivers, contributes to their disregard for traffic regulations. Most drivers were trained at places where quarrel is number one, where fighting is number, he said. CEO of Road Safety and Transport Consult, Godfred Akyea-Darkwah, who was also a guest on the show charged the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) to ensure potential drivers have adequate knowledge of defensive driving techniques. Godfred Akyea-Darkwah He said drivers must also be scrutinized to ensure they are mentally sound, since according him, some of them suffer mild mental problems. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | George Nyavor | [email protected] Security personnel in Bunkpurugu district in the Northern region were attacked during renewed clashes last Thursday night. Two men in their seventies whose identities police are unwilling to release for security reasons sustained serious gunshot wounds. Many houses were also burnt during in Thursdays violence. Security personnel stationed at the town to keep peace had to protect themselves and their armoury after unknown assailants attacked them. Northern Region Police PRO, ASP Ebenezer Tetteh told Joy News during the 6am bulletin police are not surprised by the attack. This not surprising because not long ago, some people in Accra held a press conference and poisoned the atmosphere so we had picked the intelligence that some people were planning [the attack] so we are on high alert, ASP Tetteh said. He said the security personnel are resolved to repel any attack on them. Security personnel have also been told in strict terms to defend themselves when they come under attack, revealed ASP Tetteh. We are prepared to do everything within our means to ensure that persons who are stoking the fires there and doing everything to keep the place in turmoil will not have the fire power to create chaos in the area, he said. At least three people died and dozens of property were destroyed in the previous chieftaincy dispute between two factions in the district early February. The Jamon family is challenging the legitimacy of the chief of Bunkrugu who is with the Jafouk family. Although the matter is in court, it has not stopped the factions from engaging in acts of violence. A 10pm to 4am curfew imposed on the troubled town is doing little to quell the recurrent clashes that has persisted for decades. Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | George Nyavor | [email protected] The controversial Steering Committee set up by the Electoral Commission (EC) to assist it to organise this year's general election continues to receive public backlash. The EC without proper consultation set up the committee, and its membership was later found to be mainly card-bearing members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC); and that has once again raised questions about the EC's neutrality ahead of the crucial elections in November. Legal Basis Two prominent United States-based law professors - Stephen Kwaku Asare and Henry Kwasi Prempeh - have waded into the heated debate and questioned the legal basis for the setting up of the Steering Committee by the EC to manage the November general elections. Prof. Asare said it would even be premature to discuss the membership of the committee if the EC was unable to explain the role it is supposed to play. Stephen Kwaku Asare He posted on Facebook yesterday, "The problem with the ECs Steering Committee is that nobody knows what it is supposed to do; nobody knows how its membership was chosen and how the members are paid, fired, replaced or even how long they are to serve; nobody knows how it is to operate and whether it can bind the EC. "We are told and asked to accept that the 18-person committee is to help ensure the smooth running of the November 7 general election. The constitutional responsibility of the 7-person EC is to ensure the smooth running of elections. Is the committee supplanting the Commission? Can the EC even appoint such a Steering Committee, given that the EC is exercising delegated power?" Supplanting EC Prof Asare queried, "Assuming the committee is not supplanting the Commission, an obvious question is exactly how is the Committee going to do whatever it is supposed to do? Where is the regulation that describes the committee's responsibility?" He said for instance that "Depending on what the committee is tasked to do, it might be more helpful to allow the political parties and other groups, rather than the EC, to nominate its members. "Alternatively, a different mode of appointment may be better if the committee is to play a security, fundraising, legal, education, etc. function" Committee's Mandate Prof Prempeh of Seton Hall University School of Law, Newark, New Jersey, said the problem created by the EC "goes beyond the individual membership or composition of this so-called election 'Steering Committee.' "Theres a more fundamental question of mandate: What is this 18- member body going to do exactly? Who created it? The EC chair, or by a resolution of the multi-member EC taken at a regular or special meeting of the Commission?" he also posted on Facebook yesterday. He asked, "What is the relationship of this committee to the Commission as a collective body? Since we have never had or needed such a 'steering committee' in any of our past elections, why now? Who determined the composition and membership and by what criteria or process were the members selected?" Interagency Coordination Prof Prempeh said multiple state actors "are inevitably involved in the smooth and peaceful conduct of an election," adding, "so some interagency coordination is necessary." He added, "The question is what form such interagency coordination must take in order to ensure that the partisan detachment and independence of the EC as a constitutional body are not undermined or compromised or that the EC chair docs not use some outside committee to sidestep the constitutionally-empowered Commissions mandate." Dear Serwaa, I am not comfortable with how your female friends are getting close to me. Your best friend Ewurabena, for instance, was upset when she called several times Friday night and I didn't pick up. She said she was in my neighbourhood and wanted us to sit somewhere for a drink. I find this awkward, especially because she knew you were out of town. Some of your so-called friends seem to be competing with you for my attention and I think it is dangerous. I wanted to write this letter for a long time, but I have always wondered what you would think about me. But I decided to write it all the same even if you doubt my faithfulness to you. For me, a wise and faithful man is not the one who tolerates temptation and tries to fight the urge. A man who is truly faithful to his partner is the one who senses temptation and starts running before that temptation takes the first step towards him. You appear too naive in this regard for my liking. You think your friends are incapable of causing any harm. I know you trust me. I will not do anything to betray that trust, but I think you must get certain things straight and right. No matter how well you trust me or your friends, you must always remember that we are human. Proximity leads to attraction and sometimes this develops into something ugly. Let me tell you a true story of my friend in the US who trusted her friend and boyfriend so much that she learnt her lesson the hard way last year. Fiona and Akua were childhood friends. They lived like sisters. The only time they got really separated was when they went to the senior high school. They later got together and kept their friendship very strong. In 2014, Akua fell in love with a man who appeared very responsible. The man, a PhD holder who resides and works in the United States, told Akua that his wife had left him and after some years he had overcome it and wanted to move on. She believed him. And he convinced her to leave her job and relocate to the US so that they could study each other for sometime before getting married. She believed him more. They lived together in North Carolina until Akua got a job in New York as a caregiver. Fiona is currently a student of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA). Akua describes her as ambitious and very forceful. She had spoken very highly of Fiona to her husband-to-be. She also told Fiona how good her husband-to-be was. Akua later got alarmed when she realised that Fiona and her man were in touch with each other through WhatsApp. Her man dismissed the idea of anything fishy between them when Akua expressed her concern. That notwithstanding, Akua trusted Fiona so much that when she called and said she wanted to visit the US, it didn't occur to Akua that she could be a threat to her relationship. Fiona, according to Akua, often went to MOGPA to pray and would encourage her with bible quotations and prayers when she had challenges in her relationship. Akua trusted Fiona. In July last year, some employees from Fiona's company were attending a conference in the US for a week and she wanted to use that opportunity to visit the US. Fiona was not part of the official delegation but she convinced management of her company to add her name to the list the company was submitting to the US Embassy in Accra for the American visa. When she secured the visa, she took a two-month leave without pay. She could not afford the plane ticket so Akua bought her a return ticket. It cost her $1,500. Akua works as a caregiver and had just finished her leave when Fiona called that she was visiting. Akua asked her man to pick Fiona up from the Airport. Akua could not get permission from her employers to visit her home in North Carolina while Fiona was there. Fiona was alone with her man. Akua said her man became distant so she became alarmed and questioned him whether it was because of Fiona. Her boyfriend got angry and threatened to throw Fiona out if Akua did not stop her suspicion. She was reassured. Serwaa, the end of the matter is that Fiona was sleeping with her friend's boyfriend. Her trip to the US was for that singular purpose, Akua now believes. Fiona has a brother in the US but told Akua that she was not on good terms with her brother so she could not go to live with him. Akua later found out that that was a lie. Fiona's brother, in fact, did not know that she was coming to the US. He knew about Akua and her man and the fact that Akua was not always with her man in North Carolina. He would have objected to Fiona staying with her friend's boyfriend alone. When Akua realized that she had paid for the plane ticked for her friend to come and snatch her boyfriend, it was too late. Fiona became pregnant and she said Akua's boyfriend is responsible. The man has accepted responsibility, according to Akua. Akua's man has thrown her out of his house. She is heartbroken. It has become a family feud between Akua and Fiona's families. Meanwhile Fiona's excuse is that she didn't know Akua and the man she was pregnant for were dating. But that is not the end of the story. It appears Fiona purchased an expired product with counterfeit currency. The man Akua was dating was actually married and had a child. He was not divorced as he made her believe. He has reunited with his wife and Akua does not think he will marry Fiona. She is still hurt that her best friend betrayed her. Serwaa, I am sure you know stories of this nature abound. What you may not understand is why I am asking you to keep your female friends away from me. Is it that I don't trust myself? Not at all. Am I falling for them already? Far from it! Neither I am I giving you an excuse to do anything silly. I just don't feel comfortable that your friend, Ewurabena, seems to know so much about our relationship and even visits me unannounced. The best way to save your relationship is to keep your friends away from your man. I don't like the fact that anytime we have a misunderstanding you discuss it with her and she often calls to speak to me. Your female friends must not know when you are not on good terms with your man. That's when your man is most vulnerable. That is when they are likely to strike. Ewurabena may not be like Fiona but it is not for nothing that our elders say the head of a human being is not like pawpaw so that one can cut open and examine its content. Indeed, the mind of a human being is like a lady's bag; only its owner can tell its exact content at every point in time. Even if you know her mind today, you cannot be sure of what she is thinking tomorrow. I know she is like your sister and you pray together, but I think you should keep her a little away from our relationship. When she last said she wanted a man just like me to marry, I thought you would rebuke her. Instead, you told her that then she should pray hard because men like me were extinct. And I know you say similar things to some of your friends. You may think you are praising me but you end up inviting unsolicited bidders. Our elders say a dog that has a juicy bone does not bark. So keep your mouth shut and enjoy your relationship. Some men have waywardness in their DNA. They don't need any prompting to make advances at friends of their wives or girlfriends. Others, too, are lured into such traps and before they realize it, they are in an inescapable mess. Your friend should not know the strengths and weakness of your boyfriend or husband. A seductive woman becomes almost irresistible when she knows the strengths and weaknesses of her prey. Stop telling your friends what your man doesn't like about you. When you do that you arm them with the weapon to strike and snatch him away easily. If you tell a group of friends that your man likes big boobs and you don't have it, the one amongst them with big boobs knows what to showcase in order to get your man's attention. Serwaa, I believe most women ruin their relationships and marriages just because they talk too much and trust their friends too much. You don't have to take anything for granted no matter the amount of trust you have for your man or your friends. The world is a strange place to be. Biological sister's are now ruining each other's marriages and taking over so you cannot be too sure of your friends. Even when your friend tries and fails, she can hurt your relationship with some seeds of discord that can grow to tear you and your lover apart. They may say certain things about you to your man that may ruin his trust or love for you. He may never ask you about some of them. And if you explain, he may never believe everything you say. All of us can have only one best friend at a time. When you are in a relationship or marriage, your partner should your best friend. You are my best friend and I am your best friend. On this friendship shall we build our marriage and the gates of divorce shall not prevail against it. Yours truly, Manasseh. Mrs. Charlotte Ama Osei 19.02.2016 LISTEN I have followed with keen interest, the recent discussions regarding allegations of misconduct on the part of the Chairperson of Ghanas Electoral Commission, Mrs. Charlotte Ama Osei. Her supposed offence? Well, for allegedly keeping a prior appointment as a board member of the Ghana Reinsurance Company Limited while starting work as the new Chairperson of the Commission. This discussion started when a known youth activist of the opposition New Patriotic Party, Richard Kwasi Nyamah and his pressure group called Progressive Nationalist Forum made the allegations against Mrs. Osei and called on her to refund all allowances paid her as a member of the Ghana Res board. He claimed Mrs. Oseis decision to keep that board appointment was in breach of Article 44(4) of the 1992 Constitution. Although the Company responded to the claim by indicating that Mrs. Osei had left the Board appointment effective December last year, it appears that did not satisfy Mr. Nyamah, leading to his reported petition to the President of the Republic, Mr. John Dramani Mahama to commence proceedings (under Article 146) towards the removal of Mrs. Osei from office as the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission. The key question to be considered in this article is whether or not Mrs. Osei was in breach of the said Constitutional provision. The article will examine all the relevant legal provisions on the matter and conclude that on the face of the legal evidence, Mrs. Charlotte Osei may not have acted in breach of the Constitution. What exactly does Article 44(4) of the Constitution say? It provides that The Chairman and the two Deputy Chairmen of the commission shall not, while they hold office on the Commission, hold any other public office.(Emphasis mine) The most important question to be answered herein is what exactly amounts to public office as provided for in Article 44(4) (supra)? It is worthy of note that the Constitution itself provides us with a clue to the answer, as can be found in Article 295. It says public office includes service in any civil office of Government, the emoluments attached to which are paid directly from the Consolidated Fund or directly out of moneys provided by Parliament. (Emphasis mine) Firstly, it is my respectful view that Mrs. Oseis appointment as a board member, could not be a service in a civil office of Government. Neither was any supposed allowance(s) earned from such appointment paid directly from the Consolidated Fund nor directly out of moneys provided by Parliament. Any allowances, could only have come from the companys profits from its business operations. Hence it would be difficult to describe such a source as a public fund. Secondly, Section 14 of the Public Office Holders (Declaration of Assets and Disqualification) Act, 1998, (Act 550) also provides the additional definition of what is meant by public office. It says public office includes an office the emoluments attached to which are paid directly from the Consolidated Fund or directly out of moneys provided by Parliament and an office in a public corporation established entirely out of funds or moneys provided by Parliament. This Act essentially gives effect to the Constitutional provision in Article 286. Article 295 of the Constitution defines a public corporation as a corporation or any other body of persons established by an Act of Parliament or set up out of funds provided by Parliament or other public funds. Additionally, Section 3 of Schedule 1 of the Act 550 (supra) and Article 286 of the Constitution provide a complete list of all the public offices subject to the Act. The most relevant provision for our purposes is Section 3(i) of the first schedule (same provision in Article 286(5)(i)) which names among public offices, the positions of chairman, managing director, secretary, general manager, and departmental head of a public corporation or company in which the Republic has a controlling interest. It must be noted that this provision clearly excludes the position of a board member. Nevertheless, it is public knowledge that Ghana Reinsurance was established by the State Insurance Company (SIC) with a 100% controlling interest of Government. But to equate a board membership of a public corporation to a service as a public officer, when both the Constitution and other relevant provisions did not appear to intend so, could be misleading. From the foregoing, it is not in doubt that Ghana Reinsurance is a limited liability company which is 100% owned by the Government of Ghana. Per the website of the Ghana Re, its board members are appointed by the sole shareholder, which in this instance is the Government. However it must be said that nowhere in all the relevant legal provisions cited above is the appointment or membership of a board of a corporate entity, and for that matter a public corporation in which the Republic holds a controlling interest cited or included as a public office. In other words, both Article 286 and Act 550 did not mention a board membership as a public office. So Mrs. Oseis continued membership of the board of Ghana Re could not be interpreted to mean the holding of a public office, when there seems to be no sufficient legal justification for such interpretation. Therefore, although Article 44(4) of the Constitution precludes the Chairman and the two Deputies of the Electoral Commission from holding any other public office, it is my respectful submission that nowhere in the Constitution or in any other law is it provided that holding a board appointment on a public corporation amounted to holding a public office. Any such suggestion may amount to a journey into legal fishing. Yes, the Constitution per Article 146 (3) empowers the President on receipt of a petition for the removal of a Justice of a Superior Court to refer the petition to the Chief Justice who shall determine whether there is a prima facie case. But it is my respectful submission that in this instance, it may be difficult for the petitioners to get exactly the result they seek. Perhaps another option available to them would be to seek interpretation of Article 44(4) of the Constitution at the Supreme Court in case they feel unsatisfied with a negative outcome to their petition. When that happens, I am certain that the Supreme Court will be looking at the law in its totality, from its letter and spirit or literal and purposive lenses and make the relevant declarations in that regard. 19.02.2016 LISTEN Charles McCarthy must be delirious or suffering some sort of psychosis that makes him an extreme nut case. He cant even spell Nanas name, too. Well, if it will serve to pep his memory up, John Mahama campaigned with much disgrace and absolute disregard to the dignity of Ghanaians. It is still fresh in peoples minds his indecorous use of inappropriate language as a public speaker such as baloney, rubbish, nonsense, Ghanaians have short memories, the meat is finished and were down to the bones, etc. The ludicrous insults that he had since heaped on Ghanaians can least be described as monstrous. Then, this licentious ignoramus, Charles McCarthy, decides to impress his pay masters by slapping himself in the face. Talking about rabid characters, his comrades in the NDC camp have taken the meaning of the word rabid to extra levels. Look who is calling the pot black! The empty barrels that make up the NDC party are many. Asiedu Nketia was a patient at a psychiatric hospital. He makes many idiotic fallacies that do not add up. Kofi Adams is the charlatan of our time. Kokoon Anyidaho is a dunderhead who speaks more rot than society can handle. Alhaji Bature is the greatest liar who ever breathed in post biblical times. What has Nana Akufo-Addo said and done that the NDC is so distraught about, churning up lies upon lies? They employ new foul mouths to spew such unfounded insults on this honourable man. Is it because he is going to take the war on corruption to colossal levels when he is in power to force the NDC thieves to regurgitate what they have stolen? The justification for his Presidency comes in many packages some of which are: 1. the respect he commands within the international community and 2. the fact that he is the only Ghanaian politician to be ranked as one of the most influential people in Africa. These are just two amongst a host of other reasons why the nation is yearning for him. When John Mahama became President, he could barely buy underwear to cover his arse, figuratively speaking. His wife was a petty oil trader who imported oil from Malaysia using a now defunct bank to obtain loans for the purpose. Today the two are amongst the richest in Ghana. On the contrary, who said Nana Akufo-Addo is bankrupt. Thank GOD he remains as financially and morally sound as he has always been, unlike the thieves in the NDC who want Power just to fill their pockets from the national coffers. Talking about cowboys, John Mahama was the heeehaw vaquero who posed at CNN, and in bed with Andrew Solomon. Charles McCarthy may be a kid who did not experience the dark days of terrorism under his explosive Godfather, JJ Rawlings, who survived on the flow of innocent peoples blood. The NDC was his creation, a party tainted with the demise of peaceful Ghanaians whose only crime was the urgency to survive in peace. Who could be more uncouth than Charles McCarthy, describing a gem in our midst as a cargo? Is this unruly nepotistic fellow for real? John Mahama is commissioning which projects? Do you call the overpriced Kwame Nkrumah interchange a project? The angles of the flyovers are so acute that they will be the cause of major carnage after completion? How about the Kejetia project that was said to actually cost nine million US Dollars only for the bill to be raised to 290 million? Are you that stupid? He rushed to inaugurate the Bui dam and the electricity went dead just as the light came on in his head. He commissioned a gutter at Nima, invited the press, and all he could do was build a wall that was 10 meter long by 5 meters high, approximately. Just join the Kanda highway coming from Accra Girls Secondary school, and you will see it with your blind eyes. He commissioned some school projects, but nothing happened. Less than 10% were completed and the foundations of some were left to the mercy of the weather to ruin. Commissioning of what projects? I beg your pardon! Ghanas debt shot up from 8 billion dollars to over forty billion dollars under the vexatious presidency of John Mahama, and you are abusing Nana Akufo-Addo as if it was him who piled up the debt on the nation. The fustian indulgence and excessive thievery of the NDC government brought us to where we are today. Have you forgotten that recently Haruna Iddrisu squandered one million Cedis on just one unnecessary trip to Switzerland, where he feasted on banquet buffets while Ghanaians went hungry? Are you people human beings or goats? You say Nana has expensive taste? Well live with it korasene (village boy)! He is an exquisite human being, and his family is too. But he does not dish out expensive land cruisers to scamps for insulting his adversaries. Oh just asking, Did John Mahama promise you one? When it comes to clandestine issues, John Mahama recently sacked some high ranking officers in the upper echelons of the Military, and replaced them with his tribesmen. He sacked the Ewes from many positions and replaced them with Gonjas. Look further than your flat nose, and you will see that most of those in his circles are of his own. In fact he is the one who told Northerners to vote for him because he was one of them. Your crass bigotry seems to have no end. Learn to be a human being and not a DEAD GOAT!!! Under the NDC government all that the nation has produced are bottom shaking immoral characters fanned by the evil machinations of people like John Dumelor and Afia Schwarzenegger. Even Cocoa production has slipped to 740,000 tonnes from the one million tonnes that it got to under the NPP. Ay3 ka!!! 19.02.2016 LISTEN The controversial Steering Committee set up by the Electoral Commission (EC) to assist it (Commission) to organise this year's general election continues to receive public backlash. The EC, without 'proper consultation,' set up the committee, which membership was later found to be mainly card-bearing members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC); and that has once again raised questions about the EC's neutrality ahead of the crucial elections in November. Legal Basis Two prominent United States-based law professors Stephen Kwaku Asare and Henry Kwasi Prempeh have waded into the heated debate and questioned the legal basis for the setting up of the Steering Committee by the EC to manage the November general elections. Prof. Asare said it would even be premature to discuss the membership of the committee if the EC was unable to explain the role it is supposed to play. He posted on Facebook yesterday, The problem with the ECs Steering Committee is that nobody knows what it is supposed to do; nobody knows how its membership was chosen and how the members are paid, fired, replaced or even how long they are to serve; nobody knows how it is to operate and whether it can bind the EC. We are told and asked to accept that the 18-person committee is to help ensure the smooth running of the November 7 general election. The constitutional responsibility of the 7-person EC is to ensure the smooth running of elections. Is the committee supplanting the Commission? Can the EC even appoint such a Steering Committee, given that the EC is exercising delegated power? Supplanting EC Prof Asare queried, Assuming the committee is not supplanting the Commission, an obvious question is exactly how is the Committee going to do whatever it is supposed to do? Where is the regulation that describes the committees responsibility? . He said for instance that Depending on what the committee is tasked to do, it might be more helpful to allow the political parties and other groups, rather than the EC, to nominate its members. Alternatively, a different mode of appointment may be better if the committee is to play a security, fundraising, legal, education, etc. function Committee's Mandate Prof Prempeh of Seton Hall University School of Law, Newark, New Jersey, said the problem created by the EC goes beyond the individual membership or composition of this so-called election 'Steering Committee.' Theres a more fundamental question of mandate: What is this 18-member body going to do exactly? Who created it? The EC chair, or by a resolution of the multi-member EC taken at a regular or special meeting of the Commission?he also posted on Facebook yesterday. He asked, What is the relationship of this committee to the Commission as a collective body? Since we have never had or needed such a 'steering committee' in any of our past elections, why now? Who determined the composition and membership and by what criteria or process were the members selected? Interagency Coordination Prof Prempeh said multiple state actors are inevitably involved in the smooth and peaceful conduct of an election, adding, so some inter-agency coordination is necessary. He added, The question is what form such interagency coordination must take in order to ensure that the partisan detachment and independence of the EC as a constitutional body are not undermined or compromised or that the EC chair does not use some outside committee to sidestep the constitutionally-empowered Commissions mandate. By William Yaw Owusu Two persons sustained gunshot wounds in an attack on security personnel deployed to maintain peace in Bunkpurugu in the Northern Region. Several houses were also burnt down during the Thursday night attack. Those who sustained the gunshot wounds were identified by the police as a 72-year-old man and a 23-year-old boy. The police however did not give the names of the two injured persons for security reasons. According to the Northern Regional Police Public Relations Officer (PRO), ASP Ebenezer Tetteh, no arrest has been made so far but the police have step up their operations in the area to bring the perpetrators to book ASP Tetteh told Graphic Online that the two persons who sustained the gunshot wounds who are in critical condition are on admission at a health facility in the area. He said the gunmen who were riding on motor bikes opened fire on the security personnel at the local police barracks. He said the police had earlier picked intelligence that one of the feuding factions in the Bunkpurugu chieftaincy dispute were planning an attack. "Last night's attacks therefore did not come as a surprise and we will definitely arrest those behind the attacks" ASP Tetteh assured He stated that the security forces deployed in the area would do all they can to discharge their duties to ensure the maintenance of law and order in the area. 19.02.2016 LISTEN Just a week ago in a class when I had to make a presentation to some college international students, I was forced to dig a little deeper into the history of my motherland, Ama Ghana. You might not believe what I found. Interestingly, most folks do not actually care how the macroeconomic policies taken by our politicians affect us, and hence, has never wondered to read our performance on the international scene. On the contrary, and just like myself some few months back, we are only engaged in pampering the symptoms of the problems as witnessed with our political business landscape as usual. Consequently, we turn our woes to the traditionally polarised two party default arguments, thereby creating the grounds by which our politicians fester without accountability and probity. To use a few words to carry the many, we expect too little from our elected leaders. Largely is the truth set of the statement true because, we ourselves live below expectation. It is said that a nations leaders are just a reductive replica of its whole populace. A historical view of the World Banks information on Ghana as reported by the Bank of Ghana through its progressive budget is the below: Ghana recorded a Government budget deficit equal 10.40 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product in 2014. Government Budget in Ghana averaged -8.48 percent of GDP from 2004 until 2014, reaching an all time high of -0.40 percent of GDP in 2004 and a record low of -24.20 percent of GDP in 2008. Put this into the bigger ocean of Ghana attaining a lower middle income, with a nominal GDP as low as $38.62 billion for a total estimated population of 26.79 million people as of 2014. Fantastically horrible picture. With this picture, the question I ask myself is, will any parent be happy if the schooling childs performance is exactly parallel to that of Ghanas economic performance? More so, when the very basic economic discipline at the university level provides a theoretical background to the antidote, yet exactly the opposite is being done. So, the trillion Cedi question one asked is, why do Ghanaians still pamper the NDC NPP duo who doubles as the real variables by which efficiency to wean ourselves from economic inequality to the world, thrives. Nkrumah must be crying in his grave. This is the one of the populist themes from the Pan-Africanism quarters that came to mind as I read from the World Bank site on Ghana; not when the man was so much in tune to find local solutions from within, is concerned. As evidenced by the economic prosperity of Singapore, South Korea, China, and a host of them, liberal democracy, market forces and laissez-faire economics, which all doubles as the western orthodoxy assumptions of neoliberal economic models, are not unnegotiable preconditions for development and economic prosperity. As a result of this assertion by unconventional economists, many other nations in the world have progressed without following the Jeffersonian western economic model of market capitalism, having not to delude themselves as if it is synonymous with a monopoly of economic growth. Other models could equally and effectively be used to achieve great economic sanctity. Simple mathematics tells that if my GDP balance is at a deficit, of which majorly cause of the shortfall in export to import ratio, I theoretically will have to up my game of export via mechanization of agricultural production and industrialization. In other words, ingenuity for a target objective of Export-Import balance is what any serious nation should target and work towards. Yet again, do we see that in the pragmatic sense aside the usual talk shop of our king and leaders? The way I see Ghana with my own biased eyes, we got every problem with the short-sightedness and lack of imagination of our leaders, one. And two, our populace attitude of enye hwee Onyame beye, to wit loosely, God will do it, its not a problem syndrome, which make us settle for less, hence, celebrating the mediocre of our leaders with a divided support for the two major political traditions. Mensa Otabil is right on this issue when he stated that Ghanaians Must Not Be Happy With Just Electricity. God is not a cheat to favour the West over us. Neither will he perform magic on an economic turnaround against his own principles since he has given us every variable needed for progressive critical thinking. What do we expect to see when we unnecessarily hope in a hopeless supernatural interventions while left to rot, is the God-given talents that needs learning, training and practice to a successful mastery.unnecessarily hope in hopeless supernatural interventions while left to rot, is the God-given talents that needs learning, training and practice to a successful mastery.unnecessarily hope in hopeless supernatural interventions while left to rot, is the God-given talents that needs learning, training and practice to a successful mastery. I see Ghana as having a very basic problem at the go, and I do not know why it has been so difficult to fix. We are just a series of a broke VALUE CHAIN system amid corruption. I will tackle the former and leave the latter for another day. We have specialized in importing all that we already have; tomatoes, toothpicks, alcohol, soaps, fertilizer and goes the endless list that types on and on and on. We talk about this shortfall sensationally, but we fail to fix it. We produce more than enough cassava, thanks to Alan Cashs headed Presidential Initiative Program. Yet we do not produce much starch, hence we have to import an unreasonable tonnes of starch for augmenting our increasing consumptions. How about cassava into a soothing wine at Afrikiko? We have the sun for free, yet we sleep in Dumsor while we waste loans building hydro powers: Second cocoa producer of the world, but import chocolates: We produce cotton, we import textiles via [email protected] shirts and governments free school uniforms from China: We have hides and skin, but we import shoes and bags from China and Italy. Not that we dont kill the cattle. But what do we do with the leather? We eat welley with Anti Muni waakye. It is a delicacy; we consume our GDP on the contrary. No policy framework by our leaders to control these shortfalls. We have got the potential than enough to fix our destiny, and to fix it well. Let us talk about diversification of our little oil; a chain of refinery to kerosene, diesel, gas for power, gas for fertilizer, petrochemicals. Oops, that might be expensive in the short term to reach. Yet are we oblivious to fixing our cocoa value chain; fish and meat value chain; rubber, cotton value chains, etc. This is a model and not just a theory. Yet do we not sheepishly turn to the Breton Woods without shame for financial assistance to balance our payment deficit? At a period where insightful emerging economies are trying so hard to wean themselves from these neo colonization antics via the stringent conditionalities attached to the Woods financial assistance, do we not have economists and political historians to see the doom we are marching on? If they got any practical solution to help us industrialize, they would have long ago enrolled a Marshal-like Plan just as they did for UK post WWII. Breton Woods now are father Xmas to be wishing us AMERI Christmas by dashing their help for free? It is counterproductive against our very fundamental existence. Why do we have to always export our raw natural resources to them as paying our debt at their behest and whims. Because we have borrowed so much to sell our sovereign rights: the very rights fought for by the pioneers of independent Ghana. We therefore must refocus our research on fixing Ghanas value chain market, maximize the results of these researches into diversification, and implement them to create a multiplying developmental effect to circumlocate Ghana to greater heights of its past glories. OFOSU-APPIAKORANG SAMUEL, MSc 19.02.2016 LISTEN Defence lawyers in the trial of Gregory Afoko over the alleged murder of Adams Mahama, Upper East Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), are accusing the prosecution of withholding evidence from them. According to Ekow Ampah Korsah, lead counsel for the accused, the position by the state prosecutors was at variance with Article 19(2) of the 1992 Constitution and Sections 181/182 of Act 30 of the Criminal Code of 1960. In the view of the lawyer for the 52-year-old farmer, the said Act is in conflict with 19(2) of the Constitution in relation to fair trial. Mr Korsah stated that the Accra Central District Magistrate Court, presided over by Worlanyo Kotoku, ought to refer the matter to the Supreme Court for determination. Ambush He insisted that the prosecution had hidden vital evidence it had gathered in the course of its investigations from the defence team as well as the court. The lawyer believed the defece team had been ambushed in respect of the posturing of the prosecution, adding that it was worth reminding the court that in all criminal proceedings the state has a head start. Counsel wondered whether the state is at liberty to form its legal theory and withhold evidence which could be exculpatory. But Matthew Amponsah, a Chief State Attorney who led a five-member team, including Superintendent Francis Baah to the court, disagreed, insisting that the evidence could not be made available to the defence team. He argued that the case was at the committal stage and not the main trial and that the request for the evidence was untenable. No Way Mr Amponsah said by practice and procedure exhibits in a bill of indictment are not supposed to be given to the accused person or his lawyers anytime at the preliminary hearing. . He explained that rather the evidence is handed over to the court for custody and onward transfer to the high court where the case would be heard. The Chief State Attorney said the committal proceedings were to establish a prima facie case against the accused person. Sitting continues on Feb. 23. Background Afoko is standing trial for intentionally and unlawfully causing the death of Adams on May 20, 2015 at Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region after an acid bath. According to the Attorney General (AG), Afoko must be charged for conspiracy to murder and murder while one Issah Musah, a member of the NPP who was alleged to have on May 19, 2015 solicited and procured the deadly acid which he gave to other two suspects who in turn poured it on Adams, must be freed. Asabke Alangdi, the third accused, has been on the run together with his wife, leaving behind their one-and-a-half-year-old baby. According to the police charge sheet, Gregory after his arrest, was asked to lead the police to the house of his accomplice Asabke Alangdi but he rather took them to the father's house. Police later located the house of the second suspect but the suspect had got wind of their presence and absconded with his wife leaving behind their baby. A gallon, which contains some of the substance and a plastic cup, were retrieved at the scene for forensic examination. The Police had revealed that a post mortem examination was conducted on the body of the deceased and the pathologist gave the cause of the death as shock lungs and extensive acid burns. By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson [email protected] Tripoli (AFP) - An air strike by an unidentified warplane Friday killed more than 40 people near the Libyan capital where suspected members of the Islamic State group were gathered, officials said. A house in Sabratha was completely destroyed in the dawn raid, said Hussein al-Dawadi, an official in the city located about 70 kilometres (42 miles) west of Tripoli near the border with Tunisia. "The vast majority of those killed were Tunisians who were probably members of IS," Dawadi told AFP. A Western official quoted by the New York Times said US warplanes carried out the strike targeting a senior Tunisian operative linked to two major jihadist attacks in Tunisia last year. The official said that the raid killed more than 30 other IS recruits at the site, many thought to have been from Tunisia. Intelligence officials were trying to determine whether the operative, Noureddine Chouchane, was killed. Couchane is suspected of being behind the two Tunisia attacks. In July, an attack on a beach resort near the Tunisian city of Sousse killed 38 tourists -- including 30 Britons. That followed an attack on the National Bardo Museum in Tunis in March that killed 21 tourists and a policeman. Both attacks were claimed by the Islamic State group. 19.02.2016 LISTEN The thinking and reasoning of James Agyenim Boateng, NDC Presidential Staffer, is irresponsibly identical to that of Akua Donkor, Founder and Leader of Ghana Freedom Party. Akua Donkor quite recently insulted the integrity of all Ghanaians irrespective of partisan politics. Agyenim Boateng has said if Ghanaians have been able to live with the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) for all this while, the citizenry should not have a problem with the accommodation of the two ex-Guantanamo Bay detainees in the country. According to Agyenim Boateng, the NPP whose violent nature and conduct in itself is threat to the security of the state should be the last people to be speaking about issues relating to the ex-terrorists. The NPP parliamentary caucus said it mildly. Instead President Mahama should be impeached for breaching sections of the constitution in hosting the two terrorists -- Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby. Has any member of the NPP committed any acts of terrorism, arrested, prosecuted and jailed? The brainless Agyenim Boateng failed to adduce tangible reasons to back his incomprehensible statements made against the NPP. He woefully quoted Article 75 sub-sections (1) and (2) to support the Presidents decision to accept the Guantanamo Bay detainees in Ghana. These two Yemeni terrorists should have been sent to Yemen but NOT GHANA? Sub-Section two of Article 75 states A treaty, Agreement or Convention executed by or under the authority of the President shall be subject to ratification by (a) Act of Parliament; or (b) A resolution of Parliament supported by the votes of more than one/half of all the members of Parliament. When did Mahama inform Parliament about the arrival of the terrorists? It is preposterous for Agyenim Boateng to make light business of terrorism. According to citifmonline.com, the Speaker of Parliament, Edward Doe Adjaho, on Monday, January 18, 2016, called on Christians and all religious groups across Ghana to offer special prayers for the country to ward off any planned terrorist attack. His appeal follows the surge in terrorist attacks in the world including countries in the West Africa sub-region. The latest of such attacks was in Burkina Faso where 27 people perished and several others were injured. If terrorism was not important to civilized leaders, the august visitor to Ghana, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi would not, on February 2, 2016, have added his voice to calls on Ghana to help fight terrorism. Mr. Renzi said the country should be concerned in finding an antidote to the many atrocities perpetrated by terrorists, and work together with international partners like ITALY to find solutions against terrorism and the violence of those, who want to destroy our values, including those of compassion, inclusion and unity. Africa has not been spared the terror attacks, Mr. Renzi cautioned. Al-Qaeda militants recently bombed a luxury hotel in Burkina Faso, a country bordering Ghana to the north in January 2016. The assault left at least 28 people from 18 countries killed. Agyenim Boateng knows very well that the countrys security agencies are struggling with ARMED ROBBERY in Ghana. What about terrorism which is more of a serious fight than armed robbery? The two Yemeni hard core terrorists can just over night turn Ghana into chaos and confusion. You should therefore not joke with the situation Ghanaians find themselves. Dr. Kwesi Aning, Director of Academic Affairs and Research at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping and Training Centre, has expressed concerns about how security issues are handled in Ghana. Dr. Aning, who is Security Expert, has questioned claims by government that security has been beefed up in the country. He quoted outgoing Interior Minister Mark Woyongo as assuring Ghanaians on January 28, 2016, that government had put in place security measures to forestall any terrorist attacks in the wake of recent attacks in the sub-region. In his view, security has not been beefed up. The fact that three policemen are standing in front of a building without any equipment and not understanding why they are standing there doesnt mean security has been beefed up, he told Class News Atiewin Mbillah. According to Dr. Aning, it is not the numbers that count, but the quality of the training and the level of preparedness and sharpness. Agyenim Boateng must read and understand what security means to all security conscious people and not hollow minded people like him (Agyenim Boateng). Agyenim Boatengs unwarranted attack on the NPP caucus in Parliament is an attempt to divert attention of Ghanaians from the hardships they (Ghanaians) are going through. Agyenim Boateng should know that the people will no longer tolerate the foolishness of NDC. 19.02.2016 LISTEN In any civilized clime, political and leadership decisions are arrived at through a systematic process of persuasion. Whoever that wants people to be aligned to his or her intents or goals, achieves it via a refined and reasonable system of reasoning and conviction. Once someone is convinced that the idea before him or her is in his or her interest and, probably, in the interest of the larger society, his or her commitment to the pursuit of such an idea becomes irrepressible. Persuasion or conviction is the exact antithesis of coercion or suppression. It, therefore, follows that for a leader to have a large support-base, he or she must profess an ideology that is acceptable to the masses. For any idea or concept to be accepted by a people, the initiator(s) of such an idea or concept must take the responsibility of convincing those who ordinarily would not imbibe the idea. Democracy, in consonance with the essentialism of dialogue, encourages leaders to engage themselves in debates, with the hope of convincing, in a dispassionate manner, their audience. Political debates offer the debaters a unique opportunity of being independently and impartially assessed by persons who may not have come across them before but whose individual opinions could aggregate to bring about their victory or failure in a given contest. Since the return of Ghana to the path of democracy in 1992, efforts have continuously been made to improve on the conduct and image of the New Patriotic Party. The New Patriotic Party, has been growing from strength to strength, learning from its mistakes and progressing on a gradual but steady and re-assuring basis. Initial pessimism that many Ghanaians had harbored against the New Patriotic Party over their dislike for Northeners is systematically giving way to cautious optimism with the election of Paul Afoko as the first Northener. Kudos must be given to the Afoko led New Patriotic Party Group for coming up with the wonderful initiative of given back to the constituencies and thereby purging all the choked valves at the top to allow for free flow of funds to the grassroots; an initiative hes been vilified for; reason for his purported coup by his immediate subordinate. If the spirit of the initiative could be imbibed and sustained by principal political actors, it would simply help the New Patriotic Party grow and become the envy of political parties in Ghana. How wrong was Afoko in resourcing the constituencies? It is, however, worrisome that instead of the New Patriotic Party class to applaud him, with one voice, this well thought out idea, there has, rather, developed inexplicable discordant tunes. This situation has arisen from the stand of Akufo Addo not to cooperate and work, in any manner, with his partys National Chairman and General Secretary. For me, politics is best practiced using the jaw-jaw approach instead of resort to bickering, odium or violence. Ghanas present political reality is that the National Democratic Congress is the Party in power while New Patriotic Party is the main opposition Party. At a time when the countrys economy is having some challenges, it would even have been advantageous for the opposition Party to latch on the opportunity provided by the debate to attract the support of Ghanaians by coming up with very convincing reasons why the electorate should give her an opportunity to serve. With the purported determination of the main opposition to have a slot at the Presidency, many well-meaning observers had thought that the New Patriotic Party should have jumped at the birth of Paul Afokos aim of reforming the party to boost its attractions. Rather disappointingly, Akufo Addo has openly dissociated himself from this noble course of political enlightenment. He decreed that none of his officials or assigns should listen to Afoko, that he had promised Afoko detraction after he humiliated his candidate to become the Chairman per Delegates decision. This is a very unhealthy development in New Patriotic Partys march towards consolidation of her democracy. This development is more disturbing when it is viewed from the backdrop of the insinuation already making the rounds that the Chairman of the New Patriotic Party; Paul A. Afoko, does not possess even a secondary school certificate in politics which is the minimal constitutional requirement for the highest political office in Ghana though. It must be stated that for any citizen to preside over the affairs of Ghana, such citizen must be above mental average and should be one that can hold his head very high his or her peers. New Patriotic Party and her citizens deserve a national chairman they can be proud of and can openly say; this is our Chairman and that he is upright and untainted! In rounding off this piece, it is very necessary to remind the leadership of the New Patriotic Party that since there is the allegation that Afoko DOES NOT possess the required CORRUPTION CERTIFICATE for shielding his colleagues from participating in National Executive Committee loot could be interpreted by many Ghanaians to mean that he is intellectually deficient and should, therefore, not be exposed to intellectual ridicule and humiliation. Kofi Adams 19.02.2016 LISTEN National Organizer of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) Kofi Adams says the noise being made by the political pressure group Let My Vote Count Alliance (LMVCA) over the appointment of certain perceived NDC personalities on the ECs Steering Committee is much ado about nothing. He strongly believes the inclusion of those NDC personalities serving on the ECs Steering Committee and even the Electoral Commissioner, Madam Charlotte Osei have no power to influence Ghanaians to vote in a certain direction. The pressure group is claiming some members on the electoral body's Steering Committee makes it bias, thereby calling for the dissolution of the Steering Committee unless it is prepared to involve all the political parties. But Kofi Adams on Okay FMs 'Ade Akye Abia' Morning Show wondered how the ECs taskforce whose mandate has nothing to do with the printing of the ballot papers can obstruct the chance of any political party in the 2016 general elections. EC Boss does not influence the way electorates vote during elections. . . the members of the ECs Steering Committee are not there to print ballot papers, but they have been called to assist in educating their respective institutions on election matters, he asserted. He pointed that even the presiding officers at the polling stations have no role to play on how Ghanaians should vote unless the voter requests the assistance of the presiding officer to help out in voting. He added, it is the sole responsibility of the agents of the various political parties to protect the interest of their parties and ensure the right electoral processes are done during voting and counting at the various centers to avoid rigging. Even if the Electoral Commissioner is a political figure, there is nothing he or she can do to destroy the chance of any political party. The noise is much ado about nothing, he averred. The presence of Madam Charlotte Osei cannot influence the way Ghanaians will vote in 2016 elections; EC only facilitate the printing of ballot papers and not how and which direction people should vote . . . look, Akufo-Addo can step down as NPP Flagbearer to chair the electoral commission, the NDC will win hands down, he insisted. He therefore placed on record that the NDC did not have any role to play in Dr. Arhins nomination; thus though he is an NDC activist, he was nominated by the National Service Secretariat where he works. 19.02.2016 LISTEN THE NEW Patriotic Party (NPP) has warned the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) to stop using the name of the former's 2016 presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to deceive farmers at the cocoa growing areas. According to the NPP, it had come to its attention that the NDC had been sending its foot soldiers to remote villages and lying to cocoa farmers that fertilizer for farming had not been released because Nana Akufo-Addo had refused to sign documents to that effect. The main opposition party also stated that the NDC had been telling cocoa farmers that the Mass Cocoa Spraying exercise had been stopped because of Nana Addo's refusal to sign the documents, even though President Mahama had signed his portion of the documents. The NPP in the Upper Denkyira West Constituency made this known in a press statement signed by its Communications Director, Agyemang Asiedu, condemning the NDC for playing such 'cheap' politics with the cocoa sector, which is one of the major cash earners for the nation. According to the statement, The NDC is moving round some polling stations in the Upper Denkyira West Constituency, notably, Bremang, Brofoyedur, Jameso-Nkwanta, Diaso, Asantefokrom, Aniantentem and others, telling cocoa farmers that they have not been able to supply them with the mass cocoa spraying chemicals and fertilizers because Nana Akufo-Addo has refused to sign the documents, even though the incompetent President Mahama has signed his part. The cocoa sector has witnessed a sharp decline in its performance under President Mahama's administration a development that has caused many farmers to be angry with the government. . The government is seemingly adopting every desperate means to save its face as the general election approaches. It was not stated however, which document the NPP leader had refused to sign for the government. Describing the move as a cheap propaganda, the NPP urged farmers not to buy into the propaganda being spread by the spin doctors of the ruling government. We are by this statement informing the good people of Upper Denkyira West, especially cocoa farmers, that Nana Akufo-Addo is not a government official; neither is he the Minister for Agriculture to sign documents for the release of fertilizers or chemicals for their farms. This kind of cheap propaganda strategy of twisting information, distorting news and generating false allegations, is the biggest insult to the good people of Upper Denkyira West, the statement indicated. According to the NPP, It smacks of nothing but desperation on the part of the NDC who are well aware of the wind of change blowing across the country. The NDC also should note that Ghanaians are wide awake. They cannot play with their intelligence anymore. Their dishonesty, deceit, lies, abuse of power and corrupt acts are all well known by the people. BY Melvin Tarlue 19.02.2016 LISTEN Sir, good day wherever you might be, it has been a long time since we met. The last time we met was at the 25thAnniversary Celebrations of the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) on their premises in Accra. I remember I was trying to avoid you when you were greeting some of the dignitaries around from all walks of life including politicians. You quickly called me 'Kwesi, don't run away', and I turned and we shook hands. You asked me how I was doing and jokingly said, 'eei, aye kese papa oo'. I smiled because I did not want you to think that it is the Better Ghana Agenda which has made me bloat the way I am. I am just suffering from adult kwashiorkor. Anyway, I have also been hearing you in dispatch on various FM stations expressing your views on national issues. What has necessitated this letter to you is an interview you had with Peace FM early this week on a number of national issues, particularly on the destruction, I repeat destruction and not the drying up of rivers and streams in the country. When the interviewer raised the issue of river bodies and streams drying up, your answer was that rivers dry up and even cited an example of a river or a stream in your beloved Holy Winneba which was drying up even when you were a child. Yes, I agree with you that rivers and streams have been drying up since time immemorial and this can be testified by anybody who has ever lived in a village that depends on flowing stream or a river. I had that experience when I left Takoradi and joined my grandparents in a village along the Tarkwa-Dunkwa railway line, Imbraim to be specific. There was perennial water shortage as a result of the drying up of the rivers and streams, however, there were unwritten rules that were punishable by the community that no one was to farm along the banks of any stream or river. In that case, the streams and the rivers were not exposed to the hot tropical sun and the consequent siltation of the rivers and the streams. Anybody who was found to have breached that unwritten rule was severely punished as a deterrent to others. Sir, I have gone this length to support your answer to the fact that rivers and streams do dry up naturally, but my main reason for writing to you is your virtual plea to Ghanaians to change their attitudes towards the environment, and somehow pleading with illegal miners whose activities have destroyed the nation's water bodies to desist from their nation wrecking activities. In all honesty, I was very disappointed with those statements and the attribution of our attitudes to the current state of our dear nation, Ghana. My disappointment with your statement stem from the fact that you are a military officer, twice ex-Chief of Defense Staff in the revered Armed Forces of the Republic of Ghana, an institution whose discipline is unparalleled in all social facets the world over. While the discipline in any individual military personnel is infused in him or her during the training and recruitment, the sustenance of the dos and don'ts in the army, is by punishing and disciplining anybody, no matter her or his position for any breach of the rules, regulations and laws of the institution. I have never ever seen a military personnel of whatever rank, emptying the content of a sachet or plastic container and throwing the container anywhere with careless abandon. Sir, they are Ghanaians like all of us, but why do they behave differently? Sir, this country is sinking and gradually becoming a jungle because we are not enforcing the laws we have ourselves put in place to regulate our conduct and protect all of us. I live in Takoradi and see the Pra River openly being torn apart by illegal miners, indeed criminals who are exploiting our collective resources for their personal benefits and destroying our heritage in the process, and all we can do is to call for a change of attitudes? The Ankobra river is gone, Pra is gone, Offin is gone, Birim is gone and so many others through the activities of criminals, and the only thing we can do is to call for a change of attitudes? Sir, where are the laws and the law enforcement agencies? Yes, I also heard you lambast the Police who are the law enforcement agencies and expressed a certain lack of trust in them when the interviewer talked about the Police enforcing the laws. Are they not trained and recruited by the state? Why is the military more disciplined when all of them are agents of the state and trained by the state? . There is no country anywhere in the world that has attained discipline and lawful conduct primarily on the volition of the citizens' own change of attitudes. It is the rigorous enforcement of the laws irrespective of who is involved, that makes for attitudinal changes. Sir, I have friends in the military, they are sent to arrest illegal miners and confiscate their equipment, just for some higher political anonymous individual to order them, I mean the officers who have risked their lives to do their work to the service of their country, to release the equipment back to the criminals. They are so demoralized and humiliated by some unpatriotic political idiots on account of power. Sir, you have been assigned a national security job in this country, the biggest threat to any nation's security is hunger and thirst. This nation's security threat is at its peak and it did not start today. Criminals who are seen brazenly appropriating national resource and destroying them do not require a change of attitude to stop them. They need to be arrested, put before the law courts and convicted to save this nation. We have set up so many bodies with responsibilities to protect our collective resources, what do we see them do? What is the Water Resources Commission doing in the area of protecting our water resources? They watch unconcerned when people build in water courses and destroy Ramsyer sites; we pay them too. We allow people to build along the banks of rivers when they don't have basic toilets and proper refuse disposal systems, nonexistent drainage systems tell you Sir, that all waste water will flow into the river or the stream. It is only the law and not a change of attitude that will address the issue and save our water bodies and prevent hunger and thirst. Sir, I know how patriotic and passionate you are about this nation. I am just like you, but I do not have the power to change so much except my own life because I respect the law. If half of us undisciplined Ghanaians would have to die or be kept in prison to ensure sanity among the rest, and build a nation we can proudly bequeath to our unborn generations, let us do that for the sake of this nation and those yet to be born. Sir, what will the next generation say about us when they come to be shown the course of Densu River, which no longer exists? A dead Pra, Tano, Ankobra, Birim, add to them, when in our time we used them, misused them, abused them and finally killed them. This is a trauma I cannot contain and visualize moving forward. The Minerals Commission issue mining licenses to prospective companies without even knowing what exists on the surface of the land and what economic activities pertain there in the interest of the local people. The companies come and destroy everything as if life is all about gold. Sir, just read this by the Minerals Commission. 'A small Scale Mining License governs winning and mining of minerals such as gold and diamonds by effective and efficient methods. Operators are obliged to observe good mining practices, health and safety rules and pay due regard to the protection of the environment during mining operations'. Sir, who ensures that? Our national security is endangered by non-enforcement of our laws, let's deal with that. Cheers, Sir with three tots of mahogany bitters. [email protected] Eight people have been killed by suspected mentally unstable persons in three separate incidents across the country in 24 hours. In the first incident in Assin Akrofuom in the Central Region, a middle-aged man suspected to be mentally unstable killed four members of his immediate family and their landlord. The suspect, Kwasi Ganu, is reported to have been released recently after serving time for a criminal offense. According to inhabitants of the area, he is a wee (cannabis) smoker who occasionally chases people around. On Thursday he was seen sharpening two machetes, but no one questioned him. Ganu, killed his father, mother, two siblings and then proceeded to inflict wounds on the landlord and his son. The landlord also died instantly, but his son was rushed to the Assin Fosu hospital. Joy News Richard Kwadwo Nyarko reports that Ganu was lynched by a mob that wanted instant justice. The mob fought the police who eventually saved Ganu, but he did not make it to the hospital. In a related development near Jamasi in the Ashanti region, a mentally ill man allegedly killed three elderly persons. Joy News reporter, Erastus Asare Donkor, said the police searched for the suspected murderer who they eventually arrested in the bush. He was arraigned before court much to the disappointment of the residents who wanted instant justice. In an ensuing fight with the police, the residents vandalized the police station demanding the police hand over the suspect to them. In yet another incident in Techiman in the Brong Ahafo region, a 28-year-old man believed to be mentally challenged wounded two people who are said to be in critical condition at the Holy Family Hospital. POINT OF OREDER 19.02.2016 LISTEN I am inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa because all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours whereas all the testing says not reallyMy hope is that everyone is equal, but people who have to deal with black employees find this not trueHowever, you should not discriminate on the basis of colour, because there are many people of colour who are very talented, but dont promote them when they havent succeeded at the lower level. Prof. James Watson, Nobel Prize Laureate The three years of the fraudulent, corrupt and incompetent John Dramani Mahama NDC administration has witnessed a breakdown of good governance and the complete destruction of state institutions. Political polarisation, politicisation of serious national issues, violent crimes in the society, gross indiscipline among the citizens, rampant corruption within the public service and public officials and the government machinery as well as the private sector have become decentralised. Businesses have collapsed. Employees in the private sector have been thrown out of jobs. The government is judiciously and assiduously implementing IMF directives of embargo on employment in the public service. State universities cannot replace retired staff. State institutions are starved of statutory funding to operate effectively. All the revenue from taxations and other internally generated funds and foreign loans and grants have been squandered and recklessly spent or stolen and invested in properties in Qatar and Dubai leading to the introduction of idiotic taxes everyday in an attempt to raise additional funds. Sole sourcing leading to padding of government contracts has become the norm. In the past, where government donated a dead black goat to a community, we were instructed to report it as a donation of a white cow. Now government contracts worth GH3million suddenly metamorphosis to US$9miilion and then classified as to err is human contracts and the criminals are left off the hook. Contracts where the service provider charges GH1000 turns up as GH31,000 and the criminals involved are given time to refund the stolen money at their own terms. They are not prosecuted and jailed if found guilty for committing such heinous crimes against the state and the good people of this country. They are allowed to laugh all the way to their bankers. The Animal Farm scenario is being enacted in this country right now. The youth of this country face deprivation, dejection, hopelessness and despair. They are very angry and have gladly accepted the mantle of anger. They see hopelessness and despair and thus we have militancy, insurgency and social breakdown on our hands. They are already at the point where they are ready to adopt militancy and insurgency which can only lead to total social and economic breakdown. Two Gitmo terrorists may be behind bars. However multiples of potential terrorists and suicide bombers are parading the streets, running after moving vehicles, putting their lives at stake, selling dog chains, chewing gum, chewing sticks, catapults and such odd artifacts of little value. The profit margin is so insignificant one wonders how they survive the system. They cannot do that forever without any form of social security. Apart from the youth, virtually all other Ghanaians are disenchanted with their state in life and equally angry. Their businesses have collapsed leading to the collapse of their livelihood. Businesses are relocating to la Cote d'Ivoire and as a result the property boom which started under the NPP which saw many high rise office and residential apartments has virtually collapsed under the fraudulent corrupt incompetent, criminal NDC administration of the past seven years. Now many apartment blocks stand unoccupied and deserted. . Utility tariffs have been increased to such an extent that the last water bill I received from the Ghana Water Company for January 2016 showed a massive increase in tariff (note, tariff and not the amount on the bill) by 285% over the tariff used on the bill for November 2015. When I received my bill, I could not believe it until I checked with my next door neighbours. The tariff used in November 2015 was 1.783326, that for December 2015 was 3.989790, while that used in January 2016 was 5.073948, an act of complete madness, an act which can only be perpetrated by people with demented brains. I still do not know what tariff will be used in February 2016. To add insult to injury, my electricity bill has more than doubled within the same period despite the fact that I have adopted some energy saving measures to control consumption of electricity. The massive increases in the tariffs of utilities mean that utilities like electricity which yesterday were lacking by design because of unavailability and dumsor are today by choice lacking because their tariffs are beyond the means of even the well-to-do in society not to talk about the down-trodden. The hospitality industry, especially the hotel business is surviving by the skin of the teeth because of killer electricity bills. Today, most Ghanaians are living below the poverty line. Yet the leaders continue to indulge in conspicuous consumption by their filthy glutinous and obscene lifestyle throwing sumptuous immoral ceremonial parties. At a time when Ghanaians are suffering untold hardship and many of them are out of employment, John Dramani Mahama choses to set up a committee to review the service conditions for himself and others like him. Where in the Constitution does it say that every government which comes to power should as a matter of right establish such a committee? Interestingly, some members of the committee are persons whose businesses have virtually collapsed because of the poor economic policies of the fraudulent, corrupt and incompetent John Dramani Mahama NDC administration. Perhaps, the allowances they would be collecting as committee members would be enough to make up for all lost earnings and provide enough investments for their future. As if all these were not enough, the fraudulent, corrupt incompetent John Dramani Mahama NDC administration continue to insult our intelligence believing that we are all idiots and sycophants like themselves and their gullible followers by unleashing their propagandists and stomach contractors onto the media to tell lies, half-truths and a flood of vituperations on the good people who do not share their warped thinking and reasoning. We are told this country's technical schools and universities have produced political quantity surveys without being told of the political engineers and political architects and political contractors they are producing. What an idiotic thought. So where and how will the political quantity surveys practice their profession without the existence of political engineers and political architects and political contractors? The untold hardship which has been inflicted on the good people of this country points to one fact. The bottom line is that today, the people of this country have lost hope in the fraudulent, corrupt incompetent John Dramani Mahama NDC administration and are fed up with that administration. The good people of this country will do everything to get rid of the fraudulent, corrupt and incompetent John Dramani Mahama NDC administration. There is an atmosphere of complete hopelessness and despondency. The citizens are disappointed and frustrated. Poverty has deliberately been created and shared discriminately among the citizens. And yet this Poison Ivy Small Girl and the Electoral Commission are actively conniving with the fraudulent, corrupt, incompetent John Dramani Mahama NDC administration to rig the November elections in order for John Dramani Mahama and the NDC to retain power by all foul means. The Electoral Commission is behaving like an extension of the NDC secretariat in the vile attempt to ensure that the fraudulent, corrupt and incompetent John Dramani Mahama NDC administration retains power. Every act of omission and commission, every pronouncements and actions of the Poison Ivy Small Girl and the Electoral Commission reflect those of a disorgsanised and dysfunctional organisation to derail the aspirations of the citizens of this country by helping the fraudulent, corrupt and incompetent John Dramani Mahama NDC administration to steal the votes of the people in order to remain in power. BY KWAME GYASI E-mail: [email protected] 19.02.2016 LISTEN Teachers across the country have given government up to Monday, February 29, 2016 to address their concerns or face indefinite nationwide strike action. They cited non-payment of transfer grants, the 24 months incremental credit arrears and the policy of paying only three months of salary arrears irrespective of the total number of accumulated months as some of their concerns. The rest are non-payment of vehicle maintenance allowances to deserving teachers, outstanding transfer grants and travel and transport allowances. Christian Addai-Opoku, President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), who was speaking at a press conference in Accra yesterday, said teachers in the country are sick and tired of the impunity. Teachers Tired We are tired of drawing up roadmaps for payment of arrears; we are tired of setting up committees to look into these issues. For every day that passes without the payment of these arrears to over 30,000 affected teachers, some teachers commit suicide, some die because they have no money to foot medical bills and fend for their households, some are prosecuted for not being able to repay loans taken and some quit the service out of frustration. Let President Mahama be told that for any irreversible damage that this unpopular policy of non-payment of arrears beyond three months will cause any teacher, government will be held directly responsible, he said. Mr Addai-Opoku said teachers dont have the power to frontally confront government but we know that perfectly one day, they will regrettably pay for these pain and atrocities teachers are suffering under them. Blame Accountant General . The NAGRAT President blamed the Controller and Accountant Generals Department for worsening their plight. According to him, the Account Generals behavior in resolving the issues tends to give credence to the allegation that some people at the department are benefitting from the chaos. He warned government to pay all arrears due teachers by the end of February 2016 or face indefinite strike, stating This time no roadmap will be accepted. No technical committee will be set up. No pleas will be heeded and no ruling of National Labour Commission (NLC) will be obeyed, all we want is the payment of all arrears. The National President urged teachers across the country to brace themselves for the fight ahead. [email protected] By Cephas Larbi 19.02.2016 LISTEN Management of Mechanical Lloyd has donated medical equipment worth GH20,000 to the paediatric ward of the Effia Nkwanta Regional Hospital in Takoradi. The equipment included Oxygen concentrators, Wrist and Finger Oximeters, patient monitors and weighing scales. The donation is in line with the company's corporate mission, which seeks to contribute meaningfully to the welfare of communities in which it operates. Speaking at the ceremony, Kojo Annobil, Sales & Marketing Director, Mechanical Lloyd, said that health workers must have well equipped facilities to help them deliver healthcare in the most effective and efficient manner. He added that the donation would help the Effia Nkwanta Hospital to provide quality healthcare to people in the Western Region. He indicated Mechanical Lloyd would be available to help the hospital in their future projects and mentioned that the company has undertaken several corporate social responsibility activities in areas such as education, health, water and sanitation. Dr. Kwaw Ntodzi, Medical Superintendent of Effia Nkwanta Hospital, expressed gratitude and said the equipment will help improve quality healthcare at the paediatric ward. . He added that management and staff were doing their best to ensure successful treatment of people brought to the hospital in spite of the numerous challenges. He appealed to other companies in Takoradi to also assist the hospital. Mechanical Lloyd is a fully owned Ghanaian company with its headquarters in Accra- South Industrial Area. The company also has branches in Adenta, Accra, Kumasi, Tamale and now Takoradi and holds franchises for BMW and Ford vehicles, as well as Massey Ferguson agricultural tractors and implements. A business desk report 19.02.2016 LISTEN Farmers in the country have called for the speedy passage of a Cattle Ranching Law to stop the destruction of their farms and properties by Fulani herdsmen. According to them, the law, when passed by Parliament, will regulate the movement of animals, especially cattle in the country which will safeguard their farms. The call comes in the wake of the recent activities of the Fulani herdsmen in the Brong Ahafo and Ashanti regions of Ghana, which have led to the destruction of farms, properties and lost of lives. Mohammed Adam Nashiru, a member of the Peasant Farmers Association of Ghana, during discussions in a television programme on the topic, 'Promulgation of a Cattle Ranching Law,' said that their farms were being destroyed by the herdsmen with impunity. The Association has received several reports of farmers being killed from the length and breadth of the country by these herdsmen. In some case, females in these farming communities are raped by the herdsmen. We have also received reports on the confrontations between farmers and herdsmen which at times lead to people losing their lives in several parts of the country, he said. Food Security Adam Nashiru said the activities of the Fulani herdsmen have tremendous effect on food security. . 10 percent of Ghana's national budget is supposed to go into the agric sector financing. If we spend this colossal amount of money in the sector and fail to address the herdsmen menace then our investment is wasted, he stated. Adam Nashiru said, Farmers will not get land to farm and our arable land will also be destroyed. This will eventually lead to poverty, hunger, malnutrition and diseases. He said Ghana must learn from international best practices from neighbouring countries such as Burkina Faso and Mali, which had passed the Cattle Ranching Law to protect farmers and properties in their countries. Dr. Anthony Nsoh Akunzule, a Deputy Director of Veterinary Services at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA), said one of the effects of the free movement of cattle is the increase in trans-boundary diseases, explaining that the diseases afflicting the affected animals are passed on to the consumers, affecting the health conditions of the citizenry. He supported the speedy passage of the cattle ranching since the farming system in the country is the mixed crop type. The programme on cattle ranching law was organized by BUSAC Fund, in collaboration with DANIDA, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the European Union (EU). [email protected] By Cephas Larbi 19.02.2016 LISTEN Ron Reddick (second left) touring the data centre with journalists and staff of Tigo Tigo Ghana Limited, a leading telecom company, has unveiled a $5.1 million ultra-modern data centre. The centre, located behind its head office in Accra, is to house Tigo's network infrastructure to ensure that customer data are properly stored and managed in compliance with Ghana's Data Protection Act, (Act 843). The 3-tier centre comes with dual multi-layer power supply to all systems, which is expected to guarantee consistent service availability to all IT infrastructure. Furthermore, the centre boasts of high-tech security, including multi-factor verification, internal and external CCTV coverage. Speaking at the launch of the facility on Wednesday at Tigo's head office in Accra, Ron Reddick, Chief Technical and Information Officer of Tigo Ghana Limited, indicated that the $5.1 million centre, with a rack capacity of 110, will house all Tigo network infrastructure. He explained that this data centre will store all our computer systems and associated components and this includes redundant or backup power supplies, redundant data communications connections, environmental controls such as air conditioning and the suppression and various security devices. . Clients' data protection remains a serious concern for regulators within the country's telecom industry. Mr. Reddick told the media that in the coming months, Tigo would roll out series of enhanced technologies including server and application hosting for its business. [email protected] BY Melvin Tarlue Frederick Yao Nketia receiving treatment at the hospital 19.02.2016 LISTEN A 41-YEAR-OLD farmer is battling with his life at the Tema General Hospital after claiming he had been attacked at Suhum in the Eastern Region by unknown assailants. The victim, Frederick Yaw Nketia was found unconscious on Thursday morning in a pool of blood around the 31st December Primary School near the main lorry terminal in Ashaiman with a knife near him and was rushed to the Tema General Hospital. Reports indicated that he would soon be referred to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital for further treatment. Confirming the incident to DAILY GUIDE, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Hebert Sosu, Crime Officer of the Ashaiman District Police Headquarters said the victim on February 17, 2016 at about 6 pm was on his way to his cottage in Suhum together with his family when he was attacked. The attackers, according to the crime officer, slashed the man's throat with a sharp object believed to be a knife but he managed to escape while his wife and son also fled on separate routes. They are yet to be located. The victim said he managed to board unknown vehicle that night and only found himself in the pool of blood the following day around the Ashaiman main bus terminal. ASP Sosu indicated. But some residents of Ashaiman claimed the victim was returning from work on his motorbike with his wife and son when they were attacked by three armed robbers in Ashaiman. According to them the attackers fled the scene with the motorbike carrying along the man's wife and son. . The residents were displeased that the police left behind the knife which was found at the scene which they thought might aid them in the investigations. However, the police refuted the blame explaining that per the victim's narration, the incident occurred at Suhum and not Ashaiman and he only managed to escape to Ashaiman. The police said the case is under investigation and efforts would be made to locate the victim's family. From Vincent Kubi, Ashaiman 19.02.2016 LISTEN Health professionals in the Volta Region have expressed grave concern about the erratic power outage, which is threatening quality healthcare delivery. For the past three years, energy has become a very critical determinant of how industry and other sectors of the national economy fared, as it either disrupted productivity or declined growth. Speaking at the 2015 Health Performance Review Meeting of Health Facilities in the Volta Region, Regional Director of Health Services, Dr Joseph Teye Nuertey, reiterated that 2015 was a challenging year, as the energy crisis aggravated the usual challenges. He said there was the problem of frequent electricity outages, disconnections and threats of disconnections by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) due to arrears. Dr Nuertey mentioned that an attempt by managers to charge a token to take care of utilities also led to a negative effect of drops in facility attendance. He described the performance for the past year (2014) as mixed, saying, Whilst we saw a decline in some areas, we improved slightly in many areas. Another major challenge was limited financial inflows from traditional sources as well as the National Health Insurance Authority, which, he prayed, will improve in the ensuing year. WHO Unhappy With Health Outcomes A representative of the World Health Organisation (WHO) asserted that the Volta Region had lost its top performances in the health sector in recent years, and expressed the hope the situation would change for the better. To this end, the WHO would be interested in how health managers in the region would at the end of 2016 achieve the set theme of the 2015 review meeting: 'Achieving Improved Health Outcomes Through The Use Of Quality Improvement Approaches'. . He said, We would be interested in your performance based on your theme. Success Story Despite the challenges, the region also made some progress in nutrition and family planning, which saw an increase from 161,228.5 in 2014 to 166,924.1 in 2015. Preference for long-term as against short term methods saw persistent increases even though there was a decline in general coverage from 28 percent in 2014 to 26 percent in 2015. There were constant declines in the underweight rate among children below five years from 12.1 in 2013, 10.9 in 2014 and 9.8 in 2015. Still-birth rate in the region declined from 1.9 percent in 2014 to 1.7 percent in 2015, while maternal mortality rate declined from 178 per 1,000 to137 per 1,000. The management of Sacred Heart Hospital, Abor, received commendation for their swift response in stemming the tide of maternal deaths. Agotime-Ziope, Adaklu, Akatsi-North, Ho West, Krachi East and Krachi West showed persistent improvement in immunisation coverage from 2013 to 2015. However, Keta and Ho Municipalities saw persistent drops in their immunisations from 2013 to 2015. Ho Municipality was the worst performer in the country. The annual performance reviews looked at how the health sector fared in the region in the previous year, with the view to mapping out strategies to improve the situation in the ensuing year. From Fred Duodu, Ho ( [email protected] ) 19.02.2016 LISTEN The pioneer chairman, National AIDS Control Programme, (NACP), Professor Ibironke Akinsete returned to Nigeria some 50 years ago from Canada to work at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH). She exposed to the media on Nigeria @ 55 that there was unadulterated empathy among the workforce to give healthcare to the sick in those days, unlike today, We seemed to have missed it at some point and nothing seems to work anymore. The former President of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) and Vice President, Commonwealth Medical Associations (CMA), Dr Osahon Enabulele frowned at the unfortunate political assurance given to the healthcare sector. Dr Enabulele said, It is sad that in what has become a recurring decimal, Mr. President could not spare a critical thought on his plans for Nigerias Health Sector in his Independence Speech. Workforce Marred By Politics Governments at different levels in Nigeria are yet to accustom the universal uplift programmes of health workers. The outcome of the lackadaisical approach being shown to Nigerian doctors was experienced recently: Medical doctors were outraged over what they described as anti-life policies of Governor Rochas Okorocha, where taskforce was being used to standardise medical practice in Imo State. The doctors were not happy how taskforce was being used against them; they said that this is against the Medical and Dental Council of Nigerias policies. Hence, they voyaged for a protest on February 4 2016, disclosed as anti-concessioning protest of public health institutions by Governor Okorocha. The protest latter turned bloody. An account by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), stated, It was gathered that when the doctors got to Orlu Road Junction, Owerri, riot policemen in about 10 Hilux vans started throwing tear gas canisters at the group, during which a gun was suspected to have been fired, which injured a doctor. A Consultant Physician with the Federal Medical Centre, Owerri, Imo State, Dr. Bede Azudialor was supposedly shot in the head by the riot policemen drafted to monitor the demonstration by doctors. Aftermath, the Nigerian Police denied shooting him. Politics Of Shooting And Denial The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, DSP Andrew Enwerem, said, Police did not shoot anybody and nobody who is shot in the head will ever remain alive. Let them produce a doctors report to confirm that it was a real case of shooting in the head. Anybody can pick any blood stained material from anywhere and claim that he was shot. Dr. Azudialor was said to have been rushed to a hospital for prompt medical attention, where he is believed to be receiving treatment. His colleagues spurred for a three day warning strike, as was made public by the state Chairman of the Nigerian Guild of Medical Doctors, Dr. Darlington Akukwu, following the incident. Why The Doctors Protested There was the Third Global Forum on Human Resources for Health, HRH, held in Recife, Brazil, from November 10-13, 2013, which represented the largest-ever global gathering on HRH. IntraHealth was an official co-host and, with CapacityPlus, served as the organiser of one of the themes, Empowerment and incentives: Harnessing health workers voice, rights, and responsibilities in moving toward universal health coverage. In that forum, Pape Gaye, President and CEO of CapacityPlus lead partner IntraHealth International, said, The health worker is the most important element of the health system." On-the-contrary, the health worker in Nigeria is estranged. The Imo State chairman of Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr. Hyacinth Emele was very angry that the governor did not consider the plight of doctors in the state upon their advise not to concessionise public health institutions. Part of reports made available by Emele on their dilemma in the hands of Governor Okorocha read, Despite NMA repeated advise government went ahead to concession virtually all the state public health institutions from primary to tertiary (health centre, general hospitals and Imo State Specialist Hospitals, and Imo State University Teaching Hospital) and their management. The furious NMA chairman, added, The state will stand to lose completely from the assistance of donor agencies and partners like the WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank, Global Fund among others that sponsor immunization, malaria, tuberculosis, family planning and HIV/AIDS services to these institutions. The Governor Reacts While the Police denied shooting any doctor, Governor Okorocha in a swift reaction in a statement purportedly made available to the public by his spokesman, Sam Onwuemeodo, regretted that the protest turned bloody, even as he added that the protest embarked upon by the doctors was uncalled for and a ploy to blackmail him and his administration. Part of the statement read, It has also become important at this stage for Nigerians of goodwill to tell the doctors to publish the reasons for their protest for Nigerians to see and give their verdicts. The doctors involved have not been able to tell their audience their grievances or why they took to the street if not to blackmail the governor and his administration. Failed Healthcare Workforce Data The workforce is important and one of the eight pillars of the National Strategic Health Development Plan. Nigeria knew about this and in 2011, the Federal Ministry of Health aided by the WHO, and the Centre for Diseases Control, CDC, instated the National Steering Committee for the National Health Workforce Registry and the Committee on Nigerian Public Health Training Initiative. Conversely, the aim of the pursuit has been defeated, which was to achieve a formidable HRH data for all health workers in Nigeria. Carter Foundation was in the formation for a working Health Registry with the Federal Government (FG). The initiation was called Health Workforce Registry. In all of this, politics now rule over. The torment that the health workers in Nigeria face and followed by the economic depression of the late 80's and till date, have made them to look beyond their nose and move for greener pastures outside the country. Greener Pastures Elsewhere The world over, how to improve on the physiological wellbeing of health workers, has been a topmost priority. Organisations like the World Health Organisation (WHO), seek ways to reduce healthcare costs and improve on the universal health coverage. WHO has a publication with the title: Establishing and Monitoring Benchmarks for Human Resources for Health: the Workforce Density Approach. The international organisation was worried in the report concerning the shortage of health workers in Nigeria and as well, the daunting situations that surround the issue, which have made finding solution impossible. The shortage of health workers in the country has reduced the workforce. The Human Resources for Health (HRH), which represents the foundation of the health structure, has been touched. Many Patients, Few Doctors There have been incessant strikes by health workers across the country at different times, at primary, secondary or tertiary health centres. At most of the hospitals the question is always where have the over 30,000 medical doctors, 150,000 registered nurses nationwide, gone to. In Imo State, Governor Okorocha sacked over 3000 workers. In Lagos alone it has become habitual to keep vigil in the hospitals by patients, so that they could see a doctor to attend to them in the morning. Most times, a chance of seeing a doctor is slim upon the stretched long hours of waiting for a doctor. $ 51 billion and 700 doctors In the early part of 2015, the Federal Government sought for about $51 billion (N9.4trn) to fix the healthcare in order to meet international standard by 2030. Nigeria would also need over 700,000 additional doctors to meet the timeframe. According to a source, Nigeria currently has roughly 14 percent of the number of doctors per capita of OECD countries. To catch up, Nigeria would need approximately 12 times as many doctors by 2030, requiring, under current training models, about $ 51 billion. It was gathered that this is because many emerging economies face rising occurrence of non- transmissible diseases determined by aging populations and injurious lifestyles. Budding economies have under-invested in health. The source added, In 2012, their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) allocation for health was on average 5.6 percent, less than half that of developed economies (12.5 percent). This has led to shortages in health infrastructure and workforce. Nigerias Bleak Universal Health Coverage The year 2015 was when Nigeria had in 2009 set goal to achieve Universal health Coverage (UHC). The promise was to make sure that all citizens in the country enrolled into the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). But there were miserable scenarios for the Health Sector in 2014 as Budgetary Allocation failed below anticipation in the African Unions agreed 15 per cent budgetary allocation for health. Media reports stated, The total vote for health in the 2014 expenditure plan of the federal government is N262.74 billion. This is about 5.6 per cent of aggregate expenditure of the national budget. This years provision is a further 0.82 drop from the N279.23 earmarked for the sector in 2013. More perplexing is the fact that the budget proposal allocates 76.3% to recurrent expenditure and just 23.7% to capital expenditure. What this means is that the budget is meant to just keep the country and its burgeoning bureaucracy running with nothing spectacular to show for. Experts believe that a budget focused on massive development of infrastructure would assign more to capital rather than to recurrent which covers personnel and overhead costs. Conclusion: Nigeria Is Yet To Follow The World Seven years after Nigeria set the goal to meet the 2015 Universal Health Coverage target, many Nigerians are yet to tap into the enormous advantages of health insurance, experts have said. Hence, voices are being raised incessantly in the country suggesting that health insurance should be made available to all Nigerians and not only a handful that can pay. During its NMAs Physicians Week recently, the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) called on General Muhammadu Buhari to declare emergency in the health sector. The reason is that there is a dearth of well-designed guidelines for medical practice in Nigeria, because the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria Board was wrongly dissolved. The NMA lobbied for the appointment of a Chief Medical Officer of the Federation to superintend and fast-track the urgency needed in the health sector. It also called on the authorities to instantaneously start the discharge of the 2014 National Health Act. It added that there is need for a vivacious primary healthcare system in the states to enliven immunisation and healthcare. Odimegwu Onwumere writes from Rivers State, Nigeria. ([email protected]). Tel: +2348057778358. Damascus/Geneva - The International Committee of the Red Cross is deeply alarmed by the situation in the Aleppo region, where fighting is intensifying, hospitals and health workers have been targeted, people have no water or electricity and more than 70,000 have now fled their homes. The most basic infrastructure to support the lives of the people has been critically damaged, worsening the situation of the population dramatically, with the number of newly displaced people rising by the day, said Marianne Gasser, Head of the ICRCs Delegation in Syria. She is currently in Aleppo. Two hospitals in Northern Aleppo were partially damaged on 15 February, resulting in civilian casualties including medical workers. These health facilities, which were providing thousands of consultations and surgeries and delivering hundreds of babies per month, are now out of service. The hospitals that are still standing are struggling to function. The ICRC calls on all parties to the conflict to immediately halt attacks on health care facilities and personnel. These are protected under International Humanitarian Law, along with essential basic infrastructures, such as water treatment plants.Water supply should not be used as a weapon of war. We deplore the attacks which are rendering the whole infrastructure in the area non-functional and causing massive civilian displacement, Ms. Gasser said. The situation was already desperate for many people before this latest surge of violence. The clashes and fighting are pervasive in Aleppo, making it harder and harder for the people to maintain any semblance of a normal life, Ms. Gasser said. As the humanitarian situation deteriorates in northern Syria, the ICRC is increasing the amount of aid for people caught up in the latest round of violence. In close cooperation with local water boards, the ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) have been striving to improve access to clean water by repairing or equipping bore holes, which are now the only source of water, providing a daily 46 million litres of water for an estimated 1.5 million people in the city and outskirts of Aleppo. The ICRC and the SARC have also supported hospitals treating more than 400,000 patients through the delivery of generators and oxygen, as well as medical supplies and material, in addition to the support provided to six SARC polyclinics located in western and northern rural Aleppo treating a total of 160,000 patients. In addition, the ICRC and SARC continue to provide 10,200 bread packs per day. Some of these have been sent to areas where the newly displaced have arrived. From 16 to 17 February, an ICRC/SARC team spent two days in western rural Aleppo after having crossed the frontline. This is a good example of how our continuous dialogue with all parties concerned yields results, and makes it possible to reach people in need, including in opposition-controlled areas, Ms. Gasser said. The team was able to visit a number of villages, as well as hospitals, which are struggling to cope, and some of the estimated 30,000 displaced people in western rural Aleppo - who are mostly being hosted by local residents families in order to assess the needs. Most of the resident population are eager to resume cultivating their land. However, they lack fuel, water and equipment. The needs and the suffering are huge on both sides of Aleppo City and rural Aleppo. So is the courage of ordinary people, both those who have lived their whole lives in Aleppo, and those who have fled there from all over the governorate where conditions are grim and the security fragile, said Ms. Gasser. The ICRC and the SARC have also been working over the past ten days to deliver relief supplies to other towns in Syria such as Al Waer in Homs and the besieged town of Moadamiyeh. But the organisation has consistently called for a regular, unimpeded flow of aid to the populations suffering, not just there but throughout the country. Meanwhile, Peter Maurer, the ICRCs president is due to begin a 5-day visit to Syria on Monday to witness first-hand the humanitarian situation and meet with Syrian officials. 19.02.2016 LISTEN The expansion project at the Takoradi Port, which involves the extension of the existing main breakwater, provision of facilities to handle bulk commodities and dredging of the access channels, is progressing steadily. The ongoing expansion works at the Takoradi Port is expected to create about 3,000 jobs during the construction period. The project, which is being executed by a Belgian firm, Jan De Nul, also involves the extension of the breakwater by 1,080 meters, dredging of the harbor basin and construction of a quay wall for bulk mineral and terminal operations. The Acting Director of the Takoradi Port, Ebenezer Afadzi charged the local people who have been employed to help the contractor to work hard to justify their employment. He was interacting with some journalists before a sea trip to some of the areas where the expansions works are taking place. He pledged that the managers of the port had resolved to take good care of the facility after the expansion works to effectively serve its purpose. He revealed that the management of the port had been holding series of meetings with the fishermen in the area to educate them on the expansion works and the need for them to work with the port to bring the needed development to the area. The expansion works at the Takoradi port is part of government's plan to expand the country's infrastructure base and the modernization of the port will prepare it for increased maritime businesses. . When completed, the port will be able to segregate bulk cargo operations from containerized cargo operations. This is because of the new and separate bulk handling terminals to be built. The project will involve reclaiming of the log pond area which will be used to build a 1 km quay with a depth of 16 metres. Additionally 770 metres quay wall will be reclaimed from the existing berth 2 to 6 with 11meter depth. On completion, manganese, bauxite, clinker, limestone and other bulk cargo operations will be transferred to the new bulk jetty. There will also be a dedicated berth (oil and gas hub) with a depth of 10 metres to cater for supply activities related to the oil industry. From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi 19.02.2016 LISTEN Accra, Feb. 18, GNA - The case of Four Yemenis who are alleged to have travelled to Ghana with fake Emergency Entry Visas and French passports has been adjourned to February 29. The case investigator, who was to testify in court this morning, was taken ill suddenly in court and was rushed to the hospital by police officers. The investigator was the one who escorted the Yemenis today. When the matter was called, prosecuting Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Stephen Adjei informed the court about the plight of the investigator. Defence counsel Mr Dominic Owusu Sekyere counsel for the Yemenis sympathised with the prosecution over the plight of investigator. Defence Counsel, however, prayed the court to grant them a short adjournment. Prosecution has so far called one witness in the case. The suspects are Esmail Yahya Zeyad aka Evra Allerson, Gaafar Eissa Yahya Amer, aka Ciro Carlos, Waleed Ahmed Yahya aka Debuchya Allard, all students and Eissa Yahya Amer a businessman. They have been variously charged with possession of forged documents, fake Emergency Entry Visas, and forgery of official documents. The four, who spoke through an Arabic interpreter, pleaded not guilty. Answering questions under cross- examination by Mr Dominic Owusu-Sekyere, counsel for the accused persons, DSI Manan said it was a fact that visitors could be granted visas on arrival. However, the witness explained that, that would depend on persons applying for the visas and that could be shown in the airline before one's arrival. DSI Manan admitted that accused persons were denied entry visas in Ghana and said he did not know why the accused persons were not deported. When asked whether Eissa had insisted that he should be sent back to his country, witness said he was not privy to that. DSP Aidan Dery, the prosecutor, who earlier read the facts, said all the accused persons were Yemeni Nationals who arrived at the Kotoka International Airport (KIA) on board Ethiopian Airline Flight ET 920, on November 24. He said whiles undergoing immigration arrival procedures, Esmail, Gaafar and Waleed were found with French passport with different names. The Prosecution said further search on them revealed that all the accused persons had Yemeni passports too and when the French passports with different names were examined, they were found to be fake. According to the prosecution, when the accused persons were quizzed they claimed Abdulai Mohammed, an individual based in Yemen, was the one who secured for them the French passports. He said they claimed the same individual gave them a phone number to call a certain Mohammed on arrival in Ghana. The prosecution said the accused persons were on transit in Ghana to France, then to Istanbul, Turkey. The prosecution said another examination of their Yemeni passports indicated that Esmail and Gaafar had travelled several times to Djibouti before their trip to Ghana. GNA Accra, Feb. 18, GNA - The committal proceeding of Gregory Afoko, the man accused of pouring acid, on the late Adams Mahama, the Upper East Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, has been put on hold. This because before the committal proceedings could begin at the magistrate court, Afoko's counsel, Mr Ekow A. Korsah had submitted that they should be furnished with all documents to be used in the trial by prosecution. Mr Korsah argued that Article 19 (2) of the Constitution indicated that once a person was charged, 'he shall be given adequate materials and facilities to ensure fair trial.' He contended that they had not been given enough materials by the prosecution and asked for the materials before the committal commenced. Defence Counsel admitted that he had been served with the bill of indictment, summary of evidence as well as the medical report on Afoko. He, however, noted that there were other documents that the prosecution was withholding from the court. Mr Korsah said that prosecution had not furnished them with other additional materials that they had filed in the court. According to him they also wrote a letter to the Police and Attorney General's Department to provide 'certain documents' which were yet to be received. He said prosecution's right to keep statements and products from the defence defeated the objects of justice and committal proceedings. 'This is because the prosecution determines what should be made available to them.' Defence counsel therefore suggested to the court that they would like to seek an interpretation or ruling from the Supreme Court over Article 19 (2). Mr Matthew Amponsah, Chief State Attorney, said the state has filed the bill of indictment, summary of evidence and a medical report of his client between February 1 and 16, this year. In addition Mr Amponsah, said the state has provided the photos of the deceased wife, Madam Hajia Zenaibu who also sustained injuries as result of the act. According to him they had provided defence counsel with all 'material documents' for the committal proceedings. The Chief State Attorney argued that the prosecution was not holding anything from the defence because documents that were 'material' had been provided. The court presided over by Mr Worlanyo Kotoku adjourned the matter to Tuesday February 23. The court had set today to commence the committal proceedings in order to pave away for Afoko to stand trial at the High Court over the charge of murder. The state said all was set for the committal proceedings to begin at the next adjourned date. Afoko has on a number of occasions sought bail at the magistrate's court but had been turned down. His lawyers had argued that he had been incarcerated for more than eight months and his personal liberty was at stake and hence should be admitted to bail. Afoko has been charged for murder, while his alleged accomplice, Musah Issah, is being held for abetment of crime. Their pleas have not been taken. On July 10, last year the magistrate's court presided over by Mr Worlanyo Kotoku, admitted Issah to bail in the sum of GHa20,000.00 with four sureties. He is to report to the Criminal Investigation Department of the Ghana Police Service before noon from Monday to Thursday, until the case is disposed off. In the case of Afoko, the High Court refused him bail, saying there had not been any unreasonable delay in the matter. The Court, presided over by Mr Justice K. A. Okwabi, noted last year that the facts and charges were properly laid and connected Gregory to the crime. In May last year, while he was on the way home, Mahama was attacked with acid, and he later died from his injuries at the hospital. Before his death, he reportedly named some of the persons who attacked him. According to the Police, Afoko after his arrest, was asked to lead the Police to the house of his accomplice, Asabke Alangdi, but 'he rather took them to his father's house.' The Police said they later located the house of the second person, but when the suspect got wind of their presence he absconded with his wife, leaving behind their baby. A gallon, which allegedly contained some of the substance and a plastic cup, were retrieved from the scene for forensic examination, the Police said. The Police said: a 'post mortem examination was conducted on the body of Adam and the pathologist gave the cause of the death as shocked lungs and extensive acid burns.' GNA Accra, Feb. 18, GNA - The National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) has said it has noted with concern misleading statements by some sections of the general public in respect of the process for conversion of Polytechnics to Technical Universities. A release copied to the GNA by the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) said, based on discussions being made in the public domain, 'we wish to put the records straight for the information of the general public'. It said President John Dramani Mahama announced in the 2013 State of the Nation Address that polytechnics would be converted into technical universities to train high level technical skills in the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) areas. The release said the Ministry of Education in September 2013, set up an eight member Technical Committee to among others develop a road map for implementing the policy. It said members of the Committee were: Dr George Afeti Chairman, a former Secretary General, Commonwealth Association of Polytechnics in Africa and former Principal of Ho Polytechnic; Commander (Rtd.) J. A Combey, Association of Ghana Industries; Dr J.V.K Afun and Prof. G.S.K. Aflakpui, representatives of Conference of Rectors of Polytechnics; Mr Kwame Dattey, Executive Secretary, National Accreditation Board; Dr Albert Sunnu, senior Lecturer, KNUST; Mrs Divina Nkwantabisa, State Attorney, Attorney General's Dept; Prof. Mahama Duwiejua, Executive Secretary, NCTE and Mr Evans T. Ankomah-Asare, NCTE, Secretary to the Committee. The release said the Committee's report which was submitted to the Minister of Education in December, 2014, recommended among others the characteristics of a Technical University and eligibility criteria for assessment for converting a polytechnic to a technical university. It said a draft Technical Universities Bill was also developed by the Committee which was finally endorsed by the Council with approval from the Minister of Education. The release said a stakeholder's consultative forum was held at the LA Palm Beach Resort on January 6, 2015 and participants amongst others included rectors, vice-chancellors, principals of Colleges of Education, representatives of the National Union of Ghana Students, Ghana National Union of Polytechnic Students etc. It said the forum discussed the Technical Committee Report and it was unanimously agreed that the conversion should not be done wholesale, instead it should be done in phases based on an assessment of each polytechnic. The release said the NCTE in July 2015, constituted four Teams of Expert Panels whose terms of reference were among others to conduct a preparedness assessment of the 10 Polytechnics to determine their current status in relation to the conversion. It said the Expert Panels were made up of the following: Prof. Anthony Apeke Adimado, Dr Joseph Ofei Darko, Ing. Francis Laako Larkai, Mr William Gariba Akanwariwiak, Prof. F.K. Rodrigues, Mr Lawson Anakwa, Mr Sampson Damtey Tetey, Mr Isaac Boamah, Mr Richard Ajei, Dr J. B. Hayfron-Acquah,, Dr Geophrey Anornu and Mr John Dadzie Mensah The release said the Expert Panels visited and assessed each Polytechnic based on the agreed eligibility criteria and a final report (which was an advisory one) was presented to NCTE on July 28, 2015. It said the Ministry of Education also convened another consultative meeting on January 12, 2016 involving representatives of NCTE, National Accreditation Board (NAB), Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Lead Chairman of the Expert Panel. The release said this meeting was to consider the NCTE and the Expert Panel reports and take a final decision on polytechnics which should be listed in the Schedule of the Draft Bill as those to be converted to Technical Universities under Phase 1. It said the meeting unanimously agreed on a list of polytechnics to be listed in the Bill based on expert advice. The release said report of this consultative committee is in the process of being published by the NCTE in the true spirit of transparency and objectivity which has underpinned this entire process. It said the Technical Universities Bill will soon be considered by Parliament for subsequent passage into a Technical Universities Act adding that 'we wish to make it clear that the fact that some polytechnics may not have been listed in the Schedule of the Bill when passed does not suggest that the door is closed to them'. The release said polytechnics that do not meet the conversion criteria under Phase 1 of the conversion would be assisted to upgrade their facilities to meet the eligibility criteria. It said the NCTE wishes to assure the public that the whole conversion process so far has been done in a fair and transparent manner. We wish to advise that people desist from utterances, actions and threats intended to jeopardize or derail the progress so far made towards the agenda to convert our Polytechnics to Technical Universities. The conversion policy ultimately is for all polytechnics and there is therefore no need for division and rancour over a process which is intended to benefit the entire polytechnic community. The release called on all well-meaning Ghanaians to lend their support towards this noble effort which we all agree is in the national interest. GNA Accra, Feb. 18, GNA - Members of Parliament on Thursday joined the family of their slain colleague Joseph Boakye Danquah Adu, to observe a one-week funeral rite in honour of the legislator, at the Social Centre of the Police headquarters in Accra. Mr Danquah Adu, the MP for Abuakwa North, was murdered at his Shiashie home near East Legon in Accra on the dawn of Tuesday February 9, by an alleged teenager who upon arrest confirmed to a seemingly contract killing but later claimed self-defence, as he attempted to rob the deceased law maker. Colleagues and political opponents have described the 50-year-old legislator as an affable and hardworking individual, who was also a unifier with acumen for issues involving accountancy, business, trade and industry. His body is awaiting autopsy. The was a sea of mourners sporting black and red clothing who sobbed and wailed at the demise of the man who his constituents have said meant a lot to them in terms of the assistance that he readily offered for tuition fees, supporting the building of religious edifices and several other social interventions. The deep sense of the loss of the late MP was felt as people from across the political divide, including stalwarts from the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), NPP party faithful and supporters, traditional rulers, government officials, staff of Parliament and other sympathisers trooped to the Centre to express their grief on the sad event. Among the High profile personalities that were present were Vice President Kwesi Amissah Arthur, Nana Addo Danquah Akufo Addo, the NPP flagbearer for the 2016 elections and his running mate, Dr Mahmoud Bawumia. Proceedings at the August House was adjourned to enable members give respects to their colleague who exactly two weeks ago were with them; eulogising in statement on the floor of Parliament, his grandfather, the late Joseph Kyeretwsei Boakye Danquah, nicknamed the 'doyen of Ghanaian politics' because of his role in the fight for Ghana's independence. In less than a week later, his colleagues were served an unpalatable menu on Tuesday morning of his departure in a gory manner by the alleged attacker. Members of the House upon the news suspended sittings and all official engagements on that day, visiting the Shiashie residence to commiserate with the family of their departed colleague, with leadership promising the family to participate in the rites in honour of the late Danquah Adu. The sombre looking delegation, led by the Deputy majority leader Alfred Agbesi and Minority Leader Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu, arrived at the Centre and took turns to greet the family, showing their respect to the chief mourners by presenting a quantity of drinks and other presents to the bereaved family. Tradition was on display, as the giant Fontomfrom drums and other smaller drum 'tam tammed' to echo the pain of the loss of the law maker. At the outskirts of the Centre, were business people who took advantage of the one-week celebration to sell NPP party paraphernalia in the colours of red, blue and white. GNA 19.02.2016 LISTEN Accra, Feb 17, GNA - Mr Daniel Norris Bekoe, Media and Communications Lecturer at the Pentecost University College, has appealed to editors and management of newspapers to dedicate at least a page of their publications to agriculture reporting. He said the success of Ghana's agricultural development largely depended on the nature and extent of the use of the mass media to mobilise the people for development Mr Bekoe, spoke to the Ghana News Agency in Accra on the sideline of a day's workshop for media personnel and farmers on the media's contribution to agricultural reportage, said agriculture which is the backbone of Ghana's economy must be given some priority. He also appealed to media owners and management to release their reporters to go to the rural areas and report on problems facing farmers. Currently almost all agricultural activities in the country are depended on rainfall agriculture, however, there was the need for the modernisation of agriculture and the promotion of irrigation farming, he said Mr Bekoe cautioned that with the current developments in climate change, if care was not taken to develop irrigation farming, the nation may have the problems with food supply as happenned in 1983, when the was shortages of food in the country. 'We need to ensure that we modernize agriculture. We should not behave towards agriculture like we have done towards the energy sector, where we sat down for many years and not planning on how to expand energy generation whilst we expanded energy to rural areas,' Mr Bekoe said and noted 'Once food prices rise, it affects every sector of the economy.' On the appointments of Food and Agriculture Ministers, Mr Bekoe said, it must be based on competence and adequate knowledge of the sector, 'we must ensure that such a person understands the dynamics of Ghana's agriculture and knows the challenges facing farmers in the country, and has plans to turn agriculture around' Mr John Yaw Baidoo, a farmer from the Wassa East District and a participant lauded the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) for the free distribution of cocoa seedlings to farmers. The COCOBOD has embarked on a project that aims at distributing 60 million cocoa seedlings to farmers across the country; the move is to ensure that every farmer gets access to these seedlings free of charge to replant as well as raise the country's cocoa output from the current 850,000 tonnes to 1.5 million tonnes. Mr Baidoo however, appealed to the government to ensure that plantain suckers were added to cocoa seedlings to facilitate their growth. He urged the youth to take to agriculture since it is a highly lucrative sector to engage in. GNA Accra, Feb 18, GNA - A forum to identify, discuss and chart positive attitudes towards the management and handling of issues, which result in industrial disputes in the Public Service has been organised by the National Labour Commission (NLC), in Accra. The forum gave social partners and labour unions the opportunity to interact on issues arising out of the implementation of the Single Spine Pay Policy (SSPP), which are mainly policy implementation related-disputes. Dr Mrs Bernice Welbeck, the Acting Executive Secretary of the NLC, said the Commission had identified and consolidated such issues to be discussed to enable the participants to engage and chart positive ways on how to manage and address them, especially in this election year. She said the forum was part of a strategy, being implemented by the NLC, to ensure that as much as possible social partners in the employment relationship develop the attitude of prevention instead of resolution. "This means, in the coming years the NLC's focus will be to identify sector-specific issues and plan programmes to assist in addressing them," she noted. Dr Welbeck said since the implementation of the SSPP, a number of complaints had been received, especially from the Health and Education sectors, which were continuously recording high number of disputes each year. 'Our records show that every year, the NLC records an average of seven disputes from organised workers groups in the Public Service either by way of complaints, threats of industrial action or withdrawal of services,' he said. Mr Edward Briku-Boadu, the Chairman of the NLC, said with the implementation of the Policy, the NLC had received a number of complaints filed by public sector unions and associations as well as recorded for a number of labour agitations from the public service ranging from the issue of placement of allowances. He said while the NLC acknowledged the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) as the governmental agency charged with the implementation of the Policy, it was unclear as to who was in charge of managing the employment relationship at the sector level. Mr Briku Boadu said there seemed to be lack of proper coordination between the management of the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies and the FWSC which is a major challenge to the effective resolution of disputes arising out of the implementation of the policy. The lack of clarity was one of the major sources of disputes, he said, adding, that if there was effective communication between the sectors involved, the Agencies and the FWSC, the disputes would have been minimised if not completely avoided. Mr Briku-Boadu said the issues had been consolidated and presented include: job re-evaluation and re-grading, placement on the SSSS, conversion difference, payment of incremental credits, payment of allowances, book and research allowance, development of conditions of service, payment of outstanding vehicle maintenance allowance, review/negotiation of collective agreement, payment of transfer grants, outstanding promotions and ban on recruitment. Mr George Smith-Graham, the Chief Executive of FWSC, said they had concluded on the conditions of service of doctors, nurses, and health sector workers except the Ghana Hospital Pharmacists Association. He said Ghana Statistical Service carried out a labour market survey last year and the report was before a technical committee ,which when released would come out with market premium which would cater for the critical skills, which should be in short supply. GNA Accra, Feb. 19, GNA - An 18- year- old man who attempted to rob a lady with a toy pistol at Red Row Estate in East Legon has been remanded by an Accra Circuit Court. Charged with unlawful entry and attempted robbery, Prince Dogbey Tamakloe, unemployed, pleaded not guilty. The accused claimed he did not go to the complainant's residence to rob her; and he is expected to reappear before the Court presided over by Mr Aboagye Tandoh on February 29. Prosecuting Chief Inspector Kofi Adu said the accused person resides at Nmai Dzor while the complainant Mrs Angel Quansah is a Human Resource Consultant. On February 11, this year, according to the Prosecution, Tamakloe after entering the premises of the complainant, ordered her to enter her bed room so he could have a chat with her. He said the complainant challenged him as to how he managed to come into her residence but accused did not give any reason. Tamakloe, prosecution said, then demanded food or money from the complainant and she gave him 10 Ghana cedis. Prosecution said Tamakloe returned to the complainant's house with a toy pistol the following day and this time he attacked her in her kitchen and ordered her not to shout. Chief Inspector Adu said the complainant mustered courage and shouted for help and neighbours assisted her and arrested Tamakloe who hid behind the complainant's wardrobe. When the accused was sent to the Police Station, a blade and a comb was found on him. Prosecution said the accused in his caution statement admitted entering the residence of the complainant unlawfully, but he did not have the intention to rob. GNA Accra, Feb. 19, GNA - AngloGold Ashanti has called for the immediate restoration of law and order in Obuasi and on the mine to enable it to continue with its feasibility study to get the mine back on track. Mr Asubonteng said AngloGold Ashanti had been in contact with government at various levels since the withdrawal of the military from the mine, and would continue to liaise with government to ensure that law and order was restored. 'Our position is that we want the mine operational area to be secured,' Eric Asubonteng, Head of Operations told the Ghana News Agency in an interview and expressed fears that if the situation is not resolved quickly, the illegal miners might entrench themselves. He said the invasion of the concession by illegal miners was not a healthy one as AngloAshanti was working to get investors to help turn the mine around. 'Obviously this is not a very helpful situation. Towards the end of last year we were looking for partners. Randgold came into the picture and they subsequently pulled out. We have since then be working on how best to get it back on track and having a security situation like this doesn't help investment decisions at all,' Mr Asubonteng said. Anglogold Ashanti about two weeks partially suspended operations rendering only essential services following clashes between illegal miners and some of its staff, leading to the death of the company's Communications Manager, John Owusu. He said the current situation was a big worry to the company to the extent that 'we've pulled out our non-essential staff so you can reasonably expect that even if there is a new investor sitting on the wings wanting to come in, this is a situation that would negatively impact their decision,' he said. GNA 19.02.2016 LISTEN Accra, Feb. 19, GNA - Chief Superintendent Martin Ayiih, the Adenta Divisional Commander, has said car snatching is on the increase and entreated the public to avoid using unregistered vehicles and motorbikes at night. He said the night police patrols may detain such vehicles till the next morning and urged the public to memorise the Police emergency numbers - 191 or shortcode 1855 for users of MTN and Vodafone. Chief Superintendent Ayiih, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said there was an upsurge of robberies in the district which often occurs between 2200hrs to 0200hrs, and there was the need for people to form 'whatsapp' groups for neighbourhood security purposes so that others could be alerted should an incident occur. He said children should also be taught to memorise the police emergency numbers so that if parents were not at home, they could call the police in times of distress. Chief Superintendent Ayiih said there was the need for all private security personnel to be registered with the police for security training, saying that is key to thwarting all robbery efforts. He said the robbers or burglars, who sometimes wore masks and carry deadly weapons preferred stealing iphones and other electronic gadgets including flatscreen televisions. Chief Superintendent Ayiih said there was also the need for the public to make indelible marks on some of their valuable items so that they could easily be identified should the suspects be arrested. He said another method used by some burglars was with the use of a sticky substance (such as glue ) on a pad attached to a stick, citing examples, Chief Supt Ayiih said a lady woke up to realise that her hand bag, with its valuables, had been emptied. He said, quite unfortunately, in all the many cases of the robberies reported, no distress calls were made during the incident and that reports were made after incident had occurred, stressing the need to memorise the Police emergency numbers. GNA Abuja (AFP) - A Nigerian court on Tuesday ordered that the identities of witnesses in the high-profile treason trial of a separatist leader be kept secret over fears they could be targeted. Nnamdi Kanu heads the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) group which spearheads the Igbo people of southeast Nigeria's claim for a separate "Biafra state". He is in the dock alongside three other men and they face various allegations including terrorism charges. Despite having been granted bail, Kanu has been in state custody since his arrest in October 2015. Federal High Court Justice Binta Nyako ruled that the names of security operatives serving as prosecution witnesses should be "classified". Speaking in the capital Abuja, the judge said the court would separate protected witnesses from the main court using screens as well as providing special entrances for their use. The prosecution argued that they would be at risk if their identities became known. "I won't take that. I want my trial in the public," Kanu shouted from the dock. There were cries of "no to secret trial" from the public gallery following the judge's secrecy order. Kanu's lawyer Ifeanyi Ejiofor said they would appeal the ruling. "He was accused in the open. The trial must be conducted in the open," he said. The trial was adjourned to January 10. Prosecutors allege that Kanu, who also ran the London-based Radio Biafra, was head of an armed insurgent group. In December last year, President Muhammadu Buhari alleged that Kanu committed "atrocities" against Nigeria. A previous unilateral declaration of an independent Republic of Biafra in 1967 led to a brutal civil war that left hundreds of thousands dead in nearly three years of fighting. 19.02.2016 LISTEN VOLTA CHIEF DECLARES VICTORY FOR AKUFFO-ADDO REACTION BY THE GHANA NYIVE CHIEF, TOGBE AKLAMA IV MONDAY, 15TH FEBRUARY 2016 My attention has been drawn to a Daily Guide and several online publication of Monday, 8th February, 2016 to the effect that Volta Chief declares victory for Akufo Addo. I wish by this statement react to the inaccuracies contained in the said publications alleged to have been made by Togbe Apasu, more so when it has serious implications on the public image of Nyive Community. In the first place, I wish to state that Togbe Kwaku Apasu is not the Chief of Nyive as alleged by the story but a sub-Chief of Ghana-Nyive. To clarify this point, we have Togo-Nyive and Ghana-Nyive with the Traditional and Customary overlords being Togo-Nyive whose division is Ghana-Nyive. I (Togbe Aklama IV) am the Traditional head and for that matter the Chief of Ghana-Nyive. It is therefore inaccurate for the publication to refer to Togbe Apasu who is the Omankrado or Dutor fia of Ghana-Nyive as the Chief of Nyive. That it is inappropriate to classify our brothers and sisters and relatives living on the Togolese side of the border as Togolese and going ahead to describe their participation in our electoral matters as illegal, is most unfortunate due to the historical antecedents of the Trans-Volta Togoland predating the independence of Gold-Coast now Ghana and the ramifications of the 1956 plebiscite. To buttress my point, Togbe Apasu himself have his parental lineage from Togo-Nyive but by virtue of him being a member of the family in Togo-Nyive owning the land on which people of Ghana-Nyive are settled, and by himself owning a property and residing in Ghana-Nyive and also being a Chief (Omankrado) in Ghana-Nyive, he could be classified as having a dual Nationality. How then can Togbe classify his other siblings and relatives and others who have also found themselves living on the other side of the border just like him by family ties, marriage, faming activities or job purposes as Togolese Nationals whose participation in their civic responsibilities as illegal, if the statement attributed to him is true and anything to go by, for which I still want to hold breath for Togbe Apasu unless otherwise confirmed by himself. That it is also inaccurate that the people of Ghana-Nyive and for that matter Nyive are disappointed in the NDC Government for total lack of development in the area, if I may put it. I can recall that Nyive though would have wished for more, has seen an appreciable facelift during NDC era. To mention a few, a). President Rawlings under NDC constructed the steal bridge that links Ghana-Nyive to Togo-Nyive that saw a boom of trans-border trading and other activities in the 90s. b). Hon. Kofi Attoh, former MP for Ho central constructed a community information centre with internet connectivity which serves as a community library with full set of computers for an ICT purpose. He also facilitated the rural electrification project for us. c). Hon. Isaac Kodobisah, former Ho Municipal Chief Executive facilitated a US-AID sponsored mechanized water system for us, built a 12-seater WC toilet with shower system for us, built a 3-unit classroom block for us, and acquired the market project land and promised an Urban Development Grant facility to reconstruct the Nyive Market for us which the current MCE, Madam Fafa Adinyira is carrying through for us, much to the benefit of the natives and the entire Nordu catchment Area. Infact Hon. Kodobisah, James Klu and Kweku Anyidoho and others from our Nordu area were very instrumental in the NDC Governments construction of the High Way from Ho-Tokokoe, Nyive-Atikpui through Shia-Klave which is continuing now from Klave to Kpedze. So one may ask, if these are not tangible and visible developments, then one wonders what else can we classify so? Your guess is as good as mine. d). Hon. Kpodo, the current MP is also making moves to have our clinic converted into a Polyclinic for us among others that he is also championing within the entire Ho Central Constituency. It is my believe that others yet to be done will also surely see the light of day in course of time. To conclude, I wish to state that I respect the individual rights and liberties of Togbe Apasu to belong to a political party of his choice but sharply disagree with where the story purports him to be making such highly political-sensitive comments and accusations as though, he was speaking for the entire Nyive community for which I dissociate the Elders and people of Ghana-Nyive from such inaccurate and disingenuous comments and claims likely to jeopardize the long cherished peace and tranquility that our area has enjoyed over the years, more so in a highly charged political atmosphere in an election year as we have at hand in Ghana today. I wish to state that as Chiefs, we are precluded by articles 276 (1) of the 1992 constitution and section 57 (3) of the Chieftaincy act 2008, act 759 from engaging in active partisan politics of this Kind. I wish however to assure all political parties on behalf of the people of Nyive of equal and level playing field once they are prepared to play by the rules and dictates of the political game. I therefore urge Togbe Apasu to come out to clear the air and set the records straight. God bless Nyive, and long live Ghana. Thank you. TOGBE AKLAMA IV (DUFIA OF GHANA-NYIVE) Tel: 0208675638 An image released by the Tunisian interior ministry on February 19, 2016 shows Noureddine Chouchane, targeted by a US air strike on a Libyan training camp. By (Tunisia interior ministry/AFP) 19.02.2016 LISTEN Washington (AFP) - A US air strike targeting an Islamic State training camp in Libya on Friday "likely" killed an operative of the extremist group who was planning attacks on Western interests, US officials said. Noureddine Chouchane, who was also known as "Sabir," had been linked to two deadly attacks in Tunisia last year. He was believed killed when US warplanes and drones destroyed the training station in a rural area near Sabratha, outside Tripoli. "We took this action against Sabir in the training camp after determining that both he and the ISIL fighters at these facilities were planning external attacks on US and other Western interests in the region," Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said, without providing specifics. "We see what's happening in Iraq and Syria and we believe that these fighters in Libya posed a threat to our national security interests," he said. Chouchane is suspected of being behind two IS-claimed assaults. The first, in March, saw an attack on the National Bardo Museum in Tunis that killed 21 tourists and a policeman. In July, an attack on a beach resort near the Tunisian city of Sousse killed 38 tourists -- including 30 Britons. Cook said officials were still assessing the results of the strike. The Sabratha council published pictures showing mattresses and blankets among the rubble and a piece of metal with the inscription "Islamic State." A US defense official said Chouchane was "likely" killed. Libyan officials said Friday's dawn raid killed more than 40 people. Cook would not confirm the figure but said a "significant" number was dead, and that as many as 60 people had been known to use the training camp. "Destruction of the camp and Chouchane's removal will eliminate an experienced facilitator and is expected to have an immediate impact on ISIL's ability to facilitate its activities in Libya, including recruiting new ISIL members, establishing bases in Libya, and potentially planning external attacks on US interests in the region," Cook said. He added the strike showed the United States will target the IS group "whenever it is necessary." The administration of President Barack Obama has faced criticism over the pace and scope of its anti-IS operations, and the US-led coalition that has been bombing IS targets in Iraq and Syria for the past 18 months has come under increasing pressure to expand beyond those two countries. While the campaign has seen some successes in Iraq and Syria, IS jihadists have increased their presence in Libya and established a stronghold in the Mediterranean coastal town of Sirte. The Pentagon estimates there to be some 5,000 IS fighters in Libya, many of whom come from neighboring Tunisia. The latest US strike in Libya comes after a November action that killed top IS leader Abu Nabil, an Iraqi also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al-Zubaydi. And in December the Pentagon acknowledged that a group of US special operations troops who traveled to Libya to "foster relationships" was kicked out of the country soon after arriving. Charlotte Osei 19.02.2016 LISTEN The Electoral Commission has suspended the work of the controversial 18-member Steering Committee following stiff opposition by representatives of political parties. This it said would enable the Commission to review concerns raised by the major opposition political parties. The EC made this known at the just ended Inter-Party Advisory Committee meeting to consider key issues for the 2016 general election. Tension rises at IPAC meeting: There was tension during the Inter-Party Advisory Committee (IPAC) meeting held at the headquarters of the Electoral Commission (EC) with key members of political parties in attendance. In a charged atmosphere the opposition parties called for the annulment of the Steering Committee but the EC was adamant at the initial stages. The formation of the Steering Committee for the 2016 general election by the Commission dominated public discussion for some time now. Opposition parties accused the EC of not being objective in its selection of some members of the Steering Committee after it was revealed that some key members of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) have been added. . The meeting was to address three key issues: 1) preparation towards the 2016 general election highlighting the controversial 18-member Steering Committee constituted by the EC 2) to consider the audited account of the political parties, 3) and political party representation at IPAC meetings. A member of the Steering Committee, Dr. Karl Mark Arhin is the former Director of International Affairs of the NDC. He is currently the Deputy Executive Secretary of National Service Secretariat (NSS). Arhin is reported to have resigned from the Committee, although Director of Public Affairs of the EC says the Commission has not recieved any communication to that effect. Representation at todays IPAC meeting: In attendance were General Secretary of the NDC, Mr. Johnson Kwadwo Asiedu Nketia popularly known as General Mosquito, the New Patriotic Partys (NPP) former chairman, Mr. Peter Mac Manu, Mr. Joe Osei-Owusu and Mr. O.B Amoah. The National Chairman of the People's National Congress (PNC), Mr. Bernard Mona and the General Secretary, Mr. Atik Mohammed were also in attendance. -Myjoyonline The Member of Parliament for Manhyia North has accused government of deliberately withholding the facts and details surrounding the transfer of two Guantanamo Bay ex-detainees to the country. Foreign Affairs Minister, Hanna Tetteh, appeared before parliament for an in-camera briefing on Friday 19 February over the hosting of the two terror suspects, who have been in Ghana since January 7, 2016. Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, who spoke with Class News on the issue said: Im scandalised by what I didnt hear than what I heard. No reason has been given for accepting these Guantanamo detainees here. The Minister of Foreign Affairs spoke at length telling the countries where America has returned some of these killers. What she fails to say, which Im scandalised by, is that all those countries were accepting their citizens. She said nothing to parliament except English, the Minister lamented. The MP further explained that she never in her statement answered truly, the total number of deportees. She never told us that they had turned Ghana into a refugee transit cell. She never told us how the president, alone could have negotiated such an agreement, he lamented. Ghanas Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement Wednesday January 6, 2016 that the two men have been cleared of any involvement in terrorist activities and would be accepted for a period of two years, after which they may leave the country. In Africa, apart from Ghana, Cape Verde has also accepted two of such detainees. But the decision has been met with stiff opposition. Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby were held for more than 13 years at the detention facility in Cuba. They were unanimously approved for transfer by the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force, according to a Pentagon statement. The Minority in Parliament, earlier raised concerns about the failure of the presidency to consult the House over the matter since the news came to the limelight. A former Deputy Minister for the Interior, K.T. Hammond, at the time, said the two should be sent back to Guantanamo Bay. The Minority recently held a press conference and said the presidents unilateral decision to have the two transferred to Ghana, per an agreement between the US and Ghana, makes Ghana's president liable for impeachment. Tripoli (AFP) - A US air strike on a jihadist training camp in Libya killed dozens of people Friday, probably including a senior Islamic State group operative behind attacks in Tunisia, officials said. In Washington, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said Noureddine Chouchane and other jihadists had been planning attacks against US and other Western interests. It was the second US air raid in the violence-wracked North African country targeting the fast-expanding jihadist group in the past three months. The strike early Friday against an IS camp near the city of Sabratha "likely killed" IS operative Chouchane, a US official said earlier. Britain's defence ministry said the strike on the camp was carried out from a Royal Air Force base, RAF Lakenheath. "I was satisfied that its destruction makes us all safer, and I personally authorised the US use of our bases," Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said in a statement. A jihadist safe house was destroyed in the dawn raid about 70 kilometres (42 miles) west of Tripoli, according to Hussein al-Dawadi, an official in Sabratha near the border with Tunisia. "The raid killed 41 people who were all inside the house," Dawadi told AFP. "The vast majority of those killed were Tunisians who were probably members of IS." A suspect wounded in the strike said he had been taken to the camp blindfolded to train in combat, Dawadi added. The Pentagon's Cook said the strike was taken because the jihadists were planning attacks. "We took this action against (Chouchane) and the training camp after determining that both he and the ISIL fighters at these facilities were planning external attacks on US and other Western interests in the region," he said, without elaborating. - 'Four big hits' - Tunisia's interior ministry issued a picture of Chouchane Friday and in a statement said he was a "dangerous terrorist" and a wanted man. The website of the Sabratha Municipal Council said rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons were found in the house, which was rented by foreigners including Tunisians. It posted pictures that showed mattresses and blankets among the rubble and a piece of metal with the inscription "Islamic State". An AFP photographer at the scene saw four large holes he said were probably caused by missiles. "We heard four big hits at around 3 am that shook our houses," resident Moussaab Kamouka said. Chouchane is suspected of being behind an attack in July on a beach resort near the Tunisian city of Sousse that killed 38 tourists -- including 30 Britons. He is also accused of involvement in an attack on the National Bardo Museum in Tunis in March that killed 21 tourists and a policeman. Both assaults were claimed by IS, which Washington is also targeting with air strikes in Syria and Iraq where the group has proclaimed an Islamic "caliphate" and committed widespread atrocities. The Pentagon's Cook said Washington was still assessing the results of Friday's raid. "Destruction of the camp and Chouchane's removal will eliminate an experienced facilitator and is expected to have an immediate impact on ISIL's ability to facilitate its activities in Libya, including recruiting new ISIL members, establishing bases in Libya, and potentially planning external attacks on US interests in the region," he said in a statement. He said the strike showed the US will target IS "whenever it is necessary". - Obama pledge - In November, a US air strike in Libya killed an IS leader, Abu Nabil, an Iraqi also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al-Zubaydi. It was the first US strike against an IS leader in Libya, where the Pentagon estimates the jihadist group has about 5,000 fighters. US President Barack Obama vowed Tuesday not to let IS build a base in Libya. "We are working with our other coalition partners to make sure that, as we see opportunities to prevent ISIS from digging in in Libya, we take them," Obama said. "We will continue to take actions where we got a clear operation and a clear target in mind." IS has exploited the turmoil in Libya since the overthrow of dictator Moamer Kadhafi five years ago, raising fears that it is establishing a new stronghold on Europe's doorstep. Last June, it captured the city of Sirte, 280 miles (450 kilometres) east of Tripoli, and has since attacked coastal oil facilities and staged a string of suicide bombings. The internationally recognised government has been based in the country's far east, having fled a militia alliance including Islamists that overran the capital in August 2014. The alliance has its own administration and parliament in the capital. The UN is pushing the two sides to back a unity government to tackle jihadists and people-smugglers. Cape Town (AFP) - For the second week in a row all-rounder Chris Morris conjured a victory for South Africa on Friday, taking the hosts to a three-wicket win over England off the last ball of the first Twenty20 international at Newlands. England looked set to defend a modest total as Reece Topley started the last over, with South Africa needing 15 runs to win. Kyle Abbott stole a single to get Morris on strike. The tall Morris struck the next two balls for four and six. After a dot delivery, he hit twos off the last two balls. Topley had a chance to run out Abbott to force a tie and a super over but fumbled a throw from long-off. Morris finished with 17 not out off seven balls. A week earlier his 62 off 38 balls was a match-winner in the fourth one-day international. The man of the match, though, was leg-spinner Imran Tahir, who took four for 21 to restrict England to 134 for eight after the tourists were sent in to bat. England looked set for a big total as opening batsmen Jason Roy and the in-form Alex Hales hit 38 off the first 3.3 overs before Roy clipped Kagiso Rabada to Hashim Amla at mid-wicket. Tahir came on to bowl after the six-over power play had yielded 50 runs for Roy's wicket. He struck with his fourth ball when Hales top-edged a sweep to backward square leg. JP Duminy held the catch despite being knocked to the ground by Rabada, who was also running for the ball. Tahir followed up by dismissing Ben Stokes, Eoin Morgan and Moeen Ali. The latter two wickets were off successive balls and he narrowly missed a hat-trick when a googly went over Chris Jordan's middle stump. South Africa made a confident start, with Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers putting on 31 for the first wicket. But England bowled well on a slow pitch and no batsman was able to dominate. All-rounder Ben Stokes and leg-spinner Adil Rashid were impressive in the middle overs, taking one for 19 and one for 24 respectively. It seemed to be England's match when Chris Jordan dismissed David Miller and David Wiese in the penultimate over. But that merely set the stage for Morris. The Delhi Daredevils, who paid over $1 million for his services in the 2016 Indian Premier League, will feel they have made a good purchase. Parliament may have bought some time to allow for extensive consultation and deliberation on the controversial telecommunications bill but it does need extra effort to convince a lot more Ghanaians to give up their civil liberties if it wants the bill to be passed without any hitch. On Joy FM's Ghana connect program, two panelists Denis Armah and James Apedor shredded the Bill in its current form whilst flagging the potential by government to abuse the soon-to-be law by tapping into people's private calls. A third panelist, David Asiedu, who was ready to give up part of his liberty, if this law is responsibly regulated, even has a problem with sections of the Bill and wants them changed. The Postal Packets and Telecommunications Bill has sent many tongues wagging in protest of a Bill that will allow personnel of the National Security to listen, record, monitor, intercept or tamper with telecommunication messages. The Bill among other things is to help in the fight against terrorism, money laundering and other trans-national criminal activities. If the Bill is passed into law, the National Security Coordinator will have the power to snoop into people's private conversation if he has any suspicion that a person may be involved in any criminal activity. Even though the coordinator will be doing this in concert with a High Court judge, the bill in its current form gives sweeping powers to the Security Coordinator to tamper with people's private messages. Panelists on Ghana Connect did not fail to raise their objections to the bill, even though they applauded Parliament for extending time for inputs into the Bill by two more weeks. Denis Armah, a lawyer said the bill has to be opposed with all vehemence because it is only a recipe for abuse. He said the Bill gives the national security coordinator too much power to snoop into people's privacy. While acknowledging the role of a High Court judge in working to ensure the law is not abused, Armah said the way the Bill has been framed gives the security coordinator an overbearing role. James Apedor James Apedor, a media and communications specialist, who quoted sections of the 1992 Constitution said even though the constitution guarantees the right to privacy of the citizens, the same constitution gives right to security personnel to obtain private information from people if they suspect those persons are up to something mischievous. He wondered why government will seek to go beyond this framework to provide the national security coordinator a blank cheque to record, monitor, intercept or tamper with telecommunication messages of all Ghanaians. He said journalists must resist this bill and rather push for the passage of the freedom of information Bill. "We should not be entertaining this at this time," he stated. David Asiedu also a lawyer and blogger said in the current global dispensation where terrorism and money laundering appear to be the order of the day, he would not mind giving up part of his right to privacy if the Bill is fine tuned. He did not understand how the Bill would allow for the state to jail an official of a telecommunications company for ten years if that official fails to release private information about an individual and yet when the National Security Coordinator is deemed to have lied to get somebody's phone tapped, that coordinator will not be punished. He believes the punitive measures must cut across to ensure fairness to all players. Accra, Feb. 19, GNA - The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Madam Hannah Tetteh, was in Parliament on Friday to apprise a closed sitting of the House on Ghana's hosting of the two former Guantanamo Bay detainees. The two Yemenis - Mahmoud Omar Mohammed Bin Atef, 36, and Khalid Shayk Mohammed, 34 - were transferred from the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba to Ghana by the United States Government. The presence of the two has generated public discussion as to the safety and security of Ghanaians in relation to their backgrounds as ex-convicts from a known US terrorist detention and correctional facility. The US Government, however, maintains that the two pose no threat to the safety of Ghanaians. Speaker Edward Doe Adjaho, in an address before the House went into the close-door sitting, noted that despite the matter being of public interest it was also before the 'highest court.' Speaker Adjaho said the decision to hold the briefing in camera was arrived at in consultation with the leadership of the House. He added: 'In my mind it does not amount to pandering to another arm of Government.' Many legislators, mainly from the Minority side, have raised concerns with government's acceptance of the two Yemeni's and have stated that government should have brought the issue before the peoples representatives in Parliament. Earlier in the week, the Minority New Patriotic Party (NPP) caucus held a press conference to register their objection to the in camera briefing of the House, on the grounds of the matter being of public interest. GNA Cape Coast, Feb 19, GNA - Professor Domwini Dabire Kuupole, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast (UCC), has said there is the need to dissolve the Power and Energy Ministries and constitute a team of experts to solve our energy concerns. He said there was waste and duplication in the system, particularly in the creation of ministries, and tasked Ghanaians to be honest and discuss issues affecting them objectively, devoid of partisan politics. Professor Kuupole made the call when he chaired an 'experts' forum' at the UCC on Thursday. The event was on the theme: 'Sustainable and integrated approach in solving the perennial energy crisis: issues of production and energy sources, distribution and consumption'. The forum, attended by students, energy experts, representatives from academia and industry, was instituted by the UCC branch of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) in 2014. It seeks to among others, create an independent, non-partisan and multidisciplinary discussion of relevant global, national and local issues to influence policies. It also seeks to promote knowledge sharing in the academic community and provide evidence based independent and non-partisan policy alternatives for consideration by government. Prof. Kuupole said it was time the mysteries surrounding the energy sector was unveiled and the true picture of the energy situation notably, the mis-match between supply and demand and other challenges in that sector, be dealt with by a technical team. We should be honest as Ghanaians not to politicize our own issues, he emphasized, adding that the technical team should be charged and challenged to find a better solution to solve the energy crisis in the country. He praised UCC-UTAG for the forum and stressed that they were fulfilling the mandate of universities to generate knowledge to be used to help solve national and global problems. Speaking on the Topic: 'Re-engineering sustainable energy production for national development', Dr Charles Wereko-Brobby, Policy Analyst and Energy Expert, asked the government to allow energy professionals to find solutions to the crisis. He also advised politicians to stop politicizing the energy crisis and called for a symbiotic relationship between academia and government, researchers and policy makers to help deal with the crisis. Dr Wereko-Brobby, who is a former Chief Executive Officer of the Volta River Authority (VRA), urged the government to stabilize the currency to help reduce the cost of power to Ghanaian consumers. Dr Ishmael Ackah, an Energy Expert at the Africa Centre for Energy Policy, who spoke on the topic: 'Effective and efficient energy distribution for industrial, commercial and domestic use' urged the government to fully pay its debts to the ECG to help serve Ghanaians better. He also called for the Public Utility and Regulatory Commission (PURC) to be independent, fair and firm, adding that the wastage in the energy distributional chain through loses was an issue that must be given due attention because it was one of the factors draining the country's economy and crippling the operations of ECG. GNA Accra, Feb. 19, GNA - Enterprise Insurance has paid a visit to some of its key business clients in the South and North industrial area to see how their operations were progressing eight months after the June 3 flood disaster. The visit forms part of the Insurance company's efforts at deepening its relationship with clients and also in keeping with its core value of customer focus. Ms Phyllis Woode-Nartey, Head, Business Development Communications and Sales, said the company as part of providing world class insurance solutions has embarked on the visit to see how clients who suffered losses during the flood and disasters of 2015 were getting t on. Ms Woode-Nartey said, 'The visit is the company's way of meeting and interacting with our cherished customers who are the very reason for which we are in business. It also provides us with first hand appreciation of the clients' needs and for understanding of their operations.' The visit gave the management of Enterprise Group an opportunity to familiarise itself with the activities and operations of the various institutions. It also offered the affected companies the opportunity to ask questions bothering them. Ms Woode-Nartey said as an insurance company, Enterprise was interested in the growth and development of its clients and customers. Enterprise Insurance has so far made claims payment of more than GH57 million to its customers who suffered from the June 3 flood in Accra last year. Some of the beneficiary companies which received insurance cover after the incident are the Mohinani Group, Worldwide Health Limited and Far East Mercantile. She said the company was not only interested in paying claims, but in ensuring that 'after the claims were paid in the event of any eventualities, the clients will bounce back to full business operation.' Since this is not the first time for such visits, she said the company would be embarking on similar industrial visits later in the year. Mr Raman Venkat, the Financial Controller of the WorldwideHealth Limited, thanked the management of Enterprise Insurance for the assistance provided during last year's unfortunate incident, saying it has been helpful to the company. 'We have had a lot of discussions and deliberations with the management of Enterprise on the growth of our business and that has been encouraging,' he said. Mr Ashok Mohinani, the Chief Executive Officer of the Mohinani Group, said insurance was integral in every business, especially when the unexpected happened. He said many a time, businesses found it difficult to survive whenever they were hit by any disaster, 'but when you have an insurance cover, you do not have much worry.' He, therefore, called on companies and institutions to insure their businesses before the unexpected happens. GNA Accra, Feb. 19, GNA - Mr Alain A. Gbeasor, the Board Chairman of Alliance for Young Entrepreneurs, has appealed to the Government to create conducive atmosphere and enabling environment for the youth to go into entrepreneurship. He said Ghana's economy needed to be expanded and developed, which could only be done when young people got into business; 'employ themselves and employ others'. Mr Gbeasor, speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Accra, appealed to the Government to allocate contract quotas to the youth, so that companies owned by the youth would not have to compete with the well-established ones for contracts. He said as part of efforts to promote youth entrepreneurship, government must also give discounts on the cost of registration of their companies at the Registrar General's Department and when registering their products with the Ghana Standards Authority and the Foods and Drugs Authority. Mr Gbeasor, who is also a youth entrepreneur, urged young entrepreneurs to learn from the other entrepreneurs who had made it in life. He urged entrepreneurs who had succeeded in their fields to put their success stories into writings so as to encourage young people to learn from them and start where they left off. GNA 19.02.2016 LISTEN Accra, Feb. 19, GNA - President John Dramani Mahama on Friday tasked Mr John Kudalor, the new Inspector General of Police and the police administration to thoroughly investigate the circumstances that led to the death of over 60 persons in Wednesday's horrific accident. The accident involving a Metro Mass Transit Bus and a cargo vehicle claimed over 60 lives at Kintampo in the Brong-Ahafo Region. He said government on its part would provide the necessary assistance to those admitted at the health facilities and families of the deceased. President Mahama, who was swearing-in the new IGP at the Flagstaff House-Kanda, said the loss of more lives through road accidents were unacceptable. Mr Kudalor, who was appointed weeks ago, succeeds Mr Mohmamed Alhassan who is now on retirement. He called for strict implementation of laws that would compel transport owners to adhere to the high standards of maintenance to eliminate the frequent road accidents and fatalities in the country. President Mahama also called on the authorities in charge of ferries across the country to ensure their regular maintenance to avoid the perennial problems they faced in their areas of operations. The President congratulated Mr Kudalor for his elevation and said his appointment should be a morale booster in the service. He urged the new IGP and his administration to be up to the task, particularly in this election year. Mr Kudalor thanked President Mahama for giving him the opportunity to serve at the highest level of the police administration and gave the assurance that he would work hard to justify the confidence reposed in him. He said with the regular support from government, the police service had no excuse to falter in the performance of their duties. The IGP promised to visit and equip all regional offices of the police services to ensure that their performance were up to international standards. GNA Accra, Feb. 19, GNA - The Corpus Christi Catholic Church at Sakumono in Accra, has launched its 25th anniversary celebration with a call on Ghanaians to unite and build a prosperous and peaceful nation. Rev. Fr. Joseph Henry Mensah, the Parish Priest, made the call at the launch of the year-long celebration on the theme: '25 Years as a United Family-knowing, Living and Sharing the Goodness of God.' He explained that no human institution could succeed in a divisive, hateful and vengeful atmosphere adding that Ghana as a nation is no exception. Rev. Fr. Mensah, therefore, urged Ghanaians to bury all ethnic, religious and political differences and come together as one people and contribute meaningfully towards the progress and development of the country. He reminded Ghanaians that in all their endeavors, whether socially, economically and politically, they should always place the nation's interest above all other considerations. He said unhealthy partisanship, religious and ethnic intolerance were affront to effective nation building. 'We should not sit back and look on unconcerned because of partisanship but together, rise up and build a better nation for ourselves and posterity,' Rev. Fr. Mensah said. He tasked members of the Parish and Christians in general to lead the crusade of promoting national unity by making a lot of differences through their lifestyles; in the home, school, church, workplace and the larger society. Rev. Fr. Mensah paid glowing tribute to the founding fathers and present generation of the Parish for helping to build a strong and vibrant church, impacting positively on the community, nation and the world at large. GNA Kumasi, Feb.19, GNA - Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, the nation's second largest referral facility cut a slice of medical history for itself after it successfully put Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillators (ICD) inside four patients suffering from severe heart conditions. This is the first time that there had been an ICD device implantation in the West African sub-region to monitor the heart of a patient and prevent it from stopping. A team of cardiologists and cardiothoracic surgeons at the hospital and their counterparts from Cardiostat International began the process by performing open heart surgery on the four. This was on the fifth mission of the Cardiostat International Team to the country to assist treat heart diseases and perform surgery on patients, as well provide support for capacity building and training of local heart surgeons and cardiologists at KATH. Dr. Isaac Kofi Owusu, Consultant Cardiologist at facility, told journalists that about 60 per cent of patients with congenital, rheumatic and other severe heart diseases die suddenly because of heart failure. The device helps to prevent any such sudden deaths and that alongside regular medication this enables the patient to live longer. He highlighted the need for people to lead healthy lifestyles to prevent heart diseases and said regular blood pressure checks, good eating habits, exercises and proper treatment of sore throat in childhood could reduce heart infections. Dr. Philip Wendschuh, Mission Coordinator of the Cardiostat Team, said the ICD device could add between eight to 10 years to the life of a patient. The device is expensive and costs about US$20,000 dollars. Dr. Wendschuh said ICDs planted in the four patients were procured through the support of Medtronic Company in the United States. Dr. Clement Akomea-Agyin, a United Kingdom (UK)-based Ghanaian cardiothoracic surgeon, with the team said the mission provides opportunity to give help to people with severe heart problems unable to receive regular treatment due to the high cost. GNA Accra, Feb. 19, GNA - The Ghana Standard Authority (GSA) on Friday held a seminar and a mini-made in Africa Expo for women entrepreneurs as part of activities marking Africa Day of Standardisation. Africa Standards Day, initiated by the Africa Organisation for Standardisation (ARSO), a body under the Africa Union (AU), with the aim of pushing for standardisation and conformity assessment agenda on the continent The seminar held under the theme: 'The role of Standardisation in Women's Empowerment', brought together women entrepreneurs in the country to discuss the benefits of standards in the promotion of businesses. Mrs Elizabeth Adetola, Deputy Executive Director in charge of Core Services at Ghana Standard Authority, said the essence of the day is to help in identifying how standards have helped women to expand their businesses. 'As they use standards they will be able to enter new market, and employ more people' she said. Mrs Prudence Asamoah Bonti, GSA, said when standards were applied, businesses become more competitive and they are able venture into new markets. That is why the day was set aside to engage the women and share with them on how to make their business thrive as they apply standards. Most of the entrepreneurs shared their experiences in the application of standards in their businesses and urged those who do not apply the right standards to do so. Mrs Kate Quartey-Papafio, Group Chairperson of Reroy, an indigenous Ghanaian enterprise, said when she started applying standards in her business, she noticed that waste in production were minimised and that also helped her to meet international standards. She urged entrepreneurs to embrace standards by producing quality products and services for both the local and international markets, whilst be innovative and acquiring the needed training. She said entrepreneurs could explore into the solar energy business to help expand Ghana's source of energy supply. Mrs Carlotta Emefa Ayayee, Managing Director of JoeCarl Enterprises Limited, producers of Pepper Sauce said it was the application of standards that has kept her in business since 25 years ago. 'Thanks to GSA who took time to take me through the standardisation processes, it was challenging though but now I'm the one enjoying with high patronage of my pepper sauce' , Mrs Ayayee said. Mrs Florence Ankrah, Managing Director of Florence Fashion, said standardisation helps to structure businesses well, improve the reputation, boost confidence and corporate zone as well as helps one to access more market abroad. GNA Accra, Feb. 19, GNA - President John Dramani Mahama will on Thursday February 25, 2016 tell Ghanaians how his administration has managed the affairs of State and perhaps solicit their endorsement to lead the nation in the next four years. He will appear before the nation through Parliament as he chronicles his administration's achievements in the last calendar year when he delivers the State of the Nation address to the august house. His appearance before the House is in fulfilment of a constitutional requirement. Article 67 of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana states; 'The President shall, at the beginning of each session of Parliament and before a dissolution of Parliament, deliver a message on the state of the nation'. This was announced on the floor of Parliament by the Majority leader Alban Bagbin when he presented the Business Statement for next week. The address will be before the plenary of 275 legislators, who would be joined in the House by observers including representatives of political parties, members of the Council of State, the Trades Union Congress, the Diplomatic Corps, and traditional rulers, representatives of the religious bodies and a cross section of Ghanaians, in the public gallery. It is also expected that the local and international media would be fully represented to capture proceedings of the day which would mainly feature the address of the foremost gentleman of the land. President Mahama will be expected give account of the power crisis, the performance of the various sectors of the economy and international bilateral and multilateral corporations as well as the touchy issue of the transfer of two Yeminis from the Guantanamo bay prison in Cuba to Ghana. He is also expected to speak on the growth prospects of the country, vis-a-vis the current fiscal discipline going into an election and the revised fiscal projections for this year owing to falling price of crude oil on the international market. In the business statement, Finance Minister Seth Terpker is billed to apprise the House on Tuesday February 23, 2016, on the operations of savings and loans and micro finance companies operating in the country. He will also respond to questions on the tonnages of cocoa beans imported into the country between the crop year October 1, 2014 and September 30 2015 by the cocoa processing companies operating in the country. The Water Resources, Works and Housing Minister, Dr Kwaku Agyeman Mensah will also on Friday, February 26, 2016, brief the House on the acute water crisis in the country and the interventions being employed to ameliorate the situation. The Electronic Communications (Amendment) Bill, 2016 and the Development and Classification of Film Bill, 2016 will be presented to the House next week. GNA 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. you are here: business Debate: Will the 2016 Budget session be dead on arrival? The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill is not the only bit of pending business before Parliament when it convenes for the Budget Session of February 23, but it could be the most challenging session yet for the Narendra Modi government. Medibank Private released their financial results for the first half of FY16 this morning. Impressively, MPL was able to increase operating profits by 58.8%, totalling $271.7 million. There must be a lot of sick people in Australia. Or, rather, a lot of Australians worried about getting sick; so they start paying for private healthcare. Some might think its unnecessary, but there are benefits to private healthcare. The amount of choices available in the private sector is one of its biggest hooks. Under private healthcare, you can choose your own physician. Youre also able to have more control over when, and where, you receive medical treatment. But the biggest advantage, I believe, is in the waiting room. If you require surgery, you dont have to wait if you have private healthcare. However, whether private healthcare is really worth it or not is up to the individual. You need to determine if it is really worth it on a cost/benefit basis. And it seems Australians do believe private healthcare is worth the cost. Medibank Private [ASX:MPL] released their financial results for the first half of FY16 this morning. Impressively, MPL was able to increase operating profits by 58.8%, totalling $271.7 million. There were a number factors contributing to the profit increase. More Australians are being admitted to hospital; 20% more in fact. This was a key driver behind the increase in health insurance sales. And health benefit claims drove cost savings for the half. But health insurance premiums were the biggest profit driver for MPL. In six months MPLs premium revenue increased 4.6%. For customers, rising premiums are never good. Yet they might reflect a much bigger issue that needs addressing. Does medical care cost too much? MPLs CEO, George Savvides, believes the sheer cost of healthcare is getting out of hand: The costs of healthcare are rising, Australians are going to hospital more often than they were five years ago, patients are receiving more services and treatments when theyre admitted, and treatments are generally becoming more expensive. Adding to the actual cost of care, rising management expenses, and cuts to their investment income, have hampered MPLs potential performance. Management costs increased 8.5% from the prior corresponding period. Total net returns from MPLs investments have come down from 2.1% to 0.8%. But St John of God healthcare CEO, Michael Stanford, believes this is no excuse to increase premiums. He explains: For the first time I can remember the number of people who are dropping out of insurance exceeded the number going into insurance and that is a significant concern for us because people are dropping out as the population is ageing. Stanford is 100% right; Australias population is getting older. The estimates for the nations future demographics actually look quiet scary. The graph below shows the estimated increase, split by age groups, for Australias population in the decades ahead. Source: Australias Demographic Challenges Stanford notes: There is no doubt that once people past their 40s they start going to hospital more and over 50 it really kicks up. It is really profound if people over 50 start to drop out [of private health cover]. It is definitely the case that ageing relates to the number of things that can go wrong, the number of admissions, and the severity of admissions. However, we must remember that private healthcare is a business, not a charity. There are those, like St John of God, which are non-profit organisations. Yet this doesnt mean that they wont increase premiums to combat rising costs. An ageing population is good for private healthcare companies, but theres a fine line to walk. Stanford indicated that people over 50 start to drop out of private health cover. This could be a major concern for MPL. If the elderly starts to drop out, then changes will be needed. Changes to either premiums or the cost of healthcare will need to be addressed sooner or later. Right now, though, MPL is on top of the world. Management has done its job by increasing profits and adding value for shareholders. Yet one wonders how many elderly men and women were disregarded when management made the decision to increase their premiums. Harje Ronngard, Junior Analyst, Money Morning PS: The private healthcare industry has almost no room to move. The competition is so fierce there are only a few ways to combat costs. But there are plenty of industries that are flourishing. And there are great stocks to be found within those industries. According to Money Mornings Publisher, Kris Sayce, there are five great ASX stocks right now. In his report, The Five Best ASX Stocks for 2016, he will show you exactly where to look for returns. This year there will be five stocks that will define the ASX. And Kriss report he will tell you which ones they are. To get your free copy, click here. STW fell today as the Aussie market drifted lower to reflect a pullback from the US and European markets overnight. What happened to the STW share price? The SPDR S&P/ASX 200 Fund [ASX:STW] tracks the ASX200 broad market index. STW fell today as the Aussie market drifted lower to reflect a pullback from the US and European markets overnight. Why did STW shares do this? One important factor behind movements in the STW has been its correlation with the global market index, particularly the US and the European markets. In essence, global markets are producing strong correlations in the current bear market. They are moving together. This is usually the case for global markets during bear markets. As uncertainty and volatility increase, systematic risk starts to take over fundamental pricing, causing a mispricing in the individual assets in the market. TW tracks the Aussie market, which is precisely doing that right now. Macro events tend to drive markets during bear markets such as now. Oil price, the US economy, central bank actions and China are the main macro drivers in this market right now. What now for STW? Investors buy STW to track the broad index. There are good reasons behind such a passive strategy. For any investor pursuing a beta-only strategy, STW is the most direct asset to achieve that. Going forward, macro events will continue to drive STW pricing. This will also continue to drive correlations between major markets. To pinpoint on a precise forecast for the market is impossible at this point. But what we do know is the market has already gone through a considerable amount of drawdown. This means we must be getting closer to the bottom. I advise investors to strengthen the risk management side of their portfolios with measured trades on low-correlation or negative-correlated assets such as gold. Ken Wangdong+ Emerging Market Analyst, New Frontier Investor February 19, 2016 "Are Green Berets Leading The YPG In North-West Syria?" - "Wrong Question ..." A few days ago we asked the speculative question: Are Green Berets Leading The YPG In Taking The Azaz Pocket? That question was, as we will see, wrong. It is not the YPG that is the relevant part here but some other groups fighting next to it. We wrote: The Kurds in the Azaz pocket have also some support from a professional military. Their moves are very purposeful and controlled. They are clearly coordinated with the Syrian army. The coordination with the Russian airforce works well and there is ground fire coordination with the SAA. ... Who are the professionals that are helping the YPG to take the Azaz pocket? My first thought was of course Russian Spetsnaz. But I asked around and none of my usual sources would confirm this. The sources acknowledged that the YPG in west Syria has special force support but there was some quite unexpected silence over who these forces were. It is clear to me that these are not Syrian special forces. The YPG does not want to be seen as an adjunct to the Syrian government. No one would confirm to me that these are Russian forces even as that would be of no great surprise to anyone. This leads me to speculate that some U.S. special forces are directing the YPG in the Azaz pocket. This in coordination with the Syrian army and the Russians. The idea presumed a split between the CIA, which arms the jihadis with TOWs and other toys, and the U.S. military, which helps the Kurds against the Islamic State jihadis in north-east Syria. big At Sic Semper Tyrannis Pat Lang and The Twisted Genius, both experienced and higher level former spec ops, found that unlikely. But there are now additional data points which support my crazy idea. The "Kurds" besieging the Azaz pocket from the west and the south are not all Kurds. They have local allies with whom they are organized under the label Syrian Democratic Forces. Indeed, according to this report, the Kurds have pulled back from the southern Azaz line and leave it to an allied group. Some of the pro-Syrian troops now there are intimate friends of the U.S. military: On Feb. 10, the YPG and Jaish al-Thuwar (Army of Revolutionaries), two allied SDF units, seized the Menagh air base south of Azaz and then the nearby villages of Maranaz, Malikiye, Der Jammal and Tell Acar. ... The Syrian rebel group Jaish al-Uswar entered Tell Rifaat on Feb. 15. The next day, Ahmed al-Omar, the group's spokesman, said it had cleared Tell Rifat after four days of battles. Tell Rifaat was a key point for logistics operations between Aleppo and Turkey. After Tell Rifaat, SDF units captured the villages of Ain Dejne, Kfar Naya and toward Azaz and then entered Marea. My question was wrong. It was about Green Berets accompanying the YPG. But I should have asked about Green Berets accompanying whoever was moving there, the YPG and/or other groups, and fighting on the pro-Syrian side. Who makes up Jaish al-Thuwar? Established in May 2015, some of its fighters were in the US-supported, but then disbanded, Hazm Movement and the Syrian Revolutionaries Front. Cephed al-Akrad (the Kurdish Front) made up of Kurds who had not joined the YPG is another unit of Jaish al-Thuwar. The Seljuks Brigade and Sultan Selim Brigade of Turkmens, which operate separately from the Turkish-supported Turkmen forces, are also part of Jaish al-Thuwar. An alliance of Arabs, Turkmens and Kurds, Jaish al-Thuwar joined the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces in October 2015. Most of the fighters hail from settlements on the Azaz-Marea line and areas of Menbic, al-Bab and Jarablus currently controlled by IS. It isn't accurate to call Jaish al-Thuwar fighters outsiders. After capturing areas near Azaz, the YPG left them to the control of Jaish al-Thuwar and withdrew to Afrin. Some observers in the Turkish government circles interpreted the move as the YPG using Jaish al-Thuwar as a cover. This may be a bit of an overstatement, as the Americans function as a coordinator between these two SDF units. There is an amalgamation of various small groups, some trained by the U.S. military, which is holding the southern border of the Azaz pocket including the Menagh air base and Tell Rifaat. This group coordinates with the YPG Kurds through U.S. intermediaries. Who then are these intermediaries and who is really leading or "advising" the quite diverse Jaish al-Thuwar? Adding another data point that supports my hunch the Pentagon yesterday admitted that the special forces it put down in Syria to coordinate the Kurds fighting the Islamic State are in contact with the Russian forces in Syria: The Pentagon has asked Russia to stay away from parts of northern Syria where US special operations troops are training local fighters to combat the Islamic State group, military officials said Thursday. The acknowledgement is significant because the Pentagon has repeatedly stressed it is not cooperating with Moscow as the two powers lead separate air campaigns in war-ravaged Syria. Lieutenant General Charles Brown, who commands the US air forces in the Middle East, said US officials had asked Moscow to avoid "broad areas" in northern Syria "to maintain a level of safety for our forces that are on the ground." ... Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said Russia had honored the request, and stressed the Pentagon only provided broad geographic descriptions of where the US troops are, not their precise location. There was "one instance in which we have asked, for the safety of our special operators, (the Russians) to not engage in that particular geographical area," Cook said. "We think it's a reasonable request." The Pentagon last year said it was sending about 50 special operations forces to work with anti-IS fighters in Syria, though officials have said next to nothing about their whereabouts and progress since. Notice that the AFP report above emphasizes "northern Syria". Not "north-east Syria" or "east-Syria" where the YPG, with acknowledged U.S. air and special force support, is successfully cleaning the Hasakah governate of Islamic State trash. The AP report does likewise. The insertion of 50 U.S. special operation forces into Syria was announced at the end of October 2015, around the same time the Jaish al-Thuwar joined the YPG to form the SDF named alliance. Jaish al-Thuwar includes people who have been through the Pentagon's training program. After the Syrian army closed the Azaz pocket the YPG and its allies made fast, elegant and well coordinated moves to take the southern line of the Azaz pocket and to push north from it. A rag-tag force of amateurs would not have been able to operate like that. It is the way that this happened that led me to believe that there were some extraordinary well trained folks involved in it. These folks were coordinating the SDF force itself as well as with the Russians and the Syrian army. So let me rephrase my earlier question about the Green Berets leading the "YPG": Are Green Berets leading the SDF and more so Jaish al-Thuwar in taking the Azaz pocket? If the answer is "Yes" additional questions follow from the above one: Does this demonstrate a split between CIA and the Pentagon with each supporting opposing sides? Is this the real reason for Erdogan's rage over the U.S. affair with the "YPG"? Was this coordinated between Secretary of State Kerry and Foreign Minister Lavrov? What does this mean for the future of Syria? Posted by b on February 19, 2016 at 7:19 UTC | Permalink Comments next page next page When President Woodrow Wilson ran for re-election in 1916, as Europeans slaughtered each other on an unprecedented scale, his slogan was, "He kept us out of war." If Barack Obama were allowed to run for re-election, he could use this slogan: "He kept us out of Syria." Will his successor? Given that the United States has been continuously at war for more than 14 years, you might think this topic would be a focus of the presidential campaign. But it's been largely ignored. Military involvement in foreign conflicts is no longer unusual enough to warrant much attention from the candidates or the electorate. It wasn't always that way. In the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush expressed deep skepticism about using the American military for peacekeeping, nation building and other humanitarian missions. As his security adviser Condoleezza Rice put it, "We don't need to have the 82nd Airborne escorting kids to kindergarten." Once in office, however, Bush abandoned this policy of restraint, launching ground wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Neither was finished, much less won, when he left office. By that time, Americans appeared weary of the toll. Obama was elected in 2008 in part because he was among the few politicians who opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He stuck to the agreement reached by Bush for the withdrawal of U.S. troops by the end of 2011. But he ordered a major escalation in Afghanistan, hoping for a success that would facilitate an early exit. His hopes were not realized. Nearly 10,000 U.S. troops are still there, with no exit date on the calendar. The top American commander in Afghanistan said in December, "My intent would be to keep as much as I could for as long as I could." That war, of course, is rarely even acknowledged on the campaign trail. It has been pushed aside by the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Some 3,700 U.S. troops are in Iraq, assisting the Iraqi army in fighting the new enemy. Obama has been waging an aerial campaign against the group since August 2014, but he has rejected sending additional ground forces. Whatever he does, the problem will be awaiting the next president. If history and campaign rhetoric are any guide, the chances are high that we will wade deeper into the conflict. Some of the Republican candidates have endorsed sending more American troops to fight the Islamic State. John Kasich and Jeb Bush both favor that course. Marco Rubio said if he is elected, "our troop strength in that effort will be determined by what's necessary to achieve victory, not some artificial constraint or an artificial number that I make up in my own head." Though Donald Trump itches to "bomb the s--- out of" the Islamic State, he has indicated he would put more troops into Iraq. Ted Cruz is also partial to assault from the air, pledging to "carpet-bomb them into oblivion." But he says he would dispatch American combat units "if need be." Hillary Clinton has been more cautious, without ruling out that option. In November she said the U.S. "should immediately deploy the special operations force President Obama has already authorized, and be prepared to deploy more as more Syrians get into the fight." Bernie Sanders is the only candidate with a strong aversion to expanding the war. He says the war against the Islamic State should be "led and sustained by nations in the region that have the means to protect themselves." It's not impossible that he will take oath of office 11 months from now. Barring that, though, our military role in Syria and Iraq will probably expand. Clinton is not exactly a safe bet to practice restraint, given her long history of erring on the side of aggressive action. The fierce martial rhetoric of the Republicans, meanwhile, will make it hard for any of them to resist demands for escalation. When you have promised to "destroy ISIS," as they do, you will ultimately be judged on whether you achieve that goal or, at the very least, do everything possible to achieve it. Opening the door to greater involvement is easier than closing it. Judging from the campaign so far, Americans have come to expect more war no matter what. The next president is not likely to surprise them. Steve Chapman blogs at newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/steve_chapman. Follow him on Twitter @SteveChapman13 or Facebook.com/stevechapman13. To find out more about Chapman, visit www.creators.com. Change ( Peace, Love & Unity ) is in the Air Now ! ... Malaysian Minister of Human Resources, Richard Riot, saying it is NOT TRUE that Malaysia will be bringing in 1.5 million new Bangladeshi migrant workers.... When confronted with the statements allegedly made by Ahmad Zahidi, Malaysia's Home Minister, under whom is the Immigration Department, he stood firm stating "It came from him (Zahid) and I think I will stick to my answer saying that the 1.5 million is actually the number of registered Bangladeshi workers.". "The figure that has been mentioned is actually the number of workers registered with the government of Bangladesh through the Ministry of Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment." "The figure of 1.5 million Bangladesh workers is actually the number of workers registered with the Government of Bangladesh through the Ministry of Expatriates' welfare and Overseas Employment for the purpose of employment to 139 countries in the world, including Malaysia, Singapore, UAE and Saudi Arabia," he said. "The perception that 1.5 million workers will be brought in from Bangladesh to Malaysia to work is not true." So, it seems that 1.5 million is figure of Bangladeshis registered in the system in their country - not meaning that they will all come to Malaysia. Richard also said, MoU signed did not mention any figure , just like other MoUs Malaysia has signed with seven other countries - Indonesia, India, Thailand, Cambodia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. The Immigration Department, under the Home Minister, approves and/or issues migrant worker work passes/permits, and maybe also does the LEVY collections. Really, all matters concerning workers should be under the Minister of Human Resources, including the approvals and LEVY collection policies. The Immigration Department should stick to the administrative function of issuing visas. They maybe can reject an application for a work visa/pass for reasons similar to why the disallow any normal visitors coming to Malaysia - security considerations. etc. All matters of Human Resource, Workers, employers and matters related must come directly under the Minister of Human Resources. This will also include the amount of Levy payable by employers of migrant workers. So employers and employer groups should be going to see the Minister of Human Resources - not the Home Minister on matters concerning human resources. Richard Riot also revealed that currently Malaysia's labour policy is that the number of migrant workers in Malaysia SHALL NOT exceed 15% of the total labour force. 15% of the current labour force is Bangladeshi workers in the country totalled 282,287, while Indonesia still tops the list with 828,283 workers, followed by Nepali workers at 526,933... Malaysia currently has 2,135,035 foreign workers,....The current workforce that we have in the country is 15.3 million.... Richard said it was Malaysias policy to ensure that the maximum number of foreign workers would not be more than 15 percent of the countrys total workforce. Interestingly, our Home Minister (also Deputy Prime Minister), Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, also made a statement of his own today stating, '... The government today announced it has put on hold the recruitment of workers from all source countries until it ascertains the actual manpower needs of industries.... "Foreign workers without valid documents or have overstayed in the country will be arrested and sent back to their country of origin,"...' He said enforcement against illegal foreign workers would be stepped up and implemented on a large scale in the country.' 1.5m Bangladeshi workers figure incorrect, says minister Alyaa Azhar Published Updated Today 2:02 pm PublishedUpdated Human Resources Minister Richard Riot has denied claims that the country will bring in 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers. At a press conference today, Richard said the widely spread perception was simply "not correct". "The perception that 1.5 million workers will be brought in from Bangladesh to work in Malaysia is not true," Richard said. "The figure that has been mentioned is actually the number of workers registered with the government of Bangladesh through the Ministry of Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment. "This is not the number that will be recruited (by Malaysia). Bangladesh is sending workers to 139 countries throughout the world," he said. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed yesterday by both Malaysia and Bangladesh, he said, was just like any other MoUs. When it was pointed out to him that Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was the one who announced the figure, Richard said he preferred to "stick to his answer". He added: "It came from him (Zahid) and I think I will stick to my answer saying that the 1.5 million is actually the number of registered Bangladeshi workers." Asked why he had allowed the perception to persist, Richard said he wanted to wait until the MoU was signed. That's the reason why I, as human resources minister, opted not to say anything. That's why I called for the press conference. Not until I signed (it)... it is perhaps rumours or hearsay, even though the word came from the deputy prime minister, he said. MoU subject to review Putrajaya yesterday inked the deal with Dhaka to bring in the Bangladeshi workers into the country. Zahid, in June last year, The workers will enter Malaysia under the G2G (government-to-government) Plus scheme which allows them employment in the construction, service, manufacturing and agriculture sectors, apart from the existing plantation sector opened to them. Meanwhile, Richard said the MoU signed did not mention any figure , just like other MoUs Malaysia has signed with seven other countries - Indonesia, India, Thailand, Cambodia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. However, the MoU will be subject to a review after five years. Asked for the total number of Bangladeshi workers that will actually be brought in, the minister said it all depended on the demand. Employers and companies, said Richard, must log in online, through the Bangladesh Workers Management System, to apply for workers. There is currently no available list of companies that have registered, he said. Sabah, Sarawak have own labour laws Asked whether other states would follow the way of Sabah and Sarawak, which have stated that they would not accept Bangladeshi workers, Richard said the two states have their own labour ordinance. Other states in Peninsular Malaysia don't have their own labour ordinance. Therefore, the question of other states following suit does not arise, he said. Asked whether the government planned to reduce its reliance on foreign workers, Richard said it was Malaysias policy to ensure that the maximum number of foreign workers would not be more than 15 percent of the countrys total workforce. The current workforce that we have in the country is 15.3 million. (Some) 15 percent of this number is 2.3 million, we have not exceeded the figure. Although Malaysia currently has 2,135,035 foreign workers, he admitted that the cap at 2.3 million did not take into account illegal migrant workers. For every 10 legal foreign workers, there are eight illegal workers. That means there are about 1.7 million undocumented workers in the country, he said. Registered Bangladeshi workers in the country totalled 282,287, while Indonesia still tops the list with 828,283 workers, followed by Nepali workers at 526,933 . - At a press conference today, Richard said the widely spread perception was simply "not correct"."The perception that 1.5 million workers will be brought in from Bangladesh to work in Malaysia is not true," Richard said."The figure that has been mentioned is actually the number of workers registered with the government of Bangladesh through the Ministry of Expatriates Welfare and Overseas Employment."This is not the number that will be recruited (by Malaysia). Bangladesh is sending workers to 139 countries throughout the world," he said.The memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed yesterday by both Malaysia and Bangladesh, he said, was just like any other MoUs.When it was pointed out to him that Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was the one who announced the figure, Richard said he preferred to "stick to his answer".He added: "It came from him (Zahid) and I think I will stick to my answer saying that the 1.5 million is actually the number of registered Bangladeshi workers."Asked why he had allowed the perception to persist, Richard said he wanted to wait until the MoU was signed.That's the reason why I, as human resources minister, opted not to say anything.That's why I called for the press conference. Not until I signed (it)... it is perhaps rumours or hearsay, even though the word came from the deputy prime minister, he said.Putrajaya yesterday inked the deal with Dhaka to bring in the Bangladeshi workers into the country.Zahid, in June last year, announced that 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers would be brought to Malaysia in stages to meet the needs of employers from numerous sectors.The workers will enter Malaysia under the G2G (government-to-government) Plus scheme which allows them employment in the construction, service, manufacturing and agriculture sectors, apart from the existing plantation sector opened to them.Meanwhile, Richard said theHowever, the MoU will be subject to a review after five years.Asked for the total number of Bangladeshi workers that will actually be brought in, the minister said it all depended on the demand.Employers and companies, said Richard, must log in online, through the Bangladesh Workers Management System, to apply for workers.There is currently no available list of companies that have registered, he said.Asked whether other states would follow the way of Sabah and Sarawak, which have stated that they would not accept Bangladeshi workers, Richard said the two states have their own labour ordinance.Other states in Peninsular Malaysia don't have their own labour ordinance. Therefore, the question of other states following suit does not arise, he said.Asked whether the government planned to reduce its reliance on foreign workers, Richard saidAlthough Malaysia currently has 2,135,035 foreign workers, he admitted that the cap at 2.3 million did not take into account illegal migrant workers.For every 10 legal foreign workers, there are eight illegal workers. That means there are about 1.7 million undocumented workers in the country, he said.. - Malaysiakini, 19/2/2016 Read more: Zahid: Intake of all foreign workers on hold Read more: https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/330955#ixzz40bEboVKT Bernama Published Updated Today 2:20 pm PublishedUpdated The government today announced it has put on hold the recruitment of workers from all source countries until it ascertains the actual manpower needs of industries. Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the suspension would also enable the government to review the revised two-category levy on foreign workers. He also said that the government would focus on the foreign worker rehiring programme and step up enforcement to ensure that no more foreigners entered the country as workers. "Foreign workers without valid documents or have overstayed in the country will be arrested and sent back to their country of origin," he said at a casual meeting with soldiers at the Muara Tuang Camp, Sarawak. He said enforcement against illegal foreign workers would be stepped up and implemented on a large scale in the country. Zahid, who is also the home minister, said it was hoped that Malaysians, especially youths, would respond to the government call for local people to take up the jobs now held by foreigners and become the mainstay of the nation's workforce to drive national economic growth. "The suspension will be in force until the government is satisfied with the manpower needs of the industries," he said. More than 1,000 soldiers attended the gathering with Zahid, the first event of the deputy prime minister on his working visit to Sarawak beginning today. - Bernama - Malaysiakini, 19/2/2016 Tomorrow, he is scheduled to attend a Prisons Day event in Padang Merdeka, Kuching, and conclude his visit. Just how much will recent home buying changes impact the real estate market in B.C? One veteran lays it all out.The impact of these changes will not change the Vancouver real estate market in any way at all. The real estate market is driven primarily by one thing and one thing alone, Dustan Woodhouse , a broker with Dominion Lending Centres in British Columbia told MortgageBrokerNews.ca. This thing is not low rates, not foreign buyers, not assignment clause flips, not taxation changes, not down payment changes, - it is emotion. Emotion fuels decision making.But that doesnt mean the changes wont impact individual buyers.British Columbias finance minister, Mike de Jong, announced earlier this week that buyers purchasing newly built homes valued under $750,000 can save up to $13,000 through a land transfer tax break.This change will encourage a number of buyers -- both first-time and repeat -- to jump off the fence and into the market, according to Woodhouse."(Repeat buyers) just got given some love; repeat buyers now get an exemption on new builds up to $750,000 as well, Woodhouse said. This is huge news and will likely stimulate the move up buyers to look around as a $13,000 cash expense has just been removed from the process of moving from one property up to a larger, nicer, brand new place.On the flip-side of the changes, however, are purchasers of luxury homes. Under the new changes, they will pay higher land transfer fees."A client purchasing a $4,000,000 home is not slowed by a $20,000.00 increase in purchase taxation; they will still pay the four million, it is a non-issue, Woodhouse said. A mosquito bite, not the sting of a hornet.So no brakes being put on 2M$ plus sales, just an increase in revenue for the Provincial Government to help offset the decrease on the break the Provincial Government is giving to two groups of people who are purchasing brand new properties up to $750,000. With the upcoming announcements of annual budgets by provincial administrations across Canada, economic and policymaking experts warned the public of currently used accounting methods that, while not deceptive, can obscure the true scale of government debtespecially in its infrastructure projects. In a commentary piece for the Financial Post, analysts Ben Eisen, Charles Lammam, and Hugh MacIntyre of the Fraser Institute said that a failure to differentiate between capital budget and operating budget on both the governments and the publics part can cause debt to balloon in the shadows. The analysts noted that the term deficit often refers to the operating budget, which is the difference between the total of expenditures on day-to-day accountabilities and the revenue collected on an annual basis. But when a government borrows to pay for capital spending (building roads, schools, hospitals), it typically records only the annual interest payments and amortization expense in the operating budget. The capital budget is where the province borrows money to pay for its long-term infrastructure spending, they wrote. The Fraser Institute warned that while this staggers the infrastructure costs over several years, it can also mask the actual state of the governments coffers at any given moment as the amount added to the debt would remain unknown for some time. As a result, government funds might be worse off than whats readily apparent to the general public. Eisen, Lammam, and MacIntyre cited the cases of Quebec and British Columbia, which are the only Canadian provinces that are looking forward to balanced budgets in 2016. In spite of the seemingly positive prognosis, though, Quebec is actually expecting debt to swell by $2.6 billion, while B.C. is looking at a $1.7 billion rise (despite $277 million in surplus left over from last year). Ultimately, governments can add more debt to their books for capital projects than from the operating deficit announced in the budget, the analysts said. TRID Survey; CFPB On Financial Innovation; Primary Dealers Still Top Dogs? "A man goes to his nearest zoo. He walks around the entire place and the only animal there is a dog. It was a shih tzu." In a similar vein, I guess, but not humorous in the least, New York's financial regulator is seeking authority to make criminal cases against compliance officers. The Securities and Exchange Commission has a more lenient approach, according to a speech on the issue by Andrew Ceresney, director of the SEC's Enforcement Division. He said the agency would take action against compliance officers "only when the conduct crossed a clear line." We'll see if this moves from investment banks into all financial services... Last week I posted a notice that STRATMOR had launched a "STRATMOR Spotlight" survey entitled "4-Months of TRID - Impact and Experience." STRATMOR Senior Partner Dr. Matt Lind tells me that thus far they've received a strong response from lenders - not surprising since what lender wouldn't want to know the answer to such questions as: How well did the LOS vendors meet TRID requirements? What's been the overall experience thus far? What process changes have lenders implemented? What's worked well? What hasn't? What's TRID cost and how have these costs been absorbed? As I noted last week, taking this survey costs nothing. You pay a modest fee only if and when you choose to view and download survey results, which are expected to be available by mid-March. This way you know how large the survey response has been before purchasing. My view is that participating in this survey is a low cost way to compare your own TRID experience and implementation with that of your peers. The creator of "Know Before You Owe" - the CFPB, had tongues wagging yesterday when it released a policy to "facilitate consumer-friendly innovation." On regular contributor tritely asked, "The headline suggests they are dismantling themselves?" Remember that this is a different division of the CFPB that rules by enforcement action! "The CFPB finalized a policy to facilitate consumer access to financial products and services that promise substantial benefit to consumers. The new policy establishes a process for companies to apply for a statement from Bureau staff that would reduce regulatory uncertainty for a new product or service that offers the potential for significant consumer-friendly innovation." The policy was proposed in October 2014 - 18 months ago! The policy is available here. "The new policy was created as part of CFPB's Project Catalyst initiative and is intended to enhance regulatory compliance in specific circumstances where a product holds the promise for significant consumer benefit and where there may be uncertainty around how the product fits within an existing regulatory scheme. For example, the policy could be appropriate in a case where an innovative product is being developed that involves technology that did not exist and may not have been contemplated at the time existing regulations were adopted." "The new policy announced today creates a process for companies to apply for a statement from Bureau staff, known as a no-action letter. This letter would indicate that Bureau staff reviewed the company's application and have no present intention to recommend enforcement or supervisory action with respect to the particular aspects of the company's product and under the specifically-identified provisions and applications of statutes or regulations that are the subject of the no-action letter....When assessing applicants, Bureau staff will take into account the factors laid out in the policy, including the company's relevant government supervision and enforcement history. Under the policy, the letters are not binding and are also revocable at any time. If a no-action letter is issued, it will be posted on the Bureau's website along with a version or summary of the company's request. And this week the CFPB published the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) file specifications for 2017 and 2018. Notice this is "next year" - which always seems to arrive faster and faster. "We want to highlight one change in particular for your attention: the file format is being changed from a fixed field file to a delimited file format. We are providing notice of the updated file format through these file specifications to provide as much time as possible for systems updates should any need to be made." And last week law firm Ballard Spahr put out a summary regarding the CFPB and the FTC. "The FTC has sent its annual letter to the CFPB reporting on the FTC's activities related to compliance with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Regulation B. The FTC has authority to enforce the ECOA and Reg B as to nonbank providers within its jurisdiction...Like last year's letter on the FTC's 2014 ECOA activities, the letter on 2015 activities does not include any specific 2015 FTC ECOA enforcement activity and only contains information about some of the FTC's research and policy development efforts and educational initiatives. With respect to fair lending research and policy development, the FTC's efforts included hosting a public workshop on the growing use of online lead generation in various industries. The workshop was the subject of a series of three blog posts written by my colleagues Chris Willis and Teddy Flo. The FTC also published a notice seeking comment on a proposed survey of consumers to learn about their experiences in buying and financing automobiles at dealerships. The FTC's consumer and business educational initiatives included updating its publication on mortgage discrimination and issuing information on its business blog about changes to its Business Center website. Last month the Community Home Lenders Association (CHLA) sent a letter to the CFPB renewing its call for a universal SAFE Act test requirement for all mortgage loan originators. The letter also highlighted that 99 percent of banks (banks with assets less than $10 billion) are exempt from CFPB exams and that many registered bank loan officers failed the SAFE Act test. The CHLA also raised questions in the letter to the CFPB to see what steps they have taken to adopt the rule. A TransUnion survey revealed that 75% of lenders are finding it increasingly difficult to find and acquire new customers and many are turning to alternative data for the solution. TransUnion's survey confirms that while there were26 million additional personal, auto and credit card loans in 2015 compared to 2014, the number of U.S. consumers who are not able to access credit is still far greater - a staggering 45 million people according to the CFPB. Some key benefits derived from lender use of alternative data, according to survey respondents, include: 87% of lenders using alternative data do so to evaluate thin-file or no-file consumers. 83% of those using alternative data to score credit applicants report seeing tangible benefits. 67% use alternative data to evaluate non-prime borrowers. 66% of lenders using alternative data say it is helping them reach more creditworthy consumers in their current markets. 56% of lenders using alternative data say the data has opened up new markets. Of course lenders and investors are still grappling with the issue. For example, here I produce a recent bulletin from Citi in its entirety to show the complexity of trying to adapt a system to replace one (GFE & TILs) that was developed over decades of use. "To assist with the Truth in Lending Act/Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act Integrated Disclosure Rule (TRID Rule), Citi updated its previously published TRID Best Practices. While all Loan disclosures and related documents, processes, and practices must be completed and performed per TRID Rule requirements, some key practices have been added or modified. "Loan Estimate: Modified February 2016. 1. On all loans, the Contact Information section on page 3 under Additional Information must be completed in full, including NMLS # or State ID # where applicable. First and last name of contacts should be completed. If a phone number and/or email is not provided for the Lender's Loan Officer, then a general phone number and email is required, including third party originated loans. 2. A Loan Estimate cannot be created or re-issued on or after the date of the "initial" Closing Disclosure. Therefore, the issue date of the latest dated Loan Estimate must be at least one day prior to the issue date of the "initial" Closing Disclosure. Re-issuing a Loan Estimate is NOT an acceptable practice to resolve suspense issues. "Closing Disclosure: Added February 2016. 1. The final disbursement Closing Disclosure must be identified as FINAL. 2. The spirit of the TRID Rule is to reduce documentation provided to borrowers by initially disclosing actual terms and costs on the Closing Disclosure. Correspondents must act in good faith and use due diligence in obtaining the best information reasonably available at the time of disclosure. Only Closing Disclosures that are issued and delivered to the consumer should be put in the loan file. 3. The figures in Loan Estimate column of the Calculating Cash to Close table on the final Closing Disclosure must match the final Loan Estimate. 4. Additional/Addendum pages are allowed per the rule to be included with the Closing Disclosure if all of the existing allotted space is used up and no more information will fit in the allotted space. "Miscellaneous Items: Modified February 2016. 1. Service Providers List - If there are any fees listed in Section C of the Loan Estimate then the Service Providers List must be present in the Loan file with all sections completed, including, but not limited to, the estimated charge(s). Fees disclosed to the borrower as 'can shop' as documented by the Service Providers list must be located in section C of the LE. If the borrower choses a provider from the lender's list, these fees must be disclosed in section B of the Closing Disclosure and are subject to the 10% tolerance. 2. Corrections - Corrections as permitted by the Rule must be clearly identified and itemized on a Letter of Explanation to the borrower and a copy in the Loan package. Loan may not be purchasable if corrections are not completed within 60 days of consummation. Note: Not all Rule violations are correctable." Thank you Citi! Turning to the secondary markets, a new post from Liberty Street Economics has been published on the Capital Markets page: Primary Dealer Participation in the Secondary U.S. Treasury Market. It turns out that primary dealers no longer account for most trading volume on the interdealer brokerage platforms, but do account for most trading activity in the secondary market for U.S. Treasury securities. While we're yapping about the markets, agency MBS prices ended higher (rates lower) on Thursday. The yield on the 10-year risk-free T-note, which was down in the 1.50's recently, hit 1.83%. The U.S. economic data was just slightly better than expected with the Philly Fed index of manufacturing activity edging higher in February and initial jobless claims beating forecasts. By the time traders were on the subways heading home the new 10-year note ended about .5 better to yield 1.76%. This morning we've already seen January's Consumer Price Index. Expected to show a slight decline, it was unchanged, core +.3%, slightly higher than expected. But after these initial pieces of information the 10-year is at 1.77% with agency MBS prices worse about .125. Jobs and Announcements In job news GMH Mortgage Services, LLC is aggressively looking to add top loan officers and producing branch managers to the Retail platform. Key target markets are PA, NJ, DE, MD, MA, CT, RI, and NH. "GMH has proven they have the infrastructure, culture, and value proposition to grow loan officers' business. Management believes that this is an excellent opportunity if you have an entrepreneurial spirit and truly want to have a voice in shaping the future of an organization, and like a flat management structure with a one team, customer-centric approach to business." Contact Brian Beale, VP of Recruiting & Corporate Initiatives, for a confidential conversation. WashingtonFirst Mortgage Corporation is seeking a self-directed individual to manage the Secondary Marketing Lock Desk for a multi-branch Bank owned Freddie/Fannie approved Mortgage Company located in the DC/Northern Virginia market. The ideal candidate should have strong analytical skills and experience with both mandatory and best efforts platforms for conventional and government loans. Working knowledge of the Ellie Mae Encompass Processing system and the Optimal Blue Pricing engine preferred, and training is available for the right candidate with a background in processing/origination or a college degree or similar work experience. This position reports to the SVP/Secondary Marketing. WashingtonFirst Mortgage is also looking for exceptional processors, underwriters with agency and non-agency experience as well as a QC/Compliance Specialist and an Encompass administrator. Please direct all inquiries to SVP Thomas Naughton. Valuation Partners is searching for "a proven sales executive in southern California to help drive our growth in California and the western United States. As Vice President- West Region, a successful candidate should have mortgage sales experience in real estate valuation, mortgage or title insurance, correspondent and/or wholesale lending. Valuation Partners is a leading national AMC and has been in business for over 30 years. The company has a solid organizational foundation, best in class quality, and robust technology." For confidential inquires or resumes, please contact HR Director Kathy Muneio (419-418-5252). Welcome to Line Danci Read more [...] Moorpark College eyes constructing 4,000-seat amphitheater A 4,000-seat amphitheater at Moorpark College could be Southern California's newest entertainment spotbut such a development would be a long way off. The school is taking the first steps toward... CSUCI professors working on ion project Cal State Channel Islands faculty members Scott Feister, Ph.D., assistant professor of computer science, and Alona Kryshchenko, Ph.D., assistant professor of mathematics, recently received $112,480 from the National Science Foundation... Keynote speaker to discuss undocumented college students Award-winning author Javier Zamora will discuss his new memoir, Solito, from noon to 1 p.m. Wed., Oct. 19 on Zoom. The talk is free to students and the community. The... Cal Lutheran awards scholarships for low- and middle-income students Cal Lutheran University recently received $2.5 million to provide scholarships to accomplished students from low- and middle-income families. The donation from the Camarillo-based TOLD Foundation is the largest that CLU... Sen. Ted Cruz, the first-term Republican from Texas, leads all candidates in the scramble for oil industry campaign cash, surpassing Jeb Bush, whose father and brother were West Texas oilmen before they became presidents. Cruz leads all presidential candidates in contributions from employees of oil and natural gas companies through the end of 2015, according to the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics. His coffers have been boosted by scores of smaller gifts and $25 million to super PACs that back his campaign from two sources: energy investor Toby Neugebauer and Dan and Farris Wilks, brothers who made their fortune in the fracking boom. Industry donations are following the surprise story line of the 2016 presidential race which has seen upstart Republican candidates Cruz and Donald Trump beating all establishment favorites. Cruz won the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1 and was third in New Hampshire Feb. 9, where Trump prevailed. Bush's campaign has languished. "If you line up the priorities of the hydrocarbons industry, they fit almost perfectly with Cruz's positions," Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston, said in an interview. "It's a natural policy fit." Cruz's stance on climate change and policies such as cap-and-trade align with the industry's critical views, he said. More generally, his belief in limited government also fits with industry concerns about environmental regulation. While the industry initially was supportive of Bush, the perception now is that he's unlikely to become the Republican nominee, said Jones. "There is the combination of picking someone you're aligned with but also investing in someone you think will actually win the nomination," he said. Even if Cruz doesn't win, he's an influential senator of the state where many energy companies are based or have a significant presence. That leads to a tendency to make sure Cruz knows he has the industry's support, he said. Bush was a distant second in oil-industry contributions, despite the support of energy-sector aristocracy like pipeline magnate Richard Kinder, investing tycoon T. Boone Pickens and Trevor Rees-Jones, the billionaire founder of Chief Oil & Gas. The Cruz and Bush campaigns didn't respond to messages seeking comment. Democrat Hillary Clinton, who's vowed to defend President Barack Obama's policies, was a surprising third, ahead of all other Republicans. Bush's moderate politics and family ties may make him a better fit for industry pragmatists, Jones said. Still, it's the more conservative Cruz whose campaign has taken off. Cruz led in direct contributions from oil and gas company employees with $675,000, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission filings by the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington. Bush, who led the money chase in June, was second with $420,600. Clinton followed with $227,000. "People are hedging their bets," said Jones. "There's a recognition that it's an even-money bet that Hillary Clinton is the next president of the United States, and you don't want to be completely on the outs with a new Clinton administration." Trump, who is leading Republicans in the polls, hasn't won over the oil patch, at least when it comes to donations. He raised just over $8,000 from oil and gas employees, 16th overall and behind also-rans Bobby Jindal and Chris Christie. The filings capture two streams of election money: direct giving to campaigns and larger contributions to super PACs, outside groups that support politicians but aren't allowed to coordinate with them. FEC data through January is scheduled to be released on Feb. 20. Cruz is winning in both categories. Among the rank-and-file, he collected more than 1,000 individual donations over the past year from people who indicated they work in the industry, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Government. Bush had just 64. But Cruz's biggest benefactors were contributors to super PACs that back his campaign. Neugebauer, co-founder of Houston private-equity firm Quantum Energy Partners LP, gave $10 million to one. Another super PAC raised $15 million from the Wilks and members of his family. The brothers from Cisco, Texas, sold Frac Tech Services Inc. for $3.5 billion in 2011, the Wall Street Journal reported in 2011. They have since emerged as major backers of social conservative causes. Bush's Right to Rise super PAC has its own mega-donors. The group received $1 million apiece from Kinder, Rees-Jones, legendary oil explorer Ray Lee Hunt and Hushang Ansary, chairman of drilling-equipment firm Stewart & Stevenson and matching gifts from their wives. Exxon Mobil chief Rex Tillerson gave a more modest $7,700, including individual and super PAC donations. Amid the economic turmoil caused by sub-$30 oil prices, Twin Eagle Sand Logistics LLC has begun operation of its Permian Rail Park, eight miles west of Big Spring. Its an adventure, said Jason Jennaro, senior vice president, fracturing sand and oil field logistics. Even so, he said his Houston-based company is optimistic and still believes in shale. I believe in the future of the park. Twin Eagle believes in shale and, more importantly, believes in efficient infrastructure to serve shale, he said. Today, more than ever, lower break-even prices and cutting costs are paramount for the companys clients, he said in a phone interview. The first phase of the 530-acre park is more than 33,000 feet of rail track to be initially used for rail-to-truck fracturing sand trans-loading services. It is anchored by a sand fracturing-loading contract with an anchor tenant who is a major exploration and production company. Jennaro said securing the anchor tenant has opened the door to talks with other, smaller customers and were having discussions with a few more. Putting the first phase into operation will pave the way for a second phase that calls for developing a loop track capable of supporting the crude-by-rail market as well as infrastructure to handle trucking solutions for both crude and fracturing sand. Jennaro said having the initial infrastructure will make expansion easier. The efficiency of the park and its ability to handle large numbers of rail cars is a key to its success as operators continue their laser focus on efficiency and cutting costs, Jennaro said. The terminals of yesteryear were makeshift, not located in very optimal locations and were too small, he said. Today, fracturing jobs can require sand delivered by hundreds of rail cars, he said. With the drastic drop in activity, those large fracturing jobs may not occur very often, but they need large terminals when they do occur, he said. The new terminal can hold more than 500 cars. The rail parks of yesteryear that only handled 15 cars is not sufficient today. Wells today are larger, laterals are longer, there are more fracturing stages and more sand per stage, he said. Permian Rail Park was built to service the Midland Basin, and big players on this side of the Permian are still investing a lot, Jennaro said. Twin Eagle builds these large terminals with a strategy of not only serving individual basins but of building a network of terminals that can improve efficiency, he said. The company has two terminals in the Eagle Ford -- the Mission Rail Park, which set a record in July for largest landing of fracturing sand with 140 rail cars -- and the Laredo Rail Park. Other terminals are located in the Powder River Basin in Douglas, Wyoming, and the Evans Terminal to serve the Denver-Julesburg Basin. We are optimistic and we believe in our business model, Jennaro said. Nathaniel Bailey testified Thursday that Raymond "Trey" Lyle put a gun to his own head after shooting 19-year-old Justin Allen at a house at Harrison Bay last Nov. 16. He said Lyle claimed it was an accident, but the witness said Lyle had threatened both him and Allen previously related to an alleged murder plot involving the father of one of their friends. General Sessions Court Judge Lila Statom bound a charge of attempted murder against Lyle to the Grand Jury. She kept him on a $250,000 bond. Thomas "Toby" Claxton Jr. is charged in a separate case of solicitation to commit first-degree murder. He said he sought to have Lyle, Bailey and Allen kill his father, Thomas Claxton Sr. Bailey, who has not been charged in either incident, said the shooting of Allen happened in Toby Claxton's bedroom. He said he and Lyle arrived to find Claxton asleep in his bed and Allen asleep on a pallet by the bed. He said he also lay down to sleep because he and Lyle were tired from driving all day after a quick trip to Florida following the first incident in which the Lyle home was burglarized and a gun fired inside the house. Bailey said Lyle was playing around with a 22 caliber handgun when he closed his eyes. He said he and Lyle earlier had gone out and each fired the gun into the lake. Bailey said he had his eyes closed for about 30 seconds when he heard the gun go off. He said Allen jumped up and he could tell he was shot. He said he clutched him in his arms, then an ambulance was called. He said Lyle was "frantically running around." He said he told him to put the gun down. Bailey said in the incident a couple of days earlier that Lyle had gone into the Claxton house and he came out with some guns taken from the gun safe. He said Lyle was acting frantically afterward and he told him he should throw the guns in the lake. They stopped and tossed two guns in the water, then he said he and Lyle drove to Florida. Bailey said Lyle saw some xanax on a counter in Claxton's bedroom and had snorted two small bars of it just prior to the shooting of Allen. Detective James Fields also said it would not have been possible for the gun to have gone off and shot Allen accidentally the way Lyle said it did. He said Allen was lying on his side and the bullet went into his side and lodged in his heart. Allen survived and was interviewed by the detective. The elder Claxton was out of town at the time of the Allen shooting. Earlier, an East Ridge Mapco employee told of seeing the four alleged conspirators come by in a truck last November. Bradley Love said Lyle and Nathaniel Bailey came by the next night and bought a pair of gloves. He said they were headed for the Claxton home in Harrison. He said they apparently planned to carry out a burglary. The father of Claxton told police he woke up at his home on the night of Nov. 15 to the sound of gunfire and a vehicle speeding away. Claxton said he Allen, Lyle and Bailey had made plans to kill his father and stage it as a burglary. He said his father was planning on kicking him out of the house if he did not start college and find a job. He also said that he would benefit financially from his father's death. Police found that the gun safe had been opened and the home burglarized with some $13,000 in items taken. Claxton's father said only he and his son had access to the security codes to get into the house. Claxton admitted giving the codes to Lyle and Bailey. British band Viola Beach and their manager faced a tragic fate in a car accident Valentine's Day weekend in Sweden that caused their death, hours after performing at Where Is The Music festival. The up-and-coming indie favorite band comprising frontman Kris Leonard, guitarist River Reeves, drummer Jack Dakin and bassist Tomas Lowe were riding on their van with manager Craig Tarry when it fell off more than 25 feet into a canal, BBC News reported. The crash killed all four members of the band who were supposed to open the concert of the Blossoms band at the Boiler Room venue in Guildford, England the next day. According to Reuters, the investigation of the Swedish police reveals that the car plunged to the canal through a gap when the bridge opened to allow a boat to pass through. Police are investigating why the car continued despite the flashing red warning lights while the other vehicles on the area were on standby. To fully understand the accident, the car is being examined in order to determine the cause of the crash that occurred near Stockholm at about 02:30 local time (01:30 GMT). The band has released three singles including Swings & Waterslides," which debuted in 2015 gaining over a million plays on Sound Cloud and Spotify. Said song has hit the Top 40 Chart as fans aim to bring the band to number one, The Guardian reported. Aside from that hit song, they also released Cherry Vimpto and were suppose to release the single, Boys That Sing. They have also played in many BBC Introducing sets like in Maida Vale, as well as at the Reading and Leeds festivals, and they also have bookings for Kendall Calling and SXSW. The band's gig in Sweden is their first European tour but ended in a tragic accident which introduced the group and their music to more people around the globe. Fans and families of Viola Beach have been paying tribute to them through social networks. WARRINGTON! We're very happy to announce our first hometown headline show on Saturday March 12 at Pyramid & Parr Hall. Tickets on sale now on gigsandtours. Support from The Strawberries and PSYBLINGS! A photo posted by @violabeach on Dec 18, 2015 at 1:06am PST 2015 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. British actor Joseph Fiennes was recently cast in a comedic TV movie in the UK as music icon Michael Jackson. No, these two people do not share the same skin color, which is obviously making this project very scandalous. While Fiennes admits that he understands the backlash of a white actor portraying an African-American in a production, this week he came to his own defense, claiming that the TV special is satirical, so, you know, who cares? Clearly, a lot of people care, so we're basically counting down until the 45-year-old white actor quits this project. You can check out more buzzing news coverage from Music Times right here! This one-off TV movie is called Elizabeth, Michael & Marlon, which gets its source material from an old rumor that alleged Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando fled NYC right after the World Trade Center attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, for a cross-country road trip. Stockard Channing and Brian Cox also star as the two other celebrities. This might sound like a great idea, but casting a White actor in the role of one of the most important Black icons seems like an easily avoided move. Sky Arts, the network producing the project, has defended the casting in the past. You can read out previous coverage on this here. We also covered Chris Brown's Twitter rant about the casting, which you should check out right here! Clearly, Fiennes is in hot water, but that doesn't mean he's stepping down from the role or backing away from the project. "I deal in imagination, so I don't think imagination should have rules stamped on them. If it promotes stereotyping, then it's wrong. I made a distinction that the Jackson project doesn't do that," the actor told The Associated Press. "This is not a movie; it's a small television 20-minute sketch. It's a very sweet comedy that looks at Michael, Marlon [Brando] and [Elizabeth] Taylor." The only response that I can think of is, "Sure....but...still," which I'm sure is something you agree with. Do you think Fiennes will leave the project or stick to his guns? 2015 MusicTimes.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Please enable JavaScript to experience the functionality of this website. - MWEB A charge of facilitation of a felony in connection with a fire at the Brainerd Trophy Shop has been found to the Grand Jury against Pamela McNabb. General Sessions Court Judge Clarence Shattuck reduced her bond to $25,000 following the hearing. Her attorney has maintained that Ms. McNabb did not set fire to the store. Fire investigators arrested her and Gene Wegg for allegedly burning down the trophy shop on the morning of Feb. 5 to cover their tracks from breaking in and stealing merchandise. Both were charged with arson and Wegg waived his right to a hearing, meaning his case will go straight to the Grand Jury. During the General Sessions Court hearing for Ms. McNabb, defense attorney Erinn OLeary contended the arson charge should not apply to her because evidence showed she never intended to burn down the building. According to Fire Investigator Captain Anthony Moore, the Chattanooga Police Department received a call from Ms. McNabb several hours after the incident. The call led investigators to arrest the couple for the arson. There was no source of ignition, except for some type of human involvement, Captain Moore said, regarding the cause of the fire. He did not see Ms. McNabb in the segment of the surveillance video he watched only a male-like figure with his face covered raiding the store. But, based on Ms. McNabbs interview with Captain Moore, he believed she was the mastermind behind the burglary. The defendant, who briefly worked for the Trophy Shop until March 2015, confessed in the interview to robbing the shop with Wegg. She told Captain Moore she knew the layout of the space and had stolen from there before. Captain Moore said Ms. McNabb took Wegg to the facility, where he went inside and took a few items. Then the two left, came back, stole more, left, and came back again. On the third time they returned, Wegg allegedly burned down the shop to cover their tracks. Attorney OLeary used Ms. McNabb calling the police to her advantage, stating the fire shocked the defendant so much she called police because she had no part in that aspect of the crime. I dont know if she was the actual burner or not, Captain Moore said. But he believed her intentions were the same as Weggs. She knew she was going to get caught, he said. So she beat Wegg to the punch and turned both him and herself in. Prosecutor Ben Boyer argued that because Ms. McNabb returned to the trophy shop a total of three times the night of the arson, her involvement in the crime was clear. According to Jack Scruggs, owner of Brainerd Trophy Shop, the fire resulted in total destruction of his business, with around $200,000 in damage. Before coming to a conclusion on the hearing, Judge Clarence Shattuck ordered the defense attorney and prosecutor to listen to the recording of Ms. McNabbs interview with Captain Moore. He wanted them to confirm if she mentioned anything about her participation in the fire before he decided on whether or not to send the case to the Grand Jury. Sarkodie should have been bigger than ... Here is the weekly road construction report for Hamilton County: U.S. 27 (I-124) widening from I-24/U.S. 27 interchange to north of the Olgiati Bridge over the Tennessee River, including widening the Olgiati Bridge: Work on this project continues. On Thursday evening between 7 p.m.-6 a.m. TDOT contract crews will perform nighttime bridge demolition on the bridge over westbound Martin Luther King Blvd. in Chattanooga. For the protection of the traveling public, MLK Blvd. underneath the bridge and the ramps in the area will be closed to traffic during the work. Detours for alternate routes will be posted. Also on Thursday evening, the contractor will have a temporary right lane closure on U.S. 27 South between 12th Street and Broad Street to set barrier rails. On Friday, between 9 a.m.-3 p.m., the right lane on U.S. 27 North on the Olgiati Bridge will be temporarily closed to allow the contractor to complete a survey of the bridge. As the project progresses, there may be short term temporary lane closures for the safety of the traveling public on city streets within the project area. Flaggers will assist with these closures and they will be properly signed in accordance with the Federal Highway Administrations Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. During Phase 1 of the U.S. 27 project, the contractor will be working on the northbound side of U.S. 27 on the bridges. Work will consist of demolishing and reconstructing the outside sections of the bridges along U.S. 27 North. Also on U.S. 27 South, they will be constructing a large retaining wall between the Olgiati Bridge and 6th Street. At least one lane will remain open in each direction on U.S. 27. THP will assist with traffic control on the project as necessary. Estimated project completion date is July 2019. For more info, visit the project website http://www.tn.gov/tdot/topic/US27-reconstruction-chattanooga. [Dement Construction Co., LLC/JM/CNP230] SR 317 (Apison Pike) the grading, drainage and paving on from Old Lee Highway (LM 5.58) to SR-321 (Ooltewah-Ringgold Road) (LM 7.84): Work on this project continues. The contractor may have short term lane closures to perform various operations on an as-needed basis. Flaggers will assist with traffic control as needed. Estimated project completion date is May 2017. [Wright Brothers Const. Co. /Pruett/CNN279] SR-320 (East Brainerd Road) grading, drainage, installation of signals, construction of seven retaining walls and paving from east of Graysville Road to east of Bel-Air Road: Work on this project continues. The contractor will have intermittent lane closures during this report period between 9 a.m.-2 p.m. This work may affect either direction of East Brainerd Road or side streets from Graysville Road to Hamlett Drive as the contractor installs road crossings and borings. The contractor may have short-term lane closures to perform various operations on an as-needed basis. Flaggers will assist with traffic control as needed. Estimated project completion is June 2017. [Mountain State Contractors, LLC /Pruett/CNN383] Shepherd Road over SR-153 construction of a rolled steel girder bridge from West Shepherd Rd. to Shaw Avenue in Chattanooga, including grading, drainage and paving: Work on this project continues. The bridge has returned to two lanes of traffic. During the project, there may be intermittent nighttime lane closures as necessary in both directions on SR-153 between 8 p.m.-6 a.m. THP will assist with traffic control as necessary on the project. Estimated project completion is October. [Jones Brothers Contractors, Inc./Micka/CNP105] SR-317 (Bonny Oaks Drive) improvement of the intersection with Volkswagen Drive (LM 3.85) serving Volkswagen Group of America, including grading, drainage and paving: Work on this project continues. The contractor may have short term lane closures on eastbound Bonny Oaks Drive at Volkswagen Drive to perform various operations on as-needed basis. Flaggers will assist with traffic control as needed. Estimated project completion date is February. [Talley Construction Company, Inc. /Pruett/CNN304] The tunnel cleaning of the McCallie Tunnel on U.S. 11 (US 64, SR-2), the Stringers Ridge Tunnel on U.S. 127 (SR-8), and the Bachman Tubes on U.S. 41 (U.S. 76, SR-8): The nighttime cleaning operation of McCallie Tunnels, Stringers Ridge Tunnel, and Bachman Tubes occurs normally on Wednesday and Thursday nights during the week with the 3rd Tuesday of the month. There will be no tunnel cleaning this week. Work hours are between 8 p.m.-6 a.m. Tunnels will be closed during cleaning, and detours will be marked accordingly as each tunnel is cleaned. Contract completion date is June. [Diamond Specialized, Inc./Micka/CNP212] Soddy Elementary School held a dedication ceremony to rename the school library The Thomas J. Bond, Sr., Memorial Library. Mr. Bond, Sr. is remembered as a hero to thousands of students in the Tennessee Valley Region. He was characterized as serving faithfully in the field of education, influencing family and students as the true epitome of a gentleman and scholar, said officials. The members of the Soddy Elementary Community are appreciative of the family of Thomas J. Bond, Sr., for helping students and faculty achieve educational goals at Soddy Elementary with their continued support of the school library and as loyal supporters of the school, said officials. Every student will receive a free book purchased by the Bond Foundation on March 4. American Legion Legion Smyth-Bolter Post 58 Honors Tuolumne County Public Safety Officials, February 2016 View Photos Sonora, CA This week several Tuolumne County public safety officials were saluted for exceptional community service to the Mother Lode. The American Legion Smyth-Bolter Post 58 released its list of awardees of the year for 2015, who were feted earlier this week at a special post-hosted dinner. On hand at the event, Officer Nick Norton, spokesperson for the California Highway Patrol (CHP) Sonora Area Unit, shares that Officer Ken Bruce received the CHP Officer of the Year award. Bruce, a 28-year CHP veteran, worked in San Jose and Sacramento for nine of them before coming to Tuolumne County. After spending 14 years as a Groveland resident post officer, Bruce moved to an administrative role at the Jamestown office and now serves as the collision review and evidence control officer. (To view other images shared by Officer Norton, click in the left image box.) The other honorees of the year are as follows: Sonora Police Department, Detective Ibrahim Khalil; CAL FIRE, Christa Covert; Tuolumne County Sheriffs Office, Detective Robert Speers; Probation Office, Officer Ashley Wilson; Sonora Fire Department, Fire Engineer Adam Mandell; Superior Court, Mary Jane Barendregt; District Attorney, Christine Miller; Sierra Conservation Center, Lt. David Fish; Forest Service, Officer Lynn Bird. Thousands of Americans applied for the next NASA astronaut class, breaking the record set in 1978. NASA says more than 18,300 people applied to join the 2017 astronaut class, far surpassing the previous record of 8,000 in 1978 and more than three times the number of applications received in 2012. Its not at all surprising to me that so many Americans from diverse backgrounds want to personally contribute to blazing the trail on our journey to Mars, said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, himself a former astronaut. A few exceptionally talented men and women will become the astronauts chosen in this group who will once again launch to space from U.S. soil on American-made spacecraft. The application process opened Dec. 14 and closed Thursday. It is the first step in an 18-month process that will end with the selection of eight to 14 people for the opportunity to become astronaut candidates. For more about NASA astronauts, visit: www.nasa.gov/astronauts MON/2.22- Ribbon Cutting for Davis Family Dental4:30 p.m.Davis Family Dental: 7003 Shallowford Rd, Ste 101Join the Chattanooga Chamber for a ribbon cutting with David Family DentalTUES/2.23- East Brainerd Chamber Council Meeting11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.Car Barn: 6721 Heritage Business CourtMeetings cost $12WED/2.24- Reality Check - Tyner Academy9:00 a.m.to 11:30 a.m.Tyner Academy: 6836 Tyner Rd.Reality Check teaches 9th graders budgeting and emphasizes the connection between education and income by allowing students to role-play as heads of household while trying to provide for their families on a set budget. Community volunteers are needed to assist with this event. To volunteer for this Chattanooga Chamber career readiness program, please contact Cathy Humble at 423.763.4321 or chumble@chattanoogachamber.com.THURS/2.25- Enterprise Gateway Chamber Council Meeting8:15 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.Hospice of Chattanooga: 4411 Oakwood DriveNetworking from 8:15 a.m.-8:30a.m. Program from 8:30 a.m.-9:30 a.m. Meetings cost $10THURS/2.25- Ribbon Cutting for Vaughn & Melton Consulting Engineers, Inc.4:30 p.m.Vaughn & Melton Consulting Engineers, Inc.: 537 Market St, 37402Join the Chattanooga Chamber for a ribbon cutting with Vaughn & Melton Consulting Engineers, Inc.FRI/2.26- #EXPOcha Orientation (Session 2)8:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.INCubator: 100 Cherokee Blvd, Suite 100EXPO Orientation 101. Topics include pre-event publicity, the power of promotional products, trade show follow-up tactics, booth etiquette, and good ol' fashioned networking with other EXPO Chattanooga vendors. This bruncheon meeting cost is $15, and pre-registration is required for this event. Contact Events Coordinator Kaia Moore to sign up today. kmoore@chattanoogachamber.com or 423.763.4357FRI/2.26- YPAC Business Development Luncheon11:30 a.m. to 100 p.m.Chattanooga Chamber: 811 Broad St.Offered the last Friday of each month, YPAC Professional Business Development luncheons feature networking and a keynote discussion from a local leader on topics related to the career development of the area's young professionals. Februarys speaker: Jack Studer, one of the founders of Access America and Lamp Post Group.Networking begins at 11:30 a.m., followed by lunch and programming at noon. Admission is $10 for YPAC members, $13 for non-members or $15 at the door. As soon as Mina Nunez heard last November that Pope Francis would be coming to Ciudad Juarez for a special Mass, she knew that it would be an once-in-a-lifetime experience. I had visited my cousin there and know it has become much safer and cleaner than in the past, so I called and asked him to do what he could to get tickets for me and my daughter. Even through the tickets to the open air Mass in the Ciudad Juarez fairgrounds were free, they were still limited and not easy to get. We were the lucky ones. He was able to get us two tickets. By the time Nunez, who owns Glamours Beauty Shop across from Plainview High School, learned that the cousin had tickets, her daughter learned that she wouldnt be able to take off from work for the trip. Instead, Nunez asked best friend Mary Mora to accompany her. The pair left Plainview on Monday morning for the 400-mile, 7 1/2-hour trip to Juarez. They were due to return Thursday evening. Both Nunez and Mora are Catholics. Nunez attends Sacred Heart Catholic Church while Mora is a member of Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church. We left early Monday because we though it might take extra time to cross the border, and we were right, she said. Normally it takes 15 to 20 minutes to cross at El Paso. However, with heightened security and larger crowds waiting to cross into Mexico due to the papal visit, this time it took about 45 minutes. It was already packed, and that was two days before the Mass, she noted. Realizing they needed to arrive early at the site of Wednesdays Mass to get in, they got up at 3 a.m. after spending the night at her cousins house in Juarez. We got up at 4 a.m. our time, and got to the fairgrounds about 5 a.m. There already was a big line, even though they werent going to open the gates until 6:30. After about 2 1/2 hours they went ahead and took our tickets and had us put on bracelets. Although the two had to stand up amid the 200,000 attending the event for some 14 hours, Nunez said it was well worth the sacrifice. We had to stand up all day in the heat, but that was OK since we got so see the pope really close up. The two were within arms length when the pope passed by in a specially designed pickup carrying him through the massive crowd, and the two were among the closest of the faithful to the altar itself. It was really impressive how well everything was organized, and how hard they tried to take care of everyone, Nunez said in a telephone interview Thursday morning as she traveled home from El Paso. Whenever somebody needed to get out of line to go to the restroom, there would be someone to come up and save your spot, and they made sure we had water. They really took care of us. While both Mora and Nunez were impressed by even organizers and staff, she said some spectators got pushy, especially when Pope Francis passed by. Of course, there were about 2,000 people standing at our little gate. We were hoping he would stop, get out, shake hands and visit at our gate like he did at the other gates, but I guess he was running late. The Mass was supposed to start at 4, and he already had spent more time with the crowds than he was supposed to. When he came by us, he didnt have time to stop. None the less, both Nunez and Mora said it was very emotional to see Pope Francis that close. The whole Mass was in Spanish, except for a tiny portion where he talked to a small Indian girl in her on language. His message was for all to be united and come together and love each other, she said. He said while we all might have different feelings, we should become united for the common good. Just because some are rich and some are poor, that shouldnt make a difference. Mora added that Pope Francis emphasized that people should strive to be just yourself while loving and respecting each other. When her cousin called Nunez on Wednesday the week before Mass to give her the good news about the tickets, I was so excited I could hardly speak. Since her daughter wasnt able to go, Nunez asked her best friend to make the trip with her. They were reluctant at first because they had heard how dangerous it was in Mexico, so I had to convince them. It told them that my daughter and I had been there last year, and it was getting much better. She pointed out that the area where her cousin lives is in a well-protected section of the city. Juarez really looks better now than it has in the past, Nunez said. And everywhere we went people treated everyone with great respect. Because of the tremendous crowd that came to the Mass, Nunez said the gates to the stadium were closed at 2 p.m., long before the Mass started. Many people who had tickets had to stay outside, Nunez said. But they could still hear what was going on. I understand there were at least 2 million people in Juarez and El Paso for the event. While Nunez and Mora were among those who had to stand for 14 hours, she said many older people who couldnt stand and those confined to wheelchairs were seated around the arena closer to the alter. Pope Francis took time to bless them as well as everyone there. And we felt truly blessed because we were much closer to the altar than so many others. Dr. Mary Headrick announced her endorsement of Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential primary. Dr. Headrick said, "I proudly voted for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Primary last week. His life has been dedicated to the values I hold dear: our economy, our democracy, and the future of our children and all of us. "Bernie's 'democratic socialism' doesn't scare me. I'm a fierce individualist. To me, Bernie means vote, democratically, to have some social government programs, such as Social Security, federal interstate highways, Medicare, block grant and other social programs for free public education. "We keep our private property, our individual liberty, rights, and guns. We don't 'drown our government in the bathtub' and send our taxes to privatization with reckless de-regulation and toll roads everywhere. We share....as much as we, not just the billionaires, democratically decide to share, but we can do this only if we have fair elections and law-making. Bernie supports the policies that will move us to a better democratic future." When asked if this was a Hillary attack, Dr. Headrick said, "No, I think both Bernie and Hillary are fine candidates. I didn't vote against Hillary. I voted for Bernie." When asked to elaborate, she went on to say, "Senator Sanders has a vision for the future that we can believe in: first, a fair, honest and moral economy with opportunity for middle, low or high income earners; second, a democracy where one person gets one vote and that vote counts the same whether the voter is rich, poor, black or white, and third, a future for us all, rebuilding failing infrastructure and implementing a national energy policy to prevent further damage to the climate, air, and water. "As Commander-in-chief, Senator Sanders would be wise and effective. He opposed the war in Iraq. His other votes on war and peace show that he has the strong leadership we need, and that he is not afraid to support military action when it is genuinely justified. He has unwavering support for our veterans, having chaired the Senate Veterans Committee and received the VFW Legislator of the Year Award." Tennessee's early voting ends Tuesday, Feb. 23, and election day is March 1. Dr. Headrick concluded with, "I hope we see a large turnout." When asked if there was anything else, Dr. Headrick laughed and said, "Lots! His depth, knowledge, and solutions warm my heart. To name just a few, by category, he supports: first, economy: raise the minimum wage above poverty wages, reduce student debt, offer free tuition at public colleges and universities, make healthcare affordable and accessible to all, restore an improved Glass-Steagall bank law and break up the 'too-big-to-fail' banks that caused our 2008 financial collapse. Second, Democracy's 'one person - one vote', reinstate the voting rights act, reform campaign finance and abuse of political action funds by abolishing 'Citizens United' and corporate political personhood, reform the criminal justice system that incarcerates or kills too many. And third, our future: fund large infrastructure transportation and utility projects for our future (and jobs) and transform our electricity and transportation energy so we stop further man-made damage to climate. "Also, Senator Sanders opposed past trade agreements and opposes TPP (TransPacificPartnership). TransCanada is suing you and I for $15 billion of our tax dollars, out of our pocketbooks, because the XL pipeline wasn't built. Bad trade agreements, like NAFTA, place international corporate profits above our self-rule. NAFTA sent over 650,000 of our U.S. jobs overseas. Remember Levis? Our trade agreements have given us a $531 billion U.S. international trade deficit in 2015. "I really appreciated being able to vote Bernie Sanders." Express-News file photo USAA lawyers and attorneys for thousands of the insurers members in Arkansas could be facing sanctions from a federal judge. Chief U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes III in Fort Smith, Arkansas, suspects the attorneys sought to avoid his review of a negotiated settlement by dismissing a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of about 14,000 USAA members and then refiling it the very next day in state court. Apple and Alphabet 's Android have been fierce rivals in mobile devices, but that rivalry could soon extend to augmented and virtual reality headsets. Apple's recent purchases of AR/VR firms Metaio, Faceshift, Emotient, and Flyby Media all suggest that it is developing its own headset. A recent Financial Times report claims that Apple's "secret" AR/VR team has already designed prototype headsets which resemble Microsoft's HoloLens and Facebook's Oculus Rift. Apple also recently hired Doug Bowman, a former Virginia Tech computer science professor who is considered one of the leading VR experts in the country. Source: Apple, Pixabay. Google is reportedly developing a stand-alone VR headset which won't require a phone, computer, or gaming console, according to the Wall Street Journal. Google also plans to launch a more advanced plastic version of its Cardboard viewer which is equipped with computer chips and sensors. Last month, Google named Clay Bavor, the creator of Cardboard, as its first VR chief. Let's compare Apple and Google's approaches to the fledgling VR market, and how their devices could impact Facebook, Sony, Samsung, and HTC's VR plans. Why Apple needs a VR headset Apple is likely developing a VR headset to diversify its business away from the iPhone, which generated 68% of its first quarter revenue. Total shipments only inched up 0.4% annually during the quarter, and will likely fall in the second quarter. Apple has only dabbled in AR and VR in the past. The company launched a VR music video starring U2 in its "Experience Buses" last November, which let fans experience the video on Oculus headsets and Beats headphones. iPhones are also compatible with Google Cardboard and Mattel's new VR View-Master. But until now, it wasn't clear how Apple planned to directly profit from the growth of the AR and VR markets. Mattel's VR View-Master for the iPhone. Source: Apple. If the reports about a dedicated headset are accurate, Apple will probably enter the market in the same way it did with smartwatches -- with a product which only arrives after first movers reveal the market's strengths and weaknesses. As with the Apple Watch, Apple will likely rely on its brand and ecosystem strength to capture a piece of the market and expand its mainstream appeal. However, it's unlikely that an iOS-based Apple VR headset will compete directly against the PC-tethered Oculus Rift, PS4-based PlayStation VR, or Android-based headsets like the Gear VR. Instead, it will likely be sold as a peripheral for the iPhone to support sales of next-gen iPhones. The device might also be synced to the Apple Watch to track hand movements, or connect to the Apple TV for VR media or gaming experiences. Why Google needs a VR headset Meanwhile, it's less clear why Google would create its own stand-alone headset. After all, Android-powered smartphones can already be converted into VR headsets with Cardboard or other similar products. However, the VR experiences on these devices still pale in comparison to Facebook's Oculus Rift. Facebook's Oculus Home ecosystem also represents a direct threat to Google's future in VR. Oculus Home, which was introduced last year, is a VR store that lets users buy games, videos, and experiences directly from the Rift. Samsung, the largest Android device manufacturer in the world, already tethered its $99 Gear VR headset to Oculus Home. This indicates that Samsung -- which has repeatedly tried to reduce its dependence on Google's ecosystem -- prefers to be tethered to Facebook instead of Google. If other Android OEMs follow Samsung's lead, Oculus Home could become the VR equivalent of Google Play and cut Google out of the loop. Facebook's Oculus Rift. Source: Company website. Faced with these two challenges, it would be logical for Google to produce a high-end VR headset locked into a dedicated Google Play Store for VR devices. That storefront could challenge Oculus Home and discourage Android OEMs from following Samsung into Facebook's backyard. Not much is known about Google's headset, but the Journal reports that the headset will track a user's motion with outward-facing cameras instead of synchronizing with a smartphone, PC, or console. Who will win the VR war? I expect the upcoming VR battle to split the market along platform lines this year. Facebook and HTC/Valve will clash on the PC front, Sony will prevent other VR headsets from connecting to the PS4, and Microsoft will connect the HoloLens to Windows 10 PCs and Xbox Ones. Apple's entrance into the VR market will probably resemble Sony's -- a dedicated play to strengthen its own hardware and software ecosystem. Google will likely enter the market to prevent Facebook from taking over Android devices with its Oculus Home ecosystem. If Apple's VR headset is a hit, it can diversify its top line while casting a "halo effect" on sales of other iOS devices. If Google's sells well, it can prevent Facebook from disrupting its mobile ecosystem with VR apps. 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 Are Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc. Headed For a VR Headset War? originally appeared on Fool.com. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Leo Sun has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Alphabet (C shares), Apple, and Facebook. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days . We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Cleveland States Continuing Education Department is partnering with Chattanooga State to offer a 30-hour Limited Residential Contractor Licensing class. The class will meet two consecutive Fridays and Saturdays, March 18-19 and March 25-26 on the main campus of Cleveland State. The cost for the class is $449, and it is limited to 20 students. The course includes the license application process, international building codes, an introduction to Tennessee construction laws, legal and financial issues, accounting practices, loans, liens, and insurance. Participants will learn to read blueprints, build to specifications and adhere to codes and regulations. Successful completion of this class exempts applicants from taking the contractor-licensing exam if they want to obtain a limited residential contractor license (BC-A/r). Upon completion of the course, the individuals will have basic knowledge to own and operate a small construction company. For more information or to register for this course, visit the website at mycs.cc/grow or contact Continuing Education Coordinator Lee Ann Lowe by calling 423-473-2270. Continuing Education offerings include traditional on-campus classes as well as online courses. Courses are added to the schedule throughout the year. As opportunities to serve the community through continuing education arise, on-demand courses will be added to the schedule. It is the goal of the Continuing Education Department to serve the needs of the community through meaningful, personal, and professional enrichment courses and therefore, they welcome your suggestions. San Antonio businessman and philanthropist Harvey Najim announced will donate $2 million to help 200 low-income San Antonio students pursue higher education, he announced Thursday. Each year for four years, the Najim Pathways Scholarship will be awarded to 50 San Antonio students. It will fund two years at one of the Alamo Colleges, then allow students to transfer to the Texas A&M University-San Antonio, University of Texas at San Antonio, or the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio to pursue degrees in information technology, cybersecurity, nursing and other health professions. It will cover a portion of the cost of attendance for two years at those universities. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Edgewood Independent School District trustees Eddie Rodriguez, Velma Pena and Tina Morales announced Friday they will resign from the districts school board. Rodriguez, the board's president, says that under Texas law, trustees who have resigned may attend meetings and vote until they are replaced, but says he isn't sure whether he and the other two resigning members will do so. If they do not attend meetings and there is no quorum, the board will be unable to meet which could cause the Texas Education Agency to move swiftly to appoint a board of managers to oversee the district, said Debbie Ratcliffe, agency spokeswoman. Edgewood is currently under investigation by the TEA. If they were left with only three members, it would stymy district operations, Ratcliffe said. It most likely would cause the commissioner to make a decision more quickly about appointing a board of managers. A three-person board would neither be able to appoint trustees to fill the four vacancies, nor call a special election, because of the lack of a quorum, she said. The board's ability to make some decisions has been effectively crippled since the summer, when the resignation of trustee John Morales left the governing body split 3-3. The board has yet to appoint a trustee to fill Morales vacant spot, and has been unable to agree on a search firm to find a new superintendent since an August buyout of Jose Cervantes contract left that position open, Rodriguez has said. Anna Nieto, Edgewoods director of curriculum, and Kenneth Jacobs, its police chief, have been filling in the role of a superintendent since Cervantes departure. Last month, the Texas Education Agency confirmed it was had opened a special accreditation investigation into Edgewood. SAN ANTONIO A man police believe may have been intoxicated fell 50 feet to his death Friday morning following a crash on a bridge on the North Side. The man, 30, had been driving on the northbound flyover ramp from U.S. 281 to Loop 1604 around 3:30 a.m. when he struck a wall, according to preliminary information from the San Antonio Police Department. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate SAN ANTONIO A man suspected of hopping a fence at a home on the East Side and taking a nap inside the residents car was arrested on Feb. 8 and charged with criminal trespass. George Pesina-Rodriguez, 21, probably didnt realize at the time that he had chosen San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylors car for his nap. A few days after the ordeal, the mayor wrote about the incident on the San Antonio Mom Blogs website. Taylor said that her teenage daughter, Morgan, had come running into her bedroom to tell them that she saw a man in the backyard. Rodney and I both bolted out of bed and he yelled for me to call the police as he got his gun. I made Morgan stay in the bedroom with me while we waited for the police to arrive and Rodney surveyed the backyard, Taylor wrote. Officers arrived within minutes and found that a very disoriented man had jumped the fence and decided to take a nap in one of our vehicles. RELATED: Council gives San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylor pass on ethics violations According to a San Antonio Police Department report, Pesina-Rodriguez was found unconscious in the car around 5:30 a.m. Two officers arrived at the house and had some trouble waking him up. The report said that when he finally did come to, he was agitated with the officers, the report said. Taylor said in the blog that the incident led to a conversation about guns with her daughter, and urged parents make sure they teach their children about gun safety. mdwilson@express-news.net Twitter: @MDWilsonSA SAN ANTONIO Texas House Speaker Joe Straus is being accused of murder by GOP primary rival Jeff Judson as early voting gets underway in the state's primary. Judson, a tea-party Republican who successfully worked to shut down VIA Metropolitan Transits streetcar project, sent out an email blast Thursday morning stating that Straus is to blame for murder, because the San Antonio Republican has failed to pass legislation banning so-called sanctuary cities in this state. Texas A&M Universitys Delta Gamma sorority welcomed Taya Kyle, widow of American Sniper Chris Kyle, to speak at the campus on Feb. 17. According to College Station-based station KBTX, Taya Kyle also met with students at a book signing for her memoir, American Wife, which shares her perspective of life after the death of her husband, who was murdered in February 2013 at a shooting range near Chalk Mountain by Eddie Ray Routh. RELATED: Texas man convicted of killing 'American Sniper' Chris Kyle seeks new trial The line to meet Taya Kyle wrapped around the bookstore, where the signing was hosted, KBTX reported. Students who had the chance to chat with the American Wife and mother of two, who now devotes her time advocating a network of military and first responder families though the Chris Kyle Frog Foundation, called their guest an inspiration on photos posted of the event on Instagram. RELATED: Dashcam video shows police chase, arrest of American Sniper suspect Eddie Ray Routh The story of Chris Kyle, an Odessa native, gained international interest with the release of his autobiography, "American Sniper," and the 2014 Clint Eastwood-directed film by the same name. Enthralled by the narratives, many began following the murder trial, which resulted in a February 2015 life sentence without parole for Routh, who is a former Marine. Taya Kyle told KGBTX how she has managed through hard times, following the tragic death of her Navy SEAL husband, who served four tours in Iraq. A day before her meeting at the university, her husband's murderer requested a new trial. In a brief filed, defense attorneys argue their client was suffering severe mental illness at the time of the murder and was unable to realize that what he was doing was wrong. Last night was a success with a sold out venue and all! We were so thankful to host such an inspiring woman like Taya Kyle! (and thank you to these 2 awesome ladies who made this event happen!!!) A photo posted by Texas A&M Delta Gamma (@aggiedeltagamma) on Feb 18, 2016 at 9:36am PST RELATED: 'American Sniper' widow Taya Kyle wins Texas shooting competition against world-class sniper "One thing I've been surprised by is, sometimes, how life really can knock you around," Taya Kyle said in the interview. "I knew that, but I don't think I knew to the level, and it's not just my own experiences. It's friends and other people that I've met, and that it's probably more realistic to expect it and to have your faith be so strong that you don't get shaken by it, and sometimes, I think it's a different perspective that can help you get through the hard times if you're a little bit more prepared for it. mmendoza@mysa.com Twitter: @MaddySkye The Bradley County Sheriffs Office has hosted training detailing the issue of Domestic Violence in society. The training session titled STOP Domestic Violence was attended by 27 law enforcement officers, representing some 13 sheriffs offices and police departments and was held in the BCSO North Training Room. Bradley County Sheriff Eric Watson said, I was very pleased to be able to utilize our facilities for this intensive training that is funded by the Tennessee Office of Criminal Justice Programs and presented by Don Green of the University of Tennessee Institute for Public Services Law Enforcement Innovation Center. Sheriff Watson is a member of the LEIC advisory board, and says UTs commitment to providing training for law enforcement officers who deal regularly with domestic violence issues is much appreciated. Sheriff Watson said, We are fortunate that such training is made available to law enforcement officers from Bradley County, Cleveland Police and other area agencies locally. Its no secret that a domestic violence call is among the most dangerous an officer answers. Its also no secret that abusers usually come from environments where abusing women, men, children or the elderly is a way of life. Were talking physical, verbal, emotional or mental abuse." Sheriffs deputies and police officers must have the latest and best information available about domestic violence in their communities in order to maintain their safety, as well as seek to assist the victims of such behavior, while dealing with abusers within the parameters current law allows, said officials. Sheriff Watson concluded by saying, What UT does for Bradley County, Cleveland Police and other agencies is to enhance our efforts in dealing with this unpredictable, heart-breaking and dangerous issue that all too often arises." Though he dropped out of school at a young age, Arturo S. Romo had the business acumen and personality needed to help his familys company, Porter Poultry and Egg Co., thrive. Leaving the administrative work to his brothers, Romo preferred to drive a delivery truck. He got to talk to people, knew all of the owners of all of the old restaurants that had been around many years, his granddaughter Priscilla Romo Ramirez said. He was the face and representative of the business. Romo died Feb. 14 at 91. A lifelong resident of the West Side, Romo began working at a young age, selling eggs and chickens door-to-door with his father and brothers. The business was very small, Ramirez said. They would go to stores and restaurants; it grew larger and larger. It was later that Romo and his brothers persuaded their father to buy the Porter company. More Information Arturo S. Romo Born: Sept. 18, 1924, San Antonio Died: Feb. 14, 2016, San Antonio Preceded by: Wife Dolores C. Romo; sons Arturo C. Romo Jr., and Theodore C. Romo; parents Benito and Maria S. Romo. Survived by: Wife Margarita M. Romo; daughter Elia Marie Romo Ramirez and son-in-law Adrian; sons Albert S. Romo and daughter-in-law Alice, and Andrew Romo; 20 grandchildren; numerious great-grandchildren. Services: Visitation at 6 p.m., rosary at 7 p.m., Thursday at The Angelus Chapel, 1119 N. St. Mary's St.; Mass at 10 a.m. Friday at San Fernando Cathedral, 115 W. Main Plaza, followed by burial at San Fernando Cemetery No.2. See More Collapse Enlisting in the Army in 1943, Romo was sent to Aberdeen, Maryland, where he guarded ordnance before training for the Coast Artillery Corps, learning to dive and plant mines. Sent to the Panama Canal Zone in 1945, he became a submarine mine loader, a period of time he looked back on fondly. It was pretty dangerous, but he didnt make it seem like it was, Ramirez said. He made it seem like it was nothing to him. Romo also boxed while in Panama, maintaining a winning record as a lightweight fighter. Returning to San Antonio in 1946, Romo resumed working in the family business, and married in 1951. A loving father to his five children, Romo took the family to the coast on a regular basis. Almost every weekend we would pack up and go to Corpus, said his only daughter Elia Marie Romo Ramirez. Romo also loved to cook the many fish he caught while there. On one memorable occasion, he mistakenly coated the fish for frying in a bag of laundry detergent instead of flour. It was bubbling in the oil he had to throw all of it away, Elia Ramirez said. We could not stop laughing at that. Even so, he didnt get mad, his daughter recalled. He was always in good mood. Romo also bought a ranch near Uvalde when his children were older, taking trips there on a regular basis to hunt, and spend time with the family. With no running water or electricity at the property, Romo became adept at fabricating necessities such as outdoor showers, and lighting. He was very creative, Elia Ramirez said. mheidbrink@express-news.net In the end Im going to tell you why Republicans should vote to keep San Antonian Paul Green on the Texas Supreme Court. But first, I have a serious bone to pick with him. Nearly 15 years ago, I came back from lunch to my office at the Express-News and was greeted by a voicemail from a respected Republican judge. He gave me the case number of a lawsuit and said it was under seal. You have to break the seal, he said. I nosed around and learned that the case involved two married lawyers and a tale of infidelity and extortion. I tried to break the seal. My excellent media lawyer, Mark Cannan, and I won a daylong hearing before highly respected Judge Phyllis Speedlin. Cannan pointed out several ways in which the judge who sealed the file had not followed the law, and Speedlin ruled in our favor. But she allowed the other side to appeal before releasing the file. Paul Green then sat on the San Antonio-based 4th Court of Appeals, where he heard the appeal with Chief Justice Phil Hardberger and Justice Alma Lopez. The appeal sat for more than a year, during which time Hardberger retired. Green wrote an opinion in which he and Lopez overturned Speedlins decision. By the time the Texas Supreme Court announced that it would not hear the case, I had moved to Houston. But the day of that announcement, someone leaked key papers from the suit to Express-News reporter Maro Robbins. They told a steamy story. Lawyer Mary Roberts had posted on a match-making website that she wasnt getting enough sex from her marriage. She promptly had affairs with at least five men interestingly all of them quite prosperous. When her attorney husband Ted Roberts found out, he saw an opportunity. He sent them five letters demanding compensation or else he would take legal actions that would expose their infidelities to their wives and business associates. Mary typed some of the letters and helped pressure some of her paramours. The two raked in more than $100,000. The Express-News stories led to indictments. In 2007, juries found both guilty of the equivalent in Texas law of felony extortion. Theres more. Three years earlier, Justice Green became a rare Republican appeals judge to reinstate a plaintiffs lawsuit that had been dismissed by a lower court. The plaintiffs attorney had sued the wrong company and hadnt discovered his error until the statute of limitations had run out. As it turned out, the two companies employed the same lawyer. Green cited a Texas Supreme Court decision as saying two unrelated entities that use a similar name are not affected by the statute of limitations if the correct entity had notice of the suit and was not misled or disadvantaged by the mistake. He wrote that since their shared lawyer made both firms aware of the lawsuit, there was no harm. But in writing this passage, Green inadvertently, he says made a change to the Supreme Court section. That section actually referred to two related entities, such as subsidiaries of the same parent corporation. Green converted related into unrelated. And who was the plaintiffs lawyer who benefited from Greens wordplay? Why, the felonious Ted Roberts. Green insists he is not a friend of Roberts, but it is passing strange that he would write one opinion that, if it werent for a leak, would have kept Roberts out of prison. Then two years later he misquoted the Supreme Court in a way that restored a lawsuit for Roberts. So why do I think Republicans should keep Green on the Supreme Court? First, he has been a respected justice. Second, his opponent is an absolutely wretched candidate for the job. Rick Green has never been a judge, and apparently hasnt even practiced much law. During a stint in the Legislature he used his Capitol office to film infomercials for two sleazy companies. He also successfully lobbied to get a convicted swindler out of prison after serving three years of a 16-year sentence. Green had earlier received a $400,000 loan from the convict. On another occasion, without warning, he cold-cocked the Democrat who had taken his legislative seat away from him, earning a sentence of six months probation. For several years he has worked with Wallbuilders, a Christian organization devoted to removing the separation of church and state. Rick Green earlier ran and lost against Justice Debra Lehrmann. This time he hopes to confuse voters by running against another Green. Yet Paul Green may have a biblical advantage. As he tells audiences, there is a St. Paul but not a St. Rick. No argument here. This column first appeared as the Last Word on KLRNs Texas Week with Rick Casey. The program appears Friday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m. Americans of all political persuasions mourn Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalias passing. This legal giant advocated interpreting the Constitution as intended by its authors, a judicial philosophy known as originalism. The Constitution is crystal clear as to the steps to follow in such cases to minimize duration of the vacancy. In that spirit, the plan of Senate Republicans to not act on any presidential nominee to the Supreme Court, leaving the court with a vacancy until a new president is in office next year, is both the height of hypocrisy and an originalist sin that Justice Scalia would abhor. Mel Waldgeir GOP going too far The Republican Party is out of control. During the New Hampshire debate, Donald Trump accused Jeb Bush of saying he would moon voters. That is how low the Republican discourse has sunk to play to what now comprises the party base the kind of coarse behavior that has made Donald Trump the front-runner. And now the so-called GOP establishment the party leaders are vowing to bring about a constitutional crisis that endangers our democracy to prevent President Barack Obama from carrying out his sworn duty to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. Trying to justify the unjustifiable, they claim the next president should have that privilege because elections have consequences. Well, elections certainly do have consequences, and in 2012, Barack Obama became our duly elected president for a full four-year term. This is the latest but most serious attempt by radical right-wing Republicans on a power trip to delegitimize that election. This time, they are going too far. They need to be held accountable and deserve to be turned out of office. Beverly Ann Hebert Economy vs. health Re: Clean Power Plan much pain, but little gain, Bill Hammond, Other Views, Feb. 8: I find it interesting that Mr. Hammond and our attorney general put economics ahead of the health of the people who live near power plants. The plan would make the air cleaner, therefore helping those who now suffer because of air pollution. Gay Wright A power shift Re: Clean Power Plan all pain, but little gain, Bill Hammond, Other Views, Feb. 8: This op-ed on the Clean Power Plan includes many misleading elements and unfounded assertions, but Hammond did get one thing right: Texas has been a leader in reducing power consumption. Thats because the existing market not an environmental regulation is already transitioning our state to a clean energy economy. Current trends show Texas well on its way to meeting the Clean Power Plans goals, while creating new, high-paying jobs for Texans. For example, we have a thriving wind energy industry that supports more than 17,000 jobs and has enabled Texas to install nearly three times as many wind units as any other state. And as more low-carbon wind and natural gas units have come online, the lights have stayed on and utility bills have gone down. Thats not even scratching the surface of our solar energy potential, for which Texas ranks first in the nation. Its ironic the Texas Association of Business isnt recognizing the economic opportunity at hand. The Clean Power Plan can elevate Texas to a powerhouse in the new, multibillion-dollar clean-energy economy. If approached thoughtfully, Texas could soon be leading the nation on solar and energy efficiency, in addition to natural gas and wind. Doing so will not only cut harmful pollution but provide homegrown energy, create jobs, and help secure water and energy resources for Texas families and businesses. John Hall, Texas state director, Clean Energy Obamas integrity? Re: Well miss Obamas elegance, integrity, David Brooks, Other Views, Feb. 11: Integrity is defined in Webster as uprightness, honesty, and sincerity. How many times did we hear that if you like your doctor, you can keep him? What happened at the IRS was clearly a scandal and a cover-up by Obamas administration. The gun sales to drug lords in Mexico was clearly a scandal. The constant lying concerning the video about the death of our ambassador in Benghazi was clearly a scandal pushed on the American people for weeks by President Barack Obama himself. This guy, Brooks, is a disgrace to the reporting profession; we kind of expect that of the New York Times, but we expect better of our local paper. Jerry Schmidt, Bulverde Steamroller in chief Re: Obama regrets not being able to bridge the partisan divide, Nation & World, Feb. 11: Is this the same Barack Obama who stood before a group of Republicans and said, I won. The same Obama who rammed through Obamacare without trying to get any Republican support? John P. Ashjian Obey the police The two recent incidents of unarmed individuals being killed by responding SAPD officers seem to have one thing in common: The victims did not obey the commands of the officer before being shot. If an officer is pointing a gun at you and tells you to put your hands up, thats exactly what he/she expects you to do. You dont turn around, you dont make a sudden move, and you dont reach for anything. These victims would be alive today if theyd just obeyed the SAPD. Dont blame law enforcement. Virtually every officer-involved shooting of an unarmed person in this nation was the result of failing to obey the commands. Don Ripley, Floresville Cranial vacuum The other day, I was drinking a Frappuccino Caramel Grande, colder than usual, in the food court of North Star Mall, when I had a brain freeze. My wife, looking at the grimace on my face, said, Whats wrong, Colin? I answered, Brain freeze, something that neither Donald Trump nor Ted Cruz need ever to worry about. Colin J.N. Chauret, Universal City What do China and the United States have in common when it comes to the electronic communications of its citizens? Both want or have wanted private companies to give them the keys to bypassing passwords to read those communications, though those are contained on privately owned devices. This is frightening. On Tuesday, a federal magistrate judge in California ordered Apple to bypass security functions on an iPhone used by one of the terrorists involved in the San Bernardino, California, slaughter in December. The government, misreading the 1789 All Writs Act, says this can legally be used to compel a third party to execute a court order though the entity says it would have to create the tools to do so. Technically, the government isnt demanding that Apple break the phones encryption; rather, it wants the company to disable the feature that wipes the data after a certain number of incorrect tries. And Apple reasonably argues that this would, in essence, give the government the ability of decrypting every iPhone, devaluing its own product and creating privacy concerns for its customers. So, the question is, do we trust the U.S. government to, as it promises, limit this ability only to this phone or only if a warrant-issuing judge allows it? Its a quaint question pre-Edward Snowden. While we do not share the uber-conspiracy mentality of many of those who intrinsically distrust the federal government, we believe that the American public, in the interest of privacy, should have a healthy skepticism about law enforcements desire to gain this kind of decryption power. It is as Apple chief executive Tim Cook said in a letter on the companys website: The U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have and something too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone. Cook added, If the government can use the All Writs Act to make it easier to unlock your iPhone, it would have the power to reach into anyones device to capture their data. Apple pledges to fight the court order. It shouldnt have to. The U.S. government should cease trying to force the company to violate its own interests and its customers legitimate privacy rights. Posted on 02/19/2016, 9:00 am, by Farmscape.Ca The federal government has announced plans to launch a full-scale review of the recently revised Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Ron Davidson, the Director of International Trade, Government and Media Relations with the Canadian Meat Council, says two key changes to the program that have hurt meat processors were the annual reductions in the allowable number of foreign from 30 percent to 20 percent to 10 percent and the reduction in the period of time foreign workers could remain in Canada from 2 years to 1 year and in the renewal from 2 years to 1 year. We believe that we should be able to have access to foreign workers when demonstrably we have proven that there are not sufficient Canadians ready and willing to do the work and we have lots of evidence of this. We are scouring the country, as we have been for years, for new immigrants, for refugees, for unemployed, for aboriginals, for youth to work in our plants and most of the workers in the plants are from Canadian origin but they just arent sufficient. We believe, when there is a demonstrated chronic long term shortage, that we should be able to access sufficient foreign workers to keep our plants sustainable and competitive in the international market place because under the current system not only are our plants suffering but everybody in Canada is suffering the impact of not being able to fill these positions. Davidson says we have plants today that missing opportunities to produce more value added products and export those products because they are operating with empty positions so the timing of the review is important. He says its even more important as we look forward to the opportunities that will be created by the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the new trade agreement with the European Union. County School Board Attorney Scott Bennett said Thursday that an agreement has been reached for the buyout of the contract of Supt. Rick Smith. He said, if the pact is approved, Supt. Smith would go on paid leave effective immediately. He would received his accrued vacation pay and remain on the payroll through the end of the fiscal year June 30. Afterward, he would receive a one-time buyout payment of $269,000 Attorney Bennett said that represents 35 percent of the total value remaining on his contract of three and a half years. He would receive $721,000 plus benefits if he stayed until the end of his contract. He said, "This is obviously a compromise. It reflects recognition there have been some issues that have caused the board concern." A meeting was set for the school board to vote on the buyout on March 7 at 5 p.m. Chairman Jonathan Welch said the board and Supt. Smith both need to move forward, though he said it is "not a process that anybody enjoys or likes." He said it was "hanging over everyone." Attorney Bennett said the board needs to proceed in finding an interim superintendent. Board member Greg Martin said he wanted to leave the door open for other options, including not paying any buyout to Supt. Smith. Board member Rhonda Thurman said, "I have a problem with the $269,000. We don't have any money. That is taxpayer money." She added, "If I quit my job I can't leave a little cup for my customers to put money in." Ms. Thurman said the contract states the superintendent is required to keep the board informed. She said, "That did not happen this time. We had no idea how bad this thing (Ooltewah High rape case) really was." She said she tried to call everyone in the central office about the rape case "and I got no answers." Ms. Thurman said, "We have to restore confidence in the system. We need a totally new start." She added, "There is nothing personal against Rick. No one fought any harder for Rick Smith for superintendent. This was just not handled right." Ms. Thurman said, "This is the third time I've been through this. Dr. Register got $150,000 for consulting and he never did any consulting. Dr. Scales left with a lot of money." Board member Steve Highlander said it will be difficult to find an interim by March 7. He asked if Supt. Smith would be willing to stay on until one is found. He said he has received "personal threats" since the Ooltewah incident. Vice chairman Donna Horne said the Tennessee School Board Association may aid in finding an interim. She said she has received "hateful, spiteful" emails from people "wanting him hanged." She said, "Rick Smith has been bullied and I have been bullied." Board member George Ricks said, "I hate to see somebody kicked when they are down. We've got a contract. If we fire him, he's going to sue you and cost you money." He added, "You either pay him now or you pay him later. "What kind of rope do we have around his neck?. We want to hang him and we want to burn him. "He was the lowest paid superintendent. He worked his butt off with a small administrative staff. I also want him to stay around until we get an interim." Mr. Ricks said, "It's time to bring Mama home. We need a female to straighten this system out. We guys have messed up." Board member Joe Galloway noted he had recommended the superintendent's contract extension, saying it is the recommended procedure to give assurances to the current superintendent.He said, "I'm glad I did because I am not displeased with the job the superintendent has done." He said just last spring the board gave Supt. Smith a top rating - partially because he held a number of public meetings to try to get more money for the schools. Mr. Galloway said, "This is a farce as far as I'm concerned. What grounds do we have to fire him?" He added, "Supt. Smith, I appreciate you. This superintendent has never told me anything that did not turn out to be correct. I'm sticking by him." Board member David Testerman said the community "does not know the agony we have gone through. It hurts our children and our schools terribly." He said there had been "an injustice to Rick Smith I am extremely sad and hurt that we are at this point." Board member Karitsa Mosley said there is "a culture on this board of having to buy out the superintendent." She said the board has "a legal, binding contract with this gentleman. I don't think we have the grounds to terminate him. I think we would spend more money by terminating him." She said, "We have to regain the trust of the people of Hamilton County. They don't trust us. I'm tired of this debacle and disaster. It's suppose to be about the kids, but I am beginning to wonder is it really about the kids." She said she "would love to keep Supt. Smith," but she said she would honor his desire to quit. Board member Martin noted that Supt. Smith earlier said he was not pressured by anyone on the board to seek a buyout. He said, "There is nothing in my heart with a gotcha mentality for Mr. Smith, but I cannot see myself paying $269,000. To me that seems like an awful lot." He said, "I believe there is the possibility that we do have cause (to terminate)." Dr. Martin also said he wants the board to go "outside the box" on a new superintendent. Attorney Bennett said, "You are creating a new box." He noted that the board usually turns to someone in the county school system, but no mention has been made of doing so this time. Applications for an interim should be submitted by March 3. During the time for delegations, Franklin McCallie argued for keeping Supt. Smith. He said, "We have suffered a tragedy, but I ask that you not release Supt. Smith." He said a buyout would be wasting money and said, "Superintendents should not be blamed for all the wrongs in the district." Col. Wayne Rich said, "I don't know of one person who wants a dime of their money spent on a buyout." He said the board should get all the evidence about the incident prior to making a decision on the superintendent. Supt. Smith, who has 33 years with the school system, came under fire for his handling of the rape case and the recent Chattanooga 2.0 report showing low performance and job readiness by county school students. Supt. Smith was represented in the buyout talks by attorney Leah Gerbitz. Your company could win one of four highly coveted International Convenience Retail Awards at this years NACS Insight Convenience Summit - Europe. ALEXANDRIA, Va. This summer, convenience industry experts from around the world will convene for the NACS Insight Convenience Summit Europe, June 5-11 in Stockholm, London and Dublin. A significant component of this annual event is the International Convenience Retail Awards program, recognizing excellence in convenience retailing. Now in its eighth year, the International Convenience Retail Awards have become a highlight of the event, which recognize and promote convenience retailing excellence. The four award categories are: International Convenience Retailer of the Year 2016 European Convenience Industry Leader of the Year 2016, sponsored by PepsiCo International Convenience Retail Sustainability Award 2016, sponsored by Coca-Cola European Technology Implementation Award, sponsored by Verifone The NACS Insight Awards offer convenience retailers from around the world the opportunity to showcase innovation and creativity within their business and to the wider international sector. This years winners will be announced on June 9 at the NACS Insight Awards Dinner at the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel in London. Download the brochure for full details about how to participate in the NACS Insight International Convenience Retail Awards. The deadline for all award entries is March 31, 2016. Registration for the NACS Insight Convenience Summit Europe is available online. Early bird pricing, a 20% savings, ends on February 29take advantage of it today! Japanese tourists flock to see Hachi, the cat with lucky eyebrows Guardian (YY) Are Cats allowed in Court? UK Criminal Law Blog (Richard Smith) The Hadza, the Honeyguide Bird and the Persistent Problem of Naturefaking Atlas Obscura (Robert M) Furious George: monkey in Brazil drinks rum and chases bar patrons with knife Guardian (YY) Sound wave therapy is first alternative to Viagra in 15 years New Scientist The Garden of Earthly Delights by Jheronimus Bosch (Chuck L). Interactive. One-Third of Clinical Trial Results Never Disclosed, Study Finds Bloomberg (martha r) China? Negative-Rates Fallout Makes ECBs Task Harder Wall Street Journal Bank of England deputy says 2019 rate hike expectations not justified Telegraph Cameron EU talks continue through night BBC Syraqistan Big Brother is Watching You Watch Reality With Apple and The FBI Karl Denniger Scott) Imperial Collapse Watch Dirty little secret: Insurers actually are making a mint from Obamacare Los Angeles Times (Kevin C) 2016 Shockingly, authorities arrest activists instead of people responsible for the Aliso Canyon methane gas leak Inhabitat Chicago residents sue criminal city for not warning of high lead levels in water supply Independent (martha r) Black Injustice Tipping Point Are We Doomed to Slow Growth? New York Times. With bad management, meaning our current elites, yes. A National Infrastructure Program Is a Smart Idea We Wont Do Because We Are Dysfunctional Gawker Jobless Claims Fall as Manufacturing Appears to Stabilize Reuters NY Fed warns asset managers are vulnerable to runs Financial Times Feds next move much more likely a rate hike than a cut survey Reuters Class Warfare Antidote du jour (Alan T) The bull was doing his best to impress the cow, but she was having none of it. Jack Bell Photography. Glacier Park. And a bonus antidote from Chuck L: Forget snuggling by the window, Jesper the cat loves OUTDOOR adventures. Posted by 9NEWS (KUSA) on Monday, February 15, 2016 See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here. Yves here. For worthy critique of the Clinton defenders crackpot realism, see Steve Waldmans Your theory of politics is wrong. By Nathan Tankus, a writer living in New York City Despite the title, this isnt exactly about Hillary Clinton. Its about the liberal pundits who defend her at every turn. Their preening attitude is best illustrated in this tweet from a journalist at Vox. Incidentally, is there no phrase that represents self satisfied modern liberalism more than tweet from a journalist from Vox? Hi, Im 23 years old & I once read a blog post about how Hillary Clinton forced welfare reform on the country. Im here to lecture you. David Roberts (@drvox) February 6, 2016 You see, critics of Hillary Clinton are children who only recently became politicized that should just shut up. This attitude is peculiar for a few reasons. First, during election season theres nothing that pundits love more than to denounce young people for not being interested in politics and voting more. Now that they start to pay attention its time to shut up and stop being so interested in discussing politics. Pundits evidentially want young people to help get elected the person that adults have already selected, not actually have any influence over the political process. Second, the supposed strawman Roberts is beating up on is actually not wrong! Youd think when making fun of millennials it would be wise to pick something more negligible than throwing millions of people into crushing poverty. But to the liberal commentariat that was so long ago and her agency was (and is) small. Some of these same pundits will object to the claim that they defend her at every turn. They will point to some mildly critical article they wrote or an interview they did with Sanders seven months ago as evidence of their objectivity. These comments comically miss the point. First, the amount written taking Hillary Clintons self image as a realist and serious politician is leaps and bounds greater then the writing critical of her or supportive of sanders. Even Vox criticism of her reads like PR consultations. Second, ardent defense isnt measured in how much you write on each topic. Its measured in the tone and attitude pouring through all your writing and in this case its overwhelming. To take but one example (again from Vox), here is Ezra Klein writing at the end of January: Clintons theory of change is probably analytically correct, and its well-suited to a world in which Republicans will almost certainly continue to control the House, and so a Democratic president will have to grind out victories of compromise in Congress and of bureaucratic mastery through executive action. In this piece overall theres allusions to the criticisms leftists have of Clinton and a few nice words for Sanders but the overall message and tone, best expressed in this quote, is Clinton is serious, Sanders is unserious and we need seriousness. Even Krugman who coined the phrase Very Serious Person is chiding people because they dont want to hear that theyre being unrealistic. One gets the feeling that the Iraq war was a personal affront to Krugman because he couldnt help but be on the wrong side of mainstream punditry of the time and now that both the war and the great financial crisis he can finally return to his proper role as a conventional commentator. The most bizarre thing about these desperate calls to realism is our modern context. In what possible way is it realistic to continue voting for the lesser evil when we have an ongoing climate catastrophe no mainstream Democrat or Republican is willing to discuss, let alone actually do something significant about? During Obamas first term he even pressured environmental groups to stop or tone down their discussions of climate change. Each lesser evil candidate just happens to be a greater evil than the last one. Each of their politics are unimaginable even as one is in the throes of the attacks on basic human decency engendered by the last one. The slogan of the Democratic party is it could always be worse while the promise is it will always be worse. When your realism involves supporting a trend that could quite realistically mean the end of human civilization forgive me for holding you in contempt. In crackpot realism, a high-flying moral rhetoric is joined with an opportunist crawling among a great scatter of unfocused fears and demands. In fact, the main content of politics is now a struggle among men equally expert in practical next steps which, in summary, make up the thrust toward war and in great, round, hortatory principles. Charles Wright Mills writing nearly sixty years ago captures this dynamic perfectly. Whereas then the steps towards war could be apocalyptic because of nuclear annihilation now the steps towards war seem more like a distraction while we sink into greater economic doldrums and come closer to social death. But not only does all this ignore the existential threats, it completely misses how American politics has evolved for over four decades. To the liberal commentariat the status quo is irrevocably right wing and politicians like Obama and Clinton are simply grappling with this reality. As Klein said Clintons theory of change is probably analytically correct. What they miss is these right wing Democrats have profoundly shaped this status quo. Bill Clintons treatment of poor people was unimaginable before him and par for the course after him. Obamas treatment of ordinary homeowners would have been a preposterous fictional story of campy villany. Now its just how the world works. Sanders (for all his faults on issues like Israel and immigration) is actually looking to push the center to the left for once and is hoping to galvanize ordinary people to do it. Its the realism of the psych ward that says well solve climate change, help ordinary people and build a workable economy by supporting an endless series of politicians who care less and less about the issues that matter and exploit hopeful supporters more and more cynically. Admonishing young people for both not voting and desiring anything other than a debt-crippled, climatologically-unstable future feels more like admonishing serfs for being insufficiently pious and for caring about what happens to themselves or their children on this plane of existence. In short, realism is just a code word for shut up, sit down and be quiet. A remarkable airbrushing of the state of knowledge about hedge fund returns unwittingly demonstrates how long it takes investors who are desperate for a free lunch, in terms of outperformance without taking commensurate outsized risk, to give up on fantasies. It appears to take eight to nine years. Lets be clear about the implications of the Financial Times story: Either by accident or design, it makes it sound as if investors just woke up to the fact that hedge fund performance is not what it is cracked up to be, and are embracing new products that offer some of the desired attributes of hedge funds (having performance not correlated much with that of other asset classes) at lower cost. Earth to Financial Times: this was old news as of when I started blogging, in 2006,as NC archives attest. And those supposedly newfangled products existed back in the pre-crisis stone ages too. Heres the claim in the Financial Times article: Hedge fund managers are arguably the celebrity chefs of the money management industry. They are best able to whip up returns that make investors drool. But financial engineers are unpicking their secret sauce and finding new ways to sell it by the bottle In contrast, hedge fund managers attempt to deliver alpha, the returns over and above the market itself, through a staggering array and diversity of strategies, ranging from betting on global currency movements to surfing on the corporate acquisitions boom. That story line is a complete crock. Hedge fund managers, well before 2008, were widely acknowledging that they did not deliver alpha, or manager outperformance, and were explicitly marketing the idea that they still provided something worth paying for, which they called synthetic or alternative beta. Not only did we point out then that investors could construct these exposures for far less money than the prototypical hedge fund 2 and 20 performance fees (2% annual management fee, 20% of the upside performance over a specified benchmark), but we noted that there were established funds back then doing precisely that. Our very first post in 2006 hectored CalPERS for continuing to invest in hedge funds even after theyd underperformed stock and bond indexes for the last three years, and flagged that synthetic hedge fund products had been launched as of then: The rationale for hedge funds eyepopping fees is that investors are paying for alpha, that is, the excess return (meaning the return in excess of the market return). Investors are willing to pay for alpha because it is considered to reflect an investment managers skill, and managers who can regularly outperfrom the market are rare indeed. But Ms. Wood [of CalPERS] is talking about something completely different. Targeting a particular risk/return tradeoff isnt an alpha proposition at all. It is instead synthetic beta, (or alternative beta). And synthetic beta can be produced comparatively cheaply. A 2005 survey (http://www.edhec-risk.com/edhec_publications/RISKArticle.2005-08-10.3923/view, free subscription required) found that 70% of the investors recognized the role of alternative beta in overall hedge fund results. But this knowledge hasnt yet translated into a recognition that they are overpaying. But some of the providers do, and are launching clones to undercut hedge funds. Merrill Lynch introduced its Passive Factor Index earlier this year. Goldman Sachs launched its hedge fund replication tool, Absolute Return Tracker Index (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/5b8331c0-82fc-11db-a38a-0000779e2340.html), earlier this month. From a March 2007 post, Is Alpha All Its Cracked Up to Be?: As we have discussed, the problem is that a lot of fees are being paid, but not a lot of alpha exists. In fact, the gap between expectations of hedge fund performance and actual performance has grown so large that the salesmen have come up with a new rationale: synthetic beta. You are not paying for alpha, you are paying for a very particular combination of market exposures. The problem with that is there is no reason to pay a 2/20 fee structure for that. A customized exposure, no matter how exotic, could be designed and implemented more cheaply. An article in the current Economist, Whats it all about, alpha? covers some of the same territory, namely the seeming lack of real alpha, the claims made for the virtues of specialized profiles (the article doesnt use the term alternative beta) and the rise of hedge fund clones based on the view that a lot of hedge funds are charging a lot of money for strategies that can be replicated more cheaply. The piece is more than a bit distressing, because it serves up arguments that are bunk. The first is that even if hedge funds attractive (or seemingly attractive) is simply making the right mix and match of market returns (or betas) thats worth paying for. Uh, no. Any investor in a hedge fund has other investments (unless he is a fool). Institutional investors like pension funds hire fund consultants to help them determine asset allocation (as in what markets to be in, meaning what combination of betas to buy, as in how much in domestic stocks, foreign stocks, domestic bonds, etc.). So any beta mix decision by a hedge fund could run counter to other investments being made. Put it another way: the hedge fund isnt being hired to choose which betas to invest in. Thats someone elses job. There is also a very strange discussion of style bias. Even hedge funds are expected to adhere to a style. There are hedge fund indices by style, and they are measured relative to the appropriate index. For example, hedge fund strategies include global macro, event arbitrage, emerging markets, distressed, convertible arbitrage, market neutral, etc. Not adhering to your style is very bad and fund consultants and investors punish you for it. If you are an emerging market fund, you cant go and buy US biotech stocks, no matter how much money youd make. Similarly, not fitting within a style box also gets you punished. I know of a US fund that has excellent performance that is neither precisely long-short nor market neutral and that has hurt them in fundraising. Another fund, despite being affiliated with the Basses, was positioned as opportunistic which meant they could do anything, and they too found it hard to raise money. But the story makes it sound as if hedge funds have no style constraints, which simply isnt true from a practical standpoint. And you can have style biases within your style, but so what? If it doesnt produce measurable alpha, its just noise. And in April 2007, Now Its Official: Hedge Funds Deliver No Alpha: Travellers are seen at the private entrance Monday, Dec. 28, 2015 at the Naples Municipal Airport in Naples, Fla. (Corey Perrine/Staff) SHARE By Laura Layden of the Naples Daily News Traffic took a sharp turn at the Naples Municipal Airport last month, dropping 15.3 percent over the year. Typically, January is one of the airport's busiest months, with the busy winter season at full throttle. Last month, the airport saw 8,554 takeoffs and landings, down from 10,094 in the same month a year ago. "They were down and that's very significant to us," said Ted Soliday, executive director of the Naples Airport Authority, which operates the airport. Traffic is also down by 1.4 percent in February so far, compared to a year ago. "We are looking at this month and we are starting to go down already. We are behind in many different areas," Soliday said. With all the crazy snow and cold weather up north since January, he said he would have thought airport traffic would be soaring, not taking a nose-dive, with more reason to escape to tropical Naples. The airport has no commercial service, but its general aviation business (think private planes and charter flights) has grown year over year since 2010. Before the Great Recession, the airport was much busier. In 2005, it had more than 163,000 takeoffs and landings. It's still working its way back to that number, reaching almost 100,000 last year. "We have a long ways to come back. We thought we were on a good comeback trail," Soliday said. "But this did surprise us." He said he knows of no specific reasons why the airport has been slower, especially coming off a record year for tourism in Collier County. "It was a good, positive year from an economic standpoint. To all of a sudden see this change. Wow," Soliday said. Yet one month and a few weeks don't make a trend, so he doesn't plan to make any changes in budgeting or operations yet. "When it's two months in a row, then I have to start tightening things up," Soliday said. If he had to tighten up, he said, one of his first moves would be to look for ways to reduce overtime pay, which may mean having fewer employees working on the holidays. If traffic continues to drop over the coming months it will become a problem for Soliday's successor. Soliday will soon retire and Christopher Rozansky who is now the director of the Venice Municipal Airport in Sarasota County will officially take over the job on April 16. The airport will soon add commercial service, which is expected to boost traffic. Elite Airways begins service on Feb. 27 between Naples and Newark, New Jersey, Portland, Maine and other Florida locations. The airline has already sold tickets locally and up north as far out as April. "For the community, I think it's a positive step. No questions about it," Soliday said. Jack Wert, Collier County's tourism director, said traffic at the Naples airport doesn't usually correlate with visitation because many jets that are taking off and landing there are owned or used by local residents or businesses and they aren't bringing in tourists. Statistics show that most of the county's tourists who hop a plane to get here use Southwest Florida International. The county's tourism statistics for January will be shared on Monday at a monthly meeting of the Tourist Development Council, an advisory board to county commissioners. The statistics for January will show fewer visitors stayed at local hotels or other vacation rentals than a year ago, but their spending still rose, Wert said. "Visitation was up slightly," he said. "But occupancy was down some in hotels." Riders in the Sky performed with Roy Rogers in 1979. Courtesy of ridersinthesky.com SHARE Riders in the Sky will bring their "Salute to Roy Rogers" to the stage at Center for the Arts Bonita Springs on Feb. 25. Riders in the Sky, a comedic Western group from Nashville, will be at the Center for Performing Arts of Bonita Springs Feb. 25. Members are guitarist Ranger Doug, bunkhouse bassist Too Slim, "King of the Fiddlers" Woody Paul and "CowPolka King" Joey. Submitted By Laura Gates A bonafide western Riders in the Sky at salute Roy Rogers at Center for the Performing Arts Bonita Springs While Gene Autry and Roy Rogers herded in the cowboy craze of post-Depression era America, their legacy lives on as the Riders in the Sky continue to croon western hits, combined with a hearty helping of comedic "yucks." Part nostalgia, part improv and part bonafide musical talent, this Grand Ole Opry band will be making an appearance in Bonita Springs Feb. 25. "Looks like a new pin on the map," said band leader "Ranger Doug" (Doug Green), of this show stop in Southwest Florida on the Salute to Roy Rogers tour. He and the other band members -- Too Slim the "bunkhouse bassist" (Fred LaBour), Woody Paul, "King of the Fiddlers" (Paul Chrisman), and Joey the "CowPolka King" (Joey Miskulin) -- perform about 180 shows a year. They're closing in on 7,000 performances, averaging a show every other day for the last 38 years. Not only is the group's longevity a tribute to America's enduring love of western music, it's also a testament to the enduring relationship of band members. Humor and a "deep respect for a classic American musical genre" are what keep them singing, playing and yodeling night after night, said Ranger Doug. "It's fun," he added. "It's the greatest gig." Accordionist Joey is the "new" guy of the group, having joined the original members 28 years ago. He apprenticed with the late polka king Frank Yankovic and has recorded with superstars like Roy Rogers and U2. "In what's left of the polka world, Joey is a minor deity," said Ranger Doug. Aside from guitar and vocals, Ranger Doug's specialty is yodeling in the tradition of country blues legend Jimmie Rodgers. "It always gets a smile," he noted. Laughs are guaranteed at every Riders in the Sky performance, compliments of the comedic genius of Too Slim, who's known as the "sharpest wit in the West." "We try to amuse each other, as well as the audience," Ranger Doug explained. "It's very much an ad lib show. Anything can happen, and it does." Woody Paul rounds out this cowboy quartet as a distinguished fiddler, steeped in the tradition of Middle Tennessee. Recently inducted into the National Fiddlers Hall of Fame, Woody Paul also amuses with intricate rope tricks. Ranger Doug describes the group's performances as "Monty Python meets Sons of the Pioneers." Riders in the Sky have been Grand Ole Opry members for 33 years, have won two Grammys and have performed in all 50 states, including at the White House four times. They'll hit Bonita Springs after a two-night show in Zurich, Switzerland. The Salute to Roy Rogers show pays tribute to this iconic western movie, music and television star, who is the undisputed "King of the Cowboys." Sing-along tunes include "Don't Fence Me In," "Pecos Bill" and "Happy Trails." Film clips of Roy's greatest moments on screen, as well as a tribute to sidekick Gabby Hayes, are woven throughout the 90-minute show. Ranger Doug, a cowboy historian and author of "Singing in the Saddle," will provide fun facts from Roy Roger's life. "He was the kids' hero," noted Ranger Doug of Rogers' prominence in the 1940s and '50s. "Every girl wanted to grow up to marry him, and every boy wanted to grow up to be him." Although the cowboy craze has long passed, the genre continues to have enduring appeal among the older generation, as well as youngsters, thanks to Disney's "Toy Story" trilogy. Riders in the Sky continue to pack shows by offering the same, feel-good escape the original western music and films brought to folks coming out of the Great Depression, said Ranger Doug. "People like to laugh," he concludes. "It's a real escape to imagine yourself out in the West singing songs and righting wrongs. By the 1950s, the phenomenon was over, but the music resonates and lives on." IF YOU GO "Riders in the Sky" Salute to Roy Rogers WHEN: 8 p.m. Feb. 25 WHERE: Center for Performing Arts Hinman Auditorium, 10150 Bonita Beach Road, Bonita Springs COST: Tickets are $45 for premium seating, $40 for center section and $35 for side section seats INFORMATION: 239-495-8989 or visit artcenterbonita.org SHARE Steven Tabeek holds Chiara Benedetta, his 9-month-old daughter, and Dolce Mare employee Jonny. Gabriella Gaggiano dipping a decadent chocolate strawberry. Dolce Mares hazelnut dream cookies. The candy cases offer a ton of tempting treats. Dolce Mare in Marco Walk invites you to indulge in "forbidden pleasures" including wine and chocolate. Lance Shearer/Eagle Correspondent By Lance Shearer What does Miami Beach have in common with Marco Island? Answer: An entrepreneurial family with a talent for sweets. Dolce Mare, with locations on Ocean Drive and the Marco Walk, is the creation of Steven Tabeek, and his wife, Gabriella Gaggiano. The couple reside on Marco with their 9-month old daughter and sole business partner, Chiara Benedetta (the couple are expecting another little bundle of joy soon). The products the family offers at Dolce Mare Dessert & Wine Lounge are tempting treats, opulent concoctions designed to tempt your taste buds. "There's nothing like chocolate and red wine," said Tabeek, and they create most of their sweet desserts and bonbons on the premises. "The dessert lounge concept is the perfect marriage of all the places we have enjoyed when traveling to Europe and abroad, a place where we wanted to offer our guests a place where they could come relax, unwind, and enjoy delicious desserts and wines outside of the typical restaurant setting," said Gaggiano. Among the offerings, a Parisian marzipan, salty pistachio chocolates, gelato, numerous varieties of fudge including maple walnut and brown sugar, not to mention the tiramisu, Italian cheesecake and profiteroles. Dolce Mare also offers a selection of white and red wines, sherry and vintage ports aged for 10, 20, 30 or even 40 years, along with coffee and related specialty drinks including espresso and cappuccino. "We came here for cappuccino," said Nina Engelstad, visiting from Norway with her husband Einar on a cold morning by local, not Scandinavian standards but they did agree to sample some fudge. You might think Don Abraham from Hampton, New Hampshire, was another escapee from a frigid northern climate, but he said he came down "to escape the presidential candidates." The boutique at the front of the store in Marco Walk, across from the Hilton hotel, opens at 10 a.m. each morning, selling sweets and coffee. At three o'clock in the afternoon, the wine lounge in the back opens for business, with a happy hour from 3 to 6 p.m. offering two-for-one drink specials, and doesn't close "until the last person leaves," said Tabeek. The boutique is brightly lit, with glass-fronted cases displaying racks of candies, gelato and chocolate roses. Behind a velvet rope, the lounge is a bit darker. The name translates from Italian as "sweet sea," although "there are two interpretations," said Tabeek. "It could also be 'a sea of sweets.' " The boutique opened at the end of May last year, and the wine lounge just before December, so this is the first winter season for both parts of the operation. Opening any business on Marco just as summer starts, particularly a visitor-centric eatery such as Dolce Mare, requires a leap of faith, but Tabeek said response from the community has been "very good we're really happy." "Both Steven and I have extensive backgrounds and training in desserts," said Gaggiano. "We owned a chocolate shop on world-famous Lincoln Road in South Beach for five years where I exclusively handled all the chocolate production, and we then went on to open our first Dolce Mare in the Marriott Hotel on Ocean Drive." A little background, Tabeek is from Brooklyn and Gaggiano is from Ventnor, New Jersey. He studied finance at St. Francis College and she received her bachelors in psychology with a minor in journalism from the University of Miami and her master's degree in Italian from Columbia University in New York City. "I grew up in the restaurant business my whole life as my father, Domenico Gaggiano, was born and raised in San Giovanni Rotondo, Puglia, Italy; hence our love for all things Italian. He has had a restaurant and beach bar on the world-famous Atlantic City Boardwalk for the last 30 years," said Gaggiano. "We chose to move to Marco Island after 10 years in Miami Beach since we thought it would be the perfect place to raise our 9-month-old daughter," said Gaggiano. "This May we will be celebrating a full year at our Marco Island location, Chiara's first birthday, and 10 years as husband and wife! We love Marco Island and Dolce Mare is the perfect family-friendly vacation spot with for all people of all ages to relax, indulge, and unwind!" SHARE Corey Bates, 5, gets a skull tattoo from Layni Robertson. The Black Pearl departs daily from Rose Marina, giving a passengers a little taste of the buccaneering life. Lance Shearer/Eagle Correspondent Crew member Aleesha Asper casts off the bowline. The Black Pearl departs daily from Rose Marina, giving a passengers a little taste of the buccaneering life. Lance Shearer/Eagle Correspondent Pirate and RedSox fan Finn Cusick, 4, gives his buccaneer grimace. The Black Pearl departs daily from Rose Marina, giving a passengers a little taste of the buccaneering life. Lance Shearer/Eagle Correspondent "Pirate Pete," aka Tom Arnold, exchanges (water) cannon fire with his rival pirate ship. The Black Pearl departs daily from Rose Marina, giving a passengers a little taste of the buccaneering life. Lance Shearer/Eagle Correspondent By Lance Shearer Pirate ships, historically, were nasty, squalid craft, filled with inhospitable sociopaths and misfits who had a habit of murdering their victims after robbing them. But pirates have captured the imagination of America's youth, even before but especially since Johnny Depp took on the role of Capt. Jack Sparrow in the inaugural film of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise. "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" was a movie based on a theme park ride in Disney World, and now, the concept has come full circle, as an actual "Black Pearl" sails the seas around Marco Island, essentially a floating amusement park ride. Pirate-themed cruises on the Black Pearl, departing from Rose Marina on North Bald Eagle Drive, allow youngsters to tap into their inner buccaneer, and spend an hour seeing Marco Island from the water. They also get into a fight. Reliably, once the Black Pearl is out in the Marco River, just about in front of the Snook Inn, another pirate craft and who knew that pirates had Zodiac inflatables powered by outboard engines helmed by the notorious "Pirate Pete" can be counted on to intercept the ship and attack with a water cannon. At this point, parents and those not wanting themselves and their cameras to be spritzed with salt water are well advised to repair to the upper or poop deck. Those remaining on the main deck man a dozen water cannons, and fight off the intruder with their return fire. Invariably, the superior firepower aboard the Black Pearl prevails, and Pirate Pete, aka Tom Arnold, is forced to retreat, soaking wet (and given the recent weather, rather chilly). "Yeah, I lose every time," said Arnold no, not that actor. "It's 12 water cannons against my one." Recently, he suggested to Black Pearl owner and Captain Frank Camarda that perhaps the two should trade places on the blustery ride, but pirate captains are not known for brooking insubordination lightly, and Pirate Pete, as usual, went out in the Zodiac, while Camarda remained aboard the Black Pearl. Camarda has a 100-ton Coast Guard master's license, and with the wind blowing, he needed to be at the helm. Black Pearl has enormous freeboard; while her masts are stumpy decorations suitable only for flying the Jolly Roger, the hull itself constitutes a massive sail forcing the ship downwind. But with experience and a push from the bow thrusters, the ship headed out. Weather permitting, she sails daily for the "interactive pirate adventures," and again for a more adult-oriented sunset cruise, with open full bar and a DJ spinning tunes. Black Pearl will remain on Marco through May 1, after which she heads north to her summer home on the Jersey shore. Camarda has operated there for six years, and also owns an 80-ft. "head boat." Miss Beach Haven, that takes out daily fishing trips for bluefish, tuna, sea bass, or whatever else takes the hook. Families are encouraged to show up about half an hour early for the pirate cruises, to give their offspring time to turn into pirates. This is done via bandannas, face painting and cutlasses. One young man, asked to raise his cutlass for a photo, retorted, "that's not a cutlass that's a sword!" You don't want to argue with the man swinging the cutlass. If you go: Black Pearl Rose Marina, 951 Bald Eagle Drive Marco Island, FL 34145 Call: 239-404-5422 piratesofmarco.com SHARE By Dave Osborn of the Naples Daily News Talent helps in becoming a Disney animation artist, but patience goes a long way too. Naples native Aaron Blaise worked for six years as director of the animated 2003 film "Brother Bear." He spent 21 years at the famed animation studio, creating the Young Nala lion cub in "Lion King," Rajah the tiger in "Aladdin" and the human character Yao from "Mulan." Blaise's works, along with those of artist Bob Graham, will be displayed from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday during a reception at The Phil Fisher Gallery, 810 12th Ave. S., Naples "I always wanted to be an artist. I never thought about Disney," Blaise said. Yet he always was interested in natural history growing up in Golden Gate Estates. His family moved to Southwest Florida from Vermont when he was 8 years old. "I spent a lot of time out in the swamps, out in the woods," he said. "I wanted to be a staff illustrator for National Geographic." Blaise graduated from Barron Collier High School in 1986 and attended the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota. "Disney came along and I thought, that sounds interesting," he said. He moved to California to work for Disney by age 20, he said. "I basically learned how to animate out there," Blaise said. He moved up the animating ranks, creating Young Nala, Rajah and other characters. He worked as a supervising animator, which requires casting an animated character like casting an actor. That requires creating the way a certain character performs throughout a movie, such as with Young Nala. "There's a whole group of us who are supervising animators throughout the film," Blaise said. They work on visual style, read scripts then start to design the characters and their movements. "At first you just go with your gut and see what the directors want, what they like, then you make adjustments," Blaise said. "It's a process, it takes a few months." Then he landed one of his biggest jobs as director for "Brother Bear." He worked with Phil Collins, who co-wrote the musical score for the film. "That was a pretty cool honor because we were nominated for an Oscar for that," Blaise said, referring to a Best Animated Feature Film nomination. ("Finding Nemo" won it that year.) Blaise and his children went through a rough time in 2007, when his wife, Karen, died from breast cancer at age 46. They returned to Florida, where Blaise found a job with an animation studio in Stuart but that company went bankrupt in 2012. Blaise now teaches art through online courses at his website, creatureartteacher.com At Saturday's show, Blaise will display all of his own fine art, including his drawings. And the event will mean more than just showing his works in his hometown, Blaise said. It was Phil Fisher and his wife, Natalie, who raised money to help Blaise attend art school. "I used to mentor him when he was a teenager," Phil Fisher said. "We had some artwork that we put toward a scholarship fund for young students years and years ago. We helped him get through his first year in at Ringling." Fisher said Graham also is a Naples artists, having moved from Wisconsin a few years ago. "He's a diver, so all of his paintings in the show are underwater paintings," Fisher said. Harpist Damara Chaudhuri also will play during the reception, he said. "To have these special shows is really a treat," Fisher said. "For Aaron, I'm excited for him because it's like a coming home." Blaise said he's come full circle, but he benefited greatly from accepting that first job at Disney. "I was working with some of the best artists in the world," he said. "It was a great, great time, 21 of the greatest years of my life." IF YOU GO ART EXHIBIT What: Art works of Aaron Blaise and artist Bob Graham When: 6-9 p.m. Saturday Where: The Phil Fisher Gallery, 810 12th Ave. S., Naples Cost: Free Information: 239-403-8393 Author Scott Russell Sanders will be the next guest to read at Lee Universitys Writers Festival on Tuesday at 7 p.m. The reading will take place in the Rose Lecture Hall, in the Helen DeVos College of Education. Mr. Sanders is the author of 20 books of fiction and nonfiction, including Hunting for Hope and A Conservationist Manifesto. His most recent books are Earth Works: Selected Essays and Divine Animal: A Novel. A collection of stories titled Dancing in Dreamtime will be published this year, along with a new edition of his documentary narrative, Stone Country. According to Image, In genres as diverse as short story and memoir, nature essay and manifesto, Scott Russell Sanderss prose is consistently propelled by a concern for the well-being of the world and the people who inhabit it. Among his honors are the Lannan Literary Award, the John Burroughs Essay Award, the Mark Twain Award, the Cecil Woods Award for Nonfiction, the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Indiana Authors Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2012, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Mr. Sanders is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at Indiana University. He and his wife, Ruth, a biochemist, have two children. We are thrilled to have a writer of Sanderss stature reading at Lee, said Dr. Kevin Brown, professor of English at Lee. His excellent career shows a wide range of ability in diverse genres, coupled with a commitment to the idea of awe and wonder at the beauty and mystery of the world. Were especially excited that he is taking the opportunity to meet with our students and talk about the craft of writing with them. Mr. Sanders will also visit Dr. Rachel Reneslacis Religious Rhetoric and Spiritual Quest class on Wednesday, and will have lunch with the Creation Care Club, sponsored by Lee faculty Dr. Katherine Carlson. Future Writers Festival events include author Denise Giardina in March, and Lee faculty Brown, Stacey Isom Campbell, and Dr. Will Woolfitt in April. For more information on Lees Writers Festival, please email Dr. Brown at kbrown@leeuniversity.edu or call 614-8320. Laokoon Film Geza Rohrig in Son of Saul. SHARE By Carolina A. Miranda Many things are visible in "Son of Saul," the harrowing Oscar-nominated film set in a crematorium at Auschwitz. There is the dead-eyed stare of the protagonist, Saul (played by Geza Rohrig), a Hungarian man who, as a Sonderkommando, is a prisoner forced to do the Nazis' dirty work for them. And there are the moments of abject horror: anonymous bodies pushed into gas chambers and shot before pits. Less visible is the thoughtfully constructed set. For the duration of "Son of Saul," the film keeps its focus on Saul; the environment barely reveals itself at the edge of the frame. But the set, designed by Hungarian architect Laszlo Rajk, was essential to the film's taut energy. Long takes some of which were three and four minutes long and accomplished with a hand-held camera meant that many of the sets would need to be complete rooms that could accommodate 360 degrees' worth of shooting. This required Rajk to re-create a Nazi crematorium in an abandoned 1912 warehouse on the outskirts of Budapest so that director Laszlo Nemes could follow his character with the camera from gas chamber to incineration spaces in continuous shots. Auschwitz is a subject Rajk (pronounced Roik) knows well. He designed the Hungarian exhibition at Auschwitz in 2014 and first visited the camp as a university student in the late 1960s, before recent restoration work and more high-tech national exhibits had been added. "It was the poverty of communism," he said. "All of these things were rundown. In a way, the atmosphere was much closer to the atmosphere of a death camp." Over his long career, Rajk, 67, has built industrial buildings, cultural halls and shopping centers. He has also designed sets for numerous Hungarian and international films, including big-budget Hollywood productions. (He helped create the mission control set for "The Martian.") Rajk spoke via telephone recently from Iceland, where he is on location for another movie (a thriller about a young girl). In this lightly edited conversation, he talks about his design process, what he has learned about Nazi architecture and why every architect should design at least one movie set in their lifetime. Q: What kind of research did you do to design the crematorium? A: I designed the Hungarian exhibition in Auschwitz in the Auschwitz museum over a decade ago, so I had all the research and almost everything ready. The blueprints of those buildings survive. They were found in the offices after the liberation of the camp. There is all of this data about how it was designed. That is a striking phenomenon. It's a very thoughtful design. It's professional work. It was hand-drawn, so it's really this almost human touch in the drawing. But it really raises the responsibility of professionals in general, whether you accept a job like this or not. Sometimes my stomach would shrink to think that someone in the morning was taking a shower and was thinking about how to create a more effective crematorium. Q: In an interview, Nemes talked about how the set you designed really affected the psychology of the cast and crew. What did it feel like to enter this space? A: When the set was ready, Matyas (Erdely, the cinematographer) and Laszlo and I went through the set and I was explaining the connections. We were leaving the gas chamber and someone slammed the door on Matyas. And immediately we open the door and there is this young man, completely pale. His grandfather's family was killed in Auschwitz. It was this speechless moment where you stand there and you see the effects. Q: It's curious, because the film doesn't show much of the set, yet it was essential to establishing its mood. A: It's a very strange experiment that you are doing, because you are not establishing the space through pictures. But rather you trust that the movement of the human body, through gestures, sights, through the eyes, will (convey) what the space is about. The other element was the noises, the sound design. The sound mixture was very important in that movie because it's not only adding to the story, it's adding to the architecture. Through the noises you start to understand what type of space you are in. Q: In designing the Hungarian exhibition at Auschwitz, what was your primary concern? How did you work with that space? A: The exhibition is in the barracks, in the blocks of the original camp, where prisoners lived. It's Number 18. I started to know not only the building but also the detailed structures, how they looked. Most of those buildings were built by prisoners, and their work is very professional. That is a very striking fact _ that those people who are dying in three weeks or three months, they are meanwhile carrying out very professional carpentry and masonry. When it came time to think about the exhibition design, I started to think about the 6 million people who are missing missing grandsons, missing descendants, this lack of people. I wanted to make visible what it means to be missing. Also, I know that such a design is not for myself. It's not for my generation. It's for future generations. The whole structure of the exhibition is very much based on Internet structures. It's not based on chronological order. There is not an obligatory path that you walk through. It's very free. You start wherever you want. Q: Did you lose family in the Holocaust? A: No. The family is not Jewish. But my father and mother were members of the Resistance during World War II. Q: Architecture and set design couldn't be more different in the sense that one is about creating shelter and the other illusion. But they are also both about creating environment. A: Yes! And I think all architects should design sets. A set can be done in three months and it pushes back the ego of architects who think this is my thing and no one should ever touch it. It's this provisional temporary architecture, and however good it is, it eventually is taken apart and stays only virtually in pictures. Plus, you learn a lot of tricks in production design, like how to cheat. That is very important when you think about perspective. Q: How do you see the set for "Saul" fitting into the history of set design? A: Lately I'm realizing that, in a way, "Saul" is kind of a beginning of a new approach to sets. At the beginning, there were the movies by (D.W.) Griffith and "Ben-Hur" and "Cleopatra." They built huge sets. The director saw it, the actors saw it, the audience saw it. The next period are when people are jumping around in a green box so that the actor doesn't see any of the set, the cinematographer doesn't see anything of the set but the audience does. They are the only ones who see the whole set. "Son of Saul" is the reverse of that. The director sees the set, the actor sees the set, but the audience doesn't see. But that proves the complexity of what a movie is: They don't see, but they understand. Mesac Damas during a hearing about future court dates at the Collier County Courthouse on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. Damas is accused of killing his wife and five children in 2009. (Dorothy Edwards/Staff) By Ryan Mills of the Naples Daily News The murder case of Mesac Damas could be one step closer to trial after the Florida Legislature reached an agreement to overhaul the state's death penalty law. Amid a vivid and passionate debate where one legislator talked about how his sister was murdered decades ago, the Florida House voted 93-20 Thursday for a death penalty bill that would require at least 10 out of 12 jurors to recommend execution in order for it be carried out. The measure heads next to the Senate, which is expected to approve the bill soon and send it to Gov. Rick Scott. "These reforms will allow us to keep the death penalty in our toolbox to punish our most violent criminals," said House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, a Merritt Island Republican. The Legislature is rewriting the death penalty law after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that the current method is unconstitutional because it allows judges to reach a different decision than juries, who have only an advisory role in recommending death. The ruling put potential death penalty cases, including Damas', on hold statewide. Damas, 39, has admitted to killing his wife and five children in their North Naples home in 2009. He faces six counts of first-degree murder. Damas' attorney, James Ermacora, said he believes the Senate will pass the bill and the governor will sign it. It will then be up to the Florida Supreme Court to establish new procedural rules, including jury instructions. If there's no delay, he said, he would advocate moving forward with the trial as soon as November. "There's a few things that still need to be done, and I'm working on them," Ermacora said. "There's no reason why I couldn't have everything finished by late summer." Under the bill (HB 7101) passed by the House, a jury would have to unanimously convict someone of murder and then unanimously agree that at least one factor in the case warranted a death sentence. At least 10 people on the jury would then have to vote to recommend a death sentence. A judge could not impose a death sentence if the jury recommended life in prison. The decision to require a 10-2 vote of the jury in death cases was called a compromise between House and Senate Republicans. The Senate bill initially called for a unanimous jury recommendation while the House had proposed a supermajority of only 9 jurors. The idea of requiring a unanimous jury recommendation was strongly opposed by Florida prosecutors who argued that some of the state's most notorious murderers including serial killer Ted Bundy did not receive a unanimous jury recommendation. "I think there's going to be more litigation now with respect to the fact that it doesn't have to be unanimous," Ermacora said. Damas was in court Friday morning for a short case management hearing. He sat quietly with his head bowed. His next court date was set for April 14. RELATED LINKS: Judge rules 60 autopsy photos admissible at Mesac Damas trial Mesac Damas case creeps forward as lawyers argue first set of motions More motions filed in Mesac Damas case, including future dates and which photographs to show to jury Prosecutors cite 5 factors in asking for Mesac Damas to be put to death Mesac Damas trial delay possible due to death penalty challenge Court filing: Lawyers for Damas want off the case A changed man? Confessed family killer Mesac Damas claims to be 'a new creature in Christ' North Naples man accused of murdering family may change plea Mesac Damas first-degree murder trial likely won't start until 2015 at earliest (The Associated Press contributed to this report) SHARE Cardinal Timothy Dolan delivers the keynote address to guests at Ave Maria Universitys 5th annual scholarship dinner at The Ritz-Carlton, Naples on Thursday, February 18, 2016. (Scott McIntyre/Staff) Members of Ave Maria Universitys choir enters the room for the 5th annual scholarship dinner at The Ritz-Carlton, Naples on Thursday, February 18, 2016. (Scott McIntyre/Staff) Cardinal Timothy Dolan blesses the choir before Ave Maria Universitys 5th annual scholarship dinner at The Ritz-Carlton, Naples on Thursday, February 18, 2016. (Scott McIntyre/Staff) Cardinal Timothy Dolan chats with guests during a reception before Ave Maria Universitys 5th annual scholarship dinner at The Ritz-Carlton, Naples on Thursday, February 18, 2016. (Scott McIntyre/Staff) Related Photos Photos: Cardinal Timothy Dolan Addresses Ave Maria Fundraiser By Maria Perez of the Naples Daily News Before speaking at a fundraising event in Naples Thursday, Cardinal Timothy Dolan defended comments by Pope Francis that questioned the Christianity of Donald Trump's position on immigration. Dolan said he didn't hear the comments himself, but said that Pope Francis wasn't judging politicians. Instead, he was speaking about the principles in the Bible. "What he is speaking about is principles, he is speaking about the noble principles that have guided ... that come from the Bible, that resonate in the human heart and that have been the basis of our country," Dolan said. "Mainly that beautiful principle, the respect for human life, the dignity of the human person and a sense of enthusiastic and welcoming hospitality that has always been part of the American dream." Dolan, who was in Naples to attend the Fifth Annual Scholarship Dinner of Ave Maria University at the Naples Ritz-Carlton, said that if politicians want to take umbrage on the Pope's comment, that's their fault. A a good preacher like Pope Francis is happy when people apply the principles to themselves. Dolan said he is also concerned about Trump's position on immigration. "I think it's at odds with what makes us great as America," he said. Dolan said he is grateful to the politicians who uphold the principle of welcoming immigrants. "Sometimes I wonder if my great-great-grandfather would have made it here with some of the animosity that we've got going on today," he said. After his trip in Mexico, Pope Francis questioned Trump's Christianity after a reporter asked his opinion on the candidate's desire to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and deport the about 11 million undocumented immigrants estimated to live in the U.S. "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel," the Pope said. "I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that." Trump responded that he considered it disgraceful of Pope Francis to question his Christianity. "For a religious leader to question a person's faith is disgraceful," Trump said at a campaign stop in South Carolina, which holds a key primary on Saturday. "I am proud to be a Christian, and as president I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened." Dolan said he wished more politicians modeled themselves after Pope Francis. "I think the Holy Father knows a bit more about grace than Donald Trump would," he said. "I think the Holy Father's got a lot of grace, a lot of wisdom and a lot of courage. I love him and I support him, and what he says is good for the world, is good for me and is good for the United States. "All the Holy Father is trying to do is what I hear so many American people say. Can we bring some civility? Can we bring some return to basic virtue and morality and goodness and decency?" Dolan said. He didn't say if he personally voted for Pope Francis when he was elected, but he said he supports him. "I love him. He is a gift from God. I'm glad we've got him," he said. Dolan also said he was in Naples because he wanted to support Ave Maria University and its president, James Towey. He said the institution is one of the most promising and successful universities around and has been able to bring together two great traditions of Western culture, faith and reason. The funds raised at the dinner will be used to provide financial aid to Ave Maria University students. The Associated Press contributed to this story. Police car on the street at night SHARE By Kristine Gill of the Naples Daily News Deputies are searching for two men who burst into a home in Lehigh Acres Thursday morning, firing weapons at a woman and two children. Reports show there was a knock at the door around 4:20 a.m. Thursday morning at the house along 25th Street Southwest. A 14-year-old boy answered the door, thinking his father had forgotten something on the way to work. Outside the home, two men wearing masks pointed a silver semi-automatic pistol at the boy who ran away screaming. The boy woke his mother and 9-year-old sister. The men opened fire inside the home when the mother came out of the bedroom then fled in a black SUV. Witnesses said they saw the same vehicle parked along the street before the shooting and headed eastbound without lights on after the shooting. There were no injuries during the attack. Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers is asking the public's help in tracking down the two men, who were described as tall and either white or Hispanic. If you have information, call 1-800-780-TIPS. All callers will remain anonymous and be eligible for a reward of up to $1,000. You can also make tips online at www.swflcrimesoppers.org or by texting CRIMES keyword REWARD. SHARE Linda Penniman, Naples Naples City Council member Barnett knows town Our town is facing a very important election on March 15. While Naples does not have a strong mayor form of government, I believe the mayor sets the tone as to how government responds to issues before us and how we as a governmental body responds to the citizens we serve. Bill Barnett knows this town. He knows who lives here, who your children are, how your small business is doing and wants to know your opinion on issues facing this town. He understands why people came here and continue to come and hopes to preserve the small town environment and quality of life that we all so covet. His interest is pure and simple: He is elected by the people and wants to hear from you. He will be a full-time mayor. His door will be open. He will listen and be fair. Naples is facing some pivotal decisions within the next couple of years. In his eyes, the welfare of this city must come first. He will be there every day working for us. He led us through the last recession and Naples came back more quickly than any other town in Florida. He has given hours to not-for-profits in this town and has helped them raise millions of dollars. He's a proven leader who guides toward consensus and not through intimidation. He has been there for us through thick and thin and will be there for us as Naples moves into a future that will require careful understanding, consideration and community consensus. He is the proven leader who can guide us toward that end. Purely You Spa, Naples premier organic spa, is hosting a New YearNew You healthy lifestyle class on Monday, February 29, from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., at 3066 Tamiami Trail North, Suite 302, Naples. The class is designed to help attendees learn how to love themselves inside and outside. What you eat reflects how you look and how you feel and this class will help you make the best choices! Aging occurs faster with stress and by implementing stress relief habits daily these effects will be prolonged. Learn how to boost your immune system, look fabulous without botox, have a healthy 2016, and a balanced quality of life. Purely You Spa Founder and Owner Jennifer Alvarez Linguidi is offering this motivating program that you will not want to miss. Attendees will be able to enjoy light hors doeuvres, organic fruit, and antioxidant green tea. They will also receive a $50 gift certificate to Purely You Spa towards a facial, massage, body treatment, yoga/meditation, or manicure/pedicure. Love Yourself Inside and Outside healthy lifestyle class is $25/person and advanced registration is required: http://purelyyouspa.com/events.html, or 239-331-8266. The Zonta Foundation of Southwest Florida has awarded a $9,000 grant to SalusCare, Inc., to provide educational needs for women recovering from substance abuse at SalusCares Transitional Living Center on Grand Avenue in Fort Myers. The money will be used to purchase computer software, educational and recovery materials and stipends for about 60 women in recovery to enable them to complete coursework and file job applications. The overall goal is to help women in recovery obtain the skills they need to earn a living wage and become self-sufficient in the workplace. We are so grateful to the women of Zonta who have so graciously supported our women for many years, said Rosemary Boisvert, SalusCare Assistant Vice President of Residential Services. Our goal is to remove the barriers that prevent them from being successful. If they need financial assistance for tuition, we can help with that. If they need help with supplies or transportation to get to school or training, we can assist with that as well. While at SalusCares Transitional Living Center, the women work very hard at learning skills for the job of living in sobriety. This grant will help them build on their newfound skills and give them something more to enhance their chances of maintaining their sobriety and self-sufficiency, Boisvert said. We have been very fortunate to have this long lasting relationship with the Zonta Club of Sanibel-Captiva. The Zonta Club gives our women far more than dollars. They also give of themselves, Boisvert said. Zonta has been a partner with the women in the Transitional Living Center since 2000 and has provided grants totaling $129,000 and hundreds of hours of time to support the needs of women recovering from substance abuse. For example, for nine months each year, The Sanibel-Captiva Zontians travel to the Fort Myers Transitional Living Center campus of SalusCare to work hand in hand with the women in the halfway house. Projects vary from jewelry making to womens health and everything in-between. The Zonta group is an amazing asset to our community. They have partnered with other agencies, such as Human Trafficking Awareness Partnership, to help our ladies learn to help others. The annual beach cleanup is a big event that allows our women to work with Zontians and make a day out of giving back to the community and to respect the earth. The Zontians dont teach -- they interact, guide and mentor our special population of women in addiction, Boisvert said. The 16-bed womens halfway house opened in 2009. The womens facility provides treatment for 45 to 60 women per year who have completed the residential treatment program and moved into the halfway house for extended treatment. For more information, call 239-275-3222 or visit www.SalusCareFlorida.org. The Naples Art Association (www.NaplesArt.org) Naples non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and advancing education, interest, and participation in the visual arts for over 60 years will host a ribbon cutting ceremony on Saturday, February 20 at 9:30 a.m. at The von Liebig Art Center, located at 585 Park Street in Naples, to kick off the 37th annual Naples National Art Festival. Naples Mayor John Sorey, Naples Vice-Mayor Margaret "Dee" Sulickand; Naples Councilmen Doug Finlay and Sam Saad; and Naples Councilwoman Teresa Lee Heitmann will be in attendance. The 37th Annual Naples National Art Festival, which will take place Saturday, February 20 and Sunday, February 21 from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., is consistently ranked as one of the top 10 arts festivals in the country and draws more than 20,000 visitors and locals each year thanks to the high quality of the art, the engaging personalities of the artists, and the festive atmosphere. It is a juried art festival with artists applying in eighteen categories including painting, jewelry, watercolor, ceramics, metal, sculpture, and wood. \ For more information about the Naples National Art Festival, please visit www.naplesart.org/event/naples-national-art-festival. The Naples Art Association was founded in 1954 and has operated The von Liebig Art Center in downtown Naples since 1999. The NAAs vision is to serve individual artists of all ages and levels along their creative journeys and to inspire all who visit to live and think artistically. By engaging the community in visual arts for over 60 years, the Naples Art Association is enhancing understanding and appreciation of the visual arts in order to enrich the human experience in Southwest Florida. In addition to For the Love of Art, the NAAs 2015 2016 season includes 14 exhibitions, three weekend-long outdoor art shows in downtown Naples, five Art in the Park art shows, four Dinners with Artists, a haunted house, Goddess Night, over 100 classes and workshops, ARTScool summer art program for kids, and a myriad collaborative outreach programs. For more information about the Naples Art Association, please visit www.NaplesArt.org or call 239-262-6517. 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. County School Board member Rhonda Thurman on Thursday rapped the Chattanooga 2.0 movement, saying it is "the same old people with a different name." Karitsa Mosley, another board member, said she embraces the effort aimed at improving student learning and job readiness. Only Ms. Thurman and board member David Testerman were opposed to a resolution in support of the movement. Ms. Thurman said educators are sent to California, New York and elsewhere by such groups, causing their students to have subs. She said the movement brings in curriculum "that just stinks." She said, "You don't need to ask the Chamber (how best to educate local kids), just ask the teachers." Ms. Mosley said changes are needed for school improvement. She said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again." She said the Chattanooga 2.0 report is being discussed across the country. She said, "If we don't take note, we will be doing everyone a disservice." Ms. Mosley said, "I go to work every day with people with private school diplomas and they don't know a thing. So who says private schools are better?" The board also took the unusual action of overturning a Zero Tolerance action by the school administrator. A student who was found with three pills and some Nyquill off campus was sent to home learning for the rest of the year. Ms. Mosley and board member George Ricks said there was no evidence he was trying to sell the pills, that had been prescribed for him. They said teachers at the school spoke up for him. Two businesses in Chattanooga were caught serving beer to a minor, both resulting in stiff penalties. On Jan. 14 the Tennessee Alcohol Beverage Commission conducted a compliance check on business in downtown Chattanooga and restaurants in the Chattanooga area. Undercover buyers were served beer, witnessed by a TABC agent. In the early afternoon, at the Chattanooga Billiard Club Inc., 725 Cherry St., the server/bartender, a 22-year employee, neglected to ask for an ID before making a sale to the underage buyer. A doorman, whose job it is to check IDs, was not yet at work. Servers have been instructed to ask for IDs when the doorman is not present, but because of user error, said Jerry Tidwell, attorney representing The Billiard Club, it was not done that afternoon. Mr. Tidwell said he checked the TABC records for 2015 and found three compliance checks had been done during the year which the business passed. The co-owner and manager of this location, Janice Windham, said, We admit this time she didnt even look at the ID. After bartending at the restaurant 17 years, it is her first violation, so the server is still employed but has been sent to take the TIPS training course again. When the TABC discovers a second violation it is automatically referred to the local beer boards along with notification of the penalty that was given. In this case The Billiard Club was given a 10-day suspension of their liquor license starting on Feb. 28 ending March 8. Attorney Tidwell asked the board to postpone the penalty the board would impose so it would not run concurrently with the TABC sentence. The business will take a blow by not being able to sell alcohol, and, said attorney Tidwell, if beer and alcohol cannot be sold during the same period, the restaurant would not sell enough food to stay open. Also, servers would not make enough in tips to even come to work. In a vote of five for and three against, a suspension of 10 days was imposed beginning March 9 through March 19. Tres Amigos Mexican Restaurant-Ooltewah, 9219 Lee Highway, was the second restaurant found serving beer to a minor Jan. 14. Again, a TABC compliance check detected the infraction and referred it to the beer board since it was a second violation. In this instance, the server did ask to see an ID but made the sale anyway. He was fired on the spot, said owner Janet Hamill. This employee had worked there less than one week when the incident took place. That server was a nut, said Ms. Hamill. His resume stated that he had been a trainer at a large chain restaurant, so his incompetence surprised her. He also had 60 days from being hired to go through the training required by Tres Amigos. The business has signs and calendars posted as a reminder of dates relating to age. Ms. Hamill said she also reminds the help of the dates every day, and she conducts self compliance checks with people she knows that are underage. She said that now all servers will be required to check IDs, write the date on the ticket, and the age will be double checked by the bartender before every sale. The penalty given by the beer board mirrored the 10-day suspension given by the TABC and will take place at the same time, starting Feb. 23 and ending March 3. Mexiville Mexican Restaurant, 811 Market St., has been in business for two years, but recently a second partner invested in it and so was required to re-apply for a beer license. This restaurant is open from 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday through Saturday and is closed on Sunday. Chattanooga Police Officer John Collins, the police officer assigned to the beer board, told the board that his daughter likes tacos and loves to eat there, so he gets spot checked often. A new beer permit was approved with a unanimous vote. Rossville Billiards changed locations to 4205 Rossville Blvd. and so was required to get a new beer permit. It will have only pre-packaged food, and smoking will be allowed so that no person under 21 will be allowed in. The owner said that sometimes there would karaoke. He said his business is small and the customers are like family. If they have had too much to drink, they are given a ride home. We take care of the people, he said, we are friends. Breech Hardee, program director for the Lookout Mountain Conservancy, was given a beer permit for the organizations fundraiser, Lookout Mountain Conservancy Goes Underground. It will be held at Ruby Falls, 1720 S. Scenic Highway, on Feb. 25 from 5:30 p.m.-9 p.m. There will be a couple of music venues inside the caverns and alcohol will be served in the lobby. Entering the lobby, people will show IDs and receive wristbands to verify the legal age to buy alcohol. So far, 80 tickets have been sold, but 125-150 people are expected. Hugh Morrow, president of Ruby Falls, is interested in preserving the natural landscape on Lookout Mountain, and so the business teams up with the conservancy which benefits both. This party will raise funds for the intern program that the conservancy has with students from Howard High School. The students are employed by the conservancy to help in the work while they learn about nature, conservation, team work and trust. Relationships are also established between the students and the conservancy leaders. The program provides income and an opportunity for inner city students to have a safe work environment and to learn social and professional skills needed to succeed in life. A beer permit was given for the special event with unanimous approval. WASHINGTON Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are headed for another government bailout soon unless policymakers act, their regulator warned Thursday. In a speech to the Bipartisan Policy Center, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt noted that under the terms of the government's conservatorship, the government-sponsored enterprises are prevented from raising capital and must pass on their profits. When their capital runs out, the GSEs will have to draw on Treasury Department funds to continue operating. "We are now over halfway down a five-year path toward eliminating the buffer completely," Watt said. "A disruption in the housing market or a period of economic distress could also lead to credit-related losses and trigger a draw" from taxpayer coffers. The capital buffer is due to be gradually reduced until it runs out in 2018, but GSE executives are warning it may happen even earlier. In a conference call Thursday, Donald Layton, Freddie's chief executive officer, said there was an "increasing risk" the draw could come sooner. While Fannie and Freddie could then turn to their $118 billion and $141 billion lines of credit with the Treasury, respectively, that could anger voters who demand Congress take action. Watt, a former Congressman from North Carolina, said he fears what would happen in that scenario. "Future draws could lead to a legislative response adopted in haste or without the kind of forethought it should be given," he said. Observers agreed that point could stoke market fears and public anger. "As their capital runs down these draws are going to become much more frequent and then the question is how much tolerance do we have for them?" said Laurie Goodman, director of the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute and former managing director at Amherst Securities Group. "At some point the draws get large enough that you begin to undermine investor confidence in the market." Fannie and Freddie have received $187.5 billion from the Treasury but have paid $241 billion back in the form of dividends. Neither company has received a draw from the Treasury since 2012. Watt said he was alarmed that the situation is not getting more attention in the 2016 debate. "While it's not my place to meddle in political discussions, I'm also not hearing much discussion of housing finance reform in any of the presidential campaigns," Watt said. (Hillary Clinton is the only candidate to put forward a housing plan, but it does not make mention of the GSEs.) Still, some said Watt's speech may serve as a call to action, particularly if he keeps discussing the issue. "It was a significant shift in terms of tone and tenor for the FHFA as it suggests that there could be a policy push for a change to the terms of the bailout agreement, which would likely include capital retention or an expansion of the Treasury backstop," said Isaac Boltansky, a policy analyst at Compass Point Research and Trading. Watt stopped short of directly calling to amend the Treasury arrangement but said action of some kind is needed. "Uncertainty has a price, so something needs to be done to tell the markets and the American people what to expect in the future," he said during a discussion after his speech with former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros. A few trade groups are already urging action. The Community Home Lenders Association, the Independent Community Bankers of America and the Community Mortgage Lenders Association sent a letter to Watt on Wednesday urging him to suspend the dividend payments to Treasury. "The purpose of this suspension would be to allow the GSEs to build a capital buffer to deal with potential earnings volatility driven by external economic developments rather than by actions or missteps by the GSEs," the groups wrote. They argued that "FHFA has the absolute authority" to suspend the dividends and rebuild the GSEs' capital. But Congressional action clearly remains the preferred course of action for Watt. "I continue to hope that Congress can engage in the work of thoughtful housing finance reform before we reach a crisis of investor confidence or a crisis of any other kind," he said in his speech. Lawmakers, however, do not appear poised to act. Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who co-authored bipartisan legislation to create a new housing finance system, agreed Thursday that it was past time for Congress to act. "I agree Congress has waited far too long to solve the last remaining issue of the financial crisis, and that the status quo remains unsustainable," Corker said in a statement. During his discussion with Cisneros, Watt warned that the situation will only worsen as the day of reckoning approaches. "It is going to get more and more difficult as we go along, which is one reason why I am kind of sounding the call for somebody to take action of some kind to clarify the situation," he said. Brian Collins and Kate Berry contributed to this article. Banks are still holding on to scores of delinquent mortgages that date to the real estate crash, but a surge in home values across the country is motivating them to more quickly move the most troublesome loans off their books. Over roughly the past year, banks have been ratcheting up repossessions of foreclosed homes to the highest level in four years, according to the data firm RealtyTrac. Banks repossessed a total of 449,900 homes in 2015, up 38% from a year earlier, as they aim to capitalize on improving economic conditions and finally push their most seriously delinquent loans through to foreclosure. "Whether it was an intentional strategy or a reactive one, we're seeing the final stage of 'extend-and-pretend' play out said Daren Blomquist, a vice president at RealtyTrac, referring to banks' proclivity to extend the terms of a loan and work with a borrower rather than taking possession of a property. To be sure, banks have sold off billions of problem loans to hedge funds and private equity firms since 2010, both to bolster their balance sheets and to avoid the reputational risk of foreclosing on borrowers. "Nonperforming loan sales have been a way for banks to avoid the scrutiny that comes with high foreclosure numbers because it's shifting the distressed loans to less-visible entities that end up foreclosing and the homeowner ultimately losing the property in some way," said Blomquist. But they also held on to large numbers of loans, again partly to help keep borrowers in their homes, but also because they were waiting for home values to rebound, as they have in many areas. At Sept. 30, the amount of nonperforming loans on bank balance sheets accounted for 4.05% of all residential loans, well below a peak of nearly 8% in 2010, but still six times higher than it was in 2005. Repossessions largely came to halt in 2010 after the robo-signing scandal rocked the mortgage industry. When bank employees were found to have routinely signed foreclosure documents without verifying their accuracy and absent a notary, as required by law, banks agreed to foreclosure moratoriums. By 2012, the top five banks had signed the $25 billion national mortgage settlement, agreeing to aid borrowers with foreclosure alternatives. Still, some bankers have expressed surprise that banks have been so slow to move these problem assets off their books given the drain they've been on earnings and bank resources. Banks' reluctance to foreclose on properties also kept inventory levels artificially low, slowing the housing recovery. "It is shocking to me that any responsible management would continue to carry any problem assets so long after the recession," said Mark Mason, the president and CEO of $4.9 billion-asset HomeStreet Bank in Seattle. Lengthy foreclosure timelines in judicial states, where foreclosures are processed through the courts, also have played an outsized roll in failing to resolve distressed loans in a timely manner. Much of the backlog is confined to three judicial states Florida, New Jersey and New York where it takes nearly three years to foreclose on a borrower. Because of the huge backlog of foreclosure filings, many states have been under pressure to clear out cases. Matt Weidner, a plaintiff's attorney in St. Petersburg, Fla., said he has recently seen an increase in bank repossessions despite pleas from both servicers and borrowers to have judges cancel foreclosure sales. "Servicers are experiencing real conflict because they are sending their attorneys into court every single day begging courts to cancel [foreclosure] sales only to be told by judges to clear the foreclosure cases," Weidner said. "Banks are taking homes back in numbers that aren't rational." RealtyTrac's Blomquist suspects that repossessions are on the rise because banks are under pressure from municipalities and state governments to deal with so-called vacant "zombie" properties in which a mortgage servicers starts, but does not complete, a foreclosure. In New York, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman proposed legislation last year to take back vacant and abandoned homes that have not been maintained because of drawn-out foreclosure proceedings. Each morning, Annetta Crawford smiles and greets every student as he or she walks into the first grade hallway. With 41 years of experience as a teacher, Mrs. Crawford knows this positive tone can make the difference in a childs day. It is very important to see someone cares even from the beginning of the school day. It shows students you matter and we love you here, she said. After the morning bell, Mrs. Crawford meets with third graders in a small group to help them better understand how our language works, which improves their reading and writing. She spends time with fourth graders in reading and then more reading and writing with third graders and later fifth graders. After school, shes booked for tutoring. At Bright School, Mrs. Crawfords role as a member of the Kilbride Enrichment Center (KEC) is both support and enrichment, supplementing and building on the work of classroom teachers. It is this additional help that makes Bright School unique in its personalized approach to foundational education. I totally trust anything Annetta takes on. It is always done marvelously well," said Head of School O.J. Morgan. In the KEC, Annetta helps us make the promise of individual attention and education come true in a very authentic way. Mrs. Crawford, using a certification she is currently pursuing, said she plans to work with dyslexic students. Mrs. Crawford joined Bright School as a first grade teacher in 2008 when she and her husband, Clark, relocated to Chattanooga. Before that, she spent four years teaching teachers at Southeast Missouri State University, and prior to that, she taught in Farmington, Missouri, public schools for 29 years. She has been working in the KEC for the last two years, and she also taught third grade and fourth grade at Bright School. Mrs. Crawford is sometimes called upon to lead lessons in multiple intelligences, learning styles and teamwork as a substitute during parent-teacher conferences and other times throughout the year. Two years ago, she began training in the Orton-Gillingham Approach, which is used for students who have dyslexia or dyslexia-like tendencies. Flashy Downtown Developers Now Have To Fund Neighborhoods They Usually Ignore By Mae Rice in News on Feb 19, 2016 5:15PM Chicago's downtown is teeming with developers, though they are not pictured here (photo via Octavio Ruiz Cervera on Flickr) Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced plans Thursday to give downtown developers leeway to build larger, more ambitious projectsif they help fund projects in low-income neighborhoods. Emanuel is asking developers to pay a Neighborhood Opportunity Bonus that the city will funnel towards development in low-income areas. Emanuel says this new setup, which will replace an outdated bonus structure and close what City Hall terms loopholes, could bring in tens of millions of dollars, based on the administrations assessment of current construction trends. Neighborhoods that could benefit from the bonus funds include, in City Hall's estimation, Greater Englewood, Auburn Gresham and Garfield Park. We are establishing a new norm in Chicago where our most thriving areas will help our most struggling neighborhoods, Emanuel said, in a statement. Developers would pay the new bonus in exchange for extra square-footage allotments downtown, and bonus funds could help reinvigorate neighborhoods facing poverty, high unemployment and other indicators of underinvestment by the private market, according to the Mayors statement. Projects could include building grocery stores in food deserts, or revitalizing retail corridors entering their twilight years. This is obviously an attempt to court black voters and earn a third term as Mayor, according to the Sun-Times. To: Renee Kestcr ; Jon Entine Subject: RE; Kauai Conf Call # I just want everyone to know that we ARE moving forward on this! So I defer to Renee as the lead but we will need to craft out short term (leading up to July 31 hearing) and longer term strategy (post July 31) using the Biofortified boys (do you mind if I call you that? I think I'm the oldest of the bunch) :0) So please know that you are part of our overall public education strategy and specifically - how do we use your valuable time wisely while you are here in Hawaii (besides hitting the beaches!) I'd love to hear your thoughts. Aloha! Alicia Maluafiti, Executive Director Hawaii Crop Improvement Association Growing the Future of Worldwide Agriculture in Hawaii www.hciaonline.com George Mason University provides an academic front for biotech prostitutes Join us in asking George Mason University and UC Davis to either endorse Jon Entine or cut ties with him ACTION ITEM: Join us in demanding Jon Entine be stripped of his fellowship from George Mason University and UC Davis Contact UC Davis and demand to know whether they endorse Jon Entine's violence against women (NaturalNews) In an explosive investigative article series published last year , Natural News revealed that Jon Entine, who violently attacked his wife and traumatized his daughter according to shocking court documents, is a "senior research fellow" at George Mason University and a visiting research fellow at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis).Now, thanks to a Freedom of Information effort spearheaded by U.S. Right to Know and covered by The New York Times, Jon Entine once again emerges as a key player in a massive academic prostitution ring run by the biotech industry that pays "scientists" to parrot scripted propaganda touting the "safety" of GMOs.Jon Entine, whose ex-wife described as committing "domestic violence" against her in numerous court documents (see links below), appears as a key figure helping organize Monsanto's overthrow of Hawaii's recent GMO ban. As these once-secret emails now reveal , Entine is part of an email conversation that shows biotech industry funded shills plotting to destroy opposition to GMOs in Hawaii:Also see this write-up of Jon Entine at GMwatch.org George Mason University touts itself as "...setting the gold standard for the modern, public university" yet it lends its credibility to Jon Entine who, according to a long list of publicly-released court documents revealed on the Jon Entine profile page at TruthWiki.org - Physically attacked his wife Ellen Turner, "...became very belligerent and aggressive toward Plaintiff [his wife]. He pushed her, shoved her, gouged her eye, choked her and pushed her into the porch column. He slammed the door and refused to release [their daughter]. Plaintiff finally called the Indian Hill Rangers..."SOURCE: Jon Entine investigation Part One - Psychologically traumatized his own daughter in the process. "This occurred in the presence of [their daughter] who has been psychologically traumatized as a result. [Daughter] is afraid of [Jon Entine]... he has become increasingly and exceedingly hostile and belligerent. [The wife] fears that [Entine's] mental health has deteriorated..." (same source document as above)- Was the subject of an urgent restraining order filed by his wife which ordered Jon Entine to refrain from "Physically, verbally and / or psychologically abusing, annoying, harassing or injuring [Ellen Turner] or the minor child of the parties...- Engaged in child abuse / neglect / domestic violence according to a sworn statement by his wife, Ellen Turner. In the court document shown below, she pleaded with the courts to protect herself and her daughter from any further violence. The document was filed with Hamilton County Clerk Gregory Hartmann, Case # DR0500131: (bold added)SOURCE: Jon Entine public divorce document #23 - Was reportedly fired by ABC News for being "out of control" and saying "wild things." As reported in an earlier Natural News article:SOURCE: Ivan Fallon, letter from Deputy Editor of The Sunday Times, October 8, 1993).- Threatened to sue his daughter's therapist in order to force therapy sessions to stop:- Committed extremely sinister acts of corporate vandalism and espionage by causing a shampoo spill at a corporate factory he was investigating, then calling the FDA to report the violation, and then characterizing the company as dangerous and incompetent as a result, calling the company's founder a "sociopath."As published on LornaSalzman.com:- Demanded that divorce courts force his wife's therapist into court to testify in violation of patient privacy rules, falsely asserting that his wife did not object to the therapist's testimony when in fact she did:- Demanded to seize his wife's private journals, dairies, private emails and financial records going back more than a decade, all in an attempt to extract more money from her as part of a vicious divorce proceeding.- Threatened the female founder of a large public company, publicly called her a "schizophrenic and a sociopath" then managed to defame the company to such an extreme that it lost $500 million in market capitalization directly due to Entine's defamatory hit piece article.As reported on Natural News:- Fabricated false accusations and defamatory claims against Mike Adams (the "Health Ranger") in a since-retracted Forbes.com article which sought to assassinate the character of Adams and destroy his nutritional supplements business and reputation because of his skepticism on the safety of GMOs.- Vandalized Wikipedia to smear the reputation of GMO research scientist Seralini:SOURCE: GMwatch.org - Uses outrageous tactics of intimidation against his targeted enemies such as publishing home addresses of his targets. Jon Entine also seeks out criminal histories of people with the same name as his intended targets, then publishes articles implying that his targets have criminal histories. Entine does this maliciously and deliberately, knowing that some names are so common that someone with the same name will likely have a criminal record somewhere in the country.- Routinely engages in threats and intimidation tactics to bully his selected targets and opponents. Violates core principles of ethical journalism. Fabricates false accusations. Routinely characterizes opponents as sociopaths even though his own behavior paints the perfect example of a deranged sociopath.- Jon Entine was described by his ex-wife, a former top-level executive of Sara Lee Foods, as needing "anger management classes" and a "psychological evaluation." She also laments Entine's "inability to obey court orders and respect normal societal boundaries."- Jon Entine already put the reputation of George Mason University at risk by publishing false information in a Real Clear Politics column.As explained on the Truthwiki.org Jon Entine page Arthur E. Berman, a petroleum geologist and consultant to the energy sector; editorial board member of The Oil Drum; Associate Editor of the AAPG Bulletin; Director of The Association for the Study of Peak Oil, wrote a letter to George Mason University dated July 4, 2011, that he also posted online on his blog, in which he sought to refute claims and assertions made by Jon Entine in his Real Clear Politics column published a few days earlier, on July 1, "Natural Gas "Bubble" Report: Market Tinkering or Shoddy Reporting?"Berman writes:Berman then goes on to list the errors, exaggerations and statements he says are untrue.As you review this shocking history about GMO apologist and biotech shill Jon Entine, ask yourself this important question: Is this the kind of behavior George Mason University endorses and supports? Does UC Davis endorse violence against women and the traumatizing of innocent children? If not, then why are they lending the credibility of their name to Jon Entine?? The deliberate and insidious destruction of women-owned businesses? The psychological traumatizing of a young female child? The invasion of privacy that comes from demanding a wife's private journals and financial records? The attempted strong-arming of a woman's therapist to drag her into court to testify against her own client? The fabrication of false accusations, lies and false evidence? The systematic pattern of threats, intimidation, deception and villainy demonstrated by Jon Entine over and over again? Gross journalism misconduct?If so, we are publicly asking George Mason University to endorse Jon Entine's behavior and let it set a shining example for the reputation of GMU from here forward. If this is what GMU stands for, then the university should go public with its defense of Jon Entine and take a stand for the support of physical violence against women, the psychological traumatizing of children and the destruction of women-owned businesses.On the other hand, if George Mason University is as appalled at all this as the rest of us are, then GMU should quickly, strip him of his senior research fellowship, and distance itself as quickly as possible from this nightmare of a man.Here is the media relations page at GMU:It claims, "George Mason University is setting the gold standard for the modern, public university."Post your comments (and a link to this article) on the GMU Facebook page:You may send them a copy of this article, a link to this article, or a link to the Jon Entine page on Truthwiki.org Please be polite in your emails. It is entirely possible that George Mason University has been hoodwinked by Jon Entine and had no idea of his true history. If so, GMU can restore its own reputation by immediately distancing itself from this individual and the history of violence against women and psychological trauma he has inflicted upon others, according to court documents.Director, Strategic Communications703-993-8815703-993-8781703-727-0230703-993-8782703-993-9376703-993-9118Editorial Director, Strategic Communications703-993-8805Here's the UC Davis Facebook page where you can post your concerns or comments about Jon Entine:https:// www.facebook.com/UCDavis Here are the appropriate media contacts at UC Davis that handle these areas. Please be polite in your emails:530-752-9843530-752-7704General phone number for media center:(530) 752-1930Finally be sure toon all social media and Twitter. This story will never be told by the mainstream media because they will always cover up a GMO propagandist, even if that person is also a violent wife abuser. There is no behavior too extreme to be covered up by the media as long as they can keep pushing GMOs and toxic chemical herbicides like glyphosate. The success of this story will depend entirely on the independent voices of people like you who Rising costs of farming competing with huge corporations A family affair of faith and support (NaturalNews) The modern American farmer is faced with many dilemmas such as poverty due to an ever-changing industry and fluctuating weather patterns. Amazing portraits by photographer Elliot Ross from his seriesshow how a lush field of wheat can become barren overnight.Based in New York, Ross stayed at the home of Jim Mertens and his family for three weeks in Colorado, where his childhood was spent, to document their daily lives as farmers in the US. He devoted a year to establishing a mutual trust with the Mertens before moving in during the summer harvest.Not a documentarian, Ross has used the images to create a poem that touches on biblical themes, according to. The photographs taken by Ross paint a similar picture of those taken of farmers during the Great Depression in the 1930s.He hopes to shed light on the hidden strife of keeping up a farm in the 21st century and hopes his photos will inspire Americans to help solve the problems of farmers and other working class citizens. "Ultimately,"reports, paraphrasing Ross, "solving the riddles of our country's future lies in part in recognizing its heritage, the centuries of labor, of risk, and of the sweat-drenched brows that have long since faded from the forefront of American consciousness."Ross said that he hopes his photographs will bring to light the struggles that farmers endure such as the rising price of cars and other mechanical gear. For instance, the price of wheat now is even lower than when Mertens started out in the1970s as a boy. At the same time, the price of equipment and the necessities needed to farm have gone up substantially. For a pickup truck today, the Mertens would pay 10 times the amount they would have paid for a comparable truck a generation ago.While millions of dollars go into growing and reaping each year's harvest of wheat, if the weather doesn't cooperate, all can be lost in an instant. Spring brought floods to the plains of Northeastern Colorado. The outcomes were divided; "on one hand they threatened homes and flooded low lying fields but at the same time nurtured the best crop of wheat in living memory," Ross explains.The Martens also have to compete with gigantic corporations with endless resources.Despite the stakes of working and living on a farm, Ross was amazed to find that the farmers he met remained stoic and unintimidated by heavy rains, putting trust in God, their land and the infinite number of hours from dusk til dawn they worked on the farm."Women often times are the bedrock of farming families," Ross points out, "offering support and comfort through the long hours and intense stress while still performing their daily tasks.""Shifts are taken by the men in the field, ensuring that the combines never stop harvesting," Ross notes.The farming families also have strong faith. With many farming families in rural Colorado, "the Bible offers guidance and assurance through tough times," Ross said. Carcinogenic petroleum-derived food dyes What science tells us (NaturalNews) Kraft's mac and cheese may be a convenient, easy, and cheap dinner alternative, but if you are feeding your family this simple and quick dinner, you may be slowly poisoning them.Only recently, Kraft had to recall over 6 million boxes of their macaroni and cheese sold in the United States, Puerto Rico, and some Caribbean and South American countries (Canada was not in the danger zone). The recall was due to a metal contamination.According to Kraft, eight consumer complaints have been logged about the product, but there have been no reported injuries. "We deeply regret this situation and apologize to any consumers we have disappointed," Kraft said in a statementThis is not the first time Kraft had to recall one of their products for safety reasons. In August 2014, over 7,000 cases of American Singles "cheese product" slices were recalled after improper storage of one of the ingredients. And in September 2011, over 135,000 cases of single-serve Velveeta Shells & Cheese were recalled due to wire bristle pieces in some of the packages.If you think that, with recalling these boxes, all is settled again and you could go back to feeding your family these convenient foods, think again.Metal shards are not the only reason to avoid these overly processed convenient foods. Kraft's mac and cheese, among many other processed products on today's market, contain Yellow 5 and 6 food dyes These substances are banned or strictly regulated in the UK and most other European countries, but still freely and extensively used in the US.Yellow 5 is a synthetic lemon-yellow food color also known as tartrazine or E102. Yellow 6, another synthetic yellow dye, goes under the name Sunset Yellow FCF, or E110. They are often added to processed foods to make them look more appealing and tastier so consumers are tricked into buying these products.Both are derived from petroleum and pose a wide range of health issues. They contain cancer-causing benzidine and other potentially carcinogenic chemicals which can damage DNA and cause severe damage to our cells. It can halt cell reproduction and may lead to cancer. Artificial colors have been linked to hyperactivity and decreased concentration in children, cancer, and allergic reactions (such as asthma).According to a 2012 study on the toxicology of food dyes, "The inadequacy of much of the testing and the evidence for carcinogenicity, genotoxicity, and hypersensitivity, coupled with the fact that dyes do not improve the safety or nutritional quality of foods, indicates that all of the currently used dyes should be removed from the food supply and replaced, if at all, by safer colorings."The limited number of studies in the health and food industry looking at the potential dangers and toxicity of these food dyes is the perfect excuse to keep on using them. Food companies deliberately do not perform any of these safety tests and then brush away all the concerns as not having enough evidence to prove the harmful side effects.Don't put your family and yourself at risk; get rid of these overly processed convenient foods, such Kraft's mac and cheese. Opt for whole, fresh, organic foods and home-cooked meals instead. Plants protect and aid each other Biodiversity benefits everyone (NaturalNews) Planting multiple crops species together in the same field produces greater yields than conventional monocultures (large fields growing only a single crop), according to a study conducted by researchers from Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, led by ecologists from the University of Zurich and published in the journalThe findings suggest that a switch to diverse plantings (also known as companion planting or intercropping) may be a crucial strategy to assuring food security in the future, the researchers said.Researcher Bernhard Schmid said the findings point to "an opportunity for the future of nutrition for humankind in the untapped potential of biodiversity."Both the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have warned that agricultural yields are going to grow more slowly in the future, and that population is increasing at a greater rate. This is a recipe for food insecurity, which in turn leads to human suffering and political instability.Monoculture remains the dominant method of food production globally, even though it has been repeatedly shown to be an agricultural method that does environmental damage to soil, water and biological diversity. One of the few advantages that some monoculture proponents have been able to claim is that the method produces greater crop yields.In the new study, researchers spent 10 years comparing yields of grassland plants cultivated either in monocultures or in mixed plant communities. They found that diverse plantings consistently outperformed monocultures, delivering higher yields.The researchers found several reasons for the success of mixed plantings."Due to their diversity, plant species in communities occupy all the niches available in an ecosystem," researcher Dan Flynn said. "This enables them to use soil nutrients, light and water far more effectively than monocultures, which ultimately leads to greater yields."Researchers have long known that monocultures are significantly more vulnerable to pests and parasites, because they provide abundant food sources that produce population booms. That is why monocultures are typically associated with much higher pesticide use.In mixed plantings, in contrast, parasites are able to spread less effectively -- the different species effectively form barriers against one another's parasites, protecting each other. Because the plants suffer less predation, they put less energy into defending themselves and more into growth."Diversity offers protection against pests and is a prerequisite for higher yields in plant communities," Schmid said.To their surprise, the researchers also found that, within just a few generations, the plants had actually changed their physiologies to be more adaptive to a mixed planting environment. This phenomenon, known as short-term evolution, also produced higher crop yields The short-term evolutionary changes were allowed plants to make the most of their inter-planted environments. For example, grasses developed thicker leaves to take better advantage of the sunlight available at the top of a grassland habitat. Clover, in contrast, produced leaves that were larger yet thinner, for more efficient harvesting of the diffuse light found in the shady grassland understory.The findings reinforce the ecological premise that organisms -- including agricultural crops -- are healthiest in the most diverse environments."The research results reveal that diversity enables the functionality of the ecosystems to be stabilized at a high level in the course of time and in different environments," Schmid said.The study also shows that implementing practices to protect cropland biodiversity could actually increase crop yield."Plant breeding and cultivation methods should therefore be geared towards mixtures instead of improving the output of monocultures," Schmid said.This would lead to lower use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers, and a corresponding improvement in the environment surrounding agricultural fields. In addition to particulate matter, traffic-related air pollution is characterized by increased concentration of nitrogen dioxide (NO2). While NO2 exposure is known to be associated with low lung function and lung cancer, the effect of NO2 on human skin has never been investigated. This is important because environmentally-induced lung and skin aging appear to be closely related. 2 No association was seen between levels of NO2 and [lentigines'] formation on the back of the hands or forearms, however, exposure to NO2 was significantly associated with more [lentigines] on the cheeks in both German and Chinese women older than 50 years. Overall, an increase of 10 g/m3 in NO2 concentration was associated with approximately 25% more dark spots. 5.5 million yearly air pollution-related deaths globally In the face of these troubling figures, China and India have both taken on new initiatives to address their air quality and decrease the millions of premature deaths each year. And the urgent action demanded by these large death tolls can speed up larger environmental protection efforts, say scientists. Protecting your skin from air pollution If you regularly clean your face, it's very likely that you reduce the load of pollution on your skin, and thus you have less of a problem, and this is what we have also recommended.The other thing is, if you have a good skin barrier, it's much more difficult for the pollutants to penetrate. Dr. Krutmann explained to MNT that particulate matter contains carbon particles, which are covered on the surface by what we call polyaromatic hydrocarbons. These polyaromatic hydrocarbons, he said, are lipophilic, which means they can dissolve in oil. This enables them to penetrate through the outer layer of the skin to reach viable skin cells. The hydrocarbons can activate these cells, he continued, through the function of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) causing oxidative stress. Hundreds of honeybee hives stolen in California Price of honeybee hives has jumped five-fold in 14 years (NaturalNews) As the second week of February begins, so has California's almond growing season. During this crucial time of preparation, 1.8 million commercial honey beehives are brought in to the state to help pollinate the 800,000 acres of almonds. The $6 billion California almond industry wouldn't exist if honeybees weren't brought in from around the US. 90 percent of all the commercial beehives colonized in the US are rented out to the California almond industry each year. Commercial hives are brought in from Michigan to Idaho. Some hives are trucked in all the way from the East Coast. As the pollinators continue to die off each year, it's becoming harder and more expensive to sustain important crops such as the almonds.To make matters worse, counties in California are now reporting that mass beehive thefts are on the rise. Butte County Sheriff's Detective, Jay Freeman, says the bee hive thefts have been "picking up this year" which "could be due to the increased prices and pollination fees and also a shortage of bees coming into California as well." At least a half dozen thefts have been reported in Glenn, Kern, Colusa and Sutter counties. In Butte county, the thefts have become a big deal. According to the Butte County Sheriff's Office, "information that over 500 beehives have been reported stolen in two separate incidents which took place in two neighboring counties over the last two weeks."The Feb. 2 memo revealed that 480 hives were stolen in Butte and Colusa County alone. 64 of the hives were valued at $20,000. "We lost a couple hundred hives in Bakersfield," said beekeeper Jack Wickerd, co-owner of the Happie Bee Co. "They were wintering out in a field. There were more than 400 hives stolen the night before at another location before they took ours."The commercial markings on the honeybee boxes are disregarded, as thieves move the bees to new crates and sell them to brokers who do not check if the bees are stolen. According to ground reports, the thieves have got to be desperate beekeepers whose honeybee colonies have died off. The disgruntled thieves use flatbed trucks and forklifts to snatch the hives in the middle of the night, when the colonies are resting.As the commercial almond acreage increases in California, and as the honeybee colonies collapse , the demand for honeybees has gone up, and now beekeepers are charging more than ever for pollination fees. Almond growers now spend $200 or more to rent out a single beehive. Twelve years ago, the price was only a fifth of that. The prices will continue to climb as hive thefts escalate.Joy Pendell, spokesperson for the California State Beekeepers Association, said, "The thievery problem is getting totally out of hand. The number might be pushing 1,000 (beehives)." On January 18, Sutter County Sheriff Lt. Bruce Hutchinson reported 300 boxes of beehives had been stolen from one farm, a loss totaling $98,000. The theft of 200 beehives might be a $36,000 loss up front, but the damage is often three times worse, when growers factor in what the bees could have made pollinating crops.Pendell says, "Brokers are looking the other way and don't want to know if those hives are stolen. There are newcomers to the industry because of the prices." The California State beekeepers Association is now offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of bee thieves. Fluoride makes lead more toxic will anyone in Flint investigate this? (NaturalNews) The Michigan Attorney General's office will likely have to petition the state legislature for some hefty cash to investigate the ongoing water crisis in Flint, Michigan, where some nine local residents have died from polluted water. According to reports, those responsible for the disaster could face criminal charges for negligently poisoning the city's residents with lead and other toxic substances in order to save money.A special counsel has been established to determine who is at fault and to press charges against them, as this once local crisis captivates the nation. Sources say charges all the way up to manslaughter are "not far-fetched," and that the proper course of action will be taken to make sure the culprits are held fully responsible for their crimes."We're here to investigate what possible crimes there are, anything to the involuntary manslaughter or death that may have happened to some young person or old person because of this poisoning, to misconduct in office," stated Todd Flood, special counsel for the state Attorney General's office investigating the Flint water crisis."We take this very seriously."Flood, who plans to take $400 an hour as pay for his role as special prosecutor in the case, has gained a seal of support from Attorney General Bill Schuette, who insists that such a salary is appropriate to assemble a "top-shelf" team to conduct the probe."We're not going to shortchange justice," he told. "We're not going to do justice on the cheap. We're going to have a full and complete investigation, and where the truth goes, that's where we'll go."More like where the money goes, Flood is sure to go, insist critics, who have been quick to point out that Flood has previously and on numerous occasions made political contributions to both Schuette and Republican Governer Rick Snyder. Snyder, of course, is one of the individuals supposedly being investigated for poisoning families and young, developing children in Flint.Melanie McElroy, executive director of Common Cause Michigan , issued a statement recently questioning just how "independent" the Flood-led investigation will actually be, considering the serious conflict of interest at hand. There's also the issue of Schuette padding his own office, as well as that of Gov. Snyder and various state departments, from prosecution and lawsuits during the investigation."Bill Schuette's 'independent investigation' seems more focused on rewarding campaign contributors with state contracts than getting to the bottom of why Flint's water was poisoned with lead," she wrote.One of the departments being investigated, the Department of Environmental Quality Control, is reportedly on the chopping block for failing to address the problem of lead being leached from old, corroding water pipes . Sources say DEQ Director Dan Wyant resigned back in December for failing to properly mitigate the problem, which put Flint's nearly 100,000 residents at risk of permanent brain damage.It just so happens that synthetic fluoride chemicals, which have been added to Flint's water supply for many years, are known to increase lead absorption in humans. Fluoride is a caustic substance that reacts with lead to make it more toxic, creating a major public health hazard, hence the importance of removing fluoride from drinking water Flint residents last April actually petitioned the local water department to remove fluoride from the water supply, for this and other reasons. This suggests that those responsible for continuing Flint's fluoride program may also be indicted as part of the investigation for putting residents at risk that is, if the investigating team bothers to take a look at the science surrounding fluoride and its synergistic toxicity with lead. Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) are a type of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that is smaller than usual. Adding to this technology is a new type of membrane wings based on the design of actual bat wings. The latter have been successfully tested in-flight and may become a new type of MAV that flies for longer distances and is more economical to run. Bat wings alter their shape in response to the forces they experience in flight and in the air -- so the new MAVs use this concept to make maintenance easier. Basically, electro-active polymers allow the wings to become either more stiff or more relaxed as voltage is applied. The wing design further improves their performance, too, according to a release. As voltage input changes, the membrane and its aerodynamic make-up can move and be altered in flight, allowing the MAV to fly over longer distances than is already possible. The project was developed by researchers at the United Kingdom's University of Southampton and Imperial College London. The U.S. Air Force provided additional support, via its European Office of Aerospace Research and Development (EOARD). "No one has tried to simulate the in-flight behaviour of actuated bat-like wings before, so we had to go back to fundamentals, develop the mathematical models and build the multiphysics simulation software we needed from scratch. We had to make sure it could model not only the wings themselves but also the aerodynamic flows around them and the effect of the electric field generated across them," Dr. Rafael Palacios at Imperial, said in a statement. For more great nature science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN). -Follow Catherine on Twitter @TreesWhales Intense protection measures taken in Southeast Asia have greatly benefited tigers, according to a new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Thailand's once dwindling population is reportedly rebounding, thanks to an enhanced patrol system in the Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary (HKK), which was first set up in 2005. While HKK is the only site in Southeast Asia where researchers have confirmed tiger populations are growing, they feel there are better days ahead for the endangered big felines. "The protection effort is paying off as the years have progressed, as indicated by the increase in recruitment, and we expect the tiger population to increase even more rapidly in the years to come," Somphot Duangchantrasiri, lead author of the study, said in a news release. The Government of Thailand partnered with the WCS to establish the intensive patrol system in HKK. Their hope was to curb poaching of tigers and their prey, and to recover what is possibly the largest remaining "source" population of wild tigers (Panthera tigris) in mainland Southeast Asia. Between 2005 and 2012, monitoring programs -- including camera trap surveys -- identified 90 distinct individual tigers and an improvement in tiger survival. "This collaboration between WCS and the Thai government used the most up-to-date methodologies for counting tigers," Dr. Ullas Karanth, a senior scientist with WCS and one of the study's authors, added. "It's gratifying to see such rigorous science being used to inform critical conservation management decisions." Researchers are calling the tigers' comeback an "outstanding conservation success," since wildlife has been struggling for quite some time in the area "The result to date is reflective of the commitment made by the Thai government and its partners to Thailand's natural heritage. And despite the considerable gains made already, we believe the future looks even brighter," Joe Walston, WCS Vice President of Field Conservation, said in the society's release. However, it will take another 10 to 15 years of intensive protection before prey populations attain the densities necessary to support increasing tiger populations, researchers noted. Their findings were recently published in the journal Conservation Biology. Related Articles Elk Populations Double In Michigan, Aerial Surveys Show Poaching and Trafficking: Strategic Steps to Save Animals 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 It is apparently a time for telescope news, for looking broadly at the universe and discovering new planets. Both China and the United States have announced new plans. China, which is building a huge, land-based pan-shaped telescope, FAST, is also displacing more than 9,000 people in the mountain area where it is being constructed, according to a report from the state-run Xinhua News Agency. The people will be "reimbursed" 10,000 yuan (roughly $1,530) for having to move, according to the report and an article in CNet. The telescope will likely be the world's largest radio telescope and will be used to listen to the universe. NASA has announced plans to build what they are calling the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST). It will have a view of much more of the universe than the existing Hubble Space Telescope -- 100 times the Hubble's awareness of stars, planets and other space real estate, according to a release. Researchers in the video below say that this will make it easier to learn more about dark energy and dark matter, and to locate new planets. Seeing so much more will also allow scientists to further the search for places in space that could be suitable for life. The domestic space agency decided on Wednesday to move ahead with the plan. Plans will be led by the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California will be in charge of managing the 7.8-foot telescope and will deliver the coronagraph--which helps to image and fill out the characteristics of planets near other stars. "In addition to its exciting capabilities for dark energy and exoplanets, WFIRST will provide a treasure trove of exquisite data for all astronomers," Neil Gehrels at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center said in the release. "This mission will survey the universe to find the most interesting objects out there." (Scroll down to read further...) For more great nature science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN). -Follow Catherine on Twitter @TreesWhales Photos: It's So Windy That The Skydeck Is Closed And Trucks Are Blowing Off The Highway By Mae Rice in News on Feb 19, 2016 9:35PM At 1800 Walnut (Chicago Fire Department) Welp, it looks like the price of unseasonably warm temperatures today is a windstorm. Here's our effort to quantify how windy it is in Chicago today. 1. It's so windy that a window pane blew out of a high rise in the Loop. Chicagoist's EIC Rachel Cromidas saw shattered glass in the street in front of 191 N. Wacker Drive, and police had blocked off the street. Officials wouldn't offer comment. It's a little tough to make out, but Rachel snapped a photo from the scene: It's a little hard to make out since it's high up but it's right where that arrow is pointing (Photo by Rachel Cromidas/Chicagoist) 2. Its so windy that the Willis Tower closed its Skydeck. A representative for the popular tourist attractionin which visitors stand in an all-glass enclosure a quarter-mile off the groundtold CBS that the elevators that serve the Skydeck cant operate in high winds like these. 3. It's so windy that the Randolph Street Bridge is closed. Rachel saw this too. Officials told her they were worried debris from a nearby construction site (the same one where a wall collapse a few months ago) would be blown into traffic. Fire officials tweeted that building occupants at 150, 180 and 191 N. Wacker Drive were all evacuated because of debris falling from the construction site at 150 N. Riverside. A photo of the scene: 150 N. Riverside, where police blocked the nearby Randolph Street Bridge over the river Friday afternoon after high winds threatened to blow construction site debris into the street. by Rachel Cromidas/Chicagoist 4. Its so windy that the National (National!) Weather Service tweeted about our wind speeds. 60 mph wind gusts at #Chicago-O'Hare on the 1pm CST observation. #highwinds #ilwx NWS Chicago (@NWSChicago) February 19, 2016 There were reports of gusts up to 73 mph!!! Top wind gusts as of 3PM: 73mph CHI-Harrison Crib 71mph Harvard, IL 70mph Glendale Hts 66mph Bolingbrook 64mph Hinsdale Mike Hamernik (@MikeHamernik) February 19, 2016 Chicago is a city like no other: Chicago: Where it's 60 degrees in February and there's still a wind chill. Mick (@swasko) February 19, 2016 5. Its so windy that a truck blew off the highway. Or at least, it looks like it did based on these photos, which Bill McDonnell took just north of Ottawa, IL on route 23. 6. Its so windy that some OHare airlines are cancelling or delaying flights. Not that this is unusual, but today, a lot of it is wind-related! According to the latest numbers, some flights are delayed 20-60 minutes, and 85 OHare flights have been cancelled. Midway is operating normally, though. 7. Its so windy that a wall collapsed. The collapse happened at 1800 W. Walnut Street. It appears to be wind-related, but you know, Im not the building inspector, said a representative for the Chicago Police Departments news affairs office. The Chicago Fire Department tweeted photos of the scene, where they report a car was crushed: Still and box building collapse 1800 walnut. Now struck no injury wind issue one car crushed pic.twitter.com/7oMs1mYUgN Chicago Fire Media (@CFDMedia) February 19, 2016 8. It's so windy that a woman almost blew away trying to get into a cab. NBC caught her ordeal on tape: Thank you to the Chicago Samaritans (including our own Byron Miranda) who jumped to the aid of a woman nearly being blown away in the dangerous winds tearing through the city this afternoon: http://nbcchi.com/7UmfkyN Posted by NBC Chicago on Friday, February 19, 2016 Stay safe out there, everybody! Update 4:00 p.m.: It's gotten so bad, the CTA has suspended or re-routed the Pink and Green Line trains due to "falling debris" on the tracks over Lake Street. Thanks, wind. In response to a spate of teen suicides in Palo Alto that first began in 2009, city leaders created a program called Track Watch, hiring an outside company to provide security patrols along the rail corridor through the city. The four-year contract with Vallejo-based Val Security cost Palo Alto $746,000. But what most residents didnt know until now is that some of the guards hired to watch out for teens were convicted criminals accused of continuing to commit crimes while working as guards for the city; in at least one instance, police even arrested a guard suspected of burglarizing multiple multimillion dollar homes during his shift. While California voters made it clear they believe in second chances for job seekers with criminal backgrounds by passing Ban the Box in 2014, the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit uncovered the following details about several guards who allegedly continued their criminal activity while employed by the city of Palo Alto. A review of police reports and criminal records revealed at least three guards were arrested while they were employed to watch the tracks: Val Security guard James Broughton was arrested in October 2015 in connection with multiple residential burglaries, accused of stealing jewelry and electronics. Criminal records show Broughton was recently released from San Quentin, where he served time for armed robbery with a handgun. Records show he is also under investigation by Palo Alto police for identity theft using stolen credit cards. When questioned about the latest string of burglaries, police records show Broughton denied the charges, telling investigators, he does not do burglaries, but he does do robberies. Guard Brett Scott faces drug possession charges in Palo Alto and appeared in court in November 2015. His criminal history includes other drug offenses dating back to 2013 but he was hired by Val Security in early 2015 to patrol the tracks. He told the Investigative Unit he wasnt nervous about his latest brush with the law, Do the crime, you pay for it, he said in court. Kenneth White is another Val Security guard arrested in Palo Alto while employed as a track watcher. In November, Palo Alto police arrested White near his post on a bench warrant for petty theft from Frys in San Jose. He pleaded guilty to the charge. Whites past also includes grand theft charges in Mountain View, which were later dropped. Val Security did not respond to our multiple calls and emails for comment. Palo Alto city leaders declined to be interviewed on camera but said the contract with Val ended in December 2015. There have been multiple instances of Track Watch Guards both noticing and letting police know if they have seen a teen who may be in distress around the tracks. city spokesperson Claudia Keith told NBC Bay Area. Just seeing a Track Watch Guard could impact a teens immediate thoughts about harming themselves. Keith said the city had no knowledge of the criminal backgrounds and that the city does not conduct background screening on any of the guards hired to watch the tracks, instead relying on the contractor. All background checks are the responsibility of the vendor, not the city, as they are not city employees, Keith said. Its really frightening, Palo Alto resident Sherrie Holod said. She lives across the street from two homes allegedly burglarized by Broughton. She said learning about the guards sketchy criminal histories makes her feel victimized a second time. I have a brother that committed suicide. That's a tragedy that you don't want any family to go through, its horrible, Holod said. So knowing that the city is hiring people that aren't really going to be able to help these people or that are supposed be there watching the track but instead theyre stealing from the community around us, that's really hurtful. In December, Palo Alto replaced Val Security with Cypress Security. The new contract pays the Cypress guards twice the hourly wage and totals $429,000 for seven months. But once again, the city is relying on the contractor to for all background checks and screening. It is simply a huge scar, a wound upon this community, Marc Vincenti said. The community activist and retired Gunn High school English teacher helped launch Save the 2008. Vincenti said he lost six students to suicide in the span of two school years. To be a teacher, to go into the classroom the next day when you know one of those desks is going to be empty, that is a difficult job, Vincenti said. Cypress Security owner Kes Narbutas told NBC Bay Area, All security officers working at Cypress Security are required to obtain and maintain a Guard Card prior to employment. Most felony offenses and some misdemeanor crimes prohibit the State of California from issuing Guard Cards to those individuals. Vincenti believes the city should thoroughly vet the guards it hires, especially given its history, because of the impact they have on the community. We need to have the best adults for these kids at the railroad tracks, Vincenti said. SUICIDE PREVENTION: If you know someone who needs help, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you have a tip for Vicky Nguyen about this or any other story, you can email her directly at vicky@nbcbayarea.com or you can email theunit@nbcbayarea.com or call 888-996-TIPS. Follow Vicky Nguyen on Twitter www.twitter.com/VickyNguyenTV and Facebookwww.facebook.com/VickyNguyenTV Click here to submit tips online A 23-year-old web developer accused of trying to join a terrorist organization has been in solitary confinement for two months in Oakland because he was caught with a notebook containing writings and doodles that "appeared to support terrorism," court documents state. But Adam Shafi's lawyers are vigorously arguing in federal court that the notebook writings of their Fremont, California client were not "contraband" or terrorist-related as a jail lieutenant claimed. Rather, the defense attorneys contend, the notes contained private information about the case that he was sending to his attorneys, which should have not been confiscated in the first place, and certainly not turned over to the FBI, which is what happened. Shafi has been in custody since July 2015 and in solitary since Dec. 17, 2015. Federal court documents The matter is of extreme importance not only because the material in the notebook contains what Shafi's attorneys, Joshua Dratel of New York and Erik Levin of Oakland, say is protected under attorney-client privilege. But the defense also argues the notebook in question landed Shafi in isolation, an "onerous and psychologically debilitating" situation where he kept alone in his jail cell for 24 hours a day, except for five hours of exercise a week. But even when he exercises, his lawyers argue, he is still kept apart from everyone else. "They're punishing him for no reason," Dratel said on Friday. "He's suffering in solitary and it takes a toll. We're very concerned." In all his years as a lawyer, Dratel said he's never had a client sent to isolation for such a matter. His legal argument also brings up President Barack Obama's recent opinion in the Washington Post that asked the country to rethink solitary confinement as it is seen by many as cruel and unusual punishment. What was written in the notebook was never described in detail in court documents. But Dratel said that some of the writings were notes pertaining to his legal case, as well as "doodles" that he didn't describe. Dratel and Levin are asking that Shafi be released on $1 million bond at a court hearing scheduled for Feb. 25, despite a judge's denial of such a request on Dec. 22. The judge feared Shafi would be a flight risk. Dratel would only say that he and Levin are arguing for Shafi's full release on bond, and would not state whether they would be satisfied if the young man was returned to the general jail population at the Glenn E. Dyer Jail in Oakland, which has space for federal inmates. "One step at a time," he said. A federal grand jury has indicted a 22-year-old Fremont web developer with one count of attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, though the young man told authorities he only wanted to move away to help Muslim refugees overseas. Cheryl Hurd reports. Alameda County counsel Donna Ziegler and David Nefouse countered in their court arguments that Shafi is still allowed visitors, access to jail services and is certainly allowed to prepare for his legal case. They wrote they feel that Shafi would not be better off in "mainline custody" with other inmates aware of the terrorist-linked allegations against him. And, the county counsel argued, there has been no court ruling that the materials are "privileged" as contended by defense counsel. Asst. U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Shih is also opposed Shafi's motion to reconsider his detention order, citing he is a flight risk, in his court papers. Shih added that even "assuming that the seized materials are privileged, there is no legal basis to release the defendant." A spokesman for the department had no further comment on the issue when asked on Friday. Independent legal analyst Steven Clark said that ultimately, the jail is tasked with deciding what the best safety options are for inmates. But he said it's very "troubling" that jail guards took the notebook and turned it over to the FBI without any judicial oversight. Gang members have had their writings in jail seized, Clark said, but usually only with proper search warrants, which didn't occur in this case. "The attorney-client privilege is sacred," said Clark, a former prosecutor and now defense attorney in San Jose, California. Shafi is one of 75 inmates at Glenn E. Dyer Jail in Oakland in what is called "administrative isolation," though his lawyers refer to the practice of being locked up alone as "solitary confinement," a point of semantic debate between the two sides. Solitary is usually a punishment meted out to inmates who have exhibited violent behavior and pose a threat to themselves or others. Federal court documents. The isolation began after Alameda County Sheriff's Lt. Dan Brodie said deputies put Shafi alone in a cell for his own "safety" on Dec. 17, after guard found the notebook, and were worried that other inmates might want to harm him, court documents state. Shafi was indicted in December by a federal grand jury with one count of attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, specifically al-Nusrah Front, or ANF. Until six months ago, Shafi had been mixed with the general jail population. Shafi, a 2011 Mission San Jose High graduate, has entered a not guilty plea. Shafi's father, in court papers, had indeed worried that his son might have traveled to Syria, Iraq, Gaza or elsewhere to "defend Muslims" and was disturbed because his son was "always grieving about what is happening to Muslims." His father also worried that his son may have been following extreme imams online, and that some of his "high school friends were of the same mindset," according to the FBI affidavit. But his father had also been trying to get help for his son, who he characterized as an idealistic young man who wanted to help brethren in distress. A "firenado" formed in Missouri on Wednesday as a massive brush fire swept through Platte County, burning more than 1,000 acres of land amid whipping winds. The fire took over 75 firefighters about eight hours to subdue the flames, according to NBC affiliate KHSB. Whirling winds caused some of the flames to swirl up in tornado-like funnels, catching the eyes of firefighters on the scene. Deputy Chief Dean Cull of the Southern Platte Fire Protection District shot a video of the "firenado" and posted it on Facebook. The fire, which according to officials was caused by the spark of a lawn mower, started at about 10 a.m. Wednesday morning, affecting both the Leavenworth and Platte County regions of Missouri. A small business near the flames in Platte County was evacuated, but most residents avoided vacating their homes during the 1,300-acre burn. KHSB reported that the National Weather Service issued a Fire Weather Warning for the affected areas until Thursday evening. No injuries were reported but two to three buildings, mostly older barns in the area, were destroyed. Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton slammed Gov. Bruce Rauners Turnaround Agenda during a speech in Chicago Wednesday. The governor has refused to start budget negotiations unless his so-called turnaround agenda gets passed first, Clinton said. Now, his plan will turn Illinois around, all right. All the way back to the time of the robber barons of the 19th century. Clinton addressed a crowd of several hundred people at the Parkway Ballroom in Bronzeville. The get-out-the-vote rally was aimed at gaining the support of African-American voters. When I look at whats happening here in Illinois, [its a] Republican agenda to roll back the clock on everything that made the middle class strong in the 20th century, its pretty terrifying, Clinton said. They want to undercut workers rights, undercut unions. You know, the American labor movement was essential to building the American middle class. Illinois has been without a budget since July of last year. The budget impasse has been typified by Rauner's battle with his Democratic counterparts, who hold a majority in the state's senate and house. Rauner gave his budget proposal for the fiscal year of 2017 Wednesday. Clinton referred to the proposal as material for some kind of sitcom because hell be speaking without actually having a budget. They need a governor who will actually pass a budget, Clinton said. Rauner responded to Clintons speech Thursday, chalking the rhetoric up to campaign politics. I think thats mostly a campaign positioning issue for her, Rauner said. Shes been under attack for taking so much money from wall street and being, you know, basically in the pocket of wall street and big banks and I think this is her way of trying to push back a little bit on this. Rauner also clarified the objectives of his Turnaround Agenda. What were trying to do with our agenda is actually have the government working for the families here again and growing our economy so we got more jobs and putting more money into our schools so we have the best schools in america, Rauner said. Thats the right thing to do. Clinton was joined onstage by Geneva Reed-Veal, Sandra Blands mother. Bland, a Naperville native, was found hanged in a Texas jail following a routine traffic stop. Clinton used the rally to call for reforms to social justice and condemn gun violence. Clinton noted that victims of gun violence were in attendance Wednesday. They must motivate every one of us to take on these issues, reforming police practices and making it as hard as possible for people to get guns who shouldnt have them in the first place, Clinton said. Clinton will face Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in the March 15 Illinois Democratic primary. Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday announced plans for a program that would use money from downtown developers to pay for projects in low-income Chicago neighborhoods. The proposal would charge developers extra money for adding additional square footage to downtown buildings. The Zoning Bonus Ordinance that is currently in place allows for additional square footage in downtown developments in exchange for provisions that provide little public benefit. We are establishing a new norm in Chicago where our most thriving areas will help our most struggling neighborhoods, Emanuel said in a press release. Emanuel's plan will revamp the current system by eliminating bonuses and closing loopholes. This would create funding for economic development projects in underserved neighborhoods like Englewood, Auburn Gresham and Garfield Park. The initiative could generate $40 to $50 million in the next three or four years. The plan would call for Emanuel to appoint a cabinet of aldermen and community leaders to recommend development projects for low-income neighborhoods. Emanuel would have final approval over how money is spent. It involves looking at every investment we make in Chicago- public, private and non-profit- through a neighborhood lens and having them meet a simple test: Do they also provide economic and job opportunities for residents from under-served neighborhoods, Emanuel said in the release. My goal is to ensure that every resident in every neighborhood has an opportunity to participate in the future we are building in Chicago. Emanuel has come under fire in the wake of the Laquan McDonald shooting. McDonald, a 17-year-old African-American teen from Chicago, was shot and killed by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke in October of 2014. As a result of the controversy surrounding the shooting, Emanuel has fallen out of favor with African-American voters who helped elect him in 2011 and 2015. Emanuels proposal could also benefit building developers. The plan would expand the citys Downtown Zoning district which would allow developers to build high-density buildings in areas they previously werent allowed to. Many of the plans details are still unclear, like how much downtown developers will be tasked with paying. The plan awaits approval from Chicagos City Council. Race to Watch is a twice-weekly Ward Room column dedicated to helping voters familiarize themselves with candidates in the lead-up to the March 15 primary elections. This weeks focus is the 8th Congressional Dictrict House race. In the race for Rep. Tammy Duckworths soon-to-be-vacated 8th Congressional district House seat, Former Deputy Treasurer of Illinois Raja Krishnamoorthi leads the Democratic field. He will face state Sen. Mike Noland and Villa Park Village President Deb Bullwinkel in the March 15 Democratic primary. Krishnamoorthi was appointed a special assistant attorney general in the Public Integrity Unit by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan before leaving the office to serve as deputy treasurer in 2007. Krishnamoorthi later lost the 2010 Illinois Comptroller race to David E. Miller. He also lost to Duckworth in the Democratic primary for the U.S. House seat in Illinois 8th Congressional District. He has served as president of Bolingbrooks Sivananthan Laboratories. The company focuses on research, development and commercialization of military night vision technology, solar cells, radiation detectors and biosensors to detect weapons of mass destruction. Krishnamoorthi was recently endorsed by the Daily Herald. Krishnamoorthi brings to this race experience that is broad and deep, both in public service and in the business world, the paper said. The former deputy state treasurer has also received endorsements from Senator Dick Durbin, House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicaid and Citizen Action/Illinois. A poll of 400 likely Democratic voters conducted by GBA Strategies shows Krishnamoorthi leading Noland and Bullwinkel in the race for the Democratic nomination for the 8th District house seat. According to the poll, which was conducted Feb 9-11, Krishnamoorthi received the support of 41 percent of voters with Noland receiving 27 percent and Bullwinkle garnering 5 percent. Twenty-six percent of respondents remained undecided. A previous Public Policy Polling poll showed Noland leading Krishnamoorthi and Bullwinkel. According to that poll, Noland received 22 percent of votes, Krishnamoorthi received 17 percent and Deb Bullwinkel received 11 percent. Fifty percent of voters in that poll were undecided. Noland is a Democrat currently representing Illinois 22nd District in the state senate. Noland served as a Navy Corpsman and in the Reserves with the U.S. Marine Corps. Noland lost to Republican Douglas Hoeft in a 2002 race for the 43rd district house seat. Noland later lost a 2004 race for Ruth Munsons 43rd district house seat. Noland has since won state senate elections for the 22nd District in 2006, 2010 and 2012. As a State Senator I learned how to compromise, without surrendering my progressive values, Noland said on his website. Everyday, whether in the capitol or in my district, I make public service work for you. As a member of the Illinois General Assembly, Noland serves on the Judiciary and Public Health Committees, among others, and chairs the Criminal Law Committee. Noland has received a litany of endorsements including Senate President John J. Cullerton, former Senate President Emil Jones Jr., American Postal Workers Union, AFSCME Council 31 and the Associated Fire Fighters of Illinois, among others. Bullwinkel was elected Village Trustee of Villa Park in 2009. She was later elected Village President of Villa Park in 2013. Bullwinkel is a small business owner who previously worked as a community newspaper reporter and as a director for mental health organizations. Im running to stand up for working families, for small business owners, for seniors and veterans and for the vulnerable among us, Bullwinkel said on her campaign website. I will oppose any assault on the middle class and I am ready to work to get past the dysfunction in Congress and get things done for people of the 8th District. Pete DiCianni is running unopposed on the Republican ticket. DiCianni claims to have authored three state laws including Briannas Law, which has been passed into law in 38 states. Im running for Congress because I have the leadership, experience and passion to deal with critical national issues focusing on children, the elderly, creating jobs and a sound economy, as well as addressing vital infrastructure needs for our communities, DiCianni said on his campaign website. Bill Fraser will run as an independent in the race. Fraser is currently a teacher at Schaumburg High School. I am running to create a successful constituent voting operation on all bills that involve significant taxes and laws, Fraser said in a statement. The people of the 8th Congressional; District can be the first in the nation to elect a candidate that will tie his own hands and relinquish decision making power back to the constituency. The general election for the 8th District house seat will be held on November 8. 18 Of Our Favorite Events In Chicago This Weekend Get your poutine on at Poutine Fest on Sunday. (Photo via 1st Ward's website) Your weekend is jam packed with music, films, food and opportunities to learn about things like stars and wine. There's a little something for everyone in this weekend's round-up. FRIDAY FEBRUARY 19 photo of a 70mm reel, via Music Box 70MM FILM FEST: See some amazing films on the real reel-to-reel during the Music Box's 70mm Film Fest. Classic films like Cleopatra and Vertigo will play along with new classics like The Master and Interstellar. Theyve got a new 41-foot screendouble the size of past presentationsthanks to the 70mm Roadshow presentation of The Hateful Eight, so youll see those astonishing details and rich color even better. Tickets start at $13. Visit the Music Boxs website for showtimes. EXPERIMENTAL PERFORMANCE SERIES: The citys OnEdge performance series puts the spotlight on everything experimental with shows running through March 4 at the Chicago Cultural Center, the Storefront Theater and Links Hall. See cutting-edge dance and theater, and performances that defy genre. All shows are free. Visit Chicagos Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events website for a list of performers and complete schedule. THEATER: James Leo Herlihys 1965 novel Midnight Cowboy gets the theatrical treatment in this world premiere at Lifeline Theater. Adapted by Chris Hainsworth, the story follows Texan Joe Buck to the big city of New York where his plans to make it big get derailed. Tickets are $20. Photo courtesy of Tickled Pink. TICKLED PINK BENEFIT: Support breast cancer awareness and prevention at this posh pink night out on the town. Tickled Pink takes place at Morgan Manufacturing from 8 p.m. 'til 1 a.m. with Chef tastings, open bar, live music and dancing. Proceeds benefit the non-profit Bright Pink. Tickets are $125. AFTERNOON EDM: The best afternoon EDM party around continues at the Chicago Cultural Center at noon. Local DJ Steve Mizek will be on the decks for this edition of Wired Fridays. Free. BOOTY BOUNCE: Everybodys favorite booty bounce queen is performing at Seven Nightclub & Lounge on Friday night. Big Freedia, who was just featured on Beyonce's new track, "Formation," is at the front of the pack as bounce rap pops up more and more in pop culture. Read our interview with her here. 9 p.m. Tickets are $28. ROCK FORMAL: Empty Bottle is hosting their first ever Winter Formal on Friday at 9 p.m. Yes, rock and roll will still be the soundtrack for this fancy night, but guests are invited to clean up the attire for this one. Chicago bands Red Francis, The Gnar Wave Rangers and Modern Vices will provide the songs for you to awkwardly dance to. 9 p.m. Tickets are $10 ($15 door). STARGAZING: The Chicago Park District and The 606 launch the year-long Star & Skies series with a kick-off party at Mozart Park from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Resident astronomer Joe Guzman will teach us about stars, planets and galaxies at this indoor/outdoor family-friendly event. Theyll also have telescopes set up for viewing. Event is free, but you can register here. SATURDAY FEBRUARY 20 Photo courtesy of Webster's Wine Bar. NATURAL WINE TASTING: Websters Wine Bar hosts a "Natural" Wine Tasting from 3 to 5 p.m. Described as minimal intervention wines, theyll open more than 20 bottles of wines that are made in the most natural way possible from grape to glass. Hors doeuvres will also be served. Tickets are $50. VINTAGE BEER FEST: Strong Ales are ripe for aging, and Delilahs will showcase some of these vintage brews at their 19th Annual Vintage Beer Fest from noon to 5 p.m. Regional breweries like Three Floyds, Pipeworks, Goose Island and Half Acre will be represented among many others. Admission is $20 for samplings. COFFEE BEER FEST: Its all coffee, beer and coffee beer at the Uppers and Downers Festival at Thalia Hall on Saturday. Theyll be serving collaborations between brewers and roasters like Solemn Oath with Intelligentsia, 5 Rabbit with Gaslight as well as coffees at the multi-roaster espresso bar. Theyll also have small bites from Local Foods, Butcher & Larder, Stock Cafe and Dusek's. 11 a.m. or 4 p.m. Tickets are $55. Photo via BeadQuest's website. BEADQUEST CRAWL: Festa Parties, the team behind TBOX, bring us the 8th annual BeadQuest. The Mardi-Gras themed pub crawl will take over 20 Wrigleyville bars where theyll be tossing out beads for the collecting. Your quest is to find the beads labeled #1 through #10. Theyll also have cajun eats and face & body painting. Individual tickets are $20. LOVE IS LOVE ARTS BENEFIT: Support housing and family services for LGBTQ youth during Love Not Lost at Morgans on Fulton at 6 p.m. Theyll have an art gallery, live music and more from local artists. Proceeds from the event will benefit Chicago House and Erie Family Health Center. $10 suggested donation. SUNDAY FEBRUARY 21 Photo via David Bowie's website. BOWIE TRIBUTE NIGHT: Gaga gave us her best Bowie at the Grammys last week, now its time to watch some local bands pay tribute. Sweet Cobra, Coins and more will play at the Empty Bottles David Bowie Tribute Night beginning at 8:30 p.m. $5 suggested donation goes to Girls Rock! Chicago. POUTINE FEST: If theres one thing people love its french fries covered in cheese covered in gravy. Thats why Poutine Fest exists. From noon to 4 p.m. at Chop Shops 1st Ward you can eat the best poutine in town as local restaurants compete for the King of Poutine title. Tickets are $50 and also include drink tickets. PUNK POLITICS: Russian feminist collective Pussy Riot takes the stage at Thalia Hall for a panel discussion on Punk Politics and Prisons. Co-presented by Illinois Humanities, Empty Bottle Presents and UIC School of Art & Art History, the ladies will talk about their time in prison and their continued activism. Tickets are $15. CHILI TAKEDOWN: Matt Timms hosts a Chili Takedown at Lincoln Hall on Sunday from 1 to 3 p.m. Its a cook-off between the best chilis in the city, and you vote for the winner. Tickets are $20. WINE SCHOOL: All Champagne is sparkling, but not all sparkling is Champagne. Learn tidbits like this as you sip on the homework at ENO Wine Rooms ENOversity at 3 or 6 p.m. Their expert staff will lead the Bubbles of the World session which will also include assorted cheeses and charcuterie. Tickets are $55. As expected, Governor Bruce Rauner vetoed a bill Friday that would have funded higher education for low-income students in Illinois. Rauner explained his reasoning for vetoing Senate Bill 2043, citing concerns over the states deficit spending and social services. [The bill] would explode the States budget deficit, exacerbate the States cash flow crisis, and place further strain on social service providers and recipients who are already suffering from the States deficit spending, Rauner said in a statement. On Tuesday, Rauner aide Catherine Kelly told Ward Room that Rauner would veto the bill. Rauner faults the General Assembly for not devising a plan that aligns with a balanced budget for the state. Despite its constitutional obligation to balance the budget, the General Assembly has not put forward a plan to pay for these programs, whether through spending reductions, revenue, or cost-saving reforms. The state of Illinois has been without a budget since July of last year. The impasse has been typified by Rauners battle with the Democrat-controlled legislature over his Turnaround Agenda. Senate President John Cullerton, one of Rauner's most staunch opponents during the stalemate, seemed bewildered by the governor's decision. Im disappointed in the governor," Cullerton said. "I dont understand how he can propose funding student financial aid on Wednesday, and then turn around and veto it on Friday. Democratic Presidential candidate slammed Rauner over his agenda during a speech on the south side Wednesday. The governor has refused to start budget negotiations unless his so-called turnaround agenda gets passed first, Clinton said. Now, his plan will turn Illinois around, all right. All the way back to the time of the robber barons of the 19th century. Rauner defended his agenda during a radio address Thursday. What were trying to do with our agenda is actually have the government working for the families here again and growing our economy so we got more jobs and putting more money into our schools so we have the best schools in america, Rauner said. Thats the right thing to do. The impasse has caused huge problems for state universities and community colleges, including funding of scholarships and grants. Institutions of higher education in Illinois are unsure if they will be able to continue to front money for MAP grants. A group of hundreds of students from across Illinois rallied Wednesday in Springfield to call for a higher education budget that would bring an end to the economic uncertainty surrounding the states universities and community colleges. Illinois residents are the least confident in their state government, according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday. The poll found that 74 percent of Illinois residents were not confident in the states government, compared to 25 percent who said they were confident in the government. The results are based on a 50-state poll conducted by Gallup between March and December 2015. Roughly 500 adults from each state were asked during telephone interviews whether they have faith in their states government in general." Illinois is facing an eight-month budget impasse that has been typified by a battle between Gov. Bruce Rauner and his Democratic counterparts, who hold a majority in the states Senate and House. As a result, social services as well as state universities and community colleges have suffered. Officials in Chicago, the state's largest city, have also come under fire in the wake of the police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in October of 2014. McDonald was shot and killed by Chicago Police officer Jason Van Dyke. Murder charges were not filed against Van Dyke until dash-cam video of the incident was being made public in November of 2015. Police Supt. Garry McCarthy was fired shortly after the video's release and protests were staged in the city asking for resignations from Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez. The state is also dealing with upwards of $100 billion in unfunded pension liability. Restaurant owner Ibrahim Parlaks tenuous hold on residency took a turn for the worse this week, when the Turkish Consul General in Chicago wrote a Michigan Congressman, urging him to reconsider his support. Parlaks attorney called that effort an inexcusable tirade, and repeated the restauranteurs longstanding contention that he would suffer torture, even death, if he was returned to his homeland. Parlak came to the Chicago area 25 years ago, settling in Harbert, Michigan where his Cafe Gulistan became a favorite destination for the vacation crowds on the Michigan shore. After initially being granted political asylum in 1992, the government suddenly branded Parlak as a security risk in 2004, contending that in his green card application he had been less than truthful about involvement in a 1987 border skirmish in Turkey where two soldiers were killed. Parlak never denied pro-Kurdish activities and even admitted being in the area, but insisted he played no role in the assault. Indeed, when he was granted asylum, the U.S. government not only said they believed his story, they acknowledged that he faced the potential of great harm if he was returned to Turkey. This man is not a terrorist, says Republican Congressman Fred Upton of Michigan, one of Parlaks most vocal supporters. To send him back to face torture, even death? Shouldnt happen! But this week, the Turkish Consul General, Umut Acar wrote Upton a letter, citing what he called misleading news about Parlak, and efforts to legitimize his illegal stay in the U.S. The facts of Parlaks crime are gruesome and alarming, Acar wrote, particularly given that he has managed to evade the U.S. authorities, open and operate a restaurant in Michigan, and lead a secret life for so long. The consul declared that Parlak had been arrested after the border assault, but escaped prison after serving only 16 months. But Parlaks lawyer, Robert Carpenter, says that flies in the face of Turkeys own documents, which indicate he was lawfully released from prison, and did not escape. We feel the need to respond to what we believe is an inexcusable tirade of fictional, defamatory statements, Carpenter said in his own letter to Upton. The government of Turkey tries to categorize Mr. Parlaks stay in the United States as illegal. This is simply false. He has been in the U.S. legally at every moment after he applied for asylum in 1991. Carpenter notes that Parlak presented evidence of repeated torture, which he said even a U.S. Federal Judge had recognized. Acars letter reeks of desperation, he said. The letter leaves no doubtthat the Turkish government wants Mr. Parlak returned, and will imprison him, where he will be tortured and abused again. During a brief conversation with NBC5, Acar confirmed he had written Upton, and urged the American media to see the case in a different light. This man is a convicted murderer, he said. For his part, Parlak has always denied harming anyone during the border dispute, and said in an interview at his restaurant last month, that the fear of reasonable harm the United States recognized when he immigrated a quarter century ago, would still exist if he was returned today. Were talking about a countryit has declared war against its own population, he said. They are trying to throw me in a fire. He said his goal continues to be full citizenship, and still hopes that is possible after the current dispute is resolved. What Americans going to be benefit from letting my daughter grow up without a father? he asked. Yes, I get treated unfairly by some government office, but thats just not what America is all about. For years, Parlak was protected through private legislation sponsored by Michigan Senator Carl Levin. But after Levins retirement, those bills lapsed. Upton has asked Rep. Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the Subcommittee on immigration and Border Security to advance a similar bill in the current congress, and he has written the Secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, asking that he not oppose efforts to reopen the Parlak case. He pays his taxes. Hes an outstanding citizen, Upton said. These are the type of people we want to come to America. An Indiana woman killed with her 4-year-old son amid a family dispute over a trust worth millions texted her husband before she was slain to say the uncle accused of killing her was inside their home, authorities said Thursday. After Katherine Giehll's husband, Raymond Giehll III, tried unsuccessfully to call her, he accessed their in-home cameras on his cellphone and saw Lucius Oliver Hamilton III was inside the couple's house. He immediately returned home to their upscale suburban Indianapolis neighborhood, only to find his wife and their young son, Raymond Peter Giehll IV, fatally shot, the Boone County Sheriff's Office said in a statement. Authorities said Hamilton, 61, killed the 31-year-old woman and the boy Wednesday morning and fatally shot himself later inside a downtown Indianapolis hotel room. Sheriff Mike Nielsen said Wednesday that investigators believed a dispute over the family trust led to the attack. A day later, they still were trying to make sense of the trust and the killings. "Investigators also discovered a substantial family trust that the victims were beneficiaries of, as well as, Hamilton," the sheriff's office said in its statement, adding that "the details of the trust are complex and are currently being looked into." Local police have begun searching campus buildings. The shelter in place order remains in effect. Wabash College (@WabashCollege) February 17, 2016 The Crawfordsville Police advised Wabash students, faculty and staff to remain indoors and in place. Classes are canceled for the day. Wabash College (@WabashCollege) February 17, 2016 Tons of police officers swarming campus with assault weapons for reasons unknown #Wabash pic.twitter.com/lbOxo4WK2z Sam Hayes (@samhayes21) February 17, 2016 The sheriff's department said an SUV belonging to Hamilton was seen on security cameras driving away from the Giehll's home near Zionsville, just northwest of Indianapolis. Police searched several hours for Hamilton before he took his own life inside a fourth-floor Hilton hotel room a block from the Indiana Statehouse. State police have said officers knocked on the room door and then two shots were fired from inside. No one else was reported injured. The Marion County Coroner's Office said Thursday that Hamilton died from a single gunshot wound to the head and his death was a suicide. Police said Katherine Giehll was shot three times and her son once. Hamilton was the senior major gifts officer for Wabash College, a private, all-male liberal arts school in nearby Crawfordsville, according to the college's website. The school placed the campus on lockdown Wednesday while police officers searched buildings for Hamilton. Harper Lee, author of the classic novel "To Kill a Mockingbird," died peacefully Thursday night at the age of 89, according to her publisher. "We are deeply saddened by the passing of our beloved author, Harper Lee," HarperCollins said in a statement Friday. AL.com was the first to report Lee's death. Born Nelle Harper Lee, the Pulitzer Prize winner is a native of Monroeville, Alabama. According to HarperCollins, she attended Huntingdon College and the University of Alabama before moving in the 1950s to New York, where she spent much of her adult life. Both schools released statements Friday mourning Lee's death. President George W. Bush awarded her the Medal of Freedom in 2007, the same year Lee suffered a severe stroke that forced her return to Monroeville. "Harper Lee was ahead of her time, and her masterpiece 'To Kill A Mockingbird' prodded America to catch up with her," Bush said in a statement Friday, later adding, "Laura and I are grateful for Harper Lee and her matchless contributions to humanity and to the character of our country." Lee spent her final days in an assisted-living facility in Monroeville, which inspired the fictional town where her novels are set, NBC News reports. The office of Monroeville Mayor Mike Kennedy confirmed Lee's death Friday but declined to comment further out of respect for her family. "The world knows Harper Lee was a brilliant writer but what many dont know is that she was an extraordinary woman of great joyfulness, humility and kindness," HarperCollins President Michael Morrison said in a statement Friday. "She lived her life the way she wanted to in private surrounded by books and the people who loved her. I will always cherish the time I spent with her." Lee's agent, Andrew Nurnberg, called his relationship with the author "an utter delight" and "extraordinary privilege." "When I saw her just six weeks ago, she was full of life, her mind and mischievous wit as sharp as ever. ... We have lost a great writer, a great friend and a beacon of integrity," he said in a statement. "To Kill a Mockingbird" is among the most beloved novels in history, with worldwide sales topping 40 million copies. It was released on July 11, 1960, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was adapted the following year into a movie of the same name, starring Gregory Peck in an Oscar-winning performance as the courageous attorney Atticus Finch. Widely praised as a sensitive portrait of racial tension as seen through the eyes of a child in 1930s Alabama, it also has been criticized as sentimental and paternalistic. Although occasionally banned over the years because of its language and racial themes, the novel has become a standard for reading clubs and middle schools and high schools. Lee herself became more mysterious as "Mockingbird" became more famous. At first, she dutifully promoted her work. She spoke frequently to the press, wrote about herself and gave speeches, once to a class of cadets at West Point. But she began declining interviews in the late 1960s and, until late in her life, firmly avoided making any public comment at all about her novel or her career. Other than a few magazine pieces for Vogue and McCall's in the 1960s and a review of a 19th-century Alabama history book in 1983, she published no other book until stunning the world in 2015 by permitting "Go Set a Watchman" to be released. The 304-page book was Lee's second, and her first new work in more than 50 years. "Watchman" was written before "Mockingbird" but was set 20 years later, using the same location and many of the same characters. Readers and reviewers were disheartened to find an Atticus who seemed nothing like the hero of the earlier book. The man who defied the status quo in "Mockingbird" was now part of the mob in "Watchman," denouncing the Supreme Court's ruling that school segregation was unconstitutional and denouncing blacks as unfit to enjoy full equality. Its publication incited debate in Monroeville, where some claimed Lee would have published "Watchman" years ago had she wanted to share it with the world. Her lawyer, however, said Lee was "alive and kicking and happy as hell with the reactions of 'Watchman,'" according to NBC News. Despite unenthusiastic reviews and questions whether Lee was well enough to approve its publication, "Watchman" jumped to the top of best-seller lists within a day of its announcement and remained there for months. "She's arguably one of the most important American novelists of the post-war period who has not published a great deal," said Tom Lecky, Christie's head of books and manuscripts, when six of Lee's handwritten letters were set for auction over the summer. Ari Mason contributed to this report. Hartford police have arrested a man suspected of supplying dangerous tainted heroin connected to at least one death. Southington police reached out to Hartford police after a fatal heroin overdose in the suburban community and said someone in Hartford, known as X, was selling "tainted" heroin. Hartford police identified Xavier Quiles, 26, of East Hartford, as the suspect and set up several undercover drug purchases, police said. Police searched his car and determined that Quiles was stashing the heroin at his East Hartford home, so they reached out to East Hartford Police. When police apprehended Quiles while he was leaving his home, police said they found 50 bags of heroin. Inside the house, they found an additional 453 bags of packaged heroin, 28.9 grams of heroin/fentanyl, 50 grams of cocaine, several empty wax paper sleeves, cutting agents, other items used to package heroin and $11,727 in cash, police said. East Hartford police arrested Quiles and turned him over to Hartford police. Tests on the heroin revealed fentanyl, a drug added to heroin that police said makes it highly potent and frequently deadly to people who overdose. The heroin bags investigators seized were identical to the bags located near the victim of the fatal heroin overdose, police said. Quiles was charged with possession of narcotics, possession of narcotics with intent to sell, possession of narcotics with intent to sell within 1,500 feet of a school and operating a drug factory. Police said they also seized the Nissan Altima Quiles was believed to have used during several of the drug sales. Inside his home in New Havens Newhallville neighborhood, 70-year-old Winfred Rembert is telling his life story through art. I just want to do the best I can to for people to know how it was coming up through the 50s and 60s, Rembert told NBC Connecticut, and the price that had to be paid for us as black people to be where we are today. His carefully carved paintings on leather canvas portray painful memories from the Jim Crow south, such as laboring in the cotton fields as a child in Cuthbert, Georgia and the arrest at a civil rights protest that ultimately landed him in prison for seven years. Handcuffed and he was backhanding me, Rembert said, explaining a painting of him in the backseat of a police car. As a prisoner, Rembert taught himself how to use hand tools to create detailed designs on leather. I learned the craft right there in prison, yes, he said. In honor of Black History Month, Remberts artwork is on display at the Connecticut State Capitol. Remberts leather paintings have been showcased across the country, he said, including in cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. His work is also part of the Yale University Art Gallery's permanent collection. I think leather is even, maybe I wont say better than canvas, but its just as good, Rembert said, I think leather it really holds its pattern you know so I dont think it will rot. Leather dont rot. Rembert said he hopes his artwork will teach younger and future generations about a dark chapter in the United States history, while his success now can serve as an inspiration. Now you can be anything you want to be if you set your mind to it, he said, color has nothing to do with it anymore. Its what you got in side of you. The African-American Affairs Commission is hosting a screening and discussion of the documentary All Me: The Life and Times of Winfred Rembert on Wednesday Feb. 24 in the Old Judiciary Room at the State Capitol. Both Rembert and the director Vivian Ducat will be in attendance for a Q&A after the film. A 23-year-old Wolcott man is believed to have gone into hiding in New York after learning he is suspected of setting fires at a pizza shop while angry about an order, authorities said. Scott Basile, 23, of Wolcott, has been missing since early January, just a couple days after he was last in touch with Waterbury police, who were investigating several reports of arson, attempted arson and criminal mischief at Fratellis Pizzeria at 689 Hill Street in the north end of Waterbury. Staff of Fratellis said the fired caused around $25,000 worth of damage. [[369440672 ,C]] Waterbury deputy police chief Fernando Spagnolo said they identified Basille as a suspect and obtained a warrant charging him with criminal attempt at arson in the first degree and manufacturing of bombs in connection with an incident on Christmas Day. "There was a dispute about an order. He was very, very upset about it, apparently, and obviously didn't get over it," Spagnolo said. "It was minor in question. There was a dispute over the order. The order was contaminated with a bolt that had probably fallen out of a dough machine, or something, and he came back to the restaurant and caused quite a stink." Francisco Avendano, the manager of Fratelli's Pizzeria, said something from the cooler must have gone in the pizza and that it was not intentional. "I said that didnt happen on purpose. I guess something got loose in my covers, my cooler covers something," Avendano said Police suspects foul play in disappearance of Scott Basile Spagnolo said police had surveillance set up at the business because of all the incidents and Basile showed up on Christmas Day with what police believe is evidence he was about to cause damage. When Basile saw an officer there, he allegedly ran off and several agencies were called in to pursue him. At that time, police had not yet identified Basile by name, but said he left behind a 20-pound propane tank that was two-thirds full with a manipulated regulator, along with Molotov cocktails, and investigators were able to identify him through DNA. Police said they are continuing to investigate six other incidents in December and had been in touch with Basile up through New Year's Eve. Basile disappeared on Jan. 2. His mother told NBC Connecticut that he told her he was going to the bank, then to visit someone, and would be back, but he never returned. She has not heard from his since. His family said on Friday they had no idea there was a warrant out for Basile's arrest. After leaving home, Basile did go to a bank in Cheshire on Jan. 2, and then went to one at a Stop & Shop in Norwich on Jan. 3, where he withdrew the rest of his money. In the days that followed, it appears he was in New York City. His vehicle was spotted more than 20 times and a ticket was issued on Jan. 5 in New York, while Basile was heading back to Connecticut, police said. On Jan. 7, police found his car was crashed into a utility pole in Stamford. Police later determined that Basile was not in the car at the time of the crash. He had abandoned it and the person who was behind the wheel was high, nodded off and crashed, police said. Police found people Basile had been with when they checked his car for DNA and interviews with those people provided more information that made police believe that Basile's disappearance was intentional. "I believe he did leave the car to not leave a trace. As a matter of fact, we received other information that his cell phone, that he purposely left at home the days leading up to this, because he was paranoid that people were watching him," Wolcott Police Chief Edward Stephens said. Basile had tried to sell his phone, but no one would buy it and he also tried to get people to bring him to Brooklyn, New York, police said. "We don't know if he's still in Brooklyn, New York. He's had a month headstart," Stephens said. This case will remain a missing person case, according to police, and they hope he is found safe. Scott Basile is 5-feet-11, weighs 220 pounds and has black hair and hazel eyes. He was last seen wearing a dark gray/black hoodie with matching pants. His family started a Facebook page to help find him. Police in Wolcott, Waterbury and New York City are now all working on the case. Anyone with information on Basiles whereabouts should contact Wolcott police at 203-879-1414. Connecticut State Colleges and Universities System President urged lawmakers Thursday to vote in favor of a bill that would clear the way for community colleges to employ armed police on their campuses. The police would have to have certification, and having those armed police on campus wouldn't be a requirement, just a security option. This isnt a mandate" System President Mark Ojakian said. "Campuses can decide whether or not they want to do it. The issue has been raised in recent years without much support in the legislature. Ojakian argues this time is different because the support comes from the top and the fact there have been recent shootings on community college campuses in recent years, notably, the incident in Oregon last year. Ojakian added that this proposal is in response to concerns from students and faculty. I dont take it lightly to arm police officers on our college campuses but I see the need to provide this response and make our students and faculty feel safer on their campuses" Ojakian said. Rep. Roberta Willis, (D - Lakeville), says she has several concerns with the proposal ranging from financial to practical. She prefers setting money aside for college counselors and mental health services rather than for security. Secondly, Willis, who chairs the Higher Education Committee in the Connecticut House of Representatives, says she isn't convinced armed police could stop an attack from taking place. In looking at whats happened across the country, I really havent noticed any reports that this in fact has made our campuses safer" Rep. Willis said. Ojakian contends such police would act as a warning, or a deterrent, as well as provide staff to respond faster. While I think were never going to prevent with 100% certainty these things from happening it does not only make people feel safer but it increases the responsiveness to events that might occur on their campus. A young Torrington man who police said killed his mother while they were arguing about him going to drug rehab has been sentenced to 30 years in prison. Nicholas Hulme was arrested in November 2014 when he was found in Sleepy Hollow, New York, 80 miles away from the crime scene in Torrington. He admitted to killing his mother, 49-year-old Wendy Hulme, after arguing for hours about his drug addiction, according to the arrest warrant. Torrington family torn by drug addiction Nicholas Hulme, who was 18 at the time of the crime, told police that he and his mother were driving to a drug rehab clinic in New York state the morning of Nov. 3, 2014 when they stopped for lunch in Newtown and he decided he didn't want to go, according to the warrant. [[281926851 ,C]] As Wendy Hulme turned the car around and headed back to Torrington with her son, the two began arguing over money and drugs, Nicholas Hulme allegedly told police. They continued to argue after they got home, and Nicholas Hulme said "his mother came at him" and he grabbed her throat, choking her until she was unconscious, then "brought her to the floor," according to the warrant. Nicholas Hulme then took his mother's car and bank card, withdrew $100 from an ATM and went to Waterbury to buy heroin and crack, police said. He took the drugs, then drove to through New York City, New Jersey, Bridgeport and Fairfield over the course of four days before ultimately arriving in Sleepy Hollow. He was found with his mother's car at the Sleepy Hollow train station two days after police discovered Wendy Hulme's body in the bathroom of her third-floor apartment. Police said Wendy Hulme's injuries appeared to indicate that she had been strangled, and the medical examiner determined that she was strangled. Her mother, who reported Wendy and Nicholas Hulme missing on Nov. 5, told police Nicholas Hulme moved back home about three months ago and wanted his mother to pay off his drug dealer, according to the arrest warrant. The victim's sister told police Wendy Hulme had left her home in recent weeks because her son had become violent, the warrant says. Law enforcement and government sources said Nicholas Hulme was already on juvenile parole at the time of the murder. Nicholas Hulme has been sentenced to 30 years in prison, followed by 10 years of special probation. Tiffy Moore needs a cheap flat, and fast. Leon Twomey works nights and needs cash. Their friends think they're crazy, but it's the p... Senate Republicans worked to close ranks Thursday around their leader's opposition to President Barack Obama picking a new Supreme Court justice, arguing they would be well within their right to refuse to confirm a nominee in Obama's final year in office. A day after signs of splintering emerged within the GOP, Republicans mounted a display of unity in the form of a joint op-ed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley of Iowa. Other Republicans appeared to walk back earlier comments that had opened the door to granting a hearing and possibly a vote to Obama's choice to replace Justice Antonin Scalia. The series of apparent U-turns illustrated the turmoil in the Republican Party about how to handle the unexpected death of Scalia, a conservative stalwart. Obama and Democrats are hoping an overreaction by Republicans will prompt a political backlash that could galvanize support for Obama's nominee and also invigorate Democratic voters in the November elections. "No one disputes the president's authority to nominate a successor to Scalia," McConnell and Grassley wrote in The Washington Post. But they argued that inconvenient as it may be for Obama, "the Constitution grants the Senate the power to provide or as the case may be, withhold its consent." Tellingly, the senators didn't say whether Obama's nominee should at least get a hearing just that they'd be justified in refusing an up-or-down vote. Earlier this week, Grassley whose committee would hold hearings indicated he would wait to see who Obama nominated before deciding about hearings. That position seemed at odds with McConnell, who urged Obama not to bother putting forward a candidate. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, had broken with fellow Republicans on Wednesday by declaring that the Senate should hold hearings on Obama's nominee. She, too, seemed to change her tune on Thursday, taking to Twitter to urge Obama to "follow a tradition embraced by both parties" by yielding to the next president. "If POTUS ignores precedent, I believe extraordinary circumstances give the Senate every right to deny the nominee an up or down vote," Murkowski wrote, using an acronym for the president of the United States. Obama and his advisers have dismissed the GOP notion that the president will choose a polarizing nominee. Vice President Joe Biden, himself a former Judiciary Committee chairman, said Thursday that Obama "ought to be able to find a consensus candidate" that would appeal to both parties. "In order to get this done, the president is not going to be able to go out nor would it be his instinct, anyway to pick the most liberal jurist in the nation and put them on the court," the vice president told Minnesota Public Radio. "There are plenty of judges (who) are on high courts already who have had unanimous support of the Republicans." Obama is expected to look closely at a number of appeals court judges, including some who meet Biden's benchmark. Sri Srinivasan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit was confirmed by a vote of 97-0 less than three years ago. Senators also unanimously confirmed Jane Kelly in 2013 to the St. Louis-based 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. Yet most Republicans and likeminded groups were holding firm. The Judicial Crisis Network, headed by a former clerk to conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, said it was spending more than $1 million on ads arguing that "next president chooses the next justice." And Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., said it seemed clear that Obama would not get a nominee confirmed unless he were to pick someone in Scalia's mold, preserving the court's ideological balance. "For that reason, it might be just as well not to have a hearing that would sort of might mislead the American people into thinking that this is just about the qualifications of the candidate," Toomey said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Because it's bigger than that." Working to turn the tables on Democrats, GOP aides circulated a comment that current Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada made during a 2005 debate over Republican President George W. Bush's nominees. "Nowhere in (the Constitution) does it say the Senate has a duty to give presidential appointees a vote," Reid said at the time. "It says appointments shall be made with the advice and consent of the Senate. That is very different than saying every nominee receives a vote." A Reid spokesman said his remarks were about other federal judgeships, not Supreme Court justices. At least one former justice was siding with Democrats in calling for the vacancy on the nine-member court to be filled expeditiously. Sandra Day O'Connor, nominated by President Ronald Reagan, told Fox 10 in Phoenix that she disagreed with those calling to wait for the next president. "I think we need somebody there now to do the job," she said, "and let's get on with it." Malachi Love-Robinson had all the trappings of a medical practice: an office, a lab coat and stethoscope. What he didn't have, authorities said, was a medical license; few 18-year-olds do. Now the Florida teen is charged with practicing medicine without a license and theft after he allegedly performed an exam on an undercover agent and took almost $3,500 from an 86-year-old woman seeking treatment for stomach pain. He's also accused of stealing three checks from her that he cashed for almost $2,800. Love-Robinson was released on $21,000 bail on Wednesday, one day after his arrest. "Those are just allegations," he told The Associated Press in a brief phone interview. Love-Robinson called a Wednesday night news conference and arrived a half hour late. He would only say that his attorneys are working to resolve the charges and that he hopes the community will pray for him. He declined to answer any questions. "I am deeply saddened and a little disrespected by some of the things that have come forth," he said. "My attorneys are working hard, they're working around the clock to make sure this issue gets resolved in the best way possible." According to Palm Beach County sheriff's reports, an undercover agent went to Love-Robinson's office, The New Birth New Life Medical Center, on Tuesday. He was wearing a white lab coat with a stethoscope draped over his neck. The agent told him that she was suffering from a sore throat, lethargy and sneezing. He took her temperature and used the stethoscope to check her lungs and heart and told her she was suffering from allergies and should take an over-the-counter medication. He told her he was a doctor of homeopathic medicine, the report said, and explained that he had a medical doctor on staff to prescribe antibiotics. She signaled other detectives who entered the office and arrested him. Detectives also cited the case of Anita Morrison, who filed a complaint alleging Love-Robinson had come to her house five times in December after she contacted him online to treat her for stomach pains. He told her she suffered from arthritis and sold her vitamins, charging her $3,494 that she paid by check. During one visit, she told detectives, she became ill, and Love-Robinson called an ambulance to take her to the hospital. He recommended that she not take her purse, so she gave it to him and asked him to lock up her house. After her release, she found her bank account had no money. Investigators said Love-Robinson had forged three checks from her account. Morrison did not immediately return a message left on her voicemail. A website for Love-Robinson's medical practice says he specializes in naturopathy, a system of medicine based on the healing power of nature that avoids the use of surgery and drugs. It is not a licensed medical specialty in Florida and cannot be legally practiced in the state. Its practitioners do not attend traditional medical schools. Love-Robinson's website says he is a "well rounded professional" who bases his treatments on "physiological functions and abnormal conditions on natural laws governing the human body." The site says he accepts 19 health insurance plans, plus Medicaid. Three insurance companies contacted by AP said they had no dealings with him. The site also says he speaks French and lists his age as 25. The Palm Beach Post and South Florida Sun Sentinel reported that Love-Robinson had been stopped last year at a hospital while wandering the halls wearing a lab coat and stethoscope. He was then 17. On a separate religious-themed website, Love-Robinson says he is an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church, having done a doctoral thesis that "explored the paradoxical nature of certain Christian doctrines and the implications for the rationality of Christian faith.'' The Universal Life Church is an Internet-based church that will ordain anyone 13 or older who fills out a short form. "Dr Love-Robinson is now and (sic) advocate for ULC and all Associations in which he represents and intends to bring much good to community one blessing at a time," his profile says. A lingering smell at Oxford Center School has stumped local and state health experts for years and has parents worried. "It smells like a basement," Kerry Mizak, a mother of three, said. "Like you threw dirty laundry in the washing machine and left it for a few days," Kim Gugliotti, mother of a fourth grader, said. "It's a mystery," Oxford Superintendent Annie Ortiz said. Oxford Center School is a sprawling campus built in the 1940s and 1950s and around 500 students in third through fifth grade, teachers and staff members spend more than 30 hours here every week. Last spring, people started complaining of a strong moldy, musty smell in "Building One." "Our children are coming home with this odor in their clothing, in their hair, books, backpacks," Mizak said. On Sept. 10, the district closed the two classrooms in the building and moved about 50 students to the art room and library for class. After Christmas break, they moved again and took up residence in the newly-vacant portable classrooms across campus. Gugliotti's daughter is in one of classes that's been displaced twice and said the learning environment in the library was deplorable" and she has lingering questions about whether the campus is an appropriate place for young children to go to school. "I'm anxious, I'm angry, and I would like to see something done and get some answers," Gugliotti said. Superintendent Ortiz said the district has spent several months and tens of thousands of dollars to identify the source of the problem. "Everyone has gotten to the same conclusion. No one knows exactly what the odor is. However, that doesn't mean the district is giving up," Ortiz said. The district granted the NBC Connecticut Troubleshooters access to the classrooms in question. "We removed all the ceiling tiles, anything that was porous, sheet rock walls, insulation. The odor is definitely far less today, but it's still present," said facilities director John Barlow, who has spearheaded several renovations. The Pomperaug Health District has been involved as well and director Neal Lustig said his agency has responded to solve several strange odors in various buildings since 2003. "This is an issue that may have been lurking in the background, but for some reason may have gotten worse," Lustig said. This fall, Lustig brought in an industrial hygienist from the Connecticut Department of Public Health. She did not conduct any tests, and in her report, she simply recommended a change in air handler settings in Building One to increase air flow. The Troubleshooters reached out to the Department of Public Health, but the agency declined to comment on the report. We asked Lustig about the potential of health problems in the future and how, if their not sure what the problem is, they can be sure there are no long-term concerns. "You don't really know," Lustig replied. Lustig has recommended they keep students out of the two classrooms in Building One, but district leaders say the bottom line is that they need to build a new school. That's not a quick fix. The town has funded a state-mandated facilities study that's underway right now. District leaders expect the new school will cost in the range of $30 million to $40 million. Based on the state's formula, the Department of Education would reimburse Oxford about 30 percent of the cost. That means taxpayers would have to approve bonding of about $25 million at referendum in order to get the construction started. "It could take us anywhere from three to five years, minimum three," Superintendent Ortiz said. Parents, including Mizak, whose asthmatic second grader is set to attend Center School in the fall, want answers now. "Everyone agrees we need a new school, but we need to deal with the situation that's going on now and come up with a short term solution," Mizak said. Ortiz said there are no other buildings in Oxford that can accommodate 450 students. They are exploring the idea of busing the students to a vacant school building outside of town or keeping them where they are until a new school is finished. "I have huge concerns over the state of what her health will be in 15 years, based on the conditions now," Gugliotti said. The district expects the facilities study to be done next month and that will start the process to choosing a site and design for the new school. After that, that next hurdle is for voters to approve the plan at referendum. After missing a lead and copper testing deadline in 2015, City of Burleson officials said their customers water is safe. When officials realized they missed the testing deadline between June and September in 2015, they performed the test in January and found the lead and copper levels to be below the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality limits. Results from January 2016 after City of Burleson missed the lead/copper water testing deadline for 2015. @NBCDFW pic.twitter.com/hbV0sJyKz9 Ellen Bryan (@_EllenBryan) February 19, 2016 "We take this very seriously and we wanted to give our customers results so they could continue to have confidence in their water quality," Burleson Director of Public Works Aaron Russell said. Russell said the city sent out a three page letter to its customers to let them know the oversight. Letter from the City of Burleson to customer about missing the water testing deadline for lead and copper. @NBCDFW pic.twitter.com/Qte51JGRb3 Ellen Bryan (@_EllenBryan) February 19, 2016 Historically, the TCEQ sent out test kits, which helped cities remember to perform the test. This year the TCEQ didnt send out those kits, but Russell said the city takes responsibility for forgetting the test. The City of Burleson isnt the only city to forget the lead and copper test. TCEQ said nearly half of Texas public water suppliers forgot the test. After watching recent stories about lead in Flint, Michigan, people in Burleson said they were more concerned than usual about the possibility of lead being in the water. "With all the problems in Flint, Michigan, it makes you wonder, iIs there a problem here?;" said Cathy Foster. To get the lead and copper testing results in Burleson, city officials pull samples from 30 older homes. "What we want people to understand is that lead and copper occurs in homes, particularly older homes, that may have plumbing that may have used materials such as lead solder," Russell said. "The lead and copper can leach into that water within that house." Burleson residents that want their water tested should call the city's Public Works Department at 817-426-9890. The test costs $35, but the city will pay $10. The driver confronted and subdued by the North Texas mother he crashed into during a police chase has been sentenced to five years behind bars for evading arrest. Artrai Alexander, 40, was charged with aggravated robbery and evading arrest after being accused of stealing a Dodge Challenger from a driver at a Dallas convenience store and touching off a wild chase across the city that ended in a crash in February 2015. A jury found Alexander not guilty of the aggravated robbery charge but found him guilty of the evading arrest charge Thursday afternoon. Alexander led police on a chase down residential streets, through parking lots and on Interstate 635 until the he tried unsuccessfully to squeeze between two vehicles stopped for a stoplight at a busy intersection. Chopper 5 was overhead following the chase when police said Alexander slammed into the back of a minivan and an SUV at the intersection of Walnut Hill Lane and Abrams Road. Mamabear Jessica Liesmann, who confronted and subdued a driver who slammed into her minivan, testified at his trial Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. The driver of one of the vehicles, Jessica Liesmann, was recorded jumping out of her minivan and rushing over to the driver. She immediately slammed the car door into the driver's body and then grabbed him by the shirt before wrestling him to the ground. Moments later, police can be seen entering the frame and placing the driver, identified later as Alexander, into custody. Alexander's trial began earlier this week. Liesmann took the stand Thursday, recalling when her van was hit and what took place afterward. She said she didn't know Alexander was involved in a police chase, but that she thought he was going to run and that he needed to be detained to be held accountable for the crash. Video of the confrontation between the driver and the "mamabear" soon went viral after being shared on social media. "I was just angry. I just lost my 4-year-old child on the second day of school, and to think of something else happening to one of my kids," said Liesmann, after the crash. "I just can't imagine. I'm just grateful, first of all, that he's OK, and second of all, that that guy is in jail." After the crash Liesmann was given a new van by the Kidd Kraddick Show and Southwest Kia since hers was damaged and she had no way to get her kids to school. In a jailhouse interview, Alexander apologized to Liesmann and her family after the crash. The man who allegedly lead Dallas on a high speed chase that ended with a dramatic crash spoke out from jail. I apologize to them for this whole incident. I apologize and hope JT (referring to Leismanns 13-year-old son, TJ) be OK and the other people that were injured as well, said Alexander, from the Dallas County Jail in February 2015. NBC 5's Kevin Young and Amanda Guerra contributed to this report. The case of a North Texas teenager who used an "affluenza" defense in a deadly drunken-driving crash will be transferred from the juvenile to the adult system, a judge ruled Friday. Ethan Couch, 18, was in court Friday morning in Fort Worth where a judge agreed to transfer his probation to an adult court before his 19th birthday. Couch, who was convicted in 2013 of a drunken-driving crash that killed four people and was sentenced to 10 years' probation, will remain in custody for now. New conditions to Couch's probation are expected to be added during a hearing a few days before his 19th birthday, per the judge, so that the probation conditions are in place when he actually turns 19. If he violates that probation he faces up to 10 years in prison for each person killed in the 2013 crash a total of 40 years. The Tarrant County District Attorney's office and Couch's attorneys both said they expected this decision would be made, two years after the 10-year probation sentence was handed down. "We have been waiting for this day for the last two years and were very pleased with the courts ruling," said Riley Shaw, an assistant district attorney. "We anticipated that a lengthy probation would be appropriate and we were never going to have any objection to this and we still don't," said Scott Brown, Couch's attorney. Brown said they will not argue against any reasonable conditions of probation placed on Couch by an adult court judge. That includes the possibility of county jail time. Under state law, involuntary manslaughter convictions allow a judge to impose 120 days of jail at the start of probation. That time would start on Couch's 19th birthday in April. Brown said the maximum time the judge can impose is 180 days in jail. Many people in the community still feel unsatisfied with the sentence, including representatives of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson, whose agency investigated the accident. "What happened today needed to happen and were certainly pleased with the direction that it did," Anderson said. M.A.D.D. has been following the Couch case closely, and several representatives attended his transfer hearing Friday, saying they were supportive of his case moving to adult court. With all of the tragedy and heartbreak caused by the Couch case, for the first time, we can see a glimpse of hope from the criminal justice system, said M.A.D.D. National President Colleen Sheehey-Church. This is only the first step. The sentence Couch received two years ago was a joke, and its more than overdue for the criminal justice system to replace his privilege with prison. We ask that the judge make prison time a condition during Couchs next hearing. Most victims and their families did not elect to speak with reporters following the hearing. However Alex Lemus, whose brother, Sergio Molina, suffered a traumatic brain injury and has been left partially paralyzed, did speak passionately to reporters about what his brother and family continue to deal with everyday. "Look at my brother, hes doing more than a 28-day period or 128 days or whatever. Hes doing more than 10 years on probation," Lemus said. "Ethan Couch, it doesn't matter. They need to pay, fund something, we need some help." Molina's mother, Maria, brought Sergio to court so that Couch could see the repercussions of his actions first hand. However, Sergio was late and missed the hearing. Couch was brought to juvenile court by sheriff's deputies from the county's maximum security Lon Evans Corrections Center in downtown Fort Worth. His detention was transferred there earlier this month by Judge Tim Menikos, the juvenile court judge. Couch is being held in solitary confinement, as Anderson worries about his safety in the general population. Couch will continue to be held there, the judge ruled on Friday. Juveniles being kept in custody have a right to a detention hearing every 10 days under the law. Those hearings will continue, however Couch's attorneys have waived them since he returned to Tarrant County. Couch has been in held in custody since his extradition to the U.S. from Mexico in December. Authorities believe Couch and his mother fled to Mexico after an online video appeared to show Couch at a party where people were drinking. The terms of Couch's probation prohibited him from drinking or leaving Tarrant County and if he were found to be in violation of that probation he could be handed a jail sentence. NBC 5's Chris Van Horne contributed to this report. Congress wants to know how some of the richest private universities in Texas are spending their money. Republican leaders in the House Ways and Means Committee sent letters to schools with endowments of more than $1 billion, inquiring how the schools are allocating the funds. A total of 56 private universities received the query, including Southern Methodist University, Texas Christian University and Baylor University. Signed by Texas Congressman and Committee Chair Kevin Brady, the letter stated, Despite large and growing endowment, many colleges and universities have raised tuition far in excess of inflation. The committees focus is on the tax preferences given to universities. Subcommittee chair Peter Roskam said that endowments and their investment earnings are exempt from taxes, thus allowing schools to help better serve students. However, concern has grown with the tuition costs of schools, and Roskam believes lawmakers should now revisit their tax policies when it comes to this issue. Higher education is not likely reform itself without pressure from other points, Roskam said during a hearing in October. Does the tax code help create more access? Does the tax code hinder that? According to data from an endowment report at SMU, for 2013-2014, the university allocated 26 percent to scholarship and aid, 23 percent to chairs and faculty and 39 percent to educational and program support. A lot of friends are struggling to pay for school and I think it's a good think they're having this conversation, said SMU student Tiffany Mourlam. The junior works a full time job at a restaurant off campus to help cover a portion of her tuition, which totals nearly $60,000 annually. Supporting myself away from parents and paying for my own housing, my car, my insurance and all that, she said. So, its quite a bit. The letters from Washington asked universities to respond to 13 questions by a deadline of April 1. NBC 5 contacted SMU, TCU and Baylor for comment on this story. SMU and TCU responded with statements. Both are posted below. Texas Christian University is one of 56 private universities that received a letter from the Senate Committee on Finance and the House Ways and Means Committee requesting information on its endowment, and will respond as requested by the April 1, 2016, deadline. TCUs endowment provides financial aid for both current and future students in addition to support for faculty, academic programs and research. --TCU spokeswoman Holly Elman University Park Battalion Chief Russell "Rusty" Massey was remembered Friday. Massey, 45, of Commerce passed away Feb. 11 after a lengthy battle with cancer. Firefighters from several North Texas fire departments joined a procession from Park Cities Baptist Church to Restland Cemetery Friday. Massey was a graduate of Terrell High School and attended Trinity Valley Junior College before becoming a career firefighter. His firefighting career started in Athens in 1993, he joined the University Park Fire Department in 1999 and was promoted to battalion chief in 2008. Massey is survived by his wife, three children and six grandchildren. The many celebrity fans of Harper Lee took to Twitter in force this morning after hearing that the 89-year-old author had died. Lee, who rose to fame with 1961's "To Kill a Mockingbird" and re-emerged last year with the publication of "Go Set a Watchman," died peacefully in her home in Monroeville, Alabama, according to the mayoral office and Lee's publisher. [NATLu002du002dDO NOT USE] In Memoriam: Influential People We've Lost This Year Those who held Lee in high regard span the spectrum from politicians to actors, authors and business leaders. Among her admirers was former President George W. Bush, who said: "Harper Lee was ahead of her time, and her masterpiece 'To Kill A Mockingbird' prodded America (to) catch up with her. Even decades after its publication, her hero Atticus Finch inspires every reader. As I said when I honored Harper Lee with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007, 'One reason 'To Kill A Mockingbird' succeeded is the wise and kind heart of the author, which comes through on every page.'" Lee's alma mater, Huntington College, said in a statement, "Her novels call us to consider the reality of evil and the important choices we make in life, presenting examples of goodness and courage that stand firm in the face of that reality." The literary community also weighed in. Author Margaret Stohl said via Twitter, "Harper Lee was my David Bowie and I feel her loss in my bones." Young adult genre author Lauren Oliver known for "Before I Fall" and "Panic" tweeted, "With one novel, Harper Lee created some of the most indelible characters and storytelling the world has ever seen. She will be remembered." Author John Green, who penned "Looking for Alaska," shared a personal story via Twitter. "When my son Henry was born, Ms. Lee signed a copy of Looking for Alaska for him with the inscription, 'Welcome to the world Henry Atticus.' That book is my most prized possession. Ms. Lee lived a private life, but she was quietly and extraordinarily generous." See some of the Twitter reactions below: The Nenjiang River joins the Songhuajiang River in the west of Jilin Province in northeast China. Not far from the west bank of the Songhuajiang River is Chagan Lake, China's seventh largest freshwater lake. Nearby lives the world's oldest fishing and hunting tribe that has maintained a winter fishing tradition for more than 1,000 years. The winter fishing at Chagan Lake. [Photo: China Daily] Everything in the village seem related to fishing. In the yards and on the roofs fishing nets area spread. The paper-cuts for window and door decoration mostly have a fish theme. Even the children's bags are embroidered with fish patterns. The villagers believe the lake is miraculous and intelligent, and there are plenty of legends and fairytales about it. The "holy lake" has nurtured villagers for many generations. It is said that 210 tons of fish were once caught in one net during a winter fishing expedition. In return for this bounty, the villagers attach great significance to protecting the ecology and environment of the lake region. They drill holes in the ice surface at positions carefully chosen by experienced fishermen, and drop down a big fishing net more than two kilometers long into the water. The net is then dragged across the lake beneath the ice surface with horses. The size of the mesh is carefully calculated to ensure some fish can escape from the net smoothly, so as to maintain ecological balance in the lake. The actual process of the winter fishing is more ceremonious than this description suggests. The villagers choose a certain auspicious day in the lunar calendar, offer sacrifice to the lake and "wake up" the fishing net, appreciating nature's generosity. The winter fishing season lasts about 40 days. The experienced fishermen judge where fish will head for every day and then drill more than 400 holes spaced every 60 meters for dropping the net to "besiege" the fish. The ice surface is about half meter thick, and the fishermen can see the movement of the fishing net below the surface. It takes several hours to thread the whole net into the water through the holes, and then spread it out using horsepower. Follow China.org.cn on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation. Dynel Lane went to extreme lengths to show those closest to her she was expecting a baby, sharing ultrasound images with her daughter and keeping photos of herself appearing pregnant on her cell phone. She even arranged to meet her husband for a pre-natal appointment the same day prosecutors say she cut open the belly of a pregnant stranger and removed the woman's unborn baby girl, passing the child off as her own before admitting the March 18, 2015 attack. Michelle Wilkins, who was 8 months pregnant, survived, but the unborn baby did not. Jurors will hear opening statements Wednesday in the gruesome case, which stunned the foothills community of Longmont and reignited a highly charged debate playing out across the country over when a fetus can legally be considered a human being. District Attorney Stan Garnett said he could not charge Lane, 35, with murder because a coroner found no evidence the fetus lived outside the womb. That roiled anti-abortion groups and prompted Colorado Republicans to introduce legislation that would have allowed prosecutors to file murder charges for killing a fetus, but Democrats rejected the measure. It was the third time such a proposal failed in Colorado, setting it apart from 38 states that have made the killing of a fetus a homicide. Lane was charged instead with attempted first-degree murder, assault and unlawful termination of a pregnancy, a criminal charge filed under a new law intended to be a compromise between opponents and supporters of abortion rights. The maximum punishment under that provision is 32 years in prison Lane pleaded not guilty, but her attorneys have not revealed much about her defense. They said in court documents that they are not presenting a mental health case during the 10-day trial but may call witnesses who can testify about Lane's behavior the day of the attack. Lane is accused of luring Wilkins, then 26, to a basement with a Craigslist ad for baby clothes. Prosecutors say she then attacked Wilkins, cut her with a broken piece of glass and removed the baby using a kitchen knife and with such precision that authorities initially wondered if she had knowledge of how to perform a Caesarian section. When Lane's husband came home early from work to meet her for a prenatal appointment, he found the infant in a bathtub, according to police. He drove them both to a hospital, where Lane, holding the still-wrapped baby, told staff she had suffered a miscarriage. Police said she then admitted the child wasn't hers. State environmental regulators are failing to stop Florida Power and Light from endangering Miami-Dade Countys primary source of drinking water, according to an administrative law judge order issued this week. Salt water from the cooling system at the Turkey Point nuclear power plant has spread underground more than five miles west of the plant, reducing the amount of freshwater in the Biscayne Aquifer for drinking and irrigation, according to the judge and a University of Miami study forwarded this week to the Miami-Dade County Commission. The state Department of Environmental Protection claimed it was unable to attribute the pollution to specific FPL violations of groundwater or water quality standards. But the administrative judge rejected DEPs see-no-evil approach, claiming it "cannot be reconciled with the undisputed evidence" the FPLs cooling system is the major contributing cause to saltwater intrusion. Florida rules prohibit discharges from the plant that impair the reasonable and beneficial use of adjacent waters and FPLs dumping of water with high salt content is doing just that, the judge ruled, noting how DEP could have responded more forcefully to the politically powerful corporate polluter. FPL contributed more than $7.5 million to state candidates, political parties and committees between the 2004 and 2012 election cycles and spent another $4.7 million lobbying between 2007 and 2013, according to Integrity Florida, nonpartisan research institute. The head of DEP is appointed by Gov. Rick Scott; a former head of DEP is now a FPL vice president in charge of dealing with governmental affairs. A DEP spokesperson has not returned a call seeking comment. An FPL spokeswoman said the Integrity Florida political contribution data is inaccurate, misleading and not credible. As for its efforts regarding salt migrating into surrounding waters, the FPL spokeswoman noted the utility is working with Miami-Dade County to monitor and address high chloride concentrations near the canal system. "This is not new. We know we have a salinity issue. This issue has slowly developed over 45 years of system operation, and will take considerable time to fully address. However, FPL is committed to doing its part to address its contribution to the buildup of chlorides in the surficial aquifer. We anticipate being able to continue to demonstrate significant progress." DEP went so easy on FPL, the judges order noted, the agreement they reached calling on FPL to better monitor its pollution "lacks the most fundamental element of an enforcement action: charges." The agreement (called an administrative order or AO) was challenged by the City of Miami and a mining company, which claimed it would lose its mining privileges on land west of the plant if saltwater concentrations caused by the FPL cooling system continue to increase. The city and mining company proved DEPs kid-gloves treatment of FPL is not a reasonable exercise of enforcement discretion because FPL has not been charged with violation of law. The AO also fails to pass legal muster, the judge found, because it does not require FPL to come into compliance with standards or set a deadline for it to do so. The judge, whose recommended order can be appealed, is calling on DEP to rescind its current agreement with FPL or amend it so that it enforces the existing environmental laws. The FPL spokeswoman noted despite several legal and regulatory delays, FPL continues to take action and improve canal conditions at Turkey Point. These actions have been well documented and observed by the county and other government officials. FPLs actions have been successful by reducing salinity levels in the cooling canal system, significantly improving water quality and stabilizing operations at the site. The administrative order comes the same week as a University of Miami study ordered by the Miami-Dade County Commission found FPL greatly underestimated how much heat the upgrades of two nuclear power generators at the Turkey Point power station would add to its cooling system. Since hotter water temperatures lead to more evaporation of freshwater, salinity in the remaining cooling system water also increases, exacerbating the problem of saltwater intrusion into the aquifer, the study noted. The water temperature problem will likely increase chances FPL will have to reduce the amount of electricity generated there in the future, according to the UM study. In the summer of 2014, when water flowing into the plant began approaching the 100-degree maximum then authorized by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, FPL obtained a waiver from the NRC to increase the maximum to 104 degrees the highest temperature allowed for any nuclear power plant in the country. But that four-degree increase does not compensate enough for what the study found was an average 4.7-degree increase in average water intake temperatures since FPL increased the capacity of its two nuclear powered generators from 728 megawatts to 1,000 megawatts. "If the intake cooling water temperatures were to exceed 104 degrees, then FPL would be required to reduce power output and possible shut down one or more of the power-generating units," wrote UM professor David Chin, adding such a move would adversely affect a large number of customers in the South Florida service region. In 2008, FPL consultants anticipated the new generators would increase the intake water temperature by only 0.9 degrees; instead, it has increased more than five times that amount , by 4.7 degrees, the UM study found. But, late Friday, FPL said Dr. Chins study is misinformed. The 4.7 degrees discussed by Dr. Chin is an observation that we cant validate, but in any event is not comparable to the 0.9 degree prediction. There are other factors included in the higher value. To cool water used in the plant, FPL has a 5-mile long, 2-mile wide system of canals that, from the air, resembles a radiator. Industrial waste water usually of about 108 degrees flows south from the plants water discharge and, over two days, cools to typically 93 degrees, before arriving back at the plants water intake area. When the intake temperatures spiked near the then-maximum allowable 100 degrees in 2014, FPL persuaded the NRC to give it the four-degree increase. And intake temperatures did spike at 102 degrees that summer, FPL says. To further lower water temperatures, FPL also got an emergency order from the South Florida Water Management District in August 2014 to pump up to 100 million gallons a day of freshwater from a nearby canal into the cooling canal system, or CCS. The emergency pumping coincided with a a 6.5-degree drop in water temperature. In 2015, FPL says it pumped on average 30 million gallons of water a day from late August through November, and the maximum intake water temperature reached 98.5 degrees. But the UM report warns that pumping from the canal is likely to cause "adverse impacts" unless the pumping protocol is changed. Among the adverse impacts contemplated: increasing the salinity of the canal water, which also flows into Biscayne Bay. Chins study says if FPL pumps 100 million gallons a day from the canal into the cooling canals as is allowed its possible a saline circulation cell would develop, moving saltwater from the cooling canal, through the aquifer and back into the freshwater canal. That would degrade the water in the canal, which provides freshwater to Biscayne Bay. In a response Friday, FPL took issue with Chins calculations, saying: Dr. Chin assumes that FPL would be pumping 100 million gallons a day every day. He does not understand that the constraints included in the permit limit FPL to a daily average value of approximately 30 million gallons a day, when FPL was allowed to pump. The salinity of groundwater for miles around the plant has already increased because of the CCS. The administrative judge found Turkey Points CCS is the major contributor to the salinity of water in the Biscayne Aquifer in an area extending nearly five miles west and more than two miles east of the cooling canals. A 5-mile long interceptor ditch designed to keep saltwater from migrating west toward Everglades National Park is not doing its job, the UM study and judge found. FPL said Friday the Interceptor ditch has maintained an effective barrier to CCS hypersaline water moving west in the upper aquifer. It is only 20 feet deep, and therefore can only be effective to that depth. FPL notes Chins report was conducted without any interaction with FPL engineers or plant operators, and he did not engage FPL in any way. This report does not include recent data that we believe would have significant impact on Dr. Chins conclusions. FPL has always participated with regulatory agencies, when asked. It would have been a more complete report had we had the opportunity to provide input to Dr. Chins review, but again we were not contacted by him. After considering public comment on the UM study over the next 30 days, Dr. Chin will have 60 days to submit a final report to the county commission. FPL RESPONSE The administrative law judges recommended order does not direct FPL to do anything. It recommends actions by FDEP. As we always have, we will comply with all lawful orders, regulations and permit requirements. Despite several legal and regulatory delays, FPL continues to take action and improve canal conditions at Turkey Point. These actions have been well documented and observed by the county and other government officials. FPLs actions have been successful by reducing salinity levels in the Cooling Canal System, significantly improving water quality and stabilizing operations at the site. In October 2015, FPL entered into a Consent Agreement with Miami Dade County that identifies additional actions FPL will undertake to address high chloride concentrations in the groundwater near the CCS. As for the recent Recommended Order, the Judge recommended to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) that the order has some deficiencies. We expect FDEP will consider the recommendations, and move forward in the near future. Again, FPL will continue to comply with all regulatory requirements. Dr. Chins report was conducted without any interaction with FPL engineers or Plant Operators, and he did not engage FPL in any way. This report does not include recent data that we believe would have significant impact on Dr. Chins conclusions. FPL has always participated with regulatory agencies, when asked. It would have been a more complete report had we had the opportunity to provide input to Dr. Chins review, but again we were not contacted by him. With regard to pumping water from L31, Dr. Chin assumes that FPL would be pumping 100 mgd every day. He does not understand that the constraints included in the permit limit FPL to a daily average value of approximately 30 mgd, when FPL was allowed to pump. Also, the L-31E water is pumped into the CCS, and there as it mixes with the CCS water is the only location where you might say L-31E water increases in salinity as it reduces the salinity of the CCS. No salinity is added to L-31E water in the canal, and no salinity is released to Biscayne Bay. Water released to BB from the L-31 never comes in contact with CCS water. Integrity Florida (is) a group known for disseminating an anti-utility study funded by an anti-utility lobbying group (SACE). This study is inaccurate, rife with errors and misleading claims and is not viewed as credible for that reason. Our calendars are teasing spring, but it's still Thanksgiving in the Chinatown duplex Brigid Blake shares with boyfriend Richard in The Humans, Stephen Karams eloquent and wholly relatable modern family drama. The Humans made such a ruckus Off-Broadway last fall that it caught the attention of producer Scott Rudin, who blessedly seized the whole thingcast, director Joe Mantello, ramshackle set and alland bumped it across town to Broadways Helen Hayes Theatre, where its just opened. Time has made the members of the Blake family seem more vulnerable, and at the same time brought to each a heightened awareness of whats meaningful in their lives. All six characters are either suffering, recovering from or succumbing to some devastation, of varying scale. Brigid (a pointedly droll Sarah Steele) is dutifully setting up her new homewith its perpetually popping lightbulbs and a lead-footed upstairs neighborwhile quietly coming to terms with the fading dream of a music career. On a snowy holiday, parents Deirdre and Erik (Jayne Houdyshell and Reed Birney) drive in from Scranton. Brigids sister, Aimee (Cassie Beck), suffering from ulcerative colitis, in the throes of a breakup and on the verge of unemployment, has taken the train up from Philadelphia, a city so boring not even terrorists want to be there. Deirdre and Erik have brought along his ailing mother, Momo (the fabulous Lauren Klein), confined to a wheelchair and in the perhaps final year of gripping dementia. Richard (Arian Moayed, of Bengal Tiger), recovering from depression, is on hand, largely to keep Brigid steady amid the influx of family. Sensitively staged by Joe Mantello, The Humans transpires in real-time, as one uninterrupted 95-minute act. The two-tiered set has a bathroom on the second floor and kitchen on the first; characters travel between the two via a spiral staircase except for wheelchair-bound Momo, who must be pushed into the public hallway and brought upstairs in an elevator. No New Yorkers have duplex apartments, says a prideful Brigid, by way of explanation to her confounded parents, who have arrived with a care package that includes all the things one might need to survive a flood, or worse including a statue of the Virgin Mary. Dad (affectionately called Big Guy by his daughters) isnt high on New York City. He sees it as the place his dying mother worked to escape; also, he was last here to bring Aimee for a job interview on 9/11. Part of his agenda this fraught evening is to bring the girls up-to-speed on recent issues in his marriage to their mother. Houdyshells Deirdre is sarcastic, maternal and wounded, but if a single trait rises to the surface its how stoic this woman is. For 40 years shes worked in the same low-paying suburban job, watching as kids in their 20s catapult over her. But Deirdre finds her satisfaction where she can. At the moment, it happens to be volunteering with members of Scrantons Bhutanese refugee population (peacemaker Richard, at least, encourages her to talk about it). Beck, too, stands out, blending the causticness brought by illness with an alarmingly healthy sense of humor about Aimees predicament. Preparing for both major intestinal surgery and singledom, she asks Brigid: Do I wait until the third date to be, like: Just FYI, I shit out of a hole in my belly. Or is that a fifth date thing? Jarring noises factor profoundly in the drama. Aside from the mysterious neighbor, theres a groaning trash compactor. Pots and pans crash to the floor. Karam paints such a dynamic portrait of real life that I could only sit and absorb the insecurities and frailties batted around on stage. The Humans is monumentally affecting, and something for which theatergoers should be oh-so-very thankful. The Humans, with an open-ended run at the Helen Hayes Theatre, 240 W. 44th St. Tickets: $39-$125. Call 212-239-6200. Follow Robert Kahn on Twitter@RobertKahn The Republican Party's tug-of-war over its relationship with black and Hispanic voters was under way long before Pope Francis decided to answer a question about Donald Trump. On one side, Marco Rubio and others insist the GOP must attract more minorities to win the presidency. On the other, leading rivals Trump and Ted Cruz embrace fiery rhetoric designed to motivate angry white conservatives. Complicating it all is immigration, the issue the party's pragmatic professionals can't square with the passions of their most faithful voters. Pope Francis on Thursday shined an international spotlight on the intra-party debate when, asked about Trump's call to build a massive wall on the U.S.-Mexican border, he said those who seek to build walls instead of bridges are not Christian. It's a high-stakes clash that could determine much more than South Carolina's Republican primary election on Saturday, but also whether the GOP nominee succeeds in November's general election. "I don't think conservatism has ethnic boundaries," Rubio told The Associated Press on Thursday as he campaigned alongside South Carolina's Indian-American Gov. Nikki Haley and African-American Sen. Tim Scott. "We just need to take our policies to people that haven't regularly voted for us in the past, communities that would benefit from what we stand for, but perhaps have been told that Republicans don't care about people like them," he said. Haley highlighted the diversity on stage with Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, during an earlier rally in West Columbia: "A new group of conservatives that's taking over America looks like a Benetton commercial," she said. She added, "I hope we're the new faces of the conservative movement." Yet their day on the trail was overshadowed by Pope Francis' extraordinary reply to a question about Trump and his focus on building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border to stem illegal immigration. "I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that," Francis said. While the question concerned Trump, who described Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals in his announcement speech and later called for a temporary ban on all Muslims entering the United States, the billionaire real estate mogul isn't alone in his calls to build a border wall. Cruz supports the idea, too, and Rubio has repeatedly said that no progress can be made on immigration until Washington can prove to Americans that illegal immigration is under control. "They want to see the wall built," Rubio said of voters at the last GOP debate. That border-security-first approach is at odds with the recommendations of the Republican National Committee, which determined after an exhaustive post-2012 study the GOP must adopt "comprehensive immigration reform" to help expand its appeal beyond older, white men in order to again win the White House. It may not matter in South Carolina's primary, a contest that will be dominated by white voters. In 2012, the state's Republican primary electorate was 98 percent white. It's a different story for the November general election, when minority voters are expected to make up more than 30 percent of the eligible voting-age population and more than 50 percent of the voter pool by 2052. A new Associated Press-GfK poll found that Rubio and Cruz are slightly more popular than Trump among Hispanics, although none of them is well-liked. All of them have especially low ratings among blacks. Fifteen percent of blacks and 31 percent of Hispanics have a favorable view of Rubio, the new poll found. Cruz earns positive marks from 11 percent of black voters and 29 percent of Hispanics, while Trump finishes at the bottom with favorable ratings from just 8 percent of blacks and 16 percent of Hispanics. Trump isn't ignoring minority voters. He's campaigning in South Carolina this week alongside Pastor Mark Burns, a black televangelist who told AP that many people have the mistaken impression that Trump is "a racist bigot." "That's not the case at all," he said. "We've changed thousands of African-American's mindsets," Burns said. Cruz, whose father is also a Cuban immigrant, is banking on winning the White House by energizing evangelical and working-class white voters. To help excite them, Cruz has brought along allies to South Carolina this week that include Iowa Rep. Steve King, who has compared immigrants living in the country illegally to drug mules and livestock. Cruz was to spend Friday, the day before the South Carolina GOP primary, flying around the state with "Duck Dynasty" star Phil Robertson, who has said that African-Americans were happy under Jim Crow laws. Republican National Committee member Henry Barbour, who helped author the RNC's post-2012 study, praised the minority outreach efforts of candidates like Rubio and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. "But it's troubling to me for the future of our party that we have candidates like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz who think that it's still 1972," Barbour said. "Not only is it an electoral loser, it's bad for the country." Two men stand accused of dumping a missing South Jersey teenager's body in a rural area of Salem County. Danyelle Minerva, of Atco, had been missing since October before tree trimmers found her body on Jan. 11 off Woodstown-Alloway Road in Alloway Township. State Police arrested Jose Sosa-Ayala, 40, and Jose Felix-Sosa, 45, on Thursday and charged the men with disposing of Minerva's body. [[365351821, C]] Minerva died while at Sosa-Ayala's Bridgeton home in October, said police. After finding the 19-year-old dead, the men loaded her into Sosa-Ayala's 2005 Toyota Tundra and dumped her in the woods, said police. The investigation into how Minerva died remained ongoing -- there were no obvious signs of trauma to the body. But, earlier, police said her death was being investigated as suspicious. Her family and friends say on a Facebook page set up to find her that she hadn't been seen since Oct. 15. The page shared news of her death Tuesday night. [[365294811, C]] Both Bridgeton men were sent to Salem County Jail on conspiracy, desecration of human remains and endangerment charges unable to post bails of $600,000 for Sosa-Ayala and $500,000 for Felix-Sosa. A man whose ex-wife was gunned down by his father at a courthouse in the U.S. after a bitter custody battle was sentenced along with sister Thursday to life in prison on federal cyberstalking charges. In sentencing David Matusiewicz and Amy Gonzalez, the judge described the stalking and shooting of Christine Belford as a "crime of malice" that struck at the heart of the state of Delaware's judicial system and tore the fabric of the community. Judge Gerald McHugh Jr. also said the killing of Belford by Thomas Matusiewicz robbed her three daughters of their mother and their "childhood innocence." David Matusiewicz, 48, declined to speak before being sentenced but submitted a written statement to the court. He showed no emotion when he was sentenced. Gonzalez, 43, tearfully apologized to everyone affected by the shooting deaths of Belford and her friend, Laura Beth Mulford at the New Castle County Courthouse in February 2013. Mulford had accompanied Belford there for a child support hearing involving the three daughters Belford had with David Matusiewicz. "I cry for them every day, and I pray for them every single day," Gonzalez said. Lenore Matusiewicz, 70, the widow of Thomas Matusiewicz and mother of David and Amy, was sentenced to life in prison last week as she lay in a hospital bed in Philadelphia. Family members have said Lenore Matusiewicz is dying and has only a few months to live. All three were convicted of conspiracy and of cyberstalking resulting in death, a crime for which prosecutors said there had been no previous conviction. Prosecutors said the Matusiewicz family engaged in a three-year campaign of tormenting and stalking Belford in an effort to regain custody of the children for David, accusing Belford in online postings, emails and letters of sexually abusing her oldest daughter, an allegation that was never proven and which the daughter denied in sworn testimony. David's parental rights had been terminated in 2011 after he and his mother kidnapped his daughters in 2007 and took them to Central America, where they spent 18 months before being tracked down. "They left permanent scars in this community," said David Weiss, acting U.S. attorney for the case. He said severe punishment for the defendants was "absolutely warranted." "This was the only way that the court was able to protect the children ... and anyone else in this community who happened to draw the ire of the Matusiewicz defendants," Weiss said. Lead prosecutor Jamie McCall called the courthouse shootings "a symbolic attack" on a judicial system that the Matusiewicz family believed had unfairly treated David. During their investigation, authorities found what prosecutors called a "hit list" drawn up by the family that included the names of judges and attorneys who had been involved in Family Court disputes between Belford and David Matusiewicz, as well as the name of the federal judge who sent David to prison on kidnapping and bank fraud charges. After shooting Belford and Mulford, Thomas Matusiewicz, 68, traded gunfire with police before killing himself. His widow and children have denied knowing that the former New Jersey police officer planned to kill Belford. "As part of his decision to kill Christine, he never told any of us about that. He just did it, and that was the way he was," Lenore Matusiewicz told the judge at her sentencing. A waitress has been arrested on charges that she spiked a co-worker's drink with methamphetamine during their late-night shift at a Waffle House in northern Georgia, causing the drugged man to be hospitalized in a comatose state. Dawson County sheriff's investigators spent nearly two months collecting evidence and interviewing witnesses before they arrested 43-year-old Sonserea Dawn Evans last week, said Capt. Tony Wooten, the sheriff's spokesman. She remained jailed Thursday on charges of illegal drug possession and aggravated battery. Wooten declined to name Evans' 37-year-old co-worker, but said the man is still battling to recover from a drug overdose that left him critically ill for weeks after he collapsed Dec. 23 at the restaurant about 50 miles north of Atlanta. "At one point, he was in a comatose state on a ventilator," Wooten said. "He's still in a medical facility. He's been in some kind of medical treatment since the time this happened." Not long after the Waffle House worker was hospitalized, authorities were told by the man's family that someone may have spiked his drink at work, Wooten said. Waffle House's corporate office shared restaurant surveillance video with investigators, which Wooten said showed Evans picking up the co-worker's cup when he stepped outside for a break, then taking the cup toward the bathroom. She returned and set the drink down before her co-worker came back inside. The video showed the man drink from the cup, Wooten said, and "within an hour, he's getting medical attention." Waffle House spokesman Pat Warner said the company is assisting authorities and conducting its own internal investigation into what he called a "horrible incident." "Ms. Evans was terminated as soon as we reviewed the video," Warner said in an emailed statement. It was not immediately known if Evans had an attorney. Court records in neighboring Forsyth County show she pleaded guilty last April to possession of methamphetamine and was sentenced to probation and a $3,605 fine. Her attorney in that case, Philip Cummings, did not immediately return a phone message Thursday. A prosecutor under scrutiny for his murder-suicide finding in the deaths of a prominent New Jersey couple will be replaced by a federal prosecutor, Gov. Chris Christie's office announced Thursday. Somerset County Prosecutor Geoffrey Soriano will be replaced by Michael Robertson, who has spent the last eight years as an assistant United States Attorney, spokesman Brian Murray said. A spokesman for Soriano wasn't immediately available for comment. A powerful group that includes three former New Jersey governors on Wednesday called on authorities to reopen the investigation into the deaths of John and Joyce Sheridan. Soriano's office and state Medical Examiner Eddy Lilavois determined that John Sheridan, former president and CEO of Cooper Health System, killed his wife and took his own life in September 2014. The couple's four adult sons have accused the prosecutor of jumping to conclusions by trying to make the evidence justify his theory that their father was responsible. They are attempting to overturn the findings and have the case reopened. They have offered a $250,000 reward for information that leads to the conviction of a person who killed their parents. Nationally known forensic pathologist Michael Baden conducted a second autopsy on behalf of the family and said that the weapon that caused John Sheridan's stab wounds wasn't recovered at the scene. He concluded that John Sheridan was likely killed. He was appointed by Christie in 2011 and was approved unanimously in the state Senate. His term ended in October, but he remained in office pending reappointment or replacement. The governor's office didn't go into any details on why he was replaced, or what role the Sheridan case played in the Republican governor's decision. "The governor said it didn't but the timing is just too coincidental," state Sen. Christopher "Kip" Bateman, a Republican, told NJ.com of a conversation he had with Christie. "There was the letter signed by so many prominent people. I'm just disappointed. I think (Soriano) did an outstanding job. He did the best he could with the Sheridan investigation. If it came down to that, it's wrong." Robertson, of Basking Ridge, will begin as acting prosecutor on March 7. He served under Christie in the U.S. attorney's office. You are here: Home China plans to expand air quality forecasting services to cover more cities after the opening of a national website at the start of the year. The expansion looks set to open up a promising market for technology companies. Luo Yi, head of the Environment Monitoring Bureau under the Ministry of Environmental Protection, said services had been launched nationwide to bring air quality forecasts to the public. The forecasts have been carried on the new website since Jan 1. "We set up the national network for air quality forecasting in major regions, provinces and cities," Luo said, adding that provincial environmental authorities can now make air quality forecasts and upload them to the website for public access. Residents from provinces, regions and cities, including the three major clustersBeijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta-can access accurate forecasts for the next five days, and learn about possible effects on health. The ministry plans to expand the forecasting network by encouraging more cities to develop the services. The new network currently covers 32 cities, according to the ministry. Technology companies involved with air pollution forecasting have welcomed the ministry's expansion plans. Many provinces and cities such as Shanghai have set up the forecasting services through cooperation with technology companies. Zhang Weifeng, manager of Shanghai Readearth Information Technology, which helped environmental authorities in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, and other cities to set up the forecasting service platform, said, "The market will expand quickly as part of the boom in environmental protection industries." He said more cities had sought technological support from companies since last year when the national network was completed. According to a research report from Guotai Jun'an Securities in October, it is estimated that the scale of the market just for software development services will reach 5.8 billion yuan ($890 million). Gong Hao, manager in charge of environmental services at Beijing SDL Technology, which has cooperated with many cities and provinces, said, "The air quality forecast market is promising, but may not reach this huge amount." He said the largest bill so far had been for a forecasting project in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, which cost about 100 million yuan. Zhang added that now is a good time for China's environmental technological companies. Remember how I told you to chill out and take it easy when you went out last night? Well, that's because Friday has so many shows your head might explode. For a super-fun all-ages dance party, head to the Observatory North Park for Bag Raiders. The Aussie duo bring positive vibes and energetic dance music while staying true to their roots and playing real instruments. If that's not your "bag," Radiation City and Deep Sea Diver will keep the indie kids happy, and you can get there early and know your ears will be treated by locals Oh, Spirit, who open the show. For more of a country vibe, Sam Outlaw is at Soda Bar, and our buddy Nicky Venus excites at Bar Pink. Look on down the list -- there are plenty of awesome shows to make this a Friday night to remember. Friday, Feb. 19: Bag Raiders, Plastic Plates @ Observatory North Park Radiation City, Deep Sea Diver, Oh, Spirit! @ Casbah Sam Outlaw, Whitney Rose, Nena Anderson @ Soda Bar Nicky Venus, Beginners @ Bar Pink Joy, Slow Season, Ovvl, Petyr @ The Merrow -- watch Joy's SoundDiego Spotlight interview Soda Bar presents Dance Yourself Clean: An Indie Dance Party @ Music Box Atomic Groove @ Belly Up (5 p.m.) DSB (Journey tribute), Mirage (Fleetwood Mac tribute) @ Belly Up Mr. Ho's Orchestrotica @ Bali Hai Harlem Quartet @ Conrad Prebys Concert Hall, UC San Diego Sidewinder, Baja Blues Boys @ Templar's Hall in Old Poway Park Erin McKeown @ La Jolla Playhouse Oak Palace @ Across the Street at Mueller College Aghori, Dark Measure, A Hero Within, the No Name Gang @ Brick By Brick Susan, Keepers, Cheap Curls, DJ Chrissy Stothers @ The Hideout F---ing in the Bushes Brit Rock Party with Dan Sant and Rob Moran @ Whistle Stop Marcela Mendez @ Park & Rec The Hot Sardines @ Poway Center for the Performing Arts Las Cafeteras @ California Center for the Arts, Escondido Abner, the Cory Wilkins Band @ Lestat's The Zicas @ Java Joe's The Word Alive, Fit for a King, Out Came the Wolves, Voidlines, Mandala @ SOMA At the Gates, Decapitated, the Haunted @ House of Blues Alexander Jean @ Voodoo Room, House of Blues City Mouse, Tiltwheel, Squarecrow @ The Bancroft The Broken Stems, Sonny Boy Thorn & the Royal Sound @ 710 Beach Club ArtPower presents Harlem Quartet ArtTalk @ The Loft, UCSD Funks Most Wanted @ Tio Leo's Jerkagram, Mankinda, the Pope Virgins @ Che Cafe Backwater Blues Band @ Humphrey's Backstage Live (5 p.m.) Detroit Underground @ Humphrey's Backstage Live (9 p.m.) They Feed at Night, Bell Tower Bats, the Stalins of Sound @ Tower Bar Sure Fire Soul Ensemble, Juice Box @ Winston's The Signalmen, Western Settings, Que Oso, Ash Williams @ Til-Two Club Mike Delgado @ El Dorado Loudpvck @ Fluxx Dirty South @ Bassmnt FFT @ Stone Brewing Tap Room Falcons, Tastytreat @ Bang Bang ATB @ Omnia Tiffany Jane, the Kicks @ 98 Bottles The Mash Ups @ Gallagher's Irish Pub Club Musae @ Boar Cross'n Rosemary Bystrak is the publicist for the Casbah, the content manager for DoSD, and writes about the San Diego music scene, events and general musings about life in San Diego on San Diego: Dialed In. Follow her updates on Twitter or contact her directly. ASK ANY AFICIONADO... of Disney California Adventure where one might buy a pickle or a bread bowl full of clam chowder or the perfect ice cream cone or a caramel apple themed to "Frozen" or Minnie Mouse, and they'll tell you not just the place but the quickest path to get there. Why do so many people possess this particular knowledge? It's as simple as whistling along to "When You Wish Upon a Star": Food is an essential component to any Disneyland Resort visit, and chocolate-dipped Mickey ears or a bucket of straight-from-the-cart popcorn is as much a part of some visitors' experiences as a ride on California Screamin' or Grizzly River Run. But Disney California Adventure will throw a few flavorful twists into that pool of shared food knowledge in April, when the Food & Wine Festival arrives at the theme park. WEEKENDS IN APRIL: The edible extravaganza isn't happening on each and every day of the fourth month, but on the weekends, with Sunday, May 1 included. If you don't fill up on character-cute cupcakes, or the delicious queso at Carthay Circle Restaurant, you best make for the new Festival Marketplaces, where "guests can sip and savor delicious flavors from throughout the state of California." It isn't all about the noshing, though; know-how is a mondo component of the festival, with chef-led demos and seminars taking the forefront, in addition to the great tastes on display. DOES THIS MEAN... you still have to give up your dill pickle, the one you look forward to for days ahead of your Disneyland Resort visit? No way; half (or more) of the fun of a theme park re-visit is finding those snacks you connected with during earlier trips. But best swing by the Food & Wine Festival to see what's up, what's cooking, what's to learn, and what's to try. More info'll be heading down the pike soon, as quickly as California Screamin' takes off at launch. (5, 4, 3, 2, 1...) Its ababy! The baby doll that dangles from the beak of an iconic stork sculpture perched on the rooftop of a San Diego hospital was carefully replaced Friday morning after it was blown away by strong winds during a recent El Nino storm. The baby wearing a cozy cap and tucked into a pink and blue blanket has been returned to its rightful perch alongside the big white stork that decorates the corner of the parking garage structure at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women & Newborns at 3003 Health Center Dr. Together, the famous stork and baby overlook State Route 163 and are a San Diego landmark that is hard to miss. During a gusty storm on Jan. 31, the wind was so strong the baby was blown out of the blanket, landing on the ground on the rooftop level of the parking garage. The following day, Theresa Kvederis, a longtime Sharp Mary Birch employee with the admitting and patient registration department, was parking in the garage for her shift when she noticed something odd lying on the ground. At first, she thought someone had accidentally left something behind. But when she took a closer look, she was met with a tiny, adorable surprise. She glanced at the childless stork sculpture in the lot and her suspicions were confirmed: it was the stork's baby doll. [I thought], Oh yeah, thats our baby from the stork. Oh my gosh, that poor baby got blown out of its blankie in the storm! Kvederis told NBC 7. Kvederis said she walked over to the doll, picked it up and brushed it off. Its a pretty big baby, she said, with a laugh. It looks more like an 8-month-old. It was pretty cute. She then took it to security guards at the hospital for safekeeping. I told them, The stork delivered a baby. We were all laughing. It was a cute story all day long, she added. Kvederis later learned the dolls blanket had also been found, blown away in another direction in the parking lot. Rosalina Famania, marketing and communications specialist for Sharp Mary Birch Hospital, told NBC 7 the doll known affectionately by staffers as Stork Baby has been replaced more than once over the years, but never due to high winds or strong storms. Like many San Diegans, Kvederis said she considers the stork and Stork Baby a great symbol and focal point for Sharp Mary Birch Hospital. She said the giant stork often helps staffers give patients easier directions to the hospital. She herself tells patients to just pull into the garage with the stork on it. The stork sculpture, which is made of an iron frame and fiberglass, was a gift from the City of Sierra Madre, given to Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women & Newborns in 1960 after it appeared in the Tournament of Roses parade. The stork was originally the centerpiece of a float fittingly titled The Birds and the Bees. Since then, as the sculptures dedication plaque notes, The stork has welcomed new mothers and babies at Sharp and is a beloved San Diego landmark. On Friday, after undoing some cleaning and repairs, the stork and the baby doll were returned to their home on the rooftop level of the hospitals parking structure. A crew of about a dozen Sharp Health Care engineering staffers worked together to hoist the stork back up to its upright position. Stork Baby was gingerly placed inside a blanket created by hospital staffers and that blanket was then hooked onto the beak of the stork. Famania said staffers ensured Stork Baby was securely tucked inside the blanket with Velcro, should there be any more wind storms. She said hospital doesnt consider the baby doll to be a specific gender because its a representative of all babies at the hospital. After being hung with care, the doll and its blanket gently swayed in the mild wind as the stork looked on, as it always does, at commuters on the freeway. What a birth story. So much for Bernie Sanders' big win in New Hampshire. Since then, Hillary Clinton has picked up endorsements from 87 more superdelegates to the Democratic National Convention, dwarfing Sanders' gain from the New Hampshire primary, according to a new Associated Press survey. Sanders has added just 11 superdelegate endorsements. If these party insiders continue to back Clinton overwhelmingly and they can change their minds Sanders would have to win the remaining primaries by a landslide just to catch up. He would have to roll up big margins because every Democratic contest awards delegates in proportion to the vote, so even the loser can get some. After the contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders has a small 36-32 lead among delegates won in primaries and caucuses. But when superdelegates are included, Clinton leads 481-55, according to the AP count. It's essentially a parallel election that underscores Clinton's lopsided support from the Democratic establishment. The disparity is sparking a backlash among some Sanders supporters, who complain that the Democratic nominating process is decidedly undemocratic, rigged in favor of Clinton. Some of them not part of the campaign, Sanders' people say are contacting superdelegates who have publicly endorsed Clinton. Their message isn't subtle, or always welcome. "I'm sick and tired of them," Cordelia Lewis-Burks, a superdelegate from Indiana, said of the Sanders backers. "It's very aggravating to be bashed on my own computer by these people who it's probably the first time they've ever voted. I've been in the trenches since I was 20." Pressure tactics won't sway Lacy Johnson, another Indiana superdelegate who backs Clinton. "They were saying 'We're not going to forget this,'" Johnson said. "I'm an African-American male who is in my 60s," Johnson said. "I have experienced the struggles. The experiences they are sharing don't faze me in comparison." Superdelegates automatically attend the national convention and can support the candidate of their choice, regardless of whom primary voters back. They are party leaders members of Congress, party officials and members of the Democratic National Committee. There are 712 superdelegates, about 30 percent of the 2,382 delegates needed to claim the nomination. The Republicans also have some automatic delegates but not nearly as many. Clinton's campaign expresses confidence that she will maintain a strong lead among superdelegates even as she focuses on upcoming voting. "Our campaign strategy is to build a lead with pledged delegates" won in primaries and caucuses, Clinton spokesman Jesse Ferguson said in an email. Sanders campaign adviser Tad Devine said he doesn't consider an early superdelegate count to be very meaningful because they are free to switch right up until the convention this summer. Sanders' ability to attract younger people and independent voters, as he did in New Hampshire, will be a strong selling point to change people's minds, he said. "It is hardly an insurmountable lead, and it can change overnight," Devine said. "We are confident that superdelegates want to be behind the strongest candidates in a general election and have a nominee to help candidates win up and down the ballot." MoveOn.org, which has endorsed Sanders, has started an online petition calling on the superdelegates to back the candidate who gets the most votes in primaries. In 2008, some superdelegates who initially supported Clinton did switch to Barack Obama after he started racking up victories in primaries and caucuses. But Obama is a Democrat who had worked on campaigns and cultivated relationships with many of the people who were superdelegates. Sanders is an independent. "To my knowledge there has been zero outreach to the New Hampshire automatic delegates from the Sanders campaign," said Kathleen Sullivan, a DNC member from New Hampshire. "Not just since the primary, I mean since he first decided to run." New Hampshire, which Sanders won by 22 percentage points, has eight superdelegates. Six back Clinton and two are uncommitted. Many Clinton supporters question whether Sanders could win the general election. "He'd get killed!" said Rosalind Wyman, a DNC member from California. "A socialist independent? I can see the negative ads now." Others talk about their relationship with Clinton, who has been in Democratic politics for decades. "I never ever abandon my friends," said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri. "I don't think friendship is negotiable, certainly not politically negotiable." Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said, "Superdelegates are interested to see who can win, and many of them have strong ties to the Clintons, like me." Sanders supporters are tired of hearing these arguments. "I'm so damned sick of people saying I love this guy but he can't win," said Troy Jackson, a DNC member from Maine who supports Sanders. "People need to start voting with their heart, what they know is right," Jackson, a superdelegate himself, said he will push to have all five of Maine's superdelegates back the candidate who wins the state's caucuses in March. Three have endorsed Clinton and the other is undecided. "I want someone who's going to fight for me, not cut deals, not compromise on core values," Jackson said. "While I have respect for Secretary Clinton, she does that too much." AP reporters in every state and U.S. territory surveyed the Democratic superdelegates after the New Hampshire primary. When AP did this in November, Clinton led Sanders 359-8 in pledged support, meaning her already substantial margin has grown. Only one Clinton supporter, Luisette Cabanas Colon of Puerto Rico, took herself out of the Clinton column. She switched to uncommitted while she sees how matters involving the territory play out in the campaign. In an increasing number of local cases, people who recover lost cellphones are holding those phones for ransom from the owners, according to a News4 I-Team investigation. In several recent instances, the suspects demanded between $100 and $300 to return a phone. Local police departments, including U.S. Capitol Police and Metro Transit Police, have arrested people for doing so, charging the suspects with theft. Police reports reviewed by the I-Team show multiple cases occurring on U.S. Capitol grounds in recent months. Police reported arresting a man who asked for $100 before returning a lost iPhone5 to a meet-up location along Constitution Avenue. In a similar case in December, Capitol Police said they arrested a person who attempted to extort money from a victim whod lost a phone. Metro Transit Police made a similar arrest in 2015 after a man demanded $300 for the return of a phone stolen from an Orange Line train at a stop at the Deanwood station. Surveillance footage obtained by the I-Team shows the theft, in which a group of people boards the train, snatches the phone from a womans hand, then throws rock salt in her face. Weeks later, according to police records, a different man was arrested for theft when he tried to sell the same phone back to the victim. The I-Teams undercover cameras captured video of a similar incident. A woman demanded $200 in cash before returning a phone to the family from whom it was stolen. The woman arranged a meet-up at a fast-food restaurant to complete the exchange but was taken into custody by undercover police officers who were tipped by the victim. The officers helped arrange a sting to capture the woman. They said the woman told officers shed purchased the phone at a nearby store. She was not charged, a Metro spokesman said. Cases where a thief attempts to sell back a stolen phone to the original victim are a priority for police, primarily due to the potential risk to the victim, but also because -- by putting undercover officers into a buy-bust operation -- we have the opportunity to disrupt the broader criminal enterprise and gather further intelligence to prevent robberies in the first place, Metro Transit Police Chief Ron Pavlik said. The I-Teams review of police records reveals thousands of iPhone thefts in the D.C. region in 2015. In Montgomery County alone, police reported 4,000 phones stolen since the beginning of 2014. Metro Transit Police records show progress in reducing overall theft numbers but indicate thefts are still an ongoing issue. The I-Team s undercover cameras tracked the movement of a pair of phones placed in public spaces in Washington , D.C. In three instances, a person found and took the device. In only one of three instances did one of those people return the phone. Metro Transit Police offer the following tips for people who get a ransom demand for their cellphones: First, best advice is prevention -- take steps to avoid becoming a victim (maintain awareness, keep your head out of your phone, hold with both hands, etc). Second, make sure you have tracking software active on your phone. If the phone is stolen, that gives police a way to get it back. Third, if you're a victim and you're contacted as part of a buy-back, you should immediately notify police and take no other action. We, and other police departments, have had victims attempt to buy their phones back on their own, only to be victimized again. Let law enforcement handle it. Reported by Scott MacFarlane, produced by Rick Yarborough, shot by Jeff Piper and Steve Jones, and edited by Jeff Piper. A former Prince George's County Board of Education member was found guilty Friday of stealing school lunches. Lynette Mundey applied for and received $1,700 in free lunches between 2011 and 2015 even though her income was much higher than the $40,000 cut-off point for the program, NBCWashington previously reported. During that time, her income was over $70,000. Mundey faces up to 49 years in prison, officials said. Mundey worked for the Government Accountability Office, which uncovered the fraud in a routine investigation. Five other employees also defrauded the program for $11,432 in lunches, officials said. It is simply unacceptable to take food out of the mouths of children and families who truly cannot afford lunch, Prince Georges County States Attorney Angela Alsobrooks said in a statement. The fraud was uncovered during a 2014 audit of the lunch program by the Government Accountability Office. The agency noticed several of its own employees received assistance from the program in Prince Georges County because they underreported their income or reported no income on their applications. The other employees, Barbara Rowley, Jamilah Reid, Tracy Williams, Charlene Savoy and Terri Pinkney, were also found guilty of charges related to the incident. Four of them were required paid restitutions, ranging from $781 to $3,322. Rowley, Williams and Pinkney were sentenced to suspended sentences, meaning they will serve time in prison at some point in the future. These convictions ensure the American taxpayers that their tax dollars will not be abused and there is no tolerance for criminal activity by federal employees, GAO Inspector General Adam Trzeciak said. A retired Prince George's County fire lieutenant was killed in a car accident in Maryland early Friday. Retired fire lieutenant Patrick E. Shafer died in a crash in the Myersville area of Frederick County, near where he lived with his wife and two sons, according to a release from Prince George's County Fire & EMS. Shafer joined the department in March 2003 and was promoted to lieutenant in October 2010. He retired due to a disability about three years ago, the fire department said. "Words cannot express the immense sadness that many of us are feeling because of this tragic event..." Andrew Pantelis, president of Prince George's County IAFF Local 1619, said in a written statement. "For those of you who knew 'Pat' he was a genuine person who could find the positive in any situation." Pantelis called Shafer "a loving father and husband who spent his days striving to be a positive change in other's lives." "Patrick has left an indelible mark on the lives of those he touched and will deeply missed," Pantelis' statement continued. Police arrested a 21-year-old suspect in connection with a homicide in Greenbelt, Maryland. Jarel Dickerson, of the 5800 block of Hil Mar Drive in District Heights, is charged with first- and second-degree murder and is being held without bond. Prince George's County Police responded to a report of a shooting in the 8600 block of Greenbelt Road about 11 p.m. Monday. They found the victim, Robert Brandon Jr., outside suffering from gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. The motive for the shooting appears to be a drug-related robbery. Anyone with information on this homicide is asked to call the Prince Georges County Police Departments Homicide Unit at (301) 772-4925. Callers wishing to remain anonymous may call CRIME SOLVERS at 1-866-411-TIPS (8477), text PGPD plus your message to CRIMES (274637) on your cell phone or submit a tip online. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (L) holds talks with South Korean President Park Geun-hye (R) in Seoul, capital of South Korea, Oct. 31, 2015. [Photo: Xinhua/Yao Dawei] How can South Korea's "Eurasia Initiative" and China's " Belt and Road Initiative " mesh? If the two governments could reach a consensus, synergy will produce multiple effects in regard to Northeast Asian peace, common development and modernization. New type of international public products South Korean President Park Geun-hye proposed the "Eurasia Imitative" under various slogans of "one continent," "creative continent," and "peaceful continent," on Oct. 18, 2013 in a bid to strengthen cooperation across Eurasia. Park's proposals seek to expand transport, energy and trade networks and boost innovation-led growth while deepening personnel and cultural exchanges, and promote a trust-building process on the Korean Peninsula, and Northeast Asia peace and cooperation. Meanwhile, on March 28, 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping said his "Belt and Road Initiative" would meet the demand for development of China as well as countries along the proposed routes as it is in the interest of all parties and complies with the global trend for cooperation. To finance "Belt and Road" development projects, China initiated the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which was formally launched in January. The Six-Party Talks, which China has actively promoted for a peaceful resolution to security concerns as a result of the North Korean nuclear weapons program, will prove to be the inescapable mechanism to achieve results. China needs to participate more creatively in international affairs, but the key is how to provide more and effective strategic aid and public products - such as the "Belt and Road Initiative" and the AIIB - for the international community. The "Belt and Road Initiative" focuses on "common modernization." It is based on the principles of "common consultation, common development, and common benefit," and is dependent on enhanced connectivity in international cooperation through the so-called new diplomacy. Follow China.org.cn on Twitter and Facebook to join the conversation. Philadelphia police have an idea to get cash-strapped Kanye West out of his allege $53 million in debt: become a cop. Kanye asked Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for help lowering his massive debt but maybe working as a Philly officer could be what "Yeezy" needs, even if it takes a little longer than expected. "With a starting salary of $47,920, Officer West could be completely debt-free by the year 3122! And that's only if he were never to receive a single raise! With a few promotions and cost of living increases, Yeezy could probably break even in a quick 500 years," the police department wrote on Facebook Thursday. [[369267071, C]] Five centuries to become debt free might not appeal to the rap superstar, but Philly police posted to their Facebook page and Twitter feed in hopes that the nearly $50,000-a-year starting salary appeals to job seekers willing to put their lives on the line. "Even if you're not Kanye, please consider a career as a Philly Police Officer," police wrote. "You could earn a great living, receive a fantastic benefits package for you and your family, and make a true difference in your community." There's no word on how Officer Bryan Turner who was photoshopped out of a 2013 job recruitment photo feels about being replaced in the image by Kanye. At least fellow Officer Zachary Koenig still gets to show off his smile in the most updated recruitment post. It's not the first time the often-humorous Philly Police social media accounts turned to a rapper to make a point. Prior to the Blizzard of 2016, the department used Drake to remind people #NoSavesies. Interested candidates can apply to become a police officer on the department's website. A spokesman for Pope Francis insisted Friday the pontiff was "in no way" launching an attack on Donald Trump, a U.S. presidential candidate, nor was he trying to sway voters by declaring someone who advocates building walls isn't Christian. The Rev. Federico Lombardi, in an interview on Vatican Radio, stressed that Francis often speaks about building bridges, not walls, and that his remark on Thursday wasn't "a personal attack" on the business mogul. Flying back to Rome from a pilgrimage that included Mass at the Mexican side of the border with the United States, Francis, answering a reporter's question, had said that a person who advocates building walls is "not Christian." Trump, who has repeatedly called for a wall to divide the U.S. and Mexico while campaigning for November's election, quickly retorted it was "disgraceful" to question a person's faith. On Friday, Lombardi sought to put the pope's comments in context, saying they were "in no way a personal attack or an indication on how to vote." The radio interviewer told Lombardi that many have seen the comment as a kind of "excommunication, if we can call it that," of Trump. "But the pope said what we well know, when we follow his teaching and his positions: that one mustn't build walls, but bridges," Lombardi said. "He has always said this, continuously. And he has said it also about migration issues in Europe, very many times. Thus, it's not at all a specific question, limited to this case," the spokesman said. Trump appeared pleased with the comments, referencing them at a campaign rally Friday. "Yesterday, the pope was great," Trump told an audience in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where he is campaigning. "He made a beautiful statement this morning. They had him convinced that illegal immigration was like a wonderful thing. Not wonderful for us. It's wonderful for Mexico." Some European countries have erected fences or raised the possibility of building fences and other barriers on their borders after hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers reached the continent by sea and land, fleeing war or poverty. "The pope said clearly that he wasn't stepping into voting issues in the electoral campaign in the United States," Lombardi added. He said the pope was also "giving the benefit of the doubt" on what Trump had said. Trump alluded to this context as he softened his rhetoric about the pope, saying at a town hall event on CNN that he believes Francis' remarks were "probably a little bit nicer" than first reported. A major backer of Harvard Law School has stopped sponsoring student events after its donation helped pay for a discussion on Palestine. In 2012, the international law firm Milbank promised Harvard $1 million over five years to pay for scholarly conferences organized by law students. But after the money was used to support an event hosted by the student group Justice for Palestine, the law firm asked Harvard Law School to use the money for other purposes. Calls to Milbank's New York headquarters weren't returned this week. In a statement, Harvard said Milbank was never involved in deciding which events to fund and that the school will now pay for student events with other resources. Harvard says Milbank wanted to "avoid creating any misimpressions that the firm endorses the viewpoints expressed by any particular student organization or journal," according to the statement, provided by law school spokesman Robb London. In October, students in Justice for Palestine hosted a talk examining what they say is a movement to suppress advocates of Palestine. Harvard had previously awarded the group $2,000 to hold events throughout the semester using the Milbank donation. The group says it spent about $500 for pizza at the fall discussion. Before the event, an email from the law school's dean told the group that Milbank's logo must be "prominently displayed" on all advertisements. In that spirit, the group thanked the law firm in a Facebook page advertising the event, said Collin Poirot, a first-year Harvard law student and a member of the organization. The next day, law school administrators asked the group to remove all references to Milbank on their Facebook page, citing complaints from the law firm, Poirot said. And soon after, students were notified that the Milbank Student Conference Fund was being discontinued. Harvard declined to comment beyond its statement, which says that Milbank "decided there are other ways its support could be used" at the law school. The school didn't explain how the remainder of the donation will be used, but added that "Milbank has not terminated its five-year gift or its support for the law school." Leaders of Justice for Palestine said they see the move as a political response to their message. "We expect this kind of thing," Poirot said. "There's always been a price to pay in America for being pro-Palestine." Students at Columbia Law School in New York, which also receives money from Milbank for events, are worried that they might lose funding, too, said Katherine Franke, a law professor there. "This kind of influence will have a chilling effect, to be sure, on the kinds of things students feel comfortable saying," Franke said. "We should celebrate robust discussions about the most difficult issues of the day, including viewpoints that might make us uncomfortable." Harvard, in its statement, defended Milbank. "The law school and Milbank are committed to freedom of speech," the statement said. "We have an exceptionally strong relationship with Milbank, which has acted appropriately and with the highest integrity in all respects." In the 200-year history of the Coast Guard, coming to the aid of over a million people, the rescue of The Pendleton crew, off the coast of Chatham, Massachusetts, was deemed their finest hour. In 1952, a blizzard centered at Nantucket, with near hurricane force wind and such poor visibility ships couldn't seek shelter in Boston Harbor. A nor'easter off Delaware intensified so rapidly, they called it a bomb. Steps up from the harbor is America's oldest town square, North Square. Thursday, the 64th anniversary of the storm that inspired "The Finest Hours," members of the Coast Guard and Marines met to discuss the accuracy of the movie and the ferocity of the storm. "I think they did quite good," said retired U.S. Coast Guard Captain Russell Webster. "Although I don't have the experience of riding up the front side of a 60-foot wave, then surf down the backside of it, with my engine reversed because if you drive into the wave in front of you you're going to turn turtle." Even before that, The 36-foot rescue boat hit 20-foot seas on the Chatham Bar blowing out the windshield, shards of glass piercing helmsman Webber's face, then the compass tore off. There were no buoys or radar then. "I am not going to nitpick what Hollywood did, because the movie speaks for itself what these guardsmen did," said maritime Marine engineer Bill Tracy. "I think they did a credible job of capturing the incredible," Webster said. A Bloomfield mother and daughter who were reported missing since January have been found and they are safe. Until this morning, Annia Florent, 28 and her daughter Mia Mullings, 4, were last seen on Jan. 16. They were reported missing on Thursday and the Silver Alert for the mother and daughter said Mullings suffers from several medical conditions and wears leg braces and a feeding tube. Police wanted to make contact with the pair to check on their welfare. Hartford police found the mother and daughter at the Super 8 Motel in Hartford around 1 a.m. on Friday and reached out to Bloomfield Police. Both were healthy and in good spirits, police said. The state Department of Children and Families also responded and requested that Connecticut Children's Medical Center evaluate Mia. Florent complied, according to police. Flash The United States on Thursday announced further travel restrictions for foreigners eligible for visa waivers amid increased concerns about terrorism. This Feb. 11, 2015 file photo shows the US Capitol in Washington, DC. American lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Dec. 8, 2015 to impose restrictions making it more difficult for visitors to Iraq, Syria and countries listed as supporting terrorism to travel visa-free to the United States. [Photo/Xinhua] The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in statement that due to security concerns, people who had recently traveled to Libya, Somalia and Yemen would from now on not be eligible for the U.S. Visa Waiver Program (VWP). "The addition of these three countries is indicative of the Department's continued focus on the threat of foreign fighters," said the statement, adding that individuals impacted by the new limits could still apply for a visa using the regular immigration process. The VWP came under scrutiny in the wake of deadly Paris terrorist attacks last November. Last month, the DHS started requiring nationals of the VWP partner countries to get a visa ahead of their trip to the United States if they had traveled to or been present in Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria on or after March 1, 2011. The VWP currently permits visa free travel for 20 million visitors each year to the United States for citizens of 38 program partner countries. After the Paris terrorist attacks on Nov. 13, 2015, which killed at least 130 people and wounded over 300 others, U.S. lawmakers and government officials worried that the current VWP, which allows citizens from partner countries to enter the United States for as long as 90 days without a visa, could pose a security threat to homeland security. A Boston man is facing charges after allegedly pointing a gun at another person while driving on Route 9 westbound in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Twenty-five-year-old Ian Beagan of 178 Brighton Ave., Allston, is charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and possession of a firearm on school property. Authorities in Wellesley say Beagan pulled up next to a car in the left lane as it was slowing down for construction Thursday morning, honked his horn and made a profane hand gesture. He then allegedly pointed a handgun initially at the roof of his car and then at the driver of the left lane vehicle. Police say the man in the other car took note of Beagan's car and license plate and then notified a Wellesley police officer working on a construction detail. Since the incident happened near Mass Bay Community College, officers say they discovered that the registered owner of the vehicle, a black Toyota sedan belonging to Beagan, was a student and in class. Police say they found the car in the parking lot and Beagan in his scheduled class, and added that Beagan admitted to driving on Route 9 west and showed a gun in his vehicle. Police found the gun, a Glock 23, inside of his locked car; Beagan is properly licensed to possess a firearm. He was arrested and expected to appear in Dedham District Court later Thursday. It's not clear if he has a lawyer. Authorities are searching for a suspect in the killing of a Malden woman found dead in her apartment earlier this week. Kenneth Manning of Malden has been charged with murder in the death of 36-year-old Colleen Russell. An arrest warrant was issued Thursday for the 35-year-old Manning, who remains at large. Authorities are seeking the public's help in finding him. Russell was found at about 9 p.m. Monday after authorities responded to a well-being check at her apartment. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The medical examiner determined that she died of "sharp force injuries." Authorities said the incident did not appear to be random. Authorities say Manning was last seen in Somerville on Feb. 16. Andy Sexton, CEO of the Matthew Project, introduces a series of tributes from the charity to its founder, Peter Farley. Andy Sexton, CEO of the Matthew Project, introduces a series of tributes from the charity to its founder, Peter Farley. Cliff look alike at Cromer Church breakfast Cliff Richard tribute performer Will Chandler will be the speaker at a special Mens Breakfast at Cromer Parish Hall next month, and all men are welcome to come along. Read more Heartsease Lane Methodist church to close As part of a reorganisation of the Norwich Methodist Circuit, Heartsease Lane Methodist Church will be closing towards the end of the year. Read more Free Julian of Norwich reflection and prayer day 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. Read more 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 100k cash boost for work of YMCA Norfolk 100k cash boost for work of YMCA Norfolk YMCA Norfolk has received a cash boost of almost 100,000 from the BBCs Children in Need to help more than 140 under-18s take part in activities to develop their confidence and improve their employability. Not that long ago 10 years at most there was a crop of up-and-coming asset-tracking companies with names like Newbury and PanGo. Their solutions involved attaching Wi-Fi tags to expensive or scarce mobile assets and reporting their locations to back-end databases. If someone wanted to know where all the infusion pumps in a hospital had congregated (out of sight, as is their custom), the asset tracking screen would show what was where. The market for this type of asset tracking peaked in 2005 to 2007 and then subsided; some participants moved into new businesses, while others disappeared. A number of startups, both old and recent, are taking a new run at this market, so its worth asking what has changed in 10 years and whether they have a better shot than their predecessors. Why was Wi-Fi asset tracking a difficult business back then? Two factors were crucial: battery life and system costs. The tags comprised simple Wi-Fi chips, chirping every few seconds, with a battery that was advertised to last a year but in practice needed replacing every few months. When a hospital and healthcare was the primary market ramped up to a few thousand tracked assets, it took a significant amount of time to track down tags in the field when their batteries were failing. This became a real problem for network managers who disliked spending that much of their day walking the floor, pockets heavy with replacement batteries. Also, costs were high, at maybe $100,000 to outfit a hospital with 1,000 tags. Part of this was in the tag itself, where volumes were never enough to walk down the curve to a price below $40 to $50, while a significant amount was in back-end integration. This entailed setting up the database to identify which tag was on which asset, importing floorplans and tracking locations, and crucially, integrating with existing inventory management and IT software like nurse-call systems. These two factors made Wi-Fi asset tracking in 2006 a tough sale, despite the attraction of using the existing WLAN to identify and locate scarce, mobile resources. How are startups approaching the same market today? First, BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) has arrived in iBeacon and Google Eddystone form. Beacons can be installed as infrastructure, requiring more power-hungry sensors as tags but providing commonality with navigation apps. Or the architecture can be reversed, with a low-power beacon as the tag and an infrastructure network of sensor radios we will see both architectures explored. A BLE beacon as a tag has better battery life although at 1 to 2 years battery replacement will still require effort and a cost advantage over its Wi-Fi equivalent. BLE-based asset tracking tags cost maybe 50% of the equivalent Wi-Fi tags. Not that Wi-Fi has been standing still. Advances in chip design and battery technology mean its possible to make a Wi-Fi asset tag in a nice package with a battery lasting 6 to 12 months. Wi-Fi chips are significantly cheaper than 10 years ago. And, assuming the venue already has a WLAN, a new managed infrastructure of BLE sensors or beacons isnt required. Perhaps the biggest difference between 2006 and today is with back-end systems integration. Ten years ago, a local asset-tracking server had to be spliced into the hospitals IT systems to display information on existing screens at nurse stations around the building. Now, the natural way is to send data to a cloud service and display it on smartphones and tablets with an app. Its much quicker and easier, although some hard tasks remain: programming tags, calculating their location from infrastructure sensors, and binding their ID to their associated asset names. These changes mean that its now viable to price per-tag, per-month greatly easing the financial decision. While developing the market, the original asset-tracking pioneers discovered high-value extensions: monitoring the temperature of vaccines, detecting when sensitive equipment was dropped or tilted in shipping, and other functions used sensors integrated in the tags. The smartphone age has decreased the cost of these sensors, enabling movement, temperature, barometric pressure and other parameters to be monitored along with location. This opens new possibilities, like measuring real estate occupancy, tracking food temperatures, and generating alerts when movement starts and stops. And today we can recognize that asset tracking is a subset of the Internet of Things, a much broader market and one for which tags can be expected to develop new capabilities. The combination of lower-cost tags, longer battery life, monthly pricing, and monitoring via smartphone apps means well see a number of new asset tracking solutions unveiled in the coming months. Most will use BLE beacons, but Wi-Fi will also be represented. There was always a business need for these solutions: while the technology may not have been ready 10 years ago, enough has changed to make it worth keeping an eye on this market. Despite widespread public condemnation, Hong Kong toy maker VTech is not backing down from a change in its Terms and Conditions ducking its responsibilities in the event of a breach. European customers now have to agree to a Terms of Service that includes the following sentence: You acknowledge and agree that any information you send or receive during your use of the site may not be secure and may be intercepted or later acquired by unauthorized parties." This was in response to a data breach the previous fall which affected about 5 million parent accounts and more than 6 million children's' accounts. The children profiles included names, genders, birthdates, headshots and chat logs while the parent accounts included email addresses, passwords, secret questions and answers, IP addresses, and mailing addresses. "No company that operates online can provide a 100 percent guarantee that it wont be hacked," said Grace Pang, head of corporate marketing at VTech Holdings Limited. "The Learning Lodge Terms and Conditions, like the Terms and Conditions for many online sites and services, simply recognize that fact by limiting the companys liability for the acts of third parties such as hackers. Such limitations are commonplace on the Web." Frankly, its just plain lazy, and obviously no substitute for a competent data security program. Jeff Hill, channel marketing manager at security vendor STEALTHbits Technologies Security experts overwhelmingly opposed the company's decision. "It won't hold water," said Troy Hunt, Microsoft MVP for developer security at Microsoft. He was involved in confirming the fact of the original breach, and the security issues that were involved. According to Hunt, the company's systems were vulnerable to SQL injections, had no SSL encryption anywhere, massively outdated web frameworks, and multiple serious direct object reference risks. The bottom line? A single individual with the ability to add numbers and use automated tools to mount a SQL injection attack was able to get all the data. When a company like VTech is demonstrably negligent with customer data, they have to face the law, he said. "Terms like this are unlikely to have any tangible impact on the outcome," he said. "Particularly in the European Union, where privacy laws are strengthening and penalties increasing... it's unlikely to make any difference to legal outcomes and merely serves to shine them in a bad light." This is why when companies do include similar statements in their terms of service, he added, they typically have some caveat such as "to the full extent permissible by law." "There are really no guarantees that a company can offer, we all recognize that," said Glen Segal, CFO at cloud productivity vendor Accellion. "But that doesn't mean you can shirk all your responsibilities for privacy, and that's what some of these companies are trying to do. It doesn't work from a legal perspective, and it certainly doesn't work from a business perspective -- especially when you're dealing with children's information." Companies should spend more time actually protecting themselves from attacks, instead of trying to protect themselves against liability, said John Gunn, spokesman for security vendor VASCO Data Security. "In many jurisdictions this is not legal as companies are barred from arbitrarily changing their terms and conditions without consent by existing customers, which we would imagine is a pretty big number in this instance," he added. "Nice try!" said Jeff Hill, channel marketing manager at security vendor STEALTHbits Technologies. "At a minimum, one has to respect their temerity." However, companies can't just deflect liability for harm they cause with a disclaimer, he said. "And what consumer is comfortable purchasing a product from a company that up front - explicitly disavows any responsibility for their products impact on the customer? Frankly, its just plain lazy, and obviously no substitute for a competent data security program." Now, VTech, in addition to suffering a massive data breach involving children, and being publicly humiliated for its shoddy security, is also facing a public relations nightmare. "Consumers want to trust that the companies they interact with are protecting their digital identities under all circumstances," said Vanita Pandey, director of product at ThreatMetrix. "These connected consumers dont care how their credentials got in the hands of a fraudster, only that they did." Meanwhile, parents are continuing to post sarcastic comments on the company's social media site, keeping up the pressure. "Thanks for letting all your customers get hacked and information about parents and their children getting out," wrote one parent on a Facebook message VTech posted wishing customers a Happy Valentine's Day. "Real great of you, disgusting business, putting our children in harms way!" This story, "VTech not backing down on terms change after data breach" was originally published by CSO . It is not a public problem yet. But according to multiple experts, it will be. It is the cybersecurity whistleblower an employee who sees a flaw, or flaws, in his or her companys network security, brings the problem to management but gets ignored or punished marginalized, harassed, demoted or even fired. And then the worker either goes public or files a complaint with a federal regulatory agency like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Such a scenario is unlikely to end well almost certainly for the company (if the complaint is credible) and perhaps even for the whistleblower, notwithstanding laws meant to protect them. The company could face fines and other regulatory actions. The employee, who in some cases could be rewarded (the SEC offers 10 percent to 30 percent of a settlement of more than $1 million to qualifying whistleblowers), still might find it damaging to a career. [ ALSO ON CSO: Whistleblowers at risk when using US government websites ] Think about it. If you were someone classified as a whistleblower, it would label you unemployable, said one expert who declined to speak for attribution. Another expert, who also declined to speak for attribution, said when he refused to certify that his previous employer was meeting a certain security standard, I got warned, and eventually resigned. It became a hostile work environment. He has never spoken about it to regulators or other outside authorities either. Eddie Schwartz, international vice president of ISACA and president of WhiteOps, said he knows of a case where a nation-state hack occurred and an employee reported it to his superiors. He was told to mind his business and that the organization was dealing with it. It wasnt, and when he reported it to authorities, he was essentially fired for it, Schwartz said. (Whistleblowers) can seek assistance through other authorities if thats warranted, but there is no one size fits all for these types of situations. Eddie Schwartz, international vice president of ISACA, president of WhiteOps So the predicted increase in cybersecurity whistleblower cases is somewhat speculative at the moment, in part due to secrecy. There are no public cases involving them on record so far, even though most businesses have had an online presence for two decades or even longer. They do exist, according to Debra Katz, a founding partner at Katz, Marshall & Banks. She said her firm has represented about a dozen such whistleblowers, but those cases were, settled in the pre-litigation stage and contain robust confidentiality provisions. In other words, they are not public. A second reason for a lack of clarity is that it remains a relatively new legal field. All federal agencies not just the SEC are playing catch-up to align their policies with the seriousness of cybersecurity threats, Katz said. All federal agencies not just the SEC are playing catch-up to align their policies with the seriousness of cybersecurity threats. Debra Katz, founding partner, Katz, Marshall & Banks That means there is not much legal history, precedent or even laws that specifically addresses cybersecurity whistleblowers. While there are nearly two dozen laws in various states that provide protection for whistleblowers in areas ranging from asbestos to drinking water, solid waste, railroads, motor vehicles, shipping containers, pipelines aviation, consumer products, hazardous waste, food, drugs and more, there is nothing on the books that provides specific protection for those involved with cybersecurity. Still, attorneys like Katz, who specialize in whistleblower cases, say top management in organizations may need to play catch-up as well, since such cases could lead to damaging breaches or an investigation by a regulatory agency or both. And while legal protections may not be explicit for cybersecurity whistleblowers, they exist by implication, experts say. Lance Hayden, managing director at the Berkeley Research Group and a CSO contributor, is one of several who have cited a settlement last September between the SEC and R.T. Jones Capital Equities Management over charges that the firms violation of the safeguards rule led to a breach that compromised the information of about 100,000 people. While the firm did not have to admit to the charges, it agreed to a censure by the SEC and to pay a $75,000 fine. There was no documented evidence of whistleblower involvement in the case, but Hayden wrote that it became, a sort of catalyst, for the SEC to focus on cybersecurity. He quoted SEC Commissioner Kara Stein saying after the R.T. Jones settlement that the agency intends ...to play a much more active role in trying to help companies better protect themselves against an increasing number of cyber security issues Dallas Hammer, an attorney with Zuckerman Law, writing for the National Law Review, said the R.T. Jones case indicates that, cybersecurity issues have become a key enforcement priority for the SEC, which means that, in turn, whistleblower tips that touch on cybersecurity may receive additional scrutiny. Anyone remember the Crypto wars of the 1990s? Back in the early 1990s, the U.S. placed strict regulations on the exportation of cryptography and even put encryption technologies it on the munitions list as auxiliary military equipment. This restriction was a real burden to software firms like Lotus, Microsoft, and Novell as they wanted to offer data confidentiality and integrity features for PC users. Eventually the NSA offered a compromise by approving a weak 40-bit encryption algorithm for export purposes. This was far from the end of the battle however. In 1993, the U.S. government (NSA) developed and promoted a technology called the Clipper chip, capable of encrypting telecommunications while providing a back door for government surveillance. Meanwhile, civil libertarians and privacy advocates fought to loosen government encryption restrictions in court. While the government continued to fight for control of encryption on legal and technical fronts, a grassroots effort really made all other cryptographic battles moot. In 1991, a relatively unknown software engineer named Phil Zimmermann developed encryption software he named Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), the first widely-available software program using public-key cryptography. Subsequently, Zimmermann sent PGP around to like-minded friends and it was soon available for download on FTP servers all over the world. Suddenly, strong cryptography was pervasive. So between public outcry, industry pressure, legal challenges, international competition, and open source projects, the U.S. government realized it couldnt control cryptographic technology after all. Ultimately, it abandoned the Clipper Chip fight in 1996 and loosened export restrictions in the late 1990s, culminating in simplified Dept. of Commerce rules in 2000. This history is worth reviewing when considering the current Apple vs. DOJ battle. My thoughts: The first issue in play is relatively myopic, the DOJ wants Apple to hack into a specific iPhone that belonged to one of the San Bernardino terrorists. My assumption is that this wouldnt be too difficult for Apple from a technology standpoint as it could simply go into the iOS source code, find an exposed service or software vulnerability and develop an exploit to break into the phone. Okay, but this process would violate Apples stated privacy policy and commitment to customers. Aside from its reputation, Apple is really concerned about the possible precedent here. If Apple is willing to break into one phone, why not 10, 100, 1000, or more? The Edward Snowden episode demonstrated that the NSA has an insatiable appetite for private data. Apple is worried that its cooperation with the FBO/DOJ would end up sucking the company into a greater government surveillance vortex with no exit. Apple supporters like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are also concerned that if Apple gives in, others will be forced to follow. And while the DOJ tries to focus the current brouhaha on a single phone, the bigger question is clearly about the dichotomy between privacy vs. national security. Political candidates, law enforcement officials, and intelligence agencies are positioning Apple vs. DOJ as the tip of the spear in a greater push for back doors into encryption technology so that the U.S. good guys can catch criminal and terrorist bad guys. Yup, this issue may be a great one for soundbites and political speeches but history should teach us that we are really wasting our time. Organized criminals and terrorists already understand their outlaw status. To maintain anonymity and hid their data, theyve adopted stealthing tactics, including the use of commercial and open source encryption technology. So if the NSA had access to a back door into my iPhone, Android device or Windows PC, or if technology companies were willing to break into devices on the governments behalf, I could simply install layers of add-on hardware- and software-based cryptographic technologies developed all over the world. Heck, I could even write my own algorithm that no one has ever seen before. The NSA could throw all the Cray computers it has in Ft. Mead at this and never break the code. In summary, my point is pretty simple the encryption genie has been out of the bottle for over 20 years and theres no way to put it back in. The people wanted and received technologies to protect their privacy and these technologies are readily available to model citizens and dirt bags alike. Back doors in U.S.-developed technologies or corporate device hacking wont work and make us look like a police state. Apple wants no part of this plan. Flash The Japanese government on Friday approved its new sanctions against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) over its recent rocket launch and nuclear bomb test. The new sanctions include banning entering of ships from third countries that have visited ports in the DPRK into Japan and banning remittances to the DPRK in principle, according to local reports. The DPRK earlier this month launched a long-range rocket, saying it carried an earth observation satellite, but Japan and the U.S., among other nations, believed the launch was a test of a long-range ballistic missile. It is the first time since December 2012 that the DPRK has conducted such a test. The DPRK is banned from test-firing any rockets based on a ballistic missile technology under UN Security Council resolutions. The DPRK also tested its first hydrogen nuclear bomb last month which was also a violation against related UN resolution and was criticized by the international community. Japan lifted parts of its unilateral sanctions against the DPRK in 2014 since the DPRK agreed to restart investigations on some of Japanese nationals it abducted in the 1970s and 1980s. Reports said that the DPRK has ended investigation into Japanese abductees in the country in response to Japan's expanded sanctions. This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices. Click here to subscribe. After following the cybersecurity market for several years now, I've come to realize that some of the most innovative commercial solutions have their roots in the Israeli military. As one IT security company founder explained to me, "When your country's very existence depends on the military being able to provide strong defensive measures, you take your job quite seriously." Many young people in the Israeli military have a role in cyber defense. They learn to excel at their craft, and after discharge from the military, they start commercial ventures that build on the knowledge and expertise they acquired during their years of service. One such company is Cybereason, headed by Lior Div. (Follow Div as a contributor to Network World.) Div and his colleagues at Cybereason come from military and government backgrounds, and they have a unique perspective on finding and stopping cyber attacks. "The most important thing is that we view the problem not as an IT problem but as an offensive problem," says Div. "We view the enterprise from an attacker's point of view, which is that everything that has processing power can be an attack surface." That means laptops, servers, the TV that has intelligence, the thermostats and HVAC systems, automobiles, and so on. If they can run code and communicate, an offensive attacker can use them as an attack surface. What's more, the attack surface changes over time. Ten years ago, cars were not Internet-enabled, but today this is common. Defenders need to take this into account. With this perspective, Cybereason is up-ending the way to think about cybersecurity. Rather trying to protect endpoints, or servers or the network and waiting to detect malicious behavior after the fact, Cybereason goes hunting for it in real-time. The solution starts by collecting information from everythingendpoints, servers, cars, TVs, whatever is in the environment. This collection is done with a silent sensor, a small piece of code that is pushed to the devices via standard IT tools. The code is tuned to various device operating systems so that it can collect meta data and send it to a proprietary big data database. Div says the company tried using standard big data tools like Hadoop and Cassandra but they didn't scale enough, so Cybereason created its own "humongous data" database. Collecting this massive amount of data allows Cybereason to represent all the relationships among everythingevery process that is running, every user connecting to a machine, every computer that exists on the network, all of the connections between everything to everything. You can see where this would be a massive amount of data, which is why the company had to bypass Hadoop in favor of its own technology, what it calls "reactive graph." Then Cybereason processes this information in real-time, which is key to the solution. Compare this to a human walking into a room and using his senses to collect information about everything in that room. His brain makes immediate associations between what he sees, what he hears, what he smells, and what he feels or tastes. Then his brain starts processing everything to determine if something doesn't seem right, including comparing this current information to what he observed when he walked into the same room an hour ago, or a day ago. Div even refers to the Cybereason processing engine as a brain. "In a sense when you think about the brain we developed, you can go back in time and see everything that has happened in a specific time frame, and you can process it and understand all the relationships you have," says Div. The next step is to dig into this data to look for suspicious activity. A human analyst would approach this by asking specific questions, and he'd be limited to the number of questions he can ask at once and the time it takes to interpret the answers. Cybereason has developed powerful rules that allow its solution to do something that a human analyst can't do: ask eight million questions per second about all of the cross-correlated information. In effect, the solution can ask all the questions about everything, in real-time, constantly and continuously. What gets presented to the human analyst is the conclusions to all the questions that were automatically asked. Div calls it a story. "When an analyst looks at our console, they want to know what is going on in their environment," he explains. "They don't want another alert; they want a full story." That story includes all the information that might normally take a group of human analysts a month or more to determine, and it's all presented in a concise format. "First we have to tell the customer what the root cause of the problem is," says Div. "Second, we tell how many users and machines are affected in the environment, and what the magnitude of this event is. For example, is it just local or do the hackers have control of the whole environment? Third, we give the timeline, because every story needs to have a timeline. It needs to start, it needs to progress, it needs to continue. So we show our customer the timeline of the event that is going on right now. Fourth, we describe what tools the hackers are using right now. Sometimes its malware and most of the time what we see is that its a known malware attack. And the fifth part of the story is what types of communications the hackers are conducting internally inside the organization as well as external to the environment." According to Div, Cybereason assembles and presents all of this information without interaction from the IT team. "We see this as the future of this type of security tool," says Div. "It's simple to deploy, easy to use, and highly accurate because we take in information from the entire environment." Deployment is another unique aspect of this solution. " When it comes to deployment, we believe that everything needs to be instant and zero configuration," says Div. "By this I mean that when somebody thinks that they are under attack, they do not want to start by dealing with installation and configuration in a very complex situation." Div compares the Cybereason installation to signing up for hosted email: you simply register for service and everything is configured for you and ready to go. When a customer wants service from Cybereason, they can get the silent sensor via email and push it out using standard IT management tools. The sensor is self-configuring on devices and it immediately starts to collect the meta data and send it to a server that is hosted in the cloud or on premise. Div says that 90% of their customers utilize the cloud deployment. Once information starts coming in to the server, the processing described above takes place and the results the story are presented via a dashboard. Lockheed Martin tested this solution and quickly became a customer, an investor, a reseller and a managed security service provider using this tool for its own customers. This alone is a testament to the unique approach Cybereason takes toward cybersecurity. Div strongly believes his company is at the forefront of changes in the cybersecurity arena. "We're not just dealing with IT problems anymore," he says. "The companies that adopt a proactive hunting approach are the ones that understand it's a complex problem, but with the right platforms and tools, you can win." Teacher with Parkinson's raising funds A FORMER Kennet School teacher will be losing her hair for charity. Monique Warham will be Shaving for Shaking in a sponsored head shave to raise funds for Parkinsons UK. The 56-year-old was diagnosed with the disease in 2014. Parkinsons is a progressive neurological condition which leads to a loss of nerve cells in the brain. The disease leads to tremors, rigidity and slowness of movement. Mrs Warham said: Because of Parkinsons, I cant take on extreme physical challenges but I knew I wanted to do something drastic to fundraise, so I came up with the head shave. I am nervous, especially about how members of the public will react afterwards, but I hope that my new look might spark conversations so I can tell people why I did it. People dont understand much about Parkinsons so as well as raising vital funds, I want to raise awareness of the condition too. The hair-raising experience is the latest in Mrs Warhams fundraising activities. Since her diagnosis, she has raised 2,250 for Parkinsons UK through a non-uniform day at Kennet School. This time, she aims to raise 1,000 which will be split between Parkinsons UK and the University of Oxford, where Parkinsons research projects are currently taking place. Director of fundraising at Parkinsons UK, Paul Jackson-Clark, said: Id like to wish Monique the very best of luck with her brave head shave. I hope her story will inspire others to take up a challenge for Parkinsons UK. As the UKs Parkinsons support and research charity were leading the work to find a cure, and were closer than ever. But our work is dependent on donations. To sponsor Mrs Warham visit her online giving page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/MoniqueWarham She will brave the shave at Mac Hair, Hungerford, on Saturday, February 27, at 3pm. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. After cashing in a winning Powerball ticket for $327.8 million, a Florida couple has modest goals for their first purchases: a new car and a massage. David Kaltschmidt and Maureen Smith of Melbourne Beach were introduced in a news conference Wednesday at Florida Lottery headquarters after turning in the second of three winning tickets from last months record $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot. It is scary and unknown. You think about what you want to do with the money (before actually winning it), and then all of those thoughts go out the window when it happens, Smith said. We are going to take care of family, but there is a lot to think about because it is all so stressful and new. Kaltschmidt, 55, said he will retire from his job as a manufacturing engineer at Northrop Grumman after working there for 34 years. Smith, 70, identified herself as a homemaker. Kaltschmidt said he has lost 10 pounds in the past month because of sleepless nights but the jackpot wont change his day-to-day life. Instead of designing airplanes, he said, he would be working for charities along with tax strategies and investments. Smith, though, sounded less sure about the effects of winning. Im afraid it will make me less friendly because of all the worrying, she said. You think about what is going to happen because we are no longer in a quiet place. The husband and wife, together since 1980, are originally from Long Island, New York, but moved to Melbourne Beach in 1991. Both said they elected to keep quiet since the Jan. 13 drawing so they could set up security at their house and find an accountant. Kaltschmidt said they waited until last week to tell immediate family members that theyd won. Smith said she had been using the winning numbers 4-8-19-27-34 and the Powerball of 10 for years but rarely played. The ticket was a $3 investment. The couple, who claimed the prize as the Nickel 95 Trust, elected to take the one-time, lump sum payment. Florida Lottery Secretary Tom Delacenserie said they should receive the entire jackpot within two days. The winning ticket was purchased at a Publix grocery store in Melbourne Beach. The other two winning tickets were bought in Munford, Tennessee, and Chino Hills, California. John and Lisa Robertson of Munford, Tennessee, cashed in their ticket last month, also taking the lump sum. The winners in California have not publicly come forward yet. Since joining Powerball in 1999, Florida has had the most winners with 11. Even though last months jackpot is a world record, Gloria McKenzie of Zephyrhills, Florida, still has the record for the largest jackpot ever paid to a sole winner $590.5 million from the drawing on May 18, 2013. On Thursday, staff and parents of students at Chippewa Falls Area Unified School District received a letter from Jeffrey Holmes, Superintendent about active shooter swatting calls taking place at multiple school districts across the state. Swatting calls are hoax reports of threats made to police which insight panic. Police say similar types of false threats have occurred at multiple schools across the state Thursday. These threats included 911 calls to police across the state claiming that schools had an active shooter. One of Editor & Publishers 10 That Do It Right 2021 A sophisticated study blending 35 years of well contamination tests shows high levels of toxic nitrate is turning up a little less frequently in Dane County-area drinking water. But because the substance is so widespread and hazardous to human health, scientists from five state and local agencies who conducted the study are urging broader efforts to limit farm fertilizer use that is the primary source of contamination. More than one in five tests of wells providing water to homes, churches, schools, bars and restaurants exceeded the safe limit from 2010 through late 2014. Thats down from 30 years ago when more than one-third showed unsafe levels, but still more than twice the statewide rate. A 43-page report summarizing the landmark study also recommends more testing of water from more than 20,000 residential wells in the county, especially in highest risk areas, which the scientists mapped with greater precision than ever before. Its still a problem, but the fact that it has leveled off shows that some of these efforts have worked, said Dick Lathrop, a UW-Madison expert on fresh water systems who served as one of the studys principal investigators. It should give Dane County a chance to have more conversations with farmers. But another expert suggested that government efforts to entice farmers into statewide programs designed to control fertilizer and manure spreading arent likely to substantially offset powerful market forces that drive up nitrate pollution. When prices rise for corn, which requires heavy applications of nitrogen-based fertilizer, farmers quickly convert acreage and boost spreading, said Kevin Masarik, a UW-Extension outreach specialist focused on helping rural well water users. Unless consumers are willing to pay more for corn and the things it goes into such as ethanol, dairy products and goods sweetened by high-fructose corn syrup farmers will continue to increase fertilizer use, he said. When someone gets their water quality report back and its above the standard they think the farm next to them is doing something illegal, but its probably just more the reality of the systems we have in place, Masarik said. Thats the reason why its been 30 years and there hasnt been much progress made. Acute risks to infants Drinking water contaminated with more than 10 milligrams per liter of nitrate poses acute risks to infants and women who are pregnant, a possible risk to fetuses in early stages of pregnancy, and a longer-term risk of serious disease in adults. Nitrate is the states most widespread groundwater contaminant, and its extent and severity have been increasing, top state agency officials appointed to the Wisconsin Groundwater Coordinating Council said in their 2015 report to the Legislature. Its not just residential wells that are at risk. In Dane County alone there are 232 facilities such as churches, bars, day cares and restaurants with wells, most of which draw water from the shallow aquifer, typically 100 to 300 feet down, that is most vulnerable to nitrate pollution. Statewide, the number of public water systems with unsafe nitrate levels increased slightly to 57 in 2014, requiring officials to provide bottled water, post notices, replace wells, install treatment, or take other corrective actions, the groundwater council report said. Previous studies have estimated that 90 percent of nitrate in groundwater comes from spreading of synthetic fertilizers and dairy manure on farm fields, with most of the remainder from septic systems. About 31 percent of the states 9 million crop acres are covered by nutrient management plans, according to a November report of the Department of Agriculture. The plans require soil testing and other practices to control nutrients that can end up in lakes, streams and groundwater. But the plans require adherence to UW-Extension nutrient recommendations aimed primarily at maximizing farm profits by avoiding spending too much on fertilizer or manure spreading, said Masarik, who worked last year on a nutrient planning rules update as a member of the Wisconsin Standards Oversight Council. Most farmers try to limit fertilizer costs even if they arent enrolled in nutrient planning programs, which are mandatory only for farmers enrolled in certain subsidy or preservation programs, and those who have been caught polluting or have 1,000 or more animals. Dane County has 130,000 acres enrolled in plans, more than all but four other counties. The county has subsidized construction of two manure digesters designed to generate electricity while reducing the nutrients in manure before it is applied to fields, said Kevin Connors, director of the Dane County land and water resources department. Were not out of the woods, but weve made progress, Connors said. The ag community should be proud. Millions from the state The state has allocated millions of dollars to farm cost-sharing that includes nutrient planning. The groundwater council, in its 2015 report to the Legislature, said more plan acreage would significantly reduce nitrate pollution. Farmers applied more than 200 million pounds of nitrogen in excess of UW-Extension recommendations in 2007 alone, according to a state Department of Agriculture estimate. Still, research is mixed on whether the standards can keep wells below the 10 milligram per liter nitrate limit, the groundwater council report said. Increased attention to the affect of farm practices on water quality led to an increased 2009 state budget for Department of Agriculture conservation efforts, including nearly $3 million for nutrient management. But subsequent budget lapses and shortfalls cut funds, and requests at one point outstripped available money by $3.5 million, the report said. More recently, higher corn prices led to acreage being taken out of conservation programs that encouraged crops like legumes and alfalfa, which take up more nitrogen before it can reach groundwater, the report said. Wisconsin Agricultural Statistics Service reported that corn acreage rose to 4.1 million in 2011, up from 3.6 million in 2006. Nitrates move quickly to groundwater Another major component in fertilizer and manure, phosphorus, contributes to abnormal algae growth in lakes and streams when it runs off the land with rain and snowmelt. Nitrate behaves differently. Relatively little lingers near roots where it can be absorbed. Water washes it down into shallow groundwater that is the source of drinking water for one-quarter of Wisconsin residents. An estimated 9 to 10 percent of Wisconsin wells have tested over safe limits for nitrate, Masarik said. For the recent study covering Dane County and small areas of surrounding counties, scientists crunched more than 61,000 well test records dating back to the 1970s. The idea was to pull together a lot of data we knew existed, but hadnt been pulled together before and to look for hot areas, the UWs Lathrop said. About 15 percent of the study area had groundwater with nitrates over 10 milligrams per liter from 2010 through late 2014, down from 18 percent on average from 1985 to 1990. At the same time, the well tests showing less than 2 milligrams per liter increased, Lathrop said. The study also calculated that 75 percent of tests found concentrations of 8 milligrams per liter or less since 2010, down slightly from 30 years ago. The studys lead author was Cory McDonald, a state Department of Natural Resources research scientist. The DNR communications office didnt make McDonald available to discuss the report. Other agencies involved were the UW-Madison Center for Limnology, Public Health Madison and Dane County, Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey and Capital Area Regional Planning Commission. The study mapped nitrate hot spots, but contamination can vary over very short distances, said co-author Kirsti Sorsa, the health departments environmental health labs supervisor. Because of the variability, its still important that people know they should test their wells, Sorsa said. Very few people do test their water. We certainly advocate more testing. Residential well owners are responsible for testing their own drinking water, said DNR spokesman George Althoff. The DNR encourages annual testing for nitrate, total coliform and E. coli bacteria, he said. Steve Hoffman is editor of the Piatt County Journal-Republican. He can be reached at shoffman@news-gazette.com Reporter Mary Schenk is a reporter covering police, courts and breaking news at The News-Gazette. Her email is mschenk@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@schenk). Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Popcorn when it is not covered with butter and salt is already known to be a healthy snack food and now a group of scientists say it may even top fruits and vegetables in antioxidant levels. According to researchers they found great amounts of antioxidants known as polyphenols in popcorn and explained that the substances are more concentrated in the snack, which is made up of about four percent water, while the antioxidants are more diluted in fruits and vegetables, many of which are made of up to 90 percent water. That's the same principle that gives dried fruits an antioxidant edge over their fresh counterparts. One serving of popcorn has up to 300mg of polyphenols, which is much higher than previously believed and nearly double the 160mg for all fruits per serving, according to the researchers, who presented their findings at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Diego. However the scientists warned, though, preparation is key to getting popcorn's health benefits. Air-popped popcorn has the lowest number of calories, of course, said Joe Vinson of the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania. Microwave popcorn has twice as many calories as air-popped, and if you pop your own with oil, this has twice as many calories as air-popped popcorn. About 43 percent of microwave popcorn is fat, compared to 28 percent if you pop the corn in oil yourself. Based on fiber, whole grains, and antioxidant levels, popcorn is the king of snack foods, said Vinson. Vinson and Michael Coco, Jr., a chemistry student at the university, analyzed four commercial brands of popcorn, including two air-popped and two microwave varieties. They evaluated antioxidants known as polyphenols. These compounds are found in a wide variety of plants. Antioxidants undo the damage that can be done by unstable molecules known as free radicals. Everyone knows plant foods have antioxidants, Vinson told WebMD. But nobody has even looked at what is in popcorn with respect to these compounds. Vinson and Coco ground up the hull and the fluffy stuff, Vinson says, and checked the polyphenol levels. Most of the polyphenols - about 90% - were in the hull, Vinson says. Those hulls deserve more respect, said Vinson. They are nutritional gold nuggets. The four brands tested had slightly different serving sizes, from a little under an ounce to a little over. The antioxidants per serving ranged from about 242-363 milligrams (mg). In comparison, they found that a serving of many fruits has about 160 mg of polyphenols. Popcorn's polyphenols are not as diluted with water as those are in fruit, Vinson says.Popcorn starts out about 15% water and ends up a couple percent. The study is a good first step, but it wasn't designed to measure health benefits, says Jeffrey B. Blumberg, professor of nutrition at Tufts University and senior scientist and director of Tufts' Antioxidants Research Laboratory. The next step is to figure out how much of popcorn's polyphenols get out of the hull and into your gut, Blumberg said. Vinson agrees. Blumberg is studying polyphenols and other substances in whole grains. He is evaluating how much of the compounds, and which ones, get into the blood. That study is supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and cereal maker Kellogg's. We already know whole grains are good for you, Blumberg said. What scientists now need to figure out, he told WebMD, are which components are really important in improving health. The information could be useful for people who grow crops, he says. They could then grow the crops to produce whole grain with more of the compounds found to be healthiest. The Vinson study does suggest that popcorn is not bad as a snack, says Kantha Shelke, a Chicago food chemist and spokeswoman for the Institute of Food Technologists. Popcorn is a whole grain, she said. It's minimally processed. But more information is needed, she said, on what amount of popcorn's antioxidants actually go to work in your body. By Eleanor McDermid medwireNews: Today's late-breaking trials session at the International Stroke Conference featured the long-term results of CREST and ARUBA, both of which support the original trial findings. CREST: questions left unanswered Thomas Brott (Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, Florida, USA) presented a 10-year CREST (Carotid Revascularization Endarterectomy vs Stenting Trial) update, which also appears in The New England Journal of Medicine. He reported that the 1607 patients who consented to long-term follow-up showed similar rates of postprocedural ipsilateral stroke irrespective of whether they received carotid artery stenting (CAS) or carotid endarterectomy (CEA), at 6.9% and 5.6%, respectively. Restenosis occurred in a corresponding 12.2% and 9.7%, which was also not a significant difference. In a linked editorial, J David Spence (Western University, London, Ontario, Canada) and A Ross Naylor (Leicester Royal Infirmary, UK) stress that neither ACT 1, which reported its findings yesterday, nor CREST have resolved the "vexed question of how best to treat the asymptomatic patient." Although clearly demonstrating that CAS and CEA are broadly equivalent, the results were obtained using highly trained and credentialed operators, who achieved a "commendably low" periprocedural event rate that may be hard to obtain in usual clinical practice, they say. Added to this is the improvement in optimal medical care since the trials were initiated, which could further erode any benefits of intervening in clinical practice. Given the recorded difficulties in recruiting patients to carotid intervention trials, the editorialists urge physicians to avoid stenting or surgery in asymptomatic patients outside of CREST 2. "This restraint would not only spare patients from procedures that may be unnecessary, but it should also facilitate early completion of the trial", they say. ARUBA: leave AVMs well alone ARUBA (A Randomized trial of Unruptured Brain AVMs) aimed to determine whether intervention or medical management was the best course for patients with unruptured brain arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) but was stopped early, after an average follow-up of 33.3 months, because of poor outcomes in the intervention group. And the long-term follow-up, after an average of 50.4 months, confirms the original findings, with Christian Stapf (Universite de Montreal, Quebec, Canada) reporting a number needed to harm of just five. In the intention-to-treat analysis, the rates of stroke or death were 35.3% among 116 patients in the intervention group versus 13.6% among 110 in the medical management group. And in the per protocol analysis, the corresponding rates were 40.6% among 106 patients versus 10.8% among 120 patients. This gave a number needed to harm of just three, despite a high spontaneous annual haemorrhage rate of 2.1%. And the result was the same regardless of patient and AVM characteristics, and of the treatment modality used (endovascular, surgical, radiotherapy or multimodal). Licensed from medwireNews with permission from Springer Healthcare Ltd. Springer Healthcare Ltd. All rights reserved. Neither of these parties endorse or recommend any commercial products, services, or equipment. The use of clot-busting drugs to clear blood from the brain's ventricles may be the first effective strategy to decrease mortality for a type of catastrophic bleeding stroke, according to phase-3 clinical trial results announced Thursday at the International Stroke Conference in Los Angeles. The treatment also significantly reduced post-stroke disability in a subset of patients, according to data presented by trial leaders from Johns Hopkins University and the University of Chicago. "Hemorrhage in the brain used to be an essentially untreatable condition, but we now have hope with a therapy that may be effective at saving lives," said Issam Awad, MD, John Harper Seeley Professor of Surgery at the University of Chicago Medicine, who was co-chair and surgical director for the CLEAR III clinical trial. CLEAR III tested the benefits of the clot-busting drug alteplase, also known as tPA, in improving outcomes for intraventricular hemorrhage. In this particularly severe form of stroke, blood pools and clots in the brain's ventricles--cavities that normally hold cerebrospinal fluid. The randomized, double-blinded and controlled trial enrolled 500 patients from 73 clinical sites around the world. Every patient received either tPA or saline through a brain catheter, and were otherwise treated by current standards of critical care. Researchers found that swift application of tPA directly into the ventricle, combined with a drainage catheter, reduced overall death rates by 10 percent, or about a third relative to death rates in the saline group. Treatment with tPA almost doubled the likelihood of good functional recovery in patients with high volume bleeds who had most of the blood removed. Patients with smaller clots did not benefit, but no adverse side effects were observed when compared to the control group. "For many patients, this approach can significantly reduce disability after a stroke, and can be the difference between going home instead of going to a nursing home," Awad said. Hemorrhagic strokes are triggered by ruptured blood vessels that leak blood into the brain, increasing intracranial pressure and causing severe damage to brain tissues. Accumulated blood quickly clots and is difficult to remove even by open brain surgery. Around 15 percent of strokes are hemorrhagic, but they account for roughly 40 percent of all stroke deaths. Nearly half of these bleeding strokes involve some degree of intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH), a complication where blood pools in the ventricles. IVH can be particularly catastrophic, with an estimated mortality rate between 60 and 80 percent. Among those who survive, as many as 90 percent become severely disabled. An international effort Early studies suggested tPA, an FDA-approved clot buster for conditions such as heart attacks and non-bleeding strokes, might be effective in removing accumulated blood and alleviating its damaging effects after a hemorrhagic stroke. To study the feasibility of this approach, a phase-2 clinical trial (CLEAR-IVH), initially tested tPA in a small group of IVH patients. After patients were stabilized, tPA was administered directly into the ventricle through an external, surgically placed catheter. The patients received the tPA for three days and a catheter continually drained blood until the ventricle cleared. The study confirmed the safety and efficacy of the procedure, and supported the need for a large-scale phase-3 trial. CLEAR III, which was overseen by Awad and Daniel Hanley Jr., MD, the Harriett Legum Professor of Acute Care Neurology at Johns Hopkins Medicine, began in 2009 and was completed in 2015. Roughly half of the 500 enrolled patients received tPA and the other half received saline. Both groups had extraventricular drains and were treated by the current best standards for critical care. All patients were monitored remotely to maintain consistent treatment across centers, which could vary greatly in facilities, staff and languages. Data analysis and overall trial oversight was provided by the Johns Hopkins team. Lab Diagnostics & Automation eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today To ensure safety and accurate catheter placement, surgical oversight was provided by Awad and his staff at the University of Chicago Medicine, which served as the surgical center for the trial. Before tPA could be given, images of catheter placement for every patient had to be sent to and analyzed by the UChicago team, who were on call 24/7 throughout the five-year trial. "We had to verify that all the criteria were met in order to deploy that treatment safely," Awad said. "Every single patient was monitored in real time, often over an iPad or iPhone, to make sure the drug reached the right part of the brain." Immediate impact The results of CLEAR III show tPA treatment significantly decreases mortality in one of the worst forms of hemorrhagic stroke. Analyses led by Awad and his team revealed the most important factor in improving functional recovery was the volume of blood removed. The likelihood of a good outcome in patients with larger clots, defined as greater than 20 mL of pooled blood, improved by nearly 20 percent. The more blood that was cleared, the greater the odds were of reduced disability--rising to nearly double in patients who had 90 percent of their clots removed. Patients who received additional doses of tPA and had multiple drainage catheters inserted had higher clot removal. In patients who started with less than 20 mL of blood in the ventricles, no benefits were observed. "Outside our study this drainage was only used in 8 percent of hemorrhagic stroke cases, and we showed this technique can really make a difference," Hanley said. "Our results suggest that physicians should begin to think about routinely using it for stable hemorrhagic stroke patients." CLEAR III data now support the use of tPA and a ventricular drain as the most effective treatment for patients with high volume IVH strokes. Awad notes that, if possible, these patients should be treated at comprehensive stroke centers, which have access to neurosurgeons, neurocritical care specialists and other resources for severe strokes. The CLEAR III team is now implementing an educational strategy on how to manage IVH with tPA at comprehensive stroke centers around the U.S. "When we entered into the trial, we knew very little about how this therapy ought to be used, in whom it should be used, and whether it was safe," Awad said. "We now have clear data on how best to implement the procedure, and for at least a group of patients, we know it can nearly double the likelihood of a favorable outcome." A sister clinical trial, MISTIE, co-led by Awad and Hanley, is currently underway to test the safety and efficacy of tPA as a treatment for patients with hemorrhagic strokes in which bleeding occurs in brain tissue but does not leak into the ventricles. Patients for that study are currently being enrolled. Dr. Wenlian Zhu THOUGHT LEADERS SERIES ...insight from the worlds leading experts How much evidence is there to suggest that women with denser breast tissue have an increased risk of breast cancer? Breast is composed of fatty and dense glandular and fibrous tissues. Breast density is expressed as the fraction of a mammogram occupied by dense tissues. More than 40 studies have assessed the associations between breast cancer and breast density and the majority reported 2- to 6-fold increased risks for the highest breast density, compared to the lowest. In what ways are some of the studies that link breast density to breast cancer risk limited? As Dr. Daniel B. Kopans, a radiologist specializing in mammography and other forms of breast imaging in Massachusetts General Hospital, pointed out, it is not possible to determine the 3D volume ratio of dense to fatty tissue from a single 2D mammographic image. In other words, breast density cannot be reliably measured by 2D mammograms. Please can you outline your recent research that aimed to confirm whether breast density is an independent risk factor for breast cancer? We used 3D MRI breast images to assess breast density. We used the thickness of the upper abdominal adipose layer as a marker for body fatness. We investigated the association between breast cancer and breast density, age, and body fatness; using 410 patients with unilateral invasive breast cancer, 73 patients with ductal carcinoma in situ, and 361 patients without breast cancer. What did your research show? Breast density decreased as women aged and gained weight. High breast density (dense breast) was only observed in young or lean women. We observed a positive and significant association between invasive breast cancer and age as well as body fatness, but the association between breast cancer and high breast density was weak and insignificant. Were you surprised by the insignificant correlation between breast cancer and breast density? How do you think this finding can be explained? I wasnt surprised at the insignificant correlation between breast cancer and breast density due to the strong correlation between breast cancer and age as well as obesity. Older and obese women are known to have fatty breast. This finding suggests that dense breast alone may not be a breast cancer risk factor. What impact do you think this research will have on women with dense breasts? The only clinical classification of mammographic density in the U.S. is BI-RADS (Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System), which was developed by the American College of Radiology to communicate how likely a tumour is obscured by dense breast tissue. High breast density is the main cause of false-negative mammogram screening, but our results do not support the notation that high breast density alone is a breast cancer risk factor. What are your further research plans? Breast density decreases as women age and accumulate more fatty tissue. There is no scientific evidence to demonstrate that a 50 year old lean woman with extremely dense breast has a higher breast cancer risk than a 50 year old obese women with fatty breast. We need to put breast density in the context of age and body fatness so that we can identify what is considered dense breast for a woman of certain age and body fatness. This will allow us to evaluate the true breast cancer risk associated with breast density at a given age and body fatness. Our next goal is to develop a simple quantitative tool to predict breast cancer risk using age, body fatness, and breast cancer altogether. Where can readers find more information? (2013) American College of Radiology BI-RADS ATLAS MAMMOGRAPHY 5th Edition. Breast Cancer Mammograms fact sheet About Dr Wenlian Zhu Wenlian Zhu, PhD, is a research associate in the Division of Cancer Imaging Research, Department of Radiology in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her recent research covers preclinical targeted breast MRI imaging, preclinical evaluation of antiangiogenic therapy, and clinical breast MRI analysis. Backed by a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), an interdisciplinary, student-led team from New Jersey Institute of Technology is building a low-cost water filter for villagers in the north central farming region of Sri Lanka who are suffering from high rates of chronic kidney disease. The heavy metal-laden fertilizer they apply to their fields is considered a likely cause, and their drinking water a possible vehicle for the contamination. Nearly 40 students - from biologists to engineers - are working on various aspects of the project, from the design of the clay pot filters individual families would use to purify their water each day, to the development of prototype tests that will simulate local conditions, to research into government policies that encourage the use of fertilizers that contain toxic levels of cadmium and arsenic. Their goal is to produce a prototype by the end of August. "We're developing a filter that will absorb both heavy metals and disease-causing pathogens," said Janitha Hewa Batagoda, a doctoral student and Sri Lankan native who is leading the team of undergraduates, primarily from NJIT's chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB). "The idea is to make it easy and inexpensive to manufacture, using locally available materials, and also ensure it is simple to use. Each system would cost the equivalent of about $5 and enable families to filter 10 gallons of water a day." The filter, which will sit inside a five-pound bucket, will be made of locally available clay mixed with hematite, a mineral containing iron oxide that binds with heavy metals. Colloidal silver, a suspension containing silver particles that captures biological pathogens such as e-coli and cholera, will be added to the filter. The NJIT team won $15,000 to develop the idea through the EPA's P3 - People, Prosperity and the Planet--Program, an annual competition intended to inspire college students to "design solutions for a sustainable future." In April, the team will display its project at the USA Science and Engineering Festival in Washington, D.C., where it will compete against other Phase 1 winners for the P3 Award and a grant of $75,000 to develop it as a real world application. Earlier this week, members of the team were tinkering with the ratio of sawdust and kaolinite clay used in the filter - mashing different combinations together in a vessel resembling a French coffee press - in order to determine the right balance of permeability and absorption. They then heated them in a laboratory kiln to 850 degrees Celsius. "We want to see how quickly water flows through the filter, which will determine if we can get 10 gallons of water a day. The more sawdust we add, the more pores the filter has after it's baked and the faster the water will flow through," said Patrick Delong '17, of East Brunswick, the president of the EWB chapter at NJIT. "But we need to achieve the right balance: the amount of time the water remains in the filter will determine how much of the contaminants are absorbed by it. Today, we're testing ratios of 70 percent clay versus 30 percent sawdust by mass." While the current prototype is being developed for Sri Lankan farming villages, the technology is designed to be extremely adaptable in order to suit a range of rural areas that lack modern water infrastructure. Each version of the clay pot would be constructed of locally available materials such as clay, sawdust, bio-char, charcoal and hematite. The manufacturing process is both generic and simple. "The proposed filter is a fully sustainable design with the ability to purify water at affordable costs. The production is a low energy process where agricultural waste will be combusted in the kiln to heat the air-dried filters," the team noted in its grant application. "The filtering system will have the capability to operate under adverse economic, social, and environmental conditions." "Sri Lankans make cooking pots in kilns that are located close to the clay deposits they use, and we would use these same kilns to make the filters," said Jay Meegoda, a civil engineering professor and the group's advisor. The project builds on the EWB chapter's ongoing work on the development of a portable water filter for the residents of Milot, Haiti, a sprawling commune in the island's north, where water-borne diseases are the principal concern. "Adapting the filter to screen heavy metals as well definitely raises the level of complexity," said Delong, who joined the organization his freshman year and said he embraced the opportunity to "jump into the arena of international development." He plans to travel to Sri Lanka's farming region this summer with a filter prototype in hand. Mark De Jesus '17, of Woodbridge, said he was looking for hands-on experience in environmental engineering and was particularly drawn to the filter project as it offered the chance to redress longstanding, often devastating problems. He noted, "There are a lot of water-borne diseases and children are the ones primarily affected, so providing an adequate water supply is a challenge that really needs to be addressed." Courts would be forced to stop giving special weight to the expertise of state agencies when individuals claimed in lawsuits that their property rights had been restricted, under a provision added last week to a bill moving quickly through the Wisconsin Legislature. Republicans said they want to bolster private property rights, but critics maintained the change would upend decades of legal precedent and unleash a snarl of lawsuits challenging state decisions on everything from pollution permits to power line placement to dentist licenses. This is a major shift in decades of legal precedent in Wisconsin, said Christa Westerberg, a Madison attorney who specializes in land use law representing clients appealing state agency decisions. Federal courts and other state courts also observe the concept of deference to agency decisions, Westerberg said. I havent heard of any other jurisdiction obliterating that precedent in favor of private property rights, however that term is construed ... (and) it will probably take a lot of court cases to sort that out. Its a gift to trial attorneys, said Susan Crawford, a Madison attorney who worked in the Department of Justice and as legal counsel to former Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat who was in office until Republicans took over state government in 2011. I think the impact of this would be to increase litigation. Rep. Adam Jarchow, the author of Assembly Bill 582, said concerns about the proposal and his amendment forbidding judges from giving deference to agencies over private property rights were unfounded. All we are talking about is allowing a court to take a fresh look at the law and determine that the agency applied the law correctly, said Jarchow, R-Balsam Lake. I think thats only fair when you are talking about peoples private property rights. But Crawford, Westerberg and others noted that the bill, if enacted, would deliver an advantage to private property owners fighting state decisions, but not to groups fighting state decisions they view as restricting the rights of the public to clean air and water. It is very discriminatory, said George Meyer, a former state Department of Natural Resources secretary who is now executive director of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation. A property owner would gain an advantage in court when challenging a DNR decision halting construction that would harm fish habitat, Meyer said. If DNR grants the permit, the local fishermen who will lose the valuable fish habitat do not receive the same benefit, Meyer said. That is not equal treatment under the law and arguably (is) contrary to the equal protection and due process provisions of the Constitution. Government agencies often mediate conflicts between various property owners and interest groups, and this law would reduce government authority to do that, said Brian Ohm, an attorney who researches and teaches planning at UW-Madison. Federal and state courts have chosen to give deference to state decisions on how the law should be interpreted, recognizing that the expertise and technical knowledge of agency officials who work with regulations every day is naturally much deeper than that of judges, who must be generalists, Ohm said. A law telling courts not to give deference to state agencies may raise concerns that the Legislature is overstepping its role under the Constitutional principle of separation of powers, Ohm said. Jarchow said the real separation-of-powers problem was state agencies that write, interpret and enforce the laws in a system under which the courts then rubberstamp decisions. For all state agencies AB 582 is one of a raft of pending bills Republicans are pushing to roll back DNR and local government authority to regulate private development decisions that can affect the environment, especially in shoreline development filling wetlands. Last week, in response to complaints from local governments, Jarchow offered an amendment that made several changes, including removal of a provision placing new limits on local authority to enact regulations on business developments, such as frac sand mines, after developers have applied for certain permits. In place of that provision, Jarchow said, he added the new section to the bill changing how the courts handle challenges to state decisions. It applies to all state agencies. The amended bill was approved Thursday on a 4-2 party-line vote by the Assembly Committee on Housing and Real Estate. An identical amendment has been offered by Sen. Frank Lasee, R-DePere, to the Senate version of the bill, SB 464. Both bills were given public hearings before the amendments were offered. Larry Konopacki, a principal lawyer for the nonpartisan Legislative Council, noted that if the bills are enacted, courts would still base decisions on the facts gathered by state agencies. They just wouldnt give special weight to the states legal interpretations. Jarchow said he was inspired by a 2006 opinion written by state Supreme Court Justice David Prosser in a case in which Prosser reluctantly agreed with the court majority that a DNR decision could not be overturned under the law. This case epitomizes the growth of agency power, the decline of judicial power, and the tenuous state of property rights in the 21st Century, Prosser wrote in Hilton v. the DNR. These standards of review frequently put reviewing courts in a straitjacket ... First, the supreme court is the states preeminent law-developing court. When the supreme court grants great weight deference to an agencys interpretation of law, however, it ceases to be preeminent. Prosser wrote that he hoped his commentary would generate discussion of current law. Nanotechnology Approach Restores Glucose Regulation and Motor Function in In Vivo Preclinical Models of Diabetes and Multiple Sclerosis, Respectively; Joint Swelling and Destruction Resolved in In Vivo Model of Rheumatoid Arthritis - - Parvus' Approach Can Be Tailored to Treat Diverse Diseases Parvus Therapeutics today announced the publication in Nature of a seminal paper describing the discovery and applications of a novel therapeutic approach employing nanomedicines, referred to as "Navacims"TM, to reprogram white blood cells to become regulatory cells capable of blunting autoimmune responses and restoring the equilibrium of the immune system. Navacims are nanoparticles (NPs) coated with disease-relevant peptide-major histocompatibility complexes (pMHCs) that alter the behavior of pathogenic T lymphocytes by binding directly to their antigen receptors. The peer-reviewed article, titled "Expanding antigen-specific regulatory networks to treat autoimmunity" (http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature16962) reports on a body of work, including results in multiple in vivo disease models, built on more than eight years of research by Parvus Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Pere Santamaria, M.D., Ph.D. Dr. Santamaria commented: Autoimmune diseases, including type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis, are extraordinarily complex responses of our immune system against some of our own tissues (e.g. pancreas, brain and joints, respectively), leading to chronic organ inflammation, organ dysfunction, and, in some cases, premature death. Blunting these incompletely understood immune responses without suppressing the normal components of our immune system that protect us against infection and cancer is not currently possible. "However, our work offers a pharmaceutical solution to this fundamental problem," Dr. Santamaria continued. "Navacims essentially re-program disease-causing white blood cells to become disease-suppressing cells, known as regulatory cells, leading to sustained therapeutic effects in various spontaneous and experimental autoimmune diseases, as reported in our article in Nature. Essentially, we have found that Navacims can be tailored to treat a wide range of autoimmune diseases, while sharing a common structure. Importantly, they have been shown to affect human white blood cells in the same manner as they do murine cells. Furthermore, Navacims have shown promising safety findings in preclinical in vivo models. Based on our results to date, we believe Navacims represent a therapeutic platform with broad-ranging health care implications." Findings being reported in Nature include: pMHC class II Navacims expanded cognate CD4+ T-cells that consistently have a TR1-like, regulatory T cell surface phenotype, transcriptional pattern and cytokine profile (mouse=human TR1 cells) systemically. pMHC class II-Navacims designed to target T cells in newly diabetic nonobese (NOD) mice restored normoglycemia (normal blood sugar regulation) in the majority of the mice tested. Tailored pMHC class II Navacims restored motor function to paralyzed C57BL/6 mice at the peak of Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis (a model of Multiple Sclerosis). pMHC class II Navacims, targeting disease-causing T cells in joints, resolved joint swelling and destruction in arthritic mice. "The findings being reported in Nature represent a scientific advance for Parvus and also a major achievement in the field of Immunology," said Janice M. LeCocq, CEO of Parvus. "We believe that Dr. Santamaria's work has the potential to transform the treatment of many of the more than 80 major autoimmune diseases affecting humankind, alleviating the suffering of millions of patients and their families. Over the coming year, we will be dedicating much of our in-house efforts to the advancement of our two lead programs for type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis." "Dr. Santamaria's work to target the immune system dysfunction that causes type 1 diabetes represents the kind of innovative work that JDRF believes will eventually get us to a cure for this disease," said Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Vice President of Discovery Research Julia Greenstein, Ph.D. "He and his colleagues have made exciting progress towards possibly developing a new class of drugs that could rebalance certain T-cells and ultimately provide a cure for type 1 diabetes and other autoimmune diseases as well." The JDRF has funded the work of Dr. Santamaria and his colleagues at Parvus to explore Navacim-based treatments for diabetes. Parvus' strategy is to establish partnerships with major pharmaceutical companies to undertake the clinical and commercial development of many of its product pipeline candidates while also reserving rights to others suitable for its own development and commercialization. Parvus currently is engaged in late stage discussions with multiple pharmaceutical companies with regard to the type 1 diabetes (T1D) program. Manufacturing scale-up is now underway to supply upcoming preclinical and clinical studies. The work being reported in Nature was led by Dr. Pere Santamaria and largely executed at the University of Calgary, Cumming School of Medicine (animal models of disease) and the Institut d'Investigacions Biomediques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS) (humanized mouse work), with significant contributions from investigators at Institutions in Europe and the US. Further, Innovate Calgary, the technology-transfer and business-incubation center for the University of Calgary, provided early support for the transfer of the Navacims technology to and incubation of Parvus Therapeutics, which was organized as a separate entity in 2012. Source: http://www.parvustherapeutics.com/ Courtney Miller, associate professor on the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), has been selected to receive a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on young professionals at the outset of their independent research careers. "These early-career scientists are leading the way in our efforts to confront and understand challenges from climate change to our health and wellness," President Barak Obama said in a statement. "We congratulate these accomplished individuals and encourage them to continue to serve as an example of the incredible promise and ingenuity of the American people." In a process involving 12 federal agencies and coordinated by the Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President, the award winners are selected annually based on two criteria: innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology, and commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, education or community outreach. The focus of Miller's lab at Scripps Florida is developing therapeutics for memory disorders, including addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder and Alzheimer's disease, with a focus on synaptic and neuroepigenetic contributors. She began studying the role of memory and addiction as a graduate student at the University of California, Irvine. In 2005, she moved to the University of Alabama, Birmingham, for postdoctoral work in the then-nascent field of neuroepigenetics, studying the contribution of DNA methylation to memory. There, she made the fundamental discovery that DNA methylation can serve as a rapid and dynamic regulator of memory formation and storage in the brain. She moved to Scripps Florida in 2009. Miller, who is an associate editor of the Elsevier journal Neuroepigenetics and 2015 Scripps Outstanding Mentor of the Year, has a passion for advancing women in science and is co-founder of the Professional Women's Nexus, a 400+ member group with a mission to improve the advancement rate of women in academia and industry. As a Presidential Early Career Award honoree, Miller will receive up to a five-year research grant to further her scientific investigations. The winners will receive their awards at a Washington, DC ceremony this spring. Previous recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award include TSRI Professors Erica Ollmann Saphire and Marisa Roberto. SOURCE The Scripps Research Institute Viruses are molecular thieves that take from their hosts under the cloak of darkness. But now a Virginia Tech scientist has found a way to not only track viral hijackers, but also potentially stop them from replicating. The discovery has broad ranging applications in stopping viral outbreaks such as Hepatitis C in humans and a number of viruses in plants and animals because it applies to many viruses in the largest category of viral classes -- positive-strand RNA viruses. The findings were recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Even though these viruses infect very different hosts, they all replicate similarly across the board, so what we learn from one virus can potentially be translated to control viruses in agricultural production as well as human health," said Xiaofeng Wang, an assistant professor of plant pathology, physiology, and weed science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Wang's findings could target any number of plant viruses. One virus Wang has studied -- the cucumber mosaic virus -- affects pumpkin, squash and gourds in 1,200 species in over 100 plant families. Sprays could be developed to halt the virus on plants, saving millions of dollars in agricultural sectors. Wang, who is a Fralin Life Science-associated faculty member, used brome mosaic virus to study how viral infections start. He found that the brome mosaic virus stimulates synthesis of host lipid cells called phosphatidylcholine at the sites where viral replication occurs, and that by inhibiting its synthesis, the viral replication stopped. Wang also collaborated with researchers to study how human viruses like Hepatitis C virus and poliovirus regulate host lipid synthesis and found that viral replication behaved in the same way as using plant viruses. The ramifications for human health mean that developing a drug delivery system to combat the Hepatitis C virus would be much more nimble in treating viral outbreaks than slow-moving vaccines, and could play a crucial role in halting the debilitating infection which affects 3.5 million people in the U.S. according to the Centers for Disease Control. Viruses can't replicate by themselves. They are essentially thieves that break into cells and multiply by hijacking the machinery of the host cells and proliferating and remodeling lipid-containing membranes such as phosphatidylcholine -- one the most prominent lipids in host membranes. Wang and his collaborators were able to see where exactly the virus replications started and how they managed their hosts to meet their needs. Based on the finding of Wang and his collaborators, new ways can be developed to stop phosphatidylcholine synthesis for viral replication, but leave the host undamaged. "The better we understand the mechanisms of a biological process, be it virus replication or cell division, the better are our options to rationally design tools that can control it," said George Belov, a collaborator of Wang's and an assistant professor of virology at the University of Maryland. "In the case of viral replication it may provide us with novel ways to control infection without causing host toxicity and a generation of viral-resistant mutants." Source: Virginia Tech 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 Tailoring his opening remarks to the collegiate surroundings, U.S. Sen. Mark Warner said his own student debt for college and law school combined was $15,000 while todays students may have $30,000 to $60,000 in debt or more. At more than $1.3 trillion, student debt is more than credit card debt, Warner said Thursday to the crowd of around 200 people gathered in a meeting room in Central Virginia Community College. The Democratic senators appearance in Lynchburg was one of several across the state this week as he discussed policy issues and fielded questions; several community leaders were on hand at CVCC to hear his remarks. The challenge of student debt is not only does it affect our students, but it has a tremendous ripple effect across the economy, Warner said. Theyre not willing to take chances. Warner touted a number of student debt-related bills he has introduced, including one in which qualifying high school students can earn college credit through Pell Grants and another focused on simplifying the process for enrolling in income-based loan repayment plans. He also spoke about a bill in which companies could use pre-tax money, such as that which can be used to pay for employee continuing education, to help pay down employee student debt. There is an increasing shift toward an economy based less on long-term jobs to one in which skills are purchased almost on a real-time basis, Warner said, citing drivers under the ride-sharing app Uber. In such an employment structure, he said, theres no social contract where employers provide health insurance, workers compensation or a pension. Warner spoke of a need for portable benefits that could be moved from job to job. Warner said he doesnt want to have a country where, for 70 percent of the workers, everything is fine until its not fine, and theres nothing to catch them in between. During a question-and-answer period, Denise Crews of Lynchburg Community Action Group asked if Congress is considering ways to make the Affordable Care Act more affordable. According to Crews, ACA was a great idea in theory, but without Medicaid expansion in Virginia, health insurance may not be affordable, and for some people, paying the penalty is a more preferable option. Warner said there are problems with the ACA, but there also has been 30 million additional people who have received coverage. From a moral as well as financial standpoint, Warner said he is continuously disappointed that federal tax money is being shuffled to other states presumably speaking of Virginias refusal to expand Medicaid. There also is a need for a cheaper plan of coverage within the health insurance marketplace, particularly to get younger people enrolled. What is frustrating is that many politicians who vote to repeal the ACA should instead be focused on fixing it, he said. Congress amended Medicare several times after it was passed, Warner said. It takes people on both sides who are willing to say, O.K., lets take whats good about [the ACA], and fix whats wrong about it. Lynchburg Vice Mayor Ceasor Johnson questioned what is being done to assist older cities in Virginia such as Lynchburg, adding that the city serves as a regional commerce hub but also draws people living in poverty who seek services. Warner cited a bill he has introduced to spur infrastructure development by establishing an infrastructure financing authority, which he said could help older cities like Lynchburg. He also said he is intrigued by the Go Virginia initiative in the state legislature, which looks at regional economic development as opposed to "Lynchburg against Campbell against Amherst against Appomottox" and the idea of increased regional collaboration "makes an enormous amount of sense." In regards to poverty, there are things government should and must do, he said, but there are things that can be done in collaboration with business "to move us forward." Lynchburg resident Larry Symonds shared his concerns about Social Security, and told Warner there needs to be a discussion about how this safety net for millions of older Americans can be fixed. Warner said that when he was a child, there were 16 people working for every one person on Social Security and Medicare. People are living longer and now there are only three people for every one person on Social Security and Medicare, he said. Unless more revenue "is put into the till, we're not going to be able to pay for what we're doing," Warner said. Warner said he recently visited two Virginia universities and asked students if they believe they will receive Social Security or Medicare. At one university, no student raised his or her hand, while at the other only a handful of students did so. "That's not fair. We are cheating a whole generation of that commitment," Warner said Earlier in his remarks, Warner said he supports Hillary Clinton, but whoever is successful he wants that person to work on an agenda that touches peoples lives and moves them forward, and gets past the screaming and shouting food fight that is now masquerading as a political dialogue in our country. Quite honestly, Im tired of a bunch of these candidates running around everyday saying whats wrong with America. Theres a whole lot thats right. RICHMOND Virginia State Police are looking into the failed deal to bring a Chinese-based manufacturer to Appomattox using $1.4 million in state money through a North Carolina development firm. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership contacted VSP about the matter, according to the agencys Vice President of Communications & Promotions Vince Barnett, who addressed media inquiries following a meeting Thursday updating the board on fallout after Lindenburg Industry LLC failed to fulfill its contract. The VEDP board and staff, which oversees millions of taxpayer dollars funneled to businesses for economic development, discussed potential crime and civil fraud and referenced the FBI in a conversation about the deal that involved VEDP, Lindenburg and Charlotte-based business Development Advisors Inc. The Virginia State Police is still conducting its initial inquiry into the nature of the allegation. No criminal investigation has been initiated, VSP spokeswoman Corinne Geller said in an email following the meeting. She did not respond to an email requesting more information. Vice Chair C. Daniel Clemente, who spoke by speaker phone to the other board members gathered in a plaza high-rise overlooking the James River, said there is potential for a criminal case, and made an unexplained reference to the FBI. So if the FBI comes in and says, Were not going to do this criminal investigation, then in my opinion it becomes a civil fraud, Clemente said. I think the inducement for us to release that $1.4 million was based in large part on representations made by the North Carolina consulting firm. DAI, the middle-man between Lindenburg and VEDP in the project involving the former Thomasville plant in Appomattox did not respond to messages left with a receptionist and with the companys Amherst attorney Thursday afternoon. The FBI could not be reached through a media representative in Richmond. Lindenburg representatives also could not be reached Thursday afternoon. When asked for clarification on references to the FBI and civil and criminal fraud after the meeting, Barnett declined to comment. Were not going to comment on any potential investigations or litigation matters that are out there, so Im not going to be able to give you any information on that, so youve heard what youve heard. Youre going to have to proceed from that, Barnett said. An investigation by The Roanoke Times showed the state had approved the Governors Opportunity Fund inducement grant to Lindenburg after reviewing a website with inaccurate information. VEDP has since asked for its money back. The site where Appomattox residents had hoped 349 workers would manufacture catalytic converters after a $113 million investment in the plant has been sold at auction to a Moneta developer. On Feb. 5, a judge froze almost $860,000 in the account of a real estate trustee until litigation among Lindenburg, VEDP and DAI could be settled, The Roanoke Times reported. Development Advisors seeks $859,485 in unpaid consulting fees, The Roanoke Times reported. Sandra McNinch, VEDP general counsel, said Lindenburg representatives said the company does not intend to pay by a March 7 deadline. Legal action may be taken afterward. Gretna-based Blair Construction does not expect to be paid the more than $300,000 it put into a new roof, ceiling and paint on the sites office building, according to Tim Clark, Blair vice president. Clark said Thursday he has generally had positive relationships working with international companies through VEDP. Blair has stayed out of media reports. Any time you have a client that doesnt pay, it affects you and it affects every employee that you have and it affects every employee you haves families because in the construction business margins are thin, Clark said. Clark said he had trusted the states investment and a company that brought money to the table, but that he should have performed better due diligence. His statements echoed those of VEDP and Secretary of Commerce and Trade Maurice Jones, who have said VEDP relied on a relationship with DAI going back several years and the fact that Lindenburg paid cash for the Thomasville Furniture factory property. As of last month, the state had projects ongoing with DAI. Barnett said the partnership is focused on getting the Governors Opportunity Fund money back, which was meant to spur job and economy growth in the region. We dont work with contractors directly. Our role is trying to secure the project, so working with the company, in this case Lindenburg, Barnett said. Whatever measures they take to account for their potential loss or gain, its just not something we can speak to. GamesRadar+ is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Heres why you can trust us. Builders have been eliminating wetland acreage at the fastest pace in at least a decade under a controversial state law that eased protections for the ecologically important lands. Cheered on by builders and developers who have long felt frustrated by water quality regulations, Republicans said Act 118 would put economic development needs in better balance with environmental protections. But three and a half years later, a crucial element in the laws provisions replacement wetlands that were supposed to offset those eliminated by development has been temporarily exhausted. Some additional replacement acreage may appear next year to help offset losses in water purification, flood control and wildlife habitat; however, it could be years before larger tracts of replacement wetlands are functioning. The main purpose of the law was to make it easier to eliminate wetlands under certain conditions while requiring developers to pay for creation of replacement of larger wetlands that are filled. Since the statute took effect on July 1, 2012, developers have requested permission to fill nearly 1,180 acres, more than twice the average annual acreage requested in the previous 51/2 years. Approved acreage increased, but at a slower pace, as the state Department of Natural Resources reviewed plans and followed provisions of the law requiring minimization of wetland destruction when it cant be avoided. Still, under the new law, the DNR approved elimination of about 370 acres, permitting wetland fill at nearly twice the rate of the period from Jan. 1, 2007, until the law was enacted, according to data the agency compiled at the request of the State Journal. Agency spokeswoman Jennifer Sereno said the increase may not be as great as it appears because only a small number of acres were permitted for development before 2012. Sereno pointed out that wetland acreage requests have decreased somewhat after an initial spike, and that agency regulators are dedicated to enforcing protections in the law. When Gov. Scott Walker signed the law on Feb. 29, 2012, at a meeting of the Wisconsin Realtors Association in Madison, he was greeted by a standing ovation. But some Realtors remain unhappy because increased options to write a check for replacement wetlands apply only to commercial business expansions, not new construction, and because there has been a shortage of replacement land. We havent heard a lot of positive comments, Realtors association lobbyist Tom Larson said. I think now that the economy has started to pick up again, you are going to see more concerns raised. Meanwhile, scientists say theyre worried that even after more replacement wetlands become available, they may not adequately filter pollutants out of water before it reaches lakes, streams and the aquifer, and they wont maintain wild plant and animal species that depend on marshy land. More wetlands are being created than are being destroyed (nationally), which is good news until you look at the fine print, which was most of the ones being created are shallow ponds, said Quentin Carpenter, a senior lecturer at UW-Madisons Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. Sedge meadows take millennia to create. Theres no way to hurry that process. Two key rule changes Act 118 loosened regulations in two main ways. First, it created a new type of permit that limits the time the DNR can take to review a project. The new general permit is available for projects affecting wetlands of less than 10,000 square feet and those judged by DNR scientists to have relatively little value. A completed general permit application is automatically approved in 30 days if the DNR hasnt taken final action, said Cami Peterson, agency waterway and wetland policy coordinator. Peterson said holders of those permits still need to meet all water quality standards. General permit requests made up about two-thirds of acreage requested for development under the law and half the acreage approved. For larger wetlands, the new law relaxed a previous requirement for avoiding sensitive sites. Under the previous statute, a construction project could be required to seek a different location, even if other available sites were some distance away. Under Act 118, a developer must look no farther than adjacent land parcels for an alternate site if the project offers a public economic benefit or is an expansion of an existing commercial facility or industrial park. And if no adjacent site is suitable, the wetland can be destroyed as long as it is replaced, Peterson said. Replacement of these larger filled wetlands is mandatory under the new law. The preferred method calls for landowners to buy credits from one of several wetland banks around the state where investors had purchased land and restored degraded wetlands or protected wetlands facing a demonstrable threat, said Pam Schense, DNR wetlands mitigation coordinator. Most of the banks are established on the states plentiful stock of former wetlands that were drained decades ago for farming. Managers block ditches and break up the underground tile conduits that have kept the land dry. Then they kill off invasive plant species and sow native flora, Schense said. While wetland bank acreage expanded after the law changed, credits were quickly gobbled up. They have been difficult to find for some time in certain watersheds, and the last of them all but disappeared during the last 12 months, Schense said. Some banks may make more credits available next year if they can show that their restoration efforts have created more functioning wetlands, Schense said. Dozens of others banks are being proposed, but many are small under 25 acres and its not clear they will be approved. A 200-acre bank has been proposed near Tomah, but approval will take months, Schense said. When a new bank is approved, typically 10 or 20 percent of its potential credits are immediately available for sale. The state monitors them for five to 10 years. In lieu payments The best alternative to wetland credits under the law are in-lieu payments, she said. Wisconsins in-lieu program was approved by state and federal officials on Nov. 19, 2014, said coordinator Matt Matrise. Since then, about three dozen developers have paid $5.4 million into the fund. In the next few months the DNR plans to issue a request for proposals aimed at offsetting the water quality and wildlife habitat losses that accompany wetland destruction, Matrise said. The largest payment was made by BNSF Railway for its controversial second track through the La Crosse River marsh, he said. The law requires 1.2 acres of replacement wetland for each acre filled. The in-lieu program typically increases the ratio to 1.45 to account for the loss of wetland benefits to the state before the money is spent, Matrise said. The wetland banking program can increase the ratio to 1.7 acres depending on geography and the types of wetlands involved, Schense said. A third alternative for replacing wetlands is for the developer to undertake restoration, but its not the preferred option because it is more difficult to administer a multitude of dispersed sites, Schense said. Workers threaten to shut down Lake Asphalt And we accepted that 10-2-2 with open arms, how come now, there is a document sent up to the ministry and CPO that the company wants to give us 3, 3, 8, he asked, adding, we feel very, very badly and betrayed. Phillip said workers would engage in immediate industrial action should a meeting between union officers and members of Lake Asphalts board fail to arrive at an amicable solution to the impasse today, Friday. NY geo-technical engineer to return The exact time of Arlands appearance was announced by one of the HDCs lawyers, Larry Lalla, shortly before the end of yesterdays (Thursday) sitting at the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), Henry Street, Port-of-Spain. He (Arland) will appear on Wednesday at 10 am Trinidad and Tobago time, 9 am EST, (via) video link, Lalla told the Commission. Arland is returning to the stand to respond to certain aspects of recent testimony by Martin Andrews, Managing Director of Geotech Associates Limited (GA). During the second half of the previous days sitting (Wednesday, February 17), GAs attorney Justin Phelps had argued unsuccessfully that it was unfair to his client to allow Arland to return. In overruling the attorneys submission that day, Commission Chairman, retired Justice of Appeal Mustapha Ibrahim, said the Commission was of the view that evidence Arland proposes to give would be very helpful to the Commission in coming to a conclusion on the matters, which are being set out for us by His Excellency the President (Anthony Carmona). We are not prepared to shut out any evidence that may assist us in that regard. The Commission next sits on Wednesday, 24 February, with Arland listed as the first of two remaining persons to appear before the commissioners. Former chairman of the Urban Development Corporation of TT (Udecott), Calder Hart, is the other witness. Unlike Arland, this will be Harts first time before the Commission, but he too is set to testify via video link. Meanwhile, retired Commissioner of Valuations, Kenneth Subran, who asked to testify based on his close observations of previous testimony at the Commission, had his entire statement read into the record at yesterdays sitting. Although he is not a geo-technical expert, the Commission allowed Subran to testify. CMO weighs in on Zika Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh yesterday announced that a 61-year-old woman from St George West county had tested positive for the virus. Tilluckdharry said based on the incubation period for Zika, which was three to 12 days, they were under the impression that the woman had contracted the virus in Trinidad. The woman had returned to Trinidad from New Zealand on January 25, and presented with symptoms on February 10, 14 days exceeding the incubation period. He said she showed up at her doctors with fever, joint pain and a rash, which were also symptoms that could occur with dengue or ChikV. She went to her doctor who sent a blood sample to CARPHA (Caribbean Public Health Agency). She was tested for all three, and it turned out she was positive for Zika, the CMO said. Asked if the woman could have contracted the virus while in transit, Tilluckdharry said it depended on which countries she had passed through. We are trying to get the information in that regard. We have to go with the physical evidence, from the time the symptoms appeared to the time she was in the country, he said. The CMO, who did not divulge the area where the woman lived, said he expected that there may be other cases and advised the public to continue to implement precautionary measures. He said a team from Insect Vector Control was in the area from 7am yesterday as they began an intense spraying exercise. Tilluckdharry said the Health Ministry decided that there was no need to issue a public statement advising them to delay pregnancy. He noted, however, that expectant mothers should take steps to protect themselves from the mosquito-borne virus. If someone is diagnosed with Zika, they should monitor themselves. Zika is a mild virus and the only major medical concern is its link to microcephaly, Tilluckdharry said. Also commenting on a report of a mosquito infestation at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EW MSC), Mt Hope, Tilluckdharry said he was not surprised. The underground drain system is poorly graded and that can pose a problem. They need to do some maintenance on their own. Yes its under the Ministry of Health, but their (EW MSC) maintenance crew should look into that. A report will go to the Insect Vector Control Division. Hospitals are inspected frequently, as well as health centres, the CMO said. Attempts to contact Medical Chief of Staff at the EW MSC, Dr Andy Bhagwandass, and chairman Kumar Boodram went straight to voicem . . Malteser International Americas Supporting Global Effort to Strengthen Emergency Aid for Syrian Refugees Contact: Kevin Lampe, 312-617-7280 MIAMI, Feb. 18, 2016 / Malteser International Americas is pledging to secure critical relief for refugees seeking safety, shelter, food and water from the ongoing civil war and persistent religious persecution in the Middle East. Malteser International, the humanitarian relief agency of the Order of Malta, has already distributed 1,000 warm blankets to the surge of newly displaced people. "The global impact of the crisis in Syria is felt here in the United States. Disasters natural or manmade - do not have boundaries when people's lives are at stake, and support from faithful individual donors is more important than ever," said Ravi Tripptrap, Executive Director, Malteser International Americas. "We stand by our mission of supporting the world's most vulnerable, so that they may live a healthy life with dignity, in the Americas, and now in the Middle East." Humanitarian relief items desperately needed with recent fears that previously aid was lost in a political siege in a now occupied border crossing. Despite promises of increased humanitarian funding for the people being tormented by the Syrian Conflict made at a conference of donor nations earlier this month in London, there is little hope of an improvement of conditions for the Syrian people. For those who would like to contribute towards the Syrian relief efforts, Malteser International Americas is asking supporters to visit their website: Malteser International has been providing aid to people affected by the Syrian crisis since 2012. Malteser International provided medical treatment to almost 75,000 people in Syria during 2015 operating a field hospital, a children's hospital and two basic health units in the country. Malteser International also works with Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon and northern Iraq. Read more about the global efforts in Syria: bit.ly/1oKxumT . About Malteser International Americas: Malteser International Americas is a global humanitarian organization with a mission of supporting the vulnerable and marginalized so that they may live a healthy life with dignity. Through our U.S. headquarters, Malteser International Americas provides immediate disaster response and preparedness as well as vital healthcare and nutrition to vulnerable people in North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. We are part of Malteser International, the humanitarian relief agency of the Order of Malta. With more than 100 projects annually in some 25 countries worldwide, we provide emergency relief after disasters and support recovery efforts, bridging the gap between humanitarian aid and sustainable development. For nearly 60 years, we have been standing by those affected by poverty, disease, conflict and disaster. Share Tweet Contact: Kevin Lampe, 312-617-7280MIAMI, Feb. 18, 2016 / Christian Newswire / -- Today, Malteser International Americas scaled up its support for tens of thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing for their lives from Aleppo the largest city in Syria- towards the Turkish border.Malteser International Americas is pledging to secure critical relief for refugees seeking safety, shelter, food and water from the ongoing civil war and persistent religious persecution in the Middle East. Malteser International, the humanitarian relief agency of the Order of Malta, has already distributed 1,000 warm blankets to the surge of newly displaced people."The global impact of the crisis in Syria is felt here in the United States. Disasters natural or manmade - do not have boundaries when people's lives are at stake, and support from faithful individual donors is more important than ever," said Ravi Tripptrap, Executive Director, Malteser International Americas. "We stand by our mission of supporting the world's most vulnerable, so that they may live a healthy life with dignity, in the Americas, and now in the Middle East."Humanitarian relief items desperately needed with recent fears that previously aid was lost in a political siege in a now occupied border crossing. Despite promises of increased humanitarian funding for the people being tormented by the Syrian Conflict made at a conference of donor nations earlier this month in London, there is little hope of an improvement of conditions for the Syrian people.For those who would like to contribute towards the Syrian relief efforts, Malteser International Americas is asking supporters to visit their website: bit.ly/MI-Donate-US Malteser International has been providing aid to people affected by the Syrian crisis since 2012. Malteser International provided medical treatment to almost 75,000 people in Syria during 2015 operating a field hospital, a children's hospital and two basic health units in the country. Malteser International also works with Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon and northern Iraq. Read more about the global efforts in Syria:About Malteser International Americas:Malteser International Americas is a global humanitarian organization with a mission of supporting the vulnerable and marginalized so that they may live a healthy life with dignity. Through our U.S. headquarters, Malteser International Americas provides immediate disaster response and preparedness as well as vital healthcare and nutrition to vulnerable people in North America, Latin America and the Caribbean.We are part of Malteser International, the humanitarian relief agency of the Order of Malta. With more than 100 projects annually in some 25 countries worldwide, we provide emergency relief after disasters and support recovery efforts, bridging the gap between humanitarian aid and sustainable development. For nearly 60 years, we have been standing by those affected by poverty, disease, conflict and disaster. FFOS takes Govt to Privy Council In a statement, FFOS said polluters should bear the cost of cleaning up their pollution and it was unreasonable for small entities to pay the same fee as larger companies. The group has been granted leave to take their challenge to the London Privy Council where they will be asking the Judicial Committee to clarify the meaning and application of the polluter pay principle. The local court of appeal last July overturned a ruling of the High Court which in 2012, ordered the Environmental Management Authority (EMA) not to implement the Water Pollution (Fees) Amendment Regulations 2006, until the internationally recognised polluter pays principle is properly applied in calculating and fixing such fees. The EMA in challenging the High Courts decision in the Appeal Court claimed it was acting in the publics best interest. FFOS is seeking to overturn the Appeal Courts decision. The polluter pays principle is one of the fundamental environmental principles in Trinidad and Tobago. It simply means that a polluter must pay the cost of the pollution. FFOS is advocating that if polluters release pollution into the environment, they should bear the cost of cleaning up said pollution, the lobby group said in a statement. It also noted that under the present law, large industrial or petrochemical polluters requiring a water pollution permit from the EMA pay the same annual permit fee as a small pig or cattle farmer with 20 plus animals, regardless of the quantity or toxicity of pollution. The fee is a fixed $10,000 a year. The value was set at $10,000, as this is the EMAs cost of administering the water pollution permit. This means that it is the taxpayer who ultimately bears the burden of the pollution, FFOS said. The Water Pollution (Fees) Amendment Regulations 2006, required polluters to pay a fixed annual permit fee of $10,000, regardless of size. Justice Devindra Rampersad in his ruling in October 2012, found the Water Pollution (Fees) Amendment Regulations, 2006, to be illegal and beyond the legal authority of the Environmental Management Act and the National Environmental There Were Rules on Handling Asbestos. They Were Ignored (Newser) Police say an 81-year-old Pennsylvania woman chased down robbers who stole her purse, rammed their car with hers, and left damage that helped officers apprehend them, the AP reports. The woman was sitting in her car in her Mount Pocono driveway on Tuesday when she was approached by a man and woman. As she talked to them through an open window, one grabbed her purse and they fled in a car. Pocono Mountain Regional Police say the woman took off after them and hit their car, but the duo drove off. Officers found the suspects' damaged car in a grocery store parking lot. William Hayhurst, 34, and Erin Vanmatre, 30, were arrested and arraigned Wednesday on robbery and other charges. Police say the suspects targeted the woman after seeing her with cash at a pharmacy. (Read more robbery stories.) (Newser) Four children died in a house fire Thursday morning in Pensacola, Florida, despite the best efforts of firefighters and one brave neighbor, the Pensacola News Journal reports. The fire was reported around 5:30am local time. Neighbor Marlow Stripling rushed into the house to rescue the childrenwho ranged in age from 11 months to 11 years oldbut was only able to stay inside for a few minutes before the flames forced him out. "I heard them hollering, but I just didn't know where they were at," Stripling says. "I heard them twice, and after the third time I didn't heard them anymore." According to WEAR, firefighters arrived minutes later to find flames shooting from the home's windows. Despite the flames, firefighters entered the house and found the four children in a back room, WPMI reports. They were removed from the home but couldn't be revived. The home was completely destroyed within 20 minutes, and a family dog was also killed. The children's mother and her 14-year-old daughter escaped the fire unharmed. Investigators haven't determined the fire's cause yet. But the children's aunt blames the family's water heater, which had caught fire Wednesday night. "She called and told me it was on fire, but they put it out," she tells WEAR. "She told me last night she was scared to go to sleep." No smoke detectors were found in the house. (Read more house fire stories.) (Newser) Nineteen-year-old Nicholas Hawkins called his mother Saturday night and told her a man was trying to kill him, WVTM reports. The call was cut off, and Hawkins wasn't seen alive again, according to CorridorMessenger.com. On Tuesday night, his body was found at an illegal dumping site in the woods of Alabama, WBRC reports. According to WIAT, Hawkins had been shot, wrapped in a blanket, and left near an abandoned home. Im just numb right now," Hawkins' brother Jacob says. "My heart feels like its gone." After Hawkins' body was identified Wednesday, a candlelight vigil was held in his memory. "He was a really amazing kid and I hate that this happened to him, Ginger Doss, Hawkins' coworker at McDonald's, tells WIAT. Im devastated. While police don't know who killed Hawkins, they do have a person of interest in custody. Joshua Reese, 21, was arrested this week on unrelated charges. The final time they spoke, Hawkins told his mother it was Reese who was trying to kill him. Reese was charged with attempted murder in 2013 for allegedly hitting a man with a gun and trying to shoot him. He's been out on bond while awaiting trial. Doss tells AL.com she knows Reese, who she says has a history of domestic violence and drugs. "He's not a good person," she says. Police are continuing to investigate what happened to Hawkins. "I hope we get swift, severe justice," Jacob tells WBRC. "From what I was told, it was a horrible, horrible death." (Read more murder stories.) (Newser) At around 7:15pm on Dec. 8, 2014, prosecutors say two girls who were then 13 and 14 let themselves into the unlocked home of a woman in the UK, a woman known as an alcoholic who sometimes bought liquor and cigarettes for underage teens. At 7:30pm, the woman, Angela Wrightson, who was 39, returned home from the local shop in Hartlepool and was never seen alive again, reports the BBC. The circumstances surrounding her death are now the subject of an intense court trial expected to last five weeks in which the girls are accused of not just murder but torture. The girls were in the care of social services at the time and had troubled relationships with their mothers. Their relationship with each other was described as "intense." The first evidence of a problem was a Snapchat image one of the defendants posted around 9pm, in which Wrightson appears in the background not smiling and with visible, fresh marks on her face. The girls were caught on CCTV leaving the home around 11pm, were asked by a friend why they had blood on their clothes, and then returned from 2am to 4am. Upon leaving, they called police for a ride home, which resulted in another Snapchat image captioned, Me and [name] in the back of the bizzie van again." The following day Wrightson's landlord found her dead body, sitting upright on a couch, naked from the waist down, with more than 100 injuries, reports the Guardian. Weapons used included a wooden stick riddled with screws, a TV, a printer, a coffee table, a kettle, and glass ornaments. The attack allegedly continued after Wrightson lost consciousness, at which point "further indignities were heaped" on her motionless body on the sofa. The girls reportedly told friends they attacked Wrightson after she threatened them with a knife. (Read more murder stories.) (Newser) This is not the February that the Clinton campaign was expecting. After Hillary Clinton's overwhelming loss to Bernie Sanders in the New Hampshire primary and just before the Nevada Democratic caucus, she has fallen behind in a national poll for the first time. According to the latest Fox News poll, Sanders has gained 10 points and is now leading Clinton 47% to 44% among Democratic primary voters nationwide. The poll found that while either Democrat would defeat GOP front-runner Donald Trump in a general election, Sanders would cruise to victory with 53% to Trump's 38%, while Clinton would have a much narrower margin of victory at 47% to 42%. "One thing that is clear from our polland othersis that Clinton has been losing support and Sanders has been gaining," pollster Chris Anderson says. "And this process appears to have accelerated since the contests in Iowa and New Hampshire." In CNN's "Poll of Polls," Clinton is still ahead, with 48% to Sanders' 42%, which is down from the 17-point lead she enjoyed before the Iowa caucus. But in South Carolina, which holds its Democratic primary on Feb. 27, Clinton is still way ahead with 56% support to 32% for Sanders, which analysts say reflects the strength of her "firewall" of minority voters. (For the first time in months, Trump has also fallen behind in a national poll.) (Newser) File under really bad email blunders: A staff member at Wilmington, Delaware's Lombardy Elementary School blasted out an event email that included the wrong attachmenta blank "Hurt Feelings Report," the News Journal reports. Set up to resemble a bullying complaint form, the snarky document's "Principal Purpose" is to "assist whiners in documenting hurt feelings" and includes fields for the "type of whine used," the "name of person who hurt your pansy ass feelings," and "which feelings were hurt." It goes on to ask whether the person filing the complaint needed a "tissue for tears" and whether there was "permanent feeling damage." It also offers a list of reasons to choose from for filing the form, including "I am a wimp," "I am a crybaby," and "I want my mommy." The school wouldn't name the staff member at fault but specified the form was an "external" one; the News Journal notes it has shown up on online humor sites before. "This was an embarrassing mistake, but it was just thata mistake," a district spokeswoman tells the paper. "It should not have happened, and we apologize for the error." She adds the correct email and a recorded phone apology from the school's principal were sent to all parents, per NBC New York. But while some parents were obviously peeved by the form, others picking up their kids at the school Wednesday weren't quite as miffed. "If the children didn't see it, what is the problem?" one man said. "It was a dumb prank, but I don't think it was malicious." (A mom put up an angry Facebook post about her son's bullying.) (Newser) When Pope Francis suggested Donald Trump's plan to build a wall between the US and Mexico was "not Christian," Trump's senior adviser shot back. "Amazing comments from the popeconsidering Vatican City is 100% surrounded by massive walls," Dan Scavino tweeted Thursday. Rush Limbaugh said much the same thing, as did Trump himself later that night. But that's not exactly true, as several media outlets and Twitter users point out. Yes, there are some big walls, but "it isn't all surrounded by walls, and it's not like you need a separate visa or a passport to enter," Gerard Mannion, a Catholic studies professor at Georgetown, tells the New York Times. "You wouldn't know, almost, when you even entered Vatican City," he continues. "There is a white line painted on the ground in St. Peter's Square, but that kind of thing is not obvious everywhere." There are walls keeping visitors away from Pope Francis' guesthouse, but a second Catholic studies professor at the school points out that's standard for government buildings, noting, "You can't just walk into the White House." Some Vatican walls were built in the ninth century to ward off barbariansother medieval cities had them, too. And Mannion says segments that came in the 15th and 16th centuries were less about defense and more about conveying the pope's "cultural and political power," as the Times puts it. "This pope didn't build themand he certainly didn't build them to keep out poor migrants," a priest says, per CNN. (Read more Vatican stories.) (Newser) American warplanes struck multiple targets in Libya overnight, hitting what was apparently an Islamic State training camp, the AP reports. The big strike took place on a camp near the city of Sabratha, where the mayor says about 40 were killed, reports Reuters. One US official tells the New York Times that the target was a senior militant identified as Noureddine Chouchane, who's believed to be behind two major attacks in Tunisia last year, one at a beach and the other at a museum. The camp is near the Tunsian border, and it's not yet clear whether Chouchane was killed in the strikes. President Obama last week directed his national security team to bolster counterterrorism efforts in Libya, and the US military has been closely monitoring ISIS movements in the country. While the group has emerged in other places, including Afghanistan, Libya is seen as its key focus outside of Syria and Iraq. Small teams of American military personnel have moved in and out of the country over a period of months, and British, French, and Italian special forces have helped with aerial surveillance. (Read more Islamic State stories.) (Newser) Two weeks ago, Ethan Couch was moved from a juvenile facility to an adult jail. Now the "affluenza" teen will move into the grown-up leagues in yet another way: A Texas judge decided Friday to transfer Couch's case from juvenile to adult court when he turns 19 on April 11, reports the Dallas Morning News. The transfer will take hold at midnight on his birthday, and a new judge assigned to him will rejigger the terms of his probation. Couch could be ordered to serve 120 days in jail and then complete his 10 year-probation, reports AP. If he violates the new conditions, he could receive up to 10 years in jail for each crash victim; four people died in the drunk-driving crash he caused in 2013. Couch, who was sentenced to probation in 2014, would have simply run out his time in the juvenile system when he turned 19 if the judge hadn't moved the case, CBS Dallas notes. Couch will now serve out the time until his birthday in Tarrant County Jail, where he's currently being kept in isolation. This time the probation conditions will likely be more rigid, based on his jaunt to Mexico with his mom, and may include a GPS ankle bracelet and at-home alcohol testing. Not that everyone thinks Couch will adhere to the new conditions: A prosecutor last month said the "goal is to put him into the adult system and wait for him to do what I believe he will do, at which time we will seek to revoke him," per CBS. A Texas lawyer experienced in vehicular manslaughter cases adds, "If he messes up even one of these conditions, I doubt the judge will have much sympathy for him." (Read more Ethan Couch stories.) (Newser) When an 18-year-old Pennsylvania woman went missing in East Stroudsburg on Tuesday, her mother used technology to help police rescue the teen. The unnamed woman texted her mother for help and told her she'd been abducted by her ex-boyfriend, NBC News reports. "The mother was able to track the victim's cellphone by utilizing the iCloud [and] Find My iPhone app," per the Pennsylvania State Police statement. Police found the woman 154 miles away in a car in a McDonald's parking lot with her hands, feet, and mouth duct-taped. Joseph Boller, also 18, was arrested and charged with kidnapping, unlawful restraint, and false imprisonment, the Centre Daily Times reports. Boller and the alleged victim reportedly met to discuss visitation arrangements for a child they have together, but when the woman said she didn't want to see Boller anymore, he got upset and allegedly refused to let her leave the room. He then allegedly bound her wrists and took her and their child to a friend's house and left the child there; while there, she freed her hands and tried to drive off, but Boller allegedly recaptured her, bound her wrists, ankles, and mouth, and put her in the trunk. She was once again able to free her hands to get her phone and text her mom. Police found her that same night. (Read more kidnapping stories.) (Newser) More Americans than ever before believe they have the right stuff to become astronauts, ABC News reports. According to NASA, it received more than 18,300 applications for the astronaut class of 2017 over the past two months. That's almost three times more than for the last class in 2012 and far more than the record 8,000 applications it received in 1978. Its not at all surprising to me that so many Americans from diverse backgrounds want to personally contribute to blazing the trail on our journey to Mars, NASA administrator Charlie Bolden says. In addition to excitement about Mars, Ars Technica credits NASA's use of social media and the portrayal of astronauts in The Martian for the record number of applications. NASA will take the next 18 months to narrow down the applications to between eight and 14 astronaut candidates, who will go through two years of training in everything from team dynamics to the Russian language. We have our work cut out for us with this many applications, a NASA director of flight operations says. But its heartening to know so many people recognize what a great opportunity this is to be part of NASAs exciting mission." While interest in being an astronaut is up, actual opportunities for going into space are down by about 90%. The space shuttle retired in 2011, and Ars Technica believes it's unlikely the mission to Mars well get underway by the early 2030s. Until then, space exploration opportunities will largely be limited to trips to and from the International Space Station. (Read more astronauts stories.) (Newser) The last inmate of a group known as the "Angola Three" pleaded no contest Friday to manslaughter in the 1972 death of a prison guard and was released after more than four decades in prison, the AP reports. Albert Woodfox and two other men became known as the "Angola Three" for their decades-long stays in isolation at the Louisiana Penitentiary at Angola and other prisons. Officials said they were kept in solitary because their Black Panther Party activism would otherwise rile up inmates at the maximum-security prison farm in Angola. Woodfox consistently maintained his innocence in the killing of guard Brent Miller. He was being held at the West Feliciana Parish Detention Center in St. Francisville, about 30 miles north of Baton Rouge. He was awaiting a third trial in Miller's death after earlier convictions were thrown out by federal courts for reasons including racial bias in selecting a grand jury foreman. "Although I was looking forward to proving my innocence at a new trial, concerns about my health and my age have caused me to resolve this case now and obtain my release with this no contest plea to lesser charges. I hope the events of today will bring closure to many," he said in a press release earlier Friday. Woodfox, who turned 69 on the same day he was released from custody, spoke to reporters and supporters briefly outside the jail before driving off with his brother. Speaking of his future plans, he said he wanted to visit his mother's gravesite. She died while he was in prison, and Woodfox said he was not allowed to go to the funeral. (Read more Louisiana stories.) Barack Obama could become the first president in 88 years to step foot in Cuba. The President announced his plan to visit the island next month via Twitter. Next month, I'll travel to Cuba to advance our progress and efforts that can improve the lives of the Cuban people. President Obama (@POTUS) February 18, 2016 Obama also made it clear that a visit does not mean that America's values are changing by tweeting, "We still have differences with the Cuban government that I will raise directly. America will always stand for human rights around the world." Deputy National Security adviser Ben Rhodes posted on Medium that Obama and first lady, Michelle Obama, will be traveling to Havana from March 21 to March 22. ABC News was the first to report on the story. A senior official with the administration stated to NBC News that more details about the visit would be unveiled on Thursday. The announcement of a visit, which would be one stop on Obama's tour of Latin America, comes more than one year after Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro stated that they would try to normalize relations, which were broken after the Cold War. Republican presidential candidate, Marco Rubio, the senator of Florida, denounced the visit at the CNN's GOP town hall, stating that the president should only visit Cuba when it is a free nation. Rubio added that the government in Cuba is "an anti-American communist dictatorship." Fellow presidential candidate, Ted Cruz, whose father is from Cuba, also criticized Obama's decision to visit the island. "I think it's a real mistake. I think the President ought to be pushing for a free Cuba," Cruz said. "My family has seen firsthand the evil and the oppression in Cuba. We need a president who stands up to our enemies." Since the American embassy was reopened, several U.S. officials, such as the Secretary of State John Kerry, have visited the island. Travel restrictions to Cuba have also been eased. The last president to visit Cuba was Calvin Coolidge in 1928. For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Here are the instructions how to enable JavaScript in your web browser First it was the spiders and now it's the grass. An Australian town is being invaded by long hairy strands of dry tumbleweed, courtesy an untended field forcing residents struggle to clean their homes for hours. According to UPI, Panicum effusum, colloquially referred as 'hairy panic', is inundating Wangaratta, a town located in Victoria. The outbreak is an annual event but this summer seems to be worse than previous years. For the residents and their pets, the weed poses no threat but is a nuisance. Residents have complained about their homes being flooded with waist-high grass, being blown from an unkempt farm into the town. The grass also reduces visibility, forcing residents to work hours just to clear it. "I spent eight hours yesterday cleaning up the tumbleweed," a Wangaratta resident Cherly Lengrand was quoted saying by The Washington Post. Though dry and not a threat to farm animals, there is a slight risk of sheep developing a condition known as 'yellow big head'. The condition is a result of increased photosensitivity, caused when sheep binge on the grass. The local authorities have informed residents that there is no fire threat from the weed. However, sweepers have been called to help residents with the cleaning. Last year, parts of Australia witnessed the annual migration of juvenile spiders, resulting in towns getting covered in sticky web. A woman with a notorious reputation of attempting to board planes without tickets was caught in the act again on Wednesday. According to ABC News, 64-year-old Marilyn Hartman was arrested at a bus shuttle center at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Hartman was ordered to stay away from the facility in the past after numerous attempts. Her ankle bracelet gave her away and alerted authorities. In the past, she succeeded at least thrice in traveling ticketless, though according to her admission, the number could be higher. Hartman was arrested twice in 2015 within two consecutive days when she tried to board planes at O'Hare and Midway International Airports, Sun Times reports. The arrests came on the heels of a two-month jail term for similar offences. Earlier this month, her confinement was relaxed and she was transferred to a less secure facility where outdoor visits were permitted, NBC reports. If a judge's warning during her transfer were to apply this time, the serial stowaway could face up to a year in prison for violating terms of her transfer. She had spent around 145 days in prison last year and up on her release had reportedly said she would give up being a stowaway. A Hollywood hospital paid hackers $ 17,000 in ransom to secure the release of hacked data. Christian Science Monitor reports Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center fell prey to ransomware, a type of malware that holds data hostage in exchange for a ransom. In this case, the attack was noticed on February 5 and hackers reportedly demanded payment of 40 bitcoins, equivalent to $ 17,000. "The malware locks systems by encrypting files and demanding ransom to obtain the decryption key," the hospital said in a statement. "The quickest and most efficient ay to restore our systems and administrative functions was to pay the ransom and obtain the decryption key. In the best interest of restoring normal operations, we did this." According to CSO Online, the hospital's network went offline, forcing staff to record patient data on paper and use telephones or fax for communication. Some patients were also shifted to other hospitals. A few essential diagnostic services were also unavailable for about a week due to the hack. Security experts recommend not paying a ransom though law enforcement agencies may sometimes suggest payment if services offered by affected computers are critical, reports CBS. It was not immediately known if law enforcers like FBI had suggested Holliday Presbyterian Medical Center to pay the hackers. Efforts are reportedly on to determine the identity of the hackers. Ankara was rocked by an explosion on Wednesday evening that blasted military vehicles at a city intersection in what the government purportedly labeled as a Kurdish-led terror attack in the Turkish capital. The bombing incident left 28 people dead and 61 more injured. Military authorities suspected a bomb-filled vehicle caused the explosion after stopping at a traffic light in an intersection along with three military vehicles. As of press time, no group laid claim to the recent attack. "Our determination to respond in kind against such attacks against our unity and future from outside and inside is even more strengthened through such attacks. Turkey will not hesitate to use its right to self-defense anytime, anywhere, and in all situations, "remarked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a statement condemning the attack as quoted by CNN. A day after the Ankara attack, six soldiers were reportedly killed and another was injured in a roadside explosion that crippled an armored military vehicle in the Turkish province of Diyarbakir. Both the Turkish government and opposition unanimously pin the blame on militant Kurdish separatist rebel group, the PKK, which has been labeled as a terrorist organization by both EU and the United States. Syrian Kurdish leaders, however, strongly rejected the allegation. Not even the notorious ISIS claimed responsibility. As a response, the Turkish military ordered a retaliatory bombing of Kurdish rebel positions in Syria just across northern Iraq according to a report by USA Today. In a nutshell, Kurdish-led separatist group PKK has been waging a decades-long war with Ankara to fulfill their objective of attaining independence or autonomy, at least, according to a report by BBC. Argentine-born Pope Francis concluded his visit to largely Catholic Mexico by stopping at Ciudad Juarez- a city populated by 1.5 million residents close to the US-Mexican border. According to a report by USA Today, his trip to the Mexico's border city underscores Juarez's ongoing struggle with narco-fueled gang wars and other violent crimes perpetrated by lawless elements. The border visit also highlighted his moral crusade against the glaring inequalities as well as the thorny issue of migration that polarizes Mexico's northern neighbor especially during this election season. "The human tragedy that is forced migration is a global phenomenon today. This crisis, which can be measured in numbers and statistics, we want to instead measure with names, stories, families," the High Pontiff remarked as quoted by Crux Now. Towards the end of his six-day visit to Mexico, the Pope was also critical at Republican frontrunner Donald Trump for the latter's harsh campaign agenda against immigration. "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian," said the Pope in reference to Trump as he boarded the papal airliner on his way back to Rome in a report by the New York Times. Also, the Pope also made a statement on the current Zika virus that has affected much of Latin America. Departing from Church's usual conservative stance on contraception, Pope Francis indicated a conditional permission for women to use contraception to avoid pregnancy as the Zika outbreak rages on according to a report by The Guardian. Overall, the Pope's visit was largely successful except for a minor incident which exposed the High Pontiff's human frailty- a slight departure from his usual progressive and often "people person" demeanor. In his visit to the city of Morelia, Pope Francis apparently lost his cool after being dragged down by an overly excited man. "We are asking you to be careful. Please contain yourself. Pope Francis wants to greet us, but if we pile up, it will be difficult to do so," an announcer for the Pope said as quoted by CNN. Kanye West's fashion line Yezeey is now in its Season 3 Collection despite his shocking Twitter announcement of being $53 million in debt because of it. Amidst the highs and lows of the enterprise, momager Kris Jenner admitted she never gave a straight-out opinion about the rapper's fashion sense. In an interview with Fashion Police co-host Melissa Rivers, the Kardashian matriarch said that she supported his son-in-law all the way and would never dare tell if she likes his designs or not, US Magazine said. "I don't think any of us would dare say we didn't like it. So, that's No. 1. He made sure the fit was right and it's perfect. I actually went in and did mine and got back in the car. I was halfway back to my hotel and I got a call saying, 'He doesn't think it looks right. Why don't you come on back because he's ready now,'" she said jokingly. Kris, who has been successful in her advices to other Kardashian matriarchs in their trades, also admit that she had to dish the matriarchal style once in a while for Kanye's sake. "I let that one go," she shared. Kanye recently released a controversial Tweet this week declaring his financial struggles. "I write this to you my brothers while still 53 million dollars in personal debt... Please pray we overcome... This is my true heart.." Whether it is true or not, fans reacted variedly. One fan, for example, set up a Go Fund Me site for the rapper. Another fan from the Philadelphia Police offered a job for the rapper. "We R hiring,@kanyewest! Starting salary of $47,920; u could be debt-free by the year 3122!" the Twitter user said as reported by Fox8. Meanwhile, Kim Kardashian, who was last seen leaving from the Epione Cosmetic Laser Center on Thursday evening in Beverly Hills, is still giving her all-out support to his husband despite his erratic tweets, according to Just Jared. It sounds like [she's still supporting Kanye] from everything I've heard. They're incredibly supportive of one another, not only publicly, but privately as well. Kim has a unique understanding of him, probably in a deeper way than anybody else in the world. She's understanding of the way that he operates," a source said. Austria continued to anger members of the European Union when it announced that the country has future plans to introduce an even stricter policy regarding immigration plans. Austria recently said on the eve of the EU Summit that it would be enforcing a daily cap on the number of claims from people seeking refuge. The country will now only take in the daily maximums of 3,200 migrants and 80 asylum claims. Upon hearing Austria's migration cap, the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker and the EU's migration chief expressed their disapproval. "Austria has a legal obligation to accept any asylum application that is made on its territory or at its border," EU's top migration official, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said reported by FOX News. The EU's response, however, did not discourage Austria. "I am very happy with our decision and we will stick to it," Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said reported by Reuters. Mikl-Leitner added that since Austria has already gotten about 11,000 asylum claims in 2016 so far, the country would consider reducing "upper limits further." The limit for the entire year was cut by more than half to 37,500. The Australian chancellor Werner Feymann was not affected by the EU's response either. "Last year, we had around 6,000 more asylum applications than Italy. We have had a lot more than asylum seekers than France. And anyone who has ever looked at a map knows that, for example, those two countries are larger than Austria and also have more inhabitants," he said. The daily cap on asylum claims will affect people who are trying to enter the country at its southern border. Germany, who has a very open policy when it comes to accepting migrants, added that Austria's new immigration measures might be violating European Law. Mikl-Leitner responded by pointing out that Germany has also used daily quotas. "I do not understand Germany's astonishment, since Germany invented these daily quotas," MIkl-Leitner pointed out. Meanwhile, the leaders announced that they would be holding a summit in March with Turkey, Syria's neighboring country that has taking in at least 2.5 million Syrian refugees since the civil war started. Fairbanks, AK (99707) Today Snow this morning will give way to lingering snow showers this afternoon. Temps nearly steady in the low to mid 30s. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 80%. Snow accumulating 1 to 3 inches.. Tonight A few snow showers scattered about the area this evening, otherwise a good deal of clouds. Low 26F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 30%. New Delhi: India conveyed to Vietnam its support for peace and security in the South China Sea where China has deployed surface-to-air missiles, escalating tensions. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj held talks with Vietnams Deputy Foreign Minister Le Hoai Trung during which the dispute over South China Sea figured among other issues. The External Affairs Minister conveyed Indias consistent support to peace and security in South China Sea, official sources said. She also conveyed to him that the duspute must be settled on the basis of recognised international law. China and Vietnam are locked in dispute over the South China Sea, a huge source of hydrocarbons. China has been objecting to Indias oil exploration projects in the disputed waters. Swaraj and Trung also discussed cooperation between the two countries in various key sectors including in oil and natural gas. India has been supporting freedom of navigation and access to resources in the South China Sea in accordance with principles of international law, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The Vietnamese Deputy Foreign Minister told Swaraj that his country attaches great importance to ties with India and looks forward to a visit to Vietnam by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has declined to receive an honorary doctorate from Banaras Hindu University, citing his policy of not accepting such degrees, official sources said here. Modi will be visiting BHU on February 22 to attend its convocation during which the University had proposed to confer him with honorary Doctorate of Law. BHU, in a statement, had said it proposed to confer Doctor of Laws (LLD) (honoris causa) on Modi in recognition of his yeoman services as an innovator, reformer and an outstanding leader in public service and governance. It had requested for his consent but the Prime Minister has said he will not accept the doctorate, the sources said. This is not the first time that Modi has declined such a doctorate. In the run up to his US visit in 2014, a university in Louisiana had proposed to confer an honorary doctorate on the Prime Minister in recognition of his contribution towards social transformation, especially for empowering women and minorities in Gujarat, to which he did not agree. Even as chief minister, he has declined several honorary doctorates from various universities. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Lucknow: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi today discussed options of an alliance in the coming Vidhan Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh with his party leaders. In a closed door meeting with legislators, Gandhi discussed the options of an alliance on the pattern of Bihar where the party put up a good show as part of grand alliance in the assembly polls winning 27 of 41 seats contested, a party MLA said on condition of anonymity. Half the legislators were of the opinion that the party should enter into an alliance while the other half were against it but none of them were in favour that the party should go with the Samajwadi Party, he said. Those in favour said the party could enter into alliance with either the BSP or RLD. The Congress vice president asked the legislators to go to their areas and work hard for strengthening the party base. The decision on alliance will be taken only after holding proper consultation with the peoples representatives and others, the Congress leader has assured. The Congress leader exuded confidence that the party will spring a surprise in the 2017 polls and form its government. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Amid roaring protests in Haryana, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has delayed decision over Jat reservation till March 31. We have constituted a committee and they will submit their report by March 31, depending on report a decision will be made, said Khattar. Requesting protesters to quit their agitation, he also appealed everyone to maintain peace and harmony in Haryana. Earlier today CM had called an all-party meet on to find a way out of the impasse. Violence broke out during Jat agitation for quota in Rohtak today leaving at least 15 persons injured even as Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar convened an all-party meet tomorrow to find a way out of the impasse. Police and the paramilitary troops staged a flag-march to get the town roads cleared from protesters who blocked these in support of their reservation demand. Traders and advocates clashed outside the court premises at Rohtak during the protest,in which several vehicles were also damaged. Advocates of the district court were protesting against non-inclusion of Jat community in the OBC category outside the court premises from where traders of the city were passing in a procession to submit a memorandum to the Deputy Commissioner, police said. Police and paramilitary forces resorted to lathi-charge and teargas shells to control the situation, during which unidentified persons torched some motorcycles and pelted stones. Prohibitory orders were clamped in Rohtak, banning assembly of five or more persons. (with PTI inputs) For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Kolkata: The West Bengal Congress hailed the decision of CPI(M) seeking cooperation from all democratic forces by stating that every secular parties in the state should respect the aspirations of the masses. It is not about what we decide or what CPI(M) decides. The people and the grassroots level workers of CPI(M) and Congress have decided to forge an alliance in order to oust TMC and alienate BJP. So it is our prime duty to respect the aspirations of the masses and workers, state Congress president Adhir Chowdhury told PTI. When asked when would the Congress high command take a call regarding the alliance, Chowdhury said We have placed our views and aspirations of the masses before the high command. Now it is for the high command to take a final call. The CPI(M) Central Committee, after its two day meeting in a statement said In West Bengal, the main task is to restore democracy and foil the aggressive efforts by the communal forces to polarise the people in the state by ousting the present Trinamool Congress government. CPI(M) will seek the cooperation of all democratic forces in the state to strengthen peoples unity in West Bengal to defeat the Trinamool Congress, isolate the BJP and their machinations, it said. Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi may meet next month in the US on the sidelines of a nuclear summit being hosted by President Barack Obama, a media report said today. Both Sharif and Modi have accepted Obamas invitation to attend the nuclear summit in Washington on March 31 and April 1, Dawn newspaper said. The chances are strong, very strong, said a senior official who did not want to be identified. But you know the history of India-Pakistan talks. You cannot be certain about an event until it has happened, the official added. It will be the first time that both Indian and Pakistani premiers will be attending the nuclear security summit, which President Obama initiated in 2010. The summit, which is aimed at preventing terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons, brings leaders from across the world to discuss various proposals for attaining this goal. The first summit was held in Washington on April 12-13, 2010. Since this is President Obamas final year in office, the administration is pushing hard for achieving some concrete results during the fourth summit. Meanwhile, in an editorial Dawn newspaper said, What Indian officials really ought to be directing their energies to is achieving an immediate resumption of the bilateral dialogue. Pakistan and India deserve better than the old approach of endless complaints and no forward movement. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Chandigarh: The Jat protests for reservation in Rohtak turned violent on Friday as a mob went on rampage and clashed with the police. The protesters pelted stones at the office of the inspector general of police in Rohtak and set a gate of the IGP office and a police jeep on fire. One person has been killed in police firing, reports said. Here are the 10 developments of the big story 1. Shoot-at-sight orders have been issued in Haryana's curfew-bound Rohtak and Bhiwani. Curfew was imposed in several parts of Haryana, including Rohtak and Bhiwani. Army has been deployed in eight districts of Haryana after one person was killed and 21 were injured in police firing as Jat stir for quota turned violent. 2. According to reports, Haryana Minister Capt Abhimanyu's house in Rohtak was attacked and vehicles were set on fire. Reports said more than 1000 protesters had entered Capt Abhimanyu's house. 3. Cops started firing from inside the IGP office to disperse the mob in the evening. One person was killed in the police firing. The mob has damaged 15 cars parked in Agro Mall, while three buses and police vehicle have also been damaged. 4. Students have alleged that cops brutally beat them up in college hostels on Thursday night. 5. Earlier on Friday, mobile and internet services were blocked in Rohtak district following the tension on sixth day of the Jat agitation. 6. Prohibitory orders have been put in place in Rohtak following tension. 7. An all-party meeting was held by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar in view of the agitation. 8. The protesters have blocked many routes, following which Haryana Roadways has suspended its bus services on the affected areas. 9. The protests have also affected the supply of items of daily need including milk, vegetables, fruits. 10. Holidays have been declared at the private schools in the area in wake of the agitation. All schools win Gurgaon will remain closed till Monday. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: A mob of over a thousand protesters today entered the residence of Haryanas Finance Minister Captain Abhimanyu. As per the recent inputs, the mob entered the house of the minister and set ablaze all the vehicles parked. Another report suggests that mob of angry Jat protestors have set the ministers house on fire. Jat protests for reservation in Rohtak turned violent on Friday as a mob went on rampage and clashed with the police. The protesters pelted stones at the office of the inspector general of police in Rohtak and set a gate of the IGP office and a police jeep on fire. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Beijing: China today accused the US of militarising the South China Sea, just days after it was revealed Beijing had deployed surface-to-air missiles on an island in the hotly disputed area. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters that patrols by US military aircraft and Navy vessels, along with joint exercises involving regional partners were the true reason why concerns were growing over peace and stability. The above actions have escalated tensions in the South China Sea, and thats the real militarisation of the South China Sea, Hong said. US and Taiwanese officials this week confirmed commercial satellite images showing the missiles placed on Woody Island in the disputed Paracel chain. China has not denied the appearance of the missiles, but says it is entitled to defend its territory and points to the construction of lighthouses, weather stations and other infrastructure undertaken to provide more public goods and services to the international community. The deployment follows Chinas building of new islands by piling sand atop reefs and then adding airstrips and military installations. The buildup is seen as part of Beijings efforts to claim virtually the entire disputed sea and its resources. The Philippines, which claims waters and features east of Woody island, on Friday said it was gravely concerned by reports of the missile deployments. Such actions negate Chinas earlier commitment not to militarise the South China Sea, the Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. Although not one of the six governments with claims in the South China Sea, the US says it has a national interest in the regions stability and freedom of navigation and overflight in and above what are some of the worlds busiest sea lanes. Secretary of State John Kerry has suggested that the positioning of missiles and other signs of increasing militarization contradicted a public assurance from Chinese President Xi Jinping when he visited the White House last September. Hongs comments represent Chinas attempt to turn that accusation back on Washington, a cause to which it has rallied its entirely state-controlled media outlets. Chinas defensive deployment on Yongxing targets external military threats, the Communist Party newspaper Global Times said in an editorial, using Chinas name for Woody Island. The US is bold about imposing pressure on China, and China must make an appropriate response. (AP) For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Rohtak (Haryana): Army was called in on Friday in nine districts of Haryana and curfew was imposed in two districts along with shoot-at-sight orders after one person died and 25 were injured during the Jat stir for quota which turned violent with mobs resorting to widespread arson. A school, belonging to a state Minister Capt Abhimanyu, and a shopping mall in the city were set on fire by the agitating Jat community members, who are protesting across the state seeking reservation in the government jobs under OBC category. Police said the protesters set on fire a school, R N Mall and shops adjacent to it in the city. The Centre also rushed 1,000 personnel of paramilitary forces as rampaging mobs held some policemen captive besides setting ablaze the house of states Finance Minister Abhimanyu and several government and private properties in Rohtak, Jhajjar, Hansi and several other parts of the state. The agitationists, who are seeking reservation under Economically Backward Classes, also targeted police and private vehicles, buildings housing offices, including two Toll Plazas at Hansi in Hissar district and near Rohtak, both located on the Delhi-Hisar-Fazilka National Highway. One protestor was killed in Rohtak when the BSF personnel opened fire in self-defence after someone from the rampaging mob fired at and injured a BSF jawan, Haryana DGP Yashpal Singhal told a press conference in Chandigarh. Since the situation was going out of control, army has been called in for deployment in eight worst-affected districtsRohtak, Jhajjar, Jind, Bhiwani, Hissar, Kaithal, Panipat and Sonipat, the state police chief said. Army is also being rushed to Karnal, army sources said in Delhi, while informing that nine columns are being sent altogether. Tonight, curfew was imposed in city limit areas of Rohtak and Bhiwani city limit areas, an official spokesman told PTI. The agitation, which has been going on for last few days, escalated and turned violent soon after an all-party meeting held by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar issued an appeal for calling it off. The protesters rejected the appeal even as Khattar gave an assurance that a solution will be worked out to extend reservation to the community. Army units were being rushed to Rohtak from nearby Cantonment at Hissar, about 50 kms away, the official spokesman said, adding these will be deployed immediately in Rohtak and Bhiwani areas. He said army units are also being rushed from Jaipur for deployment in other worst-affected areas of the state. The army will assist the civil administration in restoring peace and law and order which worsened today shortly after an all party meeting here where an appeal was made for maintaining peace. Two senior civil and police officers Principal Secretary (Home) A K Singh and ADGP of Haryana Police B S Sandhu - have been rushed to Rohtak to coordinate with the army and the civil administration to restore normalcy. The camp office of BJP MLA Manish Grover in Rohtak was also set on fire tonight. Authorities in Post Graduate Institute of Medical Science & Hospital, Rohtak, said 19 of the 25 injured people admitted there had bullet injuries. One person who was critical has been operated upon and his condition is now stable, they said. Besides stationing Principal Secretary (Home) A K Singh and ADGP B S Sandhu at Rohtak, government has rushed six other senior IPS officers to other districts. They are Paramjit Singh Ahlawat (Sonipat), B K Sinha (Jind), K K Rao (Jhajjar), P K Aggarwal (Bhiwani), O P Singh (Kaithal) and K K Sindhu (Panipat). The main impact of the Jats agitation is in various districts of the state including Rohtak, Jhajjar, Bhiwani, Hissar, Fatehabad, Karnal, Jind, Yamuna Nagar, Sirsa and Gurgaon where road transport has come to a halt. Today, for the first time, the rail and road traffic on the Delhi Ambala National Highway and mainline railway route was also blocked by protestors at various places including in Sonipat district. A number of local, short distance and long distance trains, including Kalka Chandigarh Delhi Shatabdi have been cancelled in view of the Jats agitation. The DGP said police personnel were taken captive by the large number of protestors at some places including Rohtak and the cops were unable to perform their duties. In Rohtak, the protesters set on fire the residence of Finance Minister Abhimanyu, police said, adding a car parked outside the house was also set on fire. In view of this incident, security in and around the residences of ministers and legislators has been beefed up, officials said. The protesters, who had gathered at the Rohtak bye-pass road of Delhi Hissar National Highway, also allegedly attacked police vehicles which were parked there in which window panes were damaged, officials said. The security personnel deployed there had to use force, including firing, to control the violent mob. The Circuit House and the office of Inspector General of Police (IGP), Rohtak. were also attacked by the protestors who pelted stones on the buildings. A car parked at the IGP office was also damaged, officials said. A police vehicle and some private vehicles, including a two wheeler, were also set on fire. The scooter of a person who was taking a sick to a local hospital was also set on fire by the protestors. Elsewhere in various places in the state, protestors deflated tyres of cars of a number of people trying to travel on various National and State Highways in the state. Haryana Roadways has suspended its local and inter-state bus services in the affected districts. Mobile internet services have also been suspended in various districts including Rohtak and Jhajjar. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Itanagar: Dissident Congress leader Kalikho Pul was tonight sworn in as Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh after more than two months of political crisis, shortly after the Supreme Court paved the way for government-formation and Presidents rule was lifted from the state. Pul, who had led a revolt against the leadership of former Chief Minister Nabam Tuki, was administered the oath office and secrecy by Governor K P Rajkhowa at a ceremony at the Raj Bhawan here. Pul, 48, heads a government that has the support of 19 dissident Congress MLAs, 11 of BJP from outside and two independents, who are likely to be part of the government, in the 60-member state Assembly. Tuki commands the support of 26 Congress legislators. After the oath-taking, Pul told the media that he would expand his ministry after consultations with the MLAs backing him but did not specify any date for the exercise. Speculations are rife about the possibility of dissolution of the Assembly by the new government to pave the way for fresh elections in the frontier state. Earlier in the day, with the Supreme Court paving the way for government- formation, Presidents rule in Arunachal Pradesh was lifted. President Pranab Mukherjee gave his approval to the Union Cabinets recommendation for revocation of Presidents rule, a Home Ministry official said in New Delhi. The Presidents nod came after a last-ditch effort of Nabam Tuki seeking an interim direction that his party be allowed to go for a floor test in the Assembly to prove majority was rejected by the Supreme Court today. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Moscow: Russian and American officials held talks today in Geneva to discuss a stalled ceasefire deal in Syria, Russias foreign ministry said. The sit-down between military officials and diplomats is meant to pave the way for a broader meeting of international players involved in the conflict as a hoped-for ceasefire in Syria failed to materialise. Russia and the United States are holding consultations at the expert level on issues that will be submitted for approval to the broader international group, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. No time has yet been set for such a broader meeting, she added. A UN spokesman in Geneva said that the international bodys Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura was flying back to the city from Damascus Friday and expected to attend a broader meeting on the ceasefire originally planned for the afternoon. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told Ria-Novosti news agency that intense consultations between the Russian and American sides started on Thursday. The group of international players on Syria announced on February 12 they hoped to have a ceasefire in Syria by Friday but there was no sign of the halt in hostilities. Russia is currently flying a bombing campaign in Syria to support forces loyal to its ally President Bashar al-Assad, while the US heads a separate coalition targeting the Islamic State group. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Ankara: A Kurdish militant group today claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb attack in the Turkish capital Ankara which killed 28 people. In a statement posted on its website, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons said it carried out the attack to avenge Turkish military operations against Kurdish rebels in southeast Turkey. The Turkey-based group is considered an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, and has carried out several violent attacks in the past. Turkey had blamed a U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish militia group for the attack, saying they had acted in collaboration with the PKK. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had identified the bomber as Syrian national Salih Neccar and said he was a member of the Syrian Kurdish militia group Peoples Protection Units, or YPG. Following the attack, Turkey stepped up pressure on the United States and other allies to cut off support to the militia group. Turkey views the YPG as a terror group because of its affiliation with the PKK. The YPG, however, has been most effective in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria. The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, also known as TAK, however, named the bomber as Abdulbaki Sonmez. This act was conducted to avenge the massacre of defenseless, injured civilians, the group said, in reference to a large-scale Turkish security operation against militants in the town of Cizre. Rights groups have raised serious concerns over the operation in the town, which has been placed under a curfew that prevents journalists and observers from entering. The group threatened further attacks in Turkey. Most recently, TAK had claimed responsibility for a mortar attack in December at Istanbuls second airport that killed a cleaner. It said the attack was in retaliation to the militarys stepped up operations against the PKK. Today, Turkish authorities said they had detained three more suspects in connection with the bombing in Ankara, raising the number of people in custody to 17, the state-run Anadolu Agency said. The latest suspects are believed to be linked to the PKK, it said. Turkeys military pushed ahead with its cross-border artillery shelling campaign against YPG positions in Syria, Anadolu reported. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said three of the detained suspects are believed to have played an active part in the attack. Erdogan said today that Turkish authorities dont have the slightest doubt that the YPG and its political arm, the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, were behind the bombing and said Turkey was saddened by its Western allies failure to brand them as terrorist groups. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Colorado to impose $15,000 fine on police officers who restrict citizens right to film them In response to a number of news reports about rising police aggression, Colorado is now mulling over imposing a $15,000 civil penalty if police officers seize or destroy the recording device of anyone trying to film them in action. Primarily, it came up as a result of the number of news reports weve been seeing about police officers telling people, Give me your camera, or taking the data away, and that is unacceptable conduct, said Rep. Joe Salazar, a Democrat from Thornton. Salazar said the proposed measure, HB 15-1290, has bipartisan support and is not intended to punish police officers. It takes a very special person to be a police officer, he said. We want to honor them, but at the same time, we have a few bad apples who need to be aware that their conduct now has major, major consequences. The shooting of 17-year-old Jessica Hernandez particularly caught Salazars attention. The officer had me apprehended, he wouldnt let me go As reported by ABC 7, Bobbie Ann Diaz, one of the witnesses to the fatal shooting, immediately went outside her house together with her daughter, Brianna, after hearing gunshots. Diaz said an officer stopped her after she left her yard, telling her he would arrest her if she didnt cooperate. Diaz stated, The officer had me apprehended, he wouldnt let me go. She then went on to yell at Brianna, who was still on the familys property, to record what was happening as police officers removed Hernandezs body from the car. At that time, (the officers) put Jessie down and they were on their knees yelling at Brianna that she better not record. She better not, Diaz said, as reported by ABC 7. She got scared. She got intimated [sic]. These are big officers and she didnt want to make things worse. The Denver Police Department refused to comment regarding the incident, because officials said it was still under investigation at the time. Citizens have constitutional right to record law enforcement While Wheat Ridge Police Chief Dan Brennan, a spokesman for the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police, agrees that citizens have the right to record law enforcement, he said the organization nonetheless opposed the $15,000 fine because there already is an existing process in place, and that its somehow not appropriate to legislate penalties. On the other hand, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, taking photos or shooting videos of things that are plainly visible in public is a constitutional right that should be protected, not impeded, by law enforcement. [T]hat includes the outside of federal buildings, as well as transportation facilities, and police and other government officials carrying out their duties, said the ACLU. Sources used: TheDenverChannel.com NaturalNews.com Submit a correction >> Obama to demand U.S. media stop any articles critical of Jihadi leaders, but trashing Jesus Christ, God and religion is perfectly okay The Obama Administration continues to pick geopolitical winners and losers based primarily on this lone factor: Nations, world leaders and religious and political factions that have historically been U.S. allies are to be marginalized or opposed outright. That is the only thing that explains why this president wants to reverse decades of U.S. policy isolating authoritarian nations like Cuba and Iran, the latter of which openly sponsors and supports terrorism and allegedly contributed weapons to fighters during the Iraq War that were used to kill American forces. It also helps explain why this president goes out of his way to avoid calling jihadists militant Islamists and why he would seek to force media outlets in the United States from doing the same thing while making no similar attempt at vilifying those who vilify Christians, Jews and members of other religious faiths. As reported by The Daily Caller, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said during a recent back-and-forth with members of the media that his boss, President Obama, has a moral obligation to push back against American journalists who plan to publish pieces critical of jihadis because such criticism could lead to terrorist attacks against U.S. military personnel and against American civilians. The president will not now be shy about expressing a view or taking the steps that are necessary to try to advocate for the safety and security of our men and women in uniform whenever reporters work may form the basis of new jihadist attacks, he told reporters at the White Houses daily briefing Jan. 12. Earnest was referencing the recent attack against the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine that has published cartoons lampooning the Muslim prophet Muhammad. But the majority of Americans, including U.S. journalists, say kowtowing to terrorists is both a dangerous precedent and a slap at the First Amendments guarantees of free speech, freedom of the press and free expression. Press should self-muzzle? As further reported by The Daily Caller: The unprecedented reversal of Americans civil-military relations, and of the presidents duty to protect the First Amendment, was pushed by Earnest as he tried to excuse the administrations opposition in 2012 to the publication of anti-jihadi cartoons by the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. The White House criticized the satire mag a few years ago after its offices were burned by jihadis, following the publication of cartoons lampooning jihadis. We are aware that a French magazine published cartoons featuring a figure resembling the prophet Muhammad, and obviously we have questions about the judgment of publishing something like this, then-White House spokesman Jay Carney said, in a prepared statement. We know these images will be deeply offensive to many and have the potential be be inflammatory. In the most recent attack, eight journalists, two police officers and a visitor were reportedly murdered by two French-born Islamic extremists who said they were affiliated with al Qaeda in Yemen before French police killed them a day later. In 2012, Earnest said, there was a genuine concern that the publication of some of those materials could put Americans abroad at risk, including American soldiers at risk. He added: That is something that the commander in chief takes very seriously, further noting that the president and his spokesman was not then and will not now be shy about expressing a view or taking the steps that are necessary to try to advocate for the safety and security of our men and women in uniform. Obama a defender of Islam but thats it The DC noted the irony of such a statement: In December, Congress approved and the president signed a $585 billion defense budget to train and equip soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen to defend Americans including journalists from foreign threats. The nations media industry does not have a defense budget to protect soldiers. Throughout his tenure, Obama has repeatedly come to the defense of Islam. The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam, he told a worldwide TV audience during a speech at the United Nations in September 2012. As a student of history, I also know civilizations debt to Islam, he said in a 2009 speech in Cairo. It was Islam at places like Al-Azhar [seminary] that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europes Renaissance and Enlightenment. Sources: //dailycaller.com //www.breitbart.com //www.newsmax.com //dailycaller.com Submit a correction >> West Virginia becomes the latest state to adopt work freedom (Freedom.news) It took the state legislature to override a gubernatorial veto, but last week the Mountain State became the 26th state overall to adopt a right-to-work law that ends coercive and advantageous control over labor by unions. State Delegate Gary Howell was one of a majority of lawmakers who were pushing the right to work law, which prevents employers from requiring union membership as a condition of employment, the Washington Free Beacon reported. The override of Gov. Earl Ray Tomblins veto is a big deal in West Virginia, long a stronghold for Democratic-leaning Big Labor. But the vote came as no surprise to many since all that is required is a simple majority to override; the state Legislature is controlled by Republicans. Howell, in an interview with the WFB, said the vote will give a boost to the states lagging economy and make it more attractive to employers. Its going to move West Virginia in a position to grow our economy again, Howell said in a phone interview. Itll have a positive effect on job creation, especially with manufacturers. We build things here and have a lot of natural resources, he continued. Were closer to the source of raw materials. Itll be easier to create those jobs here. It makes us more competitive. In vetoing the right-to-work legislation Tomblin, a Democrat, said it wasnt necessary, dismissing the assertion that such a law would attract new business to the state, which has been hard hit by recession and whose coal industry could suffer further if President Obamas radical new EPA climate regulations, which discourage the use of coal, are fully implemented. I have never had a company cite right to work as a barrier to relocating to West Virginia. We do not lack prospects, he said in a veto statement. Our issues are best addressed by improving our workforce and creating new development opportunities I do not believe West Virginia needs a right-to-work law, a law that would lead to little if any economy growth and may lower the wages of West Virginia workers. While some claim that right-to-work laws tend to lower a states average wages, others say that such laws create a much better business environment overall. CNBC reports, for instance, that right-to-work states dominate its top states for business list. Also, Howell told the WFB that Tomblins claims were misleading. One of the reasons he never heard that is because the companies knew we werent right to work, so they never even knocked on the door, Howell said, adding that right-to-work states had higher average wages than West Virginia. Republican State Sen. Craig Blair, meanwhile, said the override tells the country that West Virginia is open for business again. No one should be forced to pay tribute to a union boss in order to get or keep a job, the 58-year-old National Right to Work Committee says on its web site. While the data doesnt necessarily prove that right-to-work states are better suited to attract new firms, states that have passed such legislation tout themselves as right to work, versus states that have not passed those laws. The latter tend to look for other things to tout when trying to attract business, CNBC reported. But in any event, the thinking behind right-to-work is that though unions once upon a time were seen as necessary to protect American labor, today they are seen as gatekeepers that can prevent an otherwise qualified worker from landing a job. We want people to create businesses in West Virginia, Blair told WFB. It levels the playing field. Right to work is not a panacea that solves everything. Its another tool that we have for job creation and retention. We didnt have that before. See also: Washington Free Beacon CNBC Freedom.news is part of the USA Features Media network of sites. Submit a correction >> What would the US State Dept. think if Chinas military was staging training programs in civilian cities? (NaturalNews) Hundreds of U.S. special forces soldiers operating undetected among the civilian population is disconcerting enough for foreign media to report, but it doesnt seem like a big deal to most American media. Operation Jade Helm 15, a Department of Defense training exercise set to kick off in July, last until mid-September and involve more than 1,200 Navy SEALs, Green Berets, Marine Recon units and other special operatives in several southern and southwestern states, would, for all the world, look like an invasion to the U.S. State Department if it were happening among the civilian populations of Ukraine, Russia or China. But when they are American military forces, well, thats no big deal because after all, nothing like that could happen here. Britains Daily Mail newspaper has at least captured the essence of the concern among a growing segment of the American public, namely, why does this massive exercise have to take place among the civilian population of the United States? What are these troops training to do? What is the real purpose behind Jade Helm? The paper noted: Seven Southwestern states will soon be infiltrated by 1,200 military special ops personnel as part of a controversial domestic military training in which some of the elite soldiers will operate undetected among civilians. Operation Jade Helm begins in July and will last for eight weeks. Soldiers will operate in and around towns in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado where some of them will drop from planes while carrying weapons loaded with blanks in what military officials have dubbed Realistic Military Training. But with residents of the entire states of Texas and Utah dubbed hostile for the purposes of the exercises, Jade Helm has some concerned the drills are too realistic. Some have said the exercises are a precursor to martial law and, of course, the military has denied any such talk. In a recent interview with Stars and Stripes, officials with U.S. Army Special Operations Command, which is responsible for planning Jade Helm, pushed back against such speculation. That notion was proposed by a few individuals who are unfamiliar with how and why USASOC conducts training exercises, Army Lt. Col. Mark Lastoria, a USASOC spokesman, said in an email. This exercise is routine training to maintain a high level of readiness for Army Special Operations Forces because they must be ready to support potential missions anywhere in the world on a moments notice. He went onto say that the training was to take place in the Southwest because the terrain is similar to that which Special Ops forces will likely operate overseas. That said, if the military wants an arid, dry environment for Specials Ops training, the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., is ideally suitable terrain, as you can see in this Army Public Affairs video regarding the first flight of a new drone. In fact, hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops trained there before being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. But with the war over in Iraq and with U.S. soldiers at a bare minimum in Afghanistan, where will these Special Ops troops be operating from, that would require them to train in the American Southwest? Why the Southwest? Why now? So, is the Pentagon instead interested in finding out how its Specials Ops forces will operate among civilian populations that talk, walk, and dress like they do? If so, for what purpose? Again, if these kinds of exercises were being held by competitor nations, our suspicions would be quite high that those governments were likely preparing for some sort of action against their own populations. Given the tens of millions of dollars the Department of Defense has spent on the construction of realistic training centers in California and elsewhere around the United States, and understanding that we would be suspicious of other governments conducting similar exercises among their own populations, it is entirely reasonable to question both the purpose and ultimate utility of Jade Helm. Sources: //www.dailymail.co.uk //www.stripes.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b-Gh27iXws //www.nationaldefensemagazine.org Submit a correction >> Having a paid carer come to visit you in your home can make a huge difference to your life, especially if you have difficulty walking or getting around. It can help you stay living independently in your own home. This type of care is known as homecare or domiciliary care or sometimes home help. Help at home from a paid carer costs around 20 an hour, but it varies according to where you live. Sometimes, the council will contribute to the cost. Homecare is very flexible. You might need a paid carer for only an hour a week or for several hours a day. You might need a live-in carer. It can be temporary for example for a few weeks while you recover from an illness. Or it can be long term. You might also consider home adaptations or household gadgets or equipment to make life easier. When should I consider help at home from a paid carer? You might want to consider care at home if: you're finding it difficult to cope with daily routines, such as washing, dressing and getting out and about you do not want to move into a care home you can still get about your home and it's safe for you to live in or it can be adapted to make it safe How can homecare help me? A paid carer can visit you at home to help you with all kinds of things including: getting out of bed in the morning washing and dressing brushing your hair using the toilet preparing meals and drinks remembering to take your medicines doing your shopping collecting prescriptions or your pension getting out, for example to a lunch club getting settled in the evening and ready for bed Home help This is slightly different to homecare and means day-to-day domestic tasks that you may need a helping hand with such as: cleaning (including putting on clean bed sheets) doing the washing up doing the laundry gardening You might want some home help instead of or as well as homecare. Most councils do not provide home help. Contact a charity such as the Royal Voluntary Service, the British Red Cross or your local Age UK to see whether they can help (they may not be free). How to get help at home from a paid carer your local council can arrange homecare for you if you're eligible for it you can arrange your own homecare How your council can help If you want the council to help with homecare for you, start by asking them for a needs assessment. Your needs assessment will help the council to decide whether you're eligible for care. If you're eligible, the council may recommend help at home from a paid carer. They will arrange the homecare for you. If you're not eligible for care, the council must still give you free advice about where you can get help in your community. Even if you're intending to make arrangements yourself with an agency or private carer, it's still a good idea to have a needs assessment as it will help you to explain to the agency or carer what kind of help you need. Apply for a needs assessment Paying for homecare Depending on your circumstances, your local council may contribute to the cost of homecare or you may have to pay for it yourself. If your needs assessment recommends homecare, you may get help with the cost from the council. What you'll contribute depends on your income and savings. The council will work this out in a financial assessment. If the council is paying for some or all of your homecare, they must give you a care and support plan. This sets out what your needs are, how they will be met and your personal budget (the amount the council thinks your care should cost). You can choose to receive your personal budget as a direct payment each month. This gives you the control to employ someone you know to care for you at home rather than using a homecare agency, though you'll then have responsibilities as an employer. If you're not eligible for the council to contribute to your homecare costs, you'll have to pay for it yourself. Read more about when the council might pay for your care Benefits that can help you with homecare Check if you're eligible for benefits. Some, such as Attendance Allowance and Personal Independence Payments, are not means tested and they can help you meet the costs of homecare. Find out how to apply for: How to choose a paid carer If you're arranging your own homecare, there are 2 main ways to do this: use a homecare agency employ your own carer Homecare agencies Homecare agencies employ trained carers and arrange for them to visit you in your home. You may not always have the same carer visiting your home, though the agency will try to match you with someone suitable. How much do they cost? It costs around 20 an hour for a carer to come to your home, but this will vary depending on where you live. If you're paying for yourself, the agency should be able to give you a clear price list. They'll send you a monthly bill for your homecare. How to find a local agency There are 4 main ways to do this: Questions to ask the agency Here are some questions you may want to ask an agency before employing them: what charges, if any, will I be expected to pay what services are charged as extras? have your paid carers looked after someone with similar needs to mine? how will you choose the most suitable paid carer for me? will the paid carer agree to visit in a specific time slot? And will they tell me if they're delayed or running late? what sort of training do your paid carers get? if I'm paying for my own care, do you have a standard contract I can read before signing my own? if the council is contributing to my care can I see a copy of the contract they've signed with the agency? how can I contact your agency during the day, in an emergency or outside office hours? What to expect from agency carers Homecare agency carers should treat you in a respectful and dignified way. For example, they should always: knock and ring the front door bell and announce their arrival before coming into your home bring an identity card know where your keys are kept if they're not in your home keep any entry codes to your house confidential know what to do if they cannot get into your home know what to do if you've had an accident Employing your own carer Instead of using an agency, you can hire your own carer, sometimes called a private carer or personal assistant. If you employ a paid carer, you have the legal responsibility of an employer. This includes arranging cover for their illness and holidays. Which? Later Life Care has advice on employing a private carer. How to complain about homecare You have the right to complain if you're not happy about the help at home you're receiving. This might be because paid carers: arrive late and leave early do not give your medicines to you properly leave your home untidy after visits give you poor care like dressing you wrongly First complain to your local council or, if you're paying for yourself, the agency. The council or agency should have a formal complaints procedure on their website. Try to be specific about what happened and include staff names and dates if you can. If you're not happy with the way the council or agency handles your complaint, ask the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman to investigate further. An ombudsman is an independent person who's been appointed to look into complaints about organisations. You can also tell the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which checks social care services in England. Your local council must provide you with an independent advocate (someone to speak up for you) to help you make a complaint if you need one. Further help President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday insisted that no stone will be left unturned in his stride to rid the country of corruption. He... President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday insisted that no stone will be left unturned in his stride to rid the country of corruption.He made the remark during a reception for members of the diplomatic corps at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.Stressing that Nigerias democracy is growing and gaining ground, he said that there is no alternative to democracy.He said: We are resolved to build a stable and prosperous Nigeria, a country that is inclusive of all her diverse peoples and a country that is at ease with itself.Building such a country will not be possible where corruption is pervasive. Mindful of this, it has become necessary to wage a relentless war against the cancer of corruption. So long as corruption holds center stage in the affairs of Nigeria, the country will continue to suffer incalculable harm.You are witnesses to the preliminary findings that have emerged in the past few weeks from our investigations into corrupt practices in different sectors of Nigerias Public Service.I will leave no stone unturned in the efforts to rid Nigeria of corruption. I must however, add that in doing this, we shall operate within the ambit of the law.In a similar fight in the past, and armed with the might of military muscle, I led a government that required persons presumed to be corrupt to prove their innocence. Today, as committed democrats, and in a culture of deepening democracy, we respect the law that presumes all persons innocent until they are proven to be guilty. He saidThe President added: We are also convinced that there is no alternative to democratic governance, adherence to the rule of law, respect for human rights and adherence to constitutional order. Upholding these values remains the essential for peace, stability and development.He noted that the war against terror cannot be won by the military alone, but by soft approach that speaks directly to the human mind.While stressing that the Armed Forces have been given specific instructions on rules of engagement to treat captured terrorists humanely and to avoid civilian casualties, he said that his administration has witnessed resurgence in the morale and will of the Nigerian Armed Forces to dislodge Boko Haram from their bases in the North East.He said: The changes in both command structure and operational tactics have brought about significant gains on the ground.It is worthy to note that when I assumed office on May 29, 2015, Boko Haram had full control of fourteen (14) Local Governments Areas in the North East, but today, the group holds no territory in Nigeria.They are hiding in Sambisa forest and occasionally undertake cowardly attacks on innocent citizens in soft targets. He saidThe President said that people who were once internally displaced from their homes for years are gradually returning to rebuild their homes, communities and livelihood.As the security situation continues to improve, and as more people return to their homes, government will spare no effort to support them with robust programmes and projects to hasten the process of rehabilitation and resettlement. He addedNoting that the General T.Y Danjuma-led Committee has been saddled with the responsibility of coordinating the rehabilitation and resettlement efforts, he thanked friends and partners for their invaluable support towards Nigerias fight against Boko Haram.He said: We are quite aware that the war on terror will not, and cannot be won by military means alone. We need a soft approach that speaks directly to the human mind. Poverty and hunger do not only incapacitate, but they can lead to desperation.We are also aware that poverty and marginalization, amongst other factors, can easily create room for indoctrination and co-option into violent extremism.Accordingly, we are paying attention to those economic programmes that will lead to empowerment of the people and thus provide an alternative lifestyle of fruitful engagement rather than resort to extremist and terrorist activities. Job creation and provision of quality education are key areas that are already receiving our attention. He saidWhile saying that Nigeria has no choice and cannot afford to be an island in itself, he said that the Foreign Policy vision of his administration is anchored on meaningful engagement with Nigerias neighbors, the African continent and the world at large.We would continue to build strong partnerships, strengthen regional ties and promote global solidarity. Nigeria will remain a responsible and active member of the international community; promoting tolerance, accommodation, reconciliation and pacific settlement of disputes. We will also continue to shoulder responsibilities in peace keeping under the auspices of the United Nations. He saidNoting that it is a duty not to hand down to the next generation a world that is deeply divided and threatened by nature, he commended the global adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.Today we can celebrate these great achievements in the hope that full implementation and delivery on the promises of these frameworks, will lead to growth and development. He saidHe promised that Nigeria will accord priority to the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals and the commitments of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.He said: We are under no illusion that achieving these objectives will be easy. We are however, undaunted in our resolve to overcome. We will continue to do all we can to make life safe for our citizens and all residents of Nigeria.To those interested in doing business in Nigeria, he said: We are open for business. We invite those who are ready to come to invest in Nigeria. We will protect their persons as well as their investments.According to him, his administration will take the necessary steps to overcome new and old challenges in the country and enhance national unity, internal cohesion and give Nigeria the image that will be a pride to Nigerians, friends in Africa and beyond.Speaking on behalf of his colleagues, the Dean of Diplomatic Corps who is the Camerounian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Saladeen Abbas, said that the reception was a milestone in the history of diplomatic corp in the country.The massive turn out of my colleagues is a testimony that we love Nigeria, we love Baba Buhari. He saidHe congratulated the President for the steps being taken to tackle the challenges facing the country.Stressing that the Presidents actions are already yielding results, he said that the international community will continue to support Nigeria.Even with the falling oil prices at the international market, he was certain that there is light at the end of the tunnel for Nigeria with President Buhari at the saddle. Deputy Governor of Delta State, Barrister Kingsley Burutu Otuaro, yesterday, described as false media report that he was providing cover... Deputy Governor of Delta State, Barrister Kingsley Burutu Otuaro, yesterday, described as false media report that he was providing cover for former General Officer Commanding, GOC, Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo.His Senior Special Assistant, Communication and Press, Mr Bulou Kosin, in a statement, Friday, at Asaba, said, The attention of the Deputy Governor, Barr. Kingsley Burutu Otuaro, has been drawn to allegation that he is harbouring High Chief Government Ekpemupolo, aka Tompolo, for who a bench warrant has been issued by a Federal High Court in Lagos for his arrest. The Deputy Governor denies harbouring Tompolo. The allegation is figment of the imagination of detractors. On the allegation that he is complicit on the alleged N13billion fraud, the Deputy Governor, Barr. Otuaro, wishes to state that the matter is subjudice as same is before a court of law. The media is therefore advised to await the outcome of the case rather than preempt the case, he said. The Lagos University Teaching Hospital, IdiAraba, has discharged a 25-year- old student who tested positive to Lassa fever after receivi... The Lagos University Teaching Hospital, IdiAraba, has discharged a 25-year- old student who tested positive to Lassa fever after receiving treatment at the hospital.According to a statement by the LUTH management in Lagos on Friday, the student has recovered from the disease.The student was the first person to have been diagnosed of Lassa fever in Lagos in January.It stated , LUTH is one of the first hospitals in the South West that has successfully admitted, managed and discharged a Lassa fever patient, in this current outbreak.We mobilised a team of specialists including nurses, virologists and medical microbiologists and the patient was managed, in an Isolation Centre with other drugs and adequate infection control measures put in place. These included contact tracing and monitoring.It is gladdening to note that the patient has fully recovered and has been discharged having tested negative for Lassa virus.The hospitals management commended the Federal Ministry of Health, Abuja, the National Centre for Disease Control, Abuja and the Lagos State Government for their quick intervention when the patient was first diagnosed of the disease at the hospital. United States warplanes have carried out attacks on militants from the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Libya, killing at least 38 people. United States warplanes have carried out attacks on militants from the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Libya, killing at least 38 people.The strikes hit an IS training camp in Sabratha, around 70km west of Tripoli.U.S officials said it was likely that the strikes had killed senior Tunisian extremist, Noureddine Chouchane.Chouchane has been linked to two attacks that took place in Tunisia last year, including an attack that killed 30 Britons, the BBC reports.The IS group has been active in Libya for over a year, and the U.S estimates it has up to 6,000 fighters there.Libya remains in chaos more than four years after the overthrow of former leader Muammar Gaddafi, and is being fought over by a number of groups, including the self-styled IS.The BBC says British bases were involved in the attack but that no British assets, such as warplanes, were involved.The mayor of Sabratha put the death toll at 41, and said the majority of those killed were Tunisians. -- A 35-year-old man was arrested in Florida on charges that he robbed two borough stores at gunpoint, police said Friday. Luis Haluska, a borough resident, fled to the Bradenton area after investigators identified him as the man who robbed a Subway shop last Christmas Eve and a Delta Gas station on New Year's Day, police Chief Michael Foligno said in a statement. The Manatee County Sheriff's Department arrested Haluska on the New Jersey charges and drug-related offenses in Florida, according to jail records. In both holdups, Foligno said Haluska pulled a gun on an employee and demanded money. Haluska stole about $517 in the Subway robbery and $306 in the service station case, according to the chief. He was being in held in Florida ahead of extradition proceedings. The chief credited Elmwood Park Detectives Anthony DiPasquale and Robert Centkowski with leading the investigation. Haluska also faces weapons charges stemming from the holdups. Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Teterboro Pedestrian 2/18 Police closed Route 46 eastbound near Teterboro airport for a pedestrian accident, Feb. 18, 2016. (Myles Ma | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com) -- The man struck and killed by a pickup truck on Route 46 in Teterboro Thursday as a 43-year-old Fair Lawn resident, The Record reported. Miguel Fabian was crossing from a bus stop on the south side of the highway, east of Industrial Avenue, around 6:15 a.m. when the truck hit him in the eastbound lanes, police said. The Chevrolet pickup was traveling at about 30 mph when it struck Fabian, police previously said. The driver, a 45-year-old Lodi man, stopped at the scene. No charges or summonses were issued, police said. Fabian was not in a crosswalk and wearing dark clothing. The newspaper's report said Fabian was heading to his job at a party rental store. The early morning traffic death was the second serious accident in the area this year. Last month, a 20-year-old man was struck along the highway and hospitalized. Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc. Find NJ.com on Facebook. mostwanted.jpg Marcus D. Gross, 43, and Danielle S. Leonard, 43, are being sought by the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016 (Photos provided by Cumberland County Sheriff's Office | For NJ.com) The Cumberland County Sheriff's Office is seeking the public's help in locating two of their most-wanted fugitives. Marcus D. Gross, 43, of Millville, is wanted on five Superior Court of New Jersey Family Court warrants for failing to pay $51,861.78 in child support payments. Gross, whose last known address is East Main Street, is described by police as standing 6-foot-tall, weighing 183 pounds, and with brown eyes, black hair. Gross also has a tattoo on his right forearm "GENA" and a scar on his right hand. Danielle S. Leonard, 43, of Vineland, is wanted on a Superior Court Criminal Court warrant for failure to appear. Leonard, whose last known address is West Weymouth Road, is described standing 5-foot-1-inch tall, weighing 175 pounds, with brown hair and back eyes. Leonard has a three-inch scar on her right knee. Sheriff Robert A. Austino asks anyone who comes into contact with these individuals to contact the police immediately or the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department TIP-LINE a 856-451-0625. Authorities remind citizens not to approach, confront or detain these fugitives. Brittany Wehner may be reached at bwehner@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @brittanymwehner. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook. A Millville man is getting a retrial for a weapons possession and resisting arrest conviction due to the court's snafu with a juror dismissal, according to a decision by the New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division. Leroy H. Ford During Leroy H. Ford's original 2013 trial, a judge substituted a juror after they asked to be removed from the case. According to the appellate division decision, the judge failed to adequately establish the reason the juror wanted to be dismissed, leading to the retrial. Ford was sentenced to 20 years in state prison for an incident in May 2012 when he was ran from police and was arrested -- attempting to ditch a handgun in the process, according to the appellate decision. Millville Police Department officers were looking for a man wanted for a shooting when they spotted a car belonging to the suspect. When police stopped the car, a man later identified as Ford ran out of the car. Police chased Ford, thinking he was the shooting suspect, according to court documents. As Ford was running, police reported seeing him throw a metal object that was later identified as a handgun. Ford surrendered to police after leading police on a chase across three streets. The handgun was not registered to Ford and was reported stolen in Georgia, according to court documents. During the 2013 trial, juror number six asked the judge to be excused and replaced by juror number nine, an alternate juror. The juror appeared anxious and emotional when she made the request and indicated that she was not feeling good about the way deliberations were going but did not go into any further explanation. The juror was replaced and Ford was found guilty of the weapons charges. He pled guilty to the resisting arrest charge. Ford motioned for a new trial, arguing that the court failed to find out why the juror wanted to be excused. The court cannot replace a juror unless it adequately establishes why the juror is unable to function and to make sure it's not due to the juror's interaction with the rest of the jury. The appellate division acknowledges the trial judge was careful in his questioning of the juror in order to avoid a mistrial and the fact that the juror's demeanor cannot be represented in court records. "Nonetheless, the cause of juror number six's emotional response in this case could have been attributable to either personal problems or her interaction with other jurors" the appellate division decision states. "The record does no adequately establish the cause. For that reason, we are constrained to conclude the trial court misapplied its discretion by substituting juror number nine." Don E. Woods may be reached at dwoods@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @donewoods1. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook. According to an ESPN report Friday, charges are not imminent against Buffalo Bills running back LeSean McCoy for his alleged involvement in a Feb. 7 brawl at Philadelphia nightclub Recess. "My team and I are continuing to investigate the incident that took place at the Recess Lounge. Like with all investigations, I don't comment about what I will or will not do until all of the evidence has been thoroughly reviewed. I understand that people are interested in the outcome of our investigation, but we're not going to rush because some people are impatient," Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams said Friday. Philly DA R. Seth Williams' statement on LeSean McCoy's case, saying "the last thing we need is a rush to judgment" pic.twitter.com/xHLIzQ2T1i Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) February 19, 2016 That course of action isn't sitting well with the Philadelphia Police Department. "A high-ranking Philadelphia police official told me yesterday 'this entire thing is a disgrace and a mockery'," ESPN's Mark Schwartz said during an appearance on SportsCenter Friday. "'A lot of people are disgusted. I think the DA is frightened and wants this to just go away. I've been on this for a long time and I've never seen anything so botched up. It's obvious an assault occured. Who or how it started is irrelevant.'" Schwartz went on to explain that no charges were imminent against McCoy stemming from the incident, which reinforces a CSNPhilly report Thursday. According to CSNPhilly's John Gonzalez, citing law enforcement sources, the District Attorney's office has concerns "about the conduct of the officers that evening, including that the officers did not call 9-1-1 during the incident and whether they were drinking to excess." Police Union Head John McNesby expressed his frustration over the D.A.'s office's handling of this case to Schwartz. "'If you get drunk on the street and get assaulted, is it not assault?'" McNesby told Schwartz. "As for why didn't the police officers call 911, McNesby had no answer for that but wondered 'Why didn't LeSean McCoy call 911? Why didn't any of the employees of the Recess lounge call 911? Maybe the police officers were too beat up to think clearly.'" Last week, 6ABC reported that Philadelphia Police were seeking aggravated assault charges against McCoy, but as of Friday it does not appear as though any charges are imminent. "We'll look to go to the attorney general," McNesby said during a radio interview with WIP, if charges are not filed. "We'll also have our attorneys file a private criminal complaint, and we'll move in that direction." Matt Lombardo may be reached at MDLombardo@yahoo.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattLombardo975. Find NJ.com Eagles on Facebook. TRENTON- Nearly 300 New Jersey school districts would receive less than a 1 percent increase in state aid for the upcoming year, according to state figures released Friday from Gov. Chris Christie's budget proposal. Though Christie's 2017 budget would give every district at least some additional funding, 10 districts would get an increase fewer than $1,000. Allenhurst would receive the smallest dollar increase ($177), while Keansburg would see the smallest percentage increase (.04 percent). Christie's administration touted the proposed budget because it represents a record-high $13 billion investment in education. "As more revenue becomes available, the administration is continuing to provide the highest levels of school funding," state Education Commissioner David Hespe said. "This speaks volumes about the priorities of this administration." Two of the state's districts facing budget problems, Atlantic City and Newark, would receive special funding. Christie proposes giving Atlantic City schools a $33 million increase, including $32 million to combat the district's falling commercial property values. Newark Public Schools would receive $26.7 million more than last year, including an extra $22 million to offset money being paid to city charter schools. The proposed special aid to Newark comes after state-appointed Newark schools Superintendent Chris Cerf wrote an "urgent" letter to Christie on Feb. 1 asking for help. The district would have faced a $72 million structural deficit if it received flat state funding, Cerf wrote. Overall, Christie is proposing a 4 percent increase in education funding, though most of the new spending would go toward pension and debt payments or other costs. New Jersey would provide $94.3 million more in direct support to schools, about a 1 percent increase over the current school year. The budget is based on New Jersey's school funding formula passed by state lawmakers in 2008. Though the schools are not fully funded, Christie's proposed budget acknowledges enrollment swings or other changes in schools that warrant more or less funding -- factors that were not considered in some of his previous budgets. Use the search tool below to see how much aid Christie is proposing to give your school district. Click to see graphic in mobile app Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook. NEWARK At his trial on charges of beating a Millburn woman in a 2013 home invasion attack caught on a "nanny-cam," prosecutors may present evidence that police seized a pair of jeans belonging to Shawn Custis that allegedly contains the victim's blood, a judge has ruled. Superior Court Judge Ronald Wigler issued that ruling on Friday when he denied Custis's motion to suppress the evidence in connection with the June 21, 2013 incident. Authorities have said a DNA analysis of the jeans shows the victim's blood was on the jeans. A week after the incident, the jeans and other clothing items were seized at the New York City apartment of Custis's then-girlfriend, Monita Johnson, after Custis had been arrested while leaving the apartment building. In denying the motion, the judge found Johnson "knowingly and voluntarily consented" to a search of the residence before police seized the clothing, and he rejected Custis's arguments that police conducted an illegal search. Custis, 45, of Newark who has a lengthy criminal record is charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault, endangering the welfare of a child, robbery, burglary, criminal restraint and theft. After breaking into the victim's house, Custis kicked, punched and threw the woman down the basement stairs as her three-year-old daughter sat on the living-room couch, authorities said. Her 18-month-old son was asleep in an upstairs bedroom, authorities said. Custis also stole various jewelry items and a cell phone from the residence, authorities said. Authorities later tracked a cell phone belonging to Custis to Johnson's apartment on 10th Avenue in Manhattan. Custis's trial is expected to start in the coming months. The motion to suppress was based in part on the conflicting accounts provided by Johnson and Sgt. Chris Smith of the Essex County Prosecutor's Office about what happened inside the apartment on June 28, 2013. At a hearing on Wednesday, Smith testified that, after Custis had been arrested, he and an FBI agent visited the apartment. Smith said Johnson allowed them to come inside and she indicated Custis had just left the apartment. Smith said they asked Johnson whether Custis had brought any clothing to the apartment. When Johnson said he had, they asked her to show them the clothing, according to Smith. After Johnson led them to the pile of clothing, Smith said they presented her with a consent form that permitted authorities to search the apartment and remove any items. Johnson signed the form and authorities seized the clothing, Smith said. But when Johnson took the witness stand on Wednesday, she claimed police forced their way into the apartment and threatened to damage the residence if she didn't sign the consent form. Johnson said she did not lead authorities to the clothing. During Friday's hearing, Custis's attorney, John McMahon, pointed to both accounts in arguing the clothing evidence should be suppressed. McMahon argued Johnson's version means the evidence is inadmissible. He claimed she was telling the truth, saying "she appeared to be quite certain about what happened." If the judge accepted Smith's version, McMahon suggested authorities conducted an illegal search by asking Johnson to lead them to the clothing before obtaining her consent to search the apartment. McMahon said Johnson signed the consent form "after the search has been completed." McMahon argued prosecutors have not shown Johnson was aware of her "right to refuse" before leading the authorities to the clothing. Referring to Smith's account, Essex County Assistant Prosecutor Jamel Semper, who is handling the case, acknowledged during Friday's hearing that it would have been better for authorities to present the consent form before being led to the clothing. But Semper argued the actions taken by authorities at the time were "still not unconstitutional," saying Johnson was cooperative and ultimately signed the consent form. Semper has claimed no search occurred before Johnson signed the form. As for Johnson's version, Semper stressed how she gave a video-taped statement to police hours after the search was conducted and she did not say authorities forced their way into her apartment and threatened her. At that time, Johnson told police there were no conflicts when she consented to the search, according to Semper. Semper said "there's nothing on that day, in her video-taped statement, in her written consent, that would suggest that she was coerced in any way." In denying the motion, Wigler also pointed to Johnson's video-taped statement and said he did not find her testimony to be credible. The judge said Smith's version was credible. Based on that version, Wigler determined Johnson voluntarily consented to the search in light of "the totality of the circumstances and Ms. Johnson's cooperativeness." When she was presented with the consent form, "she certainly could have still refused and she did not refuse," Wigler said. Bill Wichert may be reached at bwichert@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillWichertNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook. NEWARK Nearly a year after being released from state prison, a former Essex County Sheriff's officer on Thursday lost an appeal of his official misconduct conviction for stealing $70 from a crime scene in 2011. A state appellate panel upheld the conviction of George Ruiz and rejected his arguments about alleged errors during his 2013 trial. Ruiz served in the Essex County Sheriff's Office for 12 years. Ruiz, 49, formerly of Belleville, was sentenced on May 3, 2013 to three years in state prison and he had to serve two years before becoming eligible for parole. Ruiz received credit for time served and he was released from custody on March 13, 2015, according to the New Jersey Department of Corrections. The incident occurred on March 3, 2011 at an apartment on Myrtle Avenue in Irvington, where authorities executed a search warrant as part of a drug investigation. During the search, authorities found $70 in a bedroom closet consisting of two $20 bills and three $10 bills, according to the appellate decision. The bills were folded in half and then folded a second time, the decision states. Soon after, Ruiz, then a K-9 officer, arrived at the scene with his search dog and was directed to search the bedroom for drugs, the decision states. But after Ruiz and the dog had been alone in the bedroom, authorities discovered the money was missing, the decision states. When all of the officers at the scene were later searched, authorities found $70 on Ruiz in the same denominations and folded in the same way as the bills previously seen in the bedroom closet, according to the appellate decision. At his trial, Ruiz asserted that he never entered the bedroom closet and claimed the $70 found on him was change from a purchase of lottery tickets that he had made, the decision states. Ruiz was convicted of third-degree official misconduct, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of three to five years in state prison. Since he was sentenced to the minimum term of three years, he had to serve two years before becoming eligible for parole. The bills in question were not retained as evidence, because the money was deposited into the State's forfeiture fund, the decision states. As part of his appeal, Ruiz argued the trial judge should have instructed jurors that they could draw an inference against the state about what the lost evidence would have shown. But the appeals court rejected that argument, saying "the State's failure to retain the bills did not violate defendant's due process rights, and the trial judge did not err in declining to give an adverse inference charge." The appellate panel also dismissed Ruiz's argument about comments made on the witness stand by a police officer, identified in the decision as "Lieutenant Francis," who had initially found the $70 in the bedroom closet and then discovered it missing, the decision states. During a heated exchange with Ruiz's attorney, Francis said twice that Ruiz "stole the money," the decision states. The attorney did not object to either statement, the decision states. In his appeal, Ruiz claimed Francis improperly offered his opinion about Ruiz's guilt. The appeals court agreed that the testimony was improper, but found no error in the judge's failure to strike Francis's two spontaneous statements. "It is clear to us that defense counsel was trying to portray Francis as a dishonest witness who may have taken the money himself," the decision states. "In that context, Francis's spontaneous exclamations could have furthered the defense strategy, and we infer that defendant's attorney intentionally refrained from making an objection. "In any event, on this record we are not persuaded that the statements had a clear capacity to produce an unjust result." Bill Wichert may be reached at bwichert@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BillWichertNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook. WOODBURY --City council will vote Tuesday evening on a pilot program allowing backyard chickens at single-family and twin houses. The ordinance, which will run from March 1 until Feb. 28, 2018, opens up 20 licenses to residents looking to keep chickens at home. The new law also includes guidelines on housing, number of birds and proper care. Proper coops and a minimum lot size of 4,000 square feet are required, for example, and no roosters are allowed. "The sustainable, organic food movement is very strong and it had a lot of local support from residents," said Michael Theokas, city administrator. "We try to be as proactive as much as we can." Woodbury is far from New Jersey's first municipality to bring back the practice of keeping chickens at home. In North Jersey, notable examples of towns revising their laws include Newark and Livingston. Chicken keepers in several other South Jersey towns, including Haddonfield and Bridgeton, are pushing for similar measures. Advocates say chickens can be good pets, and that eggs from the backyard birds are fresher and better than anything from the supermarket. Their manure is also useful in composting. A handful of Woodbury residents have kept chickens for years, but the discussion of legalizing the birds began in earnest when someone filed an anonymous complaint against Jessica and Paul Ferguson in winter of 2015. The Fergusons spoke repeatedly with city council, referring to a 1994 ordinance forbidding chickens in town as "antiquated." Theokas said council had worked with the Fergusons to develop the ordinance; however, Jessica Ferguson did not immediately return requests for comment on Friday. "I feel fairly certain why chickens were originally included in the ordinance -- to protect the animals," she said in 2015. "But with the sustainability movement going on now, it may be time to change the ordinance to reflect that." To handle any complaints or problems that might arise from the animals, Woodbury's ordinance calls for the creation of the Chicken Advisory Board, which will consist of five members. If the ordinance passes next week -- and Theokas said he has not heard significant complaints from council or members of the public -- violations would be punishable by fines up to $1,250 or 90 days in jail. "This gives us almost two years to see how it works in practice," the administrator said. "We'll take it as it comes." Andy Polhamus may be reached at apolhamus@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ajpolhamus. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook. Organic Farms Likely To Benefit From Dioxin Scandal (Photo by Joern Pollex/Getty Images) Buried in recent flu data from federal health officials is news that a Mercer County child had a type of swine flu transmitted from a pig, instead of from another person. While such cases are not common, they are monitored by the government in case they become more widespread. The case of what's called H3N2v flu - the state's first - involved a 9-year-old child from Mercer County who visited a Middlesex County farm on Dec. 24 of last year and fell ill Dec. 26th. The child's illness was mild and did not require hospitalization, according to a spokeswoman for the N.J. Department of Public Health. The child was treated by a healthcare provider. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicated,"The patient visited a farm near where swine are frequently housed but no direct contact with swine was reported in the week prior to illness onset." The illness that people call "swine flu," which was epidemic in 2009, comes from a virus with slight genetic variations that allow it to move more easily from pigs to humans. Once in humans, it is capable of human-to-human transmission. In the recent New Jersey case, however, "no ongoing human-to-human transmission has been identified," according to the CDC report. "There is no public health risk. No additional cases of illness have been reported among the child's family," said Nicole Mulvaney of the N.J. Department of Health. By contrast, H3N2v (the 'v' stands for "variant") has never been a widespread problem, said Henry Niman, a Pittsburgh-based virologist who consults on swine flu and other related viruses. "In 2012, it really looked like it could become a significant issue," he said, when there was a spike of hundreds of cases nationally. One woman in Ohio died from the illness. However, cases of the virus then died down, returning to just a handful of cases a year. Since 2005, there have been just 354 confirmed cases of H3N2v, with the lion's share of them reported in Ohio and Indiana. While this flu variation can be caught from pigs, its main way to spread remains person-to-person, Niman said. He cited a cluster of cases out of Washington County, Pennsylvania in which a number of people got sick after attending a county fair. Many were 4-H members or their relatives - in other words, people who had spent substantial time around the pigs being exhibited. When public health officials subsequently interviewed their close contacts, they discovered hundreds of cases of suspected flu passed from person to person, Niman said. Because this occurred in August, few viewed their mild, flu-like symptoms as actual "flu." "Some were infected by swine, but most were infected by other family members," he said. "It's more of a risk to be around farmers than to be around pigs." The N.J. Department of Health offers this advice about swine flu variants: "To protect against the H3N2v flu virus (and other flu viruses), residents should limit contact with live pigs and wash hands with soap and water after exposure to live animals. If an individual recently had exposure to a live pig, they should monitor themselves for flu symptoms, which include fever, cough, extreme fatigue and lack of appetite. Residents who have had contact with live pigs and are experiencing these symptoms should notify their healthcare provider." Kathleen O'Brien may be reached at kobrien@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @OBrienLedger. Find NJ.com on Facebook. lyles.jpg Jersey City Superintendent of Schools Marcia V. Lyles' contract auto-renewed in December, board attorneys say. (Jersey Journal file photo) JERSEY CITY -- Critics of Schools Superintendent Marcia V. Lyles attempted for what may have been the last time yesterday to force a vote on her contract renewal, an effort that failed and left Lyles opponents and supporters accusing the other of political gamesmanship. Lyles' allies believe last night's board meeting was the final chance the superintendent's critics had to derail Lyles' attempts to continue as chief of the 28,000-student school district once her contract expires on June 30. Board attorneys say Lyles' four-year contract, first signed in 2012, automatically renewed in December. But Lyles critics, among them board member Lorenzo Richardson, believes the contract did not automatically renew, and they allege board members who support Lyles have fought any attempts to have the board vote in public on whether to renew Lyles' contract. During the January and February board meetings, the board would not add a resolution to the agenda affirming Lyles' contract renewal. "People just don't want to vote on it," Richardson said last night. Board President Vidya Gangadin told The Jersey Journal that Richardson and Gerald Lyons, a Lyles critic who in January called the automatic renewal "improper," are being disingenuous. The two men asked for a measure at the December board meeting that would have indicated support for not renewing Lyles' contract, then neither showed up for the meeting so the measure was pulled, Gangadin said. "These guys play games. And the gaming is over," she said. Richardson said he had to work the night of the December meeting. Board attorneys argue that Lyles' contract, which expires in June, automatically renewed on Dec. 31 when the board failed to vote on the measure to not renew the pact. The proposed measures in January and February that would have affirmed Lyles' renewal -- critics of the superintendent had hoped those measures would show she doesn't not have the five votes she needs to win a new contract -- could not have been voted on because Lyles' contract automatically renewed last year, Gangadin said. "The time has passed, based on legal opinion," she said. State statute appears to give board until March 1 to notify Lyles in writing of its intention not to renew her contract, and last night's board meeting was the final one before March. To make the matter more convoluted, board attorneys argue that three of the nine board members cannot vote on the contract at all because they have relatives who work for the school district. Among the six members who can vote, there do not appear to be five votes in favor of Lyles' renewal or for not renewing her contract. Lyons said in January that he intends to file a complaint with the state education commissioner over the renewal. A request for comment from Lyons was not returned. Several residents came out in support of Lyles. Bill Braker, president of the Jersey City chapter of the NAACP, noted the district's rising graduation rates as he urged the board not to get rid of Lyles. "It makes no sense to change horses in mid-stream," Braker said. Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook. Mayor Steve Fulop has charged that a contract awarded to a West New York reval firm in2011 was void from the start because the firm hired a former city tax assessor as it was writing a bid to win the pact. Reena Rose Sibayan | The Jersey Journal JERSEY CITY -- The Bernardsville law firm defending the city in the breach-of-contract case that revolves around the canceled reval may get another contract extension next week, which would bring the total contract to $325,000. The City Council in December 2014 authorized a contract for Shain, Schaffer & Rafanello to defend the city in the case, brought by Realty Appraisal Co. The council is set to approve another $75,000 extension on Wednesday, the third time the contract has been reauthorized. The reval trial began on Tuesday, after a series of pre-trial motions that did not go the city's way. When a judge in September declined to throw the case out, the city's attorneys argued that the judge should recuse himself because he is a Jersey City property owner and a Republican, conflicts they said make him biased (Fulop is a Democrat). The judge issued a scathing rebuke to the city, accusing it of acting like King George III. On Tuesday, the city attempted one last time to delay the trial by 45 days, a request the trial judge rejected. The West New York-based Realty Appraisal is suing the city for the roughly $1 million remaining of the $3.2 million contract it was awarded in 2011 to conduct the citywide reval that Mayor Steve Fulop halted after he was elected in 2013. The city's attorneys have argued that the contract was void from the start because Realty Appraisal hired Brian O'Reilly, the former city tax assessor and business administrator, as it was formulating its bid to win the contract. O'Reilly's job at the firm represented a conflict of interest that gave the company an unfair advantage, the city has argued. Shain, Schaffer & Rafanello's managing partner is Peg Schaffer, the Somerset County Democratic chair. The council meets on Wednesday at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 280 Grove St. Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook. The International Game Fish Association's 2016 World Record Game Fishes, featuring a Guy Harvey roosterfish cover, is now available to members of that organization which sets the standards recognized around the world for our sport. The IGFA 424-page softcover book not only lists the all-tackle freshwater and saltwater world records for men and women, but also line class, length, fly rod and junior records. You can join the over 25,000 members that receive the yearbook plus other IGFA publications by visiting www.igfa.org. Setting an IGFA world record isn't as impossible as it may seem at first. Even catching an all-tackle record doesn't require spending a fortune to chase such fish as a 1500-pound bluefin tuna, as there are hundreds of lesser records to shoot for especially since the IGFA started accepting just about any unlisted fish over a pound and considered to be large for the species. For instance, I was able to get new species records started with a pinfish from Bermuda and a cunner (bergall) caught on the Jamaica out of Brielle from an offshore N.J. wreck. Unfortunately, those records didn't last too long as they were broken by anglers with even lower standards than mine. Nick Honachefsky of Normandy Beach knocked me off the board with a bigger bergall, but that record is now up to 3 1/2 pounds from a jetty in Revere Beach, Massachusetts. Another of my initial species entries has stood up so far - a beautiful and hard-fighting 27 1/2-pound leather bass hooked on a Tady jig during a long-range trip of the Royal Polaris from San Diego on Jan. 22, 1988 off Isla Clarion, Mexico. The only record I still hold that broke an existing mark is for a 6-pound round whitefish that I hooked quite by accident while casting for grayling with a spinner on June 14, 1982 in the Putahow River, Manitoba during a shore lunch break from pike and lake trout fishing. Though I knew it was a whitefish of some kind, if I hadn't sought out IGFA identification I would have never known that it was almost twice the size of the previous world record for that species of whitefish rather than just a lake whitefish which grows much larger. The yearbook also includes the rules which must be observed in order to claim a legitimate sportfishing catch. Basically that means fighting the fish from start to finish with no assistance from anyone until the leader can be grabbed for a release - or the fish is netted or gaffed. None of those giant tuna you may see being caught with rod-and-reel on National Geographic Channel's Wicked Tuna are even close to being legitimate sport catches as the crew takes turns cranking on the reel handle of a rod stuck in a rod holder rather than being held. That's a commercial technique, and they might as well be fishing with a net for all the "sport" involved. Unfortunately, it seems there are more fishermen ignoring the basic concepts of sportfishing these days. When I started saltwater fishing you would have had to cut my arm off to take the rod away from me after I'd hooked a big fish, and I don't remember anyone else giving up a rod in those days either-- unless it was to give it to a kid. Now I hear about grown men ganging up on a hooked fish and then each claiming that they'd "caught" that fish. One bit of leeway that the IGFA allows is especially important in the junior angler categories, as it is permissible to make a cast for another angler - though the rod must be switched before any hook-up. An exception to that rule is in fly fishing, where the cast is considered to be a vital portion of the catch. The N.J. Boat Sale & Expo opened Thursday in the N.J. Convention & Expo Hall at Raritan Center in Edison - and runs through Sunday. Admission at the door is $8. For details visit JerseyBoatExpo.com. With mild weather in the weekend forecast, fishing should resume this weekend. At Brielle, the Jamaica II will be bottom fishing at 3 a.m. Saturday and 5 a.m. Sunday. The Jamaica sails at 1 a.m. Saturday for cod. Call 732 528-5014 for reservations. The Ocean Explorer is out of the boat yard and will be fishing for blackfish offshore from Belmar. The Canyon Runner Seminar on Long Island will be run at the Huntington Hilton on Feb. 27. Check with Adam La Rosa at 732 842-6825 to determine if any $99 tickets are still available. The two big area sportsman's shows are coming up. The Suffern, N.Y. Expo runs from March 10 to 13, and the main event for marine anglers is the Somerset Saltwater Expo from March 18 to 20. I'll be presenting a striper seminar at the latter, and will once again have a limited number of Tady jigs for those attending that presentation. Mike Buonacquista of Middletown made his annual President's Day trip to Montauk along with Capt. Jeff Gutman and some local party boat crews. They fished with the Viking Fleet and got a real break when the wind died out in time so the 7-degree air temperature when they sailed was bearable. Though there were no large cod, they did well with schoolies. Herring were abundant off Block Island, but so were draggers. SOMERVILLE -- New Somerset County Prosecutor Michael H. Robertson brings a wealth of experience to his new job, including stints as an assistant U.S. Attorney working in the Health Care Fraud Unit, Organized Crime and Gangs Unit and the Violent Crimes Unit. Robertson, who will replace Geoffrey Soriano, spent the past eight years as an assistant U.S. Attorney working out of the Newark office. He joined the U.S. Attorney's office while Gov. Chris Christie was still overseeing the office as chief federal law enforcement officer in New Jersey. Prior to that, Robertson was an assistant prosecutor in the Essex County Prosecutor's Office for three years. He will take office in Somerset County on March 7, according to the governor's office. Soriano was a municipal prosecutor in Branchburg before Gov. Chris Christie appointed him as Somerset County prosecutor in 2010. "Mike has been an exemplary assistant U.S. Attorney for the past eight years and this is a wonderful opportunity for him to continue his terrific commitment to public service," U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said Thursday. "The appointment reflects not just the justifiable confidence in Mike's ability to lead an important law enforcement organization, but also the recognition of the deep talent pool and professionalism that characterizes this office and its alumni." Robertson, a Basking Ridge resident, earned a bachelor of science degree in the Administration of Justice from Penn State University in 1999 and received a Doctor of Law degree from Hofstra University on Long Island in 2002. After working as a Superior Court law clerk in Somerville for a year, he spent one and a half years in private practice before joining the Essex County Prosecutor's Office in 2005. While working as an assistant U.S. Attorney some of the cases Robertson prosecuted are as follows: * In February 2015, Robertson prosecuted a case in which a Bayonne man who was a licensed Jersey City pediatrician fraudulently billed Medicaid for $196,911 for more than 1,000 wound repairs he never performed. Badawy M. Badawy pleaded guilty to health care fraud. He owned and operated Sinai Medical Center of Jersey City, LLC, a medical practice focusing on pediatric and family medicine. * In March 2014, Robertson prosecuted a case in which a Newark man was sentenced to 57 months in prison for his role in a scheme that involved a postal carrier lifting blank checks from victim's mail and passing them to a group of conspirators who converted them into hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash. Karron Hinton-Lovelace, one of the conspirators, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud in the case. As part of his plea agreement, Hinton-Lovelace agreed to pay $648,194 in restitution to victims. The conspirators charged in the case -- which did not include the mail carrier -- were able to deposit nearly $1.5 million in fraudulent checks stolen from 122 victims into 258 bank accounts. The result was $648,194 in losses to victims. * In October 2015, Robertson prosecuted a case in which the owners of a Monmouth marketing and sales company admitted paying approximately $25,000 in cash bribes to a New Jersey physician in return for patient referrals to their clients. Daniel Gilman, 62, of Ocean Grove and Kenneth Robberson, 46, of Wall pleaded guilty to separate informations charging them each with one count of conspiracy to pay kickbacks. * Also in March 2014, Robertson prosecuted a case in which one of the operators of Clevett Worldwide Mailers LLC, a Succasunna bulk mailing house, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for defrauding clients of more than $1 million through a fraudulent bulk-mailing scheme in which he shredded millions of pieces of mail rather than delivering them. Harold Clevett, 68, of Middlesex, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Dave Hutchinson may be reached at dhutchinson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @DHutch_SL. Find NJ.com on Facebook. SOMERVILLE -- Somerset County Prosecutor Geoffrey Soriano will continue in his current role during what is being called a transition period, Paul Loriquet, spokesperson for the state's Attorney General's Office, said Friday. Michael H. Robertson, an assistant U.S. District Attorney, was named to replace Soriano on Thursday. The announcement came 24 hours after a group known as the Friends of John & Joyce Sheridan issued a letter calling for a new investigation into the Sheridan's deaths and the family offered a $250,000 reward "for information leading to the arrest and conviction of John and Joyce's killer(s)." The group's members include former Govs. Thomas Kean, James J. Florio and Christine Whitman, former state Supreme Court Justice Gary Stein and former Attorneys General John Farmer and Peter Harvey. The Sheridans were found dead in the bedroom of their Montgomery Township home in September 2014. Their deaths were ruled a murder-suicide by the prosecutor's office, whose report stated that John killed his wife by stabbing her multiple times before dousing the room in gasoline, lighting it on fire and stabbing himself. The Sheridan's sons have fought a long legal battle to have their father's cause of death changed from "suicide" to "undetermined" and have criticized the prosecutor's office's handling of the investigation, as well as the medical examiner's autopsy. Robertson will take office on March 7 and serve as the acting prosecutor until he's confirmed by the state Senate, Loriquet said. Soriano's five-year term ended in October. Loriquet said there are no plans to name an interim prosecutor at this time. Robertson has spent the past eight years as an assistant U.S. Attorney working out of the Newark office. He joined the U.S. Attorney's office while Gov. Chris Christie was still overseeing the office as chief federal law enforcement officer in New Jersey. Prior to that, he was an assistant prosecutor in the Essex County Prosecutor's Office for three years. Robertson, a Basking Ridge resident, earned a bachelor of science degree in the Administration of Justice from Penn State University in 1999 and received a Doctor of Law degree from Hofstra University on Long Island in 2002. After working as a Superior Court law clerk in Somerville for a year, he spent one and a half years in private practice before joining the Essex County Prosecutor's Office in 2005. Soriano was appointed Somerset County Prosecutor in 2010, taking over for Wayne Forrest, who retired that year after 12-and-a-half years as prosecutor. Prior to Forrest, the prosecutor's office last permanent prosecutor was Nicholas Bissell, who committed suicide after being convicted of crimes he committed in his personal life. In 2010, Soriano's nomination was approved by the state Senate 36-0. At the time he had been a municipal prosecutor in Branchburg. Don't Edit Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media Fire at Sheridan's Montgomery Township home on Sept. 28, 2014 John and Joyce Sheridan died Sept. 28, 2014, when a mysterious fire broke out in the bedroom of their Montgomery Township home. John Sheridan was president and CEO of Cooper University Health System based in Camden and a high-profile political figure who served on Gov. Chris Christie's transition team. Joyce Sheridan was a retired school teacher with the South Brunswick School District. Their deaths shocked the political elite and powerful across New Jersey. Don't Edit Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media Political leaders react to Sheridan's deaths The State Assembly held a moment of silence on Sept. 29, 2014, to remember John and Joyce Sheridan. "John transcended partisanship and was respected by all members for putting the public above politics," Republican Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi said of John Sheridan. Other political leaders, including Gov. Chris Christie, also spoke about John. "It's an awful thing, Christie said while in Wisconsin. "I knew John well and his family and it's awful and we'll miss him. Others who spoke out include former Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and State Sen. Donald Norcross (D-Camden/Gloucester). Don't Edit Andrew Zuckerman | NJ Advance Media Medical examiner performs initial autopsies The Northern Regional Medical Examiner performed autopsies on John Sheridan and Joyce Sheridan between Sept. 29-30. The autopsies find Joyce Sheridan suffered several stab wounds to her head and a fatal wound to her chest, and determine she was dead before the fire started. An assistant medical examiner determines John Sheridan's wounds to his torso and neck area appear to be superficial, and consistent with self-inflicted wounds. But one wound to the neck caused a peroration to the right jugular vein and would be fatal without medical treatment, authorities say. John Sheridans cause of death was found to be sharp force injuries and smoke inhalation, and the manner of death has been classified as a suicide. Don't Edit Patti Sapone | NJ Advance Media Fire at Sheridan's home was intentional The Somerset County Prosecutors Office determined the fire at the Sheridans home was set intentionally. It was contained to the upstairs master bedroom, where it was set, the prosecutor and Montgomery Police state in a joint announcement Oct. 1. "Prosecutor Geoffrey Soriano states that the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan remain an active and on-going investigation with laboratory results still pending," the announcement states. On Oct. 2, Somerset County Prosecutor's Office spokesman Capt. Jack Bennett releases a statement that "at this point, based upon facts and circumstances learned through this investigation, we are quite confident that there exists no threat to either the immediate neighborhood or to the local community." Don't Edit Don't Edit Jim Pathe | NJNP Sons question how their parents died Dr. Michael Baden, hired by the Sheridans' four sons, performed his own autopsy on John Sheridan on Oct. 4. According to prosecutors, he and a medical examiner conclude neither of two knives found at the Sheridans' home was used on John. The Sheridans' sons also say Baden was the first to identify the deepest of John Sheridan's stab wounds. On Oct. 5, authorities identify a piece of melted and resolidified metal as a possible third implement used to wound John, though the piece's original shape is not determined. Experts later interviewed by NJ Advance Media said it is unlikely a knife would melt in this way. Don't Edit 911 tapes released: 'Someone is trying to get out' A neighbor living across the street from the Sheridan's Meadow Run Drive home dialed 911 on Sept. 28. The neighbor thought he heard someone banging on the door to get out, but authorities later said those were the sounds of the fire itself. The tape of that call was released Oct. 15. Don't Edit Aristide Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media Hundreds attend Sheridan's memorial service in Trenton The Sheridans memorial service is held at the Trenton War Memorial on Oct. 7. Hundreds of from around the state attend. I cant imagine the pain and the loss that the Sheridans are feeling right now, Gov. Chris Christie said. Were here for you. Don't Edit Aris Economopoulos | NJ Advance Media Sons are cleared on any involvement in case Somerset County Prosecutor Geoffrey Soriano released a statement Oct. 18 clearing the Sheridans sons from any involvement in the deaths of their mother and father. "At this point in our investigation, we are very confident that the four sons of John and Joyce Sheridan played no role in the death of their mother and father. Continued efforts of the various media outlets to obtain information from this office beyond which is required by governing authority and which has already been supplied is unjustly and unreasonably causing speculation as to the circumstances involved in the investigation. Don't Edit NJ Advance Media file photo October and November bring a flurry of activity in investigation Between the end of October and the end of November there is a flurry of activity surrounding the Sheridans deaths. Death certificates were issued for John and Joyce Sheridan on Oct. 30. The certificates, filed in Somerset County Surrogate Court, lists her death as a homicide. Johns certificate is listed as pending investigation. It isnt until Nov. 12 that the Somerset County Prosecutors Office confirms that one of the Sheridan's sons, Matthew, who was living with his parents, was arrested for alleged cocaine possession by Montgomery Police the day his parents died. He was not charged at the time, and no reason was given as to why he was not charged. The prosecutor has five years to file charges. Two of the Sheridan's sons, Mark and Matthew, applied on Nov. 13 to be administrators of their parents' $2 million estate. Mark is put in charge of the estate on Dec. 12. In an interview published Nov. 19, Peter Mitchko, Joyces brother, said, "I believe there's still a killer out there somewhere. The same day the interview is published the state Attorney Generals office confirms that they have been involved in the investigation for weeks. Don't Edit Don't Edit Sheridan's death ruled a murder-suicide The Sheridans deaths are ruled a murder-suicide on March 27, 2015, nearly six months after the investigation began. The news followed by the Feb. 25 release of information from the state Attorney General's Office says that Joyce Sheridan was actually killed by a knife wound to her chest. The Somerset County Prosecutors report states that John stabbed his wife multiple times before pouring gasoline throughout the bedroom, setting it on fire, and then stabbing himself. Authorities also say they had evidence John Sheridan had been unusually distraught in the days leading up to the deaths, enough so that it troubled friends and family members. That claim would be disputed by family, friends and colleagues. Their sons responded they intended to sue to challenge the investigation. "They cannot explain that the weapon used to stab our father was never recovered. They cannot explain his broken ribs, chipped tooth or why he was found under an armoire," the Sheridan sons wrote in their joint announcement. Don't Edit Patti Sapone | NJ Advance Media Sons release trove of information from their investigation In April, the sons released dozens of pages of documents they claim cast doubt on the prosecutors' conclusion their parents died in a murder-suicide. In an open letter to Somerset County Prosecutor Geoffrey D. Soriano, Mark Sheridan accused the prosecutor of jumping to conclusions of deciding the deaths were a murder-suicide early on, and working to build a case around that assumption. The prosecutors office declined to comment. Among the claims made made by the sons: conflicting statements between the prosecutor and the medical examiner about Johns cause of death, missed wounds, missing weapons and conflicting stories. In an interview, Soriano said: "Early on, no doubt about it, we concluded it was murder-suicide. There are some who say, 'You made your mind up and shut down.' It's the opposite. I challenged our detectives and assistant prosecutors to go out and find the person who did this. And we tried. Don't Edit Nj Advance Media file photo Family turns to courts to get autopsy, cause of death overturned In August, the Sheridans sons filed a notice for certification before the state Supreme Court in order to consolidate the challenges to their fathers autopsy report and his amended death certificate into a single case. The sons were seeking to have John Sheridans death certificate, filed by medical examiner Eddy Lilavois, changed from suicide to undetermined by filing an appeal in the Appellate Division. The Supreme Court ruled Sept. 11 that the deadline for the sons to file their appeal of the autopsy report could be made up to 30 days after the Appellate Division rules on the certificate. On Sept. 28, a year after the Sheridans deaths, the Appellate Division ruled that a formal application with proof had to be submitted first with the state Medical Examiners Office. The sons filed the petition on Dec. 17 with both the medical examiner's and the Attorney General's Office and included an affidavit from pathologist Michael Baden stating that the death appears to be a homicide, not a suicide. Don't Edit NJ Advance Media Friends of John and Joyce Sheridan call for investigation, offer reward A group of 200 prominent New Jersey residents including three former governors calling themselves the Friends of John & Joyce Sheridan released a letter on Feb. 17 calling for the investigation into the Sheridans death and announcing the family is offering a $250,000 reward "for information leading to the arrest and conviction of John and Joyce's killer(s). Its members include former Governors Thomas Kean, James J. Florio and Christine Whitman, former Supreme Court Justice Gary Stein and former Attorneys General John Farmer and Peter Harvey. Other members include Ed Stier, former director of the NJ Division of Criminal Justice, former state cabinet officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys, lawyers, friends and professional associates of the couple. Don't Edit NJ Advance Media Somerset County Prosecutor leaves his post Somerset County Prosecutor Geoffrey D. Soriano was relieved of his duties on Feb. 18 and replaced by Michael Robertson, an assistant U.S. attorney. The announcement is made 24 hours after the Friends of John & Joyce Sheridan release their letter. "I'm very disappointed in the governor and I told him, state Sen. Christopher Kip Bateman (R-Somerset) said. "I think he has done an outstanding job. Anyone who came in contact with him would say that. He was a top-notch prosecutor. Bateman had recommended Soriano to the post back in 2010. "It's long overdue that someone took charge of that office," Mark Sheridan said. "I don't think there has been anyone in charge with the authority to run that office for a long time. I think there has been a long history of failures in that office. My parents' case, the (George) Kavanaugh case (in which the murder of an ex-Somerville firefighter has gone unsolved), the attorney (Richard Schubach) who committed suicide recently. I think the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office needs somebody to take charge." Don't Edit You have permission to edit this article. Edit Close He served 43 years in solitary confinement, perhaps the longest in U.S. history, before a federal court freed him in 2016. Public needs to have faith that charter school test scores are accurate: An editorial The federal government plans to pour $125 million into the fight against a mysterious disease that has ravaged corals in Florida and much of the Caribbean, and now poses a dire threat to the treasured reefs off the Louisiana and Texas coasts. WASHINGTON (AP) The House Jan. 6 committee plans to unveil "surprising" details at its next public hearing about the 2021 attack at the U.S. Capitol. The session Thursday afternoon is likely to be the last public hearing before midterm elections next month. The panel is expected to include new evidence from the U.S. Secret Service about its actions with Donald Trump that day. Ahead of a report later this year, the panel is summing up its findings. The committee says Trump, after he lost the 2020 presidential election, launched an unprecedented attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's victory. They say the result was the deadly mob siege of the Capitol. 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. Welcome to non league daily news now - your number one spot for all things relating to the National League System. Our dedicated reporters have come straight from the sidelines to bring you news fresh from the dugout - but not before theyve stopped off at the burger van first! We know that non league football fans are full of heart, passion, and belief. You trust the manager, you believe in the team, and, for some strange reason, you trust those rickety stands, too! Here at Non League Daily, we hope we can become your trusted non league news resource - a platform thats just as passionate about non league daily news now as you. Come rain or shine, well be out reporting on the latest non league fixtures. Well also be scouring the news, refreshing social media, and sourcing information from team websites in the hopes of finding the latest breaking non league daily news for our readers. As youll soon see, weve got exclusive match reports on the Vanarama National League, weve got transfer speculation thatll affect the National League South, weve found great stories thatll spice up the National League North, and weve even got news on the latest giant killers of the FA Cup. We may not be able to agree on who is going up this year, but we can all agree that any news on the NLS worth knowing will be published here, at Non League Daily. A former police chief for an eastern Kansas town will soon be heading back to Miami County, Kansas to face, among other things, aggravated intimidation of a witness. At 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, Robert Butters former police chief in Osawatomie, Kansas was found at Methodist Jennie Edmundson Hospital. According to Pottawattamie County Sheriffs Office records, after Butters, 51, was treated at Jennie Edmundson and about to be released from the hospital, sheriffs deputies arrested him and placed him into custody at Pottawattamie County Jail. On Friday morning, Butters waived extradition to Kansas. Kansas authorities have up to 10 days to pick Butters up from Pottawattamie County Jail or Butters will be released. Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) Senior Special Agent Mark Malick, a Lewis Central High School graduate, would not give a date when KCI officials would pick up Butters, but he did say it would happen within the 10 days. On Wednesday, Kansas authorities filed arrest warrants charging Butters with aggravated intimidation of a witness, attempted interference with a law enforcement officer and possession of a firearm while under the influence. Before Butters could be taken into custody, Malick said, he left the state. Witnesses saw him heading north out of Kansas City, so the KBI informed regional law enforcement agencies about his whereabouts. The Kansas warrants were filed because of Butters alleged interference with an ongoing investigation. Malick could not comment on the investigation, but he did say that the investigation revolves around an incident, which took place in the past 30 days in Osawatomie one Butters did not oversee in his former role as Osawatomie police chief. Butters resigned as police chief and director of public safety on Jan. 20. According to the Miami County Republic, Butters resigned for personal reasons and for the best interests of his family. He was appointed chief on June 1, 2015. He was in law enforcement for 29 years. 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. Good news for fans of Sudbury's Stack Brewing : Two of the local brewery's products are now available at the Lasalle and Lorne locations of The Beer Store . Good news for fans of Sudbury's Stack Brewing : Two of the local brewery's products are now available at the Lasalle and Lorne locations of The Beer Store Stack's Impact Altbier and La Cloche Belgian blonde ale will be sold at The Beer Store in six-packs.That's thanks to a policy change that allows small brewers like Stack to offer two products at up to seven Beer Store locations without having to pay fees.Stack Brewing owner Shawn Mailloux dropped off his products at the Lasalle and Lorne Beer Store locations Thursday morning.He said he eventually hopes to have Stack beer at the Hanmer store, as well as Beer Store locations throughout northeastern Ontario.It's neat, Mailloux said. We'll see what happens with the Beer Store. Hopefully it's positive experience and we move a lot of product.Stack Brewing already sells some of its products through LCBO stores in the northeast.Mailloux said if selling through the Beer Store works out, it could ultimately mean the creation of more jobs. The brewery, which will celebrate its third birthday in June, already employs 12 people.Employees at the Beer Store have been very accommodating, said Rob Majury, who works in sales with Stack Brewing.It felt really great going to the Lasalle beer store, he said. They had just received an email that morning saying the product was going to be listed the next week. They saw the logo on my jacket, and there was high fives all around.They said 'We're really excited we have an answer to customers who come in and say where's the local beer?' Now they have something positive to say other than 'Go across the parking lot to the LCBO.' If Danette Hillier could describe her life with one word, it would be forgotten. If Danette Hillier could describe her life with one word, it would be forgotten. After her daughter was born in February 2007, Hillier started to experience constant and intense pain, and had trouble sleeping even a few hours without waking up regularly. The next year her condition deteriorated to the point she had to quit her job as a geologist. It took six more years before she was diagnosed with EhlersDanlos syndrome, or EDS, a rare disorder that affects the body's ability to produce collagen, a protein that is a major component of connective tissues like skin, ligaments and blood vessels. As the disease progresses those connective tissues deteriorate, causing intense pain, hyper-flexible joints and other complications, such as a brain disorder called ArnoldChiari malformation, and tethered spinal cord syndrome. I think it's rarely diagnosed, Hillier said. They (doctors) focus on more common illnesses, instead of focusing on something that might be a rare disorder. Two years after her diagnosis, Hillier was prescribed strong painkillers to help manage her pain, but still experiences pain in her lower back and head. Because EDS is so rare, it's barely covered in medical school, if at all, Hillier said. She said one particular doctor's appointment brought her to tears out of frustration. I broke down in his office one day, and he said I should get to crisis immediately, and should probably spend some time in a psychiatric hospital, she said. There is no cure for EDS, but there are treatments available to help treat some of the symptoms. For Hillier, one of those symptoms is a malformation of her spinal cord called tethered spinal cord syndrome. Her spinal cord has fused to her spinal column, which affects its ability to normally move up and down the spinal canal, at the base. To have her spinal cord de-tethered Hillier would need to see a specialist in Maryland, and pay around $65,000 out of pocket for the procedure. There are no surgeons in Canada who do the procedure, she said. In addition to her physical pain, Hillier said the disease has been isolating. Before her symptoms began, she ran five kilometres a day, but now spends most of her time at home. I think it was easier to run five kilometres a day than it is to get up and get my kids off to school, she said. Hillier said many of her friendships have faded away, and even relationships with some family members have fallen apart. They don't want to hear anything about it, she said. They don't want to be reminded of what might happen to them. EDS has genetic links, and one of Hillier's sisters has also been diagnosed with the disorder. Hillier said she worries her two children could develop symptoms as they get older. Because of those concerns for her own health, and her children's health, Hillier has come out in support of Kitchener-Conestoga MPP Michael Harris push to create a select committee that would review the co-ordination and funding for rare disease treatment in Ontario. Hillier will put forward a private member's bill on Feb. 25, asking the provincial government to create the committee. The committee would include six members of the Liberal government, two members from the Progressive Conservative opposition, which would include Harris, and one NDP MPP. It would travel the province to hear from patients, their families and medical experts, and make recommendations to improve treatment for rare diseases like EDS. Synchronized researching Laurentian mining experts working in different fields will find themselves playing on the same team in the coming months. MIRARCO's Vic Pakalnis will be the associate vice-president of the LMIT. Photo by Ella Myers. Laurentian mining experts working in different fields will find themselves playing on the same team in the coming months. The university announced the creation of a new mining innovation and technology research initiative called Laurentian Mining and Technology (LMIT), on Friday. The initiative's groups encompass Laurentian's four major research centres. We usually just sit here in our silos, said John Gunn, director of Vale's Living with Lakes Centre. Until our first meeting I didn't know much about the other groups. The four centres are the Centre for Research in Occupational Safety and Health (CROSH), the Mineral Exploration Research Centre (MERC), the Mining Innovation Rehabilitation and Applied Research Corporation (MIRARCO) and the Vale Living with Lakes Centre. The LMIT will coordinate and promote all mining-related research at the university, with a stated goal to develop a safer, more productive and more sustainable mining industry in Ontario. LMIT's associate vice president will be Vic Pakalnis, a mining engineer from MIRARCO. Pakalnis said the initiative will present a united front to industry and government, and provide economic opportunities. Individually we're fabulous, together the overarching umbrella organization we can access more, including global markets, said Pakalnis. Pakalnis and Laurentian's vice president of research, Rui Wang, have been working on a partnership between China's largest mining university and Laurentian's research groups for several months now, an example of one of the projects LMIT will be facilitating. In his role at the Living with Lakes Centre, Gunn hopes to see a project developing microbes to deal with mining tailings get off the ground with the added knowledge of researchers in other groups. What it is going to do is create these large multidisciplinary teams, said Gunn. I need the engineering department, I need geologists. Gunn is optimistic the initiative will lead to concrete growth including new facilities and new researchers getting hired onto the projects. The formality of having a common hub and regular meeting schedule will benefit the research, said Gunn. This is not meant to encumber but to enrich. Laurentian University students in Barrie are conducting a sit-in at the school's administration offices in that city. Laurentian University students in Barrie are conducting a sit-in at the school's administration offices in that city. They're doing so to protest what they say are the school's insufficient program completion options offered to students in light of Laurentian's decision to close the Barrie campus by May 2019. On Feb. 12 the Laurentian board of governors decided to no longer resource Arts and Management programs in Barrie as of May 2017, and to no longer resource Social Work programs in Barrie as of May 2019. The Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities has set constraints on the powers of the board of governors and on the senate of Laurentian in Barrie since 2010, including a program moratorium. In May 2015, the Ministry did not approve the Universitys submission for major capacity expansion in Barrie. Laurentian said it wanted students who pay university tuition to be able to complete four-year degrees fully taught by university faculty in Barrie. But that vision vision was not shared by Georgian College or by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, the university said. Two of our core values as a university are putting students first, and excellence. Accepting restrictions proposed by the ministry would not be in the best interest of our current and future students, said Michael Atkins, chair of the board of governors of Laurentian University. Of Laurentians 696 students in Barrie, the 186 students currently enrolled in the Bachelor of Social Work program will be able to complete their degree in Barrie by April 2019. The 291 students currently enrolled in third and fourth years of the Bachelor of Arts, the Bachelor of Business Administration and the Bachelor of Commerce programs will be able to complete their four-year degree in Barrie by April 2017. The remaining 219 students will be presented with a range of personalized options, including completing their degree in Sudbury with financial support or on-line, completing a three-year Bachelor of Arts degree in Barrie, having a Letter of Permission to take courses in another university to meet degree requirements, or transferring to another university. Though some students will be able to complete their programs and graduate on the Barrie campus, there will still be 220 students left essentially in academic limbo as they see their programs come to an end in Barrie and are forced to move their studies elsewhere," said Melanie Van Ameron, vice-president of campaigns and advocacy at the Laurentian Students' Union, in a press release. We are here to stress that there is still time for the Board of Governors to right this wrong and ensure fairness for all Laurentian University students at Barrie. The Laurentian Students' Union has requested that the Board of Governors change their decision and allow all programs to continue running until 2019 so that all students can finish their degree at the same campus at which they enrolled. The students' union launched a petition online which has gotten more than 1,000 signatures and said it will continue to gather support until the next board meeting in Sudbury, on April 15. There, the students plant to demonstrate their discontent, and demand to remain in Barrie until 2019. School-parish-home connection is key: Catholic trustee Sudbury Catholic District School Board trustee Nancy Deni recently completed a newly-created online course for trustees. Sudbury Catholic District School Board trustee Nancy Deni recently completed a newly-created online course for trustees. Supplied photo. Sudbury Catholic District School Board trustee Nancy Deni recently completed a newly-created online course for trustees. In 2015, eight universities in Ontario collaborated with the Ontario Catholic School Trustee Association (OCSTA) to create the OCSTA Certificate Course in Leadership & Good Governance. The course provides a trustee with many benefits such as developing a greater understanding and appreciation of the history of Catholic education in Ontario along with a greater understanding of the role of Catholic social teaching in our modern society. The leadership lessons of Pope Francis are also explored in the course. Topics include youth engagement in Catholic education, the role of the trustee as a public advocate for Catholic education, support for Ontario First Nations, Metis and Inuit education and an examination of trends in Catholic education throughout Canada and the rest of the world. As part of the program, trustees are required to work on a practicum project that ideally could benefit their school board. A relatively new Sudbury Catholic trustee elected for the first time in 2014, Deni chose to focus on the home-school-parish triad relationship and ways that this triad can be strengthened. As part of her project, she sought and received feedback from parents, principals, priests and laypersons in the church, as she feels very strongly that the strength of this relationship is the key to keeping Catholic education alive and well in Ontario. "I feel very privileged to be amongst the first cohort of trustees to complete the program," Deni said, in a press release. "It was an eye-opening experience and I recommend the course to all trustees who want to be strong advocates for Catholic education in this province. This course really strengthened my belief that a Catholic education provides students with a really special and unique educational experience. We really do educate the mind, the body and the spirit in our schools." Governor general to honour Sudbury teen A Grade 10 Ecole secondaire Hanmer student who has been heavily involved with the school's charitable efforts is being presented with the Governor General's Caring Canadian Award. Grade 10 Ecole secondaire Hanmer student Sophie Menard shows off just some of the funds she's helped to raise for the Coldest Night of the Year. She's a founding member of the school's charitable OuiCare Club. Menard will be honoured for her volunteer work next week, when she'll be presented with the Governor Generals Caring Canadian Award. Supplied photo. A Grade 10 Ecole secondaire Hanmer student who has been heavily involved with the school's charitable efforts is being presented with the Governor General's Caring Canadian Award. Sophie Menard will receive the award from Governor General David Johnston in Montreal Feb. 23 at We Day, an annual event organized by Free the Children that encourages youth to take action on local and global issues. The Governor Generals Caring Canadian Award recognizes individuals who volunteer their time to help others and to build a smarter and more caring nation. I was very surprised, because when you do volunteer work and things for those in need, you don't expect a reward, Menard said. You're doing it for them to help someone out, and not be congratulated or recognized. You don't do it for that. You do it because it feels good to help others. Menard was one of the pioneers of Ecole secondaire Hanmer's OuiCare Club, which was founded in 2013, when she was in Grade 8. To raise funds, the charity club has held many campaigns: they have collected empty cans and bottles, Canadian Tire money and pennies, sold pastries and candygrams, and simply solicited donations. Their efforts have helped organizations such as Free the Children, Blue Door Soup Kitchen, Paws for Hope and others, as well as less fortunate families at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Once a month, the group helps out at Blue Door Soup Kitchen to prepare and serve meals. Menard and her classmates will also participate in this weekend's Coldest Night of the Year fundraiser for the Samaritan Centre. As of Thursday afternoon, the school had raised nearly $3,000 for the cause. She said she enjoys doing charitable work because she knows she has a good life, and she wants others to as well. The teen also attended We Day in 2014, and said it was an amazing, inspiring day. They encourage us to work as a team, Menard said. If one person's inspired, then the next one will be inspired, and then you work as a team. Ecole secondaire Hanmer principal Jean Bigras said in a press release she's very proud of Menard. It's a great pleasure to work with her, she said. Her commitment and her constant desire to contribute and make a difference in her community and the entire world inspire us to all go further and do better. This isn't the first time an Ecole secondaire Hanmer student has received the Governor Generals Caring Canadian Award. In 2015, Vincent Villeneuve who now attends Ecole secondaire Macdonald-Cartier also received the award for his work with the OuiCare club. Tax time brings out telephone scammers Tax season isn't just a busy time for bookkeepers. Greater Sudbury Police have received dozens of calls in recent days including more than 20 on Friday from residents who were contacted as part of a telephone scam. Tax season isn't just a busy time for bookkeepers. Greater Sudbury Police have received dozens of calls in recent days including more than 20 on Friday from residents who were contacted as part of a telephone scam. File photo. Tax season isn't just a busy time for bookkeepers. Greater Sudbury Police have received dozens of calls in recent days including more than 20 on Friday from residents who were contacted as part of a telephone scam. Marianne Laberge, communications manager with Greater Sudbury Police, said callers tend to target seniors, telling them they are from the federal government and will be in big trouble if they don't pay their tax bill. "It's the Canadian Revenue Agency scam, Laberge said Friday. "It's somebody who tries to identify themselves as someone from the Canadian Revenue Agency and requesting money. "The ones we're hearing about is that they are being asked to send money, or they're going to be in trouble with the government." The scam has been around for a few years, Laberge said, and resurfaces with the new tax season. Older persons are targetted because they tend to be more concerned about getting in trouble. "They call us, thankfully, because we can tell them that it is a scam and they can disregard it," she said. "It's tax season, so obviously this is prime time for this scam to be running. (The attempts at fraud) are escalating, so we want to get the information out to citizens that it is, absolutely, a scam. "The (CRA) would never call somebody at home (to demand money.)" Anyone who is contacted as part of the scam should call the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, toll-free,1-888-495-8501. "They can call us, as well," Laberge said, but the first call should be to the centre. In an earlier news release, the Ontario Provincial Police warned that the fraudsters often pressure the homeowner to send money, attempting to gain valuable personal information in the process. They usually have some information that they have gained through public online sites in an attempt to give you a sense of trust so they may gain more pertinent information, such as your date of birth, bank account information, credit card numbers, passwords or PIN numbers, said the news release. Some tips to avoid becoming a victim: -- Be vigilant about protecting your personal information. Legitimate agencies will already have the information about you they need and will not ask you for it. -- You should not feel pressured to give out any information or transfer any funds at any time. If you do feel pressured, be skeptical. -- Advise the caller you will follow up by calling the agency / company yourself to confirm what you are being told if they try to keep you on the line, you should quickly hang up. -- Ask for callers name and phone number. -- Talk to someone you trust before sending money. -- Legitimate service providers and government agencies do not threaten their customers into sending money by way of money transfers. -- Do not provide personal information unless you are the one that initiated the call no exceptions. For more information, visit the Canadian Anti-Fraud Center website at www.antifraudcentre.ca. If you have been victimized or someone has made you feel intimidated, contact Sudbury police service at 705-675-9171. CROWN POINT A Gary man was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison after he admitted to unlawfully possessing a gun the night a man was killed. Michael A. Rivera, 59, had faced a murder charge in the May 1 shooting death of London T. Clayton, 49, of Gary. As part of the plea agreement, the murder charge was dismissed. Rivera pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon, a Level 4 felony. His wife, LaTanya R. Marshall, had faced a charge of assisting a criminal, but that charge also was dismissed. Marshall testified during Thursday's sentencing hearing in front of Lake County Criminal Judge Diane Boswell they were going to show T-shirts to members of the Sin City Deciples at the clubhouse in the 1300 block of Virginia Street in Gary. When they arrived, they saw an altercation between Clayton and another club member in the clubhouse's parking lot. She said Clayton was armed with a gun and shooting at the other club member. Rivera got out of their car and tried to stop the altercation. Though she didn't see her husband with a gun, he at some point grabbed a revolver from their car. Marshall said she had put her two guns in their vehicle, because she didn't want to leave them home with her son and grandchild. Marshall said she grabbed a second gun she had in her car in the midst of the shooting. She said the other club member took the gun from her and used it to shoot at Clayton. During questioning by defense attorney Scott King, Marshall said bail hearings in the case revealed that the shots Rivera fired struck Clayton in the legs and weren't fatal. An officer who witnessed the end of the shooting described the shooter wearing clothes that Rivera wasn't wearing that night. King said a witness who testified during the bail hearings described how enraged Clayton became following an argument with another club member over surveillance video. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Eric Randall asked Boswell to take Marshall's testimony with a grain of salt, because of the relationship with Rivera. He also said Rivera's three past felony convictions shouldn't be taken lightly. Rivera apologized to everyone including his wife. He said he knew Clayton and wished there hadn't been a loss of life. When Boswell handed down the 10-year sentence, she told Rivera she found his history with guns troubling. One of his past convictions was for unlawful possession of a firearm. Boswell said the danger of having guns readily available is that people sometimes resort to using them first without thinking of alternatives. In this case, Boswell said Rivera could have driven out of the parking lot and called 911. HOBART A teachers aide in a special education classroom at Hobart Middle School is facing criminal charges after allegedly showing nude pictures of a woman to a student. Heather Lynn Reed, 45, of the 1100 block of Laura Court in Hobart, was charged Wednesday with dissemination of matter harmful to minors, court records show. Reed was an aide who was employed through the Northwest Indiana Special Education Cooperative. She was assigned to work at Hobart Middle School. NISEC director Jane Winkoff said Reed is no longer employed with the special education cooperative. Reed was terminated effective Dec. 14, 2015. A school resource officer at the school at 36th E. 8th St. said he met on Dec. 14 with a 14-year-old male student and his mother. The student said that on Dec. 11 while he was in class, Reed asked if he had a Facebook account and if he wanted to use her phone. The boy allegedly said he wasnt allowed on Facebook at the time and asked Reed who she was talking to on the phone. Reed allegedly said she was talking to a girlfriend and asked if he wanted to see her. Reed then allegedly showed him multiple photos of the same woman in which he saw one of her breasts, one of her in her underwear and one where she was standing and fully nude. Later in the class, Reed allegedly made a hand gesture over her mouth and said, Dont tell anyone about this, court records said. The school resource officer said he immediately notified the principals at the school and his colleagues at the police department. The officer was present when school officials confronted Reed, who allegedly became upset and denied the allegations. The officer asked if he could access Reeds Facebook account and found photos matching those described by the student. Reed was allegedly told she was being suspended for the day and the resource officer walked her to her classroom. During the walk, Reed allegedly said, I cant believe this. I realized he was standing behind me when I was scrolling through my phone and he asked me if that was my girlfriend, but I immediately told him to sit down then I threw my phone in the drawer. The officer said her comments conflicted with her earlier statements. VALPARAISO A 37-year-old man faces probation rather than more jail time after pleading guilty Friday to one of several counts of possessing child pornography. Jason Schlink, of Union Township, struck a deal with prosecutors to have five related charges dropped in return for the guilty plea. The proposed plea agreement calls for two and a half years of prison time, with all but time served suspended and to be served on formal probation. He would also be required to register as a sex offender and undergo a sex offender evaluation and treatment. The agreement was taken under advisement by Porter Superior Court Judge Bill Alexa, who will decide April 1 whether to accept the deal and carry out sentencing. Schlink told the court he downloaded a child porn video Nov. 11, 2014. The download was noticed by a special agent with the Department of Homeland Security, who was using law enforcement software to review online peer-to-peer activity. An IP address later traced to Schlink was found to have made one successful and five unsuccessful attempts to download child pornography between Nov. 7-11, according to charging information. The descriptions of the videos place some of the childrens ages at 5, 10 and 13. Police said they searched Schlinks home Dec. 22 and seized several computers. Child pornography was reportedly found on one of the hard drives. Schlink initially told investigators he was searching for music online when child pornography kept popping up, according to the court records. He said he downloaded and watched a video, and then continued the process. He said he placed the movie files in a folder on the computer in an attempt to hide them, according to police. He also admitted to downloading peer blocker software to hide his downloading activity. MUNSTER A 33-year-old man with a history of being accused of inappropriately touching minors in Northwest Indiana and Illinois is facing a new criminal charge in Cook County. Brett Zagorac, of Munster, faces a charge of aggravated criminal sexual abuse. His bail was set at $100,000 during a hearing Friday in Chicago. He is accused of rubbing a then 7-year-old childs lower back and putting the minor on his lap while the child worked on homework, according to a news release from Cook County states attorney. Zagorac tutored the 7-year-old child once a week along with another child starting in August 2014 at a home in Cook County. According to the release, the childs parents learned of the incidents involving their child after Zagorac was charged with inappropriately touching another minor. In that case, Zagorac is accused of inappropriately touching a then 9-year-old child in 2014 at an Illinois home. During one occasion, Zagorac fondled the child, who was wearing pajamas. The charges in the case are still pending. Zagorac, who goes by B.J. Sagorac and B.J. Zagr, in 2003 was found guilty at trial of battery involving two students at Peifer Elementary School in Schererville. The Indiana Court of Appeals later reversed the findings and ordered separate jury trials. He was eventually acquitted of the charges. He had also faced child molesting charges involving a student at Edison Elementary School in Hammond. Those charges were dismissed in 2007 after the student refused to testify. In 2010, Zagorac was convicted by a Porter County jury of battery, a Class B misdemeanor. GARY Post-traumatic stress disorder isnt whats wrong with you. Its what happened to you," decorated Vietnam War veteran Jim Chancellor told an assembly Thursday. "War knows no boundary. We (veterans of all wars) are sewn together with the same fabric, the same thread. Chancellor, 66, shared that message Thursday during his presentation PTSD: Through the Eyes of a Door Gunner at Indiana University Northwest. His presentation kicked off the latest exploration of veterans issues sponsored by the university as part of yearlong One Book, One Community effort. Throughout the 2015-16 academic year, IUN and its surrounding community are exploring the themes of the book Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front, in the Words of U.S. Troops and Their Families. The book, edited by Andrew Carroll, is a series of stories and lettersthat tell the story of Americas military through their own eyes, said Crystal Shannon, assistant professor in the School of Nursing. As a campus, we thought it was important to engage not only our students and faculty but the entire community. Currently we have 185 students this semester who have identified themselves as veterans, Shannon said. My name is Jim Chancellor, and I have experienced war. I want to tell you I am not a psychiatrist. I am not a psychologist. Im not a mental health expert or even a counselor. Im not here to try and explain to you why our veterans act the way they do or say the things they say, he said. But what I am is a man that has been married four times. What I am is a man that has been in drug and alcohol treatment programs twice. What I am is a man that has been alone with his thoughts many, many times, Chancellor said. This is my story. This is my journey. PTSD stems from a number of experiences, Chancellor said. It includes threats to your life, seeing others injured or killed, harmful and fatal crashes, natural disasters, terrorism, domestic violence, rape, war and having to make life and death decisions. He also explained three types of PTSD onset: Acute PTSD involves early onset, is very intense, but subsides within six months. Chronic PTSD has early onset, but is prolonged more than six months. Delayed PTSD happens more than six months from the traumatic event, sometimes months, even years after the event. He described PTSD symptoms as the demons that drive the car," explaining depression and isolation are the most frequent and dangerous with suicide, addiction, binge drinking and divorce the prime results. There are 22 suicides of military veterans per day. Thats one every 65 minutes. Someone who was willing to die for you takes his own life, Chancellor said. Divorce occurs for 42 percent of veterans during or after their tours of duty, he said. The first 90 days are when most divorces take place for veterans. War isolation extends to the family. Homelessness also results, Chancellor said, with 75,000 vets are homeless every night. Unacceptable, Chancellor said. A range of other PTSD symptoms also include poor memory, avoiding activities, difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep, anger outbursts, difficulty concentrating and an exaggerated startle response. A door gunners life expectancy is 19 seconds, Chancellor said. As a door gunner, I was in combat 240 days. More than 45 years later, Chancellor said he still scans crowded places looking for those with guns. When it snows, I go to every window in my house, looking for footprints in the snow, he said. Im on high alert almost 24/7. INDIANAPOLIS State lawmakers may come to the rescue of the East Chicago City Council by providing a new option for replacing jailed Councilman Robert Battle, without having to remove him from office. State Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary, is expected to propose changing Senate Bill 146 on Monday to establish a process for declaring a City Council member "disabled" if he's continuously incarcerated for 90 days or more. Battle, 42, has been held without bond in Porter County Jail since Nov. 17 after pleading not guilty to federal drug and homicide charges tied to the killing of Reimundo Camarillo Jr., 31, on Oct. 12 in East Chicago. His trial is scheduled for late summer. The East Chicago City Council so far has declined to use its authority to remove Battle from office by a two-thirds vote. Instead, it has become the subject of national ridicule, most recently for debating whether to allow Battle to phone into council meetings collect from jail. Under Brown's plan, when a majority of the City Council agrees Battle is unable to perform his duties while incarcerated, they can declare him disabled and a temporary replacement would be selected by precinct committeemen in Battle's 3rd District. The substitute would serve the remainder of the four-year term the Democrat won in November despite his legal problems. If Battle is acquitted, he could regain his office by giving notice he is once again able to perform his duties and a council majority agrees. He automatically loses his office if convicted of a felony. The legislation also requires the councilman's $42,356 annual salary be paid to his replacement so long as he or she serves in Battle's stead. Brown said he's not happy about having to ask the General Assembly to act because the East Chicago City Council is unwilling to fix the situation using tools already at its disposal. "It is sad that they have punted, and they expect the state legislative body to do what they as a local legislative body could do," Brown said. "But this is a request of many, many of my fellow elected officials back north that indicated that this is a big embarrassment." If the plan, which is modeled after a statute providing for temporary replacement of state lawmakers called to military service, wins approval by the House Judiciary Committee on Monday, the full House is likely to vote on it late in February or early March. The Senate then must concur with Brown's addition to the underlying tort claims-immunity proposal, sponsored by state Sen. Ed Charbonneau, R-Valparaiso, for it to go to Gov. Mike Pence for his signature or veto, likely in mid-March. Once enacted by the governor, the councilman disability-and-replacement provision would take effect immediately. CROWN POINT Rising real estate values and tighter controls on government spending are pushing property tax rates lower this year in several Lake County communities. The tax rate will drop in East Chicago, Griffith, Munster, Whiting, Hammond and the town of Schneider, but rise in Gary and New Chicago. The rate is a number multiplied by a property's net assessed value to calculate each individual property's tax bill. County and municipal financial specialists said these new rates, released this week by the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance, affect few property owners since the state's Constitution limits the amount individual properties can be taxed. "There is nothing alarming or Earth-shattering this year," Michael Wieser, director of finance for the county auditor's office, said Thursday. He said the changes likely reflect changes in the communities' property values. Rates typically fall after assessed values rise. Jim Bennett, a consultant for East Chicago, said his city's rates dropped 22 percent because the modernization of the BP Whiting Refinery has added more than $300 million of value to the city's tax base. "This is good news," Bennett said, since it is estimated to generate an additional $1 million in property taxes City Hall can use to support government services. Bennett said the rate also is dropping because of city officials' fiscal discipline. He said the city no longer uses casino revenues to subsidize its payroll. That casino money is now contributing to plans for $30 million in future public works projects. "We follow the ABCs of sound fiscal governing," Mayor Anthony Copeland said. Griffith Town Council President Rick Ryfa said a 13 percent drop in most of his community's tax rate is part of a concerted five-year effort by town officials to bring down spending in advance of 2019 when the state tax caps will further tighten local government spending. "We have to control spending now and make sure we are in great shape when 2019 comes along. I think we are on schedule. We hope continued growth with our businesses helps lower the rate going forward," Ryfa said. Whiting Mayor Joseph Stahura said, "We retired some debt in the sanitary district." He said they have taken other measures with the city's tax increment financing district to increase the city's assessed value. American Veterans Collection Inc. focuses on helping veterans heal and teaches youth about war. Formed by Vietnam War combat veteran and Lowell resident Jim Chancellor, it is a nonprofit organization focused on helping veterans with housing and educating youth about the realities of post-traumatic stress disorder. This is the latest effort to help others by the Black Oak native who served in Vietnam from 1969-1970 as a U.S. Army door gunner on a Huey helicopter. He survived the crash of that helicopter shot down April 20, 1970 by Viet Cong. In 1972, soon after Chancellor returned from combat in Vietnam, he began giving back to others whove made that same journey. That year he helped organize and participated in a 50-mile walk to raise money for the POW-MIA families in Indiana. Chancellor has been involved in the renovation of many veterans memorials in Northwest Indiana. As president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Committee, he helped create the black granite walls at Stoney Run County Park which bear the names of 250 men from Lake County killed in Vietnam and the nine listed as missing in action. He also worked on the weeklong re-dedication of Wicker Park in 1993 attended by 40,000. As part of his own healing, Chancellor designed the Vietnam Veterans Ring in 1982 that features a black map of Vietnam with a cubic zirconium at the area where the veterans served. At Bob Hopes request, Chancellor presented the ring to the comedian in 1988 at the Star Plaza Theatre. The late Gen. Williams Westmoreland wore this ring as does Medal of Honor recipient Sammy Lee Davis. (This is) A ring to be worn silently to communicate with other combat veterans on sight. The rings stand for I know, I understand, and I care. I know about war because Ive been there. I understand what you might be going through, and I care, Chancellor said. After 9/11, Chancellor returned to jewelry design and created the Americans Veterans Collection to honor veterans of other combat theaters, including World War II, Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq. More information on the rings and the use of the funds raised can be found at the groups website www.veteranscollection.com/. CROWN POINT Energy-saving improvements the city is making at the sewage treatment plant have the potential of saving much more than the projected $70,000 a year in electric bills. Albert Stong, president of Commonwealth Engineers Inc., the Indianapolis consultants that designed the project, told the city's Board of Public Works and Safety the project could qualify for a grant from NIPSCO that will reimburse $434,000 of the costs involved in eliminating a lift station. "We are eliminating the lift station by putting in a new, higher-efficiency filtration system," Stong said. "There's a tertiary filter that is almost $1 million, and we are lowering the ultraviolet light disinfection structure. Between those two things we are able to gravity feed rather than pump it." Construction on the $3.814 million project is expected to be completed in May or June. Stong said his firm learned of the NIPSCO grant program last fall after work began, but, when they inquired about it, they were told the application had to be made during the year the project would be completed. That process was completed after getting a letter from Mayor David Uran to include with the application, and Stong said NIPSCO notified the company already the information was received and is being reviewed. Although the grants are determined on a first-come, first-served basis, Stong said he's optimistic the city's application will be approved. "We've been coordinating with NIPSCO since last year, so we believe the chances are likely it will be approved," he said. The city also received a "green and sustainable" credit on its loan from the state's revolving loan fund, saving another half percent on the already low interest rate. Stong said that will net the city another $220,080 in interest payment savings over the 20-year term of the loan. If the NIPSCO grant also is approved, the two figures will cover the cost of the company's engineering services for the project, Stong said. VALPARAISO Residents packed Flint Lake Elementary School for the first of what will be several discussions on the plans of Valparaiso Community Schools to redistrict students. Maintaining neighborhood schools, reducing and eventually eliminating the practice of intra-district transfer of students and enabling fifth-grade students to attend middle school are some of the reasons for redistricting, according to Superintendent E. Ric Frataccia. Redistricting of elementary schools would begin with the 2017-18 school year to coincide with completing the new elementary school south of U.S. 30. Redistricting for the city's two middle schools, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin, would begin with the 2018-19 school year "at the earliest." According to the plans, the new elementary school, tentatively named Heavilin Elementary, would draw 136 students from Central Elementary, 267 from Hayes Leonard, which is closing, and 83 from Parkview. Frataccia said half of the students attending Central live south of U.S. 30 so the switch there came naturally. "The current Central map is all over the place," Frataccia said. Heavilin is projected to have 486 students at a capacity of 550. The plans include 111 students to move from Memorial Elementary to Cooks Corners Elementary. Frataccia said those students currently have to pass Cooks on their way to Memorial. Plans for redistricting the middle schools are based on a non-balanced enrollment at both schools despite having the same capacity (900) and also to address future areas of residential growth. Ben Franklin Middle School currently has 811 students while Thomas Jefferson Middle School has 594. "I think that's a reasonable conclusion that something needs to be looked at," Frataccia said. Feeder elementary schools for Ben Franklin Middle School would be Cooks, Memorial, Central and Northview. Elementary feeders for Thomas Jefferson Middle School would be Flint, Heavilin, Parkview and Thomas Jefferson. To address some change-related anxiety, administration will allow students to be grandfathered between the school years of 2018-19 and 2021-22. Frataccia said there could be extenuating circumstances where grandfathering would be allowed after the three-year period "but we have to end it sometime or we have not accomplished anything." Other grandfathering circumstances might include students who are on course to attend fifth grade at their current school in 2017-2018 but according to the new boundaries would have to change schools that year. Frataccia stressed that the current ideas for redistricting "are not set in stone." Plans for the redistricting and boundary maps will be available Friday on the Valparaiso Community Schools website at www.valpo.k12.in.us. Being more efficient, and therefore saving taxpayer dollars, is a central theme of good government. But cutting corners to providing public information -- and shorting taxpayers of opportunities in the process -- isn't the way to honor that theme. It's precisely what a bill pending in the Indiana House would do if Indiana House Reps. Rick Niemeyer, R-Lowell, and Hal Slager, R-Schererville, are successful. The bill would allow Indiana county governments to forego publicly advertising in print publications the lists of tax-delinquent properties available at county commissioners' tax sales. Such sales typically occur twice per year in Lake County. Counties currently advertise such lists in local newspapers to get the word out on the availability of the parcels. The Niemeyer/Slager bill would end that requirement. Niemeyer proposed a similar bill last year that would have ended the print advertising requirement for the treasurers' tax sales, which are the annual first attempts by counties to sell properties for which owners have ceased paying taxes. In the case of last year's bill, reason ruled the day. A compromise was reached between Niemeyer and the Hoosier State Press Association in which tax-delinquent properties still have to be publicly advertised when going up for their initial tax sales. But under the compromise, counties no longer have to advertise properties making repeat appearances on treasurers' tax sale lists. The move saves county government money. But now Niemeyer and Slager are proposing an end to advertising requirements for commissioners' tax sales, without the same apparent willingness for compromise. If properties don't sell at treasurers' tax sales over time, the parcels can be moved to the commissioners' sales. Niemeyer argued before the Indiana House Ways and Means Committee this week that the two sales are essentially the same. If a property is already publicly advertised at a treasurer's sale, it need not be advertised at a subsequent commissioner's sale, he argued. But that reasoning is flawed. These sales are held for different purposes, have different rules and offer taxpayers distinctly different opportunities to acquire property. As the first stop for county governments seeking to recoup lost tax revenue, treasurers' sales auction off tax-delinquent properties for no less than the amount owed in back taxes and interest. If a property owner hasn't paid taxes on a property in at least 1 1/2 years, it can be listed on a treasurer's sale. Even if a property sells at a treasurer's sale, the original owner has a year to repay the delinquent taxes and interest to recoup the property. If a county has difficulty finding bidders for parcels at treasurers' sales, that property then can be sold at commissioners' sales. Under Indiana law, commissioners' sales place no minimum starting bids on properties, so parcels can be sold for much less than the amount owed in delinquent taxes. Commissioners' sales often deal in property that hasn't sold after multiple treasurers' sale attempts. And unlike at treasurers' sales, original parcel owners have only four months -- not a full year -- to regain tax-delinquent properties after commissioners' sales. The differences between the two sales highlight the need for their own distinct public notifications. The Hoosier State Press Association is proposing a compromise identical to the one incorporated in last year's treasurers' sale legislation. Properties only would have to be advertised in print for their initial commissioners' sale appearances under HSPA's proposed compromise. Legislators should accept such an amendment as a reasonable way of both saving taxpayer money and ensuring their constituents are informed on the availability of such properties. INDIANAPOLIS The Indiana House has joined the Senate in recognizing the value of civility in public life. Hoosier representatives recently approved House Resolution 17 honoring, and embracing the objectives of, the Community Civility Counts Initiative of the Gary Chamber of Commerce and The Times Media Co. "It is the goal of the CCC to help transform our communities through positive programs and relationships," the resolution declares. "All citizens must be better so that we can all live in a civil manner and in a civilized society." The resolution was sponsored by state Reps. Vernon Smith and Charlie Brown, both D-Gary, and state Rep. Donna Harris, D-East Chicago. It passed on an unanimous voice vote. On Jan. 26, the Senate adopted the similar Senate Resolution 6. That measure was co-sponsored by all 50 senators. Smith said he hopes the resolution reminds lawmakers, and all Hoosiers, of the need to be humane when dealing with one another. "To be civil to people doesn't meant that you always agree with them, it doesn't mean that you want to live with them, that you want to dine with them, sleep with them, anything like that," Smith said. "But you have to learn to co-exist with people and to be civil and to be calm as you're interacting with people." Chuck Hughes, executive director of the Gary Chamber of Commerce, said approval of civility resolutions by both the House and Senate sends a "resounding" message in favor of civility. "It demonstrates the commitment that our legislators have to make Indiana the kindest place to live and to visit," Hughes said. Bob Heisse, editor at The Times Media Co., said the Legislature has set a great example, and he hopes its understanding of the value of civility in politics and government spreads far and wide. "Community Civility Counts began nearly a year ago as an awareness campaign in the Region, and the General Assembly recognition takes it around the state," Heisse said. "It's for everyone and it's certainly needed, particularly in this national election year." More information about Civility Counts is available online at facebook.com/civilitycounts. Family and friends gathered Thursday to pay their final respects to a mother and two of her children who were stabbed to death at a Staten Island hotel earlier this month. 26-year-old Rebecca Cutler and her 1-year-old and 4-month-old daughters were allegedly stabbed to death by her boyfriend, Michael Sykes. Police say it happened at the Ramada in Willowbrook on Feb. 10. The 23-year-old was arrested in Queens on Saturday. He has been charged with murder and attempted murder. A viewing was held for the three victims at Brooklyn Funeral Home & Cremation Service, and the funeral followed in the evening. Members of the community came together to pay their respects to the victims. Those who knew Cutler said they are still shocked by her death. "I was shocked, really, really shocked," one woman said. "I felt hurt by it because I had just seen her that morning around 7 o'clock, she was fine." "It kills me because I was in my room when she was getting murdered, her and her kids, and it hurts because I can't imagine anybody doing this to someone so sweet," said another. The funeral director said they are donating the services to the family. "I think of my own grandchildren. How could you hurt children? said Robert Cassieri of the funeral home. You know, you can get mad at another adult and you can be angry and possibly turn to violence, but how do you kill innocent children? It just doesn't make any sense. Its about time to that we have to step forward and help those less fortunate than ourselves, Cassieri added. That's a blessing from God when you can do that. Cutler's 2-year-old was also stabbed, but survived the attack and is still in critical condition. Mourners paid their respects to late Justice Antonin Scalia at the Supreme Court on Friday, as his body lied in repose inside the court's Great Hall. Washington bureau reporter Geoff Bennett filed the following report. The body of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia rested Friday inside the building where he built his judicial legacy. Friday morning, an honor guard led by Scalia's former law clerks carried his flag-draped casket up the courts massive front steps. Inside stood the eight remaining Supreme Court justices. Several fought back tears. The pallbearers then placed the casket on the same wooden platform on which President Abraham Lincoln's coffin rested back in 1865. Then, Paul Scalia, a Roman Catholic priest and one of the late justices nine children, led the gathering in prayer. Release him from the bonds of sin and welcome him into your presence so that he may enjoy eternal light and peace and be raised up in glory with all your saints," he said. After the private ceremony, hundreds of mourners, who had been waiting in line for about an hour, got their chance to say farewell to Scalia, who had been the leader of the courts conservative wing. "The Bible says a man worthy of honor is worthy of respect, and he was a man worthy of honor and he is a man worthy of respect. Thats why I came down here today," said one attendee. "Were just good conservative folks who want to combat the narrative that were seeing a lot of folks who are attacking him, attacking his legacy, which I think is unfortunate," said another. That sentiment was shared by many who viewed the casket Friday. A long line stretched around the side of the court and was momentarily stopped as President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama arrived late in the day to pay their respects. Scalia will be buried after a funeral Saturday in Washington. NY1 will have live coverage of the funeral service Saturday at 11 a.m. The first of the seven solos features a step in which the ballerina tilts her head to one side as her opposite foot makes a dance point. This can easily look coy or daft, but Nicole Padillas timing on Wednesday so acutely showed the choreographys wit that happy laughs could be heard around the theater. From that moment on, this elusive work had the audience in the palm of its hand. The seven variations notoriously difficult in their rapid technical challenges were like successive displays of high-society enchantment: each ballerina twinkled, charmed, fascinated, laughed in a different key, blithely in command of steps so intricate that you could analyze their construction for days. It often seems that Ashton is the supreme choreographer of the way we are in the social world: in Birthday Offering we might be watching an entire royal family making brilliant small talk, and in Facade (1931), which closed Wednesdays program, were close to the cartoon world of enchanting silliness immortalized by P. G. Wodehouse. More crucially, though, Ashtons ballets are about through-the-body energy: the interplay of wrists, eyes, insteps, back, pelvis and shoulders and the brisk, frequent changes of direction speak to us not just of polite exteriors but of intense vitality. We find ourselves following these works philosophically: they teach us how to be. And Illuminations (1950) shows how vehemently and imaginatively Ashton takes us under the human skin. This ballet is about the French poet Arthur Rimbaud, as felt through the filter of Benjamin Brittens great song-cycle Les Illuminations. The ballet is an imaginative re-creation of a Poets interior life: Ashton presents a series of fantastic, surreal visions and two rival muses, Sacred Love and Profane Love. The designs are by Cecil Beaton. Profane wears a point shoe on one foot while the other foot is bare; her hair falls, like a bacchantes, down her shoulders. Sacred is all white, with a ruff, a hat and a tulle dress. The Poet has erotic grapplings with Profane in which you feel the friction of two desirous bodies; he then takes a scarf from her dress, wipes himself off with it, and seemingly relieves himself at an onstage pissoir. In an astonishing ending, Profane Love has him shot (wounded, not killed), but he, without ever looking at her, pursues only Sacred Love. Remote but exalted, she travels in slow arching lifts from side to side at the back of the stage; he slowly follows her off into his final apotheosis. There are American connections here: Britten completed his score in the United States in 1940, and this was the first of two works created by Ashton (who had first worked in this country in 1934) for New York City Ballet. In its Being Beauteous section, he pointedly has a ballerina in white partnered by four bare-chested men. One of these men in the 1950s was Arthur Bell, City Ballets first black dancer Ashton was referring to Rimbauds time in Africa and the Sarasota production continues this, with Ricardo Rhodes. In This Place, an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, life and photography and art cause sparks to fly. Its more than 600 images have been taken by 12 well-known photographers, and document life on one of the most contested stretches of land in the world: Israel and the West Bank, where Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians, Bedouins and Africans, among others, often live tensely side by side, and the threat of violence is never far away. Though none of the images could be considered news photographs, they are rarely less than striking and they vigorously play off one another. When so much art-world photography is staged, heavily conceptual or even abstract, This Place is refreshing for emphasizing the genre of concerned or engaged photography. Although engagement may be unavoidable in this exhibition, where history is so heavy and life so fraught. Yet the show is also very much a meditation on the expansiveness of photography itself. Few things illuminate differences in sensibility and style like a dozen photographers finding their way through the same subject. This Place was conceived by the French photographer Frederic Brenner, who has long documented the Jewish diaspora and who has been taking pictures in Israel since 1978, when he was 19. 113 Years Ago One of the works to be performed in the new season of the Metropolitan Opera, it was announced this week, was composed by a woman. And the big deal is? It will be just the second opera by a female composer to ever be performed at the Met. The first was in 1903. The opera soon to have its Met premiere is LAmour de Loin, by the contemporary Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. The opera performed in 1903 was Der Wald, by Ethel M. Smyth, an Englishwoman and friend of Virginia Woolfs. The libretto, also written by Miss Smyth, was a kind of folk tale that involved peasants, wood nymphs, a primeval forest, noble huntsmen, poachers and, of course, young lovers who die in the end. The headline on the review on March 12, 1903, called it A Disappointing Novelty. It is difficult to find much import in this sophisticated Grimms fairy tale, the review said. What it illustrates is neither very new nor very fit for operatic treatment. The symbolic significance of it all makes no deep impression, and it is out of the question to take seriously these dancing peasants, these faithful lovers, these deadly wicked rulers and their deeds. And if the story itself is thus unimportant, what shall be said of the music? Metropolitan Museum of Art: Celebrating the Arts of Japan: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection (continuing) This lavish roll out of 160 objects came to the Met from the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation last spring. The Burkes loved Japanese art all of it and the collection is close to compendious in terms of media, from wood-carved Buddhas to bamboo baskets, with a particular strength in painting, early and late. The quality of the work? Japan thinks highly enough of it to have made the Burke holdings the first Japanese collection from abroad ever to show at Tokyo National Museum. Some pieces on view now will be rotated out and replaced in February, making this an exhibition to visit at least twice. 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Cotter) Metropolitan Museum of Art: A New Look at a Van Eyck Masterpiece (through April 24) This small show of Flemish art, highly specialized yet not inaccessible, is the latest in an impressive sequence of laser-focused examinations of the Mets holdings of late medieval and Renaissance painting. A crystalline Crucifixion attributed to van Eyck, and a jam-packed Last Judgment painted by him and his studio, now hang as a diptych but technical analysis of the frames suggests they were probably side panels for a central painting now lost. Alongside the Mets van Eycks is a recently resurfaced drawing of the Crucifixion, lent by Rotterdams Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, whose wizened Virgin and writhing thieves rhyme with the painted version. Did van Eyck draw it? Whether he did or not, the drawing grounds these divinely impeccable paintings in the real world of brushes and pencils. 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Jason Farago) Metropolitan Museum of Art: Reconstructions: Recent Photographs and Video from the Met Collection (through March 13) This show is not framed as a showcase of whats new, hot or trending, but rather includes 18 works by 15 artists acquired during the past seven years work that Met curators think will endure historically. Among those on view are Moyra Daveys photographs of record store patrons and vinyl record bins, printed on fold-up mailers; Lucas Blalocks example of photography in the post-Internet era, which contains perverse digitally tweaked passages; as well as a deceptively simple image by Sarah Charlesworth, a leading member of the Pictures Generation, who died in 2013 but remains influential. 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Martha Schwendener) Metropolitan Museum of Art: Vigee Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France (through May 15) The outstanding late-17th-century painter finally receives a ravishing survey. A prodigy and portraitist to Marie Antoinette and her court, Vigee Le Brun orchestrated an equally successful career among the royals of Italy, Prussia and especially Russia after the French Revolution. Her best efforts are distinguished by exquisite technique (ears sometimes excepted), inventive colors and immensely sympathetic portrayals of men and women alike. 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Roberta Smith) Metropolitan Museum of Art: Wordplay: Matthias Buchingers Drawings From the Collection of Ricky Jay (through April 11) A draftsman, calligrapher, magician and musician, Matthias Buchinger (16741739) traveled all over Northern Europe to entertain kings and aristocrats as well as hoi polloi with feats of physical dexterity. He was especially noted for elaborate drawings featuring biblical passages written in letters too small to be read by ordinary naked eyes. This he managed despite having been born without hands or legs: His arms ended at the elbows and his lower extremities were truncated at the upper thighs. Sixteen of his amazing works are featured in this exhibition. 212-535-7710, metmuseum.org. (Johnson) MoMA PS1: Greater New York (through March 7) With a multigenerational team of organizers, MoMA PS1s every-five-years-roundup of New York art steps away from its founding premise of newness, the idea that it would be an update on the metropolitan market. The 158 artists on the roster range from 20-something to 80-something; a few are deceased. The notion that an emerging artist has to be young is discarded. Older artists newly in the spotlight, or back after a long delay, qualify. And history works in two directions. Art from the 1970s and 80s is presented as prescient of whats being made now, and new art is viewed as putting a trenchant spin on the past. 22-25 Jackson Avenue, at 46th Avenue, Long Island City, Queens, 718-784-2084, ps1.org. (Cotter) In the winter of 1965, the Museum of Modern Art opened The Responsive Eye, the landmark show that introduced Op Art and related trends to the general public. It was the museums most popular exhibition to that date. Now, 51 years later, The Illusive Eye: An International Inquiry on Kinetic and Op Art at El Museo del Barrio looks back on that show and finds it wanting. On the face of it, The Illusive Eye is a more modest affair than its predecessor, but its animated by philosophical ambitions that are exciting to ponder. Presenting 65 works from the 1950s through the 1970s, its partly intended to reveal what the MoMA show overlooked: the extent to which Latin American artists contributed to the Op and kinetic art movements. (MoMA had featured mostly Americans, British and European artists, including Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly, Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely.) Of the 53 artists in The Illusive Eye, 37 are or were from one of eight South American countries or Puerto Rico. Some, like Gego (Gertrude Goldschmidt), Helio Oiticica and Lygia Pape, are fairly well known today. But many of the shows most optically arresting works are by artists who might be unfamiliar to North American viewers. Among those are Ernesto Briels small ink drawing Nebulosa (1969), a circular composition that seems to pulse and spin; paintings by Eduardo Mac Entyre from the mid-60s, consisting of gossamer nets of fine lines that look as if designed using a Spirograph; and Julio Le Parcs Continuel Lumiere (1966-68), a curtain of suspended, shiny metal squares reflecting light in all directions. One of the most entrancing sculptures is a sort of tall cabinet by Martha Boto called Graphisme Kaleidoscopique (1965). It has a curved, mirrored interior within which revolving mirrored discs produce mesmerizing, woozy reflections. There are also paintings by some artists who were in The Responsive Eye, including pieces by Josef Albers, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Mr. Stella and Mr. Vasarely. A perfect couple or not? Judd Apatow and company put romance under a microscope in Love. And Michael Pollan brings his book Cooked to life. Whats Streaming LOVE on Netflix. Mickey (Gillian Jacobs), a self-help radio-show producer with self-destructive tendencies, and Gus (Paul Rust), a dweeby aspiring screenwriter and tutor for a child star, connect cute and then try to decide if theyre meant to be together or apart, over and over again until finally it dawns on them. She thinks dating a nice guy will help her get her life together; he thinks seeing a woman so erratic makes him appear more dangerous. Its a heavy recognition, but it doesnt have to be the end, James Poniewozik wrote in The New York Times about this rom-com from Judd Apatow, Lesley Arfin and Mr. Rust. Sometimes, Love suggests, romance doesnt need candlelight to grow so much as an honest fluorescent glare. (Image: Ms. Jacobs and Mr. Rust) COOKED on Netflix. I seldom made time for cooking or gave it much consideration, Michael Pollan confesses in his 2013 book, Cooked, which explores the birth of cuisine through the four elements: fire, water, air and earth. In this screen version, he visits, among others, a baker in Morocco, a cheese-making nun in Connecticut and hunters in Western Australia. Still, theres a disconnect thats never addressed. The worlds poorest people some seen in idyllic imagery here have to devote long hours to basic subsistence, and the worlds relatively well off have the luxury to indulge in artisanal cooking, Neil Genzlinger wrote in The Times. Yet applying his ideas across the whole range of human circumstances is a trickier subject than this pretty series wants to tackle. (Image: Mr. Pollan) Whats on TV WHIPLASH (2014) 8 p.m. on Starz Cinema. Music as a contact sport: An aspiring jazz drummer (Miles Teller) falls in thrall to a charismatic and terrifying instructor (J. K. Simmons, in an Oscar-winning turn), whose teaching methods include browbeating, humiliation and cymbal throwing. And a blood bath literal and figurative ensues. Despite some false notes, the battle of master and disciple is exciting and terrifying to witness, and, at its best, the film can feel as wild and spontaneous, as risky and precise, as a live jam session, A. O. Scott wrote in The Times about this second feature from Damien Chazelle. (Image: Mr. Teller and Mr. Simmons) TVimpelCom, the Amsterdam-based telecommunications operator, said it would pay $795 million to resolve American and Dutch investigations into a bribery scheme in Uzbekistan. The settlement was announced on Thursday in a federal court in Manhattan, where a subsidiary pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate an American law against corruption by paying $114 million in bribes to a Uzbekistan official. That official, referred to as a close relative of a high-ranking Uzbek government official, matched the description of Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan. The Justice Department said VimpelCom, TeliaSonera, a Nordic telecom operator, and Mobile TeleSystems paid more than $800 million to shell companies controlled by the official to help them operate in Uzbekistan. Its a testament to the frenzy surrounding the 2016 presidential primaries that Yamiche Alcindor, a national political reporter at The Times and one of the scheduled panelists for this months Times Insider event, was unexpectedly stuck in South Carolina covering Bernie Sanderss campaign. Whats more, the remaining panelists had trouble escaping their political commitments in the third-floor newsroom. But when things finally got underway on Tuesday, the audience was treated to an incisive look at whats shaping up to be one of the most compelling and unorthodox rounds of primaries and caucuses in recent memory. Diamond Tongues, an alternately sweet and slashing microbudget comedy from Canada, makes a great vehicle for Leah Goldstein, a musician and performance artist appearing in her first movie. As Edith, an aspiring actress who seems blind to her deficits and personal flaws, Ms. Goldstein gives a performance that requires her to swing between disarming and loathsome. She demonstrates impressive skill in slowly peeling away her characters charm. Edith scrounges for casting calls in Toronto, auditioning for such misbegotten projects as Blood Sausage, about a serial killer who turns his victims into encased meat. She seethes at friends whose successes only marginally exceed her own giving a poor online rating to a film in which an acquaintance appears and barely concealing her jealousy of a roommate (Leah Wildman) who is preparing for a play. And although still recuperating from a breakup that she initiated, Edith is also horrified to discover her ex-boyfriend is pursuing acting ambitions of his own. Diamond Tongues vacillates between light, faintly romantic humor her pal Nick (Nick Flanagan) is one of the many people who try to manage her expectations for stardom and darker territory, as when Edith is taken in by an acting teacher. The prickly tone is a difficult balancing act, and Diamond Tongues may settle for being a softer-hearted film than its most cynical scenes portend. But it has a palpable affection for Torontos cultural scene and for Ms. Goldstein, who would most likely have no trouble standing out at an audition in real life. A starry father-son pairing is largely squandered in Forsaken, an old-school western that is a little too old school for its own good. Kiefer Sutherland plays John Henry Clayton, a gunslinger who in 1872 returns to his hometown for the first time since he left to fight in the Civil War. He brings with him a fearsome if indistinctly defined reputation, but he is determined to hang up his firearms. His father is a minister, the Rev. William Clayton, played by Mr. Sutherlands real-life father, Donald Sutherland. That should have been a recipe for something memorable, but only one scene between the Sutherlands really crackles, when John Henry relates the traumatic incident that left him averse to gun violence. The rest of the movie (Jon Cassar directed a script by Brad Mirman) is a plodding good guy, bad guy story devoid of nuance or surprise. John Henry finds that the town is being upended by a tyrannical capitalist determined to force residents off their land so he can bring a railroad through. A half-dozen thugs help with the strong-arming. Unfolding like a clunky episode of Law & Order, the biblical procedural Risen confronts the Resurrection through the stiffly skeptical countenance of Joseph Fiennes, who takes on the role of Clavius, a Roman army tribune, as if it were a life sentence. Which it might have become had the producers (including Affirm Films, the faith-based corner of Sony Pictures), trying to appeal to believers and nonbelievers, extended their near-decade of tinkering and test screenings. Even Lorenzo Senatores photography feels exhausted, coaxing neither scope nor majesty from the Spanish and Maltese locations as Clavius and his sidekick, Lucius (Tom Felton), hunt for the body of a recently crucified Yeshua (Cliff Curtis). Framed as a tale of religious conversion, the screenplay, by Paul Aiello and the director, Kevin Reynolds, struggles to find drama in Claviuss spiritual journey. Witnesses and suspects are interviewed, and dusty hovels are scoured while Mary Magdalene (Maria Botto) slinks around pointlessly in the background. Back at the fort, Pilate (Peter Firth) is a tetchy scold, calling the high priest Caiaphas (Stephen Greif ) and his crew a pack of raving Jews and fretting over a possible uprising. As for Yeshua, the believed Messiah, hes a smiling cipher given to dematerializing mid-confab, leaving behind enigmatic pronouncements and baffled followers. But if you drink every time youre reminded of Monty Pythons 1979 Judean jaunt, Life of Brian, you might just make it through to the end. In the study, which was done in partnership with scientists from Rutgers University and the State University of New York at Fredonia, plastic samples were categorized by size and type and then counted using a dissecting microscope. Categories included fragments, foam, fishing line and clothing fiber, pellets and film. The most abundant type of plastic in samples 38 percent was foam, or polystyrene. Image A boat used by NY/NJ Baykeeper skims debris with a manta trawl during its six-month investigation of local water quality. Credit... Sandra Meola, NY/NJ Baykeeper During the trawling expeditions last spring and summer, a crew from NY/NJ Baykeeper sampled 18 locations in some of the most densely populated and industrial areas in the United States, including the Passaic River, the East River, Newtown Creek, Upper New York Bay and Arthur Kill. Twelve of the sites were in New Jersey waters, and six were in New York. The team dragged a manta trawl, a nine-foot net with a large open mouth that resembled a manta ray. The boat captain dragged the net across the water for 30 minutes at a speed of two knots. Each of the samples was then dried and cleaned of organic matter. In all, 6,932 plastic particles were counted. Relying on the methodology in a study of plastic pollution in the Great Lakes, NY/NJ Baykeepers researchers extrapolated that 165,840,512 particles were afloat in the 160,000-acre expanse of brackish water that makes up the New York-New Jersey Harbor Estuary. Sherri A. Mason, a professor of chemistry at SUNY Fredonia, has sampled plastic from all five of the Great Lakes. Her data has suggested concentrations of more than one million bits of microplastic per square mile in some parts of the lakes surfaces. Microbeads made up more than 60 percent of the samples. Dr. Mason provided technical assistance on the NY/NJ Baykeeper study, which found that the average quantity of plastic per square kilometer sampled in New York waters was twice that of New Jersey waters. NY/NJ Baykeeper says it will see whether that ratio holds up when it surveys the same sites again, starting in March. HILLSDALE, N.J. In some neighborhoods of this placid New Jersey borough in Bergen County, they are seemingly everywhere waddling by the dozen in the road, perched on car roofs, pecking at the tires of delivery trucks. But wild turkeys, which were wiped out in the state by the mid-1800s, put on their most brazen display on Tuesday, when a letter carrier felt trapped in his truck and telephoned his boss for help. Hey sarge, the postmaster said in a 911 call to the Hillsdale Police Department. Youre not going to believe this, but I got a carrier thats being attacked by wild turkeys and wont let him deliver the mail. The letter carrier, who was not identified, was inside his truck on Esplanade Drive, surrounded by four or five turkeys, when two officers arrived, according to Capt. Sean Smith of the Police Department. The first officer attempted to blow the siren and that didnt work, he said on Thursday. Then the other officer got out of his car and ran aggressively toward the turkeys and that did the trick. The mechanics of the selection process so disgusted one of Ms. Cancels opponents, Yuh-Line Niou, the chief of staff to Assemblyman Ron Kim, Democrat of Queens, that Ms. Niou dropped out of the running in her nomination speech on Sunday, calling it undemocratic. Even if committee members felt free to defy their club endorsements, she and other critics said, individual members votes were weighted, giving more power to election districts that had higher turnout in the 2014 governors race. Ms. Niou will run instead for the Working Families Party, a left-leaning, labor-backed group, positioning herself as the candidate of reform. She is also hoping to attract the support of Chinatown, whose expanding voter base has made the district far more diverse than the days when Mr. Silvers constituents from the Lower East Side dominated. I think that anybody would be bothered by how the system worked, Ms. Niou said in an interview. I dont think that its right. A third candidate, Lester Chang, a businessman whose parents worked as cooks in Chinatown, is running as a Republican. He has cast his campaign as a chance to set things right after Mr. Silvers conviction in November on federal corruption charges, as well as to elect a second Asian-American to the State Legislature. (Mr. Kim is currently the only one.) Especially troubling for some observers was the role played by Mr. Silver and his friends, most prominently Judy Rapfogel, his former chief of staff. Her husband, William E. Rapfogel, is a former Jewish community leader who is serving time in federal prison for stealing more than $9 million from the charity he ran. A longtime Democratic committee member said that Ms. Rapfogel and Mr. Silver had asked members of the Truman Club to support Ms. Cancel. The committee member, who asked not to be identified because he did not want to alienate friends in the district, said Mr. Silver urged members who had expressed reluctance about Ms. Cancel to change their minds. (Want to get this briefing by email? Heres the sign-up.) Good morning. Heres what you need to know: Harper Lee is dead at 89. Harper Lees novel To Kill a Mockingbird about racial injustice in a small Alabama town sold more than 10 million copies and became one of the most beloved works of fiction in America. Silicon Valley versus Washington. Senior lawmakers have opened the door to legislation to set ground rules for when law-enforcement authorities can gain access to encrypted devices, and for possible penalties when companies dont comply. For now, though, Apples refusal to unlock the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino, Calif., attackers remains a court matter. An operating system update with enhanced encryption technology in 2014 helped push events to this point. President Obama spoke passionately last year about the importance of term limits during a visit to Africa, where he argued that nobody should be president for life. His administration has been more muted on this issue in Latin America, where a handful of leaders have become strongmen disinclined to share or relinquish power. Next month, when he becomes the first American president to visit Cuba in 88 years, Mr. Obama will have an opportunity to make that point closer to home. As an American president who is wildly popular in Cuba, his message about democratic traditions, leadership and power stands to resonate powerfully. He should challenge President Raul Castro of Cuba, who has vowed to step down in 2018, to set the stage for a political transition in which all Cubans are given a voice and a vote. He should urge Cubans of all ideologies to start debating their differences constructively, ending the repression of those who are critical of the regime. Mr. Obama should note that Cubas leaders could be doing far more to revitalize the islands languishing economy, which would stem the flow of people seeking to leave for better futures elsewhere. And he should tell Cubans that they deserve better than leaders picked by the Communist Party who are unaccountable to their people. Las Vegas MARYLAND PARKWAY, a street in central Las Vegas best known for its gritty shopping centers and petty crime, is now home to a brightly lit campaign office. Cartoon portraits of an aging senator with oversize glasses and wild cowlicks hang around the main room. On the wall is a growing collage of handwritten signs explaining Why Im voting for Bernie: because Minimum wage is not enough, because College should not be a financial obstacle, because I am a socialist. Bernie Sanders was never expected to get as far as the Nevada caucuses, which take place Feb. 20, let alone do well in this blue-collar, conservative state. And yet, in recent months, and especially in the wake of his blowout win in the New Hampshire primary, there is a sense that the old verities are falling apart and that the avuncular, bespectacled Vermonter could win over a sizable chunk of the union members and minority voters who were supposed to vote in lock step for Hillary Clinton. Its not purely coincidence: Even as he stumped in Iowa and New Hampshire, Mr. Sanders didnt ignore Nevada. The office on Maryland Parkway is one of 11 spread around the state (Mrs. Clinton has seven). He has spoken to overflowing crowds in Las Vegas and Reno. Like those handwritten signs, the speeches took on the same laser-focused economic theme that, increasingly, many working-class Nevadans appear receptive to. Thats because, while Mr. Sanderss message of taking up policy arms against the billionaire class may sound like so much heated campaign rhetoric, in Nevada which was not only the state hardest hit by the recession and housing crisis but also has been the slowest to recover it speaks to unfinished business. The state has some of the highest rates of unemployment and child poverty in the country. In our glacially recovering housing market, one out of four homeowners still has negative equity in their homes. PARIS For most of us, Paris is a stage; we expect a performance in the scenes of daily life, from the exquisite way a tiny child is dressed to the steam rising from soupe a loignon to statues of long-dead philosophers lit by the spotlight of a winter sun. But since the Nov. 13 attacks 130 people murdered by the most hateful sect on earth the metaphors of Paris have changed. Its a victim, we are told, poor, sad Paris. Under an extended state of emergency, Paris is on wartime footing, as Foreign Policy magazine put it. Dont believe it. Yes, the city is wrapped in a blanket of added security, the seen and the unseen, the armed soldiers who appear suddenly around a street corner, the searches of bags and scanning by metal detectors at even the smallest of museums. Tourism was hit hard, as were retailers. Many small shopkeepers did not survive the weeks when Paris barely stirred. But there is no siege mentality. Long ago, Paris was a walled city built around an island in the Seine. These days, of course, it belongs to the world. A visitor expecting to see a dimmed City of Light finds Parisians now defying its barbarous haters in the best way possible graceful expressions of how to live well, with a shrug. Americas two big political parties are very different from each other, and one difference involves the willingness to indulge economic fantasies. Republicans routinely engage in deep voodoo, making outlandish claims about the positive effects of tax cuts for the rich. Democrats tend to be cautious and careful about promising too much, as illustrated most recently by the way Obamacare, which conservatives insisted would be a budget-buster, actually ended up being significantly cheaper than projected. But is all that about to change? On Wednesday four former Democratic chairmen and chairwomen of the presidents Council of Economic Advisers three who served under Barack Obama, one who served under Bill Clinton released a stinging open letter to Bernie Sanders and Gerald Friedman, a University of Massachusetts professor who has been a major source of the Sanders campaigns numbers. The economists called out the campaign for citing extreme claims by Mr. Friedman that exceed even the most grandiose predictions by Republicans and could undermine the credibility of the progressive economic agenda. Thats harsh. But its harsh for a reason. The claims the economists are talking about come from Mr. Friedmans analysis of the Sanders economic program. The good news is that this isnt the campaigns official assessment; the bad news is that the Friedman analysis has been highly praised by campaign officials. Local government is theoretically a cornerstone of democracy. But as a practical matter, conservative state legislatures have often blocked progressive local laws. Many states, for example, have laws on their books to pre-empt local restrictions on guns and pesticides. The latest backlash involves state efforts to pre-empt an increasing number of pro-labor laws passed by cities and counties. State lawmakers in Alabama, Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, Pennsylvania and Washington have introduced legislation this year to curb or outlaw local minimum-wage increases. In Indiana, Kansas and New Mexico, state legislators have taken aim at local fair-scheduling laws, which require employers to give reasonable notice of workers hours. Bills in Pennsylvania and Washington target local laws requiring paid leave for employees. In other states, bills would pre-empt municipal-contracting rules that require private-sector contractors to adhere to local laws on compensation and other labor issues. In Alabama, a pre-emption effort introduced this month seeks to nullify a law passed last year by the Birmingham City Council for a citywide minimum wage of $10.10 an hour by mid-2017. If enacted, the state bill would also torpedo efforts to adopt local minimum wages in Huntsville and Tuscaloosa. Like other pre-emption attempts, the Alabama effort is championed almost entirely by Republicans, and the hypocrisy is obvious. Small government is a supreme Republican virtue only until localities pass pro-labor legislation. Then the partys anti-worker, pro-corporate bias takes over. New Orleans ON an ordinary day, the Criminal District Court here begins with a parade of handcuffed and shackled defendants being led out from cages behind the judges bench by sheriffs deputies. They are clad in orange jumpsuits and are almost exclusively African-American men. They rattle and shuffle their way onto benches and into the empty jury box, waiting for the judge. When their case is called, a lawyer from the public defenders office will rise and say: Your Honor, we do not have a lawyer for this person at this time. Eight-five percent of these defendants are unable to afford their own lawyer and will need a public defender to represent them. But in New Orleans, where I am in charge of the public defenders office, we simply dont have enough lawyers to handle the caseload. Last month, we began refusing new cases. In a state with one of the nations highest poverty rates, the system to defend the poor is broken. To understand why, look at the other people in the courtroom sitting on benches set aside for the audience. Most of these people arent there to watch the proceedings. Many were subpoenaed for failing to pay fines or fees for minor offenses and had to take time from work to appear in court or be charged with contempt. Those fines and fees pay for two-thirds of the Louisiana public defender system. The rest comes from the state. It is understandable that federal investigators want to unlock an iPhone used by one of the attackers who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., in December. And its understandable that the government would turn to Apple for help. But Apple is doing the right thing in challenging the federal court ruling requiring that it comply. In an order issued on Tuesday, Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym says Apple must create new software that would bypass security features on the iPhone used by the terrorist, Syed Rizwan Farook. That would allow the Federal Bureau of Investigation to unlock the device and retrieve the pictures, messages and other data on it. Her ruling was based on the All Writs Act of 1789, which is used to require people or businesses not involved in a case to execute court orders. Another federal magistrate judge in New York is considering a similar request to unlock an iPhone in a narcotics case. Law enforcement agencies have a legitimate need for evidence, which is all the more pressing in terrorism cases. But the Constitution and the nations laws limit how investigators and prosecutors can collect evidence. In a 1977 case involving the New York Telephone Company, the Supreme Court said the government could not compel a third party that is not involved in a crime to assist law enforcement if doing so would place unreasonable burdens on it. Judge Pyms order requiring Apple to create software to subvert the security features of an iPhone places just such a burden on the company. Apple has already given the F.B.I. data from the phone that was backed up and stored on its iCloud service; the last backup was made about a month before the attacks. But the companys chief executive, Timothy Cook, has said that requiring it to create software to bypass a feature that causes the phone to erase its data if 10 incorrect passwords are entered would set a dangerous precedent and could undermine the security of its devices. The Department of Justice has argued that the software would be used on that phone only and notes that Apple has previously helped law enforcement unlock phones. The company changed how it encrypts phones after the surveillance revelations by Edward Snowden. FRONT PAGE An article on Wednesday about an initiative by New York Citys Education Department aimed at maintaining a racial and socioeconomic balance at schools in fast-gentrifying areas included outdated information about Arthur Mattias connection to the Childrens School in Brooklyn, one of the seven schools taking part. Mr. Mattia is a former principal, not the current one. (He retired in January.) NATIONAL An Upshot article on Wednesday about the effect of historical knowledge on views in a poll on how to proceed with replacing Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court misstated the number of terms served by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was the last president to have a Supreme Court vacancy occur during his last year in office. After completing the term of John F. Kennedy, President Johnson had one term of his own, not two. NEW YORK An article on Thursday about a request by Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, to recuse himself from a criminal investigation into an allegation that former Gov. Eliot Spitzer assaulted a 26-year-old woman at the Plaza Hotel misstated the year that Mr. Spitzer appointed Mr. Vance to the New York State Commission on Sentencing Reform. It was 2007, not 2009. BUSINESS DAY A correction in this space on Thursday about a picture with the Transactions column on Wednesday misidentified the property with which the photograph should have been paired. The picture should have been with the entry about 321 Malcolm X Boulevard; it should not have illustrated the entry about 102 West 79th Street. Despite the campaign, the White House showed no appetite for legislation. And Apple showed no signs of budging. In a few instances, the two sides appeared bound for a court fight, only to resolve it at the last moment. Last summer, Apple refused to give the Justice Department real-time access to iMessages the companys proprietary text messages in a gun case. The matter nearly escalated, but Apple eventually turned over some messages that had been backed up to the companys iCloud servers. It was not all that the government wanted, but authorities viewed it as a sign of cooperation. Such compromises forestalled a major court showdown, but increased the frustration at the Justice Department. Several current and former career prosecutors involved in the issue said they viewed it as hypocritical that Apple encouraged its customers to save its data to iCloud which it would turn over to the government but regarded the cellphone as sacrosanct. Then came the Feng case. By refusing to help, the Justice Department thought Apple was sending a clear signal. If it would no longer cooperate with requests to help unlock old phones, there was little chance it would give in and build a way to unlock the new encrypted phones running iOS 8. Forcing Apple to extract data in this case, absent clear legal authority to do so, could threaten the trust between Apple and its customers and substantially tarnish the Apple brand, Mr. Zwillinger said. By that time, 90 percent of Apple devices were running iOS 8 or newer versions. The F.B.I. warned that it was only a matter of time before its agents were locked out of a phone in a case with lives at stake. The San Bernardino attacks, which killed 14 people, presented the F.B.I. with a seemingly perfect test case. One of the shooters, Syed Rizwan Farook, was killed by the police and left behind a locked, encrypted iPhone 5c. The F.B.I. has not been able to unlock it. Image Encrypted smartphones that are being held as evidence by the New York City Police Department were on display at the news conference. Credit... Bryan R. Smith for The New York Times Mr. Farooks phone is protected by a password that Apple says it does not keep and Apple says it cannot break the encryption without the password. The F.B.I. wants to write a program to send the phone an unlimited combination of passwords until it finds one that works. Scipio, in Washington, agreed: This is indeed a testament to Apples incredibly strong encryption. Not everyone was so quick to simply side with Apple. Matthew Schenker, who called himself a coder, suggested that there was a way to satisfy both the F.B.I. and the technology company. He wrote: I know there is always a way to code something with ethical limitations. For example, Apple could create a temporary, self-destructing device ID that must be issued from Apple and is only accessible within a certain time frame, and with a certain algorithm. Apple could hold that temporary ID and grant access on a case-by-case basis, rendering the back door useless without it. He added, This might sound complicated, but from a coding perspective its not. Diane Olberg, an Apple user in California who said she was a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, said that the company should unlock the phone because these are extraordinary circumstances that override a right to privacy. An even better path for Apple and E.F.F. might be to work with the government to set standards for special cases when phones will be unlocked, such as this one, she wrote. Yes this may be a slippery slope, but thats why we need standards for behavior and expectations for consumers. The most popular reader comment on this issue, with over 1,200 recommendations, was from Randy Harris in Canada. He wrote: If unlocking this particular phone will assist authorities to investigate a terrorist attack that resulted with mass casualties then do it! Unlocking this particular phone doesnt threaten my privacy, but protecting the privacy of people like terrorists threatens all of our safety. SAN FRANCISCO Letters from around the globe began pouring into the inbox of Timothy D. Cook not long after the publication of the first revelations from Edward J. Snowden about mass government surveillance. Do you know how much privacy means to us? they asked Apples chief executive. Do you understand? Mr. Cook did. He was proud that Apple sold physical products phones, tablets and laptops and did not traffic in the intimate, digital details of its customers lives. That stance crystallized on Tuesday when Mr. Cook huddled for hours with lawyers and others at Apples headquarters to figure out how to respond to a federal court order requiring the company to let the United States government break into the iPhone of one of the gunmen in a San Bernardino, Calif., mass shooting. Late Tuesday, Mr. Cook took the fight public with a letter to customers that he personally signed. We feel we must speak up in the face of what we see as an overreach by the U.S. government, wrote Mr. Cook, 55. Ultimately, we fear that this demand would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect. LOS ANGELES With a mix of pride and great relief, state officials here announced on Thursday that the leaking natural gas well near the Porter Ranch neighborhood which over the last four months had pumped thousands of tons of methane and other chemicals into the atmosphere, sickening residents and prompting more than 6,000 households to flee had finally been capped permanently. But in the midst of the celebration, some stark realities emerged: Residents of Porter Ranch say they are still getting sick; many have vowed not to move back home soon despite assurances from public health officials; and environmental groups are organizing rallies calling for the closing of the gas field where the leak occurred. With the gas field offline, Los Angeles could endure power cutoffs in the coming months. Testing showed that air quality had returned to normal, according to state officials. But for some angry residents of the wealthy planned community at the northern edge of Los Angeless San Fernando Valley, nothing short of the gas fields closing will be enough. We have two words in response to todays announcement: Flint, Michigan, said Matt Pakucko, one of the founders of the group Save Porter Ranch, which is planning a rally on Friday in support of closing the gas field. Those people were told by these kinds of officials, The water is fine. Drink it. People are still getting sick here. OAKLAND, Calif. The California pornographic film industry turned out in force Thursday to oppose regulations that would have forced actors to wear condoms and, in some cases, goggles, face shields or rubber gloves when on camera. A parade of actors fully dressed, and some colorfully so took to the podium in a government auditorium here as five members of the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board listened to their pleas for more than five hours. If you guys dont want us here, we can take our business outside of California, Jessy Dubai, an actress wearing a form-fitting beige dress, told the board, echoing a common threat in the long-running dispute over condoms that the lucrative business will decamp for Nevada and elsewhere if this state cracks down. After Ms. Dubai finished her comments, she sashayed past the board in stiletto heels. The hearing ended with the board deciding to vote down the proposal as written, but to reconsider a revised version over the next year. The indictment follows one on Feb. 11 that charged the elder Mr. Bundy on six counts but not the other men. The men face 16 counts total, including assaulting a federal officer and carrying a firearm in relation to a crime of violence. Several of the charges have penalties of up to 20 years in prison. Mr. Bundy, 69, could very well spend the rest of his life in jail, said Michael Blumm, a law professor at Lewis & Clark College who studies public land issues. United States Attorney Daniel G. Bogden said the charges reaffirmed the rule of law. Persons who use force and violence against federal law enforcement officers who are enforcing court orders, and nearly causing catastrophic loss of life or injury to others, will be brought to justice, he said in a statement. Mike Arnold, Ammon Bundys lawyer, said that his client was innocent until proven guilty, and took issue with parts of the indictment that drew evidence of crimes from Mr. Bundys words. A government indictment means nothing, it proves nothing, Mr. Arnold said, urging the public to wait on drawing conclusions until the issue is taken up by the courts and the jury. Lawyers for the other defendants did not respond to requests for comment. In the indictment, the Justice Department described its version of the April 2014 showdown near Mr. Bundys ranch. Marylands highest court on Thursday postponed the trials of the Baltimore police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray last year, to consider whether one officer can be compelled to testify against the others. The trial of one of the officers, Edward Nero, was about to begin and the Circuit Court in Baltimore was scheduled to hear pretrial motions on Friday and begin jury selection on Monday. The decision by the state Court of Appeals pushes back the trial date by at least a matter of weeks, and possibly by months. Mr. Gray, 25, suffered a fatal spinal injury last April 12 while in police custody after being arrested for possession of what the police described as an illegal switchblade knife, and he died a week later. Prosecutors contend that he was injured while riding, handcuffed but not seat-belted, in the back of a police van, and that officers failed to get him medical aid until it was too late. The first of the six officers charged in the case, William G. Porter, stood trial last fall, but a jury was unable to agree on a verdict on charges of involuntary manslaughter, assault and misconduct. The judge declared a mistrial in December, and Mr. Porter is scheduled for retrial later this year. LAS VEGAS Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on Thursday defended the rapper Killer Mikes remark this week that a uterus doesnt qualify you to be president, saying in more prosaic terms that voters should not pick candidates based on their sex. What Mike said, essentially, is that politics should not be people should not be voting for candidates based on their gender, but on what they believe, Mr. Sanders told reporters aboard a flight from Washington to Nevada, where the Democratic caucuses will be held on Saturday. I think that makes sense. I dont go around no one has ever heard me say, Hey guys, stand together, vote for a man. Mr. Sanders and Hillary Clinton, his rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, have increased their attacks on each other as crucial caucuses and primaries draw near. Aboard the flight on Thursday, Mr. Sanders pointedly accused Mrs. Clintons campaign of making incorrect allegations about his civil rights record and boasted that he was making gains among Latino and black voters, who make up Mrs. Clintons so-called firewall. Killer Mike, an Atlanta rapper whose real name is Michael Render, has been one of Mr. Sanderss most visible advocates, and YouTube videos of his interviews with the senator have been viewed more than a million times. Mr. Sanders said Thursday that Killer Mikes remarks had been blown out of proportion, but nonetheless, a social media firestorm was set off Tuesday when the rapper took the stage at a rally Mr. Sanders hosted at Morehouse College in Atlanta. In his most audacious attack yet on a revered public figure, Donald J. Trump veered into risky political territory on Thursday as he denounced Pope Francis, seeking to galvanize Republicans who worry about border security and appeal to evangelical voters who regard Francis as too liberal. After the pontiffs remarkable contention that Mr. Trump is not Christian in proposing deportations and a wall with Mexico, the candidate said Francis criticisms were disgraceful and unbelievable, and he contended that the Mexican government had hoodwinked the pope into criticizing him. Politicians rarely rebuke the Vatican so forcefully for fear of alienating Catholic voters, but Mr. Trump has been increasingly aggressive ahead of Saturdays primary in South Carolina, where polls show a tightening race and the popular Republican governor, Nikki R. Haley, just endorsed Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. Mr. Trumps attack on Francis reflected a political calculation that criticizing the pope would not hurt him with conservatives and might even improve his standing in South Carolina and in the Southern-dominated Super Tuesday contests on March 1. Some evangelical denominations in the South and elsewhere take a dim view of the Catholic Church, and many other social conservatives have been critical of Francis over his relatively measured statements about gays, birth control and divorce. CHARLESTON, S.C. It is not yet clear which Republican presidential candidate will emerge from Saturdays South Carolina primary with the biggest boost. But it is becoming increasingly apparent which two would suffer most from a disappointing performance. South Carolina will render a brutal and perhaps final verdict on Jeb Bushs campaign if he does not at least finish close to Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. Mr. Bush, the former Florida governor, has made an all-out push here, campaigning aggressively for 10 days and bringing in his brother, former President George W. Bush, for his first public campaign speech in nearly a decade. Failing to break through, after all that, would raise fundamental questions about Mr. Bushs ability to consolidate support from mainstream Republican voters. Late Thursday, he acknowledged a mounting sense of gloom. I hope that you believe that its possible for us to do this, Mr. Bush told voters in Rock Hill as he wrapped up a town hall-style forum. I hope you dont think the end is near. WASHINGTON The White House on Thursday tried to fend off criticism of President Obamas decision not to attend the funeral this weekend of Justice Antonin Scalia, but even some administration allies lamented the move as a missed opportunity to ease the partisan warfare that has followed the justices death. Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, will pay their respects by visiting the Supreme Court on Friday, when Justice Scalia will lie in repose in the Great Hall. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who is Catholic as was Justice Scalia and had a personal relationship with him and his family, will attend the funeral on Saturday at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception along with his wife, Jill. Facing questions again on Thursday about the decision, Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, did not offer a direct answer but implied that one reason was the potential for the extensive presidential security detail to be disruptive. Gov. Scott Walker signed two bills on Thursday that block federal funding from Planned Parenthood and could cost the organization about $7.5 million a year, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin said. Texas, Louisiana other Republican-controlled states tried to halt funding for the reproductive health organization after an anti-abortion group released videos last summer purporting to show Planned Parenthood officials trying to negotiate prices for aborted fetal tissue. A Texas grand jury cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing and indicted two anti-abortion activists behind the filming of the videos, accusing them of tampering with a government record and violating a prohibition on the purchase and sale of human organs. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has 22 health centers in the state, three offering abortion services, according to its website. GEORGE, South Africa By the standards of its time, the disappearance was almost routine. Betrayed by a double agent, Nokuthula Simelane, a 23-year-old college graduate working clandestinely as a courier for insurgents fighting to overthrow apartheid, was lured to an underground parking garage in Johannesburg and bundled into the trunk of a car. She was taken to a police apartment for initial questioning, then to a remote farm. According to disputed testimony by two former security police officers before South Africas Truth and Reconciliation Commission, she was interrogated, beaten, shocked, suffocated and thrown into the waters of a dam. She was last seen, according to one of the officers, in the trunk of another car, battered and manacled. That was in 1983. Only later this month, on Feb. 26, are four members of the security police scheduled to go on trial to face murder charges. SAO PAULO, Brazil Pope Francis shook up an already intense debate over birth control and abortion in Latin American countries where the Zika virus is causing a public health emergency by declaring on Thursday that contraceptives could be used to prevent the spread of Zika, which researchers have linked to a spike in cases of babies born with severe brain damage. The popes remarks came in a wide-ranging, midair news conference on his way back to Rome from Mexico in which he made a distinction between abortion and birth control. He ruled out condoning abortion, which he called a crime, an absolute evil. But he seemed somewhat open to making an exception for contraception, citing Pope Paul VIs decision in the 1960s to make an emergency exception to permit nuns in the Belgian Congo to use contraceptives because they were in danger of rape. Avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil, Francis said. In certain cases, as in this one, as in the one that I mentioned of Blessed Paul VI, it was clear. I would also urge doctors to do their utmost to find vaccines against these mosquitoes that carry this disease. Francis comments quickly unleashed a range of reactions up and down the Americas, revealing fissures in the churchs leadership in Roman Catholic-dominated Latin America and bolstering opponents of the churchs longstanding ban on the use of artificial contraceptives. On Thursday, the World Health Organization also advised the sexual partners of pregnant women to use condoms or abstain from sex if they live in Zika-affected areas or are returning from them. The Red Cross has suspended operations in the central Afghan province of Ghazni after an armed group kidnapped five local staff members, the international aid organization said Thursday. The Afghans were abducted Tuesday as they were traveling on a road in the province, where there have been frequent kidnappings and murders on its highways. A statement from the International Committee of the Red Cross in Afghanistan said the organization was working to secure the release of its staff members. It said it had halted operations in Ghazni and was reviewing security elsewhere in Afghanistan. But for now, it said, activities in the rest of the country are continuing. Ukraine sank deeper into political turmoil on Thursday as the governing coalition lost its majority in Parliament after a second faction bailed out. The move by the Samopomich faction, which holds 26 seats in the 450-seat Parliament, leaves the coalition partners with 217 votes. Another withdrew from the coalition a day earlier. The developments may lead to early parliamentary elections, something President Petro O. Poroshenko has sought to avoid, fearing it could further destabilize the nation. Reformers have accused the government of cronyism and corruption. GENEVA Most of the Russian and American aircraft traversing Syria have been warplanes firing missiles and dropping bombs. But under an international agreement to aid Syrians trapped in the fighting, Russian planes will soon be dropping food in an operation partly financed by the United States. The United Nations World Food Program will start its first airdrops in Syria in coming days, relief officials said Thursday. The main focus is Deir al-Zour, an eastern Syrian city where more than 200,000 inhabitants are ringed by forces of the Islamic State, which has made land access impossible. Under the emergency aid agreement, truck convoys began supplying food and medicine to five besieged towns in other parts of Syria on Wednesday. Staffan de Mistura, the United Nations special envoy for the Syrian conflict who helped to negotiate the final arrangements, had hinted that airdrops were an option for areas that are unreachable by land. The World Food Program will use aircraft provided by a Russian contractor for the drops, which are conducted by parachute from high altitudes, said Bettina Luescher, a spokeswoman for the agency. Escalating tensions between Turkey and the United States, which now jeopardize their alliance in the Syria conflict, can be traced to the Kurds, a Middle East people who do not have a state of their own. Here are five questions about the Kurds and their role in the rapidly evolving events in Syria and Turkey: Q. Who are the Kurds, where do they live and what do they want? A. The Kurds are an indigenous ethnic group with a population of 25 million to 35 million. They are basically spread through four countries Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran, with lesser numbers in Armenia and Azerbaijan. They primarily follow the Sunni branch of Islam, share cultural identities and speak variants of the Kurdish language. Historically they resided in the Zagros Mountains, a range that straddles parts of these countries, commonly known as Kurdistan or land of the Kurds. But they are divided politically, reflecting a long history of uprisings for autonomy that have repeatedly been crushed. Q. Why have the Kurds become such a priority for Turkey? A. Turkey has historically worried about aspirations of Kurdish autonomy because it has more Kurds at least 15 million than any other country. They reside mostly in the southeast, which shares borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran. The Turks have been suppressing a violent Kurdish insurgency since the late 1970s led by the Kurdish Workers Party, or P.K.K., a militant group regarded by both Turkey and the United States as a terrorist organization. A short-lived peace process collapsed last year. Now the Turks say the P.K.K. is collaborating with Kurdish militants in northern Syria, known as the Peoples Protection Units, or the Y.P.G., to establish an autonomous region spanning both countries. DUSSELDORF, Germany An escalator descends into a dense soundscape of birdsongs. Windows appear to open onto outer space. An overhead LED screen converts human movements into colorful geometric animations. Yes, they are aesthetic experiences. But they are also part of Germanys newest subway line, an effort to transform commuter drudgery into art appreciation. The two-mile line, known as the Wehrhahn, is to open here on Saturday, the result of a 15-year, $950 million collaboration among artists, architects, civil engineers and the city government. Normally with public art, you have a wall with some kind of painting, said Ulla Lux of the Dusseldorf culture office. And we thought, no, it cant be that. We have to take the next step. A far more significant test of the market will come in May, when Christies, Sothebys and Phillips hold a gigaweek of marquee auctions of Impressionist, modern and contemporary art. Last May, Christies evening sales of 20th- and 21st-century art raised a total of $1.4 billion, including $179.4 million for Picassos 1955 Les Femmes dAlger (Version O). More than half of the 117 lots offered in those Christies sales were supported by guarantees. Guarantees distorted and inflated the top end of the market, said the London dealer Alan Hobart, who has been a prominent buyer of trophy-quality 20th-century works at auction. But there are still going to be sales in May, and there will still be deals to be done. Other sectors of the auction market showed similar dips this year. Sales of classic cars were down 14 percent, to $250.6 million, at the annual series of specialist auctions in Arizona in the last two weeks of January. On Feb. 5, the Paris auctioneer Artcurial sold a 1957 Ferrari 335 Sport Scaglietti to an American collector for a low estimate 32.1 million euros, about $36 million a salesroom high for any car in Europe. But other auctions held during the French capitals Retromobile week this February struggled with oversupply. Bonhams sold just 58 percent of the 130 cars it offered on Feb. 4 at the Grand Palais. And even when sales seemed robust, they came with a caveat. Sothebys New York old masters sale late last month raised $97.5 million, the auction houses highest total for a New York Masters Week in five years. But almost a third of the total came from the $30.5 million paid by the J. Paul Getty Museum on Jan. 28 for the Orazio Gentileschi painting Danae. A selling rate of just 50 percent for the remaining 60 lots in that evening sale was a reality check. Sothebys, which in January spent around $85 million to acquire the advisory company Art Agency, Partners, has had the sobering experience of trying to claw back the $515 million it paid to auction the collection of a former chairman, A. Alfred Taubman, who died in April. It recouped $437.8 million last year and on Jan. 27, a sale of Mr. Taubmans old masters added an additional $24.1 million. BUENOS AIRES Citigroup announced on Friday that it would sell its retail businesses in Argentina, Brazil and Colombia, countries in which it has been trading for more than a century. Determined to quash any perceptions that the move was related to the struggling economies of these South American nations, the bank said it was streamlining its operations so it could place greater emphasis on its corporate arm, which is larger and more profitable. Just 10 percent of Citigroups operations in the three countries involve its retail businesses, according to rough estimates at Citi Latin America. Its share of the countries retail banking markets is less than 5 percent, while its share of their corporate banking markets is about 15 percent to 20 percent. Citigroup wants to sell the retail divisions, where local banks and competitors like Santander Rio are stronger, so that it has more capital to expand corporate lending, an area that it already leads. The retail divisions include about $6 billion of assets. LONDON The private banking and asset management firm EFG International said on Friday that it was in talks on the acquisition of BSI, the Swiss private banking arm of the Brazilian investment bank BTG Pactual. If finalized, the deal would be the second sale in months by BTG, which has sought to reassure investors and to maintain liquidity after the arrest of its former chief executive, Andre Santos Esteves, in a corruption scandal last year. Mr. Esteves, who has denied wrongdoing and remains under house arrest awaiting trial, has since resigned from the company. In December, BTG agreed to sell its distressed debt unit, Recovery do Brasil Consultoria, to Itau Unibanco, Brazils largest private banking group, for about 1.2 billion reais, or $300 million. Founded in 1873, BSI, whose initials stand for Banca della Svizzera Italiana, is based in Ticino, an Italian-speaking region of Switzerland, and it has traditionally had many clients in Italy. For years, London has subsidized various forms of clean power, including onshore wind farms, to wean the country off its heavy dependence on high-pollution coal-fired power plants. In response, SSE invested about 4 billion from 2007 on wind and other low-carbon sources. Partly as a result of those subsidies, about 11 percent of Britains power is now generated by wind, compared to 1 percent in 2006, according to Renewable UK, a trade group. Germany, which has made a major commitment to renewables, generated about 13 percent of its energy from wind in 2015, compared with about 5 percent in the United States. But since winning an outright majority in parliamentary elections last spring, the Conservative government of Prime Minister David Cameron has been shifting focus. It has talked up the benefits of natural gas as a cleaner-burning replacement in power generation for the coal-fired plants it wants to close and backed nuclear power as a long-term source of low-carbon energy. The government is also trimming subsidies for renewables, and onshore wind farms and other clean sources like solar power are taking a direct hit. Subsidies for new onshore wind projects will be halted this spring, a year earlier than planned, as the Conservatives look to please their rural constituents by honoring election pledges to halt support for land-based windmills. The government instead wants to focus on offshore wind projects, which are usually less contentious because they are out at sea, and often out of view. Offshore projects also offer enormous scale by deploying bigger turbines in larger numbers than is practical on land. Britain is the worlds largest market for offshore wind, and the government views the industry as a source of jobs, especially along the northern coast, where the oil and gas industry is faltering because of falling prices. WASHINGTON The Justice Department, frustrated by its inability to unlock the iPhone of one of the attackers in the San Bernardino killings, demanded on Friday that a judge immediately order Apple to give it the technical tools to get inside the phone. Apples refusal appears to be based on its concern for its business model and public brand marketing strategy rather than a legal rationale, prosecutors said in a court filing that further escalated the confrontation between the Obama administration and Apple. This is not the end of privacy, the Justice Department declared, a mocking reference to Apples rationale for contesting the court order prosecutors obtained from a judge directing Apple to help them break into the phone. The sharply worded, 25-page motion to compel Apples cooperation seemed aimed as much at swaying public opinion as influencing the federal magistrate judge in Riverside, Calif., who issued the order to Apple. To the Editor: French Muslims Say Emergency Powers Come at Too High a Cost (front page, Feb. 18) describes several of the police-state measures that are now being used by the French authorities in the name of fighting terrorism and ensuring national security. Such methods part of a broad state of emergency, including everything from warrantless searches to house arrests and extended detentions jeopardize the civil rights of every person in France, endanger the liberty and privacy of all inhabitants of the country, and put the fundamental principles and values of a Western society at risk. And there is every reason to believe that these encroachments will continue to expand. JOHN S. KOPPEL Bethesda, Md. To the Editor: Re Trump Fires Back at Sharp Rebuke by Pope Francis (front page, Feb. 19): It is surprising how quickly the words of John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic president, have been forgotten, by Pope Francis no less. At the height of the 1960 campaign, Kennedys religion and the influence the Vatican might have on the conduct of his presidency if he was elected became a real issue in the campaign. The future president said, I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote. This is exactly what Pope Francis did when, as you report, he suggested that Donald Trump is not Christian in proposing deportations and a wall to ward off migrants from Mexico. To the Editor: A Feb. 12 Op-Ed by Stuart Stevens asks, How Far Left Has America Moved? Not far enough to even inhabit the same political universe as every other democracy in the world. Yet Republicans like Mr. Stevens continue to portray centrists like President Obama as the loony left. Mr. Obamas leftist health care initiative didnt even permit discussion of a single-payer plan. His support for same-sex marriage came only after numerous courts and state legislatures had made it clear where the country was going. And Mr. Obamas call for universal background checks for gun purchases is not leftist; it is common sense shared by the vast majority of Americans including the vast majority of gun owners, even National Rifle Association members. Meanwhile, it is the right extreme of the political spectrum that has gone antic. The Tea Party has turned Congress into a no-fly zone for governance of any kind, leaving the Republican presidential candidates to struggle frantically to get to the right of each other Ill see your waterboarding and raise you carpet-bombing. I agree with one of Mr. Stevenss points President Bill Clinton did indeed move the American political center to the right. The great hope of Bernie Sanderss candidacy is that it might help rationalize American politics by pulling that center back where it belongs. More people than ever are hoping they have The Right Stuff, and more people than ever will be disappointed that they do not. By the deadline on Thursday, more than 18,300 people had submitted their resumes in hopes of joining the next group of NASA astronauts. That includes 4,000 procrastinators who applied in the final 48 hours. It was certainly beyond our expectations, said Anne Roemer, the NASA official in charge of the selection process. It is close to three times the number who responded the last time NASA put out a call for astronauts, in 2011. That time around, after sifting through 6,100 candidates, NASA selected eight, an acceptance rate of 0.13 percent. You have a much better chance of getting into Princeton or M.I.T., which admit about 8 percent of applicants. If the polls are right, Donald Trump will win South Carolina on Saturday by a double-digit margin. That could earn him 100 percent of the states delegates. Thats because the state awards its delegates on a winner-take-all basis by congressional district and statewide. So if Mr. Trump wins every congressional district and the statewide vote, he will win all of the states 50 delegates. The possibility that South Carolina could award all or nearly all of its delegates to a single candidate is an extreme example of how the G.O.P. delegate rules work, but it makes it easy to imagine how a candidate like Donald Trump could win a majority of delegates without anything near a majority of the popular vote. He could win with less than 40 percent of the vote in a true three-way race. He could win with even less the longer the field is split. When Donald Trump is in the news, its often because of something he has said about someone else, but on Thursday it was the other way around. When the news broke that Pope Francis had suggested that Mr. Trump was not Christian, those of us who, for better or worse, have decided to get into the business of cataloging all Mr. Trumps insults did what we normally do we went to his Twitter page and refreshed it frequently. Mr. Trump did hit back at His Holiness, calling Francis criticisms disgraceful and unbelievable, in what the The New York Timess Patrick Healy described as his most audacious attack yet on a revered public figure. Mr. Trump also described Francis as a pawn of the Mexican government. But he did not do these things on Twitter. Facebook got the honor. And, as real as an insult may be, rules are rules: If it doesnt happen on Twitter, it doesnt go on our big board. (Readers from Brussels, which Mr. Trump described as a hellhole, may sympathize.) A Texas judge on Friday ordered the case of Ethan Couch to be transferred to an adult court, meaning the teenager faces jail time for a 2013 drunken-driving crash that killed four people. The decision by the juvenile court in Fort Worth means that Mr. Couch will spend up to 120 days in jail, then finish his 10-year probation. Samantha K. Jordan, a spokeswoman for the Tarrant County district attorneys office, said a hearing, which is scheduled for April, would set the conditions of Mr. Couchs probation. If he violated his probation, she said, he could get up to 10 years in prison. It means he will actually be under supervision until 2024, Ms. Jordan said. The penalties are tougher, but the way they maintain the supervision is stricter as well. NEW ORLEANS Albert Woodfox, who has spent nearly all of the last four decades in solitary confinement and was facing his third trial for a 1972 murder, was set free Friday as part of a plea deal with Louisiana prosecutors. Mr. Woodfox, who has long maintained his innocence in the murder of Brent Miller, a 23-year-old prison corrections officer, pleaded no contest to lesser charges of manslaughter and aggravated burglary earlier on Friday before a judge in West Feliciana Parish, about 30 miles north of Baton Rouge. The sentences on the two counts, added to one for an armed robbery conviction that brought Mr. Woodfox to the Louisiana State Penitentiary in the first place back in 1971, combine for the 45 years he has already spent in prison, and so he was freed on time served. Nearly all of that time he spent in a 6-by-9-foot cell in the penitentiary, which is known as Angola. Mr. Woodfox left the prison by car shortly before 2 p.m. As the car stopped in front of the prison, he rolled down the window and briefly answered a couple of questions. In December, Larycia Hawkins, an associate professor at Wheaton College, an evangelical Christian school near Chicago, posted on Facebook a photograph of herself wearing a hijab, with the caption: I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God. The ensuing uproar was widely covered by the news media, and Dr. Hawkins eventually left her position at Wheaton, with a deal that both sides agreed not to disclose. To judge by the angry response, it would seem that Dr. Hawkins had uttered some radical heresy. Her critics made it sound as if no conscientious Christian could compare her god to Allah, or to the Jewish god whose real name is not to be uttered, but who is referred to as Adonai or Elohim. But the truth is more complicated. The idea that all monotheists, particularly Jews, Christians and Muslims, worship or pray to the same god has some support among religious people of all three traditions. The question has been debated for millenniums, and the issue has never been settled. Far from crossing some well-known theological line, Dr. Hawkins was venturing onto disputed territory where nobody knows the exact boundaries. Now, nearly three months later, she has emerged to tell her side, backed by a public relations and reputation management firm, Status Labs, based in Texas. Her message: She didnt like the person she saw in the video, either. When I watch it, I am embarrassed and sorry, she said in a telephone interview. I see someone dealing with a high-stress situation who gets flustered. I see a moment where I feel like Im not representing my best self, and I see somebody whos trying to do her best to help marginalized students. I try to remember thats only one moment of a full day, and only one moment in a 12-year career, she said. Attempts by ordinary people to recover their reputations after spectacular downward spirals as public villains du jour is an emerging art form and business opportunity. Status Labs has worked pro bono to arrange Ms. Clicks interviews and distribute professional head shots to replace the more commonly known image of her: a blurry, mid-yell frame from the YouTube video. Mark Schierbecker, the student behind the camera, who described himself as an independent journalist, said he had intended to upload any video he took that day to Wikipedia, which he often edits, and was not on assignment for any student or professional organization the day of the protests. (Before his encounter with Ms. Click, Mr. Schierbecker captured footage of Tim Tai, a student photographer on freelance assignment for ESPN, also being blocked from covering the protest.) In South Carolina, Gov. Nikki R. Haley, the states first nonwhite governor, and Senator Tim Scott, the first black senator elected from the South since Reconstruction, have both backed Senator Marco Rubio of Florida as an alternative to Mr. Trump. The picture of the three of them campaigning together says a lot about the Republican Party, Mr. Rubio, who is of Cuban descent, said in an appearance on CNN on Wednesday. The fear among Republican leaders here is that a smashing victory for Mr. Trump would say more about the party, and about the state, potentially undermining South Carolinas image as a more welcoming place that is no longer defined by figures like Strom Thurmond, the former segregationist presidential candidate who served in the Senate until 2003. Former Gov. David M. Beasley, a Republican who sought unsuccessfully to bring down the Confederate flag during his single term in office, said Mr. Trumps campaign had given voice to a serious sense of frustration in the state. But he said the Trump message was not a fair approximation of South Carolina values. It does not reflect South Carolina, said Mr. Beasley, who has not endorsed a candidate in the race. He added, Trump has been very divisive, and its a strategy that he has taken to be, clearly, a non-establishment candidate. WASHINGTON For years, President Obama has struggled to reconcile a civil libertarians belief in personal privacy with a commander in chiefs imperatives for the nations security. This week, security won. The decision by Mr. Obamas Justice Department to force Apple to help it breach an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists has ended, at least for now, the presidents attempts to straddle the feud over encryption between Silicon Valley and law enforcement. Asked about the presidents backing of the Federal Bureau of Investigations inquiry into San Bernardino, one of the worst terror attacks in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Obamas press secretary declared on Wednesday that the F.B.I. can count on the full support of the White House. The decision may have been all but inevitable for Mr. Obama, who every morning receives a classified intelligence briefing about the terrorist threats facing the United States. But he took the position after years of trying to find middle ground on the issue. DEWITT, Iowa Jim Dougherty sat in the last row of a crowded hearing room at City Hall here on Wednesday night, hands folded in his lap and a look of evident skepticism on his face, as Senator Charles E. Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, tried to defend the Republicans position that a Supreme Court nomination should be postponed until after the presidential election. Then Mr. Dougherty took his shot. To your point about delaying or waiting until the next president, I dont see that that does anything but a disservice to the public, said Mr. Dougherty, 59, a registered Republican who is supporting Gov. John Kasich of Ohio for president. The Constitution says Supreme Court justices are nominated by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate. Mr. Grassley parried that the Senate, exercising its constitutional authority, might also decide not to advise or consent. It also implies if you dont want to act, as well, or if you want to disapprove, you see, either way, Mr. Grassley said. As chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Grassley must decide whether to schedule a confirmation hearing on a court nominee, arguably giving him more power than any other individual senator in deciding if the process will move forward. But he has given off conflicting signals about his intentions. WASHINGTON Justice Antonin Scalias body arrived at the Supreme Court on Friday morning and was carried up the courthouses grand marble steps, through two rows of men and women in dark suits, to its majestic Great Hall, not far from the courtroom where he dominated the courts arguments for three decades and helped shape American law. Supreme Court police officers served as pallbearers, and some of Justice Scalias former law clerks were honorary pallbearers. Among them were Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton, of the federal appeals court in Cincinnati, and Paul D. Clement, a former United States solicitor general. His body was placed on the same catafalque, on loan from Congress, that once held President Abraham Lincolns coffin. He will lie in repose at the court until Friday evening. LAS VEGAS In a storefront on this citys heavily Latino east side, the civil rights leader Dolores Huerta rallied a dozen volunteers for Hillary Clinton on Wednesday night, relating in Spanish a Mexican saying about people who go near a cactus only when it is bearing fruit. Bernie hasnt been around, Ms. Huerta said, referring to Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Mrs. Clintons opponent in Nevadas Democratic caucuses on Saturday. He came to see the Latinos when they had the fruit. Fifteen minutes away, the Mexican actor and game-show host Marco Antonio Regil stood in the backyard of a suburban home, urging on volunteers for Mr. Sanders and his vow to fight income inequality. He recalled growing up in Tijuana, with its wide gap between the rich and the poor. We cannot allow that extreme social disparity to happen in America, Mr. Regil said. SPARTANBURG, S.C. The Republican presidential candidates hurtled across South Carolina on Friday, one day before the states primary, as polls showed the race tightening after an often nasty week of campaigning. Across the country in Nevada, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton tried to lock down supporters in the fiercely contested caucuses there. The vote on Saturday is a critical test of organization and strength for both parties. Saturdays Republican primary in South Carolina comes as Donald J. Trumps rivals are closing in on him after he enjoyed comfortable leads in the polls here. A new NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll showed him just 5 points ahead, down from his 16-point lead in the state a month ago. The poll had Senator Ted Cruz of Texas in second place with 23 percent, followed by Senator Marco Rubio of Florida in third place with 15 percent, and Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, in fourth place with 13 percent. Ben Carson, a retired pediatric neurosurgeon, and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio each had 9 percent. From Lee Atwaters whispers that a congressional candidate was psychotic to rumors that John McCain had fathered a black child out of wedlock to fake Mormon holiday cards supposedly sent by Mitt Romney, South Carolina is infamous for its dirty politics. While this year has not lived up to past levels of salaciousness so far presidential candidates are not shying away from employing underhanded tricks ahead of the Republican South Carolina primary on Saturday. And they have been more than happy to cry foul. Here are some of the more creative efforts: The Obama Embrace Senator Marco Rubio spends much of his time on the campaign trail discussing how President Obama is trying to destroy America. To rebut that notion, Senator Ted Cruzs campaign set up The Real Rubio Record website highlighting Mr. Rubios cooperation with Democrats over the years. Taking some license with imagery, the Cruz campaign blended photographs to create an image of a beaming (and short) Mr. Rubio shaking hands with Mr. Obama. The Facebook Faux Pas The Cruz campaign was also put on the defensive by a false Facebook post that depicted Representative Trey Gowdy, a prominent supporter of Senator Marco Rubio, changing his mind and formally backing Mr. Cruz. Mr. Cruz said his team had absolutely nothing to do with this fraudulent Facebook post. Around the country, other first-term Republicans are also feeling the heat. In New Hampshire and Wisconsin, newspaper editorial boards had harsh words for Ms. Ayotte and Mr. Johnson; in Pennsylvania, a news article in Mr. Toomeys home paper suggested he was misstating the facts around past nominations in election years. In Ohio, Mr. Portman is clearly weighing a complex calculation. He is a former House member who served as trade representative and budget director under President George W. Bush, and his efforts at bipartisanship help him at home. But he is seeking a second term amid a raucous Republican presidential primary campaign; a nominee like Mr. Trump, or Senator Ted Cruz, the conservative Texan, could hurt him badly in Ohio, whose voters twice backed Mr. Obama. He must court independents, yet still satisfy his conservative base. This is a hard one, and Portmans not the only one with a problem, said Jennifer E. Duffy, who analyzes Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. Hes keeping his base intact, but it could create a larger problem for him in the general election by alienating some moderates and independents. Here in Hillsboro, a city of about 6,600 people surrounded by snow-blanketed farmland east of Cincinnati, his mandate from the base seems clear. Nearly 200 enthusiastic conservatives, many wearing red, white and blue, turned out for Mr. Portman at the Highland County Republican Partys Lincoln Day dinner. The presidential campaign was on everyones mind; attendees voted in a straw poll by dropping corn kernels in Mason jars with photos of the candidates. (Senator Marco Rubio of Florida won, with 44 kernels, followed by Mr. Trump and John R. Kasich, the Ohio governor, who tied with 36 each.) But the court was on everyones mind, too. The Constitution says he should, and he should, said Kay Ayres, 78, a retired cattle farmer and the county partys executive chairwoman, when asked if Mr. Obama would be right to nominate someone. The Constitution doesnt say that the Senate has to hurry on and get it done. But two hours away in the small Ohio city of Delaware, sentiments were more muddled. Delaware, birthplace of the nations 19th president, Rutherford B. Hayes, is heavily Republican though not Portman territory; many voters said they had not heard of the senator. As for the court, some saw no reason to delay. And some were just disgusted with Washington. WASHINGTON Kristofer Goldsmith was discharged from the Army at the height of the Iraq war because he was not on a plane to Baghdad for his second deployment. Instead, he was in a hospital after attempting suicide the night before. On the sergeants first deployment, his duties often required him to photograph mutilated corpses. After coming home, he was stalked by nightmares and despair. In 2007, he overdosed on pills, and his platoon found him passed out in a grove of trees at Fort Stewart, Ga., that had been planted to honor soldiers killed in combat. Instead of screening Mr. Goldsmith for post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, records show that the Army wrote him up for missing his flight, then forced him out of the military with a less-than-honorable discharge. When he petitioned the Army to upgrade his discharge, arguing that he missed his flight because of undiagnosed PTSD, it rejected his appeal. In the years since, he has appealed twice more for an honorable discharge and has been denied both times. YAOUNDE, Cameroon A double suicide bombing attack in northern Cameroon on Friday morning left nearly two dozen people dead and more than 50 injured, officials said, laying the blame on the Boko Haram militant group. The attack came a week after Cameroonian forces crossed the border into northeastern Nigeria to begin a new offensive against Boko Haram, part of a continuing battle against the group. The bombing struck around 9 a.m. in the village of Meme, between the provincial capital of Maroua and the Nigerian border. According to local journalists, two attackers detonated explosives hidden in drinking water supplies in the village; both were killed. The regional governor, Midjiyawa Bakary, confirmed that the attack took place but did not have casualty figures. The military incursion against Boko Haram was the largest that Cameroon has mounted to date, according to Issa Tchiroma Bakary, a government spokesman. Officials said Cameroonian troops destroyed caches of explosives and killed 162 people who they said were members of the militant group. The World Health Organization issued recommendations on Friday for safeguarding the blood supply from the Zika virus, but said blood collection might need to continue in some affected areas, despite concerns that the virus may be linked to birth defects and a form of temporary paralysis. The Food and Drug Administration recently advised that United States territories with active Zika transmission, including Puerto Rico, should halt blood donations and import blood from nonaffected regions. Since there are no homegrown cases of Zika virus transmission in the continental United States, shipping blood to Zika-affected areas like Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands is feasible. By contrast, Zika is rapidly spreading throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, with more than 25 countries and territories reporting local transmission. In its guidance, W.H.O. conceded that it may be logistically impossible to obtain blood from nonaffected areas. You cant import blood for all of Latin America, said Dr. Peter J. Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. I have great sympathy for W.H.O. because they had to make a very difficult call. In the United States, the C.I.A. has long recruited openly. But such processes in China are mostly conducted in secret even if it is a badly kept one, as suggested by an account on Pincai.com, a jobs site, by someone who attended a recruitment meeting in Beijing for the Ministry of State Security, the countrys intelligence agency that oversees the regional bureaus. Image An advertisement for job openings with the Shanghai State Security Bureau. In the post, a person named Wang Yuele, which can also be transliterated as Wang Yueyue, described the event at an unnamed university in October 2007. The starting monthly salary while on the yearlong probation was 4,000 renminbi, about $600, with a minimum 10-year contract. Recruiters were mostly looking for graduate students with skills in information security, the person said, adding that similar recruitment events took place at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou; China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing; and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in Chengdu. These jobs were in Beijing but with a lot of travel, this person said. It was tiring, female students basically werent wanted and mostly the work wasnt dangerous. As the Shanghai ad and the Pincai account make clear, state security recruiters regularly visit elite Chinese universities trying to identify promising students. That was still the case, Ms. He said. Though the deadline for this ad had passed, there probably would be another recruitment drive at the university in June looking at 2017 job seekers, she said. Until Mr. Xis visit this month, Shenshan (the name means spirit mountain) Village nestled in obscurity in the hills above the monuments venerating Mao and the revolution. The village, reached by a one-lane concrete road winding two miles through bamboo and trees, was unknown even to many residents of the region. Still, officials took care to ensure that Mr. Xis visit was free of any discord. About a week before he arrived, security officers encamped here to check homes, weed out troublemakers, and, according to several villagers, tell people not to say anything irresponsible to an unnamed senior leader who would soon visit. We were told not to talk about bad things, said Wu Guilan, a sprightly 67-year-old woman. We wouldnt dare say anything like that anyway. I was afraid it would look bad to say something about our own problems in front of so many people. One problem that she did not mention, for instance, was how the courts had failed to deliver promised compensation to her son after his wife was killed by a reckless driver in 2013. But we wouldnt dare raise our personal problems, said the son, Luo Linhui. We cant spoil a leaders visit. Officials also blocked residents of the back part of the village, where dozens of members of the Hakka ethnic minority live, from glimpsing Mr. Xi, residents said. The Hakka have long had tensions with other people in this region, and there have been feuds over land and forests. There was to be no risk of Mr. Xi seeing any such flare-ups. We werent allowed to go to see him, said Lai Yuanlong, a 40-year-old Hakka farmer, leaning over a smoky wood fire in his drafty home. Nobody here was on the list. But hes also our leader. PARIS The Paris prosecutor on Friday requested that the brother of a man who killed seven people in southwestern France in 2012 stand trial on charges that he was involved in the planning of the attacks. The prosecutor, Francois Molins, asked that Abdelkader Merah, 33, the older brother of the gunman, Mohammed Merah, be prosecuted on charges of criminal terrorist conspiracy, theft in connection with a terrorist act and complicity in premeditated terrorist murder and attempted murder. In two attacks in 2012, on March 11 and March 15, 2012, Mohammed Merah shot and killed three French soldiers in southwestern France. He then killed four more people, including three children, on March 19 at a Jewish school in Toulouse. He was shot dead by the police several days later after a standoff that lasted more than 30 hours. If a judge approves Mr. Molinss request, Mr. Merah will stand trial before a special court for terrorist crimes that is based in Paris and is made up of a panel of judges rather than a jury. LONDON The croissant, the buttery breakfast pastry, means crescent in French. But dont tell that to the British. Tesco, Britains largest supermarket chain and a bellwether of sorts for popular tastes, is dispensing with the traditional curved pastry as of Friday and instead will sell only straight ones. The company offered a decidedly British rationale: It is easier to spread jam on the straight variety. The banishing of the crescent-shaped croissant spurred no shortage of dismay on both sides of the English Channel. BRUSSELS European Union leaders agreed on Friday to a deal to overhaul their ties with Britain, opening the way for a high-stakes referendum on whether the blocs most ambivalent member country will stay within the union or quit. After hours of tense talks, all 28 European Union leaders signed off on an agreement covering a variety of issues related to sovereignty, economics and migration, and intended to help keep skeptical Britons within the European Union when they vote on the matter, almost certainly in June. I believe this is enough for me to recommend that the United Kingdom remain in the European Union, said Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain after reaching the agreement at a summit meeting in Brussels, adding that the deal ensured both special status for his country and that Britain will never be part of a European superstate. The referendum would be a once-in-a-generation moment to shape the destiny of our country, Mr. Cameron added. PRISTINA, Kosovo Opposition lawmakers released multiple canisters of tear gas in Kosovos Parliament on Friday, the latest in a series of protests over corruption, unemployment and diplomatic agreements the government has struck with neighboring Serbia and Montenegro. The president of the assembly, Kadri Veseli, who had put on a gas mask, twice halted and then resumed the proceedings after the release of tear gas, but struggled to restore order after members of his center-right Democratic Party of Kosovo, some of them clutching towels to their faces, left a third time. Police officers entered the Parliament building and escorted opposition lawmakers out of the chamber. Albulena Haxhiu, from the center-left nationalist party Vetevendosje, the main opposition group in Parliament, fainted after scuffling with the police while trying to re-enter. This regime is now is in its final days, Visar Ymeri, the leader of Vetevendosje, told reporters. They will not last long. ROME In the cage fight of American presidential politics, the matchup is irresistible: Pope Francis, leader of the worlds 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, the pope of the poor who has knelt to wash the feet of prisoners and Muslims, versus Donald J. Trump, billionaire Republican who disparages Muslims and kneels to no one. When Francis suggested that Mr. Trump is not Christian in answering a reporters question during his return flight from Mexico, the Latin American pope not only served up red meat for global headline writers (Francis Excommunicates Trump, declared La Stampa in Italy), but again demonstrated his knack for sticking his nose into putatively secular affairs. His flap with Mr. Trump is about immigration, and to Francis the issue transcends any campaign cycle. From the first days of his papacy, when he insisted on paying his hotel bill himself, Francis has understood the power of a gesture, and of a global spotlight available to any pope capable of using it. The pontiff who made a politically charged visit to the United States-Mexico border on Wednesday is the same one who in 2014 stopped in Bethlehem to pray at the graffiti-covered wall dividing the Palestinian city from Israeli-controlled Jerusalem. His critics in the United States, many of them conservative Catholics, argue that Francis is a political pope pursuing a leftist agenda that castigates capitalism and environmental degradation. Even before Franciss remarks about him, Mr. Trump had criticized the pope as a political person and accused him of visiting the border as a favor to the Mexican government. The Friday strike, on a seaside town 50 miles west of Tripoli, targeted Noureddine Chouchane, a Tunisian militant. He had also helped arrange the arrival of Islamic State recruits into Libya, the Pentagon said in a statement confirming the strikes. Mr. Chouchane, 35, was probably killed in the attack on the compound, where up to 60 militants had been actively training for a terrorist operation, the Pentagon said. Mr. Chouchane was accused of helping to organize an attack on the National Bardo Museum in Tunis that killed 22 people in March and another in June that killed 38 people at a beachfront resort in Sousse. He is also believed to have helped funnel as many as 1,500 Islamic State fighters to Iraq and Syria. The Islamic State has continued to push across Libya, underscoring what diplomats say is the importance of settling the multifaceted civil war that has given it space to expand. Libyas political leaders are currently divided between two loose political alliances centered on rival Parliaments in the capital, Tripoli, and the eastern city of Tobruk. But the United Nations effort to form a unity government, led by the German diplomat Martin Kobler, has been stymied by the factional differences based on town, tribe, personality or religious persuasion that helped set off Libyas civil war in 2014 and have persistently dogged efforts to resolve it ever since. An agreement to form a unity government, signed in December, has been loudly opposed by the faction that controls Tripoli, which has refused to allow Mr. Koblers plane to even land in the capital since early January. There are tensions over any future role for Gen. Khalifa Hifter, a commander who dominates in the east. For now at least, the United States seems set on continuing to attack targets of opportunity in Libya while supporting the troubled process led by the United Nations. We will continue to take actions where weve got a clear operation and a clear target in mind, President Obama told reporters on Tuesday. At the same time, were working diligently with the United Nations to try to get a government in place in Libya. And thats been a problem. Like most widows, Ms. McKinney is living on a lot less than before her spouse died. The big-picture look at widows is that theres almost always a loss of income, said Cindy Hounsell, the founder and president of Wiser. Women also generally live longer than men, making it even more important that they plan their finances carefully. For reasons she still doesnt fully understand, two weeks after her husbands sudden death, Ms. McKinney headed back to the travel trailer dealership to pursue the dream she had with her spouse. She bought a 15-foot Sportsmen Classic. I took off for three months, driving a circle around Colorado, she said. I went to places in the wilderness and on the top of mountains, where I could stand outside and scream at the sky, and scream at God for taking my man. And scream at him for leaving me. She also joined the Sisters on the Fly, a womens empowerment adventure group. The group made me feel I wasnt a victim, she said. I wasnt the only one who had gone through this. Since her husbands death, Ms. McKinney has put tens of thousands of miles on her truck and trailer. Ive done a lot of driving, but I havent done anything exorbitant, she said. I didnt go around the world. Indeed, widows need to make their initial financial moves cautiously. Theres a sense of urgency to do something right after you lose a spouse, but I caution widows to recognize the psychological trauma and dont do anything hastily, said Eleanor Blayney, author of Womens Worth: Finding Your Financial Confidence and consumer advocate of the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards. Widows, in particular, have to be very careful about being taken advantage of by people who may or may not have their best interests at heart. One stumbling block for many widows is knowing where the money is. That often requires some sleuthing to locate savings accounts, brokerage accounts and retirement plans and identifying the proper online passwords. The first step to piecing things together, Ms. Blayney said, is digging out your joint tax returns for the past five years. And even if the agent truly believes in the merits of permanent insurance, which can accumulate a cash value, it is far more expensive, often costing several thousand dollars a year. Permanent life insurance can, however, be the right choice for people who will always have a need for life insurance. They might include the parents of a child with special needs or a wealthy family who will owe estate taxes. How much to buy? The rule of thumb tossed around most often is to buy coverage worth 10 times the policyholders salary. But each familys needs will vary depending on what amount of income the family is seeking to replace and what other items family members may want, or need, to pay for. Would you want to take time off from work if a spouse died? Pay off the mortgage (or just receive enough to continue making payments)? Pay for a portion or all of college? Are there any debts that would need to be repaid? Matt Becker, a financial planner in Florida whose practice focuses on younger families, said working parents should buy enough insurance to replace their income for five to 20 years, depending on how old their children are and whether a spouse or partner could support the children on one income. For a stay-at-home parent, you should consider the cost of hiring someone else to perform all of your daily duties, added Mr. Becker, who created a life insurance guide and a work sheet to calculate how much insurance youll need. The costs can add up, particularly when considering child care, buying and preparing meals, chauffeuring children around and the overall job of keeping a household running. One policy or more? Families needs will probably change over time, so some individuals may consider buying policies with different expiration dates: maybe a $1 million policy with a 20-year term that gets the children through college and another $500,000 policy with a 30-year term that gets you to retirement. Apparently, the requirements to become president are: to be at least 35, a natural born citizen and the author of a formulaic book telling us why you deserve our vote. Hillary Clinton got an early jump with her two hefty best sellers, Living History (2003) and Hard Choices (2014), but other 2016 presidential hopefuls have been making up for lost time. As The Atlantic pointed out last December, pols might feel obligated to write books outlining their life stories and beliefs, but not many readers feel obligated to buy them. Books by Marco Rubio (American Dreams), Rand Paul (Taking a Stand) and Carly Fiorina (Rising to the Challenge) each sold 2,000 copies or fewer in the first month after they were published. Unlike those authors, Mike Huckabee, whose God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy met with a wider but still modest readership, cant be accused of a generically inspirational title. So clearly pitched to its desired demographic, it might seem beyond parody. But the humor website Funny or Die nonetheless suggested it could have been called: God, Guns, Grits, Gravy, Giblets, Gristle, Gobs of Meat, Grease, Gah Im Hungry. Perhaps the oddest book of the 2016 campaign season is Jeb Bushs Reply All, which collects some 700 pages of the candidates emails during his time as governor of Florida. Scott Timberg wrote in Salon that it is even less interesting than it sounds, and establishes Bush as one of the dullest human beings whos ever lived. If you dont find the recent trend of adult coloring books dull, USA Today offers an alternative: a downloadable book that allows you to color in the candidates any way you choose. Go crazy. Twenty-five years ago, David Denby returned to his alma mater, Columbia University, to retake the required freshman courses in the great books of the Western world. Thirty years had passed since this seasoned film critic (then for New York, later The New Yorker) first experienced Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Shakespeare and the rest of the Western canon as an 18-year-old. At the time, that curriculum was at the heart of an impassioned culture war over whether the work of dead white guys as some reformers derided them remained relevant or appropriate for a multicultural generation of American college students. Denbys answer was an unqualified yes, an ecstatic, critically praised paean to Western thought and literature entitled Great Books: My Adventures With Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World. Now Denby has returned to the classroom again, this time to high school. And again, hes asking a big cultural question. With social media engulfing the current generation of children, crowding out time for serious reading, he has found himself indulging what he calls apocalyptic thoughts: Was advanced literacy coming to an end? What hope for a civilization that gave up on books? In particular, he wanted to find out if serious readers could be born in this digitally drenched habitat and to record the ways in which they struggled into life. If they struggled into life. Lit Up is Denbys answer, a lively account of 10th-grade English mostly in one classroom, led by an inspiring teacher named Sean Leon at Manhattans selective Beacon School. We witness one student after the next discovering meaning in Hawthorne, Plath, Huxley, Orwell, Dostoyevsky, Sartre and Beckett, guided always by Leon, who celebrates the value of literature that unsettles. But Denby doesnt provide a convincing answer to his question about the future of advanced literacy in todays youth culture, in part because his own enthusiasm for literature overtakes the voices of the students. In the end, it isnt clear whether the students are getting as much out of the books as he believes they are. For example, visiting an 11th-grade class at Beacon reading The Scarlet Letter, Denby observes that the students are distressed by the malevolence of Roger Chillingworth, the betrayed husband of Hester Prynne. From this, he leaps to the extravagant conclusion: Understanding what he was up to was an introduction, for many of them, into the nature of perversity, a stage in their moral education and their perception of character. At times like this, reading Lit Up can feel like sitting in a movie theater behind someone who obscures part of the big screen. Back in the 70s, Scott Burnham was a technician working for a company that made guitar cables and accessories. While soldering parts one day, he accidentally attached the wrong resistor to a circuit board. It was a fortunate error, because the circuit suddenly produced a haunting moan so lovely and eerie that Burnham realized it would make a fantastic guitar-pedal sound. He created the Rat, a pedal that quickly sold tens of thousands of units. Bands from Nirvana to Radiohead used it, and musicians I know today still swear by it. This is the type of story that crops up a lot in Pagan Kennedys new book, Inventology: How We Dream Up Things That Change the World. After talking to dozens of inventors, she finds that their breakthroughs frequently involve an element of luck though, as Louis Pasteur observed, luck favors the prepared mind. Burnham, after all, was an expert in his field, and had been planning for some time to create a new distortion pedal. His expertise and passion helped him recognize the happiness in the happy accident. You or I might have winced at the circuits weird sound; Burnham heard the future of rock guitar. How precisely does one become more creative? This is a perpetual anxiety in the C Suite, where executives lunge at advice that promises to open up their Steve Jobsian third eye. Kennedys book and Adam Grants latest, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, try to demystify creativity, via the genres now traditional counterpoint of inspirational stories and counterintuitive social science. If clumsily constructed, this type of book can become self-parodic, a PowerPoint slog through the Five Things You Need to Do to Become More Dynamic and Creative. Kennedy largely avoids this trap, with a boost from elegant prose and excellent reporting, including material from her former contributions to The New York Times Magazines Who Made That? column. She generally avoids the pundits temptation to coin trademark phrases, though she comes up with one terrific one: Martian jet lag, to describe the case of inventors who suffer from a problem years before other people do and spy an opportunity. THE FORGETTING TIME By Sharon Guskin 357 pp. Flatiron, $25.99. Janie, a single mom, shares a small apartment with her 4-year-old son. Kind of a harrowing premise already, right? Noah has always been a handful. He throws epic tantrums to avoid bathing, wakes up screaming at night and panics at the idea of being left with a babysitter. It was just part of Noahs uniqueness. Like any mother, Janie is a little slow on the uptake when it comes to the apple of her eye. The thing is: Hes creepy. The kid spouts facts on subjects he hasnt learned about and knows things about places he hasnt been. When is my other mother coming? he asks Janie. Noahs preschool is so freaked out by his increasingly bizarre behavior that Janie is forced to get him professional help. After visits to many doctors, Noah is offered a mental health diagnosis and medication. But Janie turns to a higher power: Google. And she comes across a theory that might explain everything. Could it be that her son is remembering a past life? Desperate, she reaches out to an eminent researcher, Dr. Jerome Anderson. This sounds ludicrous. And it shouldnt work. But Guskin pulls off the silly premise with a gripping, deft and moving mystery. Did Noah have a previous life? Was he murdered? And where is his other mother? Anderson has his own motives for studying Noah. Recently given a diagnosis of aphasia, hes racing to finish a book of case studies before the dementia takes hold. Noah remembers more than he should, Anderson less and less. Theyre both learning to let go. THE WIDOW By Fiona Barton 324 pp. New American Library, $26. Husbands can be the source of a lot of stress. Take Jeans husband, Glen, who just got knocked down by a bus outside Sainsburys. Head injuries, they said. Dead, anyway. But being a widow rather than a wife suits Jean just fine. And no wonder. Turns out Glen was the prime suspect in a missing child case that captivated all of England. Glen insisted he was innocent. Jean stood by him. Much tea was consumed. The detective assigned to the case a straight up-and-down copper. . . . One of the last believed Jean knew more than she let on. So naturally, the reporters sitting outside the house in their cars, Big Macs in their fists, have been scrambling to get her story. What did Jean know, and when did she know it? Kate Waters, one of those reporters, thinks shes finally going to get to the truth when Jean agrees to an interview, a perfect womb trembler. These days, nothing makes a publishers heart go pitter-patter quite like an unreliable narrator who happens to be female. Women! Were a mystery! Jean is full of contradictions. Shes a fascinating puzzle. I tried not to blame Glen. I knew it wasnt his fault. We were both victims of the situation, he said, and tried to keep me cheerful. Shes both checked-out and calculating. What else happened that day? . . . They wanted me to make a mistake, but I didnt. I stuck to the story. I didnt want to make any trouble for Glen. Welcome to Devils Pocket, a small neighborhood of 70 or so families pleated into the eastern bank of the river, a crimp of peeling clapboard rowhouses, asphalt playgrounds, small corner stores and brown brick buildings as old as the city of Philadelphia itself. Richard Montanaris elegiac tone takes the curse off SHUTTER MAN (Mulholland/Little, Brown, $26), a blood-drenched thriller about a group of imperfectly domesticated boys who came from the same blighted neighborhood and grew up to become criminals and killers and cops. Back in the day, a beloved local child was murdered, and the world would never be the same in Devils Pocket. Less than a week later, Desmond Farren, the pitiable oldest son in the notoriously vicious Farren clan, was found dead, shot once in the back of the head. Jump now to the present day and find out how those long-ago crimes still haunt the grown men whose lives were shaped by them. And pay special mind to Detective Kevin Byrne, the ethically conflicted hero of Montanaris gripping police procedurals. As one of those wild boys from the old neighborhood, Byrne would seem to have an advantage after new evidence turns up in Desmonds still unsolved murder. But when hes presented with this evidence, his impulse is to run for the hills. Meanwhile, Byrne is the lead detective on a confounding case of grotesque and seemingly random killings. From the outset, the reader knows these atrocities are actually being committed by Billy the Wolf, one of Desmonds brothers, who has a neurological disorder that makes him unable to recognize faces. (He uses photographs to identify his targets.) While Billy sounds like a monster, hes also to be pitied. In fact, theres a lot of flawed humanity in Devils Pocket, from that sourpuss Old Man Flagg, who owns the variety store where kids shoplift, to Anjelica Leary, an exhausted, fastidious home-care nurse who would buy breath mints before shed buy food. Living side by side, they create a place you might call home. Or hell. Whats this? A female cop who doesnt look like a runway model and doesnt go mano a mano with psychotic killers? Trudy Nan Boyce may be a first-time author, but she was in law enforcement for more than 30 years, which should explain why the station-house personnel and forensic details in OUT OF THE BLUES (Putnam, $27) feel so authentic. Her rookie homicide detective, Sarah Alt, who goes by the name of S. Alt, or Salt, is tasked with proving that Tall John, a notorious Atlanta drug dealer, sold a young bluesman named Michael Anderson the hot shot of heroin that killed him. Atlanta being a great music town, and Salt being a blues and roots fan, the narrative finds its voice when the musicians who played with Anderson in Bailey (Boss of the Blues) Browns Old Smoke Band come to town. Like a true fan, Boyce takes us into clubs and bootleg juke joints like Sams Chicken Shack and Blue Room and lets the music speak for itself. That high slumps when the band leaves town, but Boyces down-to-earth characters are still good company. Sadly, one of the best of them was the murdered musician, who revered the old Atlanta bluesmen and loved, loved, loved the music. The February 1953 issue of Ebony included an article entitled Some of My Best Friends Are Negroes. The byline was Eleanor Roosevelts, though the headline, apparently, was not. One of my finest young friends is a charming woman lawyer Pauli Murray, who has been quite a firebrand at times but of whom I am very fond, Roosevelt wrote. She is a lovely person who has struggled and come through very well. Indeed, nothing was ever easy for Murray, a black woman born in 1910, a woman attracted to women and also a poet, memoirist, lawyer, activist and Episcopal priest. But her tender friendship with Roosevelt, sustained over nearly a quarter-century and more than 300 cards and letters, helped. It is the rich earth Patricia Bell-Scott tills for The Firebrand and the First Lady, a tremendous book that has been 20 years in the making. You could say Pauli Murray was born too soon, and saying so captures the essential injustice of her life, but it would also rob her of credit for making her own time the best she could. Im really a submerged writer, Murray once told her friends, but the exigencies of the period have driven me into social action. The granddaughter of a woman born into slavery and a mixed-race Union soldier, Murray was arrested for refusing to sit in the colored section of a bus 15 years before the Montgomery bus boycott and for participating in restaurant sit-ins in the early 1940s, long before the 1960 sit-ins at Woolworths lunch counter. She led a national campaign on behalf of a black sharecropper on death row. In 1938, Murray, then a W.P.A. worker who had once glimpsed the first lady and been chastised for refusing to rise, wrote a furious letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt for speaking at the all-white University of North Carolina. I am a Negro, the most oppressed, misunderstood and most neglected section of your population, she informed him. You called on Americans to support a liberal philosophy based on democracy. What does this mean for Negro Americans? She sent a copy with a brief introduction to Roosevelts wife, who had met with N.A.A.C.P. representatives when her husband refused to. It worked. The two women were different in age, race and class, but they had a few things in common. They were orphaned as children and raised by elderly relatives. They were inquisitive, they were readers, they were idealists. They didnt mind a fight, but they channeled institutional power for good, if they could. Though Mrs. Roosevelt rebuked Murray for not understanding the constraints the president was under, what with the Southern white supremacists in his fractious coalition, she plainly admired Murrays spirit and did what she could to support her. Murray was a guest in her homes and at the White House, and Roosevelt cheered her from afar. (Years later, Roosevelt sent the presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson a copy of Proud Shoes, Murrays family memoir, apparently to improve his understanding of black Americans.) But the first lady had no magic wand for what her young friend was up against. Murray was repeatedly hospitalized and resisted the diagnosis of homosexuality, then considered a mental illness, failing to persuade doctors to give her male sex hormones. Early in her career, Murray published an essay accompanied by her gender-ambiguous photo and under the name Pete, calling it her boy-self. Her sexuality, along with suspicions of Communism and mental instability, may have been why, when Murray was refused entry to that same University of North Carolina, Thurgood Marshall, then with the N.A.A.C.P., turned down her case, telling her, We have to be very careful about the people we select. Later, despite her considerable intellect and three law degrees from elite institutions, no law faculty and only one law firm would offer her a permanent position. Near the end of her life, Murray declared, If anyone should ask a Negro woman what is her greatest achievement, her honest answer would be, I survived. A couple of years ago, in what was titled Communique on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere, Chinas Communist Party banned, among other things, historical nihilism, by which was clearly meant writings that dwelled excessively on the partys many disastrous past mistakes. Here we have two books, both searing eyewitness accounts of past ideological fanaticism written by eminent Chinese intellectuals, that clearly fit the description of historical nihilism, though, Ji Xianlins The Cowshed was actually published in China a couple of decades ago, when things were a bit looser than they are today. There is virtually no possibility, however, that Fang Lizhis The Most Wanted Man in China, marvelously, idiomatically translated by Perry Link, will be published in China. Fang, who died in 2012, was for a quarter of a century probably his countrys most famous scientist. Like Andrei Sakharov, the Soviet dissident with whom he is often compared, he was a powerful advocate of the notion of universal human rights (another concept barred by the aforementioned Communique). After the bloody crackdown on the student-led demonstrations in Beijings Tiananmen Square in 1989, Fang and his wife, Li Shuxian, also a physicist, were named the chief black hands behind the turmoil. The couple took refuge in the American Embassy in Beijing, where they remained until they were allowed to leave for permanent exile in the United States 13 months later. It was mostly during that time in the embassy, constantly worried that he could be seized and abducted, that Fang wrote his memoir. But though composed in the heat and terror of a dangerous moment, this is a remarkably cool, precise and in places even good-humored book; Fang generally prefers to lampoon Chinas authoritarian bureaucracy than to dwell on his own suffering. The book reflects its author in this sense a skeptical rationalist and a brave man who, it turns out, was also a fine writer with an irreverent and sometimes poetic touch. Fangs underlying theme is the fundamental incompatibility between science and the kind of faith in their own infallibility demanded by the Chinas leaders, and his book is a manifesto of the sort Galileo might have written had he been a Chinese physicist in the middle of the 20th century. Fangs book recounts his entire life, from his origins in a small-business family from the fabled city of Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province to his departure from China in 1990 after which he taught physics at the University of Arizona until his death at the age of 76. He covers all the major twists and turns of the Maoist regime up to 1989, providing learned, witty digressions on a host of topics from the importance of banquet scenes in Peking opera to what Fang calls the hallucinatory megalomania in Communist culture, though he readily admits that, like many Chinese intellectuals, he was for years a true believer in Chinese socialism and the greatness of the Chairman. Another specter hangs over The Theoretical Foot the fevered, crazed suffering of a man we read of in short, very occasional italicized passages, whose unnamed malady will lead to the amputation of his leg and tormenting phantom pain, hence the novels odd title. We never quite know the identity of either the sufferer, who longs for the release of death, or of his loyal wife, though we infer them to be the central couple (married to absent people, not each other, when the central action of the book takes place). More than the shadows of Nazism, these jarring, hallucinatory scenes convey both doom and agony. Although some of the style is warmed-over Hemingway (You must kill what you love best, if your love for it is crooked and unhealthy), most of it has the unflinching spareness Fishers admirers rely on, along with the essential eruptions of sensuality. The book is strongly of its period, enhanced by the irony we bring to it: We know so much more about the consequences of the good life between the wars that we can judge the characters even more than the author did at the time. Fisher is frank about sexuality in a way that, as Jane Vandenburgh speculates in an afterword, might have kept her from seeking a market for the book, as she halfheartedly did when in need of money. The young, firm-breasted coed we meet in the first chapter has frequent, guiltless sex with her swain; Saras sister casually refers to Sara as a woman who believes in adultery. There are overtones of homosexuality, most of them contemptuous, except for a scene in which two young men strip to sleep in the sun and wrestle half-naked. The fastidious houseboy is dismissed as a delicate flower, mocked for simpering over Saras young, virile brother. The most harshly drawn character is the shrewish, fat lesbian who takes out her frustrated desire by secretly slurping up Saras golden, hand-beaten mayonnaise on snatched toast points. More surprisingly, there are hints of incest. The only person the poet yearns for, with an intense, itchy desire, is her brother; Saras brother might also be in love with Tim. The varied and frustrated appetites of the characters evoke one of Fishers famous lines: When I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it. As for actual food, theres not much to be seen, although its mentioned in passing (She felt as clean, as sterile, as boring as a dairy lunch). Sara uses her culinary skill as a way to establish superiority as much as to feed her guests, which she prides herself on doing, frequently to the exclusion of actually engaging with them. The little roasted cold pigeons, tender and rich; the green nugget of chicory; and the fruit soaked with kirsch in a bowl and little crisp biscuits made in the village, served with champagne, are of the European sophistication and simplicity Fishers fans expect. But such menus leave a sour taste. Theres a pall over all the pleasure, not just cast by the war but by the intermittent italicized agonies of the unnamed man. Ultimately the book fails to make us care about the characters because the author doesnt seem to like them very much. We hear the inner voices of most of the main characters, but not the central couple, perhaps because Fisher idolized the man and perhaps because she knew how unsympathetic we might find the woman, whose perfection comes at a heavy price. We may catch glimpses of her own judgment against herself in the prigs incessant scrutinizing of Saras morality and in her sisters wish that she would, sometimes, engage rather than maintain such impassive courtesy. Its in such quiet moments that The Yid grounds itself more deeply in character and begins to come emotionally alive as a novel, rather than as a madcap romp. But the book never really detaches itself from the mechanics of action stories (I suspect it doesnt want to). Like many thriller writers, Goldberg devotes countless pages to his scrupulous research. He can give us a post-mortem on exactly how those state security agents died of their Finnish dagger wounds. He can translate a joke from Russian to Yiddish to English and back again. He knows the difference between an IS 2-8-4 locomotive, used for passenger trains, and an SO-type locomotive, used for freight trains, which is important in considering how Stalin and his minions might transport the millions of Jews before and after their extermination. This kind of data can be interesting, but while reading The Yid it sometimes feels as if Goldberg had put together a thousand index cards, each containing some salient fact or historical episode, and wrote his novel in order to include them all. He himself diagnoses the problem with this approach when he writes of Levinson: He was an autodidact. . . . They can amass facts vast storerooms of facts but they are too uncertain of themselves to get comfortable with doubt, humility and nuance. Its a lack of nuance that might explain why the characters in The Yid and their triumphant story are less compelling than the books historical background. The ragtag bunch goes on its mission and certain plot moves skirmishes, nighttime forays in disguise, clever ruses, small victories, moments of doubt need to occur along the way. But we want to understand why the individual characters are going to all this trouble in the first place, not just out of abstract principle but out of felt need. Too often, The Yid adheres to schematics. This means that Friederich Lewis, who is black, has no flaws, that Kogan, the surgeon, is always rational, that Kima, the orphan, is a fierce warrior princess, rather than a wounded hell-raiser. Wondering how he got mixed up with these people, Lewis muses: What is he doing in that cold, impoverished, barbaric land? The Moor of the World Revolution. . . . Has Lewis agreed to follow these clowns in a horrific, heroic, hilarious dive off the trapeze? If you are inclined to be charitable, you will take The Yid for the frolic it wants to be, and not worry too much about how something can be horrific and hilarious at the same time. Absurdity is the air we breathe now (as has been said a thousand times). Is The Yid an old-fashioned caper like Oceans Eleven or is it a Quentin Tarantino pastiche of such an old-fashioned caper? Is there a difference anymore? Perhaps we get a clue when Goldberg gives us an obligatory love scene between the noble Lewis and the fetching Kima, and with solemn idealism Lewis thinks: And when I die and face my God, Ill say: I held your sword. I fought for her. I fought for freedom. In this abandonment of irony, Lewiss heroic declamation shows that something really can be horrific and hilarious at the same time. Lighten up, people might say a light touch is a form of graciousness. Goldberg writes from Stalins point of view: Hang some, behead a few. Then, stand upon a tower and watch the start of lynching, the pogrom, the biggest of all time, a Kristallnacht times 10, or times a hundred! . . . Lets say Americans blow up the atom. Hell blow up hydrogen then! His soul dances amid the flames. Republicans and Democrats alike said the clarity afforded by the new legislation would help set the parameters of the sweeping changes that many expect will seek to broaden the base and lower the rates: That is to say, it will end many tax exemptions and exclusions and use the increased revenue to lower what are known as marginal tax brackets. (Those define what you will pay for all net taxable income beyond certain thresholds.) In the process, policy makers hope to give the United States a cleaner, easier-to-understand tax code. Yet some of the current exemptions are hugely popular, like the deduction for home mortgage interest or for state and local taxes. Everyone wants a simple tax code, but few people want to eliminate provisions that benefit them. That helps explain why it is so difficult to make big changes. 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. Mr. Ryan, in his first major policy speech after becoming speaker, talked about rewriting the tax code, which has been a personal passion throughout his years in office. You know what the first item on that agenda is? Its creating jobs and raising wages, Mr. Ryan said in the speech at the Library of Congress in December. We know whats standing in our way. Instead of a tax code that all of us can live by, we have a tax code that none of us can understand. After noting that Canada has lower business tax rates, Mr. Ryan continued: The only way to fix our tax code is to simplify, simplify, simplify. Close all those loopholes and use that money to cut tax rates for everybody. Take the seven tax rates we have now and collapse them into two or three. The speaker is not the only one railing against the tax code. Consider the man Mr. Ryan challenged on the ballot in 2012: Vice President Biden. Guys, when Reagan was president there was $600 billion in tax expenditures, Mr. Biden said in a speech last month to House Democrats, referring to the same provisions that Mr. Ryan called loopholes. Whatever you call them, many are hugely popular and various interest groups will invariably fight to preserve them. For that reason, big tax overhaul plans often call for a phase-in process so that any shift is not excessively abrupt. There are now $1.2 trillion in tax expenditures, Mr. Biden said. Find me a responsible economist that can justify more than $500 billion to $600 billion of those tax expenditures having any socially redeeming value whatsoever. Marijuana is legal to buy in several states, but no law says that selling it will be free from cumbersome expense and paperwork, especially when it comes to taxation. Sales of the drug are permitted for recreational use in just four states Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Alaska and the District of Columbia; 18 other states allow sales for medicinal use. But marijuana is still illegal under federal law, and that helps explain why production and sale are tightly controlled. A record of each plant must be maintained, beginning before the seed even sprouts, and it must be updated with every significant movement or activity involving the plant, business owners and their advocates within the industry say. Once a plant is processed for consumption and reaches a store, the authorities want to get their cut. City, county and state governments tax marijuana sales, often at rates that differ from place to place and are higher than for other products. To complicate matters further, customers typically must pay different tax rates on the substance itself, depending on whether it is intended for medical or recreational use, and yet another rate on related items, say, vintage Mr. Natural T-shirts. The ghostly girls in their giant garb (plus Lady Gaga) came stomping into the big white space on skyscraper platforms, eyes and lips outlined in black, shoulders swallowed up by oversize black sorority sweatshirts spotted with sparkling spider webs. Exaggerated lacy vinyl skirts bloomed around bony hips, and oily, iridescent feathers bristled at the neck. Silhouettes were as attenuated as a pen and ink drawing or drowned in enormous volumes; glittering rats chased their tails around Victorian coats; phantom hands reached across taffeta gowns; satin cracked from side to side. Imagine Edward Gorey meets the Lady of Shalott, and youll get an idea of Marc Jacobs, fall 2016. The fall shows began in the brawling aftermath of the New Hampshire primary and ended in the shadow of the South Carolina Republican primary and the Nevada Democratic caucus. The national dialogue has taken a turn for the macabre. Mr. Jacobs just designed for it. And brilliantly. For Scott Birnbaum, finding Tracy Podell was akin to solving a complex math problem. Mr. Birnbaum, a data-mad web executive looking for love, found himself taking deep dives into the algorithms and user behaviors that drive some of the largest dating websites. He emerged with a solution for gaming the system to his advantage, creating a profile that attracted Ms. Podell, even if it wasnt entirely accurate. Mr. Birnbaum, now 39, considers himself to be a first-adopter and a life hacker, whose pursuit of an efficient existence through apps and other gizmos can sometimes infect him with paralysis by analysis. It took me six months to switch phone plans because I was like, which one is the best? he said. He readily admits that his initial forays into online dating were lackluster. While living in Seattle, he found that his friends were getting a lot more hits than he was. So he investigated how he could improve his profile and began tinkering with multiple accounts. I started noticing that everybody said the same thing in their bio, he said. And I was like, well, Im not going to stand out very much if I do that. I should write profiles that while they, you know, werent necessarily lying accentuated different parts of things I was interested in. Send your workplace conundrums to workologist@nytimes.com, including your name and contact information (even if you want it withheld for publication). The Workologist is a guy with well-intentioned opinions, not a professional career adviser. Letters may be edited. The human resources department at my company (a nonprofit with about 100 employees) is extremely concerned with avoiding hiring factors that might get us into trouble legally. So obviously they dont ask candidates about age, marital status and so forth. But they also do not look at a potential employees social media. After an offer was made to a candidate for a management position, I was alerted to comments she made on social media that are offensive not only to me, but probably to many of our potential clients. Is there really a good reason to avoid checking social media during the hiring process? ANONYMOUS Many employers do consider such material before deciding whether to hire someone, and a recent survey by the Society for Human Resource Management found that the trend is growing. This is frequently seen as an issue for job seekers, who are advised to go over their social media posts with an eye for potential offensiveness. But looking at the issue from an employers perspective also raises questions, both legal and practical. In recent days, Mayor Bill de Blasio has been at work promoting a transit plan to link developing neighborhoods on the East River waterfront in Brooklyn and Queens, a streetcar named efficiency, as his administration would have us think of it, although its riders may not. The 16-mile rail system would have the potential to take a graphic designer living in Astoria Cove to her job at an online retailer in Industry City in over an hour. Streetcar speeds have not overwhelmingly improved since trolleys dominated American city streets in the first half of the 20th century. Even now, along the proposed route, largely deprived of mass transit, there are faster alternatives. Traveling from Dumbo to Greenpoint via streetcar would take 27 minutes; the same trip on the East River Ferry takes 15. But building additional ferry stops, like extending subway lines, is not something the city can do on its own. The streetcar program can evolve, as Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen put it, without getting caught up in a big jurisdictional mosh pit. Opponents immediately argued that the $2.5 billion the system would cost could be better spent elsewhere; to extend the Second Avenue subway line, or add service in Queens. But the project is steeped in a kind of Catch-22 economy, with the capital expense offset by the money the city would gain in property taxes, which would increase in response to the desirability of the streetcar itself. Other funding could come from grants handed out by the federal government, which has tried to incentivize streetcar development in other cities around the country. The Brooklyn Queens Connector, as the streetcar would be called, nimbly advances two political goals. Requiring no resources from the state, it allows Mr. de Blasio to counter the carnival of emasculation that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo subjects him to with such aggressive regularity. (Just last week, the governor portrayed a reluctance to fight for the closing of Rikers Island an idea Mr. de Blasio called noble but unrealistic as a failure to think grandly enough, reminding the world that he always thinks grandly enough, and mentioning, in particular, his plans for rebuilding La Guardia Airport and the Tappan Zee Bridge. Like a Real Housewife terrified that her Botox treatment might be overshadowed by someone elses liposuction, Mr. Cuomo seemed to be suffering from infrastructure envy.) The streetcar project also allows Mr. de Blasio an opportunity to deflect the criticism that he is unable to understand or implement visionary urban planning (or any urban planning at all). If completed, the Brooklyn Queens Connector would give him a visible legacy. Part of the challenge his administration has faced is that certain of its actions the funneling of more resources into public housing, for instance have simply never made it onto the radar of the many liberal affluent white voters who dont like him. They cannot count what essentially they cannot see; a light-rail system on an increasingly populated, and increasingly glamorous, waterfront is hard to ignore. It sounded like a setup for a joke: Guy comes up to you on the street and starts talking about an overcrowded school in a cruddy old building, but with hard-working students, ambitious teachers and lots of spirit. That conversation a few years ago led to David Denbys Lit Up: One Reporter. Three Schools. Twenty-Four Books That Can Change Lives (Henry Holt, $30). Mr. Denby, a writer and former film critic for The New Yorker, returned to Columbia University when he was 48 and wrote Great Books, which explored the effect of the Western classics on college students. This is something of a prequel, thanks to his serendipitous encounter a few years ago with Samuel E. Abrams, a teacher on leave from the Beacon School on Manhattans West Side. (Mr. Abrams has since written his own provocative book, Education and the Commercial Mindset; Beacon has since moved to a snazzier new home.) As he did with Great Books, Mr. Denby embedded himself in the school (and later in Mamaroneck High School in Westchester and James Hillhouse High School in New Haven), and he invites readers to witness the effect of committed teachers (all union members, as it happens) and of Ruth Lacey, the indomitable principal who helped found Beacon as an alternative public high school in 1993, as they transform students reared on digital devices (books smell like old people, one student says) into engaged readers of serious literature. Thanks to Mr. Denby and Sean Leon, the hospitable Irish-born English teacher who provides a window into his 10th-grade class, Lit Up is a refreshing lesson in what motivates students and why not to dumb down reading lists. The theme of his class was the individual and society. The outcome proves how much one individual can make a difference. Andrew Lyght: Full Circle, at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University of New York at New Paltz, soars on the arc of a simple line. Mr. Lyght blurs all distinctions between drawing, painting, sculpture, digital photography and installation art. Each iteration of his distinct style charts the personal odyssey of a naturalized African-American artist from Guyana a small South American nation to Montreal, to Brooklyn, to Europe and, finally, to Kingston, N.Y., the birthplace of Americas first indigenous art movement, the Hudson River School. This stunning show, a long overdue retrospective exhibition for this artist, spins the stuff of American art its diversity, proud identity, independence and gritty determination full circle. Childhood memories drive much of Mr. Lyghts work. As a boy in Guyana, he said to me, I got into lots of trouble, always wanting to take things apart. One day his mother punished him by making him kneel in a corner, facing the wall. He had a pencil, and that was the moment when he knew he would become an artist. While he creates his art, however, he is unaware of its association with some pivotal moment. Such is the case with the centerpiece of the exhibition, Flight Kite/Linear Dimensions (1976), which nostalgically recalls a boyhood in which Mr. Lyght made and sold kites. It consists of three brightly airbrushed circular forms, their vibrant colors enlivening an overlay of geometric lines and shapes. With cords attached to the painted canvas, Mr. Lyght extends his drawn lines into actual lines, crisscrossing them toward the ceiling and along walls, transforming empty gallery space into a webbed labyrinth. The cords slightly tilt the circles as if they were kites about to soar. Mr. Lyght explained this zigging and zagging with a story about how he would, as a child, walk a kite home by throwing the stick over telephone lines, repeating the action for many blocks and playing havoc with the citys network of overhead wires. In another work, In Flight Flock/Sheathing 0670LM, (2013-14), Mr. Lyght pares this architectural cats cradle down to its minimal essence. It consists of six monochromatic works made from bendable plywood sheets, each one floating on the wall like a curved sail, the concave shapes held taut by a nylon cord. Painted surfaces, reminiscent of Guyanas exuberant festivals, are incised with intricate abstract geometric designs inspired by Peruvian Nazca earth drawings and ancient Native American Timehri carvings, indigenous to Guyana, that Mr. Lyght studied as a student. Trullo d Oro, a five-month-old restaurant in Hicksville, is the kind of warm and cozy Italian place that Long Islanders love. The homey old-world scene is set by red and white checked tablecloths, stucco walls dotted with copper pots and pans and, most of all, the friendly staff and owners. Those owners are Gino and Maria Giannuzzi, who ran La Caravella at this location from 1986 to 2003. Mrs. Giannuzzi handles the front of the house and Mr. Giannuzzi is in charge of the kitchen. He also makes numerous forays into the dining room to chat with customers, often explaining what Trullo d Oro means. Trulli are conical roofs found in the Puglia region of southern Italy. Mr. Giannuzzis distant relatives own a restaurant there, also called Trullo d Oro, in the town of Alberobello, within the city of Bari. As a cultural nod, there is a mural of Alberobello and its miniature conical roofs hanging in the Hicksville restaurant. Image Vitello saltimbocca, veal served with spinach, prosciutto and sage. Credit... Heather Walsh for The New York Times The bar, a beauty with a quartz top, also has a front built out with wood from wine crates and interspersed with colorful Italian tiles. A half wall holding wine bottles, baskets and a milk pail separates the bar from the dining area. What is it about a dazzling view that elevates a meal? Many of us have experienced how even humble fare, when paired with a knockout beachfront or mountaintop vista, can seem lavish. It is a phenomenon that is top of mind at Shell & Bones, a waterfront restaurant that opened in July adjacent to Pequonnock Yacht Club in New Havens City Point. Its views easily the best in the city transform what is already a lovely dining experience into something great. The sweeping 4,000-square-foot space, with wraparound floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over the citys harbor, Lighthouse Point Park and a glittering swath of Long Island Sound, resembles nothing so much as the deck of a docked luxury cruise liner. (In summer, the glass panels retract so that the entire room is open to the salt air.) Though the building has housed several restaurants over the past 30 years, this sleek, nautical, wood-and-tile iteration is the first to truly capitalize on the special location. Image The steamed mussels. Credit... Christopher Capozziello for The New York Times The three owners Daniel Kay, Marc Knight and Robert Bolduc all of whom grew up in New Haven, have childhood memories of dining here back in the 1970s, when the space had a much fustier, special-occasion eatery called the Chart House. Longtime friends, the three had talked for years about opening a restaurant together. (Mr. Knight and Mr. Bolduc already own another downtown spot, Geronimo Tequila Bar and Southwest Grill.) Tim Sultan first came upon Sunnys, a waterfront saloon in Red Hook, Brooklyn, in 1995. By then, the legion of working-class bars that once populated that small peninsula had dwindled to one. The holdout was presided over by Antonio Balzano, known as Sunny. A painter and actor, he was a reluctant heir to the family business so much so that he only bothered to open one quiet night a week. This unintentionally shrewd move made going to Sunnys a notable occasion, and the bar was soon drawing crowds. Today, Red Hook is gentrified, and Sunnys is open six nights a week. Sunny, now 81, has largely withdrawn from its day-to-day operations, but his bar remains the neighborhoods spiritual outpost. Below, an adapted excerpt from Mr. Sultans book Sunnys Nights: Lost and Found at a Bar on the Edge of the World. Though Red Hook was still largely unvisited by the late 1990s a consequence of its geographic isolation as much as its longstanding reputation as being on the wrong side of the tracks great crowds had begun to fill Sunnys bar on Friday nights, bringing to mind a Mardi Gras procession that had taken a wrong turn into a blind alley. The early arrivals were wedged tighter and tighter, mostly without protest, while the rear continued to file in without letup. As the number of customers swelled, Sunny enlisted the help of a local woman named Isaura, known as Izzy, whose single qualification to be a bartender, according to Sunny, was that shes a natural. What this meant was that she possessed a God-given geniality and a deep-rooted mothering instinct, something for which there is a greater need in most bars than the ability to make a Black Russian. The only other adaptations that Sunny made were opening up the back room, previously used solely for placing phone calls, and eventually surrendering his painting studio in the rear of the building, giving the bar the layout of a shotgun house. When someone wondered aloud why Sunny didnt simply open on other nights to disperse the concentration of people, he said that doing so would take away the speciality of it. We can only speculate how long ago the paths of humans and ravens first converged, but the meeting clearly left quite an impression on both. The birds are as widespread in human mythologies as they are across the habitats of the Northern Hemisphere. The ravens somber black plumage, unearthly voice and attraction to carrion inspired humans, who associated them with otherworldly forces and mysterious beings. For their part, ravens probably liked the free pickings around human encampments. They are opportunistic scavengers, widely recognized for their keen intelligence, and they undoubtedly learned to associate early humans with food. This relationship was well illustrated to me some years ago in a fog-soaked Staten Island woodland. Id been hiking on a strangely warm February day when I heard the ancient croaks of a pair of ravens. I froze amid the dripping white oaks and sweet bay magnolias. For several long moments I listened to what I could describe only as an all-too-human conversation between the birds. In the heavy mist, two large, shaggy black birds materialized just a few yards away and, discovering a spy in their midst, disappeared. A single, shiny black feather hung from a small branch and fluttered, like some ominous calling card. Lore and legend surround ravens. Portrayed as tricksters, familiars and the all-seeing informant-companions of the Norse god Odin, they have been the muses of Tlingit shamans, touchstones for William Shakespeare and a main character for Edgar Allan Poe. They inhabit the dark stories of the Vikings and show up frequently in Game of Thrones. Tradition has it they must occupy the Tower of London or the monarchy will dissolve (so the authorities clip their feathers to assure maximum cooperation). Sir, big A.Q. operators. Weve been trying to track them forever. Theyre really careful. Theyve been hard to find. Theyre the first team. Another pause. A long one. Use the GBU. And that small building they sometimes use as a dorm Yes, sir. After the GBU hits, if military-age males come out Yes, sir? Kill them. Less than an hour later he is briefed again. The two targets are dead. The civilians have fled the compound. All are alive. TARGETED killing using drones has become part of the American way of war. To do it legally and effectively requires detailed and accurate intelligence. It also requires some excruciatingly difficult decisions. The dialogue above, representative of many such missions, shows how hard the commanders and analysts work to get it right. The longer they have gone on, however, the more controversial drone strikes have become. Critics assert that a high percentage of the people killed in drone strikes are civilians a claim totally at odds with the intelligence I have reviewed and that the strikes have turned the Muslim world against the United States, fueling terrorist recruitment. Political elites have joined in, complaining that intelligence agencies have gone too far until they have felt in danger, when they have complained that the agencies did not go far enough. The program is not perfect. No military program is. But here is the bottom line: It works. I think it fair to say that the targeted killing program has been the most precise and effective application of firepower in the history of armed conflict. It disrupted terrorist plots and reduced the original Qaeda organization along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to a shell of its former self. And that was well before Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011. Not many years before, the targeted killings were fairly limited. But by 2008, we knew that the terrorist threat had increased to intolerable levels, both to American forces in South Asia and to the United States itself. From our surveillance platforms, we could observe training camps where men leapt off motorbikes and fired on simulated targets. Early that year, the C.I.A. and I began recommending more aggressive action. The forests of Russias Far East are the only remaining home of the 450 or so wild Siberian tigers and 50 wild Amur leopards in the world. Those 500 lives matter infinitely more than our discount prices. The tigers require huge expanses of intact forest a home range of 450 square miles for a male, and about a third of that for a female. They also need that forest to be abundantly populated with deer and wild boar, and these prey species in turn must feed on acorns from Mongolian oak and pine cones from Korean pine to survive. But forests like that are rapidly vanishing thanks to companies like Lumber Liquidators. The statement of facts accepted by the company as part of its settlement was damning. In pursuit of sharp discounts and higher profit margins, employees sought out lumber they knew, or ought to have known, was illegal, and submitted falsified import declarations to disguise that fact. They asserted, for instance, that Mongolian oak, which grows only in the Far East of Russia, had been harvested in Germany. They did it by the boatload, and probably would have continued to do so, because customers flocked through the doors, and investors smiled. In 2012, Mr. Lynchs first year leading the company, one financial website chose him as their chief executive of the year, noting Lumber Liquidators knack for deep discounting that puts its peers to shame. But the shame turned out to lie elsewhere in October 2013, when the Environmental Investigation Agency, a nonprofit conservation group, unveiled the results of a long-term undercover operation in China and Russia. Investigators had followed the lumber from the forests north of Vladivostok to the mill, and from the mill to the Chinese factory that was the largest buyer. They werent looking for Lumber Liquidators, said Alexander von Bismarck, the conservation groups executive director. But we almost literally bumped into the stacks and stacks of boxes that have the Lumber Liquidators brand in the factory that we had gone to, he said. They were the largest customer of the worst actor in terms of cutting and buying illegal timber in that forest. The settlement was the largest ever under the Lacey Act, the fundamental United States law against illegal trafficking in wildlife. (The law ties penalties to how much a company profits from illegal activities rather than to the much larger social and environmental costs.) It was also one of the first successful prosecutions under a 2008 amendment that extended the Lacey Act to imports of illegal lumber. Similar legal changes have gone into effect in Australia and Europe, with the aim of shutting down the major markets for stolen lumber. IN early 2009, as Barack Obama was about to take office, Mitch McConnell, the leader of the Republican minority in the Senate, assembled his caucus at a retreat in West Virginia. There, he laid out his strategy for taking on the new president, who was sweeping into office on a tide of popularity, historical resonance and great expectations barely diminished by the economic free fall then underway. The key, Mr. McConnell told his fellow Republicans, was to stymie and undermine Mr. Obama, but to do so in subtle ways. As one of the senators present, Robert F. Bennett of Utah, later recalled to me: Mitch said, We have a new president with an approval rating in the 70 percent area. We do not take him on frontally. We find issues where we can win, and we begin to take him down, one issue at a time. We create an inventory of losses, so its Obama lost on this, Obama lost on that. And we wait for the time where the image has been damaged to the point where we can take him on. Seven years later, with the Republicans now in the Senate majority, the opposition led by Mr. McConnell is as frontal as can be. After word of Justice Antonin Scalias death emerged last weekend, it took the majority leader less than an hour to announce that the Senate would not entertain a replacement before November. This vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president, he said. Mr. McConnells blunt declaration was taken as the starkest exhibition yet of the obstructionism that has characterized the Kentucky senators stance toward President Obama and congressional Democrats. The resistance from Mr. McConnell has had an enormous influence on the shape of Obamas presidency. It has limited the presidents accomplishments and denied him the mantle of the postpartisan unifier he sought back in 2008. But it has also brought the Senate, the institution to which Mr. McConnell has devoted his life, close to rupture. On Sunday an expanded and renovated museum will reopen on the site of one of the ruined villages; later this year, President Francois Hollande and Chancellor Angela Merkel will inaugurate it officially, and add their names to the long list of dignitaries who came before them. They will say what President Francois Mitterrand and Chancellor Helmut Kohl said when they visited in 1984 and clasped hands before the great ossuary that holds the shattered remains of the dead that this must never happen again, that this cannot happen again. They will speak of Europe. French heads of state here once spoke of national unity, of patriotism, of resistance, of heroism. Away from Verdun, authors and survivors wrote of all that and much more. Germans wrote of noble failure, of brave soldiers betrayed by a cynical or inept high command. Some spoke of it in cautionary terms, as a military folly to be avoided at all costs. Never again, wrote one of the architects of the German blitzkrieg of World War II, Heinz Guderian. I do not want a second Verdun there, Hitler said of Stalingrad in November 1942, as though to condemn in advance the protracted siege warfare that would cost him his entire Sixth Army. What, the visitor asks, is the meaning of what happened? Like all battlefields, Verdun is silent. Between an older narrative of heroism and a more recent one of pointless slaughter lies an ocean of ambiguity, mingling grandeur with absurdity. Through 1916 French and German losses kept climbing in a macabre pas de deux. Under a sky illuminated by shellfire, in ravines and on hillsides denuded of natural or man-made cover, huddled in what was left of their trenches, the French and Germans lived Verdun in the same way. They used the same words to describe it LEnfer, Die Holle von Verdun and spoke too of entering another world, severed from the one they had left behind, and pervaded perhaps by an evil presence. Yes, the French stopped the German offensive on the Meuse. But so what? To a historian 100 years later, Verdun does yield a meaning, in a way a darkly ironic one. Neither Erich von Falkenhayn, the chief of the German General Staff, nor his French counterpart, Joseph Joffre, had ever envisaged a climactic, decisive battle at Verdun. They had attacked and defended with their eyes elsewhere on the front, and had thought of the fight initially as secondary, as ancillary to their wider strategic goals. And then it became a primary affair, self-sustaining and endless. They had aspired to control it. Instead it had controlled them. In that sense Verdun truly was iconic, the symbolic battle of the Great War of 1914-18. Im an only child, and my parents like being there for me and helping me, said Nancy Nie, a graduate student at Columbia whose parents closed late last year on a duplex in Park Slope, Brooklyn, for her and her boyfriend. They know how hard it is to come by nice places in New York, Ms. Nie continued, adding that her boyfriend is not thrilled with the arrangement. Hes very independent and has done everything on his own. Mr. Chimon has similarly close ties with his family, so I guess I knew they would want to help, he said. There is that part of me that says it would be nice if I could do it totally on my own. But this is New York; its not like Im the only one. Mr. Talwar imagined that some of his friends might be thinking something along the lines of Oh, your parents bought you a place, he said. But I dont feel like my mother is pulling the strings. And we didnt look at places that were ridiculous. I told my parents that their first consideration was that it be a good investment. Soon, he hopes hell have the wherewithal to make a similar investment of his own. Ms. Sanderoff has the same goal now that her father has decided to put her apartment on the market and get out of the landlord business. But I feel privileged that I was able to have this situation, she said. And shell miss the ribbing she got when she went home for a visit. My dad would joke around and say, Im going to raise your rent next year, or If you dont do this or that, Im going to raise your rent. The thing is, she added, my father never raised my rent. They had not known the level of deep disrepair that the previous owner, Ms. Royal, had encountered when she bought the house. They had not seen an article that ran in The New York Times in 2010, detailing her efforts to bring it back with a crew of handymen. The charming bridge over the stream had to be replaced; the wood was untreated, and began disintegrating within a year. By last June, nearly three years after moving into the house, the Hickses moved out and contractors moved in; the family realized that they needed to tackle all of the necessary repairs at once. They were told that the repairs would take six or seven months, but it is likelier to be 11. They have stripped the walls to the bare boards to rework the electrical and plumbing systems. They have torn out siding, removed the mold and rotted wood that was found within, and laid a massive beam to support the second floor atop columns that extend through the basement. They are also adding 1,000 square feet of new space, including a large upstairs bedroom that looks out over the footbridge. They are living in a rental townhouse nearby and hope to move back in by May. They estimate the total cost of repairs and the expansion at about half the purchase price. Ms. Royal, who now owns the organic Strawberry Fields Farm in Sherman, Conn., with family berry picking, said in a telephone interview, Im really horrified that theyre having all these problems. In the three years she lived in Millburn, she insisted, she did not put in new plumbing, aside from the water heater. Her winters had been relatively mild, and when it did freeze, she kept her faucets dripping and never had a problem. The electrical work she had done was by a licensed electrician, she said, and added that she had indeed put in a beam to provide support in the absence of the removed wall. (The Hickses say that whatever Ms. Royal put in to them and their contractor, it appeared to be simple framing was insufficient to support the second floor.) In an email following up the telephone call, Ms. Royal added, I am troubled by the angst directed toward me as the seller. They bought an old house! Were the Hickses to offer advice to home buyers, Mr. Hicks said, you should forge and manage your own relationship with your inspector, and make clear you want to hear the bad news. In houses that have undergone extensive renovation, he urges that buyers ensure all the necessary permits were obtained. I dont know how Ill ever buy a house again, Ms. Hicks said. I cant imagine trusting anyone. From the outside, the Pittsfield Original General Store is indistinguishable from the dozens of country stores that dot Vermonts Route 100 byway. Theres the inviting front porch, the buildings circa-1888 wooden frame, and signs touting gunpowder, antiques and penny candy. But look past the Vermont kitsch and youll find Vermont-made specialty items like Nutty Stephs brand granola and Shelburne Farms Cheddar. The deli sells egg-and-cheese sandwiches and maple French toast with caramelized bananas and bacon marmalade. Wander out the back door and youll find the Backroom, a 20-seat restaurant that serves farm-to-table tasting menus paired with serious cocktails, esoteric wines and Vermont nanobrews. The surprising larder and stellar food are the work of Kevin Lasko, the former chef of Park Avenue in New York. Mr. Lasko and his wife, Katie Stiles, a former restaurant publicist who knows her way around cocktails and desserts, took over the General Store in 2014. The couple competed in obstacle races in Vermont, and the founder of one race owned the general store. When he learned Mr. Lasko was a chef, he asked if he would run the store. A Tougher, Freer Writer: How is it possible to feel exiled from a language that isnt mine? That I dont know? Jhumpa Lahiris first nonfiction book and first work in Italian In Other Words, a memoir translated by Ann Goldstein, debuts on the hardcover nonfiction list at No. 8 this week. For the last few years, Lahiri, whose first language is Bengali, has been reading and writing exclusively, if haltingly, in Italian out of fondness for the language, but also, she told NPR in an interview, for another kind of need, I suppose a more irrational, emotional need. Although she allows shes still wobbly I grope my way, like a child, like a semiliterate shes found her way back to a purer pleasure in reading. After I finish a book, Im thrilled, she writes in the memoir. It seems like a feat. I find the process demanding yet satisfying, almost miraculous. I cant take for granted my ability to accomplish it. Working in Italian also allowed her to shuck off some of the burdens and self-consciousness of success: I became a writer in English. And then, rather precipitously, I became a famous writer. I received a prize that I was sure I did not deserve, that seemed to me a mistake. Although it was an honor, I remained suspicious of it. Italian has allowed her to reclaim the pleasures of anonymity and experimentation. Its as if I were writing with my left hand, my weak hand, the one Im not supposed to write with. It seems a transgression, a rebellion, she observes. I am, in Italian, a tougher, freer writer, who, taking root again, grows in a different way. In Cold Blood: The very stories that got Truman Capote booted out of New York society in the 1970s land Melanie Benjamin on the hardcover fiction best-seller list this week, at No. 13. The author of historical novels based on the lives of Anne Morrow Lindbergh (The Aviators Wife) and Alice Liddell (Alice I Have Been), Benjamin now turns to something more scandalous in The Swans of Fifth Avenue: Capotes publication of La Cote Basque 1965, the first installment of a planned Proustian roman a clef airing the secrets of his socialite friends, including Gloria Vanderbilt and Babe Paley. The book was to be called Answered Prayers, and Capote imagined it going off like a gun: Its going to come out with a speed and power like youve never seen wham! he told People magazine. Re: Dont allow fear to erode privacy rights [Opinion, Feb. 18]: I am on the side of Apple in this latest government intrusion. Apple has a reputation to maintain, and to give in to the government exposes current customers to the government, along with every Apple buyer around the world. If you want to give the government the key to your safety deposit box, your car, your house and your iPhone, that is a personal choice. The government built a facility in Utah at over $1 billion and more than a million square feet, and it must fill that space. Challenging Apple will help fill it. John Seibert Laguna Niguel My heart goes out to the families of those killed by the San Bernardino terrorists. Yes, they want all the answers they can get, hoping it will ease their grief. But history has lessons we hoped were learned and not repeated. A lot of our freedoms were compromised during the 40s and 50s for security reasons brought about by fear, hysteria and prejudice. Government agencies always want more power to invade our privacy without giving a thought to how they infringe on our lives. Our government promises this is a one-time deal, but this opens the door to those who dont value individual freedoms and privacy, and other nations to wreak more havoc on their citizens. I have to agree with Apple and the Register. I want my freedoms and privacy protected. Doranna Cooper Mission Viejo The definition of obstruction of justice is: the crime of interfering with the administration and due process of the law, including any criminal proceeding or investigation. This is exactly what Apple is doing in denying investigators the ability to get into the cellphone of the San Bernardino terrorist. Wake up, Apple. Since 9/11, its a new world a certain amount of privacy is sacrificed to the higher need to keep us safe in the future. Just go to an airport. Warren Beacom San Clemente The FBI should bypass Apple and ask China to hack the terrorists phone. They seem to be experts in hacking the U.S. government and private companies. Plus, China makes all Apple products so they should have great knowledge of their inner workings. Just saying. Gil Luft Costa Mesa GENEVA Doctors Without Borders said on Thursday that it made the wrenching decision not to formally inform Syrias government or its Russian allies about the location of some medical facilities such as the one hit by a deadly airstrike this week amid concerns that doing so could open them up to targeting amid recent violence that has killed many civilians. The charity, also known by its French acronym MSF, said repeated attacks against health facilities during Syrias five-year civil war have led medical staffers to ask the group not to provide the GPS coordinates of some sites. That was the case of the makeshift clinic run by the charity in the Syrian town of Maaret al-Numan, which was hit four times in attacks Monday, killing at least 25 people. Deliberate attacks against civilian infrastructures, including hospitals struggling to provide life-saving assistance are routine, MSF International President Joanne Liu told reporters in Geneva. Health care in Syria is in the crosshair of bombs and missiles. It has collapsed. Let me be clear: Attacks on civilians and hospitals must stop. The normalization of such attacks is intolerable. Lius comments came as the U.N. made new aid deliveries to five besieged towns and said it plans additional deliveries, hopefully to the 4.6 million Syrians living in hard-to-reach and besieged areas, as called for in an agreement by 18 key nations Feb. 12 in Munich. Liu said the group has no certainty about who was responsible for the strikes, but the probability was that Syrian or Russian air power was to blame. In Brussels, European Union leaders were expected to call on Russia and Syrian President Bashar Assads forces to halt attacks on moderate opposition groups and immediately end all airstrikes. A draft statement for their summit starting Thursday, seen by The Associated Press, calls on Russia and the Syrian regime to stop at once attacking moderate opposition groups and for an immediate cessation of aerial bombardments in civilian areas. MSF said that since the war broke out in 2011, the Syrian government has not granted permission for it to provide medical aid in the country, despite repeated requests. Thus its work has been limited to areas held by opposition forces. President Barack Obama gathered African- American activists at the White House as generational differences are surfacing in a crucial Democratic Party constituency. Obama, who navigated a change in leadership from veterans of the civil rights movement to a new generation in his own presidential campaign, used the meeting ahead of a White House celebration of Black History Month to offer nods to young and old. I would not be here if it were not for the battles that they fought a generation ago, but weve also got some young people here who are making history as we speak, Obama told reporters in brief remarks on Thursday. Though politics wasnt on the agenda, the meeting was taking place 10 days before the Democratic primary in South Carolina, in which black voters account for about half the electorate. Much of the Democratic partys old-guard black political leadership is firmly behind former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who along with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, has long ties to many black political figures and causes. The Congressional Black Caucus political action committee has formally endorsed Clinton. Representative John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and civil rights icon who was beaten so badly he nearly died in a 1965 voting rights march, promised to campaign for her in South Carolina. Yet a younger generation, galvanized by police brutality and economic inequality highlighted by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, has been cooler to her candidacy. At a rally Oct. 30 at a historically black university, Clinton was interrupted by protesters chanting black lives matter. Lewis, who was in the audience, personally stepped in to quell the demonstration. Meanwhile, Sanders has been publicly backed by some younger black intellectuals such as Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of Between the World and Me, and Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Alexander criticized the impact of crime legislation passed under Bill Clintons administration on the incarceration of young black men and the effect on blacks of a welfare overhaul. The generational division is illustrated in the family of Eric Garner, a black man who died on Staten Island after a New York City police officer put him in a chokehold in 2014. His mother, Gwen Carr, endorsed Clinton and appeared at a rally with her; His daughter, Erica Garner, appeared in a television ad on behalf of Sanders. At the White House on Thursday, Obamas guests included civil rights heroes such as Lewis and C.T. Vivian, who both marched with Martin Luther King Jr., leaders of established civil rights groups such as the Urban League and NAACP and activists such as Brittany Packnett, co-founder of We the Protesters, who emerged in the outcry over a police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri. Obama said he was encouraged by the degree of focus and seriousness and constructiveness that exists not only in the existing civil rights organizations but in this new generation. Civil rights leader Al Sharpton, a participant in the meeting, said the activists had a long, extensive discussion with Obama, though he said it didnt cover the Democratic primary campaign. Obama navigated a generational divide in his 2008 presidential campaign, in which many black political and church leaders initially backed Clinton. He portrayed himself as a transitional figure in the American civil rights struggle early in the campaign in a 2007 speech in Selma, in which he thanked the Moses Generation of leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. who won the struggles of the 1960s and alluded to the responsibilities of a newly arrived Joshua Generation. LOS ANGELES The city on Thursday filed a $20 million negligence lawsuit against the developer of the Da Vinci Apartments, alleging improper construction and security led to the damage of nearby city buildings when an arson fire nearly burned the massive complex to the ground. The lawsuit, filed by the city attorneys office, contends that Geoffrey H. Palmer and his GH Palmer Associates used defective construction methods, such as failing to have a proper fire-protection plan, properly install firewalls or doors, provide a water supply for firefighting or provide adequate security measures that could have prevented the arsonist from getting onto the property. The developer allowed construction of a building that was more susceptible than normal to becoming swiftly engulfed in flames, according to the lawsuit. Were fighting to fully compensate the Citys taxpayers for losses we allege could have been avoided had this massive building incorporated key safety measures and been better constructed, City Attorney Mike Feuer said in a statement. A call to the Beverly Hills-based developer seeking comment wasnt immediately returned. The Dec. 8, 2014, fire gutted the 1.3 million-square-foot, seven-story-tall Da Vinci complex, which was in the wood-framing stage, sending up flames that could be seen from miles away. The heat cracked or shattered hundreds of windows in neighboring buildings, including a city-owned office building across the street, set off fire sprinklers, ignited small fires in one building and damaged an adjacent freeway. Damage to city property and firefighting costs reached $80 million, with insurance covering $61.9 million, according to the lawsuit. Fire officials said surveillance video showed a man parking his car on nearby Interstate 110 and walking into the construction project with cans of fuel. Dawud Abdulwali, 56, of Los Angeles, remains jailed awaiting trial. He pleaded not guilty last year to arson and aggravated arson. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 10 years to life in state prison. Investigators said Abdulwali, a taxi driver, didnt appear to have any connection to the developer or the apartment complex. They have not released a motive for the attack. Its around 7 p.m. and the techno sound of the Paint the Night Parade plays overhead. Visitors with cellphone cameras in hand snake along Main Street, U.S.A., up to the front of Sleeping Beauty Castle, and along the outside walkways separating Fantasyland and Tomorrowland. The smell of cotton candy and popcorn waft in the air. As Baroque Hoedown plays, Owl Citys When Can I See You Again begins in Cantonese. As the familiar electric light parade winds its way along Main Street, U.S.A., its mix of Cantonese and English soundtrack highlights the similarities and differences between Hong Kongs Disneyland and that of Anaheim. RELATED: View the Registers Disneyland site Traveling abroad, I found myself stuck on a 10-hour layover in Hong Kong. Rather than try to sleep on uncomfortable lounge chairs or explore the giant international airport, I decided to check out Asias second Disneyland (Tokyo Disneyland was the first. Shanghai Disneyland, when it opens in June, will be the third). The airline I flew in, Cathay Pacific, has a special offer for people with long layovers. Available until the end of March, the In-Transit Easy Pass ticket allows passengers whose flights are leaving later the same day to visit the park for about $45 regular admission is $70. Its a promotion offered throughout the year. Disneyland is about a 15- to 20-minute, $15 cab ride from the airport. Tickets are purchased by showing your airline ticket at the guest relations booth in front of the entrance and Disneyland will even store one piece of luggage for free. Owned jointly by the Hong Kong government and The Walt Disney Co., the park opened in 2006. Its the smallest of Disneys theme parks and sits on 123 acres in Pennys Bay, on Lantau Island. Massive mountains surround the theme park, and aside from the neighboring Disneyland Hotel and Disneys Hollywood Hotel it is nearly isolated from the rest of Hong Kong. Visitors enter the park under a large Welcome to Hong Kong Disneyland sign, and are greeted by a water fountain and a statue of Mickey Mouse surfing a giant whale waterspout. Inside, theres a Mickey Mouse floral presentation and the Main Street Railroad Station, omnipresent displays in Disneyland. Walk out from the tunnel and the similarities to Disneyland in Anaheim are uncanny. Hong Kongs Main Street, U.S.A., is a near spitting image of the Anaheim version. Some names are different, but the distinct architecture of City Hall, the Emporium retail store, the Opera House and Sleeping Beauty Castle are near identical. The layout has familiar destinations Fantasyland, Tomorrowland and Adventureland. But Hong Kong also has Toy Story Land, Mystic Point and Grizzly Gulch. Similar rides include Space Mountain, Autopia, Dumbo the Flying Elephant and Mad Hatter Tea Cups. There is one very noticeable difference between the two parks: Hong Kong is less crowded. The wait for one of the parks premier rides, Mystic Manor, was a mere five minutes. The theme park last year drew 6.8 million people, nearly 10 million fewer visitors than what Disneyland in Anaheim sees annually. The theme park is celebrating its 10th anniversary, marked with red and pink decor on lightpole banners, merchandise and other displays. Unlike other Disney theme parks, which are multiday resorts, Hong Kong Disneyland could easily be navigated in one day (depending on the day and season like holidays here, the Lunar New Year gets more crowded). I would, however, recommend staying for a second day to fully experience the parks every nuance. With a layover like mine, youll get a good four or five hours at the park. These several must do attractions will make the trip enjoyable: Festival of the Lion King and Mickey and the Wondrous Book: These 30-minute live shows are worth the price of park admission. The dialogue is a mix of Cantonese and English, and the songs are performed in English. An interpretation of Lion King, Festival of the Lion King is a large-scale production with giant animal puppets, acrobats, flame eaters and dancers. Mickey and the Wondrous Book is a collection of musical performances by Disney animated characters and princesses. If you have more time, also check out Donald and the Philharmagic, a 4D animated music show. Mystic Manor: The theme parks version of Haunted Mansion is a trackless ride. Visitors hop on a carriage and tour the rare artifacts inside the manor of explorer Henry Mystic and his monkey sidekick, Albert. A magic music box has brought inanimate objects to life. Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars: Set in the mountains amid gold miners and bears, this roller coaster starts off slowly around a track, but just as the train cars head up an incline, they fall backward before sling-shooting forward again around a different track at a much faster speed. Crystal Lotus: The restaurant at the Disneyland Hotel offers a Signature Disney Dim Sum lunch that features characters such as Olaf, Little Green Men, Duffy and Three Little Pigs made out of steamed buns. Reservations and at least two days notice are required. Paint the Night Parade and fireworks: This is the original Paint the Night Parade and is similar to Anaheims with the exception of a few missing floats (no Frozen here) and some of the music is in Cantonese. The Disney In The Stars Fireworks show takes place in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle. A montage of Disney animated films are projected onto the castle while music plays and fireworks shoot overhead. Contact the writer: 714-796-2443 or jpimentel@ocregister.com Fewer seniors are re-entering the hospital after an initial stay, according to recent data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The Obama administration says that we have Obamacare to thank for this positive transformative change. But the only thing thats changed is how hospitals fill out the governments forms. Many are choosing to record hospital stays under Medicare, the federal governments health care program for seniors, as outpatient medical observation rather than formal readmission. That classification can present patients with huge bills and limited options for follow-up care. So hospitals are, indeed, meeting Obamacares statistical goals at the expense of patients. Obamacares architects wanted to reduce the number of times a patient returned to a hospital. Fewer readmissions, they reasoned, meant a hospital was doing a better job. To achieve that goal, they created a penalty. If a hospital had an excessive number of readmissions within 30 days of an inpatient stay, Obamacare would reduce its Medicare payments by 3 percent. Last year, the law cut payments to 2,592 hospitals almost half of all hospitals for a combined loss of $420 million. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, all but 209 of these hospitals faced the penalty last year. Even if a hospital reduces readmissions over the previous year, it can still be subject to the fine. Its no wonder that hospitals have sought to avoid the penalty. During 2012-13, hospitals reported 150,000 fewer readmissions among Medicare patients. To drive down readmission rates, hospitals simply manipulated the data. Patients returning with complications were no longer formally readmitted and given inpatient status. Instead, hospitals entered them as under outpatient observation status. Indeed, as an August Health Affairs report noted, the readmission penalty pressures hospitals to cheat. Of the 3,500 general hospitals subject to Obamacares penalty, readmission rates dropped by 9 percent from 2010 to 2013. But observation rates soared 48 percent. That uptick accounted for about 40 percent of the reduction in readmissions. Problem solved, penalty avoided all at the stroke of a computer key. Unfortunately, patients under observation dont qualify for Medicares benefits. For the program to pay for a subsequent nursing-home stay, a beneficiary must spend at least three nights in a hospital as an inpatient. A patient under observation doesnt meet that standard. So even if he or she spends days in a hospital bed, the federal government will refuse to cover the cost of his or her rehabilitative treatment or medication afterward. That can leave seniors responsible for thousands of dollars in medical bills. Consider the case of Bob Wellentin, a retired teacher from Washington State. After his wife spent four days in a hospital in 2014, she went to a nursing home. But since she had been classified as under observation not as a readmission Medicare wouldnt pay for her nursing-home stay. She was handed a bill for $20,000. To pay it, she and her husband had to liquidate a life-insurance policy. In a Boston hospital, Harold Engler endured a 10-day outpatient medical observation stay because of complications from hernia surgery. He ended up with $7,859 in nursing-home rehabilitation costs. Once patients have been deemed under observation, its difficult to get the classification reversed. They often must pay out of pocket for their care and then seek reimbursement. Thats difficult for the many Americans who dont have thousands of dollars lying around. And they must wage a two-front legal battle against both the federal government and medical bureaucracies. That fight can stretch on for years. Keeping seniors from having to be readmitted to the hospital is a worthy goal. Unfortunately, Obamacare has blessed fraud as an acceptable means of meeting that goal. Seniors are paying the price. Sally C. Pipes is president, CEO and Thomas W. Smith Fellow in Health Care Policy at the Pacific Research Institute. SAN FRANCISCO Students at San Francisco State University will have to come back from the future now that hoverboards have been banned from campus due to fire concerns. Administrators informed students by email Monday that the two-wheeled, self-balancing devices are prohibited on school grounds and in dormitories, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday. The boards are popular but have been linked to fire hazards. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a letter Thursday noting 52 reports of fires that users say were caused by hoverboards in 24 states. The government says it will seize or recall any boards that fail to meet federal safety standards. In January, an alert homeowner in Sonoma County saved his house after finding his daughters hoverboard shooting sparks. Hoverhoards arent the only transportation device banned on the San Francisco State University campus of nearly 30,000 students. Bicycles, scooters, roller skates and skateboards are also prohibited. Yet on Thursday, the newspaper said, dozens of bicyclists and skaters rolled through the main quad. A hoverboard was nowhere in sight. Students expressed mix opinions about the new rule. They dont say much about the skateboards everywhere, so I dont see the problem with hoverboards, said student Wajma Naik, 20. Its not like theyre racing down anything. Thandiwe Cato, a 21-year-old business student, said she liked the hoverboard ban because it might make it easier for walkers. Im not going to say I dont like hoverboards, because Ive never tried one, she said. But anything that gets in my way as Im walking to class I do not like. The use of hoverboards is legal on California streets and bike lanes. Riders must be over 16, wear a helmet and ride on a road with a speed limit no higher than 35 mph. SANTA ANA Sheriff Sandra Hutchens said Thursday shell ask the Orange County Board of Supervisors for money to beef up security at the Central Mens Jail while an ongoing internal investigation continues into last months escape of three maximum-security inmates. It has never been my intention to wait until the conclusion of the investigation before solutions are implemented, Hutchens wrote in a letter to board Chairwoman Lisa Bartlett. We will make requests for funding and implement solutions throughout the investigation and subsequent reviews. The letter does not specify an amount. Initially, the money would pay for such improvements as security cameras and motion sensors. Hutchens letter came in the wake of a lawsuit filed by the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs that alleges reduced staffing at the jail contributed to the escape. It also came on the same day the embattled executive director of the Orange County Office of Independent Review announced his resignation. Stephen Connolly had vowed to closely monitor the jail investigation as part of his duties to advise the Sheriffs Department in its handling of critical incidents and allegations of employee misconduct. He had increasingly come under fire from some county supervisors who expressed concerns that he was not aggressively monitoring the Sheriffs Department. On Thursday, Supervisor Todd Spitzer welcomed Connollys departure. The board was clear that Connolly was not the right person to fill the role of the Office of Independent Review, Spitzer said in a statement. Unfortunately, many high-profile controversies including the informant scandal, jail escapees and the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs lawsuit regarding unsafe jail conditions all occurred on Steve Connollys watch. Public-safety oversight is important to creating transparency of the justice system. In December, Spitzer said that a leadership change was needed as the offices duties were expanding to keep an eye on other county agencies as well. Connollys employment went month-to-month, at $17,500 a month. Connolly, who resigns as of March 31, said he was grateful to have served as executive director since 2008. Ive differed at times with Supervisor Spitzer and other board members over how the Office of Independent Review should work, he said. But Ive tried to be as effective as possible based on my sense of the original mission and my experience in the field, and Im proud of the Office of Independent Reviews work. As early as Tuesday, the supervisors may formalize a recruitment plan for Connollys replacement, Spitzer said. Hutchens said she will meet with supervisors on Tuesday to discuss the departments internal investigation. In an interview, Hutchens said Connolly helped the Sheriffs Department make improvements, but added that the supervisors didnt seem to comprehend his role as a public watchdog. Some members of the board have said some very critical things about him, and I think they dont understand what his job really is and what he can and cant do, she said. He certainly cant predict if there is going to be an escape. The brazen jailbreak occurred Jan. 22 when inmates Hossein Nayeri, 37, Jonathan Tieu, 20, and Bac Duong, 43, cut through steel bars and a metal grate before making it through a plumbing tunnel and onto the jails roof, where they used a makeshift rope fashioned from bed sheets to climb to the ground. The escape went undetected by jail deputies for 15 hours. Duong surrendered in Santa Ana a week later; Nayeri and Tieu were arrested in San Francisco. The Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs filed a lawsuit last week alleging that staff reductions, unsafe jail conditions and a series of critical missteps contributed to the escape. The lawsuit says the Sheriffs Department had reduced staffing on the day of the escape and did not have personnel assigned to the Central Mens Jails roof. Also, the association said, jail contractors may have inadvertently left behind construction equipment in areas easily accessible by inmates. Hutchens, however, said the Sheriffs Department hasnt determined whether a lack of staffing at the jail was a factor in the escape. Staffing changes will not be implemented until recommendations can be made that are based on a thorough vetting of facts and subsequent personnel needs, she said. Tom Dominguez, the associations president, said in a statement: Sworn staffing levels at the Central Mens Jail have become so severely depleted that they cannot and should not be considered safe for our deputies, the inmates or the public. The sheriff has made it clear that she has no immediate intention of correcting these unsafe staffing levels, choosing instead to accept the fact that the current staffing levels are incapable of maintaining control of the inmates. Contact the writer: 714-796-7767 sschwebke@ocregister.com Twitter: @thechalkoutline PRISTINA, Kosovo Opposition lawmakers released multiple canisters of tear gas in Kosovos Parliament on Friday, the latest in a series of protests over corruption, unemployment and diplomatic agreements the government has struck with neighboring Serbia and Montenegro. The president of the assembly, Kadri Veseli, who had put on a gas mask, twice halted and then resumed the proceedings after the release of the tear gas, but struggled to restore order after members of his center-right Democratic Party of Kosovo, some of them clutching towels to their faces, left a third time. Police officers entered the Parliament building and escorted opposition lawmakers out of the chamber. Albulena Haxhiu, from the center-left nationalist party Vetevendosje, the main opposition group in Parliament, fainted after scuffling with the police while trying to re-enter. This regime is now is in its final days, Visar Ymeri, the leader of Vetevendosje, told reporters. They will not last long. On previous occasions, the opposition has released pepper spray, blown whistles and thrown water bottles to disrupt proceedings in Parliament, and in September, some lawmakers pelted Prime Minister Isa Mustafa with eggs, forcing him to use an umbrella as a shield. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a move that has been recognized by most countries, including the members of the European Union and the United States, but not by Serbia or its ally, Russia, which has blocked Kosovos efforts to join the United Nations. The European Union has pressed Serbia, which wants to join the 28-nation bloc, to accept Kosovos autonomy and to normalize relations. Most Kosovars are ethnic Albanians and Muslim, but a minority are ethnic Serbs and Orthodox Christian, and the ethnic and religious differences have impeded both national unity and regional stability. Kosovar officials reached a deal with Serbia last year to grant more powers to the countrys Serbian minority, but the countrys highest court has questioned the legality of part of the agreement. Another deal, reached last year, would demarcate the border between Kosovo and Montenegro, the culmination of negotiations that began in 2011. Like Kosovo, Montenegro was part of Yugoslavia, which split up after the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, setting off a series of conflicts, the deadliest on the Continent since World War II. Montenegro recognized Kosovos independence in 2008, but Kosovar nationalists say the proposed border demarcation departs from the lines specified in Yugoslavias 1974 Constitution and should be rejected. Unemployment and corruption have greatly angered the people of Kosovo, where the median age is just 28. The economy is growing around 3 percent a year, which is not strong enough to steadily lift incomes toward regional standards, or to create enough jobs in a country with very high unemployment, the International Monetary Fund noted in a report in May. Loans are hard to obtain, accusations of graft are rife, and the economy is heavily reliant on remittances from Kosovars working in Germany, Switzerland, the United States and elsewhere. On Wednesday, thousands of protesters filled the central square of Pristina, the capital, demanding the governments resignation. Much of their anger was directed at Hashim Thaci, the foreign minister and first deputy prime minister, and the leader of the Democratic Party of Kosovo. Thaci was a leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, a paramilitary organization that was active during the 1998-99 war with Serbia that ended after NATO, with the backing of the Clinton administration, conducted airstrikes on Belgrade, the Serbian capital. Thaci was prime minister from 2008 until the end of 2014, when he resigned to allow Mustafa, the leader of a smaller center-right party, the Democratic League of Kosovo, to become prime minister as part of a power-sharing agreement. Thaci intends to run for president, the other top political office, in April; the incumbent, Atifete Jahjaga, is a former police commander who is respected by international diplomats but who does not have a broad political base. On Friday, Thaci denounced the oppositions primitive behavior in Parliament. A car bombing this week in the Turkish capital Ankara demonstrated again that Turkey sits on the front lines of sectarian violence. The blast, which killed 28 and was heard across the capital, was directed at a military convoy driving through the center of the city. President Recep Erdogan wasted no time in condemning the attack and reiterating his resolve to bring those responsible to justice. In recent months, Turkey has faced mounting security threats. In addition to a campaign against Islamic State, a state of near-civil war exists in the south of the country, where Turkish soldiers are fighting Kurdish rebels. Although responsibility for the suicide attack has not yet been determined, earlier reports pointed to the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, a separatist group banned in Turkey. However, other reports attribute the bombing to Islamic State. Unfortunately, due to a government-imposed media blackout within Turkey, coverage of the attacks and inquiries by journalists about the perpetrators has been severely restricted. The site of the attack was highly symbolic, occurring near Parliament, as well as key defense and government buildings. Four months ago, Ankara was wracked by another suicide bombing, which resulted in 103 deaths. Attributed the ISIS, the target was a Kurdish rally in the days leading up to the most-recent election. Erdogans efforts to crack down on Kurdish separatists shows little sign of waning, with large numbers of security officers deployed to contain dissent and pacify Kurdish-majority enclaves in Turkey. The PPKs long-running fight against Turkish authorities, which began in earnest four decades ago, has been renewed and expanded in recent months, after a ceasefire broke down last summer. Only last month, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu claimed that Ankaras battle against PKK was almost over, although no formal agreement or ceasefire has yet been reached. In addition to fighting Kurdish separatists at home, Erdogan has also been bombing Syrian Kurds across the border, in response the success of the Kurdish Democratic Union in gaining territory in Syria at the expense of Islamic State. If Syrian Kurds are linked to this weeks bombing, this could provide Erdogan with the basis for sending Turkish ground forces into Syria to confront Kurdish fighters there. For those dreaming of an independent Kurdish state, the facts on the ground in northern Syria today paint an encouraging picture. Benefiting from Russian air support, the People Protection Units, or YPG, the military arm of the Kurdish Democratic Union, have been encouraged to widen their presence toward the Turkish border. Vladimir Putin has been targeting Turkish-supported rebels, who until recently have been battling again forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, creating a vacuum that the Kurds can exploit. Cue alarm bells in Ankara, where Erdogans government has said repeatedly that Kurdish control over the Turkey-Syria border was an unacceptable threat. In many ways, the Turkish government views the Kurds as a bigger threat than Islamic State, and as a result, have been accused by some observers of tolerating the jihadi extremists as a way of keeping the Syrian Kurds in check. The fear in Ankara is that Kurds on either side of the Turkey-Syria border could one day unite to declare an independent Kurdistan. Adding some substance to these fears has been the willingness of the United States to coordinate efforts in Syria with Kurdish forces, who are eager and resolute fighters of Islamic State. Lacking American forces on the ground, Washington has turned to the Kurds as useful allies, even though this has strained relations with fellow NATO member Turkey. So Turkey now looks east and finds its fears over Kurdish ambitions being stoked up by accommodating Russian and American military actions. In some ways, this is endemic of the mixture of conflicting priorities and loyalties that have been a feature of Syrian civil war over the past three years. Meanwhile, Assad shows little signs of packing up and moving on, especially now that his friend in Moscow has exerted such great effort to secure Assads hold on power. Half-hearted military engagement and ham-fisted diplomatic posturing did little to prevent Syrias slide into widespread violence. Islamic State initially took advantage of the chaos, but now the Syrian Kurds appear to be positioning themselves for peacetime opportunities, whenever peace eventually returns to the region. As Erdogan continues to present himself as resolute in the face of the suicide bombing in his capital this week, he eventually will need to establish a lasting settlement with his Kurdish citizens. Without that, he risks many more years of violence at home and unresolved threats abroad. Orange County writer and attorney Timothy Spangler hosts The Bigger Picture with Timothy Spangler, Sundays, 10 p.m.-midnight on KRLA 870 AM. Twitter: @timothyspangler For 40 years, Duncan McIntosh focused on all things nautical, publishing magazines about fishing and boating, and running boat shows in three coastal California cities. In 2010, he diverged and dipped his toe into journalism when he acquired the 100-year-old industry magazine Editor & Publisher. This month he made another pivot, when he became the owner and publisher of OC Weekly, an alternative magazine hed had his sights on for two years. Im just this guy trying to make a living in the boat business, McIntosh said. Every once in a while, I make a right turn or left turn. Originally from Long Beach, McIntosh attended Wilson High School and Cal State Long Beach. While in Long Beach, he started working as a boat dealer and moved to Newport Beach in the 1970s. At that time he and a few friends started a boat show to boost sales. In 1973, the Newport Boat Show was born. Six years later, he incorporated Duncan McIntosh Co. Since then, McIntosh has added boat shows in Del Mar and Long Beach in addition to the two he has in Newport Beach, and became publisher of Sea Magazine, Boating World, The Log Newspaper and FishRap. McIntosh, 64, works out of a small office in Irvine, where a cheerful 13-year-old wheaten terrier named Bob greets visitors. Bright photos of ocean life line the hallway, and cubbyholes at the front desk are filled with miniature maritime signal flags. In January last year, Voice Media Group announced OC Weekly was up for sale. McIntosh contacted the broker and signed a nondisclosure agreement. But after three weeks of mulling it over, he realized he was too busy with his boat shows. The timing wasnt right. In August, he revisited the idea. Negotiations were contentious, and it took four months to iron out the details. It was like running uphill, negotiating every point, McIntosh said. OC Weekly is a free weekly publication distributed to bars and restaurants in Orange County and Long Beach with a print circulation of 45,000. The weeklys website traffic, however, was one of the main selling points for McIntosh. The publications editor, Gustavo Arellano, estimated the paper gets more than 1 million unique visitors and page views each month. Wed kill for it in the boat business, McIntosh said. Here we dont have to kill for it. On Feb. 5, Voice Media Group announced the sale. In buying the weekly, McIntosh becomes the 20-year-old weeklys first local publisher in at least nine years. McIntoshs arrival as the papers new publisher caught Arellano by surprise. When we first heard that Duncan was going to buy us, my mind was boggled. A guy from Newport? A yacht guy? Is he going to shut us down? Is he going to make us report fluff? Arellano said. But meeting with McIntosh quelled some of his worries. He strikes me as a man of his word. He doesnt strike me as a Newport Beach Brahmin, the type easily offended. He likes our coverage. Were cautiously optimistic, Arellano said of his editorial team. The first matter of business for the papers new publisher will be to find a permanent home for the publication. During the sale process last year, OC Weeklys 30-person staff split up. Business operations moved into a shared workspace in Costa Mesa. Editorial staffers were told to work from home. In October, Arellano opened his personal office space to the editorial staff, creating a tight, informal newsroom in Santa Ana. Arellano and McIntosh are looking for a location in central Orange County, but wouldnt say where. McIntosh plans to give the editorial department free rein to introduce or kill features so long as the paper hits revenue targets. Arellano has already introduced a feature, an editorial cartoon called Orange Feathers. If something makes sense for them to do, and they hit their numbers, they can do it, McIntosh said. There are no plans to change the magazines staffing. I think theyve got really good people from what I can see, McIntosh said. Well just help them do their job. Contact the writer: lwilliams@ocregister.com, 714-796-2286 Congress recently sent the 6.2 million Californians on Medicare a welcome message: The doctor will see you now. After years of patchwork fixes, Congress finally got rid of a Medicare reimbursement formula that paid doctors so poorly for their services, including administering cancer drugs, that many of them wouldve likely abandoned their Medicare patients all together. But while lawmakers fixed one Medicare payment problem, seniors are still threatened by another misguided cost-cutting scheme. President Obamas budget calls for reducing Medicare reimbursement for Part B drugs funding. This cut could make it harder for Medicare beneficiaries to access critical treatments for cancer and other physician-administered treatments. Three California congressmen have taken the lead in resisting these reimbursement cuts. To protect seniors, the rest of Congress should join House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Reps. Jeff Denham and Devin Nunes in defending Medicare Part B payments for drugs. Seniors can pick up most of their medications at the pharmacy counter. However, some medicines such as those for cancer, Parkinsons and rheumatoid arthritis treatments must be administered by medical professionals. Under the Part B program, doctors buy these medications themselves, and are reimbursed by Medicare for their costs after they have administered the medications to the patient. Medicare reimburses doctors at the average sales price for these drugs, plus an additional 4.3 percent to cover administrative, handling and other overhead costs. However, due to local price differences, that rate doesnt always cover doctors expenses. Years of low reimbursement rates have been especially hard on community-based cancer treatment centers. More than 300 clinics have closed nationwide since 2008 21 of them in California. Hundreds more are struggling financially, according to the Community Oncology Alliance. The Obama administration and some congressmen want to cut Part B payments for drugs even further by chopping the overhead fee down to 3 percent. They claim that slashing the reimbursement rate would save Medicare hundreds of millions of dollars every year. Although these savings may seem high, its a fraction of the half trillion dollars Medicare spends annually. These cuts would not have a significant impact on the budget deficit; however, they would drive even more clinics and physician practices out of business. Unfortunately, the clinical and physician practices that do survive might have to deny Medicare patients due to unsustainably low reimbursement rates. The American Society of Clinical Oncology says that Medicare Part B payment cuts for drugs would be so low that they would force three-quarters of the remaining cancer clinics nationwide to start referring Medicare patients to hospitals. For the 140,000 Californians with rheumatoid arthritis and the 150,000 Californians diagnosed with cancer every year, clinic closings and hospital referrals mean more travel and inconvenience. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Reps. Jeff Denham and Devin Nunes have been instrumental in protecting Medicare patients from misguided payment cuts to providers winning awards and applause from patient groups. Theres no shortage of shortsighted ideas in Washington, D.C. Cutting Medicare reimbursement rates for Part B drugs is one of them. Congress should embrace Reps. McCarthy, Denham and Nunes opposition to Part B cuts. Warren Fong is a hematologist in Newport Beach and president of the Medical Oncology Association of Southern California. Daniel P. Mirda is a medical oncologist in Napa and president of the Association of Northern California Oncologists. Gary R. Feldman is president of the California Rheumatology Alliance. PARIS A suspect linked to the Nov. 13 Paris attackers was found with surveillance footage of a high-ranking Belgian nuclear official, Belgian authorities acknowledged on Thursday, raising fears that the Islamic State is trying to obtain radioactive material for a terrorist attack. The existence of the footage, which police in Belgium seized on Nov. 30, was confirmed by Thierry Werts, a spokesman for Belgiums federal prosecutor, after being reported in the Belgian daily newspaper La Derniere Heure. The news set off an immediate uproar among Belgian lawmakers, who charged that they and the country had been misled about the extent of the potential threats to the countrys nuclear facilities, as well as about the ambitions of the terrorist network linked to the Islamic State that used Belgium to plot the Paris attacks, which killed 130 people. The International Atomic Energy Agency also confirmed on Thursday a report by Reuters that radioactive material had gone missing since November in Iraq, where the Islamic State controls broad areas of territory, adding to fears that the group may be able to acquire material for an attack with newly disconcerting dimensions. Belgian news media, citing sources close to the investigation, said that the surveillance footage had been retrieved from the home of Mohamed Bakkali, who was arrested after the attacks and is in detention on charges of terrorist activity and murder. Belgian officials have asserted privately that Bakkali may have been involved in planning several attacks, not only those in Paris. There are currently eight people in detention in Belgium and charged with involvement in the November attacks. The purpose of the footage retrieved by Belgian police was not clear. But experts and officials speculated that it could have been part of a plot to abduct the nuclear official, who was not identified but had access to secure areas of a nuclear research facility in Mol, and force him to turn over radioactive material, possibly for use in a dirty bomb. Sebastien Berg, a spokesman for Belgiums Federal Agency for Nuclear Control, confirmed that the agency had been informed right away of the existence of the footage and said that employees had been told to increase their vigilance on the work floor. But he acknowledged that no additional guards had been hired or other measures taken to secure the perimeters of Belgiums nuclear sites. We took increased security measures at all four Belgian nuclear sites, based on the general raised security alert in the country and on concrete indications that showed that the terrorists involved in the Paris attacks had the intention to do something involving one of our four nuclear sites, Berg said. Those sites include two power plants and a private company that produces medical isotopes, in addition to the facility in Mol, where scientists conduct research and experiments on radioactive waste to try to find safer ways to store it and reduce damage to the environment, Berg said. One experiment being carried out involves the stocking of nuclear waste in bunkers dozens of meters underground, he said, adding that the facility had large stocks of nuclear waste on hand. Members of Belgiums parliament expressed outrage in a regular session Thursday, saying that the interior minister, Jan Jambon, had told them in January that there was no specific threat to nuclear facilities. Your services possessed this videotape since Nov. 30, and the nuclear control agency was informed immediately, said Jean-Marc Nollet, a parliament member from Ecolo, Belgiums green party. So I dont understand how you could have been in possession of this video since Nov. 30, but on Jan. 13, when I questioned you on this, you answered, There is no specific threat to the nuclear facilities. I agree we shouldnt give in to panic, but between giving in to panic and denying the magnitude of the risks, there is a big difference, Nollet said. Jambon responded that after viewing the tapes, the ministry had determined that there was a threat to the person in question, but not the nuclear facilities. Extremist organizations have long expressed interest in obtaining radioactive material, and there is a market for stolen nuclear waste. News reports in October documented at least four attempts by Russian gangs to sell radioactive material in Moldova, which were thwarted by local officials in concert with the United States FBI. The International Atomic Energy Agency identified the material missing in Iraq as iridium-192, a highly radioactive isotope that is sometimes sought for use in dirty bombs. Berg said that, if acquired, the material at the site in Mol could also be used to make a dirty bomb, which would spread radioactive material over the whole impact zone. If they find a way to spread such material among the population, they could do a lot of damage, he said of the terrorist network. Anything is possible. It is only up to them to come up with such evil ideas. However, experts who have studied radiological weapons believe that the physical risk from such attacks would be small, said Jim Walsh, a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technologys Security Studies Program. A dirty bomb is not a nuclear weapon, Walsh said. It is a conventional weapon with radiological material strapped to it. Most experts agree that if a dirty bomb goes off, people are much more likely to be killed by the TNT than by the radiological material. And, he said, a number of forms of radioactive material do not disperse widely. SANTA ANA Two people are dead and two are in custody after a burglary call led to an officer-involved shooting in Santa Ana on Thursday, authorities said. Santa Ana police Chief Carlos Rojas told reporters that at about 5:10 p.m., officers were called about a home burglary with multiple suspects in the 400 block of Eastwood Avenue. Police initially reported that the crime took place at 3:10 p.m. At some point during the response, an officer fired his gun and two suspects were shot, Rojas said. Orange County Fire Authority officials confirmed that two suspects were pronounced dead at the scene. The officer was not injured. Investigators do not yet know if the suspects shot at officers, but they recovered one firearm at the scene. Details about the victims, who were male, were not immediately available. Authorities also did not provide any more details on the two detained suspects, who were also confronted by police in the burglary. Rojas said the District Attorneys office will be investigating, which is standard for officer-involved shootings. Juan Puentes, 29, lives in a house on Eastwood Avenue near the scene. He said he was at home when he heard cars and what sounded like five or six gunshots. I initially thought it was a drive-by (shooting), Puentes said. This is the second officer-involved shooting in as many days. On Wednesday, a suspect and police detective were injured in a gun battle about three miles away, near the intersection of McFadden Avenue and Sullivan Street. The suspect, 30-year-old Carlos Michael Rodriguez, a gang member, was recovering Thursday. He will be booked on charges of attempted murder of an officer, possession of a gun within a school zone, gang member possession of a gun and possession of a concealed weapon. Around 4:15 p.m. Thursday, a man went to a hospital with a gunshot wound, said Sgt. Michael Claborn of the Santa Ana Police Department. Officers had received calls of shots fired at McFadden and South Sullivan earlier in the day. On Tuesday, 24-year-old Francisco Sotelo Gonzalez of Santa Ana died after a drive-by shooting in the 1100 block of South Harmon Street. Since January, there have been 54 shootings in Santa Ana and 82 assaults with deadly weapons, Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertanga said Wednesday. Most were gang-related. Contact the writer: 714-796-7865 or afausto@ocregister.com KAMPALA, Uganda As election returns showed a strong, early lead Friday for incumbent President Yoweri Museveni, the longtime leaders security forces briefly detained the main opposition candidate and cracked down on protesters with beatings, tear gas and stun grenades. The actions were condemned by the United States, which gives financial support to the East African nation and helps train its military. Thursdays vote was extended for a second day in two main districts because ballots and other election materials had not arrived in time. Museveni, who has ruled Uganda for three decades, led in the returns, but votes remained to be cast and counted in strongholds for opposition leader Kizza Besigye. With results counted from about 47 percent of polling stations across the country, Museveni had about 63 percent of the vote and Besigye had about 33 percent, the election commission said. Final results are expected Saturday. Police surrounded the headquarters of Besigyes Forum for Democratic Change party as he met with party members, and a helicopter fired tear gas at a crowd outside. Then police moved in and took Besigye, a 59-year-old doctor, to an unknown location, according to Semujju Nganda, a party spokesman. Police spokesman Fred Enanga said Besigye was transferred for his own safety and because police wanted to talk to him to exercise restraint until the final results are announced. Besigye was driven to his home and his movements are not restricted, he said. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry spoke by phone with Museveni to underscore that Ugandas progress depends on adherence to democratic principles in the ongoing election process, the State Department said. Kerry expressed his concern about the detentions of Besigye and harassment of opposition party members during voting and tallying, and urged President Museveni to rein in the police and security forces. The U.S. Embassy said on Twitter that We strongly condemn the disproportionate police action taken today at FDC HQ in Kampala. After Besigyes arrest, his supporters took to the streets. Riot police lobbed tear gas and stun grenades at them and fired warning shots from automatic rifles, then chased them through narrow alleys, arresting some. Armored personnel carriers rumbled up and down Kampalas main street. A woman and her children fled on a motorbike. In nearby poor neighborhoods, people set up burning barricades, which riot police and military police quickly took down. Angry protesters also built barricades of stones on the highway leading to the international airport. Police fired tear gas and hit protesters with sticks. The raid represented a restriction on the rights to freedom of association and peaceful assembly, said Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty Internationals regional director. The security forces must act with restraint. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern over the reports of detentions and violence, and trusts that the authorities and all stakeholders will ensure that the fundamental rights and the will of the people of Uganda be respected, said his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric. Police parked trucks near the home of another presidential candidate, Amama Mbabazi, a former prime minister. Josephine Mayanja-Nkangi, a spokeswoman for Mbabazi, said he interpreted the deployment to mean he cannot leave his house. The military is now all over the place. Its a show of force. They are saying, We are ready to kill you if you protest, said Mwambutsya Ndebesa, a professor of history at Ugandas Makerere University. Museveni has overstretched the goodwill Ugandans gave him. It is going to be very bad for him in terms of legitimacy. The election was marked by delays in the delivery of voting materials, especially in areas seen as opposition strongholds. Voting took place Friday at 36 polling stations in Kampala and the neighboring district of Wakiso. The government shut down social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, but many Ugandans circumvented that by using virtual private networks, or VPNs. Besigye was also briefly arrested late Thursday after visiting a house in Kampala where he suspected ballot-stuffing was taking place. Police said the house was a security facility, and accused Besigye of trespassing on government property. The 71-year-old Museveni took power in 1986 and pulled Uganda out of years of chaos after a guerrilla war. He is a key U.S. ally on security matters, especially in Somalia. Critics fear he may want to rule for life, and they accuse him of using security forces to intimidate and harass the opposition. Besigye was Musevenis personal physician during a war and served as deputy interior minister in his first Cabinet. He broke with the president in 1999. Associated Press journalist Ben Curtis in Kampala and Cara Anna in New York contributed to this report. Authorities said Thursday that a suspect who was injured in a shooting that also wounded a Santa Ana police detective on Wednesday previously served time in prison for assaulting a police officer. About 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, gang officers were in the alley near the 2700 block of West McFadden Avenue and came into contact with 30-year-old Carlos Michael Rodriguez, a gang member. During the contact, suspect Rodriguez fired one of his weapons at a detective, striking him with a graze wound to the head, according to a police statement. The detective returned fire striking the suspect on the upper and lower torso areas. Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said its still unclear what happened between the detective and Rodriguez before the shooting in the gang-plagued area. The detective was recently released from the hospital and has to speak with investigators about the events, Bertagna said. Two handguns officers believe belong to the suspect were found at the scene. Rodriguez is still recovering and is in stable condition, police said. He will be booked on charges of attempted murder of an officer, possession of a gun within a school zone, gang member possession of a gun and possession of a concealed weapon. He faces sentence enhancements for being involved in a gang. Wednesdays altercation isnt Rodriguezs first assault on law enforcement, authorities said. He was released from prison in September after serving eight years for assault with a deadly weapon on a Santa Ana police officer, Bertagna said. Court records show that a man with the same name and birth date as Rodriguez has had multiple felony charges over the years. In 2009, he pleaded guilty to assault with a semiautomatic rifle, possessing a firearm as a felon, resisting an executive officer and possession of a controlled substance. In 2006, he pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance and paraphernalia and violating a protective order. In April 2005, he pleaded guilty to unlawful taking of a vehicle, buying or receiving stolen vehicle equipment, possession of burglary tools and possession of a controlled substance. One year earlier he pleaded guilty to inflicting injury on an elder adult and a vandalism charge. Santa Ana police homicide detectives are handling the case involving Rodriguezs criminal activities. The Orange County District Attorneys Office is investigating the officer-involved shooting. Contact the writer: 714-796-7865 or afausto@ocregister.com IRVINE Fullertons Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, joined a chorus of Republicans critical of President Barack Obamas planned visit to Cuba, saying Thursday that the communist country should first change how workers are paid. Companies employing Cubans on the island pay the government instead of the workers. As in North Korea, the government takes a significant cut and then pays the employees, Royce told an Orange County Forum luncheon audience of about 125 gathered at the Hilton Irvine. Its one of the last two countries on the planet that refuse to change their rules to let employers directly pay the worker, Royce said, adding that direct payment would empower workers by giving them more autonomy. Empowering the workforce leads to changes in civil society. Obama announced Wednesday he would visit Cuba, the first such trip by a sitting president since Calvin Coolidge in 1928. Obama has already removed some sanctions, including commercial flights, and is seeking congressional approval to lift a longstanding embargo. Obama said his trip will provide an opportunity to press for change in Cuba, but criticism of the visit came quickly. Pitiful that Obama rewards (the) Castros with (a) visit to Cuba while conditions for the Cuban people are getting worse, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehntinen, R-Fla., told Reuters. Prior to the Irvine luncheon, Royce told the Register that Cubas worker payment system basically makes workers indentured servants. He noted that pressure on China and Vietnam resulted in those countries ending the practice. We do not think the regime deserves to be rewarded until the country goes the same way as Beijing and Hanoi, he said. I think Obamas visit, in the absence of getting that agreement, is giving the Cuban government one more carrot without getting anything in return. Royce used the Irvine appearance to applaud Obamas Thursday signing into law of HR757, the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancements Act authored by Royce and approved in near-unanimous House and Senate votes. The measure includes a host of financial measures, including steps to freeze the assets top North Korean officials maintain in foreign banks and impose sanctions on groups that provide forbidden aid and goods to the country. Royce said such steps were successful in winning concessions from Iran and apartheid-era South Africa, and had a significant effect when they were in place for North Korea in 2005 and 2006. The state department lifted the sanctions to get North Koreans to the negotiating table. Royce said the measures should be reinstated and remain in effect until the country makes concessions. It will force Kim Jong Un to make a decision of whether they want to face economic collapse or engage in real compromise, Royce said. Contact the writer: mwisckol@ocregister.com MOJAVE, Calif. Virgin Galactic will roll out a new version of its SpaceShipTwo space tourism rocket Friday as it prepares to return to flight testing for the first time since a 2014 accident destroyed the original, killed one of its pilots and set back the nascent industry. The space line founded by Sir Richard Branson will unveil the craft at Californias Mojave Air & Space Port, where it was assembled. SpaceShipTwo is designed to be flown by a crew of two and carry up to six passengers on a high-speed suborbital flight to the fringes of space. At an altitude above 62 miles, passengers will experience a few minutes of weightlessness and see the Earth below. After years of development, Virgin Galactic appeared to be nearing the goal of turning ordinary civilians into astronauts when the first SpaceShipTwo broke apart on Oct. 31, 2014, during its fourth rocket-powered flight. Wreckage fell to the Mojave Desert floor. When we had the accident, for about 24 hours we were wondering whether it was worth continuing, whether we should call it a day, Branson told The Associated Press. He said engineers, astronauts and members of the public helped convince him that space travel is too important to give up on. The crash investigation found that co-pilot Michael Alsbury prematurely unlocked the so-called feathering system that is intended to slow and stabilize the craft as it re-enters the atmosphere. Alsbury was killed, but pilot Peter Siebold, although seriously injured, parachuted to safety. The feathers a term derived from the design of a badminton shuttlecock are tail structures that extend rearward from each wingtip. They are designed to swivel upward at an angle to create drag, preventing a buildup of speed and heat, and then rotate back down to normal flying position as the craft descends into the thickening atmosphere. A National Transportation Safety Board investigation found that Scaled Composites, a company that was developing SpaceShipTwo with Virgin Galactic and was responsible for its test program, should have had systems to compensate for human error. The NTSB chairman, Christopher Hart, said it wasnt a matter of shortcuts but of not considering a crew member would make the mistake that occurred. Virgin Galactic subsequently assumed full responsibility to complete the test program. The company stressed in a statement Thursday its commitment to testing from the level of individual parts on up to the complete craft. Our teams job is to plan out not just the obvious tests but also the strange and inventive ones, to conduct those tests, and to use the data from those tests to re-examine everything about our vehicle to ensure we can take the next step forward, it said. The company did not project a timeline for actually carrying space tourists, noting that our new vehicle will remain on the ground for a while after her unveiling, as we run her through full-vehicle tests of her electrical systems and all of her moving parts. SpaceShipTwo is the successor to SpaceShipOne, the winged rocket plane that won the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004 by demonstrating a reusable spacecraft capable of carrying three people could make two flights within two weeks to at an altitude of least 62 miles. The prize announced in 1996 was intended to spur the development of private manned spaceflight in the same way the Orteig Prize offered in 1919 fostered trans-Atlantic aviation. Charles Lindbergh won that prize with his nonstop flight from New York to Paris in 1927. Like SpaceShipOne, SpaceShipTwo is carried aloft beneath the wing of a mother ship a special jet aircraft that releases it at an altitude of about 45,000 feet. After gliding for a few moments, SpaceShipTwos pilots ignite the rocket engine to send the craft hurtling toward space. After reaching the top of its suborbital trajectory, the spacecraft begins falling back toward Earth and glides to a landing on a runway. When California High-Speed Rail Authority Chairman Dan Richard stood before the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center at its opening ceremony in December 2014, he was full of optimism for the 67,000-square-foot bus, train and taxi terminal, which cost $185.2 million, declaring it the first high-speed-rail station in the state of California. He also made a promise. Ten years from now, youll be able to get on a train here and by noon, that day, be hiking up a trail to Half Dome in Yosemite, Mr. Richard said. Now, a year into that promise, and with yet another new business plan, CHSRA has already backed off those assurances, suggesting on its website that service to Anaheim is scheduled to begin in 2029. While we found Mr. Richards determination commendable at that ribbon-cutting ceremony for ARTIC, we didnt share his optimism. That skepticism persists because the obstacles that stood in the way of the bullet train in December 2014 and, in fact, since 2008, when voters approved the concept and some initial funding are just as formidible today. Nothing has changed that would allow the completed system to deliver passengers between Los Angeles and San Francisco in the 2 hours, 40 minutes as required by the enabling Proposition 1A a fact not lost on Central Valley farmers caught in the trains proposed path, who, as we noted this week, again took the authority to court over this issue. And now, on top of everything else, CHSRA looks to be shifting gears entirely. According to a draft report of the new business plan set to be released today, and obtained by the San Jose Mercury News, the state will build the first 250 miles of bullet train track between San Jose and the Bakersfield area and now aims to offer service on the line in less than a decade. Where have we heard that before? It always seemed doubtful that high-speed rail would get to Anaheim in a decade; indeed, it is questionable whether high-speed rail will ever get to Anaheim or anywhere else very many people would want to go. LOS ANGELES A lawsuit filed by a regional water board accuses the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of violating the federal Clean Water Act during two dredge and fill operations along the Los Angeles River and its tributaries. The suit announced Thursday by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board alleges the Army Corps failed to obtain required water quality certifications ahead of a 2011 project in Glendale and another a year later at the Sepulveda Basin. Jay Field, an Army Corps spokesman in Los Angeles, told The Associated Press he hasnt yet seen the lawsuit, which was filed this week in U.S. District Court. The agency typically doesnt comment about ongoing litigation, he said. The Army Corps is accused of not doing enough to prevent oil, grease and other pollutants from heavy equipment from entering the water during brush clearing ahead of operations at Glendale Narrows and Haskell Creek. In addition, Army Corps crews allegedly discharged sediment into the Los Angeles River that could affect water quality and aquatic life and wildlife habitat, according to the suit. Excessive discharges of sediment can limit sunlight from entering the water and in turn inhibit the growth of aquatic plants and destroy spawning habitats for bottom-dwelling organisms and larval fish, officials said. Charles Stringer, chair of the regional water board, said the noncompliance forced officials to sue to ensure compliance with laws that protect the water quality and environment of the Los Angeles River and its tributaries. The complaint asks the court to halt all non-emergency operations along the Los Angeles River and its tributaries until the Army Corps demonstrates compliance with the Clean Water Act. Albert Woodfox, the last of the three Angola Three prisoners still behind bars, was released on Friday his 69th birthday after more than four decades spent in solitary confinement. His release came as Woodfox, facing the prospect of a third trial for murder, pleaded no contest to two lesser crimes Friday. Woodfox continues to maintain his innocence in the death of Brent Miller, a prison guard killed at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, called Angola, in 1972. He and two other men became known as Angola Three, a group that was the focus of international efforts rallying against their solitary confinement and the conditions of their imprisonment. Although I was looking forward to proving my innocence at a new trial, concerns about my health and my age have caused me to resolve this case now and obtain my release with this no-contest plea to lesser charges, Woodfox said. I hope the events of today will bring closure to many. It is believed that Woodfox spent more time in solitary confinement than any other prisoner in American history, according to his attorneys. An official with the West Feliciana Parish Detention Center told The Post that Woodfox would be released sometime Friday. Shortly after 2 p.m., a reporter outside the center posted a video showing Woodfox walking out. Woodfox has been convicted of Millers killing twice before, but both convictions were overturned amid claims of poor legal representation and racial discrimination. He was indicted a little over a year ago for the same crime. Woodfox and Herman Wallace were convicted of murder in Millers stabbing and placed in isolation, along with Robert King, who had been convicted of another crime. King was released in 2001, while Wallace was released in 2013; he died of cancer four days later. Amnesty International decried the legal case against Woodfox and Wallace in a 2011 report. No physical evidence linking the men to the guards murder has ever been found; potentially exculpatory DNA evidence has been lost; and the convictions were based on questionable inmate testimony, the report stated. Woodfoxs release comes as the country is increasingly shifting away from solitary confinement in the wake of research showing that it can have a devastating impact on people, with research showing that it produces catastrophic psychological effects. Last month, President Barack Obama announced that he was banning solitary confinement for juveniles in federal prison. In outlining his reasons, he tied his decision to the case of Kalief Browder, a young man in New York who spent a significant portion of his young life in solitary before committing suicide. How can we subject prisoners to unnecessary solitary confinement, knowing its effects, and then expect them to return to our communities as whole people? Obama wrote in an op-ed announcing the change. It doesnt make us safer. Its an affront to our common humanity. A judge had ordered Woodfoxs release last June and said he could not be put on trial a third time. The judge cited Woodfoxs age, medical issues and decades spent in solitary confinement. The judge also noted that it would be tough for him to mount another defense since so many of the witnesses in the case had died. The state quickly fought the order, with then-attorney general James Buddy Caldwell filing an emergency stay motion trying to prevent Woodfoxs release. A federal appeals court reversed the judges decision and said that Woodfox had to remain imprisoned, and last November a court said that he could face a third trial. A spokesman for the Louisiana attorney general could not be immediately reached for comment Friday. A mobile phone store chain in Georgia is experiencing a boost in iPhone sales after arranging for a priest to bless the entire Apple stock at one of their stores in Tbilisi. According to iPhone+ store manager Georgiy Machavariani, the holy ceremony has mollified fears and concerns that people have about iPhones being the device of the devil. We have a lot of customers that restrain from buying an iPhone for the sole reason that it is a so-called device of a devil, he said. In order to tackle this concern, we decided to sanctify our shop and have the phones blessed. I guess the fear he is referring to has to do with the Apple logo, which people are probably associating with the forbidden fruit eaten by Adam and Eve. The shops management recorded and released footage that shows a priest spreading holy water around the place and then blessing their entire inventory of iPhones. The strange move seems to have had a calming effect on local residents, who are now coming in droves to buy the blessed phones. I am pleased to hear that the shops management has finally decided to sanctify its property, said Anna Aslanishvilli, one of the first to buy a consecrated iPhone. In fact, the response has been so positive that the shop plans to invite the priest to bless future iPhone stocks. News of this controversial event quickly went viral with the video released by the mobile phone retailer getting tens of thousands of views. Contacted by the media, the priest who conducted the blessing said that his holy act has been used as a marketing stunt by iPhone+ and that he had actually blessed the shop itself and the employees, not the mobile phones. He told Georgian news site Info9 that if he had known the purpose of the video from the beginning, he would not have allowed the ceremony to be video-recorded. Source: Korrespondent New Zealander Danielle Daals is taking up a 30-day Living like Lolita bathtub challenge in Miami to protest the captivity of a killer whale named Lolita. For the next one month, the 29-year-old activist will sit in a bathtub from 10am to 7pm outside Miami Seaquarium, in order to represent Lolitas plight. Since 1970, the 22-foot whale nicknamed the worlds loneliest orca has been confined to a 60x80x20 foot pen, the smallest whale enclosure in North America. Daals, who has a permit to protest outside the parks private property, will also carry a poster with a picture of Lolita and the words: Swims 100 miles per day; confined to equivalent of a bath tub. She hopes that her campaign will be effective in freeing the 3.2-ton whale from captivity and reuniting her with her pod of extremely rare and endangered Southern Resident killer whales near Puget Sound, off the coast of Seattle. Photo: YouTube video caption So far, officials from Miami Seaquarium dont seem very impressed by Daals efforts, or by the hundreds of protesters who are joining her every day, trying to dissuade visitors from entering the park. Naming the whale an ambassador for her species, they said that Lolita will continue to receive the same care, stimulation and attention that she has for nearly 45 years. There is no scientific evidence that the 49-year-old could survive if she were to be moved from her home at Miami Seaquarium to a sea pen or to the open waters of the Pacific Northwest, they added, in a published statement. Photo: YouTube video caption Daals, however, is convinced that Lolita will be able to adapt in the wild given that she wasnt too young when she was captured. She was about six when she was taken from the wild, and because their brain size is about five times ours its hoped she will remember the things she learned, like how to feed, she said. In Miami, Daals is being hosted by a generous family who have given her a room of her own. She misses her family back in Lower Hutt, New Zealand, especially her two-year-old son, but the separation is a sacrifice shes willing to make for Lolitas cause. I couldnt help but cry as reality set in that, even though Im with them, I really felt alone, you know? she said. I think during the week will be harder as people have to work so there wont be as many people if any with me outside the seaquarium. By embarking on this challenge, I will experience the same feelings of captivity, separation from my family boredom and stress that Lolita endures every day, she wrote on her GoFundMe page, where she raised money to cover the cost of the protest. It will be incredibly difficult for me to be away from my family for such a long time, but I know that my son will someday understand and admire me for fighting for what I believe in in this very brave way! via Stuff.co.nz Loading... OilVoice will be with you shortly... An Oakland, Iowa, man who holds a key position with a local ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been charged with six counts of sex-related crimes. James Raborn, 26, has been charged with two felony counts of sexual exploitation by a counselor or therapist, two misdemeanor counts of counts of sexual exploitation by a counselor or therapist as well as single misdemeanor counts of dissemination or exhibition of obscene materials to minors and purchase or possession of a depiction of a minor in a sex act. The charges stem from alleged sexual relationships with two 16-year-old girls. No-contact orders, which prohibit Raborn from contacting the teens, were filed Wednesday. He was arrested Feb. 12 and posted $65,000 bail a day later. His attorney, Jordan Glaser, said Raborn plans to plead not guilty. According to Raborns arrest affidavit, he works as a ward Young Men president for the LDS church. According to the LDS website, the ward Young Men president serves as a member of the ward priesthood executive committee and the ward council. As a member of the committee and council, he participates in efforts to build the Mormon faith and strengthen individuals and families. Investigators interviewed a representative of the LDS church who said Raborn was a member of its clergy. Investigators with the Pottawattamie County Sheriffs Office said Raborn met the 16-year-old girls in his role as ward Young Men president. In the arrest affidavit, the teens are listed only as Jane Doe 1 and Jane Doe 2. Jane Doe 1 reportedly met Raborn in July 2015 and later introduced him to Jane Doe 2. According to the affidavit, Jane Doe 1 met with authorities on Nov. 12, and Jane Doe 2 was interviewed on Dec. 4. Both reportedly said they performed sexual acts with Raborn and received explicit pictures from the suspect. With a search warrant, investigators searched residences in Oakland and Red Oak, Iowa, and reported finding explicit pictures of Jane Doe 2 as well as text messages between the two of them describing their encounters. The two teens also turned over to authorities gifts of jewelry, clothes and memorabilia that they allegedly received from Raborn. If convicted of sexual exploitation by a counselor or therapist, a Class D felony, Raborn could receive up to five years in prison. Raborns next court date is a preliminary hearing on March 9. The Salvation Army is still seeking nominations for the 2016 D.J.s Hero Scholarship Awards. Seven Nebraska high school seniors will be chosen to receive the award, named in honor of the late D.J. Sokol, for commitment to others and to their community. Nominations must be postmarked by March 2 to be eligible for entry. Forms are available at most Nebraska high school guidance offices, online at SalArmyOmaha.org or by calling 402-898-5906. Honorees receive a $10,000 scholarship toward their selected college or university. D.J.s Heroes will be recognized at the D.J.s Hero Awards Luncheon on May 10 at CenturyLink Center Omaha. Criteria for selecting honorees include: * Nebraska residency * High school senior * Commitment to others and to the community * Courage to act independently * Greatest achievement in life * Ability to overcome challenges/adversity Proceeds from the luncheon benefit Salvation Army programs for children and families. Karnataka to strengthen ATS and up the number of prisons JNU: Freedom of speech Modi-fied in New Delhi, says article in Pak newspaper Bengaluru oi-Shubham Bengaluru, Feb 19: The action against students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi has seen a strong reaction from Pakistan. In an article titled "Jawaharlal Nehru University row: Freedom of speech now Modi-fied in New Delhi" published in the Dawn newspaper, Toronto-based academic and the director of Regionomics.com Murtaza Haider said the fearless speech by Kanhaiya Kumar in the JNU students' union election last year "exposed Mr. Modi, BJP, and RSS and their attempts to silence dissent in India." "Mr. Kumar and JNU have become unsuspecting characters in the BJP and RSS's campaign to radicalise Indian body politic, the same way General Zia's regime radicalised Pakistan," the article said. The problem started last week when an event at the JNU campus to commemorate the hanging of Afzal Guru, convicted for the 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament and hanged three years ago and the issue gradually snowballed into a big controversy and things worsened with police intervention. And things particularly turned worse for Kumar. The article said: "Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a student group aligned with RSS and the BJP, is leading the charge against Mr. Kumar. Citing 'a betrayal of Mother India', ABVP student leaders, along with the BJP leadership, could be seen verbally assaulting Mr. Kumar on TV talk shows. When Mr. Kumar was brought to court on Wednesday, a large group of men outside the court, who appeared to be lawyers, attacked him, as anger over a case that has sparked mass protests boiled over." Oneindia News JNUites, will this convince you? Feature oi-Pallavi Let's assume that the JNU controversy is a typical case of university politics gone out of control, and that Kanhaiya and Umar Khalid are innocent. However, having said that, we cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that Bassi has been highlighting from Day 1 of Kanhaiya's arrest that the police has enough evidence against him and Umar. Incidentally, the entire uprising was brewing up in the heart of the country for many days, with some support from Kashmir and the terror groups operating from there. Rajnath Singh's Hafeez remark may not be false There is more to what meets the eye. According to the intelligence bureau, there are concrete evidences that Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI is handling Jamat-Ud-Dawa and Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed's Twitter account. This nullifies the allegations that Rajnath Singh's remark on Hafeez Saeed's link with the JNU unrest was based on a false Twitter post. However, Hafeez Saeed stepped in saying that he had nothing to do with the post. Irony is, we did not believe our own home minister (because he represents a party we do not like and confirmed that Saeed was right (because he did not belong to the RSS, but is a militant from Pakistan). The intelligence Bureau is now trying to suspend all the social media accounts of Hafez Saeed. [Read: Explained: Why it is wrong to use the word "anti-national" in JNU fiasco] It is said that Saeed has two accounts @HafizSaeedLive and @HSaeedOfficial. However, the tweet did not come from any of two. However, when Kanhaiya was arrested, the accounts became live and tweets started getting posted in Hindi so that it is comprehensible to everyone. Unstable India, profitable for others The Pakistani intelligence ISI believes that the situation today in India is profitable for Pakistan, especially when a section of media supported Hafiz positively during the JNU uprising. India is ideologically divided and is at its weakest point politically. This could be the best time to attack India. Cyber cell in Kashmir It is rumored that Hafiz Saeed has also started a cyber cell in Kashmir on behalf of the ISI and is looking for Indian journalists who can expedite the Kashmir Liberation. Not just that, the cyber cell has ben asked to create a database of journalists who could be useful for him. [Read: Yes I am anti-national, says Rajdeep Sardesai in an open letter] Why is Umar Khalid absconding? The iconic example of youth and a former leader of the ultra-left Democratic Students' Union (DSU), Umar Khalid is now absconding after he was named in a police complaint, accusing him of anti-national activities. Why did he run away? If we go by his sister's statement of how he had protested taking medication since half the country is going without food and how he refused to have a passport so that he could always be in India to serve the country, this Umar Khalid seems a little out of place. [Read: JNU row: 'Mera Yaar Kanhaiya' slogan T-shirts sold at protest march] Call records from his two numbers show a unique pattern. A total of 800 calls were made between February 3 and February 9, including some to Jammu and Kashmir. Out of these, 38 calls were made to Jammu and Kashmir and 65 were received from there. Clearly, Khalid was mobilising the protests across the country. A native of Bihar, these two numbers were on roaming 17 times in the past one month. However, there are no records of his mobile going on roaming in Jammu and Kashmir during the last 2 months. [Read: JNU fiasco: Pakistan backs arrested Kashmiri students, says report] All said and done, the fact that lies somewhere deep down in the entire incident is such a sentiment should not have been expressed in the first place. One can go against the people of the country or the governing body, or for that matter a political party, but going against a Nation as a whole is totally unacceptable. Assured education in Pakistan, he returned to India as a spy India oi-Vicky Pathankot, Feb 19: Espionage activities courtesy the ISI are at an all time high today. There are various methods that are being adopted by operatives hired by the ISI to spy in India and as of today the states that are targeted the most are Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir. Take the case of this youth, Sajjad who was arrested in Pathankot earlier this month. He was roped in by the ISI to shoot pictures of sensitive locations. He was assured a sum of Rs 1 lakh for the job and during his interrogation he has said that he was given this money in installments of Rs 15,000 each. How the ISI trapped him Sajjad is a resident of Surankot in Jammu and Kashmir. In the year 2013, he visited Pakistan on a student visa. He was in fact identified by a person called Zulfikar in Pakistan. On reaching Pakistan, he hoped that he could admission in a university. However Zulfikar told him that it would not be possible for him to study as his marks were not sufficient. Dejected, Sajjad attempted to return to his home town. However Zulfikar told him that there was a way he could earn quick money. All he had to do was shoot some pictures of locations that were assigned to him. He was told that if he shot these photographs he would be paid a sum of Rs 1 lakh. Sajjad bit the bait. He returned to India in 2014 and was in touch with a man called Majid who was his handler. As a cover, he took up a job in a call centre in Chandigarh. Over there he met with a person called Moga with whom he decided to execute the task. Both shot several pictures of sensitive locations. The first set of pictures were however rejected as they were poor in quality. However he managed to get photographs once again and handed them over to his agent. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 19, 2016, 9:21 [IST] Cong gives hints of alliance with Left Front in Bengal India oi-PTI New Delhi, Feb 19: Giving signals of some sort of an alliance with the Left Front in poll-bound West Bengal, Congress today said there is no contradiction if it ties up with the CPI(M) to take on Mamata Banerjee while fighting against it in Kerala. "If and when any alliance of the kind you are imagining happens in Bengal, that has absolutely no contradiction because alliances are state specific. This is true of every political party in this country", party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi told reporters. When pressed further as to how could Congress align with the CPI(M) in West Bengal when it is fighting the party in Kerala, he remarked "alliances apply within the boundaries of a state". While Singhvi gave ambivalent answers on questions regarding Cong-Left alliance in West Bengal, a senior leader, who declined to be identified, spoke of a tactical understanding between the two parties. Only yesterday, CPI(M) had indicated it is willing to have an understanding with Congress for the upcoming assembly polls in West Bengal to "oust" TMC from Government and "isolate" BJP in the state. CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury had said the Left party will seek support and co-operation from "all democratic forces" to dethrone the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC in the state. "In order to restore democracy and foil communal polarisation by BJP ... that is the main task we think can be achieved only by ousting TMC from Government in West Bengal. "In order to achieve this objective, the CPI(M) will seek support of all democratic forces in Bengal," Yechury had said without naming Congress. He had said the CPI(M) West Bengal committee will work out a proposal on having understanding with other "democratic" forces and on the basis of the same party politburo will take a final decision in this regard. Talk in Congress is that the JNU row has helped the party leadership get closer with that of the CPI-M. PTI Curfew imposed in Rohtak, Bhiwani city areas India oi-PTI Chandigarh, Feb 19: Curfew was imposed tonight in Rohtak and Bhiwani city limit areas and army was being rushed there in view of worsening situation with Jats agitating over reservation issue going on rampage there. An official spokesman told PTI here tonight that curfew has been imposed with immediate effect in view of protesting mobs going on rampage and indulging in violence. Army units are being rushed to Rohtak from nearby Cantonment at Hissar, about 50 kms away, he said these will be deployed immediately in Rohtak and Bhiwani areas. He said army units are also being rushed from Jaipur for deployment in other worst-affected areas of the state. The army will assist the civil administration in restoring peace and law and order which worsened today shortly after an all party meeting here where an appeal was made for maintaining peace. Two senior civil and police officers - Principal Secretary (Home) A K Singh and ADGP of Haryana Police B S Sandhu- have been rushed to Rohtak to coordinate with the army and the civil administration to restore normalcy. PTI No decision yet on joining BJP or AAP, says Hardik; hails saffron party over Ayodhya issue, Article 370 Is Hardik Patel joining BJP today? This is what he says Hardik Patel launches indefinite hunger strike in Surat jail, protesters torch buses India oi-PTI Ahmedabad, Feb 18: Patel quota stir spearhead Hardik Patel today launched an indefinite hunger strike at the Lajpore Jail in Surat, where he is lodged since September in two sedition cases, demanding reservation to his community in Government jobs and education under OBC category. The surprise move by Hardik came at a time when his close aides have expressed willingness to hold talks with the BJP Government in Gujarat over the quota issue. Three of Hardik's close aides - Ketan Patel, Chirag Patel and Dinesh Bambhaniya - who are also behind bars in sedition case, wrote a letter to Chief Minister Anandiben Patel yesterday and expressed willingness to hold talks. Since the letter did not have the signature of Hardik, speculation is rife the 22-year-old may have felt betrayed by his own men and decided to undertake indefinite fast. Confirming the development, Jailor of Lajpore Prison SL Dusa told the media that Hardik, Convener of Patidar Anamant Andolan Samiti (PAAS), which is spearheading the stir, has stopped taking food since this morning. "A few days back, Hardik wrote a letter to the Jail Superintendent saying he will launch an indefinite hunger strike from February 20 if his demands are not met. However, he sat on hunger strike from today itself," said Dusa. In the letter, Hardik had threatened to shun food if the demand of reservation for Patel community under OBC quota is not accepted by the Government, said Dusa. "Hardik also said Patel youths (who took part in the stir) have been wrongfully arrested by the Government," Dusa said, adding the young quota leader is under constant watch of medical officers inside the jail. "We have informed the superior officers about his hunger strike. We tried to convince Hardik to end the strike but to no avail. We are taking all necessary precautions. Doctors are checking his health every hour." One of the close associates of Hardik, Pragnesh Patel, who met Hardik several times in Lajpore jail, around 250 km from Ahmedabad, claimed he may have started the hunger strike since last evening. "I have learned that Hardik did not take food from the home tiffin delivered by one of his relatives last evening. Today morning, when the relative once again went to give the tiffin, jail authorities told him about Hardik's hunger strike," said Pragnesh. PTI Is Freedom 251 a smartphone scam? BJP MP Kirit Somaiya calls it a "fraud, bogus & big scam"! India oi-Preeti New Delhi, Feb 19: World's cheapest "Made In India" smartphone-- "Freedom 251", priced at Rs 251 only, developed by a Noida-based start up-- Ringing Bells Pvt Ltd, took the world by surprise, on Wednesday, Feb 17. The pre-order bookings for the cheapest smartphones began from 6 am on February 18 till 8 pm on February 21, leading to crashing of website within hours! The company is also charging a shipping charge of Rs 40 and claims that the smartphone will be delivered by June 30 from the date of booking. But there's a catch! The company has already mired into controversy like copyright infringements for the alleged copying of Apple iPhone icon design and appearance. What BJP MP Kirit Somaiya has to say on Freedom 251 credentials? The Telecom Ministry is believed to have sought clarification from Ringing Bells for marketing its 'Freedom251' mobile phone without BIS certification and have asked UP government to check its credentials, as per BJP MP Kirit Somaiya. "#Freedom251 Telecom Ministry called clarification for marketing without BIS certifications & also asked UP Govt to check Bonafide of Company," Somaiya tweeted. The BJP MP has approached telecom ministry, telecom regulator Trai, Consumer Ministry, SEBI, Corporate Ministry Finance Ministry, RBI and state governments to check various concerns that he has on company offering mobile phone for Rs 251-- which is the world's cheapest. "#FREEDOM 251 mobile set @ 251 #TRAI Chairman & Telecom Ministry assured me appropriate step Buyer must check twice," said in another tweet. No comments were received from the Telecom Ministry on query related to Somaiya's Tweet. Somaiya as well as industry has not found the proposition convincing. "From the response I read of Shri Ashok Chadha of Ringing Bells that how much cost will be saved due to import/local assembling/ online marketing... far from convincing," Somaiya said in a letter attached to his tweet. SAVDHAN BEAWAREOf FREEDOM 251 Mobile* FREEDOM 251 a Smartphone copy of 251 is nothing but Fraud * It is... Posted by Kirit Somaiya onThursday, February 18, 2016 I requested #TRAI & #TelecomMinistry to check the Abnormal Unusual Offer of #FR_EDOM 251 mobile set @ 251 authenticity objective b checked Kirit Somaiya (@KiritSomaiya) February 18, 2016 #FREEDOM 251 mobile set @ 251 #TRAI Chairman & Telecom Ministry assured me appropriate step Buyer must check twice pic.twitter.com/zqdY03cZXm Kirit Somaiya (@KiritSomaiya) February 18, 2016 #Freedom251 not subsidised/certified/registered by Govt Agency-Ringing Bells Pvt Ltd formed on 16/9/2015 @ Delhi pic.twitter.com/gkqkss9gOc Kirit Somaiya (@KiritSomaiya) February 18, 2016 #Freedom251 Telecom Ministry called clarification for marketing without BIS certifications & also asked UP Govt to check Bonafide of Company Kirit Somaiya (@KiritSomaiya) February 18, 2016 ICA raises red flag on Freedom 251 Mobile phone industry body Indian Cellular Association (ICA) too has raised red flag on offering of the company. "We have checked with all operators in the industry and no one has admitted to have been in any kind of bundling deal or partnership with them. I will only say consumer should stay cautious. More than consumers, it may hurt businessmen in small towns if the promise made by the company fails," ICA National President Pankaj Mohindroo said. Ringing Bells clarification Meanwhile, Ringing Bells' President Ashok Chaddha said manufacturing cost of the phone is about Rs 2,500, which will be recovered through a series of measures like economies of scale, innovative marketing, reduction in duties and creating an e-commerce marketplace. "By going for Made in India components, we can save on the 13.8 per cent duty. Also, we will be selling online first and thus save the costs incurred on large distribution network," he said. Chaddha also rejected speculations of the handset being subsidised by the government. "The phone will be manufactured in Noida and Uttaranchal. Two plants will be set up for Rs 250 crore each with a capacity of 5 lakh phones. The money will come in the form of debt and equity (1.5:1)," he said. Chaddha added the equity is being met by the promoter family of the company that is "engaged in agri-commodities business" in Uttar Pradesh but declined to give further information. Some of the prominent features of Freedom 251 are: Android 5.1 operating system 4-inch qHD IPS display 3.2-megapixel primary 0.3-megapixel front camera 3G connectivity 1.3GHz quad-core processor 1GB RAM 8GB internal memory Supports external memory cards of up to 32GB. 1,450mAh battery Service network of 650 centres across India. Pre-installed apps like Swachh Bharat, Women Safety, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, etc BJP's veteran leader Murli Manohar Joshi unveiled the smartphone at Delhi's Nehru Park. "Freedom 251" smartphone has been developed "with immense support" from the government, the company has said. India's most affordable smartphone is said to be very helpful to farmers, fishermen and and women from rural areas who can use this technology to empower their lives. OneIndia News (With agency inputs) UP elections: How RLD plans to counter the Love Jihad propaganda BJP leaders say, they are committed to reservation for Jats in UP under OBC Did you know why Indian Presidents Bodyguard has personnel from only three castes? The West UP Despatch.Why do the Jats matter Jat protest: Mob attacks Haryana Minister Capt Abhimanyu's residence, set car on fire India oi-Avinash Rohtak, Feb 19: The Jat protest in Haryana's Rohtak town as turned violent as mob attacked the private residence of state's finance minister Captain Abhimanyu. A car parked outside the house was also set on fire by the mob which pelted stones on the house besides attempting to set it on fire, police said. One person was killed and 21 others were injured when a protest by Jats for quota turned violent, prompting the security personnel to open fire on the rampaging mobs, besides indulging in arson. [Jats reject CM Khattar's offer, protests spread across state] The security personnel deployed at finance minister's residence had to use force, including firing, to control the violent mob. "There is one death of an unidentified person because of (suspected) bullet injuries," said authorities of the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Science & Hospital. The protestors who had gathered at the Rohtak bye-pass road of Delhi Hissar National Highway turned violent and allegedly attacked police vehicles which were parked there in which window panes were damaged, officials said. Haryana DGP said army has been called in to control the situation. One BSF jawan was also injured in the mob arson. "Railway tracks and roads being blocked is causing inconvenience to locals, we appeal to protesters to stop agitation. The mob is not letting injured BSF jawan taken to hospital," said Yashpal Singhal, DGP Haryana. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 19, 2016, 18:20 [IST] JNU row: Kill all communists; a Facebook brawl ends up in police complaint India oi-Shreyas Bengaluru, Feb 19: The JNU incident has snowballed into a major furore igniting a debate on nationalists and anti-nationals, traitors and patriots, even as gusty wind of violence flogged the Delhi's Patiala House Court. Bengaluru is also no different to unfortunate national and anti-national divide. On Wednesday, Feb 17 a person named Dr Sushruth Athreya saw himself proud to endorse controversial organisation Hindu Mahasabha as it's old member shot father of nation Mahatma Gandhi dead. Athreya, doctor by profession, during a debate with his Left leaning friend in Facebook also claimed, if he gets a chance to slay, he would shoot all communists using AK 47 rifle and chase them out India as these anti-nationals' presence derail prospects of the country. Athreya's friend, Dr Ashok K R, who is also his classmate during MBBS studies, filed a complaint at Kengeri police station following this verbal war. The complaint read "Athreya has threatened to kill me including all other communists in order to cleanse." Dr Ashok speaking to OneIndia said, during a debate in Facebook over JNU row, his classmate threatened to kill me. However, he later altered that post making a few changes. He removed the words 'you' in all places where he used after the word 'kill' and replaced it with Communists and anti-nationals, Leftists and Marxist. "I initially did not take it serious, but fearing the consequences later filed a complaint. I wanted to document it to see myself on the safer side." Ashok further said, the new trend of branding people who does not buy right-wing ideology as anti-nationals is threat to the values enshrined in the Indian constitution. What exactly Athreya wrote In a comment during a debate on JNU incident, Athreya wrote- "If I get a chance, I will shoot leftists, communists, Marxists like you first. You are the sole reason for India's present fate. Of course Godse (Nathuram Godse) is my hero and I fully endorse Hindu Mahasabha. Athreya went on further "Don't you dare tell me what to do, what to believe in. I am right extremist and harbour extreme hatred for leftist ideology and I don't mind using violence to end all those oppose Right because, right is the only right way for India." In a post on Athreya's Facebook status, he wrote- "Screw all tolerance, freedom of expression, liberty and human rights. Just wield an AK 47 ans shoot all those bloody parasites where ever they may be- JNU, Jadavpur or Punganur. They dont deserve to be in India, India, our glorious mother land, does't deserve to be sullied by such filthy animals. Praveen Togadia is right,. Chop the heads of 50 parasites that they dare say Bharat Tere Tukde Honge" When contacted Athreya, he said he regret his posts. "It was the 'anger of moment' that led me to write extreme thought. I regret the act." OneIndia News 'Is this the respect for women?': Mallikarjun Kharge asks PM Modi over release of Bilkis case convict From DefExpo to Kedarnath darshan, PM Modi's itinerary as diverse as it gets JNU row: Modi govt faces more flak from Nitish Kumar, Arvind Kejriwal India oi-PTI Patna/New Delhi, Feb 19: The Modi government faced more flak from the opposition over the escalating JNU row with chief ministers of Bihar and Delhi on Friday alleging it has triggered an emotional issue to "hide its failure" on economic front and that opposing BJP and RSS has become the "biggest crime". "Since they have failed miserably on economic front after making tall claims during 2014 Parliamentary elections, they (BJP and RSS) have triggered an emotional issue (JNU event) to hide the failure," Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar told reporters emerging from a meeting of state cabinet in Patna. Also read: Being opposed to BJP and RSS biggest crime now, says Kejriwal Nitish, who is senior leader of JD(U), once again attacked the Centre for levelling sedition charge on JNU Student union President Kanhaiya Kumar without any evidence. "If they have any evidence that justifies Kanhaiya Kumar arrest on sedition charge why do not they make it public?" Nitish said, backing the stand of Congress and Left parties on the controversial slapping of sedition case on Kumar. Kanhaiya Kumar hails from Bihar. "JNU is on their (BJP and RSS) target because there is negligible percentage of people who believe in saffron ideology," he said. "People of other parties are also nationalist but they do not require to take a certificate of nationalism from them," Nitish said. Recently condemning arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar on sedition charge, Nitish had said it was "too much of a design" to impose the ideology of ABVP, the student wing of the RSS, on the nation. He had claimed on Monday last it was "like imposing Emergency" in the country. BJP, RSS trying to hide their failure: Nitish Kumar Stepping up his attack on the central government over the JNU row, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said opposing BJP and RSS is the "biggest" crime under the present dispensation and accused it of failing to act against its sympathisers who indulge in criminal activities. "Centre's new IPC--it's not a crime to murder, rape or beat anyone if u r from BJP. Being opposed to BJP n RSS is biggest crime now (sic)," Kejriwal tweeted. In another tweet, the Delhi Chief Minister said, "Centre's new IPC--rape, murder or beat anyone. When questioned, just say that victim was shouting anti-India slogans, u will be let off." Though the Chief Minister did not name anyone, he was apparently referring to Centre's alleged inaction against BJP legislator OP Sharma and the lawyers who were caught on-camera beating people outside Patiala House Court Complex where hearing of Kanhaiya Kumar took place on Monday. Sharma was arrested on Thursday in connection with the incident, but was given bail later in the day. PTI JNU student Umar a 'true son' of India, says his sister India oi-PTI New Delhi, Feb 19: The charges against JNU PhD scholar Umar Khalid are shrouded in a lot of "fabrications and lies" and the episode has "taken away" all sense of normalcy and sanity from the lives of his family members, his sister said today calling him a "true son" of India. US-based PhD student Maryam Fatima also hit out at a section of the media for running a "trial" against Umar, the alleged organiser of an event against Afzal Guru's execution at the JNU, saying it is creating a "lynch mob" climate. Umar, a former member of ultra-Left students outfit Democratic Students Union, has been missing since the JNU row broke out and police is on the look out for him. "Most channels have been conducting media trials based on false information. They first claimed there was an IB report linking Umar to Jaish-e-Muhammad. This was denied by the IB. But the story is still doing the rounds. All of this is adding up to a lynch mob climate," Fatima told PTI over email. Umar, who is working on his PhD on tribal rights and colonial forest policy, has placed his concern for the dispossessed over his own life and career - turning down opportunities to go abroad, she claimed. She said he has been actively campaigning for the rights of the marginalised and alleged that anti-India slogans at the controversial event at the JNU were raised by ABVP activists. "The issue of sloganeering is shrouded in a lot of fabrications and lies. Several of the videos were doctored," she alleged. "It is ridiculous to ask us if we think it (anti-India slogans) is okay - of course, not. But you have to dig deeper and see who were raising them. He is a true son of India," she said. Fatima, who is the eldest among five sisters but younger than their brother Umar, claimed that even her 12-year-old sibling has received "violent threats" on social media. "My sisters received threats on facebook when they first started posting in defence of Umar. They are not going to school or college. There are also the posters in Munirka directly calling for Umar's death. As you can imagine, we feel very vulnerable right now," she said. The family is "not in touch with" Umar since he went missing, Fatima said, and could last speak to him after his television interviews with two channels. "We are really worried for his safety." She claimed the allegations about Umar's links to Pakistan, terrorists and JeM are absolutely false and that he does not even have a passport. On their father SQR Ilyas' past links with SIMI, a banned outfit, Fatima said that he left SIMI in 1985, way before it was banned in 2001 and Umar's birth. "There is no connection here, nothing more to be made of." Ilyas today said it is for the judiciary to decide whether his son was involved in the case and demanded that he be spared a "media trial". "If they were seditionist, it should be decided by the court. There should not be a media trial. He was fighting for adivasis and poor farmers," he said. PTI Fact check: Did AISA Students Fake Injuries During Violence At JNU? Deprivation point to be brought back for PhD students in JNU News flash: Physical assault on Kanhaiya Kumar in court was pre-planned: NHRC report India oi-Oneindia By Oneindia Staff Writer Bengaluru, Feb 19: Mobile internet services blocked by Rohtak administration in Rohtak and Jhajjar after Jat quota row. Meanwhile, Kanhaiya Kumar's bail plea hearing in SC today. Get all the latest news updates of the day: 10:13 pm: Jat quota stir: Protesters loot armoury in Rohtak, Haryana. 9:43 pm: Congress rebel Kalikho Pul takes oath as Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister. 9:23 pm: Physical assault on Kumar in the court premises appears to be organised and pre-planned: NHRC report. 9:01 pm: I appeal every brother and sister of Haryana to maintain peace: Rajnath Singh, Home Minister. 8:34 pm: Jat Quota row: Rohtak bus station burnt down by protestors; 8 Haryana roadways buses attacked & 2 dozen shops vandalised. 8:03 pm: If anybody is anti-national, he should be tried by the court not by BJP or ABVP: RPN Singh, Congress. 7:30 pm: President's rule lifted in Arunachal Pradesh. 7:00 pm: Jat quota protest: Curfew imposed in city areas of violence-hit Rohtak and Bhiwani in Haryana. 6.40 pm: India Test captain Virat Kohli visits Golden Temple in Amritsar, Punjab. 6.30 pm: US aircraft hit Islamic State militants in Libya, more than 40 dead: Reuters 6.20 pm: Passenger trains going from Delhi to Haryana,Rajasthan, Punjab & Jammu affected. About 550 trains affected: Anil Saxena,Railways. 6.10 pm: JNUSU Students Council passes resolution condemning Pro-Pakistan sloganeering at the February 9 event in JNU. 5.50 pm: India sees filing of FIR by Pakistan in #PathankotAttack case as a step forward: Sources. 5.45 pm: Son of suspended RJD MLA Rajballabh Yadav detained by police over suspicion of destruction of evidence in a rape case in Bihar. 5.35 pm: Mob vandalized DIG office and police vehicles.Then one of the protesters shot a BSF Jawan: Yashpal Singhal,DGP Haryana on Jat reservation stir. In retaliatory fire by BSF, 1 protester has been killed &few others injured: Y Singhal, DGP Haryana #JatReservation pic.twitter.com/4AXinvonQm ANI (@ANI_news) February 19, 2016 5.30 pm: Another petition filed in Delhi HC, says Police Commissioner BS Bassi's statement of not opposing bail of Kanhaiya Kumar may hamper trial. 5.25 pm: Nepalese PM KP Sharma Oli received by EAM Sushma Swaraj in Delhi. Nepalese PM KP Sharma Oli received by EAM Sushma Swaraj in Delhi pic.twitter.com/sgjjXUCVYw ANI (@ANI_news) February 19, 2016 5.15 pm: HM Rajnath Singh told Haryana CM that 24 companies of paramilitary forces have been sent, assured to send more if needed over Jat Reservation. 5.00 pm: BCCI to file an affidavit in SC pointing out anomalies & difficulties encountered in implementation of Lodha Committee's recommendations. 4.40 pm: Kanhaiya Kumar 's bail plea in HC will not be heard today. Registrar General says additional application in the matter is yet to be filed. 4.18 pm: Lawyers protest in Jammu (J&K) over JNU Row, condem anti-national activities. 4.00 pm: Home Minister Rajnath Singh chairs meeting on Naxal issue, Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik also present. 3.45 pm: Haryana Minister Capt Abhimanyu's house attacked and car set on fire in Rohtak on Jat reservation. 3.30 pm: Bihar Sampark Kranti Express train stopped at Sahibabad (UP) after bomb threat, bomb disposal squad at the spot. 3.25 pm: Congress' request seeking Supreme Court's permission to hold floor test in Arunachal Pradesh assembly to prove its majority declined by SC. 3:00 pm: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley at 'Halwa ceremony' marking the beginning of Budget printing process. 2.56 pm: Clash between police and protesters who carried "Thank JNU" poster, and ISIS flags in Srinagar. 2.45 pm: Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi interact with locals in his constituency Amethi (UP). 2.30 pm: People who have cases of fake degrees and corruption against them are recommending my expulsion from Assembly, says OP Sharma. 2.10 pm: Security tightened at Patiala House Court ahead of SAR Geelani's bail hearing. 2.00 pm: Woman dies of swine flu in Rajasthan, toll rises to 30. 01.59 pm: Security has been stepped up at the Delhi High Court ahead of the hearing on the bail plea filed by JNU student leader Kanaihya Kumar. 01.50 pm: Today leaders of Left parties,RJD,JDU and NCP will meet President Mukherjee and ask him to intervene in the matter, says Sitaram Yechury 01.35 pm: The manner in which attacks happened in Patiala House Court premises,shows that there is 'jungle raj' in Delhi, says Bihar CM Nitish Kumar 01.20 pm: Left parties call for All India protest from February 23 to February 25 against Central Govt over JNU row. 01.00 pm: Delhi High Court rejects plea against second phase of odd-even formula in Delhi; terms the plea pre-mature. 12.55 pm: AISA woman protester refuses to move from Central Govt office - Shastri Bhavan in Chennai, is forcefully evicted. 12.52 pm: Vijay Rupani elected next Gujarat BJP state President 12.50 pm: Congress opposes BS Bassi's candidature for the post of Central Information Commissioner: Sources 12.45 pm: Police detain CPI workers protesting in Hyderabad over JNU row. 12.38 pm: SC issues notice to Salman Khan on Maharashtra Government's plea challenging his acquittal by Bombay HC in 2002 hit and run case. 12.21 pm: Kanhaiya Kumar's lawyer likely to approach Delhi High Court today. 12.05 pm: Air India's check in and boarding system at Mumbai Airport broken down, passengers are stranded at the Airport. 11.42 am: The Supreme Court has refused to hear the bail plea of Kanhaiya Kumar. Says it can be heard by the High Court. 11.41 am: Not just Kanhaiya Kumar, but there is a threat to the lives of his advocates at the Patiala House Court: Kumar to SC 11.40 am: Sedition charges have been wrongly slapped on me, Kanhaiya Kumar tells SC 11.35 am: Kanhaiya Kumar's lawyers tell the Supreme Court that it is due to security concerns that they have approached the Supreme Court. There have been security issues in the lower courts. Moreover Kumar also told the SC that there is a chance of him being attacked in prison by co-prisoners. 11.25 am: Why have you not approached the High Court asks Supreme Court while hearing Kanhaiya Kumar's bail plea. 11.13 am: Delhi Police also submits their report on Patiala House Court violence in SC. 10.20 am: Jat Reservation row: Jat agitation continues at Sampla (Haryana) 10.08 am: Four railway gangmen killed after being run over by suburban train in Mumbai- PTI. 9.43 am: Europe has "completely failed" in its response to migrant crisis: UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi. 9.13 am: Left supporter students' groups block Darbhanga-New Delhi Bihar Sampark Kranti Express demanding release of Kanhaiya Kumar. 8.40 am: Centre has informed UP govt to check the bonafide of the promoter. This is a bogus company scam: BJP MP Kirit Somaiya on Freedom 251 phone. 8.23 am: We gave ideal Reservation, everyone was satisfied so no one protested: BS Hooda on Jat reservation row. We gave ideal Reservation, everyone was satisfied so no one protested: BS Hooda on Jat reservation row pic.twitter.com/kTyFeM48ak ANI (@ANI_news) February 19, 2016 8.00 am: All party meeting called by Haryana CM ML Khattar on Jat quota row. OneIndia News Karnataka to strengthen ATS and up the number of prisons My son is not a traitor, says father of Umer Khalid, alleged organiser of Afzal Guru event India oi-Vicky Bengaluru, Feb 19: 'My son is not a traitor'. This is what Dr SQR Ilyas, the father of Umer Khalid had to say. Umer Khalid has been accused of being part of the protests at the JNU in which anti India slogans are alleged to have been shouted. In the past few days there have been reports in the media about Umer Khalid that he was associated with some groups in Kashmir and also the DSU, a pro naxal union in the JNU. Also read: Rahul Gandhi should learn from his ancestors: Yogi Adityanath His father Dr Ilyas wants to set the record straight. I am completely opposed to anyone raising anti India slogans, Dr Ilyas says. In this interview with OneIndia, Dr Ilyas says that while raising anti India slogans needs to be condemned, the police must also probe who raised them. Are you in touch with your son Umer Khalid? Not at all. I have not spoken to him since February 11th. Your son has been accused of being a traitor for raising anti India slogans. What are your views on this? My son is not a traitor. He has in the past raised some very valid points. He has fought for the rights of farmers and tribals. He has taken part in several protests at the Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. He will never raise anti India slogans. What are your views on the anti India slogans being raised in the JNU? I am completely opposed to it. None have the right to live in India and raise slogans against their own country. However I would also like to add that the police must probe who really raised those slogans. Let them prove it in the court of law. Are you saying your son is innocent? Yes that is what I am saying. I do not believe that he will raise slogans against India. I must tell you that he had also organised a protest in connection with the Rohith Vemula issue. I can say with all certainty that my son is a victim of conspiracy. If he is innocent then why is he not coming out in the open? Has anyone created a conducive atmosphere for him to come out in the open. Just look at what happened at the Patiala House Court. With such violence who will have the confidence to come out in the open. Moreover there is a full fledged media trial against him. He cannot remain out of reach forever. What are your planning to do? I am in touch with my lawyer. We are planning on seeking anticipatory bail. Has the police approached you? Just once. They had come to inquire. After that they have not been in touch with me. However I found it surprising that a police team visited my ancestral home in Maharashtra. I do not know why they went there. We have left that place 35 years back. Your son was admitted to the JNU to study. Why politics then? I agree that he has gone there for academic purpose. However there is no harm in raising issues which affect the common man or the poor. Do you have faith in the judiciary where this case is concerned? Yes I do have faith in the judiciary. We will go to the court. Umer was associated with the DSU, a union in the JNU which is considered to be pro Maoist. Is this correct? Yes he was associated with the DSU sometime back. However he resigned from it a few years back. As of now he is not part of the DSU. OneIndia News Second round of Bharat bandh likely to be in August One Rank-One Pension formula will not be reversed says Centre OROP: Good news for military personnel! Govt may grant OROP to premature retirees India oi-Reetu New Delhi, Feb 19: There is a good news for the premature retirees as the One Rank One Pay (OROP) scheme which was earlier denied to them will granted to them too. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar on Thursday said the government was reconsidering denial of OROP to all military personnel who opt for premature retirement from the service. 7th Pay Commission: Good news for defence personnel! Govt to address concerns over OROP, allowance In an interview, Parrikar said a one-member judicial commission can also relook at equilising pensions. The One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme announced by the government at present does not cover those who take early retirement, something that the veterans demanding OROP have opposed. Equilisation of pensions at present under OROP is to be done every five years, while the veterans want it to be done every year. Parrikar said while talking to Karan Thapar. Asked about the 7th Pay Commission and the concerns of the forces, the minister said it is being studied, and promised "rectification". Finally, OROP implementation tables issued Talking about the big-ticket Rafale deal, the defence minister said that price is a big problem that is delaying the government-to-government deal for the fighter jets, even as France has on a percent offsets clause, a statement from the channel said. India signed an inter-governmental pact with France to buy 36 Rafale fighters but the price negotiations are still on. France is said to have quoted around $9 billion for the 36 jets. The deal would includes two types of missiles abd bombs, training of pilots and base facilities for the planes. Government is likely to present a "run-of-the-mill" budget with an fiscal slippage to 3.7 per cent of the GDP in the next fiscal from an earlier target of 3.5 per cent, a Nomura report said. 7th Pay Commission: Good News! PMO orders to speed up review process; notification soon According to the Japanese financial services major, the government is likely to meet its fiscal deficit target of 3.9 per cent of GDP in the current financial year, but in 2016-17 it might slip to 3.7 per cent as against an earlier target of 3.5 per cent. The increase in the wages and pensions burden owing to the Seventh Pay Commission and the One Rank One Pension scheme will be the main reasons for the slippage, it said. OneIndia News (With inputs from agencies) For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 19, 2016, 16:50 [IST] Pathankot strike: India 'disappointed' as Pak FIR omits JeM, Masood Azhar names India oi-PTI New Delhi, Feb 19: India today expressed disappointment that neither terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed nor its chief Masood Azhar were named in an FIR registered in Pakistan to probe last month's Pathankot terror strike. "It is a small step in the right direction. But it is disappointing that neither the name of Jaish nor Masood Azhar was incorporated in the FIR," a senior government official said. Pakistan filed the FIR against "unknown persons" after weeks of probe into the attack on the air base on January 2 in which seven security personnel were killed. It was registered at the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) in Gujranwala in the neighbouring country's Punjab province. "We have failed to understand why Jaish and its chief's names were not included in the FIR despite India giving adequate evidence about their involvement," the official said. According to Pakistan's CTD, the FIR is needed for starting police and judicial proceedings on the basis of evidence collected in connection with the attack for which India has blamed Pakistan-based JeM. India has identified Azhar as the mastermind behind the attack. It has also blamed his brother Rauf and five others for carrying out the attack. Law Minister of Pakistan's Punjab province, Rana Sanaullah, said if anyone, including Azhar, is found guilty of involvement in the attack, they will be prosecuted. "No one becomes guilty upon naming (in a case). I don't want to name anyone at this stage. Let the probe be completed and if Masood Azhar is involved, action will be taken," Sanaullah said. He also urged India to provide any evidence it has on Azhar or anybody else's involvement in the attack. PTI Truth has come out, says Sasikala in reaction to OPS's remark before panel Jayalalithaa death probe: TN cabinet to decide on enquiry against Sasikala and others Never interfered in medical treatment of Jayalalithaa: Sasikala denies all allegations levelled by panel Pay Commission: Good news for TN govt employees! Jayalalithaa assures change in pay scale India oi-Reetu New Delhi, Feb 19: Announcing a slew of welfare measures for the government employees, school and college teachers Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Friday said that the new pay commission would consider demand for change in pay scale of the government employees. The measures included hike in pension schemes and promotion for the government employees. According to a report in The Hindu, "Jayalalithaa said the new pay commission would consider the demand for change in pay scale and regularisation of services of employees under consolidated pay scheme and time pay scale for those who were receiving salary under special time." 7th Pay Commission: Good news for govt employees! Panel may double minimum basic pay "These demands could be considered only by taking into consideration the hierarchy and parity. So only the pay commission will consider these demands," Jayalalithaa was quoted as saying in the daily. Jobs under compassionate grounds would be regularised through a common government order to avoid delay, Jayalalithaa said. Those appointed under compassionate grounds could get employment benefits like increment only after regularisation. For posts that need relaxation in norms, nod of TNPSC would be obtained and government orders would be issued relaxing norms, she said. Till such time TNPSC approval is received, such employees would be treated as temporary government employees and they would be given annual increment. 7th Pay Commission: Good News! PMO orders to speed up review process; notification soon The pension for retired nutritious meal employees would be increased to Rs 1,500 from the present Rs 1000 benefiting 86,873 employees and it would cost an additional Rs 51.13 crore for the government. Similarly, cash benefits would be increased to Rs 60,000 from the present Rs 50,000 for nutritious meal workers. Also, cash benefits for chef and cooking assistants would also be increased to Rs 25,000 from Rs 20,000, she said. She also announced relaxation in service norms covering eligibility for promotion. In the Rural Development Department, eligibility for supervisors for getting promoted to the post of Junior Engineer would now be reduced to seven years from ten years, she said. A total of 157 associate professors serving in Government Medical College Hospitals would be promoted as professors. Bringing 1,500 nurses under time-scale of pay, promotion for 605 village sanitary nurses, hike of Rs 5000 in honorarium for guest lecturers --from Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 per month, setting up an administrative tribunal were among other announcements, she made. On representations related to pay, issues like bringing those under consolidated pay into the time-scale bracket and parity will be examined by the pay commission, she said. "I believe that the new announcements will pave the way for government employees work with a new vigour," she said. Legislators, including CK Thamizharasan (RPI) and Jawahirullah (Manithaneya Makkal Katchi), praised and welcomed the new announcements. OneIndia News (With inputs from agencies) For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 19, 2016, 18:08 [IST] Meet who is PM Modis competitor on foreign trips India oi-Jagriti New Delhi, Feb 19: It seems that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has got a competitor when it comes to his foreign visits. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who spent a whopping Rs 638 million on his foreign trips has emerged as the competitor for his counterpart Narendra Modi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid 33 foreign trips till December 2015. His foreign trips have always attracted the Opposition's wrath. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed the National Assembly yesterday that Sharif has spent a total of 185 days abroad in 65 foreign tours with accompanying staff of 631 officers. Sharif came to power in June 2013 and has been regularly going abroad, despite growing criticism by opposition and media. His trips have cost the national exchequer Rs 638.27 million. In stark contrast to his stay abroad during his tenure, Sharif visited the National Assembly just 35 times during his 940 days in power. According to the data provided the National Assembly, Sharif visited Britain 17 times, spending about two months in the UK, of which 32 days were listed as official stay while 24 were listed as transits. However, during each transit, Sharif stopped for at least a couple of days which cost the exchequer Rs 137.8 million. After the UK, Sharif spent most of his time in the US, visiting the country for 18 days. He also visited Saudi Arabia five times, followed by the US and China which he visited four times. Turkey was Sharif's another favoured destination which he visited at least once every year. Tough days ahead for PM Modi: Rahul Gandhi emerges as challenger' to him Pakistan has received a slew of loans from international lenders to improve its economic condition. The World Bank approved a USD 500 million loan to Pakistan for energy sector reform last year. IMF also agreed to grant USD 502 million to the country under a bailout package arrangement. The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank decided to give USD 2 billion to Pakistan for energy sector reforms under a medium-term programme. The programme was part of USD 10 billion that the international lenders had agreed to provide over a period of three years. OneIndia News (With agency inputs) President's rule lifted in Arunachal; paves way for new govt India oi-PTI New Delhi, Feb 19: With the Supreme Court paving the way for government formation, President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh was today lifted that could usher in a new dispensation headed by dissident Congress leader Kalikho Pul. President Pranab Mukherjee has given his approval to the Union Cabinet's recommendation for revocation of President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh, a Home Ministry official said. The President's nod came after the last ditch effort of Congress leader and deposed Chief Minister Nabam Tuki seeking an interim direction that his party be allowed to go for a floor test in the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly to prove majority was rejected by the Supreme Court today. The Union Cabinet had recommended the withdrawal of President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh on Wednesday after Pul, accompanied by 31 MLAs, including Congress rebels, BJP and independents met Governor J P Rajkhowa and stake claim to form a new government. A revolt by Congress dissidents led by Pul led to a political crisis in the state that finally led to imposition of President's rule on January 26. Tuki reportedly has the support of 26 MLAs in the 60-member Assembly. Congress, which had 47 MLAs in the 60-member assembly, suffered a jolt when 21 of its lawmakers revolted against Tuki's leadership. Eleven BJP MLAs and two independents backed the rebels in the bid to upstage the government. Later, 14 rebel Congress MLAs were disqualified by the Speaker. The Supreme Court was considering pleas against imposition of President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh and also hearing petitions seeking examination of constitutional schemes on the scope of discretionary powers of the Governor. After Centre's recommendation for withdrawal of President's rule, Congress moved to the Supreme Court and got an order for maintenance of status quo in the crisis-ridden state till it examined judicial and assembly records on disqualification of 14 rebel Congress MLAs by former Speaker Nabam Rebia. However, yesterday, the apex court virtually paved the way for government formation in Arunachal Pradesh by vacating its order on maintenance of status quo, after being satisfied with the Gauhati High Court order staying the disqualification of the 14 rebel Congress MLAs. Congress again moved the Supreme Court today but the Supreme Court rejected its plea for an interim direction that it be allowed to go in for a floor test in the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly to prove majority. PTI Setback for Salman Khan! SC issues notice to actor in hit-and-run case India oi-Reetu New Delhi, Feb 19: In what may be a setback for Bollywood actor Salman Khan, the Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Bollywood actor on Maharashtra's plea against his acquittal in the 2002 hit-and- run case. The Maharashtra government's petition challenged a Bombay High Court verdict acquitting Salman in the 2002 accident case. AAP leader Kumar Vishwas to replace Salman Khan as TV host? Issuing notice returnable in six weeks, an apex court bench comprising Justice Jagjit Singh Khehar and Justice C. Nagappan told Salman Khan that "it would be much, much better if he gets acquittal from this court as it will save him from all the repercussions". Senior counsel Kapil Sibal, appearing for Salman Khan, took the court through the proceedings of the trial court, contending that his conviction was based on the testimony of one person, which cannot be relied upon. Salman Khan's picture in voter slip in Hyderabad He said besides that there was no other evidence before the trial court to convict Salman Khan in the case. However, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi that besides the sole witness being pointed to by Sibal, there were scores of other witnesses at the accident spot who saw Salman Khan in the driver's seat of the vehicle that ran over a group of people sleeeping on a pavement, killing one of them. OneIndia News (With inputs from agencies) For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 19, 2016, 13:28 [IST] Bihar: Girls protest after being asked to remove Hijab during exam Central team roped in as dengue cases in Bihar rise to over 5000 Trains stopped in Bihar over Kanhaiya's release demand India oi-IANS By Ians English Patna, Feb 19: Nearly half a dozen trains were forcibly stopped in Bihar on Friday by hundreds of students, mostly activists of student bodies of left parties and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), demanding release of JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, officials said. The students, shouting slogans, stopped Sampark Kranti Express at Darbhanga railway station, Janki express at Khagaria railway station, Jainagar Samastipur passenger train at Madhubani railway station and other trains at different railway stations across the state, according to reports reaching here. The student bodies of left parties including All India Students Federation (AISF), All India Students' Association (AISA), Students' Federations of India (SFI) called for 'rail chakka jam' on Friday to protest against Kanhaiya's arrest and to demand his release. The student's wing of Bihar's ruling RJD also extended its support to thestudent bodies of the left parties. Kanhaiya is accused of raising anti-national slogans at an event on the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus in Delhi last week, a charge he has denied. IANS Couple killed as their bike hit by speeding vehicle on Delhi-Dehradun highway UP shocker: Minor raped, lured with Rs2 to remain silent India oi-Jagriti Lucknow, Feb 19: A minor girl has allegedly been raped and offered Rs2 to remain silent on the issue in Uttar Pradesh, media reported. According to reports, the accused kidnapped the eight-year-old girl from Meerganj in Bareily distric and took her to an isolated place to rape her. Minor was also accompanied by her friend. The incident took place when the victim was on her way to school. "The two girls reached home with injuries and bleeding they were immediately taken to the community health centre, who in turn referred them to the district hospital," Senior Superintendent of Police R K Bharadwaj was quoted as saying by Pradesh 18. Delhi shocker: Minor rape victim delivers dead foetus at metro station The victim's condition is serious and case has been filed against unidentified man. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 19, 2016, 12:39 [IST] Why is Headley not talking about Karachi project? India oi-Vicky New Delhi, Feb 19: Is anyone interested in finding out the status of the Karachi project? During the testimony by David Headley before a Mumbai court, he did speak about coming back to India after the 26/11 attack. He was clearly not back on a holiday but was here for a specific purpose of surveying locations which were to be targeted as part of the Karachi Project. What is the Karachi Project. It is a project devised by the ISI and the Lashkar-e-Tayiba in the year 2003. The plan was to carry out a series of coordinated attacks in India and the 26/11 attack was also part of it. The ISI even roped in the Indian Mujahideen to carry out attacks in the country. Headley should have been probed more about Karachi Project: All through his week long testimony, Headley spoke about how he returned to India in 2009 and visited various places such as Pune and Rajasthan. The fact of the matter is that he has shot videos and pictures of several locations and shared it with his handler Sajid Mir. Prior to his deposition, it was quite clear that he would provide no fresh insights. While he has the cover of his plea bargain deal in the US which bars an extradition and death sentence, in India too he was quickly awarded a pardon. The Mumbai court upon being told by Headley that he would depose, granted him pardon and made him an approver in the case. Did the court act too early by granting him pardon? This acted as a shield for Headley who gave no fresh insight. The prosecution too has not asked anything much about the Karachi Project which Headley has worked on. The ISI has information given by Headley and could well be used when they plot future attacks. The prosecution could have done better while cross examining him and should have asked him more questions about the Karachi Project. Instead, the entire week was spent on speaking about what all of us already know. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 19, 2016, 10:14 [IST] French PM in Mali as security fears grow for W. Africa International oi-PTI Bamako, Feb 19: French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has described the fight against Islamic militancy as a "battle against barbarity" as he visited Mali, where France has had troops tackling rebels and jihadist groups since 2013. The country's vast northern stretches continue to be beset by violence having fallen under the control of Tuareg-led rebels and jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in 2012. The Islamists sidelined the Tuareg to take sole control, and although they were largely ousted by a French-led military operation in January 2013, extremist groups still pose a threat. "Today, reconciliation is in progress," said Valls yesterday, who visited Bamako accompanied by defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, referring to the peace accord signed by the government and the Tuareg rebels last year. "Liberty must be defended. France is fully engaged. It's in essence a battle of humanity against barbarity," Valls said, speaking to members of the French community after meeting with Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. Although Mali has concluded a landmark peace agreement between the government and Tuareg-led rebels, jihadist violence has intensified on the ground and the management of the transition to peace has been criticised by the international community. Today, Valls will visit Gao, the largest city in Mali's troubled north, to meet with French troops stationed there as part of the anti-insurgent Operation Barkhane. Barkhane comprises at least 3,500 soldiers deployed across five countries (Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso) with a mandate to combat jihadist insurgencies in the region. Valls will spend two days in Mali and will then fly to Burkina Faso, both of which have been scarred by recent jihadist attacks. A November attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali's capital, Bamako, left 20 people dead, while in January, gunmen killed 30 people at a top hotel in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou, an assault claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Valls is also due to meet the chief of the UN force, known as MINUSMA, today, just days after a jihadist attack on its base killed seven Guinean peacekeepers, as well as the head of an EU military training mission in the country. AFP Horror in jail: 100 bodies found buried in sewer system in Colombia International oi-Jagriti Bogota, Feb 19: Authorities in Colombia have found remains of at least 100 people in drain pipes at a jail, media reported. Body remains of around 100 people recovered from the sewer system on La Modelo in Bogota, one of Colombia's largest and most overpopulated prisons, reported CNN. Authorities are focusing on investigation of disappearance and dismemberment of at least 100 people. Similar incident might have also occurred in other prisons such as Popayan, Bucaramanga and Barranquilla between 1999 and 2001 and possibly later. "Colombian attorney general's office has been investigating what happened at La Modelo for months," Caterina Heyck Puyana, a special prosecutor in charge of the case was quoted as saying. "Towards the end of last year we began investigating the possible disappearance and dismemberment of an undetermined number of people at La Modelo prison in Bogota," Heyck said. Colombia sees sharp rise in Zika cases "The victims were inmates, visitors and people who had nothing to do with the prison. Their remains were thrown into the drain pipes of the sewer system," Heyck added. Colombian jails are among the most overcrowded and is known for its violence in Latin America. OneIndia News For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 19, 2016, 10:48 [IST] India needs to resume talks with Pakistan: Daily International oi-IANS By Ians English Islamabad, Feb 19: Indian officials really ought to be directing their energies to achieving an immediate resumption of the bilateral dialogue with Pakistan, an influential Pakistani daily said Friday, adding that New Delhi should not be annoyed over the the sale by the US of F-16 fighters to this country. An editorial "Indian objections to F-16 sale" in the Dawn on Friday said that the sale of F-16 aircraft has appeared to annoy India more than it helps Pakistan's overall counter-insurgency efforts. It should not. "But the very fact that it does - that New Delhi appears to feel it necessary to protest the American sale of F-16 aircraft to Pakistan - demonstrates the extent to which the Pakistan-India relationship needs to be protected from reactionaries in India," it said. The daily said it may be true that the use of F-16s is not central or fundamental to the Pakistani counter-insurgency effort in Fata. "But neither are the additional aircraft vital for Pakistan's overall deterrence efforts against India." "What is troubling though is that Indian authorities appear to insist that the Pakistan-US relationship has some automatic implications for the Pakistan-India context. It does not. "Eight new aircraft does not change the strategic - or operational balance - anymore than a similar addition of similar aircraft by India would." India hits back at Pakistan on Afzal Guru remark It noted that much as Pakistan - and possibly India - is trying to restart dialogue between the two countries, it appears that the old approach continues to dominate. "The Pakistani state's deterrence against armed conflict with India has neither been shaped nor determined by US arms transfers. "Much as Pakistan achieved deterrence capability against India while US sanctions were in effect against Pakistan, the same logic applies today: US transfers to Pakistan will not change the latter's fundamental ability to protect itself against Indian hegemony." The daily went on to say that perhaps what Indian authorities ought to consider is another reality: can Pakistan really ever defeat terror - the kinds that threaten the Pakistani state and also regional powers - if it does not have all the necessary tools at its disposal? "India wants to not only dictate to Pakistan what the latter's national security interests ought to be, but also the manner in which they ought to be fought - and the resources with which they should be fought. "Pakistan has every right to the F-16s and doubly so when it comes to the possibility of using them to combat perhaps the foremost threat to regional stability." It added: "What Indian officials really ought to be directing their energies to is achieving an immediate resumption of the bilateral dialogue. Pakistan and India deserve better than the old approach of endless complaints and no forward movement." IANS 12-year-old Indian in Guinness World Record for identifying most aeroplane tails in UAE Indian security forces get non-lethal weapons inspired by traditional weapons to tackle Chinese army After attack in DR Congo, India calls for UNSC meet Watch: Four Indian women racially abused in Texas in most horrific manner 8 month old among 4 Indian origin people abducted in California Indian national holding Pakistani NIC arrested in Islamabad International oi-IANS By Ians English Islamabad, Feb 19: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested an Indian citizen holding a Pakistani National Identity Card (NIC) in capital Islamabad, the media reported on Friday. Rustam Sadhua has been accused of obtaining a Pakistani NIC through fraudulent means and was arrested on Thursday after his application for pre-arrest bail was rejected by a court, Dawn online reported. FIA sources claim Sadhua is the brother-in-law of Pakistani member of National Assembly Asfandyar Bhandara and arrived in the country in 1982, later obtaining an NIC. Sadhua had filed an application for pre-arrest bail in the court of special judge central, Malik Nazeer, which was rejected, leading to his arrest. When contacted, Bhandara expressed satisfaction over the Indian citizen's arrest. Bhandara said he had time and again complained about the suspect's conduct and had publicly dissociated himself from Sadhua. "This man has defamed my late father and my family and I hope his other frauds also surface during investigation," said Bhandara. Police will present Sadhua in court again on Saturday to obtain a physical remand. IANS A rocket will crash into the Moon today: Here is what will happen Kim Jong-Un calls for more rocket launches International oi-PTI Seoul, Feb 19: North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un says his reclusive nation plans more "satellite launches" -- which the West sees as a cover for ballistic missile tests -- calling space exploration a "strategic goal", state media said today. "Conquering space is ... a fierce class struggle against the hostile forces seeking to usurp our peace and sovereignty", Kim was quoted as saying at a Wednesday awards ceremony for those involved in this month's rocket launch. He also underscored the need to successfully launch "more working satellites", Pyongyang's KCNA news agency said. "The advance toward space... is the DPRK's (North Korea's) strategic goal", he said. Calling the scientists involved in the February 7 launch "best patriots and admirable heroes", Kim gave out medals, prizes and wristwatches bearing the names of the two late leaders of the Kim dynasty -- Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il. North Korea sparked international outrage with the launch of the Kwangmyongsong-4 satellite, which came just a month after its fourth nuclear test. The launch, which most in the international community viewed as a disguised ballistic missile test, violated multiple UN resolutions banning the nuclear-armed country from the use of ballistic technology. The United States, along with Asian allies South Korean and Japan, are spearheading efforts at the UN Security Council for a strong resolution that will impose harsh sanctions on Pyongyang over the recent nuclear test and rocket launch. Separately, US President Barack Obama on Thursday signed off on new sanctions against North Korea, aimed at anyone importing goods or technology related to weapons of mass destruction into the North, or anyone who knowingly engaged in human rights abuses there. The measure also heaps additional financial pressure on the already-sanctioned regime by taking aim at money laundering and narcotics trafficking, two major illicit activities believed to be funnelling millions of dollars into Kim's inner circle. Under the bill already passed by Congress, penalties for the sanctionable activities would include the seizure of assets, visa bans and denial of government contracts. And for the first time, it establishes a framework for sanctions in response to North Korean cyber threats. AFP AMS Nepal's PM KP Oli leading 77-member jumbo delegation to India International oi-PTI Kathmandu, Feb 19: Nepal's Prime Minister K P Oli today left for India, leading a jumbo 77-member delegation on a fence-mending visit that is aimed at normalising ties after turbulence caused by the country's new Constitution. This would be Oli's first visit to a foreign country since taking over as prime minister some five months ago. During the six-day visit, Oli will be accompanied by wife Radhika Shakya, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Kamal Thapa, Finance Minister Bishnu Poudyal, Energy Minister Top Bahadur Rayamaji and Home Minister Shakti Basnet. The council of ministers yesterday approved a list of 46 people for the prime minister's delegation and six officials will be included from the Nepalese Embassy in Delhi. There will be 25 members from Nepal's business community and parliamentarians representing various political parties, including two from Madhesi parties in the delegation. No lawmaker from the main opposition party Nepali Congress has been included in the prime minister's entourage. The visit comes after a turbulence in bilateral ties over protests by Madhesis who share close family and cultural ties with Indians against Nepal's new Constitution. Earlier this month, the Madhesis announced withdrawal of their protests including the border blockade. They had launched an agitation protesting against the new Constitution promulgated on September 20 last year, saying it failed to address their concerns over representation and homeland. Jitendra Dev, vice president of Madhesi Peoples Rights forumDemocratic -- a ruling coalition partner -- and Dimple Jha, belonging to a smaller Madhesi party, are the two Madhesi lawmakers in Oli's delegation. Chief Secretary of Nepal government Somlal Subedi and Foreign Secretary Shanker Das Bairagi would also accompany Oli. Oli is visiting at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from today, according to a press release issued by the Foreign ministry here. While in New Delhi, Oli will call on President Pranab Mukherjee and Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari. He will talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Hyderabad House. He is scheduled to address the Indian Council of World Affairs at Sapru House and the Indian business community. The Nepalese Prime Minister will inspect Tehri Hydropower Project in Uttarakhand and will also visit Bhuj in Gujarat to get acquainted with the post-earthquake reconstruction there. He will also head to Mumbai to meet business leaders before wrapping up his six day visit. PTI Scorpio car swept by flash floods in AP even as driver tried to steer it away | WATCH Pakistani driver involved in accident freed by India International oi-IANS By Ians English Islamabad, Feb 19: A Pakistani truck driver arrested by Indian police after he accidentally ran over a labourer in the neighbouring country was released, a media report said on Friday. According to a press release issued by the Customs Collectorate (Preventive) Lahore on Thursday, Ali Mohammad, a resident of Makin district in North Waziristan, was arrested on April 27, 2015, when an Indian labourer died after being hit by his truck, Dawn online reported. The accident took place when the driver was unloading a gypsum consignment at the Indian Customs Port in Attari. The driver was to return to Pakistan the same day, in accordance with the time-specific entry permit issued by the Customs authorities at the Wagah border crossing. However, he was detained detained after the accident. Pakistan Customs kept taking up the matter with the Indian authorities through the Indian Customs, using the platform of Customs Border Liaison Committee (CBLC). In the last CBLC meeting held in India on January 28, the matter was again raised by the Pakistani officials. On Wednesday, Ali Mohammad was handed over by the Indians to the Customs Deputy Collector of the Land Freight Unit, Tauqeer Ahmed Dar, at Zero Point. IANS Subramanian Swamy calls on Oli; discuss ways to normalise Indo-Nepal ties International oi-PTI Kathmandu, Feb 19: On the eve of Nepal Prime Minister K P Oli's maiden India visit, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Thursday, Feb 18, called on him and other leaders to find ways to bring back normalcy in bilateral ties after the turbulence caused by Nepal's new Constitution. Swamy, who flew in here in the morning, called on Oli as well as Maoist supremo Prachanda. "It was an informal visit aimed to see whether Indo-Nepal relations can be brought back to more rationality because the blockade (by Madhesis) has been lifted," Swamy said. Swamy, who enjoys close relations with Nepalese leaders, said he made some suggestions to the Nepalese leaders to bring back normalcy in Indo-Nepal ties. Oli is embarking on a six- day visit to India from today. During the talks, the Indian leader stressed on the need to address the concerns of the Madhesis, mostly of Indian origin, who have been opposing Nepal's new Constitution as they felt that the provisions of the new charter would marginalise them. Oli had earlier said that he would not travel to India unless the Madhesis lifted the "illegal and inhumane" blockade. Earlier this month, the Madhesis announced withdrawal of their protests including the border blockade. They had launched an agitation protesting against the new Constitution promulgated on September 20 last year, saying it failed to address their concerns over representation and homeland. Swamy said he impressed upon the Nepali leaders that they should keep in check "anti-Hindu forces" in the country. He also said Nepal should "not to look for other allies", an apparent reference to China. Earlier some reports had said that Oli could visit China before India due to hiccups in India-Nepal ties over the Madhesi issue. Amid strain in Indo-Nepal ties, China was seen by analysts as getting closer to Nepal especially by providing essential goods to the land-locked nation. Oli has said that he will visit China within a month after his India trip as part of his government's policy to enhance cooperation with immediate neighbours. PTI For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications Story first published: Friday, February 19, 2016, 12:05 [IST] 'US airstrikes destroy over USD 500 mln ISIS cash reserves' International oi-PTI Washington, Feb 19: US airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria have reportedly destroyed more than USD 500 million cash reserves and 20 kilogrammes of gold stored by the terror group. The estimate comes amid reports that the terror group is facing cash shortage in its so-called caliphate, slashing the perks and salaries of its fighters across the region. Recent reports have stated that the extremist group has started accepting only dollars for "tax" payments, water and electric bills. The US believes that airstrikes in Iraq and Syria have destroyed more than USD 500 million in cash that ISIS used to pay its fighters and fund its terror and military operations, ABC News reported. That is probably a low estimate, a US official was quoted as saying. The official said the figure is in "the high hundreds of millions of dollars." An additional 20 kilogrammes of gold is also believed to have been destroyed by the airstrikes, the report said. As part of the effort to weaken ISIS, the US military has struck at the terror group's finances, particularly its lucrative oil smuggling enterprise in Syria that provides revenue for its operations. The US also began targeting ISIS "cash distribution centres" in Syria where it stored hard cash used for its operations. Ten strikes have been conducted since then with the most high profile being two airstrikes in Mosul, in northern Iraq, targeting facilities that American officials characterised as ISIS banks. As proof of their successful targeting the US-led coalition released video of one of the Mosul airstrikes that showed what appeared to be large amounts of bills fluttering in the air after the airstrike. American officials believe the strikes have had an impact on ISIS operations often citing anecdotal reports that ISIS fighters are now being paid half what they had been receiving prior to the airstrikes. "It's a significant amount of cash that we believe was in those various collection points before we struck them," Colonel Steve Warren, the US military spokesman in Baghdad, told reporters this week at a Pentagon briefing. According to Warren, the US now estimates that "hundreds of millions of dollars" in cash has been destroyed by airstrikes targeting ISIS financial centers. The official said five airstrikes near Mosul this weekend targeted two ISIS financial distribution centers and two ISIS financial storage centers. PTI JNU fiasco: Pakistan backs arrested Kashmiri students, says report New Delhi oi-Shubham New Delhi, Feb 19: Pakistan on Thursday said it is concerned over the arrest of Kashmiri students who are related to a controversial debate at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), which has snowballed into a major controversy, a Mail Today report said. [JNU: Freedom of speech Modi-fied in New Delhi, says article in Pak newspaper] Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Muhammad Nafees Zakria said the people of Kashmir never accepted the 'unfair' trial of Afzal Guru, who was convicted in the 2001 Parliament attack case and hanged three years ago, the report said. Pakistan's remark added fuel to the heated political atmosphere in the country. The Congress hit out at the NDA government over the Pakistani remark, saying its "inept handling" of the university issue gave the neighbouring country to embarras India, the report added. "We are against any anti-national slogans. But the Modi government mishandled the issue and this provided Pakistan an opportunity to exploit the situation," the Mail Todat report quoted Congress spokesperson Meem Afzal as saying. He said the JNU crisis was blown out of proportion. The BJP, on the other hand, said Pakistan's support to Guru was a 'submission of guilt' for a series of attacks in India, ranging from that against Parliament in 2001 to this year's attack at the Pathankot airbase. " Their (Pakistan) support for Afzal Guru is an unequivocal admission on their part and might be a self goal in their enthusiasm to meddle in India's internal affairs such as JNU," the report quoted BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli. He also said "concerned agencies" would explore all angles when asked whether the JNU incident would create an opportunity for outsiders to fish in troubled waters. Oneindia News 2008-2022 One News Page Ltd. All rights reserved. One News is a registered trademark of One News Page Ltd. Our website uses cookies to improve your experience. Learn more No fewer than 15 serving Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) councillors in Kwara on Monday, defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of Governorship and State Assembly Elections. The defectors, who were drawn from five out 16 local government areas of the state, said they defected to APC in the interest of the masses. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that they were elected on the platform of PDP in November 2017. Speaking on behalf of the defectors, Hon Suleiman Taoheed representing Ajanaku Ward in Moro Local Government Area, explained that the current PDP administration in Kwara had failed. We are tired of lies and poor performance of the incumbent administration in the state and as a result, we cannot be left behind in building better and brighter Kwara. Everybody is complaining about the political hegemony in Kwara because the system has not brought positive changes to the people of the state, Taoheed said. He promised on behalf of the defectors to mobilise electorate in their respective wards and vote en masse for all APC candidates on Saturday. They also pledged their support for AbdulRahman Abdulrasaq, the APC governorship candidate, stating that he had good plans for the state considering his antecedents. They revealed that more serving councillors would join APC before Saturday. Receiving the defectors, Dr. Alimi Abdulrasaq, an APC stalwart and brother to the governorship flag bearer said that they would not regret their decision. Abdulrasaq noted that his brother, when elected would ensure that local governments have full autonomy, and draw government closer to the people at the grassroots. He urged them to mobilise electorate to vote Abdulrahman Abdulrasaq and all APC state assembly candidates in the elections. The defected councillors are: Adam Tsado, (Edu), Ogundele Segun, (Isin), James Kayode, (Ilorin East), Aremu Jamiu, (Moro), Olorunrinu Suleiman, (Ilorin South) Others are: Omolara Sanni, (Isin), Adebayo Olatayo, (Isin) Saheed Abdulwasiu, (Isin) Saheed Musbau, (Isin) Adeyemi Oladele, (Isin) Suleiman Taoheed, (Isin), Ishola Seunayo, (Isin) among others. (NAN) Super Falcons suffered yet another defeat Monday in the Cyprus cup. Falcons who managed to defeat Slovakia 4-3 on Wednesday lost by a loan goal to Belgium in the final group game. The team thus finished third in group C with only three points in three matches. Austria who handed Falcons their first baptism of fire at the event top the group with seven points. Belgium finished second in the group with seven points like Austria but with inferior goal difference. Second African representatives at the event Bayana Bayana finished last in group A after losing their last match 2-1 to Czech Republic. The only edge the Falcons have over Bayana Bayana in the tournament is that they managed to win a match while the South Africans drew a match and lost two. The six teams that made impressive run of the tournament are Korea DPR and Czech Republic who finished first and second in Group A, Italy and Mexico who finished first and second in Group B and Austria and Belgium who finished first and second in Group C. Reprinted from Alon Ben Meir Blog One of the main prerequisites to defeating ISIS in Iraq and stabilizing the country is the establishment of an independent Sunni Iraqi state alongside the current Shiite government and the autonomous Kurdish entity. As long as the Sunni Iraqis do not know what the future has in store for them, they will be unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices to battle ISIS only to benefit the Shiite government in Baghdad, which they despise even more than ISIS. Concurrently with the fight against ISIS, the Obama administration must begin to negotiate with the Shiite government in Baghdad over the future status of the Sunnis in Iraq. For the White House to still believe that Iraq somehow can be stitched together following the defeat of ISIS is a gross illusion. Iraq's partition into three entities became de facto immediately following the Iraq war in 2003. Having lost their dominance of Iraq to the Shiites in 2003 after 81 years of continuous rule, the Sunnis still refuse to accept what they consider to be an historic travesty. This was further aggravated by eight years of the Shiite government led by Nouri al-Maliki, who abused his power and marginalized, mistreated, and victimized the Sunni community. The fact is the coalition of more than a dozen countries, led by the US, to battle ISIS from the air and ground has thus far failed due to: 1) a lack of a comprehensive strategy that will include, in addition to the Iraqis, a significant number of ground troops assembled from some EU but mostly from Arab states and led by the US, and 2) the absence of a strategy about the future of the Iraqi Sunnis before they can be fully enlisted to fight against ISIS, which occupies much of their three provinces. The Sunnis find themselves inadvertently and often voluntarily supporting ISIS as they are more religiously aligned with ISIS than with the Shiite majority, who appear to be determined to control the levers of power in all walks of life and continue to subjugate the Sunni community. The presumed unity government in Iraq that the US sought is a farce. There is no unity; Prime Minister Abadi is weak and has done little to pacify the Sunnis in his country. Iran exerts significant political influence in Baghdad and is actively engaged in the fight against ISIS, to which the US has quietly acquiesced, especially following the Iran deal. The Sunni Iraqis do not view Iran's involvement as transient, and learning from their past experience, they will under no circumstances surrender their future to the whims of Tehran, which they consider to be a staunch enemy. A top Iraqi official recently told me he didn't see how Iraq can be restored to the pre-2003 status. It is painful, but we must now accept the new reality and act soon, and perhaps restore some civility and work together with the Kurds and the Sunnis, albeit under separate political rule. The Saudis, who are alarmed by Iran's regional ambitions and its systematic violent meddling in the Arab states' domestic affairs -- in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and many other countries -- strongly feel that only by allowing the Sunni Iraqis to establish their own autonomy can they prevent Iran from completely controlling Iraq. Moreover, given the fact (which the US recognizes) that the Iraqi Kurds are on their way to complete independence, it will be impossible to keep the Sunnis at bay. In a May 2015 meeting in DC, President Masoud Barzani of Iraqi Kurdistan publicly declared his intention to move toward independence, which was later confirmed by a top US official as being inevitable. Although the Kurds suffered greatly under Saddam Hussein's Sunni regime, they now see eye-to-eye with the Sunnis as both consider the Shiite government to be hostile and reject the idea of federalism, regardless of how loosely connected they will be to the central government in Baghdad. The US must now begin a dialogue with the Iraqi government and the Sunni leadership to establish a framework for Iraqi Sunni political autonomy along the Iraqi Kurdish model, which will eventually lead to complete independence. Given the lack of oil in the three Sunnis provinces, the central issue that must be addressed in the context of Sunni independence is equitable distribution of the country's oil revenue. This would require a strict, internationally monitored, and binding mechanism from the UN Security Council to ensure permanent and full compliance. The Sunnis need unequivocal assurance that under no circumstances will any Shiite government withhold distribution of funds and hold the Sunni state hostage without suffering immediate and clearly spelled out political and financial consequences, including crippling sanctions and the suspension of any financial and military aid. The Iraqi Kurds have already established such a precedent as they transfer funds from their independent oil sales to the Iraqi central government, despite the recent dispute with Baghdad over the payment of Kurdish salaries in exchange for oil. To be sure, the three independent states will have to work out a formula that will satisfy their legitimate share of oil revenue. Reprinted from Reader Supported News About 15 years ago, I spoke with a young African American woman who was a Congressional aide on Capitol Hill. As we spoke, I extolled the virtues of the Democratic Party's relationship with black leaders and the African American community. I pointed to the vibrant Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) as evidence of the empowerment of African American leadership in America. But she had a funny look on her face that gave me pause. In a moment she said, "You know, Capitol Hill is the greatest plantation of all. The hours we work, the wages we get, what is expected of us, the whole system -- it's crazy." Every presidential election, African American voters turn out in numbers above 90 percent to vote for the Democratic candidate, like clockwork. The reason for that was succinctly summed up by the father of former Republican congressman J.C. Watts Jr., J.C. (Buddy) Watts Sr., who said simply, "A black person voting for a Republican is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders." But what is expected of the Black community, which really has nowhere else to go politically? A number of things are expected -- foremost, allegiance to Democratic Party bosses. The plantation analogy was a sharp-edged reminder of the Democratic Party's not very distant post-Civil War past. Up until the 1960s, the Democratic Party did more to prevent African American empowerment than to facilitate it. Southern Democrats, also known for generations as Dixiecrats, were often sons and daughters of the Confederacy. As Lincoln was a Republican, Southern whites fled from anything Republican and into the ranks of a very welcoming Democratic Party for a hundred years. It was not until Richard Nixon reached out to the Dixiecrats in 1968 and made them welcome in the Republican Party that a Republican could get elected dogcatcher south of the Mason-Dixon line. Nixon's timing was no coincidence. In the 1960s, African American activists had begun to pressure the Democratic Party to accept change and adopt civil rights as a part of the national platform, alienating the old Jim Crow wing of the Democratic Party. Nixon saw that and capitalized on it with what came to be known as his Southern Strategy. From the African American perspective, black Americans, and Southern blacks in particular, were tired of the rampant discrimination, segregation, and violence against blacks that persisted in the South. They wanted an end to systemic injustice, and they saw voting rights as key to effecting those changes. There was a resolve on the part of black leaders that if meaningful change in terms of civil rights were to take place, African American leaders would have to challenge the Democratic Party power structure head-on. They did. In August of 1964, the Democratic Convention was held in Atlantic City, New Jersey. It was also "Freedom Summer." President Lyndon B. Johnson was nominated Democratic candidate for president, Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota for Vice President. But history little notes the historic presence and actions of the all-black Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). The MFDP challenged the all-white Mississippi delegation as not having been chosen in accordance with Democratic Party rules. Quite true, as no black was allowed to participate in the process. MFDP activists mounted a protest on the floor of the convention, demanding a voice. A deal was struck. Johnson would choose 68 MFDP members as "at large delegates." Two would have voting rights. The groundwork was laid for constructive black political opposition to the Democratic Party power structure. Change, real change, was now possible. Change is again in the air this election cycle. Again the Democratic Party is resisting that change. Again it will take courage and action to achieve meaningful change. Voters, black and white alike, are faced with a stark choice -- the same choice, incidentally, they were faced with in 2008. Does our country urgently need change? In 2008 the voters, black and white alike, said yes. So far in 2016, the tide for change seems even stronger. The Democratic Party bosses, however, are sending a clear signal who they want to be nominated for president in 2016, and it's not the candidate of change. Thursday evening at the University of Virginia four expert pollsters performed a dramatic act of self-experimentation in which they demonstrated that, using a map and two hands, they would still be incapable of finding their ass. The brave participants included Glenn Bolger who promotes and does polling for Republican senators, Congress members, and governors at Public Opinion Strategies; Courtney Kennedy who is director of survey research at Pew Research Center; Mark Mellman who promotes and does polling for Democratic senators, Congress members, and governors; and Doug Usher who works for Purple Insights and supports the two political parties the name suggests. The event was put on by the Center for Politics which was trying to hand out stickers that said "Politics is a good thing." I didn't see anyone accept one. The event had been titled "How Polls Influence Public Opinion," which was why I went. But the moderator, Kyle Kondik, and the four panelists never mentioned that topic. During Q&A someone in the audience asked about it, and was given the answer: Oh, no, polls don't influence the public. Also, I discovered, the public doesn't influence pollsters. This gang (Usher in particular) described Senator Bernie Sanders as someone who had succeeded with an issue that no one would ever have expected, namely breaking up the big banks. You know who would have expected that issue to succeed? Anyone who had read any polls, or who saw the Occupy movement, or who talked to people, or who read history, or who watched 99 Homes. The four Demoplicans similarly described Sanders as a person whom nobody would ever have expected to succeed as the messenger of that unexpected issue. You know who would have expected Sanders to succeed? Anyone who followed his high ranking in popularity in Congress and the Senate in the polls, or who watched the reaction to his filibuster. Despite noting Sander's inexplicable success, these four (Bolger in particular) talked entirely as if the Democratic presidential nomination were guaranteed for Hillary Clinton. The giant crowds, the polls, the Iowa and New Hampshire results: it's as if none of that exists in the minds of these Washingtonians who emerged from the Beltway for this event, two of them apparently getting lost or just stuck in traffic in the process. Bolger did predict that Hillary's victory might be only due to the votes of the superdelegates and predicted a spot of trouble for the Democrats as a result. Are any of these pollsters aware of what the polls are showing? Are they aware that the public sees and is in fact influenced by such polling results? Bizarrely, they give no indication of such awareness. I think it was Bolger again who said that Donald Trump's amazingly high polling in the area of people who view him negatively makes him very unlikely to win a general election. Bolger said the only Democrat who could lose to some of the non-Trump Republicans would be Hillary Clinton because of her quite high negatives. Bolger then made clear that in saying that Clinton was the only Democrat who could lose, he was contrasting her with imaginary Democrats not actually in the race, but he added parenthetically that of course Bernie Sanders could lose too. Bolger didn't explain why that would be, perhaps because his argument would have fallen apart if he'd looked at any polls . Mellman pushed on the audience Thursday evening the idea that Bernie Sanders voters would simply back Hillary Clinton if she were nominated. He may have gotten that idea (he didn't say) from articles like the one in the USA Today that said "Most Bernie Sanders voters OK with Hillary Clinton winning." That was the headline, but if you read the article you discovered the claim that 59% of Sanders' supporters would "be OK" with Clinton winning. Think about that for a minute. If Clinton and Sanders split the Democratic Party, and Clinton wins (or "wins" with superdelegates), and then 41% of Sanders' people hit the road because they will not support her, that's a loss of 20.5% of her voters. Goodbye Clinton dynasty! The funny thing is that the poll on which the story was supposedly based never asked the question reported on. What it asked was: "How would you feel if Hillary Clinton became the Democratic nominee -- enthusiastic, satisfied, dissatisfied, or upset?" Personally, I wouldn't wait, I'd be dissatisfied and upset right away with the poll that asked that question and not a similar question about Bernie Sanders. This is how polling influences public opinion. What percentage of Hillary voters would "be OK" with a Sanders nomination? Who the hell knows! Therefore it's not a news story. Presumably those who answered "enthusiastic" or "satisfied" were interpreted as "being OK" with a Clinton nomination, but not one person was ever actually asked "Would you support Clinton in the general election no matter whom she runs against?" During the Q&A I snuck in two questions. Usher had defended extensive reporting on polls because, he said, the alternative would be reporting on who has the most money or lawn signs. Mellman had said that many voters in Nevada are still unaware that Hillary Clinton has an opponent. So, I asked whether it wouldn't be better to report on who the candidates are and what they would do if elected. To that, Mellman gave the usual response that nobody really wants substantive reporting, and Usher replied, I kid you not, that because there are limitless websites showing where the candidates stand there's no need for such stuff on TV or in newspapers. But, of course, information that doesn't exist doesn't appear on websites. What basic outline of a budget would they propose? Would military spending rise or fall? Should media monopolies be broken up as well as banks? Should torturers finally be prosecuted? Should NAFTA be ended? Should foreign aid be increased? Would they end the use of signing statements to rewrite laws? Who knows! (Someone has figured out that Ted Cruz wants to add $140 billion per year to military spending, but how do you compare that to the other candidates who've never been asked and never volunteered their own figure?) I also asked this question: Usually popularity in the polls follows right behind media coverage while the media pretends the reverse is going on. But Sanders got almost no coverage and shot up in the polls and then still got very little coverage. Is this as unprecedented as I think? How has it happened? To that, Mellman changed the subject from polls to primaries and said that Jimmy Carter was given coverage as a reward for winning Iowa. My question remains unanswered. Kennedy said that polls show that trust in the U.S. government is at an all-time low. I can't imagine why. By Gary Null, PhD The Progressive Radio Network After their service in the Gulf War conflict from 1990-1991, hundreds of thousands of our country's veterans began suffering from multiple and diverse debilitating symptoms including neurological and respiratory disorders, chronic fatigue syndrome, psychological problems, skin conditions and gastrointestinal issues. This cluster of symptoms came to be known as Gulf War syndrome. Independent investigations, including those conducted by many of the Gulf War veterans themselves, showed multiple causes behind Gulf War syndrome, including experimental vaccines and medications; exposure to depleted uranium (DU); toxicity from biological and chemical weapons, oil fires, and other environmental contaminants. Yet for nearly two decades, the official word from the Veterans Administration (VA), the Department of Defense (DoD), and the White House was that Gulf War syndrome did not exist. The result? Countless returning military personnel struggled for years to have their physical illnesses recognized as something other than psychological. The latest official statistics compiled by the VA show that 25%-30%, or as many as 250,000 Gulf War veterans have suffered from this life-threatening spectrum of illnesses. (1) The number of deaths attributable to Gulf War syndrome remains elusive, however, the US government has failed to address this critical matter. A VA report released in 2014 weighs in on the disturbing oversight: No comprehensive information has been published on the mortality experience of U.S. Gulf War era veterans after the year 2000. The 14 years for which no mortality figures are available represent more than half of the 23 years since Desert Storm. Mortality information from the last decade is particularly crucial for understanding the health consequences of the Gulf War, given the Epidemiological Research latency periods associated with many chronic diseases of interest. Despite specific recommendations over many years from both the current Committee and Institute of Medicine panels, federal research efforts to monitor the mortality experience of 1990-1991 Gulf War veterans remain seriously inadequate. (2) How has the federal government managed to avoid taking responsibility on an issue that profoundly impacts the lives of hundreds of thousands of our veterans? Such is the power of the military-industrial complex and the political machine in Washington DC. It seems that as long as the government can deny its role in exposing our soldiers to unproven and toxic vaccines, medications, biological and chemical weapons and depleted uranium, it wouldn't have to provide medical care to the victims of Gulf War illness. This is, quite simply, one of the largest medical scandals and coverups in American history. For nearly two decades, the American media supported the official position that Gulf War Syndrome was only in the heads of our veterans, while legions of vets and their families were hung out to dry and die. The administrations of George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, have been complicit in the plot, and therefore stand accused of massive human rights violations. Yet American media denies it completely. In this special two part investigation it will become clear that these claims are not wild conspiracy theories or anti-government rants, but based on firsthand testimony from veterans and years of solid scientific research. All these facts paint a sobering picture of the insidious corruption, lies and negligence on the part of our government, which has, quite literally, killed our own. Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Since April, when Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy, I've expected her to be the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee. Only recently, given the strong showing of Bernie Sanders, have I doubted she might prevail. Meanwhile, the fierce competition for the Democratic nomination has revealed five problems with Hillary's campaign. 1. There's not a compelling narrative. I assume that Secretary Clinton is superbly qualified to be President and believe it would be a good thing for a woman to be elected to the oval office. Nonetheless, I've been disappointed in her campaign, particularly in the absence of a compelling narrative explaining why she should be elected. At the conclusion of the January 17th debate, Clinton offered, "I want to be a president who takes care of the big problems and the problems that are affecting the people of our country everyday." This marshmallow statement contrasts with Sanders solid stance: "This campaign is about is creating a process for a political revolution" bringing tens of millions of people together to demand that we have a government that represents all of us." It's a contrast in "elevator speeches." Bernie Sanders gets on board an elevator, introduces himself to a voter, and says, "I'm running for president to fix a broken system; to give power back to the people." Sanders leaves and Hillary Clinton gets on board, introduces herself, and says, what? "Vote for me because I' m the most qualified candidate." "I'd be for the first women president." ??? As was the case in 2008, Clinton doesn't have a compelling elevator speech. If Clinton wins the Democratic nomination, she's going to have to convince independent voters. (She has no chance to convert Republicans.) She'll have to develop a compelling narrative. 2. Voters are angry and Hillary doesn't seem to get it. If everything in America was terrific, if everyone was happy, then Hillary Clinton would be the odds-on favorite to win the presidency (if she wins the Democratic nomination). But that's not the case. 64 percent of voters feel that America is on the wrong track. There's no agreement on whose fault this is: 84 percent of Democrats approve of the job Obama is doing, 86 percent of Republicans disapprove, and Independents aren't sure -- 42 percent approve of Obama and 44 percent disapprove. Therefore, while Hillary Clinton may win the Democratic nomination by wrapping herself in the Obama administration this strategy won't work in the general election. In fact, most voters prefer an outsider candidate: Sander, Trump, or Cruz. 3. Voters don't find Hillary authentic. One of the reasons that Bernie Sanders did better than expected in Iowa and won New Hampshire is that those voters found him to be more compelling than Hillary Clinton in small gatherings. He appeared to be more authentic. For the record, I've met Clinton and she seemed a smart, energetic, nice person. However, The New York Times reported that among New Hampshire voters who cared about honesty and trustworthiness, "91 percent chose Sanders and only 5 percent chose Hillary Clinton." 4. Voters believe that Hillary Clinton got money from Wall Street to defend the interests of the one percent. Clinton has admitted that she received $675,000 from Wall Street speaking engagements. Given that most voters view Wall Street unfavorably and coupled with the fact that Clinton is seen as untrustworthy, this is a problem for Independent voters. 5. Secretary Clinton has a unique set of characteristics that Donald Trump can take advantage of. If Trump is the Republican nominee, he will no doubt wage a campaign against Clinton that's similar to the campaigns he's used to bring down his Republican opponents (Bush, Cruz, and Rubio). He will be negative and dramatically inaccurate. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Following is my letter to the Mayor of Bayreuth, Germany, who is being pressured to rescind an award to CODEPINK based on an accusation of anti-Semitism by a writer for the Jerusalem Post as a part of the State of Israel's campaign to discredit any person and any organization that dares to criticize its policies of apartheid toward Palestinians. Several other letters are included on the CODEPINK blog (with a link to the Jerusalem Post article). Many letters from Germans challenging the Mayor are being translated now and will be put on the website. My letter... Dear Mayor Merk-Erbe, I am a 29-year veteran of the US Army and retired as a Colonel. I also served 16 years in the U.S. Diplomatic Corps, in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia, the last four postings as Deputy Ambassador. I resigned from the U.S. Government in March 2003 in opposition to my country's war of choice on Iraq. Just an hour before my wife an I landed in her native Puerto Rico last month, the island's government had defaulted on $1 billion in bond interest payments. It was the second default in five months for the cash-strapped government whose debt now totals $72 billion. None of this was evident as we waded through the crowds in Rafael Herna'ndez airport in Aguadilla, which had been converted into a civilian airport after the closure of Ramey Air Force Base 40 years earlier. People hugged their relatives, welcoming them back home or bidding them farewell. It was a normal scene you'd see at any airport in the world. But the situation in Puerto Rico is not normal, and you don't have to spend long there to see how regular people are suffering more every day under the crushing burden of debt. You notice every time you make a purchase at the store or get the check at a restaurant. The sales tax in Puerto Rico now stands at 11.5 percent, after being raised 64 percent in July from 7 percent. The measure was approved by the island's governor, Alejandro Garca Padilla, in conjunction with a package of austerity measures to raise money to pay the interest on the island's debt to creditors. This might not sound like an astronomical amount, but the impact is felt more in Puerto Rico than it would be in any of the states. Sales taxes are regressive. People with lower incomes spend more of their earnings on things that are taxed than those who can afford to store their income as savings. This means the lower your income, the harder you will be hit by the sales tax. Under former Governor Luis Fortuno in 2009, Act 29 was passed to allow government to enter into public-private partnerships for infrastructure and other projects. It created the Public Private Partnership Authority ( PPPA ) to "identify, evaluate, and select the projects that shall be established as Public Private Partnerships." The first target for private takeover of Puerto Rico's public infrastructure was the island's most traveled highway, PR-22. Autopistas Metropolitanas de Puerto Rico, LLC (Metropistas), was awarded a 40-year lease for $1.49 billion to operate both the PR-22 and PR-5 highways. The company is a consortium of a Goldman Sachs infrastructure investment fund and a Spanish toll concession company. PR-22 runs from San Juan west through 12 municipalities towards Aguadilla. Metropistas recently raised the toll prices after the expiration of an initial period where they were prohibited from doing so. But apparently tolls are not the only way they are generating revenue. A friend explained how the electronic toll collection system, AutoExpreso, had been malfunctioning and issuing fines for not having enough money in your account to pay the toll, even when the account did actually have money. He said that he received four separate fines, none of which was valid. When he tried to contest the fines he was told that based on a technicality (not submitting an appeal in writing by an arbitrary deadline) the fines would stand, even though they should have never been issued in the first place. When he complained, he was told he had a choice to pay or to find another route. Of course, the only alternative for commuters in that heavily populated area of the island is to use inaccessible and inconvenient back roads. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). When President Barack Obama took questions from reporters on Tuesday, the one that needed to be asked -- but wasn't -- was whether he had forbidden Turkey and Saudi Arabia to invade Syria, because on that question could hinge whether the ugly Syrian civil war could spin off into World War III and possibly a nuclear showdown. If Turkey (with hundreds of thousands of troops massed near the Syrian border) and Saudi Arabia (with its sophisticated air force) follow through on threats and intervene militarily to save their rebel clients, who include Al Qaeda's Nusra Front, from a powerful Russian-backed Syrian government offensive, then Russia will have to decide what to do to protect its 20,000 or so military personnel inside Syria. A source close to Russian President Vladimir Putin told me that the Russians have warned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Moscow is prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons if necessary to save their troops in the face of a Turkish-Saudi onslaught. Since Turkey is a member of NATO, any such conflict could quickly escalate into a full-scale nuclear confrontation. Given Erdogan's megalomania or mental instability and the aggressiveness and inexperience of Saudi Prince Mohammad bin Salman (defense minister and son of King Salman), the only person who probably can stop a Turkish-Saudi invasion is President Obama. But I'm told that he has been unwilling to flatly prohibit such an intervention, though he has sought to calm Erdogan down and made clear that the U.S. military would not join the invasion. So far, Erdogan has limited Turkey's direct military attacks on Syria to cross-border shelling against U.S.-backed Kurdish forces that have seized territory from the Islamic State (also known as ISIS) in northern Syria. Turkey considers the Kurdish fighters, known as YPG, to be terrorists but the U.S. government sees them as valuable allies in the fight against Islamic State terrorists, an Al Qaeda spinoff that controls large swaths of Syria and Iraq. But Erdogan's short fuse may have grown shorter on Wednesday when a powerful car bomb killed at least 28 people in Turkey's capital of Ankara. The bomb apparently targeted a military convoy and Turkish officials cast suspicion on Kurdish militants who also have been under assault from Turkish forces inside Turkey. Though showing no evidence, Turkish officials suggested the attack may have been sponsored by Iran or Russia, another sign of how complicated the geopolitical morass in Syria has become. "Those who think they can steer our country away from our goals by using terrorist organizations will see that they have failed," declared Erdogan, according to The Wall Street Journal. (On Wednesday night, Turkey retaliated for the Ankara bombing by launching airstrikes against Kurdish targets in northern Iraq.) The dilemma for Obama is that many traditional U.S. allies, such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have been the principal backers and funders of Sunni terror groups inside Syria, including Al Qaeda's Nusra Front and -- to a lesser degree -- the Islamic State. Now, the "allies" want the United States to risk a nuclear confrontation with Russia to, in effect, protect Al Qaeda. Biden Blurts Out Truth The twisted reality was acknowledged by no less an authority than Vice President Joe Biden during a talk at Harvard in 2014. Biden answered a student's question by saying Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had "poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens, thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad." The result, Biden said, was that "the people who were being supplied were Al Nusra and Al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world." The risks from these tangled alliances were also highlighted by a Defense Intelligence Agency report in August 2012, warning the Obama administration that the growing strength of Al Qaeda and other Sunni jihadists in Syria could lead to the creation of "an Islamic state" whose militants could move back into Iraq where the threat originated after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The DIA said Al Qaeda's growing strength in Syria "creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters [i.e. the Shiites]. "ISI [Islamic State of Iraq, forerunner of ISIS, also known as the Islamic State] could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory." Despite the prescient DIA report and Biden's blunt admission (for which he quickly apologized), President Obama failed to put a stop to the strategy of supporting Assad's opponents. He let Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey continue funneling weapons to the most extreme elements of the rebellion. Meanwhile, the U.S. government insisted that it was only arming "moderate" rebels, but those groups were largely subsumed or controlled by Al Qaeda's Nusra and/or ISIS, a hyper-violent spinoff from Al Qaeda. By Dave Lindorff Supposedly independent economist Jared Bernstein at Clinton NH event ( (Image by ThisCantBeHappening!) Details DMCA As Bernie Sanders' insurgent campaign for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination continues to strengthen, so do the attacks on him by the establishment corporate media, which are reflexively backing the status quo corporatocracy. The latest smear comes from the New York Times, in the form of an almost laughable piece by Jackie Calmes run on Feb. 15 and headlined "Left-Leaning Economists Question Cost of Bernie Sanders's Plans." The so-called "left-leaning" economists quoted by her, however, included not one genuine left or even left-leaning economist. Rather, they were a bunch of mainstream economists who, while "not working for Hillary Clinton," as Calmes notes, have in fact worked for either the administration of Barack Obama or of Bill Clinton (a point she largely fails to note). As media critic Doug Henwood of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) pointed out in a blistering critique of the Times article, referring to the economists quoted in the piece, "So slight is their leftward lean that it would require very sensitive equipment to measure." Take source one, Austan Goolsbee, former chair of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisors, who obligingly tells Calmes that Sander's "numbers just don't add up," and claims that Sanders' proposed measures on health care and job creation would add "$2 to $3 trillion" to the current $4-trillion federal budget. Just the vagueness of his estimate, which had a range of uncertainty of $1 trillion, should alert people to a certain, shall we say lack of rigor on Goolsbee's part, rather unbecoming of a professor of economics at the University of Chicago. Goolslbee, in fact, was the economist with the Obama campaign who famously rushed off to Ottawa to privately reassure that country's right-wing Prime Minister Stephen Harper that candidate Obama wasn't serious in his campaign rhetoric condemning the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The second supposedly "left-leaning" economist critic of Sanders cited by Calmes in her article was Jared Bernstein, former economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, who is now at what Calmes terms the "liberal" Center on Budget and Policy Priorities -- actually a haven for Clinton-era mainstream economic hacks pedaling the usual trickle-down theories. Bernstein is quoted criticizing UMass economist Gerald Friedman, who wrote an analysis backing Sander's call for replacing Obamacare with a Medicare for All program. Friedman, in his analysis, demonstrates that such a switch to a single-payer system would save Americans an average of about $5000 per family, even after raising the Medicare tax by about $500 per family, because it would eliminate virtually all private insurance premiums and co-pays. Bernstein argued that "several assumptions" in Friedman's analysis were "wishful thinking." In fact though, Friedman's numbers have been criticized as being too conservative, and it's Bernstein whose assumptions are flawed.... For the rest of this article by DAVE LINDORFF in ThisCantBeHappening!, the independent, uncompromised, five-time Project Censored Award-winning online alternative news site, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/3048 "Well," said the White Rabbit, "finally, a corporation is doing something nice for the public." The Mad Hatter arched an eyebrow as he poured three cups of tea. "That would be a surprise. To which corporation are you referring?" "Why, Apple, of course," Rabbit said. "They're actually going to take the Feds to court to keep their customers' phone data private. Almost makes me want to trade in my Galaxy 6 for an iPhone." "I own an iPhone," popped in Alice, "it's pink. I could've gotten other colors, too. Apple is so nice." The Mad Hatter rolled his eyes. "Friends, friends, have you learned nothing from all our conversations? Nothing?" The Rabbit frowned, "What do you mean? It isn't good that a company is fighting for our privacy? If they create a code to break through the encryption, it will open a back door for hackers to worm in and steal our data. The Russians, the Chinese" And I even heard that Google supports Apple on this one. So maybe I'll keep my Android"" "Do they make it in pink?" Alice asked. "Okay, listen. The Russians and the Chinese don't give two pence about your phone calls to Betty Bunny, all right? Or Alice's cat videos." The Hatter put a finger to his lips. "Though being friends with me might make you a person of interest." A head shake. "Anyway, do you really believe that Apple, and Google, don't already have a code that access all your information and data? And that they aren't already monitoring and storing every tweet Alice sends to @justinbieber?" "Have I gone viral?" Alice brightened. "Wait," interrupted the Rabbit, "Then I don't get it. Why are they resisting giving up the gunman's info. The Feds have a warrant, right? Why not just turn it over now?" "Because," said the Hatter, "they want to put on a show." "Yes," cried Alice, "I'm in. I love shows." " This show," the Hatter continued, is to try to convince the public that the nice telecomm companies care about you and about privacy rights. And to keep from getting lambasted that they cave quickly and share all your data. They go to court looking like advocates for privacy rights, then the court forces them to finally turn over the info. So they can say 'we tried', but 'the mean old Feds and the courts made us do it. ' And you keep buying iPhones and buying into the surveillance state." "Wow," said the Rabbit, "I never thought of that" I guess I'd better start being careful about who I have tea with. Maybe we can meet anonymously every Friday morning at Starbucks." The Hatter shook his head. "Nah, I wouldn't worry. You're small carrots, Rabbit. They're interested in big phishing. But, I'll lay you odds that the GPS on your phone will ID where you get your coffee, and you'll be besieged with ads from Starbucks and the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf." "You don't think my 'faves' are really what they're after, do you?" said the Rabbit. Next Page 1 | 2 (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). Reprinted from Greanville Post As the world that is interested in such matters knows, in 2014 the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee finally released the (redacted) 524-page Executive Summary of its 6,000-page report on torture and the CIA. The New York Times article is entitled: "Panel Faults C.I.A. Over Brutality and Deceit in Terrorism Interrogations." But even just the Executive Summary presents a huge amount of horrifying detail about the program (see The New York Times article cited above and many other news sources, print, electronic and other. A particularly useful historical analysis has appeared on The Greanville Post.) The most important conclusion to come away with in examining the Report is the Senate Intelligence Committee's major finding about the CIA's torture program: that it was bad because it didn't work. And they produced huge mountains of evidence to support that claim. At the time, the Republicans, who for some time refused to participate in the work of the Committee, reacted in horror, not at the details of the torture itself and the catalog of CIA cover-ups, incompetence, disorganization, amateurism, and what-have-you, but at the fact that they have all been made public. Most importantly, despite the fact that the Senate Committee assembled an overwhelming amount of evidence on the program and that torture doesn't work, despite the fact that the Republicans did not avail themselves of it, they claimed that torture does work, in intelligence gathering, and related matters. Donald Trump and Ted Cruz of course just assumed that their listeners would believe that that is the case. Of course the torturer-in-chief, Dick Cheney, went bananas over the report's release. He argued, as he always did, both that torture works and then (oops!) that what was done wasn't torture anyway. So he, and all of his GOP and other cheerleaders, first try to deny reality and then if that doesn't work, get the argument onto definitions. Apparently Trump and Cruz are just parroting Cheney on these claims. However -- and it's a big however -- the Senate Committee's whole premise was that: the program was bad because it didn't work. Which raises the question: would they have concluded that torture was OK if it had produced useful intelligence? Uh-oh and Oh my. If Cheney et al were, and Cruz/Trump are, right about the utility of torture, at least as practiced by the CIA, then the Committee's whole argument against it collapses in a heap. However, the argument should have been based on the fact that the use of torture violates both domestic and international law. Its use by U.S. agencies is clearly prohibited by various Federal statutes. But on the international scale, the use of torture by any signatory to them is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention Against Torture. The United States is a party to both, and both are signed and ratified U.S. international treaties. As to the definition, the authors of the Geneva Conventions just assumed that everyone "knows" what torture is; they didn't bother to define it any detail. The UN Convention defines it in general terms as "Any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession . . ." It does not provide a laundry list of just what torture is and is not, one reason being that to do so would invite repeated uses of the Cheney "no-it's-not" argument for a wide variety of techniques designed to intentionally inflict "severe pain or suffering" to, for example, gain a confession. But at the base here is the truly inconvenient truth that the use of torture by US authorities is simply unconstitutional. Under article VI of the U.S. Constitution, as treaties signed and ratified by the U.S. government, both Conventions are part of "the supreme law of the land and [further] the judges of every state shall be bound by them." This, not arguments over whether it "works" or doesn't, is the central one for this country and its political leadership. But what about the Constitution and its meaning, then? The Republicans of every stripe complain over-and-over again, that "Obama ignores the Constitution" (when he takes actions under the Administration's interpretation of the Constitution that they don't like). Cruz says that he carries a copy of the Constitution around in his pocket, but then like many other Repubs. there are a variety of its parts they obviously skip, like the General Welfare clause of the Preamble, the provisions for the separation of church and state in Article VI and the First Amendment, the first clause of the Second Amendment, the "inherent rights" Amendment (the IXth, which certainly can be interpreted to provide women the right to control what goes on in their own bodies), and the one we are talking about here, the treaty -- obligations section of Article VI. And of course in their "Christian Nation" argument and the liberal use of "I'm in this to serve [what I think of as] 'the Lord'" statements by Cruz and Marco Rubio, they totally ignore the fact that neither "God" nor "Christian" appears in the Constitution. But then when in modern times has the Republican Party ever been consistent? We will wait a long time before we see that. One must then wonder too if the other half of the Duopoly, including Bernie Sanders, will ever challenge them on this most fundamental of Constitutional questions. Postscript: I am wondering if it ever occurred -- or ever even would occur -- to these "let's-use-torture" Repubs., that their justification of the use of torture could be used by ISIS et al, to justify their use of it on captives, especially on U.S. persons? Oh my. Note: An earlier version of this column was published on The Greanville Post here. Gueuze doesn't get out much. The unique sour beer takes years to brew and is made only by a handful of veteran Belgian brewers. That makes it hard to find, and expensive, in the U.S. and even the rest of Europe, where beer bars in France and Italy are ecstatic to get a few bottles of Cantillon. "You probably don't see many events even at the national level," Bazi Bierbrassierie owner Hilda Stevens said. "You can find a Boon or a Lindemans but to be able to find six bottles of that style or even more, it's typically hard." That makes the Belgian-centric bar's Gueuze Crueuze, coming on Thursday, Feb. 25, a must-attend for Portland sour fans: it's already sold out, though a limited number of bottles will be available for sale afterward. The Crueuze will set sail, figuratively, on a blind tasting that will include gueuze offerings from De Cam, Lindemans, Oud Beersel, De Troch, Hanssens and Cantillon itself, a brewery whose offerings' cost and rarity has made it something of a legend among gueuze chasers. But part of the style's charm is its unpredictability: thus the blind tasting. "Just because you might be drinking one of the most hard-to-find beers in the world like Cantillon, it might not necessarily be your favorite at the end," Stevens said. What is gueuze? A gueuze, or geuze, is a blended beer, typically pairing two lambics, one "young" (fermented for one year) and one "old" (fermented for two or three), with the combination aged for six months to a year for a second fermentation before release. The sour power comes from the lambics' spontaneous fermentation brewing process, which leaves a special container, a "coolship," open to wild yeast and bacteria as part of the process. The result is a stunningly dry, complex, sometimes sourdough-tangy beer that often eschews the simpler sweetness of its more widespread sour cousins. "For us, it's all about educating. Within Belgian beers, you have so many styles," Stevens said. "People might say, 'Well, I'm not really into Belgian beers,' but... it would be like me saying, 'I'm not really into IPAs' and thinking that's what American beer is all about." Gueuze brewing can be a surprisingly collaborative process: the Bierghes, Belgium-based Gueuzerie Tilquin, for one, relies on worts from four other brewers, Cantillon and Lindemans included, to ferment the lambics it uses for production. Most of the major brewers are to the southwest of Brussels, Belgium's capitol: Cantillon, founded in 1900, is the only one within the city. As BeerTourism.com tells the origin story, gueuze was born when an 1800s lambic brewer poured his product into champagne bottles, discovering the secondary fermentation. (It turns out Miller High Life has been false-advertising that "champagne of beers" thing.) The style became, as Cantillon's website boasts, "the icon of the Brussels beers." Gueuze also ages gracefully: Cantillon recommends cellaring its bottles for as long as 20 years. Other lambic variations include the Kriek (a lambic with sour cherries) and Framboise (a lambic with raspberries), a style Cantillon makes delightfully under the name Rose de Gambrinus. Their unpredictable flavors come from as many as 86 documented yeasts and bacteria, according to the Chicago Tribute. The Belgian countryside, and the native elements that come with it, is crucial to lambic and gueuze, which is one reason why American attempts at wild sours have avoided taking on the same names. Around Portland, gueuze and other lambic offerings from Tilquin, Hanssens, Beersel, Girardin, Lindemans and others do make appearances at local bottle shops such as Apex and Belmont Station. There's also Mikkeler's Spontan series, an interesting wild sour project which just released its Spontanbasil, a collaboration with Lindemans. Just don't confuse a gueuze with a gose, a German style with a similar flavor profile. "It tends to be a little bit more salty than gueuzes," Stevens said. Gueuze Crueuze at Bazi Bierbrasserie, Feb. 25, 7-9 p.m., Bazipdx.com. Tasting is sold out, but limited bottles will be available after. -- David Greenwald 503-294-7625; Nostalgia sells, but not enough. Oregon Fruit Products headquarters in Salem receives several calls a day asking for the recipe that used to appear on the inside label of its canned fruit. Most grew up on grandma's pie only to realize later in life it was the 80-year-old canned fruit company's recipe. But pie isn't the future of the family-owned business. Beer is. Oregon Fruit Products head Chris Sarles plans to add that pie recipe back on the cans. That's the heritage part of the business he took over two years ago that he wants to preserve. But shopper are increasingly rejecting canned fruit in favor of fresh, raw fruits -- cutting the market nearly in half, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Sarles comes from the early days of the craft beer movement, and was instrumental in finding it a large audience. Now, he's leveraging those connections to make Oregon Fruit Products essential to the ever-growing craft beer and cider industry, where brewers and drinkers are always looking for a new taste. "We're not just repeating what we've done forever. We're trying to be relevant and help customers with the problems they have," Sarles said. The company works with local brewers, such as Ninkasi and Cider Riot, McMenamins and new Salem brewer Vagabond. Oregon's fingerprints are on more than 500 brews throughout the country, too. Abita, a Southern beer giant based in Louisiana, specializes in sweet fruit beers, uses Oregon Fruit Products' raspberry in its popular Purple Haze. Blue Moon, owned by macrobrew goliath MillerCoors, makes a seasonal peach ale with Oregon Fruit's peach puree. "We're constantly looking for ways we can solve a problem for the brewer instead of just trying to sell them something," Sarles said. Schafly Beer, a St. Louis brewery, approached Sarles to figure out a grapefruit IPA. Oregon doesn't produce much grapefruit, so on the occasions brewers ask for new flavors, Sarles and the Oregon Fruit team will figure out how to get it. The bonus is that after producing a free first batch of grapefruit puree for Schafly, Oregon Fruit was able to use that recipe entice other brewers to buy the flavor. A new market Oregon Fruit Products got into the craft brewing industry when the former owners, the Gehlar family who owned the company for three generations, bought an used tomato processing machine from California. It allowed them to fill shiny silver bags with pasteurized fruit puree. The product is called "aseptic packaging," which doesn't mean much to most consumers, but to brewers it's everything. Aseptic packaging is crucial. If any bacteria touches the beer or cider, it can foster mold or restart the fermentation process. That's why Jesse Newhouse, the fruit beer czar at Ninkasi Brewing Company, used it for a sour beer. He poured cranberry puree into the brew once it hit the bright beer tanks -- the carbonation part of the process. The bright tank is one of the last steps of the process, after the beer ferments and extraneous matter is removed in a centrifuge. At that point, he wants to add extra fruit flavors and aromas to the beer that might be missing from the hops. He'd lose the entire batch -- which can be costly in time and revenue -- if it is contaminated. "It tasted like it had real fruit in there," Newhouse said. "You could tell there was actually fruit." The Maletis family, who made their name in alcoholic beverage distribution, bought Oregon Fruit Products in 2007, bringing with them vast connections to the brewing world. Combined with the sterile packaging, business started coming to them. Cider Riot brewer Abram Goldman-Armstrong sought out Oregon Fruit Products after seeing them at a brewers conference and hearing good things about their product. Because the bagged fruits can be frozen for months after the Oregon summer picking season ends, Goldman-Armstrong doesn't have to buy berries from out-of-state in the winter. The Portland cidery can make blackberry and black currant flavors a grocery store staple, rather than seasonal. "We're trying to source local ingredients as much as possible and it's really great to have a way to use Oregon fruit year-round," Goldman-Armstrong said. Preserving a brand On a grey February day, CEO Sarles darts across the street from the administrative offices to the processing plants, taking refuge from the rain in a concrete factory that smells like the warm berry pie customers are always calling the offices about. Inside, about 75 employees work with fruit stored frozen from the summer when 200 people work the plant's floors. At 20 percent of the company's business, canned fruit business hasn't gone away. Sarles repeatedly praises the Salem company's founders for putting Oregon's name on grocery shelves across the country. But, he isn't there to maintain a canned fruit brand. He's there to grow a hometown brand. Much of that is brewing. It birthed two new ideas, as well -- one is somewhere between jam and juice that is found in grocery store freezers. The idea is to use Pourable Fruit in cocktails, yogurt or smoothies. Anything that a home cook might cook with fresh or frozen fruit, but in a mustard bottle format. The company makes a version for restaurants and industrial kitchens, called Fruit in Hand. The growth likely means a move, eventually. Still, Sarles wants to keep the business in Salem so long-time employees can stay. "We're trying to respect the heritage of the company and build upon it," Sarles said. "It's not just the can any longer." -- Molly Harbarger mharbarger@oregonian.com 503-294-5923 @MollyHarbarger hands raised.jpg (Beth Nakamura / The Oregonian / 2010) The federal government is launching a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign designed to persuade parents of elementary and middle school students to get them to school every day. The Ad Council's "Every Student, Every Day" campaign, paid for in part my the Mott Foundation, will target parents to inform them of the devastating toll on students who miss even one day of school every two or three weeks. Students who are chronically absent are unlikely to learn to read well and are even less likely to graduate from high school. In Oregon last year, 94,000 students missed at least 10 percent of the school year, meaning they were chronically absent. The Ad Council has a track record of helping the nation make progress on some of its biggest public health and safety concerns, federal officials said. Its new anti-absenteeism campaign will include billboards, public service announcements at bus shelters and posters hung in barbershops, doctors' offices and schools. A website will offer parents resources to help support them in getting their child to attend school, including an online tool kit with blog posts, infographics and absence trackers. The website will also include resources for educators, community leaders and organizers of after-school programs.A recent report by America's Promise Alliance found that having a caring adult in their lives was a major factor in lowering a student's odds of dropping out of high school. Having a caring adult in school had a larger impact than having a caring adult at home, reducing a student's likelihood of leaving school by 25 percent. The Oregonian/OregonLive explored Oregon's chronic absenteeism epidemic in great detail in its Empty Desks investigative report. You can read all five parts online or download your own copies of the series to print and share. -- Betsy Hammond 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. A Department of Natural Resources conservation officer working in Midland County, where he was born and raised, has been honored as the states best. Midland native Joel Lundberg was named Michigan Wildlife Officer of the Year by the Shikar-Safari Club, an international hunting and conservation organization. An officer for 13 years, Lundberg received the award at a meeting of Michigans Natural Resources Commission, which oversees policies and programs of the DNR. Gary Hagler, chief of the DNR Law Enforcement Division, in a news release described Lundberg also named the divisions 2015 Officer of the Year as an outstanding investigator, a top-notch interviewer, and someone who is highly respected by his peers and community personnel. He is known for a tireless work ethic, added Hagler, and both junior and senior officers frequently seek him out for advice on cases. Gunnar Klarr, of Shikar-Safari, praised Lundberg for mentoring conservation-minded high school students, supporting Michigan Special Olympics and dealing with the public in a personable manner. Lundberg loves doing it all in his hometown. I wanted to be a conservation officer since elementary school, said Lundberg, who attended St. Brigid, Central Intermediate and Midland High schools. He said he didnt come from a hunting and fishing family, but growing up near Stratford Woods Park and its Lake Kiwassee, he began fishing as a youngster. I was absolutely passionate about the outdoors. When he turned 12, future brother-in-law Larry Hatfield introduced him to hunting. We started out hunting for small game and deer, and fishing for whatever we could chase. Trapping came later, after college Northern Michigan Universitywhere he got a bachelors degree in environmental conservation in 1999. Now he fishes, hunts for a variety of species, in-state and out, and traps, especially for bobcats, otters and martens. His trapping expertise, in fact, led him to teach a one-week course in which conservation officers learn both how to trap and how to enforce trapping laws the latter skill very difficult, he said, without the former. Lundberg said he particularly loves spring and fall, with their abundance of fishing, hunting and trapping opportunities. He enjoys chatting with law-abiding sportsmen and women, and catching the people who need to be caught, particularly those who purposely break the law. Lundberg said the key to productive interviews is listening for discrepancies in details. Even with violators who have worked out their stories in advance, Once you build up the inconsistencies, it allows you to apply pressure, and the story often falls apart. Often, theres no hard feelings. Ive been pretty well received overall. If I issue someone a citation (for a conservation law violation) and get a handshake at the end, I think thats a pretty good outcome. What Lundberg calls the best case of his career began when he and another officer received information about several deer illegally killed inside enclosures. After investigating they identified and located a suspect, made a traffic stop, and it turned out he was a convicted felon in (illegal) possession of a loaded firearm, in a car with seven sets of freshly taken deer antlers. In follow-up interviews with the jailed suspect, the COs connected him to four other people and a total of 13 illegally killed deer, including one with unusual significance. A year earlier, a man to whom Lundberg was issuing a ticket, in a pleasant exchange told of having a trophy deer stolen while it hung in his yard. Now, something about one of the poached racks rang a bell; Lundberg called the hunter whod lost the antlers and asked if he had a photo of it he could send. I had his antlers on the front seat of my patrol car when the picture came across. Before the investigation was wrapped up, officers also recovered two rifles stolen from an area sporting goods store. Lundberg credited the successful case to really good teamwork. A CO jobs downside, he said, is helping police with boat, snowmobile or car accidents, where something enjoyable becomes something tragic. That takes the fun out of the job, dealing with that. When Wixom Lake seemed plagued by a rash of accidents, Lundberg worked with the sheriff and other officials to boost efforts to curb drivers operating under the influence, and he said that seems to have helped. Conservation officers are not shifted from posting to posting unless they request it, Lundberg said. Assigned to Oscoda County as a new CO, he applied for a transfer to Gladwin County. From there he jumped to Midland four years ago: It took me a decade to get back. Now, he said with a smile, Im not going anywhere. My wifes family is in Midland, my family is in Midland. We have a newborn son, and its good just to be around family. And, its rewarding to give back to the community. And the award? Its humbling. It is cool to be recognized by your peers and by the chain of command. Im surrounded by some of the best officers in the state, and thats the reason Im where I am. The Dow Chemical Co. and DuPont announced today that the corporate headquarters for their combined agriculture company will be located in Wilmington, Del., while their material science business will be headquartered in Midland. The specialty products company will be in Wilmington. The three independent, publicly traded companies will be created following the merger of Dow and DuPont, pending regulatory approval. The companies said the material science company will feature Dow in the companys name. It will include the core of Dow Chemicals current businesses, including Performance Plastics, Performance Materials and Chemicals, Infrastructure Solutions, Consumer Care and Automotive Solutions (excluding the Dow Electronic Materials business) operating segments, as well as DuPonts Performance Materials segment. Dow will bring about $45 billion in net sales to this new company, while DuPont will bring about $6 billion, officials previously stated. Combined, they will form the No. 2 player in the world in this market, behind BASF. The material science company will be a lowcost, innovationdriven leader serving customers in high growth segments with cost-effective offerings, the companies stated. The headquarters location of the agriculture company being announced as Wilmington, with global business centers in Indiana and Iowa is consistent with the intended headquarters of the material science company, to be named Dow, being headquartered in Midland, Mich., but having global business centers in other U.S. and global locations, Dow Chemical Chairman and CEO Andrew Liveris said today in a press release. The independent agriculture company will feature DuPont in the companys name. The corporate headquarters for the agriculture business will include the office of the CEO and key corporate support functions, the companies stated. They said sites in Johnston, Iowa and Indianapolis, Ind., will serve as global business centers, with leadership of business lines, business support functions, R&D, global supply chain, and sales and marketing capabilities. Each state had worked closely with Dow and DuPont to try to attract the headquarters. This efficient structure takes full advantage of the unique expertise and resources that exist in each location, enabling us to deliver the long-term opportunity for the leading global agriculture company we intend to create, Edward Breen, chairman and CEO of DuPont, said in a press release. This structure will allow the new company to achieve the planned $1.3 billion cost savings, the companies stated. Liveris said the agricultural businesses will deliver greater value and choice for growers worldwide and compete against the largest global competitors. Combining each companys strengths in science and R&D, with increased global market access, enables greater opportunity for innovative new solutions in both seed and crop protection, he said. Prior to the intended separation into three independent companies, DowDuPont will be dual headquartered in Wilmington and Midland. Both parties continue to plan for the closing of the transaction during the second half of 2016, subject to closing conditions. DETROIT (AP) Michigan is eligible for $323 million in federal funds to allow cities to demolish vacant structures and remove other forms of blight. The state will get about $74.5 million immediately and must apply for the rest. The money from the federal Hardest Hit Fund was announced Friday by U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee and U.S. Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters. The trio helped lead an effort to allow the Treasury Department to transfer $2 billion to the Hardest Hit Fund. The $74.5 million is part of $1 billion headed to 18 states and the District of Columbia. States have to apply by March for a share of the remaining $1 billion, but will not be able to apply for more than either $250 million or half of the money they have already received from the fund. Announcements on how much each state will receive are expected in April. "Millions of dollars in additional federal funds will make a huge difference in removing blight across Michigan, including in Flint and Saginaw," said Kildee, who represents Michigan's 5th Congressional District. "Getting rid of blight will help to raise property values, decrease crime and unlock greater opportunity for all homeowners." Since 2010, 16 Michigan cities used $440 million from the Hardest Hit Fund to provide homeowner assistance, remove blight and support other efforts to revitalize neighborhoods. Michigan divided more than $75 million in late 2014 among 12 cities, with Detroit getting $50 million. "Blight removal is making a real difference by making neighborhoods safe and spurring economic growth," Stabenow said. "Thousands of blighted properties have already been demolished and this funding will keep this momentum going." The money is for residential blight removal and can't be used to replace old pipes in Flint homes where lead has leached into the drinking water, Kildee spokesman Mitchell Rivard told The Associated Press Friday in an email. Flint stopped using treated water from Detroit and switched to the Flint River in 2014 to save money when the city was under state emergency financial management, an interim measure while a new pipeline to Lake Huron is built. Failure to deploy corrosion controls after the switch enabled lead to leach from aging pipes and reach some Flint homes. Tests have shown high levels of lead in some Flint children. Gov. Rick Snyder wants service line replacements to begin promptly and has said his goal is to have old pipes replaced. LANSING, Mich. (AP) Gov. Rick Snyder on Friday quickly replaced the director of Michigan's Veterans Affairs Agency after an audit uncovered problems at a state-run nursing home for veterans, calling the findings "deeply troubling." Jeff Barnes, a former Army officer, had led the agency since its creation in 2013 before submitting his resignation. Barnes was previously Snyder's deputy chief of staff and managed his 2010 political campaign. An audit made public Thursday said workers at the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans falsely claimed they were checking on patients, failed to properly investigate allegations of abuse and neglect, and took too long to fill prescriptions. Auditors also said the 415-resident facility provided insufficient care and continued with inadequate staffing levels even as the state filed four complaints over a 1-year period against a company hired to supply nursing aides. Snyder said veterans deserve higher standards of care, and legislators have promised hearings. "A new leadership team is in place, which I am relying on to address the audit," the governor said in a statement released before a formal announcement was made by other top veterans administrators during a news conference in Grand Rapids. The audit covered events from October 2013 through August 2015. James Redford, Snyder's chief legal counsel and a former judge, will lead the agency for now. He served in the Navy as part of the Judge Advocate General's Corps. Barnes will be reassigned within the Michigan Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, which oversees the agency. The agency oversees the new Michigan Veteran Health System, which has supervised the home since last fall. "Jeff is passionate about helping his fellow veterans," Snyder said. "I know he is as troubled by these findings as I am." Asked why Barnes still has a state job, Snyder spokesman Dave Murray said he set in place a number of important programs and made changes when concerns about the veterans home were raised. "The governor wanted to find a place where his skills can be used to help veterans," Murray said. The agency, which agreed with the audit conclusions, said it was making changes to comply with recommendations and bring the home in line with industry best practices. "I apologize to any veterans that their quality of care was below standard. These findings are unacceptable, and we're committed to fixing the problems highlighted in the report," said Major General Gregory Vadnais, director of the Military and Veterans Affairs Department. He said top administrators at the home were replaced beginning in October. Leslie Shanlian was appointed as chief executive of the Michigan Veteran Health System to coordinate operations in Grand Rapids and at the D.J. Jacobetti Home for Veterans in Marquette. Officials said the Grand Rapids home has begun implementing electronic medical records and making updates to document residents' activities. Shanlian said policy has been revised so complaints are investigated quickly, and she has asked a state ombudsman to provide outside oversight. Democratic lawmakers and unions said the problems at the facility, which opened in 1886, show the failure of contracting government jobs to the private sector. In 2011, Snyder and the Republican-controlled Legislature decided to privatize about 170 care aide positions at the home to save money. J2S Group-HealthForce in Grand Rapids, which supplies the employees, filed a complaint against the state after the state complained for a fourth time in October about the firm not meeting required staffing. Shanlian told The Associated Press on Thursday that the home has 275 fewer residents than when the contract began. She said that while staffing has been short of contracted levels, the facility is exceeding federal standards. "The state needs to stop shortchanging these brave men and women, and take immediate action by terminating its contract with J2S, which has proven to be totally inadequate and incompetent," Michigan AFL-CIO President Ron Bieber said. "Our veterans deserve nothing less." A message seeking comment from a representative for J2S was not returned on Friday. ___ This story has been updated to show that the governor's office said Barnes resigned on his own, not after being asked by the governor. ___ Follow David Eggert on Twitter at http://twitter.com/DavidEggert00 . His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/author/david-eggert Safety has won out at the Midland County Jail. But it took a few months and a study of jail staffing to achieve the goal. That study was requested after Sheriff Scott Stephenson requested an additional eight correction officers at the jail to make staffing levels in compliance with the Administrative Rules for Jails and Lockups in the state of Michigan. Those eight officers would have cost the county an additional $421,000, which was money the county board was reluctant to spend. So they requested consultant Bill Wilson take a look at staffing levels at the jail. Wilsons analysis provided a matrix for a ratio of inmate population versus staffing. Wilson, who has served 16 years as the jail commander for the Monroe County Sheriffs Office in Bloomington, Ind., recommended that if the county wanted to maintain a jail census of more than 250, it should raise staffing levels from 37.2 full-time equivalent positions to 47.15. If the county wanted to maintain an inmate population level in the 200 to 224 range, current staffing levels were adequate. Commissioners opted to maintain the jail population at the 200 to 224 range, and not hire the additional correction officers. The sheriff and I have talked quite a bit about this, as he has with a lot of commissioners. We both have decided this is the path we want to take the jail to keep it around this number, said Board Chair Mark Bone. Added Stephenson: The analysis was right in line where I thought it needed to be. Since we have dropped the jail population, we are running a much safer jail. Going forward, the only question is how much impact running the jail at 80 percent capacity will have on county revenues generated by housing inmates at the jail from outside entities. The county has been able to pay down debt on the jail by housing those inmates. County Administrator/Controller Bridgette Gransden said so far this year, everything is going well. In defense of the sheriff, he has worked diligently to try and increase the level of federal inmates to help increase the revenue stream, Gransden said. Right now, if we were to analyze what we received in January, well be fairly close to what we projected for the budget. Now, its February. I cant tell you what is going to happen in November or December. So it is a wait and see situation in terms of the financial impact. But at least residents can rest assured that the Midland County Jail should be a much safer place. They account for nearly 40% of Pennsylvania Small Businesses Research has shown that womenowned businesses tend to be less financed than men-owned businesses, but in 2022 we are continuing to see an increase of women starting businesses all on their own, while also outperforming those owned and run by men.... CAMP HOVEY, South Korea (Feb. 17, 2016) -- More than 4,100 Soldiers from Fort Hood, Texas, are arriving in South Korea to ensure peace on the Korean peninsula and deter North Korean aggression. Soldiers from the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team "Ironhorse," 1st Cavalry Division, began arriving here, Feb. 1, to begin their nine-month rotation. Ironhorse Soldiers replace the Soldiers of the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team "Black Jack," 1st Cavalry Division, who completed the first rotation of a U.S. armored brigade in the Korean peninsula from June 2015 to February 2016. "Black Jack Soldiers have laid a foundation that we can build upon, and we can do some more integrated training and really build cohesion between our forces and the Republic of Korea army," said Col. John DiGiambattista, commander, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team. Planning for the Ironhorse brigade's Korea rotation began before the brigade left for its October National Training Center rotation last year, starting with identifying manning requirements for the rotation. "It's a huge requirement to get the numbers accurate and to find out who's actually deploying," said Maj. Albert Pride, brigade logistics officer. Even without sending any tactical vehicles or armor, the brigade still sent more than 50 containers of equipment to Korea. One of the most difficult parts of moving a brigade is getting all the timing organized between the flights of Soldiers and getting the brigade's containers to the port in time to get them shipped to Korea, said Pride. "There is a very small window that we have to operate in, because ships are sailing - everything has to be synchronized just right to have a successful rotation," said Pride. Adding to the complexity is the number of different organizations, units and personnel involved, including the U.S. Transportation Command, U.S. Army Military Surface Deployment and Distribution Command and the 1st Cavalry Division Transportation Office, to name just a few, said Pride. "One thing to note about this brigade, it rolls like no other unit I've been in," said Pride. For Soldiers, the deployment has been a smooth one. "I think it's going to be a good rotation, everything looks positive so far," said Spc. Dajhone Green, a cannon crew member with Battery A, 1st Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment, 1st 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team. First on the plate for Ironhorse Soldiers is participating in regularly scheduled annual exercises with Republic of Korea forces. BAN SA YAI, Thailand - Warm air blows gently through tents as children and adults wait for the start of the dedication ceremony for a one-room multi-purpose educational building Feb. 18 at Ban Sa Yai, Trat, Thailand. The ceremony brought a close to the work and effort of the Thai, U.S. and Malaysian military engineering teams during Exercise Cobra Gold 16. Cobra Gold, in its 35th iteration, is the largest multinational exercise in Asia and is an integral part of the U.S. commitment to strengthen engagement and partnerships in the region. The ceremony included performances from local school children, comments from distinguished visitors and the handing off of the building to the school. The distinguished visitors that presided over the dedication ceremony were Royal Thai Army Gen. Wichien Sirisoonthorn, Royal Thai Armed Forces Headquarters; U.S. Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Russell Sanborn, commanding general of 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, III Marine Expeditionary Force; Malaysian Army Lt. Col. Hj Adnan bin HJ Othman, Malaysian Armed Forces; and Mr. Channa Eiumsang, governor of Trat Province. Id like to begin by extending my warmest Thank You to our Thai host and partners for the hospitality throughout Cobra Gold 2016, said Sanborn, commanding general of 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, III Marine Expeditionary Force. It has truly been an honor to train with our Thai counterparts and to be a part of one of the strongest alliances in the Indo-Asian Pacific region, said Sanborn. The construction at Ban Sa Yai was one of six humanitarian civic action projects in which Indo-Asian Pacific nations militaries worked together on the construction of vertical buildings and other civic programs to support security and humanitarian interests of friends and partner nations. The engineer civic action projects have managed to improve the relationship between participating countries and we have shared experience and knowledge between the member teams involved, said Othman, Malaysian Armed Forces. The ENCAPs will strengthen the cooperation between international forces and enhance the confidence within the local community, said Othman. The HCA programs helped to improve the quality of life, as well as the general health and welfare of civilian residents in the exercise areas. Community engagement and medical activities conducted during the exercise helped to support the needs and humanitarian interests of civilian populations around the region. This year, Cobra Gold emphasized coordination on civic action, such as humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, with the aim of expanding regional cooperation and collaboration in these vital areas with partner nations and allies. We have been partners with Thailand for more than 180 years, one of the great things about this relationship is that it keeps growing to include other nations, said Sanborn. Here at Ban Sa Yai we were able to partner with the Malaysians. We are happy to support the security and humanitarian interests of our friends and partner nations, said Sanborn. BLOOMINGTON Wearing hard hats, Kathleen Lorenz, Dr. Joe Santiago and Jenni Tilson toured a building whose inside had been gutted and is being rebuilt. They started with what will be a living room with a fireplace and a kitchen. "We're trying to create a homey atmosphere," Lorenz said during the tour last week. As the tour progressed, the intent of the building became clearer. There was the future education room for prenatal education, yoga and exercises classes; two exam rooms for prenatal care; a nurses' station; and three birthing center rooms, each with a labor and birth tub and bathroom. "They're going to look like bedrooms," Lorenz said of the birthing center rooms. The Bloomington-Normal Birthing Center, under construction at 6 Westport Court, Bloomington, will be the second birthing center in Illinois and first outside the Chicago area if it opens as planned in June. The birthing center has the potential to be more than another labor and deliver choice for women, co-owners Santiago and Dr. Dele Ogunleye said. Because Ogunleye and Santiago both longtime Bloomington-Normal obstetrician/gynecologists expect the birthing center to attract women from more than one hour away, the center could become a draw for families to Bloomington-Normal. In addition, because labor and delivery at a birthing center costs less than at a hospital, the birthing center could contribute to a reduction in health care costs. "It's been a challenge," said Chad Dunlap of Tarter Construction, the general contractor for the project, explaining that the facility is "a hybrid of clinical and home." "But it's been going good," he said. "We're on schedule." The building, a former day-care center, was gutted inside and is being rebuilt at a cost of $1.1 million, said Lorenz, birthing center administrator. Construction is 75 percent complete and should wrap up in mid-April, Lorenz said. That leaves two months for placement of furniture and equipment, staff training and Illinois Department of Public Health inspection, Lorenz said. Marlyce Klopping-Davis a registered nurse and certified nurse midwife with more than 20 years of experience as the owner of a midwifery service, a nursing professor and hospital staff nurse on a mother baby unit has been hired as the birthing center's director of midwifery and nursing services. She and her family will be relocating from Michigan in April. "I love a challenge," Klopping-Davis said. "This is very much a needed service and I've started my own business before." "She has a great deal of experience, she has a strong safety focus, she's knowledgeable and easy to speak with," Lorenz said. "It's so exciting to see this is actually happening for women here," said Tilson, a certified nurse midwife with Santiago who is the birthing center's education and outreach coordinator. Out-of-hospital births including home and birthing center deliveries are growing in popularity but still represent less than 2 percent of all births nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and American Academy of Pediatrics support certified midwives and accredited freestanding birth centers. But ACOG doesn't endorse home births because they aren't supported by a health care delivery team, Ogunleye said. There are 255 birthing centers in 41 states and that number has grown 30 percent since 2010. Illinois has not allowed birthing centers until recently. The state's first birthing center opened in Berwyn in December 2014. The Bloomington center will be the second. Birthing centers are for women at low risk of birthing complications. Pregnant women must come to the birthing center to be pre-screened and meet with staff before the women reach 32 weeks of pregnancy. Anyone beyond that stage will be referred to an area hospital, the doctors said. There is a long list from IDPH specifying condiitions that would preclude women from delivering in a birthing center, including obstetrical complications such as two previous Caesarean sections; diseases such as heart disease, severe renal disease, drug or alcohol addiction, diabetes and liver disease; and risk factors including multiple gestation. Even with these limitations, 83 percent of women have low-risk deliveries and more are opting for birthing center deliveries, doctors said. "There is increased awareness of the opportunity for choice," Ogunleye said. More women want to give birth in a less clinical setting, Klopping-Davis and the doctors said. The birthing center can't administer general anesthesia, including spinal/epidural or regional. However, labor and birth tubs, meditation, breathing techniques, massage and aromatherapy will be offered, Ogunleye and Santiago said. "Not every woman wants an epidural," Klopping-Davis said. Meanwhile, more women want to labor and deliver in water even as fewer hospitals allow water labor and delivery, she said. Most women are expected to connect with the birthing center early in their pregnancy to be pre-screened, get to know the certified nurse midwife and take classes. While a certified nurse midwife would perform each delivery, the doctors would oversee care. When an unexpected complication happens, the birthing center has an agreement with nearby OSF St. Joseph Medical Center to accept the patient. "Giving birth is a natural process. But when things go wrong, they can go wrong quickly," Ogunleye said. "We are less than seven minutes away from St. Joseph's." Having a team of in-house health care professionals as well as a transfer agreement with a hospital is what makes birthing center deliveries safer than home births, the doctors said. Cost is another reason birthing centers are increasing in popularity, Santiago and Ogunleye said. A normal vaginal delivery in a hospital costs $15,000, compared to $6,000 for a birthing center delivery and $3,500 for an at-home birth with a midwife, Klopping-Davis said. Individuals, insurance companies and Medicaid are embracing birthing centers because they are a safe, lower-cost option for women with uncomplicated pregnancies, the doctors said. The Berwyn center, in its first year of operation, has been reimbursed by insurance companies and Medicaid and served 70 patients, Lorenz said. The Bloomington site is conservatively estimating 25 to 40 patients during its first year but hopes to be up to 150 to 240 deliveries in three years. BLOOMINGTON A pregnant woman from Champaign, the president of OSF St. Joseph Medical Center in Bloomington and the director of nursing practice at Advocate BroMenn Medical Center in Normal agree that the Bloomington-Normal Birthing Center will be a good option for women who don't wish to deliver in a hospital. "We are supportive of Dr. Ogunleye's and Dr. Santiago's efforts to bring another birthing option to our area," St. Joseph President Chad Boore said. "They have touched upon a need that's out there." "Advocate BroMenn supports our physicians in their decision to create the birthing center and we support the goals of patients and their families concerning their birth experience," said Lori Harper, Advocate BroMenn nursing practice director. The birthing center will be a lower-cost option for women who have uncomplicated pregnancies, Boore said. "We need to look at innovative ways to deliver health care." St. Joseph has agreed to accept any birthing center patients who experience complications. Advocate BroMenn had 1,684 deliveries in 2015 and St. Joseph had about 800. Harper and Boore said opening of the birthing center will have negligible impact on their hospitals' birthing numbers. The reason is because birthing center numbers will be relatively low and because the birthing center as the first in downstate Illinois will attract women from a large geographic area, Boore said. Some of those families may return to Bloomington-Normal for other health care services, he said. One future patient is Michelle Morrison, 31, of Champaign. Her three children were delivered at Advocate BroMenn and she had good experiences. Morrison is expecting her fourth child in July and she hopes to give birth in a labor and birth tub at the birthing center using a certified nurse midwife. She's had water births before but BroMenn and St. Joseph no longer offer deliveries underwater because of newborn safety concerns. "I've had uncomplicated births and I know how labor goes for me," Morrison said. "I like the idea of having a simpler experience." But Morrison also likes the idea of the birthing center's agreement with St. Joseph in case she has complications. Cost also is an issue. Her third delivery was $15,000 and, while insurance picked up most of it, she thinks that's a lot of money for a birth that had no major complications. Part of the cost is for a hospital overnight stay. At the birthing center, patients would be out six to 12 hours after delivery. BLOOMINGTON Inconsistencies in the stories a Bloomington teen told about multiple rapes by a man he met over the Internet was a factor cited in a judge's ruling Thursday to convict the man of sexual abuse but acquit him of more serious sexual assault charges. Sixto Martinez, 49, of Lafayette, Ind., was convicted of six counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse and three counts related to child pornography. He was acquitted of eight counts of criminal sexual assault, including several involving force, and two counts of aggravated sexual abuse. The ruling by Judge Scott Drazewski followed a two-day bench trial in which the victim, who was 14 at the time of the sexual abuse, testified. The boy told the judge that he lied about his age in 2013 when he joined an adult Internet site. "This was a consensual relationship from the court's perspective," the judge said in his ruling. What makes the contact illegal is the fact that the boy was a minor at the time and unable to give legal consent for sexual activity, said Drazewski. When he visited the adult website, the teen was "looking for one-night stands," according to Internet records. Hundreds of text messages exchanged between Martinez and the boy were a mixture of affection expressed at the emotional level of teenagers and threats to end the relationship, according to evidence in the case. Martinez took the teen to several hotels in the Twin Cities and to his home in Indiana for sexual encounters, according to court records. The two also had sex in the basement of the teen's home on two occasions, records said. In his testimony delivered through an interpreter, Martinez did not deny having sex with the boy but claimed their relationship was consensual. He denied the victim's claim that he threatened to shoot the child's family if the teen disclosed the relationship. Assistant State's Attorney Jacob Harlow pointed out that the boy admitted to Martinez that he had lied about being 16 years old. Evidence collected by police supported the victim's accusations, said the prosecutor. Defense lawyer Harold Jennings argued the victim's credibility was a central issue in the case. If the victim had been at least 17, his conduct on the Internet could be considered solicitation of prostitution, said Jennings. The fact that the boy asked for and received money and gifts from Martinez also makes the veracity of his claims suspect, said Jennings. "I think he was in this for money," said Jennings. When he is sentenced April 7, Martinez faces four to 15 years for reproduction of pornography; probation is not an option. The sex abuse charges carry a possible penalty ranging from probation to seven years in prison. BLOOMINGTON Another McLean County Board seat will be up for grabs this fall. Because Democrat Paul Finch resigned with more than 28 months left in a four-year term, his District 6 seat will appear on the November ballot, a State Board of Elections official confirmed Thursday. Because the filing period has already passed, that office wont appear on the March (15 primary) ballot, but the county central committees will appoint a Republican and a Democratic candidate to appear on the November ballot, said election board Assistant Executive Director Jim Tenuto. Independent candidates can file for that seat, like all positions to be decided in November, between June 20 and 27, Tenuto said. The seat will be filled until Dec. 1 by a County Board appointee. The county administrator's office will accept applications through noon March 3; applicants will interview with the board's executive committee March 8; and Chairman John McIntyre will recommend an appointment to the full board March 15. Applicants need to be Democrats, District 6 residents and eligible to serve. District 6 stretches from Gregory Street near Adelaide Street in Normal to the west edge of Ewing Park in Bloomington. We will definitely have some nominees (for the appointment), and well hopefully have somebody to slate for the November ballot, said Mike Matejka, co-chairman of the McLean County Democratic Party communications committee. If what you say about the statute is correct and it is actually 28 months, then we would certainly consider the possibility of slating someone," Chuck Erickson, chairman of the McLean County Republican Party, told The Pantagraph. The person that gets the appointment would have a leg up. One other partial term for a County Board seat is set to appear on the ballot: the District 5 seat currently held by Republican David Selzer. Selzer was appointed in December to succeed Sondra "Sonny" O'Connor, who moved to Texas. Finch is moving to Madison, Wis., to work for city government, McIntyre said. The appointment will be the board's third in four months. Scott Murphy was appointed Tuesday to succeed District 2 Republican Matt Sorensen, who resigned the seat and the board's chairmanship after the release of a federal indictment accusing him of defrauding State Farm. Sorensen will appear on the ballot for a new four-year term, but he hasn't said if he'll serve if elected. Murphy and three others Diane Benjamin, Garth Nicholas and Mike Sumner will oppose him as write-in candidates in March. BLOOMINGTON A mother who faces a sentencing hearing on child endangerment charges related to the beating death of her son is not fit to care for her infant daughter, a McLean County judge ruled Thursday. Danielle Bagley, 24, formerly known as Danielle Fischer, and her husband, Kam Bagley, were in court Thursday for a hearing on the custody of their daughter, who was taken into state custody last year shortly after her birth. Shortly after the start of her December trial on child endangerment charges related to the 2013 death of her son, Robbie Cramer, the mother pleaded guilty to the allegations that she failed to take her son to the doctor and left him with the man who battered him. Murder charges were dismissed against the mother because the state violated her right to a speedy trial on those charges. Danielle Bagley's former boyfriend Nicholas Compton is serving life in prison for killing the 3-year-old boy. Testimony at Compton's trial showed the toddler suffered physical abuse over 10 days before his death from internal injuries. Judge Kevin Fitzgerald ruled Thursday that both parents are in denial as to what role the mother's negligence played in her son's death. The judge agreed with Assistant State's Attorney Madeline McLauchlan that the baby girl would be at risk of harm if she was sent home with the Bagleys. Danielle Bagley faces a decade in prison when she is sentenced April 22. Citing statements in a report prepared for the hearing, the judge noted that the baby's father "doesn't think mom did anything wrong" in her son's death. A better understanding by Kam Bagley of what led to Robbie's death is necessary, said the judge, in order for the father to evaluate the risks his daughter may face with Danielle Bagley. "He may have to make a choice down the road between mom and (his daughter)," said the judge. In her argument for state custody, McLauchlan said dismissal of the murder charges does not mean the state lacked enough evidence to prove the accusations. The prosecutor also faulted Kam Bagley's lack of specific knowledge of what happened to Robbie. Kam Bagley testified Thursday that he did not attend court proceedings for Compton or his wife. "He made no effort to find out if mom's version of non-culpability has any merit to it," said McLauchlan. Brenda Temke, court-appointed guardian for the baby, said the baby's father "has blinders on," adding that "the risk of harm to his daughter is huge if he fails to see the part his wife played in the death of her other child." Danielle Bagley's lawyer Mathew Koetters argued that a two-month delay in Bagley's sentencing put her at a disadvantage for the hearing. A resolution to the criminal case would allow her to talk freely with counselors without a fear that her statements would be used against her in court, said Keotters. "There's a significant cloud hanging over her head. ... She's accepted as much responsibility as she feels she can right now," said Koetters. The judge set a one-year goal for return of the baby to the Bagleys. A July 19 hearing is set to review that goal and subsequent developments, including the outcome of her sentencing. Cheers ... and congratulations to Scott Murphy of Downs, on his 10-month appointment to the McLean County Board to fill the remaining term in District 2. The vacancy became open with the resignation of Republican Matt Sorensen, who is facing federal fraud charges. Murphy, a farmer and seed equipment company owner, will bring a solid voice to the board. Cheers ... and a doff of the crown to the Miss Illinois USA pageant, which brought six state winners to OSF St. Joseph Medical Center this week to cheer up patients. The pageant is moving to Normal in September and is expected to bring hundreds of thousands of dollars to the local economy. Having winners from Arkansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri (as well as Illinois) here to promote the move speaks volumes about the organization's support of its new pageant home. Cheers ... to DeWitt County Circuit Clerk Pam Barnes, who has taken an aggressive approach to people who are behind in their payments. Barnes said the county is owned $3.3 million in unpaid fines, fees and restitution, so the county hired a firm to track down the dead beats, who must pay an additional sum to cover the county's expense. Granted, getting money from some people may be akin to trying to get blood from a turnip, but we congratulate the county on trying to retrieve what it it is owed. Cheers ... to Illinois Wesleyan University, where a recent study said graduates of the school's business program rank high in salary potential. A Wall Street Journal article said IWU business grads have an early career median pay of $51,000 and mid-career median pay of $128,000. The study was done by professors at Brigham Young University and San Diego State University. Cheers ... and a woof to Casey Engelhorn of Normal and her wire-haired dachshund, Rotten Robert, for their "pawsitively" sensational performance at the Westminster Kennel Club show in New York City. Casey and Robert advanced to the second round of the junior handlers class in their first visit to the show. They'd already won best in show in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Tennessee and Florida. Dig deep ... into your pockets for donations to the annual Polar Plunge, a major fundraiser for Special Olympics of Illinois. The Bloomington plunge will be Feb. 27 at Miller Park Lake, when hundreds of hardy souls will trudge into frigid water before making an Olympic sprint back to terra firma and a warm blanket. Thoughtful people disagree politically; thoughtless people just attack. Politics, politeness and policy all come from a common source community. Once you throw out politeness to oppose political correctness you are throwing out policy, the process of getting things done with others. The core of conservatism seems to consist of angry, white Christian men ignorant that wealthy people created the current fear and anger to control the politics of the country for their benefit and to oppose the godless Communism of the 1950s. Fear creates anger; perfect loves casts out fear a Christian view many have forgotten. Too many Christians have succumbed to a fear that denies Jesus. Ignorance often chooses to disbelieve truth too uncomfortable to accept. Once you accept a single modern conspiracy of gun violence, you find it easy to buy into virtually all of them. Certainly people work behind the scenes the Wizard of Oz. Inconsistencies, though, are in the nature of witnessing a horrifying event; they do not change reality. Biblical fundamentalism is a modern heresy. Past centuries have emphasized the Bible as a book of faith, not a book of science. Once secular science began to show a different and very rich side of how to see the world, ignorant and faithless religious people (such as the cardinals with Galileo) led others into seeing this book of faith as a book of science which is false. A truly adult believer does not deny truth that comes from various sources. Joris Heise Bloomington Caitlyn Jenner just admitted that she has one major regret in her life. And that is: not telling her father about her true identity. On Wednesday, Feb.17, the I Am Cait star was at the University of Pennsylvania's Irvine Auditorium, where she opened up about her high-profile transition. According to Philadelphia Inquirer, during the interview, Jenner was totally talkative and even cracked a lot of jokes, but things got emotional after one audience asked about coming out to her parents. Her father, William, a World War II veteran, passed away 15 years ago. Apparently, Jenner never told her dad about her gender identity and it's the thing that she regrets the most. "That will always haunt me," she disclosed to the audience while wiping her pouring tears. "I think eventually he would have come around," the Olympic gold medalist added. "He would have never understood, he didn't know anything -- gay, trans, all that other stuff. But I'm sure he's looking down from heaven right now and saying, 'Well, you're doing a good job." While she didn't get a chance to tell her father about her true identity, her mother, on the other hand, got confused at first but eventually had become her "best ally." And when asked if she had any regrets on her transition, "Girls, I'm on your team and I'm sticking on your team," the 66-year-old former Bruce proudly said. It was last year when Bruce officially said goodbye to her former self and welcomed Cait. Hence, many gender advocates praised and cheered for her bravery as it is another step in bringing awareness about the gender community. But along with the approval is a mockery of other people, who think that Jenner is just making a fool of herself. Nevertheless, the Kardashian and the Jenner clan think that she made a great choice. The FDA has issued a warning against people who consume Parmesan cheese. As it turns out, cheeses labeled "100 percent Parmesan" aren't the real deal - instead, they're filled with substitutes like wood pulp. As it turns out, several companies have been allegedly doing this practice. Neil Schuman of Arthur Schuman Inc., the largest seller of hard Italian cheeses in the U.S., says that approximately 20 percent of these cheeses are not labeled properly. Beware of wood pulp in your #Parmesan cheese. FOX's Lisa Lacerra reports: https://t.co/zETdjOQFQ0 FOX News Radio (@foxnewsradio) February 19, 2016 "The tipping point was grated cheese, where less than 40 percent of the product was actually a cheese product," Schuman said. "Consumers are innocent, and they're not getting what they bargained for. And that's just wrong." According to Bloomberg, agents at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration acted on a tip and decided to make a surprise visit at a Pennsylvania cheese factory back in 2012. Officials ended up finding evidence on how Castle Cheese Inc. falsified its 100 percent real Parmesan label by using cheap substitutes and fillers such as wood pulp. The company had been producing these fake cheeses for almost 30 years, Time reported. The president of Castle Cheese, who supplied products for the country's biggest chains like Target, will be pleading guilty later this month for charges that can lead up to a year in prison with a $100,000 fine. Ack! No more shredded cheese for me | The Parmesan Cheese You Sprinkle on Your Penne Could Be Wood https://t.co/jrG0owCUjB Tiffany Jonas (@tiffanyjonasSC) February 19, 2016 Bloomberg News conducted experiments on store-bought grated cheese to find out if wood pulp can really be found in the product. The results showed that several cheeses had cellulose, which is made from wood pulp. "Essential Everyday 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese, from Jewel-Osco, was 8.8 percent cellulose, while Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s Great Value 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese registered 7.8 percent, according to test results," reported Lydia Mulvany of Bloomberg. She continued, "Whole Foods 365 brand didn't list cellulose as an ingredient on the label, but still tested at 0.3 percent. Kraft had 3.8 percent." Kate Middleton was reported to be a guest blogger for The Huffington Post on Feb. 17 to write regularly about the importance of parenting. It is her goal to make parents become more aware of the mental health of their children. In a report published by Pop Sugar, the Duchess of Cambridge, 34, is busy these days working on her new campaign called, "Young Minds Matter." Part of this project involves her being a guest writer for "The Huffington Post" where she would blog regularly for the said publication encouraging adults to pay attention to mindful parenting and their kid's mental and overall well-being. The Duchess started her work on Wednesday during The Huffington Post event at the Kensington Palace. She already published her first work according to Zimbio with the title: "Let's Make a Real Difference for an Entire Generation of Young Children." On the article, she talked about a lot of things she learned when parenting her kids. She also opened up about the many plans that she and her husband Prince William used to discuss, especially on raising Prince George and Princess Charlotte. It is quite an honor for the publication to have her royal highness write something that is of huge importance to her. Among the things that Middleton emphasized on her article via The Huffington Post is the mental health of the children. "For too long we have been embarrassed to admit when our children need emotional or psychiatric help, worried that the stigma associated with these problems would be detrimental to their futures," Middleton wrote. She even added some facts that support her writing saying, "Research published today by the Huffington Post indicates that around a third of parents still worry that they will look like a bad mother or father if their child has a mental health problem. Parenting is hard enough without letting prejudices stop us from asking for the help we need for ourselves and our children." A lot of people have shown their admiration and support to Middleton as she wrote and addressed this issue to parents of this generation. Hollywood star Angelina Jolie-Pitt made a lot of revelation about being a mother, an actress and how Cambodia changed her perspective in life during an exclusive interview on Feb. 18. The Associated Press sat down with Jolie-Pitt and found out a lot about the actress' thoughts on parenting and how she balances her work-life schedule with her kids. She also shared about how a country like Cambodia has opened up her mind to the real world. This interview was also cited by Access Hollywood noting that it has been 16 years since the actress visited Cambodia to work on the film, "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider." And ever since that year, her life was never the same. Later on, she decided to adopt her first child who we all know now as Maddox. "When I first came to Cambodia, it changed me. It changed my perspective. I realized there was so much about history that I had not been taught in school, and so much about life that I needed to understand, and I was very humbled by it," Jolie-Pitt told the AP. She also opened up saying that despite growing up in a well-developed city like Los Angeles, it is a place where she felt "real emptiness." Page Six also captured the 40-year-old actress' thoughts of not even wanting a child during her interview. "It's strange, I never wanted to have a baby. I never wanted to be pregnant. I never babysat. I never thought of myself as a mother," she said. The epiphany of her becoming a mom suddenly came when she returned to Cambodia for one of her humanitarian works with the United Nation. She was playing with some kids that time in a school in Cambodia when she felt that her son is somewhere in that country. Now, she is a mother of six and it is one of the best decisions she has ever made in her life. A Japanese scientist published a research study back in the 80s about the effect of intentions, spoken words and even the music a person plays when exposed to water. The result was astounding and it is something that would make everyone think of their actions and words before uttering them. Dr. Masaru Emoto of Japan and IHM Corporation in Tokyo conducted this study in the 80s and it was not until today that he is just starting to get recognition from it. In an article published by the Merlian News, they featured the study of Dr. Emoto when he showed the reaction of water when exposed to a human's intention, spoken words and even music. The late scientist explained how he went on with his theory and research, "I was introduced to the concept of micro cluster water in the U.S. and Magnetic Resonance Analysis technology. The quest thus began to discover the mystery of water." "I undertook research of water around the planet not so much as a scientific researcher but as an original thinker and as a human being. At length, I realized that it was in the water crystal that water showed us its true nature," he explained. Emoto used high-speed photography to capture the reaction of water when crystallized after being exposed to music, various pictures and spoken words. The patterns were documented and the formation of crystals would shock everyone who would see it, especially when they are exposed to words like love, peace, happiness and even negative words like anger, demon and "Hitler." The website High Existence also featured Dr. Emoto's research that they even posted the pictures captured by the scientist when he conducted the experiment. His study boils down to one thing: If water can have a reaction to words, intentions, photographs and music, then how much more the human body since we are 60% made of water. That is, perhaps, something everyone should think about. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are not only Hollywood's A-List couple, but they rock the parenting world as well. Jolie and Pitt have been very vocal when it comes to raising their kids, and they'd make it a point to put their kids on tops of their priorities. With their close to perfect family portrait, fans would think that Jolie's destined to be a mother. With the way she'd talk about her kids and the shimmer in her eyes the moment she would start talking about Maddox, you can't tell that she ever wanted them. In one of her interviews, Jolie shared what it was like being a mom. She also narrated on how she fell in-love with Colombia and its people. In addition to her life in Colombia while shooting, she also told the reports that she never wanted to have kids. She never wanted to get pregnant and doesn't have the slightest affection when it comes to children. "It's strange; I never wanted to have a baby. I never wanted to be pregnant. I never babysat. I never thought of myself as a mother," Jolie stated during her interview with the Associated Press. "It was suddenly very clear to me that my son was in the country, somewhere." Upon reaching her beloved Colombia however, everything changed as she came across a baby boy, whom she later adopted. Jolie adopted Maddox back in 2012, and opened a foundation under his name. the foundation is located within the North Western Battambag province, wherein they would provide not only education for the children but also provide health care. Her first son, Maddox is currently helping his mother run the charity in Colombia as he's shy away from the limelight. According to Huffington Post, Jolie does not want her kids to become celebrities. In one of her interviews with Today, she told the host that, ""We've always said if they're going to be actors I hope they do something [else first] and then be actors." 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 Mobile World Congress, one of, if not the, biggest trade show for all things mobile will kick off in Barcelona next week, which means some of the top smartphone makers are about to unleash a bunch of new phones. While Apple wont be making an appearance at the show, many Android smartphone makers will use the spotlight put on the show to unveil their new flagship phones. The highest profile phones rumored for the show are coming from Samsung and LG, but those are the only phones were excited to see from the show. In addition to the big phones that will get a major push from U.S. carriers, there are a few exciting devices from Chinese companies that may not make it to the states and some interesting budget phones that may not be as powerful. Here are five phones coming to the show that we are particularly interested in seeing: Samsung is rumored to announce its two newest flagship phones at an Unpacked event on February 21, the Sunday before Mobile World Congress technically starts. Photos leaked by Evan Blass show the successors to the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge will look strikingly similar to last years phones, though Samsung will of course be adding a few new features to this years models. This year the company seems interested in differentiating the two phones with more than just a curved screen on the Edge. The Galaxy S7 is rumored to keep the same 5.1-inch screen as the S6, but the curved S7 Edge is said to have a 5.5-inch display, making larger than the S6 Edge, but smaller than the S6 Edge+. The new phones could also bring back some features that Samsung left behind when it switched to the glass and metal construction of last years phones. The S7 and S7 Edge may include support for microSD cards, according to The Verge, giving users the option to expand the storage of the phones once more. Samsung may also improve the battery life of the phones by including larger batteries for both models, though neither appear to be replaceable like they were in older Galaxy phones. LG has already let a few details about its next flagship slip out into the world. We already know LG will make a Quick Cover for the phone that will include a window to view a section of the screen and let users answer or ignore phone calls without moving the flap covering the screen. LG also announced that the G5 will feature an Always On display that will show the time and notifications even when the phone is asleep, which sounds like it will work nicely with the smart case. Rumors about the phone say it will have a slightly smaller display than the G4, and ditch the plastic design for an all-metal finish. Theres also talk of a new port on the bottom of the phone called the Magic Slot which could potentially lead to expansions such as different cameras or as a way to connect to a virtual reality headset. While Xiaomis phones havent yet made it to the United States, its phones are always impressive. The Chinese company will preview the upcoming Mi 5 at an invitation-only media event in Barcelona and a special launch event in Beijing on February 24, Xiaomi Vice President of International Hugo Barra announced in January. The invitation to the event seems to hint that the phone may use the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, but doesnt say much else. A GSM Arena report citing a leaked presentation for the phone says the Mi 5 will have a 5.2-incg 1080p display, a 26MP rear-facing camera, and an 8MP front-facing camera. The Mi 5 will reportedly come with 32GB or 64GB of storage, with then 32GB model packing 3GB of RAM and the 64GB model featuring 4GB of RAM. Alcatel is rumored to announced several low- and mid-range smartphones at Mobile World Congress 2016, but the Idol 4S stands out among the crowd of other phones in the line-up. The Idol 4S will reportedly be the highest-end phone produced by Alcatel, and is said to ship in a plastic box that will double as a Google Cardboard VR headset, according to VentureBeat. The Idol 4S will likely sport a 5.5-inch quad HD AMOLED display, a Snapdragon 652 processor, 3GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage that can be expanded using a microSD card. The phone is also rumored to have a 16MP rear-facing camera with its own dedicated button, and an 8MP front-facing camera with a flash. All of that will likely come in at less than $400. Huawei is scheduled to present a new device on February 21 at the same time LG is scheduled to announce its G5, and the same day Samsung will announce its new phones. While Huaweis press invitation said it will announce a brand new device at the event, its possible the P9 will miss Mobile World Congress, according to Android Authority. If the Huawei P9 does make it to the show it will likely feature two 12MP read-facing cameras and a design that looks like a flattened-out version of the Nexus 6P the company produced for Google last year. Leaked images of the phone also show a fingerprint reader on the back, just like the Nexus 6P and a variety of color options. Its not clear what other device Huawei could show off in Barcelona, but it will have something. Scottish rockers Frightened Rabbit are releasing a new studio album on Apr. 8. The record, entitled Painting of a Panic Attack, is the bands first in three years. We already have a little taste of what it will sound like in the form of Death Dream, the leadoff track from the album. Its a broad, atmospheric song, and sounds quite positive despite its harrowing title. Have a listen below. Frightened Rabbit also announced an upcoming tour in support of Painting of a Panic Attack, starting on Apr. 21 in Portland, Oregon and continuing until the end of May. Find the bands full itinerary below. Frightened Rabbit Tour Dates: April 21 Portland, Ore. @ Wonder Ballroom 22 Boise, Ida. @ Knitting Factory Concert 23 Salt Lake City, Ut. @ The Complex 24 Denver, Co. @ Ogden Theatre 27 Minneapolis, Min. @ Varsity Theater 28 Milwaukee, Wis. @ Pabst Theater 29 Indianapolis, Ind. @ The Vogue 30 Detroit, Mich. @ St Andrews Hall May 2 Columbus, Oh. @ Newport Music Hall 3 Louisville, Kent. @ Headliners Music Hall 5 New York, N.Y. @ Terminal 5 6 Philadelphia, Penn. @ Electric Factory 7 New Haven, Conn. @ College Street Music Hall 8 Washington, D.C. @ 930 Club 9 Boston, Mass. @ House of Blues 12 Saxapahaw, NC @ Haw River Ballroom 13 Knoxville, Tenn. @ The International 15 Atlanta, GA @ Shaky Knees Music Festival 17 San Antonio, Tex. @ Paper Tiger 18 Dallas, Tex @ Granada Theatre 20 Phoenix, Ariz. @ The Crescent Ballroom 21 Solana Beach, Calif. @ Belly Up Tavern 24 Los Angeles, Calif. @ The Fonda Theatre 26 San Francisco, Calif. @ The Regency Ballroom 27 Sacramento, Calif @ The Ace of Spades 27-30 George, Wash @ Sasquatch Festival You also can (and should) listen to Frightened Rabbits 2009 Daytrotter session below. , the former Aztec capital toppled by Spain nearly 500 years ago, is a massive metropolis set in a dry lake bed with more than 300 colonias, or neighborhoods. Similar to neighborhood brands like Bushwick, Highland Park and Wicker Park, the hip new spot in CDMX (short for Ciudad de Mexico) is La Condesa. The bohemian art-centric Condesaalong with neighboring Romais a leafy residential area southwest of the historic center. During the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema in the 1940s and 1950s, this colonia was home to numerous film stars, but many of its upscale residents moved to Polanco following a major earthquake in 1985. The exodus meant Condesa and Roma suddenly had exquisite yet affordable housing that started attracting artistic types in the 1990s. Gentrification is happening fast, and the prices now reflect the change, but the local vibe is only getting hotter. The following itinerary covers Condesa and Roma (with a quick side trip into Reforma). As a general frame of reference, Avenida de Los Insurgentes Sur separates the colonias with Condesa to the west and Roma to the east. Morning After an artisanal breakfast at Que Seria de Mi, bang out Instagram pix at a few main monuments in Reforma (a.k.a. Zona Rosa). Traditional tourism is a nasty business, agreed, but you can quickly knock out the highlights in the morning before the tourist turtles make every shot a time-draining ordeal. From Condesa, head north on Calle Salamanca (note: the street name will change to Sevilla) to the roundabout at Paseo de la Reforma. In the center of this roundabout, the 74-year-old Fuente de la Diana Cazadora (the Huntress Diana Fountain) stands as a monument to the Roman goddess of hunting. Snap a few pix, and then walk east on Paseo de la Reform for five minutes to the famed Angel of Independence, one of the most iconic shots in the city. Built more than a century ago, El Angelas its commonly calledcommemorates the start of Mexicos War of Independence. Resembling the Berlin Victory Column in Germany, the monument is a common gathering point for both celebration and dissent. Afternoon After checking out the landmarks, walk south on Florencia (the name will change to Monterrey) for 20 minutes to the diagonal cross street Avenida Yucatan in Roma Norte. A short half-block down Avenida Yucatan is the famed taco joint El Parnita. Do not skip this place! The daytime-only, two-story restaurant serves world-famous tacos at near-street vendor prices. Specials can include wild boar tacos, but the classic el rellenito taco (chipotles stuffed with panela cheese, beans and avocado) is the local fave. After lunch, visit the gastro-adventurist market Tlapaleria Gastronomica next door for exceptional take-home gifts. Want to freak out the buddies at work? Grab a tasty jar of ant-filled lemon jelly! Plenty of Fear Factor foods are in stock, and most of the 100-percent Mexican products are store exclusives that include artisanal honey, various salts, basil butter, exotic fruit marmalades and buckets filled with spices, beans and grains. For additional shopping, visit the nearby Mercado de Medellin (about five blocks south) where hundreds of stalls sell food items from throughout Latin America. Finish the afternoon with a pre-dinner drink at Los Insurgentes (on the avenue of the same name) to indulge in the ancient indigenous cocktail pulque, a milky-colored alcohol made from agave sap. Pulque is uncommon today, but in centuries past, many considered it a sacred drink. El Plaza Photo courtesy of the Mexico Tourism Bureau and Mexico City Tourism Bureau Evening Parque Mexico is the commercial heart of Condesa. You will visit the park on day two, but the surrounding area is home to zona de restaurantes (the restaurant zone), and it is the ideal place for dinner. The options here are many, but MeroToro is a solid choice for Baja-style surf and turf. The team behind the restaurant previously popularized seafood in landlocked CDMX with Contramar, and MeroToro continues the tradition with a stylish look (reclaimed wood, Edison bulbs, a fully open facade) and beachfront-worthy eats. The menu is packed with tempting small plates and its famous pan-fried Iberian ham pork jowl, but go big with the namesake mero (grouper) and one of the many perfectly executed meat dishes. The drink menu includes a wide variety of IPA beers. After dinner, head a few blocks north of Parque Mexico to the brilliantly moody La Clandestina mezcal bar. The address is Alvaro Obregon 298 near Calle Huichapan, but the bar does not have a sign or an address number, so look for the hole-in-the-wall next to Alvaro Obregon 278. More opium den than mezcal Mecca, La Clandestina serves about two-dozen housemade mezcals held in large plastic containers and dispensed via snake-like tubes. The drinks are numbered, not named, and served with water and paprika-dusted orange slices. Mezcal is made from different types of maguey agave typically from Oaxaca in the south. Espadin is the most common agaveand a genetic relative to blue agave (i.e., tequila)making it the least expensive, but consider sampling rare types of agave that typically cost north of $100 a bottle in the United States. Start by trying tobala, often called the king of mezcals, for fruity complexity before checking out tobaziche, tepeztate and/or arroqueno. The bar also features numerous agave blends. Morning Start the day with breakfast at either El Ocho Cafe for java junkies or Chai Bar for tea timers, two equally quaint spots about 40 feet from each other at the south end of Parque Mexico. With a full belly and hearty caffeine fix, spend the morning checking out the park. A few centuries previous, the whole area was the hacienda of the Countess of Miravalle (condesa is the Spanish word for countess), and the 1920s-built park was the location of her horse race track. Modeled after the public gardens of Europe, the modern park hosts a duck pond, shaded seating areas, the five-pillar Lindbergh Open Air Theater, lush greenery and native Mediterranean trees. Key iconic sites in the park include the Art Deco clock tower and Fuente de los Cantaros (the Fountain of the Jugs), the latter featuring the image of a woman who also modeled for Mexican painter Diego Rivera. Afternoon For lunch, head a few blocks east to Mercado Roma, an impressive culinary marketplace best described as CDMXs answer to Mario Batalis Eataly. In addition to traditional gourmet fare, the various stations serve wine, beer, cocktails, gourmet churros and Mexican chocolates. Spend the rest of the afternoon exploring the many streets and shops around Parque Mexico. Circling the park (from inside out) are the racetrack-shaped Avenidas Mexico and Amsterdam, while Avenida Michoacan is the main commercial street that cuts right through Parque Mexico. Focus your shopping efforts on the west side of the park with vintage and indie-designer threads at Viejo Amor, premium mezcal at Sabra Dios?, modern design and toys at Rojo Bermelo and trendy baby goods at Milktology. Parque Mexico Photo: conejoazul, CC-BY In addition to shopping, check out the extensive Art Deco architecture in Condesa with about 300 buildings and structures from the 1920s and 1930s. Examples include Edificios Mexico and Tehuacan on Avenida Mexico, and for Aztec-inspired Art Deco, check out Ernesto Buenrostros 1930 Edificio Picadilly on Avenida de Los Insurgentes. The best bet for an Art Deco tour is simply circling Avenidas Mexico and Amsterdam on foot. Evening For dinner, you have two excellent options in Roma Norte. In the Condesa-Roma-Reform area, the highest ranked place on Latin Americas 50 Best Restaurants 2015 is Maximo Bistrot at No. 41. Helmed by a husband-wife team, the farm-to-fork bistro serves outstanding Mexican dishes with European twists created by chef Eduardo Garcia, who has Pujol and Le Bernardin on his kitchen resume. Seafood lovers should definitely try the octopus. The daily-changing menu makes this the foodie-traveler choice, but the scene lacks vibrancy. Alternatively, nearby Rosetta (ranked No. 44 on the same list) is an Italian restaurant that uses some Mexican ingredients. The scene is spectacular with tables set up in a grand mansion, and kitchen maestro Elena Reygadas was voted Latin Americas Best Female Chef in 2014. The dishes are arguably better in Maximo Bistrot, and eating Italian in Mexico City seems counter intuitive, but Rosetta is unquestionably the more romantic choice for couples. Rosetta Photo: Joshua Bousel, CC-BY After dinner, active travelers might consider salsa dancing, rum drinks and live Cuban music at the Mojito Room in Condesa, while the boutique Hotel Condesa DF offers a more relaxed vibe on its rooftop bar with gorgeous views of Chapultepec Castle and Parque Espana. Getting There Benito Juarez International Airport (MEX) receives flights from around the world with direct connects from Los Angeles, New York City, London, Paris, Toronto and several other major cities. Car service booths compete for your business just past immigration, but the taxi stands outside are generally less expensive. The price is based on location, and expect to pay about 300 pesos (at 18 pesos to the dollar in February 2016) from the airport to La Condesa. Getting Around Only take taxis from official stands or have the hotel, restaurant or shop call one for you. Alternatively, the Uber app that is probably on your phone already works in the city. Make sure your phone is on airplane mode to avoid hefty roaming charges and summon cars using the hotel or restaurant wifi. Likewise, look for lime-green Zona WiFi signs throughout CDMX for free wifi service. To Stay The aforementioned Hotel Condesa DF is a top choice with a modern refurbished interior housed inside a 1928 French Neoclassical building. In addition to its rooftop bar and central location near Parques Espana and Mexico, the hotel has all the designer touches one would expect from a trendy boutique hotel. Rooms start at $259 per night. Hotel Villa Condesa, a more affordable option a block from Condesa DF, is a small bohemian hotel with barely more than a dozen rooms. Set in a historic Art Deco mansion, the hotel is a mashup of modern amenities and classic touches like antique furniture pieces and stone columns. The smoke-free hotel does not accept young children, which makes it an ideal getaway spot for couples. Rooms start at $135. Top photo: marianna fierro, CC-BY David Jenison is a Los Angeles native and the Content Editor of PROHBTD. He has covered entertainment, restaurants and travel for more than 20 years. Its been eight years since Joshua Cotter published Skyscrapers of the Midwest, a sad and touching examination of childhood thats also his last long-form fictional narrative. This Tuesday brings the first of his seven planned volumes of Nod Away, a complex and beautiful sci-fi epic. The book alternates between a narrative of scientists working on a space station to tweak a biologically wired Innernet and back to nearly wordless scenes of a man traveling by himself through the desert, toward an unclear goal. Dreamy, packed with interesting ideas and suffused with the same quiet-but-felt emotions as his debut, Nod Away fills a void that makes Cotters previous absence all the more evident. The cartoonist exchanged a series of emails with Paste discussing his ambitious new work (many spoilers ahead). Paste: Ive seen some of your thumbnails for page/panel layout, and the level of detail freaks me out. How much did you have ready going into this story? In other words: you seem like a planner. Talk to me about that. Joshua Cotter: I started organizing notes and writing Nod Away after completing the collected Skyscrapers in 2008. I wrote for a couple years, got derailed for a couple more, and then once I got back on track in 2012, I wrote for another year or so before I started drawing anything. Initially it was just pulling together all of these disparate ideas I had while working on Skyscrapers and figuring out what direction I wanted to go in. Once a story started to form I did a lot of writing and rewriting, then dialogue writing and rewriting, and then thumbnails and a few character sketches. Before I actually started drawing volume one Id say I planned for four years or so. At seven volumes, its going to be a large book, so I wanted to make sure I had all of the plot points and a satisfactory ending in place before I got started. So, yes. Im a planner. Nod Away Cover Art by Joshua Cotter Paste: I know that you put up some of this book online serially, at Study Group Comics, but a big chunk of it is also new to the print format. Why split it? What parts are new? Did you draw everything sequentially and then parse out what went up online, or did you go back and add things? Did the comments affect anything about the story? Cotter: When Zack Soto approached me about posting on Study Group, I wasnt sure what to give them. Im not much of an online comics person (nothing against online comics, I just dont read much online personally). The final object means a lot more to me. I guess I decided on thinking of the Study Group posts as a preview, of sorts. There are two stories in Nod Away, and since I was already working on the first story when I started talking with Zack, I decided to post those pages and see where things went from there. I ended up letting the first story run online until the last dozen pages or so, as not to ruin the ending for readers of the physical copy. I didnt draw volume one sequentially; I wanted the different sections (the space station story, the desert story and the abstract sequences) to each have their own distinct feel so I worked on them at separate times. I try not to pay much attention to the comments section. I appreciate having an audience for my work, but if you pay too much attention to it, feedback (whether positive or negative) can become overwhelming and end up negatively affecting your output. Nod Away Interior Art by Joshua Cotter Paste: Can you talk to me a little about your drawing process and the media you use? Is it a super-dumb question to ask if you really use blue pencils [because of the cover design of the book]? Cotter: I do use blue line. I dont think thats super-dumb at all. I use it because when it comes time to clean up my pages in Photoshop, I dont have to spend an hour on each page digitally removing all of the graphite marks I couldnt get rid of while erasing. With blue line I dont have to erase at all. I just scan the pages in as full color and drop the blues out, if thats something readers want to hear. Anyway, I draw on 9 x 12 Strathmore 400 series smooth surface bristol using blue lead in a .5mm Alvin Draft/Matic, and then ink with Tachikawa T-77s and T-99s nibs. I pencil each section in its entirety before I start inking in case I need to go back and add anything or make any changes. After using blue line for a while I started to like how it looked aesthetically, and decided to use it for the cover illustrations. I feel it has an ethereal quality to it. Paste: What about character design, which I see as a real strength of yours, especially with this book? Cotter: Thanks for saying so. I put a lot more thought into character design in this one. Skyscrapers was just a bunch of geometric, round-headed cat people and I wanted to move past that. I tried to keep in mind that I wanted the characters to be recognizable in a silhouette test. Sometimes the characters came to mind fully formed (Melody, Dr. Serious). Sometimes, if I had difficulty coming up with a characters look, Id try to think of who from real life Id like to play that character (in a movie or whatever) and loosely base their physical characteristics on that person (Iota, Black Angus). Paste: So is that Mike Dawson making a cameo in the book? Cotter: Yeah, thats Mike. Also an attempt at Jim Rugg as the Unipol cop. I have to populate the world, so I figure I may as well use friends. Even if Im not very good with likeness. Paste: Are you a huge H.P. Lovecraft fan or what? Cotter: No. I think Lovecraft had some good ideas, but I personally dont care for his writing. His overuse of the adjective hideous drives me nuts, and he rarely helps the reader understand whatever he happens to be presenting as hideous He builds up to it in the story and then steps back with a it was far too hideous to describe, so Ill move on. Im sure it was to leave it up to the imagination of his readers, but it doesnt work for me. I also take issue with his racism. But I digress. People love Lovecraft. To each his own. While there is a creature in volume one that emerges from a portal, I did not have Lovecraft in mind when I wrote that part. There is a story behind its emergence that will be revealed in a later volume. The only [Alan] Moore Ive read is Watchmen. The influence would probably be the any number of movies where things go horribly wrong, usually due to the human element. Nod Away Interior Art by Joshua Cotter Paste: Theres this kind of creeping horror at work in the book that seems to be at least a mini-trend in indie comics (Josh Simmons, Jesse Jacobs, Emily Carroll). Any theories as to why? Did you all grow up watching Tales from the Crypt? Cotter: I cant speak for other indie cartoonists, but I would theorize that its the underlying horror that I sense in day-to-day life. The ubiquity of negativity. Maybe its just me, but I dont think so. Its pretty evident that something is wrong in our country, with the steady rise of gun violence. Violence in general, the hatred and anger. Maybe its partially due to the intentional divisiveness created by people in positions of power. Attempting to eliminate gray areas, politically, culturally. This versus that. Anyway, I think sometimes it would be easier if whatever it is Im sensing would manifest physically instead of remaining so ambiguous. A flesh creature emerging from a gate, all consuming. Paste: Do you think its really that things have gotten worse in the world? Or does it just feel like it? The latter is certainly true. Maybe its just a narrow frame of reference. If you compare how life is now to life in the 19th century, life expectancy is higher, murder rates are lower, theres a lot more food, etc. Or is it that things seem to be moving in the wrong direction (climate change being the biggest example)? Cotter: I dont think things have gotten worse, but I do believe the internet makes it seem that way. Youre right, were doing a lot better than we were a century ago. Horrible things have always happened, its just that now it can all be filmed with a phone and posted on Facebook or Twitter Theres an unprecedented immediacy to it. We need to be confronted with difficult issues, race issues, gender inequality, the violence inherent in our makeup as a species. We have a tendency to want to keep our heads in the sand, but now were being forced to face and acknowledge the wrong were capable of inflicting on one another, over and over again. Itll take some getting used to, but ultimately its a good thing. We need to face this stuff. We need to do better. Its just going to take a while for our minds to figure out a way to process it, and then hopefully we can start properly righting our wrongs, instead of just arguing about it. Nod Away Interior Art by Joshua Cotter Paste: This book seems specifically interested in intersections of biology and technology, both visually (bundles of cables = bundles of nerves/muscle fibers or maybe intestines?) and thematically (horrible goo monster coming through the space gate; Eva being the basis for the Innernet). Yes? No? Cotter: Yes. Analogies drawn between flesh and machine. I was rewatching some Cronenberg recently and it occurred to me what an influence his work has had on me. Theres even an upcoming plot point that I unconsciously swiped from Scanners. But, yes. Biology and technology. More accurately, humans and technology. And consciousness. Im not a neo-luddite or anything, I find our relationship with technology to be an endless source of fascination. Whats most interesting to me is that although most of us now have nearly all of mankinds collective knowledge at our disposal, we still cant figure out how to do much good with it. We spend hours on social media getting into passionate arguments over daily minutia. Were in direct physical proximity to each other on sidewalks, trains, family dinners, etc. and we almost always fail (or refuse) to acknowledge the presence of one another, opting instead for, say, texting a friend to make plans so we can meet up and proceed to ignore one another in favor of texting the people we were just in the same room with. Im hoping were behaving this way because its all so relatively new. Like infants suddenly in the face of abstract existence, a sensory overload we dont know how to properly process it yet. Paste: Is it weird that Im surprised youre on Twitter? Cotter: Its weird that Im on Twitter. I basically got on there to follow a couple of friends and occasionally talk about Debbie Gibson and other important topics. Paste: It seems to me that the experience of reading the book, trying to put together all its pieces of incomplete information, is not dissimilar to what looking for something on the Internet feels like. Like that old story about the blind men trying to describe the elephant. There might be a more definitive reality out there, but our perception of it is like the tangles that trail off your panels near the end of the book. I guess Plato had stuff to say about that too. Cotter: Thats pretty perceptive. A big theme of the series will concern our inability to see the big picture. No matter how much we try, the human mind is just far too limited to comprehend whats really going on. Limits in perception, limits in ability to process. Intellectual limitations. Its frustrating to think well never get to a point of total comprehension, at least in our lifetime. But its still fun to posit. The story will be told in a non-linear fashion, and while each volume will present bits and pieces of the story, my intention is to have a cohesive whole by the time the reader reaches the end. Maybe thats how it is in real life Individually we dont have the answers, but if you were able to step back and observe what all sentient beings know and experience and were able to process such a large quantity of information, youd finally get it. But probably not. Nod Away Interior Art by Joshua Cotter Paste: Our scientist characters, who youd think are supposed to be more objective and reality-based, seem to spend a really large chunk of their time in altered states: drunk, high, sleep-deprived. Is that just a way of introducing fuzziness or is it something else? Cotter: Its just a way of portraying them as human, I suppose. My guess is if you were cooped up on a space station for months or years on end, the desire to escape would eventually come into play. Escapism is a big part of the human experience, evident in our love of movies, books, alcohol and drug consumption, the aforementioned smart phone. While the scientists in the current ISS probably arent getting liquored up on a daily basis, Im sure the thought crosses their minds every now and then. I decided to give the scientists in ISS 2 access to the stuff. You end up with something like a college dorm. Paste: Have you written all seven volumes yet? How much does your arm hurt? Cotter: An analogy Ive been using is if you think of the series as a connect-the-dots drawing, I know where all of the dots are. Since I knew I would be spending a good chunk of my life working on this, I wanted to make sure the story was heading somewhere, and that it would hold together in the end, but I wanted to leave room for changes in the story here and there if anything occurred to me along the way. I also took my tendency to get bored working on one project for too long into consideration, so each volume will feature a different protagonist, each telling the story from a different time and perspective, with varying degrees of perception. My arm is okay, but my back is a mess. Nod Away Interior Art by Joshua Cotter Paste: Why do you live in rural Missouri? Do you feel like your environment affects your comics? Cotter: My wife and I lived in Chicago for a few years and it was getting to the point where I wasnt able to accomplish much with comics. I had to work a full time job to pay for my apartment, and comics had to be done in whatever spare time I could find. I was getting older and found I had less and less energy for both work and comics, so I reprioritized. I grew up in northwest Missouri and knew it was a place where we could afford to be artists full time, so we moved back, built a house on some family land and got back to work. My environment can affect my comics in a number of ways. The best effect currently would be that I was able to finish a 240-page book in two and a half years versus the five-plus it would have taken me in Chicago. Also, like with Skyscrapers, parts of future volumes of Nod Away will take place in northwest Missouri, so Ill be able to draw inspiration from my surroundings, rather than the photo reference Ive had to use in the past. Paste: I know youve talked/written a fair bit about how depression shapes your work. It seems like theres a real effort toward mindfulness that comes through in your work, like in the way you carefully draw and shade each rock in the desert landscapes, as opposed to the hyper-ruminative thinking thats often characteristic of depression and the scattered thought process the Internet encourages. But maybe Im reading too much into it. Cotter: If depression has given me anything positive in my life, its perspective. When youve hit the absolute bottom emotionally and mentally, there are only two ways you can go. Im fortunate that even at my lowest, Ive always somehow kept in touch with the will to live. Barely, at times, but still in touch. That will keeps you looking up from the depths of depression and, through contrast, helps you to develop a better understanding of the essence of life. It helps you to eventually work your way back out and communicate to others that life isnt just the pursuit of happiness, but the whole range; beauty, ugliness, wonder, violence, mundane moments and objectsit all comes together to create the human experience as a whole. I feel I have a responsibility as an artist to impart the experience unique to the depressive, to carefully shade each rock and communicate the vital qualities that seemingly meaningless objects hold to the reader, because its all part of the whole. Life is fragile and fleeting. I just want to do the best Im capable of while Im here. Nod Away Interior Art by Joshua Cotter Paste: Despite the feeling that the whole book is going to end in disaster, there are moments of levity, like with the characters names (Okonomi Yaki, Lance Iota), which play around with language. Can you just not help yourself with puns? Is this a Pynchon influence creeping in? Does it just need lightening up? Cotter: I really dont like naming characters, for whatever reason. Besides Nova Stealth, Skinny Kenny and a couple others in Skyscrapers, this is the first time Ive really felt the need to christen them. I decided it was necessary since its going to be a long book. I figured I may as well have fun with it so I turned to the alliteratives and puns common in comics. And, yeah, the series is going to get pretty dark at times, so I felt a little levity couldnt hurt. Paste: The title: You never explicitly discuss it within the confines of at least this first volume. Sleep and space are two themes that are often intertwined. Why do you think that is, and how did you intend the title to be taken? Cotter: The meaning of the title of the series is something Id rather not define. I have my own reasons for naming it Nod Away, but I dont want to take away from any individual interpretation. It does, in part, allude to what happens at the end of the first volume, but eventually will come to have other meanings as well. I feel that if the author says, this is what this means, it will come across as the final word on the topic and ultimately alter the readers overall experience. Part of the fun is trying to get the audience to meet you halfway. In a case that has tremendous ramifications for womens power in the music industry, Kesha was denied an injunction against her producer, Dr. Luke, by the New York Supreme Court today. Kesha had filed for the injunction as a way out of her recording contract with Dr. Luke, whom she alleges has raped and sexually abused her repeatedly over the past decade. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Judge Shirley Kornreich refused the injunction for a variety of reasons, centered on the fact that Kesha hadnt presented enough evidence that the contract was ruining her music career. Youre asking the court to decimate a contract that was heavily negotiated and typical for the industry, she said to Keshas lawyer, Mark Geragos. Theres also the problematic fact that Dr. Luke has nominally agreed to allow Kesha to record without him, though Kesha says that makes no difference because Sony Music has decided it wont promote her career anymore. Of course, the reason that Kesha wants out of her contract is because of the rape allegations she has levied against Dr. Luke in a civil suit, who has countersued on the claim that Keshas team is attempting to extort him. The court has yet to decide on which of these suits to proceedbut as the parties wait, Kesha continues not to make music with the man who she claims caused her untold trauma. Kesha fans, womens rights activists, and myriad others were furious with the outcome of the injunction case, and many took to Twitter to express their rage: can't believe he said "I made her famous" like that doesn't mean you have the damn right to rape and abuse a woman ugh #freekesha flor (@flopyvalle) February 19, 2016 Stop calling him "Dr". That's disrespect to a Noble profession of Doctors. Call his Luke the "Rapist". #FreeKeshapic.twitter.com/2JH30ZcKN9 Sheikh Ebad (@eSHEIKH_) February 19, 2016 How do teenagers and people on the internet have a better understanding of justice than people who are meant to serve it? #FreeKesha talia (@shagmetria) February 19, 2016 Unfortunately for Kesha, rape is exceedingly hard to prove in a court of law without medical evidence. Well have more on this case as it unfolds. The brain may be the biggest erogenous zone, but apparently, architecture experts agree. The porno pad from The Big Lebowski, or as Los Angelites refer to it, the Sheats-Goldstein House, will soon be donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Designed by John Lautner in 1963, the house is considered a piece of L.A. architectural history, not merely because of the immortalization from The Dude but also because of the organic design built directly into the ledge of the hillside, which acts as an extension of the natural environmentor the au natural environment in Jackie Treehorns case. Though the building is best known from its brief stint in film, its actually the designer John Lautner whos more recognizable. Christopher Hawthorne, an architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times describes Lautner as a Frank Lloyd Wright disciple, iconoclast, and reluctant Angelino and that the house itself located in Beverly Crest is quintessentially L.A. Michael Govan, director of the museum, agrees. For me, it ranks as one of the most important houses in all of L.A., he told the Los Angeles Times. For LACMA, the house is the first such structure to enter the museums permanent collection, and its an important local example of modern residential architecture. As the museum boosts its presence in the world of architecture, the home will serve as a perfect backdrop for future fundraisers, exhibits and programs, even if James F. Goldstein, the homes owner, still lives in it. Tom is a travel writer, part-time hitchhiker, and hes currently trying to imitate Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? but with more sunscreen and jorts. From its first moments, The Witch strands us in a hostile land. We watch (because thats all we can do, helplessly) as puritan patriarch William (Ralph Ineson) argues stubbornly with a small council, thereby causing his familys banishment from their New England community. William welcomes the punishment, because it affirms his religious zealotry: We dont know the cause of the disagreement between William and the other local leaders, but its shades of disagreement over proper Christian practice reawakens the self-righteousness that must have first driven the man and his family from England not long before. Beaming with pride, William packs up his wife, kids, belongings and various farm animals onto their creaking wagon, heading to a foreboding wood outside the quickly shuttered gates of the community. We watch, and writer-director Robert Eggers holds our gaze while a score of strings and assorted prickly detritusmuch like the dialogue-less beginning to There Will be Bloodrise to a climax that never comes. Its a long shot, breathing dread: The wagon lurches ever-on into the wilderness, piling the frontier of this New World upon the literal frontier of an unexplored forest. Its 1620, and William claims, We will conquer this wilderness. The film fast-forwards. Theyve planted corn, raised a small herd of goats, and built a suitable homenot only has the family remade this land in their image, theyve succeeded in conquering this wilderness through the power of God, who gave them such agency over Nature in His own image. That is, until oldest daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy, near perfect in this role) up and loses her infant brother one day during an otherwise normal game of peekaboo. There are less than holy forces at work. Eggers New England Folk Tale is a horror film swollen with the allure of the unknown. To say that its reminiscent of the Salem Witch Trials, which take place 70 years after the events in the film, would be an understatementthe inevitable consequences of such historic mania looms heavily over The Witch. But whereas most fiction surrounding the Witch Trials (most notably Arthur Millers The Crucible) focuses on the power of hysteria to convince even the most pragmatic people that such nonsense is true, Eggers chooses to dig deeper, questioning the bedrock of such hysteria. The circumstances surrounding the babys disappearance are mysterious, of coursea simple trick of editing on Eggers partbut instead of leaving the truth of Thomasins witch-like inclinations up for debate, keeping us wondering whether or not shes hiding more sinister secrets, Eggers then takes his camera into a fairy-tale-like hovel out in the middle of the woods. There, a naked, wrinkly crone does to the baby exactly what wed hoped would not happen to the baby. And in that moment, within the films first 15 minutes, Eggers shows us the titular threat, taking a mortar and pestle to all Witch Trials allusions, grinding them to a pulp. The unknown is no longer whether actual evil exists or notthe unknown is why that evil should even exist at all. All of this Eggers frames with a subconscious knack for creating tension within each shot, rarely relying on jump scares or gore, instead mounting suspense through one masterful edit after another. The effect, then, is that of a building fever dream in which primeval forceslust, defiance, hunger, greedsimmer at the edges of experience, avoided but never quite conquered. Theres oldest son Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) on the cusp of puberty, who cant help but steal glimpses of his older sisters barely-exposed skin, who later, wracked with existential worry, questions his father about whether or not his unbaptized baby brother will go to Hell. Theres wife Katherine (Kate Dickie) drowned by grief, willing almost too readily to believe that her family has been cursed by God for her husbands disobedience to their communitys leaders and religious doctrine. There is Thomasin unable to reconcile her teen angst with the strictures of her heritage, becoming a woman amidst a burgeoning society incapable of catering to one. There is pressure intensifying in this family simply because they are human. At the end of the film, a title card reveals that most of the films dialogue and events were lifted wholesale from actual 17th century accounts and manuscripts. That, combined with some flawless art direction, lends The Witch a well-balanced realism, especially when the supernatural, more than just implied in the early reveal of the supposed witch, really starts to take hold. But whats most convincing is the burden of puritanical spirituality which blankets the films every single moment, a pall through which every characterespecially Thomasinstruggles to be, simply, a regular person. There is no joy in their worship, there is only gravitas: prayers, fasting, penitence and fear. And its that fear which drives the films horror, which eventually makes even us viewers believe that, at the fringes of civilization, at the border of the unknown, God has surely abandoned these people. Though The Witch ends as it mustnot, it should be noted, with a twist, because the stakes had already been set from the first moment we knew the titular monster to be realits an ending which, while resting on a striking final image, tips almost too readily into the supernatural elements so much of the film tries for so much of its run-time to delicately avoid. There is a goat named Black Philip, there is blood, there is the line you will quote for weeks after seeing it. Wouldst thou like to live deliciously? Its a fair questionbecause of course thou would. Because even if The Witch implies that the mortal fear to which its characters prescribe in the face of such real evil makes plenty sense, Eggers still doesnt buy that the puritanical hysteria at the heart of Americas founding was anything reasonable. Why does this evil exist at all? When the alternative is so dehumanizing, why doesnt it? Director: Robert Eggers Writer: Robert Eggers Starring: Ralph Ineson, Anya Taylor-Joy, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw Release Date: February 19, 2016 Dom Sinacola is Assistant Movies Editor at Paste and a Portland-based writer. Since he grew up in the Detroit area, it is required by law that his favorite movie is Robocop. You can follow him on Twitter. In a new report posted late today we learn that Apple is on record having received 971 law enforcement requests for account data stored in a user's iCloud or iTunes account In the first half of 2015, the last data available, and provided at least some data to 81% of them. As many as 499 additional requests were related to national security, according to Apple's transparency report. More importantly, Apple has assisted the government with their case relating to the San Bernardino attack. More specifically, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports today that Apple in general could provide customer data stored in its iCloud service, such as phone backups that can include stored photos, email, documents, contacts, calendars, and bookmarks. In the San Bernardino case specifically, Apple has provided such data for Mr. Farook until Oct. 19, the last time his phone synced to his iCloud. What the FBI now wants is the 44 days of datasuch as Messages and FaceTime callsthat may only exist on this locked iPhone. The WSJ report also noted in this new report that "AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson on Thursday reiterated comments he made last month that Congress should determine whether law enforcement should have the ability to access encrypted data on cellphones. Congress "should decide the proper balance between public safety and personal privacy," Mr. Stephenson said in an emailed statement. "The rapid pace of technological innovation is challenging laws crafted in a very different era for totally different, and much less complex situations. Recent developments, in particular, bring home the need for legal clarity." Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R., N.C.) is working on a proposal that would create criminal penalties for companies that don't comply with court orders to decipher encrypted communications, four people familiar with the matter said. For more on this, read the full WSJ report. About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Comments are reviewed daily from 4am to 6pm PST and sporadically over the weekend. On Wednesday Apple Pay finally kick started in China. Today we learn that the great response from China's iPhone users has apparently overwhelmed the system causing errors. Duan Ge, a 31-year-old employee of a film production company stated that he managed to link his debit card after about 30 minutes of trying, but later when he tried to register another credit card, he "could not even open the app." Mashable noted in their report that "by 5 p.m. yesterday, 38 million bank cards had been linked to Apple Pay. The Beijing Morning News said on its Weibo account that within an hour of the service going live at 5 a.m., 10 million people had already linked their bank cards to their accounts. Some mobile payment experts argue that Apple Pay is a safer payment option than an Internet-based system because it uses near-field communication (NFC), a short-range wireless technology that lets Apple devices and banks exchange data. It is more difficult for hackers to abuse NFC technology, the experts say. According to Caixin, "Fifteen major banks, including the nation's biggest lender, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, have agreed to let customers link their bankcards to Apple Pay, the company said. Sixteen businesses in China, including convenience store 7-Eleven Inc., fast food restaurant McDonald's Corp. and supermarket Carrefour SA, accept Apple Pay, the company said. The payment service can also be used to buy movie tickets, book airplane tickets and have food delivered via mobile apps." About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Comments are reviewed daily from 4am to 6pm PST and sporadically over the weekend. In two new reports published late yesterday we learn a little more about the decision behind Apple's move to fight the U.S. Court order to assist the FBI and Apple being given three additional days to prepare their argument to the judge that will now include an argument about protecting free speech. In a report published late yesterday by the New York Times they noted that Apple's CEO "standoff with law enforcement officials is indicative of his personal evolution from a behind-the-scenes operator at Apple to one of the world's most outspoken corporate executives. During that time, he has moved a once secretive Silicon Valley company into the center of highly charged social and legal issues. While Mr. Cook's predecessor, Apple co-founder Steven P. Jobs, was considered a business icon, he never took aggressive positions on such matters as Mr. Cook now has. Being at loggerheads with the United States government is risky for Apple and may draw a torrent of public criticism of the world's most valuable company at a time when its growth rate has significantly decelerated. His outspokenness has drawn criticism, with some investors questioning how nonbusiness initiatives including some of Apple's environmental moves would contribute to the company's bottom line. Apple was growing tired of requests from government officials worldwide asking the company to unlock smartphones. Each data-extraction request was carefully vetted by Apple's lawyers. Of those deemed legitimate, Apple in recent years required that law enforcement officials physically travel with the gadget to the company's headquarters, where a trusted Apple engineer would work on the phones inside Faraday bags, which block wireless signals, during the process of data extraction. Processing these requests was extremely tedious. More worrisome, the data stored on its customers iPhones was growing more personal, including photos, messages and bank, health and travel data. And some government officials were not exactly instilling confidence in Apple's engineers. After December's San Bernardino attack, Apple worked with the F.B.I. to gather data that had been backed up to the cloud from a work iPhone issued to one of the assailants, according to court filings. When investigators also wanted unspecified information on the phone that had not been backed up, the judge this week granted the order requiring Apple to create a special tool to help investigators more easily crack the phone's passcode and get into the device. The New York Times article notes that "Apple had asked the F.B.I. to issue its application for the tool under seal. But the government made it public, prompting Mr. Cook to go into bunker mode to draft a response, according to people privy to the discussions, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The result was the letter that Mr. Cook signed on Tuesday where he argued that it set a 'dangerous precedent' for a company to be forced to build tools for the government that weaken security. 'Compromising the security of our personal information can ultimately put our personal safety at risk," he wrote. "That is why encryption has become so important to all of us.'" What's hard to understand at this point however, is that Apple provided the FBI with the San Bernardino terrorist's iCloud information from his last backup, according to a Wall Street Journal report that we covered yesterday. So why was it okay for Apple to provide personal information from the terrorist to the FBI from iCloud but hacking an iPhone 5c which Apple could do in their sleep is so egregious? It would seem that Apple's conscience isn't consistent with their public stance on this issue. Personal information is personal information, so why stop at hacking the iPhone? Perhaps we'll find the answer to this when Cook is questioned by Congress. It'll be interesting to hear how they parse their decision making on privacy between personal information in iCloud and an iPhone. For more on this part of the story, review the full New York Times report here. The report is jam packed with additional information on Apple and Cook's position on this explosive battle over a court order issued to them this week, not covered in this report. On another front late yesterday we learn from Reuters that Apple "will likely seek to invoke the United States' protections of free speech as one of its key legal arguments in trying to block an order to help unlock the encrypted iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters, lawyers with expertise in the subject said this week." The report further noted that Apple was granted three additional days by the court to file a response to the order. Apple will now have until Feb. 26 to send a reply. In addition, Apple has reportedly retained two prominent, free-speech lawyers to do battle with the government, according to court papers: Theodore Olson, who won the political-speech case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010, and Theodore Boutrous, who frequently represents media organizations. Apple could argue that being required to create and provide specific computer code amounts to unlawful compelled speech, said Riana Pfefferkorn, a cryptography fellow at Stanford University's Center for Internet and Society. The order against Apple is novel because it compels the company to create a new forensic tool to use, not just turn over information in Apple's possession, Pfefferkorn said. "I think there is a significant First Amendment concern," she said. Yet the report further noted that "A speech-rights argument from Apple, though, could be met with skepticism by the courts because computer code has become ubiquitous and underpins much of the U.S. economy." For more on this part of the story, see the full Reuters report here. About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Comments are reviewed daily from 4am to 6pm PST and sporadically over the weekend. Other Recent Reports on this Issue Apple Assisted the FBI on the San Bernardino Case but the Essential Last 44 Days of Data is Locked in the iPhone 5c Feb 18, 2016 Manhattan District Attorney Slams 'Warrant-Proof' iPhones and Apple Playing the new Sheriff in Town Feb 18, 2016 Apple's Court Order Battle Wakes Up Intelligence Committee to Consider new Ground Rules for Technology Companies Feb 18, 2016 WhatsApp CEO is in the same Boat as Apple & Applauds Cook's Stance on Fighting Court Order Compliance Feb 17 2016 WSJ: Tim Cook is playing a Dangerous Game of Brinkmanship with the U.S Government - Feb 17, 2016 Edward Snowden Steps into Apple's Privacy Case: "This is the most important tech Case in a Decade" - Feb 17, 2016 Mr. Donald Trump has repeatedly ridiculed Jeb Bush, hit Dr. Ben Carson for his religious faith, mocked former POW John McCain as a loser for having been shot down over North Vietnam, sneered at a disabled disabled man, branded Mexicans as rapists and murderers, called Ted Cruz a liar and threatened to sue him for having quoted Mr. Trumps own words, made grossly sexist remarks about Megyn Kelly, and on and on and on and on. The British Parliament has mulled a bill that would bar him from entering the United Kingdom. Now, hes in a spat with the Pope. Its the imperative patriotic duty of all of the Republican presidential candidates to train their fire on Mr. Trump. He absolutely should not become president of the United States. They should do so consistently and fiercely. There is plenty in Mr. Trumps business record and personal life and in the history of his political opinions to fuel days and weeks of substantive criticism. Hes an authoritarian progressive, a crude vulgarian, an opportunist, an arrogant egomaniac, a crassly offensive man who rarely if ever offers any specific plans for fixing Americas problems. Those problems are enormous and growing. Its time to get really, really serious. Heres one specific step: Jeb Bushs Super-PAC should cease its embarrassing attacks on Marco Rubio immediately and try, although its perhaps too late, to save the Republican Party from the prospect of nominating Donald Trump. Were running out of time. At the best. As you likely know, the Pope held a mass in Juarez, Mexico, not far from the border with the U.S., yesterday. What did he say? Lets start with the idea that you could kinda sorta read the Popes statements at the border two ways: The first, the way everyone wants to interpret it, is a call for open borders, and for the US to let migrants cross easily, to take them in, and qualify them for residency based on claims of persecution, or due to violence in their home countries, or deep poverty. The second, is a call for the home countries to get their acts together, e.g., for the Mexican government to put an end to corruption, for the wealthy to be converted to caring about the poor, etc. in which case, the border symbolizes the desperation of these people and the failures of their home countries. What exactly did he say? I dont know. Or that is, his homily, the full text of which is found here, is open to interpretation. Here are his most specific paragraphs: Here in Ciudad Juarez, as in other border areas, there are thousands of immigrants from Central America and other countries, not forgetting the many Mexicans who also seek to pass over to the other side. Each step, a journey laden with grave injustices: the enslaved, the imprisoned and extorted; so many of these brothers and sisters of ours are the consequence of a trade in human beings. We cannot deny the humanitarian crisis which in recent years has meant migration for thousands of people, whether by train or highway or on foot, crossing hundreds of kilometres through mountains, deserts and inhospitable zones. The human tragedy that is forced migration is a global phenomenon today. This crisis which can be measured in numbers and statistics, we want instead to measure with names, stories, families. They are the brothers and sisters of those expelled by poverty and violence, by drug trafficking and criminal organizations. Being faced with so many legal vacuums, they get caught up in a web that ensnares and always destroys the poorest. Not only do they suffer poverty but they must also endure these forms of violence. Injustice is radicalized in the young; they are cannon fodder, persecuted and threatened when they try to flee the spiral of violence and the hell of drugs, not to mention the tragic predicament of the many women whose lives have been unjustly taken. Forced migration certainly seems to place the blame on the home countries, where the poverty and violence, . . . drug trafficking and criminal organizations are found. And he decries the injustices in the journey itself as well. But this is a homily and as such, theres a scripture text, in this case, the story of Jonah, calling the Ninevites to repentance, about which he says, Let us together ask our God for the gift of conversion, the gift of tears, let us ask him to give us open hearts like the Ninevites, open to his call heard in the suffering faces of countless men and women. No more death! No more exploitation! There is still time to change, there is still a way out and a chance, time to implore the mercy of God. He is maddenly non-specific. By death does he mean deaths in home countries causing people to flee? Or deaths at the border and, if the latter, how does he want this to end? By ending the poverty causing people to leave? Or by the U.S. opening its border to all? And what is the exploitation hes thinking of? Home-country exploitation? Or the exploitation of smugglers, which would end, again, if borders were opened? And whos the us who should be converted and change our ways in order to end this? One presumes his audience didnt think of themselves as having anything to repent of was he calling them to be Jonahs and preach repentance to others? Presumably he was intentionally non-specific, so that one set of hearers could hear, by the symbolism of the location, a call for open borders, without opening himself up to criticism that hes interfering in the United States right to control its borders. But its maddening. Bonus comments on the Popes in-flight press conference: did the Pope approve of contraception? The official Vatican news agency says this: Asked about responses to the Zika virus which is causing birth defects, especially across Latin America, the Pope stressed that abortion is a crime which can never be justified as a lesser evil and which goes against the Hippocratic oath that doctors must take. Using contraceptives to avoid pregnancy can be acceptable in difficult situations, he said, noting that Pope Paul VI authorized nuns in Africa to do the same half a century ago when they were threatened with rape. Now, Im surprised that there isnt a transcript as NBC reports this in more detail: Pope Francis on Thursday suggested using artificial contraception in countries afflicted with the Zika virus would be OK for women worried with how the disease is linked to rare birth defects. Calling it a lesser of two evils, Francis indicated that choosing to avoid pregnancy altogether would be the better alternative to abortion. Abortion is an evil in and of itself, but it is not a religious evil at its root, no? Its a human evil, he told reporters en route to Rome following his six-day visit to Catholic-heavy Latin America, which is grappling with a Zika outbreak. On the other hand, avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil, he continued. In certain cases, as in this one (Zika), such as the one I mentioned of Blessed Paul VI, it was clear. Now, the case of Paul VI hes referring to is a situation in Belgian Congo in the 1960s, when nuns at high risk of rape were permitted to use contraceptive pills. As the Catholic News Agency explains, this is not really an exception; the Church moral teaching on contraception says that a couple engaging in sexual intercourse must be open to life, but says nothing about whats morally right or wrong in the case of a woman being assaulted. This same CNA article suggests that maybe the Pope was referring to natural family planning, but I think thats a bit optimistic, since the reference to Paul VI and the Congolese nuns wouldnt make sense in that case no one needs a special exception in order to practice natural family planning. At the same time, if all he meant to say was that if any given woman fully intends to abort a baby in the case of a Zika infection, it would be less sinful for her to use contraception, then, again, the reference to the nuns wouldnt make sense. Which certainly seems to suggest that his thought was that the risk of microcephaly was a circumstance that would make using contraception a moral choice but this could hardly be stated in isolation, as, to be consistent, this would open up a blanket approval for any cases in which, were a woman to conceive, her child would be at risk of being disabled, either because the woman and her husband are carriers for some genetic disorder, or because of age and the heightened risk of Down syndrome, or other reasons. I know my readers think this is all pretty silly, so theres not too much value in delving into this. Far better to talk about whether the Pope erred in saying that a person who thinks only of building walls anywhere rather than building bridges is not a Christian. (This was a direct quote in the Vatican account as well as elsewhere.) Now, this statement is a nuisance because hes combining literal walls and metaphorical bridges in the same sentence, but it also was a surprise to me that the Pope would express such a sentiment, which I associated more with American Protestants, who use Christian as a synonym for good or moral thats not a very Christian thing to do. And, given the whole Year of Mercy bit, to say that, if one doesnt have the right mindset on immigration, one is excluded from salvation, seems a bit excessive. But this is a plane press conference. No doubt well be hearing all about how the Pope didnt really mean what people are saying he meant soon enough! Patna: Disproportionately outnumbered by student activists, police in Patna on Thursday resorted to lathi charge after members of the All India Students Federation (AISF), Students Federation of India (SFI), and All India Students Association (AISA) forced their way into the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) office on Birchand Patel Marg and clashed with those inside while trying to vandalize the property both inside and outside. {gallery}newsimages2016/feb/021816{/gallery}Fueled by harsh rhetoric by Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), Janata Dal U, Congress, and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), the student wings of four political parties, demanding justice for Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student union leader and Bihar native Kanhaiya Kumar who has been charged with anti-national activities during a political event in the JNU campus a little over a week ago. Irate protestors smashed the flower vase and window panes as those inside rushed to take cover to avoid being the target of the belligerent students. The police, who were easily outnumbered by the large presence of the students, resorted to lathi charge to disperse the crowd. Several students were hurt in the incident. Some cops also received injuries after students snatched their batons and assaulted them with their own lathis. At least one cameraman was also reported to be hurt and his camera destroyed. BJP has filed an FIR though no arrest was made in the case. Police said that earlier there were only 50-60 students in the rally but were soon joined by RJD, JD-U, and NCP workers who were at their respective party office located on the same road. Ramesh Prasad Singh, Kotwali police station in-charge, said the student protest was carried out without any permission and that is why the police had no idea about the rally. "Had we known it in advance, we would have deployed more policemen on Birchand Patel Marg," Singh said. "We're not used to seeing growth in our check business," said Deluxe's Tracey Engelhardt, who reports a 6% to 7% increase in revenue for check orders from businesses and consumers in each of the last three quarters, driven by various factors originating from the pandemic. People behind popular tech website sent to Kerman prison 02/19/16 Source: Radio Zamaneh Aliasghar Honarmand, Hossein Nozari, Ehsan Paknejad and Abbas Vahedi, the administrators of the Narenji (orange) website, have reportedly been transferred to Kerman prison. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reports that the four bloggers were transferred to Kerman Prison on Wednesday February 17 to carry out their sentences. The report adds, however, that the four tech experts, who were out on bail awaiting the result of their appeal, have not yet been handed a final verdict. Narenji, Iran's top website for technological gadget news, was edited daily by the team of four bloggers and drew a wide range of visitors comprised of Iran's growing audience of technology enthusiasts. It offered reviews of new phones, summaries of Persian-language apps and downloads, and other information in the technology field. Last December, the Narenji team was arrested by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which alleged that the bloggers were "funded and trained by espionage cells waging a 'soft war' against the Islamic Republic regime". The company president and owner and editor of Narenji, Aliasghar Honarmand, was sentenced to 11 years; Narenji director Hossein Nozari to seven years; Narenji programmer Ehsan Paknejad to five years; and Abbas Vahedi, the site's content writer, was sentenced to two and half years in jail for "propaganda against the regime and acting against national security through activities on the Narenji website". Seven other people involved in running the website have also been sentenced to suspended jail terms. The website has been offline since the arrests. Russia plans to sell Iran up to $8 bn worth of weapons: reports 02/19/16 Source: Islamic Republic News Agency Moscow plans to sell Iran state-of-the-art warplanes, tanks and missile systems, Russian state media said Wednesday - a haul that could reportedly total up to $8 billion. The deal to sell an unspecified number of Sukhoi Su-30SM fighter jets to Tehran could be sealed by the end of the year, according to RIA Novosti. The news agency cited an unnamed Russian defense official. Sukhoi Su-30 (photo by Sergey Krivchikov) Moscow is also expected to ship the first batch of S-300 missile defense systems to Iran on Thursday, RIA Novosti added, quoting Iranian military official Mostafa Izadi. However, they come on the heels of top brass from the two countries trading visits over the past week. In addition to jets and surface-to-air missiles, Iran is eyeing up Russian warships, diesel submarines, gunships, T-90 tanks and coastal defense systems, according to a report in Russian business daily Kommersant earlier this week. The total bill for Russian equipment may run up to $8 billion, the newspaper said. It cited Russian defense sources. Military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran dates back years. The S-300s - which are capable of rendering the Iranian sky inaccessible for most U.S. and Israeli jets - were first supposed to ship in 2010, but the delivery was halted in the wake of international sanctions on Iran. Iran proposes nuclear power plan with Hungary: Salehi 02/19/16 Source: Press TV Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi said at a Thursday conference in Budapest that Tehran proposed the pilot project with Hungary to design and develop a 25-megawatt reactor as well as a reactor of up to 100 megawatts, Reuters reported. Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) (cartoon by Hossein Saafi, Iranian daily Shargh) He also noted that the small reactors would be marketable across Asia and Africa as they would be affordable and need less cooling water. "One particular project that I suggested was to see if we can... together design a small reactor of 25 megawatts," said Salehi, adding, "It was received well and we hope that we can start this project, just on paper." The project "requires a lot of scientific work to come up with such a design, certainly a number of years of hard work. We want to see if we can do this," the AEOI head also noted. Salehi made the remarks during an official visit to Budapest, where he met with Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto earlier on Thursday. Salehi further referred to a nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries last year and said, "We intend to fully utilize all commercial and technical opportunities, including the pursuit of peaceful nuclear activities, emanating from this deal." Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the United States, France, Britain, China and Russia - plus Germany started to implement the agreement, dubbed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), on January 16. After JCPOA went into effect, all nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran by the European Union, the Security Council and the US were lifted. Iran, in return, has put some limitations on its nuclear activities. The nuclear agreement was signed on July 14, 2015 following two and a half years of intensive talks. 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 has traditionally been associated with cell phones (it's right in the name after all), but over the years we've seen everything from the standard smartphones, tablets, and chips, to fitness trackers, action cameras, VR, and home automation hubs. This year we're expecting a good mix of all these categories and a few surprises in between. The PCMag team will be bringing you the latest from Barcelona right here, as well as on Twitter(Opens in a new window), Instagram(Opens in a new window), Vine(Opens in a new window), Facebook(Opens in a new window), and more, so stay tuned for the biggest news from the show. If you're also traveling to MWC 2016, check out our travel guide to the show. But what will we see? Without further ado, here's what we expect from MWC 2016: Mobile Phones, Tablets, and Wearables Acer could have one of the most surprising reveals at MWC this year. According to PocketNow(Opens in a new window), the company may jump into the VR market with its own headset, putting it in competition with Facebook's Oculus, HTC's Vive, and the Samsung Gear VR. Alcatel's plans have been pretty thoroughly leaked by Evan Blass (more popularly known as @evleaks) on VentureBeat(Opens in a new window). The company is planning to launch the Idol 4 and 4S as part of its flagship lineup. The Pop 4 and 4s are expected for the midrange line, and the Pixi 4 and 4S (at least the naming scheme is simple) for the budget line. There will also be a slew of Pop 4 and Pixi-branded Android and Windows tablets, with sizes ranging from six to 10 inches. Blackberry is still in some trouble, despite hopes of a revival with the Android-powered Blackberry Priv slider. However, the company hasn't given up; according to ZDNet(Opens in a new window) we may see another Android-powered device with a physical keyboard, currently codenamed "Vienna." This one won't be a sliderleaked pictures from Crackberry(Opens in a new window) show your standard QWERTY keyboard on the bottom. Caterpillar has jumped the gun a bit and officially announced the Cat S60, an ultra-rugged phone with a flir thermal imagining camera built-in. We'll be sure to check it out on the showroom floor. Fairphone isn't bringing us anything new, but it will have the modular Fairphone 2(Opens in a new window). The device is unique because users can disassemble the phone and easily swap out components, similar to Project Ara. Currently, the device is only being sold and shipped to Europe. Gionee isn't well known in the U.S., but it is one of China's largest mobile phone manufacturers. The company is confirmed(Opens in a new window) to launch the Gionee Elife S8, a phone with a focus on photography and a pressure-sensitive display (think force touch on the iPhone 6s). HTC has a lot riding on its new products. With sagging sales and market share, the company hopes to revive its fortunes with the rumored(Opens in a new window) HTC One M10, also codenamed the "Perfume." Surprisingly, current indications(Opens in a new window) are that HTC will not be announcing the M10 at MWC, instead launching in April around the same time the HTC Vive is expected to ship(Opens in a new window). That makes what HTC will do at MWC a bit of an open question. Greater focus on the HTC Vive and related VR products are a possibility, especially given its new partnership with Valve. Under Armor's fitness tracker may also feature. Huawei's star is rising ever since the launch of the Nexus 6P and the Honor 5X. At MWC, Huawei has scheduled a press event where it's likely to launch Matebook(Opens in a new window), a Microsoft Surface-style device with a detachable keyboard and stylus. Apparently this will be a dual-boot Android and Windows device. HP isn't a company known for its smartphones, but that could change this year. According to Trusted Reviews(Opens in a new window), HP could be launching a Windows 10 phablet phone called the "HP Falcon." It's supposed to have hardware that will put it on par with all the Android flagships entering the market (Snapdragon 820, 3GB Ram, quad-HD display). Jolla will be at MWC 2016, but with the scrapping of the Sailfish tablet, the focus will now be on the Intex Aqua Fish(Opens in a new window), a Sailfish OS phone. LG is going to be one of the biggest launches at MWC with the LG G5, the flagship successor to the LG G4. The device has been all but revealedby LG itself. Look for a metal build that retains a removable battery, an always-on display, and the "Magic Slot(Opens in a new window)" for accessories. According to VentureBeat(Opens in a new window), this slot will include a VR camera, a robot, a photography add-on, and a speaker add-on. Aside from the G5 and its accessories, the company has confirmed(Opens in a new window) new devices for the midrange LG X lineup. Lenovo/Motorola has already teased(Opens in a new window) the Lenovo Lemon 3, a metal-clad smartphone already available in China at a remarkably affordable price ($100). It's likely we'll see a wider global launch for MWC. Microsoft will have a presence at MWC, as it usually does, but we aren't expecting to see anything newcontinued rumors(Opens in a new window) of the mythical Surface Phone notwithstanding. There may be an opportunity to demo HoloLens and a chance of a wearable product and some software related announcement. Oppo has confirmed a "Wow the World," press event, which is likely to focus on camera and battery life, according to Android Authority(Opens in a new window). There aren't many details about it, but speculation suggests that it may be related to VOOC Flash Charge and optical zoom accessories. Samsung is always one of the top manufacturers at MWC, and this year is no exception. We are expecting to see the flagship Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, which will be the successors to the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. The latest leaks indicate that we are going to see a metal-and-glass build, the latest Qualcomm or Exynos processor, an always-on display, and waterproofing. There are some mixed rumors about the presence of USB Type-C, but we expect to see a bigger battery on both devices. Aside from that, Samsung been emphasized VR in its teaser, so something related to Gear VR is a good bet. Sony is holding a press conference at MWC, which may feature the Sony Xperia Z6 and a Z5 Tablet. According to AndroidPit,(Opens in a new window) Sony traditionally releases a flagship every six months, so the timing is right for an MWC reveal. Xiaomi is going to launch the Xiaomi Mi 5 with a Snapdragon 820 processor, a fact that was confirmed by Hugo Barra(Opens in a new window), Xiaomi Global VP. There has been no shortage of leaks and sneak peeks at the upcoming flagship, showing camera samples and screenshots. ZTE is holding an event at MWC for 5G-ready products(Opens in a new window), including phones, tablets, and smart devices. We expect to see new devices in the Axon line. Chips, OS, and Carriers Cyanogen may be planning to announce Cyanogen OS(Opens in a new window) to compete with iOS and Android. The company has never been shy about taking on the big boys and we might see what it has to offer now. Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 will dominate MWC 2016. The processor is expected to power the LG G5, Galaxy S7, S7 Edge, Mi 5, Xperia Z6, HTC One M10, and HP Falcon. Even if all those devices don't launch at MWC, it seems clear that Qualcomm is rebounding from the Snapdragon 810 overheating fiasco, which saw Samsung ditch the chipset in favor of its in-house Exynos processor. Aside from that, look for a range of demos(Opens in a new window) for 5G and Wi-Fi. Other Predictions Virtual Reality will have a big presence at MWC 2016. With Facebook's Oculus, the HTC Vive, Samsung Gear VR, Sony PlayStation VR, Microsoft HoloLens, and rumored LG and Acer VR offerings, the market is getting crowded. That's a good thing, and this may be the year we really see a leap forward in consumer-ready VR. Apple is gaining more support from its Silicon Valley counterparts in its encryption fight with the FBI. Facebook and Twitter have thrown their weight behind Cupertino, which refused a court order to help the FBI break into an iPhone owned by one of the San Bernardino shooters. Mirroring Apple CEO Tim Cook's own words, Facebook warned that the federal order to bypass security functions on the personal device would set a "chilling precedent." "We condemn terrorism and have total solidarity with victims of terror. Those who seek to praise, promote, or plan terrorist acts have no place on our services. We also appreciate the difficult and essential work of law enforcement to keep people safe," the social network said in a statement to PCMag. Facebook asserts that while it complies with lawful requests for user data, it will "continue to fight aggressively" against requirements that weaken an organization's security. "These demands would create a chilling precedent and obstruct companies' efforts to secure their products," the statement said. Twitter chief Jack Dorsey expressed his solidarity(Opens in a new window) in 140 characters. Steve Wozniak also issued his support(Opens in a new window) for the company he co-founded. "I don't think that the phones should have backdoors," he told CNBC. Their statements come after a U.S. District Court judge on Tuesday ruled that Apple "shall assist in enabling the search" of an iPhone 5c owned by Syed Rizwan Farook. That includes developing and installing a new mobile operating system to allow the government access to Farook's dataa "dangerous" move Cook said would "undeniably create a backdoor." As a result, Apple has refused the request. It now has until Feb. 26 to submit its response to the court, according to Bloomberg(Opens in a new window). Google and other Silicon Valley supporters spoke out this week in favor of Cupertino. It's also been a hot topic on the presidential campaign trail. GOP hopefuls are largely on the FBI's side, they said during town hall events this week. Last night, Hillary Clinton said she would encourage the government and tech community to work together on a reasonable solution, but acknowledged the complexity of the situation and stopped short of condemning Apple. Bernie Sanders had a similar response, saying(Opens in a new window) he was "fearful" of a Big Brother scenario, but also of another terrorist attack. Apple started encrypting its mobile OS by default with iOS 8; the move was largely a response to the Edward Snowden docs, which revealed that the government was using invasive technology to spy on citizens. Don't be so quick to sell or throw away that old Windows PC: Neverware(Opens in a new window) wants to turn your old laptop into a Chromebooksort of. Just because your computer takes five minutes to boot up, sluggishly browses the Web, and requires daily updates doesn't mean you should sell it for scraps. Using Neverware's free CloudReady software(Opens in a new window), convert your machine into a system that dual-boots Chrome and Windows. This is not an official Chromebook; Google owns the rights to that term and suggested to The Verge(Opens in a new window) that Neverware machines, which run a modified version of Chromium, be called Chrome laptops or Chromium laptops. But if you install it, New York-based Neverware's software will back up data on an existing PC and let users choose between Windows or Chrome each time the computer is powered on. "The cost of embracing new technologies has been too high for too long," Neverware president Andrew Bauer said in a statement. "We want to remove the limit of just one operating system, so that the power of two platforms can be available to organizations and consumers without buying multiple devices." CloudReady is being put to use in the Quinlan Independent School District in Texas. "Dual-boot CloudReady will let us get better use from even our newest computer labs," said Mike Roberts, the district's techology director. "It will give users the faster response and ease of use of a Chrome lab for most daily work, but the ability to reboot into Windows for heavier workloads like graphics or programming." For educators, CloudReady is $59 per device; an enterprise option is coming soon. Individuals can download it for free. To see if your PC will work with CloudReady, check out Neverware's compatibility list(Opens in a new window). Last year, Google shot down rumors that it would merge Chrome OS and Android. "While we've been working on ways to bring together the best of both operating systems, there's no plan to phase out Chrome OS," SVP Hiroshi Lockheimer said in November. Apple's encryption fight with the FBI is heating up. The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday filed a motion to force the Cupertino tech giant to comply with a court order to help the FBI break into an iPhone owned by one of the San Bernardino shooters, according to CNBC(Opens in a new window). The DOJ said it shares Apple's concern that information needs to be protected, and insists the FBI's order does not compromise that goal. The FBI is not looking for a backdoor or hack to all of Apple's encryption software but assistance in the execution of a search warrant for Farook's device only, the agency argued. Further, the DOJ said Apple's concern for its business reputation is not a good enough reason for the company to refuse to comply with the FBI's order. "This Court should not entertain an argument that fulfilling basic civic responsibilities of any American citizen or company complying with a lawful court order could be obviated because that company prefers to market itself as providing privacy protections that make it infeasible to comply with court-issued warrants," the DOJ said. The motion comes after Apple was given three extra days or until Feb. 26 to submit its response to the court. Apple, meanwhile, has already said it will not give the FBI backdoor access. "The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customersincluding tens of millions of American citizensfrom sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals," Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote in a public letter(Opens in a new window) published to Apple's website. "The same engineers who built strong encryption into the iPhone to protect our users would, ironically, be ordered to weaken those protections and make our users less safe." The battle started on Tuesday, when Los Angeles District Court Judge Sheri Pym ruled that(Opens in a new window) Cupertino "shall assist in enabling the search" of an iPhone 5c owned by Syed Rizwan Farook. The tech titan must provide "reasonable technical assistance," like disabling the auto-erase function that kicks in after 10 failed password attempts. The hope is that the FBI can use "brute force" to crack the code, trying millions of combinations without fear of deleting crucial information. Pym's controversial order does not explicitly ask Apple to break the phone's encryption, but rather to develop and install a new mobile operating system to allow the government access to Farook's data. Apple says that's a slippery slope and suggests that a backdoor created for the FBI could very easily land in the hands of those with nefarious intent. Tech giants like Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak have all come forth to support Apple in its fight with the FBI. This week, the notoriously secretive Apple went up against the FBI when the agency requested that the company help break open an iPhone 5c used by the San Bernardino shooters. Instead, Tim Cook released a letter stating publicly that Apple believed creating a special tool to disable security features on iPhones would set a dangerous precedent. And he was right to do so. Knock, Knock To be clear: The FBI is not specifically asking that Apple provide an always-accessible backdoor into everyone's iPhone. What it wants Apple to do is construct a special version of iOS that would bypass the time delay required by iOS between failed attempts and disable a setting that wipes iPhones after 10 failed attempts. This would allow agents to brute forceor try lots and lots of wrong passwords until stumbling across the right onethe phone's passcode. (It's been suggested that creating a super-long passcode(Opens in a new window) might slow down that process.) The argument that law enforcement and the intelligence community are responsible enough to handle powerful tools like these has been around for a long time. The FBI and others have talked about the risk of "going dark," where communications will be carried out via encrypted services that are inaccessible to investigators or surveillance tools. The old adage is that a backdoor for the good guys is a backdoor for the bad guys; the safest way to keep people out is to not give them a way in. It's the argument that Co-Founder and Co-Chairman Nico Sell made when she was approached by FBI agents to put a backdoor in her secure messaging service, Wickr. But it's far from just a hypothetical argument. Broken Locks Take TSA-compliant luggage locks. When you buy one from the store, it's designed to accept one of several possible master keys in the hands of TSA agents. The idea is that this allows the right peoplethe TSA inspectorsto open your luggage without having to cut off locks and then safely lock the baggage again. Only you and the inspectors should be able to open it. It's a nice idea, but it only works as long as sole access to the master keys is restricted to the right people. The good guys. But these keys were posted online and made into 3D printable objects, providing access to everyone: good guys and bad guys. It's this scenario that Apple cites as its primary reason for fighting the FBI's court order. If Apple created a special version of iOS and used it to allow the phone in question to be unlocked, it might not stay under the company's control for very long. If it got loose, it could undermine the hard work Apple has put in developing a smart, secure phone. If it exists at all, Apple could be compelled to use it again, and again, and again. To be fair, Apple already spends a good deal of time and effort responding to court orders and investigators' requests. The New York Times(Opens in a new window) reports that the company handed over the shooter's iPhone backup files that were stored on iCloud. When PCMag recently looked closer at encryption and how Apple stores our information, we found that as long as it is stored on Apple's servers it is potentially readable. But Apple is making it clear that it is only willing to go so far, and developing custom intrusion tools for the FBI is apparently the limit. Security for All As our devices become more and more personal, it is no surprise that they'll be targeted by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. But that's no excuse for the FBI, or anyone else, to weaken existing security tools and claim that digital privacy is the exclusive realm of those in power. Which is, effectively, what it's doing. Back in 2014, FBI director James B. Comey addressed the crowd at the RSA Conference. When it came to surveillance and searches, particularly of the digital kind, he said "Our goal is to be surgical and precise in what we're looking for, and do whatever we can to protect privacy rights and competitive advantage." Building a magic key for iPhones, or preventing the widespread use of encryption, would do neither. If the FBI wants to get into an iPhone, or any other secure device, it can develop the technology themselves. Security experts are often telling me that if someone wants to break into a phone and has physical access to it, they will eventually succeed. I'm confident that if the FBI rolled up its sleeves, it would get what it's looking for. If accused murderer and bath salts enthusiast John McAfee thinks he can pull off cracking an iPhone(Opens in a new window), surely the FBI can, too. Microsoft disappointed many Windows users when it announced in January that it was yanking support early for Skylake PCs running older versions of Windows, including Windows 7. But recent news might give those users some hope: Microsofts not applying those rules to Windows Servermeaning frustrated consumers might have some common ground with server admins. Microsoft issued its updated guidance for older versions of Windows Embedded and Windows Server on Friday. Neither operating system is typically used by consumers; WIndows Server powers server farms costing millions of dollars, while Windows Embedded runs on ATMs and the arrival/departure boards at airports. But whats interesting is that, while Microsofts support policy for Windows Embedded on Skylake chips aligns with that for Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, its policy for Windows Server does not. In fact, Microsofts Server team issued a statement that nothing had changed. In other words, servers would get full-term support on Skylake chips. Which makes one wonder: Why couldnt the company have done that with Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 PCs? Heres a recap: In January, Microsoft announced that the company would work with its partners to create a special list of PCs powered by Intel Skylake processors and running versions of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. The idea, according to Microsoft, was that PCs on the list would receive special support to ensure they wouldnt suffer compatibility problems and crashes as Microsoft moved Windows 10 further away from its older OSes. Why this matters: There was a catch, though, that caught many users by surprise: Microsoft would yank support for those PCs in July 2017, and only the most critical updates would be applied. Meanwhile, PCs powered by older Intel processors would be supported for far longer: Windows 7 will remain on extended support until January 14, 2020, and Windows 8.1 until January 10, 2023. A number of Windows 7 users run Windows 7 because they believe its far stabler than anything Microsoft has released sinceand they view the revamped support plan as a way to force them into Windows 10 adoption. In some ways, thats true. Microsofts Embedded, Server support plans On Friday, Microsoft announced that machines running Skylake and Windows Embedded 7, 8, and 8.1 will be supported through July 17, 2017the same end date as Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 PCs. After that time, theyll receive only the most critical updates, provided they dont break the reliability or compatibility of those systems, Microsoft said in a statement. The only difference is that Microsoft wont create a list of supported devices, but will simply support every licensed device on the market. With Windows Server, however, Microsoft has taken an entirely different approach. That may be because of the absolutely sensitive nature of server hardware, and the extreme reluctance to fiddle with a support policy after an enterprise has invested thousands or millions of dollars in a deployment. For whatever reason, Microsofts server team issued a statement claiming that there is no change to our current policy: Five years of mainstream support followed by five years of extended support. In other words, Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 will transition to extended support on January 10, 2018, Microsoft said. Does that mean that users could run an older version of Windows Server instead of Windows 7? Probably not, but you could at least try.We allow new systems to be submitted for certification up to the point when the OS transitions to extended support, Microsoft says. The bottom line is that it seems youll still be able to run Windows 7 on a Skylake machine after July 2017you simply wont be receiving the patches and other critical updates that your friends running older Broadwell machines receive. And if youre upset by thatwell, it appears that other groups within the Windows family may be sympathetic. Update (Friday, Feb. 19): Apple has getting more time to respond to the judges order. And The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday Feb. 19 filed a motion to compel Apple to immediately obey a judicial order to help the FBI enter and review the data in the iPhone used by one of the terrorists in the Dec. 2 San Bernardino attack. Apple is expected by Tuesday, Feb. 23, to electronically file its response to a judges order to help the FBI hack into the iPhone belonging to a gunman in the San Bernardino mass shooting. After the company sends its reply to the court, other groups will file friend-of-the-court briefs in support of one side or the other. U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym, who made the order on the government request, is expected to rule on the case at a March 22 hearing in Riverside, legal experts said Thursday. Subsequent hearings will likely be set before a federal judge in one of the three Central District Courts of California in Riverside, Santa Ana or Los Angeles. The case ultimately could be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. I hope, behind the scenes, the government is trying to work this out with Apple because time is of the essence, which is why they made this request an ongoing terrorism investigation, said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. The one thing that does not serve the governments interest is to have a protracted legal battle. Apple has been ordered to create and provide the FBI with a software program that would allow investigators to evade built-in security and data-lock defenses on the iPhone 5c belonging to Syed Rizwan Farook who, with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people and injured 22 in the Dec. 2 terrorist attack. The software would allow the FBI to run millions of combinations of passwords on the phone until they hit Farooks passcode. Agents say the phone may contain information about other people who may have played a role in the shooting rampage. Apple has said creating such software would set a dangerous precedent that could be used repeatedly by the government in other cases and would threaten the security of its customers. Company officials did not respond to requests for comment Thursday. Lawyers for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco nonprofit agency dedicated to digital privacy, said they are crafting a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Apple. The group spelled out its position on its website: The U.S. government wants us to trust that it wont misuse this power. But we can all imagine the myriad ways this new authority could be abused. Even if you trust the U.S. government, once this master key is created, governments around the world will surely demand that Apple undermine the security of their citizens as well. San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos and former U.S. District Judge Stephen G. Larson, now an attorney in Los Angeles, have said they plan to file briefs supporting the FBIs request. Arlen Verdehyou of Rialto, the husband of one of the San Bernardino shooting victims, also backs the FBIs position. He is angered by Apples refusal to help the government retrieve possible information from the cellphone. This is national security, he said. Its very important now that Apple should realize that they could save lives. Verdehyous wife, Bennetta Betbadal, 46, worked as a health inspector for San Bernardino County and was a mother of three school-aged children. Tina Meins, daughter of shooting victim Damian Meins, 58, of Riverside, said everything must be done to ensure that the data from the cellphone is not lost in case the information will help prevent future attacks. If Syed Rizwan Farooks phone has information related to the Dec. 2 attacks, we need to know about it, she said. It is not beyond reason to think that perhaps he had contacts, or a network of individuals that knew about this, or were at least like-minded. It is not beyond reason to think that plans are fomenting for future attacks. Tina Meins also stressed the urgency of getting the information. We believe that this this is a matter of national security. If Apple will not abide by this ruling, we want another viable solution found, as soon as possible, she said. In an op-ed published by Business Insider on Thursday, cybersecurity expert John McAfee offered up his team of computer hackers to decrypt the phone for free so Apple wouldnt have to. McAfee, a Libertarian presidential candidate, said the best hackers dont work for the government because the FBI will not hire anyone with a 24-inch purple mohawk, 10-gauge ear piercings, and a tattooed face who demands to smoke weed while working and wont work for less than a half-million dollars a year. A similar case involving Apple and the government is pending in New York. In October, the government asked Magistrate Judge James Orenstein of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York to compel Apple to unlock a phone seized in a drug case. On Feb. 12, Apple lawyer Marc Zwillinger requested that the court void the request because the defendant had pleaded guilty. Staff writer Laurie Lucas contributed to this report. RELATED: SAN BERNARDINO SHOOTING: Apple gets more time to file its response FBI raids home of San Bernardino shooters brother Tiniest bit of evidence can be crucial, expert says Apple opposes order to unlock shooters iPhone Q&A on the Apple vs. Justice Department court fight Complete coverage of the San Bernardino shooting, aftermath Contact the writer: jzimmerman@pressenterprise.com or 951-368-9586 Asserting that the high-tech giant has already conceded it has the technical capability to help, the U.S. Department of Justice on Friday Feb. 19 urged a judge to force Apple to obey her order to help the FBI get data from an iPhone used by one of the terrorists in the deadly Dec. 2 San Bernardino attack. Apple CEO Tim Cooks online statement that his company planned to fight the order is disruptive to the urgency of this investigation, said the government. The governments motion to compel also took aim at Cooks reasoning about why Apple will fight the order, saying his statement appears to be based on its concern for its business model and public brand marketing strategy. Neither Apple nor its attorneys in this matter responded to calls and emails from The Press-Enterprise on Friday. Senior Apple executives said during a phone call with reporters Friday that the company had worked for hours, even days, with federal officials and investigators to try to gain access to Syed Rizwan Farooks iPhone. The executives, who insisted on anonymity to speak freely amid legal proceedings, said they went to the FBI in early January with four suggestions, including a workaround using iCloud. Prosecutors noted the four methods and their deficiencies in a footnote in their Friday court filing. The Justice Department filing said the password for FarooksiCloud account associated with the iPhone was reset hours after police took possession of the device. SAN BERNARDINO SHOOTING: Protests to back Apple in FBI battle Apple could have recovered data from the iPhone had the password not been reset, company officials said in a meeting with reporters. Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said the government called Apples bluff in Fridays motion. She believes filing the motion will work to the governments advantage in the court case. I think Apple thought they had a strategic advantage, trying to make this into a matter of First Amendment rights, Levenson said. But the government basically said, No, its not. Youre taking this position for business reasons when were the ones being reasonable. U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym on Tuesday ordered Apple to help the FBI by developing a software program unique to the iPhone5c issued to Farook by San Bernardino County. The program would allow agents to beat the devices built-in security defenses that will permanently lock down its data if 10 tries at the phones passcode fail. Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, staged the terrorist attack, which also wounded 22, at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino. The Redlands couple died a few hours later in a shootout with police. Malik had posted a statement of allegiance to the Islamic State on Facebook shortly after the shooting. The iPhone was issued to Farook by his employer, the county Department of Public Health. The FBI recovered it in a warrant search. As owner, the county gave the FBI permission to search the phone. But the access code was created by Farook, and Apple does not keep records of user PIN codes. Federal agents believe there could be vital information about the attack that resides only on the iPhone. The software the FBI seeks will permit agents to run millions of computer-generated passcode combinations on the phone until they hit the one created by Farook. The FBI has claimed that the program can be used only on the Farook iPhone. The order does not, as Apples public statement alleges, require Apple to create or provide a back door to every iPhone, the government wrote Friday. It does not provide hackers and criminals access to iPhones; it does not require Apple to hack (its) own phones; it does not give the government the power to reach into anyones device without a warrant or court authorization; and it does not compromise the security of personal information, the government said in its 35-page motion. To allow Apple not to comply with the order would frustrate the execution of a valid warrant and thwart the public interest in a full and complete investigation of a horrific act of terrorism, the government wrote. On Friday, the government detailed its exchanges with Apple before filing to seek Pyms order. When the government first realized that Apple retained the means to obtain that data from the iPhone and that due to the way that Apple created the software, Apple was the only means of obtaining that data, the government sought Apples voluntary assistance, the government wrote. Apple rejected the governments request, although it conceded that it had the technical capability to help. After Pym made her order, Cook said in an online statement, The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone. But thats simply not true. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks, Cook said. Farook turned off the iCloud storage feature on the phone about six weeks before the attack, so information might exist only on the phone itself. There may be relevant, critical communications and data around the time of the shooting that may reside solely on the (iPhone) and can only be obtained if the government is able to search the phone as directed by the warrant, the government wrote. The FBI said technicians from both Apple and the agency agreed that they were unable to identify any other methods besides that which is now ordered by this court that are feasible for gaining access to the currently inaccessible data on the device. Apple has reportedly been given an extension until Feb. 26 to reply to the order to assist the FBI. But the government said in Fridays filing that in light of Apples public statement that it will fight the order, Pym should order Apple to comply now. The government does not seek to deny Apple its right to be heard, and expects these issues to be fully briefed before the court; however, the urgency of this investigation requires this motion now that Apple has made its intention not to comply patently clear, the government filing said. Levinson, the law professor, said the timing of this legal bout does not favor Apple. This debate is happening during an ongoing terrorism investigation, Levinson said. When you pit marketing strategy against national security, marketing strategy probably doesnt have the upper hand. The government also argued that the software program it was seeking from Apple under the All Writs Act an 18th-century law being used to recover data from an electronic device in 2016 was not an undue burden. Cook said Tuesday that Apple had up to this point done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help. But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone. We can find no precedent for an American company being forced to expose its customers to a greater risk of attack. The government said Friday that while the order requires Apple to provide or employ modified software, modifying an operating system which is essentially writing software code in discrete and limited manner it is not an unreasonable burden for a company that writes software code as part of its regular business. The simple fact of having to create code that may not now exist in the exact form required does not an undue burden make, the government wrote. Bloomberg contributed to this report. Motion to compel Apple to comply RELATED: SAN BERNARDINO SHOOTING: Apple gets more time to file its response SAN BERNARDINO SHOOTING: Government vs. Apple divided by passion FBI raids home of San Bernardino shooters brother Tiniest bit of evidence can be crucial, expert says Apple opposes order to unlock shooters iPhone Q&A on the Apple vs. Justice Department court fight Complete coverage of the San Bernardino shooting, aftermath Donald Trump escalated his attack on Apple Inc. on the final day of campaigning before the Republican primary in South Carolina, calling for a boycott until Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook honors a court order to unlock a terrorists iPhone. Boycott Apple until they give up the information, Trump said at a rally in Pawleys Island, South Carolina. The phone is owned by the government Tim Cook is looking to do a big number probably to show how liberal he is. Apple should give up. The billionaires call to action followed an interview with Bloomberg in which he offered harsh words for Cook. Tim Cook is living in the world of the make believe, Trump said Friday in a telephone interview. I would come down so hard on him you have no idea his head would be spinning all of the way back to Silicon Valley. Apples fight with the Federal Bureau of Investigation over access to mobile devices escalated this week when a court ordered the company to help federal law enforcement officers unlock a phone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the shooters in a deadly Dec. 2 attack in San Bernardino, California. In an open letter posted on the companys website, Cook described the request as an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers and called for a public debate. The company vowed to fight the order. Several Silicon Valley companies, including executives from Google and Twitter, rallied to Apples side. Reform Government Surveillance, a group representing companies including Google, Facebook, Microsoft Corp. and Twitter Inc., issued a statement on Wednesday reiterating that, while its extremely important to deter crime and terrorism, no company should be required to build backdoors to their own technology. I think Tim Cook is totally out of line and I think the government should come down on Tim Cook very, very hard, Trump said in the interview Friday. I think its a disgrace what he is doing, were talking about lives, potentially thousands of lives, and we should find out who else was involved in the plot where 14 people were killed. But that was before Trump announced his call to boycott the company, which he said was a spur of the moment decision as he spoke to supporters in Pawleys Island. OK what I think you ought to do is boycott Apple until such a time as they give that security number, Trump said. How do you like that? I just thought of it. Boycott Apple. Pope Francis comments challenging Donald Trumps Christianity are not expected to sway the Catholic vote in November, some experts say, but to some Inland Catholics working for immigrant rights, the pontiffs words ring true. Can a good Catholic vote for Donald Trump? I would say, No, said the Rev. Miguel Ceja, of Riversides Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church. When I think of the historical Jesus, he was all about justice, love, peace, truth. Claiming to be a Christian and standing against those values is a contradiction, said Ceja, an advocate for immigrant rights. How can you be a Christian and be for division and oppression? Ceja added. The pope, as he returned to Rome from a six-day visit to Mexico, said, A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian, in response to a question about Trump. Bishop Gerald R. Barnes of the Diocese of San Bernardino, which serves Riverside and San Bernardino counties, was on the Texas side of the border for the Papal Mass in Juarez and would not issue a statement about the popes comments, diocese spokesman John Andrews said Thursday, Feb. 18. Jack Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College, doesnt think the pontiffs words will impact how Catholics vote. Catholic opinion on political issues dont hinge on what the pope says, Pitney said. For example, Pitney said there are Catholics who are pro-life, though. Pope Francis and the Vatican has stood against abortion. Conversely in the U.S., weve had many Catholic leaders who are pro-choice (such as) Vice President Joe Biden, Pitney said. Biden has said his Catholicism teaches that life begins at conception but that he would not impose that belief on people of other faiths. Chris Robles, head of the San Bernardino County Democratic Party and a Catholic, said: Each person has to be true to themselves and their relationship with God, rather than somebody elses label. There is some validity in someone who says they espouse all those values and then does something different from that, he said. I call myself Catholic. That doesnt mean I follow everything However, if I was to say that I believe in certain values and then I dont hold true to those, then thats a fair judgment. As for Scott Mann, mayor of Menifee and chairman of the Republican Party of Riverside County, he doesnt think the popes comments will create a conflict for politicians who consider themselves Christian, yet advocate a strong stance on border security. Hes just expressing his opinion based on his faith, said Mann, who identifies as an evangelical Christian. Whether its scripturally based or not, I dont think anyone will have any problem reconciling which side of the debate they fall on. Recalling his time in the military when the Berlin Wall came down, Mann said he opposes the idea of building a wall at the U.S. Mexico border. I do not believe that a wall on our southern border is conducive to the high ideals of what America stands for, he said. Now that doesnt mean that we shouldnt secure the border by other means. For others, being Catholic aligns with social justice, and that means fighting for immigrant rights. Elizabeth Almanza, who was raised in an evangelical Christian church, was eventually drawn to the Catholic Church for its social justice work with the immigrant community. Almanza said shes encouraged when the Church acts on such issues like helping the unaccompanied children who fled their home countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Donald Trump may say he is a Christian but his actions and words do not express the kind of love that God has for us, said Almanza, a parishioner of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Colton. I would remind Trump that Jesus once said, Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. That includes undocumented immigrants, Almanza added. Sergio Luna, an organizer with Inland Congregations United for Change, agrees. The interfaith group which includes Inland Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Protestant congregations has advocated for immigrant rights. Regardless of what your faith is, if we dont stand for humanity and the common good of people, were not practicing our faith values, Luna said. Staff writer Jeff Horseman contributed to this report. Contact the writer: 951-368-9462 or amolina@pressenterprise.com The former treasurer of the Cole Canyon Elementary School Parent Teachers Club in Murrieta pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges Wednesday, Feb. 17, in connection with embezzlement of $5,200 in funds from the group, according to court records. Angela Coleen Sears, 47, was in Southwest Justice Center for a settlement conference when she changed her plea. Judge Mark A. Mandio reduced the charges from felony embezzlement and felony grand theft to misdemeanors, according to court records. Sears was sentenced to three years probation and must complete 45 days in the Riverside County Sheriffs Department work-release program. A June 2015 Murrieta Police Department search warrant affidavit stated that Sears was one of three authorized club members with access to the clubs bank account. The club president in March 2015 discovered Sears conducted three suspicious transactions she drew a cashiers check for $2,500, made a $1,500 cash withdrawal and wrote a $1,200 check to herself, all the same day, according to the court document. Sears went on a vacation to New York the next day and when she returned she refused to meet a club officer in person, claimed some of the withdrawals were to pay club bills and related that her husband accidentally deposited one of the checks she had written into their personal account. She repaid the money to the club after returning from vacation. Contact the writer: 951-368-9075 or gwesson@pressenterprise.com Even though its been vetoed repeatedly, a bill to restore vehicle license fee revenue to four Riverside County cities is back in the state Assembly. Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, introduced the latest measure to restore the funding to Jurupa Valley, Eastvale, Wildomar and Menifee, four relatively new cities that lost vehicle license fees in 2011, when state lawmakers diverted the revenue to law enforcement grants. Since the state has essentially stolen this money from these cities, two of which I represent, vital public services such as police and fire have seen drastic cuts, said Melendez, who represents Wildomar and Menifee. Its shameful the state thinks it can balance its budget on the backs of our local cities. In whats become an annual tradition of sorts, Melendez and state Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, have shepherded bills through the Legislature to restore the funding. The legislation sails through the Assembly and Senate, but is vetoed by Gov. Jerry Brown, citing the potential impact to the state general fund. Last year, the governors office offered a compromise in which Riverside County would be forgiven $23.7 million worth of money owed to Cal Fire. The county, in turn would forgive debt owed by the fledgling cities. Eastvale, which has paid its outstanding debt to the county, ended up with nothing. It sued the county last year, claiming it was being unfairly treated. A judge dismissed the lawsuit and Eastvale is appealing. Justice Antonin Scalias flag-draped casket was carried up the marble steps of the Supreme Court Friday in a somber procession that began a day of ceremony and tribute to one of the courts most influential members. Scalias eight Supreme Court colleagues, his family and nearly 100 former law clerks watched solemnly as Supreme Court police placed the casket on a funeral bier first used after President Abraham Lincolns assassination. The Rev. Paul Scalia, the justices son and a Catholic priest, said traditional prayers. You have called your servant Antonin out of this world, he said. May he rest in peace. A 2007 portrait of Scalia by artist Nelson Shanks was displayed nearby. In it, the justice is shown surrounded by images representing important moments and influences in his life, including a framed wedding photograph of his wife, Maureen. She, their nine children and three dozen grandchildren were present. Before Scalias body arrived, his former clerks formed two lines down the court steps and across its marble plaza. A few wiped away tears after the casket arrived. The clerks will take turns standing vigil by their former boss throughout the day and night in a tradition most recently observed after the 2005 death of former Chief Justice William Rehnquist. After a private ceremony for family, friends and justices, Scalias casket was to be on public view from 10:30 a.m. until 8 p.m. Dozens of mourners had already lined up outside the court to pay their respects. Hannah Moore and Emily Weatherspoon, both 17, were first in line just before 7 a.m. The high school seniors from Raleigh, North Carolina, were visiting Washington as part of an AP government class. You can sleep any day. Justice Scalia only dies once, Moore said. The doors to the court chamber, where Scalia had served for nearly 30 years, were open at the east end of the hall. Black wool crepe hung over the entrance, and Scalias courtroom chair was draped in black. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama planned to pay respects later Friday, while Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden were to attend Scalias funeral Mass on Saturday. The Mass open to family and friends will take place Saturday at 11 a.m. at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. Burial plans have not been released. Scalias sudden death complicated an already tumultuous election year. His death gives Obama a chance to replace the conservative stalwart with a more liberal successor who could tilt the ideological balance of the court for decades to come. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other GOP leaders have said a replacement should not be named until the next president takes office. Obama has pledged to pick a replacement in due time and challenged Republicans to hold a vote on his nominee. Scalia was found dead on Saturday in his room at a remote Texas hunting resort. The 79-year-old jurist was appointed to the court in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan. A neighborhood in the unincorporated community of Temescal Valley has seen an extreme uptick in mail theft recently that has caused the U.S. Postal Service to shut down delivery to about 1,500 customers. Post office workers have not delivered mail to the Sycamore Creek neighborhood since Friday, Feb. 12, said spokesman Richard Maher. At least one person made a copy of the master key that opens the centralized mailboxes, though officials arent sure how. He said the thefts, combined with angry residents calling on the postal service to stop the insecure delivery, prompted postal service officials to halt delivery service to the community until new locks could be implemented. Theres numerous ways that keys can be counterfeited and some involve not even having a master key, he said. Nobody had been arrested by Friday, Feb. 19. Officials have ordered new locks and a new master key, but Maher didnt know when it would be delivered. Until then, residents can pick up their mail at the local post office. We realize its an inconvenience to our customers and we apologize, Maher said. But because of the theft it was a step we thought necessary. Mail theft is a problem across Southern California, he said. In an attempt to trick package thieves, Corona residents to the north of Temescal Valley placed a smelly surprise in packages during the holiday season in hopes that package thefts would decline. Karen Smith who works at Sycamore Creeks Van Dale Homes via Temps Plus said though its frustrating that residents have to pick up their mail or have it delivered elsewhere, its safer that way. Its an inconvenience for homeowners but, in my opinion, its the only thing they can do at this point, she said. At least one resident Smith talked to said a letter notifying residents of the problem came a couple of days after mail stopped being delivered to the area. A 20-year Corona-area resident herself, Smith says mail theft has become a hot issue in the community. She has friends and neighbors who have lost mail to thieves. But it wasnt always this way. Corona has been a pretty good area, she said. Re: Schools in need of reform, not riches [Editorial, Feb. 16]: Your editorial correctly says reform, not money, is required to fix California schools. However, you identify no suggestions on reform. I will offer some. I believe a major problem is that the people (politicians) that make the rules and objectives for education have spent no time in a classroom to understand the problems and the issues. I am a retired chemical engineer that worked in a Fortune 100 chemical company for 40 years. In retirement, I do substitute teaching mostly science and math in Hemet Unified School District. I see very clearly what the problems are. The first only some graduates go to college, yet the system tries to force them down a college-prep path. It is obvious by the time a student leaves middle school whether or not they are academically inclined. Students that are not academics should have a path toward learning a trade or special skill. Secondly, students that fail are still allowed to be promoted to the next level, even though they may be enrolled in remedial classes over and over. I find many students do not have the desire, although they have the opportunity, to succeed in school. Since there is no penalty for poor performance, you get lots of it. Finally, the good students get cheated. The rules say you cant separate good students from the poor ones; therefore, teachers efforts and time are weighted heavily toward the bad ones to maintain order in the classroom. So, they are not able to challenge the good ones. I also teach in a couple of charter schools, where the only difference is the parents. I see many students that do nothing at home. It is impossible to acquire a good education without considerable home work and support. The charter schools, based on my experience, are able to achieve our expected results. We should be encouraging new charter schools rather than bowing to the teachers unions. My overall opinion is that, when it comes to setting priorities in schools and education, education results arent on top of the list. If so, performance would be much better. And a lot of the problems are created based on how schools qualify for funds. Students are pushed through the system, and if they are short of qualifications for graduation, they are sent off to alternative schools, or they quit school. They should not be promoted unless they have met the applicable requirements. They shouldnt wait until graduation to face a lack of qualifications. If you talk with teachers, you will find a lot of agreement with my opinions. Ken Wolfe Hemet Pope Francis in Philadelphia: Day 2 Pope Francis waves to the crowds. Scenes from Pope Francis' second day in Philadelphia, Sept, 27, 2015. Daniel Zampogna, PennLive (Daniel Zampogna, PennLive ) By Dennis Roddy When I was 10 years old, my family piled everybody into two cars for a three-day drive to Florida. The traveling party included my parents, my brother, my three sisters, my brother's fiancee, and two maiden aunts, one of whom was a Sister of St. Joseph. Dennis Roddy (PennLive file) These were the days when women religious wore long, flowing, black habits with high-arching veils and starched black wimples. From behind, you might have mistaken her for a Greek archbishop. Her name was Mary Elizabeth, but to her dying day we knew her as Sister Joseph Catherine. Driving through the south, we stopped at big, old roadside motel. My father hopped out and the proprietor sauntered over to my dad. Did they have three rooms available? Oh, the fellow said, lots of rooms. Welcome. At that point, my aunt climbed out of the car in full, Roman regalia. A squawk came out from the doorway to the motel office. The proprietor's wife beckoned him over, had a quick conversation, and the fellow returned to my dad. Big mistake. Turns out they were full-up. And with that, we were instructed to leave the property. This sort of backwater superstition seemed amusing, even to my mother, who remembered how Ku Klux Klansmen used to burn crosses on the hillside overlooking her street in Johnstown in the 1920s, then paraded down the street demanding that Catholics and immigrants get out. That sort of thing couldn't happen again, we were certain. We'd just had a Catholic in the White House. We found a nice place and made it safely to Florida, where Sister Joseph Catherine's habit scored us some free admissions in the Catholic town of St. Augustine. Catholics in America long ago shed the aroma of foreignness - that strange suspicion that because the leader of our church is overseas we somehow have a dual allegiance. Ted Kennedy and William F. Buckley were both raised in the same faith. If it was big enough to accommodate the arc of negative ions that ran between those two, the church could certainly fit comfortably into the civic life of a raucous democracy. One of the sizable shifts in the politics of American Catholics came in the shift from an almost automatic assumption of Democratic Party membership to the emergence of Republican Catholics. This says little about Catholic theology somehow fitting one party better than another. It's a class shift. My mother's parents came here as impoverished immigrants and saw the Democratic Party as the protector of the poor. Children are more likely to be born into a religion than into a political party. My Irish Catholic wife is a Democrat. She is married to an Irish Catholic Republican. This does not make their children unconstitutional. It just makes them typical Catholic kids prone to their own opinions about matters ranging from immigration to taxes. So, the sudden emergence of Know-Nothingism on the campaign trail this past week makes me pause and worry a bit. Pope Francis visited Mexico and said something rather pointed, but the sort of thing a religious leader does when he believes that just because life begins at conception, we still need to treat it with respect after birth. Asked about Republican frontrunner Donald Trump's repeated immigrant baiting, especially his call for a giant wall between the U.S. and Mexico, Francis said this: "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel." Trump responded by blaming the Mexican government for filling the pontiff's head with bad ideas, and then raised the stakes. "If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS's ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president." Many people - possibly ISIS - were unaware that slaughter at the Vatican was that group's ultimate trophy and it's a little disturbing that Trump sort of laid the idea out there. Precisely how President Trump would have protected The Vatican, a sovereign state as well as the seat of the church, is unknown. Trump says a lot of things, most of them silly and too many of them calculatedly vicious, and they are hard to top. But someone managed. Enter Ann Coulter, a commentator and columnist who long ago left the land of conservatism to travel into the far reaches of the ideological continuum, landing somewhere between fascism and psychosis. Coulter suddenly began to declare which Catholics are and are not American. Consider this Tweet: "Jeb!, an AMERICAN Catholic, defends Trump, disapproves of Pope bossing around U.S. on wall. Rubio, a ROMAN Catholic beholden to the Pope." While that one sinks in, consider yet another Coulter Tweet: "RUBIO on Pope demanding US dissolve its borders: "the Pope is the successor of St. Peter." THIS IS JUST WHAT THE FOUNDERS WERE WORRIED ABOUT." I suppose some of the founders might have worried about the Pope. Some of the founders were also worried about slave uprisings. Coulter sounds like one of those people who worry about both. In the days since the Roddy family was turned away from that motel in the south, Catholics in America have ceased viewing themselves as a minority, even in the face of the occasional intemperate and bigoted outburst. But if our faith informs part of our role in political life, it is often nuanced, sometimes conflicted, and inevitably weighed against non-theological factors from national defense to monetary policy. Certainly, the "beholden to Rome" trope long ago vanished from serious consideration, even by the most ardent anti-Catholics. Let me assure you, anyone who has worked as a political journalist can tell you that Peter Viereck's maxim, about Catholic-baiting being the anti-Semitism of the left still holds true in some quarters. But even there, the 19th Century rubbish about allegiances to Rome have gone the way of ancient canards about Masons plotting a takeover and Jews poisoning wells. So it is important for Donald Trump to understand that Pope Francis was not calling him a bad candidate. Pope Francis was calling Trump a bad man. The Pope has suggested that a person who builds walls instead of bridges is not Christian, and that his language is not to be found in the gospel which, so far as I know the gospel, is true. I have waited for months now for Trump to do that one thing that goes too far and brings his whole edifice of ethnic resentment and mob anger spinning out of orbit and into oblivion. It is hard to tell whether a trash-talking fight with the pope is the thing that will finally undo Trump. Certainly, he is the first national political figure to venture so deeply into this territory since Dr. Samuel Burchard addressed a gathering of the Republican party a week before the presidential election of 1884. He said, "We are Republicans, and don't propose to leave our party and identify ourselves with the party whose antecedents have been rum, Romanism, and rebellion. We are loyal to our flag." Those remarks are thought to have lost the Republicans the election. Between Trump and Coulter, it might cost my party a damned sight more. Dennis Roddy, of Pittsburgh, is a frequent PennLive Opinion contributor. He currently works for the GOP consulting firm Cold Spark Media. Police accusations of LeSean McCoy's involvement in a Feb. 7 nightclub brawl that left two off-duty cops hospitalized have garnered widespread attention, but many details regarding the Bills' running back's role in the fight remain hazy. WIP94 radio personality and former Eagles defensive lineman Hollis Thomas said five independent sources helped clear that up for him. Speaking on The Josh Innes Show, a mid-afternoon talk show, Thomas said he was told McCoy sucker punched an officer just as an argument over a bottle of champagne was brewing. By the end of the fight, both off-duty cops suffered severe injuries, police said. The District Attorney's office told PennLive it began reviewing the case 10 days ago, but no charges have been filed. You can listen to Thomas' explanation of the altercation below (you'll want to jump to about the five-minute mark). According to Thomas, three off-duty police officers were at Recess Lounge before McCoy and three friends arrived. The altercation started, according to Thomas' sources, when one of McCoy's friends and a cop grabbed the same bottle of champagne, a moment which is confirmed by the incident report. That's where Thomas' sources add a bit more to the story. "In the midst of some words being exchanged, the word was that Shady allegedly kind of sucker punched the off-duty cop," Thomas said. Host Josh Innes and Thomas both clarified that they hadn't seen any evidence and were only passing along words from sources who were at the scene. But Thomas said all five people he talked to said the same thing. "The funny thing is, from every source, it was pretty much the same story that came down," Thomas said. "I was dumbfounded." One of McCoy's lawyers told The Buffalo News yesterday that his client "didn't do anything wrong." We'll continue to provide updates on McCoy's case as it unfolds. READ MORE ABOUT THE CASE HERE: A recap of the incident, which cops say included a four-on-one beat down of an officer, and everything else we know The full incident report provided by Philadelphia Police How events after the incident unfolded Meet the other ex-football players reportedly involved Meet the three off-duty police officers involved NFL launches investigation -- @AaronKazreports LeSean McCoy Buffalo Bills running back LeSean McCoy (25) carries the ball during the first half of an NFL football game against the Washington Redskins in Landover, Md., Sunday, Dec. 20, 2015. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) LeSean McCoy's arrest in connection with a nightclub brawl is not a foregone conclusion and several Philadelphia police officials are upset about that, ESPN reported Friday. Police say McCoy, the Bills' running back, and three others took part in a Feb. 7 beating that left two off-duty cops hospitalized. ABC 6 Action News reported last week that police were seeking aggravated assault charges against McCoy. But the district attorney's office has been reviewing the case for 10 days and hasn't served arrest warrants. A CSNPhilly report Thursday suggested the district attorney's office had questions about how the off-duty cops handled themselves before and after the incident. ESPN's Mark Schwarz said on a Friday edition of SportsCenter that he spoke to a high-ranking Philadelphia police official who blasted the district attorney. "This entire thing is a disgrace and a mockery," the police official said. "A lot of people are disgusted. I think the DA is frightened and wants this all to go away." Police spokesman Lt. John Stanford said last week the four suspects in the case -- later identified as McCoy and three friends -- "more or less jumped" an off-duty cop. WIP94 radio host and former Eagle Hollis Thomas said sources told him McCoy sucker punched a cop, and TMZ dug up video that it claims shows the former Pro Bowler involved in the altercation. But the district attorney's office is concerned that the off-duty officers might have been intoxicated during the incident and has questions about why they didn't call 911, according to CSN Philly. Philadelphia District Attorney R. Seth Williams released a statement Friday that said his office was still investigating the case, and he shot back at accusations against him. "I understand that people are interested in the outcome of our investigation, but we're not going to rush because some people are impatient -- and to say that I am unwilling to prosecute difficult cases is a little misinformed," Williams said, according to The Buffalo News' Vic Carucci. From the Philadelphia DA RE investigation of case allegedly involving #Bills' LeSean McCoy. pic.twitter.com/qo3SMKsyyT Vic Carucci (@viccarucci) February 19, 2016 McCoy, the Eagles all-time leading rusher and a Harrisburg native, has hired high-powered lawyers Dennis Cogan and Larry Krasner to represent him. Cogan told Carucci on Wednesday that McCoy "did nothing wrong." READ MORE ABOUT THE CASE HERE: A recap of the incident, which cops say included a four-on-one beat down of an officer, and everything else we know The full incident report provided by Philadelphia Police How events after the incident unfolded Meet the other ex-football players reportedly involved Meet the three off-duty police officers involved NFL launches investigation -- @AaronKazreports Kochanny: We did one last hike before the longest day of the year sports TRAILFORKS Trail of the Month With much of the northern hemisphere in the middle of their winter, it's only fitting that we head down under to explore Australia and what it has to offer. This month we focus our attention on Awaba Mountain Bike Park and the Monkey trail. Awaba Mountain Bike Park is located 45 minutes drive from Newcastle in New South Wales . Being in one of Australia's most populated regions, Awaba has become a popular destination for both XC and DH. The park has been host to many of the country's top race series and seen its fair share of top riders, including big names like Troy Brosnan, Sam Hill and Tracey Hannah. Photo Credit: Duke Millington Photo Credit: peddlein Photo Credit: Neil Thompson Awaba State Forest is a 4400 Hectares of land currently managed by Forestry Corporation of NSW . Like most state forests, timber for profit is the main attraction and this holds true for Awaba. This all changed back in early 2006 when a dedicated group from the Hunter Mountain Bike Association (HMBA) approached the then Forests NSW with an idea. HMBA proposed a plan that would see them lease land from the state for the purpose of building and maintaining dedicated mountain bike trails for both club use, and hosting state and national XC and DH race events. By hosting these events, they could generate revenue to help offset costs associated with leasing the land and maintaining the trails. A win-win for everyone including the local economy which would see a benefit when race events come to town. Photo Credit: The Roost Magazine Photo Credit: Damian Shaw Photo Credit: AaronIvan In early 2007 an agreement was signed that would see Forests NSW lease 300 Hectares of land to HMBA for the purpose of dedicated mountain bike trails. The plan was to start on a downhill trail first, with the hopes of getting it complete so HMBA could host an upcoming round of the New South Wales State DH series. The association with the support of Forestry Corporation set out looking for the perfect location for the new DH trail. It didn't take long to find a site where they could use the naturally steep rocky terrain to create their masterpiece. Once the environmental impact studies were completed and the green light was given, members of HMBA started the task of laying out the new trail. Using existing features and natural fall lines they flagged out what would soon become known as one of the gnarliest tracks in the region. HMBA members and all its volunteers put shovel to dirt and with hard work and dedication they were able to bang out the new trail in record time and host the 4th round of the 2007 State Gravity Series. Since that first event eight and half years ago the track is still considered one of the wildest downhill tracks in Australia. Thanks in part to HMBA and its crew of volunteers that work effortlessly tweaking and adjusting the trail year after year. Adjustments and improvements are made on a regular basis to ensure the sustainability of the trail and to address any safety issues that arise. Late last season HMBA took on the major task of adding a new over/under bridge which will see the XC course travel under the DH course, allowing both XC and DH events to take place without interfering with each other. Photo Credit: Coleen Kehoe Photo Credit: Coleen Kehoe Photo Credit: Coleen Kehoe Photo Credit: Coleen Kehoe With over 20 km of singletrack, including a newly added kids loop and of course, Monkey Trail, Awaba Mountain Bike Park has become a destination worth checking out. HMBA has dedicated many hours to future planning, which will see the park evolve even further. To make any of these future plans A reality, HMBA needs the continued support of the mountain bike community. To find out how your can help, check out the Hunter Mountain Bike Association's website or earn some Trail Karma by donating to HMBA through Trailforks. Photo Credit: Coleen Kehoe If you like what you see then please support our friends at the Hunter Mountain Bike Association and earn some Trail Karma while you're at it. Are you interested in seeing a trail your association manages feature in a future Trail of the Month article? When I left U Divadla I was hoping fate will put me on the 17 to Troja, a part of town I've never explored, but I'm on the 26 instead, on my way to Lipanska. At least I know where I'll have my next beer: Lavicka.Though I've always liked the looks of this place from the outside, I've never walked in. Didn't even consider it for the 2nd Edition of the Pisshead's Pub Guide. Can't tell you why.Inside looks pretty much like I was expecting it to look. It's a restaurant through-and-through, not a pub. It's clear by the decoration, and because the bar is almost hidden behind a fireplace; it's got nowhere to sit and the counter is quite cluttered, and if they didn't expect (or want?) people to perch there. In short words, a fine place to bring your spouse or long term partner, but not so much for a few beers with your mates.Some of the lunch-time crowd are still in, and everyone is very lethargic, with the exception of the twoand their offspringvery well behaved all four of themand a bloke furiously tapping what seems to be a novella on his phone, while his meal gets cold under his nose. (at the risk of looking like a sad snob, this is clear proof of how little many people care about their food. I can't believe that people give a text message, or even a phone call, more importance than the food they've ordered and will pay for, but I guess different people have different priorities.)The beer, Bernard Nefiltrovana 12, is in really good shape (better than I expected in fact, given that hardly anyone around me is drinking beer), I only wish they had served it in a chilled, wet glass as it's proper.Lavicka isn't quite my kind of establishment, but I reckon the missus could like it. I must keep it in mind, especially in summer, they seem to have a nice patio.A drizzle is falling. The kind that is very pleasant to walk under, especially if you're in a city. But I can't indulge, I'm a man on a mission... Where have I heard that before? Never mind, I have a tram to catch. The 9 this time, to Nakladove nadrazi Zizkov.Well, I'm not precisely spoilt for choice here. A dodgy looking Staropramen bar, next to awith Samson are by the stop. I guess I will have to go to U Kozla, in Basilejske nam.No! Not yet. I'll go deeper into the side streets and see if I get lucky. If I don't, at least I will have had that walk in the rain I so much craved.There were no pubs to be found (I'd like to have a word with whomever said Zizkov has the highest concentration of pubs in the... somewhere). But I don't mind, the walk was quite nice, and I'm in the right mood for a beer.Now, this is a proper Czech. Taproom in the frontwith atableand dining room, subdivided, in the back. Everything is reassuringly old-fashioned. With the exception of some of the bottles displayed along the wood panelled walls (there's one of a buckwheat beer from Slovenia, never heard of that), I doubt the decoration has changed much in the last quarter centurythat includes the ugly tablecloths and the mullet of the waiter that only takes food orders (there's another one for drinks). I only wish the windows weren't frosted, the weather is perfect to watch the world pass by while sipping a pint.The clientele is a pretty diverse bunch: men and women of different ages and walks of life; and, as far as I can see, nobody has their face glued to a screen, as if the pub's atmosphere has made them forget about the electronic masters they carry in pockets and purses. The waiter patiently reciting by heart the day's menu to a blind man adds to that neighbourly vibe that is making me feel so comfortable.It's shame I can't praise the beer.I don't realise there's something wrong with it until I've ordered the second pint, when I burped. Burps are an unappreciated tool to evaluate what I call the post-aftertaste of a beer. For instance, I love the burps of a clean aromatic IPA. In this case, though, the post-aftertaste evokes opening the door and walking into a deep, poorly ventilated cellar in an old building. Once I notice it, it becomes the olfactory incarnation of a distant, unidentified buzzing sound; it's impossible to ignore. I don't remember when was the last time I drank Kozel Svetly, but I doubt is the beer; something wrong with the dispensing lines is, I believe, the most likely cause, in which case getting a pint of any of the other beers on tap won't be wise. It's a pity, I was enjoying this place.Time to go, I guess.Na Zdravi!505'3.961"N, 1427'5.107"ESeifertova 77 Praha-Zizkov+420 222 221 350 - zahradni@restaurace-lavicka.czMon-Sun: 11-23505'14.561"N, 1428'10.942"EJana Zelivskeho 4 Praha-Zizkov+420 222 580 405Mon-Sun: 11-23 UK & Ireland PokerNews Round-Up: Chris Moorman Surpasses $13M in Winnings February 19, 2016 Matthew Pitt Editor The word "legend" is one that is banded around the poker world all too often, but there is no denying that the United Kingdom's Chris "Moorman1" Moorman is a player deserving of the title. While players come and go, Moorman has stood the test of time and continues to crush online poker tournaments seemingly at will. His latest victory came on Sunday at 888poker, where he won the $100,000 Sunday Challenge for more than $18,000. The victory saw his lifetime winnings from online tournaments surpass a staggering $13 million. Moorman's victory came too late to be included in the latest update of the PocketFives online poker rankings and he slipped a couple of places to fourth in the UK. However, once the points from Moorman's win are added to his profile it is likely he will climb back to second place in the UK where he can mount a charge on leader Oscar "MendaLerenda" Serradell. Full Tilt Merges with PokerStars, partypoker Gains There was more online related news flowing from the UK & Ireland PokerNews pages this week, starting with the news that Full Tilt is merging its traffic with PokerStars this spring. It is a move that many have anticipated, with section of the poker community claiming this move is essentially retiring the Full Tilt brand. While Full Tilt has, for some, failed to live up to expectations, partypoker has been gaining customers thanks to a number of positive changes in recent months. One change is to its tournament schedule, which has seen the launch of the Power Series and now the Powerfest Series, with $5 million is guarantees over 98 events across four weeks. The first week commences on Sunday, featuring Featherweight $5.50 to $11 buy-in tournaments. Unibet UK and UKIPT Dublin Winners Into the realm of live poker now, where Curtis Lambert walked away with top honors in the inaugural Unibet Poker UK Tour last weekend. Lambert topped a field of 245 players in the 220 buy-in, 40,000 guaranteed Main Event to get his hands on 11,000 (after a three-way deal) and the first trophy of the brand new tour. While Lambert was busy bossing the tables in Brighton, Lithuania's Vladas Tamasauskas was involved in the UKIPT Dublin Main Event and doing rather well for himself. Tamasauskas eventually walked away as a worthy champion, an accolade that not only came with bragging rights, but also a career-best score of 176,900. By the time the next UK & Ireland PokerNews Round-Up hits your screen next week another champion will have been crowned, the champion of the Grand Prix Poker Tour St. James' Park Main Event. St. James' Park is the home of Premier League club Newcastle United and the iconic stadium is sure to attract a massive crowd who will be vying for their share of a $250,000 guaranteed prize pool. Get all the latest PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+! Sgt. Jason Goodding (Photo: Seaside PD) A Seaside, OR, police officer was "legally and morally" justified in killing a transient who fatally shot his patrol partner moments earlier, the Clatsop County District Attorney announced Tuesday, reports the Oregonian. Phillip Ferry had methamphetamine, marijuana, and alcohol in his system when Seaside Sgt. Jason Goodding and Officer David Davidson tried to arrest him Feb. 5 on a probation violation warrant in downtown Seaside, District Attorney Joshua Marquis said during a morning news conference. Davidson, a member of the police department since 2012, used a Taser on Ferry after the transient refused to take his hands out of his pockets. The convicted felon repeatedly told the officers before the stun gun was used, "You ain't going to like it," according to Marquis. As Goodding tried to restrain Ferry on the ground, the transient pulled out a semiautomatic pistol and fired once. The bullet went under the ballistic vest Goodding was wearing. Davidson then fired several times, hitting Ferry three times in the hand, arm, and buttocks, Marquis said. The severity of Ferry's injures were not immediately clear because he continued to yell at the officers after Davidson fired on him, Marquis said. Goodding, 39, and Ferry, 55, died later at separate hospitals. Davidson, 28, was not injured and remains on standard paid administrative leave as of Tuesday. The vest Goodding was wearing was "not foolproof," Marquis said, and he was hit in an exposed part of his body at close range that made his wound "immediate and fatal." "Medical intervention could not have saved him, even if he had been within two minutes of Legacy Emanuel or OHSU's trauma center," Marquis said, citing a report from the state medical examiner's office. Dep. Jeffrey Brunkow of the Boulder County (CO) Sheriff's Office The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund has selected Deputy Sheriff Jeffrey Brunkow, of the Boulder County (CO) Sheriff's Office, as the recipient of its Officer of the Month Award for February 2016. On April 22, 2015, Deputy Brunkow and fellow deputies from the Boulder County Sheriff's Office responded to a situation in which a man was holding two of his in-laws hostage at gunpoint. The suspect had taken his father-in-law and brother-in-law hostage after his estranged wife left him. Deputies located the suspect and the hostages inside a car in a parking lot, where the suspect was pointing a gun at the hostages and threatening to kill them. The suspect opened a rear door of the vehicle and waved the gun at the officers, warning them to stay back. The suspect pulled the weapon back into the vehicle, leaving the door slightly open. The car windows had dark tinting, making it impossible to see inside the car. Through the small opening of the door, Deputy Brunkow saw the suspect put the gun to the back of a hostage's head. Fearing for the life of the hostage, Deputy Brunkow fired a single shot from roughly 120 feet away through the 4-inch car door opening, striking the suspect in the head and killing him instantly. The victims scrambled from the car and ran to the deputies. They later told the deputies, "You saved our lives." The suspect had battered his estranged wife and made threats to kill her and her family for several months leading up to the hostage situation. "That shot had saved their lives," Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said. "The suspect had just told his brother-in-law to open his eyes and look to the mountains because 'It's the last thing you're ever gonna see.'" "There is no doubt that Deputy Brunkow's courageous act saved the lives of the hostages," said Memorial Fund Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Craig W. Floyd. "His quick thinking earns him the honor of receiving our February 2016 Officer of the Month Award." Located in the nation's capital, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund is a nonprofit organization dedicated to honoring the service and sacrifice of America's law enforcement officers. The Memorial Fund's Officer of the Month Award Program began in 1996 and recognizes federal, state, and local officers who distinguish themselves through exemplary law enforcement service and devotion to duty. Deputy Brunkow, along with the other Officer of the Month Award recipients for 2016, will be honored during National Police Week at a special awards ceremony in Washington, DC, in May 2017. For more information about the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund's Officer of the Month Award, visit www.LawMemorial.org/OTM. About the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund Established in 1984, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund is a non-profit organization dedicated to telling the story of American law enforcement and making it safer for those who serve. The Memorial Fund maintains the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington, DC, which contains the names of 20,538 officers who have died in the line of duty throughout U.S. history. The Memorial Fund is now working to create the National Law Enforcement Museum, which will tell the story of American law enforcement through high-tech, interactive exhibitions, historical artifacts and extensive educational programming. For more information, visit www.LawMemorial.org. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print During the MSNBC Democratic town hall, the appeal of Bernie Sanders was on full display. As Sanders answered questions from voters, it became clear that he is the candidate who is out of build a new American dream. Video of part 1 of Sanders at MSNBC town hall: Sen. Sanders said that he was on both sides of Apple/federal government fight. Sanders said he is worried about Big Brother overreach on privacy, but he is also worried about a future terrorist act. He said that there has to be a middle balance and that he believes it is possible to protect our constitutional liberties and fight terrorism. Chuck Todd played the clip of Sen. Sanders discussing the validity of primarying President Obama in 2012. Sanders drew some groans from the audience for pointing out that it was Hillary Clinton who ran against President Obama in 2008. Sen. Sanders applauded President Obama for his work on the economy and called him a friend, but pointed out that he disagreed with the President on TPP, and when Obama extended Bushs tax breaks for the wealthy. Sanders called his 2012 comments, a media issue, and repeated that Obama has done an outstanding job. Chuck Todd asked about Sanders questioning Bill Clinton for passing NAFTA, deregulation of Wall Street, and welfare reform. Sanders called out Todd for not providing the context and said that overall, he thinks Clinton did a very good job. The first audience question came from an undocumented immigrant, who asked if Sanders would vote against immigration reform if it wasnt perfect. Sanders defended his vote against the 2007 comprehensive immigration reform bill because it exploited the guest worker programs. Sanders said that he wanted to take the 11 million undocumented immigrants out of the shadows. Sanders was asked about his criteria for deportation. He said that his policy is that we should unite families, not divide families. Sanders said immigration reform will be a major priority of his presidency, and he promised to keep President Obamas executive actions in place if the Congress does not pass immigration reform. Sen. Sanders was asked a tough question about how turns racism issues into economic issues. Sanders said that he was arrested in for fighting racism in the 1960s and that he was at the March on Washington. Sanders called for real police reform, a path back to society for those convicted of crimes, the abolishment of mandatory sentences, the taking of marijuana out of the Federal Controlled Substances Act. Sanders was asked if he considers himself a feminist and questioned about how he can understand the discrimination that women face as a white man. Sen. Sanders said that Gloria Steinham made him an honorary woman years ago. He vowed to continue to fight to pass pay equity for women. After a question about the minimum wage, Sen. Sanders was asked if his free college plan would increase the efficiency and quality of higher education. Sanders talked about the original fight for public education, and how the changing world has made a college degree the equivalent of a high school degree 50 or 60 years ago. Sanders said that he wants every child in America to know that if they study hard and take education seriously, they will be able to get a higher education. Sanders was asked by a Clinton volunteer how he will fix the VA. Sanders said that the Koch brothers and their allies do want to privatize the VA and that it is a pretty bad idea. Sen. Sanders discussed the passage of the largest and most comprehensive VA reform package while he was chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. Sanders said that he apologizes to nobody for his chairmanship of the Veterans Affairs Committee. Sanders was asked how he would address Islamophobia as president. He answered, Bluntly and directly. Sanders said that it is absolutely unacceptable that in 2016 we have people like Donald Trump who is trying go gain votes by scapegoating Muslims and Latinos. Bernie Sanders called out the birthers for trying to delegitimize Barack Obamas presidency with racism. Sanders unloaded on those who call his health care plan rationing and said that the current US healthcare system already has rationing based on money. The reason Sanders is so appealing to millions of Democrats is that he is talking about restoring the American dream. Donald Trump blusters about making America great again, but Trump never states who exactly he will be making America great for. What Bernie Sanders is offering a new American dream where everyone in the country has healthcare, and no one has to worry about the cost. Sanders is promising to rebuild the ladder of economic opportunity with his free community college plan. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Senator Marco Rubio (R-FLA) failed to show up tonight for his Conservative Review Convention speech in South Carolina, canceling just five minutes before he was supposed to take the stage at 8 PM and now hes being mercilessly mocked. The Cruz campaign tore into Rubio, This is a final admission that Marco Rubio isnt even going to try to compete for the votes of conservatives in South Carolina or anywhere else. And who can blame him? Rubio isnt a conservative. Instead Rubio and his campaign would rather hide behind their deceptive campaign tactics and liberal record on amnesty for illegals and voting to nominate John Kerry. The Guardians Sabrina Siddiqui tweeted the Cruz campaigns statement: Cruz spox @rickwtyler slams Rubio for canceling Conservative Review appearance: "Rubio isn't a conservative." pic.twitter.com/wwJNqSahhp Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) February 19, 2016 During his keynote speech, conservative radio host Mark Levin mocked Rubio, Marco Rubio would you raise your hand? He was supposed to be here. Probably went to McDonalds. This is not exactly what Rubio needed after the Robot Rubio debacle. NBC reporter Alexandra Jaffe tweeted the Rubio campaigns statement, FYI Because of a delay in todays schedule, Marco is unable to make the event below tonight. Senator Tim Scott and Congressman Trey Gowdy attended to represent the campaign. Here's statement from Rubio campaign on why the senator couldn't make the event pic.twitter.com/wPt9zYZxYY Alexandra Jaffe (@ajjaffe) February 19, 2016 Yeah that doesnt sound good. Republicans are attacking Rubio, saying he cant take the heat, wanted to avoid his amnesty positions, isnt a real conservative, and is probably at McDonalds, while the Rubio supporters are slamming the Conservative Review, saying its the blogging arm of a Cruz SuperPAC. Any way you look at it, Marco Rubio just reinforced the image he should be trying to avoid at all costs that he is not ready, that he cant handle any pressure, and that he is wobbly and unstable. Canceling five minutes before youre supposed to be on stage is a new way of screaming NOT READY! HIDING! Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print Donald Trump is being condemned by religious organizations for his ugly attack on Pope Francis. After Pope Francis condemned Donald Trumps plan to build a wall along the Mexican border as unchristian, Trump responded with a thin-skinned attack on the Pope: Donald J. Trump fires back at the Pope. To be appreciated in its entirety. pic.twitter.com/F1Sq01gf76 Phil Elliott (@Philip_Elliott) February 18, 2016 Trumps attack has been condemned by religious leaders. Franciscan Action Network Executive Director Patrick Carolan said in a statement: Today after Pope Francis told Christians to build walls, Donald Trump called those comments disgraceful. What is disgraceful is preaching hatred and fear which are not in any way the message of Jesus. In Matthew 25 Jesus clearly states what you do unto the least of my brethren you do also unto me. For Mr. Trump to continually preach his message of hatred and fear is certainly not following the teachings of Jesus. The Pope is correct that his statements are Unchristian. He also happens to be a head of state and can weigh in on political matters. No matter what politicians or pundits say, the important part of the Popes message today is that Christians should build bridges and not walls, In fact the entire message of Pope Francis papacy has been to tear down walls, to build bridges, to welcome our immigrant and refugee sisters and brothers, and to reject our throwaway culture. Anyone that tries to see this as a personal attack fails to full grasp the Popes message. Christopher Hale, the executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, said, Pope Francis is absolutely right: theres nothing Christian about building walls. Donald Trumps immigration stance is a total affront to the gospel of Jesus Christ. During this election year, the American people can take Pope Franciss advice and build bridges, or heed the advice of Donald Trump and build walls. If Francis is right, all walls eventually crumble. Trump will shrug this off, but his remarks about the Pope will come back to haunt him if he wins the Republican nomination. The pundits consider Trump bulletproof, but what they fail to understand is that Trump will not be facing a conservative electorate in the fall. If the rest of the country is given the chance to weigh in on Trump, stunts like attacking the popular Pope are going to come back to bite the entire Republican Party on the backside. Donald Trump has attacked women, African-Americans, the disabled, Muslims, Mexicans, and now the Pope. At this rate, the only people who be left to vote for Trump are the angry white conservative bigots who currently support him. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print A new poll of Colorado shows that Hillary Clintons lead has evaporated as Bernie Sanders has taken a 48%-43% lead ahead of the states March 1 caucuses. The conservative Washington Free Beacon conducted the poll that suggested a big turnaround in Colorado since Hillary Clinton led the state by 28 points in November. In a pattern that is consistent with what has occurred in other states, Sanders leads Clinton 46%-30% with millennials, and with women under age 30, Sanders leads by 40 points. Sen. Sanders lead with Hispanics (41%-38%) is close to within the polls 2.98% margin of error. Former Sec. of State Clinton leads with previous caucusgoers 41%-38%, and with African-Americans by 12 points. Sanders led Clinton by wide margins on honesty (56%-25%), empathy (51%-31%), and progressiveness (57%-25%). The poll was conducted by automated phone call only. This type of polling has a history of being hit and miss. There are also some methodological issues that come with automated polling that the Colorado pollster has tried to minimize by selecting a sample of is 1,144 previous Democratic caucusgoers and new registrants. There could be some accuracy issues in play with this poll, but the Sanders campaign has made Colorado a main Super Tuesday target. The polling outside of South Carolina has contained lots of good news for Bernie Sanders over the last few days. The fact that some of the good Sanders polls are coming from conservative outlets like the Washington Free Beacon and Fox News should raise some red flags. Other objective polling of Colorado will provide a clearer picture, but if Sanders has taken the lead over Clinton in Colorado, it will add more fuel to the questions about Hillary Clintons potential vulnerabilities as the Democratic nominee. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print The Nevada Democratic Party is promising that they will prosecute any Republican who engages in voter fraud by participating in both the Democratic and Republican caucuses. Nevada College Republicans have been circulating a plan to hurt Hillary Clinton by caucusing for Bernie Sanders on Saturday before voting again in the Republican caucus on Tuesday. According to Nevada law, what Republicans are considering is a felony. NRS 293.800 states: A person who, for himself, herself or another person, willfully gives a false answer or answers to questions propounded to the person by the registrar or field registrar of voters relating to the information called for by the application to register to vote, or who willfully falsifies the application in any particular, or who violates any of the provisions of the election laws of this State or knowingly encourages another person to violate those laws is guilty of a category E felony and shall be punished as provided in NRS 193.130. In a statement, Nevada Democratic Party Chair Roberta Lange vowed to prosecute any Republican who commits voter fraud, After reviewing Nevada law, we believe that registering under false pretenses in order to participate in the Democratic caucuses for purposes of manipulating the presidential nominating process is a felony. The Nevada State Democratic Party will work with law enforcement to prosecute anyone who falsely registers as a Democrat to caucus tomorrow and subsequently participates in the Republican caucuses on Tuesday. So much for the Republican plan to hurt Hillary Clinton by trying to rig the Nevada Democratic caucus. Some Sanders supporters dont want to hear this, but Republicans want to run against Bernie Sanders. They are dying to paint the entire Democratic Party as a gang of socialists who are out to destroy America. Republicans have been afraid of facing Hillary Clinton in a general election for years. The Republican fear of Hillary Clinton is why they have wasted millions of taxpayer dollars investigating Benghazi and her emails. Republicans would be more than happy to commit voter fraud if it meant not facing Hillary Clinton in November. There are no loopholes. Voter fraud is illegal, but Republicans are so desperate to win in 2016 that they are willing to commit felonies if it means harming Hillary Clinton. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print The party that screams about voter fraud while getting busted for voter fraud is at it again. This time, its a loophole Republicans have found in Nevada that will allow them to caucus in the Democratic caucus and then again in the Republican caucus days later. Republicans are urging their fellow Republicans to take advantage of the loophole reported yesterday by Ralston Reports. Bloomberg Politics correspondent Jennifer Epstein shared this directive from the UNR College Republicans: Press release from UNR College Republicans suggesting members could caucus twice: pic.twitter.com/L5fnGS2JrU Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) February 19, 2016 There was also this email sent by Nick Vander Poel, a Republican activist and former AFPer, as reported by Ralston, who noted that Nick left a rather important not off of this email: Please forward to family and friends and fellow GOP caucus goers. I was able to confirm through a former Secretary of State elections official as well as a former County Clerk. Both said and confirmed that Republicans can show up on Saturday, February 20th and register as a Democrat if you have a burning desire. Then still be eligible to participate to caucus on Tuesday for GOP candidate of choice. What was also confirmed. The caucuses are NOT a state sanctioned election, the caucus is conducted by both parties. So this is NOT illegal and you will be arrested or fined. So put that rumor to rest. Some call this idea silly but the reality is, with low turnout the Democrat caucus is going to close and every little bit is going to help. Again, here are the details/loophole of how this is possible: At this point, the email links to the Ralston Report. Its not illegal, yall! Wink wink! The deal is that Republicans have already closed their registration rolls for their vote on February 23rd, whereas Democrats are allowing same day registration for their vote on February 20th. Joe Ralston explained that he checked with the Voter Registrar, who confirmed that this is possible and heres how it would work: So: A Republican registered by Feb. 13 could show up at a Democratic caucus site on Saturday, switch to the Democratic Party, vote and then still participate on Tuesday because the party switch would not show up on the GOP caucus rolls. Ralston points out the obvious that Republicans would be using this to caucus for Bernie Sanders. Republicans are urging their own party to cheat and do what basically amounts to voter fraud even though its possibly* technically legal, all because they are too afraid to face Hillary Clinton in a general. Democrats dont need to plan to cause chaos for Republicans, because Republicans are running what looks like a cage match meets tent revival meets circus show. There are no good Republican candidates whom Democrats need to fear, because the only Republican who is reasonable as a possibility in a general election is Ohio Governor John Kasich, and he cant propel himself forward in the middle of the vulgar, rhetorically violent clown show that is the Republican primary. Republicans are so desperate theyre resorting to cheating, because destroying a Democrat is their only hope of winning the White House. update: *The notion that this is possibly legal is untested and Democrats do not agree, so dont try this at home unless you want to risk violating the law. Update 5:44 PM ET: The Nevada Democratic party is vowing to prosecute anyone who commits voter fraud. So, good luck with that Republicans. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Email Print It is a simple fact that if you insist the underpinnings of the United States government are to be found in the Bible, that you are attacking the true underpinnings of the United States government in the United States Constitution. This is for the simple reason that the Bible is nowhere to be found in that secular document. And that is precisely what Ted Cruz did when he attacked the Supreme Courts Obergfell ruling in an interview with Janet Mefferd Tuesday, calling it lawless, disastrous and fundamentally illegitimate. According to Cruz, I believe that decision was fundamentally illegitimate, it was lawless, it was unconstitutional and it will not stand, he said. And I would note, that is precisely why Dr. James Dobson has endorsed me in this campaign, it is why Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council has endorsed me in this campaign, its why the National Organization on Marriage [sic] has endorsed me on this campaign and has said it cannot support Donald Trump or Marco Rubio because if were not willing to defend marriage, we are giving up the foundational building blocks of the family, were giving up the Judeo-Christian values that built this great nation. Listen courtesy of Right Wing Watch: This is hyperbole and nothing more. Certainly Cruz buys into the old Christian maxim that There is no crime for those who have Christ (e.g. Hobby Lobby acquiring stolen artifacts even though the Ten Commandments say stealing is a no-no) and if the volume of Cruzs lies and distortions are not illegal, they should be. Fact: The Supreme Court was given its role to settle issues of constitutional law by the Constitution itself. There decisions are therefore lawful and fundamentally legitimate. We might disagree with them, as Democrats do the Citizens United ruling, but they are undeniably the law of the land. Somehow, according to Cruz, the Obergfell decision has led to unprecedented persecution of Christians in this country, even though he cannot name a single instance. He does list some supposed examples, but as PFAWs Miranda Blue points out, almost nonehave stemmed from the federal government, and if thats not enough, every single one of the incidents he referenced happened before the ruling and were in no way connected to it. There is nothing quite like the fact-free Republican reality bubble, where anything goes and where you dont have to come anywhere near the dots to connect them. Cruzs rhetoric is reminiscent of the Bush-era claim that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, even though we knew he wasnt, or that he had WMDs, even though we knew he didnt. Just saying things makes them true for Republicans, from Benghazi to Planned Parenthood. Christian apologetics is an old industry, and on its best day intellectually unsound, as it assures the reader/listener that they should not panic, that everything they believe is true, and its all good. The result is that nearly any belief you can tie to the Bible, no matter how mistaken (e.g. its not even in the Bible) is as legitimate as established scientific fact more so, as we have repeatedly seen. We therefore find the most vile beliefs and behaviors sanctified by religion, and any resistance to these beliefs and behaviors is seen as a form of persecution. We might as well be beaten to death for refusing to admit water is wet. That is the level of absurdity reached by Ted Cruz both with Janet Mefferd and at his rallies and other interviews. This is just absurd. Ted Cruz claims to love America. His supporters crow, At last, a candidate who actually loves America! But there is no evidence of this love at all. Cruzs love is for an America that never existed, and was never meant to exist. His claims of unprecedented persecution certainly sound laughable when stood against the actual persecution of Christians in other countries, or in Christian mythology, where believers are tortured and mutilated as opposed to just having their feelings hurt, as is the case here. Or, more pointedly and significantly, when placed against the persecution of others by Cruzs fellow Christians in the form of hate speech and repressive laws aimed at women and religious minorities even the actual physical bullying of students not found acceptable by evangelicals. It is not unreasonable to draw the conclusion that for Cruz and his supporters, repression of the other is foundational behavior and this is appallingly un-American. And we thought Newt Gingrich was off base when he said it was OK to drop trou for God and country. Ted Cruz says he is fighting for the Bible and Christianity, but like every other hate-consumed would-be Religious Right champion, he cant even get Christ right. And from the other side of the coin, nobody is asking Ted Cruz (to the extent he recognizes Jesus at all) to deny Christ. We are merely asking him to not deny the United States Constitution. Cruz isnt fighting for freedom; like Ralph Reed, he is fighting for the right to oppress. And if he cant do that, he is welcome to return to Canada if theyll have him. 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. A Rochester man pleaded guilty Thursday in Olmsted County District Court to three felony counts of murder and attempted murder related to a shooting that killed one man and hospitalized two others last August in Southeast Rochester. Courtney Eli Ocegueda, 19, entered guilty pleas in Olmsted County District Court to three of six felony charges against him, including one count of second-degree murder-with intent-not premeditated and two counts of second-degree attempted murder-with intent-not premeditated. No pleas were entered for the remaining three felony charges, which may be dismissed as part of a plea agreement. They include second-degree murder-with intent-while committing a felony and two counts of first-degree attempted murder-premeditated. Ocegueda is due back in court for sentencing with District Judge Joseph Chase on April 11. Ocegueda faces a maximum sentence of 5 to 40 years in prison for the most serious charge. He is accused of firing a full magazine 15 rounds into a group of people playing basketball at 23rd Avenue and Park Lane Southeast at about 2:15 p.m. on Aug. 31 ADVERTISEMENT Trumane "Trey" Lamar Gillmore, 22, of Rochester, was struck by gunfire and died at the scene. Two other men also were hit. Demonterious Davonte Jackson, 20, suffered a through-and-through gunshot wound to the leg and a graze wound to the right side of his chest, Police Capt. John Sherwin said after the shooting. Jerome Richard Zachary, 18, of Chicago, also had a graze wound to his chest. Sherwin has said the flurry of bullets was "inches" away from being a triple homicide. The shooting is believed to be in retaliation for a robbery that had occurred earlier in the day, where Ocegueda was the victim. One witness said Ocegueda yelled, "What's up now, Bitch," before firing his weapon. Ocegueda was arrested about 6 a.m. the next day at a home in Faribault after a five-hour standoff with a SWAT team. Jackson was sentenced in December to concurrent terms of 60 months and 68 months in prison for his role in the robbery on Aug. 31. Zachary was sentenced Jan. 27 to 18 months in prison, with credit for 148 days served. I guess were going to have to make a series out of the obvious panic of the Democratic establishment over the ascent of Bernie Sanders. Now Democrats have rolled out their senior economic luminaries to blast a widely reported study that claimed Sanderss socialism would lead to an economic boom in America. The study, by UMass/Amherst economics professor Gerald Friedman, asserts that median income would soar by more than $22,000, 26 million jobs would be created and unemployment would fall to 3.8 percent. And thats just from Sanderss Medicare-for-All proposal alone. Imagine what going Full-Venezuela could do! The Sanders campaign pounced on this result, declaring it to be outstanding work. A couple of observations before we enjoy the Democratic panic. First, I think we can safely assume that Prof. Gerald Friedman is no relation to Milton Friedman. Im not even going to check it out. Second, every UMass/Amherst economics student who took courses from Friedman should demand a tuition refund immediately. Third, seriously Amherst? Would you hire a flat-earther for your geography department? Why would you hire one for your economics department? This is too much even for Mother Jones! Kevin Drum writes: The Sanders Campaign Has Crossed Into Neverland Ive generally tried to go easy on Bernie Sanders. I like his vision, and I like his general attitude toward Wall Street. But this is insane. . . WTF? Per-capita GDP will grow 4.5 percent? And not just in a single year: Friedman is projecting that it will grow by an average of 4.5 percent every year for the next decade. Productivity growth will double compared to CBO projectionsand in case youre curious, there has never been a 10-year period since World War II in which productivity grew 3.18 percent. Not one. Austan Goolsbee, Obamas chief economic adviser in his first term, told the New York Times that the Sanders economic agenda was puppies and rainbows . . . theyve evolved into magic flying puppies with winning Lotto tickets tied to their collars. Paul Krugman kicked his cat and pronounced that Sanders must listen to him: Sanders needs to disassociate himself from this kind of fantasy economics right now. And four former chairs of the White House Council of Economic Advisersa whos who of Democratic economic grandeeshave released an open letter to Sanders telling him to knock it off: We are concerned to see the Sanders campaign citing extreme claims by Gerald Friedman about the effect of Senator Sanderss economic planclaims that cannot be supported by the economic evidence. Friedman asserts that your plan will have huge beneficial impacts on growth rates, income and employment that exceed even the most grandiose predictions by Republicans about the impact of their tax cut proposals. As much as we wish it were so, no credible economic research supports economic impacts of these magnitudes. . . These claims undermine the credibility of the progressive economic agenda and make it that much more difficult to challenge the unrealistic claims made by Republican candidates. Alan Krueger, Princeton University Austan Goolsbee, University of Chicago Booth School Christina Romer, University of California at Berkeley Laura DAndrea Tyson, University of California at Berkeley Haas School of Business Heh. [CORRECTED to note wrong college ID.] PR-Inside.com: 2016-02-19 11:25:01 Springbok Casinos God of Wealth Bestows a Small Fortune on Lucky Player GameOn For Media Enquiries Sarah Blackburn T: 00 44 78990 87923 E: sarah@gameon.im When Springbok Casino (www.springbokcasino.co.za) launched its brand new game God of Wealth last month, little did anyone know that it would live up to its name in such a short time. Inspired by Caishen, the god of prosperity in the Chinese folk religion, the 25 variable payline slot promised the prospect of jackpot riches and delivered big time! Fortune surely smiled on lucky recipient Johanna D. from Cape Town. The 60-year-old walked away with a life-changing sum of R270,184.00! Johannas winning streak started when she saw God of Wealth advertised on https://www.playcasino.co.za/ and linked through to Springbok Casino. The rest, as they say, is history. Playcasino is happy to have been the conduit that led to a really handsome payout for a player. They had this to say about the winning site: Springbok Casino always goes above and beyond for its players and, of the over 100 South African online casinos we've reviewed, Springbok Casino is our players' favourite. As partners of Springbok for many years, we've heard only praise for the casino, its promotions and customer support, its range of deposit methods and excellent withdrawal speed, not to mention its brilliant scope of games for both desktop and mobile. Springbok Casinos Manager, Daniel van Wyk, holds Playcasino in high regard as an important partner in the South African market, giving local casinos an invaluable platform to advertise their offerings, and in turn providing gamers with a one-stop-shop to research their preferences. Van Wyk also emphasises the fact that Springbok Casino has seen many lucrative wins for its players across their wide range of game choices and this keeps their customers coming back for more. The god of wealth, it seems, is always hard at work across the board at Springbok Casino. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201602190052 God of Wealth pays out R270,184.00. Thanks to @playcasinoza for its support of Springbokcasino.co.za Anxious to expeditiously resolve the impasse currently stalling the passage of the 2016 Federal Budget, the executive and the leadership of the National Assembly have closed ranks to ensure that the Appropriation Bill was passed latest by the second week of March. A top Presidency official told PREMIUM TIMES on Thursday that key officials in the Ministries of Budget & National Planning, Finance and other relevant agencies with roles in the budgeting process, were meeting with the leadership of the National Assembly on the way forward. The official, who asked that his identity be protected as he was not authorized to speak officially on the matter, said representatives of the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) office, Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and other government revenue generating agencies, were part of the meeting. On the National Assemblys side, apart from the principal officers of its leadership, the official said others who were also in attendance at the series of meetings were members of the relevant committees in the Senate and the House of Representatives. According to the official, the main objective of the meeting was to accomplish President Muhammadu Buharis directive that the two arms of government should close ranks and come together to reconcile all discrepancies and errors delaying the approval of the budget by the National Assembly. The president is very worried about what is going on. He is anxious to get the impasse behind him as soon as possible, to enable him face the serious business of governance. The essence of the meetings is clear: to enable all parties identify all thorny issues, correct all errors in the budget, and get a clean copy of the document approved on or before the second week of March, he said. He expressed optimism that the objective would realized, pointing out that at the end of the second meeting on Tuesday night, confidence was high that some significant progress was recorded towards a consensus on how the impasse could be resolved. What they are trying to do is to attempt to find the best way possible to get the matter behind them. They are focused on streamlining the main issues underlining the crisis, and work towards the early passage of the budget, he said. Recently, President Muhammadu Buhari ordered the immediate investigation into allegations of fraudulent padding of allocations in the 2016 budget. A number of questionable details uncovered after the budget was presented on December 22, 2015 had compelled the National Assembly to suspend deliberations on the document. The immediate past Chairman, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Sam Amadi, on Friday described the Nigerian Senates recent directive for the suspension of the new electricity tariff regime as illegal, unconstitutional and a direct encroachment on executive independence. Mr. Amadi, who spoke to PREMIUM TIMES in an exclusive interview in Abuja, said apart from the Senate lacking the constitutional right to give such a directive, NERC, as presently constituted, was incompetent to suspend or rescind the tariff order issued by the former commissioners. The former NERC boss said until a new commission has been reconstituted to consider reviewing or totally suspending the order, nobody anywhere can validly review or suspend the current tariff. It is not wise for the Senate to instruct NERC to stop the tariff, Mr. Amadi said. It will create serious regulatory risks across the market value chain. People will begin to look at it and say there is no independence of the industry regulator. The National Assembly knows how tariffs are arrived at. They follow a process. If the National Assembly is truly objective, they could have invited NERC to come and give evidence that they followed the law and process they made. If they think the laws were not followed or good enough they have a right to streamline the law or make new regulations. The order by the Senate for NERC to rescind the tariff is a direct infringement on the independence of the executive to initiate policies, in this case through NERC. It is a subtle derogation of the powers of the executive. It offends the concept of separation of power. The legislature should not interfere and direct executive action. That is clearly against the law. It is unconstitutional, he explained. The former NERC Chairman, who is also a lawyer, said although the lawmakers could give policy guidance, by expressing their views on what they think was wrong, NERC should be allowed to exercise its independence to either accept or reject it. Issuing a directive for the electricity sector regulator to suspend an order that is a quasi-legislation backed by law would not only set a dangerous precedence, but would also create a process that, if NERC disobeys, would trigger a fight with the legislators. He said the way out of the situation was for the National Assembly to understand that its directive was wrong, as it contravenes the very law they made empowering NERC, and NERC only, to decide on the issue of tariffs. Tariffs do not come through executive fiat, Mr. Amadi pointed out. Suspending tariffs should go through a process similar to when it was made. At the moment, there is no NERC in place to carry out the Senates directive to suspend the tariffs implementation. The decision can only be taken by a properly constituted Board, which was recently dissolved. According to him, it was not prudential for the National Assembly to direct NERC to rescind the decision on electricity tariffs, arguing that it would amount to an encroachment into executive functions. If NERC obeys the Senate and rescind the order, it would have put itself in a double bind between the executive and the legislature. Such obedience would violate the provision of the Act that empowered NERC to issue the order in the first place in line with its regulatory role, and increased the regulatory risks in the market, as people would not be sure whether it has the independence to exercise its role as a regulator. On the other hand, if NERC does not obey, it would have put it in a confrontational path with the legislature. It is a situation that could have been avoided if the legislature had properly interrogated the process, to find out the real cost profile that NERC used to arrive at the tariffs, not the outcry, he explained. The 11 electricity distribution companies (DISCOs) under the aegis of the Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED) have already warned of the consequences of suspending the new tariffs. ANEDs Executive Director, Advocacy & Research, Sunday Oduntan, said heeding the Senates resolution would undermine the various agreements with the federal government prior the privatization exercise that a market-priced tariff which reflects its costs of distributing electricity to consumers would be enthroned in the sector. Fishermen in Otuoke, Bayelsa State, on Friday recovered the body of a cousin to former President Goodluck Jonathan, who was abducted alongside the former leaders uncle, Chief Inegite Jonathan, witnesses said. Relatives said the body of Samuel Oki, 35, was found floating on Otuoke river, two days after the abduction. The police spokesperson for Bayelsa State, Asini Butswat, told PREMIUM TIMES he was aware of the report, but could not immediately confirm its details. He said he was working to receive briefings from the Divisional Police Officer in charge of the area. Armed gunmen had on Wednesday abducted 72-year-old Chief Inegite Jonathan, President Jonathans uncle and foster father, but the kidnap of Mr. Oki was not immediately noticed until several hours later. Fishermen in Otuoke community on Friday discovered his decomposing body, raising fears about the safety of the former presidents 72-year-old uncle, whose whereabout was still unknown by Friday afternoon. A family member of the deceased, Igbogamini Paul, said both men were kidnapped on Wednesday. Mr. Paul said they believe that a gunshot they heard during the abduction was targeted at Mr. Oki. He expressed sadness over the incident. Villagers said local fishermen recovered the body and anchored it by the riverside to prevent the body from being carried away by water currents. The body had been deposited at a morgue in the area. Meanwhile sympathisers have been visiting the Otuoke residence of the abducted chief located within the neighbourhood of the former presidents country home. The kidnappers have yet to establish any contact with the family of their hostage since Wednesday. The police spokesperson, Mr. Butswat, a deputy superintendent, said the police were still trailing the kidnappers. On 17th February, 2016, at about 03.30hrs, seven unknown gunmen abducted one Inengite Nitabai at his residence in Otuoke, Ogbia Local Government Area. A massive manhunt have been launched by a combined team of Marine Police and Anti-Kidnapping Unit of the Command, to rescue the victim and arrest the abductors. Investigation is ongoing, Mr. Butswat said in an earlier statement. Nancy Dickson, a 26-year-old sister of Bayelsas Gov. Seriake Dickson, abducted in December 2015, has remained in captivity for over 50 days now despite an ultimatum given by the governor to the kidnappers to free her. The governor had in his first tenure in office signed the anti kidnapping law which prescribes death sentence for kidnapping but no one has been convicted under the law. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has filed an application at the Federal High Court, Lagos, seeking an order to seize all properties belonging to a former Niger Delta militant leader, Government Ekpemupolo. Mr. Ekpemupolo, also known as Tompolo, was declared wanted by the EFCC last week after failing to honour repeated invitations for questioning. Mr. Ekpemupolo and Patrick Akpobolokemi, the former Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, are accused of a multibillion naira fraud at the agency. Others charged alongside the duo are Global West Vessel Specialist Ltd, Odimiri Electrical Ltd, Kime Engozu, Boloboere Property and Estate Limited, Rex Elem, Destre Consult Ltd, Gregory Mbonu, and Captain Warredi Enisuoh. At the last court proceedings two weeks ago, the judge had adjourned till February 19th and ordered all the relevant security agencies to produce Mr. Ekpemupolo. In a motion ex parte brought before the Federal High Court, Festus Keyamo, the prosecution counsel, prayed for an order to seize Mr. Ekpemupolos properties pending his arrest and appearance before the court. The properties include: Property at No. 1 Chief Agbamu Close DDPA Extension Warri (Effurun), Delta State. All properties of Mieka Dive Ltd and Mieka Dive Training Institute Ltd situated at No. 77, Lioth Street, ODPA Ugborikoko, Uvwie Local Government Area, Delta State. All properties of Global West Vessel Specialist Ltd. All properties of Muhaabix Global Services Ltd. A River Crew Change Boat named MUHA 15The property known as Tompolo Dockyard, by the end of Enerhen Road, Effurun, Warri. The property known as Tompolo Yard, at the end of Chevron Clinic Road, next to Next Oil, Edjeba, Warri. The Diving School at Kurutie, at Escravos River. The property known as Tompolo House at Oporaza Town, opposite the Palace. Any other property discovered by the Economic And Financial Crimes Commission, moveable and immoveable, belonging to the 1st Accused person. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission Friday told a federal judge that the whereabouts of Government Ekpemupolo, a former militant leader, were unknown. Festus Keyamo, counsel to the EFCC, said a combined team of Nigerian police and military officers had been combing the creeks for weeks without success. The judge had issued a warrant for the arrest of Mr. Ekpemupolo (also known as Tompolo) on February 8 after he shunned repeated invitations to appear before the EFCC for questioning. Last week, the commission declared the ex-militant wanted. We wish to inform the court that the warrant of arrest that this court issued in respect of the first defendant (Mr. Ekpemupolo) has not been executed despite the best efforts of all the security agents in this country, Mr. Keyamo told the judge on Friday. Every security agent in this country is involved in the search for the first defendant. What is unfolding is something that has never been seen before in this country for a very long time. Mr. Ekpemupolo and Patrick Akpobolokemi, the former Director General of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, are accused of a multibillion naira fraud at the agency. Others charged alongside them are Global West Vessel Specialist Ltd, Odimiri Electrical Ltd, Kime Engozu, Boloboere Property and Estate Ltd, Rex Elem, Destre Consult Ltd, Gregory Mbonu, and Captain Warredi Enisuoh. At the last court sitting, Tayo Oyetibo, who represented Mr. Ekpemupolo prayed the court to set aside an order of substituted service which the judge had earlier granted against his client. In a short ruling, Justice Ibrahim Buba dismissed the application and renewed a warrant order it had earlier issued on the former militant leader. Up till today the first defendant has refused to honour the invitation of the court to appear before it, the judge had said. The whole essence of service is to make the person aware of charges facing him. By bringing an application before the court, the first defendant had become aware of the charge before the court. On Friday, no lawyer announced appearance for Mr. Ekpemupolo, a situation the prosecution noted was disrespectful to the court. Having registered his appearance at the last sitting, the very senior counsel (Mr. Oyetibo) ought to have come to withdraw his appearance, Mr. Keyamo said. With Mr. Ekpemupolo still at large, Mr. Keyamo moved a motion for an adjournment to enable the prosecution separate the charges so we can go on with the other accused persons. The prosecution counsel also filed an application urging the court to order the seizure of all identified properties belonging to Mr. Ekpemupolo. The assets listed include property at No. 1 Chief Agbamu Close DDPA Extension Warri (Effurun), Delta State; all properties of Muhaabix Global Services Ltd; a River Crew Change Boat named MUHA 15; the property known as Tompolo Dockyard, by the end of Enerhen Road, Effurun, Warri. Others are a property known as Tompolo Yard, at the end of Chevron Clinic Road, next to Next Oil, Edjeba, Warri; the Diving School at Kurutie, at Escravos River; the property known as Tompolo House at Oporaza Town, opposite the Palace; and any other property discovered by the Economic And Financial Crimes Commission, moveable and immoveable, belonging to the first accused person. This application is to further secure the attendance of the first accused person. The law says that the court can order the confiscation of his properties until he appears, Mr. Keyamo said. Any third party can bring an application later, but we have intelligence reports that those properties and companies belong to the first accused person. If he fails to appear within three months, the federal government will auction off all the assets. In his ruling, the judge granted the order for the seizure of all the listed properties and adjourned till March 22 for the separation of the charges on the defendants. The Joint Special Anti-kidnapping Squad of military and police in Kaduna State, on Friday rescued four abducted girls and arrested the suspected kidnapper. PREMIUM TIMES gathered that the rescued girls were announced missing last week by their parents in Kateri area of the state. Government officials said the suspected kidnapper was arrested in his hide out, following information from members of the surrounding community. The spokesperson to the state governor, Nasir El-Rufai, Samuel Aruwan, confirmed the rescue of the girls. Mr. Aruwan said the girls were rescued after a raid in Kateri area of Kachia Local Government Area, which is an extension of the suspected kidnappers hideout. The security squad that was detailed to follow-up came under fire from the kidnappers. But the raid succeed in freeing the girls, Mr. Aruwan said. He further said another suspected bandit, Mohammed Sani, was arrested by Operation Yaki Surveillance Patrol team in a Joint Operation with the State Armed Robbery Squad. The security team also yesterday arrested gang of armed robbers who were known for robbing motorists along the Gwagwada area of Kachia LG of the state, Mr. Aruwan said. Similarly, a notorious kidnapper, one Abdullahi Ali, has been arrested following information from members of the public. The Kaduna State Government commends citizens for providing information to improve the security situation, he added. 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... Patience Tam-George, the 85-year-old mother of Rivers State commissioner for Information, Austin Tam-George, has been freed after six days in captivity. The commissioner, Mr. Tam-George, in a text message to PREMIUM TIMES, said his mother was released late Thursday night. Tam-George did not give details about her release. He said Mrs. Tam-George had been taken to a private hospital in Rivers State for evaluation and care. Mrs. Tam-George, 85, was said to be returning home from church in the evening when she was abducted on February 13 at George Ama area, Okrika town, Rivers state. Her abductors later reportedly made a call with her mobile phone demanding N30 million as ransom. The management of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, has uncovered a syndicate specialised in defrauding parents and candidates seeking admission into the institution. The school called on parents and guardians of candidates seeking admission into the institution to be wary of the fraudsters who parade themselves as our admission officers in the university. A statement by the Public Relations Officer of the university, Abiodun Olarewaju, said a man, Omodele Taiwo, had been arrested by security operatives of the university after claiming to be an admission officer of the school. Mr. Olarewaju disclosed that Mr. Omodele had already defrauded two parents seeking admission for their children to the tune of N600, 000. Omodeles attempt to collect N100, 000 from his two victims, who are parents of the two candidates (names withheld) eventually led to his arrest, he said. Upon interrogation, he admitted committing the crime and collecting the money, but blamed the devil for pushing him into the act. In view of this, OAU management wishes to emphasise that we do not ask parents, guardians or candidates to pay for admission, nor do we ask them to pay into individuals bank account to secure admission. Mr. Olarewaju admonished parents and guardians of candidates seeking admission into OAU not to be too desperate to be looking for shortcut, so as not to fall victims of fraudsters. The Ogun State Police have arrested members of a gang who hijacked a truck with 33,000 litres of petrol. The spokesperson for the command, Muyiwa Adejobi, who confirmed this to PREMIUM TIMES on Friday, said the suspects hijacked the truck with registration number AKD 711 XM, at Mallo Filling Station along Lagos/Ibadan Expressway, on February 12, at 5.30am. He stated that the suspects, who operated with an unmarked SUV, used their vehicle to block the driver of the truck, before hijacking the tanker, and driving to Okada in Edo State. Mr. Adejobi added operatives swung into action immediately the report was made at Iperu Division and traced the truck to Okada, Edo State. He said one of the hijackers, Omoruyi Nathaniel, was arrested. The recipient of the fuel, Adeyemi Adeyoyiosola, and other suspects were also arrested and taken to Department of Criminal Investigation and Intelligence, Eleweran, Abeokuta. He said the Commissioner of Police, Abdulmajid Ali, commended the operatives for the operation and reinstated the commands commitment to tackling criminal activities in Ogun State. The police boss ordered the Divisional Police Officers along the ever-busy Lagos/Ibadan and Lagos/Benin expressways in Ogun State to brace up and go after hoodlums who harass and rob road users along the expressways. 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. DOHA, Qatar, February 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Within the consultations currently being conducted by the Committee For Negotiations on the viability of a temporary truce; Dr. Riad Hijab convened a meeting of Syrian armed opposition representatives from all fronts. They discussed the possibility of reaching a temporary agreement through which the foreign forces allied to the regime could cease hostilities waged against Syrians. (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160119/323401 ) Dr. Hijab confirmed that the armed opposition have expressed their initial approval to a temporary truce agreement, in accordance with international mediation and UN safeguards to contain Russian, Iranian and sectarian militias and mercenary groups affiliated to them from fighting. Stressing that it is not possible to conclude an agreement of this kind with the current Russian air campaign and Iranian ground offensive, neither of which come with any real authority or power from the ground in Syria. However, this initial approval comes as a reflection of the armed opposition's willingness to respond to sincere international efforts to stop Syrian suffering, and to put an end to aerial bombardments against civilians, which resulted in a mass exodus of tens of thousands of Syrians. But sources within the armed opposition suspect that the truce cannot work unless there is a cessation of all military operations; lifting the blockades imposed by the regime and its allies on cities and regions to enable humanitarian access to deliver aid, and the release of all detainees, especially women and children, in accordance with United Nations Resolutions and the agreement reached during the International Syria Support Group meeting in Munich, Thursday, February 11, 2016. Towards the end of the meeting, Dr. Hijab expressed his satisfaction at the consensus reached between the various armed opposition on a truce in accordance with the above identified provisions and guarantees. But, he also stressed that he was under no illusions that the regime and the powers behind it will abide by any ceasefire or accept a cessation of hostilities, because they know fully well that the regime's survival depends on continual crackdown, killings and forced displacement, hence to achieve any progress on the political or humanitarian front is not their desired aim. He added that the Negotiations Committee will be holding an emergency meeting on Monday, February 22, to re-evaluate what has been reached in regards to a tentatively approved truce, and discuss ways to provide the necessary guarantees and commitment for its success. syrianassembley@gmail.com SOURCE Office of Dr Riad Hijab, Former Prime Minister of Syria WASHINGTON, Feb. 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- FinCEN's withdrawal of its Section 311 notices against Banca Privada d'Andorra is a momentous victory for BPA's customers, employees, and all of its shareholders, including the majority shareholders, the Cierco family. Since FinCEN issued its illegal notices nearly one year ago, the Ciercos have fought vigorously to clear their name, bringing suit in federal court against the U.S. Department of Treasury and FinCEN to force the withdrawal the notices. FinCEN's announcement that they have withdrawn the notices vindicates the Ciercos and BPA. Eric Lewis, lead global coordinator on behalf of the Ciercos said, "The Ciercos should never have had to sue to get justice. This was a dispute between regulators and BPA paid the ultimate price. FinCEN failed to consider that BPA was one of the premier banks in Europe with industry standard money laundering controls in place. It is beyond ironic that FinCEN has justified its action in withdrawing its notices by pointing to the substantial 'good assets' of BPA. Had FinCEN considered those 'good assets' at the beginning of this process, as it was required to do by law, it would never have issued the 311 notices." In October 2015, the Ciercos filed suit against the Department of the Treasury and FinCEN and its senior officials in the United States to compel FinCEN to withdraw its notices. The core of the Ciercos' case was the fact that FinCEN's notices were illegal, because FinCEN had failed to consider (as it was required to by law) BPA's extensive legitimate banking business, which would be substantially injured by FinCEN's actions. Indeed, the Ciercos suit pointed out that FinCEN routinely refuses to consider the legitimate business of the banks it targets under Section 311. In a complete about face, FinCEN has now withdrawn its notices in a blatant effort to avoid any judicial scrutiny of the legality of its actions. The withdrawal coincides with the court's consideration of both FinCEN's motion to dismiss the case and the Ciercos' demand for a judgment in their favor. On March 11, 2016, FinCEN would have had to respond in court to the Ciercos' claim that the notices were illegal, a claim which FinCEN has never denied. By withdrawing the notices, FinCEN avoids the risk that it will be forced to either defend its actions, or acknowledge publicly that the notices themselves were illegally issued. Since this saga began, the Ciercos have been very clear about the lack of evidence and sought answers for several troubling developments in the 311 process: 1) FinCEN's actions were based on incidents that BPA had identified and reported to its regulators more than a year before. The Andorran regulators failed to share BPA's March 2014 letter to them with FinCEN and failed to tell FinCEN that BPA had indeed reported these incidents and taken all necessary action. 2) BPA was regularly audited for anti-money laundering compliance by international audit firms, including KPMG and Deloitte, which certified their anti-money laundering policies and procedures. Furthermore, the Andorran regulator certified BPA's AML program in 2009 and 2012. 3) Maria Cosan, the current director of INAF, was in charge of KPMGs anti-money laundering audit of BPA's for several years leading up to her appointment as Director of INAF in January 2013. During the 2012 AML audit, KPMG was made aware of the three primary cases cited in FinCEN's Notice of Finding. KPMG brought in senior level people from across Europe to ensure that there were no systemic money laundering issues at BPA. They found none. 4) After the Section 311 notices were issued, the Andorran government brought in PricewaterhouseCoopers to conduct an extensive and expensive audit of every account at BPA. The results of this audit have not been released to the public, but it has been widely reported that the audit failed to turn up any evidence of money laundering within BPA. FinCEN actions today demonstrate that BPA did nothing wrong, and now the Ciercos demand justice and the return of their bank. They demand fairness, justice and accountability. Given FinCEN's reversal, BPA demands that INAF immediately halt its unjustified proceedings in transferring any assets to Vall Banc, and pursue remedial negotiations that achieve justice and fairness for the Cierco family. It has been nearly one year and the Ciercos, the employees of BPA, the people of Andorra, and the global financial community have a right to know why this drastic action was taken against a law abiding financial institution. This is not just an issue for the Ciercos in challenging the illegal expropriation; the credibility and commitment to the rule of law of Andorra are at stake here. Andorra has stated publicly it is powerless to act against the dictates of FinCEN. Now FinCEN has backed down. It is time to set things right. SOURCE Ramon and Higini Cierco DUBLIN, February 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The global biometric monitoring systems market is to grow at a CAGR of 26.71% over the 2014-2019 period, according to a recent report available from Research and Markets. The report accredits this high growth with the increasing adoption of biometric systems within a large number of industries including law enforcement, hospitals and financial institutions. This predicted growth was backed up today with news of British multinational banking and financial services company HSBC's intentions to offer biometric banking services to up to 15 million customers. (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130307/600769 ) HSBC's internet banking customers in the UK will be able to use voice recognition and touch security services to access accounts. The voice biometrics technology will be supplied by Nuance Communications, while Touch ID is providing fingerprint biometrics technology. The global biometrics systems for finance market is expected to be worth USD 2.2 billion by 2024, as stated in an industry report. This technology is proving invaluable to the finance market, offering customers and institutions a greater level of protection over passwords or security questions. Fingerprint and voice recognition are by far the most common systems used today, but emerging technologies such as DNA analysis and keystroke recognitions are expected to become prevalent due to the even greater level of security provided. Indeed, another industry report estimates the global emerging biometric technologies market to grow at a CAGR of 13.37% by 2019, suggesting heavy investment in new technology. For further information on this topic, and a full list of all related documentation, please visit the Biometrics section at http://www.researchandmarkets.com/rm/LQIK. Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35609833 About Research and Markets Research and Markets is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends. Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager press@researchandmarkets.com For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: +1-646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 SOURCE Research and Markets NEW YORK, Feb. 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Chainalysis Inc., a New York based startup, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Europol's European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) on collaborating to fight online crime. The signing of the MoU coincides with Chainalysis completing their $1.6m seed finance round led by Point Nine Capital. Techstars, Digital Currency Group, Funders Club, and Converge VP also participated in the round. This marks a major milestone in connecting regulated finance with open public ledgers. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160219/335140LOGO Blockchain, the technology pioneered by Bitcoin, has been identified as having major disruptive potential in many different applications and industries. However, this excitement has been challenged by negative headlines where digital currencies have been connected to fraud and cybercrime. As described in a report by Europol last year, cybercrime is becoming a large business with criminals leveraging different aspects of cloud infrastructure and often extorting their victims in Bitcoin. Chainalysis aims to change this through tracking digital identities on the blockchain. Their software detects suspicious activity in real time and provides investigation tools for law enforcement to tackle cybercrime. The MoU between Europol and Chainalysis on collaboration and information sharing to tackle cybercrime, is an important step which brings cutting edge private sector technology into public efforts in the fight against cybercriminals. As put by Michael Gronager, CEO of Chainalysis: "We have worked extensively with regulated entities and law enforcement agencies in US, Asia, and Europe to help protect people and businesses from cybercrime attacks. This new collaboration is an important next step in the endeavour to move digital currencies out of the hands of the criminals and into the hands of consumers and blooming commerce." And Steven Wilson, Head of Europol's EC3 added: "Chainalysis brings a level of expertise that will be of significant benefit to our Europe-wide investigations. I look forward to developing a rewarding partnership that will make the people and businesses of Europe safer online." This collaboration follows the recent announcement of Chainalysis' contract with Barclays to use Chainalysis' compliance tools to enable banks to interact with businesses that transact on the blockchain and meet their compliance requirements. The majority of banks have thus far, been unable to safely interact with Bitcoin companies, but now Chainalysis enables banks to provide services to companies that conduct commerce on the blockchain. This is facilitated by leveraging the blockchain to provide banks with reports on measures of activity of each company that the bank onboards. This gives banks greater visibility into the risk of banking these services compared to businesses that do not operate on the blockchain. As the first blockchain business to connect the operations of major financial institutions to a public blockchain, Chainalysis plans to expand its regulatory technology platform to enable more companies to safely transact on a blockchain. Straddling the edge between privacy and transparency, Jonathan Levin, cofounder of Chainalysis, said, "We believe in a future of protecting civil liberties without sacrificing our right to privacy. Enabling regulation through greater transparency, will have much larger consequences beyond just financial transactions." This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com SOURCE Chainalysis Related Links http://www.chainalysis.com ARMONK, N.Y., Feb. 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced Quarks, a breakthrough technology now available to the open source community that embeds streaming analytics onto Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Analyzing data at the edge continuously, can help companies generate insights more quickly and reduce network communication costs. IBM has submitted a proposal to Apache Software Foundation to request incubation of Quarks. IDC predicts that the worldwide installed base of IoT endpoints will grow at a rate of 21.4% through 2019 to 25.6 billion endpoints with IDC expecting approximately 30 billion connections in 20201. These devices will be enabled with digital sensing, computing and communications capabilities, giving passive objects a digital voice and the ability to create and deliver new data streams. Developers and data scientists can use the open source code in Quarks to build new apps that can handle massive amounts of IoT data streaming from sensors, smart meters, mobile communications and other connected devices. Businesses across industries from automotive and healthcare to telecommunications and manufacturing can reduce communication costs and decrease time to insight with Quark's ability to deliver real-time analytics, boost application intelligence, and improve cognitive systems. "As businesses require more efficient analytics for the variety of connected devices they're using, Quarks can provide tremendous amounts of potential as a streaming analytics solution for the IoT. Its ability to integrate with a rich ecosystem of data sources, allows users to draw greater insight from more data with less work," said Nagui Halim, IBM Fellow and Director, IBM Streams. "By contributing Quarks to the open source community, innovation will move faster, and can enable businesses to move from raw data to insight-driven actions more quickly." SilverHook Powerboats, maker of some of the world's fastest monohull watercrafts, wanted to use sensor data collected from racing boats to improve the decision-making abilities and safety of racers and to enhance the fan experience. In powerboat racing, racers rely on telemetry data from their boats to formulate strategy and make safety-related decisions. However the high speeds and the pounding against salt water often taxes on-board equipment and drivers. To mitigate such risks, monitoring data is fed back to analytics engines, which provide real-time alerts such as engine performance issues, potential battery failure or even biometric data such as driver exhaustion. Sensors on SilverHook's racing boats provide more than 80 sources of data, gather measurements at 100 times per second and then transmit the data to on-board computers at five times per second for on-shore teams. But there wasn't a way to collect, distill and deliver insights in a useful format. In collaboration with IBM and Dataskill, SilverHook Powerboats employed a solution that streamed data to a cloud-based analytics solution. Racers can now have access to real-time information while they race, helping them to make adjustments to on-board equipment while they race. The rich visual interface can also allow fans view boat locations, speed and leaderboards in real-time. "Quarks represents a natural extension of our streaming analytics project. Quarks can be deployed directly on our boats to perform analytics locally. The result is faster insights, which will ultimately help us win the race," said Nigel Hook, co-founder and CEO of SilverHook Powerboats. "Another benefit is we remove dependence on communications networks, which can be unreliable on the water. Quarks offers analytics at the edge so we can pursue a common streaming analytic model across our boats and our central streaming application." Quarks was conceptualized for the open source community based on the high scalability and dynamic adaptability of IBM Streams. Many clients today are using IBM Streams as a cost-efficient way to visualize data, help expand the use of data analytics to a much broader base of users, and help build new products and services. IBM, an established leader in the IoT with more than 4,000 client engagements in 170 countries, 1,400 partners in its growing ecosystem and more than 750 IoT patents, is extending the power of cognitive computing to the billions of connected devices, sensors and systems that comprise the IoT. In 2015, IBM announced a $3 Billion investment in Internet of Things and launched new global headquarters of IBM Watson IoT business in Munich, Germany. For more information on IBM Watson IoT, please visit www.ibm.com/iot or follow @IBMIoT on Twitter. For more information on Quarks, see http://wiki.apache.org/incubator/QuarksProposal. For more information on IBM Analytics, see http://www.ibm.com/analytics. 1 IDC, Worldwide Internet of Things Forecast Update, 2015-2019, Doc #US40983216, Feb 2016 CONTACT: Joe Gallo 917-421-8834 [email protected] Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090416/IBMLOGO SOURCE IBM Related Links http://www.ibm.com WASHINGTON, Feb. 19, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau: JAPANESE INTERNMENT Profile America Friday, February 19th. On this date in 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order requiring Japanese-Americans living along the Pacific Coast to be relocated inland. This order affected some 77,000 citizens and 43,000 resident aliens. The internment lasted throughout the Second World War, and the camps closed by early 1946. The dislocation caused by the internment order singling out an ancestry group came to be widely regretted and led to the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, formally apologizing for the action and offering financial restitution. Today in the U.S., there are an estimated 1.37 million residents of Japanese ancestry. Over 48 percent of that total is mixed with other ethnicities and races. You can find more facts about America's people, places and economy, from the American Community Survey, at www.census.gov. Sources: Executive order/accessed 12/1/15: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5154 WWII internment story/accessed 12/1/15: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/active_learning/explorations/japanese_internment/internment_menu.cfm Japanese population in U.S. (alone or in combination): http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_14_1YR_S0201&prodType=table Japanese ancestry alone: http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_13_5YR_B02006&prodType=table Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button). Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110428/DC91889LOGO SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau Related Links http://www.census.gov New Delhi : Washington, Feb 15 (IANS) By employing sophisticated scientific tools, a team of researchers has uncovered for the first time telling clues about the underlying surface shapes and colours of 15 mummy portraits created more than 2,000 years ago. The new details, when coupled together, provide the researchers with very strong evidence as to how these visages of the dead - considered to be antecedents of Western portraiture - were made. The well-preserved mummy portraits are extremely lifelike paintings of specific deceased individuals. Each portrait would have been incorporated into the mummy wrappings and placed directly over the person's face. They were excavated more than 100 years ago at the site of Tebtunis (now Umm el-Breigat) in the Fayum region of Egypt. The set is now housed at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at University of California, Berkeley. "Our materials analysis provides a fresh and rich archaeological context for the Tebtunis portraits, reflecting the international perspective of these ancient Egyptians," said Marc Walton, lead researcher from Northwestern University. For example, scientists found that the iron-earth pigments most likely came from Keos in Greece, the red lead from Spain and the wood substrate on which the portraits are painted came from central Europe. "We also know the painters used Egyptian blue in an unusual way to broaden their spectrum of hues," Walton added. The researchers identified the pigments used by the artists and the order the paints were applied and to which regions, as well as sources of materials and the style of brushstrokes used. Details of the pigments and their distribution led the researchers to conclude that three of the paintings likely came from the same workshop and may have been painted by the same hand. Working with the museum's art conservators, Walton and his collaborators used non-destructive and non-invasive techniques to extract information about the paintings' underlying surface shapes and colour. The method was also used to determine how the artist layered the paint and to establish the order of the various pigments used in the paintings. This knowledge will help scientists, art conservators and art historians better understand how painting techniques evolved in the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire) and beyond. Walton shared the details of the nearly two-year investigation at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on February 14. Tokyo, Feb 15 : The Japanese government has strongly criticised North Korea's decision to halt its investigation into the fate of abducted Japanese nationals. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga on Monday called North Korea's decision extremely regrettable and totally unacceptable, public broadcaster NHK reported. He said Japan has filed a strong protest with North Korea and demanded that it return all abductees to Japan as soon as possible based on a bilateral agreement reached in Stockholm in 2014. The agreement calls on North Korea to start a fresh investigation into the whereabouts of the missing Japanese nationals. Suga said the abduction issue is extremely important to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's administration. He said the government will pressure North Korea to resolve it based on the principles of "dialogue and pressure" and "action for action". New Delhi, Feb 15 : Delhi, I Love you, an independent socio-cultural movement here said on Monday the first Delhi Walk Festival will be conducted from February 22 to 28. The seven-day festival will be held across three spots in the city where tertiary events like music, street performances, readings, film screenings and the like will be organised. The festival aims to identify, connect and highlight the initiatives that promote the culture of walking in the city. "The Delhi Walk Festival is an opportunity to acknowledge all the exciting work that has been happening in the realm of urban exploration. The idea is to also bring people together and make room for conversation about improving the culture of walking and its larger implication on pollution and mobility," Delhi, I love you director Aastha Chauhan told IANS. The festival offers handpicked guided walking tours that reveal the incredible layers that the city has to offer like heritage, food, djinns, sufi music and foraging, to name a few. Festival venues: Old Delhi: Chunnamal Haveli: Feb 22-23 Lodhi Estate: Allaince Francaise: Feb 24-25 Qutub Complex: 1AQ Art Gallery: Feb 26-28 Kabul, Feb 16 : The Afghan security forces on Tuesday cleared militants from a restive district on the outskirts of Pul-e-Khumri, capital of Baghlan province. The move will help government technical teams repair electricity towers that were destroyed by militants earlier, Xinhua news agency quoted authorities as saying. Power outage has reached 18 to 20 hours a day in Afghan capital Kabul and other cities since January 26 when the militants destroyed three metal power pylons in Dand-e-Shahabudin district, causing huge losses to people and businesses. "The cleanup operation will continue till Dand-e-Shahabudin district is clear of militants. Security forces killed six militants and four were injured Monday night," General Abdul Rashid Bashir, deputy provincial police chief, said on Tuesday. "The army engineering teams have been clearing the landmines and roadside bombs around destroyed electricity pylons so that power workers can visit the site and reconnect the electricity to Kabul and other big cities soon," he said. The Taliban has intensified attacks over the past couple of months as the forces assumed the full security responsibility from NATO-led international forces since January 1, 2015. Wahidullah Tawhidi, spokesman for Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS), the country's national power supplier, said the DABS personnel had already supplied all needed materials near the site, adding the electricity will be reconnected to Kabul within days. Last winter, Kabul and other cities also experienced a severe power cut for more than two months after heavy snowfall and avalanches destroyed pylons in the Salang Pass, in Parwan province. A 442-km high voltage transmission line from Uzbekistan to Afghanistan was completed in late 2008. It runs from the country's border with Uzbekistan towards Kabul through five Afghan provinces, transmitting some 300 megawatts of electricity from the water-resource rich country. Beijing, Feb 16 : A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman urged the US Congress to block approval by the senate of a bill to rename a street in Washington DC after Liu Xiaobo, a convicted Chinese criminal. Spokesman Hong Lei on Tuesday said that if the bill becomes a law, it will have "serious consequences". He did not elaborate, Xinhua reported. China is firmly opposed to the bill because it violated basic norms of international relations, according to Hong. "We urge the US Congress to stop considering the bill," Hong said, adding the Chinese side also hopes the US administration will end the "political farce." The bill wants to rename the street after Liu, a Chinese man sentenced to 11 years in prison on December 25, 2009, after a Beijing court convicted him of violating Chinese law and engaging in activities aimed at overthrowing the government. The bill still needs to be approved by the US House of Representatives and must be signed by the president before it can become a law. New Delhi, Feb 17 : Ten student organisations owing allegiance to different political parties on Wednesday pledged support to JNUSU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, who was arrested on a sedition charge. They also demanded a judicial probe into the issue and vowed to take their struggle across all central universities in the country. Kanhaiya Kumar of the Communist Party of India-affiliated All India Students Federation (AISF) was arrested on February 12 after anti-India slogans were raised at a meeting held on the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus on February 9. He was on Wednesday sent in judicial custody till March 2 by a Delhi court. "We want a judicial probe into the whole issue, including what happened on the JNU campus on February 9 as we don't trust the central government agencies. We will take this movement to every central university and fight till the time we get justice," All India Students Federation (AISF) general secretary Vishwajeet Kumar told the media here. The other organisations which came out in support of the JNU students include the National Students Union of India (NSUI), All India Students Association (AISA), Students Federation of India (SFI), Student Front of Swaraj (SFS) and the student wings of the Rashtriya Janata Dal and Janata Dal-United. "Representatives of these 10 student bodies will take out a protest march from Mandi House to parliament on Thursday and hold a public meeting on Saturday," SFI's Vikram Singh said. Representatives of various teachers and non-teaching staff unions are also likely to participate. "We will also join the students of Hyderabad University who will hold a march on February 23 to parliament to seek justice for Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula," Singh said. "The government never gave us any opportunity to explain our side of the story. On the contrary, they are picking students from left organisations and framing them under false charges," Vishwajeet said. "We condemn the anti-national slogans raised on the JNU campus and believe that the guilty should be strongly punished. At the same time, we also need to save the JNU that is under attack from right-wing fascist forces who are dubbing anybody and everybody opposed to their ideology as anti-national and anti-India," the student leader added. New Delhi, Feb 18 : Delhi's outgoing police chief B.S. Bassi on Thursday denied that JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar was attacked at the Patiala House Court here. Despite photographs showing a suspected lawyer pulling Kanhaiya Kumar's hair in the court on Wednesday, Bassi insisted that the president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) was not assaulted. "(I) deny that Kahaniya was assaulted, my officers are denying this, medical examination has been done," Bassi told CNN-IBN. The police chief, who retires on February 29, said Kanhaiya Kumar was guilty of sedition and that the police had enough material to prove this. Kanhaiya Kumar, from the CPI-affiliated All India Students Federation (AISF), has been accused of shouting anti-national slogans at a meeting in the campus on February 9. He has denied the charge. Asked would not "half of Kashmir's population ... be liable for sedition" if slogan shouting amounted to sedition, Bassi said: "I'm concerned about Delhi." He said the lawyers accused of assaulting journalists at the Patiala House Court on Monday were called by the police but they did not respond to the summons. "If they co-operate with us, we see what action has to be taken under the law. If they don't co-operate we examine other options, most probably move the court to issue an arrest warrant." Asked why police did not act against lawyers and BJP legislator O.P. Sharma after seeing media photographs when this was done in the case of Kanhaiya Kumar, Bassi denied he was guilty of double standards. New Delhi, Feb 18 : JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, arrested for sedition, on Thursday moved the Supreme Court for bail as students rallied in support across the country and the opposition took the row to President Pranab Mukherjee. A Supreme Court bench led by Justices J. Chelameswar and Abhay Manohar Sapre said Kumar's plea will be heard on Friday morning. His lawyer Vrinda Grover told the judges that the atmosphere in the Patiala House Courts, where the accused was allegedly assaulted by a group of lawyers, was not conducive for moving the bail application. She said Kumar was invoking his fundamental right under Article 32 by moving the Supreme court for bail. The bail plea came as the JNU issue - triggered by a meeting on Kashmir at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) - sparked student protests in Delhi, West Bengal, Bihar and Karnataka with protestors demanding Kumar's release and dropping of sedition charges against him. The 28-year-old student leader was arrested on February 12 for allegedly raising anti-national slogans at the JNU event three days earlier against the 2013 execution of Afzal Guru, the Kashmiri militant blamed for the terror attack on Indian parliament in 2001. Kumar has denied the charges. Former Delhi University lecturer S.A.R. Geelani, also arrested for organising a similar meeting at the Press Club of India, was on Thursday sent to 14 days in judicial custody. Both Geelani and Kumar will be in Tihar Jail. Kumar, the first president of the JNU Students Union from the CPI-affiliated AISF, drew support from the Congress, Left and Delhi's ruling Aam Aadmi Party which denounced the government for "high handedness". Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and other party leaders told President Mukherjee that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was trying to impose a "flawed" and "dead" ideology of the RSS on the student community. "It is not the government's job to destroy institutions. This nation will prosper because of our students' imagination. Imposing an ideology on them will not benefit the nation," he told reporters. Gandhi said Kumar's arrest for sedition and the violence witnessed at the Patiala House Courts here on Monday and Wednesday had sent out "bad signals" about India and damaged its global image. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also met the president and blamed the central government for the violence in the Patiala House Courts. Kejriwal said Delhi Police would not have remained silent during the violence if they were not directed to do so. "Delhi Police is a uniformed force... If its master says don't do anything, they won't do anything. If the master tells them to shoot, they will shoot," Kejriwal said. "Their master is (the) central government... This is the dictatorship of the prime minister (Modi)." Delhi Police Commissioner B.S. Bassi, however, denied that Kumar was assaulted in the court on Wednesday and justified the sedition charge. He said police had evidence to prove this. "Free speech does not mean you can violate the ... constitution," he told CNN-IBN. The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) said the JNU Students Union didn't organise the February 9 meeting where anti-India slogans were supposedly raised. Calling Kumar's arrest "an over the top reaction", it said it was "a deliberate political intervention by the BJP government" as the RSS and BJP had always been ranged against the JNU, where Left student unions have for decades enjoyed huge support. On Thursday, thousands of students from universities and colleges staged a massive protest in Delhi to demand Kumar's release. Several teachers, lawyers, activists and theatre artists joined them. In Patna, similar protests led to clashes between activists of the All India Students Federation (AISF) and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the RSS student wing. Student protests in support of Kumar were also reported from Jadavpur in West Bengal and Bengaluru. New Delhi, Feb 18 : JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, booked by Delhi Police for sedition, on Thursday moved the Supreme Court for bail. A bench of Justice J. Chelameswar and Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre said they will hear the plea at 10.30 a.m. on Friday as senior counsel Raju Ramachandran sought an early hearing of the writ petition that was filed earlier in the day invoking its (apex court) jurisdiction under article 32 but said the hearing would be limited to the bail plea. Under article 32, a citizen can move the Supreme Court for enforcing his fundamental rights. Besides seeking bail, Kanhaiya Kumar has sought direction for his safety and security. Invoking article 21 guaranteeing right to life and personal liberty and pointing to the atmosphere of violence that prevailed in Patiala House Court complex on February 15 and 17, Kanhaiya Kumar, in his petition, has said that the manner in which his physical harassment was allowed to take place was a clear pointer to the violation of his right to access justice delivery system. The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union president was arrested on February 11 after police registered a case of sedition and criminal conspiracy against him. On February 12 he was remanded to police custody for three days. On February 17, the metropolitan magistrate sent him to 14 days judicial custody. Pointing to the threat to his "life and limbs" including threat to his legal team and others, Kanhaiya Kumar said that despite apex court direction to Delhi Police commissioner to ensure his safety, police failed to protect him and was "violently assaulted by the gathered crowd of lawyers" at Patiala House Court complex while he was in police custody. He also mentioned in his petition of being punched by an unidentified person in the court room of the metropolitan magistrate. A team of six lawyers that was sent by the apex court to take stock of the situation at Patiala House Court complex had on Wednesday told the top that despite the registrar general of Delhi High Court asking police to arrest that man, he was allowed to slip out. Seeking to be released on bail, Kanhaiya Kumar has contended that he was "innocent" and police did not require his custody for any further interrogation and he was in judicial custody. He also referred to the report, attributed to police sources, that no concrete evidence pointing to seditious activities has been found against him. Earlier in Thursday's hearing, senior counsel Harin Rawal submitted the report of the five counsel who were sent on Wednesday by the apex court for an on the spot assessment of the situation. Senior counsel Ajit Kumar Sinha refused to sign the report as he claimed that he was not allowed to go through the report. Sinha had appeared for Police Commissioner B.S.Bassi before the apex court on Wednesday. Besides the report by the five senior counsel including Kapil Sibal, Rajeev Dhavan, Dushyant Dave, and A.D.N.Rao, Rawal also handed over to the court two pen drives containing video recording of the what they had witnessed in the Patiala House Court complex on Wednesday and its transcript. All the three - report, two pen drives and transcript - were given to court in a sealed cover. Senior counsel Siddharth Luthra handed over to the court a report on Patiala House court incidents by the high court registrar general. This too was in a sealed cover. Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the court that the report by Delhi Police on the situation that prevailed in Patiala House Court complex including in the court room of Metropolitan Magistrate would be submitted by 10.30 a.m. on Friday. Counsel R.P.Luthra objected to the statement by Delhi Police Commissioner Bassi that police would not oppose the bail plea by Kanhaiya Kumar and the way some senior counsel were "short-circuiting" the proceedings in the case before the subordinate court and bringing it before the top court. The court said that it would first go through these reports before deciding whether they can be made public or shared with media. Rio De Janeiro, Feb 19 : Brazilian pair Marcelo Melo and Bruno Soares got off to the perfect start in the Rio Open on Thursday, comfortably overcoming compatriots Fabiano de Paula and Orlando Luz 2-0. Melo, the current number one doubles player in the world, and Soares, winner at the Australian Open in the doubles competition, beat their opponents 6-2, 6-3 to sail into the next round, reports Xinhua. The match had in fact begun on Wednesday evening, but was postponed due to heavy rainfall in Rio de Janeiro. The pair were 2-0 up in the first set when play was called off yesterday evening. Under the strong sun today, the Brazilian duo wasted little time in dispatching their limited opponents. Melo and Soares will be back in action Friday in the quarter-finals. They will meet the winners of the doubles clash between Dusan Lajovic/Dominic Thiem and Alexandr Dolgopolov/Daniel Munoz de la Nava. Srinagar, Feb 19 : Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah on Friday expressed cynicism on the human resource development ministry's directive to hoist the national flag in all central universities in the country. Reacting to the decision taken on Thursday at the meeting of vice chancellors of central universities chaired by HRD Minister Smriti Irani, Omar said on his Twitter handle: "If hoisting the flag was all it took to address feelings of alienation, problems of Kashmir and North East would have been solved decades ago." Abdullah, however, said he was not against the decision as it looked like an innovative one to address separatist sentiments being voiced in various universities. "I'm all for innovative solutions but let's not kid ourselves that slogans heard in JNU or Jadavpur will disappear with this HRD order," he said in another tweet. Abdullah's father, Farooq Abdullah, also a former state chief minister, had said on Thursday that the JNU problem should have been handled by the university's vice chancellor and not allowed to spill out of the campus. "It has become a big problem and God knows where it will end," Farooq Abdullah said. Kabul, Feb 19 : At least three terrorists have been captured in Kabul, the Afghan intelligence agency said on Friday. Three handguns and a huge amount of AK-47 bullets were found from them, Xinhua news agency quoted an official statement as saying, without specifying when the arrests took place. In addition, a would-be suicide bomber, Atta Mohammed, was arrested in Laghman province, the statement said. It said that the arrest had foiled a major terror attack. The Afghan security forces have stepped up security operations against militants as the Taliban has been trying to take territory and consolidate its position during winter in Afghanistan. New Delhi : Against the backdrop of what is happening in India in reference to the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) episode, there is this massive debate in terms of who is a nationalist and who is not. I'm told that my simple acts of omission and commission, including what meat I eat, may brand me "anti national". But this post is really not about me. It is about Apple chief Tim Cook. Just consider the facts. On December 9, two radicalised Americans massacred 14 people at the Inland Center in San Bernadino, California. The shooters, a married couple, were subsequently shot down by the police. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is investigating the case, has asked Apple to provide it with a key to unlock the iPhone of one of the shooters and even got a court order for Apple to comply. An open and shut decision for Tim Cook, right? Wrong. Cook refused to comply, citing grave security implications for iPhone users at large, and has moved the higher court. And he has got support from many in Silicon Valley, including the very influential Edward Snowden, and our "own" Sundar Pichai of Google. Let's chew on that for a moment. Tim Cook has said Apple will not unlock a phone used by a terrorist. The reason why this is important is that I don't see anyone in the US, including the far right (and yes, the US has its own share of its loony bins), screaming that Cook is anti-national. Amazingly, even Donald Trump has not yet threatened to banish Tim Cook from the US. Sure, there are people criticising Cook, like in any other society with free speech, but no death threats, no bunch of lawyers trying to lynch him or attack him for being against Uncle Sam (their equivalent to our Bharat Mata). I am just relieved that Tim Cook and Apple are not based in India. Had they been, their stand would have been immediately branded anti-national. Politicians of the ruling party in power would have sent goons to various Apple stores and vandalised them, with the cops looking on serenely. The educated middle class, would have reprimanded Apple for its "anti-national" stance and instantly branded them as traitors. Not that this would have stopped them from coveting the iPhones, but then words are cheaper than iPhones. Delhi Police Commissioner Bhim Sain Bassi would have immediately ordered the arrest of Cook and slapped him with charges of sedition, and the lawyers would have been busy slapping him more, literally and physically. News channels would have unearthed a video showing Cook saying that he won't accept the court order, and would have gleefully run a doctored video showing Cook disrespecting the flag, mouthing obscenities at the government and calling them names with a dangerously sounding anchor demanding that India wants to know. Parliament would have been paralysed with inaction, with every party staging a walkout and no business being allowed to be conducted. To hell with the running of the government, Cook-the-Traitor will be the bigger issue in the country, not the big infrastructure projects hung in balance, not the governance of the country coming to a halt and certainly not the millions of people living in hunger and poverty. GST will become the Great Satan Tim. Processions would be taken out by all political parties to protest the actions of Cook and at least 27 public interest litigation petitions would have been filed in the Supreme Court of India, urging urgent hearing on the matter, with some of the honourable MPs even asking for the company to be shut down for a few months and fumigated to rid it of all Cooksian elements. However, the next week, Supreme Court would announce its decision, Cook will comply and everything is back to normal. And the original undoctored videos of Cook would be found and Arnab Goswami would go back to shouting about something else. Tim Cook, see how lucky you are. You have escaped, by being born in the USA. (L. Subramanyan is founder and CEO of Trivone Digital Services. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at subu@trivone.com) Kolkata, Feb 19 : Indian scientists have designed a paper sensor that has the potential to track health adversities associated with alcoholism, which they say is a step forward in the realm of low-priced point-of-care (POC) diagnostics in the country. The electro-optical sensor crafted from filter paper detects the presence of an enzyme called alpha-amylase in blood, which is responsible for breaking down starch into simple sugars such as glucose, maltose and dextrin. The important biomarker is produced by pancreas and salivary glands in the human body. An abnormal amount of amylase can be a sign of pancreatic disorder. A spike in its level signifies diseases such as acute pancreatitis, pancreatic cancer, gastroenteritis, etc., while a decrease suggests pancreatic damage, kidney disease, among others. "The sensor can detect amylase levels through a simple lock and key biochemical reaction," Dipankar Bandyopadhyay, associate professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT-Guwahati, told IANS over phone. Elaborating on the link between drinking and pancreas damage, Bandyopadhyay said excessive drinking together with smoking can irreversibly damage pancreas to cause acute or chronic pancreatic diseases. "Molecules in alcohol react adversely with the cells of the pancreas, which becomes unduly severe with smoking habits. The chemicals imbibed during smoking explosively enhance the damaging effects from alcohol intake. In such situations, the activity of the pancreas and subsequently the amylase secretion goes haywire. Arguably, around half of people with chronic pancreatitis develop diabetes in the later part of their life." To design the sensor, the researchers coated a filter paper with starch and iodine which turned the filter paper blue. When amylase was added, the colour faded. "By integrating this paper with an LED and photoresistor, we could detect the level by a change in light intensity and electrical resistance which is correlated with the amylase levels in the blood," explained Bandyopadhyay, also associated with the Centre for Excellence in Research and Development of Nanoelectronic Theranostic Devices, sponsored by DeitY, at the Centre for Nanotechnology, IIT-Guwahati. The development of the prototype is financially supported by Ministry of Communication and Information Technology and DeitY (Department of Electronics and Information Technology). The prototype has been developed by a team of scientists consisting of Bandyopadhyay as well as Satarupa Dutta and Nilanjan Mandal. They are applying for a patent and aim to commercialise the technology. "If the device can be integrated with a chip that is compatible with the mobile phone, it can serve as a portable detector. The purpose is to generate awareness through POCs so that people will know the situation with regards to their alcohol intake and accordingly go for curbing the habit," he added. Berlin, Feb 19 : The small and medium enterprises (SME), called Mittelstand in German, from the Saxony state are showing keen interest to expand their business ties and investments in India. The companies are encouraged by the Make in India campaign of the Indian government, a statement issued by the Embassy of India in Berlin said here. Gurjit Singh, ambassador of India to Germany, called on the companies from Saxony to join the Make in India initiative and step up their level of engagement with India. The government of Saxony is also supporting companies which are interested in doing business with India. The "Make in India Mittelstand" programme was organised by the Indian Embassy in Berlin to support German Mittelstand and family owned enterprises investing in India is helping create successful business ventures between India and Germany. The event was attended by over 100 delegates from Saxony from the field of business, research and academia. Several success stories of German companies that are collaborating with India were showcased during the India Business Day held in Leipzig on February 17. The India Business Day had been organised in partnership with Leipzig Graduate School of Management (HHL) to present India as a destination for investment and showcase successful business ventures. Georg Milbradt, former minister-president (chief minister) of the state of Saxony who had joined the India Business Day, expressed his interest to intensify India-Saxony relations. The discussions at the event deliberated on further strengthening of India and Saxony cooperation in the areas of clean energy, micro-electronics, biotechnology and high-tech engineering. Bangkok, Feb 19 : The depleted tiger population in Thailand has started to rebound, after over a decade of efforts to curb poaching at a conservation park in Uthai Thani province, the media reported on Friday. According to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), in 2012 researchers documented around 50 tigers in Hua Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, a number that has now grown to 90, proving the success of ongoing patrols to stop poaching, Efe news reported. "The protection effort is paying off as the years have progressed, as indicated by the increase in population, and we expect the number of tigers to increase even more rapidly in the years to come," said Somphot Duangchantrasiri, the Hua Kha Khaeng wildlife research station chief who spearheaded an eight-year study of the big cat population in the park. Camera trap surveys were conducted over 1,026 sq.km of the park to keep tabs on the tigers, while statistical models determined the density and survival rates of the felines. The most imminent threat to the slowly growing tiger numbers comes from poaching, with the parts of more than 1,400 tigers seized by police since 2010, according to wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC. In 2013, two Hua Kha Khaeng rangers died and two were critically injured in a gunfight with poachers during a park patrol, according to Anak Pattanavibool, the country director for WCS Thailand. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has estimated that there are only 3,200 of the felines left globally due to poaching and habitat loss. New Delhi : A $48-billion (Rs 3.26 lakh crore) penalty claimed by the US government from Volkswagen for cheating on diesel-car emissions is about 200 times as large as the $225 million (Rs 1,500 crore) insurance pool set up by Indian insurance companies to compensate US nuclear companies for mishaps in India. If a US nuclear company were to build a reactor in India that suffered a catastrophe, and people were to die in India, the US government's position seems to be that American suppliers shouldn't face civil or criminal liability. The US believes the Indian civil nuclear liability law, which calls for both penalties, is unduly harsh. Rather than say so directly, US officials keep repeating that the "Indian law is inconsistent with the international liability regime". The Indian civil nuclear liability law holds the equipment supplier responsible for any incident caused by the supplier or its employees. The Indian liability law differs from those of other countries because it was drafted keeping in mind the 1984 Bhopal tragedy A where, despite 5,000 deaths and effects across generations, no one was held criminally liable. The penalty demanded in the Volkswagen case is about 100 times the compensation of $470 million A ($907 million in 2014 dollars) A paid by US firm Union Carbide after the Bhopal Gas tragedy, which also left 70,000 people maimed or injured. Volkswagen's cover-up caused no injuries or deaths. Although the Indian government wants to protect US nuclear companies against the Indian liability law, critics argued that these companies are using India's eagerness to avoid any liability, if something goes wrong. India wants to build more nuclear power plants in an attempt to reduce the share of coal in electricity generation. Increasing the use of nuclear power is also a part of the country's strategy to tackle climate change. India currently has 5,780 MW of nuclear power in operation and plans to add another 17,400 MW, making it possibly the largest market for nuclear power after China, and a financially lucrative prospect for Western firms faced with limited domestic sales. However, the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster has heightened concerns of nuclear safety and accident costs. The fallout of that disaster will also make it hard to change India's liability laws. The US' large settlements extend to corporate wrong-doing beyond its borders Large settlements in the US are a regular feature. In October 2015, the Justice Department arrived at a settlement with oil major BP, which will pay a penalty of $20.8 billion to cover the economic and environmental damage arising from a 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Volkswagen could, in theory, face fines of as much as $37,500 per vehicle for each of two violations of the law; up to $3,750 per "defeat device"; and another $37,500 for each day of violation, a Reuters report said. In April 2010, a deepwater oil-drilling rig operated by BP, the Deepwater Horizon, suffered an explosion which killed 11 men, and the well it was drilling leaked over five million barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico. This was the largest-ever settlement in the history of the Department; the Volkswagen penalty could be larger. A number of companies have paid tens of billions of dollars in fines over the past decade for breaking US law. Top US banks, such as Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, have paid multi-billion dollar fines for their roles in the 2008 global financial crisis, caused by reckless business practices of large Western banks. The remit of the US Justice Department extends beyond its borders and to foreign firms as well. In May 2015, five global banksACiticorp, JP Morgan, Barclays, UBS and the Royal Bank of ScotlandAagreed to pay fines adding up to $2.5 billion, for manipulating a widely-used financial benchmark set in London. This brings the total penalty paid by these banks for their role in this manipulation to $9 billion. UK-based HSBC was fined for "illegally conducting transactions on behalf of customers in Cuba, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Burma"Acountries under US economic sanctions. During the financial year 2015, the US justice department collected $23 billion in penalties in various civil and criminal cases, slightly lower than the collection for 2013, when it had a record haul. Indian firms also fined in the US While the US nuclear industry wants to avoid any liability in India for acts of omission or commission, Indian companies have often been slapped with large fines for violations of US law. Drug manufacturer Ranbaxy paid penalties of $500 million (Rs 3,400 crore) in 2013 for falsifying data about its drugs and for not following proper manufacturing practicesAmore than twice the value of the nuclear liability insurance pool to be created in India. In 2013, tech firm Infosys paid a $35 million penalty in a civil settlement on allegations of visa misuse; the firm maintained that the "claims are untrue and remain unproven". India has started levying penalties too India, too, has started levying big fines. For instance, in 2013, a group of Indian cement companies was fined Rs 6,698 crore by the Competition Commission of India for working as a cartel and over-charging consumers. This amount, levied for unfair business practices rather than causing deaths and injuries, is 4.4 times the proposed liability cap for nuclear incidents. Similarly, Delhi-based real estate firm DLF has been recently ordered to pay a penalty of Rs 630 crore for unfair business practices. (In arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform. Amit Bhandari is a media, research and finance professional. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend. The author can be contacted at respond@indiaspend.org) Kuala Lumpur, Feb 19 : Malaysia will suspend the hiring of foreign workers, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi announced on Friday, a day after the government announced an agreement to recruit thousands of Bangladeshis. Hamidi said the measure will remain in place till the government has reviewed the two-tier levy programme for foreign workers. The authorities, according to Hamidi, are studying the personnel re-hiring programme to prevent an excess of foreigners flooding the job market, and those who are working illegally in the country will be detained and deported, Efe news reported. He said the government plans to postpone the intake of foreign workers till it had identified the exact need of Malaysia's industries, in an informal meet with military personnel. Hamidi urged the youth to take up jobs currently held by foreigners. His statements come after Malaysia and Bangladesh on Thursday announced an agreement to allow absorption of 1.5 million Bangladeshi nationals by Malaysian firms in the next three years. Following the announcement, which drew criticism from Malaysian trade unions, Human Resource Minister Richard Riot said it only referred to Bangladeshis who are registered with the Malaysian government as residents in the country. Each year, thousands of Bangladeshi immigrants travel to Malaysia in search of employment, mainly in construction, plantations or as domestic help. New Delhi, Feb 19 : The bail plea of JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, arrested for sedition, likely to be heard on Monday by the Delhi High Court. The president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union moved the bail application two days after a lower court sent him to judicial custody till March 2. Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court asked his advocate to move the High Court for bail. Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested in a sedition case on February 12 after an event held on the university campus against hanging of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. Warangal (Telangana), Feb 19 : Hundreds of thousands of devotees paid obeisance to tribal deities in Medaram of Telanagana's Warangal district on Friday, the third day of Sammakka Sarakka jatara, said to Asia's largest tribal fair. Medaram and surrounding villages in Eturanagaram forests were teeming with massive crowds of devotees, participating in the biennial event. The devotees were waiting for hours to have 'darshan' of Samakka and Sarakka installed on special platform for the four-day festival. Performing the unique rituals associated with the fair, the devotees offered jaggery to the deities while women believed to be possessed by goddesses were seen dancing. There was hardly any space available at Jampanna rivulet, where in the devotees are taking a dip with the belief that this will wash off their sins. The devotees from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Maharashtra and other states have raised temporary sheds and makeshift kitchens. Most of them were seen buying live chickens and preparing their food. Sammakka and Sarakka were legendary warriors from the Koya tribe who fought against the Kakatiya empire 800 years ago and were killed in battle. Large-scale arrangements made by Telangana government have ensured smooth conduct of the festival so far. The authorities have spent Rs.180 crore to provide best facilities to the devotees. These include uninterrupted water and electricity supply. Deputy Chief Minister Kadiam Srihari said 50 lakh devotees were expected on Friday. He said all steps had been taken to ensure smooth conduct of the jatra, which is Asia's biggest tribal festival and the first to be held after formation of the Telangana state. Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) was operating buses from all districts of Telangana. TSRTC officials said they so far transported four lakh people by operating over 10,000 buses. A heavy rush expected on Friday and Saturday. Railways are also operating 16 special trains for the devotees. A private aviation firm also launched helicopter service from Hyderabad and Warangal to Medaram. The Hyderabad-Medaram-Hyderabad trip on a Bell 429 four-seater costs Rs.65,000 per head and a Warangal-Medaram-Warangal trip costs Rs.26,500 per head. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who was scheduled to visit the jatra on Friday, cancelled his visit. Officials said the chief minister cancelled the visit due to "unavoidable reasons". It was not clear if he will be visiting Medaram on the last day. Telangana assembly Speaker Madhusudhana Chary, Commercial Taxes Minister T. Srinivas Yadav, and Director General of Police Anurag Sharma were among those who offered prayers on Friday. Popular actor and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) legislator N. Balakrishna and his wife visited Medaram. The couple had darshan of the deities. He told reporters that they prayed for the happiness and well-being of people. He described the festival as reflection of Telangana's rich culture. Beijing, Feb 19 : A subsidiary of Rolls-Royce signed a deal with China's leading engine-maker Yuchai on Friday to set up a joint venture. Germany's MTU Friedrichshafen and Yuchai Corp., based in Yulin city of Guangxi Zhuang region, each hold a 50 percent stake in the new venture, MTU Yuchai Power Co. Ltd, Xinhua reported. Using MTU's S4000 engine technology, the new plant will start production in 2017 with a capacity of 1,500 engines per year. The Chinese market is MTU's third largest and the company will build the assembly line and establish a quality assurance system, said Ulrich Dohle, CEO of Rolls-Royce Power Systems AG. Yan Ping, chairman of Yuchai Corp., said the venture will focus on engines for generators or oilfield purposes rather than engines for road use. Engine parts will be gradually manufactured in China, said Yan. Guangxi Yuchai Machinery Co. Ltd was floated on the New York Stock Exchange in 1994 as China's first engine manufacturer listed abroad. New Delhi, Feb 19 : Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli arrived here on Friday on a six-day visit to India -- his first foreign visit after assuming office in October last year. He was received at the airport by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. The visit of Oli, who is accompanied by his wife Radhika Sakya, is the first bilateral visit by a prime minister from the Himalayan nation since 2011 when then prime Baburam Bhattarai visited India. In 2014, then prime minister Sushil Koirala visited India for the swearing-in ceremony of the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. In August 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi went on a bilateral visit to Nepal which was the first by an Indian prime minister in 17 years. Modi again went in November 2014 to attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) summit in Kathmandu. Oli and his wife will stay as state guests at Rashtrapati Bhavan. "During the visit, we expect discussions on all issues of mutual interest," external affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said during a media briefing here on Thursday ahead of Oli's visit. "Bilateral cooperation, particularly in the key areas of energy, connectivity, and people-to-people linkages will form the main focus of the visit, he said. A high-level delegation is accompanying Oli during the visit. The delegation includes Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Kamal Thapa, Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel, Home Minister Shakti Bahadur Basnet, Chief Advisor to the prime minister Bishnu Prasad Rimal, chief executive of the National Reconstruction Authority, and 13 MPs from various political parties, besides senior government officials as well as representatives of Nepal's business community. On Saturday, Sushma Swaraj will call on Oli after which the visiting dignitary will meet Prime Minister Modi. This will be followed by delegation-level talks and signing of variousagreements. Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will then call on the Nepalese prime minister. Oli will also call on Vice President Hamid Ansari and President Pranab Mukherjee later in the day. On Sunday, he will leave for Dehradun where he will visit the Tehri hydel power project. After returning to New Delhi the same day, the Nepalese prime minister will meet leaders of various political parties. On Monday, Minister of State for Power Piyush Goyal will call on Oli after which the visiting dignitary will address the Indian Council for World Affairs. In the evening, Oli will attend a business meeting. On Tuesday, he will leave for Bhuj in Gujarat to take stock of the earthquake reconstruction work there. Later in the day, he will leave for Mumbai where he will meet Maharashtra Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao. Oli will depart from India on Wednesday. Madrid, Feb 19 : Acting Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told British Prime Minister David Cameron that he expects Spain to hold a new general election on June 26. "We have an investiture ceremony in March and I believe it will not work out," Xinhua quoted Rajoy as telling Cameron on camera during Thursday's meeting of EU leaders in Brussels, apparently unaware he was being filmed. His comments came as the leader of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) Pedro Sanchez remained in talks with leaders of other parties in attempts to form a coalition government. Sanchez responded saying it was "lamentable" that while he was working to form a government, "others are speaking about new elections". The Socialist leader will present his project at an investiture debate on March 2 with a vote likely to be taken in the 350-seat Congress on March 3. According to Spanish law, if Sanchez is unable to win an overall majority of 176 votes on March 3, he would be named prime minister if he is able to present a simple majority two days later on March 5. But if he fails, another leader would then try and form a government. If nobody is able to win the support of Congress by May 3, Congress would be dissolved and a new general election would be called. Sanchez needs to win the support of at least one of the centre-right parties: Citizens, or the left-wing Podemos. But he has struggled given the mutual antipathy of these two groups. Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias has said it would be impossible for his party to form a government including Citizens, while Citizens are strongly opposed to Podemos' demands for a referendum over the issue of the independence of the Catalan region. Gaza, Feb 19 : Talks between Turkey and Israel over ending around nine years of Israeli blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip have made progress, a senior Islamic Hamas movement official said on Friday. Hamas deputy chief Ismail Heneya told a prayer congregation at one of Gaza city's mosques that the Turkish talks with Israel aim at speeding up the construction plan for Gaza and its seaport, Xinhua reported. Haneya did not give more details on the issue. However, a senior Turkish official had announced two days ago that talks on normalising ties between his country and Israel, that have been going on for a long time, have reached their final stage. Israel Public Radio reported that according to Turkish official, the two countries were very close to signing an agreement on all issues the two sides have been negotiating and discussing. Turkey had conditioned an end of the Israeli blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip for the normalisation of political and economical ties with Israel. The blockade was imposed in 2007, following Hamas's violent takeover of the coastal enclave. Meanwhile, Haneya said his movement's armed wing, al-Qassam Brigades, discovered listening devices and cameras underground to unveil the armed resistance tunnels that militants dig underneath Gaza. "Gaza has now a deterrence power for any upcoming confrontation with Israel," Haneya said, adding "there is no imminent war (with Israel) on Gaza in the horizon". He said the Israeli occupation is carrying out defensive manoeuvres "and this is a clear evidence that they (Israelis) are not preparing to wage a war on the Gaza Strip soon". Beijing, Feb 19 : China on Friday urged the relevant parties to be cautious and show restraint to avoid complicating the situation as the US passed a bill to impose more stringent sanctions on North Korea. No hot issues could be fundamentally resolved through simple sanctions or pressure, Xinhua reported. Actions that may harm third-party's legitimate interests will not help solve the issues, but only result in a more complicated situation, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei. All parties concerned should stay calm and exercise restraint, sticking to the general direction of resolving issues through dialogue and consultations, said Hong. New Delhi, Feb 19 : The Congress on Friday accused the BJP and the RSS of raising nationalism "as a bogey to repress students and gag campuses" and said it was totally unacceptable. Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi said in a statement here that the party was deeply concerned that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Sangh Parivar outfits and the Bharatiya Janata Party were "treating youth as experimental guinea pigs in the laboratory of divisiveness". Singhvi alleged that a national spokesperson of the BJP showed a doctored video "on national television (Times Now and NewsX)" to provide "clinching evidence" against protesting students. "It comes out now through another video aired by national TV channels (ABP News and India Today), that the purported video was doctored, wherein words were replaced. The students were shouting slogans demanding freedom (azadi) from feudal forces (samantvaad), freedom from hunger, freedom from poverty and freedom from Sanghvad (RSS ideology)!" "Are these slogans anti India? Do these slogans make people chanting them, anti-national," Singhvi asked. The agitations follows arrest of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union leader Kanhaiya Kumar's arrest on sedition charges. The controversy began when some JNU students organised a meet on February 9 to mark the anniversaries of executions of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front co-founder Maqbool Bhat. Anti-India slogans were reportedly raised at the gathering. Singhvi said Prime Minister Narendra Modi should come clear on the authenticity of the video shown by his party's spokesperson and "apologise to the nation". He also sought action against the concerned spokesperson. Singhvi alleged that the RSS was trying a "new ploy of masking their bigoted ideology into nationalism and trying to fit its ideology into the minds of the people through repression and coercion". He said the party strongly condemned all kinds of anti-national activities and demands strict action in such cases. "But raising nationalism as a bogey to repress students and gag campuses is totally unacceptable to the polity of this nation," he said. "A government with a clear majority mandate of the people has turned against the people themselves. It is for the first time since 1989, that the youth and students of India are being treated as experimental guinea pigs in the RSS/BJP laboratory of divisiveness by pitting one against the other," he said. Singhvi said the advocate identified on national television as the person assaulting journalists and students on two different days had been facilitated with garlands instead of being arrested. Gurgaon, Feb 19 : People from the Jat community on Friday disrupted traffic in several areas in Gurgaon demanding their inclusion in the OBC category, causing traffic jams, police said. People blocked traffic near the Daultabad flyover on the Gurgaon-Jhajjar road. The road linking Gurgaon to Najafgarh in southwest Delhi was also blocked near Bajghera Chowk for a few hours. Traffic was also disrupted near Basai and Dhanwapur, causing trouble for passengers. Jats also blocked traffic on Gurgaon-Sohna Road near Islampur and one of the roads linking the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway close to Sector 17. Police said people left the protest sites at their own. No police force was used to remove the barricades set up by the Jats. And no police case was registered against any demonstrator. Poet and critic K Satchidanandan has joined the league of progressive thinkers and liberals in society who have thrown their weight behind the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University, who have been in the eye of a storm following an event on Afzal Guru held on the campus on February 9. In an article published in the editorial page of Malayala Manorama daily on Friday, Satchidanandan vehemently supports the students of JNU even as he poses pointed questions to the right-wing brigade who is willy-nilly labelling people as anti-nationals and whipping up jingoism. The recent incidents at Jawaharlal Nehru University and the reactions to it have given much food for thought. They have no place in a modern democratic nation, he writes. The article puts the raging debate on the idea of India in perspective by quoting Rabindranath Tagore as having said in his thesis on nationalism in 1917 that our citizens would realise their idea of India only when they take up cudgels against an education that gives precedence to the nation over humanitarian ethos. Jawaharlal Nehru envisaged university as standing for such lofty ideals as tolerance, rationalism, humanity, courage of ideas, quest for truth etc., Satchidanandan wrote. The university named after him upheld those ideals to a great extent, he added. At JNU, many diverse ideas came face to face; conservative views on race, caste and language etc. were questioned; many prevalent systems were subjected to debate; the ability to distinguish between hatred and protest was inculcated, the article says. The students of JNU, at times even their teachers too, had always questioned oppression and injustice, rising above party politics. Students of JNU had protested against such events as the Emergency, anti-Sikh riots, displacement of tribals at Nandigram, Gujarat riots etc. that involved different political parties. The protests led by Kanhaiya Kumar at JNU treaded the same legacy, the article said. Pointing out that Afzal Gurus hanging had invited criticism not only from the likes of Shashi Tharoor, Arundhati Roy, Markandey Katju, Delhi High Court Chief Justice A P Shah, but also the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), with whom the BJP is in alliance in Jammu and Kashmir, Satchidanandan wondered sardonically whether the PDP should also be branded anti-nationals. The JNU students, at the same time, raised the issue of Afzal Gurus hanging only in relation to their wider campaign against capital punishment, which is but being debated nationally now, he wrote. Kashmirs right to self-determination was promised to its people at the time of Kashmirs accession to the Indian Union. Is it treason merely to speak about that promise? the article asks. Satchidanandan charges that the BJP have now identified Umar Khalid as their latest target since dissensions have cropped up within the BJP as to whether Kanhaiya Kumar is an anti-national or not. Umar is a socialist, not a Jihadi. He had quit the Democratic Students Union (DSU) in protest against its anti-women attitudes. However, a section of people who believes that everyone with a Muslim name is a terrorist have wasted no time in linking him to terrorist outfits such as Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the article said. One of the allegations against Umar Khalid is that he had been to Pakistan. However, it emerged later that he doesnt even have a passport, Satchidanandan quipped. Besides, is it a crime to visit Pakistan? RSS fellow-traveller Ved Pratap Vaidik not only visited Pakistan but also held talks with LeT chief Hafiz Saeed. Doesnt that make him a terrorist, then? he asks. Who authorised these people - a spineless Vice Chancellor; a police force specialised in arbitrarily labelling people as Maoists or terrorists; goons such as BJP legislator O P Sharma who assaulted people calling them anti-nationals to decide who is anti-national and who is not?, the poet asks. The article wonders how the organisations that distributed sweets on the occasion of the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and observed as balidan diwas the anniversary of hanging of Gandhijis assassin Nathuram Godse became patriots? Coming down heavily on the ruling regime, K Satchidanandan asked who gave them the right to slap colonial-era sedition laws on people they disliked, to ban Dalit organisations, to displace the tribals, enact anti-labour laws, dilute environmental laws, and to represent all the Hindus, let alone the whole of India. He concludes by pointing out the ruling regime has forgotten why the people of this country voted them to power and that the same people has been giving them fitting replies. Rohtak/Chandigarh, Feb 19 : The Haryana government on Friday called in the army to contain the situation in eight districts of the state severely affected by the ongoing Jat agitation, including in Rohtak town, where one person was killed and over 10 were injured, including a BSF trooper, as a violent mob went on the rampage. Haryana Director General of Police Y.P. Singhal told media in Chandigarh that the army has been called in, in Rohtak, Jhajjar, Sonipat, Panipat, Jind, Kaithal, Bhiwani and Hisar districts. "The government has asked the army to be called in eight districts. The request has been sent. The chief secretary has spoken to the army chief. The chief minister (Manohar Lal Khattar) has spoken to defence minister (Manohar Parrikar). The effort is to deploy the army as soon as possible to control the situation," he said. A protestor was killed and at least 10 injured when a BSF unit fired in self-defence after being fired upon by the protestors. A BSF trooper was injured in the firing. The injured were taken to the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Rohtak, 75 km from Delhi, police said. "One person from mob fired on BSF personnel with a home-made weapon. The BSF fired in self defence and one person was killed," Singhal said, adding that the mob did not allow the injured trooper to taken to hospital and efforts were being made to rescue him. He said that a mob attacked a Haryana Police official and other policemen near the Maharishi Dayanand University gate and held the hostage and more forces had to be sent to rescue them. "A leaderless mob is moving through Rohtak town. They came near the Circuit House and damaged the vehicle of the deputy inspector general of police, two police vehicles and set on fire another police vehicle," Singhal said. The mob attacked the office of the DIG, and set the house of Finance Minister Abhimanyu on fire. At some places in the town, black smoke could be seen coming out of property set on fire by the agitators, who even manhandled media persons at some places. "We are trying to stop the mob," the police chief said, adding that three companies of paramilitary forces were already stationed and 30 more companies would be deployed in Haryana soon. Protestors had clashed with security forces in Rohtak on Thursday evening when police tried to remove the blockades. The authorities blocked Internet and SMS services in the affected districts. Appealing to protesters to end road and rail blockades, Singhal said that curfew had not been imposed in Rohtak or other places so far. Thousands of trucks, carrying supplies and goods, were stranded in the affected districts due to highways and roads being blocked. Over 40 trains were cancelled by railway authorities across Haryana on Friday as the Jat agitation escalated. In Gurgaon, Jat protestors blocked roads, leading to traffic jams and chaos in the city, adjoining the national capital. Life continued to be affected in most parts of Rohtak, Jhajjar Sonipat, Bhiwani, Jind, Hisar and some other districts as the agitation by Jats for reservation in jobs and educational institutions continued for the sixth day on Friday. The protestors have blocked roads, highways and railway tracks, inconveniencing the common man. Hundreds of railway passengers were stranded as protestors blocked the Delhi-Ambala-Amritsar railway track at Rajlu Garhi village in Sonipat on Friday evening. Railway authorities cancelled several trains, including express trains like Kalka-Delhi Shatabdi Express, Pashchim Express and others. The stir escalated even as the Haryana government called an all-party meeting in Chandigarh to discuss the reservation issue and the Jat protests. The meeting urged the protestors to end their agitation and remove blockades. Jat leaders however rejected the appeal. After the all-party meeting, Khattar said: "The government is in favour of reservation for Jats in the state and is trying to find out ways and means for the same." Referring to statements of BJP's Kurukshetra MP Raj Kumar Saini, who is opposed to reservation for Jats, Khattar said he had been asked to withdraw his statement against the protestors. Security had been tightened at Saini's house in Kurukshetra town. Agriculture Minister O.P. Dhankar meanwhile said in Gurgaon that the state government was ready to give special backward class quota to the Jats. Budapest, Feb 19 : Hungary and Iran have agreed to boost their cooperation in nuclear technology, Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Friday. Szijjarto made the announcement following a meeting with Iranian Vice President and chief of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation Ali Akbar Salehi, Xinhua reported. The Hungarian foreign minister said the agreement called for expanding training for Iranian nuclear experts. He said his country would call on the European Union to help train Iranian nuclear professionals and to evolve scientific cooperation focused on peaceful uses of nuclear energy. He also said that Hungary was planning to begin talks with Iran on how its businesses could participate in extracting Iranian hydrocarbons (oil and gas). On his part, Salehi said links between Hungary and Iran truly had to be boosted in the new era, following international agreement on monitoring Iran's nuclear programme. He called his two-day visit to Hungary a successful one, adding that talks had focused on opportunities for scientific and industrial cooperation. Iran is an important country in its region and an important market, Salehi added. He described Iran as "an anchor of stability" in a very volatile region. Szijjarto said the success of negotiations between Iran and the international community had substantially increased global security which was very important to Europe. Given Iran's location and the heightening conflicts in the region, common sense cooperation with Iran could be an important advance towards overall Middle East stability and security, he added. Szijjarto, citing the immigration crisis triggered by the Middle East conflicts, said Iran was potentially part of the solution. He also suggested that the transatlantic community and Russia could cooperate on resolving problems in other parts of the Middle East, as they had in Iran. He called for multilateral diplomacy and common sense to alleviate the conflicts. New Delhi, Feb 19 : The Supreme Court's decision on Friday not to hear the bail plea of JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, arrested on sedition charges, has left students at the university "disappointed". "We learnt that the Supreme Court has transferred comrade Kanhaiya's bail plea to the high court. It is a little sad for the student community, as everyone was expecting to see him back in the campus today," JNU students union vice president Shehla Rashid said. "The student community is also concerned for his safety due to the repeated attacks in the lower court," she added. Earlier in the day, Kanhaiya moved a bail application in the Supreme Court, which in turn asked his counsel to approach the high court for bail. The Delhi High Court may take up his bail plea for hearing on Monday. Kanhaiya was arrested on February 12 after an event held on the university campus on February 9 against the hanging of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. Moscow, Feb 19 : The deployment of an advanced US missile system in South Korea in the wake of the launch of a satellite by North Korea earlier this month could raise tension in the region, a Russian expert has warned. The deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) "will lead to a dangerous increase in tension between the US and a number of Northeast Asian nations", Xinhua quoted Yevgeni Kim as saying on Thursday. Kim, a senior researcher at the Centre for Korean Studies of Russian Academy of Sciences, said the move was aimed at Russia and China, rather than Pyongyang as it claimed. Washington and Seoul started earlier this month to negotiate the deployment of THAAD to South Korea in response to the launch of a satellite by North Korea. The launch, which took place about a month after Pyongyang claimed it had successfully tested its first hydrogen bomb, raised serious concerns around the world as many considered it was a test of a ballistic missile that could be used to launch a nuclear weapon. Kim said though the US cited Pyongyang's move as a pretext for deploying THAAD, it is the North Korea's two bigger neighbours that THAAD is targeted. The THAAD system was designed to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles at an altitude of over 50 km, but if North Korea wanted to use nuclear weapons against South Korea, it would use rockets that fly at much lower altitudes, Kim said. "The deployment of the THAAD missile defence system in South Korea is not directed against Pyongyang. North Korea's nuclear activity is just an excuse," Kim said. Kim recalled the US and the Soviet Union signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty in 1972, which for a number of years contained the development of new missile defence systems. However the treaty was terminated as the United States withdrew in 2002. "Now the US is talking more and more about new missile defence areas and about the need for a global missile defence system," Kim said. He also noted that the US had not abandoned its plan to deploy missile systems in Europe even after the alleged Iranian missile threat, which the systems are said to counter, was gone. "Now they are applying the same pattern for the Korean peninsula," he said. Kim suggested that the deployment of the THAAD system in South Korea was aimed at intercepting Russian and Chinese ballistic missiles that could be launched in retaliation against a possible US nuclear strike. "It is a step that undermines the global balance of power, and the existing security system in Northeast Asia," Kim said. New Delhi/Kohima, Feb 19 : Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday accused the government of keeping the nation in the dark on the contents, nature and status of the peace dialogue with the National Socialist Council of Nagalim-Isak Muivah (NSCN-IM) faction. "We are not privy to the contents of the Naga peace accord and we cannot give a blank cheque of support as of now," Gandhi told the Parliamentary Working Committee of the Joint Legislators' Forum (JLF) from Nagaland in New Delhi. The delegation was led by Nagaland assembly Speaker Chotisuh Sazo. He was accompanied by Chief Minister T.R. Zeliang, Lok Sabha member Neiphiu Rio and a host of Nagaland legislators. At the meeting, Gandhi promised the Naga parliamentarians of her party's support for the Naga peace accord "if the contents of the agreement were in the interest of the Nagas, the Northeast and the nation". "We are not privy to the contents of the Naga peace accord and we cannot give a blank cheque of support," an official statement issued by the Nagaland Chief Minister's Office quoted her as saying. "But when the government reveals the contents for discussion in parliament, and if it is in the interest of the Nagas, the Northeast and the nation, my party will surely support it," Gandhi said. However, she expressed solidarity with the Naga people for the need to find an amicable, honourable and permanent peace in the state. The delegation explained to the Congress chief about the formation of the JLF comprising leaders of all political parties in the state, mainly to project a common voice of the representatives of the people of Nagaland on the urgency to solve the protracted Naga problem. "The merger of the Congress legislators with the NPF was solely for the purpose of finding an early solution to the Naga political problem and not because of any other exigency," the delegation said. The delegation members later left for Kolkata to meet leaders of West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress. New Delhi, Feb 19 : A few students from Jammu and Kashmir alleged harassment by Delhi Police in the wake of raids at their present and permanent residences. The police, however, denied the allegation. The JNU Students Union on Friday criticised the alleged police action against Kashmiri students who it said were unconnected with the happenings on the campus after the January 9 incidents. "The JNUSU strongly condemns the harassment of students from Jammu and Kashmir whose present and permanent residences are being raided. These students have approached the JNUSU saying that police have gone to their houses for 'verification'," JNU Students Union vice president Shehla Rashid said on Friday. These students had earlier also approached the university administration with the same complaint. "A few students had approached me saying police were visiting their homes in the name of verification," JNU Registrar Bhupinder Zutshi told IANS. "But perhaps this could be a routine process as police have not updated us in this regard. They gave us a list of 20 students who they were looking for, but there is no Kashmiri boy or girl on that list," Zutshi added. The police, too, denied investigating any students from Jammu and Kashmir. "Why would we raid Kashmiri students? That is not part of our investigation," Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Prem Nath told IANS. However, he added, "I can't say if other agencies are probing these students." Riyadh, Feb 19 : Saudi Arabia announced on Friday that it will stop helping the Lebanese army and security forces because of the Lebanese political stances, Saudi Press Agency reported. Saudi Arabia has decided to protect its own interests through stopping the military assistance worth $3 billion to the Lebanese army and the unpaid $1 billion dollars to the security forces, the report said. A Saudi government official said that despite the decision, the country will continue to stand with Lebanese nationals as such stances do not represent them. Lebanon has not condemned the attacks on the Saudi diplomatic missions in Tehran and Mashhad last month. Mumbai, Feb 19 : The faculty of the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) on Friday extended support to Jawaharlal Nehru University students and condemned "attempts by the State to stifle dissent in educational institutions and campuses". "We are deeply concerned over the recent events that have undermined the autonomy of institutions of higher education in this country. We believe that these institutions are spaces of critical thinking and expression. Matters of contention that might arise in the conduct of intellectual and social engagements need to be addressed democratically and rationally," they said in a statement issued here. The statement said the State cannot 'dictate' on the many meanings of what it is to be an Indian or mandate the meaning of 'nationalism,' and frowned upon the 'overreach' of the State in various educational institutions and campuses in the country. "Rather, the State should be the one that makes sure that multiple ways of imagining one's relationship with the nation are allowed to flourish, especially when it might contradict dominant ways of thinking," said the statement signed by 42 faculty members. "These methods in turn should be within the purview of institutional procedures that are responsible and accountable. We condemn the overreach of the State in the recent incidents in a number of institutions and the attempts of the right wing to stifle dissent and suppress differences," they said. They made it clear that the statement reflects the opinion of the signatory faculty and not of the prestigious IIT-B. New Delhi, Feb 19 : The Congress on Friday hit out at the RSS and its affiliated groups for trying to "camouflage their bigoted ideology as nationalism". "The RSS is now trying to project its bigoted ideology and it is camouflaging this bigoted ideology as 'nationalism'... trying to pass off their fake view of India as 'nationalism' and they are doing it through repression and coercion," said senior Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi. "The Indian National Congress is deeply concerned that outfits like RSS, Sangh Parivar and ABVP are trying to fit their square ideology into the circular democratic tradition of this country. In other words, they are trying to achieve a misfit," he added. Singhvi said his party was "in the first line of condemnation of anti-national activities". "We are not here to give justifications, defences and certificates... we stand rock solid on issues of 'nationalism' but we also stand equally rock solid against the bogey of 'nationalism' and when that bogey is used to repress students to carry on campaigns to infiltrate the RSS and ABVP ideology into our institutions, we will rise and speak up because we think it is utterly unacceptable to the idea of India," he added. Kathmandu, Feb 19 : A day after the government formed a political mechanism - a 11-member panel - to consider demands vis-a-vis the provincial boundaries, the main opposition Nepali Congress and agitating Samykta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha (SLMM) on Friday formally refused to be a part of it, saying it was formed 'unilaterally'. In a press statement, SLMM - an umbrella alliance of agitating Madhes-based parties - said the mechanism was formed unilaterally when efforts to seek a consensus were on through talks and negotiations. The formation of the political mechanism was a last ditch effort by the Nepal government to address the demand of the agitating Morcha activists under the new constitution. Earlier, the government amended the constitution in a bid to address the demands of the Morcha and made the constitution more inclusive. "The Morcha believes the unilateral mechanism, which is supposed to resolve the problem, cannot address our demands. And we reject such mechanism," said the statement issued by the seven Madhes-based parties on Friday. The statement said the mechanism was formed as part of a design to foil protests launched by the minorities and backward communities, including Madhesis, and appease 'foreigners' instead of addressing the problem. On Thursday night, just a day before Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli's scheduled India visit, the Nepal government announced the 11-member mechanism headed by the deputy prime minister and minister for foreign affairs Kamal Thapa and including leaders from the agitating Madhes-based parties. The panel is expected to suggest an appropriate solution to address the demands of revising the provincial boundaries within three months. Similarly, the main opposition Nepali Congress, which took the lead to address the demands of the agitating parties, also refused to have anything to do with the unilateral decision of the government. "We were kept out of the process; so we are not going to own up the mechanism," said Nepali Congress leader Mahesh Acharya. "We were in talks and we were about to complete the negotiation with agitating parties but the unilateral formation of mechanism has sent a negative message," he said. It is widely believed in Kathmandu that Prime Minister Oli wanted to send some positive signal to India ahead of his Delhi visit and so decided to form the mechanism as a symbolic gesture rather than for any other reason. India has been consistently maintaining that there is a need to address the demands of the agitating parties by making the new constitution more inclusive as it has huge security implications on its borders. (Anil Giri can be contacted at girianil@gmail.com) Kathmandu, Feb 19 : Nepali writers, intellectuals and ex-JNU students on Friday condemned the arrest of JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar on a sedition charge and termed it "gross violation of the freedom of expression". "His arrest is against freedom of expression," said a statement issued by over three dozen Nepali writers, journalists and intellectuals. Most of them are Nepali Left activists and writers who often criticise the 'nationalist' posture of the Nepal government and advocate a more inclusive Nepali society. Prominent Nepali writers and columnists like Khagendra Sangarula, C.K. Lal, Kishor Nepla, Hari Rokka, Rajendra Mahanrjan, Manju Shree Thapa and over a dozen ex-Jawaharlal Nehru University students have supported Kumar. The Indian government is trying to destroy intellect in an academic institution, they said. "Such act is not only a matter of concern for the Indians but also every citizen who voiced support for an equitable and just society," the statement said. "We condemn the Indian government's action of trying to muzzle different voices and the freedom of speech," they said. New Delhi, Feb 19 : The Indian government clarified on Friday that the implementation of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) and Common Reporting Standards (CRS) will not entail reporting of all fixed deposits and auto sweep facilities in pre-existing savings bank accounts. "During stakeholders consultations, representatives of financial institutions informed that in such cases, no additional documentation is obtained for these fixed deposits accounts as they are intrinsically related to existing saving bank account and all KYC documents are available for the existing saving bank account," the Central Board of Direct Taxes said on their website. As per the order, fixed deposits in savings accounts opened before June 30, 2014 and December 31, 2015 will not have to be reported for FATCA and CRS, respectively. The guidelines also said that for the upcoming reporting in March 2015 and May 2016, all reporting has to be done in Indian currency. For the reporting in 2017, Form 61B and Schema will be suitably modified to include a field for capturing the type of currency. India and the US signed an inter-governmental agreement to implement FATCA in July 2015, towards greater transparency between the two countries on tax matters. The decision will enable the government to receive information from the US and from other jurisdictions with which India has entered into agreements for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (AEOI) as per CRS about assets of Indians held abroad including through entities in which Indians are beneficial owners. These steps are designed to help the government curb tax evasion and deal with the problems of black money. The measures will also result in financial institutions in India being FATCA complaint and they will not be required to enter into separate agreements with the US to avoid 30 percent withholding on their US source of income. Till now, the Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information protocols as per common reporting standards have been signed by 52 countries. The Indian government has taken a leading role in international fora towards building a consensus among major economies that the problem of offshore tax evasion and flow of illicit money can be addressed only by free flow of financial account information to be exchanged among countries on an automatic basis. New Delhi, Feb 19 : Sparking of a new controversy, the JNUSU joint secretary on Friday called and chaired a council meeting which passed several resolutions including for a probe into the recent controversies and "identifying, isolating and ensuring punishment for subversive elements that have brought a bad name". The acting union president termed it a "major fraud". Among the other resolutions passed at the meeting summoned by joint secretary Saurabh Sharma, of the ABVP, were that all members of JNU community must desist from interfering with the due process of law, the JNU administration take strict action against the illegal residents immediately, and that the JNU administrations must act immediately on decision and ensure that tricolour continues to inspire JNU community. JNUSU's acting president Shehla Rashid however said that it was called in contravention of rules and did not have the necessary quorum. She said that according to the JNUSU constitution, the council meeting, which comprises 31 councillors from the varsity's various schools and four union members, can only be chaired by the JNUSU president or the vice president in the absence of the president. In this meeting, only nine members of the council body were present which was below the quorum required, alleged Rashid. "This meeting is a major fraud on JNUSU constitution. The so-called council meeting is invalid and all the resolutions passed in this meeting are invalid as per the constitution. This is because the quorum was not fulfilled," said Rashid. "In this meeting, none of the other three JNUSU office bearers - president, vice president and general secretary - were present or were informed about the meeting. As per the JNUSU constitution, the meeting cannot be held with less than 50 percent of the members. It also states that the president or vice president has to be informed 24 hours ahead of the council meeting," she added. She said the meeting was "unconstitutional and unethical for several reasons" and noted that as per the JNUSU Constitution, such meetings are called by the general secretary in consultation with the president. She also claimed that calling a council meeting in the absence of the JNUSU president and general secretary was "an attempt to hijack the platform of JNUSU". President Kanhaiya Kumar is under arrest on sedition charges. However, refuting the allegations, Sharma contended said there was no quorum requirement. "As per the norm, we put out posters across the university campus 24 hours before the meeting. Moreover, there was no quorum required for council meeting. Quorum is required only for emergency and general body meeting. Also, I had informed the general secretary about the meeting through mail but there was no response for 48 hours," Sharma told IANS. Kolkata, Feb 19 : The Committee For Release of Political Prisoners' (CRPP) West Bengal chapter on Friday expressed "deep concern" over the incidents at JNU and the "illegal detention" of Delhi University's former professor S.A.R. Geelani on charges of sedition. It also condemned the "act of tyranny" of the BJP-led central government. "CRPP West Bengal Chapter expresses deep concern over the recent developments in JNU, arising out of the programme of students union and subsequent crackdown by the Delhi Police at the instruction of home department of the central government and the arrest of (union president) Kanhaiya Kumar, under sedition sections of Indian Penal Code and the illegal detention of professor Geelani, the president of CRPP, for two days and his arrest on February 16 under seditious charges," it said in a statement. "CRPP in unequivocal terms condemns the act of tyranny of the BJP-led government at centre... in fact freedom of expression is under siege in India. It is being attacked under the cover of nationalism." A Delhi court on Friday rejected the bail application of Delhi University's former professor S.A.R. Geelani, arrested on charges of sedition for allegedly organising an event at the Press Club of India to mark the death anniversary of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. Geelani's arrest comes amid the raging row over the arrest of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who was arrested on February 12 on charges of sedition for allegedly raising anti-national slogans at an event organised at the varsity campus on February 9 against the hanging of Afzal Guru. "Geelani had been detained by the police reportedly at Parliament Street police station for two days in the name of interrogation in connection with an event relating to observation of death by hanging of Afzal Guru held in Press Club in Delhi," said the CRPP, holding that the detention of Geelani is absolutely illegal, because detention without arrest is unknown to Indian law. It said Geelani's arrest is also "unacceptable because he is falsely implicated in the sedition case under pressure from the BJP-led government". "By booking Kanhaiya and Geelani under sedition charges, the government has abused grossly and nakedly the power conferred upon the Constitution," the CRPP said and demanded their immediate release and withdrawal of charges. Councils in the UK will compete to process planning applications and be able to offer fast track application services under new proposals from the government now out for consultation. Ministers announced a pilot scheme which is the first step towards tackling the lack of incentive for councils to improve and speed up their planning service which has been causing drawn out applications and local frustration for both house builders and individual applicants. The proposals are expected to boost house building and speed up the planning application process by giving applicants the choice of whether to submit their plans to the local council, a competing council or a government approved organisation that would process applications up until the decision point. Councils will also be able to offer the fast track planning application service either through competition pilots or potentially through devolution deals. However, decision making on planning applications would remain with the local council to ensure decisions are taken locally and maintain the democratic link between local people and decision makers. Council planning departments play a vital role in getting local house building off the ground, but for too long they have had no incentive to get things done quickly or better, resulting in drawn out applications and local frustration, said Communities Secretary Greg Clark. These proposals will be a boost for house builders looking to build much needed new homes for hard working families and first time buyers, and for local people looking to get a planning permission for home improvements through their local council quicker, he added. According to Planning Minister Brandon Lewis many councils are indeed already working hard to improve the services they offer their residents, and across the country peoples satisfaction levels remain high. Now we want to go further by setting out these ambitious proposals to link any future increases in application fees to councils performance, and testing more competition including through offering dedicated fast track application services, he explained. Historically councils have had a closed market in handling planning applications, with limited incentive for innovation and efficiency. However research studies over the last three decades in the UK and abroad suggest there are cost savings of up to a fifth for competitively tendered or shared services. A consultation on the competition pilots and fast track services has been published and it also includes proposals to make any future increases in councils fees for processing planning applications dependent on their performance in terms of speed and quality of decisions. Further details on how the pilots will run will be published after the consultation has closed. Change is needed urgently, according to the Federation of Master Builders (FMB). Across the country small house builders continue to be frustrated by a painfully slow planning process that is holding back the delivery of new homes, said FMB chief executive Brian Berry. The numerous sources of delays and inefficiencies in the system impact upon house building rates, and act as a major deterrent to small developers who need to see speedy returns on their investments. Anything which encourages innovation and incentivises councils to deal with applications with greater urgency must be welcome, he added. He pointed out that developers of all sizes have consistently said that they would be willing to pay higher planning application fees, provided the extra resources were ring fenced to deliver a better quality service. Berry said that these proposals provide an avenue to house builders to access speedier planning that will allow them to get on with what they do best which is building homes. Nevertheless, in order to ensure that the broader planning system is working as it should, its essential that its properly resourced. Local authorities need to be able to invest in their planning departments to put in place, and renew, their local plans, he warned. Fees, whether fast track or standard, need to be weighted to ensure that overall the system will be adequately resourced. The system as it stands is creaking. This new approach must be made to work and it cannot come soon enough, he added. By implementing Privasents patented technology, providers have an identity foundation necessary to link patient EHRs precisely throughout the continuum of careregardless of where that care is providedand improve both patient satisfaction and care. Malta Systems, a healthcare technology company focused on unique, absolute, and interoperable healthcare identity, announced the approval of their patent titled, "Anonymous authentication using backup biometric information," US patent number 9,213,818. Privasents patented solution combines smart card, biometric and security technologies to produce a unique, absolute and interoperable identity that can scale to a national patient identifier. The newly awarded patent covers managing the use of a physical token such as a smartcard together with a biometric identifier to uniquely and quickly identify every patient. This unique identity can only be used to access healthcare services thus protecting the patients privacy and identity integrity. Patients are registered in the Privasent network with the issuance of a Privasent card and the capture of a palm-vein pattern. Each time a patient checks-in for care, Privasent validates their identity and the electronic health record (EHR) associated with the identity. Healthcare providers can search Privasent to identify other EHRs associated with this identity throughout Privasents network of providers and determine which must be accessed to provide relevant medical history for the patients care. Malta Systems CEO, Don Brown is pleased with the approval of the patent. By implementing Privasents patented technology, providers have an identity foundation necessary to link patient EHRs precisely throughout the continuum of careregardless of where that care is providedand improve both patient satisfaction and care. With the patient as the focal point, hospital clinical, financial, medical records and technology teams can work with the Malta team to demonstrate the clinical and financial benefits of absolute healthcare identity, Brown said. About Malta Systems As a wholly-owned subsidiary of Partnet, Malta Systems is backed by a decades-deep background in Internet innovation. A near tragedy changed the companys course when Don Brown, Malta Systems President and founder, had a personal encounter with electronic health records and their lack of portability. In 2011, his wife was seriously injured in an accident located far from their home medical center. In the height of the emergency, progress was halted when the doctors were unable to confirm the accuracy of her medical records. Precious time slipped by while the team resorted to guesswork by family members for answers to essential questions like what medications she might be taking. The lack of an electronic medical record that was positively associated with her nearly ended in tragedy. However, thanks to excellent teams in air medical and shock trauma, she has now fully recovered. That harrowing event was the impetus for Privasent. Dr. Brown turned his teams attention to the problems with EHRs and they responded with a groundbreaking innovation designed to prevent experiences like this and save lives worldwide. Find out more by visiting us at http://www.privasent.com. Ntiva, Inc., When IT Matters, announced today that CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, has named Ntiva, Inc. to its 2016 Managed Service Provider (MSP) 500 list in the Elite 150 category. This annual list recognizes North American solution providers with cutting-edge approaches to delivering managed services. Their top-notch offerings help companies navigate the complex and ever-changing landscape of IT, improve operational efficiencies, and maximize their return on IT investments. In todays fast-paced business environments, MSPs play an important role in helping companies leverage new technologies without straining their budgets or losing focus on their core business. CRNs MSP 500 list shines a light on the most forward-thinking and innovative of these key organizations. The list is divided into three categories: the MSP Pioneer 250, recognizing companies with business models weighted toward managed services and largely focused on the SMB market; the MSP Elite 150, recognizing large, data center-focused MSPs with a strong mix of on-premise and off-premise services; and the MSP Hosting Service Provider 100, recognizing MSPs focused primarily on off-premise, cloud-based services. MSPs meet a critical need in the IT market, providing customized, turnkey services that allow for predictable operational expenses, effective control of expenditures, precise allocation of limited resources and convenient access to on-demand and pay-as-you-go technology, said Robert Faletra, CEO, The Channel Company. We congratulate the service providers of the MSP 500, who continually reinvent themselves to successfully meet their customers changing needs, helping businesses get the most out of their IT investments and sharpen their competitive edge. Our key focus has always been to embrace change, care about our clients and their bottom line, and to provide the best possible client experience that we can. The technology market changes every day and can be very overwhelming to most people. We take our knowledge and expertise in technology very seriously and want to help as many organizations execute the right solutions for them as we can, said Steven Freidkin, CEO, Ntiva,Inc. We continue to look for top talent to add to our team and look forward to seeing what new technologies the future holds. The MSP 500 list will be featured in the February 2016 issue of CRN and online at http://www.CRN.com/msp500. About Ntiva, Inc. Ntiva is a people-focused, full-service IT provider. From day-to-day managed support to long-term strategic planning, Ntiva delivers flexible and affordable technology solutions that are customized for each clients' unique business needs. About the Channel Company The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers and end users. Backed by more than 30 years of unequaled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. http://www.thechannelco.com Melanie Turpin The Channel Company (508) 416-1195 mturpin(at)thechannelco(dot)com ### Bpm'online, whose process-driven software for marketing, sales and service helps over 6,500 organizations win more customers, has been named a winner of the 2016 CRM Watchlist awards led by Paul Greenberg. As the author of the best-selling CRM at the Speed of Light, Managing Principal of The 56 Group, LLC, and Executive Vice President of the CRM Association, Paul Greenberg is one of the most influential thought leaders in the CRM industry. The winners of the awards were selected from 131 CRM technology providers that submitted applications. According to Paul Greenberg, the evaluation was based on various criteria that altogether outline the impact a company has in the markets it addresses. To have an impact, the company has to be pretty much a complete company who has been doing this long enough to have established a rhythm that leads to impact, - said Paul Greenberg. The company has to be well rounded - it has financial stability, solid management, excellent products and services, culture, and a strong partner ecosystem to help sustain its efforts. It has to have a clear vision and mission and also clear-cut strategies to get external forces - customers, analysts, journalists, prospects. Bpmonline wins the CRM Watchlist award for the fourth time. The companys process-driven CRM is designed to align marketing, sales and service on a single platform. Bpmonline products are backed by a robust business process management engine, which provides companies with the agility to change processes within the CRM system faster than ever. This gives bpmonline clients a competitive edge and tools to keep up with the pace of the market shift. We know that the CRM Watchlist evaluation is a thorough and precise analytical process, which identifies top tier CRM vendors that create a noticeable footprint on the market. Being selected as a winner this year again is an honor for us. We are thrilled that our company and products gain more and more recognition both from our customers and key industry experts, - said Katherine Kostereva, CEO and Managing Partner at bpmonline. About bpmonline Bpmonline is a global vendor of process-driven CRM for sales, marketing, and service. The beauty and the core value of bpmonline products is the agility to change processes faster than ever and align marketing, sales and service on a single platform. Users love bpmonlines engaging interface with social look and feel, free from redundant information that keeps them focused on whats relevant. Today, the company employs 550+ experts and serves over 6,500 customers worldwide. For more information, visit: http://www.bpmonline.com Weather impacts billions of dollars of business activity across nearly every aspect of the U.S. economy. Understory, the developer of the next-generation of weather sensor hardware and hyper-local data networks, announced today that it has received $7.5 million in Series A funding led by 4490 Ventures, an early stage venture fund based in Madison, Wisconsin, and Monsanto Growth Ventures, the venture capital arm of Monsanto, a Fortune 500 sustainable agriculture company. Understory will be relocating its headquarters to Madison, Wisconsin, while maintaining an ongoing and significant presence in Boston. Earlier investors also contributed to the round, including True Ventures, RRE Ventures, and SK Ventures. Another Wisconsin-based firm, CSA Partners, also joined the round as a new investor. As part of True Ventures ongoing support, Puneet Argarwal, will join the Understory Board of Directors. 4490 Ventures Managing Director, Greg Robinson, will also be joining the board. The Understory weather-sensing networks are currently deployed in Kansas City, Boston, and Dallas. Additional cities will be announced in the near term. The networks have already demonstrated a high level of performance having tracked several major storm systems- where they detected tornadoes, strong wind events, and hail on a hyper-local level. Understory plans on deploying their network in more cities in 2016. Why ground-truth weather detection? While traditional, radar-enabled weather centers collect data by analyzing conditions observed in the atmosphere, Understory named for the area in a rainforest beneath the forest canopy detects rain, hail, wind and other weather events directly at the earths surface, where the risk to life and property is greatest. This ground-truth-based detection is a marked enhancement in both resolution and fidelity, providing real time datasets and graphical views of the movement and intensity of weather events, which leads to better insight and early detection of risks. For example, Understorys ground-truth weather networks allow insurers to create a better experience for policyholders by creating real time, hyper-local weather reports and weather intelligence in the immediate aftermath of a storm. These address-specific insights enable insurers to better serve and communicate quickly with their policyholders. Monsanto invests in supporting farmers by offering unique options in the way they manage risk on farm including weather, which is the single biggest risk farmers face on an annual basis. Supporting quotes Climate change has become more and more palpable as extreme weather has increased in both frequency and severity. Currently, weather impacts billions of dollars of business activity across nearly every aspect of the U.S. economy, said Understory founder and CEO Alex Kubicek. The northeastern United States alone has seen a 74 percent increase in the amount of rain or snow falling in the heaviest storms since 1958. We are excited about the Understory leadership team and about the implications of Understorys transformative new data set and how it can create value for a wide range of users or use cases, said Greg Robinson, the Managing Director of 4490 Ventures. It is great to bring Understory back to Wisconsin, where the company was founded. Monsanto is deeply committed to supporting small companies who are working on technologies that could be used to augment the growers ability to better manage their farms. Hyper-local weather measurements are a key part of this innovation stack, stated Kiersten Stead, Monsanto Growth Ventures. We are building off our acquisition of The Climate Corporation, who are truly committed to offering stronger analytics for the agriculture industry. I am delighted to be strengthening our investment in Understory and joining their Board, stated Puneet Argarwal, True Ventures. The value of ground-truth weather detection is increasingly vital to insurers, farmers, consumers, and others as the intensity and frequency of severe weather increases. About Understory Founded in 2012, Understory is a weather data company that provides dense surface observations generated by proprietary weather stations with no external moving parts. This composite of granular weather data has applications across a variety of markets, including broadcasting, insurance, agriculture, forecasting, and risk mitigation. The information collected by Understory is analyzed and processed to create real-time datasets, views, and actionable information from historical, current, and forecasted weather events to provide better insight and early detection of risks. The data applications for Understory's sensors are enormous, as $485 billion of the U.S. economy fluctuates with weather. This new, sensor-enabled big data will impact insurance, agriculture, utilities, and many other industries. More information on Understory is available at http://www.Understoryweather.com. @UnderstoryWx On Saturday, February 20, Heaven On Earth, a Frederick-based wellness business, will host the 1st Annual Love Yourself Bazaar, which features over 30 vendors from Frederick and the surrounding areas. Each vendor will be donating products and/or services to raffle off in an effort to raise funds that will be donated to the Hearty House. Heartly House is the only organization in Frederick County to provide comprehensive services to survivors of domestic abuse, sexual abuse and child abuse. They offer legal, crisis intervention and prevention services as well as an abuse intervention program. Those who need services can reach out using their 24-hour hotline and have access to emergency shelter and counseling services. I chose to benefit Heartly House because I support their mission to end domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse, and to provide victims with safety, shelter and supportive services. Self-care is about your mental, physical and emotional well-being. It is critical for anyone, especially those who have such horrific experiences, to understand the importance of self-care and why loving yourself is of the utmost importance, said Casey Clark, Founder and Chief Wellness Officer of Heaven On Earth. The bazaar will include several small businesses and independent consultants offering a multitude of products and services to treat yourself including hand-made jewelry and crafts, massage therapy, and organic self-care products. There will be interactive sampling and demonstrations including free skin evaluations and more. For the first 50 attendees, there will be free goodie bags that include self-care products, hand-made by Heaven On Earth. We are ecstatic to be involved in the Love Yourself Bazaar. Not only do we provide services that educate our clients about the importance of self-care but we emphasize self-care among our staff as well. Self-care reduces burn out and without mechanisms of self-care, we wouldnt be able to provide care for our clients. This event speaks to everything we believe in. said Inga James, Executive Director of Heartly House. The public is encouraged to attend this family-friendly event. For more information about the event and specials, connect with Heaven On Earth on Facebook and Twitter @aheavenlyyou. DigiPrime 1600 produces improved HP Indigo ElectroInk adhesion, superior press blanket compatibility, and increased uptime. Michelmans DigiPrime 1600 is an innovative new HP Indigo ElectroInk receptive primer formulated for use by paper mills. When added to size press treatments at the mill, it acts as a primer, optimizing the paper for use on HP Indigo presses. DigiPrime 1600 produces improved HP Indigo ElectroInk adhesion, superior press blanket compatibility, and increased uptime. Paper mills using new DigiPrime 1600 have attained 3-Star ratings in the certification process for printing with HP Indigo ElectroInk print technology. Printers who purchase paper already treated with DigiPrime 1600 eliminate the need to further prime the paper prior to printing on an HP Indigo press. DigiPrime is a line of HP-recommended primers, developed and manufactured by Michelman, that improve ink receptivity and durability on a wide variety of paper and synthetic substrates printed on digital presses. With its flagship DigiPrime brand, Michelman has become the leading supplier of digital printing primer technologies used around the world by paper mills, as well as by commercial, and label and packaging press owners. About Michelman Michelman is a global developer and manufacturer of environmentally friendly advanced materials for industry, offering solutions for the coatings, printing & packaging and industrial manufacturing markets. The companys surface modifiers, additives and polymers are used by leading manufacturers around the world to enhance performance attributes and add value in applications including wood and floor care products, metal and industrial coatings, paints, varnishes, inks, fibers and composites. Michelman is also well-known as an innovator in the development of barrier and functional coatings, as well as digital printing press primers that are used in the production of consumer and industrial packaging and paper products, labels, and commercially printed materials. Michelman serves its customers with production facilities in North America, Europe and Asia, product development and technical service centers in several major global markets, and a worldwide team of highly trained business development personnel. BlackDoctor.org (BDO), the leading online health destination for African Americans, and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions have announced the highly anticipated list of distinguished honorees for the 3rd Annual Top Blacks in Healthcare Awards Gala. This celebration of service and commitment will take place on Thursday, April 21, 2016 from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Four Seasons Hotel in Baltimore, MD. Now in its third year, the awards gala will honor and recognize 24 individuals who have made outstanding contributions to medicine and health. These highly esteemed and accomplished individuals not only maintain a demanding work/life balance, but they are also progressively moving their communities forward. Hard work pays off. These individual have dedicated their careers to ensure that everyone has access to quality healthcare. As a result of their extraordinary accomplishments, theyve reached the highest plateau, the Top Blacks in Healthcare. BlackDoctor.org along with Johns Hopkins Center of Health Disparities Solutions is honored to recognize these individuals for their hard work and to celebrate their successes," said Reggie Ware, President and CEO of BlackDoctor.org. The 2016 honorees were identified and selected by alumni from the 2014 and 2015 Top Blacks in Healthcare award recipients as well as key individuals from partner organizations such as the National Medical Association, Johns Hopkins University and the American Hospital Assocation. BlackDoctor.org salutes this extraordinary list of black healthcare professionals named as the BlackDoctor.org Top Blacks in Healthcare 2016 award recipients: Kimberly Aldridge, Ph. D, Senior Director, Global Oncology Marketing, Eli Lilly (Bridgewater, NJ) Ruth Brinkley, RN, FACHE, President & Chief Executive Officer, KentuckyOne Health & Senior Vice President for Catholic Health Initiatives (Louisville, KY) George J. Brown, M.D., FACP, President & Chief Executive Officer, Legacy Health (Portland, OR) Alan Butcher, Senior Vice President, Head of Licensing & Business Development, Purdue Pharma L.P. (Stamford, CT) Marsha E. Butler, DDS, Vice President, Global Professional Relations, Colgate-Palmolive Company (New York, NY) Honorable Donna Christensen, M.D, Retired Member of U.S. Congress, U.S. Virgin Islands (Washington, DC) Reginald W. Coopwood, MD, President & Chief Executive Officer, Regional One Health (Memphis, TN) Hazel D. Dean, ScD, DrPH (Hon), FACE, Deputy Director, National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) (Atlanta, GA) M. Joycelyn Elders. M.D., 15th Surgeon General of the United States (Washington,DC) Sean Gallimore, B.A., M.B.A, Corporate Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer, PAREXEL (Waltham, MA) Michelle J. Gaskill, RN, BSN, MHA, President, Advocate Trinity Hospital (Chicago, IL) Shirell A. Gross, Esq., Vice President & Chief Legal Counsel Radiology, Bayer Corporation (Whippany, NJ) Walter S. Harris, MBA, PMP, Deputy Commissioner for Operations & Chief Operating Officer, Food & Drug Administration (FDA) (Silver Spring, MD) LaMar Hasbrouck, M.D., MPH, Executive Director, National Association of County & City Health Officials (NACCHO) (Washington, DC) James E.K. Hildreth, Ph.D., M.D., President & Chief Executive Officer, Meharry Medical College (Nashville, TN) Frederick D. Hobby, Former President & Chief Executive Officer, Institute for Diversity in Health Management (Chicago, IL) Reginald R. Mebane, MS, Senior Executive Service (SES), Office of Equal Employment Opportunity, U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) (Atlanta, GA) Hugh E. Mighty, M.D., M.B.A., FACOG, Dean, Howard University College of Medicine & Vice President of Clinical Affairs, (Washington, DC) Edwin J. Nichols, Ph.D, Director, Nichols & Associates, Inc. (Washington, DC) Bob Oliver, President & Chief Operating Officer, Otsuka America Inc. (Philadelphia, PA) Rhonda Peebles, Executive Director of Marketing, Head of Dermatology, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation (East Hanover, NJ) Gary Puckerin, PhD, President & Chief Executive Officer, National Minority Quality Forum (Washington, DC) Dennis W. Pullin, FACHE, President, MedStar Harbor Hospital and Senior Vice President, MedStar Health (Baltimore, MD) Pamela Sutton-Wallace, MPH, Chief Executive Officer, University of Virginia Medical Center (Charlottesville, VA) Silver Sponsor-level companies for the 2016 event are Bayer Corporation and Novartis. Additional sponsors include Colgate-Palmolive Company, KentuckyOne Health, Purdue Pharma L.P., American Hospital Association and Mercy Health Foundation. Award recipients will be featured on the BlackDoctor.org website, its Facebook page and other related media in celebration of Black History Month. Currently, BlackDoctor.org has a total monthly audience reach of more than 24 million visitors. Executive Editor, Sandria Washington stated, Something magical happens when we recognize these outstanding role models who look like our audience. Not only does it show there are people on the front lines concerned about us, it also encourages people to excel in their own career endeavors and dreams. BlackDoctor.org and the John Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions began their partnership in 2013. Both organizations utilize their broad outreach to African American communities to provide health education and information with the goal of reducing healthcare disparities among racial/ethnic groups. # # # About BlackDoctor.org BlackDoctor.org (BDO) is the world's most comprehensive online health resource for black consumers. With a monthly total audience reach of 24 million, BDO is the leading producer of targeted, culturally and clinically accurate health and editorial content on African Americans. BDO's users appreciate receiving health information in an environment they trust and in a language and context they understand. BDO also boasts the largest online database of black physicians and dentists as part of its free doctor search tool, and a medical expert panel including many of the most respected and accomplished experts in their field. Learn more about BlackDoctor.org at http://www.BlackDoctor.org and follow us on Twitter @BlackDoctor, and Facebook at facebook.com/BlackDoctor.org. About Johns Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions The Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions (HCHDS) was established in October 2002 and brings together the health research and program development resources of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutes (Schools of Public Health, Medicine, and Nursing) to demonstrate the efficacy of public health, social science and medical science in mitigating health disparities. HCHDS does this through efforts in research, training and community outreach. The Center has a national focus, but much of its work takes place in the local Baltimore community. The HCHDS is designated as a National Comprehensive Center of Excellence in Health Disparities by the NIMHD of the National Institutes of Health. Linette Dobbins, President/COO of McGee Wealth Management, Co-Branch Manager of Raymond James Financial Services, and CFP professional was chosen as a keynote speaker for the event, Ego, Power and Money in partnership with local Portland, Oregon Attorney, Katherine Heekin, and Business Consultant, Tracey Snoyer. The event was held as a resource for women business owners and leaders and a benefit for Girls Inc. of the Pacific Northwest, a nonprofit organization teaching girls self- empowerment skills. In the formidable and compelling presentation titled, Risk, Sacrifice, Reward, Dobbins outlined skills needed for business success, pointing out statistical reasons for business failure and shared her vision of the five factors of success for women in business: Vision, Process, Communication, Education, and Leadership. Dobbins pointed out the importance for women to achieve financial independence, explaining that the journey towards financial success is a series of carefully chosen steps and leaps of faith. She cites that nearly 76% of failures are a result of lack of knowledge or experience that can be mitigated by developing a strong team of professional advisors for guidance and maximizing strengths. Since 1988, Linette Dobbins, CFP has been a driving force behind the success of McGee Wealth Management, Inc., an independent Registered Investment Advisor, helping develop the business into one of Oregons leading wealth management firms. As Co-Owner and President, Linette helps define and implement the firms vision, which includes financial education for our communitys business leaders. Giving back is paramount to the McGee Wealth Management team. Throughout her career, Linette exemplifies the concept of selfless contribution of time and talent to organizations such as the prestigious Circle of Giving that benefits womens health research at Oregon Health & Science University, the Portland, Oregon Rose Festival Foundation Board, Raymond James Womens Advisory Council, and other non-profit professional and community organizations. About McGee Wealth Management McGee Wealth Management, an independent firm is a fee based advisory wealth management firm integrating financial services with holistic planning, consulting, and asset management. With the exemplary credentialed staff, comprehensive services, and philanthropic recognition, McGee Wealth Management believes their Making Life a Richer Experience motto exemplifies their stellar client relationships, built on trust and collaboration, with a strong focus on the financial needs of multi-generational families. McGee Wealth Managements key team members include Judith McGee, L.H.D., C.F.P., ChFC, CEO/Chairwoman (MWM) & Co-Branch manager (RJFS), D. Linette Dobbins, CFP, President/CCO (MWM) & Co-Branch Manager (RJFS), and Jennifer Currin Gutridge, CFP, Executive Vice President (MWM) and Financial Advisor (RJFS). Visit http://www.McGeeWM.com, call 503-597-2222, or write 12455 SW 68th Ave. Portland, Oregon 97223 for more information. McGee Wealth Management is an Independent Registered Investment Advisor. Securities offered through Raymond James Financial Services, Inc. Member FINRA/SIPC. Raymond James is not affiliated with Katherine Heekin, Tracy Snoyer, or the charities or organizations listed. For media requests contact Diane with Inspired Media at info@inspiredmc.com CalTech - IT Services CalTech is honored to be selected as one of the top technology providers and consultants in North America on a consistent basis, said Will Welch, CEO, CalTech. CalTech, announced today that CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, has named CalTech to its 2016 Managed Service Provider (MSP) 500 list in the Elite 150 category. This annual list recognizes North American solution providers with cutting-edge approaches to delivering managed services. Their top-notch offerings help companies navigate the complex and ever-changing landscape of IT, improve operational efficiencies, and maximize their return on IT investments. In todays fast-paced business environments, MSPs play an important role in helping companies leverage new technologies without straining their budgets or losing focus on their core business. CRNs MSP 500 list shines a light on the most forward-thinking and innovative of these key organizations. The list is divided into three categories: the MSP Pioneer 250, recognizing companies with business models weighted toward managed services and largely focused on the SMB market; the MSP Elite 150, recognizing large, data center-focused MSPs with a strong mix of on-premise and off-premise services; and the MSP Hosting Service Provider 100, recognizing MSPs focused primarily on off-premise, cloud-based services. CalTech is honored to be selected as one of the top technology providers and consultants in North America on a consistent basis. This accolade is a testament to all of the extraordinary employees that live and breathe our mission of building lasting relationships and delivering value through exceptional technology services, said Will Welch, CEO, CalTech. The MSP 500 list will be featured in the February 2016 issue of CRN and online at http://www.CRN.com/msp500/. About CalTech Committed to providing best in class service, CalTech specializes in optimizing technology for financial institutions by designing unique business-aligned IT strategies. By creating an innovative IT environment within your organization, CalTech gives you the ability to have flexible functionality and a competitive business advantage that yields positive outcomes. With over 25 years of experience in the financial industry, CalTechs services and solutions are designed to increase your financial institutions profitability, productivity, and efficiency while ensuring the security and prosperity of your business. # # # SearchDex makes it to Marketing Tech Insights top SEO solution providers list for its SEO specialization and multi-language support, allowing ecommerce sites to penetrate international markets. The annual list showcases the 10 Most Promising SEO Solution Providers for 2016. The positioning is based on an evaluation of SearchDexs expertise in SEO programs and allowing clients the ability to manage SEO programs independent of their IT departments, freeing internal resources. The annual list of companies is selected by a panel of experts and members of Marketing Tech Insights editorial board to recognize and promote technology entrepreneurship. SearchDex has been selected after being evaluated across more than a dozen quantitative and qualitative elements. Experts have made the decision by taking into consideration the companys experience, industry recognition, technical certifications, market presence and positive client reviews. SearchDex has been on our radar for some time now for stirring a revolution in SEO Service & Technology and we are happy to showcase them this year due to their continuing excellence in delivering top-notch marketing-technology driven solutions, said Debra Morgan, Managing Editor, Marketing Tech Insights. SearchDex continued to break new ground within the past year benefiting its customers around the globe, and were excited to have them featured on our top companies list. About Marketing Tech Insights Based in Fremont, California, Marketing Tech Insights aims at blending marketing technology with strategies and tactics and deliver in the context and meet the expectations of current generation. It covers sectors like customer engagement, market research, direct marketing, customer service, sales, media planning, product pricing and also offers deep insights, news and analysis into the business of marketing, concentrating on the most happening technologies. For more info: http://www.marketingtechinsights.com. About SearchDex SearchDex, founded in 1998, is a privately held Dallas based SEO Service and Technology company that encompasses eCommerce solutions including: organic search (SEO), Consulting, ROI forecasting and analytics, site design, and other vital areas of e-commerce. SearchDex delivers our services and consulting engagements via a team of highly qualified and experienced project managers and development resources. For more info: http://www.searchdex.com http://www.marketingtechinsights.com/magazines/February/2016/ Parliament Hill Everything came together for a seamless presentation and we have a very good history of working with the Christie products this being the third show we have used Christie. The Northern Lights will be visible on Canadas Parliament buildings again this summer thanks to a striking new projection mapping show delivered by 17 Christie 3DLP projectors with content provided by id3. The half hour Northern Lights show celebrates Canadian history, achievements, the majesty of its vast landscape and the diversity of its people. The 2016 show runs from July 9 to September 10. With this revised mapping, Northern Lights is twice as bright with twice the contrast compared with its predecessor Mosaika - which used nine Christie projectors. The new presentation immerses the audience into the Canadian experience with a 7.1 audio track with full narration, 44 moving lights and over 100 LED lights. This thrilling thematic journey through Canadas history unfolds on the 472-feet long, six-story high Parliament Building and 302-feet tall Peace Tower. Northern Lights is a marvelous accomplishment that showcases what it means to be Canadian in a way that is visually fascinating, instructive and engaging, said Kathryn Cress, vice president, global and corporate marketing, Christie. We are honored the Department of Canadian Heritage uses Christie technology for this unforgettable tribute to Canada and its people. The show is divided into five books, each with its own theme. Book One: Foundations of the Nation A fluid ink-in-water style is used to paint stories of how people from all over the world have expanded Canadian foundations. From traditional indigenous ways of life and early European settlements to modern citizenship ceremonies, these stories are linked by peoples desire to call Canada home. Book Two: Strength in Partnership Partnership and determination have made Canada strong. Using an illustration style inspired by classical paintings, this book explores alliances that have shaped Canada. Book Three: Discovery and Adventure A lithographic style takes audiences on a voyage highlighting the achievements of explorers, scientists and innovators whose quests into the unknown continue to inspire us to follow our dreams. Book Four: Valor This powerful book combines dramatic performances with archival materials and charcoal drawings to honor the men and women who have served their country, both at home and abroad, in military conflicts since the First World War. Book Five: Pride and Vision Inspired by the stained glass windows of the Memorial Chamber in the Peace Tower, this intensely colorful book celebrates the natural grandeur of Canada and the diversity of its people. Trusting Christie technology again and the Vaux Wall Jean-Marc Beauvalet, Manager of Technical Services at the Department of Canadian Heritage, said the additional brightness, color uniformity and superior edge blending of Christie projectors is a huge asset especially with each book using different visuals and blends, and evoking different moods. Everything came together for a seamless presentation and we have a very good history of working with the Christie products this being the third show we have used Christie. The yellows and oranges against the blacks really come through much sharper because of the higher contrast we now have, said Beauvalet. The brightness is so much stronger than before, especially in certain areas on the Parliament building that were mapped with only one projector on the Mosaika show, Beauvalet continued. However, for this show, we have three Christie projectors in the same area so we are tripling the brightness - it makes for a dramatic difference. You can see some of the most succinct images or the more distant visuals that are used, the capacity of the projector to reproduce the images and the colors that were chosen are big pluses. As the home of the Canadian Parliament and a tourist attraction drawing millions annually, the Parliament building is almost sacred ground and the installation team has to tread carefully. We cant be blowing out holes where we need them to run cables and we cant bolt things to the wall. We have to make sure that during the day, the Parliament doesnt have all this equipment in front of it; it has to look like the Parliament building, added Beauvalet. Right at the base of the building is a wall that is called the Vaux Wall and, right in front of it, is trees and shrubs then a space between the shrubs and the wall. We hide a majority of the equipment behind the shrubs, but cant touch the wall or dig into the ground. The magic comes from not seeing the sources of light or sound and people discover this hidden gem that is seen only at night when it is turned on. A swell of national pride At the end of the show during O Canada, there is a swell of national pride that overcomes people and they all stand up during the playing it is quite magical to see, concluded Beauvalet. The comments I get about the technology have all been extremely positive and everyone is blown away by how bright, loud, and clear the show is. Its the same with the content: we get a lot of really good comments on the story we tell and how we do it. About Christie Christie Digital Systems Canada Inc. is a global visual and audio technologies company and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ushio, Inc., Japan, (JP:6925). Consistently setting the standards by being the first to market some of the worlds most advanced projectors and complete system displays, Christie is recognized as one of the most innovative visual technology companies in the world. From retail displays to Hollywood, mission critical command centers to classrooms and training simulators, Christie display solutions and projectors capture the attention of audiences around the world with dynamic and stunning images. Visit http://www.christiedigital.com We have people in our neighborhood who do not have resources to pay for cornea transplantation, so the Gratis Tissue Fund makes it possible to provide for those in need. Lions Eye Bank of Delaware Valley (LEBDV) is pleased to announce that the Matching Funds Challenge Campaign exceeded its goal of $30,000 from community donors, allowing the Eye Bank to provide gratis tissue for sight-restoring transplant surgery to 19 individuals. Board of Trustees and very generous supporters, Arthur and Debbie Roedel, Past District Governors from Mercer County, NJ, donated $30,000 to support the match challenge, raising a total of more than $60,000. We are grateful for the generous contributions and continued support from the community. We have people in our neighborhood who do not have resources to pay for cornea transplantation, so the Gratis Tissue Fund makes it possible to provide for those in need, says Jim Quirk, LEBDV President and CEO. Requests for financial assistance have doubled since 2012. To date, every request for financial aid has been granted by the Eye Bank. We believe that everyone should have access to sight, adds Quirk. Ability to pay should not be a barrier to ones ability to see. Anthonys mother, Terry, thanks those who supported the Gratis Tissue Fund. Anthony and family are forever grateful for your life-changing gift. Anthony, who has Down syndrome and resides in Bayville, NJ, has restored vision because of the Gratis Tissue Fund. There are no words to thank you enough, she says. Recipients of the Gratis Tissue Fund come from all walks of life. Forty-two transplants were made possible during the Eye Banks 2014-15 fiscal year. The cost associated in making those transplants possible was more than $125,000. Lions Eye Bank of Delaware Valley is a nonprofit organization that obtains, medically evaluates and distributes human corneas for transplant, research and education. Since 1957, Lions Eye Bank has provided corneal tissue to nearly 40,000 individuals in need of a sight-restoring or sight-improving transplant. LEBDV is one of the nations first and Delaware Valleys only Eye Bank. Its mission is restoration of sight through corneal transplantation. LEBDV is a founding member of the Eye Bank Association of America (http://www.restoresight.com), the nationally-recognized accrediting organization. Lions Eye Bank of Delaware Valley is still accepting donations. For more information, visit the website, http://www.LEBDV.org or call Jerilyn Krawczyk at 215-563-1679. Inmar Corporate Counsel, Mark Johnson, was honored at an awards ceremony today as a young professional who is driving success for his company and making an impact in his community. Johnson has been named among the 2016 40 Leaders Under 40 by the Triad Business Journal. Johnson joined Inmar in February 2014, providing legal advice and assistance in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, commercial contracts and data rights. He has also taken a leadership role with Inmars rapidly growing summer intern program. In addition to serving as a trusted member of Inmars Legal team, Johnson contributes significant energy and leadership to his community. He is an active supporter of the United Way and serves as an At-Large Board Member for Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Board of Education. Prior to attending law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he was a Corps Member for Teach for America. Mark has provided exceptional leadership during Inmars numerous acquisitions over the past several years, says Inmar Chairman and CEO David Mounts. He has established a reputation as a trusted counselor and someone committed to helping those around him succeed, adding that This recognition is well-deserved. Prior to joining Inmar, Johnson was an associate in Womble Carlyles Corporate and Securities Practice Group. His practice focused on assisting large and small, publicly and privately held companies with corporate and securities needs ranging from mergers, acquisitions and other complex business transactions. ### About Inmar Inmar is a technology company that operates intelligent commerce networks. Our platforms connect offline and online transactions in real time for leading retailers, manufacturers and trading partners across multiple industries who rely on Inmar to securely manage billions of dollars in transactions. Our Promotions, Supply Chain and Healthcare platforms enable commerce, generate meaningful data and offer growth-minded leaders actionable analytics and execution with real-time visibility. Founded in 1980, Inmar is headquartered in Winston-Salem, North Carolina with locations throughout the United States, Mexico and Canada. Steve Fox is a valuable member of the Sonitrol Security team. Not only does he succeed in sales and service, he is an inspiration to everyone in the company. We are proud that he is being recognized nationally for his efforts. Sonitrol Security has announced that Stephen Fox, Regional Manager, Sonitrol Security of Delaware Valley, has received the 2015 Sales Warrior Program award. Fox finished second out of 159 representatives in the Chief Division (TCV) Total Contract Value of more than $3 million category. This is the first time Fox has been recognized for his outstanding sales and customer satisfaction. He will be officially honored at the Annual Conference in Indianapolis on April 16, 2016, and will receive a five day cruise to the Caribbean in February as part of his award. According to Joe Allen, Vice-President/Owner, Steve Fox is a valuable member of the Sonitrol Security team. Not only does he succeed in sales and service, he is an inspiration to everyone in the company. We are proud that he is being recognized nationally for his efforts. Sonitrol Security of Delaware Valley provides a single source of integrated, state-of-the-art security solutions for intrusion, video, access control and fire, all backed with professional monitoring by experienced, trained personnel. The ability to VERIFY an alarm event in real time gives the security company unrivaled credibility with local law enforcement. The company also enjoys the best apprehension rate in the industry and the fewest dispatches for false alarms. As of December 2015, the company recorded 172,711 successful apprehensions. For more information, visit http://www.sonitrolde.com or contact Joe Allen, Vice-President/Owner, Sonitrol Security of Delaware Valley at (302) 652-3060. About Sonitrol Security of Delaware Valley Since 1964, Sonitrol of Delaware Valley has been providing both business and home security systems using the latest technology and top-notch customer service. Operating in over 180 cities throughout the world, Sonitrol offers unique audio intrusion systems as well as access control systems and fire protection. To learn more, visit http://www.sonitrolde.com. AmpliTube Mesa/Boogie for iPhone and iPad from IK Multimedia IK Multimedia is proud to debut the release of AmpliTube MESA/Boogie for iPhone and iPad. Based on the popular desktop tone software, the AmpliTube MESA/Boogie app is a close collaboration between IK Multimedia and the R&D Team at Mesa Engineering that lets musicians play their guitar through models of some of the manufacturer's most iconic amplifiers and cabinets. AmpliTube MESA/Boogie now gives guitarists the power to play through models of some of MESA/Boogie's most famous genre-defining amplifiers and cabinets on their iPhone or iPad. These exciting models deliver everything from the gorgeous clean sounds, percussive aggression and tight crunch of the Dual Rectifier and Triple Rectifier to the violin-like sustain of the MARK III and MARK IV to the ultra-flexible mid-gain British leanings of the TransAtlantic TA-30. Like all AmpliTube virtual gear, these models have been carefully crafted to sound, look and perform as close to their hardware counterparts as possible. Each model has been examined and approved by the R&D Team at Mesa Engineering. In addition to the MESA/Boogie gear, AmpliTube MESA/Boogie also comes with 6 versatile stompboxes that let guitar and bass players build and play with their dream MESA/Boogie tone rig anytime and anywhere. AmpliTube MESA/Boogie also offers players a complete lineup of extreme mobile usefulness: there's a built-in single track recorder that's expandable up to 8 tracks with full waveform editing, a built-in drummer, an optional 4-track looper, a tuner, metronome, preset browsing system and more. The amplifiers and cabinets available in AmpliTube MESA/Boogie include: MESA/Boogie Dual and Triple Rectifier: THE standard for modern high-gain heavy guitar tone. The Rectifier amps are aggressive amplifiers for aggressive players. Effectively two different power section versions of the same amp introduced in 1991, these amps deliver maximum tone flexibility and serious rock attitude. Both have played a major role in defining the sound of grunge, metal and countless other forms of hard and heavy music. Each amp offers 3-channel, 8-mode operation and varying levels of tube saturation, plus a switchable virtual tube/solid state rectifier section. Soul, personality and feel: The Rectifiers provide a tremendous range of sounds that can be everything from crushingly percussive to liquid and elastic. These amps provide a high-gain response that can't be found anywhere else. MESA/Boogie Mark III: This amp from 1984 is the first original 3-channel "Tri-Modal Amplifier" design. It features an amazing set of sonic sculpting tools via its original three-channel setup: Rhythm, a distinct midrange "Crunch" Rhythm and a Lead channel with independent gain and master volume controls. And, just like on the hardware amp it's based on, it features a full spread of tone controls as well as the vitally important Boogie 5-band Graphic EQ section. When combined, it provides for a huge range of additional tone tweaking options that make it easy for players to easily recreate the sounds they hear in their heads. MESA/Boogie Mark IV: An improvement on a classic, this amp from 1989 takes everything that made the Mark III the standard for Boogie tone in that era and makes it even better. Three big sounds with individual controls define the tonal palette for this powerhouse of a unit. Its three channels allow it to deliver an incredibly wide sonic array that stretches from sparkling clean tones to ultra high-gain lead sounds that are rich with harmonics and sustain. It's the very definition of MESA/Boogie's signature high-gain sound. MESA/Boogie TransAtlantic TA-30: A decidedly British MESA/Boogie tribute. This model captures the essence of what, for MESA, was an exercise in simplicity of operation and comprehensive tonal control. It features two-channel operation and 5 distinct "Mode" voicing choices that reference several classic British and American circuits. Throw in the Gain Boost feature and two high-gain options (HI 1 and HI 2 in Channel 2), and this model covers everything from classic 60's to crushing contemporary. Each channel also features the flexibility of 3 levels of output power. This allows for a full range of power response and character that adds yet another level of accuracy and authenticity to its preamp sounds! This amp may be the most versatile yet simple-to-use MESA amplifier ever made, and it covers anything and everything the other models might miss due to their higher power ranges and gain structures. Stomp on it In addition to these extremely popular and powerful amplifier/cabinet combos, AmpliTube MESA/Boogie also comes with 6 stomps. Made by the team at IK, these stomps compliment the creativity of the name-brand gear. There's a Noise Filter for gating unwanted sound between riffs. There's a Metal Wah that's tailor made for adding color to those righteous metal solos. There's a Sustainer that punches up solos and allows for unreal note sustain. Obsession is a delay pedal with EQ control. Surfer is a shimmering flanger that can be used to add different modulation flavors to regular playing and soloing. And, finally, Monster Booster can be used to boost the overall signal to the amps by up to 25dB. Features and more Like all mobile versions of AmpliTube, AmpliTube MESA/Boogie is modular - and can be enhanced via a variety of powerful in-app purchases: Its built-in single track recorder can be expanded to 8-tracks. A waveform view can be added for DAW-style editing. There's a Cab Room that allows 3-D miking of cabinets with up to 2 microphones at a time (16 studio mics are available for purchase). Its Looper allows for quick and easy looping of up to 4 different loops. Loop Drummer is an essential rhythmic tool for accompaniment. And, with the included Song/Speed Trainer section, any player can load and slow down, or speed up their favorite songs without affecting the pitch. Plugging in to a world of sound With IK Multimedia's range of interfaces for mobile devices, getting tone from AmpliTube MESA/Boogie is as simple as plugging into an amplifier. iRig 2, iRig HD, iRig PRO and iRig Pro DUO are IK's latest generation of interfaces that allow players to plug in and get pristine, pure sound quality from their Mac or PC (or iPhone or iPad). AmpliTube MESA/Boogie features full MIDI integration and can be controlled with standard MIDI controllers like the iRig BlueBoard compact wireless foot controller. Pricing and availability AmpliTube MESA/Boogie for iPhone/iPad is a universal app available now as a standalone app with all amps, cabs and stomps included for just $/24.99 from the App Store. Additionally, AmpliTube MESA/Boogie models are available as in-app purchases inside of AmpliTube for iPhone and AmpliTube for iPad as a complete gear bundle for $/24.99, or $/9.99 for individual amps and $/2.99 for individual stomps. To download AmpliTube MESA/Boogie on the App Store, please visit: http://www.appstore.com/amplitubemesaboogie For more information, please visit: http://www.amplitube.com/mesaboogie There is a growing distrust in industrial food, a system thats flawed in many ways... whats lacking is transparency. LocalLocal aims to help conscious consumers vote with their dollars. -Reed Shelger, Founder The steady growth of farmers markets and farm-to-table restaurants are indicative of the popularity of local food. But how do Locavores, the 70% of consumers who are willing to pay more for food produced close to home, know if their food is truly local? The recently launched website, LocalLocal, is making sure establishments that advertise local fare can back up their claims. LocalLocal provides an online directory for restaurants, farms, and other food retailers that procure and sell locally produced food, making it easy for consumers to find authentic local food in their area. In order to prevent local-washing, the falsification or exaggeration of claims related to local sourcing, the website offers users food chain transparency. There is a growing distrust in industrial food, a system thats flawed in many ways, said founder Reed Shelger, who holds an MBA from Rice University and worked for several years as a consultant for large food companies. Whats lacking is transparency. LocalLocal aims to help conscious consumers vote with their dollars. LocalLocal uses source verification to keep businesses honest. Heres how it works. First, farms establish profiles on LocalLocal, providing pictures and descriptions of growing practices. Profiles can also include third party certifications such as USDA Organic. Next, when restaurants and other purveyors of local food register with LocalLocal, they list the producers from which they source ingredients. Only after confirmation from the farmer and/or rancher, is the sourcing relationship verified. LocalLocal also provides a Products Available function that allows farmers to list what they produce, including details such as seasonal availability and production capacity. This feature is intended to help restaurants find the ingredients they need from farms near them. The mission of LocalLocal is to provide greater access to locally and sustainably produced food. Local food is a more environmentally friendly and sustainable alternative to food coming out of massive factory farms. Production on a smaller scale allows better treatment of land and animals, said Shelger. Currently, LocalLocal is self-funded and there is no charge to use or be listed in the directory. The companys focus is on marketing the service to increase the number of users and eventually expand the database nationwide. Shelger also hopes to launch a mobile app in the near future. For more information, visit http://www.locallocal.com. Javier Huarte with Grau & Angulo; Anita Nador with Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP; Jenni Lightowlers with FAL Lawyers; Erin Smith Aebel with Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick; Rupert Ross-Macdonald with Rouse; All lawyers are expected to perform excellent legal services, but client service is what sets you apart, Aebel said. Its a clear differentiator. I take client service very seriously. Health law attorney Erin Smith Aebel, from the full-service business law firm Shumaker, Loop and Kendrick, LLP, was awarded a 2016 Lexology Client Choice award in London last week for exemplary client service. Aebel was nominated by a client to receive the award, which is given annually to the best legal service providers around the world. She was the exclusive winner for the state of Florida in the Healthcare and Life Sciences category, and she is the only Shumaker attorney to have received the honor. All lawyers are expected to perform excellent legal services, but client service is what sets you apart, Aebel said. Its a clear differentiator. I take client service very seriously. She and her fellow awardees were chosen from a pool of more than 2,000 attorneys. Aebel spoke with other winners and was presented with her award last week at a celebratory gala at the famed One Great George Street across from the Houses of Parliament. I had the wonderful opportunity to meet lawyers from around the world, so now when I have a client who needs a lawyer outside of the U.S., I can refer them to a firm that I know provides excellent customer service, Aebel said. About Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, LLP Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, LLP is a full-service business law firm with more than 245 lawyers, 60 paralegals and 500 employees in five offices: Toledo and Columbus, Ohio; Tampa and Sarasota, Fla.; and Charlotte, N.C. In each of its markets, Shumaker is the premier provider of quality legal services to individuals, small businesses, healthcare providers, nonprofits and Fortune 500 and international corporations. Whether it's commitment to clients or work in the community, involvement lies at the core of all Shumaker, Loop & Kendricks initiatives. For more information, call 813-229-7600 or visit SLK-Law.com. About Erin Smith Aebel Erin Smith Aebel is board certified as a health law specialist by the Florida Bar. She represents physicians, hospitals and other healthcare providers in business law, including fraud and abuse, Stark, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) issues and licensure. Aebel also advises on a variety of Florida health law issues including the developing medical marijuana law. Function Point attributes part of their success to their focus on clients. Function Point actively seek to understand the needs and challenges of their clients by engaging in constant dialogue and feedback. Function Point Productivity Software is celebrating its 19th year in business providing an integrated, cloud-based project management system to creative agencies, design studios and internal marketing departments. The company ascribes its longevity and success in the fast-paced tech market to staying true to the values of its core vision, successfully adapting to the market through innovation cycles, and a relentless focus on customers. The seed of the Function Point story was planted in 1994, when Chris Wilson, Founder & CEO of Function Point, was speaking to a client of another business he was involved in. The client was struggling to develop a computer-based custom time sheet and creative project management system that would also provide financial management tools, such as quoting, purchasing and invoicing. Intrigued by the problem, Wilson seized the challenge and spent the next year developing a software solution, which was subsequently used for several years. From the start, my focus was on increasing productivity, and ultimately, profitability for customers, said Wilson. In 1997, Wilson founded Function Point Productivity Software Inc., naming the company to reflect its missionto help clients be more effective and more efficient. In late 2002, and based on his experiences developing software, Wilson decided to adjust course, and direct the focus of Function Point from being a service-based business, towards creating a SaaS based tool for the niche market of creative agencies. The Function Point product is now a cloud-based, all-in-one software solution that enables businesses to streamline their workflows, organize resources, and view the health of their projects and their business as a whole. In the early days Function Point had seven employees, but has experienced steady expansion to include 41 staff. Were growing, but were still only half the size of our competitors, said Wilson, which means were able to maintain personal and individualized service with our clients. In addition, the longevity of the company contributes positively to the continuity of client relationships and a sense of trust. Although Function Point has made a number of small pivots and one large shift in the marketplace, the company has held true to its core values. Our vision is to grow an organization where customers needs are embraced, said Wilson. We also want Function Point to be a place where everyone feels respected, and that theyre doing important work, contributing to the growth and direction of the company. Wilson believes one of the reasons behind Function Points longevity is its priority of demonstrating that clients matter. Function Points user experience employees actively seek to understand the needs and challenges of their clients by engaging in constant dialogue and feedback. These insights are delivered to Function Point software developers who work on building and releasing updates and improvements in two-week sprints using the Scrum methodology. Wilson said, When our clients have a question, they love talking to a real person, and they appreciate speaking to experts who understand their issues. Claire Strande, Account Executive at Judson Design, said, The real value of this software is the customer service, any small issue that arises I can pick up the phone and its fixed. From the germination of Function Point nearly two decades ago to the present, the company has endeavoured to help clients organize and streamline their businesses by reducing the number of platforms needed to achieve financial visibility, and manage their workflow and human resources. Before Function Point we used a whole conglomeration of apps and duct tape to manage our production company, noted Red Sanders, President at Red Productions. We did CRM with Salesforce, estimating in QuickBooks, project management in Basecamp, hours tracking in Harvest, and then had to manually sync everything back into QuickBooks for invoicing. It was such a waste of time and really created a lot of logjams that slowed down important steps like invoicing. Function Point came in and brought all five of those apps (including the duct tape) into one clean system for us. While the team at Function Point will be happily reflecting on the growth of the company and celebrating the success of reaching the 19-year milestone, their attention is fully focused on the present, and the objective of developing the companys product vision. Function Point is currently enhancing its finance first approach, by increasing the links between the project management system and financial reporting, so that creative agencies have even more tools at their fingertips to measure the productivity and profitability of their businesses. About Function Point Productivity Software Inc. Function Point Productivity Software is the leading all-in-one project management solution specially designed for ad agencies, design studios and internal marketing departments who are looking to streamline their business. Our integrated software combines project management, time tracking, CRM, financial, and business reporting tools in one convenient cloud based system. Easy, effective, and efficient do more with Function Point. For more information about the company and the services Function Point offers, please visit http://www.functionpoint.com We Are #DutchLuv Dutch Bros raised funds for local food organizations; ultimately allowing for its biggest Dutch Luv Day donation. Dutch Bros annual Dutch Luv Day raised $234,030 amounting to 1,638,210 pounds of food for local communities. This is an amazing result and its more than weve ever generated in Dutch Bros history, said Travis Boersma Dutch Bros Co-founder. I couldnt be more thrilled and stoked for the people we can serve. Every year, Dutch Bros celebrates Valentines Day by loving on their communities. On Feb. 14, known in the Dutch Bros world as Dutch Luv Day, all 256 locations in seven states raise funds, as well as awareness for local food organizations. This year, all Dutch Bros locations donated $1 from every drink sold. On average a $1 donation allows food banks to purchase 7 pounds of nutritious food that immensely benefits people in need. Together, with the help of their communities Dutch Bros was able to raise $234,030 for local food organizations, which allows food banks to purchase 1,638,210 pounds of food. In turn, providing 1.3 million meals for local families and people in need of support. By shifting Dutch Luv day from a canned food drive to a $1 per drink sold, Dutch Bros was able to increase the pounds of food raised from 487,966 pounds in 2015 to over 1.6 million this year. To learn about the organization being supported near you and the amount raised in each community visit, http://www.dutchbros.com/news ### About Dutch Bros Coffee Dutch Bros Coffee is the countrys largest privately held, drive-thru coffee company, with over 250 locations and over 5,000 employees in seven states. Dutch Bros serves specialty coffee, smoothies, freezes, teas and a private-label, Dutch Bros Blue Rebel energy drink. The rich, proprietary coffee blend is handcrafted from start to finish. Every ingredient is measured, every process timed, and every cup perfected. With a mission of, Making a Difference, One Cup at a Time, Dutch Bros donates over $2 million annually to nonprofit organizations and local causes selected by local owner-operators. Dutch Bros Coffee is headquartered in Grants Pass, Ore., where it was founded in 1992 by Dane and Travis Boersma, brothers of Dutch descent. To learn more about Dutch Bros, visit http://www.dutchbros.com, like Dutch Bros Coffee on Facebook or follow @DutchBros on Twitter. FOR MEDIA ONLY Contact: Jen Wheatley, pr(at)dutchbros(dot)com, 541.226.7787 Dan is a rare visionary technical and strategic leader who thinks deeply about how to leverage Sitecore to improve healthcare outcomes for our clients," said Paul Griffiths, CEO + Founding Partner of MedTouch. MedTouch, the online strategy and technology partner for the best brands in healthcare, today announced that Dan Persson, Vice President of Technology, has been named a Digital Strategist Most Valuable Professional (MVP) by Sitecore, the global leader in experience management software. Dan was one of only 35 people worldwide to be named a Sitecore Digital Strategist MVP this year. Now it its tenth year, Sitecores MVP program recognizes individual technology, digital strategy, and commerce advocates who share their Sitecore passion and expertise to offer positive customer experiences that drive business results. The Sitecore Digital Strategist MVP Award recognizes individuals with strong experience in executing data-driven marketing solutions and proven success in using Sitecores experience platform to deliver exceptional business outcomes for customers. Dan brings more than 15 years of experience in content management software and experience as a long-standing Sitecore-certified developer to MedTouch, where he provides strategic leadership and leads the MedTouch Product and Implementation Team. His experience as a technical consultant and strategist to key MedTouch healthcare clients is unparalleled in the healthcare space with 53+ Sitecore healthcare implementations, including numerous personalization strategic implementations through the Sitecore Experience Database (xDB). As the Vice President of Technology at MedTouch, Dan is instrumental in building and developing healthcare modules for Sitecore, such as provider directories, location directories and calendar, and the MedTouch Healthcare Accelerator Framework, a taxonomy solution developed exclusively for Sitecore. MedTouch is the only Sitecore partner that is exclusively healthcare focused and one of 12 Sitecore Platinum Implementation Partners recognized for thought leadership, Sitecore expertise, and best practices for Sitecore implementation and integrated digital strategy. Its a great honor to have our team recognized by Sitecore, said Paul Griffiths, CEO + Founding Partner of MedTouch. Dan is a rare visionary technical and strategic leader who thinks deeply about how to leverage Sitecore to improve healthcare outcomes for our clients. He continues to have a profound impact not only as a leader at MedTouch, but also building the client experience and delivering exceptional business outcomes. Marketers are overloaded by siloed data and are looking for a simple way to access a single view of their customers, said Pieter Brinkman, Director of Developer and Platform Evangelism, Sitecore. Using Sitecores experience platform, Dan Persson has helped healthcare clients execute relevant, multichannel brand experiences resulting in exceptional business outcomes for their patients, providers, and members. Sitecores experience platform combines web content management, omnichannel digital delivery, customer insight and engagement, and strategic digital marketing tools into a single, unified platform. The platform is incredibly easy to use, capturing every minute interactionand intentionthat customers and prospects have with a brand, both on a website and across other digital channels. The end-to-end experience technology works behind the scenes to deliver context marketing to individual customers, so that they engage in relevant brand experiences that earn loyalty and achieve results. MedTouch is proud to be the online strategy and technology partner for the best brands in healthcare. Clients select us because our depth of experience brings clear vision to complex projects. With a dedicated healthcare team, a strong understanding of digital strategy and technical requirements, and demonstrated experience developing websites, MedTouch will help you discover potential and deliver results. MedTouch has four locations across the U.S. and was named to the Inc. 500 | 5000, an annual list of the fastest-growing private companies, in 2013, 2014 and 2015. http://www.medtouch.com Larson Financial Group employees take a break from volunteering at Urban K-Life to pose for a group picture. Were very fortunate to have so many employees committed to making a difference in the lives of people in the St. Louis area. Larson Financial Group (LFG) is always striving to make a difference, whether it is in the workplace or within the community. On an early Saturday morning, the organization participated in several service projects during their annual winter conference held the weekend of January 29 through January 31. The employees of Larson Financial Group visited four local non-profit organizations, including: Restore St. Louis, Urban K-Life, Gateway 180 and Covenant House. Restore St. Louis is a network of Christian ministries that moved into abandoned neighborhoods to help reestablish homes that are uninhabitable. A group of LFG employees helped gut this home for a couple who will be moving to the neighborhood, so it can once again be livable. They worked together to pull carpet/padding, clean the basement, replace cabinets in the kitchen and tear out a bathtub and replace it with a handicap accessible shower. Other employees spent the day at Gateway 180, a shelter for women, children and families experiencing the burden of homelessness. Over this particular weekend, Gateway 180 was hosting about 130 people. The LFG team was able to go in and paint three bedrooms, the entryway and the cafe. Urban K-Life brings hope to urban teenagers one relationship at a time through outreach, fellowship, mentoring and discipleship. LFG employees repainted their club room, organized storage, cleaned up the remains of recent pipe damage and deep-cleaned their kitchen. Meanwhile, other employees volunteered at Covenant House, an open intake agency committed to providing help and hope to young people ages 16-21. This group of LFG employees were able to help fold, hang up and organize a large amount of donated clothes and personal items. They also organized flyers, frames and other items so Covenant House is ready for future fundraising events. Every year during our winter conference, we always try to think of ways to impact the community that has allowed us to grow and flourish, said Paul Larson, Founder & CEO of Larson Financial Group. Were very fortunate to have so many employees committed to making a difference in the lives of people in the St. Louis area. About Larson Financial Group Larson Financial Group, LLC has offices nationwide serving over 4,000 doctors in regards to many aspects of their finances. Using a personalized, comprehensive planning approach, their primary goal is to help doctors navigate through their many unique financial options. Larson Financial Group is a part of the Doctors Only network, a network for doctors nationwide. We hope the President sees firsthand the potential of collaborating with Cubas leading biotech centers, medical schools, and strong public health system Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba (MEDICC) announced support today for President Obamas upcoming, historic trip to Cuba. For nearly two decades, MEDICC has engaged with the U.S. and Cuban health communities to improve health. We hope President Obamas visit will prioritize discussions to improving cooperation in health that will benefit Americans such as opening up joint ventures for vaccines against cancer, Zika, and other illness; and remove obstacles for Cuban medicines that are not available for U.S. patients including lifesaving diabetic foot ulcer medication that reduces amputation risk by 70 % for people with diabetic foot ulcers, said MEDICC executive director Dr. Pierre LaRamee. We hope the President sees firsthand the potential of collaborating with Cubas leading biotech centers, medical schools, and strong public health system. The MEDICC white paper, released today, A Safer, Healthier Future through U.S.-Cuba Cooperation highlights actions the president can take now, including eliminating barriers to the U.S. regulatory approval process for Cuban developed biotech and other innovations and to remove obstacles to joint ventures between U.S. and Cuban entities in health. MEDIA INQUIRIES: Dr. LaRamee is available for interviews today. Please contact: Jeannie Barbieri-Low for availability at: 805-284-7959. Since 1997, MEDICC has worked to enhance cooperation among the U.S., Cuban and global health communities aimed at better health outcomes and equity. MEDICC produced the feature film Salud! and publishes the MEDLINE-indexed journal MEDICC Review. MEDICC supports research in Cuba by U.S. health professionals, assists U.S. students and graduates of Havanas Latin American Medical School to return to U.S. underserved communities, and organizes Community Partnerships for Health Equity to improve health care and access in communities including: South Los Angeles and Oakland, CA; Albuquerque, NM; Bronx, New York; Summit County, Ohio; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Red Mesa, Navajo Nation; as well as with four California Endowment Building Healthy Communities sites (Kern County, Del Norte County, San Diego and South Los Angeles). http://www.medicc.org and http://www.medicc.org/mediccreview The Chicago Shorts Festival is a great opportunity for college students with a passion for film-making. Robert Morris University Illinois invites college students with a passion for film-making to participate in the Third Annual Chicago Shorts Festival. Last year RMU received over 120 entries from across the US and from eight countries. It will be exciting to see the work of future film-makers on the big screen at the Gene Siskel Film Center on State Street in Chicago where the top scoring films will be shown on April 27, 2016. All entries will go through a jurying process by industry professionals to determine the best student work. In addition to the fame that will accompany the winning entry, there will be a $1000 cash prize for the first place winner in each category. Second and third place winners will receive great prizes as well. It is free to enter and free to attend the screening. Submissions will be accepted through March 15, 2016. Students are directed to begin the application process through the Festival website: http://chicagoshortsfestival.org/ and can email questions to 2016fest(at)chicagoshortsfestival(dot)org. Robert Morris University Illinois is a not-for-profit, baccalaureate and graduate degree granting institution, accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.* The University serves over 4500 students interested in getting an education in business, graphic arts, nursing and health care, culinary and computer studies at its main campus in Chicago, as well as at locations in Arlington Heights, DuPage, Elgin, Orland Park, Bensenville, Springfield, Peoria, Schaumburg and Lake County. In all communications, please refer to the university by its full name, Robert Morris University Illinois. For more information, call 800-RMC-5960 or visit the web site at http://www.robertmorris.edu *Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, 30 N. LaSalle Street, Chicago, IL 60602, 312-263-0456. President Obama Signs READ Act "The READ Act is a game changer." - Dr. Fernette Eide, Co-Founder, Dyslexic Advantage Dyslexic Advantage applauded President Obama's signing of the READ Act or Research Excellence and Advancements for Dyslexia Act into law today. The law requires the National Science Foundation to fund research into the early identification of children and students with dyslexia, professional development for teachers and administrators of students with dyslexia, curricula and educational tools needed for children with dyslexia, and implementation and scaling of successful models of dyslexia intervention. "The READ Act is a game changer," said Dr. Fernette Eide, Co-Founder of Dyslexic Advantage. "It's just a first step, but a huge turn in the right direction to help the 8.5 million children in the public school system with dyslexia receive an appropriate education. Although 1 in 6 children are dyslexic, very few are identified in school, and teachers have not been adequately prepared to educate them in the ways they learn best. This law is important to the dyslexic community because we know how often these students have gotten left behind, and a grassroots movement of dyslexic parents, students, teachers, and professionals is finally finding their voice." Dyslexic Advantage is one of the world's largest dyslexia communities. They work toward a world where dyslexic people are known for their strengths and provide free resources for parents, teachers, and professionals through their online community and social media. DyslexicAdvantage.org Dyslexic Advantage on Facebook ### H.E. Fuad Isgandarov (centre), flanked by Marc Verwilghen, Director, TEAS Benelux (left) and Mrs Florence Reuter, Mayor of Waterloo stand before the Natavan statue Azerbaijan comes to Europe with message of peace, kindness and love. The legacy of Khurchidbanu Natavan (183297) Azerbaijans most famous poetess has been remembered with the unveiling of a sculpture in the famous town of Waterloo, located 29km from Brussels city centre and the site of Napoleon Bonapartes final and most ignominious defeat in 1815. The commissioning of the sculpture and the unveiling ceremony on 18 February were organised by the Embassy of Azerbaijan to Belgium and the City of Waterloo, with the support of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and Benelux office of The European Azerbaijan Society (TEAS). Around 100 diplomats, politicians, friends of Azerbaijan and press representatives attended the inauguration near the public library, which was followed by a reception accompanied by live music in Waterloo City Hall. Natavan was the most famous daughter of Shusha a now devastated town in Nagorno-Karabakh that has remained under illegal Armenian occupation for over 20 years. H.E. Fuad Isgandarov, Azerbaijani Ambassador to the EU, Belgium and Luxembourg described this day as one of the happiest in his life, and expressed his gratitude towards the City of Waterloo, especially Mrs Florence Reuter, Mayor of Waterloo, and Sir Yves Vander Cruysen, its First Alderman in charge of Culture and Tourism. He commented that such events would contribute towards strengthening the solid AzerbaijaniBelgian political and cultural relationship. The event took place in the presence of young Azerbaijani sculptor Imran Mehdiyev who realised the Natavan sculpture commission who was described by the Ambassador as reflecting the new westward-facing Azerbaijani generation. Ambassador Isgandarov went on to explain the significance of Natavan, and how she embodies the positive role of women in Azerbaijani society, where all women over the age of 18 received the voting franchise in 1918 as a precursor of many European countries. He concluded with a strong message addressed to the population of Belgium and across Europe, saying: Azerbaijan comes to Europe with message of peace, kindness and love. Speaking after the screening of a short documentary on Azerbaijan, Mayor Reuter emphasised the multiculturalism of Waterloo, which is home to over 100 nationalities, and explained that this event was made possible in the framework of the citys annual cultural partnership with overseas nations. She explained that Waterloo had previously demonstrated its interest in Azerbaijan when young Azerbaijani painters were offered the opportunity to showcase their work in a famous art gallery last year. She also praised Natavan for the quality of her poetry and the causes for which she fought, especially regarding the improvement of womens conditions in the 19th century. Marc Verwilghen, Director, TEAS Benelux, described Azerbaijan as a 'pearl in the Caucasus', despite being relatively little-known in Europe. He commented that writers had discussed the country since antiquity, and that Alexandre Dumas (author of 'The Three Musketeers' and 'The Count of Monte Cristo') had famously visited and written on Azerbaijan, and had met Natavan in Shusha. Strategically and geopolitically located between Europe and Asia and along the famous Caravanserai and Silk Road, he explained: Azerbaijan is historically the cradle of our own civilisation. He then commented on the extraordinary modernity of Azerbaijan, where the first opera of the Muslim East Uzeyir Hajibeylis 'Leyli and Majnun' was performed in 1908, and that it remains a secular Republic with an incredibly high degree of religious tolerance, despite being a Muslim-majority country. He predicted: There is a lot to discover, and I foresee that, in a few years from now, the country will become an exotic new tourist destination the place to be. Speaking of Natavan, Mr Verwilghen mentioned that the sculpture was symbolically sublime and revealed the beauty of the country and its rich history. He continued: The fact that a great artist, a progressive 19th century woman thinker, characterised by her love for humanity, friendship and compassion will remain amongst us in Waterloo, is not only an invitation to discover Azerbaijan, but also signifies the need for intense, close and successful cultural, economic and political collaboration. He concluded: May this gesture create a real circle of friendship between Belgians and Azerbaijanis, emulating that established by poetess Natavan in 1872. In order to achieve this, you can all count on TEAS collaboration. L to R Allison Caffas, Caffas Law and President of BNI Chapter COE, Jim Easton, US Mortgage Network, Becky McKinney, Wright Business Systems and Ed Sickmund Owner MyWay Mobile Storage of Pittsburgh. MyWay Mobile Storage of Pittsburgh is pleased to announce that Pittsburgh Market Owner, Ed Sickmund received the 2015 Notable Networker Award from his Business Networking International (BNI) chapter, Circle of Excellence. Sickmund made the most referrals (80) to the other businesses in the group during 2015. Ed Sickmund, MyWay Mobile Storage of Pittsburgh Market Owner said, Im very proud to have received this award. After all, BNI is the worlds largest referral organization and BNI celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2015. BNIs website notes that networking requires commitment. Circle of Excellence, one of 29 Pittsburgh area BNI chapters, meets Wednesday mornings in Wexford. The most successful chapters of BNI are comprised of participants who are sincerely committed to helping one another through networking. Networking and referrals are a vital part of my business. I take it very seriously, both within BNI and beyond. What goes around comes around, Sickmund commented. He continued, Ive always found that the more open I am to making referrals, the more referrals come my way. In a tough economy, its a great way to grow business and help others in the process. About Business Networking International (BNI): BNI is the largest business networking organization in the world. They offer members the opportunity to share ideas, contacts and most importantly, business referrals. BNI provides a positive, supportive, and structured environment for the development and exchange of quality business referrals. It does so by helping you build personal relationships with dozens of other qualified business professionals. Last year, members of BNI passed millions of referrals that generated 9.5 billion dollars of business for each other. To learn more about BNI visit http://www.bni.com/ and for BNI in Western Pennsylvania visit http://www.bni-westernpa.com. About MyWay Mobile Storage: MyWay Mobile Storage is the leading provider of moving and storage solutions and located in a spacious 27,500 square foot facility in West Mifflin, PA to better service their customers in the metropolitan Pittsburgh area. They provide quick and easy do it yourself moving containers that can be delivered right to your door and stored in their climate controlled, secure storage facilities. Sickmund and Myway Mobile Storage are also involved with the Realtors Association of Metropolitan Pittsburgh (RAMP), National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), Business Networking International (BNI) and the South West Communities Chamber of Commerce (SWCCOC), where Sickmund currently serves as board president. To learn more about MyWay Mobile Storage, visit http://www.mywaystorage.com or call 888-336-9929 to speak with a Moving & Storage Consultant. This is the place where Peanut Butter & Co. was born, so of course Im a little sad to see it close. But the truth is, its just sooo small. Peanut Butter & Co., a pioneer in the natural specialty food industry, announced today that it will close its eponymous sandwich shop located at 240 Sullivan Street in Greenwich Village, New York. After more than 17 years and well over a million peanut butter sandwiches served, the shop will close on the evening of Sunday, February 21, 2016. Sales of the Companys signature line of peanut butter, currently sold in over 15,000 supermarkets and natural food stores throughout the United States and abroad, will continue without interruption. The Peanut Butter & Co. Sandwich Shop was opened by company Founder & President Lee Zalben on December 21, 1998 and is credited with launching the single-ingredient restaurant phenomenon in New York City, which now encompasses a myriad of restaurants devoted to single ingredients like macaroni & cheese, meatballs, rice pudding, or lobster rolls, to name just a few. From the shops earliest days, Zalben began bottling his ten flavors of all-natural peanut butter and selling them in the shop. By 2000, a buyer from nearby Dean & Deluca insisted on opening up a wholesale account to resell Zalben's peanut butter, something that he hadnt planned on at the time. The wholesale business flourished, and in 2003 Peanut Butter & Co. built a small factory in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn. The company produced its peanut butter there until 2006 when production moved to Georgia to be closer to the where the peanuts are farmed. Sales continued to grow, and Peanut Butter & Co. evolved into a leading national brand of natural peanut butter. I love this little shop, says Lee Zalben. This is the place where Peanut Butter & Co. was born, so of course Im a little sad to see it close. But the truth is, its just sooo small. In the last several years weve grown in so many ways and when customers visit, theyre expecting a grand flagship for the brand, not a homey little shop. He continues, We dont have anywhere to showcase all of our new innovations like our Mighty Nut line of powdered peanut butter and our Chocmeister line of chocolate hazelnut spreads. In the future, we hope to find another location with enough space to expand the menu. Until then, were excited at the opportunity to try out some pop-ups and maybe even go mobile with a PB&J food truck! Over the years the Sandwich Shop racked up numerous accolades including being named a Top Bang for the Buck by the Zagat Survey and winning an Eat Out Award from Time Out Magazine. The sandwich shop was also featured in numerous television shows on the Food Network and Travel Channel and was featured in countless guidebooks, newspapers, magazines, and blogs. Ive cooked up some great memories here, and Im grateful to the incredible staff that contributed to our story and all of the customers that made us a part of their lives. About Peanut Butter & Co. Peanut Butter & Co. is one of the fastest growing natural/specialty food companies in the US. The companys ten varieties of all natural, flavored peanut butter are available in over 15,000 supermarkets and specialty retailers, and Dark Chocolate Dreams, the companys chocolate flavored peanut butter, is the #1 selling all natural chocolate nut spread in the country (Source: IRI). Peanut Butter & Co.s products are made exclusively from USA-grown peanuts. Find out more at ilovepeanutbutter.com, Facebook.com/PeanutButterCo, and Twitter.com/PeanutButterCo With almost two centuries of experience behind us, we have acquired a wealth of knowledge and expertise, which we use to create a carefully curated selection of superior-quality jewelry and diamonds to satisfy even the most discriminating of tastes. This year, Bromberg & Company, Inc. will celebrate its 180th year in business as a retailer of fine jewelry. The company first opened in 1836 in Mobile, Alabama, only 17 years after Alabama achieved statehood. Bromberg's currently operates at two retail locationsMountain Brook Village in Mountain Brook, Alabama and The Summit in Birmingham, Alabama. Bromberg's is the oldest company in continuous operation in the state of Alabama, and to quote In Store Magazine, "Bromberg's has the honor of being the oldest family-owned retail business of any kind in the U.S." The company is currently operated by the sixth generation of Brombergs, and maintains its corporate offices and stockroom on 2nd Avenue North in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. Were tremendously proud of our long and distinguished history, says Bromberg & Company, Inc. President Frederick W. Bromberg. And with almost two centuries of experience behind us, we have acquired a wealth of knowledge and expertise, which we use to create a carefully curated selection of superior-quality jewelry and diamonds to satisfy even the most discriminating of tastes. We look forward to continued prosperity in the decades to come and remain committed to our mission to provide exceptional service and the very best in fine jewelry to Birmingham and beyond. The fascinating history of Brombergs is a story of preservation; the company has endured through both local and national economic catastrophes, devastating fires, four wars and other adversities, and yet managed to thrive and expand, developing a reputation for high ethical standards and an exceptional selection of fine jewelry and diamonds. The Bromberg story originates in the early 1800s, in the prosperous Prussian village of Bromberg. The family enjoyed a prominent status in the city, but after the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the city suffered economic decline and fell under the rule of Poland. So, in 1832, a young silversmith and jewel merchant named Frederick Bromberg immigrated to America in search of better opportunities. He arrived in New York, where he met and married a fellow recent immigrant and native of Hamburg, Germany, Lisette Cunigarde Doreathea Beetz. In 1836, the couple moved south to Mobile, a city, they were told, that offered a temperate climate, sophisticated culture, and plentiful opportunity. Bromberg quickly established himself and opened a store in the new city. In 1900, the business was moved to Birmingham, which had recently surpassed Mobile as the largest city in Alabama. Here, Bromberg's has enjoyed considerable growth and prosperity. Frederick W. Bromberg attributes the companys success and longevity to hard work, dedication to excellence in customer relations and a commitment to offering only the finest products in the fine jewelry industry. For more information on the anniversary of Bromberg's, visit http://www.brombergs.com or call the company directly at (205) 969-1776 or (205) 871-3276. Interested parties can also visit the stores in person at 131 Summit Boulevard, Birmingham, Alabama 35243 and 2800 Cahaba Road, Mountain Brook, Alabama 25223. Bromberg & Company, Inc. has served the state of Alabama for nearly two centuries, offering the very best selection of quality diamonds and jewelry. It is the only jewelry store in the Birmingham area that is a member of the American Gem Society, and they utilize state-of-the-art tools, such as the ASET, with which clients can examine the quality and cut of the diamonds they offer. We needed to better serve our clients that live and work in Chicago and follow growth of our expanding business, said Trial Lawyer Gary A. Newland, an American Society of Legal Advocates Top 100 Litigation Lawyers in the State of Illinois in 2015. Newland & Newland, LLP is currently one of the largest law firms in the Chicago suburbs. Founded by brothers Stephen Newland and Gary Newland, the firm has grown dramatically over the last few years, with over twenty lawyers and staff. Newland & Newland, LLP has recovered millions for its clients in personal injury and workers compensation cases. Additionally, the firm does estate planning, and has developed one of the largest foreclosure defense and bankruptcy practices in the Chicago area. The new office, located on the 37th floor at 180 North Lasalle, Chicago, IL, also includes four recently hired attorney associates: Erin Sievers will be handling workers compensation; Erin Walgrave will be working on personal injury cases; Katrine Lazarz will be handling estate planning, probate and real estate closings; and Laurel Thomsen on foreclosure defense and real estate litigation. We are excited about these new additions and what they bring to the table, said Stephen Newland. With these consummate professionals at the helm, the new office is sure to be a success, and we are still maintaining our Arlington Heights, Libertyville, Itasca and Cary offices. We are centrally located, easily accessible by public transportation and we have discounted parking for our clients that drive. In addition to a new office, the Honorable James Etchingham recently joined Newland & Newland, LLP in an of counsel relationship. Judge Etchingham retired from the bench after hearing cases for almost 20 years and having a successful private practice. The Illinois Supreme Court appointed Judge Etchingham in 1994, and he received one of the Northwest Suburban Bar Associations highest and most prestigious awards for his distinguished public service. For more information about Newland & Newland, LLPs Chicago office, please call (312) 346-0409. About Newland & Newland, LLP Newland & Newland, LLP represents clients throughout Cook County, Lake County, Kane County, McHenry County, DuPage County and Will County in the practice areas of foreclosure defense, loan modifications, bankruptcy, personal injury and workers compensation. The memberships of their attorneys include the Illinois State Bar Association, Northwest Suburban Bar Association, Lake County Bar Association, Chicago Bar Association, Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, the Association of Foreclosure Defense Attorneys and the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys. Newland & Newland, LLP serves clients through multiple offices in Arlington Heights, Libertyville, Cary, and Chicago. For more information or to schedule a free consultation, please call (847) 549-0000. About the NALA The NALA offers local business owners new online advertising & small business marketing tools, great business benefits, education and money-saving programs, as well as a charity program. For media inquiries, please call 805.650.6121, ext. 361. 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. Kansas City booksellers Pete Cowdin and Deb Pettid, who have owned The Reading Reptile for more than 25 years, intend to close the bookstore Pettid founded in 1988 by the end of March so that they can develop the worlds first explorastorium, a project that they have been conceptualizing for the past year. The proposed museum, inspired by Meow Wolf, an immersive experiences company in Santa Fe and St. Louiss City Museum, is called The Rabbit Hole in homage to Alice in Wonderland. It will allow visitors to physically immerse themselves in the narratives of beloved childrens books through interactive exhibits and galleries. There will also be regularly scheduled presentations and workshops led by touring authors and illustrators to complement the full-scale 3-D installations, which will change every three or four months. This is a big, big project, Cowdin told PW. We cant manage both of them. The Reading Reptile, which won a Pannell Award for excellence in childrens bookselling in 2005, is a Kansas City literary icon, famed for its collection of papier-mache sculptures created by Pettid and for irreverent programming that appeals as much to adults as it does to children. The mission of The Rabbit Hole, which is being set up as a nonprofit, is to create new readers on an unprecedented scale in a world where only around 50% of parents read aloud to their kids on a regular basis. Its time to invite readers of all ages and all abilities to engage with the book and long-form narrative in playful, artistic new ways, the projects mission statement declares, promising to change lives and change the way we think about literacy. Cowdin said that he expects The Rabbit Hole to officially launch in 2019 or even earlier, if the necessary funds can be raised. A prototype of one component of The Rabbit Hole has been installed in a temporary leased space in Kansas Citys Crossroads neighborhood. The prototype is a full-scale, walk-through exhibit bringing to life The Incredible Painting of Felix Clousseau by Jon Agee, who has assisted the Rabbit Hole team in creating it. The grand opening of this Rabbit Hole prototype will be held on April 9. Were collaborative creators, Cowdin said, Thats whats special about The Rabbit Hole. Were working with the blessings of [childrens book authors and illustrators] and their input. Were trying to model [the prototype] the way we would in the museum. Cowdin, Pettid, and their team are currently in the quiet phase of a capital campaign to raise funds to make the vision a reality. The Rabbit Hole has received to date about $400,000 in contributions from Kansas City-area individuals, foundations, and family trusts. An Indiegogo campaign is scheduled to roll out on April 4 to introduce the project to a national audience of potential funders. The Rabbit Hole is hoping to raise approximately $15 million in four stages over the next two or three years, with $8 million earmarked for exhibit construction and installation, and approximately $3 million designated for building renovations, although a site has not been procured yet. It is estimated that The Rabbit Hole will need to be housed in a 50,00075,000-square-foot space, with parking available for school buses. There are plans to include an onsite theater, print shop and bindery, library, writing labs, and a bookstore/gift shop. We are seeking a former industrial or commercial structure in the greater downtown area, states The Rabbit Hole fundraising website. Once the fundraising goals have been reached, The Rabbit Hole will become primarily self-sufficient, through a variety of revenue streams, including admission fees, programming for schools, and bookstore/gift shop sales, as well as support from national publishers, local companies, and foundations. Virtually every major publisher has endorsed the project, the website notes, including all of the Big Five and dozens of others. The Rabbit Hole will become a criterion in the publishing industry as a spiritual home and relentless advocate for childrens literature. Its eight-member board of directors includes leaders in Kansas Citys business and philanthropic communities, and Crosby Kemper III, the director of the Kansas City Public Library. Its eight-member national advisory board is a veritable Whos Who of childrens book authors and illustrators: Jon Scieszka, Kate DiCamillo, Daniel Handler, Linda Sue Park, Brian Selznick, Lisa Campbell Ernst, and Shane Evans, plus Fox Rabbit, The Rabbit Holes resident guide and chief mischief-maker. Were trying to do a lot of different things, Cowdin told PW, disclosing that a traveling exhibit is in the planning stages. Its a combination of creating, and planning, and raising money. Its going to be super fun. This story has been edited and updated. Lina Meruane, trans. from the Spanish by Megan McDowell. Deep Vellum (Consortium, dist.), $14.95 trade paper (160p) ISBN 978-1-941920-24-4 Blurring the lines between fiction and memoir, Meruanes first novel translated into English explores mortality, identity, and personal transformation. Lina, a fictionalized version of the author, experiences a severe ocular hemorrhaging that impairs her sight. The dark blood clouding Linas eyes makes it difficult for her to move around her New York City apartment or navigate the busy streets alone. She must rely heavily on her lover, Ignacio. While trying to accept the possibility that she might be blind permanently, Lina and Ignacio visit her family in Santiago, Chile. The trip home prompts Lina to examine the limitations of her ailing body, the future of her writing and doctorate studies, and the effect her illness has on those around her. As Linas condition worsens and she faces surgery, the strength of her relationship with Ignacio is tested. The book is composed of short scenes with titles, much like flash fiction. These brief glimpses into Linas life accumulate to depict a woman trying her best to hold on to a sense of self as her world disappears from sight. This is a penetrating autobiographical novel, and for English-Language readers this work serves as a stunning introduction to a remarkable author. Despite an emergence of book events in mainland China, the now 24-year-old Taipei Book Fair continues to remain a go-to trade show. This year's event, running February 16-21, featured the theme of Reading the World and counted exhibitions from 66 countries. What the Taiwan book industry lacks in size, comparing it to the neighboring market in China, it makes up for in vibrancy. Taiwan, an island of 23.5 million people has roughly 100 active publishers that produce some 40,000 new titles a year. China, which has a population of 1.25 billion, produces only 440,000 new titles a year. It's in part Taiwan's impressive title output that has kept the nation's book industry, and book fair, an attractiven event to overseas publishers. Hungary, the guest of honor at this yeat's fair, brought titles from 700 of its publishers to the fair. Zsuzsanna Szabo, project manager for Publishing Hungary, called the event a "great opportunity to present Hungarian culture, literature, music and gastronomy to this part of the world." Few American publishers, save educational presses with offices on the island, attended the show. This is largely because most small and mid-sized houses have been using local companies to both represent and distribute their titles, namely B.K. Norton and Bookman. A number of American titles are displayed at the combined Bookman/B.K. Norton booth. Adult readers in Taiwan tend to go for titles that are insightful and intellectually challenging," said Jerome Su, owner of both Bookman and B.K. Norton. Nonetheless, they do seem interested in the same fads as readers elsewhere. To that end, Su said that adult coloring books have been very popular in Taiwan the last year. He noted that some local publishers sold upwards of 500,000 copies of adult coloring books within six months of publication. For first-time exhibitor Rowohlt, the German publisher of Marie Kondos The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up, the fair offered a chance to promoted new titles. One, Martin Walsers Ein Liebender Mann (translated in English as A Loving Man), was just published in Taiwan. We sell about six to 10 titles per year to Taiwanese publishers, said foreign rights manager Susanne Begemann. Bardon Chinese Media Agency's David Tsai, said he thinks there's been a shifting interest among Taiwanese readers. "Previously, self-help and finance titles were the popular genres. Nowadays, publishers are more interested in titles about history, governance, democracy, equality and 21st-century capitalism." He illustrated his point by naming two recent bestsellers in Taiwan: Angus Deatons The Great Escape, and Peter Thiels Zero to One. Rights manager Nerrilee Weir at Penguin Random House Australia said a slow-down in the Taiwan economy has adversely affected his house's rights sales. Publishers are buying fewer titles and becoming very selective," he said. "Books that would have a chance to be sold to Taiwan four years ago are now no longer attractive to the market." Unlike publishers in China, who want "bestsellers and award winners," Taiwan publishers want books with "literary merit," Weir said. She also noted that her house has seen more local success with children's books. We have sold more childrens books than adult titles to Taiwan publishers. And although we have sold more to China in the past three to four years than to Taiwan, this market and its annual fair remain important to us." Alumni honors: - Christopher L. Woods, a College of Engineering alumnus, was appointed a vice president of Sargent & Lundy LLC. He is a project director in the fossil power group and directs environmental compliance upgrades, coal-to-gas conversion projects and new generation. He is a 1996 graduate of the materials science and engineering program and is a licensed professional engineer. - Jan Cervelli, an alumna with a bachelor's degree in landscape architecture, has been elected the 12th president of Saint Mary's College. Currently the dean of the College of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture and professor of landscape architecture at the University of Arizona, she previously was dean of the College of Architecture, Arts, and Humanities at Clemson University, and also had served as associate dean for undergraduate students and director of the Teaching and Learning Center at the University of Kentucky. St. Mary's current president, Carol Ann Mooney, will retire May 31. For more, visit https://www.saintmarys.edu/president-elect Student honors: - Two College of Liberal Arts graduate students have been named 2016 Humanities Without Walls fellowship recipients. The students will participate in a three-week summer workshop to learn from leaders in humanities fields, such as organizers of public humanities projects and experts in the various digital humanities. The workshop is facilitated and directed by the Chicago Humanities Festival and will be held in July in Chicago. Purdue's recipients are: * Katie Whitmore, a doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology. She is examining social and political change, health and identity. * Kadari Nzinghalisa Taylor-Watson, a doctoral student in the American Studies program in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies. She is studying race, gender and material culture. More information about the students and their academic projects is available online. (APN) - Seniors Gary Sung and Thomas Richardson have won second and third place, respectively, in the International Housewares Show 2016 Student Design Competition. Senior Eugenia Lee received an honorable mention. The challenge to students is to redesign a current housewares product to meet the needs of the future. Steve Visser, industrial design professor, served on the panel of judges. Rankings: - The College of Engineering online MSE with a specialization in engineering management and leadership program has been ranked No. 2 in Top Management Degrees' list of top 50 online engineering management programs. Purdue's program focuses on increasing engineering and technical skills at the systems level, and building strategic management skills, particularly those associated with leadership. The engineering courses are taught by Purdue's College of Engineering, and business courses are taught by the Indiana University Kelly School of Business. Jazz saxophonist Miguel Zenon will be in the Quad-Cities from Sunday to Feb. 27 for a residency as part of Quad City Arts Visiting Artist Series. Mr. Zenon will perform at 10 schools, Black Hawk College, Moline Public Library and Deere-Wiman House, Moline, as well as partnering with Polyrhythms for its Third Sunday Jazz series. That concert will be 6 p.m. Sunday, in the Redstone Room at River Music Experience, 129 N. Main St., Davenport. Ticket prices are $10 for general admission and $15 for reserved seating. For reservations, call Polyrhythms at 309-373-0790. A 2015 Chicago Tribune review of the (now) 39-year-old sax man and composer said: "Even if Miguel Zenon didn't command a formidable technique and excel in the immensely attractive music of his native Puerto Rico, he would lure listeners with the signature sound of his horn. "Translucent in tone, lyrical in spirit and rich in expressive nuance, Zenon's alto saxophone yields colors at once instantly recognizable yet thoroughly inimitable," the paper said. In awarding a 2008 MacArthur Foundation "genius grant," the foundation then said Mr. Zenon is "expanding the boundaries of Latin and jazz music through his elegant and innovative musical collages. As both a saxophonist and a composer, Zenon demonstrates an astonishing mastery of old and new jazz idioms, from Afro-Caribbean and Latin American rhythmical concepts to free and avant-garde jazz. "Beginning with his 2001 recording 'Looking Forward,' Zenon has exhibited a high degree of daring and sophistication in the manipulation of conventional jazz forms," according to macfound.org. The result is "a complex yet accessible sound that is overflowing with feeling and passion and maintains the integrity of the islands music," the foundation said. For more information, visit miguelzenon.com. Gary Fortune was sentenced Thursday to spend the rest of his life in prison for a "heinous" double stabbing that left a Davenport woman dead and her husband with serious injuries. In a Scott County courtroom crowded with the victims' family, Judge Paul Macek said he had no discretion over the mandatory life sentence Mr. Fortune, 49, of Rock Island, faced for murder in Iowa. "But let me tell your sir," the judge told Mr. Fortune, "that if I had discretion, I would not exercise it in your honor." At the request of prosecutors, Judge Macek ordered Mr. Fortune's life term be served consecutively with three 25-year prison terms for additional charges of attempted murder, arson and burglary he was convicted of in December. "You are peculiarly dangerous and should be segregated from society for as long as possible," Judge Macek told Mr. Fortune. "You should never be released." Mr. Fortune stared straight ahead, visibly unmoved. When asked earlier in the hearing if he wished to make a statement, he replied, "I have no comment, Your Honor." Prosecutors said Mr. Fortune stabbed Betty Simmons -- the mother of his former girlfriend, Annette Aviles -- on Sept. 8, 2014, before turning the knife on her husband, Jack Simmons, when he came to his wife's defense. Mr. Simmons managed to escape. At trial in December, Mr. Fortune said a combination of prescription pain killers and alcohol caused him to remember only "snapshots" of that day. He claimed it was Mr. Simmons who stabbed his wife and said he stabbed Mr. Simmons in self-defense. Jurors rejected his claim, however, and found Mr. Fortune guilty of four charges after less than two and a half hours of deliberations. On Thursday, Judge Macek said Mr. Fortune's prior history, "utter lack of remorse or empathy" and the "heinous, even monstrous nature of these crimes" made him a threat to the community and increased his risk of re-offending. Family members who spoke at the hearing recalled the devastating impact of Mrs. Simmons's death. Her sister, Shirley Lewis-Clayton, who spoke from out-of-state via Skype, said their close-knit relationship was like that of best friends who could speak together for hours. The "violent, brutal murder" of her sister, just days before Ms. Lewis-Clayton's birthday, sent shock-waves throughout their family, Ms. Lewis-Clayton said. "It forever changed my life," she said. "It's engraved in my memory now." Mr. Simmons said he was grateful that "justice" had been served, bringing "closure" for his wife's death. He and her mother had an "unbelievable connection" during their 23-year relationship, Ms. Aviles said, adding that loss and the threat to his own life left her stepfather with "mental anguish." Ms. Aviles said she also had struggled since her mother's death, plagued by sleepless nights and "constant" fear. "How do we find the strength to move on without her?" Ms. Aviles said, breaking into tears. "How can my family and I sleep at night in peace?" Mr. Fortune was represented by Thomas Gaul, whose request that his client's sentences be served at the same time, rather than back-to back, was denied by Judge Macek. Scott County Attorney Michael Walton, who prosecuted the case with Assistant County Attorney Kimberly Shepherd, said Thursday that the sentence was appropriate, given the "heinous" nature of the crime. At the conclusion of Thursday's hearing, Sherman Williams raised his fist in the air as his sister's killer was led out of the courtroom. He later said he believed the judge had recognized a "psychopath." "It ain't hard to look at this guy and recognize he has no remorse, no feelings about what he did," Mr. Williams said. "He could care less what he did -- you could look at him and tell -- and the judge saw right through him." He and Ms. Aviles said they weren't surprised by Mr. Fortune's decision to remain silent at sentencing, saying they did not expect anything from him but more "lies." "There's nothing you can say that will do it, so you might as well just tighten up and go on to prison," Mr. Williams said. Aislinn Pulley, who co-founded Black Lives Matter: Chicago, was among about 20 people invited to what the White House billed as an intergenerational meeting of black leaders to discuss criminal justice reform throughout the U.S., according to a White House official. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch also was expected to attend the event Thursday afternoon. Other invitees included the Rev. Al Sharpton, NAACP President Cornell Brooks, University of Missouri student organizer DeShaunya Ware and DeRay McKesson, a prominent activist running for mayor of Baltimore. Pulley has been a fixture in citywide demonstrations condemning police violence against minorities, including regular protests at Chicago Police Board meetings demanding the firing of Detective Dante Servin after the fatal shooting of Rekia Boyd in 2012. Pulley said Thursday she was not interested in being a part of what she called a photo opportunity and a 90-second sound bite for the president. I was under the impression that a meeting was being organized to facilitate a genuine exchange on the matters facing millions of Black and Brown people in the United States, Pulley wrote in an op-ed piece. I could not, with any integrity, participate in such a sham that would only serve to legitimize the false narrative that the government is working to end police brutality and the institutional racism that fuels it. For the increasing number of families fighting for justice and dignity for their kin slain by police, I refuse to give its perpetrators and enablers political cover by making an appearance among them. Local organizers have become increasingly prominent as police-related controversies have piled up, particularly those of Servin, Officer Jason Van Dyke in the fatal shooting of teenager Laquan McDonald, and Officer Robert Rialmo in the fatal shooting of Quintonio LeGrier and Bettie Jones. Protests intensified throughout the fall as activists consistently demanded the ousting of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Cook County States Attorney Anita Alvarez. The U.S. Justice Department has launched a probe into the Chicago Police Departments use-of-force policies and disciplinary procedures for officers. If the administration is serious about addressing the issues of Black Lives Matter Chicago and its sister organizations that go by different names across this nation they can start by meeting the simple demands of families who want transparency, who want police that kill Black people unjustly to be fired, indicted and held accountable, Pulley wrote. A meeting arranged to carry this out is one that would be worthy of consideration. Until this begins to happen on a mass scale, any celebrations of Black History that go on inside the walls of the White House are hollow and ceremonial at best. After the meeting, the president praised group organizers who spotlight problem policing and racial and economic inequality. Overall, what I am most encouraged by is the degree of focus and seriousness and constructiveness that exists not only with existing civil rights organizations, but this new generation, the president said, according to a transcript of his remarks. They are some serious young people. I told them that they are much better organizers than I was when I was their age, and I am confident that they are going to take America to new heights. My job is just to make sure that Im listening to them and learning from them a little bit. The Winnebago County coroner says 36-year-old Chris Thick died Tuesday when a forklift slid backward off a truck and struck him. He was a forklift mechanic for Fitzgerald Equipment Co. in Rockford. Officials said the accident happened at Fastenal, a Belvidere manufacturer. The Rockford Register Star reports that Thick and fiancee Jackie Jordan were rebuilding their lives in Belvidere after the Fairdale tornado destroyed their home. They have two sons who are ages 2 and 3 this year, and Thick had an 18-year-old son. Jordan said Thick's death was a shock. She says he was a "wonderful" man, good father and "would do anything for anyone." MILAN One of the first questions asked of Kate Hotle at a town hall meeting Thursday night was if she and Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan had lunch together yet. Ms. Hotle is in a four-way race vying for the Democratic nomination to replace retiring state Rep. Pat Verschoore. The meeting was held at American Legion Post 569, 515 W. 1st Ave. Ms. Hotle recently was the target of mailers sent out by Democratic Majority, a fundraising committee chaired by Rep. Madigan. During the event, Ms. Hotle said she was more of an "independent voice" and not tied to Mr. Madigan. "To date, they have spent more on the negative mailers against me than I have even raised individually as a candidate," Ms. Hotle said. "Or, $15,000 so far on the three mailers and the cost for the mailers. I just looked at it today." Ms. Hotle called for instituting term limits, expanding terms to four years but limiting them to just two terms. She said the elections are getting in the way of getting any work done. "Part of the issue is, every year you vote someone into office and it's a two-year term, they're running again almost every year," Ms. Hotle said. "They are only scheduled to be in session, our General Assembly, three days next month. Why? Because of our primary election. So the schedule is completely back-loaded into April and May." She called out both parties for not thinking about the "big picture" when making decisions, saying that politicians are more worried about the "short-term gain" and not what the consequences of those actions are. "I'm a Democrat, but what is unfortunate is we've gotten to a system where it's like you can't admit Democrats get things wrong, too," Ms. Hotle said. "Even if you are a Democrat." After the event, Ms. Hotle said the negative mailings have helped to get her name out to people who otherwise might not have known anything about her. "I do think that in this political climate, they are going to help me because I think we have finally reached a tipping point," Ms. Hotle said. "Voters are tired of the political nastiness, and when we are facing an unprecedented time in Illinois government with eight months of a budget impasse and a pension system that is as bad as it is, and we have leaders spending time and money and attention wasting thousands of dollars on mailers like this, people have reached their tipping point." Ms. Hotle is currently serving her first term as Rock Island's 5th Ward alderman and works as a Government Relations Manager for Mediacom Communications. ROCK ISLAND -- The Rock Island Preservation Society wants to designate the Hauberg Civic Center as a city landmark. Once the home of John and Sue Denkmann Hauberg, the property at 1300 24th St., Rock Island, now is owned by the city. Its contemplated sale to Bridges Catering, of Princeton, Iowa, has been met with opposition. On Tuesday, the preservation society filed an application with the city's Rock Island Preservation Commission to designate the building as a landmark, according to Diane Oestreich, of the society. If the society's request is approved, the commission would be able to review any proposed changes to the exteriors of the home and the carriage house and to any significant elements of the landscaping, Ms. Oestreich said. The application focuses on three possible reasons for the status: The center is an example of Prairie Style architecture; the center is associated with the Hauberg family; and the center's designer, Chicago architect Robert C. Spencer, was an associate of Frank Lloyd Wright. "One of the best Prairie Style buildings in the Quad-Cities, I think," Ms. Oestreich said. Brandy Howe, of the city's planning and redevelopment division, said the designation proposal first will be reviewed at the commission's next meeting in March to see if the request meets criteria. If it does, she said, the proposal will be forwarded on for additional action. Rock Island city manager Thomas Thomas said the application has not altered preparations for the possible sale of the building. No proposed sale price has been disclosed. On Feb. 8, the owners of Bridges Catering said they were willing to pay for the $937,500 in repairs the city's parks and recreation department estimates are needed on the mansion and its carriage house. City financial documents for 2013-15 show the Hauberg facility lost $251,931 during that period. Today is Friday, Feb. 19, the 50th day of 2016. There are 316 days left in the year. 1866 150 years ago: Jacob Riley is about to erect a fine building on Water Street for the sale of gas fixtures, plumbing apparatus etc. 1891 125 years ago: Orders have been received to hoist the cold wave signal. The mercury is predicted to drop to zero by morning. 1916 100 years ago: Waste paper scattered along Rock Island streets, especially the business streets, is an abomination which Commissioner Liedke says must be stopped. 1941 75 years ago: Winners in the 14th annual Marshall dramatic contest will be announced at the close of the final performance tonight in the Rock Island high school auditorium. 1966 50 years ago: A cold wave forecast for tonight is expected to further complicate flooding along the rampaging Mississippi River, which reached 16.8 feet-1.8 feet above flood stage at noon today at Rock Island. This was a rise of a foot in 24 hours. Corps of Army Engineers officials explains that the falling temperatures could pose an additional problem to the already critical flood situation in Rock Island, Davenport and Milan. 1991 25 years ago: Chicago may have fallen to No. 3 in U.S. population, but its OHare International Airport still ranks as the worlds busiest, city officials said. OHares 60 million passengers in 1990 outnumbered Dallas-Forth Worth International Airports 43 million. Authorities in the South American country were quick to make the link last fall. The health minister last week said he was "absolutely sure" that the mosquito-borne virus is a cause. But others aren't so certain. While the evidence has been mounting, so far it is circumstantial. "The simple presence of the virus doesn't mean it caused the birth defect. It means there's a probability," said Dr. Arnold Monto, a University of Michigan epidemiologist. The investigation is still in its early stages. It began after Brazilian doctors noticed an increase last fall in babies with a birth defect called microcephaly, which has a number of causes. The cases closely followed the country's first outbreak of the tropical virus Zika, which was thought to cause no more than a mild illness that clears up in a week. Microcephaly hadn't been seen in past Zika outbreaks. Babies with the condition have a smaller than normal head and often have a smaller brain that hasn't developed properly. Lab tests have detected the virus in the brain tissue of a few babies with microcephaly. Proving the cause is a bit like prosecuting a murder investigation, with Zika as the apparent killer but a lot of unanswered questions, said Dr. Ernesto Marques, a University of Pittsburgh microbiologist who is collaborating with Brazilian researchers. "What you have so far, the victim is there, and you find a person right there that has a smoking gun in his hand," Marques said. "But you still need to close the deal." The investigation poses special challenges. There's currently no good animal substitute for humans to study the virus. And it's not considered ethical to infect people, especially pregnant women, in an experiment to see what happens not when there seems to be a real chance that a volunteer could be seriously harmed. So researchers are turning to other kinds of studies to try to establish whether Zika or some other factor is causing the birth defect or, also, a paralyzing condition called Guillain-Barre. Five Latin America countries with Zika outbreaks are reporting an uptick in that condition in adults. One method is quick-and-dirty research called a case-control study, which looks back in time after an illness or condition has occurred. For the birth defect research, that means recruiting a group of women with babies born with microcephaly and trying to sort out what may have happened during their pregnancy to spark the condition. For comparison, they will query women whose infants don't have the birth defect. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is involved in one such a study set to start next week in the Brazilian state of Paraiba. It will focus on 100 babies with microcephaly and at least 100 more without. Investigators will take blood samples from the mothers to check for signs of an earlier Zika infection. They also will ask not only about Zika infections but other possible factors, like other germs or poisons in the environment. Some experts suggest that perhaps Zika needs an accomplice like malnutrition or an infection with another tropical illness like dengue to cause serious problems. A similar study, led by Brazil, is investigating 200 babies with microcephaly and 400 without. Results are due in April. "That will be the first one to tell us if there's strong evidence," Dr. Marcos Espinal of the Pan American Health Organization told reporters Thursday. The CDC was in the coastal city of Salvador last month to help health officials with another look-back study, this one targeting Guillain-Barre. They tested 40 people who had the condition, and 80 people who didn't, said Dr. James Sejvar, who led the CDC team. Such studies are hardly perfect. People often have trouble remembering every detail from six months ago for example, when they might have been bitten by mosquitoes, the primary source of Zika infections. While these studies can sort out potential causes, experts say they need to be confirmed with research that follows people forward. Colombia, for example, will be following 2,000 Zika-infected pregnant women to see what happens with them and their pregnancies, Espinal said. In Brazil, Zika's possible link to microcephaly emerged in September, when a spike in babies born with the condition got the attention of Dr. Vanessa van der Linden, a pediatric neurologist at a hospital in northeast Recife that works with disabled children. Initially, Van der Linden and other doctors looked for the usual causes of microcephaly, such as toxoplasmosis, rubella, HIV, and cytomegalovirus. None were found. But most of the mothers had something in common: blotches and skin rashes early in their pregnancies that seemed consistent with Zika. That was the genesis of the link. It's all been difficult to sort out, though, because Brazil wasn't keeping good track of microcephaly cases before Zika arrived. They're still determining how many of the reported cases are really microcephaly and involve a Zika infection. One of the puzzling questions facing researchers: Why have so many severe health problems been reported in Brazil, but comparatively few in other Latin America or Caribbean countries with Zika? Will we soon see similar spikes elsewhere, or is the Brazilian setting somehow unique? Health officials are closely watching Colombia, which had a Zika outbreak after Brazil and so far has not seen a spike in microcephaly cases. If there is, it would be apparent by June and would help finger Zika as the culprit, Espinal said. It will take a combination of studies and laboratory evidence to finally determine if Zika is the villain it appears to be, experts say. "This is going to be solved," said Dr. Farrah Mateen, a Harvard researcher. "It's just a matter of doing the research in the right way." Fish fries at St. Anthony COLUMBUS St. Anthony Catholic Church is hosting its weekly all-you-can-eat fish fries during the Lenten season. The fish fries will be held from 5:30-8 p.m. each Friday until March 18 at the Parish Center, located in the lower level of St. Anthony Elementary School, 1719 Sixth St. The event includes deep-fried and baked fish, along with coleslaw, scalloped potatoes and dessert. Cost is $9 for adults, $8 for seniors over 60 years, $4 for children ages 5-11 and free for children 4 and under. The fish fries are sponsored by the St. Anthony Knights of Columbus Council 9264. Blood drive at outreach center COLUMBUS -- The American Red Cross will be at the United Methodist Outreach Center, 2472 32nd Ave. (Northtown Mall), from noon-6 p.m. Feb. 22. Rapid pass will be available where the donor can get online the day of the drive and read the material and answer health history questions. This will potentially save 10-15 minutes at the blood drive. To sign up for rapid pass, go to redcrossblood.org/rapidpass. For more information or scheduling, contact the church office at 402-564-8463 or www.redcrossblood.org. Workshop at St. Benedict SCHUYLER -- "Finding God in Troubled Times" is a Lenten workshop, led by Fr. Richard Houser, SJ, Ph.D., scheduled for Feb. 26-27 at St. Benedict Center. Attendees will be invited to reflect on their faith and how suffering hurts or enhances the relationship with God and with Jesus. Participants are encouraged to prepare for the workshop by reflecting on Fr. Hausers book "Finding God in Troubled Times." The retreat will begin at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 26, and close with Mass at 4 p.m. Feb. 27. For more information, call 402-352-8819 or visit www.StBenedictCenter.com. Soup luncheon at Bellwood school BELLWOOD -- St. Peters Catholic Church will hold a soup luncheon from 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. March 6 at the Bellwood Grade School. The menu will include beef noodle soup, homemade chili and cheesy vegetable, assorted pies and desserts. Cost is $6 for adults, $3 for students K-8, and free for pre-school children. The event will include a silent auction throughout, a live auction at 3 p.m., quilt raffle, cake walk and kids games. Items to be won include $500, $250 and two $100 beef certificates. Rummage sale at Knights hall COLUMBUS -- Catholic Daughters of the Americas will hold a rummage sale from 8 a.m.-3 p.m. March 12 at the Knights of Columbus Hall, 3115 Sixth St. Purchase an 8x10-foot sale area with an 8-foot table provided and two chairs for each booth. The price per booth is $25. Set up for the sale will be from noon-8 p.m. on March 11. CDA will take care of all advertising. There will also be a concession stand. For more information or to reserve a booth, contact Barb at 402-276-4429. Knights corned beef dinner set COLUMBUS -- The Knights of Columbus Council 938 will hold its annual corned beef and cabbage dinner and drawing on March 13. The dinner will be served from 5-7 p.m. at the Knights of Columbus Hall, 3115 Sixth St., with the drawing scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults and $5 for children. Carry-outs are available, and the public is invited to attend. The state House of Representatives on Thursday passed Senate Bill 1532, which now heads to Democratic Gov. Kate Brown, who said in a statement she will sign it into law. "I started this conversation last fall, bringing stakeholders together to craft a workable proposal; one that gives working families the much-needed wage boost they need, and addresses challenges for businesses and rural economies presented by the two impending ballot measures," Brown said. The move makes Oregon a trailblazer in the broader debate about minimum wage unfolding nationwide as the federal threshold remains unchanged from Great Recession levels. Oregon now joins 14 other states that have raised their rates over the past two years. Another dozen or so are considering taking up the issue this year, either through legislative action or ballot initiative, as issues of wage inequality and middle-class incomes have climbed to the forefront of presidential campaigns by Democratic candidates Bernie Sanders and Hilary Clinton. The bill was crafted as a compromise between what unions, businesses and farmers want and as an attempt to thwart more aggressive proposals that could go before voters in November. Those two proposals call for a statewide minimum of $13.50 or $15, and would be phased in over half the time. Labor unions have not yet indicated whether they'll follow through with ballot initiatives. Oregon follows moves in states such as Massachusetts, California and Vermont that recently boosted statewide minimums above $10. That stands in stark contrast to more conservative states such as Idaho, which has blocked previous efforts to raise its minimum beyond the federal level, and Arizona, where lawmakers are considering a bill that would block state funding to municipalities that set a local minimum wage. Oregon's new plan imposes a series of gradual increases over six years. By 2022, the state's current $9.25 an hour minimum - already one of the highest in the nation - would climb to $14.75 in metro Portland, $13.50 in smaller cities such as Salem and Eugene, and $12.50 in rural communities. Those minimums dethrone Massachusetts - where the statewide rate will climb to $11 an hour next year - from the top spot, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a D.C.-based think tank that tracks wage laws across the nation. While there are varying approaches to raising the minimum wage, the three-tiered regional system is uniquely Oregon's. States have targeted wage hikes for only government employees or certain industries, as seen recently in New York for fast-food workers, while others allow local jurisdictions to set their own rates above the state threshold, prompting recent hikes in cities such as Seattle and Los Angeles. Oregon, however, has made the unprecedented move to be the first state without a one-size-fits-all statewide minimum. "Oregon has always been at the forefront of new ideas in the country. We were the first to actually have a minimum wage," said Rep. Paul Holvey, a Democrat from Eugene. "Trust me, we're not solving all the problems, but we are making a substantial dent in it by pushing up from the bottom some wage equality ... from the huge disparity we have in incomes." The state is deeply divided between west and east by economic, cultural and political differences. The goal of the tiered approach is to balance the needs of the more urban west_where living costs have soared in rapidly growing Portland_and struggling farming communities in the east. Division over the minimum wage - currently at $7.25 in federal law - is also often split along party lines and pits low-wage workers against business groups, as has been seen in Oregon this year. Republicans, the minority party in the Oregon Statehouse, have opposed the increase. The President of Oregon Farm Bureau said Thursday's vote shows Democrats don't value family agriculture. "This enormous increase will force many family farmers to try to find ways to mechanize or transition away from labor-intensive products Oregon is known for, like apples, pears, milk and berries. Unfortunately, some will give up and sell, while others will simply go out of business," said Barry Bushue, President of Oregon Farm Bureau. David Cooper, an economic analyst the Economic Policy Institute, said wage increases have never lead to widespread damaging effects, but he also expressed hesitation about Oregon's regional approach. "I think any time you create these sorts of somewhat arbitrary geographic districts, that's when you can create opportunities for some sort of economic disruption," he said. "I would prefer the whole state got to the same wage level but at a slower pace by region so that everyone is held to the same standard." GENESEO -- A toilet paper book keeps Geneso Middle School students rolling in amusement, while learning more about care and compassion. "Death by Toilet Paper" is part of the "On the Same Page" community-wide reading list students are encouraging other residents to join them in reading. The students also will get to meet its author, Donna Gephart, of South Florida, when she visits the Geneseo school on March 8. "Death by Toilet Paper" is the story of seventh-grader Ben who is trying to win a toilet paper slogan contest to receive enough prize money to help his mother pay rent. Jeanne Brucher, teacher-librarian at Geneseo Middle School and Geneseo High School, said the student selection group chose the book in hopes of creating a sense of empathy for students whose families may be struggling with financial challenges. The book is both humorous and heart-breaking, she said. One of my favorite things about Donna Gepharts books is that, whenever her young characters are in their darkest moments, they realize there is always a family member, friend or neighbor who can help them in their hour of need. Free copies have been made available at various locations in Geneseo. "Thanks to the support of PTA, Geneseo Kiwanis, Geneseo Education Fund and Student Council, there is no cost to participate in the program, said GMS sixth grade teacher Marcie Reakes. People who take a copy of the book are encouraged to share it with others when they finish reading to circulate the books throughout the community. This is the seventh year of the On the Same Page community read at GMS, but the first time a related author has visited the school, Mrs. Brucher said. We have done Skype visits with authors in the past," she said. "But we are very excited that Donna Gephart will be coming to visit us all the way from Florida. Ms. Gephart will work with GMS students and participate in the Toilet Paper Fair 6-8 p.m. March 8 in the GMS gym. The event, open to the public, is the result of students wanting to plan an event that would be fun, creative and helpful to the community. The Toilet Paper Fair will feature a presentation and book signing by the author, toilet paper art sculptures, toilet paper fashion show, trivia and games. Those attending are invited to bring toiletry items that will be donated to the Geneseo Food Pantry. Mrs. Brucher said each year teachers work with their classes on fun activities inspired by the community-wide read. Students have been creating works of art and origami made from recycled toilet paper rolls, she said. Ms. Teri Storms language arts class conducted a 'touch' test for students to vote on the softest toilet paper brand. Students are looking up their own toilet paper facts to compare to those found at the start of each chapter. These activities will culminate in sculpture displays and a fashion show at the Toilet Paper Fair. "The On the Same Page program shows that, no matter what your age, a good book is a good book, Mrs. Brucher said. Over the last seven years, many families have spent quality time together reading the selected books. For more details about On the Same Page, visit gcsdblogs.org/onthesamepage or contact Mrs. Brucher or Mrs. Reakes at 309-945-0599. As a simple guy in a complex world, I'd like someone smarter than I (probably most of you reading this) to answer a few questions. 1. If one thinks we should temporarily pause immigration from Syria and other terrorist hot spots until our vetting system gets improved, they are labeled Islamo-phobic. When one objects to a nativity scene in a park or a prayer at a high school graduation they are not branded as Christian-phobic. Why? 2. Pundits in the media have been reporting that Hillary's campaign has a "firewall" in South Carolina. The aformentioned "firewall" refers to African-American voters as a bloc. Why is that not disrespectful and racist? 3. When the Taliban blew up the Buddha statues in Bamiyan, and ISIS razed Palmyra's arches it was condemned as a barbaric destruction of historical artifacts. In New Orleans, Memphis and other places there is a move to eliminate statues and monuments from our Civil War. Is that not the same thing? 4. One of JFK's most memorable and beloved quotes reads, "My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Why does this election seem to be about who can give away the most government money? 5. On many college campuses there is a real effort to enforce limits on speech. How are these faceless arbiters of political correctness any different from the secret police in Stalin's USSR? Eugene Mattecheck Jr., Moline The future of Radio Adelaide is looking better, Adelaide Uni announced today that the station will transition to an independent, not-for-profit organisation from July this year. In a deal signed with local community station Fresh 92.7, it will see the two stations located in Adelaides East for the time being. The agreement with Fresh 92.7 will see the registration of a new organisation that will continue to represent the educational community interest in Adelaide, an Adelaide University statement has said. The only hurdle left is the transfer of the license from the University to the new entity by ACMA. Not too long ago Platte, Colfax and Butler counties were home to numerous dairy farms. In 1978, the first year the Nebraska Department of Agriculture counted its contemporary definition of a dairy farm, Butler County had 51 dairies, Colfax had 60 and Platte had 109. Before then, when dairy production was tallied by the number of farms with substantial profits from dairy or just farms that had dairy cows, those numbers were in the hundreds. The last agriculture survey, in 2012, showed a grim change in the industry. Platte County had nine dairies that year, Colfax had six and Butler had three. Theres a lot of labor in a dairy farm, said Darryl Osten, a former dairy farmer who retired in 2009. If you were alone itd be hard to keep it going. And it wasnt always profitable. Willow Holoubek, executive director of the Alliance for the Future of Agriculture in Nebraska, said in the 1980s and '90s dairy was not economical. The economic downturn of the 2000s pushed some producers out altogether. From 2003 to 2010, Cooperatives Working Together, a program developed by the National Milk Producers Federation, conducted a series of herd retirements that compensated dairy farmers who voluntarily reduced their herd sizes or retired altogether. And a lot of farmers applied. I think that generation got tired of working hard and making little money, said Holoubek. While other states such as South Dakota and Iowa were encouraging and supporting new dairy producers, in Nebraska many of the dairies that closed stayed closed. This also led to the shutdown of dairy processors and a breakdown of the overall infrastructure needed to maintain the industry. Unfortunately, it was a perfect storm, said Holoubek. The dairy buyout was good for individual farmers, but not for the industry as a whole. In March 2014, the Nebraska Legislature tasked the states Department of Agriculture with conducting a comprehensive study of the dairy sector. Assistant Director of Agriculture Bobbie Kriz-Wickham said the state came away with three key realizations. First, the department needed to work with current dairy producers on creating a succession plan for the next generation to take over operations so the state can retain its current production sites. All three of producer Mike Malenas children work together to run Malena Dairy near Leigh. Malena still helps out, but is essentially retired from the day-to-day operations. However, Malenas case is rare as the issue of farm succession is growing throughout agriculture. The second finding of the report is that the department needs to continue working with existing producers to grow their operations. When Malena started in 1971, he had 40 cows. Now, he said a dairy would need 1,000 to 2,000 cows to be successful. To build an operation for that many cattle would cost millions of dollars. Ive heard stories of people farming small herds, but they couldnt find a buyer, said Malena. That's because, as the Department of Agricultures study found, the state needs more processing plants. When Nebraska's dairy processors closed, Malena started selling his milk in Iowa. That meant he needed a large, steady supply to cover the cost of transporting his milk. If you cant produce a transport load of milk every other day, youre going to have a hard time finding a market, he said. Those who weathered the storm had to find ways to adapt, and most, like Malena, consolidated and grew into larger operations. But some found other, more creative, ways to stay in business. David Jisa of Jisa Farmstead Cheese near Brainard decided the best way to stay in business was to build a 3,000-square-foot plant to make cheese. Even though he has a fairly small herd by today's standards, the added value of producing his own cheese is keeping him afloat. Though, its not easy. Anybody can sell milk, anyone can produce cheese, said Jisa. If you start making a product like cheese you have to market that product. Thats tough. He said adding cheese production to his business was also good for the community. Ive got 15 employees. Im providing local jobs, said Jisa. In a sense, the business I run is very beneficial. Between the high cost of land, lack of land for sale, infrastructure and processors and the economies of scale that require producers to go big, both Jisa and Malena are skeptical the state will be able to expand the industry. But Holoubek and Kriz-Wickham are optimistic and say theyre even seeing results. Holoubek said the state has seen an increase in the number of dairy cows over the past two years. The Alliance for the Future of Agriculture in Nebraska has a goal of expanding the state's dairy herds by 30,000 cows by 2019. The group set the goal at 30,000 because that is number they believe is needed to attract a dairy processing plant to the state. According to Holoubek, the state is more likely to attract dairies that want to expand to Nebraska than new farmers starting out. For every dairy thats expressed interest in Nebraska, shes been able to match them with a location. And shes not waiting until they reach their goal to sell the state to processors. Nebraska has the water, irrigation and feed to sustain a successful dairy industry, and while land values are high, Holoubek said the low cost of feed mitigates that expense. "Once we have the commitment of a processor, we know the cows will come," she said. Kriz-Wickham said she has a number of leads on producers or processors interested in Nebraska. With all the resources here, it makes sense to move here, she said. Dairy is thriving and has great potential." The project will supply 8.7MW of frequency regulation support for the PJM Interconnection electricity grid and will capture, store and reuse energy derived from Septa subway trains using regenerative braking. The equipment will be installed between seven sub-stations across Philadelphia and expand the existing 1.8MW of storage Saft has provided in two earlier installations. Energy company Constellation will fund, own and operate the project, which uses Saft's Synerion 24P modules in rack-based installation. Vertex Railcar Corps new freight car manufacturing facility in Wilmington, N.C., is being outfitted to produce 8,000 cars per year. However Vertex CEO Donald Croteau says that with the companys ramp-up and with market conditions being the way they are, he expects that this years output will be between 2,500 and 3,000 cars. The car types will be 3285CF covered hoppers, 5400CF covered hoppers, aggregate cars, gondola cars, and DOT117 tank cars. Jerome Marullo, Eastern Regional Sales Manager and Jonathan Chalon, Publisher, both of Railway Age, visited the North Carolina facility on Feb. 8, 2016. Pictured from left to right: Michael Keasling Vice President of Sales, Vertex; Jonathan Chalon; Foster J. Sayers, III, General Counsel, Government Liaison & Public Relations Specialist, Vertex; and Jerome Marullo. Following official site audits this fall, representatives from the Association of American Railroads (AAR) certified that the Vertex facility in Wilmington meets AAR Quality Assurance (M-1003) specifications and awarded the S-2034 Car Builder Certification. In the past 12 months, Vertex has entered into a joint partnership with China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corporation Limited (CSR), one of the largest railcar manufacturers in the world; completed one of three production bays at its Wilmington facility; received the two AAR certifications; hired nearly 200 people; built its first hopper cars; and built a rail spur to move completed cars out of the facility. Last year was a big year for Vertex, one of growth and opportunity, said Croteau. We transformed an abandoned manufacturing facility into a state-of-the-art railcar manufacturing operation, and produced our first railcars in North Carolina. We achieved our most critical goal for 2015certification to proceed with mass production of freight cars at Vertex in Wilmington. 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 In Syria, as in Ukraine not long ago, great powers have negotiated a tentative ceasefire in fighting in which Russia is a main protagonist. With an estimated 470,000 killed and millions displaced, the conflict in Syria is far more lethal and complex than in Ukraine and prospects for peace are worse. No contestant is yet exhausted. So is a temporary peace possible? And how can the West and its Arab partners help sustain a ceasefire? A RAND study of all 71 insurgencies begun and ended between World War II and 2010 found that their median length was almost 10 years. The Syrian civil war is only half as long. A complicating factor prolonging insurgencies is the presence of multiple actors with competing interests. In Syria, for example, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah support the regime of Bashar al-Assad, while America, Turkey and other key NATO allies back various Sunni rebel groups, as do Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States. The presence of ISIS in Syria is another complicating factor. It is loathed by many, but apart from the West, most other external actors place a higher priority on supporting, or opposing, the regime of Assad. No actor by itself has the strength to bring about a stable peace in Syria. In addressing the Syrian crisis Russia and America are engaged together, precariously. They lead the peace process, and may hope with European help to replicate their success in the Iran nuclear deal, no easy task. The peace process has many more participants from within and outside of Syria, but excludes ISIS and the Al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Nusra Front, which will have to be dealt with militarily. The West and its Arab partners are investing too little in Syria to make a decisive difference, and their coalition of more than 60 nations is tenuous and has many free riders. The West yearns for a democratic transition, but lacks the leverage of control of territory, as it had in Afghanistan and Iraq. Turkey fears gains by Syrian Kurds, but they are one of the most effective forces fighting ISIS. Cease-fires should be viewed for what they areincremental steps that may temporarily reduce violence, thereby opening space for the parties to maneuver politically and appeal to their constituencies. Yet cease-fires must also be considered with guarded skepticism. They can be a start for further confidence-building measures, but are usually far from permanent solutions. So while a temporary pause in violence may provide opportunities for contestants to rest and rearm, they can also spur parties to reassess the merits of continuing the fight, lead to the splintering of adversary groups or expose potential spoilers to a peace process. Successful settlements tend to involve power-sharing agreements, ascension of moderate leadership, or third party guarantors of security. These dimensions are all currently missing in Syria. A cessation of hostilities will not hold without support from Moscow, but it remains ambivalent. Russia teeters on the brink of a major victory in the seizure of Aleppo, Syria's largest city. Lasting gains in Syria would fuel Moscow's great power ambition, show results from expensive military modernization, provide Russian forces with useful combat experience and help deter adversaries. Hence, Russian military leaders might be wary about peace diplomacy they see as premature. Kremlin leaders, however, also have to contend with political ramifications. Not only German Chancellor Angela Merkel views Russian bombing in Syria as horrific. Television screens around the world show how it is exacerbating the humanitarian catastrophe that is Syria today. The conflict has led to 7.6 million internally displaced persons in Syria, and 12.2 million people in need of humanitarian aid. The suffering dismays Sunnis in the Arab world and probably in Russia, where they comprise over 90 percent of the 10 million or more Muslims, though it's not clear how much of the Syrian misery the Russian public is seeing. The Syrian intervention further isolates Russia from the West, a large economic partner. The SU-24 shoot-down has led to a sharp Russian break with Turkey. Finally, Russia is facing growing economic strains and a possible uptick in political unrest. The West has been less proactive toward resolving threats to peace in Syria than in Iraq and Afghanistan. President Obama has said America does not wish a proxy war with Russia. Although Washington has increased supplies of TOW anti-armor missiles to rebels it backs, they have not received what they now need most, anti-air capability. This is reminiscent of Afghanistan in the 1980s before America helped turn the tide against Soviet occupiers by supplying insurgents with Stinger anti-air missiles. To improve cease-fire prospects in Syria, the West and its Arab partners will not only have to drive the peace process to maintain pressure for political accommodation, but also do more to help the rebels they back avert a destabilizing military imbalance. This means providing more military aid, including anti-air. Without this support, a mutually painful stalemate may not be possible, thereby reducing incentives for the Syrian regime and its allies to negotiate a settlement. Making continued military progress against ISIS will also be crucial to enabling the more moderate rebel groups. As ISIS is further weakened, the West can move to a more forward-leaning stance, shifting more resources to pressuring the Syrian regime and working to increase the appeal of pursuing a negotiated settlement. The future of Syria could be at stake. Colin P. Clarke is an associate political scientist at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. William Courtney is an adjunct senior fellow at RAND and was U.S. ambassador to Kazakhstan and Georgia. This commentary originally appeared on Newsweek on February 18, 2016. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis. A Russian secret agent living in London, Alexander Litvinenko, met with two former countrymen for tea at a local establishment on Nov. 1, 2006. Later that afternoon, he became ill. Three weeks later, he was dead, the result of radioactive Polonium-210 poisoning blamed on the Russians. The sordid details of the affair are contained within the Owen Report, released in the UK on Jan. 21. The 8-month, government sponsored investigation delved into the killing and the reckless exposure of as many as 1,000 people to a dangerous radiological substance. Despite the great detail in the account, a significant implication might well be lost both within the report and in the ensuing media coverage and political discourse: the important violations of international law that are represented by the use of radiological material in the assassination. The use of radioactive matter to kill Litvinenko represents a serious breach of international agreements that carry the force of law including the United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1540 and Nuclear Terrorism Convention. These international instruments are directed towards preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and preventing nuclear terrorism, respectively. The 2004 UNSCR 1540 provides a framework which, according to the U.S. Department of State, establishes legally binding obligations on all United Nations Member States to have and enforce appropriate and effective measures against the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons (WMD), their delivery systems, including by establishing controls. UNSCR 1540 closes gaps in nonproliferation treaties and conventions to help prevent terrorists and criminal organizations from obtaining the world's most dangerous weapons. The Nuclear Terrorism Convention, which became effective in 2007, criminalizes acts of nuclear terrorism and promotes legal frameworks for preventing, investigating and prosecuting these acts. Each of these protocols also has the secondary affect of forming the basis for national laws, regulations and policies regarding WMD technology and material. So this brings us to the crux of the issue. Russia is a party to both of these international instruments. Furthermore, the chain of custody established in the Owen Report identifies Russia as the only possible source of Polonium-210 used in the Litvinenko assassination. Therefore, it can be concluded that Russia has not fully adhered to either the requirements of the UNSCR 1540 or the Nuclear Terrorism Convention. This places Russia in an interesting conundrum. Either Russia admits to allowing radioactive material from one of its reactors to be removed and used as a tool in a state sponsored assassination or alternatively claims that the material was stolen by terrorists who perpetrated the attack against Litvinenko. In either case, the outcome is bad for Russia. In the first case, Russia a member of the United Nations Security Council is in violation of the UNSCR 1540 and the Nuclear Terrorism Convention. In the second case, Russia admits its process for securing radiological materials is not so safe. It follows that to remain in good standing with the UNSCR 1540 and the Nuclear Terrorism Convention (and the norms against the use of WMD), Russia must produce, or as a minimum investigate, identify and charge, the terrorists that perpetrated the deadly attack so they can be held accountable. While the killing of Litvinenko is a human tragedy, broader concerns about the lowering of WMD norms and violations of international law should now take center stage. Perhaps the more relevant questions should be what penalties directed at Russia should be forthcoming for such violations of international order and its failure to adhere to its commitments under these international instruments? Finally, should the deafening global silence continue, what message does this send to the rest of the world? Has the threshold for dangerous use of radiological material been lowered by events in a London cafe and the seemingly indifferent global reaction? Daniel M. Gerstein is a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. He was Under Secretary (Acting) and Deputy Under Secretary in the Science and Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security from 2011 to 2014. This commentary originally appeared on Foreign Policy Concepts on February 19, 2016. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis. When I showed up at the obstetrical urgent care unit at Brigham and Women's Hospital, the care I received was swift and appropriate. I saw a nurse quickly and a doctor soon after. They asked relevant questions and immediately put a plan for further evaluation in place. Only then did the nurse turn to the computer to enter everything into the electronic record. As she worked her way through the required documentation, she asked several more questions. Any allergies that weren't already in the system? Surgeries she should note? And, of course, importantly, had I been to an Ebola-infected country recently? In September 2014, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital missed acting upon the fact that a patient had just returned from West Africa, even though it was documented in his record. He came down with Ebola, but wasn't treated with appropriate precautions, and many patients and staff were put at risk. The hospital was publicly criticized for its behavior. The hospital administration responded by blaming its electronic health records (EHR), since the system didn't bring the travel history to the forefront as part of the doctor's workflow. Since then, hospitals have scrambled to systematically screen for the often-fatal virus that took more than 10,000 lives in the past three years. Hospitals have incorporated a relevant screening question into their EHR, like the one I was dutifully asked during my recent urgent care visit. A win for technology and public health? Not exactly. First of all, each hospital had to implement the question themselves. Different sites are asking different questions, sometimes only in the emergency department, other times elsewhere. Hospitals implemented them at different times, some more swiftly than others. Importantly, a year ago already, the World Health Organization (WHO) was tracking fewer than 100 new cases of Ebola per week. As of December 2015, Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone had stopped the chain of transmission, and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) removed enhanced precautions for people traveling to those countries. And all in all, though many did die in this terrible epidemic, there were only tens of cases of Ebola treated outside Africa, mostly aid workers transported home, and no new cases diagnosed in the United States since 2014. The WHO reported only 7 cases and 1 death outside Africa, none of which were recent. And yet many hospitals in the United States are still asking every emergency patient if they've traveled to Africa. But what aren't they asking? Well, as a pregnant woman, they should have asked me whether, at any time during my pregnancy, I had traveled to any countries with Zika, a virus that is transmitted to people by mosquitoes, thought to be connected to birth defects in pregnant women, and currently spreading rapidly throughout South and Central America. The existing system is too slow to respond and when it does, it finds itself chasing the past. But hospital EHRs are not yet prompting for Zika-related screening. It will likely take a while, and maybe a public embarrassment like what happened in Texas, for the electronic systems to be modified to include a new screening question. Does this process need to be so slow? Why should each hospital's IT staff have to manually update every public health question? Requiring each individual system to change the same setting is by design inefficient and prone to delays, inaccuracies, and inconsistencies. And yet this is how it is done today: manual decisions, site by site, slowed by different administrative and technical hurdles. Instead, using infrastructure already in place like WHO and CDC guidelines, the public health authorities could easily set up a system that automatically incorporated alerts in a timely way. Kenneth D. Mandl and Isaac S. Kohane argued for this years ago, asking why hospital systems must reinvent everything themselves, like spell check and word processing and mapping: Only a small subset of loosely coupled information technologies need to be highly specific to health care. Many components can be generic. That is, instead of demanding that hospitals or EHR vendors be public health experts, why can't the CDC do what it does best and automatically push its information out to everyone? Of course, individual institutions have different needs. There could be a delay in implementation pending approval by the appropriate hospital committee, but if the hospital committee didn't take action to opt out or modify it for individual needs, the alert could by default be put into place, meaning no hospital would miss an important alert. Similarly, no longer could relevant questions be pulled without hospitals worrying about being the first to stop the screening, which is the current situation and leads to the risk of adding but never subtracting screening questions. Instead of waiting for everyone to catch up on the weekly Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which in late January recommended that, Health care providers should ask all pregnant women about recent travel, providers across the country could be confident that their daily tools always reflect best public health practices. Indeed, just last week the CDC updated their guidelines again, recommending that providers caring for pregnant women who have traveled to areas with ongoing Zika virus transmission should be offered serologic testing, even if asymptomatic. It is unreasonable to expect individual providers or even hospitals to keep up on their own. The Ebola virus is more fatal and in many ways was much scarier than any current virus, but the more scientists learn, the more they realize how much more difficult it may be to contain Zika. Thus it should be out with Ebola, in with Zika, in terms of questions for all pregnant women. The existing system is too slow to respond and when it does, it finds itself chasing the past. Like security protocols at airports, where travelers are required to remove shoes because someone in 2001 hid explosives in his sneaker soles, instead of anticipating the next creative attack, the U.S. public health system finds itself asking about yesterday's Ebola and not today's Zika, because the gears of change move too slowly. But the limitation is not the technology. Technology systems should be the first to respond, even more quickly than official government responses. They should be deployed more nimbly to support faster, more informed decisionmaking. Just as my iPhone automatically receives Amber Alerts as soon as they are issued by authorities, EHR could easily reflect the most relevant public health issues. It is shocking that health care providers are still asking about Ebola when Zika is already all over the news. The tools and the technology exist, but smarter ways to use them must be implemented. Shira Fischer is an associate physician researcher at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. This commentary originally appeared on The Health Care Blog on February 17, 2016. Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis. Increasing its presence across the Caribbean region, Euronews has reached an agreement with Digicel Play to launch in Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago. This is the first time that Euronews' English service will be available in Jamaica, while it will extend its distribution in Trinidad & Tobago.Also available in the Bahamas, Euronews is currently broadcasting to 722,000 households in the Caribbean region. In addition, it is airing in other Latin American territories such as Colombia , Mexico, Brazil, Peru and Chile.As the only fibre-to-the-home network on Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago, Digicel Play delivers TV, high-speed broadband and landline in a triple-play offer.By choosing Euronews for its channel line-up, Digicel Play is giving a firm thumbs up to the news content we are delivering and our ability to best serve the needs of the various cultural communities living in or visiting the Caribbean, said Arnaud Verlhac, worldwide distribution director, Euronews This new deal is an opportunity to increase our visibility in the region and Euronews is proud to deliver world news with a perspective to the Caribbean region, added Corine Babani, distribution manager North America & Caribbean, Euronews.Euronews fits our bill perfectly, offering a unique perspective on world events through factual analysis. We are delighted to be welcoming Euronews to the Digicel Play family, commented John Suranyi, CEO of Digicel Play for the Caribbean and Central America. Ex-construction boss at Vostochny Cosmodrome declared bankrupt MOSCOW, February 19 (RAPSI) The Commercial Court of Primorsky Krai has declared Viktor Grebnev, former chief executive of TMK (Pacific Bridge Building Company), a contractor in the Vostochny Cosmodrome project, bankrupt, RIA Novosti reported on Friday. Bankruptcy procedure was initiated by Sberbank in November 2015. Viktor Grebnev is currently placed under house arrest. According to investigators, from 2012 to the fall of 2014, Grebnev knowingly signed contracts of guarantee that were unprofitable for TMK, thereby embezzling over 288 million rubles ($3.7 million). He also signed several contracts that caused TMK over 130 million rubles ($1.7 million) in losses. TMK said it failed to pay 96 million rubles ($1.2 million) in wages to workers because of the alleged embezzlement. Investigators claim that Grebnev used the money to buy yachts and a mansion. In February 2015, the Federal Service of Labor and Employment revealed the failure to distribute over 30.5 million rubles ($389,000) to 1,262 TMK employees working at the cosmodrome. Also, in December 2014, the company was ordered to pay over 61 million rubles ($777,200) of the debt to its staff. The construction of the space center, due to become Russia's main launch site, began in 2012. The facility is planned to be completed in 2016. The first manned mission is scheduled for 2018. Maniacal 4 concert today COLUMBUS -- Columbus Friends of Music will host Maniacal 4 at a 7:30 p.m. concert today at the Nantkes Performing Arts Center at Columbus High School. Maniacal 4, a trombone quartet well versed in classical, jazz, Latin and rock music, is an internationally acclaimed group that selects and arranges music from a wide range of styles and time periods. Individuals can enter the concert with a season ticket or pay $25 at the door. Doors open 30-40 minutes before the start of the concert. Season tickets are still available for purchase for $40, with two concerts remaining this season. For more information, visit www.columbusfriendsofmusic.com. Appraisals for antiques slated COLUMBUS -- Nebraska native Tom Bassett will be conducting free antique appraisals beginning at 2 p.m. Saturday at Columbus Public Library in the auditorium. Those who have antiques too large to bring to the library can bring pictures. Cookies and coffee will be provided. Spring health fair March 1 OSCEOLA -- Annie Jeffrey Health Center, 531 Beebe St., will host a spring health fair from 6:45 a.m.-noon March 1, with a free continental breakfast. Comprehensive blood, thyroid and diabetes screenings and PSA testing will be available, as well as screenings for aneurysm, peripheral arterial disease and atrial fibrillation. Those planning to have blood work done are asked to fast. Walk-ins are welcome for the lab. Vascular screenings will be available from 8 a.m.-noon; call for a pre-diagnostic screening at 402-747-2031. Free services will include blood pressure checks and skin analysis. There will also be a medication take-back opportunity for unwanted or expired medications. K roundups at Catholic schools COLUMBUS -- Columbus Catholic elementary schools will host kindergarten roundups on March 18. St. Anthony Elementary School will run sessions from 8:15-9:15 a.m. and 10-11 a.m. in the Parish Center. Sessions at St. Bonaventure will run from 9-10:30 a.m. and 1-2:30 p.m. in the kindergarten classrooms. St. Isidore will host sessions from 9:30-10:30 a.m. and 1-2 p.m. in the school library. Interested families may attend sessions at any of the Catholic elementary schools. Principals and teachers will be on hand to answer questions and give school tours. For more information, contact one of the school offices: St. Anthony, 402-564-4767; St. Bonaventure, 402-564-7153; St. Isidore, 402-564-2604. Host families for foreign students LINCOLN -- Academic Year in America (AYA) is looking for American families to host foreign exchange students ages 15-18. Students come from over 50 countries and have diverse interest and talents. Students can come for a semester or school year. They have spending money and health insurance. Host families provide their student with their meals and a place to sleep and study. Most importantly, they must welcome their student into their home as if they were a son or daughter. Host families will receive assistance from a trained AYA local coordinator. AYA is a not-for-profit organization designated by the U.S. Department of State to offer J-1 visas to international students. To learn more about hosting an exchange student with AYA, call local coordinator Mandy Mandachit at 402-440-1148 or visit www.hostnebraska.org. Visit AYA on the web at www.academicyear.org for more information and available student profiles. Domodedovo airport owner placed under house arrest in 2011 terror attack case MOSCOW, February 19 (RAPSI) The Basmanny District Court of Moscow placed Dmitry Kamenshchik, the owner of the Domodedovo airport, under house arrest until April 18 in connection with 2011 terrorist attack that left 37 dead, RAPSI reported from the courtroom on Friday. Investigators have filed a motion for the house arrest of Kamenshchik. Prosecutors in turn demanded to close the case against the billionaire. Defense asked to release him on 15 million-ruble ($198,800) bail. The ruling on the house arrest of Kamenshchik will be appealed. Kamenshchik was arrested on Thursday and charged with the provision of services that do not meet security. He could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted. The businessman has pleaded not guilty and expressed his willingness to cooperate with investigators in order to ascertain the truth in the case. Investigation into the case against him has been extended until April 28. Earlier, the court ordered the detention of former director of Domodedovo Airport Vyacheslav Nekrasov, Svetlana Trishina, ex-head of Export Management Company Limited and Andrei Danilov, Managing Director of Domodedovo Airport Aviation Security until February 28. According to Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin, new suspects in the case may be arrested in the nearest time. On January 24, 2011, a suicide bomber detonated a bomb in the Domodedovo Airports international arrivals hall, killing 37 people and injuring 172. Doku Umarov, Russias most wanted terrorist at the time, claimed responsibility for the attack. Altogether, 28 men connected with the terrorist organization called the Caucasus Emirate were linked to the attack, according to the investigators. Seventeen of them were killed in special operations in 2011, and four were detained. In November 2013, a Moscow Region court sentenced three men to life in prison and a fourth man to 10 years for their role in the suicide bombing. The question of Domodedovo Airports ownership arose back in 2011, when the investigators first stated that they couldnt determine the owner of the airport. The Investigative Committee initiated criminal proceedings against the airports former managers for failing to guarantee the safety of passengers, which resulted in the death of two or more people. The airport administration argued that this charge was inapplicable to the case in point and that they were only made responsible for airport entrance control in 2014, after the law on transport security was amended. Detention of Nemtsov murder suspects extended until March MOSCOW, February 19 (RAPSI) Moscows Basmanny District Court on Friday extended the detention of all five suspects in the murder of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, RAPSI reported from the courtroom. Temerlan Eskerkhanov will remain in detention until March 8. Four other defendants will stay jailed until March 7. Investigative activities have been completed but preliminary inquiry into the case has been extended until May 28. All the suspects will get acquainted with case materials, and then they would be forwarded to the prosecutor's office for indictment. Zaur Dadayev, brothers Anzor and Shadid Gubashev, Temerlan Eskerkhanov and Khamzat Bakhayev stand charged with contract murder and illegal acquisition, carrying and keeping of weapons. Nemtsov, 55, was murdered in central Moscow as he walked across a bridge near the Kremlin on February 28, 2015. We use cookies to ensure you get the best experience on the website. The purposes of using cookies are defined in the Privacy Policy of RAPSI If you agree to continue using cookies, please click the "Confirm" button. If you do not agree, you can change your browser settings. realclearworld Newsletters: Mideast Memo The 5th anniversary of the Arab Spring uprising in Bahrain was marked this week by small protests and pockets of disobedience -- a far cry from the 2011 protests that rattled the tiny island kingdom's ruling Al Khalifa family, and prompted neighboring Saudi Arabia to send in forces to help crush the movement. These small, scattershot protests do, however, belie deeper systemic problems in the country. Although the crown pledged to implement a series of reforms following a 2011 inquiry commissioned by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, watchdog groups and activists insist that little has been done to remedy the ruling family's unfair treatment of the country's Shiite majority, and argue that the arbitrary arrest and torture of regime critics is on the rise. Police powers have been increased in recent months in the name of anti-terrorism, and criticism of the government can now carry a prison term of up to seven years. This is by no accident. In pegging dissent to disloyalty, the kingdom's rulers can continue to alienate and persecute the country's restive Shiite majority, and in turn preserve the ruling Al Khalifa dynasty. "The government arbitrarily arrests its critics, thereby generating more criticism, which in turn allows it to make more arbitrary arrests. The authorities have been caught in this simple feedback loop of action and reaction -- oppression and repression -- since the onset of the pro-democracy movement," argue Kate Kizer and Michael Payne of Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain. Bahrain is a small island nation that has historically found itself at the whim of more powerful regional powers. Although the Al Khalifa family has ruled the country in one form or another since the late 18th century, the dynasty has long relied on those larger actors to help it maintain its grip on the country. These days, Bahrain is almost wholly dependent upon the larger oil producers in the Gulf for its security and financial stability, and though Manama prides itself on its diverse and relatively transparent economy, the country is still highly susceptible to the ebb and flow of the global oil market. Lacking the oil reserves and sovereign wealth funds of its neighbors, Bahrain has had to resort to a different kind of patronage system than that found in other Gulf states. "Rather than attempt to buy universal political support through financial patronage," writes Qatar University's Justin Gengler, "Bahrain has resorted instead to a more economical (and politically expedient) ruling strategy: to extend a disproportionate share of state largesse to a core Sunni tribal support base, whose members then have a direct economic-cum-political stake in defending against challenges to the system." This divide and rule strategy, argues Gengler, allows the Al Khalifa family to stifle any hopes of a unified opposition to its rule, and weds the interests of the country's Sunni minority to its own survival. If this strikes you as familiar, that's because it resembles a pattern currently playing out in conflicts across the entire Middle East. In Syria, Yemen, and Iraq, the lines of demarcation have taken on increasingly sectarian characteristics, as warring parties with varying allegiances to Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran clash in an ever-developing proxy war for influence. As a Sunni minority power with a long and somewhat sordid relationship with Iran, the Bahraini monarchy has little choice but to mirror the regional strategy of its Saudi patrons. Thus it came as little surprise when, earlier this month, Bahrain expressed its interest in sending troops to war-torn Syria "in concert" with Saudi forces. While ostensibly intended to fight the Islamic State group, most experts agree that Riyadh's primary goal in Syria is to see President Bashar Assad, a close ally of Iran, removed from power. In that sense, Bahraini foreign policy can be viewed as an extension of its domestic policy. The government has claimed on several occasions in recent years to have foiled Iranian sponsored or inspired terror plots, and its rulers are understandably sensitive to the suggestion that Bahrain is simply Iran's "fourteenth province." Bahrain, moreover, is well-positioned to exploit the increasing Sunni-Shia divide in the region for years to come. As the home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet -- not to mention a growing naval presence by its onetime protector, Great Britain -- the Al Khalifa clan is not only anticipating a Middle East divided by sectarianism, it's banking on it. All of this augurs badly for the future of the region. Such cynical policymaking may pay off for Bahrain's monarchy in the short-term, but it will no doubt contribute to years of negative consequences in Syria, Yemen, and the entire Middle East. More on this: How Bahrain Spawned Mideast Sectarianism -- Washington Post US Turns Page on Bahrain's Crackdown -- Al-Monitor The Gulf's New Social Contract -- Middle East Institute US Has No "Plan B" for Mideast Naval Access -- Brookings Institution Feedback Questions, comments, or complaints? Feel free to send us an email, or reach out on Twitter @kevinbsullivan. And be sure to check for all of the latest news and analysis on the Middle East at RealClearWorld.com. HUMPHREY Loup Public Power District and Bluestem Energy Solutions, the Omaha developer behind Creston Ridge Wind Farm, held their first informational meeting Wednesday night in Humphrey to update the public on the project's second phase. This work includes adding three turbines near the four already in place at the wind farm located along Mason Road (205th Avenue) southwest of Creston. Some area residents used the informational meeting to express their displeasure with the first phase of the wind farm project. If this project is so wonderful, why was it done under the table? asked Charles Moser. Moser sat next to Paul Gronenthal who voiced his opposition to the project to The Telegram in October. Both were convinced LPPD and Bluestem concealed the project from the public. Loup President and CEO Neal Suess countered by saying the utility's board meetings are open to the public and that The Telegram has covered the wind farm extensively. The Telegram reported when Bluestem pitched the project as early as February 2014 and reported final confirmation of the project and the site in January 2015. But Suess and Adam Herink of Bluestem Energy conceded that more could have been done to directly reach those living near the site, which is why they decided to hold public informational meetings ahead of phase two. Ivan Haschke was the most vocal opponent at the meeting. Haschke owns land just west of the wind farm and learned that phase two will put turbines even closer to his property. Haschkes concerns focused on how the turbines will affect his crops and agribusiness. He said pilots have told him that they may not be able to spray chemicals on his property. If hes unable to spray and care for his crops, Haschke said, he may lose his seed corn contract. Haschke also suspects the turbines' shadows will have a negative impact on his crops by blocking sunlight. Hes also concerned that Creston Ridge will draw more wind turbines to the area, which could negatively affect his land value and ability to build there. What about if my kids or grandkids want to come back and build near a wind tower? he asked. In a phone interview, Bill Haman, an engineer at the Iowa Energy Center, said hes seen research and regulations regarding shadow flicker's impact on people, but not crops. In Iowa, he said, property owners near wind farms are often compensated to keep concerns regarding property values at bay. Herink offered to provide a list of pilots who would spray near wind turbines and talk one-on-one with Haschke to work through his specific concerns. Herink said developments such as wind farms create more opportunities in rural areas and will hopefully slow the declining population. We need to find ways to make rural Nebraska more productive other than grain production, said Herink. This is 21st century tech thatll let rural Nebraska continue. The conversation lasted two hours, after which some attendees stuck around to talk with Suess and Herink individually. I dont think we made everyone happy, but we obviously didnt expect to, said Suess. But I and the Loup board members are charged with providing low-cost, reliable energy and thats what we do. The next informational meeting will be held 7 p.m. Wednesday at Alices Cedar Inn in Creston. 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 , We're sorry, this article is not currently available HOME > Mob Wives 'Mob Wives' star Angela "Big Ang" Raiola wanted to spread awareness that cigarettes killed her, says Dr. Oz By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 02/18/2016 star Angela "Big Ang" Raiola blamed her battle with cancer on smoking cigarettes and the reality TV star, who just died on Thursday, spoke about the addiction in a Tuesday interview with Dr. Mehmet Oz. ADVERTISEMENT Raiola was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung and brain cancer in December, and she chose to discuss the shock of her illness in a "raw" and "authentic" interview on The Dr. Oz Show earlier this week. Raiola "She was scared. Which is always a sign that -- people know more about their bodies than any test will tell you," Dr. Oz Raiola was a lifelong smoker and her health crisis began last March when doctors informed her that she had throat cancer. She reportedly quit smoking on the spot and underwent multiple surgeries that were successful, however, the cancer returned two months after she was declared cancer-free in October. "When that happens, emotionally, the up and down, it tires you out. The exhaustion took a toll on her. The third cancer had metastasized to the brain and the adrenal gland," Oz told the magazine. "That's a much worse scenario. They put her on aggressive chemo, which failed. In the setting of that, she came on [the show] to get people to appreciate that this dumb cigarette addiction she picked up as a young woman, she wanted people to see the anguish in her face, as she was clear about the fact that cigarettes killed her." Oz revealed that Raiola chose experimental immunotherapy -- which he dubbed "a Hail Mary pass" -- over continuing chemotherapy treatments. But on the morning of her first appointment, a new lung problem had developed. "Chemo kills off cells. Because the cancer cells grow faster than yours, then it kills them more quickly. But it's an older treatment. A wiser treatment is to turn your immune system on. Your immune system should always catch a cancer. Everybody reading the article has cancer, but their immune system is strong enough to catch that cancer and kill it," Oz explained. "But when it's weakened from poor nutrition and cigarettes, it doesn't catch it, and the cells prosper. The ability to use the immunotherapy to jump start the immune system would be valuable." Raiola also disclosed on Dr. Oz's show that she split from her estranged husband Neil Murphy because he "never stepped up to the plate," however, People reported Murphy remained at her bedside until her death. "What really matters at the end of the day is the family. The family had kept her afloat. Taken her to the doctors. Done everything. Part of the reason she left her husband is she realized she was taking care of him. She was done focusing on him, she needed to focus on her," Oz said. "It had been recent. It was a firm decision... These are difficult decisions to make, but when your life is at risk, you make those difficult decisions you have been putting off." Despite her poor condition, Raiola apparently wanted to spread awareness about the dangers of smoking cigarettes. FOLLOW REALITY TV WORLD ON THE ALL-NEW GOOGLE NEWS! Reality TV World is now available on the all-new Google News app and website. Click here to visit our Google News page, and then click FOLLOW to add us as a news source! "The chance of stopping cigarettes is less than 10 percent on your own," Oz revealed. "But you can double that with medical support: medications or therapy. Within hours of stopping cigarettes, your blood pressure drops, your lung function improves, and you see dramatic reductions in other risks. It takes years for other risks to go away, but you see benefits really quickly." Raiola first appeared on in 2012 and later landed two spinoffs Big Ang and Miami Monkey. About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade. FOLLOW REALITY TV WORLD ON GOOGLE NEWS star Angela "Big Ang" Raiola blamed her battle with cancer on smoking cigarettes and the reality TV star, who just died on Thursday, spoke about the addiction in a Tuesday interview with Dr. Mehmet Oz.Raiola was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung and brain cancer in December, and she chose to discuss the shock of her illness in a "raw" and "authentic" interview on The Dr. Oz Show earlier this week. Raiola passed away two days after the episode aired at age 55."She was scared. Which is always a sign that -- people know more about their bodies than any test will tell you," Dr. Oz told People. "What the patient tells you is more accurate than what you can guess. She had been beaten down over the last year."Raiola was a lifelong smoker and her health crisis began last March when doctors informed her that she had throat cancer. She reportedly quit smoking on the spot and underwent multiple surgeries that were successful, however, the cancer returned two months after she was declared cancer-free in October."When that happens, emotionally, the up and down, it tires you out. The exhaustion took a toll on her. The third cancer had metastasized to the brain and the adrenal gland," Oz told the magazine."That's a much worse scenario. They put her on aggressive chemo, which failed. In the setting of that, she came on [the show] to get people to appreciate that this dumb cigarette addiction she picked up as a young woman, she wanted people to see the anguish in her face, as she was clear about the fact that cigarettes killed her."Oz revealed that Raiola chose experimental immunotherapy -- which he dubbed "a Hail Mary pass" -- over continuing chemotherapy treatments. But on the morning of her first appointment, a new lung problem had developed."Chemo kills off cells. Because the cancer cells grow faster than yours, then it kills them more quickly. But it's an older treatment. A wiser treatment is to turn your immune system on. Your immune system should always catch a cancer. Everybody reading the article has cancer, but their immune system is strong enough to catch that cancer and kill it," Oz explained."But when it's weakened from poor nutrition and cigarettes, it doesn't catch it, and the cells prosper. The ability to use the immunotherapy to jump start the immune system would be valuable."Raiola also disclosed on Dr. Oz's show that she split from her estranged husband Neil Murphy because he "never stepped up to the plate," however, People reported Murphy remained at her bedside until her death."What really matters at the end of the day is the family. The family had kept her afloat. Taken her to the doctors. Done everything. Part of the reason she left her husband is she realized she was taking care of him. She was done focusing on him, she needed to focus on her," Oz said."It had been recent. It was a firm decision... These are difficult decisions to make, but when your life is at risk, you make those difficult decisions you have been putting off."Despite her poor condition, Raiola apparently wanted to spread awareness about the dangers of smoking cigarettes."The chance of stopping cigarettes is less than 10 percent on your own," Oz revealed."But you can double that with medical support: medications or therapy. Within hours of stopping cigarettes, your blood pressure drops, your lung function improves, and you see dramatic reductions in other risks. It takes years for other risks to go away, but you see benefits really quickly."Raiola first appeared on in 2012 and later landed two spinoffs Big Ang and Miami Monkey. MOB WIVES MORE MOB WIVES NEWS << PRIOR STORY Exclusive: 'Survivor: Kaoh Rong' castoff Darnell Hamilton talks (Part 1) NEXT STORY >> 'American Idol's Top 14 contestants revealed after many hopefuls redeem themselves in new "Duets Round" Get more Reality TV World! Follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook or add our RSS feed. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Page generated Fri Oct 21, 2022 8:45 am in 0.71849584579468 seconds The 71,100-square-foot facility of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, was recently acquired by fully integrated real estate investment trust, Easterly Government Properties. "Easterly's eighth acquisition since our initial public offering one year ago, and our first addition in 2016, the ICE - Albuquerque facility comes on the heels of Easterly's FBI - Richmond acquisition in late 2015, and is another example of the high-quality opportunities we are actively sourcing and underwriting as we continue to grow our mission-critical portfolio," said Darrell Crate, Chairman of Easterly Government Properties, Inc. "The Company is off to a great start in 2016 and we look forward to providing consistent growth and an attractive total return to our shareholders." According to the press release of Easterly Government Properties in Business Wire, the Albuquerque building of the ICE is a built-to-suit facility completed in 2011 that is being leased to the General Services Administration on behalf of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement until January of 2027. The property was built with crash-barrier-grade perimeter fencing, a guardhouse, holding cells, a fenced sally port, and a forensics lab. The facility is the current home of both the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) directorates, as well as is open around the clock. "We are gratified to add another important, mission-critical ICE facility to our portfolio," said William C. Trimble III, Chief Executive Officer of Easterly Government Properties, Inc. "The ICE - Albuquerque mission is an important one, and this building is responsible for supporting a large enforcement effort in the Southwest. Additionally, we are pleased that this facility is located proximate to our two-building U.S. Forest Service National Operations Center." ICE is the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, and is tasked with enforcing the United States' border control, customs, trade, and immigration laws. At present, the ICE has more than 20,000 employees in the United States. Ideas for Creative Exploration (ICE) and the Helen S. Lanier Chair of the University of Georgia English department will be hosting the final of three events for the centennial celebration of the artistic form known as Dada. Scheduled on Feb. 25 at 8 p.m. at Flicker Theatre, the event will focus on the future of Dada by featuring new works from the artist Bruce Andrews, UGA students and community members. Super Bowl 50 had little to offer in the way of excitement. The gameplay was robotic and lacked for suspense. Worst of all, even the commercials were boring and uninspired. Another Shasta County historic landmark bit the dust on Dec. 13, 1947, when all the bricks in the 121-foot-high Holt and Gregg Brick Manufacturing Co.'s chimney came tumbling down like an elevator under the explosion of 200 sticks of dynamite. It was such an exciting event that at least 100 people came to watch. The chimney was built in 1909, making it 38 years old when it was destroyed. It long had been a landmark. The chimney was still in excellent condition when it was dynamited. But times had changed and the company was suffering from labor troubles during World War I, which made operation of the plant impractical. The company began operations in 1880 and was so successful that it has been said it was responsible for the building of almost every brick building in this part of the state. The first plant was located in south Redding, but was moved to the site north of Anderson before the turn of the century. In the early days, Chinese laborers were employed. The clay was ground by machinery, mixed with water to the proper consistency, pressed into molds, set on palettes, six to a palette, and laid on racks to dry in the sun. The bricks were arranged over many acres so the sun could bake them. The making of bricks by hand ended in 1909, when the kiln and chimney were constructed. The 121-foot chimney measured 12 feet at the base, and 6 feet at the top. The oval shaped kiln at the bottom was 12 feet high, 100 feet long and 40 feet wide. The plant had the most modern equipment money could buy, including a Hoffman kiln, which had a down draft and was heated by coal. The kiln had 16 chambers, each of which could bake 20,000 bricks. It took a full day of work to fill a chamber. The fire served about six chambers at a time and each day a different chamber was used for firing brick while the other chambers were cooling off. Between 3 million and 4 million bricks were produced annually. The James R. Holt and John N. Gregg started their firm in the days when all brick was made by hand. After machinery was installed, the payroll varied between 40 and 50 men. The brick came from a nearby clay pit, which still has a plentiful supply of clay. When sufficiently dry, the firing began. Some bricks were stored in a warehouse after drying to be used during the winter months until the first of the year, when there was a layoff until spring. The James R. Holt home in Redding was built of brick in approximately 1890 at 1440 West Street in Redding, directly north of Judge Eaton's family home. When built, the property boasted a brick doghouse in the backyard. It no longer exists. After the death of James R. Holt, it was occupied by his son, James C. Holt, and family. It's said the home is in as good condition today as it was when it was built. In 1911, James R. Holt, founder of the firm, died, and his son, James C. Holt, took over the operation. He ran the business until 1918, when labor troubles during World War I made operation of the plant impractical. He closed the brick plant that year. The property belonged solely to Holt when he sold it to Shasta Plywood Inc. as Gregg's portion had been purchased earlier. Shasta Plywood constructed their plant at the former brickyard. It was later sold to Sierra Pacific Industries, which enlarged the plywood plant. Sierra Pacific is still located at the site. Dottie Smith is the former instructor of Shasta County History at Shasta College and former curator of the Shasta College Museum. Contact her at historydottie@gmail.com. Nu Wang, a Ph.D. student at the University of Minnesota, takes a whiff of the corpse flower on Feb. 8, 2016 in St. Paul, Minn. (Glen Stubbe/Minneapolis Star Tribune/TNS) SHARE By Paul Walsh and Sophie Hoover, Star Tribune (Minneapolis) MINNEAPOLIS Long past its due date, the University of Minnesotas corpse flower has made a reluctant opening, smelling more like pungent produce than rotting meat upon blooming. For the first time in seven years, the 6-foot-tall flower bloomed earlier this month at its home in the universitys College of Biological Sciences Conservatory in St. Paul, Minn., a ta-da! that was many days behind schedule. Now the conservatory is dealing with an apparently shy performer. It seems the flowers bloom is a bit lacking of all its glory. Monday morning, two conservatory staff members stood next to the flower atop a grate 3 feet above the floor and were coaxing a more robust bloom with pollen borrowed from Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., which has a corpse flower of its own. And how is that done? Very carefully, of course. The staffers were dipping paintbrushes into the pollen and then reaching shoulder-deep into the flower to leave the enticing matter inside. At this point, the flowers scent is more like that of spoiled cabbage than off-putting meat. Lisa Aston Philander, Curator at the Biological Sciences Conservatory, uses a heat sensor to monitor the Corpse flower which heats itself up to make the smell go farther. It smells the way it does to attract flies as pollinators. Lisa Aston Philander, Curator at the Biological Sciences Conservatory, uses a heat sensor to monitor the Corpse flower which heats itself up to make the smell go farther. It smells the way it does to attract flies as pollinators. The notoriously noxious corpse flower, native to the equatorial rain forests of Sumatra, Indonesia, uses its odor to cut through the many scents competing for the pollinating attention of the sweat bee. The bees can smell the plant from miles away. Known more academically as the Amorphophallus titanum which translates to misshapen giant penis the flower blooms for only a few days. Gustavus Adolphus corpse flower last raised its stink in late 2013. A corpse flower also bloomed in 2008 at Como Parks Marjorie McNeely Conservatory in St. Paul. Andreas Fuhrmann/Record Searchlight Students leave Central Valley High School Thursday afternoon after the school went on lockdown after gang related activity. SHARE Michael Anthonie Farnsworth By Staff Reports Updated at 5:05 p.m. Shasta County sheriff's officials say they're releasing Michael Anthony Farnsworth because it turns out he didn't have any direct involvement with the threats against Central Valley. However, deputies are still looking for Alexander Zachary Comer, 17, for questioning about the incident. Updated at 11:40 a.m. Authorities are looking for another student involved in the threats issued on Thursday that led to the lockdown of Central Valley High School and its closure today. The Shasta County Sheriff's Office is looking for Alexander Zachary Comer, 17. If anyone knows where he is, they're asked to contact the Sheriff's Office. The Gateway School District will hold a news conference about the incident at 1 p.m. today at district headquarters. Original story: SHASTA LAKE An 18-year-old man was arrested and Central Valley High School students were released from school early after a dispute between two gangs over the weekend spilled over to the campus Thursday. Central Valley High School will remain closed Friday to err on the side of caution due to the gang activity, Principal Ryan Johnson wrote in an email to parents Thursday evening. The campus in Shasta Lake went on a soft lockdown Thursday morning after school officials heard that members of a gang planned to shoot members of another gang at the school later that day. The two gangs had fought over the weekend, according to the Shasta County Sheriffs Office. A student provided some information to school administrators that indicated there was a possible threat, said Jason Rubin, director of human resources for the Gateway Unified School District. By 10:30 a.m. the school had gone into soft lockdown. Teachers were told to keep students in the classrooms and the Gateway Unified school administration decided to dismiss students early. Parents were told they could come and pick up their children. Deputies went to the school shortly after 9 a.m. and remained there until all the students left, said Sgt. Logan Stonehouse of the Shasta County Sheriffs Office. An investigation into the threats led authorities to arrest Michael Anthonie Farnsworth, an alleged gang member, the sheriffs office said. He was arrested on suspicion of making criminal threats and for conspiracy. Principal Johnson wrote that he hopes to finish an investigation into the threats of a gang shooting. In a recorded message Thursday evening, the district informs school parents that the continued closure is related to new information about the case. Gateway Unified School District Superintendent Jim Harrell couldnt be reached for comment Thursday night. According to electronic court records, the only contact with law enforcement that Farnsworth has had since he turned 18 was for a traffic violation. The jails website did not give a bail amount. SHARE By Amber Sandhu of the Redding Record Searchlight Shasta County's needle exchange program could be eligible for federal funding, ending a longtime Congressional ban since 1988 that prevented allocation of funds to such programs. In January, Congress introduced HR 4396, known as the "Heroin and Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention and Reduction Act," to help public health departments address the rising rate of prescription drug abuse and heroin use. The bill aims to provide grants to state, local and tribal governments and community organizations to support their needle exchange programs. According to the California Department of Public Health, various syringe exchange programs in the state reported an increased number of younger needle users, as well as an increased number of heroin users, started using prescription opiates such as oxycodone prior to using heroin. With the new bill, federal funds won't go directly toward the purchase of needles, but will be used in other ways to support the program such as transportation, HIV testing and referral services. Heidi Vert, policy analyst at the Shasta County Public Health Department, said that the lift on the federal ban is good news. While the current program in Shasta County, which started in 2006, is not "breaking the budget," Vert said the department would still pursue funding if the opportunity becomes available. Each syringe costs 10 cents, and is paid for through the Public Health Department's general fund, and the program itself is funded by a grant through the California Department of Public Health Office of AIDS. Vert said that during the syringe exchange, the county provides HIV testing, referrals for treatment, and a maximum of 30 needles per person. "For every needle given out, one comes in," she said. And each year, there have been more needles received than handed out. They do not supply starter kits for needle exchange, and a client must bring in a dirty needle to receive a clean needle in order to begin the program. According to data supplied by the Shasta County Health and Human Services Agency, the number of needles given out has increased each year, increasing the costs as well. Between 2014 and 2015, the department saw a surge in the number of needles handed out, and saw its cost rise by more than $10,000 by 2015. In 2014, the department handed out 80,167 needles, and in 2015, it handed out 185,736 needles. But Dr. Andrew Deckert, health officer at the Public Health Department, sees the rise in needles exchanged as encouraging. "That's great, that means that we're getting the word out," he said. "Trust has been built. There is more contact between drug users and health staff, which means it's initiating conversation about treatment." Vert said while the hope is that people would enter into treatment, if they're not ready the focus is to prevent them from contracting other diseases that could spread through the community. "We're keeping the community as safe as we can, all things considered," she said. And so far it seems to be working. As the number of needles exchanged increased in 2014 and 2015, Deckert said there were no new reported cases of HIV, acute hepatitis B or acute hepatitis C in both years. "It's not going up and that's a great thing," he said. "There are many reasons for that, but I think the syringe exchange contributes to that." Deckert said the program is serving its purpose by reducing the spread of bloodborne infections. In addition, it decreases the "taxpayer burden" of injection related healthcare expenses such as treatment for HIV or hepatitis. According to Deckert's estimation, more than 1 million syringes are used in Shasta County every year, and the vast majority of them are for medical conditions, while intravenous drug users make up small portion of that. Deckert said while the health department doesn't condone the usage of drugs, it's important to "implement programs to protect society as a whole." SHARE Two people are facing charges after police say they were selling marijuana out of their Hilltop Lodge motel rooms. Mariques Tavon Armstrong, 26, of Redding, and Kayla Ann Shaylynn Brazil, 20, of Sacramento, face chages of selling marijuana and maintaining a residence for drug possession, said Sgt. Walt Bullington. He said officers with the Neighborhood Police Unit went to the Lodge, an area known for crime, and spoke with the pair at their motel room. The officers noticed what Bullington called signs of drug activity. Armstrong also kept changing his story while Brazil "openly admitted that they were selling marijuana from the room." Both were taken to the Shasta County Jail, he said. Armstrong was arrested around two weeks ago on suspicion of possession and transportation of heroin and cocaine, Bullington said. A little less than a year before that, he was arrested on suspicion of maintaining a home for drug use, possession of drugs for sale. Photo from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology State Department of Fish and Wildlife officials said a disease has killed up to 1,000 pine siskin, which are found in the Redding area. To prevent the spread of the disease residents should take down bird feeders and take down bird baths. SHARE By Damon Arthur of the Redding Record Searchlight Out of concern over a die-off among a species of bird native to the Redding area, state wildlife officials are asking people to dump their bird baths and take down their bird feeders. Since early December there have been reports of at least 300 pine siskins found dead in the Redding area, as well as in the Central and South Coast regions, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said. Based on the number of reported deaths, officials estimate more than 1,000 of the pine siskins have died this winter from salmonella bacteria, the agency said. The pine siskin is a small songbird found in California's forested areas. To help prevent spread of the disease, wildlife officials are urging people to stop feeding birds with feeders and empty bird baths. "There are two important things that the public can do to help prevent bird deaths," said Krysta Rogers, a CDFW senior environmental scientist and avian disease specialist. "First, they can remove all artificial sources of food and water such as bird feeders, bird baths and fountains. Secondly, they can report bird deaths to CDFW, particularly when large numbers of birds are found in an area. This information helps us to better monitor disease outbreaks so that we can take appropriate action," Rogers said in a statement. Birds can become infected from food and water and when they come in contact bird feeders, perches and soil contaminated with feces from other birds. "The majority of the salmonellosis reports we receive are from locations with backyard bird feeders," Rogers said. "These devices may aid in disease transmission between pine siskins, and possibly other bird species, by bringing the birds into closer contact than would occur normally." Diseased birds can look weak, have labored breathing, ruffled feathers and sit for long periods of time in one place, officials said. Bill Oliver, a member of the Redding chapter of the Audubon Society, said he saw pine siskins in the Redding area in November, but hasn't seen them since. "I hope they didn't all die from some communicable disease," he said. Oliver said he has bird feeders and a bird bath, but it would not be a hardship to take them down. There are other sources of food for birds, he said. "It's a convenience and an enjoyment for the birders, but they are not needed for the birds," Oliver said. He said he would be concerned for hummingbirds, though, especially during the heat of summer. Dead birds can be reported to the DFW at http://bit.ly/17ESHWy. Sick birds can be reported to wildlife rehabilitation centers. There are four state licensed wildlife rescue centers in the North State: Haven Wild Care in Redding, 227-6727; Shasta Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation in Anderson, 365-9453; Tehama Wild Care, 347-1687; Wildlife Rescue Center, 468-4287. Easter Pequot Tribal Nation leaders Joseph Perry and Katherine Sebastian perform a smudging ceremon to honor their ancestors on the powwow grounds at their reservation in Connecticut. Their tribe is one of hundreds that have applied for federal recognition since 1978. (Teresa Wiltz/The Pew Cheritable Trusts) SHARE By Teresa Wiltz, Stateline.org NORTH STONINGTON, Conn. Call it a tale of two tribes, separated here by a few miles, connected by DNA, but with decidedly different fortunes. To the west, there is the Mashantucket Western Pequot Tribal Nation reservation: rolling lawns, tribal museum, lavish houses, casino. To the east, there is the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation reservation: rutted roads, port-a-potties, rusted trailers. No casino. Both are Native American tribes with ancestry dating to pre-Colonial times. Both are recognized as Indian by the state of Connecticut. But the Mashantucket have enjoyed federal recognition since 1983, while the Eastern Pequots (Pee-kwots) won recognition in 2002 after a 24-year battle and lost it in 2005. Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy, a Democrat, has fought federal recognition of the Eastern Pequots and two other Connecticut tribes, even hand-delivering a letter to President Barack Obama. And that, the Eastern Pequots say, has made all the difference in their ability to govern themselves; provide health care, housing and educational services for their 1,165 members; or even pave their roads. Without federal support and services and without the assistance of the state to help get them the development and survival of their tribe is at risk, they say. The Eastern Pequots launched their petition in 1978, a decade before tribal gaming was a legal option to help them develop economically. And at one point, they wanted to build a casino like the one that brought in hundreds of millions of dollars for their cousins, the Mashantuckets. Now, theyre ambivalent. The gambling market isnt what it used to be. But Malloy, they say, is using an opposition to more gaming in his state as a ruse to block their other route to economic development. (Malloys office did not respond to repeated requests from Stateline for comment.) It amounts to technical genocide, said tribal counsel James Benny Jones. Theyre using laws instead of bullets and smallpox. The Eastern Pequots are not alone in their quest to gain the government assistance they say they need to survive economically. There are 356 tribes that have applied to join the 567 federally recognized American Indian and Alaska Native tribes spread through 34 states. On Jan. 28, the Pamunkeys of Virginia became the latest tribe to be recognized after fighting off a legal challenge by a California group opposed to expanding Indian gaming. Like the Eastern Pequots, the 208-member Pamunkey Tribe is recognized by its state. Unlike the Eastern Pequots, the Pamunkeys had the support of their governor, Democrat Terry McAuliffe. Only 14 states have some sort of tribal recognition process in place, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). But what that means for American Indian tribes can vary widely, from token acknowledgement to active assistance. On the other hand, federal recognition means a lot: It allows a tribe to act as a sovereign nation, with the right to adjudicate legal cases and levy taxes. It protects tribal land and exempts a tribe from state and local jurisdiction. And the tribe becomes eligible for federally funded services such as health care and housing assistance and, potentially, to open a casino. But getting there is a Catch-22: federal recognition can provide a path to financial stability. To get that recognition, though, you need deep pockets and it helps to have state leaders on your side, tribal leaders say. Its a process that often pits tribes against one another. Federally recognized tribes sometimes block others because they dont want the competition that would come with new casinos, said Mary Ann Jacobs, who chairs the American Indian studies department at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke and is a member of the Lumbee Tribe. Federal recognition is a divide-and-conquer thing, said Jacobs, whose tribe of 55,000 members has been seeking federal recognition since 1888. Its the haves and have-nots. Jacobs points to the Eastern Band of Cherokee, which owns Harrahs Cherokee Casino Resort in North Carolina. It opposes the Lumbee Tribes petition, arguing the Lumbees arent real Indians. Were the Lumbee Tribe to open a casino, its convenient location would pose a competitive threat. That would make a huge difference in (the Cherokees) bottom line, she said. There are three ways a tribe can be recognized: through an act of Congress, a U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) administrative process, or a court decision. The key: a tribe has to prove that it is descended from the nations original Americans, which can be a Sisyphean task. There are birth certificates to find, marriage licenses, death certificates, census records. Tribes spend millions of dollars on genealogists, lawyers and lobbyists, which often means finding outside investors. Its a ridiculous process, said Arlinda Locklear, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer who has worked with tribes to secure recognition. But without recognition, you are a non-entity as far as the federal government is concerned. Nedra Darling, a spokeswoman in the office of the assistant secretary for Indian Affairs at the Interior Department, said petitioning tribes must meet seven criteria to be acknowledged, including: political influence or authority from 1900 to the present; a current governing document; descent from a historical tribe or tribes; proof that most members cant claim membership in other tribes; and the tribe cant be one that had been terminated by Congress. Since 1978, the BIA has considered 120 claims at a rate of about three per year, Darling said. Of that number, acknowledgment was granted to 18 tribes and denied to 32. Once denied, a group cant petition again, a provision the Eastern Pequots are fighting, said tribal chairwoman Katherine Sebastian. Regulations enacted in July speed the process, Darling said, by trimming some requirements, such as allowing tribes to provide documentation of their heritage dating only to 1900. The changes were met with opposition from critics who said they made it easier for tribes to win recognition and potentially open casinos. Stand Up For California fought the Pamunkey petition specifically to challenge the new regulations, said Cheryl Schmit, whose community formed the group 20 years ago to combat tribal gaming in their small town of Penryn in Northern California. Although the Pamunkeys are based in Virginia, the new rules seemed tailor-made to help the 81 tribes in California that are seeking federal recognition, she said. In California, where there are already 109 federally recognized tribes and 69 Indian casinos, another 33 casinos could be added in urban areas such as Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, Schmit said. The new rules loosened the criteria, Schmit said, adding that her group is not anti-gaming. Will they recognize the correct tribe, or an illegitimate tribe? Federally recognized tribes can acquire their own land and create laws on a piece of property and non-Indians in the community will have no say, she said. Schmit, who is not Native American, said she is not swayed by tribes who say that their primary motivation is the survival of their communities not gambling. I dont believe it for one minute. Casinos have changed everything for many tribes. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which authorized casino gambling on Native American reservations. Casinos provided a way for tribes to attain financial self-sufficiency. The numbers of tribes seeking recognition jumped exponentially, though not every casino is successful. Gaming made for odd bedfellows. At one point, the Eastern Pequots counted among their investors Donald Trump, Sebastian said. The investors put up several million dollars so the Eastern Pequots could pursue recognition, she said. And it was at that point that Malloy stepped in to block their petition as well as those of the Schaghticokes and the Golden Hill Paugussetts, Sebastian said. When both the Eastern Pequots and the Schaghticokes won federal recognition in the last decade, the state appealed and won and the investors pulled out. Weve had an adversarial relationship with the state for a long time, Sebastian said, adding that the tribe has not ruled out suing the state. Besides the Mashantuckets, the state has one other federally recognized tribe, the Mohegan Tribe, which also owns a casino. If Connecticuts other tribes whod expressed interest in gaming were recognized, Malloy wrote Obama in 2014, the consequences would be devastating causing significant economic hardship to Connecticut residents. As the Eastern Pequots see it, the state is hypocritical: It receives hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue-sharing payments from tribal casinos. In fiscal 2014-15, Connecticut received $117 million from the Foxwoods Casino, a sprawling multiplex owned by the Mashantucket, according to state records. In fiscal 2015-16, it has so far received about $60 million. Its fundamentally an issue of fairness, Sebastian said. Here we are, a state-recognized tribe. By law, the state must assist us in maintaining our reservation. Instead, they have vehemently opposed us. (EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE) The Eastern Pequots have been recognized by Connecticut since Colonial times. And having state recognition can be a first step in the process of federal recognition, said Martha Salazar, senior policy specialist for NCSL. Some states recognize a tribe through legislation. Others do it through a state agency, or the governor issues a proclamation. With some states, formal recognition brings certain benefits. In Alabama, Connecticut, Louisiana and North Carolina, Indian tribes can apply for programs and services, get help with navigating the bureaucracy, and in some instances the state will provide education funding, according to Salazar. As Sebastian sees it, its a miracle the Eastern Pequots are not extinct. Hundreds were massacred by English settlers in 1637. Over the centuries, they intermarried with formerly enslaved Africans, European settlers and other Indian tribes, but always maintained their Eastern Pequot genealogy, she said, even as they scattered around the country. Some are lawyers and doctors she herself is a retired attorney but others struggle with unemployment. As Sebastian talks, Joseph Perry, the tribal treasurer, drives across the unpaved roads of their 225-acre reservation. Just across the way, you can see the Foxwood Casinos, a turquoise colored Shangri-la. Here, on the reservation, amid often impenetrable forest on the Rhode Island border, life is extremely hard, Sebastian said, pointing to the houses where her 80-year-old uncle and 30-year-old son live. The land is rocky and hilly with no running water, sewers or electricity. Those who live there either do without or scrounge up the $10,000 needed to rig up their own power and plumbing. Federal recognition would mean that they would have the resources to develop the infrastructure, Sebastian said. Theyre looking into ways outside of gambling to provide housing and health care and ensure the longevity of their tribe: a resort, forestry and stone harvesting are ideas they are considering. The Eastern Pequots are committed to seeing this through, so far submitting 70,000 pages of documents to the BIA to bolster their claims. The state is spending taxpayer money to fight us, Sebastian said. Were going up against the state and big money interests. This could be a long battle. 2016 Stateline.org Visit Stateline.org at www.stateline.org Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. By Nathan Solis of the Redding Record Searchlight Due to a holiday break, Shasta County Supervisors have not had a chance to discuss a challenge issued by housing first expert Lloyd Pendleton that would require the county to identify and house five chronically homeless people. During his speech in Redding last week, Pendleton, former director Utah's Homeless Task Force, issued a challenge to local officials house 10 chronically homeless people by July 1. He spoke at a forum hosted by the Women's Fund of the Shasta Regional Community Foundation, the Record Searchlight and the Shasta Community Health Center. The challenge was verbally accepted by Redding Mayor Missy McArthur and Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Pam Giacomini. But supervisors have not met to address a county response to the challenge and what that would entail. Shasta County officials familiar with the challenge feel the goal of housing 10 people five for the city of Redding and five for the county is admirable and certainly something everyone can agree on. Supervisor Les Baugh, who did not attend the meeting where the challenge was issued, suggests any type of rushed approach could end up stumbling over itself, and a successful plan would require coordinated efforts from several local agencies familiar with housing issues. "Who wouldn't want to house 10 people? I did not vote on the commitment yet, so I can't say what a plan would look like," he said. "What the topic of a challenges does allow us to do is create goals and discuss future plans." He emphasized he has not had the chance to discuss the challenge with fellow board members or county personnel. The challenge to house 10 people is based on Salt Lake City's housing a number of chronically homeless people over the years. The program has led to a drastic reduction in the number of people who are chronically homeless. Pendleton referred to the experience as a learning exercise, taking on the most challenging, difficult population in the homeless community and providing housing. Pendleton compared the task to feeding a wood-burning stove. "Chop the big end of the log first," Pendleton said, calling the program a low-risk, low-cost but high return approach. The pilot program could lead to an expansion of services and a paradigm shift to how officials approach homelessness, Pendleton said. During the Feb. 11 event, Pendleton asked local officials to consider housing the chronically homeless under a deadline. He then issued the challenge and officials in attendance agreed. Giacomini, who acknowledged the challenge at the meeting, has not responded to questions for this article. Pendleton has issued the same challenge to a number of other cities during his speaking tour, stating the housing first approach is one that may have sounded radical when first proposed in 2003 but now it has proven effective. With the housing first approach, there are no conditions for individuals to be clean or sober before being housed or to remain housed. "People need to feel safe. I don't command him and tell him, 'You need to stay clean to stay in housing.' The harm reduction is part of the housing first model," Pendleton said. Bobbi Sawtelle, housing director with Northern Valley Catholic Social Service in Redding, thinks the challenge is more of a rallying cry for service providers and local officials. Sawtelle said, "It's a call to arms, 'Here are the challenges. Here are the people to meet those challenges.' And maybe we do look more closely at existing resources. There's nothing wrong with that." Sawtelle said available housing vouchers provided by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to the county and city of Redding are restrictive and there are waiting lists for the program. The turnaround would not be quick, Sawtelle said, but agrees that the deadline factor provides a motivating factor. Collaboration between multiple agencies would help those involved to recognize the needs in the community. "Everyone is a resource in that conversation. Everyone is not a driver, not the one to make the decisions, but everyone is part of the solution," Sawtelle said. The Shasta County Board of Supervisors meets Feb. 23, but there is no word yet whether Pendleton's challenge will be on the agenda. Lloyd Pendleton brings Redding City Councilwoman Kristen Schreder to the stage as he addresses an audience Thursday at Sequoia Schools McLaughlin Auditorium. He said Schreder was a champion for the cause locally. By Jenny Espino of the Redding Record Searchlight Redding Mayor Missy McArthur said city officials have assured her there should be no problem getting five people housed to meet the challenge thrown down by Lloyd Pendleton, the housing expert who rallied the area to solve homelessness. But any pilot program must be a collaborative endeavor with Shasta County, she said, stressing that the stakes are high to get it right in the first try. "We don't want to fall on our faces and then have everyone say, 'We just won't do it again,'" said McArthur, who talked while on a tour of the Good News Rescue Mission. "(The city and county) don't have to be in lock step, but we have to be on the same page." Pendleton challenged the mayor and Shasta County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Pam Giacomini to each find housing for five people. McArthur, who originally set a March 15 deadline for the city, committed to meeting the goal by July 1. Shasta County Executive Officer Larry Lees, who attended Pendleton's Feb. 11 presentation, also was receptive to the date set and said he saw the potential for community success targeting specific populations, such as veterans. While Pendleton's message is still reverberating, the Redding City Council has asked for a presentation that covers the work housing staff does and the framework that needs to be in place to start a pilot program. The council was unanimous Tuesday in its support for more information from staff, which will be used to determine whether members can commit to the date set by Pendleton. Background on what the city already does was requested by Councilwoman Francie Sullivan and supported by Vice Mayor Brent Weaver. "There are people who don't realize what we're already doing," Sullivan said to her colleagues. Councilwoman Kristen Schreder, leading the effort for a plan to move the chronically homeless into housing, and McArthur were the first to propose a discussion. Councilman Gary Cadd said he agreed with having the discussion. The city can issue up to 1,568 rental assistance vouchers to applicants. During his talk, Pendleton mentioned project-based rental assistance vouchers as a solution used in his home state, Utah, where he was instrumental in reducing chronic homelessness by 91 percent before his retirement last year. Under project-based vouchers, an agency gives a certain number of vouchers to a housing developer, much like Northern Valley Catholic Social Service, Deputy City Manager Greg Clark said. The tenants are able to get into housing provided by NVCSS, but when they are ready to leave, the voucher goes with them. "You want to take great caution into something like that, knowing you will have control for only a short period of time," he said. Nonetheless, he saw that as a possible option for the city to take. Schreder was in Oakland on Thursday for a National Alliance to End Homelessness conference related to families and youths. She contemplated ways to reduce the risk to landlords and increase assistance to them and restructure housing choices. "My goal is for the City Council to work with staff as to who should be at the table," she said. Clark also noted housing staff uses discretion to give someone a voucher right away. This usually happens in the case of a domestic violence victim. Local residents, veterans, the elderly and disabled have preference. Clark also said housing staff is looking at changing policy to address the housing first model. Under the housing first model, chronically homeless people are put into housing with few strings attached. They pay minimal rent, but they're not required to have a job, be clean and sober or participate in programs to stay in the housing. It should be noted the city does not operate public housing nor does it offer support services. Besides the vouchers, there are also Community Development Block grants for improvement projects and federal housing funding for long-term, bigger projects. "The tools that we do have are to get people into housing," Clark said. The Rev. Ann Corrin, a longtime advocate for a homeless day center, liked the intent behind Pendleton's challenge and looked forward to seeing housing opportunities open up city-wide so as to integrate people into society. "If we do something and then think we're done, obviously we didn't meet his challenge," she said. She also saw case management as crucial for any pilot program to succeed. Pendleton said more than 400 10-year strategic plans to end homelessness were written between 2003 and 2006. But only two were implemented. A woman in the audience called out that Redding would be the third. SHARE By Sean Cockerham, McClatchy Washington Bureau WASHINGTON Californians will vote this fall on legalizing marijuana for recreation, but whether Golden State residents can break out the bongs could depend on what happens at the top of the ballot. The next president has the power to shut down marijuana sales in the states that have legalized it, and two of the candidates, Republicans Marco Rubio and Ben Carson, have suggested they would. While marijuana remains forbidden under federal law, President Barack Obama has allowed pot sales in states such as Colorado, Oregon and Washington that have legalized recreational marijuana under state law. Weed advocates are watching the presidential race closely and hoping the next president follows Obamas path on pot. The next administration has the ability to continue the position of the Obama administration in allowing this experiment to continue successfully, said Chris Woods, owner of Terrapin Care Station, a growing chain of recreational marijuana stores in Colorado, with locations in Boulder and the Denver suburb of Aurora. Jason Kinney, spokesman for the ballot campaign to legalize recreational marijuana in California, expressed faith that even the election of an anti-marijuana president like Rubio wouldnt be a roadblock. Given the increasing bipartisan support within Congress for allowing states to make their own decisions about the issue, we are confident that the state of California will be allowed to implement the will of its people and create a tightly regulated, controlled and transparent system for the cultivation and sale of adult-use marijuana within its borders, he said. Congress, though, has largely been silent on the marijuana issue. While it blocked Washington, D.C., from creating a legal pot market, it has left enforcement issues up to the executive branch. States are following a 2013 Obama administration Justice Department memo that lets them allow regulated marijuana sales as long as they take steps like working to keep kids from getting weed and preventing the distribution of marijuana to other states where it remains illegal. But that could change quickly. It would be administratively simple for the next president to order new Justice Department memos that reverse Obamas acceptance of legal weed, said John Hudak, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has written extensively about marijuana. Still, enforcing such a mandate and shutting down marijuana sales in the states would be an enormous federal law enforcement task, he said, especially if the new president also tried to stop medical marijuana, which is legal in 23 states and the District of Columbia. None of the presidential candidates have explicitly threatened medical marijuana. But even shutting down recreational sales would be a big undertaking, Hudak said particularly if the California initiative passes, and the states new system gets up and running before the new president acts. Legalizing recreational marijuana sales in California, which has nearly 40 million people, would be a huge expansion. The biggest state so far to legalize is Washington, with about 7 million people. Shutting down the legal recreational systems is going to be quite difficult for any president. If California legalizes it becomes impossible, Hudak said. I think there is a lot riding on California in terms of the response of the next president. Marijuana advocates are also betting on politicians, even those who are drug warriors, hesitating to act against pot sales because polls show a majority of Americans support legalization. Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., who opposed his states legalization of pot, said hes still waiting to know if pots availability has increased traffic accidents and homelessness. The state had more fatality accidents in 2015 than in 2014, but so did the United States as a whole. Gardner noted that polls show support for legalization went up after voters made recreational sales legal there in 2012. Jeffrey Zinsmeister, executive vice president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, a group that opposes legalization but wants to ease penalties for drug offenses, argues that the problems in states that have legalized are going to become apparent to the presidential candidates. He said hes hopeful the next president is going to enforce federal law and shut down recreational marijuana sales, although he deemed it too soon to predict the chances of that happening. What the candidates say on the campaign trail and what they do in office are often two very different things, Zinsmeister said. It seems to be an issue that, largely speaking, the candidates have tried to avoid. Marijuana is a big and fast-growing business in the states that have legalized. Adult recreational use sales grew from $351 million in 2014 to $998 million last year, according to a new report from ArcView Market Research, a firm that specializes in promoting marijuana. Taylor West, deputy director of the National Cannabis Industry Association, a trade group for the industry, said most presidential candidates either support legal marijuana or want to leave it to the states. I think were looking at a scenario where, if California passes an adult use initiative and commits to developing a regulated program, the likelihood is that they will be able to move forward, West said. Democrat Bernie Sanders is the biggest advocate of legalization among the presidential candidates. Hes won support from marijuana activists for introducing a bill for federal decriminalization. His Democratic primary opponent, Hillary Clinton, has been more cautious on the marijuana issue. Clinton declined to take a position at an October debate but subsequently told a Denver television station that the federal government should not interfere with Colorado voters decision to legalize. Republicans Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush also have suggested marijuana should be left up to the states. Republicans Rubio and Carson have taken a harder line, though, with both suggesting a federal crackdown. Rubio, who is among the top tier of Republican candidates and finished a close third in the Iowa caucuses, has said in interviews that hed absolutely enforce federal marijuana law in the states. 2016 McClatchy Washington Bureau Visit the McClatchy Washington Bureau at www.mcclatchydc.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. SHARE The Redding City Council this week voted to begin to look into doing something about sex trafficking in the community it will create a panel tasked to come with a plan to tackle prostitution and illicit massage parlors. This is a tiny first step toward addressing what a group of concerned residents say is a pressing, growing problem in our community. The Northern California Anti-Trafficking Coalition for the past several years has raised the alarm about prostitution and a proliferation of massage parlors made suspicious by blacked out windows and late operating hours. Members of the coalition have met with law enforcement officials as well as city and county leaders. They've hosted discussions on the issue. Last month, they brought to the Redding City Council a ready-to-go ordinance that would create stricter licensing standards for massage parlors and studios, requiring therapists be licensed, studios to operate within certain hours and under certain guidelines. The ordinance also requires visits by police officers to check out the business and sign off on it before the owner could receive a business license from the city. The Police Department would provide regular spot checks during the year to ensure compliance. In the Redding City Council's discussion of the issue, it was clear that the Police Department doesn't have a good handle on the extent of the problem. This is a Catch-22. The Police Department can't say for sure whether there is such a problem in our community, because, according to Chief Robert Paoletti, he doesn't have enough officers to put together a vice squad. Therefore, the logic goes, hire more police officers to staff a vice squad and the Police Department will then figure out how significant a problem it is and tackle it. The ordinance addresses only one aspect of sex trafficking and is not an end-all, said Matt Moseley, one of the founders of the coalition. He said he wants to make Shasta County a tougher market for pimps and illicit massage parlors. While the scope of the issue isn't known officially, it's obvious that sex trafficking occurs here. One need look no further than the convictions of Melvin Baldwin-Green and Tanishia Savannah Williams last week. The two were caught pimping teen girls out of an apartment near downtown Redding after one of their victims dashed from the apartment and found help from a neighbor. It's impossible they were the only ones operating in Redding, and they definitely won't be the last. While we're relieved the city is finally taking some action on this issue, leaders and the police and yes, we in the media have ignored it for too long. It's easy enough to say there aren't enough officers. But this was the whole point of the Blueprint for Public Safety findings from Matrix Consulting Group that the department urgently needs to better organize its existing work. We don't pretend to be the experts on that, but it's obvious that this is where that rubber meets the road. If the Baldwin-Green/Williams case proves anything, it's that minors and other vulnerable women are at risk of exploitation. In a follow-up conversation, Moseley again acknowledged that efforts to close down illicit massage parlors are somewhat like playing "Whack-a-Mole". He argues that's still worthwhile, but notes that there's potentially greater impact in going after "the demand side." That's a nice way of saying we need to bust and publicly name some johns. It should be a very high-risk proposition to pay for sex in our community, when we know that many of those providing the service are doing so under threat or coercion. We need not wait to take action until an as-yet-to-be-named panel spends months coming up with a plan that may end up on a shelf. A couple of high-profile sting operations are in order sooner, not later. That'll send a powerful deterrent message at least long enough for the police to develop a longer-term strategy. 'The right attitude, working hard for what you want and taking no for an answer gets you over any hurdles that are on the path to success.' IMAGE: Ajit Patel's app, which has been developed in Mumbai by a young and dedicated team, is available in IOS, Android and Web versions. Photograph: Fred Prouser/Reuters Ajit Patel is the CEO and founder of n-gage, a 360-degree lifestyle chat app that promises to revolutionise the way people interact with one another. While n-gage has its own chat, telephone and video calling format, it can be used to send messages across existing social media platforms like WhatsApp, Skype, FaceBook, Twitter and other similar applications. Ajit went to the United Kingdom to study in 1978 and qualified with a degree in pharmacy in 1982. By 1989 he was the co-founder, chairman and CEO of the Goldshield Group, one of the most successful pharmaceutical companies in the UK. His company was one of the first, by a person of Indian origin, to be listed on the London Stock Exchange. Ajit eventually sold his stake to make a tidy fortune for himself and is in India to launch his newest business venture, n-gage. During his time at Goldshield he pioneered captive call centres in Mumbai in 1999 with GTL. Over a course of seven years, he created several thousand back office jobs in India for the Goldshield Group. His app, which has been developed in Mumbai by a young and dedicated team, is available in IOS, Android and Web versions. The app claims to have features that are unique -- it can recall a message, keep a message on the receiver's phone for a few seconds and ensure complete control of the message's life in the receiver's phone. Sudhir Bisht spoke to Ajit Patel, bottom, left, in New Delhi recently. From being a pharmacist to taking your company to the LSE to coming to Mumbai, how would you describe your journey so far? My journey has been a fun-filled and fulfilling roller coaster with some highs and a few lows on the way. As an entrepreneur I have started many businesses -- some failed, some saw moderate to good success and one of them was a major success. My first pharmacy business in London, Goldshield going public on the LSE, and my hotel business in Goa are clear milestones. During my time at Goldshield we had offices in three continents: The UK, the US and India and sales in over 65 countries. This exposure with experience in Africa, my birthplace, I got to understand and appreciate the diversity in cultures across the globe and gain a better understanding of people, a key feature in my journey. Tell us about your initial days in the UK. Right from the beginning, my stay in the UK has been fulfilling. Other than the normal everyday struggles we all face, I cannot recall anything unusual. I believe having the right attitude, working hard for what you want and taking no for an answer gets you over any hurdles that are on the path to success. As someone who doesn't have any formal training in IT or related fields, what prompted you to start a chat app? I had no training for most things I did in business. The principles of what I do are the same. When I am passionate about something, I learn. My knowledge and skills don't drive what I do. My passion drives my new skills and knowledge acquisition. What prompted you to enter the Indian market first? Why not the EU market? I have been doing business in India since 1999. I have a passion for the country and I believe it has great potential as the market is young with huge potential. We will enter other markets when the time is right. Ajit, your n-gage chat app is completely dependent upon the Internet and relies solely upon the service provider's ability to stay neutral to the apps. Our app relies on the Internet as do other apps. We also have a browser-based version of the product that does not require any download of n-gage. Whom do you see yourself competing with? You may say your product would complement several other products, but in reality it would occupy the time slots of other apps. Being a cross-platform app with many new features we complement all the other apps. n-gage users can message other phone users who do not have n-gage on their phones, be it through Whatsapp, SMS, email or any other means. Our app road map in very different to many existing apps and so road crosses many different types of apps along the way, so the answer will reveal itself in time. You could be competing against WhatsApp which is fully owned by Facebook. But imagine a situation where that access to WhatsApp is made free of charge by some operators who may team up with FaceBook. Would this hamper your product? I firmly believe that no one does anything for free. Users these days are wising up, and know that when something is free, there is some level of compromise. With increasing concerns around privacy, more users will be able to see the need for our product. I also believe in the phrases, 'Where there is a will there is a way' and that 'A river always flows, no matter what the hurdles,' so the success of n-gage will emerge from that. What is your view on Net Neutrality? If we can provide services without impacting the free and open market and maintain an anti-competitive environment, then let's do it. The Net must stay neutral for everyone to benefit. When will you go for a full-scale commercial launch of your app? The audience will grow at its natural pace with a gentle tug of marketing along the way. There is continuous investment here and we are talking to some friends and family at this stage. There is for sure an end-game in mind and so very soon I will be able to share with you more! IMAGE: JNU students protest against the police crackdown on the campus. Photograph: PTI Do the students who chanted pro-separatist slogans and their teachers/supporters want the army to withdraw from Kashmir or not fight the terrorists, asks Colonel Anil A Athale (retd). The events at the Jawaharlal Nehru University and its echo in some other academic institutions reminds one of the Oxford University debate on February 9, 1933. At that time the Oxford Student Debating Society voted by 257 votes to 153 that 'This house will in no circumstances fight for King and Country.' Winston Churchill called the result nauseating. Some believe this helped Adolf Hitler make up his mind to launching the Second World War, believing the British had lost their will to fight. The JNU fracas occurred against the backdrop of Dawood Gilani's (David Headley) testimony that clearly brought out that the Jaish-e-Mohamed and Lashkar-e-Tayiba had the full backing of the Pakistani army and its intelligence wing, the Directorate of Inter Services Intelligence. These two terrorist organisations have made it clear time and again that their aim is the total destruction of India and not just snatching Kashmir. Gilani/Headley's chilling disclosure that the terrorists intended to attack the National Defence College in Delhi to wipe out India's military leadership ought to be a wake up call. This is not an empty threat or scare mongering for even earlier Pakistan-backed terrorists had attempted to wipe out Indian scientists. It was one of Bangalore's notorious traffic jams that saved many lives on the fateful night of December 29, 2005. This, and many more startling facts, was revealed by Sabhahuddin, the man allegedly responsible for the Indian Institute of Science attack, during a narco-analysis test in Bangalore. He confessed that the terror attack was botched up when his associate Abu Hamza, who was carrying the arms cache, was held up by a traffic jam. He further revealed that the task had been assigned to them by Muzammil, the LeT's India-in-charge, who instructed them to target as many Indian professionals as possible. Muzammil explained to Sabhahuddin that these professionals were India's strength, and their death was bound to affect the country. Former National Security Advisor M K Narayanan, writing in The Hindu on February 18, has clearly brought out that for the Pakistani 'Deep State' (the army and the ISI) the fight against India is a jihad. Narayanan, a former director of the Intelligence Bureau, warns us against falling into the trap of a Historical Attention Span Deficit Disorder and forgetting the past. In the present 'toxic' atmosphere it is necessary to mention that Narayanan does not belong to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or the Bharatiya Janata Party. If this is not war, then what is it? As a former soldier, who spent the better part his youth on the mountains of Jammu and Kashmir (over 10 years), away from family and without any comforts of modern life (a kerosene lantern for lighting and a bunker for living), one is dismayed at the current anti-national chorus from some of our university students. If this is the case with a former soldier, one can only imagine what a soldier battling elements at 20,000 feet on Siachen or facing Pakistani-sponsored terrorist in Kashmir would feel when he hears and sees the chant of slogans eulogising convicted terrorists! Would a thought not occur to him that he is being stabbed in the back by the very people whom he is trying to protect? Let us not forget for the moment that they sleep peacefully at home and have all these 'freedoms' because someone is doing his duty, even at the risk of his life and limb, keeping at bay the forces of darkness represented by the jihadis. Do the students who chanted pro-separatist slogans want the army to withdraw from Kashmir or not fight the terrorists? Those who sympathised with the attackers of Parliament must understand it was a lucky escape for the Indian subcontinent that thanks to the brave actions of the watch and ward staff in Parliament that the terrorists did not enter the Central Hall. Had they done so, hundreds of MPs would have died and an India-Pakistan war was almost a certainty. A conventional conflict between the two sides carries with it the danger of escalation to nuclear conflict. If it were to occur, millions of Indians and Pakistanis would die in the holocaust. Even the vaunted JNU would not survive such a catastrophe. It is true that the JNU students hardly represent the country. If that were to be so, their pet hate object would not have become the prime minister with a clear majority in the 2014 election. But it nevertheless sends a message of disunity on even major national issues like the fight against terrorism. The outrage and sympathies of the JNU types is highly selective. While these worthies support the separatist cause in Kashmir, they are blind to the fact that the only ethnic cleansing to take place since Independence has been in Kashmir. Over 300,000 Kashmiri Pandits were hounded out of their homes and have been internal refugees for the last 25 years. The votaries of human rights and freedom of expression are not known to have ever raised their voices or challenged the Kashmiri separatists on this issue. Young people are meant to be idealists and also quick to oppose authority, so criticism of the government or its policies is certainly legit and to be expected from those who see the world from rose-tinted glasses. What the JNU students and their supporters are guilty of is not the challenge to the government, but a challenge to the State. The hanging of the terrorists was carried out after due process of law and that administrative decision was not even taken by the present government. What one cannot understand is how some of the JNU faculty have sided with the misguided students. India can do without such a Fifth Column when it is engaged in a proxy war with an implacable neighbour. Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) is a military historian. 'The lawyers who assaulted Kanhaiya Kumar and the journalists have not read our Constitution,' says former Supreme Court Justice A K Ganguly. Justice Ashok Kumar Ganguly (retired) is sad and anguished. The former Supreme Court judge cannot get over the fact that the detained Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar was attacked by lawyers within the Patiala House court premises on Wednesday, February 17. Justice Ganguly feels in this case, the basic tenet of law -- protection of the innocent -- has been violated. And "what is scarier," he says, "is that a group of people even roughed up journalists who had come to cover the court proceedings." "Are we living in a democracy?" he asked. Justice Ganguly, image, left, shared his anguish at the events in a telephonic conversation with Indrani Roy/Rediff.com You caught glimpses of the attack on Kanhaiya Kumar on television. I was shocked. It was horrible! Having served the law for years, I helplessly watched lawyers beating up an accused, charges against whom are yet to be proved. When lawyers are roughing up an accused, beating up journalists within court premises, how can the common people trust the legal system? What happened at the Patiala House court complex is unacceptable. The lawyers who assaulted (Kanhaiya) Kumar and the journalists have not read our Constitution. They don't understand the pluralism of India neither do they believe in secularism and socialism. They are aberrations. Common people should not lose faith in the entire system because of these people. What do you think the Supreme Court should do to prevent such incidents? I am no one to instruct the Supreme Court on what it should do. I have deep respect for the apex court and I am sure it will take all the necessary steps to protect the law. I have full faith in the court and I am certain it will help people of this country realise that all is not lost. Even in these dark hours, there is hope. What about the anti-national slogans raised at the JNU meeting? The same was heard at a rally taken out by Jadavpur University students in Kolkata as well. I don't support any anti-national stand taken by anyone in this country -- be it in JNU in New Delhi or Jadavpur University in Kolkata. Having said that, one must understand that students are young, emotional, souls. They are easily influenced, often misled. If there were anti-national slogans raised at the JNU, the government should have intervened immediately. It should have initiated a discussion instead of sending in the police and picking Kumar up. Talks can win many wars which force cannot. Do you think the JNU issue was mishandled by the government? Of course! Anti-national stand is wrong, no one doubts that. But it is the government's duty to find out who are raising these slogans and why. Instead of resorting to force, the government should have tried to ascertain the root cause. Soli Sorabjee will lead the team of lawyers for Kumar's bail in the Supreme Court. It's great news. No matter how critical a situation is, you will always find some sane voices that help you regain the balance. In this case, too, it's heartening to know that a few good souls are coming together to stand by those who are wronged. I think what Kumar has gone through so far is unjust and wrong, cruel and inhuman. And what is even more worrisome is the other day I heard BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha stating that some 'patriotic lawyers expressed their anger in the Patiala House court and that there was nothing wrong in it.' I was dumbfounded. What can one expect from a party that justifies such a gruesome act? I am perturbed. These incidents are putting democracy at stake. We are living in terrible times. I am sure people of this country won't tolerate this for long. The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) came to power with a majority. Actually, people had very little option. For decades, they were 'ruled' by members of a particular family. Even the erstwhile UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government led by Dr Manmohan Singh used to sing to the tune of the same family. Hence, the people wanted to try out the second best option. Little did they know that the new regime would usher in such intolerance. How should the common man fight this? People in any part of the world are stronger than any political outfit. They have immense power. As we all know, protests against the present government's intolerance are pouring in from every corner. All this opposition will culminate into a huge platform that will drive out the last bit of prejudice from this country. I have no doubt about it. Should that platform be a political or apolitical? Intolerance has to be fought in every possible way -- political and non-political. At the political level, democratic, secular forces are coming together to fight the elections. Similarly, at non-political levels too, people should come together to fight the present crisis. What are your views about the Congress-Left alliance in West Bengal? I think it is a very, very positive step taken by both parties. Such alliances will help people fight the divisive forces in Bengal and elsewhere. Why do you think West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her team has kept mum over the JNU issue so far? (Laughs) It's but natural. She is up to her neck in her own problems. I think she is too scared to raise her voice against the BJP government lest the latter should spill the Saradha scam beans to the people prior to the assembly election. With the Congress-Left alliance materialising, the chief minister can't afford to open her mouth about the JNU issue at this moment. Prior to the last Lok Sabha elections, Banerjee had threatened Narendra Modi with arrest, but now she is falling at his feet for her political survival. MAIN IMAGE: Activists and students from various organisations march from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Thursday, February 18, 2016, in solidarity with JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar. Photograph: Kamal Singh/PTI Photo image: Lawyers attack one another and media persons outside the Patiala House court in New Delhi on Wednesday, February 17, 2016. Photograph: PTI 'It is very sad. Everyone is feeling bad. Because of some lawyers our profession has been defamed.' 'We are the protectors of the law and we cannot start violating it.' Manan Kumar Mishra, chairman of the Bar Council of India, is saddened by the violence at the Patiala House court on Tuesday and Wednesday. Mishra, who feels the incidents have shifted the blame from the JNU students to lawyers, spoke to Syed Firdaus Ashraf/Rediff.com Are you planning any action against the lawyers who resorted to violence at the Patiala House court in New Delhi? The Bar Council has constituted a high-level committee headed by a former judge of the Supreme Court. We have taken this issue very seriously and requested the committee to submit their report as soon as possible. If found guilty, will the lawyers involved be given a warning and let off or will their licences be suspended? Prima facie, if the inquiry committee give us a report that these people were involved (in the violence) with proof, then we will take action immediately and the proceedings can go on later. Can the licences of these lawyers to practice law be cancelled? Hundreds of licences of lawyers have been cancelled before and action can be taken in this case also. The number of years a lawyer loses her/his licence depends on the gravity of the offence. Has the Bar Council taken action against lawyers before for misconduct? In one case 24 lawyers were suspended. Before that, five lawyers were suspended by the Bar Council for misconduct. They are still suspended. Do you have proof against the lawyers involved in the Patiala House incident? Whatever video we have got is from the media. Some lawyers are giving statements before the committee. How many lawyers face action? At this moment I cannot tell you the exact figure. That will be known after the inquiry. But I can tell you 20 lawyers will face this inquiry. What did the Supreme Court tell you? I told the Supreme Court that we have already taken action. The court asked us to give details on Monday (February 22), which we will do. Is there a time frame for action to be taken against the lawyers? I had given a time frame of three weeks, but now I will have to wait for the order of the Supreme Court (on Monday). The committee will only function after the Supreme Court tells us what to do. This committee has three members: A former Supreme Court judge, a senior Supreme Court advocate and a member of the Bar Council. As chairman of the Bar Council of India, how do you view this incident? It is very sad. Everyone is feeling bad about this issue. Because of some lawyers our profession has been defamed. I have apologised for this on the behalf of the entire legal fraternity. Because of their wrongdoing the main issue got diverted. You mean to say that attention was diverted from what happened at JNU to what happened at the Patiala House court? Certainly, the lawyers are the culprits (in the Patiala House court violence). Till date the media used to examine the role of politicians, students and teachers, but after this incident they are examining the role of lawyers too. And this is happening because of the misconduct of a few lawyers. But lawyers also have a right to protest, isn't it? This is not the way to show your patriotism. You are learned people. You could do dharna at Jantar Mantar, but do not get into a fight. Everyone has a right to express his opinion and there is a place for everyone. We are the protectors of the law and we cannot start violating it. Do you think it is necessary for lawyers to be present in court when a case like this is being heard? Whenever there is a high-profile or sensational case, lawyers want to attend, just like journalists want to attend. On Thursday too, the Supreme Court was packed with lawyers. You cannot stop it. Lawyers do respect the courts, but disgruntled members are in every class and profession, what to do. Army was called in on Friday in nine districts of Haryana and curfew was imposed in two districts along with shoot-at-sight orders after one person died and 25 were injured during the Jat stir for quota which turned violent with mobs resorting to widespread arson. The Centre has rushed 3300 paramilitary personnel to Haryana and assured Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar of all possible help to maintain law and order as rampaging mobs held some policemen captive besides setting ablaze the house of state's Finance Minister Abhimanyu and several government and private properties in Rohtak, Jhajjar, Hansi and several other parts of the state. The agitationists, who are seeking reservation under Economically Backward Classes, also targeted police and private vehicles, buildings housing offices, including two Toll Plazas at Hansi in Hissar district and near Rohtak, both located on the Delhi-Hisar-Fazilka National Highway. One protestor was killed in Rohtak when the BSF personnel opened fire in "self-defence" after someone from the rampaging mob fired at and injured a BSF jawan, Haryana DGP Yashpal Singhal told a press conference in Chandigarh. Since the situation was going out of control, army has been called in for deployment in eight worst-affected districts -- Rohtak, Jhajjar, Jind, Bhiwani, Hissar, Kaithal, Panipat and Sonipat, the state police chief said. Army is also being rushed to Karnal, army sources said in Delhi, while informing that nine columns are being sent altogether. On Friday night, curfew was imposed in city limit areas of Rohtak and Bhiwani city limit areas, an official spokesman said. The agitation, which has been going on for last few days, escalated and turned violent soon after an all-party meeting held by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar issued an appeal for calling it off. The protesters rejected the appeal even as Khattar gave an assurance that a solution will be worked out to extend reservation to the community. Army units were being rushed to Rohtak from nearby Cantonment at Hissar, about 50 kms away, the official spokesman said, adding these will be deployed immediately in Rohtak and Bhiwani areas. He said army units are also being rushed from Jaipur for deployment in other worst-affected areas of the state. The army will assist the civil administration in restoring peace and law and order which worsened on Friday shortly after an all party meeting where an appeal was made for maintaining peace. Two senior civil and police officers -- Principal Secretary (Home) A K Singh and ADGP of Haryana Police B S Sandhu -- have been rushed to Rohtak to coordinate with the army and the civil administration to restore normalcy. The camp office of BJP MLA Manish Grover in Rohtak was also set on fire on Friday night. Authorities in Post Graduate Institute of Medical Science & Hospital, Rohtak, said 19 of the 25 injured people admitted there had bullet injuries. "One person who was critical has been operated upon and his condition is now stable," they said. Besides stationing Principal Secretary (Home) A K Singh and ADGP B S Sandhu at Rohtak, government has rushed six other senior IPS officers to other districts. They are Paramjit Singh Ahlawat (Sonipat), B K Sinha (Jind), K K Rao (Jhajjar), P K Aggarwal (Bhiwani), O P Singh (Kaithal) and K K Sindhu (Panipat). The main impact of the Jats' agitation is in various districts of the state including Rohtak, Jhajjar, Bhiwani, Hissar, Fatehabad, Karnal, Jind, Yamuna Nagar, Sirsa and Gurgaon, where road transport has come to a halt. On Friday, for the first time, the rail and road traffic on the Delhi Ambala National Highway and mainline railway route was also blocked by protestors at various places including in Sonipat district. A number of local, short distance and long distance trains, including Kalka Chandigarh Delhi Shatabdi have been cancelled in view of the Jats agitation. The DGP said police personnel were taken captive by the large number of protestors at some places including Rohtak and the cops were unable to perform their duties. In Rohtak, the protesters set on fire the residence of Finance Minister Abhimanyu, police said, adding a car parked outside the house was also set on fire. In view of this incident, security in and around the residences of ministers and legislators has been beefed up, officials said. The protesters, who had gathered at the Rohtak bye-pass road of Delhi Hissar National Highway, also allegedly attacked police vehicles which were parked there in which window panes were damaged, officials said. The security personnel deployed there had to use force, including firing, to control the violent mob. The Circuit House and the office of Inspector General of Police (IGP), Rohtak. were also attacked by the protestors who pelted stones on the buildings. A car parked at the IGP office was also damaged, officials said. A police vehicle and some private vehicles, including a two wheeler, were also set on fire. The scooter of a person who was taking a sick to a local hospital was also set on fire by the protestors. Elsewhere in various places in the state, protestors deflated tyres of cars of a number of people trying to travel on various National and State Highways in the state. Haryana Roadways has suspended its local and inter-state bus services in the affected districts. Mobile internet services have also been suspended in various districts, including Rohtak and Jhajjar. Photographs: PTI Photo Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday said the Narendra Modi led-National Democratic Alliance Government has formed a new definition of the Indian Penal Code, under which any opposition to the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is the biggest crime. "Centre's new IPC -- it's not a crime to murder, rape or beat anyone if u r from BJP. Being opposed to BJP n RSS is biggest crime now. Centre's new IPC-- rape, murder or beat anyone. When questioned, just say that victim was shouting anti-India slogans, u will be let off," Kejriwal said on tweeter. The Delhi chief minister had on Thursday attacked the Modi Government for not following the Supreme Court order for maintaining peace at Patiala House court premises. Talking to reporters after meeting President Pranab Mukherjee on the JNU row, the chief minister said if Supreme Court's order is not followed within the 200 meters of its periphery, "then there will be no such thing called Constitution. Then it will be the Centre and the Prime Minister's dictatorship. This is something very serious. There is no judiciary after that." Kejriwal further questioned the failure of the Delhi Police to arrest Delhi BJP MLA OP Sharma, who is accused of beating up a student in the court complex. Internet and mobile SMS services have been suspended indefinitely by authorities in Rohtak district in the wake of protests by Jat community which is demanding reservation in government jobs and educational institutions under OBC category. "Internet and SMS services have been suspended till further orders in Rohtak," Rohtak SP Shashank Anand said on Friday. The decision has been taken "to maintain law and order" in the district, he said. However, he said mobile services will continue in the district. Meanwhile, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has called an all-party meeting in Chandigarh on Friday to discuss Jats' demands. Normal life has been badly hit because of the ongoing Jat agitation which has spread to more parts of the state after talks between the community leaders and the government failed to break the deadlock. The protests have disrupted road and rail traffic with the worst hit being the Rohtak-Jhajjar region, the epicentre of the protests, besides Bhiwani, Sonipat and Hisar. The protesters, who have rejected Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar's offer of enhancing quota for economically backward classes, also set up road blockade at many places in Panipat, which also affected movement of vehicles towards Uttar Pradesh. In view of the blockades by the agitators, Haryana Roadways suspended its bus services on many affected routes. The administration has imposed prohibitory orders in the entire Rohtak district, banning assembly of five or more persons. IMAGE: Internet and SMS services have been suspended in wake of the protests for Jat reservations. Photograph: ANI/ Twitter The charges against JNU PhD scholar Umar Khalid are shrouded in a lot of "fabrications and lies" and the episode has "taken away" all sense of normalcy and sanity from the lives of his family members, his sister said on Friday calling him a "true son" of India. United States-based PhD student Maryam Fatima also hit out at a section of the media for running a "trial" against Umar, the alleged organiser of an event against Afzal Guru's execution at the JNU, saying it is creating a "lynch mob" climate. Umar, a former member of ultra-Left students outfit Democratic Students Union, has been missing since the JNU row broke out and police is on the look out for him. "Most channels have been conducting media trials based on false information. They first claimed there was an Intelligence Bureau report linking Umar to Jaish-e-Muhammad. This was denied by the IB. But the story is still doing the rounds. All of this is adding up to a lynch mob climate," Fatima told PTI over email. Umar, who is working on his PhD on tribal rights and colonial forest policy, has placed his concern for the dispossessed over his own life and career -- turning down opportunities to go abroad, she claimed. She said he has been actively campaigning for the rights of the marginalised and alleged that anti-India slogans at the controversial event at the JNU were raised by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad activists. "The issue of sloganeering is shrouded in a lot of fabrications and lies. Several of the videos were doctored," she alleged. "It is ridiculous to ask us if we think it (anti-India slogans) is okay - of course, not. But you have to dig deeper and see who was raising them. He is a true son of India," she said. Fatima, who is the eldest among five sisters but younger than their brother Umar, claimed that even her 12-year-old sibling has received "violent threats" on social media. My sisters received threats on Facebook when they first started posting in defence of Umar. They are not going to school or college. There are also the posters in Munirka directly calling for Umar's death. As you can imagine, we feel very vulnerable right now," she said. The family is "not in touch with" Umar since he went missing, Fatima said, and could last speak to him after his television interviews with two channels. "We are really worried for his safety." She claimed the allegations about Umar's links to Pakistan, terrorists and JeM are absolutely false and that he does not even have a passport. On their father SQR Ilyas' past links with Students Islamic Movement of India, a banned outfit, Fatima said that he left SIMI in 1985, way before it was banned in 2001 and Umar's birth. "There is no connection here, nothing more to be made of." Ilyas said it is for the judiciary to decide whether his son was involved in the case and demanded that he be spared a "media trial". "If they were seditionist, it should be decided by the court. There should not be a media trial. He was fighting for adivasis and poor farmers," he said. Image: Police stop activists from the ABVP as they try to cross a barricade during a protest against the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University outside the university campus. Photograph: Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters Taking strong exception to attack on their son Kanhaiya Kumar by some lawyers inside the Patiala House court complex, the parents of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union president refused to take police protection provided to them. "We refused the police protection because if in the presence of 400 policemen my son can get attacked in the court premises then why do we need protection? The government has failed to provide security to my son and as a result he was attacked," Kanhaiya's mother told the media in Begusarai. "What difference would my life make to the government? Why they are sending police to protect us? They should protect my son," she added. She further said her son is not an anti-national and that every member of their society stands behind them. "My son is a victim of a conspiracy. There has been no action against those who attacked him in the court premises. My son is innocent, he is being framed," she added. The parents of Kanhaiya Kumar were on Thursday provided police protection in their village in Bihar. Security forces have been deployed at Kumar's native village Bihat in Begusarai district after he was assaulted in a Delhi court on Wednesday. While Kanhaiya was being brought to the court, a large group of men dressed in lawyers' robes barged into the Patiala House court complex and allegedly beat up a journalist and a student. The ninth edition of the Indo-Nepal combined battalion-level military training exercise 'Surya Kiran' is underway at Pithoragarh, Uttarakhand. On till February 21, the 'Surya Kiran' series of exercises are aimed at enhancing inter-operability between the Indian and the Nepalese Army units in jungle warfare and counter terrorism operations in the mountainous terrain. The training also focuses on humanitarian aid and disaster relief, including medical and aviation support. Here are some photographs of the bi-annual event Army units of both nations hold jungle disaster mitigation and guerrilla war exercises at the Army ground of the local Cantt area. Photograph: Ministry of Defence The troops taking part in the exercise are also getting training in searching for hidden enemy through jungle warfare and in reaching at the war zone by helicopters. Photograph: Ministry of Defence The role and importance of armed forces in disaster management in both the countries has assumed increasing significance in recent years. Above, Army engineers lay a Bailey bridge, a temporary bridge of lattice steel designed for rapid assembly from prefabricated standard parts, used especially in military operations. Photograph: Ministry of Defence The focus of the exercise was on humanitarian aid and disaster relief operations which also includes medical and aviation aspects. Above, a soldier evacuates a disaster victim. Photograph: Ministry of Defence Brigadier Sanjay Sharma, officiating Maj Gen General Staff, Central Command, emphasised that both the armies have a lot to learn from each other especially in our approach towards handling the modern day challenges of addressing terrorism and also in disaster management as it has been one of the most important challenges for both countries after the recent calamities. Photograph: Ministry of Defence The Nepalese Army is being represented by officers and troops of the elite Shree Rudra Dhoj Battalion, while an infantry battalion is participating on behalf of Indian Army. Photograph: Ministry of Defence This is the 9th such exercise between the two countries during which the emphasis is on upgrading tactical and practical skills through sharing of each others experiences. Photograph: Ministry of Defence Dissident Congress leader Kalikho Pul was on Friday night sworn in as chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh after more than two months of political crisis, shortly after the Supreme Court paved the way for government-formation and President's rule was lifted from the state. Pul, who had led a revolt against the leadership of former Chief Minister Nabam Tuki, was administered the oath office and secrecy by Governor K P Rajkhowa at a ceremony at the Raj Bhawan in Itanagar. Pul, 48, heads a government that has the support of 19 dissident Congress MLAs, 11 of BJP from outside and two independents, who are likely to be part of the government, in the 60-member state assembly. Tuki commands the support of 26 Congress legislators. After the oath-taking, Pul told the media that he would expand his ministry after consultations with the MLAs backing him but did not specify any date for the exercise. Speculations are rife about the possibility of dissolution of the assembly by the new government to pave the way for fresh elections in the frontier state. Earlier in the day, with the Supreme Court paving the way for government-formation, President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh was lifted. President Pranab Mukherjee gave his approval to the Union Cabinet's recommendation for revocation of President's rule, a home ministry official said in New Delhi. The President's nod came after a last-ditch effort of Nabam Tuki seeking an interim direction that his party be allowed to go for a floor test in the assembly to prove majority was rejected by the Supreme Court on Friday. The Union Cabinet had recommended the withdrawal of President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh on Wednesday after Pul, accompanied by 31 MLAs, including Congress rebels, BJP and independents had met Rajkhowa and staked claim to form government. A revolt by Congress dissidents led by Pul triggered political crisis in the state that finally led to imposition of President's rule on January 26. Congress, which had 47 MLAs in the 60-member assembly, suffered a jolt when 21 of its lawmakers revolted against Tuki's leadership. Two of them later resigned from the House. Later, 14 rebel Congress MLAs were disqualified by the Speaker. The Supreme Court is considering pleas against imposition of President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh and also hearing petitions seeking examination of constitutional schemes on the scope of discretionary powers of the Governor. However, on Thursday, the apex court virtually paved the way for government formation in Arunachal Pradesh by vacating its order on maintenance of status quo, after being satisfied with the Gauhati High Court order staying the disqualification of the 14 rebel Congress MLAs. A former Finance and Health minister of the state, Pul represents Hayuliang assembly constituency and was elected as the leader of the House and the chief minister by the rebel Congress MLAs, BJP MLAs and two independents in the assembly session which had been held at an auditorium as a make-shift venue on December 17. The session was boycotted by supporters of Tuki after whose ouster President's rule had been imposed. When his attention was drawn to the claim of Tuki that he still enjoyed the status of CLP leader and majority in the House with 26 MLAs, Pul said that it is inner-party democracy and the new government is a purely Congress government with outside support of BJP members and two independent. "Congress is a big party... There may be differences in opinions... I worked with Tuki. But whatever grievances we raised in CLP meeting, nothing was redressed. BJP, despite being an opposition party, too wants development," he said. Pul said the priority of his government would be to improve the law and order situation and to streamline education, health and power sectors besides improvement in delivery system of essential services to the people without any discrimination." "Improvement in communication besides infrastructure development in the state will be other priority areas of my government," he added. Lauding the people of the state for reposing faith in him, Pul claimed that the people are with him because they have realised the genuine cause for which he was fighting. A revolt by Congress dissidents led by Pul led to a political crisis in the state that finally led to imposition of President's rule on January 26. The Supreme Court is considering pleas against imposition of President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh and also hearing petitions seeking examination of constitutional schemes on the scope of discretionary powers of the Governor. After the Centre's recommendation for withdrawal of President's rule, the Congress moved to the Supreme Court and got an order for maintenance of status quo in the crisis-ridden state till it examined judicial and assembly records on disqualification of 14 rebel Congress MLAs by former Speaker Nabam Rebia. However, on Thursday, the Apex court virtually paved the way for government formation in Arunachal Pradesh by vacating its order on maintenance of status quo, after being satisfied with the Gauhati High Court order staying the disqualification of the 14 rebel Congress MLAs. Congress again moved the Supreme Court on Friday but the Supreme Court rejected its plea for an interim direction that it be allowed to go in for a floor test in the Arunachal Pradesh assembly to prove majority. Australian photographer Warren Richardson has won the Photo of the Year 2015 award at the 59th annual World Press Photo Contest, results of which were announced on Thursday. Richardson's picture shows refugees crossing the border from Serbia into Hungary, near Horgos (Serbia) and Roszke (Hungary). Taken at night on August 28, 2015, before a secure fence on the border was completed. The 2016 contest drew entries from around the world: 5,775 photographers from 128 countries submitted 82,951 images. The jury gave prizes in eight categories to 41 photographers from 21 countries: Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Iran, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, Russia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey, and the US. Let's take a look at the winning entries (CLICK ON THE IMAGES FOR LARGER VIEW): World Press Photo of the Year 2015 Title: Hope for a New Life Image: A man passes a baby through the fence at the Hungarian-Serbian border in Roszke, Hungary, 28 August 2015. I camped with the refugees for five days on the border. A group of about 200 people arrived, and they moved under the trees along the fence line. They sent women and children, then fathers and elderly men first. I must have been with this crew for about five hours and we played cat and mouse with the police the whole night. I was exhausted by the time I took the picture. It was around three oclock in the morning and you cant use a flash while the police are trying to find these people, because I would just give them away. So I had to use the moonlight alone. Photographer: Warren Richardson/Australia Contemporary Issues, first prize singles Title: Haze in China Image: A city in northern China shrouded in haze, Tianjin, China. Photographer: Zhang Lei for Tianjin Daily Contemporary Issues, first prize stories Title: Talibes, Modern-day Slaves Image: Abdoulaye, 15, is a talibe imprisoned in a room with security bars to keep him from running away. The series portrays the plight of Talibes, boys who live at Islamic schools known as Daaras in Senegal. Under the pretext of receiving a Quranic education, they are forced to beg in the streets while their religious guardians, or Marabout, collect their daily earnings. They often live in squalor and are abused and beaten.Photographer: Mario Cruz/Portugal Daily Life, first prize singles Title: China's Coal Addiction Image: Chinese men pull a tricycle in a neighborhood next to a coal-fired power plant in Shanxi, China. A history of heavy dependence on burning coal for energy has made China the source of nearly a third of the world's total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the toxic pollutants widely cited by scientists and environmentalists as the primary cause of global warming.Photographer: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images Daily Life, first prize stories Title: An Antarctic Advantage Image: A Chilean scientist walks above the Russian Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity on the Bellingshausen Russian Antarctic base. Chilean, Chinese and Russian research teams in Antartica seek to explore commercial opportunities that will arise once the treaties protecting the continent for scientific purposes expire. Photographer: Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times General News, first prize singles Title: IS Fighter Treated at Kurdish Hospital Image: A doctor rubs ointment on the burns of Jacob, a 16-year-old Islamic State fighter, in front of a poster of Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, at a Y P G hospital compound on the outskirts of Hasaka, Syria. Photographer: Mauricio Lima for The New York Times General News, first prize stories Title: Reporting Europe's Refugee Crisis Image: Refugees arrive by boat near the village of Skala on Lesbos, Greece. Photographer: Sergey Ponomarev for The New York Times Long-Term Projects, first prize stories Title: Sexual Assault in America's Military Image: US Army Spc Natasha Schuette, 21, was pressured not to report being assaulted by her drill sergeant during basic training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Though she was hazed by her assailants fellow drill instructors, she refused to back down and Staff Sgt. Louis Corral is now serving four years in prison for assaulting her and four other female trainees. The US Army rewarded Natasha for her courage to report her assault and the Sexual Harassment/ Assault Response & Prevention office distributed a training video featuring her story. She is now stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Calvert's series portrays women who have been raped or sexually assaulted during their service with the US armed forces. At the moment, only one out of ten reported sexual violence cases goes to trial and most military rape survivors are forced out of service. Photographer: Mary F Calvert/United States Long-Term Projects, second prize stories Title: A Life in Death Image: Howie sits beside his wife Laurel in what he calls their his and hers chairs as they get their weekly chemotherapy treatments. A daughter photographs her own parents who were in parallel treatment for stage-four cancer, side by side. The project looks at love, life, and living, in the face of death. It honors their memory by focusing on their strength and love, both individually and together, and shares the story of their final chapters, within a year of each other. Photographer: Nancy Borowick/Unites States Nature, first prize singles Title: Storm Front on Bondi Beach Image: A massive 'cloud tsunami' looms over Sydney as a sunbather reads, oblivious to the approaching cloud on Bondi Beach. Photographer: Rohan Kelly for the Daily Telegraph Nature, first prize stories Title: Tough Times for Orangutans Image: A Sumatran orangutan threatens another nearby male in the Batang Toru Forest, North Sumatra Province, Indonesia. The lives of wild orangutans are brought to light. Threats to these orangutans from fires, the illegal animal trade and loss of habitat due to deforestation have resulted in many orphan orangutans ending up at rehabilitation centers. Photographer: Tim Laman/United States People, first prize singles Title: Waiting to Register Image: A child is covered with a raincoat while she waits in line to register at a refugee camp in Presevo, Serbia. Photographer: Matic Zorman/Slovenia People, first prize stories Title: Exposure Image: "My mother said that it was a typically quiet day, warm and windy. She and my father opened the window and they felt completely safe on the day of the explosion, April 26, 1986." The world's worst nuclear accident happened on 26 April 1986 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Just 5 months after the disaster, a girl was born in Kiev just 100 km south from Chernobyl. The wind included a great amount of radioactive elements, and the girl became one of the victims of the tragedy. This series of pictures represent the last 30 years of the life of that invisible girl. All pictures taken on old Ukrainian colour negative films, which were found in the city of Pripyat, located 5 km from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Photographer: Kazuma Obara/Japan Spot News, first prize stories Title: Aftermath of Airstrikes in Syria Image: Smoke rises from a building following reported shelling by Syrian government forces in Douma, Syria. Douma, a rebel-held city in a suburb of the capital Damascus, lies in the opposition bastion area of Eastern Ghouta and has been subject to massive regime aerial bombardment. The area has also been under a crippling government siege for nearly two years as part of a regime attempt to break the rebels hold in the region. Douma and small rural towns in the Eastern Ghouta area were recorded as suffering from the highest number of fatalities since the start of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights. Government planes regularly bomb Douma and other small towns in Ghouta, which is an agricultural belt around the capital, leaving a constant trail of destruction and loss of lives. Photographer: Sameer Al-Doumy for Agence France Presse For more than 23 years, Bhanwari Devi, who was gang-raped for speaking out against the marriage of two babies, has been fighting a lonely battle for justice. Rashme Sehgal traveled to Dausa in Rajasthan to meet the courageous woman, a winner of the Neerja Bhanot Award for bravery, a symbol of Indian women's struggle. IMAGE: Bhanwari Devi. Photograph: Rashmi Sehgal An ailing Bhanwari Devi clutches the bannister with trembling fingers as she climbs up the steps leading up to her house. She has been suffering from typhoid for the last six weeks and a bus trip to a doctor in the nearby mofussil town of Dausa has drained her of her energy. Her daughter Rameshwari helps her up the steps and makes her lie down on a wooden bed while her husband Mohan offers her a glass of water. Bhanwari Devi, who is a Dalit by caste, became an icon of the women's movement when she decided to go public and fight her case following a gang-rape by five upper caste Gujar men following her attempt to stop a child marriage in her village of Bhateri located 45 km south of Jaipur. This happened on September 22 1992 and she has been fighting for justice ever since, to little avail. Bhanwari Devi had been employed as a sathin (friend) for the Women's Development Programme being run by the Rajasthan state government. Sathins are grass-root workers who work for the upliftment of villagers in the areas of literacy, health and sanitation. At the time of the rape, she was being paid Rs 200 per month. She presently earns Rs 2,100 every month. Despite having filed an FIR (first information report) at the Bassi police station nearby and then having her vaginal swab conducted at a Jaipur hospital 52 hours after the rape (which confirmed the semen of the five men who had raped her), she says, "I fought for justice, but I regret that I have not received justice." "If I had received justice, at least my standing in my village would have gone up. I am a social outcaste and will remain one till the day of my death," she says, visibly upset. Her reference is to the verdict deleivered in her case by the district sessions judge in November 1995. Her case was dismissed on the grounds that upper caste men could not rape low caste women. The judgment also questioned how her husband could be a mute spectator to his wife's rape. Mohan, who is sitting next to his wife, intervenes. "We were both working in the fields when five Gujars raped her. Two men pinned me down while the others took turns to commit this heinous crime. I went into a state of shock and depression. It took me several months to come out of it." "At that point," he adds, "I believed we would get justice. That would have helped restore our sense of honour. Unfortunately, we have lost both our honour and self respect." "People think you can restore your sense of honour by them giving you money. Unfortunately, after facing 22 years of ostracism by the villagers of Bhateri, I wonder if this battle has served any purpose." IMAGE: Bhanwari Devi and her husband Mohan in their home. Photograph: Rashme Sehgal "We have both become old and bitter. My wife was an illiterate woman. She was simply doing her job when she was tried to stop the marriage of a nine-month-old baby to a one year old. She complained to the police who came and stopped the marriage. But it took place the next day." "The irony is that child marriages continue unabated throughout Rajasthan. After how Bhanwari was treated, which sathin will stick her neck out?" asks Mohan. "Bhanwari was performing her duty. Unfortunately, she received no support from the state government," Mohan adds. A potter by profession, the villagers stopped buying his pots and the social boycott continues to this day. He owns one bigha of land. But his land lies fallow because he lacks the means to irrigate it. "The monsoon has become erratic. I have to buy my water from farmers who owns tube wells. A single crop needs to be watered six times before it is harvested," Mohan explains. "One round of watering costs me Rs 1,000. Since I do not have the money, my land lies idle." This is not to say that Bhanwari did not receive the support of activists and the media. Both groups rallied around her and spearheaded a campaign to highlight her cause so that she could receive justice. Bhanwari feels all those interviews served little purpose. "I have been given so many interviews," she says. "The powerful and mighty have come to me and made such tall promises. 'We will help you rebuild your house.' 'We will help to educate your children.' Others promised to dig a tube well in our land. Not one of those promises materialised. It leaves you feeling betrayed." Bhanwari Devi has aged. Her hair is white. Her body is frail. Mohan, who has been a pillar of support to her, has also aged. I had interviewed them in 1992 when they lived in a mud house. They have managed to build two pucca rooms though the rest of their house is run down. Mohan is proud that he has been able to build a toilet and bathroom at a cost of Rs 100,000 for which he has received no reimbursement from the Rajasthan government despite villagers being told that they would receive Rs 13,000 under a ministry of rural development scheme. Mohan ekes out a living working as a labourer under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, but the last few weeks have been devoted to taking care of his sick wife. IMAGE: Bhanwari Devi and Mohan's home. Photograph: Rashmi Sehgal Following the district court's judgment, women groups rallied around Bhanwari Devi. Kavita Srivastava of the People's Union for Civil Liberties played a key role in taking her case to the Jaipur high court. "We went into an appeal in the high court in February 1996. Despite the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) finding all her allegations to be correct and demanding an early hearing, we have been told that the appeals pending before the high court go back to the '80s," says Srivastava. "There is a backlog of 1,180 appeals which have to be disposed off before her case will be heard," adds Srivastava. Despite being remonstrated by Rameshwari, who pleads with her mother not to tire herself further or her "blood sugar" will shoot up, Bhanwari talks about the ostracism she faced at the hands of people from her caste who believed she had become a "polluted and fallen" woman. After her father's death, her relatives did not serve her food at the funeral. Bhanwari Devi spent Rs 25,000 she received from then prime minister P V Narasimha Rao and organised a Kumhar (potter) caste panchayat to ensure the community accepted her. "We continue to be ostracised in the village," says Mohan. "We are not invited for weddings or funeral ceremonies. My children used to feel very hurt when their mother was called names. They have reconciled themselves to it now." Bhanwari has four children. While her eldest daughter has not been educated, her two sons, who live in Jaipur, do menial jobs. She is extremely proud of her youngest daughter Rameshwari, who graduated and has a BEd degree. She presently teaches English in a school. Bhanwari has deposed before the National Commission of Women. She was also awarded the Neerja Bhanot Award which praised her for 'braving economic penury, social ostracism and isolation in the village. She faced an economic blockade with unlimited courage.' The award gave her a cash prize of Rs 100,000. Some years ago, she was invited to Ahmedabad to address a gathering of intellectuals who were discussing the Vishaka Guidelines. Because Bhanwari chose to go public about her gang-rape, her case has become a landmark in more ways than one. The Vishaka Guidelines, whereby the Supreme Court listed how an employer must respond to complaints of sexual violation at a work place, have come about only because of her willingness not to brush her rape under the carpet. Five women organisations took the Rajasthan government to court following her gang-rape. In August 1997, the Supreme Court listed the process both government offices and private companies must follow if a female employee complained of sexual harassment. For Bhanwari Devi, this is nothing more than one more cruel joke. "Look at the large number of people who rallied around the young girl in the Nirbhaya case. They even succeeded in changing the rape law. All I have done is plead for justice and I have failed to get it." She may sound bitter, but she remains a pillar of strength with a large section of Dalit women in her village asking her to her to intervene in land disputes and in domestic violence cases. "She has emerged as a leader in her village," says Kavita Srivastava. "Women from neighbouring villages flock to her, seeking her advice on several issues. She lives in penury, but many people have taken heart from her struggle. Sadly, she is not one of them." Bhanwari Devi feels time is running out foer her. "I do not know if I will receive justice in my lifetime," she says in a whisper. "I have become so weak I do not know if I will live to see another day." Apothecary Salon & Spa ready to pamper locals at Burton Lane location More than two years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic upended the lives and careers of millions of Americans. Some folks took the opportunity to learn more about themselves. Dale Morrison, candidate for Taylor County commissioner, Precinct 3, has fully recovered from the stroke he had Wednesday, his campaign team announced Friday. Morrison was flown to Zale Lipshy University Hospital, part of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, to be tested and treated for the stroke. He said Friday his doctors were ready to release him and the only medication prescribed to him is a small dose of aspirin a day. Morrison said he believes God healed him, as he has done before when the candidate had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Doctors found no effects of the stroke. The 57-year-old land developer plans to return to Taylor County on Monday after spending some time with family over the weekend, Morrison said by phone. He plans to return to campaigning next week "full speed ahead." Morrison thanked all who prayed for him and his family over the past two days. The candidate has lived in Taylor County for 39 years, where he founded the Hope and Help Ministries in Tuscola after recovering from cancer and a rare brain virus, according to his website. Three other candidates are running in the March 1 primary to replace retiring Precinct 3 Commissioner Stan Egger, who served the county for 24 years in that post. They are Brad Birchum, Pete Wheeler and Gary Young. Twitter: BrookeCrum_ARN The New Hampshire primary election, coming right after the Iowa caucuses, provided clarification to the 2016 presidential context. On the Republican side, Donald Trump has fresh momentum, after coming in second in Iowa. For Democrats, Sen. Bernie Sanders is confirmed as a strong challenger to Hillary Clinton. The Nevada caucuses and South Carolina primary are Saturday. The tight battle for second place among the Republicans means that no principal challenger as main opponent to Trump has emerged. Jeb Bush remains a contender, thanks to the voters of New Hampshire. In contrast, business veteran Carly Fiorina and Gov. Chris Christie withdrew from the Republican presidential race. Instant analysis by the pervasive electronic media has seized the theme that second-place Republican John Kasich lacks substantial local organization in the upcoming primary states. Regard that pop pronouncement with skepticism. Trump has become a front-runner with little in the way of disciplined in-depth local organization. Rather, he confirms just how powerful the media have become in propelling a candidate. More important, dedicated support for Trump demonstrates just how broad and deep is public alienation from and hostility to Washington. Remember also that the presidential race is still in early stages of actual voting. In 2008, Sen. Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire only to lose the nomination to Sen. Barack Obama. In 2000, Sen. John McCain decisively defeated George W. Bush in New Hampshire by 48.5 percent to 30 percent. Bush recovered to win the South Carolina primary in an ugly campaign, and went on the take the Republican nomination. In 1992, Bill Clinton was able to capitalize on a second-place finish in New Hampshire to become the 'Comeback Kid,' win in the primary sweepstakes that followed, capture the Democratic nomination and defeat incumbent President George H.W. Bush. In a similar manner, the state was extremely important in boosting the candidacies of relative unknowns Sen. George McGovern and Gov. Jimmy Carter in 1972 and 1976. Since 1920, New Hampshire has held the first primary in each presidential election cycle. In historical context, the state's vote at times has been profoundly important. In 1952, the first year in which candidates' names were listed on the ballot, Gen. Dwight Eisenhower received an enormous boost for the Republican nomination by winning the primary. Republican political and business leaders who strongly supported his candidacy were concentrated in the Northeast. Ohio Sen. Robert Taft 'Mr. Republican' had a far greater claim on the nomination, through party service and leadership. Eisenhower's victory established crucial momentum. In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson's relatively poor showing against insurgent Democratic Sen. Eugene McCarthy in the New Hampshire primary was followed by his decision to withdraw from seeking renomination. McCarthy's anti-Vietnam War campaign was given a significant boost by the enormous Tet Offensive launched by the Viet Cong just before the voting. Johnson actually won the primary, but McCarthy's relatively strong showing, combined with the certainty of losing the upcoming Wisconsin primary, led to LBJ's decision. While Sens. McCarthy and Robert Kennedy went on to fight for Democratic convention delegates in the relatively few primaries, Vice President Hubert Humphrey collected enough support to secure the nomination while avoiding directly contesting these elections. Following Kennedy's assassination and the violent Democratic convention in Chicago, pressures greatly escalated to expand the number of primaries. New Hampshire this year confirmed the two insurgent candidates. Donald Trump is not fading. Bernie Sanders remains a challenger to the still durable Clinton political dynasty. Nevada polls in fact show a dead heat. Email Arthur I. Cyr, Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College, at acyr@carthage.edu Some endorsements are not unexpected. Local firefighters, for example, support Brian Scalf's bid to be District 71 representative in the Texas House. Scalf served as a firefighter for 27 years. To support one of their own is not surprising, and it shows respect and confidence in the candidate. The Abilene Police Officer's Association supports Brad Birchum, a lieutenant with and 30-year veteran of the Taylor County Sheriff's Office, in his campaign to be commissioner of Precinct 3. Again, a show of support for a respected and capable member of the law enforcement community. The Abilene Professional Fire Fighters Association also endorsed Erica Hall while the law enforcement group backs Harriett Haag to succeed the late Sam Carroll as judge of Court at Law No. 2. But where is the APOA's endorsement for district attorney? Of all the contested races, this is the most direct impact on local enforcement? Is the race too close to call? Is there hesitancy backing either candidate? Joshua Ward, a multitasking officer with the Abilene Police Department, responded to our query. Simply, the race is too close to call and both candidates would serve them and the community well. As Ward put it: 'We understand it would be beneficial to the community if we were to support either Joel Wilks or James Hicks for our next district attorney. Both candidates are more than qualified and will fulfill the position in a manner beneficial to the members of the Abilene Police Officer's Association. The ideas presented by each candidate were in line with our values and opinions of how we believe the relationship between officers and prosecutors needs to be for us to continually be successful in our efforts to serve and protect Abilene and Taylor County.' The DA's race is regarded as a tossup. Reporter-News editors and our Community Advisory Board slightly favored Wilks; there are number of attorneys, we hear, who back Hicks. Whom you support for DA may depend on your perspective. The good news, it seems, is that either Hicks or Wilks would be a qualified district attorney. A Thorndale woman died Friday when her pickup collided with a prison bus at the intersection of State Highway 36 and Farm Road 1702 about five miles south of Gustine in Comanche County, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. Kalyn Rae Brymer, 24, was pronounced dead at the scene. The crash occurred at 7:52 a.m. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice bus was transporting 31 inmates and two correctional officers from the French Robertson and John Middleton units in Abilene to prisons in Huntsville. Robert Hurst, public information officer at TDCJ, said the guards and 21 inmates were transported to medical facilities in Fort Worth, Comanche, Brownwood, Hamilton and Temple for treatment of nonlife threatening injuries. The others were sent to a prison unit in Gatesville, where there is an infirmary, Hurst said. "It was probably within two and half hours where we had everyone out of the bus and finally transported," The Associated Press quoted DPS Sgt. Bryan Witt as saying. Five of the injured were transported by helicopter, AP reported. Brymer was driving a Ford pickup south on FM 1702 when, the DPS reported, she failed to yield right of way at a stop sign by pulling in front of a Texas Department of Criminal Justice bus. Highway 36 traffic does not stop at the intersection. According to the DPS, the bus crashed into the pickup, which came to rest in a field on the south side of the highway. The bus was spun around by the impact and rolled onto its right side. DPS is investigating the crash. The crash is the second involving a prison transport bus in just over a year. On Jan. 14, 2015, two guards and eight inmates died when a prison bus out of Abilene hit an icy patch on an Interstate 20 overpass west of Odessa, slid down an embankment and collided with a passing freight train. Another guard and three other inmates were seriously injured. Twitter: ARN_Titus Advertisement - Continue Reading Below This just in... With the protection of local government officials, pirate timber traders in Cambodia's Steung Treng province are trampling wildlife sanctuaries, exploiting the land and threatening anyone who tries to blow the whistle on their forest crimes, villagers tell RFAs Khmer service. Pho Phal, a villager in Anlong Chrey commune in the Thala Borivath district, told RFAs Khmer service that local authorities and the forestry administration are allowing powerful timber traders to hire workers to exploit thousands of hectares of land. One trader, named Meas Mith, threatened more than 40 families whose members leaked information about his timber business and farming activities, Pho Phal told RFA. The villager said the forest areas were logged, tilled and some areas paved over, but the authorities took no action to stop the activity. Another villager confirmed that groups of traders were freely paving and logging areas in the Prey Srong in the Anlong Chrey commune near Steung Trengs provincial capital. The people living there mostly are Kuoy indigenous people. Workers were also hired to till in the Phnom Mlou area and have exploited those areas since 2013 with no action from the government, the villager said. According to the villagers, workers earn 35,000 riel (about U.S. $100) to till and pave a hectare of land. After the trees are felled and the land tilled, the traders grow cash crops like mangos and tapioca to increase the value of the property. They use villagers names to get temporary land titles from the authorities and sell the land to buyers for a tidy profit. Meas Mith told the villagers they would be arrested and jailed if they dared to leak information about illegal logging and other activities in the area, Pho Phal told RFA. He (Meas Mith) paved the forest lands and turned them into fields and then he sells them at $2,000 per hectare, he said. Thats why he threatened us. If we dare to act as if we know anything about it, he wouldnt allow us to live with safety and security. Nearly all of the institutions in the area are all on his side. A sense of loss Other villagers expressed their sorrow for the loss of the forest, but felt powerless to stop the devastation. As a villager, I felt sorry for the forest areas that were lost, Chhean Sophea said. I dont know what to do in order to preserve them. We are just ordinary villagers, and we cant stop them, or this powerful man. Attempts by RFA to contact Meas Mith failed. Anlong Chrey commune chief Prum Ya said he reported Meas Miths activities to the relevant officials, but they failed to take action. I have reported this to the upper levels to make clear that I have not been involved, he said. All the land [Meas Mith] has, should be inspected by authorities, then he can just cultivate or do things he wants on land that has been identified as his. Ho Sam Ol, a forest activist with ADHOC, urged the government to take action and not just to make a show. If the investigation finds that he has been logging illegally in the forest lands, then Meas Mith should be arrested, he said. We need to work according to the law. Cambodian authorities are notorious for using their offices to protect or benefit their friends, or to make a show of enforcing crimes by going after the poor or powerless because they are easy to catch, he said. On 15 Feb. 2016, authorities went on to inspect the Phnom Sek Sor area and Mlou commune area, but have yet to take action. In 2015, however, a member of communal council from the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party was sent to prison on charges that he was tilling the forest lands and growing crops on one hectare. The conviction is being on appealed. That is not the way to go, he said. We must together rush to eliminate the culture of impunity. Anyone who is wrong is wrong! Cambodian law makes it a crime punishable by up to two years in prison and a maximum 10,000 riel fine for government authorities to intervene directly or indirectly in any forest businesses Cambodia has one of the worst deforestation rates in the world. According to estimates by the environmental groups, the country's deforestation of roughly one percent a year between 2000 and 2012 gives it the fourth or fifth highest deforestation rate among major forest countries Illegal logging, combined with the conversion of forests for commercial agricultural are blamed for much of Cambodias forest loss. While Prime Minister Hun Sen set up a committee to stop the smuggling of timber across the border to Vietnam, there are questions about how serious he is about stopping the pirate logging outfits in particular and deforestation in Cambodia in general. The power of oknhas Civil society officials worry that those involved, especially the oknhas, will avoid prosecution because they have powerful backers. Oknhas are generally powerful businessmen who pay a large donation for the honorific title. Ouch Leng, chairman of the Cambodia Human Rights Task Force, criticized the effort, saying it has yet to bear fruit even though a number of oknhas were identified as owners of illegally cut lumber and own the warehouses where wood logs and timbers are stored. The facts are: They have money. They have power, and they have a strong, thick backbone of powerful people to back them up, he said. Even Gen. Sao Sokha, [head of the committee] didnt dare to investigate. National Military Police spokesman Eng Hy counseled patience, saying investigations that he could not detail are on-going. If the oknhas are involved in the forest crimes, they will be prosecuted, he said. We are building the case, he said. The prosecutors are accusing a number [of criminals] gradually a number of companies are involved. Ouch Leng isnt waiting for the government to take action as the Cambodia Human Rights Task Force is preparing reports identifying nearly 4,000 people, including government officials, soldiers and oknhas involved in the forest crimes in Cambodia. Hun Sens effort to preserve Cambodias fast-dwindling woodlands is also being criticized for its selection of areas that will be set aside. A forest with few trees On Feb. 10 Hun Sen designated nearly 200 hectares in the Tbong Khmum province for preservation, but local residents say the area has few trees and the governments decree could prevent them from farming the area like they have since the French colonial era. Cambodian government officials are hoping to convince local villagers that naming the Ponhea Krek Forest a protected area and a wildlife sanctuary will sustain the forest and their way of life. This is the only way to increase the protection of the forest, Ly Leng, the Tbong Khmum provincial deputy governor, told RFAs Khmer service. The villagers in the area should value the land and this will keep it from becoming a target which can be abused by anyone in the area. The sub-decree is aimed at preventing ecological abuses by banning tilling, paving and illegal logging or earth moving in the area. While the government order looks like an attempt to tame some environmental abuses, it could also prevent local farmers from cultivating the land as they have done for generations. Kim Ly, chief of Krek commune, and Hem Yieb, chief of Trapaing Phlong commune, cast doubt on the sub-decree, stressing there was not thick forest or substantial wildlife in the now-protected area. It is a kind of sparse woods. There are only . . . four or five big trees, Yieb told The Phenom Penh Post.I think that the government wants to protect the area, but local people still have their doubts. They want to use that area for farming as they have before. The selection of Ponhea Krek shows how far the governments priorities are out of order, Ouch Leng said. The government should pay attention to the large forest areas that the illegal loggers are logging, he told RFA.The rich and the powerful behind the illegal logging activities should be searched out and brought to justice. Reported by Sothy Men and Sokheng Sout for RFA's Khmer Service. Translated by Pagnawath Khun. Written in English by Brooks Boliek. President Barack Obama imposed tough new unilateral U.S. sanctions against North Korea to press the country to stop its nuclear weapons program, signing into law a bill that enjoyed near unanimous support in Congress following nuclear and missile tests by Pyongyang. Analysts said the president's endorsement Thursday of North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act, which was approved in recent votes by the Senate by 96-0 and the House by 406-2, will expand U.S. unilateral curbs on Pyongyang's financial activities while intensify the focus on China's dealings with its neighbor and historic Cold War ally North Korea. The expanded sanctions aim to cut off North Korea's access to the money it needs to advance its nuclear warhead and long-range missile development. The legislation also authorizes $50 million over five years for radio broadcasts into North Korea and humanitarian assistance programs. The bill's provisions aim to curb the regime's cash flows by sanctioning trade in coal, minerals and precious metals. It also penalizes those helping Pyongyang's cyber warfare, money laundering, counterfeiting, narcotics trafficking, human rights abuses and imports watches, pleasure boats and other luxury goods. North Korea is already the target of a series of sanctions dating back 2006, when it conducted the first of its four nuclear tests, but leader Kim Jong Un and his isolated country have still found the resources to fund its quest to improve and miniaturize the weapons and advance the rockets needed to deliver an atomic payload. China, most experts say, provides critical aid and trade for Pyongyang, helping the regime sidestep U.N. sanctions that Chinese diplomats had agreed to support. "We can't stand by while the North Korean regime develops a nuclear arsenal capable of striking the United States," California Republican Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement after Obama signed the bill. Royce, one of the co-authors of the legislation, added : "Targeted sanctions aimed at banks and companies that do business with Kim Jong Un will cut-off the cash he needs to sustain his illicit weapons programs, his army, and the continued repression of the North Korean people." Professor Sung-Yoon Lee of Tufts Universitys Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, who advised lawmakers who wrote the bill, said the measures bring U.S. sanctions against North Korea to the level of its sanctions against Iran, Syria, and other sanctioned states. "It imposes secondary sanctions on North Koreas partners, thus presenting them with a strong economic disincentive: Either continue to do business with North Korea and be blocked out of the U.S. financial system or stop all business with North Korea and continue to have access to the U.S. financial system," Lee told RFA's Korean Service. "Most rational profit-seeking banks and corporations will choose the latter, thus, rendering North Korea more isolated than ever.," Lee added. Much of the onus of the new sanctions is likely to fall on China, whose banks, trading firms and ports are North Korea's main lifeline to the outside world. "The trade relation that North Korea has with China is very significant to the country's national economy and to its internal stability," said Yun , an expert on Chinese foreign policy at the East Asia Program of the Stimson Center in Washington. "The problem is if the U.S. wants to put unilateral sanctions on North Korea, it will have significant damage to China's natural interest," she told RFA's Korean Service. Washington and Beijing are at odds at the U.N. in New York over the drafting of new multilateral sanctions against North Korea and "signs of competition and potential conflict are rising" as the two powers dispute maritime issues in the South China Sea, cyber security and human rights, added Sun. Reported by Changsop Pyon and Sungwon Yang of RFA's Korean Service. A Chinese mining company will begin copper production at a controversial site in central Myanmar in May, a month after the new government led by the opposition party comes to power, a corporate spokesman said Friday. The large mine project operated by Chinas Wanbao Mining Copper Ltd. Company and Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd. (UMEHL), a Myanmar army-owned conglomerate, in the town of Letpadaung in Sagaing region has come under fire by local farmers who have long protested the companys land takeovers in the area. We will start copper production in May, a month after the new National League for Democracy (NLD)-led government takes power, Dong Yunfei, Wanbaos spokesman, told RFAs Myanmar Service. He added that Wanbao expected to benefit from good relations with the NLD government because party leader Aung San Suu Kyi would make policy decisions based on the rule of law and national reconciliation. So we believe the country will be more developed, he said. The mine is one of several Chinese operated megaprojects under way in the Southeast Asian nation that have come under fire from locals because of environmental damage and expropriated land. Such protests prompted the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDAP) led by President Thein Sein in 2011 to suspend construction of the Myitsone Dam and hydroelectric power development project by the China Power Investment Corporation [CPI] in Kachin state for five years. Dong Yunfei, however, said he wasnt concerned that a similar fate might befall the Letpadaung project. Huge projects like this one are planned, agreed to and signed by both sides under the full extent of the law and legalities, he said. So, everything will proceed according to the law. Inquiry commission Aung San Suu Kyi, whose NLD party won general elections last November by a landslide, had led a parliamentary inquiry commission on the Letpadaung project, calling for more transparency in the projects land appropriation process and for police riot control training in the wake of a violent raid on protesters at the mine site in 2012. In 2014, she accused the government of ignoring the commissions recommendations to improve conditions at the mine, which she said sparked clashes that December between police and farmers trying to prevent Wanbao employees from fencing off land for the project. The incident left one farmer dead and dozens injured. The USDP, however, rejected her claims. In response to continued protests, Wanbao canvassed local villages in 2014 and 2015 and met with farmers one-on-one to try to resolve the issue, Dong Yunfei said. We are still trying to meet the demands of local people, he said, adding that Wanbao wanted to compensate villagers who had not accepted money the company previously offered them for land it had taken for the mining site. Our doors are open all the time for compensation, Dong Yunfei said. We suggest that those who havent taken the compensation come forward. Wanbao offered money to the family of Khin Win, the farmer who was shot and killed during the December 2014 protest, to compensate them for their loss, but they never showed up to collect it, he said. We heard there was division of opinions among the family members, he said. We dont know the latest situation now. The map shows Letpadaung in northwestern Myanmar's Sagaing region. RFA No crop compensation Wanbao, however, has no plan to compensate villagers annually for money they would have otherwise made from crops, because the company leased the land from the government, not the farmers, Dong Yunfei said. Wanbao and UMEHL previously said they would pay farmers the highest market rate for crops at the site, but locals rejected the offer and demanded the return of their land. Police stopped 200 farmers last month from protesting the companys decision not to compensate them for crops that had been destroyed or displaced. Thwei Thwei Win, a Letpadaung farmer and activist, told RFA that Wanbao has not conducted any further negotiations with locals whose land the company took in the run-up to the start of copper production in May. There have been no negotiations or discussions between residents and the company, she said. The company had not informed locals about anything. Because of this, I see no way to resolve the issues between the farmers and the company. Under the new government, however, Letpadaung villagers expect the NLD to help resolve the matter with Wanbao, she said. We expect the new government will do something for our farmers problems, she said. We also expect to push to the government as well as the company until we finally see results. No dealings yet But NLD party spokesman Nyan Win said the new government hasnt had any dealings with Wanbao yet regarding the Letpadaung copper mine. I think their production plan is according to its own schedule, he told RFA. We have no way making any deals [with Wanbao] because government power has not yet been transferred to our party. Aung San Suu Kyi must examine whether or not Wanbao has implemented the recommendations of the parliamentary inquiry commission, he said. Letpadaung can resume production only after complete implementation of the recommendations of the inquiry commission, he said. We dont know whether the implementation has been done, but we have the commissions report with the full list of recommendations. As for the Myitsone dam, Myan Win said the NLD hasnt seen documents pertaining to the agreements between China and Myanmar regarding the project. There is no transparency, and we havent seen the contracts, he said, adding that the NLD-led government would follow domestic and international laws when making decisions about Chinese megaprojects in Myanmar. Nevertheless, the NLD will examine such documents, before deciding the dams fate, Nyan Win said. Reported by Kyaw Kyaw Aung, Tin Aung Khine and Thinn Thiri for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Kyaw Min Htun. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. A prominent Tibetan writer was sentenced to three years in prison on Wednesday for writing material the government said could incite discord among nationalities in the western China region, maintaining secret contact with so-called splitists who want to separate Tibet from China, and causing instability in the community, a Tibetan source from Tibet said. The Peoples Intermediate Court in Rebgong (in Chinese, Tongren) of Malho (Huangnan) prefecture in northwestern Chinas Qinghai province handed down the punishment to the writer Druklo, known by his pen name Shokjang. Authorities had detained Shokjang, a native of the Gengya area of Labrang Sangchu county in northwestern Chinas Gansu province, a second time in March 2015, in an unknown location, the source said. Some Tibetans, however, became aware that Shokjang was being held in a detention center in Rebgong, he said. On Feb. 15, the Rebgong court notified Shokjangs family that the writer would be put on trial on Wednesday, he said. Before his detention in March 2015, he had written about the increased presence of Chinese armed security forces in the Rebkong area and crackdowns on Tibetans, the source told RFAs Tibetan Service. Shokjang had also written an article that month about conditions in a school in Kangtsa (Gangcha) county in Tsochang (Haibei) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai province. Divisive activities Authorities first detained Shokjang along with his friend Theurang on April 6, 2010, on allegations of leading a student protest and contacting outside writers and the Tibetan Youth Congress in exile, a Tibetan source previously told RFA. Authorities also had accused them of conducting divisive activities and instigating others to resort to divisive actions, he said. At the time, they were both students at the Northwest University for Nationalities in Lanzhou in Gansu province, he said. Theurang was held in a detention center in southwestern China's Sichuan province, but later released. Shokjang was detained in a facility in Lanzhou and released on May 8, 2010, with stern warning that he would be watched for 10 years. He was also banned from re-enrolling in the university and not allowed to take his final exams, the source said. Shokjang was among the 23 journalists and 84 bloggers that the ruling Chinese Communist Party put behind bars in 2015, according to an end-of-year report issued by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Reported by Lhuboom for RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Protesters in Manila denounce China's deployment of surface-to-air missile system on Woody Island, part of the Paracel Island chain that Vietnam and Taiwan also claim, Feb. 19, 2016. Hanoi formally protested Chinas reported decision to put an antiaircraft battery on a disputed island in the Paracel chain in the South China Sea telling Beijing that the move threatens regional peace and security: and violates Vietnams sovereignty. These actions seriously infringe Viet Nam's sovereignty over the Paracel Archipelago, threaten the regional peace and stability as well as security, safety and freedom of navigation and overflight in the East Sea, Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said in a statement Friday using Vietnams term for the sea. Viet Nam asks China to immediately stop such erroneous actions, he added. The statement said diplomatic notes had been issued to China's embassy in Hanoi and to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to protest at Beijing's activities Tensions between China and its neighbors have been on the rise since China began building up islands in the waterway with artificial harbors and airport facilities capable of handling military aircraft. The Chinese government has offered few details in response to the missile claim, while accusing Western media of "hyping up" the story and saying China has a legitimate right to military facilities on territory it views as its own. While many nations have claims to the South China Sea with its busy shipping lanes, teaming fisheries and the likelihood of vast petroleum reserves, the dispute is especially intense between Vietnam and China. Woody Island, the largest of the Paracel Islands has been under the control of Beijing since 1956. Although Woody Island is also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam, in 1974, the then South Vietnamese government suffered a naval loss to China in a battle over the Paracels. While reports of the missile battery on Woody Island grabbed international attention China has also constructed a military helicopter base on Duncan Island. Both issues were mentioned in Vietnams formal protest. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull also urged claimants to refrain from island-building and militarization in the South China Sea. "We urge all claimants in the South China Sea to refrain from any building of islands, any militarization of islands, any land reclamation," Turnbull told reports during a press conference with his New Zealand counterpart John Key in Sydney, according to The Straits Times Turnbull said both Australia and New Zealand wanted to see a lowering of tensions as he urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to resolve all disputes in the seas through legal means. The Philippines also expressed grave concerns about the reports of missiles being deployed on Woody Island. "These developments further erode trust and confidence and aggravate the already tense situation," its Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Beijing has been angered by air and sea patrols the United States has conducted near islands China claims. Those have included one by two B-52 strategic bombers in November and by a U.S. Navy destroyer that sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island in the Paracels last month. The deployment of a very sophisticated and lethal air defense system is no doubt in response to US aerial activities and the recent freedom of navigation operational patrol near Triton Island, said Carl Thayer, a professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia and an expert on the region. China's actions raise the stakes and risks for future US maritime reconnaissance patrols in waters surrounding the Paracels, he said. The [Chinese air defense] system could also threaten carrier based planes coming to the assistance of a US Navy warship that was confronted by China during a future freedom of navigation exercise in the Paracels. Reported by RFA's Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Brooks Boliek. Canada dropped a bid to return a former Guantanamo Bay inmate to jail, saying he should remain free while appealing a murder conviction in a U.S. military court. Omar Khadr, 29, once the youngest inmate in the special U.S. prison in Cuba, was returned to Canada, where he was born, in 2012 to serve the rest of his sentence for killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan. A Canadian court ruled that he could be released on bail and he left jail in May. But the conservative government at the time appealed the court's decision, saying his release would hurt relations with the United States. The new liberal government dropped that appeal on February 18. Khadr had pleaded guilty to murdering a U.S. Army medic in a firefight in 2002. He later recanted, saying he pled guilty to get out of Guantanamo. Khadr was taken to Afghanistan by his father, a senior Al-Qaeda member who apprenticed the boy to bomb makers who fired on U.S. troops. Khadr was captured in the firefight, during which he was blinded in one eye and shot twice in the back. Based on reporting by Reuters and AFP Moscow-backed authorities in Crimea's Sevastopol have ordered schools to gather about 10,000 children to celebrate the so-called Crimean spring on February 22. The term is used by Kremlin supporters to refer to Russias annexation of the Ukrainian Peninsula, which was finalized in March 2014. Clashes among Crimean civilians began on February 21. Local news reports quoted teachers as saying they suspect the call is an attempt by the de facto authorities to prevent protests by other pro-Russian groups that are in opposition to the Kremlin-imposed government. Crimea has a two-day holiday on February 22-23 to mark Defender of the Fatherland Day. According to ForPost, a local news site, one teacher said: "They wanted to have children there so that nobody else does anything in the center of Sevastopol at that time. They say there have been a lot of applications for various protests. Order No. 66, dated February 15, came from Sevastopols Kremlin-backed Education Department Director Mikhail Rodikov. The document lists Sevastopols educational institutions, how many students each establishment must send to the celebrations, and the times children must be present on the citys main Nakhimov Square. The document calls for about 10,000 students to take part from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The document says student participation is mandatory in order for the younger generation to develop civil-patriotic qualities, foster a sense of respect and [understanding of the] historical heritage of their native city, and preserve the traditions of valiant service to the fatherland. Yevgeny Dubrovnik, the de facto deputy governor of Sevastopol, originally said that childrens participation at the event would be important. However, when teachers and parents began to file complaints to the education authorities, Dubrovnik backtracked, saying that the mandatory participation of children in the celebrations was his subordinate's "uncoordinated" idea. According to Dubrovnik, children will participate in the celebration, but no one will force them. Children will take part in exhibitions and concerts. [They] will show what they have done in two years of our Sevastopol spring, how they live, he said. The day, February 22, is dedicated to, among other things, our childrens creativity. Russia has been sending in thousands of recently mobilized troops to reinforce the defense of the southern region of Kherson, where Kyiv's forces have been making major advances in their offensive to retake territory occupied by Moscow, the Ukrainian military said, as fresh Russian strikes on civilian targets were reported on October 21. "Up to 2,000 mobilized Russians arrived in the temporarily captured Kherson region to replenish losses and strengthen units on the contact line," the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in a statement on October 21. Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's ongoing invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, Russian protests, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war, click here. "At the same time, the occupation authorities issued an order to prepare for the evacuation of the so-called banking institutions and Russian medical workers and teachers," the statement said. Ukraine is trying to drive Russian forces in Kherson back east across the Dnieper River that bisects the country. Russian soldiers on the western bank, where the city of Kherson is located, are reportedly close to being cut off from supply lines and reinforcements. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office said on October 20 that Ukrainian forces mounted 15 attacks on Russian military strongholds in the Kherson region in what appears to be the start of a major push to liberate the region and the strategic city of Kherson. Russia's Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said the Kremlin's forces repelled Ukrainian attempts to advance with tanks on the Kherson villages of Sukhanove, Nova Kamyanka, and Chervoniy Yar. Neither claim could be independently confirmed. The city of Kherson, with a prewar population of about 284,000, was one of the first urban areas captured by Russia when it invaded Ukraine, and it remains the largest city it holds. The city is an important objective for both sides because of its key industries and a major port on the Dnieper River. Moscow-installed officials have urged residents to evacuate and allow the military to build fortifications. Officials said 15,000 residents of an expected 60,000 had been relocated from the city and surrounding areas as of October 20. Kherson is one of the four partially occupied Ukrainian regions that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally seized following Kremlin-orchestrated referendums denounced as sham by Ukraine and the West. Putin declared martial law in the Kherson, Luhansk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia regions on October 19 in an attempt to assert Russian authority in the annexed areas as Moscow faced battlefield setbacks, a troubled troop mobilization, increasing criticism at home and abroad, and international sanctions. In a video address to EU leaders gathered for a summit in Brussels on October 20, Zelenskiy warned that Ukraine suspects Russia has mined the dam and units of the Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant on the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine, and if it were blown up, more than 80 settlements, including Kherson, would be in danger of flooding. Zelenskiy said Ukrainian workers have been thrown out of the facility, leaving Russians in control. He asserted that Russia "has already prepared everything to carry out this terrorist attack." He called for an international observation mission and the return of Ukrainian personnel to ensure the mines are removed from the dam and its units. Zelenskiy's comment came two days after Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-appointed head of the Kherson region of Ukraine, announced an "organized, gradual displacement" of civilians from four towns on the right bank of the Dnieper River to the left side. Saldo accused Ukrainian forces of planning to destroy the dam and also warned of "an immediate danger of flooding." The Moscow-appointed deputy head of the Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, encouraged people to cross over to the left bank of the Dnieper River and posted a video of a column of buses on Telegram. Kyiv has denounced Moscow's move, calling it a "deportation" of Ukrainian civilians to Russia. Over the past 10 days, Russia has also unleashed a wave of deadly attacks on Ukrainian civilian and energy infrastructure using artillery, air strikes, and Iranian-made suicide drones that destroyed 40 percent of the country's energy grid and prompted Kyiv to introduce rolling electricity restrictions for the first time since the start of the Russian invasion eight months ago. WATCH: Ukrainian forces first got their hands on FH70 155-millimeter howitzers courtesy of Italy in May and received training in Estonia. RFE/RL journalists met with a frontline FH70 crew and watched them in action against Russian forces. Early on October 21, a series of blasts rocked the Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhya, authorities said. Missiles hit an industrial facility in Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. Separately, Kharkiv regional Governor Oleh Sinegubov said five people had been wounded. No further details were immediately available about the Zaporizhzhua blasts. Zelenskiy told EU leaders that the Russian attacks against civilians and infrastructure are aimed in part at provoking a new wave of migration of Ukrainians to EU countries. "Russian terror against our energy facilities is aimed at creating as many problems as possible with electricity and heat for Ukraine this fall and winter and for as many Ukrainians as possible to go to your countries," he said. This should be "answered immediately," primarily by more air-defense systems sent to Ukraine, the president said, speaking by video conference from Kyiv. "We must do everything possible to make it completely impossible for Russia to destroy our energy system with missiles and drones," Zelenskiy said in the virtual speech, calling on Ukraine's partners to provide systems "to create a truly reliable air shield." With reporting by Reuters, AFP, dpa, and BBC The Supreme Court of Finland has ruled that Russian opposition activist Vasily Popov can be extradited to Russia. The February 19 decision is only a recommendation, and the final decision in the case is up to the Justice Ministry. Popov, 51, is wanted in the city of Petrozavodsk on charges of fraud connected with the privatization of a municipal enterprise. Popov's wife, Anastasia Kravchuk, a former deputy chairwoman of Karelia's Legislative Assembly, and two other former officials are also charged in the case. Popov is a member of the policy committee of the liberal Yabloko party and says that the charges against him are politically motivated. He formerly served in the Karelian Legislative Assembly and the Petrozavodsk city council. He moved to Finland in March 2015 and was arrested there under an Interpol warrant in August. Russia's Memorial human rights organization has denounced the "illegal persecution" of Popov. Based on reporting by Yle and Ilta-Sanomat PRISTINA -- Kosovo's parliament has resumed work after its session was halted by opposition lawmakers who released tear gas in the chamber. The speaker of parliament suspended 18 opposition lawmakers over the latest tear-gas disruption. They were not allowed into the chamber for the resumed session. Three opposition lawmakers also were detained by Kosovo police on February 19 after the tear gas was thrown. Outside the parliament, several hundred opposition supporters gathered on February 19 to protest against the government and call for its resignation. The opposition has repeatedly disrupted the legislature since September in an attempt to pressure Kosovo's government to renounce a deal with Belgrade that gives more autonomy to ethnic Serbs in Kosovo and which includes a border-demarcation agreement with Montenegro. Moscow has granted Armenia a $200 million loan for the purchase of Russian arms, according to a Russian government Internet portal. The 10-year export loan would cover the purchase of Smerch rocket launchers, Igla-S air-defense systems, radar-jamming systems, sniper rifles, and armored vehicles, the February 19 announcement said. Under the terms of the loan, Armenia would have to pay 10 percent for all purchases, with the rest to be covered by the credit. Russia is Armenia's main military supplier, and Moscow maintains a force of some 3,000 soldiers at a military base in the Armenian city of Gyumri. Russia also has an air base at Erebuni, near Armenia's border with Turkey. With reporting by Interfax One of Ramzan Kadyrov's staunchest critics says the Chechen leader remains one of the most powerful men in Russia despite mounting criticism over his ruthless tactics. According to Akhmed Zakayev, the exiled head of the Chechen separatist government, Kadyrov has accumulated so much clout that Russian President Vladimir Putin himself -- the man who brought him to power in 2007 -- may have trouble sidelining him if he tried. Kadyrov has recently provoked outrage after threatening Russian opposition leaders. "Any attempt to remove Kadyrov by decree or to appoint another leader of the [Chechen] republic would spark uproar in Kadyrov's ranks," Zakayev tells RFE/RL. "In order to remove him, security forces would need to conduct operational measures within his close circle. If they don't, the reaction will be very negative and Putin won't be able to get rid of him with a simple decree or a stroke of the pen." Zakayev, who was granted political asylum in Britain in 2003, predicts that Kadyrov will stay in power long after his current term as head of the predominantly Muslim North Caucasus republic ends in early April. So far, neither the Kremlin nor Kadyrov have made any statements confirming whether he intends to continue in his leadership post. 'No Exit Strategies' Zakayev tells RFE/RL that Kadyrov will never leave the political arena of his own will. He says the conflict in Syria has wiped out all of his exit strategies and that the Chechen strongman has "nowhere to go" if he ever falls out of favor with his benefactor Putin. "Three, four, five months ago, there were still places he could leave for: Turkey, Sunni states, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates," he says. "He has now lost these possibilities because he supported the conflict in Syria together with Putin and backed and sided with the Shi'a to defend [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad. By doing this, he has blocked the escape routes that he had spent several years preparing." So far, Zakayev says the string of scandals that have hit Kadyrov in recent months has not eroded his support base. Regardless of his despotic rule, he says many ordinary Chechens still support him. "It's simply because they credit Kadyrov with ending the ethnic cleansing, the mass killings, and the disappearances that took place in Chechnya at the hands of Russian forces," he says. "But Kadyrov has now reserved himself the exclusive right to pardon, punish, hang, or shoot people." Kadyrov has persecuted and shamed his critics in Chechnya with particular zeal in recent months, and also threatened the families of Chechens abroad who have dared protest his rule. Last year, he was embroiled in a teen marriage scandal that saw an underage Chechen schoolgirl reportedly forced to wed a police chief and ally of Kadyrov who was already married and three times her age. Kadyrov, who has encouraged polygamy in Chechnya, personally attended the wedding ceremony in March 2015, sparking dismay in Russia and beyond. The Chechen leader has also come under fire for his aggressive campaign against Russian opposition leaders, whom he recently branded "enemies of the people" and said should be tried as "traitors." Those comments provoked calls for Kadyrov's resignation from Russian opposition politicians and activists. 'Powerful Enemies' In January, Russian rights defenders again sounded the alarm after he released a video online showing a sniper targeting prominent opposition activists Mikhail Kasyanov -- who is also a former prime minister -- and Vladimir Kara-Murza. Citing sources in Russian power structures, Zakayev claims that Putin turned to Kadyrov for help "neutralizing" the opposition's most prominent leaders as early as December 2011, when an unprecedented wave of antigovernment protests swept Moscow. According to him, Putin traveled to Chechnya at this time and spent two days in talks with Kadyrov. The aim of this meeting, he says, was to ensure the transfer of Chechen fighters to Moscow to help crush the rebellion. After receiving this tip-off, Zakayev says he swiftly met with opposition leaders Boris Nemtsov and Garry Kasparov "in a European capital" to warn them of the danger. Kasparov eventually left Russia in 2013, saying he faced retaliation from authorities and would therefore continue his democracy advocacy from abroad. Nemtsov was gunned down in February 2015 just steps away from the Kremlin, a brazen murder that prosecutors have since pinned on a group of Chechen men, including an associate of Kadyrov. Putin has said he has taken "personal control" of the investigation, but Nemtsov's supporters blame the Russian president for the murder. Zakayev claims that Putin waited until 2015, when Russia's actions in Ukraine had already badly soured his ties with the West, to have the veteran opposition leader killed. "At the time, Putin was flirting with the West. He was trying to enter the elite international club, which in the end didn't accept him," he says. "When Crimea's [annexation] was rejected [by the international community], when military operations began in eastern Ukraine, when the West started slapping harsh sanctions on Russia, Putin no longer had any reason to look back." Zakayev, however, warns that Chechnya's apparent calm after two devastating wars between Moscow and Chechen separatists hides deepening public frustration, and that many Chechens would welcome Kadyrov's departure. In addition, he says Kadyrov also has powerful enemies in the Russia's Federal Security Service and in the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency, waiting for an opportunity to unseat him. "Chechnya is just biding its time," he says. "Chechen has not been pacified. Chechnya has never been as militarily strong as now. The slightest political shifts in Russia will be echoed in Chechnya." Reported by Natalya Golitsyna in St. Petersburg; written by Claire Bigg in Prague Russia's lower house of parliament has rejected draft legislation that called for fines and arrests of people who publicly express their homosexuality. The so-called "coming out" bill, initiated by lawmakers from the Communist Party, called for fines of up to 5,000 rubles (about $63) for publicly expressing "nontraditional sexual orientation." Punishment would have been up to 15 days in prison for making such expressions at educational or cultural facilities for youth. The bill was rejected by a State Duma committee on January 18, which advised lawmakers to unanimously vote against it in the event it came up for a first reading by the entire chamber. It's unclear whether its sponsors will try to reintroduce the legislation. Encouraged by the Kremlin, the Duma in 2013 backed a controversial law banning the promotion of gay "propaganda" to minors. That law sparked wide international criticism, and several Western leaders refused to attend the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014 in protest. Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax A Moscow court has denied the Russian opposition party Parnas standing in the trial of five men accused of killing party leader Boris Nemtsov. Parnas's lawyers had argued that Nemtsov's killing on February 27, 2015, on a bridge just meters from the Kremlin walls, had caused financial and organizational losses for the party, and therefore that party should be allowed to formally join the proceedings. But investigators had opposed the motion, and Moscow's Basmanny court on February 19 agreed with that argument. Five men from the North Caucasus region have been arrested and charged with Nemtsov's killing, which stunned the country's beleaguered opposition and raised questions about the complicity of Chechen politicians. Investigators say the suspected organizer of the crime, Ruslan Mukhudinov, remains at large. He is a soldier in the security forces of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Nemtsov's relatives and lawyers have expressed doubts about the probe, insisting the killing must have been ordered by high-ranking government officials. Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax At least one person was killed by an intentionally triggered snow slide in the Russian town of Kirovsk in Murmansk Oblast. Officials said the avalanche above the Arctic Circle late on the evening of February 18 also damaged buildings, trees, and cars. Russia's RIA-Novosti news agency reported that the victim was an employee of the local branch of the Emergency Situations Ministry who was a member of the team that triggered the avalanche. Local media said the town had no warning that the avalanche would be triggered. Officials routinely use explosives to trigger avalanches in order to prevent snow from accumulating and causing larger snow slides. Based on reporting by RIA-Novosti, The Moscow Times, and Flash Nord A prominent Russian political analyst known for his critical stance toward the Kremlin has left Russia, fearing possible persecution due to a recent article he published that prosecutors say contains "signs" of extremism. Andrei Piontkovsky, a relentless critic of President Vladimir Putin, fled Russia after federal lawmakers and elected officials in Russia's North Caucasus region of Chechnya asked the Prosecutor-General's Office to study his recent analysis of ties between the Kremlin and Chechnya's leadership, his lawyer, Mark Feigin, told the BBC's Russian service and Ekho Moskvy radio on February 19. According to lawmakers in Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, and Chechnya's regional parliament, Piontkovsky's article constitutes an incitement to separatism and extremism. Prosecutors agreed, at least in part, with that assessment, according to a copy of a letter from the Prosecutor-General's Office posted on Instagram by Shamsail Saraliyev, a State Duma deputy from Chechnya, on February 18. The letter, dated February 10, states that Piontkovsky's article, titled The Bomb That Is Ready To Explode and published last month on Ekho Moskvy's website, shows signs of calls to undermine Russia's territorial integrity and incitement of ethnic hatred. The article speculates on possible problems in relations between pro-Putin Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and Russia's federal structures that may "lead to bigger problems" in Russia. The Russian business daily RBC quoted a Prosecutor-General's Office spokesperson as confirming that it had found elements of extremism in the article and that the case materials had been passed to the Investigative Committee -- Russia's analogue to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation -- to decide whether to launch a criminal case. Piontkovsky, a veteran of opposition politics in Russia, wrote on Twitter on February 19, "The Investigative Committee and the prosecutor's office are fighting for the right to kill a 76-year-old man." He told RFE/RL in an e-mail later in the day that he was currently abroad for "long-term" medical treatment and referred all questions about the probe into his article to Feigin, who could not immediately be reached for comment. Asked to clarify whether he left Russia in order to receive medical treatment or, as Feigin said earlier, due to fears of persecution, Piontkovsky wrote, "Our statements do not contradict each other." 'Enemy Of The People' Piontkovsky's article followed a spate of recent public statements by Kadyrov, who has ruled restive Chechnya with an iron fist -- and Putin's blessing -- since 2007, denouncing opposition activists as traitors and "enemies of the people." Kremlin opponents and international rights groups have urged Putin to take action in the matter, saying Kadyrov is fomenting an atmosphere of hatred that threatens the safety of government critics. "With his savage statements and threats, Kadyrov is not only helping his boss, but also strengthening his isolation, pitting Putin not only against the security services and liberals who work within the [political] system, but against all of Russian society," Piontkovsky wrote. Piontkovsky, a mathematician by training and a visiting fellow with the Washington-based Hudson Institute think tank, has faced legal problems over his writing before. In 2007, he was tried in a Moscow court on extremism charges over two parts of his book Unloved Country, a collection of political essays strongly critical of Putin's government. He was eventually cleared of the charges after experts found that the book was not extremist in nature as defined by Russian law. Kremlin critics say the Russian authorities use antiextremism laws not only to rein in xenophobia and hate crimes but also to crack down on legitimate dissent. With reporting by Merhat Sharipzhan, BBC's Russian service, Ekho Moskvy, and RBC.ru Russia's Foreign Ministry says it plans to call a session of the United Nations Security Council on February 19 to discuss statements by the Turkish government about a possible ground operation in Syria. A statement on the ministry's website said Russia plans to submit a draft resolution that demands an end to "actions that threaten Syria's sovereignty." Russia has been backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime with air strikes that have targeted groups that are fighting Assad's forces. It also has been supporting the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is trying to advance near Turkey's southern border to link a Kurdish enclave in northwestern Syria with territory under its control in northeastern Syria. Turkey considers the PYD to be a terrorist group and has launched artillery barrages across the border in a bid to slow the Russian-backed Syrian advance. Based on reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, TASS, and Interfax State media in Turkmenistan are reporting that 1,485 prisoners have been pardoned by President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov. Turkmenistan's State Information Agency quoted Berdymukhammedov as saying the amnesty was linked to the Day of the National Flag, which is marked on February 19. Berdymukhammedov signed the decree on amnesty for "inmates who fully repented in their crimes" at a February 18 cabinet session, according to the reports. Berdymukhammedov's predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov, issued similar amnesty decrees once a year, during the holy month of Ramadan. Berdymukhammedov has issued such decrees several times. His last clemency, announced in October, pardoned 1,020 inmates on the eve of the Independence Day, on October 27. Based on reports by Express-k.kz and Interfax Ukraine's embattled prosecutor-general has officially submitted his resignation, a spokesman for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko wrote on Twitter. The presidential administration has received an official letter of resignation from Prosecutor-General Viktor Shokin, presidential press secretary Sviatoslav Tsegolko wrote on February 19. Calls for Shokin's resignation mounted after Deputy Prosecutor-General Vitaliy Kasko resigned on February 15, accusing Shokin of hindering corruption investigations. There were media reports that Shokin had resigned as early as February 16, but other reports said he had gone on an extended vacation. During a telephone conversation on February 18, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden told Poroshenko that the United States welcomed his efforts to replace Shokin, which Biden said "paves the way for needed reform of the prosecutorial service." With reporting by Interfax and Reuters Via Folha de Pernambuco, an Agencia Brasil report: Notificacao de casos de Zika passa a ser obrigatoria no Brasil. [Notification of Zika cases becomes mandatory in Brazil] The Google translation, edited: From this Thursday (18), the notification of suspected cases of infection Zika virus is mandatory. The decree published in the Official Gazette, provides that all suspected cases must be reported to the health authorities weekly. In the case of pregnant women with suspected Zika virus infection or suspicious death, the notification must be immediate, that is, made by health professionals within 24 hours. The Ministry of Health reported that the change is the result of an analysis of Zika monitoring methods in Brazil. Until now, the infection was monitored by the Sentinel Surveillance System, to provide support for measures to prevent the disease. The decision to make the required notification was made in partnership with states and municipalities, as well as experts. "Health professionals from all over Brazil are being told about the measure through the various routine communication channels such as videoconferencing, e-mails, direct offices and contacts," said the ministry. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has called Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and commended him for passing anticorruption legislation sought by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the White House said. "The Vice President urged President Poroshenko to continue on this positive trajectory, to include successful implementation of the new legislation, and continued visible progress on anti-corruption reforms" backed by the United States and European Union, it said on February 18. The IMF had threatened to halt delivery of Ukraine's $40 billion bailout package from the IMF and EU unless it cracked down on corruption. Biden also applauded Poroshenko's efforts to replace Prosecutor-General Viktor Shokin, "which paves the way for needed reform of the prosecutorial service," the White House said. Shokin was called out by name earlier this month by Economy Minister Aivaras Abromavicius, who announced his resignation and cited a "sharp escalation in efforts to block systemic and important reforms." U.S. officials have long made clear their position that Shokin should resign to restore public confidence in Ukraine's justice system. Based on reporting by AP and Reuters JIZZAX, Uzbekistan -- A court in Uzbekistan's eastern region of Jizzax has sentenced five men to prison terms of between 5 1/2 and 12 years on religious extremism, separatism, and sabotage charges. One of the men sentenced on February 19, Aramais Avakian, a 33-year-old ethnic Armenian and a Christian by faith, was sentenced to seven years, his wife, Shirin Tursunova, told RFE/RL. Avakian was the only defendant who pleaded not guilty. He was arrested in September. Avakian's relatives say that local authorities in the Paxtakor district trumped up the charges against Avakian in order to take over his successful fish farm. Armenian officials said earlier that they had officially expressed concern over the case and asked Uzbek authorities to properly investigate it. Henrico County School Board members say they were not trying to stifle dialogue or censor material when they apologized last week for a presentation at Glen Allen High School that some felt was racially divisive. Michelle F. Micky Ogburn, the School Boards chairwoman, and Lisa A. Marshall, who represents the Tuckahoe District, said Thursday in an interview that their response came after parents complained they were offended by some of the materials, including a video shown to students. The two School Board members, representing the board, said neither the presentation nor the topic is what bothered them, but the way in which the material was presented. Their goal was laudable, Ogburn said. But there could have been additions to the program that would have completed that goal: Let the kids talk. Let them have that give and take. Facilitate dialogue about how they feel about those things. And since that didnt happen, we have people who are offended and were confused. And, you have to remember, we were dealing with children. The controversy stems from two Feb. 4 presentations at Glen Allen High School on American history and racial discourse for Black History Month. The presentations, led by Virginia Commonwealth University political science professor Ravi K. Perry, were each attended by about 1,000 students. My message to the students was manyfold. We discussed the consequences of using the N-word, the diversity of the nation, the multiple identities within us all, along with how collective memory, socialization and ideas serve to inform our consciousness around everything we do, including our knowledge and perceptions around race, Perry said in an email. We also defined the difference between race, and various forms of racism, including structural and institutional racism. Included in the presentation, which several Glen Allen officials had seen beforehand, was a four-minute video titled Structural Discrimination: The Unequal Opportunity Race that portrays what some refer to as white privilege and shows several runners on a track, with runners of color dealing with several obstacles while white runners are unimpeded. Those offended object to the notion that white people face fewer challenges than minorities, and that the video portrays life being easier for white people. Complaints about the video drew national attention and led to flood of angry calls and emails. While the video has gotten the most public attention, Ogburn and Marshall said two other portions of the program also led to the backlash. The first was a handout asking students to profile themselves. Among the items students were asked to list is whether they were agents where the characteristic gives you power or privilege or targets where the characteristic puts you in a position of oppression, discrimination or less power or privilege. The second was a slide that defines racism as individual and social beliefs, attitudes and actions that claim white people are superior to other people. Ogburn and Marshall said the complaints began coming in the night of the presentation and escalated as news spread. On Feb. 9, the school system, hoping to quell the controversy, offered an apology to those who were offended and for the unintended impact on our community. But that apology created a second firestorm, with critics taking the School Board to task for not using the incident to help create a dialogue and accusing it of censorship. The controversy also came at a time the board is facing pressure to change the name of Harry F. Byrd Middle School because of its namesakes efforts to preserve racial segregation. This really spread to the entire community. What were hearing out of the East End is that East End parents have the perception that the board, in our reaction, wanted to shut down all discussion about racial issues, Marshall said. Thats very troubling. Not one of us on the board thinks its a topic that shouldnt be discussed, and it is discussed in our schools now. I think the difference is, typically, these issues are discussed in a classroom where there is a discussion and a free exchange of ideas. Its not that we had any intention to censure a full discussion of racial issues. Ogburn and Marshall say the boards intent was never to suppress a conversation about a serious topic. They say the issue is that the presentation, particularly the video, profile form and definition, caused a lot of anger among parents who felt their children came home confused and that it divided the school. Some parents complained that students were made to feel excluded because of their race and religion. Both say the material would have been better suited for a classroom where there could be an open dialogue that allowed for discussion, dissent and historical context. Via The Centre for Health Protection: CHP notified of third imported case of Zika Virus Infection in Mainland. Excerpt and then a comment: The Centre for Health Protection (CHP) of the Department of Health (DH) received notification today (February 19) of the third imported case of Zika Virus Infection in the Mainland from the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC), and again urged the public, particularly pregnant women, those planning pregnancy and immunocompromised patients, to adopt strict anti-mosquito measures during travel. According to the NHFPC and General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic of China, the male patient aged 38 from Yiwu, Zhejiang, travelled to Fiji and Samoa in a tour group on February 2. He left and travelled on Fiji Airways flight FJ 391 which arrived at Hong Kong on February 14. He then returned to the Mainland via Hong Kong on the same day. He was subsequently found to have fever and skin rash by the Shenzhen Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau at Huanggang on the same day. On February 15, the patient returned to Yiwu, Zhejiang where he was hospitalised for isolation and management the next day. The case was laboratory confirmed by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention today. The DH's Port Health Office has stepped up inspection in the Boundary Control Points (BCPs) and airport to maintain strict environmental hygiene with effective mosquito control. Port Health Inspectors have reinforced training for contractors of BCPs, including the airport, harbour ports and ground crossings, on port hygiene and pest control for effective vector prevention. Health promotion in BCPs have been enhanced through pamphlets and posters to alert travellers to necessary measures against Zika. "Routine health surveillance on body temperature of inbound travellers at all BCPs is ongoing. Suspected cases will be referred to healthcare facilities for follow-up. Yet, at present, around 70 to 80 per cent of infected people are asymptomatic and most can recover fully. Therefore, we again urge those arriving from Zika-affected areas to apply insect repellent for 14 days upon arrival to reduce the risk of transmission," the spokesman added. The DH has been closely working with the travel industry and stakeholders, especially agents operating tours in Zika-affected areas and personnel receiving travellers in those areas (particularly pregnant women), to regularly update them of the latest disease information and health advice. As long as there is international travel, there is always risk of introduction of Zika virus to Hong Kong. As asymptomatic infection is very common and the potential vector, Aedes albopictus, is present locally, there is also risk of local spread in case Zika is introduced to Hong Kong. It's a little confusing that the patient was spotted in Shenzhen and subsequently identified as a Zika case. Why wasn't he stopped right there and tested more thoroughly, instead of being allowed to travel on to Yiwu? Plans for a proposed residential farming community in Hanover County cleared the countys Planning Commission on Thursday night, moving forward the project that developers have touted as unique to the region and complementary to the countys agricultural tradition. The Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend that the countys Board of Supervisors approve a rezoning request for Chickahominy Falls, a proposed 180-acre development with 404 homes on Cedar Lane and Holly Hill Road in the Elmont area. This will be an innovative, first-of-its-kind development that reflects Hanovers farming heritage, wrote Andrew M. Condlin, an attorney representing developer Cornerstone Homes in papers submitted to the county for the rezoning request. The proposed development, which will be bounded by the Chickahominy River to the south and feature some homes cast in a clustered, villagelike setting along with nature trails, gardens and 10 acres for farming is being marketed for homebuyers age 55 and older as well as millennials. Plans call for 73 acres of open space, and the development also will include a clubhouse and pool. Homes will start in the mid-$200,000 range and go up to $450,000, developers have said. Were trying to create an intergenerational community, he said. Be able to have grandparents with their grandchildren, to be able to work together and play together and live together. Developers met with residents in public and private meetings in the months before the Planning Commission meeting, adjusting plans as needed, Condlin said. During his presentation to the commissioners, Condlin noted that the proposal is unusual in that not all of the property included in the plan is currently owned by the developer. During the public hearing, about a half-dozen people expressed support for the developments mission, including residents who indicated a willingness to sell their property for the project. Cedar Lane resident Mark Giragosian said he would happily live in the development. At some point, this land so close to Richmond is going to be developed, he said. I am at ease and I am at peace with what Cornerstone wants to create. Five people spoke in opposition to the project, raising objections about the number of people Chickahominy Falls would bring into the community. Cher Skelly said her family moved to Hanover three months ago and was attracted to the area for its rural nature. The new homes, she said, will be an added burden on resources. Via FiveThirtyEight.com, the best explanation I've read yet for Why Its So Hard To Prove Zika Is Causing Birth Defects. Click or tap through for the full report and many links. Excerpt: The evidence connecting Zika and microcephaly remains circumstantial, but its growing. Theres not going to be any single perfect piece of data to link Zika to microcephaly, said Melinda Moore, a pediatrician at the RAND Corp. who previously studied infectious diseases at the CDC. Instead, researchers must piece together multiple lines of imperfect evidence to come up with a clear picture. But efforts to construct that clear picture face some major challenges. As Brazilian pediatrician Sandra da Silva Mattos and her colleagues recently wrote in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization, The first question to be addressed is the real incidence of microcephaly in Northeast Brazil. Before scientists can confirm that Zika is causing microcephaly, they need to know how common microcephaly was before Zika and how widespread it is now. Right now, the answer to both of those questions remains muddy. In search of numbers, da Silva Mattoss group put together a local task force to go back and look for microcephaly in a database of newborns in northeast Brazil born mostly before the current outbreak. They found that the incidence of microcephaly in the area was much higher than expected from 2 percent to 8 percent, depending on which criteria were used for diagnosis (more on that in a minute). However, when they reviewed only extreme cases, the incidence fell in the range of 0.02 percent to 0.19 percent, which is in line with the incidences reported for microcephaly in other parts of the world. They also found that microcephaly cases varied seasonally, in a pattern that could reflect the peak activity of mosquitoes that carry Zika. But heres the puzzle: This fluctuation was seen as far back as late 2012, several years before Zika is known to have appeared in Brazil in mid-2014. In fact, cases of microcephaly seem to have peaked early in 2014, before Zikas appearance in Brazil, most likely during a sporting event, later that year. This finding could suggest another cause, or it could mean that Zika entered this area earlier than was previously known. Its important to note that da Silva Mattoss review is a preliminary report. What first looked like a startling epidemic of microcephaly cases could turn out to be, at least in part, an example of the awareness effect an uptick in cases that happens when increased awareness of a problem leads to the identification (or, in some cases, misidentification) of cases that otherwise would have gone undetected. Microcephaly was probably underreported before Zika, and Jorge Lopez-Camelo and Ieda Maria Orioli from the Latin American Collaborative Study of Congenital Malformations note in a report they had translated into English for Nature that Brazils Live Birth Information System recorded only about a third as many birth defect cases as would be expected based on incidence in other parts of the world. Unless the area had an unusually low baseline rate of birth defects, any new effort to look for a specific defect could easily result in a two-thirds increase in numbers, simply by finding cases that would otherwise have gone uncounted. And speaking of critical studies like the Mattos Report, which appeared on February 4 on WHO's Zika Open page, no new reports have been published there since February 10over a week ago. 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. The Lady in the Van is the story of a codependent London couple who politely loathe each other without actually being a pair. She is Miss Shepherd, a homeless gorgon with delusions of grandeur, and a long-term driveway squatter in several comedic ramshackle vehicles. He is English playwright Alan Bennett, a timid fellow who feels the impulse to strangle his caustic guest every time he offers her aid. The reality-based comedy hands the roles to the peerless Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings, who make their 15-year run of neighborly aversion into an ongoing border war delivered in classic British understatement. Its a good enough story that Bennett has written it as a memoir, a stage play and a radio drama, with Smith in the title role. Her third run as the haughty eccentric is a matter of Olympic marksmanship, hitting the bulls-eye with each scowl and droll line reading. The pair meet in a rising London neighborhood in 1973, as the introverted playwright is beginning to climb the citys creative totem pole. He offers the aged neighborhood icon a long-term parking space in front of his house. When she makes it a permanent arrangement, he is too polite to object. Hes also more than a bit lonely and feeling guilt pangs at ignoring his own failing mothers increasing needs. The film follows the pair as they develop a frenemies relationship that each one wishes to control. Bennett also wishes he could balance his own imaginary doppelgangers, seeing himself divided into the Alan who writes and the Alan who lives. Jennings is enjoyable playing this two-member debate club, dual personas whose closest connection is their mutual interest in the mysteries of Miss Shepherds past. It is a complicated saga dating back to World War II, two terms as a nun and a long-ago scandal still drawing police attention. The story grows stranger over the years, building to a final chapter where director Nicholas Hytner echoes Monty Pythons Life of Brian with a meta-climax where Bennetts impersonator and actual self split the screen like Jennings imaginary twins. Its a silly, far from perfect film, but uses Smith, a genuine national treasure and double Oscar winner, far better than those dreadful Marigold Hotel movies do. Better to see it than miss it. Oak Grove Church of the Brethren's annual Youth Yard Sale will be held in the church fellowship hall on Saturday, March 5, from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m. We will have everything from furniture to figurines, china to children's toys, home decor (including wreaths for the door), clothes galore, books and much, much more. We will have a bake sale stocked with all kinds of sweet treats, and we'll be serving from the kitchen good things to eat. There will be breakfast biscuits to start the day and hot dogs ready to munch for lunch. Everyone is invited to join us and be as amazed as we are that we have filled the fellowship hall for another year with things you want, and things you need, and all very good bargains indeed. The funds raised support our junior and senior high youth attending summer work camps and youth conferences. Oak Grove Church of the Brethren is located at 2138 McVitty Road, off Virginia 419 across from Allstate. Our website is www.oakgrovecob.org, and the phone number of the church office is 774-3217. Our youth and their church family welcome you and appreciate your support. Submitted by Martha Gregory BLACKSBURG The sound of ripping tape and rustling cardboard filled the air of Marc Edwards lab at Virginia Tech on Friday morning. About a dozen students were putting together boxes, assembling leaflets and labeling sample bottles that will go out to 300 homes in Flint, Michigan. The group is mailing the bottles to Flint to people who previously sent in their water to be tested for lead. Virginia Tech researchers discovered lead levels that far exceeded Environmental Protection Agency guidelines last year. Their research touched off a national debate about lead in water and the best way to protect children from the harmful heavy metal. The Tech researchers hope the samples will signal a return to safe lead levels in the water of a city thats dominated news cycles for large amounts of lead in its drinking water and in the blood of its children. Flints water had been contaminated with lead since 2014 when the city began getting its water from the Flint River as a cost-cutting measure. The water was then not properly treated to prevent lead in pipes from running through residents taps. It has also been revealed that the water issues also could have caused a high number of Legionnaires disease cases including nine fatalities, Edwards said in Flint. Now, said Siddhartha Roy, a student who spent his Friday folding up instructions for water sampling to mail to Flint residents, the switch to Detroits water system should have levels back to within legal limits. In some samples the group had taken, theyd found lead levels that doubled the amount for a substance to be considered hazardous waste, Roy said. When the bottles that have the new tests in them return to Blacksburg, theyll be tested in the same lab they were packaged in by Tech research scientist Jeff Parks in a machine hes named The Beast. The 10-year-old machine, which was used to sample lead levels in Washington, D.C., as a part of Edwards first crusade, measures metal levels inside of water and checks for a multitude of elements. Its the same machine that Edwards used. It can generally measure up to 100 samples a day, Parks said, though he put in extra hours to get more samples done for Flint. Now, hes racing to get as many samples in as possible because of a backlog that the testing has created. There will be more tests following the return of the bottles and theres been a bit of a backlog created by the volume demand of the Flint project, Parks said. In the near future, Parks said the team will be partnering with the nonprofit Healthy Babies, Bright Futures. The nonprofit will be sending out sample kits, and Parks will run the tests for lead in Edwards lab, he said. That will be on top of tests for folks across campus, he said. A multitude of other projects across the country and state have also become linked to the Edwards name, including continuing work in Michigan. Often, Roy said, the team learns about new Edwards work from the media. This semester Edwards has had to pay Virginia Tech money so that he isnt required to teach a class. He said hes averaging a couple of hours of sleep each night and his grant-writing efforts have suffered. Hes also gotten incredible demands from the outside world. Edwards said each day recently hes gotten about 4,600 emails about various lead issues and 110 speaking requests. The Virginia Tech media relations team has set up a custom Skype studio for members to use to speak with broadcast outlets. Almost every member of the team is scheduled to give a talk or interview in the near future, he said. Edwards said hes doing as much as he can, but its impossible for him to meet every request or reply to every email. Other research projects and grant writing have suffered as he and the other researchers have raced to get testing done and work with government agencies . But its all worth it because were protecting children in Flint, he said. And that attitude has rubbed off on his students. Edwards insists that all he tries to do is not mess them up before they graduate, he said. But, Roy said, hes done much more in teaching the ethics of science and research. The team has become unified in its efforts to be proactive in remembering that their research and science impact real people. After all, Roy said, its their duty as engineers to protect their neighbors and society as a whole. This is how academics should be working with the public, Roy said. Via The New York Times, a brilliant op-ed by Brazilian columnist Vanessa Barbara: Long Sleeves and Bug Spray in Sao Paulo. Excerpt: The level of concern Brazilians feel depends on several factors. Of course, pregnant women everywhere are worried. But geography matters: In the richer southeast, where I live, Zika is still no match for dengue fever, which is both more common and more lethal last year, 1.6 million Brazilians were infected; 863 died. In Sao Paulo, concern about Zika is still seen as overblown. My sister-in-law recently went to see two different doctors about a rash and both told her that they wouldnt know how to diagnose a Zika infection because they had never treated anyone with the disease. Money also matters. Wealthier women can afford as many bottles of insect repellent as they can get their hands on (not to mention ultrasound exams to find out if their unborn children are showing signs of microcephaly); the poorest can count only on chance. And not many women can follow the example of a pregnant middle-class woman from Rio de Janeiro who recently packed her bags and left for Europe, planning to stay abroad at least through the end of her first trimester. It seems that money can even buy the illusion of safety. My gynecologist told me about one of her pregnant patients, who, despite doctors orders, recently traveled three times to northeast Brazil, where most of the Zika infections have been reported. When my doctor asked the woman why she kept going to the area despite the risks of contracting the virus, she explained that she didnt worry because she always stays in upscale resorts. The idea that mosquitoes cant make their way into four-star hotel rooms is absurd, but so is much of the thinking here these days when it comes to the Zika virus. More than fear, confusion has been the dominant response: In WhatsApp groups and on social networks, people have spread rumors that Zika can cause serious neurological complications in infected children or that the government has been hiding the real number of victims or that the outbreak was caused by genetically modified mosquitoes. These claims have been debunked, but Brazilians are still lacking strong, categorical truths. The number of cases is still being disputed and a causal relationship between the virus and microcephaly has not been scientifically established. ROCKY MOUNT Set about 165 feet behind Steve Thomas home, behind the chicken coops and their occupants, sit two collections of solar panels tilted upward and gleaming in the sunlight. The shiny new solar arrays, which are mounted in the ground rather than on the homes roof, seem somewhat out of place in the rural environment. But Thomas says thats why theyre perfect for Franklin County: theres plenty of space to install them in an unobtrusive way. Thomas, the countys director of information technology, is one of the first in Franklin County to have solar panels installed at his home. Fincastle-based Main St. Solar installed them at Thomas home in September. And Thomas has become the countys resident expert of sorts on solar energy. He has now given three presentations on the subject. One at Westlake Library in Franklin County drew a standing-room-only crowd. Next month, hell give another at the South County Library in Roanoke County. Hes definitely a pioneer for solar in the Franklin County area, said Alan Brenner of Main St. Solar. When Thomas first began his career as an engineer in the mid-1970s, there was a fuel shortage, which sparked an interest in alternative energy research. Thomas was particularly interested in photovoltaic technology converting the suns energy into electricity but it wasnt very efficient back then. Thomas has kept an eye on the technology, but for years felt that the price of solar cells was crazy high. But when a federal tax credit reimbursing 30 percent of the installation costs went into effect, the price became more reasonable. Thomas system, which generates up to 10,400 watts a day, cost a little more than $28,000. But hell get 30 percent of that back, which bumps it below $20,000. He expects the payback on his project in energy savings to take about seven years. At his talks, Thomas tells people that, as long as youre willing to pay for it, theres no downside to installing solar panels to power your home. Its something Thomas wakes up every day feeling good about, knowing hes doing something good for the environment. This is the cleanest energy we know how to make as human beings, Thomas said. Even windmills have more Ill call it fallout because theres noise, they take a lot of real estate. But the state doesnt quite match Thomas level of enthusiasm for solar energy. Virginia isnt very solar-friendly, Thomas said. He cited a 2015 report ranking states on their solar friendliness, which puts Virginia at No. 41. Thomas said he wrote to Gov. Terry McAuliffe, saying its disappointing to see a state that claims to be so high-tech and forward-thinking ranked so low on such a list. Head just a bit farther south into North Carolina and its a much different story, Thomas said. The same report ranked North Carolina at No. 25. In North Carolina, theres also a state tax credit in addition to the federal tax credit, Brenner said, putting them way ahead of Virginia in support of solar energy. What happens here is we kind of bend over backwards to support AEP and Dominion Power, Thomas said. And they really prevent a lot of people from going solar. Thomas said he believes AEP, the corporate parent of Appalachian Power Co., doesnt want people to install solar panels and supply them with power because they view it as competition. Appalachian Power spokeswoman Jeri Matheney said in an email that the company does not view solar systems like Thomas as competition, and that if a customer wants to install such a system, the company has employees trained to assist them. We have worked with more than 600 customers to help them with the interconnection of these generators and understanding of how the process works, she said. Thomas points to a state law that says the capacity of a system generating energy cannot exceed the amount of energy consumed in the previous year. The law caused problems for Thomas. According to Appalachian Power, Thomas said, the most his house had ever consumed in a day was about 8,000 watts. But he wanted to generate more than his house needed, and sought to put in a system that could generate 10,400 watts. After some negotiating, and explaining that hed likely consume more energy this year, Thomas was able to get the system generating 10,400 watts a day approved. The regulations all come back to the practice of net metering. Thomas explains it this way: His solar system is hooked up to Appalachian Powers grid. Energy his system generates that he is not using gets pushed to the grid, and the utility is able to use it. Then Appalachian will provide him with that same amount of energy at no cost. So at nighttime or on a rainy, cloudy day, the equivalent of the energy that Thomas already generated would be sent back to him. Net metering has been instrumental in encouraging the installation of solar panels, Matheney said, but it is not sustainable in the long run because the utility company is buying this excess power at full retail rate rather than getting cheaper power from the market or its own generators. The full retail rate reflects the cost of the energy companys distribution system and other factors, Matheney said, with only about one-third accounting for the electricity itself. Since installing his solar panels, Thomas hasnt paid anything to Appalachian Power. Its nice to open up your power bill that says billable: zero, he said. Thomas can even make money from his solar system through solar renewable energy credits. Some states have renewable portfolio standards, which require that a portion of a companys energy be produced through renewable energy sources, like solar. Some companies meet the requirement by purchasing energy credits. Thomas is given credit for the energy he produces, which can then be sold. Its like a stock that you own, Brenner said. Virginia, however, does not have renewable portfolio standards, so Brenner and Thomas sell their credits out of state. Right now, they make about $20 a megawatt, Brenner said, but if Virginia had a renewable portfolio standard, they could make a lot more. In Maryland or Washington, D.C., they could make $300 or $400 a megawatt, Brenner said. Virginia is not supportive of solar in that way, he said. Last year, McAuliffe signed a law freezing base rates and suspending rate reviews for Appalachian Power and Dominion Power until 2020. It also requires the companies to build solar energy facilities by that time. Matheney said Appalachian Power is planning at least one large scale solar project in the coming year to gain more experience with the technology as it becomes more competitive. The photovoltaic technology behind solar panels is far from new. In the 1830s, Thomas said, a French physicist found that when certain materials are exposed to light, they can generate energy. For many people though, its still an unfamiliar technology, despite efforts to spread the word through local efforts like Solarize Roanoke and a similar program in Blacksburg. I think for a long time it was like one of those pie in the sky things, sort of like hybrid cars, Thomas said. People heard about them but theyd never driven one, and when you drive one theres not much difference. But based on the crowds of interested listeners at Thomas talks and the number of people who pop by his house to check out the solar panels, it looks like some people are warming up to the idea of solar energy. RICHMOND Gov. Terry McAuliffe will again be faced with a decision on whether to continue coal-related tax credits he has called ineffective after the General Assembly voted this week to extend the credits beyond their looming expiration dates. The House of Delegates voted 74-23-1 Friday to extend two tax credits intended to boost employment in the struggling Southwest Virginia coalfields. The Senate passed similar legislation Monday. During a speech on the House floor Friday, Del. Terry Kilgore, R-Scott, said the credits help the hard-working families back in Southwest Virginia while displaying a photo showing a coal miners blackened hands. I just want to show you who were fighting for on this tax credit, Kilgore said. Extending the tax credits one of which gives coal companies a break on income taxes while the other benefits utility companies that purchase and burn coal would mean the loss of millions in tax revenue over the next few years, including a negative impact of roughly $18 million in fiscal year 2021 due to a mandated waiting period for claiming the former credit. Some provisions in the bill namely a $7.5 million yearly cap in the credits electricity generators could claim would have a positive budgetary impact. The House version of the legislation, House Bill 298, would extend the credit for coal companies, which has an existing sunset of Jan 1, 2017, until the beginning of 2020. The credit for utility companies doesnt have a sunset date, but a provision that allows a portion of those credits to be shared with coal mine operators is set to expire on July 1, 2016. The House bill would extend that to 2020. McAuliffe vetoed similar legislation last year, pointing to statistics showing that coal mining jobs had declined from 11,106 to 3,600 between 1988 and 2014 despite the state granting $573 million in tax credits. Well review it when it gets here, McAuliffe spokesman Brian Coy said Friday when asked about the legislation passed this year. The bills passed both chambers by veto-proof margins this year, which means the governor may not be able to overrule the legislature on the issue. Coy said the governor wants to support Southwest Virginia in way that ensures taxpayers are getting a good return on investment. He doesnt believe in investing in things that dont work, Coy said. McAuliffe has supported the Clean Power Plan, a federal mandate to reduce climate change in part by shifting away from coal toward natural gas, solar and wind power. In other action Friday, the House passed a bill to exempt prepared food served in jails and goods sold at jail commissaries from sales and use taxes. The vote on the bill, House Bill 1191, was 74-24. The Roanoke Times contributed to this report. The jury got its first chance Thursday to hear directly from one of the six defendants in the federal trial related to the killing of Waynesboro reserve police Capt. Kevin Quick. Gert Wright III , also known as Halisi Uhuru, who is charged with obstruction of justice and racketeering in the federal case being heard in Roanoke, said the alleged gang, the 99 Goon Syndikate, was created to keep people from joining gangs and to create a better way of life. Prior to his testimony, Uhurus father and mother were called as witnesses by defense attorney Sherwin Jacobs. Gert Wright Jr., Uhurus father, said his son was released from prison Dec. 3, 2013, after being incarcerated since he was 15. Wright said Uhurus mother picked him up and took him to her home in Danville. Wright then took Uhuru to his residence in Alexandria to visit family members whom Uhuru hadnt seen during his seven years in prison. Wright said his son wanted to take classes at a community college and to get a job to pay some of his fines and be a productive citizen. After about a weeklong visit, Uhuru returned to Danville by train, Wright said. Uhurus mother, Glendora Johnson, picked him up from the train station. She said one of Uhurus first priorities was to remove the facial tattoos beneath his eyes, which read Blood and Love. He knew he couldnt get a job with the tattoos on, she said. Johnson said that Uhuru stayed with her in Danville, getting his learners permit and attending meetings with Virginia Cares, a program designed to help prior inmates readjust to life outside prison. In late December, a woman named Hope came to pick him up and took him to Northern Virginia for a day or two, Johnson said. Hope has been identified in prior testimony as Leslie Hope Casterlow, one of the governments key witnesses in the case. Otherwise, her son was with her until the end of January, Johnson said. He wanted to get a job, an apartment and also a car. He wrote three novels while locked up and wanted to get them published, she said. He wanted to make a difference, help others. After Uhuru took the stand, he was asked to identify himself to the jury. He turned to the panel and said, Im Halisi Uhuru and Im here to prove my innocence. Halisi testified that he joined the Bloods gang while in prison. The prison gangs control the whole politics of the prison, he said. Joining a gang offers protection. It offers brotherhood. During his last year or two of prison, Uhuru said, he became disgusted with the hypocrisy of gangs and began reading up on Black history and Martin Luther King Jr. He also began communicating with a friend in New York who told him about the 99 Goon Syndikate. According to Uhuru, the Syndikates mission was to improve peoples lives. He said that Goon stands for geniuses of our nation, and that each letter in Syndikate represents a different tenet of the groups philosophy. The S, for example, stands for Study every day. The I represents Inner reflection and the E signifies Exercise your mind, body and soul. Uhuru said he and co-defendant Travis Bell aka Kweli Uhuru (who is no relation) served time together in prison and were like brothers. They exchanged many letters, Halisi Uhuru said, about the mission of the new group. After Kweli Uhuru was released from prison, Halisi Uhuru said, they stayed in touch and that Kweli told him he had recruited two of his younger brothers and Shantai Shelton to the 99 Goon Syndikate. When Jacobs, Uhurus attorney, read dozens of communications that investigators recovered from the defendants cellphones, Uhuru provided innocuous explanations for the content and timing or said they were taken out of context. Uhuru maintained that he had never met co-defendants Mersadies Shelton, Daniel Mathis or Shantai Shelton prior to Feb. 1, 2014, and that he was not aware of any criminal activities they may have been involved in. He testified that he sought to distance himself from the other defendants once he learned that a vehicle had been stolen. He explained that many of his text messages to cellphone numbers associated with the other defendants were to spin them, which he explained as meaning that he wanted to pretend to be looking for help for them while not actually doing anything. The jury is scheduled to reconvene Friday to hear more of the defenses case. As far as February goes, it was a perfect day: blue skies and fluffy white clouds with a brisk but pleasant breeze. Overhead, the sounds of 30 mm rounds fired from AH64D Apache Longbows pierced through the blue as the 182 Attack Reconnaissance Battalion trained. The battalion, part of the 82nd Airborne Divisions Combat Aviation Brigade, from Fort Bragg in North Carolina, traveled in a 46-vehicle convoy earlier this month to set up at Fort A.P. Hill. But there was more to the short-term move than a month of roughing it in the brisk and muddy Caroline County weather, according to Maj. Kevin Easter, the battalions operations officer. Throughout February, Easter said, the battalion would conduct qualification exercises for its gunnery teams, grading their efficiency and effectiveness in a variety of engagements designed to hone their skills. What were doing out here is sharpening our teeth, he said, because thats what we provide for the division. Fittingly, then, the 82nds first battalion is known as the Wolfpack. Chief Warrant Officer 4 Chris Mullins said the goal is to qualify eight to 10 teams in a variety of mission tables, designed to support the efforts of ground forces. For instance, Mullins said, one team might be tasked with accurately striking a tank from miles away, while another may need to lay down fire within a vicinity to cover or assist the movement of ground forces. After a few daytime runs to practice, he said, teams undergo the graded exercises at night, throwing an extra element for which crews must account. Pilots of the teeth eight Apache Longbow attack helicopters armed with training rounds and missiles are graded on their abilities to complete the engagements within the time limit and scope of their objectives. Mullins called it a crawl-walk-run style of teaching and learning. Well go through the engagement frame-by-frame, for the most part, he said. They get a chance to go back out and fix the problems they had before, until they get to the point where theyre doing their actual qualification tables at night. According to Mullins, crews typically dont have any issues whatsoever by the nightfall tests. The Apaches also were fitted with support and maintenance teams tasked with refueling, re-arming and generally ensuring the flight crews rides remained smooth. As Easter and Mullins put it, the entire trip to A.P. Hill has been a full [Combat Aviation Brigade] effort for part of the U.S. Armys rapid reaction force. Sgt. Jeremy Barker, part of a support battalion assisting in the exercises, said their end of the work is partially a refresher, but primarily about carrying out the needed tasks without losing too much blade time. Training is mostly about being safe, Barker said. Its about getting your hands and mind used to it . . . if you take too long, youre wasting a lot of time that could be for supporting grounds. Easter said the 82nd, which last visited A.P. Hill in September, gets a lot out of the Army garrison, which provides the brigade with the opportunity to work on much-needed skills in multi-faceted operationswithout the advantages of knowing the terrain. Everybodys got a piece of the pie when we go to operate in this type of environment. Cabinet gives approves MoUs for cooperation in the field of agriculture & allied sectors Published: February 19, 2016 Union Cabinet has given its approval for Memorandum of understandings (MoUs) signed between India and various countries for cooperation in the field of agriculture and allied sectors. This MoU will help in (i) capacity building measures (ii) knowledge exchange through visits of scientists and technicians (iii) exchange of genetic resources. It will also aid in development of appropriate technologies and farm practices for enhancing agriculture productivity at farmers field. This cabinet approval is MoUs signed by 13 countries namely, Netherlands, Nepal, Israel, Cyprus, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Surinam, Tanzania, Syria, Zambia, Bhutan, Chile and Mauritius. Background It is mandatory for any government departments/ministries to bring before the Union Cabinet cases involving negotiations with foreign countries on agreements, treaties and other important matters for approval as per Transaction of Business Rules, 1961. Month: Current Affairs - February, 2016 Category: Agriculture Current Affairs Topics: Agriculture Business Cabinet Decisions Current Affairs 2016 Economy Latest E-Books Juanita Mae Shelton, 93, died Wednesday, February 17, 2016, at Snyder Nursing Home in Salem, Va. Miss Shelton was a lifelong resident of Christiansburg, Va. and a member of Cambria Baptist Church. She was preceded in death by her parents, Charles E. Shelton and Charlotte C. Shelton; as well as her brother, Robert E. Shelton; and sister, Bernadine Shelton.Miss Shelton is survived by her sisters, Marie Brown, Ruby Spradling, and Charlotte Lancaster; and her brother, John A. Shelton. She is also survived by many loving nieces and nephews, great-nieces and nephews, and their families.At the age of 14, when her mother died, Juanita became caregiver for her brothers and sisters. After her graduation from Christiansburg High School she attended beauty school and operated her own shop in Christiansburg for many years. Juanita was able to travel and took pride in providing for her large family over the years, whether it was sharing her home, her stories, or her advice.The family wishes to thank Snyder Nursing Home and all the staff for their compassionate care of our loved one. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made to Snyder Nursing Home, 17 N. Broad Street, Salem, VA 24153.The family will receive friends from 6 to 8 p.m. on Friday, February 19, 2016 at Horne Funeral Home. The Funeral Service will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, February 20, 2016 at Cambria Baptist Church, with interment to follow in Sunset Cemetery. Online condolences for the family may be left at www.hornefuneralservice.com. A BURGLAR has been jailed for three years after stealing almost 1,000 worth of electronics in a broad daylight break-in. Jason Holland (43), of Bawtry Road in Hellaby, was tracked down by police after leaving a blood stain on a smashed window he escaped through. Forensic officers traced DNA on the blood stain to Holland and he was arrested. He pleaded guilty to burglary when he appeared at Sheffield Crown Court on Wednesday and was sentenced to three years in prison. Holland ransacked the upstairs rooms of a house in Clifford Road, Hellaby, when he broke in on January 13 between 8.50am and 5.35pm. When the owner arrived home, one of the ground floor windows had been smashed and two laptops and two sat navs had been stolen. Holland also stole a gym bag, an ipod and a set of hair straighteners. Investigating officer PC Adam Broughton said: I am pleased that Holland is now behind bars for a number of years. Burglary is a highly intrusive crime, which is extremely traumatic for the victims. To have your own home broken into and possessions rifled through and then stolen is a complete violation of someones privacy. I hope that this sentence sends out a strong message that we will thoroughly investigate any report of a burglary so that we can continue to bring these offenders to justice. The 57th Bangkok Gems and Jewelry Fair is slated to kick off on February 24 at the Royal Jubilee Ballroom, Challenger Hall of the Impact Muang Thong Thani in Bangkok. The biannual trade fair, organised by the Gems, Jewelry and Precious Metal Confederation of Thailand (GJPCT), the Thai Gem and Jewelry Traders Association (TGJTA) and the Department of Trade and Promotion (DITP), attracts global buyers from the US, Europe, Russia, China, South America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The Bangkok Fair is aimed primarily at supporting and promoting the Thai gemstone and jewellery industry to international export markets. In 2015, the industry generated US$6.6 billion, contributing significantly to the countrys export trade. The fair will feature more than 3,500 booths. Buyers also have a chance to participate in various events and activities including a fashion show and an auction. Seminars on combatting the Middle Eastern marketing crisis and a ruby symposium will also be held. Aruna Gaitonde, Editor-in-Chief of Asian Bureau, Rough & Polished Zimbabwe has inked an agreement with Belgium's HRD Antwerp to certify its polished diamonds in a bid to fetch higher prices for its stones, according to media reports. State-owned daily, The Herald, reports that local producers currently get offer prices from buyers and might be losing substantial revenue from underpricing. Minerals and Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) general manager Richard Chingodza was quoted as saying that the country had also been losing between 15 and 20 percent on the value of gems since the "Marange diamonds were heavily coated". "Diamonds that have been cut and polished will now be certified so that a very practical price is put on them," he said. "We don't want to continue losing on the price." Zimbabwe had been pushing to add value to its diamonds to boost earnings. The country recently commissioned a second deep- boiling facility to clean rough diamonds. Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished Prasar Bharati signs historical MoU with EBC Published: February 19, 2016 Prasar Bharati has signed a MoU with Empressa de Brazil Communicacao (EBC) in connection with several broadcast related activities including exchange of news, programmes and co-production. This MoU is being described as historical as it is the first agreement that Prasar Bharati has signed with any South American country. It was signed between Prasar Bharati Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jawhar Sircar and EBC Vice President Mr Mario in Brasilia, Brazil. The MoU includes long list of Indian programmes to be broadcast on EBC network including documentaries, science programs, serials and Portuguese programs from Goa. Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati already has signed similar MoUs with Russia and China realising the importance of BRICS in this field. Month: Current Affairs - February, 2016 Topics: Brazil BRICS Current Affairs 2016 Prasar Bharati Latest E-Books CREATE Program The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has awarded nearly $10 million in grants for nine projects in eight states to upgrade and increase the safety of railroad crossings along energy routes. Railroad Safety Grants for the Safe Transportation of Energy Products (STEP) by Rail Program totaling more than $5 million, which were awarded to Wisconsin, North Dakota and Louisiana, were outlined in the RT&S story posted on Feb. 17 (link to story) Additionally, STEP grants were awarded to Washington state, California, Minnesota, Illinois and Arkansas. One of FRAs top priorities during the past year has been to reverse the uptick in fatalities at railroad crossings because most of these collisions and deaths are preventable, FRA Administrator Sarah Feinberg said. [These] grants will upgrade the warning systems at critical crossings and close others where crude oil and other energy products are transported. Last year, FRA launched a new, comprehensive campaign to reverse the recent uptick in railroad crossing fatalities. The campaign includes partnering with Google and other tech companies to use FRA data that pinpoints the countrys 200,000 railroad crossings to add visual and audio alerts to map applications. FRA has also worked with local law enforcement to increase enforcement around railroad crossings. Collisions between trains and vehicles at railroad crossings are the second-leading cause of all railroad-related fatalities. In 2014, 267 individuals died in these collisions. In Paragould, Ark., $292,000 was awarded to install flashing lights and crossing gates at the North End Avenue crossing and $190,000 to install flashing lights and crossing gates at the Greene County Road crossing; both currently only have cross bucks. In Oxnard, Calif., $1.5 million was awarded to complete design work to separate Rice Avenue from the railroad tracks. The California Department of Transportation will design a six-lane bridge that will include sidewalks and bike lanes on Rice Avenue over the Union Pacific tracks and State Route 34. In Chicago, Ill., $1.25 million was granted to fund the preliminary design and engineering costs for an overpass to separate Union Pacifics double-track mainline, from motor vehicle traffic at the intersection of 95th street and Eggleston Avenue in Chicago. In Minneapolis, Minn., $716,000 to upgrade the 37-year-old signal system and add medians at the Humboldt Avenue Crossing. The upgraded signal system will reduce false alarms and the risk of inadequate signal timing. Medians will be installed to prevent drivers from driving across tracks around the gate arms, thus eliminating the risk of deadly collisions. Four Class 1 railroads converge at the Humboldt Yard. Near Vancouver, Wash., a $900,000 grant was awarded for the Ridgefield Rail Overpass Project, which will close the Mill Street and Division Street crossings, build a 500-foot bridge overpass and construct 1,000 feet of new road and finance signal work. Chemical giant EI DuPont De Nemours & Co. (DD) or DuPont, and Dow Chemical Co. (DOW) announced the U.S. site structure for the independent agriculture company they intend to create following the planned separation of DowDuPont into three independent, publicly traded companies. In early December, DuPont and Dow Chemical said their boards of directors have unanimously approved an agreement for an all-stock merger of equals. The combined company will be named DowDuPont. Initially DuPont and Dow will merge its agriculture, material science and specialty products businesses and subsequently pursue a tax-free spin-off into three independent, publicly traded companies in 18-24 months after closing of the merger. The two companies said Friday that the corporate headquarters for the agriculture company will be located in Wilmington, Delaware and will include the office of the CEO and key corporate support functions. Sites in Johnston, Iowa and Indianapolis, Indiana will serve as global centers, with leadership of business lines, business support functions, R&D, global supply chain, and sales and marketing capabilities concentrated in the two Midwest locations. In addition, the independent agriculture company will feature DuPont in the company's name, following completion of the corporate naming and branding process. The companies noted that the structure of the agriculture company was specifically developed to ensure the cost discipline and efficiency necessary to achieve the previously stated $1.3 billion in synergies, while establishing the strongest foundation possible for sustainable growth over the long term. Meanwhile, the headquarters location of the other two intended independent, publicly traded companies has also been determined. The Material Science company will be headquartered in Midland, Michigan and will feature Dow in the company's name. The Specialty Products company will be headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware. Prior to the intended separation into three independent companies, DowDuPont will be dual headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware and Midland, Michigan. For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Business News Adderall abuse could be increasing for young adults, according to a new study from researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. For the study the researchers examined the trends in prescriptions and hospital visits associated with the drugs Adderall (dextroamphetamine-amphetamine) and Ritalin (methylphenidate). They found that over that six year period non-prescription use of the drug increased by 67 percent and hospital visits linked with the drug increased by 157 percent. "While the mainstream media tend to attribute the increasing abusing rates of these prescription stimulants to physicians' over-prescribing, our data do not support this notion," Chen told CBS News in an email. "In adults, the abusing rates and ED visits increased significantly, but the prescriptions did not." For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com Health News : . 506 505 701 . musings on the mainstream "press corps" and the american discourse The Elvins Food Pantry is having a Working Class and Veterans Food Fair on Sunday from 1 to 3 p.m. at its location at 17 W. Main St. in Park Hills. This Sunday, working people and veterans who live within St. Francois County, who are not already assigned to a food pantry, can go to the pantry and pick up food and drinks free of charge. Throughout the year, the Elvins pantry, along with several other area food banks, provide many families with food who have been assigned to a location through the East Missouri Action Agency or otherwise use a pantry on a regular basis. The Elvins Food Pantry serves between 370 and 400 families every month, according to Randy King, the pantrys board president. Sundays food fair, however, is for St. Francois County residents who have not been able to qualify to receive assistance through a food bank. This is different, said King. This is a day our pantry has set aside to help those who are working and wouldn't normally get help and to give to those that have given so much to us by serving in our U.S. military. Our volunteers will be on staff for this event and we are looking forward to meeting great people and it is always an honor to be in the presence of those that have sacrificed to make this the greatest country in the world we are so blessed to live in, said King. To qualify as working class, simply take proof of residency in St. Francois County, a picture ID (a Missouri drivers license or identification card is sufficient for both if the address shown is within the county) and a current check stub from your employer. To qualify as a veteran, take proof of St. Francois County residency, a picture ID and VA card or honorable discharge papers. King said that pantry workers chose to hold the event on Sunday afternoon so those who work on Saturday can take advantage of the service and so those who attend church can go by after Sunday morning services. King said the Elvins pantry exists because of the generosity of its donors and supporters. We thank the Lord and our donors, he said, for making it all possible. The Elvins Food Pantrys normal hours of operation are Mondays and Fridays from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. There are many ways to donate to the pantry. To make a donation using a credit or debit card, visit the pantry website at www.elvinsfoodpantry.com and click on the Donate feature on the upper right side of the page. To donate by mail, send a check or money order to Elvins Food Pantry, P.O. Box 282, Park Hills, MO 63601. To drop off food items, stop by the pantry on a Monday or Friday between 8 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. The pantry is located at 17 W. Main St. in Park Hills, across the street from Dominos Pizza. To arrange for a volunteer to pick up a donation, call 573-518-1266 or 573-315-8205 to schedule a convenient time. Another option is to purchase a donation at a participating store and a pantry volunteer will gladly pick it up. Participating stores include Country Mart and Save-A-Lot in Park Hills, Mikes Market in Bismarck and Walmart in Desloge and Farmington. For the underdogs its impossible: Rents in Halifax reach unreachable heights Amanda needs to separate from her husband and move out of their house, but shes stuck. Shes been searching for about four months for a rental in the Halifax area, and even though she has the money to offer three months of rent and a damage deposit ... By SA Commercial Prop News South Africas former ambassador to the Ukraine, Stanley Mathabatha, in July was sworn in as the new premier of Limpopo. Radical changes in the Limpopo Provincial Government by Cabinets recent announcement of new administration for five departments has been welcomed by the South African Property Owners Association (SAPOA). The national cabinet ordered that five provincial government departments including, education, treasury, public works, health and roads and transport be placed under section 100 (1) (b) of the Constitution since December 5, 2011 to prevent bankruptcy. SAPOA has responded positively to national governments recent announcement that it will start handing over the administration of five departments of Limpopo to the provinces new premier Stanley Mathabatha, and his new executive. While were pleased that Limpopo is undergoing this transformation, we do still find the reported staggering R2 billion worth of theft and wastage, incurred by the previous administration extremely concerning and totally unacceptable, says Neil Gopal, CEO of SAPOA. This six month transitional period comes after a national government team took over the administration of the afflicted provincial departments two years ago, after it emerged that not only was the province burdened by an overdraft of R1.7 billion, but that its ability to provide services and pay salaries was under threat. It has been reported that at end-July 2013, Limpopo had achieved a R3.3 billion credit balance, largely due to corrective measures taken by national government during its intervention. Cabinet has also agreed further investigations should continue into any irregularities, particularly where procurement procedures were being contravened. We hope the new premier undertakes to keep the province from slipping into this state of collapse once again and look forward to proper procedures being followed in the employment of personnel, tender administration and safeguarding of taxpayers money, says Gopal. Unfortunately, the burden this has already placed on taxpayers and businesses is immeasurable and will take years to overcome. SAPOA is pursuing several property issues that are damaging to commercial and industrial sector in Limpopo province. An ongoing challenge which is hurting the business community, stopping important funds from reaching municipal coffers, contributing to unemployment and hampering economic development in the province is illegal land use. This means allowing property to be used for business it isnt zoned for. A province that turns a blind eye to illegal land use is unappealing to developers and represents high risk for investors. This has knock-on effect for the regional economy and joblessness. Municipalities also lose rates income from illegal land use, explains Gopal. It is unacceptable for the municipality to now increase the burden on law-abiding legal businesses with a 40% rates increase. They should rather take the time to identify illegal land use, correct zoning levy rates accordingly. Gopal adds that it is in the regions best economic interest for the various municipalities in Limpopo to take illegal land use to heart and give it their full attention. Gopal also notes that local authority services in the province arent commensurate with the ever-increasing rates and taxes charged. The impact of this on the property sector is significant with operating costs on certain portfolios as high as 40%. This will in no way attract investments, leading to higher unemployment. He adds that increasing electricity tariffs, in particular, are squeezing margins, to the point they are disappearing for some retailers. These costs are having significant impact on the sustainability of businesses and the ability to keep tenants in properties, with SMMEs being the worst affected, concludes Gopal. SAPOA is pursuing a meeting with the local authority for Polokwane, the provinces capital city, to discuss issues impacting the regions commercial property market and hopes to work closer with both the provincial and local government. 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 Here's what the new Docking State Office Building could look like Country United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary People's Rep'c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People's Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine 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 Deerfield Beach, FL -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/19/2016 -- A new study on Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol Ground Robot Mobile Platform Systems of Engagement. The 2013 study has 587 pages, 206 tables and figures. Worldwide markets are poised to achieve significant growth as platforms of engagement leverage mobile device capability worldwide. Even as the US presence in Iraq and Afghanistan winds down, automated process implemented as mobile platform systems of engagement are being used to fight terrorists and protect human life. These robots are a new core technology in which all governments must invest. Request Sample Report On Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol Ground Robot Market: http://www.marketresearchstore.com/report/first-responder-law-enforcement-robot-mobile-platform-systems-2331#RequestSample Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol ground robot market growth comes from the device marketing experts inventing a new role as technology poised to be effective at the forefront of fighting terrorism. Markets at $4.5 billion in 2013 reach $12.0 billion by 2019. Growth is based on the adoption of automated process by Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol organizations worldwide. This automated process implemented as a combination of software for innovation and robotic platforms is not the traditional Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol system. They are systems of engagement that have arms and sensors, tracks and wheels, motors and solid state batteries. These systems of engagement support leveraging smart phones and mobile platforms. The aim is to achieve a broader, more intelligent Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol presence in every area of the globe. In the last decade, the U.S. Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol poured money into unmanned ground systems to help protect troops against improvised explosive devices. There is the issue that the Defense Department needs to repurpose all those robots once the war in Afghanistan comes to a close. The wider market for Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol ground robots will develop as a mechanism to fight terrorism in response to the bombings in Boston and elsewhere. Bombing of civilians is a very serious matter and needs to be addressed with mobile platforms that prevent terrorist acts. While the Army's committed to unmanned ground systems, appears to be slowing, this commitment is anticipated to heat up again quickly. the investment priorities are anticipated to change as the Defense Department realizes that investments in ground robots are needed to fight terrorism everywhere. Just as troops leave Afghanistan, so also the robots that worked alongside them leave. The difference is that the robots are finding new uses as mobile security platforms that protect against the loss of human life The Army plans to upgrade 2,700 of its existing Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol robot systems for use in training or further deployments. Visit Complete Report (Index) Table Of Content On Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol Ground Robot Market: http://www.marketresearchstore.com/report/first-responder-law-enforcement-robot-mobile-platform-systems-2331#tableOfContent Another 2,469 will be divested and given to Defense Department partners or other government agencies. The U.S. Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol 's spending on UGVs appears as though it might decrease according to the words coming out of the defense department, but as Congress assesses the damage from the Boston bombing, it will become apparent that there is only one choice fro fighting terrorists efficiently and that is through the use of Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol ground robotic platforms that function as mobile systems of engagement. Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol ground robot market shares and market forecast analysis considers that Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol ground robots have a vast new market based on their ability to protect human life in the event of terrorist attack. This was proved virtually in the recent Boston terrorist attack when one of the Watertown police officers pulled the emergency brake on a police vehicle and rolled it up next to the terrorists in the stolen SUV Mercedes. Without actually being in the car, the local police officers were able to spook both terrorists by making them think they were being directly flanked. The terrorists thought the vehicle really had police offices in it and shot toward it and detonated bombs in the rogue vehicle. The virtual robot vehicle did its job of protecting the lives of the Watertown police officers and of catching the bad guys. Both terrorists were captured using robots, the robot car (actually a real car that was pushed into a bad situation as a robot would be, thus simulating a robot) and the robots that were used in the boat where the other terrorist was hiding to inspect the situation had a direct role in capturing the terrorists. Thus the Boston bombing illustrates a whole new use for Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol robots in terrorist situations. In this manner, robot vehicles are sure to be used to fight terrorism going forward. It should be noted that though all the resources of the federal government and state government were directed toward solving the crime, that it was the very very local group of police, the Watertown police department who did much of the work. It was the local Watertown police department members who were engaged in a firefight with terrorists and who had to think on their feet to capture the bad guys and do it without getting killed themselves or endangering other civilians. It is to the credit of the local police department that they were able to do this and it is noteworthy that they did use Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol robots in the endeavor and the police vehicle that doubled as a Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol robot presages more use of Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol style robots by local police departments. The defense industry is entering a new era. Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol robotics are poised to play a significant role in achieving change in security delivery. With battlefield engagements winding down, terrorism has emerged as a constant and current threat. The recent terrorist bombings in Boston and other cities worldwide illustrate that threat. Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol robots are the best practice technology for dealing with terrorists in many cases. According to Susan Eustis, the lead author of the study, "the purchase of Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol robots s is driven by the need for modernization of the Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol . The new Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol is dependent on flexibility and early response. The use of Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol robots s is based on providing a robot that is less expensive to put in the field than a trained soldier and support the desire to keep the trained soldiers out of harm's way. That automation of process and modernization has appeal to those who run the Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol . Robots are automating Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol ground systems, permitting vital protection of soldiers and people in the field, creating the possibility of reduced fatalities. Mobile robotics operate independently of the operator. We hear from Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol leaders all over the world that the plan going forward is to utilize automated process to replace the warfighters and keep them out of the line of fire. The Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol robot market.is evolving in this context. Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol ground robot market forecast analysis indicates that vendor strategy is to pursue developing new applications that leverage leading edge technology. Robot solutions are achieved by leveraging the ability to innovate, to bring products to market quickly. Law Enforcement, First Responder, Border Patrol purchasing authorities seek to reduce costs through design and outsourcing. Vendor capabilities depend on the ability to commercialize the results of research in order to fund further research. Government funded research is evolving some more ground robot capability. Companies Profiled Northrop Grumman General Dynamics iRobot Thales Group Kongsberg QinetiQ North America Energid / Mitsubishi QinetQ BLACK-I Antiterrorist ROBOTICS BAE Systems Allen Vanguard ReconRobotics Selected Market Participants AB Precision (Poole) Ltd Boston Dynamics Carnegie Mellon University Chemring EOD Limited DCD-DORBYL (Pty) Ltd) / RSD (the Rolling Stock and Defense Division Ditch Witch ECA Robotics Elbit Systems Energid Technologies First-Response Robotics G-NIUS / Shared Company of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Elbit Systems Ltd. ICOR Technology Kairos Autonami Mesa Robotics Pearson Engineering Pedsco Re2 ReconRobotics Robosoft RoboteX TechnoRobot Telerobb Vecna Technologies Contact US: Joel John 3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138, Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442, USA USA Tel: +1-386-310-3803 GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714 USA/Canada Toll Free No.1-855-465-4651 Email: sales@marketresearchstore.com Web: http://www.marketresearchstore.com/ Deerfield Beach, FL -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/19/2016 -- Market Research announces that it has published a new study Hip and Knee Orthopedic Surgical Robots Market Shares, Strategy, and Forecasts, Worldwide, 2016 to 2022. The 2016 study has 145 pages, 64 tables and figures. Worldwide Hip and Knee Orthopedic surgical robot markets are poised to achieve significant growth. The accuracy provided by the robot is not reproducible by the human surgeon, so ultimately all surgeons will want to perform the orthopedic implants using this technology. Request Sample Report On Hip and Knee Orthopedic Surgical Robots Market:http://www.marketresearchstore.com/report/hip-and-knee-orthopedic-surgical-robots-market-shares-44274#RequestSample Robot assisted medial knee arthroplasty: orthopedic surgical robots are poised to take knee and hip surgery quality far beyond what has previously been available. The quality of knee arthroplasty is improved with robotic capability. All the advantages of surgical robots carry into the Stryker Mako orthopedic reconstruction surgical products.. When the knee and hip surgical robots are used, patients have less bleeding, reduction of post-operative pain, fewer re-admissions to hospital and faster recovery. Robots support high-precision surgery. A clinic in Switzerland, La Source, has reported a reduction in the average days of hospitalization from 10 to 6. Knee and hip surgical robots provide consistent reproducible precision. This capability is so significant for implant surgery that the robots are positioned to become the defacto standard of care for knee and hip surgery within five years. Any one getting a knee or hip replaced will demand attention to quality of life, to maintenance of lifestyle provided by a robot when they have a joint replacement. As next generation systems, hip and knee robotic units provide a way to improve traditional orthopedic hip and knee replacement surgery. Total hip replacement surgery has evolved dramatically as advances in technology have brought improved surgical techniques. Surgical robots are a significany [art of that advance. Once, the penetration achieves this 35% level, all orthopedic surgeons will demand that hospitals offer robotic orthopedic surgical capability because the outcomes are more predictable and better. If the hospital does not offer the robot, the surgeon will move to a more modern facility. Visit Complete Report (Index) Table Of Content On Hip and Knee Orthopedic Surgical Robots Market:http://www.marketresearchstore.com/report/hip-and-knee-orthopedic-surgical-robots-market-shares-44274#RequestSample Knee and Hip Surgical Robots have been impacted by the reduction in insurance payments. Payment reductions have forced hospitals to start acting as businesses. The cost of delivering care has become as much a factor as providing quality care when making decisions about patient improvement in condition. Cost-cutting has been made in the supply chain. Suppliers were examined closely for quality and cost. The number of suppliers is reduced to put pressure on the ones that remain. Those remaining are pressured to improve prices and efficiencies. Hospitals, physicians, and care providers have been financially incentivized to create accountable care organizations (ACOs). Coordinated patient care plans and value-based purchasing were rewarded. The med device buyer shifted from physicians to the ACOs and smart buying groups. Stryker has thrived in this cost efficient environment with a surgical robot that permits faster surgeries, more cost efficient surgeries. In addition, Stryker offers an integrated system. The ability to include a Mako total knee application with Stryker Triathlon total knee system is anticipated to increase market share for Stryker. Stryker market leading Triathlon total knee system is helped in the market by the robot simply by the improved surgical technique possible. Surgical robots are proving themselves in a variety of disciplines, lending credibility to the Stryker robotic initiative. According to Susan Eustis, lead author of the study, "Use of the robot with the orthopedic implant represents a key milestone in reconstructive surgery. Robots provide an opportunity to transform orthopedics. By furthering the growth of robotic-arm assisted surgery, patients can get better treatment. By enhancing the surgeon and patient experience is is likely that the entire orthopedics implant market will grow more rapidly than it would otherwise." Stryker uses the Mako to perform partial knee resurfacing and is happy to add robotic capability to total knee resurfacing. Technology is enhancing a wide variety of procedures in many surgical specialties. The aging US population has supported demand, since the occurrence of health issues that require medical devices is higher in the elderly population. Buoyed by strong demand and sales, industry profit margins have increased considerably during the past five years. Hospitals are adopting robotic surgical devices to improve their outcomes numbers. Hospitals are measured on outcomes, robots for surgery, when used by a trained physician are improving outcomes significantly. Hundreds of universities worldwide have research programs in robotics and many are awarding degrees in robotics. These "roboticists" are increasingly being hired by Global 2000 organizations to link mobile robots (mobile computers) into existing IT systems. Robot-assisted surgery gives the surgeon better control over the surgical instruments and a better view of the surgical site. Hip and knee orthopedic surgical robot device markets at $84 million in 2015 are anticipated to reach $4.6 billion by 2022 as next generation robotic devices, systems, and instruments are introduced to manage surgery. The complete report provides a comprehensive analysis including procedure numbers, units sold, market value, forecasts, as well as a detailed competitive market shares and analysis of major players' success, challenges, and strategies in each segment and sub-segment. The reports cover markets for knee and hip robotic orthopedic surgery medical specialties and sub-specialties. Market Research is an independent research organization funded by the sale of market research studies all over the world and by the implementation of ROI models that are used to calculate the total cost of ownership of equipment, services, and software. The company has 35 distributors worldwide, including Global Information Info Shop, Market Research.com, Research and Markets, Bloomberg, and Thompson Financial. It conducts its business with integrity. Market Research is an independent research organization funded by the sale of market research studies all over the world and by the implementation of ROI models that are used to calculate the total cost of ownership of equipment, services, and software. The company has 35 distributors worldwide, including Global Information Info Shop, Market Research.com, Research and Markets, and Thompson Financial. Market Research is positioned to help customers facing challenges that define the modern enterprises. The increasingly global nature of science, technology and engineering is a reflection of the implementation of the globally integrated enterprise. Customers trust Market research to work alongside them to ensure the success of the participation in a particular market segment. Market Research supports various market segment programs; provides trusted technical services to the marketing departments. It carries out accurate market share and forecast analysis services for a range of commercial and government customers globally. These are all vital market research support solutions requiring trust and integrity. Contact US: Joel John 3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138, Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442, USA USA Tel: +1-386-310-3803 GMT Tel: +49-322 210 92714 USA/Canada Toll Free No.1-855-465-4651 Email: sales@marketresearchstore.com Web: http://www.marketresearchstore.com/ Pune, India -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/19/2016 -- The report "Hydroponics Market by Equipment (HVAC, LED Grow Light, Communication Technology, Irrigation Systems, Material Handling & Control Systems), Type (Aggregate & Liquid), Crop Type, & by Input Type - Global Trends & Forecasts to 2020", The global hydroponics market is projected to reach USD 395.2 Million by 2020, growing at a CAGR of 16.8% from 2015 to 2020. Browse 82 market data Tables and 46 Figures spread through 145 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Hydroponics Market - Global Trends & Forecasts to 2020" Make an Inquiry Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report. There have been various factors which have played a major role in driving the hydroponics market across the globe. One of the major drivers is that hydroponics provides higher yield compared to traditional agricultural techniques. It also provides farmers the ability to grow crops in areas that cannot support crops in soil. Furthermore, hydroponics eliminates the use of artificial ripening agents and pesticides, which helps in creating nutritionally superior vegetable products. Aggregate hydroponic systems lead the market with the largest share On the basis of type, the hydroponics market is led by the aggregate hydroponic systems segment, followed by the liquid hydroponic systems segment. The aggregate hydroponic systems consist of the most commonly used hydroponic systems like the water culture system, the ebb and flow system, drip systems, and the wick system. The usage of these commonly used systems is a major driver for the aggregate hydroponic systems across the globe. For Custom Report HVAC accounted for the largest market share in 2014 HVAC accounted for the largest market share, followed by LED grow lights, in 2014. HVAC is dominating the market as heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning are the major elements required to create a controlled environment for hydroponic cultivation. Other equipment used in hydroponics includes LED grow lights, communication technologies, irrigation systems, material handling, control systems, and others. Nutrients is the major input type used in hydroponic systems in 2014 Hydroponic systems consist of various types of inputs, apart from the equipment used in systems. These inputs are categorized into two types, namely, nutrients and mediums. There are two major types of nutrients used in hydroponics: micronutrients and macronutrients. In 2014, macronutrients accounted for the majority of the share of nutrients used in hydroponic systems as they are commonly used in efficient growth of the crops in a controlled environment. Key to success of the hydroponics market in the European region Europe has traditionally been at the forefront of implementing advanced techniques in hydroponic smart greenhouse horticulture. Countries such as The Netherlands, Spain, and France have large areas under greenhouse cultivation. However, in The Netherlands, growers mostly cultivate their plants in simple tunnel-like greenhouses without the use of climate control technologies. Hydroponics has flourished in Scandinavian countries where traditional agricultural techniques are nearly impossible during the winter season. This report includes a study of marketing and development strategies, along with the product portfolio of leading companies. It includes the profiles of leading hydroponics companies such as Argus Control Systems (Canada), Koninklijke Philips NV (The Netherlands), Greentech Agro LLC (U.S.), Logiqs B.V. (The Netherlands), and Lumigrow, Inc. (U.S.). In terms of insights, this research report has focused on various levels of analyses industry analysis, market share analysis of top players, and company profiles, which together comprise and discuss the basic views on the competitive landscape, emerging & high-growth segments of the global hydroponics market, high-growth regions, countries, and their respective regulatory policies, government initiatives, drivers, restraints, and opportunities. 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 Shenzhen, Guangdong -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/18/2016 -- ORAN sea cucumber is considered all over the world to be the best natural resource to keep the bodies fit and healthy. ORAN offers all its customers with Oran Italy Sea Cucumber to help them in maintaining good health. People will not face any problems with the harvesting process and will also be able to easily find a place to purchase it as these products are distributed across China after being harvested in the northeastern coast of Italy. People can cook the ORAN sea cucumber in different ways. Cucumbers can either be fried or even be included in soups. Irrespective of the method of cooking, the cucumber never loses the natural medicinal values at any point of time. Consumption of Italy sea cucumber helps in preventing diseases like cancer and arthritis. Sea cucumbers are also consumed for their healing properties. The wounds are healed within no time as the cucumbers stimulate the formation of new tissues to cover up the wounds in no time. Cucumbers also prevent internal blood clotting in lungs that would restrict the flow of blood causing death. Regular consumption of ORAN sea cucumbers can keep a person away from the doctor. One need not depend on medicines for any kind of ailment. About ORAN ORAN trading company is a leading foreign trade corporation of sea cucumber in China. Media Contact: URL: http://www.oranhaishen.com/index-greece.html Company Name: ORAN Trading Co., Ltd. City, State, Country: Shenzhen, Guangdong, China Address: B03, Room 1111, Unit B, the first phase of Creative Science Plaza, TianAn Digital City, Futian, Shenzhen, China Contact Person: Miss Lee E-mail: 2951750600@qq.com Phone: +86 4000-234-790 Brooklyn, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 02/19/2016 -- The report on the U.S. Cloud Computing Server market offers valuable insights into the Cloud Computing Server market and estimates the growth rate of the market during the forecast period. The report, titled Cloud Computing Server Market Research 2016, throws light on the various growth aspects of the market in the United States and forecasts the size of the market by the end of the forecast horizon. The report provides a brief overview of the Cloud Computing Server market and traces the development of the market in the U.S. Defining the key technical terms, the report describes the entire value chain of the market. The report takes help of various analytical tools to project the growth of the Cloud Computing Server market during the forecast period. With United States witnessing a slump in the economic growth, the U.S. economy has been indirectly affected. This is expected to create further impact on the Cloud Computing Server market in the U.S. Browse Complete Report with TOC @ http://www.qyresearchreports.com/report/united-states-cloud-computing-server-industry-2016-market-research-report.htm The report segments the U.S. Cloud Computing Server market on the basis of the product type and application segments. The demand for each of the product types has been assessed in the report. The report further profiles some of the key players operating in the Cloud Computing Server market in the country and provides valuable information about them such as product segmentation, revenue, business segmentation, latest developments, and geographical presence. The report estimates the growth of the key players through SWOT analysis. The report serves as a useful tool for the new as well as existing players in the U.S. Cloud Computing Server market. To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @ http://www.qyresearchreports.com/sample/sample.php?rep_id=576529&type=E Table of Contents Chapter One Cloud Computing Server Industry Overview 1.1 Cloud Computing Server Definition 1.2 Cloud Computing Server Classification and Application 1.3 Cloud Computing Server Industry Chain Structure 1.4 Cloud Computing Server Industry Overview Chapter Two Cloud Computing Server International and United States Market Analysis 2.1 Cloud Computing Server Industry International Market Analysis 2.1.1 Cloud Computing Server International Market Development History 2.1.2 Cloud Computing Server Product and Technology Developments 2.1.3 Cloud Computing Server Competitive Landscape Analysis 2.1.4 Cloud Computing Server International Key Countries Development Status 2.1.5 Cloud Computing Server International Market Development Trend 2.1.6 United States Cloud Computing Server New Project and Project Plan 2.2 Cloud Computing Server Industry United States Market Analysis 2.2.1 Cloud Computing Server United States Market Development History 2.2.2 Cloud Computing Server Product and Technology Developments 2.2.3 Cloud Computing Server Competitive Landscape Analysis 2.2.4 Cloud Computing Server United States Key Regions Development Status 2.2.5 Cloud Computing Server United States Market Development Trend 2.2.6 United States Cloud Computing Server New Project and Project Plan 2.3 Cloud Computing Server International and United States Market Comparison Analysis Chapter Three Cloud Computing Server Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis 3.1 2016 United States Key Manufacturers Cloud Computing Server Capacity and Manufacturing Plants Distribution 3.2 2016 United States Key Manufacturers Cloud Computing Server R&D Status and Technology Source 3.3 2016 United States Key Manufacturers Cloud Computing Server Raw Materials Sources Analysis Chapter Four Cloud Computing Server Production by Regions by Technology by Applications 4.1 2009-2016 Cloud Computing Server Production by Regions (such as Russia Ukraine and United States) 4.2 2009-2016 Cloud Computing Server Production by Applications 4.3 2009-2016 Cloud Computing Server Price by key Manufacturers 4.4 2009-2016 Russia Cloud Computing Server Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value Analysis 4.5 2009-2016 Ukraine Cloud Computing Server Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value Analysis 4.6 2009-2016 United States Cloud Computing Server Capacity Production Price Cost Production Value Analysis Chapter Five Cloud Computing Server Manufacturing Process and Cost Structure 5.1 Cloud Computing Server Product Specifications 5.2 Cloud Computing Server Manufacturing Process Analysis 5.3 Cloud Computing Server Cost Structure Analysis 5.4 Cloud Computing Server Price Cost Gross Analysis Chapter Six 2009-2016 Cloud Computing Server Productions Supply Sales Demand Market Status and Forecast 6.1 2009-2016 Cloud Computing Server Capacity Production Overview 6.2 2009-2016 Cloud Computing Server Production Market Share Analysis 6.3 2009-2016 Cloud Computing Server Demand Overview 6.4 2009-2016 Cloud Computing Server Supply Demand and Shortage 6.5 2009-2016 Cloud Computing Server Import Export Consumption 6.6 2009-2016 Cloud Computing Server Cost Price Production Value Gross Margin Explore More Reports on ICT @ http://www.qyresearchreports.com/category/ict-market-reports-96.html [MANILA] The Asian Development Bank (ADB) issued a warning last week [February 12] to its pregnant staff to avoid 33 countries with recently detected Zika virus, a mosquito-borne disease linked to brain deformity in newborn babies. Travellers may be more likely to get an infection because they might be more naive than the local population. By In-Kyu Yoon, Dengue Vaccine Initiative director The travel warning in red, or the highest warning indicating transmission, includes several Pacific island states and territories American Samoa, Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu, and over two dozen countries in Latin American including Brazil and Mexico. But just how widespread Zika is in the Asia-Pacific is unknown although over the past few years, the virus has been detected in travellers visiting Indonesia and Thailand. There is a risk that Zika will become endemic in the Asia-Pacific region, meaning that the infection is maintained in the population without the need for external inputs, Susann Roth, a medical doctor and senior social development specialist at ADB, tells SciDev.Net. The Zika virus is not new to the region. Because we have not invested enough in health data sharing, outbreak investigation, diagnostics and R&D, we dont yet fully understand Zika and its risks, notes Roth. Zika is a flavi virus, which makes it part of the same family as dengue, yellow fever and West Nile. Symptoms include fever, headaches and rashes, which are similar indicators to dengue and may have possibly led some medical experts to mistake Zika for dengue, which is common in the region. In-Kyu Yoon, director of the Dengue Vaccine Initiative, a consortium which includes the International Vaccine Institute and the WHO, says it is notable that of the handful of Zika cases detected in the Asia-Pacific, many have been from travellers. Travellers may be more likely to get an infection because they might be more naive than the local population. But if you have several of them that go into a country and contract this disease and get diagnosed when they go back to their home country, then its probably not a totally rare disease, Yoon tells SciDev.Net. The WHO has declared Zika a global health emergency. The US-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have also urged pregnant women or those planning to get pregnant to consider avoiding countries with known Zika outbreaks or consult doctors before going there. The disease, which can also be spread through sexual intercourse, has been tied to microcephaly, a rare disorder in which newborns have an unusually small head and brain, and also to Guillain-Barre syndrome, an autoimmune disorder that can cause paralysis. Incubation period for Zika is roughly a few days up to a couple of weeks. But an estimated 80 per cent of people infected with the virus are asymptomatic, according to the CDC. Zika was first discovered in 1947 in a monkey in the Zika forest in Uganda that gave the disease its name. But the worlds first real Zika outbreak was in 2007 on Yap Island in the Western Pacific state of Micronesia. Six years later and 5,000 miles southeast of Yap, tens of thousands of people sought medical care for the illness in French Polynesia. That was the first time it was suggested that Zika is somehow connected to Guillain-Barre syndrome since during the outbreak, the number of Guillain-Barre cases was higher than normal. At this point there was no mention of birth defects, although a retrospective change is possible. This piece was produced by SciDev.Nets South-East Asia & Pacific desk. [WASHINGTON DC] As research centres and partnerships mushroom in Africa, their funders increasingly tie money to results, addressing concerns that these efforts to boost the continents science are inefficient or overlap, a meeting heard. There is a huge focus on results-based financing, said Mariam Adil, economist for the Africa Education Unit at the World Bank. This means money is paid only if recipients deliver on set research targets, such as the number of graduating doctoral students. Therefore the focus on monitoring and evaluation has been so much greater, Adil said last week during a panel talk at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in the United States. There is a huge focus on results-based financing. Mariam Adil, Africa Education Unit, World Bank The session focused on how research centres and collaborations could boost science in Africa. Case studies included the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, the African Research Universities Alliance and the Africa Higher Education Centers of Excellence Project, which will receive US$150 million from the World Bank between 2014 and 2019. Adil was responding to concerns raised by an attendee Joachim Kapalanga, a paediatrician at Western University in Canada who asked whether these recent efforts undergo audits to ensure funding translates into research output and higher quality. They seem to be duplicating each other, he suggested. Thomas Woodson, a science policy researcher at Stony Brook University in the United States, raised another worry. Situations may arise, he said, where donors must make tough choices on whether to give to a traditional university or to one of the proliferating research partnerships and centres of excellence. It raises the possibility of robbing Pierre to pay Paul, Woodson said. But the proponents of some of these initiatives pushed back, saying the African research climate keeps improving and that the recent research efforts will be beneficial in the long run despite initial hurdles. You want to promote that culture of competition among African institutions as well [as in the rest of the world], even if at the beginning there might be some risk of, perhaps, duplication or dissipating the funds in many parties, said Emilio Bunge, managing director at the advisory firm Development Finance International, based in the United States.In recent years, Africa has gradually improved its share of global scientific research output . But that figure still stood at just one per cent in 2012, the World Bank says. [HARARE] Rural dwellers in Zimbabwe are adopting a simple technology to develop clean, affordable and easily accessible renewable energy from biomass. The Domboshava Community Development Association (DCDA), which was formed in April 2014 in Zimbabwe by rural dwellers, is one of the community groups that have embraced the initiative that enables members to build biogas digesters in their homes to generate energy. We use waste liquid discharged by the biogas digesters as organic fertilisers, making life easier and affordable. Nyasha Marimo, Domboshava Community Development Association Ian Makone, the associations technical advisor, told SciDev.Net in an interview last month (14 January) that each DCDA member contributes US$15 monthly that is saved towards the construction of a biogas digester. Each digester costs US$600 to build. This initiative will enable everyone in the DCDA to have a digester at their homestead. Since our inception, we have managed to build 23 digesters for 23 members, says Makone, noting that the association has 30 members. The US Embassy in Zimbabwe, through its Ambassadors Special Self-Help Program, provided almost US$8,500 to the DCDA in 2014 to buy raw materials for the construction of the digesters. Makone, a trained builder, has been instrumental in the construction of the digesters. Firewood has become a scarce commodity in this village and biogas has eased the burden, says Makone, noting that the initiative is promoting community development. SciDev.Net witnessed community members constructing a biogas digester in Parirehwa village, Domboshava, Mashonaland East province last month (14 January). Fixed dome biogas digesters are constructed underground using bricks, cement and sand. The biogas digesters comprise an inlet chamber, main dome expansion chamber and slurry outlet for liquid waste. Most rural communities depend on firewood for energy, but with biogas we use readily available organic materials such as cow dung, pig, chicken or human waste, says Blessing Jonga, a biogas expert and consultant based in Harare, Zimbabwe. According to Jonga, so far about 300 rural households and institutions are using this form of energy in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwes Environment Management Agency (EMA) says that 50million trees are disappearing from forests in the country every year. Most rural communities depend on firewood for energy but with biogas we use readily available organic materials, Jonga says. Nyasha Marimo, a rural dweller, tells SciDev.Net biogas energy produced from the digesters has saved her from walking long distances to fetch firewood. We use waste liquid discharged by the biogas digesters as organic fertilisers, making life easier and affordable, Marimo says. The biogas is used for heating, lighting and refrigeration, Jonga explains. The Rural Electrification Agency (REA) in Zimbabwe, with a mandate for the rapid, equitable diffusion of energy in rural areas, has been providing biogas energy to local institutions, restaurants and households.Johannes Nyamayedenga, REA public relations manager, says biogas is environment-friendly , and is a sustainable source of energy. He adds that this year restaurants at selected communities in the country will be able to use biogas provided by the REA.Jonga touts other benefits of using biogas digesters.Most rural households do not afford chemical fertilisers hence biogas offers a very clean intervention in the form of organic fertilisers, says Jonga. Pig farmers were having waste disposal challenges and were in constant problems with the EMA, but a digester helps as a waste management technology.This piece was produced by SciDev.Nets Sub-Saharan Africa English desk. Sleep is so important for our physical and mental health, but it looks like one out of every three American's isn't getting enough Zzz's every night, according to a new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Research published in the agency's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report shows that about 35 percent of U.S. adults are sleeping less than seven hours a night: The National Sleep Foundational (NSF) recommends that adults get between 7-9 hours of sleep per night. "People have to recognize that sleep is just as important as what they're eating and how much they're exercising," said Dr. Shalini Paruthi, co-director of the Sleep Medicine and Research Center at St. Luke's Hospital in St. Louis, according to Health Day. "It's one of the pillars of good health." The study is particularly important as it's one of the first to analyze trends coming from self-reported healthy sleep duration in all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia. Researchers did this by examining a wide-range of factors to determine that--and despite what most might think about sharing their bed with a partner and/or kids--married people reported that they were getting a better night's rest at seven hours a night or more when compared to 62 percent of those who were never married and just 56 percent who were divorced, widowed or separated. Researchers believe it may have to do with a number of things. However, some studies suggest that living with a significant other can improve health outcomes. Thus, when it comes to the right sleep habits, the same may apply. Work also appears to influence a good night's rest, with employed individuals getting a better night's sleep at 65 percent when compared to those who were unable to work or unemployed (51 percent and 60 percent, respectively). Findings also showed that those with higher education appeared to get better sleep, as well. The percentage of people with healthy sleep duration was highest among people with a college degree or higher (72 percent), the survey noted. An insignificant amount of sleep can lead to a long-list of health problems. In fact, some studies have suggested that sleep deprivation can increase the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes and more. Make sure to talk with your doctor if you're having sleep issues. Related Articles Do Women Need more Sleep than Men? Study For more great science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN). There are plans to create a brand new community in Reston, Virginia with over one million square feet of mixed-use development. Located on eight acres of land on Sunrise Valley Drive, this community, dubbed Reston Heights, will soon make way for a brand new mixed-use building. Just recently, The JBG Companies hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for a five-story project that will house 385 apartments and 89,000 square feet of retail. The building is called VY, and its units will range from junior one-bedrooms to three-bedrooms, with 46 of the units designated for affordable housing. Additional plans include building a public plaza and an adjacent parking structure with over 700 above- and below-grade parking spots. The development is expected to deliver by 2017 with retailers arriving in early 2018. In Reston Heights, each of the buildings will be covered in natural wood beams, which are meant to reflect the architect's inspiration from the original 1960s development at Lake Anne Village Center. According to a press release, the developer may add an additional 375,000 square feet of mixed-use space to the project in a future phase. The site is roughly half a mile from the planned Reston Town Center Metro station, which is expected to deliver only a few years after the completion of VY in 2020. 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. Shifting of the vessels cargo caused the vessel to list heavily to starboard. Five of the crew managed to escape unharmed on a lifeboat, and were picked up by a German boxship; another was rescued via Thai Navy helicopter and is now in hospital. Helicopters and three naval vessels are still combing the sea south of Phuket in search of the remaining 11. Meanwhile, the capsized vessel has drifted southwards to a position off the coast near Satun province. A Thai Navy officer said the warship RTNS Pattani, two patrol boats and two helicopters would continue to search during the daylight hours, but it is undecided whether it will continue after that. The 18,000 teu ship will make its maiden call at Pusan New Port on 15 July where a ceremony will be held by Busan Port Authority (BPA) who are inviting dignitaries and VIPs from the Korean government, civic groups, media and academic sectors as well as key players in the shipping industry. This prestigious event is expected to raise the brand awareness of Busan port and strengthen the market position of Busan port as the main transshipment hub for Northeast Asia, said Lim Ki-Tack, president of BPA. The Maersk McKinney-Moller sailed from Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) in Korea on 2 July and has sailed northwards to Vladivostok where it will take on bunkers before returning southwards to Busan for its first commercial call on the Asia Europe trade. Shipping companies will be required to report their rates to Chinese officials, whereas previously they only had to report a range of potential rates. These figures will be monitored by regulators and investigations will be launched if suspicions arise of unfair practices. Speaking to reporters at a conference on Thursday, director of the water transport department of the Ministry of Transport, Song Dexing said, "if a company is suspected by other players to have slashed or raised rates maliciously when the market is volatile, we can launch an investigation against it to find out if there is unfair competition. I believe the shipping companies will act more cautiously when changing rates." The move comes after the Shanghai-Rotterdam container freight index more than doubled last week as lines' 1 July rate increases took hold, countering two years of price war and overcapacity induced rate drops. However, a week later the index showed that Asia/North Europe box rates losing $63 to $1,346 per teu, while the Asia- Mediterranean rate lost $24 to $1,362 per teu. The Ministry of Transport threatened similar stimuli last year in the form of ring fencing certain cargoes for export by state enterprises, but it appears the measures never made it past the State Council. The shipping trust has demanded the redelivery of two crude oil tankers from lessee Geden Holdings, which defaulted on their lease payments. The trust expects the redelivery of its second crude oil tanker, Action, to take place within July 2013, FSL Trust announced on Friday. The redelivered Aqua will be renamed FSL Hong Kong, and FSL Trust has appointed Thome Ship Management Pte Ltd Singapore as technical manager and Teekay Chartering Limited as commercial manager for the tanker. FSL Trust added that Aqua will commence voyage employment in the spot market shortly. On Thursday, the top management of the shipping trust quit in what is being described as a difference of opinion in respect of the management of First Ship Lease Trust and FSL Trust Management Pte Ltd. Philip Clausius, president and ceo, of the Singapore-listed trust, was among those who tendered their resignation. Shares of FSL Trust remained suspended on the Singapore Exchange. The big focus right now is on fuel efficiency, said Ka Sam Hyun, HHI's executive vice president in charge of ship sales. At a time when prices have fallen so much, shipping lines seem to be willing to pay a bit more to get better performing ships on time. This is why the top-tier shipyards will benefit. Ka told Bloomberg that orders at HHI may exceed $11.3bn this year, with about 60% of that already met. In May, HHI won a $683m deal to construct five 18,400 teu containerships for China Shipping Container Lines (CSCL). The mega boxships are expected to lower fuel consumption and reduce emissions. We are still hungry, Ka was reported saying. We have invested in new technologies and are improving existing ones to cut fuel burned by ships. That's because during hard times, shipping lines become more interested in cutting costs whichever way they can. The anti-piracy watchdog said that globally the number of cases of piracy reported to its Piracy Reporting Centre in Kuala Lumpur were 138 in the first half this year down from 177 in the same period in 2012. In the Gulf of Aden and Somalia just eight attacks were reported in the first half of this year, although two vessels were hijacked with 34 seafarers taken hostage. However, there has been a surge of violent attacks in the Gulf of Guinea with 31 attacks reported with 56 seafarers taken hostage. One seafarer was reported killed and at least five injured. There has been a worrying trend in the kidnapping of crew from vessels well outside the territorial limits of coastal states in the Gulf of Guinea, said Pottengal Mukundan, director of the IMB. In April 2013, nine crew members were kidnapped from two container vessels, one of which was 170 nm from the coast. In similarity to Somali piracy the pirates in the Gulf of Guinea have used mother vessels to conduct raids. Mukundan expressed concern over the continued under-reporting of attacks. This prevents meaningful response by the authorities and endangers other vessels sailing into the area unaware of the precise nature of the threat, he said. Commenting on the drop in attacks of Somalia Mukudan attributed this to the actions of international naval forces and said that the threat remained. The navies continue to play a vital role in ensuring this threat is kept under control. The two vessels hijacked were recovered by naval action before the pirates could take them to Somalia. Only the navies can take such remedial action after a hijack. Denying the pirates any success is essential to a sustained solution to this crime. Related stories Most of the crew of the pirated Albedo reported to be alive Pirates take four in West Africa attack EU Navfor Commander warns Somali piracy threat not over Five seafarers taken hostage in Nigerian attack In advice to members the Standard P&I Club and Skuld warned over a recent case where the Australia Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) demanded security of A$20.4m ($18.6m) for what may be a relatively minor breach. Skuld described the Australian policy makers as having a low (zero tolerance) for pollution of the sea. Under Australian law AMSA can detain a vessel "clear grounds for believing that a pollution breach has occurred". The maximum fines payable for oil and oily water pollution A$3.4m for individuals and A$17m for corporations. AMSA has indicated that they must demand security in the maximum amount of all penalties that could be payable. This suggests that AMSA believe that they do not have discretion to request a lower amount of security for minor offences. This has far reaching ramifications for owners and their insurers, Skuld warned. Starndard Club had a similar warning and said: Members trading in Australian waters should be aware of the risk of such security demands as it appears that AMSA are currently unwilling to apply any level of discretion under the legislation. EU Navfor said the patrol aircraft had sighted two lifeboats on a Somali beach about 14 miles north of where the MV Albedo sank. No members of the MV Albedo crew or pirates were sighted in or near the lifeboats, it said. The Malaysian-flagged containership was seized by Somali pirates in November 2010, it sank in heavy seas on 6 July this year. The vessel had 15 crew held hostage onboard at the time of the sinking. We call on the pirates holding the MV Albedo crew to release them immediately. They have been held hostage against their will since November 2010 and have now had to try and escape from their sinking ship. Our thoughts go out to them and their families, said the Somali Contact Group on Counter Piracy and Maritime Security. The MV Albedo had a 23 crew, from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Iran when it was seized in November 2010, but seven men were freed after a ransom of $1.1m was paid. The new 90-tonne bollard pull AHTS vessels will be built over an 18-month period at Chinese yard Wuchang Shipbuilding on attractive payment terms, according to MEO, a provider of service vessels to the offshore oil and gas industry across Southeast Asia, Australia and the Middle East. The company also entered into a deal with an unnamed Singapore shipyard to construct six new crew/utility vessels, with an option to buy four more. The first two vessels will be delivered in December this year followed by delivery of a vessel in both April and July 2014, with the final two vessels scheduled for delivery in December 2014. These vessel purchase agreements represent the continued execution of our fleet strategy, namely growing our OSV fleet in areas of the market where we see demand and renewal of our crew/utility vessel fleet to maintain our high utilisation levels and market leading position in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, said Diederik de Boer, ceo of MEO. In line with its fleet renewal strategy, MEO has also entered into an agreement to dispose one older crew/utility vessel to an Italian counterparty. Meanwhile, MEO won a three-year charter with Seascape Surveys to provide a 2,000-dwt platform supply vessel (PSV) currently under construction at its Batam yard in Indonesia. Separately, the company also clinched three long term crew/utility vessel contracts in Malaysia. The total aggregate value of the firm period of the PSV deal and the three crew/utility vessel contracts is approximately $29m. According to reports 11 of the crew are alive and being held on a pirated fishing vessel the Naham 3 on the Somali coast next to where the Albedo sank. The crew were originally feared to have drowned when the vessel sank in heavy weather. However, photos released last week by EU Naval Forces showed lifeboats from the vessel had made it to the Somali coast. The Bangladesh Foreign Ministry said that it had primarily confirmed through Maritime Piracy and Humanitarian Response Programme (MPHRP) based in London, quoting sources in the UN Office for Somalia, Nairobi, that the seven Bangladeshi crews are alive and have now been shifted to another hijacked fishing vessel by the pirates. The whereabouts of the remaining four crew is unknown although the MPHRP is said to have received reports of them being held further inland. The Albedo was taken by pirates in November 2010 and seven of the crew held hostage were released last August. Pelindo II president director RJ Lino was quoted as saying that under a memorandum of understanding signed with the heirs lawyer on 4 July, Mbah Prioks tomb would not be dismantled. The company also agreed to support the development of the tomb into a pilgrimage site and construct a 400m access road between the Cilincing toll road and the tomb in addition to building a parking lot for pilgrims with a capacity of 80 buses. Im glad we have finally reached an agreement after long negotiations, Lino said. The dispute between Pelindo II and the heirs of Mbah Priok started in 1997 and erupted in riots in 2010 when Pelindo II took steps to implement International Ship and Port Facility Security, (ISPS) standards requiring the port to be free from all public activities. The tomb and the land are located within Pelindo IIs 145-hectare plot of land and the heirs had voiced concern that Pelindo II's expansion would mean the 20-square-meter tomb of historical Islamic figure Mbah Priok as well as illegal buildings on a nearby 300-square-meter plot of land would be demolished. Privately-owned shipbuilder issued a statement on Friday saying there has not been any incident of abscondment of salary payment by any subcontractor of the group nor any incident whereby suppliers of the group have towed away machineries from the group's production base in Nantong in response to the group's failure to settle payments. Earlier this week, hundreds of workers had reportedly protested and formed a blockade outside the headquarters of the group's Nantong production base, leading to Rongsheng ordering a work stoppage from 2-8 July. Share tradings of Rongsheng on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange were also halted on Thursday before it resumed on Friday. While Rongsheng admitted that there has been delay in payment to its suppliers and workers due to the group's working capital under pressure in recent months, it is not the intention of the group to default on the payments. In recent months, tight cashflow problems have led to the shipbuilder laying off around 8,000 workers amid the global slump in the shipbuilding sector. Rongsheng confirmed that the workers involved in the strike were dispersed after the management explained the policies of the group to them. Meanwhile Rongsheng warned investors of a net loss for the six months ended 30 June 2013. The expected loss is due to the continuing decline of the shipbuilding market, orders and prices of vessels decreased sharply as compared with the previous year. Rongsheng said it is currently in discussions with a number of banks and financial institutions to renew its existing credit facilities, and seeking financial support from the government and the substantial shareholders of the company. Brownrigg, who has been in his post at the Chamber since 2003, noted: It has been my honour and pleasure to represent one of the great industries of this country. Shipping and the wider maritime services are at the heart of our society and the world economy. It has been a privilege to have worked so closely with the UK Chambers member companies and the splendid team in our secretariat over the years and I look forward to passing on the baton to my successor. UK Chamber president Kenneth MacLeod said: Mark has devoted his working career to the UK Chamber progressing through the ranks to become Director General in 2003. He was central to the introduction of Tonnage Tax in 2000 that has been instrumental in the resurgence of the British merchant fleet. More recently, Mark has worked closely with Angus Frew to successfully reshape the UK Chamber and make it relevant to future needs of its members. The UK Chamber owes Mark an enormous thank you for his unstinting service over the last 40 years. The industry body is now seeking a new recruit to fill the combined chief executive and director general position. Brownrigg is to work on a one-year, two-day a week consultant director contract to assist the new ceo. Meanwhile, UK Chamber ceo Angus Frew who is leaving in early August to become the new ceo of BIMCO in Copenhagen. According to local media, Indonesian Vegetable Oil Refiners Association (GIMNI) spokesperson Sahat Sinaga was quoted as saying that apart from modernising existing seaports, the government would need to set up at least three seaports equipped with special terminals for palm oil exports to boost efficiency and anticipate future export volumes. Sahat complained of high demurrage especially at Indonesia's ports which causes handling costs to be be as much as $15 to $20 per ton more compared to more efficient overseas ports such as Port Klang. He pointed to the poor condition of the main export port of Belawan in Medan, North Sumatra, where a vessel could queue for up to two weeks, as an example. Sahat said if the ports were to be built, they would be potentially located in Mandailing Natal, North Sumatra; Pontianak, West Kalimantan; and Bitung, North Sulawesi, to transport palm oil output on each island. Indonesia is the worlds top palm oil producer, and expects to exports to rise by 4.4% to 19m tons this year. The infrastructure deficiencies have rankled exporters because the government has reaped significant revenue from export taxes but have not returned the benefits to the industry in the forms of infrastructure development. Copyright 2022. All rights reserved. Seatrade, a trading name of Informa Markets (UK) Limited. Turkish exporters have been using a multi-modal route to ship from Turkey to Egypt then overland to ports in the south of the country then again by sea to Saudi Arabia. In order to prevent exports from halting and to enable access to those [Middle Eastern] markets, we will use the Suez Canal. We will give the necessary [financial] support, Turkish Economy Minister Zafer Caglayan recently told Turkish daily newspaper, Hurriyet. Ro-ro services between the Mediterranean Turkish port of Iskenderun and a number of Egyptian ports mainly Alexandria and Port Said have been hit by political tensions and violence like other areas in the coup-torn country. The issue is of particular concern as ro-ro services have been of great significance for Turkeys trade with the Middle East since 2011, when Syrian unrest emerged. Ro-ro vessels depart from Iskenderun, sailing to Saudi Arabias Duba Port, via Egypt. Large-volume land transportation vehicles, which depart from Iskenderun, sail to Port Said before driving 180 km cross country to Egypt's southern shore; to be reloaded onto a second ro-ro service and carried to their final Saudi Arabian destination. Using the Egyptian route was a little adventurous for us, but we did it and reached Saudi Arabia and other markets through the Red Sea, he said. The minister said keeping transportation to the Middle East going is critically important amid the pilgrimage season when demand for certain goods soars. Using the Suez route would be beneficial, as most goods sent are food or agricultural products that require shorter shipping time, according to Fatih Sener, executive board chairman of the Istanbul-based International Transporters Association. There are two companies that have been making ro-ro trips between Turkey and Egypt twice a week since 2012, while 600 to 700 vehicles have been shipped first to Egypt and then to Saudi Arabia every month. If the new Suez route proceeds regularly, it will be a relief for transporters and free them from a huge burden, Sener said. The economy ministry is now working on overcoming the obstacles on the Suez route. The Suez has particular characteristics. The ship tonnage passing thorough there is different and passage fees are very high, Caglayan said. The extra expenses of using the new route will be covered by the government to support Turkish exporters and transporters. Despite welcoming the move, Sener said the new route seemed likely to remain only temporary as Ankara will not choose to continue footing the costs of shipping through the Suez. Normally large container ships use the canal, so when [the passage fee] is divided between 1,000 containers it doesnt hurt much; but Turkish ships operating are carrying [smaller cargoes], he said. Another important reason the government will not consider using the canal permanently is based on a strong desire to preserve Egyptian trade links. The government wants to keep trade with Egypt going and according to the current scheme, 10% of goods carried stay in the country. When the Suez Canal will be used, ships wont call at Egyptian ports, Sener said. Pakistan hanged 324 people last year to rank 3rd worldwide in terms of executions, but the vast majority of those put to death had no links to militant groups or attacks, rights groups said in a report seen by Reuters. Pakistan lifted a moratorium on executions in late 2014 as a measure to deter militancy, after a Taliban gunmen attacked a school and killed 134 students and 19 adults. Of the 351 executions that followed, only 39, or about 1 in 10, involved people linked to a known militant group or guilty of crimes linked to militancy, Reprieve, an international human rights group, and Justice Project Pakistan said in a report. Pakistan now ranks after China and Iran, carrying out 324 hangings in 2015 alone, the report showed. Juveniles, mentally ill prisoners, and prisoners who had been tortured or had not received fair trials were among those executed, the report found in an analysis of media reports and data from courts, prisons and legal teams. "The numbers show that the Pakistan government's claims do not match reality," said Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at Reprieve. "Those going to the gallows are too often the poor and vulnerable," she said in a statement. "It is hard to see how hanging people like this will make Pakistan safer." A spokesman from Pakistan's interior ministry did not respond to requests for comment. The government initially said the unofficial moratorium was only being lifted in cases connected to militancy, but it was later broadened to cover all cases, the report said. The hangings have drawn condemnation from international partners but have been broadly popular at home. Government officials told Reuters last year that the policy had been helping to deter militant attacks. Militant, insurgent and sectarian attacks have fallen since 2014, though it is unclear whether the decline is linked to the change in execution policy, as it has also coincided with a military crackdown on militant strongholds. Last year, attacks in Pakistan by militant, insurgent and sectarian groups were down 48 % from 2014, an independent think-tank, the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, says. Source: Reuters, Feb. 18, 2016 Christian couple sentenced to death for sending 'blasphemous' texts to an Islamic cleric in Pakistan say they were tortured into confessing to the crime A disabled Christian man and his wife sentenced to death in Pakistan for blasphemy have claimed they were tortured into confessing. Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar, from Gojra, east Pakistan, were found guilty of sending a text message which 'blasphemed' against the Prophet Mohammed to their local imam in 2013. Mr Emmanuel, who is paralysed from the waist down, claims the only reason he confessed to the crime was because he could not stand watching his wife be tortured by police. 'There is no man who can stand to see his wife being tortured by police, so to save my wife, I confessed,' Mr Emmanuel said in an appeal for bail lodged this week. The couple were arrested in July 2013 after their local imam, Maulvi Mohammed Hussain, claimed Mr Emmanuel had used his wife's phone to sent him a text insulting the Prophet Mohammed. The couple, who have 4 children, denies ever sending the text, saying the phone had been stolen from them months before the message was supposed to have been sent. "There was no evidence that the text messages came from a phone owned by the couple," Farukh Saif, an official of World Vision in Progress giving legal aid to the couple, told Christians in Pakistan. In the first place they had lost the phone some months before July 2013 and secondly there was no SIM card in their names. The only evidence police produced was a bill for a SIM card from a shop owner which is unheard of. Mr Emmanuel and Ms Kausar were initially sentenced to death for blasphemy, but as with nearly all such convictions, it is most likely they will spend the rest of their lives in jail. Pakistan's blasphemy laws are notoriously harsh, and accusations of blasphemy against Islam is taken very seriously in the country. Being found guilty of desecrating the Koran or blaspheming against the Prophet Mohammed is punishable by death or life imprisonment. The laws have long been criticised both in Pakistan and internationally as they are often used to settle personal grudges and accusations are made with little to no evidence. They have lodged an appeal at Lahore High Court on the grounds of Mr Emmanuel's deteriorating condition, claiming lack of treatment in jail has left him with bedsores and life-threatening ill health. Pakistan's blasphemy laws are notoriously harsh, and accusations of blasphemy against Islam is taken very seriously in the country. Being found guilty of desecrating the Koran or blaspheming against the Prophet Mohammed is punishable by death or life imprisonment. The laws have long been criticised both in Pakistan and internationally as they are often used to settle personal grudges and accusations are made with little to no evidence. Last month, the head of a powerful religious body in the country said he is willing to review Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws, 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 rumours 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, said. Source: Daily Mail, Feb. 18, 2016 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2016-34 The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced a global settlement along with the U.S. Department of Justice and Dutch regulators that requires telecommunications provider VimpelCom Ltd. to pay more than $795 million to resolve its violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) to win business in Uzbekistan. The SEC alleges that VimpelCom offered and paid bribes to an Uzbek government official related to the President of Uzbekistan as the company entered the Uzbek telecommunications market and sought government-issued licenses, frequencies, channels, and number blocks. At least $114 million in bribe payments were funneled through an entity affiliated with the Uzbek official, and approximately a half-million dollars in bribes were disguised as charitable donations made to charities directly affiliated with the Uzbek official. VimpelCom made massive revenues in Uzbekistan by paying over $100 million to an official with significant influence over top leaders of the Uzbek government, said Andrew J. Ceresney, Director of the SEC Enforcement Division. These old-fashioned bribes, hidden through sham contracts and charitable contributions, left the companys books and records riddled with inaccuracies. The settlement requires VimpelCom to pay $167.5 million to the SEC, $230.1 million to the U.S. Department of Justice, and $397.5 million to Dutch regulators. The company must retain an independent corporate monitor for at least three years. International cooperation among regulators is critical to holding companies responsible for all facets of a bribery scheme. This closely coordinated settlement is a product of the extraordinary efforts of the SEC, Department of Justice, and law enforcement partners around the globe to jointly pursue those who break the law to win business, said Kara N. Brockmeyer, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Divisions FCPA Unit. The SECs complaint was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. VimpelCom consented to the entry of a court order ordering the company to pay disgorgement and retain an independent monitor, and permanently enjoining the company from future violations of Sections 30A, 13(b)(2)(A), and 13(b)(2)(B) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. The SECs continuing investigation is being conducted by the FCPA Unit under the supervision of its Deputy Chief Charles Cain. The SEC appreciates the significant assistance of the Department of Justices Criminal Division, Fraud and Asset Forfeiture Money Laundering Sections as well as the following agencies: Internal Revenue Service, Department of Homeland Security, Public Prosecution Service of the Netherlands (Openbaar Ministrie), National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime in Norway (KOKRIM), Swedish Prosecution Authority, Office of the Attorney General in Switzerland, and Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau in Latvia. Other valuable assistance was provided by the British Virgin Islands Financial Services Commission, Caymans Islands Monetary Authority, Bermuda Monetary Authority, and Central Bank of Ireland, Estonia Financial Supervisory Authority (Finantsinspektioon), Comision Nacional del Mercado de Valores (Spain), Latvian Financial and Capital Market Commission, UAE Securities and Commodities Authority, Banking Commission of the Marshall Islands, and Gibraltar Financial Services Commission. CEO David Taylor said that the company would not move around talent as often as it had. (Photo: Twitter) Procter & Gamble Co needs to be more nimble in its decision-making, Chief Executive David Taylor said in his first interaction with analysts after taking the helm in November. Analysts have said the world's largest consumer products company should split itself up into more manageable businesses so that regional centres are given more control. The management has also been criticized for being too slow in reacting to changing trends in key markets such as China. "A few years ago we got too central and global and too slow to address market opportunities. We need more direct ownership for our regional managers all the way to the store shelf," Taylor said at an analyst conference in New York. P&G, which has posted declines in sales for the last six quarters, has been shrinking its portfolio to focus on faster-growing brands such as Tide detergent and Gillette shaving products."Taylor's diagnosis is correct and it is encouraging to hear someone talk about the root of the problem," said Neil Saunders, CEO of retail research firm Conlumino."While changing the company's operations is very challenging, (Taylor) does instil confidence that he is going to enact change to bring about a more nimble company." Taylor offered few surprises during the conference but said the company would not move around talent as often as it had. That may help P&G improve its performance in markets such as China - the world's second-largest economy - where it has lost market share to nimbler rivals and local players."In many ways we looked at China little bit too much as a developing market, as opposed to the most discerning consumers in the world," Chief Financial Officer Jon Moeller said at the conference. Moeller said the company was now seeking to make the most of China's removal of its one-child policy and a growing preference to premium-priced products. While the company does not break down its sales geographically, Moeller said on a post-earnings conference call in January that sales in China were "significantly down" compared with a year earlier. P&G's shares have risen 7.3 percent since Jan. 26, when it reported second-quarter results. The stock, a component of the Dow Jones industrial average, had fallen nearly 13 percent in 2015, compared with a 2.2 percent drop in the index. New York Peter Copping looked toward a pivotal event in American fashion for his second collection at Oscar de la Renta: The famed Battle of Versailles fashion show of 1973, where the houses founder was one of the five American designers to face off against the French fashion world. The palace Louis XIV built is also a fitting reference for the House of de la Rentas aesthetic legacy, both under de la Renta and this current season. It has always been known for a certain opulence, an attention to craft, and dressing the modern-day equivalents of the Madame de Maintenons and ladies of the court. The beloved de la Rentas loss was hard felt in both the fashion industry and with his clients (of which a significant number reside in San Francisco). so it was with a great deal of relief that Coppings first collection in September didnt stray too far from the ideals of the founder. This season, Copping employed some of the techniques he was known for at Nina Ricci (use of lace, seamless knits, strapless construction of the utmost delicacy) with French boning, illustrated prints on skirts, and silk damask that could have come out of the atelier of Rose Bertin. The shades of pink recalled Oscar, as did the abundance of oversize bows, but the metallic skirts and tinsel weaves were uniquely Copping. San Francisco State University students need to travel to classes the old-fashioned way after hoverboards were added to a list of transportation devices banned from the campus. The new rule could result in confiscations of the self-balancing, battery-powered contraptions for any student caught riding one on campus property. University officials said they implemented the prohibition after the Consumer Product Safety Commission and National Fire Protection Association released warnings in December about the fire hazard associated with hoverboards. Students who live on the San Francisco campus received an e-mail Monday telling them the two-wheel devices were banned, effective immediately, on school grounds and in dormitories, as first reported by the student newspaper Golden Gate Xpress. But because less than 15 percent of the student body lives on campus, many by Thursday still hadnt heard the news. Hoverboards dont make sense, said Matthew Victor, 24, a student studying business and marketing who didnt know about the ban. You can honestly walk faster most of the time. Bicycles, scooters, roller skates and skateboards were already prohibited on the campus of nearly 30,000 students. But Thursday morning, dozens of bicyclists and skaters no hoverboarders could be seen rolling through the main quad. They dont say much about the skateboards everywhere, so I dont see the problem with hoverboards, said 20-year-old student Wajma Naik. Its not like theyre racing down anything. Monir Ahmadi, a freshman, said she rarely sees people on campus riding hoverboards. I dont understand why theyre trying to bring the hammer down so hard, she added. Longboard rider Edwin Arango, 21, said that he recognized the dangers of his board hitting someones heel, but that rolling through campus is too good to give up. As for hoverboards, theyre lazy, he said. With this, youre at least pushing. As hoverboards rose in popularity last year, some customers several in the Bay Area posted photos and videos online of their devices exploding into flames. Two North Bay fires last month, one of which killed two dogs, were blamed on hoverboards. San Francisco States police department has not dealt with any hoverboard fires, according to university spokesman Jonathan Morales, but officials want to minimize their risk while also curtailing injuries that may result from hoverboard use. Policies across California State University campuses are not uniform. Cal State East Bay allows hoverboards but has released a safety advisory. They were banned this semester for students at the Sonoma and Monterey Bay campuses, and San Jose State though it doesnt have an explicit policy on hoverboards considers them motorized vehicles, which are not allowed on campus. Though some cities like New York have moved toward outright bans on hoverboards, their use became legal on California streets and bike lanes with legislation enacted Jan. 1. Hoverboarders, though, must be over 16 years of age, wear a helmet and ride on a road with a speed limit no higher than 35 mph. Thandiwe Cato, a 21-year-old studying business, was happy with San Francisco States hoverboard ban because, she said, it might ease foot traffic on campus. Im not going to say I dont like hoverboards because Ive never tried one, she said. But anything that gets in my way as Im walking to class I do not like. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 1 of 3 Courtesy/Fremont Police Department Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Courtesy/Fremont Police Department Show More Show Less 3 of 3 The Bay Areas favorite baby horse, an injured foal that rescuers pulled from a ravine on Valentines Day, has a new owner: the city of Fremont. The colt, nicknamed Valentine for the day he was discovered, had a broken pelvis near an artery, an injury that officials said would require a $10,000 surgery. A GoFundMe page was quickly set up by the folks at the Tri-City Animal Shelter and, in less than a week, more than $15,000 had been donated by almost 200 donors. A 71-year-old Lake County man imprisoned for a child molestation he did not commit has been released from custody in Stockton as new details emerged about the false testimony that put him behind bars for 18 years. Luther Jones Jr. left the California Health Care Facility, a prison hospital, on Wednesday and is believed to be living with his son in Lake County, officials said. He was being treated for diabetes, liver and kidney ailments, but prison officials said they could provide no details on his current medical condition. As Jones settled into his new life as a free man, the statement that freed him the recantation by his accuser, who had testified against Jones as a 10-year-old girl described the troubled relationship among a mother, her boyfriend and her young child that led to the fateful lies told to a Lake County jury in 1998. The woman, whose identity is being withheld by The Chronicle, told Lake County investigators last week that she feels really bad about taking 20 years of Luthers life from him and his family, and she hopes he can get out and be able to spend time with his family, according to the investigators statement filed in court. She was tired of having a heavy heart about Luther Jones, the investigator said the woman told her. Her mother told her to go to school and tell the school that Luther had molested her and touched her. ... She remembered telling a female principal about it (and) remembered Child Protective Services coming and getting her. Woman now saved The woman told investigators, She has been trying to clean up her life and she has been saved and gotten clean and sober. She also had a baby five months ago, which she said is the most important person in her life. ... She felt she was ready to talk about this. According to court documents, the mother identified as Elizabeth Woods and Jones had a very violent relationship, and Woods was angry when Jones was granted custody of another of her children. The daughter told investigators that her mother had instructed her to lie about Jones as part of the custody battle. The former accuser told investigators last week that her mother was into drugs really heavily and she had 6 kids by 5 fathers. Photos of new son In one social media account believed to belong to the former accuser, she posted photographs of herself and her new son and described the still ongoing troubled relationship with her mother that resulted in Jones nearly two decades of false imprisonment. Unfortunately my mom is talking crap about me and my son and how she ain't doing nothing for nobody any more, she wrote on the account, about a week before requesting the meeting with investigators that cleared Jones. She will discontinue my phone line (because) it's going to be all about her from now on ... so I won't be able to be called by phone. Sorry. In documents supporting Jones release, Lake County District Attorney Don Anderson said the woman appears to be credible and her accounts of the incident ... believable. Attempts to reach the daughter, Woods and Jones were not successful. Jones lawyer, Angela Carter, said her client is entitled to restitution from the state that could total more than $1 million for his 18 years behind bars. Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF Volkswagen internal memos and e-mails suggest that company executives pursued a strategy of delay and obfuscation with U.S. regulators after being confronted in early 2014 with evidence that VW diesel vehicles were emitting far more pollutants than allowed. The documents, first reported on by the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag and since reviewed by the New York Times, could raise the potential penalties for Volkswagen based on laws requiring public disclosure of problems with the potential to affect a companys stock price. They suggest that top managers knew sooner than they have acknowledged that there was no way to bring tainted vehicles into compliance with air-quality rules, but led federal and California officials to believe otherwise. The documents also raise the possibility that Martin Winterkorn, Volkswagens CEO at the time, knew of possible emissions cheating by the company sooner than he has said. According to the documents reviewed by the Times, a confidant of Winterkorn wrote to him in May 2014, warning that regulators might accuse the carmaker of using a defeat device software that recognized when the car was being tested for emissions and activated pollution-control equipment. At other times, the cars produced up to 35 times the allowed amount of nitrogen oxide emissions, which are linked to lung ailments and premature deaths. It was not until September 2015, more than a year after the letter of warning to Winterkorn, that Volkswagen admitted publicly that 11 million diesel vehicles, including about 480,000 Volkswagen cars in the United States, were equipped with defeat devices. The number of cars in the United States has since risen to include about 100,000 Audi and Porsche cars with diesel engines. Winterkorn, who resigned Sept. 23, has said he did not learn of the defeat device until shortly before the companys public admission. A lawyer for Winterkorn did not respond to requests for comment. Courts Air passenger is sentenced A man who interfered with a flight crew on a New York-bound US Airways jet that was forced to divert to Pittsburgh has been sentenced to prison. A federal judge sentenced 40-year-old Mapleton, Utah, resident Steven Pectol on Wednesday to a year and a day behind bars. Pectol pleaded guilty in November to disrupting a red-eye flight from Phoenix on Oct. 11. The plane made an emergency landing at Pittsburgh International Airport to remove him before resuming its trip. Authorities say Pectol ignored instructions to remain in his seat, threw his belongings and fought flight attendants and passengers who restrained him. He also faces three years of probation. Earnings Cheap fuel aids Virgin America Cheaper jet fuel and a tax gain helped Virgin America Inc. overcome lower fares and boosted fourth-quarter profit. The Burlingame companys average fare fell 9 percent from a year earlier to $187, partly because of a fare war in Dallas with Southwest and American airlines. CEO David Cush said in an interview Thursday that the average price passengers pay per mile could continue to fall through 2016 as airlines including his own keep adding to the supply of seats for sale. The company said fourth-quarter net income soared to $190.9 million from $3.9 million a year ago. Excluding a noncash gain of $173.5 million related to accounting of tax assets and other one-time items, Virgin earned $1.20 per share, matching the average forecast of eight analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research. Nordstrom profit plunges Nordstroms fourth-quarter earnings failed to meet Wall Street expectations, following a dismal third quarter in which it also failed to meet analysts expectations and lowered its outlook for the year. For the quarter that ended Jan. 30, Nordstrom on Thursday reported profit of $180 million ($1 per share) on total sales of $4.19 billion. While sales increased 3.7 percent over the year-ago quarter, profit declined 29.4 percent. Unemployment Jobless claims fall The number of people seeking unemployment aid fell last week to the lowest level since November, evidence that stock market turmoil and slow growth overseas havent caused U.S. businesses to cut jobs. The Labor Department says weekly applications for jobless benefits fell 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 262,000. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, dropped 8,000 to 273,250. Recent reports have shown that consumer spending and manufacturing grew last month, suggesting the economy is still growing despite recession worries on Wall Street. Housing Mortgage rates flat Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates were unchanged this week, but remained at historically low levels amid worries about the global economy. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac says the average rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage remained at 3.65 percent this week after dropping for six straight weeks. The average rate on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages was also unchanged from last week at 2.95 percent after falling for five consecutive weeks. The average rate on five-year adjustable rate mortgages inched up to 2.85 percent from 2.83 percent last week. Chronicle News Services On Thursday, CEO Marissa Mayer courted a crowd of developers with promises of Yahoos incredible potential in mobile in the coming years. On Friday, Yahoos board hired bankers to explore a sale of the company a deal that could be announced in several months. These conflicting messages reveal the growing rift between Mayer and the companys board of directors, one that pits Silicon Valleys entrepreneurial optimism against the harsh financial perspective of institutional Wall Street investors. Mayer, a former Google executive who took the job in 2012 with the promise of bringing a resurgence, still says she can turn Yahoo around. Her latest plan features a leaner staff focusing on fewer products. The company plans to shed nearly 1,600 employees or 15 percent of its global workforce by the end of the year, with more than 200 layoffs already announced at its Sunnyvale headquarters. But investors are growing impatient. Frustrated that business hasnt improved since Mayers arrival despite billions spent on acquisitions shareholders are pressuring the board to spin off or sell all parts of Yahoo except its valuable investments stakes in other firms. And now the board is listening. The numbers are getting worse each quarter. The current strategy has not been successful, said Robert Peck, an analyst with SunTrust Robinson Humphrey. You are seeing a melting ice cube happening here. Timeliness is of the essence to sell. Yahoos board announced it is working with investment banks Goldman Sachs & Co. Inc., JP Morgan and PJT Partners Inc. and law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP to explore potential deals. The board also said it would form a committee that will look at deals and recommend those in the best interest of the company and its shareholders to board members. We have hired excellent advisers and are working closely and in alignment with management to pursue an effective process, Maynard Webb, Yahoos chairman of the board, said in a statement. Though Mayer and the board are openly pursuing different strategies one to regain Yahoos lost luster, the other to liquidate the company the firm is portraying the schism as a unified strategy. As both shareholders and employees, all of us here at Yahoo want to return this iconic company to greatness. We can best achieve this by working with the committee to pursue various strategic alternatives while, in parallel, aggressively executing our strategic plan to strengthen our growth businesses and improve efficiency and profitability, Mayer said in the same press release. Yahoos chances of reviving its business are a long shot, analysts said. A key metric, adjusted earnings, has been down for Yahoos Internet properties since 2012. Daily visitors to Yahoos home page and mail service also declined in the first week of December 2015, compared with a year earlier, according to internal Yahoo data obtained by news site the Information. Some have compared Mayers predicament to a sports team thats behind with just 10 seconds left in a game. The longer the company waits before committing to a strategy, the harder it will be to win. But having helped Google go from underdog to industry leader, Mayer has a professional history in overcoming long odds. As one former Yahoo executive previously told The Chronicle, If youve never failed in your life in anything, why would you believe youre going to fail here? At Google, Mayer was known for deeply researching topics and focusing on small details. She famously played a role in tinkering with the boldness and font size on Googles search result ads page to boost ad revenue, said former colleague Joe Sriver, founder of DoApp in Minnesota, which creates mobile apps for media companies. Those decisions helped make Google the successful search engine it is today. Sriver pointed out that other successful entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs also cared about the details. He had to be an ass sometimes because he knew the direction that he wanted to take the company. You need a person that is motivated and knowledgeable to push the products, Sriver said. He added Mayer has a tough job (at Yahoo), but she doesnt shy away from challenges. But activist investors say Mayer hasnt delivered results. Starboard Value and SpringOwl Asset Management LLC have threatened to wage a proxy battle against Yahoo, nominating their own directors to replace board members at the next shareholders meeting a board that would move to force Mayer out. Right now, the board is trying to play both sides, said Eric Jackson, a managing director at SpringOwl. If the board really supports Mayer and thinks shes the best CEO, I think they should say youre our CEO, and well give you autonomy to do what you want to do, Jackson said. But if they dont support her, they should probably let her go and just put a for-sale sign up. It ends up prolonging the inevitable here. Analysts say its unlikely the current board will push Mayer out before the company is sold. Thats because interested buyers will want to talk to the current CEO about the companys operations, and if Mayer leaves, it could result in even more executive departures. Plus theres that pesky issue of severance. Regardless, Gene Munster, an analyst from Piper Jaffray, believes Mayer will get a second act after Yahoo. Shes a talented person, she will find her way back on the stage, Munster said. Wendy Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: wlee@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @thewendylee As per Telecom Commission, an operator has to pay an amount equal to the reserve price proposed by sectoral regulator Trai for the upcoming auction. New Delhi: Inter-ministerial panel Telecom Commission on February 19 approved liberalisation of 800 MHz spectrum in circles where a market-determined price is not available. As per Telecom Commission, an operator has to pay an amount equal to the reserve price proposed by sectoral regulator Trai for the upcoming auction, with a condition that after the auction concludes, the telco has to pay final winning price, sources said. There are four circles -- Kerala, Karnataka, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu -- where a market determined price is not available in the 800 MHz band. After Cabinet approves the decision, it will allow Reliance Communications (RCom) to liberalise its spectrum in the four circles by paying about Rs 1,300 crore. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has given its views regarding the liberalisation fee for those circles where a market determined price is not available. RCom had applied for liberalising its 800 MHz spectrum in 20 circles a few months back. The company had already paid Rs 5,383.84 crore as spectrum liberalisation fee for 16 telecom circles. The government has already issued guidelines to liberalise the administratively alloted 2G spectrum, allowing operators to offer latest mobile services, including 4G, using the same radiowaves. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A tourist from the United Kingdom was fighting for his life after he was stabbed in the head during a street robbery in San Francisco, police said. The 44-year-old man was walking with his niece, who was visiting from Southern California, east on Post Street near Franklin Street about 8:30 p.m. when they were attacked by a man and a woman. While the tourist attempted to hold onto his green messenger bag, the male suspect stabbed him in the head with a knife, said Officer Albie Esparza, a police spokesman. The victim, whose bag contained his passport, credit cards, money and cell phone, was transported to San Francisco General Hospital with severe trauma, police said. A hospital spokesman could not comment on his condition Friday afternoon, but police said he suffered life-threatening injuries. The victims niece was not injured during the encounter. The male suspect was described as in his 30s or 40s, and his female accomplice is believed to be in her late 20s. They fled the scene on foot with the victims bag, and no arrests have been made. Investigators spoke with several witnesses and were working to locate surveillance footage. Authorities also informed the British Consulate of the attack. Former San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, who happened to be walking on the same block Friday morning on his way to the gym, said he is concerned about public safety in the neighborhood. He said police should increase foot patrols throughout the city, not just in high-profile areas where tourists are known to congregate. There needs to be more of a community policing presence throughout San Francisco, Mirkarimi said. Tourists find every nook and cranny in the city. During his embattled tenure as sheriff, and previously as city supervisor, Mirkarimi pushed for more beat officers and even sheriffs deputies to patrol the city by foot. He said Friday that boosting foot patrols would act as a deterrent for crimes like Thursday nights stabbing. Construction workers on the block, who are building a California Pacific Medical Center campus, said they had not heard of the attack but were not concerned for their safety. Employees at a Walgreens near the crime scene also had not heard of the robbery. Jose Betancourt, who does restorative justice work for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, located in the neighborhood, was shocked by the stabbing but thought the street was relatively safe in general. The attack is just the latest in a string of street muggings in which tourists have been victimized. In December, three French tourists were robbed on a Twin Peaks hill while snapping photos of the vista. An 81-year-old man was shoved to the ground and lost consciousness. In August, a tourist from Thailand was shot in the shoulder by muggers who attempted to steal his camera as he shot photos near the famed winding stretch of Lombard Street, in one of the citys most scenic neighborhoods. In the summer of 2014, two Dutch tourists were robbed at gunpoint while taking pictures in the same area. Officer Carlos Manfredi, a police spokesman, said its unlikely that tourists are being targeted for robberies, which he explained tend to be crimes of opportunity. It happens to everybody, so every now and then theres going to be a tourist in the mix, Manfredi said, especially in the tourism capital of the world. Police urged anyone with information about the stabbing to call them at (415) 575-4444 or send a text message to TIP411. 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 Records detailing police misconduct and serious use of force, long kept confidential, could become public in California if legislation announced Friday is passed into law. State Sen. Mark Leno, seeking to tighten accountability amid a national conversation over police shootings and a push for law enforcement reform in San Francisco, introduced a bill that would roll back a 1978 law and subsequent Supreme Court rulings that prompted cities to close police disciplinary cases to the media and the public. Weve reached a critical point in the publics perception of how law enforcement is doing its critically important work, Leno said at a news conference in San Francisco, where he was joined not only by police watchdogs and progressive city supervisors but District Attorney George Gascon, a former city police chief. Officer-involved shootings around the country revealed on video have raised serious concerns, Leno said. Now more than ever the publics trust in its law enforcement agencies is needed. Its the second time Leno has pushed to restore such access, but stopping the bill will be a top priority for police unions, who argue that accountability can be achieved without violating officers privacy. Harry Stern, an attorney who represents officers around the Bay Area, slammed the proposal, linking it to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors recent approval of a day of remembrance for Mario Woods, the stabbing suspect whose video-recorded killing by police sparked protests and a federal review of the city force. No one is against accountability, Stern said. But when politicos press an agenda that includes declaring a day in honor of a violent felon, one must consider their motives with a jaundiced eye. ... In today's criminal-friendly, antipolice climate, we need fewer baseless public floggings of cops, not more. Public allowed access Under the Increasing Law Enforcement Transparency bill, the public would be allowed access to records of serious instances of use of force those that cause death or serious bodily injury and records of sustained charges of misconduct, including sexual assault, racial profiling, job dishonesty, violation of rights and illegal search or seizure. That means officials have completed an investigation and found the officer in violation. Those who file complaints would be able to obtain more information on the investigation, the findings and any discipline imposed, rather than a current cursory response that informs the person if charges were sustained or unsustained. In cities, including San Francisco, the bill would also allow local officials to decide whether to restore public hearings and public appeals on allegations of misconduct. Leno, D-San Francisco, said California should not abide some of the countrys least transparent laws governing law enforcement records. The bill comes at a time of heightened police scrutiny nationwide and is supported by the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, the California Newspaper Publishers Association and the Conference of California Bar Associations. Peter Bibring, who as the director of police practices for the ACLU of California helped draft the legislation, said it sought to strengthen the relationship between California communities and the police. Police have to earn trust Police departments have been concerned about the lack of trust between communities and police, Bibring said. But police cant just ask for trust. They have to earn it, and in order to earn it, they have to be transparent about what they do. San Francisco Police Officers Association officials will be among those fighting the legislation. Nathan Ballard, an adviser for the union, said that while officers support efforts to bring transparency including having officers wear body cameras the union will oppose legislation seeking to undo the California Supreme Courts ruling that protects police officers privacy interests. Due process is a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution, Ballard said. Its undermined when the public is allowed a ringside seat to an employers disciplinary process. San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr and Sheriff Vicki Hennessy did not immediately respond to calls for comment, but Leno said he alerted them of his proposal and will be meeting with the police union. Several San Francisco officials came out in support Friday including Police Commission Vice President L. Julius Turman and Supervisors London Breed, Malia Cohen and Aaron Peskin with many invoking the Dec. 2 police shooting of Woods, which remains under investigation. Tense relationship with police Gascon, whose relationship with the police force has grown increasingly tense, said his experience as police chief in San Francisco as well as in Mesa, Ariz., where state law granted public access to disciplinary records, proved to him that such laws do not harm the well-being of police officers. As a career law enforcement officer who spent 30 years in policing, I can tell you that good police officers do not fear transparency, Gascon said. Good police officers welcome transparency because it allows them to work effectively with the communities that they serve. But Alison Berry Wilkinson, an attorney who represented the Berkeley Police Officers Association when the union fought to close police-misconduct proceedings, said a reversal could have damaging side effects, including on public safety. There are a number of documented efforts where highly proactive, very effective officers are targeted (with misconduct complaints) by the bad guys to discourage them from moving forward with enforcing the law, she said. Access restricted since 70s California law regarding law enforcement records has been restrictive since the 1970s, when a state Supreme Court decision led to a police union-led push for confidentiality measures. However, for years, some city police forces, including in San Francisco and Los Angeles, allowed for some disciplinary records and hearings to be open to the public. In 2003, the San Diego Union-Tribune filed a lawsuit when reporters were denied access to an appeals hearing for a county sheriffs deputy who had been fired. A subsequent state Supreme Court decision, Copley vs. Superior Court, held that the public had no right to obtain records of administrative appeals in police disciplinary cases and ended all local government practices that opened disciplinary hearings. Time might be right An effort to undo the Copley decision by then-Assemblyman Leno and then-Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero, D-Los Angeles, stalled in an Assembly hearing in 2007 after heavy lobbying from the law enforcement community. Leno said he is optimistic about the outcome this time, not only because the bill provides safeguards if public access to certain records could jeopardize an officers life, but because the timing is right. One thing I have learned is that ideas have their own time, he said. Despite my own force of will, some things just dont happen until that idea seems to have come of age. With all that has gone on around the country, here in San Francisco, the polling that weve looked at it, I think this is an idea whose time has come. Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo The East Bay man accused of fatally shooting two men and critically injuring a third on San Franciscos Twin Peaks pleaded not guilty Thursday to murder and attempted murder charges. Richard Contreras, 26, of Richmond made his first court appearance in connection to the killings early Sunday morning of 21-year-old Julio Peraza and 19-year-old Rene Mora. His attorney, Deputy Public Defender Kleigh Hathaway, said in court that little evidence connected Contreras to the 2 a.m. shooting that also left an 18-year-old battling for his life. But Assistant District Attorney Heather Trevisan said Contreras fired a 9mm pistol multiple times into the chest of one man before shooting the other two in the back. Police say he fled the scene in a gray GMC Yukon Denali that he carjacked. Before a SWAT team apprehended him at his home in Richmond, he indicated to a witness that he intended to flee to Mexico, Trevisan said. Contreras had been charged and convicted of felony crimes each year for the past three years, Trevisan said. In one case, he crashed a stolen car into an AC Transit bus in Richmond, sending the bus careening into the side of a house and injuring a mother, her baby and 3-year-old child inside, authorities said. The driver and seven passengers on the bus also suffered injuries. Contreras fled the crash on foot but was arrested on warrants a few months later and charged with unlawful driving, leaving the scene of an accident and violating probation. He was sentenced in December 2014 to a year in jail and two years of community supervision. Police officials said Contreras knew the men he is accused of killing, but they and prosecutors havent elaborated on the relationship. Alex Bastian, a district attorneys office spokesman, rejected suggestions by Hathaway that there were identification issues in the investigation of Contreras. We have an ethical obligation to charge a case when we have a good-faith belief that we can proceed on a case beyond a reasonable doubt, Bastian said. We would not charge a case unless we had met that ethical threshold, and we have charged the case accordingly. Contreras is being held on $5 million bail. He is scheduled to return to court March 1. Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo EASLEY, S.C. Ben Carson made a last-minute play for votes in the South Carolina Republican presidential primary by mocking a recent meeting between Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders and outspoken liberal minister Al Sharpton. In a new Carson radio ad, an announcer calls Sanders another liberal politician pandering to an African-American just to get votes and asks what Sharpton has done to ease the plight of African- Americans. The announcer says Carson knows first-hand what it takes to overcome poverty and racial violence and believes that government dependence yields more poverty, broken homes, crime and incarceration. Carson is the only major candidate of either party who is black. The GOP presidential primary is Saturday. In Easley, South Carolina, Utah Sen. Mike Lee campaigned with both Sen. Marco Rubio and Sen. Ted Cruz. Lee said before a Cruz event at a barbecue restaurant that he considers both Cruz and Rubio to be friends, and thats why he hasnt endorsed either in Saturdays South Carolina primary. In Clemson, Ohio Gov. John Kasich told a crowd that protecting Israel must be the first priority of the United States and that there must be realistic goals about what is achievable in terms of peace. He said that while its easy to talk about a two-state solution from inside the United States, people are being stabbed inside of Israel. In other primary developments Thursday: North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey endorsed businessman Donald Trump. Sen. Cruz made the race for president about who will appoint conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices. He told a Greenville County Republican Womens Club that Donald Trump cant be trusted to appoint conservatives. He also said Trump doesnt have the temperament to be commander-in-chief. More than 300 pastors and other religious leaders in South Carolina endorsed Cruz for president. ROMULUS, Mich. When Jane Sanders saw an early cut of the America ad for her husbands presidential campaign, she felt something wasnt quite right. The problem? Her husband was talking in it. The uplifting spot for Bernie Sanders features sunny images of his packed rallies over a soundtrack of Simon and Garfunkels America. Jane Sanders found herself being carried away by the mood and the music, not by the clip of him speaking. So I just asked to cut Bernie out, she said. Hes talking all the time in other places. Nine months into his insurgent presidential campaign, that ad stands out as a symbol of Bernie Sanders effort to spark a grassroots political movement competing with the more traditional campaign of Hillary Clinton. And Jane Sanders hand in the final product shows her influence in the campaign one that may increase as she headlines more events on her own. Shes a former community organizer who has worked alongside her husband for more than 30 years as a city department head when he was Burlington, Vermont, mayor, a volunteer congressional aide, and a campaign adviser. She is not afraid to be constructively critical, Bernie Sanders said. She lets me have it if she thinks I make a mistake. And he joked that happens every day, including 10 minutes ago. Momentum is on Bernie Sanders side after his 22-point win in the New Hampshire primary and a close finish in Iowa. His campaign, propelled by promises of political revolution and small-dollar donations, has proven a surprisingly robust challenge to Clinton Along the way, Jane Sanders, 65, has done everything from buying the office furniture to helping prep for debates. She has tried to lighten up her policy-wonk husband, urging him to offer a little less doom and gloom and a little more hope in his speeches. She has also encouraged him to talk more about his congressional record, noting that his opponent is trying to say that shes more effective than he is, so he needs to let people know how effective hes been. Sanders has been deeply involved in her husbands political career practically from the moment they met, when he was running for mayor of Burlington, in 1981. She was working as a community organizer for a youth center. They quickly began working together and dating. They married in 1988 and promptly took off on a diplomatic trip to Burlingtons sister city in Russia. Shes one of his most trusted advisers, if not the most trusted adviser, said Sanders senior adviser Tad Devine. Brooklyn-born like her husband, Jane Sanders said she first became aware of injustices as a child, when her father, who suffered health problems for years after breaking his hip, couldnt get good medical care until her brother started earning enough money to pay for it. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The Lone Star College System board has approved a proposal that will allow the system to contract with Baker Hughes for the use of the Western Hemisphere Education Center in Tomball for one year. The vote by the trustees allows the Lone Star College Chancellor Stephen Head to negotiate and execute a master service agreement with the oil field services firm for oil rig training and facility use services for an amount not greater than $400,000 for a one-year term. Baker Hughes, which is in the process of being acquired by Halliburton for $35 billion, confirmed its in discussions with the college about utilizing the company's Western Hemisphere Education Center for training. "While the agreement has not been finalized, Baker Hughes is a strong supporter of training and education programs to advance the oil and gas profession," said Melanie Kania, enterprise media relations for Baker Hughes. The deal will allow the Lone Star College System to provide hands-on training and education for the oil field industry while it works toward designing and building its planned oil and gas training center on 18 acres at the intersection of Humble Road and Texas 249, not far from the LSC-Tomball campus. "It works now because the industry is down and Baker Hughes doesn't have a lot going on with their site. What this will allow us to do is build our facility out during this downturn," said Lee Ann Nutt, president of Lone Star College-Tomball. "I am certain we will move quickly to finalize the details, but we do not yet have a fully executed contract or a specific date when students will begin using the facilities. However, I anticipate we will be able to provide access within a few weeks, or couple of months." The center will offer a number of expanded workforce programs and give students access to drilling equipment to simulate real-life experience - all designed to quickly prepare students for the workforce. "As far as we know, Lone Star College would be the only higher education institute with a working drilling rig," said Bill Van Rysdam, media relations manager for the Lone Star College System. Other courses offered at the training center will include electrical technology, pipefitting, welding technology, drafting, industrial diesel and logistics management. The Lone Star College System currently offers these programs at some campus locations, but the center will offer expanded access to these programs, Nutt said. The land for the planned facility for the college system was purchased for $4.5 million from a 2013 bond referendum. The money from the bond will be used primarily to prepare the infrastructure, construct a warehouse and a classroom building. However, the bond does not cover the cost of the equipment. As a result, the Lone Star College System is also working with businesses in the oil and gas field to provide donations of equipment and in-kind services. Some of those services include assistance with the Texas Railroad Commission with document filings, which will be provided by FreeportMcMoran, while Dow-Corning plans to provide student scholarships and lubricants for the training rigs. White Star Pumps will provide a mud pump for student training, and TAMS Industries has offered to store some of the training equipment while the new training facility is being constructed. "By the time the center is up and running, those industry partners will be looking for significantly training again, so the timing is actually pretty good," Nutt said. All of those donations are estimated at about $10 million. Mumbai: Bollywood is abuzz with keen interest to see Aashiqui 2 couple reunite on the silver screen in filmmaker Shaad Alis next OK Janu. Now that Fitoor is out, Aditya Roy Kapur is prepping for his next film. The actor met his upcoming films director Shaad Ali to discuss the film. The actor and director met up for the films look test. OK Janus team is progressing with the film and very soon, theyll start with the shoot. Audiences are more than excited to witness Aditya and Shraddha rekindled love on the big screen. A remake of the Tamil hit OK Kanmani, which was helmed by Mani Ratnam, starred Dulquer Salmaan and Nithya Menon. The first look of sexy Raai Laxmis debut Bollywood film Julie 2 was recently released on social media. The high glam quotient and bold approach of Raais posters created a huge buzz, grabbed many eyeballs and is trending on the Internet. She is all set to sizzle Btown audiences with her powerful role in the movie, which is directed, by Deepak Shivdasani and is said to be a steamy sequel to his earlier movie Julie, which featured Neha Dupia. If one remembers, Neha had caught everyones attention with a picture in which she was seen exposing her entire back, with only a white cloth draped down the waist. Deepak has used a similar technique now as well. Here, Laxmi looks ultra glamorous, showing her back to the audience and is covered in a transparent plain white fabric. Many who had gone from the south to Bollywood, including Shruti Haasan, Rana Daggubati and Prabhu Deva, have appreciated her hot look. They took to twitter and praised her first look, and wished her good luck in Btown. Rating: Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton, John Slattery, Liev Schreiber, Brian dArcy James Director: Tom McCarthy Spotlight is the name of an investigative team at the Boston Globe. The team consists of Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Robby Robinson (Michael Keaton), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Matt Carroll (Brian dArcy James), who are stewarded by their senior editors Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) and Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery) to investigate a series of reports on child molestation scandals involving priests in Boston. The reporters, many of them being raised Catholic, have their faith and personal convictions tested as a seemingly small case leads to a flood of revelations about the corruption of the Catholic Church and the collusion with political, legal and academic institutions in hiding paedophile priests and preventing their victims from getting justice. Spotlight superficially calls to mind films like All the Presidents Men, The Insider and films about crusading journalists. The similarity is not without merit, but I would argue that Spotlight is different, as it doesnt adopt any elements from the thriller genre that other films tackle. There is very little over-dramatisation in the portrayal of investigative journalism. Its entirely concerned with process and procedure. We know that the reporters will complete the investigation and conduct their expose, what matters is how the truth is uncovered and how the journalists react. As such Spotlight is less about the investigation of a scandal than a documentary about how investigation works, institutions work and how information is preserved and accessed. The film takes care to preserve an ensemble. Its not a movie with one main character so much as multiple characters tracking leads along parallel lines. The films cross-cutting juggles these threads to prevent the claustrophobia of the films mundane settings from seeping through. Most of the movie takes place in offices at Boston Globe, homes, cafes and other places where interviews are taken. The film avoids tedium by changing exterior locations constantly, quick cutting (albeit in a conventional form) the various extended discussions and deftly juggling various separate threads. So one can see that Rachel McAdams character does most of the one-on-one interactions with the victims, Mark Ruffalo goes to the courthouse and interacts with the genuinely decent lawyer played by Stanley Tucci and the various archives. Michael Keaton and Liev Schreiber talk to the higher-ups in the city and Church administration. This documentary-like division calls to mind films such as Steven Soderberghs Traffic and Contagion, where a single social issue was explored across multiple institutional levels. But this is also a potential weakness, as Soderberghs films, though heavily fictionalised, focused on the human element and turmoil caused by drugs and biological disasters. The social disaster of the Catholic Church fundamentally betraying its tenets however, is kept at arms length. Spotlight rarely touches on the psyche of the victims, merely hinting at it. One brief scene discusses the mentality of paedophile priest, suggesting that they were stunted in brain or that celibacy has caused these problems. The scene which shows us a paedophile priest, a weird child-like monster who himself claims to be a victim of rape, is scary and chilling. What the film gets right is the culture of Boston, a traditionally Irish Catholic community, which is afraid of confronting a dark aspect of its society and culture. The film is genuinely informative in telling us how the Church maintained its cloak of secrecy on paedophilia. Accused priests were transferred to a different church and reporters estimate the number of priests accused by tracking transfers. Spotlight is incredibly well-acted. Michael Keaton, Rachel MacAdams and Mark Ruffalo are standouts as the three leads all of them playing character parts. Ruffalo is intense and passionate, unsentimental in his heroism. Spotlight is a tribute to journalism and news coverage. It is, perhaps, a film that invites bias from film critics since it touches on our turf of familiarity. Yet, it is a mature, compelling film that is genuinely informative about a very serious issue. The writer is programmer, Lightcube Film Society Police arrested a suspect Wednesday wanted in a hit-and-run crash that killed a bicyclist last week in San Jose, officials said Thursday. The suspect, 23-year-old Christopher Africa, was arrested without incident at his San Jose home and booked in Santa Clara County Jail. Africa was sought in the Feb. 12 hit-and-run death of 44-year-old Toedoro Arredando-Diaz, who was struck while riding his bike near Winchester Boulevard and Driftwood Drive, said Officer Albert Morales, a San Jose police spokesman. Officers got to the scene shortly after midnight and found Arredando-Diaz dead. The driver had fled northbound on Winchester Boulevard in a red Honda Del Sol, Morales said. Later that morning, around 8:45, police found the Honda ditched in a parking lot near South Winchester and Magliocco Drive. Five days later, police arrested Africa after identifying him as the suspected driver. Africa is being held on $50,000 bail. He is due in Santa Clara County Superior Court at noon Friday. Evan Sernoffsky is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @EvanSernoffsky Ms. Sabi claimed that she watched the predator devour his prey for over an hour and was just an arms length away from the creatures. (Screen grab) One python gobbled down his lunch a king parrot but struggled for an hour to digest it in an incredible video shot by an observer. The incident occurred in Australias New South Wales right outside Rainbow Sabis house. Ms. Sabi claimed that she watched the predator devour his prey for over an hour and was just an arms length away from the creatures, reports the Daily Mail. She then decided that it was a wonderful opportunity to capture the snakes killer moves on camera. Ms. Sabi, who is an avid bird feeder, added that she had only seen such kills thrice in her life. Click on the link below to watch the amazing video: This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate After nearly five hours of often emotional testimony from porn stars and others in the adult film industry, state regulators voted Thursday against a controversial set of workplace safety regulations that would have required performers to use condoms. The regulations, drafted by the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health, would have put adult performers in the same category as doctors, nurses and others who work in medical settings and are required to use barriers for protection. Thursdays vote in Oakland was met with cheers and jubilation from a roomful of mostly porn film actors and behind-the-scenes workers who opposed the measures. They listened to us for the first time, said Jessica Drake, a performer with Wicked Pictures, an adult film company. Im shocked. Im amazed. Im appreciative. The proposed regulations needed four of five votes to pass, but failed by a single vote, 3-2, when two members said they needed more input from the porn film industry. It ended six years of work that had been put into coming up with rules for protecting the safety of sex film workers. But the board voted to ask for a new proposal, and porn industry officials and performers plan to be involved in the new process. More than 80 speakers addressed the board, and the vast majority of them porn performers using real or stage names, filmmakers, health advocates and academic specialists argued that the new regulations would actually increase the risk to the performers by resulting in less testing than current industry protocols dictate. They said the rules would violate personal privacy and push the industry underground or out of state. The very nature of our work defies these regulations, making it very challenging or impossible for us to do our jobs, said Chanel Preston, an adult film star from Los Angeles who serves as the president of the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee, which promotes safety in the porn industry. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which sponsored an ordinance in 2012 that requires condoms to be used in films made in Los Angeles County, pushed Cal/OSHA to approve the new rules, which include amending existing blood-borne pathogen standards to make them specifically apply to the adult film industry. Agency officials said condoms are supposed to be used on all sets in California, but the rules arent enforced. Opponents of the proposed rules feared they would also require the use of goggles or dental dams, which protect performers during oral sex, but foundation officials said that was a smoke screen to obscure the real issue of condom use in the adult film industry. Our goal is for condom use for vaginal and anal sex. We have never been looking for goggles or dental dams for oral sex, said Ged Kenslea, spokesman for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. The group put forward a handful of former porn actors who spoke in support of the new regulations. Youre ensuring (actors) safety, said Sofia Delgado, who stopped working in the industry in 2013 after being diagnosed with HIV. For that I stand here today thanking you from the bottom of my heart. But the vast majority were concerned that the proposed rules, which would have required testing every three months, would jeopardize the current industry practice of testing every 14 days. They also expressed fears about having their medical information exposed because the regulations require employers to keep them for 30 years. Cal/OSHA board member Dave Harrison, who cast one of the two votes against the proposal, wanted the workers to know that their health and safety is the boards highest concern. Mike Stabile, spokesman for Kink.com, a San Francisco porn studio, said he was pleased with Cal/OSHAs work on the issue. All we have asked for the past several years is for Cal/OSHA to work with the performers to develop sensitive regulations that ensure health and safety on the set, he said. Today they expressed their willingness to do so. Victoria Colliver is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: vcolliver@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @vcolliver New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday sought the response from Bollywood superstar Salman Khan on Maharashtra government's appeal against his acquittal in the 2002 hit-and-run case, observing that exoneration from the top court would "vindicate him once and for all". "Acquittal from this Court is important. If you (Salman Khan) are acquitted from here, you will be vindicated once and for all," a bench comprising justices J S Khehar and C Nagappan said while issuing notice to Khan on the plea of Maharshtra government. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the state, said the Bombay High Court had erred on two points while acquitting the filmstar. "Firstly, the High Court had erred in its finding by holding that there was 'erroneous application' of Section 33 of Evidence Act (relevancy of certain evidence for proving, in subsequent proceeding, the truth of facts therein stated) by the trial court," he said. Rohtagi said that on second count, the High Court had erred by holding that the prosecution witness Ravindra Patil, a constable who was guarding the actor and had first called the police, was not a "wholly reliable witness" and his version needed corroboration with accounts of other witnesses. The High Court took note of the fact that Patil, while recording his statement in his FIR, had said everything except the fact that Khan was drunk on that fateful night, he said. "Recording of the FIR is just an information about an incident and the FIR is not an encyclopaedia," Rohtagi said. The Attorney General said that Patil in his statement had said the actor had first gone to 'Rain Bar and Restaurant' at Vile Parle before ramming his Toyota Lexus car into a shop in suburban Bandra on September 28, 2002. In the accident one person lost his life and several were injured and Patil's statement said that three persons, Salman Khan, his singer friend Kamal Khan and he himself, were in the SUV, Rohatgi said. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Khan, said that in the FIR recorded on the statement of Patil, there was no mention of the actor being drunk. "He was a police officer and the first thing he would have said was that the actor was drunk," he said adding the other eye witness Kamal Khan was not examined. Sibal said the family driver, Ashok Singh, who deposed as a defence witness was also interrogated by the police but his statement was not recorded by the Investigating Officer (IO). The bench then asked Sibal what will the IO record if Ashok Singh does not say anything. Sibal further said that Patil in a newspaper interview just a day after the incident had refuted the suggestion that the actor was drunk while being behind the wheel. Rohtagi intervened and said the High Court had rejected this piece of evidence and it cannot be cited in the apex court. The bench after hearing the arguments posted the matter for further hearing after six weeks. The Maharashtra government's appeal 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. Among other grounds, the petition said, "High Court has erred in brushing aside the alcohol examination certificate and the evidence of the assistant chemical analyser just because there was some alleged delay in taking the blood samples and for sending it to the chemical analyser." The high court, in its verdict passed on December 10 last year, had held that 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 high court judgement 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 outside a laundry in suburban Bandra with his Toyota Land Cruiser, killing one and causing injury to four others. On May 6 last year, a sessions court had convicted Salman in the case. Mumbai: The chargesheet filed by CBI against Peter Mukerjea in his stepdaughter Sheena Boras murder case contains the statement of one of the childhood friends of the 25-year-old victim, which speaks about Sheenas unpleasant relation with her mother Indrani Mukerjea. Sanjana Raktim in her statement to CBI has said Sheena had come to Guwahati during Raktims marriage in 2011 and had showed her a ring in her finger saying she had got engaged with Rahul Mukerjea and was planning to marry him the next year. Sheenas marriage with Rahul would have led to people in Mumbai circle knowing that she was the daughter of Indrani (Mukerjea) and not sister, which would seriously affect of Indrani, said Raktim in her statement. Though the statement is found in the chargesheet filed against Peter Mukerjea, it speaks mainly about Sheenas relation with Indrani and not much about Peter. Raktim has given CBI printouts of e-mails exchanged between Sheena and her. These e-mails contain conversations about the sour relationship between Indrani and Sheena. In an email sent by Sheena on October 26, 2009, she said, I am not in touch with my mother (Indrani). She cant change. I have understood that till now. I dont wish to make my life difficult by getting back in touch with her. She has never made any efforts to make things better between us after all the Delhi incident and again trying to get me chucked out of my job. I have no good regards for her. I cannot forgive her. I am too happy with Aita, kaka, Mikhail and u guys. According to Raktim after consulting her cousin, who is a lawyer, she had advised Rahul Mukerjea to approach the police after he told her that Sheena had been untraceable after he had dropped her near National College in Mumbai. She also said that she also made efforts to find Sheena but they were in vain. The witness also told CBI that in 2002 Sheena showed Raktim a newspaper clipping about Indrani and Peter Mukerjeas marriage. Raktim said that after going through the news Sheena started weeping and said she and Mikhail were aware that Indrani was their mother. She has also said she received an e-mail on June 22, 2009 and came to know that Sheena was in hospital in an unconscious state. According to Raktim, Sheenas mail said, Bahut natak hua, phone mere pass nahin hai, milungi to bataungi (There was too much drama, I dont have my phone with me I will explain you whenever we will meet). In another mail sent to Raktim on August 26, 2009, Sheena told her Indrani tried to remove her from her job service and gave bullshit to her boss. Hyderabad: An 18-year-old girl who went missing from her home three months ago was found dead in the Hayathnagar forest area on Wednesday, police said. The girl, Manasa, whose body had decomposed, was in love with her neighbour Haribabu. They had eloped and committed suicide. Manasas body could not be traced and a missing case was registered. Her family identified her from her clothes and earrings. A suicide note saying that they should be buried in the same place was recovered from the spot. Police said that B. Manasas family migrated from Nalgonda and settled in Hayathnagar. She discontinued her studies after Class IX and was learning tailoring. Her neighbour, N. Haribabu, 25, an electrician, fell in love with Manasa. Coming to know of this her parents sent her to their relatives in Warangal. Haribabu came to know of this, went to Warangal and they eloped. On November 21 they went to a forest in Thattiannaram village, police said. Around midnight Haribabu sent an SMS to both families from his mobile saying they are committing suicide. Haribabu collapsed after consuming poison. Later, Haribabu ran on to the main road and called his family. His people rushed to the spot and found him unconscious by the roadside. Later, he died in hospital. Since then, Manasas family had been searching for her. On Wednesday, the police and her family started searching at the spot where Haribabu was found. About three km inside the forest we found a body covered with a sheet. Her family identified her from her clothes and earrings, said SI Venkatesh. Police also recovered a bag and a suicide note saying they had married. We are ending lives. Nobody is responsible. Please do not trouble those we contacted before our suicide, the note said. A suspicious death case was registered and the body was handed over to the family after postmortem. College students take part in the ceremony for setting of foundation stone for SAMEER at Port Kalavani Auditorium in Visakhapatnam on Thursday. Visakhapatnam: The spirit of Vizag and its citizens received a pat from the guests at Sameer Lab's stone laying ceremony. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, Union ministers M. Venkaiah Naidu, and Ravi Shankar Prasad appreciated the spirit of Vizagites during Cyclone Hudhud and also the discipline during the just concluded, Indian Navy's, International Fleet Review (IFR). Interestingly, Mr Chandrababu Naidu offered a land site to Union IT minister in Vizag to become a resident of this beautiful city, of course in lieu of assurances from the Centre to make AP the IT capital of India. Vizag is in limelight for good reasons, not for reasons like, beef festival, cow festival, kiss festival or Afzal Guru festival. City has attained international recognition off late. I should compliment the discipline and decorum of the people. I should salute the spirit of locals and the behaviour they have shown during Hudhud, said Mr Venkaiah Naidu. The Chief Minister said that with in one year he will make Vizag No. 1 city in the country. I will make Vizag No. 1 city in the country. Am confident of doing it without fail. Whenever I come to Vizag, I feel like staying back here. Such a beautiful city Vizag is the people here are self discipline. I offer a land site to the IT minister, Ravi Shankar to become a citizen of this city, but he should assure state become a IT capital of the country, Mr Chandrababu Naidu said. Mr Prasad also appreciated Vizagites for their behaviour during cyclone Hudhud, which devastated the city The four victims were rushed to nearby Rajawadi hospital where they were declared dead. (Photo: Video grab) Mumbai: Four railway workers were on Friday killed when they were run over by a local train between suburban Kurla and Vidyavihar stations. The mishap occurred between 6.15 am to 6.30 am when the four labourers, all railway contractual employees, came under the wheels of a Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST)-bound suburban train, a Government Railway Police official said. An inquiry would be constituted to ascertain the reason behind the mishap, he said. As per preliminary information, the accident occurred when the four contract labourers of railway were walking along the tracks between Kurla and Vidyavihar railway stations. They were run over by the Karjat-CST local train, Deputy Commissioner of Railway Police, Central Railway, Rupali Ambure said. The four victims were rushed to nearby Rajawadi hospital where they were declared dead, a senior railway official said. "It seems the trackmen may not have noticed the moving train as it was dark," he said, adding that more details about the incident were awaited. Earlier on November 3, 2013, four railway workers, carrying out maintenance work on the tracks, were killed after being hit by a speeding Kolhapur-bound long distance train between Thakurli and Kalyan railway stations in the neighbouring Thane district. Ansari had in the past even toyed with the idea of possible changes in rules for smooth running of the House. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: Apparently concerned over the virtual wash out of last two sessions, Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari has called a meeting of leaders of all parties in the Upper House on Sunday amid possibility of a tumultuous Budget session beginning February 23. This is perhaps the first such formal pre-session meeting convened by the Rajya Sabha Chairman. Significantly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also been invited for the meeting, which aims at ensuring a smooth three-month long session. Ansari had also held an informal meeting with leaders of Congress and BJP in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday as well. Rajya Sabha, where the government lacks majority, had seen repeated disruption in the Monsoon and Winter sessions with Congress and several other opposition parties blocking key economic reform measures of the Modi government. Repeatedly voicing his anguish over the disruptions, Ansari had in the past even toyed with the idea of possible changes in rules for smooth running of the House. As the Winter session of Rajya Sabha was adjourned sine die on December 23, Ansari had lamented that the record of this session belied the commitment to the principles of the Constitution "in good measure". Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu have also called separate all-party meetings on February 22, a day before the crucial session begins. Naidu had also held a meeting of leaders of a number of opposition parties on February 4 where it was decided to have a full-length session and not to go for any curtailment of its duration even as assembly elections in five states are scheduled in between. The government is keen to push its legislative agenda in the Budget session, including the pending bills on GST and real estate thwarted in the last two sessions, while the opposition is raring to target it on a host of issues, including the JNU row, dalit scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide, imposition of President's Rule in Arunachal Pradesh, terror attacks in Pathankot and Gurdaspur. Raising questions over the process of the appointment of Vice Chancellors of JNU and Delhi University, a number of opposition parties have come together against the government, accusing it of "undermining" the autonomy of the institutions. Naidu had last month met Congress President Sonia Gandhi seeking cooperation for the early passage of the crucial GST and the real estate bills. The Budget session of Parliament will commence on February 23 and will focus largely on the financial business of the government. The General Budget will be presented on February 29. People of jat community jam the Gurgaon- Alwar National Highway in Gurgaon during their agitation for reservation. (Photo: PTI) Rohatk: Shoot-at-sight orders have been issued on Friday in curfew-bound city areas of violence-hit Rohtak and Bhiwani in Haryana. Army was called in for deployment in eight districts of Haryana after one person was killed and 21 were injured in police action as Jat stir for quota turned violent and the rampaging mobs set ablaze the house of state's Finance Minister besides several government and private properties. Protestors also took some police personnel captive besides going on rampage at many places including Rohtak, Jhajjar and Hansi targeting police and private vehicles, buildings housing offices, including two Toll Plazas at Hansi in Hissar district and near Rohtak, both located on the Delhi-Hisar-Fazilka National Highway. Read: Army called in as Jat protesters attack Haryana ministers house, 1 killed The agitation, which has been going on for last few days, escalated and turned violent soon after an all-party meeting held by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar issued an appeal for calling it off but it was rejected by the protesters. Khattar gave an assurance that a solution will be worked out to extend reservation to the community. One protestor was killed in Rohtak when the BSF personnel opened fire in "self-defence" after someone from the rampaging mob fired at and injured a BSF jawan, Haryana DGP Yashpal Singhal told a press conference in Chandigarh. Since the situation was going out of control, army has been called in for deployment in eight worst-affected districts -- Rohtak, Jhajjar, Jind, Bhiwani, Hissar, Kaithal, Panipat and Sonipat, the state police chief said. Read: Haryana Jat leaders reject appeal of political parties to call off quota protest About 20 companies (about 2000 personnel) of central para military forces (CPMF) have been sought from the Centre, police said. Today, for the first time, the rail and road traffic on the Delhi Ambala National Highway and mainline railway route was also blocked by protestors at various places including in Sonipat district. A number of local, short distance and long distance trains, including Kalka Chandigarh Delhi Shatabdi have been cancelled in view of the Jats agitation. The DGP said police personnel were taken captive by the large number of protestors at some places including Rohtak and the cops were unable to perform their duties. Read: Jat quota: Internet services blocked as Haryana CM Khattar calls all-party meet The main impact of the Jats' agitation is in various districts of the state including Rohtak, Jhajjar, Bhiwani, Hissar, Fatehabad, Karnal, Jind, Yamuna Nagar, Sirsa and Gurgaon where road transport has come to a halt. In Rohtak, the protesters set on fire the residence of Finance Minister Abhimanyu, police said, adding a car parked outside the house was also set on fire. In view of this incident, security in and around the residences of ministers and legislators has been beefed up, officials said. Read: BJP warns of stern steps to deal with Jat protest in Haryana The protesters, who had gathered at the Rohtak bypass road of Delhi-Hisar National Highway, also allegedly attacked police vehicles, which were parked there in which window panes were damaged, officials said. The security personnel deployed there had to use force, including firing, to control the violent mob. "There is one death of an unidentified person because of (suspected) bullet injuries," said authorities of the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Science & Hospital 21 injured people, including one critical, have been admitted to the hospital, its authorities added. The Circuit House and the office of Inspector General of Police (IGP), Rohtak. were also attacked by the protestors who pelted stones on the buildings. A car parked at the IGP office was also damaged, officials said. Read: Jat quota stir: Curfew imposed in Rohtak, Bhiwani city areas of Haryana A police vehicle and some private vehicles, including a two-wheeler, were also set on fire. The scooter of a person who was taking a sick to a local hospital was also set on fire by the protestors. Elsewhere in various places in the state, protestors deflated tyres of cars of a number of people trying to travel on various National and State Highways in the state. Haryana Roadways has suspended its local and inter-state bus services in the affected districts. Mobile internet services have also been suspended in various districts including Rohtak and Jhajjar. Besides Haryana Police, personnel of Central Para Military Forces (CPMF) personnel have been deployed in various districts, including the worst affected Rohtak. Read: 1,000 paramilitary personnel rushed to Haryana; Rajnath Singh speaks to CM Senior civil and police officers held a meeting at the state headquarters in Chandigarh to review the situation arising out of the violence being reported from various parts of the state. Meanwhile a resident of Bhiwani approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court pointing out the difficulties and harassment being faced by residents of the state due to the Jat agitation. The Court has sought a status report from the state government. Meanwhile, the order for the suspension of mobile Internet and SMS services indefinitely in Rohtak were issued by Rohtak Deputy Commissioner D K Behera in the wake of Jat agitation spreading in the district. The order said it is feared that anti-social elements are spreading provoking pictures through Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram and SMS which could further disturb the law and order situation in the district. However, mobile services will continue in the district. Read: Several trains cancelled in wake of agitation by Jats in Haryana State BJP president Subhash Barala said "the Haryana CM has said that the state government is ready to take every step to give reservation to Jats. Opposition parties have promised us support in the Assembly on the issue." Former Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda also made an appeal for maintenance of peace and harmony in the state as there were "some forces" which were trying to create tension among the people. "The CM has assured that a solution will be worked out after holding discussion with agitating Jats. The solution should be such that nobody should suffer and everybody should benefit. We have told the government to take a decision in this regard on an urgent basis," Hooda said. INLD state president Ashok Arora asked the state government to seek an apology from Saini for his anti-Jat quota remarks. "We have also told the government that if the Tamil Nadu government can give reservation to its people by amending law, then the Haryana government should also follow the same route to give reservation to Jats. "However, it is for the government to take a decision. We also appeal to the protesting Jats to maintain peace in the interest of the state," Arora said. The meeting was also attended by CLP leader Kiran Chaudhary, Haryana Congress Chief Ashok Tanwar and Arora. 1: Whats the favorite food of California mountain lions, according to stomach contents examined by state wildlife experts? A: Dogs and cats. B: Deer. C: Trash can fast food. D: Road kill. 2: Fuel-stingy cars are producing what headache for state lawmakers? A: Voters expect them to drive small vehicles but they like big ones. B: Nearly a 25 percent drop in gas taxes is starving highway budgets. C: Gas station owners are demanding tax breaks to stay open. D: Pollution agencies complaining about less work. 3: What breed won the nations biggest dog show? A: Florida pit bull. B: Russian borzoi. C: German shorthaired pointer. D: Yorkshire terrier. 4: San Francisco has 260 official landmarks. Whats maybe next on the list? A: The first Walgreens to open here. B: Last remaining phone booth. C: Inside of a Frank Lloyd Wright downtown building. D: Homeless tent row on Division Street. 5: On an upcoming trip, President Obama will be the first president in nearly 90 years to visit where? A: North Korea. B: Iran. C: Congo. D: Cuba. Marshall Kilduff E-mail: mkilduff@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @marshallkilduff Answers: 1-A, 2-B, 3-C, 4-C, 5-D. I view Apple with almost as much loathing as I have for overzealous federal prosecutors. My last Apple phone was a lemon. The Genius Bar isnt. When I hear Apple extol its vaunted regard for privacy, I think of all the invasive personal questions my iPhone used to ask before I could download a free app. That was before I switched to Android. Liberated from 1 Infinite Loop thats Apple headquarters precious Cupertino street address I am free of owners cultish reverence for all things iPhone. So when I began reading CEO Tim Cooks open letter outlining the reasons why the most valuable corporation in the world would not submit to a judges order that Apple help break the encryption on a terrorists iPhone, I was ready to believe that Apple was putting its brand before public safety. But this is no black-and-white controversy. Its not: Apple thinks it doesnt have to obey court orders. And its not: The government just wants to mess with Apples encryption. Its more complicated. The FBI believes that the San Bernardino County Public Health Department-owned work iPhone of Syed Rizwan Farook who with his wife Tashfeen Malik killed 14 people on Dec. 2 may contain important information about other terrorists. Farook may have intentionally disabled a feature that sends data to the cloud on or after Oct. 19 to conceal the identities of confederates. Prosecutors want Apple to override its technology that wipes out phone data after 10 unsuccessful attempts to enter a pass code in order to see whats in Farooks phone. While critics of national intelligence surveillance like to rail against National Security Agency bulk data collection, this story is not about sweeping surveillance, It is about a judges warrant for the phone of a known terrorist and mass murderer. San Bernardino County gave the feds permission to tap phone data. It is possible that the phones contents could save lives. Or not. Julian Sanchez of the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, notes that Farook and Malik tried to destroy their burner phones, but not the iPhone. In practical terms, Sanchez argued, the Justice Department wants to risk iPhone security protocols on a bet that Farook hid data in a device he did not bother to destroy. Cook wrote that if the government forces Apple to bypass its security codes, then The encryption can be defeated by anyone with that knowledge. The answer to which should be: OK, dont share the knowledge. But to Cook, the exercise is like Pandoras box. You open the lid, all the bad things get out. Worse, the FBI essentially is demanding that Apple do the FBIs job: criminal investigation. Cook wrote, The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers. If the government can order a tech company to write a hacking program, can the government force other people to do investigators chores as well? Cyberlaw attorney Catherine Gellis described Apples position in a different manner. Apple is trying to deliver an invulnerable product, she told me. If Apple can break its own code, then its new iPhone is no longer a secure device. Its no longer invulnerable. You could say the government is demanding that Apple disprove its marketing claim that its phones are so secure that even Apple cannot hack into your data. Cook, Sanchez and Gellis fear that if the government succeeds in using the All Writs Act of 1789 to force Apple to undo its security measures, theres no way the Department of Justice stops with Farooks work phone. Indeed, Sanchez thinks thats the idea. He suspects this effort is less about Farooks phone and more about finding a high-profile case to push a novel and somewhat unprecedented use of an 18th century law. It wouldnt be the first time the feds have used their considerable muscle to pick on the wrong person. In 2007, the government imprisoned videographer Josh Wolf for seven months based on the incorrect belief that Wolf had video that might reveal the identity of a protester who seriously injured a San Francisco police officer. I just dont see them doing that to Apple, former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow told me. Harlow doesnt think Uncle Sam would haul such a large corporation into court unless there was no other recourse. For one thing, These are all senior government lawyers who want to get jobs with Apple when they leave the government. The government is still pursuing its investigation. Thursday, officials executed a search warrant on Farooks brothers home. Gellis told me that once Apple admits its pass codes wear no clothes, entrepreneurs and hostile foreign governments will try to create their own back door into the iPhone. I have to think others already are trying to hack iPhone security software, because the notion of inviolability sounds too good to be true. But that doesnt mean its smart to encourage hackers. Or that its smart to develop antiencryption software that others can steal. The trade-off is: risk inviting China and freelancers to break iPhone security in the hope that Farook left useful intelligence in his iPhone. The downside may be far worse than the upside is good. Debra J. Saunders is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. E-mail: dsaunders@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @DebraJSaunders The worm in the Apple Apples iPhone 5C can be unlocked when an owner or user enters his own pass code. After 10 consecutive incorrect pass-code entries, the phone erases encryption keys without warning. Only software cryptographically signed by Apple can be used on iPhones. (Inside Science) -- By using fluids similar to Silly Putty that can behave as both liquids and solids, researchers say they have created fluid robots that might one day perform tasks that conventional machines cannot. Conventional robots are made of rigid parts that are vulnerable to bumps, scrapes, twists and falls. In contrast, researchers worldwide are increasingly developing robots made from soft, elastic plastic and rubber that are inspired by worms, starfish and octopuses. These soft robots can resist many of the kinds of damage, and can squirm past many of the obstacles, that can impede hard robots. However, even soft robots and the living organisms they are inspired by are limited by their solidity for example, they remain vulnerable to cutting. Instead, researcher Ido Bachelet of Bar-Ilan University in Israel and his colleagues have now created what they call fluid robots that they say could operate better than solid robots in chaotic, hostile environments. They detailed their findings online Jan. 22 in the journal Artificial Life. The researchers experimented with so-called non-Newtonian fluids. Water acts mostly like a Newtonian fluid, meaning the degree to which it resists flowing its viscosity generally stays constant regardless of the mechanical force applied against it. In contrast, the viscosity of a non-Newtonian fluid can vary depending on the rate that mechanical force is applied against it. For instance, the non-Newtonian fluid Silly Putty can flow like a viscous liquid but also snap or bounce like an elastic solid. Suspensions that is, liquids with particles mixed into them are often non-Newtonian fluids. For example, when water is filled with starch particles, it becomes a doughy substance known as oobleck that acts solid if you run across it but liquid if you stand still on it. After testing a variety of non-Newtonian fluids, Bachelet and his colleagues developed prototype fluid robots made of blobs of starch grains suspended in a sugary solution. Sound waves from audio speakers underneath the surface where the blobs rested helped control their mechanical properties, and depending on the volumes and frequencies of the sounds, the researchers could make the blobs move. The scientists could make the fluid robots drag metal items more than five times their weight. The blobs could also change shape, split into smaller blobs that could be controlled individually, merge to form larger blobs, and drip through gratings. These qualities suggest that fluid robots might find use in search and rescue missions, dripping into otherwise unreachable places and merging at their destinations to carry weights and perform work, the researchers noted. "It's really novel it's a robot that basically doesn't have any parts," said mechanical engineer David Hu at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who did not take part in this research. The blobs could even be made to "count" up to three, Bachelet and his colleagues said. When they absorbed aluminum oxide, they became more rigid, and after they engulfed three dough packets laced with aluminum oxide, they became too stiff to move. The scientists suggest that fluid robots carrying chemical payloads could interact and perform chemical reactions. Potential applications might include multiple fluid robots working together in an assembly line to synthesize compounds or break down waste, they said. The fact that these blobs need to rest on sound-generating platforms to move is an obvious limitation, Bachelet and his colleagues admitted. However, the researchers said that future research could likely extend the concept to new control methods. For instance, sound beams could steer these blobs from a distance, they said. Moreover, using magnetic or electrically charged fluids could lead to fluid robots that could also be steered with magnetic or electric fields. Combining multiple techniques of control might lead to very elaborate and capable designs, they added. Bachelet and his colleagues suggested that fluid robots could be given coatings much like those protecting cells, which could prevent incidental mixing and reduce water loss from evaporation. "In this regard, fluid robots could show unexpected similarities to primitive life forms," they wrote in their paper. The researchers developed their fluid robot designs through trial and error, since the physics underlying non-Newtonian fluids is still not well understood. They suggested further research into fluid robots could in turn help scientists better understand non-Newtonian fluid behavior. "Overall, I think the concept of fluid robots is exciting," said roboticist Michael Tolley at the University of California, San Diego, who did not participate in this work. However, he noted that in order to classify a machine as a robot, most researchers would require it to have the ability to make decisions by itself. "We are a long way off from addressing the tough challenge of designing a fluid that is able to think and act autonomously," Tolley said. Charles Q. Choi is a freelance science writer based in New York City who has written for The New York Times, Scientific American, Wired, Science, Nature, and many other news outlets. He tweets at @cqchoi. Reprinted with permission from Inside Science, an editorially independent news product of the American Institute of Physics, a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing, promoting and serving the physical sciences. 1. Tech Fashion Week: Various events, forums and summits focused on wearable and retail tech and their intersection with fashion comprise this fourth annual event put on by the San Francisco Fashion and Merchants Alliance. Feb. 20-28, various locations. Tickets: $11-$21. www.techfashionweek.net/ 2. LaFleur encore: MM.LaFleur returns to San Francisco with its bento box approach to workwear essentials. 10 a.m-8 p.m. Feb. 24-28. The Clift Hotel, 495 Geary St., S.F. https://mmlafleur.com/visit/san-francisco BEIRUT In another setback to international efforts to resolve Syrias devastating civil war, peace talks are not to resume next week in Geneva, a U.N. envoy announced as Turkey on Friday intensified cross-border artillery shelling on areas dominated by Syrias U.S.-backed, mostly Kurdish militia. But reinforcing its image as a key force battling the Islamic State group on the ground, the predominantly Kurdish coalition, known as the Syria Democratic Forces, on Friday captured the town of Shaddadeh in the countrys northeast. The town was one of the biggest strongholds of the extremists. Meanwhile, Russia called for an urgent Security Council meeting over the deteriorating border situation. A statement posted on the Russian foreign ministrys website said it intends to submit a draft council resolution calling on Turkey to cease any actions that undermine Syrias sovereignty and territorial integrity. In comments to Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, said the Syria talks wont resume in Geneva on Feb. 25 as he had previously hoped. He said that he cannot realistically get the parties in the Syrian conflict back to the table by then, but we intend to do so soon. Fighting has fighting intensified in Syria over the past weeks and a deadline to cease military activities has not been observed. The United States, Russia and other world powers agreed Feb. 12 on a deal calling for the ceasing of hostilities within a week, the delivery of urgently needed aid to besieged areas of Syria and a return to peace talks in Geneva. De Mistura halted the latest Syria talks on Feb. 3, because of major differences between the two sides, exacerbated by increased aerial bombings and a wide military offensive by Syrian troops and their allies under the cover of Russian airstrikes. In an interview published late Thursday on the Swedish dailys website, he said, We need real talks about peace, not just talks about talks. En route to Jordan for talks about Syria and other issues, Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday he is still hopeful about a cease-fire and peace talks for Syria, even though Geneva talks will not resume next week. Kerry said tough and complex issues remain and there is more work to do to resolve them. He added that the U.S. wants the process to be sustainable so that hostilities can be halted. In recent weeks, Syrian government forces captured dozens of villages and towns across the country while the SDF evicted opposition fightersfrom areas near the border with Turkey . New Delhi: Vikram Singh Chauhans patriotism catapulted to a notch higher when he undertook the responsibility of pronouncing justice in the JNU protest case and took to violence as Kanhaiya Kumar, the JNUSU president, was being taken to the Patiala House court. His frenzied approach garnered applauds among groups who believe that anti-nationals like the JNU students should be taught a lesson such that they avoid taking anti-India stand. On Thursday, lawyers from the Shahdara Bar Association felicitated Chauhan for his approach towards the issue. According to media reports, lawyers of Shahdara Bar association led a candle march outside the gate of Karkardoma court that was attended by Chauhan. The president of the bar association garlanded Chauhan and assured him of their undue support. However, the District Bar Coordination Committee (DBCC) has condemned the violence that took place in the premise of the local Court. Further, the committee rubbished the involvement of lawyers in the scuffle and has demanded a thorough investigation into the matter. Denouncing the violence on the fateful day, Advocate RK Wadhwa, chairman of the committee said in a press release that the committee has requested the Chief Justice of India to look over the situation and asked that entry to the court premises should be well monitored, and security of judicial officers and lawyers should be a matter of prime concern. Pyne Gould Corp, whose NZX-listed shares have been suspended from trading since October, is warning that an early wind up of the Torchlight Fund housing distressed assets it manages would lead to a loss of value for investors. The Guernsey-based company is embroiled in litigation with investors who are seeking to wind up the Torchlight Fund and have brought legal action in the Cayman Islands. Last month, the court granted an injunction preventing payment to the fund's general partner without the investors' consent, Pyne Gould said in a statement. The petition had sought an injunction preventing the use of proceeds from the sale of Torchlight's Local World newspaper group for $45 million. "The general partner is robustly opposing the petition as it is not in the best interest of the partnership for the underlying assets to be liquidated, as is being sought by the petitioners," Pyne Gould said. "The general partner believes it self-evident that a premature liquidation of the assets of TLP will result in substantial value loss for all limited partners." Pyne Gould set up the Torchlight unit to buy distressed assets after the collapse of New Zealand's finance sector, as a way to house bad loans as part of the recapitalisation of Marac Finance which was later sold into the Heartland Bank merger. The financial services firm controlled by managing director George Kerr faces litigation on several fronts, including a disputed penalty fee on a A$37 million loan from Australian businessman John Grill, and damages claims and counter-claims over Pyne Gould's sale of Perpetual Trust to Bath Street Capital. Separately, the company said Grant Thornton had completed the first audit of the 2015 accounts for Pyne Gould's Torchlight subsidiary with an unqualified opinion, and was working to consolidate that into the group accounts. Pyne Gould has yet to file its 2015 accounts, prompting the suspension of its shares on the NZX, the second year in a row it was censured for a late annual report. The shares last traded at 24.5 cents. 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: Mainfreight Investor Day / Market Update GFI - Greenfern - Offer closes 27th Oct MCY - Quarterly Operational Update VCT - Operational performance for the 3 months ended 30 Sept 2022 NZL - Forestry Estate Acquisition October 21st Morning Report 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 Australasian Food Corporation Ltd (AFC), the NZAX listed food exporter has signed an agreement to purchase Whangarei based wine maker Longview Estate. The Vineyard was established by the Vuletich family in 1969. The Vuletich family pioneered winemaking in the Whangarei District. The Vineyard is best known for its White Diamond wine which has a distinctive authentic fresh taste which is very attractive to Asian palates. Mr. Brent King, Director of AFC said, Mr. Xia, the largest shareholder of AFC via his private company NZ Silveray Ltd, has been reviewing a number opportunities to export high quality food products to China. When wine from Whangarei was first suggested there was considerable skepticism as it was not a region known for its quality wines. As AFC undertook further research it became clear that the White Diamond Wine was very popular with New Zealand based Asian purchasers and that it was frequently given as a quality gift. This came as a surprise to a most people. AFC will own 51% of the Vineyard owning company, Australasian Food Corporation Longview Ltd, and there will be two other shareholders, NZ Silveray Group Ltd with 19% and a Chinese national Ms. Yinrui Shen with 30%. AFCs investment is $1,224,000 for its 51%. AFC will pay its contribution from cash reserves. AFC is very pleased that it has reached an agreement with Mr. Mario Vuletich and his daughter Maree to continue working for the company. AFC will benefit from the depth of knowledge Mario and Maree have in Longview Estate and in the wine industry in general, said Mr. King Mr. King also commented, AFC has made progress in developing the exporting business. In addition to the already announced purchase of National Dairy Group Ltd, AFC has more recently set up a team specialising in International trade focusing on China. This Group operates through the subsidiary AFC International Trading Group Ltd. The team is in its early stages, however there has been some promising progress made and we are hopeful of the group will make a very positive contribution to the financial results in the year ended 31March 2017. 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: Mainfreight Investor Day / Market Update GFI - Greenfern - Offer closes 27th Oct MCY - Quarterly Operational Update VCT - Operational performance for the 3 months ended 30 Sept 2022 NZL - Forestry Estate Acquisition October 21st Morning Report 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 An increased number of passengers spending more on retail, and specialty retail in particular, helped boost first-half profit by 25 percent at Auckland International Airport, the countrys largest airport operator. Net profit rose to $115 million in the six months ended Dec.31, from $92.8 million a year earlier while underlying profit, which strips out revaluations of investment property and financial derivatives, was up 19 percent to $104.1 million. Revenue for the national gateway rose 12 percent to $280.6 million on the back of improvements across the board. Retail was the star performer contributing $78.6 million of the total, up 21 percent while investment property income rose 16 percent to $28 million. Chief executive Adrian Littlewood said the strong lift in retail follows a two-year programme of increasing the retail footprint, re-leasing, product mix changes, and a duty free tender that saw LS Travel Retail Pacific and Aer Rianta International start operations in July. The duty free retailers had done a great job so far of bedding in their operations, he said, and had introduced new innovations such as a duty free collections robot and a Johnny Walker House, one of only six worldwide, that had proved successful. He warned there will need to be careful planning to minimise disruption to retail during the $160 million to $180 million international terminal expansion project which will add around 65 percent to the primary retail footprint. That projects being delivered in three phases with a configured farewell area and the first half of the two anchor duty free shops due for completion by December. Auckland Airport's guidance for the full year in 2016 has gone up nearly 9 per cent to between $200 million and $206 million on the back of the strong performance. The board declared an interim dividend of 8.5 cents per share, with a March 24 record date, payable on April 7. In October, the airport updated its forecast capital expenditure for the 2016 financial year to between $230 million and $260 million as a result of growth in the business, with construction due to start later this year on an international pier expansion to accommodate more aircraft gates. That includes $135 million of aeronautical capital expenditure, a meaty annual spend that is expected to be continued around that level for the next few years. Littlewood said the strong results follow a 6.7 percent increase in total passenger movements to 8.4 million on back of New Zealands strong performance in tourism which is now the number one export earner with the dairy downturn. The growth was consistent across international, transit and domestic passengers and also by regions with Asia up 11 percent in the half. At half year we have achieved nearly 80 percent of entire FY15 domestic passenger growth, he said. The airport celebrated its 50th anniversary this year and passenger volumes have grown from 750,000 in the first year to more than 16 million during the past 12 months.The results was also underpinned by new routes, increased capacity, and six new airlines having commenced or announced services to Auckland in the past 12 months. Littlewood said the airport was expecting passenger growth of around the same level in the next half, providing airlines, the trade, and airport were able to ensure load factors matched the new capacity. Auckland Airports property continues to perform strongly with demand in Auckland for close and connected commercial space, and its speculative development is continuing with the construction of a $13 million warehouse unit and a 9,000 square metre office development, while work has begun on expanding a further 19 hectares of development land. With inbound tourism pushing up hotel occupancy rates, Auckland Airport said it has selected a preferred partner, which it hasn't yet made public, for its third hotel. Based on market feedback, the hotel will now be a premium rather than mid-grade product with 250 rooms, and construction's likely to start later this year. That leaves opportunity for the airport to consider developing a budget hotel in the next couple of years, Littlewood said. Its 20 per cent share in the Novotel with Tainui Holdings delivered an increased earnings share of $800,000, up 33 percent on a 1 percent rise in average occupancy during the half. The airport company owns a 24.55 percent stake in North Queensland Airports which has airports in Cairns and Mackay and a 25 percent stake in Queenstown Airport. Total profit share from associates was down 24 percent to $4.1 million with Queenstown Airport performing well up 26 percent to $1.5 million on increases in both domestic and international passengers. The revenue share from its North Queensland Airports dropped by 50 percent to $1.8 million due to movements in financial instruments, but the underlying earnings were up 22 percent to $4.5 million. Littlewood said the airport was always on the lookout to invest in other airports, but none of the opportunities that crossed his desk for airports in the region, including the Pacific Islands, met the company's criteria for a quality investment. 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: Mainfreight Investor Day / Market Update GFI - Greenfern - Offer closes 27th Oct MCY - Quarterly Operational Update VCT - Operational performance for the 3 months ended 30 Sept 2022 NZL - Forestry Estate Acquisition October 21st Morning Report 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 Targeting right-wing forces, CPI(M) said those who glorify Nathuram Godse as a national hero, are in no position to term Left leaders as anti-national. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: Accusing RSS and BJP of making "false allegations", Left parties on Friday said they will hold nationwide protests next week against the alleged "anti-national" tag being given to them by Hindutva forces. After a meeting of six Left parties on Friday, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury told reporters that the protests will be held between February 23 and 25. He said a delegation comprising leaders of Left parties and MPs from JD(U), RJD and NCP will call on President Pranab Mukherjee seeking his intervention in the row even as he stressed that JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar must be released forthwith". "On the basis of false allegations, the RSS-BJP have mounted an all-India attack against Indian people, targeting the Left. This anti-national label they want to give to all others except themselves is something completely unacceptable. So, Left parties have decided to hold an all-India protest campaign against what the RSS-BJP is doing under this Government's patronage," Yechury said. Targeting right-wing forces on the issue, he said those who "glorify" Mahatma Gandhi's killer Nathuram Godse as a national hero, are in "no position" to term Left leaders as "anti-national". Referring to the decision that all central varsities will fly tricolour atop a 207-feet tall mast on their campuses to signify a "strong India", Yechury took a dig at the Centre saying such "whipping of jingoism" will not earn it "credible" points on nationalism. "The size of the tricolour in our hearts and the comrades of the Left is much larger than any size this government may hoist in any university," Yechury, flanked by other Left leaders, said. Citing the alleged attack on CPI(M) head office and "threats" to him and CPI national secretary D Raja over their stand on the varsity row, he said that Left leaders will meet the attack "politically and democratically". Meanwhile, a delegation of Left leaders, along with MPs of NCP, JD(U) and RJD, will meet President Pranab Mukherjee in the evening, seeking his intervention in the JNU row being Visitor of the university. "We will convey the decisions taken by Left parties along with other democratic secular parties who are present in Parliament to the President. The President is the Visitor of the JNU. "He has and he should in that capacity as the Visitor of the university intervene to stop this sort of a direct insurrection against the Indian Constitution that the RSS-BJP have launched under the patronage of the Modi government," Yechury said. Besides Yechury and Raja, the meeting was attended by CPI(M) leaders Prakash Karat and S Ramchandran Pillai, CPI general secretary S Sudhakar Reddy, CPI(ML)-Liberation's Swapan Mukherjee, RSP leader Abani Roy, AIFB general secretary Debabrata Biswas and Pran Sharma of SUCI(C). Lawyers clash among themselves at Patiala House Court where JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar was being produced in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: Scores of lawyers, including those who allegedly assaulted journalists and JNU students and teachers on two occasions, held a protest march on Friday demanding action against those "indulging" in "anti-India" activities. The lawyers, mostly from Patiala House and several other district courts, marched aggressively, around the India Gate circle, shouting slogans and waving the tricolour, in presence of heavy police security. Some of the lawyers who were caught on camera leading brazen assaults on journalists and JNU students on Monday and Wednesday were part of the protest and appeared to be unfazed by the outrage due to their acts. "We will keep attacking the anti-nationals no matter what. We will not tolerate any insult to our motherland. Let police issue summons against us," said a lawyer involved in the assaults. Another lawyer claimed those who attacked the mediapersons were outsiders and do not belong to the legal fraternity. "They were not lawyers. Lawyers do not cross limits set by the rule books. Outsiders may have been there. Media is defaming the community," he said. Groups of lawyers had attacked mediapersons and JNU students and teachers at the Patiala House court complex on Monday when JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar was to be produced for remand proceedings. The lawyers repeated the act on Wednesday too and even roughed up Kumar, triggering widespread criticism. The police had issued summons to three lawyers in connection with the assaults but they are yet to respond. New Delhi: Naxal violence has dipped in AP even as the spread of the Maoist influence and activities across the Red zone in Left-wing extremism-affected states was restricted to 141 districts in 2015 from 162 districts in 2014. Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday reviewed the Naxal threat in AP and other states at a meeting with senior officials in Visakhapatnam where he credited security agencies, developmental programmes and policies of the government for the improved scenario. Mr Singh said that the LWE situation in the country has shown massive improvement in the recent months, with the number of incidences of violence coming down to 1,088 in 2015. Praising the role of the state police in leading the fight against Naxals, he stressed the need for cooperation between AP and its neighbouring states. The state has already completed construction of 11 fortified police stations, Mr Sing was informed. The MHA has also approved one extra battalion of BSF to AP with Mr Singh assuring the state of the fast implementation of the decision. Assuring the state government of speedy clearance of projects, he said under the Road Requirement Plan (RRP)-2, the Centre has approved laying of 1,200-km of roads in AP out of total 5,400-km to be laid across the country. Construction of 53 mobile towers has been allotted under the first phase to boost the communication network in LWE-affected areas of AP. Of these, 33 towers have already been activated. They will aid security forces and bridge the disconnect between the far flung areas under Maoist influence. The remaining 20 are under construction, the meeting was informed. Mr Singh observed that Maoists-hit states witnessed lowest violence in six years, with casualties and incidents coming down substantially in 2015. While nearly one lakh paramilitary personnel continued to be deployed in LWE-affected areas, 10 Naxal-hit states -- AP, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, TS, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh -- saw 226 deaths in 1,088 incidents of violence perpetrated by Maoists last year. According to Home Ministry statistics, in 2010, there were 2,213 incidents of violence in which 1,005 people lost their lives and in 2011, a total of 611 people were killed in 1,760 incidents. In 2014, there were 1,091 incidents of Maoist violence in the 10 states in which 310 people lost their lives. In 2015, of the 226 deaths, 168 were civilians and 58 were security forces personnel. As many as 89 Maoists were also killed and 1,668 were arrested and 570 cadres surrendered before authorities during the year. Out of these seven boats, six had ventured into the sea from Okha port while one is registered in Porbandar. (Photo: PTI) Ahmedabad: The Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (MSA) has apprehended at least 40 Indian fishermen and seized seven of their boats near Jakhau port off the Gujarat coast in the early hours today, according to the National Fishworkers' Forum. "The Pakistan Maritime Security Agency apprehended at least 40 Indian fishermen along with 7 of their boats near Jakhau port off the Gujarat coast at Arabian sea late last night," Secretary of National Fishworkers' Forum (NFF) Manish Lodhari told. Out of these seven boats, six had ventured into the sea from Okha port while one is registered in Porbandar, Lodhari claimed. "Primary reports have revealed that all of them were captured near International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL), as these fishermen may have crossed the line due to dense fog during early morning. There is a possibility that the count of seized boats and fishermen may rise," he said. Since there are no physical markings in the sea, fishermen are dependent on the GPS system installed on their boats to find out their exact location in the sea and proximity with IMBL. "However, GPS is not fitted in all the boats. Moreover, only latest GPS devices show the IMBL on the screen, while older such devices do not support that function. As a result, it is difficult for fishermen to determine their exact location, even if they have GPS facility," Lodhari said. New Delhi: India on Friday expressed disappointment that neither terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed nor its chief Masood Azhar were named in an FIR registered in Pakistan to probe last month's Pathankot terror strike. "It is a small step in the right direction. But it is disappointing that neither the name of Jaish nor Masood Azhar was incorporated in the FIR," a senior government official said. Pakistan filed the FIR against "unknown persons" after weeks of probe into the attack on the air base on January 2 in which seven security personnel were killed. It was registered at the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) in Gujranwala in the neighbouring country's Punjab province. "We have failed to understand why Jaish and its chief's names were not included in the FIR despite India giving adequate evidence about their involvement," the official said. According to Pakistan's CTD, the FIR is needed for starting police and judicial proceedings on the basis of evidence collected in connection with the attack for which India has blamed Pakistan-based JeM. India has identified Azhar as the mastermind behind the attack. It has also blamed his brother Rauf and five others for carrying out the attack. Law Minister of Pakistan's Punjab province, Rana Sanaullah, said if anyone, including Azhar, is found guilty of involvement in the attack, they will be prosecuted. "No one becomes guilty upon naming (in a case). I don't want to name anyone at this stage. Let the probe be completed and if Masood Azhar is involved, action will be taken," Sanaullah said. He also urged India to provide any evidence it has on Azhar or anybody else's involvement in the attack. BENGALURU: Xolo has launched Era 4G, its latest low budget smartphone as a new addition to the companys Era series. The Indian based smartphone maker has unveiled this phone just after few days of its previously launched version- Xolo Era 4K. The company declared that the phone will be exclusively available for buyers on e-commerce website Snapdeal. Registrations for the device have already kicked-off on Snapdeal and it will be available from February 26 onwards through flash sale on the website. The price decided by the company for this smartphone is 4,777. It makes it well in reach for those persons searching for medium budget smartphones with good specifications. Coming to its specifications as mentioned by Tech2 website, Xolo tried hard to make this new edition quite competitive with similar categories of mid-range smartphones already present in the market, and they succeeded in doing the same. Era 4G features a 5-inch display with a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels and approximate pixel density of 294ppi. The Corning Gorilla Glass display provides durability with extra-added protection. It is powered by 1.5GHz quad-core Spectrum SC9830A processor along with 1GB RAM. The phone runs on Android Lollipop v5.1 operating system and as the companys official website suggests, the phone will come with upgradable option to Android Marshmallow v6.0. Its storage space isnt disappointing either considering the price, as the device is inbuilt with 8GB internal storage which can be expanded up to 32GB by using microSD card. The phone measures about 145.5 x 72 x 8.45 mm and the weight will be about 142gms. As far as concerning camera, Xolo Era 4G is equipped with 5MP primary camera with LED flash for capturing your best moments and for the selfie lovers a 2MP front camera is also present. Era 4G is inbuilt with 3.5mm audio jack, a micro USB 2.0 port, FM radio, Bluetooth v4.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi Hotspot, GPRS / EDGE, 3G,4G LTE, USB-OTG and GPS / A-GPS. It incorporates 2500mAh removable battery and according to Xolo, the device has a 3G standby time of 329 hours and 3G talktime backup of about 10 hours and 45 minutes. The device supports dual sim service and also has 4G LTE connectivity with VoLTE. The phone is designed to support 10 regional languages of India that includes Punjabi, Bengali, Assamese, Telugu, Tamil, Gujarati, Marathi, Assamese, Malayalam and Kannada. The model is released as a successor to its previously acclaimed Xolo Era model launched some days back, having a record sale of about 150,000 units through Snapdeal. Read Also: 10 Weird but Innovative Gadgets to Come out in 2016 India One of Fastest Growing Smartphone Markets in Asia Pacific: Report NEW YORK: A day after Google's Indian-American Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sundar Pichai supported arch rival Apple to fight a court order to help the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) break into the iPhone 5c, used by California shooter Syed Rizwan Farook, social media giantFacebook and micro-blogging website Twitter also came out in the company's support. "We will continue to fight aggressively against requirements for companies to weaken the security of their systems," Facebook posted on Friday. We condemn terrorism and have total solidarity with victims of terror. Those who seek to praise, promote, or plan terrorist acts have no place on our services. We also appreciate the difficult and essential work of law enforcement to keep people safe," the Facebook statement added. Meanwhile, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted: "We stand with @tim_cook and Apple (and thank him for his leadership)!". Farook and his Pakistani-origin wife, Tashfeen Malik, gunned down 14 people at a social services agency in December last year in San Bernardino, California, before being killed in a shootout with police. Pichai on Wedenesday directed followers to read Apple CEO Tim Cook's open letter, arguing that helping the FBI try to get into the phone used by Farook would sabotage the security of "tens of millions of American citizens." WhatsApp co-founder and CEO Jan Koum and technology giant Microsoft also voiced their support for Tim Cook on Facebook on Thursday. "Technology companies should not be required to build in backdoors to the technologies that keep their users' information secure," a statement from Microsoft said. Some of the US lawmakers and Republican front-runner Donald Trump consider Apple's staunch refusal as a serious roadblock in the fight against domestic terrorism. According to tech website The Verge, "The case, which Apple may fight all the way up to the Supreme Court, is the most significant battle yet in the ongoing encryption debate." With support from New York Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said that "Apple and Google are acting like teenagers saying 'nobody can tell me what to do and the situation has become, ladies and gentlemen, the wild west of technology. And Apple and Google are their own sheriffs," the report added. Cook said the court order sought and obtained by the FBI, which is investigating the December 2015 attack, would pose a serious threat to data security. "The US government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers," Cook said in a message on the company's website. FBI Director James Comey said last week that investigators still have not been able to get at the information on Farook's iPhone 5c. Read Also: 'Modi, Sharif Likely To Meet In Washington Next Month' Silicon Valley Wants 'Dramatic Expansion' of H1-B Visa: Veritas CEO BENGALURU: Start-ups are the word that is buzzing across the economic landscape with dozens of financial markets betting big on the start-ups across India. Billions of dollars is being streamed to India and the startups founders are now likened to as Rockstars. India is at the cusp of next big revolution with its highly incentivised programme for creating start-ups. We take a close look at the next upcoming stat-ups that will seek to emulate its predecessors like Flipkart and Snapdeal among all. Creo The startup plans to produce smartphones by developing a proprietary software OS and the smartphone itself. "The idea of building an Android based operating system for a smartphone stemmed from the realization that in the current market, while hardware is getting better very fast, there is not enough differentiation on the software front. We want to be the ones bridging that gap," said SaiSrinivas, co-founder of CREO. The company also plans to license their OS to other OEMs in India and across the globe, since they plan to launch the product later this year. This Bangalore based consumer technology company has raised $ 3 million funding from Sequoia India, Beenext Ventures and India Quotient. Read Also: India's Amazing StartupsTo Watch In 2014 The Most Promising Startup Websites To Watch In 2014 WASHINGTON: President Obama has named 106 researchers, including six of Indian origin, as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, the highest US government honour for young independent researchers. The winners will receive their awards at a Washington, DC ceremony this spring. "These early-career scientists are leading the way in our efforts to confront and understand challenges from climate change to our health and wellness," Obama said. "We congratulate these accomplished individuals and encourage them to continue to serve as an example of the incredible promise and ingenuity of the American people." The Awards highlight the key role that the administration places in encouraging and accelerating American innovation to grow our economy and tackle our greatest challenges, a White House announcement said. Established by President Bill Clinton in 1996, the awards recognise pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and awardees' commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education, or community outreach. The six Indian-American recipients are listed below: Milind Kulkarni, an associate professor with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University -- His research focuses on programming languages and compilers that support efficient programming and high performance on emerging complex architectures. Kiran Musunuru, assistant professor of stem cell and regenerative biology at Harvard University -- His research focuses on the genetics of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Sachin Patel, assistant professor of psychiatry, molecular physiology and biophysics at Vanderbilt University Medical Centre -- Patel's overall research goal is to understand the role of neuronal cannabinoid signalling in brain function relevant to psychiatric disorders. Vikram Shyam, a member of the turbomachinery and heat-transfer branch at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Glenn Research Centre -- His research includes computational and experimental analysis of and concept development in unsteady engine flow physics, biomimetics, energy harvesting, active and passive flow control, flow visualisation and water purification. Rahul Mangharam, an associate professor in the department of electrical and systems engineering at the University of Pennsylvania -- His interests are in real-time scheduling algorithms for networked embedded systems with applications in energy-efficient buildings, automotive systems, medical devices and industrial wireless control networks. Shwetak Patel, endowed professor in computer science and engineering & electrical engineering at the University of Washington, where he directs his research group, the Ubicomp Lab -- His research interests are in the areas of human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, sensor-enabled embedded systems, and user interface software & technology. His work includes developing new sensing systems, energy and water sensing, mobile health, and developing new interaction technologies. Read Also: Clinton Slides Behind Sanders In National Polls Mumbai Teacher Makes It To Global Top 10 For $1 Million Prize Source: IANS NEW DELHI: Over 50 American businesses are expected to invest $27 billion ( 1.85 trillion) in India by 2017 as against $15 billion invested since May 2014, US-India Business Council president Mukesh Aghi said on Wednesday. "We expect 52 US companies to invest $27 billion in India this year and next year, in addition to $15 billion by 20 per cent of our member companies since Prime Minister Narendra Modi assumed office," Aghi said, citing a council survey. Noting that reforms under Modi's leadership were resonating well with US companies, he commended the country's rise in the ease of doing business index. "Our members are buoyed by the direction of reforms, including fast-tracking approvals, transparent auction of natural resources and facilitating a level-playing field for investors," he said. Reorganizing its policy groups to address Modi's priorities, focusing on manufacturing ties, the council told Modi at a meeting with him that a robust IP (intellectual property) policy was essential to boost investor confidence. "We also stressed on greater clarity on certain FDI regulations and implementation of the goods and services tax (GST)," Aghi added. A delegation led by council chairman and global networking major Cisco head John Chambers met Modi and key ministers to explore new opportunities for the India-US relationship. Read Also: Mumbai Teacher Makes It To Global Top 10 For $1 Million Prize U.S. Presidential Elections 2016: Nikki Haley Backs Marco Rubio Source: IANS Kathryn Carse | carse@siadvance.com Don't Edit Kathryn Carse | carse@siadvance.com Make Your Move: Chess or Checkers Cops and Kids are going to sit across from each other at the Make Your Move Chess & Checkers event. The event takes place Friday, Feb. 19, with officers from the Graniteville precinct. Kids of all ages and teens are welcome and encouraged to take part. The event is free and no pre-registration is necessary. Registration is at noon and the tournament will last from 12:30 till 4 p.m. Refreshments will be served. The 121 Precinct is at 970 Richmond Ave. For more information, e-mail Diana Daniels at diana.daniels411@gmail.com or call Island Voice at 718-524-7999. Don't Edit Kathryn Carse | carse@siadvance.com Park Art: Make Your Own Conference House Bring the kids to Conference House Park and create your own mini version of the historic Conference House. Do your own exterior design by drawing, painting and collage using a variety of mediums such as pencils, pastels, charcoal, and more! Pre-registration is recommended for the free event. Call 718-227-1463 or email francis.gessner@parks.nyc.gov. Meet at the Conference House Park Visitor Center, 298 Satterlee St., Tottenville Don't Edit Lida Xing Dinosaurs Rock Learn about the creatures that roamed the earth millions of years ago, search for fossils and rocks, then create a colossal craft. The program is Friday, Feb. 19, at 11 a.m., in the Greenbelt Nature Center, 700 Rockland Ave., at Brielle Avenue. Part of the Greenbelt Conservancy's School's Out; We're in: Winter Recess 2016, this program is free and for ages 5 and up. E-mail naturecenter@sigreenbelt.org to register, or call: 728-351-3450. Don't Edit Lauren Steussy | lsteussy@siadvance.com Imagine the Mastodon Learn what happened to the Mastodons of Staten Islandon Friday, Feb. 19, 2 p.m. at the Staten Island Museum. The jumbo molar and other fossilized bones of Mammut americanum found on Staten Island tells us that these giants once called the borough home. Finds like these were wondrous for the people of the 18th and 19th centuries. Today too, it is incredible to imagine 10,000 pound beasts roaming the boroughs of New York City. Their presence on Staten Island serves as a dramatic lesson about extinction and habitat change. And you can help name the Mastodon by voting here. Staten Island Museum, 75 Stuyvesant Place, St. George; 718.727.1135. Admission is $8 for adults, $5 for students and seniors and $2 for children 2 to 12 years old. Don't Edit Don't Edit Staff-Shot Warm Weather Exploring at the Staten Island Zoo Explore the Tropical Forest, Africa and Reptile wings where you will meet animals that live in the warmth year round. Ongoing activities include crafts and animal presentations. Activities are for toddlers through tweens. Staten Island Zoo, 614 Broadway, West Brighton. Admission is $8 for adults, $5 for children 3 to 14 years of age, and $6 for seniors age 60 years and over. Klipspringers at the Staten Island Zoo, Oct. 26, 2014. They are native to eastern and southern Africa. (Staten Island Advance/Virginia N. Sherry) Don't Edit Bill Lyons Walk Right in to the Children's Museum It 's campaign season. What issue is important to you? Make a "campaign" button in the Walk-in Workshop, Friday, Feb. 19, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Enjoy the Staten Island Childrens Museum every day during winter break from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Staten Island Children's Museum, 1000 Richmond Terrace, Livingston, sichildrensmuseum.org,; 718-273-2060. Admission is $8 for ages 1 and up. See the week's schedule here. Don't Edit Kathryn Carse | carse@siadvance.com Looking Ahead to the Weekend Check out the kids events for the weekend, Feb. 20-21. Author Nelle Harper Lee, who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961 for her book, "To Kill a Mockingbird," passed away in her sleep Friday morning at the age of 89, her family has confirmed. "This is a sad day for our family. America and the world knew Harper Lee as one of the last century's most beloved authors," Hank Conner, Lee's nephew and a spokesman for the family, said in a statement Friday morning. "We knew her as Nelle Harper Lee, a loving member of our family, a devoted friend to the many good people who touched her life, and a generous soul in our community and our state. We will miss her dearly." Conner's statement indicated that "Ms. Lee passed away in her sleep early this morning. Her passing was unexpected. She remained in good basic health until her passing." Services for Lee have not been announced, but Conner said the funeral will be private as per her request. Lee was born April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, the youngest of four children of lawyer Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Cunningham Finch Lee. As a child, Lee attended elementary school and high school just a few blocks from her house on Alabama Avenue. In a March 1964 interview, she offered this capsule view of her childhood: "I was born in a little town called Monroeville, Alabama, on April 28, 1926. I went to school in the local grammar school, went to high school there, and then went to the University of Alabama. That's about it, as far as education goes." She moved to New York in 1949, where she worked as an airlines reservations clerk while pursuing a writing career. Eight years later, Lee submitted her manuscript for "To Kill a Mockingbird" to J.B. Lippincott & Co., which asked her to rewrite it. On July 11, 1960, "To Kill a Mockingbird" was published by Lippincott with critical and commercial success. The author won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction the following year. Lee's novel tells the story of small-town lawyer Atticus Finch of Maycomb, Ala.--based on Monroeville -- and his children, Scout and Jem. Told from Scout's point of view, the book reflects the innocence of children growing up in the early 1930s. It also depicts the various social classes that existed then, and brings the undercurrents of racism to light. More than a half-century after its publication, the novel continues to be studied by high school and college students. It has sold more than 30 million copies--still selling nearly a million copies per year by the 50th anniversary of its publication in 2010, according to Publishers Weekly--and has been translated into more than 40 languages. The film adaptation of the novel, with Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch and Mary Badham as Scout, opened on Christmas Day of 1962 and was an instant hit. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won four, including Best Actor for Peck and Best Screenplay for Horton Foote, who wrote the screenplay for the movie based on the book. Lee became close friends with both of them. The novel also inspired a generation of lawyers with its portrayal of the gentle, wise Atticus Finch, who defends a black man, Tom Robinson, falsely accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a white woman. Meanwhile, the Finches' strange neighbor, Boo Radley, who strikes fear in Scout's and Jem's hearts, turns out not to be the monster the children expect him to be. Though Lee denied that the novel was autobiographical, many parallels exist between "To Kill a Mockingbird" and Lee's own childhood. Her father was also a lawyer who owned the town newspaper. Comparisons have been made between Lee and Scout, the 9-year-old tomboy protagonist, especially in her friendship with Dill, a character widely considered to have been based on Lee's own childhood friend, Truman Capote. When he was a child, the author of "In Cold Blood" often stayed with his cousins, who lived next door to the Lees. Capote and Lee collaborated on the early stages of his novel and remained lifelong friends. The interior of the Monroe County Courthouse was reconstructed on a movie set in Hollywood for the film's pivotal courtroom scenes, and local actors bring the book to life each spring at the courthouse itself, where they stage "To Kill a Mockingbird" to sellout crowds. The press-averse author was thrust into the public eye in February 2015, when her publisher, HarperCollins, announced the upcoming release of "Go Set a Watchman," Lee's second and final full-length published work. The announcement almost immediately sparked rumors that Lee - who had long said she would never publish another novel - had been taken advantage of by her attorney, Tonja Carter. In February 2015, the Alabama Department of Human Resources met with Lee at Meadows of Monroeville, the southern Alabama assisted living facility where she resided, and concluded that she was mentally competent to handle her affairs, but rumors persisted that she was not lucid enough to sign off on business decisions. A guardedly private individual, Lee was respected and protected by residents of the town that displays Mockingbird-themed murals and each year stages theatrical productions of "To Kill a Mockingbird." Lee returned to Monroeville for good once her beloved sister Alice became ill and needed help. She'd eat breakfast each morning at the same fast-food place, and could later be seen picking up Alice from the law firm founded by their father, which currently employs Carter. Since she stopped granting interviews in 1964, Harper Lee has been fiercely protected by Monroeville residents. In addition to maintaining an apartment in New York City, Lee lived in her hometown with her sister, Alice Finch Lee, who is 15 years older and practiced law until she was 100 years old. In recent years, Harper Lee had experienced declining health after a stroke left her partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. She also had lost 95 percent of her vision, according to a 2011 interview with Alice Lee in the Press-Register. AL.com reporter Michelle Matthews contributed to this report. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Three Marines who fought in one of World War II's fiercest battles -- the Battle of Iwo Jima -- were honored for their service Friday on its 71st anniversary. Marines and visitors gathered at the Staten Island Marine Corps League in Sunnyside to recognize veterans Larry Dwyer, Nick Troianiello and John Maziekien Jr. The battle began on Feb. 19, 1945, when three U.S. Marine divisions landed on the island of Iwo Jima in Japan. "It was the fiercest battle in the Pacific War," said Alfred King, senior vice commandant of the Staten Island Marine Corps League. "More than 5,000 Marines died in five weeks and 19,000 were wounded." During the battle, there were more than 26,000 casualties, including 6,800 Americans who died. "We are representing the fallen soldiers," said 90-year-old Dwyer of Westerleigh. "I can't stop thinking about it. I was friendly with a lot of people [from the battle] but not anymore." Troianiello, 89, of Mariners Harbor, said he remembers the battle every day and believes the soldiers should always be remembered. "[It is important] to remember the men who fought and died and who served the country to keep us safe and free. I say a prayer for all my buddies who died or were wounded," he said. Maziekien Jr., 91, of Marlboro, N.J., went to Iwo Jima 10 days after the initial Marine landing. Had he been sent sooner, he said he might not be alive today. "It's a day to keep the memory of who died, of those who didn't make it," Maziekien said. "They are the heroes, not me. I was a survivor. I did my part." He added that while he wasn't there himself, he always remembers the day the American flag was raised at Iwo Jima on Feb. 23, 1945. The iconic moment was captured by photographer Joe Rosenthal. A man (left) relieves himself unmindful of the religious symbols put up to prevent urination in public and is shamed by a Mahankali traffic police cop. (right) Hyderabad: Mahankali traffic police led by inspector Rama Swamy on Thursday took up a campaigning against public urination by garlanding those relieving themselves on footpaths. Two sub-inspectors, Ramanaiah and Kotaiah, along with the inspector went around the area and found people urinating on the footpath opposite the railway station near Subhash Chandra Bose statue at Secunde-secunderabd. They garlanded the men and requested them not to urinate on footpaths and told them that public toilets were just a furlong away, one located opposite the railway station and another near the No. 10 bus stop. This is not the first time that the Mahankali traffic police has taken up a novel campaign. Earlier too, they distributed chocolates to two-wheeler riders wearing helmets. This they did at junctions when nearly 20 two-wheelers were not wearing helmets and two of them were wearing. Speaking to this correspondent, Mr Rama Swamy said it was a small effort as part of the Swachch Hyderabad initiative. We are doing our bit to create awareness among the people to keep Hyderabad clean and also follow traffic rules, he said. nws Donovan Rep. Daniel Donovan speaks about the heroin epidemic Thursday at Camelot Counseling. With him are Councilman Joe Borelli and Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis. (Staten Island Advance/Rachel Shapiro) Alicia Palermo-Reddy runs volunteer support group Addiction Angels. She spoke at Camelot Counseling on Thursday. (Staten Island Advance/Rachel Shapiro) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Like many parents who find their child addicted to heroin, Cecilia Olsen was in denial when her high school-aged son started using drugs. He dropped out of Tottenville High School, and is now getting help at Camelot Counseling, where Olsen stood with Rep. Daniel Donovan and others on Thursday to call on Congress to pass the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. The addiction "has affected my family tremendously, every single member of my family. I was uneducated for a long time, in denial," she said. Donovan (R-Staten Island/Brooklyn) is one of more than 80 co-sponsors of the House bill to give funding to local organizations to address the heroin and prescription drug abuse epidemic. "Too many parents have buried their sons and daughters, or watched them struggle for years with addiction, treatment and relapse," he said. "It has to stop. As our community's crisis has turned into a nationwide epidemic, it's clear the federal government's response hasn't been enough. Congress must act to provide the resources necessary to turn the tide against addiction." The bill, which has 29 co-sponsors in the Senate, would give federal grants to educational programs, and for prevention, treatment and recovery. Councilman Joe Borelli (R-South Shore) and Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-East Shore/Brooklyn) also attended, speaking about their personal experiences with friends and constituents who have fought addiction. Luke Nasta, executive director of Camelot Counseling, applauded the bill, which he called a small step toward "dealing with the whole person." "We've never had adequate resources to do the full job," of preventing and treating addiction, he said. "We need a total societal and governmental approach to solving this problem." With approximately one death every four days on Staten Island, if those were gun deaths, "We would be on lockdown, wearing helmets, not coming out of our houses," Nasta said. Also present was a representative from Sen. Lanza's office, as well as Rose Kerr, Borough President James Oddo's director of education, and Dr. Ginny Mantello, Oddo's health and wellness director. Speaking about the school pilot program "Too Good For Schools," Kerr said Staten Island needs federal money "for the boots on the ground." Part of that funding that would come would be for prevention. "If we don't look at the root cause, we're never going to fix it," Mantello said. Speaking about her son in Camelot, Olsen said after six-and-a-half months there, "he's a completely changed person, he has a purpose now, he's going for his GED." She got education and inspiration from Alicia Palermo-Reddy through her group, Addiction Angels, a volunteer group that provides guidance, resources and referrals for those with substance abuse. Palermo-Reddy also attended Thursday's event at Camelot. SEEKING LOCAL FUNDING, TOO Councilmembers Borelli, Debi Rose and Steven Matteo recently penned a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio and Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito seeking more money for the district attorney's office to combat drug use, increased violent crimes and domestic violence. With 3.1 percent of the citywide DA budget, Staten Island has 3.8 percent of the arrests in the city. Borelli argued Thursday that based on Staten Island's population, spending of $20.54 per person in 2016 is uneven when compared to the other boroughs, ranging from $23.33 in Queens to $60.11 in Manhattan. With a current budget of $9.6 million, the councilmembers are asking for an additional $3 million. A de Blasio spokeswoman said, "We look forward to working with the Council on these -- and many other issues -- throughout the budget process." She cited initiatives that the mayor has put forth, including making anti-overdose medicine Narcan available over the counter in pharmacies. Addressing domestic violence, a planned Family Justice Center on Staten Island is expected to open this year. NWS PARADE.JPG Bagpipers march up Fifth Avenue during the 2015 St. Patrick's Parade. (Associated Press) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A state senator from Queens has drafted legislation that proposes city public schools close for St. Patrick's Day. Senator Tony Avella (D-Queens) has introduced a bill in Albany that would establish St. Patrick's Day as a school holiday in large school districts with a significant Irish population. The legislator said he had received calls from city teachers and parents upset because the Department of Education has scheduled parent-teacher conferences for March 17. It's the second time in recent years the conferences have fallen on St. Patrick's Day. Irish cultural leaders have criticized city Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina for the timing, noting it forces teachers and parents who celebrate the day to give up time with family. New York has more than 1 million public school students and has the largest concentrated Irish population in the United States, 12.9 percent, according to U.S. Census statistics. Millions attend New York City's famed St. Patrick's Day Parade up Fifth Avenue each year, which features school marching bands and groups from throughout the city. The parade is the oldest in the United States -- the first parade was in 1762 -- and is now viewed around the world. "It is really quite astounding that St. Patrick's Day is yet to be recognized as a school holiday in New York, where so many Irish immigrants originally settled and where so many of their descendants still live," Avella said in a statement. City public schools are already closed for Lunar New Year, as well as for the Muslim holy days of Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr. Mayor Bill de Blasio and Farina announced the addition of the new holidays to the school calendar in June. While he applauds the intent of the Avella bill, Staten Island Community Education Council President Michael Reilly, who is of Irish descent, said it could complicate the school calendar for many families by extending the school year beyond June. The last day of school for 2016 is already June 28. "Although it would be nice to give all cultures a day off to observe their customs, I think we need to balance the days off. DOE has already expanded the school calendar by adding the three holidays. Additional days off during the school year will require attendance later into the summer," Reilly said. The DOE said individual schools should work to accommodate families who are unable to make the March 17 conferences. "We value and respect the cultures and traditions of all our students," said DOE spokeswoman Yuridia Pena. "While schools are responsible for holding one of four parent-teacher conferences on St. Patrick's Day, schools should work with families to provide other opportunities for those unable to attend, to ensure there are conference opportunities on another date," she said Catholic schools in the New York Archdiocese, meanwhile, including those on Staten Island, have the option to close for St. Patrick's Day each year. A number of Island elementary and high schools will be closed March 17, which falls on a Thursday this year. pope.jpg And that Ted Cruz... (AP photo) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - We're not saying that Donald Trump would make a good president, as fascinating as his White House campaign has been in confounding conventional political wisdom. Or that he should even be the GOP nominee, even though it's been fun watching the pols and pundits try to figure out how to effectively meet him on the field of battle. We'd have grave concerns about Trump having the nuclear codes in his hands, or even picking a Supreme Court nominee. And what type of person would make up a Trump cabinet? Some of those "Apprentice"-type yahoos? You can run a presidential campaign by the seat of your pants, as Trump has been doing for months. But we doubt that you can run a country that way. But that doesn't mean that we should let Pope Francis should take potshots at him. We like the pope. He has been a breath of fresh air in an institution that badly needed it. His papacy has brought many Catholics back to the fold, even if other believers have worried that he's tilting a little too far to the left. He's livened things up around the Vatican. But Francis jumped into American electoral politics at the U.S.-Mexican border on Thursday when he said, "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian." It's a pretty rich statement coming from a guy who lives in his own private city-state. It was clear whom Francis was referring to: Trump, whose red-hot rhetoric over illegal immigration sent his presidential campaign into the stratosphere. He has pledged to build that wall between the U.S. and Mexico. Whatever happened to judge not? Who among us can say whether somebody is Christian or not? Only God can see into the human heart, right? Francis must know that. Even if you agree with what Francis said, or even if you agree with anybody who has a discouraging word to say about The Donald, it shouldn't cheer you to see the Vatican get involved in a U.S. presidential race. This is our race to decide, the American voter. We don't need any suggestions from Rome. If we have a question about Catholic doctrine, we know who to go to. But American politics? We've got it handled, Your Eminence. Thanks. I mean, has the pope not heard about the separation of church and state? It's even more interesting to watch all the left-wing types run to embrace the pope when he slams Trump or talks up global warming when they disagree with 99 percent of what the pope and the church stand for. Hey, at least we're listening to each other a little bit more than we once did. That's progress of some kind. But more to the point: Doesn't Francis know that the more Trump gets criticized, the more Trump's fans love him? His whole campaign has been about being embattled and underestimated and targeted. Francis' comments are only more red meat for that crowd. And when it comes to Trump, there's something we all need to start asking ourselves: What are people so afraid of? Sure, Trump's a blowhard. A demagogue, even. He can be an embarrassment. But to bring the weight of the Vatican down on him? Talk about using a howitzer on a housefly. Obama_North_Korea.jpg President Obama decided that federal funding for counter-terrorism programs across the country under the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI), can safely be slashed by nearly $300 million. Did you hear the good news? The threat from terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida to their prime U.S. target, New York City, has been cut in half. With the threat so dramatically diminished, the administration of President Obama, always eager to proclaim diplomatic triumphs (even when they're not there), has decided that federal funding for counter-terrorism programs across the country under the Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI), can safely be slashed by nearly $300 million. Looks like the war on terrorism is rapidly winding down. Of course, the very idea that the threat from international terrorism has even diminished a little is fatuous nonsense. If anything, the threat has grown exponentially with the rise of ISIS and a new generation of alarmingly influential and tech-savvy killers swelling its ranks. $90 million cut But, in its wisdom, the administration has decided that New York and other well-known terrorist targets don't need all that federal help to thwart the bad guys. So it has decided to cut New York's $180 million Homeland Security allocation essentially in half. Sen. Charles Schumer, New York's most influential voice in Washington and normally an ally of the administration, thundered, "At the very time when our security concerns have increased because of ISIS and lone wolves, we're cutting the funds . . . and not by 10 percent but by nearly 50 percent? It makes no sense." The UASI program provides funding to help cities address the unique needs of high-threat, densely populated urban areas, and to help enable these municipalities to acquire the capacity to deal with acts of terrorism, from prevention to mitigation to response to recovery. The money is used for everything from bomb-sniffing dogs, to electronic surveillance, to sensors for chemical and biological weapons to "active-shooter" training drills. As necessary and as important as such preparations are, the administration has proposed reducing the national funding level of its Fiscal Year 2017 budget from $600 million this year to $330 million. New York City, the obsession of terrorists around the globe, would see its UASI funding shrink to about $90 million. "Anti-terror funding is no place to cut corners," Mayor Bill de Blasio said. "It is no secret that New York City is one of the world's top terror targets, and the Urban Area Security Initiative helps ensure that we will be prepared for whatever dangers arise." 'It makes no sense' He added, "You can't stand pat. We have to keep upping our game. That's why we need additional resources." Right, this is no time to declare a "peace dividend." John Miller, the NYPD's deputy commissioner for counter-terrorism and intelligence, wrote in the Daily News, "In New York City, we have been the target of 20 plots since the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. The plots climaxed on 9/11 with the devastation that left 3,000 dead and still dying when you account for the respiratory diseases and cancers that are still claiming the lives of cops and firemen almost 15 years later." In the same vein, an exasperated Police Commissioner William Bratton seethed, saying, "A $90-million cut is unconscionable," adding, "To cut funding -- for a city the entire federal government acknowledges is the top terror target -- is indefensible. Who thought this would be a good idea?" But a spokesman for an administration that is bristling at this barrage of criticism from New York officials tipped its hand and provided what is surely the answer to that question. Link to Iran nuclear deal? White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said, "Sen. Schumer is somebody that came out and opposed the international agreement to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. He was wrong about that position. And most Democrats agreed -- disagreed with him in taking that position. . . And when people look at the facts here when it comes to funding for homeland security, they'll recognize that he's wrong this time, too." In other words, in the minds of some at the White House, Sen. Schumer's vote against the administration's misbegotten deal with Iran on nuclear arms and this cut in counter-terrorism funding for New York are linked. What does one have to do with another? For one thing, no one in the field of counter-terrorism thinks New York is threatened by Iran. The threat, as Sen. Schumer said, comes from ISIS, al-Qaida and their acolytes. For another, the administration's pathetically naive Iran deal was enacted, despite the strong objections of Sen. Schumer, many in Congress and, for what it's worth, this page. But apparently, in the administration's view, the world is "safer" because of it and the terrorism threat somehow lessened. What garbage. Clearly, the White House is nursing a grudge. And if that's what this is all about -- willfully endangering the safety of New York and other cities as political payback -- then President Obama and his aides who support such spitefulness should be ashamed. Full UASI funding must be restored. de Blasio and Bratton.jpg When it comes to terrorism funding, Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton see eye-to-eye with Rep. Daniel Donovan and Sen. Charles Schumer. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- In this season of partisan bickering, it's nice to see something can bring together Republicans and Democrats. And that something is fighting terrorism. With President Obama's proposed budget slashing funding for an anti-terrorism program, Republican Rep. Daniel Donovan took to the airwaves Thursday to blast the Democratic president. Speaking on the Joe Piscopo show on AM970, Donovan said, "I don't know what the man is thinking, whether it's him telling America what his priorities are, he doesn't think that the security of our nation is a priority anymore. I mean the one thing the commander-in-chief, the leader of the free world, has to do for the citizens of this great country is to protect them, and cutting that budget in half is just showing that security of our big cities is no longer a priority, if in fact it ever was with this man." The proposed $90 million cut to the city through the Urban Areas Security Initiative comes after the city got $181 million in 2015. NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said the $90 million cut would kill funding for the NYPD's "entire intelligence analyst program," according to the Daily News. "But with my friend Pete King and myself and others who are urban Republicans, we will make sure that his money is restored," Donovan said. With "the power of the purse," Donovan said he expects Congress to reject the cuts. "It is just amazing, Joe, that here we are fighting our own leader over the security of our nation, after we have been attacked on our homeland and the greatest tragedy that has ever happened to our nation. I am looking at the Manhattan skyline right now, I see where this occurred. The president oughta look out my window and see the skyline of Manhattan and see that those two towers no longer stand and realize that New York is still a major threat, it is the number one target of terrorists, whether it be al-Qaida, ISIS or any other radical group." The Republican congressman was recently made the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Communications and applauded Bratton for the work that he has done but called attention to his need for federal resources. Bratton stood with Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio and Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer the day before and blasted Obama for the cuts. The funding "is the cornerstone of effective preparedness and prevention against terrorist threats and enables the NYPD to do all they can to keep New Yorkers safe and secure," Schumer said, the Daily News reported. "I pledge to fight tooth and nail in Congress to make sure UASI (funds) are increased in New York and across the country." White House spokesman John Earnest criticized Schumer for opposing the cuts, calling into question his credibility in talking about national security issues. Even the most cynical should be heartened seeing New Yorkers standing up for New York. We are least bothered about the alliance. We are bothered about the development work that has been done by us, says TMC. (Photo: PTI) Kolkata: With Congress and Left Front trying to forge an alliance in West Bengal, the ruling Trinamool Congress on Friday said it was "least bothered" about the development and alleged that both the parties have been "rejected" by the masses of the state. "We are least bothered about the alliance. We are bothered about the development work that has been done by us. Those, who are trying to forge an alliance, has been rejected by the masses," TMC general secretary Subrata Bakshi said. The West Bengal Congress had hailed the decision of CPI(M) seeking cooperation from all democratic forces by stating that each secular party in the state should respect the aspirations of the masses. TMC's national spokesperson Derek O' Brien in a Facebook post said the Trinamool Congress will win with a comfortable majority, even if it has to fight against the Cong-CPI(M) alliance. While countering a recent pre poll survey which has opined about a neck and neck fight between the alliance and TMC, O'Brien said, "This is a fictional story because on the ground Trinamool is way ahead. Even CPI(M) and Congress leaders admit it. The media house has decided that it is possible for the CPI(M) and Congress to overcome years of hostility in the state and transfer 100 per cent of votes to each other. "I may remind it that even in Bihar, where Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar came together for the Assembly election, the vote transfer percentage between their parties was around 70 per cent. Can one expect the CPI(M) and the Congress to outperform that number in West Bengal? Independent observers are convinced that to transfer even 20 per cent of the vote will be a monumental task. TMC will still win very comfortably," adds O'Brien. Lighting up the American flags When Simi Valley resident Hayden Kelly was in elementary school, she learned the proper etiquette when it comes to the American flag. She enjoyed looking at flags around town and... Local racer makes a winning pass at auto championship Storied track pushes drivers to their limits James Landry of Simi Valley., won the Honda Challenge 4 class championship Sept. 18 at the 2022 National Auto Sport Association Championships. Landry captured the title by making a pass... Fall is a festive time of year at the farm READY FOR AUTUMN At right, 7-year-old Martin Segura of South Gate, drives a peddle tractor Oct. 9 during the Fall Harvest Festival at Underwood Farms in Moorpark. The festival runs... Prost to the good times and fundraising Rotary Club of Simi Sunrise recently held Oktoberfest on Oct. 8 at Lemon Park (Rancho Tapo Community Park) in Simi Valley, More than 1,200 attendees spent an afternoon with music,... Bengaluru: Harish had eaten his dinner on Wednesday night and had gone to sleep while he had passed away. He was in the same position that he was sleeping while he was found dead the next morning. We suspect no foul play and there is no controversy, said Nagarajappa, Harish's father pleading media persons. We are already hurt and please do not spread rumours and false news about my son who is no more. We know our son better than anybody else here, he added. His sister Poornima was seen folding the hands and requesting media not to spread false news. Over three to four days before his death, we used to talk regularly over the phone about his marriage preparations. He seemed alright and happy and had no worries as such, said Nagarajappa. If he would have consumed poison or if he would have died an unnatural death, there should be some colour change in his skin or facial features. His face looked as if he was sleeping still, he added. The autopsy of the IPS officer's body was conducted in Chennai, where the doctors with their preliminary examinations have concluded the cause of the death as natural. However the exact cause of the death will be out only in the final report, said an inspector from the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption, Tamil Nadu. He was such a polite senior police officer that even while he was asking his subordinates to bring food for him, he would only request and not order them, said V. Maareswaran, a sub-inspector, who had accompanied the body from Tamil Nadu to Bengaluru along with two police inspectors and Gajapathi, DySP Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption, Tamil Nadu. Disrict In-Charge minister, K.J. George said, The family has lost a son and by airing disturbing reports will only cause more damage to their mental peace. It is too early to comment on any issue as the family is in deep pain. Home Minister Dr G Parameshwar, who is out of station, also spoke to Nagarajappa over the phone and expressed deep condolence. Jamaican Coconut Shrimp Stew 3420 shares Jump to Recipe Save It Saved! This post may contain affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy Jamaican Coconut Shrimp Stew, a quick, light and spicy shrimp dish simmered in coconut milk, inspired by my trip to Ochos Rios, Jamaica. Jamaican Coconut Shrimp Stew My husband and I are a huge fan of Jamaican food! While visiting Jamaica we got to experience the food and culture and even took some cooking classes their. Some other Jamaican dishes I love, Jamaican Red Beans and Rice, Jamaican Coconut Brown Stew Chicken, and Jamaican Slow Cooker Jerk Pork. Ive always been a fan of Jamaican food, when I worked in the city my coworker would bring me a Jamaican Beef Patty sandwich on sweet bread which was far from light, but so so good! So when I went there on vacation, I made it my business to eat as much of they local food as possible. There was a cooking demo one of the days while I was there and they made this really simple dish which Ive recreated here. Beware, the Scotch Bonnet pepper is VERY hot. This tiny little pepper packs a lot of heat, I used only 1/4 of the pepper with the seeds and membranes removed and it was still spicy, but not too much that I couldnt eat it. If you like spicy food feel free to add more. Warning, wear gloves while handling the pepper to avoid burning your fingers, or accidentally touching your mouth or eyes. More Shrimp Recipes: Print WW Personal Points 4.75 from 8 votes Did you make this recipe? Leave a review Jamaican Coconut Shrimp Stew 182 Cals 23 Protein 4 Carbs 7 Fats Prep Time: 5 mins Cook Time: 10 mins Total Time: 15 mins Jamaican Coconut Shrimp Stew, a quick, light and spicy shrimp dish simmered in coconut milk, inspired by my trip to Ochos Rios, Jamaica. Ingredients 1 lb peeled and deveined jumbo shrimp 1 tbsp mild jerk seasoning , such as Walkerswood , 1/2 tbsp butter or coconut oil 1 scallion , chopped , 1/4 cup chopped onion 1/4 cup chopped bell peppers 1 scotch bonet pepper , seeded and diced (I only use 1/4) , 1 cup light coconut milk chopped scallions or cilantro , for garnish Save Instructions Season shrimp in a bowl with jerk seasoning. Heat a large skillet on medium low, add the butter or oil and chopped vegetables, cook until soft 3 to 4 minutes. Add the shrimp, increase heat to medium and cook 3 minutes, add the coconut milk, cover and simmer until the shrimp are cooked through, about 3 minutes. Garnish with cilantro or scallions and serve. Nutrition Serving: 6 shrimp, 1/4 cup sauce , Calories: 182 kcal , Carbohydrates: 4 g , Protein: 23 g , Fat: 7 g , Saturated Fat: 4 g , Cholesterol: 176 mg , Sodium: 225 mg , Fiber: 1 g WW Points Plus: 4 Keywords: coconut shrimp, Jamaican Coconut Shrimp Stew, jamaican shrimp, Shrimp Stew, weight watchers shrimp Pin It To Save For Later! Bengaluru: The body of the IPS officer Harish N., who was found dead under mysterious circumstances on Thursday at the Egmore Police Officer's Mess in Chennai, was brought to Bengaluru on Friday night. After post-mortem at the Rajiv Gandhi Government Hospital in Park Town in Chennai on Friday the body was brought in an ambulance by road, accompanied with a DySP rank officer, two inspectors and two sub-inspectors from the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption, Tamil Nadu. The postmortem was over by 1 p.m. and the ambulance started from Chennai around 1.30 p.m. and reached the family's residence at Manjunath Nagar in Rajajinagar around 9 pm, where hundreds of friends, family members and neighbours had already gathered to get a final glimpse of the IPS officer. I will not cry anymore for him. If I cry it would be like insulting him. I am very proud of my brother that he served as an IPS officer for his country. Look at the people gathered around here at our house. Back at our village, thousands of them are still waiting since Thursday after hearing the news of his demise, said Poornima, Harish's immediate sister, to the local representatives who had come to console her. Poornima had reached a state where she had no more tears to shed, and started talking to everybody around about how determined and confident her brother was, and shared each moments with him whichever ran in her mind. Younger sister, Asha and mother Shivamma were inconsolable, while Harish's father Nagaraj was trying hard not to break down and was consoling others not to cry. District In-Charge minister K.J. George visited the family and offered his condolence. We have lost such a good police officer at a very young age and at this time, we can understand what the family is going through. We will extend all our support to the family members and we are there by their side, George told reporters condoling the death the officer. DG-IGP Om Prakash along with the city police commissioner N.S. Megharikh and other senior police officers also came to see the body and offered their condolences to the family members. Two of his IPS batch-mate officers were also seen at the time when the officer's body arrived. Several other MLAs and local leaders visited the house to pay homage - among them were Rajajinagar constituency MLA S.Suresh Kumar, Mahalakshmi Layout MLA N L Narendra Babu, and others. The body will be kept for the public to pay homage until late Saturday morning, after which the final rites will be done, said a relative who was moderating the crowd. 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 Chandigarh/New Delhi: The Jat agitation in Haryana turned violent on Friday after one person died when the BSF opened fire in self-defence in Rohtak. The state government has requisitioned Army deployment in eight districts while the Centre rushed 1,000 paramilitary personnel to the state. The protesters set a police post on fire in Jhajjhar when they went on the rampage, also setting on fire the house of state finance minister Captain Abhimanyu Sindhu as well as several vehicles in Rohtak. Union home minister Rajnath Singh, concerned over the turn of events, called up Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and took stock of the situation. Later in the evening shoot-at-sight orders were issued in the troubled districts of Rohtak and Bhiwani where curfew has also been imposed. The police reports stated that as many as 21 people were injured in violence. However, authorities at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Science & Hospital, Rohtak, said 19 of the 25 injured people admitted there had bullet injuries, PTI reported. Shoot-at-sight orders in Haryana Army units are being rushed to Rohtak from the nearby cantonment at Hisar, about 50 km away, would be deployed immediately in Rohtak and Bhiwani areas. Army units are also being rushed from Jaipur for deployment in other badly affected areas of Haryana. Besides army being called in nine districts of Haryana, curfew imposed in two districts along with shoot-at-sight orders after one person died and 25 were injured during the Jat stir. One person who was critical has been operated upon and his condition is now stable, they were quoted as saying. One protester was killed when the paramilitary force opened fire in the city as a mob took a DSP and a few other policemen hostage and attacked the office and house of the Rohtak range IGP. Several vehicles were set on fire at the local circuit house. In Jhajjar, a police post was set ablaze at Dighal as rioting and arson gave a dangerously violent turn to the ongoing Jat agitation demanding reservation. State DGP Y.P. Singhal said their priority was to bring the situation under control in Rohtak. He said the Army was being called out in eight districts of Haryana in aid of the police as the police lines in Rohtak were also under threat. The situation got out of hand on Friday morning as Internet and mobile SMS services were suspended in six districts by the authorities to prevent spread of communally-sensitive messages. Jats have been blocking several roads in the state to press for their demand for reservation in government jobs and educational institutions under the OBC category. The situation turned riot-like after clashes between members of Jat and non-Jat communities here on Thursday evening. The Chief Minister, meanwhile, said on Friday that the state government is in favour of reservation for Jats. CM Siddaramaiah reportedly insisted on recommending the name of former chairman of state human rights commission, Justice S.R. Nayak, for the key post of Lokayukta on Friday Bengaluru: Notwithstanding a 4-2 vote in favour of former Supreme Court judge Mr Justice Vikramjit Sen, CM Siddaramaiah reportedly insisted on recommending the name of former chairman of state human rights commission, Justice S.R. Nayak, for the key post of Lokayukta on Friday. Official sources said Mr Siddaramaiah seems set to recommend the name of Justice Nayak to Governor Vajubhai Vala soon after the moral code of conduct for zilla and taluk panchayat polls draws to an end next week. This despite four of the six members of a high-power panel, which included acting Chief Justice S.K. Mukherjee, batting for Mr Justice Sen. San Mateo, CA (94402) Today Cloudy skies this morning will become partly cloudy this afternoon. High 66F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 57F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph. 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! New Delhi: The Pakistani authorities Friday lodged an FIR over the Pathankot attack, but it didnt name Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar, who India accused of masterminding the strike. Indian sources said while filing of the FIR was a step forward, it was disappointed neither JeM nor its chief Masood Azhar was named. Its a small step in the right direction. But its disappointing; neither the name of Jaish nor Masood Azhar was in the FIR, a senior Indian official was quoted as saying. Speculation is, however, rife that this may eventually pave the way for foreign secretary-level talks between the two nations if Islamabad takes more steps against those who planned the Pathankot attack from its soil. The FIR was reportedly registered on the recommendations of a six-member team probing the attack. 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(0x5612f08a4050)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0873400)', '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(0x5612f08a4050)') 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(0x5612f0873400)') 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(0x5612f065e5d8)') 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(0x5612f0873400)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0873400)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612e2574c58)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f06669c0)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f06669c0)') 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(0x5612efff8c90)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0a4b570)', '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(0x5612efff8c90)') 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(0x5612f0a4b570)') 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(0x5612f00019d0)') 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(0x5612f0a4b570)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0a4b570)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612e2573078)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f094e5d0)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f094e5d0)') 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(0x5612f0114df0)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 948 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0217768)', '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(0x5612f0114df0)') 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(0x5612f0217768)') 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(0x5612f01c8db8)') 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(0x5612f0217768)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612f0217768)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x5612e2573bf8)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f0100ea8)') called at (eval 592) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x5612f0100ea8)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 Apple Inc is playing sheriff in a dangerous game with law enforcement, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr said of the company's fight with the US over an encrypted iPhone used by one of the shooters in last year's San Bernardino, California, terror attacks. "This has become the Wild West in technology," Mr Vance said at a news conference at New York City Police headquarters with commissioner William Bratton. "Apple and Google are their own sheriffs and there are no rules." The battle over private data between the technology industry and law enforcement has been intensifying since the terror attacks on Paris in November. Credit:Marina Neil The two tech companies have created the first "warrant-proof" consumer products, Mr Vance and Mr Bratton said. Law enforcement officials across the country are watching the San Bernardino case closely, they said, because it's the clearest example yet of how Silicon Valley is thwarting crime fighting. "It is very difficult to explain to a victim of crime" that authorities can't get the evidence they need because a tech company thinks "they know where to draw the line between public safety and privacy," Mr Vance said. Criminals know their phone data can be backed up online and are likely to disable that feature, he said, citing a Rikers Island inmate who bragged to a friend last year in a phone call that encryption was a "gift from God". Australian photojournalist Warren Richardson has won the World Press Photo of the Year award for an arresting, black-and-white photo of a man passing his baby through razor wire across the border from Serbia into Hungary. Richardson, a freelance photographer living in Budapestspent five days at the border while at least 20,000 people from countries including Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan crossed into Hungary. 'Hope for a new Life' shows a man passing a baby through a fence at the Serbia-Hungary border in Roszke, Hungary, on August 28, 2015. Credit:Warren Richardson/AP Taken at night on August 28 last year, the man and child were among the people seeking to cross into Hungary before a secure fence on the border was finished. Richardson had been with this group for about five hours, playing cat and mouse with the police the whole night, he says in statement to World Press Photo, the organisation behind the award. A group of scientists, researchers and traditional owners is on the cusp of reshaping Australian history, with experts hoping that Aboriginal rock art in Western Australia may prove to be up to 50,000 years old, putting it among the oldest cultural expressions in the world. Initial results of pioneering Australian research have the potential to drastically alter the perceived flow of global artistic development after University of Melbourne scientists achieved a world first in dating methods on cave and rock paintings in the remote Kimberley region, which has one of the largest surviving bodies of rock art on the planet. Researchers Nick Sundblom, Helen Green and Jordy Grinpukel remove tiny mineral accretions from a rock art panel motif in the Kimberley. Courtesy of Kimberley Foundation Australia. Credit:Sven Ouzman Co-funded by the Australian Research Council and the Kimberley Foundation Australia, which initiates research centred on some of area's tens of thousands of rock art sites, the rock art dating project has worked in step with traditional owners, on whose land the extensive galleries of ochre, deep brown, rusted orange and white-hued pictures of human figures, marsupials, shells and fish are found. "The scientific question, of course, is how old is it?" said geologist Andrew Gleadow, whose team at the University of Melbourne and from the Australian Nuclear and Science Technology Organisation spearheaded a new method for uranium-series dating of rock art. The rape conviction of Sydney man Luke Lazarus is set to be overturned and a retrial ordered after the state's highest court upheld his claim that the judge in his trial misdirected the jury. Lazarus had spent 11 months in jail over the rape behind a Sydney nightclub but was released on Friday afternoon after the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal granted him bail with a $50,000 surety ahead of a final judgment in the coming weeks. Appearing from jail via audio visual link, the 23-year-old broke down as the Chief Judge at Common Law, Justice Clifton Hoeben delivered the news following a 90-minute hearing. "The court is in a position to say that it's satisfied at this stage that ground two [of the appeal] has been made out," Justice Hoeben said. In the second half of 2015 the flow of refugees into Europe was a lively river, flicking around obstructions into new routes, past wave-through checkpoints. Now it is more like a painful, halting digestion, borders opening and closing in reaction to each other in a kind of peristalsis. Syrian refugee children. Credit:Nick Miller The gates close for any number of reasons: a landslide on a railway track, a protest by Macedonian taxi drivers accusing the government of depriving them of refugee cross-country fares. But often the reason is simply this: there is no room for new arrivals until the last lot have moved again. A child in a refugee camp. Credit:Nick Miller As soon as movement is cut it shunts up the line. Transit camps fill and the message passes back, Austria to Croatia to Serbia to Macedonia to Greece: stop the flow, we're full. And now there are signs that these temporarily closed borders are about to become more permanent. The double-line fence is up, guarded and buttressed. Idomeni, Greece, is right across the border from Macedonia. Credit:Google Maps In late January the European Union gave Greece a three-month ultimatum to stop migrants crossing from Turkey, or else the EU would "quarantine" it outside the borderless Schengen area, ending free travel for more than just the refugees. Macedonia is determined not to become the meat in this sandwich. This week, Macedonian officials told Deutsche Welle that "when the signal from the EU comes" it was ready to seal its southern border to refugees. Syrian refugee Shade, 21. Credit:Nick Miller Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the European Commission, promised to help: to "provide assistance [to Macedonia] to support controls on the border with Greece through the secondment of police/law enforcement officers and the provision of equipment". The Greeks are not happy with this ultimatum, believing that Europe is washing its hands of the problem rather than helping. With some of their islands within swimming distance of Turkey, or a few hours in a dinghy, Interior Minister Nikos Toskas pointed out there was no practical way of stopping refugees from arriving "except via sinking or shooting". Two women in wheelchairs wait for the border to Macedonia to open. Credit:Nick Miller A furious Greek Migration Minister Ioannis Mouzalas claimed a Belgian minister said "just push [refugees] back into the sea. The Belgian said 'go against the law. I do not care if it's illegal. Just push them back'." He also accused Europe of short-changing Greece by providing smaller-than-promised numbers of everything from cots and fingerprinting machines to border guards. Don Johnson from the Red Cross at Greek-Macedonian border with two refugee children. Credit:Nick Miller But the crisis is not yet upon Greece, not today. At 2.30pm in Idomeni, the border finally opens. For the rest of the afternoon, every half hour or so, 50-odd refugees are let through as long as they can prove they are Syrian, Iraqi or Afghan, a condition imposed by Macedonia late last year. Protesters next to a sign with the Greek word for "No" outside a refugee camp near Thessaloniki. Credit:Nick Miller It's enough: thanks to rough weather in the Aegean some days before, and farmers' protests blocking bus routes up from Piraeus, the number of refugees arriving at Idomeni today number in the hundreds, not thousands. Don Johnston sits in the sun, and declares it a good day. A refugee child displays his drawing. Credit:Nick Miller Johnston is the Red Cross' field co-ordinator for northern Greece. His is a 'surge' job he swings in when the pressure's on, and helps the locals plan their humanitarian strategy. Johnston was born in Colorado but is an adopted Aussie: for the last eight years he's lived in Melbourne and Sydney, jetting out for a few months each year to work for the Red Cross. He's worked in just about all the instantly recognisable troublespots: Kurdistan, Iraq (he was there when Islamic State took Mosul), Liberia, the Haiti earthquake, South Sudan. "I hardly ever get deployed to Fiji," he jokes. But he says this job is "singular" a humanitarian crisis on an epic scale. "I've never been involved in a mission like this," he says. "From a human point of view it's heartbreaking. What you are seeing is really difficult." From one point of view his job is simple: when the refugees arrive in Idomeni they need food, shelter, clothing (it drops to freezing here at night), many need medical care (respiratory tract infections are common, almost every child has a cough). In concert with other groups such as the UNHCR and Doctors Without Borders, they do what they can. But the biggest challenge is uncertainty, Johnston says. The situation can change in an instant. Just a few days earlier 80 buses arrived from Athens in one day. "There were 7000 people here, the police in riot gear were super-tense, wouldn't let people move around," he says. "It was really cold. People were getting one or two meals a day. They are with their families, their kids. "They're just regular folks. You talk to them, they're teachers, a carpenter, musicians. Just the entire population of a well functioning country is just being vacated and they're really uncertain about what's going to happen in their lives." If the border closes for too long it can get tense. In early December, when it was closed for days without explanation, migrants rioted. Angry graffiti from the riot still colours many tents around the site. "They really want information, that's the big thing," Johnston says. "They want to know what's going to happen with them, they want to know when the border's going to open, where things are at. There's a large desire. You can see they're just beset by uncertainty." And it's hard on the local volunteers, too. Johnston says his people "tell me they cry every night when they go home". Johnston says one of the contingencies he is planning for is Greece's nightmare: the borders close, but refugees keep coming. This is the suspicion, too, of the UNHCR's head of the Idomeni field unit Alexandros Voulgaris. "[Idomeni] is a bottleneck," he says. "We could have a large population stranded here hopefully the [Greek] authorities will get across this responsibility and move them to other facilities." Greece is, indeed, setting up a series of "hotspot" camps to take refugee spillover. But locals have been protesting against them. Outside one, on the outskirts of Thessaloniki, a group of protesters stand blocking the entrance beside their "Oxi" ("No") banners. Theodore Papagriogoriou says, "our region is a poor region. If the European countries close their borders and we get 4000 people staying here, we can't provide jobs for these people, or houses, or food. This is a big problem for us. "I don't' believe [the government] has a plan. That is our fear." (One of the NGO officials comments to me: "I think he's right on the money"). And if the border closes, it may encourage the criminal people-smuggling trade. According to reports, smugglers in the area sell fake ID papers at up to 1000 ($1600) each. And there are traffickers all over Idomeni, offering help to the nationalities who already aren't allowed over the border. They bundle into poorly ventilated trucks or risk precarious mountain tracks. A nurse at the Idomeni camp told of a regular stream of patients coming back down from the mountains, beaten by the terrain or beaten by Macedonian police. Freelance photojournalist Nicola Zolin followed one group of "second-class refugees" just over a week ago. "Dark has come, time to go ... forest and smugglers the only choice," she tweeted. "Tonight, like every night, migrants from Pakistan, Iran, Maghreb will try their luck crossing [the] border by foot ... Stranded migrants still prefer to get smuggled through the 'mainstream' route than trying Bulgaria and Albania that they see as dangerous." A few hours later she reported: "One hour walk to the border, then their smuggler got beaten by people with sticks. Now they go back to Athens." Meanwhile, at the Idomeni camp, the refugees wait their turn. Johnston says the demographics have changed this year it used to be mostly young single males, now it is mostly families. A Syrian woman is travelling with her three children: 10, 5 and 1. Her home was destroyed, she says, and "if I stayed there for a million years we could not buy a house any more in Syria" before the war her husband sold insurance, a concept now as alien as peace. A young man, Shade, 21, fled Syria because he was told he had to join the army. He worked for eight months in Turkey to save money so he could catch a boat across to Greece they crowded onto a small inflatable dinghy, "I was not scared for myself, death in Syria is the same to me as death in the water. I was just worried about the little ones on the boat." And Naser Kasem, a 60-year-old Kurd from the north of Iraq, has a horror story: IS killed most of the people in his village, abducted his 22 year-old daughter, and killed two of his second daughter's young children. He is bringing his wife and his third daughter to Europe, to safety. They floated over from Turkey on two inner tubes lashed together, with 13 other people, including a two-month-old baby. "The water was coming through," he says. "We all covered the baby. I didn't care for myself, as long as the baby was alive." Later, I see Kasem and the baby in the queue at the border (it's closed again). There is movement on the other side. Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov has come to visit. He exchanges platitudes with the border guards. But you can read a politician better by his actions than his words. He doesn't greet the refugees, standing in a bemused line barely a metre away. He doesn't even acknowledge them. Hyderabad: The TS government will seek the support of Dubai-based companies to ensure fool-proof employment opportunities for youths from the state. Home minister T. Nayani Narasimha Reddy, accompanied by home secretary Rajiv Trivedie and others, left on Friday for Dubai where the team will meet representatives of various companies and request them to hire workers and other staff through the Telangana Overseas Manpower Company Limited. Tomcom is an overseas recruitment agency of the TS government. Many TS youths going to Gulf countries fall prey to middlemen and agents. They are not only cheated of their precious earnings but get caught in the web of deceit and face prosecution in some cases. We have to check such cases, the minister said. We will have an MoU between such companies and Tomcom so that employment seekers are not cheated by agents," he said. Tomcom, he said, would provide travel, passport, and visa and stamping assistance and familiarise workers with overseas work conditions and culture. About 10 lakh persons from TS are employed in the Gulf and other countries. Several youths are illegally sent by agents for jobs on visit, free and private visas, and many have landed in jail in these countries. An ACT after-school program worker accused of stalking a child he allegedly developed "a clear sexual interest and infatuation" for has been granted bail. Prosecutors opposed the man's bid for release when he appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court on Friday charged with stalking, possessing child pornography and using the internet to deprave a young person. The court heard the man, 25, had a moderate intellectual disability and staff at the school involved told his parents he had developed an inappropriate attachment to the child. A police informant said she had serious concerns the man would try to contact the alleged victim if he was released because he had struck up a friendship with the child and had access to his next-of-kin information. The court heard the man wasn't capable of understanding he wasn't supposed to contact the victim and had ignored repeated instructions to not go near the child. The Australian dollar has taken an afternoon hit after the Wall Street Journal reported that Reserve Bank of Australia board member John Edwards said the currency was too strong. The Aussie "has found a base, and I guess I would say I still think it is a bit too high," Mr Edwards is quoted as saying in the report. The Aussie "has found a base, and I guess I would say I still think it is a bit too high," RBA board member John Edwards is quoted as saying. Credit:Graham Tidy Mr Edwards, who has been on the RBA board since July 2011, also said he would be more comfortable with a level around 65 US cents, though he's not confident a drop to that level would occur, the paper reported. "It does look like it (the Australian dollar) has found a base, and I guess I would say I still think it is a bit too high," Edwards said. "If it was driven entirely by commodity prices, it certainly should be lower," he added. "What's got the currency moving is that he's nominated a figure," said Richard Grace, chief currency and rates strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney. STW Group's strategic review although painful is delivering results that will help the parent company of Ogilvy and Spinach, said chief executive Mike Connaghan, as the advertising and marketing business prepares to merger with the local operations of Sir Martin Sorrell's WPP. STW reported a $52.6 million loss for calendar 2015, compared with a $44.6 million profit in the previous year. Chief executive Mike Connaghan will lead the merged STW and WPP business. Credit:Ben Rushton Much of the loss stemmed from a $81.8 million non-cash write-down as well as costs relating to the company's restructure and other one-off costs of $10.4 million. Mr Connaghan said the costs are non-recurring and restructuring costs have largely been incurred in 2015. Illustration: Richard Giliberto Labor's policy carefully exempts the 1.2 million taxpayers who now claim deductions. Only investments made after July 1, 2017, will be affected by the change. Negative gearing has become a hugely popular pastime in middle Australia since the capital gains tax discount was introduced by the Howard government in 1999. But the combination of the two has been blamed for encouraging property speculation at the expense of first-home buyers. So would Labor's changes make housing more affordable? Yes, says the Grattan Institute's John Daley, who has researched the effects of negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts. "You are changing the returns on after-tax returns on housing for investors but not changing anything for occupiers," he said. "Imagine yourself at an auction. The owner-occupier has exactly the same incentive to buy the house as they do now but the investor will not want to pay quite as much as they did previously because the after tax return is now lower." That means lower demand with no material change in supply and as a result prices will be lower than they would otherwise have been. Saul Eslake, an independent economist and leading thinker on Australian housing policy, says the federal government has no better option to limit upward pressure on house prices than reforms to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. A generational dimension has emerged in the politics of housing because most of those benefiting from generous tax breaks on investment housing are older people. "Given the levers at the federal government's disposal, I can't think of anything that would be more helpful to improving housing affordability than some significant changes to negative gearing arrangements," he said. "I say that because I think the overwhelming impact of negative gearing on the housing market is to push up the price of established dwellings." More than 90 per cent of lending to housing investors is used to purchase established dwellings. Eslake, a long-term critic of negative gearing, says the losers under the current policy settings have been first timers unable to compete with investors who "have their mortgage costs subsidised by tax payers though the negative gearing arrangements." As a result, Labor's changes would "remove a source of upward pressure on existing home prices." Eslake also dismissed claims by the property industry that rents will rise if negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount are changed. If landlords were to respond to changes in negative gearing by withdrawing from the housing market that would push down the prices of properties, making them more affordable to would-be home buyers, allowing more of them to become home-owners. In turn that would reduce demand for rental properties. While changing negative gearing and capital gains tax is "no magic bullet" for Australia's housing affordability challenges Daley says Labor's proposal would be a substantial improvement on current policy settings. "Over time, it will have a big impact on the budget, it will increase home ownership and it will reduce the inequity of the Australian tax system," he said. Labor's plan been backed by former Liberal premier of Victoria, Jeff Kennett, and several prominent business figures have publicly criticised negative gearing since the policy's release. Deloitte Access Economics budget expert, Chris Richardson, takes a slightly different view to Daley and Eslake. He would prefer negative gearing to be left unchanged and only the capital gains tax discount reduced. "If you fix the capital gains tax discount you don't really have to do anything on negative gearing," Richardson said. But like Daley and Eslake he does not think Labor's plan would cause the damage predicted by critics. "I don't see it as a major force for either good or evil," he said. Bowen predicted Labor's plan to change negative gearing and capital gains tax would draw fire "from groups which benefit from the current arrangements" and sure enough the government and groups representing the property sector have condemned Labor's policy. Property Council of Australia chief executive Ken Morrison called it a "risky intervention in housing markets" at a time when prices are coming off the boil. "The halving of the capital gains tax discount will be bad for new housing supply, even with their negative gearing changes," he warned soon after Labor's announcement. "You can't increase taxes on housing by $32 billion and not affect rents, housing construction or prices." Graham Wolfe, of the Housing Industry Association, said reducing the capital gains tax discount "will push investment away from Australia's housing sector". In a blistering political attack on the opposition's policy on Friday, Prime Minister Turnbull warned "Bill Shorten's policy is calculated to reduce the value of your home". The government is mulling over its own potential changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts. One option under consideration is to cap the number of properties that an investor can negatively gear. Another is to limit the annual tax deductions that can be claimed. "We are utterly committed to ensuring that we give no encouragement, no marketing opportunities to the people smugglers." Protesters rally in Brisbane in support of asylum seekers. Credit:Jorgia White How would it be a marketing opportunity if NZ were to take some? Because the people smugglers could sell it as a new product, Turnbull imagines, along these lines "come on my boat to Australia, yes you'll be taken to a detention camp but look, you'll eventually go to live in lovely NZ. "And if you don't like it there, it's easy to move from NZ to Australia any time." He will take no chances of creating a possible "pull factor" for asylum seekers. "The one thing we must not do is give an inch to the people smugglers," Turnbull continued, "because, believe me, we are not talking about theories here. The alternative approach has been tried by Labor and we know what the consequences are." Support for immigration program rises Turnbull reminded reporters of what happened the last time Australia relaxed its policy on boat arrivals under the Rudd government: "Over 150,000 unauthorised arrivals, over a thousand deaths at sea. It was a catastrophic failure of policy." The daily fact of their imprisonment in Australia's name chafes and pricks the consciences of millions. Labor, with the greatest reluctance, had to agree. It was Rudd who, eventually, declared that no one arriving by boat would ever be allowed to settle in Australia. And it was Rudd who negotiated with PNG to set up the Manus Island camp. That wasn't enough to stop the boats, and it was, famously, the Abbott government's promise that it would "stop the boats" by turning them back at sea, where necessary. Labor last year formally accepted boat turnbacks as part of its policy. Turnbacks are now bipartisan national policy and non-negotiable. Australia's coastline is vast at over 36,000 kilometres long, equivalent to about 90 per cent of the circumference of the earth. Comprehensively sealing it to boat arrivals is a considerable logistical feat. This was also central to restoring public confidence that the borders are under sovereign control and that the immigration program is orderly. As boats have stopped, polled support for the current immigration program has risen, shown in surveys including the annual Scanlon Foundation reports on Australian social cohesion. This is now an established pattern, recurring over decades, that reveals the underlying socio-political construct in Australia if we think the borders are under control, we accept a high immigration intake. If boats are arriving in an uncontrolled way, we oppose it. But that alone is not enough. The offshore detention camps are not a permanent solution. They are inherently unreliable as physical realities. They are politically vulnerable, subject to the vagaries of political opinion in the host countries of Nauru and PNG. The Nauruan government specifically designates the Australian detention centre as "temporary". Inherently unconscionable to a great many Labor's Richard Marles, who engineered the party's decision last year to accept boat turnbacks, points out that 1000 or so asylum seekers is a big number in a tiny country, population 10,000: "Nauru has never been a suitable place for the long-term settlement of hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers. The idea of permanently resettling an extra 10 per cent on the existing population is plainly silly, and the need to resolve the fate of these asylum seekers and refugees is becoming critical, both for them and the Republic of Nauru." And the camps are inherently unconscionable to a great many Australians as a permanent place of detention for people who risked their lives to get to Australia. The daily fact of their imprisonment in Australia's name chafes and pricks the consciences of millions. A quarter of respondents to an Essential Media poll last November said the treatment of people in the offshore detention centres was "too harsh". That equates to over 3.5 million Australian voters. Many of these are people who consider themselves Liberal voters, but they're uneasy over the suffering of asylum seekers. The party's internal research is showing that this is a problem, an issue that suppresses potential levels of support for Turnbull. In the same poll, another 29 per cent of respondents said their treatment was "too soft". These people, however, are generally voting for the Coalition already. They will not abandon Turnbull over asylum seekers so long as the boats stay stopped. Shaping perceptions of Australia This is an issue that dogs Australia's image abroad and eats away at its reputation as a country that respects human rights. It is the biggest continuing source of international media coverage of Australia. The moral dimension of the treatment of immigrants flared this week in the US election campaign when the Pope condemned would-be Republican candidate Donald Trump. The celebrity demagogue's very first sally into the presidential campaign was to smear Mexicans as rapists and to promise to build a wall along the entire 3100 kilometre border, with Mexico somehow being required to pay for it. This is not a plausible policy; the popularity of it with Americans, however, is a case study in how a frustrated people can turn to extremes if they think their borders are not under sovereign control. Pope Francis told reporters: "Anyone, whoever he is, who only wants to build walls and not bridges is not a Christian." Australia has a big immigration program, one of the biggest in the world on a per capita basis. So it is a leading bridge-builder, on the Pope's definition. Yet this is lost in global media coverage, which highlights only the suffering of asylum seekers in offshore detention camps. This is no surprise the definition of news is what's going wrong in the world, not all that's well. But it is a reality that the persistence and prevalence of the coverage shapes international perception of Australia. 'This is like the boy who drowned on the beach' The surge of public sympathy for the 237 asylum seekers who've been brought from Nauru to Brisbane for medical treatment has shown that many Australians remain keenly alive to the plight of asylum seekers. The "let them stay" campaign has moved a lengthening list of churches to offer them sanctuary under the ancient custom. Even though it has no legally enforceable basis, this is a powerful moral statement. The case of baby Asha has become a focal point. The government intends to return the one-year-old, being treated for burns, to Nauru once her medical care is complete. But the child's doctors are refusing to discharge her. "This is like the boy who drowned on the beach in Turkey," Alan Kurdi, "because it personalises the issue," says Patrick Baume of the media monitoring firm iSentia. "It's pricked the conscience of a lot of people across the spectrum." He says this helps explain the continuing prominence of the "let them stay campaign". It was the third most-reported story in the news this week, after the new Turnbull ministry and the tax debate but ahead of the Cardinal Pell story and coverage of the Grammys. "Let them stay" has been running at high volumes in the news media and in social media for two weeks now, says Baume: "That's a fairly long time for any story these days. It's clearly got more legs than any other asylum seeker issue in recent times." The other part of the explanation is that the campaign has been shrewdly promoted by activists on social media, he says. By contrast, it's a dead issue on talkback radio. iSentia reports "let them stay" had 8000 mentions on social media in two days this week but just 14 talkback calls. The campaigning, officially ignored, is yet quietly noted, and the cumulative effect on Liberal voters is weighed. 'I want this settled' On a human level, the plight of the asylum seekers weighs on ministers and senior officials too. No official or politician wants to see them remain indefinitely in detention centres. None enjoys having to confront the constant stream of problems, allegations of rape and abuse, harm and self-harm. Turnbull himself, while immovable on the methods that have stopped the boats, wants movement on the resettlement of asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru. "I want this settled," he instructed a senior official soon after taking the prime ministership. The Abbott government already was quietly seeking options for their resettlement to third countries. Turnbull has put new energy and focus into the quest, officials said. Australian officials are discussing resettlement of asylum seekers from the offshore detention centres into third countries with half a dozen foreign governments now. Of those, discussions have progressed into negotiations with three. After Pope Francis suggested on Thursday that Donald Trump "is not Christian" because he focuses so intently on a border wall around America and the mass deportation of millions of illegal immigrants, Trump supporters were quick to note that Francis' home, the Vatican, is fortified by wait for it border walls! Which is not a bad retort. Trump's social media director, Dan Scavino, tweeted: "Amazing comments from the Pope considering Vatican City is 100% surrounded by massive walls." But as to the substance of the Pope's comments, there's something else that many an American Christian will notice. And that's the fact that he basically said something many of them support is "not Christian". "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the gospel," the Pope told journalists who asked his opinion on Trump's proposals to halt illegal immigration. Four Corners assembled a formidable group of physicians and law enforcement officers speaking in favour of drug reform: Mick Palmer, former Australian Federal Police Commissioner; Dr. David Caldicott, toxicologist, from the College of Medicine ANU; Alex Wodak, past director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at St. Vincent's Hospital, now president of Australian Drug Reform Foundation and Nicholas Cowdery, former NSW Director of Public Prosecutions. All, as they attempt to slay the bigger dragons of rampant drug use and the failure of policing in the lost "war" on drugs, are in favour of pill testing (at least) during music festivals to reduce the harm among young drug takers. And then there was Sydney's most esteemed Professor Gordion Fulde (Senior Australian of the Year), who's been up to his elbows in venom and spew on the frontline of battle for 30 years in St. Vincent's emergency rooms. He deals with patients who've overdosed and despairs of our reckless drug taking culture. We all do. It's terrifying. But for Fulde, no time to grapple with the finer points of legal regulation while watching a young person about to die in front of his eyes. "Basically, you melt down. All your temperature regulation in your body goes and, really, you just basically overheat, overheat, overheat and your whole organs fail. "No child, no teenager, no young person should die from ingesting a recreational drug or anything," he said in despair. In the face of consistent, evaluated data from overseas that pill testing may save the lives of our young people five of them dead in the past year in NSW (most at music festivals) and 800 admitted to St Vincent's believing their ingestion of ecstasy pills was safe all we got from Grant was more hiss and tough talk. "That is asking for taxpayers' money to support a drug dealer's business enterprise. Um, that's not going to happen in NSW while ever I'm the Minister," he said, rearing up on his hind legs. And that's just sheer effrontery when the Australian Crime Commission reports that in the 2013-14 year, there were record seizures: a 64 per cent jump on the year before. It takes a certain hide to ignore even the advice from Cate Quinn, manager of the Victoria Police Forensic Centre who told Four Corners that she advocates a policy of pill testing as valuable to law enforcement: "I think the most harmful thing is: one, we don't know what's in them, we don't know what the purity is and we don't know whether they're single drugs or multiple drugs." One who died last November at the Stereosonic festival was Sylvia Choy, 25, from Oyster Bay a pharmacist, of all things. When a senior law enforcer like the AFP's Mick Palmer is moved to speak up, saying our laws "desperately" need changing and that the status quo is actively harming young Australians, it should be a game changer. "I guess in a sense: good men say nothing, evil triumphs," said Palmer. So who's the "good man" here? When drug takers are prepared to trust smuggler "Chris" who stashes ecstasy and MDMA in his crotch for festival goers and employs his own drug testers, maybe, shockingly, it's him. Legge was a graduate of Melbourne University and Oxford, and his early writing was on colonial government, with major books on Papua and British Fiji. The Papua project on Australia's administration of the territory arose from Legge's wartime work in the government's Directorate of Research and Civil Affairs, which recruited also the poet James McAuley and future governor-general John Kerr. At the University of Western Australia in the immediate post-War period (1946-1960), Legge was also a pioneer in the teaching of Asian history Fred Chaney, Sir Neil Currie and others spoke later of how his survey course changed their lives. Through his international and Australian networks, and growing numbers of students, he influenced Australia's engagement with Asia. Internationally, Legge was especially recognised for his writing on Indonesia and also as a theoretician in the discipline of history. In the words of a former president of the Asian Studies Association of Australia, Elaine McKay, John Legge more than any other was the founder of modern Asian studies in Australia. In the great expansionist period of the Australian university system he was (as professor of history, and then dean of arts) a leader in the building of Monash University and also in the vital interaction between academic analysts and government policymakers. These years in Western Australia, working in the department of history founded by Fred Alexander and living in St Georges College under the wardenship of the respected and eccentric "Josh" Reynolds, were particularly happy ones for Legge. It was here that he met and married, in 1952, Alison Hale, a fellow Oxford graduate and the star of a local production of Shaw's St Joan. They had three children, David, Catherine and Colin. In 1956, John and Alison took sabbatical leave at Cornell University, the pre-eminent centre of south-east Asian studies in the United States. Here Legge was impressed by the academic leadership of George Kahin, with his focus on modern Asia not Orientalism, his (often critical) engagement with Washington and his network of relations with the rising new elites of post-colonial south-east Asia. The great Indonesianist, Herb Feith, who knew both men well, once reflected that despite their many common perspectives, Legge's "emancipatory liberalism" was "more playful and sceptical". John David Legge was born in Murchison, WA, on May 24, 1921. He had a particularly Australian style, shaped in part in Western Victoria (at Warrnambool High School and Geelong College). His father was a Presbyterian clergyman and his great-grand-uncle was the missionary James Legge, the translator of Confucius and first professor of Chinese at Oxford. In the midst of academic debate, John Legge's face like that of his ancestor could assume an expression of Protestant tenacity. At Melbourne University Legge studied in the Department of History where the influential professor, R.M. (Max) Crawford, was questioning the nature of history as a process of inquiry, and also warning Australians that the age of European empires had ended, and that they must now come to terms with the societies of the new Asia Pacific. In future years Legge addressed these two themes himself as an academic leader, especially when he moved to the new Monash University as foundation professor of history in 1960. At Monash, Legge created a department of history which was soon regarded as one of the finest in the country. It was distinguished by a fresh approach to the study of theoretical issues, an extraordinary range of expertise including some of Australia's most prominent specialists in Australian and European history and a collegiality which is today still a hallmark. M Nageshwar Rao said Delhi was purchasing over 1,000 buses, while Bengaluru and Mumbai picked more than 5,000 buses, and the city had 3,500. (Representational image) Hyderabad: The TSRTC National Mazdoor Union has urged Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao to strengthen the state corporation by purchasing 1,000 buses. Union leader M Nageshwar Rao said the city RTC needs new vehicles to cater to the expanding population and growing urban clusters on the outskirts. He said Delhi was purchasing over 1,000 buses, while Bengaluru and Mumbai picked more than 5,000 buses, and the city had 3,500. On other issues, Mr Nageshwar Rao said, The traffic police has decided to challan RTC buses for overloading. Every RTC bus would be overloaded during peak hours. and sought exemption from the rule. There's every chance that Barack Obama will nominate an African-American woman to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, the conservative US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) judge whose sudden death last weekend has thrown US politics, including the presidential election race, into a tailspin. The US President is fully aware of the highly charged politics of the Scalia replacement process and he has already demonstrated that he intends to play hardball. He will not attend Scalia' s funeral, for instance, and he will nominate someone who, while having an "outstanding legal mind" as he promised this week, will also help the Democrats gain maximum political advantage from the process. Illustration: Simon Bosch It is difficult to recall another SCOTUS nomination-press occurring in such a politically inflamed and hostile environment. Most nomination hearings in recent decades have been brutally partisan but this time there is the added ingredient of the Republican leadership in the Senate currently flat out refusing to even hold nomination hearings let alone vote to confirm Obama's nominee. Each of the Republican contenders for the Presidency have agreed with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's contention that the Senate should not consider any Obama nomination, leaving the court vacancy to be filled by the next president. It is the same with Samoans and Tongans. New Zealand welcomes them. And then they can come to Australia. As Jonathan Pryke of the Lowy Institute for International Policy has pointed out, it is simply because New Zealand allows Cook Islanders to live in New Zealand. And then they flood across the Tasman. Why is it that there are more Cook Islanders in Australia than Papua New Guineans? Not only was PNG once our colony while the Cook Islands belonged to New Zealand, but the population of the Cook Islands is 430 times smaller than PNG. According to the last Australian census in 2011, of the 166,272 Pacific Islanders in Australia, 65 per cent are from Polynesia and just 35 per cent from Melanesia numbers totally incongruent with the relative populations of those island groups. The simple reality is that the Polynesians get to Australia via the New Zealand route because New Zealand has a policy of favouring migration from its Pacific neighbours. I have written The Embarrassed Colonialist, a Lowy Institute Paper, published by Penguin Australia, in an attempt to draw some attention to how Australia seems almost desperate to ignore its nearest neighbour, PNG, except when it can be used as a dumping ground for asylum seekers. And I also question why we don't want our children to know about our role in creating the largest of all the Pacific Island countries out of our former colony. PNG now has a population approaching nine million. Why is our colonial tutelage not part of the school curriculum? The only mention in the national history curriculum about PNG at the moment is the Kokoda Trail. We forced Britain to claim Papua as a colony in the 1880s and took over control soon after Federation, and then we snatched New Guinea from the Germans at the beginning of World War I. We then ran it as two separate colonies without spending a great deal of money until World War II when Japan swiped a fair proportion off us for a while. The two girls go their separate ways, divided by a social media snafu. While Rachel ends up in Oxford, Alison makes her way in the art world, painting homeless people dressed as royalty. Meanwhile, Alison's mother, Val, a one-hit wonder pop star, tries to revive her fading fame on I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!, but finds only humiliation, the format being a poisonous reinstatement of the class system and public humiliation. The Winshaws make a more successful gambit for renewed fame in the art world with a prize in their name. Its first incarnation was to honour an artwork in any format, though that increasingly abstract idea was abandoned after it went to "That smell at your grandma's house when you open a biscuit tin that hasn't been opened in years". Instead, they decide to pit the various existing prizes against each other and the result turns into a delicious satire of the prestige industry. They are also returning to prominence in the media with Josephine convincing her father to give her a newspaper column, though she needs some advice from her callous parent on the nuances of writing rage-bait. When she tries to finger a "black, one-legged lesbian" as the straw man in a piece, he advises her that nobody would believe such a person exists. Simply casting the villain as Muslim, he suggests, will have the desired effect in provoking an outraged response. Josephine's right-wing ranting becomes a favourite topic for the nation's stand-up comedians, who start disappearing. Enter the earnest PC Nathan Pilbeam, a bookish detective digging deep into Freudian psychology to uncover clues about the crimes. It's a fine comic sequence in a career studded with them. Coe has never been as darkly paranoid as he is here and he seems energised to produce some of his most brilliantly caustic satire. Eventually though, he seems as defeated as Alison watching her mother slide back into an abusive relationship: "Inside she was letting out a long, deep sigh of resignation. It was going to happen all over again." In this waking nightmare, Britain is drunk-dialling its ex, and Coe is the friend slumped beside them at the bar, watching helplessly. The structure of the book embodies its gentle whimsy. It resembles three novellas whose circumferences touch each other and overlap. In each scenario, there is an ape. There is also the shadow of the legendary Portuguese rhinoceros, which, like the Tasmanian tiger, is believed to be extinct. The creature has not been sighted for centuries. It is hard to imagine Martel writing a book in which animals fail to rival the sophistication of humans. Yet they are neither personified nor domesticated. They don't pander to the psychological needs of people. They are simply themselves. This is part of the reason they are threatening to human beings who cultivate all kinds of pretence and self-image. In the first novella, which starts in 1904, a poor man called Tomas is coping with the tragic death of his partner and son. He deals with his grief by walking backwards, a form of mourning which is as conspicuous as an armband yet, without ever being explained, is richly evocative of the nature of grief. Borrowing a new-fangled invention called a car from his rich uncle, Tomas sets out to find a crucifix in a remote mountain village in which an ape is used as the figure of Christ. It was the work of a priest who had been caught up in Portugal's colonial enterprise. The second novella is set in the same village. In many respects this is the heart of the book, the kind of piece you read again to savour its beauty and gentle strength. It concerns an autopsy in which a chimpanzee is found in the body of a dead man. The final section tells of a bereaved Canadian senator who adopts an ape and goes to live in this same Portuguese village, the place from which his forebears emigrated. In each case, there is a longing for home. Martel explores the nature of grief in a manner that is delicate, subtle and unexpected. This is a rich vein in his writing; it is explored wonderfully in stories such as The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios. Martel's work is a bit like the ocean on a nice day. The surface of his prose presents a calm and glistening exterior, allowing gentle waves to tickle your toes and often make you laugh. But there is a lot going on beneath the surface. The High Mountains of Portugal is a delightful and enlivening experience. Its very strangeness makes the world feel more comfortable. Who knew there could be so many films about the ocean in one year? At first glance, 428 submissions for the third Ocean Film Festival might seem like a lot especially when it had to be whittled down to eight but it turns out the sea is an underlying theme in all kinds of work. Kayaking the Aleutians "We wanted the best of the best," says festival director Jemima Robinson, who says while many good films are submitted, she has to fill a 2-hour slot with as high-quality and varied a selection as possible and the kind of films that can't be seen on television. "This year there's a great diversity of films." In Hillsdale, residents such as Marisa Cefali, 57, say turkeys, as well as deer, coyotes and turtles, are part of the suburban menagerie that make their surroundings feel pleasantly pastoral. Mrs Cefali lives on Manson Place, around the corner from where the letter carrier was trapped. "They're actually gobbling in the morning and that's what we wake up to," she said, motioning to the woods behind her split-level home, where she has seen as many as 20 turkeys in a single group. However, last autumn she put an end to her husband's habit of leaving birdseed on the edge of their property for the turkeys. She had walked out to the driveway only to discover a turkey perched on top of their Honda Accord. "The darn thing wouldn't get off," she recalled. "I went upstairs and said, 'That's it: No more feeding the turkeys.' " The mayor of Hillsdale, Doug Frank, dismissed the notion that the borough, which has 10,200 people, might have a turkey problem. "The population is not too large," he said in a phone interview. "We've seen them around. I've never felt threatened. They're big birds and I can understand why people wouldn't want to go near them." It was just one of the latest skirmishes in suburbia's wildlife wars. Turkeys have now joined the ranks of raccoons, foxes, coyotes, bears and deer, all of which have both fans and detractors and seem to make headlines with growing frequency. While New Jersey environmental officials say they are unaware of anyone being physically harmed by a turkey, the large birds are intimidating. The state's Department of Environmental Protection, which reintroduced turkeys to the state in the 1970s, says that there are now about 25,000 statewide. "It's a success story," said Larry Hajna, a spokesman for the environmental agency. There are two hunting seasons, and while officials respond to 20 to 30 turkey complaints a year, the biggest problems seem to involve traffic tie-ups. "They will go out in the roads and if they get on to a major highway, they can be a traffic and safety hazard," Mr Hajna said. But some local officials and residents say face-to-face turkey encounters are increasing and can be scary. Perhaps the most alarming scene to be caught on video occurred in Cherry Hill, in Camden County, in 2009, when a mother and her young son were accosted by a few turkeys. In the video, the mother places the boy's tricycle between him and the turkeys, and they then run off. As a driver comes around the corner, honking the horn to frighten the birds, the mother's screams can be heard in the background. Later, the mother is seen running to safety with the boy in her arms. In nearby Burlington County, the township of Hainesport passed a local ordinance in 2012 that banned the feeding of turkeys after some cyclists and joggers reported being stalked. And on Staten Island, the one New York City borough where turkeys have become a nuisance, residents say they chase children, eat shrubs and vegetables and snatch food from people's hands. In New York State, where wild turkeys were also exterminated in the 1800s, officials started to restore the population in the 1950s. Today, turkeys are well established throughout the state, with population estimates ranging from 250,000 to 300,000. Among the tight circle of area mail carriers, news of the encounter on Tuesday spread quickly. Angus Hunt, a postal worker in neighbouring Woodcliff Lake for 30 years, said he had heard that the stricken letter carrier was a floater, meaning a postal worker from outside the area. Mr Hunt's strategy is to be the alpha male, wading right through flocks of turkeys with a confident air. "They travel in packs and will come after the truck," he said. "They peck at the wheels sometimes. I don't antagonise them. I just get out of the truck and walk through." Mr Hajna said that, in late winter, some turkeys seemed to suffer from a premature form of spring fever, what he called "crazy jake" behaviour. "When the day lengthens, hormones start to flow," he explained. Annette Hirsch, a budding science star, had barely begun unpacking after arriving to take up a prestigious post-doctoral research position at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, when news of deep cuts to CSIRO's climate science broke. "It was quite a shock," Dr Hirsch, who left Australia with her PhD in numerical modelling from the University of NSW at Christmas after being co-supervised by "a guru" in the field at CSIRO. "A lot of the people who are at CSIRO have so much knowledge, and are incredibly talented scientists it would be sad to lose that resource or that opportunity," she said of the 110 people set to be made redundant out of 140-odd staff in two key CSIRO climate units. According to one Mackellar Liberal, "choppergate" wasn't even the chief concern among her notoriously conservative local power base anyway. Bronwyn Bishop during her time as Speaker. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen "They massively have the shits with her for voting for Turnbull," the party source told the Sydney Morning Herald a day after the event. But if anyone present thought this would be Bishop's final Christmas as their MP, they were soon put straight. She planned to bat on for another three years, the 73-year-old told her guests. Bronwyn Bishop arrives by helicopter at a golf course for a Liberal fundraiser. Credit:Twitter @neilremeeus Among the reasons she gave was that her long years of political experience could be useful in government during a time of global terror. The subtext being that, with the removal of Abbott as prime minister - which, ironically, she had helped facilitate with her party room vote - Malcolm Turnbull would need some genuine conservatives keeping an eye on national security. It's fair to say the sparkling Pittwater peninsula does not rank among the hot seats of global terror but, by all reports, the Mackellar rank and file embraced the speech and her wish to serve another term. Bronwyn Bishop and Tony Abbott in happier times. But on the left and the right of the Liberal Party machine, the groans could be heard from Newport to Canberra. Among a raft of delicate preselections in safe NSW seats, Mackellar would be the toughest to engineer a factional solution to retiring Bishop in the name of renewal. Across Sydney in the seat of Berowra, Philip Ruddock, another veteran Liberal warrior, 72, had been trailing his coat and making similar noises about going around again. Back in December, Liberal powerbrokers were already discussing the need for senior Liberals - figures like Treasurer Scott Morrison and John Howard confidant Arthur Sinodinos - to talk elders like Ruddock and Bishop into bowing out. Senator Bill Heffernan and Concetta Fierravanti-Wells were also on the renewal list and a question mark hung over Mr Abbott's parliamentary future at that point. Add to that, the NSW redistribution had tipped half the voters in Macarthur into neighbouring Hume, setting up a flashpoint between Macarthur MP Russell Matheson and up-and-comer Angus Taylor in Hume, and a rumoured bid by the moderates to roll conservative Craig Kelly in Hughes. One way or another, all factional standoffs had been settled by the close of preselections on Friday. Mr Taylor and Senator Fierravanti-Wells were promoted out of danger by Turnbull - under a convention that ministers should be safe from challenge - and the dogs were called off in Hughes to keep the peace. The big difference between Mr Ruddock's circumstances and Mrs Bishop's was the fundamental currency of politics: the numbers. While Mrs Bishop has her branches locked in behind her, in Berowra, the forces behind Mr Ruddock's heir apparent, Julian Leeser, warned they had the votes to take him out if he stayed and fought. In the end, Mr Ruddock accepted the created post of Australia's 'Special Envoy for Human Rights'. That leaves Mackellar as the only full-blooded preselection battle among the safe seats in NSW. According to factional powerbrokers, they are staying out of it. Mrs Bishop retains the backing of two key figures of the centre right faction, Assistant Minister to the Treasurer Alex Hawke and former Liberal state president and lobbyist Nick Campbell. Despite her forgettable 2015, Mrs Bishop remains revered and not just for her two decades in Mackellar. During her time in the Senate, she worked tirelessly to break the stranglehold of the ALP over working class western Sydney. She is credited with building much of the Liberal infrastructure, building branches and gaining the support of ethnic groups, that allowed Howard to win over the "battlers" of the outer suburbs in 1996. The dominant left faction, which is in a mostly harmonious marriage with the centre right, has so far made no trouble in Mackellar. Besides, as one senior moderate put it "why start a fight you can't win?". But on the ground, the challenge will take all of Mrs Bishop's long political experience to prevail. One of Abbott's closest confidants, Walter Villatora, the former prime minister's Warringah campaign manager, will fly the flag for the hard right and hope to capitalise on any simmering resentment over Bishop's decision to betray Abbott when his leadership hung by a thread. Jason Falinski, a member of the moderate faction, appears to have a level of support and will hope any factional truce breaks down before a vote. Amanda Rawnsley, a senior adviser to NSW Family and Community Services Minister Brad Hazzard, former long-time northern beaches policeman David Walton, stockbroker Campbell Welsh, Street Mission founder Alan Clarke and local school teacher Vicky McGahey are expected to join the contest. On Thursday, Bishop took another blow when long-time backer Alan Jones put his support behind a former Wallaby, Bill Calcraft, who he described as a "class act". "Let me say bluntly, there could be no better candidate," Jones wrote in a letter of recommendation to preselectors. Tens of thousands of New Zealanders living in Australia will be able to apply for Australian citizenship under a deal announced by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his New Zealand counterpart John Key on Friday. Mr Turnbull said that New Zealanders on special category visas who have lived in Australia for five years or more, and who earn above $54,000, would now be able to apply for citizenship. "I think this is a very important recognition of the very close ties between Australia and New Zealand," Mr Turnbull said. New Delhi: With the Supreme Court paving the way for government formation, President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh was lifted on Friday that could usher in a new dispensation headed by dissident Congress leader Kalikho Pul. President Pranab Mukherjee has given his approval to the Union Cabinet's recommendation for revocation of President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh, a Home Ministry official said. The President's nod came after the last ditch effort of Congress leader and deposed Chief Minister Nabam Tuki seeking an interim direction that his party be allowed to go for a floor test in the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly to prove majority was rejected by the Supreme Court today. The Union Cabinet had recommended the withdrawal of President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh on Wednesday after Pul, accompanied by 31 MLAs, including Congress rebels, BJP and independents met Governor J P Rajkhowa and stake claim to form a new government. A revolt by Congress dissidents led by Pul led to a political crisis in the state that finally led to imposition of President's rule on January 26. Tuki reportedly has the support of 26 MLAs in the 60-member Assembly. Congress, which had 47 MLAs in the 60-member assembly, suffered a jolt when 21 of its lawmakers revolted against Tuki's leadership. Eleven BJP MLAs and two independents backed the rebels in the bid to upstage the government. Later, 14 rebel Congress MLAs were disqualified by the Speaker. The Supreme Court was considering pleas against imposition of President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh and also hearing petitions seeking examination of constitutional schemes on the scope of discretionary powers of the Governor. After Centre's recommendation for withdrawal of President's rule, Congress moved to the Supreme Court and got an order for maintenance of status quo in the crisis-ridden state till it examined judicial and assembly records on disqualification of 14 rebel Congress MLAs by former Speaker Nabam Rebia. However, yesterday, the apex court virtually paved the way for government formation in Arunachal Pradesh by vacating its order on maintenance of status quo, after being satisfied with the Gauhati High Court order staying the disqualification of the 14 rebel Congress MLAs. Congress again moved the Supreme Court today but the Supreme Court rejected its plea for an interim direction that it be allowed to go in for a floor test in the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly to prove majority. Another well-placed source said an early poll was a "live option, more so than a month ago", while a third said discussions were "moving", and that "the prospect that they may make that decision has increased". Voters could head to the polls sooner rather than later. Credit:Helen Nezdropa "We can't get clear air to talk about economic issues. Labor is throwing out ideas and policies that are underdone, the discussion is not productive, so why not short-circuit it and then get going again?" Earlier on Friday, Innovation Minister Christopher Pyne told the Nine Network's breakfast television audience that an early poll was "a live option", citing blocked union corruption legislation as a likely justification. "There is not only issues around savings measures [stuck in the Senate], there is the Australian Building and Construction Commission," he said. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said on Friday that the opposition was "not afraid of an election but the Liberals are afraid of the budget. They need to tell us what their economic plans are." Several senior Coalition figures acknowledged that an atmospheric change had occurred in politics making a snap poll more likely The Coalition's Registered Organisations Bill, which is designed to improve union governance, is already a double dissolution trigger for the government and a second bill, designed to restore the ABCC, is also likely to be rejected by the Senate again and become a trigger. Several senior Coalition figures acknowledged that an "atmospheric" change had occurred in politics, making a snap poll more likely. A well-placed source described the prospect of seat losses as "inevitable" but not, in of itself, a sufficient deterrent against going early. "Soldiers die in wars, mate; generals accept that," the source quipped. Strategists remain confident of victory, given the government holds 90 seats to Labor's 55 in the House of Representatives. But with its current lead in the polls, and the Prime Minister's high personal standing on a head-to-head comparison with Mr Shorten's, hardheads also acknowledge that a repeat of former prime minister Tony Abbott's landslide win in 2013 was out of reach. A senior source within the Coalition has revealed to Fairfax Media that losing seats is regarded as inevitable in light of Labor's stronger than expected performance, the "high water mark" of 2013, a softer than hoped for economy, and the absence of room in a cash-strapped budget to deliver pre-election spending. Liberal and Nationals strategists are also growing increasingly conscious of Labor's slow but steady recovery to be now within four points of the Coalition according to last weekend's Fairfax-Ipsos poll. For their part, Labor strategists believe the opposition's improvement has been driven by a combination of factors ranging from sluggish economic growth and disappointment at Mr Turnbull's dithering over tax reform, through to the opposition's willingness to get out in front with "substantial" policies in areas of taxation, education, and health. A sober assessment of the Coalition's prospects has it losing as many as four seats in Queensland where the "high water mark" reference was particularly applied. Coalition strategists believe seats that could fall in northern Queensland include Capricornia (0.8 per cent), Herbert (6.2 per cent) and even Dawson (7.6 per cent). In the state's urbanised south-east corner, seats such as Petrie (0.5 per cent) and Bonner (3.7 per cent) are prime candidates to change hands. Labor has a clear strategy to target 11 seats in the Sunshine State and believes the Prime Minister has a "Queensland problem". In New South Wales, the ALP is eyeing Dobell (0.3 per cent), Paterson (1.3 per cent) and Barton (5.4 per cent), which are all held by Liberals but have become notionally Labor seats following a redistribution of electoral boundaries. Despite its small scale, Tasmania could offer Labor hopes of up to three seats in Bass (4 per cent), Braddon (2.6 per cent) and Lyons (1.2 per cent). South Australian voters are expected to deliver Hindmarsh (1.9 per cent) back to Labor and Western Australia could see two more in Cowan (4 per cent) and Hasluck (5.9 per cent), with the newly created seat of Burt regarded as notionally Labor. In the top end, the Coalition considers Solomon (1.4 per cent) vulnerable, with one senior source describing the outcome there as "anyone's guess". And, while the Coalition's standing in Victoria has improved markedly since Mr Abbott was dumped as prime minister, Coalition strategists are pessimistic about the prospect of picking up Labor marginals including McEwen (0.2 per cent) and Bendigo (1.3 per cent). One Coalition strategist said that the government's election agenda - which would emphasise sound, frugal economic management and the need to reform workplace laws - was taking shape behind the scenes and was more advanced than nervous backbenchers may realise. "People have to hold their nerve and wait for the policies to be announced," the MP said. They are the lobby group that once said being gay was more hazardous than smoking. That warns same-sex couples having children will lead to another stolen generation. And that this week called for anti-discrimination laws to be "set-aside" during a plebiscite campaign so opponents of same-sex marriage could argue their case. This won't be the last you hear from the Australian Christian Lobby as the election year wears on. Not only is the ACL the most visible proponent of the "no" camp on same-sex marriage, they have a track record of attracting the biggest of political wigs - from John Howard to Bill Shorten - to speak at their events. While their children attend an international school in Bali, the pair share an unusual living arrangement, splitting their time between Bali and Melbourne, where Michael is based to run their Milk & Co natural skincare range. The pair, who were married two months shy of a decade, have three children together two daughters Stella, 10, and Frankie, three, and son, Rocco, seven. Credit:Jaimi Chisholm "Initially it wasn't really about the business, the objective for us was to set up the family there for a short period of time. With [my wife] Lindy's Balinese background we wanted to expose the kids to a Balinese upbringing," he told Fairfax Media in January. "It requires a fair bit of commuting but ultimately for me it creates a really good work-life balance," Michael said. He said that the family use technology to stay in touch wherever they are based and he splits his time between the two countries, spending about two-to-three weeks at a time in each place. It's always surprising how many of my clients have acquired sexual problems because of their religious beliefs or cultural backgrounds. Often they are completely unaware of it which is not surprising when people are taught confusing values from an early age. It's difficult to grow into a healthy sexual being when you are told by religious parents, and/or church leaders that "God created sex to be something beautiful, and pure but should only be enjoyed in marriage" and only between a man and a woman. And that you have to be a virgin, preferably having no sexual activity before marriage, no masturbation and definitely no homosexuality. One of the most destructive emotions a person can experience is guilt. Credit:Getty Almost all religious groups, over the ages, have condemned masturbation, claiming it inhibits self-control and promotes sexual promiscuity. The many myths and outdated beliefs surrounding masturbation remain hard to shake. For instance "do not masturbate because it leads to blindness, grows hair on the palms of your hand, it causes impotence later in life and premature ejaculation". The latest false claim is it leads to sex addiction. One of the most destructive emotions a person can experience is guilt. It's not as if this guilt makes people abstain from forbidden sexual activity. No, it just makes them feel bad and depressed. Given these negative messages, it's not surprising that there are still feelings of shame and embarrassment about this very natural and healthy activity. For people who have no way of repaying their debts there is now a way to stop debt collectors calling and to have the debts waived. Debt collectors and financial counsellors have created a register for those who cannot repay their debts. To qualify for the National Hardship Register, you need to meet with a financial counsellor. Vulnerable consumers who are listed on the National Hardship Register will have their debts waived after three years, provided they remain on the register for that period. Fiona Guthrie, chief executive officer of Financial Counselling Australia, says a consumer can be included on the register after being assessed by a financial counsellor in a face-to-face meeting as being in "such dire circumstances that they simply can't pay their debts". Hiring, firing and performance management in the Australian Public Service are all due for a shake-up under the long-awaited "contestability review", according to the federal workplace authority. And Commonwealth public servants enjoy work benefits equal to or higher than "community standards" and they should accept the wage deals they have been offered, Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd said. Australian Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd. Credit:Jay Cronan Mr Lloyd says the main public sector union is engaged in a self-interested campaign against the new generation of workplace agreement that is letting its members down. For 200 years, the dreams and drawings of NSW's 23 government architects shaped Sydney life. Now the office that gave us Hyde Park Barracks, the GPO in Martin Place, Taronga Zoo, Central Station and finished the Opera House, after Jorn Utzon quit Australia, will no longer design and construct. NSW's 23rd Government Architect Peter Poulet (on right) and Dr Charles Pickett, curator of the exhibition 'Imagine a City: 200 Years of Public Architecture in NSW' at one of their favourite examples of public architecture, Central Station. Credit:Wolter Peeters On Saturday, a new exhibition at the State Library of NSW marks the 200th anniversary of the Government Architects Office, and the thousands of buildings its architects created, including schools, jails and post offices. The exhibition is as much an obituary to the end of the era as a celebration of the office that started when convict Francis Greenway the first government architect started working for Governor Macquarie. A Christian hip hop producer convicted of the murder of a seven-year-old, whose fatal injuries he tried to blame on a fall from a pogo stick, should be jailed for life, a court has heard. Kodi Maybir's "horrific, horrendous, inhuman" treatment of the boy, who died at Maybir's Oatley music studio in Sydney's south in May 2013, was in the worst category of offences, crown prosecutor Chris Maxwell told the NSW Supreme Court on Friday. Justice Robert Allan Hulme said it was still unclear exactly how the boy had died, as Maybir had repeatedly lied to the court and had given four different versions of what caused the boy's fatal injuries. "They have been pretty poor attempts on each occasion," Justice Hulme told the court. The state's peak environment groups have pulled out of discussions over proposed land clearing and biodiversity laws, declaring the process has been hijacked by "radicals" in the National Party. The NSW government is planning to overhaul biodiversity and land clearing laws introduced by Labor that have been long opposed by farming groups and the Nationals. Jeff Angel wants a statewide ban. Credit:Tamara Dean In 2014, an independent panel commissioned by the state government recommended repealing the Native Vegetation Act, Threatened Species Act and parts of the National Parks and Wildlife Act and introducing a new Biodiversity Conservation Act. The government pledged to implement all 43 of the panel's recommendations and the office of environment and heritage, which is drafting the new laws, has been in negotiations with stakeholders. One and a half million cubic metres of dirt and rock sounds like a lot of dirt and rock. But even that will not be enough to fill the giant pit that has troubled the Hornsby Shire for more than a decade. The state government has granted approval for the pit, a former quarry, to be filled with spoil from the construction of the North Connex motorway tunnel. Hornsby Council bought the the quarry for $26 million in 2002, but discovered that making the land stable and usable would cost almost three times as much. Residents were slugged with a 10-year rate levy to help the council pay for the quarry, and a court battle over the incorrect valuing of the site followed. On the even-ing of April 7, 1775, the British man of letters Samuel Johnson made a rather prophetic assertion. He said and I quote: Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. The statement was about the false use of the term patriotism by William Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham (the patriot minister) and his supporters. The context is apt to describe the trigger happy response of the Central government to laffaire Jawaharlal Nehru University. While the slogans raised by a bunch of students to mark the third anniversary of the implementation of capital punishment awarded to Afzal Guru are certainly undesirable, by no stretch of the law do they constitute criminality, much less sedition. It has been over 11 days since the said incident took place and the Centre is still scrambling for evidence to substantiate the sedition charge that was levelled against Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of the JNU students union, who continues to be wrongfully incarcerated. For the law on sedition as laid down by the Supreme Court in a catena of judgments from Kehar Singh to Shreya Singhal is very clear. Allegedly seditious speech and expression may be punished only if the speech is an incitement to violence or public disorder. In fact, in the latter case that struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, the Supreme Court even drew a distinction between advocacy and incitement. In the JNU matter there was no encouragement to violence or even provocation to create disorder. That begs a fundamental question as to why did the Centre resort to the use of the most draconian section in Indian criminal law a provision that none other than Mahatma Gandhi described as the prince among the political sections of the Indian Penal Code designed to suppress the liberty of the citizen. For if the pulp patriotism of the Bharatiya Janata Party was indeed something more than chicanery, then they should break their alliance with the Akali Dal in Punjab as for the current chief minister Parkash Singh Badals political party was routinely involved in burning of the Indian Constitution in the early 80s. In fact, on February 27, 1984, Mr Badal personally led a band of protesters who burnt copies of Article 25(2)(b) of the Indian Constitution outside Parliament an offence far more heinous than raising anti-India slogans. Similarly, in Assam, the party that the BJP was negotiating to tie up with, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), had on August 19, burnt copies of the 119th Constitutional Amendment Bill to protest against the Land Boundary Agreement with Bangladesh that Mr Modi now claims as a feather in his cap. Earlier, during the Assam agitation in the early 80s, the All Assam Students Union, the progenitor of the AGP, was equally creative in its protests. Similarly, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), with whom the BJP was running an alliance government in J&K till yesterday had, as late as March 3, 2015, in a written statement declared: PDP has always maintained that late Afzal Gurus hanging was travesty of justice and constitutional requirements and process was not followed in hanging him out of turn PDP stands by the demand for return of his (Gurus) mortal remains, and the party promises to follow vigorously for the return of the mortal remains. We believe that the resolution brought by Engineer Rashid to seek clemency for late Afzal Guru was justified and should have been adopted by the house at that time. It is typical of the BJP to have one standard in Delhi and another in Srinagar. However, what is far more portentous is the flimflam of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government. While it has no hesitation in sending its police into womens hostels in JNU, ostensibly searching for anti-national elements, it is equally blase about announcing half-baked accords like the one with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah) in August 2015. The NSCN(IM) has been waging a war against the Indian state for decades. If the government has such a huge problem with slogans shouted by some students, how is it so nonchalant about negotiating with armed insurgents? However, what took the cake was home minister Rajnath Singh saying that there was a Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT) link to the incident in the JNU. It was based upon certain tweets emanating from the account of Hafiz Saeed, the godfather of all Punjab-based terrorist groups in Pakistan, that have a purely India focus. Saeed later disowned the tweets as well as the account itself. Having served in the United Progressive Alliance government, I am well aware that the government has the capacity to track social media. It can not be the case that officials would not have informed Mr Singh about the veracity of the account that he decided to use to point a finger at non-state actors in Pakistan. Given all these apparent contradictions, why is it that the government tried to frame the entire issue in the nationalist qua traitor paradigm. First and foremost, the progenitor of the BJP, the Rashtriya Swa-yamsevak Sangh, has a visceral hatred for the JNU. Many RSS and BJP leaders have used the choicest epithets to describe the university with one eminence of the RSS labelling it as the Centre of intellectual terrorism in a TV debate with me on February 18. If the RSS has its way, it would shut the university down, lock stock and barrel and throw the keys into the Bay of Bengal. Second, the Centre believes that by taking the low road of jingoism it can label every censure of the government not as anti-BJP or anti-NDA, but as anti-national. Anybody with even a nodding acquaintance with the consolidation of Nazism is Germany between 1933 and 1936 after Adolf Hitler seized power would see the same pattern playing itself out in India over the past 20 months. For the first thing that the thugs of the Waffen-SS did was to go after every writer, teacher, playwright, filmmaker, and any other intellectual, that it considered hostile to the ideological mould they wanted to cast Germany in. The third, and perhaps the most important, is that the RSS-BJP feels that this is the one chance that they have got after 67 years of Independence to change the fundamental narrative of India. Since 1947, there have been two competing visions of India. The liberal, progressive, pluralist idea of India as articulated and implemented by the founding fathers of the Indian Constitution that and majoritarian, theocratic and obscurantist worldview that seeks to convert India into a monolithic Hindu Rashtra conveniently ignoring the intrinsic diversity of the Hindu faith. The appointment of fellow travellers to institutions, like the Central Board of Film Certification, the Film and Televisi-on Institute of India, the Indian Council of Histori-cal Research, despite stiff opposition from the stakeholders and the hounding of a young student to suicide on the campus of Hyderabad University are but manifestations of this insidious design. However, the intrinsic lack of sophistication in implementing a devious project of transforming the basis of a nation exposes their ineptitude as nothing else does, making them objects of ridicule if not mirth. For example, the knee-jerk diktat by the highly academically qualified human resource development minister Smriti Irani in response to the developments in JNU. Ms Irani directed that the national flag must be flown in all Central universities as if it did not earlier. Perhaps it would have been better if the government had advised the RSS to unfurl the Tricolour once in a while at their headquarters in Nagpur or in their offices across India. In November 2013, at the International Film Festival of India in Goa, I had cautioned the creative community that the ominous drumbeats of fascism are growing louder and a great evil would soon stalk our land. They would squeeze the liberal spaces in the country, stamp out the right to dissent and crush the alternative narrative by misusing the instrumentalities of the state. The prophecy is unfortunately coming true. For when you sow the wind you reap the whirlwind and stopping this pulp patriotism from consuming India would require a lot of good men and women to step up to the plate. With the prison population in NSW hitting new records each month it rose 12 per cent last year to reach 12,121 in January so too has the number of men and women getting stuck in the revolving door of incarceration. NSW's recidivism rate is the worst of any state. About 48 per cent of inmates leaving prison will be back within two years, up nearly 1 percentage point for every financial year since 2011. Only the NT has a worse record. Last April, a freshly appointed Corrective Services Minister, David Elliott, said the reoffending rate would be one of his first priorities. "I want prisoners to leave jail punished, literate and drug-free," he said at the time. So far, he has announced a new prison in Grafton with better infrastructure for rehabilitation and the introduction of report cards for all NSW prisons, measuring criteria such as time spent out of cells and how often inmates reoffend. He said a NSW Strategy to Reduce Reoffending will also pursue innovative solutions, like a social impact investment policy that encourages private investment made on the promise of successful public outcomes. Mr Elliott's comment went to the heart of the purpose of prison which, he says, is about rehabilitation as much as punishment and community safety. However, a damning 2014 report by the Inspector of Custodial Services found that health, education and work opportunities in prison had not kept pace with the population rise leaving prison a means of "simply warehousing inmates". Work opportunities had declined by 10 per cent, the average wait time to see a GP had blown out to one month and two-thirds of eligible inmates were not getting their chosen education course, the report found. Support mechanisms are in place for those leaving prison on parole only. Workers in the sector say prisoners on remand and shorter sentences have no pre-release help a concerning predicament given they comprise the majority of prisoners and suffer the same disruption and damage as sentenced inmates. For parolees, each prisoner has pre-release planning to help their transition. "In reality, case workers and prison officers are incredibly overworked, particularly at the moment with record numbers of prisoners," Kate Wiechmann, of the ex-inmate support group, Prisoners' Aid Association of NSW, said. "The services, particularly if the person doesn't have complex mental health or addiction needs, are almost non-existent. Sometimes they open the gate and say 'see you later'. They'll have the clothes they were arrested in and a bus ticket." Ms Wiechmann was hired by the association last year to bring to life a unique idea: a social enterprise removalist company employing ex-inmates. It will cost $7000 for each employee providing them with a job, new skills and associated support like help to find a house, get an Opal card or use a smartphone. This compares to about $85,000 per year to keep them in prison. Yet this is the only social enterprise for ex-prisoners in NSW that Ms Wiechmann knows of. She is applying for government grants but expects most funding will be philanthropic. "We don't have cute kids or puppy dogs, there's not a lot of sympathy for these people," she said. "But the work we're doing actually affects the average person in our community much more, through crime and costs and government savings. We're talking about billions of dollars for the justice portfolio and that's no longer seen as outrageous." Of the 15,000 men and women who leave prison each year, about 300 get reintegration support through major provider Community Restorative Centre. Research by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre found a third of ex-inmates spend their first night out of jail sleeping rough. "The first three months involve very intensive case work," CRC's programs director Mindy Sotiri said. "For a lot of people we work with, they really don't have anybody else that's in their corner. They've often burnt bridges with family and friends, they're often isolated. Loneliness and social isolation is one of the key reasons people go back to prison and their caseworker is often the one person in their life that is genuinely hopeful they can change." Corrective Services NSW recently increased the funding for non-profit NGOs to help with post-release support yet most people are provided with a maximum three months of help. A CSNSW spokeswoman said there was a "comprehensive plan" for reducing re-offending and participation in many rehab programs was increasing significantly, including those addressing addiction, aggression, domestic violence and sex offending. However, the biggest challenge to meeting Mr Baird's ambitious target may be closer to home. Dr Weatherburn's plea to tone down the political rhetoric is no easy feat. The last Liberal attorney-general to take such an approach, Greg Smith, did not fare well. A Wollongong man who used power of attorney to fleece his father out of more than $157,000 in life savings will spend at least a year behind bars. Shane Williams was debilitated by anxiety, depression and alcoholism when he signed power of attorney documents at a January 14, 2014 meeting at a Wollongong solicitor's office, the Illawarra Mercury reported. The papers named Williams' 27-year-old son Toby Di Comun Williams as the principal. They required him to keep his own money and property separate from his father's, to act honestly and not to gain a benefit from his position unless authorised. Instead, Di Comun Williams sealed his father's financial ruin with a year of indulgent spending on holidays to Japan, Melbourne, Cairns and Port Douglas, hotel stays, a skydiving jaunt, car repayments and a deposit on a brand new car for his partner. He opened new accounts to aid the deceit and used credit cards in his father's name to make thousands of dollars in purchases. In all, he transferred $44,089.83 directly into accounts in his own name. He used another $26,777.98 to pay a car debt for himself and his partner. Another $86,572.31 went in transactions from savings, credit card transactions and incurred debt left on credit cards in his father's name. Brisbane buses would have access to more indent bays on busy roads to improve traffic flow under a Labor council election commitment announced on Friday. Labor lord mayoral candidate Rod Harding said the 15 new bays would be installed at a cost of $6.4 million if he were elected next month. Labor has pledged to build 15 bus stop indents to free up traffic lanes in Brisbane. Credit:Chris Hyde He said that would take buses out of traffic lanes, freeing up the road for motorists. "We're taking the buses out of the line of traffic at bus stops," he said. Surf lifeguards are warning beachgoers to take extreme caution on the Gold Coast's beaches due to dangerous conditions. Raging surf contributed to the death of a 36-year-old body boarder from Brisbane at Broadbeach on Thursday while two tourists were rescued by lifesavers after being dumped and swept off a North Burleigh sandbank on Friday. Surf lifeguards are warning beachgoers to take extreme caution on the Gold Coast this weekend. Surf Life Saving Queensland (SLSQ) is urging caution on beaches this weekend due to the powerful surf conditions, with swells up to 2m expected across the state's southeast coastline. SLSQ says lifesavers are bracing for a busy weekend with rough waters and temperatures set to hit 30C. The state government said it "has faith" in its shark control program and would not change its position after a sit-down with Gold Coast hunger strike campaigner Nicole McLachlan on Friday. Ms McLachlan began her hunger strike on February 6 to push the Queensland government to phase out shark nets and drumlines after exhausting all other methods in her campaign to protect Queensland's marine life. Nicole McLachlan was on her hunger strike for 10 days. Credit:Nicole McLachlan/Facebook While potential non-lethal alternatives were discussed, the state government confirmed it would not be moved on its present control methods. "I told Nicole I have faith in the shark control program and that the government's position is unchanged," Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries Leanne Donaldson said. If you were on a train station between the Port of Brisbane and Wulkuraka early on Friday afternoon you may have seen the first of Brisbane's new trains that have cost taxpayers more than $4 billion. The first of the sleek-looking six-car set of Queensland's Next Generation Rolling Stock, arrived at the Port of Brisbane on Friday morning and slowly made their way to the railway workshops at Wulkuraka, just to the west of Ipswich. The first of Queensland's 2016 NGR trains arrive from India. Ipswich is Queensland Rail's traditional home, with the first rail trip running from Ipswich to Grandchester in 1865. This is now where Bombardier, the company which won the $4.4 billion contract, has built a new state-of-the-art rail maintenance facility. Tributes have poured in for Lockyer Valley mayor Steve Jones, who remained in a critical condition in the Princess Alexandra Hospital after an apparent stroke. Cr Jones was meeting with fellow mayors Paul Pisasale (Ipswich) and Graeme Lehmann (Somerset) in Cr Pisasale's office when he fell ill on Thursday. After initially being taken to the Ipswich Hospital, Cr Jones was transferred to the PA's intensive care unit, where he remained in a critical condition on Friday afternoon. A Lockyer Valley Regional Council spokesman said deputy mayor Tanya Milligan would represent the mayor until further notice. Cardinal Pell has previously appeared before the royal commission twice: in person in Sydney in March 2014, and via video link in August 2014, while it was investigating the Church's Melbourne Response, established by the Cardinal while he was Archbishop of Melbourne in 1996. Cardinal Pell said in his statement that he had been exonerated after claims of historic sexual abuse were made against him in 2002. He said those "false claims" had been ignored by police for 15 years. The complaint he refers to centres on allegations he abused a boy at a church holiday camp at Smiths Beach, Phillip Island, in the 1960s. According to the complaint, Cardinal Pell, then a student priest, fondled the young boy's genitals. Cardinal Pell, who always denied the allegations, temporarily stood down as Archbishop of Sydney in 2002 after the accusation was made. Reports at the time said an investigation by retired Victorian Supreme Court judge Alec Southwell found the accusation could not be established. The closed-door inquiry organised via the National Committee for Professional Standards, which also oversees the abuse complaints processes for the Catholic Church, Towards Healing concluded that both the complainant and the Cardinal were honest witnesses. "I accept as correct the submission of (counsel) that the complainant, when giving evidence of molesting, gave the impression that he was speaking honestly from an actual recollection. However, the respondent, also, gave me the impression that he was speaking the truth," Mr Southwell said. The absence of forensic evidence due to the 40-year interval since the alleged offence, the complainant's credibility, lack of corroborative evidence and Cardinal Pell's sworn denial of the accusations were key factors in the inquiry's conclusion, Mr Southwell said at the time. In December 2015, Sano taskforce detectives investigating historic allegations of abuse publicly appealed for information about sexual assaults at St Patrick's Cathedral between 1996 and 2001, during which time Cardinal Pell was archbishop of Melbourne. The investigation centres on claims that 14-year-old boys were sexually assaulted at the church. Detectives were understood to have executed search warrants on buildings linked to the church in East Melbourne, Melbourne, Maidstone and Toorak, on December 2 In his statement on Friday, Cardinal Pell said it was "outrageous" that the sex abuse allegations had been brought to his attention through the media. "These undetailed allegations have not been raised with the Cardinal by the police", the statement said. "He strongly denies any wrongdoing. If the police wish to question him he will co-operate, as he has with each and every public inquiry." "For elements of the police to publicly attack a witness in the same case study that has exposed serious police inaction and wrongdoing is outrageous and should be seen for what it is," the statement said. "The Cardinal calls on the Premier and the Police Minister to immediately investigate the leaking of these baseless allegations." A Victorian government spokeswoman said: "If, as reported, there is an investigation currently before Victoria Police it would be inappropriate to comment." Victoria Police would not comment on the Herald Sun's report. "Taskforce SANO is currently conducting a large number of investigations into historic sexual offending," Sergeant Anthoula Moutis said. "Victoria Police will not provide a running commentary on these investigations as it would be inappropriate to do so. Victoria Police encourages all victims of sexual assault and child abuse, and anyone who has knowledge of such a crime, to make a report." With Beau Donelly, Jane Lee Do you know more? Email scoop@theage.com.au The Cardinal's full statement: LEAKED ALLEGATIONS SPURIOUS AND FALSE CARDINAL GEORGE PELL Cardinal Pell is due to give evidence to the Royal Commission in just over one week. The timing of these leaks is clearly designed to do maximum damage to the Cardinal and the Catholic Church and undermines the work of the Royal Commission. The allegations are without foundation and utterly false. It is outrageous that these allegations have been brought to the Cardinal's attention through a media leak. These undetailed allegations have not been raised with the Cardinal by the police and the false claims investigated by Justice Southwell have been ignored by the police for over 15 years, despite the very transparent way they were dealt with by the Cardinal and the Catholic Church. The Cardinal has called for a public inquiry into the leaking of these spurious claims by elements in the Victorian Police in a manner clearly designed to embarrass the Cardinal, in a case study where the historical failures of the Victorian Police have been the subject of substantial evidence. These types of unfair attacks diminish the work of those good officers of the police who are diligently working to bring justice to victims. The Phillip Island allegations have been on the public record for nearly 15 years. The Southwell Report which exonerated Cardinal Pell has been in the public domain since 2002. The Victorian police have taken no steps in all of that time to pursue the false allegations made, however the Cardinal certainly has no objection to them reviewing the materials that led Justice Southwell to exonerate him. The Cardinal is certain that the police will quickly reach the conclusion that the allegations are false. The Victorian Police have never sought to interview him in relation to any allegations of child sexual abuse and apart from the false allegations investigated by Justice Southwell, the Cardinal knows of no claims or incidents which relate to him. The "disturbing" murder of a woman in her home in Hoppers Crossing could be a random attack, police say. It comes as details emerge that the woman 48-year-old Prasad Somawansa was killed within the short space of time that her 21-year-old son was away from their home on a call-out with the State Emergency Service. Homicide Squad Detective Senior Sergeant Stuart Bailey, who called the murder "disturbing", said the woman suffered severe upper body trauma in her Barber Drive home. There is no history of domestic violence within the family, who moved from Sri Lanka in 1999, known to police. In the end, after 12 hours high up Melbourne's Arts Centre spire, two protesters climbed down under their own steam and avoided arrest. Katherine Woskett, 25, an arborist, and Hannah Patchett, 22, a professional rope access worker, were protesting as part of nationwide action calling on the federal government to halt the deportation of 267 refugees, including 37 babies, to Nauru. They started climbing up the spire at 3.30am yesterday after evading security guards who had heard noises. They hung a large banner saying #letthemstay 162 metres up the iconic spire. Police requested they bring the banner down with them, but they did not. But after a plea from Arts Centre management, police did not charge the women with trespass. The spire is state government property. None of the spire's infrastructure was damaged in the protest. Gao, Mali: At least one Malian soldier was killed by suspected jihadists on Friday in the country's restive north, hours before France's Prime Minister visited French troops deployed in the region to help quash the Sahel's Islamist threat. Military sources and a civilian witness said that in the assault on a Malian army post in the town of Menaka another soldier was wounded and at least one army vehicle stolen. The latest death highlights the tough security problem for Malian, French and UN forces as they attempt to maintain order over vast stretches of desert where extremist groups roam, after being ousted from key towns by a French-led military operation in January 2013. The area had fallen under the control of Tuareg-led rebels and jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Friday morning met French troops stationed in the main town of Gao. The soldiers are part of the regional anti-insurgent Operation Barkhane, a follow-up mission to 2013's Operation Serval inside Mali. Accompanied by Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, Valls participated in a military ceremony on his second day in Mali, after describing the fight against Islamic militancy as a "battle against barbarity". Barkhane comprises at least 3,500 soldiers deployed across five countries (Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso) with a mandate to combat jihadist insurgencies in the region. Mali has concluded a landmark peace agreement between the government and Tuareg-led rebels, but jihadist violence has intensified on the ground and the handling of a return to peace has been criticised by the international community. Seven Guinean UN peacekeepers were killed and some 30 wounded a week ago when suspected Islamists attacked their base in northern Mali, while three Malian soldiers died in an ambush the same day. Valls is also due to meet the chief of the UN force, known as MINUSMA, on Friday along with the head of an EU training mission for Malian troops. People who share or open a folder leaked online containing explicit photos of Perth women and potentially children could face child pornography charges, a cyber expert has warned. The Google Drive contains a number of folders listing photos of women from all states around Australia, with the WA folder containing 361 individual links, each labelled with a female name. It is thought many of the individual folders contain up to 30 photos each and some of the images may have been collated from social media accounts such as Snapchat and Facebook. A "handful" of the females identified in the folder are from a prominent Perth private school which has since spoken with its senior students about the dangers of social media. WA's historic goldmining centre of Norseman faces an uncertain future, with the ANZ announcing on Friday its almost immediate withdrawal of the only bank from town - without any consultation. The branch on Roberts Street will shut its doors on March 9 with the loss of four jobs. But that closure will represent a much bigger loss to the broader community. ANZ Bank - pulling out of Norseman with next to no notice. Credit:Bloomberg All the big bank will leave behind is an ATM and a residue of ill will. Resident Wendy Chipman said she was gobsmacked when she read the notice on the online Norseman Discussion Board on Friday morning. A Mundijong mother-of-three who was moving house has been left devastated after a verge collector mistook her family's belongings, including her children's Christmas presents, for hard rubbish. A distraught Misty Thomas told Radio 6PR on Friday morning the council collection picked up the moving boxes left on her driveway while she was collecting her partner from the airport on Thursday. "I was trying to move [house] by myself and the stuff was on my driveway all boxed up and they've thrown it out," she said. "They picked them up and crushed all my house items, my kid's Christmas presents and all our stuff. The future of the town's beloved jacaranda - the winner of a 'Perth's best jacaranda" competition' - was another bone of contention. He said the DAP "ignored" the council recommendation, rendering its ratepayer-funded public consultation process and factual analysis pointless. "For an unelected panel to put that to one side was inappropriate," he said. He said the public - and councils - could not appeal via the state tribunal. Mr Bull called for equal representation of councils and industry on DAP panels, or to reverse the balance of power. If the local residents aren't happy with the way they are applying the town planning scheme, they can't vote them out Dan Bull While development was needed, particularly as the train station precinct would see heavier use once the rail link was active, but increasing density had to be done right, he said. Despite having experts as part of the process, it troubled him that they had the power to completely remove power from councils, and thus from residents, on major developments that had impact on amenity. "If the local residents aren't happy with the way they are applying the town planning scheme, they can't vote them out," he said. "Residents all through the metro area have been raising problems with the DAP process in Subiaco, South Perth, just to name a couple." Perth MP Alannah MacTiernan had voiced her opposition to the DAP in the form of a deputation at its meeting. After the meeting, Ms McTiernan said the DAP had disregarded what she regarded as a "pretty progressive and reasonable", "contemporary" town planning scheme that represented "the genuine effort of the council to encourage some development." She said while Perth DAPs were implemented as impartial bodies to apply town planning schemes that councils sometimes found hard to enforce, they were increasingly ignoring the "clear language" of the schemes to give developers everything they wanted. "There is research being done showing they are ignoring plot ratios without any demonstrated benefit other than development. You can't get any trees on some of these sites apart from a few potted lemons and that is support to contain the urban heat island effect," she said. Town planner and Bayswater resident Greg Smith said while there were many troubling issues with the DAP approval, the main one was that while it had at first rejected the development because of the height contravention, it had in the second instance "ignored" this, and in so doing, "acted as though [planning law] was a "complete irrelevancy". "There are lots of issues you can look at and see that the decision was fundamentally flawed, but that takes the cake," he said. Bayswater Deserves Better convenor Keith Clements said the process had castrated the council. "We are getting screwed," he said. The hashtag #ScrapTheDAP, used in the past by numerous community associations, has re-emerged on Twitter following the decisions. Department of Planning Director General Gail McGowan said DAPs were independent bodies that made planning decisions in the same way councils did. "These decisions are based on individual local council's planning schemes and policies. Prior to making a decision DAPs receive a 'responsible authority report' report from the relevant local government in which the local government provides a recommendation to the DAP. "In this case the City of Bayswater's report recommended to the DAP on 26 October 2015 that the application be approved. However, the DAP decision was to refuse the application due to concerns with some elements of the design. The applicant lodged a request for review of the decision to the State Administrative Tribunal and the application has now been approved by the DAP only after modifications made through the mediation process. "In Western Australia, there is no third-party appeals process for either DAP or local council planning decisions." Planning Minister John Day said the DAP system was working. "Since being introduced in 2011 there have been 994 DAP applications," he said. Kampala: Ugandans went to the polls on Thursday to choose presidential and parliamentary candidates in an election riddled with irregularities even before voting began. Polling stations in some parts of the capital, Kampala, did not open until after noon - nearly six hours late, and three hours before their scheduled closing time. Some did not open at all. At one polling station, voters waited seven hours for ballots to arrive, and when they did they were for parliamentary candidates only. A voter stretches her arms as she and other Ugandans wait to vote at sunset in the capital Kampala. Credit:AP The leading opposition candidate for president, Kizza Besigye, was arrested after trying to get into a police command centre in the Naguru neighbourhood of Kampala, the police said. Mr Besigye's party, the Forum for Democratic Change, alleged that the command centre was a "vote-rigging centre". Two people were killed on Monday in riots linked to the election, and Mr Besigye was twice arrested while trying to hold rallies. Washington: Lineage gets you only so far in today's Iran. A black turban confirms Hassan Khomeini's claim to be a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad; and his surname affirms that here is one of the bluest of Persian bluebloods Khomeini is a grandson of the revered father of the revolution, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Hassan is no black sheep. By some counts, all 15 of the ayatollah's grandchildren have emerged as "reformers", demanding over the years that Iran re-engage with the world and cease discriminating against women; accusing the country's hardline religious leadership of deviating from their grandfather's revolutionary goals; and in the case of the uber-rebellious Hussein Khomeini, calling for the US or others to liberate Iranians from the "dictatorship of the clerics". An Iranian woman holds a leaflet showing Mohammad Ali Vakili, a candidate in February 26 parliamentary elections, during a reformists' campaign rally in Tehran on Thursday. Credit:AP And as Iranians gird for critical elections on February 26, the 43-year-old Hassan Khomeini is not alone like thousands of other who wanted to run for seats in the national parliament and the all-powerful Assembly of Experts, Hassan was disqualified in a ruthless vetting of would-be candidates that makes a farce of Iran's claims to democracy. npm, Inc. Shows Rapid Gains in the Enterprise With Developers; More Than 50% of the Fortune 1000 Use the Service OAKLAND, CA (Marketwired) 02/18/16 npm, Inc., the most widely used package manager for JavaScript, has shared growth metrics showcasing its fast adoption in the enterprise in 2015. Developers at more than 50 percent of the Fortune 1000 are using npm to share and reuse code, and the companys revenue has seen double-digit month-over-month growth in the past year. Furthermore, npm users have downloaded 25 billion packages within the last year, showing tremendous growth of the platform. A major priority for npm going forward will be to support the communitys success in leveraging npm for Open Source and at work. npms package manager supports more than 3.4 million active developers, with 2.5 billion packages downloaded every month. More than 80 percent of npms downloads occurred in 2015, demonstrating the hyper growth of the platform among developers and enterprise users. The popularity of service oriented architectures and microservices now requires sophisticated orchestration with hundreds of SDKs for APIs and other independent pieces of code. npms ability to install, publish and manage JavaScript packages, in addition to its versioning capabilities with different dependencies, have made it a must-have in developers toolkits as they adopt a more modular approach to development. Its great to see npms growth trajectory continue to rise, particularly as enterprises start to see that they can reap the benefits of open-source style collaboration without compromising security by using our private and on-premises solutions, said Isaac Schlueter, CEO at npm Inc. The InnerSource movement is changing the way teams work together for greater velocity and better product integrity. Were happy to be a part of accelerating that shift. Highlights from the past year: npm raised $8M in Series A funding: npm received funding from Bessemer Venture Partners and True Ventures to accelerate hiring and establish a larger headquarters in Oakland, California. The company had previously raised $2.6 million in seed funding in 2014 from True Ventures, Asynch Media, and a number of individual investors. npm launched Private Packages to accelerate module-driven development: allowing individual and teams of developers to securely collaborate and manage private packages of code. A few companies leveraging this product include Social Tables, Estates, and Sierra Monitoring Corporation. npm launched npm On-Site: allowing enterprise customers like Bede Gaming, Docusign, and uShip to host their own, on-premises private npm registry, safely behind their own company firewall. Continued to maintain commitment to Oakland HQ and diversity efforts: npm established a new headquarters in downtown Oakland and continues its commitment to building diversity policies into hiring and community efforts. Expanded company footprint: npm tripled the size of the company with the hiring of 16 new employees, including well-known open source advocate and CSS guru Nicole Sullivan as web engineering manager and the recruitment of a dedicated senior sales & marketing team. For more information, please visit and read . npm, Inc. is the company that hosts and manages npm, the most widely used package manager for JavaScript, used daily by 3.4 million developers worldwide with 2.5 billion packages downloaded every month. Isaac Z. Schlueter created npm as an open-source project in 2009 to serve as the package manager for Node.js, and it was quickly adopted by all of JavaScript. npm, Inc. is dedicated to the long term success of the JavaScript community, which includes the success of the open-source Node.js and npm projects. npm is used by more than 30,000 companies, including Docusign, SiriusXM, Uber, and Visa, to manage and deploy packages. Founded in 2014 by Schlueter, Laurie Voss and Rod Boothby, npm, Inc. is based in Oakland, California. For more information, please visit . Marie Williams Coderella 415-689-4029 Altiscale to Discuss Data-Driven Business Transformation at 2016 Web Search and Data Mining (WSDM) Conference PALO ALTO, CA (Marketwired) 02/19/16 Altiscale, the leading provider of , today announced that its CTO, David Chaiken, will join industry experts to discuss how to fully realize the business value of a data-driven culture at the in San Francisco. The panel discussion, titled , is set to take place on Monday, February 22, 2016 at 2:45 p.m. PST. Data science and massive scale data processing have been the driving force behind large consumer tech companies. However, the promise of data-driven business transformation for enterprises in more traditional industries has been difficult to realize. In this panel, Big Data technology experts will discuss what enterprises should consider as they embark on the journey from reactive business intelligence and reporting systems to modern proactive systems. Chaiken and other industry experts will share their expertise and proven best practices for business leaders planning to drive data-driven business transformation. How to Transform Business with Data Science Panel Discussion at WSDM 2016 David Chaiken, CTO, Altiscale Charles Zedlewski, CPO, Cloudera Ashok N. Srivastava, Ph.D., Chief Data Scientist, Verizon Phil Mui, Senior Vice President of Engineering and Product, Heartflow (former Executive Vice President, Chief Technology & Product Officer, Acxiom) TM Ravi, Founder, The Hive Monday, February 22, 2016, 2:45-3:30 p.m. PST Mission Bay Conference Center, San Francisco WSDM is one of the premier conferences on web inspired research involving search and data mining. Dont miss it! @Altiscale CTO @HadoopSherpa will discuss data-driven transformation at #WSDM2016 on Feb. 22 bit.ly/1Q3WtM0 Altiscale, a provider of Big Data as a Service, helps businesses maximize the value of their data without the challenge and expense of managing complex technologies on their own. Altiscale operations experts provide advisory services and support on top of an integrated big data platform that is comprised of leading technologies such as Hadoop and Spark. The combination of a secure, scalable big data platform, dedicated operational services, and a passion for results means that Altiscale customers experience performance that is up to 10x faster than alternatives. Altiscale customers include leading companies across financial services, media, marketing services, AdTech, and gaming. For more information, please visit or follow us on Twitter . Alivia Snyder BOCA Communications (415) 738-7718 Eco-Shift Awarded LED High Bay Lighting Contract by Farmazona GUELPH, ON (Marketwired) 02/19/16 (OTC PINK: ECOP), a global producer of advanced LED lighting products, today announced it has been awarded a new LED lighting contract to provide Farmazona Logistics SA with Eco-Shifts proprietary LED High Bay lighting fixtures for an additional warehouse within Farmazona s complex of warehouses in Colon, Panama. This is the first, preliminary order of an LED retrofit initiative which Farmazona is currently implementing to roll out to more of its facilities under management. Additionally, the companies have agreed that Eco-Shift will be able to use the new installation to showcase its technology to new and prospective customers in the region. For nearly 50 years, Colon, -based Farmazona is the largest third-party logistics operator in Central America and the Caribbean. It is headquartered in one of the worlds key points of commerce in the Panama Canal Free (trade) Zone, Colon, Republic of Panama. Its clients are diversified across a variety of industries including pharmaceutical, high-tech, automotive and agrochemical. manages over 315,000 square feet of storage warehouses and distribution facilities across the region, of which the majority use conventional lighting. To date, Eco-Shift remains Farmazonas largest provider of LED lighting solutions. In 2014, Farmazona contracted Eco-Shift to supply an initial LED high-bay retrofit project for a 20,000 square-foot warehouse so it could see, first hand, the many benefits of Eco-Shifts high-efficiency LED lighting. Having experienced the robust annual cost reduction of over 40 percent in lighting energy, the improved lighting quality along with substantial savings in lighting maintenance, Farmazona is now turning to Eco-Shift for its LED lighting requirements. The experts at Eco-Shift, together with Mbrace Energy Corp., the Companys Central American installation partner, will be delivering a turnkey solution that manages all aspects of retrofit projects from lighting audits to product sourcing to installation. Ongoing maintenance, servicing, and full back-office support are added benefits available to clients. Commenting on the new contract, and closer collaborative ties with Eco-Shift in the region, Mr. Giovanni Ferrari, President of Farmazona Logistics, said, We at Farmazona strive for and deliver high-quality logistic storage facilities. Our initial product purchase from Eco-Shift has proven to be exceptional. It has truly made our facility far more efficient in terms of overall power cost, produced a better work environment for our personnel with technology that lives up to our highest expectations. We look forward to working with Eco-Shift for our growing LED retrofit requirements. Seeing is believing. Once you experience the benefits, and the lighting itself, our products practically sell themselves, said Alistair Haughton, Eco-Shift CEO. Farmazona is committed to providing the highest level of logistical and warehousing support thought the Caribbean and Central America, and we see it as our job to ensure they can execute in a safe, energy efficient environment. Farmazona is an important client and were thrilled to be working together to take this relationship to the next level. Farmazona warehouses are massive, and facility management is the ideal industry to showcase our High Bay systems ability to deliver on quality, simplicity, price, efficiency, up-to-the-second control and longevity, Mr. Haughton added. With the winning combination of quality, innovation and the backing of our 10-year warranty program we deliver the superior, high ROI and strong value to Farmazona and other facilities in the region in 2016 and beyond. Headquartered in Guelph, Ontario, with affiliate and distributor offices strategically located in key markets California, Florida, Auckland NZ, and Scotland, Eco-Shift Power Corp. is a contract manufacturer of advanced, high-efficiency lighting products and components designed for state-of-the-art energy management systems and cloud-based software platforms. It has strong relationships with a growing worldwide customer base composed primarily of major OEM/ODM lighting designers and distributors. Please visit us at This news release contains forward-looking statements. Such statements may be preceded by the words intends, may, will, plans, expects, anticipates, projects, predicts, estimates, aims, believes, hopes, potential or similar words. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, are based on certain assumptions and are subject to various known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Eco-Shifts control, and cannot be predicted or quantified and consequently, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, risks and uncertainties associated with (i) the highly competitive nature of lighting industry sales and distribution, (ii) development and protection of our key OEM/ODM and distribution partnerships, (iii) unexpected industry technological development. More detailed information about Eco-Shift and the risk factors that may affect the realization of forward looking statements is set forth in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Investors are urged to read these documents free of charge on the SECs web site at . Eco-Shift assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise its forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. +1(844) 779-7900 (toll free) ? Eco-Shift Power Corp. 53 Speedvale Avenue Guelph, ON N1H 1J6 Canada MTS, the story about your Mom made me smile, not just the story but how much it must have meant to her for you to here & appreciate it, THAT is beautiful! Well, I worked my first day yesterday at the care giving facilitie & called early this am & told them I would not be back. I worked a 12 hr day shift & was so exhausted when I came home, not so much physically, but emotionally. They wanted to train me as a med aid, despenci ng medication to 15 residence, one of which I would do at 7am after being up all night (ridiculous...I know from working with adults with developmental disabilities that that sort of practice is an accident waiting to happen...& one where a life would be at stake. They would have the oncoming staff administer meds.....not a person who had been up all night & had 15 other things to do & document before they went off duty. This is a brand new, beautiful facility but I see very understaffed (bet the owners are walking away with a pretty penny every month) yet they do not want to pay to have the needed staff there & they were hinting that I would also be in charge of keeping the young ones in line of doing there caregiving. Anyway, complete overload of responsibility right off the bat & I could see I would be the fall guy & too much on my shoulders. it was pretty clear that I would be put on the night schedule & never get out of it. My day with the residents was good though, something I could Definately do, even the "dirty work", but not there. FYI, I know you have seen me fail at several emplyment opportunities this las 6 months, but honestly I have NEVER had a problem with being employeed, even in my worst drinking day. I did drink in my 90th day Sunday....went out to my Nephews where my Niece & her kids have been living to help clean up while my Niece is in jail. I knew it wS bad out there, but didn't know how bad it was until I was out there. Terrie conditions, infested with mice, garbage everywhere, my brother encountered rats outside while cleaning up. It has been 17 years since I used methamphetamine & never did my kids & I live like that...that was my ticket to a drink I guess, had a few more when I got home last night after making decision I wouldn't take this job. My big brother was here today, asked if I would help send a message to the jail to my Niece..... That he would be there for her & to support her in getting treatment for herself & her kids. The father is around, but using & on probation for prison & my brother finally went to Children's Services & let him know the situation. My Niece is already hateful towards him & there is a good chance she will get out & either overdose or harm herself....her brother who lives out there filed a restraining order against her today...very hard for them both, but asy brother sat here on my couch & cried today (this is a burley 30 year Alaskan Fisherman & Grizzly Hunter Guide) I reassured him he was doing the right thing for his Grandkids, who have been living with this, that my Niece & the kids Dad has a choice about how they are living, but those little ones don't & that he was doing the right thing & that he is & should be in fear for his life when the Father & his Daughter find out he went to Children's Services. His Ex wife, the Mother of my Niece & Nephew died about 6 years ago of what was said to be Mad Cow Disease....(a whole mother story there) but as he sat and cried on my shoulder today, I told him she was not just my sister in law & then my ex sister in law, but my friend & that I knew she would want He & his Son to do what they are doing....protect those kids & force her to get some help. Tearful, emotional Day. Nairobi: South Sudan government troops took part in a possible "war crime" attack killing at least 18 civilians inside a United Nations base, residents, rebels and aid sources said. At least 18 people were killed and over 70 wounded in the clashes in the UN camp on Wednesday to Thursday in the north-eastern town of Malakal, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has said, including two of their own staff killed. Forty-six of the injured had bullet wounds. Residents reported gunmen shooting in crowded areas in the tightly packed camp of tents and basic shelters housing over 47,700 people fleeing a civil war that began in late 2013. The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) blamed the clashes on rival tribes inside the camp "between Shilluk and Dinka youths" saying "at least seven" people were killed. It added that "such an attack against civilians and UN premises may constitute a war crime." Resident Jacob Nhial described government troops wearing the uniform of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) "shooting at civilians" with fighting taking place in the camp, as well as gunfire coming from soldiers outside. Confidential UN communication seen by AFP also said that SPLA soldiers took part in the attack. "SPLA troops numbering 50-100 have entered the UNMISS POC Sector 1 and 2 in Malakal reportedly attacking IDPs, shooting sporadically, burning tents and looting properties," the internal UN document reads. A POC, or Protection of Civilian site, is the UN acronym for places where South Sudan civilians are supposed to be safe, defended by peacekeepers while IDPs is the term the UN uses for internally displaced people. An entire section of the camp was razed to the ground, with sporadic shooting still heard in Malakal on Friday morning, aid workers said. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said half the camp had fled their shelters some 25,000 people with areas, "looted and burned, including shelters, clinics and water tanks." The UN mission has more than 12,000 peacekeepers with half of them deployed solely to protect the nearly 200,000 civilians sheltering in their bases around the country. SPLA spokesman Marko Mayol said he had no information on the reports that government troops were involved. Rebel spokesman James Gadet, condemned the "heinous crimes committed by the government", claiming militia were issued with guns "by elements of the government" in what he called, "a violation of the peace agreement." Civil war began in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of planning a coup, setting off a cycle of retaliatory killings that have split the poverty-stricken, landlocked country along ethnic lines. Earlier this month Kiir named exiled rebel chief Machar as vice-president, as part of a repeatedly broken August peace deal. Machar has yet to return to take up the post and fighting continues, with the conflict now involving multiple militia forces driven by local agendas or revenge, who pay little heed to paper peace deals. Berlin: Europe has "completely failed" in its response to the migrant crisis, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said in a German newspaper interview. "Regarding registration and sharing (of refugees), European cooperation and solidarity have completely failed," he told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), cited in German in the paper's Friday print edition. The Italian, who took up the UN job on January 1, also warned against European countries closing their borders which would de-facto block many refugees, already in distress, in Greece. "Our fear is that the closure of national borders in Europe could lead to hundreds of thousands of refugees staying in Greece," he said, in extracts of an interview published Thursday evening. "Our message aimed at Europe is: 'Pull yourself together,' and 'Deal with (the situation) yourselves. But if our help is needed, we will be there." Grandi notably pointed the finger at an EU deal struck last summer on sharing out some 160,000 refugees, and which has gone nowhere ever since. Only 583 "relocations" have actually gone ahead due to foot-dragging by certain countries, notably in the continent's east. "Yes it is important that the system (of sharing) be applied, but it will be difficult," said the UN official. "At the moment I don't see a lot of momentum in that direction." According to UNHCR figures, more than a million migrants arrived in Europe by sea last year. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have repeatedly condemned what they see as indifference by EU member states towards the fate of those fleeing war and misery. While most of her EU colleagues have turned their backs, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has proved "courageous," said Grandi. Germany opened its doors to over a million asylum seekers in 2015. Despite criticism from part of her governing coalition, and growing unpopularity among ordinary Germans, she has refused to set a ceiling on numbers for this year. How an adventurous priest's bike ride claimed him on Western Ave. Jan Klimczyk was pursuing a healthy lifestyle. Neighbors where he was hit on a bike say speeding traffic on Western Avenue is dangerous. "These early-career scientists are leading the way in our efforts to confront and understand challenges from climate change to our health and wellness," Obama said, who will present the awards at a ceremony this spring. (Photo: AP) Washington: Six Indian-Americans are among a talented group of 106 scientists and engineers who will be honoured by US President Barack Obama with a prestigious award, the highest US government prize for young independent researchers. The Indian Americans selected for the Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers are Milind Kulkarni (Purdue University), Kiran Musunuru (Harvard University), Sachin Patel (Vanderbilt University Medical Centre), Vikram Shyam (NASA), Rahul Mangharam (University of Pennsylvania) and Shwetak Patel (University of Washington), according to a White House statement. "These early-career scientists are leading the way in our efforts to confront and understand challenges from climate change to our health and wellness," Obama said, who will present the awards at a ceremony this spring. "We congratulate these accomplished individuals and encourage them to continue to serve as an example of the incredible promise and ingenuity of the American people," he said. Established in 1996, the Presidential Early Career Awards highlight the key role that the Administration places in encouraging and accelerating American innovation to grow economy and tackle greatest challenges. Milind Kulkarni, an associate professor with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University. His research focuses on Programming Languages and Compilers that support efficient programming and high performance on emerging complex architectures. Dr. Vikram Shyam, a technical innovation in fundamental aeronautics; at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, is among the six NASA scientists to receive this award. Shwetak Patel, Washington Research Foundation Entrepreneurship Endowed Professor in Computer Science and Engineering and Electrical Engineering, Patel, is a nationally recognised expert in sensor systems research. Rahul Mangharam from University of Pennsylvania was selected for inventing a new formal methodology to test and verify the correct operation of medical device software, saving lives and reducing care costs, the National Science Foundation said. Dr. Kiran Musunuru, Assistant Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University and Associate Physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital, has developed a "genome editing" approach for permanently reducing cholesterol levels in mice. Sachin Patel, an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, and Molecular Physiology and Biophysics Vanderbilt University Medical Centre, through his research is offering a glimmer of hope to alcoholics who find it hard to remain sober. "The awardees are outstanding scientists and engineers," said the National Science Foundation Director France Cordova. "They are teacher-scholars who are developing new generations of outstanding scientists and engineers and ensuring this nation is a leading innovator," he said. Oak Creek to host outdoor 2022 World Cup watch party A partnership between Morans Pub in South Milwaukee and the city of Oak Creek will offer residents food, drinks, music and games on Nov. 25. The air strikes killed an IS operative linked to two major jihadist attacks in Tunisia last year, a US defense official said. (Photo: AP) Washington: A US air strike targeting an Islamic State training camp in Libya "likely" killed an IS operative linked to two major jihadist attacks in Tunisia last year, a US defence official said on Friday. "The US conducted an air strike early this morning (Libya time) against an ISIL training camp near Sabratha, Libya, that likely killed ISIL operative Noureddine Chouchane," the official said, using an alternative acronym for the IS group. Chouchane is suspected of being behind two IS-claimed assaults. The first, in March, saw an attack on the National Bardo Museum in Tunis that killed 21 tourists and a policeman. In July, an attack on a beach resort near the Tunisian city of Sousse killed 38 tourists including 30 Britons. Libyan officials said today's dawn raid killed more than 40 people, but the US defence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, could not immediately confirm the number. The US-led coalition that has been bombing IS targets in Iraq and Syria for the past 18 months has come under increasing pressure to expand its operations beyond those two countries. While the campaign has seen some successes in Iraq and Syria, IS jihadists have expanded their presence in Libya and established a stronghold in the Mediterranean coastal town of Sirte. The Pentagon estimates there to be some 5,000 IS fighters in Libya, many of whom come from neighbouring Tunisia. The latest US strike in Libya comes after a November action that killed top IS leader Abu Nabil, an Iraqi also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al-Zubaydi. And in December the Pentagon acknowledged that a group of US special operations troops who traveled to Libya to "foster relationships" was kicked out of the country soon after arriving. 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 This image with notations provided by ImageSat International N.V., shows satellite images of Woody Island, the largest of the Paracel Islands, in the South China Sea. A U.S. official confirmed that China has placed a surface-to-air missile system on Woody Island in the Paracel chain, but it is unclear whether this is a short-term deployment or something intended to be more long-lasting. (Photo: AP) Sydney: Australia urged China on Friday to refrain from the "militarisation of islands" to avoid walking into a conflict, a day after the United States slammed Beijing for deploying missiles in the disputed South China Sea. China said Thursday it had weapons on one of the islands in the strategically important region, which US Secretary of State John Kerry said was evidence of an "increase of militarisation" and a "serious concern". Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said it was critical for the region's prosperity that China and the US used international law to resolve their disputes. "We urge all claimants in the South China Sea to refrain from any building of islands, any militarisation of islands, any land reclamation," Turnbull said in a joint press conference with his New Zealand counterpart John Key in Sydney. Turnbull said both Australia and New Zealand wanted to see a lowering of tensions as he urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to resolve all disputes in the seas -- through which one-third of the world's oil passes -- through legal means. "President Xi of China has said that one of China's biggest challenges is falling into what he calls the Thucydides Trap, which essentially is where a rising power creates anxiety among other powers such that conflict occurs," he said. "If China wants to avoid falling into the Thucydides Trap, as President Xi describes it, then resolving disputes in the South China Sea should be done through international law, through all of those mechanisms that are available to us." New Zealand Prime Minister John Key said the two nations' economic relationships with China, an important trading partner, would allow them to make their case against escalating tensions publicly and privately. Beijing claims nearly all of the South China Sea. It has insisted that its island building aims to provide services such as search and rescue facilities, but also maintains it has the right to deploy necessary "self-defence" measures there. Other nations surrounding the sea -- Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam -- lay claim to parts of it. The US and Australia have carried out several so-called "Freedom of Navigation" overflights and sail-bys in the region, which China has described as "provocations". Virgin Galactic's second SpaceShipTwo, seen here being built in May 2015, will be rolled out on Feb. 19, 2016, at the Mojave Air & Space Port in California. The world will get its first look at Virgin Galactic's new suborbital space plane today. Virgin Galactic will roll out the next SpaceShipTwo, and reveal the new craft's name, today (Feb. 19) during a ceremony at the company's manufacturing facility at the Mojave Air & Space Port in Southern California. The new vehicle is the second SpaceShipTwo to be built. The first, which was called VSS (for Virgin Spaceship) Enterprise, broke apart during a tragic test-flight accident on Oct. 31, 2014, that claimed the life of co-pilot Michael Alsbury and seriously injured pilot Peter Siebold. [Video: How Virgin Galactic Is Testing the New SpaceShipTwo] "It's a great thing for the industry, [showing] that we can bounce back from hardships," Eric Stallmer, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, said of Friday's roll-out (which famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking is expected to attend). "We're just one step closer to the democratization of space," Stallmer told Space.com. An investigation by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined that the October 2014 crash occurred because VSS Enterprise's "feathering" re-entry system deployed too early, and that the early deployment was the result of Alsbury unlocking the system at the wrong time. The NTSB report found that Scaled Composites, the Mojave, California-based aerospace firm that built VSS Enterprise for Virgin Galactic, failed to adequately protect "against the possibility that a single human error could result in a catastrophic hazard to the SpaceShipTwo vehicle." The Spaceship Company, a Mojave-based subsidiary of Virgin Galactic, built the second SpaceShipTwo. The new vehicle which was already under construction when VSS Enterprise was lost features safeguards that will protect against the premature deployment of the feathering system, Virgin representatives have said. The six-passenger, two-pilot SpaceShipTwo is designed to be carried to an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,000 meters) while attached beneath an airplane called WhiteKnightTwo. The space plane then detaches and turns on its onboard rocket engine, which blasts the vehicle up to suborbital space. Passengers on SpaceShipTwo will be able to see the curvature of Earth against the blackness of space and experience a few minutes of weightlessness during operational flights, Virgin representatives have said. Tickets for this experience currently cost $250,000, and hundreds of people have put down deposits to reserve seats. It's unclear when the new SpaceShipTwo will start commercial operations; the vehicle will need to prove itself first, via a series of test flights. (VSS Enterprise completed dozens unpowered "glide" flights before embarking on a powered-flight campaign; the craft crashed during its fourth rocket-powered test.) The lessons learned from VSS Enterprise's test flights including its tragic final flight will help make the new SpaceShipTwo a better, safer vehicle, Stallmer said. Spaceflight "is not a perfect science," he said. "It's constant improvement." Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com. An artist's concept of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope in space. JWST will follow in a long line of instruments that have changed humanity's view of universe and our own place in it. A new documentary airing on the Discovery Channel tomorrow (Feb. 20), looks at the construction of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, and its place in a long line of universe-changing instruments. "Telescope," a one-hour documentary, features interviews with many of the scientists involved with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), and footage taken at NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center, where the movie's director, Nathaniel Kahn, has been filming and doing research for about two years. The documentary succeeds in a task that is often taken for granted in science-oriented communications: It generates excitement in its audience. Viewers who may not have heard of JWST prior to viewing the film will likely walk away with a newly ignited curiosity about this massive telescope, what it might reveal about the cosmos and how it might change humanity's view of our place in the universe. [Photos of Hubble's Successor, the James Webb Space Telescope] The impact of telescopes NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is an $8.8 billion space observatory built to observe the infrared universe like never before. See how NASA's James Webb Space Telescope works in this Space.com infographic (Image credit: Karl Tate, SPACE.com Infographics Artist) "It's hard to predict the impact that [JWST] will have [on astronomy], because I think it's going to be so big," Amber Straughn, an astrophysicist at NASA Goddard, told Space.com. Straughn, who is interviewed in "Telescope," is an extragalactic physicist, which means that she studies how stars and black holes form in distant galaxies. JWST, which is scheduled to launch in 2018, will help scientists study the very first galaxies to ever form in the universe, Straughn said. Scientists will often talk about the "impact" that a new instrument will have on science, or even on all of humanity. But illustrating that point and convincing an audience that it is true can be extremely difficult, either because the answer is long and complex, and takes time to sink in, or because the "impact" isn't necessarily relevant to the viewer. "Telescope" succeeds in showing that the use of telescopes has affected all of humanity, not just scientists, by changing what we know about the universe and our place in it. "People take for granted that [the telescope], more than any other instrument in the history of innovation, has changed our sense of ourselves," Kahn told Space.com in an interview. "And it's done it not once, but many, many times." Examples of this that are brought up in the film include the fact that telescopes played a critical role in showing humans that the Earth is not the center of the universe (or even the solar system). It wasn't until the 20th century that scientists had telescopes powerful enough to reveal the presence of other galaxies, providing the first real grasp of just how mind-bogglingly huge the universe is. It was telescopes that revealed evidence of the Big Bang, which at least partly answered the question, "Where did we come from?" or at least, "How long have we been here?" It was telescopes that revealed the presence of planets around other stars, and telescopes that may answer the question, "Are we alone?" "The history of telescopes is to teach us that we're not that special. It makes us less and less special every time we look at the universe and we learn there's much more out there than we thought before," Jason Kalirai, a project scientist for JWST says in the documentary. Many documentaries cover this territory, but the central point can get lost amid too much additional information about the science or history of these events. "Telescope" doesn't bite off more than it can chew, or more than a "general" audience can swallow. While going over this telescopic history, it weaves in information about JWST, and illustrates how it will be another rung on this ladder from which humans can better see the size of the universe and their place in it. Are we alone? The aspect of JWST's science plan that has just about everyone on the edge of his or her seat is the study of exoplanets, and specifically, their atmospheres. JWST is an important part of the journey toward answering the question, "Are we alone?" and it will do amazing things. But I do harbor some concern that the documentary overhypes JWST's exoplanet-studying abilities, especially whether or not it could identify signs of life on an exoplanet. Astrophysicist Sara Seager says in the film that for JWST to detect signs of life on an exoplanet (which depends partly on what the telescope can do and partly on what is out there for it to find), is like "winning the lottery five times." To be clear, that is an effective "No," and viewers shouldn't misunderstand those odds. On the other hand, maybe there's nothing wrong with playing the lottery once in a while; maybe hoping for extreme odds is even essential in order for people to willingly invest in major projects like this one. Thankfully, JWST has much higher odds for what it will accomplish in other scientific pursuits, such as studying the very first galaxies to form in the universe. Because the light from the most distant galaxies in the universe takes billions of years to reach Earth, scientists see those galaxies as they looked billions of years ago meaning that in some cases, the scientists will be able to see the very first galaxies in the universe, just as they were in the very early stages of their formation. "The goal of studying those early galaxies is to sort of put together a picture or a story over time," Straughn told Space.com. "You're trying to progressively see how galaxies change over time. We know that the earliest galaxies must be different from galaxies in the present-day universe." Only hydrogen and helium (plus very small traces of a few other elements) existed in the early universe, so the first stars must have been made purely of hydrogen and helium. What kind of impact would that have had on how those galaxies looked and how they evolved? "That epic of the first stars and galaxies is really what we're after with JWST," Straughn said. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. "The really great thing about telescopes like Webb is that they're such general-purpose observatories," Straughn said. "It's an observatory that will cover the entire breadth of the universe, from our own cosmic backyard of the solar system, all the way out to the most distant things that we can't even see yet." The segments featuring people like Straughn, who speaks passionately and excitedly about JWST, are another strong point of "Telescope," and another element of science documentaries that can be taken for granted. "As a documentary filmmaker, what you look for is people who are able to talk about what they know about, but who are also able to convey their humanity," Kahn told Space.com. Referring to the scientists he interviewed for the documentary, Kahn said, "Their passion [for] their subject and their life study is so infectious and so wonderful. When you start to probe that part of the scientists' minds and hearts, you suddenly open up this wellspring of marvelous drama, which is very exciting from a filmmaking standpoint to get at. Too often, science programming is trying to get all the information in which is terribly important, we have to get that, too but sometimes the emotion of the scientists themselves doesn't make it." Kahn is an amateur telescope maker, and he got to know Matt Mountain because of his homemade telescope. Mountain, among other things, is the telescope scientist for JWST, and he is featured prominently in the film. Kahn began filming at Goddard two years ago, he said. During that time, he received some funding from the Northrop Grumman Foundation (Northrop Grumman is NASA's primary contractor for building JWST). Kahn began development of the documentary with Discovery channel about a year ago, a Discovery representative said. "Telescope" is a well-done promotion for JWST that will convey to just about any viewer the reasons why people, not just scientists, should be excited about this instrument. While it is not an in-depth look at the science, technology or history of JWST, it does discuss the many, many ways that the mission could fail for example, the telescope has to unfold from its cramped payload fairing, unfurling like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. If any part of that unfolding process goes wrong, the telescope could be effectively useless. In addition, it orbits too far from home to be repaired by a space shuttle mission (if there were still any space shuttles). And the documentary does not pursue this question any further: What would it mean for NASA if an overbudget, multibillion-dollar project did not operate optimally, or not at all? But those are heavy questions, and the consequences of a mission failure are best-explored when the potential benefits of the mission are fully understood as well. As I've said before in this essay, the ability to fully convey the potential awesomeness that JWST could beam down to Earth is not always easy. If "Telescope" seems like a simple look at this mission, it's because sometimes the simplest things take the most care to convey. "I think to reach out into the dark and to discover things, one has to take risks," Kahn said. "I think that that's what great nations do, and what great scientists do: take risks. So of course its a high-stakes mission. But nothing dared, nothing gained. "I think that it is missions like this that teach us to be bold, Kahn said. "Observing these people working together it's given me courage, really honestly, in my own life. It's given me courage to be bold. Because I think that when you see people willing to spend years of their lives to build something that pushes the limits of what is possible, it's infectious. It's not enough to just get by. It's not enough to do what you did before. You have to push the limit of what you yourself are capable of," Kahn said. "Telescope" will air on the Discovery Channel on Saturday, Feb. 20, at 9 p.m./8 p.m. Central. Check local listings. Follow Calla Cofield @callacofield.Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. Space is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Heres why you can trust us. The ministry says that the objective is to raise awareness of the importance of eliminating the breeding ground of the mosquito that also transmits dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. (Photo: AP) Sao Paulo: Government ministers, state governors, health agents and members of the armed forces on Friday visited schools throughout Brazil to involve students in the nationwide campaign to eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquito that spreads the Zika virus. The Health Ministry said on its website that schools in Brasilia, in the country's 26 state capitals and in 115 other cities will be visited. The ministry said that the objective is to raise the awareness of students of the importance of eliminating the breeding ground of the mosquito that also transmits dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. The mosquito lives largely inside homes and can lay eggs in even a bottle-cap's worth of stagnant water. The dishes beneath potted plants are a favorite spot, as are abandoned tires, bird feeders and even the little puddles of rainwater that collect in the folds of plastic tarps. The Education Ministry said nearly 190,000 basic education schools, universities and vocational training centers were to be visited on Friday. Zika's immediate effects are mild, consisting mostly of a moderate fever and a rash, and only a fifth of those afflicted notice any symptoms. But Brazilian authorities also say they have detected a spike in cases of microcephaly, a condition that leaves infants with unusually small heads and can result in brain damage and numerous developmental and health problems. The link between Zika and microcephaly remains unproven. Since October, 5,280 suspected cases of microcephaly have been reported, Brazil's Health Ministry said on Friday. Of those, 508 cases had been confirmed and 837 discarded. Of the confirmed cases, 41 have been connected to Zika. Optimization Are you frustrated with a slow pc or a hard disk not performing as it should? Try SLOW-PCfighter to speed up boot time on a slow PC, or try a free scan of FULL-DISKfighter to recover space on a full disk. The latest offering is DRIVERfighter to update your driver updater. Get complete PC optimization and extend the life of your PC with these must-have software tools. SPIEGEL: You've just named all the actors. Is that not already a world war of sorts? Al-Jubeir: I will get to this in a second, if you allow me. The air campaign started, but it became very obvious that there may have to be a ground component. Saudi Arabia has said that if the US-led coalition against Daesh is prepared to engage in ground operations, we will be prepared to participate with special forces. The Russians say their objective is to defeat Daesh, too. If the deployment of ground troops helps in the fight against Daesh, why is that World War III? Is Russia worried that defeating Daesh will open the door for defeating Bashar Assad? That would be a different story. But I don't think World War III is going to happen in Syria. SPIEGEL: Would Saudi Arabian ground troops only battle Islamic State or would you also join the fight against Assad? Al-Jubeir: We expressed our readiness to join the US-led, international coalition against Daesh with special forces. All of this, however, is still in the discussion phase and in the initial planning phase. SPIEGEL: Is Saudi Arabia in favor of supplying anti-aircraft missiles to the rebels? Al-Jubeir: Yes. We believe that introducing surface-to-air missiles in Syria is going to change the balance of power on the ground. It will allow the moderate opposition to be able to neutralize the helicopters and aircraft that are dropping chemicals and have been carpet-bombing them, just like surface-to-air missiles in Afghanistan were able to change the balance of power there. This has to be studied very carefully, however, because you don't want such weapons to fall into the wrong hands. SPIEGEL: Into the hands of Islamic State. Al-Jubeir: This is a decision that the international coalition will have to make. This is not Saudi Arabia's decision. SPIEGEL: The Russian intervention has had a big impact on the situation in Syria. How would you describe Saudi Arabia's relationship with Russia at this point? Al-Jubeir: Other than our disagreement over Syria, I would say our relationship with Russia is very good and we are seeking to broaden and deepen it. Twenty million Russians are Muslims. Like Russia, we have an interest in fighting radicalism and extremism. We both have an interest in stable energy markets. Even the disagreement over Syria is more of a tactical one than a strategic one. We both want a unified Syria that is stable in which all Syrians enjoy equal rights. SPIEGEL: That sounds well and good, but you are also providing support to the opposing camp in a war. Even more than your relationship with Russia, the world is worried about the deep schism between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Al-Jubeir : Iran has been a neighbor for millenia, and will continue to be a neighbor for millenia. We have no issue with seeking to develop the best terms we can with Iran. But after the revolution of 1979, Iran embarked on a policy of sectarianism. Iran began a policy of expanding its revolution, of interfering with the affairs of its neighbors, a policy of assassinating diplomats and of attacking embassies. Iran is responsible for a number of terrorist attacks in the Kingdom, it is responsible for smuggling explosives and drugs into Saudi Arabia. And Iran is responsible for setting up sectarian militias in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen, whose objective is to destabilize those countries. SPIEGEL: If all this is the case, then how can you possibly establish "the best terms you can" with Iran? Al-Jubeir: Yes, we want to have good ties with the Iranians, but if they want good ties with us, then I tell them: Don't keep attacking us as you have done for the last 35 years. As long as Iran's aggressive policies continue, it's going to be bad for the region. Iran has to decide whether it wants a revolution or a nation-state. SPIEGEL: Are the Iranians the only ones to blame? What can Saudi Arabia offer to improve this vital relationship? Al-Jubeir: Show me one Iranian diplomat we killed! I can show you many Saudi diplomats who were killed by Iran. Show me one Iranian embassy that was attacked by Saudi Arabia. Show me one terrorist cell that we planted in Iran. Show me one activity by Saudi Arabia to create problems among Iranian minorities. SPIEGEL: Your Iranian counterpart, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, accused Saudi Arabia of provoking Iran by actively sponsoring violent extremist groups. Al-Jubeir: What's the provocation that he's talking about? SPIEGEL: Is Saudi Arabia not financing extremist groups? Zarif speaks of attacks by al-Qaida, the Syrian al-Nusra and other groups -- of attacks on Shiite mosques from Iraq to Yemen. Al-Jubeir: Yes, but that's not us. We don't tolerate terrorism. We go after the terrorists and those who support them and those who justify their actions. Our record has been very clear, contrary to their record. They harbor al-Qaida leaders. They facilitate al-Qaida operations. They complain about Daesh, but Iran is the only country around the negotiating table that has not been attacked by either al-Qaida or Daesh. SPIEGEL: Can the West play a role in mediating between Saudi Arabia and Iran, following the example of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the organization which helped end the Cold War? Al-Jubeir: The Iranians know what they need to do in order to become a responsible member of the international community and in order to become a good neighbor, and it's really up to them to change their behavior. SPIEGEL: So there is nothing that Saudi Arabia itself or the West could do to encourage this process? Al-Jubeir: There is nothing to encourage. The Iranians should just stay away from us. SPIEGEL: How do you explain the ideological closeness between the Wahhabi faith in Saudi Arabia and Islamic State's ideology? How do you explain that Daesh applies, with slight differences, the same draconian punishments that the Saudi judiciary does? Al-Jubeir: This is an oversimplification which doesn't make sense. Daesh is attacking us. Their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, wants to destroy the Saudi state. These people are criminals. They're psychopaths. Daesh members wear shoes. Does this mean everybody who wears shoes is Daesh? SPIEGEL: Are you contesting the similarities between the extremely conservative interpretation of Islam in Saudi Arabia and Islamic State's religious ideology? Al-Jubeir: ISIS is as much an Islamic organization as the KKK in America is a Christian organization. They burned people of African descent on the cross, and they said they're doing it in the name of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, in every religion there are people who pervert the faith. We should not take the actions of psychopaths and paint them as being representative of the whole religion. SPIEGEL: Doesn't Saudi Arabia have to do a lot more to distance itself from ISIS and its ideology? Al-Jubeir: It seems people don't read or listen. Our scholars and our media have been very outspoken. We were the first country in the world to hold a national public awareness campaign against extremism and terrorism. Why would we not want to fight an ideology whose objective is to kill us? SPIEGEL: At the same time, your judges mete out sentences that shock the world. The blogger Raif Badawi has been sentenced to prison and 1,000 lashes. On Jan. 2, 47 men were beheaded, among them Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. His nephew Ali has been sentenced to death as well and his body is to be crucified after the execution. Al-Jubeir: We have a legal system, and we have a penal code. We have the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, and people should respect this. You don't have the death penalty, and we respect that. SPIEGEL: Should we respect the flogging of people? Al-Jubeir: Just like we respect your legal system, you should respect our legal system. You cannot impose your values on us, otherwise the world will become the law of the jungle. Every society decides what its laws are, and it's the people who make decisions with regards to these laws. You cannot lecture another people about what you think is right or wrong based on your value system unless you're willing to accept others imposing their value system on you. SPIEGEL: Is it even compatible with human rights to display the body of an executed person? Al-Jubeir: This is a judgment call. We have a legal system, and this is not something that happens all the time. We have capital punishment. America has capital punishment. Iran has capital punishment. Iran hangs people and leaves their bodies hanging on cranes. Iran put to death more than a thousand people last year. I don't see you reporting on it. SPIEGEL: We have reported on it. Al-Jubeir: Anyway, Nimr al-Nimr SPIEGEL: who was executed on Jan. 2 and was the uncle of Ali al-Nimr Al-Jubeir: Nimr was a terrorist, he recruited, he plotted, he financed and as a consequence of his actions a number of Saudi Arabian police were killed. Are we supposed to put him on a pedestal? He was put on trial. His trial was reviewed at the appellate level. It went to the supreme court, and the sentence was death, like the other 46 people who were put to death. SPIEGEL: Your foreign policy has become more aggressive as well. According to the United Nations, about 6,000 people have been killed in Yemen since the beginning of the Saudi Arabian offensive in March 2015. What do you want to achieve with this war? Al-Jubeir: The war in Yemen is not a war that we wanted. We had no other option -- there was a radical militia allied with Iran and Hezbollah that took over the country. It was in possession of heavy weapons, ballistic missiles and even an air force. Should we stand by idly while this happens at our doorstep, in one of the countries in which al-Qaida has a huge presence? So we responded, as part of a coalition, at the request of the legitimate government of Yemen, and we stepped in to support them. We have removed, to a large extent, the threat that these weapons posed to Saudi Arabia. Now 75 percent of Yemen has been liberated and is under the control of the government forces. Journalists hold placards to protest against attacks on fellow journalists outside Patiala House Court in New Delhi. (Photo: AP) London: Indian journalists based in the UK on Friday expressed "grave concern" over the recent attack on media persons in a court premises in New Delhi and sought action against those found guilty. The London-based Indian Journalists' Association (IJA) Europe issued a statement expressing "grave concern over the recent attacks on journalists in the Patiala House court premises in New Delhi." "Indian journalism has a long history of performing its vital function, and any attempts to hinder the work of journalists can only be detrimental to democratic traditions that India is justly proud of. "The IJA calls upon all stakeholders to take action against which there is evidence, recognise and value the role of journalists, and ensure that such incidents do not recur," the statement said. Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) leader Kanhaiya Kumar and some journalists were attacked in the court complex earlier this week in defiance of the orders of the Supreme Court. A number of international organisations have expressed concern over the incidents, including the India and South Asia departments of leading UK universities and human rights group Amnesty International. Black Sails Season 3 Episode Guide 3.01. XIX - Review 3.02. XX - Review 3.03. XXI - Review 3.04. XXII - Review 3.05. XXIII - Review Coming Soon 3.04. "XXII" And to think that this is only episode four. Again I have nothing but praise for this episode, which was a pretty awesome one, introducing us to another Treasure Island character in the form of Ben Gunn as the show dealt with Vane's newfound notoriety as the most wanted pirate in Nassau. There were several good things to talk about and that's even before we got to Blackbeard's attempt at breaking Rogers' blockade, so without further ado, let's get into another action packed episode of the series. This review is also split into two parts, with the first focusing on the events at Nassau, whilst the second focuses on Flint and his crew. It only took one episode for things to go sideways for the pirates who are no longer on a united front against Rogers and now are purely invested in their own survival. Jack Rackham holds the fort but doesn't have the numbers or the support from inside to keep it out of British and Pirate hands for long, because although he doesn't want to give up Vane, he's one of the few pirates who actually do. Vane and Rackham are joined by Anne Bonny in the fort and people are slowly gathering outside, demanding Rackham to open the door and hand over Vane. In one of the most badass scenes of the episode that shows once again just how much Jack's grown as a character, he opens the door, and shoots the man just to prove a point. The door is promptly closed again, but that doesn't stop the demands for it to be opened. The demands and protests are now coming from within the Fort as well as Featherstone informs Rackham that the crew now want Vane turned over as well, in the vain hope that Rogers would allow them to keep the fort and gold (don't they know that there's a Spanish fleet coming for it?). This is what makes Rackham finally accept that the defence of Nassau is over, but he doesn't want Rogers to have the fort which they have recently been rebuilding. Rather than see it in the hands of the English he decides to create a distraction for Vane, blowing it up so the wanted Captain can escape without going out the front door. This also allows for one of the best exchanges in the series, with Rackham wishing Vane godspeed, only for Vane to say, "Fuck you, Jack," in response. Rackham then reveals that he's put aside a portion of the gold for himself and Bonny, but he wants to stay and forge a new path for himself. After hearing the explosion Hornigold and Dufranse who are outside the Fort recognise that Vane is using the distraction to escape and Hornigold tells Dufresne to worn the others that he is at large. It isn't long before Vane is surrounded and as a result we get to see one of the best fight sequences of the series so far in a bloody, ruthless battle that sees a heavily outnumbered Vane take care of several pirates before being rescued by Blackbeard, who brings in multiple firearms to make short work of the attackers. Blackbeard takes Vane to his ship, The Queen Anne's Revenge which is still trapped in the bay, with Rogers preferring to wait them out rather than cause a direct conflict that would mean the loss of lives. As Blackbeard and Vane come up with a plan to fight their way out of the blockade, Vane also spots Eleanor on the deck of the enemy's ship. Back on Nassau we see Hornigold and Dufranse who are watching the pirates handing over their pardons and Hornigold instantly recognises Mr. Scott, who has come to take the pardon. Mr. Scott knows Hornigold and tells him that he will attempt to round up Rackham's escaped slaves that he used to build the fort, believing that a familiar face will make them want to return. However, Mr. Scott has other plans for them, and it isn't until later that we see what they are. Blackbeard and Vane meanwhile have come up with an ambitious plan to escape the blockade. They put forward a ship and send it into the blockade on fire in an attempt to take out as many vessels as possible, but Rogers spots a trap and does his best to try and stop it from reaching the blockade, however, in the carnage, one ship is lost, providing room for Blackbeard and Vane to escape. One thing that the show has to deal with if it wants to remain as close to historically accurate as possible is the treatment of Flint and Silver and how the Treasure Island characters come into play. The writers came up with a way of avoiding that dilemma by putting them literally on Treasure Island itself whilst the battle was taking place, and keeping them there under lock and key. Because the Crew of the Walrus had been captured by a group of freed slaves, who had carved out a life for themselves. Silver says to Flint that they could have taken the pardons and fears that an attack on Nassau is likely. However, Flint in turn argues that if there were a battle for Nassau it would likely be already over by now. Before they can leave and return to find out though the whole crew is captured by the islanders and are taken to a large town that holds plenty of men and women, and their leader is shocked to know that they have captured Flint and have him in their captivity. Silver reveals himself as the ship's Quatermaster, and eventually the leader, an elderly woman, finds out that they are alone and nobody knows where they are. She decides to start torturing the crew to see if their stories are true, and whilst one is taken the rest are imprisoned in cages. Silver himself manages to find himself drawn into a possible struggle for power within the leading family when he's taken to meet the leader's daughter, Madi, hoping to find a weakness that he can exploit. He learns from Madi that they have a common enemy, the English. Flint, who is still having visions of Miranda, makes his own revelation, the plan to civilize Nassau that Rogers is currently undertaking was of his own making. And on top of that, the Island also introduces us to Ben Gunn, who is another character from Treasure Island and the captured slave trader is now currently another prisoner. Gunn explains what will happen to Flint and his crew as it's exactly what happened to his crew, and their chances of survival now are looking increasingly bleak with multiple plans, each looking more and more difficult, are divisive. Do the group run for it and risk the guards and the traps in an attempt to get back to the Walrus? Or does Silver attempt to convince Madi to align with the pirates and help them convince her mother that setting them free is the best course of action? There's so much potential for this storyline to develop which made it just as interesting as the more action packed drama happening back on Nassau this week. And then on top of that, after being teased the identity of Madi's father throughout the episode, we get the final revelation that Mr. Scott is the connection that the Island has with Nassau - someone who Flint knows. Mr. Scott doesn't know that Flint is captured and it will be interesting to see what happens if he does find out, and he's already witnessed the killing of English soldiers in an attempt to free the slaves, who are presumably headed to Treasure Island - and will be headed there with tales of Nassau's occupation by the English. So it's an interesting scenario that should no doubt make next week's episode a pretty good one. Even if it's as half as good as XXII, it will no doubt still be entertaining, because this season has so far, knocked it out of the park in pretty much every corner and it's great to see that it's showing no signs of slowing down. Who'd have thought that a show with Michael Bay's involvement would be this good? It's certainly by far and away the best thing he's been involved in, even if his involvement in this show may not be a big one. If only Black Sails had as much attention as the Transformers franchise though - because for me, this show is really at the top of its game right now. Catch the next episode of Black Sails at 9pm this Saturday on Starz, and be sure to let me know what you think of the episode in the comments section below! Overall Episode Verdict: A+ Positives: +Vane/Blackbeard Fight. +Rackham shooting the pirate, helping Vane escape. +Unleashing the Fire Ship. +Revelation of Madi's father. +Ben Gunn. About the Author - Milo MJ Battlestar Galactica, Justified, The 100, The Americans and Person of Interest. He reviews Black Sails, Class, Hell on Wheels, The Knick, Murder in the First, Narcos, The Shannara Chronicles and Veep for Spoiler TV as well as books, films and games for his own blog Milo is an Arsenal FC supporter and loves TV shows likeand. He reviewsandfor Spoiler TV as well as books, films and games for his own blog The Fictional Hangout and contributes to comic reviews on a weekly basis for All-Comic All Reviews) Recent Reviews The first two February episodes of NCIS were two great episodes. Episode 14 had a rather interesting case where a body was stuck in a pressurized chamber, while episode 15 saw the daughter of SecNav being kidnapped. Epsiode 13.14 "Decompressed" About the Author - Daniel van der Veer Daniel van der Veer is a Dutch university student studying Psychology. On SpoilerTV he is a reviewer of NCIS, The 100, Madam Secretary and Quantico. He also enjoys LOST, Arrow, NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans, Nikita, The Blacklist, Scorpion and How To Get Away With Murder. All Reviews) Recent Reviews by Daniel van der Veer The episode opens aboard a dive vessel, where a man named Diego de la Rosa freaks out. He and his three co-workers are in a pressurized chamber that can't be opened for four days or else the four all die. They all put on their masks, but De la Rosa dies shortly thereafter. The NCIS team is called in, but they have a problem since they cannot open the chamber to investigate the body. However, waiting for four days isn't an option since it will erase the evidence of de De la Rosa's death. So Ducky instructs the co-workers how to perform an unorthodox autopsy through the glass. With that evidence, Abby discovers that the victim had high doses of liquid cocaine in his blood, which had a red color. She also finds out that he died after breathing the wrong kind of oxygen in his mask. That means one of his three co-workers was the one who killed him.The suspects are: Sam Harper, who has money problems, Meredith Regan, who killed a man in Kabul, and Jalen Washington, who had an affair with De la Rosa's wife. Proving who it is, is not an easy job. Also, the suspects start turning on each other and a lawyer steps in to make sure the real mission of the ship won't be revealed. McGee discovers that the ship was testing a new project that would send waterproof closets filled with weapons to the bottom of the ocean. However, the closets are leaking and the team suspects they are used to hide liquid cocaine for a drug cartel. De la Rosa must have discovered that and that was the reason he was killed. The three divers inside again start turning on each other, and Meredith and Sam suspect Jalen is the murderer and they tie him up. Two days later, the chamber finally opens and Meredith is arrested. Turns out she is allergic to red dye which Gibbs spotted on her lips. Of course, she also had a partner who is revealed to be the annoying lawyer.Meanwhile, the team is busy with Valentine gifts. Abby gives everyone a gift, McGee writes a poem for Delilah, and the recently become singles Tony and Bishop give each other a present.This episode had quite a unique case, which made it really interesting. The episode was mostly focused on the case, so it had to be strong in order for the episode to work. Fortunately, I believe the case worked well. Putting the suspects right in front of the team while they are unable to access either of them or the victim gave it an intriguing perspective. It also left me guessing as to who the real culprit was and I don't think that Meredith was the obvious suspect. I liked Ducky instructing the three divers how to perform an autopsy. It makes me realize how important that autopsy actually is. There wasn't a lot besides the case other than the Valentines Day references. McGee writing a poem for Delilah is really sweet, and it was great that Tony said that it's actually quite a good poem. Tony has really shown appreciation for McGee and I am glad he did. I liked that Tony and Bishop had gifts for one another. They have a real brother and sister relationship.Tony, McGee and Bishop are ready for a tactical training led by Special Agent Valeri Page from the Regional Enforcement Action Capabilities Team (REACT) when they receive word that SecNav's daughter Megan and her boyfriend were abducted that morning. Fornell comes to help and the team soon finds the boyfriend and the SVU used to kidnap them, but sadly there's no evidence in the car. The boyfriend does believe that the kidnappers are military. Porter's ex-husband Richard comes in with his new girlfriend Justine and Richard soon blames Sarah's job for the kidnapping. Porter thinks he might be right, and at her house she gets a call for a 10 million dollar ransom. Gibbs wonders why the kidnappers targeted SecNav if it was just for the ransom. The kidnappers later call again to tell Porter she must come alone to drop the money at the exchange place. However, Gibbs says she cannot go without back-up since she is a walking source of intelligence. Richard volunteers to go instead.At the exchange, Richard is called to a parking garage where he drops off the money. However, the captors don't let Megan go but instead they shoot Richard. Gibbs, Fornell and McGee attempt to chase after the car, but are knocked out by car bombs. They are fine, of course, but the case seems to escalate. The team does a short background check of Richard and discover that his company is nearly bankrupt. He won't lose anything over it other than his job, but his girlfriend Justine has invested millions in it. That means she could use that $10 million so McGee and Bishop head to her house. However, they find her dead. Fortunately, Megan has left her ring at the exchange place and it bas DNA from one of the kidnappers. That turns out to be Owen Nixon, who worked for a company that Justine also worked for. Nixon was fired by SecNav after conducting for-hire black ops. While Justine orchestrated the kidnapping for the money, Nixon wants revenge against SecNav.Porter once again receives a phone call, with the kidnappers now demanding an escape plane. However, the team learns one of Nixon's guys hired a private helicopter to take them to Canada so the plane is a ruse. With back-up from the REACT team, NCIS gets Megan back. Afterwards, SecNav considers quiting for her daughter, though Gibbs' non-advice might persuade her to stay after all.Meanwhile, it is revealed that Valeri and McGee know each other from old times. They were both military children that travelled around the world with their parents. Valeri was also McGee's first kiss, which actually ended at the dentist when Tim knocked out her tooth. Valerie also reveals Tim's middle name to be Farragut, which I'm not sure is really true.This was a high-stakes case that was also very personal for the team, which is a good combination. There were emotional moments, but also explosions. I liked that we got to see a more personal side to SecNav. It's not something we have really seen with either of the two previous SecNavs. Introducing us to her daughter and bringing in her ex-husband and his new girlfriend was great. Fornell did say it right though, it really made me miss Diane and her episodes. Speaking of Fornell, it's always a pleasure to see him again. I also liked Valeri, who shared some interesting details about McGee. I wouldn't mind seeing her again and while it might be too soon to tell, she could work as a potential new addition to the team after Tony's exit. Speaking of that, I feel like the writers are slowly building to that. There are little hints in this episode that Tony might be ready to move on from NCIS. Next week's episode will possibly play a role in that as well. Anyway, I suspected that SecNav would reconsider her job and while it was not completely confirmed, it looks like she's staying. Personally, I think that's good since I like her and I believe we don't need a new SecNav every three/four seasons.The next episode airs Tuesday and two familiar faces will return. Check out the promo below to see who. MONDAY, MARCH 7Josh is Going to Hawaii! (8:00-9:00 p.m. ET) (TV-14, DL) (HDTV)Program information TBAChapter Thirty-Six (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET) (Content Rating TBD) (HDTV)BABIES Jane (Gina Rodriguez) and Michael (Brett Dier) are back together and Jane wishes she had never left Michael in the first place. Rafael (Justin Baldoni) appears to have regressed to his playboy ways and Petra (Yael Grobglas) is concerned about him. But Petra is not aware that Rafael is helping Michael find Mutters other son, Derek (guest star Mat Vairo). Rogelios (Jaime Camil) new assistant, Paolo (guest star Ana De la Reguera), is actually his stalker Lola. Finally, Petra gives birth to the twins. Andrea Navedo and Ivonne Coll also star. Uta Briesewitz directed the episode written by Jessica OToole & Amy Rardin. (#214). Original airdate 3/7/2016.TUESDAY, MARCH 8Welcome to Earth-2 (8:00-9:00 p.m. ET) (TV-PG, DLV) (HDTV)BARRY VISITS EARTH-2 Barry (Grant Gustin), Wells (Tom Cavanagh) and Cisco (Carlos Valdes) journey to Earth-2 to rescue Wells daughter, Jesse (guest star Violet Beane) from Zoom. Barry is stunned when he runs into Earth-2 Iris (Candice Patton) and Joe (Jesse L. Martin), but nothing prepares him for meeting Killer Frost (Danielle Panabaker) and Deathstorm (guest star Robbie Amell). Meanwhile, back on Earth-1, Jay (guest star Teddy Sears) has to take over the Flash's responsibilities when a meta human nicknamed Geomancer (guest star Adam Stafford) attacks Central City. Millicent Shelton directed the episode written by Greg Berlanti & Andrew Kreisberg and Katherine Walczak (#213). Original airdate 2/9/16.Cape Town (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET) (TV-14, DLV) (HDTV)JUSTICE ROLLS IN Liv (Rose McIver), Detective Babineaux (Malcolm Goodwin) and Ravi (Rahul Kohli) work together in solving the murder of Chris Allred (guest star Jay Hindle), who was a high school shop teacher by day, and a vigilante crime-fighter named The Fog by night. Liv gets into trouble while on superhero brains and becomes a little too much for Clive to handle. Meanwhile, Major (Robert Buckley) has an eye opening conversation with a new friend. Lastly, Blaine (David Anders) forces Liv to do the unthinkable. Mairzee Almas directed the episode written by Diane Ruggiero-Wright (#209). Original airdate 12/8/2015.WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9A.W.O.L. (8:00-9:00 p.m. ET) (TV-14, LV) (HDTV)DIGGLE VS. SHADOWSPIRE Diggle (David Ramsey) must learn to trust his brother Andy (guest star Eugene Byrd) when an enemy of their wartime past, an agent of the criminal organization Shadowspire, pays a visit to Star City. However, Diggle learns more than he bargained for about their shared time at war. Meanwhile, Oliver (Stephen Amell) has to learn a whole new way of life. Charlotte Brandstrom directed the episode written by Brian Ford Sullivan & Emilio Ortega Aldrich (#411). Original airdate 1/27/2016.Dont You Forget About Me (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET) (TV-14, DLV) (HDTV)KIM RHODES RETURNS AS SHERIFF JODY MILLS Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) drop in on Jody Mills (guest star Kim Rhodes), Claire (guest star Kathryn Newton) and Alex (guest star Katherine Ramdeen) after receiving a panicked phone call from Claire. She believes the recent murders in town are supernatural and wants the boys help. However, Sheriff Mills tells Sam and Dean that Claire has been getting into trouble lately as shes been attacking normal people and accusing them of being monsters. Stefan Pleszczynski directed the episode written by Nancy Won (#1112). Original airdate 2/3/2016.THURSDAY, MARCH 10Night of the Hawk (8:00-9:00 p.m. ET) (Content Rating TBD ) (HDTV)SARA MEETS SOMEONE SPECIAL; RAY AND KENDRA GROW CLOSER The team tracks Savage (guest star Casper Crump) to a small town in Oregon during the 1950s. Upon arrival, they discover there have been a recent string of murders and they suspect Savage is involved. Professor Stein (Victor Garber) and Sara (Caity Lotz) go undercover at a psychiatric hospital, where Savage is working as a doctor, to find out his plan. While there, Sara meets a nurse named Lindsay (guest star Ali Liebert) and sparks fly. Meanwhile, Ray (Brandon Routh) and Kendra (Ciara Renee) pretend to be a married couple to gain the neighborhoods trust, but an interracial couple in the 50s isnt something that goes unnoticed. Soon, Savage is at their door. Joe Dante directed the episode written by Sarah Nicole Jones & Cortney Norris (#108). Original airdate 3/10/2016.Terms and Conditions (9:00-10:00 p.m. ET) (TV-14, V) (HDTV)Program information TBAFRIDAY, MARCH 11NINETY-MINUTE SPECIALJust for Laughs Starring Howie Mandel (8:00-9:30 p.m. ET) (TV-14, DL) (HDTV)HOWIE MANDEL STARS IN THIS ALL-STAR COMEDY EVENT Recorded at the biggest comedy event in the world, the 2015 Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal, and hosted by Howie Mandel, this primetime special showcases performances from Jeff Ross, Pete Holmes, Jim Breuer, Fortune Feimster, Vladimir Caamano and Marina Franklin. Additionally, the special includes comedians remembering some of their favorite moments from the festival over the past 30 years, featuring Joan Rivers, Jon Stewart, and Eddie Izzard. Original airdate 1/18/2016.WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY?Bill Nye (9:30-10:00 p.m. ET) (TV-D) (HDTV)COMEDY IS A SCIENCE WITH GUEST STAR APPEARANCE BY BILL NYE Hosted by comedian Aisha Tyler, cast members Ryan Stiles, Wayne Brady and Colin Mochrie, along with guest comedian Greg Proops, put their comedic skills to the test through a series of spontaneous improv games that are prompted only by random ideas supplied by the studio audience. The four performers must use the little information they have and their wild imaginations to depict different characters and an array of scenes, as well as perform songs. After each round of improvisation, Aisha will dole out points to our four performers and declare a winner at the end of every episode. Directed by Geraldine Dowd. Original airdate 8/31/2015. Pope Francis meets journalists aboard the plane during the flight from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico to Rome, Italy. The pope has suggested that women threatened with the Zika virus could use artificial contraception but not abort their fetus, saying there's a clear moral difference between aborting a fetus and preventing a pregnancy. (Photo: AP) Aboard the Papal Plane: Pope Francis has appeared to open the door to a possible limited softening of the Roman Catholic Churchs ban on contraception because of the Zika virus. But the Argentine pontiff, speaking to reporters as he flew back to Rome from a visit to Mexico, categorically ruled out abortion as a response to Zika, comparing the practice to a Mafia killing. The health crisis has put pressure on Church teachings, particularly in Latin America, where abortion is now being debated more openly even in some conservative countries. Many scientists believe Zika, a mosquito-borne disease that is currently sweeping through the Americas, may be a risk factor for microcephaly in newborns - a condition in which babies are born with abnormally small heads. In the freewheeling, post-trip news conference that has become a trademark of his papacy, the pope was asked if using contraception would fall into the category of the lesser of two evils and how he felt about some authorities advising pregnant women with Zika to have abortions. He categorically ruled out that abortion would ever be permitted for pregnant women with Zika who fear that they may give birth to a child with microcephaley. Abortion is not a lesser evil. It is a crime. It is killing one person to save another. It is what the Mafia does, Francis said, speaking passionately against the practice. It is a crime. It is an absolute evil. The 1.2 billion-member Church teaches that abortion is a crime because life begins at the moment of conception. The Church teaches that contraception is wrong because nothing should block the possible transmission of life. But Francis mentioned in his response that one of his predecessors, Pope Paul VI, had issued an exceptional dispensation allowing nuns in Africa to use the birth control pill because they risked being raped during a conflict there. He said Paul, who reigned from 1963 to 1978, had responded to a difficult situation in Africa, suggesting that a papal precedent existed. Francis did not say exactly when his predecessor made the exception, but it was believed to be in the 1960s in what was then the Belgian Congo. Little is known of the episode, which was not publicised at the time. Francis said that unlike abortion, avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil and added that in certain cases, such as the precedent set by Paul VI regarding the nuns in Africa, using contraception might be the lesser evil. He did not elaborate. Paul VI confirmed the Roman Catholic ban on artificial birth control in his major 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae (On Human Life), which ran into strong opposition in some parts of the Church. In his comments on Zika, Francis also urged the medical and scientific communities to do every possible to find out more about the disease. I would also like to exhort doctors to do everything to find vaccines against the mosquitoes that bear this illness. We have to work on that, he said. STAMFORD The school district is on track to ban the practice of reaching negotiated settlements with teachers suspected of sexual misconduct. Two policies addressing the practice were passed unanimously by the Board of Education Policy Committee on Thursday night. It is an issue that has been a cloud on this district, on this board probably people who work in the schools, committee Chairman David Mannis said. More importantly, this is one of the worst forms of behavior to which students can be subjected. The issue of teachers leaving the district under dubious circumstances came to the fore last year when The Advocate found an agreement with one teacher accused of three instances of inappropriate contact with students. That teacher was sent off with a severance package and a letter of recommendation. The policies passed Thursday night would prohibit the district from entering into any agreement that would facilitate a staff members departure if there is probable cause to suspect they have been involved in sexual misconduct with a student. Mannis said the policy would also explicitly forbid any letters of recommendation in such instances. The superintendent will develop regulations on this topic, to set out hopefully in excruciating detail what is expected of every employee. he said The move coincides with a recently passed federal mandate that districts ban the transfer of teachers suspected of sexual misconduct by October 2016. Board President Geoff Alswanger commended the board for its action on the issue. Personally, I can only say that I'm really pleased that we can be here in February of this new board, dealing with this issue comprehensively, he said. I think this does go beyond what the federal law requires, and that meets our desire to help make Stamford a leader on this issue in the state of Connecticut. Board attorney Kenneth Weinstock, who was hired by the board in the wake of the districts sexual misconduct scandals last year, told board members they were the first in the state to consider such policy. The districts previous separation agreement sparked an additional resolution Thursday night one that prohibits the superintendent from signing agreements on the boards behalf without their knowledge. Previous board members denied all knowledge of the districts earlier agreement, which was signed on their behalf by then-Superintendent Winifred Hamilton. The terms of that agreement listed board members by name, and forbade them from making disparaging comments about the teacher in question in any forum. It struck everybody that that was bad practice all around, Mannis said. The second resolution also passed unanimously. Both resolutions must still face a vote of the full board. As amendments to board policy, they must be approved in two consecutive meetings. Still, Michael Rinaldi, the assistant principal of Rippowam Middle School who has been a vocal opponent of separation agreements, was optimistic. Im very proud of our Board of Education, he said after the vote. My faith is restored and our children are better protected due to this new boards hard work and dedication to addressing the issue. Board member Jennienne Burke expressed a similar sentiment. As a new board member, it really makes me feel confident that this board is heading in the right direction, she said. Board member Michael Altamura called the policy long overdue. He said he hoped the board could go further, and called on Mannis to introduce a whistleblower policy to protect district staff who report misconduct. That conversation has begun, Mannis said. HARTFORD A plan to arm police officers at the states community colleges is drawing cheers for enhancing safety and concern over increasing costs at the small, often cash-strapped schools. The sad reality is tragic events continue to bring this to our doorstep, said Mark Ojakian, president of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities, which runs the community and state college system. A bill before the General Assembly would allow certified police officers to carry guns at 11 of the states 12 community colleges, including schools in Bridgeport, Norwalk and Danbury. Naugatuck Valley Community College in Waterbury already has armed officers because of an exemption granted when a state university shared the campus. All of the states larger universities, such as UConn, have armed police forces. This bill does not require a special police force, Ojakian said during a public hearing Thursday before the Legislatures Higher Education and Employment Committee. Each campus can decide whether to make that decision. Committee members mostly supported the proposal, although some expressed alarm over the cost of arming officers and building police forces. A few questioned the need for armed officers. I didnt get the sense many schools want this, State Rep. Roberta Willis, D-Lakeville and co-chairman of the higher education committee. UConn has tens of thousands of people living on campus. Community colleges are smaller by nature. Its a different dynamic. The effort to arm the schools comes after the tragic shooting last October at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., during which 10 people, including the shooter, were killed and nine people were injured. Memories of the horrific slayings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown also hover over the discussion. Students in favor Ojakian told the committee students and facility are telling him they would feel safer and more secure if community college police officers are armed. Students, quite frankly, have said they are afraid, Ojakian said. Security is now dealing with knives and having to disarm someone without being able to carry a gun. Lt. Michael Davis, chief of police at Manchester Community College, said there is no significant cost in arming his officers. Speaking only for MCC, the cost will be offset by eliminating our contracted armored car service resulting in a net savings to the college, he said. Ojakian added each school will have to have a discussion about how to pay for it, but stressed extra costs would not be significant for schools already employing certified police officers. State Rep. Jaun Candelaria, D-Bridgeport, said hes still concerned about costs. I understand the need to do this, Candelaria said. I think we are all concerned about the cost and that we will pay for it by raising tuition to the point that kids without the means cannot attend college. In response, Ojakian said he has no intention of raising tuition so people are priced out. I would never say you are going to have a police force, but now you have to close your library five nights a week. Danbury expansion James Troup, provost and dean at the Naugatuck Valley Community College, which has a large campus in Waterbury and a smaller one in Danbury, said the bill has no impact on the Waterbury operation. But considering the Danbury school is scheduled to triple in size by August, Troup said the school is planning to add a police force. He said the college does not oppose the bill, noting Danbury is now using private security guards to ensure safety at its 6,000-square-foot facility. Our president would like everyone to have a police department, Troup said. We understand why some want armed police officers. We are not against it. If it takes passage of this bill to establish a force in Danbury, then we are for it. We hope there will be funding for public safety. Paul Broadie, president of Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport, did not return calls seeking comment on the bill. Broadie told Hearst Connecticut Media in December that I am open minded about the idea of armed officers. David Levinson, president at Norwalk Community College, also could not be reached Thursday. He previously said he has mixed feelings about the idea. It is something I want to discuss with the college community, Levinson told Hearst. We want to provide a secure campus ... it needs to be built into the culture. Troup said the school has had no problems during the 12 years the Waterbury campus has had armed officers. The staff and students are very accepting of having officers and having some of them armed, Troup said. Its worked out very well. Danbury will be a priority. We hope there will be funding for public safety. Only fair Glenn Terlecki, president of the Connecticut Police and Fire Union, said allowing armed officers is the only fair approach. This bill would simply afford police officers at community colleges the same protection and authority as their counterparts in the rest of the university system, Terlecki said. This legislation is a step in the right direction to improving campus safety." MCC serves a population that matches in size to the state universities, Davis added. We are an open campus which serves approximately 15,000 students annually. We also have an affiliated high school on the campus which adds a layer of complexity that could make us an even greater security risk. Moscow: Russia's envoy to the UN on Friday warned long-term ally President Bashar al-Assad over his vow to retake all of Syria, saying he faced dire consequences if he did not comply with Moscow over the peace process. "Russia has invested very seriously in this crisis, politically, diplomatically and now also militarily," Vitaly Churkin told Kommersant newspaper, referring to an international agreement to cease hostilities sealed in Munich last week. "Therefore we would like Assad also to respond to this," he said, adding that the Syrian leader's stance "is not in accord with the diplomatic efforts that Russia is making." At their meeting in Munich, the 17-nation group backing Syria's peace process agreed to work for a ceasefire, the lifting of starvation sieges and the resumption of talks. In an interview with AFP last week, Assad defiantly pledged to retake the whole of the country, speaking before the plan for a nationwide "cessation of hostilities" in Syria was announced. If Syria "follows Russia's leadership in resolving this crisis, then they have a chance to come out of it in a dignified way," Churkin stressed. "If they in some way stray from this path and this is my personal opinion a very difficult situation could arise. Including for themselves," he warned. "If they proceed on the basis that no ceasefire is necessary and they need to fight to a victorious end, then this conflict will last a very long time and that is terrifying to imagine." Churkin however also suggested that Assad's comments were made for political impact. "It isn't worth putting too much significance into one statement or another and dramatising them," he said. "We should be guided not by what he says, with all respect for the statements of a person at such a high level, but by what he finally does." Churkin said of the Munich agreement that "Damascus, as I hope, understands this is a unique chance for Syria after five years of unremitting destruction." Russia launched air strikes in Syria in September last year to support Assad and fight "terrorists", saying it was targeting the Islamic State group and other jihadists. I f the Government looked inside your iPhone, what would it find? Ten thousand unanswered emails? A few naked selfies? Evidence of increasingly perplexed plays of Kanye Wests The Life of Pablo, in which you searched in vain for the, you know, good bits? Or evidence relating to terrorist activity, possibly linked to global jihadist networks? But wait. Is this even a question we want to ask? The big tussle in 21st-century Dilemma Land is the legal wrangle between Apple and the FBI, focused on the San Bernardino shootings of December 2 last year, in which Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik gunned down 14 people, injuring 22 others. Investigators want to examine the contents of Farooks iPhone 5C, which they believe may contain information that will assist their understanding of the case and, they claim, the fight against international terrorism. For that, they need Apple to build software that circumvents the iPhones security software, bypassing Farooks four-digit passcode and allowing them to look inside his phone. Apple has resisted on the grounds that it does not want to build what would be in effect a skeleton key: something that could potentially be used in future for governments to gain access to data. Yesterday a federal judge in California ruled to force Apple to comply with investigators demands. Whether, and how, Apple do so remains to be seen. Obviously all of this is good material for one of those Silicon Valley films, such as The Social Network and Steve Jobs, in which nerds become masters of the universe. Perhaps we can imagine Bryan Cranston cast in the role of an embattled Apple CEO, Tim Cook, standing up to a blank-faced Fed who is to all intents and purposes Cancer Man from The X-Files. Give me the code, Cook! Over my dead body! And so on. This is precisely the light in which Apple has tried to cast itself: as a bulwark against government snooping, the gatekeepers for data security. The FBI plainly picked this fight since it understands that government agencies can always stick their noses into peoples business when they plead terrorism. History tells us we tend to be wettest about personal security when we feel national security is at stake. So manifestly this case is about far more than just the San Bernardino shootings, the fight against Islamic terrorism or the password systems Apple designs to help you protect your nudey photos and dodgy texts. Rather, this is a battle in the epic historical war currently waged between governments that wish to reassert their power to intrude upon citizens lives in the Communications Revolution, and giant supra-national businesses such as Apple, whose power and cultural influence is already broader and has the potential to become far greater than traditional state powers. Apples show of resistance is all-important if it does not wish to be seen as a giant adjunct of Western governments surveillance network. It must continue to raise its middle finger. But equally, the FBI and the US government cannot credibly let Apple resist its will. Irresistible force meets unlockable iPhone now theres a snapshot of our times. A fter a long night of detailed talks in Brussels, David Cameron and his negotiating team face more of the same today, having had little time to catch up on sleep. The Prime Minister had hoped to return to London today with a deal triumphantly in his pocket. It may be tough to meet that deadline progress on EU reform is being made but ironing out the differences between member states over key demands is a slow business. The main points of dispute are well known. A number of eastern European states notably the Visegrad Group of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are wary of the PMs proposed brake on in-work benefits and social housing for new arrivals to the UK. They are similarly concerned over reforms to child-benefit payments. The French, meanwhile, dislike efforts to remove non-euro countries from eurozone regulations. On the other hand, Mr Cameron has solid allies. Not only is there belief in his specific reforms (the Spanish, for instance, are keen on his child-benefit proposals), there is also a genuine fear of Britain ultimately leaving the Union. Natural partners such as Ireland, Denmark and the Netherlands, even Germany, baulk at the prospect. A deal will require someone to give way. Perhaps more to the point, it means myriad lawyers taking time to work out how changes can actually be brought into effect all of which shows how tangled the EU has become in arguably quite esoteric matters. As David Cameron burns the candle at both ends, high-profile Tory Eurosceptics are lining up to add fuel to the fire by voicing anti-EU messages over the weekend. Presentation will be key in the coming referendum debate, which is why the PM will be so keen to come home with a positive message today if he possibly can. Trumped by the Pope Donald Trump has extended an olive branch to Pope Francis after denouncing the Popes criticism of his proposal to build a wall between the US and Mexico to keep out illegal immigrants. The Pope has, Mr Trump says, a lot of personalitya lot of energy. Which makes Francis sound rather like Mr Trump himself. Mr Trump, who seems likely to take a decisive lead over his Republican rivals in God-fearing South Carolina, had declared that the Pope was disgraceful in saying that anyone such as Mr Trump who tries to build walls and not bridges is un-Christian. Now he says that the Pope did not quite understand his policy. In theory, the US has a constitutional separation between Church and state, religion and politics. In practice, religion is hugely important in US politics and American culture and is a factor in this election. So Mr Trumps response to the Popes criticisms were rash, even if the row usefully added to the publicity surrounding his campaign. He has made much of his Christianity on the stump, taking his mothers bible with him wherever he goes. But he may have to acknowledge that he has met his match here. It is a brave politician who declares himself more Christian than the Pope. Pushy pushchairs It has come to a pretty pass when transport chiefs have to consider the introduction of an etiquette guide for bus passengers travelling with baby buggies in tow. Such is the rage created by, and for, pram-pushers that parents competing for space have come to blows. Four-letter tirades have also been known, presumably ending with a demand to buggy off! Of course, there is one alternative, if radical, solution walk more. D amascus, now in Syria, and Antioch, now in Turkey, are great biblical cities but modern-day relations between them have been very poor. The tensions on the Syrian-Turkish border are not new: there was a stand-off until 2000. The Syrians felt that the Antioch (Antakya) region was rightfully theirs, the population being mostly Arab, and that they had been cheated of it by a Franco-Turkish colonial deal, complete with fake referendum, in 1938. In any case, the two countries were on opposite sides in the Cold War, the Turks co-operating with Nato and Israel, the Syrians with Moscow. The Syrians complained that Turkish dams on the Euphrates were cutting their water; they tried to use the Kurds against Turkey and gave a base to the PKK, a Maoist terror organisation that did much to keep south-eastern Turkey relatively backward. It shot teachers, wiped out whole families and even shot up chicken farms. Then, in 1998, the Turks served an ultimatum to Syria: expel the PKK. That happened, and its leader sits in an island prison near Istanbul. Then came the surprise, a Syrian-Turkish reconciliation, gathering pace when the present Ankara government came to power in 2002, with brotherly Muslim rhetoric, visa-free arrangements, free trade and head-of-state, husband-and-wife joint holidays. Antakya in 2010 was full of Syrian taxi drivers, taking you to Aleppo, an hour or so away, and, back then, rather a wonderful place, with its Agatha Christie hotel, its huge citadel restored by the Aga Khan and its old Ottoman houses. However, if you took that taxi journey you were moving down a stage in development. The Antakya region is not Turkeys richest but it works in a European way: drivers are even known to stop at red lights. The real reason for Syrian complaints about water shortages is that a Soviet irrigation system was installed, which got everything wrong and caused drought (one factor behind the present troubles). When the river Orontes reaches Antakya from Syria, it is often just muddy slime. Turkey, associated with the West since 1945, has shot ahead: discounting oil, its economy is larger than that of the old Ottoman Empire. Arabs look at Turkey with envy and resentment. The very name Turkey is really Italian in origin, because Turk in the Ottoman time meant bumpkin: itrak bi-i idrak was an Arabic pun, giggled at by the court eunuchs, meaning Turks are jerks. There was a Turkish language, of course, but its vocabulary was limited to elementary physical functions, especially fighting. There was a thorough-going reform, or more accurately invention, of Turkish in the 1930s, when the state aimed to make peasants literate and scrapped the old Arabic script for a Latin one that suits Turkish sounds much better. The results are sometimes comic. Tahrir Square in Cairo, where the Arab Spring sprung, refers to Freedom. In Turkish it means property survey. That Spring went to the head of the Turkish government. It had come to power in 2002 and was religious in inspiration. Its general line was that Islam could produce democracy and prosperity, as Christian Democrat parties had done in Italy or Germany. It had endless foreign well-wishers, including this writer, who were sick of the confusions and corruption of the old gang. Its first years were good, housing and health on offer as never before. Quite sophisticated exports bounded ahead, and there is now a general business to the economy that comes as a relief if you have seen what Europe has done to countries such as Greece and Bulgaria. The Turks had money to spend on cultural institutes and satellites, broadcasting the message that they were successful. Whereas other Islamic societies were not: backward, tyrannically run, corrupt. Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the former prime minister of Malaysia, had remarked of his country that we produce nothing, we create nothing and we cannot even manage our own wealth. Turkey was different, and when the Arab Spring got under way the then Turkish Prime Minister, now President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, got on his travels. He was lionised when he spoke up for the Palestinians, got honorary degrees all over the Arab place, and Arab money poured into Turkey. It still comes as a surprise to see black-clad women at Istanbul airport, where their menfolk are not very respectful of queuing rules. In the 1930s, people not dressed in Western style were turned away by the police in Turkish towns. The religious governments initial success came with a cultural revival of the once despised Ottoman Empire. There were successful television soaps, excellent museums devoted to Islamic arts and science. There was unquestionably a very good side of the empire, not least that it kept the peace and mostly avoided religious persecution. The present Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, wrote a book to the effect that Ottoman soft power would make for a sort of Turkish Commonwealth, and he has been tireless in going around Muslim Africa (even Somalia) or Burma and the Pacific to promote that cause. Turkish Airlines flies all over the place, in this writers experience very efficiently. This new self-assertion is reflected in matters great and small. Istanbul will have Europes largest airport, with a space-research institute attached; and in official buildings there are now hole-in-the-ground lavatories. From this, to lecturing the Syrians on their need for reform, of getting a government similar to Turkeys, was a short step. And so when President Assad would not accept the lessons, Turkey started supporting his enemies. He did warn at the outset that Syria was a powder keg and that its explosion would affect the entire Middle East, and right he has proved. The effects are now seen in Turkey, beset with nearly three million refugees and with car-bomb outrages even in the military quarter of the capital, Ankara. The troubles have now produced a Kurdish crypto-state, in Syria as well as in Iraq, and through the PKK it has Turkish links. The ultimate irony in this over-ambitious Turkish foreign policy is that instead of creating an Ottoman Commonwealth it will end up with a Kurdistan. If only Mr Erdogan and Mr Davutoglu had played a longer game and respected the doctrine of Turkeys founders: peace abroad, peace at home. Norman Stone is a professor of international relations at Bilkent University in Ankara Retail boss Belinda Earl hailed Alexa Chung as a fabulous British icon at the launch of her hotly-anticipated collection with M&S in Soho last night. At a star-studded party held on the eve of London Fashion Week, Earl joined a host of the models famous friends including Pixie Geldof, Jack Guinness and fellow brand ambassador David Gandy. Paying homage to the Chungs broad appeal, M&S Style Director said: were trying to talk to all of our customers with this collection, the customers that shop with us today and new customers as well. Chung's first foray into high street retail consists of 31 items with prices which range from 19.50 to 89. It is not a designer collaboration but a reworking of items chosen from M&S archive which have been repurposed for the 21st century shopper. Dave Benett The Archive By Alexa collection is an attempt by M&S to connect with customers of all ages with the collaboration which goes in store in April. Earl, who was joined by British Fashion Council chief executive Caroline Rush at the event, said: Alexa really values our heritage. She holds M&S really dear to her heart and the garments that shes worked on form the archive have lots of positive nostalgic memories. Rush added: "we're very proud to be supporting this incredible collaboration of two British icons." The Archive By Alexa range, which already has a significant waiting list, offers a new take on M&S icons through the introduction of modern fabrications and an updated colour palette and has much to offer fans of Chungs distinctive look. Among the pieces on display last night was a colourful Paisley print day dress - a remake from a 1950's housewives apron - and a tie neck polka dot dress inspired by a design from M&S's younger Junior Miss range in 1968. The original designs were presented to party goers in glass cabinets. Dave Benett Chung, 32, wore her favourite outfit from the collection to last night's launch - revealing a white piecrust shirt and a khaki mac. At 89, the mac is the most expensive item in the collection and is reworked from the sturdy gabardine school coats which were M&S signatures, passed down through generations. The rest of the collection is to remain a closely guarded secret until the April launch - a tactic which will no doubt help to generate further hysteria among fashion fans closer to the launch date. The recruitment of Chung, who has been awarded with the British Fashion Councils Style Icon award on three consecutive occasions, is a move to help revive womenswear sales among a younger, fashion-forward customer. Alexa Chung has served as the BFCs Young Style ambassador since 2012 and is expected to attend a host of catwalk shows including Simone Rocha and Burberry this weekend. Forget big pants and shearling overcoats - as London Fashion Week kicks off today it is the matter of what handbag to buy next season that will dominate conversations. The result of a shake-up in scheduling and a new super Sunday for accessories, this weekend marks the return of British bag giant Mulberry to the bill after a two-year hiatus. Now under the new direction of former Celine designer Johnny Coca, the brand will be joined by Anya Hindmarch and Hill and Friends - a label co-founded by Mulberrys former creative director Emma Hill. Hill is terrified by the prospect. I always am, she says, but I love the drama. We are meeting to discuss her first year as creative director of Hill and Friends. Caramel blonde with an infectious giggle, she wears a polka-dot blouse and skinny black jeans. Her nails are painted with vibrant fuchsia polish. I later discover that she has recently had her bathroom lacquered in the same shade. After six successful years with Mulberry, Kingston-born Hill, 45, announced her departure from the brand in 2013, following a rumoured disagreement with CEO Bruno Guillon. Her shock exit triggered profit warnings, a drop in share prices and led to what Hill describes as a painful and public fashion divorce. Hill And Friends Show, Spring Summer 2016 (Jonathan Hordle/REX) / Rex Afterwards she took a well-earned break. It was only a year, she says, but in fashion a year is a long time. Id love to sit here and say I went off and made myself a better person, learned Mandarin or something, but basically I watched a lot of Great British Bake off, hung out with my son and just defibrillated. With 15 years of experience and stints at Burberry, Calvin Klein and Marc Jacobs already under her belt, Hill arrived at Mulberry in 2007 and is credited with transforming the floundering heritage brand into one of Britains hottest fashion exports. Her legacy there includes Alexa Chungs insanely popular namesake satchel and the launch of a ready-to-wear collection. The story surrounding her departure remains vague and Hill, who still seems a little shaken by it all, is not keen to discuss the gory details other than to say she is happier now than she has ever been. It helps, of course, that she is now comfortably positioned in the driving seat of a brand which considers injecting fashion with fun as its USP. At its debut show last September, a spectacle so bonkers that even Anna Wintour raised a smile, Hill and Friends handbags were unveiled on the catwalk by a team of tray-wielding bell boys (clad in pink velvet suits) who were accompanied by Shetland ponies. Hill And Friends Show, Spring Summer 2016 (Jonathan Hordle/REX) / Rex Hill is promising more of the same silliness for this Sunday. From the very start, Hill and Friends has been about personality and about being inclusive not exclusive, she says. Im not a serious intellectual designer. I admire those that are but its not really me. I like to have a good time. To this end, the Hill and Friends offering is a small collection of beautifully crafted handbags which come in vibrant colours and feature playful details including a smiley face fastening - to lock the bag, you wink an eye - which is the brands signature. For Hill, the daughter of a Welsh mathematician and an artist, this is as much about patriotism as it is about raising a smile. Our view of Britishness is not Beefeaters, its about humour. Its dry and sarcastic. Its also about mixing things up. Life should be about surprises. Were in our own Carry On film here. Hill and Friends, which sold its first bag hours after its fashion week debut and is selling well, is currently available across a host of retailers including Net-A-Porter, Harrods and Selfridges, which launched the new collection last week. The brand also operates through a carefully programmed e-commerce site which, Hill says, makes them unique. This has never been all about opening a bricks-and-mortar store. We want to be digitally advanced. Luxury brands have been slow with online shopping. But its so important to give your customers what they want. Something of a pioneer where the luxury industry is concerned, Hill was also among the first to acknowledge the current shift towards the buy now business model which is resulting in more and more brands putting items from its catwalk shows up for sale immediately. The idea of going to a show and then waiting six months to buy it is old - when we launched we chose a small selection of bags that were available straight away. Hill And Friends Show, Spring Summer 2016 (Jonathan Hordle/REX) / Rex But she is also under no illusions as to the pressure this approach puts on the shoulders of small brands. Things are not as they were but at the same time were not Zara. I think some things are worth waiting for. Fashion is a craft and some things take longer to make. Occupying a middle ground is key for Hill, who has paid careful attention to price point when creating Hill and Friends - 70 per cent of the collection is under 1,000; a mini-clutch starts from 195. Price is a tricky. I think its confusing when the price point is stretched so much that you dont get what it is. Is it a luxury brand? Is it a middle-of-the-road brand thats trying to punch above its weight? For me, its about measuring value for money against Italian craftsmanship and beautiful hardware. Its about finding the sweet spot. Hills wealth of experience also stands her in good stead for succeeding on her own terms. Ive always been a bit of a factory girl. I know how to do the whole process, she says. But she is also getting a huge kick out of working with a small team. She and her co-founder Georgia Fendley, previously brand director at Mulberry, currently employ nine members of staff. Its so nice, especially after heading up something big. When youre small you get to do things like go bowling or go to the movies. She also tells me about a gold bell she rings when good stuff happens. It doubles as a bottle opener - we try not to overuse it, she says. Has being a female boss posed any problems? I think that theres a million professions where it must be a real challenge to be a woman but Im not sure that fashion is one of them. Im very fortunate that I dont have to think about that. When shes not in the office, Hill is in her fuchsia-filled townhouse in Holland Park (even the laundry room is pink), where there is a room which houses her favourite handbags. A single mother, she employs a dancer-turned-manny to help her with the care of nine-year-old son Hudson. Like his mum, Hudson likes the colour pink - he lives the dream too, jokes Hill - and is no stranger to the fashion week catwalk, having made a cameo appearance as a bell boy in the first Hill and Friends show. Did he miss her when she returned to work? I think he found it hard. Hes a real mammas boy. But its so important to show your kids how important it is to be passionate about what you do. I try to teach him what my dad taught me: find something that you love, find something that makes you happy. Emma Hill certainly has. Review at a glance A t Berlin, all the market talk is dominated by whether or not the streaming giants are demolishing the traditional methods of theatrical film production, sales and release. Not yet, seems to be the relieved verdict. It's generally accepted that the comparative failure of Beasts of No Nation in the awards season was partly down to its release on Netflix. Chi-Raq, directed by Spike Lee, is the first production by Amazon Original Movies, given a limited theatrical release in the States in December to qualify for Oscars, and then given made available on Amazon Instant Video before turning up here at the Berlinale - and it is instructive to see some at least of the 1,931 customer reviews it has received on Amazon.com in the States, 38% of them one-stars, far from impressed. Chi-Raq the word (pronounced Shy-Rack) is a street-slang amalgam of Chicago and Iraq, used for the strife-torn South Side of Chicago, a city where there were more murders than there were American deaths over the same years in the Iraq war, "committed by young black males against young black males - Heaven help us all", as a local pastor says in the opening sequence. Chi-Raq the film, written by Spike Lee and Kevin Wilmott, is a rough adaptation of Aristophanes's comedy Lysistrata, first performed in Athens in 411 B.C., about one woman's mission to end the interminable Peloponnesian War by persuading the women of Greece to withhold sex from their husbands and lovers, in order to force them, through laughable sexual frustration, to negotiate peace. Like Lysistrata, Chi-Raq is written in verse - rapping rhymes, anyway. Instead of having a Greek chorus, it has a nattily dressed street poet Dolmedes, played by Samuel L Jackson, repeatedly cropping up to belt out pointed summaries of what is going down. In this South Side, there are two rival gangs, wearing orange or purple, the Trojans and the Spartans. The Spartans' gang leader is called Chi-Raq himself, an aspirant rapper with a penchant for big guns, whose squeeze Lysistrata is played by small but mighty Teyonah Parris, who was Don Draper's secretary Dawn in Mad Men. Heading the Trojans is one-eyed Cyclops (it's re-mix, what can I say?) played by Wesley Snipes with a glittering eye-patch and a very silly evil snigger. After a shoot-up at one Chi-Raq's concerts, followed by a firebombing of his crib right when he's making out with her, Lysistrata has finally has had enough, after a local child has been accidentally shot dead in the street during a drive-by. With the help of a wise and bookish older neighbour, Miss Helen (Angela Bassett), Lysistrata begins to organize a women's revolt ("we all sisters here!"), under the slogan: "No peace, no pussy!" Later this is refined into "No peace, no piece". Lysistrata rhymes it: "We gonna make the Fools put down da Guns. Stop thinkin this Craziness is Fun!!! Your Women understand Life is more than polishin your Knobs. Saving Lives is our Job!!! Its bout breakin Strife, givin da Hood da True Meaning of Life!!!" There's a long impassioned scene at the funeral service of the murdered girl. Playing the equivalent to the real life local activist, white Catholic priest Father Michael Pfleger, who helped Spike Lee meet local people in the area of the South Side where he made the film - John Cusack makes an emotive speech about how gun crime has got to stop, pointing the finger at the NRA, saying local people need good schools and jobs and an end to poverty. "We will not allow this self-inflicted genocide to continue!" he promises. The congregation roars its approval. Other factors playing into gang life, including perhaps the very rap culture and abusive language the film embraces, and the broken families that exist alongside the hypersexualisation it celebrates, are not raised, ever. The film degenerates into a literal song and dance act, a rap musical, weirdly, given the grave subject matter, a jolly pantomime, almost an am-dram fest at points, quite cartoonish, especially in scenes of crude anti-white farce with a sexualy duped racist stripped to his underpants straddling a Civil War canon and whistling Dixie. The sex-stike ends only after three months, when the entire world has been affected and similar movements have spread to cities everywhere - "world leaders are in crisis - the infrastructure is collapsing". There's a "sex-off", fully as grotesque as the "walk-off" in Zoolander, between Lysistrata and Chi-Raq, as to who can make the other come first in a public display. Throughout, the women, even when withholding their favours, wear tiny costumes, like Beyonce, shaking their booties, dancing and parading, for audience-pleasing purposes perhaps. Throughout, the rhyming is crass beyond quoting, the language full of ho's and bitches, snatches, poontang, motherfuckers and niggas. There is no story, beyond this simplest stand-off set up, no character development, no sign of any other life. And there's the simplest opposition between women (good, wanting peace and lives for their children) and men (violent, sex-mad, boastful - "how could dem females give up da long dick and da down stroke?" - and infantile). So it could be that Chi-Raq plays up to the worst stereotypes of African-American life, as some of those dismissive Amazon commenters claim - but who's to say? Spike Lee did to his credit, leave Brooklyn and go and make this film in "E-Dub", Englewood, a three-mile block of Chicago's South Side. Obviously, the solution to gangster life, gun crime and deprivation found in the film - there's a last minute mass reconciliation and repentance - has no reality whatsoever. But, says Spike Lee, "if Im in command of my skills as a filmmaker, its going to start people talking and bring light to the darkness. That is the goal of this film. And if we do that, we will save lives." Maybe. Or maybe this film is too much down with the evils it claims to tackle. Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout B ruce Springsteen will perform a rare London gig at Wembley Stadium in June, it has been confirmed. The rock and folk icon, who is currently touring the US, will come to London with his E Street Band as part of a tour which will also take in Manchester, Glasgow and Coventry. He will play Manchester on May 25, Glasgow on June 1, Coventry on June 3 and finally London on June 5. Though he has played London many times over the years, at venues including Brixton Academy, the Royal Albert Hall and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, his performances are still few and far between. Tickets will go on sale at 9am on Thursday February 25, and are expected to sell very fast indeed. After all, Springsteen is not only a legend in his lifetime, but is also one of the worlds best-selling artists of all time, having racked up over 120 million worldwide album sales. Tickets available here . Music in London 2016: The years biggest gigs 1 /13 Music in London 2016: The years biggest gigs The Libertines The O2 30 January 2016 Pete, Carl and co have been out and about a fair bit since the release of their first album in 11 years, Anthems For Doomed Youth. But catching them live is still a special experience, whatever state they turn up in on the night. The Libertines tickets JOSE JORDAN/AFP/Getty Images Foals Wembley 16 February 2016 This Oxford-formed band are growing their fanbase by the day thanks to a style that combines indie with touches of punk and funk. This gig part of their very first UK tour will be the bands biggest to date, and comes with the added bonus of Everything Everything supporting. Foals tickets Warner Bros Adele The O2 15, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22 March and 4, 5 April 2016 She needs no introduction, and judging by the chaos that ensued when tickets for this tour were released, she needs no help selling seats either. She will play eight dates at the O2 as part of her tour, which also takes in Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Belfast and Dublin as well as cities across Europe. Adele tickets Kevin Winter/Getty Images Wolf Alice The Forum 26, 28 March 2016 Playing in Kentish Town is something of a homecoming for this north London band who have won a Mercury Prize nomination for their debut album My Love Is Cool. Wolf Alice tickets Jenn Five Muse The O2 3, 11, 12, 14, 15 April 2016 Muse know how to pack both energy and immense theatrics into a show, and this run of five nights at the O2 will be no different. The set-up will be quite something in itself the band will perform in the round, on a stage shaped like a double-headed arrow and we hear the set will also feature a whole swarm of drones. Muse tickets AC/DC Olympic Stadium 4 June 2016 As if a rare UK stadium gig from AC/DC wasnt exciting enough, this will be the first one at Stratfords stadium once it completes being reconfigured after the 2012 games. The gig is part of the Back In Black performers Rock or Bust World Tour and is followed by a date in Manchester on June 9. AC/DC tickets Coldplay Wembley 15, 16, 18, 19 June 2016 Coldplay are rolling into town in June with four nights at a packed Wembley Stadium to mark new album A Head Full of Dreams. Expect Chris Martin and co to put on a characteristically impressive, energetic and atmospheric show. Coldplay tickets Rihanna Wembley 24 June 2016 Rihanna will pack out Wembley as part of a tour to mark her eighth album Anti, with saucy on-stage antics a given. Less certain is whether or not shell be on time she was 45mins late for a gig in Twickenham in 2013. The Weeknd will be among the singers support. Rihanna tickets Justin Bieber The O2 11, 12, 14, 15 October and 28, 29 November 2016 Love him or loathe him, Bieber is one of the biggest celebrities on the planet right now, and hes laying on a suitably epic-sized world tour to match. Six nights at the O2 are backed up by three each in Birmingham and Glasgow and one in Sheffield. Justin Bieber tickets Kevin Winter/Getty The Cure Wembley 2, 3 December 2016 The iconic English rock band, led by enigmatic frontman Robert Smith, will play Wembley as part of their first European tour since 2008. theyll be supported by The Twilight Sad. The Cure tickets Theo Wargo/Getty Images Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout G illes Petersons people werent exaggerating when they said he was a big fan of FaceTime. His gleeful face appears on the screen and his unmistakeable and widely adored cockney voice cries out: Look! Look! Its snowing! His iPhone swings to the left and a wintery Swiss landscape appears. Born to French-Swiss parents and a globetrotter by nature, its not surprising that Peterson is out of the country, but his latest project is actually set on the other side of the Atlantic, in Cuba. Havana Club Rumba Sessions: La Clave is a documentary which explores the history of rumba from the colonial era right through to modern dance floors. Rumba was brought to Cuba with the arrival of African slave communities and grew from their spiritual drumming practices. The clave is an instrument made of two wooden sticks that sets the rhythm for all rumba music. The film follows Gilles Peterson and Crispin Robinson a veteran in Afro-Cuban music through Havana, Matanzas, and everywhere in between. One of the drummers they meet beats the Bata drum harder than the guy in Whiplash, sweat pouring from his head and veins bursting in his neck, he is mesmerising to watch. Peterson says he would never have met these extraordinary musicians without Robinson. He was the Babalawo (spiritual leader) of our group. At one point in the film, they find themselves on a rooftop in Havana at an Abakua ceremony, which Peterson describes as the African freemasonry. Its a dozen wizened, toothless rumba artists, drumming and singing with delight and vigour. They only pause to cackle at each other and pump their ring-clad fists, or take a swig of hootch. It's like a special cult. I wouldnt have got on that rooftop without Crispin. Oh, and you could see the most amazing things from there. On the next building there were a load of pigeon handlers! I mean what?! There's this world up on the rooftops of Havana that Ive never noticed before, that you dont see from street level. And Ive been going there for seven years. I felt privileged to be there. Connected: Gilles Peterson on FaceTime Accompanying the documentary is a remix compilation of rumba music recorded in the Egrem studio in Havana, which Peterson says is like walking into the Vatican. The idea is that DJs chosen by Peterson among them Motor City Drum Ensemble create a rumba and dance music fusion, which helps transport the sound onto modern dance floors. Rumba doesnt fall in a straight rhythm, its all mental patterns. I tend to play a lot of broken rhythms in my sets because I enjoy seeing people get confused on the dance floor, he chuckles mischievously, people just dont know what to do but it creates a nice mixture of textures for an evening. Peterson is notorious for his left-field eclecticism heard on BBC Radio 6 Music every Saturday afternoon, and his tendency to throw curve balls when DJing at nightclubs. Disclosure he is not. Will the thawing of tensions between Cuba and the U.S. make rumba more popular overseas? Hopefully, but not yet. Petersons label, Brownswood Recordings, has been the only one making new music in Cuba in the last ten years and now there is a huge interest in the culture. Suddenly Cuba is a hot topic. Quick! Lets get all the Cuba records in Safeway supermarkets yeah right. Seriously though, Cubans are going to use our documentary to petition the UN to make Rumba part of the worlds cultural heritage. Gilles Peterson is doing great things: his label has its 10th birthday this year and hes bringing rumba to the global stage, but at 51 hes still a kid at heart. With a toothy grin he looks into the camera and says: Right, Im off to play in the snow. See Havana Club Rumba Sessions: La Clave at the ICA until 28th February. Follow Ellie Harrison on Twitter @Ellie_Harrison Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout T he Royal Ballets Matthew Golding has been tipped as Carlos Acostas successor and bestowed with the nickname the Brad Pitt of ballet. But the principal dancer, who is in his third year at the company, has not allowed any of the accolades go to his head, saying that he is focused on living in the moment. Golding, 30, praised Acosta, who recently retired from the Royal Ballet, as a legend who paved the way for male dancers. He also dismissed any comparisons between himself and Hollywood actor Pitt, telling the Standard: Carlos is always a huge legend to us male dancers, hes done a lot for male dance. Im not sure Brad Pitt has done a lot for male dance so I dont know where to go on this one. He said he focuses on the present rather than pursuing a dream career path. Im just kind of in the moment now to do the next ballet and dance in the next show when it comes up, he said. I dont focus on whether Im on the dream course. As a dancer every show is an opportunity to find a new depth to you. Tribute: Matthew Golding and Liudmila Konovalova Jack Devant / Jack Devant Golding was born in Canada but moved to Washington DC aged 16 to join the Universal Ballet Academy, before winning a scholarship to study at the Royal Ballet School. After graduating in 2003 he went to the American Ballet Theatre, then the Dutch National Ballet before joining the Royal Ballet as a principal in 2014. He has taken numerous big roles including Prince Florimund in The Sleeping Beauty, Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake and Fate in Carlos Acostas Carmen. Golding, whose current projects include Christopher Wheeldons Within The Golden Hour and Giselle, is set to star in a gala in memory of prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, who died last year, at London Coliseum on March 6. Other dancers taking part in the Ave Maya Gala include his Royal Ballet colleagues Thiago Soares, Marianela Nunez and Sarah Lamb, as well as English National Ballet artistic director Tamara Rojo. Golding will be dancing the Black Swan pas de deux with Russian ballerina Liudmila Konovalova, who is with the Vienna State Ballet and has performed the dance for Plisetskaya herself. He said: Its a beautiful piece to perform for such an incredible ballerina like Maya ... I think its more of a celebration. @mirandeee Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout S hes an attractive creation, Freya Wylie. The heroine of Anthony Quinns fifth novel, whose life we follow from 1945 to the early Sixties, is a slender, attractive, headstrong girl ahead of the tempo of her times. She likes Benzedrine and martinis, swears like a sailor, is a fiercely ambitious journalist, takes no nonsense, sleeps with whoever she wants and is game enough to give troilism and sadomasochism a go. First glimpsed on the happy streets of London on VE day, newly discharged from the WAAF, Freya impulsively hooks up with naive Nancy Holdaway, and it is the ups and downs of their friendship, at Oxford and beyond, which keeps the narrative bouncing along over the years. But really it is Freya all the way. Quinn places her near the thick of pivotal post-war events and shifts in the culture, be it the Nuremberg trials, changing attitudes to homosexuality and immigration, the mutating landscape of London and the faltering start of the Swinging Sixties. The obvious parallel is with William Boyds Any Human Heart, whose protagonist, Logan Mountstuart, brushed up against major events and personalities of the century, although Quinns book doesnt have the same sweep. Freya is more of an observer, or tangentially involved, and Quinn is more interested in her as an emblem of change than in the background. Here is a modern woman to be celebrated in all her contradictions and complexity. Its fun to be in her company. The portrayal of Freya is so vivid, however, that the secondary characters look a bit sketchy. Nancy, nominally as important to the plot, is an indistinct figure, a vaguely eroticised combination of auburn hair, white skin and a prim but forceful demeanour. She is also, god help us, an aspiring novelist, struggling for much of the book to get her work noticed or published. Eventually well, take a wild guess whether she gets published or not. The man who comes between Nancy and Freya is Robert Cosway. A finely drawn portrait of bumptious undergraduate gaucheness when we first meet him surprised naked on his Oxford staircase by Freya he fades as a character even as his significance to the story increases. More book reviews 1 /24 More book reviews Recovery by Russell Brand Will Russells brand of self-help prove quite so addictive? By Nicholas Lezard. Read review A Life in Questions by Jeremy Paxman Paxo refuses to answer all the really good questions, says David Sexton. Read review Politics: Between: The Extremes by Nick Clegg The basis of this book makes it impossible not to warm to Clegg, says Melanie McDonagh. Read review Serious Sweet by A L Kennedy Thank heavens for London in this tale of self-obsessed lovers. Read review The Last Royal Rebel: The Life and Death of James, Duke of Monmouth by Anna Keay Born a kings b****** and destined for a traitors death. Read review Man Up: Boys, Men and Breaking the Male Rules by Rebecca Asher Getting to the bottom of why boys will be boys. Read review The Course of Love by Alain de Botton A philosophical novel that does run smooth, says Johanna Thomas-Corr. Read review The Tree Climbers Guide: Adventures in the Urban Canopy by Jack Cooke How I gave this book a proper test and ended up with a broken ankle. Read review Reader, I Married Him: Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre Brontes classic tale in the imaginations of other writers, says Claire Harman. Read review Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran Caitlin comes clean about politics the world according to our funniest feminist. By Rosamund Urwin. Read review Spark Joy An Illustrated Guide to the Japanese Art of Tidying by Marie Kondo Theres no messing wih Marie, says Katie Law. Read review Cockfosters Stories by Helen Simpson After 50, a womans life gets better not worse. By Katie Law. Read review Stalins Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess by Andrew Lownie Joker in the spying pack. By Richard Bassett. Read review Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin The darkness that lies at the heart of the novel is offset by a lightness of touch, says Mark Sanderson. Read review Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello Elvis proves not quite so lyrical on the page, says Nick Curtis. Read review The Importance of Elsewhere: Philip Larkins Photographs by Richard Bradford His poetry paints better pictures than any camera, says David Sexton. Read review Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith Morality wins out over macabre murders, says Melanie McDonagh. Read review The Grownup by Gillian Flynn Calling all Flynnies: the con girl whos like gone girl. Read review For the record, he becomes a journalist, commits at least two moral errors that the highly judgmental Freya cant forgive, and then becomes a Labour politician. His actions hurry the book towards a doubly surprising conclusion. That said, the last few pages are touchingly and delicately done. Dont get me wrong I enjoyed Quinns book very much. The supporting cast is broadly but brilliantly drawn. I particularly liked the epicene Nat Fane, a mash-up of Wilde, Coward, Ken Tynan and Algernon Swinburne. And the names of Fleet Street denizens Barry Rusk and Fosh the photographer could have come from Martin Amiss pen. The historical melee is detailed and carefully researched. Quinns easy style and Freyas verve carry you along happily to the end. Its just that when you get there, you think: Oh, was that it? Erdogan and the Turkish government have said the PYDs armed wing, the YPG, was responsible for a suicide car bomb attack in the administrative heart of Turkish capital Ankara on Wednesday, which killed 28 people most of them soldiers. (Photo: AP) Istanbul: Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan said US-supplied weapons had been used against civilians by a Syrian Kurdish militia group that Ankara blames for a deadly suicide bombing, and said he would talk to President Barack Obama about it on Friday. US support for the Syrian Kurdish PYD, which Washington considers a useful ally in the fight against Islamic State, has enraged Turkey and risks driving a wedge between the Nato allies. Turkey sees the group as a terrorist organisation linked to Kurdish militants waging an insurgency on its own soil. Erdogan and the Turkish government have said the PYDs armed wing, the YPG, was responsible for a suicide car bomb attack in the administrative heart of Turkish capital Ankara on Wednesday, which killed 28 people most of them soldiers. Erdogan said he was saddened by the Wests refusal to call the PYD and YPG a terrorist group and would explain to Obama how weapons provided by the United States had aided them. I will tell him, look at how and where those weapons you provided were fired, he told reporters in Istanbul. Months ago in my meeting with him (Obama), I told him the US was supplying weapons. Three plane loads arrived, half of them ended up in the hands of Daesh (Islamic State), and half of them in the hands of the PYD, he said. Against whom were these weapons used? They were used against civilians there and caused their deaths. He appeared to be referring to a US air drop of 28 bundles of military supplies in late 2014 meant for Iraqi Kurdish fighters near the Syrian city of Kobani. Pentagon officials said at the time one had fallen into the hands of Islamic State. The Pentagon later said it had targeted the missing bundle in an air strike and destroyed it. Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accused the United States of making conflicting statements about the Syrian Kurdish militia. He said US secretary of state John Kerry had told him the Kurdish insurgents could not be trusted, in what Cavusoglu said was a departure from Washingtons official position. The United States has said it does not consider the YPG a terrorist group. A spokesperson for the State Department said on Thursday Washington was not in a position to confirm or deny Turkeys charge the YPG was behind the Ankara bombing. The spokesperson also called on Turkey to stop its recent shelling of the YPG. The YPGs political arm has denied the group was behind the Ankara attack and said Turkey was using it to justify an escalation in fighting in northern Syria. I t is a sad truth of Syrias perpetual Grand Guignol that any time you peek through your fingers at the ghastly show the players reach a new climax of horror. And it has been just so this month. Tens of thousands of rebel fighters, ordinary civilians, children whove known nothing but war, their mothers, teenagers, the old, the sick, the nasty and the nice, have broken in the latest wave of miserable humanity against Turkeys frontier. They are fleeing Russias blitz of the Syrian opposition, which has been long abandoned by the West. Three years ago many Syrians, entirely naively as it turned out, believed the West would come to their aid as champions of democracy in the face of a vicious dictatorship. And so Janine di Giovannis book could not have been better timed. It is a series of dispatches, sewn together with growing despair from 2012 the year it was slowly dawning on the victims of the Damascus regime that democracy, as peddled by Western leaders, flew under a false flag. This was before Islamic State had made such an impact on the country. It was a time when sophisticated Syrians could neither comprehend how they were now falling on each others throats, nor that the outside world would ignore the justice of their cause. Di Giovanni introduces us to Nada, and other victims of torture and rape in Bashar al-Assads prisons. Like the men who are also often violated, they all endured the same chant from their tormentors: Heres your Freedom! as the whips rained down and the clothes were torn off. Heres your Freedom! could, or should, be adopted as the regimes cynical new slogan. From the first days of the uprising in Daraa where teenagers wrote naughty slogans on the citys walls and paid for the paint with their lives Assad has been slaughtering his own people as punishment for dreaming. Di Giovanni writes vividly and we see with her how Damascene supporters of Assad drift away as the brutality of his rule became impossible to deny. They did so reluctantly because they thought they knew, and they certainly feared, what could come after. The two worst elements on both sides sometimes seem to co-operate to drive Syria into the abyss. Di Giovanni chronicles the demise of sectarian tolerance in the Christian town of MaLoula, which was overrun by extreme Islamists thereby making truth of the regimes propaganda: only Assad could protect the nations minorities. More book reviews 1 /24 More book reviews Recovery by Russell Brand Will Russells brand of self-help prove quite so addictive? By Nicholas Lezard. Read review A Life in Questions by Jeremy Paxman Paxo refuses to answer all the really good questions, says David Sexton. Read review Politics: Between: The Extremes by Nick Clegg The basis of this book makes it impossible not to warm to Clegg, says Melanie McDonagh. Read review Serious Sweet by A L Kennedy Thank heavens for London in this tale of self-obsessed lovers. Read review The Last Royal Rebel: The Life and Death of James, Duke of Monmouth by Anna Keay Born a kings b****** and destined for a traitors death. Read review Man Up: Boys, Men and Breaking the Male Rules by Rebecca Asher Getting to the bottom of why boys will be boys. Read review The Course of Love by Alain de Botton A philosophical novel that does run smooth, says Johanna Thomas-Corr. Read review The Tree Climbers Guide: Adventures in the Urban Canopy by Jack Cooke How I gave this book a proper test and ended up with a broken ankle. Read review Reader, I Married Him: Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre Brontes classic tale in the imaginations of other writers, says Claire Harman. Read review Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran Caitlin comes clean about politics the world according to our funniest feminist. By Rosamund Urwin. Read review Spark Joy An Illustrated Guide to the Japanese Art of Tidying by Marie Kondo Theres no messing wih Marie, says Katie Law. Read review Cockfosters Stories by Helen Simpson After 50, a womans life gets better not worse. By Katie Law. Read review Stalins Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess by Andrew Lownie Joker in the spying pack. By Richard Bassett. Read review Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin The darkness that lies at the heart of the novel is offset by a lightness of touch, says Mark Sanderson. Read review Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink by Elvis Costello Elvis proves not quite so lyrical on the page, says Nick Curtis. Read review The Importance of Elsewhere: Philip Larkins Photographs by Richard Bradford His poetry paints better pictures than any camera, says David Sexton. Read review Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith Morality wins out over macabre murders, says Melanie McDonagh. Read review The Grownup by Gillian Flynn Calling all Flynnies: the con girl whos like gone girl. Read review In Darayya, a once wealthy village near Damascus, she encounters a young man looking for his father amid the ruins of a government massacre. The old man was found dead alongside some teenage boys in his kitchen. Can you tell me why they would kill an old man? he asked, bent over crying. An old man? He cant fight any more. The dead mans son lit a cigarette. He searched carefully for his words. This is not my Syria. When I see the sorrow that happens in our towns, all I think is this is not my Syria. Im afraid it is. Di Giovanni explains to us how horrible it all really is. But she does not ask Syrians to explain themselves. How is it possible that apparently civilised people with a fine education and ancient cultural roots can turn into monsters? In war what ties us all to civilisation is often tested to breaking point. And that is why Syrians are playing Russian roulette with Poseidon. They are fleeing their country thanks, in part, to the Russians, no thanks to us, but mostly thanks to the tearing of their own moral fabric. Who would not run from that? S he was once dubbed the Princess of Punk but these days Zandra Rhodes prefers Dame Zandra. Not that the 75-year-old fashion and textile designer known for her brightly printed garments has lost any of her sass. When we meet on a crisp Tuesday morning, the house phone rings with one of those irritating automated calls about making a personal injury claim. Her response? F*** the f**** off. Its not just the Dames language thats colourful. Step inside her two-bedroom Bermondsey flat situated on the second floor of a former cash and carry building that also houses Rhodes textile printing press and youre confronted with bright citrus walls and hot-pink Amtico vinyl flooring. Every surface is covered in a collection of some sort, from the stones and crystals from the Atlas Mountains on the dining table to the Carol McNicoll ceramic pots balanced precariously on shelves and ledges. A parakeet-green wooden screen conceals endless rails of chiffon and frilled dresses from Rhodes archive, while repainted columns from the original Rocky Horror Show flank the door leading on to a frost-coated terrace. Its a maximalist approach to living. When she first moved here in 1995 trading in her stuccoed Notting Hill property the contrast with the sparse surrounding area couldnt have been starker. Rhodes describes 1990s Bermondsey as Sweeney Todd land with boarded-up bombsites and closed shops everywhere; a world away from the buzzing hipsters paradise of today. The property was a blank canvas a brown-brick warehouse, a huge bleak open space with nothing in it. To make it habitable, Rhodes flew to Mexico City to charm the late architect Ricardo Legorreta into redesigning the building to add both colour and the fabulous concrete balconies. During the one-year refurb, Legorreta also raised the parapet of the space to create a split-level dwelling, allowing for Rhodes to have my studio down one side with my print room, and a flat to live in. It was while studying under tutor Barbara Brown at Kents Medway College of Art in the late 1950s that Rhodes became interested in textile design. Textile designers are the Cinderellas of the fashion business. You see a beautiful dress by someone and forget that some invisible Cinderella created the print. A stint at the Royal College of Art followed to refine the Rhodes aesthetic, inspired by the batiks and traditional hand-printing of Asia. This passion pervades her home, too. The exterior is Jaipur pink and there is an intricate collage mirror of Indias founding father Mahatma Gandhi, made by her friend, the artist Andrew Logan, with cheeky paper collages of Bollywood heart-throbs peeping out from its corners. Surely living with such delicate things is a practical nightmare? Rhodes insists not: We stick it together again and exist with it in cracks. Nothings perfect! Anyway, breakage is inevitable with the number of people coming and going in Rhodes home. As well as her partner of 30 years, former Warner Bros and United Artists president Salah Hassanein, she regularly offers lodgings to young textile students who cant afford London rents. Last year Rhodes made a grand return to London Fashion Week and shes back this week, too, with a collection that recalls her fascination with Asian handicrafts. Is she surprised by the warm welcome she received? During the early 1980s people forgot that I was a designer and they forgot what I was doing. In fashion youre like a tightrope walker: one minute you fall off and the next minute youre back on top again. (zandrarhodes.com) Follow us on Facebook and Twitter: @EsMagOfficial T he electricty of the Big Apple never fades, its vibrant hotspots move as the city continually evolves. Midtown is the new downtown: head to Lafayette Grand Cafe and Bakery where you're likely to run into Manhattan's hippest girls Atlanta de Cadenet and Harley Viera-Newton sipping chilled Vermentino. Meanwhile, the Whitney Museum crosses town and settles into its new Meatpacking home overlooking the Hudson River. It won't be long before you want another bite of the apple. Where to stay With views that reach across Madison Square Park to the Hudson river, THE New York Editions Flatiron location is one of its greatest assets. Thats by no means underplaying its 273 stylish rooms or The Clocktower restaurant cheffed by Brit export Jason Atherton. A stones throw from New York cornerstones SoulCycle and Juice Press, the hip and healthy will love it. The added secret bonus? The complimentary hotel car that will run you to your destination within 20 blocks. 5 Madison Avenue (editionhotels.com/new-york) What to buy On the hunt for quirky kitchenware? A visit to Fishs Eddy is a must. Named after a sweet little hamlet in upstate New York, the brand specialises in colourful ceramics and dinnerware at bargain prices. Sharpen those elbows, though its Broadway outpost is often heaving at the weekend. 889 Broadway at 19th Street (fishseddy.com) Where to go A tour of the Judd Foundation is one of my favourite New York experiences it truly captures a point in time in Soho that no longer exists, says local resident, jeweller Eddie Borgo. Followed by lunch in the neighbourhood at Sant Ambroeus on Lafayette. In the same vein as the Donald Judd house, The Easton Foundation has very recently opened artist Louise Bourgeois home to the public [reservation only]. If you get the chance to venture outside of the city, I highly recommend visiting Dia:Beacon in upstate New York. Judd Foundation, 101 Spring Street (juddfoundation.org/visit_ny); Dia Beacon (diaart.org) Where to eat Egg Shop The craze for single-plate restaurants was born in the Big Apple, so little wonder that Egg Shop has become a Nolita hotspot. Order the El Camino organic poached eggs, avocado, carnitas and fried tortilla to soothe that fashion week hangover. 151 Elizabeth Street (eggshopnyc.com) The Polo Bar Located just south of the Park and round the corner from Ralphs Coffee, The Polo Bar serves everything youd expect from a bastion of Upper East Side tradition; wood-panelled walls, overstuffed leather sofas and Manhattan classics such as shrimp cocktail. Mr Lauren always orders the gargantuan corned beef sandwich followed by the chocolate brownie: Mrs Laurens own recipe. Bookings are a must. 1 E 55th Street How to get there British Airways launches a new route to JFK in May. Return fares from 616 (ba.com) Can't get there Two new books celebrate the citys glory years. Connecticut-born photographer Philip Trager documents the majestic architecture of the city in the 1970s, while Robert Franks In America includes more than 100 previously unseen images of Manhattan residents from the 1950s in a spectacular follow-up to his seminal photographic study The Americans. Robert Frank: In America; Philip Trager New York in the 1970s, both at steidl.de Follow us on Facebook and Twitter: @EsMagOfficial J ulian Assange is in defiant mode, talking about not having left the Ecuadorian Embassy in Knightsbridge since 2012. Im not going to give the other side the pleasure of having me miss anything, he says down a crackly phone line. Having a bad signal fits with Assanges image as an outsider taking on the establishment. Its been 10 years since Assange, 44, set up WikiLeaks, which publishes confidential information and first came to global attention in April 2010 when it released footage showing US soldiers shooting dead 18 civilians from a helicopter in Iraq. Later that year he was detained in the UK after Sweden issued an international arrest warrant over allegations of sexual assault, which he denies. Before we speak, an anonymous email from his company Sunshine Press asks me to confirm that Ive read articles on justice4assange.com, stating that he has not been charged and was cleared of rape five and a half years ago. More impartial sources say Swedish prosecutors dropped their investigation into two accusations, of sexual molestation and of unlawful coercion, last August but he still faces a rape allegation that expires in 2020. He isnt able to leave the embassy, where he was given political asylum, because he risks extradition to the US and a trial for releasing secret government documents. But freedom could be approaching. This month a United Nations panel decided that his time in embassy exile amounts to arbitrary detention, leading his lawyers to call for the Swedish extradition request to be dropped. As well as being a self-styled freedom fighter, Assange is a father, to Daniel, 26, and at least three love children. As a father detained away from my children for more than five years I am concerned about them. The situation for my family is difficult. We are subject to death threats from the Republican Right, they had to move my youngest child. He wont say why Ive been granted my five-minute interview, only hinting gnomically in his Australian lilt that it is the appropriate time. Assange and I go back a long way Ive taken baked goods to him in the hope of getting an interview, agonising over which cake he would prefer. Im usually told he is asleep (even if its 3pm) and give my offerings to his smiley, pale assistant, Joseph OFarrell who often hasnt eaten all day. When he isnt sleeping, Assange tries to remain engaged with the world; he wont name any news sources because I wouldnt want to endorse any systems, for example Facebook, because they have communicated information to the US government. He says hes not personally on Twitter but looks at a range of social media. The Embassy isnt short of visitors (but not all bring cakes). Assange has worked out with Eric Cantona, entertained Lady Gaga and talked politics with Pamela Anderson. His former girlfriend Sarah Harrison used to be allowed in but the Assange machine did not acknowledge my questions about how often he has sex. Assange isnt impressed by fame: My favourite visitor was no one famous, an Australian war painter who created the Yellow House space for artists in Jalalabad. My father is a painter too. He doesnt remember the artists name. The latest Assange stories have been about culture. Ben Stiller wanted an Assange cameo in Zoolander 2, and Daniel Craig has been cast as an Assange-inspired character in the film adaptation of Jonathan Franzens novel, Purity. Assange takes this with good humour. My WikiLeaks staff are keen on Zoolander. I hadnt seen it but I watched it after I was approached. Ben [Stiller] is a nice guy. He hasnt read Freedom, but has seen reviews and says: I couldnt say what I think without reading the book. It appears to be a fictionalised version of me and my work, which is OK. If they managed to suck Daniel Craig out of Bond, credit to them. He approves of Craig because he came out against mass surveillance. Conversation turns back to real life and how to defeat IS. Its clearly a pet topic because he launches forth, running over our allocated time. We couldve done something about IS a long time ago. Our early reportage revealed how the CIA created IS as a strong organisation through engaging with assassination attempts across the IS leadership. He brings up the situation in Libya, an easily foreseeable disaster. Hillary [Clinton] pushed invasions into Benghazi in 2011, the embassy in Benghazi was used to smuggle weapons and after the fall of Libya those weapons were routed and pushed into Syria, creating civil war. This could have been stopped a long time ago if the UK had been acting to genuine national interest. He seems happy to continue in this vein all day but suddenly becomes aware of the timing. Thats the last question, says the Wikileaker, before the line cuts out with no goodbye. He didnt even thank me for the cakes. Follow us on Twitter Susannah Butter: @susannahbutter T heres nothing travellers hate more than tourists. Hell is other people, after all. So if youre the kind of traveller that likes a bit of adventure, whos happy to go off the beaten track, who spurns five star facilities and loathes inclusive resorts, read on. The United Nations World Tourism Organisation released its international travel survey, including which are the least visited countries around the world. Make sure you book your visit before the rest of the world finds out... Tuvalu Yearly visitors: 1k Tuvalu pronounced too-VAH-loo is a castaways dream in the South Pacific, southeast from Tonga. Its 9 atolls cover just 10 square miles in total, making it the worlds fourth smallest country. Once there youll be rewarded with coral reefs, pristine palm-fringed sandy beaches and natural lagoons and WWII sites as its part of the British Commonwealth. One for divers and snorkelers whove seen it all. Sunset on Tuvalu / Corbis Kiribati Yearly visitors: 5k Stretching languorously along the Equator, Kiribati is a patchwork of 33 islets in the Central Pacific, five hours south of Hawaii. Make your way to these remote atolls for world-class fishing, diving and bird-watching. On the main island Tarawa, locals live in raised thatched huts, while on the outer islands life goes on as it has for centuries. Most atolls surround turquoise lagoons and barely rise out of surrounding ocean. Come for world class fishing, diving and bird-watching or just to enjoy the very, very slow pace of life. Stilt life: Kiribati / Corbis Montserrat Yearly visitors: 7k This once carefree Caribbean island in the Lesser Antilles used to be popular with Brits until it was hit by a hurricane in 1989 and then a volcanic eruption, which devastated the southern end of the island in 1995. Naturally the volcano is still a worry, but a new capital is maturing in the north in Little Bay. Apart from all that, Montserrat is super serene with lush vegetation and jagged green hills giving it its Emerald Isle name. Eco tourists, this is one for you. Montserrat / Corbis Sao Tome and Principe Yearly visitors: 8k An African island west of Gabon in the Gulf of Guinea, Sao Tome and Principe are a volcanic duo known for their striking rock formations. As well as perfect beaches, lush rainforest and lagoons for snorkelling, they have a laid-back Portuguese-Creole vibe (they were uninhabited until the Portuguese arrived in the 15th century) thats hard to resist. Eco-boutique hotels are springing up here no tacky resorts allowed. Its near the equator so you can count on a tropical climate that hovers very close to the 27 degree mark. Sao Tome and Principe / Corbis Comoros Yearly visitors: 15k A collection of islands in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Mozambique, this is a paradise where you can truly go incognito and get away. Its rich culture takes its nod from Arabs, Persians, Africans and the Portuguese so you can imagine how colourful it is. In terms of things to do, you can choose between paddling in turquoise waters, hiking through rainforests and volcano-gazing. N.B If you're unsure, always check it's safe to travel on the Foreign Office website. Follow Kate on Twitter @kate_lough and Instagram @kateloughtravel A career criminal with more than 200 convictions who targeted designer stores in Londons West End has been jailed after telling a judge he was a good looking man. Christine Clarke, 43, who used 61 aliases, pilfered thousands of pounds worth of goods from Burberry, Hermes and House of Fraser in a three week crime spree in January. She was caught with a carrier bag lined with foil designed to help her bypass alarm systems, Southwark Crown Court heard. Alex Agbamu, prosecuting, said the first offence occurred when Clarke helped herself to a 1,295 coat at the Burberry store in Regent Street on January 11. He said : She went into the store and selected two coats. She then went to a secluded part of the store and replaced one of the coats from the hanger and hid it in a red carrier bag. Staff became suspicious and noted down the number of a car she got into after leaving the store. A week later Clarke targeted Hermes on New Bond Street when she tried to walk out with a 360 shirt in the same red carrier bag. This time she was detained by a member of staff and gave the shirt back before trying to make an escape in a taxi. She was intercepted because traffic was slow, the prosecutor told the court. She said upon arrest I didnt realise I took it. On January 29 Clarke was caught with a bag which had been specially tailored for theft at House of Fraser in Westfield shopping centre, Shepherds Bush. Mr Agbamu said: Two pairs of sunglasses had gone missing from the display counter. Members of staff were able to track her movements through in-store CCTV. Clarke also grabbed Hugo Boss and Hermes perfumes before heading out of the shopping centre towards the Tube station. Clarkes crime spree: January 11, 1,295 coat at Burberry in Regent Street. January 18, 360 shirt Hermes, New Bond Street. January 29, Sunglasses and perfume, House of Fraser in Westfield, Shepherds Bush. She was stopped by security and denied taking anything from the store. Mr Agbamu said : Clarke had with her a True Religion bag, lined with foil in order to foil the theft alarm at the store. They found two bottles of perfume and two pairs of sunglasses in the bag. The court heard how Clarke has used 61 aliases and 34 different dates of birth since she was first before the courts in Australia in 1989. She has a criminal record some 50 pages long with 239 theft-related convictions. Mr Agbamu said Clarke had just been let out of jail after serving an 18 week sentence before her latest spree. Clarke had been taking heroin and crack cocaine since she was 14 but was now apparently free from those addictions. She told the judge she stood to lose her accommodation if she were jailed but Judge Anthony Pitts said: You have been stealing with a drug problem for many many years. I do not think I have ever seen so many previous convictions that go on for page after page after page after page. I make it somewhere in the region of 239 convictions for theft. To allow you to try and make a new start I am going to impose a prison sentence but keep it under six months. Judge Pitts described Clarke as a prolific offender and sentenced her a total of 24 weeks jail and added the hope that the court would see you no more. Clarke, who admitted three counts of theft and one of going equipped for theft , thanked the judge and replied: I no longer wish to see you either. Not that you are not a good looking man. S cotland Yard is short of up to 800 detectives to investigate crimes such as domestic violence, robberies and burglaries in Londons boroughs, senior officers have admitted. Hundreds of detectives are being diverted from CID units into specialist squads such as the Operation Midland inquiry into allegations of a VIP paedophile ring and inquiries into historical sex abuse. The shortfall has led to radical proposals such as getting response officers in cars to investigate the crimes rather than handing them on to CID offices. In another move uniform police constables are being recruited to help investigate murders because of a shortage of trained investigators. Emma Owens, a detective constable and vice-chairman of the Met Police Federation, said detectives had been stripped out of local CIDs and community safety units to fill gaps in major inquiries. She added: Every time you get a major inquiry such as Midland and Yewtree they take detectives from local units. Morale is low, they are over worked and stressed and it is putting people off being a detective. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Mark Simmons said the force was short of between 700 to 800 detectives, mainly in local crime inquiries. He added that the Met had more detectives than ever but because of the changing nature of crime most were being allocated to the specialist squads, leaving shortfalls in boroughs. Mr Simmons said: We have been working on this challenge for a while. We are reviewing the process by which day-to-day volume crime is investigated. He said one plan was to shake-up response policing so that it was no longer divided into boroughs but into larger areas to make it more efficient. In turn, response officers would be asked to investigate many of the crimes they attended and follow them from start to finish in court. Already, the Met has re-organised the 32 borough forensic teams into area hubs which Mr Simmons said had improved prosecutions. He added that there were also plans to increase the number of officers dedicated to ward neighbourhood policing. At present only one officer and one PCSO is allocated to each ward. Ms Owens said she had had heard of some officers in community safety units, who investigate domestic abuse and hate attacks, who were juggling 30 to 40 cases. Ms Owens called for a nationally recognised detective qualification to improve the standing of investigators to attract more candidates. The police watchdog, Her Majestys Inspectorate of Constabulary, criticised the Met yesterday for a lack of trained detectives and delays in assigning investigations to officers. T his was the moment a brave customer tackled a robber to the ground during an armed raid on a shop. Darren Baker, 48, faced down the raider despite the sawn-off shotgun being pointed in his direction. He had raced to the branch of Premier Stores in Norwich after his wife, Sharon, told him she had been confronted by the raider, who was wearing a crash helmet, while shopping in the store. Norfolk Police released CCTV footage of the dramatic encounter following the sentencing of Stephen Lawrence, 54, of Watson Grove, Norwich. Lunge: Darren Baker throws himself at the robber despite the gun being pointed in his direction / Norfolk Police He was jailed at Norwich Crown Court on Wednesday for 11 years after admitting attempted robbery. Detective sergeant Robin Windsor-Waite said: "The action taken by the customer's husband, who intervened, is highly commendable and helped in the arrest of Lawrence and subsequently securing his conviction. "However, as with all cases, we would urge members of the public to always call police in the first instance and to consider their own safety before tackling an offender." A female shop assistant had been on duty at the Drayton Road store at the time of the raid on December 22 last year. She fled to call the police leaving Mrs Baker alone. She ran to get her husband, fearing she would be shot. Judge Maureen Bacon awarded the couple 300 each for their bravery. T his is the moment a lorry driver was attacked on his way to work during an apparent road rage incident in south London. Detectives from Greenwich released CCTV footage today of the assault in an industrial estate in Ramac Way, Charlton in which a man is knocked to the ground before he is repeatedly punched in the head. Police said the victim was driving his lorry along the A2 at about 8am on Tuesday, December 15 and exited onto the slip road at the Woolwich Flyover when he was approached by a man in traffic. The man shouted at him, accusing him of causing damage to his car, believed to be a blue Ford Focus. Appeal: Police have released CCTV footage of a man they want to speak to about the assault / Met Police The men parked on an industrial estate in Ramac Way to discuss the damage and both left their vehicles when they began to argue. The man then attacked the 42-year-old driver by knocking him the ground before unleashing a volley of punches and kicks. He then made off his car towards Woolwich Road. The driver then returned to his lorry and drove to work where he phoned police. He suffered swelling to the head and cuts to his hands and knees but did not need to go to hospital. Police described the suspect is described as a white, slim build, aged 25-35 with blond hair. He wore a dark coloured beanie hat, a dark coloured jumper, grey jogging bottoms and spoke with an English accent. Anyone with any information should contact Greenwich CID on 07325 273 811 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 A gun dealer has been jailed for six years after he helped supply weapons to a parish council chairman who amassed the largest illegal arsenal police have ever uncovered. Police found 463 illegal firearms including rifles, machine guns and a bazooka along with 200,000 rounds of ammunition in a secret room behind a fake wall at the village home of James Arnold, 49, in Wyverstone, Suffolk. Arnold died of pancreatic cancer three months after his arrest, meaning he could not be prosecuted, but Anthony Buckland, 65, who supplied 16 of the illegal guns stood trial last year. Buckland, of Stoke Holy Cross, Norfolk, was jailed for six years today after he was found guilty of 11 counts of selling a banned weapon and nine counts of fraud at Norwich Crown Court. Jailed: Anthony Buckland, 65, was sentenced to six years in prison / PA Judge Stephen Holt said: When the police searched Jim Arnold's home they found a vast collection in a secret room which could only be accessed by crawling through a safe. "But you are to be sentenced for what the jury convicted you of and not the vast collection of firearms that Mr Arnold had. "In your profession a great deal of trust had been placed in you and it is quite clear you abused that trust." An AK-47 was found by police who uncovered different types of rifles and machine guns / PA Michael Claire, defending Buckland, said the 65-year-old thought he had legally converted illegal firearms before he supplied them to customers and described his client as a broken man. He said: He is broken financially, he has lost his reputation and his lifelong association with firearms is over. "He will never deal in firearms again, he will never handle firearms again - and he doesn't want to." 200,000 rounds of ammunition was also discovered by police / PA After the case, Suffolk Police said the weapons could have led to devastating consequences if they had fallen into the wrong hands. Detective Superintendent Steve Mattin said: "Of course the fear was that they could fall into the wrong hands or, given that he (Arnold) had terminal cancer, something might change in his life and he would have access to hundreds of deadly weapons." Police were called to Arnolds home in April 2014 to revoke his legally held firearms after reports of a domestic incident. During a search of the home officers found illegal weapons strewn on the living room floor and further investigation uncovered a hidden room, accessed through a narrow tunnel behind a false wall in his pantry. Police spent 27 days checking the house with bomb disposal experts to ensure the house was not rigged with explosives. James Arnold died from pancreatic cancer three months after his arrest in April 2014 / PA Arnold died three months after the discovery and his arrest of pancreatic cancer. Detectives said it was unclear why Arnold amassed such a large haul of illegal guns, the biggest ever found in the UK, and suggested he collected them like stamps. Chief Superintendent David Skevington said: "James Arnold never offered any explanation for what he did; he simply said he had come by the weapons years ago and kept them safe to stop them causing any harm. An anti-tank missile was found among the arsenal / PA "We have asked every question and followed every line of inquiry and have found no evidence of a criminal or terrorist motive. "The best explanation to date is that he was a collector and a hoarder who collected these weapons in the way some people collect stamps." Arnold was a member of several shooting clubs and had an interest in guns since childhood. He had held a firearms certificate since 1984 and was known to shoot deer and vermin. Although he was chairman of the parish council at the time of the arrest and active in running the village hall, he was also described as a private man. One of the previous largest weapons hauls is believed to have been that of 31 rifles and machine pistols found along with 1,000 rounds of ammunition on a boat at Cuxton Marina on the River Medway in Kent in August last year. Asked about his comments, Geneva-based UN spokesman Michele Zaccheo told reporters: "I can't independently confirm it to you. At this stage, I would just take the special envoy at his word. "The special envoy has gone on the record and I am not sure how much more of a confirmation is needed." (Photo: AP) Stockholm: The UN special envoy for Syria has warned that the planned resumption of troubled peace talks next week was not realistic, a Swedish newspaper reported on Friday. "I cannot realistically call for new Geneva talks starting on February 25," Staffan de Mistura was quoted as telling the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper. "We need 10 days of preparations and invitations. But we will aim to do this soon," he said. Indirect talks in Geneva between the Syrian government and the opposition collapsed on February 3 after a Russian-backed regime onslaught on the northern city of Aleppo, and a second round was pencilled in for February 25. "We need real talks about peace, not just talks about talks," de Mistura said. "Now the Americans and Russians must sit down and agree on a concrete plan on a cessation of hostilities," he said. Asked about his comments, Geneva-based UN spokesman Michele Zaccheo told reporters: "I can't independently confirm it to you. At this stage, I would just take the special envoy at his word. "The special envoy has gone on the record and I am not sure how much more of a confirmation is needed." A north London butcher has penned a touching note to an alleged serial shoplifter inviting him to meet with staff to see the damage he has done. Miranda Ballard, co-founder of Muddy Boots Food in Crouch End, said it was time to try something different after cuts of meat were stolen on three occasions at the butchers in the past three weeks. She said she believes the crimes were carried out by the same man after studying the shops CCTV footage, claiming the thief might have tried to sell the meat in a local pub. After the latest shoplifting incident on Thursday, in which two beef briskets were taken, the 34-year-old decided to write a note telling the perpetrator he had been let down by those close to him. Reaching out: The note asks the alleged shoplifted to meet staff / Miranda Ballard The note reads: To the young man who keeps stealing from here, please stop. I know you know its wrong because you hide it in your jumper and you run away. But no one has told you why its wrong. Butcher: Shopkeeper Miranda Ballard / Miranda Ballard The people that should have explained this to you your parents, your teachers, your friends, your friends parents have all let you down. So come and meet me, come and meet the other people who work here. Well tell you how it makes us feel and what we have to do to make up for the cost of what you stole. Appeal: CCTV images were also included of the suspected shoplifter on the note / Miranda Ballard It continues by adding a description of the man, who is described as white, in his 20s, with brown hair, angular features with facial hair, and a warning he will be arrested if he continues to steal with CCTV images handed to police. Mrs Ballard, who opened the meat shop two years ago with her husband Roland, told the Standard she hoped her message would lead to a sit-down meeting with the man behind the thefts. She said: I dont want him to be dismissed by my team as a dirty thief because that doesnt fix anything. We have a few younger people who work here part-time and Im trying to set an example of how this should be handled. In a perfect world I would sit down and explain to him the cost involved and how it makes us feel. I would love an opportunity to explain exactly why it is illegal. For the sake of reselling the meat for 20 he doesnt realise we work very hard and we do not have the reserves to cover shoplifting. I thought it was worth trying something different while warning other shopkeepers in the area. Police are believed to be investigating. T his is the terrifying moment a Subway worker is robbed at knifepoint, just days before the same man raided another branch armed with a sword. Craig Adams, 33, of no fixed abode, targeted a string of high street businesses late at night using weapons including knives, a machete and a meat cleaver, over a one month period. He was eventually identified after his palm print was lifted by police from Foyles book shop on the South Bank. The Mets team of super-recognisers, officers with a unique ability to recognise faces, linked him with a series of raids by studying a database of thousands of CCTV images. His offences included two robberies in four days at the same branch of Oddbins in Kennington Lane, and a theft from Pets at Home in Peckham. Jailed: Craig Adams / Met Police He was finally arrested on November 5 last year as he ran from police following a final robbery at Subway in Tulse Hill, throwing the sword he had used over a fence. Adams was jailed for seven years at Inner London Crown Court today after admitting 13 robberies and three burglaries. PC Lucie Fish, from Lambeth CID, said: "We are satisfied with the sentence handed down today which reflects the seriousness of the offences. Adams's serial offending was escalating rapidly under pressure to satisfy a drug-debt he had built up while in prison. "Adams was apprehended thanks to excellent forensic work and his other offences - which had taken place across five London boroughs - were linked by our super-recognisers. Our thoughts are with his victims and we trust that the sentence handed down will assist with their recovery following their ordeals." A mother today called for more to be done to tackle a spate of violent muggings on lone women as she spoke of her terrifying ordeal for the first time. The 37-year-old, who asked not to be named for fear of recriminations, said she was knocked unconscious after being followed by two men on a motorbike in Notting Hill. She said the men dragged her to the ground and knocked her out before snatching jewellery from her hands. She said: It was 4pm on a sunny July afternoon and luckily the little one was not with me. I just wanted to pick something up from the post office and wasnt wearing anything flashy I was dressed in flip flops, a torn T-shirt, jeans, and I was carrying a beach bag. I saw these two guys on a motorbike, they looked suspicious, they were both wearing balaclavas and gloves in the 25-degree heat. "I walked in the opposite direction, my intention was to call the police, but they spotted me and turned around the motorbike and followed me. "The heavier guy got off and I heard someone running. I turned around and the guy had already smashed my face and knocked me unconscious from behind. I crashed into a car and was unconscious for a few brief seconds, then I felt something sharp, I didnt know whether it was a knee or a knife. She said the thug restrained her with his knee while he ripped off her watch and wedding and engagement rings. She started screaming, which brought people running from all directions and police arrived within seconds but the robbers had fled and the woman was left needing hospital treatment. I would describe myself as a pretty robust person and Im still going out of the house, but I imagine there are people who dont leave the house afterwards, she said. The brutality shocked me. Ive always been very cautious we live in a big city, but in your own neighbourhood, at 4pm, its not something youd expect, even in London. Today she called on Westminster council to install CCTV and other measures. She said: Its happening more and more and I dont feel like theres been an adequate response. Something needs to happen high up the police are saying their funds have been cut and they cant do any more. What concerns me most is weve already tried to lobby the council to put up CCTV. Normal mums and women in the area dont dare to leave the house any more, thats ridiculous. A Met spokeswoman said officers were aware of the incident and no arrests had been made. Police have appealed for help after five robberies against women in Westminster and three in Camden since October. Loading.... They were alone and had jewellery taken. Scotland Yard said there was no evidence to link the crimes. A Westminster council spokesman said: We are working closely with the police and other partners to tackle crime in the area. S leeping for more than eight hours a night increases your chance of a stroke, research suggests. Experts found people who rest for seven to eight hours each night and exercise several times a week can significantly reduce their risk of suffering a stroke. But those who sleep for longer increase their chances of having a stroke by 146%, according to a study of nearly 290,000 people US researchers from the New York University School of Medicine, presented their findings at the American Stroke Association Meeting in Los Angeles, after analysing factors that contribute to the risk of strokes. They found that sleeping for seven to eight hours a night and exercising for 30 to 60 minutes, three to six times a week gave the maximum benefits for stroke prevention. The survey, which analysed the health, lifestyle, age and ethnicity of the participants from 2004 to 2013, found that sleeping for less than seven hours could increase the risk, by 22%, Strokes occur when the blood supply to part of the brain is cut off or when a weakened blood vessel supplying the brain bursts. More than 100,000 people suffer a stroke each year the third biggest cause of death in England after heart disease and cancer. A cyclist who was left lying critically injured after being mowed down by a road rage driver who tailed him for 200 yards today said I thought I was going to die. Damien Doughty, a 37-year-old musician from Hackney, was flung from his bike after he was hit by the car in Stoke Newington. The incident happened after he remonstrated with the woman driver after she cut him up. He claims she was talking on a mobile phone at the time and rather than apologise she gave him a torrent of verbal abuse and started driving at him at speed. He is in the Royal London Hospital suffering a laceration of the liver, a punctured lung and a string of other injuries. He spent days in intensive care as medics monitored his potentially fatal liver injury. Speaking to the Standard from his hospital bed Mr Doughty, who also works as cycle courier, said: When I was hit and landed I thought: Is this it? Am I going to die?. Victim Damien Doughty pictured with his bicycle I was in a lot of pain and a paramedic at the scene said my blood pressure was falling fast so I figured I had internal bleeding. I was in a haze but I remembered how the woman had been shouting and swearing at me then started tailgating me. I tried to get away but she got me and I ended up on the ground with my bike about 40 feet away. She was driving at me and could have easily killed me. I am lucky to be alive. A passing nurse was one of the first people on the scene before paramedics took over and Mr Doughty was rushed to intensive care. Police are hunting for the driver who chased him along Victorian Grove, close to Stoke Newington police station, at 9pm last Wednesday. Mr Doughty said: I know I had an argument with the woman but nothing can condone what she did. I had actually just been to a meditation class so was quite relaxed but she was speaking on the phone and putting peoples lives at risk. She needs to be found and take responsibility. She could easily kill someone... it was nearly me. Police say they are looking for a female driver of a small dark- coloured car. Three people in a van tried to chase the woman after witnessing the accident but lost her. They are being urged to come forward. The day after he was knocked down, Mr Doughty, who was on a 10-minute cycle road home when he was hit, told friends on Facebook: Knocked off my bike for the second time in two days last night. Different this time though, it was hit and run and was done on purpose. Mr Doughtys first smash happened when he was sent flying from his bike in north London but escaped with bruising. He posted on Facebook how on that occasion he immediately ran to the drivers aid, emphasising that he generally had no problem with drivers. He said: After the few seconds of initial shock, I went to the driver to make sure that he was OK and was genuinely concerned for him. Scotland Yard has appealed for witnesses to come forward and identify the driver. A spokesman said: The incident happened on February 10 at 9.15pm. A 38-year-old male cyclist was involved in an argument with the female driver of a small dark car. The cyclist rode off into Victorian Grove where he was struck by the same car near the junction with Ormsby Place. Anyone with information should contact the Serious Collision Investigation Unit on 0208 597 4874 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. A n award-winning NHS nurse who burned himself to death outside Kensington Palace should not have been sacked, the patient whose complaint led to his dismissal said today. Retired business manager Hillary, 62, told of her devastation at the death of Amin Abdullah, 41, who set fire to himself seven weeks after being axed from his dream job at Charing Cross Hospital. Hillary, from Chiswick, whose full name we are withholding, said: I have been breaking down ever since. Its more than a tragedy its diabolical. Mr Abdullah described Hillary as a professional complainer in an open letter defending a colleague against whom she made an official complaint last September. He also put his name to a petition of 17 co-workers backing the embattled nurse. Mr Abdullah was dismissed without notice for gross misconduct two days before Christmas. Police at the scene where Mr Abdullah died / Jeremy Selwyn He doused himself in petrol and set himself alight in the early hours on Tuesday last week after walking out of a mental health unit where he was being treated for depression. Hillary, who is disabled and has been treated at the hospital in Hammersmith over many years, said: He should never have been sacked. He was a very kind and nice guy. You cant imagine what this has done to me. Ive cried a river. Im so sorry. If Id known I would have stopped this. He doesnt deserve this. Nobody deserves to be treated like that. If Id known they had dismissed Amin Id have gone in there and complained. Mr Abdullahs partner of 12 years, Terry Skitmore, said Mr Abdullah went into a spiral of depression after being sacked and was being treated at St Charles Hospital in Ladbroke Grove. He took his life outside the Duke and Duchess of Cambridges London residence two days before a scheduled appeal. Hillary said: I feel so sorry for Terry. By the looks of things they were so much in love. I wish I could take some of the pain away from him. Hillary said she was not a professional complainer but she had raised a number of concerns in an email to the hospital after being discharged. She said: Ive been there so long I made complaints. There were so many things that happened. This was the first time Id formally complained. I never want this to happen again. Its disgusting and should never have happened. Its a travesty of justice. "I do not blame Hillary in any way, nor do my family. Every patient has the right to complain when things are not good. It is not the complaint the killed Amin, it was the way the discipline procedure was handled." At a hearing on December 21, hospital chiefs concluded that by writing the highly defamatory letter Mr Abdullah had not followed the trusts internal complaints procedure, which constituted a very serious breach of the professional code of conduct. Mr Abdullah was raised in an orphanage in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, until the age of 18 and moved to the UK in 2003, becoming a British citizen. He graduated with a nursing degree from Buckinghamshire New University and won an award from the League of Charing Cross Hospital Nurses for his clinical knowledge. Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs Charing Cross Hospital, and Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, which runs St Charles Hospital, have bothlaunched investigations. @SophiaSleigh For confidential support on mental health call the Samaritans on 116 123, email jo@samaritans.org or go to a Samaritans branch. D onald Trump has heaped praise on the Pope hours after an extraordinary spat with the pontiff over the billionaires plan to build a wall on the US-Mexico border. The Republican frontrunner tried to make peace with the pontiff - and potentially angry Catholic voters - hours after he called him not Christian on his return from a trip to Mexico. Asked what he thought of the billionaires campaign pledge to build a wall along the entire length of the border and expell millions of illegal imigrants, Pope Francis said: A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. That drew a ferocious response from the Presbyterian front-runner who said it was disgraceful for a religious leader to question a persons faith. For a religious leader to question a persons faith is disgraceful, he said at a campaign stop in South Carolina, which holds a key primary tomorrow. I am proud to be a Christian, and as president I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened. Mr Trump also raised the prospect of the Islamic State extremist group attacking the Vatican, saying that if that happened, the pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president because this would not have happened. Mr Trump, a social media mastermind, also retweeted several messages pointing out the giant wall surrounding Vatican City. Perhaps fearing the fallout could damage his chances the God-fearing state, Mr Trump last night struck a more conciliatory note. telling a TV audience in South Carolina that Pope Francis was a wonderful guy who was doing a very good job. I have a lot of respect for the Pope. He has a lot of personality and I think hes doing a very good job, he has a lot of energy, he told CNNs Anderson Cooper. He said the pontiff was misinformed when he criticised the proposed wall, because he was not aware of the drugs coming in and the other security problems that made a strong border a necessity. Mr Trump has no political experience but has shot to the front of the Republican race for the White House, winning the New Hampshire primary after coming second in Iowa, the first state to vote in a long election race leading up to Novembers presidential election. I ts the UK versus the US as Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc put their driving to the test in the first footage from the new look Top Gear. Evans and LeBlanc donned helmets and jumped into Reliant Rialtos fashioned with the flags of Great Britain and the United States of America as they geared up to kick off their first Top Gear road trip outside Broadcasting House on Friday morning. It was announced on Evans' BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show that the presenting duo will travel 240 miles to Blackpool for their first Top Gear road trip. Teasing the footage online, the official account for The One Show posted: It's all gone a bit #TopGear out on the piazza! Hi there @achrisevans & @Matt_LeBlanc. Fans of the show lined the pavements hoping to catch a glimpse as Evans pulled away tooting his horn as LeBlanc trailed behind. New Top Gear line-up 2016 Former host James May - who stepped down alongside Richard Hammond following Jeremy Clarkson's "fracas" with producer Oisin Tymon - couldn't resist mocking the new presenters. Alongside a picture of a shop front emblazoned with "Top Gear motors" he posted: "Good luck to the new Top Gear trying to fit so many presenters in their studio." Good luck to the new Top Gear trying to fit so many presenters in their studio. pic.twitter.com/bW6XzbVqgg James May (@MrJamesMay) February 19, 2016 The former presenting trio frequently used Reliant Robins on the motoring show. In 2010 Clarkson famously rolled the vehicle over and over while en route from Sheffield to Rotherham. They also tried to turn one into a space shuttle while The Stig attempted a power lap in another. LeBlanc was last week confirmed to join Evans on the revamped show. The former Friends star and self confessed petrol head said he was "honoured and excited to be a part of this iconic shows new chapter". The pair will be joined by F1 commentator Eddie Jordan, German racing driver Sabine Schmitz, TV presenter Rory Reid and YouTube star Chris Harris, and show regular the Stig. Evans recently revealed that Jenson Button was "so close" to joining the line-up but couldn't commit due to a McLaren deal. Top Gear is slated for release in May. ISIS has imposed various bans across its territories in Iraq and Syria, following which they sentence their prisoners to death. (Photo: AP) Baghdad: A 15-year-old boy was executed by Islamic State militants in Iraq for listening to western music, according to a report in the DailyMail. Ayham Hussein was listening to pop songs on a CD player in the Islamic State's Iraqi caliphate Mosul. He was arrested by ISIS militants and was produced before the Islamist Kangaroo court. The court sentenced him to public execution. His body was handed over to his family members after the execution. Ayham's execution was the first of its kind for listening to music and sparked outrage among the citizens. According to sources, the sharia court has not formally announced a ban on listening to music. Yet, ISIS has imposed various bans across its territories in Iraq and Syria, following which they sentence their prisoners to death. Islamabad: Pakistani authorities are set to launch an anti-terror campaign in the Punjab province- a stronghold of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Officials said the operation would be aiming at purging the no-go areas allegedly established by banned outfits at Punjab provinces border areas. Paramilitary Rangers will be engaged for a limited role to assist the law-enforcing agencies at the provincial boundaries shared with Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh. The Frontier Corps and Rangers will coordinate the efforts against anti-state elements at the borderlines, government officials said. The members of outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Al-Qaeda and criminal gangs have created 'no-go areas' at the border of Punjab, virtually converting them into safe havens. Frontier Corps has already launched intelligence-based chase operations to hunt the activists of the banned outfits in some areas of Balochistan, that connects the volatile province with the Punjab," said an official The areas in which the operations took place include Zamurdan, Sori, Rekho, Geyandari and Jathro, he added. The business of kidnapping is on the rise. The banned organizations operating from the no-go areas are mostly involved in such unscrupulous activities and have major stakes in it. They mostly operate in the aforementioned border areas. In two intelligence-based chase operations in the first week of this month, Frontier Corps killed four banned outfits members at the Punjab border, who had kidnapped employees of the Balochistan government. The security forces freed the kidnapped employees who the fleeing abductors had left behind while crossing into the Punjab. The activities of TTP and Al-Qaeda splinters are growing in the Punjab border areas. A majority of the men hailing from such banned outfits take to activities like money extortion and abductions. Similarly, the Punjab border along Khyber, Pakhtunkhwa at Mianwali have become a hotbed for such activities. In some cases, the kidnappers smuggle their abductees to Afghanistan via Punjab-Balochistan and Mianwali-Khyber Pakhtunkhwa border, the official added. A thorough investigation into the case has stated that these men take refuge in the no-go areas in order to save themselves from getting caught for certain period of time. They continue with their illegitimate activities from those specific areas. At least, eight people of such banned outfits have been killed by the security forces while they were entering Balochistan in the recent past, sources said. More than 12 activists of the TTP had been killed in the South Punjab in intelligence-based operations with the assistance of Counter-Terrorism Department of Punjab, the sources added. Originalism, however, is fundamentally flawed. First, because those who enacted the broad foundational provisions of our Constitution often did not have any precise and agreed-upon understanding of the specific meaning of freedom of speech or due process of law or regulate Commerceamong the several States or privileges or immunities or equal protection of the laws, it is exceedingly difficult to know with any certainty what they did or did not think about concrete constitutional issues. As a consequence, judges purporting to engage in originalist analysis often project onto the Framers their own personal and political preferences. The result is an unprincipled and often patently disingenuous jurisprudence. There is no evidence for the claims advanced by originalists, for example, that the original meaning of the Equal Protection Clause prohibited affirmative action or that the original meaning of the First Amendment included the notion that corporations (which were both strongly regulated and highly distrusted at the time) had a constitutional right to spend unlimited capital to influence political elections. Both of these claims, however, are central to todays conservative legal agenda. The second problem with originalism is even more disqualifying, for it reveals the theory to be internally incoherent. Originalism asserts that those who crafted and ratified our Constitution intended the meaning and effect of their handiwork to be limited to the specific understandings of their time. But this view erroneously attributes to the Framers a narrow-mindedness and shortsightedness that belies their true spirit. As Justice Louis Brandeis observed more than 80 years ago, the Framers believed courage to be the secret of liberty. They were not timid men. Moreover, originalism ignores that those who framed our Constitution were steeped in a common-law tradition that presumed that just as reason, observation, and experience permit us to gain greater insight over time into questions of biology, physics, economics, and human nature, so too would they enable us to learn more over time about the content and meaning of the principles they enshrined in our Constitution. Indeed, the notion that any particular moments understanding of the Constitutions provisions should be locked into place and taken as constitutionally definitive would have seemed completely wrong-headed to the Framers, who held a much bolder and more confident conception of their own achievements and aspirations. For these reasons, the conservative doctrine of originalism has been largely discredited as a serious method of constitutional interpretation. This is not to say, however, that the views of the Framers are irrelevant. To the contrary, their values, concerns, and purposes, as reflected in the text of the Constitution, must inform and guide the process of constitutional interpretation, but in a principled and realistic manner. They must be considered as the Framers themselves understood themas a set of general principles and aspirations, rather than as a collection of specific and shortsighted rules. To be true to the Framers Constitution, we must strive to implement faithfully the Framers often farsighted goals in an ever-changing society. That is central to any theory of principled constitutionalism. We have now entered a new and even more troubling phase of conservative constitutional jurisprudence. It is best characterized as conservative activism. Justices who readily dismiss constitutional claims by women, political dissenters, and racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, but at the same time aggressively strike down affirmative action programs, restrictions on corporate political expenditures, regulations of commercial advertising, federal civil rights laws prohibiting age discrimination and domestic violence, and the laws of the state of Florida in the 2000 presidential election, are unmistakably using the power of judicial review in a highly selective and politicized manner that cannot credibly be justified by any principled theory of constitutional interpretation. Despite all of the conservative rhetoric about originalism, strict construction, judicial restraint, applying rather than making the law, and calling balls and strikes, this pattern of decisions raises grave questions about the considerations that actually drive the jurisprudence of our conservative justices. Constitutional interpretation is not a mechanical enterprise. It requires judges to exercise judgment. It calls upon them to consider text, history, precedent, values, changing social, economic, technological, and cultural conditions, and the practical realities of the times. It requires restraint, wisdom, empathy, intelligence, and courage. Above all, it requires recognition of the judiciarys unique strengths and weaknesses, a proper appreciation of the reasons for judicial review, and a respectful understanding of our nations most fundamental constitutional aspirations and how we hope to achieve them. It is time for a new era of principled constitutionalism. It is time to return to the Framers Constitution. Agriculture is the undisputed foundation of Nebraska. The economic engine of our state, Nebraska agriculture represents one in every four jobs and over $23 billion in economic impact. The vitality of our rural communities, the conservation of our natural resources, and the protection of our defining culture as Nebraskans is inextricably linked to the success of the 50,000 Nebraska farm families who provide food, fiber, and fuel for every Nebraskan and millions more globally. Protection of Nebraska agriculture is my highest priority. It is for that reason my legislative priority bill for the 2016 session will be LR 378CA, a resolution to establish a constitutional Right to Farm and Ranch in Nebraska. Nebraskas farm and ranch families are producing higher quality crops and meats with greater sustainability and a smaller environmental footprint than ever before. Modern stewardship practices and the use of technology for crop protection and promotion of animal health have enabled family farms and ranches of every size to thrive in a competitive global commodity market. As a national leader in agriculture and natural resources research, the opportunities for Nebraska to be home to new agricultural innovation are limitless. Unfortunately, as fewer and fewer consumers have a direct connection to agriculture and food production, misconceptions about modern agriculture created by activist groups take root. In the social media age, anyone with an anti-agriculture agenda can quickly undermine Nebraskas farm families, even using the guise of pro-farmer or pro-food groups. Activist groups also promote increasingly restrictive legislation and regulation that impairs the right of family farmers and livestock producers to use accepted, safe practices on their farms and ranches. Nebraskas farm families do not have the resources to defend legal challenges in response to suits filed by deep-pocketed, anti-agriculture activist groups. Even incremental adoption of their agenda is crippling to Nebraskas rural communities and to our entire state. With constitutional protection provided by LR 378CA, Nebraskas family farmers and ranchers will have certainty as they build their operations and invest in our rural communities. Proposing an amendment to the Nebraska Constitution is no trivial matter. The significance of Nebraska agriculture, economically and culturally, raises it to the level of inclusion in the guiding principles of our state. Doing so clearly codifies the role and significance of agriculture as the foundation and stabilizing force of Nebraska. Placing the protection only in statute, which can be amended, fails to provide adequate protection. The amendment process in the Unicameral will require a super-majority of 30 votes on Final Reading to be placed upon the general election ballot. Then people of Nebraska have the final voice. In the past year Nebraska has seen the disruption that can be caused by anti-animal agriculture extremists targeting producers. Misinformation about the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and animal health practices is rampant on social media. Activist anti-agriculture legislation in California, Ohio, and Rhode Island has been crippling to agriculture not only in those states, but has had far reaching impacts on states nationally due to the interconnected nature of agriculture. The threat is real. The time to proactively protect Nebraska agriculture is now. Constitutional Right to Farm already exists in North Dakota and Missouri, and the Oklahoma legislature has placed the issue before the voters this November. As the national leader in crop and livestock production, Nebraska needs to provide a similar level of protection to our farm families, now and for generations of future farmers and ranchers. One of the most talked-about men in the news right now enjoyed hunting in western Nebraska. The late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia visited Scotts Bluff County multiple times to try his luck, including a trip just before Christmas of 2015. Jim Farrenkopf of Melbeta, who owns Panhandle Collections in Scottsbluff, said he hosted Scalia last year as well as in 2014. On both trips the hunting was hampered by bad weather, but Farrenkopf was still able to spend some time with Scalia. His passion was quail hunting, Farrenkopf said. Scalia hunted with all the big guns, according to Farrenkopf, including former Governor of Mississippi Haley Barbour and former Vice President Dick Cheney. Farrenkopf echoed many of the statements in the news over the week Scalia had a first-rate intelligence. Hes one of the smartest guys Ive ever been around, Farrenkopf said, adding that the justice was down to earth and had a great sense of humor. Scalia wasnt traveling with any security. Farrenkopfs land east of Melbeta contains a controlled shooting area for sporting clay for family and friends, and even though the weather wasnt great, they were able to have a few drinks with Scalia and talk politics and hunting. Farrenkopf said Scalia was a gun advocate and an ardent supporter of the Second Amendment. He was one of our kind of people, a strong conservative, Farrenkopf said. Thats what we have out here. Scalia spoke to Farrenkopf of the importance of the coming presidential election, emphasizing that the next president will likely appoint three if not four justices. Scottsbluff attorney Steve Olsen had gone to Washington, D.C., in October with his wife and sat in on a Supreme Court hearing, where they watched the justices in action. When Scalia was here last December, Olsen was invited to meet him. It was a busy time for Olsen, and he almost didnt get to go. While they didnt hunt together, Olsen said he spent about an hour in conversation with Scalia. It was really a thrill. I didnt know what to expect from a Supreme Court justice, Olsen said. I thought he might be stuffy and unapproachable, but he was funny and engaging. Olsen said Scalia was very faithful, and made a point of finding a Catholic church in Scottsbluff the night before. Olsen also said Scalia seemed concerned about what might happen to the court if America elects a Democratic president. Scalia was a Supreme Court Justice for nearly 30 years, from 1986 until his recent death. He died in his sleep on the night of Feb. 12 or the morning of Feb. 13, following an afternoon of quail hunting in Texas. He obtained his law degree from Harvard Law School. He was appointed to the Court by President Ronald Reagan to replace William Rehnquist. Scalia was described as the intellectual anchor for certain positions in the Courts conservative wing. He was also the first Italian-American justice. As Farrenkopf mentioned, his positions were staunchly conservative. He argued that there is no constitutional right to abortion, he argued against affirmative action and he argued for the death penalty, among others. In what some are calling the most consequential Supreme Court fight in a generation, Scalias death leaves eight justices on the Court, evenly split 44 between conservatives and liberals. Much of the discussion has resulted from Scalias death occurring during a presidential election year, only the second time in 60 years that has happened. President Barack Obama has vowed to appoint a replacement, while Republicans say they will deny the appointment. The next appointment is crucial because it could be the deciding vote on many cases. Obama says the Constitution calls for him to nominate someone for the court, leaving it to the Senate to either confirm or reject. Many members of the GOP are calling for the president to leave the decision to the next elected president. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said the Senate should not act until the next president is elected. Scalia came to know our area thanks to Glen Summers, an attorney in Denver, who owns land on the North Platte River near McGrew. Summers clerked for the justice in 1996 and 1997, and invited him out to hunt ducks and geese in 2005. He had a wonderful hunt, Summers said. They turned it into an annual affair. He had friends there and loved the area. He found it to be a very relaxing place and a place to come to escape the business of Washington, Summers said. And also because the hunting is terrific. The waterfowl hunting in western Nebraska is hard to beat. Summers said he was sad to lose someone close to him. Farrenkopf echoed the statement. Were really going to miss him, Farrenkopf said. We need more guys like him, not less. Countries & Areas Search for country or area A Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan B Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burma Burundi C Cabo Verde Cambodia Cameroon Canada Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Costa Rica Cote dIvoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czechia D Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic E Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia F Fiji Finland France G Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana H Haiti Holy See Honduras Hungary I Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy J Jamaica Japan Jordan K Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan L Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg M Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique N Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria North Korea North Macedonia Norway O Oman P Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territories Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Q Qatar R Republic of the Congo Romania Russia Rwanda S Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Sweden Switzerland Syria T Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu U Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom Uruguay Uzbekistan V Vanuatu Venezuela Vietnam Y Yemen Z Zambia Zimbabwe also in the article the address the reasons that the feds are unable to preform this task on their ownWhy can't the FBI crack the encryption on its own?With all due respect to Tim Cook and Apple, I work with a team of the best hackers on the planet. They attend Defcon in Las Vegas and are notorious in hacking circles. They are all prodigies, with talents that defy normal human comprehension. About 75% of them are social engineers, the remainder are hardcore coders. I would eat my shoe live on national television if we could not break the encryption on the San Bernardino iPhone. This is a pure and simple fact.So why don't the best hackers on the planet work for the FBI? Because the FBI will not hire anyone with a 24-inch purple mohawk, 10-gauge ear piercings, a tattooed face, who demands to smoke weed while working, and won't accept less than a half million dollars a year.But you can bet your *** that the Chinese and Russians are hiring similar people with similar demands and have been for many years. It's why the US is decades behind in the cyber race.Cyber science is not just something you can learn. It is an innate talent. The Julliard School of Music cannot create a Mozart. A Mozart or a Bach are genetically created much like our modern hacking community. A room full of Stanford Computer Science graduates cannot compete with a true hacker who doesn't even hold a high school education. This page may have been moved, deleted, or is otherwise unavailable. 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. There are a small number of other federal cases, all with slightly varied fact patterns, dealing with passcodes and passwords and whether the Fifth Amendment is a barrier to law enforcement learning them. Overall, they support the notion that the Fifth Amendment shields people from being compelled by the government to disclose their bitcoin private keys. This is because the courts have maintained that the Fifth Amendment prevents the government from forcing individuals to tell the government the passcode to the digital device, which should apply equally to private keys due to their inherent similarities. Despite all that, in one prominent case, a court ruled that the defendant did not have to tell the government the passcode to unencrypt his computer, but he did have to provide the government with an unencrypted copy. Bitcoin implications Translated to bitcoin private keys, that could mean a person would have to transfer his or her bitcoins to where the government wanted them moved (eg, a government controlled bitcoin wallet) but not tell the government the private key used. So far, no US court has ruled, at least publicly, on whether the Fifth Amendment protects a person from government compelled disclosure of his or her bitcoin private key or keys. But from the current cases, we know the factors a court is likely to consider if confronted with this issue. Some of those key factors are: Whether the private key is written down somewhere (likely less protection) or only in the persons head (likely more protection) Has the individual acknowledged control of the bitcoins seen (likely less protection) or kept quiet (likely more protection). In the not too distant future, there can be no doubt that a US court will tackle the issue of the application of the Fifth Amendment to bitcoin private keys in a case that undoubtedly will be closely watched like the current Apple case. And that court should uphold one of the Fifth Amendments most important protections and not compel disclosure, despite prosecutors urging otherwise. The Fifth Amendment and Bitcoin: Why the Battle is About to Begin - CoinDesk Friday, 19 February 2016 23:47:17 (GMT+3) | Sao Paulo Argentinian crude steel production in January declined 14.6 percent, year-on-year, and 11.3 percent, month-on-month, to 329,500 mt, according to data released by the nations steel chamber, CAA. The local steel association said hot rolled finished steel output in the first month of the year diminished 9.1 percent, year-on-year, and 9.3 percent, month-on-month, totaling 337,900 mt. On the other hand, cold rolled flat steel production in the same period rose 37.8 percent, year-on-year, to 122,100 mt. When compared to December, cold rolled flat steel output declined 2.5 percent. Friday, 19 February 2016 23:59:25 (GMT+3) | San Diego The US International Trade Commission (ITC) today determined that revoking the existing antidumping and countervailing duty orders on seamless carbon and alloy steel standard, line, and pressure pipe from China would be likely to lead to continuation or recurrence of material injury within a reasonably foreseeable time. As a result of the Commissions affirmative determinations, the existing antidumping and countervailing duty orders on imports of this product from China will remain in place. All six Commissioners voted in the affirmative. Mackinac Island The weather has been up and down this past week. We had some very nice days, and other were cold,... Outdoors This Week in the Eastern U.P. I know its fall, but, for some reason, the white stuff has started falling already and frost is covering my... West Mackinac Thats all folks, the fall fashion show is over and Mother Natures winter wardrobe is waiting in the wings. In... Is it better to tell your kids they are smart or that they work hard? Do you believe people can learn anything they want to? Which do you think is the bigger determining factor: abilities, or effort and attitude? You might think you have an answer to these. You might even think such an answer would be inspirational. However, if you were me, you might find that after a discussion with Little Princess, you aren't quite so sure. Little Princess and I talked a lot about these questions last night. She'd gone with a good friend, who is taking the AVID elective, to AVID Parent Night at Lebanon High School. Briefly: AVID stands for Achievement Via Individual Determination. Created in San Diego more than 30 years ago, it's a private, nonprofit organization meant to provide students with the academic and social support to get to college. It is focused particularly on the mid-level students who may not have considered college as a possibility for their futures. If that sounds like boilerplate, it is. I've written about AVID a lot. It's a full-fledged elective in Corvallis, Lebanon and South Albany high schools and at Seven Oak Middle in Lebanon so far, along with a couple of Corvallis middle schools. School districts in all three cities are committed to spreading its practices, such as taking Cornell-style notes, even through non-AVID classes. I respect what I've heard about the program so far. It's really good at setting up kids for success. It helps them organize everything from their note-taking to their class assignments to the binder they're kept in to the schedule they follow to their plan for their week/day/educational career. It keeps them focused and on track, and when they hit a stumbling block, it helps them find the answers themselves. Follow the map and it's pretty much impossible to get lost. Students who work with the system thrive, and they say so. Slightly Older Princess hates it. She takes notes her own way, thanks but no thanks, Cornell; and she's never lost an assignment yet, so she resents the very idea of a binder check. She's already set on at least the beginning of her higher education plan and is already pretty sure of how she's going to get there. As with many things that appear dictatorial or restrict her personal choices, SOP is just plain not on board. Little Princess has similar opinions, but she's willing to recognize value where she thinks it's merited. Organized binders, for instance: OK. Requiring labeled dividers for those binders: Pointless, considering she keeps a separate notebook for each class within that binder. She's not about to get binder dividers just because AVID says she ought to have them. As for the bigger questions AVID tries to help answer, they hit her hard last night. I came home from choir practice to find her upset about a paper handed out during the AVID meeting that compared two types of mindsets: "growth" and "fixed." Fixed mindset: I'm either good at it, or I'm not. Growth mindset: I can learn anything I want to. Fixed: When I'm frustrated, I give up. Growth: When I'm frustrated, I persevere. Fixed: I don't like to be challenged. Growth: I want to challenge myself. Fixed: When I fail, I'm no good. Growth: When I fail, I learn. Fixed: Tell me I'm smart. Growth: Tell me I try hard. Fixed: My abilities determine everything. Growth: My effort and attitude determine everything. You get the idea. LP was upset because she saw herself throughout the fixed mindset. She accused me of having told her she was smart. She doesn't like to be challenged, she said; she does what's required and no more. She does give up when she's frustrated. She has felt like a failure. Given the choice, she'd rather sit on the couch and browse YouTube videos than exercise her brain. Yes, well. Don't most of us? I have no idea if what I said was helpful to her at all, but this is what I told her: Yes, I've said she's smart. By "smart" I mean "capable" and "has the ability." But whether she remembers it or not, I have also congratulated her for working hard and achieving success through that hard work. I think both are necessary, and just being capable gets you nowhere if you don't put in the effort. Here is where I may differ from AVID, from LP and likely from some of you, however: I actually don't believe that you can do/learn/be anything you want to just by virtue of working hard for it. You could have trained me from day one to be an Olympic sprinter and I guarantee you I still wouldn't be in Rio this summer. I could have spent every waking minute practicing an instrument and I would lay some heavy odds you wouldn't be seeing me in Carnegie Hall. It's not that I think we're predestined. And if I *had* spent my whole life on a track or in front of a piano, I bet I'd be a darned good runner or a very accomplished performer by now. But quite honestly, I also think there are some people with innate gifts for certain things. Now, if they never bother to do anything with them, they're not going to be in Rio, either - nor do I think we should just give up the love of running or of playing just because we may not make the big leagues. There is something to be said for natural abilities, and I don't think it's wrong to say so. I think we bring ourselves more heartache when we set our expectations higher than is realistic. What if you set your entire future happiness on playing for the Boston Celtics and you never even make the varsity team? As for giving up when we're frustrated or not liking to be challenged, I see that as situational. Everyone has given up in frustration at something at some point in their lives, and sometimes that's healthy. I think it's OK, for instance, to quit an abusive marriage rather than continue to try to change your partner. I think it's OK to walk away from a job that's killing your soul, or a college major you've found no longer fits your life's goals. I think there are times when it is perfectly allowable, even preferable, to say, "You know what? This isn't getting me anywhere, and my time and effort can be better spent elsewhere." The AVID meeting was supposed to be inspirational. Little Princess came home instead feeling like someone had looked into all her private insecurities, turned them open to the world and said, "Do YOU ever suck." I know nobody involved with AVID would ever mean that to be the message. But it strikes me that someone who believes a person exists entirely in one of just two mindsets growth or fixed is already in the latter himself. Health Minister Patriciu Achimas-Cadariu told Digi 24 private television broadcaster on Thursday evening that he and Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos will go to the Pediatric Hospital of Pitesti this Friday to take an overall picture of the situation. "(...) Tomorrow I will go with the Prime Minister, he is directly interested in this and we will pay a visit to the Children Hospital of Pitesti to see the overall situation there and to take an overall picture of the situation. (...) One must see the situation on site and beyond the situation of the ongoing epidemiological investigation, a social investigation on top of the other investigation can never harm. Simply to see those people's needs, because in the end we do this for the people, not to find the [pathogenic] bacteria. Maybe in the rush of the recent years many regular hygiene norms have been lost. Maybe school doesn't teach us enough. (...) The hygiene component also plays a part when such situations occur, but it's not necessarily to blame this on the parents. These things can occur even in the case of a correct hygiene. We must do the prophylaxis," the minister said.He brushed off the idea of a travel alert being issued for Arges County, because no new cases have emerged.Asked what could be the causes for the children getting sick, he said he found out from people in Arges County that a great amount of natural fertilizer is used there, thus the development of some germs being possible.Asked about the Premier possibly dismissing him, the Health Minister said that he is currently concentrating on ways to help the ill children, and that everything else is secondary. AGERPRES The National Tax Administration Agency (ANAF) detailed its operation against Intact Group's TV, in response to media allegations of disproportionate force. According to a release of the ANAF, only four teams comprising of 11 tax enforcement officers went to the Intact group offices, and only one of them at the Antena 3 news TV. They used four marked vehicles and only verified the identity of four people, to hand them the notifications as per the legal procedure.Representatives of Antena 3 mentioned in a release "ANAF's action, organised in the form of a landing operation, which involved unprecedented deployments and forces, directly threatening the freedom of expression, by jeopardizing the broadcasting of the Antena 3, Antena 1, Antena Stars, Euforia Tv and Zu Tv stations''.Private TVs of the Antena Group got a five-day eviction notice on Monday from the Bucharest Public Finances Regional General Directorate of the ANAF. Tax authorities were thus attempting to enforce a court sentence of 2013, confirmed on an appeal in 2014, against Dan Voiculescu, a former senator and owner of the Intact Group's TV stations, convicted to a 10-year prison term in a case of fraudulent privatization of a research institute. The sentence included the confiscation of Voiculescu's real estate to cover his share of prejudices of 60 million euros.The case also prompted political reactions. President Klaus Iohannis on Wednesday qualified as "gung-ho" the ANAF operation, adding he finds it "at least inappropriate, if not questionable". Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos was summoned by the Senate to explain the situation; although he defended ANAF's move as part of a legal procedure, he said he had called the tax enforcers to reconsider their attitude. AGERPRES LEBANON OSU Extension Service invites community members to a review of Oregon Myths and Legends at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 25, at the Lebanon Senior Center, 80 Tangent St. You may think you know Oregon history, but some things we have heard are tall tales and others are the real deal. Review some of the interesting stories and truth about our state. Bring your stories to share. Linn County Sheriff Bruce Riley said his deputies gained valuable experience and put in some long hours while helping to back up the sheriffs department in Harney County during the month-long occupation of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Burns. Riley answered a state-wide call from Harney County Sheriff David Ward for help to deal with the influx of visitors, hostile or otherwise, that swelled the town of Burns, population 2,728, by nearly 1,000. Eight Linn deputies were dispatched. Harney is the largest county in the state, with just four full-time deputies. The visiting deputies were tasked with securing the town while the FBI focused on the occupation of the refuge. At its peak, assisting deputies formed nine two-man teams to patrol the town and its outskirts. Riley said sending deputies to assist was an easy call. When the bells rung, you just go, he said. It wasnt about taking sides either way, it was about helping a fellow sheriff who was overwhelmed. Riley said the occupation gave deputies experience in dealing with armed occupations. Thats not the kind of training you can get from a table top or a FEMA-sponsored training event, he said. And if we think that it couldnt happen here, were fooling ourselves. Linn County Sheriff Sergeant Dave Opel was one of the eight who traveled to Burns. He said deputies worked to keep the peace, running night and day teams with 12-hour shifts. He said a lot of the concern was that personnel records for refuge employees, as well as local law enforcement, had been hacked. Our main focus was to patrol the residences of the employees who had been compromised, in order to ensure their safety, he said. In the early stages of the occupation, there were rumors that some of the militants might try and take over the Harney County Sheriffs Office. Given the manpower in Harney County, Riley said the militants could have pulled it off. Opel said he carried a list of the major players identified with the occupation and encountered many out-of-state license plates and rental cars. He and his cohorts patrolled an area that extended 10 miles south and 20 miles west of town. Opel and his deputies also prepared for the possibility of being taken hostage by militants, which had become a concern after some militants were allegedly stopped in Washington with large collection of firearms. We all traveled in teams and were careful at traffic stops, because you never know. The FBI is being praised for how it handled the occupation, opting to wait out the occupiers and avoid any confrontation. The side effect was a large amount of invested time from local law enforcement. As a result, Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer wants the federal government to reimburse law enforcement and ultimately make the occupiers foot the bill, and introduced a bill to that end. Blumenauer estimates the occupation cost state and local law enforcement agencies $100,000 per week. Oregon State Sheriffs Association Executive Director John Bishop says the federal government has plans to reimburse the deputies for travel time, lodging and other expenses they incurred while assisting. He said sheriffs offices are reporting all their expenses related to the occupation to the FBI and ultimately to the Department of Justice. Bishop said it is also possible the State of Oregon could provide some funds for the reimbursement. Its going to be a big price tag when its all over, Riley said. Buyers of Smart cars and Fiats tend to identify as Democrats. New Porsche owners are more likely than buyers of any other brand to identify as Republicans, according to a survey conducted by Strategic Vision, a San Diego brand consultant. Another survey, by Resonate, a consultant in Reston, Va., shows that Bernie Sanders supporters are 82 percent more likely than the average American to eat at Chipotle, while Donald Trump fans are 111 percent more likely to grab a bite at Sonic. Marco Rubios backers are 141 percent more likely to have stayed at a Ritz-Carlton. Traditionally, consumer data have been used by campaigns to better understand where they should invest their ad dollars, or which potential voters and donors they should have volunteers cold-call. Increasingly, candidates are also using the sentiment to figure out how to present themselves to voters. When the Rubio campaign released its most recent campaign finance filing, it included a paragraph describing its brand loyalty: The Rubio campaigns new Federal Election Commission report also details how the campaign took 431 Uber rides and spent enough fueling up at Chick-fil-A to have eaten 1,348 nuggets. The message was clear: Rubio rides in an Uber and enjoys chicken nuggets. Similarly, Hillary Clinton stopped at a Chipotle in Ohio to pick up a burrito bowl for lunch the day after announcing her presidential campaign. Its a safe bet to say, Hey, Im just like you, says Alexander Edwards, president of Strategic Vision. I put my pants on, I button my shirt, so were the same. You can vote for me. Uber has become a darling among Republicans. According to surveys by YouGov, a market-research company that measures what people think about brands based on what theyve read or what their friends have told them, conservatives views of the service have gone from predominantly negative in 2014 to positive. One possible reason: Clinton has been critical of the sharing economy and its general lack of worker protections, a position that inspires sympathetic outrage from conservatives on Ubers behalf. She seems to be reason enough, says Eitan Hersh, an assistant professor of political science at Yale. Jeb Bush was photographed taking an Uber in San Francisco last summer. (The driver, interviewed later by reporters, said he intended to support Clinton.) Cruz frequently characterizes himself as the Uber of Washington a disruptive force. Uber defines a candidate approach with regard to the new gig economy, says Tim Albrecht, a public-relations consultant who advises Republican candidates, including Bush. If you favor this new economic reality, you seek the Uber-ization of things. Conversely, Albrecht says, if youre a candidate who views Uber as a challenge to the old guard, youll seek to take a cautious approach, which is a dog whistle for more regulations and government involvement. Sanders and Clinton supporters are more likely than most Americans to stay at Sheraton hotels; a person who appears in consumer data as a Sheraton customer is a better target than someone who stays at Hampton Inn (a favorite among Ted Cruz backers). Im old enough to remember when, to become a preppy, you had to spend four years at Andover, says Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist at the University of California at Berkeley. Now you spend an afternoon at Abercrombie & Fitch or J.Crew. Its the extension of the same principles that make brands efficient ways of representing the features of the products they can also be an efficient way of evoking the features of their users. Chick-fil-A is one of several brands that have acquired a partisan affiliation. In 2012, Dan Cathy, the Atlanta-based chains chief executive officer, commented in a radio interview that we are inviting Gods judgment on our nation by legalizing same-sex marriage. The restaurant became a cause celebre for Republicans Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, who asked their supporters to patronize the chain to show their solidarity with other opponents of gay rights. The great uniter among consumer brands right now? The numbers show its the Apple iPhone, according to Strategic Visions Edwards. The iPhone is nonpartisan, he says. They speak to everybody. The word, and the sauce, keeps spreading. After years of being a boutique product, Freddie Lees Ghetto Sauce now will be carried by the Dierbergs supermarket chain in STL the third chain to pick up the product less than three years. "I'm ecstatic about this, getting carried by 25 Dierberg's stores," Freddie Lee James Jr. said, adding that the sauces ("spicy" and "mild") should be available this weekend. James and his wife/business partner, Deborah James, created the sauce years ago in their kitchen in the Greater Ville neighborhood of north St. Louis. In 2010, James decided to see if he could make a business out of his hobby and started cooking to St. Patrick Centers business incubator in downtown St. Louis. And he began attending festivals and farmers' markets to promote the product, managing to get placed in smaller artisan-style stores. Then in late 2011, the Schnuck's chain began selling the sauce at its 27 locations, but under the name "American Gourmet Sauce." James said it has become clear that chains are a bit leery of the "ghetto" part of the brand: Dierberg's also will use the American Gourmet Sauce label, as do the seven Hy-Vee stores in Columbia and Jefferson City that picked up the product last year. James laughed about the branding issue. "We also got picked up a few months ago by Amazon. I sent them sauces with both labels, and they got back to me and said if it didn't say 'Ghetto Sauce,' they didn't want it." James also noted that he recently retired from his job as a laborer with a construction company. "Now that I'm retired," he said, "I'm working harder than ever." June 16, 1950 Feb. 13, 2016 Kevin Grier Robare, 65, passed through the gates of heaven on Feb. 13 after a 17-year journey with heart disease. He was born to Jimmy and Billie Robare in Corvallis and moved to North Albany at 6 months old. He graduated from Albany Union High School in 1968. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1969, was assigned to the USS Kitty Hawk and toured three times to Vietnam. In 1973 he met his lifelong sweetheart, Karon Dunbar, in San Diego. They were married Nov. 30, 1974, and moved to Salem to start their family. He was a Union Sheetmetal Worker for 25 years by trade working on large commercial buildings in Portland such as the Performing Arts Center, Convention Center and local hospitals. Kevin was a member of the Salem Jeep Club and Pacific Northwest 4-Wheel Drive Association. He was a longtime attender of Dayspring Fellowship in Keizer. His interests included hot rods, Jeeps, hunting, fishing and spending time with his family. Best memories with family were spent vacationing and camping. His last big project was restoring a 1985 CJ-7 with his best friend of 50-plus years, Greg Peters. Kevin is survived by his wife, Karon; three children, Jeremy, Brandon, and Krista and husband Troy; and one cherished granddaughter, Emily Grace. He was preceded in death by his parents; brother Paul Robare; and his beloved Rottweiler, Bear Dawg. A celebration of life will be at 11 a.m. Saturday, March 5, at Dayspring Fellowship. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the American Heart Association or Best Friends Animal Society. Affluenza teen Ethan Couch will appear in court Friday when a Dallas judge will decide whether to transfer his case from juvenile to adult court. Couch, 18, has been held at the Tarrant Countys maximum-security adult facility since a Feb. 5 hearing. District Judge Timothy A. Menikos will decide Friday morning whether Couchs case will be turned over to an adult court after he turns 19 on April 11. Couch was sentenced to probation in an intoxication manslaughter case after he killed four people while driving drunk. The probation and his lawyers affluenza defense sparked national outrage, which intensified in early December after a video posted to Twitter claimed to show him at a party where alcohol was being served. He and his mother, Tonya Couch, sparked a national search after Ethan Couch missed a Dec. 10 meeting with his probation officer. The Couches were apprehended in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, later that month. Tonya Couch, 48, was returned to Texas after waiving extradition in January. She has been charged with hindering apprehension of a criminal, a felony that carries two to 10 years in prison. She posted bail but is under house arrest at the home of another son. Her son remained in Mexico until he dropped his legal fight and was returned to North Texas on Jan. 28. If the case moves to adult court which the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported prosecutors and Couchs attorneys expect will happen Couch will be assigned a new judge who will set the revised terms and conditions for his probation. The transfer would be effective at midnight on his birthday, Tarrant County district attorney spokeswoman Samantha Jordan said. A criminal district judge would have the option to order Couch to spend 120 days in jail as part of an adult sentence in addition to probation. But, if Couch were to violate his probation then, he could get up to 10 years in prison, she said. Jordan said the district attorneys office will also request Friday that the judge rule to continue to detain Couch until the time that adult district court hearing takes place, Jordan said. Alternately, Menikos could decide to keep Couch in the juvenile system. In that case, its possible that he could be released from his probation when he turns 19 after serving time in a detention facility. Couch killed four people and injured several others in a 2013 crash near Burleson. Authorities said the then-16-year-olds blood alcohol content was three times the 0.08 legal driving limit for an adult at the time of the crash. The day of his fall, former state Rep. Don Gosen sat in his empty insurance office in the Wildwood Town Center and had a good cry. The front door was locked. Shed were the coat and tie that had been his uniform from January to May each of the past six years. Gone also, was the dignity that comes or should come with such a lofty position. Wearing a red polo shirt and blue jeans, he sat back in his chair, sobbing over the mistakes he had made. Gosen, a 53-year-old Ballwin Republican, was a decent lawmaker at least if measured by bills that made the governors desk. But like many before him who leave their communities as frogs and enter the states capital city as princes, he lost his moral compass. Starting in 2014, Gosen says, he had an affair. He betrayed his wife and three daughters. He betrayed his faith. Now hes paying the price. Gosen blames only himself for his bad behavior. On Thursday, Gosen said that on the advice of his attorney, he wouldnt publicly outline the events that led to his resignation. But two sources with knowledge of Gosens actions, including one whom the former state representative confided to before he resigned, say the downfall started with an event outside the Capitol in 2014. Gosen met the woman, who is from southeastern Missouri, and they hit it off. She is not a Capitol employee and hasnt ever worked there. At some point, the sources say, the relationship became sexual. Gosen, following the path made famous by former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner and to a lesser extent former Missouri Speaker of the House John Diehl, sent the woman at least one text that included a photo of a sexual nature. The Post-Dispatch has obtained one of these texts. The couple also made a video of some sort, the sources confirmed. Gosen lied to the woman, sources say, about many things, including his ultimate intentions, and that led to a bad breakup. Its unclear when that breakup took place. Its the sexts and video or at least the rumor of their existence that led to his rapid fall from grace. Those rumors made their way to Speaker of the House Todd Richardson on Monday. He called Gosen into his office and asked for his resignation. Gosen said he had already made that decision, after telling his wife and daughters what had happened. It was quite the contrast to last years House shenanigans that began when Diehl sent sexually laced texts to a college intern. Diehl, a Republican, at first denied involvement with any salacious or inappropriate behavior, before hiding in a locked Capitol office for much of the night. Eventually, he resigned in disgrace, as did, later, state Sen. Paul LeVota, a Kansas City Democrat, who was accused of some similar behavior. Richardson wanted to turn the page quickly on the Capitols culture of corruption. Its why the House passed several bills strengthening the states weakest-in-the-nation ethics laws early in the session. Perhaps not so ironically, one of those bills made its way to the Senate floor the day after Gosens resignation. Possibly the most important provision was a one-year cooling off period that would stop lawmakers from going directly through the revolving door of passing laws to influencing them as lobbyists. The Senate, as if on cue, took that provision out. Too many senators dont want their options limited. Like their president pro tem from last year, Republican Tom Dempsey of St. Charles, they want to be able to turn their public service into a lobbyists salary overnight. There is a common theme between Gosens fall from grace and the Senates failure to pass a minimum ethics standard that mimics what exists in Congress and most other states. An overgrown sense of entitlement. Too many lawmakers believe they are entitled to the things that come their way in the Capitol. Gifts. Free meals. Expensive trips. Interns. Women. But eventually comes the bad breakup, and then the fall. The fall is often quick and hard and devastating. Almost exactly six years ago I sat in an empty Cape Girardeau hotel restaurant and talked to former Missouri Speaker of the House Rod Jetton about his own fall, which also involved sex with a woman who was not his wife. In Jettons case, he eventually pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault in the incident. I got an application in to drive a garbage truck, and I got turned down to sell appliances, he told me. Ive got no reputation. I have no money. Ive got nothing. Gosens reputation is damaged, as is that of the entire Capitol. But, for now, hes got his wife and kids. Hes got his business. Hes left victims in his wake, but hell have a chance at redemption. As for Jefferson Citys den of iniquity: Redemption seems out of reach. ST. LOUIS COUNTY A former Chesterfield police officer pleaded guilty Thursday of using a spy camera to secretly record men in the restroom of a Chesterfield gas station. David E. Cerna, 35, will be sentenced April 1 in St. Louis County Circuit Court on the misdemeanor and felony invasion of privacy charges. In October, he admitted guilt in similar charges in St. Charles County, related to videos he posted online of men having anonymous oral sex with him at his home in Wentzville. Sentencing there also is scheduled for April. In the Chesterfield case, police have said that Cerna collected videos from a camera he installed in a mens restroom at a Mobil On The Run gas station on Clarkson Road south of Chesterfield Mall. Some of those videos were posted on his porn website, authorities said. A tip from a television news reporter triggered an investigation, and police traced the website to Cernas home in the 4000 block of Jessica Drive, where he was arrested by fellow officers. Cerna, who was a Chesterfield officer for six years, was later fired. When Cerna was charged, authorities said he admitted luring men to his home with Craigslist ads in which he posed as a woman wanting anonymous sex. He would send a womans photo to men who responded. Then he would give them his address and instructions on what to do when they came to the door. Oral sex was performed on men through a hole in the door, and Cerna would record the anonymous encounters. As many as 60 men visited his home over 18 months, Cerna told police. He posted the videos to his website, authorities said. In August 2014, further charges were filed alleging he used a secret camera to take close-up video images of a teenage boys genitals while he detained and searched the boy, authorities said. Court records said that happened on Clarkson Road. Those charges are pending in St. Louis County, according to court records. ST. LOUIS A St. Louis man was sentenced Thursday to 30 years in prison for the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old girl. St. Louis Circuit Judge Margaret M. Neill gave Jason L. Hughley, 32, a life sentence of 30 years in the June 10, 2007, killing of Shaneka Spraggins. Spraggins was shot in the chest in a drive-by shooting in the 3800 block of St. Louis Avenue. Police say she was an unintended target of a retaliatory shooting among gang members. Spraggins was on the porch of a friend's house when shots were fired from a passing Toyota Avalon. Hughley was originally charged in 2014 with first-degree murder, armed criminal action and shooting from a vehicle after witnesses identified Hughley as the shooter. After a three-day trial last month, a jury returned a guilty verdict on charges of second-degree murder. Hughley's criminal history includes convictions of burglary, receiving stolen property, drug possession and stealing. Court records say he has been in prison since 2011 for several burglary convictions. WASHINGTON Donald Trumps extraordinary and rough public spat Thursday with Pope Francis about the Republican front-runners religious faith may not have the same immediate political effect as if it had happened later in the 2016 presidential campaign. The southern-tinged March 1 Super Tuesday primaries in more than a dozen states will include a couple of big states with substantial Catholic populations. But many states voting that day will also be among the least Catholic in the country. It wont be until March 15, with primaries in Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, Florida and North Carolina, that substantial Catholic populations will be a big part of a single-day vote in the GOP primaries. About 10 percent of South Carolinians, where Republicans are furiously stumping before their Saturday primary, identify as Catholics. Thats opposed to 28 percent in Illinois, 21 percent in Florida, 18 percent in Ohio and 16 percent in Missouri, according to a 2015 Pew Research Center in-depth study on religion and politics. Some of the nations most Catholic cities will also vote on March 15, including Chicago (34 percent), Miami (27 perent) and St. Louis (25 percent). The March 1 Super Tuesday of primaries and caucuses will include Massachusetts, at 34 percent tied with New Jersey and New Mexico as the second-most Catholic states behind Rhode Island. Texas, at 23 percent Catholic, also will vote that day, although it has a favorite son, Sen. Ted Cruz, in contention. Many of the rest of the Super Tuesday primary states extend across an evangelical belt from Oklahoma City to Savannah, Ga. Tennessee is 6 percent Catholic, Alabama 7, Arkansas and Oklahoma 8 apiece, and Georgia 9, according to Pew. All will have Republican primaries on March 1. A leading expert in politics and religion cautioned against making any assumptions on what effect Trumps heard-around-the-world exchange with the outspoken pontiff will have on the Republican primary. Akron Universitys John Green, who is in South Carolina this week observing the campaigns, agreed that the March 15 primaries will be the first big crush of white Catholics who could affect the outcome, in part because the populations of Catholics in the south are heavily Latino and would be more likely than white Catholics to vote in Democratic primaries. That factor also applies to Nevada, where the population is 25 percent Catholic, and where Republicans will caucus on Tuesday. But Trump himself is the wild card in the extraordinarily rough-and-tumble spats he has been having with everyone from Fox News anchors to ex-Republican presidents to, now, the leader of 1.3 billion Catholics. Ordinarily my reaction would be that this is likely to hurt the candidate with Roman Catholics, and given the popularity of Pope Francis outside the Catholic community, it could hurt the candidate with those folks as well, said Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron, and author of several books on religion and politics. I put it that way because Donald Trump seems to be the exception to the rule. Many things he has said so far would have ended the career of other politicians. The pope-Trump spat began when the pope, traveling back to the Vatican from a visit to Mexico, was asked about immigration reform. Trump has centered his campaign around the call for a wall on the Mexican border and the expulsion of millions of people in the United States illegally. A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian, Francis said. This is not the Gospel. Trump hit back hard, calling the popes words disgraceful and declaring: No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another mans religious faith. Trumps social media director, Dan Scavino, tweeted that the Vatican itself was surrounded by walls. Green pointed out that when the pope addressed a joint session of Congress last fall, he tried to be nonpartisan, even while exhorting Republicans and Democrats to avoid a mindset of hostility toward one another. Trump is viewed by the general public as the least religious candidate, according to more recent analysis by Pew. Only about three in 10 of adults who responded to an early January Pew poll said they thought that Trump was religious, while almost seven in 10 said that of Republican rival Ben Carson. So its in character for Trump to counterattack, and the fact that he is widely considered as nonreligious doesnt make him seem as if he is attacking one of his own. Trumps response didnt surprise me, because he tends to respond angrily to criticism, Green said. I think it is quite unusual to have a religious leader, particularly the pope, come out and make that bold of a statement about a politicians faith. ARNOLD Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt formally announced his re-election campaign Friday, lambasting President Barack Obama and asking supporters let him "continue representing you at a critical time." Blunt criticized Obama as a weak world leader and an anti-business president, but made no mention of his likely Democratic opponent, Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander. "Our friends don't trust us anymore and our enemies aren't afraid of us anymore," said Blunt, criticizing Obama's foreign-policy record. He quipped that the only countries in the world where we now have better relations than we used to do are Iran and Cuba. Blunt also stood by his position that he will vote against any Supreme Court nomination that Obama makes even if it were his own daughter, who is lawyer. "I think the American people ought to be able to vote" on the issue with their choice of the next president, he said. Blunt will almost certainly face Kander in November, in a race that has gained national attention. Missouri is among a cluster of states with Republican-held Senate seats whose outcomes will determine the control of the Senate under a new President. Blunt has been in Congress for 20 years, the last five of it in the Senate. This tour will officially launch for him a campaign season he has tried to avoid. While Kander announced a year ago, Blunt has mostly declined to comment about campaign-related issues over that time. Kander has criticized Blunt for being too much of a Washington insider, and Democrats in Missouri have tried to make an issue out of the lobbying of Blunt's wife, Abigail, for Kraft Foods, and by his son, Andy, a well-known state lobbyist in Missouri, who is also Roy Blunt's campaign manager. Both Roy Blunt and Andy Blunt have said they believe Missourians are far more worried about the economy, health care, and other issues. Kander this week also criticized Blunt for agreeing with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that a "lifetime appointment" for the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court should be left up to the next President. Blunt's position on the issue as he articulated it Friday was slightly different than that of some Republicans who have said Obama shouldn't even attempt to nominate someone to the high court. "This president has the constitutional opportunity and, I think, responsibility to nominate somebody, but I will not be supporting that nominee . . . even if it's my own daughter," said Blunt. "I think this needs to be left to the next president." Blunt made his campaign announcement on the cavernous warehouse floor of Unico Manufacturing in Arnold, to stress the pro-business, anti-regulation theme of his campaign. Unico makes heating and cooling systems. A company official who spoke to the crowd credited Blunt for co-sponsoring legislation, with U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., that cleared a regulatory problem for the company. Arnold was the first of 10 stops on Blunt's two-day tour of Missouri. Subsequent campaign stops over the two days will be in Kansas City, St. Joseph, La Plata, Hannibal, Joplin, Springfield, Columbia, Poplar Bluff, and Cape Girardeau. Chuck Raasch of the Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau contributed to this report. JEFFERSON CITY A splintered Republican caucus and pressure from outside groups has led to another delay in the Missouri House for debate on a prescription drug monitoring bill that in past years has received overwhelming support. The bill has been on the House Calendar for two weeks, but debate has been skipped every day because of mixed reviews. Rep. Holly Rehder, R-Sikeston and the bill's sponsor, says that election-year politics and privacy concerns have split GOP House members, making it harder for those who voted "yes" in previous years to do so this session. Republicans control more than two-thirds of the state House seats. Under the bill, called the Narcotics Control Act, the state Department of Health and Senior Services would begin tracking patient painkiller prescriptions for drugs such as OxyContin and Vicodin. The drugs are effective at treating pain, but they're also addictive. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the amount of prescription painkillers dispensed has quadrupled since 1999. Proponents of the prescription drug monitoring program, or PDMP, argue that pharmacists and doctors need more access to patient records to detect and address addiction. "If they've gotten five prescriptions in the last month, the physician can say 'look, we need to address your addiction,'" Rehder said. "Those are conversations that need to happen on the front end, not after the addiction has progressed so much that their children have been taken away or they've been arrested." In Kentucky, there was a 50 percent decrease in "doctor shopping" that is, patients visiting multiple doctors for similar prescriptions after a law passed in 2012 requiring doctors and pharmacists to join the state's monitoring network. There was also a decrease in painkiller prescriptions and opioid substance abuse treatment, according to a report prepared for the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services. So why the opposition, and where is it coming from? Carl Bearden, the president of United for Missouri, a conservative nonprofit, said that the group has sent out email blasts to 78,000 subscribers urging them to contact House leadership and state representatives to tell them to oppose the bill. "We think this is an unnecessary invasion of privacy," he said, adding the the state should be able to identify those at risk without collecting everyone's prescription records. He said the group doesn't donate to candidates or committees, but would make sure to "educate" voters on where their local representative stands. The Post-Dispatch also obtained emails to House members from the Missouri Alliance for Freedom, another conservative nonprofit. In one email, Alliance for Freedom says the bill creates a "compulsory government database" while "placing at risk" private medical information. The group also warns of reelection speed bumps for Republicans who support Rehder's bill. From one email, sent out on Feb. 10 (bold type from the Alliance for Freedom): "Any vote on PDMP will be graded in the Missouri Alliance for Freedom 2016 Scorecard. The PDMP vote will be given a heavier weight in the 2016 Missouri Scorecard. We would appreciate a thoughtful NO Vote on legislation that establishes a Prescription Drug Monitoring Program." Another email, on Feb. 7, states in part and in bold, that "Make no mistake, we will grade this vote and talk about it loudly in legislative districts around the state." Rep. Tila Hubrecht, R-Dexter, said she supported Rehder's bill last year and has received emails. But she said she wouldn't switch her vote. She said the threats "are just the nature of politics." "I think with it being an election year, there is some concern about it because there is that misconception that it is just a database," said Hubrecht, who is a registered nurse. "To me, it's just another example of someone not truly understanding what's trying to be accomplished." Pressure is coming from both directions. In an email sent on Feb. 9 to lawmakers, the Missouri Chamber of Commerce said it supported Rehder's bill. "This bill has the potential to shield families from a dangerous form of drug abuse and would help protect our workplaces from drug-related incidents," the email read. Rep. Jay Barnes, R-Jefferson City, has been trying to rally opposition to Rehder's bill. He argues that no one who isn't convicted of a crime should be required to have their prescription history stored in a database, and that PDMPs "haven't worked as advertised" in other states. The same report from Kentucky that showed a decrease in doctor shopping also pointed to an increase in heroin use, which is what Barnes said would happen if addicts can't get their fix from prescriptions. Heroin is in the same class of drugs as opioid painkillers. "An addict is going to get their fix whether their purchases are being tracked or not," Barnes told the Post-Dispatch last week. "How are they going to get their fix? Well, if they don't get pain pills, they're going to get heroin." While heroin use increased in Kentucky, the report noted that shifts in the heroin market were underway before the state required doctors to join the prescription network, and that the PDMP is not "the sole contributor to the rise in heroin abuse in Kentucky." Unlike Kentucky, doctors wouldn't be required to use the Missouri PDMP. Plus, they would still have discretion over what and how much to prescribe. For those concerned about privacy, the bill weaves in protections. No governmental agency could bar someone from having or obtaining a concealed carry permit based on prescription histories. It would be a felony to wrongfully disclose any information from the database. And Rehder said medical records also require greater encryption to prevent hacks. Rehder and proponents in the health industry have been calling for a PDMP for years. Missouri is the only state without one. At a news conference Thursday, House Speaker Todd Richardson, R-Poplar Bluff, said that he still backs Rehder's bill and is confident it will pass the House again this year. Rep. Jacob Hummel, D-St. Louis and minority floor leader, has said Democrats will support the bill. An even larger hurdle could be the Senate, where a minority led by Sen. Rob Schaaf, R-St. Joseph, has blocked the bill in the past. Schaaf and Barnes have their own bills, which they say would tighten controls, but those have yet to gain traction. St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger announced this week that because the Missouri General Assembly hasn't approved a statewide database, the county would start its own. "Missouris failure to properly monitor such prescriptions has led to our state's macabre designation as the top tourist destination for pill shoppers from across the nation," Stenger said. Rehder's legislation is House Bill 1892. JEFFERSON CITY Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon may not call a special election to fill the seat left vacant by former state Rep. Don Gosen. If he doesn't, that would mean Republicans will be down one vote for the remainder of the Legislatures spring session and during the September veto session. And, voters in the 101st House District, located in western St. Louis County, will be without representation in the capital city until January 2017. In a statement, Nixon spokesman Scott Holste suggested the price tag of a special election was a key factor in the governors decision. Both the timing for candidate filing periods and the costs to taxpayers are important considerations for setting special elections, Holste said in an email Friday. Asked directly what the governor would decide, Holste declined to say. Gosen, a 53-year-old married father of three from Ballwin, abruptly resigned Wednesday and later told the Post-Dispatch his departure involved an extramarital affair. He had served in the House since 2010 and was in the midst of seeking reelection. Campaign records show Gosen spent nearly $3,000 on direct campaign costs in the final quarter of 2015, purchasing signs and sign materials and paying a campaign worker. Through Jan. 1, he had amassed $94,603 in his campaign account. As an insurance agent and chairman of the House Insurance Committee, he received at least $4,000 in insurance-related contributions in the final three months of last year. He did not return telephone messages Friday. In his wake, Republican activist Noreen McCann of Chesterfield has announced shes seeking the seat. Filing for the Aug. 2 primary election begins Tuesday. The winners will run in the general election in November. Lawmakers are considering legislation that would prevent future governors from leaving seats vacant for more than six months. State Rep. Jason Chipman, R-Steelville, has introduced House Bill 1694, which would require a special election in the case of Gosen, since the next general election is more than eight months away. A hearing on the legislation is set for Tuesday. Under election law, the state is required to bankroll special elections. In 2013, a special election for a vacant seat representing Missouri in Congress cost an estimated $1 million. We must remember that detecting archaic admixture in Africa is a statistical power game where only a particular type of such introgression can be detected:First, it needs to be from highly diverged Palaeoafrican sources so that it will look very different from plainDNA. Unlike Eurasia, there's no genome of an ancient Palaeoafrican one can compare against. All inference is based on African genomes having an improbable amount of heterozygosity in parts of their genome.Second, it needs to have happened recently enough so that it will come in big chunks that can be distinguished from the plainbackground. Given enough time, recombination breaks down archaic segments into ever tinier bits. You can argue that an unusually long divergent haplotype with a deep TMRCA is archaic, but you can't argue that a single SNP is.I have little doubt that most if not all of the supposedly "old divergences" between African populations are a mirage created by admixture between modern humans and archaic "Palaeoafricans" diverging and admixing at different time depths. The palaeoanthropological record is quite clear that modern humans were not the only game in town for most of the 200 thousand years since modern humans first appeared in the continent's northeastern corner.A handful or two of archaic genomes from Eurasia needs an ever-more-complex web of admixtures to make sense of; Africa will need no less, and -if morphological variability persistence is any criterion- a lot more.Published in Advance February 17, 2016, doi: 10.1101/gr.196634.115PingHsun Hsieh et al.Comparisons of whole-genome sequences from ancient and contemporary samples have pointed to several instances of archaic admixture through interbreeding between the ancestors of modern non-Africans and now extinct hominids such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. One implication of these findings is that some adaptive features in contemporary humans may have entered the population via gene flow with archaic forms in Eurasia.however, the absence of ancient DNA in Africa has limited our ability to make a direct comparison between archaic and modern human genomes. Here, we use statistical inference based on high coverage whole-genome data (greater than 60) from contemporary African Pygmy hunter-gatherers as an alternative means to study the evolutionary history of the genus Homo. Using whole-genome simulations that consider demographic histories that include both isolation and gene flow with neighboring farming populations, our inference method rejects the hypothesis that the ancestors of AMH were genetically isolated in Africa, thus providing the first whole genome-level evidence of African archaic admixture.Published in Advance February 17, 2016, doi: 10.1101/gr.192971.115PingHsun Hsieh et al.African Pygmies practicing a mobile hunter-gatherer lifestyle are phenotypically and genetically diverged from other anatomically modern humans, and they likely experienced strong selective pressures due to their unique lifestyle in the Central African rainforest. To identify genomic targets of adaptation, we sequenced the genomes of four Biaka Pygmies from the Central African Republic and jointly analyzed these data with the genome sequences of three Baka Pygmies from Cameroon and nine Yoruba famers. To account for the complex demographic history of these populations that includes both isolation and gene flow, we fit models using the joint allele frequency spectrum and validated them using independent approaches.We also find that bidirectional asymmetric gene flow is statistically better supported than a single pulse of unidirectional gene flow from farmers to Pygmies, as previously suggested. We then applied complementary statistics to scan the genome for evidence of selective sweeps and polygenic selection. We found that conventional statistical outlier approaches were biased toward identifying candidates in regions of high mutation or low recombination rate. To avoid this bias, we assigned P-values for candidates using whole-genome simulations incorporating demography and variation in both recombination and mutation rates. We found that genes and gene sets involved in muscle development, bone synthesis, immunity, reproduction, cell signaling and development, and energy metabolism are likely to be targets of positive natural selection in Western African Pygmies or their recent ancestors. LONDON MARKET MIDDAY: UK sees falling confidence, growing public debt Friday, October 21, 2022 - 12:38 Retailers were leading stock market losses in London on Friday, after weak UK retail sales and consumer confidence reports and a warning from German sportswear maker Adidas. The FTSE 100 index was down 61.54 points, 0.9%, at 6,882.37 at midday. The FTSE 250 was down 302.52 points, 1.7%, at 17,086.41, and the AIM All-Share was down 4.05 points, 0.5%, at 782.39. The Cboe UK 100 was down 0.9% at 687.60, the Cboe UK 250 was down 1.8% at 14,579.92, and the Cboe Small Companies was down 0.4% at 12,228.02. Following the resignation of Liz Truss, the Conservative Party now begins the process to select a new leader, with the result to be announced no later than next Friday. Amongst those believed to be in the running are former chancellor Rishi Sunak, leader of the house Penny Mourdaunt, and even former PM Boris Johnson. "With recession now inevitable there are huge problems for the government to overcome once it deals with the little issue of who will walk through, what's become of late, the revolving door at Number 10," said AJ Bell's Danni Hewson. Meanwhile, UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has vowed to do "whatever necessary" to drag government debt lower after official figures revealed that borrowing swelled to 20 billion in September. The Office for National Statistics reported that a jump in debt interest grew borrowing beyond the expectations of economists, laying bare the challenge facing the chancellor and new prime minister ahead of the fiscal event at the end of this month. The ongoing economic uncertainty piled pressure on sterling. The pound was quoted at $1.1102 at midday on Friday, compared to $1.1294 at the London equities close on Thursday. In the FTSE 100, athleisure retailer JD Sports and Sports Direct owner Frasers Group were down 7.1% and 5.6% respectively. Late Thursday, sports apparel maker Adidas lowered annual guidance as it struggles with "deteriorating traffic" in China and high inventory levels. Adidas said it has needed to turn to "higher clearance activity" to try to shift stock. In Frankfurt, Adidas was down 10% in early afternoon trade. In the New York pre-market, peer Nike was down 1.0%. Compounding the downside risk for clothing makers and retailers was lacklustre UK consumer confidence, with the last GfK indicator showing levels remained near historic lows. The indicator languished at minus 47 in October, but clawed back two points. In addition, UK retail sales deteriorated at a faster pace than expected in September, according to the latest figures from ONS. Retail sales fell 6.9% annually in September, with the decline accelerating from a 5.6% fall in August. It also was worse than FXStreet-cited market consensus, which had expected a fall of just 5%. Asos lost 6.9%, as HSBC cut the stock to 'reduce'. Fellow fast fashion online retailer boohoo fell 5.9%. "Clothing seller Asos continued its descent as investors worry about its position in a cost-of-living crisis. The feedback from its latest analyst presentation was negative, with concerns about the company going from a net cash to net debt position and a lack of confidence in its strategy to survive an economic slowdown. The shares are now down 78% year-to-date," said AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould. InterContinental Hotels Group shed 4.2%. This followed news that Chief Financial Officer & Head of Strategy Paul Edgecliffe-Johnson will leave the company in six months' time to become CFO at sports betting firm Flutter Entertainment. Flutter added 0.6%. IHG said in the third quarter revenue per available room, or RevPAR, rose 28% year-on-year and now exceeds its pre-pandemic level, being up 2.7% on the third quarter of 2019. Looking ahead, IHG said demand remained "robust", and it managed to open 51 hotels during the quarter, despite an industry-wide slowdown in hotel opening activity. "The thorn in its side is China where tough restrictions around Covid have disrupted trading once again, enough to spook investors and send the share price down," AJ Bell's Mould said. On AIM, Hummingbird resources plunged 19%. The miner said gold production at the Yanfolila mine in Mali fell to 16,827 ounces in the third quarter from 20,013 ounces in the second quarter of 2022. The average realised gold price fell to $1,713 per ounce compared to $1,851 in the quarter immediately before. In addition, all-in sustaining costs rose to $2,161 per ounce from $1,859 per ounce. As a result of various issues which have hit production, Hummingbird lowered annual production guidance, and revised all-in sustaining cost guidance upwards. In European equities on Friday, the CAC 40 in Paris was down 1.7%, while the DAX 40 in Frankfurt was down 1.5%. "The US dollar continues extending its rally across the board, and there is nothing the other currencies can do," said Swissquote Bank's Ipek Ozkardeskaya. The euro stood at $0.9743 at midday Friday, down against $0.9822 at the close on Thursday. Against the yen, the dollar was trading at JP150.98, up sharply compared to JP149.77 late Thursday. The continuing weakening of the yen increases the likelihood of another intervention from the Japanese government to bolster the currency. Japan's core consumer prices rose 3.0% in September on-year, the government said on Friday, the highest level since 2014 as the falling yen and rising energy costs hit households hard. The data, which excludes volatile fresh food prices, brings inflation well above the Bank of Japan's long-term 2.0% goal. But excluding energy prices, the figure stood at only 1.8%, bolstering the central bank's argument that current increases do not yet meet its standard for sustained price growth. "The Japanese inflation rate remained unchanged near 3% in September. The import prices due to the weakening yen is one of the reasons for the rising consumer prices in Japan, but the Bank of Japan is not willing to hike the interest rates just yet. Any FX intervention sill likely offer interesting dip-buying opportunities," Ozkardeskaya continued. Stocks in New York were called lower, with the DJIA expected to open down 0.4%, the S&P 500 index down 0.6%, and the Nasdaq Composite down 0.9%. Brent oil was quoted at $92.30 a barrel at midday on Friday, down from $93.29 late Thursday. Gold was quoted at $1,624.90 an ounce Friday, down sharply against $1,641.90. Still to come on Friday's economic calendar is EU consumer confidence at 1500 BST. Copyright 2022 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved. As we have since July 2006, each Friday well post a mixed bag of quick cigar news and other items of interest. Below is our latest Friday Sampler. 1) For the first time in eight decades, a sitting U.S. president will visit Cuba. Yesterday morning President Obama unveiled his plans to travel to Cuba in March. Next month, Ill travel to Cuba to advance our progress and efforts that can improve the lives of the Cuban people, read his official Twitter account. We still have differences with the Cuban government that I will raise directly. America will always stand for human rights around the world. The announcement comes amid thawed relations between Washington and Havana, which recently restored diplomatic ties. Obama has also called on Congress to end the trade embargo, as well as issued an executive order to make legal travel to Cuba easier. Currently, legal visitors to Cuba are allowed to bring up to $100 worth of Cuban cigars back to the U.S. Calvin Coolidge was the last sitting president to visit Cuba, reports ABC News. 2) In other political news, Senator Ted Cruz may be the presidential candidate with the closest connection to cigarshe hosts cigar-related fundraisers and says he smokes occasionallybut a recent poll suggests he may not have a lock on the cigar vote (if there is such a thing). New Republic reports: How devastating it must be for Cruz that in a poll by Cigar Aficionadowhere William F. Buckley Jr. has a byline, and which gave Rush Limbaugh the cover treatmenthe won the support of only 22 percent of the magazines Republican readers, behind Trumps 39 percent and Marco Rubios 23 percent Neither of Cruzs top rivals has made much of an effort to court the cigar vote. I used to smoke a little cigar here and there, Rubio said earlier this month. Now its just hard to do. As for the Donald, he says he has never smoked. And now hes won the support of a conservative magazine for men who love to do just that. 3) Inside the Industry: General Cigar formally announced the return of the annual Punch Rare Corojo release. The blend continues to feature a reddish Ecuador-grown Sumatra wrapper and Connecticut broadleaf binder around Dominican, Honduran, and Nicaraguan filler tobaccos. As has become tradition, there is a limited edition vitola for 2016, a perfecto called Regalias Perfecto (7.25 x 54). General also announced the Double Corona (6.75 x 48) will be going away after the current stock runs out. Despite the low oil prices and economic sanctions Russia has found the cash to buy desperately needed new fighters for its air force. As the years went by Russian air force generals pointed out that the Cold War era MiG-28s and Su-27s were falling further behind the regularly upgraded Western fighters. Finally new Russian fighters began arriving in 2013 when the first of 60 Su-30SM fighter bombers entered service. Before the first Su-30SM order Russia had only eleven Su-30s in service, far fewer than China and India. All Russia could afford until 2013 was the older Su-27. Russia has sent Su-30SMs to Syria where they are gaining valuable combat experience and are, so far, holding up well. The Su-35S, which spent two decades in development and was delayed by repeated problems with new technology (electronics and engines). This delayed delivery of aircraft reliable enough for regular combat until early 2016. Thus the Su-35S is now being put to the test with four recently arriving in. The Su-30SM is a Russian Air Force version of the Su-30MKI that has been exported (to India, Algeria, and Malaysia) since 2002. It is a two-seat jet fighter-bomber similar to the American F-15E. Since the early 1990s Russian defense manufacturers have survived on exports. The Russian military halted most equipment purchases after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. That collapse was largely due to financial and economic mismanagement by the communist government. The Soviet Union was, literally, bankrupt and it took most of the 1990s to sort it all out. After 2000 the Russian military gradually resumed buying. Initially, the armed forces could not afford the best stuff (like the Su-30MKI). That gradually changed and now the Russian military is catching up. The Su-30SM is the first Su-30 model for the Russian Air Force that uses thrust vectoring (the ability of the engine to direct its exhaust a bit and enhance maneuverability). The Su-30MKI, even though equipped with Western electronics, costs less than $50 million each, about half of what an equivalent F-15 costs. The Russian version will have Russian electronics and other Russian made gear but otherwise be nearly identical to the Su-30MKI. The Su-30MKI/SM each weigh about 38 tons and each can carry more than eight tons of bombs and hit targets over 1,500 kilometers away. The Su-30SM is able to use a large range of missiles and smart bombs. The Su-35 is a 34 ton fighter that is more maneuverable than the original, 33 ton, Su-27, and has much better electronics. The Su-35 began in the late 1980s as a customized (for more maneuverability) version of the Su-27. Development continued the resulted in the Su-35, an aircraft that can cruise at above the speed of sound. It also costs at least fifty percent more than the Su-27. That would be some $60 million (for a barebones model), about what a top-of-the-line F-16 costs. The Su-27 was originally developed to match the F-15, which is larger than the single engine F-16. The larger size of the Su-27/35 allows designers to do a lot more with it in terms of modifications and enhancements. The Su-35 has some stealth capabilities (or at least be less detectable to most fighter aircraft radars). Russia claims the Su-35 has a useful life of 6,000 flight hours and engines good for 4,000 hours. Russia provides world-class avionics, plus a very pilot-friendly cockpit. The use of many thrusters and fly-by-wire produced an aircraft even more maneuverable than Su-30s (which were Su-27s tweaked to be extremely agile). The Su-35 was in development for two decades before it was declared ready for production in 2005. But even then there were problems with the new engines that gave it its superior performance. Russia says the engine problems are solved, but only time will tell if that is true. The Su-35 is not meant to be a direct rival for the F-22 because the Russian aircraft is not nearly as stealthy. The Su-35 carries a 30mm autocannon (with 150 rounds) and up to eight tons of munitions, hanging from 12 hard points. This reduces stealthiness, which the F-22 and F-35 get around by using an internal bay for bombs and missiles. But if the maneuverability and advanced electronics of the proposed Su-35 live up to the promises, the aircraft would be more than a match for every fighter out there except the F-22. Since the Su-35 is to sell for well under $100 million each, there should be a lot of buyers. Russia still has a smaller force of modern fighters than China and India (who could afford the most modern Russian warplanes) and far behind the United States. Whether or not Russia catches up soon depends, as it did throughout the Cold War, money. Taiwan believes that since 2009 China has maintained a force of at least 1,400 ballistic missiles aimed at them. That's up from 200 in 2000, 800 in 2004 and 1,300 in 2008. Most of these are Dong Feng DF-11 and DF-15 models. The DF11 (also known as the M11) has a range of 300 kilometers and carries a one ton warhead. The DF15 (M9) has a range of 600 kilometers and carries a half ton warhead. From the Chinese coast, to targets in Taiwan, it's about 200-300 kilometers across the Taiwan Straits. In addition to the ballistic missiled there are also over a thousand Chinese warplanes and over 100,000 troops (including several brigades of paratroopers) available for an attack on the island. The missiles would use high explosive or cluster bomb warheads, and would basically be bombs that could not be stopped. Well, that's not exactly the case. Taiwan is investing in an anti-missile system that would negate a large number of the Chinese missiles. If used, perhaps 75 percent of the missiles would actually hit their target. The others would suffer failures in propulsion or guidance systems. Each missile is the equivalent of a half-ton or one ton aircraft bomb. But currently, the missiles have primitive guidance systems, meaning that the warheads will usually hit up to 500 meters from the target. The Chinese are believed to be equipping the missiles with GPS, although the Taiwanese can jam this. Guidance systems that are more difficult to jam are in the works, as this technology has been much sought after by Chinese spies in the United States over the last few years. Since 2010 China has also been increasing its missile forces aimed at American and Japanese forces in the region. Japan would simply have several hundred ballistic missiles moved to parts of China close enough for these missiles to hit Japanese military bases. Crippling American forces in the west Pacific was another matter especially since the Chinese dont want to use nukes, or pay a lot more for hundreds of expensive longer range ballistic missiles carrying high-explosive, instead of nuclear, warheads. Another problem was the American fleet. But by 2013, after a decade of effort, American naval intelligence believed China had developed a working version of a ballistic missile that could hit a moving aircraft carrier. This is the DF-21D. The basic DF-21 is a 15 ton, two stage, solid fuel missile that is 10.7 meters (35 feet) long and 140cm (4.6 feet) in diameter. Range varies (from 1,700-3,000 kilometers) depending on model. The DF-21D is believed to have a range of 1,500-2,000 kilometers. While the 500-2,000 kg (.5-2 ton) warhead usually contains a nuclear weapon, there are also several types of conventional warheads, including one designed for use against warships. Some of these conventional warheads are for use against targets in Taiwan. This is because the DF-21, as a longer range ballistic missile that comes down on the target faster than the shorter range ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan. That means that the DS-21 is too fast for the Pac-3 anti-missile missiles Taiwan is installing around crucial installations. Until 2013 there was no evidence that the complete DF-21D system had been tested. But in 2013 satellite photos showed a 200 meter long white rectangle in the Gobi Desert (in Western China) with two large craters in it. This would appear to be a target for testing the DF-21D, and two of the inert practice warheads appear to have hit the target. American carriers are over 300 meters long, although the smaller carriers (amphibious ships with helicopter decks) are closer to 200 meters long. It appears China is planning on using the DF-21D against smaller warships, or perhaps they just wanted to see exactly how accurate the missile could be. Between 2010 and 2013 various components of the DF-21D were tested, but until these satellite photos showed up there was no evidence that there had been any tests of the complete system against a carrier size target. Since 2011 there have been photos of DF-21Ds on TELs (transporter erector launcher vehicles), and announcements of the first units activated in 2010. Then in 2013 came some tests. What has not been done at that point was a dress rehearsal test against a large ship (an old tanker or container ship would do) at sea and moving. That has yet to happen. But DF-21Ds on TELs were publicaly displayed in a September 2015 parade. Meanwhile, China has three "remote sensing" satellites in orbit, moving in formation at an altitude of 600 kilometers across the Pacific. Equipped with either radar (SAR or synthetic aperture radar) or digital cameras, these three birds can scan the ocean for ships, even though the Chinese say their purpose is purely scientific. A typical SAR can produce photo quality images at different resolutions. At medium resolution (3 meters) the radar covers an area 40x40 kilometers. Low resolution (20 meters) covers 100x100 kilometers. This three satellite Chinese posse looks suspiciously like a military ocean surveillance system. This is the missing link for the Chinese ballistic missile system designed to attack American aircraft carriers. China has been developing the DF-21D, or key components of it, since about 2001. Most of the development effort was devoted to targeting systems that would enable them to seek out and find aircraft carriers. On the DF-21D warhead itself, sensors would use infrared (heat seeking) technology for their final approach. This sort of thing had been discussed for decades, but China appears to have put together tactics, sensors, and missile systems that can make this all happen. The key was having multiple sensor systems which would include satellites, submarines, or maritime patrol aircraft that could find the general location of the carrier before launching the ballistic missile. Those sensors appear to be operational, as is the DF-21D itself. In the West Bank the knife terrorism campaign organized by the local leadership (Fatah) continues. This is all about making the corrupt and incompetent Fatah more popular in the West Bank but opinion polls show that many (but not most) Palestinians would vote for Hamas if elections were held right now. Moreover polls show enthusiasm for the knife terrorism campaign is waning. While Hamas is hated by the people of Gaza, West Bank Palestinians dont experience Hamas cruelty daily while they do endure the corrupt and inept rule of Fatah. The Fatah pro-terror media campaign has distracted many Palestinians from their problems with Fatah but also convinced many that Israel is refusing to negotiate peace when in fact it is the Palestinians who turned down two peace deals in the 1990s and instead tried terror campaigns to get more. Both of these intifadas failed and Fatah has sold the illusion that the third intifada (the knife intifada) will succeed. It isnt and that is one reason Hamas has not gotten involved. Since 2000 Palestinian media constantly pushed the idea that Israel has no right to exist and must be destroyed. Palestinians who disagree with this must either emigrate or keep silent. For most Palestinians it is easier to simply praise the knife until it all blows over. The knife terrorism campaign has, since September, left 27 Israelis (and one American) dead and over 250 wounded. But 170 Palestinians have died (65 percent of them while attacking). Palestinian media depicts unsuccessful attacks that result in attackers being killed or wounded as Israeli attacks against random (and innocent) Palestinians. Over all the knife terrorism does nothing for the Palestinians except increase their poverty and Fatah propaganda about how glorious it is to die. Fatah and Hamas are holding another round of unifications talks in Qatar during February but there is still no agreement. Meanwhile Fatah leaders announced that they would never negotiate with Israel again. At the same time Hamas officially (via diplomats from major Moslem nations like Turkey) let Israel know that Hamas was not planning any major attacks and was not joining in the Fatah sponsored knife terrorism campaign in the West Bank. Hamas could not say this itself because it has to pretend to be mobilizing for war with Israel and constantly supporting like-minded groups. Hamas is still doing the supporting and many Islamic terrorist groups have sanctuary inside Gaza. While not technically a violation of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas it is seen as a way for Hamas to facilitate attacks against Israel without having to take responsibility. Both Israel and Egypt disagree which is why Gaza remains largely inaccessible because of the blockade Egypt and Israel enforce. In Gaza Hamas is believed to have over a thousand men working on new attack tunnels into Israel. So far this year at least a dozen Hamas men have died because tunnel collapses brought on by heavy rains. Much of the work involves rebuilding a combat tunnels destroyed by Israel during the mid-2014 50 Day War. Fatah accused Hamas of wasting the lives of their members working on tunnels, especially the ones used mainly for smuggling goods (which Hamas taxes heavily). Israelis living near the Gaza border complain that they can sometimes hear (or feel) Hamas tunnel building efforts. In 2014 the Israeli military said they would erect a detection system to locate new tunnels so they could be destroyed. The detection system has been delayed because of defense spending cuts but now the government says the detection system is coming soon. There is some urgency to this because Hamas is admitting that it has to do something spectacular to divert the Gaza population from the miserable economic situation Hamas has caused. By continuing to shelter Islamic terror groups that keep firing rockets into Israel (in violation of the ceasefire deal with Hamas) Israel keeps limiting access to Gaza. Israel believes that Hamas will again be extending its tunnels into Israel and growing pressure Hamas is under means Israel has to deploy the new tunnel detection sensors quickly. By providing sanctuary to Islamic terror groups that operate in Egypt Hamas has made an enemy of Egypt. Thus since 2012 Egypt has been limiting the ability of Gaza residents to enter or leave Gaza via Egypt. Worse, the Egyptians have gone after the smuggling tunnels. The most successful tactic has been filling the smuggling tunnels with water. This began in 2013 when the Egyptians dug small canals for seawater that could then be pumped into tunnels discovered. It was eventually found that flooding permanently destroyed the tunnel better than any other method because it caused the sandy soil in the area to collapse and remain unstable. It is believed that only about twenty tunnels are still operating and every week several of those are discovered and flooded. The army engineers have learned that you have to not only flood the tunnels but keep flooding them because the Palestinians can obtain pumps to remove the water and repair the damage. But if you keep the tunnel flooded long enough it collapses and has to be rebuilt as if there were never a tunnel there in the first place. Egypt has also created a buffer zone along the border by moving Egyptians out and destroying all buildings. This means tunnels from Gaza now have to be over a kilometer long and deeper as well to evade detection. To make matters worse Egyptian police watch buildings within a few kilometers of the Gaza border for signs of a tunnel entrance. The police are less likely to take bribes from smuggling tunnel operators because Gaza based Islamic terrorists have killed a lot of Egyptian police and soldiers in the last few years. Hamas publicizes its preparations for another war with Israel. Hamas believes that if they can inflict enough damage on Israel by killing or capturing soldiers and civilians they can prompt Moslem and Western countries to pressure Israel to allow more access to Gaza and send more aid. Hamas also hopes that Israel bombs and ground forces do enough damage inside Gaza to allow Hamas to get away with portraying itself as a victim and again persuading other nations to help. This will be difficult because the Arab donors no longer trust Hamas (or Fatah either) and are put off by the recent Iranian announcement that it was still subsidizing Hamas, which has run Gaza and its 1.5 million Palestinians since 2005. Iran has supported Hamas early on. There were recently more rumors that Iran had stopped supporting Hamas. Iran had decreased its support, in large part because of the sanctions and low oil prices but never cut off Hamas completely. Although Sunni Hamas sometimes persecutes Shia, Iran supports energetic Hamas efforts to attack Israel. Hamas also supports Islamic terrorists active in Egypt and that has turned Egypt completely against Hamas and helped put Egypt firmly into the anti-Iran Sunni coalition. The Iran link makes Hamas an enemy as far as most Sunni Moslem nations are concerned. Hamas has made a lot of bad decisions since 2005 and the Iran link is seen as one of the worst. In response to Arab states who have cut aid to Gaza and the West Bank Palestinian leaders have quietly told the reluctant Arab donors that if they do not increase aid there will be violent Palestinian protests (in Gaza, West Bank and Jerusalem) against the Arab donors as well as Israel. These Arab donors (mainly Gulf oil states like Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait) have lost patience with the Palestinians and not only cut donor aid (which was being stolen or misused by corrupt Palestinian leaders) but also openly allied themselves with Israel against Iran. The Arab world still technically backs the Palestinians and their effort to destroy Israel but have lost confidence in the Palestinians. Israel recently revealed that in the last few months it has been subject to a growing number of Internet based attacks from Iran. Some of the attacks were serious but Israel would not reveal the extent of the damage done and much about these attacks is still under investigation. While Israel has some of the best Internet defenses on the planet, many of the recent Iranian attacks relied more on psychology than software skill. This method of attack is known as spear fishing (phishing as hackers spell it). Spear fishing is a fishing operation where targets are carefully chosen and researched before putting together the attack. Despite the Israeli Defense Ministry having software and user rules in place to block spear fishing attacks there are so many email accounts to attack and you only have to get one victim to respond to a bogus email with a vital attachment that must be opened immediately. Among the targets for these attacks were over a thousand active duty and retired generals as well as senior civilian officials in the government and the Internet security industry. Despite this recent Iranian activity the Internet based attacks on Israel were down in 2015. Israel Cyber War experts still believe that Israel has a considerable edge in technology over the rest of the world. Israel continues to openly proclaim that their main priority in Syria is eliminating the Iranian presence. When pressed Israeli officials admit that this means preferring an Islamic terrorist group, even ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) running Syria if that meant Iran was gone. To Israel Iran is a more formidable threat than any Sunni Islamic terrorist group. On the plus side Israel believes the Russian intervention in Syria will, in the short term, lessen the possibility that Iran backed Hezbollah in southern Lebanon will start another war with Israel. A growing number of Israelis believe that Syria cannot be saved as a unified state but that peace will come only when Syria is partitioned. This is anathema to most Arabs and some are already accusing Israel of working on some secret scheme to make partition happen. Israeli leaders openly admit that they doubt Hezbollah (in Lebanon) or Hamas (in Gaza) will start another war with Israel in 2016, but beyond that there is still a major threat from these two groups. Both Israel and Russia have come to an understanding that they will not get in each others way in Syria and that deal seems to be working. In Egypt the Islamic terrorism is declining but not disappearing. A massive military presence in northern Sinai (near Gaza) has largely suppressed (but not eliminated) the Islamic radical groups that have long thrived up there. Yet there are still Islamic terror attacks every week. Most now occur in the more populated parts of Egypt along the Nile River. In 2015 138 police were killed in Islamic terrorist violence. But most of the dead since the military staged a coup in mid-2013 have been soldiers, civilians and Islamic terrorists. Security forces are still arresting several hundred people a week. Most are quickly released, some are prosecuted and some are simply never heard from again. In 2014 a former general ran for president and won but Egypt is again the police state it was before the 2011 revolution. And as with the pre-2011 Mubarak dictatorship the current government has largely eliminated large-scale demonstrations and is concentrating on Islamic terrorist groups, which the Mubarak government fought and defeated in the 1990s. The economy is worse than it was under Mubarak and at least the government is paying more attention to that. February 17, 2016: Israeli warplanes fired three missiles at a Syrian army base south of Damascus. This created more explosions as ammunition and explosives exploded as well. This was the first such attack in 2016 and there were several in 2015. Israeli warplanes have made dozens of attacks in Syria since 2013, several of them to destroy Russian weapons being moved to Lebanon (by Hezbollah) and all to prevent more violence against Israel. February 8, 2016: Hamas denied Israeli accusations that Islamic terrorists wounded in Egypt, including members of ISIL, have been treated in Gaza hospitals. Many Palestinians who have left Gaza confirm that Hamas has long supported other Islamic terror groups and that includes treating wounded holy warriors. February 7, 2016: In Gaza a senior Hamas military leader (Mahmoud Eshtewi) was executed after confessing to spying for Israel. Eshtewi admitted that he supplied Israel with information about where the most senior Hamas military commander (Mohammed Deif) was during the mid-2014 50 Day War with Israel. The subsequent Israeli missile attack wounded Deif and killed his wife and child and other Hamas personnel. A year later Israel confirmed that Deif was still alive and hiding in Gaza. Israel considered Mohammed Deif a mass murderer and have been after him since the 1990s. Apparently Eshtewi was able to contact Israel (or was contacted) and obtained a high enough price to sell out Deif. Exactly how Eshtewi was found out is unclear and this was very embarrassing for Hamas as Eshtewi was a Hamas member since the 1990s but was quickly suspected of being the informant and was arrested in January 2015. January 31, 2016: In Gaza Hamas held a military parade to commemorate the many Hamas members killed or injured in the last month building or repairing tunnels. Part of the parade featured a captured Israeli Merkava tank. The tank seemed real from a distance but if you got closer (as many cell phone photos did) you could see that it was a fake. The tank was a realistic shell of a Merkava mounted on a truck. Up close you could see the truck wheels underneath the tank. At the same time Fatah officials were admitting that since the knife terrorism began in September 2015 Palestinian security forces had disrupted 200 attacks on Palestinians and arrested over a hundred Palestinians in the process. Hamas publicized this admission mainly because this Fatah cooperation with Israel only occurs when Fatah is going after Hamas members in the West Bank. Fatah has always maintained some cooperation (or collaboration as Hamas would put it) with Israel in order to keep Palestinian security forces from being outlawed and destroyed by the Israelis. 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 Su-35 Goes To War And Mass Production by James Dunnigan February 18, 2016 At the end of 2015 the Russian Air Force ordered fifty Su-35S fighter bombers. It will take until 2020 to deliver all of them. This follows a 2013 for 24 Su-34Ss, an aircraft that first flew in 2011. The Russian Air Force has already received some of the original order for 40. Russia is pushing this as an export and expects to sell 160 to foreign customers. For that reason four Su-35Ss were sent to Syria to become combat proven. The S indicates the production model, which incorporates the latest features and modifications. The Su-35 is a 34 ton fighter that is more maneuverable than the original, 33 ton, Su-27, and has much better electronics. It can cruise at above the speed of sound. It also costs at least fifty percent more than the Su-27. That would be some $60 million (for a barebones model), about what a top-of-the-line F-16 costs. The Su-27 was originally developed to match the F-15, which is larger than the single engine F-16. The larger size of the Su-27/35 allows designers to do a lot more with it in terms of modifications and enhancements. The Su-35 has some stealth capabilities (or at least be less detectable to most fighter aircraft radars). Russia claims the Su-35 has a useful life of 6,000 flight hours and engines good for 4,000 hours. Russia provides world-class avionics, plus a very pilot-friendly cockpit. The use of many thrusters and fly-by-wire produced an aircraft even more maneuverable than Su-30s (which were Su-27s tweaked to be extremely agile). The Su-35 was in development for two decades before it was declared ready for production in 2005. But even then there were problems with the new engines that gave it its superior performance. Russia says the engine problems are solved, but only time will tell if that is true. The Su-35 is not meant to be a direct rival for the F-22 because the Russian aircraft is not nearly as stealthy. The Su-35 carries a 30mm autocannon (with 150 rounds) and up to eight tons of munitions, hanging from 12 hard points. This reduces stealthiness, which the F-22 and F-35 get around by using an internal bay for bombs and missiles. But if the maneuverability and advanced electronics of the proposed Su-35 live up to the promises, the aircraft would be more than a match for every fighter out there except the F-22. Since the Su-35 is to sell for well under $100 million each, there should be a lot of buyers. In January 2016 Thailand ordered a second locally built OPV (Offshore Patrol Vessel). The first of these 2,500 ton River class ships entered Thai service in 2013. Built in Thailand, the new OPV should enter service by 2019. The first River class OPV performed so well that Thailand now plans to build as many as six. This ships cost about $80 million each. The River class OPVs are a British design built locally under license and with some foreign technical assistance. This is seen as a way to improve Thailands shipbuilding capability. The Thais worked with British shipbuilder BAE to develop modified version of the original River class ships. Britain was the first user of these ships and four entered service between 2002 and 2006. These corvette size ships will be used by Thailand to patrol coastal waters and to protect fishing grounds and offshore oil fields. These are 90.5 meter (281 foot) long ships displacing 2,500 tons. They carry a crew of 36 (with accommodations for up to 70) and are armed with one 30mm remotely controlled autocannon or a 76mm gun plus 2 smaller 25mm or 30mm autocannon (one on each side). Buyers can equip these ships with a wide variety of sensors and electronics and install all sorts of options. There is a landing deck in the rear for a helicopter (of up to 7 tons) or six 20 foot cargo containers (containing supplies or equipment). Top speed is 45 kilometers an hour and cruising speed is 12 kilometers an hour. Endurance is about 5 weeks. 2 speedboats are usually carried, along with a 16 ton crane. The ship can be rigged to carry 50 infantry. Brazil bought 3 of these OPVs from Britain, with the option to build 5 more in Brazil. The rebels are losing but the government forces and their Arab allies are willing to take their time and limit their casualties. This is necessary because the Shia rebels are too effective as fighters, especially in the northern mountains they come from, for the Saudis to win quickly at an acceptable (in terms of their own casualties) cost. Whenever or however this war ends there will be some unpleasant side-effects. For one thing the Saudis will still have a needy (of Arab oil state charity) southern neighbor. On the plus side Saudi archenemy Iran will have suffered a very public loss. In the north (Jawf province) pro-government Sunni and rebel Shia tribes continue fighting for control of territory and the pro-government Sunni forces continue winning. Since the Sunni tribes gained air support from the Arab coalition and access to training and supplies (weapons, ammo, medical) in early 2015 they have been able to drive Shia tribesmen out of most of Jawf. To the west of Jawf is Saada province, the Shia tribal homeland. North of Jawf is Saudi Arabia. Going into Saada will be a much more difficult fight but the Sunni tribes want revenge for several years of heavy fighting with the Shia. So far this year the Shia resistance has been more determined but the pro-government forces are still taking back control of towns and areas containing key roads. The UN sponsored peace talks, begun in December and scheduled to resume in January are stalled. This comes after a December 15-January 2 ceasefire deal was regularly violated by both sides. Discussions to resume the peace talks Both AQAP (Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) and ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) are thriving despite efforts by the U.S. to track and attack Islamic terrorist leaders from the air. Since late 2014 AQAP has controlled he southeastern the port of Mukalla and much of the surrounding Hadramawt province. ISIL is scattered in remote locations or urban bases in Aden. This reflects the different strategies of the two groups AQAP believes in slowly expanding while ISIL favors aggressive attacks and boldness. Neither approach has had much success in over a thousand years of use but both remain popular with Islamic radicals. Over 7,000 people have died in the Yemen fighting since March 2015 and about half of them have been civilians. This includes nearly 400 people (most of them civilians) killed just across the border in Saudi Arabia by rebel mortar, rocket and gun fire. This sort of thing happens several times a week and is often quite intense. The fighting and general chaos made it difficult for foreign aid groups to get needed food and medical supplies to rebel controlled areas where Yemenis are most in need of such aid. The Arab Coalition nations are making a large and very public effort to obtain the needed aid and quickly get it to the ten million Yemenis who need it the most. This has created problems with UN controlled (or sponsored) aid groups. While the Arab aid groups work closely with the local and coalition forces to avoid getting fired on, the UN aid groups often do not and some insist that any interference with their aid operations is illegal and possibly a war crime. Saudi Arabia told the UN very publicly that all aid groups must proceed with caution and coordinate with government forces to avoid getting shot at. At the same time the government and Arab coalition consider it collaboration (with the enemy) when foreign aid operations take place within rebel controlled areas. The UN, and foreign aid groups in general, do not agree with this and it is a growing problem worldwide. All this is made worse by the fact that many warring groups force aid groups to supply rebel operations and keep quiet about fighters hiding out in aid facilities (like hospitals or refugee camps). Many aid workers feel a responsibility to try and halt the fighting any way they can and that often includes reporting bombings, artillery or gunfire that kills civilians as a war crime even when it isnt. This makes many aid groups suspect as far as government and rebel forces are concerned. The UN is trying to get donor nations to provide $1.8 billion to pay for UN supervised aid for Yemen during 2016. The UN is facing increasing resistance from donor nations because of corruption and growing instances of aid ending up under the control of one armed group or another instead of the civilians who desperately need it. The UN estimates that about 80 percent of Yemenis are in need of aid. The Iran Angle The Saudis and the other Gulf Arab states are mainly concerned with Iranian aggression. Iran has made it very clear that they believe they should control the Moslem holy places in Saudi Arabia and be the dominant military and political power in the region. That means having a veto over Arab diplomatic moves and generally returning to their ancient role of regional superpower. The Gulf Arabs are very hostile to this sort of thing but reluctant to go to war over it because the Iranians have an impressive history of battlefield victories. In response the Sunni Arab states tried to use Islamic terrorist groups as a weapon against the Shia threat. Thus Yemeni Shia rebels blame the Sunni Gulf Arabs of supporting al Qaeda in Yemen. This Islamic terrorist group has always been very hostile towards Shia and the growth of al Qaeda in Yemen was a primary reason for the Yemeni Shia rebelling in the first place. There is some truth to the Yemeni Shia accusations as many Sunni Gulf Arabs do support al Qaeda and have long provided cash donations and recruits. This terrorist support is not government policy with these Gulf States although some Gulf Arab states, like Qatar, have actively supported Islamic terrorist rebels in Libya and Syria. There is a lot of popular support for Islamic terrorism among Sunni and Shia as it is common to believe that the non-Moslem world is always actively at war with the Islam and Islamic terrorists are the only effective weapon to strike back with. This sounds absurd to non-Moslems, especially Westerners. Arab diplomats insist that there is no such terrorist support in Moslem nations. But anyone perusing Arab language media immediately sees this support and some of it even shows up in English language versions of Arab media. That despite the fact that the Arab editors of the English language news outlets know that the Arab support for Islamic terrorism is not acceptable to Western audiences and try to remove it from the English language sites. The Iranians understand all this, as do other non-Moslems (like Indians) who have lived next to Moslems for a long time. So when the Yemeni Shia complain of Gulf Arab Sunni support for al Qaeda in Yemen it has a different meaning to other Moslems (who take it as fact) and Westerners (who dismiss it as a paranoid delusion). Iran understands that Yemen is far more important to the Gulf Arabs than to Iran. Moreover the Yemeni Shia have never been dependent on Iran like those in Lebanon (Hezbollah), Iraq or Syria. Control (or substantial influence) in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon give Iran a land route to their declared main foe; Israel. The Saudi royals and Arabs in general are secondary to the Iranian official hatred of Israel. The Iranian threat to the Arab states in the region, especially those with oil, is of more immediate concern for the Arabs and the main reason why Arabs have openly become allies with Israel against Iran. This complex web of opportunities and capabilities means Yemen is basically a sideshow where winning is not the highest priority for Iran or Arabs. Both the Arabs and Iran have an interest in shutting down the Sunni Islamic terrorists in Yemen because these cutthroats see both Arab rulers and Shia in general as prime candidates for elimination. February 17, 2016: In the south (Aden) an ISIL suicide bomber wearing an army uniform killed 14 soldiers at the entrance to a military base. Islamic terrorists are having a more difficult time organizing and carrying out bombing attacks like this and so far this year most of the Islamic terrorist violence in government controlled areas has been assassinations and ambushes. President Hadi revealed that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah sent him a latter in which he admitted that Hezbollah members were operating in Yemen but only to help the Shia rebels govern the areas they had taken control of. This is no surprise. Back in May 2015 Saudi Arabia sanctioned two Hezbollah leaders because the Saudis were certain that Hezbollah had personnel in Yemen aiding the Shia rebels. The Saudis long supported Hezbollah (more in words than in deeds) because Hezbollah was in direct contact with Israel, which all Arab states still officially consider the enemy. February 16, 2016: In the southwest (Taiz) pro-government forces finally pushed Shia rebels away from Taiz city. It is believed that the rebel forces were actually ordered to move back the help defend Sanaa, the national capital that is under increasing threat from government forces. For six months Shia rebels remained outside Taiz city and made it very difficult to get supplies to civilians and pro-government forces in the city. For the last few months it was believed that the Shia resistance wouldnt last much longer because Shia strength in the province and territory held has been gradually shrinking since August 2015. The Arab air strikes have been constant and pro-government tribes cut access to rebel held bases outside Taiz. But the Shia resistance continued in Taiz because the province has a lengthy Red Sea coastline which enabled smugglers to bring in weapons and other aid for the Shia rebels even though the rebels gradually lost control of most of the Taiz coast. This made smuggling operations along the Red Sea coast more difficult but obviously not impossible. There are Red Sea smugglers who will (for a much larger fee) get stuff in although the naval patrols have become more intense in an effort to halt all aid to the rebels. Over 1,500 civilians have died in the city so far. February 11, 2016: Government forces captured two army bases outside Sanaa and are now 30 kilometers from the capital. These moves also cut off rebel access to a main road to Marib province. Saudi Arabia detained a cargo ship carrying UN aid for Yemen. Saudi inspectors say they found four cargo containers containing computer and communications equipment that was not declared and is considered suspicious because this gear can also be used for military purposes and would be useful to the Shia rebels. February 9, 2016: In the south (Aden) government forces fought AQAP gunmen in the residential area (Mansoura) for several hours leaving several people dead. Inside Aden the growing number of AQAP men has enabled the Islamic terrorists to take control of some neighborhoods. The government has been trying to clear AQAP held neighborhoods but there is not enough manpower right now to complete the job because most government forces are up north fighting the Shia rebels in the capital. February 4, 2016: In the south (Abyan province) a senior AQAP commander and two associates were killed by missiles from an American UAV. The AQAP leader had a $5 million price on his head. This was the third such UAV attack in Yemen this year. February 1, 2016: The rebels launched another ballistic missile at a target in southwest Saudi Arabia but the missile was shot down. A day later Saudi warplanes found and destroyed the launcher for this missile, which was outside Sanaa. The Saudis were particularly annoyed at the Shia continuing to fire ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia. None of these missiles hit anything of value mainly because Saudi anti-missile systems (U.S. Patriot PAC-3 missiles) were able to shoot down missiles that were headed for a populated area. On the Saudi border Shia rebels fired over a hundred mortar shells and at least 15 short range rockets into Saudi Arabia. More news, no ads Wellesbourne Airfield For more reaction and pictures from the evening, see Thursday's Herald. Were YOU in the audience? Call us on 01789 412819 or e-mail news@stratford-herald.com Wellesbourne Airfield Applications to the Commissioners Grant Scheme were oversubscribed and bids for funding were evaluated and scored against set criteria to determine their eligibility and suitability before a final list was determined. Some of the successful projects receiving a share of the funding include: a Crimestoppers anti-crime initiative. Neighbourhood Watch. Barnardos for its work in supporting vulnerable victims of child sexual exploitation; Street Pastor schemes. projects to help victims of domestic abuse. All of the initiatives being supported are required to submit a detailed quarterly review to the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner to ensure that the expected outcomes are being delivered. Ron Ball, Police and Crime Commissioner for Warwickshire said: This is the third year I have been able to provide funding for strong and innovative community-based initiatives which help to tackle crime and disorder in Warwickshire. I am delighted to be supporting these projects through the grant scheme. Many of the schemes funded are designed to reduce re-offending and prevent crime from being committed in the first place, which ultimately is a much better and cost-effective way of using public money to enhance the quality of life across Warwickshire. Community organisations play a big part in this and are very often well-placed to deliver innovative schemes which address local needs and concerns, so I am pleased to see a mix of such projects receiving funding. An additional 400,000 fund to tackle rural, business and cyber crime is also being finalised and will be announced separately in due course. This blog belongs to a woman with lots to say on everything under the sun. Wellesbourne Airfield Staff at Warwickshire County Record Office will work with the students and residents to help record the results. Rob Eyre, senior archivist at the record office, which is leading the partnership with Orbit, on behalf of Heritage and Culture Warwickshire (HCW), said: We think the project is a tremendous opportunity to add to the rich variety of stories already on the website. Our Warwickshire is a fantastic chance for people to share their stories with others. We are hoping that people will come along and tell us their memories, that can be anything from visiting the market in years gone by, their school years, or even significant events they remember. The website will enable people to explore the countys cultural identity, tell their stories about Warwickshire people, places, landscapes and events and will become a virtual gateway to the countys rich and diverse cultural heritage. Simon Lieberman, community investment manager at Orbit added: This project provides a fantastic opportunity to meet new people as well as develop digital skills online. We hope that everyone involved will benefit from the opportunities this project brings to increase their social circle and continue to use the internet long after it ends. The project marks the beginning of a period of significant change for HCW, including transforming Market Hall Museum, in Warwick, into a cultural hub for the countys heritage. Free refreshments will be provided at the event. For more information visit www.ourwarwickshire.org.uk Traders point out that the Wells Fargo analyst that put the Sell rating on Valeant Pharma (NYSE: VRX) this morning has a long, strange history with the stock. The analyst in question, David Maris, was fired at Bank of America almost a decade ago after rightly pointing out wrong-doing at Biovail in 2003. Biovail was later acquired by Valeant. At the time, Maris pointed out the absurdity of Biovail blaming an earnings miss on a truck crash that was carrying a large quantity of its drugs. This led to Biovail filing a lawsuit against Maris, Bank of America, SAC Capital and Gradient Analytics, claiming a conspiracy to drive down its stock price. However, it was Biovail and its management perpetrating the fraud which led to an eventual settlement with the SEC. The lawsuit was eventually dropped, but after initially sticking by Maris, Bank of America fired him at the end of 2006. Bank of America claimed the firing of Maris had nothing to do with the Biovail situation. You can read about the strange case at DealBook. Shares of VRX are down 6.3% today to $88.07. A worker walks past a pump jack on an oil field owned by Bashneft company near the village of Nikolo-Berezovka, northwest from Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia, in this January 28, 2015 file photo. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin/Files By Barani Krishnan NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices fell 4 percent on Friday, with Brent down a third straight week, as record high U.S. crude stockpiles intensified worries that a plan to freeze world output will do little or nothing to reduce massive oil supplies already in the market. A slide in the U.S. equity markets, which have for weeks been trading in tandem with oil, also weighed on crude, traders said. [.N] Brent crude settled $1.27, or 3.7 percent, lower at $33.01 a barrel. U.S. crude lost $1.13, also finishing 3.7 percent lower at $29.64. Even data from industry firm Baker Hughes showing the U.S. oil rig count at its lowest since December 2009 after nine straight weeks of declines failed to lift crude prices. [RIG/U] Brent finished the week down 1 percent while U.S. crude ended flat after a particularly volatile week for oil, where prices fell and rose as much as 5 percent in a day. Oil has shed 70 percent from highs above $100 a barrel in a selloff that has seen little pause over the past 20 months. Since last Friday though, some traders believed the market had seen a bottom on talk that OPEC was on a plan to reign in production. This week, Saudi Arabia, the lynchpin of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, along with Qatar and Venezuela, and non-OPEC member Russia, proposed to freeze output at January's highs. Iran, the main stumbling block to any production control due to its zeal to recapture market share lost to sanctions, welcomed the plan without commitment. Iraq was also non-committal. U.S. government data on Thursday meanwhile showed crude inventories rose 2.1 million barrels to a new peak of 504.1 million last week, overshadowing the output freeze proposed by the producers.[EIA/S] "There's a stark contrast between a freeze and a cut and the continued U.S. inventory builds will show the ineffectiveness of any production caps," said Pete Donovan, crude broker at New York's Liquidity Energy. Analysts are generally of the view that U.S. stockpiles will rise amid seasonal spring refinery maintenance works. Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi will deliver a keynote on Tuesday at the annual IHS CERAWeek conference in Houston, his first public appearance in the U.S. since the kingdom OPEC's shock decision in November 2014 to keep heavily pumping oil even though mounting oversupply was already sending prices into free-fall. On the positive side, U.S. shale producers, for the first time in months, were placing new hedges to lock in 2017 prices at around $45 a barrel, prompting price recovery at the back end of the U.S. crude futures curve. Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a note that if the output freeze worked and gasoline fuel prices remained affordable, oil should rise to $47 a barrel by June. (Additional reporting by Ahmad Ghaddar in London; Editing by Marguerita Choy) The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) today announced that it plans to grant additional territories to Swire Coca-Cola, USA, including the cities of Seattle, Spokane, Wash., Portland, Ore., and a wide area of the Pacific Northwest. Swire Coca-Cola, USA, a subsidiary of Swire Pacific Limiteds Beverages Division, has signed a letter of intent with The Coca-Cola Company for Swire to expand its existing territories in the United States to include parts of Washington, Idaho and Oregon and to acquire cold-fill production facilities in Bellevue, Wash., near Seattle, and in Wilsonville, Ore., near Portland. The letter of intent is part of Coca-Cola North Americas ongoing and accelerated implementation of a 21st Century Beverage Partnership Model, a broad initiative aimed at building on system capabilities to sustain success. We are delighted to sign this letter of intent with The Coca-Cola Company, said Jack Pelo, President and CEO, Swire Coca-Cola, USA. This latest grant of additional territory rights, following on from the agreements to expand our territories in Colorado and Arizona, underscores the important role Swire is playing in The Coca-Cola Companys refranchising initiatives in North America. Swire is a great partner, and we are excited at this proposed further expansion of their U.S. territories in the Coca-Cola system, said J. Alexander Sandy Douglas Jr., President, Coca-Cola North America. Were also pleased that the overall refranchising process is going very well in North America. The Company has also reached a Definitive Agreement with Great Lakes Coca-Cola Distribution, L.L.C., a Reyes Holdings company based in Rosemont, Ill., for additional territories in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan and Iowa. A letter of intent for these territories was previously announced. The Coca-Cola Company began working with its bottling partners a decade ago on plans to develop a model that evolves the system to serve the changing customer and consumer landscape, with a focus on creating stronger system alignment. A critical step was the Companys acquisition of the North American territories of Coca-Cola Enterprises in 2010. In the five years since the deal was closed, The Coca-Cola Company has accelerated the implementation of the new model by strategically addressing the bottling system, customer service, product supply and a common information technology platform. Ultimately, the Coca-Cola system in North America will be comprised of economically aligned bottling partners that have the capability to serve major customers, coupled with the ability to maintain strong, local ties across diverse markets in the United States and Canada. So far, the Company has reached definitive agreements or signed letters of intent to refranchise territories that account for approximately 45% of bottler-delivered distribution volume in the United States. The new transactions announced today are subject to The Coca-Cola Company and Swire Coca-Cola, USA reaching definitive agreements. The parties are committed to working together to implement a smooth transition with minimal disruption for customers, consumers and system associates. Financial terms are not being disclosed. Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new indication expanding the use of IBRANCE (palbociclib) 125mg capsules, Pfizers metastatic breast cancer therapy. Now IBRANCE also is approved for the treatment of hormone receptor-positive (HR+), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative (HER2-) advanced or metastatic breast cancer in combination with fulvestrant in women with disease progression following endocrine therapy.1 Pfizers supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for IBRANCE was reviewed and approved under the FDAs Breakthrough Therapy designation and Priority Review programs based on results from the Phase 3 PALOMA-3 trial in pre-, peri- and post-menopausal women with HR+, HER2- metastatic breast cancer whose disease progressed on or after prior endocrine therapy in the adjuvant or metastatic setting.1 IBRANCE first was approved in February 2015 and also is indicated for the treatment of HR+, HER2- advanced or metastatic breast cancer in combination with letrozole as initial endocrine-based therapy in postmenopausal women.1 The indication in combination with letrozole is approved under accelerated approval based on progression-free survival (PFS). Continued approval for this indication may be contingent upon verification and description of clinical benefit in a confirmatory trial.1 The confirmatory Phase 3 trial, PALOMA-2, is fully enrolled. IBRANCE is the first and only cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 (CDK 4/6) inhibitor approved by the FDA. Today's news gives more women with metastatic breast cancer the opportunity to benefit from this first-in-class medicine," said Liz Barrett, global president and general manager, Pfizer Oncology. Since IBRANCE was approved just over one year ago, physicians across the U.S. have embraced it as a standard of care in the first-line setting. The expanded approval of IBRANCE is supported by a robust body of evidence and underscores Pfizer's continued commitment to addressing the needs of the metastatic breast cancer community. Pfizer is proud to bring forward innovative therapies like IBRANCE that make a meaningful difference in patients' lives. The Phase 3 PALOMA-3 trial enrolled 521 women, regardless of menopausal status, randomized 2:1 to receive IBRANCE plus fulvestrant or placebo plus fulvestrant. This trial demonstrated that IBRANCE in combination with fulvestrant, a standard of care hormonal therapy, prolonged PFS compared with placebo plus fulvestrant in women with HR+, HER2- metastatic breast cancer whose disease progressed on or after prior endocrine therapy.1 Women in the IBRANCE plus fulvestrant arm had a median PFS of 9.5 months (95% CI: 9.2, 11.0), a substantial improvement compared with 4.6 months (95% CI: 3.5, 5.6) in the group treated with placebo plus fulvestrant [HR 0.461 (95% CI: 0.360, 0.591), p <0.0001].1 Confirmed overall response rate in patients with measurable disease as assessed by the investigator was 24.6% for the IBRANCE plus fulvestrant arm compared to 10.9% for the placebo plus fulvestrant arm.1 Duration of response was 9.3 months in the IBRANCE plus fulvestrant arm compared with 7.6 months in the placebo plus fulvestrant arm.1 The warnings and precautions of IBRANCE include neutropenia, pulmonary embolism and embryo-fetal toxicity.1 The most common adverse reactions (10%) of any grade reported in PALOMA-3 of IBRANCE plus fulvestrant vs fulvestrant plus placebo included neutropenia (83% vs 4%), leukopenia (53% vs 5%), infections (47% vs 31%), fatigue (41% vs 29%), nausea (34% vs 28%), anemia (30% vs 13%), stomatitis (28% vs 13%), headache (26% vs 20%), diarrhea (24% vs 19%), thrombocytopenia (23% vs 0%), constipation (20% vs 16%), vomiting (19% vs 15%), alopecia (18% vs 6%), rash (17% vs 6%), decreased appetite (16% vs 8%), and pyrexia (13% vs 5%). For more information, please see Important Safety Information for IBRANCE below.1 There currently is no cure for metastatic breast cancer, so ongoing treatment is usually needed to control the spread of the disease, said Marisa Weiss, M.D., chief medical officer and founder, Breastcancer.org. That's why the availability of a first-of-its-kind treatment option like IBRANCE for women dealing with HR+, HER2- metastatic disease represents a very important advance. Both palbociclib (IBRANCE) combination options are recommended by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network.2 Palbociclib plus letrozole is recommended (category 2A) as a first-line treatment for postmenopausal women with HR+, HER2- metastatic breast cancer.2 Palbociclib plus fulvestrant is recommended (category 1) for postmenopausal women with HR+, HER2- metastatic breast cancer who have progressed on endocrine therapy or premenopausal women receiving a luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LHRH) agonist.2 Pfizer believes patients should have access to the medications they need, and is committed to ensuring that patients who are prescribed IBRANCE have access to the companys patient assistance programs. Patients in the U.S. can visit www.PfizerRxPathways.com and www.pfizercopayone.com to learn more. The full prescribing information for IBRANCE can be found at www.pfizer.com. Important Safety Information Neutropenia was the most frequently reported adverse reaction in Study 1 (75%) and Study 2 (83%). In Study 1, Grade 3 (57%) or 4 (5%) decreased neutrophil counts were reported in patients receiving IBRANCE plus letrozole. In Study 2, Grade 3 (56%) or Grade 4 (11%) decreased neutrophil counts were reported in patients receiving IBRANCE plus fulvestrant. Febrile neutropenia has been reported in about 1% of patients exposed to IBRANCE. One death due to neutropenic sepsis was observed in Study 2. Inform patients to promptly report any fever. Monitor complete blood count prior to starting IBRANCE, at the beginning of each cycle, on Day 14 of first 2 cycles, and as clinically indicated. Dose interruption, dose reduction, or delay in starting treatment cycles is recommended for patients who develop Grade 3 or 4 neutropenia. Pulmonary embolism (PE) has been reported at a higher rate in patients treated with IBRANCE plus letrozole in Study 1 (5%) and in patients treated with IBRANCE plus fulvestrant in Study 2 (1%) compared with no cases in patients treated either with letrozole alone or fulvestrant plus placebo. Monitor for signs and symptoms of PE and treat as medically appropriate. Based on the mechanism of action, IBRANCE can cause fetal harm. Advise females of reproductive potential to use effective contraception during IBRANCE treatment and for at least 3 weeks after the last dose. IBRANCE may impair fertility in males and has the potential to cause genotoxicity. Advise male patients with female partners of reproductive potential to use effective contraception during IBRANCE treatment and for 3 months after the last dose. Advise females to inform their healthcare provider of a known or suspected pregnancy. Advise women not to breastfeed during IBRANCE treatment and for 3 weeks after the last dose because of the potential for serious adverse reactions in nursing infants. The most common adverse reactions (10%) of any grade reported in Study 1 of IBRANCE plus letrozole vs letrozole alone included neutropenia (75% vs 5%), leukopenia (43% vs 3%), fatigue (41% vs 23%), anemia (35% vs 7%), upper respiratory infection (31% vs 18%), nausea (25% vs 13%), stomatitis (25% vs 7%), alopecia (22% vs 3%), diarrhea (21% vs 10%), thrombocytopenia (17% vs 1%), decreased appetite (16% vs 7%), vomiting (15% vs 4%), asthenia (13% vs 4%), peripheral neuropathy (13% vs 5%), and epistaxis (11% vs 1%). Grade 3/4 adverse reactions (10%) in Study 1 reported at a higher incidence in the IBRANCE plus letrozole group vs the letrozole alone group included neutropenia (54% vs 1%) and leukopenia (19% vs 0%). The most frequently reported serious adverse events in patients receiving IBRANCE plus letrozole were pulmonary embolism (4%) and diarrhea (2%). Lab abnormalities occurring in Study 1 (all grades, IBRANCE plus letrozole vs letrozole alone) were decreased WBC (95% vs 26%), decreased neutrophils (94% vs 17%), decreased lymphocytes (81% vs 35%), decreased hemoglobin (83% vs 40%), and decreased platelets (61% vs 16%). The most common adverse reactions (10%) of any grade reported in Study 2 of IBRANCE plus fulvestrant vs fulvestrant plus placebo included neutropenia (83% vs 4%), leukopenia (53% vs 5%), infections (47% vs 31%), fatigue (41% vs 29%), nausea (34% vs 28%), anemia (30% vs 13%), stomatitis (28% vs 13%), headache (26% vs 20%), diarrhea (24% vs 19%), thrombocytopenia (23% vs 0%), constipation (20% vs 16%), vomiting (19% vs 15%), alopecia (18% vs 6%), rash (17% vs 6%), decreased appetite (16% vs 8%), and pyrexia (13% vs 5%). Grade 3/4 adverse reactions (10%) in Study 2 reported at a higher incidence in the IBRANCE plus fulvestrant group vs the fulvestrant plus placebo group included neutropenia (66% vs 1%) and leukopenia (31% vs 2%). The most frequently reported serious adverse reactions in patients receiving IBRANCE plus fulvestrant were infections (3%), pyrexia (1%), neutropenia (1%), and pulmonary embolism (1%). Lab abnormalities occurring in Study 2 (all grades, IBRANCE plus fulvestrant vs fulvestrant plus placebo) were decreased WBC (99% vs 26%), decreased neutrophils (96% vs 14%), anemia (78% vs 40%), and decreased platelets (62% vs 10%). Avoid concurrent use of strong CYP3A inhibitors. If patients must be administered a strong CYP3A inhibitor, reduce the IBRANCE dose to 75 mg/day. If the strong inhibitor is discontinued, increase the IBRANCE dose (after 3-5 half-lives of the inhibitor) to the dose used prior to the initiation of the strong CYP3A inhibitor. Grapefruit or grapefruit juice may increase plasma concentrations of IBRANCE and should be avoided. Avoid concomitant use of strong CYP3A inducers. The dose of sensitive CYP3A substrates with a narrow therapeutic index may need to be reduced as IBRANCE may increase their exposure. IBRANCE has not been studied in patients with moderate to severe hepatic impairment or in patients with severe renal impairment (CrCl <30 mL/min). The Federal Reserve Board on Friday approved the reappointment of 10 Federal Reserve Bank presidents and 10 first vice presidents by their respective boards of directors. Each individual has been approved to serve a new five-year term beginning March 1, 2016. The recently named presidents of the Federal Reserve Banks of Minneapolis and Dallas, as well as the recently appointed first vice presidents of the Federal Reserve Banks of Philadelphia and Chicago, were approved for terms to February 28, 2021, at the time of their initial appointments. Under section 4 of the Federal Reserve Act, all Reserve Bank presidents and first vice presidents serve five-year terms that expire at the end of February in years ending in 1 or 6. Generally, presidents and first vice presidents who take office in intervening years are initially appointed for the remainder of the current term. Before the expiration of a president's term, the Class B and C directors of each Reserve Bank who are not affiliated with a supervised entity vote on whether to reappoint the president or first vice president to a new term. "The leaders of the Reserve Banks have important jobs and are expected to perform at a high level," said Governor Jerome H. Powell, chairman of the Board's Committee on Reserve Bank Affairs. "The eligible Reserve Bank directors, with significant input from the Board of Governors, conduct a rigorous process to inform their reappointment decisions." The reappointments by the boards of directors are based on performance assessments that include consideration of factors such as the ability of their president to effectively lead the Reserve Bank, the president's performance in achieving the Reserve Bank's and Federal Reserve System's objectives, and the president's ability to effectively represent the Federal Reserve to the public. The performance appraisal of the first vice president considers strategic leadership of the Reserve Bank, with a focus on operational areas and organization development, as well as contributions to System initiatives. Class B and C directors are a diverse group representing a wide range of business and community interests that are affected by Federal Reserve policies. An understanding of how the presidents are viewed in their respective Districts, which may be complemented with additional outreach to constituent representatives, helps to inform the directors' performance reviews. In addition, each president's performance is discussed annually by the chair and deputy chair of each Reserve Bank board and the Board of Governors' Committee on Federal Reserve Bank Affairs, and the performance of each first vice president is discussed by that group and the Bank's president. A list of presidents and first vice presidents, by Federal Reserve District, follows. The Board had previously approved terms to 2021 for Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis president Neel T. Kashkari, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas president Robert S. Kaplan, and for Ellen Bromagen as first vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and James D. Narron as first vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Boston: Eric S. Rosengren, president, and Kenneth C. Montgomery, first vice president New York: William C. Dudley, president, and Michael Strine, first vice president Philadelphia: Patrick T. Harker, president, and James D. Narron, first vice president (Mr. Narron's term begins on April 1, 2016.) Cleveland: Loretta J. Mester, president, and Gregory L. Stefani, first vice president Richmond: Jeffrey M. Lacker, president, and Mark L. Mullinix, first vice president Atlanta: Dennis P. Lockhart, president, and Marie C. Gooding, first vice president Chicago: Charles L. Evans, president, and Ellen Bromagen, first vice president St. Louis: James B. Bullard, president, and David A. Sapenaro, first vice president Minneapolis: Neel T. Kashkari, president, and James M. Lyon, first vice president Kansas City: Esther L. George, president, and Kelly J. Dubbert, first vice president Dallas: Robert S. Kaplan, president, and Helen E. Holcomb, first vice president San Francisco: John C. Williams, president, and Mark A Gould, first vice president GREELEY, Colo., Feb. 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Jeffrey K. Wenaas, President and CEO, announced that the Board of Directors of Hensel Phelps Construction Co. (Hensel Phelps) has made the following Key Personnel promotions: Michael Dwight has been promoted to Director of Operations in the Southwest District. Michael joined Hensel Phelps after graduating from Texas A&M University in the fall of 1993 with a B.S. in construction science. Michael progressed his career through the ranks of field engineer, office engineer, project engineer, area superintendent, project manager, and eventually operations manager. Throughout his tenure, he has gained experience in laboratories and federal, detention, aviation, healthcare, and high-tech projects. As Director of Operations, Michael will continue to live in Houston and support the entire Southwest District, where he will continue to grow Hensel Phelps' southeast region of Texas. Gary Perrin has been promoted to Operations Manager in the Southwest District. Gary joined Hensel Phelps after receiving his B.S. in architectural engineering in 1999 at the University of Texas. Gary progressed his career through the field engineer, office engineer, project engineer, area superintendent, and project manager ranks before his recent promotion. During his tenure, Gary has gained experience in the healthcare, aviation, federal, and high-tech industries. As Operations Manager, Gary will utilize his diverse resume and experience to support the entire Southwest District, where he will provide operational stability to the Hensel Phelps southeast region of Texas. Hensel Phelps office locations include Phoenix, Arizona; San Jose, California; Irvine, California; Greeley, Colorado; Orlando, Florida; Honolulu, Hawaii; Austin, Texas; and Chantilly, Virginia. Hensel Phelps is a premier full-service facilities solutions provider. We are committed to delivering the highest quality solutions, and creating the most efficient facilities for our clients, from the conception of a project through construction, operations, and asset management. www.henselphelps.com Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160218/335032 Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160218/335033 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20131101/LA08723LOGO To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hensel-phelps-construction-co-hensel-phelps-board-of-directors-promotes-key-personnel-in-southwest-district-300222740.html SOURCE Hensel Phelps French Labour Minister Myriam el Khomry attends the questions to the government session at the National Assembly in Paris, France, February 16, 2016. REUTERS/Charles Platiau PARIS (Reuters) - France's government is preparing reforms that will put almost all aspects of the country's strictly codified labor relations up for negotiation, but opposition within the ruling Socialist party means the plan is likely to be watered down. The 130-page draft bill seen by Reuters on Thursday marks President Francois Hollande's most far-reaching attempt yet to make good on a promise to tackle a stubbornly high unemployment rate. But by making it easier for employers to shed workers it risks widening already deep divisions within his ruling Socialist party as he gears up for a possible re-election bid in May 2017. "The debate is going to be fierce because there is a change of philosophy," Labor Minister Myriam El Khomri said in an interview with Les Echos business newspaper. The aim of the reform, to be formally presented to the cabinet on March 9, was to align labor norms in France with those in other countries, she said. "We want the country to progress through social dialogue while better guaranteeing rights and making companies more competitive." The reform, which would leave open to negotiation everything from maximum working hours to holidays and pay on rest breaks, drew praise from the head of the Medef employers federation Pierre Gattaz, who said the leaked draft "goes in the right direction". But figures on the left were critical. The head of the hardline Force Ouvriere, Jean-Claude Mailly, said it went much further than expected. Leftwing Socialist lawmaker Yann Galut promised a "Homeric battle" in parliament against the reforms, and even party head Jean-Christophe Cambadelis said he could not vote for the bill in its current form. "Everything in this bill on layoffs for economic reasons is open for debate and will be debated," Cambadelis said on BFM TV. El Khomri did not rule out invoking a rarely used constitutional article allowing the government to bypass parliament, but she also said she would work with lawmakers which suggested some concessions are likely. In a government reshuffle earlier last week, Hollande promised to keep reforming the euro zone's second-biggest economy up to the end of his mandate. Though a root-and-branch labor reform is politically risky, Hollande is desperate to make inroads into unemployment, currently at an 18-year high of 10.6 percent. The ruling Socialists are already split over Hollande's proposal to strip dual nationals of their French citizenship if convicted of terrorism. (Reporting by Emmanuel Jarry, Additional reporting by Myriam Rivet, Marine Pennetier and Leigh Thomas, writing by Leigh Thomas, editing by Alister Doyle and John Stonestreet) A worker cleans near the front entrance of the Bank Indonesia's headquarters in Jakarta, Indonesia January 14, 2016. REUTERS/Garry Lotulung By Gayatri Suroyo JAKARTA (Reuters) - Bold steps by Indonesia's central bank aimed at spurring lending to lift economic growth might not generate a significant rise in loans, bankers say. On Thursday, Bank Indonesia (BI) cut a host of rates. It has now reduced its benchmark reference rate by 50 basis points this year and chopped banks' rupiah reserve requirement by 150 bps since November. The moves should give a solid boost to liquidity. But still-weak economic conditions and rising levels of bad loans will cap expansion of lending, according to bankers who say loan demand remains tepid at best. "Banks follow the trend, we don't lead," Sigit Pramono, chairman of Indonesia's banking association, told Reuters on Friday. "Economic growth must improve for us to follow." He added that banks will be cautious about lending when times are tough because it may create bad loans. Non-performing loans rose to 2.5 percent of total credits at end-2015, up from a historical low of 1.8 percent in 2013, BI data shows. BI said on Thursday that loans expanded 10.5 percent in 2015, below the 15-17 percent target for the year. The economy grew only 4.8 percent last year, the slowest pace since 2009. The central bank has to be bold because the lending pace "is constraining our economy", Deputy Governor Perry Warjiyo told an investor conference call late on Thursday. "We need to support economic growth with the availability of credit." BI said the cuts to reserve requirements would give banks 52 trillion rupiah ($3.84 billion) of fresh liquidity. Warjiyo said he expects the economy to grow 5.4 percent this year but said annual credit expansion of 14 percent would be needed to achieve this pace. On Friday, banking stocks dragged down Indonesia's stock market as investors worried that banks could have lower net margins. Parwati Surjaudaja, president director of OCBC's Indonesian unit, said loan growth is not determined only by liquidity but by the condition of the economy. "The current condition is full of challenges, including what happens with commodity prices, oil prices, etc," she said while noting that consumer confidence is improving. (Additional reporting by Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by Nicholas Owen and Richard Borsuk) 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. An employee of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries wears a shirt bearing the company's logo at its Jerusalem oral solid dosage plant (OSD) December 21, 2011. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd (NYSE: TEVA) has offered concessions to allay EU antitrust concerns over its $40.5 billion bid for Allergan's (NYSE: AGN) generics unit which will cement its position as the world's largest generics drugmaker. "Commitments have been submitted and the new legal deadline is set on 10 March," European Commission spokesman Ricardo Cardoso said in an email on Friday, without providing details. The EU competition enforcer is expected to seek feedback from third parties before deciding whether to accept the proposal, demand more changes or open a lengthy investigation that could last up to five months. Teva also declined to provide details. "Those discussions (with the Commission) are productive and positive, but were not in a position at this time to predict or comment on how or when they will be completed," it said. Teva plans to sell about $1 billion worth of assets in the United States, Europe and the Middle East to resolve antitrust concerns, people familiar with the matter have told Reuters. The deal also needs U.S. regulatory approval. Earlier this month, the American Antitrust Institute flagged competitive concerns about the deal to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Dublin-based Botox-maker Allergan in turn is to be acquired by Pfizer Inc (NYSE: PFE) which would slash the latter's tax rate once it moves its headquarters to Dublin. (Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, additional reporting by Tova Cohen in Tel Aviv; editing by Julia Fioretti and Adrian Croft) A helmet belonging to a Islamic State militant is seen on the ground at the 121 Regiment base after Fighters from the Democratic Forces of Syria took control of the base in the town of al-Melabiyyah, south of Hasaka city, November 24, 2015. REUTERS/Rodi S GENEVA (Reuters) - U.S. and Russian military officials have held talks in Geneva ahead of a wider meeting on Friday aimed at trying to secure a cessation of hostilities in Syria, diplomats said. The unannounced bilateral meeting was aimed at narrowing positions before the two powers jointly chair a United Nations meeting on the issue, they said, declining to give details. "The idea of the whole exercise is for Russia and the United States to have a joint view. The U.N. will apparently promote a ceasefire and implementation, and will negotiate with the parties," a diplomat close to the process told Reuters. U.N. spokesman Michele Zaccheo said the larger meeting of the International Syria Support Group would take place at the United Nations on Friday afternoon. Moscow hopes that agreements on a ceasefire in Syria will be reached on Friday, Interfax news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov as saying on Thursday. Russian air strikes begun last September saved President Bashar al-Assad's forces after months of military gains by rebels and turned the tide of fighting in his favour, exasperating the United States and its allies which have been working for years to defeat him. Resuming Syrian peace talks on the scheduled date of Feb. 25 is not a realistic option, U.N. Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura was quoted as telling a Swedish newspaper on Thursday. "We need 10 days' preparation. But the talks ... can be successful if emergency aid continues and we get a ceasefire," de Mistura told the Svenska Dagbladet. His office could not immediately confirm the report. (This version of the story was corrected to remove reference to de Mistura taking part in U.S.-Russia videolink after clarification by U.N. spokesman) (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Dominic Evans and Alison Williams) A Cambridge asparagus company has been fined $26,000 and ordered to pay $7000 in reparations, in addition to $10,000 already paid, after a worker was poisoned by carbon monoxide in April. Boyds Asparagus Industries pleaded guilty to two charges under the Health and Safety in Employment Act for failing to take all practicable steps to ensure an employee was healthy and safe at work. The worker was unconscious for several hours and spent two days in hospital. The company was sentenced on Friday in Hamilton District Court. READ MORE: Man critical after suspected carbon monoxide poisoning The asparagus growing, packing and marketing business operates a packing shed, cool stores and chillers in Cambridge. It leases the chillers and the use of its forklifts to other companies, such as Core Management which uses them to move and store apples. The victim had worked for Core Management for four years and had 20 years' experience using forklifts. On April 14, 2015, the victim was sorting stock in a chiller using the forklift. The chiller is 12 metres long, 7 metres wide and up to 6 metres high. It has one way in and out. After working for less than an hour using a LPG powered forklift, the victim was found unconscious on the floor and rushed to hospital. The court ruled Boyds Asparagus Industries failed to identify the hazard of carbon monoxide poisoning from the use of a LPG powered forklift in a confined area. It also said the company failed to train their employees on the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning from using these types of forklifts in small spaces. "Running a LPG powered forklift in a confined space poses a significant risk to health and has the potential to be fatal," said Keith Stewart, WorkSafe chief inspector. "This common gas is often associated with fatalities from LPG heaters or running vehicles in enclosed areas. "Boyds Asparagus Industries Limited could have ensured electric forklifts were used in the chillers, trained employees on the hazard of carbon monoxide poisoning from using non-electric forklifts in confined spaces and put up signage warning employees not to use the LPG forklifts in the chillers. "While there is existing information on the risks of using forklifts and carbon monoxide, WorkSafe's Clean Air programme is further raising awareness of the dangers of substances like carbon monoxide and how they can be eliminated or controlled." The knife Roy Mataki used to murder Sherena Williams, he said he bought at an army surplus store. The killing of Upper Hutt woman Sherena Williams was murder, a jury has said in a majority decision. Although Roy Charles Mataki was found guilty of murdering Williams, 24, the jury unanimously acquitted him of wounding her younger brother Damien with reckless disregard for his safety. Mataki said he was defending himself when the siblings were hurt. ROBERT KITCHIN/ FAIRFAX NZ Roy Mataki said he was a placid man, but he was walking around with a knife hidden in his trousers. He pulled a knife from his trousers during a confrontation outside a party in Upper Hutt on March 12, 2015. READ MORE: *Roy Mataki claims self-defence *Crown says killing not self-defence * Jury out overnight on verdicts Damien Williams' forearm had been cut to the bone and Sherena Williams was stabbed in the neck, cutting both a carotid artery and a jugular vein. A person with first aid training was quickly helping her, pressing a towel on her wound. Wellington Free Ambulance medical director Dr Andy Swain met the ambulance on its journey to Wellington. He put his fingers into the approximately 3.5cm cut to stop the heavy bleeding. His little-used technique continued for about 30 minutes after they arrived at Wellington Hospital when a surgeon took over her care. Despite the attention she died the next day. A pathologist said that those who tended to her had done well to keep her alive as long as they had. After the jury's verdicts on Friday Detective Senior Sergeant Mike Sears said Williams' two children were being supported by family. The family were looking forward to Mataki's sentencing, due for March 23. The judge will have a psychiatric report about Mataki, who has paranoid schizophrenia but was reportedly stable at the time. Sears said the family were still very upset about what Mataki had done but very relieved the jury had found him guilty of Sherena Williams' murder. The jury took two days to reach its decisions. Williams was stabbed after going to her brother's defence. There were conflicts in the evidence about what had happened but only Mataki had a weapon. During his interview with police Mataki said he pulled out his knife to defend himself and Sherena Williams "got the arse-end of it". He had known her for years. At the time police were speaking to him Williams was still having surgery and Mataki was told that she could die. "Sherena's a real good chick, she really is." He described himself as placid. "I'm a really good guy, I'm a placid guy, I'm really easy to get on with." But he also said: "You don't f***ing hit me, woman or guy." Mataki had told police that Damien Williams,19, had hit him for no reason so he took out his knife to defend himself, and Sherena Williams was hurt when she stuck up for her brother. Damien Williams said that after a party with a "good vibe" a woman had been upset at something Mataki had done and Williams had asked him to leave. A Cambridge man who found live ammunition at a national park plans to take the issue to the relevant government ministers. Between November 2015 to present day, Gary Hampson-Tindale has found more than 30 live blanks at the Waikoko Campsite in the Kaimanawa Forest Park. He said he is unhappy with how the Department of Conservation (DOC) have handled the situation. In the original article published in the February 3 issue of the Cambridge Edition, DOC's Central Plateau conservation services manager David Lumley said visitors to the campsite had nothing to worry about. "Our advice is that these rounds don't pose significant threat to public safety, unless they are willfully mishandled." READ MORE: New Zealand Defence Forces leaves live ammo on Kaimanawa ranges. Hampson-Tindale disputed the comments made by Lumley and said the blanks could cause severe injuries. He plans to take the issue to Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee, and Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Maggie Barry. "The standard cartridges have an explosive charge that fires a projectile (bullet) at around 3000 feet (914 metres) per second. The blanks found do have a lesser charge but are still capable of causing serious injury or even death." He said people who find the blanks, or children who play with them, might not realise they are willfully mishandling them. "Imagine dad and family lying down blowing a flame to start the fire. I have had a mum and dad proudly show me four live shells that their four year old had put in his pocket!" He said one of the problems was that 95 per cent of visitors to the site were tourists who often arrived late in the day. One of the first things they tended to do was pitch their tent and light a fire. "How nobody has built a fire over a live round is beyond me," he said. The area is sometimes used for training sessions by the New Zealand Defence Force. They were unavailable for comment. Hampson-Tindale doesn't want to "clobber" DOC or the NZDF, he said, he just wants it cleaned up and sorted out. "The NZDF have a very good safety record, but have been badly let down by the individual/s who supervised their activities, and I would imagine they would likely conduct their own internal investigation," he said. DOC's partnership ranger Dave Conley said the organisation had no further comment to make, but they had made some changes to the site. "Further to the wider issue, we have conducted another tidy-up of the site in question as we were concerned about the number of fires being lit on the campsite. "This has caused issues with regards to damage to the surrounding bush as campers chop trees and scrub down for firewood," he said. In its response DOC said it had disestablished a number of informal fireplaces and were encouraging campers to use only the purpose-built fireplace. He said during that work, no more live blanks had been found. Coroner Gordon Matenga has reserved his decision follwing an inquest into the death of a 12-year-old killed by an air rifle. The grandmother of a 12-year-old boy killed when an air rifle accidentally discharged has described the moment she found her grandson on the floor. "I was calling out what's wrong, and he kept groaning," said Patricia Pirini. "He said 'I've been shot'; it's all he said." Pirini gave evidence during the inquest into the death of her grandson Keegan Macpherson-Pirini at the Coroners Court in Rotorua on Friday. Keegan died on November 6, 2014, after suffering a chest wound at a property in Pongakawa, near Te Puke. Detective Senior Sergeant Greg Turner said the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the left of his chest, caused by an air rifle. Pirini also denied her grandson would have taken his own life when asked by Coroner Gordon Matenga whether that could have been a possibility. "He was a very mature 12-year-old and I know in my heart he wouldn't have committed suicide," she said. "He would have known it would have rocked our lives, as it has." Turner also ruled out suicide, noting that Keegan was not large enough to fire the weapon in the position required. He also said tests on the rifle by the police armourer indicated the gun wouldn't have discharged on its own. "My best bet is the trigger has been caught," he said. Turner said the rifle was found on a pool table in the shed. That meant the most likely cause of the shooting was Keegan pulling the gun towards him, causing the trigger to be pulled when it caught on one of the objects on the pool table, he said. The slug had entered between two ribs and into his heart "with nothing to slow it's trajectory down". Duncan Macpherson, Keegan's grandfather and the father of his mother Katie, asked Turner why no charges were brought over the death given under 16's were not allowed unsupervised access to firearms. "I know it's not going to bring Keegan back, but lots of irresponsible decisions were made and it should have been answered in court," he said. Turner said that Keegan's father Jayson Pirini received a formal written warning, but it was decided no charges should be brought. "I'd seen the distress caused to Jayson by this incident," Turner said. "I considered the lesson had been learned, and it was not my decision to charge." Turner also said that there was no legal obligation to keep an air rifle in a locked box, "but that's clearly the appropriate course of action when children are around". Matenga said he would reserve his decision, but agreed with Turner about the most likely cause of the rifle discharge. "It does concern me he died as a result of a discharge of a slug gun," he said. "Many people in New Zealand use these and consider them safe." Cockles harvested from the Bay of Plenty Coast could make consumers ill. A public health warning has been issued for shellfish harvested from much of the Bay of Plenty coast. Anyone who consumes mussels, oysters, scallops or anything similar from the area risks becoming sick. The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) issued a warning on Friday, February 19, advising people to avoid shellfish gathered between the mouth of the Otahu River at the southern end of Whangamata Beach and the Whakatane Heads. The area includes Tauranga Harbour, Maketu and Waihi estuaries, Matakana and Motiti Island, and all other islands along this coastline. READ MORE: Marlborough Sounds shellfish contain paralysing toxin Routine tests on shellfish samples taken from this region have shown levels of Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP) toxins of up to 2.3mg/kg. This is above the safe limit of 0.8mg/kg set by MPI. Tuatua, pipi, toheroa, cockles, catseyes, kina (sea urchin) and all other bivalve shellfish should not be eaten. Cooking the shellfish does not remove the toxin. Paua, crab and crayfish may still be eaten if the gut has been completely removed before cooking, as toxins accumulate in the gut. If the gut is not removed, its contents could contaminate the meat during the cooking process. If anyone becomes ill after eating shellfish from an area where a public health warning has been issued, phone Healthline for advice on 0800 61 11 16, or seek medical attention immediately. You are also advised to contact your nearest public health unit and keep any leftover shellfish in case it can be tested. Symptoms typically appear between 10 minutes and 3 hours after ingestion and may include: numbness and a tingling (prickly feeling) around the mouth, face, and extremities (hands and feet) difficulty swallowing or breathing dizziness headache nausea vomiting diarrhoea paralysis and respiratory failure and in severe cases, death. Monitoring of toxin levels will continue and any changes will be communicated accordingly. For more information, visit the shellfish biotoxin alert webpage. Robert Selwyn Burrett has admitted sexually abusing 12 girls while working as a school caretaker and bus driver in Christchurch. A school caretaker and part-time teacher who sexually violated girls in his underground shed has been struck off the teachers' register. Twelve Christchurch primary school girls, three of them disabled, were repeatedly raped, sexually violated, indecently assaulted, or made to watch pornography in the caretaker's shed or on a school bus. In "a horrific abuse of trust", described as one of New Zealand's worst cases, Robert Selwyn Burrett, 64, a school caretaker, bus driver and part-time teacher, installed curtains and a lock in his school caretaker's shed to sexually abuse them. One girl aged 10 to 12 the victim of repeated rapes said it happened "most days, at morning tea and lunch time during school". The victims ranged in age from five to 12 years. The school where Burrett worked as a caretaker has defended its procedures. It believes it could not have done anything differently to discover his offending earlier. Burrett worked as a bus driver for disabled children at another school. The bus company was contracted to the Ministry of Education, which police-checked him before he got the job. The Education Council had Burrett struck off on Friday afternoon. He had been a registered teacher since 1991. Education Council manager teacher practice, Andrew Greig, said this sent a message to the friends and family of the young girls involved that he will not teach again. "This is the final step in the process. Our role is to ensure teachers are of a high standard and safe to teach. We take that role very seriously. The public would expect this." Burrett was not a practising teacher when the offences came to light, but was still on the teachers register. SCHOOL DEFENDS PROCEDURES The board chairman at the school where Burrett was a caretaker said the school did as much as it could in vetting Burrett before hiring him. The school felt it could not have done anything differently to discover his offending earlier. It had since made "minor changes" to supervision procedures during intervals and lunchbreaks. Burrett was a relief teacher before he became a caretaker at the school. His bus driving role was for a different school, the chairman said. With the introduction of the Vulnerable Children Act in 2014, after Burrett was hired, it gave more scope to vet school staff - "which is good", the chairman said. The school would keep its "close-knit" community aware of what was going on as much as it could, the spokesperson said. "The school has continued to work hard to support the families involved and the wider school community." The underground shed where Burrett's offences took place still existed, but the new caretaker used it less. Instead of storing tools there, the new caretaker brought them to school each day. ABUSE CONTINUED FOR YEARS The Christchurch High Court was told on Friday that the abuse of girls as young as five, including some with physical and mental disabilities, had continued for years. Children saw him abusing other children. One of the girls involved was strapped into a specialised chair and could only communicate through an electronic device. The abuse, involving 12 girls ranging in age from five to 12 years, included rape, sodomy, forced oral sex, indecent assaults, video-taping of the offending, and watching pornography. The court heard Burrett was employed as a school caretaker from early 2013. From 2013 until last year he was also employed as a bus driver transporting special needs pupils from their homes to primary school each day. All of the pupils on his bus run suffered some form of disability that made communication difficult, or impaired their physical or mental functioning. Burrett repeatedly invited one girl aged between eight and 10 into his underground shed on the school grounds where he would talk to her about "adult stuff" and told her not to tell anybody. When she walked up the steps from his shed, he would touch her bottom. When he met her as she walked to school one day, Burrett hugged her, kissed her on the cheek, and told her to be good in class. The girl thought it was "weird and gross". Many times, Burrett took two girls, aged nine and 10, into the shed where he committed indecencies, and raped one of the girls. He showed two girls pornographic videos during the school intervals. Objectionable images and animations involving children were found on his computer. He indecently touched one girl after asking her to help him pick up rubbish. After sexually violating a girl aged five to seven, he told her not to tell anyone or he would "smash her", prosecutor Deirdre Elsmore said. She detailed other offences including sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection and indecent assault which Burrett had committed while bus driving. He told one girl "about sexual matters, and what sexual things he did with his wife". When spoken to, Burrett admitted some hugging and touching involving three girls, but then said nothing more. Burrett had been in custody since his arrest last year, when his name was published but a suppression order covered details of the charges except for the fact they related to sexual offending. Those details could be published after Burrett's guilty pleas on 21 charges in the High Court at Christchurch before Justice Cameron Mander on Friday. The judge continued suppression orders on the name of the school and the bus company, but the issue would considered again at Burrett's sentencing on April 12. BUS COMPANY CONTRACTED TO MINISTRY Burrett was a qualified Special Education School Transport Assistance vehicle driver. He worked for a company contracted to the Ministry of Education. Ministry of Education Deputy secretary Katrina Casey said Burrett underwent a mandatory police clearance check to become qualified. The ministry checked all records for any historic complaints received during his employment, but none were found. "The serious criminal offending Robert Burrett has admitted today is appalling and should be condemned. Our sympathy goes out to his victims and their families." The ministry was supporting the schools, families and communities involved and worked with police and Child, Youth and Family in their investigations. 'HORRIFIC ABUSE OF TRUST' Sensible Sentencing Trust spokesman Garth McVicar said it was among the worst cases he had come across. "It's one of the most despicable cases I'm aware of," McVicar, who planned to travel to Christchurch for Burrett's April sentencing. "It's a horrific abuse of trust, involving disabled children. "I'm actually lost for words and I deal with a lot of this type of stuff." He said people were right to wonder how Burrett could offend for more than two years, but sex offenders were "very manipulative". "They're very cunning, and the ages of the children he's preying on, the fact he talked about the type of stuff he did with his wife, he tried to normalise it. "Then he used threats of violence against children who told on him. Between the powers of manipulation and threats of violence . . . he was able to continue the offending for as long as he did." Burrett's only previous run-ins with the law were two driving offences in 2001 and 2007. BURRETT MAY BE STRUCK OFF The Education Council had Burrett struck off on Friday afternoon, since he was still listed as being registered to teach. He had been a registered teacher since 1991. Police made the Education Council aware of the sex charges facing Burrett on May 12, 2015, a council spokeswoman said. The council then enforced a voluntarily order where Burrett agreed not to teach while his conduct was investigated. Burrett's last teaching job ended at the end of 2012. His latest practicing certificate expired on March 15, 2013. The Education Council was aware of Burrett's two previous driving convictions. In order to gain a practicing certificate, there was a "robust" procedure where teachers were vetted by police every three years, the spokeswoman said. "We don't see that there were any problems with the way things were done." Changes to the Vulnerable Children Act meant state-funded services and their contracted providers were now required to vet and screen the children's workforce and have child protection policies. Also, those who worked with children would need to have their checks updated every three years while their employment or engagement continued. William Billy Hika, pictured in court in 2013, has again been caught taking photos up skirts in Palmerston North. William Billy Hika needs to learn how to keep his phone in his pocket. The 43-year-old Palmerston North man has developed a disturbing habit of getting it out to secretly make intimate recordings of women in the city. In the Palmerston North District Court on Friday, he was sent to jail for 13 months for his latest lewd photoshoot. He used his phone on December 12, 2015, to take photos up the skirt of an unsuspecting 29-year-old woman. READ MORE: City peeper jailed for two years He was spotted by security staff using the store's CCTV system, and quickly apprehended. That offending came two years after he used his phone to shoot up the skirt of a woman in the city's central business district, and made a film recording of a woman in a shower at a College St property. Hika has a long history of indecency, having also been caught masturbating in the Esplanade and harassed a woman on a popular Palmerston North walking track. Judge David Smith said the victim was shocked when she heard what had happened, and felt that her privacy had been breached. "She never expected something like this would happen, and feels insecure having someone like you doing this in the community." While the offence happened during the day, she had trouble sleeping at night, the judge said. "I need to make sure the community is keep safe from this type of behaviour. "I have seen no remorse." There was also no evidence that Hika had done anything to try to address whatever compelled him to make intimate recordings, the judge said. As part of his sentence, Hika must undergo a psychological assessment and any treatment recommended by a probation officer for six months after his release. There can be few scarier words in the English language. Although survival rates have soared in the past 50 years, a cancer diagnosis still strikes numbing fear into anyone unlucky enough to hear it. But it turns out cancer is not treating all Kiwis equally. Figures show New Zealand's cancer hotspots are concentrated in remote regions, while urban Kiwis are generally less likely to die from the Big C. For every 100,000 people, 33 more people die in the Northland DHB area than Kiwis in Waitemata. The difficulty, experts say, is understanding why. READ MORE Mapping New Zealand's prostate cancer rates Why are so many southern New Zealanders dying of bowel cancer? Where are more Kiwi women dying of breast cancer? Lung cancer - which parts of New Zealand can breathe easy? Northland DHB puts its high rates down to a poorer population with more Maori. But Counties Manukau has lower rates than its high-deprivation, high Pasifika population would suggest. And two of the five DHBs with the highest death rates - Taranaki and Wairarapa - have populations similar to the national average. A cancer cell. DHBs with lower rates, which include Waitemata, Capital and Coast, Canterbury, Auckland and Nelson Marlborough, were unable to pinpoint anything they did differently to reduce cancer deaths. Counties Manukau DHB suggested the low cancer rates in its sizeable Asian population could balance out its statistics. Otago University cancer control and screening research group director Diana Sarfati says the variations are likely to be driven by differences in ethnicity, poverty levels and risk factors such as smoking, rather than by radical differences in care. However, there could be genuine treatment differences, especially between rural and urban DHBs. "If you've got a type of cancer that needs specialist care, you've got an extra step to access that. If you're given two options of treatment - one of which you could have locally and one of which would require you to travel, even if the one that required travelling might be slightly better, you might be inclined to stick with the one you can have locally, especially if you're elderly." Take Kaitaia woman Melva Davis-Mahoney. Her first thought when diagnosed with breast cancer was how would she organise transport and pay for the five-hour return trip to Whangarei for surgery. Never mind the three weeks she needed to spend in Auckland for radiotherapy. Northland DHB says it is trying to bridge the ethnic gap and its new $5 million cancer centre means more treatments can be offered locally. But as for all areas outside the country's six specialist cancer centres, patients still have to travel for radiotherapy. Medical Association chairman Stephen Child says whatever the reasons, it's not OK that Kiwis in some regions are dying of cancer at higher rates. He, Sarfati and other experts all agree more detailed data is needed to really understand the differences. "It would be good to dig a bit deeper," Sarfati says. "We get these results. There's so many provisos. There's so many possibilities and it may be nothing, or it might be something very important." Health Ministry cancer clinical director, Andrew Simpson, says it's hard to drill into enough detail to get meaningful comparisons between DHBs, because of the small numbers involved. However, the ministry's new tumour standards, which set out clear diagnosis and treatment expectations for each cancer type, should help ensure that a bowel cancer patient in Gisborne is offered exactly the same care as a bowel cancer patient in Wellington. The DHBs are assessing their performance against those standards, but that is not reported publicly. The Health Ministry introduced faster cancer waiting times targets in 2014. No DHB has yet met the 85 per cent target. At last count, Wairarapa came closest, at 84 per cent, while in the West Coast, Tairawhiti and Whanganui only half were treated within the target timeframe. Child is pinning his hopes on the Health Quality and Safety Commission's new Atlas of Healthcare Variation, which will examine regional differences in much greater depth, including ethnic differences and types of treatments used. "You're probably not going to find a single thing that changes mortality. But you want to see that gap getting smaller, and you want everyone to accept that it is not OK that there's a difference. Everyone in New Zealand should have equal access to healthcare." YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE - THE GROWTH IN PRIVATE CANCER TREATMENT Search "cancer" on crowdfunding website Givealittle and you'll find scores of Kiwis begging for their lives. The emergence of high-cost, unfunded "wonderdrugs" such as Keytruda, for advanced melanoma, has reignited concerns New Zealand is increasingly becoming a two-tier cancer treatment system. Despite New Zealand having the world's highest melanoma rate, Pharmac has assigned Keytruda a low funding priority. Which leaves Kiwis with advanced melanoma fundraising for hundreds of thousands of dollars for their last hope of a longer life. Keytruda is one of an emerging drug class - Immunotherapy - which harnesses a patient's own immune system to kill cancerous cells. It comes with great promise, and great costs. Southern Cross health insurance figures show New Zealanders are increasingly turning to private treatment to access cancer drugs. In 2011, 437 patients claimed for private chemotherapy, at a cost of $4.6 million. In five years, that spending has more than doubled, with 776 patients getting private chemotherapy in 2015, at a cost of $11.7 million. Private radiation therapy is also increasing, but at a much slower rate. Auckland's private Canopy Cancer Care opened in 2010, to meet growing demand for innovative treatments that patients would otherwise have to travel overseas to access. An initial appointment will set you back $460. While they do not give figures, they say they have seen "steady growth" in demand across all cancer, with a particular spike in melanoma patients wanting unfunded treatments. The centre also offers antibody therapy, hormone therapy, targeted biological treatments and access to tumour gene testing - used to profile tumours to better personalise treatment. Oncologist Richard Sullivan predicts demand to continuing growing, as Kiwis get older and treatments become more personalised and more innovative. Cancer Society medical director Chris Jackson says the widening gap between New Zealand and Australia is a greater concern than regional variations in cancer rates. "I think New Zealand is a country of have-nots when it comes to availability of contemporary cancer care, highlighted by the current melanoma debate. Three fully-funded drugs in Australia, zero in New Zealand." *Statistics are for 2010-2012. All cancer death rate maps show areas with rates significantly higher or lower than the national rate, calculated using the Keyfitz method. DWT readers know and respect do a similar post. Every congressman I asked said basically the identical thing: "I wish I had never endorsed her; it was a mistake and I want people to forget so... no guest post." One said he felt there were several members who want to switch endorsements the way legislators in South Carolina and Georgia have been doing. You may recall the other day we ran a guest post by Eric Kingson , the progressive Democrat running in Syracuse, New York for a congressional seat held by conservative Republican incumbent John Katko, about why he's backing Bernie. In the spirit of fairness, I decided to ask some progressive Members of Congress-- so, no Blue Dogs or New Dems-- if they'd like to write a guest post about why they endorsed Hillary. Kingston was very complimentary about her and didn't say a negative word. His whole post was about why Bernie was good, not about why she's bad. And it I thought it would be interesting to have a progressive whoreaders know and respect do a similar post.congressman I asked said basically the identical thing: "I wish I had never endorsed her; it was a mistake and I want people to forget so... no guest post." One said he felt there were several members who want to switch endorsements the way legislators in South Carolina and Georgia have been doing. But legislators in South Carolina and Georgia are not super-delegates and Team Hillary feels the only guarantee to a win for them is the own all the super-delegates. Theoretically, Bernie needs to win the primaries by 18 points to make up for her owning all the super-delegates... 59-41%. So, I suspect they are freaking out over what Alan Grayson, a Hillary admirer (as well as a Bernie admirer) did yesterday. Not a fan of the undemocratic super-delegate concept to begin with, he is offering his constituents in the Orlando area and voters in the rest of Florida as well as supporters from anywhere in the country an opportunity to tell him who to vote for-- and he will vote, as a super-delegate, for whomever wins his poll As Gaius mentioned earlier, Grayson told his supporters that he'd "be perfectly happy if our nominee were chosen exclusively in the primaries. But 15% of the delegates to the Democratic Convention are chosen because of who they are, not whom they support. And I happen to be one of them. I wrestled with that responsibility for a while, until I realized that I dont have to decide-- I can let you decide. It could make one of the least democratic elements of the UnDemocratic Party into something really special-- a decision Of the People, By the People and For the People." He also reminded his readers that "Unlike some people , I will not be making this decision based on who can host the best fundraiser for me. I will not be making this decision based on what my fat-cat donors tell me, in part because I dont have any. Ill be making this decision based on what you and your friends tell me. Im inviting you to vote on this, and give your reasons. Democracy-- what a concept!" The Intercept, did: the Super-Delegates aren't just congressmembers like Grayson. Some of them are lobbyists, conveniently enough for the shady character who's taken There's an uglier aspect of this super-delegate thing that Grayson didn't mention-- but Lee Fang, writing late yesterday for, did: the Super-Delegates aren't just congressmembers like Grayson. Some of them are lobbyists, conveniently enough for the shady character who's taken more money ($2,915,238)from lobbyists than any other politician in history-- and by a very wide margin. As Fang pointed out, Bernie "won the New Hampshire Democratic primary by more than 22 percentage points and by doing so, earned 15 delegates to Clintons 9. So it came as a shock to many observers when Clinton, despite losing the second biggest rout in state history, walked away with the same number of delegates." have to listen." A few hours ago, Team Grayson posed it slightly differently to Florida voters: "Here is a problem. Alan Grayson aside, we desperately need to remind our so-called 'representatives' that they have a duty to represent us, not thwart us. If were going to call ourselves the 'Democratic' Party, then we should choose our candidates democratically. Yet 712 'Superdelegates' to the 2016 Democratic Convention will select Bernie or Hillary based not on our votes, but some other agenda... [D]eciding something as important as who is the next President of the United States is our choice, not theirs. Its good to know that Alan Grayson, out of 712 Superdelegates, actually WANTS to hear what we have to say. But its even better to know that if millions upon millions vote at GraysonPrimary.com , then they all willto listen." Thats because Clinton had the support of six New Hampshire unpledged delegates-- better known as superdelegates-- consisting of prominent elected officials and members of the Democratic National Committee, who have the same power as the delegates chosen by voters. An Associated Press survey found that superdelegates nationally overwhelmingly supported Clinton. There are 712 superdelegates in all, which is about 15 percent of the total delegates available and 30 percent of the total needed to win the nomination. If the nomination process is close, superdelegates may effectively pick the partys presidential nominee, potentially overriding the will of voters. The following individuals are unelected, Clinton-supporting superdelegates who simultaneously work in the lobbying industry: Jeff Berman, well-known for his delegate-strategy work in the past, is being paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign to organize her delegate-counting effort while himself being a superdelegate. A top lobbyist at Bryan Cave LLP, Berman previously worked as a lobbyist for the private prison company Geo Group and as a lobbyist helping TransCanada build support for the Keystone XL. Bill Shaheen is one of the six New Hampshire superdelegates to endorse Clinton. Shaheen is a prolific party fundraiser, and his law firm is registered to lobby local officials in the state. The most recently available lobbying records show that Shaheens firm is registered to lobby on behalf of the American Council of Life Insurers and PainCare Centers, among other clients. PainCare has faced increasing scrutiny as local officials have noted that eight of the 10 most prolific opioid prescribers in New Hampshires Medicaid program worked for PainCare. The flood of prescription painkillers has fueled the heroin epidemic in the region, as four out of five heroin addicts report beginning their drug habit with opioids. Bill is the husband of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H. Joanne Dowdell, another New Hampshire superdelegate, is the senior vice president for global government affairs at News Corporation, the parent company of Fox News. Federal Election Commission reports show Dowdell has contributed directly to multiple Democrats as well as to the News Corp PAC, a company committee that splits its donations between lawmakers of both parties. The News Corp government affairs division works to lobby public officials and regulators. Superdelegates Jill Alper, Minyon Moore, and Maria Cardona are officials at Dewey Square Group, a lobbying firm that is closely affiliated with the Clinton campaign and retained by the Clinton-supporting Super PACs Priorities USA Action and Correct the Record. Alper and Moore are Clinton advisers who have raised over $100,000 for her campaign. Dewey Square Group, as weve reported, was retained by the health insurance industry to undermine health reform efforts in 2009, including proposals to change Medicare Advantage. The firm has previously worked to influence policy on behalf of Enron, Countrywide, Citigroup, Coca-Cola, the U.S. Telecom Association and News Corporation. Jennifer Cunningham is the managing director of SKDKnickerbocker, a political consulting firm that provides a variety of services, including advertising and direct lobbying of public officials. In recent years, SKDKnickerbocker helped a coalition of corporate clients lobby the Obama administration on a tax cut for overseas earnings; lobby for weakened rules governing for-profit colleges; and helped a food industry group undermine Michelle Obamas nutrition guidelines for foods marketed to children. Recent records show that the firm is providing consulting work for Independence USA PAC, the Super PAC backed by billionaire Michael Bloomberg. Tonio Burgos, a fundraiser for Clinton, is a lobbyist registered to influence New York City officials. Burgos current client list includes Verizon, Pfizer, and American Airlines. Emily Giske, also a lobbyist in New York City, is registered to work on behalf of Airbnb, Yum Brands (the parent company of Taco Bell), Pfizer, and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, a trade group for Wall Street firms such as Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, and Bank of America. Superdelegates were added to the nomination process as a reaction to the chaotic 1980 Democratic convention, in which supporters of Ted Kennedy attempted to challenge President Jimmy Carter. The goal was to give the party elites more control. In 2008, superdelegates flocked to Clinton over Obama, creating a similar controversy over the possibility of subverting the democratic process. The party has received increasing scrutiny as many activists have decried what appears to be a system designed to benefit establishment candidates, particularly Clinton. MoveOn.org sponsored a petition calling for the DNC not to allow the superdelegates to deny democracy. Other Hillary super-delegates who, sadly, work as influence peddlers and access sellers include Dick Gephardt, Madeleine Albright, Tom Daschle, Howard Dean and Chris Dodd. There are no corporate lobbyists supporting Bernie. Corporate lobbyists all support people like Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Hillary Clinton. Let's do something about that: South Canterbury men die from prostate cancer at almost double the rate of men in north Auckland. Of the "big four", prostate and lung cancer showed the greatest regional variation. With 24.2 deaths per 100,000 men, the South Canterbury rate was almost double Waitemata DHB's rate of just 12.3 deaths per 100,000. READ MORE Health Ministry sorry for cancer error Why are so many southern New Zealanders dying of bowel cancer? Where are more Kiwi women dying of breast cancer? Lung cancer - which parts of New Zealand can breathe easy? Understanding our national cancer hotspots ROSS GIBLIN/FAIRFAX NZ Lower Hutt prostate support group leader Bill Guthrie's cancer was picked up through PSA testing and he would like to see a national testing regime. Prostate cancer research by Waikato professor Ross Lawrenson found Maori patients tend to have fewer investigations, lower treatment levels and poorer survival rates. They are also diagnosed later. However, the biggest question around prostate cancer is screening. In the past decade, there's been increasing use of the PSA blood test. Undertaken regularly, it can point to early signs of prostate cancer. But it's highly controversial, as it has a high rate of false positives. Because prostate cancer is generally a slow-growing cancer affecting older men, screening can lead to men having treatment with life-altering side effects such as incontinence and impotence for a disease that would never have caused them symptoms before their death. Wellingtonian Bill Guthrie was diagnosed with prostate cancer at 50, having started PSA testing a year earlier, after his brother-in-law died of the disease having been diagnosed too late to be cured. He's a keen advocate of the testing given he would have been considered low-risk, as a healthy fit man with no family history. He's also frustrated that some GPs still try to talk men out of having PSA tests. "Six hundred men a year die of this - they don't have to die." Guthrie would also like to see public funding of low-dose rate brachytherapy, which is only available in private hospitals. The one-step procedure involves implanting radioactive seeds as an alternative to daily radiotherapy in hospital. New Zealand has rejected a publicly funded screening programme, but the growth in private PSA screening has left the public health system in a quandary, says Urological Society NZ chairman Stephen Mark. Confusion and controversy reigned over when men with high PSA levels should be referred to public hospitals. A man in one region might be referred and treated, whereas a man in another region with the same PSA level might have been turned away by the public system. Work has been done in the past few years to standardise that approach, he says. While a national screening programme doesn't make economic sense, he concedes that without one poorer survival rates for Maori are unlikely to be reversed. "There's no question there is an equity imbalance based on economics." Otago University Cancer Control and Screening Research Group director Diana Sarfati, says the difficulty with prostate cancer is ongoing uncertainty about how to treat it. For colorectal cancer, you cut it out - no question. But because prostate cancer is generally slow-growing, treatment options vary from watchful waiting to surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy or hormone manipulation. That's reinforced by Northland prostate cancer patient Paul Botell's experience. Among his Whangarei support group there are as many treatment types and outcomes as there are men. "It's a bit of a crap shoot. No two stories are the same. No two people have the same reaction to the same treatment." The 69-year-old chose to have his prostate cut out 18 months ago, after regular PSA testing helped identify a growing cancer. He initially suffered terrible incontinence but now has that almost under control. The Whangarei Heads retiree had no trouble getting treatment and says his care was better than that in his former homeland, the United States. Wellington radiation oncologist Professor David Lamb says there is huge variation in the way treatment options are offered around the country. The ethnic disparities also need addressing, he says. However, he's hopeful his RADAR research trial will help doctors discover which cancers are fast-growing and need aggressive treatment and which are less dangerous. "It's becoming very clear that you can identify these bad cancers and you can give them more treatment upfront and you can get better long term results. "There's a perception that prostate cancer is a pretty harmless condition. It's almost an honour to have, it's so trivial in what it does to you. You don't even have to look at the cancer statistics to realise that's absolute nonsense." *Statistics are for 2010-2012. Cancer death rate map shows areas with rates significantly higher or lower than the national rate, calculated using the Keyfitz method. Some New Zealanders' bad behaviour has led to Wanderers Backpackers owner Greg Adams to ask for a passport or driver's licence to identify all Kiwis before they are allowed to stay at his 26 bed accommodation. Many Kiwi backpackers are disrespectful thieves and drunks - with the over 50s the worst - a Timaru accommodation owners says. When competitors and supporters arrive to stay for the biennial Masters Games at the Wanderers Backpackers, owner Greg Adams demands a "hefty" $400 good behaviour bond. "The older men get drunk before they arrive. There's been problems with fights and holes in the walls." Are Kiwi travellers trouble? Share your stories, photos and videos. Contribute For all other Kiwi guests he checked their passports or drivers' licence so he could identify them if they tried to run off without paying or caused any damage. READ MORE: * No Kiwis allowed in Blenheim * Open door policy at Picton backpackers "We offer cheap accommodation but we want to keep it nice for our overseas guests who are more mature and respectful." His perspective followed reports that a pair of Blenheim backpackers would no longer accept bookings from New Zealanders after they proved the most ill-disciplined of visitors. There, an owner suggested the problems were linked to the fact "Kiwis can disappear into the woodwork. They can give false addresses, they don't have passports, they can't be traced". Adams said only 5 per cent of his guests were Kiwi and, certainly, not all were a problem - but if there was any trouble, or a wallet went missing it was always linked to a New Zealander, Adams said. "The females aren't as bad as the males," he added. Last week, he kicked out two Kiwi 50-plus year-olds in one day for being drunk and disturbing other guests. One, from Oamaru, had drunk 10 bottles of wine in two days. Last year, another middle-aged male drunk, who was later identified as being wanted by police for not paying for petrol in Christchurch, was singing at the top of his voice at 2am. "He had been drinking his way through a box of 18 cans of bourbon-cola." A full moon coupled with a nor-wester seemed to push some New Zealanders over the edge in November 2015. "We had four (expulsions) in one week." These days, he asks for a passport or driver's licence to identify Kiwis before they are allowed to stay at his 26 bed accommodation. Three-quarters of Timaru Top 10 Holiday Park's guests are domestic visitors, with the rest from overseas, owner Gordon Collister said. "About 99.9 per cent of guests are fantastic." He acknowledged that, in the hospitality industry nationally, there was a problem with Kiwis. His experience had not been the same: unlike Adams, he had not had issues with Masters Games guests. Though they had been loud and boisterous, they were respectful. Collister had heard backpackers in their own country were a dilemma for the industry around the world. They were not on holiday or travelling but tended to be attending social events and so had a different mindset to overseas visitors. Like the pollsters, they expect the South Carolina primaries to be won handily by Herr Trumpf and Hillary Clinton-- and by big margins. If I understand this correctly the odds are 7/1 that both win in South Carolina, an extremely low-info state, by over 20-points. Another bet they're offering, though is who will bet shat on most by Trumpf during his victory speech, calling Ted Cruz a sure thing. If you bet $5 on him being the victim of the most vitriol from Herr, you'd win $2. More about that below. Even in that, the poor Jebster is an underdog-- even if Trumpf was beating up on his appearance on Twitter yesterday. Bet a buck and if Herr spews more hatred towards Jeb than towards Cruz, you win $10. Nice odds! This is a real ad from Nova Scotia in Canada SportsBettingDime.com favors Trump (2/7) and Clinton (3/2) to win in both South Carolina and Nevada. They are also predicting that Dr. Ben (4/5) drops out before Super Tuesday and that Herr Trumpf to drops 12.5 expletives between Friday and Tuesday. Now, let's get down to business-- Nevada first. If you read Jason Horowitz's in the yesterday you already known that Robbie Mook, a DCCC hack who she drafted as her campaign manager, sat down with some big Wall Street moneybags to start after being up by between 20 and 30 points. Horowitz reports that the Mookster "sat at the head of a conference table in the New York office of Clinton donor and Wall Street investor Marc Lasry" of the Avenue Capital Group. The Mookster told the donors, yentas and bundlers that "the outcome in Nevada, a state he ran for Mrs. Clinton in the 2008 campaign, was hard to predict and that, depending on turnout, Mrs. Clinton could win by a lot or win or lose by a tiny margin, according to several donors who requested anonymity to discuss the private meeting." He also assured them that the establishment candidate-- AKA, the Lady With the Goldman Handcuffs-- would win in South Carolina. Maureen White, a former DNC finance chair, "expressed bewilderment that the campaigns mobilization of grassroots support had been eclipsed in the news media by Bernie Sanderss criticism of Mrs. Clinton as the establishment candidate representing big money." Mook, of course, blamed the media. One of the dumb fattest also asked the Mookster "to go after the youth vote. With a straight face, attendees said, the operative took the suggestion under advisement." And, on the other side of the aisle, the Clinton's good friend, Herr Trumpf, was driving the GOP Establishment bonkers, attacking them and destroying their candidates while his polling numbers went into the stratosphere in Nevada (and South Carolina). It's almost as though the . In fact, addressing torture, he told an audience of appreciative neanderthals, "Believe me, it works." ' Trip Gabriel reported yesterday that "the stubborn popularity of Mr. Trump, who defies Republican orthodoxy on issue after issue, shows how deeply the partys elites misjudged the faithfulness of rank-and-file Republicans to conservatism as defined in Washington think tanks and by the partys elected leaders," especially in South Carolina. Herr Trumpfs "populism, a combination of economic nationalism that favors protectionism and a strongman approach to foreign countries that is also noninterventionist, defies almost everything Republicans in Washington have stood for, drawing scorn from party leaders and opinion makers" while locking immense leads in both South Carolina and Nevada. So here's what the bookies say happens Saturday. Odds that Clinton wins the Nevada caucus (DEM) and Herr Trumpf wins the South Carolina primary (GOP) on Feb. 20-- 5/2. Odds that Clinton wins the Nevada caucus and Cruz wins the South Carolina primary-- 4/1. Odds that Clinton wins in Nevada caucus and Rubio wins in South Carolina-- 12/1. And a Clinton/Bush result-- 50/1, which means if you bet $100 on this outcome, and you're right, you walk away from the window with $5,000. Now the Bernie scenarios don't look too likely. Odds that Bernie wins the Nevada caucus and Herr Trumpf wins in South Carolina Saturday-- 5/2... the exact same odds as it coming out Hillary-Trumpf. By the time you're looking at Bernie/Bush however, you're looking at a $100 bet earning you $8,000. I don't suggest it. The straight up Hillary vs Bernie Nevada contest Saturday looks very very close and if you bet $11 and Hillary wins, you win $10. If you get $10 on Bernie and he wins, you get $11. Close, but, like the Mookster above, favoring Hillary. In South Carolina, they're predicting a 12.5 point spread between Trumpf and Cruz and a crushing 19.5 point spread between Hillary and Bernie. These are the odds in South Carolina for the Republicans: Herr Trumpf: 3/2 Cruz: 5/1 Rubio: 5/1 Jeb: 6/1 Kasich: 30/1 Dr. Ben: 50/1 And for the Democrats the following week... Bet $9 on Hillary and win just $1 if she wins but bet a buck on Bernie and walk away with $7 if he wins. Of course, now that he's pulled ahead of Hillary nationally , I expect some of these odds are going to get changed pretty quickly. Over/under on how many times Trump will curse in public between Friday, Feb. 19 (the day before the GOP's S.C. primary) and Tuesday, Feb. 23 (the day of the Nevada caucus): Over/under: 12.5 (using a liberal definition of "curse"). Odds to drop out of the race or suspend candidacy between Nevada (Feb. 20) and Super Tuesday (March 1): Carson: 4/5 Kasich: 5/4 Odds on who Donald Trump will mock/insult the most during his victory/concession speech following the GOP's South Carolina primary: Ted Cruz: 2/5 Hillary Clinton: 5/1 Barack Obama: 6/1 Marco Rubio: 8/1 Jeb Bush/George Bush: 10/1 And last but not least, which party wins in November? If you bet $13 on the Democrats and they win, you get $8. If you bet $20 on the Republicanos and they win, you get $30. And if you bet $10 on Bloomberg and he wins, you get $100. I don't know if looking on betting odds will help you figure out who will win and better than looking at the polls does. But I know one thing that absolutely won't help you figure anything out: This page has found a new home A Bay of Plenty couple had to be rescued after waking to find a flash-flood had washed away their truck and trapped them in their Galatea home. Northern fire communications shift manager Scott Osmond says after discovering their predicament the couple contacted family members who raised the alarm with emergency services shortly before 7am. An investigation in fraud allegations against Brendan Horan has found "insufficient evidence" to lay any charges. NZ First leader Winston Peter made a complaint to the serious fraud office in December 2012 in relation to Brendans late mothers bank account. The Slovak AFCOS/Unit National Office for OLAF of the control section within the Slovak Government Office, together with the partners of the AFCOS network, have published their Annual Report on Activities in the Protection of the EUs Financial Interests in the Slovak Republic. Coast & Country News editor and SunMedia senior journalist Elaine Fisher has won the Horticulture New Zealand Journalism award for a fourth time in her career, recognising her extensive knowledge of and relationships in New Zealands horticulture industry. Elaine was presented the award for excellence in horticultural journalism at last nights New Zealand Guild of Agricultural Journalists and Communicators awards dinner in Wellington. The situation on the Greek island changes all the time and more boats will start to arrive again when the weather improves in spring Paul Carr at the Kara Tepe camp on Lesbos island. :: SUR Paul Carr has been on the Greek island of Lesbos since 29 January and he says that it was media coverage about the refugee crisis that drew him to the country. After spending 10 years in the financial services industry, Paul, originally from Leicester, decided to leave it all behind to fulfill a calling he had to do something to help others. The world situation is getting worse and worse so I felt Ineeded to help, to put a smile on someones face, he told SUR inEnglish on the phone from the Greek island earlier this week. He had wanted to work in the field of humanitarian aid for a while and although he contacted several organisations and considered a number of different countries, it was the desperate situation in Greece that finally made up his mind. Local help The 33-year-old, who lives in Marbella with his girlfriend, arrived on Lesbos with 1,500 euros that he had managed to raise with the help of the Anglican Church of the Costa del Sol West, in San Pedro. The church allocates funds for charitable needs to a number of organisations and had already agreed that they would assist the refugee crisis. When Paul approached them, they say that they were only too pleased to help, confident that the money would be going directly to the cause rather than into the hands of larger charities. Donations have also come in from local companies and individuals. Although Paul is attached to the Humanitarian Support Agency, he has been able to decide how he uses the money raised and has been under no obligation to hand it over to a bigger outfit. So far, the money has bought 100 pairs of childrens shoes, a communal mobile phone for refugees use at the Kara Tepe camp, where he is based, train tickets for a family of 13 Syrians, enabling them to get to Germany and assistance to a family who were forced to throw their belongings overboard when travelling from Turkey to Lesbos. He says the most difficult thing is deciding which people to help, as everyone is deserving. Paul tells other stories of families arriving on the island with nothing more than the clothes that they are wearing, largely due to smugglers demands to throw their belongings overboard once on the boats. Suitcases take up valuable space that can be occupied by more migrants, in turn putting more money into the criminals pockets. Cramming 30 to 40 people on boats, which are designed to carry no more than 15, is an all too common sight on the news and for Paul. Although the numbers arriving have dropped in recent weeks due to bad sea conditions, as spring approaches Paul is in no doubt that the boats will start to come back. Organisation among chaos An estimated 3.5 million refugees are still being held in Turkey, hopeful of a better life in Europe and on a good day between 30 and 40 overloaded boats will make it, albeit only just. Fewer people are losing their lives since Frontex (European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union) and the Greek coastguards have been more organised and have started bringing the boats safely to shore, says the former financial services worker. Although there is a huge network of NGOs and individuals working on the island there is organisation among the chaos. Paul explains how they all work together to offer what help and support they can on the ground and in terms of arranging onward journeys for people whose ultimate goal is to make it to other countries. The most popular, says Paul, is Germany. Also on Lesbos are representatives from Canada, advertising the possibility for 250,000 refugees with specific skills, to go there under a special programme that has already accepted 25,000 displaced people. Continuity Paul says that the situation on Lesbos, and in general, changes every day. As news reports of airstrips and ceasefires continue to dominate the headlines, Paul and the other aid workers main priority continues to be providing a safe passage for those who do make it. He will be on the island until 3 March and is keen to continue with his humanitarian aid work. He is currently thinking of either staying on Lesbos or going to Lebanon. He has a website and Facebook page, which he keeps up to date, with photos of himself and some of the people, mainly women and children, he has helped. Inevitably the Facebook page has received some unwanted comments from people who consider that what Paul is doing is playing straight into the hands of terrorists, with reference to the Paris attacks. However, the 33-year-old stands firm in his conviction that he is answering a call he had to help others in desperate situations and says that such comments on social media will not deter him from his ambition. To find out more about Pauls work, visit his website: lovelaughlearnact.com or his Facebook page: Love Laugh Learn Act. The European Commission and the International Energy Agency will address the impact of the energy crisis on SMEs in an online event on 21 October. Taylor,Tyrese.JPG Tyrese Taylor stands in front of the building where his sister was shot and killed by Syracuse police on Friday, Feb. 11. He said he still has questions for police about the circumstances behind her death. (Patrick Lohmann | Syracuse.com) A Facebook cover photo of Shalah Ridgeway uploaded on June 11, 2014. SYRACUSE, NY -- Tyrese Taylor stood in front of the Kimton Place apartment building Tuesday smoking a cigar in front of a makeshift memorial to his sister Sahlah Ridgeway, a 32-year-old woman who was shot and killed by Syracuse police last week. "She was known for having a gun on her," he said. "I'm mad at her about that." But he still has a number of questions for police, questions that he hopes can be answered at least in part by the Syracuse police surveillance camera that could be seen blinking overhead along Butternut Street in front of where Sahlah Ridgeway was shot and killed. Police said Ridgeway refused to drop sawed-off shotgun when officer Darrin Ettinger fatally shot her. One question, Taylor said, is did police believe his sister was selling drugs? Or did she just panic when police approached the apartment building? He said she sometimes smoked marijuana but was not involved in drug dealing. "She wasn't a thug," Taylor said. "She wasn't a gangster." Police said two officers -- Ettinger and Jeremy Decker -- arrived to respond to a drug dealing call. Ettinger stayed at the front while officer Jeremy Decker ran to the rear. Decker spotted a group of people, including a woman carrying a shotgun. The woman fled toward the front of the building, police said, and Decker alerted Ettinger via radio. That's when Ettinger ordered Ridgeway to drop the weapon multiple times, police said, and shot her. Police said Ettinger feared for his life and for Decker's life when he shot Ridgeway. Taylor said he wants to know if his sister threatened the officers with the gun or just had it with her, and he wants to know where she was shot. Taylor stressed that he simply didn't know the answers to the questions surrounding his sister's death and did not suggest police acted improperly. The shooting investigation will be handled by the local District Attorney's office, which will present the facts of the shooting for a grand-jury review. Fatal shootings of unarmed individuals in New York are sent to a special prosecutor, but that is not the case with Ridgeway's death. Beginning with a phone call Friday night with the bad news, Taylor said his family has been thrown into chaos with all the questions and devastation that the police shooting of a family member can bring. He said they are still disoriented. "I haven't been to sleep since," he said. He showed a reporter into her apartment in the building, which was on the first floor just before the back entrance. A pink sticker that said "peace" was stuck on the front of the door, and the door's dead bolt had been removed. The apartment had been largely cleaned out of personal property except for boxes of cereal and trash bags of clothing. A fire extinguisher had "property of Catholic Charities" written on it in black marker. Taylor asked a building manager to stow his sister's remaining belongings in a secure closet, concerned that fellow building tenants might steal them. The building manager agreed that theft in the building was a common occurrence. Ridgeway was an aspiring rapper who posted prolifically on Facebook, where she shared her dealings with bipolar disorder and shared moments of friendship and family. "She had her own little crowd," Taylor said of his sister. Other family members could not be reached. police crop.jpg Syracuse police officers came to today's arraignment for Quashar Neil, accused of firing at an officer during an attempted murder in November. Police Chief Frank Fowler is at the far left, partially obscured by a court officer. (Douglass Dowty | ddowty@syracuse.com) Quashar Neil Syracuse, NY -- Syracuse Police Chief Frank Fowler was among about 20 officers who came to court today for the arraignment of a 17-year-old accused of trying to murder an officer. Their presence didn't go unnoticed during Quashar Neil's arraignment. He's accused of firing at Officer Patricia Sargeant during a car chase Nov. 19 near Henninger High School. Defense lawyer Mark Blum said today he hoped County Court Judge Anthony Aloi wasn't being "swayed" by the officers in court when the judge decided to hold the accused gunman with no bail. Aloi interrupted. "Let me say this, Mr. Blum, let me say this before you impinge my integrity," the judge fired back. "No, but..." Blum started. "Just a minute, you raised this!" Aloi said. "They have every right to be here. This is their fellow officer that was involved in the attempted murder allegation. And they have every right to be in the courtroom. I'm not intimidated by law enforcement people who protect this community." County Court Judge Anthony Aloi The judge continued that he'd handled enough murder cases to know when it made sense to hold a defendant without bail. "No, I'm not intimidated. It's no bail," he repeated. Blum pointed out that this was an attempted murder -- not a murder -- case. He invoked Neil's right to a bail hearing. What would be a reasonable bail, the judge asked. "ROR," Blum responded, short for released on his own recognizance (no bail). "Well, you know that's not going to happen," Aloi responded. "I know," Blum replied. Neil is accused of firing at the officer after speeding away from a reported shooting on Robinson Street, near the high school. The police union later issued a $2,500 reward for information leading to Neil's capture. Blum demanded the reward money after convincing his client to turn himself in a few days before Christmas. But Fowler, the police chief, refused. The large group of officers took up one side of the courtroom gallery during today's arraignment. The only offer on the table is for Neil to plead guilty to all the charges and spend 25 years to life in prison, the judge said today. Otherwise, Neil will head to trial. He pleaded not guilty today at arraignment, which is typical. Defense lawyer Irene Flores is also representing Neil. She appeared, but did not speak, during court today. vreeland.JPG Michael W. Vreeland (Provided photo) A Madison County man who was charged Wednesday with aggravated cruelty to animals after allegedly shooting his mother's kitten now faces another charge. Michael W. Vreeland, 22, of 183 Mutton Hill Road, Fenner has now been charged with violating an order of protection, according to Jack Keller, a spokesman for the New York State Police. Vreeland called his mother from the Madison County jail several times Thursday night, violating the order of protection she had secured, police said. Vreeland has been accused of shooting his mother's kitten six times with a .22 rifle killing the pet behind their house Wednesday, police said. Vreeland told police he did it because the kitten was having a seizure, but police said his mother did not believe that. Because of the additional charge, Vreeland's bail was raised to $10,000 cash or $20,000 bond, police said. Previously, his bail was$ 500 cash or $1,000 bond. Late Mohamed Ismail, a small truck driver was killed on Thursday At Cairo security directorate by journalist Omar El-Hady Angry protesters by photographer Roger Anis At Ahmed Maher Hospital in Darb Al-Ahamr by journalist Omar El-Hady pic.twitter.com/LHjfucUZsh February 18, 2016 The CCTV footage The crime scene by photographer Roger Anis Al-Masry Al-Youm : eye-witnesses' accounts The head of Cairo security directorate with the late driver's sister "The Egyptian ministry of interior" From few hours ago, we found out that another low-ranking policeman killed a citizen, a taxi driver in what you consider a tragic finale for a week full of violations that reach to the level of crimes committed by low-ranking policemen in Egypt.Thursday evening, news spread online that a low-ranking policeman shot down a truck-driver after a fight in Darb Al-Ahamr area and that the people in the area allegedly killed the policeman in retaliation.Indeed, a low-ranking policeman shot a truck-driver, 24-years old Mohamed Ali Ismail in a fight over the fare but he fled the scene according to Cairo security directorate which is few blocks away from the crime scene.Eye witnesses say that the low-ranking policeman was beaten by the angry people to the level that they thought he died and that other policemen and informants help him to flee the scene.He accompanied another man allegedly his relative who was also beaten till near death but was transferred to hospital.Things escalated so fast and the murder sparked protests in Darb Al-Ahamr.Darb Al-Ahamr is a very populated popular class area where people actually suffer from the violations and harassments of the low-ranking policemen.Hundreds of protesters gathered in front of Cairo security directorate chanting against the ministry of interior angrily "You dirty government, you sons of bitches", " The ministry of interior are thugs"Police officers tried to calm them but in vain.The angry protesters also organized rallies to Ahmed Maher hospital where late Ismail's body was to express their anger blocking the traffic for hours.They also protested in front of the famous Haraz herbs and spices shop where the crime took place as the shop turned to have a CCTV.Here is the video captured by @Fadel Ibrahim. Following the protests and in an attempt to calm angry locals down, the ministry of interior claimed that the 24-years old truck driver was killed by mistake vowing at the same time to arrest the low-ranking policeman. Well, killing people by mistake does not need three bullets in the head and in the stomach according to the General Prosecution as well to eye witnesses!! Here is a video from Al-Masry Al-Youm from the crime scene including the eye-witnesses' accounts which detail what happened. It was an argument over the fare that turned deadly when the low-ranking policeman insulted the young truck driver by his mother and the late Mohamed Ismail told him not to call his mother names. The low-ranking policeman then took his gun and shot him in his head !!At the same time, the head of Cairo security directorate met with the deceased driver's sister vowing to arrest the low-ranking policeman.News reports say that at three police stations including El-Siyada Zeinab and Darb Al-Ahamr closed their doors for fear of protests.You can feel that the ministry of interior is worried about an escalation in that popular area as well mobilization. I am amazed to see such number protesting on Thursday already.Do we need an "Egyptian Lives matter" campaign now so the police and the ministry of interior as well the regime understands what we want !?It is worth to mention the "We are all Khaled Said" movement started like "Black lives matter" and we all know what happened next.It is worth to mention also that Khaled Said was killed brutally by two low-ranking policemen. MacGregor Pusnes loading systems contract The first contracts for MacGregors Pusnes tanker offshore loading systems have been signed with China's Cosco Shipyard Group. By combining Cargotecs subsidiary MacGregor Pusnes technology in bow loading and offloading systems, a solution has been developed that enables crude oil to be loaded directly from an FPSO or an FSO to a conventional tanker, up to VLCC size. "MacGregor, and its Pusnes brand, has a long history of developing pioneering offshore loading systems within the industry," said Hye Hyesen, vice president, MacGregor Advanced Offshore Solutions. "Based on this legacy, MacGregor was invited by Cefront Technology, who developed the concept, to participate in the design and development of the loading systems." The Cosco Shipyard Group orders will see MacGregor design, manufacture, deliver and commission complete Pusnes loading systems for two cargo transfer (CTV) vessels, which will be built at Cosco Nantong Shipyard and at Cosco Guangdong Shipyard. MacGregor will start delivering the equipment at the end of this year. Each vessel will feature MacGregor's Pusnes bow loading and offloading system, which principally comprises: two Pusnes bow loading systems, one Pusnes offloading system, including the world's largest crude oil hose reel with offloading hose; and two sets of Pusnes-patented releasable 700 tonne hawser winches, in addition to auxiliary winches and an integrated electro/hydraulic control system. MacGregor had previously delivered four sets of Pusnes bow loading systems to Cosco Nantong Shipyard and two sets to Cosco Zhoushan Shipyard, of which, one project is still ongoing. Norstar to launch new US company Singapore-based tanker management company Norstar has set up a commercial management joint venture based in Westport, Connecticut under the banner of Norstar Chartering (USA). The new entity is a collaboration between brothers Chris and Tom Bonehill, principals of the Norstar Group and two senior shipping industry executives Lars Ebbesen and Olav Ekeberg formerly partners of Sokana Chartering and Navig8 Chemicals. Tom Bonehill said: We are delighted to be joining forces with Lars and Olav to form this new company. They are known in the tanker industry as being outstanding ship traders with a broad network and excellent support from their cargo customers. This new venture will complement our existing structure of commercial and technical management services. Norstar currently has offices in Singapore, Myanmar and Connecticut, US. The company manages a fleet of 19 chemical and product carriers. RPK Nord replaces ULCC with VLCC On 28th January, the first oil cargo arrived alongside the FSO Umba in the 2000-built 19,831 dwt, Roswell-managed chemical/product tanker Ice Condor, which was carrying 16,200 tonnes of condensate. This was the first cargo shipped from Gazprom Nefts Yamal Peninsula Novoportovskoye field and was loaded at Novy Port (Gulf of Ob) terminal. The 300,259 dwt the FSO Umba had arrived off Murmansk on 15th January this year and was anchored by RPK Nord in the middle of Kola Bay, within the port area. She was previously the VLCC Sasa and replaced the converted ULCC FSO Belokamenka, which had been acting as a storage and transhipment vessel for 12 years and in November 2015, she left the Russian port and sailed to Kirkenes to be handed back to BW Maritime. She is currently believed to be anchored off Batam, Indonesia. The FSO Umba, under the banner of FSO RPK Nord, has been installed to tranship Gazprom Neft export oil shipped from Novoportovskoye gas condensate field and Prirazlomnaya crude oil field. She is operated by Sovcomflot, managed by affiliate Unicom and was registered with Russian Maritime Register of Shipping (RS) on 1st October, 2015. Once a sufficient amount of oil has been transferred to the FSO RPK Nord, the oil will be offloaded onto larger tankers for export via STS operations.The FSO is expected to handle around 12 mill tonnes of oil per year. This Page Is Under Construction - Coming Soon! Why am I seeing this 'Under Construction' page? STUART Nearly a year to the day a former Martin Girls Academy teacher suffered a broken jaw during a classroom attack, a judge signed off on a legal settlement for an undisclosed amount offered by the private firm that runs the maximum-risk juvenile justice program. Evelyn Heintzelman, 59, was employed as a teacher with the Martin County School District Feb. 3, 2015 when an inmate in her academy classroom struck her in the face with a bookshelf, fracturing her jaw and several teeth. Records show on Feb. 4, Heintzelman, who still is recovering from severe injuries, agreed to settle a negligence lawsuit she filed against G4S Youth Services LLC. The Tampa-based company operates the facility under a five-year $19.7 million state contract. The 30-bed academy, next to the Martin County Jail at the Holt Law Enforcement Complex, provides specific mental health therapy for delinquent girls with behavior and conduct disorders who have been ordered to the program by a judge. CONFIDENTIAL SETTLEMENT Heintzelman's West Palm Beach attorney Philip Thompson said he couldn't reveal how much the settlement was worth, but claimed ending the suit saved G4S money. When he filed the suit in July, Thompson declined to put a price tag on his client's damages, but suggested the case was "worth multiple six figures." He said G4S' decision to settle "speaks to the strength of the case." "There really wasn't much of a defense you could mount to liability based on the Martin Girls Academy and G4S failing to comply with their own procedures, which they should have done to keep Evelyn safe," Thompson said. "They knew they weren't going to be able to make hay with a jury on liability." On Thursday, G4S spokeswoman Monica Lewman-Garcia said in an email "the safety and security of our staff, teachers and the youth entrusted to our care is our top priority." "The incident that happened with Ms. Heintzelman was unfortunate," Lewman-Garcia noted. "The matter was resolved amicably between the parties and we wish Ms. Heintzelman all the best." Thompson meanwhile, said Heintzelman still works for the school district but struggles physically. "She has physical issues that she is dealing with to this day," he said. "It's going to be a long process for those injuries to fully resolve." Heintzelman's suit is the second time G4S has been sued over its operation of the academy since it opened in 2008. Last year, two former security guards filed a whistleblower lawsuit seeking to get their jobs back. That suit, which is pending, claimed the pair were fired in retaliation for reporting suspicions a male co-worker was having a sexual relationship with a minor detainee. Sheriff's officials closed as "unfounded" an investigation into the same claims after detectives were unable to substantiate the allegations. CRIMINAL PROSECUTION It's unclear whether the state will ever prosecute 16-year-old Jasmine Little, who is charged as an adult with aggravated battery in Heintzelman's attack. Records show on Feb. 10, a judge ruled she was incompetent to proceed and ordered her into the secured custody of the Florida Department of Children and Families. Assistant State Attorney David Lustgarten, who had offered Little a plea deal that required serving 10 years in prison, said the state wants to see her prosecuted. "Two psychiatric specialists have determined that she is not competent to proceed and now she's going to go off to a state facility in an attempt to restore her to competency," Lustgarten said. "If that occurs, she will be brought back to Martin County to face the charge again." Court records don't indicate where Little will be sent, and Thursday she was still at the Martin County Jail, according to sheriff's officials. The classroom attack was captured on security video and shows Little acting erratically and waving a wooden board over her head before she lets it go in Heintzelman's direction, striking her in the face and mouth. About a dozen girls witnessed the assault. Many appeared upset and followed Heintzelman out of class as she clutched her bleeding face. A staff member ushered Little out a side door. Lustgarten said if a judge ever finds Little is competent to prosecute, he'll likely offer her the same plea deal of a decade behind bars. "I still truly believe she should receive every day of that," he said. Daniel Bolden, 26, 1900 block of U.S. 1, Fort Pierce; warrant for tampering with a witness, victim or informant. Leo Sears, 58, 1600 block of Avenue K, Fort Pierce; warrant for sale of cocaine within 1,000 feet of a specified area (school). Nicholas Ward, 30, 700 block of 15th Street, Fort Pierce; warrant for possession of cocaine. Keith Newman, 29, 2400 block of 25th Street, Fort Pierce; warrant for aggravated battery. Douglas Denno, 56, 4900 block of Sparkling Pines Circle, Fort Pierce; grand theft of a motor vehicle (scooter). Travis Kenyon, 29, 1100 block of 7th Street, Fort Pierce; warrants for driving with license suspended, habitual offender, high speed or wanton fleeing, resisting officer without violence. Sabrunia Limorin, 20, 1200 block of 32nd Street, Fort Pierce; battery on detention staff/juvenile probation officer. Matthew Herrera, 19, 600 block of U.S. 1, Fort Pierce; warrant for violation of probation, possession of cocaine, possession of drug paraphernalia. ) Trevaun Jones, 20, 3800 block of Chicopee Street, Port St. Lucie; warrant for court order for pretrial detention and termination of pretrial supervision, burglary of a dwelling, possession of burglary tools. Jason Hayling, 21, 3000 block of Avenue L, Fort Pierce; warrant for court order to revoke bond, grand theft of a motor vehicle, trespass on land, willful/wanton reckless driving, resisting an officer without violence. David Tate, 28, 11000 block of Fieldstone Way, Port St. Lucie; out-of-state warrant, Milford, Connecticut, for violation of probation, robbery with a gun. Catherine Hudor, 54, 100 block of Camino Del Rio, Port St. Lucie; warrant for violation of pretrial detention and pretrial supervision, sale of morphine. Sasha Pond, 21, 4500 block of Whispering Pines Lane, Fort Pierce; warrant for pretrial detention and termination of pretrial supervision, burglary of an unoccupied dwelling while unarmed and no assault/battery, grand theft, dealing in stolen property. Charles Rogers, 57, 3100 block of Naylor Terrace, Fort Pierce; driving while license suspended, habitual offender. Robert Pitt, 29, 300 block of Hollyhock Drive, Port St. Lucie; warrant for violation of probation, petty theft. Zynia Swoope, 36, first block of Toreador, Port St. Lucie; warrant for violation of probation, petty theft. Stephanie Bird, 46, first block of Valparaiso, Port St. Lucie; warrant for violation of probation, scheme to defraud. Jonathan Bryant, 34, 14000 block of U.S. 1, Sebastian; warrant for grand theft of a motor vehicle. James Mcintyre, 59, 3400 block of Jake Court, Stuart; warrant for contracting without a license. Stephen Gaebel, 25, Kenoza Lake, New York; out-of-county warrant, Charlotte County, violation of probation, theft of a controlled substance, petty theft of property. Ramien Afsarmanesh-Tehrani, 28, 200 block of Egret Lane, Port St. Lucie; property damage criminal mischief over $200, subsequent offense. Barbaro Farinas, 53, Homestead; hold, Miami, driving while license suspended, habitual offender. Basmati Niranjan, 60, 1100 block of Chipola Road, Fort Pierce; readmit, petty theft, prior conviction. Eric Griffin, 39, 100 block of Tropic Court, Fort Pierce; readmit, driving with license suspended. Hoang Huynh, 45, 2000 block of Joyner Street, Port St. Lucie; DUI, accompanied by a person under 18, third offense. Arrested in Martin County. VERO BEACH The archaeological dig at the Old Vero Man site is ready to resume, this time under the direction of Florida Atlantic University. Old Vero Ice Age Sites Committee chairman Randy Old said the weatherport or tent that covers the site went up Feb. 1, and archaeology students have been preparing the site for the new excavation. The area must be stripped of a covering layer of soil, called overburden, which was placed over the site last year to protect it from the elements. The dig each year halts during the rainy season. "We'll be down to where we left off last year by the end of this week," Old said. "We have about 10 students at the site working, along with three or four supervisors, including James Adovasio and Andy Hemmings, who have both moved over to Florida Atlantic University." Both Adovasio and Hemmings have been working at the site for several years as part of the team of archaeologists from Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pennsylvania. When the college decided not to continue excavations in 2016, FAU expanded its role in the project along Aviation Boulevard. The dig site, near Vero Beach Regional Airport along the Main Relief Canal, could be one of the most important ice age historical sites in the world. In 1915, a fossilized skeleton was found there, possibly the oldest human remains found in North America. Remains of extinct animals including a mammoth, mastodon, saber-toothed cat and ancient species of tapir, horse and sloth also have been found. FAU is now the lead university partner on the dig, and is working with Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute's ancient DNA lab and Indian River State College. The ancient DNA lab is working on bone fragments from the last excavation to retrieve DNA and compare it with DNA from similar time period. Indian River State College scientists are studying soil samples from the same site. "This Florida site has national and international significance," said Daniel C. Flynn, FAU vice president for research. "As one of the state's 12 public universities, FAU brings tremendous resources and infrastructure to this important project." Old said the Old Vero Ice Age Sites Committee has reached an agreement with former partner Mercyhurst University to pay about $377,000 for the previous work conducted by the university over several years. "It ended up to be a very good settlement with them," said Old, adding a confidentiality agreement prohibits him from disclosing all of the terms of the settlement. "We got everything we needed, including the equipment and we will pay the college off over the next few years." Funding available for the 2016 dig is about $400,000, with $450,000 promised next year, Old said. Some of that money is from a special category grant from the Florida Department of State's Division of Historical Resources. "The support we've gotten from Harbor Branch and FAU has been outstanding," Old said. "Applying for grants is very complicated and FAU has a huge grant office that has been helping out tremendously. We're grateful." TOUR THE SITE Tours of the Old Vero Man site will be available to the public once the actual excavation gets underway. For information about the project, visit www.oviasc.org. VERO BEACH Faith & Justice Symposium to discuss black incarceration rates The evangelical Ministers Coalition of Indian River County will host a Faith & Justice Symposium at 10 a.m. Feb. 20 at the First Church of God, 1150 58th Ave., Vero Beach, to discuss criminal justice reform and to develop faith-based solutions to rising crime and incarceration rates, particularly in minority communities. A 10-person panel of experts will lead the symposium including Indian River County Sheriff Deryl Loar, Indian River County School Superintendent Dr. Mark Rendell and Circuit Judge Cynthia Cox. Other panelists include the Rev. Denny Hart, the Rev. Seth Goldsmith, the Rev. Gary Montgomery, Freddie Woolfork of the Gifford Youth Achievement Center, and representatives from the Juvenile Justice Commission and the Florida Department of Corrections. The symposium is open to the public and includes a complimentary continental breakfast and a free barbecue lunch. Make reservations by calling 772-539-1826 or by emailing dale@risktakersforchrist.org. Correction: This article has been modified from its original version. Maggy Hurchalla was accompanied by her 4-year-old grandson on her Port Salerno dock in 1998. Who says history doesn't repeat itself? The timing and the volume of the current Lake Okeechobee discharges into the St. Lucie River are eerily similar to those of 1997-98. Given what happened in 1998, that's a dark cloud hanging over the St. Lucie and the Indian River Lagoon. In both 1998 and this year, the discharges began during what should be South Florida's dry winter. Follow our Lake Okeechobee discharge meter for daily updates. But this winter has been anything but dry. From November through January, South Florida has received 16.22 inches of rain the highest total for the three-month period since record keeping began in 1932. The weather this year is being influenced by El Nino, the pattern that brings Florida cold, wet winters. In fact, as far back as October, National Weather Service forecasters said this year's El Nino would be the strongest since the winter of ... 1997-98. Because of all that rain and more expected to come, this year's discharges, like those in 1997-98, started slowly for a short time before reaching a fast and furious 2 billion gallons a day. Legions of lesions The most vivid memory of the 1998 discharges for Maggy Hurchalla, a former Martin County commissioner and longtime environmental activist, is standing on her dock in the Port Salerno area with her then-4-year-old grandson. "A fish swam by with a big, red hole in its side," Hurchalla said, "I thought to myself, 'That's obscene, and nothing a 4-year-old ought to see.' " That year the Indian River Lagoon became famous, or infamous, nationwide as the place with the lesion-covered fish. How's the water in your area? The discharges began in mid-December 1997, ramped up in mid-January 1998 and kicked the doors open in late February. The first lesion-covered fish were found floating near Sewall's Point on March 2, 1998. By the end of March, thousands of dead fish or live fish with lesions had been reported in the lagoon as far north as Melbourne and as far south as Jupiter. A total of 33 species of fish were documented with lesions, some so bad their internal organs were spilling out of their bodies. By early May, only a handful of dead or lesioned fish were being reported each day; but by that time about 6 percent of the fish population in the southern lagoon and St. Lucie River had died. The head of the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission called it "an epidemic." Anglers brought scores of dead and diseased fish to an office the Department of Environmental Protection set up in the parking lot of the Snook Nook, a Jensen Beach bait shop. A toxic algae called Cryptoperidiniopsis was blamed for the dead and lesioned fish. "That algae is always in the water," said Mark Perry, executive director of the Florida Oceanographic Institute in Stuart. "But the freshwater discharges caused the slime coating on the fishes' skin to break down, and that made them susceptible to the algae that everyone just called 'crypto.' " Perry said similar fish kills have been recorded in the St. Lucie and the lagoon before and after 1998, and each time correlated with a Lake O discharge. The current discharges could spawn another round of dead and lesioned fish, Perry said. "If the discharges continue into March and April, which is likely given that El Nino is supposed to stay strong through March, there's a likelihood we could start seeing dead and diseased fish," he said. "But it probably won't happen until the spring." Silver lining The dark cloud of the 1998 discharges did have a hint of a silver lining. "The St. Lucie Estuary screamed in 1998," Hurchalla said. "Unfortunately, if nothing awful happens, nothing good happens." While the DEP was collecting fish at the Snook Nook, the shop's owner, Henry Caimotto, was collecting more than 30,000 signatures from local residents pleading for a solution. "The discharges fired up a lot of people," Caimotto said last week. "It got some play in the media. Some meetings were held, and then some more meetings. People said they'd study this and that. I heard the word 'study' so much it chokes me. But in the end, nothing ever happened." Well, some things happened. First, the anger over the discharges led to the formation of the Rivers Coalition, a consortium that now includes more than 70 environmental groups, homeowners associations, fishing clubs and businesses representing about 300,000 people in Martin and St. Lucie counties dedicated to stopping Lake O discharges. In 2006, the coalition's defense fund unsuccessfully sued the Army Corps of Engineers in an attempt to stop the discharges. The St. Lucie River Issues Team was started in 1998 to recommend ready-to-go water quality projects the South Florida Water District Board of Governors. So far, the Florida Legislature has funded more than $63 million of the team's projects in Martin and St. Lucie counties for the St. Lucie River, with tens of millions of additional dollars from federal and local governments. In November 1998, Martin County voters approved a three-year, 1 percent sales tax hike to buy land for environmental preservation and river cleanup efforts. According to county statistics, the measure meant the average household paid an additional $188 yearly in sales taxes. Some of the tax proceeds were used when Martin County pitched in $27 million to buy land for the C-44 Reservoir and Stormwater Treatment Area near Indiantown. The project is scheduled to be storing and cleaning water headed to the St. Lucie River in 2020. Hurchalla also thinks the 1998 discharges helped lead to the approval of the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan in 2000. The multibillion-dollar, 30-year project the world's largest ecosystem restoration includes projects to help eliminate Lake Okeechobee discharges. So far, none of CERP's 60-plus component projects has been completed. "The 1998 discharges proved to be a major turning point," Hurchalla said. "Before there were lesioned fish to put in front of a camera, nobody paid any attention to us." Dishcharge deja vu 1997-98 Started: Dec. 18, 1997 Ended: May 22, 1998 Total Lake O water to St. Lucie: 339.7 billion gallons Average discharge per day: 2.2 billion gallons a day 2016 Started: Jan. 30 Ended: To be determined Total Lake O water to St. Lucie: 36.2 billion gallons through Feb. 17 Average discharge per day: 2.1 billion gallons through Feb. 17 TALLAHASSEE With executions halted and court cases caught in limbo, Florida legislators have reached an agreement to overhaul the state's death penalty law. Amid a vivid and passionate debate where one Port St. Lucie legislator talked about how his sister was murdered decades ago, the Florida House overwhelmingly voted Thursday for a death penalty bill that would require that at least 10 out of 12 jurors recommend execution in order for it be carried out. The measure heads next to the Senate, which is expected to approve the bill soon and send it to Gov. Rick Scott. 'These reforms will allow us to keep the death penalty in our toolbox to punish our most violent criminals,' said House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, a Merritt Island Republican. The Legislature is rewriting the death penalty law after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last month that the current method is unconstitutional because it allows judges to reach a different decision than juries, which has only an advisory role in recommending death. In the aftermath of that decision, the Florida Supreme Court delayed the pending execution of inmate Michael Lambrix after his attorneys argued that the ruling should apply to all 389 people on Florida's death row. Other judges across the state have also said they lack the authority to impose the death penalty in light of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Lambrix was sentenced in the 1983 slayings of two people he met at a bar. Prosecutors said he killed them after inviting them home for dinner. Under the bill (HB 7101) passed by the House, a jury would have to unanimously convict someone of murder and then unanimously agree that at least one factor in the case warranted a death sentence. At least 10 people on the jury would then have to vote to recommend a death sentence. A judge could not impose a death sentence if the jury had recommended life in prison. The decision to require a 10-2 vote of the jury in death cases was called a compromise between House and Senate Republicans. The Senate bill initially called for a unanimous jury recommendation, while the House had proposed a supermajority of only nine jurors. The idea of requiring a unanimous jury recommendation was strongly opposed by Florida prosecutors who argued that some of the state's most notorious murderers including serial killer Ted Bundy did not receive a unanimous jury recommendation. The House approved the bill by a 93-20 vote but only after a lengthy debate where some legislators said they could not support the bill because they had a moral objection to the death penalty. They also cited how Florida has been on the leading states in the number of death row inmates who were later exonerated. 'This bill is cloaked in procedure, but soaked in a hateful policy,' said Rep. Darryl Rouson, a St. Petersburg Democrat. 'This bill is cloaked in process, but soaked in the cries of innocents and the exonerated.' Among those who opposed the bill was Rep. Larry Lee Jr., a Port St. Lucie Democrat who told legislators that his sister was murdered back in the 1970s when she was just 24 years old. 'Right now I'm really conflicted about putting an innocent person to death because once that happens, it's over,' Lee said. 'And I can tell you, my friends, as I said, it's 40 years and I still feel that pain. ... So just vote your conscience.' But Rep. Carlos Trujillo, a Miami attorney and former prosecutor, chided opponents and compared the numbers of those executed in Florida to the number of abortions performed each year. He said that the state had to take steps to ensure that the families of victims got justice. 'You are not voting to kill somebody, that's the outcome of their own actions,' Trujillo said. 'We're sitting here thinking government is putting them to death. They put themselves to death.' TALLAHASSEE A bill that would allow All Aboard Florida to serve alcohol at its train stations is ready to be heard on the Senate floor. The idea is to help rail projects become "financially viable" by allowing the state to issue licenses for beer, wine and liquor to railroad stations or restaurants that serve passengers, sponsor Sen. Rob Bradley said. "I think All Aboard was perhaps the inspiration for that but the idea is, hopefully, others will utilize that opportunity and rail will become viable all over the state," said Bradley, R-Orange Park. SB 698 changes different alcohol and tobacco regulations and was scheduled to be heard on the Senate floor Thursday but Bradley asked the hearing be postponed because he wanted to study "last-second" amendments that were filed and to make sure the Senate passes a bill that's equal to its House version. The bill now is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Tuesday. Senate President-elect Joe Negron, R-Stuart, said he will vote against the bill. Many of his constituents in all three Treasure Coast counties and northern Palm Beach oppose All Aboard's Brightline high-speed trains because of road closures and impacts on their lifestyle. He's vowed to oppose the rail project as well in the Legislature. "Obviously it's a request that they (All Aboard Florida) are making because they believe it will support their enterprise," Negron said. "Otherwise, they wouldn't be pursuing this legislative proposal." Sen. Thad Altman, who represents Indian River County, said he hasn't read the bill and hasn't formed an opinion on it. The rail provision in SB 698 was proposed by Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, Bradley said. Latvala ran against Negron for the Senate presidency in a tight competition that ended when Latvala conceded the race in November. The Republican caucus designated Negron its president for the 2017-18 legislative period in December. All Aboard Florida plans to begin running its service through the Treasure Coast late next year. Florida currently allows beer, wine and liquor to be sold to rail passengers for consumption on the cars, and liquor may only be sold in miniature bottles of no more than 2 ounces. The bill would expand that to the stations and restaurants and liquor would not have to be sold in miniature bottles. The license issued by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation would not be subject to the restrictions, limiting the number of such licenses that may be issued per county. The bill also prohibits local governments from requiring additional licenses or levying an extra tax. Among its other provisions, the bill authorizes the Department of Business and Professional Regulation to issue temporary alcoholic beverage permits to municipalities and counties for local events; allows distributors to charge vendors a keg deposit; creates a new methodology for calculating beverage and tobacco taxes for passengers vessels traveling internationally. Like structural damage or a termite infestation, All Aboard Florida is a liability real estate agents should disclose to potential Treasure Coast property buyers, according to one Stuart real estate agency. That's because the 32 daily trains All Aboard Florida plans to eventually send through the region could affect quality of life and property values, according to RE/MAX of Stuart, which in May added Brightline passenger rail to its list of legally required disclaimers. It could be the start of a trend: Other local Realtors say they may consider similar action, and the Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches and Treasure Coast for more than a year has discussed adding the disclosure. The National Association of Realtors' code of ethics stipulates Realtors must avoid exaggeration, misrepresentation, or concealment of pertinent facts about properties. All Aboard Florida meets that criteria, according to Patrick Stracuzzi, of RE/MAX of Stuart. "This could change our cute little town," said Stracuzzi about the $3.1 billion Miami-to-Orlando railroad. "I sell homes right on the railroad track and the noise and shaking could totally affect" livability and value. When it comes to ethical disclosures, Realtors should act with an abundance of caution, according to broker Jim Weix, who owns The Real Estate Company, in Stuart. "The question I have to ask is: 'If I was this buyer, would I want to know?' I would want to know about All Aboard," Weix said. Until now, Realtors have hesitated to spook buyers about the developing project. All Aboard still is considering its financing options and while it has begun work in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, the company has not broken ground on the Treasure Coast. Increasingly though, "it's looking like a yes," Weix said about Brightline. Waterfront property near the St. Lucie River trestle bridge could be particularly vulnerable to decreased value, according to the Realtors. "Say someone buys a waterfront home west of the railroad bridge and then they find out they can't get their boat out because the bridge is down all the time," Weix said. "The property value drops, and the owner starts thinking maybe he should sue someone." Together, Brightline and freight trains from Florida East Coast Railway the sister companies would share the existing tracks and a new, second track could require up to 50 daily closures of the drawbridge, which takes about 20 minutes to open and close, according to Martin County data. Most boats cannot pass under the low bridge; when closed, it has 7 feet of clearance at its center, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Some Treasure Coast property appraisers, however, warn it's difficult to quantify the damage, if any, of Brightline. Martin County last year examined the railroad's effect on property values, finding that perceptions of the project already are negatively affecting high-value, waterfront real estate. St. Lucie and Indian River counties, however, have not performed formal studies, because "it's awfully difficult to do a study of what's going to happen," according to David Nolte, Indian River property appraiser. Though the project "certainly does not appear to increase the desirability" of living near the tracks, there are too many variables to make a firm prediction, according to Nolte. "Prices could increase dramatically, or not at all. Would price increases have been twice as good without AAF? It's hard to say," Nolte said. "We don't want to speculate." An All Aboard Florida spokeswoman on Thursday said that a federal review of the project concluded Brightline "would not significantly degrade the quality of life along the rail line" and that it "would not introduce significant new disruption, noise, traffic, or other effects that could affect property value." "We remain committed to working with each community along the rail corridor to advance public safety, decrease noise and interruption and find ways to continue to coexist," the spokeswoman said. The Realtor Association of Martin County has been on record in opposition to All Aboard Florida. If there was any doubt Everglades policy is steeped in politics, it was washed away in a ballroom of the Breakers hotel in Palm Beach this month. That's where the Everglades Foundation hosted its annual fundraiser, and where co-founder Paul Tudor Jones shared his thoughts about how some presidential candidates might impact the River of Grass. Jones, a hedge fund manager, said he thought Donald Trump would be "really good at" Everglades issues, Bloomberg Business reported. He demurred on former Gov. Jeb Bush and declined to comment about U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, who counts the sugar industry among his most loyal benefactors. The Miami-based Everglades Foundation has long operated in political circles, and its executive director, Eric Eikenberg, was chief of staff for former Gov. Charlie Crist (who brokered a now-dormant deal to buy most of U.S. Sugar's land south of Lake Okeechobee). Eikenberg told me Thursday he expects the next president to have "tremendous" impact on the Everglades and, by extension, the ailing Indian River Lagoon. He cited two reasons: First, the next president will appoint leaders in key executive agencies such as the Department of the Interior who will have direct roles in Everglades policy. "Second, with no earmarks in Congress, members wait to see what the administration is recommending in the budget," Eikenberg said. The next president will have everything to do with that. The Everglades Foundation wants federal appropriations for Everglades restoration returned to about $200 million a year. President Barack Obama recommended $190 million for the 2017 budget. "The candidates need to realize we're at the midway point of a 30-year restoration plan, and the next president's got to step up and lead the federal family, the federal partnership, to match the state (money)," Eikenberg said. U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Jupiter, scolded a top Senate Republican for politicizing the selection of a new Supreme Court justice even as he used the issue to gain traction for his own U.S. Senate campaign. On Monday, two days after Justice Antonin Scalia died, the Treasure Coast congressman posted this message on his Senate campaign's Facebook page: "(Senate Majority Leader) Mitch McConnell just couldn't help himself he rushed to politicize the passing of a public servant. In an unprecedented move, McConnell is already promising to obstruct the constitutional process and President Obama's next Supreme Court nominee ..." The message, which also was sent via email, concludes with this ask: "Will you stand with us to stop McConnell and his obstruction once and for all?" Meanwhile, Murphy's opponent in the Democratic primary, U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, called on President Obama to make a controversial recess appointment to the Supreme Court. Grayson singled out U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, for the job. "The obstructionists in the GOP couldn't do anything about it," Grayson wrote on his campaign's Facebook page. One of the architects of Florida's recent water-policy overhaul is collecting big checks from the state's largest sugar cane growers. Growing a Sustainable Future, a political action committee run by House Speaker Steve Crisafulli, R-Merritt Island, got $25,000 from West Palm Beach-based Florida Crystals on Jan. 11. That was 10 days before Gov. Rick Scott signed the far-reaching water bill that Crisafulli had pushed. Crisafulli's committee also got big money from U.S. Sugar Corp.: $25,000 on Dec. 31 and $50,000 on Aug. 31. The water policy bill (Senate Bill 552) got mild support from Audubon Florida but was panned by dozens of environmental groups who thought it was too easy on polluters. The headlines scream one central theme: Another environmental and economic catastrophe is unfolding on the Treasure Coast. Almost 3 billion gallons of polluted water are being discharged each day from Lake Okeechobee into the St. Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon. The effects will be far-reaching and significant: Oyster beds and coral reefs are being threatened. The livelihoods of those in our region's recreational and marine-related businesses are in jeopardy. When the weather gets warmer, conditions will be ripe for algae blooms and the growth of Vibrio vulnificus, a bacteria that can enter a body through cuts and scrapes and can, in rare cases, cause death. The Florida Department of Health in Martin County has advised people to avoid contact with the St. Lucie River at the Roosevelt Bridge in Stuart and at Leighton Park near the Palm City Bridge. Like the Bill Murray character in "Groundhog Day," Treasure Coast residents have awoken, once again, to the same problems we've confronted for decades. The Summer of 2016 may well be a carbon copy of the Summer of 2013 if not worse. Enough! There is a blueprint for change. But like many things sponsored and paid for by Florida lawmakers, the blueprint appears to be gathering dust on a shelf. Follow our Lake Okeechobee discharge meter for daily updates. In August 2013, state Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart, convened a Senate Select Committee on the Indian River Lagoon and Lake Okeechobee Basin. The eight-member committee held the first of two hearings in Stuart. Hundreds of concerned citizens attended and voiced their opposition to the discharges. As a result of the work by the committee, the 2014 Legislature appropriated $232 million to improve water quality in the Everglades and estuaries and expand current storage and flow capacities. Lawmakers also committed to fund an independent study of the discharge issue. The task was given to the University of Florida Water Institute. In March 2015, the Water Institute released its 143-page report. The conclusion? Reducing discharges and meeting the Everglades' need for more water "will require between 11,000 and 129,000 acres of additional land" between Lake Okeechobee and Everglades National Park. The authors identified four key objectives required to stop discharges of polluted water from Lake O into the St. Lucie (east) and Caloosahatchee (west) rivers. Accelerate state and federal funding for projects already underway, such as the C-44 (St. Lucie) Canal Reservoir and Stormwater Treatment Area in western Martin County and a similar reservoir west of the lake. Speed up the Central Everglades Planning Project, a $2 billion joint state-federal project that would move some lake water toward the Everglades by using publicly owned land south of the lake and removing obstacles to water flow. Look for ways to improve water storage and treatment north and south of the lake. Substantially revise the Lake Okeechobee Regulation Schedule (LORS), the complicated formula the Army Corps of Engineers uses to decide if and when to release lake water to the estuaries. These are the objectives elected and appointed officials at the state and federal levels should be pursuing relentlessly if they are serious about stopping the discharges. However, recent events tell a different story. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, has filed a bill that would authorize the Central Everglades Planning Project, a dozen engineering projects to aid the St. Lucie and Caloosahatchee rivers. In combination, these projects have the potential to reduce discharges to both estuaries by 14 percent. However, the outlook for passage is discouraging. None of the four bills Nelson filed since 2012 to expedite water projects to clean the Everglades and St. Lucie River has progressed in Congress. There's more. Florida lawmakers persist in earmarking tens of millions of Amendment 1 dollars to cover recurring expenses in the state budget. This is outrageous. In November 2014, 75 percent of voters approved Amendment 1, the citizen-led initiative that generates hundreds of millions of dollars a year in documentary stamp revenue. The intent of the measure was to provide funding for water and land conservation purchases. The ballot language specifically referred to buying land in the Everglades Agricultural Area. Nonetheless, both the House and Senate have approved budgets this year that use almost one-third of the $880 million set aside through Amendment 1 for routine expenses: salaries, benefits, insurance costs and vehicle purchases for agencies that deal with land and the environment. One bright spot? The "Florida Legacy" bill, filed by Rep. Gayle Harrell, R-Stuart, that would require 25 percent or $200 million to be allocated through Amendment 1 for Everglades and Lake Okeechobee restoration, including projects that directly benefit the lagoon. The bill has support from Republican House Speaker Steve Crisafulli and Gov. Rick Scott, as well as presumptive Senate President Joe Negron, R-Stuart. Still, $200 million falls far short of the $750 million lawmakers have at their disposal each year with respect to Amendment 1 funds. In 2015, Negron attempted unsuccessfully to allocate up to $500 million in Amendment 1 proceeds (by issuing bonds) for land to store and move water south of the lake. Negron and his colleagues on the Treasure Coast legislative delegation should labor to make this happen. The University of Florida Water Institute study pointed the way to solving the discharge problem. Elected and appointed officials who control the purse strings should dust off the report and implement the objectives. Florida 511 provides time-saving traffic information The Florida Department of Transportation's (FDOT) 511 Traveler Information System provides up-to-date traffic information on crashes, congestion, construction and more on all of Florida's interstates, toll roads and other major metropolitan roadways. There are four convenient ways for motorists to receive traffic updates: Call 511 toll free for updates in English and Spanish. Visit http://FL511.com, with interactive roadway maps showing traffic congestion and crashes, travel times and traffic camera views. Download the free Florida 511 mobile app available for Android and Apple devices. Follow one of the 13 statewide, regional or roadway-specific feeds on Twitter. FDOT reminds all travelers to check 511 before traveling, have a passenger check 511 or pull over to avoid distracted driving. Safety Tips Call 511 before driving or have a passenger call to avoid using a phone while driving. Customize your trip at http://FL511.com before leaving to minimize time spent on the phone. Leave yourself ample time to reach your destination to avoid feeling rushed. Take regular breaks and rotate drivers during long trips to avoid driving while fatigued. Always wear a safety belt. Don't drink and drive. Florida 511 Features Traffic information on all interstate highways, toll roads and many other metropolitan roadways. Commuter travel times and reports on crashes, congestion and construction. Public transit, airport and seaport information. AMBER, Silver and LEO Alerts (America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response (AMBER) Alerts notify the public of the most serious child-abduction cases. Silver Alerts notify the public when law enforcement agencies are searching for missing adults or citizens with cognitive impairments, including Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia. Law Enforcement Officer (LEO) Alerts notify the public when law enforcement officers are searching for an offender(s) who has seriously injured or killed a law enforcement officer.) FL511.com provides travel information, traffic camera views and free personalized services, including customized travel routes and email, text and phone call alerts. Voice-activated and touch-tone navigation available when calling 511. The 511 phone call and FL511.com website are available in English and Spanish. Thank you for reading! Please purchase a subscription to read our premium content. If you have a subscription, please log in or sign up for an account on our website to continue. Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center on Wednesday announced that it paid approximately US$17,000 to resume normal operations after digital extortionists knocked its computer systems offline. The Los Angeles hospital discovered its computer network infected with ransomware earlier this month. Ransomware is a form of malware that scrambles data and key files on a system and demands a ransom be paid for a digital key to unscramble the data. After paying a ransom of 40 bitcoins, or $17,000, to the extortionists, the hospital was able to bring its electronic medical record system online, HPMC said. Bitcoins are a digital currency favored by cybercriminals because, like cash, theyre difficult to trace. It is important to note that this incident did not affect the delivery and quality of the excellent patient care you expect and receive from Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center. Patient care has not been compromised in any way, HPMC CEO Allen Stefanek noted. Further, we have no evidence at this time that any patient or employee information was subject to unauthorized access, he continued. Initial reports about the incident pegged the ransom at $3.4 million, or 9,000 bitcoins. Those reports were false, HPMC noted. No Honorable Thieves Paying ransom might embolden the perpetrators of ransomware, according to Rick Orloff, CSO ofCode42. Its analogous to why the government doesnt negotiate with hostage takers. It encourages hostage-taking, he told TechNewsWorld. If a ransom is paid, it should be done with caution, observed Lee Kim, director of privacy and security for theHealthcare Information and Management Systems Society. In the best-case scenario, you will get the decryption key, she told TechNewsWorld. Youll be up and running and back to normal, but even if that does happen, you really should have some forensics and malware experts in there to make sure that there isnt any other malware on your systems, Kim continued. Dont trust criminals to do the honorable thing and not drop additional malware, she said. To Pay or Not to Pay Ryan Kalember, senior vice president of cybersecurity strategy forProofpoint, strongly opposed paying ransoms. Even if the attackers keep their word and decrypt your data, there is no guarantee that they will not leave other forms of malware running on the system in order to carry out other crimes, like sending spam emails, launching DDoS attacks, and stealing personal or financial data for use in online fraud and identity theft, he told TechNewsWorld. Paying cybercriminals often funnels money to organized crime and terror groups and should be avoided as a rule to not perpetuate the cybercrime cycle, Kalember said. However, whether to pay ransom isnt a black-and-white proposition, said Scott Gainey, senior vice president forSentinelOne. Its not a yes or no answer. It depends on the systems that were affected, he told TechNewsWorld. Law enforcement has come out strong against paying the ransom for fear it will open up a Pandoras box, but in this case, patients were being diverted to other hospitals and it was severely affecting the hospitals business, so they may not have had a choice, Gainey said. Moreover, the cost of cleaning their environment could exceed the ransom that these guys are asking for, he added. Lesson Learned The scale of the attack was relatively minor. In the grand scheme of things, this attack is not a large one in terms of records breached, as only individual systems were infected with ransomware, Proofpoints Kalember noted. What makes it notable is that the attack affected systems involved in clinical care, he added. The incident also may change the thinking of healthcare security pros about their systems. People often think of healthcare security as preserving confidentiality of data, said Daniel W. Berger, president ofRedspin, an Auxilio company. Health organizations have to start considering the fact that the integrity of the data and the availability of the data is in many ways more important than confidentiality, he told TechNewsWorld, because you can have a situation like this where the hospital had to revert to a manual system to provide care because the data wasnt available. Laws usually are established after interpersonal or business activities collide with the real or perceived rights of others. After parties with different positions fight about whos right and whos wrong, legislatures create laws to solve the legal issues raised, and courts enforce them or create their own (Miranda rules, for example). Many of the laws from the past, however, do not make sense when applied to e-commerce. From time to time, I write columns about various laws that dont make as much sense as they did way back when. This column addresses antitrust laws that make sense when selling traditional goods, but fall short in the e-commerce environment. First, a little history about antitrust laws. Back in the 1800s, the U.S. and state governments created antitrust laws because of the total control companies exerted over certain industries, such asrailroads, oil, steel and sugar. Under federal and state antitrust laws, the government or competitors can sue to stop anticompetitive behavior. U.S. and state antitrust laws were used to break up AT&T in 1982 when it was in the landline business, but Ma Bell got back together as it morphed with the advent of the Internet and use of cellphones. Today, we see antitrust laws being applied to brick-and-mortar businesses such as the proposed merger of Staples and Office Depot. U.S. vs. Microsoft Antitrust Applied to Software In 2000, there was a long trial against Microsoft for antitrust violations related to its software marketing activities. The U.S. and a number of states wanted to break Microsoft into five companies for its control of a part of the software market. The governments brought the case because, among other things, Internet Explorer was alleged to control the browser market since it was packaged as part of the Windows operating system. That made entry and maintaining market share complicated for competitors, even though any Windows user could load competing browsers. AOL was a major proponent of that claim. During the trial, AOL purchased Netscape (a major browser at the time) for about US$5 billion. Interestingly, for many years AOL was a dominant Internet business and even purchased Time Warner. Natural market forces have since greatly diminished AOLs market power. The court found that Microsoft unlawfully tied its Web browser to the Windows operating system, but the Department of Justice settled during the following appeal, so Microsoft was able to continue incorporating its browser into Windows. Another aspect of the case was that Microsoft limited its APIs, or application programming interfaces, to favored partners. The effect was that selected competitors were not able to provide software that worked with Microsofts operating system, because without the APIs, companies could not create software that would operate with Windows. Ultimately, the judge hearing the trial ruled that Microsoft did violate antitrust laws. He restricted certain market activities and required that Microsoft make its APIs freely available so that any company could write software that would work using Windows. While the judge did not break the company into five businesses as the government had advocated, to avoid future claims that it would violate any antitrust laws, he also ordered Microsoft to report to the U.S. government regularly before releasing products for years following the trial. EU vs. Microsoft Antitrust laws are not limited to the U.S. The EU sued Microsoft for anticompetitive actions, alleging that it forced every Windows customer to use only Internet Explorer. The browser competitors complained to the EU antitrust authorities. The result was that Microsoft agreed to create an option when implementing a new version of Windows that randomly offered a number of competing browsers for customers to select. That appeased the EU. Googles Monopoly in the Cloud? The issue with Microsofts browser was that it was packaged and included with the Windows operating system, which competing browsers claimed was anticompetitive. However, was that concern justified, since any Windows customer could load a competing browser? Did the antitrust cases actually give Google Chrome and other browsers the opportunity to compete and overtake their competitors, which eventually caused the demise of Internet Explorer? Google controls an estimated 90 percent of the search engine business in the EU and about 67 percent in the U.S. Is that anticompetitive? Many competitors have complained that Google must be using anticompetitive methods or it would not have that kind of market share. However, free search services offered by Google are well free, and no one is holding a gun to the head of the consumers requiring them to select Google certainly not Google! So how do antitrust laws apply to Google as a search engine leader? Good question. I suggest that antitrust laws do not apply. However, until the pending claims in the EU against Googles search engine are resolved, it is too soon to know. Some search engine competitors in the U.S. and elsewhere suggest that Google manipulates search results for pay, and as a result, the results are not natural. There is no proof of that, and since all search engine algorithms are the secret sauce of the search engines, no one really knows how the results are cooked and presented to consumers. That information likely would remain secret even in litigation since it is Googles trade secret. Nonetheless, even allegations of this sort do not sound like antitrust, since consumers are free to select any search engine. The Frightful 5 In January, The New York Times identified Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft as the undisputed rulers of the consumer technology industry in anarticle titled Techs Frightful 5 Will Dominate Digital Life for Foreseeable Future. The article included these observations:This gets to the core of the Frightful Fives indomitability. They have each built several enormous technologies that are central to just about everything we do with computers. In tech jargon, they own many of the worlds most valuable platforms the basic building blocks on which every other business, even would-be competitors, depend.These platforms are inescapable; you may opt out of one or two of them, but together, they form a gilded mesh blanketing the entire economy.Probably no would question the market power of the Frightful 5, but what about any anticompetitive behavior? Do Antitrust Laws Apply? Microsoft and Google, two of the five, offer myriad services, including cloud and operating systems. They have competitors in each space and do not control the markets, so it is hard to see whether antitrust laws would apply. What about Amazon, Apple and Facebook? Do you think they are violating any antitrust laws? Lets look at each. Amazon sells products galore, as do hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, of other e-commerce enterprises. Amazon also boasts the largest cloud business in the world, but there are a number of other major cloud vendors, including IBM (SoftLayer), Rackspace and Google. Apple has a significant market share for the cell and tablet markets, but it also has significant competition from Googles Android-based products. From a computer manufacturer and operating system perspective, Apple has major competitors, including all the Microsoft/Intel-based companies such as Lenovo, HP and Dell. Of course, Facebooks dominance in the social media world is unquestioned, but why and how consumers select Facebook does not fit squarely into antitrust law violations, and there are serious competitors in the social media market. Antitrust actions may be threatened, so we can watch to see how this play out, and time will tell how the courts rule. The Future Antitrust laws will be in place to protect consumers in various industries, and maybe the Frightful 5 will be targets. However, the future of anticompetitive behavior in the e-commerce space is merely speculation. For all we know, some or all of the Frightful 5 may not even exist in 10 years. Remember the past market power of AOL, MySpace and BlackBerry, which have seriously diminished. Microsoft is abandoning the name Internet Explorer and has created a new product. Perhaps the Frightful 5 may not be so frightful in a few years. Mobile operator Three has announced that it will become the first major carrier in Europe to block ads at a network level. The move will no doubt upset ad companies, as well as the many digital publishers who rely on the revenue that ads generate. Three UK and Three Italy have signed a deal with Shine, an Israeli company that specializes in blocking mobile advertising. If it is successful, the technology will expand to other Three markets across the globe. Three says that it isn't looking to eliminate all mobile advertising, rather it wants to give its customers more control over what they see. The company has outlined three goals it hopes to achieve by using Shine's technology: Customers should not pay data charges to receive adverts. These are costs that should come from the advertiser. Customers' privacy and security must be fully protected. Some advertisers use mobile ads to extract and exploit data about customers without their knowledge or consent. Customers should receive adverts relevant to them, and not "have their data experience in mobile degraded by excessive, intrusive, unwanted or irrelevant adverts." It's not clear how Three will meet all these goals, especially when it comes to asking advertisers to pay data charges, but it said it will reveal more details soon. "Over the coming months Three will announce full details of how it will achieve these objectives and will work with Shine Technologies and the advertising community to deliver a better, more targeted and more transparent mobile ad experience to customers," says a Three spokesperson. Jamaica-based operator Digicel became the first to use Shine's ad-blocking technology in September last year. Shine has said it plans to offer its services to more European carriers throughout this year, and the company has its sights set on the US market. "Irrelevant and excessive mobile ads annoy customers and affect their overall network experience," said Tom Malleschitz, chief marketing officer at Three UK. "We don't believe customers should have to pay for data usage driven by mobile ads. The industry has to work together to give customers mobile ads they want and benefit from.These goals will give customers choice and significantly improve their ad experience." Slightly ironically, Three is well known in the UK for producing entertaining ads, such as the one below. Image credit: Georgejmclittle / Shutterstock Memes rule the Internet. Since we are the generation that was raised on the Internet, of course, we use Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat to share them. However, you might think twice about posting that hilarious meme on Facebook when you can already imagine your easily offended family member giving you those judging eyes from their computer screen. While you could use the millennial-friendly app Snapchat to share your funny moments, not every single one of your friends is a Snapchatter. Now, there's an app that allows users to share memes, funny photos and videos directly with your squad, since they are the only ones who truly will get your humor. Created by Wellesley College students Olivia Joslin and Hannah Wei, after wanting to post a funny moment on a college campus and not knowing which app they should use, CliqBit is a social media platform dedicated to sharing inside jokes and other funny moments. "We began to realize a big gap in social media ... there aren't great platforms for young generations to be themselves," Joslin told Tech Times. "Hardly anyone posts statuses on Facebook anymore (25 percent of teens dropped off of Facebook in 2015, according to Adweek). There are a number of reasons for its decline among generation Z and millennials, including the presence of parents/grandparents and an increased awareness of the problems that can come with the platform's permanence. There is a very small fraction of our age group on Twitter, which has evolved away from being personal and more into a news platform. Instagram is largely used for life's beautifully-captured moments and not so much for the casual/funny ones." The app allows users to share all these not-suitable-for-family-members moments, as well as view their feeds to see all the hilarious posts made by their network of friends in the "Most Recent" or "Trending" tab. "CliqBit is a social media platform for your funny, silly, not-so-serious side. Share clever thoughts, the wild photo from Friday night, the ridiculous things your professor says and those screen shots of funny texts," Joslin said. We're for the real you." What makes the app unique is that users can either set their text, memes or stop-motion video posts to live on permanently or disappear Snapchat-style, with the option to have the moment disappear after five seconds or 48 hours a feature Joslin said is "highly-desired by an upcoming generation of users who are more aware of digital permanence." Users can discover new users by tapping on the fire icon on the upper right corner to see "Blazin' Bits," which are the hottest posts, search for users or connect with Facebook friends. Users can like a post by tapping on the "Cheers!" icon, and only the user who shared the post will be able to see how many people enjoyed it so they don't have to deal with the drama or competition of becoming popular on the platform. So, what's behind the name? "CliqBit is a really fitting name for us because we have 'cliqs' in the app, which are private groups that people can create and use to share inside jokes and silly moments within. Additionally, the word "bit" means a short comedy piece, which is great since we're a funny-focused, lighthearted app," Joslin said. After about a year-long development, CliqBit has received traction and user engagement at MIT, BU, Northeastern University and other colleges in the Boston area. The creators have plans to tweak the app based on feedback to help it become popular among users outside of Boston. CliqBit is available to download for free for iOS. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Verizon Wireless is now officially pushing out Android 6.0 Marshmallow to owners of the HTC One M9, LG G4 and LG G3, according to software updates posted by the company, while T-Mobile subscribers are officially receiving their own HTC One M9 Android 6.0 Marshmallow update right on track with the promised release date. Owners of the former flagships should be receiving their updates OTA or can also access them manually via their settings menu. Verizon subscribers should soon be receiving notifications that the software update is ready to install on their HTC One M9, LG G3 or LG G4, if they haven't already, while T-Mobile HTC One M9 owners have also begun to receive the update, although the carrier hasn't posted a change log as of yet. T-Mobile had promised the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update would be ready just around this time, and it's nice to see that the company is living up to its initial pledge with no delays. Those users who aren't patient enough to wait on their notification can download the update manually via the settings menu on their device. LG G3 and LG G4 owners can navigate within their settings app from "About Phone" to Update Center" to "System Updates", and then click on "Check For Update." On the HTC One M9, after accessing the Settings app, go to "System Updates" to "HTC Software Update" and click on "Check Now." While T-Mobile already began rolling out the Android 6.0 Marshmallow Update for the LG G4 a few weeks ago, the LG G3 Marshmallow update is still listed on T-Mobile's website as undergoing "Manufacturer Development." That's the first of the three phases of T-Mobile's software update release process. That means that the LG G3 Android Marshmallow update isn't imminent as it has yet to even enter "T-Mobile Testing," the second phase of the 3-tier process, which culminates in the "completed" stage upon release. The HTC One M8 is currently in that second testing stage of the T-Mobile software update release process, which means that it should be available soon to owners of that former flagship device. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Children exposed to lead are more likely to show aggressive behavior in later life, a new study suggests. Researchers from Macquarie University suggest that children in Australia who manifest higher lead levels are more likely to commit violent crimes in adulthood. The current study back up previous research pointing out that lead exposure is linked to criminal behaviors. In the study published in the journal Environmental Health, the researchers analyzed air lead concentrations in samples from six New South Wales suburbs including Earlwood, Boolaroo, Lane Cove, Port Kembla, Rozelle and Rydalmere, where data was available for at least 30 years. They also looked at crime data to determine if exposure during childhood was associated to assault rates about 15 to 24 years later. What They Found The researchers found that environmental lead exposure in early life was the strongest predictor of assault rates in adulthood. For every additional microgram of lead in the air, rates of assault increased by 163 percent per 100,000 persons after 21 years. After considering socio-demographic factors, air lead concentrations accounted for about 29.8 percent of the variance in assault rates. In the most populous Australian states of Victoria and New South Wales, total lead petrol emissions accounted for about 32.6 percent and 34.6 percent, respectively, of the variance in death by assault rates 18 years later. Implications For Public Health "The strong positive relationship between childhood lead exposure and subsequent rates of aggressive crime has important implications for public health globally," the researchers said. "Measures need to be taken to ameliorate exposure to lead and other environmental contaminants with known neurodevelopmental consequences," they added. The study suggests that air pollution may be considered in explaining early adult criminality. This sheds light on the need for further research on the relationship of neurotoxic metals and behavior of exposed people in the future. The results add to the existing knowledge of lead exposure effects to the body. The good thing is, lead exposure is preventable and with joint forces among government agencies, environmental organizations and health care providers, measures to prevent lead exposure among children can be implemented. Photo: Mindy Danys | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Big-brained mammals have higher risks of extinction, with the smallest animals most vulnerable to being wiped out, a new study found. Moreover, mammals with more spacious skulls have a longer life span. Stanford University professor Eric Abelson hypothesized a link between extinction risks and bigger brains. He investigated museum samples of more than 1,650 animals across 160 species found in the United States but excluded marine mammals. Abelson's analysis covered various species from rats to buffalos. He measured the animals' cranium and body sizes and checked their standing in the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) list of endangered species around the world. Abelson also examined another set of more than 600 species found around the world. The research revealed a pattern where big-brained animals are more likely to become extinct. Among the species in North America, the link is stronger for mammals whose big brain is relative to the size of their bodies. These animals are, if not extinct, either protected or endangered due to low population. Small-bodied mammals with large brains carry the highest extinction risk. In particular, short-eared dog (Atelocynus microtis) and the tiger cat (Leopardus tigrinus) both have large brains but are considered as near threatened species by the IUCN. The Cozumel raccoon or pygmy raccoon (Procyon pygmaeus) is known for its large brain and is currently critically endangered in the Cozumel Island in Mexico. However, the association isn't as strong in very large mammals. Abelson suggests that species who are able to travel and adapt to new environments easily benefit from the huge costs of having bigger brains. In a previous research from Spanish National Research Council's Daniel Sol, findings showed that big-brained birds have higher survival rates compared to their smaller-brained counterparts. "This likely represents a case of 'endangerment filtering.' Species in North America have gone through a period where large-bodied species had suffered large population losses," notes Abelson, who believes that more research into the link between body and brain sizes can provide the scientific community with new ways to predict the rate of extinction among animals. "Right now, conservation efforts could benefit from better predictions of which animals might become endangered in the future," says Abelson, who is also a scientist at the Pacific Southwest Research Station of the U.S. Forestry Service. The research was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences on Feb. 17. Photo: Steve Slater | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Market analysts suggest that the rumored 4-inch iPhone 5se may bring in $5.5 billion for Apple. The iPhone maker announced the pocket-friendly iPhone 5c in September 2013 along with the iPhone 5s. Apple expected to attract more smartphone customers with the mid-range iPhone; however, iPhone 5cs magic failed to entice buyers and resulted in lower than estimated sales. Apple did not launch the successor of the iPhone 5c in the last two years but rumors have been circling that the company will now launch a new version of its mid-range phone dubbed the iPhone 6c or iPhone 5se in March this year. Amit Daryanani, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, issued a note to investors laying out a sales forecast of the iPhone 5se. AppleInsider received a copy of the note and reports that the analyst believes sales of the iPhone 5se will be more than 10 million units. However, the high sales volume of the iPhone 5se will cannibalize sales of the existing larger models of the iPhone. Daryanani estimates Apple to sell the iPhone 5se at an average price of $550, which will result in total sales of $5.5 billion. This additional sale will add 23 cents to the companys earnings per share, or around two percent to Apples fiscal year 2016 totals. The market analyst also suggests that people who have not upgraded their smartphones in the last three years or the owners of iPhone 5s are more likely to purchase the upcoming iPhone 5se. Apple cited its focus on the Indian market in its last earnings call, so it's probable that the iPhone 5se will aim at attracting customers in India. A previous report suggests that Apple has stopped selling the entry-level iPhone 4s and iPhone 5c in India. The company is probably setting up the stage for the launch of the iPhone 5se in the country. Apple is expected to hold a media event on March 18 where the company is rumored to unveil the iPhone 5se and the next-generation iPad Air. These two products are estimated to hit the shelves on March 18. Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst with KGI Securities, predicts that the iPhone 5se will include the A9 processor, which is the same found in the latest iPhone 6s and the iPhone 6s Plus. The iPhone 5se is also speculated to include TouchID, which will allow users to lock and unlock their handset, authorize online payments and more quickly and conveniently. The iPhone 5c came in a polycarbonate body but rumors suggest that the iPhone 5se will have a metal frame, which will give it a premium look. Apple as usual has not commented on any of the speculations and iPhone lovers will have to wait a few weeks to find out if the company will reveal a new 4-inch iPhone in mid-March this year. Photo: John Karakatsanis | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. After a century, scientists found direct evidence of gravitational waves from a collision of two black holes through the Large Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO). This groundbreaking discovery encouraged Chinese scientists to investigate gravitational waves. The waves, described by scientists as a ripple in the invisible fabric of the universe, were proposed by Albert Einstein in 1916. The confirmation of the theory could transform how humans look at the world and outer space. Chinese physicists said that undertaking investigative projects in gravitational wave research would give China the opportunity to take the lead in the field. "If we launch our own satellites, we will have a chance to be a world leader in gravitational wave research in the future," says physicist Hu Wenrui, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). The CAS proposed a space-based gravitational wave detector project called "Taiji." This program aims to give scientists a wider spectrum and more scientific data on gravitational waves produced by binary black holes. Under the Taiji program, China would be taking a 20 percent share of the European Space Agency's eLISA initiative or launch its own satellites into orbit by 2033. In July 2015, Sun Yat-sen University proposed its own project, "Tianqin," to launch three satellites into space to search for gravitational waves and investigate other cosmic mysteries. The Institute of High Energy Physics plans to implement a land-based project in Tibet. The project, called "Ali," entails detecting primordial gravitational waves, or the first tremors of the Big Bang. "Ali will be the first project detecting primordial gravitational waves in the sky above the Northern Hemisphere," says Su Meng, a Chinese researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Physics. "If it succeeds, it will be the next milestone in cosmology as well as high energy physics." Though promising, all three projects are still awaiting approval and funding from the government. A Call For Improved Scientific Support Wang Yifang, head of the CAS high-energy physics institute, is calling for improved scientific support. He says that though Chinese scientists contributed to the discovery of gravitational waves, the lack of funding and support hindered projects. The lack of support from the government and strict regulations on funding resulted in scientists giving up on international research projects, including the one with LIGO. "For example, under the current conditions, no authority is responsible for granting funding for research projects with budgets between 40 million yuan ($6.13 million) to 300 million yuan ($46 million)," Wang says. More than 90 percent of funding for research is given to prioritized domestic projects. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. There have been many reports about the potential side effects of mobile phone use on human health over the years, but they have largely been ignored by people. However, when the popular ABC program "Catalyst" aired an episode featuring the claims of certain scientists about the cancer-causing properties of mobile devices, the issue drew the attention of other leading experts in Australia who quickly shot down these assumptions as not supported by scientific facts. In the episode "Wi-Fried?," several authorities on radiation and international health were invited to share their thoughts on the possibility that Wi-Fi gadgets can cause adverse effects on the health of users. One of the show's guests, epidemiologist and former U.S. presidential health adviser Dr. Devra Davis, said that while she initially thought that mobile phone use did not pose any harm, she started doubting the validity of this idea a few years ago. She has since become convinced that the devices can indeed cause cancer. Davis said that she worked with some of her colleagues to publish an article about the potential of radiation generated by mobile phones to cause cancer in humans. They referenced a number of studies that suggest that teenagers who use mobile phones experience a four to eight times more likelihood to develop brain tumor 10 years later. The report was conducted between 2000 and 2004, and was scheduled for release in 2005. The results were finally released five years later not because the science behind the study was unclear, but because of the politicking that came about between the members of the research team, according to Davis. Despite stating that the results of the study were inconclusive, Davis said that the actual findings showed that those who use mobile phones the most had particularly high risk of developing brain cancer. The views expressed by the show's guests angered several members of the scientific community in Australia. They argued that the assumptions of Davis and the others were not based on scientific facts. Prof. Rodney Croft of University of Wollongong said that the opinions shown during the "Catalyst" episode reflected Dr. Davis and associates' fringe position on the matter. He pointed out that there is still no verified evidence that the relatively low radio-frequency emissions produced by mobile phones can cause harm to users. Cancer biology expert Darren Saunders of the University of New South Wales said that he was disappointed at how the science program approached the matter. "Scaremongering and pseudoscience have plenty of other outlets on TV, and there are so many amazing science stories to be told locally and internationally. There was very selective reporting of existing data and sensationalist headlines," Saunders said. "Catalyst has missed an opportunity to use this topic as a way to demonstrate scientific or critical thinking." The "Catalyst" episode also drew criticism from the public as well, choosing to express their disapproval through posts on social media. "scientifically bankrupt biased, and little short of misleading and deceptive. Ouch.https://t.co/rUQkt9SDAF#ABCCatalyst Dr Darren Saunders (@whereisdaz) February 17, 2016 Coming up. Chemtrails - are they turning us into lizard-people? This reptile refuses to rule it out. #abccatalyst pic.twitter.com/c4Yti4Un2r ABC Catalyst Not (@Catalyst_not) February 16, 2016 I'd throw all my wifi devices out the window, @ABCcatalyst, but I'm at greater risk of heart attack since I went off statins. #abccatalyst ABC News Intern (@ABCnewsIntern) February 16, 2016 Photo: Sam Churchill | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Google Express has commenced delivering fresh produce and perishable goods in some parts of the United States. The same-day delivery of fresh groceries is now initially available in some parts of Los Angeles and San Francisco. Rather than relying on warehouses, Google is joining forces with retailers to deliver goods to consumers within hours after they placed their orders. It thinks that veering away from stocking the products has hastened the service and has helped in making fresh-food delivery possible. Now, the company goes head-to-head with its competitors in this field like Amazon Fresh, Instacart, Fresh Direct and Safeway Inc. On the other hand, it teams up with Whole Foods Market, Costco Wholesale, Smart and Final Stores, and Vicente's Supermarket. To accommodate fresh groceries, the company is making adjustments to its present delivery operation. For instance, instead of four hours, Google is reducing the delivery window down to two hours. With regard to the minimum price for orders that include fresh groceries, Google Express is raising it to $35 instead of $15. However, people who are already members of Google Express will only have to fork out $3 for fresh food deliveries. The yearly membership for Google Express costs $95. Meanwhile, non-members will need to shell out $5 for every single order. It can even increase depending on the size or availability of the items purchased. It seems, though, that this is a risky endeavor for Google. The Wall Street Journal says that the field Google is stepping into has historically proven to have high delivery costs and low profit margins of around 2 percent on grocery sales. As early as September 2015, Tech Times reported that Google was gearing up in offering its new same-day grocery deliver service. During the time, Google said it has the plan of rolling out this service in San Francisco and a second unnamed city (now Los Angeles). Back then, Brian Elliot, Google Express General Manager, said Google has already inked a deal with Whole Foods Market and Costco Wholesale to deliver grocery items such as vegetables, fruits and other fresh produce, to consumers. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Microsoft finally released an update for the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book that will address the power management problems many users have complained about. Microsoft announced and released the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book in October 2015. Microsoft expected the tablets to impress customers but issues related to power management left many owners disappointed. "Has anyone else been experiencing really bad battery life with the Surface Pro 4? I know it's not supposed to have the greatest battery life, but Web browsing with 75 percent screen drains 10 percent in less than 10 minutes. I'm lucky to get even a few hours of use out of it before it needs to be charged," complains a Surface Pro 4 user. "I can't even leave it in sleep mode or else it will be dead the next time I use it." In January 2016, Microsoft issued a firmware update, which users believed would address the issues. However, the company left the problem unattended, which resulted in increased frustration among Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book owners. Based on customer feedback, Microsoft has now rolled out a fresh update meant to fix the power management problems in the Surface tablets. "Feedback from our customers is really important to the team and to me personally. I read the blogs, I read the comments, I read social media, I read the forums ... and so does the team. We love the energy. We're listening and channeling that feedback directly into our products," says Panos Panay, corporate vice president and head of Microsoft's Surface business. Panos adds that releasing the update is the company's way of continuing to address users' feedback on the power management issue. Normally, a person of Panay's rank does not communicate with customers regarding a software update. However, the issue has left many customers dissatisfied and the company wants to win back their trust with communication from someone in a top position at Microsoft. All Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book tablets will get the new software update, but since Microsoft releases firmware in stages, some customers may have to wait slightly longer than others to get the new update. Customers can click on Settings > Update & security > Windows Update and then "Check for updates" on their Surface Tablets. The system should start installing the firmware automatically when available. The Verge cites sources familiar with the matter and reports that the power management issues are related to Intel's new Skylake chipsets. Apart from Microsoft, other companies are also on the same boat as some Dell system owners have also complained of power management issues. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Japanese carmaker Toyota Motor Corp. is battling problems with its vehicles once again. Toyota has been forced to recall nearly 2.87 million sport utility vehicles (SUVs) worldwide due to faulty seat belts. On Thursday, Toyota revealed that it was issuing a global recall of 2.87 million SUVs as a possibility exists that in the event of a crash, the vehicles' seat belts may be susceptible to damage from a metal seat frame. The models that Toyota is recalling are the 2006-2012 RAV4 and the 2012-2014 RAV4 EV. "The involved vehicles are equipped with lap-shoulder seat belts in both second-row outboard seats. There is a possibility that, in the event of a very severe frontal crash, the lap belt webbing could contact a portion of the metal seat cushion frame, become cut, and separate. If this occurs, the seat belt may not properly restrain the occupant, which could increase the risk of injury," notes Toyota. To address the safety issue, Toyota has said that it will be adding resin covers to the seat's cushion frame in all affected vehicles. This will safeguard against any pieces of metal cutting into a seat belt if a crash occurs. The carmaker has taken this step after two reported incidents in which the rear seat belts of the car separated after a crash. Toyota has said that it is unable to ascertain if these instances can be linked to any fatalities or injuries. As a result of the reports, Toyota had to initiate a recall of the affected vehicles worldwide. The global recall covers 1.3 million cars in North America, 625,000 in Europe, 177,000 in Japan, 434,000 in China and 307,000 in other countries. Toyota has said that it will be alerting the affected vehicle owners through fist class mail. The carmaker's dealers will be responsible for covering the metal seat frame with the resin covers and the service will be done free of charge, according to Toyota. To access information on open safety recalls, customers can enter their Vehicle Identification Number or VIN at the following sites: www.toyota.com/recall www.safercar.gov Photo: Daniel Chew | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. As radical Islamic terrorists continue their penetration of the Unites States and mentally deranged psychos attack unsuspecting pedestrians, our country seeks solutions. Conservative Constitutional fundamentalists stand by the law and support arming everyone! Whereas progressive liberals insist on disarming everyday citizens and depend on government to protect everyone! Yet compromise is hard to find. Speaking for myself, I know many reasonable supporters of the 2nd Amendment and the NRA who would be amenable to some restrictions on sales of some automatic weapons or ground to air missile, for instance. So why cant we compromise with the Anti-2nd Amendments political promises? Simple we do not trust our own government. We know there are those who would disarm us all. The wisdom of our forefathers was prescient. They knew that men in power would immediately begin to take freedom away from the citizens they serve. The most precious of which is freedom of speech. We have reached a point in our history where plutocrats are trying to outlaw anything offensive they determine might hurt someones feelings. Like termites, these opponents of free speech gnaw away at our most powerful right the right to speak our mind. An American citizen should not have to look over her shoulder before she expresses her opinion, be it religion, profanity, racist, unkind, profound, offensive, untrue or beautiful. In a country founded on a Christian moral foundation, we encourage Love thy neighbor as thyself as a guide. But, by law, we permit the foulest of behaviors to be allowed. The government does not have the right to deny the First Amendment to any lawful citizen. Nor do states or cities. No court, mayor, governor or college president has the right to restrict legal citizens from voicing their opinion. But they do. So how do these specious political weasels get around the law? The writers of our Constitution could see them coming. They knew that somewhere down the road government officials would try to eliminate the 1st Amendment, the Right of Free Speech. We are watching them in action today. It is the first step toward dictatorial control. Laws being enacted by unelected bureaucrats, uncontrolled looting and crime under the guise of legitimate protest, cartels smuggling people and drugs across our border, terrorists with no name, yet the throttled media mince around, clouding the truth in the name of political correctness and diminishing our right to vocally object. Where does it end? The writers of the Constitution built an impervious wall to protect our precious Right of Free Speech. It is called the 2nd Amendment, to wit ... necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. How clear is that? Though many power seekers down through the ages have tried every legal maneuver to taint, disclaim, and misinterpret the 2nd Amendment as vague, out of context, outdated, not applicable in a modern world and susceptible to executive order, they have failed. NOTE: The 1st AMENDMENT COULD NOT EXIST WITHOUT THE 2nd AMENDMENT. As soon as the gun banners can disarm us, THE PEOPLE, democracy will be on its way out. Its very depressing to watch injustice, needless killing, and terrorist bombing in our own backyard, but most of all, it is a sad state of affairs when we cannot trust our elected and appointed leaders. P.S. December 2015 Congressional survey: 9% approval. Microsoft Mexico announced that Windows 10 Mobile should finally start rolling out to existing Lumias on Feb. 29, but it seems that the information was not accurate. The company's Mexico branch posted the information on its Facebook account, boosting the hype for the highly-anticipated update, but it may have spoken too soon. Microsoft Mexico has since removed the social media post in question, and acknowledged that the Feb. 29 release date for the update was not true. "A Microsoft representative told PCWorld that the posting on the Microsoft Lumia Mexico Facebook page reporting February 29 as the upgrade date for Windows 10 Mobile was incorrect. The post has since been pulled down from the social network," PCWorld reports. It remains unclear whether the Facebook post was an accidental mishap from a company representative who didn't know the news was not supposed to be public knowledge just yet, or it was just a tentative timeframe that was off the mark. Either way, after the news started making rounds and getting people excited that Windows 10 Mobile would finally roll out to existing Windows Phone devices, it turns out that it was just a false alarm. Aside from the few new Lumia smartphones that come with Windows 10 Mobile on board out of the box, the latest mobile operating system from Microsoft has yet to be more readily available. Microsoft promised a while back to upgrade its older Windows Phone 8.1-powered Lumia handsets to Windows 10 Mobile, but the update faced several delays. It was widely expected to arrive in December 2015, but that obviously did not happen. Hopes for a January release started shaping up after that, but again to no avail. Last month, news surfaced that the Windows 10 Mobile update was delayed yet again for existing Lumias, with a rollout pushed back to February. When Microsoft Mexico said that the update will finally start rolling out on Feb. 29, it sparked hopes that it won't see any more delays and Windows Phone 8.1 devices worldwide should soon start getting upgrades. Although the company deleted its comment about the update rollout, WinPhoneMetro grabbed a screen shot for everyone to see. Microsoft has yet to offer a formal statement regarding this matter, or provide more details on when the update will actually become available. If the Feb. 29 release date Microsoft Mexico provided was not accurate, it could mean that Windows 10 Mobile could see even more delays. It's all pretty hazy right now, but we'll keep you up to date as soon as more information becomes available. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Sony is preparing its next PS4 software update and in order to make sure that the official release goes smoothly, the company is recruiting volunteers for beta testing. The announcement appears on the PlayStation official blog, where interested users are able to enter their PSN IDs. Should you want to join the program, you will also have to sign a non-disclosure agreement, prohibiting you from revealing anything you might encounter during the beta testing phase. This is common procedure for all betas, regardless of ecosystem, so if you feel like taking a dive into the latest PS4 features, just sign up for the United States beta program. If, on the other hand, you are a European PlayStation player, sign up to register for the upcoming beta for your region. To sign up, users only need a PS4 with an Internet connection and a master account. "We'll share more details on the new features you'll be able to test when the beta begins," Sony says. The beta program rolls out at the beginning of March. Sony notes that only the selected players for the beta trial will be contacted with additional instructions. Those who are lucky enough to be picked will get email instructions on downloading the beta software update. The company points out that even after downloading the beta, PS4 owners can roll back to their previous stable software systems. It is not the first time when Sony appeals to its consistent user base to polish the latest piece of code. For example, PlayStation took its time with beta testing before releasing software version 2.50 in March 2015, which packed the heavily appraised suspend/resume feature. The system software 3.0 reached the common users after it was thoroughly vetted by testers until September 2015. One of Sony's staples of quality control was its constant communication with its fan base. The company showed in repeated cases that it values and implements the players' feedback. This means that Sony puts emphasis on delivering its updates as close to perfection as possible, and is not afraid to invest time and resources to polish its products. Little official information exists on the content of the upcoming update, but we are confident that leaks will reveal inside info, as it usually happens. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The rumors are true: After Coca-Cola renewed the trademark for the '90s lunchbox staple Hi-C Ecto-Cooler back in November, the beverage is finally making its way back into stores this year in time for Paul Feig's female-fronted Ghostbusters reboot. And according to some posts on social media sites, the juice box has gotten a little bit of a makeover. The orange-flavored drink, which was first released as a tie-in to the Ghostbusters-based cartoon spin-off The Real Ghostbusters, will now be sold in can form. According to Bloody Disgusting, a photo of the beverage's new can design is already available for a sneak peek. IT'S ON THE WAY!!!!!!!!!! A product sample for the 2016 revival of ECTO COOLER!! YES!!!!https://t.co/i6UoSaUy3z pic.twitter.com/wC2fAqipT8 Resurrect EctoCooler (@ResurEctoCooler) February 18, 2016 While the ectoplasm-covered can retains the integrity of its original design, there does seem to be one major thing missing: the popular Ghostbusters character that became the brand's de facto mascot, Slimer. Then again, the released photos of the updated drink don't show the entire wrap-around design of the can, leaving a chance for the goop-covered Class-5 full-roaming vapor ghost to pop up somewhere near the nutritional facts. So far, there is no set date for the Ecto-Cooler's return, but it wouldn't be a stretch to guess that the drink will be available to swipe for yourself sometime near the movie reboot's release, which is scheduled for July 16 of this year. Ghostbusters will feature Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones, Kate McKinnon and Melissa McCarthy as the titular ghost-fighting squad, and Chris Hemsworth as the team's secretary. Here's a brief synopsis of the movie below. "With paranormal activity on the rise, a Columbia University academic, her ghost-chasing friend, the friend's business partner, and an MTA employee join forces to bust ghosts and save New York." In honor of the Ecto-Cooler's return, check out this old-school commercial for Hi-C's classic beverage in the video clip below. Source: Twitter 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The selfie culture has done it once again as beachgoers in Argentina pulled out an endangered baby dolphin out of the water to take photos. If that is not appalling enough, here's what is: the poor animal was left on the sand to die. The incident happened in a beach resort in the town of Santa Teresita, Buenos Aires. A video footage shows how one man scooped up the baby dolphin out of the water, which drew the attention of a curious mob. After the hustle, the dolphin was just left on the sand to die. No one appeared to have shown concern or stepped up to save the dolphin. No one even attempted to return the animal back to the water. All the people, including some children, seemed too eager to touch the animal. Some were also seen holding camera phones, most probably to take selfies. Call For Action The Argentine Wildlife Foundation reacted to the incident and released a statement urging the public to return dolphins back in the water in case found on the shore. The agency acknowledged that at least one animal has died and considers the incident as a way to inform the public about the right thing to do in such circumstances. "It is vital that people help to rescue these animals," the statement reads. La Plata Dolphins La Plata dolphins are among the smallest species of dolphins in the world. The animals usually measure about 1.30 to 1.70 meters (4 to 5.5 feet) long. The dolphins are also called Franciscans because of their brown skin tones, just like the color of the habit of Franciscan monks. La Plata dolphins are rare and only found in three countries: Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. In Argentina, the dolphins mostly settle off the coasts of Buenos Aires, where there are only about 30,000 residents or less. The International Union for Conservation of Nature says the endangered La Plata dolphins are at risk of extinction. The number of lost dolphins are not easily recovered. The dolphins cannot stay out of the water for too long because they have very thick and greasy skin, which gives warmth. Scooping them up from the water will quickly dehydrate the animals and cause death. Social Media Users React Social media users react to the incident with much disgrace. Aside from animal groups and animals lovers, ordinary citizens were not impressed with the action of the beachgoers. Selfie culture at its most disgusting : Baby Dolphin Dies After Tourists Pass It Around For Selfies https://t.co/upYCzff5fU via @YahooNews Charles Sykes (@SykesCharlie) February 18, 2016 Reason #392 why people are idiots and I worry about the future of the human race. https://t.co/emhi6ex2VQ Michael Kelso (@mkelso27) February 19, 2016 This makes my heart cry. People are stupid. Endangered baby dolphin dies after swimmers pass it around for selfies: https://t.co/tQgM7yKzQ6 Anna L (@ahhnalin) February 19, 2016 We need to do better than this -> Endangered baby dolphin dies after swimmers pass it around for selfies: https://t.co/vmJkeJTtM5 Angela Elder (@DCofficeyogi) February 19, 2016 Photo : Laura Blankenship | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The rising number of deaths due to opioid overdose hit a record high in 2014, leaving health experts greatly alarmed. Now, another medication is at the center of yet again increasing numbers of overdose-related mortality. Researchers in the United States found that deaths from anxiety drug overdoses have increased four times in the last 20 years. More Americans are receiving anxiety medications under the class of drugs called benzodiazepines or "benzos," but they're taking more than the prescribed dose. Benzos are sometimes combined with opioids as a treatment for chronic pain. But as the quantity of filled prescriptions tripled from 1996 to 2013, the research team discovered that the number of overdoses involving benzos - such as Klonopin, Xanax, Ativan, Valium and others - had also quadrupled. Dr. Marcus Bachhuber, lead author of the study, said overdosing from benzos is a public health issue that has gone under the radar. The potential risks of taking benzos are no secret to the public. Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that anxiety medications were involved in 30 percent of the overdose deaths in 2013, second only to opioid overdose, which is at 70 percent. Bacchuber said they had thought prescriptions for benzos would decline or become steady in the late 2000s because as awareness of the risks of opioids were given more attention, it would have also been given to anxiety medications. However, any hope that prescriptions for benzos would be slowed down has been cut off. Bacchuber said the current trend for benzo-overdose deaths is very concerning. Benzodiazepine Use In The United States The research team looked into data on benzos use and found that prescriptions purchased throughout the last two decades increased from 8.1 million prescriptions in 1996 to 13.5 million in 2013. At the same time, they discovered that the death rate from benzos overdose increased from 0.58 deaths per 100,000 adults in 1996 to 3.14 deaths per 100,000 adults in 2013. Researchers still do not know for sure why the numbers went high, but it may have something to do with more quantities of benzos being prescribed to patients. These patients might be taking higher doses of the drugs each day, taking them for extended periods of time, or acquiring them from sources other than doctors. All of these could increase a person's risk of an overdose. The danger significantly increases when benzos are combined with opioids, another powerful painkiller, said Dr. Chinazo Cunningham, co-author of the study. She also noted that taking benzos with alcohol elevates the overdose risk. Dr. Gary Reisfield of the University of Florida, an expert who was not involved in the study, said the findings could help shed light on the issue of benzodiazepines abuse and overdose. He said much attention has been given to the opioid overdose issue, but little has been paid to the shadow epidemic of benzos overdose. Meanwhile, Bacchuber said it is important for providers and patients to know about alternative treatments for anxiety, as well as the potential dangers of taking benzos. "Intervention would be to promote alternative medications or talk therapy instead of benzodiazepines," added Bacchuber. All of these findings are featured in the American Journal of Public Health. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Artifacts found on the shores of Easter Island revealed that the ancient civilization of Rapa Nui was not destroyed by warfare. Rather, disease brought by European explorers and slavery caused their demise. The Rapa Nui people were the ancient inhabitants of Easter Island in Chile. The artifacts found were once thought to be spear points used in warfare. The long-standing belief is that prior to the arrival of the Europeans, the ancient Rapa Nui people experienced scarcity in resources which led to internal fights and their eventual demise. However, a new analysis of these spear-like artifacts by Binghamton University's anthropology professor Carl Lipo revealed that the objects known as mata'a would have made poor weapons. Findings suggested that they were cultivation tools used in domestic activities and rituals such as tattooing. Lipo led a research team to study a photo collection of over 400 pieces of mata'a found in the island. Using a technique called morphometrics, they were able to quantitatively characterize the artifacts' shapes. The team has found that the mata'a weren't used in fights at all. Based on other traditional weapons, the shape of the mata'a would have made an inferior weapon in a time when survival was crucial. "When you can compare them to European weapons or weapons found anywhere around the world when there are actually objects used for warfare, they're very systematic in their shape. They have to do their job really well. Not doing well is risking death," explained Lipo. The findings support the theory that the Rapa Nui people didn't experience internal warfare. Moreover, new evidence add weight to the hypothesis that mata'a as weapons were more of a late European explanation rather than a real, archeological event. The researchers said that the contact with the Europeans resulted in the civilization's collapse. Apart from the diseases the early European explorers carried, the Rapa Nui people were enslaved and decimated. The mata'a artifacts were found all over the Easter Island landscape. The researchers believe that its presence in numerous locations support the theory that they were used as farming tools. The research was published in the journal Antiquity on Feb. 17. Photo: Arian Zwegers | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. More often than not, real life serves as the inspiration for many great works of fiction. Sometimes, however, a work of fiction allows people to dream bigger and turn a dream into reality. The existence of the F-117 Nighthawk with its "Star Trek"-inspired cloaking device is proof of this. "If you can imagine it, you can create it," writer William Arthur Ward said, and science made sure to deliver on Gene Roddenberry's imagined Klingon cloaking device as best as it could. "It has the front lens from an electro-optically guided glide bomb on the nose with a red light that had a soft pulsing glow showing through a ground glass lens. It had numerous blade antennas from the UHF and VHF frequency spectrum and several faux blowout ports similar to those used as exhaust ports for gas grain generators on early generation nuclear weapons," Retired Air Force Col. Doug Robinson described the device. Of course, all this happened during the Cold War and we know that stealth technology has yet to be perfected until now. To put it simply, the actual Klingon cloaking device was an elaborate ruse but what made it effective and believable was how the select few who were part of the program handled it. "I tell people now that it was only the shape that made that aircraft different, it had all the usual systems, wires and coax," Avionics Technician Brad Smith shared. Smith served in the operations when it was at its most secretive. The most effective cloaking device under the F-117 Nighthawk operations was the willpower of its operatives to keep any and everything they do a secret. This includes keeping operations classified from top government officials - only those who must absolutely know will be given information. "We worked long hours, away from our family for a week at a time," Smith recounted. "Families had no idea where we were, but accepted not knowing as part of their spouse's job. When we came home, families knew not to ask what we did all week." The F-117 Nighthawk only flew at night and all pilots who were involved in the missions practically led a "vampiric life" since they were constantly on night shift. However, despite the stress of the working hours and the utmost secrecy involved in all the operations involving the stealth program, Smith was proud for being able to contribute. The F-117 Nighthawk was retired in 2008 in Type 1000 storage but people still report seeing it in the sky. There is, however, no need to worry about peacekeeping conditions in the United States because Type 1000 storage means an aircraft should still be kept in top shape in case it is needed for active operations. There's no conflict, just the usual maintenance - or is there? Photo: Jamie Lantzy | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. State regulators in California declared Thursday that the natural gas pipeline rupture in Porter Ranch is now permanently sealed, about four months after a massive methane gas leak affected the area. Thousands of Los Angeles citizens were displaced due to the methane leak, which accounted for a quarter of total daily methane emissions in the state. A series of laboratory tests on Wednesday confirmed that the leak has been successfully sealed. "Gas emissions are controlled and air quality has returned to normal levels," said Chief Deputy Director Jason Marshall of the state's Department of Conservation. The leak had originated from a broken injection-well pipe located deep beneath the surface of the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage field. The Southern California Gas Co.-owned storage field is about 3,600 acres (1,457 hectares) in size. Since Oct. 23, the leak has spewed about 96,000 metric tons of methane, a more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The event was ranked as the largest discharge on record in California as it poured out 125,000 pounds of methane an hour, equivalent to the impact of 8 million tons of carbon dioxide. Thousands of homeowners were forced to evacuate and leave their homes as the stench of fumes sickened people for weeks. Residents complained of nausea, headaches, nosebleeds and dizziness. The leak also potentially caused the SoCal Gas billions in claims, media reports said. Sempra Energy, the parent company of SoCal Gas, expects the bill to fix the leak, relocate 6,400 residents and account for all the gas lost will be worth $300 million. This doesn't cover potential lawsuits. Some residents expressed concern about a potential repeat blowout or the long-lasting leak's effects on the air. Uriel Rosoff, a resident of neighboring Chatsworth, said his adult daughter had to evacuate his house because of respiratory problems, migraine headaches and nosebleeds. He said he wanted to be assured that safety valves were indeed placed on wells in the Aliso Canyon facility, especially because the leaking well once had a safety valve removed in 1979 but was not replaced. "I don't know what to believe," said Rosoff. "I'm skeptical of the other 114 wells up there that have been there anywhere from 30 to 70 years." Officials, however, reassured that it is now safe for Los Angeles residents to return to their homes. Those temporarily staying in short-term housing have eight days to return home before SoCal Gas stops reimbursing them for their emergency sublets. Those who rented a house or an apartment will have their leasing costs covered until the end of April. Photo : Earthworks | Flickr 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Residents of a town in Australia are battling the invasion of the fast-growing hairy panic tumbleweed - the fuzzy, dry grass piling up outside houses, blocking windows and doors, and covering lawns. Hairy panic tumbleweeds are short-lived, perennial weeds native to inland Australia, and they're taking over the city of Wangaratta in Northeast Victoria. People in Wangaratta are forced to clean up and clear the tumbleweeds several times a day. "Walked out the front door this morning to find a good six-meter (19-foot) spread of tumbleweed across the front of the house - again," Jason Perna, a resident of the town, told the Australia Broadcasting Corporation. "It makes it difficult to get the car out in the morning - if you can find it." About 20 residences on a development land called Bella Way have been affected, with the dry grass blowing over from neighboring fields. Unfortunately, authorities in Australia say their powers are limited to do anything about the tumbleweed issue. "The council has a very limited capacity to intervene," a council spokesperson told The Guardian Australia. "But we are attempting to work with residents and nearby farmers." Tumbleweed outbreaks take place every year across Australia. "It's widespread," the spokesperson said. "It can happen in any town, at any time, and it does happen in Wangaratta. It just spreads from farm to farm." This time, Wangaratta gets hit by the tumbleweed outbreak really bad. Residents say it's because of extremely dry summer conditions in the area. An Indication Of Climate Change? Climate Council, an independent organization in the country, revealed in a 2015 report (PDF) that Southeast Australia has experienced a 15 percent decline in late autumn and early winter rainfall. The region also experienced a 25 percent decline in average rainfall in April and May. "Climate change is driving an increase in the intensity and frequency of hot days and heat waves in Australia, in turn increasing the severity of droughts," the report said. Scientists say that Australia is the driest inhabited continent on the planet, but the conditions may become worse if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut in areas such as Wangaratta and other parts of Southern Australia. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Libertarian presidential candidate John McAfee has a plan to save the United States and he wants to act on it before he sets foot in office. That plan hinges on the FBI turning over the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone, the one the bureau has insisted Apple unlock. For years, the U.S. Department of Justice has been sparring with Apple over consumer encryption. The Justice Department has called for Apple and other tech companies to build in backdoors to consumer devices to enable law enforcement agencies to gain access to information secured by encryption that could take authorities years to crack. Apple and tech industry experts have fought against building backdoors into their software. A backdoor is a soft spot, one that hackers could exploit, Apple has argued as it defied court order after court order. Creating backdoors in iOS, Android and other operating systems would be worse than handing over the U.S.' nuclear codes to its enemies, McAfee asserted in an op-ed published on Tech Insider. It's a "black day" for the U.S. and the beginning of the country's end as a world power, he wrote. "The government has ordered a disarmament of our already ancient cybersecurity and cyberdefense systems, and it is asking us to take a walk into that near horizon where cyberwar is unquestionably waiting, with nothing more than harsh words as a weapon and the hope that our enemies will take pity at our unarmed condition and treat us fairly," stated McAfee. McAfee stands by Apple and Apple CEO Tim Cook in their belief that this wouldn't be a one-off thing, as the FBI has suggested. The Department of Justice has already attempted to twist the arms of Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and others in cases in which law enforcement agencies sought to crack the encryption protecting consumer data. In an open letter to Apple customers, Cook asserted that the company has done everything in its power to assist law enforcement agencies without violating the law or sacrificing the integrity of iOS. But the government still wants Apple to build a backdoor into the OS. "Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation," Cook wrote. "In the wrong hands, this software which does not exist today would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone's physical possession." McAfee's solution involved the FBI allowing him and his team of hackers to crack the encrypted iPhone. His team, composed of about 25 percent hardcore coders and 75 percent social engineers, are all prodigies and could crack the phone in a matter of weeks, McAfee insisted. These hackers could work for the FBI if the bureau wasn't afraid to hire coding experts that rocked "24-inch mohawks" and huge gauges in their ears and insisted on smoking weed while they worked. "But you bet your ass that the Chinese and Russians are hiring similar people with similar demands and have been for many years," McAfee wrote. "It's why we are decades behind in the cyber race." While the FBI may not want to work long term with the likes of the people who work on McAfee's team, the bureau may also be opposed to doing so on a one-off basis for one simple reason. This latest court order to Apple may be more about establishing a precedent than finding new details about the San Bernardino shooter. Cook doesn't think there's any way anyone could guarantee that a way in through a backdoor would only be used once. "Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices," Cook wrote. "In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable." 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. SPARKS The Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest welcomes John Baldwin as the district ranger for the Mountain City-Ruby Mountains-Jarbidge Ranger District. In his new position, Baldwin will provide oversight of the people and resources needed to manage about 1.14 million acres of National Forest lands with diverse natural resource programs in northeast Nevada. He will split his time between offices in Elko and Wells. John comes to the Forest with 25 years of diverse experience with the U.S Forest Service, said Forest Supervisor Bill Dunkelberger. He is a seasoned land manager and his knowledge will be a valuable asset to our organization. Baldwin began his Forest Service career as a seasonal worker on a Helitack Crew on the Black Hills National Forest in western South Dakota and northeastern Wyoming. Since then he has worked as a wildland firefighter and a wildlife biologist on the Boise National Forest in central Idaho and Nebraska National Forest and Grasslands in central and western Nebraska and South Dakota. Since 2003, he has held district ranger positions on the Tongass National Forest in Southeast Alaska and the Ouachita National Forest in central Arkansas and southeastern Oklahoma. He also served in the U.S. Air Force for four years. Im excited to start my new position with the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, said Baldwin. Its an honor to lead the Mountain City-Ruby Mountains-Jarbidge Ranger District team and work with the folks in Elko County. Baldwin holds a masters degree in zoology and physiology from the University of Wyoming in Laramie. He succeeds Kathryn Wendy Fuell, who served in the District Ranger position for approximately three and a half years. In June 2015, Fuell accepted a new position at the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest Supervisors Office in Sparks as Sage Grouse Project Manager. UK mobile carrier Three confirms a deal with Israeli technology company Shine that will allow the European operator to use network-level ad-blocking technology for its mobile users. The deal will eventually pave the way for the technology to roll out across the other Three Group of operators in Europe that include areas such as Sweden, Ireland, Denmark and Austria. In the UK, carrier EE is also looking to implement ad blockers on customers' phones. "Network-based ad-blocking is a more powerful and effective solution for customers than application-based technologies as it reaches a broader range of mobile advertising," says Three. At present, Shine is the only company that offers network-level mobile ad blocking services. Most of its efforts are now focused on blocking display ads which include pop-ups, pop unders, basic banners and other third-party ad content which tend to interrupt the user's mobile browsing experience. One example of an interruption is when the ad would require the user to tap on a small cross in order to prevent the ad from appearing on the page. Three UK further explained that its objective is not entirely to eliminate mobile advertising, but to provide users with more control, better choices and increased transparency on what they are really getting from the service. "Irrelevant and excessive mobile ads annoy customers and affect their overall network experience," says Tom Malleschitz, chief marketing officer at Three UK. "We don't believe customers should have to pay for data usage driven by mobile ads. The industry has to work together to give customers mobile ads they want and benefit from." Digicel, the first carrier partner of Shine which operates in the Caribbean region, announced that it was launching the technology in September 2015. Unlike Digicel's approach, which automatically opted in its users to ad-blocking, Three UK will allow users to choose whether they want to switch on ad-blocking. According to Roi Carthy, chief marketing officer at Shine Technologies, there is not a single Digicel user who opted out of ad blocking. He added that Shine now has 14 million users on Digicel. Three UK may begin testing the system with a small group of users over the next couple of months in order to come up with designs that would complement the rollout of the technology to its network lineup. While the carrier admits that operations using the ad-blocking technology would be finalized later this year, the company looks forward to working with Shine to meet its goals in delivering a better and more targeted mobile ad experience to users. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. While the latest season of Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story might be over, fans who are in need of a fix can get theirs if they're ever in Los Angeles and looking for a place to spend the night: you can now check into the original residence used as the titular location for AHS: Murder House for $1,450 a night, all thanks to Airbnb. The mansion, which went on the market in 2012, sold in 2015 for $3.2 million to an actress named Angela Oakenfold, the ex-wife of DJ Paul Oakenfold, and her domestic partner. As LA Curbed noted at the time of the purchase, the market had been on and off the market for more than a decade prior since 1999. The home itself was constructed in either 1908 or 1902 (reports vary), and designed by its namesake, architect (and roller coaster designer) Alfred Rosenheim. If the Murder House looked somewhat familiar to viewers who first tuned into the first season of AHS back in 2011, there's a good reason: the mansion was also used as a set for television shows like The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and even one of the most important seminal shows in the TV horror genre, The Twilight Zone. According to the home's Airbnb page, the Alfred Rosenheim Mansion can accommodate "16 plus," with nine bedrooms and four-and-a-half bathrooms. Airbnb users can book either the entire house or selected "apartments" within, and can expect amenities like Wi-Fi, a washer/dryer unit, cable, free parking and kitchen access. Here is Airbnb's description of the estate: "One Of The Most Important Estates Ever Built in Los Angeles, The Alfred Rosenheim Mansion Was Declared A Historical Monument And Cultural Landmark. Built In 1908 This Stunning Architectural Masterpiece Boasts Original Features Throughout [sic]." If you decide you want to Airbnb it with hopes of coming across the Infantata, chainsaw-wielding home-invaders, Evan Peters in a gimp suit or the ghost of Kate Mara, you might be disappointed. As Roadtrippers reported, despite the mansion's colorful past residents, which included mining magnate A.J. McQuatters, actor Edward Everett Horton and after that an Catholic Order of Nuns called Sisters of Social Service, who converted the home into a convent during their tenure, there are no reports or stories of any ghostly activity on the premises. For those who want to get a taste of the hauntings featured in AHS season 1, you can always trek up to Connecticut, home of the Bailey Mansion the actual inspiration behind the show's Murder Home. Purportedly once both a residence and a funeral parlor, the house was the site of a murder-suicide. If staying a night at the Murder House from AHS isn't necessarily your thing, you can take a virtual tour of the mansion in the video clip below. Source: Airbnb 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. If you give players the right tools, you can count on being amazed at what they can do with them. Halo 5's Forge creation tools have proven to be no exception. So far, players are having a blast creating all kinds of wacky new game modes and levels for Microsoft's premier shooter, including introducing podracing, recreating iconic Star Wars battles and constructing the familiar castle of Princess Peach. The sky appears to be the limit when it comes to Forge, and this creation from o CUJ0 o is yet another Forge masterpiece that deserves to have a moment in the spotlight. Titled "Andy's Dorm," the large-scale map is a college dorm room-turned battleground. A dorm room might seem like a small space for some Halo 5 action, but it's the scale that makes this map really shine. It's as if players are actually Halo action figures come to life, battling in a student's room while they are away. Tables, refrigerators and the dorm's signature bunk bed are all massive compared with the tiny Spartans, making for a map that is just as much fun to explore as it is to kill the opposing team on. Nice touches like computer monitors, posters, bookshelves and more all help to round out the package, and there are plenty of power-ups and heavy weapons sprinkled throughout the dorm room for players to find. The construction of the map makes for plenty of ground-pound opportunities as well. All in all, it's a simple, cool map with a unique scale that isn't often seen, as if Toy Story has been turned into a Halo map. The map actually released back in December, not too long after Forge launched. It just goes to show that, even shortly after release, players didn't waste any time in discovering the true power of the creation tools, and since then, players have continued to impress with their creativity. You can check out a full rundown of the map in the video below. If you're looking for more awesome Forge creations, you can check out the work of user Bearskopff here. 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The international anime site and community Crunchyroll is joining forces with anime subscription box company Loot Crate to bring Loot Anime, its anime product line, to the masses. However, it's not a one-way street: "the latest streaming content and licenses available from Crunchyroll" will be available for Loot Crate subscribers, creating, in essence, a Loot Anime subscription box paired with branding from Crunchyroll. While the deal was announced on Feb. 18, it seems that both companies have already been collaborating publicly in some capacity even if nothing at the time had been officialized. "The partnership has already begun Loot Crate joined Crunchyroll at the anime convention Katsucon last weekend in Washington D.C., where they sold Loot Anime crates in the Crunchyroll booth," said Crunchyroll Head of Brand and Community Dallas Middaugh. "[Our] branding and products will follow in the near future, along with other exclusive benefits." The partnership will also provide an undeniable boost for Loot Anime, which only launched a few months ago in 2015. The established seniority of Crunchyroll, which, among other things, provides access to seminal anime titles like Naruto Shippuden, Attack on Titan and One Piece for audiences on a global scale, can only aid in growth. "This partnership combines the best of both of our worlds Loot Crate's exclusive collection of products, plus Crunchyroll's unparalleled library of streaming anime titles. Subscribers will now have a more intimate experience with the best anime," said Loot Crate CEO Chris Davis. "Crunchyroll's decision to team up with Loot Crate is a testament to our company's manufacturing and fulfillment expertise, curation approach and passionate anime community." As the press release noted, current Loot Crate members won't see any discrepancies involving their current fees. In addition to its collaborative efforts with Loot Crate, Crunchyroll has announced a team-up with Bioworld Merchandising to produce a line of clothing, which it has stated will be available for the spring. Source: Crunchyroll 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Against the backdrop of what is happening in India in re the JNU episode, there is this massive debate in terms of who is a nationalist and who is not. I am told that my simple acts of omission and commission, including what meat I eat, may brand me anti national. But this post is really not about me. It is about Tim Cook. Just consider the facts. On December 9th, two radicalized Americans massacred 14 people at the Inland Center in San Bernadino, California. The shooters, a married couple, were subsequently shot down by the cops. The FBI, which is investigating the case, has asked Apple to provide it with a key to unlock the iPhone of one of the Shooters and even got a court order for Apple to comply. An open and shut decision for Tim Cook, right? Wrong. Cook refused to comply, citing grave security implications for iPhone users at large, and has moved the higher court. And he has got support from mnay in Silicon Valley, including the very influential Edward Snowden, and our own Sundar Pichai of Google. Lets chew on that for a moment. Tim Cook has said Apple will not unlock a phone used by a terrorist. The reason why this is important is that I dont see anyone in the US, including the far right (and yes, the US has its own share of its loony bins), screaming that Cook is anti-national. Amazingly, even Donald Trump has not yet threatened to banish Tim Cook from the United States. Sure there are people criticizing Cook, like in any other society with free speech, but no death threats, no bunch of lawyers trying to lynch him or attacking him for being against Uncle Sam (their equivalent to our Bharat Mata). I am just relieved that Tim Cook and Apple are not based in India. Had they been, their stand would have been immediately branded anti-national. Politicians of the ruling party in power would have sent goons to various Apple stores and vandalized them, with the cops looking on serenely. The educated middle class, would have reprimanded Apple for its anti national stance and would instantly branded them as traitors. Not that this would have stooped them from coveting the iPhones, but then words are cheaper than iPhones! Delhi Police Commissioner Bhim Bassi would have immediately ordered the arrest of Cook and slapped him with charges of Sedition, and the lawyers would have been busy slapping him more literally and physically. News channels would have unearthed a video showing Cook saying that he wont accept the court order, and would have gleefully run a doctored video showing Cook disrespecting the flag, mouthing obscenities at the government and calling them names with a dangerously sounding anchor demanding that India wants to know! The Parliament would have been paralyzed with inaction, with every party staging a walkout and no business being allowed to be conducted. To hell with the running of the government, Cook-the-Traitor will be the bigger issue in the country, not the big infrastructure projects hung in balance, not the governance of the country coming to a halt and certainly not the not the millions of people living in hunger and poverty. GST will become the Great Satan Tim. Processions would be taken out by all political parties to protest the actions of Cook and at least 27 Public Interest Litigation petitions (PILs) would be filed in the Supreme Court of India, urging urgent hearing on the matter, with some of the Hon. MPs even asking for the company to be shut down for a few months and fumigated to rid it of all Cooksian elements. However, the next week, Supreme Court would announce its decision, Cook will comply and everything is back to normal. And the original undoctored videos of Cook would be found and Arnab Goswami would go back to shouting about something else. Tim Cook, see how lucky you are. Tu to bach gaya yaar America mein paida hoke. L Subramanyan ([email protected]) is founder and CEO of Trivone Digital Services, publishers of TechTree. (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in the article are the personal views of the author and Trivone Digital Services need not endorse them). Apple 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. What does Britain want? As part of the Government's aversion to "ever closer union", prime minister David Cameron wants a firm commitment that Britain's financial services sector - perhaps the single biggest driver of the UK's economic prosperity over the last 20 years - is not harmed by Brussels' attempts to shore up the shaky eurozone. George Osborne has lobbied for the City of London to be protected from any rules or regulations that could put British-based banks at a disadvantage to their 19 eurozone counterparts, damaging the integrity of the single market. Britain currently has an opt-out from the EU's banking union project, which was devised after the financial crisis to break the toxic link between sovereigns and lenders that bought the euro to its knees after 2009. We've noticed you're adblocking. We rely on advertising to help fund our award-winning journalism. We urge you to turn off your ad blocker for The Telegraph website so that you can continue to access our quality content in the future. Thank you for your support. The FTSE 100 company said that despite difficult conditions in global financial markets, it remained "well positioned" to weather difficult conditions in global financial markets that may persist for some time". The assets that the company looks after grew by 4pc to 307.4bn, and it was also helped by a fall in unit costs. Fee revenue increased 10pc to 1.58bn. But profits from its European pensions and savings division fell from 39m to 31m. Standard Life has shifted its focus away from life insurance to fee-based asset management. The company increased its final dividend by 7.8pc to 18.36p a share. The Edinburgh-based company also reported its Solvency II ratio for the first time since new EU rules were enforced in January to make sure insurers have enough capital to protect their policy holders in a 'one in 200 years event'. Standard Life said its Solvency II ratio was 162 pc; a ratio of 100pc means that it has enough to weather such an event. Keith Skeoch, chief executive, said: "While the difficult conditions in global financial markets may persist for some time, Standard Life remains well positioned to meet the needs of clients and customers around the world. Staff at banks and other financial institutions are making it difficult for people who operate accounts on behalf of elderly parents or other family members, according to the latest snapshot of complaints. The number of complaints relating to "powers of attorney" where a nominated friend or family member is given the legal power to manage another persons finances have more than doubled in the last five years, according to exclusive data obtained by Telegraph Money. New complaints to the Financial Ombudsman Service about the service rose from 71 in 2010 to 178 in 2015 the highest number on record, according to a Freedom of Information request by law firm Nockolds. The number of complaints which were upheld also more than doubled, from 35 in 2010 to 79. Such cases are particularly sensitive. Under the "lasting power of attorney" process, the donor the person whose affairs are at stake is still perfectly fit when arrangements are set in place. At this point the attorneys are officially registered and their appointment brought to the attention of other family members. Private renters in London outnumber homeowners for the first time in a more than a decade, official figures show, amid concerns a generation of young families are being permanently priced out of the housing market. New data from the Government's English Housing Survey, shows some 898,000 households in the capital are living in privately rented accommodation, more than double the 405,000 households who privately rented homes in 2003/04. By comparison 883,000 households live in mortgaged homes, down 17pc from 1m ten years ago. Experts said the combination of lower salaries and soaring house prices meant young families are stuck renting because they are unable to afford a mortgage. Yesterday official figures showed London house prices rose by more than 9pc over the past year, with the average home valued at 536,000. The trend means London will transform from a city of homeowners to a city of renters within a generation, according to a PwC report published on Tuesday. The Civil Guard has arrested a man for allegedly stabbing a cow that was later attacked by a pack of dogs in a forest near Guadalajara last February. The 35-year-old resident of Valdejalon in Zaragoza used a 30-centimeter double-edged knife on the animal, authorities said. A friend of the suspect captured the gruesome incident on his cellphone and later posted the video on social media. In the video, a man can be seen opening a gash on the cows left side before dozens of dogs rush in to kill it. There is enough evidence to support that this was unjust cruelty because of the way the animal agonized and the manner in which the men encouraged the dogs to attack Arturo Notivoli, the deputy chief of the Civil Guards Seprona environmental protection unit in Huesca province, explained that authorities opened an investigation after they saw the video and were able to locate the suspect, who was detained on Tuesday. The man was charged with cruelty to animals and property damage because he was not the owner of the cow. There is enough evidence to support that this was unjust cruelty because of the way the animal agonized and suffered and the manner in which the men encouraged the dogs to attack, he said. The knife reportedly used to stab the cow. Guardia Civil. The Civil Guard was able to recover the knife, which still had blood and hair on it, and have question the man who videotaped the incident. If convicted, the suspect could face up to 18 months in prison under stiffer animal cruelty laws passed by the Popular Party (PP) government last July. In October, a Palma de Mallorca judge sent a man to prison for beating to death his own racehorse. English version by Martin Delfin. Morales supporters take part in the closing of the referendum campaign. Martin Alipaz (EFE) More information Bolivia encara la votacion mas incierta en la era Evo Bolivians will go to the polls on Sunday in a referendum organized by President Evo Morales to determine whether he can run for another term in 2020, potentially allowing him to serve 19 consecutive years as Bolivias leader. If successful, Morales could still be in office by 2025, when Bolivia celebrates the bicentennial of its independence from Spain. Polls show that a large number of Bolivians are still undecided as to how they will vote, which could be decisive in the outcome. Morales, an Aymara Indian and former coca leaf grower, was first elected in 2006 with 54% of the vote. Two years later he was able to hang on to office after winning a referendum held to revoke his term. In 2009, after a change was made in the Constitution, he was re-elected with 64% of the vote. Two years ago, he won a third term with 61% support. The polls show that Morales has an enormous approval rating among both sides But judicial authorities consider his 2014 race as his first re-election, meaning a second run which is still not allowed under the Constitution will not take place until 2020. For the first time, most polls published up until last Sunday the legal cutoff date for surveys show an even split between the yes and no vote, while the number of undecided voters is fluctuating between 10% and 15% of the more than six million Bolivians who are eligible to cast their ballots on Sunday. Nevertheless, the polls show that Morales has an enormous approval rating among both camps. With more than 10 years in office, Morales has carried out deep social changes in the country. The middle classes have grown and many Bolivians have been able to escape poverty. Within the past two years, dozens of new businesses have opened as the country undergoes a construction boom. The governments biggest infrastructure project the new cable car system in La Paz never stops running. But corruption in government institutions has also increased alongside the emergence of the new elite. At the same time, Bolivias traditional landowners, who wield a lot of power in the country, are against Morales remaining in office. There are also many Bolivians who have supported him in the past, but are unhappy about the way Morales has pushed for the referendum. English version by Martin Delfin. David Cameron and Mariano Rajoy in Brussels on Thursday. OLIVIER HOSLET (EFE) In conversation with other European leaders on Thursday, acting Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was heard saying that he thought it likely that a new general election would have to be held later this year, given that the December 20 polls were inconclusive. That means that the Popular Party (PP) politician, who won the most seats in the vote but fell short of a majority, is unlikely to support an alternative government at the upcoming investiture session, which will begin on March 2. The most likely outcome is that there will be an election on June 26, Rajoy told British Prime Minister David Cameron via his interpreter. We have an investiture session in March and I dont think it will be successful During the conversation, which was caught on nearby cameras and microphones, Rajoy explained to Cameron that the second and definitive investiture vote would take place on March 5. Ahead of that session in Congress, Socialist Party (PSOE) leader Pedro Sanchez is trying to cobble together an alliance of emerging parties such as center-right anti-corruption group Ciudadanos and left-wing anti-austerity Podemos. However, the negotiations have so far been unsuccessful, and the clock is ticking. In the recording from Thursday, the following dialogue is audible between the Spanish and British politicians: Rajoy: We have an investiture session in March and I dont think it will be successful. The most likely outcome is that we will have a new election on June 26 thats most likely. Cameron: So it will be around the same date as our referendum on Europe? R: Yes, yes, the same day! [laughs] C: So you had elections at Christmas and now in summer. Youve tried everything! The acting PM also discussed Spains complicated political situation with the Estonian leader The acting Spanish prime minister also discussed the complicated situation in the wake of the December election with the Estonian prime minister, Taavi Roivas, also explaining to him that the most likely outcome would be a fresh vote. Sixty days have passed since the elections, and Rajoy and the PP are without possible partners to form a government. On January 22, Rajoy declined the offer from King Felipe VI to form a government, given that the acting PM knew that he did not have the support to win the vote. He thus managed to avoid a congressional debate in which he would have received the invective and criticism of the other parties. English version by Simon Hunter. Inspired by regal St Petersburg in the hit TV adaptation of War and Peace? This is how you can visit on a boutique ship... James Langley, Saga Expert Holiday Hunter With the recent BBC adaption of War and Peace pulling in millions of viewers, theres a renewed fascination with Russian history. And nowhere more so than spellbinding St Petersburg, where many scenes from the opulent series were filmed. St Petersburg is a stunning city, says James, one of Sagas cruise planners, who creates more than 40 itineraries for small ships Saga Sapphire and Saga Pearl II each year. But its just one of many destinations on the Cities of the Baltic cruise, which sails out of Dover this May. And one of the best parts about cruising is seeing so many different destinations on one holiday, without having to keep unpacking. Weve planned this cruise to have extended stays in port. Its actually like two city breaks in one For those who think a cruise wouldnt give you enough time to explore, James has the answer. Weve planned this cruise to have extended stays in port. With an overnight mooring in Stockholm, plus a couple of days in St Petersburg, its actually like two city breaks in one. So unlike many other cruises, guests sailing with Saga will have the chance to stay ashore in the evenings, attend ballet and opera shows, and sample the local nightlife. With Amsterdam, Helsinki and Gothenburg also on the itinerary for daylong visits, theres a lot of exploring to do on the twoweek adventure. We design every cruise to reveal the sights in comfort, with a range of extras included in the price. For example, when guests book an excursion we arrange their Russia tourist visa for no extra charge a hassle-free addition to every Saga cruise that stops in St Petersburg. Excursions are available to several places featured in the new TV adaption of War and Peace, such as the blue-and-gold fronted Catherine Palace, where the Tsar ball scenes were staged. St Petersburgs Winter Palace also featured on screen, although today the building is known as the Hermitage, one of the finest museums in the world and Saga offers a range of tours inside the majestic building. When guests book an excursion we arrange their Russia tourist visa for no extra charge There is also a new tour available to the recentlyopened Faberge Museum, showcasing the iconic bejewelled eggs made for the Russian Tsars. When not exploring these regal places ashore, guests can enjoy a taste of luxury back on board boutique ship Saga Pearl II. Even a sumptuous afternoon tea is included each day something the tea-loving Russian nobles would have approved of. For the latest travel news, sign up to the fortnightly Saga Navigator newsletter, or follow @SagaHolidaysUK A 2015 film shoot in Madrid. Samuel Sanchez The temporary employment agency Adecco announced on Friday that it is seeking 1,000 people to work as extras on a film set in the 1940s and 1950s in Madrid. The shoot will take place during April, the company stated. The selection process will be carried out via the Adecco Audiovisual division, which specializes in covering the human resources needs of film, TV and advertising producers. The 1,000 chosen candidates will get the chance to work on a major national production, which will be filmed in Madrid in April. The contract will be a temporary one, on occasional days, and the salary will be set in accordance with the corresponding collective agreement. If the Adecco job offer follows the collective agreement, that means each extra will be paid a minimum 21.84 per complete working day According to the Union of Actors and Actresses, in Spain extras are expected to work 40 hours a week, and are paid the minimum wage. If the Adecco job offer follows these conditions, that means each extra will be paid a minimum 21.84 per complete working day. Anyone who is interested in the job needs to have a valid ID document and a social security number, as well as being able to supply a bank account number. To avoid a flood of calls or visits to their offices, Adecco have supplied an email address to which applicants can send their information: c.vazquez-casting@adecco.com, with PELICULA ESPANOLA ANOS 40-50 in the subject line. Anyone who wants to try their luck should include their full name, two current photos (one of their face, and one full-body) their phone number and the city of residence. "Peruvians no longer support political confrontations. Neither the politicization of justice. Nor the judicialization of politics," he said. | Read More Mariano Rajoy and Albert Rivera, during their meeting last week. SAMUEL SANCHEZ Cuidadanos leader Albert Rivera will sit down with acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy next Tuesday to discuss the Popular Partys (PP) proposal for a coalition government, sources told EL PAIS on Friday. As Spains political parties scramble to seek support from one another before the March 2 investiture session in Congress, the PP, with no absolute majority, has provided the business-friendly Ciudadanos with a document outlining its plans for a coalition. Ciudadanos, a liberal party which became the fourth political force in Spain following the December 20 general election, has been holding talks with Pedro Sanchezs Socialists, who are also seeking support from them to form a government. Podemos, the third political force, has been pressuring the Socialists for a leftist coalition government, but its leader Pablo Iglesias has made a series of demands, such as holding a Catalan referendum during the first years of the new government and assigning 15 ministries to his party. Even though the Socialists have rejected his overtures they have not ruled out meeting with Podemos before the investiture session. On February 3, King Felipe VI charged Sanchez with trying to form a government after Rajoy told the monarch on two occasions that he didnt have enough support to do so. But the acting prime minister is still pushing for a coalition between the Socialists and Ciudadanos. If no government can be formed, new elections will have to be held. Rivera has not ruled out going to next weeks meeting with Rajoy with an agreement already sealed with the Socialists On Thursday, Ciudadanos deputy secretary general Jose Manuel Villegas told EL PAIS that its priority was to negotiate with the Socialists because Rajoy is not the candidate. Sources said that Rivera has not ruled out going to next weeks meeting with Rajoy with an agreement already sealed with the Socialists. Cuidadanos leadership is expected to discuss the fine points of a possible accord during a meeting of the executive board on Sunday. Rajoy has offered the posts of deputy prime ministers to Sanchez and Rivera if they join his great coalition government. Sanchez has said that he wont join any government with Rajoy as prime minister. If an agreement with the Socialists is hammered out, sources said that Ciudadanos could serve as a mediator between Rajoy and Sanchez. Rivera will show up to the meeting with Rajoy with the Socialists own proposals, the sources said. Cuidadanos has said that it will demand that the Congress speaker post go to a PP official if Sanchez is able to form a government and become prime minister. English version by Martin Delfin. 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 Congress plans legal battle against "illegal tenders" Hyderabad, Feb 19 (INN): The Telangana Congress party has decided to wage a legal battle against the "illegal tenders" called by the State Government for Palamuru Ranga Reddy Lift Irrigation Scheme. Speaking to media persons at Gandhi Bhavan on Friday, TPCC President N. Uttam Kumar Reddy described the entire tender process as farce. He said that the tenders, which closes Saturday, were completely manipulated with the TRS Government imposing severe restriction bidding process to award the works to some favoured companies. He said that the State would lose 25-30% of public money if the tenders are allotted to the companies through the present illegal route created by the TRS Government. The TPCC chief said that the Congress party would convene an all party meeting on the issue and explore the legal means to expose the entire scam which is worth more than Rs. 3,000 crore in Palamuru Scheme alone. He informed that tenders worth Rs. 29,333 crore for 18 packages of Palamuru Ranga Reddy Lift Irrigation Scheme were invited in complete violation of the rules and set norms. Never heard before restrictions were imposed so as to prevent global and national companies from participating in the tender process. "It never happened in the past that CDR companies were prohibited from participating in Irrigation Department tenders in united Andhra Pradesh. International and national companies were barred from the tender process on the condition that they must be registered in Hyderabad. Further, number of technical restrictions such as earlier experience of embankment works, revertment, etc., were imposed. This was done only to ensure that favoured companies get the works," he said while alleging that TRS leaders were receiving huge kickbacks by doing so. Uttam Kumar Reddy said that by manipulating the irrigation tender process, the TRS Government was creating a monopolistic environment and avoiding serious competition. "Works are now going to be awarded at a cost of 20-35% higher than if there were genuine global bidding," he said. He also expressed regret that despite serious objection by the main opposition party, the TRS Government did not even bother to review the tender process even once. "Congress party has made verbal and written representations to Irrigation Department Principal Secretary S.K. Joshi and Engineer-in-Chief Muralidhar Rao. We expressed our apprehension that huge public money would be wasted if present tenders are finalised without taking our objection into consideration. However, the TRS Government is going ahead with the tenders and they will be closed on 20th February," he said. Uttam Kumar Reddy also pointed out the contractors from Seemandhra region would be the major beneficiaries of this irrigation scam hatched by TRS Government. "Same TRS leaders who cried hoarse that Seemandhra contractors and businessmen were looting Telangana in united AP, are now awarding massive government works, almost all on nomination basis, to favoured companies, mainly of Seemandhra ownership," he said. "Present rulers of Telangana State had promised transparency and eradication of corruption in the new State. But now the corruption has touched its peak and could be highest ever in the entire country since independence. The Congress party will not allow this daylight robbery of public money," he said. News Posted: 19 February, 2016 At the last Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in November 2015, the United States and China advanced their own set of interests with respect to trade agreements in the Asia-Pacific region. While the United States celebrated the conclusion of its Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal in early October 2015, China stressed the potential of a Free Trade Area of Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). In his speech, President Xi Jinping promised to work to finish at an early date negotiations for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), while accelerating talks on a ChinaJapanSouth Korea FTA.Economics aside, what do each of these trade agreements mean for the United States, China and ASEAN from a strategic perspective? The United States and China view trade agreements like the TPP, RCEP and FTAAP as ways to limit each others ability to compete in their respective areas of interest. China, as a growing economic power, has an interest in leading the East Asian institutional architecture and needs to ensure that neither the United States nor Japan will dominate the region. The United States interest lies in making sure that Chinas economic rise does not lead to a reduction of US influence in East Asia. Even worse, from a US perspective, is the possibility of East Asian countries coming together to exclude the United States from the region, as in the ASEAN+3 and ASEAN+6 arrangements. ASEAN wants both the United States and China to be engaged in the region, while maintaining its centrality in the broader Asian architecture. RCEP, though led by ASEAN, is one of the mediums for China to meet these ends in a peaceful manner. But RCEP includes India, which has a record of being difficult in multilateral negotiations. That may slow the agreements progress or even derail it from its stated objectives.In order to safeguard its interest, China has simultaneously proposed an upgrade to the ASEANChina Free Trade Agreement signed in 2002. The decision to upgrade was endorsed in late 2015. Its aim is to align ASEANChina FTA policies to current business practices. It seems that Beijing wants those in the ASEAN region to automatically take into account Chinese interest and to view China as an economic opportunity rather than a growing threat. The idea of FTAAP, championed by China since 2014, seems to be in reaction to Chinas exclusion from the TPP and that agreements high standards standards that may prohibit Beijing from joining the pact anytime soon. This attitude can be observed in President Xis speech at the 2015 APEC Summit. As Beijing worries about fragmentation in the region, Xi stated, it asks for the accelerated realisation of an open and inclusive FTAAP. Beijings advocacy for FTAAP at the APEC forum also reflects its desire to be part of an agreement from its inception. As APEC covers 21 economies, it is highly likely to be more accommodative to developing countries needs and their domestic environments. The absence of India in APEC also gives the FTAAP a better chance of success compared with the RCEP. Ultimately, Beijing wants to ensure that APEC, rather than the TPP, remains as the central forum connecting the United States and Asia.The United States seems determined to use the TPP to connect its economy to the growth centres of Asia. It has been long complaining about unfair trade practices among developing countries leading to significant trade imbalances between the West and the East.The TPP is seen as a way to rectify such imbalances. This was reflected in President Barack Obamas address to the Australian parliament in 2011: We need growth that is fair, where every nation plays by the rules where workers rights are respected and our businesses can compete on a level playing field. For the United States, the TPP also serves to emphasise its strategic pivot to Asia. This is an attempt to reverse the belief that the United States has been preoccupied with fighting terrorism since 2001 and that it is making a lukewarm effort to reach out to ASEAN states with formal proposals for economic cooperation. ASEAN countries tend to view both the United States and China as matters that cause both anguish and opportunity. Acknowledging their own economic and size-based weaknesses, ASEAN countries interests generally lie in following cooperative relationships and institutional frameworks. They welcome India in this regard. Currently, RCEP is the most reassuring agreement for ASEAN, as it has acknowledged Southeast Asias centrality from the beginning.But the other approaches, such as TPP, ChinaJapanSouth Korea FTA and APEC-FTAAP, threaten its unity and centrality. This can be observed in the TPP the agreement includes only four of ASEANs 10 members and its entry conditions make it difficult for the other six to join anytime soon. British Prime Minister David Cameron (R) attends a meeting with European Council President Donald Tusk (L) and European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker (C) during a European Union leaders summit addressing the talks about the so-called Brexit and the migrants crisis, in Brussels, Belgium, February 19, 2016. REUTERS/Yves Herman Prime Minister David Cameron was arguing on Friday with his EU peers on the following outstanding issues in a draft reform package to help him campaign to keep Britain in the European Union: Euro zone One of only two EU states to neither use the euro nor be bound to adopt it in time, Britain stands alone in insisting there will never be just one currency in the bloc, and Cameron demanded safeguards, particularly for London's financial sector, against being harmed by decisions taken by the euro zone. An initial draft secured assurances to that effect but raised concern in France that different banking regulations in London and the euro zone could unfairly benefit the former. A second draft introduces wording to strengthen the need for rules to be uniform among states inside and outside the EU banking union. A third draft sent to leaders early on Thursday and seen by Reuters shows an explicit reference to there being a "level playing field" in banking regulation. But it also places a full section on how to ensure that in square brackets -- denoting that only the top political leadership will settle the matter. Cameron is also pressing for Britain to able to hold up euro zone legislation if it feels its vital interests are at risk. Other states want Britain to need support from other states to trigger that move and tighter wording to ensure it has no veto. European integration Cameron has secured a repeat of an EU assurance that treaty commitments to an "ever closer union" of the peoples of Europe are not "equivalent to the objective of political integration". But in a nod to federalists, notably Belgium, the later drafts say that, nonetheless, political integration "enjoys wide support in the Union". In assuring Britain that EU states retain sole responsibility for their national security, it adds: "The benefits of collective action on issues that affect the security of all member states is recognised." Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel is still unhappy about setting a precedent of a legal guarantee that states do not have to participate in deeper political integration. Treaty change Ensuring that reforms are legally binding and amount to a lasting change in the EU treaties has become a touchstone of domestic credibility for Cameron. Passages of the draft text, referring to euro zone issues and that of ever closer union, which say that EU leaders agree to incorporate "the substance" of their agreements on the euro zone and sovereignty into EU treaties when next they come up for amendment remain in doubt. EU officials say that an agreement among leaders at the summit will constitute a binding intergovernmental treaty and so a pledge to treaty change may be unnecessary. Many governments fear that a mounting euroscepticism across Europe will make it very difficult to win popular ratification for new EU treaties. Some officials say even a mention of future "treaty change" in the proposed text may create problems of ratification and would rather it did not appear at all. However, negotiators say they recognise that it is politically important for Cameron. Migration Long seen as the trickiest of the British demands, the EU offered an "emergency brake" mechanism to help Cameron fulfil promises to reduce immigration from the EU by curbing welfare benefits to EU workers for up to four years after they arrive. Most governments have accepted that extraordinary circumstances give Britain the right to apply this "brake". But Poland and its eastern allies want to limit to four years the period Britain can penalise their citizens. The text sets a maximum of four years during which an individual can be denied benefits. But it refers to the total period that a state can exercise the emergency brake only as " years, extendable for two successive periods of years and years". Britain would like that to add up to at least seven - equal to the period it did not exercise its EU right to bar Eastern European workers after they joined the EU in 2004. That early British welcome to workers from the ex-Communist east appears in the final draft, which says one ground for using the emergency brake relates to countries that did not bar new members' citizens for a transition period. That wording aims to reassure those worried that states other than Britain may try to use it. The final draft also includes the word "non-contributory" in defining the kind of benefits that can be withheld -- very few states other than Britain offer significant payments like that. Some East European officials indicate they could accept the emergency brake being used for up to seven years -- perhaps three years extendable for two years then two years. However, they want tight limits on a proposal to let states cut child benefit for workers whose children live in poorer states by indexing them to living costs there. They want that to apply only to new migrant workers and ideally only to Britain, not the whole EU. Britain sees the limitation to new workers as unviable. Other rich states want to be able to cut payments too. Karen Bojar explores the rewards and challenges of retirement. National Assembly discusses separation of ministeries: OEK leaves NA hall (video) The National Assembly convened a special session on February 19 to discuss the governments decision to separate the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Emergency Situations into two ministries - Ministry of Emergency Situations and Ministry of Territorial Administration and Development. These were previously separate ministries. At the beginning of the silting, NA Vice-Speaker Eduard Sharmazanov said Armenian Parliament Speaker Galust Sahakyan is in good health condition and he is recovering. We wish him a speedy recovery, Sharmazanov said. He added that the special sitting will end at 3.30 pm. Mher Shajgeldyan, Secretary of the County of Law Party (OEK), said they could accept the practice of hasty changes as well as the forced separation or unification of ministries without political justification, hence they were boycotting the sitting. We wish success to the cooperation between the Republican party of Armenia (HHK) and Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF, Dashnaktsutyun), he said. We also wish you good luck. We also wish good luck to you, Mr Zurabyan and give you the right to ask a question, Sharmazanov said. OEK faction left the NA hall. All five members of the ARF faction are participating in the special session. London: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has accused the federal government of "abandoning" Australians in trouble overseas, saying a pen he was given in prison was the only help he's ever received. From his refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, the 44-year-old has also accused Swedish authorities of overriding the wishes of the woman at the centre of a rape allegation against him. Julian Assange: "The Australian government is notorious for its poor treatment of Australians overseas when they are in any form of difficulty." Credit:Getty Images Assange said it was in court records that the woman felt "railroaded" by Swedish police and she had refused to sign her statement. A Melbourne man who was allegedly murdered by an ex-Australian Defence Force soldier was kicked out of the Finks bikie gang for excessive drug use, and was on parole at the time of his death. Stuart Townsend, 26, was allegedly shot by Lachlan James Floyd, who up until recently, was a member of the Mongols bikie gang, as well as being a former soldier. Ex-bikie Stuart Townsend: Died at Monash Medical Centre. Mr Floyd, a 28-year-old from Ascot Vale, appeared before the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday charged with murdering Mr Townsend. Platoon commander charged with violation of combat duty regulations In the framework of the criminal case investigated in the Second Garrison Investigative Unit, on February 17 charge was pressed against reconnaissance platoon commander of the military unit for violation of combat duty regulations which caused grave consequences. On December 18, 2015 at about 03:40 the diversion and intelligence group of the enemy attacked the combat base of protection area of the unit N. The servicemen Aghasi Grigoryan and Ruben Aleqsanyan died of firearm injuries they had sustained in the result of military actions. A number of servicemen sustained firearm injuries and were taken to military hospital. On the same day a criminal case was initiated in the Second Garrison Investigative Unit on murder committed by an organized group out of motives of national, race and religious hate or fanatism, with the intend of willful illegal deprivation of two or more people, attempt of willful deprivation of life of two or more people. In the framework of the criminal case necessary investigatory actions were conducted to provide the comprehensive, complete and objective investigation of circumstance of the case. Through preliminary investigation it was found that reconnaissance platoon commander, captain had been appointed the monitor of the combat support position of protection area of the military unit since 11.12.2015 during which he violated the combat duty regulations. According to preliminary investigation data captain did not carry out and organize the necessary actions directed to waylaying and on December 17 at about 23:30 getting additional information on penetration by diversion and intelligence group of the enemy continued the same conduct, so in these conditions on December 18 at about 03:40 the diversion and intelligence group of the enemy penetrated freely into the combat support position and attacked the servicemen causing grave consequences. On the base of the obtained evidence charge was pressed against the captain according to the Part 3 of the Article 365 of RA Criminal Code (violation of combat duty or combat service regulations which caused grave consequences). On the same day the investigator submitted a motion to the court to use detention as a pretrial measure against him. The motion was sufficed, the Press Service of the RA Investigative Committee reports. Less than 1 per cent of raids have resulted in new terrorism investigations, the Interior Ministry acknowledges. Many people whose homes have been searched, like Muradyan, complain that their privacy was invaded, their families frightened and their property damaged. Members of the band Eagles of Death Metal, Jesse Hughes, right, and Julian Dorio, pay their respects to 89 victims who died in the Novermber 13 attack at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris last year. Credit:AP Beyond the emergency powers, the Hollande government has already pushed through an expansion of surveillance laws. It is now lobbying for a raft of constitutional changes, including provisions that would allow some convicted terrorists to be stripped of their citizenship, a step that has raised fierce debate and protest from even members of his Socialist Party. The French parliament voted on Tuesday to extend the state of emergency for another three months. French riot police officers patrol in the migrant camp in Calais, north of France, earlier this month. Credit:AP Marc Trevidic, a judge who oversaw terrorism cases for 10 years, emphasised the dangers for France if it failed to strike the proper balance. During his tenure, he said, he listened to many wire-tapped phone conversations of young people considering whether to follow a more extreme form of Islam. "They have the impression that France doesn't like Islam," Trevidic said, adding that those young people often have not yet taken the step of becoming active in a terrorist organisation because they have jobs, families and a stake in society. French prime minister Manuel Valls, centre, leaves France's National Assembly, in Paris, last week. Credit:AP As the number of warrantless searches rises in the weeks after the attacks, scores of French citizens posted photographs and videos on social media websites showing the damage to their front doors, their furniture and their possessions. The damage stung all the more for those who did not have the money for the repairs. In one widely reported case, police officers burst into a halal restaurant where families were eating dinner and ordered them to put their hands on the table, but did not check their identity papers. They searched mosques as well as a shelter for battered and homeless Muslim women. A French riot police officer stands guard at the entrance of the Stade de France prior to the Six Nations rugby match between France and Italy earlier this month. Credit:AP Often it was unclear why police were conducting the raid. Amnesty International reported this month that many people caught up in the raids said in interviews that they feared the searches were often based on little more than unsubstantiated suspicions passed along by neighbours. Authorities have also put 407 people under house arrest since November 14, requiring them to report to police three times daily, which forced those who were working to quit their jobs or take leave of absence. French riot police patrol in the migrant camp in Calais earlier this month. Credit:AP Prime Minister Manuel Valls defended the raids, detentions and house arrests during a February 5 session of the National Assembly, saying that they were "efficacious" and "indispensable to the security of the French people". Valls said the emergency powers had enabled the government to uncover at least one attack in the planning stage. French riot police officers stand guard outside the Stade de France earlier this month. Credit:AP However, it was unclear how far along it was and whether it involved a conspiracy engineered by a larger extremist group such as Islamic State or al-Qaeda. The available evidence suggests that, at most, a handful of potential extremist assailants have been found as a result of the emergency measures. In only 10 per cent of the searches did the government open new judicial proceedings. Of those, just 28 were related to terrorism, with the vast majority - 23 - for the crime of "apologising for terrorism", or "praising terrorism". In many cases, such an act in the US would be protected as free speech. That means just five cases involved potential terrorism offences, such as preparing to travel to the Middle East for training or gathering information for a potential attack. A looming 30 per cent global shortage of trained aircraft maintenance workers will hit Australia hard, a new University of NSW study has found. The university's business school has completed a five-year research project which reveals the global workforce shortage will emerge within 10 years. Matthew Dale and Alex Bathgate who have both just completed an apprenticeship with Qantas. Matthew has been given a job and Alex hasn't. Credit:Wolter Peeters It warns that the Asia Pacific region will be particularly hard hit and stresses Australia has an urgent need to help meet the shortfall. "This means moving quickly to rebuild both aircraft maintenance and maintenance training industries by 2020, to permit Australia to handle a high proportion of its own needs across the civilian airline, general aviation and defence sectors," the report says. Murdoch, CEO of News Corp., was responding to Trump's furious attacks against Fox News and The Wall Street Journal, two of his media properties. "Trump blames me for WSJ poll, fights Fox News. Time to calm down. If I [am] running anti-Trump conspiracy then [I'm] doing lousy job!" Murdoch exclaimed on Twitter . Rupert Murdoch urged Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to relax a little bit on Thursday. The Journal and NBC News published a joint national poll on Wednesday that showed Trump narrowly behind Ted Cruz, a top GOP primary rival, for the first time. The poll differed significantly from several other national surveys that gave Trump a wide lead. At a Thursday campaign rally in Kiawah Island, South Carolina, Trump lit into The Journal. "They have like an outlier poll and today it's on the front page of The Wall Street Journal. What a lot of crap! OK? Isn't it? It's disgusting," Trump said. "In my opinion, it's a phony poll," he added. One of Trump's top campaign advisers strongly suggested on Thursday that Murdoch had something to do with The Journal's poll: Our obsession with devices can come at the expense of our relationships. Credit:iStock Even when we're not at work, we're logged on. The Australian Bureau of Statistics says Australians spend 10 hours (more than the average work day) on the internet, just for personal use. But of course we don't need surveys and think tanks to tell us this. Checking our phones for messages and calls and emails is the first and last thing many of us do each day. Even on weekends. If we have a spare moment, waiting for the dentist, for a bus, for the ad break to finish, for the bread to toast, we'll check to see if somebody needs or wants us. Or if something has happened. If we're alone, it's a way to feel less lonely, bored or awkward. If we're with others, it's a way to look busy and important. It's also become something we do just because. It has existential implications, too. If someone posts a photo of the salad-in-a-jar they had and no one "likes" it, did they ever have lunch at all? At the same time, there has been a shift in what's socially acceptable. When mobiles first arrived, it was considered the height of rudeness (and wankiness) to use your new-fangled portable phone while you were talking to someone else. These days people don't excuse themselves if they're with one group of friends or colleagues while texting others or checking something on their phones - and they aren't expected to. We just accept that people's concentration will be divided or is about to become so. But while we've never had so much information and so much connection, studies have found that being perma-connected to multiple devices is not making us smarter. It's actually working in the opposition direction. More than 10 years ago, London's Institute of Psychiatry found that multitasking with electronic media was worse for you than smoking pot - causing people to temporarily drop 10 IQ points. And there is plenty of research that shows working long hours is bad for productivity and bad for work quality. It's also been shown to be totally pointless. Boston University assistant professor Erin Reid studied a global consulting firm where managers could not tell the difference between employees who actually worked an 80-hour week and those who just pretended to (how's that for scary?). So even before you get to governments stepping in with new laws, there's something collective and silly going on with the way we use technology. Several years ago, US journalist William Powers made a small but significant change in his life. The self-confessed technology devotee had always been the first to get any new gadget, carried his phone with him everywhere and surfed the net at all hours - but something was wrong. "I just felt like I was skimming the surface of life more and more. It was like my brain was becoming a hamster wheel. Never stopping spinning," the former Washington Post media writer said. So, he and his family started having an "internet Sabbath". From the time they went to bed on Friday until Monday morning, they turned their modem off. Instead of hanging out on Facebook or checking work emails they spent time with each other or (radical idea alert) their own thoughts. "It's different in the beginning, it's strange, it's scary, and then it's not," Powers explains. But beyond the eye-popping palette are seven men from Ballarat who get together twice a week to have a chat. They might talk about something that's made them angry or tell jokes to make each other laugh. Then, they paint. And through their painting they find clarity. It's one of the major projection works of White Night Melbourne and is an illuminating riot of Yves Klein blue, aquamarine, deep oranges and vibrant red. Get ready to take this photograph, or a version of it, many times over tonight. "It helps us boys to talk about it because most Aboriginal men don't like to talk about their issues and their feelings and stuff," artist Peter-Shane Rotumah said. "In a way this group is really good for us." The display by Pitcha Makin Fellaz and Portuguese creative studio OCUBO is a humorous and contemporary reinterpretation of traditional Indigenous storytelling. Credit:Paul Jeffers Myles Walsh, Ted Laxton, Adrian Rigney, Joe Lee, Thomas Marks, William Blackall and Rotumah, are together known as the Pitcha Makin Fellaz. Their bright, distinctive work has popped up on local school house and gallery walls, including the Koorie Heritage Trust and Bunjilaka at the Melbourne Museum. Fame is creeping up on them they've just finished the designs for the Western Bulldogs' indigenous round guernseys but after Saturday night the Pitcha Makin Fellaz will be hard to ignore when their work and name is splashed across the Royal Exhibition Building as part of a collaboration with Portuguese video mapping studio Ocubo for White Night. "I'm going to be feeling very, very proud that we get to showcase our art stuff and that, and also nervous at the same time," Rotumah said. "Just to think about what other people are going to think about our artwork and if it's ok." You've probably come across the statement in reviews of crime fiction that a book with a strong or unique setting is one where the location has become almost a character in the story. It's been said so often, though, that this pronouncement is somewhat of a critical cliche. Nevertheless, meet Rockton, arguably a major if not the central character in Kelley Armstrong's new mystery, City of the Lost (five more in the series are available as ebooks). Armstrong, a Canadian, is best known as an author of fantasy fiction but like her American counterpart Charlaine Harris, as well as being an accomplished writer of mysteries, she is also a bit of a genre blender. City of the Lost introduces us to Casey Duncan, who leaves her life and her job as a police detective in the city to take up residence in Rockton, a secret rural community where people go when they want to disappear. Casey is one of Armstrong's more appealing tough-yet-vulnerable female protagonists, and it's entertaining to speculate on the outcome of the romantic triangle which forms between her, Rockton's gruff Sheriff Dalton, and the buff Deputy Anders (but don't discount Casey's ex-boyfriend, who took a bullet for her, entering the competition later). Armstrong has always been adept at keeping us guessing, as she also does here, about the identity of the serial killer who is picking off Rocktonians in an inventively gruesome way. It's Rockton itself, though, that keeps us turning the pages. Armstrong has fun playing with genre tropes in City of the Lost, and she doesn't limit herself to the paranormal or to crime. We're in Zane Grey territory here: Casey is the rogue gunslinger who rides into town to clean it up, a town with horse troughs, dirt streets and a bar manager who is also the madam of the local bordello. Currently there's a trend for fantasy writers to set their stories in hidden-away places: Charlaine Harris has taken us to Midnight, Texas, with Rachel Caine we've visited Morganville, and Armstrong has Cainsville, all creepy little hamlets where things go grrr! aargh! in the night on a regular basis. Rockton, however, may well be the scariest place of all. Casey isn't fighting blood-sucking vampires in her new home, but she's made an enemy of an emotional vampire who remains unvanquished by the end of the book, a monster who will require something more than a mere stake through the heart to destroy. Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in the 1962 film adaptation of Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. Peck won the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance and remained a friend of Lee. Credit:AP Spencer Madrie, owner of the Ol' Curiosities & Book Shoppe dedicated to the work of Lee and other Southern authors, said Monroeville was in a sombre mood as word of Lee's death spread. "You wish somebody like that could go on forever and be this lifelong legend," he said. "You don't ever consider somebody like that passing, even though her legacy will last for generations after." Pictured: Warrnambool Books display Harper Lee's second book, Go Set a Watchman in July 2015. Credit:Amy Paton Lee's state of mind would become an issue when plans were announced to publish Go Set a Watchman last year. Some friends said that after the death of her sister Alice, who handled Harper's affairs, lawyer Tonja Carter had manipulated Lee to approve publication. Discovered manuscript Classic Harper Lee's famous novel drew the fictional Maycomb of To Kill a Mockingbird from people and events in her home town of Monroeville, Alabama. Credit:The Washington Post Carter had said she came across the Watchman manuscript while doing legal work for Lee in 2014 and an investigation by Alabama state officials found there was no coercion in getting Lee's permission to publish. Lee's literary output had been a matter of speculation for decades before Go Set a Watchman. She acknowledged she could not top the Pulitzer Prize-winning Mockingbird but friends said she had worked for years on at least two other books before abandoning them. Harper Lee in 1963, three years after the publication of her acclaimed first novel. Credit:AP A family friend, the Reverend Thomas Lane Butts, told an Australian interviewer Lee had said she did not publish again because she did not want to endure the pressure and publicity of another book and because she had said all that she wanted to say. Lee essentially quit giving interviews in 1964 and rarely made public appearances but in November 2007 went to the White House to accept a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush, who called her book "a gift to the entire world." She also regularly attended an annual luncheon at the University of Alabama to meet with the winners of a high school essay contest on the subject of her book. Changing racial views Nelle Harper Lee was born April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, the youngest of four children of A.C. and Frances Finch Lee and a descendant of Civil War General Robert E. Lee. Like Scout, Lee grew up a tomboy. Lee had studied law at the University of Alabama but, six months before finishing her studies, she went to New York in the early 1950s to pursue a literary career while working as an airline reservation clerk. In 1956 friends Michael and Joy Brown gave Lee a special Christmas gift, a year of financial support so she could work full time on To Kill a Mockingbird. The book was published in 1960, shortly after the dawn of the US civil rights movement, and would sell an estimated 30 million copies. It would become required reading in many American schools but the American Library Association said it was frequently challenged by those who did not like its subject matter. Lee also played a key role in researching another great American book by Truman Capote, her childhood friend and the inspiration for the frail, precocious Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird. In 1959 she accompanied Capote to Holcombe, Kansas, to work on In Cold Blood, the chilling account of the murders of a farming family. Her mannerly, down-home approach undoubtedly smoothed the way for the flamboyant Capote. There was speculation that Capote helped her write To Kill a Mockingbird but in his 2006 biography, Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, Charles J. Shields disputed that. He also said Lee's contribution to Capote's In Cold Blood was greater than believed. Lee's sister said the authors eventually fell out because Capote was jealous of Lee's Pulitzer. The movie version of To Kill a Mockingbird also became an American classic. It won the Academy Award for best picture in 1963 while Gregory Peck, who played Atticus, was named best actor and screenwriter Horton Foote won for his adaptation of the book. In 2006 Lee wrote a piece for O magazine about developing a childhood love of books, even though they were scarce in Monroeville. "Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books," she wrote. Seven facts about Harper Lee Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird became one of the most beloved books in US literary history. Here are seven facts about Lee, who died at the age of 89: * She went by Harper, her middle name, because she was afraid her first name, Nelle, would be mispronounced as "Nellie," not "Nell." * Lee based the To Kill a Mockingbird character Dill on childhood friend Truman Capote, who in turn used her as the basis for a character in his Other Voices, Other Rooms. * To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960, won the Pulitzer Prize the following year, but Conrad Richter's The Waters of Kronos beat her out for the National Book Award. Lady Gaga could be the lucky charm for Hollywood songwriter Diane Warren when she faces her eighth Best Song nomination at next week's Academy Awards. Til It Happens to You was co-written and sung by Gaga for The Hunting Ground, Kirby Dick's documentary about rape on US college campuses. The film will screen at ACMI on March 2 for the Australian International Documentary Conference, which shifts from Adelaide to Melbourne for the first time. Songwriter Diane Warren has received her eighth Best Song Academy Award nomination for Til It Happens To You. Credit:Jay L. Clendenin/Tribune Warren's Oscar nominations since '88 have included hits for Starship, Aerosmith, Celine Dion and Rita Ora. This year she's up against songs from Fifty Shades Of Grey, Racing Extinction, Youth and Spectre. A plan to save the Leadbeater's possum, Victoria's animal emblem, will aim to halt the declining population in the next 20 to 50 years by better protecting its habitat and introducing tighter controls on logging. The plan, released by the federal government on Friday, proposes a range of new measures to help save the iconic species, including expanding protected areas, reconsidering fire regimes and even moving some possum colonies to new areas. A national plan is trying to stop the decline in the number of Leadbeater's possums in the next 20 to 50 years. Credit:Ken Irwin The draft document notes that there will still be a fall in possum numbers over the next decade even if these measures are put in place, as more of the preferred possum habitat type in Victoria's central highland forests is lost as a result of past bushfires. But it argues that decline can be slowed, boosting the possum's long-term chances of recovery. The ultimate goal is to see possum numbers stabilise and then increase over the next 20 to 50 years. Labor has scolded newly minted Trade Minister Steve Ciobo for criticising United States presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's stance on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact. Deputy Opposition Leader and Labor's foreign affairs spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek said Mr Ciobo risked damaging the Australia-US alliance by breaking a long-standing convention of not commenting on another country's domestic politics. Mr Ciobo, who has replaced Andrew Robb, suggested that Mrs Clinton, frontrunner in the race to be the Democratic nominee for president, was running a union-backed campaign of misinformation against the TPP like the labour movement in Australia. "I will not take a backwards step in terms of putting forward the clear truthful situation in the face of an ongoing campaign of misinformation from the union movement or people like that," he told The Australian Financial Review. Australian doctors may soon boycott work inside immigration detention centres in the hope it will break down the Australian government's policy of holding asylum seekers in conditions doctors describe as torturous. As paediatricians in Brisbane enter the seventh day of their protest against the government's intention to send the baby of asylum seeker parents back to Nauru, debate is raging in the medical fraternity about the "impossible" ethical and legal position doctors are finding themselves in. Doctors are concerned about the treatment of asylum seekers in immigration detention centres. Credit:Shannon Morris On Sunday more than 300 doctors and nurses will gather at a forum run by the Australian Medical Association to discuss the harms caused by immigration detention, particularly for children. Several doctors told Fairfax Media that there may be a vote to boycott immigration detention work at the meeting after John-Paul Sanggaran, a former immigration detention doctor, urged his colleagues to take a more collective stand. Writing in Fairfax Media publications on Friday, Dr Sanggaransaid the AMA's code of ethics said doctors must not "condone or participate in the practice of torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman, or degrading procedures, whatever the offence of which the victim of such procedures is suspected, accused or convicted". Prison escapee Beau Wiles will spend at least another six months least behind bars for his brief but well-publicised run from the law. The one-time Bellambi fugitive appeared via video link at Wollongong District Court Friday morning, almost unrecognisable beneath a full, brown beard cultivated since his October 1 capture and return to prison. Beau Wiles' Facebook post before he escaped from Goulburn Correctional Centre. Credit:Facebook Defence solicitor Laura Fennell told the court Wiles had much on his mind when he slipped away from a minimum security section of Goulburn Correctional Complex on September 30 and into a car with his girlfriend, Rebecca Watts, waiting inside. The escape came three days after Watts had visited the prison and become, in Wiles' words, "heaps emotional", telling him she had recently suffered a miscarriage, the Illawarra Mercury reported. Margaret Cunneen faces a push to refer her to Parliament's powerful privilege and ethics committee after she demanded that MPs not provide details of secret phone taps involving her to journalists "or any other person". The Crown prosecutor's lawyers delivered her demand in a letter to the chairman of the oversight committee on the Independent Commission Against Corruption, Liberal MP Damien Tudehope, on February 12. It followed publication by Fairfax Media of excerpts of a transcript of Australian Crime Commission telephone intercepts that sparked the ICAC's aborted investigation of Ms Cunneen over allegations she tried to pervert the course of justice. The excerpts show Ms Cunneen saying she had sent a message to her son's girlfriend, who had been drinking alcohol, "to start having chest pains" after a 2014 car accident, to avoid a breath test. Meet the other Gareth - from Queensland - who inadvertently became involved in an expletive-laden war of words between two NSW South Coast government representatives. The saga began when the NSW Labor opposition introduced a motion into State Parliament to oppose the Liberal government's plan for forced council mergers. Kiama councillor Neil Reilly, left, fired off the angry texts to MP Gareth Ward after the council merger debate in State Parliament on Tuesday. Credit:Illawarra Mercury The NSW Liberal member for Kiama, Gareth Ward, refused to cross the floor to back the Labor motion. More than 100 malnourished and distressed horses and ponies have been seized from a property in the state's west. The seizure comes as animal welfare group RSPCA Victoria blames drought conditions and rising feed costs for "one of the biggest spikes in horse welfare concerns in its 145-year history". Horses seized from the property are malnourished and distressed. Credit:RSCPA Victoria The horses are very underweight, exhibiting signs of malnutrition and muscle wasting, and many are suffering from worms and parasites, according to the RSPCA. The seizure, which took place over Thursday and Friday, was authorised by ministerial order under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. Police have dropped all charges against one of the four brothers accused of the rape of a 14-year-old girl in Geelong, a court has heard. All charges against Rowan Gavin Wild, 27, were dropped by the prosecution. One of the Wild brothers leaves the Melbourne Magistrates Court after an earlier hearing. Credit:Justin McManus The other three brothers - Brodie Mark Wild, 20, Kevin Andrew Wild, 29, and Allan Mark Wild, 30 - still face charges over the alleged incident, but some of those offences will also be dropped or amended, the court heard. The men had been charged over the alleged incident in Geelong on November 1 last year, after the men had attended a family reunion. Two men have been charged over a series of fires lit in the Ashwood area between February 3 and Friday morning. Victoria Police spokesman Paul Turner said Monash Crime Investigation Unit detectives allege the series of 18 fires were lit in the Ashwood area between February 3 and Friday morning. "Investigators arrested a 32-year-old man and a 31-year-old man, both from Ashwood, about 10am this morning," Leading Senior Constable Turner said. "The men have been charged with 18 counts of intentionally cause bushfire and appeared at an out-of-sessions hearing tonight." Leading Senior Constable Turner said the 31-year-old had been remanded to appear at Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Saturday and the 32-year-old was bailed to appear there on Monday. 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 Google Ad 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 Premier Colin Barnett has announced he will over rule a Health Department directive that popular Irish pub J.B. O'Reilly's removes its memorabilia tobacco signs. WAtoday broke the story on Thursday that the West Leederville pub's owner Paul North could face prosecution or hefty fines after the department conducted a routine inspection. Almost every inch of Mr North's popular watering hole in Cambridge Street is littered with antique signs and memorabilia, including a number of collectable tobacco signs dating back more than 120 years. But the "advertising" was deemed a breach of the Tobacco Act, despite most of the brands no longer being on the market and J.B. O'Reilly's not selling any tobacco products. Rome: Pope Francis has appeared to open the door to a possible limited softening of the Roman Catholic Church's ban on contraception because of the Zika virus. The Argentine pontiff, speaking to reporters as he flew back to Rome from a visit to Mexico, categorically ruled out that abortion would ever be permitted for pregnant women with Zika who fear that they may give birth to a child with microcephaly. "Abortion is not a lesser evil. It is a crime. It is killing one person to save another. It is what the mafia does," Francis said. "It is a crime. It is an absolute evil". In the freewheeling, post-trip news conference that has become a trademark of his papacy, the pope was asked if using contraception would fall into the category of the lesser of two evils and asked how he felt about some authorities advising pregnant women with Zika to have abortions. Tripoli: US warplanes carried out air strikes against Islamic State-linked militants in western Libya on Friday, killing as many as 40 people in an operation targeting a suspect linked to two deadly attacks last year in neighbouring Tunisia. It was the second US air strike in three months against Islamic State in Libya, where the hardline Islamist militants have exploited years of chaos following Muammar Gaddafi's 2011 overthrow to build up a presence on the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The site where US warplanes struck an Islamic State training camp in Sabratha, Libya near the Tunisian border. More than 40 Islamists were killed. Credit:Uncredited The Pentagon said it had targeted an Islamic State training camp and killed a Tunisian militant linked to major attacks on tourists in Tunisia. Among those Washington said it targeted was Noureddine Chouchane, a Tunisian blamed by his native country for attacks last year on a Tunis museum and the Sousse beach resort, which killed dozens of tourists. Banging pipes, flickering lightbulbs, and unnerving thuds coming from upstairs: These are fixtures of life in a pre-war New York City apartment building. For even the newest New Yorkers, these occurrences should be mildly annoying rather than deathly terrifying. Not so in Stephen Karam's unsettling new play, The Humans, which is making its Broadway debut at the Helen Hayes Theatre after an acclaimed off-Broadway run with Roundabout Theatre Company. Every line, glance, and bump in the night seems significant in Joe Mantello's finely tuned production. It is a remarkable display of stagecraft in service to Karam's story. The playwright was heavily influenced by Sigmund Freud's essay "The Uncanny" in writing what appears to be a fairly standard dinner table drama. The characters argue, laugh, and endlessly deflect (the phrase "oh man" is regularly employed by Karam's characters to show casual sympathy without registering a real response). It looks like a cheerful bunch, but we soon learn that looks can be deceiving. The Blakes are an Irish-American family from Scranton, Pennsylvania. Patriarch Erik (Reed Birney) has worked in maintenance for nearly three decades at a Catholic high school. His wife, Deirdre (Jayne Houdyshell), is an office manager. They care for Erik's elderly mother, Momo (Lauren Klein), who is suffering from dementia. Their eldest daughter, Aimee (Cassie Beck), is an attorney in Philadelphia, while their youngest, Brigid (Sarah Steele), pursues a music career in New York. The entire family has gathered for Thanksgiving at the Chinatown duplex to which Brigid recently signed a lease with her boyfriend, Rich (Arian Moayed). Since their belongings still haven't arrived, the space is mostly unfurnished, leaving the Blakes with little distraction spare each other's company and the disquieting noise of the surrounding city. Sisters Brigid (Sarah Steele) and Aimee (Cassie Beck) share a moment on the second floor of David Zinn's duplex set in Stephen Karam's The Humans. ( Brigitte Lacombe) Scenic designer David Zinn has re-created an old ground-floor duplex with exquisite detail: The bizarre layout betrays a space originally designed as two separate apartments, while the thick layers of off-white paint seem meant to conceal decades of secrets (and the lingering aroma of soy sauce). Justin Townsend's believably dim natural lighting spills through the two upstairs windows, landing on a depressing pitch black by the play's end (approximately 6pm). To substitute sunlight, Townsend gives the Blakes unreliable lightbulbs that abruptly burn out as the night progresses. Sound designer Fitz Patton adds to the subtle horror with strategically placed booms emanating from the apartment above and peculiar mechanical noises coming from the basement. I've seen this play before and it still made me jump. Under Mantello's sensitive direction, the whole production has kept up an aura of lingering dread. In fact, the performances seem sharper in this Broadway transfer: Klein augments the fear with her ramblings, which seem to operate by an internal logical we cannot decipher. Houdyshell tempers Deirdre's maternal instinct with an acerbic wit, the acidity of which is often spat back at her by her youngest daughter. "Mom's still eating her feelings," Brigid states as fact, causing mom to flee to the upper level. A painfully awkward chase up the spiral staircase ensues. As Aimee, Beck adroitly plays the peacemaker, tabling her own tragedies so she can cater to her flailing family. Offering Aimee the assist, Moayed's Rich plays the role of the consummate diplomat, going out of his way to accommodate the Blakes. Still, he cannot help but offend by virtue of his privileged existence. When called to explain how he plans to pay for his student loans (he's 38 and still in college), the fittingly named Rich reveals that he has a trust fund that will kick in when he turns 40. A discussion of his family's prudence in waiting until middle age to lavish him with wealth ends when Erik bitterly asks, "Do you get how that sounds to a sixty-year-old man?" Erik's ship still has not come in, and it probably never will. Erik (Reed Birney), Aimee (Cassie Beck), Deirdre (Jayne Houdyshell), and Brigid (Sarah Steele) listen as Rich (Arian Moayed) explains his trust fund in The Humans. ( Brigitte Lacombe) More than anyone else in the cast, Birney's Erik embodies the silent terror that governs so many American lives today (and which has already played a major role in the 2016 presidential campaign). Memories of 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy still fresh, Erik is not particularly comfortable even being in New York. With no savings and a retirement plan that is rapidly unraveling, he's under immense pressure to compete in an economy that doesn't want him. Still, he has to hold it all together and play dad. In the limited time he's allowed to bring his guard down, we can feel the tidal wave of emotion that he has to keep dammed up in order to survive. Houdyshell performs the same feat, albeit with a disarming softness. Erik and Deirdre aren't the only ones in trouble. Aimee is personally and professional adrift; Brigid is coming to terms with her vanishing dreams. Momo is at death's door, but might stay there for another decade. The Blakes cling to their traditions despite a world that is quickly caving in on them. Humor and quiet dignity serve as their only armor. Through brutal realism, Karam presents a family careering toward disaster with little in the way of an evasive action plan. For too many Americans, that situation alone will feel painfully uncanny so much so that you won't be able to look away. It was confirmed this morning that Nelle Harper Lee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of To Kill a Mockingbird, died in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. She was 89. Born April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Lee was the youngest of four children. Her iconic American novel, published in 1960, is based on her Southern upbringing with her father, Amasa Coleman Lee, who once defended two black men accused of murdering a white storekeeper. The book was famously adapted for the screen by Horton Foote in 1962. The Oscar-winning film was directed by Robert Mulligan and starred Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch and Mary Badham as Scout. Christopher Sergel adapted the book for the stage, premiering the piece in 1990 in Monroeville. The play runs every May on the county courthouse grounds with townspeople making up the cast. Sergel's play toured the UK, starting at West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds in 2006, and again in 2011 starting at the York Theatre Royal. Both productions featured Duncan Preston as Atticus Finch. Robert Sean Leonard also took on the role of Atticus Finch for a 2013 production at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre in London, his first London appearance in 22 years. It was recently announced that Oscar-winning screen writer Aaron Sorkin will bring his own stage adaptation of the novel to Broadway for the 2017-18 season. The production will be directed by Tony Award winner Bartlett Sher (The King and I). In 2015, Go Set a Watchman, Lee's sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird (which was written before To Kill a Mockingbird), was released. Though To Kill a Mockingbird was Lee's only published novel until 2015, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 by President George W. Bush for her contribution to literature. To Kill a Mockingbird is considered one of the classics of modern American literature, with 50 million copies in print to date. Classic Automobile Collection Discovered in Denmark in an Incredible Barn Find RANDERS, Denmark - February 18, 2016: It is amazing to think of the undiscovered treasures that are lurking in attics, cellars and barns around the world, following Campen Auktioner's recent discovery of more than 50 Renault automobiles in a barn on the Danish island of Funen in January this year. Although many of the cars are non-runners, they were carefully prepared and waxed before being placed into storage for almost five decades. The Danish collection bears all of the call signs of a dedicated enthusiast with a great passion for Renault and their contributions to the families of the fifties, sixties and seventies. The owner of this amazing discovery, Anker Krarup, calmly maintains that his collection is a consequence of pure coincidence; it began very simply when he decided to upgrade from a bicycle to an automobile in 1968. He chose the Renault 4CV because he once sat at a dinner table with a man whose wife drove the same model. Despite having a broken heater, and later a broken engine, the 4CV was repaired and used for many years- it even helped Krarup to woo his wife-to-be along the way. In 1980, Krarup replaced the 4CV with a Dauphine but decided to keep hold of his first automobile. This was a pattern which would repeat itself for many years to come. When owners thought their cars were in need of trading, Krarup bought them. His Renault count grew steadily and, as it approached sixty cars, it occupied several barns. Over the years, Krarup, and his wife Marianne and their boys, travelled many miles in their Renaults but grew uncomfortable with the fact that many of the stored cars were no longer roadworthy. They both firmly believed that such automobiles deserved to be driven and so the Krarups finally decided to put the entire collection up for sale, in the hope that the new owners would restore the cars to their former glory. There was also renewed interest in classic Renaults in Denmark earlier this month, when the Danish national Kevin Magnussen won a race seat for the French Renault team's return to Formula 1. This added interest could attract a large crowd for the auction, as nowhere else will enthusiasts find such a large collection of Renaults for sale all at once. Campen Auktioner in Randers, Denmark will sell the collection at the traditional auction of special and classic cars to be held on Palm Sunday on March 20, 2016, where the many Renaults will be the main attraction. Most Ticketed Cars In U.S. Feb. 18, 2016 (Foster City, CA) The highest percentage of recently-ticketed drivers operate a Lexus ES300, according to a new survey by Insurance.com, the car insurance comparison-shopping website. The stylish Lexus sedan sits at the top of this years list of cars with the most tickets. In a previous Insurance.com study, conducted in 2014, the Subaru WRX ranked as the highest ticket magnet, but that make and model dropped to number 12 in the most recent data analysis. Insurance.com reviewed insurance claim and traffic violation data from 331 models and more than 323,000 recent customers. While the most frequently ticketed vehicles include a variety of economy and luxury cars, the cars with the lowest percentage of tickets are generally more expensive vehicles, such as the Buick Encore (3%), Lexus IS350 (3%), Acura ILX (6%) and Cadillac ATS (6%). Its the driver that gets tickets, not the car, says Penny Gusner, consumer analyst for Insurance.com. But it is interesting to see what vehicle makes and models attract drivers who are prone to traffic violations. Cars with the most tickets Here are the top 20 vehicles by rank/make and model by the percentage of surveyed drivers who received tickets. Drivers were surveyed between February 2014 and February 2016: 1. Lexus ES 300 33% 2. Nissan 350Z 33% 3. Dodge Charger SE/SXT 32% 4. Volkswagen Jetta GL 31% 5. Chevrolet Monte Carlo LS/LT 31% 6. Mazda 3S 30% 7. Volkswagen GTI 30% 8. Dodge Stratus SXT 30% 9. Acura 3.0s 30% 10. Toyota Tacoma 30% 11. Mazda Tribute 30% 12. Subaru Impreza WRX 30% 13. Lexus LS 400 Series 30% 14. Subaru Impreza 2.5I 30% 15. Mercedes-Benz C300 4 Matic 30% 16. Chevrolet Malibu 2LT 29% 17. Lincoln LS 29% 18. Ford Fusion S 29% 19. Mazda 3I 29% 20. Chevrolet Tahoe K1500 29% Insurance companies often pay more attention to claims than they do to traffic tickets when setting rates. Car models with high insurance claim rates can result in higher premiums for everyone owning those vehicles. Violation tickets drive up the individual coverage costs for the person who receives a citation. Its notable that cars on most tickets list also appear to have an above-average number of insurance claims, says Gusner. Twenty-three percent of surveyed drivers at the top of Insurance.coms ticket list filed an insurance claim during the survey period, while only 19 percent of all other cars made insurance claims within that timeframe. Cars with the least tickets Below is a list of surveyed vehicles whose drivers received the fewest number of tickets. Readers can find the entire study results at our cars that get the most tickets page. 1. Buick Encore 3% 2. Lexus IS350 3% 3. Acura ILX 6% 4. Cadillac ATS 6% 5. Chevrolet Express 8% 6. Cadillac Escalade 8% 7. GMC Savana 9% 8. Audi A3 2-Series 9% 9. BMW 320I 10% 10. Land Rover Range Rover 11% Methodology Insurance.com analyzed online quote information submitted by 323,349 drivers between January 1, 2014, and February 1, 2016; rankings were calculated on models for which more than 250 quotes were sought to ensure a significant sample size was available. About Insurance.com Insurance.com, based in Foster City, Calif., is an online resource where consumers can compare side-by-side, real-time auto insurance quotes from multiple insurance carriers. Since its inception in 2001, Insurance.com has delivered more than 11 million quotes to consumers--who, in less than 10 minutes, fill out one form and save an average of $540 annuallymaking it one of the largest independent insurance marketplaces in the U.S. Participants include some of the biggest names in auto insurance, including Progressive, Esurance, The Hartford, Travelers and 21st Century. About QuinStreet Inc. Insurance.com is owned and operated by QuinStreet Inc. , one of the largest Internet marketing and media companies in the world. QuinStreet is committed to providing consumers and businesses with information they need to research, find and select the products, services and brands that best meet their needs. Montreal Auto Prix - Used EV And Hybrid Dealer SEE ALSO: Electric Vehicles - Solution Or Diversion? MONTREAL, Feb. 19, 2016; Montreal Auto Prix has inaugurated the first establishment in Canada dedicated exclusively to The sale of used electric and hybrid vehicles. Jacques Daoust, Minister of Transport, Sustainable Mobility and Transport Electrification, was present at the launch. With this new business model, Montreal Auto Prix anticipates trends by offering its customers the opportunity to turn a vehicle purchase into a gesture that shows their commitment to the electrification of transport and the environment. "To achieve our ambitious target to get 100,000 rechargeable electric and hybrid vehicles on our roads by 2020, we need the participation of many innovative stakeholders. Montreal Auto Prix's initiative to open a first establishment in Canada dedicated exclusively to selling used electric and hybrid vehicles is a step in exactly the right direction," stated Minister Daoust. By concentrating exclusively on electric and hybrid vehicles of all brands, this initiative will increase the quantity, accessibility and knowledge of electric and hybrid vehicles in Quebec. "We are very aware that the market is shifting and that local consumers have a growing interest in this type of vehicle. Opening this first point of sale for used electric and hybrid vehicles in Canada will demonstrate the diversity, sustainability and reliability of these vehicles. Montreal Auto Prix expects to improve consumer knowledge by providing factual and objective information about each model. "Getting information on this innovative new market out to the public is part of our business model, in line with the importance of transport electrification. We will help consumers select the right vehicle by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of available models, now that the market is really taking off," said Richard Martin, the company's co-owner. "In this same spirit, we have decided to support the students of Ecole Polytechnique for their project to design a high-performance electric vehicle." At the official inauguration of the establishment located at 5600 Metropolitain Boulevard East, in Montreal-Nord, Montreal Auto Prix invited attendees to try different electric vehicles and admire the racing car designed by the Poly eRacing team. "We want our commitment to be meaningful to consumers and bring about change. On that note, we invite all Quebec companies to also do something significant to contribute to the objectives of Quebec's transport electrification policy," stated Sylvain Lamoureux, co-owner of Montreal Auto Prix. About Including this new division, Montreal Auto Prix has 4 stores in the Greater Montreal Area with more than 130 employees. Founded in 1997, Montreal Auto Prix stood out for its innovative business model by being the only vehicle retailer to apply a price standardization policy on all vehicles available in its Greater Montreal stores. This new practice in the automotive industry eliminates the negotiation stage and means offering consumers the best possible price. Grant advances CSUCI research Cal State Channel Islands assistant professor of computer science Scott Feister and assistant professor of mathematics Alona Kryshchenko recently received $112,480 from the National Science Foundation to continue a grant to support their research project, Enhancing Laser Based Ion Sources... Healthcare agency recommends flu shots The Ventura County Health Care Agency offers options for the community to receive flu shots through its Ambulatory Care Clinic system, public health clinics and pop-up clinics. Although seasonal influenza viruses are detected year-round in the United States, they are... Early detection is the best way to survive breast cancer Every October, we celebrate those men and women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer. But what is breast cancer and how can it be diagnosed and managed? There are five basic warning signs that breast cancer may be present:... Cal Lutheran University hosts Heart Walk The American Heart Association will host a Heart Walk Sat., Oct. 8 at Cal Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks. The event is expected to draw hundreds of people. Activities include a 2-mile walk, drum circle performances, Zumba demonstrations, live music and... When Liam Neeson showed up at a Manhattan apartment for a Hillary Clinton fundraiser on Wednesday evening, of course star-struck attendees began making smirking references to his particular set of skills line from Taken. Unsurprisingly, even the person tasked with introducing Bill Clinton dropped the reference. He just showed up, an attendee at the event told The Daily Beast . I mean, it was Liam fucking Neeson. He was objectively very funny. The fundraiser was hosted at the apartment of Democratic donor John Fitzpatrick, president of the Fitzpatrick Hotel Group, which operates boutique hotels in New York City. (Fitzpatrick did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) The event, attended by roughly 30 people, was organized by Irish-American supporters of the Clintons. President Clinton is well recognized for his role in the Northern Ireland peace process, and the former secretary of state was inducted into the Irish America Hall of Fame at a luncheon in New York City last year. The event was hosted by a bunch of Irish-American supporters of hers, the attendee said. Of course, Irish people are just a lot of fun, good people to have a party with. The 2016 Democratic presidential frontrunner didnt show up for the fundraiser, though her husband, Neeson (who has played Irish revolutionary Michael Collins on-screen), and a couple female stars of the USA Network series Suits come by for the pro-Hillary, Irish-American fun. Neesons rep emailed The Daily Beast that the actor would not at this time be commenting on whether he is an avowed Hillary supporter. Neesons ties to the Clintons dont run as deep as those maintained by other celebrities, such as Katy Perry and Lena Dunham. (It was reported that both Bill Clinton and the 63-year-old actor would appear in The Hangover Part II, but alas neither ended up in the film.) Neesons political views tend to fit comfortably within the mainstream of the Democratic Party. In late 2014, he became another Hollywood star to attract the ire of the gun lobby. Theres too many fucking guns out there. Especially in America, he told Gulf News the following year while promoting Taken 3 in Dubai. I think the population is, like, 320 million? Theres over 300 million guns. Privately owned, in America. I think its a fucking disgrace. Every week now were picking up a newspaper and seeing, Yet another few kids have been killed in schools. Neeson has also enraged animal-rights activists and PETA with his support for horse-drawn carriages in New York, and last year narrated an Amnesty International pro-choice ad that was slammed for allegedly being shamelessly anti-Catholic. Less controversially, he worked with UNICEF to combat violence against children, and in doing so cited Taken as his inspiration. As a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, I have long followed the issue of violence against children and the devastating impact it has on children, families and communities, Neeson said in 2013. It was a topic that became increasingly real to me as a child growing up in Ireland and during the filming of Taken, which focuses on one aspect of violence and abuse against children in the form of trafficking and sexual exploitation. Hillary Clintons views on human trafficking and exploitation appear to align with Neesons. In 2009, The Washington Post ran her op-ed on trafficking and the scourge of modern slavery. The Democrats Las Vegas town hall didnt have any decisive moments, but it highlighted quite sharply the candidates different rhetorical approaches, even if it didnt really press either of them against the wall. Bernie Sanders had the first hour (actually, the first hour and changeit bled a little bit into Hillary Clintons time). He was a little, well, low-energy, but thats understandable. This is so grueling. He started his day in Washington, then flew to Nevada, and then at the end of his day had to do this. The majority of the questions came not from Chuck Todd and Jose Diaz-Balart, the moderators, but from the audience. As such, they were mostly sincere questions about real-life situations. This was a relief in that we didnt have to sit through a bunch of journalist gotcha questions. But at the same time the queries were pretty open-ended (as president, what would you do to ensure...) and invited pontification. Sanders is a good pontificator. He didnt usually talk about what he would do to ensure that X thing did or didnt happen. If the question was about immigration or veterans care or discrimination, he stated first principles. What he believes. This is all eye-of-the-beholder stuff. If youre the kind of person who wants to hear first principles enunciated with passion, it works. If youre the kind who wants the specific question answered, it doesnt. Sanderss best moment came when a Muslim-American physician asked him what he would do to fight Islamophobia. The question sounds too general here in print, but he was a moving guy, just something about his eyes. Sanders said: Bluntly and directly. There is of course not much a president can actually do about all this, but Sanders seemed sincere, and he concluded by thanking the physician for all he was doing to help his fellow man. Clinton was in many ways Sanderss opposite. When someone asks her what shell do about X, she usually answers, allowing for the usual sugarcoating. She doesnt do first principles, which is part of why shes in the pickle shes in. There was one moment in particular that was illustrative. A woman had asked Sanders a question about her husband. Shes legal, as are their two kids, but the husband is undocumented and got sent back to Mexico for 10 years. Its now year six. She asked Sanders what hed do, and he talked in broad strokes about the need for comprehensive immigration reform. When Clinton came out, she found the woman unprompted and turned to her and said, I will the end the three- and 10-year bar provision of immigration law, which is the provision under which the man was deported. She did get ambushed once. A guy asked her to release her Goldman Sachs speech transcripts. She said shed release my transcripts when every other candidate does, and every other candidate gives these kinds of speeches, including Senator Sanders. Then she rattled off her anti-Wall Street bona fides. Then Chuck Todd gave the guy a follow-up! Please just release the transcripts so we know where you stand. She somehow shifted the topic to her support for LGBT rights, which I didnt quite get. There was very little foreign policy. None, actually. There was a question about the government vs. Apple fight over the San Bernardino cellphone, but here they both said the same thing (I can see both sides/very complicated issue). Medicare-for-all came up for Sanders, and it gave him the chance to say, I believe health care is a right three or four times. But heres where a little more journalism would have been useful. The moderators should have asked about the size of the tax increases the plan would require. Sanders pointed to Denmark and Sweden as democratic-socialist exemplars. But heres the thing. In Denmark and Sweden, according to the OECD, a one-earner married couple with two kids pay, respectively, 34.4 and 24.4 percent of their income in taxes. In the United States, that number is 12.8. I was surprised these kinds of things didnt come up more, especially this week of all weeks, with the big dustup about that UMass economists assumptions about the effect of Sanderss economic plans over the next 10 years. The economist, Gerald Friedman, asserted in his paper (pdf) that the Sanders economic model is going to change the whole economic structure of the United States so radically that real GDP growth will be 5.3 percent a year, the median household income will zoom to around $82,000 (its now around $55,000), and unemployment will be 3.8 percent. This is not an official Sanders campaign paper, but the Sanders campaign has praised it and expressed the wish that more people could see it. Im not sure about that. Its kind of hard to take seriously. For example, about GDP: Even in the late 90s, during the roaring tech-bubble economy, the highest we ever got was 4.3 percent. We havent had one year in the last 30 (pdf) when real GDP growth has hit 5.3 percent. Not once. It turned out Thursday afternoon, via The Washington Post, that Friedman is actually a Clinton supporter. I agree with Bernie on economic issues, he told the Post, but there are other issues. That gives the Sanders campaign the excuse it needs to stop touting the paper. But the question of the cost and impact of Sanderss economic proposals is going to gain prominence as an issue. Clinton has erred on the side of saying no tax increases on anyone below $250,000. Its understandable politically, but theres no real way to pay for everything she wants to do and keep that pledge. Sanders has gone way off in the other direction. Whether even Democrats think the goal of free health care (and all the other things Sanders wants to do) is worth their taxes doubling or near tripling strikes me as a reasonable and necessary question. Thats the biggest difference between them, really, and its going to be duked out more directly before this is over. OXFORD, England The problem with the Clintons, according to Bernie Sanderss big brother, is that people dont realize what an awful president Bill was. For the most part, Larry Sanders says, thats because people are too busy debating Is Bill really such a terrible rapistor is he a nice rapist? These are shockingly blunt words from a soft-spoken man, who has been calmly explaining his little brothers sudden political success from his sun-drenched kitchen table in Oxford.Larry Sanders said he thinks Hillary Clintons brand of moderate politics is feeble but there is no sign of any real hostility towards herthat is reserved for her husband, although Sanders, who has dedicated his life to working with the disadvantaged and disabled, insists that it was the former president who started it.Bill Clinton has leapt in to try and make it personal with Bernard, Sanders said to The Daily Beast over a cup of tea. He was a dreadful presidentin generalfor poor people.Clinton was far more culpable for Americas woes than is generally accepted by people who blame George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, said Larry.The imprisonment stuff stems back to him, the breaking up of the welfare system stems back to him, which caused a lot of misery, the trade dealsthe NAFTA, a lot of bad key policies didnt come in under the Bushes, he said.The media have a lot to answer for, I think, you dont get that detailed discussion. You get: Is Hillary a nice person? Is Bill really such a terrible rapist or is he a nice rapist? Its at that level the discussionso you can imagine that people could have a pleasant opinion but not based on the actual policies.Larry is at pains to point out that they have real respect for Hillary. (The Clinton campaign did not respond to a request for comment.)I certainly dont dislike herBernard has been very clear to say he likes her and respects her but they have big differences on policy, he said. Theyre not friends but theyre people who worked near each other for 20 years.Larry said there was no such personal relationship with Bill Clinton, whom Bernie has spoken to far fewer times during his decades in Washington.For much of Bernies early years in Congress, the Clintons were in the White House. Larry feels it was the couples influence within the party that led civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis to disparage Bernies minor role in the movementas a student he campaigned successfully to have the University of Chicago desegregate campus housing in 1962.It was something he said that he shouldnt have said... I felt sad because this is a great man, I mean no disrespect to him, but he got caught upyou get caught up in elections, in a rivalry, Larry said. Hes committed, so he said something but I think hes quite clear that he made a mistake.Youve got to be careful picking on somebodys little brother. Larry, 80, may be even more protective than most big brothers since their mother died tragically young, when she was in her forties, and their father passed just three years later. Thats probably why I keep crying in interviews about Bernies remarkable run for the presidency, he said.They have lived 3,000 miles apart for most of the last 45 years but they have stayed remarkably close. Larry catches up with his brother, whom he always calls Bernard, on the phone every other Sunday. During their afternoon phone calls Bernie shares the downside of campaigning.Hell say, Im tired. Its sooooo haaaard. So I say, But its going great? and he says, Yes, its going great, said Larry. Im the outlet for thatIm not sure hes even saying that to his wife.No one is better placed to attest to Bernies burning anger and quiet determination, which stretches back to his successful distance running career as a teenager. Larry thinks that determination is about to get a lot louder.They must feel like they are up against a juggernaut at the momentit is astonishing with their huge array of elected officials, party officials, and so on. And Bernie comes along and says they got it wrong. Not drastically, not as bad as the Republicans but they got it wrong. And people are saying: Oh, yeah. And they must feelhow did that happen? Larry said.If that money hadnt been turning up from small donors the whole thing would have fizzled and that Im not sure [Bernie] understood. He thought from the people he talked to it was possible but nobody predicted how successful he could be.One of the most remarkable features of Bernies victory in the New Hampshire Democratic primary and his narrow second place in Iowa was that he has never been a member of the Democratic Party.Yes, you could call that weird, said Larry.If Bernie is able to ride the recent surge in support all the way to the White House, Larry says he would go bigno matter what Congress, the usual conventions or even the majority of the Democratic Party might say.Hell flex his muscles, Larry said. I mean this is not cowboy stuff, there are very intricate constitutional discussions, [but] he wont hesitate, if he thinks hes got the constitutional power to do somethinghe will do it. (The Sanders campaign did not respond to a request for comment.)If thats a warning to those who think President Obama has been guilty of constitutional overreach, he also has one for Democrats who would try to moderate a Sanders presidency.He might lose the first vote [on an issue], but a lot of guys will be looking over their shoulders, Larry said, pointing to his brothers plan to use his network of supporters to pressure Congress into falling into line through protests, marches, and the threat of primary challenges backed by massive small-donor fundraising drives.Its a powerful machine that Bernie could command for an independent bid should he lose the nomination to Hillary, but Larry said hes ruled out such a run.He didnt want to go through all that bother and elect some right-wing terror, he said, and besides, he thinks the Democratic Party should be like his policies.Hes not selling outthere is nothing that hes conceded to the Democratic Party other than the label.Bernie wants to revolutionize politics, but he also specifically wants to revolutionize the Democratic Party. Larry tried entryism himself in the early 1960s when he was president of the Lower East Side Reform Democrats who tried to take over the local chapter of the Democratic Party.The first time Larry was stunned by Bernies steel in the political arena was during his infamous showdown with the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, in 2003. It was a viral video moment in the pre-YouTube era as Sanders tore strips off the economic giant during a House committee hearing. Larry buried his face in his hands and shook his head, as he recalled the confrontation in the familiar Brooklyn accent he shares with his brother. I thought Christ! because I havent ever unloaded on someone like that and this is a very big guy and Bernard is a junior congressmanhes not a big guyand he told him what he thought.That flash of anger directed at one of the titans of the American economy was channeling his constituents frustration but it was evidence of the genuine rage that burns inside Bernie, according to his brother. As kids, the one thing their parents argued about was money.Children do respond to thatparents arguments are a big thing in a childs life, Larry said. I think the underlying emotional feeling which tends to drive us comes more out of that than the intellect. What I suppose the intellect has added is that Bernard is convinced that a rich country does not need to put people in that position. Its not necessaryI think he remains angry at the idea that people are put at that risk just so other people can have vast amounts of money that they dont need. Why does somebody need a second billion?Amid Bernies real emotional investment and the exhaustion of the campaign trail it may be no surprise that he gets incredibly stressed before his events. When I was there, he was giving virtually the same speech each time but he doesnt know that, laughed Larry. Half an hour beforehand hes saying How do I write this? Shall I say thatoh, no!Larrys head is in his hands againthis time he has removed his glassesand he is kneading his face in mock anguish, mimicking his little brothers worries.Everybody around him is going Oh, Christ!we go through this again and somebody is saying We have to get it to the printers in five minutes. So if there isnt enough stress he creates it for himself.And then you see he bounds on to the stagehe says hello to 25,000 people and you think this guy hasnt a care in the world. So theres something powerful working in him but theres also a side thats finding itit is difficult. Its a very hard life.There is no doubt that Larry was a formative influence on Bernie, who is six years his junior. When Larry was at college studying Marx and Hegel, Bernie was still at high school. Sometimes I would tell Bernard about something Id heard about or read about so I think he did getat a much younger age than most peoplean idea of political thought. So I think I did help him get started, he said. He has given me creditnot all the credit.As a radical member of the Young Democrats in the 1950s, Larry was already attracting political attention within the student body. I do recall a Republican club paper called me an obese socialist, he said, laughing. And I wasnt even very fat then!Last week, Larry was appointed health spokesman for the left-wing Green Party in England. He had been an active member of the Labour Party in the 1980s, but he grew disillusioned once Tony Blair had taken the party into the center ground.He is far more impressed with Jeremy Corbynthe hard left campaigner who won a shock election to become the new leader of the Labour Party last year. Many have pointed out the similarities between the two men, even though British politics is centered considerably to the left of the American mainstreamand Corbyn is way out to the left of that.Larry isnt so sure that his brother is more moderate, however. Bernard is a genuine socialist in his sense of class warfarethat he thinks there is not a national interest so much as there is an interest with sectors of the population, he said. In that sense, his passion and the sense of conflict between the major owners and the rest of the population is very socialistas socialist as Corbyn.Some of the Corbynistas have been helping Larry and the London for Bernie organization to raise awareness about the global primary, which allows Americans abroad to send delegatesand even some super delegatesto the Democratic convention. Larry said Corbyn supporters within the Labour Party had helped to arrange for UNITE, Britains largest union, to allow Bernies supporters to hold events in their buildings for free. The union confirmed that the group used its rooms without charge. The move might be a violation of U.S. campaign finance law depending on who was involved, according to the former general counsel for the Federal Election Commission. A foreign national cannot spend any money or give anything of value for a U.S. election, Larry Noble, general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, said. The question here is whether the Sanders campaign knew, approved, or directly benefited from the free space. Bernie has always told his brother that the cause of socialism, or social democracy, is more important than his own career. What he said to me very clearly was: I dont mind running and making a fool of myself, Ive been humiliated beforeIll go back to doing the job I love, no big sweat, but if I do badly then everyone will say: See, I told you, nobody is interested in that crap. And for a generation those ideas and the millions of people he thinks need those ideas will be wiped out, Larry said. He would not have run if he thought he would damage the causeI think I can make a respectable showingthat was his decision. Im not sure that he thought he could win. Bernie Sanders has already surpassed the respectable showing stage, he has the Clinton camp on the hop, and the latest polling suggests that he has closed a 40-point deficit to come within the margin of error in Nevada. Larry says he always had faith in his brother but he uses word astonishing over and over again to describe the events of the last six months. The nomination is the hard partif he wins the nomination it looks to me that he would win handily, said Larry, with a smile. I think hes likely to win. The first moves in the Supreme Court chess game are now clear: President Obama will nominate someone, and Republican leaders will either refuse to bring the nomination to a vote (McConnell) or filibuster (Cruz). Meanwhile, several crucial caseson Texass abortion law, on Obamas immigration actions, on public-sector unionswill likely end up in a 4-4 tie at the Supreme Court. Then what? Potentially, Obama could continue to nominatenot just one individual but a raft of qualified jurists who will essentially be sacrificial pawns. Nominees would likely include candidates from constituencies the Democrats would like to win over: women (Patricia Ann Millett, Jane Kelly), people of color (Adalberto Jordan, Paul Watford, Sri Srinivasan), or both (Loretta Lynch, Kamala Harris). While this would be a disgraceful exercise for these brilliant jurists, it might shift public opinion. Voters dont like it when Congress members dont do their jobs, and rhetoric notwithstanding, theres clearly no precedent for what the Senate is doing now. Then again, voters dont typically care about the Supreme Court, at least according to what they tell pollsters and they could just blame Washington for the dysfunction, even though the only dysfunctional people are Republicans. Ironically, Obama played into it this confusion when he complained that venom and rancor in Washington has reverted us from getting work done. That general language blames everyone equally, and contributes to the throw the rascals out mood in the country that has propelled Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. It also fulfills the ambitions of the Kochs, Scaifes, Olins, and other far-right funders who have spent billions to convince Americans that the system is broken, when in fact the system had been working decently well before their Tea Party extremism came to destroy it. There are some signs that GOP opposition could crack though. Already, Senate Judiciary Committee chair Charles Grassley and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski have broken with McConnellin Grassleys case, after the Des Moines Register urged him not to pass up a chance for him to be principled rather than partisan. Perhaps moderate Republicans and Democrats come together, a bit like the Gang of Eight did on immigration (before one of them ran for president, anyway), and develop some kind of consensus that leads to a consensus candidate. Who might such a candidate be? One possibility is Eighth Circuit Court Judge Jane Kelly, whom Grassley supported in the past, and who was confirmed 96-0 in 2013. This would fit Joe Bidens recent comment about judges recently confirmed unanimously, and could at least garner a committee hearing. Judges Paul Watford, Jacqueline Nguyen, Srikath Srinivasan, and Adalberto T. Jordan are similarly situatedall recently confirmed, all with moderate elements in their background. (Attorney General Loretta Lynch would likely be a more contentious nominee.) Another consensus candidate would be a moderate Republican, someone who is on record as supporting reproductive rights and LGBT equality (two must-haves, surely, for any Obama nominee) but whose nomination would make Senate Republicans look ridiculous. One name floated already is Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, who is a former judge and attorney general, Hispanic, and from a swing state. While a consensus appointment would be a win for Obama, it would also surely be a win for Republicans to have staved off a Justice Elizabeth Warren and forced the appointment of a Justice Kennedy-like moderate. Everybody wins some, everybody loses somesounds like the definition of compromise. At the other extreme, Democrats could go nuclear and filibuster everything until a nomination is considered, but this would turn them into the obstructionists, so its a political loser. A better idea: Sue the Bastards. The language of the Constitution is clear: the president shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Judges of the supreme Court. On its face, that is language of obligation (shall), and the unusual construction of by and with indicates that the Senates role is also mandatory. House Republicans were given standing to sue the Obama administration over the implementation of Obamacarealso on constitutional grounds, since the claim was exceeding executive authorityso it seems reasonable, or at least plausible, that the Obama administration could sue Senate Republicans for failing to fulfill their constitutional duties, especially because that failure is preventing the president from fulfilling his. Now, in practice, all the Senate would have to do in response is formally take up the nomination and, in the words of Donald Trump, delay, delay, delay. They could move like snails, slowly deliberating until 2017. But they would have to do something. More importantly, they would be found by (presumably) the Supreme Court to be violating their oaths of office. In an election year that is pretty strong ammunition. Even if its never used, just the threat of it might make a consensus candidate more possible. That would be good for the Court and good for America. COLUMBIA, S.C. Mike Lee wants you to know that Ted Cruz prays a lot. The Utah Republican senator told a packed room at a barbecue joint in Easley, S.C., that in Washington, when all the powers in the world seem to have turned against people who believe in liberty, freedom, and Jesus Christ, Cruz is always there. In those moments, Ted is among the first to suggest we pray together, he said. In the final days before Palmetto Staters decide who will win their long-coveted support, the timbre of the race here has taken a distinctly Bible-Belt tone. Instead of speaking to pragmatic New England sentiment and detailing how he plans to win in November, the Texan is explicitly appealing to South Carolinians Protestant Evangelical sensibilities. And Donald Trump, in his own very special way, is making a similar pitch. But between their supporters on the ground, there isnt a whole lot of love-thy-neighbor going on. When asked at the barbecue place about tension between their supporters, Easley resident and staunch Cruz backer Scott Watkins chuckled. You mean other than the fistfights? he said, grinning. Emotions are particularly frayed in a small-ish region of the densely Evangelical state called the Upcountry, which has become ground zero of the Trump/Cruz Battle Royale. Its where the pairand their very passionate supportersare waging a holy war of Old Testament proportions. And as is the case with any war, geography matters. The northwest corner of the state is overshadowed by the Appalachian Mountains, and what it lacks in glitz (think Charleston) or policy-making clout (that would be Columbia, smack-dab in the center), it makes up for in religious faith and conservative single-mindedness. About 40 percent of the states Republican primary voters live in this Appalachian region, and their support helped save George W. Bush and George H.W. Bushs then-flagging presidential bids. The forces that dominate Upcountry politics are also ones that outsiders find totally perplexingand none less so than Bob Jones University. The school has just 3,000 studentsone-third of whom were homeschooledand its so conservative that they arent allowed to watch any movies above a G rating without a faculty member present (seriously). Its also a popular pilgrimage location for Republican presidential contenders, since the schools community is highly organized and politically active. So while Lee was focused on praying, and Watkins joked about fistfights, others cast the disagreements in more ominous tones. Joanne Meadows, former president of the Greenville County Republican Party, said conflict over whether to back Cruz or Trump had strained some families. There are a lot of houses that have been divided, she said soberly. Theres a lot of emotion in this. She added that shes backed Cruz since meeting him at a Republican Party dessert social, and that shes had some very involved debates about her pick with skeptical neighbors. In this part of the state, though, it isnt just a question of neighbors sniping at each other over glasses of iced tea. Cruzs foes have gone after him in labor-intensive ways. Dan Tripp, South Carolina state director for the pro-Cruz Keep the Promise super PAC, emailed over pictures of numerous large Cruz road signs with smaller TRUMP MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! signs stapled all over them. One sign had the words CHEAT, FUCK, and CHEATER scrawled on it in orange spray paint. Tripp estimated that upwards of one-third of the super PACs large pro-Cruz highway signs had been stolen or defaced. Even in an ugly South Carolina presidential primary, he added, thats a lot. Trumps messaging to Evangelicals focuses less on his personal faith and more on Cruzs alleged lack thereof; the mogul has spent the past few weeks questioning the Texans devotion to Christianity. How can Ted Cruz be an Evangelical Christian when he lies so much and is so dishonest? he tweeted last week. Theres a reason Trump singles out Evangelicals; South Carolina is one of the least Catholic states in the nation 2010 data shows only Mississippi and Tennessee have a smaller percentage of Catholicsand Evangelicals made up 65 percent of 2012s Republican primary voters. And it could be a winning strategy. There are Evangelicals that are extremely skeptical of any politician who tells them exactly what they want to hear, appearing to be too perfect in their philosophy and faith, said Robert Cahaly, an Atlanta-based consultant who does work in South Carolina. As Carson, Trump, Rubio, and the media continue pointing to examples of tactics and actions which are inconsistent with Cruz's carefully crafted persona, they actually erode the fundamental essence of his support, he added. Thus far, its working out. Recent CNN and PPP polls show Trump is leading among Palmetto State Evangelicals. That may be why churches are now battlegrounds. The South Carolina politics blog FitsNews posted pictures of fliers that reportedly blanketed Upstate churches on Wednesday evening (when many host Bible studies and mid-week services). Churchgoers returning to their cars found fliers under their windshields highlighting recent reports that Cruz doesnt tithe very much. Canadian-born Ted Cruz may not even be eligible to be president, read one flier, next to a picture of the Texan with a Pinocchio nose. Has a habitually habit of lying and spreading falsehoods on the campaign trail, all while waving a Bible around, taking selfies of himself praying and even signing autographs in the Lords House. Cruzs explicitly religious pitch brings its own risks. And if those attacks work and Cruz loses badly in South Carolina, he may have trouble resurrecting his campaign elsewhere. If Trump wins South Carolina by double digits in spite of Scalias death and the renewed emphasis on the need for a conservative Supreme Court, it calls into serious question Cruzs ability to rally evangelical votersthe lynchpin of his base, emailed Robert Jeffress, a pastor from Dallas who has opened several Trump events in prayer but hasnt endorsed. That said, Cruzs backers believe God is on their side. Maryanna Tygart, a retired nurse, traveled from her home in Indiana to South Carolina to volunteer here for Cruz. It was so crowded this morning, I tell you what, I was almost in tears, she said as she waited to get her picture with him at a Republican Womens Club event in Greenville. We didnt even have room big enough or enough phones for people to work, and there were so many people going out door-to-door and canvassingand it was like, yes! Praise the Lord. Harper Lee wrote one of the most beloved American novels, then withdrew from public view for more than half a century, publishing nothing. Late in life she stunned the literary world with a second spectacularly successful novel before dying on Friday in her hometown, Monroeville, Alabama, at the age of 89. To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960 at dawn of the civil-rights struggle, has been called the Uncle Toms Cabin of its day. Like Harriet Beecher Stowes classic, Mockingbird is built around the depredations visited on a black man in the South, Tom Robinson, who is defended against a trumped-up rape charge by a white lawyer named Atticus Finch. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize and sold more than 30 million copies in dozens of languages on its way to becoming part of the American canon. For years Lee shunned interview requestssometimes with a tart Hell, noand claimed she was finished with writing. So when HarperCollins announced in early 2015 that it planned to publish a new Harper Lee novel called Go Set a Watchman, there was a mixed chorus of delight and dismay. Fans were thrilled by news of a second novel, supposedly written before Mockingbird but carrying the characters forward from the 1930s to the 50s; skeptics wondered if Lee, who had suffered a stroke and was nearly blind and deaf, was competent enough to approve publication of a long-lost manuscript whose existence she had denied for many years. Tonja B. Carter, Lees lawyer, claimed that she had stumbled on the completed manuscript in the summer of 2013, and that Lee endorsed its publication. In the end, the controversy hardly mattered. Go Set a Watchman had an initial printing of two million copies and, despite some lukewarm reviews, has sold more than a million copies and counting. Nelle Harper Lee was born on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, Alabama. Her mothers mental health was fragile; her father, A.C. Lee, was a newspaperman, state senator, and lawyer who once defended a black man and his son on charges they had murdered a white storekeeper. Both defendants were found guilty and hanged. Those events would echo loudly in Mockingbird. Harper Lee was a tomboy and an avid reader before she reached first grade. She went by her first name, Nelle, but was also known as Miss Frippy Britches, and she befriended an equally precocious neighbor named Truman Capote. The two formed a bond in childhood that would leave an indelible stamp on 20th -century American literature. After graduating from Monroe County High School in 1944, Lee attended Huntingdon College in Montgomery and the University of Alabama, where she studied law and edited the schools humor magazine, Rammer Jammer. After spending a summer as an exchange student at Oxford University in England, she dropped out of the University of Alabama without earning a degree, determined to pursue a writing career. She moved to New York City, where she worked as an airline ticket clerk and wrote on the side. Frustrated by her early efforts, first called Go Set a Watchman, then Atticus, she flung the pages out a window in despair one night, then retrieved them and began a top-to-bottom revision. She moved the action back two decades and made her protagonist, Scoutclosely modeled on Leea tomboy instead of a young woman. On Christmas Day 1956 Lee received a gift all struggling writers dream of: two friends, Michael and Joy Brown, gave her enough money to quit her day job and write full time for one year. Its a fantastic gamble, Lee told the Browns, as recounted in a 1961 essay she wrote for McCalls magazine. Its such a great risk. No, honey, Michael Brown replied. Its not a risk. Its a sure thing. Though it took her more than a year, Lee used the money to finish To Kill a Mockingbird. Before the books publication, Lee accompanied Capote to Holcomb, Kansas, to help him research an article on the murder of a wealthy wheat farmer and his family, which morphed into Capotes ground-breaking non-fiction novel, In Cold Blood. Both Lee and Capote interviewed the killers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, before they were executed. The book became a best-seller upon its publication in 1966, but the writers friendship suffered because Lee felt Capote failed to acknowledge her sizable contribution. After Mockingbird was made into an Oscar-winning movie in 1962, Lee took a brief spin in the media glare before retreating to Monroeville, where she lived for years in a brick house with her sister Alice, a lawyer who died in 2014 at the age of 103, and who was, along with the womens father, an inspiration for Atticus Finch. Harper Lee, who never married, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Arts. Before her health declined, she continued to visit New York in the summers, touring museums and rooting for the Mets. Her courtly manners and girlish pixie haircut belied a prickly side. In 2013 she sued her literary agent, claiming he had tricked her into assigning the lucrative copyright on Mockingbird to him. That year she also sued the Monroe County Heritage Museum for using her name and trademark to sell souvenir ornaments, refrigerator magnets, and drink coasters. Both cases were settled out of court. In 1962, during the filming of Mockingbird in Monroeville, Lee, not yet withdrawn from the public stage, agreed to submit to a news conference. A reporter asked her, Will success spoil Harper Lee? Shes too old, replied Lee, who was 36 at the time. How do you feel about your second novel? the reporter pressed. After a pause, Lee said, Im scared. During the summer of 1964, Aaron Ehrlich, who worked at the New York advertising firm Doyle Dane Bernbach, placed a phone call to an idiosyncratic sound engineer named Tony Schwartz. Schwartz, 40, an intense man with combed-back brown hair and puffy cheeks, had in the preceding years developed something of a cult following on Madison Avenue, and was presumed to have an almost preternatural feel for what made television commercials work. In time, the media theorist Marshall McLuhan would declare Schwartz to be nothing short of a guru of the electronic age. More mundanely, Schwartz was a collector of sounds. As a young radio host at WNYC in the 40s, he would tool around Manhattan with a 16-pound portable tape recorder he designed himself. Schwartz documented the noises of daily life in Hells Kitchenethnic music, children playing, street vendorswhich he then released on long-playing records. Over time, his work came to be talked about in the advertising world, and the Mad Men of the era sought his advice. One of Schwartzs innovations was to use childrens voices in commercialssomething that the agencies had rarely done, because kids were too likely to botch lines. But Schwartz believed that their innocent errors and endearing flubs enhanced their appeal. He soon won acclaim for ads like one for Bosco syrup featuring the glug-glug-glug of a child chugging down his chocolate milk. Another spot was for a Polaroid instant camera, which featured his nephews voice counting off numbers. Drawing on his interest in sound, Schwartz formulated a set of theories about television and advertising that argued, counterintuitively, that even in television, sound was more important than image. He later set them forth in a book called The Responsive Chordusing, tellingly, a sonic metaphor. A fascinating mix of brilliant insight and opaque mumbo-jumbo, the book argued that advertisers misfired with their TV ads so often because they misunderstood the medium. Television commercials, unlike print, should be understood as sensory experiences, not linear messages. No one ever asked of a Steichen photograph, Is it true or false? Schwartz noted. This insight had ramifications for politics. In the 1952 election, another hot young ad man, Rosser Reeves of the Ted Bates Agency, had shot for Dwight Eisenhower the first-ever 30-second television spots, touting his own theories of the USPthe Unique Selling Proposition that he claimed every product (or candidate) needed. The Eisenhower ads made short TV commercials an essential part of subsequent presidential campaigns. By 1964 the power of the men and women who crafted these ads was held in awe. There are those who say that ad men know so much about how to manipulate mass emotions that they endanger democratic processes, wrote Peter Bart of The New York Times. He cited Eisenhowers ads as proof that Madison Avenue believes it can sell candidates like toothpaste through the hypnotic repetition of a prescribed set of slogans. But not everyone agreed on what made an effective ad. Taking issue with Reeves, Tony Schwartz argued that the USP was a dead-end, because it led advertisers to make claims for a productor candidatethat are unreal. The overselling of products, the implausible claims made for them, produced resistance and backlash in viewers. It was better, Schwartz maintained, to create messages that echoed viewers pre-existing experiences and thoughts. By resonating, Schwartz meant that ads shouldnt try to convince buyers to want something new; they should convey that the advertised product embodies what they already want. In politics, analogously, the media advisers job wasnt to package the candidate for the voter, but to tie up the voter and deliver him to the candidate, Schwartz said. It is really the voter who is packaged by media, not the candidate. *** When Aaron Ehrlich placed his call to Schwartz in 1964, the political mood in Washington was one of buoyancy and optimism. Liberalism was at high tide. Most Americans favored doing more for blacks, the poor, the elderly, consumers, the environment, the cities, the schoolsthe heart of President Lyndon Johnsons Great Society agenda. And Johnson himself never looked so attractive. He had put to rest suspicions that he wasnt the equal of the late John F. Kennedy; many Washington observers wondered if even Kennedy would have been able, as LBJ had, to pass a landmark civil rights bill. Even those trait of Johnsons that were later scorned as shortcomings seemed at this moment like political assets: the drive to accomplish, the energy, the heedlessness of limits. Even his coarse Hill Country idiosyncrasies came off as winningly authentic. Johnson was now running for election in his own right. His opponent was the right-wing Arizona senator Barry Goldwater, tribune of the Republican partys conservative wing. To an intense band of these conservative followers, Goldwater was a rugged hero, a champion of small government and frontier individualism. But to many other Americans he seemed a zealot of the so-called lunatic fringedoctrinaire on the issues and intemperate in disposition. Worse still, Goldwaters ideological extremism and gunslinger persona made him prone to explosive remarks. Lets lob one into the mens room of the Kremlin, he said early in the campaign. Another time, he proposed using nuclear weapons in Vietnam as a defoliant. Goldwater further marginalized himself by voting against the Civil Rights Act and talking about making Social Security voluntary, which would effectively have ended it. Once, in venting his spleen toward Northeastern liberals, he griped, Sometimes I think this country would be better off if we could just saw off the Eastern Seaboard and let it float out to sea. Goldwater also had the misfortune to run at a moment when Americans were developing new hopes that the fear of nuclear war that had shadowed them for nearly two decades might be lessening. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis made the imperative of avoiding nuclear war seem ever more urgent, while the test-ban treaty with the Soviet Union that was ratified in September 1963 made a rapprochement seem possible. In this context, Goldwaters immoderate positions on the control, testing, and use of nuclear weapons were newly damaging. During the Republican primaries of 1964, New York governor Nelson Rockefeller, standard-bearer for the partys liberals and moderates, attacked the Arizona senator with mailings that asked, Who Do You Want in the Room with the H-Bomb Button? Goldwaters unreliability became a recurring theme in the media. But the senator remained unrepentant. Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, he said, famously, at the Republican convention. His followers adopted the slogan, In your heart, you know hes right. Democrats offered a riposte: In your guts, you know hes nuts. Goldwater may have been self-destructing, but Johnson was not one to leave things to chance. A team of campaign aides met regularly in the White House. Over the summer they devised a strategy that called for opening the fall with a rip Goldwater phase, to highlight the senators extremism, and then shifting to a statesmanlike phase that would paint Johnson as a strong, responsible leader. Barrys already got a rope around him, and hes knotted it pretty firm, LBJ told his team in August. All you have to do is give a little tug. And while hes fighting to keep standing, Ill just sit right here and run the country. The way to do it, Johnson aide George Reedy explained, was to play that atom theme as heavy as we can. For help, Bill Moyers, then a key LBJ aide, turned to Doyle Dane Bernbach, the advertising firm that JFK had also been planning to use in the 1964 race. DDB had impressed Kennedy with its winsome ads for Volkswagen (Think small), which in their playful originality rebuked the hectoring hard-sell doctrines of Rosser Reeves. Besides, as DDB partner Bill Bernbach wrote to Moyers, We are ardent Democrats who are deadly afraid of Goldwater. Though negative campaign attacks were as old as the republic, Johnson, Moyers, and DDB would help make them a central feature of presidential candidates all-important television campaigns. It was here that Aaron Ehrlich thought Schwartz could help. He had worked with the celebrated guru on an American Airlines campaign and wanted Schwartz to serve as a consultant on the LBJ account. But Schwartz, along with his other quirks, was an agoraphobic who hated to leave his apartment. So Ehrlich and his DDB colleagues trekked over to Hells Kitchen. There, the discussion turned to how they might capitalize on Goldwaters loose talk about nukes. Schwartz had recently made an ad for the United Nations featuring his young nephews voice counting, followed by an adult voice counting backward from ten to zero, followed by an atomic explosion. Young and old, the narrator said. Another world war means death to us all. Support the United Nations. It isnt clear whether Schwartz shared the ad with the DDB group, but he did play the Polaroid ad, in which his nephew also counted off numbers. After the consultation, DDB developed a script for a commercial, which the White House quickly approved. Filming took place in Highbridge Park by the Harlem River in Upper Manhattan. Monique Corzilius, a three-year-old freckled child model from Pine Beach, New Jersey, stood in the untamed grasses and wildflowers. The wind had blown her auburn hair into a tangle, and the summer sun played upon her fair skin. She counted to ten as she plucked the petals from a flowerwhich, according to different sources, was either a dandelion, a black-eyed susan, or a daisy. Young Monique repeated the ritual for the cameras some 20 times. Within a few days, DDB put the spot together. The final cut began quietly, with the girl counting the petals. As she reached nine, her voice was drowned out by a harsh, loud mission-control countdown, courtesy of Schwartzs audio library. The camera froze and zoomed in on Corziliuss eyea device that was borrowed from the famous freeze-frame of a young boy that ended Francois Truffauts 400 Blows. In the ad, the close-up of the girls static eye dissolved into a mushroom cloud as Lyndon Johnsons voice was heard, excerpted from a speech he had given in April: These are the stakes, to make a world in which all of Gods children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other or we must die. (It was a variation of a line from Audens September 1, 1939.) A newscaster-like narrator concluded: Vote President Johnson on November 3rd. The stakes are too high to stay at home. True to Schwartzs vision, the sound was as important to the ads effectiveness as the visuals. The shock that the viewer experiences with the nuclear bombs appearance stems not only from the image of the mushroom cloud (already something of a cliche) but also from the stark transition from the young girls high, innocent voice into the harsh mission-control countdown. (No one stopped to ask whether nuclear bombs are actually fired following the kind of countdown that accompanied outer-space rocket launches.) The announcers even-keeled, understated kicker provided a moment for the shock to sink in and resonate. On August 20, Bill Bernbach brought a cut of the ad to the White House for a screening. Johnson was there, as were Moyers, Jack Valenti, and Richard Goodwin. When the lights went up, Bernbach looked to the clients for a judgment. Everyone was silent. Finally, Bill Moyers piped up. Its wonderful, he said. But its going to get us in a lot of trouble. The spot aired once, on Monday, September 7, on NBC, shortly before 10 p.m. The outcry came immediately. In New Jersey, Monique Corziliuss parents were inundated with phone callsand they were as surprised as anyone, since they had never been told the identity of the client. Many more callers phoned the White House, most of them angrily accusing the president of having crossed the lines of fair play. Johnson, who was hosting a small dinner with friends, summoned Moyers in. What the hell do you mean putting on that ad that just ran? he asked his aide, feigning ignorance for his guests. Moyers thought he heard a faint chuckle behind the alleged reproach. Talk of the so-called Daisy ad consumed political circles the next day. The networks aired it on their nightly broadcasts. Time put the girl on its cover. Despite the implicit criticism, the exposure gave the Johnson campaign millions of new viewers, at no extra cost. When journalists criticized the spot, moreover, campaign aides, in a show of false magnanimity, agreed to pull it to avoid even the semblance of unfairness, knowing the damage was done. Besides, Johnsons aides could note that the ad never mentioned Goldwater. In keeping with Schwartzs theories, it only evoked the fears about Goldwaters bellicosity that had been in the air for months. The ad didnt seek to persuade; it aimed to resonate. It was comparable to a person going to a psychiatrist and seeing dirty pictures in a Rorschach pattern, Schwartz said. This mistrust was not in the Daisy spot. It was in the people who viewed the commercial. Meanwhile, to keep the atom theme alive without rerunning the Daisy ad, Moyers reportedly persuaded the producers of the movie Fail Safe, made from Eugene Burdicks novel about a nuclear crisis, to release it before the election. Goldwaters team reacted by playing into Johnsons hands. In 1952, after Eisenhowers ads ran, Democrat Adlai Stevenson responded by essentially crying foul: His aide George Ball feebly attacked Eisenhowers handlers for trying to sell an inadequate ticket to the American people in precisely the way they sell soap, ammoniated toothpaste, hair tonic, or bubble gum. The tactic failed; Ikes spots might not have been as elevated as Stevensons rhetoric, but they were hardly beyond the pale. Similarly, Goldwater erred by arguing that LBJs ad was somehow illegitimate. Republican National Committee chairman Dean Burch filed a complaint with the Fair Campaign Practices Committee, a private body that promoted a code of campaign ethics. On Capitol Hill, Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen urged the National Association of Broadcasters to condemn the commercial, while House Minority Leader Charlie Halleck railed on the House floor against this kind of play on emotions, this appeal to fear. Goldwater himself denounced the ad at a rally in Indianapolis: The homes of America are horrified and the intelligence of Americans is insulted by weird television advertising by which this administration threatens the end of the world unless all-wise Lyndon is given the nation for his very own. By pressing the issue, Goldwaters men kept their candidates nuclear record in the headlines. One poll now showed that a majority believed Barry Goldwater would get America into a war. Johnsons team continued to hammer away at Goldwaters extremism: A new ad quoted Goldwaters liberal-bashing line about cutting off the Eastern Seaboard; another showed a pair of hands ripping up a Social Security card; a third, in the spirit of Daisy, featured a girl licking an ice cream cone as a narrator spoke of Goldwaters support for atmospheric nuclear testing. On Election Day, Goldwater carried only his home state of Arizona and five states of the Deep South. Voters gave LBJ the largest majorities in Congress since Franklin Roosevelts heydaya clear path for passing his Great Society agenda. Valenti started to develop carefully prepared programs of public imagery, as he told the president, to establish the real and enduring Lyndon Johnson. Most Americans were pleased. Eager to fulfill Johnsons vision of a Great Society, they had reason to believe that they had avoided electing a headstrong, rigid anti-Communist who would embroil them in a deadly and distracting war. Reprinted from Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency with the permission of the author and the publisher, W.W. Norton. David Greenberg is a historian of American politics and a professor of history and of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University. A columnist for Politico, he is also the author of Nixons Shadow: The History of an Image. CHERKESSK, Russia On a recent morning, armed and uniformed policemen patrolled nearly every block in downtown Cherkessk, the capital of Karachay-Cherkessia, one of six republics in Russias Northern Caucasus. Every so often, they had to break their stride to get around the garbage that covered the dirt sidewalks, and the water-filled potholes in the broken roads that reflected the sky. Local police and federal anti-terrorism special units have re-enforced their positions all across the region, as ISIS-connected terrorist groups have targeted federal highways, attacked and murdered officials, killed touristsand claimed credit for all these atrocities. The Northern Caucasus, with 9.7 million people, could be famous for its spectacular natural beauty, snow-peaked mountains, and health spas built around mineral springs. Instead, its known for its shaky peace and, recently, as a focus for activity by the so-called Islamic State, which is not only recruiting from the local population, but exacting retribution for what happens on the faraway battlefields of Syria. For many young men here, ISIS has offered what seems a romantic action-oriented life, however brief, instead of the mire of poverty and unemployment that surrounds them here. An old woman in house slippers and green socks is sweeping the street outside an old mosque by the citys canal; she asks that the dirt and poverty in her city not be photographed. Such shame, she says. Last year it seemed that Russian authorities had begun to win the ongoing war on terror. The number of attacks dropped by almost 50 percent, from 525 terrorist attacks in 2014 to 258 in 2015. But last June, Abu Muhammad Al-Adnani, one of the Islamic States senior leaders, declared the existence of a new Wilayat Qawqaz, or Caucasus governorate, and violence increased again as ISIS ordered suicide bombings and murders. On Monday, the neighboring republic of Dagestan was shaken by a terrorist attack, the third one in the last six weeks. A suicide bomber drove a car stuffed with explosives into a police checkpoint in Dzhimikent, killing two policemen and injuring more than 10. ISIS took responsibility, Russian news agencies reported, saying the operation was carried out by a group under the command of a man called Abedtin Khamagomedov. The same group claimed responsibility for the attack on guards and tourists at Naryn-Kala Fortress in Derbent, a UNESCO world heritage site, in late December. The attackers fired from three positions, killing one person and injuring 11 people. Police later discovered 67 bullet casings, Interfax reported. And it seems that Northern Caucasus is not the only ISIS target in Russia. On Feb. 7 the Federal Security Service (FSB) reported the arrests of ISIS insurgents in Ekaterinburg, near the Ural Mountains. The report said that the groups leader came to Russia from Turkey. The FSB report also said the ISIS underground group was preparing attacks on metros and shopping centers in Russias biggest cities: Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Ekaterinburg, according to a report by Meduza media. As the authorities try to keep ahead of the killing, they may well be provoking more. One of the major factors causing the increase of violence is the reaction Muslims have to authorities closing down Salafi mosques, and the security services putting pressure on potential ISIS recruiters and helpers, says Gregory Shvedov, the editor-in-chief of Caucasian Knot, a website specializing in regional news. Already, armed men are a regular feature of life here. When militiamen with Kalashnikovs in hand walked into a cafe and ordered food, a young man named Aslan shrugged and told me, Weapons in public places are something we see here, it is nothing special, like unemployment. Options for the future are limited. A college graduate could not make more than $350 a month, mostly as a salesman. Most of us try to move to Sochi, Stavropol, or Krasnodar, where life is more stable, where the average salary would double to $650, Aslan said. Others choose to go to Syria to join ISIS. Local law enforcements talks of over 3,000 ISIS members from Northern Caucasus fighting in the Middle East. In a recent special operation in Karachay-Cherkessia, police killed three young men and arrested six more suspects for pledging allegiance to ISIS on line. These men made a videotape of their oath to ISIS and sent it to Syria by WhatsApp messenger, Andrei Przhezdomsky, from the National Anti-Terrorist Committee, told reporters. This month, a local court in Cherkessk arrested six young Muslims who were suspected in preparing series of terrorist attacks in the republic. The Federal Investigative Committee reported that the group had connections with Syria, and that the arrested men were awaiting direct orders to conduct terrorist attacks in the republic. According to an analysis published by Caucasus Knot, 6,074 people have died from terrorist attacks since 2010. Ministry of Caucasus officials told The Daily Beast that Moscow dreamed it could turn North Caucasus into a tourist center one day. We have negotiated with a number of investors from Italy and France, but all the projects are slowed down by the instability, one official said. The number of people willing to go on vacation to the regions known for terror attacks is decreasing. (One could hardly be surprised.) And that leaves businessmen investing in tourism face to face with their creditors. So the spiral of terror and violence continues, and ISIS, under pressure in Syria and Iraq, has its own plans for the future in Wilayat Qawqaz. Is South Carolina going soft? With two days left until the GOP primary, the elbows are sharp. But weve hardly seen any of the much ballyhooed mud pit we were promised when the Republicans packed their bags in New Hampshire and moved the circus South. Yes, there has been a fake Facebook page touting an endorsement from Rep. Trey Gowdy for Sen. Ted Cruz, when Gowdy actually endorsed Sen. Marco Rubio weeks ago. Rubio also starred in a robocall accusing him of supporting amnesty and had his head photoshopped (by the Cruz campaign) onto a bogus picture of him shaking President Obamas hand. Maybe the worst mailer so far wonders why Ted Cruz says hes against gay marriage, BUT he has no problem taking BIG CHECKS from gay men. Compared to the lore of Palmetto State dirty tricks, its all kind of meh. Where are the mistress bombs? The knife fights? We were told to expect a cocktail of sweat and desperation to drive struggling campaigns to depths theyd never imaginedinnuendo, rumors, and flat-out lies about peoples positions, and not on immigration. The hottest rhetoric so far has been on Donald Trumps Twitter feed, and that was Trump fighting with the pope. It never used to be this way. In the days before tweets and snaps, spreading unseemly information in the days before the crucial South Carolina primary used to be ugly work of homegrown scalleywags. The best operatives had an on-again, off-again relationship with the truth and a willingness, if not a sense of genuine pleasure, in cutting their opponents proverbial necks. The late Lee Atwater is the most famously ruthless product of the states bare-knuckled political education. Lee Atwater was the patron saint of dirty politics in South Carolina, said Don Fowler, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee who is a native of South Carolina. A lot of the people who are now mature consultants were his disciples and his subordinates. But even Atwater had to learn his dark art somewhere and in his case, it was Harry Dent, the South Carolina consultant credited with (or blamed for?) crafting Richard Nixons successful Southern Strategy in 1968 that played on the racial tensions between whites and African Americans. Racial and ethnic tensions have almost always been at the core of the lowest blows in the states modern political history. The hits orchestrated by Atwater are no exception. In 1978, he was accused of recruiting an itinerant preacher as a third-party candidate to run for Congress against Carroll Campbell and the mayor of Greenville, Max Heller, a Jewish refugee who had fled the Nazis in Austria. The candidate, who was a high school dropout who had never run for office, held a press conference two days before the election declaring, I believe in Jesus Christ, I believe he died to save my sins. Mr. Heller does not. Many still believe the stunt cleared the way for Campbell, an Atwater associate. Atwater also ran the campaign against Tom Turnipseed in 1980 when Turnipseed ran for Congress against incumbent Republican Floyd Spence. Knowing Turnipseed had been treated for depression as a teenager, Atwater planted a question with a reporter to ask Turnipseed about electro-shock therapy he received, which Atwater called being hooked up to jumper cables. Spence won the race. In my book I dont think anybodys ever gotten lower than that, said Dave Woodard, a professor of political science at Clemson University and veteran of GOP campaigns in South Carolina. I think Lee Atwater set the low standard. Others recently have tried to meet that standard, as low as it is, and nearly succeeded. In 1990, an Atwater protege named Rod Shealy wanted to help elect his sister lieutenant governor. In a bid to increase white voter turnout in the GOP primary, Shealy paid an unemployed African-American fisherman to run for Congress as a Republican hoping white voters would go to the polls just to vote against him.Sen. John McCain took his turn on the receiving end of Low Country politics in 2000, when anonymous pollsters called likely GOP primary voters and asked, Would you be more or less willing to vote for John McCain if you knew he had fathered a black child? The child in question was a daughter McCain and his wife had adopted in Bangladesh. In 2012, a mailer (anonymous again) showed up in the form of a Christmas card from Mitt Romney and his family, who are Mormon. The glossy card noted, We have now clearly shown that God the father had a plurality of wives And of course, no list of offenses would be complete without the former Republican blogger who claimed hed had an inappropriate physical relationship with now-Gov. Nikki Haley just before she ran for, and won, her spot in the governors mansion. But somewhere along the way, South Carolina politics seem to have gotten a little soft around the edges. Both Harry Dent and Lee Atwater apologized for some of their dirtiest tricks before they died, and with the 2016 GOP primary days away, the accusations between candidates have been sharp, but nobodys been accused of being much more or less than a dirty liar. I havent seen anything real alarming, nobody has gone to the negative level that Donald Trump deserves, said Dave Woodard. Woodard suspects that the RNCs new rules changing the delegate awards from winner-take-all to proportional victories means that the race is likely to go on past South Carolina for many candidates, meaning theres not the same reward for a knock-out blow in the primary this year. In the past, whoever won the state was going to keep rolling and whoever lost was out. There was a lot more at stake so it was a lot harder fought. Don Fowler said his state has never really been as awful as its made out to be, especially on the Democratic side where Atwater and Co. never met their match. Our reputation far exceeds the reality, Fowler said. The language is harsh, but political language gets harsh. I dont know if thats dirty politics. With time running out on Thursday, the blogger who claimed to have had the affair with Gov. Haley resurrected his claims to accuse Rubio campaign staffers of originally spreading news of the alleged affair back in the day. But even that claim was one degree of separation from the candidate. In the old days, it would have landed right between the eyes.South Carolina, time is running out for you to live down to your reputation for trash and trickery. You have one day left. The Justice Departments top watchdog is considering whether to review the legality of any payments that the U.S. government may have made for the release of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl and what role the FBI played in efforts to free the soldier from captivity in Pakistan, The Daily Beast has learned. The departments inspector general, Michael Horowitz, wrote a letter to a member of Congress this month saying that he had opened a preliminary inquiry into the matter, which concerns allegations that the U.S. government paid a ransom for Bergdahls freedom, and that in February 2014 the FBI sent a representative to the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan expecting Bergdahl to be released. Bergdahl didnt show up and wasnt freed until May of that year, when the Obama administration traded five Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for the soldier, who had left his post in Afghanistan in 2009 and was captured. The Daily Beast obtained a copy of Horowitzs letter, which hasnt been previously reported. The inspector generals inquiry, which has not yet led to a full investigation, marks the latest development in the still-unfolding story of Bergdahls capture, his time as a prisoner of the Taliban-aligned Haqqani Network, and what steps U.S. officials took to ultimately win his release. Horowitz gave no indication when he would reach a final decision on whether to open a full investigation. He said that his office has been in touch with the FBI. A spokesperson for the inspector general declined to comment, saying the offices practice is not to confirm or deny the existence of investigations. Horowitz is responding to allegations from Rep. Duncan Hunter, a vocal critic of the Obama administration's hostage release policy, who has been investigating the Bergdahl swap. Something obviously happened in early 2014, with the FBI in the lead, and the Department of Justice inspector general is best positioned to determine the facts and present them to Representative Hunter and the rest of Congress, Hunters chief of staff, Joe Kasper, told The Daily Beast. Theres no hiding from the fact that on February 25, 2014, the FBI notified ISAF in Afghanistan that Bergdahl would be crossing the border, Kasper said, referring to the International Security Assistance Force, which at the time was led by a U.S. general. Now the question shifts to what led to that call and the expectation of the FBI that Bergdahl would be released. It wasnt because Haqqani had a come to Jesus moment, thats for certain. Hunter alleged last year to the inspector general the U.S. government had paid [the] Haqqani Network for Bergdahls release and received nothing in return, and he asked the watchdog to review the matter. But the administration has never said it paid a ransom for Bergdahl. Instead, officials have argued that the prisoner swap was the only viable option. The administration faced opposition to the swap in Congress, after senior intelligence officials told lawmakers that the five Taliban were likely to return to hostilities against the U.S. if they were freed. And the families of some civilian hostages questioned why the president was willing to exchange prisoners for a soldier but not their loved ones. President Obama and his top aides have said many times that the U.S. will not pay ransoms for hostages, despite the willingness of the Haqqani and other groups, including al Qaeda and ISIS, to barter for the lives of their captives. That policy is at best a half-truth. In fact, the government has paid money to hostage-takers and helped hostages families do the same. That practice is likely to continue, according to kidnapping ransom experts and current and former U.S. officials. Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI helped facilitate a ransom payment to al Qaeda in 2012 from the family of Warren Weinstein, a kidnapped aid worker. The attempt to free Weinstein was unsuccessful and he was later killed in Pakistan by a U.S. drone strike. Bergdahl is now facing a potential life sentence for leaving his post in Afghanistan. His case, which had already drawn significant national attention, is back in the spotlight as the subject of the second season of the acclaimed podcast Serial. What does a 17th century-set movie about witchcraft have to do with the 2016 presidential election, Ted Cruz, and the future of America? Everything, according to the Satan-celebrating leaders of the Satanic Temple. The non-theistic religious organization has thrown its support behind The Witch, the Sundance horror hit that opens this weekend with the tale of a teenage Pilgrim girl suspected of consorting with the Devil in isolated, Puritanical New England. We have people running for office, leaders in our communities, who still reference and somewhat fetishize this period of early America, Satanic Temple national spokesperson Jex Blackmore told The Daily Beast. They often say, America was founded on these Christian valuesand I think you see [in The Witch] that what happens in this very religious, almost pre-American era is that religious values were quite destructive. It pulls on an American history that is something of a black sheep period that we gloss over and brings it to the forefront to ask: Is this something we really want to return to? With nearly 100,000 reported members worldwide and a vested interest in both the outcome of Novembers election and the future of America, the Satanic Temple, which has members across the globe, is keeping a close watch on crusading Christian GOP candidate Cruz. Were very interested in Ted Cruzs campaign since he often discusses religious liberty, said Blackmore, although she was quick to emphasize that the Satanic Temple has yet to officially endorse any White House hopeful on either side of the aisle. Such an endorsement would understandably conjure confusion, explained Blackmore, who also serves as director of the Temples Detroit chapter. As a religious organization built on securing individual liberties in the name of the Dark Oneat least, the concept of Satan as an icon of rebellion and opposition to institutionalized religious oppressionthe organization is prepared to take on any prospective POTUS, be it Cruz or Trump or Hillary. Cruz in particular has been courting the evangelical vote by playing up his Southern Baptist faith with a scripture-quoting strategy that scored him a big win in Iowa. Religious devotion, meanwhile, has become a form of campaign currency not just for Cruz but also rivals like Donald Trump, who has loudly cast stones at Cruzs piety and yesterday lashed out at the Pope for calling his own Christianity into question. But Cruz has played up his Christian card more than his opponentsand thats landed him at the top of the Satanists watch list. Thats really his major platformhe appeals to this sort of conservative religious voter, said Blackmore. Were really interested in his interpretation of what religious liberty means as one that seems to come across as only applying to Christians pretty exclusively, and how he uses that rhetoric to push an agenda that opposes access to health care for women, for example, or how he continues to promote the concept of traditional marriage on a religious platform as being one of exclusively his own views. I certainly think were going to be responding as those kinds of issues continue to come up in the election year, she said, "regardless of whos nominated in the GOP or Democratic Party. The control over female bodies is another theme of The Witch thats ringing alarmingly true today as states and presidential candidates battle over the defunding of Planned Parenthood. The films heroine finds herself increasingly victimized by a patriarchal Christian system that seeks to control her actions, thoughts, body, and budding sexuality. She has no recourse for the repressive punishment that rains down from her extremist father, who bellows one of the films memorable lines: Did ye make some unholy bond with that goat? I think Donald Trump has a lot of opinions that oppose personal bodily autonomy, and a lot of his positions are contrary to fact and science, said Blackmore. Bodily autonomy and basing our decisions off of what we know best about the world from a scientific understanding [are central tenets of the Satanic Temple], so to oppose that is to oppose Satanic philosophy. Blackmore considered where Trump might fall on the Satanic spectrum: I think from that perspective, the Satanic values dont fall in line with what Donald Trump promotes. In 2013, the Satanic Temple made national headlines by giving an unwanted Satanic endorsement to Florida Gov. Rick Scotts bill allowing prayer in public schools. Later that year, members of the Temple staged a gay blessing over the grave of the mother of Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps. Last year, the organization publicly erected a statue of Baphomet in response to Oklahomas Ten Commandments monument, arguing yet again that if Christian beliefs were permitted to seep into American public and political life, so too must all religious beliefs. We are a non-theistic religious organization, explained Blackmore. To us what that means is we have all the defining features of a religion including a set of shared values and tenets, a history and aesthetic, a ritual practice, but we have all of those things minus a god element. We do feel very strongly that religion can and should be divorced from superstitious beliefs, that having a superstitious belief doesnt mean that your deeply held tenets are any less valuable under the law or in your own community. If we say that supernaturalists are the only ones who get exemption for their beliefs, then we have a big problem, she argued. Many critics dismiss the Satanic Temple as a gimmick, but Blackmore argues that their faith is as true as any other religious groups. We absolutely believe that we are Satanists, that we fit the Satanic description thats been employed culturally and historically, and as such we are using that as a framework for our own life, she said. Its crazy because when you think about Scientology, which has been accepted as this non-exempt religious organization, you start to see where power and money come into play in dictating and forming our concepts of what is okay and acceptable as a religion or religious group. As social advocates, the Satanistswho count cult filmmaker John Waters among their card-carrying members, Blackmore addsare urging members and the uninitiated alike to adhere to another core tenet of the Satanic Temple: Beliefs should conform to our best possible scientific understanding of the world. That means wanton misinformation thrown around during the election cycle is inherently anti-Satanic. When you have people attacking global warming, for example, you have people pandering to a base thats uninformed using false information, Blackmore offered. And thats offensive to us because we think that our world should be formed by policies that make sense and arent based in corporate interests. More recently, the Satanic Temple launched a Sabbat Cycle program designed to encourage engagement in and awareness of local politics. The fight against apathy in particular, Blackmore said, is something that has been part of this Satanic subculture. The metal subculture, the punk subculturepeople expressing their discontent but really doing nothing about it. She advised vetting presidential candidates by the quality of the information they espouse, and where they source it. When we have people who say that they value life but they want to bomb Syria, for example, and do it in a very careless way, I think we have to be careful that were not getting too emotional and reacting to propaganda, that we are an educated base and dont allow our candidates to promote misinformation, because its dangerous, Blackmore said, and we deserve better as voters. The year was 1999. The euro came into existence; No Scrubs and Baby One More Time led the Billboard charts; the Senate acquitted Bill Clinton; and, less remarked upon, John Kasich quickly began and ended his first presidential campaign. Then, to the extent that he was known at all, it was for being a hyperactive and cocky member of Congress from Ohio who chaired the Budget Committee and had once been kicked offstage at a Grateful Dead concert at RFK Stadium. As a tribute to AC/DC, he billed his 1999 tour of Iowa Back In Black. He was dubbed the Rock n Roll Republican. One thing he wasnt labeled, however, was a moderate. In 1990, the American Conservative Union gave Kasich a score of 100, the highest possible, in its ranking of Republican members of Congress. He so opposed President Bill Clintons first budget, in 1993, that he taunted if it did work, hed have to become a Democrat. He was a shepherd of the Republican Revolution and he chaired the Budget Committee during the 1996 government shutdown, which he supported. The budget he ultimately helped craft, the following year, which Clinton signed, cut capital gains and estate taxes and reduced Medicare and Medicaid by $115 billion and $13 billion, respectively. Sixteen years later, Kasich, now the governor of Ohio, is again seeking the Republican nomination, but this time he occupies a different space, or lane in newfangled political jargon, in the Party. In 2016, everybody in Republican politics must have a lane which he can call his own and market his candidacy from. On Thursday in Clemson, South Carolina, two days before the primary here, Kasich himself admitted to a preoccupation with the idea of lanes. They try to say theres two lanes, he said at a town hall, theres the establishment lane and the anti-establishment lane. But about a month ago, he said, a journalist told him there was clearly a third lane: a Kasich lane. What is a Kasich lane? Kasich asked, a Kasich lane is somebody whos never been in favor of the establishment. You know who else was never in the establishment lane? Ronald Reagan. In reality, no such lane exists. Kasich, like Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio, has chosen to run in the moderate lane, which is another way of saying the candidates have made it a point to not act like they have rabies. And whether or not they are actually moderate doesnt much matter. In The Four Faces of the Republican Party: The Fight for the 2016 Presidential Nomination by Henry Olsen and Dante J. Scala, moderate-liberal Republican voters are defined as favoring politicians who are more secular than their evangelical counterparts and not especially fiscally conservative, like John McCain or Mitt Romney. Kasich, whose faith and austere penny-pinching policies are the core of his stump speech, checks neither of those boxes. Neither, really, do Bush or Rubio. Nevermind that no one who actually knows Kasich thinks hes a moderate. I asked former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Ohio Attorney General and longtime friend of Kasichs Mike DeWine and former Ohio Congressman David Hobson, who worked on Kasichs 2000 bid, if they thought the word applied to the candidate. They all rejected it. Ohio Democrats are eager to bullet point the reasons they find the label frustrating: he waged a Scott Walker-inspired war on public sector unions (knocked down in a voter referendum); his anti-choice measures have been so extreme that the number of surgical abortion providers in the state has declined from fourteen to eight since 2013; he has suggested privatizing Social Security; he favors an interventionist foreign policy; and since he took office, funding for public education has decreased by half a billion dollars while Ohio public schools have gone from being ranked 5th in the nation to 23rd. On the other hand, he acknowledges the existence of climate change and once attended a gay wedding. But in the presidential race, what you decide to market yourself as matters more than what you really are. Disclosing actual informationlike a record or beliefstends to be an annoying and messy endeavor that most candidates would be best served to avoid. And the Kasich campaign, unlike the departed Chris Christie campaign, has calculated that appearing moderate is a smarter strategy than trying to outdo Ted Cruz, a very conservative evangelical, or Donald Trump, a bigoted populist. Kasich is as conservative in 2016 as he ever was, but its harder to look like a conservative now, sandwiched on a stage between those two. This is nuts! Kasich remarked at the last Republican debate. It may as well be his slogan. In 1999, Kasichs own nuttiness was more central to his message. Kasich was cut from the same cloth as the uncool conservatives like Gingrich, but his presidential campaign was predicated on the idea that he could create his own lane, though no one used the term then: a lane for a relatively young and hip Republican with staunch conservative principles and a propensity for flame-throwing in the House. Maybe hed rush the nearest stage! I love to be on the cutting edge, he said at the time, Im a cutting-edge kind of guy. On the trail he would ask voters questions: Do you like grunge? or Do you like Pearl Jam? In New Hampshire, according to a 1999 report in The San-Francisco Chronicle, he told a group of prospective volunteers, If you dont want to have fun, go somewhere else. Go work for one of those other fuddy-duddies, because we may have to go get a beer every once in a while. On February 15, 1999, Kasich launched an exploratory committee. He would never formally announce, though he hired more than a dozen staff members in Washington, New Hampshire and Iowa and secured office space in the Fairchild building, walking distance from his Longworth Congressional office. Hobson, who was in Congress at the time, remembered it as a cramped space where fellow Budget Committee members like Bob Franks and Pete Hoekstra, advisers to the exploratory committee, filed in to help their friend. It was fun, he told me, but they were naiveand worse, broke. The campaign went out with a decidedly not very rock n roll whimper on July 14, just five months after it began. Kasich endorsed George W. Bush, who was more of a country guy himself. Two presidents have (nearly) served two terms since then, and although Kasich has calmed down a bitexcept, on primary night in New Hampshire, when he told the crowd, if you dont have a seat belt, go get one!hes mostly stayed the same. Its the Republican Party thats changed, its base radicalized, first by the rise of the Tea Party and now, for a smaller faction, by the rise of Trump. In 2011, in a speech at Mount Vernon, Dick Armey, the House Majority Leader from 1995 to 2003 and one of the architects of the Contract With America, remembered Kasich as the linchpin of the Republican Revolution and decried the evolution of the GOP. What happened to the Republican majority of days past? he said, well, it went to hell in a hand-basket and largely was rejected by the American people. Kasich, he said, held us together, and the whole thing started to unravel when Kasich left. The shift could be seen clear as day when Kasich appeared on Fox News to discuss his endorsement from The New York Times. He said he thought it was really awesome, which seemed to confuse host Neil Cavuto. Reading the endorsement, Cavuto said, he realized something: Youre not anti-government...So explain that to some conservatives who might be rattled. Kasich deflected, talking instead about his time on the Budget Committee. Limited edition Tobermory Ledaig 1996 released Tobermory Distillery has announced the release of Ledaig 1996, a limited edition vintage single malt Scotch whisky. The 20-year-old single malt has been created from some of the first spirit distilled, when peated single malt production started at the Isle of Mull site in 1996. With a distinct Hebridean style, the malt is packed with an intense and smoky flavour and has been produced from peat-dried malted barley, married with naturally peat infused water from the distillerys own private water source a dark aromatic lochan in the mountains above Tobermory. Left to mature in Spanish Oloroso sherry casks, the vintage single malt has scents of apple and a hint of mint with citrus aromas, followed by a crackling peat flavour, which bursts in to a light sherry sweetness before a smooth, spicy salty tail disappears in to a smoky finale. Alison Gibb, global marketing manager - malts portfolio at brand owner Distell, says: True to its heritage, Ledaig 1996 is a traditional, un-chill filtered malt ensuring our whisky lovers enjoy an authentic spirit on the palette. This wonderfully peated single malt from our Tobermory Distillery reflects the rich past of what is one of the oldest commercial distilleries still in operation. It is exciting to be able to announce the release of the first batch of this fine, Hebridean whisky, which reinforces our commitment to our customers around the world to continue to produce innovative, quality single malts. Tobermory produces two distinct single malts during the year. Its namesake, an unpeated whisky is produced for six months with the remainder of the year used to create its peated counterpart, Ledaig. Ledaig 1996 will be available in the UK and across select international territories, as well as global travel retail. The packaging has been influenced by the Spanish Oloroso casks encasing the malt in a rich, dark brown wooden box. Ledaig 1996 has an ABV of 46.3% ABV and an RRP of 120. 19 February 2016 - Felicity Murray The Drinks Report, editor Former President George H.W. Bush's work during the Iraqi invasion and liberation of Kuwait earned praise Thursday as part of a symposium commemorating the 25th anniversary of Desert Storm. The former president and Kuwaiti Ambassador Salem Al-Sabah surprised guests by appearing at the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum during the presentation, which stressed the importance of maintaining a strong alliance between the U.S. and Kuwait to improve future relations with the Middle East. Barbara Bush was in South Carolina on Thursday as a member of the audience during a CNN town hall featuring three GOP presidential candidates, including Jeb Bush. The evening began with a presentation from students in the Capstone program at the Bush School giving an analysis of the Bush administration's role in the invasion and the impact it has had during the past 25 years. The three students gave their suggestions for improving foreign relations by retaining a mutual liaison between the two countries to counter terrorism and protect Kuwait's most vital resource -- oil. "Anytime you deal with the Middle East, you don't have to think one or two steps ahead, you have to think 30 or 40 steps ahead," said Joe Carly, a student presenter in the Capstone program. "The one thing we learned from studying U.S. relationships with Kuwait -- more specifically during the Gulf War -- is that if you work in a coherent partnership, you can accomplish great things in the region." The group of eight students will travel to Kuwait next week to present their findings at several universities for the country's 25th anniversary of liberation. Jeffrey Engel, a professor and director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University, said Bush's decision to come to the aid of Kuwait to push out Iraqi forces with minimal support from Congress was not only impressive, but was the right thing to do at the time. "You have to stand back and see what President Bush's view was on the world," he said. "The stream of the history is moving America's way at that point. We were about to become essentially all we ever wanted, which is the military power that has also created a global order, which is going to lead to a more peaceful future." Longtime journalist Caryle Murphy, who reported for the Washington Post from Kuwait during the first weeks after the Iraqi invasion, saw first-hand the events that unfolded. She said this occurrence "changed our relationship with the Middle East forever" and no matter how peaceful the relations the U.S. maintains with Kuwait, the war will never be over. Ryan Crocker, dean of the Bush School and director of the Iraq-Kuwait Task Force in the State Department during the crisis, closed the commemoration with recognition to Bush, who stayed for half of the program. "We were privileged to have with us the man above all others who orchestrated that international response to blatant aggression," he said. "It was a moment when the United States led -- not dominated -- led. Twenty-five years ago this month was a time when American leadership went right." February 2, 1926 - February 16, 2016 God took Glenda Tipps to heaven at 8:21 p.m. Tuesday, February 16, 2016, just 14 days after celebrating her 90th birthday. Memorial service is set for 1:30 p.m. Saturday, February 20, at A&M Church of Christ. Burial will be at 2 p.m. Tuesday, February 23, Mission Park South Cemetery, 1700 S.E. Military Dr., San Antonio, TX 78214. Glenda was born Feb. 2, 1926 in Plainview, Texas to William Franklin Elam and Hannah Josephine Wilsher. Growing up, her values were shaped by picking cotton with a family that worked hard together and valued each other. Later in life, after several engagements, she decided on and married a young handsome song leader, Charles W. Tipps. Using the degree that she had already obtained from a secretarial college in San Antonio, she worked for the head of the engineering department at Texas A&M and put Charles through engineering school. After Charles' graduation they had a son, Charlie Bill who she raised single handedly while Charles took off for the oil fields. They soon settled in San Antonio with City Public Service in 1957. As a child, Glenda was a gifted teller of stories and was quite successful in competitions. As an adult in San Antonio, Glenda developed a form of table-top teaching for young children that captured the minds of both young and old, and with Charles they travelled to various churches sharing this effective approach for children. Concurrently, Glenda supported Charles as they served the Highland Hills Church of Christ with Charles as the associate minister. They then moved to support the Bellaire Church of Christ with Charles as the minister. Charles and Glenda retired in 1999 and moved to their last residence in Bryan, where they have been blessed to faithfully serve at A&M Church of Christ. She is survived by her son, Charlie Bill; and her grandchildren, Jeff with wife, Mindi; and their two children, Laura with husband Dr. Jacob Minor; and their four children, David with wife Heather, Margaret, Julia, Robert, Clara, and youngest grandchild, Charles Walker Tipps. Her two sisters, Betty Perkins and Marge Pittman, also survive her. They, along with the respective hoard of Elam children still carry the commitment to family and God instilled by their grandparents; Mama Elam and Daddy Bill. Put her talents toward making community the best in nation It is with great honor that I endorse Mayor Nancy Berry as the next Brazos County Commissioner for Precinct 3. I have worked with Nancy closely over the past 10 years, first as a board member of the Brazos Valley Symphony Society and more recently as a member of a College Station City Council committee. As a symphony board member, she provided many solid and innovative ideas, including how to increase sponsorship of the symphony. She took an active role in obtaining those sponsorships. As mayor, Nancy provided great leadership and guidance to the committee that I co-chaired. She always was available and we could tell that she fervently and sincerely cares about the quality of life in our community. My wife, Ellen, and I hope that you will join us in voting for Nancy Berry so that she can continue to bring her talents toward making our community one of the best in the country. PENROD "ROD" S. THORNTON College Station Candidate for commissioner is a stand-up elected official Nancy Berry should be and deserves to be our next Brazos County commissioner. We give her our highest recommendation. We can go on and on about the many leadership attributes that qualify her to be our county commissioner. We think her record speaks for itself, however. She has been an active leader serving on many boards, College Station City Council and as mayor. Having served with her on the College Station City Council, I witnessed many of her leadership qualities first hand. I believe her strongest attribute is being a stand-up elected official. She truly represents the majority of our residents and not just an influential few. She does her homework before she votes. She also gets out and talks directly with people. This is who we need representing all of Brazos County. Please join us and vote for Nancy Berry for Brazos County commissioner for Precinct 3. JOHN and CAROL HAPP College Station Lifetime of service would transfer to county court Len and Nancy Berry moved to this area in the early 1980s and have been generous with both their time and money throughout the years. As you have read in the many letters to the editor, Nancy has served on many boards as well as serving two terms as mayor of College Station. Added to her list of volunteer jobs, she has served our neighborhood several times as president of our homeowners association and is presently a member of our architectural committee. Nancy gives 100 percent to every job she undertakes, so please join me in voting for her in the Republican Primary for county commissioner for Precinct 3. ANN M. MARSH College Station Knows of candidate's faith, commitment to the community I have known Nancy Berry for a long time. During those years I have become aware of her commitment to our community. I know that she served on the College Station City Council and then as mayor for two terms. She is very active and informed in her Home Owners Association in Chimney Hill. I also know her personally as a woman of faith, and that is reflected in her treatment of others. She and Len have been leaders in our community for many years. I think she would be a fine and committed county commissioner for Precinct 3. Rev. BILL ARMSTRONG College Station U.S. representative has defended our military Bill Flores is a man of integrity. He has represented District 17 well and listens to his constituents. Rep. Flores is pro-life and battles in Washington, D.C. to protect and support life, our veterans, military and borders. National Right to Life has scored Rep. Flores high for protecting the unborn and life based on his proven record. Recently, Rep. Flores came under attack for his vote in regards to the Omnibus spending bill. He read the bill and listened to feedback from voters. For example, a no vote for the omnibus would have shut down the government and our military men and women serving to protect us would have had no pay until the shutdown was resolved. Rep. Flores works hard to protect our military and see they are not used as pawns in a political game. They would have continued to work but would not have received pay for hard work and putting their lives on the line. I know I would not want to have to work and not be paid, not able to pay bills and support my family. Our military men and women deserve their pay and respect and Rep. Flores works hard to see they are protected and honored. I am grateful for the men and women serving our country protecting our freedom and liberty. Rep. Flores makes himself available to hear from constituents and listens and represents us and our values in Washington. He has surrounded himself with a quality staff and he works hard to represent us and life for all including the unborn. He works to strengthen our nation and borders and he and his wife Gina live in our community. He has my support and my vote. LAURA ANN GRYMES College Station Why won't Rep. Flores answer a question on gun control? Early in October, I wrote U.S. Rep. Bill Flores, asking him to address the problem of gun violence in the U.S. Our country has more than 33,000 deaths each year through the use of firearms, and since we elect our politicians to help solve, or at least attempt to solve, major problems in our country, I was curious what ideas Mr. Flores might have. I asked him to respond simply and directly so as to avoid unnecessary information. I asked him to complete the following sentence: "In order to reduce gun violence in our country, I propose the following ... ." I also asked him not to tell me that he believes in the Second Amendment. I know that already. I also asked him to avoid telling me what he would not do, such as banning assault rifles, closing the gun show loop hole, etc. And I thought it would save him time by not stating that the loss of lives through gun violence is a tragedy. Of course it is. Instead I simply want to know what he proposes to do about this serious problem. In addition, if he has no ideas about what to do, that would be good to know as well. Despite several phone calls to his office during which I spoke to his staff members, Flores has not responded. I asked to meet with him in person and I was told two weeks ago that a meeting would be arranged. I asked again for a meeting a week ago, but still no luck. I can't help but wonder why Rep. Flores seems so reluctant to respond. Perhaps if more people contacted him and asked him to simply complete the following sentence, "In order to reduce gun violence in our country, I propose the following ..." he might respond. DAVID OGDEN College Station Representative is a man of family and faith I want to tell you about my friend, John Raney. John hired me as a computer technician in 1982. We became friends over the course of several years of employment and remain in contact since I have moved to Missouri. John is first a man of faith. His mother and father instilled that in him at an early age and discussion of faith would occur as a normal part of John's day. John is second a family man. Married to Elizabeth the better part of his life, they raised two wonderful girls and now enjoy their grandchildren. John is a conservative. Always was and always will be. He enjoys being a servant for his district. He knows how to work hard and fight a good fight for his constituents. John is a businessman. During my employment, he taught me more about running a small business than any college course or degree supplied. He understands the struggles, risks and rewards of owning and running a small business. I can tell you that if I were still living in Texas, I would without hesitation want John for my representative. Good, honest men are hard to find. John knows no strangers and is comfortable in his own skin. I hope you take the time to get to know my friend. TERRIE ROSE Marble Hill, Missouri The real truth about representative's service I know campaign season can bring out the best or worst in people, but the pro-life movement is too important to be someone's political game. The loss of precious life has touched our family more than once, and my dad, state Rep. John Raney, never would support ending an innocent life before God wills it. As some may know, Jess Fields has been talking about an amendment in the latest budget that restricted all embryo research, including embryos that no longer are living. Jess claims my dad voted to continue funding research on living embryos. For those of you who do not know, I delivered three sons who died in utero. My dad clearly has personal conviction about protecting life in the womb. This is partly why he supports research on deceased embryos. We can learn so much from these little ones to help save other babies. Why in the world would that be considered anti-life? Texas has never funded research on living embryos, and to make such claims is an outright lie. To accuse my dad of turning his back on innocent life is insulting! Jess Fields, have you held a baby boy who is only 20 weeks along and is no longer alive? My dad has and it was heartbreaking. He knows the value of life. He has two daughters and 10 grand babies. How dare you accuse him of not working to protect innocent life! My dad has been endorsed by two of the three major pro-life groups. Jess Fields has only been endorsed by one and that group is funded by the same folks who are funding Jess' campaign. Friends, if you are getting Fields' junk mail and don't know my dad, at least now you know the truth! LAURA RANEY SCOGIN Edmond, Oklahoma Knew candidate as the boss, now as a friend As a new student at Texas A&M University, I went looking for a man at a store on Northgate about a part-time job. The store was packed, but I was directed to the person I came to see: John Raney. Despite the busy day, John graciously invited me into his office for an impromptu interview. Thanks in part to a strong reference by a former employee, I came out of the office a new employee of the Texas Aggieland Bookstore. That was 30 years ago. I quickly saw John's deep, genuine dedication to his family, his faith, the Aggie students, the great university itself and the community of Bryan-College Station he proudly calls home. You could say John has been in service for the benefit of Bryan-College Station, Texas A&M University and the Aggie students for well more than 40 years. It's easy for me to see John continuing to serve as the state representative with the same dedication and passion I witnessed so many years ago. Though I'm not a resident of District 14, I am a proud resident of the great state of Texas and a former student of Texas A&M. What started out as a part-time job has grown into a personal friendship. Through this friendship I have learned the values John holds true and have seen firsthand the genuine care he has for people. I've see the characteristics of a man I want representing me on statewide issues, the community where my children live and the university I'll be loyal to for life. Take advantage of this great freedom by getting out to vote. Moreover, I plead you to maintain the momentum by voting for John Raney for your state representative. SCOTT ORR, '91 Houston Do representative's opponents not believe in free speech? Signs supporting John Raney for re-election as District 14 state representative have been stolen from our yard on two occasions. Do his opponent's supporters not believe in free speech or fair elections or know that this is theft? Please re-elect John Raney. MARY ALICE BEACHY College Station A rhino lies dead; her horn hacked from her skull, the remnants dug out deeply from her sinus cavity. All is quiet except for a rustling behind the body; a small calf emerges, only a few weeks old. What will be the fate of this rare animal that is hunted daily for its horn, carrying a street value higher than cocaine? Seems strange that this inept substance, made of nothing more than keratin, to which our fingernails are made of, can be fuelling such crime around the world. Sadly, this is a regular occurrence in South Africa, where poaching has reached an all-time high. Rhinos are now unable to reproduce at the same rate to which they are slaughtered every year. However, all is not lost, as I have heard of a reservation lying to the East of Kruger called Balule, where the Black Mambas, a 26-strong all-female anti-poaching unit, has managed to reduced bush meat and rhino poaching by a staggering 76%. Founded by Transfrontier Africa in 2013, they have so far removed more than 1,000 snares, destroyed five poachers' camps, put two bush meat kitchens out of action, and had six poachers arrested. And they arrive in the UK this weekend to receive the prestigious Helping Rhinos 'Innovation in Conservation' Award. I was determined to find out just why this project has been so successful and also to meet the strong women who have made this a reality. Alongside Simon Jones of Helping Rhinos and presenter and producer Nigel Marven, we all pack our cases and head off to Balule, to film alongside the Mambas, to truly live their lives, to find out their passions, their fears and why their presence has been so successful, not just for the animals, but also for the poor communities they support. Combatting indiscriminate carnage of cable snares The Mambas rise at 5am every morning, taking shifts to walk a gruelling 20km to check the boundary fences for incursion. The baking 40 degree heat means that their duties need to be wrapped up early. They check for signs of entry, as well as for snares laid in the night. Their role is like a British 'bobby on the beat' - to provide a physical presence in the area. I walk with two Mambas Siphiwe Sithole and Felicia Mogakane. "What did your family think when you told them you wanted to join The Black Mambas?" I ask. "They were scared that it would be dangerous and I would be eaten by a lion", Siphiwe answers. "How has being a Mamba helped your family?" I ask Siphiwe. "It has helped me a lot, because now I can take care of my kids, I know if I want to do something now, I've got something in my pocket ... I am the bread winner." As we walk through the bush, The Mambas chance upon a dead Cape Buffalo which had been trapped by its leg by a wire snare. The Mambas explain to me that it could have taken up to five weeks to die, as buffalo are equipped to deal with extreme draught. Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospitals cardiac rehab department is celebrating American Heart Month by educating its staff on heart disease, heart failure and cardiac diagnostic procedures. Mary Beth Winney, a cardiac rehab nurse with CFMH for over two decades, said cardiac patients can start their rehab as early as two weeks after their cardiac event. The rehab department has been a part of the hospital since around 1988, Winney said. Patients are given access to fitness equipment, including treadmills, bikes, recumbent steppers, weights and a stretching area. The exercise is there to help them get better physically and to help them learn to exercise safely, said Winney. We get to see them physically get stronger. Patients are also given guidelines to help them live healthier lifestyles, troubleshoot issues and eat healthier. Classes are also available to help patients gain an understanding of heart health, smoking cessation and stress management. Most patients attend rehab three times a week, but for some, it could take up to 12 weeks. Rehab patient Sherrard Bennett of Rocky Mount has been through two rounds of rehab therapy at CFMH. In 1993, he had open heart surgery and last summer he suffered a heart attack. I knew something was wrong when I had shortness of breath and a tightening in my chest that radiated to my left arm, Bennett said. Bennetts first round of therapy lasted 12 weeks. The therapy has made a profound difference in my life, he said. The nice thing about this facility is that the emergency room is right upstairs. Twice, I was wheeled from therapy to the E.R. because abnormalities were found on the monitors during therapy. Bennett said both times he started therapy were extremely difficult. When I first came in, it was hard to even walk from the parking lot to the door, he said. But after a couple of weeks, I started getting back the spring in my step. I have also been able to observe the new patients coming in, and it is amazing to watch their progress in such a short amount of time. Were blessed to have this facility that we can come to and not have to travel 30 to 45 minutes. If I hadnt come here after my procedures, it wouldve been a huge mistake. The hospitals fully accredited cardiac department also gives patients access to echo sonography (a sonogram of the heart) and nuclear testing to look for clogged arteries. With our nuclear medicine gamma camera, we can take a 3D image of the heart and look at it three different ways, said Heather Day, certified nuclear medicine technologist. According to the American Heart Association, cardiovascular disease is the leading global cause of death, accounting for more than 17.3 million deaths per year. About 2,200 Americans die each day from these diseases one every 40 seconds. Heart disease accounts for 1 in 7 deaths in the United States one death every 84 seconds. In recognition of heart month, Kroger and Carilion Clinic have offered free blood pressure screenings throughout the county during the month of February. The next screening is scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 23 from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Rocky Mount Kroger location. Contact Gail Nordhaus at (540) 484-8569 or (540) 797-4965 for more information. Jack, a 5-year-old Maine Coon mix cat, was reunited with his owners last week after spending 10 months apart. Jane and Ray Richards were moving from Maine to Georgia when they stopped to spend the night at the Holiday Inn in Rocky Mount last summer. While there, Jack escaped from his cage, leaving the Richards devastated. Despite search efforts, the couple was unable to locate Jack and was forced to continue their journey without him. After Jacks disappearance, Jane Richards daughter made a post on the Virginia Lost and Found Cats Facebook, seeking information about the beloved cat. Richards called the Franklin County Animal Shelter, but no cats matched Jacks description. Richards thought Jack was gone for good and only hoped that he would find a new home, as equally loving and nurturing as hers. About two months after Jack was lost, employees at Lowes in Rocky Mount noticed a cat lurking around the store. Elizabeth Price said she could tell that the animal was a house cat due to its friendly nature, but it was very skittish. Price and fellow employees Rick Stafford and Diane Everitt attempted to catch the cat, but were unable. The employees adopted the cat, and fed and cared for him as much as he would allow. They also contacted Cindy Brooks at the animal shelter and told her about the cat. Brooks said she was fairly certain that the cat was Jack, noting that the descriptions matched. Despite her hunch, Brooks was unable to verify that the Lowes cat was actually Jack because no one had been able to catch the animal and take his photo. After many attempts, the cat was finally captured last Tuesday. Brooks and Katie Bittinger took photos of the cat and sent them to Jane and Ray Richards. Upon receiving the photos, the Richards confirmed that the cat at Lowes was Jack. The couple quickly agreed to drive all the way back from Georgia last Friday morning to be reunited with Jack. The Lowes employees joined Brooks, Bittinger and Jack last Friday, waiting for the Richards to arrive at the animal shelter. Im eternally grateful for these loving people at Lowes, Jane Richards said. If it wasnt for them, wed have never gotten him back. Im just happy Jack is back with his family and doesnt have to be out in the cold, Everitt said. Jack is in his new home in Georgia with Richards dog and the newest addition to the family a kitten. The Franklin County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Wednesday to move forward with efforts to build a new animal shelter. Supervisors authorized county staff to negotiate with Dominion 7 of Lynchburg over pricing for architectural and engineering services for designs for a new shelter. Significant progress was made on the project last year with the issuance of a needs assessment, identification of a potential building site and the advertisement for proposals for architectural and engineering (A&E) firms. Following the advertisement for A&E firms, animal control and general properties staff interviewed four potential firms last month. County staff visited past projects of each firm for review. Dominion 7 has the most experience in animal shelter design with a total of nine constructed shelters in Virginia, ranging from rural and urban localities. The firm has completed 14 animal shelters nationwide since 1996, with animal shelter design being one of its specialties. Cindy Brooks, Franklin County Animal Shelter manager, explained the urgency of the new facility, citing that additional space will lengthen the staffs time to find adequate homes for the animals. The shelter is required to house the animals for a minimum of 10 24-hour days, Brooks said, explaining that with additional space, the animals will be able to stay up to an additional five to seven days at the shelter. The additional time, she said, would allow for pets to be reunited with their owners or to be sent to foster homes or other shelters. Snow Creek District Supervisor Leland Mitchell raised the concern over the countys oversight of the specific plans for the proposed new shelter, questioning whether Dominion 7 will simply build whatever it sees fit or if it will be instructed during the design process. Well be talking to them one-on-one for what our needs are based on our needs assessment, Brooks said. Based on current plans and needs, the proposed structure will be 6,000 square feet. County Administrator Brent Robertson said more than $1.7 million has been set aside in the capital fund for the new animal shelter project. SHARE By Gleaner Staff A Henderson resident is among the members of the Western Kentucky University wind ensemble who will be presenting a new work that honors the victims of the Charleston church shooting. Cynthia Fernandez plays oboe for Western's wind ensemble. She is a 2012 Henderson County High School graduate and was named an All-State oboist while in high school. Fernandez and her bandmates will be traveling to Charleston, South Carolina to play at a conference Saturday. The band will be premiering "Of Our New Day Begun" by composer Omar Thomas. The piece was written to honor the nine people who were killed in a mass shooting while attending the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston the evening of June 17. "My greatest challenge in creating this work was walking the line between reverence for the victims and their families, and honoring my strong, bitter feelings towards both the perpetrator and the segments of our society that continue to create people like him," said Thomas in a news release. "I realized that the most powerful musical expression I could offer incorporated elements from both sides of that line embracing my pain and anger while being moved by the displays of grace and forgiveness demonstrated by the victims' families," said Thomas. The musical themes and ideas for "Of Our New Day Begun" are rooted in the black American church tradition. The piece is anchored by James and John Johnson's song, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" and peppered with blues harmonies and melodies, he said. The consortium assembled to create this work was led by Gary Schallert and the Western Kentucky University wind ensemble. Hugh McCormick SHARE By Tom Lovett Tom.Lovett@Thegleaner.Com 270-831-8333 Henderson County Judge-executive Hugh McCormick, who recently underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his lung, has died. Members of Henderson Fiscal Court were surprised and saddened by the news. "This is a tremendous loss for the county," said District Four Magistrate Butch Puttman. "(McCormick) ate and breathed this county. He served 16-and-a-half years as a magistrate and was in his second term of his judgeship. If you added it all up, he served 25-plus years as public servant and did a tremendous job at it. "What's amazing to me is that you commit that much of your life's work to make the community all it can be; it's a big task. ... I don't know how you sum up a man like that." McCormick announced Feb. 9 he'd been diagnosed with cancer. He had surgery two days later to remove a mass approximately 2.5 centimeters in size from his lung. He'd been in intensive care since his surgery. McCormick was a longtime fixture on fiscal court. He served as the District 4 magistrate for 17 years before he was appointed to the judge-executive position after the death of Sandy Lee Watkins on Aug. 28, 2010. He won election for the judge office later that year after replacing Watkins on the ballot. He won re-election in 2014, with a term that is set to expire in 2018. Former Gleaner reporter Frank Boyett covered county government from the time McCormick was a magistrate through the end of 2015. "Hugh McCormick was a good friend and a good man. He cared about people and had a heart full of compassion," he said in a statement. "But he was also a good judge who had the political courage to make unpopular decisions in the county's best interests." Puttman also praised McCormick's willingness to make hard decisions, as he did in 2015 when the court slashed spending and furloughed some employees to deal with a fiscal crisis. "If you're doing your job, you're going to make enemies. Not everybody's going to love you," Puttman said. "But you have to make those unpopular decisions sometimes." Kyndle President and CEO Brad Schneider called McCormick's death a "huge loss" for the county. "He was mentor for me," Schneider said, "and he was very supportive of Kyndle. He was progressive in his thinking and how he was always looking for ways to move the county forward. "Hugh always thought of what was best for the county. He had no pretense about political ambition, no guile. With Hugh it was always about 'What can I do to help my friends, my family and my county. "He'd had to make some hard decisions over the last couple of years and that's what a good public servant should do make hard decisions for us. In this day and age it's a rare quality. We will miss him; we will miss him a lot." First District Magistrate George Warren said he enjoyed working with McCormick. "He always tried to make sure (magistrates) were informed with issues facing county government; as he looked for answers how to solve any problem and always wanted input from the magistrates. Family was important to Hugh. He loved his whole family, his wife and kids and was genuinely concerned about others. "He will be missed not only in Henderson County but throughout the region. He was a team player and always wanted to work with other counties." Henderson Mayor Steve Austin also praised McCormick for that teamwork. "I heard it from people all over the state," Austin said. "People would say 'If every mayor and county judge got along as well as you a lot of people in a lot of places would be better off.' "We came into office at the same time and we committed to each other that first week that we would work together to do what was in the best interest of the community and we'd remind each other of that when we needed to that we weren't as much concerned about 'city' or 'county' but the community as a whole. And he stood behind that 100 percent." Austin cited programs such as the city/county solid waste program, the ambulance service and the revamped 911 system as projects that benefitted from that cooperation. "Another good example would be Stratman Road. When it was rebuilt and raised up the city and county worked side by side. And there was a city dump truck right next to a county dump truck. ... We partnered any time we thought it was beneficial for the community as a whole. By working together on projects like Stratman Road we were able to save the city and county lot of money. "Hugh wasn't worried or concerned about the political side of things. He just wanted to do the right thing. He was a good person to work with and a good person to know." Henderson County Sheriff Ed Brady said he knew McCormick all his life and respected how McCormick always fought for what he believed to be right. "He loved this county," Brady said, "and what he believed in, he was going to fight for. He got a lot done that was good for this community. He was a fighter." Brady reflected on how McCormick died in office, just as Watkins did before him. "It's kind of tragic and should redeliver the message that life is fragile and we need to do the most with the time we have. That was Sandy's legacy and Hugh worked to live up to that. ... His goal, like Sandy, was to improve the lives of those around him. It's a reminder that we should try to live up to that standard while we're here and help our fellow man and our community." SHARE By Gleaner Staff A Henderson resident has penned a book about Perry Mason. The Henderson County Public Library will host an author visit from Bill Sullivan about his new book, "The Alliterative Attorney: Guide to the Perry Mason TV Series and TV Movies" from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday. The event is free and open to the public. Sullivan was born in Henderson in 1953 and has lived here all his life. A lifelong fan of old TV, he taped his first Perry Mason episode in 1978 from WGN, according to a news release. When "superstation" WTBS picked up the series, he was hooked. Sullivan is also a big comic book collector. "The Case of the Alliterative Attorney," his first book, is a collaboration with film and television writer Ed Robertson. Robertson also hosts and produces a syndicated radio talk show, TV Confidential. Attendees at the library event can enter to win a signed copy of "The Case of the Alliterative Attorney." This author visit continues a series of appearances by local authors in conjunction with the launch of epublishorbust.com, an online resource for writers. Henderson County Public Library has partnered with Daviess County Public Library to offer epublishorbust.com to support the vibrant creative writing communities throughout Kentucky. The site is open to the public and free to use. SHARE By Beth Smith of The Gleaner The Henderson County Sheriff's Office has joined 10 other counties in a concentrated effort to stymie the illegal drug trade in this area. According to Lt. Col. David Crafton, Henderson has become the 11th county to join the long-established Pennyrile Narcotics Task Force, which formed in 1987. Other participating counties include Webster, Trigg, Todd, Muhlenberg, McLean, Lyon, Livingston, Crittenden, Christian and Caldwell. "We checked into it in 2014. To get into the task force, the cost is based on the county's population," he said. "The cost at that time for us was $17,000. They approached us this year about coming into the task force, and said they were going to let us come in for the first year without paying the fee. At the end of 2016, there's no obligation to continue into the next year." "There's a possibility, depending on what types of investigations we have during this year, that we may end up with funds that are forfeited through seizure that we can use to pay for being in the task force," he said. There are a multitude of benefits to participating in such a task force, Crafton said. "The task force operates with some federal funds, which are matched in part by the counties that participate. So that gives us access to those federal funds which is money that can be used for investigations. It also gives us access to manpower and equipment. In addition, it makes us privy to intelligence information developed through the task force," he said. "When we're working an investigation in Henderson County, it wouldn't just be worked by our one deputy but by those involved in the task force." Crafton said the illegal drug trade in Henderson County is extensive enough to merit participation in a task force. "What we're seeing is the use of methamphetamine is going down while heroin use is going up," he said. "That's one of our concerns right now, is heroin coming into the county, and of course use of prescription drugs is pretty strong as well, and there is also a concern with gangs in Evansville coming into Henderson County." "Heroin is making a comeback because the pill mills are being shut down," said Henderson Sheriff's Detective Bill Mills. "People can't get their OxyContin or Oxycodone as easily as before." As for heroin, he said, "It's being brought in from Mexico and transported to cities such as Chicago. Local dealers are going to those larger cities and bringing it back to Henderson." Mills said investigations have revealed that local dealers are also acquiring heroin from contacts in Indianapolis and St. Louis. "Quite a bit of it is also coming in from Evansville," he said. Crafton said the local department's membership in the task force will hopefully be a way that law enforcement can push back at the groups involved in the illegal drug trade. "Drug trafficking doesn't occur in just one geographical location," he said. "It occurs over a wide range. And all the agencies involved in these investigations are often looking into the same people. The task force establishes a coordinated effort for these types of investigations." SHARE By Beth Smith of The Gleaner While the community is mourning Thursday's untimely death of Henderson County Judge-executive Hugh McCormick, matters of government must continue. A special called meeting of the Henderson County Fiscal Court will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday for the purpose of choosing an interim county judge. "We want to take care of his family, but the business of this county has to move forward," said Magistrate Butch Puttman, who is also McCormick's cousin. "We magistrates still have to do what we were elected to do, but we also have to be cognizant of the judge's family and give them the support they need to get through this difficult time." Henderson County Attorney Steve Gold told The Gleaner that the interim judge chosen by the Henderson Fiscal Court will serve until Gov. Matt Bevin appoints one. "Gov. Bevin has 30 days to make the appointment," he said. "It's too late for a candidate to be placed on the primary election ballot for May," Gold said. The person appointed to the position will serve until the general election in November. "The executive committees for the Democrat and Republican parties will name a nominee," he said. "The Democratic candidate and the Republican candidate will run against each other in the general election." "Whoever wins will immediately take office once the election is certified," Gold said. If Gov. Bevin appoints a current magistrate to serve as county judge until the November general election, the governor must also appoint someone to take the magistrates place. McCormick, whose current term would end in 2018, died Thursday one week after undergoing surgery to remove cancer from his lung. A fixture on Henderson County Fiscal Court, McCormick had served as District 4 magistrate for 17 years before he was appointed to the judge-executive position after the death of Sandy Lee Watkins on Aug. 28, 2010. He won the election later that year after replacing Watkins on the ballot. McCormick won re-election in 2014. SHARE By Gleaner Staff A portion of Interstate 64 has been named for a Kentucky state trooper killed in a vehicle collision in 2013. According to the state police, the highway from mile point 95 to mile point 105 has been named Trooper Anson Blake Tribby Memorial Highway by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. This portion of the highway is located in Clark County between Mount Sterling and Winchester. Tribby, 25, who was assigned to Post 8 in Morehead, was killed Jan. 22, 2013, in a crash at the highway's mile point 99. Authorities said Tribby was off duty at the time, but responded to a collision in his personal vehicle. Tribby's widow, Rebecca Tribby, and parents, Bob and Pam Tribby, were on hand Friday for the dedication ceremony which included the unveiling of a road sign in his memory. "From the time a new cadet enters into the State Police Academy, they are told they are never really off duty," retired KSP Capt. Brian Bowling said Friday. "These comments are not only made to them in the academy, but they are reinforced throughout their careers. These statements reflect our expectations, as a society, that police officers have obligations and responsibilities that are inherent to their positions, not their duty status." WASHINGTON (AP) President Barack Obama is looking to nominate a Supreme Court candidate who has enjoyed past Republican support, Vice President Joe Biden said, offering some of the first indications of the presidents criteria in replacing the late Justice Antonin Scalia. In a radio interview airing Thursday, Biden pushed back against Republicans who insist that Obama hand off the decision to the next president. Still, Biden acknowledged that the Senate gets to have a say in confirming the presidents pick. In order to get this done, the president is not going to be able to go out nor would it be his instinct, anyway to pick the most liberal jurist in the nation and put them on the court, the vice president told Minnesota Public Radio. There are plenty of judges (who) are on high courts already who have had unanimous support of the Republicans. Bidens remarks came amid growing signs that some Republicans were softening their stance about considering Obamas nominee. Though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said Obama shouldnt even nominate a candidate, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said Wednesday that his nominee should get a hearing, and others have left the door open. Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day OConnor became the latest voice arguing Scalias seat should be filled expeditiously. OConnor, a Ronald Reagan nominee who retired in 2006, told Fox 10 in Phoenix she disagreed with those calling to wait for the next president. I think we need somebody there now to do the job, she said, and lets get on with it. Although the White House hasnt publicly disclosed any candidates Obama is considering, hes expected to look closely at a number of circuit court judges including some that meet the benchmark that Biden laid out. Sri Srinivasan, who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, was confirmed 97-0 less than three years ago by the Senate, which also unanimously confirmed Jane Kelly in 2013 to the St. Louis-based Eighth Circuit. Biden, who presided over Supreme Court confirmation hearings in the Senate, took issue with the notion that a Scalia replacement cant be confirmed during Obamas final year. To leave the seat vacant at this critical moment in American history is a little bit like saying, God forbid something happen to the president and the vice president, were not going to fill the presidency for another year and a half, Biden said. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate NEW YORK (AP) -- Scientists suspect an outbreak of the Zika virus is behind a surge in a rare birth defect in Brazil. But how are they going to prove it? Authorities in the South American country were quick to make the link last fall. The health minister last week said he was "absolutely sure" that the mosquito-borne virus is a cause. But others aren't so certain. While the evidence has been mounting, so far it is circumstantial. "The simple presence of the virus doesn't mean it caused the birth defect. It means there's a probability," said Dr. Arnold Monto, a University of Michigan epidemiologist. The investigation is still in its early stages. It began after Brazilian doctors noticed an increase last fall in babies with a birth defect called microcephaly, which has a number of causes. The cases closely followed the country's first outbreak of the tropical virus Zika, which was thought to cause no more than a mild illness that clears up in a week. Microcephaly hadn't been seen in past Zika outbreaks. Babies with the condition have a smaller than normal head and often have a smaller brain that hasn't developed properly. Lab tests have detected the virus in the brain tissue of a few babies with microcephaly. Proving the cause is a bit like prosecuting a murder investigation, with Zika as the apparent killer but a lot of unanswered questions, said Dr. Ernesto Marques, a University of Pittsburgh microbiologist who is collaborating with Brazilian researchers. "What you have so far, the victim is there, and you find a person right there that has a smoking gun in his hand," Marques said. "But you still need to close the deal." The investigation poses special challenges. There's currently no good animal substitute for humans to study the virus. And it's not considered ethical to infect people, especially pregnant women, in an experiment to see what happens -- not when there seems to be a real chance that a volunteer could be seriously harmed. So researchers are turning to other kinds of studies to try to establish whether Zika or some other factor is causing the birth defect or, also, a paralyzing condition called Guillain-Barre. Five Latin America countries with Zika outbreaks are reporting an uptick in that condition in adults. One method is quick-and-dirty research called a case-control study, which looks back in time after an illness or condition has occurred. For the birth defect research, that means recruiting a group of women with babies born with microcephaly and trying to sort out what may have happened during their pregnancy to spark the condition. For comparison, they will query women whose infants don't have the birth defect. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is involved in one such a study set to start next week in the Brazilian state of Paraiba. It will focus on 100 babies with microcephaly and at least 100 more without. Investigators will take blood samples from the mothers to check for signs of an earlier Zika infection. They also will ask not only about Zika infections but other possible factors, like other germs or poisons in the environment. Some experts suggest that perhaps Zika needs an accomplice -- like malnutrition or an infection with another tropical illness like dengue -- to cause serious problems. A similar study, led by Brazil, is investigating 200 babies with microcephaly and 400 without. Results are due in April. "That will be the first one to tell us if there's strong evidence," Dr. Marcos Espinal of the Pan American Health Organization told reporters Thursday. The CDC was in the coastal city of Salvador last month to help health officials with another look-back study, this one targeting Guillain-Barre. They tested 40 people who had the condition, and 80 people who didn't, said Dr. James Sejvar, who led the CDC team. Such studies are hardly perfect. People often have trouble remembering every detail from six months ago -- for example, when they might have been bitten by mosquitoes, the primary source of Zika infections. While these studies can sort out potential causes, experts say they need to be confirmed with research that follows people forward. Colombia, for example, will be following 2,000 Zika-infected pregnant women to see what happens with them and their pregnancies, Espinal said. In Brazil, Zika's possible link to microcephaly emerged in September, when a spike in babies born with the condition got the attention of Dr. Vanessa van der Linden, a pediatric neurologist at a hospital in northeast Recife that works with disabled children. Initially, Van der Linden and other doctors looked for the usual causes of microcephaly, such as toxoplasmosis, rubella, HIV, and cytomegalovirus. None were found. But most of the mothers had something in common: blotches and skin rashes early in their pregnancies that seemed consistent with Zika. That was the genesis of the link. It's all been difficult to sort out, though, because Brazil wasn't keeping good track of microcephaly cases before Zika arrived. They're still determining how many of the reported cases are really microcephaly and involve a Zika infection. One of the puzzling questions facing researchers: Why have so many severe health problems been reported in Brazil, but comparatively few in other Latin America or Caribbean countries with Zika? Will we soon see similar spikes elsewhere, or is the Brazilian setting somehow unique? Health officials are closely watching Colombia, which had a Zika outbreak after Brazil and so far has not seen a spike in microcephaly cases. If there is, it would be apparent by June and would help finger Zika as the culprit, Espinal said. It will take a combination of studies and laboratory evidence to finally determine if Zika is the villain it appears to be, experts say. "This is going to be solved," said Dr. Farrah Mateen, a Harvard researcher. "It's just a matter of doing the research in the right way." ___ AP Writer Mauricio Savarese in Recife contributed to this report. HARTFORD The president of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities System said Thursday that students, faculty and staff believe armed security is necessary at community colleges because they don't feel safe on campus. Mark Ojakian appeared before the General Assembly's High Education and Employment Advancement Committee to testify in favor of legislation that would allow special police forces to be created at each of the state's 12 community colleges, pending approval from each campus and the state's Board of Regents. As one of the last schools in Fairfield County to make the move to artificial turf, Greens Farms Academy (GFA) felt some pressure to keep up with the Joneses and install a turf field, mostly to ensure our athletes would have comparable playing conditions and a safe, consistent surface. Several of our parents, however, voiced concerns about the potential health risks of the typical crumb rubber used in artificial turf. Listening to our parents, and not feeling completely confident about the current industry standard of crumb rubber, we began to research other options for artificial turf. Our trustees, always keeping both the health of our students and our surrounding ecosystem a top priority, looked into other options In the end, GFA elected to use a greener alternative known as thermoplastic elastomer (TPE), a relatively new product in the United States. There was an initial hiccup, however. The TPE began to clump, so we needed to look for alternatives. In conversations with the manufacturer, FieldTurf, we decided that a cork composite would be the best option for replacement. However, although covered under warranty, the cork composite has to be manufactured overseas and took several weeks to arrive. We had a few weeks that fall of rescheduling games, and playing mostly away matches. But it was worth the wait and inconvenience. Once installed, the cork infill was tested for safety, and the results showed our field exceeded requirements within all parameters. Our turf field has been up and running for four years now, and is used on a daily basis with positive feedback. It was and still is the most environmentally responsible and healthy option available, in addition to being cutting-edge in its design and in the use of cork as an infill. TPE is used extensively throughout Europe, and we are the first school in Connecticut to use this type of infill, and we encourage other schools to follow suit. With the current health concerns, including possible links to cancer, and with the state legislature discussing crumb rubber, we feel huge relief that we are not exposing our athletes and visiting teams to these serious risks. We invite school representatives in neighboring towns to come and look at our field as a part of their search for alternatives to crumb rubber. We are happy to help in any way. Janet Hartwell is Head of School at Greens Farms Academy. Looking for the big games to watch in Week 9? We have them right here. Southern Illinois University Edwardsvilles African Students Association (ASA) held its opening ceremony for African Week on Tuesday in the Morris University Center. We want to raise consciousness about Africa and take out the misconceptions, said Ololade Mustafa, ASA vice president. Some people think that Africa is ravished with poverty. Every country in Africa has its rich and poor, just like the U.S. ASA students provided a booth in the MUC where they provided information about the second largest continent in the world and afforded opportunities for people to learn how to make African beads and learn more about African Week and African Night, and displayed African head dressing and attire for people to try on. ASA students sponsored the event in conjunction with SIUE Student Government. Another misconception about Africa is that it is a continent with only black people, said Mustafa, who is originally from Nigeria. It snows in North Africa, and the people there have light skin. The theme for the week is Kadima, which is a South African word that means Together we move forward. We expect to have an informative, fun time this week, Mustafa continued. And we encourage everyone to come out for African Night on Feb. 20. Remaining activities for the week include: Friday, Feb. 19 Student Success Center, room 1203 African Round-table Session, Africans in Diaspora Collaboratively Moving Africa Forward 5:30 p.m. - doors open 6-9 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 20 Morris University Center Meridian Ballroom African Night African food, music, drama, dance and more. Tickets can be purchased at AfricanNight. Greenville College is pleased to welcome Cuban American author and Methodist theologian, Rev. Dr. Justo L. Gonzalez with his wife, Dr. Catherine Gonzalez to campus on Monday, March 7, 2016. He will speak during chapel at 9:30 a.m. in Whitlock Music Center Events - Justo Gonzalez. This event is free and open to the public. "Greenville College is elated to have one of the most prominent theologians in the country, shares Provost and Chief Operating Officer of Greenville College, Dr. Edwin Estevez. Dr. Gonzalez's visit represents our continued commitment to academic excellence and passionate pursuit of faith and learning integration." Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, February 19, 2016 Investigators from the Attorney General's Office (AGO) raided the headquarters of state-owned hotel operator PT Hotel Indonesia Natour (HIN) at the BCA Tower in Central Jakarta in relation to a case that is suspected to have caused Rp 1.2 trillion (US$89 million) in state losses. The AGO made the move following an audit by the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK), which revealed details on HIN's contract with PT Cipta Karya Bersama and shopping mall operator PT Grand Indonesia (GI) to develop the Hotel Indonesia super-block through a build, operate and transfer (BOT) agreement. Cipta Karya acted as the BOT rights recipient in the agreement. HIN commissioner Michael Umbas said that during the raid, which took place on Wednesday afternoon, investigators confiscated several documents. 'My secretary told me that six [AGO] investigators came [to the office] and confiscated a number of documents,' he said on Tuesday. Although his firm never filed a report of possible state losses based on the agreement, Michael said that the AGO could have started its investigation based on the BPK's recent findings. Michael also confirmed that the AGO had summoned HIN's president director, Iswandi Said, for questioning. The BPK report found that a number of violations of the agreement could have taken place, which had caused state losses as a result of a revision of the contract period, a low compensation rate against income percentage and the use of a building use permit (HGB) certificate as debt collateral. The original agreement stated that Cipta Karya had 30 years starting from 2004 to develop government land in exchange for Rp 355 billion in compensation, equal to 25 percent of the value of the property. The agreement also assigned Cipta Karya to construct four buildings, but the firm was able to erect two additional buildings, the BCA Tower and the Kempinski Residences apartment building, by March 2009. The original agreement included a 42,815-square-meter five-star hotel, a 175,000-square-meter parking space and two shopping malls measuring 80,000 and 90,000 square meters each. Since neither the BCA Tower nor the Kempinski Residences were mentioned in the agreement, HIN did not receive compensation from the profits made by Cipta Karya or GI. 'A final report shows that there were two additional buildings, an office building and an apartment building, that were completed by March 11, 2009. Details [about the buildings] were not written in the original agreement and the total compensation for HIN has not yet been calculated,' the BPK report said. The 56-floor BCA Tower serves as PT Bank Central Asia's headquarters and is slated as a premium office with the fifth highest rent at Rp 550,000 per square meter and a service charge of Rp 106,000 per square meter every month. The BCA Tower was finished in 2009 and has been cited by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) as the sixth tallest building in Indonesia and the 491st tallest building in the world. Meanwhile, the Kempinski Residences remains one of the most luxurious apartment buildings in the country and is pegged at Rp 5 billion per unit, according to Leads Property Indonesia CEO, Hendra Hartono. Hendra said that most of the apartments in the 12th tallest skyscraper in the nation were bought as investments and rented out to expatriates, as reported by tribunnews.com. The AGO could not be reached for confirmation of the case. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Nani Afrida (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, February 19, 2016 Despite a recent fatal accident, the Indonesian Air Force is resuming its plan to acquire another four new Super Tucano training jets that are scheduled to arrive by the end of this month. The last batch of jets will complete the country's weaponry order from Brazil. Air Force spokesperson Commodore Dwi Badarmanto told The Jakarta Post on Thursday that Brazil has already delivered 12 of the jets. 'The new Tucano jets will be stationed at the Malang air base, East Java just like the other Tucanos,' Dwi said, adding that the delivery was on the schedule. The Super Tucano is designed for light attack, counterinsurgency, close air support, aerial reconnaissance missions in low-threat environments and for providing pilot training. The Defense Ministry signed two contracts worth a total of US$284 million with the Brazilian aerospace conglomerate Embraer SA in 2010 and 2012 to build a squadron of 16 Super Tucanos to replace the OV-10 Bronco aircraft, which had been in service since 1976. Dwi said that after the four jets arrive, Brazil's company Embraer will have completed delivering 16 Super Tucano jets in total, including the one jet that crashed on Feb. 11. Media reported that a Tucano training jet crashed in a densely populated area in Malang, East Java, killing three people, including its pilot. The Air Force and the Embraer are still investigating the cause of the incident. Rear Admiral Leonardi, the chief of the Defense Ministry's procurement center of defense facilities agency (Baranahan), revealed that although Embraer has delivered all the jets, Indonesia still needs to purchase the jets' spare parts from the company, as the procurement contract did not mention technology transfer. 'When Indonesia bought the Super Tucano from Embraer, the government had yet to endorse Law No. 16/2012 on the defense industry that requires a transfer of technology in every procurement of weapons from overseas,' Leonardi told the Post. It is possible to have technology transfer included in the supply of spare parts, but the government would have to make another agreement with the company. Besides the Super Tucano, other weapon that has been bought by Indonesia without a technology transfer mechanism is the Germany-made Leopard tank. Indonesia has bought 103 Leopard 2 main battle tanks (MBTs), 42 upgraded Marder 1A3 infantry fighting vehicles and 11 various armored recovery and engineering vehicles from the Rheinmetall Group. The deadline for the delivery of these vehicles is this year. Indonesia is planning to lessen its dependence on foreign weaponry systems by reviving local strategic industries and by ensuring the transfer of technology when it purchases weapons overseas. Recently the country signed an agreement with South Korea for the joint production of IFX/KFX jet fighters. Indonesia is aiming to produce the jet fighters by 2025. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Ary Hermawan (The Jakarta Post) Tucson, Arizona Fri, February 19, 2016 A string of derogatory statements by politicians against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBTs) are a sad reminder of the severe asymmetrically of the culture war in Indonesia. This war has just begun to smolder ' but Indonesian liberals know they are fighting a losing battle. For the first time ever, an intense national debate has sprung up over the rights of LGBTs. At a glance, liberal values may seem to be on the march; the rise of anti-LGBT rhetoric in the public sphere could also be seen as a sign that the conservatives are on the defensive, and that the LGBT issue has become more mainstream and, therefore, more salient. The creation of alarmist Twitter hashtags and even newspaper headlines warning the public of a supposed 'darurat LGBT' or 'LGBT emergency' is a worrying trend, as it reflects what can only be interpreted as mass hysteria, a collective delusion of an imaginary threat. But at least people have now begun to openly talk about this. And that, in spite of everything, is a step forward. With the ascent of social media, the culture war in post-Soeharto Indonesia will continue to intensify. People today are more exposed to global issues than they were before and they now have the means to express their opinions, regardless of how badly informed and logically fallacious they are. The US Supreme Court's decision last year to legalize same-sex marriage, for instance, was widely discussed, even though local LGBTs have never demanded that a similar step be considered in Indonesia. It was no surprise, then, that when Research and Technology and Higher Education Minister Muhammad Nasir said LGBTs should be barred from universities, a social media frenzy immediately broke out over whether the minister was right or wrong. Despite all the bigotry shown on our social media feeds, this is actually a positive development for Indonesian democracy. Having a national conversation about important but controversial issues like LGBT rights is good. With greater public attention, pro-LGBT activists now have the opportunity to clarify some misunderstandings about homosexuality and to explain to the public what they have been doing for years. It is true that some people are perhaps too bigoted to recognize LGBT rights, but some others are probably just misinformed and their opinions can be swayed. OK, that is perhaps an overly optimistic view of the situation. The fact is that the liberals are overwhelmingly underrepresented in the existing political structure. Indonesia does not have any liberal political party. In the US, the liberals have the Democratic Party to advance their agenda in the country's political process. In Indonesia, the liberals have nothing. That is why when the public debate over LGBTs heated up, government officials scrambled to deaden the debate by issuing knee-jerk statements and policies to appease conservatives' demands. Over the course of less than a month, the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) has ordered TV stations to stop airing pro-LGBT content, the Vice President has asked the UN Development Program (UNDP) to stop financing LGBT programs in the country and, after telling messaging app LINE to remove stickers featuring same-sex couples, the Communications and Information Ministry will also ask Facebook and Whatsapp to make the same concession. It is safe to say that when it comes to the issue of civil liberties, the default position of government officials is to side with the conservatives. I'm aware that I'm stating the obvious here, but it is important to realize this simple fact that lacking a representation in the executive, legislative and judicial powers, liberal Indonesians dreaming of a more inclusive and more tolerant Indonesia are fighting an uphill, if not a losing, battle. Indonesia has never had a liberal politician fighting for a liberal agenda. Even the new faces in politics deemed as reformists are not known to be liberal. Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo was backed by the liberals in the 2014 election, but the President is far from being a liberal. In the first few months of his presidency, he executed a number of drug convicts to keep his popularity intact. We should not be surprised that his ministers are more conservative than he is and that all these antigay policies are being made under his watch. Ridwan Kamil, Tri Rismaharini and Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama, arguably the most popular and promising politicians after Jokowi who may climb up to the national political stage, are no liberals either. Bandung Mayor Ridwan recently said that sexual orientation was a personal issue, but added that he would definitely take action against people promoting LGBTs in the public sphere. He argued that in Indonesia being LGBT was considered 'taboo and deviant'. Reelected Surabaya Mayor Risma said she was concerned about LGBT content in social media and that she would go into schools to warn about the danger. Jakarta Governor Ahok, a practicing Protestant, is also clear on this issue: He rejects LGBT people as a 'community' or a 'movement'. Ulil Abshar Abdalla of the Democratic Party and Eva Kusuma Sundari of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), who have been outspoken in defending minority groups, are among the vanishingly few liberal politicians out there. But they do not have enough leverage to influence even their own parties. There is little they can do to change the system from within. It's good to have a national debate about LGBTs. But it is wishful thinking to expect Indonesia to tilt to a more liberal view anytime soon. As long as the dearth of liberal politicians continues, persecution against minorities will go on. And this social-media driven culture war may only make matters worse. ________________________________________ The author is a staff writer at The Jakarta Post Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Dylan Amirio (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, February 19, 2016 Arising from the exceptional Montreal music scene of the early 2000s, indie pop band Stars remain one of the bands from that era that still manages to keep an elegant consistency between their albums. Compared with their Montreal peers who take forever between albums (Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Godspeed You! Black Emperor), Stars manage to channel their lives into records every two years or so. Within their seven album discography, their themes change and their bodies pace with age, but they still retain a bright-but-morbid quality that is undeniably Stars. In their first ever show in Indonesia, and their second visit to Southeast Asia in five years, the five-piece delivered a show that can be described as touching, nostalgic, welcoming and most of all, incredibly fun. Opening act Scaller seemed like a perfect choice to open the Canadian group's first show in their 2016 Asia tour. For one thing, their music is extremely reminiscent of fellow Canadian music icon Alanis Morissette. The vocals, and even the instrumentation, seemed to have transported the relatively youthful crowd back to their childhoods in the 1990s. Stars took the stage with high spirits, and kept them high for the entirety of their set. Beginning with 2012's 'Hold On When You Get Love' and 'Let Go When You Give It', the shy but engaging crowd was swept away by the band's positive energy. Not long after, however, vocalist and frontman Torquil Campbell showed signs of visible agony, as he seemed to struggle to sing in his trademark low voice. Campbell's voice had been shot by the 29-hour journey that he and the band took from the other side of the world in Canada, and struggled to even talk, let alone sing. But like the showman that he is, the occasional theatre actor and playwright took his predicament in stride, but constantly expressed his disappointment toward himself to the forgiving crowd. It was probably the crowd's understanding of his suffering that pushed the band's set to become better as the night went on. It was a mix of old and new tracks, though the songs were derived mostly from their most recent album, 2014's No One is Lost. Cuts ranging way back to 2002's Heart, 2004's Set Yourself on Fire and 2007's In the Bedroom After the War were also brought to these shores, bringing a lot of memories as well for the relatively mature crowd. When 2002's Elevator Love Letter was played, one audience member inside the half-full Soehanna Concert Hall happily remarked 'This song came out when I was like in elementary school!' Despite an ailing frontman and occasional problems with the sound system, the band kept their spirits high and managed to retain their positive energy throughout. It also helped that most of their set revolved around their most upbeat material, mostly taken from No One is Lost, Stars' most danceable album to date. Vocalist and guitarist Amy Millan sounds exactly the same on this album as she did 16 years ago on the band's first album. It was as if her voice had managed to perfectly preserve its youthfulness, and it showed as well during her performance. Throughout their career, Stars have always been a band that gets people dancing, but No One is Lost feels the most straightforward in its energetic dance rhythms. 'I guess the danceable vibe itself was helped by the fact that we recorded it above this gay disco in Montreal. The disco music emanating from below really affected the sound that we ended up with,' she said during an interview with The Jakarta Post. But despite the positivity emanating from the record, No One is Lost was actually based on the tragic story of their manager contracting cancer in the period before the album was made. The manager, Owen, has since defeated his cancer, but the whole experience, Amy explained, manifested itself into an album that she described as 'magnetic and desperate'. '[Owen's predicament] was huge for us too. So we had to create this force against anything bad that was gonna happen. We had to live in blind hope. There's something magnetic and desperate in this world, that's why it's called No One Is Lost,' she said. Regarding the band, Amy describes Stars functioning more like a family rather than a musical group, after being together for more than 15 years. She noted that every one of their seven albums, from 2000's Nightsongs to No One is Lost, had something to do with the events and feelings that the band experienced during the time of recording. 'We're influenced by what is around us, so every album has been a different story in our lives. You know like when dealing with things at home, or something happens, and you just have to work with that, it affects how you write,' she remarked. Throughout the years, the band has experienced a plethora of sad and happy moments that can be heard in the music, from the death of Torquil Campbell's father in 2010 to the birth of Amy's first daughter. The experiences enriched the band's music to deeply personal heights. As the night winded down, Stars finished with an encore that started with Set Yourself On Fire's two strongest tracks, 'Ageless Beauty' and 'Calendar Girl', and ended with their latest single 'From the Night'. Having a short but impressive history of promoting acts, promoter Prasvana defied the odds by delivering a band capable of giving such a magnetic performance with as minimal an amount of technical issues as possible. Everybody in that Friday night room saw stars. ' Photos by JP/Alden Tamborello Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Farida Susanty (The Jakarta Post) Singapore Fri, February 19, 2016 The government is on track to establish a special economic zone for companies involved in aircraft maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) services, after giving tax incentives in a bid to push forward the archipelago's aviation industry. Industry Minister Saleh Husin said the ministry was considering Bintan, Riau, to establish the special zone, as MRO facilities were already established there. 'There are requests from the companies to focus on one place to develop the MRO services, so it can be integrated,' he said on the sidelines of the Singapore Airshow recently. Saleh added that Bintan had a strategic position as many airlines went to nearby Singapore for MRO. 'We know that Singapore has limited space and it can be expensive to have MRO services there. Why don't we develop it in a nearby location like Bintan, so people can switch to having the services there?' he said. The government is said to be in ongoing discussions with companies like GMF AeroAsia, national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia's MRO service subsidiary, on its facilities in Bintan, as well as other companies. Currently, GMF is developing a hangar in Bintan, which is being built in a joint venture with Bintan Aviation Investments, a subsidiary of Singapore-based Gallant Venture, dating back to 2014. Gallant Venture has the concession to build an airport in the area, which is slated to operate by 2017, with the company providing land for the hangar development for GMF. The hangar is slated to have the capacity to contain wide-body aircraft such as Boeing 747 and Airbus 330. Meanwhile, the country's biggest low-cost carrier Lion Air Group has also established an MRO service at nearby Hang Nadim Airport in Batam, which is close to Bintan. Saleh said companies establishing MRO facilities in Bintan would get incentives that were applicable to special economic zones, as stipulated in the economic package. The incentives would include a tax holiday or tax allowance, according to Saleh, adding to the scrapping of taxes on aircraft components for the industry. The aircraft MRO business is estimated to be worth US$1 billion per year, with Indonesian businesses currently taking up only 30 percent. There are an estimated 60-70 aviation MRO companies in Indonesia, with GMF AeroAsia the only one certified by the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). GMF AeroAsia president director Richard Budihadianto said in an official statement that the expected total spending for MRO over the next five years would reach $32 million, with engine maintenance hitting $28 million worldwide, giving the opportunity for local MRO to access international markets. Commenting on the plan, State-Owned Enterprises Minister Rini Soemarno said she had also pushed Garuda Indonesia to negotiate with aircraft manufacturers such as Boeing and Airbus to hand over the servicing of their aircraft to Garuda, as it had purchased plenty of their products. GMF signed a deal with Netherlands airline KLM worth $3.5 million on aircraft components and engine maintenance on Wednesday. It was estimated to have signed deals worth more than $100 million during the Singapore Airshow. Rini also said the government was mulling other places for the MRO service area, including Biak in West Papua, Makassar in South Sulawesi, Manado in North Sulawesi and Kualanamu in North Sumatra. 'Basically just the places that can be easily reached by foreign airlines for servicing,' she said, adding that the government planned to establish the area in two years. The government would also need to prepare the human resources and technicians needed for the industry. Meanwhile, Indonesian aircraft parts manufacturer Pudak Scientific's director Andreas Wangsanegara said he understood that MRO companies should probably be concentrated in Bintan, though he called on the government to also develop a specialized aircraft parts manufacturing area on Java. --------------------- 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 The Jakarta Post Jakarta Fri, February 19, 2016 A young woman has died and another is seriously injured following a violent robbery reportedly committed by a gang of six people at the Tomang Raya overpass in Grogol Petamburan, West Jakarta, in the early hours of Thursday. Tanjung Duren Police chief Adj. Comr. Antonius said the incident occurred when the victims, identified as Widuri, 20, and Rahayu, 24, were heading to Widuri's boarding house in Mangga Besar, West Jakarta, on a motorcycle after meeting a friend in Grogol Petamburan. While on the overpass, six men on motorcycles approached them. The men attempted to rob the victims of valuables and the motorcycle. Antonius said the two victims, who tried to fight back, were stabbed and slashed by the men. Rahayu was stabbed in the chest while Widuri received slash wounds to her chest and right thigh. 'The two victims were rushed to Tarakan Hospital [in Central Jakarta] by local residents,' he said, adding that Rahayu succumbed to her injuries some hours later. The police are currently investigating the case, including checking nearby surveillance cameras and tracking the victims' cell-phones. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Tassia Sipahutar (The Jakarta Post) San Francisco Fri, February 19, 2016 President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo is inviting American businesspeople to explore the Indonesian market as it is undergoing structural reform that will make it easier for investors to set up businesses in Southeast Asia's largest economy. In the US-ASEAN business council conference on the sidelines of the US-ASEAN Summit in San Francisco, California, the President said Indonesia would continue to deregulate, simplify, open up and modernize its rules and regulations so as to woo more investments. 'There are still many excessive permits, licenses and restrictions to which we will say, 'Hasta la vista, baby',' Jokowi said, drawing laughter and applause from 300 members of an audience who were mainly American business executives and who recognized the catchphrase of ex-California governor and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Indonesia recently opened up its economy to foreign investors by revising its negative investment list, which consists of sectors in which foreign investments are restricted, in the broadest lifting of investment restrictions in more than 10 years. About 30 sectors, including toll roads, large e-commerce businesses and restaurants, will be 100 percent open, while more than 100 subsectors get higher a foreign ownership cap. The liberalization is among the 10 economic stimulus packages the government has been releasing since September last year to intensify efforts to cut red tape, deregulate policies and incentivize strategic sectors to woo investments amid a domestic economic slowdown that reduced growth to a six-year low last year at 4.8 percent. 'But I'm not satisfied. Please understand that we are still only at the beginning,' Jokowi told the US-ASEAN business council crowd at the St. Regis Hotel, which carried a theme 'Asia's Best Kept Secret: ASEAN Economic Community'. The President boasted of the rupiah's and the stock market's resilience, which continued to outperform other emerging Asian currencies and markets even as the stock market in China declined significantly and crude oil prices plummeted at the beginning of the year. He also told the audience of his major infrastructure agenda, which he said would see the largest amount of infrastructure being created in the past 15 years. 'Companies and businesses must invest for the future. Together we must invest for the long term and not only focus on short-term measures, which are popular and easy,' Jokowi said. 'We, the government of Indonesia, stand ready to do our part. I invite you, ladies and gentleman, to join us in doing what is good.' Jokowi's speech at the US-ASEAN business council conference is part of his agenda for the two-day US-ASEAN Summit in Sunnylands, California, where leaders from the regional bloc met US President Barack Obama to discuss a broad range of issues and to forge partnerships in security, diplomacy, business and trade. At the end of the summit's first day, President Obama announced the establishment of a US-ASEAN trade workshop, which would consist of a series of sessions to help ASEAN members understand the previsions and requirements of the US-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) because a number of countries have expressed interest in joining the trade deal. Aside from the ASEAN workshop over the TPP, another effort to enhance US-ASEAN economic linkages includes the US-ASEAN Connect initiative, with dedicated centers to be set up in Bangkok, Jakarta and Singapore to facilitate economic cooperation. 'If you are an American SME [small and medium-sized enterprise] or start-up and want to invest in ASEAN [or vice versa], you may be totally lost on how to go about it. Connect can help you to jumpstart your small business,' said Keith Harris, president of global safety science consultancy firm UL LLC and chairman of the US-ASEAN Business Council, as quoted by Today online web site. 'If you are a really large business, it is very useful also to have an organization like the Connect that can help you deal with regional issues that may be getting in the way of the business growing or expanding.' --------------------- 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 Ayomi Amindoni (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, February 19, 2016 The establishment of a holding company for Indonesian state-owned banks will boost efficiency in the banks' business plans and strategy, allowing Indonesia to see large-scale specialty lenders by 2018, Bank Indonesia Governor Agus Martowardojo has said. According to Agus, the holding company may allocate special different functions to each state-owned lenders, namely Bank Mandiri, Bank Negara Indonesia (BNI), Bank Rakyat Indonesia (BRI) and Bank Tabungan Negara (BTN). "It can be done by a holding company. I project that the initial benefits will be the alignment of business plans and business strategies," he said in Jakarta on Thursday, adding that greater benefit could be obtained if the banks essentially merged into one firm, operated by one board of directors. Earlier, the State-Owned Enterprises Ministry hinted that PT Danareksa would be the investment holding company, or the parent company of the four state-owned banks, in a bid to strengthen the national banking system, with greater equity or capital, as well as the ability to seek greater access to funding. "Danareksa is certainly eligible to become the holding company of state banks," said the ministry's deputy of financial, survey and consulting services, Gatot Trihargo, as quoted by Antara news agency. By forming a holding company, he explained, the four state banks, as the subsidiaries, would be synchronized, including in IT. However, the establishment of the holding company might take a long time, as the banks were publicly listed companies, he noted. "Although the ministry is the controlling shareholder in the state-owned banks, many investors in the capital market also hold stakes," he said. Therefore, any strategic changes must be subject to the approval of the general meeting of shareholders, and confidential matters cannot be immediately disclosed. (ags) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jayapura Fri, February 19, 2016 The Jayapura District Court sentenced on Thursday Jundi Wanimbo and Ariyanto Kogoya each to two months and 26 days in jail for inciting a riot that led to damage being caused to dozens of kiosks around a mosque. 'Hopefully the defendants will accept the verdict and return to Karubaga, Tolikara, and resume working,' presiding judge Adrianus Infaindan said. The verdict means the defendants are now free as they have been detained for the period of their sentence already. The verdict was lighter than the sentence demanded by prosecutors who demanded four months in jail. The defendants' lawyer Gustave Kawer said his clients were still considering whether to appeal the verdict or not. Jundi, a civil servant at Tolikara regency office, and Ariyanto, an employee at Bank Papua in Karubaga, were charged after the riot on July 17, 2015. The riot occurred after a group of people protested Muslims performing Idul Fitri prayers using a loud speaker. Seventy kiosks were damaged and burned down and the fire spread to a musholla (small mosque). One of the protesters was shot dead by security officers. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Mon, March 21, 2016 Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg invited President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to join him for a game of zero-gravity ping-pong on a virtual-reality headset called Oculus Rift on Wednesday. Following the US-ASEAN Summit, Jokowi visited three major IT companies - Google, Twitter and Facebook - on Wednesday. Zuckerberg welcomed Jokowis visit by giving the President a tour of Facebook headquarters and asking him to play ping-pong in zero gravity through the virtual reality device. "President Joko Widodo of Indonesia visited me at Facebook HQ today. We had a great meeting -- and then we played ping-pong in zero gravity in Oculus!" Zuckerberg said in his Facebook page on Wednesday. Scheduled to be launched on March 28, the Oculus Rift is long awaited by the public, especially gamers, as it offers a new sensation in gaming. The development kits, DK1 (2012) and DK2 (2014), which were given to developers for testing, have also been in great demand among technology enthusiasts. Founded in 2012 by Palmer Luckey, who was born in 1992, Oculus VR was bought by Facebook in 2014. The deal was reportedly valued around US$2 billion. In January 2015, the Oculus VR office was integrated to Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park. Zuckerberg also recalled his first encounter with President Jokowi. I first met President Widodo [sic] in Jakarta a couple of years ago when he took me on one of his famous impromptu walkabouts -- or blusukan -- where he meets and connects directly with people all around his country. We went to a market together and were immediately surrounded by hundreds of people. It was one of the most memorable experiences of my life, he wrote. Along with the Oculus demo, Zuckerberg and Jokowi discussed ways to work together to increase connectivity and extend the opportunities of the Internet for Everyone program (Internet.org) in Indonesia. The Facebook founder promoted the program during his 2014 visit to Indonesia, during which he also carried out a private trip to Borobudur temple in Magelang, Central Java, and Yogyakarta. It was an honor to host President Widodo [sic] and great to see him again. My last visit to the country was special for me and I can't wait to travel there again, Zuckerberg said. (ebf) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Jakarta Fri, February 19, 2016 The United Development Party (PPP) is caught in a new tangle after the government handed party leadership to a former chairman convicted in a graft case to end leadership dualism. The Law and Human Rights Ministry has issued a decree to recognize the party management established during a congress in Bandung in 2011 that saw Suryadharma Ali elected as chairman. The former religious affairs minister, however, is currently behind bars after being convicted of haj funds embezzlement. The party's camp led by Djan Faridz said on Thursday it planned to sue the government over the decree, adding that the decision had worsened the PPP's crisis. 'Whenever there's an abuse of power, it should be highlighted with a lawsuit. We warned the government about this, so we will again take this case to court,' said Djan's supporter Dimyati Natakusumah, as quoted by tribunnews.com. Directly appointed by Suryadharma as his successor, Djan earlier challenged a ministerial decree that appointed rival camp leader Muhammad Romahurmuziy as the legitimate chairman. Romahurmuziy earned the government's support after pledging to support President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo. Djan later won the case at the Supreme Court, which revoked the ministerial decree. The camp is dissatisfied with the new decree because in the absence of Suryadharma, Romahurmuziy, the party's Bandung committee secretary-general, may take control of the party. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Darlene Superville (The Jakarta Post) Washington Fri, February 19, 2016 President Barack Obama slapped North Korea with more stringent sanctions Thursday for defying the world and pushing forward with its nuclear weapons program, weeks after it launched a satellite-carrying rocket into space and conducted its fourth underground nuclear test. Both actions led to worldwide condemnation of the reclusive country and fueled fears that it continues to move toward building an atomic arsenal. Democratic and Republican lawmakers, many of whom argue Obama hasn't been tough enough with North Korea, overwhelmingly approved the bill last week and sent it to the White House. The House voted 408-2, following a unanimous vote by the Senate. Obama signed the legislation away from the news media and issued no statement. Up until Wednesday, the administration had said it didn't oppose the bill but declined to say whether Obama would sign it into law. The expanded sanctions are being imposed as the US and China are in delicate negotiations over a United Nations Security Council resolution on new sanctions. China, North Korea's most important ally, has raised concerns about measures that could devastate North Korea's economy. The new measures are intended to deny North Korea the money it needs to develop miniaturized warheads and the long-range missiles required to deliver them. The legislation also authorizes $50 million over the next five years to transmit radio broadcasts into North Korea, purchase communications equipment and support humanitarian assistance programs. "This is an authoritarian regime. It's provocative. It has repeatedly violated UN resolutions, tested and produced nuclear weapons, and now they are trying to perfect their missile launch system," Obama told "CBS This Morning" after North Korea launched the long-range rocket. Sen. Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat and sponsor of the bill, said he hoped the UN Security Council and China, in particular, will "take notice of this strong showing of US leadership" and work to put in place similar measures. "Let's stand together with a single voice and one clear message: Any provocation will be met with consequences that will shake the Kim regime to its foundations," Menendez said. Obama consulted with Chinese President Xi Jinping after the Jan. 6 nuclear test, and separately with the leaders of Japan and South Korea after the Feb. 7 rocket launch to reaffirm the US commitment to their security. The US has also opened talks with South Korea about developing more missile-defense systems to eliminate the possibility that a North Korean missile could reach US facilities. Japan announced new sanctions last week that include expanded restrictions on travel between the two countries and a complete ban on visits by North Korean ships to Japan. South Korea cut off power and water supplies to a factory park in North Korea, a day after the North deported all South Korean workers there and ordered a military takeover of the complex that had been the last major symbol of cooperation between the rivals. ___ Associated Press writer Richard Lardner contributed to this report. ___ Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap (**) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Tama Salim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, February 19, 2016 The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which nominated President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo for the 2014 presidential election, is blasting his administration for being indecisive over the planned amendments of the 2002 Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Law. Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle lawmaker Hendrawan Supratikno has questioned President Jokowi's political commitment to revising the KPK Law, which had been agreed to last year by the government and the House. 'Although the President should carefully consider the draft bill, his prudence has also led us to think about his indecisiveness, like he was dancing the poco-poco,' Hendrawan said, referring to a folk dance involving constant back-and-forth swaying. The term poco-poco was earlier used by PDI-P matron Megawati Soekarnoputri during a recent national meeting of the party when she was referring to some of the moves made by President Jokowi. When faced with the option of siding with members of his Cabinet who have thus far endorsed the proposed amendments, or support public opinion, which overwhelmingly rejects the plan, Jokowi appeared to have taken the second option. One of the most senior ministers in his Cabinet, Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan, for instance, has made public statements supporting the amendment of the KPK Law, claiming that it would strengthen the antigraft body. Meanwhile, presidential spokesman Johan Budi, who previously served as a KPK commissioner, gave the impression that Jokowi would back public opinion against amending the law. On Wednesday, Johan said that he was 'only conveying the President's message' and not that of the government in rejecting the amendment plan, a statement that indicated that the government was split on the issue. Jokowi's stance has further incensed politicians at the House because the government had initially struck a deal with legislators to have the House prepare the antigraft bill while the government dealt with the tax amnesty bill. That was to have enabled both pieces of legislation to be passed at the same time. 'The [endorsement of the] KPK bill is a result of discussions between the House and the government. If they decide to backtrack [on the revision], we'd rather have turned our focus and energy to other matters sooner,' Hendrawan of the PDI-P said Thursday. The PDI-P lawmaker, who is also a member of the House of Representatives Legislation Body (Baleg), indicated that the government relied on House lawmakers to pass the tax amnesty bill, which the government needed to have passed into law before deliberating the revised 2016 state budget (APBN-P). In exchange, the House would be allowed to draft the revisions of the KPK law, albeit within the restricted scope that was previously agreed upon. Meanwhile, Golkar Party lawmaker Mukhamad Misbakhun revealed that the tax amnesty bill was ready for House deliberation, saying he was optimistic that the bill would be endorsed before lawmakers went into recess. Misbakhun also said that the House had essentially finished discussing the KPK bill and it would only take a plenary session to officially endorse the revisions so that the President could issue a directive to kick off the deliberation phase. __________________________________________ 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 Haeril Halim (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, February 19, 2016 After months of investigation, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) says it has found evidence to implicate a lawmaker from the National Awakening Party (PKB), Zainuddin Musa, in a bribery case. The KPK moved to question Zainuddin, a member of the House of Representatives Commission V overseeing infrastructure, on Thursday following an allegation that PT Windhu Tunggal Utama CEO Abdul Khoir, a businessman hoping to build state housing in Ambon, Maluku, had handed out about Rp 41 billion to coax the commission members to give him the project. Abdul was arrested while trying to pay a US$99,000 bribe to Commission V member Damayanti Wisnu Putranti, a politician from the ruling Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), on Jan. 13. Speaking to KPK investigators after his arrest, Abdul reportedly told his lawyer and KPK investigators that Rp 8 billion of the bribe money was allegedly sent to Zainuddin. KPK spokesman Priharsa Nugraha confirmed that KPK investigators questioned Zainuddin as a witness for Abdul, saying 'KPK investigators needed to verify some important information [with Zainuddin] before they could proceed with the probe'. Priharsa would not confirm if Zainuddin would soon be named a suspect. Zainuddin declined to make a statement to the media before or after his questioning on Thursday. The KPK questioned the PKB lawmaker, who finally showed up on Thursday after skipping a questioning session on Friday because of a health problem, one week after the antigraft body interrogated Golkar politician Budi Supriyanto. Abdul claimed that Budi received S$404,000 in the scheme. Budi had denied that he took bribes from Abdul. Abdul's lawyer Haeruddin Massaro confirmed that his client had set aside billions of rupiah to bribe 'a number of parties' to secure the Maluku project, but he declined to give details about the recipients of the money. Masaro said that his client, as a businessman involved in construction, regularly went to the Public Works and Public Housing Ministry to look for information about the availability of government projects, including the Maluku project. 'If someone wants to know about a project then he will approach the ministry. The place is a regular haunt for him,' Masaro said. The Maluku project consists of several sub-projects worth at least Rp 30 billion each. It is reported that the ministry is proceeding with about 19 construction projects to step up infrastructure development in Maluku. Although the ministry decided the number of projects for the Maluku province, it is the House Commission V that has the final say on the disbursement of funds for them, a situation that prompted Abdul to allegedly bribe House lawmakers to secure the Maluku projects. The bribery scheme began while President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo was pursuing a nationwide campaign to step up infrastructure development in the eastern part of the country. Cities and regencies there are still considered underdeveloped compared to those in the country's western area, such as on Java and Sumatra. It is alleged that about two dozen lawmakers, including Damayanti, Budi and Zainuddin, from House Commission V had shared in the Rp 41 billion Abdul had reportedly spent to secure the Maluku project. While Zainuddin's status remains as a witness in the case, the KPK has zeroed in on Budi, also a witness, by slapping a travel ban on him over the case after the KPK raided the Golkar Party's office at the House complex on Jan. 15. The during the raid the KPK also searched for evidence in the offices of Damayanti and Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) politician Yudhi Widiana, also a member of House Commission V. The KPK has yet to question Yudi in the case. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, February 19, 2016 The National Police have detained a 51-year-old priest for allegedly molesting seven minors since 2009. The head of subdirectorate III at the police's detective division, Sr. Comr. Umar S. Fana, told reporters that the married priest was arrested on Wednesday in Surabaya, East Java, following a police report filed by one of the alleged victims. The case is currently being investigated by the East Java Police. 'A 51-year-old priest with the initials GI has been detained as a suspected pedophile. The acts were allegedly committed at the suspect's house and in his car,' Umar said at the police headquarters on Thursday. Umar explained that the seven victims were relatives of GI who had been brought in groups from Nias in North Sumatra to Surabaya between 2009 and 2015 for education and work opportunities. Once they started school or gained employment, GI allegedly asked them to repay him with sex. 'He threatened to have them kicked out of school or to kill them if they refused to obey,' Umar said. The seven victims are five girls aged 8 to 21 and two boys, both aged 15. The police have temporarily placed them in a safe house. Meanwhile, the head of the East Java Police's women's, children's and teenagers subdirectorate, Adj. Sr. Comr. Anton, said that the alleged victim who had reported the case, known only as F, claimed that she had been sexually abused by GI since she was 15. Two of the other alleged victims are her sisters. GI could be charged with child sexual abuse under the 2002 Child Protection Law and could face a maximum of 15 years in prison. Several high-profile child abuse cases made headlines last year, including the sexual abuse of a student at the Jakarta Intercultural School (JIS) by five contracted cleaners. The Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) recorded 900 cases of child sexual abuse in 2015, which decreased from 1,267 cases the previous year. Following numerous reports of child sexual abuse, the government announced it was considering introducing chemical castration for sex offenders through a government regulation in lieu of law (Perppu), aiming to prevent repeat offenses and deter further abuse. Unlike surgical castration, chemical castration involves the administration of anti-androgenic drugs to reduce sexual urges, compulsive sexual fantasies and the capacity for sexual arousal. The drugs are given in the form of injections every three months and the castration is reversible when treatment is discontinued. There are, however, lasting side effects. Chemical castration laws are in force in a number of US states and other countries including South Korea, Moldova, Russia and Estonia. Despite protests from rights activists, KPAI chairman Asrorun Niam Sholeh said chemical castration was an essential addition to child protection in the country. The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has taken a firm stance in formally opposing the plan to punish sex offenders using chemical castration. The commission argued that the penalty was not only against human rights, but would not be effective in reducing sex crimes. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Safrin La Batu (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, February 19, 2016 The Jakarta Police said Thursday that they had uncovered a counterfeit motorcycle parts business with revenue of Rp 300 million (US$22,168) per month in Cengkareng, West Jakarta. The Jakarta Police's industry and trade division director Sr. Adj. Comr. Agung Marlianto said the business, which had operated for about seven years, repacked non-branded low-quality spare parts with well-known brands before distributing them to auto-part shops around the capital at lower prices than the originals. 'Consumers are, of course, the ones who suffer most from this kind of business foul play,' Agung said, adding that the business also caused more than Rp 10 billion in state losses by not paying taxes. 'They had high demand because of their lower prices. Most people can actually distinguish fake spare parts from original ones, but they became accustomed to the low prices.' Agung said the police raided the business and named the owner, identified as BI, a suspect on Monday after previously receiving a tip-off from nearby residents, adding that the police confiscated thousands of motorcycle parts and a number of engines. The suspect will be charged under the Industry Law with distributing products that do not meet standards and on operating a business without a permit, which carry a maximum penalty of five years behind bars and a maximum Rp 3 billion in fines. The alleged perpetrator received the spare parts from both domestic and overseas factories, Agung said. The Indonesian Anti-Counterfeiting Society (MIAP) recorded that auto parts were among the most commonly counterfeited products. According to MIAP, the state lost Rp 37 trillion from counterfeiting from 2004 to 2010. 'This is a serious offense. The suspect did not make his own brand but sold products using the names of already famous brands,' Agung said. Meanwhile, Edward Napitupulu, head of the industry division at the Jakarta Industry and Energy Agency, said such illegal businesses normally operated on a small scale in the capital, targeting only small automotive workshops that sold auto parts on roadsides. 'So, it's not extensive and the impact for the industry in the capital is not significant,' he told The Jakarta Post on Thursday. He explained that people became involved in such businesses because they found it hard to get permission to make their own branded products, in addition to strict competition for auto parts in the market. 'We have always announced procedures on getting business permission and encouraged small businesses to register their brands to make them legal. That's what we do to curb such illegal businesses,' he said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Haeril Halim and Nurul Fitri Ramadhani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, February 19, 2016 Amid growing pressure from Muslim clerics to seek harsher punishment for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, an interfaith forum has agreed to take a more humane approach, defying the Indonesian Ulema Council's (MUI) calls for prosecution of the minority group. The group, however, said that the religiously devout should only embrace members of the LGBT community in order to 'reform' them. On Thursday, religious leaders representing Islam, Catholicism, Buddhism and Confucianism held a meeting at the MUI headquarters to issue a joint statement on the LGBT issue, in which they concluded that a peaceful approach was the only way to deal with members of the LGBT community before they could turn to faith to be cured. Representatives from the MUI, the Indonesian Buddhists Association (Walubi), The Indonesian Bishops Conference (KWI) and the Confucian Supreme Council of Indonesia (Matakin), said in the joint statement that LGBT behavior was a violation of religious norms, the Constitution and the 1974 Marriage Law. The Indonesian Hindu Religious Council (PHDI) and the Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI) did not attend Thursday's meeting, but the forum claimed that the two groups supported the agreement. Uung Sendana of Matakin said religious leaders at the meeting had agreed not to bring religion into politics by calling on the government to prosecute members of the LGBT community, adding that no new law was necessary to respond to growing LGBT controversy in Indonesia. 'We don't want to allow more controversy to happen because we want to maintain harmony in this country, that's why we decided not to get involved in such politicking,' said Uung. Despite endorsing the interfaith agreement, the MUI maintained its official stance demanding the prosecution of LGBT people, which the organization announced in an edict issued on Wednesday. 'Thursday's agreement only touches on the normative aspect, but it is also possible for the interfaith forum to press the House of Representatives and the Regional Representatives Council [DPD] into taking action,' said Yusnar Yusuf, one of the MUI clerics joining the forum. Yusnar said that the MUI had agreed to sign the pact on Thursday only because Constitution and Marriage Law applied no punishment for deviant sexual behavior, adding that any action to campaign for LGBT rights in the country should be illegal. Although Buddhism saw homosexuality as natural, this did not lend credence to same-sex relationships, Walubi said in the forum. The Catholic Church meanwhile rejected 'deviant' behavior, but said it encouraged the faithful to embrace LGBT people to guide them back to 'normalcy'. Members of the LGBT community have come under increasing pressure recently. The government, which said it respected citizens' right to non-heterosexuality, has made efforts to stop foreign bodies from financing LGBT programs in Indonesia. Thursday's forum also demanded the government crack down on any attempts to 'smuggle' in LGBT funding from overseas donors. A number of government officials, citing cultural and religious norms, have made derogatory comments about LGBT people recently. Health Ministry officials have become the latest party to join the anti-LGBT discourse sweeping the nation, saying that LGBT people suffered from a psychiatric problem caused by severe depression due to certain problems in their families or environment. 'The person should immediately go to the appropriate psychiatrist, not to advocacy groups, such as LGBT groups that connect them with people who have the same psychiatric problems,' Health Ministry secretary-general Untung Suseno Sutarjo said. __________________________________________ 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 Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, February 19, 2016 Radical Islamic ideology has spread freely on secular university campuses across Indonesia, with students from science and engineering majors more susceptible to infiltration, researchers from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) have warned. LIPI senior researcher Anas Saidi said that while students who studied social and political sciences, humanities and philosophy were more resistant to radical beliefs, those who studied hard sciences were at greater risk of indoctrination. "They are more easily infiltrated as they don't think religious understanding should be discussed. It's something to do with their scientific background that affects how their minds work," Anas told thejakartapost.com on Thursday. According to Anas, many university students have been influenced by closed-minded Islamic teachings that were based only on one root of interpretation, resulting in monolithic thinking that created intolerance as they could not accept diverse interpretation of Islamic values. A lack of monitoring on the activities of Muslim student organizations may have resulted in the systematic dissemination of fundamentalist movements brought by hard-line Islamic communities such as Ikhwanul Muslimin (IM) and other transnational Islamic Wahabi groups, Anas said. Without a strong response from the government or moderate Islamic groups, Anas added, the phenomenon would likely trigger a clash of ideologies. "Schools and universities should make regulations that prohibit public spaces being used to disseminate monolithic religious teachings," Anas added. Meanwhile, another LIPI senior researcher, Endang Turmudi, said counter-radicalization on university campuses should start with citizens, who must change their mindsets and take a strong stance against terrorism and radicalism. Family members and friends could help to tackle radicalization by implementing soft techniques such as promoting tolerance and a non-discriminatory stance toward other religions, Endang said. While terrorism was a significant threat for Indonesia, Endang said, radicalism hidden within society was actually a greater problem for the nation in the long run, as its development was unseen and unpredictable. (dan) Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Tassia Sipahutar (The Jakarta Post) San Francisco, California Fri, February 19, 2016 Once a commodity-reliant country, Indonesia is now shifting gears to explore the digital economy as many, including President Joko 'Jokowi' Widodo, see it as the future of the economy. Appearing relaxed in a long-sleeve Batik shirt with First Lady Iriana in a simple pink hijab and red traditional Indonesian garb, Jokowi visited the headquarters of US technology giants Google, Facebook, Twitter and Plug and Play in Silicon Valley and downtown San Francisco on Wednesday local time to spread the message in the world center of technological innovation that Indonesia is serious about expanding into the digital economy. From playing zero-gravity ping pong in virtual reality with Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg to writing on the office walls of Facebook and Plug and Play, Jokowi appeared to be having fun on his visit as well as showing his strong interest in the technology, innovation and digital sector. 'Start it up together, prosper together,' Jokowi wrote on Plug and Play's office wall, on which his photo is displayed, in a clear sign of support for start-up companies to take on a larger role in the economy. 'I hope Plug and Play can take part in Indonesia's vision to be Southeast Asia's biggest digital economy, [one] that will reach US$130 billion by 2020,' he said during a meeting with Plug and Play CEO and founder Saeed Amidi at its Silicon Valley headquarters. Plug and Play connects startups with corporations and invests in 100 companies every year, including Dropbox, with $3.5 billion in funds raised by its start-ups since 2006. Along with the $130 billion target, Jokowi envisions the birth of 1,000 'technopreneurs' into Southeast Asia's largest economy with a more than 250 million population sprawled across the archipelago. His administration has allowed foreign e-commerce players valued at over Rp 100 billion to fully open businesses in Indonesia and teamed up with financial authorities to support funding for IT companies and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which are the heart of the President's digital economy vision. At Googleplex in Mountain View, California ' where Jokowi had Indonesian food for lunch with over a dozen Indonesian workers at the company ' the President was greeted by CEO Sundar Pichai, whose company agreed to train 100,000 Indonesian mobile developers before 2020 through universities, online and working groups across the country. Google has also recently lowered the minimum price for applications, games and products on Google Play, from Rp 12,000 to Rp 3,000, so developers can reach more users. Jokowi's fresh and vibrant outlook on Indonesia's economy, which is still somewhat reliant on commodity exports, was reflected in his message inscribed at Facebook's headquarters. 'Peaceful together in harmony,' Jokowi wrote with pink chalk on the chalkboard wall at one of the world's largest companies, with much laughter and light moments with Zuckerberg ' who toured Tanah Abang market, Jakarta, with the President in late 2014 ' as well as a dozen or so Indonesian workers. At Twitter's headquarters in downtown San Fransisco, where Jokowi met CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey, the President was quick to record a live video of his activities there through the Periscope app that directly uploads to his Twitter account @jokowi. There he also live-tweeted: 'We invite @twitter to spread the word of tolerance and world peace.' Wahyu Dinata Setiawan, 34, and Karl Karnadi, 33, both Indonesian workers at Facebook, said they appreciated the government's support of start-ups, adding that they were thinking of opening their own business in Indonesia in the future. Jokowi's visit to the tech giants' headquarters was part of his official agenda after attending the two-day US-ASEAN Summit that ended on Tuesday, where he spoke as part of a national leaders counterterrorism panel aimed at addressing the growing need for moderation, tolerance and peace amid the increasing threat of terrorism. _________________________________________ 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 Safrin La Batu and Corry Elyda (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, February 19, 2016 After officially receiving their first eviction notices on Thursday, some residents of Kalijodo have begun packing while others still have no idea where to go should the evictions planned for March go ahead. Those who were packing mostly had the option to stay with relatives while the rest have nowhere to go, as promised low-cost rental apartments (rusunawa) have yet to be confirmed. Kalijodo is the longtime home to a well-known red-light district and is located in both North Jakarta and West Jakarta. Thirty-one-year-old Maisaroh could not hide her anxiety when officials from Penjaringan subdistrict of North Jakarta ' where most of Kalijodo is located ' visited her and checked her identity card and documents related to the land on which her home stands. 'Is this your house or do you just rent it?' asked Muhammad Andri, secretary of Penjaringan subdistrict. 'This is my house, sir,' Maisaroh replied as she passed a folder containing documents such as family card, tax invoices and electricity bills. She also showed her North Jakarta ID card. Andri, who arrived with dozens of military, police and Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) personnel, jotted down information in his notes before leaving for another house. The officials visited the residents to deliver the first notice and to check who among the affected residents is eligible for a rusunawa unit after the planned evictions. The first notice is normally issued about 10 days before the eviction eventually takes place. 'If the administration demolishes my house, how can I feed my family?' asked Maisaroh, who earns money from renting her house's garage as motorcycle parking for customers of nearby cafes and bars. 'I will lose my income. Besides, my two children also attend a nearby elementary school,' she said, adding that on average she received Rp 200,000 (US$14.84) a night from renting the garage. Maisaroh lives in the house with her husband, two children, two younger siblings and her mother, who also runs a small kiosk in front of her house. 'We have been living here since I was a child more than 20 years ago.' Unlike, Maisaroh, 50-year-old Atun is ready to leave, having started to pack her belongings and taking them to a relative's house after she received the notice. 'What can I do? I have to pack these items, if not the administration will damage them and I will suffer even more,' she said as she placed items in a cardboard box. Atun lives in a small house which she also uses to sell cigarettes, coffee and basic foods. 'I plan to temporarily stay in my relative's house until I can find a place to stay,' she said. Both Maisaroh and Atun have rejected the administration's offer to relocate them to an a rusunawa because they fear will not be able to pay the rent. City administration data show that Kalijodo has 3,052 residents, 1,405 of them have jobs related to the area's nightlife. This includes 450 prostitutes, 300 waitresses, 100 security guards and parking wardens and 300 support workers such as cleaners. The remainder have jobs or businesses unrelated to the area's nightlife. Governor Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama said recently that the administration would turn Kalijodo into a green area as it sits within the administration's map of open green space. On Thursday, a councilor from the Gerindra Party, Muhammad Sanusi, criticized the city's hasty move to clear Kalijodo. 'The administration should first familiarize residents [with its plans] and have a dialogue with them,' he said. 'Sticking circular letters in people's doors is not familiarization,' he said. Sanusi said Kalijodo had serious social problems, so the approach needed to be deeper and more comprehensive. 'Bringing in the police and army to evict people is a cowardly action,' he said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin The Jakarta Post Fri, February 19, 2016 Your comments on the government's demand that instant messaging apps remove stickers featuring same-sex couples, in the latest high-profile attempt to discourage visible homosexuality: 'Homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia, but is a sensitive issue in the Muslim-majority nation of more than 250 million people.' Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Gafatar and others are also sensitive issues to the government. Will they be targeted next? Basic freedom of expression is being dismantled piece by piece in a country that claims to be a democracy and the ever famous and oft-cited Pancasila. Willo Minister, can you give us one example of somebody who has changed his or her sexual preference because of these emoticons? Jak Make your own sharia messaging apps and leave the rest of the world alone! Jakartad This is a blatant diversionary tactic by the government. Get people in a lather over an issue like this, and in the meantime they'll deliberate a law that they don't want people to notice. Braem As the venerable Vice President has made clear, 'Any law can be changed, including the Constitution.' Surprised By Nothing Jusuf Kalla does not understand the concept of democracy. Alba2000 Corruption is illegal in Indonesia and is a sensitive issue in the Muslim-majority nation of more than 250 million people. Brucelee4444 The Indonesian government is about to pass a law that will strongly diminish the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), and people are arguing about stickers. Benam By the way, self-righteous Christians agree with their Muslim friends on the subject of gays, transgenders, bisexuals and lesbians. Hatred is common to all religions. It is not a crime to love someone of the same gender. NTH As if LGBT people won't be able to sidestep this nonsense with coded messages. Randomthought What nonsense! Who cares how people want to live their lives? Bilbobaggingz ______________________________________ Topic of the day Circumcision of women Half of girls under 11 years old in Indonesia are circumcised, according to the latest finding by UNICEF, raising awareness and a call for a ban on female genital mutilation in the predominantly Muslim country. What do you think? Send your thoughts by email, SMS, Twitter or Facebook. Include your name and city. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Khoirul Amin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, February 19, 2016 Textile industry players want effective implementation of economic stimulus packages to improve competitiveness as the country is moving toward free trade agreements with several countries. Indonesian Textile Association (API) chairman Ade Sudrajat said on Thursday his group praised the 10 stimulus packages issued by the government, but he added that they needed to be better implemented. 'The stimulus packages are a response to our concerns and it has provided certainty for business. However, the implementation can still be improved,' he told a press conference. Ade said the group particularly highlights implementation of the stimulus packages that mainly have to do with electricity price cuts, gas price reductions and income tax incentives. The government's third stimulus package stipulates that industrial activities get electricity price cuts from 11 p.m. to 8 a.m. However, the textile industry and the state electricity company PLN, which supplies the power, interpret the stipulation differently. Based on PLN's understanding, the price cut will only be given to companies consuming more than they usually do every day. The textile industry, meanwhile, says the price cut should be given to industrial activities during the specified timeframe regardless of the amount of their power consumption. 'We're asking for a further discussion with PLN, the Finance Ministry and the Office of the Economic Coordinating Minister on the matter,' he added. Ade said his association also requested lower gas prices for the textile industry. In the government's seventh stimulus package, the government reduced gas prices for the textile industry from US$12 per million British thermal unit (mbbtu) to $9 per mbbtu, while in fact oil exported to Singapore is priced at $3.70 per mbbtu, he said. Benny Soetrisno, chairman of the API's board of advisors, welcomed the economic packages as they provide more business certainty. He said, however, a relatively high production cost ' because of electricity and gas prices ' has made local products less competitive. In addition, Benny said Indonesia's trade deal with the European Union under the Indonesia-EU Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) and participation in the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would help boost exports of its textiles and textile products. 'From the textile industry's point of view, we're basically ready to join the TPP. However, the government should also make sure that other sectors, such as services, are well prepared,' he said. The API's data show that Indonesia's textile industry had benefited from a free trade agreement with Japan. Exports of Indonesia's textiles and textile products surged from only $572.4 million in 2008, when the Indonesia-Japan economic partnership was first implemented, to $1.4 billion in 2014, according to the API's data. Indonesia's worldwide exports, meanwhile, only increased a little from $8.6 billion in 2005 to $12.7 billion in 2014, with exports to major markets in the US and Europe having slightly increased throughout the years. Vietnam enjoyed surging exports worldwide from $5.3 billion in 2005 to $26.2 billion in 2014. Vietnam has a trade deal with the EU and it is now in the process of ratifying the TPP along with another 11 signatories. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Mark Heyward and Handoko Widagdo (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, February 19, 2016 Indonesian soldiers are not deployed to only tackle defense and sovereignty problems. Promoting education is a part of their daily routine as well. The recess bell rang and a hoard of children spilled out of the classroom. Immediately, they stormed a soldier from the Indonesian Military (TNI) who had parked his motorbike in their school yard. But this was no conflict. The soldier was smiling and the children were soon scrambling to get their hands on the books he had brought. This scene, now familiar in Aceh, took place at a junior high school in Blang Pidie, the administrative seat of Southwest Aceh regency. The soldier is a member of Prajurit Pendekar Baca, or Reading Brigade, from the 0110/Abdya Military District Command (Kodim) overseeing the regency. Abdya is an Indonesian acronym for Southwest Aceh. Shortly afterwards, the Kodim chief Lt. Col. Suhartono, who had been watching from outside the school gates, entered the school to talk with the principal and some of the teachers. Since 2014, the Southwest Aceh Kodim has been running the Reading Brigade program, a mobile library that regularly visits villages throughout the regency. Each Reading Brigade motorcycle can carry a hundred books. The soldier stops when he comes across a crowd or visits schools. The program was first begun by the Kodim 0107/South Aceh. However, Southwest Aceh Kodim has developed it even further. 'The key is our cooperation with the regional library,' said Suhartono. 'As a result of this cooperation, Reading Brigade soldiers can carry many more books and much more variety.' The effort is also supported by the Aceh provincial library and archives head, who coined the name Prajurit Pendekar Baca, which literally means 'reading warrior soldier'. With the support of the provincial library and archive, together with the regency library, the mobile library program is now growing quickly. While initially there was only one, there are now six motorbikes ready to serve the community and schools in the villages of Southwest Aceh. 'Actually, the integration of the TNI with the people in Aceh has been going on for a long time and it is improving all the time,' said Suhartono. 'But it should be recognized that this mobile library program has made a substantial contribution to school children, who are no longer afraid of the Army.' Karisa Nasyitas, a student in the third grade at Madrasah Ibtidaiyah Muhammadiyah in Blang Pidie, clearly agrees. 'I love it that when the soldiers bring books,' she said. 'I'm not scared of them anymore, just a little shy. I really hope that the soldiers will always come to our school because reading is my hobby.' Community youth leader Fakrul Razi from Alue Padee village in Kuala Batee said he was really pleased with the Reading Brigade. 'The books they bring connect well with the villagers,' he noted. 'Apart from getting knowledge from the books that the soldiers bring, the program also creates a friendly atmosphere between the community and the military.' On Jan. 14 this year, Southwest Aceh formally declared itself a 'reading culture regency'. The event, attended by thousands of children, was opened by Erwanto, the vice regent, who revealed that the program was a collaborative effort between the Southwest Aceh Education Agency, the Religious Affairs Ministry's Southwest Aceh Regional Office and USAID. A new decree issued by the regent requires that all children spend the first fifteen minutes of each school day reading. The role of the Reading Brigade in helping make a success of the district's efforts to encourage reading will be crucial. Handoko Widagdo, a coordinator from USAID, said that the project was working well in over 90 regencies and municipalities in eight provinces. 'This USAID program is a five-year project funded by the US,' he said. 'We work together with the Indonesian Government to provide training for teachers and school heads. We also work with teacher training institutes and districts to improve the management of schools and teachers. But one of the most exciting things is the work we do to improve literacy and develop a reading culture.' Over 10 regions in Indonesia have declared themselves reading culture regions, with Southwest Aceh being the first in Aceh, said Handoko. USAID is also providing teachers with a mixture of fiction and non-fiction books. 'It's not just about studying. It's about reading for pleasure, learning to love literature,' said Handoko. 'And the soldiers from the Reading Brigade can really help by bringing books to the schools and villages.' ' Photos courtesy of USAID Prioritas Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Fedina S. Sundaryani and Ina Parlina (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, February 19, 2016 The government has put in isolation a number of the country's top terrorists, including radical clerics Aman Abdurrahman and Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, to prevent them from spreading firebrand propaganda to fellow inmates and to cut them off from terror networks. The terror convicts were transferred from the Kembang Kuning prison on Nusakambangan Island off the coast of Cilacap in Central Java to the Pasir Putih prison on the same island, a prison warden said. Pasir Putih prison warden Hendra Eka Putra said the five terrorist convicts ' Aman, Ba'asyir, Heri Kuncoro, Abrory and Iwan Darmawan Mutho alias Rois ' had all been moved to Pasir Putih and put in isolation cells. 'We only open their doors for meals and they are constantly monitored by security cameras,' he said, adding that the maximum-security prison had only seven guards. The terrorists each occupy a 2-meter-square cell that features a thin mattress, a sink and a toilet. Their cells are separated by 13 others in order to avoid the high-profile terrorists communicating with each other. Meanwhile, Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly confirmed on Thursday that Aman had been transferred. 'Aman Abdurrahman was moved from Kembang Kuning to Pasir Putih to separate him from his network at Kembang Kuning and outside [the prison]. No one can visit him now,' Yasonna said, adding that the radical cleric had been given his own block to prevent him from communicating with other prisoners. Aman was sentenced in 2004 to seven years in prison for a failed terror plot. A bomb made by his group was prematurely detonated at a hideout in Depok, West Java. During his time in prison, Aman met Ba'asyir between 2005 and 2006, before he was released in 2008 after receiving remissions for good behavior. Aman's freedom was short-lived and in 2010 he was sentenced to a further nine years in prison for helping to form a joint terrorism training camp in Aceh. Although Aman remains behind bars, the police have accused his followers of involvement in several terror plots, and of luring others to join the Islamic State (IS) movement. Hendra said the five convicts were still allowed visitors, limited to five family members, but were not allowed to receive packages from visitors in order to avoid communication with radical groups outside the prison. Separately, National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) chief Comr. Gen. Saud Usman Nasution said Aman was one of 68 terror convicts across the nation that the agency had deemed uncooperative. 'We have tried [to communicate] with Aman but it is very difficult. We are trying to find a method to change his ways,' he said. Saud acknowledged that Aman would be released soon with little hope of being deradicalized, but said the BNPT could do nothing about it as Aman had met all his obligations. Data from the BNPT shows that there are currently 204 terror convicts in 24 prisons across the nation, while 598 former terrorist convicts have joined their groups after serving prison terms. A recent terrorist attack near Jakarta's Sarinah department store, however, raised questions on whether existing correctional and deradicalization programs have been successful. Isolating terror inmates may prevent them from luring fellow prisoners to join their cause but, without comprehensive disengagement programs, it may not solve the problem in the long run, an expert said. 'Because isolation is not consistent with the objectives of correction and deradicalization,' said Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM) researcher Wahyudi Djafar, who is familiar with both terrorism and human-rights issues. The BNPT and correctional facilities, Wahyudi said, could instead collaborate to introduce disengagement programs that would not only assist inmates in cutting their ties with radical leaders, but also assess their progress, as well as providing them with rehabilitation and helping them to reintegrate successfully into the community. 'Isolating a terror convict is allowed if it is based on a court order and as long as they ensure that his basic rights are met,' Wahyudi said. _________________________________________ 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 The Jakarta Post Fri, February 19, 2016 The central government, through the Committee for the Acceleration of Priority Infrastructure Delivery (KPPIP), is set to release around 30 priority infrastructure projects across the country to help boost economic growth. The following list comprises five of the planned projects that are based in Jakarta. Airport express line The idea to build a train line connecting the city with Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Cengkareng, Tangerang, has been included in the plans of ministries for years. However, the execution of the construction project is far from easy. While state-run railway company PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI) is constructing the extension of the commuter line from Batu Ceper in Tangerang to the airport, the Transportation Ministry is considering another project, dubbed the Express Line. The ministry's railway directorate general spokesperson Joice Hutajulu said recently that the Express Line might connect Halim Perdanakusuma airport in East Jakarta to Soekarno-Hatta via Manggarai in South Jakarta, Dukuh Atas in Central Jakarta and Pluit in North Jakarta. 'The commuter line train will have to stop at each station, while the express lines will have limited stops,' she said. Joice said, however, that the route was not yet fixed. 'We are waiting for further instruction to finalize the plan,' she said, adding that the ministry had not made any concrete move to realize the plan. Joice said that the ministry would also coordinate with affected regions like the Jakarta administration and Banten province. 'The project comprises many aspects, including city spatial planning, land acquisition and land use,' she said. Mass Rapid Transit Although the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) project phase I connecting Lebak Bulus in South Jakarta to the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle (Bundaran HI) in Central Jakarta is only 38 percent complete, the central government is already planning the other phases, especially the extension of Phase I from the traffic circle to Kampung Bandan in North Jakarta as well as the corridor connecting the east and west of Jakarta. The construction of the 8-kilometer phase II will start before Phase I is finished and is targeted to be completed in 2020. According to PT MRT Jakarta, the phase II feasibility study has already been completed. Joice said the ministry would start to build the basic design for the east-west corridor. 'Although according to the initial plan, the line will extend to Tangerang and Bekasi, we will start with the one in Jakarta first,' she said, adding that the ministry was now preparing for the bidding documents. Light Rapid Transit (LRT) of Greater Jakarta Although deemed an ineffective mode of transportation due to its small passenger capacity, Light Rapid Transit (LRT) seems to be a new favorite of the central government and the city administration. Unlike the administration's inner-city LRT project, which is still in limbo, the central government held a groundbreaking ceremony to launch the project in September last year. State-owned developer Adhi Karya has been tasked with building the two routes: the 24-kilometer line connecting Cibubur to Cawang in East Jakarta and the 18-kilometer line connecting Bekasi Timur to Cawang and Dukuh Atas in Central Jakarta. Joice said that after both projects were completed, Adhi Karya would also build another one connecting Bogor in West Java to Cibubur. Jakarta Waste Management System The central government announced its plan on Feb. 6 to develop waste-based power plants as part of an effort to resolve acute garbage problems in seven cities ' Jakarta, Bandung, Tangerang, Semarang, Surabaya, Surakarta and Makassar. Although the central government has yet to give detailed plans regarding the project, Sanitation Agency head Isnawa Adji said that the city itself had several big projects to tackle garbage problems. Isnawa said the city was currently finalizing the bidding for the Sunter Intermediate Treatment Facility (ITF) in North Jakarta. 'We will start construction soon and we aim to finish it in 2018,' he said, adding that the ITF would have a capacity of 1,000 tons per day. The city administration spends at least Rp 400 billion (US$30 million) in annual fees to the private operator of Bantar Gebang landfill in Bekasi . The city of 10 million people produces 6,700 to 7,000 tons of garbage a day. NCICD Phase I On hiatus for more than a year after its groundbreaking by then coordinating economic minister Chairul Tanjung, the central government eventually reopened discussions on Phase A of the National Coastal Integrated Capital Development (NCICD) project, which includes the strengthening of the 94 kilometers of existing sea walls and river embankments. Phase A will be funded by the central government and city administration, with private companies receiving permits for the construction of 17 planned man-made islets off the north coast. Governor Basuki 'Ahok' Tjahaja Purnama said recently that the city would construct the embankment to a height of 3.8 meters, which a width of 20 meters, along the 65-kilometer coastline, adding that the ground-breaking ceremony for the project would be conducted in March or April. 'It is expected to be completed in 2017,' he said. Share this article Whatsapp Facebook Twitter Linkedin Hendri Yulius (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta Fri, February 19, 2016 Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues have been dominating national debate. Most opponents argue that homosexuality is contagious and have accused the LGBT community, alongside the media, of converting young heterosexuals. Some are also afraid of the possibility of Indonesians demanding the legalization of same-sex marriage. However, these arguments neglect both the historical and cultural context of the Indonesian LGBT movement and assume that all LGBT movements worldwide share the objective of legalizing same-sex marriage. In Indonesia, the LGBT movement developed from the establishment of a male-to-female waria (transgender) organization, Himpunan Wadam Djakarta (Hiwad), in the late 1960s. To assist a 'psychologically and socially disabled' group, the late Jakarta governor Ali Sadikin facilitated its establishment. Waria then became the recipient of government support, mainly through the Social Affairs Ministry. On the other hand, although same-sex practices were common in many ethnolinguistic groups in Indonesia, according to scholar Tom Boellstorff, the term 'gay' as an identity marker appears to have emerged in the 1970s, following the formation of small urban gay 'friendship networks' and organizations in the 1980s. Indonesian mass media published articles on the gay liberation movement in the West, playing a crucial role in helping Indonesian gays and lesbians identify their sexuality, locate and name their own sexual desires. However, the process of identification did not really translate the entire meaning of the concept of Western homosexuality. In his book, The Gay Archipelago, Boellstorff contends that 'gay and lesbi [sic] Indonesians instead dubbed dominant heterosexual models of love that in the contemporary period were shaped by the state's family principle.' In short, they married heterosexually and had no interest in defending their rights and sexual identities, as in Western-style gay activism. Three gay men formed in 1982 the first official Indonesian gay organization established in Surabaya, East Java, under the name of Lambda Indonesia (LI), after continuous communication and discussion involving nearly 100 gay men across the archipelago for almost a year. One of the founders was prominent gay activist and Cornell University graduate linguist Dede Oetomo. Far from advocating same-sex marriage, the primary objectives of the first gay organization were to provide and encourage communication and contact with gay men living far from urban life, as well as mainstream behavioral change and self-acceptance among gay men. In addition, LI also offered counseling services for gay men to address and mitigate their anxieties and internal conflict. At the time homosexuals were perceived as social deviants suffering from mental illness. To reach out and educate the gay community nationwide about sexuality, LI produced eight editions of G: Gaya Hidup Ceria zines ' dated from Aug. 1, 1982 to Nov. 8, 1984. Since its establishment, LI has maintained contact with gay activists in Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. However, these contacts did not mean that LI copied the whole-concept of the Western gay emancipation. For instance, in the article entitled 'Homoseks: Siapa dia?' (Homosexuals: Who are they?), apart from adapting basic knowledge on homosexuality from Western publications, the writer also included historical facts about sexual diversity in Indonesian culture, such as gemblak in East Java, kawe in South Kalimantan, and mairil (male same-sex practices) in Islamic boarding schools. Hence, gay emancipation, according to LI, could not be disassociated from the Indonesian historical context, in which homosexual practices were inherent parts of cultural traditions in some ethno-linguistic groups. Dede then wrote that LI was also intended to 'restore the traditions of same-sex compassion that were respected in ancient Indonesia.' While coming out was considered a crucial part of liberation in the Western gay movement, Toto ' one of the authors ' suggested that having considered the potentials of disappointing families and close relatives, coming out as a gay man was neither imperative nor compulsory. Since individualism was not considered an Indonesian value, there were two options when addressing the matter of coming out. First, one could 'come out' as a gay man if he was psychologically ready. Second, one could keep his orientation confidential, while enhancing self-confidence to prepare himself if someday his secret was exposed. With this distinction in mind, marriage equality was not a part of gay Indonesians' aspirations. Coming out to their families still remained the greatest challenge. If the state legalized same-sex partnerships, it has been predicted that only a few gay Indonesians would register their partnerships, since they were not ready to disclose their sexual identity publically. In 1983, LI also offered a solution for gay men who intended to sustain their romantic relationships. In one of the articles, Toto said that homosexuals living together had no issues under Indonesia's legal code. Law did not prohibit two men from living under the same roof. Society also would not question two single men living together. For example, men staying in the same hotel room would not raise eyebrows, compared to unmarried heterosexual couples. It is thus clear that since the early gay movement, marriage equality has never been the goal of the movement. How could Indonesian LGBT persons strive for marriage equality, while many were still beaten up, harassed and fired from their jobs, just because of their sexual orientation and gender identity? Until today, educating and advocating the end to discriminatory practices, as well as instilling self-worth for LGBT persons are still the primary objectives of the Indonesian LGBT movement. However, society's double standard remains the main obstacle. The opponents keep spreading hatred and unreasonable judgment, while LGBT people are not given much space to talk from their own perspectives. If they do talk, the conservatives would then accuse them of 'propagandizing homosexuality'. What is that, if not tyranny and bigotry? _________________________________ The author, who obtained his Masters in public policy from the National University of Singapore, is the writer of Coming Out and a gender and sexuality studies lecturer. Mass protests are planned in New York and in communities across the country tomorrow following the conviction of former police officer Peter Liang. He was found guilty earlier this month in the fatal shooting of a man in a public housing stairwell in Brooklyn. Many Chinese Americans have denounced the verdict as unjust. Now City Council member Margaret Chin is out with a statement regarding Liang: I have asked my Council colleagues to join me to ask for leniency in the case involving Peter Liang. As a mother, my heart goes out to Peter Liang and his family, who are facing the possibility of Peter going to prison for up to 15 years. There are two main factors that I am asking Judge Chun to consider when he gives out his sentence. First, I believe that the NYPDs policy and training utterly failed Akai Gurley, as well as Peter Liang and his partner, on the tragic night of Nov. 20, 2014. Two rookie police officers should never have been placed on a vertical patrol in an unfamiliar, darkened stairwell. Second, and just as important, is the culture of neglect that darkened that stairwell, and many others just like it in public housing projects across our City. Lack of funding and decades of indifference have turned hundreds of stairwells, elevators, and courtyards into danger zones that inspire fear and often, terror in both officers and the residents they are sworn to protect. What happened on Nov. 20 was a tragedy for both families. I ask that Judge Chun give the many factors that made that tragedy happen due consideration in the sentencing of Peter Liang. Last year, Chin called for the indictment of Liang, saying it would be an important step toward reforming the police department. She told the New York Times, Let the judicial system take its course We can reform the whole system so everyone can get equal treatment. Her stance has, of course, been controversial in Chinatown and could become a political liability in the next election cycle. The New York Times today is zeroing in on the campaign to replace former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver in the New York State Assembly. Reporter Vivian Yee compares and contrasts the race to fill the Long Island seat of former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos with the contest in Lower Manhattan, where Silver was a larger than life figure for decades. Both Albany leaders were convicted of corruption charges late last year and forced from office. Yee writes, It seemed safe to assume that the special elections would come down to which of their would-be successors could offer the greatest contrast to the two politicians. While the candidates in the Skelos campaign seem determined to run far away from Skelos, the Times notes, the reform issue has played very differently in Lower Manhattan, where Mr. Silver, a Democrat, ruled local politics for four decades as an assemblyman and then speaker of the Assembly, dispensing large amounts of pork along the way. Theres a recounting of the meeting earlier this month of the Democratic County Committee, in which about 180 party activists chose longtime district leader Alice Cancel to run in the April 19 special election. In an interview with The Lo-Down a few days later, Cancel said of Silver: For us, he was a hero because of the things he brought to our community, because of the schools that we didnt have that were built because of his negotiations to get it done for the community. The money that he poured in (to the community) for our seniors, for our daycare (centers), for our Head Start (programs). Why would we be attacking him? The Times picked up not only on Cancels depiction of Silver as a hero, but also on the major role played by the Truman Democratic Club, Silvers political organization, in picking her to replace the former Lower East Side power broker: Ms. Cancels path from reluctant candidate to front-runner is not only a case study in local politics, but also a testament to Mr. Silvers continued influence, despite the high probability that he will go to prison after he is sentenced in a few months Oh, man, theres an odor emanating from the process, both in a systemic sense and in a structural sense, said Doug Muzzio, a political scientist at Baruch College, who has watched the districts politics. Its got this Alice in Wonderland quality. Especially troubling for some observers was the role played by Mr. Silver and his friends, most prominently Judy Rapfogel, his former chief of staff. Her husband, William E. Rapfogel, is a former Jewish community leader who is serving time in federal prison for stealing more than $9 million from the charity he ran Ms. Rapfogel and Mr. Silver did not say why they supported Ms. Cancel, who moved to the Bronx from Puerto Rico as a child and now works for the city comptroller, Scott M. Stringer Ms. Rapfogel and several of her relatives attended the vote on Sunday, committee members said, clapping heartily as Ms. Cancels victory was announced Government watchdogs and reform supporters in the district assailed Ms. Cancels selection, concerned that she would be no more than a conveniently placed front for Mr. Silver and his allies. The Times story goes on to discuss one of several challengers taking on the Democratic nominee: The mechanics of the selection process so disgusted one of Ms. Cancels opponents, Yuh-Line Niou, the chief of staff to Assemblyman Ron Kim, Democrat of Queens, that Ms. Niou dropped out of the running in her nomination speech on Sunday, calling it undemocratic. Even if committee members felt free to defy their club endorsements, she and other critics said, individual members votes were weighted, giving more power to election districts that had higher turnout in the 2014 governors race I think that anybody would be bothered by how the system worked, Ms. Niou said in an interview. I dont think that its right. It should be noted that Niou and the political club backing her, the United Democratic Organization (UDO), actively sought the support of the Truman Club. The groups founder, Virginia Kee, has spoken in glowing terms about what she feels Sheldon Silver did over the years to support the Chinatown community. On the day of the County Committee vote, several sources told us, Niou and UDO members gathered for breakfast at the Grand Street cooperatives with Truman Club leaders. It was during this meeting that Niou learned the Truman Club would be throwing its support behind Cancel. Hours later, Niou announced her withdrawal from the County Committee election. State President Truong Tan Sang and Gunma prefecture's Governor Osawa Masaaki (Source: VNA) The leader made the appeal at a reception for a visiting delegation from Gunma prefecture led by Governor Osawa Masaaki in Hanoi on February 18th. He hailed Gunma for supporting 3,000 Vietnamese working and studying in the prefecture, helping them gather experience and improve their professional qualifications. Lauding a memorandum of understanding on investment promotion between Gunma and Vietnams Ministry of Planning and Investment, the President suggested the prefecture bring investors to his country, which now houses many Japanese businesses. The host noted his hope that the Japanese delegations visit will significantly contribute to enhancing relations between Vietnam and Japan as well as Gunma prefecture, particularly in economy. He applauded the Japanese localitys efforts in forming the Gunma-Vietnam Friendship Parliamentarians Group, saying Gunmas initiatives and activities will help boost cooperation and exchange between the two countries. Governor Osawa Masaaki said apart from technology and support industry, Gunma has welcomed many Vietnamese students majoring in agriculture. He said after touring a number of Japanese enterprises in Vietnam, he realised that Gunma and the Southeast Asian nation still hold substantial cooperation opportunities. The Japanese side said Gunma has many small and medium-sized enterprises whose production capacity ranks second in Japan. They extended their wish to set up a close link between the two countries businesses./. She might have taken on everything from flighty Austen heroines to Nazi war criminals, but ruthless Russian mob wife still isnt a role that we would predict for Kate Winslet so if youre not aware of what youre about to see, Triple 9 might come as a bit of a shock. She isnt predictable, exactly wed prefer reliable - but we can usually take a stab at her next role, and it doesnt often involve an Eastern European accent or a foot-high mountain of hairspray. She isnt predictable, exactly wed prefer reliable - but we can usually take a stab at her next role, and it doesnt often involve an Eastern European accent or a foot-high mountain of hairspray. Winslets characters are almost always strong, though IMDB describes her back catalogue as being crammed with devilish damsels so maybe it makes sense that shes stepping this roguish quality up more than a couple of notches in this John Hillcoat-directed heist thriller. In Triple 9 Winslet is the central female antagonist in an extremely masculine world of corrupt coppers and Russian gangs on the tough side of Atlanta. The stellar ensemble cast also features Breaking Bads Aaron Paul, future Wonder Woman Gal Gadot, Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. Its undoubtedly a departure. So, was she taken aback to be offered the script? The answer, unequivocally, is yes: Its nothing, she says, like anything Ive ever done before. At all. She is quick to admit that shes a long-time fan of the storytelling John Hillcoat (the director most famous for The Road, The Proposition and Lawless) and it was the prospect of working with him as well as wanting to be thrown back in at the deep end after having her third child that made her take on the role of Irina. It was exciting, she says, to be involved, and to do something so very different. The need to be kicked back to reality came after the birth of her son Buddy, which led her just for a selfish acting standpoint to want a short, sharp jolt back into reality. I wanted to be terrified; I wanted to feel out of my comfort zone, and to work with a great group of people and to give (myself) that feeling back. Triple 9 certainly did all of the above. In the film, Kates character Irina Vlasov is a mob wife, commanding her husbands empire whilst he sits out a prison term and she isnt averse to using children as bait to get what she wants. Being such a different character from the ones that she usually takes on and having just had a baby herself, this part of the character absolutely was difficult to get to grips with. Irina is characterised by money and lack of taste big hair, big nails, spiked boots and is wholly distinctive as the cruel and manipulative wife of an incarcerated villain. It was one of the first times, Winslet says, as an actor, where I couldnt identify with this character at all. I couldnt empathise, I couldnt make peace with anything she did or said; I certainly couldnt make peace with anything she wore. Her hair was... questionable. But it was fun to do something so different. It was fun to wear those horrible costumes, and have this great big hair-do. She had to look as though she believed she was put together, and well-dressed, when actually she looked a bit like a trashy slut. But that was part of the plan: the nails a bit too long and not a very nice colour, the hair just a bit too high, two inches of re-growth... red boots with red tights with a red coat. These are just not choices I would make. But it was really fun. The costume especially a costume as prominent as this one changes everything, really. Until the costume goes on or in some cases comes off... it changes absolutely everything. I dont think you can fully play that part until the look is put together. The film might have been full of violence, much of it at the hands of Kates character, but its fair to say that she didnt get off set entirely unscathed herself. One pivotal moment sees Winslet and Chiwetel Ejiofor in a restaurant, in a scene that didnt finish filming until 2am. Wrapping for the night, one probably now forever shamefaced extra managed to drop his chair on Kates foot. Her big toe is, she says matter-of-factly, Still broken. It still bends out. Some might say that this minor bit of violence being inflicted on such a dislikeable character towards the end of filming might have been karma getting its own back. Even so, would she play a villain again? It doesnt appear to be something that she has fully considered - going as she did straight into Insurgent after filming Triple 9 (the spread-out nature of filming meant a visit to the Triple 9 set whilst filming the former, again in Atlanta, finally convinced fellow cast member Anthony Mackie that she was in the film and that Hillcoat wasnt lying to him), probably means that she hasnt had time to consider long-term career moves over the last couple of years. There have been two other films since then Steve Jobs, for which she picked up a BAFTA just a day after our chat, and the less critically acclaimed The Dressmaker so a return to drama and human emotion, so devoid in Irina, is clearly still her main calling. Shes enthusiastic about the idea of exercising her villainous side again, though. I loved, I really, absolutely loved it, she says. So probably, yes. It didnt feel comfortable, in any way shape or form. I really did have to view it all as a story its a character, its made up, its not real. Its not real! But yes, Id love to. Its very much a different genre for me. It was so much fun to be part of something so different. So yes, probably. Hopefully. Triple 9 is out in UK cinemas now. Le Hai Binh, Spokesman of the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs "Viet Nam is deeply concerned about the above-mentioned actions of China. These actions seriously infringe Viet Nam's sovereignty over the Paracel Archipelago, threaten the regional peace and stability as well as security, safety and freedom of navigation and overflight in the East Sea. Viet Nam asks China to immediately stop such erroneous actions. On February 19th2016, representatives of the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry met with representatives of the Chinese Embassy in Ha Noi to hand over a diplomatic note of objection to China's actions violating Viet Nam's sovereignty over the Paracel Archipelago. On the same day, the Permanent Mission of Viet Nam to the United Nations also sent a diplomatic note to the United Nations Secretary-General, requesting the diplomatic note to the Chinas Embassy in Ha Noi to be officially circulated./. Unfortunately, The Content Is Not Here You have arrived at this page because the page or post you were looking for no longer exists. Please check our main navigation pages for other content: Home Page Tentang Situs Slot Online Resmi MGS88 Nama Situs MGS88 Minimal Deposit Rp. 10.000,- (Sepuluh Ribu Rupiah) Proses Deposit 2 Menit Metode Deposit Bank Transfer, Pulsa, E-Wallet Judi Online Terbaik Slot Online, Judi Bola, Casino Online, Togel Online, Tembak Ikan Provider Slot Gacor Mudah Maxwin Pragmatic Play, PGSoft, MicroGaming, Habanero Slot Gacor Gampang Menang Gates of Olympus, Sweet Bonanza, Wild West Gold, Starlight Princess Win Rate 98% RTP Live Slot Gacor Tertinggi Hari Ini Terbaru Terlengkap Selamat datang di halaman RTP live dan informasi soal slot gacor hari ini dari situs MGS88 yang setiap hari selalu update. Berdasarkan RTP Live MGS88, Anda bisa mendapatkan informasi tentang slot online yang saat ini yang sedang Gacor atau onfire dengan persentase yang terbukti akurat, ini bisa menjadi rekomendasi anda sebelum memilih permainan slot online di situs MGS88. Cek RTP Slot sekarang juga bosku Klik Provider Slot Untuk Mengetahui RTP Slot Secara Real Time Selamat datang bagi kalian yang sedang mencari situs RTP Live terlengkap dan terkini hari ini. Sangat sesuai jika Anda mengunjungi website MGS88 RTP live untuk informasi tentang permainan slot yang lagi gacor dengan slot RTP yang terupdate. Persentase kemenangan yang kami berikan tentunya diambil dengan data yang sangat valid dan hanya untuk permainan slot yang tersedia di situs MGS88. RTP yang tersedia juga akan selalu diperbarui setiap hari berdasarkan level kemenangan yang diberikan kepada member kami. Memang sih untuk bermain slot itu tergantung hoki dari setiap pemain, Namun RTP live atau bocoran slot dari yang kami sediakan ini adalah data autentik dari banyaknya pemain yang telah bermain dan mencapai kemenangan tinggi. Sederhananya, kalau banyak pemain yang menang di dalam 1 permainan slot, karena itu permainan slot tersebut akan mempunyai persentase RTP yang sangat tinggi. Namun kami tegaskan sekali lagi, ini bukan sebuah paksaan kami situs MGS88 untuk anda bermain di game slot yang mana. Ini bisa dijadikan sebagai referensi atau tolok ukur, boleh dicoba kalau anda mempunyai feel yang kuat dalam memainkan permainan game slot. Anda dapat mengakses kapan saja dan di mana saja selama anda siap bermain. Jangan ragu untuk bertanya ya seputar pola putaran terhadap kami, sebab kami juga menyediakannya loh. Apa itu RTP Live? RTP Live ialah informasi mengenai persentase tertinggi saat ini dari hasil RTP Live dengan bocoran kemenangan pemain saat ini. RTP Live merupakan singkatan dari Return To Play atau bisa juga diartikan sebagai Return to Player. Karena itu, para pemain slot sekarang jika ingin mengetahui seberapa besar kemenangannya, bisa dengan memainkan permainan yang akan dimainkannya dan bisa untung dengan mudah dan tentunya maksimal. Apa itu RTP Slot? RTP Slot juga dikenal sebagai return to player atau pengembalian ke Pemain. RTP slot ialah persentase dari nilai pengembalian semua uang yang dipertaruhkan pemain dari waktu ke waktu. Dengan kata lain, RTP juga dianggap sebagai salah satu fitur slot yang mengembalikan uang pemain saat pemain kalah. Persentase digunakan untuk menghitung RTP dalam permainan slot. Misalnya, jika slot memiliki RTP 97%, itu berarti untuk setiap 100.000 koin yang hilang di slot, slot dapat mengembalikan 97.000. Jika Anda mengetahui RTP sebuah permainan slot, Anda dapat memutuskan permainan slot mana yang akan dimainkan tanpa kerugian besar. Apakah Angka Persentase RTP Slot Itu Penting? Biasanya pemain slot itu tidak memperhatikan RTP dalam permainan yang akan dimainkan, biasanya setelah anda mengisi saldo utama anda akan langsung buru-buru memainkannya. Yang terakhir 90-96% mempengaruhi jumlah kemenangan. Semakin tinggi jumlah RTP yang digunakan, semakin luas peluang untuk mendapatkan keuntungan. Akan namun itu segala tak secara 100% menjamin kemenangan kau dalam bermain, RTP itu cuma sebagai kalkulasi pengeluaran anda saja selama bermain slot.Dengan adanya RTP, kau dapat mengerjakan pengaturan atas uang yang akan kau pertaruhkan nanti pada ketika bermain.Untuk itu pada ketika kau bermain slot dan telah mengalami banyak kekalahan di satu permainan, direkomendasikan kau pindah ke permainan slot lainnya yang RTP nya lebih tinggi dari permainan yang tadi kau mainkan. Keuntungan Menggunakan Bocoran RTP Slot Hari Ini Situs MGS88 Akan dengan senang hati akan beberapa keuntungan yang didapatkan jika anda bermain slot dengan menggunakan RTP Live yang telah disediakan. Berikut Keuntungannya : Peluang Kemenangan Meningkat Tentu saja, saat bermain slot online, menang adalah hal yang paling penting. Di sinilah RTP berperan sebagai metode atau metode baru yang akan membantu Anda memilih permainan slot persentase tinggi. Mendapat variasi dalam Memainkan Game Slot Pastinya banyak pemain slot online yang hanya memainkan 3-5 permainan slot saja. Namun dengan RTP Live slot akan memberikan banyak game slot lain yang bisa anda coba. Tentunya semua permainan slot memiliki potensi kemenangan yang besar, jadi jangan hanya mengandalkan beberapa permainan saja. Menambah Pengalaman Dalam Bermain Slot Keuntungan terakhir adalah Anda tentu saja menambah pengalaman dan keahlian dalam permainan slot online. Dengan berbagai macam permainan slot yang dimainkan, Anda pasti mengetahui karakteristik dari setiap permainan slot yang Anda mainkan. Akibatnya, Anda pasti bisa dianggap sebagai pemain slot yang andal, yang pasti akan meningkatkan peluang Anda untuk menang besar menggunakan RTP. Daftar 8 Situs Dengan RTP Slot Live Tertinggi Hari Ini Ada banyak penyedia mesin slot online di internet. Tetapi tidak semuanya memiliki peluang tinggi atau RTP Live Slot yang sangat tinggi. Tapi jangan khawatir, berikut ini adalah situs slot gacor yang akan memberikan bocoran slot dengan RTP Live Tertinggi: RTP Live Slot Pragmatic Play (RTP Slot 97.85%) RTP Live Slot PG Soft (RTP Live 96.15%) RTP Live Slot Habanero (RTP Slot 95.89%) RTP Live Slot CQ9 (RTP Live 98.83%) RTP Live Slot Spade Gaming (RTP Live 94.99%) RTP Live Slot Micro Gaming (RTP Slot 95.39%) RTP Slot Live Top Trend Gaming (RTP Live 96.14%) RTP Slot Live JOKER123 (RTP Live 97.45%) Itulah Daftar 8 Provider Slot Gacor dengan RTP Live teratas diatas tentunya kami analisa terlebih dahulu. Anda bisa membuktikannya langsung dengan mengklik banner atau meprovider game slot yang sudah tersedia di atas. Saran kami yaitu Anda harus memainkan semua penyedia slot di atas untuk mencapai peluang kemenangan terbaik. Daftar Slot RTP Live Tertinggi Sering Kasih Jackpot Selain mempertimbangkan RTP Slot Gacor yang ada, sebenarnya ada banyak faktor penting untuk menang dalam permainan judi online. Sebab ada banyak game yang memiliki fitur dan mekanisme unik dan bisa membantu anda meraih Jackpot yang sangat besar. Berikut ini akan kami ulas daftar 5 game slot paling populer karena sering memberikan jackpot: RTP Live Gates of Olympus Gates of Olympus adalah game slot teraneh dan terbaik di Indonesia. Karena permainan mesin slot ini paling populer karena kakek Zeus dapat mengizinkan pengganda x500. Selain itu, fitur dan mekanik Gates of Olympus juga sangat menguntungkan untuk memenangkan Grand Jackpot. Secara teoritis, RTP slot langsung Gates of Olympus bernilai 96,50%, yang berarti peluang Anda untuk memenangkan MaxWin cukup tinggi. RTP live Sweet Bonanza Sweet Bonanza adalah permainan slot terpopuler kedua. Game slot bertema buah dan permen yang lezat ini sepertinya akan menarik banyak perhatian karena tergolong slot gacor yang mudah menang. Secara teoritis, slot Sweet Bonanza RTP bernilai 96,48%, yang berarti peluang Anda cukup tinggi untuk memenangkan jackpot. RTP Live Wild West Gold Wild West Gold adalah permainan slot bertema koboi yang juga populer di kalangan penggemar konspirasi. Permainan slot Wild West Gold sendiri kerap menawarkan kejutan jackpot bagi para pemainnya. Selain itu, nilai RTP Live Slot menunjukkan indeks tertinggi hari ini, yang berarti sangat layak dan sangat direkomendasikan. RTP Live Starlight Princess Slot Starlight Princess ini memiliki gaya dan fitur yang mirip dengan Gates of Olympus. Perbedaannya hanya pada desain dan karakter gamenya saja, karena memiliki fitur dan mekanik yang sama tentunya RTP slot teoritis pada game slot ini sama yaitu 96,50%. RTP Live Cash Elevator Mungkin sebagian dari Anda baru mengenal slot Cash Elevator. Namun dari data benchmark yang diungkap, ternyata banyak sekali yang menikmati permainan slot ini. Dengan fitur dan mekanisme unik seperti Lift up and down asli, slot ini juga memiliki slot RTP Live dasar 96,64% yang juga memiliki mekanisme yang sangat menguntungkan untuk memperlancar tingkat kemenangan besar. Bocoran Jam Main Slot Gacor Hari Ini Dalam bermain permainan slot online itu tidak bisa dilakukan dengan sembarangan yah. Jadi, Jika anda bermain pada waktu tertentu seperti yang akan kita bahas sesaat lagi, ada kemungkinan anda untuk mendapatkan kemenangan lebih tinggi. Jam RTP Slot Gacor merupakan bocoran jam main slot yang akan memberikan anda kapan waktu yang pas dalam bermain game slot. Tentu saja seluruh provider slot online memiliki jam tertentu dalam memberikan peluang kepada para pemainnya untuk mendapatkan kemenangan. Disini kami akan memberikan anda Bocoran Jam Slot Gacor yang Paling Akurat Hari ini: Jam Slot Gacor Pragmatic Play 02:30 WIB - Jam 05:25 WIB Jam Slot Gacor Habanero 14:26 WIB - Jam 17:38 WIB Jam Slot Gacor CQ9 00:45 WIB - Jam 05:53 WIB Jam Slot Gacor PG SOFT 14:25 WIB - Jam 17:35 WIB Jam Slot Gacor Joker123 17:41 WIB - Jam 20:42 WIB Jam Slot Gacor Microgaming 22:30 WIB - Jam 00:35 WIB MGS88: Situs Judi Slot Online Gacor Pay4D Resmi dan Terpercaya MGS88 adalah situs game slot online Gacor terbaru yang bermitra dengan Pay4D, Pay4D sendiri merupakan daftar situs game slot online terpercaya dengan berbagai macam permainan judi yang mudah dimenangkan seperti Game Bola, Casino Online, Slot Pay4D, Tembak Ikan dan Pay4D Online Permainan togel seperti Singapura, Hongkong, Sydney dan lain-lain. Tujuan utama kami adalah menjadi situs judi online Pay4D yang menyediakan layanan judi online terbaik di Indonesia. Kami juga salah satu situs resmi PAY4D di Indonesia yang pasti akan membayarkan semua kemenangan kepada semua member kami, karena kepercayaan dari semua member kami adalah prioritas utama kami sebagai mesin slot 4d Asia terbaik di Asia, khususnya di Indonesia. Dalam melakukan sistem transaksi sistem simpanan dapat dilakukan dengan mudah melalui mobile banking dan electronic banking berupa bank BCA, BSI, BRI, BNI, Cimb Niaga, Permata dan Mandiri. Selain itu, transaksi e-wallet juga tersedia melalui Dana, Gopay, LinkAja dan Ovo serta dapat digunakan untuk pulsa tanpa dipotong. Untuk mempermudah dan kenyamanan dalam melakukan registrasi atau melakukan setiap transaksi, MGS88 menyediakan layanan live chat dan Whatsapp terhubung langsung dengan customer service online 24 jam. Mengenal Istilah Dalam RTP SLOT Di slot RTP Live Anda akan melihat berbagai fitur yang mungkin tidak Anda pahami masing-masing. Namun jangan khawatir, disini sebagai situs slot gacor MGS88 kami akan memberikan penjelasan lengkap mengenai tentang istilah yang ada di RTP SLOT dibawah ini. Deputy Foreign Minister Le Hoai Trung (Photo: VNA) During an interview with the press, Trung said Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung delivered speeches at all the three discussions, expressing Vietnams viewpoints on the regional strategic situation. Extending Vietnams concerns about recent complicated developments in the East Sea, the PM stressed the need to settle the disputes through peaceful measures on the basis of respecting international law, including the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), while curbing militarisation, abiding by the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC) and engaging in pragmatic negotiations to conclude a Code of Conduct in the East Sea (COC) as soon as possible. The leader also mentioned non-traditional challenges in the region such as terrorism, cross-border crime and climate change. To deal with these problems, it is necessary to build strategic trust, increase dialogue and cooperation, address disputes peacefully and carry forward the role played by multilateral institutions, especially ASEANs, he noted. The PM underscored Vietnams support for enhanced relations between the ten-member group and the US, focusing on areas of shared concern such as trade, investment, science-technology, education-training and people-to-people exchange. He suggested the establishment of ASEAN-US centres in order to step up the two sides efforts to develop small and medium-sized enterprises and respond to climate change. On the sidelines of the summit, PM Nguyen Tan Dung held meetings with US President Barack Obama and leaders of other ASEAN countries to boost bilateral ties. Deputy Minister Trung stressed that the Vietnamese delegations performance at the summit received high appraisal from other participating countries, helping raise the nations role and position in the global arena and demonstrate it as a dynamic, constructive and responsible country. Regarding the outcomes of the summit, the official said the event had fulfilled its targets. ASEAN and the US issued the Sunnylands Declaration that states 17 key principles guiding their strategic partnership . Under the joint statement, the two sides agreed to uphold the fundamental principles of international law, the UN Charter and the ASEAN Charter. They pledged adherence to rule-based regional and international order and committed to peaceful resolution of disputes, including the full respect for legal and diplomatic processes, without resorting to the threat or use of force. The two sides shared a commitment to ensuring maritime and aviation security and safety in accordance with international law, including the 1982 UNCLOS, as well as non-militarisation. The US and the ten-member bloc will support ASEAN Centrality and ASEAN-led mechanisms, tighten their coordination at international forums and join hands in sustainable development and coping with such challenges as terrorism and climate change. The US promised to help build the ASEAN Community while partnering with the group to spur a creative economy, raise competitiveness and ease tax barriers. The country will assist ASEAN SMEs and offers more education opportunities to regional youths, Trung said. He added on the fringes of the summit, the US organised a conference on the ASEAN Economic Community in San Francisco on February 17 and a number of investment activities with the participation of leaders of US giants like IBM, CISCO and Microsoft. Trung highlighted the significance of the ASEAN-US Summit, saying it was the first of its kind between the 10-nation bloc and a partner country after the formation of the ASEAN Community on December 31st, 2015. The US attaches special importance to the position and central role of ASEAN in the region, and hopes to propel bilateral relations in a practical manner for mutual benefit. The gathering of ASEAN and US leaders to exchange regional opportunities and challenges as well as cross-border issues such as terrorism, trans-national crime and climate change adaptation demonstrated the crucial role of ASEAN as a reliable partner, a leading organisation in the region, and a competitive, attractive economic community with a gross domestic product (GDP) of over USD2.5 trillion and population of 625 million. Additionally, the summit marks a significant milestone in relations between ASEAN and the US. It also illustrates the USs stronger commitment to the development of the bloc. The US formalised the ASEAN-US Summit in 2013 after its participation in the East Asia Summit (EAS) in 2011, and then elevated the strategic partnership with ASEAN in November 2015. The two sides adopted an action plan for the 2016-2020 period to push their cooperation activities forward. The organisation of the summit in Sunnylands, California, which is home to numerous US hi-tech centres and businesses, and people of Southeast Asian origin, illustrated the US s wish to embrace links with ASEAN via economic, investment, high technology, education cooperation and people-to-people exchanges, Trung said. Furthermore, the summit took place in the context that Vietnam and the US are witnessing remarkable strides after the establishment of their comprehensive partnership and bilateral visits of leaders, particularly the historical visit to the US by Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in July 2015, he stressed. In early February 2016, Vietnam joined the signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement with the US and several countries in the region, which demonstrates the two sides deeper cooperation, both bilaterally and multilaterally, he added./. DSI bares illegal import of Somdet Chuang's Mercedes BANGKOK: The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) has shed light on the illegal process of importing and registering a vintage Mercedes-Benz owned by Somdet Phra Maha Ratchamangalacharn. transportcorruptionreligion By Bangkok Post Friday 19 February 2016, 09:30AM The car in question is a classic Mercedes-Benz of the 300B series manufactured in Germany in 1953. It is about 60 years old and only 100 were produced. Photo: Bangkok Post The car in question is a classic Mercedes-Benz of the 300B series manufactured in Germany in 1953. It is about 60 years old and only 100 were produced. Photo: Bangkok Post Although the DSI has not linked the senior monk to the illegal process, an investigation regarding his signature found on a document concerning the cars registration is under way. DSI director-general Paisit Wongmuang yesterday (Feb 18) spelled out details involving the illegal car which belongs to Somdet Phra Maha Ratchamangalacharn, also known as Somdet Chuang, the 90-year-old abbot of Wat Pak Nam Phasi Charoen. Somdet Chuang is now performing the supreme patriarchs duties and also chairs the Sangha Supreme Council (SSC). The SSC nominated him to become the new supreme patriarch on Jan 5. Pol Col Paisit said the vehicles body was imported on Sept 17, 2010 and the engine imported two days later both from the United States. Other parts including the boot lid, bonnet, lamps, doors and bumpers had no import documents, but there was evidence that they were bought from a fake company called Saichol Motor. Investigations found the companys address did not exist in the household registration system and the Department of Business Developments database had no information on the company, said Pol Col Paisit. The DSI suspects documents could have been forged to show that those other vehicle parts were bought domestically. This could be deemed as an attempt to evade import duty levied by the Customs Department, he said. The owner of the vehicle also risks violating the law for receiving an imported item that evaded tax, Pol Col Paisit said, adding that the DSI will alert the Customs Department to pursue legal action against those involved in the alleged tax evasion. The DSI chief said Phra Maha Sasanamunee, assistant abbot of Wat Pak Nam Phasi Charoen and secretary to Somdet Chuang, contracted two companies to assemble the car. Assembly was quoted at B4 million Odd 89 Partnership Ltd, was paid B2.5 million and Wicharn Garage was paid B1.5 million. Pol Col Paisit said neither of the two had industrial operation licences to assemble a vehicle and had no engineers to inspect the process. The DSI found that a document had been forged to pay the excise taxes on the car to the Excise Department. The signature of Kanchana Makmuean, owner of NP Garage, was falsified on the document used in the process. NP Garage was a car-painting garage incapable of assembling a classic car, the DSI chief said. A man named Chalat Nitithitiwong was alleged to have forged the document. Mr Chalat then hired a man named Somnuek Boonprapai to register the car with the Land Transport Department using the forged document showing payment of the excise tax, Pol Col Paisit said. The registration application also contained false information stating that Ms Kanchana sold the car to the senior monk and a fake receipt was created to support the false sales claim, the DSI chief said. Mr Somnuek allegedly told the DSI that a fake receipt was made to show that the car was assembled at a cost of one million baht instead of the quoted price of B4 million, Pol Col Paisit said. The signature of Somdet Chuang appeared in a document presented for the cars registration in July 2011. The DSI would summon the senior monk and all involved to ask them whether the signature was genuine, the DSI chief said. He also said the DSI will need a few more months to decide whether or how the supreme patriarch nominee would be held responsible. It is a classic Mercedes-Benz of the 300B series manufactured in Germany in 1953. It is about 60 years old and only 100 units of the model were produced. So it is categorised as a beautiful and classic collectible. Its price ranges between B10-20 million, Pol Col Paisit said. Suppatpoj Nitisathorn, a legal adviser to Wat Pak Nam, said the temples legal team had previously told the DSI that the person who donated the car to Somdet Chuang knew nothing about the process of importing and registering the car. Read original story here. Representative of the Vietnamese Business Association in Bulgaria presents money to the family of Ngoc Khanh (Photo: quehuongonline.com.vn) Speaking at the ceremony, Mr. Dinh Van Dong, from the SCOV, appreciated the positive activities of the Vietnamese Business Association in Bulgaria. He believed that the association will promote the tradition of solidarity to build the Vietnamese community in Bulgaria more strongly. By hailing the attention and sharing of the association with domestic people in difficulty, especially children unfortunately suffering from congenital heart disease, the SCOV official hoped that Nguyen Thi Ngoc Khanh will overcome the life-threatening disease. Furthermore, he also expected that the association would continue to help many children in similar circumstances as Ngoc Khanh. The Vietnamese Business Association in Bulgaria has nearly 20 members, operating in the fields of tourism, service, food manufacturing and garment business. It has always looked towards the homeland and some businesses of the association have invested in Vietnam to contribute to economic development of the fatherland./. Get on board: Phuket readies to host 4th Thailand SUP Invitational Not so long ago Stand Up Paddleboarding (SUP) was pretty much unheard of. But now, in 2016, SUP is a quite a phenomenon, and undoubtedly one of the fastest growing fun and sporting activities. By Matt Pond Friday 19 February 2016, 03:07PM The one-day event will include a 6km Elite race, as well as a shorter Sprint competition. Over the last few years, people all around the world have been flocking to lakes, oceans and rivers in record numbers to get in on the SUP action. A big draw of SUP is that its very accessible. With a range of boards for people of all shapes and sizes, its a sport anyone can do. While its certainly popular among the fitness and leisure crowd, what you may not know is that SUP is a full-on professional sport, complete with grueling competitions and world-class sponsored athletes. It wasnt long after the advent of stand up paddleboarding that SUP events emerged, and theyve been growing in number and calibre ever since. According to SUP Magazine, theres an event somewhere in the world almost every week of the year. As stand up paddle boarding gains converts thanks to the simplicity and accessibility of the sport it stands to reason that these events should grow up around it, bringing people together to learn, compete, watch the action and have fun. In just two weeks time, Phuket will once again welcome some of the worlds finest paddleboard professionals as it plays host to the 4th Thailand SUP Invitational, Thailands biggest Stand Up Paddle event. Taking place at the Bliss Beach Club on Saturday 5th March, the one-day event will include a six kilometre Elite race, as well as a shorter Sprint competition. Alongside the serious contests, the day will see dozens of local businesses including some of Phukets best-loved bars and restaurants battle it out against one another in a relay race between several of the smaller islands dotted along the shore. Once the racing has finished, competitors and spectators will be able to enjoy an evening of music, markets, food and drink, before the whole day is finished off with an after-party at the Bliss Beach Club itself. Combining an oversized surfboard with an extra-long canoe paddle, like its name suggests SUP is paddling while standing up. Fun, easy to learn and a full body workout SUP continues to be one of the fastest growing water sports. Race categories: Elite 6 km including 100m beach run after each lap (All competitors race together in one heat) Sprint 200m (top 3 competitors of each heat will moves through to the final) Family (2 people on 1 board) 200m Under-16s 200m (top 3 competitors of each heat will move through to the final) Team Relay (3 people including 1 female) paddling 200m each Registration: 1. Register and pay now = B1,200 2. Register now and pay on race day = B1,500 3. Child rate (under 16) = B999 / child 4. Race only = B600 / person (race entry only) Registration fee includes: Entry info all race categories, use of brand-new Starboard race boards, T-shirt, 1 free drink and Gourmet Beach BBQ at presentation dinner. Please note: for competing in the Elite category, contestants must provide their own boards. If competitors need to rent a board for this Elite race, please inform us when registering. There are limited boards available for this race and priority will be given to early registrations. To register simply Email: tim@standupprojects.com or go to https://paddleguru.com/races/4thThailandSUPFestival You can follow all the action on our facebook / instagram pages. Any questions please contact event director Tim Campbell at 082-5193 282 Bring on the fun! * "Longtail Paddle Surf", (SE Asia's Premier SUP Shop) Major Sponsor * "Starboard SUP" Official Board Sponsor * "Emedia Asia" Online Media Partner * "island Tribe", "GoPro" & "The Phuket News" Official Partners Lee Marine surges ahead at Thailand Yacht Show PHUKET: The inaugural Thailand Yacht Show (TYS), held over four days at Phukets Ao Po Grand Marina, from February 8-14, attracted 4,668 registered attendees all turning out to view the line-up of 43 yachts on display and the scores of exhibitor booths highlighting the best of marine services available, on the island and further afield. marinetourismtransporteconomics By The Phuket News Friday 19 February 2016, 09:05AM The Ferretti 731 was one of the top-flight yachts on show by Lee Marine. The show highlighted an impressive parade of yachts and boats, with regional debuts and some of the biggest superyachts ever displayed in Asia. Of the 13 superyachts on show were top drawcards M/Y Titania, at 73m the largest Burgess motoryacht available for charter in the region, and the eye-catching Saluzi, the largest charter yacht based permanently in Southeast Asia. Also present was the stunning Norman Foster-designed Ocean Emerald, the first foreign-flagged vessel over 30m to receive a Thai charter licence in 2015. Considering we had really only two and a half months to put this together, the show went well, said show TYS Managing Director Andy Treadwell. All the major stakeholders are happy. We are proud to have put on a show that not only attracted visitors, but attracted the right kind of visitors, he said. We are also thankful to the Thai Government for providing such dedicated support. Deputy Prime Minister Thanasak Patimaprakorn, the Tourism Minister and many other top-level officials all turned out to show their support, solidarity in making Phuket not just a yachting hub for the region, but a hub for superyacht charters in Southeast Asia, he added. Phukets own Lee Marine International Marine Brokerage featured their largest in-water display, with 12 yachts on show, comprising 850 feet of yachts worth over 20 million euros (B795 million). The Lee Marine show included the Ferretti Groups Pershing 92, 72 and 46, Ferrettis 731 and 720, the Riviera 48 Flybridge, the Maiora 103, a Sunseeker Manhattan 63 and 73, and the 35m Custom Power Catamaran. The Premier 38 carbon-composite speed demon Atari, powered by twin 350hp engines and comfortably achieving speeds in excess of 50 knots, proved popular for sea trials with serious buyer interest as did the Asian Premiere of the Riviera 525 SUV, reported Lee Marine. Of note, Lee Marine, the oldest brokerage in the Kingdom, reported, the company had continued their success at the TYS with two to three yacht sales predicted as a result of the strong interest. Lee Marines involvement in this first TYS was a natural step for us as we have recently opened our new offices at Ao Po Grand Marina. The organisers really brought together a fabulous show with a new type of clientele for us and a fun atmosphere, Josh Lee, Founder and CEO, told The Phuket News. Excellent press interest and coverage on all levels is the building blocks for shows to come. Recognising Thailands involvement, Mr Lee stated, I would like to thank the Thai Government for supporting this important yacht show. I have every confidence that this is the start of many more in the future. The show wrapped up after four days of events, sea trials and support from exhibitors from as far as Europe and America. The platform is set for next years show to be held at the same venue. Lee Marine are already counting on this to be even more spectacular and successful, said Mr Lee. No Alcohol sales in Phuket Monday for Buddhist holiday PHUKET: All government offices will be closed this Monday (Feb 22) as Thais all across the country celebrate Makha Bucha day. Bars and restaurants across the island will be forced to refrain from selling alcohol on this Buddhist holy day. religionculture By The Phuket News Friday 19 February 2016, 09:47AM All government offices will be closed this Monday (Feb 22) as Thais all across the country celebrate Makha Bucha day. Makha Bucha Day is a Buddhist holiday, which takes place annually on the night of the full moon during the third lunar month of the year and this year it falls on Monday, February 22. Makha Bucha Day marks the anniversary of the Buddhas first major sermon. On the full moon of the third lunar month, seven months after the lord Buddha began his teachings when 1,250 monks came together, with no prior arrangement to hear Buddha preach, Buddha ordained these monks and passed to them the basic principles of Buddhism: To eschew all evil, to do only what is good, and to cleanse the mind, along with other teachings which marked a key event in the development of the religion. It is a three days weekend for many across the country and in Phuket, most government offices will be shut down. The Phuket Immigration Office, the Land Transport Department and the Employment Office, all in Phuket Town, will be closed, as well as District Offices and main banks. Some local consulates will be open for emergency calls while others will be closed. Post Offices on the island will be open until noon on Monday. However, banks in shopping malls will remain open as normal. Many Thais will start the day by giving alms to monks in the morning of Makha Bucha and in the evening, people will fill the temples to listen to sermons and partake in the candle light ceremony known as wien tein where they walk clockwise three times around the temple holding flowers, incense and a lit candle. Popular temples to visit on Makha Bucha are Wat Chalong, Wat Phra Thong, Wat Khao Rang, Phuket Big Buddha, Wat Mai Luang Pu Supha, and Wat Srisoonthorn. According to an announcement made by the Prime Ministers office on January 22, 2015, there are five religious days that prohibit the sale of alcohol. The five days are as follows; Makha Bucha, Visakha Bucha, Arsarnraha Bucha, Khao Pansa and Wan Org Pansa days. This announcement bans the sale of alcohol everywhere except duty free shops at International airports. The Phuket News's GM shared one-night private dining experience at Kata Rocks Kata Rocks knows how to throw a shindig. Flown from Austria, Australia and New Zealand, several specially-selected vintages arrived at the luxurious beach side resort for an exclusive, one-night private dining experience last Saturday (February 6). Friday 19 February 2016, 01:24PM Kata Rocks Executive Chef Laia, originally from Spain, created six courses of wonderment that went handin-hand with the selection of Rose, whites and reds from the cellars of Salomon Wines. To showcase how private dining was meant to be, Kata Rocks General Manager Scot Toon and his team had one of the outstanding Penthouse Villas set to accommodate 12 for the special culinary event. We arrived a little late (you got to love rain in the Phuket dry season) but just in time for dinner to begin. Imported Fine de Claire Oysters with black pepper and olive oil were so good I wanted to ask for more. Luckily I resisted the temptation as the next course, Crab Tartare, avocado, green apple and celery arrived without hesitation and was simply mouth-watering and my pick of the night. The next three courses steamed Foie Gras wrapped in cabbage and ginger, grilled Australian Wagyu Rib Eye and the selection of imported cheese brought our tongues to the point of exploding in anticipation of the final course. The end (or a new beginning) brought desert to a whole new level: the vanilla ice cream sitting on warm brioche with passion fruit blew every diners taste buds clear out the room and left us wanting more! Truly a desert to have again and again. Kata Rocks, you sure know how to do private dining. Jason Beavan gm@classactmedia.co.th Tugging on heartstrings: The Thai Mad Men creating a storm with sadverts BANGKOK: Feverishly jotting down ideas in a funky glass-panelled conference room, Thailands Mad Men are doing what they do best creating tearjerker adverts that leave viewers scrambling for the tissue box. By AFP Friday 19 February 2016, 03:18PM Actors and technicians get ready for the shooting of a sequence of an advert for a Thai bank promoting a scholarship fund. Photo: Pornchai Kittiwongsakul/AFP So-called sadvertising has exploded around the world in recent years as brands jostle to engage customers and stand out from competitors. An annual nostalgia-tinged Christmas commercial from retailer John Lewis has become a festive tradition in Britain, while Budweisers Lost Dog pulled heart strings and swept advertising awards in the US. But few places are doing it with such devastating efficacy as the Thais, where the adverts are often as gruelling as they are memorable. To outsiders Thailand advertises itself as the Land of Smiles, but its more emotionally complex than that. The Thai language has more than one hundred phrases that use the word heart jai to discuss a whole gamut of emotions, while its soap operas are renowned for their notoriously tragic storylines. The same is true of adverts. One recent spot, for a lingerie brand, pivots on a woman diagnosed with cancer on the same day she discovers she is pregnant, leaving her with the heart-wrenching choice of risking the babys life with chemotherapy, or her own. Another, accompanied by the trademark soft piano music and a melancholic voice-over, is about a deaf and dumb father who saves his daughter with a blood transfusion after she attempts suicide. The emotional punch packed by such adverts has flummoxed many international viewers, with videos of non-Thais trying not to weep through the adverts doing the rounds on YouTube. This is so horrible, exclaims one viewer under the name Deadlox as he watches the advert featuring the girl who attempts suicide, which was commissioned by a life insurance company. Why would they do that?, he says of the filmmakers. Jinn Powprapai, founder of CJ Worx, a Bangkok agency that specialises in producing emotional viral adverts, offers one answer. Being a Buddhist is all about giving and caring. We tend to always have an emotional sympathy for people less fortunate than us, he says. One of the companys recent commissions was from Khrung Thai Bank, a state-owned entity looking to promote its scholarship fund. After months of back and forth they settled on two lengthy internet spots. One tells the tragic tale of a female student who learns to conquer her fear of the neighbourhood dog Olieng after his elderly owner dies. Girl and dog then become inseparable, until she returns from school one day to find it fatally injured by a car. Olieng eventually dies in her arms as memories of his happy life with the girl flash before his fading canine eyes. The advert then skips to the present day where the girl has become a vet and is patching up another persons beloved pooch. While others were lost in lifes bad moments, a voiceover states, she recognises the good times are an inspiration to reach our dreams. Its a formula that clearly works for the domestic market. Since its 11 January release the advert has racked up 12 million views and more than 350,000 shares on Facebook and 1.68 million views on YouTube. But Phil Townsend, Asia-Pacific managing director of Unruly, which specialises in getting adverts to emotionally resonate with viewers, says creatives around the world are taking note of Thailands tearful output. We get a lot of people asking us: How can we make videos like that?, he says. Ralph Brunner, chief marketing officer in Asia for insurance company MetLife has been making adverts across the region since the late 1990s. The Thais have a knack for emotional storytelling, he says. You see it on TV, short films that either make you cry or a have a tremendous sense of humour and a very playful nature. MetLife had one of the most successful emotional ads of 2015 with a spot about a father struggling to provide for his daughter. On YouTube alone it has been viewed over 11 million times. It was shot in Thailand, but aimed at multiple markets across Asia. Unlike humour, which is very specific to countries and even ages, parental struggles are something almost everyone understands, says Brunner. Its a universal theme people can relate to. Dave McCaughan, a veteran of advertising who spent nearly three decades across Asia with McCann, believes the rise of the genre is linked to rapid economic and social changes and growing disquiet over what the future holds. When he first arrived in Thailand in the economic boom years of the mid 1990s, many adverts employed slapstick comedy. More recently Thailands economy has become known as sick man of Southeast Asia, following a decade of political turbulence. And the adverts have got sadder. Theres a lot of disconnect and dysfunction going on and those ads play to old fashioned values, he says. McCaughan believes Asia will produce more tear jerkers in the coming years, especially as Chinas economic slowdown impacts the region. What happens when youre feeling low, you go for the security blanket, he says. It doesn't matter which culture you are, its the same. And the big security blanket here is real emotions. Two early morning deaths of foreigners reported to Phuket police PHUKET: Phuket police responded to two separate incidents where foreigners had died yesterday morning (Feb 18), a Myanmar migrant worker at a laundry in Rassada and a British man who died at Phuket International Hospital. deathMyanmarpolice By Darawan Naknakhon Friday 19 February 2016, 02:25PM Myanmar national Than Tun Chon was found dead at the laundry where he worked. Photo: Darawan Naknakhon The first death was reported to Lt Suchart Meelampong of Phuket City Police at around 1am yesterday morning. He was told that a Myanmar migrant worker had been found dead at the Phuket Laundry Co Ltd in Soi Bang Chee Lao in Rassada. Police arrived at the facility and led to the body of 37-year-old Than Tun Chon who was lying lifeless on the floor with serious head and facial injuries. Slash wounds were found on the left side of his head, left ear, chin and the right index finger. We are not sure what happened to him. No one heard or saw anything and his body was discovered by a co worker. We are gathering information and questioning other migrant workers employed here before concluding our investigation, he said. Meanwhile, Lt Akkarach Chatiphai of Vichit Police were advised by staff at Phuket International Hospital (PIH) that a 37-year-old man British man had died there. He arrived at the hospital at 8:30am and carried out an examination of the deceased (name withheld until his family have been notified ). Lt Akkarach was told by doctors that the man had died from a heart attack. He said, The man arrived at the hospital by ambulance after 4am. We were told that he was staying at The Base Uptown Condominium on bypass road and that he had been out with a Chinese friend and came back drunk. The friend and a security guard had to carry him up to his room, he said. At 4am the man complained to the security guard that he was getting chest pains and wanted to go to hospital. He was walking around the car park when he collapsed and lost consciousness so the guard called for help. A medical unit from PIH arrived, administered CPR and took the victim to hospital where he was pronounce dead. We checked his condo and found no signs of assault or robbery. His embassy have been notified, Lt Akkarach added. Two men killed in early morning Phuket crashes PHUKET: Two men were killed less than two hour apart on Phuket roads early this morning (Feb 19) when they crashed their vehicles north of Heroines Monument. deathaccidentstransport By Eakkapop Thongtub Friday 19 February 2016, 11:05AM The driver of the pickup truck was killed instantly when he crashed into a pylon. The driver of the minivan died when rescue workers were taking him to Thalang Hospital. In the first incident, Lt Col Sanit Nookong from Thalang Police was notified that a minivan had crashed into the back of the 18-wheeler truck on Thepkassattri Rd northbound at 3:20am. The accident happened about 200 metres from the Saladang junction in Srisoothorn. Kusoldharm rescue workers, who were already at the scene, reported that they were trying to remove the driver who was trapped inside. Police arrived to find a wrecked Toyota minivan in the middle of the road with rescue workers administering CPR to the driver as they tried to remove him from the wreckage. It took rescue workers 40 minutes to free the man, named as Nate Sangpayap 35,from Chalong. Mr Nate was eventually removed from the vehicle and taken to Thalang Hospital where he was pronounced dead upon arrival. About 100 metres from the wreckage was an 18-wheeler truck parked at the side of the road its hazard lights still on. There was damage to the rear of the vehicle, said Lt Col Sanit. The truck driver, Supamit Chunseng, 48, was at the scene. Lt Col Sanit added, Witnesses said that the minivan was heading to make a pick up at the airport. It was travelling at high speed and being driven recklessly from left to right as it passed the Thalang junction and then slammed into the back of the 18-wheeler truck. We assume the driver fell asleep and this is why the accident happened. However, we still have to question the truck driver and gather more information before we can conclude our investigation, he said. Both vehicles involved in the accident were towed to Thalang Police Station. The second death occurred in Mai Khao when a pickup truck carrying fresh shrimps crashed into a pylon on Thepkassattri Rd southbound. Lt Suthee Chatsuwan from Tha Chatchai Police, who was informed of the accident at 4:15am, was told that the driver of the pickup had been killed instantly and that the accident had caused a power outage in the area. Police arrived to the scene with Kusoldharm rescue workers to find a wrecked Isuzu pickup with Surat Thani licence plates smashed into the pylon. Rescue workers used jaws of life to free the body of 24 year old Nattawut Samutwaree from the wreckage before taking his body to Thalang Hospital. We were told that the driver missed the bend [Kong Ha Roi] and lost control of his vehicle before crashing and taking out the pylon, said Lt Suthee. US and ASEAN leaders at the US- ASEAN Leader Summit held in Sunnylands, California from February 15th-17th (Source: internet) Lee said the summit is a clear signal that the US values its partnership with ASEAN and that the current administration under President Barak Obama wants to do all it can to institutionalise this relationship. Speaking to reporters after concluding his week-long visit to the US, he said the meeting was a very significant step forward, being the first of its kind where ASEAN leaders were hosted by the US President. During the two days, the leaders discussed issues ranging from terrorism and climate change to opportunities for economic cooperation. While the summit institutionalises the bilateral relationship and paves the way for the next US president to take it forward in the future, Singapores PM also expressed hope that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would be ratified before the end of President Obamas final term. The TPP was widely expected to be on the agenda at the special summit, together with the dispute in the East Sea. Among the principles listed in a joint statement given at the summit was a mutual sovereignty respect and the need to abide by international law and order./. 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 Did Jamie Smith say he wanted to raise taxes as governor? In a new ad buy, the Noem campaign is alleging Smith said he wanted to raise taxes at a Sioux Falls Rotary meeting. It's not that simple. Keli Vitaioli vitaioli@grinnell.edu Assistant Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University Spencer Piston 01 presented his book project, Why Americans Love the Welfare State, on campus this past Monday, Feb. 15. Pistons research examines American opinions on the welfare state and rejects the misconception that Americans hate welfare programs. He finds that in reality what they truly resent is the wealthy. Presenting his own survey findings, Piston uncovered a new perspective in the discourse of Americans and welfare. While many sociologists believe Americans do not think about class groups, Piston argues that, in fact, they do, and it actually motivates much of their policy support. In social psychology research [we can see] sympathy for low status groups and resentment of high status groups is much more common than political scientists have typically recognized, Piston said. Pistons survey investigates the role of social groups using the concept of deservingness. My [hypothesis] was that a group who is perceived to have less than it deserves becomes the object of sympathy, and a group perceived to have more than it deserves becomes the object of resentment, Piston said. [That] the American public believes the poor and the rich have exactly what they deserve. But what we see is predominant responses to say the rich have more than they deserve and the poor have less. The talk gave Lily Hamilton 19 hope for future changes in policy proposals using Pistons research and identifying the American trend towards wanting to help the poor. It made me feel relieved that he proved most Americans do support programs that decrease inequality, Hamilton said. Its comforting to know many Americans value the humanity of those who are less fortunate than they are. Piston has found that the majority of people, both far leftists and conservative republicans, share Hamiltons views. Overall, Americans do support welfare programs and have a general desire to help the less fortunate. We cant explain todays economically unequal outcomes just by saying, This is how Americans want it, Piston said. Because majorities of Americans dont. They believe the poor have too little and the rich have too much. Piston referenced one of the sources of misperception of the attitude toward redistributive policies being Why Americans Hate Welfare by Martin Gilens and a further interpretation of Gilens study by Katherine Newman and Elizabeth Jacobs claiming the study proved that as the image of the poor got blacker public support for these policies dropped dramatically. There is, in fact, a large percentage gap in Gilens findings between the percentage of Americans believing the government should increase welfare spending, which is about 12 percent, and the percentage believing the government should cut welfare spending, about 62 percent. Yet, when the graph is expanded to include opinions on Medicaid, food for low income families and other downwardly redistributive economic policies, it becomes clear that welfare is the exception to the trend of high percentages in favor of increasing and not decreasing spending of American welfare programs. Other researchers have explained why America has less support for these policies than other western democracies by accounting for American emphasis on small government, belief in hard work and a belief in unrealistic wealth accumulation or racial prejudice. However, Pistons research aims to explain the pattern of support for redistributive policies through something often overlooked class attitudes. He is pushing back against political scientist literature that has ignored issues of class, said Professor Katya Gibel-Mevorach, Anthropology. The idea that people are automatically opposed to the poor, or low working class manual labor, that is not exactly true Hes asking a different set of questions to tease out attitudes and not reproduce the same stereotypical attitudes that [are] current. Nora Coghlan, News Editor & Eve Lilienfeld, News Editor coghlann17@grinnell.edu & lilienfe17@grinnell.edu Grinnell students and staff gathered in solidarity on Monday night to support students at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, India in the midst of political turmoil. The rally, organized by Vincent Kelley 16, aimed to show support to JNU students in light of the recent controversy on campus surrounding the arrest of JNU Student Union President, Kanhaiya Kumar, suspension of eight JNU students and general violence and police activity on campus. On Tuesday, Feb. 9, JNU students organized a protest of capital punishment on the third anniversary of the execution of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri man found guilty of involvement in an attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001. The protest ignited controversy on campus between political parties, leading with the culmination of Kumars arrest on charges of sedition and criminal conspiracy. Right-wing students viewed Kumars involvement as anti-nationalist, and tensions between parties have forced several left-wing students to flee campus under threat of violence. According to Professor Shuchi Kapila, English, the turmoil is a result of long-existing political tensions on campus and reflects the current right-leaning nature of the Indian state. The tension between different student groups has a longer history and its hard for me to really parse all the details of that because that is so much a matter of different political groups sharing space in the JNU campus, she said. It sounds like a very confused and paranoid response of a state that is influenced often by right-wing groups. Subsequent backlash to Kumars arrest has focused on the outdated nature of sedition laws, the dangers of police involvement on college campuses and the maintenance of academic freedom and freedom of speech. [The protest] is being constructed as being anti-national, but to say that a state is oppressive is the right of every citizen and the response through police action seems excessive to me, Kapila said. It seems to me that one view is that students shouldnt get involved in politics, especially because the university is funded by the government. That is a very dangerous position to take because a free expression of opinion is really important to democracy. Its really important to academic freedom, and if there isnt a connection to violence, I dont see how you could have gone in with police presence and actually imprisoned the head of the student union. Grinnell has a long history with JNU. Several Grinnell students, including Kelley, have studied abroad on JNUs campus and the college continues to run a professor exchange program with the university. Several current Grinnell professors have taught on their campus, including Kapila. These ties have resulted in a strong response from the Grinnell community in support JNU students and intellectual freedom, evidenced by Kelleys organization of a solidarity rally in the Spencer Grill on Monday. [The rally] was an opportunity for us to check in with each other and say, Why are you concerned and whats happened? I went with a couple of other faculty members and all of us have taught at JNU so we have colleagues and friends there, Kapila said. Those students who have studied in Delhi in the last few years have actually taken classes, been on campus. They have relationships with students there, friendships, intellectual friendships, so they are concerned about their friends. Kelley especially was concerned about his peers at JNU. Many student organizers have been forced to flee campus for their own safetysome have even deleted their social media profiles, he wrote in an email to The S&B. JNU students currently face ongoing police presence on campus and the threat of violence from their peers. Its outrageous and I dont think I remember a time when this has ever happened. An educational institution should not have police inside it, armed police, Kapila said. Kelley said that it is important to continue to extend support to JNU students though the student president is scheduled to be released in early March. Concerned students and professors also worry that state involvement on JNUs campus has the potential to negatively impact access to information in the United States. The whole idea of South Asian studies here can get affected if academic freedom is not maintained because then people are going to kind of control what you can study about India, what can be said about nationalism and India history, Kapila said. History is very contested in many parts of the world. There is a difference between an academic study and politically motivated study and that needs to be maintained. Students have also recognized the parallels in political division and intolerance between the turmoil at JNU and the current political climate in the U.S. Seeing this parallel Islamophobia rising in India and here [It] is kind of disturbing and all the more disturbing to see this happening and to wonder what conditions would we need to make something like this happen here, said Caleigh Ryan 17, who recently returned from off-campus study in India. Not to make whats happening at JNU about us at all, but just in understanding themes of government sanctioned intolerance that allowed these things to happen. JNU has responded positively to Grinnells support. One JNU student wrote to Kapila to express her appreciation for Grinnells rally and the importance of pushing this issue onto an international stage. We dont want the government to think that this is just a protest within the ivory tower, [but] that this is worldwide, the sympathy for JNU is worldwide, Kapila said. With the support of the Grinnell community, Kapila stressed the importance of JNU, given its long history of student activism and significant graduates, and the necessity of upholding global academic freedom. It is a premier university in India where I think that we have to take very seriously what happens there, she said. Most of us are really concerned about maintaining academic freedom against the in-roads of the state because then, whats next? They are going to decide what you can teach and what you can say about topics and what you cannot teach. That seems to me like a very steep, dangerous path to complete and total chaos. Megan Tcheng tchengme@grinnell.edu Last Tuesday, Feb. 16, Professor Leah Allen, English and Gender, Womens and Sexuality Studies, continued Faulconer Gallerys newest arts education series. Formatted as short but in-depth presentations, 20 Minutes @ 11 allowed faculty members to interact with art in Faulconer Gallery and share their unique perspectives with the Grinnell community. We often try to bring in outside speakers, but we realized we have a great resource here on campus, said Lesley Wright, Director of Faulconer Gallery. We started 20 Minutes @ 11 to have a brief encounter with a work of art and a faculty member. Allens talk, entitled, Doing it right? Feminist approaches to sex, censorship and pornography, addressed Beverly Semmes The Feminist Responsibility Project (FRP). At the heart of the Semmes exhibit is her collection of paintings and drawings. These 2D pieces, which interact with pornographic images from vintage Hustler and Penthouse magazines, intentionally conceal and reveal provocative aspects of the original images. Through this visual experimentation, Semmes project addresses the distinct tension between feminist values and censorship in American culture. Allen, in her exploration of Semmes 2011 piece, Carwash, addressed the feminist tension in Semmes collection. Specifically, Allen identified how the artists pieces reflect the progression of the feminist movement and the stigma surrounding female sexual identity. Semmes exhibit pushes us back to previous point in time where the idea of a Feminist Responsibility Project made sense and resonated with people, Allen said. Today, the idea of a singular, feminist responsibility is at odds with third and fourth wave feminism. Drawing on this social foundation, Allen encouraged audience members to address their own biases towards pornographic imagery and the portrayal of woman in media. Semmes forces us to look for the pornographic, Allen said. We become almost dirty-minded when we look at her images whether we like it or not, were in the position of looking for the background, looking for the pornographic. Semmes is asking us to examine that impulse to see whats going on under the surface. Overall, Semmes art leaves its audience with a series of unanswered questions. Allen posed such questions to her audience. Who gets to decide what sexual images are permissible or impermissible? Allen asked. Do we get or do we have to see these images? While Allen may have no direct answer to her questions, she sees the controversial nature of Semmes pieces as reflective of the culture at Grinnell College. Censorship is relevant to our campus climate, Allen said. People have strong opinions about the material we should look at, whether we should critique things that are offensive or whether we should just avoid them. Having students, having staff, having faculty come and look at [Semmes work] transforms the pieceit gives it a whole different life. Yishi Liang, Editor-in-Chief liangyis@grinnell.edu Most Grinnell students who are looking to create a sizeable publication turn to sources such as SPARC or Press. Serena Hocharoen 17, however, is looking to publish her first print version of Spaghetti Teens by standing in front of a color printer. Hocharoen started the publication Spaghetti Teens about a year ago as an informal collection of works. Its an online zine right now, and it started out [because] I wanted to exhibit not only my work but works of other young creative people, and even people who dont consider themselves creative, Hocharoen said. This is just a platform to get peoples work out there. Typically, Hocharoen comes up with a monthly theme and then makes a call for related submission. Themes in the past have included the twentieth century, dreams, light, Steve Buscemi and donuts. Hocharoen said of her process in generating themes, I have no idea. Whatever I find myself drawing a lot lately or vague words that seem [as if] people can come up with ideas for them. Every month the theme changes so anything that has anything loosely to do with the theme is fair game. The primary goal for Hocharoen is to give a space for people to share their work and the works of others. I want people to feel like their work is validated. Having it published and having other people see it and knowing that other people, like me, appreciate them making things and being creativethats important. The works in the zine are primarily visual, but there are also some written works and playlists. This past summer, Hocharoen printed a few versions of Spaghetti Teens to mail out to friends. She was surprised by how much work the process entailed. However, despite the effort required, she is planning to personally print the next issue. I dont want to get it printed through Press or anything, she said. I like the handmade aesthetic, like someone stood at a printer and printed all these sheets out and hand bound the book together. Hocharoen is still unsure about other details, such as how many copies she will ultimately print. It depends on how much I end up spending on printing, but Id really like to be able to give them out all for free or in the mailroom or something, she said. I just think having a finished product is really satisfying I hope people are creative and dont forget that its good for them. Previous issues of Spaghetti Teens are available online at www.issuu.com/spaghettiteens. Tonight, Friday, Feb. 19, Gardner Lounge will be filled with rock music that is raw, real and inspired by anime. Radkey, formed by brothers Dee, Isaiah and Solomon Radkey of St. Joseph, Mo., has toured the United States and Europe. The S&Bs Emma Roszkowski recently spoke with Isaiah Radkey about the brothers inspiration and performances. The S&B: Where do you find inspiration, musically and non-musically? How has that inspiration changed over time? Isiah Radkey: Well, in the beginning, we did a lot of anime [music]. We loved anime, so we wrote mostly about that and movies. We didnt really have a whole lot of life experience because we were homeschooled. As we got older, we got more life experience. While were still writing about the nerdy shit, which is fun to write about, we have more experience to write songs that more people can relate to. You know, personal shit. Dark things like Stanley Kubrick movies, like anime and shit like that. Pretty much as we got older, we got out of the house and learned more. How do you feel about being represented as the voice of Black rock musicians? Are you accepting this label or trying to avoid it? We dont really think about that. Its nice to be able to show people that, and be another band that decided to make rock music and is in a small Black band instead of doing rap. Just to let people know that you can do whatever you want, its not just one thingso I accept that. But we dont go all like, Were going to be the voice. You were fifteen years old during your first tour. What effect has success at a young age had on you and your brothers perspective? Well, its been so amazing because we started off in fucking St. Joe. Just, you know, shitty, hot green room for a jam room with no songs. Just shitty musicians, except for Dee. And then you go and you play and then you get to keep going. Its pretty excellent. I feel like being homeschooled, like getting out to see the world its been a lot. Its basically our entire lives. Our adult lives and our main teen lives are just in this, so its pretty intense. What are you anticipating for Fridays show at Grinnell? Were pretty excited. Weve been jamming a lot leading up to it because, you know, its longer than your average set, so were pretty stoked to play more songs and shit. Emily Ricker rickerem@grinnell.edu On Feb. 16 to Feb. 18, the Grinnell College Center for the Humanities hosted a French Film Festival. The Festival featured three films from the 1930s poetic realist movement in France, and culminated in a talk by renowned film theorist and Yale professor Dudley Andrew. This is not the first event of its kind that the Humanities Center has organized. The [Center] in the last few years has built a tradition of organizing film festivals in February, said Shuchi Kapila, English, Director of the Center for the Humanities. This year the Center decided to design the festival around the theme Sites of Creativity and chose films and a speaker that would fit within that theme. Film festivals are one of the great alternate public spheres that we have in a world thats dominated by television and demagoguery or atomized small groups the all follow their closely-affiliated blog lines, Andrew said when asked about the importance of these events on college campuses. Citizens of all different kinds get together and give their time to something they can think about and talk about afterwards. Films emanating from the poetic realist movement on which this Festival focused tend to depict proletariat subgroups of society, emphasize tensions between upper and lower classes, and feature highly aesthetic representations of nostalgia and disillusionment. The films shown this week all showcased these ideas. The film A Day in the Country told the story of a brief love affair through impressionist cinematography. Zero de Conduite explores a group of boarding school students revolting against oppressive rules, while The Lower Depths depicts the story of a baron-turned-pauper forced to move to the slums of Paris. The three films were chosen at the recommendation of the speaker he said these would be good and then he built his talk around them, Kapila said. For the Festivals concluding event Thursday evening, Professor Andrew delivered a lecture entitled, From Cine-Liberte (1936) to Film Maudit (1949): Fever, Contagion, and Caution in the Avant-Garde. Andrew discussed at length the intersection of politics and cinema in 1930s France. Specifically, he explained the relationship between the rise of the Popular Frontan alliance of left-wing parties that formed in the French government at the timeand the films created during this era. Additionally, he described the role many of the films played in the growing popularity of the Communist Party. Later in the talk, Andrew turned his focus to the dynamics and inner workings of the creative teams responsible for this periods most successful films. His creativity depended on the inventiveness of those around him, Andrew said of Renoir, who is widely accepted as the greatest filmmaker of the time. He went on to explain the interactions between several of the most prominent film-creation teams in 1930s France, and stressed his belief that the work of all groups improved as they began to collaborate with each other. Andrew concluded his lecture by explaining the potential of college campuses to become catalysts for creative movements. Perhaps dingy dorm rooms [are] the spaces in which creative movements can best be born, Andrew said. Andrews talk is part of an ongoing lecture series on creative spaces hosted by the Center of the Humanities that will continue until the end of the semester. The next talk, entitled, Conversation in the Humanities, is planned for Wednesday, Feb. 24. EMMA FRIEDLANDER, Arts Editor friedlan@grinnell.edu In the 1950s, superhero comics faced a decline. Following the Golden Age of Comics of the 1940s, Senate Subcommittee hearings arose that questioned the superheroess connection to juvenile delinquency and homosexuality. The genre quietly slipped away, giving way to serials that featured romances and westerns rather than neon tights. Of course, the superhero genre didnt entirely die out. To combat the genres association with juvenility and campiness, comic houses like Marvel began to introduce darker, more complex characters in the 1960s and 70s. This coincided with the emergence of big-budget superhero movies, beginning with 1978s Superman and growing more successful, more respected and more adult with every passing decade. In the hands of directors like Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan, these movies grew cinematic and dark. The colorful costumes and scenery that adorned the pages of the first DC and Marvel comics are hardly present in the Gotham City or Metropolis of 21st century film. Last Friday, Feb. 12 I made it to a screening of Deadpool, the latest Marvel Comics release, at the Strand in downtown Grinnell. The viewing began with trailers for two other upcoming superhero movies: Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Captain America: Civil War. Based on the previews alone, no child psychologist could ever accuse these films of being too juvenile or effeminate. They are coated in shadow, sonorous with gravelly voices and far more serious than fun. Deadpool, however, is no stuffy dark superhero movie. This is a fact of which its well aware. In the Deadpool comic book series, Deadpool is characterized by his brazenness and knowledge that he is a comic book character. This cognizance was transferred thoroughly to the Deadpool film. Not only is Ryan Reynolds Deadpool fully aware that hes a movie character being portrayed by a washed-up Ryan Reynolds, but the Deadpool movie is aware its another title in a perpetual franchise. The movie is replete with satirical references to the superhero franchise and fourth wall breaks. Its also dedicated to incorporating as much humor as possible. Sometimes this takes the form of poignant quips on Marvel Comics monopoly on the film industry. Most of the time, though, its arbitrary and rash obscenities about sex or bodily processes. The audience of college students at the nine oclock screening evidently couldnt get enough of these jokes, but I found them mostly forced and witless. The basic plot of Deadpool is simple enough. Mercenary Wade Wilson falls in love with escort Vanessa but is stricken with terminal cancer immediately following their engagement. He is approached by a special agent, who offers him the opportunity to engage in a procedure that will not only cure him of his cancer but also grant him superpowers. Eventually, Wilson gives in. In the dingy underground laboratory, he meets Ajax, the movies British villain who represents the super villain archetype. Ajax subjects Wilson to torture, which eventually unlocks Wilsons superhuman abilities but also leaves him disfigured. Insecure about his appearance, Wilson finds himself unable to return to Vanessa. In revenge, Wilson adopts the identity of anti-hero Deadpool and vows revenge on Ajax. This main point of conflict was far from compelling. In the words of Deadpools friend Weasel, You look like an avocado had sex with an older, more disgusting avocado. Still, Deadpool is graced with Ryan Reynolds suavity and butt muscles. It was difficult to sympathize with Deadpools mission, especially since it was based in his own shallow insecurity. But perhaps compelling conflict isnt the point of Deadpool. Then again, what is the point of Deadpool? Yes, it has a very clear (sometimes overwrought) objective of satirizing the dour superhero genre. In its pointed attempt to defy the genre, though, Deadpool seems ultimately unsure of what it is. Although the movie is grounded in humor, it sometimes slips into melodramatic action movie cliches. Deadpools ultimate conflict is not dripped in the same blatant satire as the rest of the films material, suggesting that the audience is supposed to take these struggles seriously. Thus the movie devolves into the same banalities it claims to mock. Moreover, groundbreaking elements of the Deadpool comic books are gone from the film adaptation. Namely, Deadpools pansexuality, which drew many liberal arts students like myself to the film, is entirely absent. Despite claims that Deadpool is a progressive character, he and his film remain armed with aggressive masculinity and heteronormative depictions of relationships. Perhaps by so adamantly refuting the dark superhero gimmick, Deadpool becomes a gimmick itself. Its jokes are unoriginal, its plot predictable and its focus so intent on ridiculing the superhero genre that it loses sight of what it actually is. But while I cant relate to Deadpools superhuman powers or chromium comrades, I can relate to his sarcasm, his realness and his attempt to make sense of a word thats simultaneously somber and ludicrous. Deadpool hasnt revolutionized the superhero genre, but it has taken a critical first step in re-evaluating it. With a record-breaking 132.7 million-dollar opening weekend for an R-rated movie, Deadpool proves that audiences are looking for something new, too. Toronto appears to have escaped a walkout or lockout by 5,400 city outside workers, but the city and the union representing inside workers were far apart in contract talks Friday. CUPE Local 416, representing the outside workers, announced Friday that it had reached a tentative deal with city negotiators for a new four-year contract. This has been a very difficult and challenging round of bargaining but we have emerged from this process with a tentative agreement, said Local 416 representative Matt Alloway. He provided no details, saying they will be shared with members over the next few days before a ratification vote. Local 416 leaders will recommend they accept the deal. The outside workers could have legally gone on strike or been locked out by the city starting at 12:01 a.m. Friday. Their counterparts in Local 79, which represents 23,100 employees including child care and shelter workers, nurses, cleaners and planners, would have been in the same position as of 12:01 a.m. Saturday. Late Friday night, however, Local 79 president Tim Maguire announced a 24-hour extension to their deadline while talks continue Saturday, pushing the earliest walkout to 12:01 a.m. Sunday. Maguire told reporters that his negotiators and the city remained far apart on key issues. Local 79 members cant accept cuts to benefits that would take hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, out of their pockets, Maguire said. The city is also refusing union demands to increase job stability, including more notice of shift schedules, guaranteed minimum hours and some workers getting full-time permanent status, said a frustrated-sounding Maguire. Were still far apart in the city recognizing that it has to reverse the increasing instability for front line workers, he said. If there is a work stoppage, many of the effects would not be felt until Monday. City-run daycares would close, along with community centres, rinks and pools. Permits and licences would not be issued. Public health nursing would halt. Maguire said he wants to keep talking, with the mediators help, until they get a deal, and he has no plans to call a strike if there is no deal at 12:01 a.m. Saturday. But if the city forces his members to vote on a final offer, he will urge them to reject it. Mayor John Tory on Thursday insisted there could be no deal without benefits concessions. A day later, he welcomed news of the tentative deal with Local 416. Correction - February 19, 2016: The photo caption was edited from a previous version that misstated Matt Alloway's given name. The tentative agreement reached today is a responsible one and within the mandate that the city council employee and labour relations committee set out for the (city) bargaining team, he told reporters. Asked if he can still say that there will be no new four-year contract without benefits cuts, Tory would only repeat that terms of the proposed deal are consistent with the negotiating teams mandate. Read more about: SHARE: They are the babies born of bad blood. Birthed by mothers often little more than children themselves. Or other mens wives. Daughters lost and found and rejected. The progeny of abduction and rape and sexual enslavement, despised in the womb and shunned in the world. This is what Boko Haram has spawned: A generation of despoiled females and misbegotten offspring. Upwards of 2,000 women and children have been snatched from villages and small towns since 2012 by the brutal insurgents who fight for Jama-atul ahl al-sunnah li daawati wal jihad (JAS) known more familiarly as Boko Haram which has wreaked havoc trying to carve out a Salafist caliphate in northeast Nigeria. The terrorist organization was tied to nearly 11,000 killings over the past year more than half from suicide bombings and armed raids according to the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations. If only I could run faster, scream louder. They seized global attention with the mass kidnapping of 276 girls from a government school in Chibok, Borno State, in April 2014, unleashing international outrage encapsulated by the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls campaign taken up by First Lady Michele Obama and other world leaders. Fifty-seven abductees managed to escape in the early days. The remaining 219 havent been seen since a video was released a month later showing them reciting from the Quran. Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau declared, on video, that the Chibok girls would be married off to his fighters. But what of those who did make it back, many returning with babes in arms and in their bellies? The hashtag meme never pondered what-comes-next for those victims. A report released this week by UNICEF and the British-based peace-building agency International Alert provides some insight into their plight. They have not for the most part been welcomed home, neither by their families nor by wider, distrustful communities. Instead, they are seen as Annoba epidemics as if carrying the threat of a radicalization plague that could contaminate others, and the children they bore to combatants even further stigmatized. One community leader quoted in the report entitled Bad Blood described the women as hyenas among dogs hyenas eat dogs and offspring of fighters as a scourge. A local saying: The child of a snake is a snake. Initially I wanted to abort. I tried using many local methods to abort but they failed. Abortion is illegal in Nigeria. They did what they were forced to do. Served as drudges in the camps where they were taken, were passed from man to man, took up arms, participated in raids. One of those escapees told British TV shed seen some of the girls slit the throats of captives, as ordered. It is certainly a credible account for an extremist ISIS affiliate that has beheaded people, burned schoolboys alive in dormitories, murdered teachers, attacked mosques, churches and marketplaces. Rumors abound that some of the returned, indoctrinated and released back to their villages, have killed their own parents. They are suspected of having been subjected to witchcraft thats rendered them covert operatives or perceived as irreversibly radicalized, mothers to the next generation of fighters because their children carry the violent characteristics of their biological fathers. An unidentified representative of the Borno State government told the reports authors: Boko Haram uses juju to initiate members, so all women and children may have some of these traits in their blood. From another government official: The lady would be accepted, but not her child because of the husbands genes. Huge swaths of territory controlled by Boko Haram were retaken last year in a major offensive and cleared of militants by government troops after President Mohammadu Buhari was elected on a promise to crush the insurgency. Hundreds of women and girls have been freed, interrogated, ostensibly screened for radical sympathies and delivered to 17 displaced persons camps in Borno State, four of which were visited by International Alert researchers. The government objective is to assess the returnees and eventually allow them back into to their communities. Recovery and reintegration, however, have been replete with obstacles. Some families have turned a cold cheek to their relatives, with parents accusing their daughters of having gone willingly to Boko Haram. Husbands have divorced wives seen as ruined goods. In polygamous families, other wives have ejected the returnees and their children, fearing their own kids will be influenced and recruited. No, I will not accept her, I am afraid. Alienation and insufficient resources for counseling all but ensure that many of the abductees and their children will be stigmatized throughout their lives, the report notes, increasing their vulnerability to abuse, exploitation and retraumatizing. Already some of those brought to the DP camps have been found selling themselves sexually because theyre destitute and have nothing else to offer. There are some positive signs, says Kimairis Toogood, an adviser for International Alert in Nigeria. Some husbands have taken back their wives and the children. Some communities have been willing to accept them. Most of the women say they love the children they had. But if their ongoing needs cant be met as they return to their towns and villages, that will add another dimension to a complex conflict situation. Husbands and families need counseling too. Those needs arent being met by an overwhelmed social welfare system. One key government facility dedicated to the rehabilitation of women and children born of Boko Haram sexual violence ceased operations at the end of last year. Deep distrust of returnees doesnt exist in a vacuum either, as Boko Haram appears to have reverted to its former terrorizing hit-and-run warfare tactics rather than focusing on territorial gains. Females are increasingly being used in suicide missions. Abductees may consider themselves doomed anyway, forever branded by their Boko Haram JAS captivity. As a father, I will think of who will marry her, one villager said. When I think of the baby that will come, it disturbs me a lot because I always ask myself this question: Will the child also behave like JAS? Read more about: SHARE: What is your definition of luxury travel? Does it include experiencing exquisite lodges set amid some of the world's most stunning winelands in South Africa, or perhaps securing absolute privacy in an exotic Sri Lankan coastal village, or better yet, visiting a 28-tent leopard-safari lodge on a secluded island beach in Yala National Park? If none of these destinations is on your radar, it's time to up your luxury game. Luckily, Robb Report is here to help. The luxury lifestyle publication recently issued its annual list of the world's hottest luxury destinations, essential reading for anyone serious about the art of over-the-top travel. Among the crop of sexy destinations the magazine's editorial staff suggests visiting in 2016 are various lesser-known cities, countries and even archipelagos. There are destinations popular with the ultra wealthy yachting set, urban suggestions for contemporary art lovers and even adventure locales for those who require a bit of excitement mixed with luxury pampering. Billed as the ultimate insider's guide to the places to be in 2016, the Robb Report annual travel issue includes emerging luxury locations, comeback stories and places that appear to be hitting their stride. Topping the list this year is South Africa's Cape Winelands, an emerging destination that in previous years was viewed as a place worthy of perhaps a day trip, but little more. The magazine makes a compelling case for changing this point of view, suggesting that an extended stay is entirely in order thanks to the proliferation of luxury offerings. Among the notable properties here are La Residence and Delaire Graff Estate, as well as Richard Branson's Mont Rochelle, which is part of the exclusive Virgin Limited Edition collection. (Branson has spent $3.2 million on the property since 2014, creating a new spa, two restaurants and renovating guest rooms.) "Over the years a number of high-end wineries have opened up, as well as first rate restaurants," says Robb Report's editorial director and resident travel expert Bruce Wallin. "It is the South African equivalent of Napa, and has been gradually emerging over the past decade and a half." Sri Lanka, meanwhile, is another destination receiving high marks this year from the globe trotting folks at Robb Report. A country that a decade or so ago was troubled by political issues, says Wallin, it is now the focus of much high-end development. Among the must-see Sri Lanka properties for the luxury traveling set is Tri Lanka, which opened in December. The luxe, sustainably designed property includes unique suites spread around an island promontory on one of Sri Lanka's finest lakes. The country's first wellness resort meanwhile, the 50-acre Santani, is scheduled to open this month in the Kandy hills, as is the Anantara Peace Haven Tangalle Resort on the southern coast. And not to be overlooked is one of Wallin's personal favorites - the Dilmah Tea's Wild Coast Camp, a leopard-safari lodge on a secluded beach. "There are a lot of great properties opening there," says Wallin. "But what I like about Sri Lanka is the diversity of experiences - there's fantastic beaches, there's the tea country experience, or you can go on safari with leopards and elephants." Among the other destinations on the list are Los Angeles and Paris, which may come as a bit of a surprise to some. Paris, according to Robb Report, is primed to renew its reputation as the city of the future. "The cancellations in Paris were rampant after the most recent terrorist attacks there," says Wallin. "I was in France right after that. The industry was definitely taking a hit. But Americans will always go to Paris. It's arguably the most cherished of destinations. It's never going to go away as a destination." She says the upcoming reopening of the Ritz-Carlton is reason enough for the luxury traveler to revisit the city. "It is one of the most famous luxury hotels in the world," says Wallin of the property, which has undergone a three-year renovation. "When it reopens this year, being able to see it reborn will be a major reason to visit." Other major reasons the magazine views Paris as a rebound kid with bright days ahead include the unveiling (in 2014) of Frank Gehry's glass-and-steel Fondation Louis Vuitton art museum, followed last year by the opening of the Philharmonie de Paris, an acoustic and aesthetic masterpiece in the Parc de la Villette. And yet to come is the Cite Musicale, an impressive music complex that will include a futuristic spherical auditorium. Not to be outdone, Los Angeles has seen its own fair share of cultural expansion. Of particular note is the The Broad, a $140 million contemporary art museum opened by Eli and Edythe Broad. This latest comer joins a well established art scene in the city that includes the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Getty and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. And finally, among Wallin's personal favorites on this year's travel list are the Dolomites and Montenegro. Having just been to the Dolemites himself, Wallin is effusive about its many assets. "In Italy, it is one of the most overlooked places by Americans," he says. "It gets overshadowed by more big ticket destinations. But the Dolemites offer incredible adventure, breathtaking scenery and the food is as good as you would expect anywhere in Italy." For those not familiar, the region, just a few hours from Venice, is dominated by stunning Alpine panoramas (think snow capped mountains, green meadows and blue skies.) A recent addition to the area's attractions is the Messner Mountain Museum Corones, which opened in July. The building, created by architect Zaha Hadid, is a cantilevered masterpiece perched on the 7,500-foot Kronplatz. It is the last in a series of six museums in the region dedicated to mountaineering. And just as the Dolemites are all about mountain beauty, Montenegro is all about stunning ocean views. It has become the essential place to be if you own a super yacht. "It's beautiful," Wallin explains. "The country is very small and most of it faces the Adriatic where there are all of these incredible ports and all these fingers of the Adriatic cutting into land, creating natural bays that are incredible for yachts." Notable developments here for the yachters of the world include Porto Montenegro's expansion. An Adriatic Sea marina and village that originally opened it 2009, it recently unveiled a new yacht club, opened 48 new residences and expanded its marina by 200 berths. If all of that is not enough, it also hosted its first Superyacht Rendezvous (a yearly gathering that for the past quarter century had been held in Monaco.) For those without a mega yacht - perhaps fuel up the private jet and start working your way down the list of the world's most impressive destinations for 2016. The full list of places to see, and be seen, this year can be found at RobbReport.com. Editors' Pick: Originally published Feb. 19. In case of a recession, is it better to choose stocks through fundamental or technical analysis? U.S. markets are grappling with a rocky start to 2016 that has dragged broad indices down into correction territory (despite this week's break from recent lows). The massive volatility seen since the start of the year has prompted speculation that the U.S. is headed for a recession. Morgan Stanley asked each of its analysts covering U.S. companies to identify the stocks from their coverage universe that would represent top names to own in a macro downturn, as well as stocks most unfavorably exposed in the event of recession. "While we are by no means forecasting a recession for the U.S. at this time, we do contemplate the effects such a macro environment could have, and offer stock ideas if a downturn does occur," the Feb. 5 report said. Of the 60 companies named, 19 made up a list of best stocks to own in a recession, which TheStreet covered earlier this month. But is fundamental analysis the best way to approach stock picking in the event of a downturn? Real Money's in-house technical analyst Bruce Kamich puts his spin on the stocks Morgan Stanley said investors should own if the economy falls into a recession. Do the analyses match? Read on to find out. 1. Acceleron Pharma Kamich:Acceleron Pharma (XLRN) is oversold and poised for a recovery rally. Declines into the $25 to $20 area have been bought. Morgan Stanley: "We view XLRN as a relatively safe growth story within small-mid cap biotech, as the company's lead assets advance into Phase 3, supported by a favorable collaborative agreement with Celgene, strong balance sheet, emerging wholly owned assets, and increasing prospects for strategic optionality," analyst Andrew Berens wrote. Pharmaceutical giant Celgene (CELG) is bearing the development costs of Acceleron's leading drug-development programs, including luspatercept, which boosts the red blood cell count in patients with rare blood disorders, and sotatercept, used to treat anemia, the analyst added. 2. Amgen Kamich:Amgen (AMGN) has largely traded sideways the past 12 months, but with some downside probes. Despite declines in September, January and February, the On-Balance-Volume line has been steady, suggesting little in the way of liquidation by longs. Morgan Stanley: "We would expect Amgen to outperform in a recession scenario as most of its portfolio of drugs is for oncology therapy or directed at patients in Medicare, two groups who are unlikely to limit their use of medicines in a recession," analyst Matthew Harrison wrote. As well, Harrison sees biotech developer Amgen's strong dividend yield, high cash flow and solid balance sheet as three key assets in a recession. 3. Centene Kamich:Centene (CNC) has been finding support in the $55-to-$50 area since September. Also note the uptick in the On-Balance-Volume line in December as prices made their year-end rally. Morgan Stanley: "We expect the Medicaid managed care names will benefit under a recession scenario and particularly favor Centene. If unemployment were to increase, members would likely shift from commercial insurance to Medicaid driving growth. In addition, healthcare reform has expanded coverage criteria ensuring that more potential members would be eligible," analyst Andrew Schenker wrote. Further, Centene should benefit via earnings accretion and other synergies from its pending acquisition of HealthNet, he wrote. 4. Chubb Kamich: This short-term chart of Chubb (CB) shows improvement since July when the On-Balance-Volume turned up, indicating that buyers turned more aggressive. Morgan Stanley: "P&C stocks are generally defensive and outperform in a recessionary environment," analyst Kai Pan wrote. Chubb's management is focused on "deep integration" of its recent acquisition of ACE and "controlling the controllable," such as expenses, Pan wrote. 5. Church and Dwight Kamich: Church and Dwight (CHD) had a temporary breakdown under the 2015 lows in January but quickly recovered its composure to rally above the December highs. Prices are back above the 50-day and 200-day moving averages. Morgan Stanley: "CHD should be a strong safe haven in a recessionary period given: highly defensive product categories, such as laundry/cleaning supplies on the household products side and condoms/pregnancy kits on the personal care side; CHD has a more balanced portfolio than most [consumer products] peers which is nearly evenly split between value and premium." The company sees 82% of sales from the U.S., which limits its FX risk. Church & Dwight also has a strong balance sheet, Morgan Stanley analyst Dara Mohsenian said. 6. Comcast Kamich: The $54-to-$52 area on Comcast (CMCSA) has attracted buyers on at least three occasions. Meanwhile the On-Balance-Volume line has been edging slightly higher this year -- a sign of fresh accumulation. Morgan Stanley: Comcast's "below-peer leverage and limited international exposure make it more defensive in the event of a global slowdown," analyst Benjamin Swinburne wrote. 7. Crown Castle Kamich:Crown Castle (undefined) has been in a wide trading range the past seven months, but dips into the $78-to-$76 area appear to have been bought while rallies to the top of the trading range around $88 have not produced significant liquidation. It looks like buying interest just takes a break on the rallies. Morgan Stanley: "Crown Castle is the only publicly traded wireless tower company with a 100% U.S. dollar revenue base. It has some $20 billion of contracted lease revenues in backlog, with the average lease contract having a six-year remaining term, with annual lease escalators of more than 3%. Demand is driven by the secular growth in wireless broadband data traffic," analyst Simon Flannery wrote. 8. CVS Health Kamich: All stock market rallies have corrections, and that also goes for individual names. CVS Health (CVS) , a key holding in Jim Cramer's Trifecta Stocks portfolio, is no exception. After a peak in early August, CVS traded lower with the On-Balance-Volume line matching the dips. Recently prices made a new low, but the OBV line did not. This bullish divergence could be interesting going forward. Morgan Stanley: "CVS' unique portfolio of assets and integrated PBM/retail model positions the company to continue to gain market share and is aligned with trend towards lower cost healthcare settings that are likely to do better under a recession scenario," analyst Ricky Goldwasser wrote. Goldwasser estimates that CVS will grow its per-share earnings by approximately 13% in 2016 and 2017. "For reference, CVS outperformed the S&P 500 by ~11% in 2008," during the worst of the financial crisis, Goldwasser wrote. 9. Danaher Kamich:Danaher (DHR) , another Trifecta Stocks holding, has been bought on every test and dip into the $84-to-$82 area. The On-Balance-Volume line gained in the May-July period, telling us that buyers were more aggressive, but those summer gains have not been reversed -- a positive signal. Morgan Stanley: Danaher is "the most defensive stock in the industrial comp group, in our view, due to ~60% exposure to Healthcare (Dental, Life Sciences) and ~50% recurring revenue stream via consumable sales; This 60% of the portfolio would have experienced only a 3% organic sales decline if had been a standalone business in 2009," analyst Nigel Coe wrote. 10. First Republic Bank Kamich:First Republic Bank (FRC) had a very positive looking chart (higher lows and higher highs) for much of the past 12 months. A decline in February broke the prior low in January, weakening the chart picture. But the On-Balance-Volume line did not match the price decline. Longs held their positions, and $56 looks to be pretty important support. Morgan Stanley: "First Republic is one of the most defensive stocks in the midcap bank universe, given its sole focus on high-net-worth clients and its multi-decade track record of pristine underwriting. Since inception in 1985, the company has had an annual net charge off ratio of less than one basis point -- the lowest by far of any of our covered banks, due largely to its conservative underwriting (including the financial crisis period)," analyst Ken Zerbe wrote. 11. H&R Block Kamich:H&R Block (HRB) recently turned back above the 50-day simple moving average. Note that in the trading since August that while prices have swung up and down in a $7 range, the On-Balance-Volume line has been moving sideways. Longer-term investors in HRB have been largely staying put. Morgan Stanley: The tax return business is resilient and a "recession could even be a tailwind to this opportunity if employees leave corporate plans and join exchanges or file for more exemptions," Thomas Allen wrote. The company is also well-positioned in any market environment given strong recurring "free cash flow (6% current yield) and an under-levered balance sheet (2.2x debt / EBITDA)," he wrote. 12. Hanesbrands Kamich:Hanesbrands (HBI) has been in an irregular downtrend the past 12 months, but volume has been light and the On-Balance-Volume line has been relatively stable. This suggests that sellers are not aggressive and HBI has been "falling of its own weight." Morgan Stanley: "Underwear is the most staples-like category within apparel and footwear," said analyst Jay Sole, which makes Hanesbrands a solid bet. The company's dominant market share isn't likely to change much in a recession, he said. `` 13. Kraft Heinz Kamich: We do not have a lot of price history on Kraft Heinz (KHC) , a key holding in Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS charitable trust, to work with, but we can say that dips to $70 have been bought: every decline since August. Very impressive. Morgan Stanley: "We believe KHC offers multiple levers to grow earnings and unlock shareholder value even in the event of a macro slowdown in the U.S.," analyst Matt Grainger wrote. "Additionally, KHC also offers a healthy 3.0% dividend yield which should prove supportive in the event of broader weakness in U.S. equity markets." Exclusive Look Inside: You see Jim Cramer on TV. Now, see where he invests his money and why Kraft Heinz is a core holding of his multi-million dollar portfolio. Want to be alerted before Jim Cramer buys or sells KHC?Learn more now. 14. Kroger Kamich: A ruler won't work, but Kroger (KR) has been in an uptrend the past 12 months. Support was first found at $34 and has now moved up to $36 -- a higher low. The highs have also moved up first at $38, then $39 and then the $42+ area. Morgan Stanley: "Kroger is a consistent top and bottom line grower, and we expect continued share gains within the food retail industry," analyst Vincent Sinisi wrote. "Conventional and natural/organic offerings at value price points provide customers with a wide range of products to suit a variety of health/wellness and/or financial needs during any macroeconomic environment." 15. McDonald's Kamich: I don't know if it is the all-day breakfast menu or what, but October marked a turning point for McDonald's (MCD) . The MACD oscillator is above the zero line and a new "go long" signal could come soon. Morgan Stanley: "While MCD's U.S. business is not immune from a macroeconomic slowdown, it should be more resilient than most, given its heavy emphasis on value, accelerating momentum through all-day breakfast, and improved operational changes," analyst John Glass wrote. Also, McDonald's franchised system generates more than 80% of its profit through rents and royalties, yielding substantial free cash flow. The company has committed to a goal of $30 billion of cash return to shareholders for the three years through 2016, he wrote. 16. Perrigo Kamich: Yes,Perrigo (PRGO) has been in a downtrend for much of the past 12 months, but the rate of decline since late September has slowed. There is a bullish divergence between the lower lows in price since September and the higher lows from the momentum study. Slowing momentum tends to foreshadow a rally. Morgan Stanley: Perrigo, an industry leader in over-the-counter drugs, is a well-positioned pharmaceutical company even in a recession. "First, consumers should be more likely to opt for cheaper private label OTCs vs branded OTC drugs, enabling Perrigo to win incremental market share," analyst David Risinger wrote. "Second, we believe Perrigo's private-label consumer business (50% of rev; 34% of operating income in 2016) is set to grow strongly in the short term, driven by important new launch opportunities (such as the Mucinex family, Flonase, and Nasacort) and a stabilizing competitive environment from J&J and Novartis. Third, Perrigo may be able to capitalize on lower valuations for strategic targets and pursue bolt-on acquisitions." 17. PG&E Kamich: This short-term chart of PG&E (PCG) was neutral-looking for months, and then PCG exploded on the upside in January. The OBV turned up, and prices are above the 50-day and 200-day averages. The MACD oscillator has also followed the trend up. Morgan Stanley: "Earnings growth is highly visible and in our view is independent of economic activity," wrote analyst Stephen Byrd. "With a 3.3% dividend yield and above-average EPS growth relative to utility peers, growth that is not dependent on power demand fluctuations, coupled with a 2018e P/E multiple that is 8% below peers, we view PCG as a defensive value play with strong current income." 18. Verisk Analytics Kamich: During the January-to-February decline, Verisk Analytics (VRSK) made lower lows in price, while also making slightly higher lows from the momentum indicator. This bullish divergence suggests that VRSK bounces soon. Morgan Stanley: Verisk Analytics has "historically outperformed the S&P 500 during market corrections since 2010," analyst Toni Kaplan wrote. It has done the same "during nearly 90% of trailing four-week periods in which the S&P 500 declined by more than 5%, since the market peak in 2007." Kaplan added that Verisk's resiliency is a "reflection of the high-quality, subscription-based (75% of revenue) business model that commands high free cash flow generation (~60% of EBITDA)." 19. Walmart Kamich:Walmart (WMT) has been creeping higher the past three months or so with the On-Balance-Volume line improving and the MACD oscillator in a bullish configuration. Morgan Stanley: "We believe investors will value the counter-cyclical nature of WMT's business - should consumer confidence wane, middle-income shoppers could trade down to Walmart, which should help drive low-single digit comp growth and potentially offset increased wage/e-commerce expenses," analyst Simeon Gutman wrote. The proposed merger between Avalanche Biotechnologies (AAVL) and privately held Annapurna Therapeutics is running into resistance from some of Avalanche's institutional shareholders. They want the beleaguered gene therapy company to cancel the deal, sell off assets and return their cash. Avalanche CEO Paul Cleveland has been meeting with shareholders and analysts this week in New York, trying to rally support for the Annapurna deal. Last June, Avalanche's lead program for macular degeneration posted mediocre results in a mid-stage clinical trial, collapsing the stock price and forcing then-CEO Thomas Chalberg out the door. Acquiring Annapurna adds new gene therapy programs for other rare diseases, including Friedrich's ataxia and hereditary angioedema, to Avalanche's pipeline. Avalanche intends to issue 17.6 million new shares to acquire Paris-based Annapurna. If the deal closes, Annapurna would own 37% of the combined company, which would retain the Avalanche name. The cost of the deal was $106 million based on Avalanche's $6 stock price when the deal was announced on Feb. 1. Cleveland, who became Avalanche's CEO in November, is pitching the Annapurna combination as a reasonably priced reboot of Avalanche's gene therapy pipeline and a way to rebuild shareholder value over time. But Avalanche stock was at $40 before last June's blow-up. Today, the stock trades at $5 a share even though cash in the company's bank account at the end of 2015 was worth $10 a share. Instead of buying Annapurna and burning the existing cash on gene therapy programs which haven't even begun human clinical trials, some Avalanche holders want the company shut down and its remaining assets sold off. The liquidation of Avalanche could be worth $10-12 s share, according to a hedge fund manager who owns a stake in Avalanche. Other Avalanche shareholders also oppose the Annapurna deal, he said, although it's not clear if there are enough votes to scuttle it. "There are some of us who would prefer to get paid today rather than wait for the market to appreciate gene therapy again," he said, adding that other Avalanche shareholders also oppose the Annapurna deal. Whether or not enough "no" votes exist to stop Avalanche from buying Annapurna is not clear. Avalanche needs a simple majority of voting shareholders to approve the Annapurna deal. "We haven't counted votes, but based on what we've heard, we feel confident that we have shareholder support," said Avalanche spokesperson Lauren Glaser. Avalanche proposes to close the Annapurna transaction in the second quarter. Adam Feuerstein writes regularly for TheStreet. In keeping with company editorial policy, he doesn't own or short individual stocks, although he owns stock in TheStreet. He also doesn't invest in hedge funds or other private investment partnerships. Feuerstein appreciates your feedback; click here to send him an email. It was a mixed bag of earnings on Friday for apparel maker VF Corp. (VFC) and tractor manufacturer Deere (DE) . VF reported fourth-quarter earnings of 95 cents per share, missing estimates of $1.01. Revenue came in at $3.38 billion, falling short of forecasts of $3.64 billion. "You're seeing wages grow very slowly and we're not really seeing the benefits from the declines in oil prices, which has boosted discretionary income," said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda, based in London. The maker of North Face products was also hit by the strong dollar. Erlam was encouraged by the company's optimistic outlook, which includes revenue expected to be higher by the mid-single-digits. VF expects sales from overseas operations to rise by the high single-digits. VF shares have lost 1.6% since the start of the year. Meanwhile, Deere posted fiscal 2016 first-quarter net income of 80 cents a share, beating estimates by 10 cents, but revenue fell 13% year over year. "What's most concerning is their outlook for the rest of the year, and that I think is what could weight on the stock," Erlam said. Deere expects equipment sales to fall 10% this year. "Although Deere expects another challenging year in 2016, our forecast represents a level of performance much better than we have experienced in previous downturns," said Samuel Allen, chairman and CEO of Deere, in a statement. Erlam said one bright spot before the earnings release was news that billionaire investor Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) (BRK.B) , revealed a 7.2% stake in the tractor maker, scooping up an additional 5.8 million shares. "This would maybe shore up some fears that investors may have about the outlook," Erlam said. Deere "did highlight the farming industry and the fact that farmers may be less inclined to buy new machinery at a time when crop pricing is stalling," he said. Shares of Deere have risen 5.3% year to date. NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Shares of Devon Energy (DVN) are down by 5.78% to $18.58 in mid-morning trading on Friday, as stocks within the oil and related sectors decline due to the retreat in the commodity's price. The cost of oil is plunging due to a record build in U.S. crude inventories, which offset the hope that coordinated talks by major oil producers will result in an output freeze, Reuters reports. Crude oil (WTI) is retreating by 4.81% to $29.29 per barrel this morning, and Brent crude is slipping by 3.88% -- to $32.95 per barrel. Oil prices had popped by more than 14% earlier this week, as Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed to freeze output at January levels. Iran's oil minister welcomes the plan but has yet to commit to it, Reuters added. For the week ended February 12, crude stockpiles grew by 2.1 million barrels to a total of 504.1 million, data from the Energy Information Administration showed. 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 set 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 TheStreet Ratings team covers. The company's weaknesses can be seen in multiple areas, such as its deteriorating net income, disappointing return on equity, generally high debt-management risk, generally disappointing historical performance in the stock itself and feeble growth in its earnings per share. 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 relentless rise in the stock markets from the lows of 2009, to the highs seen in 2015, have made many market participants complacent. Every dip, has been bought and the traders have been rewarded. However, on close analysis, the economy and the equity markets are setting themselves up for a harsh winter ahead, which is expected to persist until 2020. The equity markets will have to go through "The Great Reset" and even the Fed will not be able to rescue us. A collapse does not happen all at once. The weak links give out first, followed by the stronger ones. Similarly, this time, it is China's economic slowdown, the oil crisis and a probable Euro crisis, all of which will end with the crisis of the largest economy of the world. The China Slowdown China is a great example of how one discovers that under adverse economic conditions, any amount of propping up by the central banks, does not yield results. The Chinese stock market continues its unabated fall, even after their government introduced various market supporting measures, throughout the year. The following are a few measures, which did not yield any results, and the markets continued to tumble: The People's Bank of China cut interest rates six times last year; it also lowered the bank's reserve requirement ratios (RRR) several times in 2015. It let go of its control on the setting of deposit rates by the banks, encouraging competition among the state-controlled banking system. It also allowed pension funds to invest 30% of their assets in equities for the first time ever. It introduced a four-month freeze on IPOs. A number of other measures were also announced which are outlined here. Despite all of these measures, the stock market continued to collapse. Along with the equity markets, the Chinese economy is also in tatters. Various interventions by the government and the Central Banks have not been successful in propelling the nation on a path toward the growth of previous years, and, as a result, the economy continues to falter. The above chart reflects the extent of the slowdown in China. It is experiencing one of the worst growth rates of the last decade, barring a small aberration during the "Great Recession." The continuous growth of China was the engine of growth for the world economy, as China is the largest contributor to world growth. However, since 2012, Chinese growth numbers are on a downward path and continue to spiral further. Early in the year, Premier Li accepted the lower growth rates of 7% as the "new normal" for China. Despite lowering its guidance, China continues to struggle, as its growth in the last two quarters of 2015 was at 6.9% and 6.8%, respectively. Some believe that the growth numbers are fabricated and the real growth numbers in China are, in fact, lower. The Oil Crisis The current "oil crisis" has pushed crude prices to a 12-year low. Although lower gas prices at the pump are good for consumers, lower crude oil prices are threatening to push the world economy into deflation. According to a Standard & Poor's Ratings Service, Junk Bonds have crashed; the organization then warned that 50% of energy bonds are at a risk of default. If you believe that metals are better off, be warned, as the Standard & Poor's Ratings Service states that 72% of the bonds in the metals, mining and steel industry are "distressed." The chart below shows a 69% decline in the Bloomberg Commodity Index within the past 5 years. The Euro Is Under Threat of a Grexit and Brexit Milton Freidman, the great economist, predicted the "Eurozone Crisis" long before it happened. He wrote: "The drive for the Euro has been motivated by politics not economics. The aim has been to link Germany and France so closely as to make a future European war impossible, and to set the stage for a federal United States of Europe. I believe that adoption of the Euro would have the opposite effect. It would exacerbate political tensions by converting divergent shocks that could have been readily accommodated by exchange rate changes into divisive political issues. Political unity can pave the way for monetary unity. Monetary unity imposed under unfavorable conditions will prove a barrier to the achievement of political unity." In the past five years, the Eurozone has entered the brink of a breakup on numerous occasions. The closest incidents were after the Greek crisis, on two separate occasions. The Euro members have merely managed to "kick the can" into the future of what is inevitable. Grexit has been averted for now; however, the new threat is Brexit. The majority in Britain is favoring an exit from the Eurozone, which will be a big blow to the union. Though Britain continues to have its own monetary system, it was a part of all other activities of the European Union. One nation leaving the union could cause other nations to leave, as well, which would lead to a breakup of the Euro. The breakup of the Euro would be catastrophic for the entire world. The Fed Is No Longer Able to Fix It Anymore For the past six years, the FED has pumped an enormous amount of liquidity into the economy. It has kept ultra-low-interest rates for almost six years. In the past decade, the Fed's balance sheet has expanded significantly. With such large amounts of free money available, ideally one would expect a strong growth and sustained inflation. However, in reality, the growth rate has been dismal and so has the inflation. The economy is in an economic deflationary period. Despite all the interest rate cuts and quantitative easings, the real economy never really gained any traction and is still struggling to maintain any steady growth rate while teething between periods of flat growth and a few negative quarters of growth. The U.S. fourth-quarter 2015 GDP numbers have proven to be dismal at 0.7% growth. With an already inflated balance sheet, the Fed will not be able to contain the next financial crisis, which will lead to "The Great Reset," at which time, all of the excesses of the system will be flushed out. It will be a painful transition; however, spring will certainly arrive following such a harsh economic winter. Unless one is adequately prepared, the chances of surviving financially are remote. A few asset classes can help you weather the cold; gold and U.S. Bonds are the place to hide. However, currently, both are likely to correct themselves and the U.S. equity markets will surge, sucking in many more equity investors, before the next big decline takes place. Keep following me at TheGoldAndOilGuy.com for timely suggestions on the correct investment strategies in order to safeguard you and your family's future. This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held TK positions in the stocks mentioned. Chris Vermeulen is full time trader and research analyst for TheGoldAndOilGuy Newsletter. This article, originally published at 2:28 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016, has been updated with comments from Moody's, video and market data. The nation's biggest banks may be in good shape even if beleaguered oil producers start defaulting on their loans, but smaller regional lenders have a lot more to lose. Loans to energy companies by the five megabanks from Citigroup (C) to JPMorgan Chase (JPM) account for no more than 40% of common equity capital, a measure used by regulators to assess a finance company's strength, ratings firm Moody's has said. At nine regional banks, however, such loans never account for less than 40% of capital, and at some, they represent 110% of it, the New York firm said in a report this week. That compares with a median ratio of 10% to 15% at the roughly 60 regional banks that Moody's evaluates, prompting it to warn that credit scores at six of the lenders are in jeopardy. "We've had a huge deterioration in the price of oil for the last year and a half or so and that's resulted in a lot of stress on oil producers and oil service companies, which basically means that quality of bank loans to those sectors is eroding," Allen Tischler, one of the authors of the Moody's report, said in a telephone interview. "That's the impetus for what we've done here." Together, the Moody's reports offer a window into which parts of the finance industry may be hit hardest by a 20% drop in oil prices this year, which has made it tougher for energy firms to repay money borrowed when crude was selling for three times as much. Concern about the defaults, and whether they pose enough risk to cause a recurrence of the financial crisis, has driven bank stocks down 19% since last December. The size of the regional banks' energy loans -- pushed higher because many have significant operations in the most oil-dependent states --Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana -- significantly increases their risk, Moody's said in the report. "We see energy companies defaulting, credit quality slipping, and so as that credit quality deteriorates, that increases probability of default," Joseph Pucella, a senior credit officer at Moody's, said in an interview. Consequently, Moody's placed the credit ratings of four regional banking companies -- BOK Financial (BOKF) , Cullen/Frost Bankers (CFR) , Hancock Holding (HBHC) and Texas Capital (TCBI) -- on review for a downgrade this week. The outlook for the ratings of two others -- Comerica (CMA) and Associated (ASBC) -- was changed to negative. The actions followed tougher stress tests for the banks based on the growing likelihood that oil prices will remain lower for longer, Moody's noted. Crude has sold between $25 and $30 for half of the trading days this month, compared with a high of nearly $108 in June 2014, and the firm now predicts prices won't rise much higher than $40 through the end of 2018. That means cost-cutting at energy producers will probably press ever further into their cash flow and assets, Moody's noted. Its "moderate stress" scenario assumed the median junk rating of energy borrowers would fall two notches while a "severe" scenario evaluated the banks' health with the same rating falling four notches. "To the extent that any of these banks -- and some of them are -- concentrated in regions where the economy is very much energy-driven, there's the additional incremental risk of weakness in some of the rest of their portfolios, which may have some kind of reliance on all of the oil and energy activity," Tischler said. Still, all six of the banks have credit ratings above investment grade now, he emphasized, and many have decades of experience in energy lending. A cut of a single notch would take only one of the banks, Texas Capital, below investment grade, according to the report. "Those that are the most concentrated in energy lending also tend to be among the most experienced banks, and a few of them are pretty highly rated," Tischler said. "We're not talking about weak companies," he added. That's a pivotal difference, he said, "from the last big downturn in the U.S. banking sector, which was around real estate. There, you had players that were more concentrated, for example, in residential development and maybe were weaker or weren't as resilient to the downturn." Importantly, the energy-lending market is also orders-of-magnitude smaller than the mortgage market, whose collapse precipitated the 2008 financial crisis that froze global credit markets, prompted the bankruptcy of investment bank Lehman Brothers and led to massive government bailouts of other financial institutions. Analysts including Dick Bove of Rafferty Capital Markets have pointed out that U.S. banks are much stronger now than before 2008, following years of government-mandated initiatives intended to prevent a recurrence of that crisis. Under the new rules, the banks strengthened capital reserves and many have reviewed borrowers more carefully before extending loans. "The U.S. banks are fundamentally in very fine shape," William Dudley, president of the New York Federal Reserve -- the regulator for major Wall Street banks -- said last week. "When we subject them to very severe stress tests, they come through in a very good way." NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Boeing (BA) has been cleared by the U.S. government to enter fleet discussions with approved Iranian carriers now that nuclear sanctions on the country have been eased, Bloomberg reports. Boeing will need a different license to complete the jetliner sales. Last month, rival France-based aerospace company Airbus (EADSY) agreed to sell 118 jetliners worth $27 billion to Iran Air, and it's not entirely clear how much more demand exists. Aviation consultant Ascend Worldwide expects an "initial replacement opportunity equivalent" to the 160 aircraft already in service in Iran, Rob Morris, head of the consultancy, told Bloomberg. "Assuming that the thaw does indeed continue, the potential opportunity may be significantly greater than this though," Morris continued. Shares of Boeing are down 2.51% to $114.62 in afternoon trading on Friday. Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates the stock as a "buy" with a ratings score of B. Boeing's strengths such as its respectable return on equity which we feel is likely to continue outweigh the fact that the company has had lackluster performance in the stock itself. You can view the full analysis from the report here: BA 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 article's author. BA data by YCharts Markets capped a blockbuster beginning to the week with a lackluster ending. The S&P 500 was little changed, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.13%. The Nasdaq added 0.38% on gains in Yahoo! (YHOO) and Applied Materials (AMAT) . Still, spikes on Tuesday and Wednesday helped Wall Street close in the green for only the third time in seven weeks. The S&P 500 and Dow were both up more than 2% since Tuesday. Stocks had rocketed higher earlier this week, securing their first three-day winning streak of the year, as investors grew more optimistic over the state of the U.S. economy, hopes for more stable oil prices, and slower hike plans from the Federal Reserve. The S&P 500 climbed out of correction territory, though it's now hovering on the cusp of it. Crude oil closed below $30 a barrel on Friday even as a weekly count on active oil rigs in the U.S. dropped again. The number of oil rigs in operation fell 26 to 439 last week, the ninth straight week of declines. Fading hopes of a production cut from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries kept commodities under pressure, with reports Thursday that Saudi Arabia was "not prepared" to limit oil production. OPEC has attempted this week to agree on an output cap to stabilize oil prices. West Texas Intermediate was down 3% to $29.82 a barrel. Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed to a production freeze earlier in the week, something which Iran supported but did not commit to. "While several large producing states have agreed to cap production at current levels -- including Saudi Arabia and Russia -- Iraq and Iran have not made similar commitments and the market has recognized that these token commitments will not be able to stave off bearishness," Schneider Electric's Daniel Holder wrote in a note. The energy sector was the worst performer Friday. Major oilers Exxon Mobil (XOM) , Chevron (CVX) , Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A) , and BP (BP) were lower, while the Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLE) fell 0.6%. Yahoo! added 2.1% after forming a strategic committee to explore alternatives. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and PJT Partners will convene as financial advisers, while the company seeks out other interested partners. The Internet company will likely address what to do with its stake in e-commerce site Alibaba (BABA) , as well as its other online properties. Applied Materials added 7.1% after besting analysts' quarterly estimates on its top and bottom lines. The chipmaker earned 26 cents a share, a penny above forecasts, on revenue of $2.26 billion. However, the company did suffer weaker demand in its recent quarter with sales down 5% and new orders dropping 6%. Other tech companies in the green included Amazon (AMZN) , Alphabet (GOOGL) , Baidu (BIDU) and Salesforce (CRM) . Exclusive Look Inside: You see Jim Cramer on TV. Now, see where he invests his money and why Alphabet is a core holding of his multi-million dollar portfolio.Learn more now. Nordstrom (JWN) fell 6.7% after increased promotions over the recent quarter pressed margins. The retailer's gross profit rate slid 180 basis points to 34.9%. Nordstrom expects full-year sales growth to range between 3.5% and 5.5%. Deere (DE) slid 4.2% as the heavy machinery maker continued to see weaker demand from the agricultural sector in its recent quarter. Revenue fell 13% in its first quarter, and the company expects equipment sales to fall 10% over the full year. Apple (AAPL) was active after the company was given more time to respond to a Department of Justice order to assist the FBI in unlocking an iPhone used by the perpetrators of last year's terror attacks in California, sources told CNBC. The tech giant now has until Feb. 26, three days later than the original order. Apple has so far suggested it will not acquiesce with the request. The smartphone maker and Alphabet are both holdings in Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS portfolio. Montreal, CA (H4T1V6) Today Partly cloudy. High 57F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 44F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Soldiers carry the coffins of victims as Turkish army commanders, ministers and family members attend funeral prayers for eight of 28 victims of Wednesday explosion in Ankara, Turkey, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. Turkish authorities on Friday detained three more suspects in connection with the deadly bombing in Ankara that Turkey has blamed on Kurdish militants at home and in neighboring Syria, while Turkey's military pushed ahead with its cross-border artillery shelling campaign against U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish militia positions in Syria. (AP Photo) 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. In this picture released online by the Sabratha Municipal Council on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016 shows the site where U.S. American warplanes struck an Islamic State training camp in Sabratha, Libya near the Tunisian border. ATunisian described as a key extremist operative probably was killed, the Pentagon announced. In Libya, local officials estimated that more than 40 people were killed with more wounded, some critically. (Sabratha Municipal Council via AP) In this Aug. 1, 2005, file photo, a bicyclist walks by Harvard University's Langdell Hall, which includes Harvard Law School's library, in Cambridge, Mass. Following an October 2015 talk at Harvard Law School organized by students in the group Justice for Palestine, the international law firm Milbank modified a five-year, $1 million pledge to fund scholarly conferences organized by Harvard Law School students, deciding the 2012 donation from the New York City-based firm should no longer pay for student activities. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File) Isaac Yedid Esq. & Raymond Zeitoune Esq. A common assumption is that if you enter a nursing home, Medicaid will immediately take your house to pay for your care. In reality, that is not exactly true. Below are three common scenarios: 1) If you are married, your spouse is always allowed to stay in the house as long as he or she lives. However, after both spouses die, certain States will sometimes put a lien on the home. If that happens, the State will make a claim for the amount they have paid out in Medicaid benefits. This claim would then usually be paid from the proceeds of the house sale after both spouses have passed away. With proper legal planning, this can sometimes be avoided. 2) If your spouse dies while you are still living in the nursing home, Medicaid may demand that you sell the home and use the proceeds for your nursing home costs. Again, depending on the circumstances, you can sometimes preserve the family home. Each situation is different. For example, if a son or daughter is living in the home and provided two years of care to the nursing home resident, this child can sometimes be given the home as a gift to avoid a forced sale by Medicaid. This is usually referred to as the child caretaker exception. Unfortunately, the Medicaid caseworker will not always let you know about this rule. Another exception is if you have a permanently disabled child. In that situation, the home can usually be given to that child, without adverse Medicaid consequences. 3) If you enter a nursing home and do not have a spouse living in the home, Medicaid will allow you to keep the house for approximately one year. After approximately one year, you must list the home for sale, unless one of the exceptions, such as the child caretaker rule applies. When the home sells, the proceeds must generally be used for your nursing home care. If you die before selling the home, the State will usually put a lien on the home. If that happens, the State will make a claim for the amount they have paid out in Medicaid benefits. The good news however, is that through proper legal planning, you can sometimes preserve the entire value of the home for future generations. Even in cases where Medicaid demands that you sell the home, there are often ways to preserve a portion of the sale proceeds for your family. Attorneys who specialize in Medicaid planning are constantly contacted by concerned loved ones and family members wondering when is the right time to prepare for Medicaid planning. The answer is that it is never too early or too late to discuss the planning options available. Below is one example of the many types of calls attorneys receive every day where attorneys advise clients that Medicaid planning is an option right now. SCENARIO: Mrs. Cohen is an 81-year-old widow experiencing short-term memory loss. She is still able to live alone in her own home. Her income is $750 a month; she has a home worth $735,000 and other assets of approximately $60,000. She heard from a friend that she should give away all her assets now to her kids just in case she would ever need to go to a nursing home. Her friend told her that so long as she gives everything away more than five years before moving to nursing home, shell be able to qualify for Medicaid without having to spenddown any of her assets. Unfortunately, there are many problems with the advice Mrs. Cohens friend gave her. First, Mrs. Cohen may need nursing home care in less than five years. Due to this large transfer being made within the five year look back period, she will now be ineligible for Medicaid and will have no funds to pay for her own care. Once the money and house are transferred to her children, those assets actually belong to the children no strings attached. Even if the children are trustworthy, and would be willing to give the money back if Mrs. Cohen needed nursing home care, once the assets are in their names, the assets are subject to their creditors. One of the children could be sued or go through a divorce. Since the assets are in the childrens names, a lawsuit, tax problems, or a divorce could easily wipe out moms life savings, as well as leave her without her home. Also, keep in mind that Mrs. Cohen may never need nursing home care. Rather, she may need to make a move to an assisted living facility. Medicaid does not always cover the cost of care in an assisted living facility. Therefore, its important that Mrs. Cohen hang on to her assets while shes still relatively healthy so she can have the freedom and independence to pay for the level of care she needs when she needs it. In this scenario, we would advise Mrs. Cohen to get the proper estate planning documents in place so her children could act on her behalf in the event of incapacity, and to avoid probate in the event of her death. Depending on the family dynamics and Mrs. Cohens prognosis, we may advise some type of gift trust planning. Each situation is unique, so you should consult with a qualified elder law/trusts & estates attorney to go over your best options. The attorney will advise you on the best options available to you which will allow you to use Medicaid to cover the cost of medical care without depleting assets. In addition, planning in advance is a good option because the penalty period will likely expire before you may need to be admitted to a nursing home. Medicaid planning allows you to protect your familys assets from being used to pay for your medical and nursing home care by justifying the need to receive Medicaid in the future to cover those expenses. The attorneys at Yedid & Zeitoune, PLLC have a combined 20 years of legal experience at top New York City law firms and are ready to assist you in all your legal needs. Let us help you prepare for you and your familys future. May we all only know of happiness amen! The attorneys in the Trust & Estates Practice Group at Yedid & Zeitoune have a combined 20 years of legal experience and are ready to assist you with all your estate planning needs. Isaac Yedid, Esq. and Raymond Zeitoune, Esq. Yedid & Zeitoune, PLLC 1172 Coney Island Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11230 Phone: (347) 461-9800 Fax: (718) 421-1695 Email: [email protected] NYC Office By Appointment Only: 152 Madison Avenue, Suite 1105 New York, New York 10016 [PHOTOS IN EXTENDED ARTICLE] Brooklyn Boro President Eric Adams is wrapping up a week-long visit to Israel, and just paid a visit to the largest yeshiva in the world, the Mir Yerushalayim. Moments after exiting the Mir, YWN spoke with President Adams who gave the following brief statement to us regarding his whirlwind tour of the country: I walked into the Mir Yeshiva, closed my eyes, and thought I was in Williamsburg. After spending a few days in this country, I must say that despite Israel living under the constant threat of violence, it incredibly does not surrender to fear. The entire globe has a lesson to learn from Israel. I am proud to represent the largest Jewish community outside of Israel, Admas added. As YWN reported, Adams left NY on Saturday night on a five-day mission focused on developing transatlantic partnership in public safety and economic development. He was accompanied with a 11-person delegation of current and former NYPD officials as well as local business leaders. Highlights of the trip, sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, Inc. (JCRC), included a visit to an IDF base in the Golan Heights, a counterterrorism briefing with intelligence officials in the Israeli National Security Council, a meeting with the chair of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, and a tour of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and Museum. Borough President Adams underscored the importance of this mission for strengthening the critical ties between Brooklyn and Israel, particularly in the midst of rising extremism in the Middle East that also threatens American security. Borough President Adamss delegation to Israel included retired NYPD Chief of Department Phillip Banks, III, NYPD Inspector and 90th Precinct Commanding Officer Mark DiPaolo, United Jewish Appeal (UJA)-Federation of New York Managing Director of Government and External Relations Jeff Leb, JCRC Executive Vice President & CEO Michael S. Miller, retired NYPD Inspector and current National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) President Timothy Pearson, NYPD Captain and 66th Precinct Commanding Officer Kenneth Quick, NYPD Patrol Borough Brooklyn North Deputy Chief Jack Trabitz, and Yidel Perlstein, Chair of Community Board 12. Members of his office that will also traveling with him include his special counsel Ama Dwimoh, special assistant Joel Eisdorfer, and director of intergovernmental affairs Abe Friedman. An in depth article on the trip will be forthcoming. (Dov Gordon YWN) So much for Bernie Sanders big win in New Hampshire. Since then, Hillary Clinton has picked up endorsements from 87 more superdelegates to the Democratic National Convention, dwarfing Sanders gain from the New Hampshire primary, according to a new Associated Press survey. Sanders has added just 11 superdelegate endorsements. If these party insiders continue to back Clinton overwhelmingly and they can change their minds Sanders would have to win the remaining primaries by a landslide just to catch up. He would have to roll up big margins because every Democratic contest awards delegates in proportion to the vote, so even the loser can get some. After the contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders has a small 36-32 lead among delegates won in primaries and caucuses. But when superdelegates are included, Clinton leads 481-55, according to the AP count. Its essentially a parallel election that underscores Clintons lopsided support from the Democratic establishment. The disparity is sparking a backlash among some Sanders supporters, who complain that the Democratic nominating process is decidedly undemocratic, rigged in favor of Clinton. Some of them not part of the campaign, Sanders people say are contacting superdelegates who have publicly endorsed Clinton. Their message isnt subtle, or always welcome. Im sick and tired of them, Cordelia Lewis-Burks, a superdelegate from Indiana, said of the Sanders backers. Its very aggravating to be bashed on my own computer by these people who its probably the first time theyve ever voted. Ive been in the trenches since I was 20. Pressure tactics wont sway Lacy Johnson, another Indiana superdelegate who backs Clinton. They were saying Were not going to forget this,' Johnson said. Im an African-American male who is in my 60s, Johnson said. I have experienced the struggles. The experiences they are sharing dont faze me in comparison. Superdelegates automatically attend the national convention and can support the candidate of their choice, regardless of whom primary voters back. They are party leaders members of Congress, party officials and members of the Democratic National Committee. There are 712 superdelegates, about 30 percent of the 2,382 delegates needed to claim the nomination. The Republicans also have some automatic delegates but not nearly as many. Clintons campaign expresses confidence that she will maintain a strong lead among superdelegates even as she focuses on upcoming voting. Our campaign strategy is to build a lead with pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses, Clinton spokesman Jesse Ferguson said in an email. Sanders campaign adviser Tad Devine said he doesnt consider an early superdelegate count to be very meaningful because they are free to switch right up until the convention this summer. Sanders ability to attract younger people and independent voters, as he did in New Hampshire, will be a strong selling point to change peoples minds, he said. It is hardly an insurmountable lead, and it can change overnight, Devine said. We are confident that superdelegates want to be behind the strongest candidates in a general election and have a nominee to help candidates win up and down the ballot. MoveOn.org, which has endorsed Sanders, has started an online petition calling on the superdelegates to back the candidate who gets the most votes in primaries. In 2008, some superdelegates who initially supported Clinton did switch to Barack Obama after he started racking up victories in primaries and caucuses. But Obama is a Democrat who had worked on campaigns and cultivated relationships with many of the people who were superdelegates. Sanders is an independent. To my knowledge there has been zero outreach to the New Hampshire automatic delegates from the Sanders campaign, said Kathleen Sullivan, a DNC member from New Hampshire. Not just since the primary, I mean since he first decided to run. New Hampshire, which Sanders won by 22 percentage points, has eight superdelegates. Six back Clinton and two are uncommitted. Many Clinton supporters question whether Sanders could win the general election. Hed get killed! said Rosalind Wyman, a DNC member from California. A socialist independent? I can see the negative ads now. Others talk about their relationship with Clinton, who has been in Democratic politics for decades. I never ever abandon my friends, said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri. I dont think friendship is negotiable, certainly not politically negotiable. Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said, Superdelegates are interested to see who can win, and many of them have strong ties to the Clintons, like me. Sanders supporters are tired of hearing these arguments. Im so damned sick of people saying I love this guy but he cant win, said Troy Jackson, a DNC member from Maine who supports Sanders. People need to start voting with their heart, what they know is right, Jackson, a superdelegate himself, said he will push to have all five of Maines superdelegates back the candidate who wins the states caucuses in March. Three have endorsed Clinton and the other is undecided. I want someone whos going to fight for me, not cut deals, not compromise on core values, Jackson said. While I have respect for Secretary Clinton, she does that too much. AP reporters in every state and U.S. territory surveyed the Democratic superdelegates after the New Hampshire primary. When AP did this in November, Clinton led Sanders 359-8 in pledged support, meaning her already substantial margin has grown. Only one Clinton supporter, Luisette Cabanas Colon of Puerto Rico, took herself out of the Clinton column. She switched to uncommitted while she sees how matters involving the territory play out in the campaign. (AP) The Pentagon disclosed on Thursday that U.S. officials asked Russia to avoid bombing broad areas of northern Syria where several dozen U.S. special operation forces have been working with Syrians fighting the Islamic State group. The request, which had not previously been revealed, goes beyond what the Pentagon calls its memorandum of understanding with the Russians to avoid inadvertent military air collisions over Syria. Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the Russians were not told exactly where the U.S. special operations troops are operating but were asked to avoid certain broad areas as a safety measure for the Americans. He said the Russians have honored the U.S. request. Weve told them these are areas that we have coalition forces in general areas where we have coalition forces, Lt. Gen. Charles Q. Brown told reporters at the Pentagon in an interview from his headquarters in Qatar. We dont want them to strike there because all its going to do is escalate things. And I dont think the Russians want to escalate against the coalition. Brown is commander of U.S. Air Forces Central Command, responsible for U.S. air operations across the greater Middle East. Brown said the Russians have identified airfields in Syria that they dont want us flying close to. He said those are beyond where U.S. planes normally operate, so, that hasnt been an issue. Cook said the request to Russia that its warplanes avoid areas where U.S. troops are operating was made with troop safety in mind. He would not say when the U.S. request was made or who in the Pentagon made it. Im not going to get into details other than to say that there was an effort made to protect the safety of our people from the risk of Russian airstrikes, Cook said. And that those steps were taken, and those so far have been honored. U.S.-Russian military relations have been strained by the Syria war, with the Obama administration contending that the Russians are propping up the Syrian government of President Bashar Assad rather than fighting the Islamic State. (AP) Yesh Atid party leader MK Yair Lapid on Thursday morning 9 Adar I spoke with Israel Radios Reshet Bet about a number of matters. Lapid, who has announced he will run against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in the next Knesset elections, continues to interview in the media to get his message out. Interestingly, unlike most politicians in Israel, Lapid concentrates on selling what he has to offer and does not speak ill of opponents. Speaking about the various political parties today, Lapid explained his father was a follower of Menachem Begin and the Likud today is a far cry from the ideal and ideology of the late Menachem Begin. He added that in all likelihood, today, if Begin ran for a position in the Likud primaries he would probably be perceived as too extreme. Lapid was also asked about PM Netanyahus support for casinos in Eilat. He opposes the move, explaining there is no place for casinos in a Jewish state. He stated that in addition, if they are established, the people who can least afford them will gamble and their situation will only worsen. When asked when his party will have primaries he did not beat around the bush, stating he is remaining the head of the party for at least the next two elections. Lapid is self-appointed and has no plans for primaries to elect the party roster. Critics compare him to the chareidi parties, which operate the same way, without primaries. The Yisrael Beitenu party also does not have primaries, but the party leader, MK Avigdor Lieberman appoints the lineup. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) Attorney Rene Feinstein told Yisrael Hayom she is counted among the founders of the Original Women of the Wall (O-WoW) organization, which set out to find its place in the womens section of the Kosel, not at or near Robinsons Arch. In her interview with Steve Ganot, she explains the Reform and Conservative Movements have been negotiating with the government for years a prayer area at the Kosel for egalitarian prayer services including siddurim and Sifrei Torah. She admits they do not have equal access nor do they have Sifrei Torah and seforim provided as is the case in other areas of the holy site. What happened today is the WoW agreed that if they receive the ok for a Sefer Torah, siddurim, tallis and tefilin, they would accept the arrangement at Robinsons Arch, which today egalitarian prayer area agreement. Ms. Feinstein adds despite Supreme Court rulings of the past, Kosel Rav Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz prevents this and even works to prevent them from bringing in their own Torah, adding they have succeeded at times doing so. She is not smiling over the new agreement, saying Its not the Kotel. It is not the place Jews have been coming since 1967 and a lot longer than that. It is not the place Jews come to pray and cry, it is not the place diplomats are takenAll Jewish People should be allowed to pray there in accordance with their custom. Feinstein explains that the Kotel is open to everyone and people come dressed for the most part unlike the ultra-Orthodox as she calls them, explaining the noise from the mens section davening is constant so clearly, that is not what bothers them but it is the fact our service is different from theirs. We simply cannot be excluded because we have a different practice. Feinstein adds she is with the WoW group on Rosh Chodesh and will continue doing so for as long as they daven at the Kotel. She adds her faction also comes often during the week. When asked how long it will take for the money to be allocated for the egalitarian prayer area, Feinstein blames Chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee Moshe Gafne for holding up the funding, explaining Gafne announced he will not release the necessary funds to advance the project. Until such time the new prayer area is ready, all factions of WoW will continue congregating and praying in the womens section of the Kosel. Feinstein explains there is a lawsuit pending with the Israel Supreme Court over their right to read from Sifrei Torah in the womens section and she is confident it is a winner, adding if they win, she cannot say how this will affect the agreement pertaining to the egalitarian area. When asked if her faction is mainly Orthodox, she explains we continue to be a multidenominational group, including Orthodox women who refuse to move from the Kosel, as well as Conservative and Reform, adding she is president of an Orthodox congregation in downtown Jerusalem. There are also what Feinstein calls unaffiliated and today there are between 100-200 women monthly, thanking police for since they began arresting them for wearing a tallis, more women have been coming. She has been active in her cause she explains for 27 years. Feinstein concludes that praying at the Kosel is the organizations expressed purpose as stated in its charter and she and many others plan to do just that, unwilling to accept any compromise that moves them from the Kosel. She and her allies in O-WoW have no intentions of moving to the new egalitarian area for she explains for her, it is about praying as she wishes at the Kosel and not a substitute venue. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) The tragic fatal accident involving an Egged number 402 bus earlier this week that claimed six lives has drawn much attention to Egged as well as Israels public buses in general as commuters wish to know how trustworthy drivers of public vehicles are. A Walla News report based on data from a government agency shows a staggering increase in the number of bus drivers cited for violating traffic law between 2014-2015, documenting an increase of 46%. The statistics are released as police continue their investigation into the latest 402 crash that also left over 20 people injured, some seriously. According to the Israel Police Traffic Enforcement Unit, during that same period of time, 2014-2015, there was a 40% increase in traffic violations among taxi drivers. According to police, 12,406 bus drivers were cited for traffic violations in 2014. The following year, 2015, that number rose even more to 18,188. In addition, two years ago 964 bus drivers were warned by police without actually receiving a fine. This number rose to an unbelievable 3,653 in 2015. There is also a significant increase in the number of fines levied against buses by police, reporting a total of 9,261 two years ago as compared to 12,406 last year. All total, 2,355 bus drivers had to appear in court. If you are now afraid of taking a bus, things do not appear more encouraging in an Israeli taxi. 12,322 taxi drivers were fined for violating traffic laws in 2014. The following year, 2015, that number climbed to 15,939. Regarding warnings from police, two years ago 630 were issued to taxis drivers as opposed to 2,432 in 2015!. In 2015, 2,708 taxi drivers appeared in court which represents 673 more than in 2014. In 2014, a total of 14,987 taxi drivers were cited for breaking traffic law as compared to 21,079 in 2015. According to police, regarding buses, most summonses are for speeding, too many passengers and safety violations pertaining to the bus itself. Almost as frequent are fines for erratic driving or driving while distracted. Following the last fatal accident police announce they are going to get tougher not only with drivers, but their employers too for too often drivers are heading out with an unfit vehicle or their employers fail to do an adequate background check on their new drivers. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) The Reform Movement has been making headway in Israel in recent months after being victorious in a number of rulings. The Supreme Court has instructed the Beersheva Religious Council to permit a Reform convert to toivel in the mikve with a Reform beis din. The cabinet has decided to establish an egalitarian prayer area near the Kosel and now, it appears the decision by IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-General Gadi Eizenkott to move the Jewish Consciousness Unit from the IDF Rabbinate to the Manpower Branch is also a victory for the Reform. While it appears the move is due to organizational and budgetary reasons, the Reform Movement is pleased to remove the responsibility for the unit from the hands of the IDF Rabbinate. As such, the Reform Movement is likely to fight chareidi efforts to prevent the implementation of the decision. A number of weeks ago, a session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs & Defense Committee addressed the planned move of the unit. Among the elected officials invited to the meeting were MK (Bayit Yehudi) Betzalel Smotrich, MK (Likud) Miki Zohar and MK (Yesh Atid) Aliza Lavie. Also invited were former IDF Chief Rabbi Yisrael Weiss and Aaron Karov, who opposed the planned move of the unit. However the list of invited participants does not stop here. Also invited was Rabbi Gilad Kariv who serves as Executive Director of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism; a representative of the NGO Hofesh Freedom from Religion and Michal Berman who serves as Executive Director of Panim The Associating of Jewish Renewal Organizations in Israel. The latter three view the move of the unit as a positive step, releasing a statement The takeover of Jewish Consciousness Unit brought serious harm to the basic rights of soldiers equality and freedom of religion. We welcome the decision of the chief of staff to monitor and guarantee the new body to be set up and permit soldiers an opportunity to become familiar with all types of Judaism. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) Over the past 7 years the Lone Soldier Center in memory of Michael Levin has built an extensive support network of former lone soldiers, developed relevant and vibrant social events, and brought the plight of lone soldiers to the forefront of the Jewish peoples conciseness. Thru years of dedication and hard work in the field have enabled the center to find solutions to the pressing needs of most of the lone soldiers. One of the many hardships they must deal with are housing. While there already exists a number of solutions; such as Garin Tzabar, and Beit Benji, none one of them offer the intimate yet communal solutions of the new Lone Soldier Home in Jerusalem, officials at the center explain. Until now Lone Soldiers who wanted to live in Jerusalem and be part of vibrant community had to find roommates and apartments by themselves and hope the community would notice and welcome them in but now, the LSC is revolutionizing the way these lone soldiers and communities interact. As an organization they have taken a home and seen to all the physical needs while having an adviser in residence to be like an older brother and act as the connection to the community. The center has partnered with the community both on the rabbinic and lay leadership levels towards making the new physical accommodations for these soldiers truly their home in Israel while serving in the IDF. This first house in this new innovative program is located in Jerusalems Mekor Chaim neighborhood, where the center partnered with Rav Unsbacher and Yeshivat Makor Chaim. A chanukas habayis was held last week, at which time mezuzos were affixed to the doorposts. It is added there were mezuzos which the sofer checking felt were less than lchatchila so the center had them removed and replaced with new ones, not wishing to compromise on such an important aspect of this new home for the soldiers who left families behind to come and serve. One official added Being that we are in Adar I, we hope to bring more joy and happiness to the world by the continued success of the lone soldiers serving in the IDF. The videos show the new tenants, the religious lone soldiers who are moving into what will be their new home in Eretz Yisrael. One of the major advantages of this program is the soldiers deal with the organization, not a landlord. Too often they are not paid in a timely fashion and they are faced with threats of eviction as landlords are often impatient. The center is acting as the go-between to remove all of the financial stress from the young men as well as seeing to it their home is physically and spiritually what it should be. The center will also deal with repairs and other issues, once again permitting the soldiers to concentrate on their military service and not have to use their limited down time to run errands and worry about their home. Another such home, exclusively for shomer Shabbos lone soldiers, is being completed in Beit Shemesh by the center. The center feels strongly that a religious lone soldiers lifestyle mustnt be compromised and it offers exclusively religious living arrangements for those interested in such an arrangement. (YWN Israel Desk, Jerusalem) American warplanes struck multiple targets in Libya overnight, hitting an Islamic State training camp and a senior extremist leader, U.S. defense officials said Friday. More than 40 people were killed with more wounded, some critically, local officials estimated. One official described the strikes as being carried out against an ISIL training camp and said the attack near Sabratha, Libya, not far from the Tunisian border, likely killed ISIL operative Noureddine Chouchane, who is believed to be a Tunisian. The official said up to 60 people were present at the camp at the time of the strike. The U.S. officials spoke on grounds of anonymity because they werent authorized to be publicly identified discussing a military operation not yet formally announced. A witness in the city said he heard two explosions at 3:30 a.m. coming from the nearby village of Qasr Talel. He said the house that was targeted belongs to Abdel-Hakim al-Mashawat, known locally as an Islamic State militant, he said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared for his safety. The official Facebook page of the Sabratha local city council also put the death toll at more than 40 with more wounded, some critically. There are torn body parts buried under the rubble, it said in a posting. It noted that the victims were not all Libyans. The witness said he saw a hospital list that noted victims were from Tunisia and Algeria as well as Libya. Sabratha is one of the main launching points for smugglers boats heading to Europe. It has been also a transit point for Tunisians and North African jihadists before joining the Islamic State affiliates in their strongholds in central city of Sirte and the eastern cities such as Benghazi. President Barack Obama earlier this year directed his national security team to bolster counterterrorism efforts in Libya while also pursuing diplomatic possibilities for solving its political crisis. U.S. officials had said they were holding off on sustained military action against Islamic State targets in Libya until a government was formed, a process that is still incomplete On Sunday, a U.N.-designated council presented a new 18-member Libyan cabinet in the Moroccan city of Skhirat, weeks after an earlier lineup was rejected. The internationally recognized parliament has to endorse the new unity cabinet. If approved, the new unity government could eventually seek international military intervention against Islamic State extremists who have taken advantage of the countrys political vacuum since 2014. The U.S. official said the strike was taken in coordination with Libyan officials. The U.S. military has been closely monitoring Islamic State movements in Libya, and small teams of U.S. military personnel have moved in and out of the country over a period of months. In November, a US military airstrike killed an Islamic State leader called Abu Nabil or Wissam al-Zubaydi, an Iraqi national in the eastern city of Darna. In July, airstrikes targeted an al-Qaida gathering and officials said they targeted bel-Mokhtar but it was a failed operation in the eastern city of Ajdabiya. British, French and Italian special forces also have been in Libya helping with aerial surveillance, mapping and intelligence gathering in several cities, including Benghazi in the east and Zintan in the west, according to two Libyan military officials who are coordinating with them. The Libyan officials spoke on condition of anonymity recently with The Associated Press on this matter because they were not authorized to speak to the press. U.S. officials predicted early this month that it would be weeks or longer before U.S. special forces would be sent, citing the need for more consultations with European allies. Additional intelligence would help refine targets for any sort of military strikes, but surveillance drones are in high demand elsewhere, including in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Adding to the concern in Washington and Europe is evidence that the number of Islamic State fighters in Libya is increasing now believed to be 5,000 even as the groups numbers in Syria and Iraq are shrinking. I have been clear from the outset that we will go after ISIS wherever it appears, the same way that we went after al Qaida wherever they appeared, President Barack Obama told reporters on Wednesday. We will continue to take actions where weve got a clear operation and a clear target in mind, he said. And we are working with our other coalition partners to make sure that as we see opportunities to prevent ISIS from digging in, in Libya, we take them. At the same time, were working diligently with the United Nations to try to get a government in place in Libya. And thats been a problem. (AP) [By: Elliot S. Schubin, Esq.] This was written in reaction to the guilty verdict against police officer Peter Liang. On Thursday February 11, 2016, after 17 hours of deliberation a jury of seven men and five women, convicted Peter Liang, rookie police officer, of manslaughter in the shooting death of a civilian African American man. On the night of November 20, 2014, Officer Liang shot and killed a 28 year old male inside one of Brooklyns most crime ridden housing projects; the Louise Pink Houses. Officer Liang and his partner began a standard routine descent into a pitch black stairwell. For safety concerns Liang had his service weapon drawn; an act not deemed unreasonable under the circumstances, and while in the stairwell Liangs pistol accidently discharged. The bullet ricocheted off the wall and hit the victim in the chest, killing him. Liang was charged with Manslaughter, because the death was due to what was deemed, not following the NYPDs strict firearm training regimen; namely Officer Liang put his finger inside the pistols trigger guard when he was not supposed to. In the wake of this verdict I as a citizen of New York feel it is very important to understand the situation and ramifications of what the verdict and sending an officer to jail in such a situation means for public safety. Liang was not convicted for an intentional crime, it is clear that the death was not planned or meant to be malicious, it was the result of a poor judgment call. If the justice system convicts officers for situations like this, then how could we as a public expect police officers to be willing to put themselves at risk to protect us. Yes it is important to have rules and to make sure that the NYPD follows those rules, but is sending an officer who was doing his job to jail the proper solution? I would like to argue tha t it is definitely not the solution and in the long term will result in adverse effects on the safety of the city. I want to be confident that when I am in harms way the protecting police force, be it the NYPD or any other policing organization, will do anything in their power to protect both myself and themselves. In a time of emergency every second counts, I want to be confident that the police officers will not have to balance whether or not it is worth saving me; because there is a looming threat of the possibility of going to jail, as a result of poor decision making. Officers are placed in situations where they have spilt seconds to make decisions. Do we really want officers taking time to consider a balancing test of whether or not to get involved? We must stand behind our NYPD and the police force, we must change the current trajectory that our nation is headed It is these brave officers who protect us and protect our way of lif e. The conviction of Peter Liang is a travesty and no good will come from it. This rookie police officer who was doing his job just had his entire life ruined. He has been fired from the force and will most probably spend time in jail. We must consider what good will come out of such a punishment? It is clear that Peter Liang was not acting with malice. He does not need to be reformed by the Department of Corrections. Moving forward, how does one expect his partner to react the next time there is an emergency situation? Those of us who live in New York are fortunate to live in one of the best cities in the world. A major part of what makes our city so amazing is the fact that people can walk around and know they are protected by one of the best police forces in the world, if we want our city to continue to thrive and continue to be so amazing we need the police force to know that we have their back. We cannot abandon the NY PD by punishing their brethren for non malicious mistakes which occur while they are putting their life on the line protecting us; the public at large. By: Elliot S. Schubin, Esq. NOTE: The views expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of YWN DO YOU HAVE AN OPINION YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE POSTED ON YWN? SEND IT TO US FOR REVIEW (YWN World Headquarters NYC) The Sullivan County Legislature has raised eyebrows by appointing a controversial figure to the Countys Human Rights Commission. Bill Liblick, who runs an internet blog and has dubbed himself as The Mouth That Roars, caused a stir in 2007 when he objected to the construction of an eruv by observant Jews in Swan Lake, NY. Liblick, who lives in CO-OP City in the Bronx, but maintains a weekend residence in the Town of Liberty, characterized the construction of the eruv in his neighborhood as something sneaky, according to an article in a local Sullivan County newspaper. Sources tell YWN that his objections to the eruv were eventually praised by bloggers on a neo-nazi website. In October of 2012, Bill Liblick was in the spot light when he wrote an opinion column for a newspaper entitled, Spanish Language Ballots a Waste of Money. In his column, Bill Liblick criticized the National Voter Rights Act and concluded, If someone cannot read or write English, perhaps they just shouldnt vote. Liblick was once again center stage in June of last year when he was served with ethics charges by Sullivan County for releasing confidential information. Liblick, who serves as a volunteer on the Countys Charter Review Committee was accused of releasing confidential information as a county employee to further a personal interest. Even though members of the charter committee are technically considered employees under the Countys ethics regulations, the charges were withdrawn when it was learned that none of the committee members had been provided with a copy of those regulations. Bill Liblicks recent appointment to the Human Rights Commission was questioned by some of its current members who claim that their by-laws require a potential candidate to first be interviewed and then be formally recommended to the Legislature for approval. Bill Liblicks appointment apparently bypassed this process when his name was brought up for a vote at the Legislatures January Executive Committee meeting. (YWN Sullivan County Newsroom) Britains economy is set to power ahead this year leaving the crisis-torn eurozone trailing in its wake, a major study has found. The report, by respected international economists, predicts that the UK will be the fastest-growing major economy in the developed world this year. Meanwhile the countries of the moribund single currency bloc, such as France and Germany, are set to falter, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. On the up: The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development report predicts that the UK will be the fastest-growing major economy in the developed world this year (in orange, above) OECD INTERIM ECONOMIC OUTLOOK FORECASTS: REAL GDP GROWTH (%) 2015 2016 2017 February 2016 interim projections Difference from November economic outlook February 2016 interim projections Difference from November economic outlook World 3 3 -0.3 3.3 -0.3 United States 2.4 2 -0.5 2.2 -0.2 Euro area 1.5 1.4 -0.4 1.7 -0.2 Germany 1.4 1.3 -0.5 1.7 -0.3 France 1.1 1.2 -0.1 1.5 -0.1 Italy 0.6 1 -0.4 1.4 0 Japan 0.4 0.8 -0.2 0.6 0.1 Canada 1.2 1.4 -0.6 2.2 -0.1 United Kingdom 2.2 2.1 -0.3 2 -0.3 China 6.9 6.5 0 6.2 0 India 7.4 7.4 0.1 7.3 -0.1 Brazil -3.8 -4 -2.8 0 -1.8 Rest of World 2.1 2.5 -0.3 3.1 -0.2 The bleak analysis for the continent will be seen as a major boost to the campaign to leave the European Union in this summers referendum. It will be seized upon by eurosceptics as good reasons for Britain to leave and strike out on its own, free from Brussels bureaucracy and the stagnation and austerity at the core of the European project. And in a further blow, the Paris-based think tank also warned of growing challenges to maintain political support for the European project. The OECD cited the surge in refugees, security threats and the unpopularity of austerity measures across the Continent. The think tank said uncertainty in Europe is already having a dramatic impact on business investment by countries in the region denting hopes of recovery. George Osborne said the report was another demonstration of the cocktail of risks facing the world this year. Revised estimates: The OECD trimmed its forecasts as it slashed the outlook for countries around the world Falling: The OECD notes that the first six weeks of this year were exceptionally bad for global stock markets as shares tumbled, although there has been some improvement in the last week The OECD trimmed its forecasts for economic growth in the UK this year from 2.4 per cent to 2.1 per cent as it slashed the outlook for countries around the world. But growth of 2.1 per cent is still better than the 2 per cent forecast for the United States and 1.4 per cent expected in the eurozone. Chancellor: George Osborne said the report was another demonstration of the cocktail of risks facing the world this year Britains growth rate will slip to 2 per cent next year but will continue to outpace that of the largest eurozone economies Germany, France and Italy. The dramatic finding undermines claims made by advocates of the stay campaign including the CBI that business investment and inward investment to the UK would suffer if it were outside the EU. The head of Germanys business lobby group this week warned that a divided Europe would sink into oblivion if Britain left the EU. Markus Kerber, director general of the BDI business group in Germany, said: A Brexit would lead to a dead end. Only a unified Europe will be successful on the global scene. A divided Europe will sink into oblivion. Michel Guibuad, director general of the MEDEF in France, said: For France and for Europeans, a Brexit would be a major step backwards. Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Vote Leave group leading the campaign for Brexit, said: The language of the various business groups reflects the dire position of the eurozone and its inability to face up to global problems. Of course they may want Britain to remain to pick up their bills but for voters in this country the only safe option is to vote to leave. The OECD warned that uncertainty in the eurozone including over the outlook for the economy and the refugee crisis was hitting investment and could increase stress in the financial system. This uncertainty risks dampening investment further and could lead to more difficult financial conditions, which would depress already weak growth in Europe and elsewhere, the OECD said. Europe needs to regain a sense of self and speak with a single voice to promote unity and growth. The OECD is demanding collective action by the EU to pull out of its slump. It advocates reforms in terms of integration across the single market including more harmonisation of regulation, anathema to much of the UKs business community, and investment in long-term infrastructure projects. Commodities: Europes problems are being compounded by financial instability and the collapse of world trade Opinion: Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Vote Leave group leading the campaign for Brexit, said the eurozone has n 'inability to face up to global problems' Britain already has begun to respond to this challenge with the completion of Crossrail, the Northern industrial powerhouse, investment in HS2 and the Thames Tideway tunnel. In the OECDs view the Luxembourg based European Investment Bank needs to take a higher risk approach to the projects that its backs. Europe needs to regain a sense of self and speak with a single voice to promote unity and growth Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Europes problems are being compounded by financial instability and the collapse of world trade. The OECD notes that the first six weeks of this year were exceptionally bad for global stock markets as shares tumbled, although there has been some improvement in the last week. It traces the uncertainty back to the fall in the exchange rate for the Chinese currency the renminbi and notes that bank shares have been particularly hard hit. In spite of Britains outperformance in terms of growth it was the laggard as far as productivity is concerned in 2014 according to a new release from the Office for National Statistics. This shows that output per hour was a startling 18 percentage points below that of the other G7 countries the biggest gap since the data was first collected in this way in 1991. MBABANE The Miss Swaziland beauty pageant may just be revived to its former glory, as a Dubai based Swazi has shown interest in being the next director to run it. Viwe Kunene, is former model turned businesswoman based in Dubai, where she is in charge of companies which focus on events management. A modelling agency company Neon & Petals has already approached the Swaziland National Council of Arts and Culture (SNCAC) relaying interest in running the pageant. Kunene, through the company Neon & Petals, has requested a meeting with SNCAC officials as she wants to share the proposal with them. The company has four other directors based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Kunene has asked the Chief Executive Officer of SNCAC, Stanley Dlamini to prepare for a meeting where they hope to table their proposal. She made mention of the fact that she had been eyeing the Swazi pageant for a while, and realised it was quickly losing its international value. As someone who was a model, I know the importance of having a beauty ambassador represent ones country. Beauty pageants are no childs play as our Miss Swaziland must have that international appeal. This means better prizes, lucrative ones at that which will represent her status. All one has to do is look at the prizes and opportunities other countries give their beauty queens, said Kunene. The CEO first received an email from Kunene on January 13 this year, where Kunene mentioned that the company has a branch in South Africa and they had seen that SNCAC was looking for an individual or a company that would direct the pageant. During the conversation between Kunene and the CEO, it was agreed that the CEO would find time to meet the companys representatives where he would be briefed on the proposal. Dlamini confirmed the companys interest saying they were yet to meet with the directors where they hope the proposal would be tabled. I can confirm that a company by the name of Neon and Petals has approached us with the interest of running the pageant. We agreed that we would set up a meeting where we would meet with the directors and look at the proposal they will submit, he said. The CEO said the fact that there is a company from outside the country that is interested in investing in the countrys pageant means the beauty industry has a bright future. We will be waiting to see what they have for us. It should be noted that there are other proposals that would also be looked at, as we have opened this opportunity to everyone who has the interest, he said. MBABANE A Swazi man, claiming to be a network administrator at MTN Swaziland, has caused a racial uproar following his post on a job seekers Facebook page where he said only black people could post. This has since led to MTN Swaziland business partners, distributors and customers complaining to the organisation about the post and the kind of people allegedly employed by the organisation. The company, through its Corporate Affairs Manager Mandla Luphondvo, has since distanced itself from the post and the person, stating that he was not employed by MTN Swaziland. They have, as a result, also contacted Facebook administrators to inform them that the man was not an employee of the organisation. The man, *Bheki under the group Job Seekers and Job Offers Swaziland, on Monday posted that he did not want to see any Indian, Qatar, USA, South Africa or any other countrys post advertising overseas vacancies. This group is for Swazis only not any other white person, wrote Bheki. The group, as of yesterday afternoon, had about 11 820 members. Bheki continued to post that the group had been created for black people and not whites, while he continued to launch an attack on Caucasian people, stating that they were photocopies of black people. However, a majority of those who commented on the post did not take kindly to the post and informed Bheki that he was racist, while others added that many people in the country had been employed by the people from the countries in which he had referred to and told him to stop being racist as Swaziland was not one of the States which promote racism. Information gathered was that some of MTN Swazilands partners called the company and went as far as sending emails complaining about the post, especially since a majority of them were not originally from Swaziland. Luphondvo, in response, said; Swazi MTN can acknowledge that there is an incident on social media which saw the publication of unpleasant remarks directed to non-locals. He disassociated the company from both the person, who claimed to work for Swazi MTN, and the remarks made. The author of these remarks has never been a staff member at Swazi MTN, said Luphondvo. He said they were also working with Facebook to have the false association made by this person with Swazi MTN removed. A complaint was filed yesterday, and should be processed soon, said Luphondvo. We sincerely apologise to our valued customers and stakeholders for such unfortunate remarks, continued Luphondvo through a statement. MBABANE Two years since the start of the drought, government has finally declared the situation a national disaster and national emergency. This was done by Prime Minister (PM) Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini yesterday, where he stated that over the next two months, government would need E248 million and said as early as next week Minister of Finance Martin Dlamini would propose to Parliament for allocation of part of the needed money. In total, government will need about E2 billion to address the situation in five years. The PM said it was now necessary to declare the drought a national emergency and in accordance with the provisions of the Disaster Management Act, 2006, in particular Section 29. Dlamini said a further contribution of E300 million for meeting the projected emergency needs would be included in the 2016-2017 budget, where government would again seek Parliaments approval. The PM said this was very much in common with how government established the necessary response to the devastating onset of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the country, stating that all citizens needed to adopt the approach of being at war with a national enemy. Through a legal document, which the PM signed yesterday, he said after having assessed the situation, it was only fitting that it be classified as a national disaster and declare a national emergency in Swaziland with immediate effect until April 17, 2016. Dlamini said although the legal notice was for two months, government would continue to implement the plan, stating that the law only allowed that a national emergency be announced for two months. Finance Minister Dlamini is expected to, next week, propose to Parliament that a sum of E105 million be allocated in order to enhance programmes across the sectors of agriculture, water, energy, health, education, social security and sanitation. The PM added that he trusted that the additional contribution would be duly recognised as they pursued urgently the task of sourcing the remaining shortfall of E143 million in the current 2015/16 financial year. He said as a result, government had come up with a national plan for the next five years and this would be the National Emergency Response Mitigation and Adaptation (NERMAP), which had been developed by a joint government team, working with the recently established National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA). He said for the implementation of NERMAP (January 2016 to March 2022), the total estimated additional requirement would be E1.4 billion. UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 18, 2016 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon leaves after paying homage to his predecessor, the late former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, at the UN headquarters in New York, Feb. 18, 2016. Ban Ki-moon on Thursday paid tribute to former UN chief Boutros Boutros-Ghali who died Tuesday at the age of 93. "Boutros Boutros-Ghali had both the fortune and the misfortune to serve as the first post-Cold-War Secretary-General of the United Nations," said Ban at the General Assembly Session in Memory of Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Boutros-Ghali from Egypt served as the sixth UN chief from 1992 to 1996. (Xinhua/Li Muzi) United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moonleaves after paying homage to his predecessor, the late former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, at the UN headquarters in New York, Feb. 18, 2016. Ban Ki-moon on Thursday paid tribute to former UN chief Boutros Boutros-Ghali who died Tuesday at the age of 93. "Boutros Boutros-Ghali had both the fortune and the misfortune to serve as the first post-Cold-War Secretary-General of the United Nations," said Ban at the General Assembly Session in Memory of Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Boutros-Ghali from Egyptserved as the sixth UN chief from 1992 to 1996. (Xinhua/Li Muzi) UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations on Thurday held a special General Assembly session and various activities to pay tribute to the sixth UN chief Boutros Boutros-Ghali who died at the age of 93. "Boutros Boutros-Ghali had both the fortune and the misfortune to serve as the first post-Cold-War Secretary-General of the United Nations," said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the General Assembly Session in Memory of Boutros Boutros-Ghali. Boutros-Ghali from Egypt served as the sixth UN Secretary-General from 1992 to 1996. In his very first month in office, Boutros-Ghali presided over the first-ever Summit of the Security Council, "a powerful symbol of the will of world leaders to make greater use of the United Nations," said Ban. Ban also noted that Boutros-Ghali "broke barriers as the first African and Arab Secretary-General of the United Nations, and consistently gave voice to the poorest and least powerful members of the human family." Boutros-Ghali also oversaw remarkable growth in peacekeeping. "His 'Agenda for Peace' report made far-reaching proposals for fortifying this flagship UN activity, many of which have since become standard practice -- but many of which also remain unfulfilled," said Ban. During his time in office, peacekeeping helped Cambodia, El Salvador, Mozambique and other countries emerge from conflict, he added. "At a tumultuous time, Boutros Boutros-Ghali helped the United Nations find its footing in a new global landscape. As we do the same today, let us continue to build on his legacy," Ban said. President of UN General Assembly Mogens Lykketoft also praised Boutros-Ghali in a statement delivered by Marlene Moses, Nauru's permanent representative to the UN, at the General Assembly. Boutros-Ghali held office during a period of great change and incredible challenges, said the statement. "Taking over so soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall; Boutros-Ghali worked relentlessly to reform this large and at times unwieldy Organization; and to manage the UN's response to appalling crises in Europe, Africa and beyond," said the statement. Outcomes from major conferences during his tenure in Rio, Vienna, Beijing and Cairo, together with his Agenda for Peace and Agenda for Development, can now be seen very clearly the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, it said. His period at the helm demonstrates ever so clearly that the position of UN Secretary General is indeed one of the most difficult jobs in the world, it said. Boutros-Ghali, the first African and Arab Secretary-General of the United Nations, died on Feb. 16 at the age of 93 in Egypt. The General Assembly observed a minute of silence in memory of Boutros-Ghali Thursday morning. UN lowered its flag at its headquarters in New York to half mast on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Ban and many others shared their thoughts and tributes in a Book of Condolences placed at the UN headquarters on Tuesday. Boutros-Ghali received a Ph.D. in international law from Paris University in 1949. In September 1978, Boutros-Ghali attended the Camp David Summit Conference and had a role in negotiating the Camp David accords between Egypt and Israel, which were signed in 1979. He also headed Egypt's delegation to the General Assembly sessions in 1979, 1982 and 1990. After returning to Egypt, Boutros-Ghali headed the state's National Council for Human Rights under former long-time President Hosni Mubarak. Boutros-Ghali later resigned in 2011, the year Mubarak was ousted by a popular uprising. During Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to Egypt in January this year, Xi met with 10 people awarded for their outstanding contribution to the China-Egypt friendship, including former Boutros-Ghali. [ Editor: Fanhua ] Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Sadef Ali Kully Days after a teenage girl died in a hit-and-run commuter van accident in Rosedale, several residents and Councilman Donovan Richards (D-Laurleton) gathered last Friday near the scene of the incident to bring attention to the fact that there was no speed camera at one of the busiest intersections in Rosedale. According to police, on Feb. 10 after midnight 16-year-old Alexa Smith, who lived nearby, was attempting to cross the intersection at Francis Lewis Boulevard and Sunrise Highway in Rosedale when a dark-colored commuter van fatally struck her and fled the scene, heading east on Sunrise Highway. Emergency responders rushed Smith to Jamaica Hospital where she was pronounced dead, police said. Police said Tuesday afternoon that the hit-and-run vehicle was a commuter van. The investigation is ongoing by the NYPDs Collision Investigation Squad. Civic leaders, residents and Richards said there was no more information on the accident because there were no speed cameras in the area. Richards said he would call on the Department of Transportation to add speed cameras at the intersection, which would have helped identify the perpetrator of the accident. He said additional pedestrian safety measures have also been suggested to ensure that residents will no longer have to risk their lives to cross this busy intersection. As Vision Zero spreads a wider net of pedestrian safety across the city, we also need the Department of Transportation to look at dangerous intersections such as right here at Sunrise and Francis Lewis, said Richards. This young girls life was tragically cut short by someone who did not even have the decency to stop to check on her or to call an ambulance. Civic leaders said the intersection of Francis Lewis Boulevard and Sunrise Highway has been a dangerous situation for pedestrians who struggle daily to cross the street there to get to the Rosedale LIRR station. This is why we need speed cameras to slow drivers down and to hold them accountable for when they break the law. We also need the DOT to look at pedestrian-focused crossing signals that will ensure that they can cross the street without having to worry about frantic drivers trying to beat the light, he said. We also ask anyone with information on this incident to come forward. Richards said the DOT has been helpful in resolving other pedestrian safety measures and flood prevention across southeast Queens and hopes the city agency will continue bringing the help his district needs. Twenty-five-year Rosedale resident Mabel Douglas said it was a daily struggle for pedestrians crossing over to the Rosedale train station, As the community grows, changes need to happen here, she said. These are kids we are talking about. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Sadef Ali Kully Dozens of upset and frustrated Hollis residents joined the People for the Neighborhood community group at a town hall meeting at St. Matthews Church Tuesday to discuss the controversial issue of homeless veterans who moved into the supportive housing units inside buildings on Hollis Avenue. For over a year residents battled the city through protests and legal measures to prevent another homeless shelter from coming into southeast Queens. At this point southeast Queens has more than 10 homeless shelters, which account for over 50 percent of all the shelters in the borough. Last month 30 homeless veterans moved into supportive housing units in abandoned buildings owned by Queens landlord Rita Stark, according to the citys Human Resources Administration, People of the Neighborhood went to Queens Supreme Court to obtain a temporary restraining order, but the request was dismissed last month due to the wrong entity named on the petition, according to court records. If we had a collective response, then we would have a better outcome, said Anthony Rivers, spokesman for the People of the Neighborhood. We cannot allow our community to be overran by elected officials. At some point we have to come together as one to stand up and fight. We cannot allow this to happen. Hollis residents and community members were at odds with each other about the next steps to take against the city. Some residents walked out of the meeting, saying the group should have hired an attorney to fight the city. Despite the outcome, I am happy we took a stand as a neighborhood to put the city on notice that we are not gonna take it anymore, Rivers said. Rev. Charles Norris and Rev. James Barnwell both attended the town hall meeting and defended elected officials, who many residents blamed for not doing enough for their constituents by saving the Hollis buildings from supportive housing for homeless people. Let me say this this group has done a fine job. This situation is like when there is a house on fire and the firefighters are putting the fire out, but people around are asking who started the fire? What should the firemen do? Put the fire out or find out who started the fire? Norris asked. Other residents said the veterans should be welcomed into the neighborhood. My father was a veteran. These men fought for our country and it is disappointing because they are in a difficult situation, said Ezulda Antrum, a Hollis resident. Joanne Whitehead, one of the petitioners who filed the restraining order, said, We have no [problems] with the veterans and they know that. We suspended our protests on purpose because we did not want to stigmatize them in any way. We did not want them to feel unwelcomed. Rivers pointed out the buildings would be housing veterans, some with specials needs, but the citydid not have any medical and/or social services available on site, If they dont have them now, then when will they have them? We have to now make sure those veterans get those services. Residents weary over the outcome of the campaign against the Hollis buildings said the only conclusion they could come to would be oppose elected officials during an election cycle. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Madina Toure The city Department of Housing Preservation and Development said the Macedonia Plaza affordable housing complex is completely rented and that a grocery store in the complex is scheduled to open within the next two months. Construction of Macedonia Plaza, a mixed-use development at 37-08 Union St., was finished in fall 2014. Macedonia African Methodist Episcopal Church, located at 37-22 Union St., proposed the project. The complex has 142 newly constructed affordable-housing units, a community facility space and a new retail space. All the residential units are occupied with tenants who applied through Housing Connect, an HPD page where people can apply for housing. The complex also has an extra two-bedroom unit for an onsite superintendent. That apartment is not leased through Housing Connect. The Tree of Life grocery store, the commercial tenant at Macedonia Plaza, will be located on the ground floor, an HPD spokeswoman said. Construction is nearing completion, with the store expected to be open for business within 30 to 60 days, the spokeswoman said. Macedonia Plaza was constructed on approximately 30,000 square feet of a municipal parking lot formerly owned by the city Department of Transportation. BRP Companies, the developer, along with Macedonia A.M.E. Church and other partners celebrated Macedonia Plazas opening in June 2015. HPD Commissioner Vicki Been and Gary Rodney, president of the New York City Housing Development Corporation, were also present for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. The 14-story, 161,760-square-foot building, whose development cost $49.8 million, has 27 studio units, 58 one-bedroom units, 55 two-bedroom units and two three-bedroom units. Twenty-nine units are affordable to households earning a yearly income as low as $19,063 and as high as $24,080 for an individual, or between $24,515 and $30,960 for a household of three. The remaining 113 rental units are for households earning an annual income between $29,383 and $36,120 for an individual, or between $37,783 and $46,440 for a household of three. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Lenore Skenazy One day after President Obama signed legislation that will brand the passports of sex offenders last week, a federal court challenge was filed against it. The International Megans Law is supposedly a way to alert foreign countries to sex offenders who may be traveling there for sex tourism or trafficking purposes. Of course, who isnt against sex trafficking? We all are! But branding peoples passports isnt going to do any good. The U.S. State Department itself found that the laws rationale is very misleading. And after conducting a study, the General Accounting Office found no evidence that the offenders used their passports to commit sex offenses abroad. Got that? No. Evidence. But heckwhats a complete lack of evidence compared to political grandstanding? The bill was sponsored by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and passed both houses with only a single, brave lawmaker, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), speaking out against it. He said that he endorsed the bills provisions to notify foreign countries about sex offenders travel plans, but was repulsed by the idea of the unique passport identifiergovernment-speak for passport branding. It is simply bad policy to single out one category of offenses for this type of treatment, Scott told the House. We do not subject those who murder, who defraud the government or our fellow citizens of millions and billions, or who commit acts of terrorism to these restrictions. Terrorists? Pffft. It is only sex offenders who must declare their past deeds this way. And that is what the court challenge hinges upon. We dont want those identifiers on anybodys passport, says lawyer Janice Bellucci, president of the group California Reform Sex Offender Laws, who is filing the federal challenge on behalf of four sex offenders. Our strongest argument is that it violates the First Amendment, because that unique identifier is compelled speech. In other words, The government is making you say something you dont want to say. Bellucci has been down this legal road before. Twice she argued against California towns forcing sex offenders to put No trick-or-treating signs on their doors, and twice she won. A third time she sued the California Department of Corrections for the same thing. The department had told registrants they had to put that sign on their doors on Halloween. And if they didnt have a home and lived in a tent, well by golly, they had to put a No trick-or-treating sign on their tent flap. And if they were living in a sleeping bag at the side of the road, they had to put a No trick-or-treating sign on their sleeping bag, too. Presumably this would help fend off the hordes of children seeking bite-size Snickers from the homeless. Bellucci won that case, too. Like candy-doling, Halloween-activated predators in sleeping bags, the problem of registrants traveling abroad for sex tourism is also not a common one. Chris Smith has written that currently tens of thousands of offenders could be traveling abroad as child sex tourists. But they arent. The U.S. Justice Department itself says that about 10 Americans a year are convicted of sex crimes against minors in other countries. Meantime, there are more than 800,000 people on the Sex Offender Registryabout a quarter of them minors. This means that the vast majority of registrantsat least 790,990 of themare not sex tourists. And yet we wont give them the basic right of traveling this great earth. The United States has never branded anyones passport until now. Somehow we have survived 200+ years of giving all citizens the right to serve their time and then go on with their lives. Former drug dealers can travel south of the border. The Oceans 11, 12 and 13 crews can hop on a plane to Monaco. But sex offenders, including teens who sexted and former flashers now in their 80s, will be branded with the scarlet S and kept in internal exile. It is for the sake of the children, of course. It always is. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams By Madina Toure A Flushing man charged with hate crimes involving robbery and assault in two attacks on Chinese women said he committed the crimes because of bad experiences with Chinese people, according to Queens District Attorney Richard Brown. Key Lee, 34, was charged in connection with two separate attacks in which Chinese women were viciously beaten after allegedly being targeted by Lee, who stated, I dont like Chinese people, Brown said. He allegedly sought out these two women because of their race, Brown said. This kind of bigotry and racism is not acceptable in a civilized society. On Jan. 27, Ling Chou was cleaning snow from her car when she noticed Lee standing on a nearby corner smoking a cigarette, according to Brown. When she opened her cars back door, Lee is alleged to have rushed her and pushed her into the back seat, covering her body with his own, Brown said. He then allegedly closed the door and began to punch Chou repeatedly in the face. According to the DA, he then grabbed her purse, leaving the car with her credit card, identification and $2,000 in cash that had been inside her handbag. In the second incident Wednesday, Lee allegedly attacked Ziao Feng as she walked toward her apartment building, Brown continued. Lee allegedly punched Zeng in the face several times before taking her handbag and running off with her credit cards, identification and $2,000 in cash, Brown added. The DA said Lee allegedly told the authorities when he attacked Chou, he was angry following an argument with his wife and that he used to work as a cab driver and had many Chinese customers who were rude and smoked in the car, Brown said. He allegedly became even more angry when he and Chou made eye contact. He said, I couldnt take it anymore. I decided shes the one. I started beating her, the DA continued. To explain the attack on Feng, he said he had been driving home when she cut him off in traffic and failed to signal, Brown added. He then followed her and when she parked her car, he continued to follow her on foot and then allegedly attacked her, the DA said. He allegedly stated, I dont like the Chinese and I went to Flushing to look for Chinese people, according to Brown. Lee was arraigned Thursday afternoon before Queens Criminal Court Judge Peter Vallone on two separate complaints, Brown said. Bail was set at $500,000 for each complaint and Lees next court date is Feb. 25, he said. If convicted, he faces up to 50 years in prison. 'Joe Biden can have them': Mastriano vows to bus migrants to Delaware SHARE Contributed photo Benjamin Beilman attended the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music. He will perform Beethovens Violin Concerto Feb. 27 at Memorial Auditorium as the guest artist with the Wichita Falls Symphony Orchestra. He calls the work the quintessential violin concerto. Beilman, when he was just 5 years old, began his studies of violin. He will be the guest artist with the Wichita Falls Symphony Orchestra Feb. 27 at Memorial Auditorium. Contributed photo/ Benjamin Ealovega By Richard Carter When he was just 3 years old, Benjamin Beilman attended his 5-year-old sister Elizabeth's violin lessons. He would hum the Suzuki melodies around the house. Two years later, there was no question he also would take lessons. Now at age 26, Beilman ranks as one of the revered violinists of his generation with a new CD due in March on Rhino Warner Classics. He will perform Ludwig van Beethoven's renowned violin concerto, Concerto in D Major, Opus 61, at 8 p.m. Feb. 27 with the Wichita Falls Symphony Orchestra. Beilman said his family moved around quite a bit when he was growing up, but it was in Houston where he began his violin studies. After he joined his sister as a student of the instrument, it quickly became the family thing. "Our mom was very dedicated. She's not a musician herself, but she came to all of her lessons, took notes, practiced with us for the first few years so that we understood basic problem-solving and how to address issues." It wasn't long before the two aspiring musicians started playing duets together. After Elizabeth switched to viola in high school, they performed in violin and viola duos as well as in their area orchestra. "She attended Juilliard for her undergrad, and then she was at USC, and now she's currently in her first season with the Utah Symphony," he said. Playing string instruments was something the two children did voluntarily. "Obviously, our mom would encourage us to practice daily, but she was never forcing us to do anything," he said. By the time Beilman was 10 or 11, he decided he liked violin and classical music and would like to make a life out of it. He attended the Music Institute of Chicago for high school and studied with Roland and Almita Vamos, where he received "my nuts and bolts of training as a young soloist." The student then went on to the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music and completed his formal studies at the Kronberg Academy. Beilman since has won numerous awards and performed extensively in North America and Europe. His new CD, "Spectrum," will be released March 9, and he will perform a CD kickoff concert in Paris. The record will include his performances of Schubert, Janacek, Stravinsky and Kreisler. His first CD was the "Complete Violin Sonatas" (2011) of Serge Prokofiev and was the result of him winning the Montreal International Competition in 2010. Beilman said of Beethoven's Concerto in D Major: "It is the quintessential violin concerto. It has everything in it that you think of in a violin concerto." Of all Beethoven's music, he said, the piece probably allows the most improvisation for the violin, and it also showcases the instrument very well. "It's kind of this perfect marriage between virtuosity and brilliance and an emotional connection," he said. Beilman first was introduced to the piece when he was 15 years old. "With each performance, my approach to the piece changes dramatically," he said. "It's a piece that begs to be reinterpreted. Beethoven, especially with this piece, demands that you think of it a new way each time. "The more you live, the deeper you can dig into it. There are moments of total serenity and ultimate beauty, but there are occasions where the composer really digs into a much darker side of human nature. So with this piece, it's important to obviously have the sheer beauty of the music and of the writing but also to couple that with his moments of terror." Beilman said he sees Beethoven as "sort of the king of all composers." For his time, Beethoven was the most revolutionary, and in the violinist's opinion, "continues to be shocking, in so many ways, in his genius." Beilman enjoys listening to Beethoven, Schubert and Sibelius, among other composers, but added, "It's hard to pick favorites. As a performer, it is your obligation to invest everything that you possibly can into a piece and into a composer's work to bring that piece to life. "There are just certain pieces I gravitate toward because of their style and because of how I play." Anya Taylor-Joy is shown in a scene from The Witch, opening in theaters this week. SHARE Joseph Fiennes (left) plays Clavius, a powerful Roman military tribune tasked with solving the mystery of what happened to Jesus in the weeks following the crucifixion, in Risen. TriStar Pictures/TNS NEW IN THEATERS "THE LADY IN THE VAN" A man (Alex Jennings) forms an unexpected bond with a transient woman (Maggie Smith) living in her car that's parked in his driveway. Rated PG-13 for a brief unsettling image. "RACE" The story of legendary track and field star Jesse Owens, who at the 1936 Olympics faced off against Hitler's vision of Aryan supremacy. With Stephan James, Jeremy Irons, Jason Sudeikis and William Hurt. Rated PG-13 for thematic elements and language. "RISEN" Follows the epic Biblical story of the Resurrection, as told through the eyes of a nonbeliever. Clavius, a powerful Roman military tribune, and his aide, Lucius, are tasked with solving the mystery of what happened to Jesus in the weeks following the crucifixion, to disprove the rumors of a risen Messiah and prevent an uprising in Jerusalem. With Joseph Fiennes. Rated PG-13 for Biblical violence including some disturbing images. "THE WITCH" William and Katherine lead a devout Christian life in 1630s New England. But then their newborn son mysteriously vanishes, their crops fail, and the family begins to turn on one another. Rated R for disturbing violent content and graphic nudity. ALSO SHOWING 'THE BIG SHORT' This film focuses on the credit and housing bubble collapse of the mid-2000s and four men who decide to take on the big banks for their greed and lack of foresight. Starring Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, Christian Bale. Rated R for pervasive language and some sexuality/nudity. "THE BOY" An American nanny finds it strange that the family she is working for refers to a life-size doll as their son. She comes to discover that the doll really is alive. Starring Lauren Cohan, Rupert Evans and Ben Robson. Rated PG-13 for violence and terror, and for some thematic material. "THE CHOICE" Based on the Nicholas Sparks novel, Travis (Benjamin Walker) and Gabby (Teresa Palmer) are neighbors in a small town who fall for each other but whose relationship is tested. Rated PG-13 for sexual content and some thematic issues. "DEADPOOL" The Green Lantern didn't quite work out for Ryan Reynolds, so he has taken on another superhero gig. This time he plays Deadpool, a former Special Forces operative turned mercenary who acquires superpowers after a rogue experiment. Also part of the cast is action star Gina Carano. Rated R for strong violence and language throughout, sexual content and graphic nudity. "DIRTY GRANDPA" Robert De Niro is the dirty grandpa in this scenario. His character, a former Army general, tricks his uptight grandson (Zac Efron) into taking him on a trip to Florida for spring break. Shenanigans ensue. Rated R for crude sexual content throughout, graphic nudity, and for language and drug use "THE 5TH WAVE" Chloe Grace Moretz plays Cassie, who goes to rescue her brother from alien invaders that have decimated the human population and taken over the Earth. Rated PG-13 for violence and destruction, some sci-fi thematic elements, language and brief teen partying. "FIFTY SHADES OF BLACK" This is a comedy spoof of "Fifty Shades of Grey." With Marlon Wayans, Mike Epps and Jane Seymour. Rated R for strong crude sexual content including some graphic nudity, and for language throughout. "HAIL, CAESAR!" The Coen brothers return in this comedy that follows a day in the life of Eddie Mannix, a Hollywood studio fixer in the 1950s. He discovers a star on a "Ben Hur"-type film has mysteriously disappeared. With Josh Brolin, Scarlett Johansson, George Clooney, Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. Rated PG-13 for some suggestive content and smoking. "HOW TO BE SINGLE" A group of singles in New York City learn to navigate love. With Dakota Johnson, Alison Brie, Leslie Mann and Rebel Wilson. Rated R for sexual content and strong language throughout "KUNG FU PANDA 3" Po (voiced by Jack Black) must teach his panda family how to fight when a supernatural villain threatens to defeat all kung fu masters. Rated PG for martial arts action and some mild rude humor. 'THE revenant' A frontiersman in the 1820s (Leonardo DiCaprio) struggles for survival in the harsh winter after being mauled by a bear, then goes on a quest for revenge. Also starring Tom Hardy. Rated R for strong frontier combat and violence, including gory images, a sexual assault, language and brief nudity. 'RIDE ALONG 2' Ben (Kevin Hart) heads to Miami with his future brother-in-law (Ice Cube) to bring down a drug dealer. Co-starring Ken Jeong. Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence, sexual content, language and some drug material. 'STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS' Thirty years after the defeat of the Empire, a new threat arises in this continuation of the pop culture phenomenon "Star Wars" series. Starring Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill. Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action violence. '13 HOURS: THE SECRET SOLDIERS OF BENGHAZI' An American ambassador is killed during an attack on a U.S. compound in Libya. The film follows the security team left in the chaos. Starring John Krasinski and Freddie Stroma. Rated R for strong combat violence throughout, bloody images, and language. "ZOOLANDER 2" Supermodels Derek (Ben Stiller) and Hansel (Owen Wilson) are working again, but a rival company aims to do away with them. Co-starring Will Ferrell, as their arch enemy, and Penelope Cruz. Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content, a scene of exaggerated violence, and brief strong language. FILE - This July 27, 2014 file photo provided by U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows Tashfeen Malik, left, and Syed Farook, as they passed through O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. The husband and wife died on Dec. 2, 2015, in a gun battle with authorities several hours after their assault on a gathering of Farook's colleagues in San Bernardino, Calif. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection via AP, File) SHARE By Bloomberg View No one will ever know what was going on inside the head of one of the terrorists who went on a deadly rampage late last year in San Bernardino, California, killing 14. But FBI investigators would like to know what was going on inside his iPhone -- and Apple should do more to help them. A federal judge has ordered Apple to assist the agency in getting access to Syed Rizwan Farook's iPhone 5c, arguing that it probably contains information critical to the investigation. Apple calls this government overreach and is preparing for a fight. On the surface, the court order is fairly straightforward. The Justice Department has a warrant to search the phone, and the data in question could be crucial: It could include messages, photographs and contacts that might show whether Farook was connected to a larger terrorist network or was planning further attacks. But Farook's phone has a security feature that automatically clears its data after 10 incorrect attempts at entering a password. The FBI wants Apple to create a customized version of its operating system to circumvent the security feature and allow its agents to try as many password combinations as it takes to gain access. Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook sees this request more ominously: The government, he wrote in a message posted on the company's website has "asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone." But this wouldn't be a backdoor because it wouldn't be built into Apple's products -- a deliberate weakness that hackers might hope to exploit. It would be a technique for opening the phone over which Apple would retain sole control, subject to court order. In fact, the order says the software need never leave the company's campus. It's hardly unusual for the government to ask a company for assistance when one of its products is used in a crime. Gun purveyors are enlisted in murder investigations, telecoms must cooperate with wiretaps, banks spend more hours and dollars preventing money laundering than you'd imagine. Everyone has their orders. AMSTERDAM -- Two Amsterdam men were arrested Friday as part of an ongoing investigation into a Jan. 8 stabbing and kidnapping incident in the city of Johnstown. Anthony Diaz, 23 and Christopher Abraham, 19 were arrested and charged with felony counts of first-degree assault, first-degree burglary and second-degree kidnapping after an extensive investigation by Johnstown police showed both men were involved in the January incident, Amsterdam police said. DWI charged after day care steps hit SCOTIA A lawyer for the state Gaming Commission was charged with drunken driving after he passed out behind the wheel of a car that hit the front steps of a day care center Monday afternoon, village police said. Kent D. Vanderwal of Niskayuna was unconscious with an open alcoholic beverage next to him when police came upon his car at 1:15 p.m. outside the YMCA's Lally Day Care Center on South Ten Broeck Street, police said. Police began searching for Vanderwal's vehicle after a caller said a motorist was driving erratically nearby. Vanderwal's vehicle was still in drive when police said they found it stopped up against the steps to the day care center. Police said Vanderwal was too intoxicated to submit to a field sobriety test. Once at police headquarters, Vanderwal struggled with officers and refused to take an alcohol breath test, police said. Police said they charged Vanderwal with felony driving while intoxicated. Staff report Las Vegas fugitive found in Albany ALBANY A fugitive wanted for weapons offenses in Las Vegas was found hiding at the Washington Avenue home of a parolee, according to the Albany County Sheriff's Office. Aron T. Araya, 25, was found at the home of Jeremy L. Malik, 24, after deputies learned that Araya was wanted by Nevada authorities for stealing firearms and firing at someone. A malfunction with the gun prevented it from firing, Sheriff Craig D. Apple Sr. said. Investigators used a search warrant to enter 438 Washington Ave., where they found crack cocaine, marijuana and $2,275 in cash, deputies said. Araya was charged with being a fugitive from justice and felony and misdemeanor drug charges. Malik, who authorities said was on parole for a drug conviction, was charged with a number of drug offenses. Both men are being held at the Albany County jail without bail. Staff report This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 1 of 3 Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Show More Show Less 3 of 3 COLONIE -- The owners of a Loudon Road restaurant will donate 20 percent of all sales on Saturday to Noah Roman, whose father killed the 15-year-old's mother and younger brother before turning the gun on himself. Joseph M. Deeb Jr., one of the owners of Firehouse Subs at 860 Loudon Road, said he knew the family and wanted to do something to help Noah. Washington Margaret Scherf, a longtime reporter and editor for The Associated Press whose career spanned four decades and included high-profile stories such as the trial of the Chicago Seven and the Tidal Basin splash by burlesque performer Fanne Foxe, died Monday. She was 75. Her sister-in-law, Jennifer Scherf, said Scherf died at St. John's Hospital in Springfield, Ill., after battling ovarian cancer for several years. Remembered by colleagues as a trailblazer, Scherf joined the AP in Chicago in 1963, hoping to bring a woman's "fresh perspective and insight to a number of reportorial areas now mostly male territory," she wrote in a letter to an AP executive. In Chicago, she covered the 1968 Democratic Convention and wrote bylined stories about the trial of the Chicago Seven the defendants who were charged in connection with anti-war protests at the convention. In 1969, Scherf transferred to Washington and worked as a reporter and editor at AP's Washington Bureau covering everything from politics, to federal agencies, to stories about the capital city's famous Cherry blossom trees. Scherf was the first reporter to interview stripper Fanne Foxe, who jumped into the Tidal Basin in 1974 after police stopped the speeding car of her boyfriend, then-Congressman Wilbur Mills. In the late 1990s, Scherf worked on the Metro Desk in Washington until her retirement in 2002. A few years ago, Scherf returned to her hometown of Springfield to be closer to family and her high school friends. In the 1965 letter introducing herself to Wes Gallagher, AP's general manager at the time, Scherf said she knew in high school that she wanted to be a journalist. "I wanted to have an exciting career, and I must admit, my decision was influenced a little by the adventures of Brenda Starr and her ilk," said Scherf, referencing the globe-trotting, red-haired comic strip reporter-heroine. Scherf added, "I was nosey, and I was shy. Being a reporter, I thought, would allow me to indulge the nosiness and force me to overcome the shyness." Before joining the AP, Scherf worked for the Illinois State Journal in Springfield, a job she took after putting herself through college at the University of Illinois. Scherf loved to travel and was a voracious reader. "Anything connected to reading was her big thing," said Jennifer Scherf. "She was always reading, one book after another." Margaret Scherf is survived by her brother, James, and his wife, Jennifer, as well as two nieces, Molly and Kathleen. Funeral arrangements are pending. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Washington President Barack Obama's plans for a history-making trip to Cuba drew hopeful cheers in Havana on Thursday but equally emphatic condemnation from many U.S. lawmakers and Republican presidential candidates, who accused the president of rewarding a "dictatorial regime." Jeb Bush called the plans "appalling." Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, born in Havana, deemed Obama's March 21-22 visit "absolutely shameful." New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez a member of Obama's party accused him of ceding U.S. leverage to the communist nation 90 miles south of Florida. "The president is again prioritizing short-term economic interests over long-term and enduring American values," said Menendez, another Cuban-American. He likened Obama's rapprochement with Cuba to his nuclear deal with Iran. Not so, said Obama, who pledged to press President Raul Castro on human rights and other thorny issues during their sit-down in the Cuban capital. The White House said pointedly that it had put Castro's government on notice that Obama would also meet with dissidents and activists a precondition the president had laid out for a visit. "We still have differences with the Cuban government that I will raise directly," Obama said as he announced the visit on Twitter. The trip will mark a watershed moment in U.S.-Cuba relations, making Obama the first sitting U.S. president to set foot on the island in nearly seven decades. The U.S. was estranged from the communist nation for over half a century until Obama and Castro moved toward detente more than a year ago. Since then, the nations have reopened embassies in Washington and Havana and moved to restore commercial flights, with a presidential visit seen as a key next step. Yosvany Martinez, 36, a government parking attendant in Havana, said he'd seen changes since the thaw in relations: more tourism and happier people. But Cubans are still struggling economically, he said. "This visit for me and for all Cubans will be an open door to what we need, which is that they finally lift the blockade, which is what hurts us," Martinez said. The last sitting president to visit Havana was Calvin Coolidge in 1928. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Schenectady An activist's claim that the century-old Lock 7 dam on the Mohawk River is worsening flooding may be buttressed by what was done for the Mohawk Harbor casino and hotel project, where acres of riverfront property had to be raised to 8 feet to protect it. Scotia resident James Duggan has warned state officials since 2007 that the Vischers Ferry dam, which cannot be lowered to release water before heavy storms, makes sections of Schenectady, including the Stockade neighborhood, Scotia and Glenville, more prone to flooding. "This situation is merely another evasion that continues the century of institutionalized state unaccountability and irresponsibility for the design error," said Duggan, who issued reports on the dam last week, in 2014, and in 2007 to the state Canal Corporation, which owns the dam as part of the Erie Canal system. Duggan, a trained architect who is an amateur hydrologist, said the dam, built in 1913, cannot be opened. In 2011, Tropical Storm Irene caused millions of dollars in damage to the canal system. The state decided to remake eight upstream canal dams but not Vischers Ferry so they can be opened in advance of floods. About $100 million in federally supported work, from Lock E15 at Fort Plain in Montgomery County, to Lock E8 at Scotia in Schenectady County, includes new equipment that will allow portions of the dams to be raised to let the Mohawk flow unimpeded when floodwaters threaten. That will also allow uprooted trees and other storm debris to flow freely, rather than build up behind dams. Debris caught in dams can cause the river to back up and worsen flooding. However, the Vischers Ferry dam, which holds back water stretching 7 miles westward, was not eligible for federal support because it did not sustain disaster-related damage. Duggan said his concerns are supported by what was done at the Mohawk Harbor hotel and casino project now being built in Schenectady several miles upstream. During Irene, rising floodwaters that collected behind the dam swamped areas that included the campus of Schenectady County Community College, the Stockade neighborhood, and the popular Jumpin' Jack's snack bar in Scotia. To protect the Mohawk Harbor site from future floods, developers dredged the Mohawk River and used that material to build up the property, raising its elevation from between 223 and 226 feet, to at least 231 feet above sea level, according to an environmental study filed in 2014. The flood risk line is 229 feet. The river elevation there is 211 feet. Before the dam was built, the river was about 6 feet lower, at 205 feet, according to the environmental study. That shows the dam has raised the level of the Mohawk there by about 6 feet, which is roughly the distance that the Mohawk Harbor site was elevated. Shane Mahar, spokesman for the Canal Corp., said Duggan's claims about the alleged flood-risk should be posed to the New York Power Authority, which operates the hydroelectric facility there; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and state Department of Environmental Conservation, which control floodplain issues; and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which licenses the hydro facility. "There are now no plans to do further changes to Vischers Ferry dam," said NYPA spokesman Paul DeMichele. "There is no evidence that this will solve the issue." Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. No comment was immediately available from the Corps of Engineers or DEC. John Garver, a geology professor at Union College who is an expert on the Mohawk River, said being unable to lower the Vischers Ferry dam could become even more of a problem now that the other rebuilt canal dams upstream can release more water downstream. "There is no way that you can release all that water and not have it pile up behind Lock 7," he said. Garver also said that Duggan tried to obtain state funding for a Vischers Ferry dam study under the NY Rising program to deal with the aftermath of Irene, but was denied. Instead, state funds were used to raise a single home in the Stockade neighborhood to protect it from floods. "More was spent to elevate a single house that would have been spent for a dam study to see if what Mr. Duggan believes is correct," Garver said. "And now they are building this big casino on a site that needed to be elevated with tons of soil to lift it above the flood zone." Garver said retrofitting the Vischers Ferry dam would not be technologically difficult. "It is what New York City did to the Gilboa dam," he said, describing a system of inflatable bladders and steel gates that allow the dam to be quickly lowered or raised. bnearing@timesunion.com 518-454-5094 @Bnearing10 This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Albany The veterans ceremony started 20 years ago to honor Marines who survived the battle for Iwo Jima, but their numbers have declined to a handful, so Friday's gathering was expanded to include Korean War and other World War II veterans. The ceremony is held each February to commemorate the Feb. 23, 1945 raising of an American flag by U.S. Marines atop Mount Suribachi, the highest point on the island. In 36 days of fighting, nearly 7,000 Marines were killed and another 20,000 were wounded, 216 Japanese fighters were captured and the rest were killed in action. "We are one band of brothers," said George Covel, a Korean War veteran who played the tuba with an Army band. He is a retired official court reporter and former vice president with the state's Korean War Veterans Association. "We did not shirk the call to serve," Covel said. "We spilled blood and saw our comrades die." The vets and family members who gathered for a program and breakfast at the American Legion Zaloga Post included Tom Lemme, 89, of Albany, a demolition specialist with the 4th Marines. He was evacuated off Iwo Jima on the 13th day after getting hit with shrapnel from a grenade that killed two other Marines in his foxhole. Other Iwo Jima vets who attended were Thomas Smith, 91, and Sal Famularo, 90, both of Glenville; Dick Varone, 90, of Lansingburgh; and Duke Valenti, 90, of Troy. The group lost John Aretakis, who died Jan. 5 in North Greenbush at 89. Fewer than 1 million of nearly 16 million Americans who served in World War II are alive today and they're dying at a rate of about 492 a day. Lemme was given a humorous gift in a moment of levity during the ceremony, which included a benediction, a symbolic table left empty to commemorate fallen soldiers and playing of taps. Lemme was given a framed photocopy of his 71-year-old American Legion I.D. card from 1945, when dues were 50 cents. He was informed he was $12,700 in arrears of dues. "I'm honored," Lemme said as he chuckled and accepted the certificate. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and features with our afternoon newsletter. Covel blasted a recent U.S. Department of Defense shift in policy that allows women to serve in combat as "the height of idiocy." He called the transition to co-educational boot camp as "a stupid idea" and urged attendees to write to members of Congress to demand a reversal. Covel's comments garnered a whoop of approval among the audience, which included several women. He said he made no apologies for not being politically correct before he read an off-color excerpt from a combat vet's memoir. It included a joke about the man's private parts, frigid weather, bulky military pants and nature's call. "I have two words to say to my World War II vets," Covel concluded. "Keep breathing." pgrondahl@timesunion.com 518-454-5623 @PaulGrondahl I think as far as the commissioners are concerned, Titusville has been getting the runaround. I know Ill be criticized for saying this, but The Medicines Company to Participate in 2016 RBC Capital Markets Global Healthcare Conference The Medicines Company (NASDAQ:MDCO) is scheduled to participate at the 2016 RBC Capital Markets Global Healthcare Conference in New York, NY on Tuesday, February 23rd at 8:00am EST. The session will be webcast with a link available at The Medicines Company's website http://www.themedicinescompany.com. About The Medicines Company The Medicines Company's purpose is to save lives, alleviate suffering and contribute to the economics of healthcare by focusing on 3,000 leading acute/intensive care hospitals worldwide. Its vision is to be a leading provider of solutions in three areas: acute cardiovascular care, surgery and perioperative care, and serious infectious disease care. The company operates in the Americas, Europe and the Middle East, and Asia Pacific regions with global centers today in Parsippany, NJ, USA and Zurich, Switzerland. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160219005882/en/ [February 19, 2016] Infosys Consulting Strengthens Leadership Team, Reinforces Global Consulting Strategy ZURICH, February 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Infosys (NYSE: INFY), a global leader in consulting, technology, outsourcing and next-generation services, today announced the appointment of Michael Pesch as Chief Executive Officer of Infosys Consulting Holding AG (formerly Infosys Lodestone), strengthening its focus on creating an integrated, consulting-led business to help clients renew their existing IT landscapes non-disruptively, while simultaneously bringing innovation and new technologies to their businesses. In his role, Michael will focus on expanding the reach of Infosys consultants and experts in digital transformation and design-led innovation, as well as increasing Infosys' expertise in large-scale SAP programs. He will also serve as the Regional Head for the DACH countries, bringing an integrated approach to IT transformation to every client engagement in the region. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130122/589162 ) Infosys Consulting leads the Infosys Aikido service offerings, including working with clients to leverage the knowledge and knowhow of long lived systems (Ki); bring new, open platforms to bear that drive automation and innovation (Ai); and to help them find the most important problems to solve (Do). Infosys consultants have conducted more than 150 design thinking workshops and are actively engaged with more than 50 leading global companies in defining and implementing transformation programs leveraging Aikido. Michael brings with him more than two decades of experience in global consulting and management roles and till very recently served as Chief Executive Officer of arvato Systems Group. During his tenure at arvato, he successfully established new cloud oriented services and led fourfold growth of consulting and IT services business across Europe, U.S. and China. As Chief Executive Officer of Infosys Consulting Holding AG, Michael will be responsible for Infosys' consulting practice in Europe, Lain America and the Asia Pacific Region and will report into Sanjay Purohit, Global Head of Infosys Consulting. Speaking on the appointment, Sanjay Purohit, Executive Vice President and Global Head of Infosys Consulting said, "Over the last several months, we have reinvigorated our global consulting business, strengthening our team and capabilities. We are working with global corporations in more than 20 countries, developing unique solutions to address their complex business challenges using ground-breaking new capabilities in Design Thinking and landscape transformation, creating unprecedented value for them. Michael's appointment as CEO of Infosys Consulting Holding AG adds to our strong leadership in Europe and will bring new vigor in our global consulting business." This appointment is effective from April 1, 2016. About Infosys Infosys is a global leader in consulting, technology, outsourcing and next-generation services. We enable clients, in more than 50 countries, to stay a step ahead of emerging business trends and outperform the competition. We help them transform and thrive in a changing world by co-creating breakthrough solutions that combine strategic insights and execution excellence. Visit http://www.infosys.com to see how Infosys (NYSE: INFY), with US$ 9.2 billion in LTM revenues and 193,000+ employees, is helping enterprises renew themselves while also creating new avenues to generate value. Safe Harbor Certain statements in this press release concerning our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements regarding our future business expectations intended to qualify for the 'safe harbor' under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding fluctuations in earnings, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, our ability to manage growth, intense competition in IT services including those factors which may affect our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, industry segment concentration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks or system failures, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which Infosys has made strategic investments, withdrawal or expiration of governmental fiscal incentives, political instability and regional conflicts, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, and unauthorized use of our intellectual property and general economic conditions affecting our industry. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission filings including our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2015. These filings are available at http://www.sec.gov. Infosys may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. In addition, please note that the date of this press release is January 14, 2016, and any forward-looking statements contained herein are based on assumptions that we believe to be reasonable as of this date. The company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the company unless it is required by law. SOURCE Infosys [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 19, 2016] CRTC helps Canadians find phone, mobile, Internet and TV Service providers with a new online tool GATINEAU, QC, Feb. 19, 2016 /CNW/ - In a dynamic communications marketplace, Canadians have choices in innovative communications service providers. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is helping Canadians find the providers that best meet their needs with a new tool on its website. Through the new Communication Service Providers in Canada online tool, Canadians will be able to search for phone, mobile, Internet and television services available in their area. Users can also access helpful details such as how different kinds of providers work, and learn about the types of communication technologies they use. This new online tool includes practical tips to help Canadians make the most of communication services available to them. It also includes facts about switching providers and links to third-party websites that rate and compare the quality and value of communication packages. The CRTC is unveiling this new online tool 10 days before significant changes come into effect for Canada's television service providers. Starting March 1, 2016, Canadian TV service providers such as cable and satellite companies must offer a new affordable basic package that costs no more than $25 per month, not including rental equipment. Service providers also must offer either a selection of small channel bundles or give viewers the ability to select individual channels. Service providers must offer both small bundles and ick-and-pay by December 1, 2016. Quick Facts The new Communication Service Providers in Canada online tool helps Canadians find phone, mobile, Internet and TV services available in their area. online tool helps Canadians find phone, mobile, Internet and TV services available in their area. Details such as where service providers operate, the technologies they use and practical information including facts about switching service providers are available through this new online tool. Starting March 1 , television service providers must offer a new affordable TV package priced no higher than $25 per month, not including rental equipment. , television service providers must offer a new affordable TV package priced no higher than per month, not including rental equipment. Television service providers must also offer either a selection of small channel bundles or the option to pick and pay for individual channels. Anyone can provide information to help update the Communications Service list by logging onto the following web link: http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/comm/fourprov.htm Quote "During our consultations with Canadians, we have heard repeatedly that consumers crave choice and affordability when it comes to choosing communication services. We listened to what Canadians told us and many of our recent decisions have an important common thread: choice and sustainable competition. We know this is how we can ensure Canadians benefit from a world-class communications system. The new online tool that we are introducing today will help Canadians select service providers that make the most sense for their needs, their budgets and their realities." - Jean-Pierre Blais, Chairman and CEO, CRTC Related Products Communication Service Providers in Canada A Roadmap to Choice and Affordability Associated Links Let's Talk TV Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2015-96 Ask a question or make a complaint Stay Connected Follow us on Twitter @CRTCeng Like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/crtceng SOURCE Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] What you need to know about Powerball and the $550 jackpot 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). We like to think that Australia is home to some of the best bands in the world. You dont have to look too far to find them, either. Just about every major Aussie city boasts an Aussie music legend or two. However, were also the source of some of the worlds worst bands as well. At least, thats what NME readers seem to think. Theyve once again voted homegrown pop-rockers 5 Seconds of Summer the Worst Band in the World. Some readers will recall the controversial four-piece managed to pick up the same award last year and this year they beat out competition like One Direction, Little Mix, Sleaford Mods, U2, and Nickelback. The boys didnt seem to mind last time around, with alt-haired guitarist Michael Clifford tweeting at the time, Won the NME worst band award. Im so damn happy right now. thx to everyone who voted #dreamscomingtrue. Cliffords bandmate Ashton Irwin has similarly taken this years accolade in stride, taking to his official Twitter account to celebrate the news, writing, NME worst band 2 years running, we are unstoppable at being the worst. The 2016 NME Awards recently took place in Austin, Texas and saw The Maccabees taking home the award for Best British Band, Run The Jewels nabbing Best International Band, and Bring Me The Horizon trashing Coldplays table. CHECK THIS KANSAS CITY CATHOLIC LAWSUIT NOTICE RIGHT NOW!!! Disgraced Bishop Wrongfully Fired Church Employee After Accidental Outing by Kansas City Star, Lawsuit to Allege Colleen Simon is taking a stand against Kansas City Catholic discriminatory employment practices today in front of the offices of the diocese . . .Remember . . .And now . . .Here's the latest legal action against Bishop Finn and The Kansas City-St. Joseph DioceseHere is her. . .Last year, I believed God had answered my prayers when I was hired by St. Francis Xavier Church as Director of Social Ministries. Through that position, I oversaw and advanced the operations of the Churchs food pantry, which feeds over 70 local families in need each month. I also had the responsibility of raising up Catholic Social Teachings within the parish, so that through faith we could work together on justice issues."Having been raised Catholic, I deeply internalized the Churchs mission to serve those at the margins, and I was so grateful to have the opportunity to fulfill my calling through my work."However, as much as my Catholic roots are a part of my identity, so is my love for my family, including for my wife of over two years, the Reverend Donna Simon of St. Mark Hope and Peace Lutheran Church. Before even applying for this job, which I wanted so badly, I let the church know that I am a lesbian, and was still encouraged to apply. During my interview with the pastor, I shared that I am married, and that many people in Kansas City know this about us. After I was employed, my wife, like any spouse, attended a fundraiser at the food pantry and many of my co-workers had the opportunity to meet her as my spouse."The Church hired me for my qualifications not based on who I loved. My dedication to St. Francis Xavier showed in my work and in the growth and success of the food pantrythe number of new parishioners who volunteered or contributed, and the programs developed to better serve our families in need."For these reasons, I was surprised and dismayed when I was terminated from my job after an article appeared in the Kansas City Stars 816 Magazine on April 30, 2014. The article headlined Trusting in Troost, noted that I was married to Pastor Donna Simon of St. Marks Lutheran Church, while highlighting the wonderful social work taken on by both Churches."While I feel betrayed by the unjust action of the Diocese, it is still my greatest desire to return to my position and to serve the parishioners and those at the margins in the surrounding community."It is with reluctance and after exhausting all attempts at reason that I file this lawsuit today, and I hope and pray that the court grants me the justice I deserve for the wrong done to me."#############Here's the presser:July 16, 2014, Kansas City, MO This Thursday, July 17, at 10:30 AM CST, Colleen Simon the former pastoral associate at St. Francis Xaviers Church who was fired after the Kansas City Star unintentionally outed her marriage to local Lutheran Reverend, Donna Simon will file a lawsuit In the Jackson County, Missouri, Circuit Court against the Kansas City Diocese. Following the filing, Colleen and her attorney from the Keenan Law Firm will hold a news conference to discuss the action.In her lawsuit, Simon alleges that she had informed all those involved with her hiring that she is a lesbian prior to being offered the job, and that she never kept her marriage a secret from the pastor who hired her. However, after the Kansas City Stars 816 magazine published a story about development and increasing diversity along the citys Troost Street, which featured Simons work for the local food pantry as well as the work of her wife, Rev. Simon, among others, she was terminated from her job, with the diocese citing her marriage as the cause.During her tenure, Simon greatly advanced the work and success of St. Francis Xaviers food pantry, which serves over 70 families in need each month. She considers faith-based social service work her lifes calling.Many have rallied behind Simons unjust firing including via an online petition that surpassed goals of 15,000 and then 20,000 signatures, yet the diocese, led by disgraced Bishop Robert Finn, refused to reinstate Simon. She reluctantly files this lawsuit as a last resort to try to restore her employment.Press Conference, Lawsuit Filing against Bishop Finn, Diocese of Kansas CityColleen Simon, Plaintiff, Former Pastoral Associate at St. Francis XavierE.E. Keenan, Attorney, Keenan Law FirmDonna Simon, Wife of Colleen Simon, Reverend at St. Mark Hope and Peace Lutheran Church10:30 AM CST, 11:30 AM EST, Thursday, July 17Catholic Diocese of Kansas City, 20 W 9th St. Kansas City, MO 64105##############Update after TKC:Developing . . . Rampant gentrification and real estate speculation Downtown brought a great many professionals and worker-bees to Downtown bars that were home to mostly derelicts and deviants not so long ago. For better or worse, increasing popularity and the P&L district have inspired a new wave of denizen to downtown and a great many of these revelers are carrying guns. This is a nice story about a bouncer saving the day but the reality is that it signals a rougher Summer on the way. You decide: Bystander breaks up KC bar brawl by body slamming man reaching for gun Typical GOP nasty campaign tactics and anybody who mentions a conspiracy theory about a convenient helicopter crash that allegedly saved the Trump empire gets 50k TKC bonus points. Take a look: Trump Spox Hits Ted Cruz Over Top Aide's Link To Missouri Pol's Suicide "Mike Shanin interviews Titus Bond from the Remington Research Group about the polling process and public opinion research. Then Jamekia Kendrix, Jon Stephens, Steve Glorioso and Patrick Tuohey discuss the Kansas Supreme Court decision on school funding, the ruling on the convention hotel petition and the political maneuvering in the debate over the future of the earnings tax." More slap-fighting over the Kansas City earnings tax tonight with just a bit of debate about the ongoing tax revolt around town. Take a look . . .Description of the clip that. . .You decide the winners . . . Craig Glazer: Pope Wants Trump's Butt! Check it:Now the Pope has gotten into the act. Donald Trump not a good 'Christian.' The Pope was talking about Trump wanting to keep out immigrants by building walls on the border of Mexico. Of course all the Republican party candidates have said similar things and want to get down on weak border protection to keep out non citizens who don't enter our country legally. More of an issue the Vatican has a wall around it to protect from outsiders. The Pope wants us to build bridges not walls.Today a lawsuit was filed by a lawyer Lawrence Joyce against Ted Cruz. It states he is not eligible for the presidency. This due to his being born in Canada with his mother a U.S. Citizen and his father not. The law on this is a bit fuzzy, but clearly there is an issue. Cook County will hear the lawsuit. So this will be a biggie in the news from here forward on Ted Cruz. Joyce is a Ben Carson supporter not with Trump. It's been Trump who brought all this up. Donald and Dr. Ben Carson seem to be pals in debates and beyond. There is a thought Donald is behind this using Ben's people to cover for him. Is Ben Carson Trump's choice for V.P.? Makes some sense with wanting the minority vote against the demo's in November. Hilary Clinton is in a dog fight now with Bernie Sanders for the nomination.In the meantime Donald Trump enjoys the attention. He is THE NEWS when it comes to this election. As of today Donald has a huge lead in South Carolina. Polls show him winning with 31-38% of the vote way ahead of Cruz and Marco Rubio. If Jeb Bush and Carson finish with less than 10% of the vote each, the party will pressure them to both drop out so there is a clear number two and three behind Trump. If Trump continues to win big and looks as if he will, the race could be over in a few months or less. Having no number two only helps Trump. All this attention from the Pope and the new lawsuit just gets Donald more media and fans. So it seems.############ Finn, who resigned in 2015 following pressure from the Vatican, rose to notoriety as the highest-level Catholic official to be convicted for his role in the cover-up of sexual abuse by priests. Simons suit alleged he was instrumental in her firing. Simon expressed her feelings of hope and solidarity, stating she feels encouraged and hopeful by Pope Francis statements about fostering a more inclusive environment within the church. She included a message to others who find themselves in situations similar to hers. She stated, "I continue to keep in prayer all those who struggle with this issue and pray for the day when all will be embraced by their denominations for who they are and who God has called them to be." After Judge Orders Trial to Move Forward Against Disgraced Bishop, KC Diocese, Settlement Reached with Fired Lesbian Employee Colleen Simon Vows to Continue Her Lifes Calling of Social Service Work; Expresses Desire for a More Inclusive Church In Line with the Popes Stated Mission We talked about this important development for LGBT rights in Kansas City within the context of the Catholic church and this statement is not only hopeful but reveals a heretofore untold perspective on the circumstances surrounding the case . . .Here's the most important line from the recent presser:Read the rest . . .February 18, 2016, Kansas City, MO This Tuesday, in a lawsuit brought by fired lesbian employee, Colleen Simon, against the Kansas City Diocese and its former Bishop, Robert Finn, a Jackson County court ordered that two of Simons three claims against the diocese be allowed to move forward to trial. Shortly following the decision, just prior to the start of a public trial, a mutually agreeable settlement was reached between the parties. One of Simons attorneys, E.E. Keenan commented on the recent resolution of Simons case, stating, For over a year a year and a half, the diocese fought hard to prevent Ms. Simons case from going to a jury. Tuesdays ruling largely rejected the dioceses arguments.After it became clear to the diocese and Bishop Finn that they would have to explain their actions to a jury, the parties were able to reach a confidential settlement.Attorney Sonal Bhatia added, Today is a good day. Colleen Simon feels justice has been done in this case, and now she looks forward to greater focus on the social justice work to which she has dedicated her life.Simon was fired from her position at St. Francis Xavier Church in 2014 after a story that indirectly highlighted her same-sex marriage to Lutheran minister, Rev. Donna Simon, ran in the Kansas City Star. Simon alleged the diocese and her superiors were well aware of her marriage and had previously supported her candidacy and her work within the church prior to the storys publication. Simon had been employed within the diocese for two years: first as a bookkeeper, and later, as a pastoral associate a position she described as her dream job.Her suit, which simply sought a return to that dream job and lost wages, and damages, catapulted Colleens story to international attention as an example of the archaic practices still at play within the modern church, despite Pope Franciss calls for a more inclusive environment.Tuesdays decision by Jackson County Judge Kenneth R. Garrett III, was in response to the dioceses motion for summary judgment on all three claims against it, as a means to avoid a trial. While the judge dismissed one of Simons claims (that of fraudulent inducement) he allowed two others, including her wage-and-hour claim, to move forward, and further found on behalf of Simon that Bishop Robert Finn could be held personally liable on one of those claims. Finn, who resigned in 2015 following pressure from the Vatican, rose to notoriety as the highest-level Catholic official to be convicted for his role in the cover-up of sexual abuse by priests. Simons suit alleged he was instrumental in her firing.Simon expressed her feelings of hope and solidarity, stating she feels encouraged and hopeful by Pope Francis statements about fostering a more inclusive environment within the church. She included a message to others who find themselves in situations similar to hers.She stated, "I continue to keep in prayer all those who struggle with this issue and pray for the day when all will be embraced by their denominations for who they are and who God has called them to be."Simon was also represented by Sarah Brown and Dan Curry of Brown & Curry. Brown & Curry previously represented survivors of clergy sexual abuse in their class-action lawsuit against the diocese.### Regarding Greek banks, Dijsselbloem underlined that 5.4 billion euros was needed for their recapitalisation - much less than the amount initially estimated. "This is also good news for the sustainability of the debt," he added Greece has made progress in the implementation of the program, Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem said on Thursday speaking to the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, noting, however, that the challenges remain. According to AMNA, regarding the first program review, Dijsselbloem said that the discussions are rather constructive and underlined that the main concern of the institutions is to ensure the quality of the reforms to be implemented. Important reforms He added that the first evaluation includes important reforms on the social security system and fiscal figures, the operation of the privatisations fund, the modernisation of public administration, the combating of tax evasion and others. He admitted that some reforms are politically and socially difficult, but stressed the importance of Greece meeting its commitments based on the 2015 agreement. Regarding Greek banks, Dijsselbloem underlined that 5.4 billion euros was needed for their recapitalisation - much less than the amount initially estimated. "This is also good news for the sustainability of the debt," he added. RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande on Friday reassured Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras that the status quo on the borders of Europe will not change at least until the March 6 EU summit German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande on Friday reassured Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras that the status quo on the borders of Europe will not change at least until the March 6 EU summit, according to government sources. The same sources said that Tsipras reiterated that Greece will not accept actions which are detrimental to the country, adding that Greece is the only country that has totally fulfilled its commitments. He also said that Greece has borne the biggest part of the refugee crisis and this is acknowledged from the other member states. The prime minister underlined that "unilateral actions" are not acceptable on Greece's part. According to the same government sources, the three leaders agreed that the "key" to addressing the refugee crisis is Turkey as well as NATO's coordinated action in order to efficiently control refugee flows. No further pressure Merkel and Hollande reassured Tsipras that Greece will have the necessary assistance and that no further pressure will be put on the country. Both leaders pledged to maintain the status quo on the borders of Europe until the emergency EU summit on March 6, where the refugee issue will be reassessed with focus on Turkey. The possibility of expelling Greece from the Schengen zone was also ruled out during the trilateral meeting which was held ahead of the EU summit. On the Greek program, the three leaders agreed that the institutions should return to Athens soon so that the first phase of the program review is completed as soon as possible and pledged to take joint initiatives towards this direction. Source: ANA-MPA RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report Greece is one of Europe's top tourist destinations and Kasteli, a 850-million-euro ($947 million) build and operate project, will become its fourth-biggest airport in terms of traffic, replacing Crete's outdated Heraklion airport, which is strug Greece has pushed back the deadline for binding bids to build and operate a new airport on the island of Crete by about two months to May 6 to give investors more time to prepare offers, an Infrastructure Minister official said on Thursday. The government, which signed up to a third international bailout last summer and is craving investments to help return its ailing economy to growth, had set a Feb. 23 deadline. Greece is one of Europe's top tourist destinations and Kasteli, a 850-million-euro ($947 million) build and operate project, will become its fourth-biggest airport in terms of traffic, replacing Crete's outdated Heraklion airport, which is struggling to handle nearly 2.6 million tourists a year. Interest by investors "There has been a lot of interest by investors who have asked for an extension in the consultations to have more data available and get better-prepared for their final bids," the official told Reuters, declining to be named. France's Vinci jointly with Greece's Ellaktor , and Spain's ACS with GEK-Terna, were expected to bid, two officials from the Greek companies told Reuters on condition of anonymity. China State Construction Engineering in a joint venture with Zurich Airport are also interested in the project, according to the ministerial decision which extended the deadline. Greece had made several fruitless attempts to build the facility since 2010 but its debt crisis scared investors away. Source: Reuters RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report 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. News Oct 21st, 2022 at 12:40 Spending on IT this year by the UK travel sector is projected to hit 1.98 billion, the highest level seen in data analysed covering the last 15 years... Elegant platform enables travel companies and corporations to connect, prepare, visualize, engage and optimize their business around actionable data (TRAVPR.COM) UNITED STATES - February 18th, 2016 - Cornerstone Information Systems (CIS), a leading provider of innovative technology solutions for travel companies, today announced the official launch of TravelOptix, its new user-friendly data analytics platform that delivers actionable insights for travel management companies and corporate travel managers on any device. The new technology was developed by CIS last year to support the increasingly multifaceted travel management process and analyze complex data with complete agility. Now out of beta, several clients are successfully leveraging TravelOptix to optimize their business and regulate their travel spend. From easy data preparation to beautiful dashboards and interactive analytics, the solution combines the best of visual BI and analytics in one platform. The platform has the ability to drill down, and across, multi-dimensional data. The user-friendly solution uses simple menu selections to view trend lines and visualize actionable insights from disparate data sets to support better business decisions, cost savings and policy enforcement. For agencies and corporations, TravelOptix offers a fully configurable, self-service platform that enables companies to create and design their own custom reports, highlighting information and insights critical to their own unique business. Components are plug-and-play, and companies can easily create their own presentations from directly within the platform. Data is the key to helping TMCs and their clients understand how well their travel initiatives are producing and performing, explains Mat Orrego, Cornerstones CEO. The aggregation of travel specific information through visually rich data empowers travel companies and corporations to optimize their travel and drive continual improvement. TravelOptix delivers a single solution to explore virtually all your data from any angle and at any granularity to reach real insights, fast. Even with little or no prior experience in data crunching any data, from any data source, is quickly accessible and actionable and available on any device. Cornerstone, recognized for developing intelligent automation technology and innovative solutions for travelers, companies, and their clients, will be exhibiting at Travel Technology Europe 2016 in London, February 24-25th. Attendees are invited to visit booth T81 to meet with the CIS executive team, and view live demos of the CIS suite of products. ABOUT CORNERSTONE INFORMATION SYSTEMS Cornerstone Information Systems delivers innovative solutions for travel companies and their clients to maximize opportunities for higher performance, greater efficiency, and ultimately, higher profitability. Our unique core offerings provide clients and their respective travelers with data insights that enable them to make better business decisions and manage their trips more effectively to be more productive and cost conscious. Companies managing more than $25 billion in travel spend annually trust Cornerstone to help them proactively lower the costs of travel management and drive revenues through travel optimization. Founded in 1992, Cornerstone Information Systems is a privately held company headquartered in Bloomington, Indiana with customers in more than 50 countries. To learn more, visit ciswired.com Unless indicated otherwise, all trademarks and service marks herein are trademarks of Cornerstone Information Systems Inc. or an affiliate thereof. ### Guideline for travellers who wish to visit South india (TRAVPR.COM) INDIA - February 18th, 2016 - The Travel Planners in Kerala,India organized a 28 day tailor made holiday in Tamil Nadu and Kerala for us, starting in Chennai and finishing in Cochin which was a brilliant adventure. The arrangements were professional, efficient and responded quickly to all or request when planning our bespoke tour. The hotels chosen were excellent and comfortable. The home stay experience was enjoyable and need to us. The reason for why we chose www.keralatourpackages.com is that working with a knowledgeable tour company that has 16 years of experience and local connections can enhance our tour. As per our expectation the www.keralatourpackages.com offered us receptive services and they were always ready to assist us with any or all of the components of our Kerala tour. They can arrange everything from insider experiences and behind the scenes tours to visit the traditional south Indian restaurant and local attractions that offered us opportunities for cultural exchange. We started our tour in the month of December. We arrived at Chennai airport on 5th December where we had a heart whelming reception by the Kerala tour package represent always. Before starting the tour Our tour guide deserved briefly about our whole itinerary and day to day event which our planned perfectly .He helped us a lot to understand the vastness and diversity of the landscape and life in Kerala .And about the worship rituals and traditions, which are practiced in the temples of Tamilnadu . All of us really felt as home away from home with Kerala tour packages along these twenty eight days. Especially for me who consider travel in general as a tool for bridge building and if the travel is facilitated properly, a lot deep, beautiful amazing thoughts will come out of it. This really happened during our Kerala trip. The first spot in our itinerary was Mahabalipura. Mahabalipura is the most outstanding examples of Dravidian art and architecture and a jewel in the crown of Tamil Nadu. The rock cut temples are excellent examples of pallava art Mr. Manoj who was arraigned as a tour guide by Kerala tour packages was really helpful in disclosing the ancient history of Mahabalipura. After spending two days we moved to Pondicherry. Even though it does not have a commercial infrastructure to entertain tourist, Pondicherry is a great place to look around, take a walk by the sea and attend cultural programs. You can also go fishing in a Kattaraman Fishing raft of sorts. Next day morning we started our travel to Pondicherry which is a popular tourist destination in South India. The city has many colonial building, churches, Temples and statues and planned French style avenues. The city still preserve much of the colonial ambiance. At Tanjaore we spent two days. There are visited Brihadisvara Temple and Fort and Tanjavore Royal place and Museum. The temple is an exemplar of Chola architecture Only Hindus are permitted to enter this holy shrine of lord Shiva, We could not visit inside. Tanjavore palace is situated near the temple and is a huge building with broad corridors and gigantic halls. It has an art gallery, Museum and library. Which helps us to know more about the cultural heritage of the city. Or next destination was Chettinad, which showcases the rich art and cultural heritage of Tamil Nadu. Chettinad is an extremely enchanting experience for the tourist as the place is full with rich cultural heritage, exotic food and remarkable specimens of Dravidian architecture. We visited a Chettinad home, Chettinad place and some Temples Chettinad in a real work of art. After two days stay back in Chettinad next day early morning we moved to Madurai Meenakshi Amman Temple is the citys most important land mark. A part from the face of pilgrim and education centre, Madurai is a modern commercial and industrial city. As per information got from our guide it is called as thoonga Nagaram that means the city that never sleeps. After relishing the dram of Madurai. We started our journey to Kovalam, which is an internationally renowned beach of Kerala. The Gods very Own Country. There are plenty and diverse options for leisure at the beach. Life on beach begins late in the day and carrier on well in to the night. The beach has a string of budget cottages, resorts, shopping zone, and Yoga and ayurvedic massage centres. Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala is just near to Kovalam. There are lots of interesting place like Napier Museum , Sri Chitra art gallery, Padmanabha Swamy Temple etc to visit in the city. After the stay in Kovalam we moved to Alleppey which is a backwater destination. The most important tourist attractions in Alleppey is the leisurely boat cruise along the stretch of backwaters fringed by coconut palms. Alleppey the exotic backwater tourism destination is better known as Venice of the East, with lakes, lagoons and freshwater rivers crisscrossing it. We stayed overnight in the Houseboat and it was an unforgettable experience for all of us including the exotic Kerala Cuisine. ### CRDA Appoints Three New Directors (TRAVPR.COM) CANADA - February 18th, 2016 - The Canadian Resort Development Association (CRDA) is pleased to announce that it has welcomed three new members to its prestigious Board of Directors: Guillermo Martinez, Justin Hunter and Richard Cassara. Guillermo Martinez is the Director of Sales for the Vacation Ownership division of Crelogix Acceptance Corporation, which offers consumer financing for vacation properties. Martinez brings a wealth of sales, marketing and financial expertise to the CRDA board. Justin Hunter joined Resort Travel & Xchange (RTX), a leading vacation exchange provider, in 2007 and currently serves as the Vice President of Operations. Hunter brings over nine years of timeshare industry expertise to CRDA. His well-rounded background includes experience working in the following departments: owner services, finance and club management. Richard Cassara is the President of LaTour Hotels and Resorts. Cassara has over 20 years of industry experience. Previously he held the position of Vice President of Operations for Patton Hospitality, a LaTour sister company. Cassara also has experience working with Wyndham Vacation Ownership, Shell Vacations and Sunterra Resorts on a senior management level. I am thrilled that CRDAs scope has been broadened by the depth of experience that these industry professionals bring to our Board. The sectors they represent adds to our ability to become the relevant vibrant voice of the Canadian resort industry, says Jon Zwickel, President and CEO, CRDA. The Canadian Resort Development Association (CRDA) is a trade association dedicated to furthering the interests of the resort industry in Canada and throughout the world. The association and its 13 directors are committed to supporting the highest standards through a structured Code of Ethics which all CRDA members pledge to uphold. For more information about CRDA, visit www.CRDA.com About CRDA CRDA is an industry-based association that is dedicated to furthering the vacation ownership resort and leisure industries. It was founded over 30 years ago in response to the publics demand for reliable information about timeshare products. Focus has since broadened to all aspect of shared ownership. For more information visit www.crda.com ### Launch of New Horizon Cruiser and Expanded Dates for Boating Flotilla in Italy Among Latest Offerings as Le Boat Preps Fleet for New Season (TRAVPR.COM) UNITED STATES - February 18th, 2016 - Le Boat, Europes number one self-skippered boating vacation company, is introducing a sleek new cruiser and expanding its popular boating flotilla cruises in Italy as part of its diverse offering for the 2016 season. The company is currently conducting routine maintenance while completing scheduled upgrades and refurbishing throughout its extensive fleet. It also continues to provide unique services such as price matching and a boat ownership program that allows customers to purchase a boat that the company can rent out and maintain for them when not in use. The 2016 season is shaping up to be a very successful one for us, with more vacationers in the U.S. and Canada discovering the distinctive experience of driving their own boat through the scenic canals and waterways of Europe and the British Isles, said Shannan Brennan, Le Boats head of Distribution and Marketing, U.S., Canada and Latin America. Were particularly pleased with the exceptional popularity of the Horizon cruiser. It has yet to make its maiden voyage, but it is already nearly booked for the 2016 season. The Horizons modern design is exclusive to Le Boat and is available in 11 regions throughout Germany, Italy, Holland, England and France. It has a spacious interior with panoramic windows thats perfect for a couple or small family. It includes a second smaller cabin that is suitable for young children, a bathroom with a separate stall shower and comfortable spaces for dining and other activities. The new cruiser also has a rear cockpit and roomy sundeck, complete with furniture, sink and barbeque. Guided Boating Flotillas New for 2016 is Le Boats boating flotilla option in Italy, which is available for a total of five dates in 2016. As part of the itinerary, week-long boating groups will travel together throughout Venice. A guide will help plan the itinerary, organize optional group activities and provide assistance to new boaters, if needed. The guide will also be on hand to suggest places to see and visit en route as a group or independently. Le Boat Flotillas offer the best of both worlds, especially for new boaters. Travelers can be as independent as they want, while also enjoying the expert assistance of our knowledgeable and experienced guides, said Brennan. Le Boat offers a free app that can be downloaded from the Apple and Google Play stores that provides information and advice for getting the most out of a Le Boat vacation. ### The first ambassadorial meeting on tourism for 2016 reunited European members states parliamentarians, representatives of European tourism organizations and members of the diplomatic corps. The World Ambassadors Working Lunch on Tourism was generously hosted by the European Council on Tourism and Trade (ECTT) and has benefited the presence of the ECTT President, Professor Dr. Anton Caragea. (TRAVPR.COM) BELGIUM - February 19th, 2016 - The World Ambassadors Meeting and Working Lunch on Tourism and Hospitality has taken place on 9th of February 2016 at the world tourism institution headquarters of European Council on Tourism and Trade. The first ambassadorial meeting on tourism reunited European members states parliamentarians, representatives of European tourism organizations and members of the diplomatic corps. The World Ambassadors Working Lunch on Tourism was generously hosted by the European Council on Tourism and Trade (ECTT) and has benefited the presence of the ECTT President, Professor Dr. Anton Caragea. The Diplomatic corps gathering, is taken place on an annual basis and is representing a great opportunity for networking and also for keeping the Embassies informed on what the World Lectures on Sustainable Development Goals Programs of European Tourism Academy will try to achieve during the year and also to provide an outlook for the coming year 2016 in terms of tourism in Europe and the world. The event received the highest representation of accredited diplomatic corps, parliament representatives, European Tourism Academy, European Council on Tourism and Trade. On this occasion Professor Dr. Anton Caragea had officially entrusted insignias and diplomas for the representative of the hospitality industry of Europe and recognized ROYAL HOTELS in Bucharest and Constanta as official diplomatic partners and entrusted the HIGH QUALITY PRIZES for the two hotels. Other points of discussions included an update on International and European Tourism trends in 2015 and a presentation of a list of most successfully tourism driven economies in the last year (Ethiopia, Laos) and the latest publications emanating from European Tourism Academy members. Academician Walter Mzembi-Minister of Tourism of Zimbabwe took the limelight, with his articles and interviews series on combating tourism and mass media manipulation in tourism industry. Ambassadors from United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Syria, Macedonia, Albania, South Africa, Venezuela, Nigeria, Denmark, Sweden had taken the floor highlighting their countries plans for tourism development and hopes pinned on winning World Best Tourist Destination Award or World Capital of Culture and Tourism designations. The names of the ambassadors who will be invited for Spring 2016 DISCOVER EUROPE PROGRAM will be announced in March 2016 and the trip will start in April and will showcase Republic of Moldavia beauties announced European Council on Tourism and Trade President, Dr. Anton Caragea. The meeting concluded with an introduction of the main activities of the diplomatic calendar for the first quarter of 2016, a presentation on the upcoming February 2016 Tourism Fair and International food and Beverage Exhibition-Goodwine April 2016. ### On February 15, in these pages, Pravin Sawhney had argued (The Army is not war ready) that the Indian Army was distracted from its ideal readiness for war. Lt-Gen(retd) RS Sujlana gives a contrary view. A vast array of factors combine to ensure that an army is ready for war, but the tenacity of men and women who make up the force, their wherewithal and the will of the nation to war are the three main factors. Mr Sawhney has agreed that as the Army has not fought a conventional war after 1971 and has been involved in counter-insurgency operations (CI ops) for nearly a quarter century, the senior leadership of the Army cannot conceive the concept of conventional war. In addition, having erected a fence along the Line of Control (LC) to limit infiltration, the Army has developed an inbuilt Maginot Line, or defensive mentality which today denotes the physical, mental and psychological limit of war-fighting! He questions whether the Army wishes to be a glorified Para-Military Force (PMF). If this was not enough the article goes on to state, that the people of India do not know what the Army is supposed to do. When the word Army is used it is a direct reflection on the officers, JCOs and other ranks of the entire force. Thus, a brief examination of how the Army (and its men) have stood and will stand for the nation and the issues raised to assess how wrong the starting premise is follows. The post-Independence military history bears testimony to the multi-tasking capability and true grit of the Army in handling crisis after crisis. Four months into freedom and the Army had a war at hand, the Indo-Pak War, 1947-48. The Army at that time was still reorganising itself, experience and numbers of military leaders were at a premium, but still the Army went forth to drive out the Pak intruders with tremendous credit. However, contrary to advice, the political leadership hurried into a ceasefire under the aegis of the UN, eluding a total victory. The political leadership still did not feel the necessity of strengthening the armed forces (opining that the nation could well do with just a police force). A laissez-faire attitude continued and as it cuddled up to China, no effort was made to rejuvenate the armed forces. This flawed policy saw the heart-breaking outcome of the 1962 War with China. The Army was ordered to throw out the Chinese. With what? No one could answer. Even the Air Force was kept out of action. But still, the Army fought resiliently and valiantly with archaic weapons, limited ammunition sans winter clothing to name a few; the war was lost but the enemy could not break the spirit of the Army. After this debacle, the Army started to expand in 1963. The Army's tryst with counter-insurgency operations had already begun in Nagaland. In the midst of this expansion and training of new units, the Army (and the Air Force) fought the Indo-Pak War of 1965, defeating a Pakistan Army equipped with latest weapons (like the famous Patton tanks and Sabre Jets) and drove them to dust. However, the political leadership was again found wanting and all captured areas were returned to Pak without weighing their strategic significance. Something similar seems to be brewing up now with calls of pulling back from an expensive battleground the Siachen Glacier. Guess, some people will never understand strategic concerns. In the ensuing six years, the Army's involvement in CI in the North-East had increased manifold but come the 1971 War, the Army amazed the world with their blitzkrieg historic victory. The political leadership again failed to garner any leverage; over 90,000 Pak prisoners were returned without resolving any issue; rather the enemy played truant and retained 54 of our prisoners who never returned home. Today, they are totally forgotten by the nation. In construing the traits of the present lot of senior officers, it hints that they lack the offensive spirit. Far from the truth as this obviously implies that the resilience, offensive spirit, camaraderie and the will to fight and win is not required in battling at the highest battlefield in the world at Siachen (since 1984) and CI ops, as this is where the Army has fought continuously post- the 1971 War. How very wrong can they be, inherent in such ops are not only these traits but much more. If this was not so, Col Gurung, Commanding Officer, 19 Madras, with the unstinted support of his seniors, would not have personally directed the super-human effort to pull out his 10 men from below tonnes of snow at the staggering height of 20,000 feet. This included one still alive, the now-legendary Hanumanthappa. Does anything more need to be said about the required traits which made this happen and the officer-man relationship in the Army? Forgotten, perhaps, is also the victory in the 1998 Kargil War, where it was all blood, guts and offensive actions. Ironically, here too, the soldiers carried the day and fought with whatever they had in the words of General Ved Malik, the then Army Chief. Are the LC Fence and the Maginot line the same? Definitely no, their aims are/were poles apart. Let not the LC Fence be confused to be a part of the conventional defensive concept. Moreover, wherever there is an obstacle (like a minefield or wire obstacle) offensive plans exist to strike the enemy. So has this created a defensive mindset? The answer is again, no. Needless to say, the cost-effectiveness of the fence is indeed debatable. Yes, without doubt there are large deficiencies in arms and equipment and these continue to grow by the day. These telling deficiencies are likely to continue in the near future, with the defence budget at an abysmal 1.74 of the GDP, almost at the same level as it was prior to the 1962 conflict. The political leadership has to come out of the proverbial ostrich syndrome and show predilection for the armed forces and provide them not only the required wherewithal, but ensure their rightful status, dignity, pay and allowances. The Army can well do without being involved in CI ops, but to say that the Army is only training for CI ops is remissness. Regular and appropriate time is being spent on conventional roles, rather even in Jammu and Kashmir, the troops deployed along the LC on defensive positions remain acquainted with their conventional role which does have its' fair share of offensive action plans. With regard to offensive actions like hitting terrorist camps in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, it is for the government to decide and direct the Army to implement. Will the Government's real politik allow this? It is not for the Army to decide. Criticism is important but when someone decides to outrightly condemn the Army or any other organisation, there is a need to balance out views. At the risk of being branded intolerant, some censorship is warranted. The Army is physically, mentally and psychologically prepared to fulfil its roles and offensive soldiering is their forte'! Let there be no doubt about their fighting competence. The writer is a former Commandant, the IMA and former Chairman of the PPSC. President Obamas decision to travel to Cuba next month is expected to warm up relations between Washington DC and Havana which had continued to remain frozen between the two Cold War former foes for a quarter of a century after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and fall of the Berlin Wall. During his two-day visit starting on March 21, the first by a US President in 88 years, Obama says he will improve the lives of the Cuban people. Obamas visit to the island nation located barely 145 km from Florida, the nearest US state, comes in the wake of a normalisation process that began in December 2014 after the two countries announced their decision to restore diplomatic relations severed in 1961 following the Cuban revolution in 1959. What had followed thereafter was over five decades of acrimony which saw successive US administrations maintaining a policy of economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation. A botched CIA-backed attempt to topple the Cuban government in 1961, better known as the Bay of Pigs invasion, was followed soon after by a fortnight-long standoff between the US and the former Soviet Union. The Cuban missile crisis had set the tone for deterioration in bilateral relations. Since the December 2014 announcement, which was preceded by 18 months of secret talks between the two sides brokered by Pope Francis, the Obama Administration has taken measures to ease bilateral relations which include the release of prisoners, reopening of diplomatic missions, easing restrictions on remittances, travel and banking, removing Cuba from the terrorism list and an agreement on the resumption of flights. However, all is still not normal. The US economic embargo continues to remain in place and is unlikely to be lifted in the near future since the US Congress, which has to sanction it, is controlled by the hawk-eyed Republicans opposed to a detente. Although there is considerable domestic support for easing relations with Havana, Obama continues to face opposition from a large number of Cuban-Americans residing in Florida who could make it an issue in the Presidential elections scheduled for November 8 this year. Sushil Manav & Sunit Dhawan Tribune News Service Chandigarh/Rohtak, Feb 19 Curfew was imposed in Rohtak and Bhiwani districts today as the Jat agitation in Haryana turned violent, resulting in the death of three persons. Angry mobs held a BSF man hostage and set ablaze a police post at Dighal in Jhajjar. The Army has been requisitioned for nine districts Rohtak, Jhajjar, Sonepat, Bhiwani, Jind, Hisar, Kaithal, Karnal and Panipat. Ten companies of the paramilitary forces are on the way while 20 more have been summoned, said Yash Pal Singhal, DGP. An Army column has been moved to Rohtak, an official spokesperson said. After rampaging mobs set afire public property and vehicles, Haryana Chief Secretary DS Dhesi spoke to the Army Chief and the CM with the Defence Minister. The fiasco is being blamed on intelligence agencies that failed to gauge the discontent among the protesters, say sources. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, when questioned on the issue, refused to comment. Reports said the agitation kept swelling through the day with Jats blocking roads and rail tracks in several districts. In Rohtak, armed mobs went on the rampage, setting ablaze the house of Finance Minister Capt Abhimanyu as well as several vehicles. Three protesters were killed when the police opened fire after policemen, including a DSP, were taken hostage and the office and house of the IG, Rohtak Range, was attacked. Two of the deceased were identified as Ajay of Gaddikheri village and Harinder of Dhalala village. Several vehicles at the Circuit House were torched. In Bhiwani, a dharamshala was set afire after a clash between Jats and those opposing the stir. The Jats are demanding OBC status to avail of reservation in jobs and educational institutions. State police chief Singhal said their top priority was to rein in the mobs in Rohtak. He said the Police Lines in Rohtak was also under threat and senior IAS officer AK Singh and IPS officer BS Sandhu had been asked to coordinate between the Army and the district administration. Security for ministers and MLAs had been raised, Singhal said. Internet services off With the situation getting out of hand this morning, internet and SMS services were suspended in six districts to prevent further trouble. The DGP said orders had been issued to jam social networking sites. As and when the situation improves, the internet facility will be restored, he said. To a question, he said if there was no improvement in law and order, we will consider imposing curfew in the entire state. Following rumours on the social media that Jats had been beaten up by non-Jats and students backing the stir beaten up by the police, hundreds of Jats from nearby villages arrived in Rohtak on tractor- trailers this morning and went on the rampage. Earlier in the day, Ram Bhagat Malik, spokesperson of the Yashpal Malik faction of the Akhil Bharatiya Jat Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti, said the stir would not be called off till the Jats were included in the OBC category through a legislation. The all-party meeting failed to arrive at any solution. When 2,353 other castes have been granted reservation, why have the Jats been excluded, asked Malik. HTET deferred, schools shut The Haryana Teachers Eligibility Test (HTET) Level-3 scheduled for Saturday has been postponed. The revised dates will be on the website soon. The government has decided to cancel the state-level function to mark the 639th birth anniversary of Guru Ravidas at Sir Chhotu Ram Stadium, Rohtak, on February 21. Schools in Karnal district will remain shut tomorrow in view of the agitation, an official spokesman said. (Inputs by Sat Singh in Bhiwani) New Delhi, February 19 In his first overseas trip after assuming charge of the top office, Nepalese Prime Minister K.P. Oli arrived here on a six-day visit, during which he will hold extensive talks with the Indian leadership with a major focus on mending ties hit by issues relating to the Himalayan nations new Constitution. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj received Oli, accompanied by a 77-member delegation, at the airport, reflecting importance India attaches to the visit. Oli and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold extensive talks on a range of issues tomorrow following which both sides are expected to sign a number of pacts to step up cooperation in several key sectors. It is expected that India will ask Nepal to complete the unfinished task of making the Constitution more inclusive to address the concerns of the Madhesi community which share close family and cultural ties with Indians. Ties between the two countries had soured in the wake of agitation by the Madhesi community opposing Nepals Constitution, saying it failed to address their concerns over representation and homeland. The agitators had blocked the trading points for almost four months crippling supply of petroleum products, medicines and other commodities by India to that country. The blockade was lifted this month. It is the first bilateral visit by a Nepalese Prime Minister here after the trip by the then premier Baburam Bhattarai in October 2011. Olis predecessor Sushil Koirala had attended Modis swearing-in ceremony in May 2014. Welcoming our Northern guest. EAM @SushmaSwaraj receives Nepals PM KP Sharma Oli on his State visit to India, External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted along with a photographs of Swaraj receiving him. Oli is accompanied by wife Radhika Shakya, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Kamal Thapa, Finance Minister Bishnu Poudyal, Energy Minister Top Bahadur Rayamaji and Home Minister Shakti Basnet among others. The Nepalese Prime Minister will stay at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Modi had paid a bilateral visit to Nepal in August 2014 which was the first such trip by an Indian Prime Minister to the neighbouring country in 17 years. Modi had gone to Nepal again in November 2014 for the SAARC Summit. Swaraj, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will be among those who will call on the Nepalese Prime Minister. Oli will also call on President Pranab Mukherjee and Vice President Hamid Ansari. He will visit Dehradun on Sunday to inspect the Tehri hydel power project and will return here in the evening. On Monday, he will address the Indian Council for World Affairs and attend a business meeting. He will leave for Bhuj in Gujarat on Tuesday to have a first-hand experience of the earthquake reconstruction work there. Nepal was struck by a devastating quake in April last year and is currently in the process of carring out reconstruction work. The same day he will leave for Mumbai from Gujarat and will meet Maharashtra Governor. He will leave for Nepal from Mumbai on February 24. PTI New Delhi, February 19 Congress rebel Kalikho Pul took oath as Arunachal Pradesh chief minister within hours of President Pranab Mukherjee lifting of Presidents rule in the state on Friday. President Pranab Mukherjee has given his approval to the Union Cabinet's recommendation for revocation of President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh, a Home Ministry official said. Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court turned down former Chief Minister Nabam Tuki's request to allow the party to prove their majority in the Arunachal Assembly. "This may be a possible manner of dealing with the issue, but the matter is still pending before us and we have not yet tendered our decision," a five-judge Constitution Bench that Justice JS Khehar headed said. The Bench, which also has Justices Dipak Misra, MB Lokur, PC Ghose and NV Ramana, is current hearing several petitions pertaining to the ongoing political crisis in Arunachal Pradesh Assembly. Senior lawyer Kapil Sibal, who representing Congress leaders in the state, said: We have suspected all this (alleged bid to revoke President's Rule and install a new government). We have told our apprehensions to the court and now all that are coming true. Sibal also told the Bench that Congress feared the Central Government and Governor Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa would in a new Chief Minister and then dissolve the House to ensure that power remained with them until snap polls were held. "Soon after swearing in of a new government, they will dissolve the House and exercise control through a care-taker government," Sibal said, asking then Bench to pass an order, which the Supreme Court also turned down because the bench had varied opinions. An order will be pronounced only after all arguments are concluded, the Bench said. The Supreme Court lifted a stay on swearing in of a new government in the state on Thursday after it found fault with the disqualification of 14 rebel Congress legislators by the Speaker. Congress dissident Kalikho Pul approached Governor Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa claiming he had support of 31 legislators 19 Congress, 11 BJP and two independent MLAs to be Arunachal Pradeshs new chief minister on Monday. A day later, the Supreme Court refused to restrain Governor from swearing in a new state government. The Union Cabinet recommended revoking Presidents Rule in the state on Wednesday, which the Supreme Court stayed temporarily until it studied details of what lead to the political crisis. Arunachal Pradesh was hit by a political turmoil after 21 of 47 Congress MLAs in the 60-member house, 11 BJP and two Independent MLAs impeached Speaker Nabam Rebia and elected dissident Congress leader Kalikho Pul to replace Congress Chief Minister Nabam Tuki in sessions held at makeshift venues in December. Deputy Speaker T Norbu Thondok, a dissident Congressman, also revoked Nebias suspension of the 14 MLAs. Nebia appealed the decisions in Gauhati High Court, which temporarily stayed them as well as a notification issued by Governor Rajkhowa advancing the assembly session from December 16 to January 14. Thondok and some dissident legislators appealed the order to a higher bench, which stayed the legislators disqualification. Rebia approached the Supreme Court. President Pranab Mukherjee imposed Presidents Rule in the state amid deepening political crisis in the state on January 26 on a recommendation made by Union Cabinet. The Congress, among them former chief minister Nabam Tuki and leader Bamang Felix, then moved a petition in the Supreme Court against Presidents Rule. Agencies Chennai, February 18 A 32-year-old IPS officer was today found dead in the police officer's mess here. The body of Assistant Superintendent of Police N Harish, attached to the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption, was found in a room of the officer's mess premises at Egmore around noon, police said. Harish was an officer of 2009 batch and had recently been transferred from Madurai to Chennai. The cause of death was being ascertained and investigations were on, police said. PTI GS Paul Tribune News Service Amritsar, February 17 An unscheduled visit of PPCC president and local MP Capt Amarinder Singh to Khalsa College this afternoon led to a high drama. On learning about the visit, the college authorities locked all main gates of the campus. Amarinders cavalcade managed to gain entry from another gate. The college authorities alleged that the MPs security men slapped the college guards, snatched keys of the gate and stormed into the campus unannounced, which was unfortunate. Though no one from the college management entertained Amarinder, students welcomed him and interacted with him. They also clicked photographs with the MP. On the purpose of his visit, Amarinder said he was there to question the illogical move of Khalsa College Governing Council (KCGC) to set up a university in the neighbourhood of the prestigious Guru Nanak Dev University. He warned the governing council against diluting and subverting the heritage status of the historic Khalsa College. Slamming the Badals and Majithias, he alleged that it was an attempt to usurp the Punjabs glorious heritage. He said if the SAD-BJP went ahead with the move of establishing a private university on the Khalsa College campus by way of an Act, the Congress would repeal it, if voted to power in 2017. Recalling his familys association with Khalsa College, Amarinder said while his grandfather Maharaja Bhupinder Singh and father Maharaja Yadvinder Singh were its chancellors from 1927 to 1952, he was its chancellor too between 1972 and 1978. Compared to that, the Majithias who now control the institution and want to usurp it have no contribution towards the setting up this great institution. Their aim is to undermine Guru Nanak Dev University by setting up their private university to mint money. The move is akin to destroying the government transport in Punjab by promoting their own transport companies, he alleged. Meanwhile, Satyajit Singh Majithia, president, KCGC, said the historic college would remain an autonomous institution. Some leaders are playing politics over the vital issue, which is unfortunate. In the heart of it, they also understand how important the project is, but seem to be misled by certain elements for political reasons, he said. He said the heritage status of the building would also remain intact. KCGC honorary secretary Rajinder Mohan Singh Chhina alleged that Amarinder came to the college uninformed and without an authorisation. Sarbjit Dhaliwal Tribune News Service Chandigarh, February 19 The crops of thousands of farmers having land across the fence in Punjab are at the mercy of cattle from Pakistan. There are about 52,000 hectares across the fence on the Indo-Pak border in Punjab territory. Farmers have complained that cattle released from Pakistani villages located close to the border enter their fields in the evening and destroy the crop. Punjabi farmers are allowed to work in their fields across the fence till 5 pm and that also after securing a work permit from the BSF. The farmers have given three options to the Union Government to free them from the troubles being faced by them for being located close to the Indo-Pak border. First, they say the Centre should take on long lease the entire land owned by them across the fence. Two, the fence should be relocated at the last point on the international border. Three, the government should exchange the land with Pakistan as has been done at the Indo-Bangladesh border. During the Vajpayee government, the Centre used to give some compensation to farmers having land across the fence in lieu of lesser yield due to poor upkeep of crops. But it was later stopped. The state government has written several letters to the Centre in this regard. Prem Singh Chandumajra, who is member of the Parliamentary Committee of Home Affairs, said here today that he would raise this issue with Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and also in the Lok Sabha to make MPs aware of the problems faced by people in the border belt. He said that the Parliamentary Committee on Home Affairs, which visited the state recently, would also take up this issue at the appropriate level. The Centre would be asked to declare the border belt as a special border zone and to revive the special allocation of funds for the belt that was stopped last year. The government would also be asked to give special border area allowance to employees working in that difficult zone. The issue of a corridor to the historic gurdwara at Kartpur Sahib at a short distance from the border, near Dera Baba Nanak, will also be raised in the Lok Sabha. The Parliamentary Committee, which saw the gurdwara, was convinced that there should be corridor and the issue should be taken up with Pakistan, said Chandumajra. Tripoli, February 19 US warplanes carried out air strikes against Islamic State-linked militants in western Libya on Friday, killing as many as 40 persons in an operation targeting a suspect linked to two deadly attacks last year in neighbouring Tunisia. It was the second US air strike in three months against Islamic State in Libya, where the hardline Islamist militants have exploited years of chaos following Muammar Gaddafi's 2011 overthrow to build up a presence on the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The mayor of the Libyan city of Sabratha, Hussein al-Thwadi, told Reuters the planes struck at 3:30 a.m. (0130 GMT), hitting a building in the city's Qasr Talil district where foreign workers were living. He said 40 people had been killed and six wounded. The death toll could not immediately be confirmed with other officials. Tunisian security sources have said they believe Tunisian Islamic State fighters have been trained in camps near Sabratha, which is close to the Tunisian border. A US military officer said among those targeted in the air strikes was senior Tunisian operative, Noureddine Chouchane, believed to be connected to the attacks last year on a Tunis museum and the Souse beach resort which killed dozens of people. Officials have said those two attacks, both claimed by Islamic State, were carried out by gunmen who trained in Libya. Agencies Much of the software trucking companies now use daily, including for telematics and fleet management, is delivered via the Software-as-a-Service method. Exceptions include high-end customizable enterprise or trucking management systems and proprietary software that some companies develop in-house. It has become the norm, says Brian McLaughlin, president of PeopleNet, Minnetonka, Minn. He notes his company was one of the first to offer a SaaS model when they started in 1996. Back then, it was kind of a risky bet. The majority of the industry had on-premises software they would load and maintain. I think weve seen tremendous adoption of the SaaS model. SaaS generally refers to software thats located in a centralized area and delivered remotely to the client, says Dan Speicher, chief technology officer, Omnitracs. That means a company does not load software from disks or other media onto its on-premises server, desktops or laptops. Instead, the software and the data generated by it remain in a central location either on the vendors own servers or on third-party servers linked via cloud-computing. Whats also different is how a company pays for such software. Instead of buying it outright, companies pay a monthly fee based on the number of users. In many ways, SaaS is similar to leasing power units or trailers. In the traditional model, you bought a version of the software once, and only bought another version when the first became so obsolete you had to replace it, says Ken Weinberg, vice president and co-founder, Carrier Logistics Inc. The vendors only got money from you when you bought new software. Now, they get money from you every month. Pros and cons Over time, the amount the end user pays may end up being higher than buying new versions of software, since the subscriber can always opt to skip a couple of versions. On the other hand, there are numerous benefits for the end user with the SaaS model. Key among them is always getting to run the latest version, with little effort. You have instantaneous updates and access to new features, McLaughlin says. Staying current with the latest version of software can be a pain for customers, Weinberg says, and thats why many fleets put off upgrading. The SaaS model takes care of that issue. And since the software is managed remotely, it relieves the trucking company of a host of headaches that can develop when maintaining their own software. As Weinberg notes, a number of companies are moving away from in-house IT staffs, similar to how they have embraced outsourced vehicle maintenance. It allows them to focus on trucking. SaaS also provides trucking companies with a consistent cost they know what to budget each month for their software since its a relatively fixed cost spread over the term of the subscription (which typically run three to five years). There are some downsides. Potentially higher cost over time would be one. The other is that, since the vendor is pushing out upgrades or new features on a regular basis, there is a chance for users to be overwhelmed. With SaaS changes come more rapidly and a lot of fleets dont like rapid change, McLaughlin notes. Some upgrades may require training for dispatchers, drivers and other users, which can be disruptive and costly for a fleet. To alleviate that problem, SaaS providers alert users to updates that will require such training so they can prepare for that need. Some SaaS products allow uses to turn on or off automatic updates. The majority of software products offered in the telematics, mobile communication and GPS tracking space are SaaS models. Photo: NetworkFleet To tweak or not Many users may tweak or customize their software to their liking. But that can also create some problems with updates. Its important that fleets work with vendors that can accommodate that. As Weinberg says, users want to be sure that after an upgrade, anything they did yesterday will be there today and that the upgrade does not eliminate functionality they are accustomed to or unique to them. While SaaS providers no longer get the full price upfront for their products (although a number of fleets do pay a full subscription up front), the model offers a host of benefits. These include lower development, deployment and support costs. The most significant benefit to us is the efficiency of product development and distribution, McLaughlin says. I dont miss the days of having to distribute software to thousands of users it could take years. Speicher agrees, saying that time to market can be less with the SaaS model. With an on-premises solution, you are limited to how often you can update. Supporting customers is easier with the SaaS model, notes Weinberg. Since all customers are relatively current with the latest version, when you call in for support, I know your system is up to date, he says. Having to maintain several levels of software increases development costs for software providers and slows down the pace of deploying new versions. Most SaaS offerings used in trucking share the same basic attributes, but there may be differences in how they are accessed by the user. Many use the web to access the software, whether through a web-services web page or thin-client software, that is housed in a central server. Mobile apps, on the other hand, allow the application and data reside on the mobile device smartphone, tablet or navigation device or on a computer. And with some systems, the application and data can reside in both the central location and on desktops or tablet computers at the clients location. McLaughlin refers to this as an in between or hybrid approach. There is a local app you download that allows you to work offline and store your most essential data, but the majority of the data and horsepower will happen back on the remote computer. I think that is where the world is going with SaaS. Whats up with the cloud? Many SaaS fleet tracking applications, such as those from GPS Insight can be run on mobile devices as well in the office. Photo: GPS Insight Cloud-based refers to a method of delivery for SaaS products. Usually when people talk could-based that is usually a term for people who are developing things for other people to use, McLaughlin says. The definition of SaaS is offering service that is hosted somewhere else. That could be a physical space the vendor maintains or a third-party server in the cloud. The cloud, then, is an option for software providers to use in managing and storing the application and data that runs and feeds into its SaaS products. Weinberg calls the cloud just a way of getting data from our facility to someplace thats going to process it for you. A bottom-line consideration is that a number of trucking companies use software products that are not compatible with the SaaS model. These especially include ERP and TMS products. But for other applications, SaaS has indeed become the norm. The Sand Springs and Berryhill Fire Departments battled a grass fire at an industrial site near Chandler Park Thursday afternoon. Tulsa County Sheriffs Office Sgt. Mike Moore said no one was evacuated because of the fire at the intersection of W. 21st Street and S. 49th W. Avenue behind Triangle Construction. The fire was under control by 5 p.m. Moore said deputies blocked off a portion of S. 49th W. Avenue from the 2100 block to the 2600 block while firefighters battled the blaze. It was mostly grass, he said. Some plastic in the area caused the black smoke. Sand Springs dispatch reports the fire department was also called to help with a fire near Discovery Land and there were no evacuations related to that fire. Sand Springs Deputy Fire Chief Justin Hall said a third fire threatened the Sandel Mobile Home Park around 7:15 p.m. Hall said no one was evacuated and no homes were damaged. There was still some smoldering, we had to go back out there around midnight, he said. While winds are diminished Friday, Hall said dry grass still provides fuel for potential fires. They have been appointed to the deans honor roll, which acknowledges students maintaining a 3.00 (B) or higher grade-point average in a minimum of 12 core course hours during the semester with no incomplete grade recorded. NOC is among the top 150 public two-year institutions in the nation and the only one in Oklahoma selected by the Aspen Institute for Community College Excellence eligibility; it is ranked eighth from 565 public community colleges across the country by the finance technology company SmartAsset. The accredited public two-year liberal arts college offers associate degrees in Arts, Science and Applied Science. Articulation agreements with universities allow Northerns associate degrees in Arts and in Science to transfer to all state four-year institutions. Students can enroll in and attend classes in Tonkawa, Enid or at Stillwater through the NOC/OSU Gateway program. Eight people were charged Tuesday in federal court in connection with a large cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking operation in the Tulsa area. The investigation involved the Tulsa Police Department Special Investigations Division and the Drug Enforcement Administration, along with a confidential source from the Broken Arrow Police Department, documents indicate. The defendants are accused of possessing and intending to distribute at least 500 grams of cocaine and 50 grams or more of methamphetamine, according to records from U.S. District Court, Northern District of Oklahoma. The complaints contain allegations from September 2014 to February 2016, records show. Charged are Jesus Juan Rosales, who also goes by names such as Chuy and Panzon; Sergio Yanez (also known as Checko); Jose Rodriguez (Chuky); Ivan Jimenez (El Don); Eddy Hernandez; Margarita Solis Rodriguez; Romeo Flores and Andres Rubio. Seven of the eight have made initial court appearances before a magistrate in Tulsa federal court, according to court records. Rosales, Rodriguez, Yanez and other co-conspirators used code words such as hats, boys, onions, four-wheelers, apple and paint to describe cocaine and the distribution of cocaine, court records indicate. Cryptic words such as dirty were used to denote meth. During an interview with an informant, Rosales reportedly said he has distributed cocaine inside Club Rio, 2120 S. Sheridan Road. That is the same address where several search warrants were served Wednesday morning, according to Tulsa police. A state district judge has thrown out a defamation lawsuit filed last year by a former area district attorney. District Judge Russell Vaclaws decision, which was filed Wednesday, declared constitutional a state law that safeguards residents from retaliatory lawsuits for challenging public officials via free speech, petition or assembly rights. In doing so, the judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by former Rogers County District Attorney Janice Steidley against five Rogers County residents for supporting a grand jury petition to investigate her professional conduct. Also named as defendants in the suit were The Daily Progress, a Claremore newspaper, and its former publisher, an editor and a reporter. The Oklahoma Attorney Generals Office intervened in the lawsuit to defend the constitutionality of the Oklahoma Citizens Participation Act (OCPA). The purpose of the OCPA is to encourage and safeguard the constitutional rights of persons to petition, speak freely, associate freely and otherwise participate in government to the maximum extent permitted by law, and, at the same time, protect the rights of a person to file meritorious lawsuits for demonstrable injury. Vaclaw, a Washington County judge assigned to the Rogers County case, wrote in his ruling that from the facts presented, defendants actions were an expression of said rights. The Rogers County grand jury petition led to a state multicounty grand jury investigation that yielded no indictments against Steidley. Steidley lost a re-election bid in June 2014. A little more than 400 employees with the Oklahoma Department of Human Services were given official buyout offers Thursday as part of an effort to make up for budget cuts. DHS implemented an agencywide voluntary employee buyout offer in January to help it deal with a projected shortfall of about $40 million by 2017. In December, state agencies were told to make reductions of 3 percent based on low projected state income. For DHS, this is about $18.7 million less in state funding, triggering a loss in federal matching money for a total of $28.1 million. DHS officials say in addition to the immediate cuts, they are expecting a $40 million shortfall in the next fiscal year if the appropriations do not change. In DHS, 535 employees expressed interest in receiving the voluntary buyout offer. Of those, officials made an offer to 413 employees. For most of them, their last day will be March 15. Some may work longer, depending on retirement and reorganization within the agency. While every employee in this agency is valued, there were some in front-line positions or who perform other crucial duties that it did not benefit the agency to offer them a financial incentive to leave at this time, stated DHS Director Ed Lake in a press release. The reduction is expected to save about $12 million in payroll costs for fiscal year 2017. The voluntary buyout was based on years of state service, 18 months of employee-only health premiums, next longevity payment and accumulated vacation hours. I would like to express gratitude and appreciation to every employee who is voluntarily leaving for their commitment to this agency and for their dedication to the people they have served. You will be missed, Lake stated. I would also like to thank all of our employees, managers, and agency leaders for working together during this difficult time to not only reduce our workforce, but to thoughtfully reorganize our work and business processes to allow us to continue serving vulnerable Oklahomans. DHS put a hiring freeze in place for all positions except for child-welfare workers. It is reducing budgets and reserve accounts for certain services and will cut all contracts by 3 percent and those spending below the contracted amount. The cuts will not apply to fixed-rate contracts or to Medicaid waiver services in Aging or Developmental Disabilities Services. The estimated constraints in the fiscal year 2017 budgets are from a third consecutive reduction in federal matching funds for all Medicaid-funded services, increasing costs in the foster-care system and increasing numbers of adoptions and adoption subsidies. Although the savings we will realize in payroll costs will help us prepare for an extremely rough fiscal year in 2017, we are still experiencing serious budget issues, Lake stated. We are waiting for the second shoe to drop so to speak on the amount of a second state revenue failure, which could mean we have to employ other budget reduction strategies very rapidly. We will continue to keep employees informed of what is happening as quickly as possible. Adam Chitwood has always loved movies. And news about movies. And telling his friends news about movies. It began at age 12, around the release of The Phantom Menace (the 1999 Star Wars prequel), as he searched in the early years of movie websites and blogs for information about this blockbuster event. I was always Did you know that this happened? or Did you hear about this? with my friends, he said. So about age 12 I started doing this before I was getting paid for it. Chitwood now provides movie news to readers worldwide who check in on the popular movie website Collider.com, where the 28-year-old Jenks High School graduate serves as news editor and writer. He tells his audience of breaking movie news. He reports from film festivals. He writes occasional reviews. He delivers the latest out of Hollywood, and he does it all from his residence in south Tulsa. Chitwood took what he calls a weird trajectory, considering that his intention was to attend medical school at the University of Oklahoma. His father was a radiologist. He graduated with a degree in zoology and biomedical sciences. But he was always good in English, and he kept taking film classes and doing a good amount of writing about movies (It got to the point that friends said, Start a blog, and Ill read it...). A decade after his Phantom Menace infatuation, he was still frequenting movie websites. One of those sites was Collider.com, which advertised its need for a writer. Chitwood answered on a whim. Six months after he started freelancing for the site, he became a full-time staff writer. That was about five years ago. It was my dream job to write about movies for a living, Chitwood said. So these were some very serendipitous events. Collider.com is a film and TV news website offering everything from reviews to news to interviews. The idea is that Collider is the place where cinephiles and fandom collide, with an appreciation for the artistic merit, as well as for the culture of blockbusters and franchises. That means Chitwood can be expounding on Oscar nominations (hes the teams awards analyst), as well as comic-book movies and Star Wars all in the same day. As the news editor, Im sort of a manager of the site, in charge of the overall news landscape and deciding what we need to cover, what angle to take and planning for those events, he said. Per his example: News breaks that Steven Spielberg is going to direct a certain film. Its now Colliders job to do more than report that news but to give it some perspective for the sites readers. We decide how to contextualize that news, he said. Whats Spielberg already working on? What are some projects hes done that took a long time, or that never came to fruition? What does it mean to a particular project that Spielberg will be directing? Chitwood enjoys being able to do his job from Tulsa, where he goes to movies every weekend with my girlfriend and with regular audiences, and I see how people are responding in the heartland. What inspired your love of movies? I really enjoyed how film stories were told and what went into making movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark that were so enthralling. Film classes made it all even more interesting to me. Im still fascinated with how filmmaking has evolved since then and how those stories are told. Was there a particular movie that sparked your interest? Not really one movie. I was obsessed with Harrison Ford. I made my mom take me to Six Days, Seven Nights in the theater (about age 11) because I would see anything with Harrison Ford. I also started going to Blockbuster and renting all of the Jaws movies, then all the Godfather movies and more. I just loved the idea of sequels (and) that you could stay in that world for a longer time. I was not always a very discerning 11-year-old. The scene is that of a disaster movie; you must evacuate your home, and you can save only three movies from your private collection. What are they? Oh man, I have way too many Blu-rays at home. Three ... Broadcast News, Id have to save that one. Probably The Apartment. And the last one would probably have to be Back to the Future. What surprised you or thrilled you at the movies in 2015? Sicario (Chitwoods No. 1 movie of the year) was just incredibly interesting. Id have to say the longevity of Mad Max: Fury Road has surprised me. It was a real burst of adrenaline when I saw it last May, and I thought, This is great, but it will never get its due. And now here it is nominated for the best-picture Oscar. What movies are among your most anticipated of 2016? Im a huge Harry Potter fan, so Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is up there. The new Coen Brothers film, Hail, Caesar! was one. Im a big Shane Black fan, so The Nice Guys in May. And Martin Scorseses passion project, Silence. What do you do for fun when not watching movies? My girlfriend and I like going out to eat, hanging out on weekends. We like going for walks. We like finding someplace to relax, rather than staying at home, which happens when thats where you both live and work. Where are you going when you eat out, and what are you eating? I love El Tequila so much, love the steak and cheese burrito. I like Old School Bagel Cafe. They have this 5th Avenue bagel sandwich that is delicious. And I have proven that going to Andys Frozen Custard can be addictive. What are you reading right now, or watching on TV? I just finished reading Rowlings book Career of Evil (the third book in the Cormoran Strike series), and Im about to read Devil in the White City, which people have recommended to me so many times. I watch way too much TV. Ive been pleasantly surprised so far by The People vs. O.J. Simpson. Im enjoying season 2 of The Knick. Im eagerly awaiting The Americans, which may be my favorite show now with Mad Men gone. Im an avid watcher of Seth Meyers. Like I said, too much TV. Whats the one thing in your home that you cannot do without? My laptop, obviously, for my work. But right behind are dark chocolate and lots and lots of coffee. The Vision proposal on Tulsas April 5 ballot will include $30 million to upgrade several Tulsa County fairgrounds facilities to accommodate growing events. Chief Deputy County Commissioner Michael Willis said Expo Square represents economic impact for both the county and the city of Tulsa, which envelops the fairgrounds from 15th Street to 21st Street west of Yale Avenue. Were obviously very appreciative of them (city officials) putting the fairgrounds in Vision, Willis said. But the other thing to remember is that the city of Tulsa is the primary beneficiary. Willis said the events the fairgrounds hosts benefit the city in sales tax when the thousands of people who attend them eat at nearby restaurants and fill nearby hotels. The $30 million figure in Tulsas Vision package was pared down from more than twice that amount, which the county had been hoping to get to address its needs. The countys place in the citys Vision plan occurred near the end of the efforts to draft the proposal, largely due to politics, after county officials said they would seek to extend one-sixth of Vision 2025s expiring 0.6 percent sales tax to meet the countys needs, which, when combined with the citys plan, would effectively raise sales taxes for people shopping in the city. City officials and county officials were able to reach a compromise, leading to the $30 million figure. Willis said one major expansion at the fairgrounds would add a roughly $2.55 million covered outdoor exercise arena to the Mustang Arena. Its really an expansion that will help us with our horse-show business, Willis said. Several of those shows have grown in terms of the number of heads of horses and cattle. The fairgrounds hosts several of the nations and worlds premier horse shows every year, he noted. These horse shows keep growing and growing, Willis said. In order for us to keep them, we need to be able to stall those animals. Another $5.1 million will go toward an upgrade to the Super Duty Arena. The Super Duty Barn and Arena is the main arena with seating and some of the other amenities that these big shows need for their competitions, Willis said. Its sort of the showcase arena. When we are not using the Pavilion for something like that, the Super Duty Barn is our main arena. A major portion of the funding in Tulsas Vision package, $8.4 million, would go toward general Expo Square maintenance, paving and fencing, he said. Its really just a cleanup and making the whole area look more presentable, Willis said. Were trying to really make it sparkle. The county will have a separate proposal on the ballot April 5, seeking a renewal of the remaining 0.05 percent of the expiring sales tax. Officials have said that money would likely pay for roads and levees, park projects, and buildings/capital improvements. OKLAHOMA CITY The leader of the Oklahoma Senate on Thursday expressed concern that too many state questions on the November ballot could run up the cost. Senate President Pro Tem Brian Bingman, R-Sapulpa, was asked about a number of measures moving through the Legislature that would place additional state questions on the ballot. Well, if we are not careful, you are going to have to bring a sandwich when you go into that booth to mark that ballot this year, Bingman said during his weekly briefing with reporters. It might take a while. Yes, we are concerned about flooding the ballot. Currently, two state questions are on the ballot. State Question 776 deals with the death penalty while State Question 777 deals with the rights of farmers and ranchers. Meanwhile, education supporters earlier this week announced that they will begin circulating a petition to let people vote on increasing the sales tax by a cent to fund education. Other proposals would ban abortion and modernize the states liquor laws. A petition to legalize medical marijuana is also in the works after earlier efforts failed. On the legislative side, the Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday passed a variety of measures to go on the ballot, including Senate Joint Resolution 65 that would let the governor with the consent of the Senate appoint the Commissioner of Labor, a position currently decided in a statewide vote. Another measure, Senate Joint Resolution 72, would let voters decide if a section of the Oklahoma Constitution should be removed to allow the return of a privately funded Ten Commandments monument to the state Capitol. Many more measures are moving through the process. At some point, you have to look at cost, Bingman said. If you get too many, the cost of the printing and everything is substantial, so that does enter the picture. Bingman said he consulted with Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax about the issue. More than likely, we can fit maybe six more state questions on the general election ballot without any problems, Ziriax said. It depends on the length of the ballot titles. In the event there were too many state questions, along with other elections, to fit on a single ballot, we would have to go to a second ballot for the general election. The cost would range from $600,000 to $650,000, he said. OKLAHOMA CITY The chairman of the Senate Education Committee late Thursday said he will not hear any school consolidation bills, including his own. Earlier in the day, Senate Pro Tem Brian Bingman, R-Sapulpa, moved his school administrative consolidation bill from the Senate Education Committee to the Senate Rules Committee. Bingmans Senate Bill 1382 would consolidate the administration of dependent districts with independent districts. Lawmakers are scrambling to find ways to save money following a current year revenue failure and a $1.3 billion hole for the fiscal year 2017 budget. In addition, the state is experiencing a significant teacher shortage. Lawmakers have put out several consolidation measures, including those that affect schools and state agencies. At this point, it doesnt appear the measure will make it out of the Education Committee, Bingman said of his bill. I am committed to moving this measure forward, and am moving it to the Rules Committee to be acted upon. Its important for us to keep the conversation going about measures like this that free up dollars to support students and teachers, especially considering the severe budget crisis facing the state. On Monday, a House panel overwhelmingly voted to kill a school district consolidation measure after hundreds of parents and students showed up at the Capitol. Senate Education Chairman John Ford, R-Bartlesville, said the death of the bill in the House committee was one factor in his decision not to hear any consolidation measures. He said talks of school consolidation proposals generated a lot of concern among parents and superintendents. I think it is the right thing to do, Ford said. I am just not sure what would be successful. When lawmakers proposed significant changes like school consolidation, the issue needs to be discussed thoroughly, Ford said. He said each issue has a time, adding that he didnt think he presently could get a lot of buy-in on school consolidation proposals. Of the 516 school districts, about 100 are dependent or elementary districts, educating students in pre-kindergarten through sixth or eighth grade. I'm confused. Recently a bill was introduced by Rep. Doug Cox, R-Grove, a physician, that would request stopping federal funding for many covered under Medicaid. In part, the article said this would impact single moms who want to stay home with their child ("Budget squeeze could knock 111,000 Oklahomans off Medicaid rolls," Feb. 11). If our elected representatives are going to introduce bills like this, then why not request all federal funding stop coming into Oklahoma? No more money for Section 8 housing, no more supplemental nutrition programs, no school lunches, no highway funding, no Medicare, or Medicaid, no disaster relief in cases of tornadoes, flooding or grass fires, or anything along those lines. After all, we are conservatives and want no part of the federal government intruding into our lives. Or do we, but only on our terms? A very great man once said words to this effect: The least you do unto my brothers, you do unto me. Oklahoma, let us make up our minds and do what is right by all the people in this state, so we can join the 19th century. Letters to the editor are encouraged. Send letters to letters@tulsaworld.com. One of the candidates for Chairman in the People's National Movement's internal election says there is a major detachment between those in office and people at the grass root level. Kenneth Butcher says things need to change from the inside. Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos, co-creators of acclaimed Netflix doco series Making A Murderer will be visiting Australia shortly. They will be speaking at the Spectrum Now Festival on March 10th, at an event hosted by Charlie Pickering. Making a Murderer: In Conversation with Charlie Pickering is a one-hour interview exploring the original ten-part documentary crime series and a Q&A with the audience. We always wanted Making A Murderer to start a dialogue around important issues in our criminal justice system, said directors Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos. We are thrilled that so many people all over the world are responding to the concept of fairness and equality, and we cant wait to come to Australia to continue this discussion. The original ten-part documentary series, premiered by Netflix in December 2015, has taken the world by storm. Inspired by a newspaper article from 2005, directors Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos have spent the last decade documenting an unprecedented real-life thriller that spans more than thirty years. Set in Americas heartland, Making a Murderer follows the harrowing story of Steven Avery, an outsider from the wrong side of the tracks, convicted and later exonerated of a brutal assault. His release triggered major criminal justice reform legislation, and he filed a lawsuit that threatened to expose corruption in local law enforcement and award him millions of dollars. But in the midst of his very public civil case, he suddenly finds himself the prime suspect in a grisly new crime. The series takes viewers inside a riveting, high-stakes criminal case where reputation is everything and things are never as they appear. With amazing access, the filmmakers follow the second investigation and ensuing trial of the accused, petitioning the court to avoid having to turn over their footage, gathering archival materials, and interviewing key players in the case. If we had not been there to witness these events we would have trouble believing they actually occurred. Our goal has always been to share that experience with viewers. Our partnership with Netflix has allowed us to tell this story in a way that wouldnt have been possible anywhere else, said directors Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos. Making a Murderer examines allegations of police and prosecutorial misconduct, evidence tampering and witness coercion. The filmmakers look at what went wrong in the first case and question whether scientific advances and legislative reforms over the past three decades have gotten us any closer to delivering truth and justice in the system. Making a Murderer: In conversation with Charlie Pickering 10 March, 2016 The Star Event Centre, Pyrmont 3:48 p.m., Feb. 19, 2016--More than 300 members of Delawares biomedical research community are coming together next week at the University of Delaware for a three-day conference aimed at boosting basic, clinical and translational research opportunities across the region. Delaware IDeAs 2016 will be held Feb. 24-26 at UDs Clayton Hall. It is a joint meeting of the Delaware CTR ACCEL, Delaware INBRE, the states seven COBRE programs and Delaware Bio. An agenda for the conference can be found at this website. Its the first time representatives from CTR, Delaware INBRE and the states COBRE programs have coordinated efforts for a single meeting. Their partnership speaks to the collaborative atmosphere that exists in Delaware and the potential for developing and sustaining more high-level research, said Stuart Binder-Macleod, principal investigator and program director of the Delaware CTR ACCEL program. For those who will be there, hopefully it will be like being a kid in a candy shop, with all this great science, said Binder-Macleod, who is the Edward L. Ratledge Professor of Physical Therapy at UD. By being in the same room we hope to share ideas and collaborate. CTR ACCEL, Delaware INBRE and the COBREs are funded through the National Institutes of Health Institutional Development Award, known as IDeA. The IDeA program, administered through the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, supports faculty development and research infrastructure improvements in the 23 states and Puerto Rico that have historically received lower levels of NIH funding. The NIH Institutional Development Award, or IDeA, has provided more than $173 million in funding to Delaware institutions in the past 15 years. This funding has added needed research equipment, helped mentor early-career investigators, widen the pool of diverse, highly educated job candidates and create more than 5,000 jobs, all while improving the health of Delaware residents. The IDeA program has three components: IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE), which relies on a statewide network of institutions that work with a multidisciplinary, thematic approach to expand and strengthen the states research capabilities; Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE), which are multidisciplinary centers that boost an institutions biomedical research capabilities and are headed by a NIH-funded investigator; and Clinical and Translational Research (CTR), which aims to foster partnerships between basic and clinical scientists and also develop capacity to conduct clinical and translational research on diseases that are prevalent in IDeA states. The Delaware IDeAs 2016 conference will include workshops, poster sessions and networking opportunities for academic and hospital-based researchers, industry leaders, physicians, students and others who will be in attendance. Themed poster breakout sessions also will group researchers on topics including big data, biomaterials, cardiovascular disease, cancer community engagement and neuroscience. Gov. Jack Markell is scheduled to address the group on Thursday, Feb. 25. On the same day, Dr. Kathleen T. Brady, director of the South Carolina Clinical and Translational Research Institute and vice president of research at the Medical University of South Carolina, will give the keynote address, Lost in Translation: Trials, Tribulations and Successes in Translational Research. Brady is a leader in substance abuse research and has been continuously federally funded for more than 25 years. The IDeA programs are focused on expanding Delawares biomedical research capabilities, enhancing diversity, addressing state-specific health diseases and creating an economic impact. Sustainability is always something investigators are thinking about, so the commingling of investigators at the conference may spark ideas for future research and collaboration, Binder-Macleod said. Sharing resources for a larger gathering also reduces the costs for the individual programs. Having the IDeA programs join together for an annual meeting also strengthens Delawares position as an example of a research state that making the most of its NIH funding, said Steven J. Stanhope, principal investigator of Delaware INBRE. We want this to become a yearly event that makes it possible for Delaware to leverage its size and connections to really impact research on a state and national level, said Stanhope, UD professor of kinesiology and applied physiology and also of mechanical engineering. As an IDeA state, Delaware has a tremendous opportunity to serve as a research lab for the country. 9:23 a.m., Feb. 19, 2016--For the Record provides information about recent professional activities of University of Delaware faculty, staff, students and alumni. Recent honors, presentations, publications and service include the following: Honors Nancy Weiss, director of UDs National Leadership Consortium for Developmental Disabilities, has been designated a fellow of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. This honor is bestowed on individuals who have made a meritorious contribution to the field of intellectual disability. The ceremony of preferment to fellow will be held at the AAIDDs 140th annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, in June. Presentations Roberta Golinkoff, Unidel H. Rodney Sharp Chair in Human Services, Education and Public Policy and professor of learning sciences, gave three presentations, one a panel discussion hosted by Connecticut State Rep. Gail Lavielle and the Connecticut Commission on Children, titled Technology in the Classroom: How Does it Compute? in Hartford, Connecticut. Golinkoffs paper was titled Playing for Learning in a Digital World. She also made presentations with Kathy Hirsh-Pasek on Unlocking the Potential of Translational Science and Effective Dissemination Strategies at the 2015 Principal Investigators Meeting, Institute of Education Sciences, Washington, D.C., and with Hirsh-Pasek, D. Levine, A. Pace, T. Goksun, N. George and H. Konishi on Carving Events for Language: The Role of Language at the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center (SILC) Workshop on Space and Language, University of California, San Diego. Amanda Jansen, associate professor of mathematics education, and Charles Hohensee, assistant professor of mathematics education, presented a poster at the 20th annual meeting of the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (AMTE) on Jan. 28 in Irvine, California. The poster was titled, Why Teach Mathematics? Prospective Teachers Reflections on Representations of Mathematics Teaching in Feature Films. Nancy Jordan, professor of learning sciences, presented her fractions research at an invited symposium at the Institute of Education Sciences Principal Investigators meeting on Dec. 11, 2015. Joe Henderson, researcher in the School of Education, chaired a session on the nature of science, co-presented Motivated Reasons: Scientific (Il)Literacy, NOS, and the Challenge of Cultural Cognition, and presented an invited session on communicating research to broad audiences at the American Anthropology Association annual meeting in Denver. Publications Troy Mix, policy scientist in the Institute for Public Administration, published the article Advancing Comparative Research on the Extent and Impacts of Intermunicipal Cooperation, with co-authors Eduard Bakos and Filip Hruza of Masaryk University in the Czech Republic. The article was published in the Proceedings of the 20th International Conference Current Trends in Public Sector Research 2016. Joan Buttram, assistant professor of education, and Elizabeth Farley-Ripple, associate director of the School of Education, published The Role of Principals in Professional Learning Communities in Leadership and Policy in Schools. James Hiebert, Robert J. Barkley Professor of Educational Development, is co-author of the article Beyond Growth Mindset: Creating Classroom Opportunities for Meaningful Struggle in Education Week Teacher. Charles Hohensee, assistant professor of mathematics education, published Teachers Awareness of the Relationship Between Prior Knowledge and New Learning in the Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 47(1), 16-26. Nancy Jordan, professor of learning sciences, is co-author of a book chapter on Early Interventions and Mathematical Cognition in the Oxford Handbook of Numerical Cognition (pp.1079-97). Assistant professor of education Erica Litkes article, Middle School Math Acceleration and Equitable Access to Eighth-Grade Algebra: Evidence From the Wake County Public School System was named one of the top 10 most read articles in AERAs Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. For more information, see AERAs Most Read Education Research Articles of 2015. Joshua Wilson, assistant professor of education, was co-author of articles on Comparing the Accuracy of Different Scoring Methods for Identifying Sixth Graders at Risk of Failing a State Writing Assessment, Assessing Writing, 27, 11-23, and Using Automated Feedback to Improve Writing Quality: Opportunities and Challenges in the Handbook of Research on Technology Tools for Real-World Skill Development. Service Tobin Driscoll, professor of mathematical sciences, was elected in December to a three-year position on the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) Council. SIAM is an international society made up of leading mathematicians, scientists and engineers whose goal is to connect mathematics to science, technology and society. The council advises SIAMs president currently L. Pamela Cook, Unidel Professor of Mathematical Sciences and associate dean of engineering at UD on the scientific policy of the organization. Driscolls vision for the future of SIAM includes a focus on rising scholars in mathematics as well as on the recent budget cuts that the National Science Foundation has experienced. Elizabeth Farley Ripple, associate director of the School of Education, has been working with the Delaware Department of Education to facilitate discussions of a stakeholder committee created by Senate Joint Resolution 2. This committee is analyzing an in-depth inventory of state and district assessments. More about this work and Farley-Ripples participation in a roundtable discussion with Acting U.S. Secretary of Education John King, Gov. Jack Markell and other educational leaders is available on the School of Education website. Laura Glass, interim director of the Delaware Center for Teacher Education and assistant professor in the School of Education, was selected to be on the American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE) Government Relations and Advocacy Committee. To submit information to be included in For the Record, write to publicaffairs@udel.edu. 11:57 a.m., Feb. 19, 2016--Robert Coupe, commissioner of the Delaware Department of Corrections, will be the second speaker in a series of talks on contemporary issues in public policy and administration scheduled this spring at the University of Delaware. He will provide a Delaware perspective on the changing role of corrections in the criminal justice system. The lecture is scheduled for 5 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 23, in Room 103 of Gore Hall. The series, sponsored by UD's School of Public Policy and Administration, is open to all students, faculty and staff, as well as the general public. All programs are scheduled at 5 p.m. on selected Tuesdays in Room 103 of Gore Hall on the Newark campus. Featured speakers include: March 1: Alfred Manganiello, program manager and family resource coordinator for Catholic Charities of Wilmington, will discuss management from the three sectors where he has worked: private, government and nonprofit. April 5: Elizabeth Ryan, the founder of the Washington-based Campaign for Youth Justice, will discuss her history in nonprofit work and the work of the Campaign for Youth Justice. The campaign focuses on the issue of juveniles caught up in the adult criminal justice system. April 12: Susan Perry-Manning, director of the Delaware Office of Early Education, will discuss the importance of early education and Delawares strategies for ensuring that all children in the state are ready to enter kindergarten. April 19: Scott Beale, the CEO and founder of Atlas Corps and a master of public administration graduate of the School of Public Policy and Administration, will discuss the history of Atlas Corps and its highly acclaimed role in working with aspiring non-governmental organization (NGO) managers from around the world. This talk has been rescheduled from March 15. April 26: Susan Frank, vice president and managing director for business development of the Delaware Community Investment Corporation and former director of the Delaware State Housing Authority, will discuss the history and future of affordable housing. May 3: Leo E. Strine, Jr., chief justice of the Delaware Supreme Court, will discuss The Difficult Process of Criminal Justice Reform. May 10: William Chapman, recently retired after 20 years as a Family Court judge in Delaware, will offer thoughts and reflections after a career first in the Attorney Generals Office and then the Family Court. Delaware Gov. Jack Markell was the first speaker in the series. He reflected on his time in office, challenges, successes and some disappointments and also shared his ambitious goals for his final year as governor. The Delaware Association for Public Administration (DAPA) will host a reception with Strine, a 1985 UD alumnus, in recognition of Public Service Week following the chief justices lecture. For additional information on this series, contact Ed Freel at efreel@udel.edu. 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). Ottawa urges Kyiv to continue to reform the country in line with the aspirations of Ukrainians for transparent, responsible and effective governance. This is said in the commentary of the Foreign Ministry of Canada to Ukrinform. "Despite the huge and all sorts of difficulties of the past two years, the Ukrainian political institutions have been working together on an ambitious reform plan. Recognizing the great progress, Canada calls on Ukraine to continue joint efforts staying on the path of reforms, chosen by its people," reads the commentary. The Canadian Foreign Ministry stressed that Canada would continue to cooperate and support Ukraine during conduct of its reforms for the sake of Ukrainians. "The ultimate goal of the Canadian support is successful Ukraine, which will meet the aspirations of Ukrainians for transparent, responsible and effective governance," the Canadian Foreign Ministry stressed. ol Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk has expressed gratitude to the Lithuanian and Swedish sides for their ongoing support of Ukraine and hands-on technical and expert assistance in reforming the Armed Forces of Ukraine at the meeting with the Minister of National Defense of Lithuania Juozas Olekas and Minister of Defense of the Kingdom of Sweden, Peter Hultqvist. Ukraine government portal reports. "I really appreciate the support that your countries have provided for Ukrainian Ministry of Defense in order to make the Ukrainian Armed Forces stronger, more reliable, because - as you well know - the Ukrainian army defends not only Ukraine, but also the European Union's borders. We are faced with incredible geopolitical challenges," premier said. Juozas Olekas and Peter Hultqvist have assured the willingness of their governments to continue to provide comprehensive assistance to our country in the implementation of reforms and countering Russian aggression. The sides discussed the complex issues associated with the implementation of the Minsk agreements. They also discussed current issues on the political situation in our country and actions and plans of Ukraine government in the context of the European course of reforms. The Ukrainian Week event is a series of presentations on the Ukrainian theme entitled "Ukraine in Focus". Its activities include among others - holding a panel discussion "Ukrainian crisis and information warfare" hosted by the Institute of Foreign Economy and Foreign Affairs of Hungary on 22 February, the premiere of the documentary film "Winter on fire: the struggle for the freedom of Ukraine" on February 23, and holding the panel discussion " Ukraine: two years after the Maidan " at the Hungarian "Corvinus" University on 24 February. "Ukrainian Week" is organized jointly by the Embassy of Ukraine to Hungary in cooperation with the British Embassy and U.S. Embassy and it is intended to draw attention of the general public, Hungarian politicians, experts, journalists and students to the events in Ukraine, which has been shifted recently towards "background" in connection with European migration crisis and the situation in Syria. Also, the happenings are a sign of support demonstrated by the international community for our country in an extremely difficult struggle against external aggression and the bumpy road of internal transformations. | By Patricia Fanning A national report on health disparities in West Baltimore included interviews with Jay A. Perman, MD, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB), who commented on social determinants of health. Perman, a pediatric gastroenterologist, was interviewed for a story, Baltimore hospitals work to repair frayed trust in black communities, that was broadcast nationwide on PBS NewsHour. The report aired Feb. 15 as part of the launch of a special project by collaborating news media that had begun examining the health of Baltimore residents after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody last year. The collaboration involved Capital News Service (CNS), which is a student-powered news organization run by the University of Marylands Philip Merrill College of Journalism, Kaiser Health News (KHN), and public broadcasting. Perman was interviewed by PBS special correspondent Sarah Varney, who is a reporter for KHN. On the same day, a story by KHN reporter Jay Hancock included an interview on the topic with Perman. Hancocks story, "In Freddie Gray's Neighborhood, the Best Medical Care is Close but Elusive," was posted on the sites of KHN, PBS NewsHour, and National Public Radio. On the CNS site, the story is displayed as part of the project "In Poor Health." CURE Scholars at Franklin Square Elementary/Middle School work on science projects as shown in a video report by PBS NewsHour. Core team members for the CURE Scholars Program include Brian Sturdivant, MSW, far left, and Executive Director Robin Saunders, EdD, MS, mentoring a student at a table, far right. The PBS NewsHour piece pointed to two of the various ways that UMB addresses these racial and economic disparities. One is educating health care professionals to delve more deeply into the social conditions that perpetuate poor health. The report shows interactions among a mother who has brought her children to the Presidents Clinic, the weekly interprofessional teaching opportunity during which Perman and pediatric nurse practitioner Elsie Stines, DNP, MS, CRNP, care for pediatric patients as UMB students participate. Another is the establishment of the UMB CURE Scholars Program, which identifies promising middle school students in Baltimore and prepares them for health care and research careers through hands-on workshops and lab experiences, and mentorship. It is supported by the National Cancer Institutes (NCI) Continuing Umbrella of Research Experiences (CURE) program. The PBS report shows students at Franklin Square Elementary/Middle School working on science projects in an afterschool lab session in which they are supervised by mentors from UMB. By bringing more African-Americans into health care professionals and cancer research, the initiative aims to lessen the disconnect between poor, minority residents and the health care system. Locally, the project prompted The Baltimore Sun to publish an editorial, The health care gap, the Baltimore Brew to describe the projects findings, and The Daily Record to post the KHN article. One of Permans observations to Hancock was selected by Beckers Hospital Review for a Feb. 16 article, A broken system on the mend: 10 telling quotes from patients, healthcare providers in Baltimore, accompanied by an overview of the project. Beckers quoted Perman as follows: As a profession, as an industry, we have not sufficiently appreciated, let alone done something about, the impact of social determinants" such as poverty, poor housing, lack of food choices and low education, Dr. Perman said, according to the report. Guys like me and gals like me can easily say, 'I made the correct diagnosis. I wrote a proper prescription. I'm done. What I say to my students is, if you think you're done if done means the patient is going to get better you're fooling yourself. The special project explores the distrust that has worsened the disparities. One result is a gap in life expectancy, which is just under 70 years in Sandtown-Winchester, the neighborhood associated with the life of Freddie Gray, a figure that is sharply lower than the 84 years in a wealthier part of Baltimore. Addressing one reason for the historic distrust of the medical establishment among African-Americans, Perman told Varney: I think theres still too much of a perception that we experiment. Now, that is not the case. Care is rigorously delivered with consent from the patient always. But it takes a long time, I think, for people to understand that the days of hidden experimentation are over. Varneys report goes on to explore how public health suffers when people live in decaying neighborhoods without adequate transportation or nearby grocery stores. In the past, we have always thought about making correct diagnoses, and preparing the right prescription or therapeutic plan, and then sending the patient out, Perman said in his interview with Varney. And I think its the fact that we didnt focus we in general in the American health care system didnt focus on what happens to the patient when theyre not directly in our care and in front of us. What happens to West Baltimore residents who struggle to access health care is, in fact, the subject of many parts of the special report, In Poor Health. Collaborators include students at Merrill who traveled from the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park to focus on life in West Baltimore. Among 11 related stories, including maps and multimedia presentations posted Feb. 15 on the CNS site, is one following a patient on a lengthy quest for a blood pressure cuff. Another speaks with a patient who believes her long-ago drug use makes doctors dismiss present-day ailments. Another is set at a clinic in Upton-Druid Heights. That neighborhood is familiar to those who are involved with the UM School of Social Work-led Promise Heights initiative, which confronts a poverty level that is among the citys worst. Several are pieces about life expectancy, which in parts of West Baltimore can be compared to that of North Korea. "Why," Perman asks rhetorically in the KHN interview, in the midst of this extraordinary health care enterprise that is present in Baltimore, with all this expertise, are we sitting here on this side of Martin Luther King [Boulevard] and on the Westside ... you have some of the most disappointing life expectancies that one could imagine? | By Alex Likowski Calling it the backbone of the innovation economy, University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) President Jay A. Perman, MD, extolled the many accomplishments of University of Maryland, MPowering the State (MPower) to a Maryland Senate subcommittee on Feb. 15. MPower is a structured research and academic collaboration between UMB and the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP). Perman told the Senate Budget and Taxation Committees Subcommittee on Education, Business and Administration that since MPowers 2012 launch the two institutions have been able to take on the biggest challenges in human health and well-being more boldly and aggressively. One MPower initiative, the Joint Research and Innovation Seed Grant program, promotes cross-university research by providing startup funds to creative teams of investigators working across disciplinary boundaries and campuses. We just funded a team thats developing an implantable device to determine how cancer cells respond to chemotherapy in real time, Perman said, so that doctors know right away whether the therapy is working and can adjust treatment immediately. Another example Perman offered is a team that is developing a rapid test to determine the chances that tumor cells in breast cancer patients will metastasize and spread to other parts of the body. Thats the principal cause of breast cancer deaths, he explained. The fruits of research not only advance health care, but also provide fodder for Marylands innovation economy. Perman offered the senators some highlights of MPowers results to date: 1,400 invention disclosures, 200 technology licenses, and the launch of 40 new startup technology companies. Perman was joined by UMCP President Wallace D. Loh, PhD, JD, who chalked up much of MPowers success to the ease with which the two leaders work together. Its all about relationships, Loh said. Jay and I get along very wellwere natural collaborators. Sen. Andrew Serafini of Washington County commended Perman and Loh for their efforts and asked what help the legislature might provide to attract more research and even high-tech manufacturing to Maryland. You have to create whats called an innovation ecosystem, explained Loh. In order to achieve the level of success of Californias Silicon Valley or North Carolinas Research Triangle, infrastructure is needed, he argued. Its not just the facilities for the research, he said. You have to have places for the people who work there to live. You have to have quality of life, amenities. You have to build an entire ecosystem. Creating and maintaining a highly skilled workforce is another goal of MPower. One example Perman cited is the UM Scholars program, in which math, science, and engineering students from College Park spend summers working with UMB physicians on projects that advance disease diagnosis and treatment. Meanwhile, UMBs students are traveling to College Park to work with professors on applying systems engineering to solve the most persistent problems in health care delivery and efficiency, Perman said. This is how you keep the best and brightest students in the state how you keep them contributing to our economic strength. You give them incredible opportunities right here in Maryland, so that this is where they stay. | By UMB Staff In a new study, University of Maryland School of Medicine researchers have had promising results with a new treatment for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). Published Feb. 17 in the journal Science Translational Medicine, the study found a new treatment that protected mice from MERS infection. The treatment an antibody that blocks the MERS virus was produced by cows that had been genetically modified to mimic certain aspects of the human immune system. These cows were given a new MERS vaccine that led to production of anti-MERS antibodies in large quantities. These antibodies were then purified to produce the therapeutic that was tested in the MERS-infected mice. Last year, a South Korean epidemic of MERS killed more than 30 people. Overall, MERS has killed nearly 600 people since it was first discovered four years ago in Saudi Arabia. The South Korean outbreak, which began when a traveler returned from Saudi Arabia, infected hundreds of people there. Matthew B. Frieman, PhD The research is a partnership among the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM), SAB Biotherapeutics (SAB), Novavax, and the Naval Medical Research Center. The researchers tested the treatment for MERS, a disease that can cause severe respiratory symptoms and has a death rate of 40 percent. These results are very promising, says one of the lead researchers on the study, Matthew B. Frieman, PhD, an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at UM SOM. This is important not only because it gives us a potential way to attack MERS, but also because it provides evidence that using these transgenic cows can rapidly produce therapeutics. SAB, a biopharmaceutical company based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, provided the genetically modified cows, a technology that it invented. Novavax, a vaccine biotech company based in Gaithersburg, provided the vaccine that triggered the antibody production in the cows. Through this collaborative team, weve brought together the top talent of the scientific community, global health experts, and novel technologies to demonstrate the efficacy, safety, and responsiveness of our human antibody therapeutic, said Eddie Sullivan, PhD, president and CEO of SAB. As we complete successful studies targeting various diseases, were realizing the potential broad application and significance of our platform in addressing these global health threats. The next step, which will occur in the next three to six months, will be a human clinical trial to test the safety of the therapeutic. If that works, a Phase 2 trial will follow, to test whether it is effective for use in humans, in emergency situations. MERS was first discovered in 2012 in Saudi Arabia. It appears that the disease spread to humans from camels, who may themselves have been infected by bats. Research has shown that it is similar to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which emerged in 2003 and resulted in more than 8,000 infections, killing 10 percent of those infected. Both are caused by Coronaviruses, both cause serious respiratory problems, and both are often fatal. Professor Friemans work is a fantastic example of how the school is partnering with private industry to break new ground fighting disease, said UM SOM Dean E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, who is also the vice president for medical affairs, University of Maryland, Baltimore and the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor. This work provides a great model for how we can respond rapidly to emerging diseases that threaten health around the world. | By Malissa Carroll Imagine being a patient who has been prescribed a new medication. You take the medication as prescribed and, while it relieves your initial symptoms, you begin to notice a new symptom that you think might be caused by the medication itself a side effect. To whom do you turn? Your health care provider? Your local pharmacist? Your family members and friends? Not according to team M-PROVE, a group of five third-year student pharmacists at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. Jillian Aquino, Peter Nguyen, Justin Penzenstadler, David Tran, and Yoon Duk Hong took first place in the fourth annual Americas Got Regulatory Science Talent competition hosted by the University of Marylands Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation (M-CERSI) on Feb. 5. Generally speaking, the first action that patients take when they believe they are experiencing an adverse reaction or side effect from a new medication is to conduct a Google search, said Nguyen. Our goal is to capitalize on patients fondness for Google to help them take a more proactive role in their health care and increase their participation in the Food and Drug Administrations [FDA] pharmacovigilance efforts. The FDA boasts one of the most rigorous drug approval processes in the world. One component of this process involves ongoing safety monitoring based on information collected about medications and other medical products once they are made available to the public. In 1993, the agency launched MedWatch, its safety information and adverse event reporting program, to encourage patients to report firsthand any adverse reactions that they believe were caused as a result of a medication or other medical product. However, due to a lack of public awareness about this program, as well as patients perceptions of the amount of time and effort that it might require to make a report, MedWatch is not widely used, capturing only an estimated one in 10 adverse events. Participation is inversely proportional to perceived effort, explained Penzenstadler, who described the teams proposal to the audience. When patients first visit the MedWatch website and see the lengthy reporting form, they often feel intimidated. However, we found that MedWatch requires only a minimal amount of information from patients, including the medication name, the adverse reaction experienced, and a unique patient identifier. Our proposed solution would enhance the existing MedWatch program to help identify more adverse events in the community. To help improve the MedWatch program and address an important goal of the FDAs Office of Regulatory Science and Innovation harnessing diverse data through information sciences to improve health outcomes the team suggested leveraging the power of the worlds most popular search engine to bring the MedWatch adverse event reporting form to the forefront of patients search results. According to the teams proposal, when an individual uses Google to search for a medication or adverse event associated with that medication, one of the items that would appear in the right sidebar of his or her search results would be the MedWatch reporting form. Individuals could enter the required information and submit a report without leaving their search results. It is a simple addition to an already well-implemented feature that displays in the search results for all Google users, said Tran, who described the significance and impact that the teams proposal could have on patients health care. The patients query would be automatically inputted into a MedWatch form and submitted directly to the FDA. It would maximize the number of patient-reported outcomes submitted to the FDA, as well as improve the agencys overall vigilance efforts. Hong added: Our ultimate goal is to protect public safety and well-being. Because our proposed solution will make more data available to the FDA, it will allow the agency to detect adverse events more quickly, as well as better identify those populations that are more at risk for developing those side effects. Judges Andrew Coop, PhD, professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences (PSC) at the School of Pharmacy; Julia Slejko, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Health Services Research at the school; and Jace Jones, PhD, research assistant professor in PSC, agreed with the group, awarding them first place and the chance to meet with staff at the FDA to further discuss their proposal. Four teams competed in the talent competition this year, with second place awarded to Max Elixirs a team of eight third-year student pharmacists who proposed creating a database that could serve as a resource for health care providers who prescribe biologics to their patients. The team also competed in the third annual Americas Got Regulatory Science Talent competition at the School in 2015 under the name One Correction, where members placed second again for their proposal to use QR codes to help educate patients about the potential risks associated with their medications. It means a great deal to be recognized as one of the top teams in the competition for the past two years, says Joyce Yu, a third-year student pharmacist and team captain for Max Elixirs. As student pharmacists, we are trained to educate both patients and health care providers about medication safety, and each year, this competition has afforded us a unique opportunity to develop innovative solutions to help address areas in patient and health care provider education where we feel gaps exist, allowing us to bring the role of pharmacists as leaders in medication information dissemination to the forefront. In addition to M-PROVE and Max Elixirs, FDAngerous a seven-person team that included third- and fourth-year student pharmacists, as well as a graduate student from the PhD in PSC program presented their proposal highlighting the benefits of transitioning to continuous manufacturing across the pharmaceutical industry, and New Generation Regulation a team of four second-year student pharmacists advocated to include a description and photo of medications on their prescription label. Pharmacists make up the second largest group of employees at the FDA, and the quality of the presentations delivered by our student pharmacists and biomedical scientists today underscores the value that these important health care professionals can add to that prestigious agency, says James Polli, PhD, the Shangraw/Noxell Endowed Chair in Industrial Pharmacy and Pharmaceutics at the school and co-principal investigator for M-CERSI. When we established this competition four years ago, our goal was to provide more students with an opportunity to get involved and learn about regulatory science. Not only have we accomplished that goal, but the student teams continue to astonish our judges with the tremendous effort that they put into their presentations, making for a very fun competition each year. Ever thought of leaves, flowers or grass as a fashion accessory? These tribes known as the Surma and Mursi people living in the Omo valley of Southern Ethiopia are doing just that taking Ethiopian Tribal Fashion to a Whole new level. With nature alone as their inspiration and armed with leaves, grass, flowers and natural dyes as their fashion tools, these tribal people have their own unique sense of fashion. These tribal people use white clay and natural dyes to paint their faces and bodies while using beads of various bright colors to string necklaces and wear them. Wild flowers and dry grass are their natural head accessories and their ears are pierced at an early age to be fitted by these large round earrings. Advertisements Advertisements These nomadic people do not have any permanent structures to express their creativity and therefore use their body as a free form of art expression with their body as the canvas and mineral pigments from powdered volcanic rock or clay and natural dyes as their color palette. They also seem to wear fur crowns capped with feathers harvested from various birds found in the region. Their homelands are mainly remote and largely unexplored areas located in desolate mountains in largely unknown parts of the country. These people are believed to be at risk in losing their homelands due to various causes such as rapid urbanization and the Sudanese Civil War where these unknown parties are rumored to provide these people with modern weaponry such as AK47 guns. Many photographers have expressed disappointment of this countrys tourism being wrongly promoted as a fancy dress parade performed solely for the benefit of the foreign visitors who pay for the privilege of photographing them and who are always accompanied by an armed guard. The lives of these wonderful tribes have been beautifully captured on film by renowned German Born photographer Hans Silvester whose work has been exhibited at Marlborough gallery in Monaco and France between 2009 and 2010. The artist described his involvement into the lives and tradition of these Ethiopian tribes as an effort to saveas much as possible of this truly living art, which is mobile, changing, subject to infinite variation, and whose constituent elementsform a link between man and nature. A healthy environment plays a key role in meeting many of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. With a little over 10 years left to meet the target date of 2030, the world will need to pick up the pace and put greater efforts in finding better solutions to pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss in order to truly transform societies and economies. GENEVA, 16 February 2016 - An average of two children have drowned every day since September 2015 as their families try to cross the eastern Mediterranean, and the number of child deaths is growing said IOM, UNHCR, and UNICEF. The agencies are calling for enhancing the safety of those escaping conflict and despair. Since last September, when the tragic death of toddler Aylan Kurdi captured the world's attention, more than 340 children, many of them babies and toddlers, have drowned in the eastern Mediterranean. The total number of children who have died may be even greater, the agencies say, their bodies lost at sea. "We cannot turn our faces away from the tragedy of so many innocent young lives and futures lost - or fail to address the dangers so many more children are facing," said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake. "We may not have the ability now to end the desperation that causes so many people to try to cross the sea, but countries can and must cooperate to make such dangerous journeys safer. No one puts a child in a boat if a safer option is available." The stretch of the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece is among the deadliest routes in the world for refugees and migrants. The winter's rough seas, overloading and the poor quality of boats and lifesaving equipment increase the risk of capsizing, making the journey significantly more dangerous. "These tragic deaths in the Mediterranean are unbearable and must stop," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi. "Clearly, more efforts are needed to combat smuggling and trafficking. Also, as many of the children and adults who have died were trying to join relatives in Europe, organising ways for people to travel legally and safely, through resettlement and family reunion programmes for example, should be an absolute priority if we want to reduce the death toll," he added. The UN Secretary General has called for a high-level meeting on global responsibility-sharing through legal pathways for admission of Syrian refugees, to take place in Geneva on 30 March. With children now accounting for 36 per cent of those on the move, the chance of them drowning on the Aegean Sea crossing from Turkey to Greece has grown proportionately. During the first six weeks of 2016, 410 people drowned out of the 80,000 crossing the eastern Mediterranean. This amounts to 35-fold increase year-on-year from 2015. "Counting lives is not enough. We must act," said William Lacy Swing, IOM's Director General in Geneva. "This is not only a Mediterranean problem, or even a European one. It is a humanitarian catastrophe in the making that demands the entire world's engagement. Haiti's 2010 earthquake was not a matter for only one hemisphere, nor was the 2004 Southeast Asian tsunami. Those disasters were met by an outpouring of humanitarian action. So must this one." *** About IOM Established in 1951, IOM is the leading inter-governmental organization in the field of migration and works closely with governmental, intergovernmental and non-governmental partners. With 162 member states offices in over 100 countries, IOM is dedicated to promoting humane and orderly migration for the benefit of all. It does so by providing services and advice to governments and migrants. www.iom.int About UNHCR The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was established on December 14, 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly. UNHCR is mandated to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees, but also has a mandate to help people without nationalities. For more than six decades, UNHCR has helped tens of millions of people restart their lives. Today, a staff of some 9,700 people in 126 countries are helping some 60 million people. Learn more at www.unhcr.org and Facebook and Twitter. About UNICEF UNICEF promotes the rights and well-being of every child, in everything we do. Together with our partners, we work in 190 countries and territories to translate that commitment into practical action, focusing special effort on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children, to the benefit of all children, everywhere. For more information about UNICEF and its work, visit: www.unicef.org For further information please contact: IOM: Joel Millman [email protected], +41 79 103 8720 IOM: Leonard Doyle [email protected], +41 79 285 7123 UNHCR: William Spindler, [email protected], +41 79 217 3011, UNICEF: Sarah Crowe, [email protected], +41 79 543 8029 Or visit: UNHCR Europe Emergency Page UNHCR European Data Portal UNHCR fears that up to 26,000 people may have been displaced by fighting that broke out on Wednesday (February 17) evening between ethnic Dinka and Shilluk at a site for internally displaced people in Malakal, South Sudan. Sudan's People Liberation Army (SPLA) soldiers yesterday reportedly entered the protection of civilians (POC) site, which was hosting 48,000 internally displaced people (IDP). Humanitarian partners on the ground reported shooting, looting of properties and burning of houses. UNHCR staff said civilians fled carrying whatever they could and that vulnerable people were left unattended. Many families were separated in the rush to flee. Preliminary information indicates 18 people were killed and more than 90 wounded. A number of civilians remain in very critical conditions. Two clinics, run by IOM and International Medical Corps (IMC), were looted. Some 4,000 displaced Dinka fled to Malakal town, while tens of thousands of Nuer and Shilluk IDPs sought refuge at the UNMISS (UN Mission in South Sudan) base in Malakal. We have received reports that some 26,000 internally displaced people have fled into the UNMISS base, but we are unable to confirm the number given the fluidity of the situation. According to government sources, IDPs who fled to Malakal town have found safety in churches and schools. Medecins Sans Frontieres confirmed that 18 people have been killed, including two of their staff. Fire has heavily damaged the POC site. Food, shelter and water are the priority needs now and children and the elderly are among the most affected. Fighting has subsided since last night, but sporadic gunshots were heard this morning. UNHCR is meeting with partners this morning to organize an assessment of displaced people sheltering in the UNMISS base and see how to respond to their needs. UN peacekeepers appear to have taken control of the POC site and the SPLA soldiers are reported to have left the camp. UNHCR has 16 staff on the ground, including four international staff, and all are accounted for. Humanitarian partners installed water points for the civilians displaced inside the UNMISS base. Health partners have mobilized to take care of the wounded, including IMC, MSF, ICRC, WHO and IOM. A number of IDPs in critical conditions were medically evacuated to Kodok and Juba. ICRC sent a team to Kodok to offer medical evacuation and surgical support. Demonstrations were held yesterday at POC sites in the South Sudan capital, Juba, with hundreds of IDPs protesting in solidarity with their communities in Malakal. UNHCR is one of the many partners of the humanitarian response to the developing situation. Media Contacts: Greek volunteer life-guards help a young child out of a boat that reached the shores of Lesbos, having crossed the Aegean sea from Turkey. UNHCR/A. Zavallis KOS, Greece, Feb 19 (UNHCR) - Two children have drowned every day on average since September 2015 trying to cross the eastern Mediterranean to find safety with their families in Europe, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, said today. In a joint statement, issued in Geneva, UNHCR, UNICEF and the IOM warned that the number of child deaths was on the increase and called for more measures to increase safety for those escaping conflict and despair. Since last September, when the tragic death of toddler Aylan Kurdi captured the world's attention, more than 340 children, many of them babies and toddlers, have drowned in the eastern Mediterranean. The total number of children who have died may be even greater, the sister organisations said, with their bodies lost at sea and never recovered. One of those statistics was seven-year-old Houda from Afghanistan who went missing in a shipwreck off the Greek island of Kos at the end of January. Her mother, father, two sisters and one of her brothers had left Kabul for Istanbul earlier that month after her father, a middle-ranking police officer, received death threats. In Turkey, the family made a deal with a smuggler who promised them an "extra-safe trip in a spacious large boat" to Greece. To pay for the trip, Houda's father had sold his house and borrowed money from family and friends. At night in a dark bay as they prepared to leave, they saw the boat was little more than a sailing coffin. It was small, old and massively overcrowded with around 80 passengers covering a few metres of deck. They tried to step back, but were forced by the smuggler to board the boat with no questions. Smugglers allow no last-minute change of mind. Houda's sister Aisha and her brother Aziz survived that deadly trip, along with 26 others, but her mother, father and an older sister perished. Their bodies were recovered. Houda's was never found. Aisha and Aziz, 16 and 15 respectively, had learned to swim in school and that saved them. The stretch of the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece is now among the deadliest routes in the world for refugees and migrants. "These tragic deaths in the Mediterranean are unbearable and must stop," said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi. "Clearly, more efforts are needed to combat smuggling and trafficking. Also, as many of the children and adults who have died were trying to join relatives in Europe, organising ways for people to travel legally and safely, through resettlement and family reunion programmes for example, should be an absolute priority if we want to reduce the death toll," he added. With children now accounting for 36 per cent of those on the move, the chance of them drowning on the Aegean Sea crossing from Turkey to Greece has grown proportionately. During the first six weeks of 2016, 410 people drowned out of the 80,000 people crossing the eastern Mediterranean. This amounts to a 35-fold increase year-on-year from 2015. Aisha and Aziz are now accommodated at a transit facility UNHCR runs with a national NGO offering specialized services to unaccompanied refugee children in Greece until they are assigned to a permanent facility. They wish to reunite as soon as possible with what remains of their family. They have a brother in Germany and hope one day to be able to join him there. "These children expressed incredible dignity and courage throughout the many challenges they faced after the shipwreck. After already identifying the corpses of his own family members at the Coast Guard, Aziz insisted on seeing more pictures in order to recognize fellow travellers and help in their identification so that their families could also find out what had happened to them. They repeatedly expressed their gratitude towards me and other colleagues for the help we provided," said Georgios Papadimitriou, a senior protection officer with UNHCR. Marco Procaccini, UNHCR's Head of Office in Kos, said: "I was impressed by the resilience and the courage of Aziz and Aisha since we met them at the port where they were brought by the Coast Guard vessel which rescued them that terrible night. Despite going through the worst we can ever image for a child, they remained always polite and kind." Aziz thanked UNHCR, other NGOs and the local volunteers that supported him and his sister during this difficult time and said one day he would return with the rest of what remains of the family to visit the graves of those who were found and also say a prayer for Houda. Full press release here By Marco Procaccini in Kos, Greece UNHCR photo GENEVA, Feb 19, (UNHCR) - Up to 26,000 people are believed to have been displaced by fighting that broke out between ethnic Dinka and Shilluk at a site for internally displaced people in Malakal, South Sudan, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, said. The violence erupted in the evening of Wednesday (February 17). A day later, Sudan's People Liberation Army (SPLA) soldiers reportedly entered the protection of civilians' site, which was hosting 48,000 internally displaced people, or IDPs. Humanitarian partners on the ground reported shooting, looting of properties and burning of houses. UNHCR staff said civilians fled carrying whatever they could and that vulnerable people were left unattended. Many families were separated in the rush to flee. Preliminary information indicates 18 people were killed and more than 90 wounded. A number of civilians remain in very critical conditions. Two clinics, run by the International Organization for Migration and International Medical Corps (IMC), were looted. Some 4,000 displaced Dinka fled to Malakal town, while tens of thousands of Nuer and Shilluk IDPs sought refuge at the UN Mission in South Sudan, or UNMISS, base in Malakal. "We have received reports that some 26,000 internally displaced people have fled into the UNMISS base, but we are unable to confirm the number given the fluidity of the situation," UNHCR spokesperson Andreas Needham told reporters at a briefing in Geneva. According to government sources, IDPs who fled to Malakal town have found safety in churches and schools. Medecins Sans Frontieres confirmed that 18 people have been killed, including two of their staff. "Fire has heavily damaged the civilian protection site. Food, shelter and water are the priority needs now and children and the elderly are among the most affected. Fighting has subsided since last night, but sporadic gunshots were heard this morning," Needham said. UNHCR met with partners on Friday to organize an assessment of displaced people sheltering in the UNMISS base and see how to respond to their needs. UN peacekeepers appear to have taken control of the civilian protection site and the SPLA soldiers are reported to have left the camp. UNHCR has 16 staff on the ground, including four international staff, and all are accounted for. Humanitarian partners installed water points for the civilians displaced inside the UNMISS base. Health partners have mobilized to take care of the wounded, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, World Health Organization, IMC, MSF, and IOM. A number of IDPs in critical conditions were medically evacuated to Kodok and Juba. ICRC sent a team to Kodok to offer medical evacuation and surgical support. Demonstrations were held yesterday at POC sites in the South Sudan capital, Juba, with hundreds of IDPs protesting in solidarity with their communities in Malakal. UNHCR is one of the many partners of the humanitarian response to the developing situation. Economy ministry to hold meeting of working group on problems of exports to Russia on Feb 22 The Economic Development and Trade Ministry of Ukraine is to hold a meeting of the working group on problems of exports to Russia and transit across its territory on February 22, 2016 in Kyiv, the ministry has reported on its official website. The meeting of the group will be held as part of the Council for Exports Promotion on the auspices of the ministry. The ministry invites Ukrainian exporter companies, associations and organizations to the meeting. Economy ministry plans to send trade missions to Poland, Turkey, China, India in 2016 The Economic Development and Trade Ministry of Ukraine plans to send trade missions to Poland, Turkey, China and India this year. "It is very important to create sites for business communications to intensify our relations," Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister, Trade Representative of Ukraine Natalia Mykolska said at a cabinet meeting on Thursday. She said that the trade missions will include one of two ministers, including the profile minister and business representatives. Mykolska said that it is planned to send the trade mission to Turkey as part of the Ukrainian delegation and receive the Turkish delegation. She said that the trade mission to China would discuss cooperation in agriculture and engineering. She also said that sending of Ukrainian delegations to hold negotiations to Algeria, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Egypt, Brazil, Chili, Argentina and Iran is being discussed. Mykolska s a id that Egypt is interested in buying food and engineering products in Ukraine, especially, Ukrainian pumps that have shown good results in the country. She proposed that the schedule for holding meetings of 26 joint intergovernmental commissions is approved at the cabinet meeting. Police are investigating an assault at a University of Massachusetts - Amherst residence hall involving two suspects and at least one gun, though no shots were fired. At a press briefing Thursday evening, UMass Police Chief Tyrone Parham said the incident was "not a random act," according to The Boston Globe. One student sustained head lacerations in the assault, and police are searching for two suspects, who were armed with a handgun. The suspects fled the scene in a car, and the victim was treated for minor injuries at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton. UMass - Amherst issued a lockdown around 5:15 p.m. for the whole campus, though the suspects were in the Pierpont Hall dormitory. After police arrived on scene they secured the building's perimeter, The Globe reported, and determined no shots were fired. The school lifted the lockdown two hours after issuing it. "We have good confidence right now that [the suspects] are not UMass students," Parham said. MassLive.com reported the suspects were two white males, one of which was wearing a dark colored shirt and a gold chain, and the other a gray sweatshirt. The nearby Smith College alerted its students to steer clear of the UMass - Amherst campus. "Our officers responded promptly and our community responded well to the emergency communications that we shared in a timely manner throughout the incident," Parham said in a statement. "I want to thank everyone involved for their assistance and cooperation." Jena Janovy, an enterprise editor for ESPN, was teaching a journalism class during the lockdown while hosting two other ESPN employees in her classroom: television host Jemele Hill and columnist Howard Bryant. Grateful my #UMass #journalism class was calm, thoughtful during campus lockdown after reports of "hostile armed person" in student dorm. Jena Janovy (@JenaJ34) February 19, 2016 Lockdown lifted. We're all safe. Thank you, all https://t.co/g9ObioXSJI Howard Bryant (@hbryant42) February 19, 2016 The University of Illinois suspended Leron Black from its basketball team indefinitely following his arrest for aggravated assault. According to The Associated Press, Black threatened a bouncer at a bar in Urbana, Ill. with a knife, starting a fight and prompting other bouncers to intervene. He was arrested around 12:30 a.m. Friday and was held on $5,000 bond. "An officer stopped Black as he was walking away from the club and found a small folding knife on the sidewalk a few feet away in the direction Black had been walking," police spokesman Patrick Wade told The Chicago Tribune. "Witnesses said Black had threatened security personnel with the knife as staff removed him and others from the club following a fight." At a brief hearing Friday afternoon, Black pleaded not guilty after confirming to Judge John Kennedy he understood what he was charged with: one count of a class 4 felony aggravated assault. Black faces a maximum sentence of three years in prison, The News-Gazette reported. Black, 20, is a six-foot-seven sophomore who has missed most of the Fighting Illini's season with an injury. University of Illinois Police Lt. Tom Geis told the newspaper the bar's security tried to remove Black for an undisclosed reason. "He felt the bouncers were unfair and that his group should not have been kicked out," Geis said. "Black told them he pulled the knife because he felt the bouncers would have the upper hand on him physically." Texas House Committee on Urban Affairs will host cyber security hearing at UTSA Share this Story (Feb. 19, 2016) -- The Texas House Committee on Urban Affairs will hold a public hearing on cyber security Tuesday, February 23, 2016 at 10:00 AM at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), Main Campus in the H-E-B University Center Ballroom. This committee was directed by the Speaker of the Texas House to identify and address potential gaps in cities cyber security policy and ensure that personal information held by cities and other municipal entities is secure. This hearing will provide the committee with valuable information from some of the greatest experts in the industry on how cities can best protect themselves from data breaches and future security threats. "We cannot wait for an Office of Personnel Management-like breach or a Sony or Target-like hack to affect the inner workings or information held by our cities," said Representative Carol Alvarado, chairwoman of the committee. "We must be proactive in ensuring our cities have the proper resources and tools to protect themselves from a data breach." This committee previously held an initial hearing on cybersecurity on January 20, 2016, in which the committee heard testimony from various experts from Texas Department of Information Resources, large metropolitan cities, and growing technology companies. "Our first hearing opened our eyes to how much our cities either lack the needed resources or expertise to address the growing concerns regarding cyber security. Not only are we dealing with breaches that can lead to personal private information being disclosed to the public, but possible threats to our basic infrastructure that could affect a city's power grid, or something so embedded in our daily lives as traffic control and city management systems," Alvarado said. UTSA has been recognized as the nations leader in cybersecurity education and research. The universitys cybersecurity initiatives are housed within the College of Business, the College of Engineering, and the College of Sciences. UTSA is a nationally recognized Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance and Cyber Defense. "The city of San Antonio and UTSA have shown themselves to be leaders in this area, creating various partnerships across the private and public sector that have put them on a path to creating a blueprint on how a city can work together to protect itself from technological threats," Alvarado said. "This hearing will highlight the advancements both entities have made while also determining what additional improvements or recommendations San Antonio and other cities can follow to help keep our cities safe and running." ------------------------------- Learn more about cyber security at UTSA. Connect with UTSA online at Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and UTSA Today. The possibilities of expanding technical assistance and attracting U.S. experts to resolving a wide range of issues tackled by the Finance Ministry of Ukraine were discussed on February 18 in Kyiv by Finance Minister of Ukraine Natalie Jaresko with a representative of the U.S. Department of the Treasury Paul Leonovich. She wrote on her Facebook page that the Finance Ministry of Ukraine is working with U.S. advisors on some issues, for example, the creation of the E-data system for tracking public funds and debt management. Jaresko added that on the same day she held a meeting with German Ambassador to Ukraine Christof Weil, First Secretary for Customs Service at the Embassy Ralf Malchin and Head of the Economic Department at the Embassy Holger Kramer where she discussed their work and further steps in reformation of the customs service with the European diplomats. UWyo Magazine January 2016 | Vol. 17, No. 2 Professor Matt Gray, who oversees the Wyoming Trauma Treatment Telehealth Clinic, meets with graduate students Sarah Steinmetz and Kendal Binion. Serving Wyoming UWs professors go far beyond teaching to positively impact every corner of the state. By Micaela Myers When you think of the impact professors make in a community, you probably think of the classroom and the many lives they touch through teaching. While this is indeed a core impact, University of Wyoming professors serve the state far beyond the classroom through their outreach, research and special projects. UWyo Magazine invited nominations of outstanding professors who are making a difference across the state. We received a windfall of impressive suggestions from every collegeso much so that we hope to make this an annual feature. Here, we introduce you to 10 of UWs professors who help make life in the Cowboy State even better. Trauma Treatment Thanks to the efforts of psychology Professor Matt Gray, Wyoming survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence in Rawlins, Cheyenne and Gillette can receive free, evidence-based therapy via the Wyoming Trauma Treatment Telehealth Clinic. Wyoming is certainly a state above all others that can really benefit from and effectively utilize distal (distance) technologies to try to connect rural populations with specialized university services, Gray says. We currently have three sitesWyoming Safe House in Cheyenne, Gillette Abuse Refuge Foundation and Carbon County COVE in Rawlins. Theyre all sexual assault and domestic violence agencies that provide tremendous support and services to the clients they serve, but a lot of times these centers would tell us they had difficulty getting trauma-focused, specialized therapy services for folks who have those needs. Gray hopes to expand the clinic to other rural communities if consistent funding is secured. Using encrypted software, psychology doctoral students provide therapy via video conferencing. This is a natural, symbiotic relationship because our clinic is staffed by Ph.D. students in the psychology department, says Gray, who trained at the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center and National Center for PTSD. This telehealth project has allowed us to make sure UW students get a very concentrated experience with these issues. The clinics are also cost-effective. Theres no cost to clients, and theres virtually no cost to the distal agencies. The only cost that we incur when I write a grant is just a graduate assistant. All of the monies go toward supporting the training of doctoral students who are working on a Ph.D. and to serve a very needy population in the state who might not otherwise have services, says Gray, who currently serves on the Wyoming Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Board of Directors and the Wyoming State Board of Psychology. The first trauma telehealth clinic opened in Rawlins seven years ago, and clinic results are impressive. We have pretty consistent and significant reduction in PTSD symptoms and depressive symptoms, Gray says, adding that client, therapist and advocate staff satisfaction with the clinics is also extremely high. U.S. Deputy Secretary for Energy says Russia behind cyber attack on Ukraine's power grid CNN Deputy Secretary at the U.S. Department of Energy Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall has said Russia was behind a cyber attack on Ukrainian energy providers, CNN reported on its website. Sherwood-Randall made these comments at a gathering of electric power grid industry executives, the source said. However, a number of other top U.S. intelligence and security officials claimed the evidence wasn't conclusive enough and that the U.S. government wasn't ready to attribute the cyber attack to the Russian government. The meeting was gathered to provide the power grid industry with the findings of a U.S. team that visited Ukraine. It conducted an enquiry into the cyber attack and included officials from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Energy. As reported, attacks of malware known as BlackEnergy in late 2015 caused power outages for consumers of Prykarpattiaoblenergo. Besides, cyber attacks were mounted against Chernivtsioblenergo and Kyivoblenergo. Co-owner of Platinum Bank Gurtovoy arrested in Israel in connection with fraud One of the key shareholders in Platinum Bank (Kyiv) Gregory Gurtovoy on February 17, 2016 was arrested by Israeli authorities and he is suspected of taking money out of his BGI holding company in violation of the law, the Haaretz publication has reported. According to the newspaper, Gurtovoy appeared at Tel Aviv Magistrates Court and was ordered held in custody. Investigators decided to arrest him after Gurtovoy moved some $3 million out of Willi-Food accounts (part of BGI holding) in January to invest in bonds issued by a European company with no connection to Willi-Foods core food business. The name of the company is not disclosed. The company's sole asset is the Grand Hotel Europa. Investigators suspect that the hotel was used as a conduit for taking money out of Willi-Food. According to the newspaper, other transactions are being investigated as well. The arrest follows a lengthy secret investigation by the Israel Securities Authority (ISA), which said it suspects him of financial reporting violations, false reporting, aggravated fraud and money laundering. The alleged violations, which involved BGI executives as well, involve at least tens of millions of U.S. dollars. The publication said that investigators had been quietly investigating Gurtovoy for some time after he bought BGI from fellow Ukrainian Oleksandr Hranovsky in July 2015. However, there are suspicions that the violations being probed may have begun when Granovsky controlled BGI, which is structured as a pyramid holding group and holds a lot of cash. Gurtovoy is held in custody while Israel Securities Authority investigators continue to examine the companys affairs. As reported, the ultimate beneficiaries include Gurtovoy, Dmytro Zinkov, U.S. citizens David Hlpert and Boris Goldstein, British citizen Paul Gillham, citizens of Serbia Madjid Dusan Paji'c, Marko Mi'canovi'c and Milica Kostic, citizens of Cyprus Chrysostomos Sofokleous and Marinos L.Karydas, as well as Paul Mousel from Luxembourg. Each of them holds from 7.91% to 9.9% of Platinum Bank's shares indirectly, via offshore entities. Platinum Bank was founded in 2005. Platinum Bank ranked 24th in terms of assets worth UAH 6.947 billion among 123 operating banks as of October 1, 2015, according to the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU). About $1.5 billion is required for the restoration of Donbas according to the lowest estimates, and the possibility of creating a special trust fund is being considered, the head of the World Bank programs for infrastructure and sustainable development in Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, Liudmyla Butenko, has said. "Now we think how to raise funds, some trust fund could be created, into which other private funds could be involved," she told reporters on the sidelines of the consultations on the development of a concept of the state program to restore Donbas in Kyiv. According to her, the World Bank Group assessed the needs of the program for the restoration of Donbas. "According to my colleague Jean Mazurelle [senior consultant of the World Bank], according to the lowest assessment, some $1.5 billion is required," Butenko said. She also noted that, according to the information from the State Agency for the Restoration of Donbas, at present the agency has $300 million. Naftogaz Ukrainy Board Chairman Andriy Kobolev has proposed the immediate setting up of a new legal entity owned by the State Property Fund to transfer the assets of Ukraine's gas transportation system (GTS) to this entity after the Stockholm arbitration against Gazprom is completed in late 2016-early 2017. "This company, called, let's say, Trunk Gas Pipelines of Ukraine, will be the operator of the Ukrainian gas transportation system," he said at a meeting of the profile parliamentary committee in Kyiv. Kobolev stressed it will be necessary to attract an investor in that clean, new company to preserve transit for Ukraine and disrupt the plans of Nord Stream 2, therefore it is needed to hurry up with its creation as inventory processes and other legal issues will take a lot of time. The Naftogaz head said that Ukrtransgaz, currently acting as the GTS operator, will retain control over underground gas storage facilities. Although, he said, this matter could be debated as well, and they could be withdrawn as a separate company. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has called on Russia to help provide monitors from the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) with access to all sections of the Ukrainian-Russian state border that are not controlled by Kyiv. "The Foreign Ministry supports the SMM's monitoring activity with regard to the implementation of the package of the Minsk agreements and once again calls on the Russian Federation to take all measures to ensure mission monitors' unhindered access and freedom of movement in certain districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, including all sections of the Ukrainian-Russian state border that are temporarily not controlled by the government of Ukraine," the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a commentary, which was circulated by the ministry's press service on Thursday. Humanitarian partners of Ukraine plan to provide $298 mln of aid to Donbas residents in 2016 Humanitarian partners of Ukraine plan to provide $298 million of aid to target 2.5 million people in Donbas in 2016 under the Humanitarian Response Plan. "Early funding of this appeal is critical to ensure key benchmarks are met, not least the 2016 planting season, and timely winterization support in early and late 2016," Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine Neal Walker said at the presentation of the plant in Kyiv on Wednesday. He said that the response remains focused on what is a considered a protection crisis for the time-being, with significant shelter, food and water and sanitation and hygiene (WASH) interventions still critical through 2016. Walker said that the response remains contingent on the government shouldering its primary responsibility, and on all parties to the conflict providing free and unimpeded access to all people in need - women, girls, boys and men of all ages, wherever they may be. The Puerto Rican government is facing such a crisis that the island may have to consider stalling payment of debts, as Government Development Bank (GDB) runs the risk of falling dangerously short of its reserves to sustain the island as a going concern. The total debt obligations for the island would be around $2.4 billion, $422 million of which is owed by fiscal agent GDB on March 1 and $2 billion is payable to investors by the island and its agencies on July 1.There is also $805 million owed to general obligations. Puerto Rico is weighing its limited options and may delay some payments as the funds are running deplorably low. Gubernatorial Chief of Staff Grace Santana stated, "A moratorium on payment of debt is under consideration," according to Bloomberg. The 370-page report released on Tuesday categorically states that GDB is on the verge of running out of the bare minimum reserves needed to cover even the essential services. The island's retirement systems could also collapse. As per Yahoo News, the report, which is yet to be audited, also reflected government deficit of $49.2 billion, a $2.5 billion increase from the fiscal year 2013. The increase is partly because of higher operating expenses and greater liabilities, including bonds. A decrease in government's net position by $1.7 billion was noted at the same time. The report, hence, includes the following lines by way of warning to make island inhabitants more aware of the looming future. The lines say, "If GDB were to be placed in receivership or if its liquidity falls below a level necessary to operate, ... the commonwealth and its instrumentalities may have limited access to their funds," possibly affecting "the provision of essential government services." Already buried under the gigantic debt pressure, Puerto Rico currently faces 45% poverty rate and a shrinking population as more and more islanders flee to mainland US. CNBC reports that the desperate government has sought help from two fronts - its creditors, requesting voluntary cuts in repayments and the Congress, by way of legislation letting it cut debt. Both pleas were met with resistance as the mentioned parties doubt the government's transparency regarding financial disclosures. Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla criticized the Congressional decision of not extending any help at a time of crisis. "The risk of Congress not providing such framework, which costs nothing to U.S. taxpayers, is condemning Puerto Rico to a legal morass that will jeopardize essential services for U.S. citizens living in Puerto Rico, further accelerate outmigration to the U.S. mainland and severely impair creditors' ability to recover on their claims," he said in a statement. At the same time, to quell the rising doubts and answer the questions, the Puerto Rican government released the report on Tuesday. While the unaudited report will provide more information to the islanders to evaluate the economic condition, it does not reveal GDB's financial statements or any information on the island's biggest pension. These two factors relate to a shortfall of $30 billion, which is central to the current crisis situation. India's drug company Cipla announced that the government has approved a foreign investment in its subsidiary. The Indian government has permitted the Mauritius-based FIL Capital Investments to invest in Cipla Health Ltd., the subsidiary of Cipla. In the company's filing, Cipla said that the approval was based on the recommendations of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board. "It appears that the government has, based on the recommendations of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board, approved the proposed investment by FIL Capital Investments (Mauritius) II Ltd in Cipla Health Ltd, a subsidiary of the company," Cipla stated in the filing. The Mumbai-based drug company had formed the agreement with FIL Capital Investments in November last year. Cipla announced back then that the company and the investor have signed an agreement for its consumer healthcare business, as reported by The Times of India. On January, Cipla received approval from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) over the proposed investment. However, the company still needs to seek approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board to be able to receive the investment and transfer the company's consumer healthcare to Cipla Health Ltd. Now that the approval is cleared, the investment is much more likely to be carried out, although it's reported that it is still subject to other undisclosed conditions. Besides Cipla, the government, specifically the Foreign Investment Promotion Board, has also approved nine other foreign investment proposals recently and rejected five of them. The Economic Times listed the 10 companies that have been permitted to receive foreign investment. The list included ATC Asia Pacific Pte Ltd seeking for approval for an acquisition of 51 percent of the shareholding, involving inflow of Rs 5,8000 crore. Other pharmaceuticals, such as Emcure Pharmaceuticals Limited and Glenmark Pharmaceuticals also got their proposals approved. Cipla's proposal itself was reported to worth Rs 145.22 crore. In total, the 10 approved foreign investment proposal involve an inflow of Rs 607 crore. Indiainfoline reported that the drug maker is currently trading at Rs 516, which is below its previous closing. Previously, the company closed at Rs 524.05 on the BSE. It's also reported that the promoters holding in the company stood at 36.79 percent while Institutions and Non-Institutions held 34.79 percent and 26.33 percent respectively. The approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board would allow Cipla to receive the foreign investment from Mauritius-based FIL Capital Investment, creating a Rs 145.22 crore inflow. The government have also cleared nine other proposals on foreign investment, with a total inflow of Rs 607 crore. BDC Capital has launched IT Venture Fund II with a focus on Canadian information technology (IT) sector. The second IT-focused venture fund has a corpus of C$150 million. With an objective of bridging gap in the mid-stage funding, the new fund will support new generation of IT entrepreneurs in Canada. BDC Capital, a subsidiary of Business Development Bank of Canada, has earlier launched first IT Venture Fund. The latest IT Venture Fund II takes the total amount managed by BDC Capital IT Venture Fund to C$300 million. The fund mainly targets mature startups. Private Equity Wire reports that the latest Venture Fund II will extend funding support to Canadian companies in internet, mobile, enterprise, cloud solutions and financial tech sectors. The new breed of technology entrepreneurs is creating totally new markets. Robert Simon, Managing Partner of the BDC Capital IT Venture Fund, said "The fund focuses on direct mid-stage investments (also known as Series A and B financing) in more mature startups that have a product in market and are already generating revenues from customers." The Venture Fund II will focus on leading deals and leverage syndicate partners. It has made 11 investments in firms including Cymax, which raised $25 million in October 2015. The investing partners in IT Venture Fund II are based in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver. They're looking for potential candidates across Canada, as reported by PE HUB. Simon further added that "we wanted to address the mid-stage funding gap or capital crunch, now facing growing software companies in Canada." The IT Venture Fund mainly leads financing rounds. It'll also guide them to forge alliance with Canadian and US Co-investors to participate in the subsequent rounds. BDC Capital has over $1 billion under management and guides companies in strategic approach. The proceedings from previous IT Venture Fund investments and other earnings of BDC and BDC Capital have been allocated to IT Venture Fund II, according to Tech Vibes. IT Venture Fund II focuses on building network with investors and companies. Simon further explains: "This is how we'll do things with Fund II as well. As a company grows, it is important to have relationships to bring in later stage investors for expansion." Canadian IT companies with a successful track record are eligible to take financial support from IT Venture Fund. The new Fund II will also provide funding support to companies, who anticipate mid-stage financing in near future. However, early-stage investors, who need financing partner for investing in portfolio companies can also access the participation of the IT Venture Fund II. Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin tendered his resignation to the Ukrainian Presidential Administration on Friday, Ukrainian presidential press secretary Sviatoslav Tseholko has said. "Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin has tendered his resignation. The statement was submitted to the Presidential Administration today," Tseholko wrote in his Twitter account. "I have seen it myself," the press secretary said. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said in his address to the nation, on February 16 that he had asked Shokin to step down. Shokin was appointed as the Ukrainian Prosecutor General in February 2015. More tech companies express their support for Apple in its battle with FBI over court decision to hack into the phone of a mass shooter. Twitter and Facebook shared the sentiment that smart devices such as smart phones should not be unlocked and weaken its security. Apple was ordered by a Californian judge to assist in the FBI investigation regarding the San Bernardino mass shooting by unlocking and accessing the iPhone used by one of the shooters. Soon enough, Apple CEO Tim Cook released a public statement informing that the company will not be able to do so without the building firmware to gain access on the phone. Additionally they are not in favor of creating a 'backdoor' into its products to be exploited by the government, as reported by Fortune. Twitter and Facebook sided with Apple over its sentiments on assisting FBI about the San Bernardino mass shooting probe. Facebook tells the risks of forcible hack into Apple's security functions which could result in a 'chilling precedent'. The social media network promised to fiercely counter government moves to lessen the security strength of consumer tech devices, according to USA Today. "We condemn terrorism and have total solidarity with victims of terror. Those who seek to praise, promote, or plan terrorist acts have no place on our services. We also appreciate the difficult and essential work of law enforcement to keep people safe," the statement reads. "When we receive lawful requests from these authorities we comply. However, we will continue to fight aggressively against requirements for companies to weaken the security of their systems. These demands would create a chilling precedent and obstruct companies' efforts to secure their products." Engaged reported that as of the moment, other giant companies like Microsoft haven't expressed their opinion over the case. Apple CEO Tim Cook is assertive that it should not be mandatory for his company to assist FBI in weakening its iPhone security. A spokesperson associated with the Reform Government Surveillance industry group said, "technology companies should not be required to build in backdoors to the technologies that keep their users' information secure." Other major technology companies seem to be silent still. Yahoo and Microsoft refused to give comments, referring reporters to the given statements by the industry trade groups. Citigroup raised salary of CEO Michael Corbat to $16.5 million in 2015. The bank awarded the 27% raise of salary for his success in leading the bank operation to be more efficient. Under Corbat leadership, Citigroup has successfully booked a $17.2 billion in 2015, the highest since before 2006 financial crisis. Therefore, in its regulatory filing, as quoted by USA Today, Citigroup wrote, "Citi has continued to become a simpler, smaller, safer, and stronger bank under Mr. Corbat's leadership." According to Financial Times, as well as base salary of $1.5 million, Mr. Corbat received a cash bonus of $6 million. He will also receive additional $9 million for the next three years, depending on shareholder returns. While he has a $3.5 million higher in potential package than previous year. Citigroup had successfully trimmed its negative image in Citi Holdings, which holds many of Citigroup's unwanted assets. The bank also sold one of its unit, OneMain, which operating subprime lending business and sold other consumer units around the globe. New York Times reported the litmus test for Corbat's leadership is determined by his success in leading Citigroup to pass 2015 stress test. Stress test is a mandatory test for banks conducted by Federal Reserve Bank to test the resilience of banking under crisis. The Fed used the stress test as a supervisory method to see how banks perform under a crisis scenario The test was mandated by DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010. The year 2015 was a very tough year for banking industry, and for Citigroup to pass the regular stress test is an achievement, especially the bank is in the midst of recovery following its crisis. Moreover, from the beginning of 2015, Citigroup shares are dropped close to 24%. Since investors worried about bank's exposure to economic slowdown and crash of oil price. Under that stressful year, Citigroup managed to book a profit. In fact, the profit was a record high since the 2006 financial meltdown. The bank acknowledge its CEO effort for that success. Michael Corbat has been the latest Wall Street executives to receive a pay rise. Other CEO who receive raise are Bank of America CEO Bryan Moynihan with 23% raise earning total compensation package of $16 million, and 35% increase salary for JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon who earned $27 million. While Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman receives a pay cut. Citigroup CEO Michael Corbat, who successfully steered Citigroup to pass the turbulence year of 2015, receives a 27% increase of salary. The bank awarded the raise for his leadership to bring bank operation becoming more efficient. A leaked document revealed that Facebook will start making money with Messenger. The document stated that the new plan will be launched in the second quarter of this year, allowing advertisers to send their ads, including sale announcements or product information, with Facebook's Messenger. The document was obtained by TechCrunch from a private, verified source. It was sent to some of Facebook's selected advertisers, informing them of the new business plan and explained some preparation that could get them to participate sending ads to users via Messenger. Facebook then told TechCrunch that they don't comment on rumor or speculation. "Our aim with Messenger is to create a high quality, engaging experience for 800 million people around the world, and that includes ensuring people do not experience unwanted message of any type," they stated, suggesting that even if there are going to be ads, Facebook are going to be very careful in managing it for a positive user experience. To be able to send ads to customers, businesses will have to first start message threads with their customers. In other words, a business would not be able to send advertisements to anyone that it has not already in contact with. With the document, Facebook is encouraging brands to try to start a message thread with consumers so that they could later send ads to those users when the feature launch officially. This ad in Messenger could be considered as a part of an ongoing process in monetizing one of Facebook's fastest-growing product. Last year, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg already stated that Facebook was testing ads in Messenger. According to Forbes, a year ago Facebook also announced "Business on Messenger", which allows businesses to offer personalized services to customers via Messenger after customers have placed an order. And it all started when Facebook first began allowing users to message businesses' pages in 2011. According to Business Insider, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last year that once it gets enough business using Messenger, it will start creating new ways to make them pay. This move could be considered as one of the social media's way to monetize its messaging feature. Facebook has not clearly denied or confirmed regarding the information on the leaked documents. However, it should be noted that Facebook did aim to monetize its Messenger, especially with more businesses using the feature. The leaked document, which was sent to Facebook's main advertisers, revealed that the new feature would be launched in the second quarter this year. Meanwhile, businesses are encouraged to start message threads with potential customers in order to allow them to send ads to them later. RediFit, a fitness startup and medical device developer, wins PowerMoves Miami Demo Day 2016. The tech startup develops custom knee sleeve with real time tech that monitors engagement and impacts in action. The technology helps athletes or regular Joes to avoid injury. PowerMoves Miami Demo Day 2016 has been held on Wednesday at the Fontainebleu Miami Beach. The day has been watched to honor 16 early stage entrepreneurs of color pitch in front of live audience of 75 people and panel of 5 judges, reports South Florida Business Journal. The presentation has covered almost every aspect of modern living. The platform has also represented transformation of social networking events easier to navigate even an algae producer working to combat food shortages, according to a report published in Florida Venture Sourcing. Only 24 out of more than 10,000 venture deals sealed from 2012 to 2014, are led by black women entrepreneurs, suggests a recent study. A very few of them have raised average funding amount of $36,000 required to be considered eligible for competing in PowerMoves Miami Demo Day. However, Miami Herald has sketched black women to represent the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs in the US citing a report on Project Diane by Digital Undivided. Launching in 2014, PowerMoves appears as an accelerator and incubator in New Orleans to help entrepreneurs of color. It helps to grow their startup ideas, capable of scoring investor attention and capital, into businesses. The organization has been founded to connect entrepreneurs of color with potential investors and to help overcome barriers to tech-entry. Campbell Soup announced, on Wednesday, its new venture capital fund of $125 million which will be independently managed by Acre Ventures GP, LLC. This is soup giant's yet another move to boost the food industry that is mainly focused on converting the fresh farm greens into home delivery items. Having acquired quite a few food businesses of different variety, Campbell will be the sole limited partner in the new fund, though its management will be under unidentified third-party members. According to AdvertisingAge, CEO Denise Morrison said at the Consumer Analyst Group of New York Conference, "There's a massive influx of venture capital aimed at disrupting the food ecosystem, flowing from traditional VC firms and from funds managed by large food companies. Since 2010, approximately 400 food startups have received more than $6 billion in funding." When it comes to startups, Morrison thinks a more strategic and methodical approach is needed, although she has already invested in some at quite an early stage. She clearly states that the food giant's current focus is to aggressively pursue "disruptive" food trends. It is now Campbell's goal to define real food which requires the flexibility to acknowledge new approaches, new business models, and an enhanced external development, along with innovative partners. However, this quest for growth is not proving to be easy for the food giants. A slowing economy and a shrinking US middle-class population are looming large, thus adversely affecting the mature markets. At the same time, the growing change in food pattern of the masses is an added factor. As per Fortune, the consumers are demanding greater transparency regarding their key ingredients, source, and quality. As Morrison puts it, "..even our own employees, are questioning food." They now have lesser trust on legacy food companies and will shift towards a company that can quell their concerns and cater to their changed needs. The Street reports that the company's shares rose 2.5% in trading on Wednesday. Campbell disclosed its full-year sales, stating that the year-over-year sales remained mostly flat, between 1% down to unchanged. However, the full-year profit looked better due to cost cuts and deflation in the commodities market. The company now expects its adjusted earnings before interest and taxes to increase 10-13% versus the previous 4-7%. The food giant is extremely busy acquiring and expanding product lines currently. Its Bolthouse Farms better-for-you brand is slated to launch 14 new products, beverages and dressings, this year. It will also introduce six new products as a part of the new 1915 organic juice brand, which will also include the first plant-based protein drink. Experts of African economy believe that the growing cocoa production will help the West African countries to recover from the flagging economic condition. Many economists have requested the government to focus more on the cocoa harvest. Nigeria, a West African nation, is considered to be the largest contributor to Africa's economy with more oil deposits that have attracted many to invest in the country. THIS DAYLIVE quoted Mr. Edward George, the leader of research sector at Ecobank, who advised the West African nations including Nigeria to benefit from the growing cocoa production in order to boost their economic conditions. According to him, West Africa needs to pull 70% in cocoa production in order to expose its smartness to the world. There is a growing demand for organic cocoa globally, however market experts estimates deep shortage in the supply market and urges cocoa farmers to apply organic farming. The producers can yield nearly 300 - 500 Kg of cocoa a hectare from an organic soil, while in agrochemical farming, farmers can harvest nearly 0.7 - 1.5 metric tonnes a hectare, as reported in FOOD navigator.com. However, high incentives are required for the farmers to change to organic farming. Sako Warren, International Cocoa Farmers Organisation's secretary general, said that small farmers in West Africa needs to borrow more money to possess an organic farm, which ultimately end up in poverty. Cocoa growers need to get raw materials at low price or for free to gain from the cocoa bean harvest. The prices of cocoa closed higher on Wednesday commodity trading market. Meanwhile, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, a New Patriotic Party nominee for presidential election, has pledged Ghana cocoa farmers that he will bring huge renovation in the cocoa farming department. He promised farmers of high prices for their agricultural products, which will be higher than the NDC government level. Akufo-Addo also ensured that cocoa farmers' children will be given COCOBOD scholarships and other benefits. Akufo-Addo also pointed out the achievements of President Kufuor government in the cocoa farming department. The government under Kufuor, who is also a New Patriotic Party flag bearer, was responsible for the increased cocoa production of around 700,000 metric tonnes during the period 2003 - 2004. The production of cocoa reached its peak of 1 million metric tonnes during 2010 -2011, the GhanaWeb said. According to Akufo-Addo, these improvements in cocoa sector were erased under the administration of President Mahama. It seems that politicians in West African countries try to overcome each other by making pledges on the improvements of cocoa farming sector. West African nations are battling many challenges including the fall in crude oil prices. Massive improvements in the cocoa farming sector will make their fundamentals strong. Muhammadu Buhari, President of Nigeria and Abdeslam Bouchouareb, Algerian minister for industry and mines, will attend the Africa Investment Forum summit- 'Africa 2016'. The summit will be held on Saturday and Sunday in Sharm El Sheikh of Egypt with participation from the other nations of Africa, Egypt and World Forums. Africa 2016 is the African international business forum for those concerned with doing serious business in Africa, the world's last investment frontier. Furthermore, it is expected to help public and private sector in networking, discussions and in further advancing African business projects. The event will discuss the possibility of establishing an African free trade zone. The forum may decide to hold periodic discussions posing challenges towards the African continent. Britain is losing its faith in the chancellor George Osborne as he is readying for the annual budget in the midst of global challenges facing the nation's economy. According to a survey conducted by Ipsos Mori, the approval rating of the chancellor dropped to minus 6, his fist negative score from 2013. The approval score of Prime Minister David Cameron also fell to minus 15. The survey report showed that nearly 40% of people are pleased with the leadership of George Osborne, a fall of 4% from July. But, still the majority of party members supports him and George Osborne remains their favourite chancellor. The poll also showed that 75% of defendants are pleased with his work procedure. The poll results comes some days before George Osborne submits his annual budget amid poor crude prices and deep slowdown in China's economy. Nearly 44% of defendants believe Britain's economy to deteriorate in 2017. Osborne's annual budget is expected to miss the 2016 budget deficit saving target. Osborne frequently stressed on the need for seriousness to achieve growth in the economic portfolio within the decade end, as reported by Bloomberg. According to Gideon Skinner, the leader of the political research department at Ipsos Mori, the level of confidence in Britain's economy has been weakened in recent times. But, Osborne still remains ahead of John McDonnell, his Labour Party counterpart. He is still a favourite leader for many people other than the youngsters. According to the poll, just 29% people selected John McDonnell to be their next chancellor, while 46% voted for George Osborne. The survey conducted by Ipsos Mori questioned 1,001 adults through telephone. According to the Mirror, the Tories have poured nearly 5 million of people money on advertising for Osborne's "National Living Wage" campaign. The Liberal Democrats are seeking to file a complaint to the Election Commission against the ads. The business department of UK campaign involved TV ads worth at 1.7 million and poster ads worth over 750,000. The net advertisement budget of 4.95 million could envelope the annual pays of 372 people. The National Living Wage, which is 7.20 minimum rate per hour, applies only to workers who are 25 years old and above. The new Living Wage theory is lower than the real Living Wage in London that is set at 9.40 per hour. A spokesman for the government department of business said that the workers must be aware of their rights in the fresh National Living Wage policy and that the bosses pay the new wage of 7.20 starting from Aril 2016. MarketWatch quoted an official data, which said that Osborne borrowed 66.5 billion during the period April and January to bridge the gap between income and government expenditure. In November, the 'Office for Budget Responsibility' expected that Osborne will borrow a sum of 73.5 billion to make economic adjustments. Weak economic conditions coupled with fall in oil prices prevented the UK finance minister to reach his election targets. But, still George Osborne remains a favourite leader among his supporters. LISA MCKINNON/THE STAR Signs on the front doors at Bristol Farms in Thousand Oaks alert shoppers about plans to close the location on March 15. The store has operated for 20 years at The Promenade at Westlake shopping center. SHARE LISA MCKINNON/THE STAR Bristol Farms at The Promenade at Westlake in Thousand Oaks will close on March 15, it was announced this week. LISA MCKINNON/THE STAR Discounts of varying amounts are being offered at the Thousand Oaks location of Bristol Farms, which is slated to close on March 15. LISA MCKINNON/THE STAR A discount of 25 percent is in effect for wine, beer and distilled spirits at the Thousand Oaks location of Bristol Farms, which is slated to close on March 15. By Lisa McKinnon of the Ventura County Star Bristol Farms at The Promenade at Westlake in Thousand Oaks will close on March 15, ending the store's 20-year run at the shopping center owned and operated by Caruso Affiliated. The announcement was made Wednesday in the form of farewell signs posted to the store's automatic sliding front doors. In a less obvious move, details about the Thousand Oaks location were deleted Wednesday from the chain's website. By Thursday morning, discounts ranging from 20 percent off produce to 50 percent off bags of charcoal had created pockets of empty shelves. The signs read, in part: "We've enjoyed being a part of this community for the past 20 years. We will continue to look for other locations throughout Southern California." According to the chain's website, it currently operates eight stores in Los Angeles County and one each in Newport Beach, Palm Desert, San Diego and San Francisco. Multiple attempts to contact a Bristol Farms spokesperson at the chain's headquarters in Carson were not successful. An employee at the Thousand Oaks store said the business had reached the end of its lease and that rumored plans for the space include dividing it for use by a retailer and a high-end food market. An email to a representative for the food market in question did not receive an immediate response. A representative for Caruso Affiliated said Thursday that she had nothing official to announce about the Bristol Farms space. She added that Vince, a luxury retailer of men's and women's clothing and accessories, is scheduled to open elsewhere at the shopping center on Feb. 26. Vince will be located next to Sephora, which opened late last year in a remodeled stand-alone building that formerly housed a single business: Macaroni Grill. The opening of Vince will follow the arrival in December of teen clothing retailer Brandy Melville. For information about The Promenade at Westlake, go to http://www.shoppromenade.com. Bristol Farms is at 140 Promenade Way, Suite A. Call 370-9197 or click on http://www.bristolfarms.com. SHARE Julie Jason By Julie Jason Having gone to law school at a time when women were in the distinct minority, I'm usually agnostic to gender differences in the workplace. In my money-management practice, I see differences in how people make financial decisions, but they are usually based on business and investment experience and wealth rather than gender. Whether a client is single or part of a couple also makes a difference. A single breadwinner, male or female, will take ownership of decisions. In the case of couples, one person usually takes the lead and the other follows. But the leader is not necessarily a male. When couples transition into retirement, I encourage them to switch to a more equal decision-making mode by viewing retirement as a "joint venture." A study by the Insured Retirement Institute, titled "Women's Perspectives on Saving, Investing, and Retirement Planning," confirmed a few of my personal observations: "Education levels, and levels of investable assets, influence how both women and men feel about several issues." The study was conducted by Greenwald and Associates in July 2015 and can be found at http://tinyurl.com/heshvse. According to the study: "Both women and men with higher levels of assets are more concerned about their assets decreasing in value, but this concern subsides as education levels increase. For both women and men, greater assets equate to a more positive view of success in making investment decisions." The study identified a few gender differences: "Women see themselves as 'do it for me' or 'do it with me' investors. Men think of themselves as 'do it yourself' investors." As to working with financial advisers, women place "extreme importance" on the adviser's ability to communicate and relate I can understand that. Some financial advisers (and lawyers and accountants) do treat women clients differently from male clients, and yes, with couples, I've seen professionals address the husband and ignore the wife. That tells me the professional is uncomfortable with his/her communication skills (and for that reason alone, that adviser should be avoided). Women are "much more likely to describe a financial adviser's ability to explain financial concepts clearly, without talking down to them, as an extremely important characteristic. Listening well, being responsive, following up, and possessing deep expertise are also characteristics upon which women place a higher value than do men. Half of women say it is extremely important that their financial adviser speaks to them and not just to their spouses. Women also are more likely than men to desire a personable financial adviser, one who is comfortable using new technologies, and one who has excellent support staff." Since my practice is focused on transitions, I was interested that both men and women were "concerned about saving enough for retirement, specifically that they will be able to save enough to afford the lifestyle they want throughout retirement, and stop working at their desired retirement ages." Women, however, were "much more likely to say they are 'very concerned' about saving enough to realize their visions for retirement." Women were also "most concerned" about investment losses. There is reason for their concern, according to IRI President and CEO Cathy Weatherford: "The anxiety expressed by women is understandable when you consider the challenges they face in achieving a financially secure retirement. Income disparities and time out of the workforce are among factors that will reduce retirement savings as well as Social Security and employer-provided retirement benefits. At the same time, longer life spans will necessitate more savings to produce additional years of retirement income." If you are a woman who wants to assure retirement security, whether you are single or part of a couple, you owe it to yourself to expect the best of service from your professional advisers. As a woman who moved into money management after 10 years on Wall Street as a lawyer, I can tell you this: If you are experiencing uncomfortable gender differences, you're in the wrong place. No matter how much or how little investment experience you have, you need to feel comfortable with your decision-making, including how to choose (and work with) your advisers. Julie Jason, a personal money manager (Jackson, Grant of Stamford, Conn.) and award-winning author, welcomes your questions/ comments (readers@juliejason.com). To hear Julie speak, visit www.juliejason.com/events. Ukraine sees over 50 militant attacks on its positions in last day The Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) Headquarters said there were 55 attacks by the militants from the self-proclaimed Donbas republics, eastern Ukraine, in the period from 06:00 Thursday morning through 06:00 Friday morning, including 22 shelling incidents near the town of Maryinka. "The enemy conducted 22 precision attacks by use of mortars, grenade launchers, and small arms on ATO forces' strongholds in Maryinka," the ATO HQ press center wrote on Facebook in the morning. A sniper and an air defense launcher from the militants attacked the Maryinka checkpoint, it said. According to the report, Ukrainian army positions came under attack from small arms, and various types of grenade launchers, in Pisky, Opytne, Avdiyivka, Mayorsk and Novhorodske. The militants fired a mortar on the Ukrainian stronghold in Zaitseve, the staff said. The militants fired small arms and infantry combat vehicle weapons on Ukrainian fortifications in Starohnativka and Luhanske, it said. In the Luhansk sector, Ukraine positions were attacked by mortars, small arms and grenade launchers near Bohuslavske, the report said. ANTHONY PLASCENCIA/THE STAR NOW Ventura recently opened at 185 E. Santa Clara Street in Ventura. The restaurant is owned by partners musician Michael Anthony Grajewski, executive chef Dean Angelo and former Las Vegas fight promoter Rani John. 02/02/15 Ventura, CA Rita Moran Columnist SHARE ANTHONY PLASCENCIA/THE STAR Michael Anthony Grajewski, co-owner of NOW Ventura, talks with KristiLisa Kleiner and Steve Nash of Camarillo. The restaurant recently opened at 185 E. Santa Clara Street in Ventura. ANTHONY PLASCENCIA/THE STAR Keana Nelson pours a drink at the bar in NOW Ventura, which recently opened at 185 E. Santa Clara Street in Ventura. 02/02/15 Ventura, CA Here's a look at Rita Moran's recent restaurant reviews, in chronological order. Moran visits restaurants unannounced and pays for her meals. NOW Ventura 185 E. Santa Clara St., Ventura. 667-2200, www.nowventura.com The new NOW has taken up residence on Santa Clara Street in downtown Ventura, next to the Clock Tower Inn, where other restaurants have passed through over the years. Run by partners Michael Grajewski, executive chef Dean Angelo and Rani John, it features Italian fare with some emphasis on seafood. Initially, the spot opens at 4 p.m. every day but Monday, but modifications are still going on in the menu and hours. Happy Hour seems a very happy time. Interesting bar drinks and wines are available and appetizers include the trio of meat, shrimp and mushroom balls, and the spiedini alla Romano, an Italian batter-sheathed grilled cheese sandwich. Tasty main dishes include linguine malafemina, blackened tuna and fettucine Alfredo. The 805 Pour House 2135 E. Ventura Blvd., Old Town Camarillo. 383-8800, 805pourhouse@gmail.com New owners Daniel and Jennifer Bowen inject their lively spirit into the bountiful wine and beer choices, and creative preparations by chef Andrew Pedroza at the familiar location in Camarillo's Old Town, most recently known as Bella's on the Blvd. Daniel Bowen is an award-wining TV producer with Emmy and Peabody awards to his credit. Some of his trophies are on display at the site and happily shown to diners by John, who may be your server. Spinaci pizza, Citrus Crab Toast, a Killer Kobe Beef Burger and chocolate truffles with a wine reduction sauce are among the menu highlights. Plata Taqueria & Cantina 28914 Roadside Drive, Agoura Hills. (818) 735-9982, www.platacantina.com. The year-old Plata offers Mexican specialties with distinctive touches produced in-house from a kitchen in which sauces and dishes are freshly made and often include seasonal local vegetables. Owners are Ramon Saldivar and Saverio Posarelli, who also own Ventura's Cafe Fiore. Among many standout dishes are the guacamole ranchero, chicken mole with a choice of mole intensity, lamb shank and garlic sauteed shrimp. If you have room for dessert, try the bread pudding or molten chocolate cake. Chop It Up 1717 Simi Town Center Way, No. 5, Simi Valley. 526-3600, chopitupsalads.com. The new Simi folk-owned eatery offers good, fresh ingredients that can be ordered already designed, or can be created from among an array of options on display in a long counter. Salads, soup, quesadillas and warm bowl combos are featured. La Plage Cafe 429 E. Port Hueneme Road, Port Hueneme. 874-1845 The new cafe in Port Hueneme provides French "fusion" food designed by chef-owner Veronique Spanier, a well-traveled and talented woman. Right now open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. daily except Mondays, La Plage offers delicious breakfast options including eggs Benedict, croque-monsieur, le pain perdu, crepes and omelets, side-by-side with more lunch-tuned items like a Nicoise salad or the multiflavored, juicy La Plage Burger. Ragsdale Kitchen & Bar 692 E. Main St., Ventura. 641-1500. Settled into a classic Ventura landmark building, Ragsdale, named after owner Ragsdale "Dale" Panopio, has turned the inside of the site into a gleaming, contemporary setting, which might initially confuse visitors who remember some of the former restaurants that held sway there over the years. It has an adventurous menu, though all of the items may not be available on any given day. Still, there's lots to sample, including a very good miso-soy infused hanger steak lunch entree. Al Mulino Eatalian Bakery & Bar 3709 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks. www.almulino.net. Run by four Italian food specialists who now live in the Thousand Oaks area, the multiple-purpose spot offers light pastries and lots of coffee varieties when it opens at 10 a.m., lots of good lunch choices, from flat bread and sandwiches to salads and pasta dishes, and then beginning at 5 p.m. a wide range of pizzas. It's all real Italian style, made with products imported from Italy or homemade at the site. The pastries are irresistible and pastas like a lasagne vegetariana and a caserecce zucchini speck zafferano are full of flavor. Sitar Indian Cuisine On the campus of CSU Channel Islands, 45 Rincon Drive, Camarillo. 389-4321. The campus food court area is attractive and offers a variety of small eateries with varying specialties. Sitar, from the same family that operates Saffron Indian Cuisine and Bar in Newbury Park, provides freshly prepared Indian specialties that are true to their roots. The curry sauce that enlivens Nirvana Chicken and is also poured over curry fries, is a standout. Mom's Saag Paneer hits all the right buttons and tandoori wings are a fine starter. Margaritas Mexican Grill 702 Lindero Canyon Road, No. 704, Oak Park. (818) 879-7900, www.MargaritasMexGrill.com. The family-owned restaurant, an offspring of the original in Santa Clarita, serves up Mexican fare with considerable expertise, following a tradition of understanding familiar favorites and knowing how to personalize them with their own sauces and dressings. A ceviche and shrimp salad makes an excellent appetizer for two, while very good chicken Caesar salad burritos and spinach enchiladas are just two of the well prepared dishes. As the grill's name suggests, they also pour an almost endless range of margaritas. Masa Sushi Ventura 500 E. Main St., Ventura. 648-2533: Also Masa Sushi in Camarillo, 63 D. Daily Drive, Camarillo, 987-1065. The new spot on the corner of California and Main streets works from the same menu as its Camarillo version, with lots of sushi rolls and some of just about every other familiar Japanese dishes. The relatively basic Ojai Roll is delicious, while the Camarillo Roll, Fantasy Roll and Masa's 3-Putt Roll involve more ingredients but are also tasty. The beef teriyaki is made with good beef and is almost fat-free. Anne Condon SHARE Is peace on earth a possibility today? With the media reporting daily about wars, death and retaliation, is there even a chance for harmony and tranquillity to take hold in our world? In the Bible, the life of Christ Jesus offers the greatest model for attaining a peaceful state of mind, even in times of anger, fear and dismay. He was prophesied as the Prince of Peace; yet no one faced more hatred and violence. How did he handle it? With unconditional love. He blessed his enemies. He practiced assiduously the two commandments he taught his followers: love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. He also instructed them, "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God." What I've learned from Christ Jesus is how to promote peace in my own life. It starts within one's consciousness, allowing God's infinite love to permeate thought; then letting the love of peace demonstrated by Jesus be translated into right action toward others. Practicing this, I've gained continual peace of mind, which increases mental health in positive ways. The peace process commences with small steps. I had an experience recently where embracing a peaceful attitude overcame feelings of anger and blame. I'd been having reception problems with my cable and Internet server for several days. Then their bill arrived, and it was greatly increased without any explanation. Long frustrated with the way this company did business, I was ready for battle. But this time, before calling, I changed my outlook by reversing all accusatory thoughts. I affirmed that, whoever I would be talking to was a child of God, just as I was, and that we could work things out in a peaceful way. I totally subdued any thoughts of condemnation. In fact, as I dialed the phone, I was filled with a healthy attitude of real friendship. The whole exchange with the woman I spoke with was respectful, calm and peaceful. She graciously reduced my monthly statement substantially and even made it retroactive. She explained that the reception problem had been corrected, and we ended our conversation cordially. I felt a quiet peacefulness inside. I was learning the value of preparing myself with loving and peaceful thoughts before taking any action. And the result was gratifying and health-giving. When I think of Christ Jesus going about healing and helping his fellow man, only to be crucified on the cross, I am beyond sorrowful at such animosity directed toward the Son of God. Yet that's not the end of his story. While on the cross, he said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." And after his resurrection he told his disciples, "My peace I give unto you." Following his example can change the world, one consciousness at a time. What I've gained from the master Christian is the knowledge that peace is a definite possibility. It begins in the heart of each of us and when put into practice, has the ability to fan out across the globe, blessing all mankind and establishing a spiritual health plan of peace among the nations of the world. As one of Christ's most faithful followers, Mary Baker Eddy, wrote, "Of this we may be sure: that thoughts winged with peace and love breathe a silent benediction over all the earth, cooperate with the divine power, and brood unconsciously o'er the work of His hand." Anne Condon is a member of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Thousand Oaks, and can be reached at ASCondon55@aol.com. She is a member of the Conejo Valley Interfaith Association, which meets monthly and welcomes clergy and representatives of all religious faiths. JUAN CARLO/THE STAR Richard Rush, president of CSU Channel Islands, delivered his final state of the university speech Thursday at Spanish Hills Country Club in Camarillo. SHARE JUAN CARLO/THE STAR Richard Rush, president of CSU Channel Islands, delivers his final state of the university address Thursday at Spanish Hills Country Club in Camarillo. JUAN CARLO/THE STAR Richard Rush, president of CSU Channel Islands, with his wife, Jane Rush (right), receives a hug after delivering his final state of the university address at Spanish Hills Country Club in Camarillo. JUAN CARLO/THE STAR (Left to right) Greg Bird, from Gold Coast Broadcasting, talks with Jane Rush and her husband, Richard Rush, president of CSU Channel Islands. Rush delivered his final state of the university address Thursday in Camarillo. JUAN CARLO/THE STAR Richard Rush, president of CSU Channel Islands, delivers his final state of the university address Thursday at Spanish Hills Country Club in Camarillo. Dr. Rush started his job in 2001. By Jean Moore of the Ventura County Star In his final state of the university address Thursday, Richard Rush, president of CSU Channel Islands, reiterated the message he's given the community for years: We're in this together. "Without your support we would not be able to do what we're doing," Rush said, speaking before a packed audience at the Spanish Hills Country Club in Camarillo. "What you wanted your university to become it has become and possibly even more." Rush also offered a retrospective of the university, from its start with 13 faculty in 2002 to all of the honors that students and professors are earning. Greg Sefain, with the public relations firm Rincon Strategies, appreciated the message. "It was refreshing to see a president of a university have such a vision, even though he's handing the baton on to someone else," Sefain said. "He was saying, 'It's not just me and my work, it's the university and the community." The CSU board of trustees is expected to name Rush's successor on March 9. On Monday, a committee will interview semifinalists for the job. Before Rush's speech, students from Channel Islands met with business leaders, networking and picking up tips on how to find a job. Carolina Romero, 33, a senior majoring in business, returned to school after getting laid off from her job. She recently got engaged to her fiance, an engineering student at CSU Northridge. "Ultimately, I would love to have a job lined up before I graduate," Romero said. "It's tough out there. ... We're trying to do the all-American dream, right?" Listening to Rush's presentation, Jonnathan Alfaro, 24, a senior majoring in business and communication, was looking ahead. "I had goose bumps the whole time, listening to him saying what was done in the past and what's coming," Alfaro said. "As a student, I can see myself one day being part of his presentation and all because of these people and the foundation they've created." SHARE CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Rob McCoy By Wendy Leung of the Ventura County Star Whether Donald Trump will come out ahead on Saturday, as the polls predict, will depend partly on whether and how the large number of evangelicals in South Carolina vote. The state has a large evangelical base with a potential to give and take away momentum in the narrowing field of Republican presidential candidates. Among those in South Carolina helping the Christian voter outreach is a Thousand Oaks councilman who has been doing this for the past two presidential elections. Pastor Rob McCoy, who was elected to the council in a special election last year, recently returned from a brief trip to the South, where he spoke to evangelicals about the importance of voting. "It's growing but it's a slow process," McCoy said about the evangelical vote. "The ethos in churches now is apolitical. But we have this large minority of 65 to 80 million evangelicals in America." McCoy, 51, spoke at an event hosted by the American Renewal Project, a conservative nonprofit that promotes pastor involvement in politics across the nation. He has been involved with the group in visits to Iowa, New Hampshire and other key primary states in past elections. McCoy said if his schedule allows and if the events don't conflict with council meetings, he'll visit Florida and Nevada in the coming weeks. "We don't promote one candidate," McCoy said. "We promote evangelicals getting engaged." Many believe it was the Christian vote that handed McCoy a slim victory in the council race last June. "Rob really got in because of a well-organized evangelical vote," said California Lutheran University professor Herb Gooch. "He had the enthusiastic support of his parishioners who walked the heck out of this area. It's clear that's what got him in." Before winning the council election, McCoy lost in an Assembly race against former Councilwoman Jacqui Irwin. Rick Perry, a two-time presidential candidate who has since dropped out of the race, campaigned for McCoy. The councilman won't speak publicly about who he's backing in the GOP primary, but he has donated to the campaigns of Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee. When the second Republican debate was held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, McCoy attended the dinner held for Cruz at Gino's Bistro in Thousand Oaks and his wife, Michelle, hosted a tea for Rand Paul's wife. McCoy sees this presidential race as a unique one. Instead of having evangelicals split the votes among multiple candidates, they're backing Cruz, McCoy said. It's the establishment that's struggling to find its star. He believes the South Carolina race is Trump's to lose, but he also believes Cruz has the advantage of having a vast army of campaign volunteers. "Trump could lose it to a lack of ground game," McCoy said. "South Carolina, like Iowa and New Hampshire, appreciates neighbors going door to door." Gooch said that kind of shoe leather campaigning is akin to having troops on the ground, a strategy that traditionally works, but with Trump in the race, conventional wisdom gets tossed aside. "You don't necessarily win things with troops in the air. You win things on the ground," Gooch said. "But Trump has done extremely well in his air war." The knocking on doors strategy works particularly well in South Carolina, Gooch said, and the evangelicals are organized and gaining ground. "I'm impressed with the level of enthusiasm on the evangelical side. It's hard to say how much a difference it's gonna make," Gooch said, adding that their issues may be too narrow for their candidate of choice to win in the general election. Religious leaders like McCoy are becoming active for that very reason to push issues that matter to Christians to the forefront. He put it in no uncertain terms during his sermon last week. "This is probably the most important election of your lifetime," McCoy told parishioners at Godspeak Calvary Chapel. "If you're apathetic to it, you don't understand your responsibility as a Christian." ROB VARELA/THE STAR Rio Mesa graduate Maria Monjaraz speaks during a news conference on the effects of pesticides in front of the high school in Oxnard on Thursday. SHARE ROB VARELA/THE STAR Suguet Lopez, executive director of Lideres Campesinas, holds a copy of a UCLA study on the effects of pesticides, as she speaks during a news conference in front of Rio Mesa High School in Oxnard on Thursday. ROB VARELA/THE STAR Dr. Minako Watanabe(right) listens as Barbara Flores, the mother of a student at the school, gives her statement during a press conference concerning the affects of pesticides outside of Rio Mesa High School in Oxnard Thursday. 2/18/16 Oxnard, CA ROB VARELA/THE STAR A press conference concerning the affects of pesticides is held outside of Rio Mesa High School in Oxnard Thursday. 2/18/16 Oxnard, CA ROB VARELA/THE STAR Rio Mesa graduate Maria Monjaraz speaks during a news conference on the effects of pesticides outside the high school in Oxnard on Thursday. By Claudia Boyd-Barrett Advocates for farmworkers, students and families in Oxnard are calling on state regulators to ban the use of pesticides within one mile of schools in light of a new study released by UCLA. On Thursday, members of local farmworker advocacy organizations, a youth group representative, and a Ventura County Medical Center doctor gathered outside Rio Mesa High School. They demanded that California's Department of Pesticide Regulation consider the health consequences of exposure to multiple pesticides as it drafts new rules for use of chemicals close to schools. The advocates' demand followed Wednesday's release of a UCLA study on three pesticides commonly used in combination on agricultural fields across California and around Rio Mesa High School. Researchers found that, when the pesticides are used together, the health risks to farmworkers and residents increase. State regulators currently only consider the health risks posed by pesticides individually, the report said. Health risks cited in the report include cancer, brain damage, developmental issues and reproductive problems. "This UCLA study is very important to us because it not only shows that these pesticides are harmful individually but now we understand that these chemicals in combination are actually much more harmful," said Dr. Minako Watabe, an obstetrician and gynecologist at the Ventura County Medical Center, who spoke at the event. "In the medical world, we actually understand this very well," she continued, citing how physicians must consider how a combination of drugs may interact before prescribing them to patients. "This UCLA study really should impact the way that pesticides are regulated." Charlotte Fadipe, a spokesperson for the Department of Pesticide Regulation, said scientists at the agency had only just learned of the study and would review it as they consider future pesticide regulations. There is no firm date as to when the draft regulation on pesticide use around schools will be released, she said in an email. Last year, the agency conducted a series of workshops in agricultural areas, including at the Ventura County Government Center and Rio Mesa High School, to hear ideas from the public and growers. Hundreds of people attended, she said. "Our schools regulation is a work in progress, it is a huge complex piece of work with many moving parts," she wrote. Rio Mesa, which is surrounded by strawberry fields, served as the model for the study. The researchers found that, over one week in 2013, people who live and work around the high school were exposed to large doses of multiple fumigants. A report by the Center for Investigative Reporting last year also found that higher levels of the riskiest pesticides were applied near Rio Mesa than near any other campus in the state. The study, titled "Exposure and Interaction: The Potential Health Impacts of Using Multiple Pesticides," examined three pesticides: chloropicrin, Telone, and metam salts, which are used on high-value crops such as strawberries, tomatoes and stone fruits. These chemicals are fumigants, meaning they are likely to evaporate into the air and drift away from the application site, exposing people in the surrounding area, the report states. Rio Mesa graduate Maria Monjaraz said she remembered breathing in a bad smell while doing physical education classes at the school. Later, she would have a headache, she said. "Can you imagine having to be out in contaminated air every day and get home with a headache without knowing why?" she said in Spanish. "If they really care about or are interested in the education of the students the first thing is students' health." A Ventura County rule prohibits growers from applying state-restricted pesticides including the pesticides in the UCLA study within a quarter mile of campuses when students are present. The advocates are seeking a statewide radius rule of one mile. JOSEPH A. GARCIA/THE STAR Differing views over short-term rentals have divided the beachfront Oxnard Shores neighborhood. SHARE JUAN CARLO/THE STAR Jackie Baron and her husband, Jim, walk their dogs through the Oxnard Shores neighborhood. Since November, they have rented a home in the beach community, where a dispute over short-term rentals has divided neighbors. JUAN CARLO/THE STAR A fight over short-term rentals is brewing in the beachfront community of Oxnard Shores. JOSEPH A. GARCIA/THE STAR The sun sets in the Oxnard Shores neighborhood. JUAN CARLO/THE STAR Jackie Baron and her husband, Jim, walk their dogs along the beach in the Oxnard Shores neighborhood. They have been living in a rental since November and are considering buying a home in the community. By Gretchen Wenner of the Ventura County Star In Oxnard, where no city rules govern short-term vacation rentals, a beachfront community has become an epicenter of acrimonious dispute over the issue. The sand-dusted streets of the Oxnard Shores neighborhood, located generally southwest of Harbor Boulevard and Fifth Street, feature homes and condominiums snugged close together. Road names are suitably suggestive of the setting: Seabreeze Way, Whitecap Street, Neptune Square. Our houses are on small lots, said Robert Murphy, who sits on the board of the Mandalay Shores Community Association. Typical lots measure 40 by 100 feet with five-foot setbacks, he said, adding: We literally live on top of each other. In recent years, with online sites such as Airbnb and VRBO allowing homeowners to market vacation rentals to a global audience and with some advertising properties as venues for weddings, graduation parties and birthdays such uses have overwhelmed some residents. We cant enjoy the peace and quiet of our own homes, Murphy said. On opposite sides of the issue are those, including the current association board, who want to restrict short-term rentals. An equally passionate group, organized as Friends of the Shores, says the board has operated largely in secret to impose major property restrictions without proper input and has created a toxic atmosphere of distrust. What the board has done is essentially criminalized activities that are not illegal, said Jen Skrabak, a Friends of the Shores member. It has caused certain militant and vigilante behaviors to occur. Individuals from both sides say theyve sought police protection because of harassment. Last month, nearly 400 people overwhelmed capacity at the boards annual meeting, prompting its cancellation. Board elections planned that day have been rescheduled for March 26 at the Oxnard Performing Arts Center. The association includes owners and residents of about 1,400 homes and condos. *Click/tap to enlarge map While the level of conflict in Oxnard Shores might be unusual, the neighborhoods appeal for vacationers and long-term renters is typical of any beach community, residents say. Homeowners have been renting properties there for decades. Many are second homes, and some say they depend on rental income to keep those properties. When Friends of the Shores recently mailed letters to homeowners, Skrabak said, they found more than 40 percent had out-of-town addresses. Two or three people on the board took it on themselves to restrict rentals, said resident Julie Pena, a former board member. Im so disheartened by the divisiveness thats been created. Current board President David Laufer has, for the past year or so, been pushing for rules restricting short-term rentals. At a special December board meeting at his home, various motions were approved, including adoption of a minimum six-month rental period, minutes show. The move has created confusion as to what rules are now in place and whether association members have been allowed ample opportunity for review and input. Laufer said this month the resolution regarding the six-month minimum was approved but has not yet been implemented. It has been sent to association lawyers for review and will return to the new board for a final vote. Laufer, who calls short-term renters hotel operators, says there are about 53 such properties in the associations turf. On my street we have five of these hotels operating, he said, adding the practice takes permanent housing off the market and robs the city of hotel tax revenue. Oxnard is currently studying regulations in Santa Monica and Ventura and coordinating with the County of Ventura on what could be uniform rules that cover the adjacent unincorporated communities of Silver Strand, Hollywood Beach and Hollywood by the Sea. There are strong opinions on both sides of this issue, said Assistant City Manager Scott Whitney. The city hopes to start gathering community input next month and hopes to bring proposed rules to planning commissioners this spring. The City Council will ultimately decide on any regulations. Ashley Golden, development services director, said other neighborhoods, including RiverPark in north Oxnard, are also reporting disputes over short-term rentals. While the practice is mainly coastal, we want to make sure we deal with it throughout the city as a whole, she said. Ojai last month voted to begin enforcing a ban on short-term rentals in city limits. Ventura allows vacation rentals but collects bed taxes. The Ventura County Board of Supervisors is currently exploring possible rules. Last fall, when Jim and Jackie Baron moved from Burbank to a rental in Oxnard Shores, they had no idea a wave of conflict was rolling in. We just moved here in November and walked into this mess, Jackie Baron said, adding: Its a huge issue in any beach community. Theyre considering buying a home in the neighborhood when their yearlong lease is up and believe some sort of regulation is needed. If its just families, its not that bad, Jim Baron said of vacationers, but a small number of party homes can disrupt an otherwise quiet area. Its the problems of the few that ruin it for the many, he said. RELATED CONTENT File photo SHARE By Staff Reports Two Oxnard men pleaded guilty on Thursday to robbery with gang enhancements and probation violations. Gerardo Cordova, 22, and Benjamin Cordova Juarez, 24, were sentenced to 14 years in prison, said Andrews Salinas, a commander with the Oxnard Police Department. Their sentencing in Ventura County Superior Court came after a carjacking and robbery along the 1300 block of West Guava Street in Oxnard on May 23, 2015, Salinas said. Police said a man was assaulted and had his vehicle stolen. Police said the man told them that two people who robbed him had a handgun in their waistbands. Salinas said investigators later identified Cordova and Juarez as the suspects. A third person who drove away in the victim's vehicle was never identified, Salinas said. Six days after the Oxnard robbery, Ventura County Sheriff Office deputies responded to a disturbance at The Oaks mall in Thousand Oaks. Deputies said they found Cordova and Juarez in the mall's parking lot with the stolen vehicle. They were arrested and later charged in the robbery. STAR FILE PHOTO Union (left) and Confederate soldiers square off at last years Civil War re-enactment in Simi Valley. SHARE STAR FILE PHOTO Abraham Lincoln, portrayed by Robert Broski, recites the Gettysburg Address during last years Civil War encampment and re-enactment in Simi Valley. By Robyn Flans The Civil War will be fought once again as Strathearn Historical Park & Museum in Simi Valley hosts a re-enactment this weekend, complete with Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and twice-a-day skirmishes, each involving about 50 people. Museum docent Bruce Matzen recalled how surprised he was last year when he saw a large group of people huddled in the rain in front of the Victorian house on the second day of re-enactments, awaiting the dramatization of the surrender at Appomattox. "At about 1:30 it just poured," Matzen said. "We had some shade pop-ups on the lawn and there were 50 people under those canopies waiting for the skit in the pounding rain. That was the greatest compliment we could have had." The show went on, with Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendering to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the pouring rain. "Of course, we all laughed that rain never stopped the Civil War," Matzen said. This weekend's event is a joint effort by Strathearn Park and the Union Army of the West, which creates living history. Both Saturday and Sunday, visitors can experience life as it was in 1862. Matzen said there will be some additions to this fifth annual event. "I was not convinced we paid proper respect and equal respect to both sides last year," he said, explaining that the Confederates didn't have the same amount of fanfare as the Union in the Appomattox skit. So this year, in addition to the Fife and Drum Corps Union band, there will now be a Confederate brass band to march with Lee. The Confederate general also will give a farewell to the Southern troops. Also this year, the young folks battalion will be much more developed, Matzen said, noting that many boys and girls were involved in the Civil War. "We have a recruiting tent, and the young folks will have their choice as to whether they enlist to save the union or to defend states' rights," Matzen said. They will also get a partial uniform of hats and bandanas, and Matzen said a re-enactor will teach them formation and marching. The battles or what the organizers call "skirmishes" are performed twice daily with about two dozen actors on each side. This year there will also be a hospital tent so guests can learn what happened to the wounded. A crowd favorite is Lincoln reciting his famous Gettysburg Address. With his full beard and mole on the right side of his face. just like Lincoln, Robert Broski is returning to Strathearn for his third year to portray the 16th president. Broski said that once he puts on the stovepipe hat, he takes the job very seriously. "I enjoy educating people on what he stood for:" Broski said, "his integrity, his character, wanting to do the right thing for his fellow man and for the country, his honesty, showing people what a politician should be like and what a president should stand for." He does a question-and-answer session with the visitors. "I will have a shiny penny for each child," Broski said. "I'll take photographs and give them a penny and answer any questions they have." Matzen said this event offers an opportunity to step back in time. "It's an occasion when the Strathearn Historical Park really transforms itself into an American village of the 1860s where there's a war on," Matzen said. "There would be a military parade, a military camp and recruiting. There would also be civilian tents as well as a store. There's a lady who teaches how to use the sewing machines by cranking them. "It's an opportunity to get a feel for what life would have been like. I want to give people that magic feeling of not quite being in the 21st century." IF YOU GO What: Civil War re-enactment When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday Where: Strathearn Historical Park & Museum, 137 Strathearn Place, Simi Valley Admission: $6 for 13 and older, $3 for children 5 to 12, free for children 4 and younger. $1 off if tickets are purchased online. Information: 526-6453, www.CivilWarSimi.com. JUAN CARLO/THE STAR Tony Falato (left) and Rocky Rhodes, both members of the Rotary Club of Simi Valley, talk in the morning while drinking coffee. Rhodes donated a kidney to Falato, and both men are recovering. Falato continues to be sequestered for at least two months until his immune system builds up. SHARE JUAN CARLO/THE STAR Tony Falato (left) and Rocky Rhodes, both members of the Rotary Club of Simi Valley, talk in the morning while drinking coffee. Rhodes donated a kidney to Falato. JUAN CARLO/THE STAR Tony Falato (left) and Rocky Rhodes, both members of the Rotary Club of Simi Valley, talk in the morning while drinking coffee. Rhodes donated a kidney to Falato, and both men are recovering. Falato continues to be sequestered for at least two months until his immune system builds up. JUAN CARLO/THE STAR Tony Falato (left) hugs kidney donor Rocky Rhodes after a morning visit. By Alicia Doyle He's walking an hour and a half a day, says he feels "awesome" and notes that doctors are pleased with his progress. Not bad for someone who got a new kidney a few weeks ago. "All the doctors are happy with my progression," said Tony Falato, 51, of Thousand Oaks, whose new kidney was donated Jan. 19 by Rocky Rhodes, of Simi Valley. The two are members of Rotary Club of Simi Valley, which operates under the motto "service above self." Falato was diagnosed with Stage 4 renal failure last March, and Rhodes volunteered to donate a kidney when he heard about Falato's plight. The operation at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center didn't go as planned. Rhodes was supposed to wake up three hours after the operation, but instead woke up 24 hours later in the intensive-care unit. "This should be an operation where they put tools inside you through these little cuts and remove the kidney through a 5-inch slit," Rhodes said. "There was a malfunction with one of the tools separating the kidney from the main artery. It's supposed to cut and seal at the same time. It cut and didn't seal." Major bleeding occurred, he said, "and they had to open me up. They went in there old school and stitched it up. So it's 18 inches extra of scarring. But everything is coming along back to normal I'm healing up just fine. It's not that big of a deal. And I was happy to do it." Rhodes further praised the medical team at Cedars-Sinai for the exceptional care he received. "Once something had not gone exactly as planned ... they were there to get me back to normalcy," he said. Falato, the owner of the Junkyard Cafe in Simi Valley, said he still needs to stay home about two more months until his immune system builds up. "I can't be around sick people or children. But I feel great," he said. "The doctors are happy with the results. I'm trying to stay active and read books and trying not to watch too much TV." Falato's wife, Evelyn Locker, said there are no words to describe her gratitude. "Put yourself in my shoes how do you say 'thank you' enough?" Locker said. "Every time I look at Tony, I want to cry. It's just amazing. He's recovering so well. "Rocky is a remarkable human being," she added. "When you see him, all you want to do is be more like him. Tony and I get up every single morning and just thank God and thank Rocky." Falato agreed. "Rocky is awesome, and everybody in Rotary appreciates what he did," Falato said. "That's what Rotary is all about." Rhodes said he hopes others will take note. "It's really important that we continue to send a positive message that we want people to consider donating kidneys because we think it's important to help others," he said. When Falato has recovered fully, he plans to partner with Rhodes to educate others about their experience. "I have to pay it forward. It's my duty," Falato said. "I was blessed for sure." Rhodes said he was inspired to donate his kidney by his stepmother, who gave a kidney to a stranger at age 70. He believes his success with Falato will encourage more people to do the same. "I think if more people knew, they would raise their hand," he said. SHARE CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Kevin Hogrefe, of Camarillo. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Eugene Kostiuchenko. By Megan Diskin of the Ventura County Star The attorney for a driver accused in the DUI death of a sheriff's deputy argued in court Thursday for access to law enforcement training materials, saying they could provide insights on the accident. The items were among more than 30 requests listed in a discovery motion filed by Kevin Hogrefe's attorney, Ventura County Senior Deputy Public Defender Justin Tuttle. Hogrefe, 26, appeared before Ventura County Superior Court Judge Ryan Wright for a pretrial conference where the judge heard the lengthy motion, among other things. Authorities said Hogrefe was driving a vehicle that hit and killed Deputy Yevhen "Eugene" Kostiuchenko, 41, of Camarillo, on Oct. 28, 2014, as the officer was walking back to his patrol car after an unrelated traffic stop on the shoulder of Highway 101 near Lewis Road. Many of the items in Tuttle's motion were regarding access to Ventura County Sheriff's Office training material related to traffic stops, radio traffic and other policies. A grand jury indicted Hogrefe in December 2014 on charges of second-degree murder and felony fleeing the scene of an accident involving death. Investigators said he was caught a few miles away after his vehicle crashed on an exit ramp. According to court records, Hogrefe's blood-alcohol level about two hours after the crash was 0.23 percent. The legal limit for driving is 0.08 percent. Tuttle said the only traffic law his client violated was drunken driving. Tuttle said the "deputy placed himself in the middle of the traffic lane with no reflective gear" and was not looking for freeway traffic like the other deputies at the scene were. He said the material could provide insight on the cause of the crash. Senior Deputy District Attorney Rebecca Day said the defense planned to argue "contributory negligence." She argued that the police activity would have prompted drivers to use caution but that Hogrefe was not able to do that due to his "state of intoxication." "It's reasonably feasible that there'd be persons, pedestrians, peace officers, on foot in the area," she said. Wright denied access to the training materials, saying they were irrelevant. He did grant access to a CT scan of the victim performed during the autopsy, but Day said that procedure was never done. Day said access to other evidence listed in the motion has been made available to Tuttle, so Wright ordered both parties to meet so they can review all the evidence. Wright also ordered the court to provide both parties a copy of instructions given to the grand jury that indicted Hogrefe after Day said the Ventura County District Attorney's Office does not select those jurors and could not provide that information. A defense motion to set aside the grand jury's indictment was denied by Wright. The defense is seeking a change of venue, a matter that will be taken up April 18, when Wright will hear any other motions before selecting a trial date. "This case is going to get over with at some point," Wright said. "I will not allow it to drag on and on." Cabinet approves amendments to procedure for protecting Ukraine's rights and interests at intl courts The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine has approved a draft presidential decree on amending Paragraph 1 of the procedure for protecting rights and interests of Ukraine when settling disputes in foreign jurisdiction agencies with participation of a foreign entity and Ukraine. The decision was made at a cabinet meeting on Thursday. Finance Minister of Ukraine Natalie Jaresko said that the amendments would facilitate the procedure for protecting Ukraine at international courts. Earlier Finance Minister of Russia Anton Siluanov said that the Russian Finance Ministry filed a lawsuit in the High Court of London on February 17 to secure repayment of the $3 billion debt owed by Ukraine, after goodwill talks with Ukraine failed to work out. The Finance Ministry said the representative in the interests of Russia will be the international legal company, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, which has consulted with Russia for the last several years. In turn, Ukraine several times proposed that Russia joined other creditors to hold negotiations on debt restructuring and the country is ready to protect itself in courts. The Ukrainian government has foreseen funds to finance litigations over the non-payment on $3 billion eurobonds bought by Russia in the 2016 national budget, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatseniuk said on December 29, 2015. SHARE STAR FILE PHOTO Adrian Navarrete-Gonzalez, shown in January 2015, on Friday was sentenced to life in prison without parole in the stabbing death of his 18-month-old son. By Wendy Leung of the Ventura County Star A Ventura man was sentenced to life in state prison without the opportunity of parole on Friday for the kidnapping and killing of his 18-month-old son. Adrian Navarrete-Gonzalez, 29, had pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the stabbing of his son Jacob Navarrete on Jan. 2, 2015. When Ventura County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Bennett announced the sentence, he said Jacob, who was strapped to a car seat at the time of his death, was "particularly vulnerable" and "unaware of the events that occurred." Police discovered the boy in a Ventura home with stab wounds in the upper torso after Navarrete-Gonzalez called the authorities. Navarrete-Gonzalez originally pleaded not guilty but changed his plea to guilty on charges of kidnapping and assault on a child causing death. He also admitted to the enhancement of using a knife. Senior Deputy District Attorney Catherine Voelker said the life sentence means that Navarrete-Gonzalez will have no opportunities to leave prison. Navarrete-Gonzalez was also ordered to pay restitution fees, which cover funeral, counseling and other expenses for the victim's family. The fee total has not been determined. Guadalupe Rivera, mother of Jacob, made a tearful statement to the judge. Showing baby pictures of a smiling Jacob, Rivera said, "He was my life." She told the judge that a year before Jacob died, her brother tried to kill her. Rivera said giving birth to Jacob and having him in her life helped her heal. "Adrian knew what I went through, that my baby helped me," Rivera said. Rivera, who was standing several feet away from Navarrete-Gonzalez, spoke in Spanish through a court translator. "I don't know if Adrian did it on purpose to harm the baby," Rivera said. "I love my baby from the first day I was pregnant. I love him still and I will always love him." File photo SHARE By John Scheibe of the Ventura County Star A 24-year-old man killed after his skateboard collided with a vehicle in Ventura Thursday morning. "He struck the front portion of the vehicle and was run over," Ventura police Cmdr. Tom Higgins said. The collision was reported about 10:05 a.m. at the intersection of Sunridge Drive and Bristol Road. Deputy Medical Examiner Bryce Elder, of the Ventura County Coroner's Office, identified the man as George Perry, 24, of Ventura. Police had previously said the man was 25 years old. Higgins said Perry was riding his skateboard downhill on Sunridge Drive without a helmet and entered Bristol Road when he was hit by the vehicle. He was taken to the Ventura County Medical Center where he was pronounced dead, he said. The motorists remained on scene following the crash, Higgins said. Police closed Bristol Road between Peacock Avenue and Anthony Drive for hours as officers investigated the incident. No drugs or alcohol appear to be involved and the accident remained under investigation Thursday afternoon. STAR FILE PHOTO Michael Teasdale is one of four organizers of a new group called Ventura Stories. The group is hosting a workshop on economic justice Saturday. SHARE By Arlene Martinez They are the stories of those struggling to pay rent and find housing, of fighting to receive just treatment at work, of the inability to get their kids an early childhood education. At a workshop Saturday, Ventura County residents will share those experiences while advocates discuss public policies that could help ease such hardships. The event is being organized by Ventura Stories, a group recently formed by four individuals who found they shared a passion for the arts and a desire to make things better. Envisioned as the first of many upcoming events, the workshop is geared at bringing "greater awareness to policy and action that can help improve the quality of life in Ventura County," said organizer and co-founder Michael Teasdale. The hope, he said, is to attract people who are not usually involved in social justice issues. The activism will take the shape of forums and workshop as well as performances. It could be plays, readings or other forms of storytelling, Teasdale said. He and the other Ventura Stories founders, Doug Green, Pamela Lopez and Matthew Weisman, have backgrounds in the arts. Before Teasdale joined the corporate sector (he retired as a senior director for Baxter Bioscience operations group), he was a director. Green's an actor, Lopez has worked in television and Weisman is a writer, Teasdale said. In addition to drawing new people into activism, Teasdale said he hopes people get an understanding of the poverty and other problems taking place right in their backyard, and learn how to make a difference. Speakers on Saturday will include Jamshid Damooei, professor and chairman of the Department of Economics, Finance and Accounting at California Lutheran University, who will provide an overview of the challenges and disparities in the region. Also scheduled to speak are Maricela Morales, Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE) executive director; First 5 Executive Director Claudia Harrison; and attorney and affordable housing advocate Barbara Macri-Ortiz. Want to attend? Saturday's event is free but registration is required. It runs from 9 a.m. until 2:45 p.m. at the Ventura County Community Foundation Building, 4001 Mission Oaks Blvd., in Camarillo. It includes light breakfast and lunch. Register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ventura-stories-tickets-20771297510?aff=ebrowse SHARE The U.S. government and Apple have engaged in one of the most critical technology privacy issues of our time. The government has persuaded a U.S. magistrate to order Apple to create a unique software package that will allow investigators to break into the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists. Apple said no. It plans to appeal the order. This is not about whether Apple is siding with the terrorists. This is about the privacy that each of us believes we have with data on our smartphones and whether a company should be forced to create a tool to divulge that private data. Since 2014, Apple has installed default encryption on all its iPhones. The only way to access the information is through a passcode. If there are 10 consecutive incorrect attempts at a passcode, the data on the phone self-destructs. The government wants Apple to build software to bypass the self-destruct feature. U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym, in her order, said the software should have a "unique identifier" so it could not be used to unlock any other iPhones. Apple argues that once it builds such a "backdoor" to iPhone data, then it could be compelled to do it again and again. It also worries that once the basic code is created, it might then become available to hackers who could modify it to access iPhones across the globe, either stealing data or locking it down. We side with the court on the issue of access to the information. We do not see how or why any of us should expect a greater degree of privacy for information stored on our smartphone than we have for any other information in our possession. We certainly do not see that information being protected absolutely. Just as a search warrant can be issued to allow authorities to obtain information related to criminal activity or action in our homes, cars or possessions, we believe there should be a process to do the same for information on our smartphones. The more difficult issue is the creation of this backdoor process, often called a "God key," which carries the enormous risk of slipping into the hands of those who could apply it to all of our phones. Despite all precautions, we believe this is a valid concern and a risk that needs to be addressed before the setting of any precedent forcing Apple to create such code to bypass the security measure. The problem is not with the passcodes that most of us use. If that was the only barrier to access, law enforcement with approved legal access could execute programs to try every conceivable option until the correct code was found. The problem is the self-destruct feature. Even though that provides those who use it with absolute protection of their data, we think it tips the balance too far in the direction of absolute privacy that can be abused to harm individuals and society. It seems a solution might be for Apple to push out, on its next ubiquitous system upgrade, code that simply eliminates that provision. It added the security to the phones, it should be able to remove it. Pahrump invites locals and tourists to spice it up this March with the 4th Annual Silver State Chili Cook-Off featuring celebrity judges and more, as well as The Hubb Classic Car & Parts Swaps Meet and Pahrump Lecture Series. Stay up to date with everything happening in Pahrump by visiting, www.visitpahrump.com. The HUBB Classic Car & Parts Swap Meet: Located at the gates of Death Valley in Pahrump, Nevada, The HUBB is the perfect place to unwind after a long day of work or travel. Held every second Saturday of the month, the HUBB Classic Car & Parts Swap Meet is the premier monthly automotive swap meet in Pahrump Valley. Buy antique, vintage, classic and or high-end cars and parts at bargain prices. For more information visit www.thehubbnevada.com. Date : Every second Saturday of the Month, March 12 : Every second Saturday of the Month, March 12 Time : 8 a.m. : 8 a.m. Location: The HUBB; 3720 W. Bell Vista Ave, Pahrump, NV 89060 Pahrump Valley Museum Lecture Series: Calling all history buffs: the Pahrump Valley Museum is dedicated to inspiring curiosity and teaching the rich history and culture of Pahrump through its one-of-a-kind exhibits that include early farming and mining equipment, early relics from cowboys and pioneers, and Native American artifacts. In addition to the historic items on display, the Pahrump Valley Museum offers a monthly lecture series that covers a wide range of topics. Date : Second Saturday of the month; March 12 : Second Saturday of the month; March 12 Time : 1 p.m. : 1 p.m. Details : Marchs guest speaker features Mark Williams and Dr. Robert McCracken about the Nevada Ginning Company, the only cotton gin in Nevada. Under the Williams family, the Pahrump ranch had the largest cotton allotment in the state, growing up to 1,000 acres a year. Mark will be sharing his memories of when he was a child and growing up around the cotton gin and the ranch. : Marchs guest speaker features Mark Williams and Dr. Robert McCracken about the Nevada Ginning Company, the only cotton gin in Nevada. Under the Williams family, the Pahrump ranch had the largest cotton allotment in the state, growing up to 1,000 acres a year. Mark will be sharing his memories of when he was a child and growing up around the cotton gin and the ranch. Location: Pahrump Valley Museum; 401 E. Basin Ave, Pahrump, NV 89060 Silver State Chili Cook-off: The 4th Annual Silver State Chili Cook-Off will take place at Petrack Park on Saturday, March 19. Enjoy celebrity judges, live music, gun fighters, the Silver Tappers, raffles, a car show and more! For more information or to see how you can enter your chili into the competition, head over to visitpahrump.com/events. Date : Saturday, March 19, 2016 : Saturday, March 19, 2016 Time : 9 a.m. 4 p.m. : 9 a.m. 4 p.m. Details : Admission to the cook-off is free. : Admission to the cook-off is free. Location: Petrack Park; 150 NV-160, Pahrump, NV 89060 Live from Sydney, Australia, Cabo Wabo Cantina will host the UFC 127 viewing party on Sunday, February 27. The highly anticipated Welterweight bout features American fighters Jon Fitch and BJ Penn, former Lightweight Champion. Admission is $20 and includes access inside Cabo Wabos viewing party where UFC enthusiasts can catch the Welterweight bout, as well as the Middleweight bout between Bisping and Rivera and all other main card fights. Shown on multiple high-definition television screens throughout the restaurant and bar, guests can watch the fights from the best seats on the Strip while enjoying killer margaritas and tasty Mexican fare. Doors open at 6 p.m. and include the showing of all matches leading up to the main event. For more information or to reserve your seat, contact Cabo Wabo Cantina at 702.385.2226 or visit www.cabowabocantina.com. [az_easel item=B002U6CJQA] A group of Las Vegas students will chat with NASAs Expedition 17 astronauts aboard the International Space Station on Sept. 17 from 11:15 a.m. to 11:35 a.m. PDT at the Jim Bridger Middle School. The school is located at 2505 North Bruce Street in Las Vegas. A live educational downlink will connect an auditorium filled with hundreds of middle school students and teachers with space station crewmembers. The goal is to learn more about what life is like in space and how gravity affects people on Earth. Jim Bridger Middle School is a participant in the NASA Explorer Schools Program. The program offers a three-year partnership between NASA and school teams, which consist of teachers and education administrators from diverse communities across the country. Focusing on underserved populations, the program is designed for education communities at the grade 4-9 levels to help middle schools improve teaching and learning in science, technology, engineering and math. The downlink event is one in a series with educational organizations in the U.S. and abroad. It is an integral component of NASAs Teaching from Space Program. The program promotes learning opportunities and builds partnerships with the education community using the unique environment of human space flight. The downlink will air live on NASA Television and be streamed on the NASA Web site at: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv For information about NASAs education programs on the Web, visit: www.nasa.gov/education For more information about Jim Bridger Middle School, visit: http://ccsd.net/schools/bridger Comme Ca, the new modern French brasserie by acclaimed chef David Myers at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, will commemorate Frances independence with a special prix fixe menu for Bastille Day on Thursday, July 14. The extravagant menu, which has been coined The Feast, will be offered for both lunch and dinner from 2 p.m. until 8 p.m. Patrons can indulge in a festive meal created by Chef David Myers and Executive Chef, Brian Howard, priced at $65 per person. The Feast will showcase French classics with a modern Myers twist. Selections include artisan cheeses, charcuterie, decadent fruit and country salads, assorted potted rillettes and tartares, cumin kissed carrots, grilled leg of lamb, grilled Provencal sausage, Trout Amandine, Steak au Poivre, Pommes Lyonaisse, Earl Grey Madeleines with honey and lavender, and an assortment of crepes. The affair will be sponsored by Grey Goose and feature a portable bar on the patio that will be serving an assortment of specialty cocktails created for the event including the new Summer Tea, which is a smooth mix of Grey Goose LOrange, iced tea, simple syrup and mint leaves. Ukraine, Lithuania and Sweden have agreed to exchange experience in the defense sector, Ukrainian Defense Minister of Ukraine Stepan Poltorak has said. "This experience exchange is very important and interesting for us, especially experience of Sweden which is not a member of the Alliance, but the armed forces of the country have been brought in line with NATO standards," Poltorak said after a meeting with Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist and Lithuanian Minister of National Defense Juozas Olekaz in Kyiv on Thursday. The minister said that among top priorities for the near term is joining NATO. The country is actively conducting the defense sector reform to bring the armed forces in line with NATO standards. The Swedish minister said that his country helps Ukraine in reforms. "Today the world's eyes are turning to the crisis in Syria and other parts of the world. But no matter how grave other crises are, they must not serve as an excuse for forgetting about the situation in Ukraine," he said. The Lithuanian minister said that his country is ready to continue helping Ukraine. "Regular Russian troops are present in Ukraine. This seriously complicates the situation. We will continue helping to reform the Armed Forces of Ukraine," he said. By: Dezan Shira & Associates Editor: Anais Robin With social insurance related debts reaching a high of US$ 414 million in 2015, Vietnamese Authorities have initiated reforms intent on bringing outstanding obligations under 223 million by the end of the year. Rather than solely cutting social insurance programs, however, the increasing burdens of social insurance are in some instances being shifted to the private sector. While the resulting costs are unlikely to have a significant impact on competitiveness, vis-a-vis regional competitors, current and prospective investors should be cognizant of updates from a budgeting and compliance standpoint. Passed December 29th and to be rolled out from January 1st, Circular 59/2015/ TT-BLDTBXH is the most important revision to existing guidance outlined Decree 115/2015/ND-CP on the implementation of Vietnams Social Insurance (SI) Law. As part of, and in addition to, measures aimed at reducing the governments outstanding fiscal obligations, these updates cover applicable salaries, covered employees, benefits, as well as the specific obligations of employers with regard to their employees. As these updates are likely to impact a variety of business lines within Vietnam, careful review of this update is of critical importance. Although the following article provides an overview of relevant changes, relevant parties should contact relevant government agencies in this case Vietnams Social Insurance Agency or professional services with any questions or concerns. Increased Coverage Under Circular 59 A key feature of Circular 59s guidance is its inclusion of new types of employees within the social insurance scheme. Those currently employing or considering hiring the following types of employees should note their inclusion within the social insurance from 1 January 2018: Employees working under labour contracts with a term of between 1 and 3 months Expatriates working in Vietnam under a work permit, practicing licence, or practicing certificate issued by a competent body of Vietnam Changing Salary Definitions While Circular 59 largely upholds the current definition of salary which is defined as an employees nominal wage plus allowances stated in their labor contract the scope of the term allowances has seen critical reinterpretation under new guidance. For companies paying into SI on behalf of their employees, even slight adjustments in the calculation of employees salaries have the potential to significant alter the tax burden of the given firm. The following allowances should be noted for their inclusion or exclusions from employees calculable salaries: Paternity protection Despite a long maternity leave period, Viet Nam was left behind in paternity protection. Indeed, men in Viet Nam were not entitled to any paternity leave as of 2015. Thanks to Decree 115/2015/ND-CP, paternity leave was developed. Circular 59/2015/ TT-BLDTBXH details the concept. Male employees contributing to the SI fund are entitled to paternity leave from 5 to 14 working days within the first 30 days from the birth. Note: If only the father contributes to the SI fund, he will be entitled to a lump-sum allowance tantamount of two months basic salary during the month of childbirth. Evolution of Illness Benefits Of great importance for employers, leave compensation has been increased under Circular 59. The specifics of these increases, which are outlined below, cover costs pertaining to general sick leave, rehabilitation following an illness or injury, and long term disability. The adjustment of these figures will disproportionally impact investors with operations involving substantial amounts of labor. Good to know: The maximum period during which the employees are entitled to sickness benefit after 180 days equals the period during which the employees have made SI contributions. Pension benefits reduced Ms. Tran Thi Thuy Nga, head of the Social Insurance Department, has indicated that the number of social insurance participants is only 20 percent of now, meaning the remaining 80 percent will not have pension after retirement. Despite share of the Vietnamese population receiving pensions being low, benefits have been reduced under the Circular 59. In particular, the requisite annual contributions have been increased in a manner that may postpone retirement. Vietnam: Social Insurance & Compliance The Vietnam Social Insurance Agency: responsible for implementing the governments policies and managing the Social Insurance Fund. The new regulations attribute it inspection roles for social insurance, health insurance and unemployment insurance in order to avoid the evasion of social insurance contributions and the mounting social insurance debts of businesses. Employers: have specific obligations with regard to their employees. They have to inform employees about social insurance contributions every 6 months and they also have to provide these information upon the trade unions or employees request. Vietnam is becoming increasingly aware of the fact that there is a real need to increase contributions to the countrys pension fund and it has received a large number of complaints from both businesses and workers. Indeed, for a company, higher payment into social insurance means less money to spend for daily expenses. Moreover, this new policy comes on the heels of a 12.4 percent minimum wage increase. Together these policies will likely create short term adjustment and compliance costs for firms as they reorient their operations to accommodate these new policies. Further Support from Dezan Shira & Associates With over 23 years of experience helping foreign businesses succeed across Asia, the experts at Dezan Shira & Associates are well placed to advise on aspects related to staffing in Vietnam and across Southeast Asia. For further information please contact Vietnam@dezshira.com. About Us Asia Briefing Ltd. is a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. Dezan Shira is a specialist foreign direct investment practice, providing corporate establishment, business advisory, tax advisory and compliance, accounting, payroll, due diligence and financial review services to multinationals investing in China, Hong Kong, India, Vietnam, Singapore and the rest of ASEAN. For further information, please email Vietnam@dezshira.com or visit www.dezshira.com. Stay up to date with the latest business and investment trends in Asia by subscribing to our complimentary update service featuring news, commentary and regulatory insight. The 2015 Asia Tax Comparator In this issue, we compare and contrast the most relevant tax laws applicable for businesses with a presence in Asia. We analyze the different tax rates of 13 jurisdictions in the region, including India, China, Hong Kong, and the 10 member states of ASEAN. We also take a look at some of the most important compliance issues that businesses should be aware of, and conclude by discussing some of the most important tax and finance concerns companies will face when entering Asia. Manufacturing Hubs Across Emerging Asia In this issue of Asia Briefing Magazine, we explore several of the regions most competitive and promising manufacturing locales including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Exploring a wide variety of factors such as key industries, investment regulations, and labor, shipping, and operational costs, we delineate the cost competitiveness and ease of investment in each while highlighting Indonesia, Vietnam and Indias exceptional potential as the manufacturing leaders of the future. An Introduction to Tax Treaties Throughout Asia In this issue of Asia Briefing Magazine, we take a look at the various types of trade and tax treaties that exist between Asian nations. These include bilateral investment treaties, double tax treaties and free trade agreements all of which directly affect businesses operating in Asia. On February 15 most companies resumed normal operation but many workers remained on holiday. Some workers, after receiving their salaries and lunar New Year bonuses, decided to quit, putting companies in a tough spot. At Tan Thuan Export Processing Zone in District 7 of Ho Chi Minh City, nine out of the 10 factories visited by the author of this article were going through a severe labour shortage. Garment producer ICM Ltd is looking for 100 workers, while jewellery producer INAHVINA and Dai Dong Ceramic Ltd. are looking for 50 and 200 workers, respectively. At Tan Binh Industrial Park, also located in Ho Chi Minh City, companies are looking for thousands of workers. Garment and electronics companies are in the direst need. In order to make sure that the workers leaving for their hometowns for the Tet holiday are going to come back, the company arranged buses to take them home, and we keep a part of their Tet bonuses for after they arrive back to work. However, as of now, only 70 per cent of the workers have returned, said Nguyen Thanh Hung, general director of Tien Loi Garment Co. Tien Loi has a large contract that needs to be delivered before April 30, so it resumed operation on Saturday February 13. In order to ensure the progress, we posted advertisements to recruit 50 sewing workers but there is yet to be a single applicant, Hung said. Tran Van Thuong, general director of a company that produces machinery parts, reported waves of quitting after the distribution of Tet bonuses. We do not know where to find workers to replace them, he said. Thuong went on to say that the company was forced to increase shifts to keep its scheduled progress. Returning workers now receive higher shift bonuses and the labour union was requested to contact each missing worker to encourage their return. The Ho Chi Minh City Centre of Forecasting Manpower Needs and Labour Market estimated that companies need to fill 19,000 positions after the New Year holiday. Tran Anh Tuan, deputy director of the centre, said that these postings are mostly for basic labourers and primarily include shipping, security, construction, seafood processing, food processing, and garment-shoe production. The Dong Nai Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, noted that the demand for workers at companies in the province rose 30 per cent more than after last years Tet. As of now, 500 companies in Dong Nai have registered to recruit 31,000 workers. Tran Thi Huong, president of the labour union of a company located in Amata Industrial Park in Dong Nai, said, Tet bonus, paying for the transportation to and from workers hometowns and New Year lucky money are good ways to bring workers back after Tet. When we resumed operation on February 15, 90 per cent of workers were back. Its a huge success. Antonio Perez Jo Anne Willis, Manager of the Austin branch of the Chicago Public Library, poses for a portrait at the Austin library on Feb. 1, 2016 in Chicago. She says there is a waiting list to check out books on racial discrimination at her branch. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/TNS) Five years after U.S. President Barack Obama committed to a strategic rebalance to Asia, shifting diplomatic and military resources to the globes economic engine, critics say the move was oversold and, so far, it has under delivered. At a time when Beijings assertive moves to claim territory in the South China Sea draw headlines and worried responses from regional countries, some say China appears to be outmaneuvering its rivals in the race to assert claims over the vast strategic sea. As somebody sitting in the Asia Pacific region and observing the U.S. presence in the Asia Pacific, weve only seen glimmers of the rebalance, said William Choong, a Shangri-La Dialogue senior fellow for Asia-Pacific Security in Singapore. For decades, the U.S. Navy has protected key shipping routes in the Pacific. The U.S. Navy is still the supreme ocean power, but China has moved to enforce its claims and expand its presence in the South China Sea without putting its official military forces in the foreground. Chinas cutting edge has been through a gray area of Coast Guard, paramilitary forces, and even the construction on the artificial islands is being masked as serving the public good, search and rescue, scientific activities, oil exploration, fishing, said Southeast Asia security analyst Carlyle Thayer with Australia's Defense Force Academy in Canberra. Reclaims land In the last two years China has reclaimed at least 1,170 hectares of land in the South China Sea, building upon small reefs, shoals and islets. This week came another reminder of their efforts to fortify their existing outposts: the U.S. said China appeared to have deployed HQ-9 surface-to-air missile batteries on Woody Island in the Paracel chain. Thayer said China already has more coast guard ships than all the other nine ASEAN nations combined. With the weapons and military infrastructure Beijing is stationing on the man-made islands being built in disputed waters, some more than 800 kilometers from the mainland, China is gaining both a quick strike capability and naval superiority over other countries in the region. ASEANS muddled response The U.S. military has built closer ties with ASEAN nations, in particular Vietnam and the Philippines, which have contested Chinas territorial claims. That has not meant, however, that ASEAN has banded together to address the South China Sea issue. ASEAN, with its emphasis on consensus building and non-interference, has been reluctant to publicly stand with the U.S. to support any meaningful action against China. "ASEAN countries havent really asked of Uncle Sam what they want Uncle Sam to do," Choong said. Still, American influence in the region has increased as a result of Obamas commitment to more fully engage with Southeast Asia and to personally participate in annual forums like the East Asia Security summit, Southeast Asia security analyst Thayer said. Obama is leaving a legacy that a new American president would ignore at their peril, he said. US buildup In recent years, Washington has been moving more troops and military assets into the region and strengthening security alliances with a number of ASEAN members. Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, said the Navy has already brought its newest and most capable military equipment to the area, like the P-8 surveillance airplane, the Littoral Combat Ship, the Virginia-class submarine, and new amphibious ships such as the USS America. In Australia last year, over 1,000 U.S. Marines were deployed to the city of Darwin to join in exercises with Australian Defense Forces. By 2017, the number of rotational deployments will increase to 2,500. The Philippines Supreme Court recently endorsed a bilateral security cooperation agreement that will station U.S. troops and weapons on a rotational basis at five Philippine military airfields and two naval bases. The return of the U.S. military to the Philippines is seen by supporters as a significant deterrent to China and comes 25 years after Manila voted to close U.S. military bases in the country at the end of the Cold War. Washington is also providing maritime assistance to other ASEAN nations, including Vietnam, which is receiving several refurbished U.S. Coast Guard patrol ships. These increased capabilities in Southeast Asia are complemented by extensive U.S. military bases and deployments in Guam, Japan and South Korea. WATCH: President Obama Seeks to Solidify U.S. as Leader in Southeast Asia Roman Bezsmertny, Ukraine's representative to the political subgroup of the Trilateral Contact Group for the settlement of the Donbas crisis, has announced a Contact Group meeting will take place on February 23-24. "The next meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group is scheduled for February 23-24. The subgroups will hold their meetings on those days too. They will continue to discuss modalities of possible elections on the occupied Donbas territories. The amnesty issue will be discussed at the political subgroup's meeting. The security subgroup's meeting will analyze the current situation, the demining procedure, and matters related to fragrant violations of the arms withdrawal protocol. The humanitarian subgroup will confer on the subject of the prisoner swap. The economic [subgroup will address] restoration of power and water supply, water filtering, rail and motor traffic, and the opening of new checkpoints for trucks, cars and pedestrians," Bezsmertny said in an interview published by the newspaper Segodnya, on Friday. He said he hoped that those meetings would have an effect on the 'Normandy Four' dialogue at the level of ministers or chiefs of state. A source in the group organizing the negotiations, said, on February 17, that the Contact Group for Ukraine would rendezvous in Minsk, on February 24. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said, on February 18, that the 'Normandy Four' foreign ministers (Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia) might meet on March 3. The UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal on Friday wrapped up three days of appeals hearings for former regime leaders Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, who were found guilty of atrocity crimes in the initial of their two-phase trial. Prosecutors said Friday they are confident the Supreme Court Chamber will uphold the guilty verdict of the lower chamber, delivering life sentences to both men, despite arguments by the defense that the trial has been conducted unfairly and only with the aim of a guilty verdict, not justice. Nuon Chea, the regimes chief ideologue, and Khieu Samphan, its nominal head of state, are still undergoing the second stage of their trial, a broader set of crimes, including genocide. Cambodian prosecutor Chea Leang said Friday she still backed the prosecutions call for life sentences for the two men. International prosecutor Nicholas Koumijan said the arguments and evidence presented during the first phase of the trial would lead the Supreme Court to uphold the decision of the lower chamber. However, Khieu Samphans lawyer, Kong Som Onn, said that the decision of the preliminary court did not provide justice for his client, because Khieu Samphan did not have any power in decision-making under the Khmer Rouge and served as head of state in name only. Prosecutors, as well as preliminary court, did not show anything else besides suspicion over Khieu Samphans activities in relation with the crimes, he said. The appeals hearing took place without Nuon Chea, who has declined to participate, following the courts refusal to call the current president of the Senate, Heng Samrin. Koumijian said Nuon Cheas failure to take part in hearings meant he gave up a chance to seek justice. The three-day hearing instead focused on Khieu Samphan, examining charges related to the evacuation of Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge when it won power in 1975 and the subsequent killings of soldiers from the previous regime of Lon Nol. Khieu Samphan has said he had no knowledge what was happening and had no real power inside the regime. More than 1,300 people came to watch the three days of hearings, according to tribunal counts, among them civil party complainants, students and relatives of victims. In the audience was Yan Navi, from Tbaung Kmum province, who told VOA Khmer she had lost relatives to the regime, including an uncle, brothers and sisters. Another woman said she lost many relatives, as well. My brother, uncle and father were killed without reason, she said. I am not satisfied. I want all the masterminds to be convicted. A military offensive against Islamic State in the Achin district of Afghanistan's Nangarhar province continued Friday for a fourth day, clearing areas once under IS control. One man pointed to a nearby school. IS used to plan its evil activities there and then carry them out," he said. Now, government forces have retaken the building. "They fled from here, an Afghan soldier said of IS militants, and left behind everything." Government forces say dozens of IS fighters have been killed over the last few days, and many more have been wounded. Even so, people nearby fear for their safety and are demanding that the government protect areas after clearing them of militants. "Now we want them to create [checkpoints], resident Mohammad Ali said of the government, so that people could come back to their homes and children [could] go to school." Afghan security forces say they will not stop their operations in the area until the IS group is eliminated. China on Friday accused the U.S. of militarizing the South China Sea, just days after it was revealed Beijing had deployed surface-to-air missiles on an island in the hotly disputed area. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters that patrols by U.S. military aircraft and Navy vessels, along with joint exercises involving regional partners were the true reason why concerns were growing over peace and stability. The above actions have escalated tensions in the South China Sea, and that's the real militarization of the South China Sea, Hong said. U.S. and Taiwanese officials this week confirmed commercial satellite images showing the missiles placed on Woody Island in the disputed Paracel chain. China has not denied the appearance of the missiles, but says it is entitled to defend its territory and points to the construction of lighthouses, weather stations and other infrastructure undertaken to provide more public goods and services to the international community. The deployment follows China's building of new islands by piling sand atop reefs and then adding airstrips and military installations. The buildup is seen as part of Beijing's efforts to claim virtually the entire disputed sea and its resources. Interest in stability The Philippines, which claims waters and features east of Woody island, on Friday said it was gravely concerned by reports of the missile deployments. Such actions negate China's earlier commitment not to militarize the South China Sea, the Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. Although not one of the six governments with claims in the South China Sea, the U.S. says it has a national interest in the region's stability and freedom of navigation and overflight in and above what are some of the world's busiest sea lanes. Secretary of State John Kerry has suggested that the positioning of missiles and other signs of increasing militarization contradicted a public assurance from Chinese President Xi Jinping when he visited the White House last September. Hong's comments represent China's attempt to turn that accusation back on Washington, a cause to which it has rallied its entirely state-controlled media outlets. China's defensive deployment on Yongxing targets external military threats, the Communist Party newspaper Global Times said in an editorial, using China's name for Woody Island. The U.S. is bold about imposing pressure on China, and China must make an appropriate response. Apple Pay, the mobile payment system of Apple Inc., has entered the market in China, its first foray in Asia. Apple will participate in the Chinese market in collaboration with UnionPay, a credit and debit card transaction service backed by 19 local banks. The deal is unique because it will enable Apple to become a major player in Chinas massive mobile payment market and challenge two major local brands, Alipay of Alibaba and WeChat Wallet, a social media platform owned by Tencent. Even more than Apple, Chinas state-owned banks stand to gain the most out of the new deal. Payment systems The countrys national banks, including Industrial Bank of China and Bank of China, were bearing the brunt of the fast expanding payment systems Alipay and WeChat, as millions of Chinese preferred to use these platforms instead of using bank cards. This is a good way for the government to save the national banks, said Chen Lin, assistant professor of marketing at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai. The national banks are worried because Alibaba and WeChat were ambitiously entering the financial market. They are now fighting back with Apple Pay. Collaborating with Apple Pay will also help Chinese banks expand their footprint in the global market, Chen pointed out. The governments decision to open the doors for Apple Pay has also caused some surprise because, according to state media reports last year, the Communist Party asked government officials not to use iPhones. The latest iPhone 6 and more advanced models are required to access Apple Pay. Encryption concerns Apple Pays entry into the Chinese market also comes at a time when the company is resisting efforts by U.S. government investigators, who are seeking the global tech giants help in breaking its iPhone encryption in the investigation into a terror attack in December in San Bernardino, California. Chinese authorities are said to be watching how Apple fares in its fight against the U.S. government. Last year, state media in China reported that tech giant Apple had become the first foreign company to agree to Internet security checks. If Apple releases information to the U.S. government, the Chinese government is going to be very worried, and this might affect Apples long-term prospects in China, Chen said. But, she added, the real question is how Apple would respond if the Chinese government asks for similar information? Some analysts said Apple may have been thinking about upsetting China when it objected to efforts by the U.S. government to look into its software. Before the deal, China must have sought assurances that Apples software is secure, strong enough to protect information about local transactions, Ernie Diaz, consultant with China Digital Review said. This could be part of the reason why Apple is opposing the U.S. governments attempts to access its software." U.S. President Barack Obama has started the process to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the White House said Thursday. Spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama is talking to senior members of his team and intends to nominate someone quickly. "In recent history, we have not had a Supreme Court vacancy that has spanned two Supreme Court terms," Earnest said. "So the president certainly wants to move promptly so that the United States Senate can do the same in giving his nominee a fair hearing and a timely yes or no vote." Some Senate Republicans, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, say the next president who takes office in January 2017 should name someone to fill Scalia's seat, not Obama. McConnell is responsible for scheduling the Senate's business and has already said there will be no confirmation hearings for an Obama nominee. Earnest, repeating the words of the president, said the Senate is obligated to consider a new justice. "The real question that the American people have ... is whether or not the United States Senate is going to fulfill their basic constitutional responsibility. And I think the American people, including those who are going to cast a vote in 2016, will be watching," he said. The president and first lady Michelle Obama will be among the thousands of mourners who will pay their respects to Scalia when his body lies in repose Friday inside the Supreme Court. The public will be allowed to pass by the casket after Friday's private ceremony. Vice President Joe Biden will represent the White House at Saturday's funeral. Scalia died in his sleep Feb. 13. He was 79 years old and the longest-serving justice on the high court. Bombings in Turkey this week are escalating the conflict between Ankara and Kurdish separatists, as well as raising new questions of whom the United States is supporting in the Syrian conflict and the scope of U.S. objectives. Analysts warn the attacks could also lead to a wider involvement by Turkish forces in Syria and further strain its relations with the U.S. The larger attack, a suicide car bomb in the heart of Turkeys capital, Ankara, that killed 28 people Wednesday, drew a quick and angry promise of retaliation from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who blamed Kurdish separatists and their outside supporters a reference to Syria. Even though those who head the PYD and PKK say this has no connection with them, based on the information obtained by our interior minister and our intelligence agencies, it is identified that this is done by them, Erdogan said in a televised speech. Turkish forces have been at war with the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers Party, for decades. Crackdown on PKK Since last year, southeastern Turkey has become a battleground as Erdogan stepped up a crackdown on Kurdish separatists following the collapse of a fragile cease-fire. Erdogan has also expanded the fight into Syria, with Turkish tanks at the border firing into Syrian territory where Kurdish forces operate. Analysts said the latest bomb attacks give the Turkish leader a reason to escalate his offensive. It strikes me that Mr. Erdogan is not somebody who needs an excuse to pursue these kinds of policies, but I would expect that he will certainly use it to his advantage, said Davis Lewin, head of policy at the Henry Jackson Society, a research organization in London. He will readily use this and any other political event that he can to harness what his own strategic needs are and do that, Lewin told VOA. Erdogans response threatens to further damage the already troubled relationship between Turkey and the U.S. "A Turkish military intervention would increase the tensions more. I do not think Turkey would dare an armed intervention," Gonul Tol, an analyst at the Middle East Institute in Washington, told VOA. The two NATO allies both want to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and destroy the Islamic State militant group; but their interests are opposed when it comes to the Kurds. Kurdish fighters While Turkey is targeting Kurdish fighters in Syria, the U.S. has armed them and continues to support them. The main U.S. objective in the Syrian conflict is to degrade and ultimately destroy the Islamic State group, and to that end, the U.S. has relied on Kurdish fighters to repel Assads offensive in northern Syria. Turkeys goal is to stop Kurdish fighters on both sides of its border with Syria. The Kurds growing influence in the conflict is deeply troubling to Erdogan, who fears their access to weapons and military training could strengthen their push for an independent state, largely on what is now Turkish territory. The first opponent for Ankara in Syria is the Assad regime and the second opponent is the PYD, the de facto Kurdish political entity right now running northern Syria," Metin Gurcan, an independent security analyst in Istanbul and a former major in the Turkish militarys special forces, told VOA. "So Turkey and the United States, both of these actors, they have different political end stakes in Syria, Gurcan added. Erdogan has made known his frustration with the United States. Washington chastised In a fiery speech on February 10, the Turkish leader chastised Washington for supporting Kurdish rebels, who he said had turned the region into a sea of blood. I call on America, how many times have I explained this to you? Are you on our side or the side of the terrorist PYD and PKK organization? Erdogan asked. The speech came a day after his government summoned the U.S. ambassador in Ankara. Turkey wants the United States to stop supporting Kurdish rebels in Syria, and much of its anger recently has been over Washingtons refusal to designate the PYD as a terrorist group. On Friday, Erdogan expressed concern that the Obama administration has still not done this and suggested the U.S. is making a mistake that could have wide-reaching consequences. Months ago in my meeting with him (President Barack Obama), I told him the U.S. was supplying weapons. Three plane loads arrived, half of them ended up in the hands of Daesh, and half of them in the hands of the PYD, Erdogan said. Daesh is an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. U.S. officials are focusing on the positive elements of a relationship they consider extremely valuable. 'Understand the concerns' We understand the concerns that Turkey has long expressed about some of these groups, some of these Kurdish groups. And were going to continue to have that discussion with them, because we appreciate their contributions, State Department spokesman John Kirby said recently when a reporter asked about Turkeys complaints. We also appreciate that they have these concerns, and were going to continue to work our way through that, Kirby said. After the deadly bombing in Ankara that targeted military personnel, Washington quickly offered condolences to the Turkish government and the State Department reiterated the steadfast commitment of the U.S. to its partnership with Turkey in the shared fight against terrorism. Tensions between Washington and Erdogan are deepening at a crucial time in the Syrian conflict, as Syrian forces keep up their assault of the key city of Aleppo. Wednesdays attack in Ankara was, for Turkeys leader, reaffirmation that the Kurdish threat outweighs any other interest for now. British Prime Minister David Cameron is appealing to fellow European Union leaders for a "live and let live" relationship that he says will keep Britain in the EU. Cameron and the 27 other EU leaders are holding a two-day summit in Brussels focused on Europe's refugee crisis and talks to keep Britain from leaving the bloc. "The question of Britain's place in Europe has been allowed to fester too long, and it is time to deal with it," Cameron said Thursday. "If we can reach agreement here that is strong enough to persuade the British people to support the UK's membership of the EU, then we have an opportunity to settle this issue for a generation." Cameron's "live and let live" creed would give Britain and other members the flexibility to govern at home in such a way that their interests as part of the EU would still be protected. The prime minister is looking for what he says is a "credible" deal that can withstand a possible referendum later this year. Many British politicians, especially the Conservatives, want to pull Britain out of the EU, mainly for economic reasons, but also because of immigration and EU laws they say trump British law. While no EU leader wants to see Britain drop out of the bloc, some say they are expecting tough negotiations on Cameron's key demands, including welfare restrictions to curb immigration and Britain's exclusion from having to work toward a closer union with its European partners. Irish Prime Minister Edna Kenny expressed sympathy for her British colleague Thursday, saying Cameron has "half his Cabinet against him" and "half his party against him" and needs a deal he can sell to the British people. Lithuania's President Dalia Grybauskaite predicted the summit would end on a positive note, saying "everybody will have his own drama, and then we will agree." Suicide bombers have killed at least 19 people and injured 50 others in an attack in Cameroon's Far North Region. Military authorities said two men walked into a market in the town of Meme on Friday and blew themselves up. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but it was characteristic of the Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram. Attacks blamed on the group have killed more than 1,000 people in northern Cameroon since 2013. Cameroon participates in a regional force set up to fight Boko Haram. Earlier this week, Cameroon said its soldiers liberated the northeastern Nigerian town of Goshi from Boko Haram and killed more than 160 militant fighters. According to the United Nations and Amnesty International, Boko Haram's six-year insurgency has killed over 20,000 people, and displaced 2.5 million people. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has suspended visits to Colombia by the negotiators of the Marxist rebel group FARC. Colombian leaders and the rebel negotiators have been working on a peace deal in talks in Cuba. Santos initiated the suspension after the negotiators Ivan Marquez, Jesus Santrich and Joaquin Gomez participated in a public event in Colombia with armed guerrillas standing close by, despite restrictions on such activities. 'No politics with arms' Humberto de la Calle, chief government negotiator, said in a statement "For the government, a fundamental rule of this agreement is that there will be no politics with arms... This is an unacceptable violation." De la Calle said the government has asked the International Red Cross to facilitate the return of the rebel leaders to Cuba "as soon as possible." Colombia and FARC have announced their intention to file a peace agreement by March 23. The leftist FARC rebels have been fighting a guerrilla war to topple Colombian governments since 1964, killing more than 220,000. They have used drug trafficking and kidnappings for ransom to fund their war. Colombia's rebel movement has been weakened in recent years, and right-wing paramilitary forces formed to counter leftist fighters have been disbanded. The Bogota government estimated FARC had about 16,000 fighters in 2001. But analysts say that number may have dropped to as low as 7,000 in recent years, largely because of desertions. The year was 1960, and the world seemed to be on fire: The Cold War was raging, and coups, conflicts and revolutions were taking place across the globe. That October, during the final weeks of his U.S. presidential campaign, then-Senator John F. Kennedy proposed dispatching a volunteer army of youths to non-industrial nations to help foster development and boost cultural understanding. Ten months later, the first Peace Corps volunteers headed for Africa, and since then, more than 210,000 have served in 139 countries. I think that they did more good for America than all the bombs we dropped around the world, said Sami Jamil Jadallah, founder and executive director of the Washington, DC-based New Arab Foundation. Today, similar conflicts are playing out across the Arab world, and religious extremists, aided by social media, are manipulating and mobilizing vulnerable youth from across the globe. Most of the fighters flocking to Syria and Iraq, whether from Chechnya or North Africa or Saudi Arabia, are youth who are politically marginalized, jobless, living in poverty with little self-worth and little hope for the future, he said. The solution? An Arab Peace Corps that would recruit volunteers from across the Arab World Muslims, Christians, North Africas indigenous Amazighs, Kurds and others youth with college degrees in education, health care, engineering and agriculture, and send them to communities in the region most in need of their skills. Jadallah would also send volunteers to at-risk communities in Europe and North America to serve as role models and mentors for troubled youth who are easy prey to terror recruiters. During two years of service, volunteers would receive room and board and a small stipend. After completing their term, they would be given partial and/or full scholarships to graduate school. Its an idea a long time coming, said Saudi Arabian socio-political commentator Tariq Al-Maeena. The Arab street that today loiters about aimlessly feeling powerless and detached will probably adopt the idea of a peace corps very willingly. They would want to be part of a productive rather than destructive endeavor. Maeena thinks the plan is very feasible. How Arab governments would respond to the concept is tied to their own agendas," he said. "There are many differences between Arab countries today, as witnessed by the wars currently being stoked." But he also believes Arab government especially those in the oil-rich Gulf Cooperation Council would be well-served by funding the program, which, in the end, could function as a salvation for Arab pride. Challenges ahead Yossef Ben-Meir, a former associate Peace Corps director, is today president of the High Atlas Foundation, a nonprofit working to develop rural communities in Morocco. He outlines some of the challenges that Jadallah might encounter along the way. Within Arab nations, there is regionalism, Ben-Meir said. There are ethnicities, different languages, and there isnt always a sense of unity. Assimilation or integration can present challenges. Gender could also be an issue, he said. There may be more flexibility among women, say, in the U.S., to go off and travel and be a part of another community," he said. "But in some traditional environments or social settings, that opportunity for women to do that may be limited. But, he added, none of these obstacles is insurmountable, and they could ultimately benefit everyone. When we bring volunteers from within one ethnic background within a country to serve another, thats an incredible opportunity, he said. And encouraging women to volunteer would break down barriers that may need to be broken. Ben-Meir says volunteerism is beginning to take hold in the Middle East, and he has first-hand evidence that it pays off not just in terms of building communities, but in giving marginalized youth a sense of purpose. Right now, I have partnerships with four universities in Morocco. At University Hassan II Casablanca, for example, theres no movement of radicalism there. You dont find unrest there because students are engaged, he said. Jadallah is currently working to seek funding for the project. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been wasted on war, he said, adding that with any luck, governments and private donors will be just as willing to help fund peace. The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) is evaluating the degree of influence from representatives of the Russian Federation, on the events that took place in the Maidan two years ago, head of the PGO's specialized investigations department Serhiy Horbatiuk has said. "We are saying that there was certain influence by Russian representatives on the administration of Ukraine and the law enforcement agencies. There were visits by officials from the Federal Security Service, and the Russian presidential administration, there were meetings on the issue of the events in the Maidan, and we are investigating the consequences of this influence," Horbatiuk told a briefing on Thursday. According to his information, Russia then provided to the administration of Ukraine reinforced munitions, which did not pass tests in Ukraine, free of charge as humanitarian assistance. Ukraine only paid the customs duties, which were paid for from the budget of the Interior Ministry. "These were also actions taken by Russia, which tried to help the law enforcement agencies in their tough actions on the protesters," Horbatiuk said. He said the investigators do not have any information on the presence of Russian snipers in Kyiv. "The last visit [by a group from Russia] was at 19:00 local time on February 20, [2014]... They were accommodated at the SBU base, and on February 21, a Ukrainian special services official saw in a FSB official's room a coffer, which he believes could have contained sniper weapons. However, the sniper weapons and the coffer were not identified, and there is no information that it could have been carried on that plane. And, that took place after February 20 [the date of the Maidan shooting]," a Prosecutor General's Office official said. Horbatiuk said that Russian officials would be suspected of having committed a crime if it is determined that some of their actions, or advice, led to serious consequences. The international aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said at least 18 people were killed in armed conflict at a U.N. Protection of Civilians site this week, including two South Sudanese staff members attacked in their own homes. The report regarding the site in Malakal increases the previously reported death toll of seven, which was reported Thursday. MSF said the two staff members killed were workers at one of its hospitals inside the compound. MSF spokesman Marcus Bachmann reported that medical teams worked through the night to treat some 73 people wounded in the attack, the majority of whom had gunshot wounds. More injured people were arriving at the hospital Friday. The conflict took place between youth from two different ethnic communities - Dinka and Shilluk. U.N. Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) spokesperson Ariane Quentire said fighting erupted Wednesday night, with the young people using machetes, guns and other weapons against each other. The attack forced some 600 people to gather inside the hospital for shelter. Reconciliation and healing In a statement Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the violence and called on all parties to avoid stoking ethnic tensions. He urged South Sudan's government and rebels to implement the peace deal reached in August, "so that the people of South Sudan can begin a process of reconciliation and healing." UNMISS spokeswoman Quentire said U.N. military personnel used tear gas to disperse the combatants. She said U.N. peacekeepers also stepped up patrols in and around the camp to contain the situation. Jacob Nhial, one of the internally displaced persons residing at the U.N. site said the fighters were using machine guns and Kalashnikovs to shoot unarmed civilians. Nhial said forces of South Sudan's army, the SPLA, are also involved in the shooting. UNMISS said the attackers were targeting people who are under the protection of the United Nations, a clear violation of international law. Attacking U.N. premises and not respecting the sanctity of U.N. premises, compounds and people living in this compound being international or national workers or civilians we are protecting constitutes a war crime," said spokeswoman Quentire. The UNMISS camp in Malakal hosts an estimated 50,000 internally displaced people. More than 2 million South Sudanese have been displaced since the civil war broke out in December 2013. British Prime Minister David Cameron reached a deal with all 27 fellow European Union leaders late Friday to keep Britain in the EU with "special status." Cameron said he would present the deal to his Cabinet on Saturday, the first step in what will be a long, tough campaign to convince British voters that the country should remain in the bloc. The question will be put to a referendum in June, and at this point, voters appear to be evenly split. The deal was struck during a two-day EU summit in Brussels, which ended when the EU members agreed on a package of concessions to Cameron. They include giving Britain the right to restrict benefits and welfare payments to workers from other EU nations who come to Britain for jobs; and guarantees that Britain will not be penalized for continuing to use the pound currency instead of switching to the euro. Britain will also not be obligated to form a so-called closer union with the rest of the EU. Some EU leaders initially objected to giving Britain the right cut back on welfare payments to foreign workers, but no one wants to see Britain, with its powerful economy and military, leave the EU. Many British politicians, especially the Conservatives, want to pull Britain out of the EU, mainly for economic reasons. But they also say EU laws on such sensitive issues as immigration and criminal punishment trump British law. If the FBI and the tech industry had been looking for a near-perfect test case to establish the limits if any of encryption, it now appears theyve found what theyre looking for. This week, U.S. District Judge Sheri Pym ruled that engineers at Apple must help the FBI gain access to a locked iPhone by creating a custom bit of code that would break Apples proprietary auto-destruct security system. In response, Apple CEO Tim Cook called the ruling chilling and said his engineers would not comply. The company is expected to appeal the ruling. The FBI believes it has the legal upper hand for two reasons. First, the phone was allegedly used by Syed Farook, one of the two shooters who carried out last years terror attack in San Bernardino. That makes it at least possible the iPhone could contain contacts, images or other data that might help the ongoing federal investigation of the attack. And second, Pyms ruling is limited and specific, addressing only one phone already in the FBIs possession, which is also owned by San Bernardino County, where officials have granted consent for the phone to be searched. On the other side, Apple and a coalition of tech companies and privacy advocates call the ruling unprecedented both for its scope and its potential applications. They say that for the first time, the U.S. government is ordering a corporation to intentionally destroy proprietary security features that will open a massive hole on all its products that hackers will exploit. Worse yet, they argue a victory for the FBI will establish precedent for governments around the world who want to spy on their citizens to simply order companies to help, potentially putting millions at risk for punishment, prison or worse. Whatever the outcome, this much is clear: The standoff between Apple and the FBI is unlikely to be resolved soon. In the meantime, the debate over encryption and national security in the U.S. may now move from the back burners to the center of national dialogue. Big deal for whom? Its clear that its desirable for the FBI to always try to find out information for investigations, said Ed Black, CEO of the Computer and Communications Industry Association. Our industry has a huge history, in many, many ways, of cooperating extensively with legitimate law enforcement undertakings." The problem, Black said, is that what the FBI is asking for in this case would create a model that could very well weaken the overall privacy and security of the global Internet and the digital world. We understand what they want and why they want it, Black told VOA. Law enforcement always wants as much information as it can get. But what they want here has the precedent of being used in many ways in the future that we think would cause overall harm to the security of the Internet. Black credited industry innovation with giving police a more powerful array of investigative tools than at any other time in history. However, he said that governments should not always get 100 percent of what they want, and they definitely should not be ordering a company to write what he called malware that would intentionally make its own products less secure. Alan Berman agreed that a final ruling in the case, at whatever court level, might set a huge precedent, but for reasons opposite of Black. FBI wins, no big deal, Berman said. Apple wins, big deal. Berman is president and CEO of the Disaster Recovery Institute, an organization that assists in disaster recovery, cyber or otherwise. He argued that the court ruling was tightly constructed and focused. Its highly technical and specifically focused on this one phone, and a one-time modification that doesnt even touch Apples encryption, he said. Berman pointed out that Pyms order does not force Apple to break its own encryption technologies. The court, he said, is merely requesting Apples help in deactivating an iPhone security feature known as auto-erase; namely, if someone tries to use the wrong passcode to unlock the phone more than 10 times, all data on the phone are destroyed, and the action is irreversible. Theyve been very big into security; this is very consistent with their approach to security and privacy, Berman told VOA. Auto-erase? Invented by Apple. The ability to erase your phone remotely? Apple. Im actually surprised that anybody thought that Tim Cook would have said anything other than what he did. The real chilling effect, Berman said, "is you may set a precedent where law enforcement will never be able to get to these locked devices. A win [for Apple] means no one would ever be able to do this again, and these things could go dark forever." 'A very dark place' FBI Director James Comey has made access to encrypted devices a high priority. Since Apple and Google announced they were making encryption a standard option on their devices, Comey has publicly warned that encryption is creating millions of unbreakable safes that threatened to take us to a very dark place. His office has been working with tech companies to craft some sort of emergency access protocol, whereby law enforcement officials conducting a legitimate investigation could ask a court for a subpoena to decrypt the device. Those efforts have largely failed. While Apple is not a member of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, many tech giants such as Google are, and increasingly theyre lining up in support behind Apple. Shortly after Cook announced that his company would not comply with Pyms order, Google CEO Sundar Pichai took to Twitter to announce his firms support for Cook. We build secure products to keep your information safe and we give law enforcement access to data based on valid legal orders, he wrote. But thats wholly different than requiring companies to enable hacking of customer devices & data. Could be a troubling precedent. Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Council, is a leading national advocate for digital privacy. He said the court order was unusual in several respects, in part because Pym based her ruling on a 227-year-old measure called the All Writs Act, which is almost never invoked today. "Its not a simple request and its not a limited request," Rotenberg said. "Its not just that one phone that becomes broken, its every single Apple 5c iPhone that the government could open, because the patch becomes like a master key for all iPhones." False promise of success While decrypting devices used by suspected terrorists may sound like a good idea, Rotenberg said its probably a false promise of data access. "What if you have a secure communications app overlaying on top of the Apple operating system? he told VOA. That will also be encrypted. Apple wont have control over those keys, so the FBI will still be facing a locked door. This is why its so very important to understand the very significant downside when the government makes these kinds of requests. Theres no guarantee of success. An even larger downside for both Rotenberg and the CCIAs Black is the precedent a successful FBI ruling might mean around the world. "The precedent of asking a tech company to break a privacy feature on behalf of the government [makes] it very difficult for the U.S. government to argue that any other government shouldnt do the exact same thing, Rotenberg said. The Chinese, the Russians, all of them would love to be able to say to service providers, We have a serious investigation. We need your help. Please break the device. " South Sudans two-year conflict has killed thousands of people, displaced millions and cost the United States over $1 billion in humanitarian assistance. Ambassador Princeton Lyman, a senior adviser at the United States Institute of Peace and the former U.S. special envoy to Sudan and South Sudan, says a lot can be learned from the ongoing conflict. For one, he said, Never idolize a rebellion and assume that the people who are fighting against an injustice will not commit an injustice of their own. Lyman ended his tour as the special envoy in March 2013, just nine months before the recent conflict erupted in the state capital. What South Sudan lacked at that time, he said, was a strong central government. I think that what we saw in South Sudan was the weakness of civil institutions a weakness of the political party, unable to deal with and resolve the rivalry of President [Salva] Kiir and his vice president [Riek Machar], he said. U.N. report A recent U.N. report echoes Lymans views, stating that the conflict has further weakened fragile state institutions and diminished the governments ability to protect civilians and provide basic services. The historically weak administration of justice has deteriorated, with an increase in the number of arbitrary arrests and detentions, prolonged pre-trial detentions and incommunicado detentions without charge, the report says. Countless human rights violations directly related to the conflict have occurred, according to the report, which pins responsibility on Kiir and rebel leader Machar. Innocent civilians have been the victims of indiscriminate attacks, forced recruitment and extensive destruction of property, according to the U.N. The weakness of the parliament in being able to stand up to the usurpation of power by the president and the failure of the army to integrate the various militias, which split apart almost immediately, between them have created some horrific human rights violations, said Lyman in a telephone interview. Some progress has been made toward implementing a peace accord signed in August and establishing a transitional government of national unity. Lyman said the president's decree giving Machar the newly created post of first vice president was a major step toward resolving the conflict. Troop deployment But Machar is waiting for 1,400 of his troops to be settled in the capital, Juba, before making his return to the city. The rebel leader, who lives in neighboring Ethiopia, says deployment of those troops is a condition for his return and has called on the international community to assist in the transport of those troops. Once established, the transitional government will operate without a binding constitution, a move that has gained criticism. It would have been very difficult for them to agree on a constitution that would guide the transitional government, said Lyman. It would have been a nice thing to have done, but I cant imagine they would have been able to do it. Lyman agrees that a permanent constitution is critical in addressing some of the fundamental institutional weaknesses that led to the war. But that process should involve much more than the leaders of this transitional government," said Lyman. It should be a much more broad-based process, and will probably take some time." The U.N. reported a sharp rise in food insecurity across South Sudan, saying a quarter of the population is currently facing acute food and nutrition insecurity. The U.N. has urged both parties to quickly establish the transitional government, stating that its prompt implementation is necessary for ending the food crisis. A major backer of Harvard Law School has stopped sponsoring student events after its donation helped pay for a discussion supporting an independent Palestine. In 2012, the international law firm Milbank promised Harvard $1 million over five years to pay for scholarly conferences organized by law students. But after the money was used to support an event hosted by the student group Justice for Palestine, the law firm asked Harvard Law School to use the money for other purposes. Calls to Milbank's New York headquarters weren't returned this week. In a statement, Harvard said Milbank was never involved in deciding which events to fund and that the school will now pay for student events with other resources. Harvard says Milbank wanted to "avoid creating any misimpressions that the firm endorses the viewpoints expressed by any particular student organization or journal,'' according to the statement, provided by law school spokesman Robb London. In October, students in Justice for Palestine hosted a talk examining what they say is a movement to suppress advocates of an independent Palestine. Harvard had previously awarded the group $2,000 to hold events throughout the semester using the Milbank donation. The group says it spent about $500 for pizza at the fall discussion. Before the event, an email from the law school's dean told the group that Milbank's logo must be "prominently displayed" on all advertisements. In that spirit, the group thanked the law firm in a Facebook page advertising the event, said Collin Poirot, a first-year Harvard law student and a member of the organization. The next day, law school administrators asked the group to remove all references to Milbank on their Facebook page, citing complaints from the law firm, Poirot said. And soon after, students were notified that the Milbank Student Conference Fund was being discontinued. Harvard declined to comment beyond its statement, which says that Milbank "decided there are other ways its support could be used'' at the law school. The school didn't explain how the remainder of the donation will be used, but added that "Milbank has not terminated its five-year gift or its support for the law school.'' Leaders of Justice for Palestine said they see the move as a political response to their message. "We expect this kind of thing,'' Poirot said. "There's always been a price to pay in America for being pro-Palestine.'' Students at Columbia Law School in New York, which also receives money from Milbank for events, are worried that they might lose funding, too, said Katherine Franke, a law professor there. "This kind of influence will have a chilling effect, to be sure, on the kinds of things students feel comfortable saying,'' Franke said. "We should celebrate robust discussions about the most difficult issues of the day, including viewpoints that might make us uncomfortable.'' Harvard, in its statement, defended Milbank. "The law school and Milbank are committed to freedom of speech,'' the statement said. "We have an exceptionally strong relationship with Milbank, which has acted appropriately and with the highest integrity in all respects.'' Three former senior officers were found guilty Thursday and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Ivory Coast's former junta leader and president, Robert Guei. Madeleine Coulibaly, the sister of a military officer killed along with Guei, said she was relieved by the verdict. "Justice has been served," Coulibaly said, "and thanks to that, I think we will finally be able to find closure." Guei became Ivory Coast's leader in 1999 following a military coup, before losing to contender Laurent Gbagbo in presidential elections a year later. Guei's bullet-ridden body was found by a road in Abidjan the day of a failed coup against Gbagbo in September 2002, which led to years of crisis in the country. The three accused in the trial included a former commander of the presidential guard and the head of the bodyguards of Gbagbo's wife. They were found guilty of murder and complicity in murder. One of the lawyers for the defense, Modeste Ablie, said they intended to appeal the decision. "I'm disappointed, but not discouraged," Ablie said. "As we exit this courtroom, we will appeal the decision because we believe that our clients don't deserve a life sentence. The prosecution wasn't able to give damning evidence against them." Others accused were sentenced to 10 years in prison, while a dozen were acquitted. Two members of an Iranian heavy metal band have been arrested on charges of blasphemy, an online music magazine reported this month. The band members of Confess were reportedly arrested by the Army of Guardians of the Islamic Revolution on November 10, 2015, and face a number of charges, including "writing anti-religious, atheistic, political and anarchistic lyrics." The musicians were reportedly held in solitary confinement until making bail on February 5. They face a minimum of six months to six years in prison and could be executed if found guilty of a blasphemy charge, reported the online magazine Loudwire.com. Fans have started a Twitter hashtag to support the band on social media. President Barack Obama paid respects Friday to Antonin Scalia as the justice's body lay in repose at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington. The president and first lady Michelle Obama joined the hundreds of others who filed through the high court's Great Hall to honor the conservative justice, who died February 13 at age 79. "This is an opportunity for the president to both pay his personal respects to those who loved Justice Scalia but also pay tribute to the outsized impact that he had on our country and our legal system," White House press secretary Josh Earnest said. Obama and the first lady, both dressed in black, stood by the casket and bowed their heads for a few moments before walking to a portrait of the late justice, where they stood briefly and exchanged a few words. The White House later said that while they were at the Supreme Court, the president and first lady met privately with some members of Scalias family, where they extended their personal condolences on behalf of the nation, and expressed gratitude for Justice Scalias decades of public service. Hours after reports of Scalia's death last Saturday, Obama honored the longest-serving justice in brief remarks. "He influenced a generation of judges, lawyers and students, and profoundly shaped the legal landscape," Obama said of Scalia. "He will no doubt be remembered as one of the most consequential judges and thinkers to serve on the Supreme Court." Next justice? Obama has begun the process of naming Scalia's successor. Earnest told reporters the president called Republican Senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Grassley, as well as Democratic Senators Harry Reid and Patrick Leahy, within the last day. "There was an opportunity for the president to make clear that he is going to nominate someone," the White House spokesman said. "The president made clear that he is committed to consulting with Congress as he decides who that nominee should be, and the president made clear that he is doing all of this because he has the constitutional responsibility to do so." Scalia was part of a 5-4 conservative majority on the Supreme Court, and his death set the stage for a political showdown between Obama, a Democrat, and the Republican-controlled Senate, which is threatening to block any nominee put forward by the president to fill the court vacancy. Some Senate Republicans, including Majority Leader McConnell, say the next president, who will take office in January 2017, should name someone to fill Scalia's seat, not Obama. Earnest on Friday repeated the administration's call for the Senate to fulfill its constitutional responsibility in considering a new justice. WATCH: Mourners pay their respects Funeral plans Scalia's public viewing Friday was scheduled to last until 8 p.m. EST (0100 GMT Saturday). Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, are scheduled to attend Scalia's funeral Mass on Saturday, which will be held at 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT) at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. Burial plans have not been released. Family Scalia, a staunch conservative, was appointed to the court by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1986. He was the only child of an immigrant father and an Italian-American mother and was raised in a multiethnic neighborhood of Queens in New York City. He is survived by his wife, Maureen, nine children and 28 grandchildren. One of his sons, a priest, led a brief religious ceremony before the public was allowed into the court building for the viewing. Five years after U.S. President Barack Obama committed to a strategic rebalance to Asia, shifting diplomatic and military resources to the globes economic engine, critics say the move was oversold and, so far, it has under delivered. At a time when Beijings assertive moves to claim territory in the South China Sea draw headlines and worried responses from regional countries, some say China appears to be outmaneuvering its rivals in the race to assert claims over the vast strategic sea. As somebody sitting in the Asia Pacific region and observing the U.S. presence in the Asia Pacific, weve only seen glimmers of the rebalance, said William Choong, a Shangri-La Dialogue senior fellow for Asia-Pacific Security in Singapore. For decades, the U.S. Navy has protected key shipping routes in the Pacific. The U.S. Navy is still the supreme ocean power, but China has moved to enforce its claims and expand its presence in the South China Sea without putting its official military forces in the foreground. Chinas cutting edge has been through a gray area of Coast Guard, paramilitary forces, and even the construction on the artificial islands is being masked as serving the public good, search and rescue, scientific activities, oil exploration and fishing, said Southeast Asia security analyst Carlyle Thayer with Australia's Defense Force Academy in Canberra, adding that China already has more coast guard ships than all the other nine ASEAN nations combined. Reclaims land In the last two years China has reclaimed at least 1,170 hectares of land in the South China Sea, building upon small reefs, shoals and islets. This week came another reminder of their efforts to fortify their existing outposts: the U.S. said China appeared to have deployed HQ-9 surface-to-air missile batteries on Woody Island in the Paracel chain, drawing official protest from Vietnam and expressions of concern from U.S. naval brass. Speaking at the annual WEST Conference in San Diego on Thursday,U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Scott Swift said China has twice previously deployed HQ-9 surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island for missile defense exercises, including exercises to shoot down unmanned aircrafts. This week's absence of such exercises, he said, should alert the U.S. about Beijings intentions, but that South China Sea differences between China and the U.S. should be resolved via diplomacy, and that navies of both countries should try to prevent tactical miscalculation from becoming strategic confrontation. With the weapons and military infrastructure Beijing is stationing on the man-made islands being built in disputed waters, some more than 800 kilometers from the mainland, China is gaining both a quick strike capability and naval superiority over other countries in the region. "In the past we have seen them conduct training in that part of the Paracels that involve this kind of equipment, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook told reporters Friday. "We still have significant concern about this particular placement at this particular moment in time, he said, adding the move only serves to make the current tensions worse. ASEANS muddled response The U.S. military has built closer ties with ASEAN nations, in particular Vietnam and the Philippines, which have contested Chinas territorial claims. That has not meant, however, that ASEAN has banded together to address the South China Sea issue. ASEAN, with its emphasis on consensus building and non-interference, has been reluctant to publicly stand with the U.S. to support any meaningful action against China. "ASEAN countries havent really asked of Uncle Sam what they want Uncle Sam to do," Choong said. Still, American influence in the region has increased as a result of Obamas commitment to more fully engage with Southeast Asia and to personally participate in annual forums like the East Asia Security summit, Southeast Asia security analyst Thayer said. Obama is leaving a legacy that a new American president would ignore at their peril, he said. US buildup In recent years, Washington has been moving more troops and military assets into the region and strengthening security alliances with a number of ASEAN members. Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, said the Navy has already brought its newest and most capable military equipment to the area, like the P-8 surveillance airplane, the Littoral Combat Ship, the Virginia-class submarine, and new amphibious ships such as the USS America. In Australia last year, over 1,000 U.S. Marines were deployed to the city of Darwin to join in exercises with Australian Defense Forces. By 2017, the number of rotational deployments will increase to 2,500. The Philippines Supreme Court recently endorsed a bilateral security cooperation agreement that will station U.S. troops and weapons on a rotational basis at five Philippine military airfields and two naval bases. The return of the U.S. military to the Philippines is seen by supporters as a significant deterrent to China and comes 25 years after Manila voted to close U.S. military bases in the country at the end of the Cold War. Washington is also providing maritime assistance to other ASEAN nations, including Vietnam, which is receiving several refurbished U.S. Coast Guard patrol ships. These increased capabilities in Southeast Asia are complemented by extensive U.S. military bases and deployments in Guam, Japan and South Korea. VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin and Tra Mi of VOA's Vietnamese Service contributed reporting from Washington. Li Bao of VOA's Mandarin Service contributed reporting from San Diego, California. WATCH: President Obama Seeks to Solidify U.S. as Leader in Southeast Asia President Barack Obama called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday to offer condolences for the terrorist bombing that killed 28 people in Ankara this week. The White House said the two leaders discussed the security situation in Syria and the need for cooperation between the U.S. and Turkey. A spokesman said more details on the call would be released later in the day. Earlier, Erdogan said he would raise the issue of what he called U.S.-supplied weapons being used against civilians by the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG, which has been blamed for the suicide bombing. The United States has said it does not consider the YPG a terrorist group and that it is a useful ally in the fight against Islamic State. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Friday that the U.S. had not supplied weapons of any kind to the YPG, adding, "We have also seen no evidence to substantiate the claim that the YPG is somehow smuggling U.S. weapons to the PKK." Ankara considers both the YPG and the PKK, a Kurdish rebel group, to be terrorist organizations. The Turkish Armed Forces are interested in studying the experience gained by Ukraine from the army operation in Donbas, Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff spokesman, Vladyslav Selezniov, told Interfax-Ukraine on Friday. "Our Turkish partners are interested in studying combat experience acquired by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the ATO [Anti-Terrorist Operation]," Selezniov said in his comments on a visit of Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff Chief, Viktor Muzhenko, to Turkey, on February 15-17. The sides agreed during the visit that the range of training of Ukrainian servicemen would be expended, he said. "The Turkish military-political administration underlined the importance of dynamic Ukrainian-Turkish relations, and the readiness to provide comprehensive assistance to the bolstering of the Ukrainian army's operative capacities," Selezniov said. President Barack Obama says a pivot of U.S. foreign, military, and economic policy toward Asia is paying off and will continue. But critics say the trade deal that is the most important economic component of this so-called rebalancing of Washingtons attention and resources is in serious trouble. ASEAN Speaking in California at a recent meeting of leaders from Southeast Asia, Obama said efforts to improve the rule of law will encourage more trade and investment between the United States and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The 10 nations of ASEAN represent a population of more than 600 million and an economy totaling around $2.4 trillion. Together, the ASEAN nations are already the top destination for U.S. investment in Asia amounting to $226 billion last year. Thats more than the U.S. investment in China, Japan or South Korea. White House officials say Obama has been working to pivot or "rebalance policy toward Asia since he took office, because of the regions strategic and growing economic importance. Economic issues Michael Auslin of the American Enterprise Institute says the pivot was largely a response to worries that the balance of power in the region was shifting away from the United States and liberal democratic nations and toward China. Many concerns grew out of military issues, but the new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is an example of the growing economic challenge as well. The AIIB has 57 member nations and started with $100 billion in capital, nearly a third of that coming from China. The U.S. is not a member of AIIB, and the new bank positions itself as an alternative to the World Bank, which is heavily influenced by the United States. The most important economic part of the Obama administrations pivot to Asia is the trade deal called the Trans Pacific Partnership, which AEI Asia scholar Auslin says faces an uncertain future. TPP groups 12 Asia-Pacific nations, including the United States and some members of ASEAN. Auslin says freer trade between the United States, Japan and other TPP nations could help the economy. Treaty supporters also say it is also a chance for Washington and other TPP nations to craft the trade rules of the future. China is not part of a member of the TPP. Skeptical Congress While the TPP has been signed by its member states, a skeptical U.S. Congress must approve Washington's full participation. Obama usually gets congressional support from members of his Democratic Party, but many of them oppose the TPP because they contend it will cost U.S. workers their jobs. Republicans, who control both houses of Congress, usually support trade deals, but this "partnership" is different: many Republicans, including some who are running for president, oppose it. Auslin says the TPP faces an extremely difficult fight in Congress. And without the United States, he adds, TPP membership will have little value. Criticism 'overwrought?' One of the architects of the pivot to Asia, Kurt Campbell, has written that worries about the lack of progress in the rebalance to Asia are overwrought, but should be taken very seriously. Campbell was assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs until 2013, and previously held high ranking positions at the Pentagon and White House dealing with Asian issues. The TPP can have a "decisive" effect on members' growth, Campbell wrote in 2014, and he urged his former boss, President Obama, to push harder for the deal's approval. With anxieties on the rise in an increasingly uncertain region, Campbell says more U.S. engagement with key nations like China, India, and others in Southeast Asia could have a calming effect. Washington and Beijing should strive for practical cooperation," he says, by building up their military relations and working together on issues such as development, energy security and disaster relief. Campbell now heads The Asia Group, a private firm that advises investors and others. He says the U.S. needs to consider opportunities in Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar. The focus on economic issues has been sharpened by recent trading chaos on stock and oil markets, concerns about slowing growth in China and a recent downgrade in predicted global economic growth from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In the midst of a U.S. presidential campaign that has already defied precedent and expectations, a sharp exchange on immigration between Republican front-runner Donald Trump and the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, is now dominating the conversation. On a flight back to Rome after visiting Mexico, a reporter asked the pope about Trumps plans to build a massive wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. Pope Francis said: A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. At a campaign rally in South Carolina Thursday, billionaire Donald Trump responded swiftly, saying the pope questioning his faith is disgraceful. At a nationally televised Republican town hall Thursday evening on CNN, Trump appeared to soften his stance. He said he has a lot of respect for the pope, that Pope Francis has a lot of personality, and that he may have been given wrong information about his border plan. The clash comes just 2 days ahead of the South Carolina Republican primary, where recent polls show Trump with a big lead over the rest of the Republican field. The other Republican candidates responded cautiously when asked about the Trump-Pope exchange. Thats between Donald and the pope At the same town hall, Former Florida governor Jeb Bush said the pope is an inspirational leader of his church, but he does not think it is appropriate to question Trumps Christian faith. Ohio Governor John Kasich, who is also Catholic, said: Put me down in the pro-pope column. He has opened that walls and doors of the Church to a lot of people who dont understand it. Earlier Thursday, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who is also Catholic, also praised the pope, calling him the holy father. But he said the U.S. has a right to keep people safe by enforcing immigration laws. Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who has clashed sharply with Trump on a number of issues, did not attack him on this, saying: Listen, thats between Donald and the pope. Im not going to get in the middle of that. Candidate and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson said the clash between the pope and Trump would be hilarious if it werent so sad. But he also defended the tough border security stance: enforcing our immigration laws is not in contradiction with love and kindness. Trump has no positive plan Father Thomas Reese is a Jesuit priest and a senior analyst for the National Catholic Reporter. In an interview with VOA Thursday, Reese strongly agreed with Pope Francis stance on immigration, saying it is not right to fence off human beings. Reese blasted Trumps remarks on immigration and border security: He has no positive plan to deal with immigrants. He just wants to round up any illegal immigrants in the U.S. and ship them out. I mean that is 10 million people. Trump also said that if Islamic State terrorists attack the Vatican, the pope would hope and pray that he is president. Reese said the pope is not afraid of being killed, and that lots of popes throughout history have been killed for their faith. Reese said he does not believe the clash will have a lasting impact on the race, though he did say he believes that most Catholic Republicans are not buying Trumps candidacy. He also said Catholics are known for overwhelmingly picking the winner in presidential races. Catholics make up about 25 percent of the U.S. electorate, but are not strongly represented in the next primary state, South Carolina. Nationwide, Catholics have been swing voters in recent elections, switching from Republicans to Democrats. A CNN poll from last September showed that 63 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Pope Francis. The pope visited the United States last September and became the first pope in history to address a joint meeting of Congress. Concern for immigrants and the poor was at the heart of his message during that trip. Polls show that immigration is also a major issue for Hispanic Catholics in the United States. WATCH: Walls explainer Pakistan has formally initiated a police investigation into a deadly militant assault last month on an Indian air base and will try to bring to justice the alleged attackers and their alleged abettors belonging to a proscribed organization," counterterrorism officials said Friday. New Delhi alleges that gunmen with the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) militant group staged the January 2 cross-border raid on its northern Pathankot air base, in which seven military personnel were killed. The attackers were also killed in the ensuing gunfight. Formal investigation has been launched after registration of the FIR (First Information Report). JIT (Joint Investigation Team) will investigate the case. The accused found involved in the offense will be brought to trial in accordance with law, said a spokesman for the provincial counterterrorism department in Punjab, where the police case was filed. The FIR said Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval informed Pakistani authorities that a group of four gunmen involved in the deadly siege had come from across the border. While inside India, they had been making phone calls to Pakistan and that the attackers belonged to a proscribed organization, it quoted Doval as saying and gave details on the phone numbers in Pakistan. The air base attack stalled efforts to revive bilateral talks between India and Pakistan after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi undertook an unscheduled trip to the rival nation in late December and met his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif. Provincial law minister Rana Sanaullah told reporters the FIR demonstrates Pakistans counterterrorism resolve. We have to show through our actions that we do not accept terrorism in any form and we will not let our soil be used by non-state actors acting as freelancers, who carry out terrorism anywhere in the world. We do not have any space for them in our country," Sanaullah said. Pakistani authorities detained JeM chief Masood Azhar, along with several other suspects, and sealed offices as well as religious schools linked to the banned group shortly after the Pathankot attack. We have requested India for more evidence, and if they give further evidence against Masood Azhar, or anyone else, then that person will be confronted according to that evidence," Sanaullah said. A 2001 attack on the Indian parliament, which New Delhi also blamed on JeM, nearly provoked a fourth war between the nuclear-armed rival nations. Two Palestinian teenagers stabbed an Israeli man to death and wounded another inside a West Bank supermarket Thursday before being shot and wounded by another shopper. The popular food store was packed with shoppers, both Israelis and Palestinians. The Israeli military later announced the victim was a 21-year-old off-duty soldier. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said Israel "will stand strong and respond firmly to restore calm and normality to the lives of our civilians everywhere. We will defeat terrorism." Six months of Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians, police and soldiers have left nearly 30 Israelis dead, along with an American and an Eritrean. But police and solders have killed more than 160 Palestinians who were attempting to stab Jews or run them down with cars. Israel accuses Palestinian leaders of inciting young Palestinians to violence. But Palestinians say they are fed up with poor job and economic opportunities, weak leadership and a dim outlook for peace. The Pentagon has asked Russia to stay away from parts of northern Syria to protect U.S. Special Operations Forces there, according to military officials. The acknowledgment shows a level of cooperation with Russia despite the Pentagon's repeated insistence that it is not coordinating with Moscow. Both have been managing air campaigns over Syria for months. Lieutenant General Charles Brown, the leader of U.S. Air Force Central Command, which overseas bombing and air surveillance against Islamic State fighters in the Middle East, told reporters Thursday via teleconference that Moscow was asked to avoid "broad areas" in Syria "to maintain a level of safety for the approximately 50 U.S. special operators helping local forces who are fighting IS. It was a reasonable request to make, Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook told reporters. Cook said the Pentagon request had so far been honored by the Russians. Brown added that Moscow had requested the U.S.-led coalition stay away from some airfields in Syria that Russias military was using in its air campaign. "Typically, we don't fly there anyway, so that hasn't been an issue," he said. The United States has led an international coalition against Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria since mid-2014. Russia entered the Syria conflict nearly five months ago. Moscow says it has been targeting the Islamic State group and other terrorists, but the U.S. and international rights groups say Moscow mostly has bombed civilians and rebels fighting embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Russia and the United States signed a memorandum of understanding last October that provided a framework for both countries' aircraft to maintain a "safe distance" from one another while operating over Syria. Cook said the Russians requested that the full agreement, which covers all types of manned and unmanned aircraft over Syria, not be shared publicly. Voters in two diverse U.S. states are expected to further clarify the races in the Democratic and Republican fields Saturday as the quest for the White House intensifies. South Carolina is having a Republican primary while Nevada holds a Democratic caucus. Ahead of the South Carolina primary, comments by Republican Party front-runner Donald Trump and Pope Francis about building a border wall between Mexico and the United States have ignited controversy. On a flight to Rome following a trip this week to Mexico, the pope, responding to a reporter's question, said a person who thinks about building walls and not building bridges, is not a Christian. Trump has called for a border wall to be built between the two countries. In response to the pope's remarks, Trump initially called them "disgraceful," but said later during a nationally televised town hall Thursday that he has a lot of respect for Francis, and that the pope may have been given the "wrong information" about the border plan. Republican presidential candidates joining Trump for the town hall downplayed the controversy. Ohio Governor John Kasich declined to criticize the pope for his comments, while former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said he did not think it was appropriate to question Trumps faith. He knows what his faith is, Bush said. Trump leads among Republicans Trump was also challenged by town hall moderators for his 2002 comments that appeared to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He noted that by the time hostilities started in 2003, I was against the war. Trump continues to hold a commanding lead among Republican voters nationwide. A Quinnipiac University poll found this week that Trump leads his nearest competitor, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, 39 percent to 19 percent, closely followed by Texas Senator Ted Cruz with 18 percent. Senators Cruz and Rubio did not appear on the town hall but battled with each other Thursday over allegations the Cruz campaign doctored a photograph to make it appear as if Rubio and President Barack Obama were shaking hands. Rubio told reporters at a campaign stop in Anderson, South Carolina, that the picture was a fake and represented a disturbing pattern from the Cruz campaign. The Cruz campaign did not dispute the allegations but did post another photograph of Rubio and Obama on social media. South Carolina's popular governor, Nikki Haley, who officially endorsed Rubio on Wednesday, introduced him at a rally Friday in North Charleston by pointedly saying she'd sought a candidate with passion, principles and humility. She also said she wanted to back someone who would make her India-born "parents look back and say, 'Yes, moving to America was the best thing we could have done for our children.'" Rubio told hundreds of enthusiasts, including those holding babies and young children, this could be the first generation of Americans "to leave our children worse off" than before. The key is to dislodge Democratic control of the White House, he said. "If we lose, all the damage Barack Obama has done to America becomes permanent," Rubio said, accusing the administration of neglecting military veterans, among other things. South Carolina is home to eight military bases. Rubio promised that, as president, he would improve health care access for veterans. He also said he'd improve economic opportunities for families a point that resonated at least somewhat with Mark Jones of nearby Summerville. An employee of defense contractor Boeing, he was at the rally with his wife and six children. Though one of them held a Rubio sign, Jones said he still was undecided. "I'm 90 percent for Rubio but possibly Cruz," he said. Democratic endorsements On the Democratic side, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders are locked in a battle for endorsements heading into Saturdays Nevada Democratic caucus. Both campaigns see multiethnic Nevada as a key test for electoral viability nationwide; with the Clinton campaign seeking the support of minority voters as a way of gaining ground on Sanders after his success in the low-minority states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Clinton picked up a key endorsement from influential African-American South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn Friday. Clyburn said the future of the Democratic Party would be best served by Clinton's "experience and know-how." On Thursday, Sanders received the endorsement of the Clark County Black Caucus, an African-American group in the states most populated jurisdiction. Union endorsements are also a crucial test for support in Nevada, which has the 11th-highest union membership in the country. In a sign that Sanders may be gaining ground on Clinton, the Nevada AFL-CIO and the influential Culinary Workers Union announced they would not endorse a candidate ahead of the caucus. Super delegate count Clinton holds a significant lead over Sanders in the number of super delegates to the Democratic National Convention, picking up 87 endorsements since the New Hampshire primary, compared to Sanders 11 additions. Delegates are allowed to change their minds but Clintons larger numbers mean that Sanders will have to pick up even more delegates in primary voting. A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday found Clinton and Sanders are still running neck and neck in the race nationwide, with Clinton ahead by a margin of 44 percent to 42 percent. The Nevada Democratic caucus is followed one week later by the Democratic primary in South Carolina. South Korean prosecutors raided the Seoul local offices of Volkswagen Friday as part of their investigation into an emissions-rigging scandal. South Korean investigators seized computer hard drives and documents from VW's office in Seoul and from the home of at least one senior manager. A VW spokesman told the French News Agency, "We have made clear that we will fully cooperate with the investigation." The raid came after South Korea's Ministry of Environment filed complaints against two top Volkswagen and Audi officials. The auto company is facing legal actions after it admitted in September to falsifying emission test results on some of its diesel-engine vehicles in the U.S. Other countries later began their own investigations. Market analyst Alastair McCaig of the London-based IG online trading company said VW's brand would be "tarnished" by the scandal for some time, adding "it's only going to take time and effort and good will to see that rectified." Also Friday, German media reported that Volkswagen managers do not expect an agreement with U.S. authorities on the scandal before the end of March. A spokesman for South Sudan's president says he is considering waiting to name a new transitional unity government until his political rival, Riek Machar, takes up his post as vice president. President Salva Kiir had given Machar until early Friday morning to take up his position as part of a peace accord the two signed to end months of civil war. But Machar said he would return to Juba only after the city was demilitarized, as stipulated in the agreement. Presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny said Kiir could wait to name a new transitional unity government in the interest of peace. Kiir "might give further time for Dr. Machar to come to Juba in order for the government of national unity to be complete," Ateny said. "This is what the people of South Sudan want. ... It still remains the prerogative of the president to see the next cause of action, and he is the one to pave the way forward. So it is up to him, whether he will dissolve the [current] government and form a government or he still gives more time for Dr. Riek Machar to come. The Sudan Tribune quoted James Gatdet Dak, a spokesman for Machar, as saying that without the implementation of the security arrangement in the peace agreement that includes the demilitarization of Juba, Machar would not return as demanded by Kiir. 'Very important' This is the reason we said the appointment of the first vice president was rushed and did not follow the sequence of the implementation of the peace agreement," Dak said. "Although it is in line with the provisions of the power-sharing agreement, it is a redundant action because the first vice president will not take oath of office until he arrives in Juba. We will not accept this. Dr. Machar will not return to Juba until the capital is demilitarized and our forces are deployed. This is what the peace agreement says. It is for rebuilding trust as well as for protection and deterrence. Somebody has to understand that this is very important. Ateny said Juba was likely to be demilitarized within the next few days. He added, however, that the formation of the transitional national unity government was well overdue. Supporters of Machar said the government in Juba was to blame for the delays in the formation of the government. They cited Kiirs unilateral decision to establish 28 new states from the existing 10, which conflicted with the power-sharing provision in the peace accord. Ateny said the accusation was without merit. The IGAD [Intergovernmental Authority on Development] and IGAD partners and friends of South Sudan have been urging President Kiir to form the government," he said. "Whenever there is a blame, the two sides are blamed that they are failing or dragging their feet in the formation of the government of national unity. So thats why the president saw it appropriate to give seven days to Dr. Riek Machar to come to Juba, so that they can form the transitional unity government together. He said if the vice president stayed away for more than a week, the president might be forced to form a partial government, leaving some positions open until Machar returned to Juba. Ethiopia is facing renewed ethnic conflict along its Western border. Since late January, what began as a dispute over land rights between the Nuer and Anyuak ethnic groups has spread, claiming dozens of lives. The clash is, in part, a result of the influx of thousands of ethnic Nuer who have been displaced in the civil war in South Sudan and were forced to move into the Gambella region of Ethiopia. Some of the displaced Nuer allegedly brought arms across the border, destabilizing an already tense region. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are about 280,000 South Sudanese refugees in the region. About 84 percent live in six refugee camps, and 16 percent live in host communities within the Gambella region. Obang Metho, executive director of the Solidarity Movement for a New Ethiopia, a nonprofit organization promoting change in Ethiopia, said more than 50 people have died in the fighting. Revenge after revenge He believes it began with a dispute over land rights between an Anyuak who is the driver of the regional leader and a Nuer who is the deputy chairman of a local university. Metho said the Nuer man shot and wounded the Anyuak man, causing some university students of both ethnicities to fight. "That tension was very hard to control and, as a result of that, there were some Anyuak who heard this and that their family members were killed, and in other rural areas there were Anyuak who revenged on the Nuer," Metho said. "And this really became revenge after revenge." Getachew Reda, Ethiopia's communications minister, said the violence escalated when armed people including local police and some who were part of the regional government tried to take advantage of the crisis for personal gain. "Now, upon the request of the regional government, the federal government has intervened with the national defense forces, disarming members of the special police forces," he said. "So, yes, dozens of lives are lost, but the situation is totally under control now." The ethnic tension comes on the heels of a protracted dispute with the Oromo ethnic group over a plan to expand the municipal borders of the capital, Addis Ababa. The Anyuak people have also complained of mistreatment, alleging that the Ethiopian government used World Bank funds to push farmers off their land in Gambella. Getachew, however, rejected the notion that Ethiopia has a larger problem with ethnic divisions. "Ethnic clashes are the result of people, or government officials, not being able to address governance issues at every level, and what normally is a political problem ends up becoming [an] ethnic problem," he said. "The overall solution for this challenge is not so much to write off the reality that there are so many ethnic groups, but to make sure that our development records actually benefit all aspects of society and, of course, all ethnic groups in this country should see a light at the end of the tunnel because the development dividend, the growth dividend, should equally benefit all our people." Fallout from South Sudan Movement across the South Sudan-Ethiopia border is not a new phenomenon. Close ties and tensions between the Nuer and Anyuak date back centuries, and the modern border between the two nations does not delineate where either group lives. The civil war in South Sudan between Nuers and Dinkas is now having a cascading effect on the region, leading to instability in Gambella, where most Nuers have fled, Metho said. "I think some of the Anyuaks feel threatened by the refugees, and the United Nations also didn't [handle its] responsibility because some of the refugees they came carrying their guns with them, and usually the refugees are not supposed to have guns," he said. Thowat Pal, the chairman of the Ethiopian Patriotic Front, an opposition group working to change leadership in Ethiopia, blamed South Sudanese leaders for destabilizing the region. "The instability of South Sudan is the cause of these illegal arms because when [former opposition leader and present South Sudanese Vice President] Riek Machar was mobilizing people, he was mobilizing tribal youth to fight for the interest of a plan which he has concocted in order to capture power by force," Pal said. Pal fears that too many disputes in both Ethiopia and South Sudan fracture along ethnic lines. "There's regionalization which is based on ethnicity," he said. "Some Ethiopians, nowadays, after the fall of the Derg, they don't consider themselves as Ethiopians. They consider themselves as ethnic communities of their own areas." Railway officials in India say a train has hit and killed four laborers in Mumbai. Authorities say the victims were killed Friday morning as they were walking along the tracks between the Kurla and Vidyavihar stations. Rupali Ambure, deputy commissioner of railway police, said "All were returning home after finishing work at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus," a reference to Mumbai's main railway station. Accidents are common on India's railroad network, one of the world's largest that carries more than 20 million people per day. About 35,000 people have fled Crimea after Russian occupation; further repressions against opponents of the annexation of the peninsula by Russia will increase their number, head of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, MP Refat Chubarov has said. "The unofficial figure is about 35,000 people, and half of them are Crimean Tatars," Chubarov said at a press conference in Kyiv on Wednesday. In his words there was no exact number of those who have left Crimea. Human rights activists estimated it to be around 25,000-30,000 people, while figures of official statistics include only those who have turned to the authorities for registration. According to Chubarov, the Mejlis believes that "no one of the Crimean Tatars should leave [Crimea] unless he or she is ousted or imprisoned." Repressions against individuals of different nationalities who disagree with the Russian occupation are continuing and will continue, he said. "They will be just ousted and replaced with those to be brought from Russia's mainland," Chubarov added. New provisional results in Uganda's controversial presidential election show President Yoweri Museveni, in power for 30 years, leading with nearly 62 percent of the vote. A final tally is expected later Saturday. The numbers were released a few hours before the (4 p.m. local) deadline for final results, with 83 percent of the votes counted. Museveni's strongest challenger, Kizza Besigye, had 34 percent of the vote, and Amama Mbabazi had 1.5 percent. Election criticized The United States, international observers and a prominent human rights group have criticized Uganda's election process, alleging undue pressure, and in some cases undue force, by security forces on opposition candidates and their supporters. U.S.-based Human Rights Watch on Saturday expressed concern about Uganda's ability to hold free and fair elections, as well as Ugandans' rights to free expression and assembly. Maria Burnett, an Africa specialist for the group, said threats to Ugandans' human rights had been documented over the years, but in the days preceding the election, she said, "there was no hiding the brutality." She called on Ugandan security forces to respect peaceful protests and avoid excessive use of force in response to any confrontations. Uganda's main opposition leader, Besigye, was arrested for the second time in two days Friday as election results showed him running a distant second in the presidential poll to incumbent Yoweri Museveni. Witness reports Witnesses said police took Besigye and other top members of his party, the Forum for Democratic Change, away from their headquarters in Kampala. Police had fired tear gas into the building as party leaders tried to hold a news conference to talk about alleged election fraud by authorities. Police said Besigye was detained because he planned to announce election results, in violation of electoral laws. A police spokesman, Fred Enanga, told The Associated Press that Besigye has been taken to his home and said his movements were not restricted. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry voiced concern about the detention of Besigye and urged Museveni to rein in his security forces. 'Call into question' results Kerry spoke on the phone Friday with Museveni, saying the police actions "call into question Uganda's commitment to a transparent and credible election process free from intimidation," the State Department said in a statement. Kerry also urged Museveni to end the shutdown of popular social media sites and money mobile services. The head of Uganda's Communications Commission said the social media sites were blocked for security reasons. Another presidential challenger, former prime minister Mbabazi, left his house with a police escort Friday. Earlier, he had released a statement saying police were arresting people outside his residence, and he posted video of officers patrolling the streets. Besigye alleged that Thursday's election was subject to vote rigging, rendering it "unfree and unfair." His statement came after police briefly arrested him Thursday when he tried to enter a house he said was being used for the alleged rigging operation. Police said the house was a security facility and that Besigye was arrested for trespassing. Some polling stations did not open on time Thursday because election materials had not been delivered. The delay frustrated many would-be voters, some of whom spent hours waiting in line in the heat for their chance to cast a ballot. At one station in Kampala, police fired tear gas to disperse angry voters who had waited seven hours in line, only to find there were no ballots for the poll. Voting continued Friday in some parts of Kampala and the Wakiso district to make up for Thursday's delays. About 15 million Ugandans were eligible to vote in these elections for president, parliament and local government seats. Museveni faced a challenge from seven opponents, most prominently Besigye, who has lost to him in three previous elections. Besigye has accused Museveni and the ruling NRM party of using poll-rigging and intimidation of voters to secure victory in those polls. U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Ivan Simonovic said South Sudan is on the verge of fragmenting and that the conflict there threatens the stability of the entire region. Simonovic delivered his warning during comments on South Sudan to the U.N. Security Council on Friday, via a video link from Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo. Separately, the United Nations announced Friday that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will visit South Sudan's capital of Juba on February 25, during a trip to Central Africa. He is expected to meet with President Salva Kiir and visit a U.N. protection of civilians site. Simonovic said that despite small steps taken after the government and armed opposition signed a peace accord in August, rhetoric about reconciliation has overshadowed what he called the real story about deadly violence that continues, unabated. The parties continue to attack, kill, abduct, rape, arbitrarily detain, and forcefully displace civilians and destroy their property," he said. Simonovic told the Security Council an increasing number of armed defense groups have emerged in response to the governments "highly militarized" approach to addressing insecurity. With the diffusion of armed conflict in all parts of the country, and the creation of local armed groups fighting against government troops, South Sudan faces the risk of fragmentation and related human rights violations," he said. Simonovic told the Council that human rights defenders and journalists have been intimidated, harassed, attacked, and detained. He also detailed horrific acts of violence. In Leer County, Unity State, a survivor told our staff that her village was attacked by a mix of [government army] SPLA soldiers and armed youth in late October. She described how the attackers locked up her grandfather in a storage room and burned him alive. Simonovic said new theaters of violence have emerged in areas that had been little affected by direct hostilities, especially in the Equatoria states. He said UNMISS (United Nations Mission in South Sudan) has received reports of killings, sexual and gender-based violence, and the destruction and looting of property, particularly in Western Equatoria. Simonovic urged the parties to the conflict to immediately cease all violations of international human rights law, and called on the international community to provide financial support to establish the transitional justice mechanisms as outlined in the peace deal. The United Nations children's agency says the conflict in Ukraine has deeply affected the lives of a half-million children living in areas not controlled by the Kyiv government and near the front lines of the fighting with pro-Russia separatists. In a statement Friday, UNICEF said one in three of those children, numbering some 580,000, now need psychological support after two years of violence in eastern Ukraine. The UNICEF representative in Ukraine, Giovanna Barberis, said there is a great need to reach those children to meet both their physical and their psychological needs. UNICEF says more than 215,000 children are internally displaced from the conflict areas, and more than 20 children were killed in the violence last year. UNICEF is calling on both sides in the Ukraine conflict to ensure unhindered humanitarian access to the children in need. The agency says it has already been working to provide children in the affected areas with psychosocial support, education, hygiene supplies, vaccines and information on landmines and other wartime hazards. The U.S. Justice Department is asking a judge to immediately compel Apple to comply with a court order for the company to unlock the iPhone used by one of the gunmen in last year's San Bernardino attack in California. In the motion, filed Friday, prosecutors offered a sharp response to the public statement by Apples chief, Tim Cook, who said the firm would challenge the court order to protect his customers' privacy. "Rather than assist the effort to fully investigate a deadly terrorist attack ... Apple has responded by publicly repudiating that order," prosecutors wrote. Prosecutors said that Apple's refusal to help unlock the phone for the government "appears to be based on its concern for its business model and public brand marketing strategy." "The order does not, as Apple's public statement alleges, require Apple to create or provide a 'backdoor' to every iPhone," prosecutors added. Apple argues the software the Federal Bureau of Investigation is seeking would effectively act as a so-called "back door" that could be used to weaken the iPhone's security measures. A new hearing in the case is set for March 22, according to Friday's motion. Apple's lawyers are expected to file their formal response to this week's court order by the end of next week. Apple strengthened encryption of its phones in 2014 amid increased public concern about digital privacy. The government has complained in the past that the higher security measures make criminal and national-security investigations more difficult. Apple's CEO said in an open letter Wednesday that the company has no sympathy for terrorists and was outraged by the attack carried out in San Bernardino, California, in December by American-born Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, a native of Pakistan. The attack left 14 people dead. Cook said it has given the FBI any relevant data it possesses, complied with all legal subpoenas and search warrants, and has offered its engineers' advice to federal investigators. "While we believe the FBI's intentions are good, it would be wrong for the government to force us to build a backdoor into our products. And ultimately, we fear that this demand would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect," Cook wrote. The court order issued Tuesday gives Apple the option of providing the government with alternative ways to access Farook's phone, as long as the methods bypass the auto-erase feature that automatically erases all data on an iPhone when invalid passwords are entered multiple times. This would allow the FBI to guess passwords until it could penetrate the encrypted data. The government also stipulated that Apple's "backdoor" should ensure that no other software on iPhones would delay repeated password guesses. With a new tool to bypass the auto-erase function, the FBI would be able eventually to unlock Farook's phone, which investigators believe would yield text messages, logs of telephone calls and web browsing data. The U.S. and Russia will launch an effort Friday that could bring long-term stability to efforts to get humanitarian aid to besieged areas of Syria. The two countries, under the auspices of the United Nations, will co-chair an initial meeting of a cease-fire task force in Geneva. The task force will explore prospects for a long-range cessation in Syria, where a five-year civil war has resulted in the deaths of more than 400,000 people and the displacement of millions more. The 17-nation International Syria Support Group devised the plan for the task force during its meeting last week in Munich. The cease-fire would not include terrorist groups, such as the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front. "This group [task force] will work to develop the modalities for a long-term, comprehensive and durable cessation of violence, of hostilities," said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. He commented in a news conference Feb. 12 with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and U.N. Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura, following the support group's meeting. Lavrov said the task force would include diplomats and the military. Later, at a Wednesday briefing in Moscow, he said, "Everything depends on the Americans, on their willingness to honestly cooperate at the military level." The Syria support group had hoped to implement an initial cessation in Syria about a week after its Munich meeting, with a goal of having the task force work on a longer-term cease-fire. It is unclear if the U.S. and Russia will make enough progress in Friday's talks to announce a cease-fire. "We are pushing as fast as possible on this," said State Department spokesman Mark Toner. Uncertainty reigns With Russia backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime and the U.S. backing the country's moderate opposition, there are mixed views on whether the two sides can bridge gaps to achieve a lasting cessation of hostilities. "I wish I could share the views of some of my friends who see this agreement as a potential breakthrough, but unfortunately I do not," said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, shortly after the plan was announced. "If Russia or the Assad regime violates this agreement, what are the consequences? I don't see any," said McCain in a speech at a security conference in Munich. Other analysts expressed concern that the Russian-backed Assad regime would be reluctant to give up momentum gained during its aerial bombardment on rebel targets in the northern city of Aleppo. "The U.S. needs to obtain more bargaining chips," said Itamar Rabinovich, an analyst at the Brookings Institution's Center for Middle East Policy. If the U.S and Russia jointly used their leverage, however, they could change the situation on the ground in Syria, said Daniel Serwer, a conflict management professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. "In theory, at least, if the United States and Russia were to truly agree to a cessation of hostilities, they could bring a lot of pressure to bear on the warring parties to stop the hostile activities," he said. Serwer said both countries might be motivated to pursue a long-term cease-fire plan, because neither would want to be "blamed" for continuing the war. "For both Moscow and the United States, I think there is some benefit for being seen as supporting the delivery of humanitarian assistance," Serwer said. Increased efforts, uneven results In Munich, the International Syria Support Group also agreed on a plan to expand humanitarian assistance in Syria. The move could help lead to the resumption of U.N.-mediated talks later this month between the Syrian government and the moderate opposition. The first round of proximity talks bogged down earlier this month, partly due to opposition complaints about the worsening humanitarian crisis that had resulted from the Russian-backed Syrian government's bombing campaign in Aleppo. On Thursday, a U.N. spokesman said Syria envoy de Mistura updated the International Syria Support Group on progress in getting aid to Syria. He said 114 trucks had reached 82,000 people in besieged parts of the country Wednesday. The spokesman said de Mistura added that the effort needed to be expanded in order to assist all Syrians in need. In spite of progress in humanitarian efforts, Rabinovich said the support group's long-term goal of a political transition in Syria could be in jeopardy. "President Assad is determined to stay," Rabinovich said. "He will try to manipulate any negotiation and any diplomatic process in order to perpetuate himself in power." Vietnam lodged a formal protest Friday against China's deployment of surface-to-air missiles to the disputed Paracel Islands chain in the South China Sea. Citing "serious infringements of Vietnam's sovereignty over the Paracels," Hanoi's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Le Hai Binh released a statement describing letters his department issued to China's Vietnamese embassy and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. China's state-run Global Times newspaper on Thursday confirmed the presence of unspecified weapons on Woody Island, part of the Paracels chain. Vietnam is calling on the UN to condemn Beijing's move, saying it "threatens peace and stability in the region as well as security, safety and freedom of navigation and flight." The call comes a day after Vietnamese officials were criticized for not responding quickly to Beijing's revelation about the weapons. The Chinese government claims a legitimate right to military facilities on the territory, which it views as its own. Although Woody Island is also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam, in 1974, the then-South Vietnamese government suffered a naval loss to China in a battle over the Paracels. China's long-standing control of the Paracels contrasts with other disputed territories in the region, such as the Spratly Islands, which lie some 740 kilometers southeast of Woody Island. "Vietnam's reaction is not strong enough amid China's assertion and militarization within Vietnam's sovereignty," Professor Tuong Lai, a South China Sea analyst who served as an adviser to the late prime minister Vo Van Kiet, told VOA Vietnamese on Friday. "Washington's role in the South China Sea issue is very important. The U.S. needs to bolster its military presence in the region to help maintain peace and stability," he added. "Vietnam has to rally support from ASEAN, the U.S. and the international community against Chinese aggression rather than verbal protests." During a recent meeting with President Barack Obama on the sidelines of this week's ASEAN summit in California, Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung urged Washington to play a greater role in preventing militarization and island-building in the South China Sea, the government said Tuesday. The United Nations warns conflict-ridden Yemen is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. It is urging donors to give generously to the $1.8 billion appeal it launched Thursday to provide critical and life-saving assistance to 13.6 million people, more than half the countrys population. The U.N. reports more than 6,000 civilians have been killed and well over 3,000 wounded since the Saudi-led coalition began its bombing campaign against the Houthi rebels at the end of March of last year. The U.N. says more than 2.5 million people have been forced to flee their homes and are internally displaced because of the conflict and that 21 million need humanitarian support. Despite the situation, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick, says Yemen has become a forgotten crisis. He says Saudi airstrikes and ground fighting continue as relentlessly as ever, yet Yemen is being overlooked because of what is happening elsewhere in the Middle East. I do not think it is helpful to compare crisis for crisis, but I would say that Yemen is as difficult and as dangerous maybe not in terms of scale, but in terms of intensity. It has only been one year since the conflict started almost. We do not need this to last the way that Syria has lasted because then it becomes embedded and something much more terminal, he says. McGoldrick says the international community must do much more to prevent Yemen from sliding into the same quagmire as Syria. He says he agrees the U.N. humanitarian appeal for $1.8 billion dollar is unlikely to stop the war, but adds the money will save many lives. McGoldrick says more than 14 million people in the country are going hungry and more than half that number are critically short of food. The people struggle on a daily basis to actually survive. The economic sector, the banking sector has all but collapsed. The basic services in the communities are falling apart. There are over 14 million people who lack access to adequate health care and there are some over 3 million women and children who need nutritional support, McGoldrick says. The U.N. coordinator says aid workers have difficulty accessing many areas because of the fighting and insecurity, but that humanitarian organizations have shown they are able to provide critical assistance if their operations are adequately funded. A coalition of youth-oriented groups is calling on U.S. governors to reject measures it says are harmful to young transgender Americans. The group of seven organizations that includes the National Education Association and American Academy of Pediatrics released an open letter to the governors just days after South Dakota lawmakers approved a bill that would prohibit transgender students from using the bathroom of their choice. It would be the first state to make that move. Supporters of the bill say it's meant to protect student privacy and not meant to be hurtful. But the coalition says they could increase risks of bullying and harassment. The Human Rights Campaign solicited the groups and released the letter. South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard hasn't indicated whether he will sign the bill. The Tendai Biti-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is calling for the setting up of a transitional authority before Zimbabwe holds its next general elections. The party argues that it wont be tenable to hold an election without first cleaning up various institutions like the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and related bodies that play a critical role creating a democratic state. For perspective, Studio 7 with Obert Gutu, spokesperson of the Movement for Democratic Change led by Morgan Tsvangirai, and Jacob Mapfume of the Peoples Democratic Party, who said a national transition authority is the only way of resolving Zimbabwes current political crisis. We need a transitional government because this government cannot run an election, cannot even provide water for 10 kilometers and they cannot even sit in a cabinet to agree on anything They cannot fund bonuses. They cannot fund anything. So, they wont be able to fund an election, he said. He added that the government is teargassing ministers and so teargassing itself. So, let us have a transitional government where will we stop this madness and remove the toxicity. But Gutu said, We dont want to rush and have positions to say let us have a transitional government. You can see that some of our colleagues, with due respect to them, they know that they are small, with due respect, they know that they do not have the numbers. Thats why they are quick to say let us have a government so that they can have some (cabinet) positions. Since the beginning of this year 4,900 people have started contract service in Ukraine's Armed Forces, Ukraine's deputy defense minister Ihor Pavlovsky has said. Overall, 7,300 contractors were willing to serve in Ukraine's Armed Forces, he said at a briefing in Kyiv on Tuesday. "The number of candidates for contractual service in January of the current year was 20 times higher compared to December last year," Pavlovsky said. He stressed that this situation was mainly due to the increased financing of the Ukrainian servicemen since the beginning of this year. Pavlovsky also said that 117,300 servicemen of Ukraine's Armed Forces had received status of combatants; 9,322 servicemen had received awards since the beginning of the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) in Ukraine's east. A total of 25,122 Ukrainian servicemen have received awards for the destruction of enemy's equipment and participation in combat operations. Besides, Pavlovsky said 66 servicemen wounded in the ATO zone were undergoing treatment and recovery procedures; 20 more servicemen were receiving medical treatment abroad. President Robert Mugabe, who turns 92 within the next few days, is expected to hold a lavish $800,000 birthday bash next week, in the impoverished Masvingo region hard hit by a devastating drought. His critics say such annual birthday events do not benefit Zimbabweans. Masvingo inhabitants generally agree that the president should channel funds for marking his birthday towards income generating projects and others meant to empower citizens so they can be self-sufficient. They say lavish birthday parties are a waste of funds, especially in a nation facing serious social and economic problems. Some argue that Mr. Mugabe should set up a School of Politics or Zimbabwe Development Fund to cater for various needs of the people instead of spending huge sums of money on annual lavish birthday parties. At the same time, they believe that it is strange for him to throw a lavish birthday bash in Masvingo province, currently hit by one of the worst droughts in living memory. Emmanuel Mutongi of Sese communal lands in Chivi District, says Mr. Mugabe's birthday parties are irrelevant and valueless to Zimbabweans. They are now valueless considering the challenges we are facing as Zimbabweans. To have them year in year out is doesnt make sense. They use huge amounts of money. They should channel the money towards development. They should repair the major highways or develop other things. TEXT; Some residents and analysts say Mr. Mugabe has been wasting millions of dollars over the years celebrating his birthday every February 22nd at the expense of suffering masses. Takavafira Zhou, president of the Progressive Teachers Union (PTUZ), says President Mugabes birthday parties, associated with his 21st February Movement supposed to be a day to remember his date of birth, have outlived their purpose and should have been abandoned long back. This birthday has come to signify the suffering and extortion of money from poor villagers. This birthday is not adding value to the state and the people of Zimbabwe. All it reminds us of are unfulfilled elections promises and stealing from poor peasants. The birthday must add value to the people of Zimbabwe. Other Masvingo inhabitants like Samantha Guvamatanga say the Presidents birthday celebrations have lost significance as struggling people are allegedly being forced to fund it. Villagers claim that the ruling party is forcing them and teachers to pay between $1 and $7 as part of their contributions for the Zimbabwean leader. Zhou suggests that the president and his ruling party should stop holding these birthday bashes and channel the money raised towards assisting struggling children, through the establishment of a scholarship fund, political school or university that will be named after him. The birthday should add value to the people of Zimbabwe. It was going to be better to invest the money in an institution that will equip people with basic living skills or rather better to form an education foundation to help the poor. Right now in Masvingo the current topical issue is hunger but here is a president who wants to have a bash with his cronies instead of feeding the starving people. The reality of the birthday is a continuous reminder that there is lack of corporate governance and transparency in Zimbabwe. Under-fire Masvingo Provincial Chairperson, Ezra Chadzamira, who heads the Mugabe bash fundraising committee, says preparations for the event to be held at Great Zimbabwe next week are in top gear. Preparations are at an advanced stage we have organised food, transport and all other logistics are available to make our birthday successful for our president. Chadzamira, who was suspended recently by party national Political Commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere, could not be drawn to discuss the finer details of the event and local peoples claims that they are being forced to pay for the birthday bash. The last birthday bash held in Victoria Falls cost about a million dollars. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Titov and Austrian Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration, and Foreign Affairs Secretary-General Michael Linhart have discussed the situation in Syria and the implementation of the Minsk Agreements on Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Ministry reports. Titov and Linhart "considered a broad range of issues on the international agenda, including the fight against international terrorism and the situation in Syria and the Middle East," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement available on its website. "They touched on the situation in Ukraine and the implementation of the Minsk Package of Measures for a settlement," it said. The parties also exchanged opinions on arranging dialogue between the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union, it said. In discussing bilateral relations, Titov and Linhart underscored the constructive nature of the Russian-Austrian relationship and a consistently high level of cooperation in various fields, including economy, energy, tourism, and cultural ties, it said. How generous. Photo: Steve Sands/GC Images via Getty Images Woody Allens relationship with Amazon has been rocky, to say the least, since he first announced he was making a television show for the online superstore last year. He has said hes regretted every second of the process, but now that the show has set its cast of Allen, Miley Cyrus, and Elaine May, things between Woody and Amazon appear to be looking up. Now hes gone and given them his next movie: Amazon Studios has announced it has purchased Allens new film and will give it a theatrical release sometime this summer, then stream it exclusively on Amazon Prime. The untitled film, which stars Kristen Stewart and Steve Carell (who replaced a possibly fired Bruce Willis), is a rom-com set in 1930s New York and Los Angeles. It also stars Jesse Eisenberg, Blake Lively, Parker Posey, Corey Stoll, Jeannie Berlin, and Ken Stott. Of the deal Allen had only this to say: Like all beginning relationships, there is much hope, mutual affection, and genuine goodwill the lawsuits come later. Ah, young industry love. Photo: Twentieth Century Fox The Revenants 12 Oscar nominations were not a surprise. After all, this is the work of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, our reigning Best Director and the writer-director of last years Best Picture; Leonardo DiCaprio, one of our most famous and marketable living actors; and Emmanuel Chivo Lubezki, the director of photography who could three-peat with a win this year for Cinematography. No, that all makes sense. Whats surprising is a different number: $365 million, the amount The Revenant has earned worldwide as of February 19, making it the 20th highest-grossing movie of 2015. Thats $365 million and counting for the 150-minute-long film in which Leo drags his broken body across the American wilderness, featuring long stretches of little to no dialogue and an unconventional, highly aestheticized visual style. And unless you consider a ten-year-old novel about a fur trapper from the 1820s hot IP, this is a story without an existing fanbase, cementing it as an aberration in the comic-book-based annals of modern Hollywood. The Avengers it is not. That the movie achieved a lofty gross has been all the more unexpected considering its fraught production. Before The Revenant hit theaters, the trades painted it as a disaster, a runaway train that had cost as much as $165 million before tax rebates, most of which was being covered by producer Arnon Milchans New Regency. That wasnt just going to be a hard mark to hit for a prestige picture in a Marvel world it was going to be a train wreck. A box-office bear-mauling. A very good filmmaker friend of mine once told me that the only way out is through, New Regency president and CEO Brad Weston says. Once we were in it and we never questioned it for a second we just had to make it as great as we could. Weston worked on the film from the start, and he stressed that New Regency always thought it could do the kind of business it ended up doing this wasnt some act of artistic patronage, a nine-figure Guggenheim grant. But his optimism belies the severity of the reports coming from the set. The Hollywood Reporter ran a long story describing it as an overbudgeted living hell, citing huge turnover among the crew, a producer barred from the set, an obsessive artist waiting for exactly the right light, and weather conditions that were both too severe (extreme cold) and not severe enough (no snow). According to New Regency, those reports are exaggerated says Weston, We talked with Alejandro every single day about every single thing. Nothing was done casually or easily, but we supported every single thing he did, because he was right but theres also proof in the pudding: New Regencys commitment to the project, and to its well-pedigreed, Oscar-validated filmmakers, resulted in a film that has received near-unanimous critical praise. All of a sudden, the advance fervor Tom Hardy fought Inarritu! DiCaprio got hypothermia! No snow! became tools for building buzz: Hardy and Inarritu tussled playfully, and they made T-shirts to commemorate it; DiCaprio went to amazing lengths to get that Oscar; climate change is real, and it affected The Revenant. But as much as New Regencys producers like to invoke the movies relatable themes, what with Leo being a heartbroken (albeit vengeful) family man and such, we still werent dealing with a lively Melissa McCarthy comedy here. Without an immediately identifiable franchise or easily marketed concept, The Revenant hardly screamed hit. Foxs pre-release projections pegged the movie at $2024 million for its opening weekend, certainly not the kinds of numbers you want to see for a movie with this budget. Instead, it had to make its way on the strength of its other qualities. The first, and best, of these was Leonardo DiCaprio. While the artists involved were collectively a marketable, appealingly multicultural group, from Inarritu and Chivo through Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, and young up-and-comer Will Poulter, its DiCaprio who gave Fox and New Regency a recognizable, flea-bearded face to hang the movie on. According to comScores PostTrak survey, which polls moviegoers exiting the film in 20 markets nationwide, the actor in the lead role was the No. 1 reason why viewers decided to see The Revenant which, said Paul Dergarabedian, a senior media analyst at comScore, is incredibly rare for a film of this size. Even the megahit Jurassic World, with Chris Pratt in the lead role, was seen more because of its franchise connections than its star. Leo is the most bankable star in the world right now, and also an underdog because he hasnt won an Oscar, Dergarabedian said. Guys like him, women like him, everybody likes him, and again, this whole Oscar-buzz thing is just upping the ante. And overseas, a figure like DiCaprio can go a long way toward selling a film like The Revenant. According to Weston, DiCaprio has done four or five international trips to help promote the movie, which made a big impression on overseas markets, particularly for audiences that might not jump out of their seats at the idea of a frontier drama set in the antebellum American West, spectacle or not. Leos support was also one of the major factors that gave Fox the reassurance it needed in distributing the film. Foxs executive vice-president of domestic distribution, Chris Aronson, told me that because of the studios confidence in The Revenants quality, they were able to take the riskier release approach of going limited for a couple weeks and building buzz among critics and sophisticated audiences in New York and L.A., while at the same time promoting the movie toward a nationwide release. This strategy came with the assumption that moviegoers would be interested in an ambitious and unique blockbuster-type option this winter, one that Aronson emphasized was at the intersection of art and commerce. That strategy, which yielded great dividends for American Sniper in 2014, paid off again with The Revenant: By the time it went wide, the anticipation was palpable. Just as Gone Girl became the watercooler movie in 2014, The Revenant became a watercooler movie as well, Aronson said. Every once in a while theres a movie that has a signature scene or sequence that just adds to the must-see aspect of the film, and I think the bear played a bit of a role in that, because from a technical standpoint, that scene was pretty remarkable. Audience data supports that perspective. Once viewers were in the theater, they tended to recommend the movie to others. Its B+ Cinemascore is impressive for a film of this artistic ambition, and comScores survey revealed that 76 percent of audience members said they had at least five friends or family members who would be interested in seeing The Revenant in theaters, and 93 percent would probably or definitely recommend it to their friends. The combined weight of that response suggests that word of mouth played far more like it would for a blockbuster than your typical Oscar movie. And, of course, once the movie became a bona fide Academy Awards contender, word of mouth and casual interest was only going to increase. So thats how weve ended up here, surprised by The Revenant. Art house meets Marvel. An 1820s fur trapper can be a superhero. Of course, it didnt make a billion worldwide, and its unlikely that novels about frontiersmen are about to overtake comics as the source material for tentpole filmmaking. But whenever a movie of this sort scores a win, its good for the industry. If The Revenant wouldve failed, you never would have seen anyone try a movie like this again, says Weston. The downside of a failure wouldve been even greater than the upside of success. I hope this gives studios some confidence to try it. When it comes to the films Hollywood influence, Revenant producer Mary Parent, who joined the production after the other producer was barred, and whose credits include high-concept blockbusters like Godzilla, Pacific Rim, and Noah, is willing to go even further. The success of The Revenant is really good for filmmaking, she says. Because its so ambitious and its so, so, so, so ambitious that it had to hit a bulls-eye. That can be daunting when youre going to green-light a movie. There are no sequels to this movie, theres no merchandising. Theres nothing to fall back on. So the fact that this film has taken off is great. Now its something people can point to, because studios do want to make ambitious films. And if a massive star like Leonardo DiCaprio is willing to risk indigestion acting in those films, all the better. Harper Lee smiles before receiving the 2007 Presidential Medal of Freedom in the East Room of the White House, November 5, 2007, in Washington, D.C. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Writers whose reputation outlives them are lucky twice over: They gain a certain kind of immortality (maybe even a presentiment of it), and they get to rest eternally and leave the vagaries of fame and fortune to their work and its executors. Would Nabokov have wanted The Original of Laura published? How would Theodore Geisel feel about a jerry-rigged What Pet Should I Get? Did Kafka really want all his manuscripts burned? We can theorize about the impact on their reputations or the mixed motives of their descendants, but we cant know and, presumably, they no longer care. Nelle Harper Lee died today at age 89, after a long and in some ways tumultuous decline an argument over her legacy that, unfortunately, preceded her death. Whatever you believe about her state of mind in the last several years of her life, its clear that something had radically changed under the care of Tonja Carter, the partner in the Lee family law firm who succeeded Alice Lee, Nelles beloved sister, part-time roommate, and longtime protector, who died in 2014 at the age of 103. Carter restricted access to an ailing Nelle, whod had a severe stroke in 2007, and Lees brand was increasingly consolidated and monetized in clear anticipation of her passing. In the absence of her being willing to talk, the only versions well ever have are other peoples versions. Thats what Lees friend, Auburn professor Wayne Flynt, told me two years ago for a piece that ran only partway through this tumultuous final chapter. A defender of Tonja Carter, he subscribed to the kinder of two competing narratives that divided friends, family, and neighbors in Lees hometown of Monroeville, Alabama the model for To Kill a Mockingbirds segregation-era Maycomb and the beneficiary of the tourism engendered by her incredible fame. Carter has said almost as little as the famously reclusive Nelle, even as she moved aggressively on her clients behalf. She reacquired Lees copyright, which had been wrangled from the author by a literary agent in the aftermath of her stroke (an instance in which Carter could and should have acted sooner). She filed to trademark the title of To Kill a Mockingbird, then sued the Monroeville museum gift shop in the courthouse that inspired a climactic scene, notwithstanding a decades-long truce between author and town. She threatened to sue Marja Mills, whose Mockingbird Next Door featured substantial quotes from Lee for the first time in decades (over the objections of Alice Lee, who insisted the quasi-biography was authorized). Then Carter did something radically unexpected, based on everything we knew about her client. She dug up an inferior early draft of Mockingbird (before editor Tay Hohoff advised her to flesh out the flashbacks) and, shortly after Alice died, made a deal with HarperCollins to print 2 million copies of it, with minimal editing. In Go Set a Watchman, Atticus Finch, a lawyer based on Lees own father, is no longer the hero he was in Mockingbird, defending a wrongly accused black man; now, 20 years later, hes an embittered segregationist codger attending glorified Klan meetings. In the new official narrative of Harper Lees career, Atticus had morphed, in a second novel, from a beacon of moral clarity to a muddled racist, while his daughter, Scout, went from a wide-eyed, right-thinking tomboy to a conflicted defender of states rights. Of course the real story went the other way: Mockingbird is the proper novel, for better and worse. Watchman is very instructive on Lees evolution and her conflicted identity as she and her family confronted profound societal change. Its a work of great scholarly but little aesthetic value and none of Mockingbirds enduring power to inspire. In Carters telling, Lee had cast aside a half-century of insecurity and shyness to pass off a politically dubious and unpolished sketch as the second masterpiece the world had so long hankered for. With or without Lees consent (in her final years she was mostly deaf and blind, given to forgetfulness and emotional extremes), Carter betrayed the younger Lee, if not the older one. There is the other narrative, of course, the one backed up by an Alabama state agency that investigated elder-abuse charges and found nothing amiss. Lee has simply soured on the hometown that profited so handsomely from her book; she felt bombarded by well-wishers bringing unwanted soup; she defied her own sister to categorically deny on-the-record talks with Marja Mills; she preferred the controversy of multiple lawsuits to the thin but durable membrane of privacy shed maintained for decades; and she decided to publish another book after all not a new one but a draft of her one universally beloved novel. And finally, just a little over a week before her death, she assented to a deal to sell To Kill a Mockingbirds Broadway theatrical rights to Scott Rudin. Maybe Im stacking the deck. People do change their minds, profoundly, especially when their friends die away, especially if those friends include a sister who had been a firewall against the world. They get cantankerous; they rethink life as it comes to a close. And either way, weve undeniably learned things from Watchman that we didnt know, rethought our pieties about Atticus Finch and his creator in a time after Ferguson and Black Lives Matter. Thanks to Carter, Lees estate is certainly in better order than it was when a random agent owned her copyright. And really, who isnt at least mildly curious to see what Aaron Sorkin does with an onstage Mockingbird, after decades of amateur productions? When it comes to arguments over posthumous publication and adaptation, Id almost always err on the side of release. Any reputation worth preserving would surely survive the blows of greedy publishers and sloppy directors. It was only after Raymond Carvers death that we really got to see what he sounded like without the brutal intervention of editor Gordon Lish. Whatever that republication did to his legacy, we had a right to see it. But just as we shouldnt canonize living writers, we are bound to honor their wishes. Well probably know more about what Harper Lees final years looked like soon enough; death loosens tongues and obligations, and rightfully so. Go Set a Watchman and the other late-life controversies at least got us all talking about Harper Lee again. Were more interested in To Kill a Mockingbird than ever, and we know a lot more about how it came to be and what made its author run. Its just a shame it had to happen while she was alive. London Spy Episode Five Season 1 Episode 5 Editors Rating 3 stars * * * Previous Next Previous Episode Next Episode Ben Whishaw as Danny, Charlotte Rampling as Frances. Photo: WTTV Limited As Ive noted in recaps past, London Spy has a tendency to emphasize style and atmosphere over plot. Perhaps thats why answers to the shows mysteries are doled out so sparingly. It took four episodes, for instance, to find out what actually got Alex into so much trouble. The price to be paid for all of those slight calories is the table-breaking buffet of exposition that comes in London Spys farewell offering. The hour is dominated by Charlotte Rampling, who returns to fill us in on several novels worth of gory details. Its also dominated by Dannys famed intuitive gifts, which run at full tilt as he uncovers long-buried secret after long-buried secret in the time it takes mere mortals to pull on a sweater. Danny has to do all of this without dear Scottie by his side the episode begins with Scotties funeral and some exquisitely heartbroken work from Ben Whishaw but that seems an appropriate choice. If one theme of the episode is lets tie up the plot while we still have a chance, another is Dannys journey towards an emotionally settled plane without the two most important people in his life. It takes a complete unmooring for him to learn how to anchor himself. This is evident when Dannys scumbag parents show up to see him for the first time in 11 years. Theyre there because the shadowy villains the same ones who killed Alex, possibly killed Scottie, and are still tormenting Danny forced them to visit, but he reacts with admirable equanimity. Wouldnt it have been easier to love me? he asks, then departs, journeying to see Ramplings Frances in that spectacular, preposterous mansion. I wish that writer and creator Tom Rob Smith had not tied Dannys personal growth so neatly to the turbo-charging of his Spidey sense, but suddenly, hes able to spot connections at light speed. He dismantles the lies in the story that Frances tells him with unnerving ease, pulling the most important truth about Alex seemingly out of thin air. Yes, the wounded maid working for Frances is his real mother. But howd he piece together that one? Francess story is a dark fairy tale: the woman trapped in a decaying castle, doomed both by patriarchy and her husbands professional disaster, who steals another womans child and condemns that boy to a life of lonely torment as acute as her own. Rampling tells the story in a typically spellbinding fashion, her voice at once cool and suffused with a near-bursting ache. Like most good fairy tales, hers is somewhat absurd in its particulars and shattering in its effect. It becomes clear that Alex, like his mother, never had a chance: He was victim twice scorned, first of a broken home and then of Francess attempts to turn him into the spy she could never be. As it turns out, Francess parenting methods come back to haunt her in an especially nasty way. We are finally given confirmation that Alex died just like we thought he did trapped in that box by the government whose commitment to lies he had threatened to destroy. I was not a fan of the lie detector as either a thing or as a MacGuffin, but its deployed here in perhaps the best twist of the series, which draws out superb work from both Rampling and Edward Holcroft. After a heartrending back-and-forth flashback between Frances and Alex, wherein she extracts from him a commitment to destroy his project and vanish forever, it turns out that the government has already put his lie detector to use. The detector concludes that everything he said including that he loves Frances is a lie. Her frantic attempts to go back to him are rebuffed. She is forcibly sedated, and Alex is left to die. It is a dreadful way to go, the cumulative weight of all of Francess and Alexs mistakes catching up to them. Her mistake was to raise him in the way she did; his mistake was to try to be something other than the person she helped create. After this story unfolds, Alexs birth mother, the maid, winds up leaving the house in a devastated frenzy and burning the hedge maze to the ground a symbolic act of solidarity with the boy whose ability to master that maze proved to be his ultimate undoing. Frances then kicks Danny out of the house, but just as hes leaving, she joins him in his car and says, Lets burn them down for real. Though she adds, You understand we dont stand a chance, they share sly smiles as they hurtle towards a confrontation with the forces that have hounded them for so long. The sight of Ben Whishaw and Charlotte Rampling grinning in a snappy little motor provides a glamorous, improbably hopeful end to the show. There are a couple of ways to interpret these final scenes. One is that both Danny and Frances have finally grown tired of being smacked around by spies, and that Frances, in particular, has had her cynicism broken and wants to avenge Alexs murder. A more intriguing reading is that these two damaged souls are ridding themselves of their burdens that theyre exorcising Alexs demons now that he is gone. Despite their yearning for him, Alex has ultimately been an imprisonment rather than a liberation. When Frances says, Lets burn them down for real, she might as well be referring to herself and Danny or, at least, the versions doomed to be trapped by Alexs grip on them. You may notice that neither of these scenarios have much to do with Alexs actual life. After all of the chaos and destruction, the fatal weakness of London Spy is that the man who caused all of the action the man who gave the show its title winds up functioning more as a symbolic mechanism rather than as a real human being. By the hours end, Alex has perished so that Danny and Frances may find themselves. Doesnt he deserve a little more than that? Other Thoughts From the Mets new Manon Lescaut. Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera The beauty of certain sturdy operas is that they can survive just about any directorial manhandling if the singing is good enough. The Mets new production of Manon Lescaut, directed by Richard Eyre, is a closed-eyes special. Roberto Alagna swooped in for an indisposed tenor Jonas Kaufmann, singing for the first time a role that came off sounding like an old, dear friend. Kristine Opolais makes the title characters brain-melting magnetism easy to understand: If you were in love with someone who could sing like that, you too might follow her from provincial France to the Louisiana, um, desert. Look at the stage, though, and geographical ineptitude becomes one of the operas less preposterous faults. Immense staircases dominate most scenes, as if to bridge levels that had been sundered by an earthquake. (Why else would the door to a ladys boudoir be two stories above the bed?) Rob Howells huge cylindrical set metamorphoses from a scarred train station in Amiens into a grotesque Parisian villa, then makes way for the prow of a German warship with an oddly spiraling gangplank. All this gigantism attempts to serve a rickety story of blind passion, social class, and the empty allure of the good life. In 1893, when Puccinis opera had its premiere, the popular 1731 novella by Abbe Prevost was an artifact from the picturesque past, which was probably part of its appeal. Neither the perfectionistic composer nor his gaggle of exasperated librettists managed to sketch any three-dimensional characters or human motivations. The music carries all the weight here, floating the plot on warm waves of melody, palpitating orchestration, and irresistible surges like des Grieuxs Donna non vidi mai. Determined to make the opera less teary and more trenchant, Eyre moved the action to that tapped-out wellspring of relevance, World War II. The benefits of this move include Wehrmacht helmets, clingy dresses, and automatic weapons, and costume designer Fotini Dimou responded to the challenge with panache. The drawbacks of switching eras, though, are that it substitutes one set of cliches for another and makes distracting nonsense of the plot. Maybe the imagination can supply a reason for why German soldiers would arrest a rich Frenchmans fleeing mistress, but not why a wartime German prison ship would deport her to the United States. Or how, having sailed off across the Atlantic, she should wind up not in that wild and ruthless land, but in the blasted ruins of the once-pretty French town we recognize from Act I. Manon sings her final spasms of self-pity, Sola, perduta, abbandonata, wearing a concentration-camp smock and writhing amid crumpled concrete walls, thereby making her a victim of global trauma rather than her own shallow desires. Maybe none of this matters. Opolaiss vocal glamour shines through the dinginess and gloom; Alagnas warm, quivering voice tempers the disappointment over Kaufmanns withdrawal; conductor Fabio Luisi keeps the score at a brisk boil; and the two supporting men, Brindley Sherratt as the wealthy Geronte and Massimo Cavalletti as Manons brother, give their scenes some fine baritonal vigor. But you have to wonder, when Eyre first floated the idea of hauling a tale of chevaliers and courtesans to 1941, didnt anyone raise a hand and say huh? Manon Lescaut is at the Metropolitan Opera through March 11. Jan. 12, 2016 - Fort Bragg, NC, U.S - Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl arrives for a pretrial hearing at the Fort Bragg courthouse on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2016 on Fort Bragg, N.C. Bergdahl, who walked off a base in Afghanistan in 2009 and was held by the Taliban for five years, faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. (Credit Image: Andrew Craft via ZUMA Wire) Photo: Andrew Craft/Corbis I usually come away from an episode of this seasons Serial with a strong emotional reaction. I get angry at the military or at Bergdahl. Someones interpretation of events inspires incredulity. Im delighted at a detail or wistful about one of my own memories that some random subplot inspires. This episode (two, actually, posted back to back on subsequent days), however, was a first for me: It made me cry. By way of explaining why, I also need to apologize. Throughout my recaps of the last six episodes, Ive been constantly hammering away at what I thought was a galling lack of focus on Bergdahls mental-health issues. No one, not in modern wars fought by the American military, at least, walks away from a base without having some sort of mental breakdown, I thought. Be careful what you wish for. These episodes, which should really be considered two parts of a whole, are bookended with Bergdahl mental-health assessments. The first is when hes kicked out of Coast Guard boot camp a few years prior to joining the Army, for having some sort of breakdown/bloody nose. The second is the diagnosis hes given of schizotypal personality disorder during a post-POW rescue mental-health examination. And instead of explaining his actions, or who Bergdahl is as a man, each lands with a mysteriously dull thud. They seem at best to be data points, as Mark Boal refers to them, or at worst like an abdication of truly trying to understand Bergdahls motivations. The most interesting parts of the episode(s) are contained within these mental-health bookends and can be summed up as: (1) Did the Army make a mistake in letting Bergdahl enlist? (2) Is there an outlet through which Bergdahl could have expressed his almost anachronistic moral code? I enlisted as an infantryman in the United States Army in 2005. Almost everyone I know lied about something during the enlistment process. Usually it was if they had ever smoked pot, or how often they had smoked pot. Some people I know were afraid to say that they hadnt ever smoked, worrying that that might itself have the appearance of a lie. Being in the infantry, I also knew a lot of guys who got waivers. Most were legal waivers. This waiver system plays a huge role in the episode, since Bergdahl needed one to enlist in the Army. Bergdahl joined the Coast Guard, had trouble during boot camp, and was found one day with a bloody nose, shaking and inconsolable. He was separated from the Coast Guard (i.e., he got to go home), and the doctor who evaluated him stipulated that he would need another psych eval were he ever to try to join the armed forces. That note somehow got lost in the shuffle, but the fact of his separation remained, and so there was an extra step, a bureaucratic road-bump, really, to his enlisting in the Army. Bergdahl came into the Army during a time when it was hungry for manpower. The surge was happening and they needed bodies, especially the infantry. In 2007, 20 percent of enlistees received waivers. In 2008, the year that Bergdahl enlisted, 17 percent did. It would be easy to see this as ridiculous on the part of the military, lowering their standards so that they could pump up their numbers, but to invoke a Rumsfeldian construct: When you have an all-volunteer force, you go to war with the Army that wants to enlist, not the Army that you want to enlist. Besides, just because someone needs a waiver doesnt necessarily mean that theyll make a bad soldier. Some of the best infantrymen I knew had received waivers. Some had even served time. These were tough kids, most of whom were hardworking and didnt take for granted the second chance that military service offered them. You cant lay all the blame on the recruiter who let Bergdahl enlist, or the on the waiver system itself. As interesting as the waiver angle is (and it is, especially for someone who might not be familiar with it, Im sure), its the story of who Bergdahl himself is that has the most heft in these episodes. Piggybacking on Bergdahls post-POW debriefs, we get his entire story, dating back to childhood. We get the rural upbringing, the isolation and homeschooling, the idiosyncratic way that Bergdahl approached the world around him, and his stiff and unrelenting if wildly oversimplified moral code. He starts working when hes only 13, taking fencing classes at 15, finds an adoptive home in a coffee shop. Bergdahl rambles around as a young man. He tries salmon fishing in Alaska, a charter boat class in Florida. He makes his way to France to join the French Foreign Legion (which obviously doesnt pan out). He tries to bike down the entirety of the West Coast but gets hit by a car. Hes searching for something, and he doesnt seem quite sure of what, or to have any realistic expectation of what hell eventually find. This is what brought me tears. For the first time this season, I really saw myself in Bergdahl. Our circumstances were wildly different. So are our dispositions. But I felt the same hunger when I was young, and I was afflicted with the same naivete. I had wild, romantic notions about sucking the marrow out of life, about breaking myself down and rebuilding myself in a sort of crucible. I didnt want what I considered banal professionalism. But heres the rub: Everything is banal professionalism. Even in the military, which Bowe comes to realize, as I did, too. There are few places in the world, the Western world, at that, where one can indulge in Virtue Ethics instead of Deontological Ethics. Bowe says near the end of the episodes that he wanted to be a World War II soldier I wanted to be a samurai soldier, warrior, fighter Mark Boal chuckles at the statement, but I got it. And I think for the first time I got him. He was looking for not an adrenaline rush, but the highest level of moral intensity accessible to human experience. After deploying to Iraq twice and separating from the Army, I moved to New York City. Most people were shocked when they found out I was a veteran. Most people in my social circle, I should say. The question they asked was always the same: Why did you join the Army? It was never posed in good faith, out of curiosity. It was always a veiled accusation. Frankly, it was a little rude. I never responded with: Why did you settle for living your cheap, neurotic life? But I always wanted to. I always wanted to tell them that, for a brief moment in my life, I had a boss and co-workers who would have died for me. Koenig brings this up when she calls herself a dyed-in-the-wool civilian and asks herself who she would die for. Her kids, she decides. But serving in the military is one of the few experiences in which one has an existential imperative to die, and sometimes kill, as a matter of honor. Its a world away from our predominant give me convenience or give me death strip-mall culture. Bowes dissatisfaction with the cheapness of modern culture and with a military that is increasingly prone to the same banalities as the average workplace wasnt indulgent (even if his actions might have been), and to pathologize it seems worse than an oversimplification. It seems like a willful evasion of a very sincere indictment. So, yeah, I cried a little bit. I cant believe I have to wait two more weeks for another episode. My boyfriend walked in while I was watching this episode and asked what it was. I offered an explanation: Well, the Earth is about to be destroyed by a comet, and this guy just found out that he has a twin brother whos a hacker, and he kidnapped this kid who hacked the NSA so he can find this woman, and she also happens to be the first guys missing wife Seems convoluted, he replied. Hell have to do the sensible thing and watch the whole thing from the beginning, I guess. Hes not wrong, though. And if you dont love this sort of telenovela intricacy, you might be losing interest in You, Me, and the Apocalypse right about now. Thats the problem with a high-concept show. Once we understand the concept, the show has to race that much further ahead of us. The details of everything thats still to come are unknown, but the outcome a bunker under Slough that we now know also contains Dave, who appears to be missing an eye is predetermined. Ultimately, the question of how humanity would face an Extinction Level Event is much more interesting than the hijinks that lead to the bunker. This episode has a smaller scope than its previous installments, so it deals almost exclusively in twisty-turny convolutions, which gets a little old. This is not to say that there isnt a lot to like in What Happens to Idiots. At this point, truthfully, my biggest gripe with YMATA is that it does a pretty bad job of naming its characters aloud. On a show with this many people, I end up combing through IMDB each week to find out what every minor character is named. For example: Remember the U.S. marshal with the fairly accurate, but still pretty fake-sounding Southern accent? Her name is Tess Carter (played by Nina Sosanya, who may look familiar to Love Actually fans as the prime ministers fat-shaming assistant). Tess is looking for Rhonda and Leanne, who are holding a boat driver at gunpoint as they try to cross a river. They avoid detection, then break into an abandoned lodge where they finally take much-needed showers. Unfortunately, theyre spotted by Bobby (Will Attenborough had to look up his characters name, too!), a teenager who promises not to call the police. Even though Rhonda feels a maternal connection to Bobby, and even though she tells him how her own teenage son saved her from an abusive marriage, its too late. Bobby called the cops when he first saw them, and they just showed up, lead by Marshal Tess. Rhonda holds Bobby at gunpoint, then she and Leanne kidnap Tess, whom they later leave by the side of the road. Tess tries to reason with Rhonda, and it almost seems to work; she begins to wonder who shes becoming. After all, Rhonda may have been in prison, but she wasnt a criminal. The guilt of having used a child as a hostage might be too much for her to bear. Elsewhere, Spike is being held by Ariel, who is forcing him to hack into the NSA once again. Spike does so, thinking that Ariel will help find his mom, but it turns out that Ariel is making him do it because he wants to track down Layla. He also genuinely doesnt believe that there is a comet, until his lackey, Molby (Bruce Mackinnon five episodes and I dont ever remember hearing his name!) finds irrefutable proof that the comet is going to destroy life on Earth in 26 days. Realizing that the end is actually near, Ariel decides to sniff out the governments backup plan surely theyd let their citizens die, but not themselves, right? Right. Ariel finds evidence of Scotty and Gravess bunker, and realizes that he has a perfect bunker-space bargaining chip in Scottys nephew. Then, in the most graphic scene on the show so far, he blows out Molbys brains right in front of Spike to send him a message. Bad Boy Priest Father Jude is jealous upon the arrival of fellow Bad Boy Priest Father Christoph, who is not only hot, but is also totally hitting it off with Sister Celine. How is everyone in the Catholic Church this young and flirtatious? Is the Vatican secretly a college dorm? Jude and Celine argue about Christophs trustworthiness on their way to another messianic investigation, this one of a man named Giovanni (Antonio Magro) who is threatening to jump off a bell tower at 5 p.m. later that day. He claims hes doing it to prove that he can create miracles, but later admits that the messiah thing was a cover-up he just wants to expose the Catholic Church as a fraud in retaliation for the abuse he suffered. With Celine listening in, Father Jude talks Giovanni down from the literal ledge. In doing so, he admits that he never got over his own fathers suicide, and that the Church is what saved him from attempting it himself. Even so, he says, The Church is not God, and then he helps Giovanni disseminate fliers about the evils of Catholicism. Jude cares more about Giovannis life than about saving face for himself or his religion, and at 5 p.m., Giovanni doesnt jump. Father Christoph ultimately takes credits for what Jude did, but Celine is genuinely impressed by Judes honesty and bravery. The moments between Jude and Giovanni were genuinely sweet and Rob Lowes performance was spot-on but I thought that the anger Jude felt towards Celine about Father Christoph was overblown. At the very least, show the characters doing something that would legitimately warrant jealousy. This just makes Jude come off as childish, and I wish Celine had called him on it. Theres barely time for them to reconcile at any rate, though, because Jude is kidnapped by Diana Riggs mysterious assistants. Does this mean well soon see Diana Riggs character in all her plastic-covered glory and verbally sparring with Father Jude? I hope so. In Scotland, Jamie and Dave have finally made it to Glenmuir, the psychiatric institution where Jamies mother has supposedly been living. Unfortunately, the gate is locked, so Dave and Jamie follow a note left by an orderly whos headed to the pub. At the pub, a fantastic fiddle cover of The Final Countdown plays while the townspeople dance, which provides a perfect cover for Jamie to steal the orderlys badge. Dave warns Jamie to be careful, that hell end up caring too much for Mary and it will get in the way of their greater mission to find Layla, but Jamie assures him this wont be a problem. Once they get into Glenmuir and find Mary, caring too much does become a problem. She is catatonic, staring without expression at a blank screen, but when she sees Jamie, she knows who he is and says his name. Dave finds Ariels address, which is all they really came for, but Jamie realizes he cant leave his mom behind. A nurse enters, and Dave disguises himself as a patient while Jamie pretends, vaguely, to be from the agency. The ensuing bit Jamie playing along while the nurse gives Dave a sedative suppository is probably supposed to be funny, but it mostly just made me sad about the state of mental health care in the world. At least Jamie manages to smuggle his mother (and a drugged-up Dave) out to the parking lot, where he commandeers a service van and drives off. I sincerely feel terrible for everyone left behind at Glenmuir. Is that how theyll live out the rest of their days? All alone? Its probably best not to think about it too hard. Although YMATA is technically a mini-series, it falls prey to the same problem as every hour-long comedy not named Crazy Ex-Girlfriend or Jane the Virgin it doesnt always feel like it needs that much time. Maybe my interest wasnt particularly piqued by What Happens to Idiots, and maybe thats an unfair critique, especially since Im grading this show on the skewed curve of its own sterling track record. It was a solid hour of TV. Its just that, you know, its still an hour of TV. And maybe thats the problem. The investigation into the cases involving the crimes during the Revolution of Dignity in 2013-2014 on the Maidan (Independence Square) in Kyiv will end on March 1, Chief of the Special Investigation Directorate of the Main Investigation Department under Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) Serhiy Horbatiuk has said. "On March 1, the investigation of cases (the crimes committed on the Maidan) will stop," Horbatiuk said during the round table on the inquiry into the crimes against the participants of the Revolution of Dignity on Friday. He recalled that he warned of such a possibility, but the Verkhovna Rada closed its session without passing the amendments to the law on the State Bureau of Investigation. And the next meeting of parliament will be held on March 15. In February, the Prosecutor General Prosecutor of Ukraine urged the Verkhovna Rada to postpone the entry into force of the law on the State Bureau of Investigation, in order to prevent a critical situation with the investigation of the Maidan murder cases. KYIV. Feb 19 (Interfax-Ukraine) State-run enterprise Artyomsol saw $40 million of net revenue in 2014, while in 2013 it was $131 million, Head of the Group of Financial Analysts at the Agricultural Policy and Food Ministry of Ukraine Yuriy Tarasenko said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday. "The projected annual capacity of the enterprise is 7 million tonnes, and 2013 was a benchmark year. The enterprise was loaded by 50% and produced almost 3.5 million tonnes of salt. If in 2013 net revenue of the enterprise was $131 million, in 2015 it fell by 66.7%, to $40 million," Tarasenko said. Artyomsol's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) in 2013 was $27 million and in 2015 - $6.5 million. Tarasenko said that managers who have not agreed any financial plan of the enterprise in the past three years could be blamed for this. He said that the main goal today is selection and appointment of effective top managers of the state enterprise. He said that the ministry sees the development of the enterprise via its privatization and evaluates it at $200-250 million. Artyomsol acting director Volodymyr Dolia said that the main problems of the enterprise are the fall in production and sales, depletion of working capital and poor choice products. "The first problem is the decline in production and it is a trend now. If we compare 2013 with 2014, we lost 44% of sales: from 3.4 million tonnes to 2.4 million tonnes, and the enterprise saw a further decline of 20% in 2015 around 2 million tonnes," Dolia said. The loss of the Russian market affected the sales, as 75% of the companys products are exported, and the key importer was Russia. Exports to Russia in 2013 were 1.9 million tonnes, 2014 1.3 million tonnes and 2015 800,000 tonnes. Dolia said that the product portfolio of the enterprise does not meet current demand on the market. He said that Artyomsol plans to expand a range of products and bring new products that are in line with European quality requirements to the market, in particular, white table salt. Commenting on the depletion of working capital, Dolia said that in 2014 the enterprise lost UAH 1784 million at Active-Bank. In 2014 a $1.2 million deposit agreement was signed with bank Finance and Credit, which by late 2015 was on the verge of default. Director of the government property management department at the ministry Volodymyr Kudinov said that it is unlikely that $1.2 million under the deposit agreement signed when Denys Fomenko was acting director of Artyomsol (from December 2014 to June 2015) will be returned. Several criminal cases against Fomenko have been opened. Artyomsol is the largest enterprise engaged in the production and sale of salt (NaCl) in Central and Eastern Europe. A Fort Worth-area man who took selfies with his partner and fistfuls of cash hours after they robbed a bank in Lacy Lakeview was sentenced to federal prison Thursday. U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. sentenced James Anthony Barrett to two five-year prison terms for robbing the Extraco Bank in Lacy Lakeview in December 2014 and a bank in Arlington a week earlier. The judge ordered the sentences to be served concurrently. Barrett pleaded guilty in November to robbing the two banks. His co-defendant in the Extraco Bank robbery, Leticia Andrea Newton-Shelton, 20, was sentenced to 51 months in federal prison and fined $1,000 in May. Before sentencing, Barrett apologized to the judge and his family and said he has no excuses for his actions. I never thought that after I stepped out of the prison gate that I would ever be standing here in front of you, Barrett told the judge. According to records filed in Barretts case, Barrett drove the getaway car and gave Newton-Shelton the pistol she carried into the Lacy Lakeview bank. Barrett told the woman what to write on a demand note, which said, in part, I am armed and warned the teller not to put dye packs into the bag. The teller put recorded bait bills in the bag that was given to Newton-Shelton, records say. The duo was spotted later scouting other area banks, authorities said, and they were arrested. Newton-Shelton cooperated with investigators and told them Barrett gave her the Ruger pistol to carry into the bank and duped her into participating in the crime. Agents seized the gun and the couples cellphones, on which they found pictures of Barrett and Newton-Shelton hours after the bank robbery that depicted a bundle of cash spread around the bed and on their bodies. The two appeared to be taking photographs of each other as well as selfies, including pictures of Barrett holding the money fanned out close to the camera lens. Agents were able to use these photographs and match the serial numbers of the bills to the bait bills list provided by the bank, according to court documents. Sixteen of the 26 bait bills from the bank were matched with Barretts photographs of the money. Ten of the bait bills were seen in photographs of Barrett lying on the bed with the cash or holding the cash in his hands, records state. A Waco man was sentenced to federal prison Thursday after he was nabbed in an undercover sting and linked to a multistate prostitution ring. Emmanuel Emil Bailey, 23, was sentenced to seven years in federal prison and fined $1,000 after his conviction for violating the Mann Act, which prohibits interstate trafficking for prostitution purposes. Bailey was arrested in a McLennan County Sheriffs Office undercover operation in June that targeted backpage.com, an online site that features adult classified ads. Before he was sentenced, Bailey told U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. that he is not a pimp but a budding rapper trying to get his music career kick-started. He said he has been charged in other states with pimping but he expects those charges to be dismissed. Detective Joseph Scaramucci posed as a john looking for a prostitute, according to federal court records. He selected an ad for a woman known as Lexi, and the detective entered the phone number into EscortHistory.com, a website that provides previous posts made by a specific phone number. The results indicated the number also was associated with ads placed in Beaumont; Houston; Killeen; Lafayette, Louisiana; and Little Rock, Arkansas. The search also showed pictures of another woman using the same phone number to solicit, records show. Scaramucci negotiated a $200 fee for sexual services by text messaging the number. Later, he set up a meeting at a Motel 6 at 3120 N. Jack Kultgen Freeway in Waco. Lexi called again to confirm the time of their meeting. Scaramucci reported that she seemed to be repeating the directions out loud, indicating to him that someone else was listening. A short time later, Scaramucci got a text that said, Im here rite now. The detective opened the motel room door, saw the woman standing there and identified himself as a detective with the McLennan County Sheriffs Office. According to court records, the woman gave a fake name and claimed she came in a cab. Agents in the parking lot saw her arrive in a silver Lexus, which was parked near the building. Scaramucci noted in reports that the woman smelled strongly of marijuana. Scaramucci then went outside to speak with the man in the car, who was identified as Bailey, court records show. Bailey told the detective he didnt know what was going on and that he was about to check into the motel. While officers were searching his vehicle, they found a purse in the back seat that contained an Arkansas identification for the woman in the room. Bailey was vague with officers about how he knew the woman, later telling them that she called him to ask for a ride. However, he told the officers he didnt know where he picked her up, how she asked for the ride or other information. Bailey allowed officers to search his phone, which contained an ad management page on backpage.com in Victoria from June 1, 2015, using the same pictures of the woman in other ads, court records indicate. When Richard Hewgley was 3 years old, he knew he wanted to fly airplanes. About 72 years later, the Federal Aviation Administration named him a Master Pilot with an award named after the first men to master mechanical flight. The Texas State Technical College instructor was given the Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award at the colleges Col. James T. Connally Aerospace Center of Excellence. About 50 people attended the ceremony. The FAA award recognizes Hewgleys decades of dedication to aviation. He said staying positive in his projects and his teaching is key. I try to make it an enjoyable experience, Hewgley said. If were not having fun, were doing something wrong. If were not happy, were doing something wrong. The fun began early when his father spontaneously bought a family airplane instead of a car. Dont tell your mother we bought an airplane, Hewgley remembers his father telling him. Hewgleys father was in the Army Air Corps and was in a prison camp for four years in Manchuria, China. As a toddler, Hewgley saw photos of his father with airplanes and was hooked. Everything we did in my family growing up was related to an airplane, he said. At 16, Hewgley took his first solo flight and earned his private license the next year. After two years of college, he became a naval aviator at 21. TSTC Aerospace Director Carson Pearce said every bit of Hewgleys experience is valuable in the classroom. Passing on his passion When you have a man with 50-plus years invested in aviation, who lives, breathes, eats, sleeps, drinks aviation, that passion is placed into students, Pearce said. Its contagious. It creates a far better graduate who takes that passion and love and carries it on with their career. A certified flight instructor since 1966, Hewgley said hes taught about 1,000 people in flying and maintenance. He estimates having 500 students at TSTC since he started in 2009. I like the feeling it gives me because if you live long enough, you get filled up with all this knowledge, he said. And where does the knowledge go? I can use it for my own selfishness, or I can give it away. After his naval service, Hewgley worked several civilian flying jobs, including as a flight instructor, charter pilot and representative of the Texas Education Agencys Division of Veterans Affairs. I feel like Im not wasting myself, Hewgley, 75, said. At least Im going to use myself up by the end of my life. I got a little ways to go. William Ferguson, a TSTC aviation student, said Hewgley connects various lessons while keeping class fun. More than 300 students are in TSTCs aviation program. His class tends to be pretty open, upbeat and a lot of interaction going on, Ferguson said. Its generally not the traditional teacher-to-student directed lectures. Hewgley and other winners of this award are the backbone of aviation, said Darrell Hughes, program manager at the FAAs North Texas Flight Standards District Office. It represents 50 years of professionalism, skill and aviation expertise, which are the FAAs highest standards, Hughes said. Hewgley met his wife, Linda, on a blind date. She also obtained a pilot license in 1977 so she could be his safety pilot. Im very excited for him, Linda said. Hes very deserving of it. Its a high point of his career. When Hewgley is flying, he said he feels free, happy and fulfilled. You never get tired of looking at nature from the cockpit, he said. Its beautiful. It changes every minute. As the sun moves and the shadows change, the feeling changes. You can never see the same thing twice. Youll see a sunset hundreds of times, but its a different sunset every time. One of the things I loved about living in Waco from 2000 to 2010 was the ability to speak openly about faith. It is a wonderful freedom. It is also not a normal thing in other parts of the country. Upon moving to Waco from Detroit, I was surprised when people asked if I had found a church home. At first, I thought they were wondering if I had purchased a home fashioned out of an old church. An underlying truth informed those conversations I had in Texas: that faith shapes us. It plays a role in determining not only what we believe but how we think and what we see as important. It is because of this essential truth that religious diversity is crucial to a highly functioning Supreme Court. As President Obama ponders his nomination to replace Justice Scalia, this should be one of the factors he considers. The current Supreme Court line-up includes five Catholics (with Scalia, it was six) and three Jews. There was no collusion to produce this result, which is simply a historical accident produced unintentionally by wildly disparate presidents. Yet the result of that accident is important. Not one Protestant, in any of its many varieties, sits on the Court. Nor is there a representative of the fastest-growing group in the United States, the nones those who have no religious affiliation. This lack of diversity and failure to represent the largest religious group in the United States matters because of what most people know: What we believe about God is an important part of our identities. Certainly, the justices of the Supreme Court dont cite their religious beliefs as the explicit reason for their outcome on a given matter (though they have often quoted the Bible and other religious sources). In the same way, they dont cite their race or gender as the reason they vote one way or another, yet we value racial and gender diversity. We do so because we know race and gender profoundly affect the way one sees the world and the way the world sees us. The same is true of faith. An argument can be made that faith is only one of the elements of diversity missing from the Court, of course. In fact, Justice Scalia made exactly that argument in his dissent from the same-sex marriage decision last year. For example, all of the current judges (and Scalia) went to either Harvard or Yale for law school. When I was at Yale, we talked about the law as if it was ours to create. Should it surprise us when that outlook sometimes leads to arrogance and legislating from the bench? Similarly, all of the current justices and Scalia were born in coastal states (though Chief Justice Roberts was raised in Indiana), leaving a remarkable gap in the middle of the country. Like many other lawyers, the Supreme Court fascinates me. My own exposure to the Court is slight; I won a case there, but it was decided on the briefs (which I wrote at the kitchen table with the help of my Baylor Law student Dustin Benham), and no argument was held. I have written briefs in other cases, and Justice Stevens quoted me once. Mostly, I watch and read from afar. Even from that distance, though, I can see the humanity of the judges. They are not so unlike us. They worry, and celebrate, and die. They also worship. They grew up in homes and went to schools where the religious roots of Western civilization were not ignored. Their faiths taught them how to read a text and derive truth from it. Their identity as Jews and Catholics was formed in part by being part of those minority faiths within our society, each with its own kind of insularity. I cant say precisely how the faiths of the justices shapes their jurisprudence. I cant even say precisely how my own faith has shaped the things I choose and what I think is important. Yet that faith like race and gender is a part of me, and a part that matters. I would not be the same without it. Mark Osler is the Robert and Marion Short Professor of Law at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. How will the death of Justice Antonin Scalia affect the major cases before the Supreme Court this term, all of which are expected to be decided by the end of June? The answer doesnt depend entirely on how Scalia wouldve voted. It also depends on a necessary rule of procedure: When the Supreme Court is divided equally, it upholds the decision below. Applying this dual analysis to five major cases in the pipeline yields some surprising results. The issues involved are: fees in lieu of union dues for nonunion workers, the University of Texas affirmative-action admissions program, Texass restrictive abortion law, President Obamas executive action on immigration and a group of nuns demand to be exempted from filing a certificate so they wont have to pay for employees contraceptive insurance under the Affordable Care Act. By my reckoning, most of these cases now have a strong chance to come out differently than they wouldve had Scalia lived. Start with Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, the union dues case argued in January. Most observers thought it was highly probable that the court would repudiate the 1977 precedent of Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, based on a 5-4 decision from 2014 in which the justices strongly hinted that this was coming. The precedent says that nonunion members must pay the equivalent of partial dues to compensate the union for the benefits they receive from collective bargaining; the court was expected to eliminate the requirement using a theory based on the freedom of association. The case before the Supreme Court, however, is based on a petition filed by Rebecca Friedrichs, who lost in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The appellate court could read the writing on the wall as well as anyone, but it correctly decided to follow the Supreme Courts precedent and not smoke signals about where it might be going. Scalias vote was needed to overturn the Abboud case. Without it, the case will likely be decided 4-4 which means the decision below will be upheld. No new binding Supreme Court precedent will be formed. Instead of winning a major battle against unions, conservative advocates will have to wait for another day and another configuration of justices. The affirmative-action case, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, was widely expected to depend on the swing vote of Justice Anthony Kennedy. The 5th Circuit upheld the Texas admissions sorting hat. A 4-4 decision would uphold that judgment. But Justice Elena Kagan is recused because she worked on the case when she was solicitor general. If he wants to, Kennedy could still vote to strike down the 5th Circuits decision, yielding a 4-3 advantage for the conservatives. That would count as a majority in a technical sense and in theory would have precedential weight. But its highly unattractive to decide landmark cases with the number of votes that ordinarily loses cases. A 4-3 decision is begging to be reconsidered by a newly configured court. And Kennedy has always believed that precedent should last. As he famously (and ponderously) put it in 1992, liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt. At oral arguments in December, Kennedy seemed to toy with the idea of deciding not to decide affirmative action. It seems almost certain he will take that course rather than determine such an important issue with four votes. And so affirmative action will live another day and maybe a lot longer than that, depending on who gets to appoint the next several justices. Abortion law in Texas The Texas abortion case to be argued March 2, Whole Womans Health v. Hellerstedt, is an anomaly. The 5th Circuit upheld the law despite its effect of closing down most of the abortion clinics in the state. Kennedy was expected to be the deciding vote and he still will be. If he votes to uphold the decision below, the tally will almost certainly be 4-4. If he votes to strike it down, itll be 5-3. Either way, he makes the call. Obamas executive action on immigration was and remains more unpredictable than the other cases but its circumstances have changed, before its oral argument has even been scheduled, especially as constitutional precedent will be determined. U.S. v. Texas arose after a federal district court issued a preliminary injunction that blocked the plan from being implemented anywhere in the country until the district court could hold a trial, which could take years. The 5th Circuit upheld the injunction, including its nationwide scope. The courts four liberals are sure to vote for striking down the decision below. Its a pretty safe bet that Scalia and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito wouldve voted to uphold the 5th Circuit. But Kennedy is uncertain, as is Chief Justice John Roberts. If Scalia had lived, and both Roberts and Kennedy had voted that Obama overstepped his authority, the result wouldve been a landmark decision on executive power, probably written by Roberts. Instead, the most the conservatives can hope for is a 4-4 decision upholding the 5th Circuit by a divided court. The 5th Circuit opinion wont be binding precedent on other courts or future presidents. The long-term effect on executive action relating to immigration wont be significant. In practice, Obamas plan might not be implemented. But even thats not absolutely certain, at least outside Texas. It was very unusual for the 5th Circuit to issue an injunction binding the Obama administration nationally. Theres a legitimate technical question about whether the national injunction should remain in place after the Supreme Court has heard the case. It would take five votes for Supreme Court to issue a national injunction itself votes that certainly wont exist. Therefore its at least conceivable that the plan could go into place beyond the 5th Circuits reach. Noah Feldman is a professor of constitutional and international law at Harvard. Someone once said, "If you can pick up a book and read it thank a teacher. If you can read the book in English thank a soldier." T... By SrA Vernon Fowler, Between 1941 and 1946, there were roughly 1,000 African-American pilots trained at the segregated Tuskegee Army Airfield in Tuskegee, Alabama. Of that number remains just a fraction of Tuskegee Airmen still living today. MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, had the privilege of hosting one of these pilots, retired Lt. Col. George E. Hardy, Feb. 11, 2016, as part of the A Salute To A Living Legend event.There was a buzz of excitement as more than 140 service members, retirees and civilians filed into the room awaiting Hardys entrance. To make the moment even more special, the event was held in the Davis Conference Center, which was named in honor of the late, retired four-star Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Jr., who was also a Tuskegee Airman and served as their commander during World War II. Complete silence filled the room as everyone was called to attention and Hardy was escorted in by Col. Daniel Tulley, commander of the 6th Air Mobility Wing (AMW). Tulleys opening remarks set the tone for what appeared to be a long-awaited speech for those in attendance.What a story, said Tulley, who had already previously spoken to and researched Hardys history and experiences. Its not as simple as you may think, or what you may have seen in the movies. Expectedly, just Hardys journey to the podium commanded the full attention of the audience as everyone gave him a standing ovation. During his speech, Hardy recounted his experiences fighting not only against foreign enemies, but also against the harsh realities of racism and segregation in the military. Segregation back then was a part of the fabric of this country, said Hardy. And it was enforced, and the military was segregated as well. A Philadelphia native, Hardy said he was first drawn to flight while watching newsreel footage of sorties over Europe during the early stages of WWII. He joined the U.S. Army Air Corps at the age of 18 in July 1943, and began flight training at the Tuskegee Army Airfield later the same year.The following year, he was promoted to second lieutenant and assigned to the famous 99th Fighter Squadron, 332nd Fighter Group at Ramitelli Air Base, Italy, where he would participate in 21 escorting and strafing missions over Europe. In a moment of light humor, Hardy revealed to the audience that, during the time he was piloting a fighter aircraft, he had no idea how to even drive a car. According to Hardy, there are very few living Tuskegee Airmen. Of those, he is the youngest at 90 years of age. The guys are passing away at an alarming rate, said Hardy. Of the more than 300 that went overseas, no more than 22 are left and I am the youngest of that group. Over the course of his almost 30 year career, Hardy not only flew missions in WWII, but also in the Korean War and Vietnam War. He would eventually receive the Distinguished Flying Cross with Valor, the Air Medal with 11 Oak Leaf Clusters and the Commendation Medal with one Oak Leaf Cluster. Academically, he earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering, a Master of Science Degree in Systems Engineering-Reliability from the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology, as well as an honorary Doctorate of Public Service from Tuskegee University.Looking back on his days as a Tuskegee Airman, he said it was all worth it. He and his colleagues wanted to fly and did what was necessary to fly. When you look back, yes it was all worth it, said Hardy. We paid a price, but it was a price that we were glad to pay. This work, MacDill hosts a Tuskegee Airman, by SrA Vernon Fowler, identified by DVIDS, is free of known copyright restrictions under U.S. copyright law. China Deployed Missiles To Disputed Island In South China Sea, Taiwanese And U.S. Officials Claim Satellite images taken by ImageSat International indicated that a couple of batteries of eight missile launchers, as well as a radar system, were reportedly seen on a disputed island in South China Sea on Friday. Taiwan and U.S. officials said surface-to-air missiles had been deployed by China on Woody or Yongxing Island in the Paracel Islands, CNN reported. The officials added that the China's act has caused alarm to its neighboring countries. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi did not contest the claims that missiles had been installed in the disputed island, courtesy of The Guardian. Advertisement "As for the limited and necessary self-defence facilities China has built on islands and reefs stationed by Chinese personnel, that is consistent with the self-defence and self-preservation China is entitled to under international law," Wang said. "We believe this is an attempt by certain Western media to create news stories." USA Today reported that the Chinese official also slammed criticisms against China for putting up lighthouses and weather stations in the disputed South China Sea. "All of those are actions that China, as the biggest littoral state in the South China Sea, has undertaken to provide more public goods and services to the international community and play its positive role there," Wang stated. Meanwhile, Taiwan Defense Ministry Spokesman Lou Shou-He revealed their military has collected information regarding the deployment of missiles in the disputed island, adding that they are also keeping an eye for developments. Lou called out parties concerned with the dispute to work hand in hand towards peace and stability in the region and avoid independent act that would cause tension. On the other hand, a U.S. Defense official, who refused to be named, claimed they "have seen evidence of surface-to-air missile deployments to Woody Island," via NPR. U.S. military has allegedly sent surveillance flights around the disputed island, which China sees as a violation. Advertisement Advertisement Like us and Follow us Follow @Koreaportal and 2022 Korea Portal, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. BEIJING, Feb. 18 -- Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi on Thursday urged Australia to be impartial on territorial disputes in the South China Sea in his meeting with visiting Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. Australia is not a directly involved country and should abide by its commitment to impartiality on sovereignty and territorial disputes in the South China Sea, Yang said, according to a press release from the Foreign Ministry. He urged Australia not to participate in or take any action that may harm regional peace and stability or China-Australia relations. Yang said islands in the South China Sea have been China's territory since ancient times, and China has the right to maintain its territory, sovereignty and maritime interests. China's construction of the islands is mainly for civil use and aims to provide public goods to the international community. The limited self-defense facilities deployed on the islands are the result of China's right to self-defense granted by international law, which has nothing to do with militarization. It is natural and fully legitimate, Yang said. The state councilor also discussed the development of the China-Australia comprehensive strategic partnership with Bishop in the meeting, who is visiting from Tuesday to Thursday. IF you are one of those parents who bought your child a bicycle for the new year but are struggling to find somewhere to... Christmas is such an important time for family reunions, but there are many of us for whom Christmas is also a time when those... WATERFORD is marking time with a new museum in the Viking Triangle. The Irish Museum of Time is the first of its kind in the... Its that time of year again! Summer in Waterford, with plenty of sunshine, and if you look carefully you may spot the odd artist atop... Rarely does the heart bleed for insurance companies, but today we confess to mustering a little compassion. It is the insurers who are shaping up to lose the biggest game in town; that is, the sting on the banks for rigging money markets, the BBSW (bank bill swap rate) scandal. ASIC chairman Greg Medcraft warns investors don't see a bubble till its over. Credit:Chris Pearce Lawyers for the big banks are bunkered in talks with the corporate regulator, Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC), with the most likely outcome a negotiated settlement; a back-room deal which would see the banks fork out cash penalties and the regulator wave about a flashy settlement figure. Win-win; synchronised press releases will herald a "record settlement", justice will be said to have been done. And in the time-honoured fashion, the blame will fall, not to the generals, but to a few rogue sergeants down the command chain. For many families it's back to school time. "Do you remember the day," says Charlie, "when your Mum bought you a jumper at the beginning of the year that was too big, saying you were going to grow into it?" Joko Widodo, Indonesia's president, has the benefit of working to clear plans. Louise remembers something different; she used to get hand-me-down jumpers and shoes from her brother. So embarrassing. And speaking of shoes, my brothers and I used to hammer stops into our school shoes on Friday night so we could play footy on Saturday morning. The curtain closed on a special meeting between U.S. and ASEAN leaders in California on Tuesday Pacific Time. It was the first such meeting on U.S. soil. Although some had been hyping up the meeting as an ideal occasion to provoke China, the following joint statement did not specifically mention China, or the South China Sea issue. Given the backdrop of China-ASEAN ties, such a result is not unexpected, but the unhealthy mindset of damaging China-ASEAN ties should evoke a cause for alarm. The ASEAN has been growing its vitality and strategic importance in the current global arena, especially after it announced the establishment of the ASEAN Community. In the future international and regional landscape, it will play a more significant role. Meanwhile, it can help deepen regional collaboration and promote the prosperity and stability of East Asia by forging equal and amicable ties which do not target any third party with its partners including the U.S. However, for quite a while, the roadmap drawn by some for U.S.-ASEAN relations has gone against the right track. The Philippines, for example, once tried to persuade other parties to write South China Sea arbitration into the agenda and the outcome document as an attempt to let the ASEAN endorse the unilaterally-filed arbitration. Washington, at the same time, also shared this motivation. In fact, similar diplomatic games over the South China Sea issue have appeared several times in the past years, but the results repeatedly proved that the ASEAN can properly balance the interests and concerns of all parties and wont be abducted by the unilateral proposition of any one member state. Most ASEAN states are alert enough to acts that could harm its credibility and reputation, or undermine the leading role of cooperation in ASEAN and East Asia at large. They are also unwilling to see a community led by one single state. As a matter of fact, the active involvement of certain outside countries in the South China Sea is driven by ulterior motives. In the statement after the meeting, so-called demilitarization was hyped up again. But it is known to all that as an outside country, the U.S. has been flexing military muscle by frequently sending warships and aircraft into the South China Sea and plotting to conduct so-called joint patrols with other countries. Such behaviors have posed serious threats to the sovereignty and security of regional countries. What the U.S. has done is a major push to the militarization of the South China Sea. Hyping up the South China Sea issue is inconsistent with the interests of the ASEAN. The core of the issue lies in territorial and maritime right disputes, which is exclusively between China and some ASEAN members. The communication between China and ASEAN nations regarding the South China Sea issue is effective. China supports the dual-track notion proposed by ASEAN members, believing it as the most effective approach for addressing the issue. Derailing from the track will only cause interruption and damage to the efforts. That is why Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha noted in the meeting that all sides should ease the disputes through constructive dialogue. He also stressed that the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) is a useful mechanism to win trust among the concerned parties and bring about peaceful solutions to the conflict. As the ASEAN is striding forward, many countries are striving to boost their ties with it. But only through sincere assistance, instead of self desires, can those attempts be translated into win-win results. This article is edited and translated from Source: People's Daily Australia is now in negotiations with three countries about taking some of the asylum seekers who are now in detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island. Negotiations are under way with Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia, officials said, to allow the resettlement of asylum seekers. And less advanced discussions are taking place with three other countries as the Turnbull government seeks third countries for people who can neither be admitted to Australia nor returned home. Australia Post has refused to release its customer complaints data for Western Australia as frustrated Perth residents continue to criticise the service and its delivery drivers. The government-owned entity's Facebook page is flooded with hundreds of complaints a day ranging from stolen parcels, damaged goods and drivers not knocking when a person is home waiting for an item. Australia Post has refused to release its complaints data for WA. Many, including Perth woman Kelly Bell, also complained of waiting on the phone for hours to lodge an issue. Ms Bell said she had a $300 graduation dress stolen from her Bentley front doorstep in February after a delivery driver left it unattended and in clear view a busy footpath three metres away. Controversial changes to Western Australia's Aboriginal heritage legislation have divided the government, with some MPs warning they won't support the bill in its current form. A motion to restore the bill to the notice paper passed in parliament on Thursday after it stagnated for more than a year without debate. Labor's Ben Wyatt called for more consultation with indigenous communities before progressing further. Credit:Megan Lewis Liberal MP Rob Johnson says he won't support the bill in its current form and the government should consider withdrawing it, while National MP Brendon Grylls plans to move amendments to the legislation. "I believe that if the government had any integrity, it would simply then withdraw the legislation and come back with what is necessary, come back with what the Labor Party wants, what the National Party wants and what any reasonable, decent, thinking person would want for Aboriginal people in this state," Mr Johnson said. Police are investigating after a man's body was recovered from a dam in Caversham on Friday morning. Emergency services were called to a property near the intersection of Harper Street and West Swan Road around 10.30am where the body was found floating in the water. Police have cordoned off an area in Caversham where a man's body was recovered from a dam. Credit:Channel Nine News Perth Forensic officers are examining the scene and have yet to establish the circumstances surrounding the man's death. Beijing: In a role reversal that threatened to break the Chinese internet, President Xi Jinping clicked 'like' on a news agency mobile app, recorded a voice message to the public, and sat in the anchor's chair of the country's most-watched primetime national news bulletin. Mr Xi's brief dabble in journalism and social media came on Friday during a rare tour of China's three key mouthpieces, the official Xinhua News Agency, state broadcaster CCTV, and flagship newspaper People's Daily, where he rallied reporters and urged them to "tell China's stories, and transmit China's voice". Propaganda offensive ... In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, shakes hands with staff members at the control room of China Central Television (CCTV) in Beijing on Friday. Credit:AP "Your encouragement is our driving force," responded one Xinhua staffer. Advertisement By Matt McClain, West Kentucky Star Staff Feb. 19, 2016 | PADUCAH, KY By Matt McClain, West Kentucky Star Staff Feb. 19, 2016 | 09:46 AM | PADUCAH, KY The Kentucky Cancer Program across western Kentucky now has a chunk of change to go toward bringing awareness to cancer across the area. Bristol Broadcasting Company (parent company of West Kentucky Star) partnered with the Purchase Area's Kentucky Cancer Program and several other partners, and presented a check for $15,000 to go toward the cancer program, much of it staying in western Kentucky. Bristol packaged special pink light bulbs for the Light it Up Pink Campaign, in sponsorship with Paducah Power and sold the bulbs to the community for $5. The money was designated to Kentucky Cancer Program's Horses and Hope program, founded by former Kentucky First Lady Jane Beshear. Jamie Futrell, General Manager for Bristol Broadcasting Paducah, stated the light bulb campaign raised around $6,000 which was slightly below the amount they had hoped. However, through the generous donations from multiple sponsors and Bristol Broadcasting, a check totaling $15,000 was presented to the cancer program. Heather French Henry, Commissioner of Veterans Affairs and Miss America 2000 along with Dr. Steve Henry, former Lieutenant Governor and Chair of the Kentucky Prostate Cancer Coalition were in Paducah to receive the check on behalf of Horses and Hope. Horses and Hope is a project of the Kentucky Cancer Program. The campaign supports breast cancer awareness in the Paducah area. Some of the funding will be used to support the new mobile education and screening van that will serve Paducah and other select communities across the Commonwealth. Secretary of State Adams warns of long ballot for the general election 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 Kentucky News Network Feb. 18, 2016 | 05:46 PM | FRANKFORT, KY A Kentucky constitutional amendment called Marsy's Law, which would create a Victims Bill of Rights, heads to the Senate floor after some serious concerns were raised about its need and its wording.Major concerns include that its too broad, many of its provisions are already included in Kentucky statutes, and its intent is unclear.Democratic Sen. Ray Jones of Pikeville said, "I believe this bill to be verbose, with serious drafting issues and serious technical issues."Bill sponsor, Sen. Whitney Westerfield of Hopkinsville, says some of those issues will be fixed by the time it's voted on."The debate about that language has been going on, and obviously we're not done with that. So it will change or be cut altogether before it comes to the floor," Westerfield said.There was widespread support to enhance victims rights but some lawmakers were unsure if this is the correct forum since there are nearly 50 laws on the books addressing victims rights. Rita Redmond was a true lady who felt that every pupil had something to gift to the world Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/02/2016 (2437 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. OTTAWA Canadas federal and provincial auditors general are joining forces to come up with the first comprehensive national audit of climate change actions, says the commissioner on the environment and sustainable development. Julie Gelfand told a Senate committee Thursday that the national project will be completed in 2017 and the auditors hope to set a template that can be repeated every three or four years after that as Canada moves to ratchet down greenhouse gas emissions. Its the first time, on any issue, that federal and provincial auditors have combined forces to compile a single, common national audit, said Gelfand, whose office is included under the mantle of the federal auditor general. Julie Gelfand, Canada's commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, addresses a news conference in Ottawa, Tuesday, Oct.7, 2014. Canada's federal and provincial auditors general are joining forces to come up with the first comprehensive national audit of climate change actions, says Gelfand. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld Were all in the planning stages of doing this collaborative audit, Gelfand said in a follow-up interview with The Canadian Press. There are a variety of metrics in the climate change field that could be examined, she said, and auditors are working out collectively whats sort of the minimum question that were going to ask all the provincial governments. The exercise isnt designed to measure the overall output of carbon emissions, she said, but rather how the various jurisdictions are doing in meeting their policy commitments, including emissions targets. There is a national standard that provinces use for assessing their own emissions output, and that information is compiled by Environment Canada under United Nations reporting requirements as part of Canadas participation in international climate agreements. The current trajectory for carbon emissions shows the country as a whole is nowhere close to meeting its GHG reductions targets for 2020 or 2030. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will meet in Vancouver with the premiers in the first week of March to develop a national framework for combating climate change. Provinces and territories hold many of the environmental and energy policy levers, and over the past decade a reluctant federal government has left provinces to take the lead. Trudeaus Liberals won a majority government last fall on a platform that included putting a national price on carbon, but with a patchwork of policies and carbon pricing across the provinces, stitching together a national policy will be difficult. Gelfand says the countrys auditors general are also struggling to set out common parameters as they develop a template to measure progress. Weve never had everybody in the same tent on a single audit topic, said the commissioner. Itll be very complicated because they all have different legislation and they may even have different audit methodology, perhaps, different priorities, different amount of staff to do it all. Gelfand said the complexity of the audit challenge is the whole point of doing it now so that once we get it all together we can repeat it again as we aim for (emissions) reductions. Follow @BCheadle on Twitter Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 19/02/2016 (2436 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. A man challenging Ted Cruzs eligibility to run for the U.S. presidency says theres nothing wrong with being Canadian so long as youre not running for president. Lawrence Joyce, a pharmacist and lawyer, has filed a lawsuit contesting the Canadian-born Cruzs eligibility to be president. Similar suits have been filed in New York and Alabama. Ive only been to Canada a little, I like Canada, Joyce told The Canadian Press in a phone interview from Illinois on Friday. Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas speaks during a campaign stop, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016, in Myrtle Beach, S.C. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Heck, I dont even live far from the border, here in northern Illinois. Being a Canadian is fine with me, its just that we have a constitutional dilemma here aside from the fact that hes not my first choice for president, he said. Here is the possibility of the entire nation being thrown into turmoil in September if hes the nominee of the party while court battles go on to try to determine whether hes constitutionally qualified to begin with. Fellow Republican candidate Donald Trump also has threatened to sue over the issue. Cruz, whos denounced his Canadian citizenship, say hes eligible because his mother was a U.S. citizen when he was born. Some constitutional experts agree. Joyce said he fears if Cruz becomes the Republican nominee, Democrats will get him kicked off the ballot in some states, or Cruz will be forced to drop out, and Republicans will replace him with a moderate candidate. He said hes backing Ben Carson but is acting independently against Cruzs candidacy, with no help from Carsons campaign. A Cook County judge set a hearing for March 1 on a motion by Cruzs lawyer to dismiss Joyces suit. By then, ballots for Illinois March 15 primary will be printed and early voting under way. Asked about his eligibility during a CNN town hall this week, Cruz said by law hes been a U.S. citizen since the day he was born. The Indiana Election Commission on Friday rejected a challenge to whether Cruz may remain on the states May 3 primary ballot. Cruz won a similar ballot challenge in New Hampshire in November. ___ With files from The Associated Press Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 19/02/2016 (2436 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. VANCOUVER A man considered everything from a heroic whistleblower to a traitor is making a cyber visit to British Columbia. Edward Snowden will make the keynote presentation, via web link, as part of a Simon Fraser University program examining the opportunities and dangers of online data gathering. The presentation, at Vancouvers Queen Elizabeth Theatre on April 5, will be followed by a moderated discussion with expert panellists from SFU and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. Edward Snowden appears on a live video feed broadcast from Moscow at an event sponsored by ACLU Hawaii in Honolulu on Feb. 14, 2015. A man considered everything from a heroic whistleblower to a traitor is making a cyber visit to British Columbia. Edward Snowden will make the keynote presentation, via web link, as part of a Simon Fraser University program examining the opportunities and dangers of online data gathering. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Marco Garcia Snowden is a former employee of the National Security Agency in the United States. In 2013 he quit his job and left the U.S., before revealing how the NSA conducted secret information-gathering programs, spying on the online activities of hundreds of millions of people. Snowden, who remains exiled in Russia, has been charged with espionage in the U.S. and could face 30 years in prison, but his lawyer has said he wants to return to the United States, if he could be guaranteed a fair trial. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 19/02/2016 (2436 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. NORFOLK, Va. The commander of Canadian Fleet Atlantic says HMCS Windsor has been forced to dock in the United States after the submarine had mechanical problems at sea. Commodore Craig Baines says the sub was headed back to port in Halifax on Monday when there was a minor issue in its battery cells, which help propel the vessel. Baines says HMCS Windsor was sent to the Norfolk naval base in Virginia so that the problem could be investigated, and it arrived on Thursday. HMCS Windsor, one of Canada's Victoria-class submarines, performs sea trials in the Bedford Basin in Halifax on Dec.14, 2012. The commander of Canadian Fleet Atlantic says HMCS Windsor has been forced to dock in the United States after the submarine had mechanical problems at sea. Commodore Craig Baines says the sub was headed back to port in Halifax on Monday when there was a minor issue in its battery cells, which help propel the vessel. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan He says once the investigation is complete, the submarine will resume its journey home to Halifax, but he couldnt say when that would be. Baines says HMCS Windsor and her 60-member crew had been conducting exercises at sea with the United States navy for roughly four to five weeks. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/02/2016 (2437 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. VANCOUVER British Columbia health officials are considering offering supervised-injection services in community health clinics, triggered by a new federal government and a spike in fentanyl overdoses. Health authorities in Vancouver and Victoria have begun discussions about providing the services in clinics that already help people with addictions, for example, through clean needle programs. The situation here is getting worse, said Dr. Mark Lysyshyn of Vancouver Coastal Health in an interview Thursday. We just see that offering supervised-injection services is a more viable way to prevent some of the harm thats being caused right now. The discussions mark a shift for harm-reduction proponents who were long stymied by the previous Conservative government. A rise in overdose deaths from the dangerous opioid fentanyl has added to the urgency, officials say. Health authorities must apply for an exemption from federal drug laws in order to offer supervised-injection services. Lysyshyn said Vancouver Coastal Health is considering applying for a single exemption to cover multiple sites. Community health centres are separate from hospitals and offer a range of services. Its not yet known which ones would offer supervised injection, but the authority plans to target those that already offer harm reduction to drug users, he said. Lysyshyn said the authority was encouraged by Health Canadas recent approval of the Dr. Peter Centre, an HIV-AIDS clinic that has offered supervised injection along with other services in Vancouvers west end since 2002. Were sort of in a new world now, he said. Theres been a lot of interest in Canada in harm reduction and a belief that its been the right thing to do for people and that it saves lives, but we havent been able to move on that in the past 10 years. The B.C. Coroners Service has said overdose deaths are on the rise in the province and a growing portion are linked to fentanyl, a potent synthetic that is often cut with other drugs. Thirty per cent of overdose deaths involved fentanyl in 2015, up from five per cent in 2012. Island Health spokeswoman Suzanne Germain said the authority has long considered supervised injection an important harm-reduction model, but only recently began active discussions with Victoria city officials and police about offering the service in community sites. The major factor for us has been the change in attitude at the federal government level. I think it was really clear under the previous government that something like this would not be approved. When the Conservatives were in power, the federal government waged a court battle for years against Vancouvers only stand-alone supervised-injection site, Insite, eventually losing at the Supreme Court of Canada. It also brought in legislation that made it more challenging to open new sites. Health Canada spokesman Sean Upton said it would be premature to speculate on whether the Liberal government would repeal the legislation. The government of Canada is committed to following an evidence-based approach to assessing applications for supervised consumption sites and to assessing applications under the existing legal framework without undue hindrance or delay, he said. Provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall said Vancouver and Victoria need more supervised-injection services. He said stand-alone centres like Insite work in communities with a high concentration of drug users, but they are an expensive model. When you have a number of clinics that are already serving this population and theyre already partly engaged in treatment, its a lot more affordable to build it into an existing facility, he said. It may also incent people who werent engaged in primary care or addictions treatment to come in. Follow @ellekane on Twitter. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 19/02/2016 (2436 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. OTTAWA Fishers from Norway House Cree Nation say Ottawa has accused them of wrongly claiming employment insurance benefits for themselves and their helpers, even though the government has been approving those claims for more than a decade. About 50 fishers and 100 helpers are affected by what some say is an overly aggressive investigation that has cut off EI benefits for dozens of them. Theres something wrong here, said Langford Saunders, president of the Norway House fishers co-operative. He said last August federal officials signalled an intention to begin investigating EI claims from the fishers and their helpers. Interviews began the following month. A number of them were told earlier this month they will no longer be eligible for EI, and Saunders said some fishers have been told they need to repay between $5,000 and $30,000 for benefits previously received. He said the issue seems to be EI officials are suddenly saying the way fishers designated working hours to their helpers was incorrect and none of them should have qualified for EI by those claims. But he said he has been making the claims the same way for 13 years, he and his helpers always qualified and no one has ever said it was a problem before now. Somebody approved it, he said. The investigators also accused some of the helpers of lying, he said. NDP MP Niki Ashton, her partys employment critic and the MP representing the fishers, asked about the issue in the House of Commons Thursday, saying the fishers are being treated like criminals for receiving EI. They are being interrogated, intimidated, and even being told to hand over the records of people who have died, she said. People are being cut off from their benefits without even having the chance to plead their case. We are talking about some of the poorest people in Canada. Will the government work with Norway House fishers to resolve this situation immediately? Employment Minister and Manitoba Liberal MP MaryAnn Mihychuk said, This is a very sensitive case. Individuals are going through an investigation. It is ongoing, and I cannot comment. mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 19/02/2016 (2436 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The lions are leaving. The Assiniboine Park Zoo says this weekend is the last chance to see a pair of Asiatic lions. They are heading to zoological facilities in Great Britain on the recommendation of the European Endangered Species Program. The pair of twin brothers, Bhanu and Kamal, have called Winnipeg home since 2012, when they arrived from the Zoologischer Garten Magdeburg in Germany. Twin brothers Bhanu and Kamal are heading to Great Britain. A crowd favourite, thousands have seen them over the last four years at the Assiniboine Park Zoos Pavilion of the Lions exhibit. We know that the lions are a visitor favourite and while were sad to see them go, this is an important part of species survival and helping save endangered species, said Gary Lunsford, Head, Zoological Operations at Assiniboine Park Zoo. Right now, the zoo has no new lions to replace the old ones at the exhibit. Were currently working on potential options for the exhibit space and well be sure to keep the public informed of what new and exciting changes will be coming in the near future, Lunsford said in a statement. Bhanu will move to the London Zoo next Wednesday and Kamal will be transferred to the Chessington Zoo in mid-March. Both facilities are currently home to female Asiatic lions and hope to successfully breed the pairs in the future. Once a flourishing species, its currently estimated only 200 to 260 Asiatic lions exist in the wild, living in Indias Gir Forests where they are heavily protected. An additional 200 Asian lions live in zoos worldwide. A subspecies of the African lion, the mane of the Asian lion is generally shorter than that of the African lion, so the ears are always visible. Asian lions are, in general, also slightly smaller than African lions. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/02/2016 (2437 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The U.S. government wants to drill five kilometres below the surface of North Dakota to see whether granite bedrock can store high-level radioactive waste. In January, the U.S. Department of Energy announced plans to spend US$35 million over the next five years to drill experimental boreholes into the bedrock below state-owned land near Rugby, N.D. The proposed site, in Balta Township, is about 200 kilometres south of Brandon and sits within the watershed of the Souris River, which flows into Manitoba and drains into the Assiniboine River. The Department of Energy says the test is an opportunity to see whether deep boreholes could be used to store radioactive waste currently held in underwater canisters at nuclear facilities across the United States. The department asked a consortium led by Ohios Batelle Memorial Institute to figure out engineering challenges involved in drilling 4.9-kilometre-deep holes, keeping the shafts stable and sealing them up. NICK UT / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILES U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz says the boreholes, to be drilled about 25 kilometres south of Rugby, N.D., are an important first step for long-term nuclear-waste disposal. This is an important first step to increasing our scientific understanding of the potential uses for crystalline rock formations including the feasibility of boreholes as an option for long-term nuclear-waste disposal, U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said in a statement. The site in Balta Township was chosen because its not prone to seismic activity and is located in a sparsely populated area far from the oil and gas activity in western North Dakota. The Department of Energy told North Dakotas Forum News Service the tests are not about selecting a disposal site and also promised to seal the boreholes when the experimental-drilling project is over. Environmentalists and elected officials in North Dakota are nonetheless worried their state will be saddled with the responsibility of storing nuclear waste other U.S. states have already rejected. A plan to store nuclear waste inside a hollowed-out Nevada mountain was torpedoed by political opposition in 2010. Nobody in the U.S. wants this. What we fear in North Dakota an empty state in some peoples minds, with one of the lowest populations is the government is going to take the path of least resistance and put this here, said Todd Leake, an Emerado, N.D., farmer who serves as president of the Sierra Clubs Dacotah Chapter. Outgoing North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple has gone on record opposing the project, telling Forum News the Department of Energy has made no effort to hide the fact that this is something theyre very hopeful about, so lets not kid ourselves here. Officials with Pierce County, where Balta Township is located, also raised concerns the tests will lead to nuclear-waste storage. The Pierce County Commission placed a moratorium on the experiment earlier this month, The Associated Press reported. That likely wont stop the Department of Energy from choosing another site, perhaps on private or federal land, said Leake of the Sierra Club. He described the plan as nuclear-waste disposal, not storage, since he said it would be impossible to retrieve the materials from the bottom of deep boreholes. Leake said he contacted the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., to ensure officials north of the border are aware of the tests proposed upstream of the Lake Winnipeg watershed. Manitoba knows about the Department of Energys plans, said Zach Fleisher, press secretary to Manitoba Conservation and Water Stewardship Minister Tom Nevakshonoff. Manitoba is aware that the U.S. government is investigating options, as is Canada. Manitoba does not allow the storage of high-level radioactive waste and will continue to monitor the situation being considered in North Dakota, Fleisher said. bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca The Winona Area Public Schools district is one vote closer to resolving its long-standing facilities dilemma. On a 5-2 vote, with Brian Zeller and Jay Kohner casting dissenting votes, the board directed district administration to do a detailed study and cost analysis of remodeling and expanding Goodview Elementary and building a new elementary school on the east side of Winona, leaving the Rollingstone Community school to continue as-is, with the added direction to consider the possibility of renovating W-K elementary to serve as an east-end elementary school. Thursday nights vote, board chairman Mohamed Elhindi stressed, was not a vote to close schools, build schools or remodel schools. Instead, the vote is simply a direction to district administration to gather, analyze, and present to the board detailed information on which they can base a future decisions on district facilities. From an initial list of 14 facility options presented last spring, for the last several months, the board has been working with three final options: Keeping all the schools open and finding a way to deal with the escalating costs of deferred maintenance; closing Madison Elementary and keeping the other buildings open; or closing three elementaries and keeping Rollingstone open while remodeling Goodview and building a new school the option the board agreed to further investigate. The three options were the focus of a large telephone survey last fall, with results split among all three fairly evenly from members of the public who responded. Meanwhile, results from district staff have been heavily in favor of the third option, Of the three, the third was found to be least costly both as a one-time capital expense and for ongoing operating costs. It was also found to be the most adaptable to implementing 21st-century education programming. Board member Steve Schild was emphatic in support of the third option as the only option before the board that was fiscally and educationally feasible and sustainable. He pointed out that district enrollment had shrunk by nearly a third, but the district was still operating nearly the same number of school buildings, a mismatch with clear financial ramifications. Ben Baratto said he was often skeptical of comparisons between financing education and running a business. However, he said, when it comes to the upkeep and operating costs associated with underutilized facilities, the district needs to take a cue from business. We cant keep buildings open and let the bottom line go to heck, he said. Baratto went on to recount a discussion hed had with a community business leader who took note of the acres of parking the district needs to maintain, pointing out that paying for parking lots doesnt do anything for students. Board member Jeanne Nelson insisted that a thoroughly renovated and modernized W-K building be considered as a possible east-end elementary school as an alternative of building a new school. She stressed that such a renovation could entail gutting the interior to produce a facility that would be functionally indistinguishable from a new building, but retaining the buildings historic exterior and presence in the neighborhood. The consensus was that that would be included as part of the direction to administration. Neighborhood impact was a factor in Zellers negative vote. Im a small, neighborhood-school guy, Zeller said, while acknowledging the financial concerns associated with maintaining and operating the current buildings. Kohner expressed frustration at not having sufficient time and information to weigh the decision. He urged the board to delay taking a vote. Were being a little too hasty to pick one option, he said. The board also heard from four community members advocating keeping the districts facilities as they are. Speaking during the community comment period at the beginning of the board meeting, they identified themselves as either parents of young children or as planning to become parents, who wished to have small, neighborhood schools available for their children. Board member Tina Lehnertz spoke to their concerns as the board members discussed the options. It would be nice to keep all the schools open, everyone would like that, but I dont think we can do that, she said. Anyone whos been around a while knows how far the Republican Party has strayed from its former values. Most of the conservative presidents and legislators of the past would cringe at what the current GOP presidential candidates are saying. Theyd distance themselves from Republican leaders who gut environmental protections and, in return, unashamedly accept huge amounts of dark campaign money from major polluters. Republicans of old would recognize its not fiscally conservative to engage in senseless wars that cost us many trillions of dollars and theyd refuse to increase our already bloated defense budget. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the United States spent more on defense in 2014 than all of the 15 top civilized countries combined, including China and Russia. Why? Because defense contractors hire thousands of lobbyists and faithfully fund the campaigns of those who consistently vote for more spending. Republicans used to work for civil rights, protection of our air and water, sensible regulations over gun ownership and fiscal conservatism, but the new Republicans now consider those liberal issues. Not that I agree with every liberal issue. I believe nuclear power is necessary until we find other efficient, reliable and affordable alternatives to fossil fuels. I believe in the death penalty when theres no doubt that someone committed a heinous and violent crime, especially related to physical or sexual abuse of children. Some people just cant be fixed and I dont want to support them for the rest of their lives. I also dont believe in passing silly regulations like limiting the size of soft drinks or labeling calories on restaurant foods. People can figure that out for themselves. But most of the current Republican Partys policies and actions go against everything I believe in, like democracy, compassion, access to a quality education, protection against unscrupulous business practices and conservation of our precious air and water. Thats why I now vote for Democrats. Todays Democrats push for sensible regulations that shield us from practices of disreputable corporate big shots who control the bulk of the countrys finances and investments. They fight to protect seniors whove worked their entire lives and saved for their retirements. They vote to end deceitful mortgage deals that ruined the economy in 2008. They believe hard work should be rewarded with a living wage and that owners of huge corporations should be willing to fairly share the profits with the people who do the work that made those profits possible. And they believe in equal pay for equal work. Like the Democrats, I believe we have little chance of influencing election results when the super-rich have the most pull. Thats why Democrats want to overturn the Supreme Courts Citizens United ruling that allows even more secret money in campaigns. Democrats dont believe in big government, they believe in good government. If it werent for government, how long would it have taken to bring electricity to rural areas, to build our highways, bridges and dams? Good government funds and promotes programs that benefit all of us: public education, medical research, technological innovations, disaster relief and weather forecasting. It funds universities, environmental protections, the court system, small business start-ups, police and fire protection and much more. We pay for these essential services when we pay our taxes and, overall, we get a pretty good deal. If all of that were privatized, wed be paying more than twice what we pay now. Democrats are just as spiritual as Republicans, but believe faith is personal and private. As Garrison Keillor wrote in his book Homegrown Democrat, It demonstrates itself in good works and love of neighbor, but it doesnt need to hire a publicist. Democrats dont believe Jesus would have demanded the poor be drug tested before he gave them food. They know that poverty isnt a choice; its a symptom that things are wrong and need to be addressed with compassion as well as expertise and common sense. As for marriage, if Republicans are really worried about the sanctity of it, why havent they banned divorce? Many Republicans who fiercely defend personal freedom hypocritically vote for politicians who deny a womans freedom to choose what to do with her own body. They also overlook the fact that freedom also means freedom from bigotry because of the color of ones skin, religion, sexual identity or anything else that makes humans different from what they consider the norm. The Republican Party of old no longer exists. Until sane and responsible Republicans demand change, it will continue to turn into a party that gets uglier and uglier. I hope they wont let that happen. The Wisconsin Legislature has passed a bill that would stall Milwaukee's efforts to provide local photo IDs to the homeless, immigrants in the country illegally and others who have difficulty obtaining state IDs. The Republican bill would prohibit towns and counties from spending money on or issuing photo IDs. It would also prohibit using city or village ID cards to vote or obtain public benefits, like food stamps. Opponents call the bill anti-immigrant and say it's aimed at Milwaukee plans to issue local IDs to assist with everyday tasks like opening a bank account. The bill's supporters say it will reduce confusion and fraud. The Senate passed the bill 19-13 on Tuesday. The Assembly followed suit hours later, approving the measure 62-35. It goes next to Gov. Scott Walker. U.S. Rep. Reid Ribble is keeping his campaign promise. The Republican from Sherwood announced Jan. 30 he would not seek re-election for the 8th Congressional District seat. Keeping campaign promises is rare for some and keeping one that means youre out of a job is even rarer among career politicians. When Ribble ran for Congress in 2010 he said hed serve only four terms at the most. When Ribbles third term ends, Congress will lose one of the few representatives who isnt afraid to work on a bill with whomever else supports it, whether that person is a Democrat, Republican or independent. It has been a refreshing change from lawmakers who oppose proposals from those on the other side of the aisle simply because the other party proposed it, not because they disagreed with the merits of the measure. It has been refreshing, but not surprising: Before the 2010 election, Ribble told the Green Bay Press-Gazette, Im a conservative more than I am a Republican. Professing that is one thing; following through is another. Ribble followed through. He joined the No Labels group, a bipartisan movement with a goal of putting aside party propaganda and focusing on solving problems that all Americans faced, both Democrat and Republican. Last year, Ribble reintroduced the John Tanner Fairness in Redistricting Act and the Redistricting Transparency Act of 2015 to restore transparency to the process of drawing up political boundaries every 10 years and end gerrymandering. There have been few Republicans on board with these acts, probably because the GOP is in power, in Congress and in the Wisconsin Legislature. Its an issue the Democrats in Wisconsin could have addressed when they held the Legislature, but they didnt. There are no candidates you will agree with 100 percent of the time, but Ribble has earned the benefit of the doubt because he acts on principle, not on fear. For example, in October he quit the House Freedom Caucus because of its role in House Speaker John Boehners resignation. In December, Ribble said he wouldnt endorse Donald Trump if he became the Republican presidential nominee. Many of his peers might be thinking the same thing, but theyre not saying anything; instead, theyre willing to kowtow to party politics rather than make a responsible, reasoned decision on their own. More so than other lawmakers, Ribble went a long way to bridge the gap between parties and find common ground. Reid has always operated by the theory that we should find out what we have in common and get those things done, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Madison said afters Ribbles announcement. We will always support those who vote based on sound principle, strong ethics and what is best for their constituents and taxpayers, not those who vote based on what is best for their political party. Ribble did that much better than most of his peers. In the midst of a depressive wave that has flowed over parts of Portage at the end of a very hard week, the Portage Public Library was a starting place for people who wanted to be a ready to reach out to those in need. Kelly Zuelke and Arlene Tollison led a group discussion Thursday night of how to reach out to those who are at risk of committing suicide. Working with Prevent Suicide Columbia County, the two trained a new group of recruits in QPR Question Persuade Refer a system for intervening and averting suicide. In Columbia County in 2015, 12 deaths were officially recorded as suicides, eight involving firearms. Wisconsinites are at a greater risk of suicide than residents of some other states, said Zuelke, OWI Court coordinator and former Northwest Connections counselor. Many suicides result from what she calls the lethal triad, she said, when you have a person thinking of suicide, the presence of a firearm and drugs or alcohol. In Wisconsin, the latter two factors are in above-average abundance. In June, an analysis by detox.net in which Wisconsins binge drinking rate topped national rankings gave the state national attention as the drunkest state. Throughout Thursdays presentation, Zuelke offered dozens of first steps in talking to someone who shows signs of suicidal behavior. But at a certain point, as retired librarian Tollison explained, a person needs to get over the awkwardness of it, saying how in the past she had poked and prodded at her daughter saying: You are under so much stress, how do you do it? Eventually direct questions need to be addressed to a person contemplating suicide, the presenters said. One attendee told about losing a brother to suicide and that talking with him was not the problem. Sometimes you get stuck, she said, of how they would have late-night phone calls that could go on and on, but never quite getting to what was bothering him and would eventually take his life. He was so worried about hurting someone else. Although the groups stated goal is to reduce the number of suicides in Columbia County to zero, as Zuelke pointed out, Theres just times that you can do everything in your power and nothing can stop a person from making that choice. Along with providing resources that an at-risk person can be directed to for counseling, like Northwest Connections and Columbia County Health and Human Services, the presenters said that in Portage we are fortunate to have a police department that regularly responds to welfare checks no questions asked. Calling the police on a friend or a family member can seem like burning a bridge, but they offered perspective if a situation with a loved one comes to that point. Whats the worst thing that happens? Zuelke asked. They say no. Or your sister is mad at you for two days. USDA announces $1 billion debt relief for 36,000 farmers The USDA announced a program to provide $1.3B in debt relief for about 36,000 farmers who have fallen behind on loan payments or face foreclosure. Gleeble to the rescue Now Dr Lesley Chown can test new metals cost-effectively in her lab. A Senior Lecturer in the Wits School of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, Chown received the R13.5-million-Gleeble thanks to funding from the National Research Foundation and the University. A Gleeble is a computerised simulator in which various performance parameters such as strength, breaking point and heat qualities of a specific material are measured. Chown has a special interest in the structure and property relationships in metallic alloys and the continuous casting processes of metals. The production testing and development of new metals and alloys are usually highly complex and expensive processes but a system like the Gleeble allows these processes to be tested in a cost-effective way in the laboratory. A sample of material is heated and mechanically worked while various performance parameters of interest are measured and recorded for later analysis. After the simulation is done, the microstructure of the material may also be examined. You can realistically simulate large- scale industrial changes and you can use combinations of different heating and cooling cycles to simulate processes like the hot-rolling of steel, explains Chown. She works with Professor Lesley Cornish, Director of the DST-NRF Centre in Strong Materials at Wits, and Professor Tony Paterson, the Chair of Welding funded by the South African Institute of Welding. Chown and her team will be using the Gleeble in collaboration with other academic institutions like the CSIR, industry partners and will develop human capital by training new students. We will also be supporting industry in process optimisation in thermo-mechanical processes and we will be roping in more postgraduate students. This will be a win-win situation for us and for the industry, she adds. Chown also has her heart set on blue sky research, where she will be experimenting with various titanium alloys to produce cheaper titanium alloys for land-based use. She started her career at Iscor before moving to Mintek and then Wits. She has more than 15 years of experience working on an older version of the Gleeble. 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 Researchers working in biomimicry -- looking to nature to solve complex human problems -- have discovered a new and exciting take on drone flight: bat wings On Thursday a spectacular new development in drone flight technology was announced via the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council: a new form of micro air vehicle (MAV) that can fly farther than any of its kind as a result of its unique, bat-like design. According to UPI, this new MAV was developed after researchers looked into the physics and natural mechanisms of bats its in flight. Because of their membrane wings, which dont flap but change shape based on forced acting against them, bats are known for their unique method of flight. The bat-like MAV design was the result of biomimicry among the researchers, meaning they looked to nature for answers as to how to develop the most fully optimized and economical drone. Living organisms can show us how to create our materials and our products, our buildings and our entire cities in ways that help us fit in with life on Earth, said Eric Connelly, director of communications and outreach at the Biomimicry Institute in an interview with The Christian Science Monitor. There is really no limit for who can apply to their work and how more and more scientists are looking to nature for inspiration. Biomimicry is a growing trend among scientists and researchers the world over. Research institutes, like the Biomimicry Institute in Montana, have begun identify the potential benefits of the practice. The team of scientists working on the bat-winged MAV project used electroactive polymers that respond to electricity in order to change the shape of the wings mimicking the way in which bats membrane wings reacted to forced. Western Oregon (3-6) vs. Newman (2-4) Feb. 19 | 11 a.m. & 1 p.m. CT | Schaeffer Park | Canyon, Texas Series: First meeting Western Oregon (3-6) vs. West Texas A&M (10-0) Feb. 20 | 3 p.m. & 5 p.m. CT | Schaeffer Park | Canyon, Texas Series: West Texas leads 1-0 Last Meeting: February 7, 2015 Lost, 5-1 in Tucson, Ariz. Western Oregon (3-6) vs. Lincoln (0-5) Feb. 21 | 9 a.m. & 11 a.m. CT | Schaeffer Park | Canyon, Texas Series: First meeting Western Oregon softball will contend in the West Texas A&M Lady Buff Invite in Canyon, Texas from Friday, February 19 to Sunday, February 21. The Wolves will play a double header each day, facing Newman on Friday, West Texas A&M on Saturday, and Lincoln on Sunday. Click here to follow the live stats. Game updates will also be posted on the Western Oregon Wolves' Twitter page (@WOUWolves) as well as Western Oregon softball's Twitter (@WOUSoftball).The Wolves competed in the Dixie State Tournament last weekend in St. George, Utah. They defeated Western New Mexico, 8-4, and Cal Baptist, 9-0. They fell to Dixie State twice with the first game ending in a 4-1 decision, and the second in a 13-5 result. Western Oregon also took a loss against UH Hilo, 9-2.In the first nine preseason games, sophomoreholds the highest batting average on the team, hitting .429. She currently has three runs and 12 hits. Juniorleads the Wolves in runs (9) and hits (13), and she has a batting average of .382. Juniorhas a .409 batting average, tallying six runs and nine hits. As a freshman,has already recorded five runs and 10 hits with a .323 average. Seniorand sophomorehave seen the most time on the mound as they have both appeared in seven games, and they each hold a 1-2 record. Boytz has three strikeouts, while Dominguez has seven.The Jets opened up their season at the Southern Arkansas Tournament in Magnolia. They won two of their matches, and they were unable to score a run in three of their four losses.Sophomore Taylor Mannis leads the Jets with a .353 batting average and six hits as she has also scored two runs. Senior Courtney Sartin tallies three runs and five hits with a .294 batting average. For the pitchers, junior Kate Smith is currently 0-3 this season, recording a 1.84 earned run average and striking out nine batters. Senior Katie Ingles has two wins this season with a 4.32 earned run average, and she has struck out seven batters.After 10 preseason games in two tournaments, the Buffs are undefeated. West Texas A&M started out with five games at the Dixie State Invitational and hosted the WT Invitational last weekend. In their matches against Colorado State, Chadron State, and Adams State, the Buffs did not allow a single run.Senior Stacey Ramirez holds a .567 batting average, leading the Buffs with 17 runs and 17 hits. Freshman Brittany Cruz also has a high batting average of .538 as she has scored 10 runs and recorded 14 hits. On the mound, sophomore Kilee Halbert has posted four wins, a 2.01 earned run average, and 18 strikeouts. Senior Tori Bayer has three wins, a 2.28 earned run average, and 16 strikeouts, while junior Alexis Alfonso owns the remaining three wins with a 3.62 earned run average and nine strikeouts.The Blue Tigers are looking for their first win this season after falling in five matches at the Southern Arkansas University Softball Invitational in Magnolia.Freshman Tori Nienhusser possesses the most runs (2) and hits (4) on the team as she has been hitting a .286 average. Juniors Macie Kinsey and Megan Heimbaugh each have three hits and one run this season. Junior Sarah Westhoff and sophomore Madison Ragar each have two losses on the pitcher's mound.The Wolves will open GNAC play on Saturday, March 5 with a double header against Saint Martin's. First pitches are set for 12 p.m. and 2 p.m. Countdown To Compulsory Dog Microchipping This article is old - Published: Friday, Feb 19th, 2016 The Welsh Government are reminding dog owners there are just 50 days until it will be compulsory for dogs in Wales to be microchipped. By 6 April, all dogs over eight weeks old will need to be microchipped, with their owners details registered on an approved database. Welsh Government Deputy Minister for Farming and Food, Rebecca Evans said: There are just 50 days to go until it will be a legal requirement for dogs in Wales to be microchipped. If there are any owners left who have not already had their dogs microchipped, they must do so by 6 April. The ability to trace all dogs back to their owners should encourage more responsible ownership and breeding, and help in the control of dangerous and nuisance dogs by creating a link between a dog and its owner. Lost, stolen and injured dogs are much more likely to be reunited with their owners if they have been microchipped and registered on one of the authorised databases. Chief Veterinary Officer for Wales, Professor Christianne Glossop, said: Microchipping is a simple procedure involving the implantation of a small microchip (about the size of a grain of rice) under the skin of an animal via a needle. The process is quick and very well tolerated by dogs. Most dogs in Wales have already been microchipped but owners also need to ensure the corresponding database has their up to date contact details to give them the best chance of being reunited if they are lost or stolen. Non-working dogs will still be required by law to wear a collar and tag with the owners name and contact details on it when it is in a public place after the law comes into force. For more information about microchipping, please contact your vet or a suitably trained pet care specialist. Pic: Pete the sheepdog, because we love any excuse to use it. As we think he is fibreglass, he does not need to be chipped. New Home for Veterans Welcomes First Resident This article is old - Published: Friday, Feb 19th, 2016 A brand new home designed to provide accomodation for veterans in Wrexham has welcomed its first resident. Ty Dewr, meaning Brave House on Esytn Road, benefitted from a 2.26m grant last year to help convert and build apartments for military personnel returning to civilian life. Wrexham Council, in partnership with First Choice Housing Association and additional partners purchased Clwyd House on Bryn Estyn Lane in November 2014. The accommodation with generous living space and outdoor gym will house 12 veterans, with a second development in the pipeline which will see the construction of 16 brand new flats for veterans by First Choice Housing Association off Croesnewydd Road in Wrexham. Ahead of the arrival of the first resident, Conservative Party Candidate for the Welsh Assembly Elections, Andrew Atkinson said: It was great to meet with Andy Green again from Alabare and also to meet the rest of the team who will be supporting the veterans. The house and living accommodation is absolutely stunning and will serve our veterans proud. Our veterans deserve our support and I was blown away by the building, the plans from the team and the future development down the road of even more homes for veterans. If youd like to help the new @wrexham Home for Veterans could you take a collection tin for work? Thanks pic.twitter.com/wbkpVNR7wL Andrew Atkinson (@andrew4wrexham) February 17, 2016 Theres lots of ways to help, you could volunteer some time, you could take a collection tin for work, or you could join the Big Sleep Out with myself and others in March. Andy Green Senior Community Fundraiser From Alabare Homes For Veterans North Wales & Cheshire added: We are really struggling for Volunteers for our Charity Collections and are looking for individuals and businesses alike to help fund our work and be part of the Homes For Veterans journey here in North Wales. We have homes in Colwyn Bay, Llandudno Junction and now Wrexham. 100% of our fundraising goes straight towards funding support for Homeless Veterans here in North Wales. For details of how to get involved please contact Andrew Atkinson on andrew4wrexham@gmail.com or contact Andy Green at a.green@alabare.co.uk Police Clampdown on Anti-Social Behaviour at McDonalds This article is old - Published: Friday, Feb 19th, 2016 Police are issuing a clampdown at a fast food restaurant following reports of ongoing issues with anti-social behaviour by an unruly group. The two week clampdown, titled Operation Bairns will be enforced at McDonalds on Regent Street between February 22nd and March 7th. The police operation comes as a result of a series of reports that a group of youths are regularly behaving anti-socially at the fast food restaurant. Town Centre Sgt Steve Owens said: It has become a meeting place for an unruly gang who are causing issues for staff at McDonalds and their customers. It is a gang of youths who are known and have been banned from the restaurant previously, however they keep returning. The issues are happening from 4pm with children of school age. There are reports of swearing, being abusive and making a mess. Part of the attraction is the free Wifi available and they are using is as a drop in centre. There are suggestions they have been using legal highs as well. McDonalds have been accommodating to them, but it is starting to affect their business. The staff are not equipped to deal with that sort of behaviour. As part of the clampdown a dispersal order will be implemented at the restaurant which will allow uniformed officers to direct those found behaving anti-socially away from the area. The dispersal order will mean that anyone who is removed from McDonalds and around that area will not be able to return for a 48 hour period. Anyone who does can face being arrested. Sgt Owens said: We have the support of McDonalds, the behaviour of the group is starting to have an impact on their business as well. The aim is to provide a high profile police presence and reassure staff and customers. As part of the clampdown there will also be dedicated officers operating in the area. Sgt Owens added: Its come to a head really, we have had many calls over the past few weeks and it has been escalating. We addressing the calls, but we need to put something else in place to address the problem. Wrexham to Make Second Bid For Iconic Poppy Display This article is old - Published: Friday, Feb 19th, 2016 Wrexham Council are to put in a second bid to bring an iconic and commemorative Poppy Sculpture to the town centre. In partnership with St Giles Church, Wrexham Council will be submitting two bids to the 14-18 NOW WW1 Centenary Art Commissions by the 29 February. One bid will be to display the Wave on Llwyn Isaf and the second to display the Weeping Window at St Giles Church in the town centre. Cllr David Griffiths, Armed Forces Champion and Chair of the Poppy Wave Group said: I believe residents in Wrexham would love to see one of these displays in the town centre and this time we are putting forward two locations. We are committed to bringing the poppies to Wrexham and I wish the bids every success. This will be the second time Wrexham Council have submitted a bid to host the iconic Poppy Wave, with an attempt to bring the display to Llwyn Isaf unsuccessful. The special poppy sculptures, which had been previously installed at the Tower of London as part of the commemorations to mark the centenary of the beginning of the First World War. Two parts of the original Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, which attracted millions of visitors during its time at the Tower of London, will be displayed at locations across the UK in 2015 and 2016. The Wave and Weeping Window have been saved for the nation by the Backstage Trust and the Clore Duffield Foundation, and gifted to 14-18 NOW and Imperial War Museums. Reverend Bray from St Giles Church, added: The Weeping Window display could be displayed at St Giles to provide a stunning display for residents and visitors to Wrexham. the public interest in the poppies is huge and I have no doubts they will be seen by many thousands of people should the bid be successful. At a press conference Tuesday following a two-day summit of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) held in California, President Barack Obama was confronted with a question about his administrations intentions with regard to the escalating war in Syria. Reflecting a growing drumbeat of criticism from Republicans and sections of the US foreign policy establishment, the reporter asked whether Obama had been outfoxed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Noting that Russias military intervention in Syria had helped turn the tide of battle in favor of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against the Western-backed rebels, the reporter asked whether Washington would step up military action in support of the Islamist militias it is backing if the city of Aleppo fell to the government offensive. Obamas reply was a study in imperialist hypocrisy, deceit and historical falsification. Insisting, This is not a contest between me and Putin, the US president set out to prove that Putin was not winning. The fact that Putin finally had to send his own troops and his own aircraft and invest this massive military operation was not a testament to a great strength; it was a testament to the weakness of Assads position, Obama insisted. He continued: That if somebody is strong, then you dont have to send in your army to prop up your ally. They have legitimacy in their country and they are able to manage it their self, and then you have good relations with them. You send in your army when the horse youre backing isnt effective. And thats exactly whats happened. The result, he further argued, would be Russias finding itself in a quagmire, compelled to invest in a permanent occupation of Syria, which would not be the best thing for Russia, given the state of its economy. One is prompted to ask, who is Obama to lecture Putin? But in the end, one has to acknowledge that if anyone knows whereof he speaks on questions of quagmires and permanent occupations, it is the president of the United States. Just last October, Obama reneged on his pledge to withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan before the end of his presidency in January 2017. Ten thousand US soldiers remain deployed there, nearly 15 years after the US invaded the country in 2001. US commanders have indicated they may ask for that number to be increased in the face of a mounting insurgency against the puppet government installed by Washington. The regime in Kabul, it can truly be said, lacks legitimacy and remains in power solely thanks to the US troops propping it up. It is a similar story in Iraq, which the US invaded in 2003, toppling its government, devastating its society and causing the deaths of an estimated one million men, women and children. Roughly 4,000 US troops are back in Iraq following the ignominious June 2014 collapse of the puppet forces the US armed and trained, at the cost of some $24 billion, in the face of an offensive by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The number of US troopswhich does not count another 2,500 deployed across the border in Kuwait and some 7,000 private military contractorsis expected to climb. Then there is Libya, whose secular government Washington and its allies brought down in the US-NATO war of 2011, killing tens of thousands of civilians, murdering the countrys leader, Muammar Gaddafi, and leaving Libya in a state of permanent chaos and civil war. At Tuesdays press conference, Obama was asked by another reporter whether another military intervention in Libya will be necessary. He did not rule out the idea, stressing that Washington will continue to take actions where weve got a clear operation and a clear target in mind. If there is a quagmire in the Middle East, it is of Washingtons creation, the product of unending wars for regime change aimed at imposing US hegemony over the region and its vast energy resources. Syria is an integral part of this process. Obama feigned deep concern over the fate of the Syrian people, insisting that it is their welfare, not some filthy imperialist intrigue, that motivates Washingtons actions. The question is, how can we stop the suffering, stabilize the region, stop this massive out-migration of refugees who are having such a terrible time, end the violence, stop the bombing of schools and hospitals and innocent civilians, stop creating a safe haven for ISIS, he said. As Obama was speaking, there was a report from Syria that a US warplane had struck a bakery in a Syrian town near the Iraqi border, killing 15 people standing in line for bread in the early morning. Moscow, meanwhile, has rejected charges that it was responsible for the bombing of schools and hospitals the day before, while the Syrian government has charged that an American air strike inflicted the worst of the casualties. Whatever the ratio of civilian deaths caused by US versus Russian airstrikes, the undeniable fact is that the suffering of the Syrian people is the product of a concerted drive by the US, NATO and Washingtons Middle East allies to topple the government of Assad and impose a puppet regime more subservient to Western interests. To that end, a vast operation was mounted in which the CIA, working with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, organized the funding and arming of Islamist militias linked to Al Qaeda and funneled tens of thousands of foreign fighters into Syria to wage a vicious sectarian war for regime change. The results of this criminal enterprise are the deaths of some 300,000 Syrians, with another 11 million turned into homeless refugees. That Russia may become trapped in the Middle East quagmire created by decades of US military aggression is not excluded. The Putin government, representing the interests of the capitalist oligarchy that arose through the criminal appropriation of state property following the Stalinist bureaucracys dissolution of the Soviet Union, is intervening in Syria not out of altruistic concerns for the Syrian people, but for what it sees as the oligarchys own interests. It fears that the toppling of Assad by US-backed Islamists will not only deprive Moscow of its only close ally in the Middle East, but also pave the way for a more concerted drive to isolate, weaken and ultimately dismember the Russian federation. A US puppet in Damascus would open the way to pipeline routes for Qatari gas and Saudi oil bound for Europe, undermining the foundation of the Russian economy. At the same time, the Islamist forces utilized in Syria could be unleashed on the North Caucasus, exploiting the resentments of the local population toward the repression carried out by Moscow. Obama counseled the Russian government that it would be smarter to work with the United States and other parties in the international community to try to broker some sort of political transition. In point of fact, the Putin government has sought such an accommodation, but Washington is intent on using such negotiations to impose the regime change it has proved unable to accomplish by means of the proxy war, casting the Islamist militias as a moderate opposition. Meanwhile, the danger of a full-scale military confrontation in Syria between the US and Russia, the worlds two major nuclear powers, continues to grow, with Washingtons allies, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, seeking to provoke such a clash as a means of furthering their own regional and domestic political interests. For its part, US imperialism, whatever the immediate tactical calculations of the Obama administration, will be driven by the setbacks it has suffered in Syria and, more fundamentally, the deepening crisis of American capitalism to ever more brutal and reckless acts of military aggression and violence. The Globe and Mail, Canadas newspaper of record and the traditional mouthpiece of the Bay Street financial elite, has accused the new Liberal government of whacking the super-rich and stoking class war. In a February 11 editorial titled Stop whacking the one percent, the Globe denounced the Trudeau government for fulfilling an election pledge to slightly raise the taxes of the 1 percent of Canadians with taxable incomes of over $200,000. The editorial noted that Prime Minster Justin Trudeau had made effective use of the rhetoric of inclusion in his election campaign, in marked contrast from Harper and his Conservatives who stoked anti-Muslim chauvinism, baited the unions, and suggested that their bourgeois opponents had a soft spot for criminals and terrorists. But, railed the Globes editors, Trudeau had betrayed his own inclusionary claims with vicious politicking at the expense of those enjoying merit-based economic success. Forced to concede that the Liberals pledge to hike the taxes of the wealthiest had proved popular, the Globe chastised them for having employed the language of unthinking class warfare. The Liberalsbig businesss preferred party of government for most of the last centuryhad, or so claimed the Globe, adopted the fashionable but intellectually lazy labeling of the 1 percent, so as to pit a faceless, presumably undeserving elite against everyone else. The hostility of the ruling class to anything that impinges, however slightly, on its profits, income, and wealth is something to behold. But the Globes visceral reaction to the Liberal tax hike is occasioned not only by anger, but also by fear. Under conditions of unprecedented levels of social inequality, an unending assault on jobs and living standards, and ever-growing economic insecurity and poverty, the financial oligarchy fears that even the most limited and dishonest appeal to antiestablishment feeling could fuel social anger and inadvertently help trigger explosive social opposition. It is only in this context that the Globes use of the term class warfare in reference to the policies of Trudeau and his Liberals, who are entirely devoted to advancing the interests of Canadian big business, can be understood. The Liberals minor increase in the taxation rate of the 1 percent comes after decades in which federal and provincial governments of all political stripes have slashed income, capital gains, and corporate taxes, while mounting a devastating assault on public and social services and workers rights. The result has been an unprecedented redistribution of wealth, from working people to the top 1 and especially 0.1 percent Trudeau, in explaining his proposal for a slightly higher tax bracket for incomes over $200,000 to the blue-chip Canadian Club last June advanced two arguments. It would leave room for a Liberal government to further reduce corporate taxes and, even more importantly, it would serve to mollify social discontent. If we dont deliver fairness, warned Trudeau, Canadians will eventually entertain more radical options. While Trudeau did fulfill his populist pledge to combine a tiny tax hike for the 1 percent with an equally meagre middle class tax cut, his provincial Liberal cousins are already citing the federal tax hike on the wealthy as the pretext for rewarding them with further tax breaks. Earlier this month, the New Brunswick Liberal government rolled back tax rates for the top 1 percent, then more than made up for the shortfall by imposing a 2 percentage-point hike in the provincial sales tax (HST), a regressive charge whose burden falls overwhelmingly on ordinary working people and the poor. With an incredible degree of cynicism, the Globe editorial that decried the modest increase in the taxes of the top 1 percent also denounced the middle class tax cut to which it was twinned in Liberal election propaganda for creating a so-called revenue shortfall. Instead of filling a fiscal hole, overtaxing of highest income earners has dug Canada a new one, intoned the Globe. This under conditions where Ottawa and the provinces have handed over hundreds of billions of dollars to big business and the rich in foregone tax revenues over the past two decades and the federal government forked over billions to back-stop the banks and the financial elite in the wake of the 2008-09 economic crisis. The Globes proprietorsthe Thomsons, who with a fortune of some $25 billion are Canadas richest familyare among the small minority who have benefited from the redistribution of wealth upwards in recent decades. Not surprisingly, Globe s purported aversion to class warfare is, to say the least, highly conditional. Canadas newspaper of record supported the Liberal governments of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin during the 1990s and early 2000s when they carried out the largest social spending cuts in Canadian history; then, with a view to pushing politics still further right, it embraced Stephen Harper and his new Conservative Party in the 2006 election. The Globe subsequently endorsed Harpers antidemocratic constitutional coup of December 2008, and during the 2011 election campaign explicitly praised the Conservative leader for his bullheadedness in running roughshod over public opinion and democratic norms to enforce the interests of the ruling elite. The consequences of such policies are clear for all to see. As hundreds of thousands of workers across the country fear for their jobs and livelihoods amidst an economic downturn, the super-rich have never had it so good. Figures released at the start of 2016 showed that Canadas top 100 CEOs earn 184 times the annual earnings of the average worker. Top CEO pay has risen by 25 percent since the 2008-09 financial crisis, which was used as an occasion in Canada as in the world over to further slash social spending and launch deep attacks on workers wages, jobs, and pensions A recent Nanos Research survey sheds light on why the Globe editorial board is apprehensive about an eruption of working-class anger and struggle. Of those surveyed, fully 51 percent said they expected the next generation would have a lower living standard than this one, while just 14 percent thought living standards would rise. In the four years since Nanos last asked this question, the proportion of those who think living standards are declining shot up from 37 to 51 percent. Nick Nanos, the chairman of the polling company and a regular Globe contributor, bluntly summed up the implications of such data when he wrote last week, If you were told that one of every two people in a country somewhere else thought their children would be worse off than their parents, would you imagine civil unrest and protests in the streets? Perhaps anger? Maybe frustration? The dampening of the oppositional sentiments building up in the working class to social inequality, the growth of militarism and attacks on democratic rights was a central goal of the Liberals 2015 election campaign, and a significant consideration in prompting important sections of the ruling elite to back a change in government. Acknowledging that a decade of Conservative rule under Stephen Harper had resulted in a dramatic growth in anger towards the government for its social spending cuts, criminalization of workers struggles, waging of imperialist wars and attacks on democratic rights, the ruling class concluded that a progressive government capable of combining right-wing policies with left sounding rhetoric would be better able to pursue the Canadian bourgeoisies interests at home and abroad. The new government won strong support from the trade union bureaucracy, whose leading figures held closed door talks with Trudeau days after he took office and pledged their loyal collaboration. The unions and the social-democratic NDP played a decisive role in enabling the bourgeoisie to seamlessly return the reins of power to the Liberals, their traditional alternate party of government. They systematically isolated and suppressed the struggles of the working class and shamelessly promoted the Liberals as a progressive alternative to the Conservatives. But after just three months in office, the Liberal government is already showing itself to be a regime of crisis and an enemy of the working class. The rapid deterioration in economic conditions, brought on by the oil and commodity price collapse and the deepening global capitalist downturn, has resulted in thousands of job losses and a dramatic worsening of the governments fiscal position. While there is strong support in ruling class circles for the government to use deficit spending to boost economic activity and corporate profits, there is an even larger ruling class consensus that the long-term competitive position of Canadian capitalism requires further corporate tax cuts and the dismantling of Medicare and other public and social services. Meantime, the ruling class is clamouring for the Liberals to massively hike military spending in order to provide the planes, ships, and weapons to dramatically expand Canadian imperialisms foreign interventions and global reach. The greatest fear among the Globes editorial staff and the ruling elite for which it speaks is that the widespread disaffection with the current social set-up among workers and youth will find conscious political expression. This requires a political reorientation of the working class: the rejection of the bankrupt capitalist economic order and a turn to a socialist and internationalist program. Heating and air conditioning manufacturer, Carrier, announced last week that it would close two manufacturing plants in Indiana and eliminate a total of 2,100 jobs. Its plant in Indianapolis with 1,400 workers will begin phasing out its operations in 2017 and close in 2019, while a second plant with 700 workers in Huntington, just southwest of Ft. Wayne, will be closed in 2018. Carriera division of the giant defense manufacturer United Technologiesis planning on moving production to Monterrey, Mexico. A YouTube video released last week, which has gotten over 3 million views, shows workers at the Indianapolis plant erupt in anger after a company spokesman announces the closures. To the shouts and denunciations of workers, the manager tells them the move is necessary to maintain high levels of product quality at competitive prices and continue to serve the extremely price-sensitive marketplace. He adds callously, This is strictly a business decision. Carriers parent company, United Technologies, made $15.6 billion in profits in 2015. Its CEO Gregory Hayes, whose predecessor walked away with a $195 million golden parachute, made $9 million last year. Hayes announced a ruthless cost-cutting plan at the end of last year including reducing the manufacturing footprint in the U.S. and Europe, [that] will result in $900 million of annual savings when its done, according to Bloomberg News. You taking away from this community by taking this job, this plant away, Dominique Anthony, a Carrier employee for 13 years at the west side facility told the local news channel WISHTV. I have almost 16 family members that work at Carrier. We have to tell our whole family that we have lost our jobs to feed our families, he said. In his final remarks, captured on the YouTube video, the company spokesman says the decision to close the plants is subject to discussions with our local union representatives. In 2014, United Steelworkers (USW) Local 1999 negotiated a four-year contract with Carrier that introduced sweeping concessions, including a two-tier wage system. Currently, a quarter of the factorys workers make only $14 an hour, nearly half the $26 paid to older workers. USW officials claimed they were blindsided by the plant closing decision. It was devastating to hear, and it was not anticipated at all, USW Subdivision Director Wayne Dale told Indystar.com. In any case, the USW is sure to use the announcement in an effort to extract further concessions from workers in the name of saving jobs. The USW and local Democratic Party politicians responded to the closure announcements with calls for economic nationalism and protectionist measures. They blamed unfair trade agreements for the closures, suggesting that Mexican workers, to whom Carrier will pay as little as $3 an hour, are essentially stealing American jobs. In a statement on its Facebook page, USW Works declared, This is the harsh reality of what bad trade deals are doing to the working class. 1400 jobs at Carrier Corp. are being sent to Mexico under the guise of strictly a business decision. We need to stand together and let our legislators know that we will not stand for this anymore! USW officials are calling for a boycott of Mexican-made Carrier air conditioners. The closure is a fine example of unfair trade bills, added Jared Evans, a Democratic city councilman in Indianapolis, which allow American companies, who were built on American backs [sic] to move good paying jobs overseas. Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have also sought to divert social anger over the destruction of jobs and falling living standards behind American nationalism. In every case, the aim of the unions and the big business politicians is to conceal the fact that it is the capitalist profit system, not unfair trade, that is responsible for the destruction of jobs. Above all they want to prevent US workers from uniting with their brothers in Mexico and other countries in a common fight against the global corporate conglomerates. In fact, the policy of the unions and the Democratic Party is insourcing, i.e., the reduction of US labor costs to such a low level that global corporations are enticed to relocate their operations from China, Mexico and other low-wage countries to the US. The president of the USW, Leo Gerard, sits on Obamas corporate competitiveness board where he discusses with Fortune 500 executives how to slash labor costs and boost productivity. On this basis, the USW has blocked any struggle of workersincluding workers facing brutal wage and benefit cuts at US Steel and ArcelorMittalwhile sabotaging struggles when they do break out, including last years oil refinery strike and the five-month lockout of ATI steelworkers. The claims of economic recovery made by the Obama administration are belied by plant closures and mass layoffs, which only intensify what is already unbearable inequality. The closures will have a particularly devastating effect on Indianapolis, which saw the closures of the GM stamping plant in 2011 and its Navistar foundry and truck engine plant in June 2015. Both occurred after the United Auto Workers forced wage and benefit concessions on workers. As part of his economic stimulus package, Obamas Energy Department granted Carrier a $5 million federal tax credit in December 2013 to expand production at its Indianapolis facility to meet increasing demand for its eco-friendly condensing gas furnace product line. The United Technologies business strategy has been growth through mergers and acquisitions in industries that are as diverse as Carrier heating and air conditioning, which was bought in 1979, to Pratt and Whitney aircraft engines. They were often followed by plant closures and the relocation of production to lower-wage states or countries to inflate profits. The Carrier plant in the east Texas city of Tyler was shuttered in 2013 with the loss of 1,200 jobs. Production was also moved to Mexico. Carrier also announced additional layoffs at its parts warehouse in Syracuse, New York. Once the largest manufacturer in the Syracuse area, with over 7,000 workers at its manufacturing and research and development facilities in DeWitt, New York, a suburb of Syracuse, Carrier has nothing left but its parts warehouses in the area. In 2004, Carrier halted manufacturing in DeWitt, laying off the 1,200 remaining workers. In September of 2009, Carrier announced it was eliminating 140 of 245 workers at the two remaining parts warehouses. In January 2015, the company announced the layoff of another 62 of those workers. The International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers union Local 58 has offered concessions totaling $4 an hour to keep the warehouses operating in Syracuse. Carrier declined the offer and stated the average wage of $16.61 needed to be reduced by $8 in order to retain the jobs in Syracuse. In each case of layoff and closure the sheet metalworkers union has been a reliable corporate partner and blocked any worker resistance to the destruction of jobs. Like the USW, it has scapegoated workers in other countries. President Barack Obama will make a state visit to Cuba on March 21-22, the first such trip to the island by a sitting American president since Calvin Coolidge sailed aboard a US warship there for a 1928 meeting of the Conference of American States. The White House announcement of the visit left little doubt that the purpose of Obamas trip is to further the restoration of the semi-colonial domination that US imperialism exercised over Cuba in Coolidges day, when the Platt Amendment guaranteed Washington the right to intervene in Cuban affairs as it saw fit and allowed it to seize Guantanamo Bay for its military base. Obama, the statement says, intends to build on the progress we have made toward normalization of relations with Cuba, which, following protracted secret negotiations, was consummated in a deal announced by the US president and his Cuban counterpart, Raul Castro, in December 2014 to restore diplomatic relations. The visit, the statement continues, will be directed at advancing commercial and people-to-people ties. In addition to a formal meeting with Raul Castro, Obama intends to meet with members of civil society and entrepreneurs. A key component of the Obama visit, the statement indicated, will be propagandizing on the subject of human rights, the filthy banner under which US imperialism has prosecuted unending wars and covert interventions from the Middle East to the former Soviet Union. At the same time, the official pretense of the administration is that everything that it is doing is designed to improve the lives of the Cuban people. At a press conference in Havana confirming the visit, the Foreign Relations Ministry official in charge of US issues, Josefina Vidal, stated that the Castro government is open to discussing any issue with the government of the United States, including human rights. Vidal added that the full normalization of bilateral relations required the lifting of the economic blockade that the US has imposed on Cuba since 1960 and the return of the Guantanamo Naval Base, where Washington has for more than 14 years maintained its illegal detention and torture camp. The Obama administration does not have the ability to meet the first demand and has no intention of meeting the second. Despite the mounting pressure from US financial, industrial and agricultural interests desperate to begin reaping profits off the relatively untapped Cuban market, the Republican leadership in Congress, which would have to vote to lift the embargo, remains staunchly opposed to ending it, even as the Obama administration uses executive power to ameliorate some of its conditions. On Tuesday, the US and Cuba reached an agreement to restore direct commercial air flights between the two countries for the first time in 50 years, with virtually ever major US carrier bidding for the 110 daily flights that are being allowed by the US Department of Transportation. The Obama administration has also given its approval for the opening of the first US-owned factory in Cuba in the more than 50 years since the government of Fidel Castro nationalized American properties and turned to the Soviet Union for aid following Washingtons attempt to veto even the most minimal reforms following the overthrow of the Batista dictatorship. The assembly plant is supposed to manufacture up to 1,000 light and inexpensive tractors a year in a special economic zone created by the Cuban government at the port of Mariel. The owners of the factory expect to initially hire 30 Cuban workers and to employ up to 300. The Cuban government is to act as a labor contractor, supplying workers for exploitation in return for a cut of the profits. In what may ultimately prove a more lucrative enterprise, the US heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar has chosen a Puerto Rican company to serve as its distributor in Cuba in preparation for the lifting of economic restrictions that prevent it from entering the Cuban market. The US corporate giant has been among the most vocal lobbyists for the lifting of the economic embargo. Earlier this week, US Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker hosted a US-Cuba Regulatory Dialogue with the participation of Cubas Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment Rodrigo Malmierca in Washington, stating the mission of the meeting was to provide US companies with more opportunity to do business in Cuba, including with state-owned enterprises. She reported that in 2015 alone, the Commerce Department had approved 490 authorizations for such deals, together worth $4.3 billion. In a separate set of negotiations, the State Department is in talks with the Cuban government aimed at resolving claims by US corporations and citizens for compensation for enterprises that were expropriated in the wake of the 1959 Cuban revolution. Reportedly, some of these claims may be settled by offering US companies favorable conditions for exploiting the Cuban market. The Obama visit takes place in the context of an accelerating drive by American capitalisms European and Asian rivals to consolidate and build upon the advantages they have accrued by entering the Cuban market as Washington sought to isolate and strangle the islands economy. Cuban President Raul Castro made a state visit to France at the beginning of this month to sign a series of deals following Frances leading role in negotiating debt forgiveness for Cuba at the end of last year. Half of what remains owed to France is to be poured into a 220 million euro fund to invest in Franco-Cuban projects. We want to accompany Cuba on the path it has chosen to open up and develop, French President Francois Hollande said during the visit. Opening up begins with trade. Spain, meanwhile, has concluded a similar debt forgiveness deal in return for wider access to the Cuban market. This imperialist scramble for Cuba contributed to a 4 percent growth of the Cuban economy last year, much of it due to a record inflow of tourists. Economic growth, however, has gone hand-in-hand with increasing social inequality between average Cuban workers and a thin but growing layer of entrepreneurs and government officials. The ruling stratum in Havana is banking on a rapprochement with US imperialism and a steady expansion of capitalist economic relations, along with the maintenance of their current political monopoly, preserving their interests along a path similar to that taken by the Chinese Communist Party. The rapidity of the current changes combined with rising social polarization, however, must, sooner rather than later, yield social eruptions. Talks at the first day of a two-day European Union (EU) summit in Brussels broke off last night amid rising divisions over the refugee crisis and British Prime Minister David Camerons demands for broad changes to EU legislation in order to avoid a British exit from the EU. The proceedings were dominated by a sense that the EU is on the brink of collapseeither due to a British exit or to conflicts inside the EU over the handling of the greatest refugee crisis since World War II, as millions flee war-torn countries including Syria and Iraq. In his invitation letter yesterday to the members of the EU Council attending the talks, EU President and former Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk wrote: After my consultations in the last hours I have to state frankly: there is still no guarantee that we will reach an agreement. We differ on some political issues, and I am fully aware that it will be difficult to overcome them. Therefore I urge you to remain constructive. There will not be a better time for a compromise. As he arrived at the summit yesterday, Tusk said, One thing is clear to me. This is a make-or-break summit, I have no doubts. Arriving at the summit with demands for broad social cuts and changes to EU legislation, Cameron said, Ill be battling for Britain. If we can get a good deal Ill take that deal, but I will not take a deal that doesnt meet what we need. EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker sounded a more optimistic note, declaring, Im quite confident that we will have a deal, but added, there is still a lot to discuss on some points. Late yesterday evening, EU sources told the press that little or no progress had been made on the key issues. Discussions of the refugee crisis were reportedly taking a back seat to arranging a deal that would prevent a British exit from the EU. A planned pre-summit meeting, at the Austrian mission in Brussels, between Germany, Austria and a number of Eastern European countries on the refugee crisis was called off. After German Chancellor Angela Merkel distanced herself from her call for refugees to be distributed from Germany across Europe according to quotas, Berlin aimed to have these countries press Turkey to halt refugees travelling to Europe. Austrian officials cancelled the meeting, however, explaining that Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had announced that he would not be able to attend due to the terror bombing in Ankara. Merkels policy of allowing refugees to transit through Eastern and Central Europe to Germany is collapsing, however, after Austrian officials said that they would limit the number of refugees they admitted. When Juncker said that he did not like the decision, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann dismissed Junckers criticism, telling reporters: Politically I say well stick with it. Faymanns statement came after an extraordinary public attack on Merkels refugee policy by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls at this weekends Munich Security Conference, along with criticisms from officials of the so-called Visegrad Group (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary). The central focus of the summit, however, was the deep divisions emerging among EU countries over the reactionary concessions demanded by the British government. A bitter competition is emerging between the European states over how to divide up the banking industrys profits and the attacks on the social rights of workers of different nationalities. Cameron is calling for a broad renegotiation of EU legislation and treaties, which he is seeking as the basis for Britain to remain in the EU in a yes/no referendum currently slated for June. Yesterday, Cameron reportedly asked other EU heads of state to give him a broad set of concessions, supposedly so he can sell the deal to the British public and call for a yes vote. The policies advocated by Cameron entail vast attacks on the working class and handouts to British banks. These demands include: *an emergency brake limit on benefits paid to EU immigrants working in Britain, imposed for four or even potentially for 13 years of a workers life *more powers for the British Parliament to block EU legislation *financial measures benefiting non-eurozone countries of the EU, such as Britain, which still uses the pound *more measures to boost business competitiveness Merkel said Germany opposed a Brexit and indicated broad support for Camerons demands. I think its in our national interest that Great Britain should remain an active member in a strong and successful EU, she said. She added, There are no points of dissent between the UK and Germany as far as social systems are concerned. Merkel indicated concerns, however, about the discriminatory impact of some of Camerons proposals and potential damage to the eurozones ability to coordinate responses to financial crises. Several leading EU politicians raised similar concerns. EU Parliament President Martin Schulz, a German social democrat, also attacked Camerons measures, saying they would mean that two workers, both EU nationals, paying the same taxes, doing the same work, would for a certain time not be paid the same. Allow me to say this very clearly: the European Parliament will fight against discrimination between EU citizens. Schulzs proposed solution was also deeply reactionary, insofar as he argued that Britain should simply be allowed to cut its own social welfare benefits. European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi said that European financial markets would remain integrated even if Britain exited the EU. He insisted that the EU maintain its power to regulate financial markets in all 28 member states, including Britain. The issue of banking regulations and the associated struggle for bank profits has provoked sharp divisions, particularly between Britain and France. After talks with Cameron earlier this week, officials at the Elysee presidential palace said there was still work to be done, especially on the issue of economic governance. In a letter to French President Francois Hollande expressing concerns with Camerons proposals, Frederic Oudea, the CEO of the Societe Generale bank, warned, If the plan is adopted in its current state, it would put an end to fair competition between financial actors [and] create a risk of regulation of the lowest common denominator. That is, British banks would be exempt from stricter EU regulations while continuing to enjoy access to the eurozone financial markets. Reports late yesterday suggested that the Visegrad countries had been sidelined in talks of deep cuts in social benefits imposed by Britain, and potentially other EU countries, to immigrant workers from Eastern Europe. In the run-up to the talks, however, they opposed the measure, with Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka declaring: I have no doubts there is an extra mile to walk. We look with criticism at the parameters of the adjustment of child benefits and the conditions of the so-called emergency brake. Five years after the NATO war in Libya, a new war is being prepared against the North African country behind the backs of the world population. Like Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, East Ukraine and Syria, Libya will once again become the arena for war and destruction if the Western powers get their way. In the past week, a new war in Libya has come dangerously closer. Last Sunday, a proposal for a new national unity government in Libya was presented in the Moroccan seaside resort Skhirat under the watchful eye of U.N. representatives. The main task of the new U.N. puppet government will be to make an official appeal to the so-called international community and allow NATO to carry out a new military intervention in Libya under the pretext of a struggle against the Islamic State (ISIS). While negotiations were underway in Skhirat, British Royal Air Force military jets were already flying over the Libyan coast. On Sunday evening, Fathi al-Majbari, head of the Libyan presidential commission and designated Libyan prime minister, presented the list of members of a new government in Tripoli with thirteen ministers and five state secretaries. He plans to present his agreement to the parliament in Tobruk. The latest proposal has nothing to do with any kind of will of the people. Rather, it came about as a result of an ultimatum by the U.N. Although all nine members of the presidential council were handpicked by U.N. experts, two of them protested and refused to put their signatures on the proposal. For more than a year, the imperialist powers, including the U.S., Germany, England, France and especially Italy have been working intensely on a new, so-called robust mandate for Libya. Such a robust U.N. mandate would, according to the U.N. charter, allow the international air, sea or land armed forces to carry out measures that are required for the protection or restoration of world peace and international security. In reality, however, the aims of the U.N. in Libya have nothing to do with either the restoration of world peace, or the war on terror, but rather control of the countrys resources, above all oil and natural gas, as well as strategically important access to the entire African continent. The NATO powers already reduced the country to rubble five years ago, killing approximately 30,000 people. Libyan head of state Muammar Gaddafi was brutally murdered. Before his assassination, Western intelligence agencies had already carried out a covert war against the Libyan government and systematically armed Islamist groups. This prepared the way for the current chaotic situation in Libya as well as the development of ISIS in North Africa. The resulting chaos is now being used as a pretext for a renewed military intervention in Libya. Today, at least three governments and six different militias are struggling for power in Libya. The national congress in Tripoli replaced the so-called National Transitional Council (NTC) in the summer of 2012. Two years later, Islamists built the so-called government of national salvation in competition with the internationally recognized House of Representatives that had fled to Tobruk. In 2014, ISIS began to fight ever more fiercely for control of oil resources and developed its presence along the strategically important Mediterranean coast. Since then, the U.N. has made a desperate effort to bring together the two competing governments in Tripoli and Tobruk and enforce support for a unity government that would sanction a further Western military intervention. This would give the Western powers a free hand to protect the oil refineries and the ports from the access of ISIS and to place them under their direct control. The last thing in the world you want, said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Rome at the beginning of February, is a false caliphate with access to billions of dollars of oil revenue. Libya is the country with the largest oil and natural gas reserves in Africa. At the moment, the imperialist powers are collaborating in opposing ISIS, but at the same time there is a struggle behind the scenes over which country and which large energy corporations will have the final say and receive access to the desired resources. At the end of January, the Pentagon made it known that it was planning a new war in Libya. General Joseph Dunford Jr., head of the U.S. Marine Corps made it clear that U.S. President Barack Obama himself approved a new bombing campaign. Dunford declared that a decisive military action against ISIL [ISIS] is being planned and will take place in conjunction with the political process in Libya. The president has made clear that we have the authority to use military force, he added. Next to the United States, Italy is playing a leading role in plans for a new campaign against Libya. Italy has a long and bloody colonial history in the regions of Cyrenaika and Tripolitania, which make up a large part of Libya today. Italy has participated in the exploitation of Libyan natural resources since the fascist dictatorship of Benito Mussolini with the energy corporation ENI (formerly Agip). It also played an active role in the NATO bombardment five years ago. Italian marines have been preparing for months to intervene militarily on the Libyan coast and to secure the offshore oil refineries and transfer ports. A full year ago, at the beginning of February 2015, Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti publicly declared: Italy is ready to lead a coalition of regional countries in Europe and North Africa in Libya in order to halt the advance of the kalifates, which have already come up to 350 kilometres from our coasts. She wanted to prepare five thousand Italian soldiers for this purpose. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has insisted on a U.N. mandate in order to carry out a coordinated military intervention. In May and June, 2015, the EU Military Committee (EUMC) laid down concrete conditions for the intervention. EU High Representative Federica Mogherini passed a resolution that planned the expansion of the existing EU mission in the Mediterranean and in Libyan territorial waters and on the Libyan mainland. Conditions were specified in which smuggling boats would be destroyed off the Libyan coast and both smugglers and ISIS terrorists could be pursued on Libyan territory. The EU worked out scenarios in this context for the securing of existing institutions such as airports and oil refineries and opened the way for extensive military, police and intelligence agency operations in Libya. All 28 member states agreed to the plan. The NATO maneuver Trident Juncture 2015, which took place last fall with over sixty war ships and 36,000 soldiers in the entire Mediterranean also served to prepare for an intervention in North Africa. All of these scenarios depended up until now on the formation of the impending national unity government. For weeks, the Italian media has been preparing the population for a new invasion of North Africa. A military intervention in Libya comes ever closer and this time Italy will take part, reads the title of an article in VICE News. An article in La Repubblica on January 26, 2016 begins with the words: at the moment it will not be discussed anymore whether one should invade Libya. The question that poses itself is only when and how. The militaries of the anti-IS coalition are already inspecting the terrain. The German elite has long been of the opinion that Germanys nonparticipation in the NATO war in January 2011 was a mistake and that the geo-strategic and economic interests of Germany must be carried out above all by military means. In January, Defence Minister Ursula Von der Leyen made it clear to the Bild newspaper that the German army would take part in the Libyan intervention this time. In answer to the question whether she would shortly send German soldiers to Libya, she said: Libya is opposite the coast of Europeseparated only by the Mediterranean Sea. The most important thing now is to stabilise the country, and ensure that Libya gets a functioning government. The [new government] will rapidly require assistance to impose law and order in this massive state. And at the same time to combat Islamist terrorism, which is also threatening Libya. Then she emphasized: Germany will not be able to escape the responsibility of making a contribution there. At the Munich Security Conference last weekend, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Social Democratic Party/SPD) said: In Germany and Europe we cannot be indifferent about what takes place a few hundred kilometres to the south of Italy, on the other bank of the Mediterranean. And we definitely cannot be indifferent, when IS terror militias gain a firm foothold on the borders of Europe. It is now the moment to take responsibility for Libya. The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) has stepped up its reactionary, nationalist campaign against foreign shipping workers, acting in collaboration with the Labor Party, a host of other trade unions and several cross-bench senators. The MUA has established an Australian jobs embassy outside federal parliament in Canberra, and declared that recent shipping layoffs saw workers sacked for being Australian. This campaign is aimed at dividing seafarers and other workers along national lines and preventing an internationally unified struggle in defence of all jobs and for decent wages and improved working conditions. The union has cynically seized upon two incidents, both related to moves by the Liberal-National Coalition government to abolish cabotage laws, which mandate that Australian-flagged and crewed vessels be used on domestic shipping routes. The MUA is demanding the maintenance of the laws, and the abolition of government-issued permits granting exemptions. On February 5, in the early hours of the morning, armed police forcibly removed sacked workers who were occupying the CSL Melbourne in Newcastle. Eighteen workers had occupied the vessel the previous week, after being ordered to sail it to Singapore, where it would be scrapped and they would lose their jobs. Just five workers were on board and were confronted by some 18 police. Altogether, more than 50 police took part in the operation, which involved two police boats and multiple paddy wagons. None of the workers was arrested or charged. The aggressive police operation followed an order from the Fair Work Commissionthe pro-business industrial court established by the previous Labor government with the support of the unionsfor the workers to disembark. The Federal Court upheld the order the day before the police raid. The Coalition government had granted Pacific Aluminum, a Rio Tinto subsidiary, a temporary license to replace the CSL Melbourne with a foreign-crewed and flagged vessel. For five years, the ship had transported alumina from Gladstone, in Queensland, to supply the companys smelter in Tomago, near Newcastle. The company claims that the CSL Melbourne is too large for its current operations, following the closure of the nearby Kurri Kurri smelter in 2014. According to the MUA, the replacement vessel is owned by a Greek company and operated by a crew who will be paid as little as $2 an hour. The attack on the CSL Melbourne crew followed the January 13 removal of seafarers occupying the MV Portland by company thugs working for transnational mining company, Alcoa. That crew also had been instructed to sail to Singapore, for the scrapping of the ship last November last year, eliminating their jobs. According to the MUA, a further 2,000 shipping and flow-on jobs may be destroyed if the bid to scrap cabotage laws is successful. A government bill to overhaul shipping regulations was defeated in the Senate last November, with the Labor Party, the Greens and some cross-bench senators voting it down. However, the unions claim to be mounting a struggle against the shipping job cuts is an utter fraud. The crews of both the CSL Melbourne, and the MV Portland were isolated by the union and left to their fate. In both cases, just a handful of workers were left aboard the ships after court orders to disembark, amid company preparations to remove them. Opening the unions Australian jobs embassy this month, MUA national secretary Paddy Crumlin declared: Weve got rights to work in our country, in our own industry. The refrain has been repeated at protests called by the unions, and addressed by Labor Party speakers, accompanied by placards declaring sacked for being Australian and Aussie jobs, Aussie ships, Aussie cargo. The union campaign echoes the rhetoric employed by the Labor and Coalition parties in the war on terror, directly feeding in to calls to boost national security and the military. The MUA is encouraging its supporters to send emails to federal politicians insisting: A strong merchant navy is also integral to national security, which has been demonstrated here and throughout the world during times of unrest. The proposed email concludes: We are an island nation. Dont sign our domestic shipping industry away to foreign interests. This nationalist demagogy seeks to cover up the fact that the recent sackings are part of a relentless global restructuring of the shipping industry, accelerated by a plunge in international trade and the slump in the world economy. One indication is the fall of the Baltic Dry Index, which measures the cost of shipping dry goods by sea, to just 295 points, its lowest level since 1985. The index reached peaks of 11,000 points before the financial crisis of 2007-08. Numbers of freight carriers are now operating zombie ships transporting goods at a loss. According to Baltic Index chief executive Jeremy Penn, the average daily fee for the largest freight vessels is down to just $2,700, from a former range of $15,000-$20,000 and heights of up to $250,000 in 2008. But operating costs are often as high as $7,500 a day. The decline is leading to fierce competition, and an onslaught on seafarers jobs, wages and conditions everywhere. Last year, Maersk, the worlds largest container-ship operator, slashed 4,000 jobs from its land-based operations. The Baltic and International Maritime Council (BIMCO) predicts that more dry bulk carriers will be scrapped during 2016 than any previous year. The unions are hostile to the fight to unify seafarers around the world in a common struggle against the shipping conglomerates, and in defence of all jobs, for decent wages, and working conditions. Instead, they seek to line workers up behind sections of the Australian shipping industry, as well as the Labor Party, which has played a central part in the destruction of maritime jobs. Following round after round of layoffs, overseen by successive Labor and Coalition governments, it is estimated that there are less than 1,000 seafaring jobs left in Australia. The MUA has played the decisive role in this process. It has collaborated with shipping and port companies in the destruction of thousands of jobs, telling its members they must accept concessions to make national-based employers globally competitive. Last November, having isolated dock workers opposing sackings at Hutchison Ports, the MUA signed a deal for over 60 redundancies, along with further casualisation and other attacks on conditions. Most recently, the union pledged to prevent strike action by dock workers over ongoing negotiations for a new enterprise agreement with Patrick Stevedoring. Seafarers operate in a highly integrated global industry. That is why any struggle to defend jobs and conditions must be based on the perspective of uniting workers internationally. That means opposing the trade unions and their divisive nationalist programs, which serve to pit workers against each other along national lines. In her government statement on Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated her well-known positions on refugee policy. In the process, she declared her intention to expand Germanys close collaboration with Turkey, which is pressing for a military confrontation with Russia in Syria. At the beginning of her speech, Merkel stressed that her policy was geared towards a significant reduction in the number of refugees arriving in Europe. This anti-refugee policy had three aspects, she said. First was the fight against the causes of flight. This required intensive political and diplomatic initiatives and financial assistance to support refugee camps in the immediate vicinity of war and crisis. Second, the EUs external borders must be effectively protected before, thirdly, the distribution of refugees within the European Union could be tackled. The differences within the ruling classes of Europe on this last point are well known. Of the 160,000 refugees that the EU agreed to distribute via a quota system last autumn, less than a thousand have been accepted. The question of refugee quotas will not be central to the summit, Merkel said. What was more important was the effective protection of the EUs external borders. On this issue, Merkel answered her critics who are demanding the closure of national borders by arguing that such a move would destroy free movement within the Schengen Area and with it one of the most important foundations and achievements of the single European market. As an alternative, she proposed the securing of Europes external borders, which means nothing more than the expansion of Fortress Europe. The EU must learn to protect its external borders effectively, she said, adding, Therefore, I am for the use of NATO in the Aegean. NATO units should be sent to support Frontex and the Turkish army in the fight against people smuggling and to secure the maritime border between Greece and Turkey. Therefore, in Merkels view, cooperation with the Turkish government is essential. Much had already been achieved in talks with Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, she said. Once the three billion euros promised to Turkey were released by the European Union, the construction of a huge internment camp for refugees will proceed on the Syrian border. However, the real significance of the cooperation with the Turkish government became clear when Merkel reiterated her call for a no-fly zone in Syria, a demand repeatedly raised by the Erdogan government with far-reaching and explosive military consequences. Merkel did not speak in such terms, however. Rather, she portrayed a no-fly zone as a humanitarian corridor to protect refugees. That would be a sign of good will, she said. It would in any case, reassure many, many people if no one else had to perish in Aleppo and in the territory up to the Turkish border, and no more people had to try and escape. But this is just a smokescreen. The demand for a no-fly zone in Syria has nothing to do with humanitarianism and helping refugees. Rather, it is part of a further intensification of the military confrontation between NATO member Turkey and Russia. Since Russia intervened militarily in Syria last September, the Erdogan government has responded with increasing aggression. In November, when a Russian fighter jet supposedly violated Turkish airspace for a few seconds, it was shot down by the Turkish Air Force. Syrian government troops, with the active support of Russian bombers, have now launched a military offensive in the battle for Aleppo. They have recaptured rebel-held areas and simultaneously cut an important supply route for the Islamist militias. The US government and its allies in the region, especially Saudi Arabia and Turkey, have reacted furiously. The rebels, among whom Islamist militias like the Al-Nusra Front play a leading role, have long been supported by Ankara, Riyadh and Washington with arms, money and logistical assistance. A no-fly zone would create the conditions for Turkey to once again build up its military and logistical support for the Islamist anti-Assad militias. Moreover, Ankara wants at all costs to prevent the Syrian Kurds from gaining ground under the protection of the Russian Air Force on the Turkish border. This could quickly lead to the formation of a Kurdish state. To counter this, the Turkish government has intensified its attacks and is preparing for the deployment of ground troops. Such an escalation could quickly lead to a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia. Just hours before the chancellor spoke, the Suddeutsche Zeitung published an article with the headline, When the Cold War gets hot. It began, NATO against Russiasuch an escalation is no longer unthinkable. The trial of strength has long since become a showdown in which an escalation is dependent on decisions made in the US or Russia, the newspaper wrote. The two countries are overestimating their ability to control the situation. The editorial then describes the events of recent weeks in Syria and poses the question: What happens if there is a further conflict between Turkish and Russian troops, and Turkey demands the support of NATO? To deny Ankara support under the NATO mutual defence clause would mean the end of the alliance; to invoke it would mean ending a cold war and starting a hot one. Almost exactly five years ago, the UN Security Council approved a no-fly zone over Libya. The action was justified by citing the protection of civilians and support for insurgents against a dictatorial regime. In reality, it marked the start of a terrible bombing campaign by the imperialist powers, in which countless people died and the Libyan state was destroyed, resulting in endless streams of refugees. At that time, Germany was not involved and regarded the western intervention as a major foreign policy mistake. Since then, Berlin has undertaken a sharp rightward turn in foreign policy and made the decision to pursue great power politics and military rearmament. Merkels collaboration with the Turkish government and her support for a no-fly zone in Syria has far-reaching consequences. It underlines the intention of the German government to sharply escalate its participation in the war in Syria and beyond. The court order to force technology company Apple Inc. to create a backdoor to its iOS mobile operating system is a substantial new offensive in the US governments drive to spy on the data and communications of everyone in the world. The ruling comes as the Senate Intelligence Committee is preparing to introduce a bill that would create criminal penalties for companies that do not comply with court orders to decipher encrypted communications, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. On Tuesday, Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym of the US District Court for the District of Central California ordered Apple to create a fraudulent software update that intelligence agencies could use to access encrypted data on the companys mobile telephones and tablets. Formally, the order stipulates that Apple must provide technical assistance to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in hacking an Apple iPhone seized while executing a search warrant into the car owned by Tafsheen Malik, one of the shooters in the December 2, 2015 mass killing in San Bernardino, California. But as Apple chief executive Timothy D. Cook made clear in an open letter published Wednesday, the ruling would create a technical and legal precedent for the government to hack into phones on demand. The ruling is another step toward the US intelligence agencies goals of being able to intercept and monitor all data stored or transmitted anywhere in the world, or to, sniff it all, collect it all, know it all, process it all and exploit it all, as one internal document leaked by Edward Snowden put it. Pyms order is a pseudo-legal travesty. It is based on a false reading of the All Writs Act of 1789, which states that the courts may issue orders agreeable to the usages and principles of law. Pyms ruling simply ignores this latter clause and interprets the act to mean that the courts are given effective plenipotentiary powers to do whatever they declare necessary or appropriate. This is simply a prostitution of the judiciary to grant the executive branch effectively unlimited spying powers. As Cook notes, The implications of the governments demands are chilling. If the government can use the All Writs Act to make it easier to unlock your iPhone, it would have the power to reach into anyones device to capture their data. The government could extend this breach of privacy and demand that Apple build surveillance software to intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phones microphone or camera without your knowledge. In this case, the ruling would require the worlds largest technology company to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect...tens of millions of American citizens. The ruling mandates Apple to create a version of the iOS operating system with key security features disabled, and then create a false digital signature certifying the operating system as genuine in order to install it onto the phone in question. This would then allow the Federal Bureau of Investigation to carry out a brute force hack of the phones password in order to gain access to the phones data. Once such software is created, there is no way to prevent it from being used at will by intelligence agencies. The ruling is the latest stage in the Obama administrations drive to expand government spying in the wake of Edward Snowdens 2013 revelations of mass illegal government surveillance. In May 2015, Congress passed the USA Freedom Act, which was designed to give the veneer of ending illegal government surveillance while in reality allowing it to continue in slightly modified form. In the wake of the November 2015 terror attacks in Paris and the December mass shooting in San Bernardino, the White House shifted to the offensive, demanding that electronics and computer manufacturers create backdoors to encryption. This is entirely in keeping with the Obama administrations record on democratic rights. The Obama White House has carried out twice as many prosecutions of reporters and whistleblowers for leaking classified information than all previous administrations combined, including the jailing of Chelsea Manning and the witch hunts of Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The Obama White House has refused to prosecute those within the Bush administration responsible for torture, and instead conspired with CIA Director John Brennan, whom Obama appointed, to suppress the Senate Intelligence Committee torture report. The administration then defended Brennan when his hacking into Senate Intelligence Committee staffers computers was exposed. This is in addition to having been the first president to claim the right to kill American citizens, including inside the borders of the United States, without a trial. To date, the White Houses drone murder program has led to the deaths of thousands of people in Pakistan, Yemen and other countries, including at least four American citizens. Now, amid an intensification of its wars in the Middle East and on the threshold of a potential conflict with Russia and China, the White House is seeking to clamp down on encrypted communications in order to threaten and intimidate popular opposition to war, attacks on democratic rights and social inequality. No one should be under any illusion that corporations such as Apple, who have collaborated with illegal spying in the past and whose qualms now are based on financial considerations, will be either willing or able to mount a successful effort to restrain the drive to criminalize encryption. The defense of democratic rights requires the building of a mass movement of the working class in opposition to war and social inequality, armed with the socialist program of reorganizing society to meet social need, not private profit. At the Manhattan Theatre Club, New York City, through March 27th American playwright John Patrick Shanleys latest offering is inspired by the authors time spent in the Thomas More Preparatory School in the state of New Hampshire from 1965-1968. Most of the students at the Roman Catholic private school come from upper middle class backgrounds. Fifteen-year-old Jim Quinn (Timothee Chalamet), howeverthe central character, representing Shanleyis a working class youth from the Bronx who has just arrived on a scholarship. Quinn is a restless young man with a burning intellect and a strikingly rebellious streak. He quotes a wide ranging number of authors, including Plato, Heraclitus, Byron, Whitman and Shakespeare. His inquisitive mind and intelligence, however, are coupled with a rage that results in Quinn drowning himself in alcohol, and in fistfights with fellow students throughout his time at the school. We get an initial glimpse of Quinns intelligence through an interaction with his roommate Austin (David Potts). Austin, somewhat stereotypically, is the cliched mathematical nerd, contrasted with the streetwise and poetic Quinn. Such polar opposites can create interesting dynamics in the theater if the complexities and contradictions of both characters emerge, but in this scene that fails to happen. Quinn appears dogmatic, as he attempts to educate Austin on literature and on the supposed wiles of womens ways. At this point we also first learn of Jims preoccupation with writing violent and petulant poetry directed towards those he describes as Nazis. Quinn has also been parading around the school grounds in a T-shirt that provocatively states, Pray for War. Upon hearing this, school Headmaster Carl Schmitt (Chris McGarry), not surprisingly, is alarmed. He summons English teacher Alan Hoffman (Robert Sean Leonard) for a discussion on Quinns temperament. The headmaster somewhat ironically refers to Quinn as the most interesting mess weve had this year, and places him in the care of Hoffman for private tutoring, with the remark, Youre good with the troubled ones. Schmitt is depicted as a mean-spirited disciplinarian, a devout Catholic who is staunchly conservative in his views. Hoffman, although quite aloof, is presented as the more humane character. In addressing the issue of Quinns T-shirt, Schmitt remarks that boys of his background are patriotic about wara sweeping and false generalization that the writer chooses not to further explore. This points to the problems in this play, the latest of about two dozen written by Shanley in the course of his career. The playwright presents some important issues and then proceeds to skirt them, leaving his audience with little more than banal liberalism and skepticism. This can be seen with Shanleys treatment of the war in Vietnam, where the massive escalation of US involvement coincided with the period depicted in the play. Is Shanley suggesting, in line with Schmitts remarks, that the hundreds of thousands of working class American youth who were drafted to fight in Vietnam did so willingly? Or even that those who volunteered were simply pro-war, rather than impelled in most cases by economic and social status? The play makes no mention of the mass protests and anti-war sentiment that existed during these years. It would seem reasonable to expect that Jim Quinn was affected by these developments. Whether or not he himself was opposing the war, surely some of his classmates were, but none of this is broached in Prodigal Son. Nor is there any consideration of where Jims poetry might be coming from. Did he perhaps lose a relative in World War II? Again we are left without explanation. Shanley himself spent time in Vietnam with the U.S. Marine Corps. In an interview with Christy Stanlake, Associate Professor of the United States Naval Academy, Shanley commented: My neighborhood was insane with racists. There were no black people in my neighborhood; there were no Latino people in my neighborhood. If one came in, they were attacked. This was not my cup of tea: I was raised admiring John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., but that was the milieu. And also I was very affected by the Woodstock generation and the idea of love, peace and happiness. So I was very aware of the dichotomy before I ever got to the Marine Corps. When I got to the Marine Corps, what I said was This is the most civilized place Ive ever been. Shanley rejected racism, but he also seems, like many a middle class liberal, to have identified it with the working class, rather than considering its real class roots in the capitalist system, as well as the role of the police, the media and the big business politicians. In answer to racism, the playwright seems to suggest love, peace and happiness, but his liberalism is of the sort that coexisted easily with the view of the Marine Corps as civilized. Of course it is the playwrights prerogative and indeed his or her job to portray every aspect of human life, including the backwardness that exists in the world. But to do so without any social or historical context, any exploration of why such views existed and still exist, is a superficial approach, and one that makes it very difficult to create fully formed and appealing characters. The neighborhood that Shanley (born in 1950) grew up in was a largely Irish and Italian immigrant area (including first-generation Americans) in the Bronx. His mother worked as a telephone operator and his father was a meat packer. He graduated as a valedictorian from New York University but before his playwriting career took off he worked a series of day jobs, such as an elevator operator, furniture mover, apartment painter, florist and locksmith. This period of his life unquestionably gave him some feeling for working class dialogue, and there are moments in some of Shanleys earlier works where that comes to the fore. This was the case in his first major success, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, produced Off-Broadway in 1984. The play centers around the lives of two violence-prone individuals who seek solace in each others company after meeting in a Bronx bar. But although the dialogue in this piece is sharp and believable, the play, like so much of Shanleys work, leaves the most important issues unexplored. There is a reluctance to examine the conditions that lead his characters to behave the way they do. Usually we are left with a perspective that can be summed up in the adage, love conquers all. This sentiment also appears in Outside Mullingar, produced on Broadway in 2014, about a lonely middle aged Irish farmer who eventually finds happiness. This play garnered Shanley a Tony Award nomination. When Shanley has tried to deal with more openly social and political questions, the results have also been generally unsuccessful. One example is Dirty Story, a play that centers around a sado-masochistic couple whose relationship is intended as an allegory for Israels military occupation of Palestine. Here too the critical issues are not dealt with in a serious fashion. In the WSWS review of the film adaptation of Shanleys best known work, Doubt, a play that revolves around allegations of sexual molestation by a Catholic priest, we characterized the work as conformist ideologically and fiercely mediocre as an artistic effort. We added, Shanley apparently accepts everything about the world. How can an artist accomplish anything on such a basis? Without giving too much information away, Prodigal Son proceeds rather predictably, as English teacher Hoffman takes Jim under his wing, nurturing his blossoming talent and urging him on towards graduation, until a contrived denouement throws the proverbial spanner into the plot. The aftermath is something we are expected to ponder deeply, but there is far too little food for thought provided. In one of the more sincerely written lines in Prodigal Son, the protagonist poignantly remarks, The only way I know anything about what I am is what I see in other peoples eyes. Perhaps Shanley should heed his central characters advice, and stop writing almost exclusively about himself and his personal experiences. A closer and more concrete look at the world and the lives of others would be a good starting point. Saudi Arabia is pushing its allies, Turkey and Egypt, to restore diplomatic relations, following a Turkish delegations three-day visit to Riyadh and talks on the side-lines of a meeting in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) earlier this month. The Saudi monarchy is keen to effect reconciliation between the two countries before a summit meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul in April, to which Turkey as the incoming chair has invited Egypts President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the OICs outgoing chair, to attend. It is part of Riyadhs plans to strengthen its Sunni-coalition against Iran and prepare for a more direct intervention to unseat Syrias President Bashar al-Assad. Egypt is dependent upon the Gulf monarchies to keep its rapidly sinking economy afloat, having received at least $20 billion in 2013-14, with a further $12.5 billion pledged last year, and has participated in the Saudi Arabian-led military intervention in Yemen. Ankara would recognise al-Sisi as Egypts legitimate ruler, who in return would lift the death sentences imposed en masse on the opposition Muslim Brotherhood (MB) members last year. In 2013, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, at the time Turkeys Islamist Prime Minister, who is closely aligned with the MB, severed diplomatic ties with Egypt after al-Sisi, then head of Egypts armed forces and Minister of Defence, led a military coup against former MB President Mohammad Morsi in 2013. Since then, al-Sisi has instituted a reign of terror, implementing a brutal crackdown against the MB, killing around 1,000 of its supporters, imprisoning thousands more, and detaining journalists, academics and oppositionists in military prisons, many of whom have died at the hands of the authorities following torture and beatings. Hundreds of MB members fled Egypt for Turkey, which is home to several TV channels virulently hostile to the al-Sisi regime. Egypt has responded by cancelling joint naval drills with Turkey. Last July, Egypt reported that its military forces had captured Turkish intelligence officers and jihadists involved in guerrilla warfare in the Sinai Peninsula targeting the al-Sisi regime. Last December, the Turkish president met with Hamas leader Khalid Meshaal in Istanbul. Other factors affecting the two countries bitter relations include their rivalry for a leading role in the region and their different positions on the proxy war in Syria. While Ankara is insistent that the prime objective is Assads removal, for Cairo, Assads ouster is secondary to defeating Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), whose affiliates are active in Egypts Sinai Peninsula. Saudi efforts to effect reconciliation between Egypt and Turkey come in the wake of last Decembers framework agreement to restore diplomatic relations between Israel and Turkey. Egypt was reportedly very concerned over Ankara's insistence that Israel lift its naval blockade on Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, an affiliate of Egypts Muslim Brotherhood, which it accused of aiding the Islamist insurgents in Sinai, something that Hamas has denied. Erdogan said that Turkey wanted to send aid ships to Gaza to provide electricity and construction materials and that Israel had told Turkey that it would ease the siege as part of the agreement if aid to Gaza went through Turkey. According to the Turkish Hurriyet Daily News, senior Turkish officials said that if Israel allows this, Turkey would consider it a fulfilment of its condition that Israel lifts its siege. This is an anathema to the al-Sisi government, which has worked closely with Israel, strengthening the siege of Gaza, turning the southern edge of the region into a buffer zone, occupying a large swathe of Gazas land and destroying hundreds of tunnels used for smuggling basic commodities, people and weapons between Gaza and Sinai. Much to Egypts embarrassment, Israels Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz blurted out earlier this month that al-Sisi had flooded some of Hamass underground tunnels at Israel's request. Since mid-January, several tunnels have collapsed, leading to the deaths of 10 Palestinians. Erdogan has so far agreed to ministerial-level talks with Egypt, but has ruled out meeting the Egyptian president. This attempt at a rapprochement is taking place at the same time as a number of different framework agreements over oil and gas discoveries between Egypt, Israel, Cyprus and Greece, all of whom have had poor relations with Turkey. Israel-Cyprus-Greece, Egypt-Israel-Cyprus and Cyprus-Greece-Egypt have all signed deals on energy and security ties that include joint naval exercises. In 2009 and 2010, Israel discovered gas reserves of 10 trillion cubic feet (tcf) in the Tamar field, and 22 tcf in the Leviathan field, both located off its Mediterranean coast, ensuring sufficient capacity for both its domestic needs and exports. However, the development of the Leviathan field has been delayed by a 2014 ruling by Israels antitrust commissioner and accusations that the government had given investors far too generous a deal while gas prices are low. Now the Supreme Court has challenged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus decision to by-pass parliament by drafting a framework to jump-start investment. In 2011, Cyprus discovered gas reserves in the Aphrodite field off the coast of Cyprus estimated to hold about four tcf. Both countries had signed agreements to sell gas to Egypt, which has become a net importer due to rising demand, falling gas output and attacks on its pipelines in Sinai by Islamist militants. But last year, Egypt discovered gas in the Zohr field with an estimated capacity of 30 tcf -- far larger than Leviathan and possibly the largest in the world--that is likely to scuttle Cypriot and Israeli plans to sell offshore gas to Egypt. The discovery would not only ensure Egypts energy security, but also turn Egypt into a regional natural gas hub. However, all these discoveries require transit routes for the European markets that must go through Turkey. It is this that has provided the impetus for restarting unification talks between the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot leaders that are regarded as promising, as well as attempts to normalise its relations with Israel and Egypt. It takes on a greater urgency following Turkeys downing of a Russian plane over the Turkish/Syrian border last November, rupturing political and economic relations with Turkeys largest energy supplier. At the same time, Turkeys membership in the Saudi alliance against Iran and its increasing military involvement in Syria rules out reliance on gas supplies from Iran, which holds the worlds second largest gas reserves in the world. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) government in Turkey has seized upon a terrorist attack carried out in the capital of Ankara as a pretext for escalating its military campaign against Kurdish-dominated regions in eastern Turkey, northern Syria and Iraq. At the same time, Ankara is pushing ahead with plans for a ground invasion into Syria. In so doing, NATO member Turkey is deliberately stoking a conflagration in the entire region and risking a military confrontation with Russia, which could rapidly develop into all-out war between the great powers. On Thursday, the Turkish military command announced that its warplanes had bombed PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) positions in northern Iraq the previous night. Targets were attacked in the Haftanin border regionan area considered to be a stronghold of the PKK militia. On Friday, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu boasted in a televised speech: Our armed forces conducted a large-scale operation against the Haftanin camp. Around 70 members of the separatist terrorist organization ... were neutralized. In an attack on a military convoy in the Turkish capital of Ankara on Wednesday night, at least 28 people were killed and another 60 injured. All of the dead except one were members of the Turkish military. The attack took place just a few hundred metres from the parliament and Turkish army headquarters. At least six people were killed in another attack on Thursday on a military convoy in the predominantly Kurdish province of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey. Davutoglu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promptly assigned responsibility for the attack to the PKK along with the Syrian Kurdish organizations, the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the Peoples Protection Units (YPG), and vowed retaliation. Erdogan announced that Turkey would use its legitimate right to defend itself at all times and everywhere. These actions only serve to increase our determination to retaliate in Turkey and abroad to such attacks on our unity and our future. The terror tested the patience of Turkey, Erdogan declared, adding menacingly: If someone fires on Turkey, he will receive a clear answer. Davutoglu threatened: Yesterdays attack was directly targeting Turkey and the perpetrator is the YPG and the divisive terrorist organization PKK. All necessary measures will be taken against them. Davutoglu vowed that Turkey would continue to shell YPG positions in northern Syria and equated the YPG with the terrorist organizations Al Qaeda and Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), insisting that they could not be a party to Syrian peace talks. The Turkish prime minister asserted: This attack has been carried out by the members of the terrorist organization inside Turkey together with an individual YPG member who had crossed from Syria. Davutoglu then identified the suicide bomber as Salih Neccar, born in 1992 in the Kurdish town of Amudah in northern Syria. Representatives of the PKK, the YPG and the PYD categorically rejected the allegations launched by Ankara. The PKK commander Cemil Bayik told the PKK-affiliated agency Firat on Thursday: We do not know who did it. It might, however, have been in retaliation for the massacres in Kurdistan. A member of the YPG told reporters, We have no connection to the man who is named as the assassin. The PYD denies any connection to the attacks and has no record of carrying out any actions in Turkey. Its leader, Saleh Muslim, accused the Turkish government of exploiting the attacks to escalate the fighting in northern Syria. We vehemently deny responsibility, Muslim said in a telephone interview with Reuters. Davutoglu is preparing something else. They have bombarded us for a week, as you know. I can assure you that not a single YPG bullet was fired in the direction of Turkey. They dont consider Turkey an enemy. Whoever has followed events in Syria and the fiercely aggressive response of the Turkish government in recent days can only conclude that the latest terror attacks play into the hands of Davutoglu and the Turkish government. For the past week, the Turkish Air Force has bombarded YPG positions in northern Syria and the Turkish army has shelled them with artillery on the Turkish-Syrian border. On Tuesday, the US, which works closely with the YPG in the latters offensive against ISIS in Syria, called upon Turkey and the Kurdish militia to end their conflict. Erdogan replied angrily that such a proposal was not up for debate and that Turkish security forces would carry out their fight against the Kurdish terrorists in Syria to the bitter end. He accused the UN and the West of being passive for too long with regard to the fighting in Syria. Right now I have difficulties understanding the United States. Why do they not call the PYD and YPG terrorists? Why do they say they support the YPG? On Thursday, Turkey summoned the ambassadors of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Turkey has intensified its rhetoric in the wake of the attacks. Those who directly or indirectly support a group hostile to Turkey risk losing their status as a friend. We cannot tolerate any NATO country, including first and foremost the US, having relations with a terrorist organization that attacks us in the heart of Turkey, Davutoglu declared. He said the Syrian regime was directly responsible for the attacks, calling the YPG a pawn of Damascus, and insisting that Turkey had the right to take all measures against the Assad regime. Regarding Russia, which supports the Syrian army in its offensive in northern Syria, Davutoglu stated that Moscows condemnation of the attacks was a positive sign, but was not enough. I warn Russia again against using terrorist organizations against innocent people in Syria and Turkey, he said. How can one account for the thoroughly reckless and aggressive stance of the Turkish government? Recent weeks have seen the collapse of the Western-backed Turkish strategy to forcibly topple the Assad regime through arming and financing so-called moderate Islamist rebels in Syria. An article on the news website al-Monitor states: On Feb. 3, the Syrian army and its allies dealt a strategic blow to Ankara when they cut the land route between Aleppo and the Bab al-Salameh border crossing with Turkey in the Turkish province of Kilis. The road link was important for Erdogan and Davutoglu for one reason in particular. Al-Monitor writes: The fighters, weapons, munitions and various supplies that flowed via this route to Aleppo allowed the rebels to sustain their military presence in Syrias most populous city and therefore preserve their political ambitions in the conflict. Thus, with the fall of Aleppo, Ankara would find itself largely sidelined from the Syrian process. Since then, there are increasing indications that the Turkish regime is planning a ground offensive in Syria to rescue its dwindling influence and prevent the emergence of a Kurdish-occupied territory in the north of Syria. Just one day after the Syrian army occupied the Turkish-Syrian route to Aleppo, a spokesman for the Russian Defence Ministry stated that Turkey was actively preparing for a military invasion in Syria. Were detecting more and more signs of Turkish armed forces being engaged in covert preparations for direct military actions in Syria. According to reports, the Turkish military has been reticent up until now about a military invasion in Syria. The Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported recently that the Turkish army would not invade Syria without a resolution from the UN Security Council. Erdogan and Davutoglu have been seeking for some time to change this attitude. An article on al-Monitor, significantly entitled, Can Erdogan bully Turkey's armed forces into invading Syria? reports the Turkish president pushing for an early intervention in Syria. Erdogan has repeatedly spoken of an mistake in 2003 when Turkey refused to march alongside the US into Iraq. Now this mistake should not be repeated in Syria. Already in 2014, Davutoglu had sought, in his capacity at the time as Turkish defence minister, to provoke an invasion by the Turkish army. A leaked audio recording revealed that he had met with, among others, the head of the Turkish intelligence service MIT, Hakan Fidan, to discuss the possibility of an attack on Turkey from across the Syrian border, or at the grave of Suleiman Shaha former Turkish enclave inside Syriaserving as a pretext for a full-scale Turkish intervention of Syria. At one point in the conversation, Davutoglu declared that such an attack in the current situation should be seen as an opportunity for us. Today, the Turkish government is less isolated than in 2014, and enjoys, in particular, greater support from the German government. Just two days ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel confirmed in a government statement her support for a no-fly zone in Syria, a central demand of the Erdogan government and an important prerequisite for a Turkish military invasion in Syria. After the latest terror attacks, she stated that the German government stood alongside Turkey in the fight against those responsible for such inhuman acts. The threat of another major war is becoming more acute on a daily basis. Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev warned at the Munich Security Conference last weekend against the danger of a new world war should Western or Arab ground troops invade Syria, adding, The Americans and our Arab partners must think it through: do they want permanent war? On February 12, West Virginia became the 26th state in the US to implement a right-to-work law prohibiting work contracts that require employees to pay union dues as a condition of their employment. Initially passed February 4, the Republican-controlled state legislature overrode Democratic Governor Earl Ray Tomlins veto to implement the Workplace Freedom Act, which will take effect on July 1. The measure was part of a raft of right-wing laws introduced by the legislature in the midst of the states budget crisis, including the cutting of severance taxes for the coal and gas industries, drug testing for welfare recipients, work requirements for food assistance, the repeal of a requirement requiring that companies bidding on state projects guarantee workers a set minimum wage, and more. The sharp dispute between Democrats and Republicans over right-to-work laws in West Virginia and across the US is not an issue of principle, but of tactics. Both parties are committed to austerity and further attacks on the working class. However, they have differences over the most efficient manner of accomplishing the goal of funneling even more money into the hands of the corporate and financial elite. In the most immediate sense, the Republicans are promoting right-to-work laws in order to undermine the Democratic Party by reducing the influence of the unions, which provide critical financial support to the Democrats. The particular corporate and political forces promoting these laws want to further marginalize the unions or eliminate them outright. They are exploiting the widespread disgust with these largely discredited, pro-company organizations to advance their own reactionary agenda. The Democrats, for their part, are somewhat more farsighted. They are well aware of the critical role the unions have played in suppressing the class struggle over the last three-and-a-half decades and facilitating a transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top. The Democrats support these organizations not because they defend the interests of workersthe unions do notbut because they are useful in containing and dissipating social discontent and preventing the emergency of a far more radical challenge to the capitalist system. The passage of the law in West Virginia is of particular significance since the Mountain State was once a stronghold of the United Mine Workers of America (UMW). From the 1880s to the 1980s, the state was the scene of some of the most bitter class conflicts in the United States, which were often referred to as mine wars. From the mid-1970s onward, however, the UMW, like the nationalist and pro-capitalist unions throughout the US and the world, responded to globalization and the world economic crisis by abandoning any opposition to the employers and the government and adopting the corporatist doctrine of labor-management partnership. After decades of betrayed strikes and collaboration in the destruction of jobs and living standards of miners, the unions have little or no support among the vast majority of workers and youth in West Virginia. On the day the right-to-work bill was passed, the UMW was able to organize only a small rally at the state capitol building. The event was hosted by union president Cecil Roberts who, along with former UMW head and now AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka, has overseen countless betrayals of coal miners, from the defeat of the 1989-90 Pittston strike to the more recent gutting of pensions by Peabody Coal and other energy giants. Mining employment in West Virginia has plummeted over the past few years, with over 10,000 jobs shed in 2015 alone. According to the West Virginia office of Mine Health, Safety & Training, the number of active mines has fallen from 93 to 37, and employment stands at 5,352. In neighboring Kentucky, the last UMW mine in the state was closed at the beginning of 2015. Overall, 12.4 percent of workers (83,000) in West Virginia are still unionized, a rate slightly higher than the nationwide rate of 11.1 percent. This has not translated into better conditions for the vast majority of West Virginians. Instead, the state is the worst in the country for unemployment and the labor force participation rate. It is characterized by extreme poverty, with per capita income of $23,237, and high inequality. The Democrats and the UMW have long promoted the state as business friendly, offering generous tax incentives and a desperate pool of workers for corporations relocating to the area. As the West Virginia gubernatorial elections got underway, the UMW rushed to endorse billionaire Democratic candidate Jim Justicethe wealthiest man in the state, a coal executive whose mine operations are flush with both safety hazards and legal problems over the non-payment of local taxes. On a national level, the UMW has collaborated with the Obama administration in the further destruction of the safety of mineworkers. Shortly after taking office in 2009, Obama appointed former UMW safety director Joe Main to head the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). Main, a champion of union-management partnership, has repeatedly bowed to coal industry demands concerning black lung-causing coal dust and explosion dangers, while issuing wrist-slap fines to corporate killers like Massey Coal. The UMW and other unions claim their opposition to right-to-work laws is guided by concern for the rights of workers to collectively organize. This is a fraud. The unions are contemptuous of the democratic rights of workers. What they want to defend is their monopoly as the sole, legally recognized representative of workers. The UMW has long employed thuggish methods against rank-and-file militants and socialist opponents who opposed its betrayal of workers interests. If workers were to organize independently and in opposition of the UMW, the union would use all the labor laws at its disposal to declare such a movement illegal. Facing a largely hostile membership, the unions rely on sanctioning from the government and the good will of a section of larger employers for the continued flow of dues money into their bank accounts, and to provide union officials with various government posts and seats on corporate boards. For workers to defend their social and democratic rights, including the right to collectively organize, they must oppose all factions of the corporate and political establishment. New organizations of self-representation, democratically controlled by rank-and-file workers and based on the methods of the class struggle, must be built to unite miners and every other section of the working class in defense of jobs, living standards and safe work conditions. Above all, workers must unite all of their struggles into a single political struggle to break the stranglehold of the global corporations and banks. The nationalism of the UMW and AFL-CIO, which subordinate US workers to American capitalism and its drive for the economic and military domination of the world, must be rejected. Instead, workers in the US must unite with our class brothers in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe and around the world to defend the rights of all workers to decent paying and secure jobs. The only answer to the global economic crisis, which is throwing millions of workers out of their jobs from West Virginia to China, is to put the financial system and energy conglomerates under the public ownership and democratic control of the working class, as part of socialist reorganization of the world economy. Accusations in the United States and allied countries against China have steadily increased in rhetoric since Fox News published satellite imagery on February 16, allegedly showing the recent installation of surface-to-air missile systems on Woody Island in the Paracel chain. US Secretary of State John Kerry effectively accused China of reneging on its pledges not to militarise the South China Sea. Every day there has been an increase in militarisation of one kind or another, he asserted, declaring the Obama administration and Beijing would have a further serious conversation about this. The entire issue has been inflated and exaggerated for definite political and diplomatic purposes. Woody Island has been under Chinese control and administration since 1956. It is also claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan, although North Vietnam and then the unified Vietnam recognised Chinese sovereignty until 1982. Military aircraft have operated from the islands airstrip for decades and air defence systems have been located on it previously. Woody Island is just 300 kilometres from a major Chinese naval base at Hainan. It is not part of the Spratly Island group where the US pivot to Asia and encouragement of a bellicose stance against China by the Philippines and Vietnam have sparked the most contentious territorial disputes. The missile deployment has nevertheless been seized upon to falsely assert that the US and its allies face an imminent and dire threat to freedom of navigation through the key waterways of the South China Sea, and to demand ever-greater military action against China. One of the major mouthpieces of the US establishment, the New York Times, published an editorial yesterday labeling the missile placement as the latest in a series of provocative acts that is fueling regional tensions. It asserted that the missile batteries could enable Beijing to restrict international aircraft by declaring an air defense zone over the Paracels. The Times declared it essential for the US and its allies to ensure the free flow of navigation and to continue sending ships and planes across the sea, in accord with international law. Marco Rubio, one of the candidates vying to contest the US presidential election for the Republican Party, declared the US should have a permanent carrier presence in the region to challenge both any air defense zones that they [China] claim and any water rights that they claim We cannot live in a world where the Chinese government illegitimately claims that they own and can control the flow of commerce through the most important shipping lane in the world. Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani absurdly declared the missile placement to be a unilateral move by China to change the status quo that cannot be overlooked. Philippines-based analyst Richard Javad Heydarian told Japan Times: Much will depend on how the US and its key allies like Japan would respond in military terms Tokyo clearly abhors the potential of Chinese-dominated sea lines of communication in East Asia. The Australian newspaper, in its rush to denounce Chinas provocative moves, managed to incorrectly report in its editorial today that Woody Island is claimed by the Philippines. The Australian, which is owned, like Fox News, by media billionaire Rupert Murdoch, asserted: Beijings belligerent expansionism in the South China Sea is posing a potential threat to peace and it is only natural that in such circumstances Australia, Japan and the US, with smaller countries similarly worried about Chinas intentions, should work together to confront it. In the midst of this war propaganda, the US-based strategic web site Stratfor took issue with the claims over Woody Island. Stratfor, which carefully monitors global developments of interest to the US military-intelligence machine, noted: [T]he media would have us believe that Chinas actions were a watershed moment in the militarization of the South China Sea A more sober assessment shows that what China did is neither surprising not particularly consequential Woody Island is already host to more Chinese military equipment than most other islands in the South China Sea. It is relatively well-stocked with transport infrastructure, including an airfield and a small harbour. The island sustains a small civilian population and is the seat of Sansha city A small garrison has stood in the city since at least 1985. The Chinese government has responded to the outpouring of allegations by emphasising the decades-long operations of its military on Woody Island. Foreign Minister Wang Yi declared that activities on the island had nothing to do with militarisation. Sections of the Chinese establishment, however, have sought to match US and allied rhetoric with their own calls for military confrontation. The state-run Global Times, a mouthpiece of the Chinese regime, editorialised today that the whole of Chinese society should be cool-minded and be prepared for a long-term competition with the US If the US military stages a real threat and a military threat is looming, the PLA (Peoples Liberation Army) may feel propelled to deploy more powerful weapons. The newspaper demanded that the Chinese military engage any intrusions by outside warships and jet fighters. China, it asserted, should let the US know that its every single provocative act will face countermeasures. Under the pretext of freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, the US Navy conducted provocations against China last October and most recently on January 30, near Triton Island in the Paracels. On both occasions, US warships sailed within the 12-nautical-mile exclusion zones around Chinese-administered islands. The decision by China to shift a missile defence system to Woody Island is more than likely a response. The rhetoric in the US, Japan and Australia is aimed, in the first instance, at justifying an even larger and more provocative deployment of American, and possibly Australian, warships within the exclusion zones. All the conditions are emerging for a military clash that could trigger a wider war. CALHOUN COUNTY, FL. (WTXL) - The Calhoun Liberty Hospital has released a Corrective Action Plan, after Florida State Health officials found several violations at the facility. The state investigation came after a Blountstown woman died after she was forcibly removed from the hospital. The hospital's plan includes ways to provide better assessment and reassessment of patients and to provide more appropriate medical screening exams. The hospital was ordered to pay a $45,000 fine Wednesday, regarding the violations. The details of the plan match the deficiencies identified by AHCA and are detailed below. H020 Failure to provide the appropriate assessment/reassessment The hospital has procedures in place to ensure periodic reassessments of the patient are conducted based on changes in the patients condition. Training will be scheduled to review this policy and procedures with remaining staff before 3/1/2016. All newly employed clinical staff will be required to review policy and procedures prior to patient care. The hospital has care protocols based on the patients identified complaint. Staff will be educated on protocols and all new staff members will be required to review protocols prior to patient care. H043 Failure to provide an appropriate medical screening exam (MSE) Emergency services personnel are available 24/7 in the emergency department. All registration staff have been instructed on the necessity of a MSE as of 2/11/2016. Triage staff were instructed on the necessity of a MSE and regarding proper documentation when a patient refuses a MSE on 2/6/2016. All ER staff have been trained regarding the need for a repeat MSE when a patient voices a new complaint as of 2/6/2016. Documentation audits have been put into place for ER records since 1/8/2016. The hospital is coordinating with Tallahassee Memorial Hospital to provide a physician certified in emergency medicine to provide training on the requirement for all patients presenting to the emergency department on the following: - - How to conduct an appropriate medical screening; - - Recognition and proper management of patient emergency medical conditions; - - Requirements for patient stabilization prior to transfer or discharge; - - Patient transfer requirements; - - How to recognize violations of Florida Statute 395.1041; and - - Evaluation of the hospital internal incident reporting system with a focus on grievances relating to the emergency department services. This training will be completed prior to March 1, 2016. The hospital will engage the services of a physician certified in emergency medicine to conduct a semiannual audit of emergency department records to include assessment of compliance with Chapter 395.1041, FS. The initial audits will be conducted by 3/1/2016 and every six months thereafter. Audits will be conducted on 10 percent of all patients listed on the ER log. H049 Failure to follow Emergency Department policy and procedures The hospital maintains written policies and procedures specifying the scope and conduct of emergency services to be rendered to patients. The policies are reviewed and approved annually, revised as necessary, and dated to indicate time of the last review. An updated organization-wide policy was implemented on 2/1/2016. The Hospital will require all current staff to review the ER Policy and Procedure manual before 3/1/2016. All newly employed clinical staff will review the policy prior to patient contact. The hospital has hired a new Compliance Officer and an ER Nurse Manager to monitor enforcement of policies and procedures in the ER. H119 Failure to provide necessary nursing services The hospital maintains written policies and procedures specifying the scope and conduct of patient care provided by the nursing staff. The policies are reviewed and approved annually, revised as necessary, and dated to indicate time of the last review. The Hospital will require all current staff to review the Patient Care Policies and Procedure manual prior to 3/1/2016. All newly hired clinical staff will be required to review policy and procedure manual prior to patient contact. The hospital has hired a new Compliance Officer and is providing a Nurse Manager for each nursing department to monitor enforcement of policies and procedures by the nursing staff. H0120 Failure to document patient status upon discharge The hospital maintains written policies and procedures that specify documentation required on discharge. There is documentation that Patient #10 refused discharge vital signs. Current staff have been educated on documenting a complete set of vital signs as of 2/6/2016 and ER charts are being reviewed for evidence of this documentation. H0204 Failure to immediately address issues with emergency access The Quality improvement committee will meet on 2/16/2016. Guidelines will be discussed regarding when meetings will need to be called beyond the scheduled quarterly meetings. The quality improvement committee will immediately address any future identified issues with emergency access. H0219 Failure to report incident to Risk Manager and to initiate investigation The CEO was educated on reportable issues on 2/10/2016. The CEO and the Board will be educated on ensuring compliance with applicable laws on 2/22/2016 at the scheduled Board meeting. Department Heads were educated on reporting compliance on 2/16/16. H0408 Failure to evaluate patient care services after receiving a complaint The Governing Board implemented a system for monitoring compliance with 395.0197, FS in February 2016. This monitoring includes identification and timely analysis of patient grievances that relate to patient care and the quality of medical services. The hospitals LRM reviews all patient grievances on a daily basis M-F and as notified by staff after hours. The LRM performs follow up analysis as needed. To address timely reporting of adverse incidents to the risk manager or designee, a new, more user friendly incident reporting form was developed and all staff have been or will be instructed in its use by 3/1/2016. The LRM has in-serviced all department heads (2/16/2016); the ER staff (2/6/2015); and the C.N.A staff (2/11/2016), and has scheduled an in-service with the nursing floor staff on 2/18/2016 on mandatory reporting by staff of violations of 395.1041, FS to the risk manager or the designee. The registration team leader is reviewing the ER log book daily to ensure that all patients presenting to the ER are seen appropriately. Any patient found to have presented and not been seen for any reason generates an incident report for analysis by the LRM. The new Risk Manager began a log of patient grievances on 2/1/2016. Any reports received between January 1, 2016 through February 1, 2016 were logged as well. This log will be maintained by Risk Manager and in her absence, the Risk Manager Designee. H410 Failure to implement incident reporting system The hospital has implemented an incident reporting system, and all department heads, as well as the Administrator, have been trained on the use of the incident reporting system. The investigation into patient #10 was initiated immediately by the hospitals former Director of Nursing, who is an LRM. Statements were collected and the chart was reviewed. AHCA surveyors reviewed those statements and the progress of the investigation during their site visit. Audio and video information was not available at the time of the AHCA site visit. The hospital currently employees three Licensed Risk Managers, and the Administrator serves as the RM designee. H416 Failure to submit an adverse incident report AHCA required reporting, pursuant to 395.0197 (6) and (7) will be submitted in a timely manner. This incident report was prepared for submission in a timely manner but after discussion with AHCA surveyor on site and review of the requirements, it was decided that this incident did not meet reporting requirements. Patient #10 died of a Pulmonary Embolism, which was not associated with medical intervention nor was it a condition that health care personnel could exercise control over. AHCA was in the building prior to the reporting deadline and the necessity to report was discussed with AHCA surveyor on site; it was determined this incident did not meet the reporting requirements. Audio and video evidence were not available at the time of the site visit. --- Additional Correction Actions and Plans Measures have been put into place to ensure the deficient practice will not recur. - - The Assistant Administrator/Chief Nursing Officer will maintain records of the in-service, preservice and training activities. The Compliance Officer will maintain records of ongoing monitoring activities. A summary of these records will be reviewed with the Board at the regularly scheduled meetings and will be available for review by AHCA staff upon request. Any patient found to have been affected by deficient practice will be followed up with by the LRM and the incident reported to the appropriate regulatory agency in a timely manner. - - All patients presenting to the ER have the potential to be affected. Registration clerks are typically the first point of contact for these patients and all registration clerks have received training from the LRM on EMTALA on 2/10/16 and 2/11/16. ER and EMS staff received mandatory training on EMTALA from the LRM on 2/5/16. - - A physician certified in emergency medicine will be engaged to provide training to all licensed healthcare staff on EMTALA and Chapter 395.1041 FS. requirements. - - The Compliance Officer will make attempts to contact patients who leave the ER under the following statuses: Against Medical Advice (AMA), elopement or Leaving without Being Seen (LWBS) to investigate for any EMTALA violations. - - There has been a restructuring of leadership staff in the hospital to divide the supervision and enforcement of policy and procedure by department, allowing more time for oversight in each area. A staff development program is being planned to provide education to staff on a routine basis. - - Training and education will be provided to existing staff and all new staff on policies and procedures as well as regulatory requirements relating to risk management and EMTALA. - - Monthly nursing staff meetings have been implemented with reminders of EMTALA and a review of ER patient audit findings as well as any other identified topic. This will continue for six months, and we will then evaluate the effectiveness. - - An ER Nurse Manager has been hired and is responsible for oversight of staff in the ER to ensure compliance with policies and procedures. PENSACOLA, Fla. (AP) - A house fire in Florida has killed four young children, including an infant. Escambia County Fire Rescue battalion chief Curt Isakson tells the Pensacola News-Journal (http://on.pnj.com/24cC1Pk ) that the mother and an older sibling escaped without injury. The fire started about 5:30 a.m. Thursday in a small wooden house in Pensacola. Isakson says the victims were two boys, ages 11 and 5, and two girls, ages 3 and 11 months. Isakson says firefighters found the children in one room. He says first responders couldn't locate a smoke detector in the home. Neighbor Roxanne Walker told the newspaper flames quickly engulfed the home. She says she heard windows popping out and there was nothing anyone could do to help. The newspaper says grief counselors were sent to the school that some of the children had attended. MIAMI - The murder conviction and death sentence imposed on a Florida mother for the slaying of her young son known as "Baby Lollipops" have been thrown out by the state Supreme Court. The justices ruled Thursday that prosecutors made improper and inflammatory statements during the trial of Ana Maria Cardona. She was sentenced to death in 2011 for the killing in 1990 of 3-year-old Lazaro Figueroa, who was wearing a T-shirt with a lollipop image when found dead by Miami Beach police. He had been badly beaten and weighed just 18 pounds. Cardona was initially convicted and sentenced to die in 1992. The Supreme Court overturned the conviction because prosecutors failed to disclose key evidence to the defense. The court's decision means Cardona is likely to face a third murder trial. TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - Authorities have arrested more than 60 people as part of an operation to combat violent crime in Hillsborough County. The Tampa Bay Times reports (http://bit.ly/1SUT5pw) the four-month investigation targeted drug and gun traffickers. Eight people were charged federally. During a news conference Thursday, U.S. Attorney A. Lee Bentley said that one of the people arrested had a 38-page rap sheet. "Operation Gun Box" was a collaboration between the Hillsborough sheriff's office and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and Explosives. It started in October, after officials noticed a 9 percent spike in gun-related crimes countywide from the year before. Of even greater concern: a 5 percent increase in overall violent crimes. TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - A bill that would require at least 20 minutes a day of recess for elementary-school students passed by a vote of 112 to two in the Florida House of Representatives late Thursday. At a news conference earlier in the day, parents and lawmakers in support of the bipartisan legislation talked about the importance of allowing kids a break from academic work. Christie Bruner is a mother of three from Saint Petersburg, who has traveled to the state capitol several times this year in support of the bill. She says there is no consistent policy on recess among schools. Bruner says, We have some schools that have recess, and some schools that do not. We dont see that as fair. It should be across the board. It shouldnt be that one teacher likes it, and another teacher doesnt. All kids need a break, and its not fair to them. State Representative Eric Eisnaugle is a co-sponsor of the House bill. He says since many local school districts have not taken it upon themselves to make sure students get recess, it is important that the legislature demands it. If we want our kids to learn and to grow academically, and to do well going forward, they have to be able to have this exercise and this time outside in recess to clear their minds and get ready for the rest of the day. Under the bill, recess could not be taken away from children because of disciplinary or academic reasons. The major hurdle for the legislation is in the Florida Senate, where the chairman of that chambers Education Pre-K through 12 committee has so far declined to hear the bill, with just over three weeks remaining in the 2016 session. Some local school districts feel requiring recess time an unnecessary mandate from the state. ATLANTA (AP) Georgia's top elections official says thousands of voters are casting ballots early in the state's presidential primaries. Secretary of State Brian Kemp said Thursday that more than 63,500 Georgians voted early in the first week of advance voting that began Feb. 8. The figure includes more than 53,000 ballots cast in-person and nearly 10,500 absentee ballots received by mail. Kemp says more than 40,200 votes were cast in the Republican presidential primary, while Democratic voters accounted for more than 23,100 ballots. Early voting continues through Feb. 26. Polls will reopen on primary day March 1. Kemp says early voting so far this year numbers has tracked closely with the last presidential primary in 2012, when about 172,000 Georgians voted early. A group of girls aged 18-19, who recently graduated from high school, sits in a circle in the living room of a house, looking at a graph projecting on the wall, showing data on the number of working women in Israel. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter They're talking about the numbers and slowly realize the meaning behind them: "It's best to start academic studies as soon as possible, immediately after the army," says one of them. "In order to get a high-paying job, it's best to pursue higher education, and that is hard to do when you have children." Dr. Merav Maidan, the group's facilitator, presents them with more data, which draws them into quite the practical debate. "A husband must be considerate and help his wife, he is not the only one who should get ahead in life," says one of the girls. "When I become a manager, I will promote as many women as possible - it's hard enough as it is for them." When they take a break, Maidan explains that this class is part of the curriculum here in the pre-military academy. The girls at the pre-army academy (Photo: Zohar Shahar) Are these revised lessons to what they learned in high school civics class? "We teach them to come and ask the questions not from the point of view of the rulers, the government and the state, but from their own point of view, their difficulties and preferences," says Dr. Maidan. "We teach them critical thinking, we tell them, 'don't accept everything you're being told, try to figure out where your place is in relation to that, be prepared to encounter the glass ceiling that awaits you, and know that the chance to change your future or your own destiny is in your hands.'" Last in line The 25 young women standing outside the house, which is perched on a green hillside east of Migdal HaEmek, know their place in the Israeli equation, which takes into consideration ethnicity, place of residence and parents' education, in making the decision of where to place them in their military service. If you are the daughter of Ethiopian migrants, you can forget about the IDF taking your dreams, or your potential - unfulfilled during high school - into consideration. Each of these young women, who are enjoying their break in the winter sun of the Jezreel Valley, has learned the hard way that the military's radar missed her not just because she did not have anything to offer the military occupational specialty qualification system, or because of the lack of adequate preparation for military tryouts, but also because her parents have never been part of the IDF system and because this is the first time anyone in the family is enlisting. This is a natural route for native-born Israelis, but it is an unknown path for those who go there for the first time. The vast majority are daughters of Ethiopian immigrants, and a few from the former Soviet Union, but they all came here to divert from the path they are on ahead of the military. This means in practice that the girls in the program had grades on the qualifying tests of 10 to 30, with the maximum rating being 90. Their qualification rating never exceeds 45, which is below the 46-50 average required for admission. "Anyone that has fire in their belly and a strong desire to work and succeed in finding good positions in the military" can get in, says the head of the preparatory program, Anat Steiner. "Anyone who believes that she can do more than what the military said she could. Last year, we had three girls whom the military had already informed that they would not be enlisted because of low scores. All three joined. Eventually one graduated with honors in basic training. Everyone who comes here learns to believe in herself and to challenge the system until she finds her proper role. " Steiner, a veteran educator who ran a school in Jerusalem for many years, finds the girls through footwork that she carries out across the country during her visits to many boarding schools, high schools and youth villages. This is the third year of operations for the successful Derech Kfar (The Village Way) Educational Institute, which outlines a practical path and vision to 30 high schools, youth villages and boarding schools across the country that involve at-risk youth. The Institute also operates two military preparatory programs the program at Migdal HaEmek and one for males at Hatzor Haglilit. "The idea for the establishment of the preparatory programs belonged to CEO of Derech Kfar, Haim Rubovitch, and Susan Weil, director of external relations of the organization," says Steiner. Thirty years after the large influx from Ethiopia, most Ethiopian-Israeli soldiers were born in Israel, and the demographic has high recruitment rates of between 85 and 87 to percent. That rate is similar to that in kibbutzes and religious communities, but that is where the similarity ends, and the tragedy begins. Among Ethiopian-Israelis in the military, there is a high proportion of desertion, absence without leave, arrests, detention, and suicide. Between 2007 and 2012, ten Ethiopian soldiers committed suicide, five or six more than would be expected based on population size. This only deepens the insecuries of those community members being recruited. Because of this problem, the military has created a special department for the treatment of young Ethiopian recruits, but it seems that the recruitment process is only a reflection of the real problem, which begins during the parents' absorption in Israel. Photo: Zohar Shahar Hadas Tafta of Rehevot wants to be a social services NCO, but was stunned to discover that the highest job she can have in the IDF is a driver. "With a qualifying score of 49 and a test score of 30, I have no chance to be summoned to try out for the role I wanted," she says. "When I first went into the processing station, I could sense that I was not responding correctly in the test, I found it hard but I was not surprised. I knew in advance what the measures are that calculate the components making up my scores, and it is well-known that Ethiopians cannot get a high ranking because most have uneducated parents who earn low wages." She is the first daughter to enlist in her family. (Her older sister completed National Service.) "It is important for me to do it properly, to contribute in a role that will manifest my abilities and my strengths," says Tafta. "As a social services NCO, I could help many more Ethiopian soldiers in distress. I was in their position." Tigist Agidao of Kiryat Bialik also realizedshe had to adjust her expectations for the IDF after her desire to be an assessor in the military corrections system encountered the militarys initial assessment referring her to the role of a cook or a secretary. "It all started out wrong," she says. "I did not even get a summons to go to the processing station. Where I volunteered in high school, there was a soldier who inquired for me why I did not get the summons like everyone else. It turned out they sent it three times incorrectly, and if I had not insisted on pursuing them, I would have been arrested because I did not report to the processing center. " Tigist and Hadas are proud of the full matriculation certificates that they achieved in high school, but find it difficult to accept the fact that it's not their achievements that are measured by IDFs classification system, but rather the socio-economic status of their home environment. I was very nervous about the process before I even started, says Agidao. "I have no one to consult, my parents did not know this experience at all, and they do not understand the implications of these tests. I was worried I would not get what I wanted, and it angered me that no matter how much I achieved, my numbers would still be low. " She took sample tests from the internet and practiced them dozens of times before first being summoned to the processing station. "I felt like there was no way I was getting low scores, and believing I would receive a score over 50. I received a 48." Here, at the preparatory program that includes two rented houses on the same street that overlook a quiet town, the military is a parable for life: the faster you correct course, the sooner you reach your goal. Steiner says the first barrier for the girls is actually in their homes. "Parents do not like the idea of wasting a year," she says. "They would prefer that the girls serve a year in the National Service and finish their commitment as soon as possible. Military service is still not greeted with joy, and certainly not another year of preparatory courses." Learning to change the world (Photo: Zohar Shahar) To Steiner, the girls are pioneers not only in their intense motivation to serve in order to feel part of Israeli society, but also in that they are willing to spend an extra year for the chance to improve their placement. The results show that the formula works: two previous cycles showed 100 percent recruitment and assignment to a variety of functions that require screening and training, such as medics, social services NCOs, drill instructors, intelligence NCOs, combat roles, and more. Out of 14 graduates of the first class, six received certificates of merit, and three have been designated to become commissioned officers. Among the 18 graduates of the second class, who joined recently, four have already received certificates of merit during training, and another received one at the end of a course she passed successfully. 'The assessments are fossils' The morning began with a half-hour in which girls take turns choosing a topic that interests her and practices their instructional skills before an audience. "They are beginning to realize that it is possible to change reality," says Steiner. "They know they are at the bottom by the rating they received. To me, it is clear that there is no correlation between the girls' abilities and the roles they received. The military's screening tests are totally dependent on culture, but I tell them: 'It is true that these are your scores, but come be with us for a year and discover your capabilities.' During the year, they go to tryouts that were not in their portfolio, and prove to everyone that they can be placed as high as possible. " Summons for tryouts are obtained by Steiner via her contacts in the military. The Ethiopian aid department helps us, and I myself obtain the personal phone numbers of those responsible for the qualifying tests and request that they invite the girls," she says. "I call, nag and push. The girls have no social network of contacts, there is no one to open doors for them, and that's another thing we can give them. " Steiner teaches the girls that reality is no excuse. "The militarys tests are fossils," she says. "They are not suited to the girls capacities, but they can still beat them." This pragmatic educational approach does not see the cultural diversity as an obstacle,which is reflected in the girlss attitudes. "From an early age, I've been used to translating to my parents what the teacher told them during parent-teacher conferences," says Tigist "My place as their child was always I needed to guide and lead and fend for myself. I was never angry with them for not understanding the language or not coming to pick me up in the car after an annual three-day trip. All I want is to have pride and to show them that I am like everyone here in Israel, that I am able to serve in a meaningful role in the military and contribute in the best way I can." In a vast expanse of open desert in southern Israel, a 787-foot tower (240 metres) is taking shape that its builders hope will help make solar energy much more cost effective. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The tower, being built by Israel-based Megalim Solar Power, whose shareholders include General Electric, will be taller than other solar towers, enabling it to generate up to 121 megawatts of power. Due to be completed late next year at a cost of NIS 3 billion ($773 million), the facility will provide around one percent of Israel's electricity under an agreement with the government, which aims for 10 percent of the country's energy needs to be provided by renewables by 2020. Construction workers install heliostat mirrors (Photo: Reuters) For that reason they have seen limited deployment, and mainly in the United States and Europe. Megalim's tower in the Negev desert, which stands out for miles around, is surrounded by 50,000 computer-controlled mirrors, to project the sun's rays. They are bigger than in previous projects and controlled over a dedicated Wifi network, rather than with expensive cables used in the past, Megalim says. The tower is privately funded but when completed the government has guaranteed to buy the power from it at an above-market price. The foundations of the 240 meter (787 feet) solar-power tower (Photo: Reuters) That means it will be effectively subsidised, but Megalim says it is working to further reduce costs. Shareholders including power tower pioneer Brightsource Energy as well as General Electric, which will provide the turbine, want to build more such towers around the world. "We're making strides in efficiency, we're making strides in compressing the time of construction," said Megalim's Chief Executive Eran Gartner. "We're going down a learning curve that will help us to offer solar energy at the most competitive rates." Construction workers install heliostat mirrors (Photo: Reuters) To narrow the gap with PV panels, which make up 95 percent of the solar market, the US-based Solar Energy Industries Association says CSP needs to reduce hardware costs and to twin its output with an energy storage element that will allow electricity production at night. Megalim's tower in Israel will generate heat of up to 540 degrees Celsius (1,000 Fahrenheit), producing steam to drive a turbine. It will not be able to store energy but has overcome another problem that beset solar towers - whether or not power towers were killing large numbers of birds. When Brightsource built a three-tower facility in Ivanpah, California in 2013 with local partners, some experts said heat from its mirrors would incinerate tens of thousands of birds each year. A public outcry about the issue was in part responsible for Brightsource cancelling plans to build another tower complex in California. A field with heliostat mirrors (Photo: Reuters) An official report, based on findings by biologists and teams of dogs that combed the Ivanpah facility, documenting and categorizing every bird death, has since shown the impact to be low. Brightsource has come up with new techniques to minimize the damage, said Joe Desmond, Brightsource's senior vice president of government affairs and communications. It sprays vaporized grape skin extract, a mild irritant, and emits sounds of natural predators near the tower to keep birds away, he said. It has also developed algorithms to lessen the convergence of rays from mirrors on standby, so the air does not get as hot. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which reported Wednesday night on an alleged Israeli strike south of Damascus, is usually a reliable source of information on the subject of Syria. Although the organization is based in London, it has people on the ground all over Syria who are skilled at collecting information, and have been reporting on military and humanitarian activities throughout the five years of the civil war. Therefore, there has been a rush in the international media to highlight the attack which the organization attributes to Israel. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter It is well known that Israel has a set policy regarding the northern front, and with it, three red lines. Israel will not allow an attack on or within its sovereign territory. Israel will not allow the transfer of weapons which will give Hezbollah and Syria a strategic advantage over the IDF. Israel will not allow the transfer of chemical weapons to Hezbollah. Since there was no attack on or within the sovereign territory of Israel, and since Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles have mostly been destroyed, it is safe to assume that if Israel indeed carried out the strike, it was done in order to stop the transfer of advanced strategic weapons systems from Syria to Hezbollah, or from Iran, through Syria, to Hezbollah. Over the last few years, the Syrians and the Iranians have been trying to transfer two types of weapons systems to Hezbollah. The first are precision ground-to-ground rockets and missiles, with warheads capable of holding hundreds of pounds of TNT, which are specifically designed to target strategic locations in Israel - like the ammonia plant in Haifa which Nasrallah mentioned in his speech Attack in Syria The second type are surface-to-air missiles that could limit the abilities of the Israeli Air Force's missions in Lebanon and Syria against missiles and rockets that could be used against Israel - if and when. The Air Force's ability to attack high profile targets in large numebrs is essential to prevent destruction and the loss of Israeli life, and it will also prevent the paralysis of essential facilities - such as power stations - during a war with Hezbollah. It is the Air Force's responsibility to prepare for such scenarios. Hezbollah wants to mitigate this, and it is therefore trying to get its hands on the most advanced surface-to-air missiles it can. These types of systems are manufactured in Russia, and Vladimir Putin has been providing them in abundance - like the SA17 and SA22, which can take down a plane from a range of tens of kilometers, and at different altitudes. What is most important to note about these SAM systems is that they are very mobile, and they can operate autonomously. These systems are easily camouflaged, and can be put in places that make it difficult for Israeli intelligence to spot. They can also pop up in unexpected places in a short amount of time, thereby making their destruction difficult, and endangering the Israeli Air Force's freedom of operation. That is why, according to foreign reports, Israel targeted several shipments of these missiles in the past, which Syria bought from the Russians and was sending to Hezbollah. Several older SAM systems, such as the SA-8 surface-to-air missile system, did, however, manage to make their way to Hezbollah. Recently, Russia deployed S-400 SAM systems to Syria, which are able to shoot down airplanes from a range of more than 100 kilometers, and at different altitutdes. The Russians deployed these batteries to Syria as a threat to Turkey after Ankara shot down one of their planes, but they haven't given these systems to the Syrian army. However, there is still the slight possibility that these missiles will fall into Hezbollah's hands, maybe behind the Russians' backs. Why didn't Syria intervene? If the Israeli Air Force did indeed attack south of Damascus, as reported by foreign sources, the question arises as to how is it possible with the Russian Air Force in the area, operating in unison with the regime in Damascus? Russia attacks ground targets in Syria from the air in order to help the Assad regime in its fight against the rebels. As far as we know, the agreements between Russia and Syria and Iran do not include defending Syrian airspace from any kind of infiltration. A Greek F-16 takes off from Uvdah aif force base in a joint drill (Photo:EPA) It is safe to assume that while the attack was taking place, there were no Russian Air Force jets in the sky in that area. Regardless of the attacks, the Israeli Air Force has the capability, weapons, rockets, missiles, and different types of cruise missiles which can carry out an attack on Syrian territory without the need to enter Syrian air space. "Strikes from afar" are the preferred method of air-to-ground fighting. In addition to that, there is a coordination mechanism in place between the Russian forces operation in Syria and the IDF. If there was a risk of conflict or collision, this mechanism is supposed to neutralize it. Between Syria and East Jerusalem If indeed Israel struck in Syria, then why are the parties involved, such as the Syrian military spokesperson and Hezbollah TV station Al-Manar, denying it happened? The IDF's Spokesman's Office also did not confirm or deny it, and keeps quiet. This silence has become common practice in order to mitigate a conflict which none of the sides are interested in. The "area of denial" gives Syria and Hezbollah the option not to respond. Israel also has no interest in provoking a response from Syria and Hezbollah, and therefore keep quiet as well. Vladimir Putin and Bashar Assad (Photo: AFP, EPA) There is another issue worth noting: IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot's speech to high school students, in which he said that there soldiers should not empty an entire magazine of bullets into a Palestinian girl attempting to attack someone with scissors. The two examples are talking about using military force, and in the two examples - at least, from what the sound of the IDF chief's comments - the use of force must be done proportionally and professionally. The Syrian organization alleges that Israel shot three missiles that hit what the Syrians were possibly trying to send to Hezbollah. Three missiles, no more, that have a good chance of getting the job done. That is exactly the reason why the soldier who is standing in front of a teenage Palestinian girl holding scissors doesnt need to empty a full magazine into her to stop her. It is enough to hit her with the butt of his rifle. The use of force requires restraint, proportionality, and professionalism, as the IDF allegedly demonstrated in Syria and is supposed to demonstrate in Jerusalem and Ramla. LONDON - The national student organization of Britain's Labour party has opened an investigation into allegations of anti-Semitis behavior among the members of Oxford University's Labour students club. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter According to witnesses, members of the organization expressed support for Hamas and sang songs praising missile attacks on Tel Aviv, among other things. Alex Chalmers, the co-chairman of the Oxford Labuor club, resigned from his position earlier this week after he declared that a "large proportion" of the group have some kind of problem with Jews" and "intolerant tendencies." He decided to resign after the club decided to endorce the Israel Apartheid Week, which will take place next week on European college campuses. Photo Credit: Reuters The Labour party student groups decision to support Apartheid Week, which has a history of targeting and harassing Jewish students and inviting anti-Semitic speakers, despite the fears of Jewish students, shows how distorted and deceptive the group is," Chalmers wrote on his Facebook page. "Despite its avowed commitment to liberation, the attitudes of certain members of the club towards certain disadvantaged groups was becoming poisonous. Whether it be members of the Executive throwing around the term 'Zio' (a term for Jews usually confined to websites run by the Ku Klux Klan) with casual abandon, senior members of the club expressing their 'solidarity' with Hamas and explicitly defending their tactics of indiscriminately murdering civilians, or a former Co-Chair claiming that 'most accusations of anti-Semitism are just the Zionists crying wolf,' a large proportion of both OULC and the student left in Oxford more generally have some kind of problem with Jews," Chalmers went on to say. Jewish students at Oxford claim that the ties between the pro-Palestinian organizations and anti-Semitism is nothing new. When anti-Semitism intersects with Palestinian solidarity politics, it is not the job of Jewish students to be quiet, but the job of Palestinian solidarity activists to rid their movement of anti-Jewish prejudice, said the Oxford University Jewish Society. A Labour party spokeswoman said in light of the reports: Following recent allegations of Anti-Semitic behavior and intimidation at Oxford University Labour Club, Labour Students have launched an immediate investigation and the Labour party welcomes and supports this action. If complaints are made about any individual member of the Labour party, the party will take robust action to deal with any anti-Semitic behavior." These accusations have caused great embarrassment for the Labour party, which currently leads the opposition. Party chairman Jeremy Corbyn, who is known for his strong support of Hamas and Hezbollah, has recently made efforts to mitigate criticism leveled him and his party. This affair will certainly not help him in that endeavor. Earlier this week, new British government guidelines went into effect barring municipalities, universities, and government institutions from boycotting Israel. British Minister Matthew Hancock, who visited Israel this week, warned that "public institutions that violate the ban will be fined heavily. However, the British government has made it clear that it will continue to support labeling settlement products To allow consumers to make informed decisions before making a purchase. Two 14-year-old Palestinians carried out a stabbing attack Thursday afternoon in the Sha'ar Binyamin Industrial Zone north of Jerusalem. Sgt. Tuvia Yanai Weissman, 21, was killed and a 36-year-old Israeli civilian was moderately wounded. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The two Palestinain youths entered a Rami Levi supermarket and stabbed the two Israelis. Shoppers there pushed the terrorists back with shopping carts and a civilian at the scene then shot them, seriously wounding them. One of the terrorists later succumbed to his wounds. Sergeant Tuvia Yanai Weissman, 21, killed in attack Weismann, a resident of Ma'ale Mikhmas in the Binyamin region of the West Bank, was married and was the father of a four-month-old baby. He was a soldier in the 50th Battalion of the Nahal Brigade, but was in civilian clothes when he was murdered. Terrorists at the supermarket X Witnesses say that the terrorists were hanging around the area for about 40 minutes prior to attacking. The attackers, Umar Rimawi and Iham Sabah, are from Beitunia near Ramallah. One of the wounded being treated at the scene of the attack (Photo: Uziel Vatik) The civilian who shot the terrorists recounted that he "entered the store and heard screams. I spotted one of the terrorists and shot him. There were soldiers and civilians there." The 36-year-old was sent to Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, while Weissman was taken to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, where he died of his wounds. Two Border Policemen and a Palestinian woman were wounded in a terror attack at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City on Friday morning. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The attacker went through the gate, then backtracked with a knife in hand and assaulted the officers from behind. He stabbed one in the head, lightly wounding him. The other officer fought him off and was wounded in his hand. The Border Policemen then shot and killed the stabber, who was identified as Mohammed Abu Khalaf, 20, from Kafr 'Aqab in northern Jerusalem north of the Green Line. The attack captured by passerby X The two officers were taken to the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem in light-to-moderate condition. A passerby Palestinian woman from East Jerusalem was lightly hurt in her leg from shrapnel, likely from the shooting to neutralize the attacker. The attacker after having been neutralized The Damascus Gate has been the site of 11 other terror attacks over the past five months, including the deadly shooting of Border Policewoman Hadar Cohen earlier this month. On Thursday, an IDF soldier was killed and an Israeli civilian wounded in a stabbing attack at a supermarket in Sha'ar Binyamin in the West Bank, perpetrated by two 14-year-old Palestinians. Two 14-year-old terrorists carried out an attack on Thursday afternoon at the Rami Levi supermarket in Sha'ar Binyamin, near Ramallah, breaking the dubious record for the youngest Palestinians to commit a terror attack killing Israelis during the current escalation of violence. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter The two terrorists, Omar Rimawi and Ihad Sabah, traveled from Beitunia, a neighborhood just north of Ramallah, armed with knives concealed under their clothing, to Sha'ar Binyamin. They crossed two security checkpoints, one at the entrance to the Sha'ar Binyamin industrial area and a second at the entrance to the Rami Levi supermarket, where Jews and Palestinians shop together daily. Ihad Sabah, left, and Omar Rimawi. An Israeli civilian shot and wounded Rimawi and Sabah, who were taken to a Jerusalem hospital where Sabah later succumbed to his wounds. They join a list of other young Palestinians who have carried out attacks in the past five months. Ahmad Manasra, a 13-year-old from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, committed a stabbing attack with his 15-years-old cousin in the north Jerusalem neighborhood Pisgat Zeev. In addition, Muawiyyeh and Ali Alkam, teenagers from the Shuafat refugee camp, perpetrated an attack on the Jerusalem light rail. According to Shin Bet data released last week, 22 terrorists in the current terror wave are below the age of 16 (10 percent); 81 terrorists are between the ages of 16-20 (37 percent); 74 terrorists are between the ages of 21-25 (34 percent); 17 terrorists are between the ages of 26-30 (8 percent); and 25 terrorists are above the age of 30 (11 percent). The defense establishment is pointing to a number of factors motivating young Palestinians to carry out attacks, including incitement against Israel on social media and the desire to follow in the footsteps of family members and neighbors who carried out attacks themselves. However, the most important factor the defense establishment has identified is that the young generation was either not born or very young during the second intifada and does not understand its cost. Instead, it believes a violent uprising is the right path to resist the occupation. The IDF noted that many young terrorists come from educated, middle-class families. Thus, it seems that that economic reasons are not necessarily the main reasons compelling one, with knowledge of slim chances of survival, to carry out an attack. Furthermore, in some incidents, businessowners in Palestinian villages and cities have made great efforts to stop the local youth from perpetrating attacks, fearing that the IDF could respond with collective punitive measures. The IDF still has yet to decide whether to impose a closure on Beitunia as it did in Ramallah earlier this month after previous attacks in the West Bank. Only two days ago, IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot called for restraint in dealing with young terrorists carrying white arms. The chief of staff told to high school students in Bat Yam that he does not want a soldier to empty magazines on a girl with scissors. He also said that the IDF will not fall prey to slogans such as If someone is coming to kill you, rise against him and kill him first. The two young terrorists carried out the attack on Thursday while most public Palestinian schools are on strike over a labor dispute. The strike started nearly a week ago and security foces are concerned that the bored students watching television and browsing the internet will be exposed to more incitement, encouraging future attacks against Israelis. GENEVA - US and Russian military officials have held talks in Geneva ahead of a wider meeting on Friday aimed at trying to secure a cessation of hostilities in Syria, diplomats said. The unannounced bilateral meeting was aimed at narrowing positions before the two powers jointly chair a United Nations meeting on the issue, they said, declining to give details. "The idea of the whole exercise is for Russia and the United States to have a joint view. The UN will apparently promote a ceasefire and implementation, and will negotiate with the parties," a diplomat close to the process told Reuters. United Nations spokesman Michele Zaccheo said UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, who is returning from a visit to Damascus, took part in the US-Russian talks by videolink. A pro-Hezbollah hacker group calling itself We Are Coming claims it penetrated 5,000 Israeli websites, including some containing sensitive security data, in 2015, as well as security camera feeds, Lebanese network Al-Manar declared this week. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Pro-Hezbollah news outlets in Lebanon have reported in the past that the group successfully breached Israeli websites and Facebook pages. The Al-Manar report, however, was novel in its claim that We Are Coming accessed security camera feeds located in Israel. Al-Manar aired images allegedly taken via such breaches. The hacker group also released photos from what they claimed were same camera feeds from previous days as part of a campaign it named Shattering Illusions, meant to mark the eighth anniversary of Imad Mughniyeh's targeted killing. Picture allegedly taken from security feed of offices in Nahariya Al-Manar aired photos purported to be taken from security feeds in Haifa, Tel Aviv, and a restaurant in an unidentified location. We Are Coming also relesaed a photo allegedly showing government offices in Nahariya, in which one can see Israeli flags. One picture featured the caption: We are coming for you, even in your offices. What is coming next will be much greater. A member of We Are Coming, who was interviewed on the condition of anonymity, told Al-Manar that his group succeeded in breaching 5,000 websites in 2015, including those belonging to Israel's official defense establishment. We Are Coming has been attempting since 2013 to penetrate Israeli networks to mark important historical dates such as the anniversary of the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, the anniversary of the Second Lebanon War, and the targeted killings of Samir Kuntar and Jihad Mughniyeh. The boastful claims by We Are Coming came soon after Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallahthreatened to fire missiles at the ammonia plant in Haifa, which he claimed would cause an explosion similar to that of a nuclear bomb. Meanwhile, as hackers become increasingly threatening, the IDF has stepped up its training to defend against potential cyberattacks ISTANBUL - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he was saddened by the West's refusal to call the Syrian Kurdish PYD a terrorist group and would speak with US President Barack Obama later on Friday by phone about how US weapons had aided them. "Months ago in my meeting with him (Obama), I told him the US was supplying weapons. Three plane loads arrived, half of them ended up in the hands of Daesh (Islamic State), and half of them in the hands of the PYD," Erdogan told reporters. Erdogan and the Turkish government have said the PYD's armed wing, the YPG, was responsible for a suicide bombing in the capital Ankara on Wednesday which killed 28 people. Hamas's military wing located last week underground cameras and sensor meant to expose the terror group's network of attack tunnels and militant activities inside them, senior Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh said on Friday regarding an investigation launched by the group into several tunnel collapses in recent weeks. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Haniyeh used conciliatory rhetoric in his weekly Friday speech. "A new war on Gaza does not appear to be on the horizon, but Gaza has gained a system of deterrence, which doesn't mean it has a balance of terror." IDF uses equipment to search for tunnels near the border (Photo: EPA) He noted that Israel has been practicing defensive maneuvers, which he claimed was evidence that the IDF does not intend to embark on a new round of conflict in Gaza. Haniyeh further said that a breakthrough had occurred in talks between Israel and Turkey regarding the creation of a seaport in Gaza. Palestinian media outlets and Hamas reported several tunnel collapses over the past month. More than ten Hamas operatives have died in the collapses, prompting the group to vow it would launch an investigation. In early February, the IDF was spotted using engineering equipment to drill the ground near the Gaza border. Meanwhile, it has also begun installing classified technological systems for locating tunnels. Fears have grown among Gaza border residents in recent weeks following residents' reports of drilling noises. Despite the ongoing reports, no attack tunnels have been found during the past year of searches. Russia says it is calling for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council later Friday to discuss what it calls the deteriorating situation on the Turkish-Syrian border and Turkey's plans to send troops into Syria. A statement posted Friday on the foreign ministry's website says Russia intends to submit a draft council resolution calling on Turkey to "cease any actions that undermine Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity." Turkey's military on Friday was pushing ahead with its cross-border artillery shelling campaign against US-backed Syrian Kurdish militia positions in Syria. Syrians will mark the fifth anniversary of their brutal civil war next month. Aboud Dandachi is one of millions whose lives have been completely overturned by the bloody conflict. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Speaking from Istanbul, the 39-year-old high-tech professional tells Ynet about his experiences during the Syrian crisis, and about one important lesson about the country he was always taught to hate and fear. Dandachi, a Sunni Muslim, says that he was neutral when demonstrations against the Assad regime began in March of 2011. "I didn't support anyone because my life was good," he recalls. "I did not need the government and I only wanted them to leave me alone." But he reached a turning point when, he says, the government murdered 100 protesters one night. Dandashi in Homs, a decade ago He expected the war to be over sooner rather than later, but by September 2013, when Assad had begun using chemical weapons and ISIS had overrun Raqqa, he knew he had to leave. After a two-week stay in Lebanon, Dandachi realized he had traded one conflict zone for another, and moved on to Turkey, where he has since rented an apartment. He says one clear conclusion from the past five years is that Israel is not at all the Great Satan quite the opposite, in fact. May, 2015 video shows IDF soldiers saving life of Syrian rebel in Golan Heights (: ", : ) X "Israel is doing exactly what it must do," he says. "It is not taking part in the war, but is helping wounded Syrians who need help. And it's not only the government. Israelis are helping Syrian refugees in Jordan, in Greece, Serbia, North America. No one would have blamed the Jews and the Israelis if they had said it was not their problem. That is, by the way, what many Arabs and Arab countries did. The Gulf states, for example, shut their doors to Syrians and these are the countries that call themselves friends of Syria." Dandachi recalls his education growing up. "I grew up with statements like 'these people are your enemies. The Jews are evil'. And then I saw that the Jews are the most humane and generous people of this era. When I see that Hezbollah and the Iranians are coming to kill me and I'm forced from my home by Syrians, and then I hear that Israelis and Jews are helping Syrians, my view of the world changes." Ruins in Homs, Syria Therefore, he says, "someday, when this war is over, and there is no doubt that it will be over sometime, I do not want the Syrians to be involved in unnecessary conflicts. There no reason for us to be in a conflict with Israelis. What kind of disagreements are there between the two sides? The Golan Heights, for example, is an issue that is very easy to solve, certainly compared to other complicated issues in our region. "Why are we the Jews' enemies?" he asks. "At a time when Donald Trump is defaming us, when Denmark and Switzerland confiscate Syrian refugees' belongings, when all these countries are against us we have the Jews who even endanger themselves to help us. So why should I be an enemy of the Jews? They have proven that they want to be my friends. They held out their hand, so why should I turn against them?" In December 2015, Dandachi launched a site called Thank You Am Israel, which tells the tales of Jews and Israelis who are helping and have helped the Syrian people. "There are so many stories that I want to put up," he says. "There are new stories of Israelis helping Syrians every day. As far as I'm concerned, because we as Syrians cannot give back to Jews what they give to us, so we should at least thank them. "I remember talking about it for the first time in 2014, when Israeli Prime Minister BenjaminNetanyahu visited wounded Syrians at the Golan Heights and he was photographed. I remember that the Syrian opposition then said that Netanyahu should stop using wounded Syrians for propaganda and other nonsense. I told the opposition at the time: 'Are you crazy? You can't even say thank you?' It is so immature." He says he wrote this message on his blog, "and then the Syrian opposition erased the message on the subject from its website. Unfortunately, the reality in the Middle Esat is that there is no Arab politician who will say 'thank you' to Israel. That is the reality of the Middle East, because then they would lose support and popularity." Dandachi is in touch with his brothers in the Gulf and in Turkey and has no more ties with Syria. "No one from my family has stayed there," he says. "I am the last one who left Syria out of those close to me. When I left in September 2013, I knew I would never return to Syria." A prominent Polish-American academic whose scholarship has explored Polish violence against Jews during World War II says Poland's new right-wing leadership is taking "a step back to the dark ages of anti-Semitism" with a threat to strip him of a state honor and other measures. Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Poland's president is considering stripping Princeton professor Jan Tomasz Gross of an Order of Merit he received in 1996. The president's office said recently that it received 2,000 letters from citizens asking it to take that step. "They want to take it away from me for saying what a right-wing, nationalist, xenophobic segment of the population refuses to recognize as facts of history," Gross told The Associated Press in a phone interview from Israel. In 2010, a Polish artist set a barn on fire to commemorate the Jedwabne massacre, when Poles killed their Jewish neighbors en masse (Photo: Reuters) Gross received his medal for his scholarship and activities as a dissident in communist Poland in the 1960s, before he was forced to leave Poland as a result of an anti-Semitic campaign in 1968. In recent years the 68-year-old sociologist and historian has stoked controversy in Poland with works that expose dark chapters in a wartime history that Poles are otherwise proud of thanks to a strong resistance by Poles to Nazi Germany. The latest uproar surrounding him came after Gross asserted last year that Poles killed more Jews than Germans during the war. Polish prosecutors are now looking into whether to indict him for slandering the nation with that comment, and Gross said that he will soon have to travel to Poland to give a deposition. He insisted that he is not the first and only historian to make that claim and that there is historical evidence to back it up. Though the exact numbers are difficult to measure, Gross said evidence indicates that Poles killed up to 30,000 Germans during the war, at most, while they probably killed 70,000 to 90,000 Jews, but possibly more. He said that even though he simply tries to describe historical facts, he finds himself treated as traitor to the land of his birth by some Poles. And he argues that violence against Jews was not at all unique to Poland -- that as Nazi Germany exterminated the Jews, populations across Europe joined in the killing, from Ukraine to Lithuania to France, with the exception of Denmark and Bulgaria. "In Poland it took place on a particularly nasty scale partly because there were so many Jews living in Poland before the war," he said. "But there is nothing peculiar to Poland." He decried other developments in Poland under Law and Justice, which swept to power last year, including moves that weaken the constitutional court and other measures that European and US officials have also criticized as attacks on democratic norms. Gross said he is also disturbed by government plans for a new law which could see five-year prison sentences for anyone found guilty of using the expression "Polish death camp" to refer to Auschwitz or other extermination sites that Nazi Germany operated in German-occupied Poland. Utica Boy Scout Troop 180 UTICA -- Utica Boy Scout Troop 180 will be serving their annual Pancake Feed Fundraiser on Sunday, Feb. 21 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Utica Auditorium. Stop by for pancakes, eggs, and sausage for a freewill donation. Lively Livestock 4-H Club BENEDICT -- The Lively Livestock 4-H Club will meet Sunday, Feb. 21, at the Benedict Community Center. Palmer Pals YORK --Shane Tucker, a native of York and graduate of York High School, will be presenting a special program sponsored by the Palmer Pals. Tucker, a Nebraska highway paleontologist, will be talking about his work and brining visuals of the many digs around the state. The event will be held at the Palmer Museum at 2 p.m., on Feb. 21. Admission will be free and refreshments will be served. William Sullivan #218 American Legion Auxiliary of Exeter EXETER -- The William Sullivan #218 American Legion Auxiliary of Exeter will hold its annual spaghetti dinner fundraiser on Sunday, Feb. 21, at the Exeter Legion Hall from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. There will also be a bake sale by members that day. Proceeds will go to the improvement fund for the upkeep of the Legion kitchen tables and chairs and the Girls State program. All community members are welcome. Freewill donations will be accepted for the meal. The Bookworms FAIRMONT -- The Bookworms will meet at 1:30 p.m., on Thursday, Feb. 25, to discuss the book, The Inn at Rose Harbor by Debbie McComber. The location will be announced at a later date. Benedict Mens Club BENEDICT -- The Benedict Mens Club pitch tournament will be held Saturday, Feb. 27. Sign-up is at 7 p.m., with play to start at 7:30 p.m. Six-point pitch will be played by two-player teams. Girl Scout Troop 20703 EXETER -- Girls in grades K-2 are invited to join Girl Scout Troop #20703 in the celebration of Girl Scout World Thinking Day. Attendees will enjoy sampling food from around the world, singing and crafts while learning more about Girl Scouts. The event will be held at the Exeter school cafeteria on Saturday, Feb. 27. Contact Kendra Oldehoeft at 402.266.5342 with questions. Waco Senior Citizens WACO -- The Waco Senior Citizens will meet on Wednesday, March 2, for a noon order-off-the-menu luncheon at Hunters Restaurant & Lounge. Everyone is welcome to attend. Blue Ridge Cemetery Association GRESHAM -- The Blue Ridge Cemetery Association will hold its annual meeting on Monday, March 7, at 2 p.m., at the Presbyterian Church in Gresham. 3L Friendship Club YORK The 3L Friendship Club met Feb. 16 in the basement of the First United Methodist Church with Joyce Frisbie hosting the meeting. President Joyce Frisbie opened the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance. Eight members answered roll call by telling about a special memory of their husbands. The ladies then enjoyed a very interesting program at Hats presented by Pat Matlock. She has been collecting hats for several years and brought 44 of them to share with us by modeling them and telling us how and when she acquired them. This program brought back many joyful and fun memories for the ladies. Each of the Club members wore hats themselves to the meeting and Pat shared that she wears each of the hats she acquires and she would really like to see hats back in style with ladies wearing them to more public functions. The next meeting will be March 15 with Shirley Arbogast as hostess. Waco Community Betterment Organization WACO -- The Waco Community Betterment Organization will have a meeting on Monday, Feb. 22, at 7 p.m., at the community building. Polk and Merrick County Cattlemen to meet OSCEOLA -- On Wednesday, Feb. 24, at 7 p.m., at the Ryan Hill Country Club in Osceola, there will be a meeting for Polk and Merrick County Cattlemen and Cattlewomen to start this affiliate. For more information, contact Jake Hopwood at 366-5962 or go to Jacob.hopwood7@huskers.unl.edu. York Police Department Wednesday at 8:04 a.m., report of a hit and run accident on N. Blackburn Ave. Wednesday at 9:32 a.m., report of a strong smell of smoke on N. Nebraska Ave. Wednesday at 10:14 a.m., a person reported that their ex-partner was trying to burn down a residence. Wednesday at 12:02 p.m., report that a dog was running loose on N. Lincoln Ave. Wednesday at 1:15 p.m., report of a fraudulent phone call, involving a scam in which the IRS was mentioned. Wednesday at 1:15 p.m., report that someone received a fraudulent phone call. Wednesday at 6:03 p.m., received information about a vulnerable adult. Wednesday at 7:07 p.m., report that a man threatened several children on N. Nebraska Ave. Wednesday at 7:20 p.m., report of a hit and run accident in a parking lot along N. Nebraska Ave. Wednesday at 7:39 p.m., report that someone was making loud noise on S. Hutchins Ave. Wednesday at 7:42 p.m., report that a man was walking around, acting like he was talking to someone, but there was no one around, on S. Lincoln Ave. Wednesday at 8:16 p.m., report that a handicapped man, on a scooter, was driving all over the roadway, using a cell phone and was without reflectors, on N. Blackburn Ave. Thursday at 12:35 a.m., received a request for an officer to stand by while a business was being closed and workers were walking to their cars. Thursday at 4:59 a.m., report of an accident in a business parking lot on S. Lincoln Ave. York County Sheriffs Department Wednesday at 7 a.m., report of a traffic hazard. Wednesday at 9:04 a.m., 10:57 a.m., 12:50 p.m., reports of traffic offenses. Wednesday at 10:29 a.m., report that a railroad crossing arm was malfunctioning in Waco. Wednesday at 10:39 a.m., report of a transient in the York area. Wednesday at 1:12 p.m., report of telephone offenses in the Waco area. Wednesday at 3:42 p.m., report of an accident in the Utica area. Wednesday at 4:35 p.m., assisted a motorist in the Henderson area. Wednesday at 5:07 p.m., report of suspicious activity in the York area. Wednesday at 7:01 p.m., report of a disturbance in the York area. Wednesday at 7:16 p.m., report of a hit and run accident in the York area. Wednesday at 8:03 p.m., report of a traffic hazard in the York area. Molding tomorrows air force, military training instructors search YARS for future leaders Senior Airman Brandon Pendleton, supervisor of the 910th Development and Training Flight (D&TF), instructs recruits on the M16A2 rifle here Feb. 7, 2016. The 910th D&TF prepares Air Force Reserve recruits for the rigors of basic military training. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. James Brock) The first man to receive a penis transplant in the United States will be an American soldier who had been wounded in Afghanistan, according to surgeons at Johns Hopkins Hospital, where the procedure will be done. This surgery is expected to be the first of such transplants for about 60 other servicemen with similar serious genital injuries during their deployments. The Johns Hopkins teams expects that the transplant will give the soldier full functioning, including urination, feeling, and the ability to have sex. The surgery is expected to take place within a few weeks, after a suitable donor is found. The deceased donor must be a good match to the soldier in terms of tissue type, age, and skin color. The donor's family will need to give specific permission for the penis to be donated. The loss of the penis is one of the most emotionally traumatic injuries that can happen to a man because it affects his sense of identity and his masculinity. It can be especially difficult for a man who has not had children. Advertisement "When you meet these guys and you realize what they've given for the country, it makes a lot of sense," Dr. Richard Redett, a plastic surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital who will take part in the surgery, told Reuters Health. The soldier who will receive the transplant has not been publically identified. He had substantial groin injuries from a bomb explosion while deployed in Afghanistan. This is the first such surgery in the United States, but there have been two earlier penis transplants. The first was performed in China in 2006 and was unsuccessful. The second was done in South Africa in 2014 and was a success. The surgery will also involve replacement of the scrotum, part of the abdominal wall, other tissue in the groin, and part of the inner thigh, Redett told Reuters. However, it will not involve transplantation of the testes, which means that if the recipient fathers a child, it will be his, not the donor's. Penis transplant surgery could eventually be performed on men who have birth defects or for transgender women transitioning into men. Sign up to get the latest news delivered to your inbox every week! Is your kitchen cluttered? Do you find yourself snacking a lot? That disordered kitchen may be giving you the munchies, according to a recent study. The study was conducted at Cornell University and Syracuse University, both in upstate New York. To test whether clutter has an impact on food choices, calorie consumption, and how mindset influences food choices, the researchers asked 98 female college students to participate in what the students were told was an experiment on the link between personality and taste preferences. Half of the women were randomly assigned to sit in an organized, quiet, and clean kitchen, while the rest were directed to what the study called a "chaotic" kitchen, which was a noisy, messy room with tables piled with papers and dishes and pots scattered around. In the messy kitchen, a researcher kept trying to clean the room while the participant was there and there were other interruptions. Advertisement The women were asked to complete brief writing assignments on one of three topics - a time when they felt chaotic and out-of-control, a time when they felt organized and in control, or a neutral recollection of their most recent class lecture. When they finished writing, snacks were brought in for what women thought was a taste test of cookies, crackers, and carrots. Women in the messy kitchen who wrote about a stressful moment in their lives ate 103 calories of cookies, while those who had just recalled a time when they felt organized and in control ate only 38 calories of cookies. In the clean kitchen, women who wrote about a time when they were out of control consumed 61 calories of cookies, compared to 50 calories for those who recalled a moment when they felt organized and in control. This study has limitations, the authors noted. The researchers did not try to see how the different kitchens actually made women feel. And because the messy kitchen also had noise and other distractions, it is possible that the distractions affected the women's snack choices. Even so, the researchers concluded that a less cluttered, less distracting, and less chaotic environment might lead people to snack less. You can link to a download of the study, which was published in the journal Environment and Behavior, here. Cancer is undoubtedly one of the most dreaded diseases in modern times. It is amongst the leading causes of death worldwide. In fact, it is expected that more that 1.5 million people would be diagnosed in the United States in 2016 alone and a third of that number would succumb to the disease. However, according to statistics the overall cancer death rate has been on a decline since the early 90s. This in part is due to the impressive efforts scientists have put into cancer research. There is a long way to go before the threat of cancer is eliminated. Fortunately, researchers have recently unveiled treatment that takes humanity one step closer to finding a cure for the disease altogether. During the recent annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington DC, scientists from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Centre in Seattle unveiled a treatment that has successfully put 90% of its terminally ill test subjects into remission. The researchers took samples of killer T-cells from the patients and genetically modified them into targeting tumour cells. Advertisement "Essentially what this process does is, it genetically reprograms the T-cell to seek out and recognise and destroy the patient's tumour cells. [The patients] were really at the end of the line in terms of treatment options and yet a single dose of this therapy put more than ninety percent of these patients in complete remission" explained Professor Randell, lead scientist. The study indeed produced very impressive results. However it seems like the new procedure comes with daunting side effects. Seven of the total test subjects developed cytokine release syndrome which is the result of the T Cells activating before they should be destroyed. Patients ended up feeling feverish and had to be put in intesive care. Two of the seven test subjects died from the research. Sign up to get the latest news delivered to your inbox every week! Desperate times call for desperate measures. The Pope has allegedly suggested women use contraception to protect themselves against the zika virus. Weighing the options amidst the Zika virus outbreak in Latin America, the Pope relented and said that women are allowed to use contraception to avoid becoming pregnant, and have their children be born with microcephaly. However, the Pope is firm on the God's word that abortion is still a big no-no. "Avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil," Francis said, according to multiple reports. "In certain cases, as in this one... it was clear. I would also urge doctors to do their utmost to find vaccines against these mosquitoes that carry this disease." For the Pope, committing abortion to rid of a child who might be born with microcephaly in light of the crisis, is not going to be right, ever. Abortion is still "a crime, an absolute evil." Advertisement Pope Francis however, did not specify what contraception methods are allowed. This is not the first time though that a Pope suggested contraception be used to avoid a health crisis. Back in 2010, Pope Francis' predecessor, Pope Benedict also faced the same hard situation amid the HIV crisis. In the end, Pope Benedict also suggested that using condoms might be justifiable to prevent the spread of HIV. His words made waves then as Pope Francis' words now. In the 1960s, Paul VI also approved nuns in the Belgian Congo to made use of artificial contraception to prevent pregnancies when the threat of rape was high. In Brazil however, even though the zika cases are steadily increasing, the Brazilian Bishop Leonardo Ulrich Steiner refuses to entertain the thought of making contraception the solution. "Contraceptives are not a solution. There is not a single change in the church's position," said the Bishop, according to reports. Our directory features more than 18 million business listings from across the entire US. However, if we're missing your business, add your business by clicking on Add Your Business. This is a blog about Wyoming EPSCoR, the projects we do and the grants we are working on. From student internship programs, to grant work, to research, we're sharing our news and stories for our community to read and share. Thank you for visiting our site! Dry Casks at Vermont Yankee Photo courtesy of Entergy Within the next four years, Entergy has announced that it plans to close two more of its nuclear power plants. James A. Fitzpatrick Nuclear Power Plant in Oswego County, New York, and Pilgrim Nuclear Power Generating Station in Plymouth, Massachusetts, will join Vermont Yankee in Vernon, Vermont, in moving towards decommissioning.Among the challenges Entergy will face is spent fuel storage.According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, commercial nuclear power production in the U.S. has generated over 70,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuelfuel that has been irradiated and removed from nuclear reactorsand the inventory is increasing by about 2,200 metric tons per year. This high-level waste is extremely radioactive and needs to be isolated and shielded to protect human health and the environment. In 1982, Congress passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, assigning the federal governments long-standing responsibility for disposal of spent nuclear fuel to the U.S. Department of Energy. Although the DOE was to begin accepting spent fuel by January 31, 1998, the nation remains without a repository for disposal after spending decades and billions of dollars to research potential sites for permanent disposal, including Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Instead, it is currently being stored primarily at the sites where it was generated.In the absence of a national repository and as spent nuclear fuel continues to accumulate at individual reactor sites, Entergy and other power plant owners have been forced to contend with the continued on-site storage of spent nuclear fuel in spent fuel pools and dry cask storage when the pools storage capacity is reached. Spent nuclear fuel usually cools for at least several years in a pool before it is transferred into either a vertical or horizontal dry storage system. The cooled fuel is then loaded into canisters, which are then filled with helium, sealed and tested to confirm that the canister is leak tight in accordance with ASME pressure vessel standards. A loaded canister is transferred from the transfer container into a storage overpack or cask (large steel cylindrical structures) that contains high-density concrete for radiation shielding and ventilation openings for cooling of the canister. The casks are placed on a concrete storage pad that is part of an independent spent fuel storage installation, or ISFSI. The casks are monitored to confirm that the vents at the top and bottom of the outer cask are not blocked so that air can circulate and therefore remove the heat generated by the fuel.At the Vermont Yankee plant, for example, the spent fuel pool began nearing maximum storage capacity in the mid-2000s, and Entergy needed to construct a dry storage facility in order to continue plant operations. Under Vermont state law, the Vermont Public Service Board has the authority to review proposals for the construction of any new spent nuclear fuel storage facilities in the state. This required plant owner Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee (ENVY) to apply to the Public Service Board for a Certificate of Public Good (CPG) to construct a dry fuel storage facility at Vermont Yankee.In 2006, after a litigated administrative proceeding, the Vermont Public Service Board issued an order approving ENVYs petition to construct a dry fuel storage facility at Vermont Yankee. A concrete pad, 76 feet by 132 feet, was subsequently constructed that could accommodate 36 dry casks supplied by Holtec International. Dry loading campaigns occurred in 2008, 2011 and 2012 in which 13 dry casks were placed on the pad.On August 27, 2013, Entergy announced that it would permanently cease operations at Vermont Yankee by the end of 2014. The reactor shutdown occurred on December 29, 2014. By mid-January of 2015, all nuclear fuel was removed from the reactor and placed in the spent fuel pool.In June, 2014, ENVY filed another petition before the Vermont PSB to construct a second ISFSI storage pad to store the spent nuclear fuel that remained in the VY spent fuel pool. The need for the second pad continues due to the absence of Department of Energy performance in transferring the fuel from VY to a federal repository. Entergy expects to complete transferring fuel from the spent fuel pool to the ISFSI in 2020. Once the final loading campaign has been completed, ENVY expects to reduce the protected area to the area surrounding the two ISFSI pads to reduce the security costs that will be funded from the nuclear decommissioning trust. The proposed second ISFSI storage pad would be 76 feet by 93 feet and built 30 feet immediately to the west of the existing ISFSI storage pad and would continue to use the same system that was previously approved by the PSB for dry cask storage of spent fuel on site.ENVY has asked that the approval of the Certificate of Public Good be granted in May 2016. If this occurs, then construction of the second ISFSI can be completed in 2017 at the same time casks are being loaded on the first ISFSI pad. This will ensure complete transfer of all spent fuel to dry casks by the end of 2020.ENVY is funding the costs for the construction of the second ISFSI pad, procurement of dry storage systems and transfer of the fuel from the spent fuel pool to the ISFSI through two revolving credit facilities totaling approximately $145 million. ENVY plans to repay borrowings on these credit facilities with funds recovered in litigation from the DOE for breach of its contract to remove spent nuclear fuel from the VY Station.Franklin Orr, Under Secretary for Science and Energy, recently wrote, "According to consensus in the scientific community, geological repositories--which would store nuclear material deep within the earths surface in safe, scientifically proven locationsrepresent the safest and most cost-effective method for permanently disposing of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. The first step for commercial spent fuel begins with developing a pilot interim storage facility that will mainly accept used nuclear fuel from reactors that have already been shut down. The purpose of a pilot facility is to begin the process of accepting spent fuel from utilities, while also developing and perfecting protocols and procedures for transportation and storage of nuclear waste. It is our goal that throughout the process of developing a pilot interim facility that the Department of Energy builds trust with all of the local communities involved."Full decommissioning and site restoration of the VY and other shutdown plant sites cannot take place until the used fuel is removed by the DOE. The DOE has collected over $10 billion from nuclear plant owners to construct and operate a spent fuel repository without taking any spent fuel. In 1987, Congress designated Yucca Mountain in Nevada as a national disposal site. Over twenty years later, however, President Obama abandoned the project. It is imperative that Congress acts to find a solution for the used fuel issue because a reactor licensee cannot fully decommission a licensed reactor site until the spent fuel has been removed from the site. In the meantime, Entergy and other plant owners must continue to store the spent fuel on-site in a safe, cost effective manner.----This guest post is by Martin Cohn, Senior Communications Specialist at Vermont Yankee. This post first appeared as an article in Nuclear Power International Magazine, January-February 2016 . It also appears in Power Engineering Magazine, February 16, 2016 Bhopal gas tragedy is back in the news again nearly 26 years after this ghastly incident took place. Over 20,000 people were killed within days and people continue to suffer till today. Everybody is appalled at the verdict because it seems that the incident has been treated like a road accident.

Every media channel, whether online or offline, is abuzz with discussions about the tragedy. Media is leaving no stone unturned to blame the government for its inaction. But, a closer look and the media would realize that it is a failure on its part as well. How? The kind of media attention that this incident is getting now could have been given earlier also. Media is very powerful. Had it kept the issue alive, then the government could have been pressurized to act earlier and faster. This has happened in the past in cases of Jessica Lal, Nitish Kataria, 26/11, tiger conservation, Rouvanjit Rawla etc. It is widely known that had the media not followed these incidents, these too would have died their natural death.

There is no written rulebook for media coverage for such incidents but, it is the medias moral responsibility to act on such issues. Unfortunately, media too is driven by TRPs. That is why some channels prefer to give more coverage to Amitabh Bachchans religious pilgrimages, Shilpa Shettys wedding shopping, the Ambanis handshake etc.

It is not that the media has not given coverage to the incident but, the focus is event driven. The focus has shifted back to the Bhopal gas tragedy because of the recent verdict. A few weeks down the line, this issue would again fade away. After all, the law of diminishing returns applies to them as well.

Back in the eighties, media was not so powerful but, now that it is, it can act as a catalyst in bringing a change in our society. After all, well done is better than well said. What has happened in the past cannot be changed, but going forward the media can learn from the same and make sure that this issue does not die down till it reaches its rightful conclusion. It is not the light that we need but, the fire. Hyderabad: A group of Hyderabad traffic police personnel has initiated a novel campaign to stop people urinating in public by garlanding those who commit the act. Policemen attached to Mahankali traffic police station, led by Inspector T Rama Swamy, launched the campaign yesterday. So far we have "felicitated' at least 26 persons caught at various places including the Secunderabad railway station area, Swamy said. "I had seen some social workers garlanding those urinating in public places in Delhi when I was posted there in 2011-12. That inspired me," Rama Swamy told PTI. "After garlanding them, we request them not to create filth and use the public toilets instead," he said. This was a small contribution to 'Swachh Hyderabad' campaign and it will continue for the next 8-10 days under Mahankali police station limits, the inspector said. His team consists of two sub-inspectors and three constables. Asked about people's response, Rama Swamy said, "Those, whom we caught urinating in public places and garlanded, promised that that they will not do this again. They praised our campaign." Rama Swamy and his team also distributed chocolates to the two-wheeler riders who wear helmets. New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday launched a vicious attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party, after reports suggested that BJP legislator OP Sharma was treated with a vegetarian meal from a restaurant in Connaught Place before his brief arrest on Thursday. Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia tweeted: Free veg meal from a CP restaurant, several cups of coffee before arrest and letting him off within 15 minutes. VVIP. Meanwhile, Delhi Chief Minister and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal also lashed out at the Narendra Modi led-NDA Government, saying it has formed a new definition of Indian Penal Code (IPC), under which any opposition to BJP and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is the biggest crime. Centre's new IPC- rape, murder or beat anyone. When questioned, just say that victim was shouting anti-India slogans, u will be let off(2/2) Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) February 19, 2016 BJP MLA OP Sharma, who was caught on camera beating a CPI activist at Patiala House court four days back, was arrested on Thursday. The first-time MLA was questioned for around eight hours at the Tilak Marg police station in connection with the case. He was then arrested on charge of causing hurt and was released on bail, a senior police official said. "It is shameful if people who stop others from screaming 'Pakistan zindabad' have to go through all this. I am being tried by the media. Judgements were passed while they (media) sat in studios," Sharma told reporters after the grant of bail. The assault on several Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students and media persons by a group of lawyers and others occurred in the court complex on Monday before the court appearance of JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar in a sedition case. New Delhi: Delhi Police on Friday issued fresh notices to three lawyers who despite being summoned for two consecutive days, did not turn up before the investigators in connection with the attack on journalists, students and teachers of JNU in Patiala House court on February 15. "This is the third time the police have sent them notices, asking them to join investigation. If they do not respond this time, we are likely to move court," a senior police officer said. While one of the three lawyers has been identified as Vikram Singh Chauhan, who led the groups of attacking lawyers on Monday and also on Wednesday defying Supreme Court instructions, names of the other two have not been disclosed by the police. Notices to them were first issued on Wednesday in which they were summoned at Tilak Marg police station by 3 PM but they did not appear, following which similar notices were again served in the next day, and for the third time today. When contacted, Chauhan said that he will "follow" his senior's instructions on whether to appear before the police or not. He also joined a lawyers' march protesting against alleged "anti-nationals" near India Gate today. On Monday (February 15) violence broke out in Patiala House court complex where groups of men dressed in lawyers' robes attacked journalists, political activists, students and teachers of JNU, dubbing them as "anti-nationals" in the wake of a raging row over the arrest of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar. On Wednesday, another such group led another attack on journalists and Kanhaiya Kumar who was produced at the court at the end of his police custody. Meanwhile, police are also probing the role of one Surendra Tyagi, who came outside the court on Wednesday and claimed that he was among the attackers too. However, no notice has been sent to him yet as the police have so far found no evidence to verify his claims. Ahmedabad: The Gujarat BJP will elect its new state president on Friday and Transport Minister Vijay Rupani is likely to get the post. Rupani's elder brother, Pravin, said in Rajkot his brother's name has been finalised. Sources in the party also confirmed Rupani would most likely get the job. Rupani, who if elected will also lead the party in the next year's Assembly polls, had on Thursday visited former chief minister Keshubhai Patel and sought his blessings. After meeting Patel at his residence in Gandhinagar, Rupani said, "I came to seek blessings of Patel since we both come from the same city (Rajkot). He is a veteran politician and played a very important role in shaping up my career." He, however, did not reply to queries related to his likely appointment to the party post. The new state president will head the party at a time when it's passing through a tough phase in the wake of Patel agitation and drubbing in local body polls late last year. The delay in appointing a new head in the home state of Prime Minister Narendra Modi fuelled speculation about differences in the leadership over the final choice. Earlier, the state unit had announced the new Gujarat BJP president will be appointed after `Makarsankranti' (January 15), but that did not happen. The term of current Gujarat BJP head RC Faldu ended long back. BJP president Amit Shah, who also hails from Gujarat, was here for three days (January 13-15) and met several leaders. Gujarat BJP on last Tuesday announced the party will get its new chief on February 19. A schedule released by the party said candidates can file their nomination between 11 am and 12 noon and the winner would be announced shortly after. Voting will be held if multiple candidates are in the fray. BJP MP from Rajasthan Arjun Meghwal has been appointed the election observer. The new leader's name will be announced in the presence of several dignitaries, including Chief Minister Anandiben Patel, Gujarat BJP in-charge Dinesh Sharma and Faldu, among others, a party release said. Ahmedabad: Patel quota stir spearhead Hardik Patel was on late Friday shifted to New Civil Hospital in Surat from Lajpore Central Jail by the authorities. He is on a hunger strike for two days. Hardik had launched an indefinite hunger strike at the Lajpore Jail in Surat, where he is lodged since September in two sedition cases, demanding reservation to his community in Government jobs and education under OBC category. The surprise move by Hardik came at a time when his close aides have expressed willingness to hold talks with the BJP Government in Gujarat over the quota issue. Three of Hardik's close aides - Ketan Patel, Chirag Patel and Dinesh Bambhaniya - who are also behind bars in sedition case, wrote a letter to Chief Minister Anandiben Patel recently and expressed willingness to hold talks. Since the letter did not have the signature of Hardik, speculation is rife the 22-year-old may have felt betrayed by his own men and decided to undertake indefinite fast. Confirming the development, Jailor of Lajpore Prison S L Dusa told the media that Hardik, Convener of Patidar Anamant Andolan Samiti (PAAS), which is spearheading the stir, has stopped taking food since this morning. In the letter, Hardik had threatened to shun food if the demand of reservation for Patel community under OBC quota is not accepted by the Government, said Dusa. "Hardik also said Patel youths (who took part in the stir) have been wrongfully arrested by the Government," Dusa said, adding the young quota leader is under constant watch of medical officers inside the jail. Soniapath: Agitating Jat protestors demanding reservation under the Other Backward Classes category on Friday attacked Haryana Finance Minister Captain Abhimanyu's house and set ablaze his car in Rohtak. According to media reports, the protesters fire at cops using country made pistols. 15 police officials and two Border Security Force (BSF) battalion were deployed in Rothak to contain the stir. Meanwhile, at least one person was killed and 10 injured in police firing on Jat protestors in Haryana's Rohtak town today. The injured people were rushed to the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Rohtak, police said. "The police fired as the protestors attacked the residence of the inspector general of police and that of a state minister," IANS quoted BJP leader Anil Jain as saying. The protestors also torched police and private vehicles in Rohtak as the agitation took a violent turn on the sixth day. The protesters even blocked the Delhi-Ambala rail route near Sonipath here. The blockade of the route disrupted movement of trains between Amritsar and Pathankot in Punjab, Jammu in Jammu and Kashmir, Una in Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh. The pro-reservation protests by Jats in Haryana had turned violent on Thursday, with several people being injured and reports of clashes between protesters and police personnel in Rohtak. The state government ordered the district administration to block use of mobile internet services in Jhajjar and Rohtak in the wake of the agitation. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar chaired an all-party meeting to discuss the demands of Jat community. Media reported that police and paramilitary forces had to resort to baton charges and firing of teargas shells to bring the situation under control. Prohibitory orders has also been imposed in Rohtak. Chandigarh: Army was called in on Friday in nine districts of Haryana and curfew was imposed in two districts along with shoot-at-sight orders as three people died and 25 were injured during the Jat protest for quota which turned violent with mobs resorted to widespread violence. According to media reports, the curfew has been imposed with immediate effect in view of protesting mobs going on rampage and indulging in violence. Army units are being rushed to Rohtak from nearby Cantonment at Hissar, about 50 kms away, he said these will be deployed immediately in Rohtak and Bhiwani areas. He said Army units are also being rushed from Jaipur for deployment in other worst-affected areas of the state. The Army will assist the civil administration in restoring peace and law and order which worsened today shortly after an all party meeting here where an appeal was made for maintaining peace. Two senior civil and police officers - Principal Secretary (Home) A K Singh and ADGP of Haryana Police BS Sandhu- have been rushed to Rohtak to coordinate with the army and the civil administration to restore normalcy. Haryana Director General of Police Y.P. Singhal told media in Chandigarh that the army has been called in, in Rohtak, Jhajjar, Sonipat, Panipat, Jind, Kaithal, Bhiwani and Hisar districts. "The government has asked the army to be called in eight districts. The request has been sent. The chief secretary has spoken to the army chief. The chief minister (Manohar Lal Khattar) has spoken to defence minister (Manohar Parrikar). The effort is to deploy the army as soon as possible to control the situation," he said. A protestor was killed and at least 10 injured when a BSF unit fired in self-defence after being fired upon by the protestors. A BSF trooper was injured in the firing. The injured were taken to the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Rohtak, 75 km from Delhi, police said. "One person from mob fired on BSF personnel with a home-made weapon. The BSF fired in self defence and one person was killed," Singhal said, adding that the mob did not allow the injured trooper to taken to hospital and efforts were being made to rescue him. He said that a mob attacked a Haryana Police official and other policemen near the Maharishi Dayanand University gate and held the hostage and more forces had to be sent to rescue them. "A leaderless mob is moving through Rohtak town. They came near the Circuit House and damaged the vehicle of the deputy inspector general of police, two police vehicles and set on fire another police vehicle," Singhal said. The mob attacked the office of the DIG, and set the house of Finance Minister Abhimanyu on fire. At some places in the town, black smoke could be seen coming out of property set on fire by the agitators, who even manhandled media persons at some places. "We are trying to stop the mob," the police chief said, adding that three companies of paramilitary forces were already stationed and 30 more companies would be deployed in Haryana soon. Protestors had clashed with security forces in Rohtak on Thursday evening when police tried to remove the blockades. The authorities blocked Internet and SMS services in the affected districts. Appealing to protesters to end road and rail blockades, Singhal said that curfew had not been imposed in Rohtak or other places so far. Thousands of trucks, carrying supplies and goods, were stranded in the affected districts due to highways and roads being blocked. Over 40 trains were cancelled by railway authorities across Haryana on Friday as the Jat agitation escalated. In Gurgaon, Jat protestors blocked roads, leading to traffic jams and chaos in the city, adjoining the national capital. Life continued to be affected in most parts of Rohtak, Jhajjar Sonipat, Bhiwani, Jind, Hisar and some other districts as the agitation by Jats for reservation in jobs and educational institutions continued for the sixth day on Friday. The protestors have blocked roads, highways and railway tracks, inconveniencing the common man. Hundreds of railway passengers were stranded as protestors blocked the Delhi-Ambala-Amritsar railway track at Rajlu Garhi village in Sonipat on Friday evening. Railway authorities cancelled several trains, including express trains like Kalka-Delhi Shatabdi Express, Pashchim Express and others. The stir escalated even as the Haryana government called an all-party meeting in Chandigarh to discuss the reservation issue and the Jat protests. The meeting urged the protestors to end their agitation and remove blockades. Jat leaders however rejected the appeal. After the all-party meeting, Khattar said: "The government is in favour of reservation for Jats in the state and is trying to find out ways and means for the same." Referring to statements of BJP's Kurukshetra MP Raj Kumar Saini, who is opposed to reservation for Jats, Khattar said he had been asked to withdraw his statement against the protestors. Security had been tightened at Saini's house in Kurukshetra town. Agriculture Minister OP Dhankar meanwhile said in Gurgaon that the state government was ready to give special backward class quota to the Jats. (With Agency inputs) Chandigarh: With the Jat community agitation entering the sixth day, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Friday urged everyone to maintain peace and harmony in the state. Speaking to media after convening an all-party meet here, Khattar urged protesters to open roads which have been blocked due to agitation. He further tried to assure that the Haryana government wants a permanent solution to the Jat reservation issue and is open to talks The state government has constituted a committee on the Jat reservation issue which will submit its report by March 31, added the Haryana CM. Earlier in the day, the state authorities suspended Internet services for an indefinite time in Rohtak district. Jat community is demanding reservation in government jobs and educational institutions under OBC category. Life remained paralysed in most parts of Rohtak, Jhajjar and some other districts of the state. Internet services, including 2G and 3G, mobile SMS services have been suspended in the worst affected districts of Rohtak, Sonipat and Jhajjar have been since midnight, officials said here on Friday. The decision has been taken "to maintain law and order" in the district, he said. Earlier today, Jat leaders refused to withdraw their agitation till a legislation is passed giving quota to the community under OBC. The protesters accused Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar of resisting their demand as he was "not from the community". Normal life has been badly hit because of the ongoing Jat agitation which has spread to more parts of the state after talks between the community leaders and the government failed to break the deadlock. The protests have disrupted road and rail traffic with the worst hit being the Rohtak-Jhajjar region, the epicentre of the protests, besides Bhiwani, Sonipat and Hisar. Jat protesters clashed with security forces and security forces in Rohtak town on Thursday evening when the police tried to remove the blockades put up by the protesters. The protesters attacked with stones and bricks. A police vehicle was also damaged in the clash. The protesters, who have rejected Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar's offer of enhancing quota for economically backward classes, also set up road blockade at many places in Panipat, which also affected movement of vehicles towards Uttar Pradesh. In view of the blockades by the agitators, Haryana Roadways suspended its bus services on many affected routes. The administration has imposed prohibitory orders in the entire Rohtak district, banning assembly of five or more persons. (With Agency inputs) Rohtak: Haryana government on Friday sought Army assistance to quell the Jat quota agitation in at least eight districts even as Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar gave an assurance today that a solution will be worked out to extend reservation to the community. The state government sought Army's assistance after the agitation by Jat protestors turned violent today evening. Haryana DGP YP Singhal told the media here that the Army has been called in Rohtak, Jhajjar, Sonipat, Bhiwani and Hisar districts. "Yes we have talked to the Army Chief and Defence Minister about the requirement of Army personnel," he said. He further said that a leader-less mob of the Jat community was moving in Rohtak town and resorting to violence. He also said that someone from the protestors fired at Border Security Force (BSF) personnel in Rohtak town, as per IANS. "The mob is not letting injured BSF jawan taken to hospital," Singhal was quoted as saying by ANI. The development comes shortly after one person was killed and 21 others were injured when a protest by Jats for quota turned violent here, prompting the security personnel to open fire on the rampaging mobs who attacked the house of state's Finance Minister besides indulging in arson. Jat leaders today rejected an appeal by political parties in Haryana to call off their quota protest even as The appeal to the Jat leaders was made by the parties at a meeting convened by Khattar to discuss the demands of the community and find a way out to end the impasse. However, the agitators refused to withdraw their protest till a legislation is passed giving quota to the community under OBC category and accused Khattar of having "casteist mentality" saying he did not belong to the community. Meanwhile, mobile Internet and SMS services were suspended indefinitely by the authorities in violence-hit Rohtak in the wake of the agitation spreading in the district. Trains on the Delhi-Ambala and Hisar-Dhuri routes were hit as the protesters squatted on railway tracks as part of their plan to intensify the stir. The protesters, who last evening rejected Khattar's offer to enhance quota for economically backward classes to include Jats, blocked roads in many places in Panipat which also affected movement of vehicles towards Uttar Pradesh. Due to the blockades set up by the agitators, Haryana Roadways suspended its bus services on many affected routes. The Rohtak administration imposed prohibitory orders in the entire district banning assembly of five or more persons. Rohtak is the native place of former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and the parliamentary constituency represented by his son,Deepinder. "Section 144 has been imposed with immediate effect from today in Rohtak," Additional Deputy Commissioner Amit Khatri said. Noting that the protesters have been asked to clear the blockades and disperse, he said, "We have warned them first and are hoping they will comply." (With agency inputs) New Delhi: Top union ministers on Friday night reviewed the situation in Haryana where thousands of protestors went on a rampage to demand reservation in various fields for the Jat community in the state. The meeting was attended by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, PTI reported. NSA Ajit Doval and Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi were also present in the meeting. The Haryana government on Friday called in the army to quell the violent protests in at least nine districts of the state. Curfew was imposed in two districts along with shoot-at-sight orders after one person was killed during the protests. The rampaging mob attacked the office of the state DIG and set the house of Finance Minister Abhimanyu on fire. There were also reports of clashes between the protesters and security forces in several parts of the state. Army units have been rushed to Rohtak and Bhiwani where the law and order has been severely hit. Haryana DGP YP Singhal told reporters the army will be deployed in Rohtak, Jhajjar, Sonipat, Panipat, Jind, Kaithal, Bhiwani and Hisar districts. According to media reports, at least one person was killed and 10 others were injured when a BSF unit fired in self-defence after being fired upon by the mob. A BSF trooper was also injured in the firing. The injured were rushed to the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Rohtak, some 75 km from Delhi, police said. New Delhi: The nine-member ethics committee of the Delhi Assembly has recommended the expulsion of BJP MLA OP Sharma in connection with Alka Lamba case. Sharma was suspended for the winter session of the house for using objectionable language against AAP MLA Alka Lamba in December last year. Lamba has filed a complained against the BJP MLA for using derogatory language against her. Sharma has accused Lamba of being a drug addict. Sharma had also said that AAP was a party of lumpen elements and questioned as to who had given Lamba the right to go on a anti-narcotics drive. "People have said that Lamba is spotted here in the wee hours of the night and I don't think a person who supports drug eradication would come there at that time, between 1 am to 4 pm. It apparently shows she is an addict herself. I am not giving any anti-women remark. I respect women but if you try to portray Phoolan Devi as a mascot of women power then it won't work. She is a drug addict who under the effect of drugs had turned violent," had said Sharma. Sharma's comment was followed by a huge ruckus in the Assembly over the issue. The matter was handed over to the ethics committee of the Delhi Assembly which today recommended the expulsion of Sharma. New Delhi: Apparently concerned over the virtual wash out of last two sessions, Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari has called a meeting of leaders of all parties in the Upper House on Saturday amid possibility of a tumultuous Budget session beginning February 23. This is perhaps the first such formal pre-session meeting convened by the Rajya Sabha Chairman. Significantly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also been invited for the meeting, which aims at ensuring a smooth three-month long session. Ansari had also held an informal meeting with leaders of Congress and BJP in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday as well. Rajya Sabha, where the government lacks majority, had seen repeated disruption in the Monsoon and Winter sessions with Congress and several other opposition parties blocking key economic reform measures of the Modi government. Repeatedly voicing his anguish over the disruptions, Ansari had in the past even toyed with the idea of possible changes in rules for smooth running of the House. As the Winter session of Rajya Sabha was adjourned sine die on December 23, Ansari had lamented that the record of this session belied the commitment to the principles of the Constitution "in good measure". Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu have also called separate all-party meetings on February 22, a day before the crucial session begins. Naidu had also held a meeting of leaders of a number of opposition parties on February 4 where it was decided to have a full-length session and not to go for any curtailment of its duration even as assembly elections in five states are scheduled in between. The government is keen to push its legislative agenda in the Budget session, including the pending bills on GST and real estate thwarted in the last two sessions, while the opposition is raring to target it on a host of issues, including the JNU row, dalit scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide, imposition of President's Rule in Arunachal Pradesh, terror attacks in Pathankot and Gurdaspur. Raising questions over the process of the appointment of Vice Chancellors of JNU and Delhi University, a number of opposition parties have come together against the government, accusing it of "undermining" the autonomy of the institutions. Naidu had last month met Congress President Sonia Gandhi seeking cooperation for the early passage of the crucial GST and the real estate bills. The Budget session of Parliament will commence on February 23 and will focus largely on the financial business of the government. The General Budget will be presented on February 29. New Delhi: Amidst a huge uproar over the arrest of Jawaharlal Nehru Student's Union president on charges of sedition, a National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) report revealed on Friday that Kanhaiya Kumar was subjected to psychological pressure during police interrogation and the assault on him in the court premises appeared to have been "organised and pre-planned". Kanhaiya Kumar didn't complain of any physical assault by police, he was subjected to psychological pressure during interrogation, ANI quoted a NHRC report as saying. The report also said that the statement issued by police as an appeal on behalf of Kanhaiya Kumar was not written by him voluntarily. The report reads: Statement issued by police as an appeal on behalf of Kanhaiya Kumar was not written by him voluntarily but dictated by police. In a further revelation, the report added - Physical assault on Kumar in the court premises appears to be organised and pre-planned. What happened in Patiala House complex on Wednesday was major security lapse on part of police. There was serious dereliction of duty, the report said. Going by sequence of events, safety and security of Kanhaiya and his family members is a serious cause of concern, the report said. The NHRC report comes shortly after the JNUSU today passed resolution condemning raising of anti-India, pro-Pakistan at the varsity campus on February 9. Jawaharlal Nehru University students earlier in the day received messages of support and solidarity from various unions from across the country. JNU students today attended lectures and appeared in exams even as they continued with their protest demanding release of students union president Kanhaiya Kumar who was arrested in a sedition case in connection with an event in the campus. So far, the students had been boycotting the classes, saying their strike will be on till Kanhaiya is released. However, today they decided to continue with the protest while participating in academic activities. The JNUSU has also resolved to work in identifying, isolating and ensuring punishment for the 'subversive' elements that have brought disrepute to JNU. Earlier today, JNU Students' Union president Kanhaiya Kumar's bail plea in the High Court was not be heard. Kanhaiya Kumar had yesterday directly moved the apex court seeking bail while claiming threat to his life in Tihar Jail. In the petition, filed through advocate Anindita Pujari, Kumar, who was also attacked in Patiala House court complex by a group of lawyers, claimed his innocence. Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested on February 12 on sedition charge following a controversial event at JNU campus where anti-India slogans were allegedly raised. The student leader was produced in the court on Wednesday after the end of his police custody, where a group of men dressed in lawyers' robes unleashed a brazen attack on him and others, which included journalists, who were present there. Kanhaiya had sough the apex court's intervention, saying no purpose would be served by keeping him in the jail and the police was finding it difficult to even produce him in the court. Kohima: Congress will support the Naga peace accord between the Centre and NSCN(IM), "if the contents of the agreement were in the interest of the Nagas, Northeast and the nation", Nagaland Chief Minister T R Zeliang said. Congress president Sonia Gandhi gave the assurance to visiting Parliamentary Working Committee of the Joint Legislator's Forum (JLF) of Nagaland Assembly on Naga political issue led by Zeliang and Speaker Chotisuh Sazo, a CMO statement said this evening. The delegation called on Gandhi this morning at her residence in New Delhi. She also expressed solidarity with the Naga people for the need to find an amicable, honourable and permanent peace in the state and the region, the statement said. The JLF comprising of leaders of all parties in the state last year, mainly to project a common front and voice of the representatives of the people of Nagaland on the urgency to solve the protracted Naga political problem. The JLF apprised her of the necessity to form an opposition-less Assembly in the state to give a more cohesive, more concerted voice and views on the Naga political problem. The merger of Congress legislators with ruling Naga Peoples Front (NPF) was solely for the purpose of finding an early solution to the Naga political problem and not because of any other exigency, the delegation said to Gandhi. Eight Congress MLAs merged with the ruling Naga Peoples Front leading to the formation of an opposition-less government in Nagaland in November last year. Gandhi assured her party's support in Parliament as and when any Bill comes up for discussion "if it was in the interest of the Nagas, the Northeast and the nation," the statement said. The JLF members are in Delhi since February 16 meeting leaders of national parties to seek their support towards early resolution of the decades old Naga issue. They have called on BJP president Amit Shah, JD(U) president Sharad Yadav, Shiv Sena's Leader of Parliamentary Party in the Lok Sabha Anand Rap Absul. They also met NSCN(IM) general secretary Thuingaleng Muivah and few other top leaders of the group. New Delhi: Scores of lawyers, including those who allegedly assaulted journalists and JNU students and teachers on two occasions, on Friday held a protest march demanding action against those "indulging" in "anti-India" activities. The lawyers, mostly from Patiala House and several other district courts, marched aggressively, around the India Gate circle, shouting slogans and waving the tricolour, in presence of heavy police security. Some of the lawyers who were caught on camera leading brazen assaults on journalists and JNU students on Monday and Wednesday were part of the protest and appeared to be unfazed by the outrage due to their acts. "We will keep attacking the anti-nationals no matter what. We will not tolerate any insult to our motherland. Let police issue summons against us," said a lawyer involved in the assaults. Another lawyer claimed those who attacked the mediapersons were outsiders and do not belong to the legal fraternity. "They were not lawyers. Lawyers do not cross limits set by the rule books. Outsiders may have been there. Media is defaming the community," he said. Groups of lawyers had attacked mediapersons and JNU students and teachers at the Patiala House court complex on Monday when JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar was to be produced for remand proceedings. The lawyers repeated the act on Wednesday too and even roughed up Kumar, triggering widespread criticism. The police had issued summons to three lawyers in connection with the assaults but they are yet to respond. Singapore City: Fugitive underworld don Kumar Pillai, who is wanted in Mumbai for several cases of murder and extortion, has been detained by the Singapore authorities, it was reported on Friday. According to a report in the Indian Express, Pillai of the notorious Kumar Pillai gang was taken into custody after a Red Corner Notice was issued by Interpol. The Mumbai Police is currently trying to ascertain identity of the person arrested by Singapore authorities. Once it is confirmed that the arrested person is Kumar Pillai, the process for his extradition will be initiated, a senior police officer was quoted as saying. According to some other source, Pillai, who was living under a false identity, was arrested at the airport. Pillais stronghold used to be Vikhroli, where he mostly operated in the construction industry. Pillai also had a very close link with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Up till now, the investigators believed Pillai to be holed up in the UK, Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka or Singapore, which have a sizeable Tamil population. Islamabad: The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) arrested an Indian citizen holding a Pakistani National Identity Card (NIC) in capital Islamabad, the media reported on Friday. Rustam Sadhua has been accused of obtaining a Pakistani NIC through fraudulent means and was arrested on Thursday after his application for pre-arrest bail was rejected by a court, Dawn online reported. FIA sources claim Sadhua is the brother-in-law of Pakistani member of National Assembly Asfandyar Bhandara and arrived in the country in 1982, later obtaining an NIC. Sadhua had filed an application for pre-arrest bail in the court of special judge central, Malik Nazeer, which was rejected, leading to his arrest. When contacted, Bhandara expressed satisfaction over the Indian citizen`s arrest. Bhandara said he had time and again complained about the suspect`s conduct and had publicly dissociated himself from Sadhua. "This man has defamed my late father and my family and I hope his other frauds also surface during investigation," said Bhandara. Police will present Sadhua in court again on Saturday to obtain a physical remand. New Delhi: Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammad, which is accused of masterminding the deadly Pathankot attack, is recruiting Pakistan's retired defence personnel to carry out attacks on India's military assets, including air force bases, according to the latest intelligence inputs. Citing Indian intelligence agencies, Zee News reported that JeM has formulated a plan under which retired Pakistani army officers were being recruited to conduct lethal attacks on air force bases and other military installations in the country. The latest intelligence input comes on a day when a Pakistani panel recommended to lodge an FIR against JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar in the Pathankot attack case. The police, meanwhile, have lodged an FIR against unknown persons, a move which is dubbed as an attempt to show the compliance of the panel's advice. Despite the Pakistan panel's recommendation, the police have refused to name the JeM chief in the FIR. It is believed that JeM has been able to recover a lot of its former strength of late by recruiting retired Pakistan army personnel, who are expected to have a good understanding of how to infiltrate, sabotage and coordinate attacks on facilities that enjoy a military-style protection. Mumbai: NCP leader Tariq Anwar has accused the BJP-led government of pursuing double standards in categorising violent incidents, which he says is a dangerous trend. "Jihad and terrorism are two different things, like the two banks of a river that could never meet," Anwar said. "But the government today, as a matter of policy, categorises the violent act of a Hindu as 'goondagiri' while the same of a Muslim as an act of terrorism, and this is a dangerous trend," he said at a recent seminar on 'Jihad against Terrorism', organised by All India Qaumi Tanjim, headed by state NCP functionary Munaf Hakim, here. "The Home Department, instead of doing its duty to establish and maintain peace, is falsely implicating educated youth and branding them terrorists," Anwar alleged. He also said that media should bring forth the true meaning of 'Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas' slogan. On the occasion, All India Marathi Literary Conference president Sripal Sabnis said "those causing misunderstanding among people for political gains and spreading hatred should desist from this". "Jihad as discussed in Islam is all about self restraint to control one's senses and purify the heart and it has nothing to do with terrorism," he said. "The true enemies of India are bigots causing breach in the integrity, unity and peace of the nation," Sabnis said. Arya Samaj leader and social activist Swami Agnivesh said people want to listen to people speaking of united India. "If there has to be a Jihad, it should be against poverty and inequality," he said. He challenged those who question the contribution of Arya Samaj in freedom struggle. "Give me name of single RSS member who died fighting the British. There were many from Islam who contributed for our country's freedom." New Delhi: The students of the famed Harvard University in the United States have joined the JNU protests to free student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, who has been held on charges of sedation for participating in an anti-India demonstration. A group of students on Thursday gathered in Harvard Square to lodge their protest. They have demanded the immediate release of Kanhaiya Kumar. Kumar was detained by Delhi Police over his alleged anti-national comments. The protesting students have faulted the Indian government for using the powerful sedition law against some of them. We gathered basically because all of us believe that freedom of speech and dialogue is essential and should be respected. And that was being threatened by the present government, the Quint quoted Harvard University student Shravya Mallavarapu as saying. Besides JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, more than a dozen others are also on polices radar and have so far managed to evade arrest. The investigators have claimed to have found a video footage in which Kanhaiya and others were allegedly seen raising slogans which were pro-Afzal Guru, the 2001 Parliament attack convict. The demonstrations were first held in the JNU campus on February 9. New Delhi: The father of Umar Khalid, a PhD student in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) who has been named as the main organiser of a cultural evening on February 09 to mark the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, on Friday said his son was not a terrorist. He is a Muslim, hence he is on the target, Syed Qasim Ilyas told news agency ANI when asked about his son Umar Khalid. He further claimed that he did not know the whereabouts of his son. I appeal him to surrender before the Court. But how can Umar feel safe to surrender? He should be provided security. He added that a probe must take place and the court should decide on the matter involving Umar, but the media trial should not take place. When asked about reports linking his past as Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) leader with Umar's present, Ilyas said: How're you associating my past regarding SIMI with Umar Khalid? I retired from SIMI in 1985, Umar was born after that, and when there was not a single case against any individual in SIMI or the organisation. SIMI was banned in 2001. If you are branding my communist son a traitor because of my past, and holding him to trial in TV studios, it is worse than targeting He is being punished in media studios for having a Muslim name, Ilyas said. None less than the home minister of this country has attributed this branding to Umar...all because of his name. Can there be any bigger branding of him? Ilyas questioned. On reports that Umar had links with Pakistan, Ilyas said: All of our family have passports, even my youngest daughter. But Umar never got a passport, he has never sat in an aircraft. Today they say he went to Pakistan and had links with Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Hafiz Saeed. According to Umar's father, his son hated going by the book He was questioning everything which led to frequent arguments, even my differences with him. Whether it was praying, fasting, or women in the family covering their heads, he was the only non-believer in our family which angered me, but he is a young man. Ilyas is worried about his son as a father. Even if the courts of this country pronounce my son innocent, will he ever be able to have a normal future? His face is being played out across channels with words like mastermind and traitor His siblings are getting vitriolic messages on social media, Ilyas said. New Delhi: The charges against JNU PhD scholar Umar Khalid are shrouded in a lot of "fabrications and lies" and the episode has "taken away" all sense of normalcy and sanity from the lives of his family members, his sister said today calling him a "true son" of India. US-based PhD student Maryam Fatima also hit out at a section of the media for running a "trial" against Umar, the alleged organiser of an event against Afzal Guru's execution at the JNU, saying it is creating a "lynch mob" climate. Umar, a former member of ultra-Left students outfit Democratic Students Union, has been missing since the JNU row broke out and police is on the look out for him. "Most channels have been conducting media trials based on false information. They first claimed there was an IB report linking Umar to Jaish-e-Muhammad. This was denied by the IB. But the story is still doing the rounds. All of this is adding up to a lynch mob climate," Fatima told PTI over e-mail. Umar, who is working on his PhD on tribal rights and colonial forest policy, has placed his concern for the dispossessed over his own life and career - turning down opportunities to go abroad, she claimed. She said he has been actively campaigning for the rights of the marginalised and alleged that anti-India slogans at the controversial event at the JNU were raised by ABVP activists. "The issue of sloganeering is shrouded in a lot of fabrications and lies. Several of the videos were doctored," she alleged. "It is ridiculous to ask us if we think it (anti-India slogans) is okay - of course, not. But you have to dig deeper and see who was raising them. He is a true son of India," she said. Fatima, who is the eldest among five sisters but younger than their brother Umar, claimed that even her 12-year-old sibling has received "violent threats" on social media. "My sisters received threats on Facebook when they first started posting in defence of Umar. They are not going to school or college. There are also the posters in Munirka directly calling for Umar's death. As you can imagine, we feel very vulnerable right now," she said. The family is "not in touch with" Umar since he went missing, Fatima said, and could last speak to him after his television interviews with two channels. "We are really worried for his safety." She claimed the allegations about Umar's links to Pakistan, terrorists and JeM are absolutely false and that he does not even have a passport. On their father SQR Ilyas' past links with SIMI, a banned outfit, Fatima said that he left SIMI in 1985, way before it was banned in 2001 and Umar's birth. "There is no connection here, nothing more to be made of." Ilyas today said it is for the judiciary to decide whether his son was involved in the case and demanded that he be spared a "media trial". "If they were seditionist, it should be decided by the court. There should not be a media trial. He was fighting for adivasis and poor farmers," he said. Voicing concern over the safety of her brother, Fatima said, "As we saw in JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar's case, rouge elements are obstructing the path of justice. He was roughed up outside a court of law. Who can be safe in such an environment?" Police is looking for Umar, who is accused of shouting anti-India slogans during an event on February 9 at the campus against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. Ilyas criticised the arrest of JNU students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar on charges of sedition as well as the "atmosphere that is being created against Khalid and his friends". JNU has been an educational centre where such things have been happened in the past as well, he said, adding that the varsity accommodates people of different ideologies and provides platform for their voices. "The beauty of JNU is that it accommodates (people of different ideologies) and gives a platform to raise their voice," he said. New Delhi: Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli arrived here on Friday on a six-day visit to India -- his first foreign visit after assuming office in October last year. He was received at the airport by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. The visit of Oli, who is accompanied by his wife Radhika Sakya, is the first bilateral visit by a prime minister from the Himalayan nation since 2011 when then prime Baburam Bhattarai visited India. In 2014, then prime minister Sushil Koirala visited India for the swearing-in ceremony of the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. In August 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi went on a bilateral visit to Nepal which was the first by an Indian prime minister in 17 years. Modi again went in November 2014 to attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) summit in Kathmandu. Oli and his wife will stay as state guests at Rashtrapati Bhavan. "During the visit, we expect discussions on all issues of mutual interest," external affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said during a media briefing here on Thursday ahead of Oli`s visit. "Bilateral cooperation, particularly in the key areas of energy, connectivity, and people-to-people linkages will form the main focus of the visit, he said. A high-level delegation is accompanying Oli during the visit. The delegation includes Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Kamal Thapa, Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel, Home Minister Shakti Bahadur Basnet, Chief Advisor to the prime minister Bishnu Prasad Rimal, chief executive of the National Reconstruction Authority, and 13 MPs from various political parties, besides senior government officials as well as representatives of Nepal`s business community. On Saturday, Sushma Swaraj will call on Oli after which the visiting dignitary will meet Prime Minister Modi. This will be followed by delegation-level talks and signing of variousagreements. Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will then call on the Nepalese prime minister. Oli will also call on Vice President Hamid Ansari and President Pranab Mukherjee later in the day. On Sunday, he will leave for Dehradun where he will visit the Tehri hydel power project. After returning to New Delhi the same day, the Nepalese prime minister will meet leaders of various political parties. On Monday, Minister of State for Power Piyush Goyal will call on Oli after which the visiting dignitary will address the Indian Council for World Affairs. In the evening, Oli will attend a business meeting. On Tuesday, he will leave for Bhuj in Gujarat to take stock of the earthquake reconstruction work there. Later in the day, he will leave for Mumbai where he will meet Maharashtra Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao. Oli will depart from India on Wednesday. New Delhi: Reacting to Pakistan`s concern over the unrest in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), the Congress Party on Friday said Islamabad should first set their own house in order and mind their own business. "Pakistan is on the verge of becoming Somalia of South Asia. They should worry about their own country. They should first set their own house in order. The only substantive export they have is terror over the last four decades. They should mind their own business," Congress leader Manish Tewari told ANI. The Ministry of External Affairs also condemned its Pakistani counterpart`s statement on Jammu and Kashmir, and said that Islamabad`s gratuitous references are unacceptable."Jammu and Kashmir is an internal matter of India. Pakistan`s gratuitous references to the Jammu and Kashmir are unacceptable," Ministry of External Affairs official spokesperson Vikas Swarup had said. According to reports, Pakistan`s foreign office spokesperson Muhammad Nafees Zakria in Islamabad, while replying to a question about the "arrest of Kashmiri students" at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, said that Kashmiris never accepted the unfair trial of 2013 parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to hear the bail plea of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar, arrested on sedition charges. Agreeing that the situation in Patiala House Courts is not proper, an apex court bench of Justice J Chelameswar and Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre transferred Kanhaiya`s petition to the Delhi High Court. While doing so, the SC asked the high court to hear the plea expeditiously. "You are leading a dangerous proposition. If this court will entertain it, it will become a precedent which will be available to all the accused in the country. Wherever there will be sensitive cases involving political persons or prominent persons or others...You know the atmosphere in the court. So in every case if it is said that Supreme Court is only the court, it would be a dangerous precedent," a bench comprising justices J Chelameswar and AM Sapre said. Further, it said, "Remember, this is not the only case of this type." The bench took an assurance from Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar that in the "prevailing extraordinary situation" pertaining to this matter, the Government of India and the Delhi Police Commissioner would provide adequate safety and security to the accused and a stream of lawyers who will be appearing in the High Court. The bench also said that the counsel for all the parties would be given preference while entering into the court room at the High Court and the Registrar General would be responsible for limiting number of people to be allowed to enter inside. The SC directed its secretary general to forthwith transfer Kanhaiya`s writ petition and related papers to the high court. The Supreme Court permitted the counsel for Kanhaiya to amend his petition, which is to be filed in the Delhi High Court this afternoon. In his petition, filed through advocate Anindita Pujari, Kanhaiya had submitted that there is a threat to his life and there was a need for the apex court to intervene for safeguarding his life and limb. Guwahati: Dissident Congress lawmaker Kalikho Pul was on Friday was sworn in as the new chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh, which has been under Presidents' Rule since January 25 following political instability. Arunachal Pradesh Governor Jyoti Prasad Rajkhowa swore him the oath of office and secrecy at a beief function organised at the Raj Bhavan in the hilly state around 9.30 p.m. The development came after President Pranab Mukherjee earlier in the day approved the recommendation of the union cabinet for revocation of the President's Rule. BJP leader Tapir Gaon said that only Pul, who was elected as leader of the house by 31 legislators, took oath of office and secrecy. The new chief minister will induct his ministers at a later date. The BJP said it will lend support to the new government from outside only and will not be its part. The Supreme court on Thursday paved the way for the formation of the new government by disposing of Congress leader Nabam Tuki's plea for an interim direction that his party be allowed to go for a floor test in the house and vacated its earlier order for maintenance of status quo. On Monday, Pul and another 31 MLAs, including 18 Congress legislators, 11 of BJP and two Independents, met the governor and submitted a memorandum to stake claim to form the government. The legislators reaffirmed their support to Pul to head the council of ministers and that he may be sworn in at the end of the President's Rule Arunachal Pradesh. Political situation in the north-eastern state turned volatile after the governor advanced an assembly session from January 2016 to December 2015. While the then chief minister Nabam Tuki and his supporters boycotted the session, the dissident Congress and BJP legislators, and two Independents, took part in the session held first at a community hall and then at a hotel. The legislators impeached Speaker Nabam Rebia by a voice vote and moved a no- confidence motion against the chief minister, forcing both to move the Guwahati High Court and subsequently the Supreme Court. Washington: President Barack Obama cannot select the most liberal possible candidate for the US Supreme Court and should seek a "consensus" pick who could attract Republican support, Vice President Joe Biden said on Thursday. A fierce political fight is brewing as the Democratic president prepares to name a successor to conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Saturday. Obama`s nominee could change the court`s balance of power. Scalia`s death left it with four conservative and four liberal justices. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid told MSNBC in an interview that he spoke with Obama on Thursday about the nomination and expected the president to name his choice in "a little over three weeks." Many Republicans, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have said the seat should remain vacant until Obama`s successor takes office next January so voters can have a say in the selection when they choose a new president in the Nov. 8 election. "The Senate gets to have a say," Biden, a former senator, told Minnesota Public Radio in an interview broadcast on Thursday. "In order to get this done, the president is not going to be able to go out, nor would it be his instinct anyway, to pick the most liberal jurist in the nation and put them on the court." The Senate, whose Republican majority would be unlikely to embrace any selection seen as particularly liberal, must confirm nominees picked for lifetime appointments to the nation`s highest court. "There are plenty of judges who are on high courts already who have had unanimous support of the Republicans. This should be someone who, in fact, is a consensus and whereby we can generate enough support to get a person passed," Biden said. In a separate interview broadcast on MSNBC, Biden said he would be deeply involved in advising Obama but that he had no desire himself to be named to the high court. Biden told MSNBC the president had sought his advice but they had yet to discuss potential candidates. White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Obama would draw on Biden`s perspective, noting the vice president had served as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman and presided over confirmation hearings for past Supreme Court nominees. Those included the contentious 1991 hearings for Justice Clarence Thomas. Separately, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O`Connor, the first woman to serve on the court and a nominee of Republican President Ronald Reagan, took issue with Republicans who are demanding that Obama`s successor pick the person to fill Scalia`s vacancy. "I don`t agree," O`Connor, 85, told an Arizona television station. "We need somebody in there to do the job - and just get on with it." Some Republican senators have urged their leaders at least to allow the customary Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings to proceed on any Obama nominee. "I do believe that the nominee should get a hearing," Senator Lisa Murkowski told reporters in her home state of Alaska on Wednesday. She added: "That doesn`t necessarily mean that ends up in a vote" by the Senate to confirm the nominee. Senators Dean Heller of Nevada and Thom Tillis of North Carolina this week also indicated support for allowing the Senate to consider Obama`s nominee. Obama will not attend Scalia`s funeral on Saturday, a decision that provoked criticism from some conservatives. Earnest rebuked critics who he said "want to use the funeral of the Supreme Court justice as some sort of political cudgel." Earnest noted Obama would pay his respects by going to the Supreme Court building on Friday when Scalia`s body will be lying in repose, and Biden would represent the Obama administration at the funeral. Obama`s presence at public events requires a massive retinue of Secret Service agents and security measures, while Biden`s "security footprint" is a little bit lighter, Earnest said, noting the White House had sought a "respectful arrangement." A CBS News poll and a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed Americans closely split along partisan lines on whether Obama should name Scalia`s successor. Brussels: British Prime Minister David Cameron urged his European counterparts at a Brussels summit to reach a "credible" deal to keep his country from crashing out of the EU and settle the issue for a generation. Cameron wants a deal on reforms to the 28-nation bloc before holding a referendum as early as June but France and other member states warned that they would not agree to a deal at any price. "It's an opportunity to move to a fundamentally different approach to our relationship with the EU -- what some might call a sort of live and let live," Cameron told fellow leaders yesterday at the first working session of the summit. He urged them to secure "a package that is credible with the British people", adding that the issue of Britain's place in Europe "has been allowed to fester for too long" and that there was now a chance "to settle this issue for a generation". Three years after Cameron announced he wanted to reset Britain's ties with the European Union, talks are going down to the wire on his demands on four key areas. The British premier wants welfare benefit restrictions to help curb immigration, safeguards for non-euro countries like Britain, increased EU competitiveness and an opt-out from closer EU integration. French President Francois Hollande said agreement with Britain was "possible" and that was what he wanted -- but raised fresh doubts over the protections for non-eurozone countries. "No country can have the right to veto, we cannot hold Europe back from advancing," he said. Cameron won crucial backing Wednesday from German Chancellor Angela Merkel who said Berlin had shared his concerns "for many years". Arriving for the summit, Merkel said there were still some issues to resolve but she was "happy to do everything to create the conditions for Britain to remain part of the European Union", she said. For her part, straight-talking Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite punctured some of the summit rhetoric. "I think everyone will have their own little drama and then we will agree," she said. European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said he was "quite confident" of a deal, but former Polish premier Tusk warned it was a "make or break summit". Cameron, under pressure from eurosceptics in his centre-right Conservative Party and a hostile right-wing press, says he will back a 'Yes' vote in a referendum expected this June if he can cut a deal in Brussels. Failing that, he has said all options are open, refusing to rule out the possibility that Britain could become the first country to leave the EU in its more than 60-year history. Ontario: The Canadian government said Thursday it is dropping its appeal of a decision to grant former Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr bail while he fights a US conviction for murdering an American soldier. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould made the announcement in a joint statement. A Canadian appellate court released Khadr last year after he had spent 13 years behind bars, most of it at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But the previous Tory administration appealed the ruling. Toronto-born Khadr was 15 years old when he was captured on an Afghan battlefield in 2002 and sent to the US prison. In 2010, he was sentenced to eight years following a US military hearing in which he agreed to plead guilty to murdering a US soldier in violation of the laws of war, attempted murder, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism and spying. As part of the agreement, he was sent home to Canada in 2012 to serve the remainder of his sentence. Since his release on bail, Khadr has been living with one of his lawyers in Edmonton, Alberta and taking college classes. New York: Three Chinese students have been jailed in California for attacks against two classmates that included burning one of the victims with cigarettes and forcing her to eat her own hair. The three attackers and their victims are among thousands of Chinese students known as "parachute kids," who travel to the United States to study and stay with host families while their parents remain in China. Yunyao Zhai, 18, was sentenced on Wednesday to 13 years behind bars, Yuhan Yang, 19, was sentenced to 10 years and male co-defendant Xinlei Zhang, 19, got six years. All three had admitted the charges of kidnap and assault and apologized in court for their actions. Investigators said the case against the defendants revolved around two separate attacks in March. The first involved Zhai and Zhang, who assaulted a 16-year-old girl at a restaurant and park in Rowland Heights, a neighborhood east of Los Angeles with a large Chinese population. Authorities said the attack took place because Zhai believed the victim disrespected her. The second attack took place two days later when the three defendants kidnapped an 18-year-old classmate and took her to a Rowland Heights park where she was stripped, repeatedly beaten, spat on, kicked and burned with cigarettes over a five-hour period. Zhang also provided scissors to cut the woman`s hair, which she was then forced to eat, prosecutors said. Several people who witnesses the attack captured it on their cellphones. That attack, officials believe, likely stemmed from a dispute over a boy and an unpaid restaurant bill. The judge overseeing the case said it reminded him of "Lord of the Flies," the 1954 novel by William Golding about boys stranded on a deserted island who gang up on each other. The case has also prompted soul searching among the Chinese community in Rowland Heights and beyond, with some questioning the wisdom of sending teenagers to a foreign country with no close parental supervision. "Well-meaning parents of China should not send kids here alone and unsupervised," Yang`s attorney, Rayford Fountain, told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune after the sentencing. "It is a recipe for disaster." Brussels: European leaders have a lot of work to do at a summit in Brussels to reach a deal to prevent Britain becoming the first country to crash out of the bloc, EU president Donald Tusk warned Friday. British Prime Minister David Cameron urged his counterparts at the start of a two-day meeting to reach a "credible" reform deal that would allow him to hold a referendum on EU membership in June. But in the face of concerns from France and eastern European countries, Tusk warned that the first day of talks had left much more to do to reach an agreement to rule out a so-called "Brexit". "For now I can only say that we have made some progress but a lot needs to be done," Tusk told a brief press conference. With the clock ticking, Tusk went immediately into overnight face-to-face talks with Cameron and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in a bid to overcome the final hurdles to a deal. Tusk was also due to meet French President Francois Hollande, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka. Hollande has reservations about Cameron`s demands for safeguards for countries that do not use the euro currency, while Michel objects to calls to exclude Britain from the EU`s goal of "ever closer union". The Czech premier meanwhile leads a group of four Eastern European countries that object to Cameron`s request for a limit to welfare benefit payments for EU migrants working in Britain.Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy meanwhile said he was optimistic about the chances of a deal when the EU summit resumes at around 1000 GMT on Friday morning. "I think it is going well. I hope that tomorrow we will have a deal," Rajoy told reporters. Meeting his counterparts as the summit began, Cameron said called for a "sort of live and let live" approach to reach a deal. He urged them to secure "a package that is credible with the British people", adding that the issue of Britain`s place in Europe "has been allowed to fester for too long" and that there was now a chance "to settle this issue for a generation". Three years after Cameron announced he wanted to reset Britain`s ties with the European Union, the talks are going down to the wire with highly technical disagreements in all key areas. But the principle behind them goes to the heart of the EU -- the British vision of a loose trade union versus the post-war European federal ideal -- and tests the EU as it faces a colossal influx of migrants fleeing war in the Middle East. Hollande said earlier that he wanted an agreement and that it was "possible" -- but warned that "no country can have the right to veto" eurozone states. The issue raises particularly sensitive questions around banking regulation as Britain is home to the City of London, one of the world`s leading financial centres.Cameron won crucial backing Wednesday from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and arriving for the summit she said she was "happy to do everything to create the conditions for Britain to remain part of the European Union." Cameron, under pressure from eurosceptics in his centre-right Conservative Party and a hostile right-wing press, says he will back a `Yes` vote in a referendum expected this June if he can cut a deal in Brussels. Failing that, he has said all options are open, refusing to rule out the possibility that Britain could become the first country to leave the EU in its more than 60-year history. Brussels has offered an "emergency brake" to limit benefits for new migrants for four years, which Britain could invoke if its welfare system is overwhelmed by the inflow of workers, as it believes it has been. But Poland and other eastern European member states who have hundreds of thousands of citizens in Britain bitterly oppose such a change, saying it would discriminate against them and undermine the EU`s core principle of freedom of movement. Cameron has staked his political reputation on winning the referendum in the hope of ending a feud over Britain`s place in the EU that has plagued his Conservative Party for decades. Britons voted overwhelmingly in favour of staying in the EU in a 1975 referendum, just two years after joining. Recent opinion polls suggest a narrow lead for those who want to stay in the EU but there does seem to have been a modest increase in the `No` camp. Many voters are thought to be undecided. Los Angeles: Federal agents have raided the home of San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook's brother, US media reported. FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller confirmed to AFP that a search warrant was executed at a residence in Corona yesterday, an hour east of Los Angeles "to seek evidence in an ongoing investigation" but did not specify the case. No arrests were made, she said. The search warrant was executed on a sealed affidavit and authorities were barred from disclosing further details, Eimiller said. Local media outlets identified the home as that of Farook's brother. Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, opened fire on his coworkers in the California city of San Bernardino on December 2, killing 14 people and wounding 22. It was the deadliest terror attack in the United States since the September 11, 2001 attacks. Farook and Malik were killed in a shootout with police. The news comes with Apple and the US authorities in a standoff after the tech giant refused to comply with a judge's order to help the FBI break into Farook's iPhone. Apple chief executive Tim Cook has said doing so would be an "unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers" and would have "implications far beyond the legal case at hand." Prosecutors had requested Apple's help after the FBI failed to crack the phone's code two months into the investigation. Yaounde (Cameroon): Two suicide bombers hit a market in the north Cameroon village of Meme, killing at least 22 people, and two others targeted a school in a nearby town today, a Cameroon governor said. The attackers at the market disguised themselves as food vendors, said Far North Governor Midjiyawa Bakari. The 105 wounded are being treated at the hospital in the nearby town of Tokombere, some in critical condition, he said. The other two attackers were targeting a school in Tokombere, but detonated their explosives in the bush about 1 kilometer from the school after they were identified, said teacher Mamoudou Gonit. He said the explosions caused panic among teachers and students who ran in different directions, but no one besides the bombers was hurt. Boko Haram, an Islamic extremist group based in Nigeria, was suspected. In its six-year insurgency, Boko Haram has killed more than 20,000 people and displaced 2.8 million in the region, according to the United Nations and Amnesty International. Beirut: In another case of brutality out of the many it has already committed in the past, Islamic State has beheaded a 15-year-old child for merely listening to western music at the grocery store of his father. The incident happened on Tuesday in Mosul a stronghold of ISIL. Ayham Hussein was captured by the jihadists while listening to Pop music at the grocery store of his father in the Nabi Younis marketplace in western Mosul. He was referred to the Sharia Court, which issued a decision to execute him, a spokesman for the Nineveh media centre was quoted as saying by ARA News. The boy was publicly beheaded to spread a message to others, a source told ARA News. After the execution, the boy's mortal remains were handed over the family. The incident has sparked massive outrage in Mosul. Meanwhile, in a separate incident, two young men were shot dead outside a mosque in Mosul last Friday for failing to attend prayers. "The execution took place after a member of the Sharia Court read a statement vowing anyone who misses the prayers at the mosque to face the same punishment," ARA News quoted local activist Abdulah al-Malla as saying. California: A leaking gas well that spewed tons of methane into the air and forced thousands of Los Angeles residents from their homes has been permanently sealed, state officials said Thursday. The announcement confirmed earlier reports by the Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) that the well at its facility in Porter Ranch had been plugged. The news put an end to a four-month-long drama that saw thousands of Porter Ranch residents sickened by the fumes and forced to relocate to other areas of Los Angeles. "We have good news," Jason Marshall, deputy head of the California Department of Conservation, told a news conference. "We have confirmed that the leak of gas has been capped. We have the gas emissions under control." He said the damaged well was sealed with concrete, putting it permanently out of service. The leak, first detected on October 23 at the gas company`s Aliso Canyon facility, has been described as an environmental disaster. Methane, which is colorless and odorless, is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. But public health officials and the gas company -- a division of Sempra Energy -- have said the fumes posed no danger to Porter Ranch residents. The gas company is facing a series of lawsuits, as well as criminal charges brought by the Los Angeles District Attorney`s Office, which alleges SoCalGas failed to immediately report the leak. However, the company insists it broke no laws and its president, Dennis Arriola, said Thursday it was in the process of inspecting the other wells at Aliso Canyon. "We recognize the disruption the gas leak has caused to local residents," he told reporters. "We are committed to earning back their trust and confidence over time through our actions, not our words." Paula Cracium, president of the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council, told AFP that while news about the leak being over was welcome it would take time for residents to feel at ease again in their homes. "I think there is going to be a version of PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder) for a lot of families, Cracium said. "It`s like an earthquake. After you go through it, it messes with your life for a while and then you have a chance to get back to normal." She added that she and another member of the council would be heading to the state capital Sacramento on Monday to push for long-term legislation on well safety. Jerusalem: Israeli security forces shot dead a Palestinian man on Friday after he stabbed two police officers outside Jerusalem`s walled Old City, police said, as a wave of heightened violence persisted into its fifth month. The bloodshed has raised concern of wider escalation a decade after the last Palestinian uprising subsided. "The terrorist attacked a police team from behind, stabbed and lightly wounded them. The team responded by gunfire and neutralized the terrorist," police spokeswoman Luba Samri said, adding that the man was killed. On Thursday two Palestinian 14-year-olds stabbed and killed an Israeli in a supermarket in the occupied West Bank before an armed civilian shot and wounded the teens, who were taken for treatment to Israeli hospitals in Jerusalem. Since October, stabbings, shootings and car rammings by Palestinians have killed 28 Israelis and a US citizen. Israeli security forces have killed at least 164 Palestinians, 108 of whom Israel says were assailants, while most others were shot dead during violent anti-Israeli protests. Many Palestinian attackers have been teenagers. Tensions have been stoked by factors including a dispute over Jerusalem`s al-Aqsa mosque compound and the failure of several rounds of peace talks to secure the Palestinians an independent state in Israeli-occupied territory. Palestinian leaders have said that with no breakthrough on the horizon, desperate youngsters see no future ahead. Israel says young Palestinians are being incited to violence by their leaders and by Islamist groups calling for Israel`s destruction. Security officials have also pointed to economic hardship and social media as playing a role in triggering attacks. Briefing the UN Security Council on Thursday, Nickolay Mladenov, the UN envoy on Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, said he was concerned the bloodshed may be entering "a new troubling phase". He called on both Israeli and Palestinian leaders to provide "a political horizon to their people" and reject incitement by extremists in their own camps. Vatican City: Pope Francis on Thursday intervened explosively in the US election campaign, saying Donald Trump cannot claim to be a Christian and also vow to build a border wall to keep out immigrants. "Anyone, whoever he is, who only wants to build walls and not bridges is not a Christian," the pontiff told journalists during his return journey from a trip to Mexico. He was responding to a question about the Republican White House hopeful`s anti-immigrant stance. "Vote, don`t vote, I won`t meddle. But I simply say, if he says these things, this man is not a Christian," Francis said. "We need to see if he really said them and for this I will give him the benefit of the doubt." Despite that qualifier, Francis`s remarks drew swift and angry condemnation from the billionaire tycoon. "For a religious leader to question a person`s faith is disgraceful," Trump said in a statement delivered on a campaign stop in South Carolina, which holds its Republican primary this weekend. "I am proud to be a Christian and as president I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened." Trump has gained popularity by claiming Mexico is sending criminals to the United States, and last week he accused the pope of visiting the border between the two countries at the bidding of the Mexican government. Francis was speaking after concluding a five-day trip to Mexico, where he delivered a mass before 300,000 people near the US border and decried the "human tragedy" of migrants fleeing violence worldwide. In a highly symbolic gesture, the pontiff climbed a ramp facing the Rio Grande and looked out across the border into US territory, where hundreds of migrants waved at him. Trump has vowed to build a wall on the US southern border to keep migrants from illegally crossing into the United States, a pledge that has caused a firestorm in the presidential campaign where immigration is a hot-button issue. His reaction to the pope`s comments was scathing. "If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS`s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president because this would not have happened," Trump said.Propagandists for ISIS -- one of several names for the Islamic State extremist group which controls swathes of Syria and Iraq -- have issued threats that their fighters will plant their flag on the top of St Peter`s basilica. But Italian officials have insisted they have no knowledge of any credible threat to the Vatican or the pope. Trump said Mexican authorities had told the pope only "one side of the story." "He didn`t see the crime, the drug trafficking and the negative economic impact the current policies have on the United States. "They are using the Pope as a pawn and they should be ashamed of themselves for doing so, especially when so many lives are involved and when illegal immigration is so rampant." It was not the first time Trump had issued the pawn jibe, and Francis was asked about it on the plane. "Am I a pawn of the Mexican government? I leave that to your judgement, to the people to judge," he said. The 79-year-old Argentinian, a fervent critic of the freewheeling capitalism espoused by Trump, also said he was proud to have been branded a politicized pontiff by the tycoon. "Thanks be to God if that is what he said, because Aristotle defined man as a political animal: at least (it means) I am a human person." Trump has promised to end illegal immigration by building a wall along the Mexican border, which stretches more than 3,100 kilometerss (1,950 miles) -- a third of it currently covered by high-security fencing. Trump`s verbal clash with the pope was just the latest, dramatic illustration of his brash, confrontational brand of politics that has upended the 2016 White House race. It was unclear what, if any, impact the incident could have on his electoral chances. One of Trump`s Republican rivals, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who has clashed bitterly with the billionaire businessman, was charitable toward him in remarks Thursday addressing the contretemps. "I don`t question anybody`s Christianity, because I honestly believe that`s a relationship you have with your creator," Bush, a devout Catholic, told reporters. "I support walls and fencing where it`s appropriate for sure. I also believe we ought to have other parts of this. The border patrol. Using drone technology. Using GPS technology -- a strategy to protect our border. That is clear," he said. "That`s not an un-Christian thing to do, to make sure people don`t come across our border illegally. That`s a just thing to do." Moscow: Russian and American officials held talks on Friday in Geneva to discuss a stalled ceasefire deal in Syria, Russia's foreign ministry said. The sit-down between military officials and diplomats is meant to pave the way for a broader meeting of international players involved in the conflict as a hoped-for ceasefire in Syria failed to materialise. "Russia and the United States are holding consultations at the expert level on issues that will be submitted for approval" to the broader international group, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. No time has yet been set for such a broader meeting, she added. A UN spokesman in Geneva said that the international body's Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura was flying back to the city from Damascus Friday and expected to attend a broader meeting on the ceasefire originally planned for the afternoon. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told Ria-Novosti news agency that "intense consultations" between the Russian and American sides started on Thursday. The group of international players on Syria announced on February 12 they hoped to have a ceasefire in Syria by Friday but there was no sign of the halt in hostilities. Russia is currently flying a bombing campaign in Syria to support forces loyal to its ally President Bashar al-Assad, while the US heads a separate coalition targeting the Islamic State group. Moscow: Russia's envoy to the UN on Friday warned long-term ally President Bashar al-Assad over his vow to retake all of Syria, saying he faced dire consequences if he did not comply with Moscow over the peace process. "Russia has invested very seriously in this crisis, politically, diplomatically and now also militarily," Vitaly Churkin told Kommersant newspaper, referring to an international agreement to cease hostilities sealed in Munich last week. "Therefore we would like Assad also to respond to this," he said, adding that the Syrian leader's stance "is not in accord with the diplomatic efforts that Russia is making." At their meeting in Munich, the 17-nation group backing Syria's peace process agreed to work for a ceasefire, the lifting of starvation sieges and the resumption of talks. In an interview with AFP last week, Assad defiantly pledged to retake the whole of the country, speaking before the plan for a nationwide "cessation of hostilities" in Syria was announced. If Syria "follows Russia's leadership in resolving this crisis, then they have a chance to come out of it in a dignified way," Churkin stressed. "If they in some way stray from this path -- and this is my personal opinion -- a very difficult situation could arise. Including for themselves," he warned. "If they proceed on the basis that no ceasefire is necessary and they need to fight to a victorious end, then this conflict will last a very long time and that is terrifying to imagine." Churkin however also suggested that Assad's comments were made for political impact. "It isn't worth putting too much significance into one statement or another and dramatising them," he said. "We should be guided not by what he says, with all respect for the statements of a person at such a high level, but by what he finally does." Churkin said of the Munich agreement that "Damascus, as I hope, understands this is a unique chance for Syria after five years of unremitting destruction." Russia launched air strikes in Syria in September last year to support Assad and fight "terrorists", saying it was targeting the Islamic State group and other jihadists. Ankara: Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blamed a Syrian Kurdish militia fighter working with Kurdish militants inside Turkey for a suicide car bombing that killed 28 people in the capital Ankara, and he vowed retaliation in both Syria and Iraq. A car laden with explosives detonated next to military buses as they waited at traffic lights near Turkey`s armed forces` headquarters, parliament and government buildings in the administrative heart of Ankara late on Wednesday. Davutoglu said the attack was clear evidence that the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish militia that has been supported by the United States in the fight against Islamic State in northern Syria, was a terrorist organisation and that Turkey, a NATO member, expected cooperation from its allies in combating the group. Within hours, Turkish warplanes bombed bases in northern Iraq of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state and which Davutoglu accused of collaborating in the car bombing. Turkey`s armed forces also shelled YPG positions in northern Syria on Thursday, a security source said. Davutoglu said the artillery fire would continue and promised that those responsible for the Ankara attack would "pay the price". "Yesterday`s attack was directly targeting Turkey and the perpetrator is the YPG and the divisive terrorist organisation PKK. All necessary measures will be taken against them," Davutoglu said in a televised speech. President Tayyip Erdogan also said initial findings suggested the Syrian Kurdish militia and the PKK were behind the bombing and said that 14 people had been detained. The political arm of the YPG, denied involvement in the bombing, while a senior member of the PKK said he did not know who was responsible. The attack was the latest in a series of bombings in the past year mostly blamed on Islamic State militants. Turkey is getting dragged ever deeper into the war in neighbouring Syria and is trying to contain some of the fiercest violence in decades in its predominantly Kurdish southeast. The YPG militia, regarded by Ankara as a hostile insurgent force deeply linked to the PKK, has taken advantage in recent weeks of a major Syrian army offensive around the northern city of Aleppo, backed by Russian air strikes, to seize ground from Syrian rebels near the Turkish border. That has alarmed Turkey, which fears the advances will stoke Kurdish separatist ambitions at home. It has been bombarding YPG positions in an effort to stop them taking the town of Azaz, the last stronghold of Turkish-backed Syrian rebels north of Aleppo before the Turkish frontier. Hundreds of Syrian rebels with weapons and vehicles have re-entered Syria from Turkey over the last week to reinforce insurgents fending off the Kurdish-led assault on Azaz, rebel sources said on Thursday. Tension With US The co-leader of the YPG`s political wing denied that the affiliated YPG perpetrated the Ankara bombing and said Turkey was using the attack to justify an escalation in fighting in northern Syria. "We are completely refuting that. ...Davutoglu is preparing for something else because they are shelling us as you know for the past week," Saleh Muslim told Reuters by telephone. Washington`s support of the YPG - it views the group as a useful ally in the fight against Islamic State - has strained relations with Turkey. Both Erdogan and Davutoglu have called on the United States to cut ties with the insurgents. State Department spokesman John Kirby said Washington was not in a position to either confirm or deny Turkey`s charge the YPG was behind the attack. He also called on Turkey to stop shelling the YPG. Turkey has said its shelling of YPG positions is a response, within its rules of engagement, to hostile fire coming across the border into Turkey, something Saleh Muslim also denied. "I can assure you not even one bullet is fired by the YPG into Turkey ... They don`t consider Turkey an enemy," he said. The co-leader of the PKK umbrella group, Cemil Bayik, was quoted by the Firat news agency as saying he did not know who was responsible for the Ankara bombing. But the attack, he said, could be an answer to "massacres in Kurdistan", referring to the Kurdish region spanning parts of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Turkey has been battling PKK militants in its own southeast, where a 2-1/2 year ceasefire collapsed last July and pitched the region into its worst bloodshed since the 1990s. Six soldiers were killed and one wounded on Thursday when a remote-controlled handmade bomb hit their vehicle, the military said. Warning To Russia Davutoglu named the suicide bomber as Salih Necar, born in 1992 and from the Hasakah region of northern Syria, and said he was a member of the YPG. A senior security official said the alleged bomber had entered Turkey from Syria in July 2014, although he may have crossed the border illegally multiple times before that, and said he had had contact with the PKK and Syrian intelligence. Davutoglu also accused the Syrian government of a hand in the Ankara bombing and warned Russia, whose air strikes in northern Syria have helped the YPG to advance, against using the Kurdish militant group against Turkey. "I`d like to warn Russia, which is giving air support to the YPG in its advance on Azaz, not to use this terrorist group against the innocent people of Syria and Turkey," he said. "Russia condemned yesterday`s attack, but it is not enough. All those who intend to use terrorist organisations as proxies should know that this game of terror will turn around like a boomerang and hit them first." Russian President Vladimir Putin`s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told a teleconference with reporters that the Kremlin condemned the bombing "in the strongest possible terms". Washington: The United States accused China on Thursday of raising tensions in the South China Sea by its apparent deployment of surface-to-air missiles on a disputed island. U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said commercial satellite imagery suggested "very recent" placement of missiles on Woody Island in the Paracel island chain that went against China`s pledge not to militarize the South China Sea. "The Chinese have said one thing, and yet appear to be doing another," Kirby told a regular news briefing. "We see no indication that ... this militarization effort, has stopped. And it`s doing nothing ... to make the situation there more stable and more secure. In fact, it`s having quite the opposite effect." On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States would have "very serious" talks with China about militarization of the South China Sea. China has offered little specific response to the missile deployment reports, which first appeared on Fox News on Tuesday, but has accused Western media of "hyping up" the story and said China had a legitimate right to military facilities on territory it views as its own. China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims. Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, the first senior Western official to visit China since the reports appeared, said she raised the issue of the South China Sea`s militarization in talks in Beijing on Thursday. She told reporters after meeting China`s top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, that China had "challenged" the deployment report but had neither denied nor admitted that the missiles were there. "So until such time as we have a clear picture of it, of course it`s a matter of concern," she said. Bishop referred to comments by Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington last year that China did not intend to militarize islands in the South China Sea, and added: "We certainly hold China to that and that`s been reiterated to me." `LIMITED DEFENSIVE FACILITIES` Yang explained that the islands in the South China Sea had been China`s since ancient times and that "the limited defensive facilities that China has deployed on its own territory have nothing do with militarization," a Chinese statement said. Yang added that Australia should stick to its promise not to take sides and "not participate in or take any actions to harm regional peace and stability or Sino-Australia ties." On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei would neither confirm nor deny if the missiles were on Woody Island, but repeated that China has had defence facilities on the islands for decades. The United States claims no territory in the South China Sea but has expressed serious concerns about how China`s increasingly assertive pursuit of territorial claims there could affect the vital global trade routes that pass though it. Beijing has been angered by air and sea patrols the United States has conducted near islands China claims in the South China Sea. Those have included one by two B-52 strategic bombers in November and by a U.S. Navy destroyer that sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island in the Paracels last month. An influential Chinese state-run tabloid, the Global Times, said in an editorial on Thursday that China needed to strengthen its "self-defence" in the South China Sea in the face of "more frequent provocations from the U.S. military." "Jet fighters from the United States, an outside country, may feel uneasy when making provocative flights in the region. To us, that`s a proper result," it said of the reported missile deployment. Washington: US airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria have reportedly destroyed more than USD 500 million cash reserves and 20 kilogrammes of gold stored by the terror group. The estimate comes amid reports that the terror group is facing cash shortage in its so-called caliphate, slashing the perks and salaries of its fighters across the region. Recent reports have stated that the extremist group has started accepting only dollars for "tax" payments, water and electric bills. The US believes that airstrikes in Iraq and Syria have destroyed more than USD 500 million in cash that ISIS used to pay its fighters and fund its terror and military operations, ABC News reported. That is probably a low estimate, a US official was quoted as saying. The official said the figure is in "the high hundreds of millions of dollars." An additional 20 kilogrammes of gold is also believed to have been destroyed by the airstrikes, the report said. As part of the effort to weaken ISIS, the US military has struck at the terror group's finances, particularly its lucrative oil smuggling enterprise in Syria that provides revenue for its operations. The US also began targeting ISIS "cash distribution centres" in Syria where it stored hard cash used for its operations. Ten strikes have been conducted since then with the most high profile being two airstrikes in Mosul, in northern Iraq, targeting facilities that American officials characterised as ISIS banks. As proof of their successful targeting the US-led coalition released video of one of the Mosul airstrikes that showed what appeared to be large amounts of bills fluttering in the air after the airstrike. American officials believe the strikes have had an impact on ISIS operations often citing anecdotal reports that ISIS fighters are now being paid half what they had been receiving prior to the airstrikes. "It's a significant amount of cash that we believe was in those various collection points before we struck them," Colonel Steve Warren, the US military spokesman in Baghdad, told reporters this week at a Pentagon briefing. According to Warren, the US now estimates that "hundreds of millions of dollars" in cash has been destroyed by airstrikes targeting ISIS financial centers. The official said five airstrikes near Mosul this weekend targeted two ISIS financial distribution centers and two ISIS financial storage centers. Beirut: The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group, said on Thursday that at least 38 civilians were killed in air strikes carried out by a U.S.-led coalition in Hasaka province in northeast Syria in the past two days. The United States and its allies are carrying out air raids in the area against Islamic State, which controls some parts of Hasaka province but has lost ground in recent months. Hasaka borders mostly Islamic State-held Deir al-Zor province and Raqqa, the group`s de facto capital in Syria. The death toll published by the Observatory, which tracks the war using a network of contacts on the ground, included at least 15 people killed when strikes hit a bakery in the city of al-Shadadi near the border with Iraq on Tuesday. Air raids in at least three other villages killed 15 others on Thursday, including three children, while eight more civilians died in air strikes elsewhere, it said. Reuters could not independently confirm the reports. U.S. Lieutenant General Charles Brown, head of U.S. Air Forces Central Command, said he was aware of the report of civilian casualties. The U.S.-led coalition will begin assessing the credibility of those reports and start an investigation if required, he added. "I do know that we`ve been striking at that area over the past several days," Brown said. Separate raids near the town of al Houl, near the Iraqi border, and farther south killed 35 Islamic State fighters, the Observatory said. The U.S.-led coalition has also been hitting Islamic State areas of control in Iraq. Washington backs the Syria Democratic Forces in Syria, an alliance of Kurdish YPG fighters and other groups fighting the jihadists on the ground and which took al Houl from Islamic State in November. The YPG has been the most effective partner against IS in Syria for the U.S.-led coalition, and took swathes of territory from the group last year. The SDF said on its Facebook page on Thursday that it was launching another offensive, this time to capture al-Shadadi, an IS logistics hub located on a network of highways. Its capture would isolate Raqqa. Russia is carrying out its own air campaign in Syria, hitting some Islamic State targets, but mostly focusing on insurgents fighting Moscow`s ally President Bashar al-Assad in the west of the country. Washington: The US government has declassified the fact it held nuclear weapons on Okinawa in Japan during the Cold War, though the matter had long been an open secret. A Department of Defence website states the Pentagon has declassified "the fact that US nuclear weapons were deployed on Okinawa prior to Okinawa's reversion to Japan on May 15, 1972." The National Security Archive at George Washington University welcomed the disclosure, but pointed to US Air Force photos depicting nuclear weapons on the island that have been publicly available for more than 25 years. "However welcome the release may be, its significance is somewhat tempered by (that) astonishing fact," the on-governmental research group said in a statement yesterday. The group added that the US government had wasted an "inordinate" amount of time and resources by delaying the declassification. Japan is the only nation to have been attacked with nuclear weapons. The United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, killing more than 210,000 people and leading to Japan's surrender in World War II. Japan has since campaigned to abolish the weapons. Former prime minister Eisaku Sato won the Nobel Peace Prize largely for his "three principles" -- that Japan will not possess, produce or allow nuclear weapons on its soil. Okinawa remained under US control until 1972, and many parts of the archipelago are still used for US bases. Vatican City: The Vatican on Friday moved swiftly to dampen claims Pope Francis had signalled a significant relaxation of the Catholic Church's ban on contraception in response to an outbreak of the Zika virus in Latin America. In an unusually extended explanation of Francis's comment that contraception was "not an absolute evil", Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the pontiff had been talking about the possibility of having recourse to birth control only in "emergency cases". "That does not mean that this recourse is accepted and can be used without discernment," Lombardi told Vatican radio. Media around the world hailed Francis's comments, made on his return from Mexico yesterday, as potentially signalling a new departure on an issue that has long divided Catholics. "Francis says contraception can be used to slow Zika," trumpeted the New York Times, while an online headline in Britain's The Guardian said: "Pope suggests contraception can be condoned in Zika crisis." Vatican insiders said such interpretations were wide of the mark. "You don't change doctrine with off the cuff remarks," said Monsignor Octavio Ruiz Arenas, a member of the Vatican department that guides Church teaching. The Colombian archbishop emphasised that Pope Paul VI's 1968 encyclical outlawing the pill and other forms of artificial contraception remained the only Church statement that counts on the subject. A pro-choice lobby within the Church also described Francis's comments as signalling "little or no change". Catholics for Choice also warned that the pope's simultaneous description of abortion as an "absolute evil" will result in women suffering from the virus dying in back-street terminations. Jon O'Brien, president of the US-based group, said Francis's comments were "profoundly disappointing and wrong," for women going through "terrifying ordeals" because of Zika, a mosquito-born virus which has been linked to serious birth defects and has spread throughout Latin America. O'Brien said: "It's a fact that when women who are desperate to end a pregnancy don't get access to safe and legal services, they can resort to unsafe abortions, whether by self-administering or going to an unqualified provider. "When women find themselves in these desperate situations, they suffer and they die. Pope Francis should be well aware of that." O'Brien argued that Francis's stance on reproductive rights was at odds with his concern for the world's poor. "He doesn't recognise that it is poor women who suffer and die from restrictions to their reproductive health. The rich can always circumvent any restriction." Kampala: Partial results in Uganda's chaotic election gave veteran president Yoweri Museveni a solid lead as the US urged him to "rein in" the police after his main challenger was detained for the third time this week. As voting concluded yesterday, provisional results gave the 71-year-old leader 63 per cent of the vote with nearly half of polling centres counted. His chief rival Kizza Besigye -- in second place with 33 per cent -- was arrested again yesterday after police stormed his party headquarters in the capital. The police raid came as people continued to vote at dozens of polling stations in the wider Kampala area, where voting was extended in 36 sites for a second day after delays on Thursday that Commonwealth election observers called "inexcusable". While Museveni maintained his lead in the presidential tally, at least 17 of his ministers lost their parliamentary seats, among them defence minister Crispus Kiyonga -- who is spearheading regional efforts to end the political crisis in Burundi -- and attorney general Fred Ruhindi. The former rebel fighter faced a challenge from seven candidates, but is expected to win re-election for a fifth term in office and extend his 30-year rule of the east African country. Thursday's presidential and parliamentary votes were disrupted in the capital Kampala by the late arrival of ballot boxes and papers, angry demonstrations by frustrated voters and police using tear gas. At nearly 28,000 other polling centres voting passed off smoothly on election day. Besigye, who was arrested during campaigning on Monday and again on Thursday evening, was taken into custody for a third time yesterday. Police surrounded Besigye's Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) headquarters, firing tear gas and water cannon, before bursting inside and arresting top party officials. "Some reasonable measures have been applied to rein in FDC supporters who wanted to disturb the peace and the ongoing exercise," said senior police officer Felix Andrew Kaweesi. He accused Besigye's FDC of planning to publish its own tally of results, contravening electoral law. US Secretary of State John Kerry, visiting London, voiced concern. "(Kerry) urged President Museveni to rein in the police and security forces, noting that such action calls into question Uganda's commitment to a transparent and credible election process free from intimidation," the State Department said in a statement. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's eldest son is slamming the wild conspiracy theories about his father's death on Saturday at the age of 79. "Its, I think, a distraction from a great man and his legacy at a time when theres so much to be said about that and to help people even more fully appreciate that," Eugene Scalia said on Laura Ingraham's radio show Wednesday. "And, on a personal level, I think its a bit of a hurtful distraction for a family thats mourning." He added that his father "would have been the first to tell you ... that were from dust, we return to dust, your life could be taken from you at any instant." "He lived this incredibly full and active life," he continued. "But I knew, and he knew, that he was at a place in life where he could be taken from this world at any time." He said the Scalia family "has no doubt" he died of natural causes. "And we accept that," he said. "Were praying for him. We ask others to accept that and pray for him." Conspiracy theories surrounding Scalia's sudden death have circled the internet in the days since. The predominantly right-wing conspiracy theorists who believe foul play might have been involved point out that Scalia's cause of death has not been officially determined and an autopsy was not ordered. Some note that Scalia was pronounced dead over the phone and was reportedly found later with a pillow over his head. Others point out that Scalia had declined a security detail for his weekend visit to the Cibolo Creek Ranch in Texas, which led to him being alone at the time of his death. The theories first began to swirl after John Poindexter, who owns the ranch where Scalia was staying, said he found the jurist under a pillow, although he looked "as if he was taking a nap." "We discovered the judge in bed, a pillow over his head. His bedclothes were unwrinkled, he told the San Antonio Express-News. Poindexter later told CNN the pillow was over his head, "not over his face as some have been saying." Story continues "The pillow was against the headboard and over his head when he was discovered," he added. "He looked like someone who had had a restful night's sleep. There was no evidence of anything else." Without having seen the body, Presidio County Judge Cinderela Guevara pronounced Scalia dead over the phone, which is allowed in Texas, and told a Dallas TV station that he died of a "myocardial infarction," known as a heart attack. She would later walk back that claim to The Washington Post and said she was only aware that his heart had stopped, not that he suffered a heart attack. She then said Scalia underwent an MRI last week and was suffering from multiple conditions. Indeed, a US marshal on the scene said it wasn't necessary to observe the body in person, Vox reported, and law enforcement officials made clear to Guevara that no foul play was evident. A manager at the funeral home Scalia's body was taken to, moreover, told the Post that his family didn't want an autopsy performed a choice that has been heavily scrutinized. "If it had been me I would want to know," Juanita Bishop, a justice of the peace in Presidio, told the Post. Antonin Scalia and Ronald Reagan GOP presidential front-runner and business mogul Donald Trump is among those who have fanned flames on the theory. "I'm hearing it's a big topic," Trump said in a Monday interview with conservative radio host Michael Savage. "It's a horrible topic but they're saying they found the pillow on his face, which is a pretty unusual place to find a pillow." "I can't give you an answer," he continued. "It's just starting to come out now." But Ed Whelan, the president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a former clerk for Scalia, called the conspiracy theories "baseless" on Twitter. "To those peddling baseless claim that Scalia might have been murdered: STOP!!! This is poisonous and grossly irresponsible rhetoric." Many others have taken to Twitter to denounce the theories, calling them "disrespectful" and "desperate." Scalia's death, which opened a seat on the Supreme Court, is now at the heart of the 2016 election. Republicans are demanding that the Senate refrains from confirming US President Barack Obama's eventual appointment to the court, while Democrats are lambasting Republicans for obstructing a constitutional right of the president. Scalia's funeral will be held Saturday in Washington, DC. NOW WATCH: A Femen protester appeared to hang herself to protest the Iranian president's visit to France More From Business Insider caracas Getty Images Venezuela is on the brink of economic collapse. According to The Washington Post, its currency has lost 93% of its black-market value in two years, and the nation is running out of beer and toilet paper. The country is dependent on its inefficient oil-producing infrastructure for money, and its budget has been wiped out by low oil prices. That's bad news for a centrally planned economy like Venezuela's. Oil started to fall like a stone in 2014, from triple figures to about $30 this year, after OPEC refused to cut production as demand fell, causing a supply glut. But even if oil returned to about $100 a barrel, as it was midway through 2014, the country wouldn't be able to escape its economic hole. It needs double that. Analysts at Deutsche Bank have taken a look at the countries worst hit by falling oil prices. Here's a quote from the note: Of the top five most vulnerable countries, four are either net energy exporters, or heavily reliant on energy: Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil (Ukraine is the exception). Realistically, these countries would remain vulnerable regardless of a moderately higher oil price. To balance Venezuela's budget, for example, requires oil closer to $200 than $100. Venezuela this week signed up to an agreement with Saudi Arabia and Russia to freeze oil production at January levels. That output level is still too high to move prices up. What it really needs is a cut, and a big one at that. According to Deutsche Bank, supply from the US will tighten, though it will take time and will probably not drop enough to help Venezuela. Here's the chart: US oil supply Getty Images NOW WATCH: Martin Shkreli offered Kanye West $10 million to not release his newest album See Also: SEE ALSO: Here's where each of the 13 OPEC members stands after Tuesday's big production announcement By Anya George Tharakan and Abhirup Roy (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc , under pressure from impatient investors, took steps on Friday to handle the possible sale of parts of the struggling Internet company. Yahoo shares jumped after the company announced its board has formed a committee of independent directors to explore strategic alternatives. This signaled Yahoo is open to selling its core business including search, mail and news sites, rather than spin it off as previously planned. Yahoo advisers started working on the sale process on Friday, people familiar with the matter said. The step followed more than three years of effort by CEO Marissa Mayer to turn around Yahoo, focusing on mobile apps and trying to boost advertising revenue. Despite her efforts, revenue has dipped since she took the helm in July 2012. Yahoo shares rose 2.26 percent to $30.09 in midday trading. The announcement came as activist investors appeared to be preparing for a possible proxy fight for control of the board. Starboard, which owns about 0.75 percent of Yahoo, has been pushing for changes since 2014, asking it to separate its Asian assets and sell the core business. On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that Starboard was taking initial steps toward a potential proxy fight. "It seems pretty clear that the only reason this is happening even is because of the threat of the proxy fight," Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser said. Yahoo said the newly formed committee and its advisers are working on a process for reaching out to and engaging with potentially interested strategic and financial parties. Earlier this month, Yahoo dealt with interested parties individually, without running a formal auction process, according to people familiar with the matter. Yahoo announced this month it was considering strategic alternatives for its core Internet business, after shelving previous plans to spin off its stake in ecommerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd . "Separating our Alibaba stake from Yahoo's operating business is essential to maximizing value for our shareholders," Mayer said on Friday. Starboard was not immediately available for comment. "I think a proxy fight would be the right thing to do," said investor SpringOwl Asset Management's Managing Director Eric Jackson. Yahoo's board is concerned about the risk of losing a possible proxy contest, he said. The committee has engaged Goldman Sachs & Co Inc, J.P. Morgan and PJT Partners Inc as financial advisers, and Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP as legal adviser. Verizon Communications Inc is among the companies seen as a potential buyer of Yahoo's core business. Emergency responders were forced to capture an unusual assailant after being called to a disturbance at a bar in Brazil this week. Firefighters were called to deal with a Capuchin monkey that had been drinking rum from patrons glasses before grabbing a foot-long knife and chasing people around the bar, according to the Mirror. Capuchins are known for being aggressive, but in this case it appears the monkey only threatened the men while leaving the women to drink in relative peace. A YouTube video shows the angry primate on the bars roof, still wielding its weapon and stabbing the corrugated steal. It was a bar staff oversight that ended with the monkey drinking some rum and taking the knife, fire department Lt Col Saul Laurentino told the Portuguese news agency aRede. The monkey attempted to flee the scene before firefighters arrived. It was captured a short distance away and returned to a nature reserve. But its terror spree didnt end there. We had to recapture him because he was causing problems and threatening children living near the reserve, Laurentino told aRede. Laurentino said the Capuchin will go to the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA) where staff will evaluate if it can be safely returned to the wild or if it will be kept in captivity. Cuba and the U.S. are quickly becoming bestor at least betterfriends. This week alone has seen the re-establishment of commercial flights, the approval of the first American factory to be built on the island since Fidel Castro took power in 1959, as well the return of a misplaced American missile. On Tuesday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx flew to Havana and signed an agreement with Cuban officials that allows American airlines to compete for up to 110 flight routes per day. It was the latest step toward normalizing relations since Barack Obama and Raul Castro made their historic announcements in 2014 to restore ties. The flight agreement would give commercial carriers 15 days to submit an application to the Transportation Department outlining the routes and destinations theyd like to fly to. It would allow carriers like American Airlines, JetBlue, Southwest Airlines, and Delta Air Linesall of which have expressed interestto bid for 20 daily flights to Havana, and 10 to each of Cubas other nine international airports. Recommended: The Power of Buying Less by Buying Better Soon after Obama announced the thaw in relations between the U.S. and Cuba in 2014, American tourism to the island jumped. Last year, some 160,000 American tourists flew to the island, the Associated Press reporteda 77 percent increase over the previous year. That number doesnt include the hundreds of thousands Cuban Americans allowed to visit family. Previously, flights to the country were restricted to around a dozen charter companies. Travel is supposed to have been, and still is, only for family visits, reporting trips, educational tours, and professional meetingsthough, this seems to be softly enforced. The agreement, so far, wouldnt allow the state-run Cuban carrier to fly to the U.S., but might include leases of aircraft between themselves or with airlines of a third countrys cooperation, reported Granma, the official newspaper of Cubas Communist Party. Story continues The thaw in travel should help Cubas economy. The island has been cut off from American dollars for half a centurythough it does have trade relations with Europe and Canada. Still, U.S.-Cuban business relations had their own historic moment. On Monday, Obama approved the first American factory to be built in Cuba since 1959. The company, run by two men in Alabama, sells small tractors. Like the rest of the exceptions Obama has created in the embargo, this was done through executive action. The Associated Press reported the Obama administration got around the law because of an exception that allows U.S. companies to export goods that help Cuban farmers. For the first three years, the factory will ship manufactured parts from the U.S. and assemble them in Cuba, with the eventual plan of manufacturing everything on the island. In a show of goodwill, the owners named their new tractor plant, The Oggun, a name taken from the Santeria saint of weapons and iron tools. Recommended: The Meaning in Kendrick Lamar's Grammys Performance Relations between the two longtime rivals have improved so significantly that over the weekend Cuba returned an American missile itd held onto since 2014. Although the laser-guided Hellfire bomb was not active, its loss was seen as a laughable mistake on the part of the U.S., one that ranks among the worst-known incidents of its kind, The Wall Street Journal wrote. In what is believed to have been a shipping error, the missile was accidentally sent to Cuba. Officials feared its secrets may have been shared with China or Russia. But for now, they say, they are just thankful to have it back. Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. (Reuters) - Global health officials have said the Zika virus is spreading in the Americas and could infect up to 4 million people. The race is on to develop a Zika vaccine. The following are some questions and answers about the virus and current outbreak: How do people become infected? Zika is transmitted to people through the bite of infected female mosquitoes, primarily the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the same type that spreads dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) 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. How do you treat Zika? There is no treatment or vaccine for Zika infection. Companies and scientists are racing to develop a safe and effective vaccine for Zika, but the World Health Organization (WHO) said it would take at least 18 months to start large-scale clinical trials of potential preventative shots. How dangerous is it? The PAHO said there is no evidence that Zika can cause death, but some cases have been reported with more serious complications in patients with pre-existing medical conditions. The virus has been linked to microcephaly, a condition in newborns marked by abnormally small heads and brains that may not develop properly. It also has been associated with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare disorder in which the body's immune system attacks part of the nervous system. The suspected link between Zika and the two conditions could be confirmed within weeks, the WHO said. How is Zika related to microcephaly? Much remains unknown about Zika, including whether the virus actually causes microcephaly. Brazil said 508 cases of microcephaly have been confirmed, while 3,935 were still being investigated. Research in Brazil indicates the greatest microcephaly risk appears to be associated with infection during the first trimester of pregnancy. Recent studies from other countries have shown evidence of Zika in amniotic fluid, placenta and fetal brain tissue. What are the symptoms of Zika infection? People infected with Zika typically have a mild fever, skin rash, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain and fatigue that can last for two to seven days. As many as 80 percent of people infected never develop symptoms. The symptoms are similar to those of dengue or chikungunya, which are transmitted by the same type of mosquito. How can Zika be contained? Efforts to control the spread of the virus focus on eliminating mosquito breeding sites and taking precautions against mosquito bites such as using insect repellent and mosquito nets. U.S. and international health officials have advised pregnant women to avoid travel to Latin American and Caribbean countries where they may be exposed to Zika. How widespread is the outbreak? Active Zika outbreaks have been reported in at least 32 countries or territories, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Brazil has been the country most affected. (http://1.usa.gov/1ovAJyh) Africa (1): Cape Verde Americas (28): Aruba, Barbados, Bolivia, Bonaire, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Curacao, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Martinique, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Saint Martin, Suriname, U.S. Virgin Islands and Venezuela Oceania/Pacific Islands (3): American Samoa, Samoa, and Tonga What is the history of the Zika virus? The Zika virus is found in tropical locales with large mosquito populations. Outbreaks of Zika have been recorded in Africa, the Americas, Southern Asia and the 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. Can Zika be transmitted through sexual contact? Two cases of possible person-to-person sexual transmission have been described, but the PAHO said more evidence is needed to confirm if sexual contact is a means of Zika transmission. British health officials reported Zika was found in a man's semen two months after he was infected, suggesting the virus may linger in semen long after infection symptoms fade. The WHO has advised women, particularly pregnant women, to use condoms. The PAHO said Zika can be transmitted through blood, but this is an infrequent transmission mechanism. There is no evidence Zika can be transmitted to babies through breast milk. What other complications are associated with Zika? The WHO says because no big Zika outbreaks were recorded before 2007, little is known about complications caused by infection. During an outbreak of Zika from 2013-14 in French Polynesia, national health authorities reported an unusual increase in Guillain-Barre syndrome. Health authorities in Brazil have reported an increase in Guillain-Barre syndrome. Long-term health consequences of Zika infection are unclear. 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 and Lisa Shumaker; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Frances Kerry) (Reuters) - A U.S. man and his sister were sentenced to life in prison on Thursday for cyberstalking that led to the shooting death of the man's former wife and her friend in a Delaware courthouse lobby ahead of a contentious child custody hearing. David Matusiewicz, his sister Amy Gonzalez and his mother Lenore were convicted in U.S. District Court in Delaware last July of cyberstalking resulting in death, the first successful application of federal law on the offense, prosecutors said. They were also found guilty of conspiracy. Matusiewicz and Gonzalez were sentenced to life by U.S. District Judge Gerald McHugh on Thursday, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Delaware said. Matusiewicz's mother was sentenced to life at her bedside last week at Jefferson Medical Center in Philadelphia, federal prosecutors said. "This ground-breaking prosecution and investigation shows people who actively take part in planning crimes, even though they don't pull the trigger, will be held accountable," said Kevin Perkins, special agent in charge of the FBI in Delaware. On Feb. 11, 2013, David Matusiewicz and his father Thomas went to confront David's ex-wife Christine Belford at New Castle County Courthouse when she arrived for a child support hearing in their custody case. Thomas Matusiewicz then shot dead Belford and her friend Laura Mulford in the courthouse lobby and took his own life after exchanging gunfire with police. The shooting was the culmination of a four-year campaign of letters, websites and Internet postings to "stalk, harass, and intimidate" Belford, the mother of David Matusiewicz's three children, according to U.S. prosecutors. They said David Matusiewicz orchestrated the plan and recruited his parents and sister while serving a 48-month jail term for abducting his children and hiding out with them for 19 months in Nicaragua and other countries. (Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Mark Heinrich) Rumble This video shows the incredible behaviour of a caring mother elephant on high alert, quickly stopping her adorable baby which was curiously straying away from her towards a vehicle full of safari tourists. Going on safari in the Kruger National Park is a life changing experience. Driving around multiple tarred roads, slowly scanning a massive area of wilderness is all part of the thrill. You never know what will be around the next corner or what animal will suddenly appear from the bush onto the road. Its an exciting experience and one of the must-see animals for most tourists are elephants. Not only are they the largest land mammals on our planet and fairly intimidating, elephants are also one of the most intelligent and emotionally intelligent animals that roam this planet. Seeing these giants in the wild is always a sight to remember. The video shows an incredible moment filmed in the Kruger National Park when a safari vehicle full of tourists found a large elephant cow and her adorable calf next to the road. The safari vehicle stopped and it looked like the mother elephant and her baby wanted to cross the road. The baby elephant was the cutest thing alive in the wild right at that moment. While the elephant cow remained focussed on crossing the road, her baby took notice of the safari vehicle and curiously started straying away from its mother towards the vehicle. The caring mother elephant immediately went into high alert and quickly took her trunk and stopped her baby from going any closer to the safari vehicle. The mother elephant gently used her trunk to guide her baby back and into the right direction. It was incredible to see how quickly the elephant cow became protective over her baby. The elephant calf listened to its mother and in a well-behaved manner, walking on the opposite side of its mother, continued to focus and follow its mother as it should. This is crucial for the survival of the calf in the wild. The gestation period of an elephant is twenty-two months, so it is very understandable that an elephant calf is seen as a huge investment and there will always be a mother around, ready to protect her calf from any potential danger. Even though the tourists were not a direct threat, the mother elephant knows all to well that there are humans that still pose a danger for them in the wild. The mother of such a small calf is definitely not something to mess with at all and its best never to get too close to a mother and her calf. By Philip Pullella and Gabriel Stargardter CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Wednesday railed against immigration policies that force many underground and into the hands of drug gangs and human smugglers, praying at Mexico's border with the United States in what was once one of the world's deadliest cities. He walked up a ramp lined with flowers to a cross erected in Ciudad Juarez in memory of migrants who have perished trying to reach the United States just a stone's throw away. There he blessed three small crosses which will be sent to the dioceses of El Paso, Ciudad Juarez and Las Cruces, New Mexico. Shoes of migrants who died were laid beside them. Overlooking the Rio Grande that separates the two countries, it was the closest the pope came to the U.S. border during his six-day visit to Mexico. He then celebrated Mass just 80 yards (73 meters) from the border crossing in a fairground, connected via video link to faithful gathered at a university stadium in El Paso. "We cannot deny the humanitarian crisis," the pope said shortly before he wrapped up his six-day visit to Mexico and took off for Rome. "Each step, a journey laden with grave injustices: the enslaved, the imprisoned and extorted; so many of these brothers and sisters of ours are the consequence of trafficking in human beings." "Injustice is radicalized in the young; they are 'cannon fodder', persecuted and threatened when they try to flee the spiral of violence and the hell of drugs. Then there are the many women unjustly robbed of their lives," he added. A major manufacturing center, the gritty industrial city of Ciudad Juarez has been hammered by drug violence in recent years. It also an important crossing for Mexicans, Central Americans and Asians trying to reach the United States illegally. Most in Ciudad Juarez are of modest means. Business leaders in the city say about 70 percent of people in the city, a major low-cost manufacturing center, earn less than 210 pesos (11 USD) a day. The official minimum wage in Mexico is 73 pesos per day. The pope's focus on the plight of migrants who risk murder, rape and extortion as they head north, comes as the number of Central American children and families apprehended at the border rises, in a spike reminiscent of a 2014 flood of migrants that created a major political headache for U.S. President Barack Obama. Immigration reform remains one of the most divisive issues in U.S. politics, and a key theme in the 2016 presidential vote. The pope's stance is starkly at odds with the anti-immigrant rhetoric of candidates for the 2016 Republican U.S. presidential nomination. Billionaire Donald Trump has surged ahead of his rivals with his message that Mexico is "killing" the United States with cheap labor, while sending over criminals and rapists. He has also promised to build a huge border wall. Trump last week dubbed the pope "a very political person", saying he believed the Mexican government had put him up to the border visit. "To suggest that the pope is an instrument of the Mexican government, no. That is very strange indeed," said Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, shortly before the pontiff arrived in Ciudad Juarez. "The pope always speaks of the problems of immigration. If Mr. Trump were to come to Europe he would see that the pope has said the same things about immigration to the Italians, the Germans, the French and the Hungarians." Tens of thousands of people crossed over the border from El Paso, Texas, to hear the pope, though that was far fewer than expected. Earlier on Wednesday, the pope issued a scathing critique of capitalism, saying that God will hold accountable "slave drivers" who exploit workers. "The flow of capital cannot decide the flow of people," the Argentine pontiff said, denouncing "the exploitation of employees as if they were objects to be used and discarded". "God will hold the slave drivers of our days accountable," he said. The pope has in the past called money "the dung of the devil" and has decried what he calls the "evils" of unbridled capitalism, prompting criticism from U.S. business leaders. He has visited some of the most marginalized areas of Mexico, urging young people in the violence-ridden state of Michoacan to avoid drug trafficking and taking a swipe at the country's rich and corrupt. Earlier in the day, it emerged that a laser beam was pointed at his plane as he landed in Mexico City last week, though there was no harm to those aboard. (Additional reporting by Lizbeth Diaz in Ciudad Juarez and Lisa Maria Garza in El Paso; Editing by Simon Gardner, Alistair Bell and Andrew Hay) By Edith Honan and Elias Biryabarema KAMPALA (Reuters) - Police detained Uganda's main opposition candidate Kizza Besigye for the third time this week and clashed with his supporters on Friday as early contested election results showed President Yoweri Museveni set to extend his 30-year grip on power. Officers set off stun grenades and fired tear gas at crowds outside the headquarters of Besigye's Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), where senior members of the party accused organizers of rigging the vote. Police later bundled Museveni's chief challenger into a van as the party was preparing to hold a press conference, a Reuters witness said. Officers said he was about to announce unofficial preliminary results - one commander said he had not been arrested but simply taken home. Museveni, one of Africa's longest-serving leaders, has presided over strong economic growth, but faced mounting accusations at home and abroad of cracking down on dissent and failing to tackle corruption. Other clashes broke out across the capital, and the spokesperson for another presidential contender, former prime minister Amama Mbabazi, said police had barricaded him in his home, stoking tensions a day after the vote. That report could not be confirmed independently. MUSEVENI EXTENDS LEAD Early results showed Museveni, a Western ally against security threats including Islamist militants, with a sizeable lead of 62 percent based on a count of ballots in 42 percent of polling stations. Besigye trailed with 33 percent of the vote, and Mbabazi with 2 percent. But Dan Mugarura, a senior official from Besigye's party, said there were "glaring discrepancies" compared to reports from polling stations. The Electoral Commission has regularly denied accusations of anti-opposition bias. "(Besigye) is a Ugandan but he is living on another planet. Let him respect Ugandan law," said commission chairman Badru Kiggundu on Friday. The 71-year-old sitting president had earlier warned that anyone caught stoking violence would face the wrath of Ugandan security forces, who were deployed in heavy numbers across capital Kampala in riot gear. Besigye, who challenged Museveni unsuccessfully in three previous elections, has repeatedly said the election would not be free and fair. Late on Thursday, he was briefly detained in Kampala for alleged criminal trespass and assault. U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said it called into question Ugandas commitment to a transparent election, free from intimidation. Election day was otherwise largely peaceful, although voting was delayed in some areas, especially in the capital. The government, citing security fears, said it shuttered the social media such as Facebook and Twitter, though all were working again on Friday. On Friday morning, voting resumed in a handful of areas where delays in delivering polling materials had prevented some people from casting their ballot. "It's our right to vote," said Geofrey Were, 32, as he stood waiting for the second day in a row in the Ggaba neighborhood of Kampala. "This man has ruled us for 30 years. Obviously we need a change." (Additional reporting by Ben Makori and Goran Tomasevic; Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by George Obulutsa and Andrew Heavens) A newly established southern Vancouver Island elk herd is in trouble after two pregnant females were illegally killed by poachers. The first carcass was found at Sandcut Creek two and a half weeks ago. Another was found this week close to a Jordan River access road. Provincial conservation officer Peter Pauwels said this is a devastating blow for a herd this small. "That's really four animals out of a total of less than 10, so it's set that back years," Pauwels told All Points West host Robyn Burns. "It may actually force them to move out of the area." The area east of Jordan River is prime elk habitat, but the animals had previously been hunted out of the region. Pauwels said this new herd likely a splinter group from a larger herd near Port Renfrew has only been in the area for about three years. "That's a pretty short period of time, [but] they did have an established group there," Pauwels said. "There were females. There's a bull in there as well. They were breeding. They were an established group that was getting larger. "With elk, it's safety in numbers. The smaller the group, the more vulnerable they are, so this has really set them back." Elk a high-value species Pauwels said local First Nations are both disappointed and angry about the killings. "They realize what's taken place here," Pauwels said. "There was an opportunity for this herd to grow, and to grow to a point where there could be a harvestable surplus of them if they'd been allowed to do their thing. Now that's not going to happen, probably." Pauwels said cases like this are taken very seriously, because elk are considered a high-value species on Vancouver Island. They also spook less easily than other game, making them more vulnerable to poachers. "Sometimes they're not as careful as, say, deer," he said. "They have a tendency to stand there and they become easy targets." Story continues Unless someone comes forward with information, Pauwels said the case is unlikely to be solved. Hunting of elk is strictly regulated in B.C. Penalties for poaching include seizure of hunting equipment, suspension of hunting privileges and a maximum fine of $25,000. Map: Sandcut Creek area To hear the full interview, listen to the audio labeled: Poachers deal devastating blow to new Vancouver Island elk herd DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said on Friday it suspended a $3 billion aid package for the Lebanese army in what a official called a response to Beirut's failure to condemn attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran. Saudi Arabia was enraged when Iranians, protesting against the kingdom's execution of a Shi'ite Muslim cleric, raided its missions last month - and many countries in the region came out in support of Riyadh. The Saudi SPA news agency quoted an official source saying Lebanon had not joined in condemning the attacks at two recent summits because Beirut had come under pressure from Lebanon's powerful Shi'ite Muslim movement Hezbollah. The unnamed official added that Riyadh had also canceled the remainder of $1 billion in aid it had earmarked for Lebanon's internal security service. The moves underlined the deep sensitivities in a region riven by the rivalry between Sunni Muslim power Saudi Arabia and the leading Shi'ite power Iran. The two are backing different sides in Syria's civil war and different factions in neighboring Lebanon. Lebanon's Prime Minister Tammam Salam urged Saudi Arabia to reconsider. "We express our deep appreciation for King Salman bin Abdulaziz and his brothers in the Saudi leadership ... and we hope for a reconsideration of the decision to halt the aid for our army and security forces," Salam said in a statement. Saudi Arabia pledged the aid package for the Lebanese army in 2013 in what then-Lebanese President Michel Suleiman called the largest grant ever to the country's armed forces. The first shipment of French weapons and military equipment had already been delivered to Lebanon in April last year under the Saudi-funded deal to bolster the Lebanese army's fight against Islamist militants encroaching from neighboring Syria. The Saudi official source quoted by SPA said the kingdom had always supported Lebanon. But "despite these honorable stands, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia had been met with Lebanese stands that are against it on Arab, regional and international arenas," the statement said. Sunni politician Saad Hariri, who is backed by Saudi Arabia, criticized what he said was "use of the Lebanese state's foreign policy in the service of regional axes" - an indirect reference to Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, and to Lebanese Hezbollah and its backer Iran. Bassil, who attended the January summits, refused to vote on a joint Arab statement condemning the Saudi mission attacks, because he said it also criticized Hezbollah, and stressed the need for "national unity" in Lebanon. Bassil's Free Patriotic Movement is allied to Hezbollah. Hezbollah on Friday said the Saudi decision to halt aid had been taken a long time ago because of the kingdom's spending on its military involvement in Yemen, and because of low oil prices. (Additional reporting by Laila Bassam and John Davison in Beirut and Mostafa Hashem in Cairo Writing by Sami Aboudi; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Andrew Heavens) By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) called on Wednesday for $56 million to combat the Zika virus, a disease that has been linked to severe birth defects in Brazil and has spread to 39 countries. The funds sought would be used until June to fast-track vaccines, carry out diagnostics and research into how the mosquito-borne virus spreads, as well as virus control, the WHO said. A public health expert, Lawrence Gostin, said the United Nations health agency had "grossly underestimated" the need as the virus, which has spread rapidly across the Americas, will likely spread to many other regions. The WHO declared the outbreak a global public health emergency on Feb. 1, noting the association of the virus with two neurological disorders: microcephaly in babies and Guillain-Barre syndrome that can cause paralysis. "Possible links with neurological complications and birth malformations have rapidly changed the risk profile for Zika from a mild threat to one of very serious proportions," WHO Director-General Margaret Chan said in a WHO strategy paper on Wednesday. The funds sought to include $25 million for the agency and its regional office and the rest for aid partners such as UNICEF. The WHO expects the money to come from states and other donors. In the meantime it has tapped a new emergency contingency fund for $2 million for initial operations. Gostin, a professor at Georgetown University in Washington, said the WHO should have a much larger emergency contingency fund. He compared the funding plan to the WHO's initial slow response to the outbreak of Ebola, a virus that killed more than 11,300 people in two years, mostly in West Africa. BRAZIL MICROCEPHALY CASES RISE Brazil, worst hit by the Zika outbreak, said on Wednesday that most of the 508 confirmed cases of microcephaly reported in the country are likely related to the virus, and called its previous count too conservative. Microcephaly is marked by abnormally small head size that can result in developmental problems. Brazil is investigating a surge in the number of cases, but it has not yet been proven that the virus can cause the rare defect. The Health Ministry reported on Wednesday a total of 4,443 suspected and confirmed cases of microcephaly, up from 4,314 a week earlier. It did not, however, update its total of 41 cases in which it said that microcephaly had been linked by laboratory tests to Zika infections. The ministry said later that the government would cease to update the confirmed number of linked cases because "the Health Ministry considers that there were Zika virus infections in most of the mothers whose babies have been diagnosed" with the condition. The previous counts, the ministry said, "did not adequately represent the number of cases observed." There is no treatment for Zika, which had been viewed as a relatively mild illness until the concerns over microcephaly and Guillain-Barre syndrome emerged. At least 15 companies and academic groups are rushing to develop a vaccine. Hopes of a breakthrough took a small step forward on Wednesday when U.S. biotech firm Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc said its experimental shot had induced a robust and durable response in mice. Shares in the U.S. biotech firm, which expects to test its product in humans before the end of the year, rose by as much as 7 percent on Wednesday. COLOMBIA MAY HOLD CLUES Colombia is another Latin American country hard hit by Zika and that country's health minister said the effects of the virus there could have global relevance as scientists research the suspected link with microcephaly. In contrast to Brazil, Colombia has yet to register any cases of the birth defect connected to Zika, Health Minister Alejandro Gaviria told Reuters. Zika is primarily transmitted by a type of mosquito, meaning current efforts to control the outbreak are focused on protecting people, especially pregnant women, from bites and eradicating mosquito populations in affected areas. However, research is under way on potential transmission by sexual contact. The WHO noted on Wednesday that "existing scarce evidence indicates that there may be a risk of sexual transmission." But research studies are needed to assess the presence of the Zika virus in semen and other body fluids and potential sexual transmission as well as mother-to-child transmission, the WHO said. (Additional reporting by Ben Hirschler in London, Amrutha Penumudi in Bengaluru, Paulo Prada in Sao Paulo, Julia Symmes Cobb and Luis Jaime Acosta in Bogota; Writing by Frances Kerry; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky, G Crosse and Lisa Shumaker) By Gulsen Solaker and Umit Bektas ANKARA (Reuters) - Twenty-eight people were killed and dozens wounded in Turkey's capital Ankara on Wednesday when a car laden with explosives detonated next to military buses near the armed forces' headquarters, parliament and other government buildings. The Turkish military condemned what it described as a terrorist attack on the buses as they waited at traffic lights in the administrative heart of the NATO member's capital. The attack, the latest in a series of bombings in the past year mostly blamed on Islamic State, comes as Turkey gets dragged ever deeper into the war in neighboring Syria and tries to contain some of the fiercest violence in decades in its predominantly Kurdish southeast. President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey's determination to fight those behind such acts would only get stronger and that it would not hesitate to exercise its right to self defense. "We will continue our fight against the pawns that carry out such attacks, which know no moral or humanitarian bounds, and the forces behind them with more determination every day," he said in a written statement. Deputy Prime Minister and government spokesman Numan Kurtulmus said 28 people including soldiers and civilians were killed and 61 wounded in the blast, which occurred near a busy intersection less than 500 meters from parliament during the evening rush hour. Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag described the attack as an act of terrorism and told parliament, which was in session at the time, that the car had exploded on a part of the street lined on both sides by military vehicles. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who had been due to attend meetings in Brussels on the migration crisis on Thursday, canceled the trip, an official in his office said. Erdogan postponed a planned visit to Azerbaijan. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing. A senior security source said initial signs indicated that Kurdish militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were responsible. Separate security sources in the southeast, however, said they believed Islamic State militants may have been behind it. "I heard a huge explosion. There was smoke and a really strong smell even though we were blocks away," a Reuters witness said. "We could immediately hear ambulance and police car sirens rushing to the scene." RUSH HOUR A health ministry official said the authorities were still trying to determine the number of dead and wounded, who had been taken to several hospitals in the area. Ankara police said they were examining CCTV footage of the car used in the attack. Images on social media showed the charred wreckage of at least two buses and a car. The explosion, which came shortly after 6:30 pm (1630 GMT), sent a large plume of smoke above central Ankara. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg condemned the attack. "NATO allies stand shoulder to shoulder in the fight against terrorism," he said in a statement. Turkey faces multiple security threats. It is part of a U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State in neighboring Syria and Iraq, and has been shelling Kurdish militia fighters in northern Syria in recent days. It has also been battling PKK militants in its own southeast where a 2-1/2 year ceasefire collapsed last July, plunging the region into its worst violence since the 1990s. The PKK, which has fought a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy, has frequently attacked military targets in the past, although it has largely focused its campaign on the mainly Kurdish southeast. More than 100 people died in Ankara last October in an attack blamed on Islamic State, when two suicide bombers struck a rally of pro-Kurdish and labor activists outside the capital's main train station. A suicide bombing in the historic heart of Istanbul in January, also blamed on Islamic State, killed 10 German tourists, while a bomber killed more than 30 people in the town of Suruc near the Syrian border last July. (Reporting by Turkey newsrooms in ANKARA and ISTANBUL; Writing by Nick Tattersall and David Dolan; Editing by Giles Elgood and John Stonestreet) Bill Cosby has filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Andrea Constand, her mother, her attorneys and the National Enquirer, saying they "have all broken a confidentiality agreement negotiated in 2006, according to a partially unsealed complaint filed in U.S. District Court, Cosby is asking for Constand to return the money she got in the settlement. The sealed complaint was originally filed on Feb. 1 but U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno ordered a redacted version be released earlier this week. The suit alleges Constand, 42, and her mother Gianna broke the confidentiality agreement when they spoke to the Montgomery County district attorney's office last summer. Andrea and Gianna "voluntarily participated in a 2015 reinvestigation of Andrea Constand's allegations against Mr. Cosby," the lawsuit says. "Both Andrea and Gianna voluntarily sat for interviews with the district attorney, even though they were under no legal obligation to do so and the terms of the confidentiality agreement expressly prohibited such conduct." Cosby, 78, has been charged with allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea at his Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, mansion in January 2004. Former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor, Jr. declined to prosecute Cosby for the alleged crime in February 2005 but his successor reopened the case last summer. The suit alleges Dolores Troiani, one of Constand's attorneys, violated the agreement when she "voluntarily cooperated with the investigation and turned over her case files from the underlying litigation to the district attorney." The suit also alleges Troiani and her former law partner, Bebe Kivitz, violated the agreement by filing a defamation lawsuit against Castor and by writing an open letter to Castor following his public comments about Constand. The National Enquirer, owned by America Media, Inc., has allegedly violated the same agreement because it "has published and continues to publish stories regarding allegations against Mr. Cosby made by Andrea Constand and other individuals despite its clear contractual obligations to not publish any stories relating to certain allegations against Mr. Cosby." Constand sued American Media and Cosby for defamation in 2005 and settled the lawsuit with a confidentiality agreement in late 2006. Troiani declined to comment on the lawsuit but filed a brief opposing the document being sealed, saying Cosby and his representatives have "engaged in a public campaign to support Cosby's public persona as a moralist and to discredit the many women who accused Cosby of unwanted sexual comment with them." An AMI spokesperson released a statement calling the Enquirer's coverage of the case "unflinching" "We are confident that when the court reviews his claims against the ENQUIRER, it will find them to be without merit," the statement said. A preliminary hearing on the criminal case is scheduled for March 8. OTTAWA (Reuters) - The new Canadian Liberal government on Thursday dropped a bid to return former Guantanamo Bay inmate Omar Khadr to jail, and said the Canadian citizen should remain free while he appealed his murder conviction by a U.S. military tribunal. Khadr, now about 29 and once the youngest inmate in the special U.S. jail, was returned to the Canadian province of Alberta in 2012 to serve the rest of his sentence for killing a U.S. soldier. An Alberta court ruled that he could be released on bail and he left jail last May. The then right-of-center Conservative government challenged that court's decision on the grounds that his release would hurt relations with the United States. "The government of Canada respects the decision of the (Alberta) court ... which determined that Mr. Khadr be released on bail in Canada pending his U.S. appeal of his U.S. convictions and sentence," Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said on Thursday in a statement with Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould. Khadr had pleaded guilty to charges that included murdering a U.S. Army medic in a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002, when Khadr was 15. He later recanted, saying he pled guilty to get out of the Guantanamo base in Cuba. Canadian-born Khadr was taken to Afghanistan by his father, a senior al Qaeda member who apprenticed the boy to a group of bomb makers who opened fire when U.S. troops came to their compound. Khadr was captured in the firefight, during which he was blinded in one eye and shot twice in the back. (Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) MADRID/BEIJING (Reuters) - Spanish police have arrested a sixth worker at the Madrid branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), a Madrid court said on Friday, after five directors were detained in a raid on Wednesday. The arrests follow an investigation by police, the Spanish tax agency and Europol into alleged money-laundering through the branch involving funds suspected of having been transferred via the bank to China by a criminal group. "The bank remains operative. The entrance and registration was done within the strict framework of the investigation and, so, there has been no judicial intervention in the bank itself," the court said in a statement. The six suspects are due to testify later on Friday, it said. The arrested face charges of money laundering, fraud and tax crimes and include the Madrid branch's general manager, according to a legal source. "The bank is paying great attention to developments," an ICBC spokesman in Beijing said. No one at the bank in Madrid was immediately available for comment. China's foreign ministry said in a statement earlier on Friday that the country attached high importance to the case and it had asked that Spain protect the rights and interests of Chinese firms and citizens there and handle the case in accordance with the law. (Reporting by Paul Day and Maria Vega in Madrid, Shu Zhang in Beijing; Editing by Adrian Croft, Greg Mahlich) 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 My Favorite Quotes Recent Quotes Portfolio Summary Your most recently viewed tickers will automatically show up here if you type a ticker in the Get Quotes box on the top of the page. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 19 Trend: The Azerbaijan Deposit Insurance Fund (ADIF) has paid the compensations worth over 21 million manats to clients of the bankrupt Bank of Azerbaijan, a statement posted on ADIF's website said. As of Feb. 19, the official exchange rate is 1.5635 AZN/USD. The process of receiving applications from Bank of Azerbaijan's insured depositors started since January 29, 2016. The amount of the insured deposits in Bank of Azerbaijan is 24.2 million manats. The payments are made in the branches of Muganbank and Rabitabank, assigned as agent banks. At the same time, more than 621,000 manats have been paid to Ganja Bank's clients since Feb. 4. In general, the amount of insured deposits in Ganja Bank is 1.5 million manats. The payments to Ganja Bank's depositors are made in the branches of Rabitabank, Unibank and Kapital Bank. ADIF has also started paying compensations to Texnikabank's depositors since February 12. More than 12.6 million manats have been paid to the bank's clients recently. The payments to Texnikabank's depositors are made in the branches of Muganbank, Rabitabank, Unibank and Kapital Bank. The fund returns up to 30,000 manats for each insured deposit. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 19 By Azad Hasanli - Trend: Azerbaijan is developing a new model of Islamic banking, chief executive officer of B.EST Solutions Islamic finance consultancy, Islamic Financing consultant and member of the CIS Islamic Banking Advisory Council, Behnam Gurbanzada said. He made the remarks within the framework of the Commonwealth of Independent States Global Business Forum (CIS GBF 2016) in Dubai, according to the forum's website. He said plans are afoot to introduce Islamic banking regulations in the country. He went on to add that while the workflow was "not too fast" in the past, in the current economic environment, there is a greater focus to bring real banking solutions with a focus on customers. Gurbanzada said Azerbaijan is developing a new model of Islamic banking, even as one commercial bank is all set to becoming fully Islamic. Last year, the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) allocated to Azerbaijan a grant of $200,000 to improve the legislative framework, which will form the basis for Islamic banking. Bogota (AFP) - President Juan Manuel Santos has suspended visits to Colombia by FARC negotiators saying they breached an agreement that allowed them in to explain to their fighters agreements reached during peace talks in Cuba. Santos initiated the ban last year after guerrilla leaders met with local residents and participated in public events during their last visit, despite restrictions on such activities. "This was an unacceptable violation," chief government negotiator Humberto de la Calle said, speaking from the Narino presidential palace in Bogota. He said the troublesome visit had taken place in Conejo, an isolated village held by the FARC in La Guarija department near the Venezuelan border. The visit by Ivan Marquez, Jesus Santrich and Joaquin Gomez was the fifth thus far to Colombia by FARC leaders negotiating in Havana, de la Calle said. "A fundamental rule of this agreement (on visits) is that they do not make politics with arms," de la Calle added. He said the government had asked the International Committee of the Red Cross to help the group return to Havana "as soon as possible." In images posted on social media and released by local media, the FARC leaders appeared in civilian clothing accompanied by armed fighters in uniform. "We will finally obtain peace!" one fighter said from the podium, with locals crowded around waiving white flags and Colombian ones. Jorge Restrepo of the CERAC conflict analysis resource center said the "crisis" caused by the FARC leaders' visit was a sign that the peace process had "lost credibility." Colombia's biggest rebel force, the now 7,000-strong FARC, has been fighting the government in Bogota for five decades. The Marxist-inspired Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the government have said they aim to sign a peace deal by March 23. Once a virtual failed state, Colombia is increasingly seen as a pivotal player in Latin America and one of the region's most dynamic and democratic countries. FRA Awards Louisiana $1.1 Million for Increased Rail Crossing Safety The award is part of the agency's campaign to reduce fatalities at railroad crossings. The Federal Railroad Administration has awarded $1.1 million to Louisiana in order to increase safety at railroad crossings along six miles of Kansas City Southern tracks in Baton Rouge. This is one of nine rail projects across eight states selected to receive $10 million to upgrade and increase the safety of railroad crossings. "These grants will reduce accidents and fatalities at railroad crossings and help modernize our nation's rail system," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. "Through a combination of these grants, education, and enforcement, we can and will achieve our goal of preventing accidents and deaths at railroad crossings." Since 2000, there have been 11 accidents that have resulted in four injuries along this part of Baton Rouge. Louisiana ranked in the top five states for fatalities at railroad crossings, with 13 fatalities in 2014. "Families in this neighborhood travel across these tracks every day taking their children to school and going to work. But these crossings do not have all the safety measures that families and this community deserve with so many trains transporting crude oil and other energy products. Today's investment will go a long way to keep families safe and move us closer to achieving the goal of reducing fatalities at railroad crossings," said FRA Administrator Sarah E. Feinberg. Russia on Friday was set to order the formal arrest of the owner of one its largest international airports on charges of safety violations over a 2011 suicide bombing, a day after he was taken into custody. Dmitry Kamenshchik, the owner of Moscow's Domodedovo airport, faces charges over the lack of scanning equipment on entry to the airport which allowed the bomber to bring explosives into arrivals hidden under his clothes for the attack that killed 37 people. The airport owner was detained overnight after arriving voluntarily for questioning as a witness at the powerful Investigative Committee. A Moscow court was set to formalise his arrest at 2 pm (11:00 GMT) Friday. Kamenshchik faces up to 10 years in prison after being charged with providing unsafe services that caused multiple deaths. Domodedovo airport said in a statement that Kamenshchik's detention was "groundless." It said the airport would continue operating as normal. The Investigative Committee said in a statement that Kamenshchik and other officials "introduced a new system of inspection at the entrances to the airport, which increased the airport's vulnerability." The airport argues that 2010 legislation allowed airports not to put all those entering the building through a metal detector, instead opting for selective inspection. It denies it was economising on security measures. "The transport safety of the airport met and meets the legal norms," Kamenshchik said at a briefing on Wednesday, adding that "the law has evolved." Kamenshchik arrived at the Investigative Committee on Thursday carrying a bag of personal belongings, an indication he expected to be detained, Kommersant daily reported. "I'm not afraid because I know that I have the truth behind me," he told journalists. Russian Forbes magazine last year listed 47-year-old Kamenshchik as Russia's 27th richest businessman with a fortune of $3.8 billion. Russia earlier this month arrested three former and acting airport officials in the same probe. Story continues Bomber Magomed Yevloyev died in the attack in January 2011 claimed by the Caucasus Emirate movement of Islamist warlord Doku Umarov. Russia in 2013 sentenced three men to life in prison for their roles in helping the suicide bomber. Domodedovo, Russia's only privately controlled airport, has been rebuilt from an ageing Soviet relic to a bustling hub used by 86 airlines. After the attack the authorities voiced concerns over Domodedovo's complex ownership structure. The state owns a blocking stake in the two other major Moscow airports, Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo. Kamenshchik at a briefing on Wednesday denied that the criminal case was linked to any "conflict with the government." (Bloomberg) -- Asian investment banks scouting for extra revenue may want to look at Taiwan. The worlds most insured nation is opening up some of its riskier business to the regions derivatives providers. The islands watchdog is easing rules so insurers can use derivatives to hedge risks arising from the sale of investment- linked policies, according to a statement from the Financial Supervisory Commission. The change aims to boost local sales of variable annuities -- policies that can offer buyers returns in retirement linked to the performance of funds -- to cater for the needs of an aging population. By tapping derivatives, Taiwan insurers could offer Asias investment banks a potential bite of business tied to more than $80 billion of annual premiums as the regions lenders cut jobs and retrench in some areas. While variable annuities are already popular in U.S. and European markets, in Asia theyre most widely sold in Japan, where more recent entrants like Credit Suisse Group AG compete with incumbents like Societe Generale SA. Taiwans insurance business is extremely competitive and variable annuity products are a way insurers can differentiate themselves, said Cyrille Troublaiewitch, head of Citigroup Inc.s multi-asset group for Asia Pacific. Almost every insurance company in Taiwan is looking into this. No. 1 Taiwan had the worlds highest insurance penetration rate in 2014, as measured by the ratio of premiums received to gross domestic product, according to Taiwan Insurance Institute data that cited a Swiss Re Ltd. report from June last year. Insurers including Canadas Manulife Financial Corp. have suffered losses by failing to hedge against variable annuities, especially after the 2008 financial crisis roiled global markets and eroded asset values. In mature insurance markets such as Japan, hedging gives variable annuity sellers an edge as they compete based on the strength of their balance sheets, according to John Goff, the head of global markets structuring at Nomura Holdings Inc. Fixed annuities are seen as less risky as they provide a guaranteed payout. Story continues In a risk-based capital framework, the capital charges on variable annuities may be higher than fixed annuities, Hong Kong-based Goff said. By hedging with banks, insurers transfer the risks from the variable annuity products to the banks and reduce the charge on their balance sheet. Big in Japan Japans life insurers collected 7.3 trillion yen ($64.5 billion) of new premiums for fixed and variable annuities from individuals last year, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That compares with Taiwans NT$303 billion ($9.1 billion) from new and recurring annuity premiums, part of a total NT$2.91 trillion the industry received from individuals. Banks arent expecting a flood of new business just yet. Even with the rule change, Taiwans insurance market differs from Japans and that may impede the growth of variable annuity products, according to Citis Troublaiewitch. Policyholders in Taiwan are used to products with high fixed-rate guarantee, he said. How to position a product with a potentially higher but variable return relative to what Taiwanese are used to would be key to the success of variable annuity products. To contact the reporter on this story: Regina Tan in Hong Kong at rtan87@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Scent at bscent@bloomberg.net; Andrew Monahan at amonahan@bloomberg.net Chris Bourke, Ken McCallum By Gabriela Baczynska and Robin Emmott BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Austria infuriated European Union peers on Thursday by insisting on capping the number of migrants it takes in, undermining Germany's push to seek a joint EU solution to the bloc's refugee crisis in tandem with Turkey. EU leaders reaffirmed at a Brussels summit there was no alternative to a common European approach to the migration wave that exposed deep differences in the EU. They also resolved to hold a special summit with Turkey in early March to make a joint plan to stem the influx work better. In a clear show of exasperation at the Austrian move, announced unilaterally on the eve of the summit, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said: "National solos are not to be recommended." What had been expected to be a relatively calm discussion on implementing the bloc's tentative strategy to curb the number of refugees entering Europe turned into what one diplomat called a blazing row with Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann. Other EU officials said Vienna's action was tantamount to "giving the finger to the rest of Europe", and "for the benefit of Austrian tabloids". Faymann insisted he did not only hear criticism during the summit dinner: "There was a lot of understanding," he said. "We cannot provide all the asylum in Europe." Austria, the last stop on the way to Germany for hundreds of thousands of migrants who have flocked to Europe, announced on Wednesday it would reimpose barriers on its southern borders. Despite a warning from the EU's migration chief that the cap would break EU and international humanitarian law and pressure at the table to suspend the measure, Faymann vowed to press ahead with the plan and said his own lawyers had other views. Austria's dispute with its peers is symptomatic of the rifts the massive flow of migrants into Europe has opened within the EU, with member states often ignoring calls from the European Commission to share the burden more evenly, and unilaterally reimposing barriers to movement over their borders. The leaders issued a statement saying: "The comprehensive strategy agreed in December will only bring results if all its elements are pursued jointly and if the institutions and the Member States act together and in full coordination." Austria had been due to host a pre-summit meeting between Turkey and 11 EU states on Thursday, but that was called off due to a bombing in Ankara - a setback to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's hopes of pressing ahead with the EU-Turkey pact. EU leaders issued a statement condemning the Ankara attack. "PLAN B" Germany, which took in over one million migrants last year, has led efforts to offer money and promise to revive Turkey's long-stalled EU accession talks to get Ankara to prevent more people from embarking from its shores for Europe. "The important statement for me today is that we have not only reaffirmed the EU-Turkey action plan, but we have said it is our priority," Merkel told reporters. But many doubt it would work and have pushed towards beefing up border controls along the migration routes, which could eventually lead to tens of thousands of people being stuck in Greece, giving rise to major humanitarian problems in a country already struggling with its own deep financial crisis. "Merkel is completely isolated on this, she is losing political capital. All the others get increasingly impatient every week. So it's going to happen this way or another, even though it would mean leaving Greece in the cold," said one diplomat. The EU would then need to provide humanitarian assistance to Greece, a possibility already mentioned in the draft conclusions of the 28 leaders' meetings. An EU official also warned that countries would tighten borders further by the time leaders meet for their next summit in mid-March. Four sceptical eastern European members have floated a fallback policy of ring fencing Greece to keep the migrants they expect to land there from proceeding through Macedonia and Bulgaria to other EU countries to the north and west. The "Plan B" suggested by Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic did not go down well in Brussels and Berlin. European Council President Donald Tusk, who chaired the summit, told a news conference: "We must first avoid a battle among plans A, B and C. It makes no sense at all, as it creates divisions within the European Union." The four eastern states, which strongly oppose a German proposal for distributing refugees around the EU, have sought to portray their proposal as another leg of EU strategy, rather than an alternative to seeking an effective deal with Turkey. Merkel, on arriving at the summit, pledged to press ahead with the EU-Turkey pact despite the cancellation of the planned meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. "I would like the EU-Turkey immigration agenda to be granted priority so that we do everything to implement what has been agreed to protect our outer borders, and also to divide roles with regard to the many refugees coming from Syria," she said. One EU diplomat said the influx of migrants must be stemmed by a mid-March EU summit on migration. "Without stemming the flows, there is no hope. By March time will be running out ... relying simply on Turkey to deliver is not enough." (Additional reporting by Francesco Guarascio, Tom Koerkemeier, Jan Strupczewski, Philip Blenkinsop, Robert-Jan Bartunek and Alastair Macdonald; Writing by Paul Carrel and Paul Taylor; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Alastair Macdonald) Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 19 Trend: Switzerland's Stadler Rail Group began production of sleeping type passenger cars for use on the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway, Javid Gurbanov, head of Azerbaijan Railways JSC said Feb. 19. He made remarks during the meeting with Switzerland's Ambassador Philipp Stalder. "In total, 30 cars will be built for use on BTK," he said. "The cars are produced in four categories: standard, comfort, business and restaurant." The cars will be 10, 20 and 32-seater depending on their category, according to Gurbanov. Azerbaijan Railways JSC cooperates with Stadler Rail Group since 2015, he noted adding that Stadler delivered three KISS double-decker electric trains to the country for Baku-Sumgait route. Additional two electric trains of Stadler will be delivered to Baku in the near future, added Gurbanov. The ambassador expressed satisfaction with the large-scale reforms conducted by the Azerbaijan Railways JSC in all fields. The sides decided to further expand the bilateral cooperation. The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway is being constructed on the basis of the Georgian-Azerbaijani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement. Its commissioning is planned for the second half of this year. The peak capacity of the BTK is to be 17 million tons of cargo per year. At the initial stage, the capacity will be one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of cargo. By Gabriela Baczynska, Robert-Jan Bartunek and Alastair Macdonald BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Austria said on Thursday it would go ahead with introducing daily caps on migrants despite warnings from Brussels that the move broke European Union rules, which have already been badly stretched by the migration crisis engulfing the bloc. Vienna announced it would let in no more than 3,200 people and cap asylum claims at 80 per day from Friday as it tries to cut immigration, drawing criticism from the European Union's migration chief. "Politically I say we'll stick with it ... it is unthinkable for Austria to take on the asylum seekers for the whole of Europe," Austria's Chancellor Werner Faymann said on arriving at an EU leaders' summit in Brussels. Around 700,000 migrants entered Austria last year and about 90,000 applied for asylum in the country sitting on the migrant route from Turkey via Greece and the Balkans to Germany. "After 100,000 refugees, we can't tell the Austrian people that it will just continue like this. That's why I tell the EU: we set a good example but to think that you don't have to do anything, then I have to say it is time for the EU to act," Faymann said. Austria is the latest EU state to resort to its own measures to curb migration and try control the flows as the 28-nation bloc has all but failed to implement a joint response to its worst migration crisis in decades. "It is true that Austria is under huge pressure," European Union Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos told Reuters earlier on Thursday. "It is true they are overwhelmed. But, on the other hand, there are some principles and laws that all countries must respect and apply." Avramopoulos sent a letter to Austria's Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner on Thursday, urging Vienna to reconsider the move as it was against EU laws. "The Austrians are obliged to accept asylum applications without putting a cap," Avramopoulos said. But Faymann blamed the failure of the European migration and refugee policies, saying the bloc's relocation plan to ease the burden on most-affected countries was not working and criticising central-eastern EU members who have stalled it. The migration crisis, which saw more than a million people reach Europe last year, opened deep rifts between EU states, which are trading blame and increasingly resorting to ad-hoc national solutions despite Brussels calls to prevent them. Faymann backed Merkel in pushing for more cooperation with Turkey to get Ankara to curb the number of migrants and refugees who embark from its shores towards Europe. Germany and Austria are among 11 EU states that were due to meet Turkey separately before the summit of all 28 EU leaders to discuss taking in more people directly from Turkey to discourage perilous journeys across the Mediterranean. "Every agreement between Turkey and Greece to protect the common border and make legal immigration possible, every advance and may it be ever so mediocre, would be necessary and right," Faymann said, adding he would seek a new meeting with Turkey after the Thursday one was cancelled over a bombing in Ankara. (Additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla and Francois Murphy in Vienna; Editing by Andrew Heavens) Bulgarian truckers sealed off all six checkpoints along the country's land border with Greece on Friday to protest at weeks of intermittent blockades by Greek farmers that have disrupted road traffic. Parliament issued a special declaration urging the European Commission to start an infringement procedure against Greece for violating EU laws on the free movement of goods. Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has also intervened in the feud, accusing Greece on Thursday of "purposefully tormenting Bulgarians". Greek farmers have demonstrated for more than a month against pension and tax reforms demanded by the European Union in return for bailout funds, blocking roads into Bulgaria and across Greece with tractors. Bulgaria's busiest Kulata-Promachonas checkpoint has been shut for all vehicles since Tuesday and truckers stepped up their action on Friday by blocking all six posts along the 430-kilometre (270-mile) frontier, border police said. The action forced traffic to divert through neighbouring Macedonia and Turkey for as long as the protest action continues. Bulgarian truckers' unions are angry over the Greek farmers' protests that have blocked the passage of freight trucks, disrupting traffic and inflicting huge losses on the freight companies. A man walks on the blockaded motorway near the Promachonas border crossing on February 18, 2016. Truckers have vowed to maintain the blockade until the Greek farmers remove their tractors and free up all roads into Bulgaria. The EU member has the fifth-largest number of trucks in the European Union, according to unions figures. "Hundreds of Romanian, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Austrian truckers are also stuck at the border," Krasimir Lalov, deputy chairman of the National Union of Bulgarian Freight Forwarders told AFP after returning from the Kulata checkpoint on Friday. "Why do these governments remain silent?" OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) - Burkina Faso has arrested 11 members of the dissolved presidential guard, a pillar of deposed President Blaise Compaore's regime, in connection with the raid of an armoury near the capital this week, the army said on Saturday. Friday's raid of the Yimbdi armoury came less than a week after al Qaeda fighters killed 30 people, including many foreigners, in attacks on the capital Ouagadougou, underscoring the security challenges for new President Roch Marc Christian Kabore. "Since yesterday, we have arrested a total of 11 from the RSP (presidential guard)," said Mahamadi Bonkoungou, head of the army operations unit, adding that they were still pursuing other perpetrators thought to be on the run. Army officials sought to play down the quantity of weapons seized during the raid, saying that the kalashnikovs and the rocket launchers taken were not loaded. They said the aim of the attack was to strike a military base, without giving details. The former French colony is emerging from a fragile transition period following the ousting of long-ruling Compaore in October 2014. A year later, Compaore's former spy chief General Gilbert Diendere sought to use the RSP to overthrow an interim government, just a week before presidential elections. Diendere was jailed for treason and the presidential guard was quickly dissolved, although some of its members disappeared. (Reporting by Mathieu Bonkoungou; Writing by Emma Farge; Editing by Marguerita Choy) By Aaron Ross KINSHASA (Reuters) - Congolese authorities vowed on Monday to punish state employees who skip work or show up late on Tuesday, when opposition parties plan a general strike to pressure President Joseph Kabila to step down late this year. Employment Minister Willy Makiashi said in a statement that attendance would be taken in all state offices and "any lateness or absence" would be met with "exemplary punishment in conformity with the rigor of the law". Kabila is supposed to step down after a presidential election slated for November, on completion of his second and final elected term, but opposition leaders accuse him of planning to hang on to power by delaying that vote. Dozens were killed in violent protests in Jan. 2015 against these alleged plans by Kabila, who succeeded his assassinated father in 2001. Government spokesman Lambert Mende dismissed the strike as "senseless" and instigated by a "small group of people", yet authorities were still taking precautions. Kabila has refused to comment on his future and has appealed for a dialogue to help organise this year's voting after the election calendar was thrown into disarray when elections for local and provincial posts were missed last year. The opposition calls this a delaying tactic and says Kabila must be pressured to hold the presidential vote this year. Calls by the opposition and other activists for a general strike marked a retreat from initial plans for pro-democracy marches on Tuesday after the powerful Roman Catholic Church withdrew its support last month. The Church said the event had been co-opted by political interests. Foreign embassies urged their citizens to exercise caution. The United States, French and Belgian schools in Kinshasa will all stay closed on Tuesday, diplomats said. Leonard She Okitundu, a senior member of Kabila's People's Party for Reconstruction and Democracy (PPRD), told Reuters he expected Tuesday to be a normal day but criticised the embassies' warnings. "It is calls like that that are going to encourage other institutions to recommend to their employees or students not to show up," he said. (Editing by Makini Brice and Tom Heneghan) Right now, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are collaborating with researchers in Brazil studying Zika virus. The scientists aim to figure out definitively whether the rapidly spreading mosquito-borne virus is harming the developing brains of fetuses, leading to infants born with smaller heads and smaller brains. In a recent press briefing, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said that "with each passing day, the association between the Zika virus and microcephaly is looking stronger and stronger." Now, to further investigate whether there is indeed a cause-and-effect link between the virus and microcephaly, researchers will use a key type of research study called a case-control study, Frieden said. Early evidence of a causal link is emerging: The CDC recently analyzed specimens of brain tissue collected from two infants with microcephaly in Brazil who died shortly after birth, and two pregnancies that ended in early miscarriage. All four mothers had signs of Zika infection, such as fever and rash, in the first trimester of pregnancy. Those lab results showed the presence of Zika virus in the brain tissues of the babies and placental tissues from the miscarriages. This suggested a strong connection between in-utero exposure to the Zika virus and microcephaly, according to a CDC report published on Feb. 10. [Zika Virus News: Complete Coverage of the 2016 Outbreak] To further investigate a causal link between the Zika virus and microcephaly, one of the key methodologies that researchers will use is a case-control study, Frieden said. A case-control study could provide stronger evidence of a link than the preliminary research gathered so far, he suggested. Using this type of study, the researchers will identify infants who definitely have microcephaly, considered the "cases," and babies who don't have the birth defect, considered the "controls." Once the investigators have a large enough number in each group, the scientists can then compare many of the characteristics of the infants and their mothers, looking at environmental exposures and laboratory test results, to tease out which differences between the groups may signal a causal connection. Story continues Searching for clues Currently, the CDC is working to rapidly accumulate information and carefully evaluate all the scientific evidence that could help establish the full picture of the link between Zika and microcephaly, said Peggy Honein, an epidemiologist at the CDC's National Center for Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities in Atlanta. A planned case-control study of Zika and microcephaly is starting soon in Brazil, and a field team from the CDC has traveled there to help in this research, Honein said. The CDC also hopes to start a similar study in Colombia, and is working on reviewing cases in Puerto Ricol, Honein added. For the Brazil study, the researchers hope to enroll a total of 400 to 500 women who had babies in the last few months, including both those babies with microcephaly (as cases), and those without the condition (as controls), Honein told Live Science. The researchers will examine risk factors, such as whether the women had symptoms of the Zika virus during their pregnancies, which trimester they had these symptoms, and whether the women had other potential prenatal exposures, such as to rubella or environmental toxins, that might be strongly associated with an adverse birth outcome, including microcephaly, Honein said. Whenever possible, researchers will also look to see if there is any lab confirmation of these infections, but the scientists may need to base their assessment of whether the infection was present on the symptoms experienced by the women, Honein said. Between mid-2015 and January 2016, about 4,800 infants born in Brazil were reported as having suspected microcephaly, whereas fewer than 200 cases were reported per year in the country prior to the Zika outbreak, according to a recent paper in the journal Lancet. The outbreak began in the northeast region of Brazil in early 2015. However, although there has been a huge increase in suspected cases of microcephaly, the number of actual microcephaly cases in Brazil may be much lower. The number may drop when lab tests, imaging exams and rigorous investigations by health professionals are completed, the authors of the Lancet study said. Why case-control studies could give clues Microcephaly can be a difficult birth defect to monitor, because there are different criteria and definitions used to diagnose it, Honein said. She also said that researchers are looking at examples of other viral illnesses that can cause health problems in infants if the infections occur during pregnancy, such as rubella and cytomegalovirus infections. The researchers are trying to use this information to understand more about the Zika virus and its possible mechanisms of causing microcephaly. [Video: What You Need to Know About Zika Virus] Case-control studies are widely used, especially for studying infectious diseases, said Stephen Morse, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health in New York City, who specializes in studying emerging infectious diseases. Such studies are easy to do and are efficient for gathering data for rarer diseases that have a relatively small number of cases, he said. Case-control studies are valuable when researchers want some quick answers, and the studies are an appropriate place to start accumulating information in these circumstances, Morse told Live Science. "But the trick is finding appropriate matched controls as a comparison group," he explained. Other types of studies such as cohort studies, which are used to evaluate the cause of a disease in a group of people over time based on their exposure to risk factors can take a long time to complete for a rare disease, such as microcephaly, Morse said. A case-controlled study could probably be completed in a few months, he said. Learning more information from a case-control study can help strengthen the evidence of a causal relationship between Zika infections in pregnant women and microcephaly, Morse said. Researchers will collect information from pregnant women in Brazil about numerous factors: their age; socioeconomic status; living conditions; nutritional status; exposure to toxins during pregnancy, such as pesticides or lead; and infections experienced during pregnancy. By doing so, the researchers can sort out whether the Zika virus alone or in combination with other risk factors may be contributing to this birth defect, he explained. Little is currently known about the prevalence of Zika virus infections in the Brazilian population at large or in pregnant women, so there is a need to understand what percentage of pregnant women who were exposed to the Zika virus had babies born with microcephaly, Morse said. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science. Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Weary EU leaders take up the cudgels for a second day Friday, still with "a lot of work to do" to prevent Britain becoming the first country to crash out of the bloc. Talks ran through the night in Brussels as officials struggled to thrash out difficult compromises needed to get everyone on board, with Prime Minister David Cameron running into serious opposition to some of his reform demands. Under pressure from eurosceptics in his own Conservative Party and a hostile right-wing press, Cameron is seeking sweeping reforms to the 28-member bloc before putting Britain's membership to an in-out referendum. Cameron had earlier urged his EU peers on day one of the tense two-day meeting to reach a "credible" reform deal that would allow him to hold this referendum in June. But the British demands have experienced serious faultlines in the EU, also sharply divided on how to tackle its biggest migration crisis since World War II. And in the early hours of Friday, EU President Donald Tusk warned there was much more to do to bridge these sharp differences. "For now I can only say that we have made some progress but a lot needs to be done," Tusk told a brief press conference before rushing off to a fresh round of overnight meetings with key leaders. Earlier in the week, EU officials had hoped Friday would begin with an "English Breakfast," with a deal served up for final approval. However, as talks got bogged down, that became an "English Brunch" and now an "English Lunch" is on the menu. "Work ongoing on revised UK/EU settlement. Next round of bilateral (meetings) at 1100. 'English Lunch' foreseen at 1330 (1230 GMT)," the European Council said. - 'Goodwill' from Merkel - Cameron appears to have won the crucial support of German Chancellor Angela Merkel who said she has shared many of his wishes "for years." "The agreement's not easy to take for many but goodwill is there. We are ready to compromise because advantages are higher than disadvantages when there is Brexit," Merkel told reporters, referring to the popular term for a British exit from the EU. Others were less accommodating, especially French President Francois Hollande who insisted Britain could not expect to have a veto over other EU member states who want to press ahead with the European project. Hollande said earlier that he wanted an agreement and that it was "possible" -- but warned that "no country can have the right to veto" eurozone states. Cameron also ran into headwinds from Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, who said he was "very determined" Britain should not get a free ride and opt out on the EU's goal of "ever closer union". The Czech premier meanwhile leads a group of four Eastern European countries that object to Britain's request for a limit to welfare benefit payments for EU migrants working in Britain for four years. Brussels has offered an "emergency brake" to limit benefits for new migrants for four years, which Britain could invoke if its welfare system is overwhelmed by the inflow of workers, as it believes it has been. But Poland and other eastern European member states who have hundreds of thousands of citizens in Britain bitterly oppose such a change, saying it would discriminate against them and undermine the EU's core principle of freedom of movement. - 'Live and let live' - Cameron says he will back a 'Yes' vote in the referendum if he can cut a deal in Brussels. Failing that, he has said all options are open, refusing to rule out the possibility that Britain could become the first country to leave the EU in its more than 60-year history. In an impassioned speech to his colleagues, as the summit began, Cameron called for a "sort of live and let live" approach to reach a deal. He urged them to secure "a package that is credible with the British people", adding that the issue of Britain's place in Europe "has been allowed to fester for too long" and that there was now a chance "to settle this issue for a generation". Britons voted overwhelmingly in favour of staying in the EU in a 1975 referendum, just two years after joining, but the issue of "Europe" is never far from the top of the British political agenda. Recent opinion polls suggest a narrow lead for those who want to stay in the EU but there does seem to have been a modest increase in the 'No' camp. Many voters are thought to be undecided. The EU told Austria Thursday to reconsider its plans to limit asylum claims which it warned would be "plainly incompatible" with European Union laws. The clash came as European Union leaders meeting in Brussels on Thursday piled pressure on Turkey to curb the flow of migrants to Europe under a deal signed last year. European migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos complained in a letter to Austria's Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner after she said Wednesday the country would cap the daily number of asylum claims at 80. "Such a policy would be plainly incompatible with Austria's obligations under European and international law," Avramopoulos said in a copy of the letter obtained by AFP. Avramopoulos cited the European Convention on Human Rights, the Geneva Convention and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. "Austria has a legal obligation to accept any asylum application that is made on its territory or at its border," the letter said. "I would urge you to reconsider the unilateral measures which you are proposing." European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker also criticised the proposal. "As far as Austria is concerned I have to say I don't like this decision, we are questioning whether it is within European law, and we will have a friendly discussion," Juncker told a news conference. - 'Reaching breaking point' - Mikl-Leitner said her government had no choice but to introduce the measures taking effect from Friday because Austria is among the EU countries most under strain from the unprecedented migrant influx and is "reaching breaking point." The move came a day after Vienna said it would step up controls at existing checkpoints along its southern frontier with Italy, Slovenia and Hungary to curb the influx of migrants and refugees trekking up through the Balkans. The daily limit on asylum claims is broadly in line with Austria's announcement last month that it would only take in 37,500 asylum-seekers this year -- sharply down from the 90,000 it accepted in 2015. Since January, the country of nearly nine million has already received 11,000 asylum claims, or around 250 a day. Separately the police chiefs of Austria and four other countries on the migrant route through southeast Europe announced an agreement Thursday for a joint refugee registration point at the Greek-Macedonian border. Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia and Austria will jointly profile and register migrants from war-torn countries and then organise their "controlled transport" through to Austria, Croatia's police director Vlado Dominic said. Sweden said it plans to house nearly 1,800 migrants on a luxury cruise ship, as it struggles to cope with its share of the huge migrant influx into Europe. - Pressure on Turkey -- In Brussels, the EU added to pressure on Ankara, as EU officials say thousands of migrants are still crossing the Aegean daily from Turkey after more than one million made the perilous journey last year in the continent's worst such crisis since World War II. Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte, whose government holds the rotating presidency of the EU, said he hoped NATO's announcement last week that it would start naval patrols in the Aegean Sea could make a difference. The latest draft summit conclusions, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, calls for "the full and speedy implementation" of the plan agreed by the EU and Turkey in November last year despite some progress by Ankara. Central European countries said Wednesday they would push for further border restrictions in Europe's passport-free Schengen zone unless they see results from Turkey cutting from the present number of around 1,500 to 2,000 a day. Under the action plan, the EU will give Turkey three billion euros to aid refugees on its territory and Turkey will crack down on people smugglers and cooperate with the EU on the return of people who do not qualify as refugees. Turkey will meanwhile get its wish for the acceleration of its bid for membership of the EU, with only one of 35 so-called "chapters" in the accession process completed in a decade of stop-start talks. By Alastair Macdonald BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron was arguing on Friday with his EU peers on the following outstanding issues in a draft reform package to help him campaign to keep Britain in the European Union: EURO ZONE One of only two EU states to neither use the euro nor be bound to adopt it in time, Britain stands alone in insisting there will never be just one currency in the bloc, and Cameron demanded safeguards, particularly for London's financial sector, against being harmed by decisions taken by the euro zone. An initial draft secured assurances to that effect but raised concern in France that different banking regulations in London and the euro zone could unfairly benefit the former. A second draft introduces wording to strengthen the need for rules to be uniform among states inside and outside the EU banking union. A third draft sent to leaders early on Thursday and seen by Reuters shows an explicit reference to there being a "level playing field" in banking regulation. But it also places a full section on how to ensure that in square brackets -- denoting that only the top political leadership will settle the matter. Cameron is also pressing for Britain to able to hold up euro zone legislation if it feels its vital interests are at risk. Other states want Britain to need support from other states to trigger that move and tighter wording to ensure it has no veto. EUROPEAN INTEGRATION Cameron has secured a repeat of an EU assurance that treaty commitments to an "ever closer union" of the peoples of Europe are not "equivalent to the objective of political integration". But in a nod to federalists, notably Belgium, the later drafts say that, nonetheless, political integration "enjoys wide support in the Union". In assuring Britain that EU states retain sole responsibility for their national security, it adds: "The benefits of collective action on issues that affect the security of all member states is recognised." Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel is still unhappy about setting a precedent of a legal guarantee that states do not have to participate in deeper political integration. TREATY CHANGE Ensuring that reforms are legally binding and amount to a lasting change in the EU treaties has become a touchstone of domestic credibility for Cameron. Passages of the draft text, referring to euro zone issues and that of ever closer union, which say that EU leaders agree to incorporate "the substance" of their agreements on the euro zone and sovereignty into EU treaties when next they come up for amendment remain in doubt. EU officials say that an agreement among leaders at the summit will constitute a binding intergovernmental treaty and so a pledge to treaty change may be unnecessary. Many governments fear that a mounting euroscepticism across Europe will make it very difficult to win popular ratification for new EU treaties. Some officials say even a mention of future "treaty change" in the proposed text may create problems of ratification and would rather it did not appear at all. However, negotiators say they recognise that it is politically important for Cameron. MIGRATION Long seen as the trickiest of the British demands, the EU offered an "emergency brake" mechanism to help Cameron fulfil promises to reduce immigration from the EU by curbing welfare benefits to EU workers for up to four years after they arrive. Most governments have accepted that extraordinary circumstances give Britain the right to apply this "brake". But Poland and its eastern allies want to limit to four years the period Britain can penalise their citizens. The text sets a maximum of four years during which an individual can be denied benefits. But it refers to the total period that a state can exercise the emergency brake only as "[X] years, extendable for two successive periods of [Y] years and [Z] years". Britain would like that to add up to at least seven - equal to the period it did not exercise its EU right to bar Eastern European workers after they joined the EU in 2004. That early British welcome to workers from the ex-Communist east appears in the final draft, which says one ground for using the emergency brake relates to countries that did not bar new members' citizens for a transition period. That wording aims to reassure those worried that states other than Britain may try to use it. The final draft also includes the word "non-contributory" in defining the kind of benefits that can be withheld -- very few states other than Britain offer significant payments like that. Some East European officials indicate they could accept the emergency brake being used for up to seven years -- perhaps three years extendable for two years then two years. However, they want tight limits on a proposal to let states cut child benefit for workers whose children live in poorer states by indexing them to living costs there. They want that to apply only to new migrant workers and ideally only to Britain, not the whole EU. Britain sees the limitation to new workers as unviable. Other rich states want to be able to cut payments too. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 19 By Elchin Mehdiyev - Trend: Former Azerbaijani President Ayaz Mutallibov knew that Khojaly genocide would happen, Khanlar Veliyev, Azerbaijan's military prosecutor said Feb. 19. He made this statement during a presentation of the "Genocide of 1918 against Azerbaijani people" book. At that time, Azerbaijani Interior Ministry spread information that only two people died during this tragedy, and later the state had to make considerable efforts to prove that 613 people were killed during this tragedy, he said. "These events started in November of 1991 and continued intensively. They went on in various districts of Karabakh," said Veliyev adding that though they did not have the scale as Khojaly, but dozens of people died, hundreds were wounded. "On Feb. 16-17, 67 people were killed in Garadagly and a week later Khojaly genocide happened," said Veliyev. 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. The event became the largest massacre in the course of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the US are currently holding peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented the UN Security Council's four resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions. (Reuters) - The Federal Bureau of Investigation searched the Southern California home of the brother of one of the shooters in the Dec. 2 San Bernardino attack, a law enforcement source close to the investigation said on Thursday. The source said that investigators with a search warrant went to the Corona home of Syed Raheel Farook, a Navy veteran whose brother and sister-in-law, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people at a holiday party. Officials are battling Apple Inc in court to get the company to help them unlock an iPhone that had been used by one of the shooters. The source said that investigators do not intend to make an arrest on Thursday. The source did not say whether the search was related to efforts to unlock the iPhone. Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife died in a shootout with police the same day they attacked the holiday party. (Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Calif.; Editing by Matthew Lewis) Fighting at a UN peacekeeping base sheltering civilians in South Sudan has left at least 18 people dead, the medical charity MSF said on Thursday. Two of the fatalities were local staff members who were attacked in their own homes, it said. "This attack on civilians is outrageous and we demand that armed groups stop these actions," Marcus Bachmann, coordinator of MSF projects in South Sudan, said in a statement. "People came to the... site looking for protection and this should be a sanctuary respected by all parties." Earlier, the United Nations reported that violence between ethnic Dinka and Shilluk communities broke out overnight Wednesday at the base, located in the northeast town of Malakal, and continued into the day. It gave a toll of seven dead and 40 injured. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the fighting and expressed concerns about the rise of ethnic violence in the more than two-year conflict, according to a statement from his spokesman. Over 47,700 people live inside the Malakal base, many of whom came from areas where no aid or shelter had been available for months. It is one of eight UN bases providing a haven since a civil war began in late 2013. The bases, sheltered around 200,000 people, are protected by razor wire and no weapons are allowed in them. The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said "violence involving the use of small arms, machetes and other weapons broke out." Peacekeepers fired tear gas to break up crowds, it said. MSF said an initial surge of violence lasted around three hours, forcing around 600 people, mostly women and children, to gather inside the organisation's hospital. "More casualties are currently arriving," it said. Resident Jack Nhial, speaking from inside the base, said the assailants "used Kalashnikovs and machine guns... the situation is still tense." Peacekeepers were now patrolling the base in tanks, he said. The UN mission has more than 12,000 peacekeepers, with half of them deployed solely to protect the civilians in their bases. Malakal is in government control, but frontlines with rebel areas are close by. - Conflict and hunger - South Sudan's civil war erupted in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of planning a coup, setting off a cycle of retaliatory killings that have split the poverty-stricken, landlocked country along ethnic lines. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and over two million forced from their homes, pushing the world's youngest nation to the brink of famine. Over 2.8 million people -- almost a quarter of the population -- need aid, while in war zone northern areas 40,00 are being starved to death with aid blocked amid violence. Both the government and rebel sides have been accused of perpetrating ethnic massacres, recruiting and killing children and carrying out widespread rape, torture and forced displacement of populations to "cleanse" areas of their opponents. Earlier this month Kiir named exiled rebel chief Machar as vice-president, as part of a repeatedly broken August peace deal. Machar has yet to return to take up the post and fighting continues, with the conflict now involving multiple militia forces driven by local agendas or revenge, who pay little heed to paper peace deals. The UN has previously said attacks on its bases in South Sudan may constitute a war crime. In April 2014, gunmen killed at least 48 civilians when they opened fire on terrified civilians inside a UN base in the town of Bor. At least 10 attackers were also killed when UN troops fought back. JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli security forces shot dead three Palestinian assailants in separate incidents in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank on Friday, police and the military said, as a wave of heightened violence persisted into its fifth month. In Jerusalem, a Palestinian man stabbed two police officers outside the walled Old City before they opened fire and killed him, police said. A few hours later, in the West Bank, a Palestinian man tried to ram his car into a group of Israeli soldiers who then shot him dead, the military said. A third Palestinian man was killed by Israeli soldiers in a clash elswhere in the West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. An Israeli military spokeswoman said he was armed with an automatic weapon and fired on the troops during a riot. Since October, stabbings, shootings and car rammings by Palestinians have killed 28 Israelis and a U.S. citizen. Israeli security forces have killed at least 167 Palestinians, 110 of whom Israel says were assailants, while most others were shot dead during violent anti-Israeli protests. The bloodshed has raised concern of wider escalation a decade after the last Palestinian uprising subsided. Briefing the U.N. Security Council on Thursday, Nickolay Mladenov, the U.N. envoy on Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, said he was concerned the bloodshed may be entering "a new troubling phase". Mladenov called on both Israeli and Palestinian leaders to provide "a political horizon to their people" and reject incitement by what he called radicals in their own camps. Tensions have been stoked by various factors including a dispute over Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque compound and the failure of several rounds of peace talks to secure the Palestinians an independent state in Israeli-occupied territory. Palestinian leaders have said that with no breakthrough on the horizon, desperate youngsters see no future ahead. Israel says young Palestinians are being incited to violence by their leaders and by Islamist groups calling for Israel's destruction. Security officials have also pointed to economic hardship and social media as playing a role in triggering attacks. Many Palestinian attackers have been teenagers. On Thursday two Palestinian 14-year-olds stabbed and killed an Israeli, who also had U.S. citizenship, in a supermarket in the West Bank before an armed civilian shot and wounded the teens. "This horrific incident again underscores the need for all sides to reject violence, and urgently take steps to restore calm, reduce tensions, and bring an immediate end to the violence," the U.S. State Department said. (Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols in New York; Writing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Alison Williams) By David Brunnstrom and Ben Blanchard WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) - The United States accused China on Thursday of raising tensions in the South China Sea by its apparent deployment of surface-to-air missiles on a disputed island. U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said commercial satellite imagery suggested "very recent" placement of missiles on Woody Island in the Paracel island chain that went against China's pledge not to militarize the South China Sea. "The Chinese have said one thing, and yet appear to be doing another," Kirby told a regular news briefing. "We see no indication that ... this militarization effort, has stopped. And it's doing nothing ... to make the situation there more stable and more secure. In fact, it's having quite the opposite effect." On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States would have "very serious" talks with China about militarization of the South China Sea. China has offered little specific response to the missile deployment reports, which first appeared on Fox News on Tuesday, but has accused Western media of "hyping up" the story and said China had a legitimate right to military facilities on territory it views as its own. China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims. Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, the first senior Western official to visit China since the reports appeared, said she raised the issue of the South China Sea's militarization in talks in Beijing on Thursday. She told reporters after meeting China's top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, that China had "challenged" the deployment report but had neither denied nor admitted the missiles were there. "So until such time as we have a clear picture of it, of course it's a matter of concern," she said. Bishop referred to comments by Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington last year that China did not intend to militarize islands in the South China Sea, and added: "We certainly hold China to that and that's been reiterated to me." 'LIMITED DEFENSIVE FACILITIES' Yang explained that the islands in the South China Sea had been China's since ancient times and that "the limited defensive facilities that China has deployed on its own territory have nothing do with militarization," a Chinese statement said. Yang added that Australia should stick to its promise not to take sides and "not participate in or take any actions to harm regional peace and stability or Sino-Australia ties." On Friday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China was not militarizing the Spratly Islands and criticised U.S. air and naval patrols in the region. "These actions have increased tensions in the South China Sea and constitute the militarization of the South China Sea," Hong told a regular briefing, when asked about Kirby's remarks. The United States claims no territory in the South China Sea but has expressed serious concerns about how China's increasingly assertive pursuit of territorial claims there could affect the vital global trade routes that pass though it. Beijing has been angered by air and sea patrols the United States has conducted near islands China claims in the South China Sea. Those have included one by two B-52 strategic bombers in November and by a U.S. Navy destroyer that sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island in the Paracels last month. An influential Chinese state-run tabloid, the Global Times, said in an editorial on Thursday that China needed to strengthen its "self-defence" in the South China Sea in the face of "more frequent provocations from the U.S. military." "Jet fighters from the United States, an outside country, may feel uneasy when making provocative flights in the region. To us, that's a proper result," it said of the reported missile deployment. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Michael Martina in Beijing and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney and Clarence Fernandez) Vietnam on Friday hit out at China's deployment of missiles on a disputed island chain, saying Beijing had "seriously violated" its sovereignty as international censure mounted over the apparent militarisation of the hotly-contested zone. Chinese state media on Thursday confirmed the presence of unspecified weapons on Woody Island, part of the Paracels chain. The admission came after Fox News reported that surface-to-air weapons had arrived there in the past week -- although Chinese media suggested they have been in place for longer. Vietnamese authorities handed "a note of objection" to the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi on Friday, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "These were moves that seriously violated Vietnam's sovereignty over the Hoang Sa archipelagoes," spokesperson Le hai Binh said Friday, using the Vietnamese name for the Paracels. "Threatening peace and stability in the region as well as security, safety and freedom of navigation and aviation. Vietnam requests China to immediately end those wrongful acts." China claims all of the Paracels, though Hanoi and Taipei have overlapping claims. Earlier on Friday Australia urged China to refrain from the "militarisation of islands", a day after the United States slammed Beijing for deploying missiles in the disputed South China Sea. Tensions in the sea -- through which a third of the world's oil passes -- have mounted in recent months after China transformed contested reefs in the Spratly islands further south into artificial islands capable of supporting military facilities. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines also lay claim to parts of the sea. US President Barack Obama this week hosted Southeast Asian leaders for a summit. The US wants to shore-up its regional alliances with a view to avoiding flashpoints in the seas and keeping shipping lanes open. The US and Australia have carried out several so-called "Freedom of Navigation" overflights and sail-bys in the region, which China has described as "provocations". Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.19 Trend: Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has congratulated Portugal's President-elect Marcelo Rebelo de Susa. "I congratulate you on the occasion of your election to the post of president of the Portuguese Republic," said President Aliyev. "I am hopeful that we will make joint efforts to develop and expand friendly and cooperative relations between Azerbaijan and Portugal," he added. "I wish you robust health, happiness and success in your forthcoming activities for the welfare of the friendly people of Portugal," Ilham Aliyev said. By Martin Petty and Colin Packham HANOI/SYDNEY (Reuters) - Vietnam protested to China on Friday at a "serious violation" of its sovereignty over Beijing's apparent deployment of an advanced missile system on a disputed South China Sea island, while Australia and New Zealand urged Chinese restraint. Tensions between China and its neighbours over maritime territory have risen since Taiwan and U.S. officials said Beijing had placed surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island, part of the Paracel archipelago it controls. "Vietnam is deeply concerned about the actions by China. These are serious infringements of Vietnam's sovereignty over the Paracels, threatening peace and stability in the region as well as security, safety and freedom of navigation and flight," Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said in a statement. "Vietnam demands China immediately stop such erroneous actions." The statement said diplomatic notes had been issued to China's embassy in Hanoi and to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to protest at Beijing's activities, including the building of a military helicopter base on Duncan island. Earlier, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had urged claimants to refrain from island-building and militarization in the South China Sea. "It is absolutely critical that we ensure that there is a lowering of tensions," said Turnbull, speaking after a meeting in Sydney with New Zealand counterpart John Key. China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes every year and which is believed to have huge deposits of oil and gas. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims. The Philippines said it was "gravely concerned" about the reports of missiles being deployed on Woody Island. "These developments further erode trust and confidence and aggravate the already tense situation," its Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Australia's Turnbull said if Chinese President Xi Jinping was serious about avoiding the so-called Thucydides Trap, a foreign policy metaphor inspired by ancient Athens and Sparta in which a rising power causes fear in an established power that escalates towards war, he must resolve disputes through international law. "President Xi is right in identifying avoiding that trap as a key goal," said Turnbull. U.S. PATROLS Beijing has been angered by air and sea patrols the United States has conducted near islands China claims. Those have included one by two B-52 strategic bombers in November and by a U.S. Navy destroyer that sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island in the Paracels last month. Key said New Zealand, the first developed country to recognise China as a market economy and to sign a bilateral free trade deal, was leveraging its relationship with China to urge measures to lower tensions. "Does that give us more opportunities to make that case, both privately and publicly? ... my view is yes," said Key, noting that both Australia and New Zealand are now also part of the Beijing-led Asian Investment Bank. The comments come after Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop visited Beijing, where she raised the issues of the missiles and the South China Sea in meetings with Chinese officials, including top diplomat Yang Jiechi. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Australia and New Zealand "are not countries involved in the South China Sea". "We hope the two countries can objectively view the historical developments of the South China Sea, not neglect the facts, and not put forward proposals that are unconstructive," Hong told reporters. The Chinese government has offered few details in response to the missile claim, while accusing Western media of "hyping up" the story and saying China has a legitimate right to military facilities on territory it views as its own. An influential Chinese state-run tabloid, the Global Times, in an editorial on Friday, described the HQ-9 missiles that are apparently now on Woody Island as "a typical type of defensive weapon", but warned the People's Liberation Army might feel compelled to deploy more weapons. "If the U.S. military stages a real threat and a military clash is looming, the PLA may feel propelled to deploy more powerful weapons," it said. At a summit of Southeast Asian leaders in California on Monday, Vietnam's prime minister suggested to U.S. President Barack Obama that Washington take "more efficient actions" against militarization and island-building. (Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard and Michael Martina in BEIJING and Manuel Mogato in MANILA; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Alex Richardson) SWNS

Americans are still waiting for their Goldilocks moment four in five say theyve never found their perfect fit for certain items.

According to a new poll of 1,000 people 250 lbs and over and 1,000 people under 250 lbs, 52% struggle to find clothing, mattresses (40%) and bathtubs or shower enclosures (38%) that fit their body types.

In fact, about two-thirds (67%) find themselves struggling frequently with finding items that fit their body size needs.

This was especially true for those 350 lbs and over, as 41% admit they always struggle, compared to only 23% of those under 250 lbs.

Despite frequency, almost three-quarters (74%) of all respondents find themselves feeling frustrated when they are searching for an item that accommodates their needs.

Conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Big Fig Mattress, the survey asked respondents how they go about their everyday lives despite challenges they may face because of their body type.

Results found that seven in 10 respondents feel less confident when they struggle with finding items that fit their size needs.

When asked about other emotions respondents experience, those 250 lbs and over are more likely to feel set apart from others, citing embarrassed (59%) and isolated (53%).

While those who are under 250 lbs tend to lean towards disappointed (51%).

Even so, those 250 lbs and up were more optimistic than those under (35% vs 23%).

The average respondent has crossed off about five brands or retailers because they dont carry products that meet their physical needs.

However, for those who are 250 lbs and over, 72% have eliminated between three and eight stores.

Almost one in five (18%) of those under 250 lbs cited that all stores carry their size, compared to only 2% of those who are 250 lbs and up.

"This survey makes it clear that the 'all' part of 'one size fits all' couldn't be further from the truth," said Jeff Brown, president, Big Fig Mattress. "Almost two in five respondents haven't found something that they felt was made for them. Everybody and every body deserves a long-lasting and comfortable mattress to support a good night's sleep, regardless of your size."

Products made for all body types are an issue no matter what the product, with respondents needing to stand on furniture to reach something (46%) or finding that clothing is either way too long or too short (46%).

And ill-fitting items arent just an inconvenience, 61% of respondents say that clothing, vehicles (59%) and mattresses (50%) that arent made for their body type have a big impact on their quality of life.

More than half of those 250 lbs and over (53%) believe their life is more difficult than for someone who is considered normal sized.

But that doesnt mean respondents are only dwelling on the negative almost half (44%) frequently make light of their struggles.

When asked how they do so, respondents outlined things like, I speak to myself. I'm beautiful and special. I'm impeccable," and Remind myself that if this is the biggest problem I have, then I am doing just fine in life."

The survey also asked about relationship status and how respondents are navigating integrating their lifestyles with another uniquely sized person.

Seventy-four percent of all respondents are in a relationship and living with their significant other.

Almost half (45%) are mixed-size couples, meaning they have a noticeable difference in body size or type.

Because of this, couples face challenges like finding a place to live that accommodates both people (40%), struggling to share a mattress comfortably (40%) and having items that one person uses but the other never would such as step stools (34%).

In the end, more than two-thirds (68%) of all respondents agree that its difficult to navigate a one size fits all world when people have varying body types.

We believe and support being body positive, in body acceptance, and in making positive life choices, noted Brown. Bigger figured people deserve the same level of quality products and choices as everyone else. Its important to accept that all bodies are different and require more from product manufacturers, and I think the data makes that clear.

MOST DIFFICULT ITEMS TO FIND FOR A SPECIFIC BODY TYPE

Survey methodology:

This random double-opt-in survey of 1,000 Americans under 250 lbs and 1,000 Americans 250 lbs and up was commissioned by Big Big Mattress between September 8 and September 21. It was conducted by market research company OnePoll, whose team members are members of the Market Research Society and have corporate membership to the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) and the European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research (ESOMAR).

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi AMMAN (Reuters) - Syrian rebels have brought at least 2,000 reinforcements through Turkey in the past week to bolster the fight against Kurdish-led militias north of Aleppo, rebel sources said on Thursday. Turkish forces facilitated the transfer from one front to another over several nights, covertly escorting rebels as they exited Syria's Idlib governorate, travelled four hours across Turkey, and re-entered Syria to support the embattled rebel stronghold of Azaz, the sources said. "We have been allowed to move everything from light weapons to heavy equipment, mortars and missiles and our tanks," Abu Issa, a commander in the Levant Front, the rebel group that runs the border crossing of Bab al-Salama, told Reuters, giving his alias and talking on condition of anonymity. The reinforcements did not include fighters from the hardline Nusra Front or other jihadist groups, he said. A Turkish security source confirmed fighters had crossed the border but put the numbers at 400-500, and the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks violence across the war torn-country, also said hundreds had crossed. On Sunday, the Syrian government said Turkish forces were among 100 gunmen who had entered Syria accompanied by 12 pick-up trucks mounted with heavy machine guns, in an ongoing supply operation to insurgents. The route via Turkey has become the sole supply line for Azaz after the Syrian army closed what for years had been the main route into rebel territory and advanced to within 25 miles of the border for the first time in over two years. The Syrian army wants to seal it off altogether and reassert full control of Aleppo, Syria's largest city before the war. Inside Aleppo city, heavy clashes continued between Arab insurgent groups and Syrian Kurdish fighters in Kurdish-held neighbourhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, the Syrian Observatory said. Russian bombing has transformed the almost five-year-old civil war in recent weeks, turning the momentum decisively in favour of Moscow's ally President Bashar al-Assad. But the rapid advance of U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters has infuriated Ankara and threatened to drive a wedge between NATO allies. Turkey sees the militia as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a three-decade insurgency for autonomy in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast. Determined to prevent the YPG from gaining a foothold on its border, Turkey has shelled its positions in response to what it says is fire coming across the border. Turkey has also stepped up deliveries of military hardware to the rebels, another rebel source said. "We are getting fresh supplies of everything from missiles to mortars to armoured vehicles. Almost everything is now being delivered to us," said the rebel source. Turkish army vehicles were offloading the munitions and equipment onto Syrian rebel armoured vehicles and trucks, said the rebel, who was present during a handover of weapons. New supplies of ground-to-ground missiles with a range of 20 km (12 miles) had been provided to bolster the response to the Russian-backed attack, two rebel commanders said. Facing one of the biggest defeats of the five-year-long war, rebels have been complaining that foreign states such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey have let them down by not providing them with more powerful weapons, including anti-aircraft missiles. The rebels and the Turkish government accuse the Kurdish militias of a campaign of ethnic cleansing of Arab-inhabited villages in a bid to carve a fiefdom in Syria's north. The YPG has exploited the Russian-backed offensive, seizing ground from other opposition groups. After taking a string of towns, in what the rebels say is an advance coordinated with Russia, the YPG is now seeking to take Marea, the last town before Azaz. (Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi, additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk in Istanbul; Editing by Toby Chopra and Tom Miles) By Aaron Ross KINSHASA (Reuters) - A one-day general strike in Democratic Republic of Congo paralysed most economic activity in the capital on Tuesday in a bid to pressure President Joseph Kabila to quit power when his mandate ends in December. Traffic on the normally bustling streets was greatly reduced, few of the shared taxis that ferry much of the city's workforce were running and the central market was largely empty, witnesses said. Some schools were closed. There was a heavy police presence in Kinshasa and the second city Lubumbashi, but no reports of violence. "For us, this (strike) is an important action against an irresponsible government," said Abdul Mpia, 39. Others said the strike was causing hardship in a city where many make a living as street sellers or market traders. "We should wait until November when (Kabila) finishes his mandate," said a woman who identified herself as Mama Lily. "For now, let us work." The constitution bars Kabila from standing again in elections slated for November, but critics fear he wants to change the law or delay the poll to retain power. Kabila came to power when his father was assassinated in 2001. He won elections in 2006 and 2011 that the opposition says were rigged. The duration of his tenure has raised tension in a country that has never known a peaceful handover of power. More than 40 died in a police crackdown on protests in January 2015. In neighbouring Burundi, the president's decision to serve a third term has triggered nine months of violence in which at least 440 have died, and the United States has said it is deeply disappointed with a bid for a third term by the president of next-door Rwanda. Opposition leaders say Congo's strike is the first step in a broader protest movement but some analysts were sceptical about its impact. "I always thought that this particular strike would not have any significant consequence on the respective positions of people," said Pascal Kambale, former Congo country director for the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa. Authorities arrested six members of the Struggle for Change (Lucha) activist group in the eastern city of Goma overnight and one in Kinshasa who were preparing leaflets announcing the strike, the director of the U.N. Joint Human Rights Office in Kinshasa, Jose Maria Aranaz, told Reuters. One member of the opposition Union for the Congolese Nation (UNC) party was also arrested in the eastern city of Uvira, Aranaz said. Government spokesman Lambert Mende said he was not aware of any arrests. Embassies urged their citizens to exercise caution and U.S., French and Belgian schools in Kinshasa were closed. The popular Radio France International station was off the air in Kinshasa. Broadcasts were cut during last year's political unrest. (Additional reporting by Benoit Nyemba, Amedee Mwarabu Kiboko in Kinshasa and Kenny Katombe in Lubumbashi; Writing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg; Editing by Edward McAllister and Tom Miles) Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 19 Trend: The US Utah State Legislature issued a proclamation (citation) Feb. 17, 2016 commending the "long-standing traditions of interfaith tolerance, inclusion and harmony in Azerbaijan," Azerbaijan's Consulate General in Los Angeles told Trend. The proclamation signed by the Utah State Senate and House leadership was presented to Azerbaijan's Consul General in Los Angeles Nasimi Aghayev. In his address to the Utah State Senate, Consul General Aghayev noted that the Azerbaijani model of interfaith harmony has vividly proved the possibility for Muslims, Christians and Jews to live together in peace, dignity and mutual respect. He also thanked the Utah Legislature for this important proclamation, and for their support and friendship. The proclamation presented by Senator Gene Davis on the Senate floor and Representative Lynn Hemingway on the House floor, commends Azerbaijan's example of interreligious tolerance and harmony. Stressing the important contribution of Azerbaijan's Government, the proclamation noted that "Azerbaijan has created an environment that nurtures and promotes the ancient traditions of religious tolerance, and rejects extremism and hatred... The three major religions have prospered because of the respect and tolerance of the Azerbaijani people, and because of the role the government has played in fostering the environment of interfaith tolerance and mutual acceptance in the country." "Azerbaijan has repeatedly, over the course of the last decade, brought together religious leaders from the region and around the world to promote greatly needed interfaith dialogue," said the proclamation. "The year 2016 has been proclaimed a Year of Multiculturalism in Azerbaijan. In April 2016, Azerbaijan will host the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations Forum," further said the proclamation. The document ends by stressing that "given the rising levels of intolerance, hate, terrorism and xenophobia in the world, it is important for the United States of America to support its tolerant and secular allies and consider the Azerbaijani model of interfaith acceptance and community engagement as a functioning example, and encourage this policy around the globe." During his visit to Utah, Consul General Aghayev also met Lieutenant-Governor Spencer Cox, Senate President Wayne Niederhauser and House Speaker Gregory Hughes. Short videos of the Senate and House floor presentations of the proclamation can be watched here: https://youtu.be/FElJS5-JwKQ https://youtu.be/9626HkLsS94 By David Brunnstrom WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and the European Union warned China on Wednesday that it should respect an international court ruling expected later this year on its dispute with the Philippines over territory in the South China Sea. China claims virtually all the South China Sea and rejects the authority of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague hearing the dispute, even though Beijing has ratified the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea on which the case is based. Amy Searight, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defence for South and Southeast Asia, said the United States, the European Union, and allies like Australia, Japan and South Korea must be ready to make clear that the court's ruling must be binding and that there would be costs to China for not respecting it if it lost the case. "We need to be ready to be very loud and vocal, in harmony together, standing behind the Philippines and the rest of the ASEAN claimants to say that this is international law, this is incredibly important, it is binding on all parties," she told a seminar at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies. Searight said the message to China, if it did not respect a negative ruling, should be, "we will hold you accountable." "Certainly, reputational cost is at stake, but we can think of other creative ways to perhaps impose costs as well," she said without elaborating. The Hague tribunal has no powers of enforcement and its rulings have been ignored before. Manila has said the court may hand down a ruling before May. China disputes South China Sea territory with several other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as well as the Philippines. Klaus Botzet, head of the political section of the EU Delegation in Washington, said it was difficult to oppose world opinion. "A joint Western, a joint world opinion, matters also for Beijing," he said. "If we unanimously support that international law as formulated by the international tribunal in the Hague ... needs to be upheld, that's a very strong message and will be very difficult to ignore," he said. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said he had "noted" the comments, and repeated China's opposition to the arbitration case and refusal to participate. The Philippines' "scheme would never succeed", he told a daily news briefing in Beijing. In unusually forthright language, Botzet said China's policy of military buildup was not in its interest. "It's investing much more in its military relative to its economic growth; it's forcing its neighbours into alliances against itself; positions its neighbours otherwise wouldn't take and the return on investment on this policy is negative," he said. The United States had exceptional military capabilities in the Asia-Pacific, Botzet said, adding that the European Union "strongly supports the American guarantee of international law in Asia." (Additional reporting by Michael Martina in BEIJING; Editing by Bernard Orr and Clarence Fernandez) By Robin Emmott BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The United States is pressing NATO to play a bigger role against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, putting Washington at odds with Germany and France which fear the strategy would risk confrontation with the alliance's old Cold War foe Russia. All 28 NATO allies are already part of a 66-nation anti-Islamic State coalition, so the United States is looking to NATO as an institution to bring its equipment, training and the expertise it gained leading a coalition in Afghanistan. "It is worth exploring how NATO, as NATO, could make an appropriate contribution, leveraging for example its unique capabilities, such as force generation," U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said after meeting allies at NATO headquarters in Brussels last week and referring to NATO's know-how in drumming-up troops, planes and ships from allies. Seeking to recapture the Islamic State strongholds of Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, Washington wants a bigger European response to the chaos and failing states near Europe's borders. Carter's call for NATO's help came as defence ministers from the anti-Islamic State coalition met last week at NATO headquarters in Brussels for the first time, albeit with NATO insignia removed from the walls. Despite support from Britain, the U.S. push has not been received well by France and Germany. Given Russia's concerns over NATO expansion in eastern Europe, Paris and Berlin are worried that deeper NATO involvement in Syria could be taken by Moscow as a provocation that the alliance is seeking to extend its influence. As the Russian-backed Syrian government advance nears NATO's southeastern border, growing hostility between Russia and Turkey only makes some members of the alliance more reluctant, diplomats say. Notwithstanding an agreement between Russia and the United States to avoid accidental military air incidents, France and Germany worry Russia's targeting of opposition groups other than Islamic State increases the risks. "NATO and Russia would not be fighting a common enemy," a NATO diplomat said. NON-COMBAT OPTIONS Carter has sought to distinguish between Syria's civil war and the fight against Islamic State, saying the campaign against the militant group will go on regardless, and has pushed allies to accelerate their efforts. In that vein, Washington tested waters by making a request for NATO to provide its surveillance AWACS aircraft to the anti-Islamic State coalition fighting militants in Syria. Germany pushed back on the AWACS request. That has forced a compromise by which NATO will send the planes to allied countries so as to free-up allies to send more of their own equipment to fight Islamic State in Syria, diplomats said. France also sought assurances that the AWACS request did not mean NATO as an institution was being involved more deeply in the anti-Islamic State coalition. Still, NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Philip Breedlove said planning for a bigger alliance role was "a natural shift ... a natural evolvement of the thinking." "All our nations are under greater pressure, so this is just beginning. There is no detail but there are lots of opportunities that are being considered," he said. NATO involvement in Syria could help answer critics who say the alliance has watched passively as Russia has widened its role there. It could also address concerns expressed by southern allies, such as Spain, Italy and Portugal, that NATO does not have a strategy to address risks on the Mediterranean, the entry point for huge numbers of people fleeing conflict in the Middle East. British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said NATO might not yet be ready to move ahead along the lines suggested by Washington, "but the very fact that we brought together 45 members of the anti-IS coalition, inside NATO headquarters, shows you that we want to see a stronger governance of the coalition." "We want to be able to measure the progress of the campaign and to review it more regularly," Fallon told Reuters. For the moment, discussions on various options include more NATO training of Iraqi troops and police, as well as strengthening government departments in areas taken back from Islamic State, according a U.S. defence official. The United States has made clear it does not see a role for Western combat troops. "Territory retaken from ISIL (Islamic State) has to be occupied and governed by people who are from the area and want to live there," Carter said. (Additional reporting by Phil Stewart in Washington and Sabine Siebold in Berlin; Editing by Robin Pomeroy) By Nate Raymond and Anthony Deutsch NEW YORK/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Amsterdam-based telecommunications operator VimpelCom Ltd on Thursday said it would pay $795 million (555 million) to resolve U.S. and Dutch probes into a bribery scheme in Uzbekistan, in the second largest global anti-corruption settlement in history. The settlement was announced in a federal court in Manhattan, where a subsidiary pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate a U.S. anti-corruption law by paying $114 million in bribes to a Uzbekistan official. The deal was announced as the U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit seeking the forfeiture of $550 million in Swiss bank accounts tied to corrupt payments that VimpelCom and two other companies made to the official. That official, described as a "close relative of a high-ranking Uzbek government official," matched the description of Uzbek President Islam Karimov's daughter, Gulnara Karimova, who had been identified earlier as being at the centre of the probe. The Justice Department said VimpelCom, Nordic telecom operator Teliasonera AB and Eastern European telecommunications group Mobile TeleSystems paid more than $800 million to shell companies controlled by the official in order to help them enter into and operate in the Uzbek telecommunications market. VimpelCom's settlement resolved related probes by the Justice Department, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Prosecution Service of the Netherlands. It marked a near-record for a global anti-corruption accord, behind only a 2008 settlement with Siemens AG for $1.3 billion that resolved wide-ranging bribery probes in the United States and Germany. Scott Dresser, VimpelCom's general counsel, in court entered the guilty plea on behalf of Uzbek subsidiary Unitel LLC to conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. "The company deeply regrets its actions here, and we will make sure it never happens again," he said. Nicola Mrazek, a U.S. prosecutor, told a federal judge that the Justice Department had a "very robust, ongoing investigation into individuals" connected to the bribes. Dutch authorities likewise said they were investigating individuals, with one man already having been arrested in November. VimpelCom, whose biggest shareholders are Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman's LetterOne and Norway's Telenor, in November took a $900 million provision to resolve the investigations. KKR has agreed to buy into seeds provider Advanta Enterprises in a deal which values the business at about $2.25bn. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.19 Trend: Azerbaijani, Georgian and Turkish foreign ministers have signed a joint statement following the trilateral meeting in Tbilisi, said the official Twitter page of Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry. In the joint statement, the ministers expressed satisfaction with the regular meetings in trilateral format and reiterated their shared aspiration for strengthening peace, security and stability in the region. They emphasized their commitment to the Trabzon Declaration, the Batumi Joint Communique, the Ganja and Kars Statements adopted in the previous trilateral meetings of the ministers of foreign affairs. The ministers condemned in the strongest possible terms, the heinous terrorist attacks in Ankara and Diyarbakir on 17 and 18 February 2016, respectively, which targeted civilians and military personnel alike, left more than 35 dead, scores injured, and once again exposed the true nature of terrorism. The foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Georgia reaffirmed their unwavering solidarity with Turkey, extended their deepest condolences to the Turkish nation and reiterated their strong partnership with Turkey in combating the shared threat of terrorism. They reiterated the utmost importance of the earliest peaceful settlement of the conflict in and around Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the conflict in the Georgian regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia on the basis of principles and norms of international law, particularly, sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of the internationally recognized borders of states, as well as in accordance with relevant resolutions and decisions of the UN, the OSCE and the CoE. The sides highlighted the successful cooperation in the field of energy. In this regard, welcomed the first meeting of the Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council held in Baku on 12 February 2015, the ground-breaking ceremony of the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) held on 17 March 2015 in Kars and expressed their full support for the development of the Southern Gas Corridor, as well as for other projects aimed at transporting hydrocarbons from the Caspian basin to the western markets through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. They underlined the decisive role of these projects in enhancing the energy security of all the countries involved. The ministers emphasized the key role of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway in facilitating competitive transportation between Asia and Europe, noted with content successful testing of the Georgian section of the railway in 2015 and reiterated utmost importance of the earliest start of operation of the BTK railway. In this regard, they welcomed the fruitful consultations at the trilateral Ministerial meeting of the BTK railway Coordination Council held in Tbilisi on 12 February 2016. They underlined the importance of the East-West/Middle transport corridor linking Europe with Asia through Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan and the Central Asian countries via the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea (realization of joint projects regarding rail and road transportation and development of sea ports such as Baku International Sea Trade Port and New Deep Sea Port in Anaklia as well as those along the Turkish Black Sea coast). The foreign ministers decided to hold their next meeting in Azerbaijan, in 2016. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 19 Trend: A priority, determined by the Azerbaijani president, is to improve and intensify the work to ascertain the fate of hostages and missing people, Madat Guliyev, lieutenant-general, head of the State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing People, chairman of the State Security Service said. Guliyev made this statement at a meeting with Denise Duran, head of ICRC's Azerbaijani Office, the State Commission said Feb. 19. He said that a priority is also to ascertain this serious humanitarian problem which has arisen as a result of military aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan. Guliyev said that Duran's work during her activity in Azerbaijan was constructive and had concrete results. Elena Aymone Sessera, new head of ICRC's Azerbaijani Office, also attended the meeting. Guliyev congratulated Sessera on her new position and expressed confidence in further development of fruitful cooperation between the sides. The importance of further cooperation between the sides for the effectiveness of joint activity was stressed at the meeting. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 19 Trend: Speaker of the Georgian Parliament David Usupashvili held a meeting with the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, during which the perspectives of the economic cooperation were discussed, Sputnik Georgia reported Feb. 19. Cavusoglu arrived in Tbilisi for participation in the trilateral meeting with his Georgian and Azerbaijani counterparts. He visited Georgia Feb. 17 with a one-day visit and met with President Georgi Margvelashvili, Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili, and then left for Baku. "We reviewed economic projects and noted that Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan are important connecting rods of basins of the Black and Caspian seas, which should once again show the world their full potential," the parliament's press service said citing Usupashvili. The speaker of the parliament noted the importance of joint projects adding that the trilateral cooperation has great perspectives. "Current projects - oil pipeline, railway, highway and other communication means - are only the beginning," noted Usupashvili. "It will increase and strong players such as China and the EU will participate in this process, which is a prerequisite of our country's future development." Published On Feb 19, 2016 06:48 PM By Sumit Contemplating on the massive response which Creta has been able to invoke, Hyundai now plans to increase the production capacity of its compact SUV. This has come at a time when customers have had to wait for as long as three months post the completion of the booking. The automaker thus seeks to increase the production capacity from 10,000 per month to 12,500. Although China and US are the largest and second largest market for the South Korean maker, respectively, the present scenario at both the places is not very cheerful due to decreasing sales. On the other hand, India consumes a fair percentage of Hyundais products and is economically on a rise. Elaborating automaker's plans to Autocar Professional, Mr. Rakesh Srivastava, senior VP (sales and marketing) said, But we are not targeting positions and are looking forward to strengthening our leadership position by sustaining the current growth rate of 16 percent achieved in CY2015 against the industry growth of around 8 percent. For this, Hyundai has to introduce more product offerings and refurbish at least two products annually. We will attack more segments like corporate sales, taxi market, rent-a-car or fleet or rural markets to acquire more customers. Hyundais biggest vision is three-fold strengthen its leadership position through sustained growth, become the most beloved company in India, and realise the modern premium brand direction. Mr. Srivastava further added, For any product, the first challenge is in terms of capacity. When we brought the Creta, the compact SUV market was worth only 12,100 units with models like the XUV500, Renault Duster, Nissan Terrano, Mahindra Scorpio and the Ford EcoSport present there. We went in with 6,000 units per month with the intention of taking over about 50 percent of the market. So when you plan for selling 6,000 units a month and the balance players are selling the balance 6,000 units, that is aggressive production planning. The customer response that we have received for the Creta has been overwhelming and that is the reason why we are enhancing its capacity, Under the leadership of Mr. YK Koo, the newly appointed managing director and CEO of Hyundai Motor India, company plans to launch two products every year. The carmaker unveiled the much awaited new-Tucson at the 2016 Auto Expo. Creta was launched in July 2015 and has been growing strong since then. It has also been bestowed with the title of the Indian Car of the Year (2016) . Also Read: Hyundai Tucson vs Honda CR V: Competition Check Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.19 Trend: President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has received a delegation led by Vice Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Indonesian Parliament Fahri Hamzah. The president expressed satisfaction with the high level of Azerbaijani-Indonesian bilateral relations, and said there is mutual understanding and support between the two countries. President Aliyev said Azerbaijan is interested in developing relations with Indonesia in political, economic, investment, cultural, tourism, educational fields, as well as inter-parliamentary cooperation. The president stressed the importance of building a stronger format of cooperation between the two countries. President Aliyev expressed hope that the visit of members of the House of Representatives of the Indonesian parliament to Azerbaijan will be successful and important in terms of the enhancement of bilateral ties. Vice Speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives Fahri Hamzah said they are interested in expanding cooperation with the Azerbaijani parliament. He said Azerbaijani-Indonesian inter-parliamentary friendship group was already established in Baku, adding that such a group will be set up in Jakarta too. Fahri Hamzah said the activity of the inter-parliamentary friendship groups will contribute to the expansion of cooperation between the two countries. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 19 Trend: Azerbaijan's first lady, President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, head of Azerbaijan-France interparliamentary friendship group Mehriban Aliyeva met on February 19 with a delegation led by Senator representing Upper Rhine department at the French Senate, member of the French-Caucasus friendship group Jean-Marie Bockel. At the meeting Mehriban Aliyeva said the French delegation's visit would contribute to the strengthening of relations between the two countries and development of inter-parliamentary cooperation. She hailed the bilateral cooperation in political, economic and humanitarian fields. The first lady praised the contribution of the French Senate members, Azerbaijan's friends in France and members of France-Azerbaijan friendship group to the development of cooperation between the two countries. "The friendship group is aimed informing the French society about the Azerbaijani realities. I am happy that we have achieved a lot of success in recent years thanks to joint activity. Over these years twelve regions and cities of France and Azerbaijan have signed a number of documents on sistership and cooperation," said Mehriban Aliyeva. Noting that there was a French lyceum in Baku, she said an Azerbaijani-French university will open in the country this year. The president of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation emphasized that a series of events aimed at promoting Azerbaijan were held in France, and similar events will be held this year as well. Mehriban Aliyeva hailed the fact that apart from capital Baku, the French Senate delegation would visit Azerbaijani regions. "During your visit to the regions you will meet with the people who have become refugees and IDPs as a result of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict," she stressed. Mehriban Aliyeva said Azerbaijan has done its utmost to find a peaceful solution to the conflict for more than twenty years. The first lady expressed her disappointment that the negotiations have yielded no results. Mehriban Aliyeva said that the Azerbaijani government applauds France's support on this issue. "Our stance is clear. We have no territorial claims against any country. What we want is just the liberation of Azerbaijani territories and the return of refugees and internally displaced people to their native lands," said the first lady. She in particular underlined the activities of a strong Armenian lobby in France and their spreading false information about Azerbaijan. "The friendship group's objective is to deliver truth to the French society," Mehriban Aliyeva emphasized. She thanked the French Senate members for their support on this issue. Jean-Marie Bockel praised the Azerbaijani first lady's contribution to the strengthening of relations between the two countries. A new propaganda film by the Gulen religious cult "Love Is A Verb" screened in Berkeley on February 11, 2016 and protest was held to expose the cult and their role in getting public money for their charter school chain including Magnolia Charter Schools in the bay area. Gulen Cult Film 'Love Is A Verb' Protested in Berkeley-STOP Public Funding To Gulen Schools And All Charters NOW!A protest was held at the Berkeley screening of the film "Love Is A Verb" on February 11, 2016. The film which was screened by the Fedullah Gulen controlled Pacifica Institute is a propaganda film supporting the religious Gulen movement. Fedullah Gulen runs one of the largest chain of charter schools in the US. The produce/director of the film Terry Spencer Hesser admits that she was given a trip to Turkey and has now become one of the cult followers of Gulen and she is making the film to recruit people to their cult.Using the privatization of education through the use of publicly funded and privately run charter schools this cult has received hundreds of millions of public funds on their national chain of charter schools. They use the schools to recruit students to their cults through free trips to Turkey.Fedullah Gulen and his supporters were part of the Erdogan AKP reactionary government but had a deadly feud. Now the Erdogan government has hired US lawyers to oppose all Gulen controlled charters in the US and are trying to bring him back to Turkey and put him on trial for trying to overthrow the government.For more information and media:ttps://notocharterschools.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/defend-public-ed-statement.pdfAdditional Video:Production of Labor Video Project Green Film Fest invites you to join us for this special event to meet The Yes Men (Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum) and see their latest film The Yes Men Are Revolting.For two decades, The Yes Men have pulled off spectacular media hoaxes to expose corporate crimes. Now, these hilarious activists are approaching middle-age, struggling to stay inspired in their fight against climate change. Can they get it together before the ice caps melt?This is your chance to find out more about their creative process, hilarious strategies, and ability to break through the paralysis to take back the planet.Watch the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tSEjepPNgc BUY TICKETS:Wednesday, March 2Alamo Drafthouse Cinema at the New Mission Theater2550 Mission Street, SF7:00pm Film screening The Yes Men Are Revolting8:30pm Discussion with The Yes Men (Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum)TicketsGeneral: $15Students/Seniors/Disabled: $14GFF Members: $13"A much more intimate take on the two heroic activiststhe film's a fascinating look at average guys struggling to strike the right balance between relationships, kids and, yes, Survivaballs." FilmMaker Magazine"Prepare to sit on the edge of your seat." Huffington Post"Entertaining mix of agitpop, pranksterism and autobiography." VarietyThis event is presented by SF Green Film Festival http://greenfilmfest.org Tickets available from Alamo Drafthouse https://drafthouse.com/sf/show/the-yes-men-are-revolting Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 19 Trend: The men's qualification pommel horse competitions completed on the first day of the FIG World Challenge Cup in Artistic Gymnastics, being held at the National Gymnastics Arena Feb. 19. The gymnasts from Japan, Belgium, Norway, Turkey, Iran, Croatia, Latvia and Israel reached the final following the qualification. Japanese gymnast Tomomasa Hasegawa with a score of 15,100 showed the first qualifying result. The FIG World Challenge Cup in Artistic Gymnastics started in Baku on Feb. 19 and is to end Feb. 21. As many as 45 male and 22 female gymnasts will compete for medals in Apparatus Finals of the World Challenge Cup. In general, athletes from 19 countries will participate at the event. Qualifications both among men and women on the first two days of the competitions will be followed by Apparatus Finals on the last day. Screening: All Day All Week, a film about Occupy Wall Street - meet director Marisa Holmes Date: Sunday, February 28, 2016 Time: 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM Event Type: Screening Organizer/Author: Jesse Palmer Location Details: Long Haul Infoshop - 3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley 510 540 0751 - 2 blocks from Ashby BART - across from La Pena It is 2011. Three years into the global financial crisis, there is a growing sense that political and economic elites sold out the people. In response, a wave of revolutions spreads from North Africa to Europe, and even the United States. In New York City a small group of activists meet in the NYC General Assembly to discuss the possibility of #OccupyWallStreet. On September 17th they go to the financial district and occupy Zuccotti Park. They rename it Liberty Square. The square is a liberated space. Assemblies are held to make collective decisions, working groups are formed to meet basic needs such as food and shelter. A new world is being built and anything seems possible. In a matter of weeks there are over one thousand occupations formed across the globe. The activists soon find themselves in the center of a growing movement. They face many external challenges including the media, the unions, political parties, and police violence. However, it is the internal challenges that they cannot overcome. The non-fiction feature film, All Day All Week: An Occupy Wall Street Story, tells the story of OWS from the perspective of those who lived it. Filmed by and in conversation with participants, the film offers a glimpse inside the daily life of occupation as well as reflections on the experience. Director Marisa Holmes will be available for Q and A after the film. Donation - no one turned away for lack of funds Marisa Holmes is a documentary filmmaker and writer based in Brooklyn, NY. Since a young age she has used media for social justice. She holds a BFA in Film, Video and New Media from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she received a 100 Projects for Peace grant from the Kathryn Wasserman Davis foundation. She also has a MFA in Integrated Media from Hunter College. Holmes has covered social movements in the US and internationally with particular interest in the aftermath of the 2011 uprisings. Her work has appeared in such outlets as the InternationaL Times, Truthout.org, Waging Nonviolence, Al Jazeera, and PBS, as well as the AK Press compilation We are Many: Reflections on Movement Strategy from Occupation to Liberation. As a participant and media maker Holmes believes strongly that people must tell their own stories. Thus, she decided to make a film about her own experience in Occupy Wall Street. All Day All Week: An Occupy Wall Street Story is her first feature film. Take Back Santa Cruz - Needles Solution Team by TBSC Snopes Take Back Santa Cruz has a long history of disdain for needles found in public and the people who use them. Dating back to 2013 Samantha Simon Olden and Lisa Sokolowski have been ardent critics of the former volunteer run Syringe exchange program, in particular mobile van services and today, will comment on and encourage conversations that call for shutting down the Syringe Program. TBSC has a long angry history regarding syringes in public, syringe services and substance users. On the surface , one might think they truly are concerned with needles in public. In 2012 now convicted felon Dylan Griener filmed a drug den on West Cliff Drive . This video catapulted the community into the very real heroin use epidemic the nation and Santa Cruz is experiencing. In 2013 Santa Cruz County HSA took over the syringe program for the county and moved the program to the Emeline campus. In 2014 at a Board Of Supervisors meeting Analicia Cube spoke and said " Take Back Santa Cruz has never said to shut down the exchange." At the time, the group was pushing for marking of syringes so origin of syringes could be determined. ) by opening Sharps containers, manually counting. Critics found this variance from Best Practices expensive , impractical , and a dangerous witch hunt on the poor who use the program as opposed to those who can afford to buy 30 syringes at a time at one of the many local pharmacies. A county ordinance was put in place that required pharmacies that sell syringes be required to also accept syringes in Sharps containers, thereby participating in the disposal of syringes. With campaign season around the corner, TBSC appears to be ramping up the needles in public issue again with emphasis only on the County Program. The following screen captures illustrate the level of harassment TBSC will turn to in order to attain their goals which , at the time, was to close down the Beach Flats Volunteer run program. Samantha Olden has dressed up "like a junkie" to impersonate a client of the exchange back in 2013. Her good buddy Lisa Sokolowki Litten accompanies her. Not much has changed in TBSC. Continued photographs of syringes show up on the closed Facebook page followed by a rather uninformed conversation with comments made by admin Kim Laney to "shut er down" Who agrees with her but fellow admin Samantha Simon Olden. In 2014 Gabrielle Korte submitted a letter to the Board of Supervisors on October 2013 and she managed to hit all the TBSC high points. A trifecta ! " Shut down the day services at the Homeless Services Center, Shut down the Needles Exchange ( just another form of enabling ) End our "Catch and Release" form of justice ....if more jail space is needed , then find it.... " TBSC classist brilliance ! In 2016 , here are three of the admin, spokespeople , board members or whatever they call themselves advocating for shutting down a significant Public Health program ....because they think so. This illustrates their Republican Right wing leanings and despite the fact that they advocate for evidence and data in the new revised current mission statement , it appears that it must only be the evidences that they manufacture. At no point does TBSC identify who is on the Needles Solution Team. With such an official title, one might think there was a physician or someone from the County Public Health Department involved but I would guess that it would be members such as Samantha, Gabrielle or Kim who detest syringes or more appropriately the people who use them. Wouldn't the Facebook page of a community group be a great place to link readers to data front the CDC or the World Health Organization siting data that clearly states that needle litter greatly is reduced by the presence of a syringe program ? Wouldn't the Facebook page of a community group be a great place to submit data from the above organizations that demonstrate that the presence of a Syringe Program has not been proven to elevate crime in the area where it operates? Wouldn't the Facebook page of a community group be a great place to submit data regarding a tragic outbreak of HIV in Austin , Indiana in 2015 due to sharing of needles. There were 150 plus cases reported in a small community of under 5,000 as the Governor of Indiana quickly approved of a a syringe program. It might be ...but then again, that would be evidence based best practices and clearly TBSC thrives using hyperbole, fear mongering and false facts to achieve their political goals " for the sake of safety" of course. The real question is , how safe are we with Take Back Santa Cruz ? Just moments ago, Albert Woodfox, the last remaining member of the Angola 3 still behind bars, was released from prison 43 years and 10 months after he was first put in a 6x9 foot solitary cell for a crime he did not commit. After decades of costly litigation, Louisiana State officials have at last acted in the interest of justice and reached an agreement that brings a long overdue end to this nightmare. Albert has maintained his innocence at every step, and today, on his 69th birthday, he will finally begin a new phase of his life as a free man. Take a deep breath everyone,Just moments ago, Albert Woodfox, the last remaining member of the Angola 3 still behind bars, was released from prison 43 years and 10 months after he was first put in a 6x9 foot solitary cell for a crime he did not commit. After decades of costly litigation, Louisiana State officials have at last acted in the interest of justice and reached an agreement that brings a long overdue end to this nightmare. Albert has maintained his innocence at every step, and today, on his 69th birthday, he will finally begin a new phase of his life as a free man.In anticipation of his release this morning, Albert thanked his many supporters and added: Although I was looking forward to proving my innocence at a new trial, concerns about my health and my age have caused me to resolve this case now and obtain my release with this no-contest plea to lesser charges. I hope the events of today will bring closure to many.Over the course of the past four decades, Alberts conviction was overturned three separate times for a host of constitutional violations including prosecutorial misconduct, inadequate defense, racial discrimination in the selection of the grand jury foreperson, and suppression of exculpatory evidence. On June 8th, 2015, Federal Judge James Brady ordered Albert's immediate release and barred the State from retrying Albert, an extraordinary ruling that he called the only just remedy. A divided panel of the 5th Circuit Court of appeals reversed that order in November with the dissenting Judge arguing that If ever a case justifiably could be considered to present exceptional circumstances barring re-prosecution, this is that case. That ruling was on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court when news of his release broke.On behalf of the Angola 3 - Albert Woodfox, Robert King, and in memory of Herman Wallace - we would like to sincerely thank all the organizations, activists, artists, legal experts, and other individuals who have so graciously given their time and talent to the Angola 3s extraordinary struggle for justice. This victory belongs to all of us and should motivate us to stand up and demand even more fervently that long-term solitary confinement be abolished, and all the innocent and wrongfully incarcerated be freed.For more information about the Angola 3, visit angola3.org.-----STATEMENT FROM ALBERT"S LEGAL TEAMFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 19, 2016Contact: Laura Burstein, laura.burstein [at] squirepb.com , 202-626-6868 (o); 202-669-3411 (c)Albert Woodfox, Longest-Serving Solitary Confinement Prisoner, to be Freed from Prison After Four DecadesStatements from Albert Woodfox - One of the Angola 3 - and Attorneys George Kendall and Katherine KimpelFebruary 19, 2016, West Feliciana, LA -- Albert Woodfox, who spent more time in solitary confinement than any prisoner in U.S. history, will be released this afternoon from custody after more than four decades in the Louisiana prison system. Mr. Woodfox, who turned 69 today, continues to maintain his innocence for the murder that sent him to solitary confinement for more than four decades. He pled no contest to two lesser crimes before being set free.I want to thank my brother Michel for sticking with me all these years, and Robert King, who wrongly spent nearly 30 years in solitary. I could not have survived without their courageous support, along with the support of my dear friend Herman Wallace, who passed away in 2013, said Mr. Woodfox. I also wish to thank the many members of the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3, Amnesty International, and the Roddick Foundation, all of whom supported me through this long struggle. Lastly, I thank William Sothern, Rob McDuff and my lawyers at Squire Patton Boggs and Sanford Heisler Kimpel for never giving up. Although I was looking forward to proving my innocence at a new trial, concerns about my health and my age have caused me to resolve this case now and obtain my release with this no-contest plea to lesser charges. I hope the events of today will bring closure to many.The extreme and cruel solitary confinement endured by Mr. Woodfox and his fellow prisoners, Herman Wallace and Robert King, known as the Angola 3, drew international condemnation. The unnecessary and inhumane use of solitary confinement was particularly stark in light of Mr. Woodfoxs exemplary conduct record for decades. In fact, in the midst of litigation, the Wardens of both institutions where Mr. Woodfox was held in solitary confinement admitted that he had exemplary conduct records.Although we are overjoyed that Albert Woodfox is finally free, it is indefensible he was forced to endure decade after decade in harsh solitary confinement conditions, longer than any prisoner in the history of the United States, stated George Kendall, attorney with Squire Patton Boggs, LLP. Albert survived the extreme and cruel punishment of 40 plus years in solitary confinement only because of his extraordinary strength and character. These inhumane practices must stop. We hope the Louisiana Department of Corrections will reform and greatly limit its use of solitary confinement as have an increasing number of jurisdictions around the country.Mr. Woodfox and Mr. King, along with Mr. Wallace, brought a civil lawsuit in 2000, challenging the constitutionality of the State of Louisianas use of indefinite solitary confinement. Mr. Woodfox and Mr. King confirmed that a primary goal of the ongoing litigation is to help bring light to the fact that there is no penological justification for how the State of Louisiana currently uses solitary confinement and to create incentives for reform. As Mr. Woodfox explained, I can now direct all my efforts to ending the barbarous use of solitary confinement and will continue my work on that issue here in the free world.Their case, which is pending, is supported by extensive reports from two nationally-recognized corrections experts. Those most recent experts reports, from 2015, are publicly available and include extensive detail about the State systems failings ( http://bit.ly/1PUqjiG http://bit.ly/1oNAfUv ). As a federal judge wrote, the extreme length of Mr. Wallaces and Mr. Woodfoxs solitary confinement was so far beyond the pale that this Court has not found anything even remotely comparable in the annals of American jurisprudence. See Wilkerson v. Stalder, No. 00-304 (M.D. La. Feb. 1, 2005) (Doc. No. 105 at 21).It is past time for our nation to leave behind its shameful legacy of being one of the only developed countries in the world that still relies so heavily on the outdated and ineffective corrections practice of indefinite solitary confinement, commented Katherine Kimpel, partner at Sanford Heisler Kimpel, LLP. That Albert Woodfox served over four decades in solitary confinement shocks the conscience and is a national embarrassment. We should take advantage of the growing national consensus regarding corrections reform to ensure that, if our society were to be judged by entering our prisons, we would not be found lacking.Attorneys for Mr. Woodfox said he will now be able to receive the medical attention he desperately needs.If you would like to speak with attorneys for Mr. Woodfox or leading experts on solitary confinement conditions and reform, please contact Laura Burstein or Jamie Moss at Laura.Burstein [at] Squirepb.com , 202-626-6868 (o), 202-669-3411 (c); or jamie [at] newspros.com , 201-788-0142.Angola 3 Case BackgroundIn 1972, Brent Miller, a young, white guard at Angola prison, was killed. At a time when Angola prison was highly racially polarized, investigators eventually honed in on four suspects who were politically active Black Panthers. Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace were two of those men. No forensic or physical evidence linked Mr. Woodfox or Mr. Wallace to the crime, the fingerprints found at the scene, or the bloody knife found nearby. Several alibi witnesses placed both men in different parts of the prison and away from the scene of the crime at the time of the murder.Mr. Woodfox was originally convicted in 1973 of the murder solely on the testimony of three inmate witnesses.However, as Mr. Woodfox learned decades after his original trial, these inmates were provided attractive incentives by the prison officials for their testimony, including promises of improved housing and a pardon. State officials also suppressed inconsistent statements by these witnesses.Eventually, Mr. Woodfoxs 1973 conviction was overturned because of discrimination in the selection of the grand jury that indicted him. He was retried in 1998. Despite the fact that two of the States three inmate witnesses had died, and despite the fact that they never were adequately cross-examined because of evidence hidden by prison officials, their transcripts from the prior trial were admitted into evidence and Mr. Woodfox was again convicted.After many years of appeals, his 1998 conviction was set aside in later 2014 and he was recharged in 2015. His lawyers waged a vigorous campaign to exclude from any new trial the prior testimony of the deceased witnesses who never were adequately cross-examined. However, both the trial judge and the First Circuit Court of Appeal in Louisiana denied those motions, meaning that the prior statements would again be used against Mr. Woodfox at a new trial.Although Mr. Woodfox and his legal team remained optimistic about the possibility for an acquittal at a new trial, concerns about Mr. Woodfoxs health mounted as he approached his 69th birthday. Mr. Woodfox decided to bring the case to a conclusion with todays action. His plea of nolo contendere or no contest to two lesser charges is not an admission of guilt. It means simply that he does not contest that the State would present evidence at a new trial from witnesses who said he committed this crime. Mr. Woodfox continues, as he always has, to maintain his innocence.### For Immediate Release: February 19, 2016SACRAMENTO In an effort to improve transparency, accountability and trust between law enforcement and the public, Senator Mark Leno has introduced SB 1286 , a bill allowing greater public access to peace officer records related to serious uses of force and sustained charges of misconduct.California is behind the times when it comes to providing transparency in law enforcement records, said Senator Leno, D-San Francisco. The public has a right to know when officers apply deadly force and when serious cases of misconduct have been confirmed. Failing to disclose such important information can fuel mistrust within our communities and threaten public safety.While California statutes and case law prevent the disclosure of most peace officer records, states such as Texas, Kentucky, Utah, and several others, make information available to the public when an allegation of misconduct has been confirmed. At least 10 other states, including Florida, Ohio and Washington, also make these same records public regardless of whether the incident has been confirmed.California is among a minority of states that makes police disciplinary records confidential, said San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon. If the public cant determine whether an officer has been disciplined they cant assess if accountability mechanisms are working. This contributes to the feeling that police departments are hiding something even if theyre not - which ultimately adds to the mistrust between police and the communities they serve. This dynamic has a detrimental effect on our public safety.A recent Pew Research Center poll found that only 30 percent of Americans, and just 10 percent of African Americans, believe law enforcement agencies are doing a good or excellent job of holding officers accountable for misconduct. Separate polling data shows that nearly 80 percent of Californians believe the public should have access to the findings of police misconduct.Police cant earn the publics trust when there is a wall of secrecy shielding how departments address misconduct and when they allow officers to use deadly force, said Peter Bibring, director of police practices for the American Civil Liberties Union of California. Providing greater transparency in state law is crucial to holding police accountable to the communities they serve, which is an important first step in improving public trust particularly with communities of color.In addition to increasing access to records related to uses of force and confirmed misconduct, SB 1286 gives residents who file complaints alleging misconduct access to information related to those complaints. The bill also allows local governments to determine whether public hearings and administrative appeals should be held on allegations of peace officer misconduct. Additionally, it aims to balance the needs of public disclosure and individual privacy by allowing courts to withhold records if there is a risk or danger to an officer or another person.We are still at the back of the bus in areas of criminal justice said Alice A. Huffman, president of the California-Hawaii State Conference of NAACP. Every day we are still being victimized. Police misconduct and racial injustice is at an all-time high in our country and one has to wonder just what did the civil rights movement accomplish. That's why the California-Hawaii State Conference of the NAACP stands with Senator Leno on this very timely bill to ensure that the veil of secrecy on inappropriate behavior among law enforcement personnel, who have a sworn duty to protect and serve all citizens, will be lifted.This bill will allow Californians to see how law enforcement agencies handle confirmed cases of misconduct and help eliminate the publics doubts and suspicions that have recently plagued the states law enforcement agencies, said Jim Ewert, general counsel of the California Newspaper Publishers Association.SB 1286 will be heard in Senate policy committees this spring.What supporters are saying about SB 1286Citizens frequently entrust their lives to police officers. In return, we ask for transparency, said San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi. Senator Lenos proposed legislation will allow public access to information regarding officers who have been found to use excessive force and other misconduct. This bill provides potentially life-saving information to citizens while boosting accountability for police departments. In San Francisco, officers with serious misconduct records that should have disqualified them from duty have gone on to harm city residents. Sen. Lenos bill will help prevent future tragedies. San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi"I applaud Senator Leno for prioritizing transparency and accountability in law enforcement. This legislation is key for strengthening and building trust with the public," said Supervisor Malia Cohen. "San Francisco is already helping pave the way for accessibility to this critical information. If we are not keeping track of this data, then we can't move forward. San Francisco Supervisor Malia CohenBeing transparent with the public about proven misconduct of our officers, not mere allegations or claims, is not only in step with modern policing, but it demonstrates a level of respect and openness for our community and their right to know who is serving them, said San Francisco Police Commissioner L. Julius M. Turman. SB 1286 is necessary to ensure public trust and confidence in our police force. San Francisco Police Commissioner L. Julius M. TurmanThe California Public Defenders Association supports the publics right to know about police officers who violate the public trust," said Margo George, co-chair of the CPDA legislative committee. California Public Defenders Association (CDPA)Current law, as interpreted by the Copley Press decision, prevents the public from knowing the depth and extent of misconduct and discipline of police and correctional officers, said Larry Doyle, Legislative Representative for CCBA. This undermines public efforts to achieve police accountability and to deter future misconduct. But it also undermines public trust in law enforcement by perpetuating the belief that misconduct is so pervasive that it must be completely shielded from the public eyes. In both these regards, the greater transparency provided by Senator Leno's bill will benefit both the public and law enforcement. Conference of California Bar Associations (CCBA) The Herald reports: Faced with a cash shortage in its so-called caliphate, the Islamic State group has slashed salaries across the region, asked Raqqa residents to pay utility bills in black market American dollars, and is now releasing detainees for a price of $500 a person. The extremists who once bragged about minting their own currency are having a hard time meeting expenses, thanks to coalition airstrikes and other measures that have eroded millions from their finances since last fall. Having built up loyalty among militants with good salaries and honeymoon and baby bonuses, the group has stopped providing even the smaller perks: free energy drinks and Snickers bars. Bergen County, NJ Four Four Mirena lawsuits against Bayer were thrown out last month - the judge ruling that the women had filed too late. There are several reasons why the lawsuits werent filed within the statute of limitations (SOL). One reason is that the SOL varies by state Another reason could be the attorneys fault. For example, one Mirena plaintiff is suing three Texas laws firms alleging they let her claim lapse past the SOL date. It is unfathomable that three separate law firms specializing in products liability lawsuits would have failed to follow one of the most elementary legal principles: File the lawsuit within the statute of limitations, David Eric Kassab of the Kassab Law Firm told(If you havent heard from your Mirena lawyer lately, be pro-active - call now.)Of course, experienced attorneys would be aware of state statutes, such as Californias two-year SOL, a technicality that caused 31 Mirena lawsuits to be dismissed, including cases in Louisiana and other states, in 2014. (Here is a detailed explanation of the Mirena MDL dismissal.)And again in December 2015, a New York federal judge tossed out 10 claims in a Mirena MDL, finding that three cases were filed too late and seven hadnt submitted fact sheets (that must be submitted to the court within 60 days of filing). The judge based his decision on the SOL in their states - some were time-barred; and seven cases hadnt submitted fact sheets. But most important, the decision was based on a July 2014 decision, which found the SOL began when the patients IUD was removed from a part of her body other than her uterus, alerting her that she had been harmed, according toThe women argued that their claims didnt accrue until they received information that their Mirenas migrated into their abdomens because of a defect in the IUDs. Bayer argued that the womens claims began accruing when they found out from their doctors that their IUDs werent inside their uteruses anymore. In other words, the SOL starts when the patient first discovers her injuries.One plaintiff in the MDL had the Mirena inserted in 2006, which was surgically removed from her abdomen in 2007, but she didnt file suit until she saw a TV commercial about Mirena lawsuits - in 2013. Another plaintiff discovered her Mirena had migrated outside her uterus from an April 2011 X-ray, and filed suit in May 2013, just one month too late under the SOL in her state of Georgia.Plaintiffs attorneys responded. They insist that Mirenas SOL should start when the women first discovered that Bayers alleged actions caused their injuries, and not when they first discovered the injuries, meaning that Bayers fraudulent concealment kept patients from realizing that Bayer was responsible for their injuries.Plaintiffs attorneys argued in a letter that patients injuries were possibly the result of Bayers actions. According tothe lower courts ruled in favor of plaintiffs, stating that that they were not necessarily aware that Bayer could be at fault, which would overturn Bayers motion to dismiss.The MDL against Bayer is In Re: Mirena IUD Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2434, filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The next court proceeding is scheduled for March 8, 2016.The current case (Feb. 2016) iscase number 15-355, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. A New Jersey superior court has denied an elevator companys motion for a new trial, instead affirming a $10.3 million jury verdict that was awarded in the second trial for a man who suffered permanent spinal injuries after a malfunctioning elevator fell two stories with the man inside. While working as a union master carpenter at Headquarters Plaza in Morristown, NJ, Richard Tufaro, then 47 years old, was inside an elevator that malfunctioned and dropped two floors with Tufaro inside.Tufaro suffered permanent spine damage and is now unable to return to work. Tufaro and his wife, Sharon Tufaro, sued Schindler Eleator Corporation for its failure to properly maintain the elevator.It has been more than 10 years since Rich was permanently injured and unable to return to work as a master carpenter, said Tufaros attorney, Andrew Fraser, a National Trial Lawyer Top 100 trial lawyer and partner at Laddey, Clark & Ryan.A jury found for the Tufaros and returned an award of $2.8 million to Mr. Tufaro and $950,000 to his wife in 2012. The Appellate Division overturned the verdict in 2013. The second trial in 2014 resulted in a $7.75 million jury verdict for the Tufaros, which is now at $10.6 million because of the interest that has accrued. Schindler Elevator Corp. filed a motion for a new trial and remittitur for excessive damages.The New Jersey superior court denied Schindlers motion for a new trial writing that it failed to address the legal standard warranting a new trial in its brief to the court and that the arguments raised had already been argued and decided by the court.The court also denied remittitur of the damages writing it does not shock the judicial conscience when a second jury returns a verdict nearly twice as much as the first based upon largely the same evidence.The court, in its 25-page decision, analyzed more than 25 related cases cited by the defendant and the Tufaros. The court also discussed Mr. Tufaros permanent physical injuries, the depression, PTSD and emotional suffering he has experienced, and expert testimony that he would never return to his normal functioning.The court also discussed the videotape of Tufaro, captured by Defendant Schindler surveillance, that showed his inability to do work from a job he loved, and showed Mrs. Tufaro carrying heavy groceries into the house while Mr. Tufaro watched.The court also discussed the defendants missed opportunities to file submissions on the issues during oral arguments.The opinion includes defendant counsel responses from the record when given an opportunity to be heard. The defense counsel responded the answer is no and told the judge your Honor can look at them, we could argue about them until three oclock this afternoon, were never going to change our view.The court upheld the jury award of $7.75 million after analyzing the case provided, considering the testimony and this Courts own feel for the case, under the totality of the circumstances, the Court has determined that the jury award should not be remitted and there was no prejudice to the Defendant to warrant a new trial.We could not be more pleased for the Tufaro family, said Fraser. We have now tried this case twice and been successful twice. It is time for Schindler to accept responsibility for the permanent damage caused by their negligence.The case iscase number MRS-L-945_07 in the Superior Court of New Jersey. Washington, DC The inability for deserving veterans to obtain VA disability benefits is thanks in part to a continuing backlog at the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and the status quo in the non-traditional court system that precludes plaintiffs from launching class-action lawsuits. According to a report late last year in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ 12/30/15), there continues to be a groundswell of support to reform the status quo. However, for now, veterans in need have little choice but to languish in a lengthening queue for veteran benefits. The problem, according to thelay with the creation, in 1988, of the US Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. There remain thousands of veterans still without disabled veterans benefits and still having not benefited from a claims review more than a year after initially filing.And yet, the Veterans appellate court does not have the power, according to its original mandate, to hear aggregated cases. Instead, it can only review individual cases. Thats a blow for a group of veterans having filed a lawsuit on behalf of thousands of similarly situated veterans, seeking prompt decisions from Veterans Affairs.The US Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims says it cant hear the case, filed last year, as its technically a class action.Well, now there is the beginnings of a groundswell of support from various sectors saying enough already, and agreeing that the status quo needs to change.Veterans advocates are looking to the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for an olive branch. To that end, the Court is considering arguments that class actions should qualify and be heard by the veterans court.According to thea group of veterans organizations have joined forces to push the effort. Without the potential for a class action, or aggregated litigation in some form, similarly-situated veterans will be treated in dramatically different ways, the group says.Two former VA lawyers, identified as Will Gunn and Mary Lou Keener, filed their own briefs in support of the change.Justice does not prevail when sick and indigent veterans wait five to seven years to learn the results of their appeals, the lawyers wrote, adding that the veterans court should not lack a tool that would allow it to clarify legal rules and more expeditiously resolve a backlog of claims appeals that dishonors and harms those who have served in our nations armed forces.So-called non-traditional courts lack the full authority of regular federal courts granted to them under Article III of The US Constitution. However, other non-traditional bodies such as the Board of Immigration Appeals, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and even bankruptcy courts have found ways to promote efficiencies by finding pathways to case consolidation, or the creation of a class-action equivalent.Advocates agree that too many deserving veterans numbering into the thousands have waited too long for the outcome of a review for disabled veterans benefits. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 19 By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend: The arrival of the stars of world artistic gymnastics in Baku is very good for the development of this kind of sport, Rza Aliyev, a judge of international category, told Trend Feb. 19. The arrival of star athletes, such as Kenzo Shirai, Oksana Chusovitina, Alexander Shatilov, is very good in general for the FIG World Challenge Cup in Artistic Gymnastics in terms of development of the artistic gymnastics in Azerbaijan, he said. Aliyev added that the Japanese athlete Kenzo Shirai's performing new difficult element was an important moment for the FIG World Challenge Cup in Artistic Gymnastics, being held in Baku. "Shirai is now the only athlete in the world who performs such a double somersault followed by three spins," Aliyev said. "This is a very difficult element, which is named after Shirai himself. This is the second tournament where he performed this element, and the first international one." The FIG World Challenge Cup in Artistic Gymnastics kicked off in Baku Feb. 19 and is to end Feb. 21. As many as 45 male and 22 female gymnasts will compete for medals in apparatus finals of the World Challenge Cup. In general, athletes from 19 countries are to participate in the event. Men's and women's qualifications on the first two days of the competitions will be followed by apparatus finals on the last day. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @MaksimTsurkov A 36-year-old Michigan woman, Anita Sullivan Jones, has set a new world record by giving birth to her 14th child from her 14th husband. The woman at the hospital Infamous Tribune reports that Ms Jones has been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records after giving birth at the Harper University Hospital on Tuesday, February 16. She is sad to be the first woman in the world to have children by more than thirteen different men. Im extremely proud to have broken a World Record, Ms. Jones told reporters. My mother always told me that I was lazy and worthless, and that I would never accomplish anything in my life. Now, Ive shown everyone that she was wrong, and that I can even be the best in the world when I put my mind to something. In fact, Ive just accomplished something that no one had done before! Anita Jones says shes been unlucky with relationships in the past, but she believes that this time she may have found the man of her life. Im good at having babies, but Im really awful when it comes to picking the fathers of my children. This time, however, I think Ive learned from my past mistakes. Ramon isnt like all the jerks Ive dated before. Weve been together for almost a year and a half, and I really believe it could work between us. Jones thirteen other children looked really happy to meet their new sibling at the hospital. They were also said to be filled with joy for their mother, who against all odds had broken a Guinness World Record, and posed happily for the 2017 edition of the book. The other 13 children at the hospital After their meeting with Ms. Jones, the representatives of Guinness opened a second investigation concerning the record for the number of child support pensions received by one person. The Detroit native is already the beneficiary of pensions paid by 11 different men, and is involved in two other custody cases, which should proceed before the family court over the next two months. The investigation should be over by the month of March 2016, and Guinness will then be able to tell if Ms. Jones holds a second World Record or not. Errr, can they tie the tube of the woman already? What the heck??! Source: Legit.ng Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 19 By Maksim Tsurkov - Trend: Azerbaijani female gymnast Yulia Inshina has advanced to the uneven bars finals at the FIG World Challenge Cup in Artistic Gymnastics, being held in Baku. Inshina ranked sixth by scoring 12,300 during the qualification event. This score guarantees her participation in the finals. Another Azerbaijani athlete Marina Nekrasova became the second reserve gymnast for the finals. German gymnast Lina Philipp and Brazilian gymnast Flavia Lopes showed the best results. Both scored 13,850. The FIG World Challenge Cup in Artistic Gymnastics kicked off in Baku Feb. 19 and is to end Feb. 21. As many as 45 male and 22 female gymnasts will compete for medals in apparatus finals of the World Challenge Cup. In general, athletes from 19 countries are to participate in the event. Men's and women's qualifications on the first two days of the competitions will be followed by apparatus finals on the last day. Legit.ng is #1 online trusted source of the latest news in Nigeria. We are covering Nigeria news, Niger delta, world updates, and Nigerian newspaper reviews. We guide our readers to the world of politics, business, energy, sports, entertainment, fashion, lifestyle and human interest stories. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.19 By Aygun Badalova - Trend: Azerbaijan is looking at linking the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas to Helsinki, Finland, by rail, Gulf News reported citing Taleh Ziyadov, director-general of Azerbaijan's state-owned Baku International Sea Trade Port. Azerbaijan, which borders Iran to the south, sees itself connecting Iran with Europe through its northern border with Russia. Lift of sanction from Iran is going to be a game changer, Taleh Ziyadov said at the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Global Business Forum in Dubai. "Geographically, by default, we are in a very good location," he said. Speaking on logistics development as a means to economic transformation, Ziyadov said the future is all about inter-modal transportation. Azerbaijan has set up robust logistics infrastructure by building competitive routes to effectively handle time-sensitive and high-value goods which have contributed to business growth across the region, Ziyadov added. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @AygunBadalova Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 19 By Anakhanum Khidayatova - Trend: The deputy speaker of the Indonesian parliament, Fahri Hamzah says it is possible to increase the export of energy resources from Azerbaijan to his country. Speaking to Trend Feb. 19, he said Indonesia is a big market in need of energy and new technologies, adding that his country is interested in strengthening relations with Azerbaijan in these aspects. "It is possible to increase the export of energy resources from Azerbaijan," added Hamzah. "We also want to increase the tourist flow between the two countries," he said, adding the abolition of visa requirement for Indonesian tourists is being considered. He further said the parliaments of Azerbaijan and Indonesia enjoy close relations, recalling that the two parliaments have a friendship group. Hamzah further said that during the visit to Azerbaijan, he had a number of meetings at the country's parliament, as well as with the parliamentary speaker Ogtay Asadov. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 19 By Elena Kosolapova - Trend: Standard & Poor's Ratings Services lowered to 'BB' from 'BB+' our long-term corporate credit ratings on Kazakhstan Electricity Grid Operating Co. JSC, KazMunayGas NC JSC, KazTransGas, KazTransOil, and Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, the agency said Feb. 19. At the same time, we revised our outlook on Samruk-Energy JSC to negative from stable and affirmed our 'BB/B' long- and short-term corporate credit ratings, the statement said. The outlooks on all six rated companies are negative. The downgrades follow the lowering of our ratings on Kazakhstan on Feb. 17, 2016. "We consider all six companies to be government-related entities (GREs) that we believe may receive different levels of extraordinary government support from the government of Kazakhstan," the statement said. "We have not revised our assessment of the likelihood of extraordinary support these companies might receive from the government. The --- Follow the author on Twitter:@E_Kosolapova AEW Europe has hired Christina Ofschonka as a Director of Fund Management. Ofschonka, who will be based in the Frankfurt office, will be the Fund Manager responsible for the recently launched City Retail Fund and will coordinate the pan-European team on the Fund. The City Retail Fund, which had its [] British Land has completed its refurbishment of Yalding House, the former BBC Radio studio on Great Portland Street, W1. Yalding House was home to BBC Radio from the 1950s, with BBC Radio 1 broadcast from the building until 2012. British Land acquired the building in 2001 and secured planning [] Sveafastigheter has sold a property portfolio, embracing the main part of the remaining assets in Sveafastigheter Fund III. The property value of the portfolio amounts to 450 million. The portfolio was acquired by Partners Group via a secondary transaction on behalf of its clients. The handover was conducted on 18 [] Honda Amaze compact sedan shot to immediate success when launched in April 2013. It was the first Honda car which received a diesel engine in India. This added to the initial hype, which resulted in Amaze sales overtaking the sales of Honda Indias bread and butter model the City. A few months down the line, Honda Cars India launched the new City with diesel engine option and once again it became Hondas best selling car. Post new City, Honda launched Mobilio and Jazz in India. It is during this period when Honda Cars India was busy launching cars in newer segments, the Amaze started to get new competition. This includes new Maruti DZire with AMT, Ford Figo Aspire, and Tata Zest. What it did to Amaze sales figures, was that from average sales of over 7,000 units during June Nov 2013 period, it came down to 4,000 units between August 2015 to January 2016. This decline in spite of the fact that sales have been on the rise in the segment. In order to bring a turn-around, Honda Cars India is all set to offer a refreshed Honda Amaze, which is sportier to look at, and is also more feature rich. The leaked image shows 2016 Honda Amaze facelift gets a new front bumper with wider and meatier profile, large trapezoidal housings for fog lights, and a new chrome grille. The rear design is also expected to get a sportier bumper and extra chrome. On the inside, expect the new Amaze to feature an updated dashboard layout with a new touchscreen system. Engine options will continue to be 1.2-liter iVTEC and 1.5-liter iDTEC. The transmission on board the petrol variant will be a 5 MT or AT while on board diesel engine, only 5 MT will be on offer. As of now, Honda Amaze price ranges from INR 5.27 lakh to INR 8.3 lakh, ex-Delhi. Amaze facelift is expected to continue with a similar price structure. More will be revealed once the car is launched on 3rd March. Stay tuned to Rushlane as we cover the launch LIVE. Honda Jazz Racing Concept Photos From 1st April, India has banned the sale of BSIII vehicles. This has resulted in dealers who have pending stocks of BSIII two wheelers, announcing huge discounts. For example, a few dealers in Pune who have both CBR150R and CBR250R in stock, are offering a Navi for free to those who buy either of the bike. The same dealer has also revealed that Honda Navi BSIII will be sold at a discount of INR 20,000, thus making the effective on road price of Honda Navi just INR 31,000. New Honda Navi moto-scooter was launched in India back at the 2016 Auto Expo. Honda Navi is a two wheeler which is neither a scooter nor a motorcycle. We think of it as a modern-day Luna, which has been developed and design keeping in mind the needs of modern day buyer. It is affordable, it has storage space, low ride height, lightweight (lighter than Activa by 7 kgs), easy to manoeuvre in traffic jams, styling is in place, and so on. Powered by an 110 cc engine, which generates 8 PS power and 9 Nm torque. Mated to a CVT gearbox, Honda Navi has a kerb weight of 101 kg, fuel tank capacity of 3.8 liters, and ground clearance of 156 mm. Honda claims that the Navi is a 100% Make in India product which is also fun to ride. This new kid off the block has managed to make its space in the crowded automatic two wheeler 100 cc segment. As of now, it has no competitor. Honda Navi Photos Reconstructing the emergence and evolution of life on our planet is tightly linked to the questions as to when and to what extent Earth's atmosphere became oxygenated. New geological studies based on data from Western Greenland indicate that small levels of atmospheric oxygen developed already 3.8 billion years ago, some 0.7-0.8 billion years earlier than previously thought. Today, most researchers agree that the oxygenation of Earth's atmosphere happened in two major steps: the first during the so-called Great Oxidation Event about 2.5-2.4 billion years ago, and the second during the Late Neoproterozoic Era around 750 to 540 million years ago. The latter is thought to have been the cause for the emergence of animals during the so-called 'Cambrian explosion' around 540 to 520 million years ago. An international team of researchers led by Professor Robert Frei from the Department of Geoscience and Natural Resource Management at the University of Copenhagen has just released a study indicating evidence for the presence of small concentrations of oxygen on Earth already 3.8 billion years ago. The researchers analysed Earth's oldest Banded Iron Formations (BIFs) from Western Greenland. BIFs are marine chemical sediments originally composed of alternating layers of silica and Fe-hydroxides and are widely used as geochemical archives. The reason for this is that they retain information on the composition and presence of oxygenation/reduction processes in ambient seawater and on the interaction of the atmosphere with Earth's surface. The research team used concentrations and isotope compositions, i.e. variations of the same elements with different atomic weight, of the elements chromium (Cr) and uranium (U) present in the BIFs. Chromium and uranium were used as these elements weather rapidly when continental landmasses are exposed to reactive oxygen species (ROS) such as oxygen (O2). After weathering, they are transported to the oceans by rivers, where they are deposited with chemical sediments and serve as geochemical signals of weathering by ROS. The fact that the analyses of the BIF layers from Western Greenland show elements that require presence of oxygen in the atmosphere opens up for the possibility of evolution of the earliest primitive photosynthetic life forms as early as 3.8 billion years ago. As Robert Frei explains: "It is generally believed that the Early Earth was a completely anoxic, but our study shows that the surface of the Earth was exposed to a low oxygen atmosphere already this time. This has far reaching implications for how we investigate the pace of evolution of life and its biodiversity on our planet." Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Feb. 19 By Huseyn Hasanov- Trend: Turkmenneft State Concern starts implementation of plans on the development of the Turkmen sector of the Caspian Sea, Turkmen Oil and Gas Ministry said. Turkmenistan's sea resources are estimated at 12 billion tons of oil and 6.5 trillion cubic meters of gas excluding already contracted blocks. "The first work in this direction was the development of the water part of the Northern Goturdepe field, located in the shallow waters of the Caspian Sea," said the ministry. "A new technology - drilling of deeper deviant directional operational wells - was used there," said the ministry. "At the same time, drilled wells in the shallow waters of the Caspian Sea in recent years justified the forecasts of geologists and drillers." As a result of a successful renewal of an offshore well, a new oil reservoir was discovered in 2015 at a depth of more than 4,000 meters, said the ministry adding that a powerful gushing oil flow with a rate of over 250 tons per day was obtained here, which exceeds the average figures of the onshore fields. Turkmenistan recently obtained a modern drilling rig ZJ-70 DB produced by China, which allows drilling wells with the depth over 7,000 meters, where, according to geologists, the most productive subterranean stratas located. Drilling of deep offshore wells with the help of the new drilling rig is carried out at the field. Turkmenneft has been conducting studying of the Northern Goturdepe field since 2010. Moreover, the current level of technological equipment allows continuing subsoil development and discovering new deposits in this part of the Caspian Sea, according to local experts. Companies of Russia, China, Moldova, Germany, Italy, and Ukraine participated in the major repair work of wells, construction of oil and gas facilities, supply of equipment and special machinery to the Caspian region. New production methods are also being implemented in cooperation with Sinopec Group (China) and Yug-Neftegaz Private Limited (Singapore). Thirty two blocks, located at the medium and big depth and require large capital expenditures, were put for up international tenders. Over 80 percent of resources of the Caspian Sea's Turkmen sector is in the sediments at depths of more than 3,000 meters and poorly studied areas of oil and gas, according to local estimates. Prospects are connected with the Middle Caspian and South Caspian oil and gas basins, according to the ministry. Petronas, Dragon Oil, Buried Hill, RWE Dea AG, Itera and Eni companies are involved in the development of the Caspian Sea's Turkmen sector. In addition, negotiations with the companies of Europe, the US and Persian Gulf are currently being held. It was previously reported that in 2015, the total investments of contractors working in the Turkmen sector of the Caspian Sea are estimated at more than $3.5 billion. Using novel, recently developed techniques for analysis of Doppler polarimetric weather surveillance radar data, a University of Oklahoma team examined impediments (crosswinds and oceans) of nocturnally migrating songbirds in Eastern North America. Migrants in flight drifted sideways on crosswinds, but most strongly compensated for drift near the Atlantic coast. Coastal migrants' tendency to compensate for wind drift increased through the night, while no strong differences were observed at inlands sites. This behavior suggests birds adapt in flight and compensate for wind drift near coastal areas. "The research has taken an innovative and exciting approach in showing how existing weather radar systems can be used to investigate the behavior of migrating birds," said Liz Blood, program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Environmental Biology, which funded this research. "The ability to use U.S. weather radar network to track migrating birds opens exciting new opportunities to study in real-time billions of birds during their migrations," Blood said. Kyle Horton, doctoral student in the Department of Biology, OU College of Arts and Sciences; and Phillip M. Stepanian, former meteorology and electrical engineering doctoral student in the Advanced Radar Research Center and OU School of Meteorology, developed the application used in this study for observing migrant birds during nighttime flight. Jeffrey Kelly, professor in the Oklahoma Biological Survey, assisted with the research and served as faculty advisor. Benjamin M. Van Doren, Wesley M. Hochachka and Andrew Farnsworth, Cornell University, assisted with the research. "Until now, no studies have captured the large-scale phenomena documented using weather radars," said Horton. "Analyses are based on the detection of millions of migrating birds, as many as 5 million on a single night." The researchers examined strategies of nocturnally migrating birds using Doppler polarimetric radars at three coastal and three inland sites in the Eastern United States during autumn of 2013 and 2014. Radars collected data every five to 10 minutes, yielding approximately 1.6 million samples from 55 nights. Data collected indicated a greater propensity of birds to drift sideways at inland sites; birds flying near the Atlantic coast increasingly oriented and tracked westward away from the coast. The prediction that migrants compensate more for drift when encountering a migration barrier is consistent with these results. The researchers show for the first time at a regional scale, in a regularly and heavily traveled airspace of the Nearctic-Neotropic migration system, that birds routinely migrate under crosswind conditions and compensate in a context specific manner. This result is consistent with migrants knowing their location relative to migration barriers while in flight and actively assessing the degree to which they need to compensate for wind. Increasing automation of radar analysis will further enable exploration and quantification of the full complement of U.S. weather radar data to achieve real-time monitoring of billions of birds during their biannual migrations. The U.S. weather surveillance radar network provides the largest sensor array worldwide for monitoring animal migration, including birds, bats and insects. These analyses fill the gaps in our understanding of migratory behaviors at large scales. A study from Hasbro Children's Hospital has found that nearly 50 percent of teens seen in the emergency department for any reason report peer violence and nearly 50 percent also report being the victims of cyberbullying. Almost one-quarter of teens in the emergency department also report symptoms consistent with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The study, led by Megan Ranney, MD, MPH, shows that cyberbullying, physical peer violence and PTSD are common and inter-related, and that early identification and treatment are crucial. Currently published online in General Hospital Psychiatry, the study examined 353 adolescents in the Hasbro Children's Hospital emergency department. Regardless of chief reason for emergency room visit, 23.2 percent of the teens reported current symptoms consistent with PTSD, 13.9 percent had moderate or higher depressive symptoms and 11.3 percent reported suicidal thoughts within the past year. The adolescents commonly reported physical peer violence (46.5 percent), cyberbullying (46.7 percent) and exposure to community violence (58.9 percent). "PTSD in adolescents has been associated with long-term functional impairment, including poor physical health, academic failure and increased need for medical services," said Ranney. "But, despite the availability of effective treatment, PTSD is currently underdiagnosed, underreported, and undertreated, especially among children and adolescents." The study found that the PTSD symptoms strongly correlated with a variety of co-occurring risk exposures, such as being a victim of cyberbullying or physical peer violence, exposure to community violence and alcohol or drug use. Few of the teens with PTSD reported receiving any mental health care in the past year. "These results should serve as a reminder to parents, schools and physicians that these problems are prevalent in our community," said Ranney. "This study also highlights that teens with a history of cyberbullying or peer violence are more likely to have PTSD, which is a very treatable disease if properly identified and addressed." Previous studies have suggested that emergency departments should screen adolescents for psychiatric disorders, given the large number of high-risk adolescents seen in the emergency department and its role as a liaison to community mental health services. "The problem is that there has been a lack of knowledge about the prevalence and impact of PTSD in adolescent emergency patients, particularly among patients who are not presenting in the aftermath of an obviously traumatic event," said Ranney. "Existing literature on PTSD in adolescent emergency patients describes its development after an acute assault or motor vehicle crash," said Ranney. "But, this study highlights the need for improved efforts at more standardized mental health evaluation, possibly even screening for PTSD regardless of the reason for a teen's visit to the emergency department." Ranney hopes this study will lead to greater attention to PTSD and its co-occurring risk factors in adolescent emergency department patients, as the disease is well known to impact adolescents' long-term quality of life, and is unlikely to improve without treatment. For more information on PTSD in children and teens and how to help a child who may be affected by PTSD, visit: http://www.bradleyhospital.org/posttraumatic-stress-disorder-in-children-and-teens.html Soybean farmers in the United States can choose from a "candy store" of hundreds of varieties of soybean seed -- high-yielding seed with proven performance traits for every region and latitude. Soybean farmers in Africa may either only have access to a few seed varieties with an unimpressive yield potential, or a few high-yielding varieties for which no performance data exists for their latitude and altitude. A new coordinated soybean variety evaluation program is underway that will address these problems and give African growers more and better seed options. "An important component to establishing a foundation for soybean in Africa is having a third-party trial program. It's vital to have independent confirmation about varieties, yield, adaptation to a particular area, yield performance in area A versus B, and disease resistance," says Peter Goldsmith, University of Illinois economist and principal investigator of USAID's Soybean Innovation Lab (SIL). "Through a partnership with the African Agricultural Technology Foundation and the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture, which operates independently from its parent company, we are transforming the process of soybean seed production by introducing the concept of variety testing." Goldsmith explained that the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture has extensive experience running variety and input trials across Africa. "They have test plots and protocols, and managers to make sure everything is done consistently. Planting soybean trials at those same locations saves time and money." The trials are running at 12 locations in Kenya, Malawi and Zambia. Each research station tests about 25 varieties on small standardized plots, each about 12 by 15 feet. "Varietal testing is a necessary piece of the process of assuring high quality seed is available to farmers, and in turn that allows farmers to be productive and profitable, which leads to reduced levels of poverty and malnutrition," says Goldsmith. "You don't always know if the yield response was due to genetics, seed quality, agronomics, or just the wrong seed for that particular location. Varietal testing addresses that by testing a set of varieties in numerous locations. Soybean seed is very sensitive to both latitude and altitude so this kind of varietal testing gives objective, third-party assessment of the yield, disease resistance, etc." University of Illinois soybean geneticist Brian Diers and USDA-ARS geneticist Randy Nelson are working with the Syngenta Foundation on this project. "Collecting and distributing unbiased variety testing results will be important as soybean production increases in Africa," says Diers. "Only through testing varieties together in field trials do we know which varieties have the best potential to help African farmers generate income that will help them out of poverty." Goldsmith says the Feed the Future Soybean Innovation Lab is looking at all of the pieces of the puzzle -- breeder training, breeder equipment, capacity, ability to obtain and properly handle seed material, and the ability to test the varieties. "It's like a pipeline with the farmer at the end of a long seed development and commercialization process. Without good varietal performance information breeders, multipliers, seed companies, and of course farmers do not have the information to make informed decisions. Varietal testing addresses that problem." Kenya has two rainy seasons so a pretest and one trial have been completed. Malawi and Zambia are at the pretest stage of the process and should have a first harvest soon. "Having a public/private partnership is unique," Goldsmith says. "To work with the Syngenta Foundation for sustainable agriculture on a common objective, we combine University of Illinois science with their development objectives. This kind of trans-border seed movement can be complicated. Syngenta Foundation has done all of the local regulatory work, such as how to bring seed into the country. They have their own network through the donor community and private sector seed growers with their program called Seed2B (seed to business). It's educating African soybean breeders and growers about why trials and third-party information is important in countries that have had little varietal improvement thus far." Goldsmith says that since SIL began two years ago numerous soybean breeders and public and private seed organizations have come forward seeking to benefit from SIL's breeder development and varietal testing programs. Although current funds are allocated, SIL and the Syngenta Foundation are actively looking for new sources of donor and private sector funding to expand the in Africa. Sometimes, it takes just one just one picture to illustrate the random misery that breed-specific legislation inflicts on people's lives. Like this one. Dianna Helmers Dianna Helmers That's 86-year-old Bev Chaplin, shortly after hearing that she could lose her dog Susie to a pit bull ban. The two had come a long way together. When her grandson was killed in a car accident in 2010, Chaplin began taking care of Susie. Susie was even being trained as a service dog, helping Chaplin get out of her chair, and on occasion, getting her back on her feet after she had fallen. Last June, Hubbard, Iowa, mayor Marshall Simmerman ordered Chaplin to send her best friend out of town, or surrender her to animal control, where, like thousands of dogs deemed pit bulls, Susie would likely be put down. There had been no complaints about the dog. But Hubbard is among too many cities and counties across the U.S. that ban pit bulls. Or American Staffordshire terriers. Or English bull terriers. Or any dogs that bear a resemblance to pit bulls. Chaplain suffered a stroke after hearing she might lose Susie. But she decided to fight, challenging the breed ban in court as unconstitutional. This week, while her legal battle was ongoing, the city council voted in favor of repealing Hubbard's breed ban. Dianna Helmers Dodo Shows Odd Couples Kitten Isn't Sure About His Pittie Brother At First Dianna Helmers "The repeal in Hubbard is a win for all citizens who want to live in Hubbard who now have the American freedom of choosing whatever dog they enjoy most regardless of breed," Jaysen McCleary, a lawyer and founder of Bela Animal Legal Defense and Rescue, told The Dodo. McCleary, along with longtime breed ban opponents Amy Haas-Gray of Hardin Eldora Animal Rescue Team (HEART) and Dianna Helmers of Agape Fosters have championed her cause from the start. "As a lifelong resident of this state that considers animals in general disposable and a strong advocate for animals my whole life, it's always a good feeling to see the animals win in any manner," Helmers told The Dodo. For McCleary, who made frequent appearances on Chaplain's behalf at the Hubbard County courthouse, it's deeply personal. He's waging a long, costly legal battle with Des Moines authorities, who want Jimmy, a dog he adopted, registered as "vicious" - although the city of West Des Moines reversed its earlier declaration that Jimmy was vicious after a professional evaluation. Jaysen McCleary Jaysen McCleary "This is despite the ruling that the ordinance is unconstitutional, and a DNA test which indicates he is not a majority of the 'pit bull' breed," McCleary says. Jaysen McCleary Jaysen McCleary

Lisa Fitzpatrick

To a motorist passing along a lonesome stretch of road in Lansing, North Carolina, it might seem like a menagerie of mayhem: a sprawling pen scattered with scrawny roosters and even scrawnier dogs. Lisa Fitzpatrick Lisa Fitzpatrick It gets worse when you get out of the car. That's when the hounds start howling. There are at least three of them, often standing atop a lone dog house, baying at the sky. Lisa Fitzpatrick Dodo Shows Comeback Kids Family Stops At Nothing To Help Their Great Dane Run Lisa Fitzpatrick Only Lisa Fitzpatrick, who works at an animal rescue, didn't pass by. A woman who lived on a neighboring property had called her after reading about her rescue work in the newspaper. "She said, 'I've seen dogs starve to death, I've seen dogs die in dog fights. These beagles were put out there as puppies and they've never left their pen,'" Fitzpatrick tells The Dodo. It seemed little had changed when Fitzpatrick pulled up. Different dogs. Same hell. "This particular group of dogs has been there for approximately three years according to their neighbor," Fitpatrick explains. "Prior to that, there were other types of dogs that were chained up in the same manner." "The scene was dismal," she adds. "It looked like a third world country." Indeed, her camera soaked up the thick pools of mud, debris, tires and toppled buckets. Lisa Fitzpatrick Lisa Fitzpatrick Not seeing any food or fresh water, Fitzpatrick called animal control. Instead of the animals being taken away, it was Fitzpatrick who was arrested the next day. For trespassing. "The property owner came to see me this morning and he was livid," James Williams, the Ashe County sheriff, told the Jefferson Post. "He said he works in Boone and that business had been flooded with calls from people demanding that he be fired, that his boss man had been getting calls all day long from these nutcases from across the country." One of those so-called "nutcases" may have been Cyndee McClintock, who saw the video Fitzpatrick shared on Facebook from hundreds of miles away in Kennesaw, Georgia. And as an animal activist, who has worked with many rescues over the years, it broke her heart. "I remember looking at the video for the first time. I just lost it," McClintock tells The Dodo. Even now, she can't talk about the situation without crying. "They've been there since they were puppies. They've never been out of that penned-in area." Lisa Fitzpatrick Lisa Fitzpatrick McClintock first saw the video on a Friday night in early February. Too late, she thought, to do anything about it. But the next day, she unleashed a whirlwind, emailing local officials at first, then starting a cavalcade of calls the following Monday. She got in touch with someone at the Ashe County sheriff's department. "He said, 'This is none of your business. You don't even live in our state.' Another time I called and they told me I needed to get a life." When reached by The Dodo, an administrator at the North Carolina Department of Agriculture confirmed there had been complaints about animals on the property, mostly through email. The administrator, who didn't wish to be identified, says, "I don't know the full extent of the Facebook post, but this would probably fall under criminal neglect." "That would be something the sheriff's department and animal control would have to intervene in." Trouble is, those contacts have proven difficult to, well, contact. Despite repeated calls from The Dodo on Thursday, the phone line for Williams, the county sheriff, rang and rang without going to voicemail. Authorities may have closed ranks around the property owner, identified as Daniel Cruz, but the plight of his animals can be seen from just about anywhere on Earth. Even, apparently, Google Earth. Google Earth Google Earth Similarly, the owner's record of animal abuse is available to anyone who visits the Lansing county courthouse - including past convictions on animal cruelty and cockfighting. The Dodo The Dodo Funny thing about those convictions. They came with a two-year ban from owning animals. "The neighbor said the day his probation was up, the roosters came back as well as the dogs," Fitzpatrick says. "It's not really hard to connect A to Z, if you've been convicted for cockfighting and now you've got 100 roosters on your property. It's not rocket science." Lisa Fitzpatrick Lisa Fitzpatrick Every time a newborn comes into the world, it's a cause for celebration. But few births are as impactful to their species as this one. Conservationists in New Zealand announced this week that one of the world's rarest and most critically endangered birds, a kakapo, had hatched a chick - bolstering hopes that the species could be saved from extinction. Today, only 125 kakapos remain in existence; fortunately, that number is expected to keep growing. New Zealand Department Of Conservation The fluffy, white baby kakapo was found by rangers from the Department of Conservation (DOC) on Anchor Island, a closely guarded haven for rare birds under threat in New Zealand. According to the agency, this chick is the first kakapo to have been born this year, though dozens more could soon be on the way as many of the birds are known to have mated. New Zealand Department Of Conservation Dodo Shows Soulmates Pig Loves To Launch Himself Onto His Dad's Lap "We're thrilled that the record level of breeding this season will enable us to continue our work to bring this very unique New Zealand species back from the brink of extinction," Deidre Vercoe, DOC operations manager, said in a statement. New Zealand Department Of Conservation A cat who survived the treacherous sea voyage from war-torn Iraq to safer lands has now been reunited with the family he almost never saw again. In an effort of miraculous proportions, so many people came together to get this beloved cat back where he belonged. Dias, whose real name is Kunkush, soon after volunteers found himAmy Shrodes Dias, whose real name is Kunkush, soon after volunteers found him | Amy Shrodes When rescuers - volunteers on the island of Lesvos who called the cat Dias - discovered him, they remembered how a family had become separated from their pet when they came onshore. And they were determined to get him back to his family. Dodo Shows Pittie Nation The Sweetest Pittie Was Living Under A Jeep "This family probably paid thousands to get a spot for themselves on this rubber boat - even infants required a fee," Ashley Anderson, who helped start the hopeful social media campaign to reunite the cat with his family, told The Dodo. "They cared enough about this cat to bring [him] with them." Amy Shrodes Amy Shrodes Greece is the main landing place for the record-breaking numbers of people trying to find safety in Europe. In one little boat was a family fleeing Mosul, Iraq, a city now controlled by the militant extremist sect, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Volunteers, including Anderson, swimming out to help people jumping off a sinking boatDOUG KUNTZ Volunteers, including Anderson, swimming out to help people jumping off a sinking boat | DOUG KUNTZ Kunkush, like many other refugees, traveled to Berlin. A foster family took him in while Anderson and her team kept searching, distributing fliers to refugee camps all across Europe. Then the impossible happened. "The family contacted us through our Facebook page with the help of their neighbor," Michelle Nihn, social media coordinator for Reunite Dias, told The Dodo. And soon a Skype session gave the family, now living in Norway, a glimpse of the beloved cat they lost in their travels. The family "shed happy tears" upon seeing their little furry family member again, and they sent photos along of Kunkush when they were all once together in their previous lives in Iraq. On Thursday, Kunkush flew to Norway, where his family was waiting for him. Kunkush on the way to NorwayDoug Kuntz Kunkush on the way to Norway | Doug Kuntz Their lives may never go back to the way they were - but finally they're all together again. Kunkush back in the arms of his familyMichelle Nhin Kunkush back in the arms of his family | Michelle Nhin Rose had lost everything - her home, her mother, even her front paw. The young sloth bear cub was first spotted on the outskirts of a village in India. At first, the villagers wisely stayed away from the limping cub, knowing that a protective mom could be close by. But as the weeks passed her mother never appeared - and the cub appeared to be wasting away. Wildlife SOS Wildlife SOS "She was growing progressively thin and her limp seemed to be getting more prominent," Wildlife SOS, an Indian rescue group, wrote in a release about Rose's rescue. "Dragging what looked like a mangled paw through the dusty by-lanes of Amoni [the village], she occasionally used her tiny muzzle as a crutch to help her walk. It was heartbreaking to watch." Increasingly concerned, the villagers decided it was time to step in and contacted forestry officials, who in turn contacted Wildlife SOS. The rescue tracked her through the forest with the help of local residents, and, upon finding her, relocated the roughly 3-month-old cub to its bear rescue and sanctuary. Wildlife SOS Dodo Shows Odd Couples Dog And Wild Dolphin Play Whenever They See Each Other Wildlife SOS Unfortunately Rose didn't take to her rescuers' help too kindly. "[She] was, naturally, terrified - shaking violently and swiping her single weak forelimb at the Wildlife SOS staff when they tried to approach her," the group wrote. But it was clear she needed it. Upon examination, rescuers discovered that her entire front paw had been taken off, possibly by a snare or trap. She had been wandering around on her own for weeks, and her leg was severely infected. She was also weak and emaciated. Wildlife SOS Wildlife SOS Staff members quickly put her on antibiotics and tried to let her settle into her new home. But it hasn't been easy for the little cub, who experienced so much loss at such a young age. At first she was reluctant to eat anything, the group said, and would shake when anyone approached her. When she was alone, she'd cry. "She struggles to walk, barely making it a few feet before collapsing," Wildlife SOS wrote after her rescue earlier this month. "Her tiny muzzle is muddy from being dragged along the ground as she uses it to support the weight of her body in the absence of her left forepaw." "It's impossible to watch without a lump in your throat and the feeling that your heart might break," the group added. Wildlife SOS Wildlife SOS But in the past few days, Rose's spirits seem to have picked up a bit. Photos show her cuddling into a giant red dog bed in her play area; in another image, a keeper helps her onto a hammock. Wildlife SOS Wildlife SOS She's even been learning how to walk on three legs, Wildlife SOS said, without using her muzzle for support. "She has not let her spirit fade and is showing definite signs of improvement both physically and psychologically," the group wrote. "Rose is slowly familiarizing herself with her surroundings and has become more comfortable with her keeper. She has also started playing with the enrichments in her enclosure." Wildlife SOS Wildlife SOS Of course, the little cub still has a long road ahead. Without the comfort of her mother, she's still struggling to feel safe and take in all the changes she's seen in her short life. And since her health is still precarious, the team has not been able to X-ray her leg, which would determine whether she could be outfitted with a prosthetic; due to her injuries, she will likely not be a candidate for release. Wildlife SOS Wildlife SOS But her carers are optimistic going forward - and determined to give the unfortunate little cub her very best shot at a happy life, Wildlife SOS said. Wildlife SOS Wildlife SOS Nowadays, she cares for upwards of 200 stray and abandoned dogs at a time, but for the first 50 years of her life, she never owned a single dog. That changed with Baldwin. Helene Wirt Helene Wirt It was 1997, a year that Helene Wirt both lost her father and divorced her husband, but it was also the same year that she was given Baldwin, a dog in need of a loving home. "He saved and changed my life," Wirt told The Dodo. "I cannot explain what was going on inside me. Maybe I felt beloved [for] the first time in my life." Whatever emotion it was that Wirt was feeling, she decided to chase it, and for the next 19 years, she's worked every single day to save the lives of hundreds of dogs. Helene Wirt Dodo Shows Faith = Restored Rescued Animals Melt Into This Woman's Arms When She Sings To Them Helene Wirt "Dogland" is the name Wirt has given her home in San Ramon, Costa Rica, and these are her dogs ... well, a few of them. Helene Wirt Helene Wirt Although her original rescue, Baldwin, has since passed away, Dogland is currently home to 244 dogs whom Wirt cares for on a daily basis. She doesn't do it alone. As operations have grown over the past years, so have the hands on deck. Along with staff and volunteers, Wirt has organized for each and every dog who goes through Dogland to be fed, medically examined, vaccinated, spayed or neutered and, of course, thoroughly entertained. Helene Wirt Helene Wirt Below is one of the many photos of Wirt using a hands-on approach for ensuring the happiness of her dog family. Helene Wirt Helene Wirt Wirt funds most of the project with the savings she's built up over her life. Born in Austria, Wirt studied finance and worked for the Austrian government for several years before starting her own tax-consulting firm. She moved to Costa Rica in 1991, and since 1997, most of her money goes to caring for the dogs who come her way. She's not rich. Between daily supplies and medical treatment, the bills add up, but that doesn't stop Wirt from living generously. "I could live a leisurely and also very comfortable life, if I had to just take care of me," she said. "But I do not know how I would live luckier." Helene Wirt Helene Wirt She considers the dogs family, and only gives the dogs to adopters if they will have a better life than the one they have at Dogland. Between the backyard breeding in Costa Rica and the biases against strays and mutts, Wirt believes that Dogland is a better home for the dogs than some of the alternatives. "In Costa Rica, many people are illegally reproducing dogs [in order to not] have to go work or to have a good additional income," said Wirt. Helene Wirt Helene Wirt While the operation is massive for one person to lead, Wirt has no delusion about how much more needs to be done for dogs across the world. "What I am doing is just a drop in the bucket," she said Wirt. "I cannot change the world, but on the other hand, the world is changing for the dog I can help. In this sense it is worth everything." Helene Wirt Helene Wirt Adidass new subscription-box service, Avenue A, delivers a curated selection of sneakers, apparel and other workout gear for women four times a year. Each package costs $150. (Adidas) Whatever your shopping preferences, it seems these days that theres a subscription box to cater to them. Birchbox, which peddles a monthly box of curated beauty samples, was an early player in a trendy format that has grown to include everything from healthy snacks to pet treats to proudly nerdy selections of action figures and other collectibles. Theres even one called BattlBox that peddles survival and tactical gear. (This is NOT your girlfriends box! the website declares.) And now Adidas is a player in the subscription-box game, having joined with the hope that the move will help it appeal to female shoppers and in doing so grab back market share from high-flying rivals Nike and Under Armour. The service is called Avenue A, and subscribers will receive a quarterly delivery of a curated box of sneakers, apparel and other workout gear. The mix and style of the items will always be a surprise, with Adidas promising only that the pieces will be seasonally appropriate. Some items will be exclusive or limited edition and others will be widely sold retail fare. Its not terribly hard to see why Adidas is giving this a go: The athleisure trend is still booming, and there has been plenty of shopper interest in the bumper crop of subscription-box start-ups. One such company, Fabletics, already offers workout gear on a subscription basis to young, fashion-conscious shoppers. In four years, the market has exploded from under 200 subscription services to more than 2,000, according to Liz Cadman, founder of the directory and review site My Subscription Addiction. Nicole Winhoffer curated the first Avenue A subscription box. (Adidas) Adidass customer research found that such an offering could have particular appeal to time-starved female athletes. Theyre so busy. Their lives are pulling them in so many different directions, said Chris Brewer, Adidass category director for running. They would rather actually be working out than going to shop for their workout gear. But the details of Adidass strategy might make it hard for Avenue A to gain traction. And its move raises the question of whether the buzzy subscription-box trend has the shelf life or the kind of broad application that its enthusiasts imagine. Adidas says it imagines the core subscriber will be a woman who has running at the heart of her fitness routine but also regularly incorporates other activities such as Pilates or barre class. Avenue A boxes cost $150 each, so that means a subscriber is spending $600 a year on workout clothes. Surely there are women out there who drop that much money annually on exercise attire. But it stands to reason that if someone is spending that much, shes not casual about her gym routine. More likely, she is a bona fide fitness junkie, someone who competes in triathalons or starts every day with a visit to the CrossFit box. In other words, this person is probably someone who has specific performance needs and preferences for her gym attire. Its an open question: Is she going trust that Avenue A will consistently deliver a running shoe that is ideal for her gait? Or leggings that have the precise level of compression that she likes? The woman who exercises more casually might be more open to this kind of serendipity around her gym clothes, and she might place more value on having a revolving array of looks. But if she isnt an exercise obsessive, its hard to imagine shes spending $600 a year for these goods. In fact, that may be more than she spends on her overall wardrobe in a given year. So its hard to imagine who the customer is for Avenue A. In weighing the subscriptions services prospects, its also instructive to consider Adidass policy surrounding what happens if youre not happy with an item in your Avenue A box. You can exchange a defective item or swap something for a different size. But you cant simply return something you dont like. This is a key difference with some existing subscription boxes: At Trunk Club and Stitch Fix, boxes can easily cost hundreds of dollars, but there is an option to return pieces for any reason. Its a significant financial outlay, but with a safety net. Birchbox, on the other hand, doesnt allow returns on its $10-per-month boxes, but the purchase feels less risky. Its cheaper, and with beauty samples the shopper is inherently expecting that the products are disposable. [Are beauty box subscriptions worth the price?] With Avenue A, Adidas is asking shoppers to incur both a fairly high risk and a fairly high cost. That could be a major issue, especially as you get to styling that is more modern or progressive, which seems to be where Adidas is going, said Andrew Billings, a retail strategist at consultancy North Highland. That Adidas appears to be straining so hard to make this model work is an illustration of how eager brands are to experiment with new sales formats, especially those that have a spirit of discovery and curation. Brewer said that the feedback Adidas has gotten from women about Avenue A has often been: We want serendipity. We want surprise and delight. And, indeed, Adidas may very well end up getting the formula right: Shilpa Rosenberry, a retail strategist at consultancy Daymon Worldwide, said Avenue A has a good shot of taking off and driving excitement to the brand. But the puzzle of who its customer might be and the potentially frustrating return policy suggest that the subscription-box business, for all its hype, simply might be bumping against its limits. It might not make sense for all retailing categories and price points. Even among some of the more established subscription-box players, there are signs of a shift in the perceived market potential for this format. Fabletics, for example, is planning to open 75 to 100 brick-and-mortar stores in the next several years. Although store workers reportedly will still aim to sign up subscribers, the emphasis on stores would seem to suggest the company is looking to drum up more a la carte sales. Birchbox, which recently laid off 15 percent of its workforce and shuttered its Canadian operation, is also pushing into stores and is developing a private-label line of beauty products. Its expansion into other lines of business might be an indication that executives are finding that subscription boxes alone cant deliver the kind of growth and profitability the brand is hoping to achieve over the long term. Given how fast the subscription-box trend has blossomed, its hard not to wonder whether there are similarities to other digital-age retailing novelties that experienced a boom and then ultimately a slow fizzle. LivingSocials and Groupons daily-deals model once seemed poised to transform retailing. Now, both companies have slashed their workforces and are trying to shift their business models. And flash-sale sites such as Gilt and Zulily, which promised designer goods at bargain-basement prices, have also lost some luster. Gilt has been acquired for a fraction of its earlier valuation, and Zulily was scooped up by QVCs parent company after its stock price nosedived from its post-IPO high. Anita Bhappu, a professor who studies retailing at University of Arizona, said she thinks those are different cases. The flash sales and even the Groupons of the world were about simply promotions, Bhappu said. Youre not talking about loyalty. Youre talking about price sensitivity. Subscription boxes, she says, are more about deepening connections with loyal customers. But Rosenberry says she does see in the subscription-box trend parallels with the recent boomlet of flash-sale sites. When more and more competitors enter the business, it does have the potential to become noise, Rosenberry said. So I predict that as more of these models emerge, only a few will be left standing. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.19 By Elena Kosolapova - Trend: The deal between Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Qatar on freezing oil production at the January levels if other producers join this initiative currently looks weak, Richard Mallinson, a geopolitical analyst at Energy Aspects, independent research consultancy specialising in global energy markets, told Trend. "Iran has not directly said it will freeze its own production and because there will be disagreements over what the baseline January production figure is for each country. If the deal unravels because of these issues then the recent increase in prices could quickly reverse," Mallinson said. The analyst noted that there is definitely more negotiation needed to hammer out a deal, so it is worth watching closely for any signs that more progress is being made on the details behind the scenes. Meanwhile Mallinson stressed that the agreement between Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Qatar represents a first step in cooperation between OPEC members and also with key non-OPEC producers such as Russia, and oil prices are responding positively. On Feb. 16, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Qatar agreed to keep oil production at the January levels. Later, the Venezuelan Oil Minister said that the ministers of Ecuador, Algeria, Nigeria and Oman support the decision on oil output freeze. Kuwait also agrees to join the agreement between Russia and three OPEC countries. Meanwhile Iran's OPEC envoy Mehdi Asali said that the country would continue increasing crude output until it reached levels achieved before the imposition of international sanctions. However the negotiations with Iran on the oil production level have not been completed yet. The price of April futures for Brent oil hit $33.94 per barrel on Feb. 19. Edited by SI Follow the author on Twitter:@E_Kosolapova Tourists ride in vintage American convertibles as they pass by the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba. As politics change, business leaders are waiting for similar breakthroughs. (Desmond Boylan/AP) President Obamas planned trip to Cuba in March may be a political breakthrough, but American business leaders are still waiting for a breakthrough on the economic front. Eager to invest in the island nation, representatives of more than 300 companies have visited since Obama pledged to normalize U.S. relations with the island nation 14 months ago. Some firms have made progress. Last September, Verizon became the first U.S. company to offer roaming wireless cellphone service in Cuba. On Tuesday, the United States and Cuba signed a deal that will open the door to dozens of daily commercial flights between the countries for the first time in more than five decades. But in general, sealing deals in Cuba has proven difficult for American businesses. Most U.S. trade and financial restrictions are still in place. Moreover, the Cuban government has been bureaucratic and its leaders seem to be ambivalent about the wave of investment poised to crash onto its shores and how that might affect its tightly controlled political system there. Theyre wondering what the U.S. intentions are and whether U.S. policy is designed to help the Cuban people or whether it is something more like a Trojan horse, said Cuban-born Carlos M. Gutierrez, co-chair of the business consulting firm Albright Stonebridge Group, who served as commerce secretary under President George W. Bush. Now, U.S. companies are hoping that Obama can pry open the door a little wider and help lift some of the restrictions that are still in place. Obama doesnt need to make a direct appeal to Cuban leaders to ease the path for American companies. His presence will be enough. The president is the chief marketing officer of the United States, said John S. Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council. If he gets nothing more than time in front of the Cuban people, sample some food at a private restaurant, takes a walk, has meetings and leaves, thats acceptable. Kavulich said, however, that the administration is looking for deals or preliminary agreements that can be announced while the president is there. It is working on behalf of U.S. companies to try to get some visible projects announced, he said. One of the companies knocking on Havanas door is Florida Produce of Hillsborough County, which has proposed setting up a warehouse in Cuba to sell U.S. agricultural products there. But the company has been stuck in talks with the Cuban government, which wants to set up a joint venture. [ Exiled sugar tycoon open to investing in Cuba under the right circumstances. ] Several major U.S. hotel chains have been trying to win contracts to open up in Cuba, including Marriott, whose chief executive Arne Sorenson wrote in July last year that his company was ready to get started right now. But a host of obstacles remain. In Cuba, the government maintains a dual exchange rate, wants foreign companies to hire employees through state-owned entities and limits property ownership and Internet access. And the lack of progress on human rights makes it unlikely that Congress will move to lift U.S. restrictions that limit transactions with state-owned enterprises and require that many transactions take place in cash. Some companies are managing to navigate across the divide. Alabama-based Cleber, which has proposed to assemble tractors in Cuba in the Mariel Special Development Zone. The Cuban government has approved it and last week Treasury said the transaction could go ahead. Further talks are in progress, according to Kavulich. But as long as Congress fails to lift restrictions on doing business in dollars and or to further ease travel restrictions, U.S. firms will be at a disadvantage to rivals in Europe, Sorenson wrote. Ordinary Americans arent waiting. Airbnb began supporting listings in Cuba last year, and the number of listings there grew more than 150 percent in the first few months, according to Nick Pappas, a spokesman for Airbnb. To date, there have been more than 3,000 listings. Half of them are located in Havana, but they also come from more than 40 different cities and towns in Cuba. The average Airbnb host there is making more than $250 per booking. Paul Aker said seven armed U.S Marshals showed up at his house and arrested him over a student loan he took out of $1,500 from 1987. (Courtesy of FOX 26 Houston) If youve defaulted on federal student loans, you can breathe more easily. You wont be arrested for simply failing to make payments. For a hot second, people were panicking after a Houston television station reported that a resident there, Paul Aker, had been arrested because he owed $1,500 for a federal student loan he took out in 1987. Whats the worst that can happen to you if you dont pay your old federal student loans? the anchor asked as he began the segment. Garnishment? Something on your credit report? Or how about being arrested by the U.S. Marshals Office? Aker, who appeared on the newscast, was astounded. Why are the marshals knocking on my door? Its amazing. Public outrage ensued. But as I watched a video of the interview, something didnt seem right. Ive been reporting on debt collection for decades, and never had I heard about people being arrested just because they hadnt paid their student loans. People get their wages garnished. Their credit scores are decimated. But arrested? I immediately thought that unscrupulous debt collectors must be jumping for joy: They could use Akers plight to pressure people into paying debts they didnt owe or to scare others that they, too, would be arrested and hauled off to jail. Just recently, the Federal Trade Commission slammed four debt-collection outfits and their affiliates, which the agency said engaged in abusive practices, including impersonating law enforcement officials and threatening to arrest people. Well, thank goodness there was more to Akers story. And there are two lessons to be learned. First, there is no need to panic: You cannot be arrested simply for defaulting on your federal loans. If anyone out there thinks that it is the top priority of the U.S. Marshals Service to arrest student-loan violators, they are sadly mistaken, Richard Hunter, chief deputy U.S. marshal for the southern district of Texas, told me in an interview. Marshals had made several attempts to contact Aker to appear in federal court, according to Hunter. Notices were sent to numerous known addresses. Marshals spoke with Aker by phone and requested that he appear in court, but Aker refused, a statement from officials said. So a federal judge issued a warrant for Akers arrest for failing to appear at a December 2012 hearing. A big misconception is people are being arrested for not paying their loans, when in fact they are being arrested for failure to appear in court, Hunter said. At the point the U.S. marshals show up at your door, there have been months perhaps many years of notices, summons, et cetera, issued. Here comes the second lesson in this story. During the Houston news broadcast, Rep. Gene Green (D-Tex.) asked Aker whether he had been notified by anyone ahead of time about the state of his loan. You didnt receive any kind of notice? Green asked. No certified mail? Nobody coming out saying, This is the debt you owe? Nothing in almost 30 years, Aker said. We now know from court records dating to 2007 that Aker had indeed been contacted about the debt. A default judgment was entered for $2,709.47. But more to the point, even if he hadnt been served about the loan, he is ultimately accountable for keeping track of how much he borrowed. Its your responsibility to know what you owe. If you move, let your lenders know. If you havent been receiving bills, call and find out why. The key to all of this is communication, Hunter said. If you have a loan that youre behind on, call the Department of Education and get a deferment or request a payment plan. If you have received a court summons, by all means communicate with the court. If you choose not to, at some point the federal judge handling your matter may order the U.S. marshals to bring you to court. The National Student Loan Data System is the Department of Educations central database for student aid. Go to www.nslds.ed.gov to find information about your federal loans. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has a useful tool to help you figure out how to pay off your loans; go to www.wapo.st/payoffloans. With more than $1.3 trillion in outstanding student loans in the United States, the effort to collect will only increase. In addition to paying back the loan as well as penalties and interest, Aker has to pay $1,258.60 to reimburse the U.S. marshals for arresting him. Still, his case is extreme. People should not be afraid that U.S. marshals will kick down their door for student-loan violations, Hunter said. What you should be afraid of is the interest and penalties that accrue if you let your loans go into default. Write Singletary at The Washington Post, 1301 K St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071 or singletarym@washpost.com. Comments may be used in a future column, with the writers name, unless otherwise requested. To read more, go to http://wapo.st/ michelle-singletary. Since last years high-profile corporate data breaches, hundreds of start-ups have popped up with newfangled ways of spotting hackers within the electronic noise, usually by looking for virtual threat signatures pulled from expensive databases. But Vienna, Va.-based PFP Cybersecurity is trying something different: tracking tiny changes in power usage and radio waves emitted by hardware. When something out of the ordinary happens such as an unexplained spike in power coming off a computer chip PFPs system raises a red flag. Instead of dealing with hundreds of millions of [threat] signatures, you go back to the fundamentals the laws of physics, PFP chief executive Steven Chen said. When a hacker moves electrons, we can see them. The idea comes from an electronic spying technique used by intelligence agencies for decades. Side-channel attacks can suck information off a computer screen by picking up external radio waves, the subject of a recently declassified National Security Agency program called Tempest that started in the late 1970s. PFPs founders, Jeff Reed and Carlos Aguayo Gonzalez, who were Virginia Tech researchers at the time, started toying with the idea in 2006, with funding help from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagons advanced research lab. Chen, a serial entrepreneur with experience starting and selling companies, discovered the duo four years later and licensed the technology from Virginia Tech. I was looking for a new thing and I didnt want to do anything that was derivative, he said. This is just so untraditional. PFP spent the next five years working on government research contracts and silently shoring up its intellectual property. Blu Venture Investors, a loose syndicate of investors of which Chen is a member, later gave PFP operating capital. Our strategy was to build a patent portfolio, Chen said, and that put us in a good position where we dont have to worry about being shut down by somebody. That work is finally coming to fruition: One of several patents for PFPs technology has been approved by the government. Today the company brings in a little less than $2 million in annual sales, and Chen has recruited big names from the Washington cybersecurity community to the companys board of directors. New board members John Czupak and Todd Headley were executives at Sourcefire, which was acquired by Cisco for $2.7 billion in 2013. And new board member Dave Merkel was the chief technology officer at Mandiant, a threat detection and response company bought by FireEye in 2014. PFP is still doing research for the government pursuing contracts with the Pentagon and Energy Department but selling to corporations is its priority. My board doesnt want us to be a Beltway government contractor, Chen said. Our business model is leveraging government-funded research and development. To grow the business quickly, Chen wants to get manufacturers to bake PFPs technology into computer chips in bulk, and he has brokered a partnership with chip-manufacturer Xilinx. Most high-profile hackers still target computer systems that contain financial records. But as more and more physical things get connected to the Internet toys, household appliances, cars new vulnerabilities are emerging. Merkel said he joined the board to get in on the ground floor of securing the Internet of Things. These devices are starting to store and process interesting information, and theyre having a lot of really predictable security failures, Merkel said. That is going to draw bad guys like flies. Some are skeptical that PFPs idea could really spot something such as a vehicle hack. Kris Kaspersky, a security expert who formerly worked at McAfee, says he has seen car hacks that dont generate any power or radio anomalies. You cannot detect an attack this way, you cannot distinguish from normal behavior using power or radio signals, Kaspersky said. You can detect an attack only by checking the content and seeing whats inside of this traffic. PFP doesnt claim to be able to spot every threat imaginable, but Chen said the company is gaining early traction with automakers. He said the company is working with one automotive manufacturer, which he declined to name. Merkel said he thinks automakers could be a massive market for PFP one day. Calling from his home in Herndon last week, Merkel glanced out the window at his familys Tesla sitting in the driveway. That thing is a rolling computer, he said. Everything about [that car] is a connected device, and increasingly all car manufacturers are going that way, he said. Not only is it a very expensive piece of equipment but I put the most important things in the world inside of it my family and drive them around. Hasan Asif, a psychiatrist at the Brain Wellness Center in Bronxville, NY, analyzes alpha and beta waves emitted by the brain of a patient and employee of the center, Marris Szeliga, on Sept. 17. (Yana Paskova for The Washington Post) She relaxed in the recliner, her eyes closed, her hands resting lightly in her lap. The psychiatrists assistant made small talk while pushing the womans hair this way and that, dabbing her head with spots of paste before attaching the 19 electrodes to her scalp. As the test started, her anxiety ticked up. And thats when it began: the sensation of being locked in a vise. First, she couldnt move. Then she was shrinking, collapsing in on herself like some human black hole. It was a classic panic attack captured in vivid color on the computer screen that psychiatrist Hasan Asif was watching. Its going to be okay, he said, his voice quiet and soothing. Just stay with it. The images playing out in front of him were entirely unexpected; this clearly wasnt a resting state for his patient. With each surge of anxiety, a splotch of red bloomed on the computer screen. Excessive activity of high-energy brain waves near the top of her head indicated hyper-arousal and stress. Decreased activity in the front of her brain, where emotions are managed, showed she couldnt summon the resources to keep calm. This was your brain as you were sitting there trying to relax, Asif explained afterward, rerunning the sequence for the woman, who for many of her 37 years had struggled against crushing waves of dread. Look at what just happened. This was the area of your brain that started firing. . . . Its right there on the screen. For the 51-year-old psychiatrist, the episode last year in his Bronxville, N.Y., practice was yet another piece of evidence that he was on the right track, burrowing past his patients symptoms to probe the structures in her brain that produced them. Individually, all the tools he employs have been used before, but rarely, if ever, together. Its an approach that parallels some of the most cutting-edge research in the field. Scientists have long known that the most forward part of the brain is the seat of higher cognition. But only in recent years have they been able to link certain mental disorders with specific brain circuits, the connections between neurons that are responsible for every one of our thoughts, emotions and actions. Asifs tools enable him to more precisely diagnose his patients problems and, ultimately, to treat them. Neurosciences inroads have emboldened a small but growing number of clinicians and researchers to reject diagnostic protocols on which mental health practitioners have relied for years the cataloguing of symptoms such as sadness, fatigue, loss of appetite and instead focus on finding biological clues associated with these symptoms in a blood test, a brain image or a saliva sample. These are the biomarkers, the concrete measurements of mental illness, that many think will move the mental health profession into the 21st century. For Asif, some of the tools being used in the search are already yielding practical results, such as sending a patients cheek swab for DNA analysis to help determine which psychotropic medication will be most effective and best tolerated. [How high-tech magnets can relieve depression] This new, if controversial, approach to mental illness got a boost in 2013 when the director of the National Institute of Mental Health announced that the government, the largest funder of mental health research in the world, would drastically shift its priorities. Research based solely on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the chief tool of mental health professionals, would no longer be funded. The reason, Thomas Insel said, was its lack of validity. Asif and neuroscientist Aza Mantashashvili examine Szeligas brain waves. (Yana Paskova for The Washington Post) First published in 1952, the manual has changed over the years. Yet its categorization of mental illnesses is based nearly entirely on symptoms either reported by the patient or observed by the clinician. New funding, Insel said, would be based on the premise that mental disorders are biological disorders involving brain circuits. Research into diagnosis and treatments such as talk therapy would be relegated to the bottom rung of the research ladder. Insel later softened his criticism of the DSM. But the battle had been joined, and with millions of lives and billions of dollars at stake, the fight over the future of psychiatry was on. There are two camps: the very biologically oriented and the patient-oriented, said Moira Rynn, director of child and adolescent psychiatry at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Rynn, who is both a clinician and a researcher, describes herself as in the middle of this tug-of-war. Shes worried, she says, that were going to lose a generation of researchers who think that identifying the influences of a patients environment, relationships and access to care is just as important as finding the biological markers of their illness. Other skeptics of Insels approach say it is impossible to understand mental illness solely by trying to understand the brain. The main thing is looking at what people say about their lives, said Richard Shulman, a Hartford, Conn., clinical psychologist and one of the founders of Volunteers in Psychotherapy, a nonprofit that provides affordable psychotherapy to the community in exchange for volunteer work that clients perform for charities. What has led to a real confusion or distress in their lives, and how these things come up, thats when you get a real idea of how and why something upset them. . . . You look at things through their eyes and say, yes, this person has gone through the wringer. -------------------------------------- From the time of the ancient Greeks, medical practitioners have searched for biomarkers for physical illnesses. Hippocrates tasted patients urine for sweetness (he is thought to have been the first to diagnose diabetes mellitus), smelled their breath for signs of kidney and liver disease, and assessed the stickiness of their sweat. More recently, doctors relied on patients complaints about the severity of their chest pains in order to diagnose a heart attack. Today, they measure cardiac enzymes in the bloodstream. Cancer treatment doesnt treat the symptoms of cancer. You dont want the swelling to go down or the pain to disappear; you want to get rid of the cancer, said Kenneth Kaitin, director of the Tufts University Center for the Study of Drug Development. But thats what were doing in psychiatry, treating the symptoms of mental disorders the sadness or the restlessness or the hallucinations not the causes. What is known is that the brain looks different in those who struggle with mental illness. This does not necessarily mean all mental disorders originate in the brain. Post-traumatic stress disorder, for instance, occurs because of emotionally scarring experiences, but those experiences change the brain and the brains responses to the environment. Nearly every day, researchers report findings about genetic or cellular associations with mental illness. But despite years of searching, no one has identified a single biological cause for any mental illness, proved that a chemical imbalance in the brain is at the root of any mental disorder, or positively shown that any medication corrects such a chemical imbalance. Theres been an intense search for biomarkers for the last 40 years, and so far weve come up empty, said psychiatrist Allen Frances, a professor emeritus at the Duke University School of Medicine. Its been oversold. The decade of the brain came up empty. It should teach us to be humbler. The leading drugs for depression the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs are designed to ease symptoms by boosting serotonin, one of the brains pleasure chemicals. But its not known whether that corrects an imbalance, because theres no way to directly measure a persons neurochemical levels. Experts also cant explain why antidepressants work only 40 percent of the time or why, when they do, it takes weeks for most patients to feel the effects since the levels are boosted almost immediately. The chief complaint about todays psychiatric medications is the same one cited by those frustrated by the lack of progress on Alzheimers: They dont treat the disease, just the symptoms, and they dont even do that very well. Rather than targeting brain chemistry to reduce symptoms, people such as Insel want to focus on brain circuitry. Their efforts have been bolstered by advances in technology and imaging that now allow scientists not only to see deeper into the brain, but also to study single brain cells to determine which circuits and neurons underlie specific mental and emotional states. Many of these advances come from fields as disparate as physics and electrical engineering as well as the new field of optogenetics, which uses light to manipulate neurons. In the past, brain imaging allowed scientists to identify which groups of neurons were active when, say, a lab mouse was aggressive, but not whether the neurons were causing the aggressive behavior. Then a few years ago, researchers at the California Institute of Technology injected into the hypothalamus of a mouse a modified gene that made certain cells sensitive to light. [Scientists pinpoint aggression neuron in mouse model] They then inserted a hair-thin fiber-optic thread into the mouses skull and delivered bursts of light into those cells to activate them. The mouse became aggressive. When the researchers turned the light off, the activity in those specific hypothalamic cells ceased, and the mouse returned to a calm, normal state. Because the technique is too invasive for people, researchers are now looking at nanotechnology and even magnets as a way to switch cells on and off in humans. Connecting specific symptoms with specific groups of neurons, and then manipulating those cells, would represent a watershed moment. ----------------- Born and raised in Pakistan, Hasan Asif is a board-certified psychiatrist who first trained as a psychoanalyst. When he came to the United States in 1990 for post-graduate training at New York Medical College in Valhalla, he was swept up in the biological psychiatry movement. He opened a private practice in New York and eventually spent tens of thousands of dollars outfitting his office with new neurological tools. On his walls are colorful microscopic close-ups of neurons, and on his bookcase and tables are replicas of Greek and Egyptian antiquities once collected by Freud. Asif evolved into a neurotherapist, someone who first tries to understand a patients brain circuitry, then combines that with both psychological and physiological information to create a treatment plan. While a traditional psychotherapist might begin sessions by asking patients about their thoughts, feelings and problems, Asif has them fill out a color-coded form that matches statements about their thoughts and feelings with the parts of the brain most likely involved. Then his patients undergo a quantitative electroencephalograph, or qEEG. The EEG, which has been around for more than 90 years, is a map of the brains electrical activity and reflects a patients emotional and cognitive states. The qEEG compares that information, in real time, to a digital database of hundreds of EEGs of healthy subjects. A patients brain map will pulse with red or blue if it is either overactive or underactive, compared with the norm. The brain is almost screaming out loud: Read me! Im showing you everything! Asif said. Patient treatment plans might include psychotherapy and medication as well as neurofeedback, a technique in which patients are trained to increase or decrease brain-wave activity in the parts of the brain related to their complaints. Another tool is transcranial magnetic stimulation, a noninvasive method of delivering pulses of energy to the head, which has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of depression. But almost always, Asif begins with a qEEG. It acts as a kind of map, helping him to identify a patients troublesome brain circuits, which he then targets with his various therapeutic techniques. Tina Raymond, 61, says her treatment produced almost immediate results. In 2006, Raymond was robbed and beaten inside her storefront office in Mount Vernon, N.Y., where she designed seasonal displays for department stores. She saw several doctors, including Asif, for memory loss and PTSD from the attack, and she eventually recovered. Then, in May 2014, just as Asif was ramping up his neurotherapy practice, Raymond returned, complaining of feelings of worthlessness. I was hitting a lull, an emotional lull, she said. I was depressed. Getting out of bed was harder than usual. Im a pretty upbeat person in general, so for depression to hit me . . . was distressing. Raymond filled out the color-coded form and scored the statements on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the highest. I feel unfocused, tired, and bored: 7. I have difficulty planning and organizing: 9. I worry a lot, and have difficulty stopping repetitive negative thoughts and actions: 6. Asif next wired Raymond for a qEEG. The most striking image was a red blotch on the right side of her brain map, indicating too much slow-wave delta activity in the temple area. Its a part of the brain that plays a role in mood regulation and motivation, and it wasnt firing properly or communicating well with the left side of her brain. Asif now had his target areas. He would use neurofeedback, employing a video-aided reward system, to retrain Raymonds brain. Neurofeedback is a descendant of biofeedback, which uses medical instruments, such as a blood pressure cuff, to monitor body functions and relay the information to patients who then try to alter their physical responses. Neurofeedback has had a popular, if controversial, commercial application as a kind of relaxation therapy, but recently psychiatry has studied it in combination with real-time brain imaging. In 2013, for example, a team at Yale University found that neurofeedback used with functional MRI, another brain imaging technology, substantially reduced depression and anxiety in patients. [Neurofeedback changes the brain in Yale study] For some neurofeedback sessions, Asif plays a pleasant nature movie during which the patients brain-wave activity is automatically compared every half-second to the goal. If the two are in sync, the patients brain is rewarded by the movies continuation. If they are not, the movie stops. Which means that in one 50-minute session, Raymonds brain experienced 6,000 chances to be rewarded for learning how to reduce the delta-wave activity in the right hemisphere and re-establish its normal firing pattern. Her concentration kept the video she substituted a 1992 comedy by Italian director Lina Wertmuller for the nature film playing without interruption. If all this seems mysterious, scientists say it is no more inexplicable than children learning on their own how to play a video game or ride a bicycle. Our brains simply figure things out because thats what they were built to do. For patients, the sense of control over their own treatment, of helping to heal themselves, is often exhilarating. After those five sessions, Raymond felt her depression lift. Those overactive delta waves nearly disappeared, and her improving mood matched her brain map, evident by the diagnostic form she filled in before each session. Soon the 9s and 7s she had recorded before her first session were manageable 2s and 3s. She felt better in the same amount of time it takes for most psychiatric medications to begin working, and she experienced no side effects, except for the goop in her hair after each session. Asif, she said,put my pieces back together. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Internist Alexis Gopal often referred patients to Asif. Ive sent him adolescents who have gone to successive psychiatrists and medication after medication, and he can turn them around in two or three treatments, said Gopal, who lives in Danbury, Conn., and now runs her own medical communications business. For several years the doctor had dealt with her own, occasionally paralyzing anxiety, for which she took medication. When the problems worsened in 2014, she turned to Asif. Gopal was skeptical about neurofeedback, having undergone biofeedback sessions for migraines with another doctor; they hadnt helped. Then Gopal went through Asifs movie-watching exercise. She also listened to a series of pleasant tones that degenerated into noise if she didnt focus on modulating her brain-wave activity. You have to relax. And he tells you to focus on something, she said. I remember specifically one session feeling like I was going to crawl out of my skin. And I remember at the end of one session I felt so relaxed and so calm, I thought, Wow, this really works. Asif charges between $275 and $350 per session after an initial interview and evaluation, which includes a qEEG and costs about $550. Sessions are billed as either psychotherapy or medication management for insurance purposes. Gopal said that she felt better with each visit, and there was a side benefit: Her migraines ended. Another of Asifs patients, who asked that she not be identified, said she began treatment for major depression in January 2014 when she lost weight, became paranoid about eating and isolated herself. He looked at me, and Ill never forget it, he said, Just give me nine days, and Ill pull you out of this. From that moment, I thought, thank God, someones going to help me. Five times a week, she underwent transcranial magnetic stimulation, which delivers bursts of energy designed to stimulate the underactive area of the brain thought to be involved in depression. The progress was virtually immediate. As the treatments went on, Id put a ring on or makeup. Then I noticed I started to cook. I hadnt done my laundry in months and did it, she said, and after two weeks she was significantly better. It was like being reborn, she said. Asif says that a persons mental makeup is a kind of hierarchy, with personality on top, which is created by brain states that arise from circuits firing in a certain pattern below. With psychotherapy, you tweak the brain from the top down, dealing first with a patients personality and temperament. But with neurofeedback, combined with qEEG, he said, he tweaks his patients from the bottom up, identifying the brain areas involved and then retraining those circuits to fire differently, resulting in changed moods or mental outlooks. When they are shown the cause of their suffering in their brain circuits and body function, Asif said, it gives them immense power in having control over things. Because he is a full-time clinician, Asif has done little formal research, although he has been published in Neuroconnections, the journal of the International Society for Neurofeedback & Research. He also gives frequent talks to medical professionals, including the Society for the Advancement of Brain Analysis, the annual conference of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society and the Biofeedback Federation of Europe. Insel, who stepped down from NIMH last year, supports the direction clinicians such as Asif are taking. But he cautions that this is still the beginning of a long road and that rigorous studies are required to establish evidence for biological tests of mental illness. The field needs biomarkers and cognitive tools to define more specific diagnostic groups and to predict an individuals response to treatment, Insel said. We call that precision medicine. It sure beats trial and error. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, Atticus Finch tells his daughter, Scout, in one of the most memorable passages of the classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. Few people in the world could claim to really understand Harper Lee, the novels elusive author, who died Feb. 19 at 89 in Monroeville, Ala. She withdrew from public life shortly after her book was published in 1960, only to reappear in old age with the controversial release of Go Set a Watchman, a manuscript identified as a long-lost early draft of the book that decades earlier had vaulted her to literary renown and, decades later, remained at the center of the discussion of race in America. To Kill a Mockingbird, a coming-of-age story set in the Depression-era South where Ms. Lee grew up, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961 and sold more than 40 million copies, becoming one of the most cherished novels in modern American literature. One oft-cited survey asked respondents to name the book that most profoundly affected their lives. Ms. Lees novel ranked near the top, not far behind the Bible. The novel arrived amid the growing movement for civil rights and drew much of its resonance from its hero, Atticus, a lawyer who nobly and futilely defends a black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman in their segregated town. For many, Atticus was embodied by actor Gregory Peck, who received an Academy Award for his performance in the 1962 movie based on Ms. Lees book. Glimpses into the life of a recluse: Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, passes at 89. ( / ) [How a manuscripts discovery became Harper Lees new novel] What that one story did, more powerfully than one hundred speeches possibly could, was change the way we saw each other, and then the way we saw ourselves, President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama said in a joint statement. Through the uncorrupted eyes of a child, she showed us the beautiful complexity of our common humanity, and the importance of striving for justice in our own lives, our communities, and our country. Ms. Lee changed America for the better. It was widely understood that Ms. Lee modeled Atticus on her father, Amasa Coleman A.C. Lee, a lawyer who, like his daughters fictional character, served in the state legislature and favored pocket watches. Scout, the books narrator, was believed to have been, more or less, Ms. Lee. In the 55 years between the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird and the release in July 2015 of Go Set a Watchman, few Americans came of age without meeting Atticus; his doomed client, Tom Robinson; Scout and her brother, Jem; their peculiar friend, Dill; and Boo Radley the mysterious neighborhood shut-in whom the children try to coax from the shadows. Atticus, in particular, was beloved as the ideal father, even the ideal man in a society that was profoundly flawed, but, through wisdom such as his, perhaps redeemable. The reverence surrounding Ms. Lees book compounded the shock, edging on disbelief, when readers learned the contents of Go Set a Watchman, a literary juggernaut pre-ordered online in numbers topped only by J.K. Rowlings Harry Potter series. 1 of 66 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Notable deaths of 2016 View Photos Remembering those who have died this year. Caption Prince, David Bowie, Debbie Reynolds, Harper Lee and others: Remembering those who have died this year. Debbie Reynolds Actress Debbie Reynolds starred in the 1952 classic movie Singin in the Rain with Gene Kelly, shown above. Reynolds died one day after the death of her daughter, actress-writer Carrie Fisher. Reynolds was 84. Shes now with Carrie and were all heartbroken, her son Todd Fisher said. Read the Debbie Reynolds obituary AFP/Getty Images Wait 1 second to continue. Watchman was presented as not strictly a sequel to Mockingbird, but rather an early iteration of the book set in the 1950s. Jem is dead. Scout properly Jean Louise Finch is living in New York but is home for a visit. Atticus, the white man for whom a courtrooms entire colored gallery had risen in respect in Mockingbird, is an arthritic segregationist. In Watchman, Jean Louise watches her beloved father preside over a White Citizens Council meeting where a speaker spews an invective about blacks who threaten to mongrelize the white race. Atticus asks his daughter: Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters? Do you want them in our world? And Jean Louise, who loves her father but cannot abide his ideology, tells him at one point, I despise you and everything you stand for. Gradually, astonishment surrounding the book gave way to interpretations that perhaps generations of readers of To Kill a Mockingbird had asked too much of Atticus by expecting him, beyond the scope of that book, to be a saint. The man Ms. Lee presented in Mockingbird had represented an innocent defendant with conviction. But that Atticus knew only the American South of the 1930s and before, when neither societys racist structure nor his moral rectitude had yet been challenged by the civil rights movement. The older Atticus of Watchman, like many white Southerners of his era, appeared to be reeling in the changes brought about by integration. He had gravitated to an ideology made even more abhorrent for many modern readers when he, Atticus, of all men, espoused it. [I lived next door to Harper Lee. This is the woman I knew.] Questions swirled about the book and its meaning and about the competency of Ms. Lee, who by then was reported to be largely deaf and blind. How could the Atticus of Mockingbird be reconciled with the bigot of Watchman, or should any such reconciliation be attempted? Had Ms. Lee been manipulated into releasing an abandoned manuscript that might irrevocably alter her legacy or, with questions of race still raw in American society, did she once again have some message to impart? Few people held out hope for complete answers. With her near-total retreat into private life in the mid-1960s, Ms. Lee had become, along with J.D. Salinger and Thomas Pynchon, one of the great literary enigmas of the 20th century. Often, she was called a recluse, a description that was intriguing but inaccurate. Ms. Lee Nelle Harper or just Nelle to friends simply rejected celebrity. For years, she divided her time between New York City and Monroeville, where she shared a house with her sister Alice Finch Lee, a lawyer who managed Nelles affairs and acted as a gatekeeper, usually keeping the gate closed to would-be interviewers. Harper Lee had guarded her anonymity so vigilantly, it was said, that she could roam Manhattan without being recognized. Curious onlookers were left with little more than conjecture about her life. Much meaning was found in her resemblance to Scout, their shared summertime diversions with a clever boy from out of town and their common adoration of their fathers. But once, Ms. Lee offered another clue. You know the character Boo Radley? Well, if you know Boo, then you understand why I wouldnt be doing an interview because I am really Boo, Ms. Lee privately told Oprah Winfrey when Winfrey invited her to participate in a Mockingbird documentary, according to an account the talk-show host provided to the Los Angeles Times. One of the most beloved men Nelle Harper Lee the youngest of four children, the granddaughter of a Confederate soldier and the descendant of slaveholders was born April 28, 1926, in Monroeville. The town served as a model for the fictional hamlet of Maycomb that was the locus of both Mockingbird and Watchman. Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it, says Scout in Mockingbird. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. . . . A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with. Watchman would cast the town in a more complex light. After witnessing her father at the White Citizens Council meeting, Jean Louise wanders the streets in shock, nauseated and shaking. Go away, the old buildings said. There is no place for you here. You are not wanted. We have secrets. If the events of To Kill a Mockingbird seemed so vivid as to have been real, it was, to a degree, because they were. [We never really learned the lesson of To Kill a Mockingbird] Ms. Lee had few toys; Jem and Scouts most prized possessions are the trinkets mysteriously left for them in the knot of a tree. A young Truman Capote provided the inspiration for Dill, the impish boy who is sent to stay with relatives in Maycomb. Capote came to Monroeville under similar circumstances as a child, embarking with Ms. Lee on a long, at times tumultuous, friendship that began with the two future writers typing stories on an Underwood typewriter, a gift from A.C. Lee. From a young age, Capote once remarked, they shared an apartness, she with her tomboyish ways at a time when girls were expected to be feminine and he, an effeminate, itinerant boy who felt that he had fifty perceptions a minute to everyone elses five. Their relationship figured prominently in the 2005 film Capote, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman in the Oscar-winning title role and Catherine Keener as Ms. Lee. Unlike Atticus, A.C. Lee did not raise his children as a widower, although his wife, the former Frances Cunningham Finch, suffered from what was described as a nervous disorder, possibly bipolar disorder, before her death in 1951. In Mockingbird, a book-length account of Ms. Lees life, biographer Charles J. Shields described A.C. Lee as a loving father, pulling Ms. Lee up on his knee much as Atticus did with Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. Scout learns from Atticus why she must go to school, why she must not fight and how to compromise. Jem learns that while he may shoot all the blue jays he wants, its a sin to kill a mockingbird because it does nothing but sing. Both children learn that mockingbirds come in many forms and that Boo, the specter of the shuttered Radley place, is, in fact, one of them. A neighbor of the Lee familys resembled the fictional shut-in and agitated about suing after the publication of Mockingbird. [Mourning readers celebrate the book on Instagram] Ms. Lees father specialized in tax law but took on one criminal case: the defense of two black men, father and son, who were accused of murdering a white storekeeper. They were hanged, their bodies mutilated. In a separate case that had electrified Monroeville, a black man, apparently innocent, was convicted of raping a white woman. He was scheduled for execution, according to Shieldss book a sentence that was commuted to life in prison, where the man suffered a mental breakdown before dying of tuberculosis. In the statehouse, A.C. Lee was a centrist Democrat and occupied himself with legislation related mainly to budget matters and morality. Outside the legislature, he was part-owner and editorialist of the Monroe Journal newspaper. He only gradually rose to the moral standards of Atticus, Shields wrote in the biography. A.C. Lee was more enlightened than most but no saint, no prophet crying in the wilderness with regard to racial matters. . . . Like most of his generation, he believed that the current social order, segregation, was natural and created harmony between the races. At church, A.C. Lee pressured the local Methodist minister to keep secular matters, including social justice, out of sermons. But according to Shields, he also confronted Ku Klux Klansmen on at least two occasions, including one time when they barged in on a Halloween party for young people because of a rumor that blacks had been invited. He is one of the few men Ive known who has genuine humility, and it lends him a natural dignity, Ms. Lee told an interviewer in 1961. He has absolutely no ego drive, and so he is one of the most beloved men in this part of the state. Just as Scout called her father Atticus, Ms. Lee was said to have addressed her father as A.C. Chance for a new life Ms. Lee ambivalently attended Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Ala., before studying law at the University of Alabama. At the university, she penned a column, Caustic Comment, in the student newspaper and edited the humor magazine, called Rammer Jammer. According to Shields, she wrote for the magazine a short play mocking a racist amendment proposed for the state constitution. She dropped out because she wanted to write and moved to New York, where Capote was already drawing notice. Just as Ms. Lee had captured him in Dill, he captured her in at least two tomboyish characters from his fiction, Idabel Thompkins in the 1948 novel Other Voices, Other Rooms and Ann Jumbo Finchburg in his 1967 short story The Thanksgiving Visitor. To support herself, Ms. Lee worked as an airline reservations clerk. Then, for Christmas in 1956, she received a gift from Michael and Joy Brown, friends she met through Capote, whom she described as in periodically well-to-do circumstances. It was an envelope containing a note with the promise of a large financial gift: You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas. [How Harper Lee lost control of her legacy] Ms. Lee used her time to set out the story that became her first novel. Her protagonists name was inspired by a learned Roman from antiquity, Titus Pomponius Atticus. Ms. Lees agent, Maurice Crain, and her editor at the Lippincott publishing house, Tay Hohoff, were credited with helping the young writer shape the manuscript from a series of vignettes into the fully formed To Kill a Mockingbird. The extent of her revisions, as well as Hohoffs role as editor, received renewed interest after the release of Watchman and its divergent portrayal of Atticus. Some critics, despite the immediate runaway commercial success of Mockingbird, found the book naive and its narration flawed, with Scout moving implausibly between childhood innocence and grown-up understanding. Its interesting that all the folks that are buying it dont know theyre reading a childs book, the Southern author Flannery OConnor wrote in a letter shortly after the books publication. But most readers over the years found the novel poignant and beautiful, a remarkable debut by a writer who had not yet turned 35. Ms. Lee declined to write the movies screenplay, a task later given to the playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote, who received an Oscar for his script. A.C. Lee died in 1962, having never seen the movie version of his daughters book. When Peck accepted his Academy Award, he was carrying A.C.s pocket watch. After writing Mockingbird, Ms. Lee published a handful of essays. She traveled with Capote to Kansas to help research In Cold Blood, his acclaimed nonfiction novel that recounted the 1959 murder of a farm family. At one point, a reporter hinted that Ms. Lee might publish a murder story of her own. But she produced no such book, nor any other. In time, her agent died and her editor retired. Capote died in 1984. By then, Ms. Lee had assumed her status as a recluse, or something resembling one. According to one theory, Ms. Lee feared that no work could live up to her first. There were rumors, never satisfactorily substantiated, that Capote had contributed heavily to Mockingbird. Another common explanation for her silence was that she simply had nothing further to say. Then, in February 2015, came the announcement from Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins. I did as I was told In a statement released by the publishing house, Ms. Lee explained that in the mid-1950s, she had completed a novel featuring Scout as a grown-up. Her editor, she said, liked the flashbacks to Scouts youth and persuaded Ms. Lee to recast the book focusing on that earlier period, the result being To Kill a Mockingbird. I was a first-time writer, said Ms. Lee, so I did as I was told. Ms. Lee went on in the statement to explain that she thought the original manuscript had been lost and that it had been discovered by her dear friend and lawyer, Tonja Carter. Later news reports presented contradictory accounts of how and when the manuscript was found. Alabama authorities investigated possible elder abuse stemming from the book deal but closed an investigation having found no wrongdoing. Some readers commented that they would not open Watchman, that it was too painful to see Atticuss heroic figure dismantled. A number of critics found that the book did not stand up to To Kill a Mockingbird. Others, however, found that Ms. Lee had enriched Atticuss character by allowing Scout to see her father not as a god, but rather as an imperfect man. Randall Kennedy, a Harvard law professor, wrote in the New York Times that the book demands that its readers abandon the immature sentimentality ingrained by middle school lessons about the nobility of the white savior and the mesmerizing performance of Gregory Peck. Ms. Lees reticence did little to diminish, and perhaps increased, the fascination surrounding her, both before and after Watchman. Besides Shieldss book, she was the subject of the documentary film Hey, Boo (2010), by director Mary McDonagh Murphy, the memoir The Mockingbird Next Door (2014) by former Chicago Tribune journalist Marja Mills, and an uncounted number of book reports by schoolchildren. Some teachers and parents wondered how book reports about Ms. Lee would change post-Watchman. She made occasional appearances over the years to meet with students or accept awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, bestowed on her by President George W. Bush. President Obama awarded her the National Medal of Arts. Ms. Lee reportedly had a stroke in 2007. Her death was confirmed by her publisher, HarperCollins. No other details were immediately available. Alice Lee, Ms. Lees last surviving immediate relative, died in 2014. Beyond her novels, Ms. Lee left only a few scattered clues for those who wished to understand her or what she had set out to do. In 1964, in one of her last known major interviews, she remarked that she aspired to be the Jane Austen of south Alabama. I would like . . . to do one thing, and Ive never spoken much about it because its such a personal thing. I would like to leave some record of the kind of life that existed in a very small world. I hope to do this in several novels, she said. There was something universal in this little world, she continued, something decent to be said for it, and something to lament in its passing. Joe Holley contributed to this report. Elizabeth Taylor often reminded us that she was alive despite many close encounters with death. Like her title character in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,she was a woman with nine lives. In Elizabeth Taylor: A Private Life for Public Consumption, Ellis Cashmore adeptly unpacks the actresss complex mythology, arguing that Taylor was the first modern celebrity as we know the term. Because her private life was inextricably linked to her public image, Cashmore asserts that Taylor played Elizabeth Taylor more than she played any character from her film career. [Vincente Minnelli: Hollywoods Dark Dreamer, by Emanuel Levy] The book begins at Taylors birth as a modern celebrity: the scandal that erupted when she stole Eddie Fisher from Debbie Reynolds. As the public backlash against Taylors marriage grew (and then abated when she divorced Fisher and met Richard Burton), she became the first star to break free from the image constructed by the MGM studio and just be herself. Cashmore encourages us to measure Taylors transforming stardom from this significant moment in Hollywood history. He demonstrates that as Taylors public image became increasingly interpreted through her film roles the sensual Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the call-girl in BUtterfield 8, the seductress of Cleopatra she changed cultural attitudes and studio policy in the 1950s and 1960s, and she continued to shape the trajectory of celebrity culture in the forthcoming decades. Elizabeth Taylor and Rex Harrison the 1961 film "Cleopatra." (KOBAL via AP) Much of the books strength lies is how Cashmore accentuates other aspects of Taylors complex stardom, including her large appetites both real and figurative. Taylor delighted in her many pleasures, with a voracious desire for men, jewelry and food (later, alcohol and prescription pills). Since Taylor is often remembered solely for her glamour and celebrity status, Cashmores consideration of her other attributes offers a more complex picture of this too-often sanitized screen star. A Private Life has the broader thesis that Taylors life is a template for the celebrity as a brand. Taylor literally bottled her stardom and sold it as White Diamondsperfume, pointing the way for any number of famous performers from Taylor Swift to Kim Kardashian who commodify their status into sellable products, making it available to legion of fans. A Private Life successfully straddles the line between academic text and popular biography. But sometimes Cashmore, a sociologist, strains to marry rigorous scholarship with Hollywood tales; the narrative is undermined by superfluous asides about his sources. This wordiness can have disorienting effect, especially for the non-academic reader. Still, A Private Life offers a rich and illuminating reassessment, invigorating the somewhat lackluster discourse about the iconic movie star. Although there are at least 10 biographies of Elizabeth Taylor, Cashmores lively study provides a compelling interpretation and bridges the many gaps between Taylors impact on the American zeitgeist and her alluring, infamous life. Nathan Smith is an arts writer based in Australia. From our archives: Screen legend Elizabeth Taylor dies at 79 Separating the large and small galleries at Hemphill Fine Arts is a room so tiny that it might be better called a niche. Sometimes its empty, but at the moment it holds a small 1999 print titled How to Survive Your Own Death (Whole). Colby Caldwell made this array of random pixels, but not on purpose. It was an accident one he has been exploiting for almost two decades. The shows title, which Caldwell has used for years, also is How to Survive Your Own Death. The phrase is from a Bernard Welt poem that ponders why people so little resemble their pictures. It refers as well to the way an error in translating analog film footage into a digital format yielded new life the pattern of brightly hued pixels from which the artist has derived hundreds of large-format, numbered abstract prints. (This selection tops off at No. 322.) In these pictures, small blocks of color are enlarged until they become blurred lozenges, and the computer-generated forms begin to appear gestural. Theyre paired with crisp, detailed photos of birds, moths and nests, posed on intense, single-color backdrops. The nature studies are magnified as grandly as the pixels, but not so that their images break down. The animals are dead, yet intact memento mori that will live forever, or at least as long as Caldwells wax-covered archival prints survive. All paintings and photographs are frozen, of course, even the ones that capture or simulate motion. Caldwells work insists on this. There is no sense that the bird might rouse itself and fly away, or that the pixels might heal themselves and reassemble into the image they were before their corruption. One photo, Shadow Shadowed, ponders the marred, perhaps wooden exterior of what exactly? It doesnt matter. In Caldwells pictures of moribund animals and defiled data, there is no life beneath the immaculate surface. Colby Caldwell: How to Survive Your Own Death On view through March 5 at Hemphill Fine Arts, 1515 14th St. NW. 202-234-5601. hemphillfinearts.com. Trevor Young. "Building," 2015 oil on canvas; on view at Addison/Ripley Fine Art. (Trevor Young/Addison/Ripley Fine Art) Trevor Young The title of Voltage, Trevor Youngs show at Addison/Ripley Fine Art, may refer to paintings such as Two Currents, in which the sun rises over a generating station. Yet the local artist also depicts jetliners on tarmac, buildings aglow at night and the gridded illumination of a city that must be Los Angeles. Youngs fundamental interest is not electricity, but light in darkness. Because of his soft-edged realism and attraction to generic locations, Young is sometimes compared to such bards of the everyday as Edward Hopper. But painters pursued the drama of chiaroscuro centuries before Hopper, and Youngs ability to find mystery in commonplace Americana also evokes such filmmakers as David Lynch. In one of the most striking pictures, While in Progress, a building under construction is lit from within as if it were a lantern. It parallels a painting on a different scale, Orange Swaying, which portrays a luminous aquarium in an otherwise dark room. The canvas is in a small office that has been turned into a black-box gallery for this show and contains six medium-size oils of an aquarium and its contents. These dont have the sweep of the airport or industrial scenes, yet they are just as vivid and uncanny. On any scale, Young can find the power of light. Trevor Young: Voltage On view through March 5 at Addison/Ripley Fine Art, 1670 Wisconsin Ave. NW. 202-338-5180. addisonripleyfineart.com. Quartet Nouveau Quartet Nouveau, Foundry Gallerys current show, introduces the cooperatives four newest members. The artists may be little known, but their work has familiar elements. Each participants style is rooted in those of a particular late-19th- or 20th-century painter or school. Patrick Murphy, for example, is heavily indebted to Jackson Pollock, although he has found his own approach to the drip-masters technique. While similarly vigorous and intricate, Murphys pictures are less improvisational and more regular. The balance between black squiggle and blue field in Blue Lightning is tidier than is typical of Pollock. Ann Pickett also is an abstractionist, but her vibrant acrylic-on-paper paintings have an almost-representational quality that suggests Richard Diebenkorn. These pictures hint at landscape, but also at intimate interior vignettes. Charlene Neild and Becky S. Kim are both showing mostly paintings of women, although Kims work includes two landscapes whose spindly trees recall Modigliani. So do many of Kims portraits, while Neilds evoke such Viennese proto-modernists as Klimt and Schiele. Stylized and flattened, her women are often framed by geometric patterns or as in Lizzy and Jupiter accompanied by a dog that appears more Euclidian than organic. Naturalism and near-abstraction dovetail in Neilds pictures as tightly as chaos and order do in Murphys. Quartet Nouveau On view through Feb. 28 at Foundry Gallery, 2118 Eighth St. NW. 202-232-0203. foundrygallery.org. The Magic Within Nearly three dozen artists contributed to the current show at Watergate Gallery, and they offer almost that many interpretations of its theme, The Magic Within. Some pieces are mystical, but most simply reflect the participants usual artistic media and concerns. These range from eerie blue light (neon artist Craig Kraft) to ornately patterned oculi that represent both physical and psychological apertures (printmaker Susan Goldman). Natures alchemy inspired much of the work. Photographer Jose Varelas ethereal male bodies, overlapped in a crosslike arrangement, appear to be turning into figures of light. Painter Heidi Rastin depicts four roses in Warholian closeups, their green stems as prominent as their tomato-red blossoms. The irregular black circles in Doug Dupins picture are actually patterns made by mushroom spores on lustrous green fabric; the composition is outlined by an elaborate frame that presses pieces of a wasps nest between two layers of wood. Imagination can lend magic to ordinary things, such as the white house Kevin Adams painted at an angle to give it an odd outlook. Its a house I never entered, Adams writes, and that unseen interior becomes a metaphor for everything the viewer will never know for sure. The Magic Within On view through March 5 at Watergate Gallery, 2552 Virginia Ave. NW. 202-338-4488. watergategalleryframedesign.com. Playwright Stephen Karam, author of "The Humans," in his Lower East Side neighborhood, where the play takes place. (Jessica Antola for The Washington Post/Jessica Antola for The Washington Post) While writing The Humans his best play yet Stephen Karam was striving to be so precise about the space his characters inhabited that he wanted to share it with them. So, at his desk, he made one for them. I built a little set, he says, a little shoebox diorama. In it, he maneuvered tiny figures representing the Blakes, the family that gathers in a sprawling if dowdy duplex apartment on the fringe of Manhattans Chinatown. It was vital to Karam that the physical placement of the six people of his comedy-drama, set in real time on a chilly Thanksgiving, be tightly choreographed. When one of them, say, trudged up the winding metal staircase to the bathroom, he wanted them to remain in there long enough not only so that they might emerge at the right moment to eavesdrop on a particularly harsh bit of criticism, but also so that the duration of their bathroom visits made realistic sense. This play is weirdly married to its architecture, the 35-year-old playwright is saying in a coffee shop on East Broadway, close to his Lower East Side home. The marriage seems to be working out especially well for Karam: The play was a huge critical success this season in Roundabout Theatre Companys off-Broadway house, the Laura Pels, and so impressed the taste-making film and theater producer Scott Rudin that he decided to move it to Broadway even before those glowing reviews appeared. Now, having had its opening night on Thursday at the Helen Hayes Theatre on West 44th Street, The Humans is positioned to be one of the front-runners for the Tony for best original play, and to further propel the career of a Brown University-educated dramatist who never entertained the slightest, far-off fantasy that a piece by him would run in this arena. Its an astonishing work from a young playwright, says Reed Birney, the veteran stage actor who portrays Erik Blake, a weary husband and father from Scranton, Pa., who seeks to keep his troubles to himself, on a day during which secret sorrows inevitably spill out. When you do a lot of new plays like I do, a lot of times they hire you for your input, for your ability to say, This doesnt quite make sense. With this play, so clear and complete and meticulously observed, I had nothing to say. There wasnt anything to fix. Sarah Steele and Reed Birney in a scene from The Humans. (Brigitte Lacombe/Courtesy O&M Co.) Though Karams earlier play, Sons of the Prophet, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2012, the Scranton native, a literary-minded son of a high school principal, says he remains stunned at the velocity of his ascent. His generation of playwrights, people like Amy Herzog, Annie Baker and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, composes play after bracing play that garner admiring notices and major writing prizes, but rarely if ever the broader spotlight that an engagement in a big house in Times Square can engender. The opportunities for that magnitude of exposure seem so remote to this generation that a Broadway career is not even a consideration. It was never an expectation, says Karam, who owes much to the loyalty Roundabout has shown him, producing three of his works in its smaller, off-Broadway spaces. I thought if one day I had a Broadway debut, it would be 20 years from now, if someone was reviving one of my plays. So the call that I got from my agent felt like an impossibly magical call. It remains to be seen whether the magic lasts, of course. Broadway is not a dependable district of enchantment these days for non-musicals by writers who arent household names, or that dont employ casts that include the likes of Al Pacino. The magic of The Humans is the more profound kind that comes about when the incisive craftsmanship of a dramatist meets the sterling intuitiveness of a seasoned director (Joe Mantello) and the reflexive know-how of a fine cadre of stage actors in this case, the well-drilled team of Birney, Jayne Houdyshell, Sarah Steele, Cassie Beck, Lauren Klein and Arian Moayed. For the play to work in a commercial setting, the participants must all be rigorously in sync, particularly because this is the type of dramedy in which an audience has to recognize themselves; a play, as Karam puts it, about everyday tensions, the thorns that exist among the members of every normal-looking family. Through pieces like Speech and Debate, which explored teenage relationships and the questionable morals of a teacher, and Sons of the Prophet, about the travails of a pair of brothers living hand-to-mouth in a small Pennsylvania town, Karam has demonstrated an acute perceptiveness for the ways people lean on one another even as they get under each others skins. In the bitingly funny conversations of The Humans, he casts his gaze sometimes critical, always compassionate on a family whose members are all hitting roadblocks; theres the disturbing possibility of a malevolent spirit, a curse of some sort, disrupting their lives, and consequently an intriguing inquiry for us to mull over, about our responsibility for summoning our own demons. Reed Birney, Jayne Houdyshell, Lauren Klein, Arian Moayed, Sarah Steele and Cassie Beck in a scene from The Humans. (Brigitte Lacombe/ Courtesy O&M Co.) Karam says hes drawn to the strangeness in people who live in a state of dread; its the psychological realism of the everyday, it seems, that fires his imagination. While he may start a play with some important event in mind Sept. 11, 2001, for instance, plays a very tangential role in The Humans he frequently veers away. I think that Im going to write a bigger thing, he says, and then I end up writing about people and the bigger thing recedes into the background, and hope that its still there. He started his career writing about some very big things. His first major professional production occurred in 2005, in a Silver Spring satellite theater run at the time by Bethesdas Round House Theatre. Columbinus it was called, a performance piece he wrote with his friend, the late director P.J. Paparelli, about the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. Karam was recruited by Paparelli, whom he met when both were summer interns at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, and who was then working for artistic director Michael Kahn at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. He was a controversial guy and also brilliant, Karam says. It got to the point where P.J. and I were brothers. We knew how to fight, and fight well. But we also knew how to make up. Karl Miller, who played one of the Columbine killers, Eric Harris, calls the experience of making the play transformative and remembers Karam as the chill one during a tumultuous playmaking process. They were like good parent and bad parent, Miller says. Stephen was the nice, approachable one, P.J. the insane task master. The play went through a number of iterations and ended up being produced at off-Broadways New York Theater Workshop, birthplace of Rent. Karam and Paparelli stayed in each others orbits up to and including the birth of The Humans. With the consent of Roundabouts artistic director, Todd Haimes, who had the play on his calendar, Karam gave the script to Paparelli to direct for a fall 2014 debut run at the Chicago company Paparelli was then running, the American Theater Company. Six months later, while vacationing in Scotland, the 40-year-old Paparelli was killed in a car accident. That Paparelli was a key part of the development of The Humans made its trajectory even more meaningful for Karam, who seems to create and re-create family dynamics through his plays. Steele, a semi-regular on CBSs The Good Wife who also starred in the premiere of Speech and Debate, says she was caught by surprise when Karam told her that hed written a part for her in The Humans, that of the younger daughter, Brigid, who shares the apartment with her boyfriend, Moayeds Richard. His characters jump off the page, Steele says. He doesnt require you to put anything on. Its a matter of relaxing and letting the play do its work. The play is laced with bits of autobiographical detail, including the layout of that odd New York duplex, conjured in the Helen Hayes Theatre by set designer David Zinn. Turns out it is real estate Karam knows well. I lived in a basement duplex on 96th Street on the Upper West Side, he discloses. Its embedded in my DNA. A show called Wise Guys was announced with fanfare in 1995 as the Kennedy Center commissioned Stephen Sondheim to write a new musical to premiere the following year, opening the 1996-97 season as the august arts compound turned 25. Left to right: Erin Driscoll, Angela Miller and Matthew Schleigh rehearsing the globe-trotting "Road Show" at Signature Theatre. (Amanda Voisard) Since then its bounced around as the most heavily revised project of Sondheims career. Finally in a shape that makes Sondheim and librettist John Weidman happy, the musical now called Road Show is having its belated regional quasi-premiere at Signature Theatre, just down the river from the Kennedy Center, which this year turns 45. Audiences with long memories will recall the musical as Bounce when it ran at the Kennedy Center in 2003. Back then it still had such Broadway dreams that it even reunited Sondheim with his longtime pal and director, Harold Prince. But the story about two very different brothers finding fame and misfortune all across early 20th-century America a real-life saga that had tantalized Sondheim since he was in his early 20s was still in such unsettled shape that it sank out of sight for five more years. The 2008 production at New Yorks Public Theater was stripped lean by Sondheim and Weidman and directed by John Doyle, and the writers declared themselves happy. But if that fixed it, why is Road Show still barely inching through the theatrical landscape eight years later? [A view of Bounce from the orchestra pit] When it comes to the legendary Sondheim, we have unreasonable expectations, suggests Gary Griffin, who directed Road Show at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater in 2014 and is expanding on that production at Signature. Griffin liked Bounce when it ran at Chicagos Goodman Theatre before it moved to the Kennedy Center, and was surprised at the tepid reaction back then. The show was far better, I promise, than the responses I heard, he says. But the disappointment was extreme. The shows plot is based on New Yorker magazine articles and Alva Johnstons 1953 book The Legendary Mizners, which featured whimsical line drawings by Reginald Marsh. Wilson Mizner the last name is pronounced with a long i, as in wise guy was a con artist and womanizer who usually eclipsed his gay brother Addison, though Addison eventually found a niche (as he sings it) designing tony homes in the emerging 1920s Florida enclave of Boca Raton. Sondheim has written that he wanted to compose something jazzy and edgy, and Road Show has some of the pep of Merrily We Roll Along, the Americana of Assassins, even touches of Sunday in the Park with George as Addison explores his creative side. (Fans wanting chapter and verse on all the versions of this show are directed to Sondheims comprehensive retelling in Finishing the Hat.) The storys sweep across the decades made Weidman a likely collaborator; together they had made Pacific Overtures and Assassins. [Golddiggers, fight promoters, swank architects: meet the Mizners] That original Kennedy Center announcement only slowly led to readings and to a 1999 public workshop with Nathan Lane as Addison and Victor Garber as Wilson, then to a new title (Gold!), a lawsuit with a producer, the broad Bounce and ultimately the compact Road Show, now so economical that the score is played by an onstage pianist, with actors occasionally playing instruments. Since Chicago Shakespeare and Signature are putting it in view, will Road Show finally begin to find a bigger constituency? The latest cast of "Road Show" rehearsing Signature Theatre. (Amanda Voisard) I certainly am making a lot of calls and asking people to come, Griffin says. Im sure theyre still waiting to hear what the reaction is. These were the stops along the way: 1999, Wise Guys: An informal but public three-week test at New York Theatre Workshop The workshop followed a series of readings and was directed by Sam Mendes, a rising star at Londons Donmar Warehouse but also just then making his Hollywood name with American Beauty. Vaudeville was an influence because vaudevilles rise and fall coincided with that of the Mizners. Were gonna sing and dance our way right into your hearts, Garber can be heard saying to the audience in bootleg YouTube clips from the performance. Not bad for a couple of dead guys, Lane quips. The story is a posthumous flashback of Wilson and Addison grappling with family dynamics and American ambition. A Broadway date was announced and then scrapped. Still, Sondheim writes that the workshop was not the mess the chatterati made it out to be. 2003, Bounce: A full production in Chicago and Washington WHATS NEW: The title, Harold Prince, and a girl. Prince and Sondheim had not worked together since the stunning 1970s partnership that created Follies, A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd snapped after the 1981 Merrily We Roll Along. With Richard Kind as Addison and Howard McGillin as Wilson, Bounce was big, featuring 19 actors and 35 musicians. The chief rewrite gave Wilson a gaudy romantic interest named Nellie, played by a sultry Michele Pawk. Nellie (Michele Pawk), a saloon girl during the Alaskan Gold Rush, asks Wilson Mizner (Howard McGillin) "What's Your Rush?" in this scene from the 2003 Goodman Theatre's production of "Bounce," which transferred to the Kennedy Center. (Liz Lauren) We have taken the kind of liberty that you take in musical theater, Weidman told The Washington Post at the time. We feel that weve been absolutely true to who these guys were and the way they circled each other, supported each other, undermined each other and in a way ultimately destroyed each other. In scale the show felt like the kind of substantial old-fashioned musical comedy if shorter on laughs and dancing than that suggests that might somehow trundle to Broadway. Postscript: Signature artistic director Eric Schaeffer was approached later by Sondheim and Weidman, and though the collaboration was brief, he directed a reading at Public. I loved the first version, Schaeffer says from New York, where he is directing a workshop of the musical King Kong. I thought that was the way to go. 2008, Road Show, Public Theater WHATS NEW: The title, director John Doyle . . . and that girl, shes gone. The show is streamlined to 17 actors, 13 musicians, 90 minutes, no intermission. Changes include the new Brotherly Love in the Yukon and, going back to the earlier Wise Guys, In Your Hands Now, sung by Papa Mizner and in Griffins estimation setting up key themes about American success for his boys (Alexander Gemignani as Addison and Michael Cerveris as Wilson). A Bounce love song between Wilson and Nellie is now sung by Addison and his love interest, Hollis. Road Show in 2008 at the Public Theater in New York, directed by John Doyle (Joan Marcus) The writing is finished. Reviews were still mixed; The Posts Peter Marks called it sour and strained. The show is little heard from in the United States for another six years. 2014, Road Show, Chicago Shakespeare Upstairs WHATS NEW: This staging pared Doyles compressed version even further, featuring 11 actors. Griffin envisioned the score being played by a single piano; eventually he added several more instruments, mostly strings, played by some of the cast. 2014: Chicago Shakespeare Theaters intimate Road Show, driven by a piano and with seating for 190 (Liz Lauren) Theyre not trying to become an orchestra, Griffin explains. An instrument tells you were in the Yukon, or were in New York, or were in Florida. He adds that there is a Noises Off backstage frenzy at times as the actors manage the costume logistics of a story sweeping across time, and also maybe playing a fiddle or percussion. Scott Davis says the goal of his design in the small space was speedy transitions and creating an almost physical connection with the audience. The story may span the world in a song like Addisons Trip (which alights in Hawaii and Guatemala, among other locales), yet the appeal boils down to something personal. Its about these two guys, Davis says, laughing at the simplicity of the description. Spare as it was, the look was a little show-bizzy, with lights around the frame of a world map. But even in Chicago Shakespeares 190-seat second stage, Griffin says, we didnt want to leave it out there exposed. Road Show was packaged with Gypsy (on the big main stage) as part of rep billed Sondheims America. The critical response was positive, and Road Show sold better than expected. Quietly profound, pronounced the Chicago Tribune in an enthusiastic review. 2016, Signature Theatre WHATS NEW: The scale, moderately bigger than in Chicago, where the audience was no more than two rows from the action. Daviss set has added footlights around the stage and a good deal of height, with a pair of spiral staircases on either side of a two-level wooden structure. Left to right: Sherri Edelen as Mama Mizner, Noah Racey as Wilson Mizner and Josh Lamon as Addison Mizner rehearsing at Signature. Scott Daviss set design has more height at Signature than it did in Chicago. (Amanda Voisard) Still, the audience is a mere five rows deep (with a two-row balcony) as the 319-seat Max stage is currently set up. From Bounce to Road Show, Schaeffer says, the scale and the tone are a lot different. Its so focused on the brothers now. I find it much more emotional. And the writing is just so pinpointed. Schaeffer saw Griffins production and called Sondheim about it. He said, Nothing would make me happier than to see that production live on, Schaeffer says. Sondheim recently told Mark Horowitz (author of Sondheim on Music) that Road Show could be done big, if someone wants to spend the money. Griffin agrees. I absolutely think this show could be done fuller-scale in a Broadway house, Griffin says. Its just that, right now, this is the scale that people are ready to say yes to. Road Show Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by John Weidman. Through March 13 at Signature Theatre, 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. Tickets $40-$87, subject to change. Call 703-820-9771 or visit www.signature-theatre.org. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 19 Trend: Azerbaijan's State Oil Company SOCAR conducts negotiations with the Russian Transneft company on renewal of oil supply via Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline in 2016, Reuters reported Feb. 19 citing SOCAR's representative. SOCAR exported 1.27 million tons of oil via the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline in 2015, compared to 932,160 tons of oil exported in 2014. SOCAR official said that the company had not shipped its oil via Russia in December due to "technical limitations" at the Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline. "We've asked to temporarily use another route - to Makhachkala, an option envisaged by our contract, but Transneft refused, citing technical limitations," he said. The official said SOCAR had so far not exported its oil via Russia this year either but had held negotiations with Transneft on resuming shipments, suggesting the Makhachkala route be activated as per the contract. "We are still in talks with the Russians, they should be more flexible," he said, adding that SOCAR was ready to export about 1.4 million tonnes of crude via Russia this year. He further said that volumes which were meant to be shipped via Russia had been re-routed to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. After the lifting of international sanctions on Iran, he said SOCAR was also considering exporting refined oil products to Tehran as well as swap operations. "Our delegation was in Iran recently and discussed the possibility of reviving our cooperation," he said. He said that SOCAR planned to trade around 22 million tonnes of its own oil this year and about 11 million tonnes of non-Azeri oil worldwide, the same levels as in 2015. 1 of 9 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad Inside D.C.s nerd speakeasy View Photos Shelves filled with books inspire Chantal Tsengs weekend cocktail program in the Reading Room of Petworth Citizen. Caption Shelves filled with books inspire Chantal Tsengs weekend cocktail program in the Reading Room of Petworth Citizen. In the back of Petworth Citizen, a room full of books has become a draw for the cerebral set. The reason? Weekend cocktail nights dedicated to the great books. Amanda Voisard for the Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue. Washingtons a town of uptight worker bees, and perhaps not coincidentally, also a town of drinker bees. We have cigar bars, bars for bocce leagues and bars for whiskey-heads. Neo-retro dives and mold-ridden actual dives. But the one haunt that no one had thought to build may have been the one we needed most: a bar for bookish people. At least thats what Elizabeth Nosal had traveled from Bristow, Va., to find at the back of Petworth Citizen, in a diminutive black box known as the Reading Room. Shed heard rumblings about the Reading Room on various websites sites for bookish types, she said. Until a few months ago, the Reading Room was just a free library, filled mostly with half-read novels, ego-stroking memoirs and law-school assigned reading that neighborhood residents had donated by the crateful. Now, on Friday and Saturday nights, its a singular, civilized place where you can sip a cocktail and decompress from a week of the cerebral hustle. A 20-seat nerd speakeasy, bow ties welcome. What has made this space a salon not quite on the level of New Yorks Algonquin Hotel and its famed round table (but good enough) are its Literary Cocktails nights. They began in October (and continue indefinitely), complete with prose-inspired menus paying homage to the Sherlock Holmes series (guests tossed back a green chartreuse and Scotch number dubbed The Boscombe Valley Mystery); Oscar Wilde (drinks infused with rose water, spiked with eau de vie and garnished with flowers, naturally); and Ian Fleming (what else but champagne and vodka for the James Bond creator?). Cocktail fans have come, but so, recalls craft bartender Chantal Tseng, has a woman working on a doctoral thesis around Franz Kafka and a gentleman who had analyzed The Arabian Nights. [Try making these 3 cocktails, which pair perfectly with classic literature] For an evening dedicated to the writing of Robert Burns, Chantal Tseng created A Red Red Rose, with a garnish that looks a bit like the fragrant flower. (Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post) Even the design of the Literary Cocktails menus change to relect the sensibility of the author. (The Washington Post/The Washington Post) Each weekend brings new cocktail lists, which look curiously like elegant bookmarks, and new drinks, which often make obscure references to tomes by Wilde, Robert Burns and Jules Verne or the experimental Japanese author Haruki Murakami. The dusty old books more than 3,000, shelved according to color, from black (Twilight) to white to dark blue (Amy Tans The Kitchen Gods Wife) are both an accidental design element and something to pass the time with between sips. Pairing cocktails and books makes perfect sense, Nosal muses. Well, it does if youre fairly well-read. In that case, you know that authors and booze go together like, well, Hemingway and daiquiris. On a recent Saturday, the Reading Room was a scene straight out of A Moveable Feast. A woman dolled up in a voluminous-shouldered, cream-color vintage dress and salmon-hued kitten heels played cards with a silver fox as jazz played quietly in the background. Strewn across their table were tiny tiki umbrellas, a pristine copy of the book 1001 Things to Love About Military Life and Murakami-inspired vodka-sake cocktails garnished with tiny hearts cut from orange peel. I wish I read more, a tall, pink-cheeked woman whispered to her friend as they slipped in from Petworth Citizen to survey the scene and just as quickly slipped out. On the other hand, Ari Attar, a pretty, dark-haired Logan Circle dweller, was convinced to stay just a little longer on her date with Austin Pierce of Petworth. He had brought her to the Reading Room to look at books and have a quiet moment. (The volume of the banter in the Reading Room is unusually subdued.) He hadnt expected that shed be familiar with Murakamis work. (Score!) It was almost like a Murakami book, Attar said of the evening as the duo made their exit. How so? Theres something sort of confusing. But what could be confusing about a bar where people tend to work at NPR or, in the waning hours of a Saturday night, enjoy like anyone might! hunching over a good cocktail to discuss what theyd heard on NPR earlier that day? What is so unusual about that? Theres quite a bit thats unusual, considering that most bars seem to exist for drinking and that this one seems to foster thinking. That may have been an unintended outcome for Tseng, who mostly was looking for an excuse to indulge her own bookishness. It is my own personal book club, she says. And anyone else is invited to join by reading and stopping by. It is my own personal book club, says bartender Chantal Tseng, left. And anyone else is invited to join by reading and stopping by. (Amanda Voisard/For the Washington Post) For a time, shed been part of a real book club, which read the works of Jane Austen, some F. Scott Fitzgerald, some noir-ish short stories. She proposed the literature-inspired nights at the bar in hopes of keeping up her reading and capitalizing on the books that fill the Reading Room. Now, she spends a week delving into an authors oeuvre, then each weekend unveils the drinks her reading has inspired. For the staff, she dispatches a kind of Cliffs Notes to explain both the readings and how they inspire her concoctions. Take this one, from her recent Robert Burns night: The poem, she wrote, is about the dichotomy of man. The drink is an equal parts dry take on a classic aromatic whisky cocktail. . . . Its the kind of cocktail a man or woman of very dry humor would sip while observing and musing about the folly of mankind. And this place, in the company of true people of letters, is precisely the kind of place where theyd do it. Reading Room at Petworth Citizen, 829 Upshur St. NW. Literary Cocktails events are held each Friday and Saturday from 7 p.m. to midnight. Read more: Try making these 3 cocktails, which pair perfectly with classic literature The highest highs and the lowest lows of human emotion have long been the stuff of cinema. So its no real surprise to see the arrival of Touched With Fire, filmmaker Paul Dalios semi-autobiographical feature debut about the initially destructive but ultimately healing relationship between two young poets hospitalized for bipolar disorder. What is a different, though, in a season that has already produced such explorations of manic-depression as Infinitely Polar Bear and I Smile Back and that will soon bring yet another in the fact-based drama The Dark Horse is that the filmmaker himself has bipolar disorder. According to the 36-year-old director, who was diagnosed with the condition in his 20s, films about manic-depression, while well-meaning, too often look at the disorder from the point of view of friends and family members, rather than through the eyes of those actually living with the illness. It frustrates me, says Dalio, when the filmmaker isnt aware of how displaying them in this way from the outside might affect the way in which the public sees them. That is to say, very easily, in a negative light. [Review: Two poets are mad about each other, literally] Although the film pulls no punches about the real dangers of untreated manic-depression for example, the 25-percent suicide rate it also attempts to make palpable the addictive allure of the manic highs. Its easy to understand why someone, especially in a creative field, might not want to give up that rush for the flattened, even suppressed emotions that sometimes result from medication. Paul Dalio on the set of Touched With Fire. (Joey Kuhn/Roadside Attractions) Dalio sat down recently to talk about the film, along with Kay Redfield Jamison, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University whose book about the link between creativity and manic-depression lends the film its title. Alluding to a line from the Stephen Spender poem The Truly Great, Jamisons Touched With Fire profiles several bipolar artists, including Vincent van Gogh and Virginia Woolf. According to Jamison who, like Dalio, is bipolar, and who appears in a cameo as herself in the film Touched is a refreshing departure from previous attempts to grapple with the subject. All too often, she says, movies tend to be melodramatic, condescending, patronizing, idiotic, glamorizing and/or demonizing, not just of patients, but of doctors and patients families. In other words, the stereotypical manic-depressive of a Hollywood film is a two-dimensional caricature: either a drooling clown or a doomed, Byronic antihero, with nothing in between. Like a dose of cinematic lithium, this movie means to balance those extremes. The purpose of the film, Dalio says, is for people to see through the eyes of someone with bipolar, to look through their bloodshot eyes and to see that the most beloved image of a sky van Goghs The Starry Night was, in fact, seen through van Goghs window at the asylum of Saint-Remy-de-Provence, where he was a patient in 1889 and 1890. If audiences can appreciate the beauty in that intense image, Dalio says, hopefully they wont be afraid of the lunatic homeless person on the street. They will see the beauty in him. And those who have [bipolar disorder] will be proud of their so-called disorder. Van Goghs painting is a kind of leitmotif throughout the film, even materializing as a literal hallucination by the main characters. A graduate of New York Universitys film school, where he studied under director Spike Lee, Dalio says his first instinct was never to mine his own experience. Throughout his studies, he was medicated to such a degree that he felt nothing. I was utterly unable to write from within, he says. Rather, Dalios choice for a safe, commercial debut was something he describes, with a straight face, as a Russian Mafia film, kind of a cross between The Lion King, Hamlet and The Godfather. Fortunately, Lee, who has a reputation for mentoring and sometimes executive-producing the work of former students, took one look at that screenplay and told Dalio, This Mafia movie is a piece of crap, Dalio recalls. Although Lee subsequently agreed to sign on as executive producer of a different script a rap musical that collaboration never bore fruit either. Eventually Dalio and Lee agreed to work together on Touched With Fire after Dalios wife, Touched cinematographer Kristina Nikolova, insisted that Dalio stop messing around and get personal. She was like, Look, this is your experience with bipolar, your experience of hell, Dalio says. I hadnt even written anything at the time. It was just an idea. But she said she wanted something that we could make together. I said, Okay. How about a crazy love story about two people who meet in the hospital and make each other even more crazy? She was like, You have to do that film. It is the central love story, Dalio believes, that enables audiences to relate to the films somewhat unhinged protagonists, Marco (Luke Kirby) and Carla (Katie Holmes), despite their shared madness. This is not clinical and dry, the way its portrayed. It was first and foremost important to tell the love story, he says. Their emotions happen to be breaking outside the boundaries of what we call sanity, but when that emotion takes the form of love, that invites the audience in. Can you love too much? I dont know. Here, its clearly more than what most people would say is appropriate or sane. but at least its human. Its recognizable. Our perceptions of mental illness are fluid, depending on its presentation in popular culture, says Dalio, citing research by the Harmony Institute, a research organization that studies the social impact of media. If a plane goes down because there was a dangerously mentally ill person on board, it goes one way, Dalio says. If theres a funny movie about a mentally ill person, it goes the other. Dalio says he hopes Touched occupies a middle ground between those two extremes. Ultimately, it must be judged as a movie, not as a manifesto. In other words, it had better be entertaining, as well as eye-opening. There are many humorous moments in the film, as when a patient (played by Dalio) tries to sweet-talk his way into getting the stimulant Adderall from the nurse at the dispensary. Its important to remember that bipolar is not all dark, and its not all light, Dalio says. A lot of these people become super funny in the hospital, particularly when theyre making fun of their doctors. Touched With Fire (R, 104 minutes). At area theaters. From left, author David Humenansky and his two sons take a plunge into the freezing water. (Courtesy of David Humenansky) Our readers share tales of their rambles around the world. Who: David Humenansky (author) of Great Falls, Va., and his two sons, Michael Humenansky of Chicago and Adam Humenansky of San Diego. Where, when, why: This was my second trip to Antarctica in about a year (I went with my wife in 2015 on a Seabourn cruise), but this time I went with my boys (ages 29 and 32). It was on their bucket list, and I wanted to be part of that memory. We went in January, meeting up in Buenos Aires one day prior and flying to another city in Argentina, Ushuaia, to catch the 10-day Lindblad National Geographic Explorer expedition cruise. The three pose in front of the expedition cruise ship. (David Humenansky) Highlights and high points: Antarctica is a unique and pristine place with lots of wildlife. On Paulet Island, we saw over 300,000 Adelie penguins. The sheer numbers were overwhelming. As the ship navigated through Iceberg Alley, we viewed between 70 and 90 huge, white tabular icebergs, each bigger than the ship and many having shining turquoise and sapphire crevices. Special sightings included a rare Ross seal, Antarctic killer whales and one Emperor penguin. [Interested in sharing your own What a Trip story? Apply here.] Cultural connection or disconnect: Its odd, but our connection was not a direct result of the destination or a particular person. Of the 148 passengers, about half approached me during the trip to congratulate my wife and me on how well we had raised our boys. Half of that number continued to mention that they enjoyed just watching us and indicated it was part of what made their trip special. What more can a parent hear to warm the heart? Biggest laugh or cry: As soon as we boarded the ship, my boys tracked down the expedition leader, requesting he plan a plunge into the freezing water. Then they started interesting the passengers in the same thing. Four days later, 60 passengers took the plunge into the frigid and unexpectedly salty waters south of the Antarctic Circle. For safetys sake, the crew members allowed only one jumper at a time, but they made an exception to let the three of us do it together. It generated great pictures of a well-fed walrus (me) and two slender seals (my boys) entering the sea. Author David Humenansky captured this photograph of a Gentoo penguin with its egg. (David Humenansky) How unexpected: While eating breakfast, we heard a sudden, loud grating noise followed by the ship lunging and jerking, then slowing down. We discovered the ship had the ability to ram into ice floes and drive up onto them, allowing a gangplank to be dropped directly onto the ice so passengers could disembark and walk the floe. If you stopped walking on it, the silence on the ice was absolute. It was very cool. Fondest memento or memory: The trip was planned not only for the experience but also to create lots of lasting memories, which it did. It enabled our boys to say theyve been on all seven continents a special type of memento. To me, however, the greatest gift was taking the time to share the experience as a family. To tell us about your own trip, go to washingtonpost.com/travel and fill out the What a Trip form with your fondest memories, finest moments and favorite photos. The FAA bill includes some provisions that would benefit consumers, such as a rule that requires airlines to refund fees for delayed baggage. (Scott Olson/Getty Images) Now that the dust has settled after Round 1 of the fight for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization bill, air travelers are wondering: Whats in it for us? Not much, unfortunately. The current legislation to fund the FAA, widely believed to be the best chance in years to improve air travel, was recently approved by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. It now goes to the Senate, which is unlikely to pass the bill in its current form because it privatizes air traffic control. The FAA bill includes some provisions that would benefit consumers, such as a rule that requires airlines to refund fees for delayed baggage and an extension of the Transportation Departments respected Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protection. But two contentious consumer issues will be on representatives plates as they consider how to fund the FAA in coming weeks. And the bigger question of what Congress should be doing for air travelers looms large in this election year. Almost no one thinks their representatives are doing enough. One of the passenger issues is seat size. An amendment called the Seat Egress in Air Travel (SEAT) Act, which was proposed by Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), failed in committee. The act would have established minimums for seat size and pitch (the distance between rows) in the interests of protecting passenger safety and health. [Seat sizes and fare disclosure make this congressional debate a must-watch for air travelers] Cohen argued that seat sizes should be regulated because the average distance between rows of seats has dropped from 35 inches before airline deregulation in the 1970s to about 31 inches today. The average width of an airline seat has also shrunk, from 18 inches to about 16, he says. The airline industry vehemently opposed the amendment. We believe that the government should not regulate, but instead market forces, which reflect consumer decisions, and competition should determine what is offered, says Jean Medina, a spokeswoman for Airlines for America, a trade group for airlines. Equally vehement were consumer advocates, who favored a minimum seat size rule. Current seats are not just uncomfortable but pose safety and health risks, says Paul Hudson, president of FlyersRights.org, a group that represents air travelers. Hes pushing the FAA to set a moratorium on further shrinkage until standards are set. Cohen plans to introduce the amendment again when the bill comes to the floor of the House. Observers also say its likely that the companion bill in the Senate will contain language requiring the Transportation Department to set minimum seat room standards, which would have to be reconciled with the House bill in committee. The second issue: fare disclosure. An airline-supported amendment, introduced late during the bills markup session by Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), would allow an airline to prominently quote a fare without taxes and other mandatory fees. The amendment, called the Transparent Airfares Act, would reverse the Transportation Departments popular full-fare advertising rule, which requires airlines to quote the entire fare but permits them to break down the taxes and fees less prominently. Allowing airlines to advertise their fares minus taxes and fees could leave air travelers with an initial impression that ticket prices are more than 20 percent lower than they really are. By some informal estimates, doing so would translate into an additional $1 billion in annual revenue to the domestic airline industry. Airlines lobbied the House to pass the same measure two years ago, but the legislation failed to gain traction in the Senate. The amendments fate is likely to be identical this time. Already, one key senator, Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), has vowed to block the measure, denouncing it as allowing a powerful special interest to cheat customers. The only reason that airlines want this rule is so that they can mislead and deceive passengers into thinking the price of flying is lower, says Charles Leocha, president of Travelers United, a consumer group that represents air travelers. (Disclosure: I co-founded Travelers United, but I am no longer actively involved in the group.) Of course, the seat space and fare questions are tied to the FAA bill, whose destiny is less certain. The legislation spends the bulk of its 273 pages attempting to privatize air traffic control, an issue that could be a non-starter even for the current legislature. Observers expect Congress to delay the bill by weeks or months, which means efforts to roll back disclosure laws on airfares and to set minimum airline seat standards could be held hostage to this Washington drama. [Travelers are less certain about the airport screening experience than theyve been in years] All of the air travel politicking raises bigger questions for travelers, who have long suspected that Congress is in the airline industrys pocket. For consumers, its difficult to understand that their representatives could spend so much time arguing over privatizing air traffic control while marginalizing the needs of their own constituents. They wonder if Congress will ever try to protect air travelers or just continue passing laws that favor airlines. The answer is a little complicated. Congress acts or threatens to act when public sentiment overwhelmingly favors consumer protections. For example, after well-publicized tarmac delays 17 years ago, congressional action to clamp down on airlines seemed all but certain. To avert more regulations, domestic airlines voluntarily agreed to adopt customer-service plans. A decade ago, after another series of highly publicized aircraft delays on the taxiway, airlines couldnt avoid regulation, leading to the current tarmac-delay rules. But when the eyes of the traveling public are turned away, lawmakers always seem to be on the lookout for ways to help airlines become more profitable, sometimes at the expense of passengers. Too often, Congress votes to loosen regulations, undo consumer protection laws, and, indeed, to make the flying experience even worse than it is. Most upsetting to passengers is the fact that representatives enjoy special perks when they fly and are said to rarely see the economy class cabin of the aircraft, so they dont always feel the results of their customer-unfriendly legislation. On this particular bill, and on the two consumer issues attached to it, voters have a little more leverage than usual. After all, its an election year. They can contact their representative (bonus points if theyre on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, but its not necessary). Sadly for passengers, the SEAT Act failed on a largely party-line vote, and the Transparent Airfares Act passed unanimously. Letting your representatives know how you feel about these measures could change the outcome of this debate. The SEAT Act failed by only seven votes, and to advocates, that means that theres still hope that civility and honesty could someday return to the skies. Elliott is a consumer advocate, journalist and co-founder of the advocacy group Travelers United. Email him at chris@elliott.org. More from Travel: What the TSAs new body-scanner rules mean for you Funny signs from around the world Read past Navigator columns here. D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D), seen attending a meeting last year with Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and D.C. Council members, says he thinks his proposal to limit campaign financing could survive a challenge under Citizens United. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post) The Districts first elected attorney general has proposed tight new restrictions on campaign fundraising in the city, aiming to prevent another political action committee like one that was aligned with Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) last year and that raised unlimited contributions from businesses seeking contracts from her administration. The legislation submitted Thursday by Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D) puts new focus on closing what critics have cast as a loophole that allows unlimited donations to District PACs in non-election years. Bowsers former campaign treasurer started such a committee shortly after the mayor took office last year. It was the first in District politics to be so closely aligned with a sitting mayor. The committee quickly raised more than $300,000 and had a goal of amassing $1 million ahead of this years council races. But the committee was closed in November at the request of the mayor after widespread criticism that it was creating an appearance of pay-to-play politics. [With Bowser PAC, council member calls D.C. government Tammany Hall] In testimony before the councils Judiciary Committee on Thursday, Racine said his bill was designed to eliminate both wrongdoing and the appearance of it. You know and I know that the people in the District of Columbia are sick and tired of it, and we should just take the question of whether there is an appearance of impropriety off the table by passing strong anti-pay-to-play politics laws, Racine said. Bowsers chief of staff, however, fired back at Racine on Friday via social media. He called a provision of the attorney generals bill that would prevent the city from contracting for a period of time with companies that make political contributions hypocritical. Racine continues to accept donations from companies with business before the city to pay off loans he made to his campaign, albeit ones in denominations at or below existing limits of $1,500 per contributor. Some business leaders contributed $20,000 to the pro-Bowser PAC. His bill fails to close the #paymeback loophole which @AGKarlRacine is currently exploiting, John Falcicchio, the mayors chief of staff, tweeted Friday afternoon. Racines bill is the latest in a series of proposals introduced by council member Elissa Silverman (I-At Large) and others to close the unlimited-contribution loophole relating to PACs. But Racine said his bill would do so in ways that would not run afoul of the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which cleared the way for corporations and unions to make unlimited independent expenditures. Racines bill would repeal a District exemption that PACs can accept unlimited donations in years in which they do not support candidates. And unlike last year, when Bowser attended two PAC fundraisers, candidates for office in the District would not be allowed to encourage anyone to donate to an independent expenditure committee or PAC. The bill also would require contributors to such entities to provide extensive disclosures of how much they spend on campaigns as well as identifying affiliates and donors associated with that spending. The measure also would tweak a proposal by D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) to prohibit the city from entering into contracts with companies that have contributed to PACs. Racine proposes a two-year period of ineligibility for high-value city business for any company that contributes to a candidate or elected official. A majority of council members have expressed support for closing the PAC loophole, but fewer sitting lawmakers have said they would support Mendelsons proposal, which could severely limit fundraising for mayoral and other citywide campaigns. In a statement, Bowser spokesman Michael Czin said Racine has not followed his own advice. Racines campaign has raised nearly $93,000 since he took office, and some of the money is going to repay Racine, who is owed more than $450,000 by the campaign. Does Mr. Racines legislation ban the very loophole he is exploiting that allows businesses, corporations and PACs to write large checks for the $500,000 he is trying to pay himself back? Czin wrote. In a statement, Racine cast the long-standing practice of city candidates paying back personal loans as different from PACs accepting unlimited amounts to benefit a chief executive with sway over city contracts. My efforts to retire my campaigns debt are subject to the same stringent dollar limits and disclosure requirements as any contribution to a candidate, Racine wrote, suggesting that he would like to work with Bowser toward a bill. We invite all public officials to work together to make our city a model for transparency in campaign finance and move away from the appearance of pay-to-play politics in the District. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) on Friday asked for federal disaster aid for the counties that were hit by last months winter storm. Hogan asked President Obama to make a disaster declaration for Maryland, which would make the state eligible to receive federal assistance for the response to the storm. We are requesting a disaster declaration in order to provide Maryland with all assistance available following the historic snowstorm we experienced last month, Hogan said in a statement. We are taking steps to recover and ensure we are ready for any future storms. Last months storm dumped more than three feet of snow in some parts of Maryland and caused high winds and freezing temperatures. [Winter storm causes havoc up and down the East Coast] The Maryland Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) has been working with local governments and the federal government to assess the damages of the storm. Chas Eby, a MEMA spokesman, said Friday that the initial estimates are at $34.2 million. He said the figure is not final. This is only the initial estimate, validated by FEMA, that we are using for purposes of making the disaster declaration request, Eby said. Many state and local government agencies are continuing to assess costs and damages from the storm. Del. Shane Pendergrass (D-Howard), explains her bill to allow people given no more than six months to live the option of filling a prescription for drugs to hasten their death. (Brian Witte/AP) A joint House committee is scheduled to hear hours of what should be emotional and thought-provoking testimony on Friday on whether Maryland should become the sixth state in the country to allow terminally-ill patients to take their own lives. The hearing is the first this year on the End of Life Options Act, a bill that would allow a doctor to prescribe life-ending drugs to someone who physicians say has six months or less to live and is able to self-administer the medication. The measure died in committee last year, Over the past several months, a workgroup met to make changes to the bill that, they think, address many of the concerns lawmakers had during last years debate. Among them: a provision requiring patients to have a private consultation with their doctor to ensure there is no coercion and another that requires the state to keep a database of how often patients end their own lives. The work group also renamed the bill from Death with Dignity to End of Life Options Act. Bill sponsor Del. Shane Pendergrass (D-Howard) said recently that she was optimistic about the bills chances, especially after California passed a similar measure last fall. [Right-to-die advocates pushing hard for legislation in Maryland in 2016] Seeing what California did makes us relook at this, it makes other legislators and citizens relook at it, Pendergrass said. When you have this in the back of your mind and you go through life and you experience that one bad death that were all away from in supporting this bill, you get moved to want to help people not suffer. Testimony is scheduled to come from people who are terminally ill, caregivers who lost loved ones to painful deaths and members of the disabilities community who worry about a potential for aid-in-dying laws to be abused. The Catholic Church has joined the disabilities community in opposition to the legislation. People with intellectual and developmental disabilities have historically faced discrimination and lack of access to medical care based on their perceived value, said Christine Marchand, executive director of The Arc Maryland. Assisted suicide raises significant concerns for people with disabilities as well as those who will acquire a disability as a result of a terminal diagnosis who are perceived as less valuable. The Maryland Senate will decide next week whether it should have a say in who is chosen as the next state superintendent of schools. The Senate was scheduled on Friday to vote on a bill that would change the selection process of the state superintendent. Instead, it delayed action after questions were raised about whether the Senate has the legal authority to confirm the head of the states school system. The Senate plans to ask for an opinion from the state attorney generals office on whether the legislation infringes on separation of powers. The bill is scheduled to be taken up on Tuesday. The decision to delay the vote came after a lengthy debate about why Democratic legislative leaders were trying to change a system that has been in place for 100 years. Under the current process, the Senate confirms the members of the state Board of Education, who are appointed by the governor. The board then makes the selection of the school superintendent. Its not broken, said Sen. George C. Edwards (R-Washington), noting that there have only been seven superintendents in the past century. I think its worked over the last 100 years. [Some Maryland lawmakers want a say in who is states next schools chief] Republican senators repeatedly asked why the Senate wanted to change the process now. Some see it as a power grab by the Democratic-controlled General Assembly. Sen. Paul G. Pinsky (D-Prince Georges), the bill sponsor, said the measure is designed to provide oversight. Doug Mayer, a spokesman for Gov. Larry Hogan (R), called the argument utter rubbish. This bill would radically change 100 years of progressive policy, and add a duplicative and unnecessary political layer to what is already a well-functioning process, Mayer said. In terms of policy, process, and politics, this is a flawed and poorly considered piece of legislation that would endanger the very nature of the states educational system. But Sen. Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore) said the policy-making power that the state superintendent has is enormous. Those powers will only increase, he said, under the new federal law that gives states more authority over education policy. It makes absolute rational sense to do this now, Ferguson said. The state Board of Education plans to name a new superintendent later this year. The current position is held by interim superintendent Jack Smith, who took over when Lillian Lowery resigned in September. He was recently chosen as the new Montgomery County superintendent. Hogan has pushed some education policies that have not been received well by the Democratic-controlled legislature, including a measure last year to give charter schools greater authority and a proposal this year to provide tax credits to businesses that donate to schools. The tax credit is expected to help non-public schools more than public schools. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 19 By Dalga Khatinoglu - Trend: As Pakistan blames the sanctions imposed on Iran for delaying gas intake from this country, however a Pakistani official claims there is another reason. Pakistani Parliamentary Secretary for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahzadi Umerzadi Tiwana said that Qatar's LNG price is lower than the price of Iran's natural gas. that of Iran. In particular, she mentioned the recent $16-billion deal with Qatar, saying that Qatari LNG is low priced as compared to gas that Iran would be supplying to Pakistan. According to Pakistani sources, LNG arriving in any particular month will fetch 13.37% of the preceding three-month average price of a Brent barrel (considering the present Brent price as a proxy, that would equate to $167.5 per 1000 cubic meters). Comparing the figure with the revenues of Tehran gas deals with Turkey and Iraq, it indicates that Iranian gas wouldn't compete with Qatari LNG on Pakistani market. In 2014 Iran was exporting gas to Turkey at above $420 per 1000 cubic meters, but the figure plunged to $225 currently due to low oil price. Iran previously said that the price of gas for Iraq would be similar to Turkey. The price in Qatar-Pakistan's new LNG deal is very low. For instance, Tiwana said that the average price of LNG cargos imported so far by Pakistan State Oil (PSO) is $7.8224/MMBTU (million british thermal units). Converting BTU to cubic meters, then Pakistan imports 1000 cubic meters of gas at $291. Pakistan said on February 10 that it had signed a 15-year agreement to import up to 3.75 million tons per year of LNG, or more than 14 million cubic meters per day (mcm/d) of natural gas from Qatar. Iran also has a contract with Islamabad to export 22 mcm/d of gas to this country, while Pakistan should have started gas intake in January 2015, but yet to start construction of pipeline on its territory. Tiwana didn't touch upon any plan regarding the Iran-Pakistan pipeline, but said that an agreement for laying gas pipeline for bringing LNG from Karachi to Lahore had already been signed between Pakistan and Russia with worth $2 billion, projected to be completed by December 2017. The project doesn't have anything to do with Iranian gas. On the other hand, China is planning to start the construction of another pipeline from LNG terminals in Gwadar port to power plants in Navvabshah city (Pakistan). This rout can help the realization of Iran-Pakistan gas deal, because Gwadar port has less than 100 km distance from Iranian borders, but the low Qatari LNG price may discourage Islamabad from such a move. Dalga Khatinoglu is an expert on Iran's energy sector and head of Trend Agency's Iran news service THE DISTRICT Arrest in fatal stabbing at NW club D.C. police have arrested a man in the January stabbing death of a 29-year-old patron inside Barcode, a club near the Farragut North Metro station in downtown Washington. Antoine Byrd, 35, of Northeast, has been charged with first-degree murder while armed. He was arrested Wednesday, police said. The stabbing occurred about 11:40 p.m. on Jan. 31 inside the club at 17th and L streets NW. The victim was Robinson Pal of Riverdale, in Prince Georges County. Peter Hermann Two men fatally shot in Northeast Two men were shot Thursday inside a residence in Northeast Washington, D.C. police said. One man died at the scene, and the other died at a hospital. The shootings occurred shortly after 1 p.m. in the 500 block of 58th Street NE, near the Burrville neighborhood. Names of the victims were not immediately released. Police said both appeared to be in their 40s. The deaths are the 11th and 12th homicides in the District so far this year. Dustin Sternbeck, the chief D.C. police spokesman, said the victims were acquaintances. He would not comment on whether anyone else was home at the time of the shootings, or if there had been a forced entry. MARYLAND Man, 21, is charged with murder A 21-year-old man was arrested Thursday for a fatal shooting in Greenbelt this week, Prince Georges County police said. Jarel Dickerson of District Heights is charged with first-degree murder in the homicide of Robert Brandon Jr. on Monday. Brandon, 28, was shot to death on the 8600 block of Greenbelt Road, the street where he lived. Tyler Hunter, a county police spokesman, said investigators believe that Dickerson shot Brandon during a drug-related robbery. Adoption is sought for emaciated dog Authorities in Prince Georges County are trying to find out who abandoned a 7-year-old mastiff found so emaciated that it weighed just over 56 pounds rather than the typical 140- to 150-pound weight for that breed of dog. County animal officials named the dog Violet after she was found Feb. 8 on Gallahan Road in the Clinton area, according to officials with the Prince Georges County Animal Management Division. Violet is being cared for at Mutts Matter Rescue in Rockville until she is healthy enough to be adopted by a foster family, the Humane Society said. Anyone with information is asked to call 301-780-7241. Burglar took it to-go in Prince Georges Prince Georges County authorities are searching for a man who crawled through the drive-through windows of two fast-food establishments to steal cash from registers, police said Wednesday. Both burglaries took place within 30 minutes of each other last month in Colmar Manor, police said. At about 4:30 a.m. on Jan. 23, authorities said the man crawled through the window of a restaurant in the 4000 block of Bladensburg Road. Then, at about 5 a.m., investigators said he broke into another restaurant in the 3900 block of Bladensburg Road. D.C. police arrested a suspect Friday in the fatal shooting of two men inside a Northeast Washington house used by a nonprofit group that helps people in urgent need of housing. Police did not describe a possible motive in the shooting that occurred shortly before 1 p.m. Thursday in the 500 block of 58th Street NE. The victims were identified as Clifton David Francis, 51, and David Aumon Watkins Jr., 45. Both men lived in the home and were clients of the Friendship Place organization, according to the group. The suspect was identified as David Joshua Bright, 29, of Northeast Washington. A police spokesman said he was arrested outside a barbershop in Maryland and faces two counts of first-degree murder while armed. A spokesman for Friendship Place said the privately owned home where the shooting occurred is one of hundreds in the organizations District-wide network. Its a very sad situation, said Jean-Michel Giraud, the nonprofit groups president. We are really sad for the families of the people involved. Police have released scant information on the case, including where in the home the shooting occurred and whether the gunman forced his way inside. One victim was pronounced dead on the scene and the other shortly after arriving at a hospital. The deaths bring the number of D.C. homicides this year to 12. Friendship Place is a District-based nonprofit group that mostly works to help the homeless find both temporary and permanent shelter. It has a variety of programs and lists its motto as Ending homelessness, rebuilding lives. Both shooting victims were in the groups rapid rehousing program called Home Now. The D.C.-funded pilot program is run out of the groups walk-in Welcome Center on Wisconsin Avenue in Tenleytown. Juan Garcia, the spokesman for Friendship Place, declined to discuss specific cases but said the program helps a variety of people with immediate needs. They include people just getting out of prison, battered wives escaping abusive homes, people getting laid off from work or even those suffering unexpected health problems. Garcia said people are screened by need and reason for their troubles and put into pre-selected private homes whose owners work with the group. Each person is assigned a case worker. The nonprofit group helps with some expenses, such as first months rent and deposits, and, according to its website, is for people who with just temporary assistance . . . can get back on their feet. Arthur L. Harris, 39, who owns the property where the shooting occurred, said he bought the three-bedroom house about 10 years ago and recently began dealing with Friendship Place to ensure a steady flow of tenants. He said his three most recent renters were all placed by the nonprofit group and had signed year-long leases. He said that each paid about $560 a month in rent and that Friendship Place helped them with their payments. Harris said he did not know the backgrounds of his tenants. I just wanted to help people, he said. Savvas Savopoulos and Amy Savopoulos in 2008. Veralicia Figueroa is seen on the right. (Tony Powell/Washington Life Magazine, Courtesy of Veralicia Figueroa's family) Daron Wint, the man charged with 20 counts related to the deaths of three family members and their housekeeper in Northwest Washington in May, pleaded not guilty to the charges Friday. Wint, 35, was indicted earlier this week on multiple counts of first-degree murder in the slayings of businessman Savvas Savopoulos, 46; his wife, Amy, 47; their son, Philip, 10; and their housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa, 57. Police discovered the bodies May after firefighters were called to the home to investigate a blaze. [Lanham man charged with multiple counts of first-degree murder in slayings] With his arms and ankles shackled, Wint was ushered into the courtroom in D.C. Superior Court by U.S. marshals. He tripped slightly as he walked to stand next to his public defenders. Amy Savopouloss father and members of Figueroas family were seated in the back of the courtroom. No new information was revealed during the brief arraignment, but a hearing was scheduled for May 20. Prosecutors told Judge Jose M. Lopez that they will now begin giving the defense evidence they plan to use during the trial. The home where three members of the Savopoulos family were held and killed along with their housekeeper. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post) Police have said that the four victims were held captive the night of May 13 and that the attacker or attackers fled with $40,000 in ransom money that had been delivered to the home, in the 3200 block of Woodland Drive NW. The slayings ripped through the quiet D.C. neighborhood, located near the vice presidents residence at the Naval Observatory. [Arrest of Wint following a multi-day manhunt ] Wint, of Lanham, Md., was charged with more than one count of murder in connection with each victim, including murder during a kidnapping and murder during a burglary. He also is charged with first-degree burglary, extortion, arson and first-degree theft. In addition, the D.C. Superior Court grand jury found aggravating circumstances and deemed that the slayings were especially heinous, atrocious or cruel, according to the indictment. If found guilty during trial, Wint could face a maximum of life in prison without early release on each of 12 murder charges. The nations capital does not have a death penalty. Prosecutors have alleged that after Wint entered the house and bound his victims with duct tape, he forced Amy Savopoulos to call a nearby Dominos Pizza and have two pizzas delivered to the house that evening. Authorities have said that Amy Savopoulos paid with a credit card and instructed the driver to leave the pizzas outside the house. When the driver arrived, the detective said, the house was dark, except for the porch light. Authorities have said that they identified Wint as a suspect after his DNA was found on pizza crust at the home. No other arrests have been made in the case, although detectives and prosecutors have said they believed that at least one other suspect might have been involved in the slayings. D.C. police have said they are continuing to investigate the case. Thousands of mourners bade farewell to Justice Antonin Scalia on Friday after a solemn ceremony attended by scores of his former law clerks, his widow, Maureen, his nine children and a Supreme Court that lined up in its new order of seniority. The current courts longest-serving justice, Scalia, 79, died Feb. 13 on a ranch he was visiting near Marfa, Tex. His casket rested Friday on the same wooden catafalque used for the body of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. God of faithfulness, in your wisdom, you have called your servant, Antonin, out of this world, Scalias son, the Rev. Paul Scalia, a Catholic priest in Arlington, Va., prayed during the simple morning rite. Release him from the bonds of sin and welcome him into your presence, he said, so that he may enjoy eternal life. The courts Great Hall, where Scalias casket rested, had been transformed, with potted palms and identical red-and-white flower arrangements from the House of Representatives and the Senate. There was also a large framed portrait of Scalia in his judicial robe that was completed in 2007 and had hung at Harvard University, where he attended law school. The eight remaining justices lined up to receive Scalias body when it arrived, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, now the longest-serving justice, at the right of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. Also standing at attention were Justices Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Sonia Sotomayor and a teary-eyed Elena Kagan. Maureen and Paul Scalia and the justices other children Ann Banaszewski, Eugene Scalia, John Scalia, Catherine Courtney, Mary Clare Murray, Matthew Scalia, Christopher Scalia and Margaret Bryce sat on gold chairs near the wooden casket draped in an American flag. Scalia had 36 grandchildren, and they and other relatives filled the hall. Court clerks and other personnel filed through before the hall was opened to the public. [Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia dies at 79] By 9:15 Friday morning, a line of eight Supreme Court police officers in white shirts and black pants had assembled on the steps of the court building to wait for the hearse to arrive. A crowd of onlookers stood across the street, under an overcast sky. At 9:19 a.m., 98 former Scalia law clerks filed down the steps and formed a double line leading up to the 16 columns at the front of the building. By fours, clerks later took 30-minute shifts standing at the corners of the casket throughout the day. Washington Post reporter Juliet Eilperin explains the difficulties ahead facing both Republicans and Democrats as they battle to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat left by the sudden passing of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. (Dalton Bennett/The Washington Post) The casket was carried by Supreme Court police officers up the steps, between the large statues of the Authority of Law and the Contemplation of Justice that flank the courts grand entrance. Everything was quiet, except for the sound of the pallbearers shuffling feet, a distant train horn and the clicking of news cameras. Paul Scalia, wearing a purple stole, black cassock and white surplice, waited at the top of the steps. My brothers and sisters, Jesus says, Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest, Scalia said when the coffin was in place. He led those present in the Lords Prayer, blessed and touched his fathers casket, and stepped away. Shortly after 3:30 p.m., President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama visited to pay their respects, pausing before Scalias coffin and his portrait. They met privately with members of Scalias family to express their condolences, the White House said. Earlier Friday, flags outside the court hung limp at half-staff as members of the National Clergy Council, wearing red sashes over their shoulders, waited for the hearse to arrive. The Rev. Rob Schneck of the Evangelical Church Alliance said: We all had a lot of contact with the justice. I knew him quite well, spent a lot of time with him here at the court over the last 15 years. So its a big loss. We had a wonderful rapport with him. Scalias casket was placed in the grand, columned hall that leads to the famous courtroom where he dominated oral arguments for almost 30 years. The Lincoln catafalque was lent by Congress for the occasion. [Funeral mass for justice to be held at the Basilica of the National Shrine] Outside the court, many who had traveled, in some cases overnight, waited to pay their respects. A bagpiper, Ben Williams of Silver Spring, played the song Going Home. Emily Weatherspoon and Hannah Moore, 17-year-old seniors from Raleigh, N.C., were first in line waiting to enter the court and pay their respects. They said they were on a school trip to Washington. Its a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the justice being carried into the Supreme Court, Weatherspoon said. We just think its an important part of our government system, and we are here to learn about government, so we wanted to get the full experience. Melissa Covey of Round Hill, Va., who works as a legal assistant, was third in line. I so appreciate Justice Scalia, she said. Hes been a hero of mine on the Supreme Court. Hes a defender of the Constitution and the rule of law. Tenzin Tsultrin, 53, a property manager from Exeter, R.I., said he left his home at 11 p.m. Thursday and drove all night to be present Friday. He said he made the trip because I love this nation, this country and the Constitution. And anybody whos an ardent supporter of the Constitution is good for the country. By noon, the line of public mourners extended more than a full block along East Capitol Street from First to Second streets. Among those waiting earlier were Christopher Deloye, 41, of Falls Church, Va., and his two older daughters, Catherine, 9, and Annaliese, 7. Catherine had the prescience to understand that this doesnt happen very often, so you sort of want to be here to participate, her father said. Scalia was an intellectual giant [who] applied his principles of how he saw the role of the court, Deloye said. We are here to basically say thank you for the efforts and the protection of our fundamental liberties. Another mourner, Maureen Brodey, checked her youngest son, Joe, out of high school early so they could attend. Justice Scalia was a statesman they are going to be reading about in history books for hundreds of years, said Brodey, 52. Even though its kind of boring and it takes up a . . . part of your day, its an important part of history, she said. And I want my children to be able to tell their grandkids they were here for it. She is Catholic and calls herself an ultraconservative but also is a strong believer in rights for transgender people. Scalias opposition to expanding LGBT rights doesnt bother her because it was grounded in his legal philosophy. He gets a bad rap, but Ive never seen anything hateful from him. He was trying to sort out a confusing world, Brodey said. A funeral Mass for Scalia is scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, 400 Michigan Ave. NE. The main celebrant at the Mass will be Paul Scalia, the justices son. The burial will be private, the court said. He was a jurist of captivating brilliance and wit, fellow justice Ginsburg said of Scalia after he died, with a rare talent to make even the most sober judge laugh. Dana Hedgpeth contributed to this report. Pope Francis suggested Thursday that contraceptives may be morally acceptable to avoid spreading the Zika virus, framing their use as not an absolute evil compared with abortion and setting off a debate about whether the pontiffs remarks were unprecedented. Francis was on a plane back to Rome after a six-day trip to Mexico when a reporter asked him whether he thought abortion or avoiding pregnancy could be the lesser of two evils in responding to the mosquito-borne Zika virus, which has hit Latin American countries hard. Abortion is not the lesser of two evils. It is a crime. Thats what the Mafia does, the pope said, according to a transcript from the Catholic News Agency. Francis cited the decision made by Pope Paul VI in the 1960s to permit nuns in Belgian Congo to use artificial contraception to prevent pregnancies because they were being systematically raped. On the other hand, avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil, he said. In certain cases, as in this one [Zika], such as the one I mentioned of Blessed Paul VI, it was clear. It was not immediately clear what effect the popes remarks would have in heavily Catholic Latin America, where cases of Zika are multiplying. Researchers increasingly believe the virus is linked to thousands of cases of microcephaly a condition in which babies are born with small heads and brain abnormalities in Brazil. There also is evidence that the virus is spread through sexual transmission in some cases. Pope Francis gestures as he speaks to reporters aboard the papal plane en route to Rome after his six-day trip to Mexico. (Alessandro Di Meo/Reuters) When recently asked about Catholic teaching and Zika, some prominent Catholic leaders in the region have emphasized that artificial contraception is immoral. But the issue of whether it might be acceptable in the case of Zika is a question thats still under debate, said Monsignor Gregorio Rosa Chavez, auxiliary bishop of San Salvador. Some church leaders might be waiting to make statements about the virus because the scientific link between Zika and microcephaly in infants has not been scientifically proved, said Richard Coll, foreign policy adviser for Latin America and global trade at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who was in El Paso-Juarez at the U.S.-Mexico border for the popes Mass on Wednesday. Health officials warn that it may take months to know more definitively. Contraceptives are legal and widely used in many parts of Latin America, although poor and rural areas often suffer shortages. Theologians disagreed about whether the outspoken pontiff had said something new. Popes in the past have spoken of exceptions to the ban on artificial contraception, but the debate Thursday centered on the context. Pope Benedict XVI made news in 2010 when he said condoms might be acceptable for a male prostitute, a comment welcomed by many activists in parts of Africa where the AIDS virus was rampant. But Benedict spoke about it as a first step toward improving morality. Boston College moral theologian Cathleen Kaveny said Franciss comments might be seen as a development in theology because he suggested contraception can be used to prevent pregnancy even in a consensual sexual relationship. Also unusual: Franciss comments were pragmatic and pastoral, Kaveny said. Previous leaders appeared more focused on policy statements aimed at changing behavior, she said. 1 of 82 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad See the people and places the pope visited in Mexico View Photos Pope Francis made his first trip to Mexico, the largest Catholic population in the Spanish-speaking world, during a week-long visit. Caption Pope Francis made his first trip to Mexico, the largest Catholic population in the Spanish-speaking world, during a week-long visit. Feb. 17, 2016 Pope Francis blesses a boy after his arrival at Benito Juarez International Airport in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The pontiff is scheduled to wrap up his trip Wednesday with a visit to a Mexican prison and a stop at the Texas border. Ivan Pierre Aguirre/AP Wait 1 second to continue. But other experts saw Franciss remarks as classic Catholic theology. It would be a bad mistake to think of this as a liberal pope changing Catholicism again, said Charles Camosy, a moral theologian at Fordham University. Benedict asked the same kind of questions and responded in a similarly vague and open-to-multiple-interpretations kind of way. In using the example of Paul VI, Francis was in keeping with church doctrine, in the sense that contraceptives are not an end in themselves but used to protect ones well-being, said Jorge Traslosheros, a history professor and Catholic Church expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Because the question was about avoiding pregnancy, it wasnt clear what kind of contraception Francis meant and Catholics debated that point. Some suggested that he was speaking of artificial contraception, since he mentioned a case of nuns using hormones. Others thought he could have been encouraging Catholic women to abstain or use natural family planning, which are acceptable practices in church teaching. The Catholic Church views the use of artificial contraception and abortion as intrinsically immoral. The church does not object to certain oral pharmaceuticals that are prescribed for medical purposes, but current Catholic teaching forbids the use of oral contraceptives to prevent pregnancy. The spread of the Zika virus has accelerated debates over contraception and abortion in Latin American countries. Mexicos health department said Tuesday that it had confirmed six pregnant women who are infected with the virus. Church teaching has come up against the views of some public health advocates who want women to have greater access to abortion and contraception. Health officials in some Latin American countries have advised women not to get pregnant because of the potential for birth defects caused by the virus. Earlier this month, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Latin American countries to repeal their policies restricting contraception and abortion rights. If women in Catholic-heavy Latin America do get pregnant, abortion is illegal in most countries in the region, although some have exceptions in cases of rape, fetal impairment or danger to the life of the mother. Responses of Latin American church leaders have varied somewhat on the use of contraception in response to the virus. Bishop Leonardo Ulrich Steiner, the secretary general of the National Council of Bishops of Brazil, said in an interview with the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil that contraception was not a viable solution and that church teaching has not changed. Meanwhile, Cardinal Odilo Scherer of Sao Paulo said the use of condoms was a personal choice. But like Francis, the same church leaders have drawn a hard line at abortion. The Vatican released a statement Tuesday saying that it was concerned by the call from international leaders to increase access to the procedure, calling abortion and abortifacients an illegitimate response to this crisis. Regardless of the connection to the Zika virus . . . these children deserve to be protected and cared for throughout their lives, in accordance with our obligation to safeguard all human life, healthy and disabled, with equal commitment, leaving no one behind, Archbishop Bernardito Auza, the Vaticans representative to the United Nations, said on Vatican Radio. Francis has called for a less centralized church in which local bishops have greater decision-making authority, which could mean that each region could handle the virus differently, rather than wait for a directive from Rome, said Christopher Hale, executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. How the church in the U.S. deals with this can be different from Latin America, Hale said. This is going to be a great test of whether Franciss call for a more decentralized church will bear fruit. Pulliam Bailey reported from New York. D. Ashley Campbell in Washington, Gabriela Martinez in Mexico City, Nick Miroff in Bogota, Colombia, and Sarah Esther Maslin in San Salvador contributed to this report. Del. Mark Sickles, D-Fairfax, seated right, gets a standing ovation after an emotional speech on a bill relating to religious objections to same-sex marriages during the House session at the Capitol in Richmond, Va., Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016. Sickles opposed the bill that passed the House. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) (Steve Helber/AP) Ever made whoopee out of wedlock? Be careful in Virginia, then. The relentless crusaders of intolerance whove been coming for others are now coming for you. These guys who were elected to help run the state but are crazily obsessed with what goes on inside your bedrooms have widened their crusade to give them even more opportunities to talk about sex. Virginias House of Delegates passed a bill 53 to 46 this week to protect the faithful from discrimination, alleging that anyone who says their religion doesnt approve of same-sex marriage, the very existence of transgender people or any sex out of wedlock shouldnt be punished for acting on their fears I mean, beliefs. What does that mean? In Virginia, a gay person could be banned from joining a college student group, a lesbian couple could be kept from adopting a child and a transgender student could be denied counseling services, according to the ACLU. And in each of those cases, the person doing the discriminating wont be punished and their organization wont be affected. Heres another scenario, a new one, and pretty unique to Virginia: If youre an unmarried, heterosexual man with an STD, a doctor who says his religion doesnt approve of your sexy ways doesnt have to treat you and wont face any sanctions for allowing parts of you and maybe eventually all of you to wither away. Hows that for the Virginia is for Lovers campaign? Better edit those bumper stickers. But dont worry, cis-studs. Youre not really the intended targets. Its all part of a nationwide anti-LGBT temper tantrum of the self-anointed keepers of all things religious who are still fuming over the decision by the Supreme Court, and most of the nation, to welcome same-sex partners into the institution of marriage. The proposed Virginia legislation arms some, and only some, believers with a government sword to force their belief on others, or accord an unconstitutional government preference to some believers, said Claire Guthrie Gastanaga, executive director of the ACLU in Virginia. Its a paper weapon theyre trying to give themselves to promote the idea that theres a war on religion. And although this bill uniquely targets all unmarried people a tactical maneuver to try to make it more about religious freedom, less about same-sex relationships the real goal is to rewind the countrys growing understanding and constitutional right-sidedness when it comes to same-sex relationships. No matter how they say it, its meant to harm LGBT people, Gastanaga said. Runaround legislation has popped up in states all across the country with yogic twists on what religious freedom actually is. Similar bills have been proposed in 12 other states this year. Their poster child is Kim Davis, the otherwise unremarkable Kentucky county clerk who has found dirty fame in refusing to do her job issuing marriage certificates for legal, same-sex marriages. This brand of haters is flipping the script to call themselves persecuted victims. And part of their persecution insists that Christianity is allegedly being drummed out of America. Because yeah, Targets Easter collection is getting so small with all the Purim tea-towel sets filling the aisles. Remember how great the Popeyes Lent menu was? Now all they have is the late-night, Eid al-Fitr drive-thru valu menu. Nah. I think were pretty well covered on Christianity, despite Starbuckss red cups. And Im pretty sure that the thousands of congregations, clergy and the millions of Americans who worship side by side with people who love all different ways would say that their belief in God, their own spiritual well-being and their personal journey of righteous living toward heavenly rewards is unaffected if the nice neighbors next door happen to be Adam and Steve. The Virginia bill passed within a veto-worthy margin, and Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) has said he will veto away. But that doesnt mean the fight is over, or that its the end of folks using religion as a reason to overpower and to hate. Remember the words of German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller, an early supporter of Hitler who later went on to write this poem about the Nazi uprising: First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me. Twitter: @petulad From left, Republican presidential candidates Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) and business executive Donald Trump debate Feb. 13 in Greenville, S.C. Virginia evangelicals have been leaning toward Cruz. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg) As the GOP presidential contest moves toward Super Tuesday, the anti-establishment vote in Virginia appears to be fracturing, with evangelicals largely lining up behind Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas as disaffected voters lean toward Donald Trump. In many ways, Virginia mirrors the partys national struggle between its establishment wing and anti-government activists. But there are divisions within those divisions leading up to the March 1 primary in Virginia, a state considered key to a Republican victory in the fall. It was Virginia that produced the canary in the coal mine that led to Trumps rise: the unseating of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014 by the upstart anti-immigration economic populist Dave Brat, said Shaun Kenney, former executive director of the state GOP. Now, Trump is competing in Virginia with Cruz for the votes of people who feel left behind by more traditional politicians. Donald Trump, in some ways, has separated the tea party into its two distinct elements the angry white voter and the evangelical voter, said Quentin Kidd, a professor at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, although he noted there is some crossover between the groups. Trump and Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. speak during a January campaign event in Iowa. Disaffected Virginia voters have been favoring Trumps candidacy. (Dave Kaup/Reuters) Trump was leading among likely GOP primary voters at 28 percent, according to a poll conducted by CNU this month. Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) was doing well with more mainstream GOP voters with 22 percent while Cruz was at 19 percent, placing them both within striking distance of Trump. Numbers drop precipitously for the rest of the field, with Ohio Gov. John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson both at 7 percent. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush got just 4 percent. Virginias 49 delegates are divided proportionally, so no single candidate can sweep the state. But a strong showing will make a powerful argument for a candidates general-election strength in one of a handful of important swing states. The path to the White House goes through Virginia, Kenney said. And so, determining the heart and soul and minds of Virginians is essential. Trump has the backing of Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr., the son of the late evangelical Southern Baptist pastor and conservative leader. And he did well among evangelicals in both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary. Michael Farris, a prominent home-schooling advocate and founder of the evangelical Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, said Trump appeals to voters who want a president willing and eager to make waves. There are a handful of evangelicals that are so frustrated and mad at government that theyre looking for a guy to blow it up, said Farris, who opposes Trump. But in Virginia, Republicans agree that most evangelical activists are backing Cruz, who launched his campaign at Liberty and has repeatedly talked about his Christian faith and his antiabortion policies. Cruz announced his presidential bid at Liberty University in March 2015, setting the stage early on for the support of evangelical voters. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post) Meanwhile, Trumps state chairman, Corey A. Stewart, chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, is a blunt-talking leader with a following among Republicans and independents upset about illegal immigration. Stewart is the architect of a local law that allows county police to check the immigration status of anyone they arrest. That inspired Virginia lawmakers to adopt a statewide law with the same provisions, a move decried by Democrats, advocates for immigrants and some moderate Republicans. A top official in the states second-largest county, Stewart supports Trumps plan to build a new wall on the border between Mexico and the United States and is working to marshal support for Trump in Northern Virginia and beyond. Ken Cuccinelli II, the former state attorney general who lost the gubernatorial race in 2013 despite strong support from evangelicals, is backing Cruz. He said Cruz appeals to conservatives who have been frustrated after sending politicians to Washington only to find they mushed out on us. Ted has done the opposite, said Cuccinelli, a frequent Cruz surrogate. He has actually gone and fought for what he said he was going to fight for. . . . He stands alone in that regard and thats pretty inspiring to people. Both Cruz and Carson will appear before the primary at Regent University, the Christian college in Virginia Beach founded by Pat Robertson. Jay L. Marts, founder and past president of the Northern Shenandoah Valley Tea Party, said he and a few friends decided to campaign for Cruz after mulling it over breakfast. When they contacted the Cruz campaign, they were welcomed with open arms signs, bumper stickers, the works, he said. His group has been talking to church groups and organized a rally and delegates training day at the local Perkins restaurant. Hes kind of bucked the Republican Party, and they need a little bucking these days, Marts said. But there are those in the state GOP who fear that nominating Trump or Cruz will imperil chances for a Republican victory in the state and nation this fall. Rubio has picked up a long list of endorsements among officials eager to connect with a positive message about the future of the party. Among them are U.S. Reps. Barbara Comstock and Scott Rigell of Virginia who have angered conservatives by voting in favor of some government spending bills and former governor George Allen. Kasich, with help from former U.S. representative Thomas M. Davis III, who served alongside Kasich in Congress, is competing with Rubio for establishment voters. Northern Virginia has a lot of ethnic voters, we have a lot of federal employees, and were pretty secular, and when you put that together these guys that have the religious appeal, the anti-government appeal, going after immigrants, its not where you want to be, Davis said. Youll get crushed. The CNU poll found that a slim majority of overall Virginia voters would not support a candidate who would call for a ban on Muslims entering the country, as Trump has. Kasichs campaign is narrowly focused on dense and diverse parts of the state; he plans to visit Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Virginia on Monday. Davis said Kasichs support has grown since his strong showing in New Hampshire. A lot of people have been looking for a signal was he viable? Davis said. If [Rubio] had emerged as the anti-Trump candidate, we would be talking a different game altogether . . . but that isnt what happened. Bush won only 4 percent in the poll, and ended his campaign soon after results began to come in. His standing reflected his struggles nationally, and he spent little time or money in Virginia. Virginians are really watching this race from a distance like everyone else, said J. Tucker Martin, a longtime Virginia-based consultant. Virginia is a jump ball, but no ones even thrown the ball yet. An employee of the U.S. Department of Agriculture walks along the muddy shore of Roaches Run Waterfowl Sanctuary in response to an oil spill near Ronald Reagan National Airport on Feb. 8, 2016. (Kate Patterson/For The Washington Post) Dominion Virginia Power, which last week acknowledged that an oil spill from its Crystal City substation had spread into a Northern Virginia waterfowl sanctuary and the Potomac River, could be fined up to $1.3 million, state officials said Friday. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) announced that it will assume from the Coast Guard the responsibility for overseeing the cleanup of the 13,500-gallon spill, and the agency issued a formal notice of violation. Its spokesman said any fine will have to be negotiated with the party responsible for the spill. If it is determined a fine is appropriate, wed have to reach an agreement with Dominion, DEQ spokesman Bill Hayden said. Its a civil penalty, and under state law, it has to be negotiated. . . . The maximum fine is $100 per gallon. [Potomac oil spill came from Dominion, utility admits] The Coast Guard said 29 birds died as a result of the spill. Twenty other birds that had been cleaned by a wildlife rescue group are to be returned to the river Monday. The Coast Guard said that no additional sheening has been observed in the refuge or on the river and that no additional harm to wildlife has been reported. State Sen. Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax) said he found it strange that a state environmental agency does not have the power to fine an organization that has caused damage to the environment. They probably spoiled a couple miles of shoreline in my district, he said. Given whats gone on at Possum Point, this scenario presents a real opportunity for Dominion to show whether theyre responsible corporate citizens or not. The utility company won a permit last month to release about 215 million gallons of treated coal-ash water into Quantico Creek from its Possum Point power plant in Prince William County, despite strong opposition from local officials and environmental groups. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogans administration this week said it plans to appeal the permit. The Jan. 25 spill at Dominions Crystal City substation involved mineral oil, Dominion officials said. Coast Guard tests eventually determined that oil from that site matched the oil spotted a week later in the refuge and river. The Coast Guard had previously identified the oil from the spill as a medium-weight fuel oil, akin to home heating oil. The mineral oil used at the substation would be included in that spectrum, the Coast Guard said. Surovell said mineral oil . . . sounds like stuff you feed to constipated babies. But this is not harmless stuff. Its killed 29 birds and done who-knows-what other damage. Dominion spokesman Chuck Penn said: Mineral oil is a nonhazardous product used to cool equipment in the substation. It is also used in baby oil and cosmetics. Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Feb. 19 By Huseyn Hasanov- Trend: President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov has sent a letter of deep condolence to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in connection with Ankara terrorist attack, which caused numerous deaths and injuries, the message of the Turkmen government said Feb. 19. A terror attack was carried out in Ankara Feb. 17 near the buildings of the Turkish parliament, the general staff and a military dorm in the city. Commenting on the explosion Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said the explosion killed 28 and injured 61. Reports suggest that a car bomb was detonated. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that the Syrian wing of the terrorist organization Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) - Syrian Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) stands behind the terrorist attack in Ankara. Resolutely opposing any manifestation of terrorism and extremism, Turkmenistan fully supports efforts of the international community in combating this evil and its eradication, according to the message of the Turkmen government. On behalf of the people and the government of Turkmenistan, as well as on his own behalf, the Turkmen president expressed his deep empathy and support for the families, relatives and friends of the victims in this hard moment and wished a speedy recovery to the injured. CALIFORNIA FBI searches home of killers brother FBI agents on Thursday searched the home belonging to a family member of the husband-and-wife killers who massacred 14 people in the San Bernardino terror attack, but the relative was not arrested and has not been named a suspect. Syed Rizwan Farooks brother, Syed Raheel Farook, is a military veteran who earned medals for fighting global terrorism. The search warrant is sealed, and FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller would not disclose any information other than to confirm a search was conducted at a home in Corona in an ongoing investigation. Stacy Mozer, who lives around the corner from the home, said he watched as agents carried away armloads of boxes filled with envelopes, a computer tower and stacks of paper. At least a dozen agents were present. Mozer said the familys home was searched twice after the December shooting, and authorities broke down the door on an earlier occasion. Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, opened fire Dec. 2 at a meeting of his San Bernardino County co-workers. The couple died hours later in a shootout with police. The search came a day after Apple chief executive Tim Cook said the company would fight federal government efforts to help the FBI hack into an iPhone used by the gunman. Associated Press MISSOURI Officer in music video is placed on leave A white Missouri police officer has been placed on unpaid leave after he appeared in a racially charged music video wearing his uniform and carrying a sign reading cops lives matter. St. Joseph patrolman Zackary Craft also is seen reaching for his gun in the video for Before This Bomb Blows Up (Racism Goes Both Ways) by Josh Smith, a white rapper from the Kansas City suburb of Independence who performs as J.Smitty. The sign is a reference to the Black Lives Matter movement that has focused attention on the killing of African Americans by police. A police spokesman said Craft is on leave pending a due-process hearing. Associated Press KANSAS ACLU sues over voter registration People trying to register to vote at Kansas motor vehicle offices are being forced to provide documentary proof of citizenship in violation of federal law, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday. The complaint filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kans., is mounting a new legal challenge based on a provision in the National Voter Registration Act that requires states to provide voter registration in conjunction with drivers license applications at DMV offices. Kansas has been at the forefront of efforts for stringent registration laws ranging from proof of citizenship to requiring certain types of ID, and the state has been embroiled in several legal fights over the issues. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has championed laws that require documents such as a birth certificate or passport as a way to prevent non-citizens from voting. Critics say incidents of non-citizens registering to vote are extremely rare, and argue such Republican-backed laws hurt voter registration efforts and disenfranchise voters that tend to pick Democrats, including minorities and college students, who may not readily have the documentation. Associated Press Calif. methane leak permanently sealed: An underground natural-gas pipeline rupture that caused the largest-ever methane leak in California has been permanently capped, paving the way for thousands of displaced Los Angeles residents to return home, state regulators said Thursday. The leak, which began in October, originated from a broken injection-well pipe deep beneath the surface of the 3,600-acre Aliso Canyon natural-gas storage field, owned by Southern California Gas. State officials said the uncontrolled release of 80,000 tons of methane, the main component of natural gas, ranked as the largest such discharge on record in California. Reuters Female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes rest on the forearm of a health technician in a lab conducting research on preventing the spread of the Zika virus in Guatemala City. (Josue Decavele/Reuters) Its one of the most relentless stalkers on Earth, using a tiny, needle-like probe to sip its victims blood. It dines almost exclusively on humans and never ventures far from where they live, laying eggs in bottle caps, used tires and flower pots. It fits easily onto a single fingernail and yet has tormented armies and obliterated the population of entire cities. Thousands of species of mosquitoes inhabit the planet, but few have proved more resilient or more deadly to humans than Aedes aegypti. It has fueled a long list of epidemics across the globe. Dengue fever. Yellow fever. Chikungunya. And now, Zika. [Why Zika is much more cunning and evil than Ebola] Its one of the most efficient killers in the world, said Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Aedes aegypti caused a punishing outbreak of yellow fever in the 1890s that hastened the French to abandon construction of the Panama Canal. It sickened thousands of soldiers during the Spanish-American War. It was behind deadly yellow fever outbreaks during the 19th century in New Orleans, Hampton Roads in Virginia and Memphis. Even now, it infects an estimated 20 million people around the world with dengue fever each year. What makes Aedes aegypti such a formidable foe and such an efficient vessel for transmitting disease? Partly biology and partly an uncanny ability to adapt. [Philanthropist Paul Allen announces $2 million in grants for Zika diagnostic, mosquito control] The species of mosquito, which is found in regions that are home to more than half of Earths population, has evolved to thrive in the places where humans congregate particularly dense, urban environments rife with trash and open containers. It can breed in the smallest spots in and around homes. Its larvae dont necessarily need water to survive, and eggs can lie dormant for a year or more, only to hatch once submerged in water. The sticky eggs glue themselves to containers as common and varied as the insides of old tires and the edges of birdbaths. Its one of those pests, like cockroaches, that has evolved over the last 15,000 years to exploit changes in human behavior and habitation, Ronald Rosenberg, acting director for the Division of Vector-Borne Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a conference this past week. It thrives around where people live in very close proximity. The World Health Organization recently described Aedes aegypti as opportunistic, with an uncanny ability to adapt to changing environments, exploit opportunities offered by increased international travel and rapid urbanization, and flourish with striking efficiency in impoverished areas. Females the only ones that bite typically lay 100 to 200 eggs after each meal and can produce numerous batches of eggs in a lifetime. Everything you ever wanted to know about the Zika virus and its spread across North and South America. (Daron Taylor,Claritza Jimenez/The Washington Post) Larvae have been found in a host of artificial containers, like discarded plastic cups and bottle caps, plates under potted plants, birdbaths, vases in cemeteries, and water bowls for pets, the WHO said. The mosquitoes can also breed in the microbial stew found in septic tanks, toilet tanks, and shower stalls. Construction sites, used tires, and clogged rain gutters offer additional opportunities to breed in large numbers. [Whats really scary about the Zika virus are the things we dont know] Aedes aegyptis genetic makeup and feeding habits make it an ideal vector for spreading diseases such as the Zika virus among humans. Female mosquitoes, which feast on blood to provide protein to their eggs, take a blood meal from an already infected person. That blood then makes its way to the mosquitos mid-gut area. In many mosquito species, the virus would remain stuck in the mid-gut, and the chain of transmission would end. But Aedes aegypti possesses what entomologists call vector competence. In this case, it means that the virus replicates within the mosquito and finds its way back to the salivary glands a process that can take days. When the mosquito then probes or bites another person, it transmits the virus to the new host. It doesnt take much, said Rebekah Kading, an entomologist and assistant professor at Colorado State University. Its a very biologically competent vector. Unfortunately, its also a very hungry one. Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are aggressive daytime biters, especially around dawn and dusk. They can hide under beds, in closets or in other shady places. They are sip feeders, meaning they feed often and on multiple hosts a practice that makes it possible to spread disease quickly. They also are adept, experts say, at launching sneak attacks, in which they approach people from behind and bite them on the ankles and elbows to avoid being detected and slapped. It doesnt have a very powerful bite, said Joseph Conlon, technical adviser for the American Mosquito Control Association, a scientific nonprofit group based in New Jersey. It can start feeding on your legs while youre having your morning coffee, and you might not even know it. It can then quickly fly to someone else and feed on them. Its very capable of transmitting the virus to many people. It wasnt until the early 1900s that scientists confirmed that scourges such as yellow fever were being spread largely by the mosquitoes. In the decades since, humans have declared war more than once on Aedes aegypti, with some success. In the late 1940s and 1950s, for example, one campaign led to the eradication of Aedes aegypti in at least 18 Latin American countries and some Caribbean islands. But the effort eventually faltered, as surveillance declined and political will waned. Mosquitoes developed resistance to insecticides, and urbanization outpaced eradication efforts. Aedes aegypti roared back, and so did diseases such as dengue fever. Weve been fighting this mosquito for a century or more, Kading said. Its a tough mosquito. [Invasive mosquito that calls the U.S. home is a known Zika carrier] Aedes aegypti is one of many mosquitoes that torment humans. Certain species of the Anopheles mosquito can transmit malaria, which causes hundreds of thousands of deaths around the world each year. Mosquitoes of the Culex species are considered the primary vector for West Nile virus, which causes a potentially fatal neurological disease found in parts of Africa, Europe, the Middle East, North America and Asia. Other mosquito species carry an array of pathogens that are responsible for diseases including encephalitis and Rift Valley fever. But as the Zika virus continues its rapid spread through the Americas, and as researchers become increasingly convinced of its links to brain defects in infants and a rare syndrome that can lead to paralysis in adults, health authorities are asking a question their predecessors have asked for generations: How can we combat Aedes aegypti? The answer: Its possible. But its neither cheap nor easy. Theres a tremendous amount of human history thats been influenced by this mosquito, Conlon said. It is one of the least of Gods creatures, but it can wreak such havoc on humans. And it has. Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Feb. 19 By Demir Azizov- Trend: Iran has proposed assistance to Uzbekistan in freight transit, Iran's Ambassador to Uzbekistan Bakhman Agarazi Dormani said, Uzbek media reported. Iran's authorities plan to provide Tehran's Imam Khomeini international airport's capacity to Uzbekistan for freight transit, said the diplomat. Uzbekistan's geological position in Central Asia can be useful for the development of Iran's transport communications with the region's countries, he added. "This implementation is geographically convenient for us [Iran] rather than remotely located European countries, as well as with more affordable prices," said Dormani. Considering that Uzbekistan does not have a direct access to the sea, we are ready to provide it, he noted. He also added that the representatives of the two countries successfully conducted negotiations in Tehran, during which the sides have previously agreed on the establishment of freight traffic between Uzbekistan's Navoi and Iran's Khomeini international airports. The signing of a memorandum of understanding was an important step in this direction for the two countries on the implementation of the agreement on the establishment of the Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan-Iran-Oman international transport and transit corridor, he said. The trade turnover between Iran and Uzbekistan can grow up to $1 billion (against $250 million in 2014) due to the development of transit facilities and the use of new transport communications, according to the Iranian side. WEST BANK 2 Israelis stabbed, one fatally; attackers shot Two Palestinian teenagers wielding knives fatally stabbed an Israeli civilian Thursday and seriously wounded another at a supermarket in the West Bank before they were shot and wounded by an Israeli bystander, the military said. The two Israeli victims were taken to an Israeli hospital along with the Palestinian attackers. Ofer Merin of the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem said that one of the wounded Israelis, a 20-year-old, died soon after arrival. The other man, a 36-year-old, was in serious but stable condition. Channel 10 TV reported that the attackers, teenagers from the Ramallah area, walked around the supermarket for about 20 minutes observing shoppers before stabbing the two men in the back and neck. The station spoke with an unidentified civilian who said he opened fire at the attackers. The civilian, who was carrying a gun, said that he was inside a prayer area near the supermarket and that soon after services began, he heard screaming, went outside and shot at the attackers. The assault was the latest in months of near-daily Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians and security forces. Most of the attacks have been stabbings, shootings, or assaults in which vehicles were used. Associated Press GHANA Bus-truck collision leaves 61 people dead A head-on collision between a bus and a truck in central Ghana killed 61 people in the deadliest accident in recent memory, officials said Thursday. The collision happened Wednesday night in Kintampo, more than 250 miles north of the capital, Accra, said Christopher Tawiah, a police spokesman. Survivors were being treated at the towns government hospital, Tawiah said. Officials are investigating the crash. Ghanas National Road Safety Commission reported that more than 1,600 people were killed in road accidents last year. Associated Press POLAND Files: Walesa was paid communist informant Lech Walesa, the legendary anti-communist leader who played a historic role in bringing down communism in Poland and across Eastern Europe, had served as a paid informant in the 1970s for the same communist regime that he later fought, according to documents revealed publicly Thursday. It is not yet clear how damaging the revelations will be to Walesa, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983 for his defiant opposition to the communists and who became Polands first democratically elected president after the 1989 fall of communism. Walesa, now 72, has long admitted that he signed a document in the 1970s agreeing to provide information to the generally hated communist secret police, although he insisted he never informed on anyone and never took any money. In 2000, he was cleared by a court, which said it found no evidence of collaboration. Associated Press Egypt mourns Boutros Boutros-Ghali: Egypt laid to rest its veteran diplomat Boutros Boutros-Ghali, holding a funeral procession with top honors in Cairo, followed by a service at the nations largest Coptic cathedral for the man who was the first U.N. chief from Africa. Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi led the procession, walking at the front of the cortege as a horse-drawn hearse carried Boutros-Ghalis flag-draped coffin. The head of Egypts Coptic Church attended the service, along with senior dignitaries. Airing of sexual tape stirs debate in Colombia: The broadcast of a secretly shot video in which a prominent Colombian politician discusses sexual encounters with other men is prompting a fierce debate about homophobia and journalistic ethics in the conservative South American country. President Juan Manuel Santos and other figures have sharply criticized radio station La FM for broadcasting an eight-minute excerpt of a video recording in which former senator Carlos Ferro and a police captain discuss sex in crude detail and trade kisses while driving together in a car. From news services A group with "People for the American Way" gather with signs in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. (Carolyn Kaster/AP) Antonin Scalias death has opened a seat on the Supreme Court, and the confirmation fight promises to be a doozy. Just hours after the news broke, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) pledged to block any Obama nominee. The president vowed to make a selection anyway . Of course, Senate confirmation of a Supreme Court justice is never easy. And in the 20th century, the process became particularly contentious, with each political party asserting that a nominee from the other side would endanger Americans constitutional rights. Heres a list of the books that offer the best discussion of these highly political, often brutal fights. Battle for Justice: How the Bork Nomination Shook America, Ethan Bronner When President Ronald Reagan nominated right-wing darling Robert Bork to replace centrist Lewis Powell, Democrats balked. Bork was defeated, a loss that reverberates to this day with conservatives, who think Bork was unjustly smeared. Bronners book is a thorough study of this defining moment in constitutional history. Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas, Jane Mayer and Jill Abramson Just four years after Borks defeat, the Thomas hearings exploded over Anita Hills claims that Thomas made unwanted sexual advances toward her as her supervisor. The hearings made great television. Mayer and Abramsons book, released three years later, examined the nomination in incredible detail, offering fresh evidence and analysis suggesting that Thomas was, in fact, guilty. My Grandfathers Son: A Memoir, Clarence Thomas Thomass telling of his confirmation hearings offers a sharp contrast to Mayer and Abramsons account. In his memoir, he writes about the pain this period caused. As the New York Times wrote in its review, His critics might not be moved by his political arguments, but his memoir gives them a man, not a caricature, to attack. The Selling of Supreme Court Nominees, John Anthony Maltese Maltese takes a deep dive into the nomination process, looking particularly at the role of interest groups. The book covers every nomination from the 1795 defeat of John Rutledge, who had served a few months as chief justice through a recess appointment, up to Stephen Breyer. But a chapter on the 1930 nomination of John J. Parker is particularly revealing. Parker was the 20th centurys first unsuccessful nominee, defeated by the combined efforts of organized labor and civil rights leaders. Louis D. Brandeis: A Life, Melvin I. Urofsky Brandeis was reviled by big business and anti-Semites, and his 1916 nomination was hotly contested. Former president William Taft sent a letter to the Senate calling the nomination an evil and a disgrace. Harvard University President Abbott Lawrence Lowell claimed that Brandeis was unscrupulous and lacked judicial temperament and capacity. Urofskys towering biography details the life of the greatest justice of the 20th century, offering incredible insight into the centurys first explosive confirmation debate. Hugo Black: A Biography, Roger K. Newman President Franklin Roosevelts selection of Sen. Hugo Black of Alabama as a Supreme Court nominee was, to put it mildly, unpopular. Much of Roosevelts New Deal legislation had been invalidated by the Supreme Court, and critics including Herbert Hoover complained that with Black, the court would be one-ninth packed. Eventually senatorial courtesy, whereby the Senate always confirmed one of its own, prevailed. Afterward, it was revealed that Black (who became a great justice) was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Newmans superb biography, one of the most painstakingly researched and comprehensive accounts of the justices life, illuminates both episodes. Abe Fortas: A Biography, Laura Kalman Kalmans biography on Fortas is full of interesting details. For example: Fortas was a confidante of President Lyndon Johnson but turned down his entreaties to accept a Supreme Court seat. Johnson wouldnt take no for an answer. He summoned Fortas to the White House and said he was nominating him anyway, just minutes before he stepped in front of the TV cameras and told the world. Making Constitutional Law: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court, 1961-1991, Mark V. Tushnet The book offers a great primer on Senate confirmations, beginning with John F. Kennedys nomination of Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York. Southern lawmakers tried to smear and defeat him, a gambit that ultimately failed. It continues with Johnsons nomination of Marshall to the Supreme Court. outlook@washpost.com Read more from Outlook and follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter. Blaming President Obama for his past mistakes in Syria may be satisfying, and largely deserved, but its not a policy. This is the most complicated battlefield the world has seen in decades, and the next moves by the United States and its allies have to be deliberate and carefully considered. The United States should move forward with the cease-fire process begun by Secretary of State John F. Kerry a week ago in Munich. Yes, its a long shot, and woefully dependent on Russian goodwill. But it offers a chance to reduce the suffering of the Syrian people and save lives, and it should be pursued a while longer. If diplomacy fails, what comes next will be much worse for everyone. Its the only game in town, says Yousef Al Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates ambassador to Washington, of Kerrys diplomatic effort. I dont see any other strategy for now. If Russia is sabotaging cease-fire hopes by continuing to bomb Syrian civilians, then the United States and its allies should focus international indignation on Moscow. Yes, Kerry may have been overly optimistic in making the Munich deal, but the Russians signed it and they should be held accountable if it fails. In the Syrian nightmare, even small steps forward are notable. So this weeks move to send relief to five besieged areas around Damascus shouldnt be dismissed. This humanitarian assistance was part of the Munich agreement, and U.S. officials say the aid convoys moved into some of the towns on Wednesday. Its a fragile, first step toward de-escalation, but its a positive sign. The cessation of hostilities that Kerry negotiated on paper was supposed to begin Friday, but it wont. Thats partly because the Russians have continued their assaults on rebel areas. Its also partly because the opposition hasnt yet signaled clearly that its willing to stand down. Given the oppositions weakness, this reluctance to embrace a truce is understandable, but its wrong. Any chance to reduce violence and create space for political discussion should be seized. The battlefield around Aleppo is a mess a crosshatch of different combatants and foreign forces. Within a small area are Syrian regime forces backed by Russia and Iran; Kurdish rebel forces backed by the United States; Turkish forces that are shelling the U.S.-backed Kurds; Arab rebel fighters supported by the CIA and Saudi intelligence; Jabhat al-Nusra fighters allied with al-Qaeda; and Islamic State fighters, who want to kill all of the above. A full cease-fire in this landscape is impossible right now and not just because Kerry has been too trusting of the Russians. The combatants have to sort themselves out. Rebels will vote with their feet whether to ally with Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State. Saudi Arabia and other Arab patrons will have to lean hard on moderate rebels to pull them toward the cease-fire group and away from the terrorists. If the Russians keep bombing the rebels around Aleppo willy-nilly, that will sabotage any hope of a truce. Here again, blame Moscow if it blocks de-escalation. Going forward, the United States needs more military leverage to match Russia. That may be coming, with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates offering to send special forces into Syria, under overall U.S. command. Details are still being discussed, but the UAE appears willing to train Sunni fighters inside Syria helping to fill a hole in U.S. strategy. These forces might be part of an eventual strike against Raqqa, the Islamic States self-proclaimed capital in eastern Syria. The U.S. campaign against the Islamic State continues, mostly invisibly. The key U.S. allies have been fighters from the Syrian Kurdish group known as the YPG, which has now been rebranded as the Syrian Democratic Forces. This week, about 6,000 fighters moved to attack al-Shaddadi, a town about 50 miles east of Raqqa. This force included about 2,500 Arabs. Overall, the SDF umbrella group now numbers about 40,000, of whom 7,000 are Arabs. The Syrian Kurds have been the toughest and most effective fighters in this conflict. Their success seems to have panicked Turkey, which claims the Syrian Kurds are terrorists. The Turks have been shelling YPG positions in northwest Syria even as these fighters (with quiet U.S. support) have been attacking Islamic State positions near Aleppo. What a crazy war with a NATO member (Turkey) attacking Americas best allies in Syria (the Kurds)! The Syrian conflict is at a critical, delicate moment. A miscalculation by Russia or Turkey could be catastrophic. Its never too late for the United States to do the right thing which is to build, carefully, the political and military framework for a new Syria. Read more from David Ignatiuss archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 18 By Farhad Daneshvar, Dalga Khatinoglu - Trend: OMV, a leading international oil and gas company, is considering participating in developing projects at two of Iran's oil fields, an official with OMV said. "We are currently evaluating projects like the development of the Cheshmeh-Kosh field and we are in talks with the Iranian side about the new development of the field Band-e-Karkheh, Robert Lechner, OMV Head of Media Relations told Trend. Both of the mentioned oil fields are among the dozens of Iran's oil-related projects that require foreign investments for further production and development. The chart below shows the fields' production and the amount of oil reserves. Field Name Oil in Place (BSTB) Cumulative Production (Bbl) Current Production (Bbl) 2D/3D No. of wells API Cheshmeh-Khosh 3.740 354,000 72,000 3D 16 20-29 Band-e-Karkheh 3.468 15,000 0 - 0 15 Cheshmeh-Kosh is an onshore oil field located 60 km off southeast of Dehloran city in the Western province of Ilam with 3.740 Billions of Stock Tank Barrels of oil in place which currently produces 72000 barrel per day. Band-e-Karkheh is situated 30 km off northwest of Ahvaz city in south western province of Khuzestan with 3.468 Billions of stock tank barrels of oil in place. Currently Band-e-Karkheh filed does not produce oil. Lechner further expressed hope over chances for cooperation with Iran. "It is an interesting opportunity for OMV that Iran is back on the international energy market," he told Trend. Meanwhile, he did not provide further details about a possible contract with Iran saying "so far it is too early" to speak about any details. Iran's oil ministry has already called for $200 billion of investment for development of country's oil industry suggesting the Islamic Republic doesn't have enough of domestic sources to develop the oil industry, thus foreign investment is needed. Iranian oil industry's upstream projects need $130 billion of investment while the downstream projects demand $70 billion to be developed. In 2015 Tehran hosted 137 companies from 45 countries for a two-day conference, during which legal generalities of the new model of oil contracts (IPC) were introduced. However, some Iranian conservatives protested against the IPC suggesting the new model of the oil contract is against the Iranian constitution. The IPC is a framework that lays out the basic structure - and some details - regarding all future petroleum contracts in Iran. It was earlier announced that the country plans to boost oil production to 5.7 million barrels a day and gas output to 1.4 billion cubic meters a day by 2021. By holding 157.8 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserves, Iran possesses the world's fourth largest reserves of crude oil. The Islamic Republic also holds 34 trillion cubic meters of proven gas reserves, sharing 18.2 percent of total global gas reserves. According to a recent report by OPEC Iran's oil production in January was estimated to be around 2.925 million barrels per day of which about 1.3 million barrels were exported. Dan Southerland, a former Beijing bureau chief for The Washington Post, is the executive editor of congressionally funded Radio Free Asia. Fang Lizhi, the astrophysicist who inspired Chinese pro-democracy student protesters in the late 1980s, gives a fascinating and insightful account of his life in a memoir now published nearly four years after his death in exile. In The Most Wanted Man in China, Fang takes us from the 1940s, when he joined an underground Communist Party youth organization, through the years when he was expelled from the party and sent to the countryside to dig wells, labor in a coal mine and work on a railroad construction site. Fangs experiences working in the countryside, his scientific approach to the pursuit of truth, and his growing knowledge of Western concepts of freedom and democracy left him disillusioned with Marxism and Maoism. They also left him outspoken in his criticism of the Communist system. I knew Fang when I was a reporter for The Washington Post based in Beijing from 1985 to 1990. Like many of my colleagues at the time, I became aware of Fang in 1986, when university students began calling for a more democratic system and an end to corruption and nepotism in Chinas Communist Party. Fang was the vice president of a science and technology university in a remote city in southern China that most of us had never visited. The students were taking advantage of Communist Party chief Hu Yaobangs declarations that modernization could not take place without democracy. Party elders ousted Hu in early 1987 for failing to crack down on the students, among other things. But little did I understand at that moment in 1986 the electrifying effect that Fangs rhetoric was having on students at a number of Chinese universities, who like many before them considered themselves to be the conscience of the nation. In one of his boldest moves, Fang appealed directly in January 1989 to Deng Xiaoping, Chinas supreme leader, to release the countrys political prisoners, something that few Chinese would have dared to do at the time. That June, Fang and his wife, physicist Li Shuxian, were accused of being black hands behind the student-led protests at Beijings Tiananmen Square, which ended on June 4 when Chinese troops killed hundreds of demonstrators. As Fangs account makes clear, he and Li had not played any direct role in the demonstrations. Nonetheless, they were placed on a wanted list and sought refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, where they stayed for more than a year before being allowed to leave the country. During that period, Fang wrote his memoir. It is only now being published because political obstacles prevented it from appearing in China and translation hurdles slowed its release in English. Its translator is Perry Link, an expert on Chinese literature and culture at the University of California at Riverside. The memoir is almost certain to be censored in China, as was anything Fang wrote over the past few decades. Link notes in his afterword that Fang couldnt publish inside China during his more than 20 years in exile, which he spent mostly in the United States serving as a physics professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Even his articles on pure science have been censored. The government has banned the very mention of Fangs name, writes Link, who himself has been unable to obtain a visa to travel to the Peoples Republic since 1996. Although I thought I knew quite a bit about Fang, his memoir contains much that is new and fascinating to me, starting with his joining a communist front organization in Beijing at age 12. In the 1950s, as a brilliant physicist and loyal Communist Party member, he worked on the secret development of Chinas first atomic bomb. Then in 1957 came Mao Zedongs invitation to intellectuals to freely express criticisms of the party. Fang and other prominent physicists at Beijing University began preparing accounts of what they regarded as the partys many shortcomings. But Mao then launched an Anti-Rightist Movement directed at those who were speaking up. The party banned Fang and Li from teaching or publishing, though Li was allowed to stay on at Beijing University. Fang was sent to the countryside to be educated by laboring alongside poor farmers in a remote mountain village. Fang had yet to lose hope for reform of the party from within, but he resented his forced separation from his wife, something required by the anti-rightist campaign. His descriptions of their separations and their brief reunions over the years are among the most touching themes in his memoir. Unlike many intellectuals, Fang survived Maos disastrous Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. But for more than a decade he and his wife were again forced to live apart, she in Beijing and he in southern China. He didnt get to see his second son, Fang Zhe, for the first time until 1969, when the boy was nearly a year old. The Communist Party had expelled Fang but readmitted him in 1979. By that time, he says, not a trace was left of the idealism that had originally brought him to the party. Party conservatives, or leftists, still mistrusted him, partly because of his unorthodox public talks. But with Hu Yaobang, a more liberal party secretary, in power, Fang gained prominence by being appointed in the early 1980s as vice president of the University of Science and Technology of China. Disillusionment came inevitably, as he describes it, because he was a scientist and science by nature weeds out ignorance. He adds, With or without an Anti-Rightist Movement, the split between scientists and the Party was bound to occur sooner or later. Addressing weighty subjects such as this or the suicides of colleagues who were forced to inform on one another during Maos campaigns, Fang never falls into bitterness or despair. He also lightens the narrative throughout with jabs at the absurdity of party dogma, including a requirement in the 1960s that physicists cite Mao as the supreme helmsman in their work. The party for years opposed the study of cosmology the origin and structure of the universe because scientific findings conflicted with Marxist dogma. Fang achieves a lyrical quality when discussing the study of astrophysics and cosmology, two of his favorite subjects, as well as the beauty, harmony and wonders of the universe. He also writes vividly of the virtues of manual labor and his respect for the farmers, well-diggers, brickmakers, coal miners and railroad construction workers with whom he toiled in the countryside. UNTIL TUESDAY, Apple appeared to be winning its fight with law enforcement. President Obama announced last year that he would not pursue legislation forcing tech companies to give law enforcement access to users encrypted data. But on Tuesday, the FBI persuaded a judge to order Apple to create software that would help federal investigators crack into the iPhone 5C that Syed Rizwan Farook used before he shot up a San Bernardino, Calif., banquet room in December. Apple immediately promised to fight the order. In essence, the FBI is attempting to explore and establish the limits of its legal powers to combat terrorism as well as more mundane domestic crimes under existing laws, in the absence of action by Congress and the White House. We think thats the wrong call. The nation should not ask the courts to strike a balance between device security and law enforcement access. The political branches of government should do that. The FBI relied on the two-centuries-old All Writs Act, a law that helps the government execute search warrants, to compel Apple to create new hacking software for Farooks phone. The order was nominally tailored to Farooks specific device, but its implications are larger. To what extent is it reasonable to force companies to write new code and harm their international reputation for data security and, therefore, their business models in order to help the U.S. government hack into suspects phones? Should this be a routine investigative tool, or reserved for extraordinary situations, or beyond the pale? Farooks is an extreme case, but it is easy to foresee the government attempting to apply All Writs to less important investigations. What sorts of software can the government compel tech companies to write? The answers to these questions have major implications for online safety and security. The more government-ordered hacking techniques are developed and used, the more likely they eventually will fall into the hands of malicious actors. This risk seems small but is difficult to estimate. Even if technology companies and the government kept the techniques they developed secret, their hacking activities would still threaten the technology ecosystem. Fearful of government-mandated malware, fewer people might accept automatic updates from software companies. This would make devices more vulnerable. The anti-terrorism benefits, meanwhile, would wane over time, as high-level terrorist groups turned to software from places beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement. The public has reason to be frustrated that investigators cannot execute valid search warrants; this is a worrying impediment to legitimate law enforcement. We believe Apple should help search for a workable solution. If there is a Paris-style attack in the United States, decisions may be imposed on it in a far less benign atmosphere. But the decisions should be made by Congress. Apple CEO Tim Cook released a statement arguing against the FBI's recent order to hack into the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone 5c. See why he and Apple are refusing to do so. (Jhaan Elker/The Washington Post) Meanwhile, Apples role as a leading exponent of data security brings special responsibilities. Whatever U.S. officials decide, the policy will be the legitimate product of a democratic government and the rule of law. That will not be true in countries such as China, where dictators would use anti-terrorism tools to crack down on dissenters. We hope that Apple will fight as hard to safeguard its users privacy from authoritarian abuse. Good news! I read through all the presidential candidates economic plans so you dont have to. I even came up with a handy rule of thumb to help you quickly assess everyones ideas. Heres the rule: The more growth a candidate promises, the worse his or her economic plan probably is. Why? Not because promising bonkers growth suggests economic illiteracy, necessarily, though it might. The reason this axiom works is that promises of big growth usually signify a statistical sleight of hand legerdemath, if you will. If a candidate is making ridiculous claims about how much hell grow the economy, he probably needs to make those claims to hide the massive deficits that his policies would create under less generous (i.e., more realistic) assumptions. Astronomically higher economic output and employment create an astronomically larger tax base, after all, which helps offset the costs of spending increases or tax-rate cuts. Take Bernie Sanderss suite of economic proposals, which include higher taxes, Medicare for all, big infrastructure investments, free college and higher Social Security benefits. The campaign has lately been flogging an analysis of these proposals by Gerald Friedman, an economist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. In a glowing 53-page report, Friedman says Sanderss policies would: Raise the rate of gross domestic product growth to 5.3 percent per year, more than double the Federal Reserves current long-run projection of 2 percent. Reduce unemployment to 3.8 percent, which is way below the Feds long-term estimates of 4.9 percent. Restore the share of the population in the labor force back to what it was in 1999, even though the baby boom generation is much older today and so many more Americans have reached retirement age. If you dont follow economic statistics closely, these numbers may not mean much to you. Heres how Id describe them in laymans terms: garbage. Its not just that these figures assume delusionally large effects. Some show effects that dont even point in the right direction. Consider the claims about labor force participation. If you actually think about Sanderss proposals such as completely delinking health insurance from employment, making college free and increasing Social Security benefits youll realize they mostly would reduce workforce participation on the margin. That doesnt mean theyre unworthy policy choices. Like any other choices, though, they bring tradeoffs including making it easier or more attractive for Americans to not have a job. In no known universe would they have the effects Friedman predicts. Usually Democrats accuse Republicans of partaking in this sort of voodoo economics. Jeb Bush infamously promised 4 percent growth, a number he seems to have pulled from thin air during a conference call. Other Republican contenders matched and even one-upped his preposterous promise, with Donald Trump offering 6 percent growth. Both claims were widely mocked. Its no wonder that liberal economists are frustrated that Sanderss campaign is practicing, or at least touting, similar statistical shenanigans. Making such promises runs against our partys best traditions of evidence-based policy making and undermines our reputation as the party of responsible arithmetic, four former top economic advisers to Democratic presidents fumed in an open letter to Sanders and Friedman this week. One of its signatories, University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee, compared the realism of the Sanders agenda to magic flying puppies with winning Lotto tickets tied to their collars. Sanderss campaign has responded to such critics by impugning their motives, suggesting that theyre all on Team Clinton. (Friedman turns out to be on Team Clinton , too .) Theres a good reason why Team Sanders like Teams Bush and Trump avoids addressing critiques of fuzzy math directly. Their economic assumptions may be laughable, but they have one serious advantage: They help make the candidates look less fiscally irresponsible. If you assume 4 percent growth, Bushs trillions of dollars in tax cuts suddenly cease to mar the deficit, according to his own advisers. If you assume 5.3 percent growth, Sanderss tax-and-spend policies may induce a budget surplus (!), Friedman says. Other experts, using different, more reasonable economic assumptions do not agree. Sanderss health plan alone which his campaign insists is fully paid for has an estimated shortfall of between $3 trillion and $14 trillion. For all of Sanderss disgust for Wall Street, this form of numbers-fudging is actually a well-known trick in investment banking. When putting together your pitch book for a merger, you start with the price you need the valuation to come out to, then bake in more and more generous revenue projections until you get there. And anyone who questions your numbers? Well, maybe theyre on Team Clinton, too. David S. Heidler is the co-author with Jeanne T. Heidler of Washingtons Circle: The Creation of the President. Some Americans excuse current problems of ineffectual governance by claiming that the population is too diverse, the country too complicated and modern life too varied to permit efficient government. Those who think this way should read Fergus M. Bordewichs new book. It tells the story of a remarkable group of men meeting extraordinary challenges in an unprecedented setting: the United States of 1789-1791, when the Constitution was untested and only marginally popular. With considerable difficulty, this new guideline for government had been drafted and ratified for a diverse population living in a complicated country with intensely regional identities. The concept of nationhood for most Americans existed mostly in imagination, and it was most fragile. Most in 1789 viewed government as a necessary evil. They bowed to the reality that some form of overarching authority was essential for social tranquility and legal order, but the potential reach of that authority troubled them. After all, they had just recently fought a long war against crown and Parliament to preserve local control of their affairs. Fearful of merely replacing one set of obnoxious masters in London with another of the homegrown variety, Americans did not trust government. Some acted as if they would not even abide it. How much support they would give a new government became the central question in setting up viable administrative, representative and judicial agencies under the Constitution. While curbing power by dividing it, the Constitution at most provided a foundation and frame for a structure unfinished in many particulars. The people who produced this document are called the framers precisely because they were both talented architects and artisan carpenters who left both the devil of political contention and the details of taming sectional suspicions to the new government. As a result, the challenge handed to the First Congress was so vast and so fraught with the likelihood of misadventure that scores of controversies in the two years following ratification were opportunities to fail. The First Congress had plenty of chances to stumble. Instead, the First Congress faced its daunting agenda with resourcefulness, even while engaging in ferocious arguments, coping with clashing egos and taming an inclination for incessant debate. Bordewich tells this story through vivid portraits of celebrated founders such as James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, as well as less famous but no less key figures such as the acerbic diarist William Maclay and the caustic Southerner James Jackson. He provides clear and often compelling analyses of the problems that required varying doses of compromise and persuasion, and he paints scenes in New York and Philadelphia with colorful illustrations that are enviable examples of the historians art. The result is a brisk narrative that places the mundane measures necessary to create a working government in the context of the countrys immediate financial crisis and other, sometimes unexpected disputes. "The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government" by Fergus M. Bordewich (Simon and Schuster) Insolvency was most serious in that crushing debt courted existential calamity sure to happen in the absence of meaningful action. But placing the permanent capital; soothing anti-federalist fears with a sensible set of constitutional amendments; and mapping the boundaries and relationships between the legislature, the judiciary and the executive were enormously complicated problems. Bordewich shows that not everyone had his finest hour in trying to resolve these issues, but he clearly has a point in concluding that the remarkable productivity of the First Congress was crucial to the countrys immediate health and future vigor. Impressive research resonantly informs Bordewichs interpretation of events, and he does not hesitate when appropriate to step aside and let the people moving those events have their say. His use of quotations is consequently abundant but not digressive, the attribute of a fine narrative technique. Only occasionally does he tint the past with the preoccupations of the present, most obviously in often reminding the reader of the shameful presence of slavery at the republics founding. Because slavery was indeed shameful, its understandable that an author would do this, but its also worth remembering that the moral failings of the past become moral certainties only in retrospect. Most Americans in 1789 lived in a society marred by slaverys ubiquity, and those who actively opposed it are prophets to be honored because they formed an unpopular minority dismissed at the time as an irresponsible fringe. Meanwhile, virtually everyone, including as many Southerners as Northerners, judged slavery a blight on the land, but they were perplexed about how to end it. It was decades later that Daniel Webster marveled over the troubling shift in Southern opinion to pro-slavery advocacy as a stunning example of how economic necessity and repellent rationalizations could transform a vice into a virtue. Our own time will doubtless provide future historians with just as many disconcerting opinions to ponder. Readers will enjoy this book for making an intricate story clear and fascinating. It also serves a useful purpose in reminding us that as long as there have been people on American soil, the notion that they are ungovernable has always been with us. Certainly the British during the American Revolution thought so, and they finally threw up their hands in exasperation as much as they threw down their arms in defeat, saying good riddance to fractious colonists who refused to conform to the imperial program, let alone consent to its financial requirements. As fractious colonists became suspicious citizens, the smart money in the late 18th century laid odds that the American experiment in republican government would be faltering and thus temporary. The oddsmakers were very nearly right. Bordewich skillfully shows how and why, at the end of the beginning, they were wrong. I think it is wonderful that David Rubenstein has donated $18.5 million to renovate the Lincoln Memorial [Lincoln Memorial set for possibly biggest overhaul, Metro, Feb. 16]. However, turning what is a memorial into a museum isnt so wonderful. Seven million people visit the memorial each year not for a snappy, modern visitor center or a tour of concrete pilings and graffiti beneath but for the opportunity to gaze at the great statue of Lincoln and stand for a few quiet contemplative moments in what is surely one of the simplest yet most inspiring sites in all of Washington. Bigger isnt always better. Sylvia Coulter, Arnold, Md. U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia speaks at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, in this 2006 file photo. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters) Mitch McConnell, a Republican from Kentucky, is majority leader of the U.S. Senate. Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Appointed by President Ronald Reagan and unanimously confirmed by the Senate in 1986, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was a towering figure whose sharp wit and formidable intellect were rivaled only by a decades-long fidelity to our founding document and an enduring commitment to the rule of law. His death stands as a tragic loss for our country. Finding the right person to take the seat he occupied will clearly be a monumental task. It may be a consequential challenge, but we think its one the American people are more than equipped to tackle. Rarely does a Supreme Court vacancy occur in the final year of a presidential term, and the Senate has not confirmed a nominee to fill a vacancy arising in such circumstances for the better part of a century. So the American people have a particular opportunity now to make their voice heard in the selection of Scalias successor as they participate in the process to select their next president as they decide who they trust to both lead the country and nominate the next Supreme Court justice. How often does someone from Ashland, Ky., or Zearing, Iowa, get to have such impact? We dont think the American people should be robbed of this unique opportunity. Democrats beg to differ. Theyd rather the Senate simply push through yet another lifetime appointment by a president on his way out the door. No one disputes the presidents authority to nominate a successor to Scalia, but as inconvenient as it may be for this president, Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution grants the Senate the power to provide, or as the case may be, withhold its consent. Antonin Scalia died on Saturday, Feb. 13. Here's a look back on his tenure, his judicial philosophy and the legacy he leaves behind. (Monica Akhtar,Natalie Jennings/The Washington Post) It was interesting to see Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) write in The Post just a few days ago that the Senates constitutional duty to give a fair and timely hearing and a floor vote to the presidents Supreme Court nominees has remained inviolable. But thats not what he said on the Senate floor about judicial nominees when a Republican was in the White House. The duties of the United States Senate are set forth in the Constitution of the United States. Nowhere in that document does it say the Senate has a duty to give presidential nominees a vote. It says appointments shall be made with the advice and consent of the Senate. Thats very different than saying every nominee receives a vote. The Senate, he said then, is not a rubber stamp for the executive branch. Indeed, this is the kind of logic that led more than two dozen Democratic senators including Sens. Reid, Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.) and then-senators Barack Obama (Ill.), Joe Biden (Del.), John F. Kerry (Mass.) and Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) to vote to deny President George W. Bushs nominee to the Supreme Court, Samuel Alito, an up-or-down vote. That was when then-senator Obama seemed to have a very different, and very robust, appreciation for the Senates constitutional authority. That was when Schumer, today the heir apparent as Senate Democratic leader, gave a lengthy and stirring speech to the left-leaning American Constitution Society 18 months, or 1 years, before the end of Bushs term in which he declared that the Senate should reverse the presumption of confirmation and not confirm a Supreme Court nominee except in extraordinary circumstances. Even if some Democrats may be having amnesiac experiences today, its clear that concern over confirming Supreme Court nominations made near the end of a presidential term is not new. We also know that Americans issued a stinging rebuke to this president and his policies in our latest national election, delivering a landslide for the opposition party as they handed control of the Senate to Republicans in 2014. Given that we are in the midst of the presidential election process, we believe that the American people should seize the opportunity to weigh in on whom they trust to nominate the next person for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. It is today the American people, rather than a lame-duck president whose priorities and policies they just rejected in the most-recent national election, who should be afforded the opportunity to replace Justice Scalia. HAVING BELITTLED his Republican rivals as well as Democrats, Muslims, migrants, people with disabilities, prisoners of war, and uncountable celebrities, foreign leaders, women and journalists, Donald Trump trained his wellspring of venom on Pope Francis on the eve of the pontiffs trip to Mexico last week. He demeaned the pope as a pawn of Mexicos government and called him a very political person. Now the pope, speaking aboard the airliner carrying him back to the Vatican from his trip, has returned fire, saying, A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. He made the remark hours after praying for beleaguered migrants at the Mexican border, where Mr. Trump, who disparaged those migrants as rapists, wants to build a wall. The pope should have been savvier, in response to a reporters question, than to be drawn into the mud of a presidential election. Perhaps mindful of that, he quickly tamped down his remark, declining to get involved with influencing Catholic voters but adding: I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt. Mr. Trumps candidacy has endured months of disapproval and condemnation from sources as varied as the British parliament (which debated banning him from England), South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (who warned against his campaigns appeal to Americans anger) and J.K. Rowling (who compared him to Voldemort, the villain of her Harry Potter books). He may also survive and even benefit from the popes censure. But if the popes unusually frank assessment of Mr. Trumps policy was ill-advised,it also provided a moment of clarity. As they might say in Queens, whence hails Mr. Trump, the pope knows from Christians. In response, Mr. Trump worked himself into a froth of indignation, saying it was disgraceful for the pope or anyone else to question anothers faith never mind that Mr. Trump himself has done precisely that, to his GOP presidential rival Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) a week ago, to Ben Carson and to President Obama. Amid the acrimony, its easy to lose sight of the underlying issue the moral obligation to treat migrants humanely. That was the popes message Wednesday, when he visited Ciudad Juarez, just across the Mexican border from El Paso. The human tragedy that is forced migration is a global phenomenon today, he said at the border. This crisis, which can be measured in numbers and statistics, we want instead to measure with names, stories, families. That clear-eyed pronouncement was an implicit rejection of the poisonous anti-immigrant rhetoric spouted by Mr. Trump and much of the Republican field, and embraced by a chunk of the GOP primary electorate. In vilifying Mexican immigrants as rapists, and Syrian refugees as terrorists, the Republicans attempt to rob them of their humanity. In Mexico, the pope offered a reminder of the imperative of decency. The supposed sorry state of U.S. intelligence, along with the need to fix it, remains an easy applause line on the campaign trail. When Im president, we are going to rebuild our intelligence capabilities, and theyre going to tell us where the terrorists are, Marco Rubio said at a Republican presidential debate in late January. But are U.S. intelligence capabilities really that bad? While the budget for intelligence has been dropping for a number of years because of Americas quasi-drawdown from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the pernicious effects of sequestration, the funding allocated for the intelligence community remains far above what it was before 9/11. Of course, merely spending money doesnt necessarily get great results. By at least some measures, though, our intelligence collection and analysis seem vastly more sophisticated than they used to be. Consider the presidents daily intelligence report. The CIA last year released 2,500 of its flagship intelligence documents from the 1960s. Now, regular folks can read, with some occasionally major redactions, what the agency served to Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson six mornings a week. Kennedy received something called the Presidents Intelligence Checklist, which became the Presidents Daily Brief (PDB) in 1964. For the public, comparison with more recent PDBs is difficult, since few have been declassified. In an upcoming history, former briefer David Priess calls the PDB the most tightly guarded daily publication on the face of the earth. The famous Aug. 6, 2001, memo, Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in U.S., and the Dec. 8, 1998, document warning Bin Ladin Preparing To Hijack US Aircraft and Other Attacks are rare exceptions that have been made public. But as a former CIA analyst who helped draft a number of these documents during the George W. Bush and early Obama administrations, I can tell you that the Kennedy- and Johnson-era editions wouldnt have passed muster at todays CIA. If Id submitted first drafts like those, my bosses would have told me to go back and try again. The first problem with the 1960s-era PDBs is that they provided mostly tactical, perishable information: This world leader made this speech, that army advanced to that objective, a foreign minister gossiped to our ambassador about something. The Oct. 16, 1967, PDB, for instance, notes that China had built a computer that could play the song The East Is Red and would work on more mundane tasks such as the problems of the national economy and advanced weapons development something Beijing had noted publicly at the time. My superiors would have asked me: Wheres the strategic intelligence? How does this help the president do his job? The 1960s briefs read much like the gisting of cable traffic. Are the really juicy bits in the sections that were redacted before declassification? Perhaps though the redactions are there to protect sources and methods, not substance. Or perhaps President Richard Nixons acid comment that the CIA tells me nothing I dont read three days earlier in the New York Times burns with more truth than one might suppose. I also was struck by how little analysis was in this analytical product in the 60s. The old memos were much shorter than the current ones. They often devoted only 100 words or so per country, compared to current PDBs which might do three or four times that. And the so what question was rarely answered. For example, when North Korea seized the USS Pueblo on Jan. 23, 1968, the PDB that day had only two paragraphs dedicated to the capture. Subsequent PDBs provided updates on the ships whereabouts and condition. But the president seems to have been served contextfree facts. And as former CIA director Michael Hayden once quipped, If it is a fact, it aint intelligence. Another shortcoming: The 1960s-era PDBs included little to no sourcing. Reading them, I kept wondering, How do they know? And, How reliable is that information? Occasionally the PDB noted who spoke with whom a snippet of Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfields conversation with Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin showed up in the Nov. 23, 1965, PDB. But attributions were few and far between. That would drive a current PDB editor crazy, as well as anyone who had to brief a president from this document. I found, too, that the CIA was a lot looser with language in the 1960s. In the introduction of the agencys 2011 Style Manual & Writers Guide, Director of Intelligence Fran Moore wrote: Good intelligence depends in large measure on clear, concise writing. . . . [The guide] reflects an enduring commitment to the highest standards of care and precision. But 50 years ago, CIA analysts were less disciplined with their word choices. In just one month November 1965 they asserted that a dustup between Chile and Argentina aroused Latin passions, that military hotheads caused clashes on Cyprus and that a sticky situation may have been emerging in Buenos Aires. That Buenos Aires item, from Nov. 23, 1965, was especially egregious: A sticky situation could be brewing in Buenos Aires. Army strong man Ongania resigned in a huff when one of his former subordinates was made his nominal superior. President Illia has not yet grasped this hot potato. Another cringe-worthy passage, from Dec. 17, 1965, described a typical indoctrination campaign in China: Every Chinese except the very young, the aged, or the infirm must attend two, three, or four meetings a week at his commune, office, factory, or neighborhood association. Each lasts two or three hours. As the drive progresses, the frequency and duration of the sessions increase. At the climax, these may turn into day-long struggle and punishment orgies. Todays intelligence analysts could never get away with writing like that. Reading these memos, I also wondered: Where was the U.S.S.R.? The CIA was basically brought into existence to counter the Soviet Union and the scourge of communism. Given the existential threat, you might surmise that intelligence on the U.S.S.R. and its proxies would dominate the presidential briefings. And there certainly was a theme that ran throughout the documents that the Soviets, as well as other communist nations and actors, were the biggest national security concerns for the American president. Still, the PDBs were surprisingly preoccupied by other issues and nations only peripherally connected to the Cold War, such as Indonesia, Rhodesia and the Dominican Republic. To be sure, intelligence collection, analysis and dissemination are far different now than they were in the era of typewriters and steno pools. As 35-year CIA veteran Ray Converse, who joined in 1972, recalled: The world was simply slower then in all respects. Events were not as rapid. Cables would come in on a ticker, and someone would read them to decide which offices should receive them. They were Xeroxed and disseminated in hard copy. An error in the mailroom, and you wouldnt see it at all. Then one copy would come to a given branch, a buck slip slapped on it, and it would be routed around the branch. If someone was slow to read their traffic, it might be slow to hit your branch. I think sometimes people would sit on cables so no one else had seen them until they could write on it. An altogether different world! Documents and requirements evolve. Individual policymakers may demand different products, in different formats. President Obama, for example, often eschews an in-person briefing, preferring to read the PDB on an electronic tablet. Kennedy and Johnson no doubt received classified information beyond the PDB from the CIA and other organizations. For example, much of the work on the Soviet Union existed in longer-term studies, produced by an organization known as the Office of National Estimates. But based on the 1960s-era PDBs, todays intelligence officers and analysts may be doing a superior job to their predecessors from an imagined golden age. Twitter: @AkiPeritz Read more from Outlook and follow our updates on Facebook and Twitter. Earnest Lewis Reynolds looks through handwritten telephone numbers at his Lynchburg, Va., home in 2012. When Reynolds was 13, he was given a state-sanctioned vasectomy as part of a program aimed at sterilizing "mental defectives." (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post) NORTH CAROLINA set a bold example of justice in 2013 by establishing a $10 million fund to locate and compensate surviving victims of the states barbaric, decades-long program of forced sterilization. Now Virginia, which ran a similarly aggressive campaign to deprive as many as 8,000 mentally ill, epileptic or otherwise feebleminded citizens of the ability to conceive children, has an opportunity to follow suit. It should. The financial stakes are modest no more than a couple hundred of the states victims are likely still alive but the principle is not. After years of foot-dragging, will Virginia lawmakers do the right thing by compensating victims for the unspeakable harm inflicted on them by the state? The states campaign was carried out in the pseudoscientific cause of eugenics purifying and enhancing the nations genetic stock by forced sterilization, often without informing the victims of the consequences before surgical procedures took place. Last year, Richmond recognized that, despite then-Gov. Mark R. Warners (D) apology for eugenics in 2002, refusing to atone by providing compensation was no longer morally defensible. It authorized payment of $400,000 to survivors who had been castrated or vasectomized, in the case of men and boys (most of them black), or had their ovaries or fallopian tubes removed, in the case of women and girls. That was a good start, but little more than a symbolic one. At $25,000 per victim half of what North Carolina allocated the amount approved by the General Assembly provided compensation to just 16 survivors. And unlike North Carolina, which undertook a systematic effort to track down victims of the half-century-long eugenics campaign, Virginia has so far done next to nothing, beyond establishing a website, to identify and locate those upon whom such cruelty was visited. In an effort to set those wrongs partially right, Del. Patrick A. Hope (D-Arlington), who is among the few lawmakers in Richmond to have taken up the victims cause, has proposed an amendment to add $800,000 in funds to compensate an additional 32 victims, plus $80,000 to cover the salary of a single state official who, using hospital records and outreach efforts, would identify and find those deserving compensation. Compensation cant make up for the deprivation of the right to reproduce, perhaps the most fundamental human right of all, with no due process or informed consent. But as a symbolic gesture, it is the right thing to do. The sum of money at stake is a pittance in the context of Virginias budget. The real question is decency, and whether Virginias stores of it are sufficient to make a meaningful gesture of justice to atone for an unconscionable crime. Mandrel Stuart stands in front of his former restaurant, The Smoking Rooster in Staunton, in May 2014. (Norm Shafer/For The Washington Post) Antony Davies is an associate professor of economics at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. James R. Harrigan is director of academic programs at Strata in Logan, Utah. It has long been axiomatic in American criminal law that, in the words of William Blackstone, It is better that 10 guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer. But one would have a hard time selling that idea to Virginia, which the Institute for Justice recently awarded a D-minus grade for its civil asset forfeiture laws. Rather than buying Blackstones ratio, Virginia has opted to make a quick buck at the expense of its citizens due process rights, selling justice down the river in the bargain. Civil asset forfeiture laws shift the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused by allowing law enforcement to bring charges against property instead of people. Functionally, the police can arrest your car, your house and even your money and there is precious little you can do about it. This makes life easier for law enforcement, as inanimate objects are not protected by the same pesky legal principles that protect human beings. Unlike people, possessions can be presumed guilty and confiscated without due process. Its up to the police to decide whether to take someones property. If they do, thats when the Kafkaesque journey truly begins. Heres how civil asset forfeiture works: Without trial or even compelling reason, the government takes your property. To get it back, you have to pay a lawyer to provide evidence that your property wasnt acquired in or used in a crime. The government then decides whether you have provided enough evidence. If the government decides that you havent, then the government keeps your property. Consider the case of Victor Ramos Guzman, a Pentecostal church secretary from El Salvador. He was pulled over for speeding in Virginia. The police did not issue him a citation for speeding, but they did confiscate the $28,500 he was carrying money that parishioners had donated to purchase a parcel of land for their church. Guzman had constitutional protections that prevented the police from arresting him for no reason; his money did not. Mandrel Stuart was pulled over because the SUV he was driving had tinted windows and a video playing in his line of sight. Police detained him for two hours and relieved him of the $17,550 that he had earned selling barbecue at his Smoking Roosters restaurant in Staunton. Stuart was not cited for the initial traffic stop. He ultimately got his money back, but not before he lost his business. These are not isolated incidents. Blackstones dictum is being violated wholesale by a political and legal establishment that simply has no respect for the rights of citizens, rights they are sworn to uphold. And if you want to know why this keeps happening, follow the money. Law enforcement agencies keep 90 percent of the assets they confiscate through civil asset forfeiture. Virginias Department of Criminal Justice Services gets the other 10 percent. This is nothing but a revenue-generating scheme for Virginia, never mind the rights of the people. The Virginia House of Delegates tried to address this problem by overwhelmingly approving a bill that would have required a criminal conviction before property could be forfeited, but the Senate killed the bill, instead referring the matter to the Virginia State Crime Commission for further study. Sadly, thats where matters now stand. Virginia has opted for further study of whether its residents, and those unfortunate enough to be passing through, deserve due process. And when politicians have to decide between due process and revenue well, follow the money. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.19 By Emil Ilgar - Trend: Renault have willingness to increase the current Logan and Sandero models in Iran and launch the production lines of two new models, including Renault Kwid in Iran, Fars News Agency reported. "The representatives of Renault would travel to Iran in near future to sign an agreement to launch a joint venture with Pars Khodro, a main subsidiaries of SAIPA, to boost its markets in Iran," the report said on Feb.19. The report didn't mention the second model's name, but Renault aims to introduce more models such as its Clio small car and Captur mini-SUV, Reuters reported in January. Iranian carmaker Renault Pars officially inaugurated Renault Sandero assembly line in September 22, 2015 to produce 10,000 Sandero models annually. Renault Pars is an Iranian joint venture established in 2004 and owned by Renault and Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran (IDRO). Renault was a major player in Iran, with around 10 percent of the market, before sanctions curtailed its activities in 2011. After western sanctions on Iran, Renault's factories decreased working at around 15- 20 percent capacity, but the company hopes to triple or quadruple its output in the coming years, the Managing Director at Renault Middle East, Peyman Kargar told FRANCE 24 in August 2015. IN 1984, the U.S. Senate responded to the persecution of Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov by renaming the site of the Soviet Embassy on 16th Street NW Andrei Sakharov Plaza. It was a symbolic act, but one that sent a persistent message to Soviet diplomats, who were unavoidably reminded of Sakharov every time they received a piece of mail. The dissidents stepdaughter told us in 2014 that the renaming definitely made a difference . . . it raised the level of awareness. Two years after the change, Sakharov was released from internal exile. Now the Senate has taken a comparable and equally worthy step by voting overwhelmingly to rename the location of the Chinese Embassy, on International Place NW, 1 Liu Xiaobo Plaza, in honor of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning dissident. Mr. Liu, who wrote a 2008 petition calling for an end to Chinas totalitarian system, has been imprisoned by the regime since 2009; he was sentenced to 11 years on charges of inciting state subversion. His wife, Liu Xia, has been under house arrest since 2010, even though she has not been charged with or convicted of any offense. This is a particularly good time to impress upon Chinas diplomats and their masters that Mr. Liu and other defenders of human rights will not be forgotten. President Xi Jinping is in the midst of a sweeping crackdown against critics and independent voices of all kinds, inside and outside China. Lawyers who for years have worked to expand rights have been jailed on trumped-up charges; five editors at a Hong Kong publishing house that was to publish a critical book on Mr. Xi were abducted, in at least two cases outside of mainland China, and detained. Western governments, many of which have shied away from criticizing these offenses, need to make clear that they will not be silenced on Beijings violations of human rights. Thats why it is particularly disturbing that the State Department has indicated that President Obama will veto the Senate measure if it reaches his desk. Mr. Obama already has a poor record of speaking out for Mr. Liu and other Chinese dissidents, despite his occasional promises to do so. Now he apparently thinks it more important to avoid offending Mr. Xi than to stand up for a man who will be remembered as the Sakharov of China, a peaceful advocate for democratic reform. Of course, the regime is bristling. If the relevant bill is passed into law, it will cause serious consequences, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a news conference. He went on to demand the U.S. Senate stop promoting the bill. Those words ought only to fortify Congresss resolve. Its sickening to think that Mr. Obama would respond to such crude threats by exercising a veto or that legislators would back down. The House should quickly approve the legislation; and if Liu Xiaobo Plaza must be created as an override of Mr. Obamas veto, it will be a sad but accurate reflection of his record on human rights. Why does the Democratic establishment so dislike Bernie Sanders? Consider this statistic: Hillary Clinton has raised $26 million for the Democratic National Committee and state Democratic parties so far this campaign. And Sanders? $1,000. Thats no typo. Clinton is doing more to boost the partys 2016 prospects than Sanders by the proportion of 26,000 to 1. (Or greater: That $1,000 raised by Sanders was technically provided by the DNC to open a joint fundraising account.) This is the source of the panic that Sanders causes the much-maligned Democratic elites. Its not about ideology; it comes from a fear that having Sanders as a nominee will decimate progressive candidates down the ballot and leave Republicans in control of the House, and state capitals, for another decade or two. The Obama presidency has been a disaster for the Democratic Party nationwide. Clinton has pledged to rebuild the party and has begun to make good on that promise. Sanders, by contrast, has shown little concern for the very real crisis the party faces beneath the presidential level. The Fix's Aaron Blake explains why Bernie Sanders needs to make up ground with black voters in the Nevada caucuses and the South Carolina primary. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post) Since Obamas election in 2008, Democratic losses at all other levels have been staggering: 69 House seats, 13 Senate seats, 910 state legislative seats, 30 state legislative chambers and 11 governorships. Democrats are at their weakest position in state capitols in nearly a century; they have unified control of only 11 legislatures, while Republicans control 30 (31 if you include nominally nonpartisan Nebraska). There are many reasons for this, but one is Obamas decision to bypass the Democratic Party apparatus in favor of his own, parallel network, now known as Organizing for Action. Under the theory that Obama could directly rally supporters (and therefore didnt need to rely as much on party operatives or on congressional Democrats), this outgrowth of Obamas 2008 campaign apparatus competed with the party and wound up starving the party of funds. The Democratic National Committee, in triage, made Senate and House races its top priority, and state efforts suffered badly. The amount the DNC spends on state parties today is roughly half what it was in 2007. A decade ago, Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean had the party paying for 183 state party workers; thats down to 115. Meanwhile, Republicans have made a big push at the state level, and conservative donors such as the Koch brothers have boosted the effort. One indication: The Republican State Leadership Committee, the party arm responsible for state legislative efforts, raised $39.2 million in 2012 and $38.2 million in 2014, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The Democratic equivalent, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, raised $13.5 million in 2012 and $16.2 million in 2014. The consequences of the Democrats atrophy at the state level are potentially catastrophic for progressives. If the party doesnt make major gains in the next couple of election cycles, Republican majorities in state legislatures will control redistricting after the 2020 Census, virtually guaranteeing that the party retains control of the House for another decade. Thanks in part to the 2010 redistricting, Republicans now can lose the popular vote by several percentage points but keep control of the House. The collapse in state legislatures for Democrats has also left the party with few prospects for statewide and congressional offices. In Ohio, for example, Democrats should have a good shot at unseating first-term Republican Sen. Rob Portman, but many prospective challengers were wiped out in 2010 and 2014, leaving a 74-year-old former governor, Ted Strickland, as the Democrat to challenge Portman. A DNC task force after the 2014 midterm wipeout called for urgent action at the state-party level. The task force recommended a three-cycle plan with allied groups that wins back legislative chambers in order to prepare for redistricting efforts. It is, in essence, an attempt to revive Deans fifty-state strategy of building up local parties. That was controversial at the time, but a study of the 2006 midterm election by Harvards Elaine Kamarck argued that in congressional districts where the DNC had paid organizers in place for at least a year, the Democratic vote was more than double what it would have been. Sanders threatens this effort. Like Obama did in 2008, he sees his support coming from outside the party structure. Like Obama, he has a principled disdain for the big-dollar contributions that Clinton is helping to bring in for the party. Sanders seems to think he doesnt need a robust partys backing to enact his multi-trillion-dollar proposals, which Austan Goolsbee, Obamas former top economist, told the New York Timess Jackie Calmes this past week are as realistic as magic flying puppies with winning Lotto tickets tied to their collars. But if Sanders leaves the Democratic Party for dead, as he is now doing, the odds against his success are even greater. Id put them at 26,000 to 1. Twitter: @Milbank Read more from Dana Milbanks archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. Antonin Scalia, the influential and most provocative member of the Supreme Court, has died. He was 79. Antonin Scalia, the influential and most provocative member of the Supreme Court, has died. He was 79. Antonin Scalia, the influential and most provocative member of the Supreme Court, has died. He was 79. Lets understand something about the fight to fill the Supreme Court seat of Antonin (Nino) Scalia. This is about nothing but raw power. Any appeal you hear to high principle is phony brazenly, embarrassingly so. In Year Seven of the George W. Bush administration, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) publicly opposed filling any Supreme Court vacancy until Bush left office. (Except in extraordinary circumstances. None such arose. Surprise!) Today he piously denounces Republicans for doing exactly the same for a vacancy created in Year Eight of Barack Obama. Republicans, say the Democrats, owe the president deference. Elections have consequences and Obama won reelection in 2012. Yes. And the Republicans won the Senate in 2014 if anything, a more proximal assertion of popular will. And both have equal standing in appointing a Supreme Court justice. Its hard to swallow demands for deference from a party that for seven years has cheered Obamas serial constitutional depredations: His rewriting the immigration laws by executive order (stayed by the courts); his reordering the energy economy by regulation (stayed by the courts); his enacting the nuclear deal with Iran, the most important treaty of this generation, without the required two-thirds vote of the Senate (by declaring it an executive agreement). Washington Post reporter Juliet Eilperin explains the difficulties ahead facing both Republicans and Democrats as they battle to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat left by the sudden passing of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. (Dalton Bennett/The Washington Post) Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) complains about the Senate violating precedent if it refuses a lame-duck nominee. This is rich. It is Reid who just two years ago overthrew all precedent by abolishing the filibuster for most judicial and high executive appointments. In the name of what grand constitutional principle did Reid resort to a parliamentary maneuver so precedent-shattering that it was called the nuclear option? None. He did it in order to pack the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit with liberals who would reliably deflect challenges to Obamacare. On Tuesday, Obama loftily called upon Congress to rise above ideology and partisanship in approving his nominee. When asked how he could square that with his 2006 support of a filibuster to stop the appointment of Samuel Alito, Obama replied with a four-minute word salad signifying nothing. There is no answer. It was situational constitutional principle, i.e., transparent hypocrisy. As I said, this is all about raw power. When the Democrats had it, they used it. The Republicans are today wholly justified in saying they will not allow this outgoing president to overturn the balance of the Supreme Court. The matter should be decided by the coming election. Does anyone doubt that Democrats would be saying exactly that if the circumstances were reversed? Which makes this Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnells (Ky.) moment. He and his cohorts have taken a lot of abuse from anti-establishment candidates and media for not using their congressional majorities to repeal Obamacare, defund Planned Parenthood, block executive orders, etc. What was the 2014 election about, they say? We won and got nothing. We were lied to and betrayed by a corrupt leadership beholden to the Washington cartel. As it happens, under our Madisonian Constitution, the opposition party cannot govern without the acquiescence of the president, which it will not get, or a two-thirds majority of the Congress, which it does not have. But no matter. Things are different now. Appointing a Supreme Court justice is a two-key operation. The president proposes, the Senate disposes. There is no reason McConnell cannot hold the line. And he must. The stakes here a radical generation-long reversal of direction of the Supreme Court are the highest this Senate will ever face. Antonin Scalia died on Saturday, Feb. 13. Here's a look back on his tenure, his judicial philosophy and the legacy he leaves behind. (Monica Akhtar,Natalie Jennings/The Washington Post) If McConnell succeeds, he will have resoundingly answered the what did we get for 2014? question. Imagine if the Senate were now in Democratic hands. What we got in 2014 was the power to hold on to Scalias seat and to the courts conservative majority. But only for now. Blocking an Obama nominee buys just a year. The final outcome depends on November 2016. If the GOP nominates an unelectable or unconservative candidate, a McConnell victory will be nothing more than a stay of execution. In 2012, Scalia averred that he would not retire until there was a more ideologically congenial president in the White House. I would not like to be replaced, he explained, by someone who immediately sets about undoing everything that Ive tried to do for 25 years. Scalia never got to choose the timing of his leaving office. Those who value the legacy of those now-30 years will determine whether his last wish will be vindicated. Let McConnell do his thing. Then in November its for us to win one for Nino. Read more from Charles Krauthammers archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. In the week leading up to the South Carolina Republican primary, GOP presidential candidates furiously accused each other of "lying" - a term that was once rarely uttered by those running for the country's highest office. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) In the week leading up to the South Carolina Republican primary, GOP presidential candidates furiously accused each other of "lying" - a term that was once rarely uttered by those running for the country's highest office. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) GREENVILLE, S.C. A photograph posted on a website by Ted Cruzs presidential campaign this week appeared to show his rival, Marco Rubio, shaking hands with the dreaded Democratic president, Barack Obama. The picture, though, was a fake a crude photoshop image of Rubios head posted on another persons body. This is how phony and how deceitful the Cruz campaign has become, Rubio adviser Todd Harris told reporters here, alleging that Cruz has created a culture of lies. In the Republican presidential contest, 2016 has become the year of the liar. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz speaks during a campaign rally in Charleston, S.C. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images) Once considered the semantic equivalent of tossing a grenade, use of the word has become routine among Republicans vying for the presidential nomination and their staffers. Candidates accuse one another of lying. They defend themselves from accusations of untruths. During the last Republican debate, liar or some variant was used at least 20 times. For a number of weeks now, Ted Cruz has just been telling lies, Rubio said during the debate. He lied about Ben Carson in Iowa. He lies about Planned Parenthood. He lies about marriage. Hes lying about all sorts of things. The language this year, including the liar tag, seems notably coarser than in past election cycles. Hearing words once considered off-limits is no longer strange. I certainly cant recall anything like what were hearing now, said Mark Liberman, a professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. [Donald Trump repeats crowd members crude insult of Ted Cruz] Among the many rough words and phrases used by GOP candidates to describe their opponents this cycle are pussy, jackass and unstable. But liar seems to have the most staying power. Its clearly a blow to the civility of the election discourse, said William Mayer, a professor of political science at Northeastern University. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign stop in South Carolina Monday. (Matt Rourke/AP) Rarely a day goes by now that the word is not used. Frustrated by the tenor of the debate, the conservative Weekly Standard wrote that the candidates should try a new variation of Ronald Reagans famous 11th commandment that thou shalt not speak ill of any Republican. The Republican presidential field could at least try to observe a twelfth commandment: Thou shalt avoid calling ones fellow Republican a liar, the magazine wrote. For the most part, the epithet has been hurled against Cruz, who is in a heated race for second place here with Rubio and has faced repeated accusations of lying from both Trump and Rubio. He is a liar, Trump said of Cruz in a statement released Wednesday. Pointing at Cruz during the debate Trump said, You are the single biggest liar. At a rally Friday in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Trump went after Cruz again. This Ted Cruz, this is the biggest liar, he said. ...Even Marco Rubio said hes a liar... This guy, Ted Cruz, is a liar. Trump has also uncorked the word on former Florida governor Jeb Bush. Id like to call JEB a liar, but the truth is he has no clue & never revealed that he used Eminent Domain- when criticizing me! Trump wrote on Twitter. [ How an obscure legal issue has found its way into the GOP race ] Politicians calling one another a liar has happened in the past, most recently Prior to the current race, perhaps the most well known use of the liar charge by a politician came in 2009, when Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) yelled you lie! at President Obama during the State of the Union address. Wilson was booed and formally rebuked by the House in a vote that fell largely along party lines; he refused to apologize. Using the word once had far more dire consequences: a duel. According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, in 1827 Henry Conway, who was running for reelection to Congress, called Robert Crittenden, the acting governor of the state, a liar in a published letter. The two men had a duel and Conway died from his wounds 11 days later. When asked about use of the word liar, Cruz supporter and House member Steve King (R-Iowa) said: Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton fought a duel to the death over such allegations, and now we have them hurled out as if making that allegation somehow makes it true and makes it stick. [Cruz, Trump ratchet up attacks in South Carolina] Mayer said calling someone a liar raises the stakes and implies something harsher than simple disagreement. Im implying very different things about an alternative candidate if I say youre lying or I disagree with you or youre mistaken, he said. Richard D. Anderson, Jr., a professor of political science at UCLA who has studied political linguistics, said the tone has something to do with the dynamics of the race, including the publics distrust of career politicians. The word liar, Anderson said, is evoking peoples anger and unhappiness with fellow politicians. Rubio has long accused Cruz of distorting the truth, but the Florida Republicans campaign said the argument has only broken through this week as Rubio and Trump have focused on it. Trumps accusation at the debate that Cruz is a liar amplified the message before a broad audience like never before. Hes lying and I think its disturbing, Rubio told reporters this week before hopping on his campaign bus in Beaufort, S.C. [Trump unloads on Cruz: liar, dishonest and unstable] Rubio added: Just here in South Carolina this week, hes lied about my record on Planned Parenthood, hes lied about my position on marriage, hes lied about his own record on immigration, and so I think this is very disturbing when you have a candidate that now on a regular basis just makes things up. And especially in this era where everything is out there and everything is seen and instantly reacted to, you cant get away with that stuff. Jason Miller, a spokesman for Cruz, said the word liar has become the only message from Trump or Rubio. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, when asked about whether the pervasive use of the word would turn off voters, said people here know how to cut through the mud of this states rough and tumble campaigning. When you come to South Carolina, its a bloodsport, she said. I wear heels, its not for a fashion statement. Its because youve got to be prepared to kick at any time. But some voters dont like it. When asked about the use of the word liar, Carrie Williford, who was attending a Ted Cruz rally in Spartanburg, S.C., made an annoyed face. The word is overused, the 37-year-old from Greer, S.C., said. It sounds like fifth grade schoolyard type stuff. Jenna Johnson contributed reporting from Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Sean Sullivan from Beaufort, S.C. Here's how the fight between Pope Francis and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is playing out. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) Here's how the fight between Pope Francis and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is playing out. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) First was the British prime minister, who called Donald Trump divisive, stupid and wrong. Then came Britains Parliament, which denounced him with colorful language. The French prime minister, the Turkish president and a Saudi prince also weighed in: The Republican presidential front-runner, they agreed, was a demagogue disgracing the United States. On Thursday, Pope Francis added the strongest voice yet to a growing chorus of world leaders taking a stand against the celebrity candidate condemning Trumps hard-line immigration agenda and suggesting he was not a Christian because of it. As the pontiff took the rare step of injecting his views into the U.S. campaign, his remarks underscored the anxiety coursing through world capitals about a possible Trump presidency. Francis noted Trumps promise to deport an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States illegally and make Mexico pay for a wall along the border to keep them out. A person who thinks only about building walls wherever they may be and not building bridges, is not Christian, Francis told reporters Thursday aboard the papal plane as he returned to Rome from a visit to Mexico, according to a translation from the Associated Press. This is not in the Gospel, he added. The pontiffs remarks jolted the Republican contest just two days before the crucial South Carolina primary, immediately overshadowing the closing arguments the top candidates were making on the campaign trail. Trump, a Presbyterian, strongly rebuked Francis for his comments, seeking to gain the upper hand politically in a state where polls show him with a double-digit lead. For a religious leader to question a persons faith is disgraceful, Trump said at a campaign rally in Kiawah Island. Im proud to be a Christian, and as president I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened, unlike what is happening now with our current president. [WorldViews: How the Francis-Trump argument played out] Trumps immigration positions have been at the core of the billionaire moguls emotional and nativist pitch to voters and many of his supporters rallied to the candidates defense in the face of the pontiffs criticism. As Trump sat down for lunch at Fratellos Italian Tavern in North Charleston, Mayor R. Keith Summey reassured the candidate. I dont care if hes the pope or not, you know, the bottom line is: Your faith is your faith, said Summey, who had just endorsed Trump. Im a Baptist, but I think there are some darn good Catholics and darn good Jews, a lot of good people out there in this country, and just because I say something they disagree with doesnt mean that I have any less faith than they have. Ahead of Saturdays Republican primary in South Carolina, the latest polling indicates a majority of evangelical voters back Donald Trump, yet remain bitterly divided as many question his stance on social issues ranging from abortion to gay marriage. (Dalton Bennett/The Washington Post) Trump listened as the mayor spoke, pressing his lips together tightly, and then said, Its a very sad situation. Though minutes later, Trump told reporters he remained totally respectful of the pope. For Trump, who had been spending the week on the defensive over his dramatic changes on social issues, Franciss comments helped him redirect attention to immigration. There also were potential long-term risks for Trumps candidacy, however, considering the pontiffs wide popularity across the country and the respect he commands. The pope was in Mexico, he said at his rally. Do you know that? Does everyone know that? He said negative things about me because the Mexican government convinced him that Trump is not a good guy because I want to have a strong border, I want to stop illegal immigration, I want to stop people from being killed. For generations, the role of the papacy has been shaded by politics and Franciss papacy especially, with his efforts on global climate change and general outspokenness. But it was striking for him to comment on U.S. electoral politics during a campaign. He has a general duty to remind us of our Christian obligations, but attaching them to politically partisan proposals is unwise, said John OSullivan, a historian of papal politics and the president of the Danube Institute in Budapest. One has to question these off-the-cuff remarks that make the pope look like someone whos grinding an ax. [A test of faith: Pope Francis puts 2016 GOP hopefuls on the defensive] Franciss commentary was the latest evidence of intense global interest in the 2016 presidential campaign especially Trumps unpredictable candidacy. The presidential campaign here is of intense interest to the entire world, in no small part because people and countries everywhere will be affected by our choice, said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. Last month in London, after Trump proposed temporarily banning all Muslims from entering the United States, members of Parliament debated whether to ban Trump from traveling to the United Kingdom. In the House of Commons, lawmakers described him with a flurry of insults: an idiot, a buffoon, a demagogue and a wazzock. British Prime Minister David Cameron had earlier called Trumps travel ban on Muslims divisive, stupid and wrong. And London Mayor Boris Johnson said that Trump was out of his mind and unfit to be president. The only reason I wouldnt visit some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump, Johnson said. Similar condemnations have rained down from around the globe. French Prime Minister Manuel Vals has accused Trump of feeding hatred and misinformation. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said of Trumps Muslim ban that a politician shouldnt talk like this. And Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal took to Twitter to call Trump a disgrace to America. [Donald Trump gets pummeled by the British] In South Carolina, however, Trumps politically incorrect statements and policy pronouncements have propelled him to the pole position heading into Saturdays primary. Many of his supporters on Thursday scoffed at the popes comments. Pam Ridgway, a 64-year-old retired teacher from North Charleston who saw Trump eat lunch, said she was really surprised by the popes comments. You cant have a country unless you have borders, and evidentially we cant have borders if we dont have the wall because were not taking very good care of our borders, said Ridgway, who said she plans to vote for Trump. And I think hes a Christian, if he says he is. Later in the day at a Trump rally event in Gaffney, Walter Lansford of Boiling Springs said that Trumps right in the spat with the pope. Even the liberals that we talk to, theyre liberal to a point. Theyre willing to let 13 million illegals stay here, but they dont want 150 million more to come, said Lansford, 69. So the pope has his opinion, Trump has his. I dont have a problem, I just support everything Trump has said so far. Most of the other Republican candidates handled Trumps clash with Francis cautiously, giving a series of non-answers that revealed their fear of inflaming either side, considering that the political ramifications of the dispute were not immediately obvious. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said in Easley, Thats between Donald and the pope. Im not going to get in the middle of that, and Ill leave it to the two of them to work out. Without directly responding to Franciss remarks, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) said the United States is a sovereign country that has a right to control who comes in, when they come in and how they come in. Vatican City controls who comes in, when they come in and how they come in as a city-state, Rubio, who is Catholic, said during a stop in Anderson. Campaigning in Columbia, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who is also Catholic, said it was improper for the Holy Father to question Trumps faith. I think his Christianity is between him and his Creator, Bush told reporters. I dont think we need to discuss that. Ohio Gov. John Kasich took a different approach, however, heaping praise on Francis when asked about the popes Trump critique. I love the pope, Kasich said following a campaign event in Clemson. The pope, in terms of his overall message has been one of love and compassion. . . . Im not even sure Im qualified to criticize or comment on remarks from this man. Rucker reported from Columbia, S.C. James Hohmann in Clemson, Ed OKeefe in Columbia, Sean Sullivan in Easley, Jose A. DelReal in Gaffney, Katie Zezima in Anderson and Adam Taylor in Washington contributed to this report. The bench chair of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is seen draped in black wool crepe, a tradition dating back to 1873, at the Supreme Court in Washington. (Michael Reynolds/European Pressphoto Agency) Activist groups across the political spectrum laid down battle lines Thursday for the coming fight over President Obamas promised Supreme Court nominee, while the Senate leaders at the center of that fight bickered over positions they had taken years or even decades in the past. After Republicans spent much of the week seizing on a 2007 speech by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) in which he recommended blocking any Supreme Court nomination made in President George W. Bushs final 18 months in office, Democrats on Thursday circulated a 1970 law review article penned by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in which he suggested that political matters were not relevant to the Senates consideration of a nominee. In a Washington Post op-ed published online Thursday evening, McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) pointed to a 2005 remark by Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), now the Senate minority leader. During the consideration of a Bush appeals court nominee, Reid said, Nowhere in that document does it say the Senate has a duty to give presidential nominees a vote. McConnell, in a statement made shortly after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia was announced Saturday, called for the vacancy to be filled by the next president. Reid and Schumer, the No. 3 Democratic leader, are calling for swift consideration of Obamas promised nominee. [[Senate Republicans still divided over strategy for an Obama court nominee]] 1 of 20 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad The life of conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia View Photos Antonin Scalia, the influential and most provocative member of the Supreme Court, has died. He was 79. Caption Antonin Scalia, the influential and most provocative member of the Supreme Court, has died. He was 79. Oct. 8, 2010 Justice Antonin Scalia at the Supreme Court. Larry Downing/Reuters Wait 1 second to continue. The pliability of lawmakers positions reflects the sky-high political stakes of the nomination battle, in which the ability of Obama or another Democratic president to appoint a justice more liberal than Scalia could realign the court for years. Those stakes have been reflected in the feverish activities of advocacy groups. In one of the more dramatic gestures, a coalition of liberal activist groups said it planned to deliver at least a half-million petition signatures Friday to McConnells office doorstep in Louisville. Grass-roots pressure will be the key to winning this fight, said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, one of the groups behind the petition drive, in a conference call with reporters Wednesday. He cited nearly unprecedented grass-roots energy and public outcry over Republican plans to block any nomination. Also on Thursday, a conservative legal group, the Judicial Crisis Network, announced a seven-figure ad campaign aimed at persuading the majority leader and several other Republican senators to maintain their opposition to any Obama nominee. [[Ads pressure Republicans not to cave on SCOTUS vacancy]] The American people are fed up with Washington politicians, and the selection of the next justice is simply too important to leave to politics as usual, the groups chief counsel, Carrie Severino, said in a statement. The ads are set to run during Sundays morning talk shows in the home states of McConnell as well as Republican Sens. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Grassley, Ron Johnson (Wis.), John McCain (Ariz.), Rob Portman (Ohio) and Patrick J. Toomey (Pa.). Ayotte, Johnson, Portman and Toomey are amid tough reelection campaigns; McCain is a Republican elder statesman whose opinion on the nomination could be influential; and Grassley will decide whether to take up any Obama court nomination in his role as Judiciary Committee chairman. Several of those senators are being targeted by liberals as well. For instance, People for the American Way, a left-wing advocacy group, sent a robo-call to Wisconsin activists featuring actor Martin Sheen asking them to contact Johnson, who said in a Tuesday radio interview he wants to let the American people decide the direction of this country through the presidential election. Republicans are playing politics with our Constitution and with the Supreme Court, Sheen says in the call. Sen. Ron Johnson has said he doesnt think that Congress should even give a fair hearing to anyone nominated by President Obama. Thats irresponsible, and it puts partisanship above the law. Meanwhile, party campaign committees are trading fundraising appeals based on the court vacancy. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee sent out the latest in several court-themed requests for donations Thursday, calling McConnells refusal to consider an Obama nominee beyond irresponsible. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, meanwhile, sent out an appeal signed by McConnell himself: The American people deserve to have a say in the selection of a new justice to the Supreme Court. I hope you will stand with Senate Republicans by signing the petition and standing with us on principle in this historically challenging time. Elise Viebeck contributed to this report. In the months since President Obama announced his historic deal to normalize relations with Cuba, the communist government of Raul Castro has taken only the most modest steps toward less authoritarian rule. Nonetheless, the White House announced Thursday that the president will visit Cuba in March in an attempt to bolster the controversial diplomatic deal and to spur the sort of political change that the Cuban government has not yet embraced. Speaking to reporters Thursday, White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said the administrations objective here is to do as much as we can with the time we have remaining to make this an irreversible policy. Obama has made clear that his outreach is focused more on the Cuban people and less on the government. Cuban officials, while eager for American investment, are hoping to reap the economic benefits of a normalization policy while giving up as little political control as possible. The Cuban government continues to crack down on political dissent, and administration officials acknowledge that Havana has not done enough to allow for freedom of expression. Rhodes said Thursday that the president would meet with dissidents during next months visit. Cubas minister of foreign trade and commerce, Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz, left, meets the U.S. secretary of state, John F. Kerry, on Feb. 18, 2016, in Washington. (Ismael Francisco/AP) The independent Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation reported last month that 1,414 Cubans had been detained for political reasons in January, one of the highest monthly figures in recent decades. Of those, the commission reported, 56 peaceful members of the opposition were physically attacked. Nearly all of the arrests occurred during regular Sunday-morning opposition marches to Catholic churches and resulted in brief detentions of four to six hours. The Sunday marches have become a principal avenue of protest for opposition groups. In a December interview with Yahoo News, Obama said he would need to see progress on human rights before planning a trip. If, in fact, I with confidence can say that were seeing some progress in the liberty and freedom and possibilities of ordinary Cubans, Id love to use a visit as a way of highlighting that progress, he said. If were going backwards, then theres not much reason for me to be there. The president has said repeatedly the way to rebuild the U.S.-Cuba relationship is by people-to-people engagement. First lady Michelle Obama will accompany the president on the visit, which will be March 21 and 22, and the White House is billing it as a chance to engage regular Cubans. Afterward, the Obamas will travel to Argentina for two days, where they will meet with recently elected President Mauricio Macri. We want links between Cubans and Americans, Rhodes said, and the links between our businesses and the engagement between our countries to gain such momentum that theres an inevitability to the opening that is taking place. Carlos Alzugaray, a retired Cuban diplomat who also is a member of the Communist Party, used language similar to Rhodess to describe his governments motivations for hosting Obama. Alzugaray said the visit will consolidate the strategy of both governments to bring about a series of fundamental changes, making them as irreversible as possible. Cuban President Raul Castro is seen at the Revolution Palace in Havana on Feb. 18, 2016. (Enrique De La Osa/Reuters) The Cuban government has made some efforts to expand communications and opportunities for U.S. businesses on the island in the past year. Havana has opened dozens of WiFi hotspots around the country and forged roaming agreements between the state telecommunications service and U.S. companies Verizon and Sprint. Havana also has authorized direct banking relationships with U.S. financial institutions and lines of U.S. credit for private Cuban businesses on the island, according to the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council. A small U.S. tractor manufacturer, Cleber, has received Cuban approval and an unprecedented U.S. Treasury license to establish a manufacturing plant on the island to produce up to 1,000 tractors annually. The decision for Obama to go this early in the year even as the Cuban government continues to routinely arrest and detain dissidents drew swift and sharp rebukes from some of the top Republicans vying to be their partys presidential nominee as well as from several GOP figures on Capitol Hill. Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), whose father was born in Cuba, tweeted in response to the news: My family has seen firsthand the evil and oppression in Cuba. The President should be advocating for a free Cuba! In a letter to Obama, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), whose parents were born in Cuba, accused Obama of rewarding the Cuban governments tyranny. I urge you to reconsider visiting Cuba and instead insist that the Castro regime finally make some serious concessions that have so far not been prioritized in negotiations, Rubio wrote. But administration officials, as well as some independent experts, said the United States would be more likely to achieve meaningful policy agreements by conducting face-to-face talks earlier in the year rather than later. American University government professor William LeoGrande said there are about two dozen different conversations underway between the two governments, on issues including global health, law enforcement and counternarcotics efforts. A trip like this gives impetus to all of those dialogues, so the earlier you do the trip, the more chance you have of reaching agreements on a whole host of additional issues, LeoGrande said. And many experts see this as a unique opportunity. Dan Restrepo, who served as Obamas primary adviser on Latin America during the presidents first term, noted that in the past, when Democratic presidents sought a rapprochement, Cuban authorities always derailed the process. When Jimmy Carter tried it, Fidel Castro authorized a mass emigration out of Mariel Harbor in 1980. Bill Clinton had to deal with the shooting down of two Brothers to the Rescue planes by the Cuban air force in 1996, and the 2009 arrest of Alan Gross, a contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development, froze Obamas initial gestures toward a reset with Cuba. Every time you got close to engagement, they backed away, Restrepo said. For the government of 84-year-old Raul Castro, who has said he will step down in 2018, the trip comes at a delicate time. He or his brother Fidel, 89, have ruled the island since the 1959 overthrow of U.S.-backed strongman Fulgencio Batista, and whoever succeeds them in power will have little chance of commanding their type of unchallenged authority. Cubas economy is under new strains from the financial turmoil in Venezuela, the islands biggest benefactor. Cubans are leaving the island at the highest levels in decades. The benefits of Raul Castros cautious economic liberalization have been unevenly distributed and disappointing to many. Obama may arrive with what could appear to Cubans to be an extended hand and a clear path for them out of their worst problems. I think this is very difficult trip for Cuban government, said Arturo Lopez-Levy, a former analyst for Cuban intelligence services and now a lecturer at the University of Texas in the Rio Grande Valley. The type of trip Obama is planning presents a political challenge. Whatever positive things Raul Castro has said about Obama, he is still seen in the official narrative as the head of the American Empire. Yet he is just as popular on the island as any politician in the world, let alone in Cuba. If Obamas message is that Cuban nationalism can coexist with the islands return to the international liberal world order, Lopez-Levy said, it presents an acrobatic challenge to a government that has based its legitimacy on what happened in 1959 and the logic of a nationalist revolt. Obamas trip could have the effect of further raising Cubans expectations for better living standards and more freedoms, Lopez-Levy said, and will almost certainly boost the case of reformers within the Communist Party who want a faster pace of change. Obama on Thursday seemed excited about the visit. Itll be fun when we go, he said. Miroff reported from Medellin, Colombia. Karen DeYoung contributed to this report. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 18 By Farhad Daneshvar - Trend: Iran welcomes proposals put forward by Iraqi merchants calling for joint investment with Islamic Republic, Iranian minister of Industry, Mining and Trade, Mohammad Reza Nematzadeh said. At a meeting with Iranian minister of industry in Baghdad, a number of Iraqi merchants and manufacturers have called for the expansion of trade ties through joint investment projects with Iranian private sector, IRNA news agency reported. The trade ties between Tehran and Baghdad were restricted to purchasing and selling of goods before the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA/ nuclear deal), but today with the removal of international sanctions against Tehran, the way for joint cooperation has been paved, the head of the Federation of Iraqi Chambers of Commerce, Jaafar al-Hamdani said. He further added that the removal of sanctions against Iran has laid the groundwork for joint investment in agricultural, commerce as well as industrial sectors. According to the Iraqi delegation, Baghdad has allocated about $4.5 billion to give support for private sector in a bid to boost the Arab state's economy. According to Iran's Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Ali Tayebnia the current volume of trade turnover between Iran and Iraq stands at $12 billion but Tehran and Baghdad are capable of increasing the figure to $20 billion. The Make in India logo, seen Feb. 15, 2016, is displayed prominently at the venue of the week-long foreign investment event in Mumbai. (Rafiq Maqbool/AP) If there was one message that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wanted to send to the world this week, its that there are big investment opportunities in India. At a flashy week-long event in Indias commercial capital, the government showcased the countrys business potential to more than 10,000 foreign and domestic companies and a crowd of more than 65,000, garnering more than $227 billion in pledges by weeks end, organizers of the Make in India event said. Modi the events visionary and his countrys cheerleader in chief called it the biggest multi-sector event ever held in India, and he said that Make in India had become the biggest brand India has ever created. With all the rhetoric on display, wags on social media dubbed a fire that broke out on the events main stage Sunday night the Bonfire of the Vanities. (No one was injured in the blaze.) [Indias telecom success story turns sour] Chief executives, business owners and entrepreneurs in Mumbai this week said they remain optimistic about India and Modi, who swept to power in May 2014 with promises to transform his country and pull its economy out of the doldrums. The U.S.-India Business Council, for example, said its American members will invest $27 billion in India this year and the next, beyond the $15 billion invested since Modi assumed office. Yet they continued to voice the common refrain that much work is needed before the country can increase the manufacturing share of its service-oriented economy to the programs goal of 25 percent, including creating a skilled workforce as well as taxation and labor reform. Modi this week made much of Indias recent jump 12 places on the World Banks Ease of Doing Business index, but it is still 130th out of 189 countries, below Russia and Iran. The message is that India is open for business, and that is coming across loud and clear, said Banmali Agrawala, the president and chief executive of GE South Asia. I think expectations have to be met. It cant be incremental change. We havent seen the major changes yet. GEs transportation division was recently awarded a $2.6 billion contract from Indian Railways to make 1,000 diesel locomotives in the eastern state of Bihar. Yet the governments taxation system is still unpredictable, he said. A new 7 percent tariff on imported medical equipment came as a surprise. Dont do this overnight; give us notice, Agrawala said. If you unleash something like this overnight, it disrupts the supply chain and everything else. [India frustrates foreign investors with its unpredictable tax policies] A 2012 amendment to the income tax act that permits the government to tax foreign companies retroactively on capital gains remains on the books and continues to unnerve foreign investors. On tax issues there were concerns, but the prime minister and the finance minister [Arun Jaitley] have said there will be no retrospective taxation, said Amitabh Kant, the secretary of Indias Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion. Theyve stated very clearly that there will be predictability and consistency in the tax policy. Yet this week, the international telecommunications company Vodafone said it received a $2.1 billion tax bill on a pending case where the previous government had retroactively moved to tax capital gains from a 2007 acquisition of an Indian telecom business. Then Vodafone said in a statement that in a week in which Modi was promoting a tax-friendly environment this seems to be a complete disconnect between the government and its own tax department. We were surprised by that, so it is a concern, said Mukesh Aghi, president of the U.S.-India Business Council. All I can say is were encouraging the government to be more transparent and more predictable, so that its easier for investment to come in and so companies can set up shops here. The council inaugurated the first of two business incubators for American companies in India on Thursday. [India is the worlds largest arms importer. It aims to be a big weapons dealer, too.] In some ways, the grand Make in India event with exhibitors and events spread over 20 halls in a Mumbai convention complex is an outsize version of what Modi did for years as chief minister of the western state of Gujarat, where he made his name as a business-friendly politician capable of attracting foreign investors such as automaker Ford. Despite the hoopla, the Indian business journal Mint said Thursday, it is unclear whether the investment pledges will come to fruition. Only about 8 percent of investment commitments made during Modis tenure as chief minister of Gujarat were implemented, according to the states Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Mint noted. Aviation giant Boeing is one of two companies Lockheed Martin is the other hoping to strike a deal to build fighter jets in the country as part of the Make In India initiative. Pratyush Kumar, president of Boeing India, said the company remains bullish on India and praised the Modi governments decision to approve deals that had been pending for years which paved the way for a Boeing maintenance plant to be built in the city of Nagpur. But more needs to be done in the defense sector, he said, particularly in challenging Indian regulations that require overseas defense companies to offset 30 percent of the value of contracts with locally sourced components or systems, manufacturing centers or skills training. Theres still a long way to go, Kumar said. Read more: Risk-averse India embraces Silicon Valley-style start-ups Indias Modi wants to woo Silicon Valley, but censorship and privacy fears grow at home Indias rent-a-womb industry could close doors to foreigners Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world A migrant looks out of the window of a housing container in the Jungle camp in the port town of Calais, northern France, on Feb. 16. (Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images) When French officials announced late last week that as many as 1,000 people would be evicted from portions of this citys infamous Jungle refugee camp, they allowed just seven days for migrants to move into shelters nearby or to accept transfers to other centers around France. Thanks to an 11th-hour injunction filed in a French court Thursday night, that deadline has been pushed back. And for now, those living in the part of the camp slated for demolition its most densely populated area are staying put. About 200 migrants and refugees living in the camp and a group of eight British and French nongovernmental organizations filed the action to delay destruction of the camp. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Tuesday in Lille. According to Clare Moseley, the British founder of Care4Calais, one of the lawsuits co-signers, the complaint argues that while the notorious encampment is not an acceptable solution to the migrant crisis, the demolition proposed by local officials does not provide viable alternatives for those who would be displaced. Its time to tell the migrants of Calais who live in undignified conditions, and give Calais an image that isnt dignified either, that we have a solution for each of you, Fabienne Buccio, the Calais prefect, told Le Monde newspaper last Friday. But the proposed alternative is for the migrants to move into a satellite container camp or to be sent to centers across France. In a statement, Care4Calais described that proposal as neither suitable nor adequate. The refugees dont want to be all over France, Moseley said. They want to be in Calais. [Tighter security in French port breeds growing defiance among refugees] Once known as the brightest jewel in the English crown, Calais, a port city in northern France, is just over 20 miles from the English coast. The Jungle, within sight of the English Channel, is a community of people from war-torn Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Eritrea and other places all part of the river of humanity that has flooded into Europe in recent months and years in search of asylum and safety. Overwhelmingly, Britain is the destination of choice for those stranded in the Jungle. Many of them have family in Britain and many speak English, a skill they hope to parlay into sustainable employment. This is the case for Jaza, a Kurdish man from near Kirkuk, Iraq, who lives in the Jungle with his wife and six children. On Friday, Jaza, who would give only a single name, watched his young daughter giggle as she read books about Disney princesses. You know, France is not safe, he said, gesturing around the camp. The Islamic State makes problems here. This is not a life for me or for my daughter. If I live or die, its no problem. But my children can have a better life than this. Despite restrictions from the British government, the Jungles inhabitants continue holding out hope of receiving asylum across the channel. On Christmas Day, hundreds attempted to storm the entrance to the nearby Eurotunnel. On Jan. 23, about 200 broke into the port of Calais, where some even boarded a British ferry. Jaza and his family are waiting for legal admission to Britain. Ill wait two months, he said. Ill wait three months. Moseley, who came to Calais in September and has stayed since, is highly critical of her governments immigration policies, which she called selfish and protectionist. Referring to the Kindertransports of World War II, when British families took in Jewish children from Nazi-occupied central Europe, she said that British officials have forgotten what our grandparents stood for and fought for. Few opponents of the proposed demolition would argue that the Jungle is without problems. After a rainy Friday, its streets were a muddy blend of trash, abandoned shoes and the occasional pool of raw sewage. [In heart of Europe, migrants offer a one-stop tour of worldwide misery] But after swelling in size over the past year, the Jungle is no longer a makeshift community, either. A significant amount of entrepreneurial development by migrants and aid groups has created a level of infrastructure that challenges the notion of a transient camp. There are stores and restaurants, libraries and theaters, churches and mosques. A library called Jungle Books offers residents a host of English and foreign-language tomes, from tattered Penguin classics to more contemporary titles such as Tom Wolfes A Man in Full or Zadie Smiths White Teeth. In a play on a famous slogan, a sign in the library reads: Didnt Make it to England: Keep Calm and Come to English Class. Solomon, who would give only his first name, left his children and extended family in Ethiopia to join his wife in Britain. He arrived in Calais almost a year ago and since then has become one of the principal architects of the Jungles Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The church is now one of the most visually prominent buildings in the camp, its entrance flanked by colorful Christmas trees and decorated with golden-haired angels. I have dreams. Everyone has dreams, he said. When I came here, I wanted to come to the U.K. But then I built the church. When theres a chance, Ill take it, but when theres not, I have the church. Whats been built here is a town, said Mary Jones, a British teacher and volunteer who founded Jungle Books last year. But this particular town, pending Tuesdays hearing, may vanish before long. Read more: How migrants are spending Christmas Eve in Calais, France David Cameron blasted for calling people in refugee camp a bunch of migrants This is our last hope: Six Syrians on the hardest part of their journey to Europe Displaced Iraqis, who fled regions controlled by the Islamic State near Fallujah, carry their belongings Feb. 9 as they arrive on the eastern outskirts of Ramadi, after pro-government troops retook it from jihadists. (Moadh Al-Dulaimi/AFP/Getty Images) Sunni tribesmen have attacked Islamic State militants in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, the Iraqi military and local officials said Friday, overrunning and burning one of their headquarters as resentment against the group grows. After the unrest in two neighborhoods, Issa al-Issawi, the mayor in exile of the city 45 miles west of Baghdad, warned that there would be mass slaughter unless the tribesmen received assistance. The flare-up was the first notable sign of armed opposition to the Islamic State inside the city since the group took control of Fallujah more than two years ago. Ill will against the group has been mounting in recent months amid what the United Nations has described as a growing humanitarian crisis inside the city. Iraqi forces have advanced farther west, retaking Anbars provincial capital of Ramadi and leaving Fallujah isolated and surrounded. The military siege has prevented food and medical supplies from entering, while the Islamic State has not allowed civilians to leave. [Trapped by the Islamic State, Iraqis in Fallujah say they are going hungry, too] The people are so frustrated because of the siege, said Rageh Barakat, a member of Anbar provincial councils security committee. The situation is dire. There is no food, and they know the [Islamic State] is hoarding it. Theyve had enough. Barakat said Friday that the Islamic State was carrying out widespread arrests in the city as a result of the violence. There were varying reports of how the clashes began; with mobile phone networks cut in the city, communication is difficult. Barakat, who said he has been contacting groups in the city that oppose the Islamic States rule for the past four months, said clashes began in the northern Jolan neighborhood Thursday. Militants from the Islamic States hisbah who enforce the groups moral code on the street humiliated two elderly men when the men complained about a lack of food, he said. Other security officials said it stemmed from a dispute with a butcher. The tribesmen attacked the hisbah headquarters, burned it, and they were able to kill those inside, Issawi said, adding that 10 were slain. Barakat also said that the headquarters was burned and overrun. He put the death toll at four. It was not immediately possible to verify the reports. Neither Issawi nor Barakat had a figure for deaths of Sunni tribesmen. Clashes spread to the Nazzal neighborhood Friday, they both said, disputing reports that the tribesmen had managed to hold any ground. Its impossible to control any area, Issawi said. But theres huge tension right now. The support of Iraqs Sunni population is seen as key in the fight against the Islamic State. Issawi urged the government to take action to build on the momentum inside the city, which could fall very quickly, he said. Some military commanders are arguing that Iraqs focus should be on the province of Anbar rather than Mosul, the Islamic States stronghold in northern Iraq. The Iraqi military has drawn up plans to attack the Anbar city of Hit, in the west of the province. [With Islamic State under pressure, Iraqi forces hope to reclaim city of Hit] There is a volcano of resentment boiling inside Fallujah, the Iraqi military said in a statement detailing the clashes. Civilians are waiting for the security forces to enter to carry out a revolution, it said. The unrest was led by the Juraisat tribe, with the Halabsa and Mohamda tribes joining in, the military said. However, Barakat said the fighting did not involve traditional tribal structures, but rather groups of disaffected young men. Its not the tribes fighting, he said. Its the young people rising up. He said that when they first began to contact tribesmen four months ago, only a small number of dissenters were willing to organize. But that number has burgeoned as the humanitarian situation in the city has worsened, he said. We tried to deliver them some weapons a month ago, but it wasnt possible, Barakat said. Issawi said outside intervention is urgently needed, before those who are leading the fight against the militants are killed. If those groups inside arent supported, Daesh will have huge revenge, he said, referring to the Islamic State by its Arabic acronym. There will be the biggest bloodshed ever. Read more One year ago, Islamic State stepped into the global spotlight. Heres what has happened since. Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 19 Trend: Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak may visit Iran in late February as part of the Russian-Iranian intergovernmental commission, a source in the Russian government told RIA Novosti. "The Russian energy minister may pay this visit," a source said. Earlier, the energy ministry has not confirmed the information about Novak's visit to Iran. Novak and representatives of Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Qatar reached an agreement following the meeting in Doha February 16. The agreement was reached about the readiness to maintain oil production in 2016 on average at the level of January 2016 if other oil producers join this initiative. Iraqi army members stand guard at the entrance of the Nineveh base for liberation operations in Makhmour, about 175 miles north of Baghdad, on Feb. 11. (Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty Images) After clearing the last neighborhoods of the battered city of Ramadi recently, Iraqi special forces packed up to leave but expected to move on quickly to their next offensive the walled market town of Hit. Located 30 miles northwest of Ramadi, also in Anbar province, Hit has been occupied by the Islamic State since the fall of 2014. About 12,000 civilians are estimated to remain, local officials say. While a buildup of Iraqi army forces has begun farther north in preparation for a Mosul offensive, special forces known as Iraqs Golden Division have a more immediate target. Bolstered by a win in Ramadi, commanders say they plan to take full advantage of a state of disarray among the militants in the area prioritizing Hit, while debate continues on whether to move farther west to Fallujah. We will start from western Anbar, from Hit, said Lt. Gen. Abdul Ghani al-Asadi, a special forces commander. I have a report on my desk with all the boring details. Its going to be an easy mission. [Trapped by Islamic State, Iraqis in Fallujah say they are going hungry, too] An operation for Hit will begin very soon, said Maj. Gen. Ismail Mahlawi, head of Anbar Operations Command. Maybe even days. Right now, they know they are the next target, but theres nothing new they can use against us, he said. Leaflets have been dropped on the city three times, warning residents to leave, though the Islamic State is attempting to prevent families from escaping, commanders and tribesmen said. Asadi said military intelligence already indicated that large numbers of the militant groups leaders have fled the city including most foreign fighters. But Sgt. Maj. Donald Sparks, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Baghdad, said there are signs that the Islamic State is reinforcing its hold. We have actually seen fighters and equipment moving into the area, he said. Hit is estimated to have 300 to 400 militants in the town, with more in the surrounding area, he said. As with the offensive for Ramadi, Iraqi special forces will take the lead. They will be supported by the Iraqi armys 7th Division, police and tribal fighters, Asadi and other commanders said. The Islamic States takeover of Hit and outlying areas was particularly bloody. Members of the Albu Nimr tribe fought for more than 10 months to defend the city, and hundreds were killed when the city fell. The tribesmen complained that they received little support from the government and were forced to buy their own ammunition. Sheikh Naim al-Gaoud, a leader of the Albu Nimr, said his tribesmen are still not being sufficiently armed and equipped to assist in the operation and hold ground. He said that 1,000 members of his tribe were executed by the militants. By Gods will, well take it back, he said. [Iraqi forces pushed ISIS from Ramadi. But can the shattered city recover?] In Iraqs military circles, there has long been a debate over the order of battle Anbar first or the Islamic States Iraqi stronghold of Mosul, in Nineveh province to the north, or simultaneous operations in more than one province. While some had argued that Fallujah, already heavily besieged, could wait until after Mosul, a growing number of Iraqi commanders are now arguing otherwise. Weve changed our thinking and think we need to continue to invest in the collapse of Daesh in Anbar, Mahlawi said, using the groups Arabic acronym. Anbar will be liberated entirely, then the forces will move north. However, Iraqs minister of defense has indicated that he foresees a Mosul offensive in the first half of this year, and Iraqs prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, has said he plans to eradicate the Islamic States grip on the country before the end of the year. The Iraqi army has already begun sending forces to Makhmour, south of Mosul, to begin operations to besiege the city, and a command center run jointly with Kurdish forces has been set up. But U.S. officials have said that it is hard to predict when a battle for the city itself will be launched and that it could potentially be far off. It depends, to an extent, on when the Iraqi military can free up its most elite fighters. In addition to heavy bombardment from the U.S.-led coalition, the Iraqi ground operation for Ramadi relied heavily on Iraqi special forces units a force of just a few thousand soldiers that is bearing the brunt of the urban warfare. The battle plans were for those units to press from the west, while federal police and the Iraqi armys 8th Division advanced from the east. We waited for them, but they hadnt done anything, so in the end we received orders to do it ourselves, said Asadi, the special forces commander. We were hoping that the other forces would do more, but they did nothing. In a briefing last month, U.S. military spokesman Col. Steve Warren said that whether to launch simultaneous or sequential operations is for the Iraqi army to decide, though the United States has given advice on how we believe that ought to go. Our fundamental concept is to place simultaneous pressure on this enemy across the entire battlefield, the depth and breadth of this battlefield, he said. Keep pressure on this enemy, all the time, everywhere. Mustafa Salim contributed to this report. Damage seen Friday in Sabratha, Libya after an attack by U.S. planes. (Sabratha municipality t via Reuters) A U.S. air attack killed dozens of militants in Libya on Friday, marking an escalation in the American campaign against the Islamic State as the militant group expands its reach from North Africa to Central Asia. U.S. and regional officials said that U.S. F-15 fighter jets struck a suspected Islamic State camp on the outskirts of Sabratha, a restive city in western Libya, killing at least 40 people in an early-morning attack that targeted senior militant Noureddine Chouchane. The Pentagon said Chouchane, suspected of overseeing attacks on Western tourists in neighboring Tunisia, was probably killed in the air raid, but officials cautioned that they had not yet reached a conclusive determination. The strike comes as the Obama administration considers more-sustained military action against the Islamic State in Libya, seen as the groups most potent affiliate outside Iraq and Syria. Strung out in several cells across the country, the groups Libya branch is small but growing and has already gained a reputation for brutality and ambitious attacks. U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said Fridays strike did not signal the start of a continuous, large-scale campaign, similar to the one that has unfolded since 2014 in Iraq and Syria. The United States and its allies strike multiple Islamic State targets in those countries on a daily basis. Libya, they said, may witness a noticeable uptick in operations from the occasional actions of the recent past. [Kerry warns of tightening Islamic State grip in Libya] The United States and allied nations will seize opportunities to go after high-profile targets like Chouchane and established militant camps like the one in Sabratha, officials said. Were going to continue to look at this and ways we may want to increase the tempo going forward, a senior defense official said. Those are discussions that are ongoing, and they will continue to be had for some time. For now, Western nations are focused on backing U.N. peace talks, which seek to broker a new unity government in Libya and end a long political vacuum that has provided a foothold for militant groups such as the Islamic State. The operation adds to the widening scope of U.S. military operations against the Islamic State. In recent weeks, the United States has also launched a series of attacks on the groups affiliate in Afghanistan. [Western security plan for Libya takes shape] President Obama, who has returned to military action in the Middle East reluctantly, has described the fight against the Islamic State as a long-term endeavor, one that will continue long after he steps down early next year. This week, Obama urged greater efforts to keep the Islamic State from digging in across Libya. Islamic State militants in Sirte, Libya, shown in a video posted online in December. (AP) The strike outside Sabratha is an important first step in what will likely be a sustained but incremental campaign, said Geoff Porter, president of North Africa Risk Consulting. The Sabratha raid marked the second U.S. attack against an Islamic State militant in Libya. Late last year, the Pentagon claimed it killed an Iraqi militant known as Abu Nabil al-Anbari, considered to be the Islamic State leader in Libya. He was believed to be the man whose voice appeared in a February 2015 video showing the beheadings of 21 Christian workers in Libya, nearly all Copts from Egypt. [Released photos of U.S. airstrike in Libya show rubble, large craters] The Obama administration is under greater pressure to deal a decisive blow against the group, which looks increasingly capable of launching attacks well beyond Libyas borders. Officials believe the Islamic States leadership has urged recruits to go to Libya because of increasing pressure they face in Iraq and Syria. Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said the death of Chouchane would have an immediate impact on the groups ability to plot attacks against American interests. Jamal Naji Zubia, the head of the foreign news media office in Tripoli, said the raid destroyed a large farmhouse where suspected militant fighters had gathered to hear a religious leader. Zubia who described the Friday airstrikes as an accurate hit said most of the victims were Tunisian but included at least one Jordanian. Zubias office represents one of Libyas two rival governments. They are believed to be from Daesh, Zubia said in a telephone interview, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS and ISIL. They had gathered at the house to hear a speech from one of their Tunisian imams. Hours after the attack, Sabrathas municipal council posted images of what it said showed the aftermath: piles of concrete rubble and large craters ringed by palm trees. A statement accompanying the photos said rocket-propelled-grenade launchers and other weapons had been found under the debris, but there were no such images immediately posted. Various news reports in North Africa placed the death toll at around 4o and said it included mostly Tunisians and Algerians. [This is the Islamic State militant the U.S. might have just killed in Libya] None of the reports carried any immediate word on the fate of Chouchane. Porter said the targeted facility contained a military base and a processing center for foreign recruits, who make up an important part of the groups ranks. But the scale of the Islamic State presence in Sabratha is far smaller than it is in the coastal city of Sirte, now the groups de-facto capital in Libya. There, Porter said, militants have a dozen training camps and a police force. While a wide array of militant groups has thrived in the chaos of Libyas post-revolution years, the Islamic States Libya affiliate began significant operations only in 2015. Since then it has taken over Sirte and sought to expand its influence elsewhere. Islamic State fighters are now estimated to number between 2,000 and 5,000 in several different cells across Libya. Some of those are believed to be Libyans absorbed from other militant groups, while others are foreigners, including a large number of Tunisians. One can hope that 40 casualties in one strike will serve as a deterrent to Islamic State fence-sitters, Porter said. But at the same time, it could also motivate sympathizers to sign up. [The Tunisian beach that became a killing field] The growing Islamic State presence in Libya is viewed with particular urgency by leaders in Europe, which is already struggling to cope with new security threats and the large number of migrants arriving on its shores. Libya has become an important way station for migrants, and there are fears militants could use the country to reach Europe. Officials said the British government supported Fridays attack by allowing the U.S. jets to take off from British bases. British Defense Minister Michael Fallon said the attack makes us all safer. For European leaders, the death of Chouchane, believed to have overseen two deadly attacks that killed scores of European and other tourists last year, would be a relief. In the first attack, gunmen killed 22 people at the National Bardo Museum, a popular destination for foreign travelers in the capital, Tunis. Several months later, a lone militant stormed a beach resort in the coastal city of Sousse, killing 38, many of them British nationals. We believe he trained the people who then went and carried out the attacks, the senior U.S. defense official said of Chouchane. Murphy and Ryan reported from Washington. Erin Cunningham in Cairo and Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Dan Lamothe in Washington contributed to this report. Read more: Who was Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the one-eyed militant the U.S. tried to kill for two decades? Libyas neighbors watch descent into chaos with new fears Turkish artillery fire from the border near Kilis toward northern Syria, in Kilis, Turkey on Monday. (Halit Onur Sandal/AP) The deadline for a cease-fire in Syrias civil war came and went Friday, as joint diplomatic and military teams from the United States and Russia tried to agree on rules covering where the shooting would stop and where it would be allowed to continue. The closed-door talks in Geneva were the first face-to-face meeting between high-level U.S. and Russian military officials over Syria since Russia began bombing there in the fall on behalf of President Bashar al-Assad. Amid growing chaos on and around the northwest Syrian battlefield where myriad fighting forces have converged, an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council was convened in response to Russian demands to stop what it said were Turkeys plans to put boots on the ground in the area. The cease-fire, initially set for Friday, was part of an agreement reached a week ago in Munich by the United States, Russia and other outside stakeholders in the Syrian conflict to stop a situation that appears to be rapidly spiraling out of control. [A mini world war rages in the fields of Aleppo] The United States, Russia and other powers came to an agreement on a cessation of hostilities in Syria, but the deal was met with caution and skepticism. (Jason Aldag,Ishaan Tharoor/The Washington Post) Secretary of State John F. Kerry expressed confidence that the Geneva talks were proceeding along the right track. Everyone recognizes the complexity of this endeavor, and there is certainly a lot more work to do, Kerry said in a statement. These discussions have been serious and so far constructive, with a few tough issues still to resolve. Several proposals for a new cease-fire deadline all centered on dates in the coming week had been tabled, according to Obama administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter. The U.S. team, headed by senior White House adviser Robert Malley and State Department envoy Brett McGurk, included officers from the Pentagons Joint Staff, the Special Operations Command and the Central Command. The meeting marked a de facto suspension of the administrations refusal to coordinate military actions in Syria outside of deconfliction talks to avoid an encounter between U.S. and Russian aircraft in increasingly crowded skies. The United States has been striking Islamic State targets in Syria since September 2014. For the past five months, Russia has been launching strikes against U.S.-supported opposition groups fighting against Assad. Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter was said to have opposed the high-level contact with the Russians, at least initially. But Kerry and others in the administration argued that the subject matter demanded military expertise. The cease-fire is called a cessation of hostilities in the Munich agreement among 17 nations that are supporting one side or the other in the Syrian civil war. In addition to the survival of the U.S.-backed Syrian opposition under a barrage of Russian air attacks that have only increased since the cease-fire plan was signed and hopes that an end to the fighting would facilitate talks about a political transition, the administration has been concerned about the safety of several dozen Special Operations troops deployed inside Syria as part of its separate fight against the Islamic State. [Syria seems on the verge of an uncontrollable disaster] Under the terms of the Munich deal, the United States and Russia are co-chairs of a task force to work out the terms of a cease-fire, including where airstrikes against terrorist groups are permitted to continue and how to resolve violations. Each side is also supposed to bring its proxies on board, with Russia and Iran responsible for Assads forces and Shiite militias from Iraq and Hezbollah that are fighting alongside them, and the United States and its European and Middle Eastern partners in charge of securing agreement from the opposition. One of the many problems to be overcome is a differing definition of what constitutes a terrorist group. In addition to the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaedas affiliate in Syria, Russia and Syria have labeled the entire opposition as terrorists. Jabhat al-Nusra, whose forces are intermingled with moderate rebel groups in the northwest near the Turkish border, is particularly problematic. Russia was said to have rejected a U.S. proposal to leave Jabhat al-Nusra off-limits to bombing as part of a cease-fire, at least temporarily, until the groups can be sorted out. The decision by the United States and Russia to hold a preparatory meeting by themselves, without inviting the other 15 members of the group, led to confusion early Friday and reports that the broader meeting had been canceled before it even began. Any agreement they reach must be presented to the entire group, some members of which are likely to disapprove of parts of whatever the two chairs decided. A separate task force, established in Munich to press for humanitarian access to communities in Syria besieged by the fighting, brought aid to five areas this week. Jan Egeland, an adviser to Staffan de Mistura, the U.N. special envoy for Syria, said in a statement Thursday that all remaining areas should be reached before that task force meets again next week. Both the cease-fire and the humanitarian agreements are intended to clear the way for peace talks between the Assad government and the opposition. In an interview with the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, de Mistura indicated that it was unlikely those talks would resume as scheduled on Thursday. We need real talks about peace, not just talks about talks, de Mistura was quoted as saying in remarks that were published Thursday and translated by the Associated Press. Meanwhile, the growing crisis among Russia, Turkey and the United States threatened to overshadow the cease-fire plans. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all opposition supporters have said they would send ground troops into Syria, but only as part of a plan by the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State, a plan that does not yet exist. At the same time, Turkey has said it will not stop cross-border shelling of Syrian Kurdish forces it says are in league with both Russia and Assad to take over Syrian territory along its border, and with Turkeys outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, the PKK, which both Turkey and the United States have designated as a terrorist group. Fridays closed-door Security Council meeting was adjourned until Monday after considering a proposed Russian resolution against Turkey. In November, Turkey shot down a Russian jet that it said had strayed into its airspace from Syria. [U.S. support for Syrian Kurds a big strategic mistake, Turkish envoy says] Turkeys U.N. ambassador, Yasar Halit Cevik, told reporters after the meeting that Turkey will not be going into Syria with boots on ground if [it is] not a collective action authorized by the United Nations or the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State. But he said the United States was mistaken in its belief that Syrias Democratic Union Party, a Kurdish group, was fighting against the Islamic State in northwestern Syria. They are not fighting [the Assad] regime or Daesh, Cevik said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. The area they have captured was not from Daesh or al-Nusra, it was captured from the Syrian opposition. The fire is coming from Syrian soil and, based on our rules of engagement, we are retaliating. Michael Birnbaum in Moscow, Hugh Naylor in Beirut and Carol Morello in London contributed to this report. Read more: Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world David Plouffe, Uber SVP, speaks in a fireside chat in April in Dubai. (Photo: Warren Little/Getty Images) LAS VEGAS Just days before the crucial Nevada caucus, David Plouffe, one of Americas top political strategists, assessed the Democratic race succinctly. Hillary Clinton is going through a tough time, Plouffe told Yahoo News. Plouffe should know. As the manager of Barack Obamas successful 2008 campaign, he was, more than anyone else, the chief architect of the toughest time in Clintons career the long, losing delegate slog that wound up propelling Obama to the presidency instead of Clinton. Now some observers see history repeating itself, with another unlikely grassroots challenger threatening to derail Clintons White House dreams. The latest Nevada polls show that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has cut Clintons lead to 2.4 percentage points, on average, down from more than 20 percentage points late last year. There are, however, some differences this time, according to Plouffe. For one thing, he himself isnt advising the challenger. Plouffe, who served as a senior adviser in the Obama White House and now works for Uber, is supporting Clinton. He believes that she is more like Obama than Sanders is. He wants Clinton to attack Sanders as a middle-class tax-hiker. And he thinks he knows how Clinton is going to win the nomination eventually. Ive always believed March was going to be Hillary Clintons month, Plouffe said. What follows is an edited version of Plouffes conversation with Yahoo News: Yahoo News: In 2008, Hillary beat Obama in Nevada. David Plouffe: Yep. We won the delegates, but she won the raw vote. By six points. It was a devastating night for us. So why isnt she winning this time? Why is the race tightening? I think its natural, especially in a caucus state. Sanders has tapped into something. Hes exceeded everyones expectations, probably including his own. Momentum is a powerful thing in politics. And hes been able to generate it. Still, I think both campaigns would tell you they have less certainty about whats going to happen here than they did in Iowa and New Hampshire. Cause its a harder thing to get a bead on. Story continues What do you expect to happen? Its going to be very close. If its a sky-high turnout, thats good for Sanders. Most of the new entrants some of them will go to Hillary, but hell probably win more of them. Sanders has a lot of grassroots organization. You know, we did very well up north. I think Sanders will do well in Washoe County and some of those northern counties. Clintons strength is here in Clark County [home of Las Vegas], and I think thats where theyre focusing. Can they have the kind of margin against him that they had against us? It just got away from us down here. She won by more than we had anticipated. Which voters put her over the top in 2008? Its union, its Latinos, its suburban women. Its all sorts. Its a melting pot. Its a good test. Whether its Hillary by five points or two points or Sanders by two points in Nevada, though, I dont think that really upsets the apple cart in South Carolina. But it makes next week very important. If Clinton doesnt win big in South Carolina she has to do well there. Slideshow: Clinton and Sanders go head-to-head in Nevada >>> Hillary Clinton meets Nevada voters in the Rio Hotel Suites and Casinos employee cafeteria in Las Vegas on Thursday. (Photo: Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images) So lets game this out. Nevada is close. Clinton maintains her big lead in South Carolina. Then what? Ive always believed March was going to be Hillary Clintons month. She had to endure a tough February. I think shell do well in South Carolina, though that will tighten too. Shell use that as a springboard into March 1. The Texases of the world, the Georgias of the world they become very important. Michigan becomes very important on March 8. And then March 15 is, I think, the most important day on the calendar those large Midwestern and Southern states (Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio), where I think she will do very well. I still think shes very well-positioned. Listen, Trump may be the one person who waltzes to a nomination. But think about 08 we lose New Hampshire and Nevada. My goodness. Most of the political world thought that order had been restored. We had our backs against the wall. Thats happened to all of our recent presidents. Theyve all had their moment of trial. But my suspicion is that on the morning of March 16, Clinton will be in a very strong position in this race. Do you anticipate another delegate grind after that? I dont know. Sanders has a lot of money and a lot of grassroots support, so hell be able to go on. But if she wins what she should on March 15 and I think she could win all of those March 15 states at that point, her pledged delegate lead gets to a point where its hard for Sanders to pull it out. So the burden is on Sanders. Hes got to win in a bunch of places hes not expected to. But hes already showing that he can do that in Nevada, isnt he? Yeah. But hes got to keep winning. So you dont see Sanders as the Obama of 2016? Sanders people say, Well, the same things Hillary is saying about us, she said about Obama. But our plans were not dead on arrival. In fact, what the president implemented is largely what he campaigned on. So thats where the comparison breaks down. And his turnout so far has not been impressive at all. So I dont see any sign that hell be able to change the electorate in a fundamental way. What about this argument that the president cant get much done with a Republican Congress, so whatever Hillary says about how shes going to be more pragmatic and practical is irrelevant and in that case, why not vote for the idealist who will get nothing done. Nothing. Theyre wrong about the president not being able to get anything done. Lets call the roll. Health care for all. Remarkable achievements on global warming. Equality for gays and lesbians. Diplomacy over war. Saving the American auto industry and keeping us from a depression. Making our tax code more progressive. Those are some of the most consequential accomplishments of the last century. Bernie Sanders plans are dead on arrival with Democrats in Congress. Democrats. Why? Because his plans would be politically challenging for them back home? Because they dont agree with them substantively. I have a lot of admiration for what Sanders has built. Its a remarkable political story. Hes out of central casting for this moment. Who would have thought? But I have big substantive problems with his plans. What hes focused on is how we deal with economic inequality, and his answer is to raise taxes on the middle class to fund single-payer health care. Really? Thats interesting. I think its absurd that we would deal with income inequality by raising taxes on the very people who are struggling. And thats an important part of the debate that needs to be injected in. According to MSF, there are some 40,000 people at the Malakal PoC site. The camp has been providing shelter to people since the eruption of fighting in South Sudan in late 2013, between forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and rival forces aligned with former Vice President Riek Machar. "As a result of fighting that erupted in the Malakal Protection of Civilian (PoC) site in Malakal, South Sudan, at least 18 people were killed, two of them MSF South Sudanese staff members who were attacked in their homes," MSF said in a Thursday statement. The fighting occurred inside the camp, run by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), on Wednesday evening between different ethnic groups and continued on Thursday. "MSF teams in its hospital received 36 wounded people during the night, one of them an MSF staff member. More casualties are currently arriving," the Thursday MSF statement said, adding that "At least 25 of the initial intake of patients to the hospital had suffered gunshot wounds and eight of them required surgery." More than a million people have fled their homes in South Sudan amid the violence. In the latest of many attempted and thus-far unsuccessful peace efforts, Kiir re-appointed Machar as vice president earlier this year in the hope that a united government would end the fighting. Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Getty Images, AP LAS VEGAS There are two ways to win a presidential nominating contest, as every student of American politics knows. The first is fairly straightforward: by winning the most votes. That is how Donald Trump, for example, triumphed last week in New Hampshire. The second way is less, shall we say, scientific. If the media expects you to perform at a certain level, and then, on primary or caucus day, you perform better, you are said to have won the so-called expectations game. Its hard to pinpoint where these expectations come from or how, exactly, they form, but the biggest factor, by far, is public opinion polling. Thats why Marco Rubio was considered one of the winners of the Iowa caucuses earlier this month: He was polling at about 17 percent before caucusing began but wound up nearly stealing second place from Trump with 23 percent of the vote. What happens, however, when there is no reliable polling to go on? How is the media supposed to figure out who other than the numerical winner, of course has emerged victorious on primary or caucus night? Were about to find out. In Nevada where the Democratic caucuses take place on Saturday and the Republican caucuses follow next Tuesday no one has any idea what to expect. So far, only two Republican and three Democratic polls of Nevada voters have been released since the start of 2016, and observers arent putting a whole lot of stock in them. Why? Because its very, very challenging if not impossible to produce a reliable caucus poll here. Its a total mystery whats going to happen, Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchison, a Rubio supporter, told Yahoo News. The people who do this for a living are saying, Who knows? Another case in point: 2008. In that years final Republican polling average, Mitt Romney led John McCain 25.7 percent to 20.7 percent; Ron Paul was polling at 7.3. But in the actual caucuses, Romney won 51.1 percent of the vote, McCain got 12.7 percent and Paul got 13.7 percent. The polling was way, way off. Story continues The same thing happened on the Democratic side. In the final average, Hillary Clinton was four percentage points ahead of Barack Obama: 37.8 percent to 33.8 percent. John Edwards trailed with 18 percent. The actual caucus results, however, were wildly different: 50.7 percent for Clinton, 45.2 percent for Obama, 3.8 percent for Edwards. To be fair, caucuses are always harder to poll than primaries; fewer people participate because the process tends to be more convoluted and time-consuming. But there are several reasons why the Nevada caucuses are particularly difficult to get a good read on. A poll is only as good as the mix of voters it represents. The closer a pollster comes to nailing the demographic makeup of the electorate women, young people, Latinos and so on the more accurate his or her horserace numbers are likely to be. In Nevada, that mix is hard to get right. For one thing, the Nevada caucuses are a fairly new phenomenon. They were first held in 2008. Thats not a lot of history to go on. Iowans have been caucusing for generations; Nevadans, not so much. When youre trying to identify likely caucus-goers, the first people you look for are people who have caucused before. In Nevada, there arent many of them. The total GOP turnout in 2012? Just 33,000 people. Nevadans are also highly transient. Theyre constantly coming and going. Needless to say, that makes it difficult to interview them; it also makes it difficult to figure out how likely they are to participate in the caucuses, because they havent necessarily lived in the state long enough to establish any real voting patterns. Then there are the odd hours Nevadans work, especially in the major population centers like Las Vegas and Reno. Casinos are open all night. So are many restaurants. Pollsters who call during the day will miss the nine-to-five workers; pollsters who call later will miss the folks on the night shift. Its too expensive for most pollsters to conduct polls both day and night. Finally, Nevadas fast-growing minority population is a factor as well. Its mostly Latino. It skews younger. And younger Latinos tend to use cellphones, which makes them you guessed it harder (and more expensive) to reach. As a result, the people who respond to Democratic surveys may be older and whiter than the people who actually show up on caucus day. On the Democratic side, the latest polls all three of them show Clinton leading Sanders by an average of 2.4 percentage points; on the Republican side, Trump is leading with 42 percent of the vote, and Rubio and Ted Cruz are basically tied for second with 19 percent and 20 percent, respectively. But dont expect the actual results to resemble those numbers. None of the experts here do. Whatever happens in the caucuses both Democratic and Republican will be something of a surprise. Nevada prides itself on being First in the West. Its certainly going to be wild. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley stands with Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio in Chapin, S.C., on Thursday. (Photo: Grace Beahm/The Post And Courier via AP) ANDERSON, S.C. The choice of two very different futures for the Republican Party was on vivid display here Thursday. In this northwestern corner of South Carolina, a 44-year-old Cuban-American U.S. senator whos running for president campaigned with the 44-year-old Indian-American governor of the state, a woman, who endorsed him Wednesday. They were joined by the states junior U.S. senator, a 50-year-old African-American. It was a picture of youth, optimism and diversity. This is the face of conservatism, said Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who is trying to battle his way back to the front of the Republican presidential field after a setback last week in the New Hampshire primary. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haleys endorsement of Rubio has given him a sense of momentum as Saturdays primary vote approaches. Meanwhile, down on the coast the same day, a 69-year-old businessman publicly feuded with none other than Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church. Donald Trump not only rebuffed criticism by Francis of his support for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border but also said that if the Vatican is ever attacked by terrorists, the pope would have only wished and prayed that Trump had been president to stop the attack. Trump accused Francis of being used as a pawn by a Mexican government that he said had made many disparaging remarks about me to the pope. How Trump had acquired knowledge of those conversations between the pope and the Mexican government, he did not say. Slideshow: Republican candidates duke it out in South Carolina >>> Trump went on, in the first of two rallies he held in the Palmetto State Thursday, to continue his verbal assaults on rivals Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush, though he ignored Rubio. Speaking at a rally in Kiawah, S.C., Trump repeatedly mocked Bush and Cruz as beholden to lobbyists while talking up his own decision to self-fund his campaign. Story continues Trump repeatedly trashed Cruz as dishonest, at one point repeating an anecdote he attributed to an Oklahoma senator who, Trump said, described Cruz as one of the most dishonest people hes ever worked with. Tom Coburn, the former Oklahoma senator to whom Trump was referring, has called this description an absolute fabrication. Later, at a rally in Gaffney, Trump again bashed Cruz as a liar, reminding voters of the controversy over the Texas senators staffers spreading rumors about Ben Carson dropping out of the race ahead of the Iowa caucuses. He lies, he lies badly. He lies, that guy lies, Trump said. That guy does not tell the truth. He holds up his Bible and then he lies. I agree with Rubio on that. The guy lies. In contrast, Rubio delivered a highly aspirational message on the stump, returning frequently to his core theme: that the 2016 election is a referendum on our identity as a nation, as a people. Rubio told the story of his parents, who came from Cuba and worked in service jobs to claw their way into the middle class without knowing much English or having more than an elementary school education. They both lived to see all four of their children live a life better than their own. That happens to be my story, but I would say to you that thats our story, Rubio said. Thats the story of your governor. Rubio signs autographs during a rally on Wednesday in Chapin, S.C. (Photo: Grace Beahm/The Post And Courier via AP) It has been a challenge for Rubio to balance recognition of the anger and anxiety percolating up from the grassroots with his inherently hopeful personal narrative on the stump. On Thursday he said, As dark and difficult as things may appear right now I believe with all my heart that the greatest days in American history are within the reach of this generation. And he returned to his theme of the election as a referendum on American identity, saying that when the story of the 2016 election is told, it will be that after eight years of Obama, we almost got it wrong until we remembered who we are. (Getting it wrong seemed to be a reference by Rubio to Trumps frontrunning candidacy.) South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, speaking to reporters after Rubios event, said Republicans have lost the popular vote in five out of the last six presidential elections because they have lacked a hopeful message. If you dont know how to inspire the American electorate, the chances are very high it will be six out of the last seven, Scott said. I think you can make a point or you can make a difference, Scott added when asked what hed say to voters currently supporting Trump. Rev. Tony Qualkinbush, 53, who has pastored a small Southern Baptist congregation in Central, S.C, for 16 years, said he was brought to tears by Rubios family story because it reminded him of his own familys struggle. Qualkinbush said he was still deciding between Rubio and Cruz. Haleys endorsement of Rubio, along with Scotts, had made him think, the pastor said. Cruz seems to have more seasoning, Qualkinbush said, and Rubio seems impulsive and impatient. But Haley and Scotts support for Rubio causes me great pause, Qualkinbush said. Rubio has almost entirely avoided squaring off with Trump, and on Thursday continued to do so, soft-pedaling when asked about Trumps feud with the pope. Rubio said the U.S. has a responsibility to protect its borders, going out of his way to avoid criticizing Trump. As for Pope Francis criticism of building a border wall, Rubio pointed out that the U.S. accepts around a million people a year to come into the country. I think the Holy Father recognizes, or should recognize, and I believe he does, how generous America is, Rubio said. As Rubio rises, however, he increasingly becomes a threat to Cruz, who risks falling to third place behind Rubio. The two senators essentially tied for second place behind Trump in polls of South Carolina voters exchanged verbal punches on Thursday. The Cruz campaign unveiled a website tying Rubio to President Obama, portraying him as agreeing with the Democratic president on a host of issues like immigration reform, a carbon cap and trade system, trade, gun rights and same-sex marriage. Marco Rubio is the Republican Obama, the Cruz campaign said on its anti-Rubio site, turning a common positive characterization of his opponent into a negative. After more than seven years of the destructive policies of President Obama, we shouldnt replace him with his Republican clone. Rubio hit back, pointing to a Photoshopped image of himself shaking Obamas hand on Cruzs website to argue that Cruz was misleading voters. This is now a disturbing pattern, guys. Every day theyre making things up. In this case they literally made up a picture, and what I find startling is that hes attacking me on trade, Rubio said, noting that Cruz spoke in favor of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade bill before he voted against it. The Cruz campaign ended the day by slamming Rubio for failing to show up to speak to several thousand people at an event hosted by talk radio personality Mark Levin. Rubios campaign said he was behind schedule, and Rubio skipped the event which was heavy on Cruz supporters to appear on Megyn Kellys show on Fox News. Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler said Rubio isnt even going to try to compete for the votes of conservatives in South Carolina or anywhere else. Scott, the U.S. senator supporting Rubio, said the attacks from Cruz were indicative of the fact that the momentum is heading [Rubios] direction, and thats why you see so many people being more and more negative. Gov. Haley seemed to be amused by the mudslinging while speaking to reporters with Rubio. When you come to South Carolina, its a blood sport. Politics is a blood sport, Haley said with a smile. I wear heels. Its not for a fashion statement. Its because you gotta be prepared to kick at any time. Having said that, South Carolinians are used to this and they can cut through the mud and make good decisions. Holly Bailey contributed reporting from Kiawah Island. Real estate mogul and TV star Donald Trump appears at a press conference in 2005 to announce Trump University, which offered real estate seminars for business professionals. (Photo: Dan Herrick/KPA/ZUMA Press) Donald Trump, embroiled in a long-running legal battle with former students of his defunct Trump University, has been accused in recently filed court papers of threatening to financially ruin the woman who is a lead plaintiff in the suit. Trumps comments, according to the filings, came in a secret deposition he gave just two months ago, on Dec. 10 the same day he was making international headlines over his pledge to ban Muslim immigrants from the country. The accusation was made in a motion by the woman Tarla Makaeff, a California yoga instructor to withdraw as lead plaintiff, asserting she has been put through the wringer by Trump and his lawyers and forced to suffer daily with the fear that she could be bankrupted by Trump. Exactly what Trump said in his December deposition is unclear. The transcript is sealed and the excerpt cited by Makaeffs lawyers was blacked out in the copy of the filing obtained by Yahoo News. The motion in support of Makaeffs effort to back out of the suit claims she needs protection from further retaliation by the billionaire, who is leading in the polls for the Republican nomination for president. The underlying class action lawsuit, filed in 2010, charges that Makaeff and thousands of other students were scammed into maxing out their credit cards and paying up to $60,000 in fees for seminars in hotel ballrooms and mentoring by Trumps hand-picked real estate experts. The lawsuit against the school, which is no longer in business, alleges the seminars turned into little more than an infomercial and the Trump mentors she was assigned offered no practical advice and mostly disappeared. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a separate suit in 2013 alleging fraud on the part of the university, which was never an accredited institution and awarded no degrees. Story continues Trumps lawyers have vigorously denied the claims and vowed to contest both suits. None of it is true. No one was defrauded, said Alan Garten, the Trump Organizations general counsel, in an interview about the fraud cases last summer. The people that take these classes go into it with their eyes open. A lot of people did very well with [Trump University]. A lot of people enjoyed it. But, like everything else, if people dont put the effort into it [they dont succeed]. Trumps new lead lawyer against Makaeff, Daniel Petrocelli, best known for representing one of the murder victims in a civil suit against O.J. Simpson, declined to answer any questions about the deposition when reached Thursday by Yahoo News. I dont think the lawyers should be talking about the case, Petrocelli said. A lawyer for Makaeff, who, according to her LinkedIn profile, is a Los Angeles yoga instructor and former model, also declined comment. A protective order in the five-year-old case allows either party to keep testimony and documents in the case under seal. Trump has made little secret of his inclination to strike back hard on the campaign trail and in the courts against anybody who opposes him. But the secret deposition in the San Diego case calls attention to the danger that a Trump presidency could turn into what one lawyer who has sued Trump called a litigation circus in which a sitting president would be forced to submit to multiple depositions and even jury trials as a result of ongoing civil lawsuits. Little noticed while he has emerged as the Republican frontrunner for president, Trump remains mired in litigation on multiple fronts. In addition to defending the Trump University suits, he has initiated legal action in the past year against restaurateurs and the Univision network after they pulled out of business deals over his comments about Mexican immigrants. He has also recently threatened to sue rival Ted Cruz on the grounds that he is not eligible to be president because he was born in Canada. At a CNN forum Thursday night, in response to a question about his propensity to threaten opponents with lawsuits, Trump replied, in part, I have wonderful lawyers. I like to send letters. Just last week three days before Makaeff made her court filing a judge in Washington, D.C., overruled the objections of Trumps lawyers and ordered him to submit to a deposition in a suit he filed against one of the restaurateurs. As Yahoo News noted in August, none of these cases would go away were Trump elected president. In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that presidents are not immune from civil litigation while in office, rejecting Bill Clintons claim that he should not be subjected to a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by a former Arkansas state employee, Paula Jones. Presidential candidate Trump gestures at a regional police union meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., in December 2015. (Photo: Charles Krupa/AP) That ruling would very much apply were there to be a President Trump, said Robert Bennett, who was Clintons lawyer in the Jones case. Given the state of the law, he would be at substantial risk of being embroiled in these lawsuits while serving as president, said Bennett. According to Makaeffs suit, she enrolled in Trump University, which the reality show star launched in 2005 with a promotional YouTube video. Advertisements boasted, I can turn anyone into a successful real estate investor, including you, and lured students with lines like, Are YOU my next apprentice? and Learn from my hand-picked experts how you can profit from the largest real estate liquidation in history. In her court filing this month, Makaeffs lawyers say she has been forced to endure a high stakes and very public battle with Trump just for standing up to him. The businessmans aggressive tactics, they wrote, include subjecting her to four grueling depositions, taunting her in the media, threatening to sue her lawyers and countersuing her for defamation. That last case, a so-called SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) suit, was rejected by a judge who also ordered Trump to pay her $800,000 in legal bills an order Trump is contesting. The filing says Makaeffs health and job prospects have suffered and she now wishes to let the other plaintiffs in the case carry this ball over the goal line. By Yimou Lee HONG KONG (Reuters) - China's most valuable start-up Xiaomi Inc is aiming to use smartphone processor chips designed in-house in some of its lower-priced handsets in the second half of this year, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The move would mark the first time that Xiaomi has used chips designed in-house, something analysts have said could put pressure on industry leaders such as Qualcomm Inc and MediaTek Inc, which supply the company. The in-house smartphone application processor chips are designed for Xiaomi's mid- to low-priced smartphone model RedMi Note series, but it is unclear how many Xiaomi is planning to make this year, said the source, who declined to be named because the information is not public. The move comes as Beijing ploughs billions of dollars into home-grown chip companies in a bid to end China's reliance on foreign semiconductors. The world's fifth-largest smartphone vendor, Xiaomi has hired 200 to 300 people to work on smartphone chip design in cities including Nanjing, Shanghai and Beijing, the source said. "Xiaomi is copying the model of designing processor chips in-house from Apple Inc, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Huawei Technologies Co Ltd," the source said, referring to the only three vendors who have the ability to put self-designed smartphone processor chips into commercial use at the moment. Beijing-based Xiaomi declined to comment when contacted by Reuters on Friday. LONGSTANDING AMBITION Xiaomi has long been keen on making in-house chips. Chinese chip designer Leadcore Technology Ltd, a subsidiary of state-backed Datang Telecom, in 2014 signed an agreement with privately-owned Beijing Pinecone Electronics to jointly design 4G multiple mode chips, a stock exchange filing showed. Beijing Pinecone Electronics is controlled by Xiaomi, the source and industry analysts told Reuters. Xiaomi declined to comment on its ties with the company. Analysts said Chinese smartphone vendors' ambitions to design smartphone chips have become one of their major strategies to maintain market share and margins amid intense competition. MediaTek was likely to come under pressure as it supplied most of Xiaomi's mid- to low-priced smartphone chips, analysts said. MediaTek shipped about 20 million processor chips to Xiaomi last year, according to a report by Jefferies. "Designing chips in-house actually costs more if the scale of smartphone vendors is not enough to support the cost of R&D," Taiwan-based MediaTek said. "In the end, they still have to outsource that to professional chip suppliers." Qualcomm did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (Additional reporting by J.R. Wu in Taipei; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and David Holmes) Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.19 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: Container houses are under construction for Syrian refugees in Turkey's Kilis province, Anadolu agency reported Feb. 19. The houses will accommodate a total of 9,000 Syrian refugees. Currently, over 13,000 people live in the Syrian refugee camps in Kilis province. Earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that his country has spent over $10 billion to upkeep Syrian refugees. At present, over 2 million Syrian refugees are in Turkey. The Syrian refugee camps in the country accommodate about 300,000 people. The rest of them are spread throughout the provinces and cities of Turkey. In Istanbul alone, there are currently 40,000 refugees from Syria. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 19 By Orkhan Guluzade - Trend: The Turkish people and government are going through hard times, Turkish Health Minister Mehmet Muazzinoglu tweeted Feb. 19. He said that the Turkish people need unity, adding that despite obstacles, the country will overcome the difficulties. A terror attack was carried out in Ankara Feb. 17 near the buildings of the Turkish parliament, the general staff and a military dorm in the city. Commenting on the explosion Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said the explosion killed 28 and injured 61. Reports suggest that a car bomb was detonated. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said that the Syrian wing of the terrorist organization Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) - Syrian Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) stands behind the terrorist attack in Ankara. Earlier on Feb.17, Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT) has warned the country of the possibility of new terrorist attacks. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @o_quluzade Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb.19 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: Turkey actively fights terrorist groups in the region, said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. He made the remarks during a briefing in Tbilisi following the fifth trilateral meeting of Azerbaijani, Turkish and Georgian foreign ministers, TRT Haber reported. Cavusoglu noted that as distinct from some countries, Turkey doesn't make distinction among terrorist groups. The IS terrorist group (ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh) poses a serious threat to Turkey, according to Cavusoglu. "Turkey urges all countries to actively fight terrorist groups without making distinction among them," he said. The foreign minister also urged Russia to stop air strikes on the positions of Syrian opposition. Syria has been suffering from an armed conflict since March 2011, which, according to the UN, has so far claimed the lives of over 220,000 people. Militants from various armed groups are confronting the Syrian government troops. The "Islamic State" and Jabhat al-Nusra are the most active terrorist groups in Syria. Edited by SI --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu Baku, Azerbaijan, Feb. 19 By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend: If the US does not recognize the Kurdish Workers' Party's (PKK) Syrian wing - Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) as the terrorist organization, Turkey may close its Incirlik Air Base for the US Armed Forces, Seref Malkoch, Turkish president's adviser said, Turkish Bugun newspaper reported Feb. 19. Without recognizing PYD as a terrorist organization the US indirectly shows that the country agrees with PYD's activities, he noted. "If the US is a Turkey's friend and partner in reality, it has to recognize PYD as a terrorist organization," said Malkoch. A terror attack was carried out in Ankara Feb. 17 near the buildings of the Turkish parliament, the general staff and a military dorm in the city. Commenting on the explosion Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said the explosion killed 28 and injured 61. Reports suggest that a car bomb was detonated. Earlier, the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the US must decide who is its ally - Turkey, or the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria, which he called a terrorist organization. Turkey, unlike the US, is well aware that the PYD and the PKK is a terrorist organization, said the president, adding that the fact that the US does not recognize the PYD as a terrorist organization, is very upsetting for Turkey. Earlier, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that the US must make a choice between Turkey and terrorist organizations. US officials said before that the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria is not a terrorist organization. --- Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizoglu US President Barack Obama discussed over the telephone the recent developments in war-torn Syria with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said in a briefing on Friday, Sputnik reported. Earlier on Friday, Erdogan said he would discuss with Obama the US stance on Syria's Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which Ankara accuses of terrorism. "President Obama did telephone President Erdogan earlier today," Earnest stated. "The conversation between the two leaders did talk about the situation in Syria." NYPD Officer Indicted On Shooting Unarmed Man In Brooklyn Stairwell (Photo : Getty Images) The spate of deaths of black men in the hands of white police officers gave rise to the Black Lives Matter movement. It seems in between the racist tones of the deaths, one race also prominent in the U.S. had been overlooked the Asian. The oversight just became apparent after NYPD officer Peter Liang who was found guilty of manslaughter for the death of Akai Gurley by the Brooklyn Supreme Court. Observers say that the 28-year-old office had the misfortune of having a fellow Asian, Danny K. Chun, as judge. Chun is scheduled to pronounce Liangs sentence in April. Advertisement Asia Times raises the possibility that Chun, an Asian American, may feel compelled to levy a harsh sentence so he cant be accused of being soft on another Asian. By giving Liang a harsh sentence, Chun would not be accused of reverse racial prejudice. The newspaper points out that Liang and his partner were in a dark stairwell of a notorious housing project in Brooklyn and unaware that Gurley, an unarmed African American, was on the stairs. Given such an assignment, having his hands on a gun is a precautionary move on the cops part, Asia Times stressed. Asia Times suggested that Chun review past cases involving police shootings of unarmed black men in the Big Apple as guide in sentencing Liang. It cited the Nicholas Heyward, Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond cases, among the several compiled by The New York Times, as precedents in which the accused police officers were acquitted. Besides the racial tones of the cases cited wherein the officers were white and the victims were black the newspaper noted that Liang was also poorly trained and inexperienced. He was scared and his gun accidentally fired. Lou Telano, president of the New York Veteran Police Association, pointed out People wait in dark stairwells to commit crimes. You have to be ready. Youd be foolish not to have your hand on your gun. Supporters of Liang added that the young office is just a pawn and scapegoat caught in the politics of City Halls anti-police sentiment, reported Daily News. Asia Times argued that action in the line of duty as never been a cause for criminal conviction, but conceded that Liangs case could be an exception because he is an Asian cop and not a white one. Trial Of NYPD Officer Peter Liang (Photo : Getty Images) Peter Liang has been convicted for second-degree manslaughter for the Nov. 20, 2014 death of Akai Gurley. However, the impact of the black victims death reverberates into the New York Police Department (NYPD), particularly its CPR training. Liangs testimony during the trial exposed the apparent inadequate CPR training of NYPD cops, reported the New York Daily News in an exclusive report. Three officers, including Liang, admitted they were not prepared to perform CPR. Advertisement The dismissed officer attributed the lack of preparedness to their academy instructor giving their class almost all of the answers to the CPR exam. The instructor just withheld 10 questions from them so the cadets would not get identical scores, Liang disclosed. Sean Landau, Liangs partner, said his CPR practice on a mannequin was less than two minutes. Landau was dismissed from the NYPD also on Friday. Their testimony has led the NYPDs Internal Affairs Bureau to review the CPR issues that surfaced during Liangs trial. Scott Rynecki, in a letter to the NYPD inspector general, pointedout that The failure to properly train officers is an absolute detriment to both the police officers and the public. The discovery has led Kimberly Balinger, domestic partner of Gurley, to ask the inspector general to probe the departments CPR training. Liangs conviction is seen by many observers, especially Asians, that the rookie cop was a pawn to make up for all the deaths of unarmed black men killed by white cops who were not convicted. Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmens Benevolent Association, said the verdict by the jury will have a chilling effect on police officers across the city because it criminalizes a tragic accident, quoted Cops. Victims of illegel fund-raising can now voice out their concerns via a new Chinese website. (Photo : Getty Images) China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS) recently launched an online platform dedicated to recording data on illegal fund-raising cases, state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. According to the MPS, the website will be beneficial in resolving such cases and can be used as a "basis for investors who were swindled out of money to receive compensation for their loss," the report stated. Advertisement The victims of the alleged illegal fund-raising initiated by online peer-to-peer broker Ezubao and related firms will be given priority upon registration of loss. Police investigations show that based on substantial amount of evidence, Ezubao was able to cheat around 900,000 investors of more than 50 billion yuan ($7.6 billion). Prior to its shutting down in December last year, as ordered by the police, the P2P platform had been operating for around 18 months or over one year and a quarter. The portal was able to make transactions worth 70 billion yuan in total. Authorities said that most of the investment projects the company has featured are fraud and not profitable. In connection with the operation of the online lending platform, the police has arrested 21 people including Ding Ning, the chairman of Yucheng Group, who created the platform in 2014. A former senior executive of the firm revealed that "Ezubao is a Ponzi scheme." Amid the issue, an investor surnamed Zhang was told that he can still get his investment's principal and interest. As quoted by Xinhua, he said: "One of the company's employees told me that I would get the principal of my investment and my interest, despite the failure of the project." A Reuters report also pointed out that the Ezubao case highlights the risks created by the country's wealth management product sector, citing that the products are loosely regulated. Currently, the sector is valued at $6.2 trillion. Meanwhile, public security ministry officials emphasized that investors should honestly register the amount of investments they would redeem via the website. Under the newly launched platform, verified data will serve as the bases for the return of the victims' funds. The MPS stated that the website will be open for Ezubao investors until May 13. The ministry added that in the future, the website will also be open for other major cases involving illegal online fund-raising cases. South Korea asks the help of the United States in building a defense system against missiles. (Photo : Getty Images) Instead of adding pressure to China, experts called for the support of the United States and its allies in order to influence North Korea regarding its recent missile and nuclear tests, the Global Times reported. Advertisement "Instead of deepening rifts over the North Korean nuclear issue by pressuring China to endorse their military deployment and sanctions, the U.S. and South Korea should align themselves with China to persuade North Korea into negotiations," research fellow Lu Chao of the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences said. Lu also cited that as China and North Korea are two independent nations, the former's persuasion of the latter to give up nuclear weapons should not be seen "as an attempt to maintain any control," the report said. Echoing the same sentiment, senior Chinese lawmaker Fu Ying reiterated that the country makes no attempt to control its neighbor and long-time ally. "China never believes it should control any country, nor wishes to be controlled by others," said Fu, who is also the chairwoman of the National People's Congress' Foreign Affairs Committee, in a conference. "China will fulfill its obligations, but it cannot take over the U.S.' obligations. The U.S. should not always try to outsource its problems to China. The key to solving concerns over North Korea security lies in the Americans' hands," she added. Meanwhile, Professor Zhou Yongsheng of the China Foreign Affairs University told the Global Times that "the U.S. and its ally South Korea should collaborate with China to bring North Korea back on track by pledging not to threaten its national security." According to a report from South Korea's Yonhap News Agency, North Korea has established the KN-08 Bridage, a new military unit tasked to deploy an intercontinental ballistic missile. Bloomberg cited a Pentagon statement that the missile has an estimated range of more than 5,500 kilometers--a figure capable of reaching "much of the continental U.S." Fu also shared that the U.S. has been asking for cooperation with China while considering to grant the request of the South Korean government, who earlier sought their help for the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile system. Aerial view of the Five Hundred-Meter Aperture Spherical Telescope under construction in Guizhou Province, China. (Photo : Getty Images) Chinese authorities announced that they will be relocating around 9,000 people in Guizhou Province to make way for the construction of a radio telescope designed to search for signs of alien life. According to Li Yuecheng, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference's (CPPCC) Guizhou Provincial Committee secretary-general, the move was in accordance with the proposal made by members of the committee last year to facilitate the construction of the Five Hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in the area. Advertisement Li explained that the relocation was initiated to create a "sound electromagnetic wave environment" for the telescope's operation, the Global Times reported. He added that radio waves produced by electronic devices like cell phones, microwave ovens and even garage door openers, might cause interference in the telescope and affect measurements. The official said that most of the residents to be moved are those living within a 5-km radius around the massive scientific project. The people will then be relocated to four different settlement areas in the Pingtang and Luodian Counties, with the whole work expected to be completed by the end of September. Each of the affected residents will also receive a 12,000 yuan ($1,800) financial subsidy from the Guizhou provincial government, while ethnic minorities facing housing difficulties will be given an additional 10,000 yuan ($1,500), CNN reported. A venture by the Chinese Academy of Science's National Astronomical Observatory, in partnership with the Guizhou provincial government, FAST began construction in 2011, after a 17-year search by Chinese scientists for a large enough natural depression to accommodate the telescope dish. Upon its completion in September, the radio telescope will become the largest of its kind in the world, with a dish having a diameter of 500 meters. This will dwarf the Arecibo Observatory telescope in Puerto Rico, which currently holds the record at 300 meters. Once operational, scientists said that the telescope will be able to detect much fainter radio waves coming from distant astronomical objects like pulsars and other galaxies. Furthermore, the telescope could be used to detect signals potentially coming from intelligent alien civilizations. Researchers are conducting studies to counter the Zika virus. (Photo : Getty Images) The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) stated that China has already listed its second case of Zika virus on Monday, according to a Xinhua News Agency report. Advertisement The news comes six days after the first case was detected. The agency's Guangdong provincial branch found the passenger on Friday at the Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport. The patient, who had fever, was confirmed to have the virus by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention three days after. In a statement, AQSIQ said that the Chinese national, whose gender was not disclosed, was exposed to an infected person back in Venezuela before heading back to the province via the Netherlands and Russia. Reports surfaced that the infected was "suffering 38.5 Celsius fever and had red plaques on his face, chest and back," Xinhua stated in a related report. China's first Zika case involves a 34-year-old man who was found to have developed fever, dizziness and headache in Venezuela on Jan. 28. The patient who hails from Ganxian County, Jiangxi Province, returned to the country via Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Officials from the county's health and family planning commission said over the weekend that the first patient has fully recovered after receiving close monitoring and treatment. The Zika virus, which is rapidly spreading in the Americas, has symptoms including fever, rash, joint pain, conjunctivitis, muscle pain and headache. It spreads via mosquito bites. In light of the global health emergency declared by the World Health Organization, various local governments have heightened their efforts to strictly observe inbound travelers for possible Zika virus case. Researchers are also initiating studies on how to counter the spread of the virus, which has been affecting millions in the Americas. The virus has been strongly linked to severe birth defects. In the United States, there has been a report about a sexually transmitted Zika case. Employees measure the aging levels of low-energy consumption LED light bulbs at a factory in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, May 18, 2012. (Photo : Reuters) A new iteration for improved LCD screens from Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics Technology Co. Ltd. will help Chinas display industry compete effectively against its overseas rivals. The sixth-generation production line will manufacture low-temperature Polysilicon LCD screens using thin film transistors. The high-tech company that is situated in Wuhan, Hubei Province, will market the displays for smartphones and other mobile gadgets. Advertisement According to China Daily, the company sees the new line to attain mass production in 2017, with 88 million display panels or modules produced yearly. Output will be over 10 billion by 2017 and more than 5,000 people will get employment. The new firm received major fiscal boost from Shenzhen China Star Optoelectronics Technology Co. Ltd., a supplier of LCD screens and subsidiary of TCL Corp. TCL Corp. invested 16 billion yuan ($2.46 billion) in 2014 to develop the production line in the Wuhan East Lake High-tech Development Zone. The chairman of TCL Corp., Li Dongsheng, said during the opening ceremony of the facility that "the completion of the line shows Wuhan China Star Optoelectronics has the ability to produce state-of-the-art high-end display panels. This project is an important one for TCL Corp." Government officials from Wuhan pointed out that they are dedicated to attract many corporations involved in the manufacturing process of display screens, from suppliers of raw materials to producers of panels, models, and terminal products, to establish offices and facilities in the region. The officials are confident that the production line will help the local industry catch up with firms in Japan and South Korea that have dominated the LTPS LCD display market in recent years. Other local producers have invested heavily to establish the sixth-generation LTPS LCD screen production lines. For instance, BOE Technology Group Co. Ltd. launched its sixth-generation LTPS/AMOLED production line in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, in 2015. Tianman Microelectronics Co. Ltd. recently announced that it would establish a Gen-6 LTPS production line in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, and Xiamen, Fujian Province, both expected to commence production this year. The domestic violence shelter's top priority is the rehabilitation of children victims. (Photo : Getty Images) Chengdu Province will soon have its own domestic violence shelter, China Daily reported. The shelter was the result of an anti-family violence law set for nationwide implementation on March 1. The shelter, which will start operations in March, can accommodate for up to 10 days children and adults subjected to domestic violence. During their stay, domestic violence victims will be offered boarding and lodging. Advertisement Should they wish to extend their stay in the shelter, victims are welcome to file an application, according to the Chengdu Civil Affairs Bureau. To help provide medical and legal aid, along with other services, government departments and social relief organizations are encouraged to take part in the shelter. Psychological rehabilitation and employment assistance will also be offered for those who need it. The Chengdu Women's Rights Protection Center will work alongside the shelter, providing much-needed facilities such as beds, counseling rooms, and even an activities center. According to Luo Li, a bureau official, the shelter walls will be decorated with calming paintings and portraits depicting nature to provide a warm, family-friendly atmosphere. Toy pandas will also be placed on the desk for children's easy reach. The domestic violence shelter's top priority is the rehabilitation of children victims, who will be put under the care of efficient social workers. Once the time is right, some of them may be sent to live with carefully picked host families. Despite focusing on women and children, the shelter also opens its doors to male domestic violence victims. "If adult men are threatened with domestic violence, they can seek help in the center, too," said Luo in an interview with China Daily. "Domestic violence consists of physical and emotional violence," Luo added. "Adult men may also suffer from it. But the overwhelming majority of the abused are women and children, so we will launch the shelter with the city's women's federation." Similar shelters have already been established in other areas such as Dazhou in Sichuan Province, Zhengdou in Henan Province, and Nanjing in Jiangsu Province. So far, all of these shelters have had few people seeking for help. However, an investigation by the All-China Women's Federation discovered that domestic violence is much more common in Chinese society, present in 30 percent of Chinese families. Shiseido's operations in Shanghai and Beijing both struggled last year, with Shanghai sales having been flat for several years. (Photo : Getty Images) Shiseido Co. Ltd., a leading Japanese personal care brand, reported strong demand for its products among Chinese customers in Japan despite its weak performance in the actual Chinese market, China Daily reported. Advertisement According to Shiseido, annual sales for 2015 rose to 763.1 billion yen ($6.7 billion), which represents a 12.6-percent increase. This growth, analysts say, is the byproduct of strong demand from Chinese tourists. Operating income also rose to 37.7 billion yen or 77.4 percent, despite the fact that its operations in China only rose by 2 percent. "We have seen a substantial market increase, both in sales and income, mainly due to our major brands in the domestic market," said Norio Tadakawa in an interview with China Daily. Tadakawa is Shiseido's corporate office and CFO. Shiseido's operations in Shanghai and Beijing both struggled last year, with Shanghai sales having been flat for several years, said Tadakawa. The company, however, maintains its desire to reserve negative outputs, targeting a 10-percent growth in the Chinese market. "We are seeing more of the middle-class market, so we will keep on expanding consumption and diversification," said Tadakawa, who also expects Shiseido's e-commerce arm to grow by 20 percent in China. To help increase its market share, officials at Shiseido are also planning on establishing a new innovation center. Most of Shiseido's competition, according to Tadakawa, comes from South Korean brands. Sales of South Korean cosmetic brands have grown steadily over the years, according to Kantar Worldpanel China. Last year, these brands grew by 33 percent compared to Japanese brands' meager 11.6 percent. Consumer awareness has also contributed to Shiseido's dilemma, as more Chinese consumers are aware of other international brands thanks to overseas travel, said Laurie Du, analyst at U.K.-based research firm Mintel Group Ltd. Still, Japanese brands remain a hit among Chinese tourists visiting the Land of the Rising Sun. According to Du, Japan represents 29 percent of skincare product sales by Chinese tourists, performing better than French and South Korean counterparts. "Chinese consumers strongly believe in the competitiveness, quality, and price of Japanese products," said Du in an interview with China Daily. China's 800-year-old Lijiang town in Yunnan Province is not impervious to threats as this World Heritage Site is one of the top domestic tourist destinations. (Photo : Getty Images) Some of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites are encountering major challenges brought about by fame and tourism, China Daily reported. Among these sites are Peru's Machu Picchu, France's Mont Saint-Michel, and China's very own Lijiang in Yunnan Province. Advertisement Cited by the UNESCO as the "lost city of the Incas," the Machu Picchu in Peru attracts almost 2,500 visitors each day. Officials worry that the massive influx of daily tourists can tip the attraction's carrying capacity to dangerous levels. Other issues the Machu Picchu face include poor waste management, logging and agricultural incursion. So far, this 15th-century retreat in the Peruvian Andes hasn't been included in UNESCO's list of sites in danger. Experts, however, are lobbying for its inclusion due to alarming levels of vehicle fumes and the tread of footsteps, which can trigger a small-scale earthquake in the area. Tourism is another factor that greatly affects the existence and revenue of Mont Saint-Michel, a major pilgrimage destination in France. It only has a resident population of around 50, but numbers swell to 2.8 million due to tourists visiting the site each year. According to the Smithsonian Magazine, Mont Saint-Michel is often packed, with its streets crowded with tourists "who shoulder to shoulder, four to five thick, mill about like subway commuters at rush hour along the main street, which is nonstop cafes, hotels, restaurants and shops, selling every kind of souvenir imaginable." China's 800-year-old Lijiang town in Yunnan Province is not impervious to threats as this World Heritage Site is one of the top domestic tourist destinations. Tension between locals and enterprising outsiders who have moved in is evident, with residents feeling like they were "losing their town." According to China Daily, up to 90 percent of the old quarter was already inhabited by newcomers in the early 2000s. Its designation as a heritage site in 1997 also shot it to stardom, attracting about 16 million tourists last year--a massive increase compared to its pre-UNESCO days, when it only attracted about 150,000 visitors each year. The Pirate Bay calls Kanye West a blithering tw*t: TPBs legal department waits for the lawsuit (Photo : Instagram ) It is Kanye West vs. The Pirate Bay as the rap star plans to drag the notorious torrent website to court. However, TPB has trolled West and called him a "blithering tw*t." Moreover, Pirate Bay is ready for any lawsuit coming from West. The album that created all the controversy is "The Life of Pablo" which was released on Jay-Z's streaming service Tidal. However, the fans were not able to download and complained about it. Soon, the album was uploaded on The Pirate Bay and it was downloaded more than half a million times. Advertisement West has lost millions of dollars due to piracy and now he is looking for legal action against The Pirate Bay. "Kanye is going to meet with his legal team to discuss the possibilities of starting legal action against torrent site Pirate Bay," a source informed Hollywood Life. However, The Pirate Bay is not scared of any legal proceedings, courtesy West. The torrent website challenged the rapper to bring the lawsuit on. "Kanye West is a blithering twat who has an incredible sense of self-importance. Even diehard fans are saying his new album sucks balls, but as for Mr West suing TPB, good luck Kanye," Spud 17, a staff member of The Pirate Bay told TorrentFreak. He added that the legal department would be ready and waiting. The Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde also commented on West's album getting leaked on TPB. "The album was only released on Tidal, so I'm impressed it got leaked anyhow since fewer people pass by there than at Fort Knox," Sunde said. He went on to call the music on Tidal as "low quality." "He should be happy someone cares enough to listen to it, so that they signed up for an account to stream the low quality music you get at Tidal," he added. Meanwhile, West has been quite upset and angry due to the piracy. "Because of this breach, Kanye has been difficult to be around. He's touchy, angry and feels like his material was stolen. He hates the idea of people not paying for his music and feels someone needs to be held accountable for that. Can West destroy The Pirate Bay through a lawsuit? Share your thoughts and views in the section below. Watch Kanye West's "Stronger" below. Credit: YouTube/KanyeWestVEVO Apple has chosen Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) over Samsung Electronics in manufacturing their A10 chips for the company's iPhone 7 series. (Photo : YouTube/IC Entertainment) Apple has chosen Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) over Samsung Electronics in manufacturing their A10 chips for the company's iPhone 7 series. According to reports by Tech Portal, A10 shall most probably be fabricated on 16nm FinFET process. This will allow A10 to deliver a more powerful and stable performance than chips manufactured on 14nm FinFET process. TSMC is likely to begin production of A10 chips by June this year. Advertisement However, BGR reported that there may be some delay in production, owing to the 6.4 magnitude earthquake that hit Taiwan in February this year. The earthquake reportedly caused some damage to TSMC's manufacturing base. TSMC has estimated that the earthquake may have caused around one percent decrease in production of A10 chips in 2016. Apple had previously worked with both TSMC and Samsung in manufacturing of its chips. Tech Crunch reported that in 2014 TSMC had won an exclusive contract to manufacture Apple's A8 chips. Thereafter, in 2015, both TSMC and Samsung signed contracts to manufacture A9 chips used in iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. It is speculated that Apple's decision to choose TSMC over Samsung may have been based on lower prices quoted by TSMC in manufacturing A10 chips. Another probable reason is that A9 chips manufactured by TSMC scored over those manufactured by Samsung, in terms of quality. A wilder speculation doing rounds is that Apple may have deliberately avoided Samsung this time in backdrop of serious competition between their smartphones. For reference, numerous reports before mentioned that Apple's move in choosing multiple manufacturers for its chips is a wise measure. First, it ensures that Apple has multiple options for manufacturing which may come in handy in times of short supply. Second, Apple has multiple options that translate into bargaining power while negotiating over prices. Third, Apple has a scope to choose the most advanced design for its chips. Since Apple has exclusively signed TSMC to manufacture A10 chips, will the Taiwanese company be able to provide the necessary target of supply this year? Watch the iPhone 7 concept trailer below: Most pet care shelters and animal hospitals only provide short-term stays for dogs and cats, leaving owners of birds or hamsters in a bind. (Photo : Getty Images) With so many pet owners in China, pet care centers should be plentiful. The case is different, however, as some pet owners find it difficult to find an establishment that caters to their pet needs, according to an article by China Daily. Advertisement Dong Jinxian, a 55-year-old Beijing local, had trouble looking for a temporary home for her pet parrots before traveling back to her hometown for the Spring Festival. Pet care centers are common in the city, but Dong found out that most of these establishments don't offer certain services. "I had consulted lots of animal care centers, big and small, but all said they don't accept birds for lack of knowledge or experience in taking care of them," shared Dong in an interview with China Daily. After days of searching, Dong was able to find a temporary home for her feathered friends through the help of a bird seller. Most pet care shelters and animal hospitals only provide short-term stays for dogs and cats (two of the most popular pets among Chinese), leaving owners of birds and hamsters in a bind. "We provide medical treatment and short-term care only for dogs and cats, based on a daily charge of 80 to 150 yuan," said an anonymous nurse working at Jinghe Animal Hospital in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province. Pet owners are asked to sign an agreement to prevent possible issues. "Our doctors will also give animals physical examinations to ensure their health condition before signing the agreement," said the nurse. "We usually don't accept puppies or old dogs for a short stay to avoid disputes caused by their disease or death, and we will contact pet owners immediately if any health problem occurs." It is, however, understandable for pet care centers to deny services they don't even offer. Sometimes, disputes arise from the mishandling, disease or death of pets. Since pets are considered private party, pet owners are highly encouraged to sign agreements with care centers for guaranteed service, according to Liu Lin, a lawyer at Beijing Shuangli Law Firm. "Apart from the time and price for the temporary care, other related items including the habits of the pets and how the animals will be taken care of should also be included in the agreement in case of any possible disputes," Liu said. South Korea and the United States have joined forces to study the viability of deploying a powerful missile system called the THAAD in the U.S. military base in the ROK. (Photo : Getty Images) Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui, a senior diplomat in the Chinese government, confirmed that China is in favor of the new sanctions imposed on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) by the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, Feb. 16, China Daily reported. Advertisement Zhang made the remark after discussions with ROK First Vice Foreign Minister Lim Sung-nam, according to the Xinhua News Agency. However, Zhang expressed the importance of finding a peaceful solution that can only be brought about by dialogue and negotiations. Vice Foreign Minister Zhang was in Seoul to attend the 7th China-Republic of Korea High-Level Strategic Dialogue between Foreign Ministries. The meeting took place as ROK and the United States teamed up to oppose the DPRK's most recent nuclear test and rocket launch. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei confirmed Zhang's remarks on Tuesday, stating that China is fully behind the Security Council's decision to pass new sanctions on the DPRK. According to Hong, the new sanctions should be able to hinder the DPRK from developing its nuclear and missile program. Security Council actions in the future, added Hong, should take this "definite direction." In a report by Yonhap, ROK President Park Geun-hye reiterated her country's commitment to implement strong measures against the DPRK a few days after officials announced the commencement of the partnership between ROK and the U.S. South Korea and the United States have joined forces to study the viability of deploying a powerful missile system called the THAAD in the U.S. military base in ROK. ROK national security official Cho Taeyong also met with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken during his visit to the U.S. this week to discuss strong sanctions against the DPRK, reported Yonhap. Zhang already voiced out his opposition to the deployment, which Foreign Minister Wang Yi believes could hurt China's interests in strategic security. In a statement last Friday, Feb. 12, in Munich, Wang said that China is against the outbreak of war in the Korean Peninsula. China's national security interests must also be safeguarded. Officials from China, the European Union, Russia and Germany have met with ROK Foreign Minister Yun Byungse to discuss other options in addressing the Korean Peninsula issue. Authorities were able to seize approximately 98 kilograms of cocaine from nine Chinese provinces in 2015. (Photo : Getty Images) More and more drugs from overseas are entering the country, according to a report by the Global Times, with most coming from the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia. In 2015, 8.8 tons of heroin and 12 tons of meth tablets were confiscated by officials, 90 percent of which came from the Golden Triangle, an area in Southeast Asia bordering the countries of Laos, Thailand and Myanmar. Advertisement According to the 2015 China Drug Situation Report released by the China National Narcotics Commission, this area is the primary source of heroin and meth tablets that have penetrated China. The Golden Triangle is home to about 46,700 hectares of poppy fields, which can roughly produce more than 60 tons of heroin or 600 tons of opium per year. Meth tablets are also produced in the area, with annual production even surpassing that of heroin. Another problem, the report identified, was the smuggling of drugs to China by international drug traffickers from Central and Western Asian's Golden Crest, an area that covers Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Smugglers from Hong Kong, Africa and South America were caught by authorities smuggling cocaine from South America. The drugs were hidden in suitcases and delivery packages addressed to Guangdong Province and Hong Kong. Authorities were able to seize approximately 98 kilograms of cocaine from nine Chinese provinces in 2015. As for suspects, 1,927 foreigners were arrested, coming from 39 countries including Nigeria, Vietnam, Myanmar and Pakistan. "Foreign suspects in drug-related crimes not only transported drugs into China but also smuggled domestic drugs and precursor chemicals out of China," Liu Yuejin, vice commissioner of the NNCC, said at a press conference held in Beijing on Thursday, Feb. 18. The Ministry of Public Security also reported that 1,287 suspects engaged in 122 cross-border cases were arrested, which showed a 42-percent increase. Liu attributes more arrests to stricter crackdowns and improved international communication. When asked whether China will see improvements in the drug issue, Liu said: "The drug situation in China remains severe and complicated. It will continue to expand, and narcotics enforcement will come under tremendous pressure and face grave challenges for a long time to come." Chinese Author Yang Jisheng had hoped to travel to Harvard University to collect the award for his 2008 book 'Tombstone.' (Photo : YouTube/Teuta Mema) Chinese author Yang Jisheng, 77, has been prevented from traveling to the United Sates. He is being bestowed with an award by Harvard University. The former journalist of the Xinhua news agency is being awarded the Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism. The award is for his account of the tremendous human toll experienced between 1958 and 1961 during China's "Great Famine." Advertisement The author put his findings together in the form of a book called "Tombstone." In the book, Yang estimates the loss of life at the time to be more than 30 million Chinese citizens. The Chinese government has remained hesitant to revisit the era headed by Mao Zedong, during whose rule the famine took place, Fox News reported. As a reporter for the national news agency, Yang was permitted to access rare and restricted government documents stored in the country's archives. To date, the author, owing to his published work, has been banned from Mainland China. Yang who spoke to the American news channel said, Xinhua informed him that he was forbidden to travel outside the country. He said he was not sure by what means he would be prevented from traveling, or if his passport had been impounded by authorities. According to Chinese society, those who retire from organizations are dependent on former places of work for pensions. Especially benefits given by firms during retirement. Yang, who was a member of the Communist Party, secured a job at the Xinhua news agency after graduating from the Tsinghua University in Beijing. He worked there until his retirement in 2001. In November 2015, Yang left the country to accept the Stieg Larsson Prize in Stockholm. He said that at the time, he did not inform Chinese authorities of his movements; however, this time, he said, "I gave them (Chinese authorities) a heads up, that's why I can't leave." Yang said he was forbidden by authorities to even speak to foreign media. In response to a comment on the issue requested by the Guardian, a spokesperson from Xinhua news agency responded. The publication quoted the spokesperson as saying, "We never heard Mr. Yang received an award, so we are not able to give you any response." Yang was born in the province of Hubei in 1940, nine years before Chairman Mao's Communist Party took over the government. The author discusses his work in the clip below : A policeman stands guard at a police van in Madrid, Spain, on Sept. 1, 2014. (Photo : Getty Images) Spanish authorities have raided the Madrid branch of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. (ICBC) on Wednesday and detained five of its directors over allegations of money laundering. Among those arrested were the branch director and a deputy director, according to the Global Times citing an insider source. Advertisement Spanish and European law enforcement agencies are conducting an investigation on ICBC's Spanish unit for allegedly laundering at least 40 million euros ($44.6 million) in deposits from suspected criminal organizations, Europol, Europe's law-enforcement coordinating body, said. ICBC, China's biggest lender, is "accused of sending the funds to China without checking their origin as required by law," said Europol, which aided Spanish police in the investigation dubbed as "Operation Shadow." According to police, the bank reportedly introduced to Spain's financial system funds earned through smuggling, tax fraud, and human rights violations and allowing it to return to China in a way that appeared legal. In a statement issued from its Beijing headquarters, ICBC said that its Madrid branch is actively cooperating with authorities in the probe. "Strictly implementing anti-money laundering regulations, and strictly operating within the law and regulations have always been our fundamental operation and management principles," an ICBC spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday. Zhu Jian, the consular counselor from the Chinese Embassy in Spain, said China is closely following any developments and may visit the Chinese nationals linked to the investigation. "Chinese people in Spain should not worry too much about this matter, and media should quote their source strictly in their reports," Zhu added. The Chinese government urged its Spanish counterpart on Thursday to guarantee the legitimate rights of Chinese companies and personnel in Spain. The operation follows an earlier raid in Spain in May 2015 known as "Operation Snake," which shut down an alleged Chinese criminal gang that authorities suspected of illegally importing goods from China to Spain. According to Europol, the gang had been operating since at least 2009 and was part of a larger criminal organization based in China that had allegedly laundered more than 300 million euros, primarily though countries in southern Europe. 32 people were arrested in Spain at the time. Police later discovered the money earned from the illegal imports was deposited at ICBC in Spain, Europol said. Further investigation revealed that other Chinese and Spanish criminal organizations had also been using ICBC's Spanish branch to transfer money earned from criminal activities. "Operation Shadow shows all the challenges that modern transnational financial investigations entail: criminal activities that generate cash which is then injected into the financial system through the misuse of complex corporate structures," Igor Angelini, head of Europol's financial intelligence group, said in a statement. "The complicity of several professionals who move the funds across different jurisdictions completes the picture," he added. The doctors will protest assaults by police on doctors as part of a campaign for dignity launched at the general assembly last week Egypt's doctors' syndicate sent a letter to the interior ministry Monday notifying officials of nationwide rallies that will take place at hospitals on Saturday, 20 February. The rallies aim to condemn repeated assaults on doctors, according the syndicate's official website. "Kindly take the necessary measures to secure the rallies," the notification letter read. The decision was part of a set of measures the syndicate's emergency general assembly voted for last Friday. The assembly was held in response to a recent assault by nine policemen against doctors at Matariya Hospital on 28 January. Thousands of doctors at the assembly voted to provide medical service to citizens for free in public hospitals starting 27 Februrary until the policemen are referred to court. Before the assembly, Cairo's prosecution charged the policemen of assault and use of violence, but they were released without bail after 24 hours of detainment pending further investigations. Search Keywords: Short link: A low-ranking policeman killed a citizen "by mistake" in the impoverished and populated neighborhood El-Darb Al-Ahamr, Cairo's security directorate said on Thursday. "A low-ranking policeman was accompanying his relative to buy some goods and when both were uploading goods to a taxi, they had a fight with the taxi driver," the security directorate said in a statement. "The policeman pulled his gun to end the fight but a bullet came out of the gun by mistake, killing the taxi driver." The taxi driver is 24-year-old Mohamed Ali Ismail, whose body was transferred to Cairo's Ahmed Maher hospital. The general prosecution is investigating the incident. According to local news reports, El-Darb El-Ahmar residents staged an impromptu protest at the nearby Cairo security directorate. "A large number of people gathered in an attempt to catch the policeman but he managed to escape," a security source told Ahram's Arabic news website. General Khaled Abdel Mataal, the head of the security directorate, met the victim's sister at the directorate to offer his condolences. He promised to arrest the policeman, who is still at large, according to Ahram. Search Keywords: Short link: Egypt's interior ministry said a policeman who shot dead a civilian after a brawl in a Cairo street on Thursday has been detained and will be questioned about the incident. The policeman shot dead a driver in the working-class Cairo district of El-Darb El-Ahmar after an argument over the fare for loading goods onto the driver's vehicle, the ministry said in a statement early on Friday. The policeman fired his gun to disperse a crowd of locals who had gathered and were sympathising with the driver, leading to the death of the driver, the statement added. Cairo security directorate in an earlier statement said the policeman had shot dead the driver "by mistake." The policeman involved has been arrested by police, who notified prosecutors to open a probe into the incident, the ministry said. He was sent to a local hospital to treat injuries sustained when the crowd assaulted him. Hundreds of people converged outside Cairo security directorate to protest the death late on Thursday. The incident comes on the back of a public fury over alleged abuses by police in recent weeks. A mounting outcry has been sparked by an alleged attack last month by policemen on two doctors at a Cairo hospital, after the physicians allegedly refused to fake medical records. Thousands of doctors rallied last week to demand the assailants be held accountable. Search Keywords: Short link: The claims of the executions were reported by the SITE monitoring service The Egyptian affiliate of the Islamic State group claims it has beheaded two men in Sinai for "spying" for the Egyptian army, posting photos online of the killings. The photos were circulated on Twitter accounts affiliated with the Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis group late on Thursday. The claims were reported by the US-based monitor SITE Intelligence Group. In the captions accompanying the photos, one of the men, named as Walid Ahmed Amer, is described as "a spy for the army intelligence" and the second man, Mostafa Zeraa Salmi, as "a spy for the army." Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis, Egypt's most lethal militant group, has led an insurgency based in North Sinai that spiked following the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. The group has claimed some of the deadliest attacks since 2013, including claiming the downing of a Russian passenger jet over Sinai last October. The official investigation into the crash has yet to reach any conclusions regarding the cause of the crash, which killed all 224 people on board. The group has sworn allegiance to the Islamic State group. Search Keywords: Short link: The grand imam of Egypt's Al-Azhar, the highest seat of Sunni Islamic learning, is to visit Indonesia on Saturday, his first such visit to the Asian country. On its official website, Al-Azhar described the multi-day visit by Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayeb to the Indonesian capital, Jakarta , as "historic." During the visit, Egypt's top cleric will meet with Indonesian President Joko Widodo as well as top Muslim clerics and preachers. El-Tayeb is due to address Muslims around the world in a speech he will give from Jakarta, Al-Azhar said. He will also attend a gathering of the World Association of Al-Azhar Graduates. He will be granted an honorary doctorate as a mark of "recognition to his scientific and religious roles in spreading the moderate values of Islam and denouncing violence and terrorism," Al-Azhar said. Around 3,200 Indonesian students are currently studying at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, according to data given by an official at the embassy of Indonesia. Al-Azhar has sent several preaching missions to the Asian country over the past years. In January, Indonesia opened four dormitory buildings for students at Al-Azhar, worth $5 million, in what it said at the time was in return for the "great role of Al-Azhar in Indonesia". Search Keywords: Short link: The statement did not specify which laws would be changed; Sisi praises 'sacrifices of honourable policeman' Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi has ordered that legislative amendments be presented to parliament, in response to the killing of a taxi driver by a policeman in Cairo on Thursday. The president said that irresponsible acts by some members of the police force should be dealt with on an individual basis and those responsible held to account, according to a statement issued on Friday by presidential spokesman Alaa Youssef. The statement did not give further details about what legal changes were being proposed but said that amendment or new legislation may be necessary to ensure the regulation of the security services' performance in Egyptian streets and to guarantee that those who "violate citizen rights unjustly be punished". The president added in the statement that Egypt and its people appreciate the sacrifices and efforts of honourable policemen who work to achieve security and stability, and that such policemen contribute to the country's development and reject individual violations against citizens. According to the statement El-Sisi has called for the legislative amendments to be presented to parliament for discussion within the next 15 days. El-Sisi's decision came following an impromptu meeting with Interior Minister Magdy Abdel-Ghaffar following his arrival in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh for an African business summit. At the meeting, the president was provided with the latest domestic security developments after the latest events, according to the statement. On Thursday, a lower-ranking policeman shot dead a man in a working class district of Cairo following a brawl over money. The incident prompted hundreds of people to converge outside Cairo security directorate on Thursday evening to protest. According to the interior ministry, the policeman who shot dead 24-year-old taxi driver Mohamed Ali Ismail has been detained and will be questioned. The policeman fired his gun to disperse a crowd of locals who had gathered and were sympathising with the driver, leading to the death of the driver, the ministry statement said. Cairo security directorate in an earlier statement said the policeman had shot dead the driver by mistake. Search Keywords: Short link: The statements from the assistant interior minister for public relations comes after a police officer shot dead a taxi driver on Thursday night An aide to the interior ministry insisted on Friday that policemen are not shielded from the law after a taxi driver was shot dead in Cairo a day earlier. "Whoever mistreats citizens, contravenes the law, or works on obstructing the relationship between the security apparatus and the great Egyptian people, does not have a place inside the ministry," Major General Abu-Bakr Abdel-Karim, a spokesman for the interior ministry, told state owned MENA news agency. "Those who violate the law are immediately referred to the general prosecution." The aide described the interior ministry as the "ministry of the people that works on establishing the security and safety of citizens, with full respect for law and the constitution, and to protect the dignity and rights of citizens." The general stressed that the ministry is considered to be the first body that holds its "sons" accountable if mistaken, pointing out that punishment could culminate in the expulsion from service in case there is proof of a violation against any citizen. "Many police members have dissented against actions committed by colleagues recently ... which undermine the efforts and sacrifices that they make on a regular basis to protect the nation," Abdel-Karim added. "Policemen have demanded that harsh punishments be imposed on violators." The aide's statements came following a deadly incident on Thursday that prompted hundreds of people to converge outside the Cairo Security directorate to protest the killing of a man by a lower-ranking policeman in a working class district of Cairo following a dispute over money. According to the interior ministry, the policeman who shot dead the 24-year-old taxi driver Mohamed Ali Ismail has been detained and will be questioned. The policeman fired his gun to disperse a crowd of locals who had gathered and were sympathising with the driver, that then lead to Ismail's death, the ministry statement said. Search Keywords: Short link: More than 700 Palestinians are currently being held by Israel without being charged or put on trial, the Palestinian Prisoners Club said on Friday. The number of prisoners held under Israel's controversial administrative detention law has spiked because of a series of arrests since a new wave of Israeli deadly use of force against Palestinian protesters that began in October, the prisoners club said in a statement. Under the administrative detention law, Israel can hold suspects without trial for periods of six months renewable indefinitely. The system is again under the spotlight because of a hunger strike by journalist Mohammed al-Qiq, who has gone without food for 87 days in protest at being detained without trial. The system has been criticised by Palestinians, human rights groups and the international community. The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, raised the issue of administrative detention on Thursday in a speech to the UN Security Council. He said that anyone held under the system should "be either charged or released immediately". He also said he was "deeply concerned about the deteriorating condition" of Qiq. Israel claims that administrative detention, a policy it inherited from the British rule in Mandatory Palestine, is an essential tool for preventing attacks while allowing to keep sensitive information secret. More than 7,000 Palestinians are currently in Israeli jails, including those under administrative detention, according to the prisoners club. Among them are around 30 people who have been in jail since before the signature of the 1993 Oslo Accords. The Palestinian Authority has made their release a condition of the resumption of frozen peace talks with Israel. *This story was edited by Ahram Online. Search Keywords: Short link: US and Russian officials met Friday in Geneva to discuss an elusive ceasefire in Syria, but on the ground fighting raged on and Turkey intensified its shelling of Kurdish-led forces. The talks come on the same day that the proposed truce was meant to begin, and are intended to pave the way for a broader meeting on how to implement a cessation of hostilities. The UN's Syria envoy meanwhile acknowledged that a proposed February 25 date for the resumption of stalled peace talks was no longer "realistically" possible. And tensions between Moscow and Ankara escalated, with Russia saying it would seek a UN Security Council meeting to discuss the possibility of a Turkish ground operation in Syria. The US-Russian meeting in Geneva brought together military officials and diplomats, Russia's foreign ministry said. It is meant to be followed by a broader meeting with participation by UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura, but no time for those discussions has yet been set. On the ground, Turkey intensified its nearly week-long shelling of positions in Aleppo province, where it has sought to halt the advance of a Kurdish-led alliance against rebel forces. Turkish fire also hit the Kurdish town of Afrin for the first time, killing two civilians, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said. Ankara has been angered by the SDF's capture of key territory in Aleppo province from rebel forces supported by Turkey. It considers the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) that dominate the SDF to be an affiliate of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state. On Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeated accusations that the YPG was behind a Wednesday bombing in Ankara that killed 28 people. He said he would speak to US President Barack Obama to warn him over US weapons support to the YPG, which has been a key ally for Washington in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria. Ankara fears the SDF advance in Aleppo province is intended to connect Kurdish-held areas in northern and northeastern Syria, creating an autonomous Kurdish region along much of its southern border. Further east, SDF forces advanced to within five kilometres (three miles) of the IS stronghold of Al-Shadadi in Hasakeh province, the Observatory said. The SDF cut two key routes leading from the town to Mosul in neighbouring Iraq and to Raqa, the jihadists' de facto Syrian capital, backed by US-led coalition strikes. The coalition has backed the Kurdish-led SDF against IS, but Washington has cautioned the alliance against taking "advantage" of the situation in Aleppo, wary of angering its Turkish ally. The Syrian conflict, which began with anti-government protests in March 2011, has become increasingly complex, drawing in several international players. Key regime backer Russia launched air strikes in support of Assad's government in September, helping regime forces recapture key territory, including in Aleppo province, where they have virtually surrounded the rebel-held east of Aleppo city. The Russian intervention has raised tensions with Turkey, which in recent days raised the possibility of sending ground troops into Syria to fight IS. Moscow said Friday it would convene a UN Security Council meeting Friday "to discuss this issue and to introduce a draft resolution calling for a halt to any actions that would undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria." Earlier, Moscow distanced itself from comments made by Assad, who told AFP last week he planned to retake all of Syria. Russia's UN envoy said the comments were "not in accord with the diplomatic efforts that Russia is making." Moscow backs the plan announced by 17 world powers last week for humanitarian access throughout Syria and a ceasefire that was to have begun by Friday. The plan was intended to pave the way for the resumption next week of peace talks between the opposition and the regime that collapsed earlier this month. But De Mistura told a Swedish newspaper Friday that he could not "realistically call for new Geneva talks starting on February 25." "We need 10 days of preparations and invitations. But we will aim to do this soon," the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper quoted him as saying. He also said he hoped Moscow and Washington could agree a "beginning of a cessation of hostilities (in Syria) between today and mid-next week." Search Keywords: Short link: A militant Kurdish group linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on Friday claimed the suicide bombing in Ankara this week on the Turkish military that killed 28 people. "On February 17 in the evening a suicide attack was carried out by a sacrifice warrior on a military convoy of the fascist Turkish Republic in Ankara... The attack was realised by the Immortal Battalion of the TAK," the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) said in a statement on their website. The group named the suicide bomber as Zinar Raperin born in 1989 in Turkey's Kurdish-dominated eastern region of Van, who had been involved with the Kurdish "freedom struggle" and since 2011 with the TAK. It said that the attack was carried out in revenge for the killing of "vulnerable people" who were hiding in basements during a two-month Turkish military operation against the PKK in the southeastern town of Cizre. Turkish officials have blamed the Ankara attack on the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia which Turkey says is a branch of the PKK, a charge vehemently denied by the group. The TAK's claim of the bomber's identity is in contradiction to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu who said the bomber was a Syrian national YPG operative. The TAK is a little-known group which has nonetheless risen to prominence in recent months after it claimed firing mortar shells on Istanbul's Sabiha Gokcen airport on December 23. The firing left one airport cleaner dead and also damaged several planes. Turkey has been waging an all-out offensive against the PKK, imposing military operations backed by curfews to flush out the rebels from several southeastern urban centres including Cizre. Turkish officials say the TAK is a front for PKK attacks on civilian targets, but the PKK claims TAK is a splinter group over which it has no control. In a statement on December 30, the TAK warned that the Sabiha Gokcen attack was just the start of a new wave of assaults. Search Keywords: Short link: Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said Syrian moderate rebels should be armed with surface-to-air missiles against the Russian-backed Assad regime, a German news weekly reported Friday. Anti-aircraft weapons could tip the scales on the battlefield as they did in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s, Adel al-Jubeir is quoted as saying in an interview with Der Spiegel. "We believe that introducing surface-to-air missiles in Syria is going to change the balance of power on the ground," he said, stressing this would have to be decided by a coalition of partner states. "It will allow the moderate opposition to be able to neutralise the helicopters and aircraft that are dropping chemicals and have been carpet-bombing them, just like surface-to-air missiles in Afghanistan were able to change the balance of power there." US deliveries of Stinger missiles to Afghan mujahideen fighters during that country's Soviet occupation is credited with having significantly turned around the conflict that ended in Russia's withdrawal. The minister cautioned that "this has to be studied very carefully, however, because you don't want such weapons to fall into the wrong hands". "This is a decision that the international coalition will have to make," Jubeir added. "This is not Saudi Arabia's decision." He also said that Russian support would not save the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in the long term, reiterating Riyadh's call for him to step down. "The other option is that the war will continue and Bashar al-Assad will be defeated," he is quoted as saying. Saudi Arabia has backed rebel forces fighting Assad in the country's nearly five-year civil war. It has also been part of the US-led coalition bombing the IS group in Syria and Iraq since late 2014. Jubeir told AFP this week that any Saudi troops, including special forces, on the ground would make the battle against the IS its priority. "We expressed our readiness to join the US-led, international coalition against Daesh with special forces," he said, using an Arabic acronym for the group. "All of this, however, is still in the discussion phase and in the initial planning phase," he added. Der Spiegel also asked the Saudi chief diplomat about similarities between the ultra-conservative Islam practiced in his country and the IS's religious ideology. "ISIS is as much an Islamic organisation as the KKK in America is a Christian organisation," he said, referring to the white-supremacist Ku Klux Klan movement. "They burned people of African descent on the cross, and they said they're doing it in the name of Jesus Christ. "Unfortunately, in every religion there are people who pervert the faith. We should not take the actions of psychopaths and paint them as being representative of the whole religion." Search Keywords: Short link: Lebanon's prime minister on Friday urged Saudi Arabia to reconsider a decision to suspend $3 billion in military aid in protest against Hezbollah, the Shia militant group supporting Syria's regime. "We were very sad to hear the Saudi kingdom's surprising decision to halt aid to the army and the internal security forces," Tammam Salam said in a statement, adding he hoped for "the review of the decision". Riyadh earlier on Friday also said that the remainder of a $1 billion financing package for Lebanese internal security forces had been stopped, in a separate decision. Hezbollah, backed by Saudi Arabia's regional rival Iran, on Friday said the decision came as no surprise and was linked to Riyadh's financial crisis. "Saudi Arabia is suffering a severe financial crisis" which Hezbollah said was linked to "the huge cost of its sinful aggression on brotherly Yemen" and the collapse in global oil prices. Riyadh leads a military coalition that has conducted air strikes and ground operations against Iran-backed Shia Huthi rebels in Yemen since last March. Last December, Saudi Arabia also formed a new 35-member coalition to fight "terrorism" in Islamic countries. "The Saudi decision reveals once again the falsity of its claims in the fight against terrorism... and confirms its real position is that of sponsoring, arming and financing terrorism," Hezbollah said. Sunni former premier Saad Hariri, who is supported by Saudi Arabia and the West, said Lebanese "received with feelings of regret and worry" the Saudi decision, but it was understandable as a response "to Lebanon's rash decisions to exit from the Arab consensus". Oil-dependent Saudi Arabia has imposed unprecedented cuts in its 2016 budget after a drastic fall in global crude prices, which have dropped from above $100 a barrel in early 2014 to below $34 a barrel on Friday. Search Keywords: Short link: Pope Francis has questioned Donald Trump's Christian faith over his vow to build a border wall to keep out immigrants, sparking a backlash from the Republican presidential candidate. "Anyone, whoever he is, who only wants to build walls and not bridges is not a Christian," the pontiff told journalists Thursday during his return journey from a trip to Mexico. He was responding to a question about the billionaire's anti-immigrant stance. "Vote, don't vote, I won't meddle. But I simply say, if he says these things, this man is not a Christian," Francis said. "We need to see if he really said them and for this I will give him the benefit of the doubt." After initially launching into an audacious denunciation of Francis, Trump later softened his tone dramatically. "For a religious leader to question a person's faith is disgraceful," Trump said in a statement delivered on a campaign stop in South Carolina, which holds its Republican primary this weekend. But hours later, at a townhall event, the real estate tycoon heaped praise on the pontiff. "Oh, the pope is a wonderful guy," Trump said, suggesting the media had hyped and exaggerated the tone of his earlier statement. "I have a lot of respect for the pope. I think he's got a lot of personality, he's very different, a great guy, and I think he's doing a very good job, he has a lot of energy." Trump said the pontiff was misinformed, unaware of the impact of the drugs coming into the United States and a range of security issues that make it necessary to build a wall. The leading Republican presidential candidate also said he would welcome an opportunity to meet the pope. Trump has gained popularity by claiming Mexico is sending criminals to the United States, and last week he accused the pope of visiting the border between the two countries at the bidding of the Mexican government. Francis was speaking after concluding a five-day trip to Mexico, where he delivered a mass before 300,000 people near the US border and decried the "human tragedy" of migrants fleeing violence worldwide. In a highly symbolic gesture, the pontiff climbed a ramp facing the Rio Grande and looked out across the border into US territory, where hundreds of migrants waved at him. Trump has vowed to build a wall on the US southern border to keep migrants from illegally crossing into the United States, a pledge that has caused a firestorm in the presidential campaign where immigration is a hot-button issue. "If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS's ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president because this would not have happened," Trump said. Propagandists for ISIS -- one of several names for the Islamic State extremist group that controls swathes of Syria and Iraq -- have issued threats that their fighters will plant their flag on the top of St Peter's basilica. But Italian officials have insisted they have no knowledge of any credible threat to the Vatican or the pope. Trump said Mexican authorities had told the pope only "one side of the story." "He didn't see the crime, the drug trafficking and the negative economic impact the current policies have on the United States. "They are using the pope as a pawn and they should be ashamed of themselves for doing so, especially when so many lives are involved and when illegal immigration is so rampant." It was not the first time Trump had issued the pawn jibe, and Francis was asked about it on the plane. "Am I a pawn of the Mexican government? I leave that to your judgement, to the people to judge," he said. The 79-year-old Argentine, a fervent critic of the freewheeling capitalism espoused by Trump, also said he was proud to have been branded a politicized pontiff by the tycoon. "Thanks be to God if that is what he said, because Aristotle defined man as a political animal: at least (it means) I am a human person," the pope said. Trump has promised to end illegal immigration by building a wall along the Mexican border, which stretches more than 3,100 kilometers (1,950 miles) -- a third of it currently covered by high-security fencing. One of Trump's Republican rivals, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, was charitable towards him in remarks addressing the contretemps. "I don't question anybody's Christianity, because I honestly believe that's a relationship you have with your creator," Bush, a devout Catholic, told reporters. Speaking of building a wall and other forms of border control, he added: "That's not an un-Christian thing to do, to make sure people don't come across our border illegally. That's a just thing to do." Search Keywords: Short link: Uganda's top presidential challenger Kizza Besigye was arrested Friday for a third time in a week, as a chaotic election stretched into a second day. "Kizza Besigye has been arrested from our HQ and taken to (an) unknown location," his Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party said. Police on Friday surrounded the FDC headquarters in the capital's Najjanankumbi district, firing tear gas at crowds of opposition supporters. They also used water cannons to fire blue-coloured water to break up the demonstrations. "Some reasonable measures have been applied to rein in FDC supporters who wanted to disturb the peace and the ongoing exercise," senior police officer Felix Andrew Kaweesi told AFP, adding that the arrests came amid fears Besigye was to publish FDC tallies of polling. "Besigye knows very well that the mandate to declare electoral results lie with the electoral commission," Kaweesi added. Besigye, 59, Museveni's former personal doctor, is making his fourth run at the presidency and ended his campaign by saying the election would be neither free nor fair. Police then stormed the building, arrested Besigye and other top party officials. Besigye was arrested on Monday during campaigning, and again on Thursday evening after polling. He has been repeatedly detained by police in the past, and is commonly released without charge hours later. Preliminary results released by the Electoral Commission from just over a third of polling centres nationwide have given the 71-year-old incumbent President Yoweri Museveni a clear 63 percent of the vote. Search Keywords: Short link: Egypt is hosting an international forum on 20-21 February in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh, which aims to boost private sector involvement and investments in the Africa. African heads of states and Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi will participate at the Africa 2016: Business for Africa, Egypt and the World conference. "It gives me a great honour and pleasure to host Africa 2016 Forum," El-Sisi said in a welcome message posted on the business forum's official website. "It's a landmark platform that will bring together a wide range of the foremost political and business leaders in Africa and across the world to discuss ways of enhancing pan African international trade and investment and promoting business climate with a major focus on the role of the private sector." Some 1,500 delegates from Africa and the world are expected to attend, with a focus on the energy, ICT, financial services, trade, agribusiness, and health care & pharmaceuticals sectors. Nigeria's Muhammadu Buhari and Sudan's Omar al-Bashir are among the African presidents who will attend the international business forum. Ahmed El-Sewedy, the CEO of El Sewedy Electric, and Ali Faramawy, vice president of Microsoft Corporation, are two of the most prominent Egyptian business figures taking part in the forum. Under the umbrella of the African Union's commission, the event was organised by the Egyptian ministries of investment, trade and industry, international cooperation and foreign affairs. In June, Egypt hosted Africa's three major regional economic committees (RECs) during a tripartite summit in Sharm El-Sheikh where a free trade agreement across all three RECs was launched. The Continental Free Trade Area brings together the 26 African countries that are members of COMESA, EAC and SADC, and gives Egypt free trade access to seven new African nations. It aims to create free trade zones for goods immediately and the hope of introducing services and intra-continent investor opportunities at a later stage. Search Keywords: Short link: Danish director Thomas Vinterberg says he hopes his film "Kollektivet" (The Commune) will help his countrymen recognise the importance of sharing -- especially with refugees -- despite curbs enacted in Denmark. Vinterberg, who grew up in a commune, said it disturbs him when Denmark puts ads in newspapers in the Middle East warning would-be refugees that benefits had been cut for new arrivals. Last month, the Danish parliament passed measures aimed at deterring refugees from seeking asylum, including confiscating valuables to pay for their stay, despite protests from international human rights organisations. The so-called "jewellery bill" was the latest attempt by Denmark's minority centre-right government to curb immigration to a country that took in a record 20,000 refugees last year. Vinterberg, who had his breakthrough with his 1998 film "Festen" (The Celebration), said the commune had taught him the value of sharing -- and he felt most Danes would support this despite the benefit curbs. "What I find very important to stress here is that behind that there's a population of pretty good-hearted people who I just think are confused and fearful about what's going on," he told Reuters on Thursday. "And I'm hopeful -- I don't think that this film will change anything -- but hopefully the values of generosity and sharing can re-awaken at some point." Danish actress Trine Dyrholm, who plays a woman who talks her husband into turning their home into a commune, said it was more important than ever to talk about togetherness. "Right now in Denmark it's really complicated. I think we are too afraid of everything actually and we have a huge Dansk Folkeparti (right-wing Danish Peoples' Party) and I think that's very dangerous if they get too much power." "The Commune" is among 19 films competing for the Berlin festival's top Golden Bear prize awarded on Saturday. For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture Search Keywords: Short link: Aswan International Festival for Arts and Culture is one of the biggest cultural events held in Upper Egypt Artists and musicians from eight different countries are participating in the fourth Aswan International Festival for Arts and Culture, which opened on Wednesday and runs until 23 February. The festival falls on one of the two dates each year (22 October and 22 February) when the rays of the sun beam into the Abu Simbel sanctuary, illuminating the sculptures in a unique way. Ancient Egyptian beliefs incorporating the god Ptah and the underworld found inspiration in the solar phenomenon.. Today, though disconnected from ancient religions, the dates continue to be marked with festivities as the locals observe the movements of the sunlight inside the temple. Over six days, Aswan governorate will present Egyptian and international folk art troupes at the festival. This year the participating countries are Greece, Tunisia, Romania, China, Ethiopia, Uganda, and for the first time, India. Local performances will include troupes from Aswan, Alexandria, Ismailia, and Arish. The festival includes an array of activities including street performances, concerts, and presentation of folkloric items. For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture Search Keywords: Short link: (Henan) Farmers in trucks filled with newly harvested rice queued for days in late December outside the Luoshan County grain management facility in the central province of Henan. A sign at the head of the queue was plainly visible: "Full. No more buying." But the farmers waited anyway, clinging to a hope that they would eventually sell their crops. Luoshan-area farmers are no strangers to waiting in lines with truckloads of rice. Several years of bumper harvests have flooded the rice market nationwide, making it difficult to sell crops to the nation's biggest buyer, China Grain Reserves Corp., also known as Sinograin. Like most farmers in China, those in Luoshan want to sell their crops to Sinograin in an annual state purchase scheme after the harvest season because the government offers a good price. But since 2013 Sinograin, a state company that manages the nation's grain reserves by buying and selling rice, corn, millet and other crops at government-determined prices, has been struggling to absorb these bumper harvests of rice. The company's Luoshan-area warehouses were nearly full when farmers were turned away in December. And the storage shortage is a problem nationwide. Sinograin has been building new granaries and partnering with private companies that can provide storage facilities. It opened 115 new warehouses across the country last fall. But the storage space crisis persists. Nationwide, the company can store up to 500,000 tons of rice. But it bought a whopping 1.7 million tons from the nation's farmers in 2013, 1.2 million tons the following year and an estimated 1.5 million tons in 2015. Much of the rice purchased around the country since 2013 was still sitting in Sinograin storage facilities in early 2016, industry sources said. Some experts say there are fears that a significant amount of that stockpiled grain could spoil before it's sold. Choking Controls Exacerbating the storage bottleneck is a mismatch between market and government farm prices. Simply put, Sinograin can't find enough grain buyers willing to pay the high prices mandated by the government. In 2015, Sinograin was required to pay farmers between 2,700 yuan and 3,100 yuan per ton of rice in Henan Province. The prices almost doubled rice imported prices from Thailand and Vietnam. Government pricing has been a boon to rice importers who buy from farmers in Vietnam and Thailand. The General Administration of Customs said rice imports increased 23 percent in 2015 from the previous year to 3.3 million tons, an amount equal to about 2 percent of total domestic production. Some say legally and illegally imported rice accounts for about 25 percent of consumption in the Pearl River Delta region, which includes heavily populated Guangdong Province. Market forces have thus worked against the government's plan. In 2015, according to company documents, Sinograin planned to sell 101 million tons of rice on the domestic market. But because its prices were high, only 5.3 million tons were sold. Since 2005, Sinograin has had a government mandate to implement the nationwide grain purchase scheme through which Beijing every year sets a mandatory price range for crops sold by farmers and stored in grain reserves. The scheme is designed to protect farmer incomes and encourage production. Farmers support the policy and do all they can to sell crops to Sinograin. "The state purchase policy is good because it takes care of farmers," said Luoshan farmer Ye Yanggui. "Without it, no one would be willing to plant." But other market players argue that the government's prices are too high, and price controls have distorted markets for grain and processed food in China. The owner of a rice processing factory in Luoshan, for example, said he and other processors are on the verge of bankruptcy because the state purchase scheme has pushed up the price of rice too high. Meanwhile, in face of rising competitions from cheaper imported rice, market prices for processed rice is falling. "If the (government's) purchase policy continues," the factory owner said, "all rice processing factories will die." The Wuli Rice Processing Plant in Xinyang, near Luoshan, has been under pressure ever since the government's price program began in 2005, said the plant's owner, Chen Pinzhang, who has been in the business for nearly 20 years. The program has squeezed the company by pushing unmilled rice prices higher and processed rice prices lower. The first factory owner said his business has lost 2 million yuan over than past two years. Moreover, he said, it's been getting increasingly difficult to find affordable rice that meets his company's quality standards. Business is also bad at Xinyang Shanxin Rice Co., Henan's largest rice processor, where General Manager Xia Chuanjun said the company has been forced to cut 30 percent of workforce due to a dramatic decline in sales. Seeking Solutions Some large processors such as Xinyang Shanxin have managed to make a little extra money by leasing grain storage space to Sinograin, although by law they're not allowed to use these reserves for their processing operations. The owner of another processed rice company, who asked to remain anonymous, said his factory would welcome the use of stored reserves for processing. Such an arrangement would boost quality control, he said, since Sinograin warehouses often buy rice without thorough quality checks. Processing stored grain could also reduce the cost of transporting harvested grain. "We could buy quality rice that meets our production demands," he said. The factory owner quoted earlier said his company is thinking about building a warehouse for Sinograin. "More and more people will follow suit if the situation continues," he said. But stockpiling grain for Sinograin may fail to get to the heart of the grain business problem vexing the nation's agriculture industry. What's needed most, according to Xia and other industry experts, is a commitment to reforming the government's price control system. "The state's purchasing prices should not be protection prices," he said. Some experts have floated alternatives to price controls aimed at protecting farmers by artificially holding down grain prices. Under one proposal, the government would encourage farmers to switch to more profitable crops. But this proposal clashes with a government policy that encourages farmers to grow more grain on grounds of national food security. Ultimately, many experts say, the government should agree to let the market determine grain prices. This would include letting private companies compete against Sinograin. In addition to forcing farmers to queue for days with truckloads of rice, the storage space shortage has hurt Sinograin internally. For example, 81 employees at Sinograin's Henan branch, including then-general manager Li Changxuan, were arrested and some were punished in 2011 for corruption tied to warehouse operations. Li was jailed for life. And a Sinograin official who asked not to be named said the system through which food processors are contracted to provide storage space has strained the company's ability to supervise and control grain quality. Sinograin's "management costs are high, but grain quality is falling," said the official. Meanwhile, the storage crunch continues. "I queued for eight straight days" outside Sinograin's Luoshan facility, said grain broker Zhang Liansheng. "I hope they build more warehouses." (Rewritten by Han Wei) (Shanghai) State-owned Sainty Marine Co. has become the first listed shipbuilder in China to go under after it announced on February 17 it will begin a court-ordered bankruptcy restructuring. Employees from a court-appointed trustee company arrived at Sainty Marine's headquarters in eastern city of Nanjing on February 18 and its shipyards have basically stopped operating, an employee of the shipbuilder who asked not to be named said. "Workers are still being paid, but many are planning to leave because we are not sure how long the company can hold out," he said. Sainty Marine, a unit of Jiangsu Guoxin Investment Group Ltd., a state-owned company linked to the government of the eastern province of Jiangsu, listed in Shenzhen in 2011. One of its creditors, a Bank of China subsidiary in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, filed a lawsuit in Nanjing Intermediate People's Court on December 22 to seek a bankruptcy order so it could receive payment for outstanding loans to the company. It unclear how much the Bank of China lent Sainty Marine. Court documents dated February 14 show that the shipbuilder defaulted on 865 million yuan worth of debts it owed to several banks, including Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and Nanjing Bank. The court said it had frozen 15 of Sainty Marine's bank accounts. On February 5, the court in Nanjing court approved a restructuring plan after it found Sainty Marine had amassed a total of 8.31 billion yuan in debts, 549 million yuan more than the company owed at the end of September. The shipbuilder, which operates several shipyards, most of them in Jiangsu, has been facing problems such as cancellations of orders amid an industry-wide slump and management problems. A botched joint venture with the now bankrupt Nantong Mingde Heavy Industry Stock Co. Ltd caused Sainty Marine to lose 2.9 billion yuan an amount equal to its revenue for 2014, the shipbuilder said. The company received no orders last year and 6 billion yuan worth of orders for 2014 were cancelled, a search of the international maritime resource database HIS Sea-web found. The Sainty Marine employee said the cancellations were the result of the cash-strapped firm delaying delivery. The company said in a statement on January 30 that its losses for 2015 were expected to increase to 5.8 billion yuan, from 1.8 billion yuan a year earlier. (Rewritten by Li Rongde) Pope Francis injected himself into the U.S. presidential race Thursday, suggesting Republican front-runner Donald Trump "is not Christian" because of his proposal to build a massive wall on the southern U.S. border with Mexico to keep out migrants headed to the United States. The pontiff offered his comments on his flight back to Rome after a visit this week to Mexico, where he celebrated Mass in an outdoor plaza Wednesday just a few hundred meters across the border from the U.S. state of Texas, the destination of many migrants coming from Mexico and Central America. "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian," Francis said. "This is not in the Gospel." The pope said he would "give [Trump] the benefit of the doubt" because he had not heard independently of Trump's wall-building plans, a staple in the Republican candidate's campaign speeches. But Francis added, "I'd just say that this man is not Christian if he said it this way." Trump, a Presbyterian, said at a campaign rally in the Atlantic coastal state of South Carolina that the pontiff's comments were "not a nice thing to say." He said the pope questioning his faith is "disgraceful." Trump, a billionaire real estate mogul, said that if Islamic State terrorists ever attack the Vatican, the seat of the papacy "can only hope that Donald Trump" is the U.S. president to respond to them, instead of what he claimed are Washington's current "no action" leaders. A lawmaker here on Thursday claimed North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered more cyber attacks against South Korea. Citing information from the National Intelligence Service, Lee Cheol-woo of the ruling Saenuri Party told an emergency security meeting of government and ruling party officials the North could also use poison or abduct South Korean citizens as part of what he described as a "terror" campaign. "The North can inflict damage on anti-North Korean activists, defectors and government officials here," Lee later told reporters. Cheong Wa Dae in an emergency briefing on Thursday afternoon confirmed the intelligence. Chief presidential secretary for public affairs Kim Sung-woo said, "The chance of a North Korean terror attack is greater than ever." But neither Cheong Wa Dae nor the National Intelligence Service offered concrete evidence pointing to an impending North Korean terror attack. Intelligence officials claimed that would compromise South Korea's ability to deal with such an attack. But skeptics say the government is using fear tactics to pressure lawmakers to swiftly ratify an anti-terrorism bill that has been stuck in parliament since 2001. A government official said, "We have identified multiple signs of North Korea gathering related information via hacking in order to find suitable targets for cyber attacks." The NIS warned that government agencies, South Korean media that are critical of the North and financial institutions could become targets. "It could target public facilities and key infrastructure, including subways, shopping malls and power stations," Lee claimed. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn said at a National Assembly hearing that the government has no legal means to punish or block a known terrorist who has entered Korea. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday proposed that the two Koreas begin formal consultations to replace the truce on the peninsula with a peace treaty. His proposal came at a press conference following talks with Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop in Beijing. Wang said a peace treaty between the two Koreas would help resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis. North and South Korea are still technically at war since the 1950-53 conflict ended in a ceasefire. The North has repeatedly demanded a peace treaty, but the terms are unfeasible. "The peace treaty the North is talking about includes the withdrawal of U.S. troops, and the North Korean regime is seeking to prolong its lifespan by getting the U.S. to sign a bilateral treaty," a security official here said. Wang's comments came as the international community discusses tougher sanctions against North Korea. A government official said, "China's sudden proposal for a peace treaty could take the focus away from the need for strengthened sanctions against the North." The Foreign Ministry here stressed that North Korea must first demonstrate its resolve to give up its nuclear weapons. "Our position is that the issue of establishing a peace treaty can be discussed at a separate forum by relevant parties in accordance with progress in denuclearization," ministry spokesman Cho June-hyuck told reporters. The annual Korea-U.S. joint exercises will be the largest ever in terms of both "quality and quantity," Defense Minister Han Min-goo told Saenuri Party officials at the National Assembly on Thursday. Twice as many U.S. troops and double the equipment as before, or about 15,000 U.S. troops and hardware like a combat aviation brigade, a Marine mobile brigade, an aircraft carrier fleet, a nuclear-powered submarine fleet, and aerial refueling tankers, will be participating in the drills dubbed "Key Resolve/Foal Eagle." On the Korean side, the troop numbers will be greater by half than usual at 290,000 personnel, including special operations forces, Army corps in the front-line areas, and Army divisions in the rear areas. The exercises are aimed at ensuring that troop reinforcements from the mainland U.S. are integrated smoothly on the Korean Peninsula in an emergency. Meanwhile, Han said the location for a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense battery will be decided once a joint task force makes a suggestion and the governments of Korea and the U.S. approve. "It's regrettable that a brawl over its deployment based on speculation has caused conflict and friction in some regions," Han said, coyly alluding to protests from China and the U.S. as well as resistance from Korean politicians. Han also sought to debunk allegations on the internet that electromagnetic waves from THAAD batteries are harmful to locals in the areas where they are stationed. "We'll make sure that its deployment won't cause any worry," he added. A decline in global trade volume is casting dark clouds over the economy of export-dependent Korea. According to the World Trade Organization on Thursday, global trade volume last year edged up by 2.8 percent, but plummeting oil prices sharply reduced the unit price of exports, causing the financial value of global trade to fall 11.8 percent. The only other time global trade posted a double-digit decline in money terms was in 2009, shortly after the global financial crisis. The world's top 10 exporting countries all saw export earnings decline. Germany and Japan, the two strongest exporters, saw earnings dwindle 11.1 percent and 9.4 percent. Others suffered smaller losses, with Hong Kong falling 2.6 percent, China 2.9 percent, the U.S. 7.1 percent and Korea eight percent. As a result Korea rose from being the worlds seventh-largest exporter to sixth. Since the mid-1980s, global trade grew steadily due to globalization. That led to the emergence of the so-called four dragons of Asia -- Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan -- which adopted an export-driven economic growth strategy. And China achieved breakneck economic growth backed by strong exports after opening its markets and embarking on economic reforms, rising to become the worlds No. 2 economy. But this growth strategy began to fall apart with the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008. The U.S., China and Europe boosted liquidity by more than 60 percent from around US$38 trillion in 2007 to around $62 trillion in 2015, but the global economy has yet to jolt back to life. Korea's exports have been shrinking rapidly, so any rise in its ranking as an exporter is only relative. They fell back below $1 trillion last year four years after the country achieved the landmark in 2011. According to Statistics Korea, the nation's ratio of exports to GDP stood at 78 percent as of 2014, which is way higher than the U.S.' 23 percent, Japan's 33 percent and China's 42 percent. Chinese President Xi Jinping had promised a gift of pandas to Korea during a summit with President Park Geun-hye in July 2014. The pandas are a three-year-old male and a two-year-old female. They will be shipped from Chengdu, Sichuan on a Korean Air chartered plane. The pandas will be shown to the public in April after a period of adaptation. A Chinese panda couple will arrive in Korea for the first time in 22 years. Samsung C&T said Thursday that a panda couple will be presented to its Everland theme park in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province for joint research. However, they will only be on a 15-year loan, and Everland will have to pay US$1 million to China every year as a contribution to the panda conservation fund. The pandas will be fed bamboo from Hadong, South Gyeongsang Province. Although pandas are in principle carnivores, they for some reason prefer bamboo and consume 15 to 20 kg on average every day, which makes them apathetic and unwilling to mate. There remain only 1,864 giant pandas alive in the wild, according to the State Forestry Administration of China. The panda nature preservation zone in Sichuan was registered as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2006. Only 50 pandas live outside of China. China has long practiced "panda diplomacy" whenever it establishes diplomatic relations with foreign countries. Korea was given a panda couple after Seoul and Beijing established diplomatic relations in 1994. Everland took care of them but returned them to China in 1998 because it could not afford their upkeep due in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. But it has now built a "panda world" based on cutting-edge information and communications technology. It consists of a soundproof indoor area devoid of noise and vibration and an outdoor play area with a natural lighting system. Visitors can watch them only on a TV screen and digital display. Photo by Isaac Brekken/WireImageJ. Cole is among the performers scheduled for the 2016 season for Mandalay Bay's Daylight, which the venue calls the hottest pool party on the Las Vegas strip. Starting next month, the 5,000-square-foot pool will host a series of daytime parties with a star studded lineup featuring Cole, super producer DJ Mustard and electronic music duo Disclosure, as well as popular EDM producers, among others. There will be an exclusive sneak preview on Saturday, March 12 with resident DJ E-Rock. Tickets are $20 for females and $30 for males -- they're available now via DaylightVegas.com. Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. The report was prepared without having a proper idea of the topography of Kuttanad or the high probability of flooding in the area, officials said. Harry How/Getty ImagesThe Miami, Florida police union may have voted to boycott Beyonces upcoming concert there, but that doesnt mean there wont be police working her subsequent show in Tampa. Javier Ortiz, president of the Miami Fraternal Order of Police, says in a Thursday press release, The fact that Beyonce used this years Super Bowl to divide Americans by promoting the Black Panthers and her antipolice message shows how she does not support law enforcement, referring to Beyonces "Formation" video and Super Bowl performance. We ask all law enforcement labor organizations to join our boycott across the country and to boycott all of her concerts. Beyonce is scheduled to play Miamis Marlin Stadium April 27. Two days later, her tour plays Tampa, Floridas Raymond James Stadium, but reports Thursday that no police had signed up to work that show are untrue. A tweet from the Tampa Police Department reads, What?! @TampaPD officers have been in #formation for days signing up to keep the #Beehive safe! #Truth #Fact. A second tweet refers to an online story that Tampa officers wont work the event, and declares, This is factually incorrect. We do have ofc signed up to work the Beyonce concert & the event will be fully staffed. Tampa Police spokesman Stephen Hegarty told the Tampa Bay Times Thursday that because the show is two months away, "We wouldn't expect all the slots to be filled at this point for an event in April. We have plenty of events before that." If there is a boycott, the police department would have to bring in on-duty officers to work the show, according to the Times. Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. #Navy plans Navy eyes creation of unmanned command in 2040s South Korea's Navy is seeking to create a new command running unmanned ships, submarines and aircraft in the 2040s, the armed service said Friday, in an effort to address a potenti... #SK data center fire SK C&C's data center raided over massive server outage Police on Friday raided regional offices of SK C&C, the host of the data center for Kakao Corp., in an investigation into a data center fire last week that caused massive servi... An Irish woman travelling through London Stanstead Airport was so frustrated with delays going through security she decided to take her clothes off. Eimear Ni Ghiallgairrh was travelling to Barcelona for a job interview when she encountered delays when going through security. She arrived only 90 minutes before her flight was due to takeoff and became agitated after she stepped through the security scanner and was told she may be a security risk. Staff said they thought she may be concealing something so she decided to take off her skirt to prove she wasn't. Staff were so annoyed that she was making such a scene that the police were called to arrest her. Eimear suffered a broken bone in her wrist during the arrest and was led away to a windowless room in a nearby police station. Striptease teacher left with broken arm after arrest: Irish-born Eimear Ni Ghiallgairrh, 29, was also hit with... https://t.co/nbqzXhAbGm School HD (@SchoolHD) February 19, 2016 She was detained there for 15 hours before being released. She pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and criminal damage in court and was fined 70. Although she pleaded guilty in court she has criticised the decision to arrest her and has claimed he injury is proof of police brutality. A former Primary School teacher, Ni Ghiallgairrh had been living in London for the past 18 months. She retrained as an architect and was going to Barcelona to interview for her 'dream job'. She told the court that she now plans to return to Ireland but worries about her employment prospects now that she has a criminal record. Via Irish Mirror Until late 2019 "Envoy in The Med" has been about our experiences cruising the Med aboard our Nordhavn 46, "Envoy". Our intention was to share experiences and impressions, not to be a diarised account or a travelogue. There is a heavy practical and technical content. Since then our focus has been on cruising in general and aboard our Salthouse 52 "Rapport" based in Auckland. Market economy status not a bilateral negotiation Updated: 2016-02-18 07:55 By Yang Yanyi(China Daily) Ambassador Yang Yanyi, Head of the Chinese Mission to the EU. The protectionist sentiment and the confrontational approach that have emerged in the European Union are worrying, as well as being regrettable and misleading. On Friday, the European Commission opened new anti-dumping investigations on steel products originating from China, and the European steel industry organized a demonstration against so-called Chinese dumping in the EU market and the granting of Market Economy Status to China. Nobody should be under any illusion: overcapacity, including excess capacity in the global steel sector is one of the many challenges we are all faced with. Not only the European steel industry has been hard hit, iron and steel industries in China and many other emerging economies are suffering badly from excessive production and flagging demand. According to some estimates, cutting back the overcapacity in China by 30 percent in those industries with most excess capacityiron and steel, coal, cement, shipbuilding, aluminum and flat glassis expected to affect the employment of 3 million workers. Not to mention that China is also confronted with many other daunting tasks: lifting 70 million people out of poverty, advancing industrialization to transform China into a post-industrial society, rebalancing the economy from investment and net exports to consumption and innovation. The situation is serious and requires a response. But what kind of response? Grumble, curse, cut the ground from under other's feet? Retreat into protectionism and be at each other's throats? If history serves as a guide, these are unwelcome if not irresponsible responses. They may help to give vent to the anger and frustration of some and obtain short-term gains, but they fail to serve the common long-term interests of all. Obviously the response to the challenges is up to each and every country. I only wish to share what we believe to be the best possible approach and option, and what China has been doing and will continue to do with regard to the issue. First, digest the problem and not dump it onto other's doorsteps. The development of the steel industry in China has been mainly to meet its domestic demand, rather than to export products to other countries. To effectively deal with the overcapacity problems, China has taken tough measures to control new capacity. Painful as it is, China has cut its steel industry capacity by more than 90 million tons over the past few years and its investment in iron and steel assets by 13 percent last year. The growth of Chinese steel production has basically come to a halt. To continue to address overcapacity in a serious and resolute manner, China has made elimination of overcapacity the top priority for this year and will cut the steel industry capacity by another 100 to 150 million tons. Ukraine seeks new business opportunities with China Updated: 2016-02-19 09:33 (Xinhua) KIEV - A Ukrainian trade mission will travel to China in September in search for new business opportunities, a senior Ukrainian government official said on Thursday. "Currently, China is particularly important for us in the light of wide prospects for cooperation in many sectors," Natalia Mykolska, Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister, told a news briefing. The delegation would pay special attention to developing business ties with Chinese partners in agriculture and machine building sectors, Mykolska said. Ukraine's statistics showed China became the largest partner of the East European country last year in agriculture and food products, with bilateral trade rising by 39.5 percent to $1.3 billion. The overall trade turnover between the two countries fell 15.4 percent to $5.5 billion in January-September of 2015, compared with the corresponding period of 2014, the data showed. Turkey blames Kurds, Syria for attack Updated: 2016-02-19 02:40 By AGENCIES in Ankara, ZHANG YUNBI and SU ZHOU in Beijing(China Daily) 14 arrested after deadly rush-hour bombing in Ankara; China urges anti-terrorist coordination Soldiers and security officers stand around a damaged military vehicle near Diyarbakir, Turkey, on Thursday. A bomb detonated by remote control killed at least six Turkish security force members traveling in a military vehicle in southeast Turkey on Thursday, security sources said, a day after a car bomb attack in the capital of Ankara killed 28 people. SERTAC KAYAR / REUTERS Turkey's leaders on Thursday blamed Kurdish militant groups in Turkey and Syria, as well as the Syrian government, for the rush-hour suicide bombing in Ankara that killed 28 people on Wednesday. It vowed strong retaliation against the perpetrators, which could further complicate the Syria conflict. Turkish authorities have detained 14 people in connection with the attack and were trying to identify others. Turkey's military, meanwhile, said its jets conducted cross-border raids against Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq, hours after the Ankara attack, striking at a group of about 60 to 70 rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. The car-bomb attack on Wednesday evening that targeted buses carrying military personnel also injured more than 60, as Turkey grapples with such issues as renewed fighting with the Kurdish rebels, the threat from Islamic State militants and the Syrian refugee crisis. The blast was the second deadly bombing in Ankara in four months. On Thursday afternoon, a Turkish Foreign Ministry official said the ambassadors of the five permanent UN Security Council member states had been invited to the ministry separately to be briefed on the attack in Ankara. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said a Syrian national with links to Syrian Kurdish militia carried out the attack in collaboration with the outlawed PKK. Davutoglu also accused Syria's government of responsibility for allegedly backing the Syrian Kurdish militia. The Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, denied the Turkish accusations. Salih Muslim Muhammad, a PYD co-chairman, said the Islamic State group was responsible for the Ankara attack. The Ankara bombing and the subsequent accusations and denials came amid mounting tension between Turkey and the Kurds. Turkish artillery has been shelling Kurdish fighters' positions in northern Syria to prevent them from advancing near the Turkish borders. Testosterone Oxytocin Cortisol Leptin Thyroid Hormone Every person in the world has one thing in common is the need for fat loss. Unfortunately, this is a common scenario for many people. Thats why its important to know what hormones or steroids are available that can help you reach your goal sooner and more efficiently. If you are interested in buying weight loss steroids, then a Great place to buy weight loss steroids at LAWeekly . Five essential hormones can help increase your metabolism and burn calories at a faster rate. They are all easy to use, just like any other hormone supplement would be.Testosterone is a natural hormone that is mainly produced in males. It is the best testosterone booster you can get when burning fat even if you have a low testosterone level. You need some testosterone to make your muscles hard and your body feel healthier. The best thing about this hormone supplement is that its use does not require a prescription for any condition. More importantly, this drug has no side effects and should be used only by adults.This hormone regulates fertility. However, this is not the only reason why it is so popular. Oxytocin helps you increase your connection and trust with other people, which makes some people addicted. Sometimes, oxytocin is used instead of morphine because of its analgesic effect. Nowadays, oxytocin fat burners are very popular among women and men who want to get rid of extra calories. Oxytocin is beneficial to lose weight faster without any side effects.Cortisol reduces stress and increases blood pressure levels in the body. It also increases blood sugar levels, contributing to more energy during a workout session or sports activities. The best thing about cortisol is that it can increase your metabolism, making it the perfect hormone for people who dont have the time and energy to go to the gym to lose fat.This is a direct response to the leptin level in your body. If it becomes too low, your hunger will increase, and you will feel inclined to eat more food than needed. Leptin can help suppress that feeling and regulate your eating habits and diet plans for losing weight fast.T3 and T4 are the hormones that promote healthy metabolism, essential for burning more calories. The only drawback to these two hormones is that they require prescriptions like any other hormone supplement and from a specialist. So whenever you want to take thyroid hormone pills, you should always check with your doctor first if it is right for you or not. There is no point in risking your health just because you dont have enough money for prescription drugs.Eating less and working out more is not the only way to lose weight. You need to do it faster and easier if you want to see results in a short time. The five hormones listed above can help you burn calories faster than ever without any effort at all. After a long battle Stefano Ghisolfi got a new amazing goal! Last 13rd February the CAMP top climber managed to free Dingo: the super route at Alveare crag in Finale Ligure, Italy, bolted by Andrea Gallo in 1992. The grade? Dingo is only 8c+ so it can appear incredible that a not extreme route needed 24 years to be free climbed, considering the modern climbing standard. But Dingo is an old style climb: a real challenge for Stefano that attempted it for many days, more than all the other 8c+ he has done so far. Dingo doesnt fit my ability: thats the reason I decided to begin this battle and I finally won, Stefano explained. Despite the grade, it was one of my hardest mental and physical challenges. We congratulate Stefano for this exciting achievement, got with the Energy harness: the CAMP super comfortable and affordable too! best seller that is perfect for all climbers, both champions and enthusiasts. Visualizza la traduzione in / This post is also available in Italiano RCA RecordsCant get enough WALK THE MOON? The band will be releasing their first live album next week, entitled You Are Not Alive (Live at the Greek). The album will features songs recorded at their sold-out show at Los Angeles The Greek Theater during their TALKING IS HARD tour last fall. If you pre-order now, youll get an instant download of the live version of their latest single Work This Body. The live show is the center of the WALK THE MOON universe + now we finally get to share it with you on record, the band writes on Twitter. You Are Not Alone (Live At The Greek) comes out February 26. It will also be released as a special limited edition double vinyl set for Record Store Day on April 16. Here is the live albums track list: "Jenny (Live)" "Sidekick (Live)" "Avalanche (Live)" "Different Colors (Live)" "Tightrope (Live)" "Spiraling Down (Live)" "Down in the Dumps (Live)" "Come Under the Covers (Live)" "Sorry We're Not Sorry (Live)" "Up 2 U (Live)" "Work This Body (Live)" "Portugal (Live)" "Aquaman (Live)" "Now Try This (Live)" "Lisa Baby (Live)" "Meditation <+> (Live)" "I Can Lift a Car (Live)" "The Moon, Man (Live)" "Shut Up And Dance (Live)" "We Are WALK THE MOON and We Are from Ohio" "Anna Sun (Live)" Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Win McNamee/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- President Obama held a reception celebrating Black History Month at the White House on Thursday. In his remarks, he emphasized the influence of African-American culture on the nation. From our earliest days black history has been American history, he said. We're the slaves that carry the stone to build this White House. The soldiers who fought for our nation's independence, who fought to hold this union together. Who fought for freedom of others around the world. We're the scientists and inventors who helped unleash American innovation. Obama said Black History Month is "about the lived shared experience of all African-Americans. And about those experiences that have shaped and challenged and ultimately strengthened America. Its about taking an unvarnished look at the past so we can create a better future. Its a reminder of where we as a country have been so we know where we need to go." In a light moment, an audience member shouted, "Hey, Michelle!" when first lady Michelle Obama joined her husband on the stage. It prompted the president to quip, "We know it is Black History Month when you hear somebody say, "Hey, Michelle!" Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- Donald Trumps fellow Republicans joined the fray Thursday in response to the popes suggestion that the New York real estate mogul was not Christian. A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian, Pope Francis said during a flight from Mexico to the Vatican Wednesday night. After the Republican presidential front-runner called the popes comments disgraceful, others weighed in from the campaign trail: Jeb Bush The former Florida governor pushed back a bit. "I dont question anybodys Christianity because I honestly believe thats a relationship you have with your creator and it only enables bad behavior when someone from the outside of our country talks about Donald Trump, Bush said while campaigning Thursday in Columbia, South Carolina, before the Saturday primary there. Back in January, however, Bush had some strong words for the real estate mogul and his faith, calling him a flip-flopper." "Trump views all this not from a position of his faith, he views it all as politics. I think faith goes way beyond politics, he said to reporters after a campaign rally then. Bush said on Thursday that he supports walls with fencing where its appropriate and that a strategy to protect the border is not an un-Christian thing to do to make sure that people dont come across our border illegally. Thats a just thing to do. Bush, who is Catholic, said he respects the pope, but wont be looking for advice from the pontiff on policy matters. I think its OK, as a Catholic, to get my guidance as a Catholic from the pope but, certainly, not economic policy or environmental policy, Bush said. I respect the pope, his voice will be heard, but dealing with ISIS, we need someone who has a steady hand and a strategy and Im the only guy who laid out a strategy prior to the attacks and Im going to stick with that being the important thing." Marco Rubio The Florida senator avoided commenting on the recent exchange between rival Trump and Pope Francis in an interview with CNN. I think the Holy Father recognizes, or should recognize and I believe he does, how generous America is. Rubio told CNNs Jake Tapper Thursday afternoon, adding later, So when it comes to accepting both refugees and immigrants, no nation on this planet is more welcoming, more open, or more compassionate than the United States. Rubio also argued that because America is a sovereign country, it has a right to have immigration laws and it has a right to enforce immigration laws. As far as building walls on the border, its wall is not just about immigrants. It's also about potential terrorists crossing that border, not to mention the drugs coming across that border and the human trafficking because people know they can get people across the border, he said. Ben Carson The retired neurosurgeon, who is a Seventh-day Adventist, also chimed in on Thursday, saying, it would be hilarious if it werent so sad. Despite Pope Francis characterization of Trump, Carson told Fox Business Networks Neil Cavuto in a telephone interview he would not judge his fellow GOP contenders faith. I am not going to judge Donald Trump in terms of whether he is a Christian or not. Some of the things he does may not be suggestive of Christianity, but then again all of us have weaknesses and shortcomings. That is what it is all about, Carson said. Ted Cruz Before his stop in Easley, South Carolina, the Texas senator responded briefly to the pope's comments about Trump. Listen, that's between Donald and the pope, Cruz, a Southern Baptist, said Thursday. I'm not going to get in the middle of that. I'll let them work it out. John Kasich The Ohio governor marched to the beat of his own drum, as he responded to the popes comments on Trump in utter disbelief. First of all, I love the pope, he said while campaigning in Clemson, South Carolina, Thursday. Hes not a guy whos been running around wondering whos pure and whos not. So if he said that, Im sure he would regret having said that, because its not up to any of us to judge whos good and whos bad, he added. But Kasich, a former Roman Catholic who now belongs to the Anglican Church in North America, did say he believes in building a wall. I not only believe in building a wall, you know, to make sure we can have orderly entrance into our country, but I believe in building bridges, too, Kasich said. Copyright 2016, ABC Radio. All rights reserved. Subject: hello From: Rebecca Ashley < chiboylover75@yahoo.com > To: CC: Hi, my name is Dr Rebecca Ashley from United Kingdom. Can we be friends? I want to visit your nation Soon for tourist. I will tell you more about me when i get a reply from you. ( rebeeca222@hotmail.com ) Subject: FROM DR ASHLEY REBECCA From: rebecca Ashley < rebeeca222@hotmail.com > CC: Hi Dear,Compliments to you and thanks for taking your precious time to reply to my mail. I am more than happy and grateful to you. I know you will be a good and honest friend. What can i say! OK let me tell you a little bit about myself and with time we will know more about each other OK. I am Dr,Ashley Rebecca, born and brought up in 1 Birmingham Avenue, London, CZ32 88A/ United Kingdom, into a family of three, I am age 41 single with one daughter schooling in united kingdom , again Have a Palestinian root too, from my grand parents. I attended my high school in England. After then I proceeded to Birmingham, for my University career and graduated as a Medical Practitioner. Presently i work with the United Kingdom Health Department and the General medical center as a consultant on Child health. Serving God is my top priority in life because I believe that nothing ever exists without the permission of God, this makes me to believe in the joy of friendship, a thing that has given me the opportunity of knowing you. So how are you coupling with life? How is your country? l have not had any opportunity to be outside to my country; I hope my knowing you will make an avenue for me to be there some day by God grace. This is just a little about myself and i hope you will tell me about you, your nation, occupation and everything that is worth knowing about you OK. Please I am here strictly for friendship and maybe more with time. Please i will be waiting for your reply soon.Regards.Rebecca Subject: WITH TRUST AND HONEST From: rebecca Ashley < rebeeca222@hotmail.com > CC: my dear beloved, How are you doing and life with you in general?I hope you had a wonderful day.I am fine. i am a very busy woman. All the contents of your mail were quite noted and understood. It is true we have not met; nevertheless, from your mail i am taking you for seriousness. Before i proceed, i will like to inform you that If we are to become best of friend, we are to base our friendship on honesty, trustfulness, and care, above all, open-minded; this is because i do not want to experience pain or you, in any ways, as i really want to be your friend. I am glad that you base your mails on honesty and i know we will go places. Anyway,i hope to read from you soon ok. take care of yourself. I care for you. Best Regards Rebecca Subject: MY GIFT TO YOU OK From: rebecca Ashley < rebeeca222@hotmail.com > CC: How are you Well i Guess you are doing great. I'm very sorry that i could not reply your mail earlier as necessary. I was very busy in office with (Hope Worldwide). I got some gifts and items from the organization and your thought just came in my mind and I decided to send some to you as present to you as to initiate our relationship and to effect a positive change in the lives of the less privileged;indigent widows and some natural disaster displaced folks in your Geo political zones or domain. Actually, I do not have need for some of these items so i felt they might be useful to you and to numerous war victims, and less privileged which is the main objective and visions of our organization. And also to assure you that you came first in my priority list of people to benefit on this awesome gesture. I sent the gift through a friend and a Co_worker by name Rev sister Mary Palmer ,She has traveled with her group on a mission for Hope Worldwide Aid support to Africa Senegal precisely. It is worthy of note that yesterday after participating in a meeting we held, i gave her ( Rev sis Mary Palmer ) the gift package to deliver to you When she arrives there since you didn't supply me with your postal address and I couldn't wait for you to do that now because I am on my way to Haiti on a special sponsored Mission of( Hope Worldwide Aid support ) to Haiti. And i may not be able to reply my mails until i get back to UK because most of the Areas we will visit in Haiti during our stay there will or might not have network coverage after since the earthquake. I believe where Rev sis Mary Palmer with her group will be camping in Senegal, might be closer to you or your resident country. You should contact her via email: ( revsistermarrypa@hotmail.com ) and if possible discuss with her on phone regarding how to receive your gift package and you should send her your home Address and telephone number through her mail OK. Here is her number(+221780151897) Please don't laugh at me when you receive the package lol, I know it isn't much but I sent it from my innermost heart and i believe you will appreciate everything inside the package because it is coming from a special friend and in a special way. I know that you will be in need of these items in one way or the other. The content of the pack are 2 Dell laptops computer, 1 i-phones, AN ENVELOPE, Video Camera and some jewelries. I packed everything in a medium carton and gave it to Rev sis Mary Palmer to deliver it to you because she didn't travel with much luggage of her own. Open the pack of one of the laptop to bring out the envelop which I put inside, it contains some of my recent photos and that of my family members and a surprise gift which I don't want to disclose to you till you see it. Update me when you receive it, so I will be aware. I will see how i can make a request for you as a volunteer in this organization only if you would be interested? I will get to you when i come back to UK.Yours truly Friend,Rebecca Subject: Rev, Sister Mary Palmer From: mary Palmer < revsistermarrypa@hotmail.com > CC: we just arrived here in Senegal and have been trying to set up our tents and pavilion in the camp in order to start work on the motive and goals of our mission here immediately. I received a gift package from Dr Rebecca Ashley from United Kingdom. and she told me that you will contact me with your information address to enable me to send it to you, Kindly send your address to me so that i will post your gift package through D H L, your name . . . . . . . . Your address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Your direct phone number . . . . . . . . . . . . . your country. . . . . . . . . . . . because the D H L. agent will call you immediately the package arrive in your country to hand over your package to you. Stay blessed my dear. Rev, Sister Mary Palmer Subject: Rev, Sister Mary Palmer From: mary Palmer < revsistermarrypa@hotmail.com > CC: Good Morning My Dear I have been able to make contact with D.H.L concerning the sending of the gift package which contains two Dell laptops computer, i-phones, AN ENVELOPE, Video Cameras and some jewelries, with photos e.t.c, from your friend from the UK. From all frank inquiries made in this regard D.H.L have Checked the kilos of the parcel and charge $98 dollar for the postage. It is very interesting to note that D.H.L will dispatch the package to your contact address and door post in your country as soon as their delivery fee is paid which appear much more effective and rapid. The D.H.L will take 2-3 working days for the gift parcel to reach your home and designated address. I will advice that you send me the postage fee $98 dollar immediately so that your package will be dispatched and delivered at the stipulated time frame respectively. I want to tell you that this is my first time to visit Africa and i don't have any bank account to give you now, but i've made an inquiry from our driver here, he told me that the only way you can send money to me is through ECO BANK RAPID TRANSFER and he has given me his Passport name and number as our referee. Now all you need to do is to go to ECO BANK and tell them that you want to do Rapid Transfer to Senegal CASH TO CASH. Below is the Passport name of our driver and his passport number, because is the only thing they will request from you in ECO BANK before they can transfer the money. NAME: CHRIS JAME PASSPORT NUMBER: 232/182890. Address : 72B Parcel Arsenic, Country : Senegal . City : Dakar please try to send the money through ECO BANK RAPID TRANSFER with the above given information and send me the scan copy of the transfer slip right? The D.H.L officials told me that there is no possibility of sending your gift package without the fee as such services is not available in this Country Senegal. Please try and send me this money immediately so that i can send you the gift soon because we will be visiting some villages from next week. This money is the only thing that is holding me to post the package to you now. OR if you can come down to Senegal to pick it up, it will also be preferable and appreciated. You can use the above information to transfer the postal fee. please call me as soon as you send the money and also SCAN the transfer slip and send me a copy for documentation and clarification. Thanks & Regards Subject: MAY THE PEACE OF GOD BE WITH YOU ALWAYS!! From: mary Palmer < revsistermarrypa@hotmail.com > CC: MAY THE PEACE OF GOD BE WITH YOU ALWAYS!! I JUST WANT TO KNOW. WHEN ARE YOU SENDING THE MONEY SO THAT I WILL POST YOUR PACKAGE BEFORE WE MOVE TO ANOTHER VILLAGE. REMAIN BLESS AND STAY IN PEACE. FROM Rev Sister Mary Palmer 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.... 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. (Corrects 6th paragraph in Feb. 18 story to say UTEC is a high-performance polyethylene, not polypropylene) SAO PAULO, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Braskem SA, Latin America's largest petrochemical company, plans to increase investment by more than 50 percent this year as it starts new production lines in Mexico and the United States, making the most of cheaper raw materials and a stronger dollar. The Brazilian company said in a filing on Thursday that it planned 3.66 billion Brazilian reais ($909 million) of capital spending in 2016. Last year Braskem invested 2.376 billion reais, 11 percent more than planned due to a currency swing. Brazil's currency, the real, hit all-time lows in recent months as the country's economy lurched deeper into recession, boosting the impact of dollar-denominated revenue and investments on its earnings, which are denominated in reais. Costs pegged to the greenback make up about half of Braskem's investment plan this year, with a new polyethylene plant in Mexico accounting for nearly three-quarters of dollar costs, or $329 million. The Ethylene XXI project, a joint venture with Mexico's Idesa, will start producing polyethylene from natural gas-based ethane in the first quarter of 2016, Braskem said, culminating the biggest private investment ever by a Brazilian company in Mexico. Braskem also plans $117 million of investments in Europe and the United States, with a Texas plant starting to produce UTEC, a high-performance polyethylene, in the second half of 2016. The investment plans were outlined in Braskem's fourth-quarter earnings report, which showed quarterly net income of 158 million reais, reversing a year-earlier loss as a stronger dollar boosted exports from Brazil and lower oil prices cut costs. Braskem shares rose 5 percent in Thursday trading to a four-week high. Cheaper oil has lowered the cost of naphtha, Braskem's main raw material, opening a profitable spread for its principal business of turning petrochemicals into plastic resins. Story continues Chief Executive Carlos Fadigas said he expects that spread to remain healthy this year, with a minor reduction in 2016 followed by a more challenging outlook in 2017, when more polyethylene plants fed by U.S. shale gas come onto the market. In Brazil, a severe economic downturn could reduce demand for plastic resins by 4 percent or 5 percent this year, Fadigas told journalists, underscoring the importance of Braskem's growing international footprint. He said the company expects to export from the new plant in Mexico, seeking cost savings with operations in the United States, Europe and South America. ($1 = 4.02 Brazilian reais) (Reporting by Priscila Jordao and Brad Haynes; Additional reporting by Alberto Alerigi Jr. Editing by W Simon) Apple's (AAPL) legal showdown with the federal government over the security of iPhones likely won't be settled for many months, or even years if the case goes all the way to the Supreme Court. But the world's biggest technology company could easily make upcoming versions of the iPhone even more secure, all but eliminating its ability to help law enforcers crack the encryption. In the current case, the FBI wants Apple to create a special, less secure version of its iOS iPhone software and install it on the phone of deceased San Bernardino terrorist Syed Farook. With the weaker software installed, the FBI would have a much easier time guessing Farook's password. That's only possible because the iPhone's hardware allows certain kinds of software updates from Apple without requiring a password. Future phones could be designed to lock out any such changes or erase data if changes were made. That would likely bring the clash back to Washington, D.C., where lawmakers and presidents have struggled for decades to find a compromise between security and privacy. Already lawmakers in two states, New York and California, are pursing legislation that would require phone makers to include a backdoor for law enforcement agencies. Apple is expected to appeal a magistrate judge's ruling in the Farook case that it create the new software to help the FBI crack the terrorist's iPhone. Apple CEO Tim Cook said the software would constitute a backdoor into all iPhones that would inevitably leak out and be misused. The case has split public opinion, with some tech firms such as Google (GOOGL) and Facebook (FB) coming out in support of Apple's position and some politicians and law enforcement officials criticizing the company's stand. Regardless of what Apple does with future phones, the fight over the Farook case will also figure into the debate over broader policy changes, says Robert Cattanach, a partner at law firm Dorsey & Whitney who works on cyber-security cases and a former special counsel to the Secretary of the Navy. "The real question is whether the government can leverage whatever precedent is created including the possibility that the court does not force Apple to comply as a basis to convince Congress to pass legislation that would require tech companies to provide them with a true backdoor to defeat encryption going forward," Cattanach says. The evolution of iPhone security Apple has made the iPhone increasingly secure since the device was introduced in 2007. The moves have helped protect the personal data of hundreds of millions of iPhone owners from getting into the wrong hands but also made it more difficult for law enforcement agencies to extract data from the phones of criminals or terrorists. Apple didn't make the moves solely out of a desire to prioritize security. Customers have been getting more and more concerned with every new hacking scandal, including a 2014 breach of Apple's iCloud service that led to the disclosure of hundreds of nude photos and videos of celebrities. Edward Snowden's revelations also included numerous efforts by the government to crack iPhone security. The biggest change so far came in September 2014, when Apple released an updated version of its iOS software which encrypted all iPhone user data -- everything from photos to chat logs -- with virtually uncrackable encoding by default. Previously, law enforcement agencies had been able to extract data from a locked phone even without the password because the data itself was stored in an unencrypted format. But after Apple made the change, accessing the data became much more complicated. Then last year, Apple added a new hardware security feature, dubbed the secure enclave, to the iPhone as part of the rollout of its fingerprint scanning unlock feature. The enclave is a separate processing chip devoted solely to securing data. Everything the secure chip does is encrypted, in theory eliminating vulnerabilities that hackers might find in other parts of the phone or in the iOS software. For future iPhones, Apple could essentially lock itself out of the device even further. That became apparent after some confusion arose about the Farook case earlier this week. Farook's iPhone is an older 5C model, although it's running more current software that includes the default encrypting of all data. But it lacks the security chip of newer phones, and some security experts initially said that the FBI's requested software trick from Apple wouldn't be able to fool the secure enclave. Apple quickly disabused the experts, admitting that a similar workaround could apply to newer phones as well. The secure enclave has a reprogrammable component, its firmware, that apparently can be reset by Apple. But, the experts noted, Apple could alter the secure enclave in future versions of the iPhone to block changes to its operating software code without a password. Or the chip could be designed to erase all its data if its software was tampered with. "I bet Apple will move towards making the most sensitive parts of that stack updatable only in very specific conditions: wipe user data, or keep user data only if the phone is successfully unlocked first," Ben Adida, security expert and lead engineer at Clever who formerly worked at Square and Mozilla, wrote on his blog on Thursday. "The interesting question will be whether Apple will be legally allowed to engineer their phones this way." You might have heard: The U.S. government wants Apple to unlock an iPhone 5C that belonged to San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook. The order, handed down by a U.S. magistrate judge, demands Apple (AAPL) write new software that would help the FBI get around the passcode so it can search the phone for evidence. And Apple isn't playing ball. The FBI was successful in getting the order issued thanks to a law from 1789 for just this kind of situation: A federal court asking a third party to help a different government entity. But that doesn't matter -- this fight has quickly become an ethical one, and both prominent individuals and corporations are making it clear where they fall based on such lines. So: On which side of the dividing line do the power players in and around Corporate America stand? With Apple: ACLU: The civil rights group released a statement calling the order "an unprecedented, unwise, and unlawful move by the government." Amnesty International: In a similar statement, Amnesty said that Apple is, "right to fight back in this case: the FBI's request... would set a very dangerous precedent. Such backdoors undermine everyone's security and threaten our right to privacy." Anonymous: On its official Twitter feed, the hacker group has been retweeting Edward Snowden and others sharing concerns about the FBI's request. Anonymous also said the White House, "willfully misrepresents what govt is asking Apple to do in order to expand surveillance powers." Edward Snowden: The privacy crusader said on Twitter that the FBI is "creating a world where citizens rely on Apple to defend their rights, rather than the other way around." He added: "This is the most important tech case in a decade." Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): This digital civil liberties group tweeted that, "Encryption backdoors would harm us all." Google (GOOGL): CEO Sundar Pichai said on Twitter that "forcing companies to enable hacking could compromise users' privacy" and it "could be a troubling precedent." Story continues Information Technology Industry Council, a Washington advocacy group that represents the interests of the likes of Google, Facebook (FB), Microsoft (MSFT), and others, said in a statement that the fight against terrorism, "is actually strengthened by the security tools and technologies created by the technology sector, so we must tread carefully." Microsoft: The company has not issued its own statement, but CEO Satya Nadella retweeted a statement from Reform Government Surveillance, a group in which Microsoft was a founding member. The statement reads, in part, "Technology companies should not be required to build in backdoors to the technologies that keep their users' information secure. RGS companies remain committed to providing law enforcement with the help it needs while protecting the security of their customers and their customers' information." The Verge called it "tepid support" by Microsoft so far. Mozilla, the maker of Firefox: The company tweeted that it stands with Apple, because "we should not set a dangerous precedent." WhatsApp: CEO Jan Koum wrote on Facebook, "I have always admired Tim Cook for his stance on privacy... We must not allow this dangerous precedent to be set. Today our freedom and our liberty is at stake." Twitter and Square: Jack Dorsey, chief executive of both the social network and the payments platform, tweeted on Thursday evening, "We stand with Tim Cook and Apple (and thank him for his leadership)!" Facebook (FB): First, the company released a statement on Thursday just after Jack Dorsey tweeted his support. The statement says: "We condemn terrorism and have total solidarity with victims of terror. Those who seek to praise, promote, or plan terrorist acts have no place on our services. We also appreciate the difficult and essential work of law enforcement to keep people safe. When we receive lawful requests from these authorities we comply. However, we will continue to fight aggressively against requirements for companies to weaken the security of their systems. These demands would create a chilling precedent and obstruct companies efforts to secure their products." Then, at Mobile World Congress 2016 in Barcelona on Monday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, "We're sympathetic to Apple on this. We believe in encryption." John McAfee: The anti-virus computer programmer wrote an entire Op-Ed at the International Business Times on Thursday. The headline declared, "An Apple backdoor is like giving our enemies nukes." He continued that if the government gets what it wants, "Our world, as we know it, is over. In spite of the FBI's claim that they would protect the backdoor we all know that that is impossible." Yahoo: While CEO Marissa Mayer hasn't said anything on the matter, Yahoo's chief information security officer, Bob Lord, tweeted on Friday, "Ordering a company to hack one targeted system is clearly the first step to ordering them to backdoor them all. #slipperySlope #usersfirst." Against Apple: China: Apple CEO Tim Cook writes in his open letter that, "in the wrong hands," software that could bypass the iPhone's passcode would be dangerous. As the New York Times writes, Apple and other tech companies have argued in the past that, "creating an opening in their products for government investigators would also create a vulnerability that Chinese, Iranian, Russian or North Korean hackers could exploit." Indeed, China, as a nation, is likely on the side of the U.S. in this case because it has proven, time and again, that its government does not place a premium on privacy rights and that it often takes its cues from what the U.S. does. If the FBI's order sets the precedent that even the U.S. believes there are moments when it can intervene and force technology companies to sacrifice privacy, China and other nations may follow. National Security Agency: Last year, NSA director Mike Rogers joined FBI director James Comey in warning tech companies against employing encryption models that government and law enforcement cannot break when needed. Donald Trump: In a Fox News appearance, Trump said that he agrees "100 percent" with the court order. "We should open it up," he said about the phone. Bill Gates: The Microsoft co-founder has "broken ranks with Silicon Valley," as the FT put it, by siding with the FBI. He told the paper, "It is no different than [the question of] should anybody ever have been able to tell the phone company to get information, should anybody be able to get at bank records. Lets say the bank had tied a ribbon round the disk drive and said, Dont make me cut this ribbon because youll make me cut it many times.' This is a specific case where the government is asking for access to information. They are not asking for some general thing, they are asking for a particular case." The White House: Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the FBI has the White House's full support in this fight, and defended the order based on its scope, saying the government is "simply asking for something that would have an impact on this one device." So the U.S. government is going up against Apple. And the government's associated arms and entities are, understandably, on the side of the order. But technology companies, and civil rights groups, are almost across the board staunchly siding with Apple. Yahoo Finance will continue to update this post as more executives and companies make clear where they stand. It was last updated at 8:10am EST on Feb. 23. -- Daniel Roberts is a writer at Yahoo Finance, covering sports business and technology. Read more: How big banks are paying empty lip service to the blockchain Why Apple and Uber are betting on first Super Bowl sponsorship This app wants to be the Netflix of news video Facebook's new sports feature is bad news for Twitter By Masayuki Kitano SINGAPORE (Reuters) - East Asia's economies are in no immediate danger of a liquidity crisis but do face risks around some of their corporate debt levels, the head of a regional economic surveillance unit said on Friday. Yoichi Nemoto, director of the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO), said the region's economies have been resilient in the face of the latest bout of investor risk aversion that started last August. "Members have accumulated certain experiences how to cope with these (bouts of) market volatility," Nemoto told reporters. "So far, countries...have shown certain resilience to this kind of situation," he added. The ASEAN+3 regional bloc includes Southeast Asian nations, South Korea, China and Japan. AMRO was established in Singapore in April 2011 as a surveillance unit to monitor economies in the region and granted status by ASEAN+3 members as an international organisation earlier this month. Its new legal status allows it to contribute to ASEAN+3 member countries' decision-making process on whether to activate a $240 billion regional currency swap arrangement called the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation (CMIM), through support such as economic analysis. Nemoto said AMRO doesn't believe the region faces a liquidity crisis in the "very near future". The regional currency swap scheme was initially created in the wake of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis and later strengthened. AMRO's new status enables closer collaboration with other international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund. The CMIM safety net is made up of two facilities: a crisis resolution mechanism and a crisis prevention function. The bulk of funds can only be employed along with IMF programmes, although 30 percent can be activated without them. Nemoto said the region faces several risks, including a rise in debt levels of non-financial firms, noting some of their borrowings were in foreign currencies such as the U.S. dollar. He added, however, that this was mostly an issue of private debt resolution and not something that would immediately trigger a liquidity crisis in the region. (Reporting by Masayuki Kitano; Editing by Sam Holmes) Migrants wait to board buses at the Austrian-Hungarian border to a train station in the Austrian village of Nickelsdorf, on September 5, 2015 (AFP Photo/Joe Klamar) Vienna (AFP) - On the eve of a European Union summit to debate Europe's migrant crisis, Austria announced Wednesday a daily limit in the number of asylum requests and eastern EU members set a mid-March deadline for a plan agreed with Turkey to bear fruit. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, under intense pressure at home, meanwhile urged a "common stance" in the 28-nation bloc, arguing that the Turkey plan "offers a good solution". But a separate scheme to ease pressure on the migrant buildup on the EU's rim ran into problems after a planned mini-summit with Turkey was scrapped following a bomb attack in Ankara. The Austrian government announced it would set a daily cap of 80 claims of asylum in the country. It also said it would grant entry to a daily maximum of 3,200 people who were transiting Austria to seek asylum in a neighbouring country, effective Friday. The move came a day after Austria said it would step up border controls and several weeks after saying it aimed to slash the number of asylum claims this year to 37,500 from 90,000 in 2015. Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said Austria had no choice but to act, as there was no European solution yet in place. "Austria is among the EU countries most under strain and is reaching breaking point. It stands to reason to want to secure your own borders when there is no European solution," she said. In such a situation, she said it was important that every country through the Balkans -- the main route for migrants bound for northern Europe -- follow Austria's lead. Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said that nevertheless he still supported a deal proposed by Germany under which Turkey would seal its borders and then fly refugees to Europe. Then they would be settled under a quota system. At present the vast majority of migrants enter the EU through Greece and Italy, but most are able to continue their journeys to northern Europe. However, most EU countries have shown little enthusiasm for the plan, with the so-called Visegrad Four (V4) -- Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary -- openly defying Merkel. Story continues They have pledged to help Macedonia and Bulgaria close their borders with Greece, which would leave Athens with rapidly rising numbers of refugees while effectively excluding it from Europe's passport-free Schengen zone. - EU-Turkey talks cancelled - Speaking in Berlin earlier Wednesday, Merkel said "we will speak at the upcoming EU Council about how we can work together to protect our external border, and I want us to work together on the EU-Turkish agenda that 28 members have decided". Ahead of Thursday's full gathering of the EU's 28 members in Brussels, Merkel and Faymann had been due to host talks with nine other EU leaders and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. The meeting was to flesh out an idea for easing pressure on the migrant buildup by focussing on ways in which the 11 countries -- dubbed a "coalition of the willing" by the German media -- would resettle Syrian refugees who had fled to Turkey. But Davutoglu cancelled his trip following a bomb attack in Ankara on Wednesday that left more than two dozen dead, European diplomats and Council head Donald Tusk said. - Slovenian soldiers - Following Austria's announcement, the Slovenian government said Wednesday it had asked parliament to authorise the deployment of soldiers to its frontiers to help control the migrant flow. Last October, lawmakers in the country already approved legislation allowing the army to provide technical and logistic support. The centrist government of Prime Minister Miro Cerar now wants soldiers to be granted the same powers as police officers and help patrol its southern frontier with Croatia as of Monday. Overnight Croatia sent 217 Afghan, Syrian and Iraqi refugees back to Serbia for reasons that were not immediately clear, the UN refugee agency's spokeswoman said Wednesday. "They were returned by train late (Tuesday), pretty much starved and frightened, and most of them spent (the) night on a platform of railway station in Sid," a western Serbian town bordering Croatia, Mirjana Milenkovski told AFP. They were given the option of seeking asylum in Serbia or being sent back to their country of origin, she said, adding that otherwise they risked being treated as illegal migrants. By Paul Kilby NEW YORK, Feb 19 (IFR) - Bankers are awaiting an official mandate decision on a request for proposals sent by Panama, which could issue a bond soon if conditions permit, said two sources familiar with the issue. In an RFP sent earlier this year, the Central American sovereign asked for the "full gamut" of funding options in order to prepare for a benchmark-sized bond, one source said. Panama completed a series of non-deal roadshows in 2015 and Katyuska Correa de Jimenez, the country's head of public credit, told IFR in October that the government hoped to issue an up to US$1bn bond deal this year. Panama was last in the market in March 2015, when it issued a US$1.25bn 3.75% 2025 that priced at 98.857 to yield 3.889%, or Treasuries plus 178bp. Despite volatility in the broader markets, those bonds have been steadily tightening after yields hit a peak of around 4.21% on January 20, according to Thomson Reuters data. The securities were trading on Friday at around 99.75 to yield 3.84%, or 204bp over Treasuries. The investment grade-rated country should find a decent reception in a Latin American primary market only accessible to sovereigns and quasi-sovereign credits this year. This comes during a week when Fitch affirmed the country's BBB rating with a stable outlook. The rating agency said Friday it expects Panama to sustain growth rates above 6%, thanks to the completion of the Panama Canal expansion and related investments in infrastructure. "The economy is relatively well-positioned to adjust to tighter external financing conditions despite high financing needs," said Fitch, which noted that lower oil prices have helped shrink the current account deficit to single digits. And while general government debt has risen in recent years to around 38% of GDP in 2015, it is still below the 43% median on BBB sovereign credits, the rating agency said. But an approximately US$11bn actuarial deficit in the public pension system, and as other debts accrued at public entities, do pose risks. (Reporting by Paul Kilby; Editing by Marc Carnegie) bernie jane sanders Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders took the lead over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the first time Thursday in a national poll of Democratic primary voters. In the Fox News survey, Sanders captured 47% support among likely Democratic voters nationally. Clinton, who has long been the Democratic frontrunner, garnered 44%. Though Clinton's lead has shrunk significantly over the past several months, the Fox News poll is the first to show the senator ahead outright. However, it presented a divergent result from other recent surveys. An NBC poll released Thursday evening showed Clinton maintaining an 11-point lead over Sanders nationally. Still, that represented a 14-point swing from when the same poll was conducted last month, before Sanders' double-digit New Hampshire primary win. Both polls come just two days before Saturday's Nevada caucuses, where the few available public polls show the two candidates virtually neck-and-neck. Once considered a "firewall" for Clinton, Nevada has become a key battleground, as both candidates have rolled out campaign surrogates to woo interest groups like Latino voters and immigration activists. Sanders has bombarded the state with ads and redeployed key campaign staff to the state in an attempt to make up ground against Clinton's team, which has been operating in state since April. NOW WATCH: John Kasich is surging in New Hampshire, according to a new poll More From Business Insider Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, takes his seat to speak at the Fortune's Most Powerful Women's Summit in Washington October 13, 2015. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque By Jonathan Stempel (Reuters) - Standard & Poor's on Friday left its "AA" credit ratings for Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N) alone, saying the company's growing diversification and "modest" financial risks meant a downgrade was not necessary. Berkshire had been put on review for a possible downgrade on Aug. 11, on concern about Buffett's decision to deploy a large amount of cash toward last month's $32 billion acquisition of industrial parts maker Precision Castparts Corp. But S&P analyst Laline Carvalho said Berkshire's "consistently strong" operating profitability and "exceptional" liquidity, plus the significant cash flow from its roughly 90 operating units, justify the "AA" rating, S&P's third highest. S&P also affirmed Berkshire's "A-1+" short-term credit ratings, the highest possible, and its ratings for several insurance units, including Geico and General Re. It also raised its ratings for Berkshire's BNSF railroad. The agency also said it now analyzes Berkshire as a "corporate conglomerate" rather than as an "insurance holding company," reflecting the growing importance of non-insurance businesses. It has a "stable" outlook for Berkshire's ratings. "Berkshire has demonstrated the financial flexibility to generate cash from many of its operating businesses, and is not reliant as much on its insurance units as we had thought," Carvalho said in an interview. Downgrades could have boosted Berkshire's borrowing costs. In recent years, Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire has diversified through big purchases such as Precision Castparts, BNSF, chemical company Lubrizol and Nevada utility NV Energy. It also owns nearly 27 percent of Kraft Heinz Co (KHC.O), which was created last year when Kraft Foods Group and H.J. Heinz Co merged. Berkshire bought about half of Heinz in 2013. Buffett has said that excluding Kraft Heinz, Berkshire owns 10 companies large enough to be in the Fortune 500 if they were independent. While insurance units now account for only about a quarter of overall results, they help Buffett fund acquisitions and investments by providing large amounts of "float," or the amount of premiums held before claims are paid. Story continues Insurance float totaled $86.2 billion as of Sept. 30. Berkshire ended September with $66.26 billion of cash. Buffett has said he would spend $23 billion on Precision Castparts and finance the rest. He prefers keeping a large cushion for big insurance claims. Berkshire held "triple-A" grades from all three major U.S. credit rating agencies as recently as 2009. In afternoon trading, Berkshire's Class A shares were up $820, or 0.4 percent, at $196,845. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Bernard Orr) A woman walks under a logo of Toyota Motor Corp at the company's showroom in Tokyo, Japan, August 4, 2015. REUTERS/Yuya Shino/Files TOKYO (Reuters) - Canada's transport ministry said it had found a potential seat-related defect in one of Toyota Motor Corp's popular models after a fatal crash that led to a global recall of nearly 3 million vehicles by the world's top-selling automaker. In a statement on Thursday, Transport Canada said it had discovered that in a severe front-impact crash, rear seatbelts could sever after coming in contact with steel parts from seat frames, failing to restrain passengers. The ministry said it made the discovery after reconstructing a crash involving a 2011 RAV4 in Canada in which the front occupants survived, but the rear passengers did not. Toyota said it was aware of the finding, along with a separate report from the U.S. market in which a rear seat passenger sustained injuries due to a severed seatbelt following a crash, while adding that it had not been able to confirm a connection with injuries or fatalities. The automaker earlier announced that it was recalling 2.87 million vehicles, including 1.3 million RAV4s in North America, along with around 625,000 vehicles in Europe, 434,000 vehicles in China, and 307,000 in other regions. Toyota also recalled 177,000 vehicles in Japan, including RAV4s and its Vanguard SUV model for the domestic market. It said it would add resin covers to the metal seat cushion frames of recalled vehicles. The RAV4 is one of Toyota's top-selling models in North America, and was the No. 8 best-selling vehicle in the United States in 2015, according to Autodata. (Reporting by Naomi Tajitsu; Editing by Miral Fahmy) Taiwan Dollar Continues to Weaken, Commodity Currencies Rise (Continued from Prior Part) Commodity currencies rose by nearly 1% Major commodity currencies like the Australian dollar and Canadian dollar were on a positive trajectory on February 17, 2016. The Australian dollar-US dollar currency pair is directly related to the Australian dollar. It rose by 0.86%. The US dollar-Canadian dollar currency pair is inversely related to the Canadian dollar. It fell by 1.3% after crude prices started gathering upward momentum. OPEC countries look to limit production OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries), led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, agreed to limit the oil output. This caused crude oil prices to rise. OPEC also put pressure on member countries Iran and Iraq to limit their production. Iran replied to OPECs pressure by saying that its willing to curb production but not at the current levels. Iran will be ready to curb production after it makes up for the loss due to US sanctions. Iranian officials supported the move to put a ceiling on the production to stabilize oil prices. There was a huge rise of over 5% in the crude oil prices. Impact on the market The iShares MSCI Australia ETF (EWA) was trading on a positive bias on February 17, 2016. It rose by 1.6%. The Canadian ETF also traded on a similar bias. The iShares MSCI Canada ETF (EWC) rose by 4.0%. The United States Oil Fund (USO) rose by 5.7% after the rise in crude oil prices. Canadian banking ADRs (American Depository Receipts) trading in US markets were also on a positive trajectory on February 17, 2016. The Bank of Montreal (BMO) and Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) rose by 3.4%. Australian banking ADR Westpac Banking (WBK) was also on a positive trajectory. It rose by 3.1%. Browse this series on Market Realist: Brussels (AFP) - British Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday appeared to close in on a reform deal to keep his country in the EU after two days and nights of haggling with European leaders at a Brussels summit. Cameron's 27 counterparts have dug in their heels at the meeting, leading to marathon negotiations over changes that he wants to put before the British public in a referendum in June. But after a day of repeated delays and frantic meetings involving leaders including Germany's Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande of France, a draft agreement was finally expected to go before the leaders. Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said the draft was "definitely grounds for a deal." "The main points of the draft are a compromise, so everyone has to have given a little something," Muscat told reporters. Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, one of four Eastern European states that have objected to Cameron's calls for limits to welfare benefits for EU migrants, was also optimistic. He said his final talks with EU president Donald Tusk "confirmed that the draft agreement with Britain is finally on the way." A British official told AFP they had not seen the draft yet but were "expecting something shortly." The talks that started on Thursday afternoon have dragged on for more than 30 hours as Cameron cajoled his fellow leaders into supporting a deal. An "English breakfast" to start Friday's meeting of all 28 leaders was delayed to become first an "English lunch" then an "English dinner" as Tusk struggled to broker an agreement. - 'I'll do what is needed' - The delays forced Cameron to put on ice his plans to fly to London, hold an emergency cabinet meeting with ministers and announce the date of a referendum on Britain's membership of the bloc. "Negotiations are continuing into this evening. A cabinet meeting won't be possible tonight. One will be held if and when a deal is done," the British leader wrote on Twitter. Story continues French President Hollande said he would do what was needed to keep Britain in the 28-nation club, which is already struggling with the migration crisis, but warned again that it would not come at any cost. "I'll do what is needed to keep the United Kingdom in Europe, but on condition that Europe can still move forward," he told French radio. Hollande said non-euro Britain could have its own rules to regulate the City of London financial centre but that must not mean it also gets a veto over closer integration in the single currency bloc. The other key hurdle for Cameron is eastern European countries fighting his plans to limit benefits for EU migrants which they say are discriminatory. Brussels has offered an "emergency brake" which Britain could invoke for a limited period -- still to be defined -- if its welfare system is overwhelmed by the inflow of workers, as it believes it has been. Cameron has said that without a satisfactory agreement, he will not campaign for Britain to stay in the EU in a referendum that he is expected to hold as early as June. Under pressure from eurosceptics in his Conservative Party and an anti-EU popular press, Cameron wants sweeping reforms to the EU which he hopes will stop Britain from becoming the first nation to leave the bloc. On day one of the meeting Thursday, Cameron urged his fellow EU leaders to reach a "credible" reform deal. He added that the issue "has been allowed to fester for too long" and there was now a chance "to settle this issue for a generation". - 'Autodestruction' - Some European leaders warned Friday that Cameron's dramatic approach may not pay dividends. "The method 'I tell you what you have to give me so that I will stay here' is not working. (You) have to compromise," said European Parliament President Martin Schulz. Some nations also used tensions over the so-called "Brexit" threat to push their own demands. A Greek government source said it wanted EU countries to promise to keep their borders open, despite Europe's refugee crisis, until a summit planned on March 6 -- or it would refuse to adopt a British deal. Meanwhile, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, who has pushed back against Cameron's calls for an exemption from the EU's goal of "ever closer union", said there would be an "auto-destruction" clause to prevent other countries from capitalising on any British deal to pursue their own reforms. UN soldiers patrol in the northern Malian city of Kidal on July 27, 2013 (AFP Photo/Kenzo Tribouillard) Bamako (AFP) - Six UN peacekeepers were killed and some 30 wounded on Friday when suspected Islamists attacked their base in northern Mali, officials said, while three Malian soldiers died in an ambush as jihadists intensify attacks in the restive region. The six Guinean peacekeepers were killed in an early morning assault on a camp in the northeastern town of Kidal belonging to the United Nations' MINUSMA, according to a Guinean source in the mission and a military source in Conakry. Malian Islamist group Ansar Dine, responsible for several previous assaults, claimed the attack by a "Mauritanian jihadist" as "a message to the crusader aggressors and all those who support them" in a statement carried by a Mauritanian news agency. The latest attacks highlighted the vulnerability of Mali's sprawling, arid north, where UN troops and Malian soldiers are struggling in their fight against jihadists who seized vast swathes of territory in 2012. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the "massive and complex" attack on the MINUSMA base, warning that targeting peacekeepers constituted a war crime and pledging to support the Malian government. Suicide bombers drove a vehicle into the base between two rocket launches, then blew it up, the Guinean source in the UN mission said. The raid coincided with a visit to northern Mali by the new chief of MINUSMA, Mahamat Saleh Annadif, who said the raid was an "odious and irresponsible act" that highlighted the "confusion in the ranks of the enemies of peace". Annadif was in Kidal a week after a peace pact eased tensions in the town, where the arrival of members of a pro-government group early in February had upset the former rebels in the Coordination of Movements of the Azawad. Azawad is the name the traditionally nomadic Tuareg people of the desert use for territory they regard as their homeland, straddling the southern Sahara and the Sahel. Story continues - Timbuktu attack - In a separate attack, three Malian soldiers were killed and two others were wounded near the fabled city of Timbuktu, a Malian military source said. "Three of our men died today between Timbuktu and Goundam when they were ambushed by jihadists," a Malian officer told AFP. "Two others were wounded but their lives are not in danger." The defence ministry confirmed what it said was a "cowardly" strike. Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita said there was a pressing need to secure the north. "We have to find a solution to this," he said. "Kidal cannot remain like this... where attacks occur on a daily basis and the international community and we ourselves look on." On Thursday, a customs officer and two civilians were killed in another Islamist strike in the northern town of Hombori, two days after three Malian soldiers died in an explosion while they were patrolling the frontier near Burkina Faso. The latest attack came a week after at least four suspected jihadists and a Malian soldier were killed in clashes at a UN camp for police officers from Nigeria in Timbuktu. It was also a day after the fabled city had celebrated the restoration of its greatest treasures -- earthen mausoleums dating to medieval times that were destroyed during an Islamist takeover in 2012. Responsibility for the raid on Timbuktu was claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Mali's north of the country continues to be beset by violence having fallen under the control of Tuareg-led rebels and jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in 2012. The Islamists sidelined the Tuareg to take sole control, and although they were largely ousted by a French-led military operation in January 2013, extremist groups still pose a threat. * Cheniere's first cargo to ship late Feb/March * Deals stall as lower prices anticipated By Sarah McFarlane LONDON, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Asian spot prices for liquefied natural gas (LNG) continued to slide this week, as weak demand gave little support, with more supply on the horizon. LNG prices for April delivery in Asia eased to $4.80 per million British thermal units (mmBtu), down 10 cents from the previous week, erasing gains made after disruptions to Russian exports earlier this month. Traders said Russia's Sakhalin project was on track to resume exporting regular volumes in March. At the same time, exports from new projects in Australia and the United States are expected to add to the glut in global supply, keeping downward pressure on prices and making buyers reluctant to purchase beyond their immediate needs. "It's just going to come off ... We haven't even seen the volumes from the U.S. and Australia come yet," said one trader. Earlier on Friday U.S. company Cheniere Energy reiterated that the commissioning cargo from its Sabine Pass terminal on the Gulf Coast was expected to be shipped late February, or March. There were limited trading opportunities in the Atlantic Basin, particularly for reloads, as prices were converging with the Asian market. "Reloads don't work that well in the Atlantic at the moment so it's relatively quiet in terms of deals being done ... there's a lack of price difference," a ship broker said. On the demand side, the market was knocked by developments including delays to long-term supply deals and the cancellation of a buy tender. Top Thai energy firm PTT Pcl is looking to delay its plans for long-term LNG purchases from Royal Dutch Shell and BP given the availability of cheaper spot supplies. Meanwhile Pakistan scrapped a five-cargo tender for March/April delivery after closing a 15-year deal to import up to 3.75 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas a year from Qatar starting in March. It was not clear whether Taiwan's CPC awarded its tender to buy 60 cargoes over five years, with traders saying discussions were ongoing. Story continues Results for a Gail India tender for two cargoes for March delivery and one for April are expected later this month, traders said. Argentina was expected to tender in the coming months for supply although traders said the exact timing was unclear. "There's some talk about them tendering, they need to fill up some volumes but I think they'll wait a bit. They'll take their time," said a trader. (Editing by David Evans) The neon Google sign in the foyer of Google's new Canadian engineering headquarters in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario January 14, 2016. REUTERS/Peter Power/Files By Toby Sterling and Tom Bergin AMSTERDAM/LONDON (Reuters) - Google moved 10.7 billion euros ($12 billion) through the Netherlands to Bermuda in 2014, as part of a structure which allows it to earn most of its foreign income tax free. Accounts for Google Netherlands Holdings BV published on Thursday show the unit transferred almost all its revenue, mainly royalties from an Irish affiliate through which most non-U.S. revenue is channelled, to a Bermuda-based, Irish-registered affiliate called Google Ireland Holdings. The tax strategy is known to accountants as the "double Irish, Dutch Sandwich'. It allows Google, now part of holding company Alphabet Inc, to avoid triggering U.S. income taxes or European withholding taxes on the funds, which represent the bulk of the group's overseas profits. A Google spokesman said the company follows the tax rules in all the countries where it operates. The decade-old arrangement allowed Alphabet to enjoy an effective tax rate of just 6 percent on its non-U.S. profits last year, around a quarter the average tax rate in its overseas markets. Bermuda charges companies no income tax. Corporate tax avoidance has risen to the top of the political agenda in European in recent years and Google in particular has been under pressure for the low tax it pays on profits generated from sales in the continent. Last week Google was called to testify to a UK parliamentary committee about a 130 million pounds ($186 million) back tax bill, agreed with the British tax authority in January, that the Opposition Labour party described as "derisory". The deal brought Googles total British tax bill for 2005 to 2015 to around 200 million pounds, whereas its UK revenue amounted to 24 billion pounds. Google Netherlands Holdings NV, which has no employees, had a Dutch tax bill of just 2.8 million euros, its accounts showed. ($1 = 0.9014 euros) ($1 = 0.7008 pounds) (Reporting by Toby Sterling in Amsterdam and Tom Bergin in London; Editing by David Holmes) A Boeing 737 MAX sits outside the hangar during a media tour of the Boeing 737 MAX at the Boeing plant in Renton, Washington December 8, 2015. REUTERS/Matt Mills McKnight By Tim Hepher SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Aircraft engine makers are placing bets that could reshape their industry for decades as Boeing weighs a novel design for an airplane with 240-250 seats - a neglected area of the jet market. The plane is designed to fill a slender gap between narrow-body jets, which typically have 150-200 seats, and intercontinental planes with 250 or more. Competition to get onboard would usually be a skirmish for the big engine makers. But technological bets and partnerships on that plane could reshape the engine industry for the next two decades and influence who has the upper hand when Airbus and Boeing come to renew the main part of their fleets in 15 years. "This could well determine what happens in the next round of the great engine restructuring game," said aerospace consultant Richard Aboulafia. Boeing aims to broadly replace its 757 model, a top-end narrow-body jet with a single aisle. The new model would try to rewrite airplane economics by being wide enough for two aisles to seat seven people in each row, but able to produce the skintight margins of a smaller single-aisle six-abreast plane like the workhorse Boeing 737 and Airbus A320. Airbus calls the project a bluff and says it reflects Boeing's frustration at losing market share to its A321. One of the designs on Boeing's drawing board is an unusually oval-shaped cross-section, rather than a rounder shape typical of most designs. It strips away unneeded cargo space and would potentially be made of weight-saving carbon-composite, industry sources say. It would also need a new engine that could cost $5-6 billion to develop. That comes at a time when engine makers are split over the latest engine technology and marking time in the shifting alliances between General Electric (GE.N), Rolls-Royce (RR.L) and Pratt & Whitney (UTX.N). Pratt & Whitney, elbowed out of the commercial market by Rolls and GE in the 1990s, is on the rise again with a geared turbofan design that went into service last month. Story continues Its engines power half of Airbus's newest small jets, but it has been years since it was selected by Boeing. The new president of Pratt & Whitney, Robert Leduc, believes the mid-market idea is attractive. "It is for me because I want to get back on a Boeing airplane," he told Reuters at the Singapore Airshow. Britain's Rolls-Royce is also studying the plane. It recently abandoned a venture with Pratt in small jets to focus on wide-body aircraft. Industry sources say it is regretting the decision, because the narrow-body market is growing at record speed. Pratt is meanwhile hungry to return to the market for larger jets. SORRY, IT'S OVER With both companies facing pressures, Boeing's design offers an opportunity to break out of the current box - Rolls in big engines, Pratt in small ones - without shouldering all risk. That has triggered speculation that something like their former venture, International Aero Engines (IAE), could be revived. But Pratt is reluctant to rush back into the arms of Rolls-Royce, with whom it occasionally clashed inside IAE. This week, the U.S. company that powered Amelia Earhart, sketched out a more independent strategy. Asked whether Pratt could revive co-operation with Rolls on Boeing's study, Leduc told Reuters: "There is no room left... They made their decision and we had to move forward." Asked if the UK manufacturer could buy its way back onboard, his message was firmer: "They could always be a financial investor, but there would be nothing for them to make." To press the point that Pratt now sees itself as a standalone force, he pronounced as dead a separate alliance with GE on the A380 superjumbo. "I'd say pretty much yes, I'd say the A380 is won and done," he told Reuters, asked if the venture had run its course. The remarks reflect Pratt's conviction that it has invested in technology and earned an independent place at the top table. But it also has an interest in seizing the opportunity presented by Boeing quickly to maximize its advantage. "It is a negotiating position," an air show delegate said. In reality, analysts say, Pratt's options depend on how its geared turbofan performs. The technology aims to increase efficiency but critics say it adds complexity. Early signs are mixed. Qatar Airways threatened this week to cancel an order due to technical glitches. WAIT AND SEE Rolls-Royce has not ruled out working with Pratt on the new jet, a testbed for technology that could reopen the door to the narrow-body market in time for the next new designs in 2030. "We are not closing any door but we are not active on any door. We are kind of neutral and it is more 'wait and see' on where this market is going," Eric Schulz, president of civil aerospace, told Reuters. Sitting back with the least interest in upsetting the status quo is GE, the world's largest engine manufacturer, which is strong in both small and large markets. Industry analysts nonetheless speculate GE is working on the new geared engines, but GE is not showing its hand. GE has a "roadmap of technologies, including advanced materials and designs, to position us for new engine opportunities," a spokeswoman said. Boeing's idea is not without risks. Building a new engine could cannibalize existing sales. GE has the biggest share of all, Pratt is doing well out of the A321 and Rolls-Royce could see some wide-body business affected. But after busting budgets on ambitious designs in the past decade, planemakers have little fresh on their drawing boards, and few suppliers can afford to stay out of the next round. "It is better to cannibalize your own market than have someone do it for you," Aboulafia said. (Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Neil Fullick) A worker walks past a pump jack on an oil field owned by Bashneft company near the village of Nikolo-Berezovka, northwest from Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia, in this January 28, 2015 file photo. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin/Files By Olesya Astakhova KRASNOYARSK, Russia (Reuters) - The global oil market is over-supplied by around 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd), but that glut could be halved if a deal to freeze oil production at last month's levels takes effect, a top Russian energy official said on Friday. Leading OPEC member Saudi Arabia, non-OPEC member Russia, Qatar and Venezuela this week agreed to freeze output at January levels if others joined in. Iran welcomed the move but stopped short of pledging to act itself and it is unclear whether the freeze will actually happen. "If the agreement is properly fulfilled and it definitively enters into force then around half of that excess supply may be removed from the market," Alexey Texler, Russia's first deputy energy minister, told reporters in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. "Even without Iran there will be an effect from the agreement. But Iran ... might also be interested in such a deal," he said, noting Tehran had a choice of increasing output at a time of falling prices, or joining the production freeze and potentially getting a higher price for current volumes. "We are optimistic," he added. Russia and OPEC were both pumping oil at near record volumes last month, with Russia reaching another post-Soviet high of 10.88 million bpd. "We are talking about freezing January production levels. It would be higher than the annual average for 2015 by around 1.5 percent," Texler said. Oil production in Russia last year averaged 10.72 million bpd. OTHER COUNTRIES The first mooted global oil pact in 15 years will depend on other producers, but it remains unclear which other countries need to sign up for the deal to be implemented. Asked if Russia will talk to the United States, Brazil, Mexico and Norway, Texler said: "Any country may join. But we are realists and, in general, we understand which countries it will be. Many of those you named, obviously, will not do that." He added that some producers, still, were uniting round the idea. Texler did not name them. Story continues "We consider such an agreement useful and necessary. It will allow us to forecast the output volumes of key market players, and such an agreement will allow to continue the market process of influencing expensive projects." The Russian oil industry would "move forward" at a price of $35-40 per barrel this year, Texler said. Earlier on Friday, he said that investment in the Russian energy sector was likely to be lower this year than in 2015. Brent crude is currently trading around $33.40 a barrel. (Writing by Denis Pinchuk and Katya Golubkova; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Mark Potter) LAS VEGAS, NV--(Marketwired - Feb 19, 2016) - Hemp, Inc.'s (OTC PINK: HEMP) wholly owned subsidiary, Industrial Hemp Manufacturing, LLC and the North Carolina Industrial Hemp Association (NCIHA) hosted an informational session in coordination with the Hemp Road Trip in the Spring Hope, North Carolina decortication facility on February 15, 2016. The Hemp Road Trip, the traveling grassroots campaign, has been raising awareness of hemp and was able to educate the farmers and other interested parties on the advantages of growing hemp in North Carolina and the uses of hemp. Representative Jeff Collins (Republican -- District 25, representing Franklin and Nash Counties, NC) was also in attendance. By hosting informational meetings and events such as this, Hemp, Inc. (OTC PINK: HEMP) is helping to pave the way by creating a future robust and prolific industrial hemp industry in North Carolina and ultimately creating hundreds of jobs and expanding Hemp, Inc.'s business interests within the state. Hemp, Inc. sees its multipurpose hemp processing plant as a beginning to the revitalization of the entire textile industry in the Southeastern region of the United States by using hemp textiles as opposed to the dying cotton industry. With hemp textiles made-in-America, we're able to be the driving force behind this new clean green agricultural and industrial revolution. "Even though we had severe weather conditions, we still had about 50 people in attendance who included farmers from as far south as Florida," said David Schmitt, COO of Industrial Hemp Manufacturing, LLC. "After an approximate 90-minute presentation from the North Carolina Industrial Hemp Association (NCIHA), we opened the session to questions and answers. The session was very educational to all in attendance. We concluded the event with a tour of our decortication facility." According to Schmitt, the majority of attendees were farmers specifically interested in growing hemp this year due to the reduced amount of tobacco they are able to grow. The farmers are in search of a new source of revenue. Many of the farmers looking to grow hemp in North Carolina were also able to garner more information on how NCIHA's newly formed NCIHC (the North Carolina Industrial Hemp Commission) can help the growing process. The North Carolina Industrial Hemp Association (NCIHA) is a 501(c6) trade organization responsible for the lobbying effort that helped pass S.B 313. NCIHA not only acts as the legislative arm for hemp in the state of North Carolina, but also acts as the center for hemp education and commerce in North Carolina. SUBSCRIBE TO HEMP, INC.'S VIDEO UPDATES "Hemp, Inc. Presents" is capturing the historic, monumental re-creation of the hemp decorticator today as America begins to evolve into a cleaner, green, eco-friendly sustainable environment. What many see as the next American Industrial Revolution is actually the Industrial Hemp Revolution. Join "Hemp, Inc. Presents" and join the hemp revolution. Watch as Hemp, Inc., the #1 leader in the industrial hemp industry, engages its shareholders and the public through each step in bringing back the hemp decorticator as described in the "Freedom Leaf Magazine" article "The Return of the Hemp Decorticator" by Steve Bloom. Freedom Leaf Magazine, a leading cannabis industry magazine is published by the public company, Freedom Leaf Magazine, Inc. "Hemp, Inc. Presents" is accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, by visiting www.hempincpresents.com. To subscribe to the "Hemp, Inc. Presents" YouTube channel, visit: http://www.hempincpresents.com. Subscribers will automatically get an email from YouTube every time a new Hemp, Inc. video update is posted along with suggestions of other similar videos. Stay up-to-date with the progress of Hemp, Inc.'s multipurpose industrial hemp processing plant while being educated on the industrial hemp industry. Our video update views are collectively reaching over a thousand views per week. Stay informed by subscribing to Hemp, Inc.'s video updates. Hemp, Inc. is positioning itself to be the avant-garde of the industrial hemp industry and processing industrial hemp. HEMP NATION MAGAZINE HempNationMagazine.com (HNM) is published by Hemp, Inc. and focuses on informing, educating, raising awareness and connecting the public to the powerful world of HEMP. HNM reports on Politics, Industrial Growth, Banking, Distribution, Medical, Lifestyles and Legalization. HNM is your source for all things HEMP and news about this emerging multi-billion dollar industry. For more information on HNM, visit www.HempNationMagazine.com. ABOUT INDUSTRIAL HEMP AND MEDICAL MARIJUANA CONSULTING COMPANY (IHMMCC) This lucrative division of Hemp, Inc. is once again picking up momentum. The Industrial Hemp and Medical Marijuana Consulting Company (IHMMCC) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hemp, Inc. that pulls industry information from a vast network of specialists. IHMMCC is entrenched primarily in all the multi-faceted opportunities of the Industrial Hemp industry while also maintaining professional contacts in the medical marijuana sector. As the country transitions to embrace more sustainable agricultural practices, public and private companies want to expand into the industrial hemp industry and consulting services from IHMMCC are helping them in leading the way. HEMP, INC.'S TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE Hemp, Inc. (OTC PINK: HEMP) seeks to benefit many constituencies from a "Cultural Creative" perspective, thereby not exploiting or endangering any group. CEO of Hemp, Inc., Bruce Perlowin, is positioning the company as a leader in the industrial hemp industry, with a social and environmental mission at its core. Thus, the publicly traded company believes in "up streaming" a portion of its profits back to its originator, in which some cases will one day be the American small farmer -- cultivating natural, sustainable products as an interwoven piece of nature. By Hemp, Inc. focusing on comprehensive investment results -- that is, with respect to performance along the interrelated dimensions of people, planet, and profits -- the triple bottom line approach can be an important tool to support its sustainability goal. SAFE HARBOR ACT Forward-Looking Statements are included within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements regarding our expected future financial position, results of operations, cash flows, financing plans, business strategy, products and services, competitive positions, growth opportunities, plans and objectives of management for future operations, including words such as "anticipate", "if", "believe", "plan", "estimate", "expect", "intend", "may", "could", "should", "will", and other similar expressions are forward-looking statements and involve risks, uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond our control, which may cause actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from anticipated results, performance, or achievements. We are under no obligation to (and expressly disclaim any such obligation to) update or alter our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Must-Know for Investors: Does Gold Have More Room to Run? (Continued from Prior Part) Global mine supply The latest data from the World Gold Council (or WGC) showed that the mine supply was down for the second consecutive quarter in 4Q15. Chinas domestic production was marginally down in 2015 as compared to 2014, mainly due to lower gold production as a byproduct of copper mining operations. Mine supply declines Other declines occurred at the worlds largest mines, including the Yanacocha mine, owned by Newmont Mining (NEM) and Buenaventura (BVN), and the Lagunas Norte mine, owned by Barrick Gold (ABX). The mechanical failure at Pueblo Viejo and the transition to lower grades at Oyu Tolgoi in Mongolia also led to a year-over-year decline in gold production. Exploration spending has declined over the last year. Lower gold prices were the main reason for the gold miners (GDX) to cut exploration spending. If the current uptrend in gold prices is sustained, gold miners might accelerate exploration spending. However, the lower grades are still expected to decline, necessitating still higher gold prices to mine the same number of ounces of gold. Mine supply and gold prices Over the long term, a consistent reduction in exploration spending and declining reserves could lead to a reduced mine supply. While the mine supply forms a small percentage (~1.5%) of the overall available gold supply above ground, its an important source of incremental gold supply, as its the only real swing variable in overall total supply dynamics. Any impact on the mine supply over the long term could push gold prices higher. Agnico-Eagle Mines (AEM) and Yamana Gold (AUY) form 5.6% and 2.9%, respectively, of the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETFs (GDX) holdings. The SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD) and the iShares Gold Trust ETF (IAU), on the other hand, provide exposure to physical gold prices. Continue to Next Part Browse this series on Market Realist: Warsaw (AFP) - Solidarity freedom hero Lech Walesa was a paid secret agent who collaborated with Poland's communist regime, according to newly-found documents revealed Thursday -- triggering an angry denial from the man himself. Poland's first post-communist president has long insisted such allegations are "absurd" and a special vetting court cleared him in 2000. But rumours persist that he covertly fed the communist regime information while leading the freedom-fighting Solidarity, the Soviet bloc's only independent trade union. A newly-found secret police file contains "a collaboration agreement signed by Lech Walesa (codename) 'Bolek'," said Lukasz Kaminski, head of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) which prosecutes Nazi and communist era crime. Apparently dating from the 1970s, the documents also contain payment receipts signed by "Bolek", Kaminski told reporters in Warsaw Thursday. The IPN published a summary of its findings on its website. Walesa was quick to blast the allegation in a Thursday social media post saying: "There cannot be any materials written by me." The 72-year-old Nobel Peace laureate who as Solidarity leader in 1989 negotiated a bloodless end to communism in Poland also vowed to prove his innocence in court. The allegations against Walesa first surfaced in 1992, two years after he was elected president. It was then that former interior minister and current Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz published a list of 60 suspected SB agents, including Walesa as "Bolek". Although Macierewicz and Jaroslaw Kaczynski -- the powerful head of the governing right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party -- worked with Walesa as dissidents during the communist era, they became his sworn enemies during Walesa's presidency. The new-found documents are from a cache the IPN recently seized from the home of the widow of Communist-era General Czeslaw Kiszczak. Story continues He helped orchestrate a brutal 1981 crackdown on the Solidarity movement and died last year. - False reports - Experts have consistently raised doubts about the credibility of communist-era secret police files, arguing they could easily have been manufactured to frame opposition activists like Walesa. But historian and former IPN chief Andrzej Paczkowski told reporters in Warsaw Thursday the new-found files could put an end to thecontroversy once and for all. "Up to now we've been in possession of photocopies... but if now we have the complete file of original documents, the matter will finally and definitively be closed," he said. IPN chief Kaminski confirmed that there are 279 documents in the file of an agent codenamed "Bolek", dated 1970-76. Experts believe the documents are authentic, but their contents still must be fully examined, he added. "There are many reports and records of meetings between secret policemen and the agent," he said, adding that some reports bore the "Bolek" signature. Communist-era dissident Krzysztof Wyszkowski told public broadcaster TVP on Thursday that he believed the secret police had roped Walesa into working with them, but quickly dropped him when they realised he was feeding them lies. "It's not Lech Walesa who quit working with the SB (secret police); the SB dropped him because he was making false reports," said Wyszkowski, a long-time Walesa critic. In January, Walesa had called for a public debate at the IPN so that he could take on his critics face-to-face and clear his name. But he later called off the debate amid conflict with the IPN, which said he had refused his critics the right to speak at the planned debate. Poles have mixed feelings about Walesa. His boldness in standing up to the communist regime is still widely respected, but the combative and divisive tone of his later presidency earned him scorn from many quarters. Libya's Prime Minister-designate Fayez al-Sarraj (L), seen on February 15, 2016 in the Moroccan resort of Skhirat, has been pushed to back a unity government by the UN (AFP Photo/STRINGER) (AFP/File) Benghazi (Libya) (AFP) - Libya's internationally recognised parliament decided Tuesday to postpone for seven days a vote on a government of national unity despite growing international concern over jihadist expansion. "One hundred and eighteen members of parliament met today and decided to give the government chief until Saturday to present his cabinet line-up" to MPs, parliamentarian Aicha al-Aqouri told AFP. "The new smaller government will then be submitted to a vote of confidence on Tuesday," she said. Another MP, Abou Bakr Baida, confirmed this timetable to AFP. International attempts to end the chaos in Libya took a step forward on Monday as the new national unity government was proposed to lawmakers. Approval of the 18-minister cabinet -- headed by prime minister-designate Fayez al-Sarraj -- would be a vital step in resolving Libya's political disarray, capping off months of difficult diplomacy. The so-called Presidency Council, tasked under the peace effort with forming the government, revised the line-up downwards after parliament rejected a 32-member cabinet as too large. The Presidency Council has nine members from the various Libyan factions and is led by Sarraj. Washington, Europe and many African countries hope the new administration, if confirmed by parliament, will restore a central government and end the chaos that has reigned in Libya since the fall of former dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011. It has also become an increasingly important haven for the Islamic State jihadist group just across the Mediterranean from Europe. Oil-rich Libya has had rival administrations since the summer of 2014. The internationally recognised government is based in the far east of the country, having fled Tripoli after a militia alliance including Islamists overran the capital in August that year. The alliance has established its own administration and parliament called the General National Congress. A vote on the revised cabinet line-up had initially been due on Monday evening, but parliament was adjourned as some MPs expressed displeasure at having to decide so quickly, knowing little about the proposed ministers. Story continues They asked that Sarraj appear before them before holding a vote of confidence on his cabinet. UN Libya envoy Martin Kobler has urged members of the House of Representatives (HoR) to stand behind the new administration. "The journey to peace and unity of the Libyan people has finally started," he wrote on Twitter. "It is crucial now that HoR endorses the government of national unity. It's a unique peace opportunity that must not be missed." Libya, a country of six million people, on Wednesday marks the fifth anniversary of the start of its 2011 revolution that toppled Kadhafi's regime. A sign is seen outside a branch of Lloyds Bank in central London October 28, 2014. REUTERS/Andrew Winning LONDON (Reuters) - Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY.L) said on Friday it expected to pay around 60 million pounds ($85.68 million) in insurance claims to households hit by flooding in Britain in December. The bank helped more than 10,000 households affected by Storms Desmond and Eva in Scotland and the North of England through its Lloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland insurance brands, it said in a statement. Direct Line (DLGD.L) has said it expects up to 140 million pounds in claims from customers across three UK winter storms in December and January - Desmond, Eva and Frank. Ageas (AGES.BR) said its fourth-quarter results were hit by the December storms, while the extreme UK weather also contributed to a fourth-quarter loss in general insurance at Zurich Insurance (ZURN.VX). The Association of British Insurers said the floods were likely to lead to 1.3 billion pounds in insurance pay-outs.bri (Reporting by Carolyn Cohn; editing by Simon Jessop) The logo of Bridgestone Corp is seen next to its new Playz tyre at the tyre's unveiling event in Tokyo, Japan, January 8, 2016. REUTERS/Toru Hanai/Files By Yuka Obayashi and Rajendra Jadhav TOKYO/MUMBAI (Reuters) - Fed up with rubber prices languishing at seven-year lows, Sunny Joseph, a farmer in Kerala, has uprooted his two-acre (0.8 hectare) rubber plantation to make way for a more lucrative crop. A similar trend among growers in Southeast Asia is alarming Japanese tyre makers and spurring them to seek new sources of supply away from traditional producers, amid fears that today's glut could turn to a shortage. Tyre makers in Japan and the United States have even been looking at extracting rubber from alternatives sources such as guayule, a desert shrub. "For three years I had been waiting for rubber prices to improve. Prices were so low that I cannot even pay workers wages, so I decided to shift to nutmeg," said Joseph. "It can easily give me a better return." Producers worry low prices will mean even farmers who stick with rubber could lack the funds to renew ageing plantations. Japan's big tyre makers account for nearly a quarter of global tyre sales and are major buyers of natural rubber, which is combined with synthetic rubber to give tyres better grip. Top growers Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia announced plans this month to curb exports by nearly 6 percent of global output, with Indonesia saying its output was set to fall as farmers dig up trees. "Japanese tyre makers have become increasingly worried about the future supply of natural rubber since (last) summer, as falling prices could push farmers out of business," said Shinichi Kato, president of rubber material dealer Shinichi Kato Office. "Tyre makers are trying to buy more rubber from countries with lower labour costs such as Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in case some producers at other countries with higher costs such as Thailand stop making rubber," he said. Yokohama Rubber Co Ltd, Japan's third-biggest tyre maker, started buying rubber from Myanmar in 2014, widening its supply sources to seven countries. "We've heard some rubber farmers in northern Sumatra island in Indonesia had shifted to palm oil trees due to sagging rubber prices. That made us worried," a company spokesman said. "We want to widen our procurement network beyond mainstay sources." Story continues Japanese trading firm Mitsui & Co said last year it planned to start rubber farming and processing in Cambodia, collaborating with a local firm, and sees low-cost producers like Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar emerging as key output centres. Bridgestone Corp, the world's top tyre maker by sales, aims to boost productivity at its company-owned farms in Indonesia and Liberia in west Africa through breed improvement and tree selection. Bridgestone is also trying to develop tyre grade rubber from guayule, which is native to Mexico and the southeastern United States. U.S.-listed Cooper Tire and Rubber Co is also investigating guayule, which it has said could ensure a stable natural rubber supply, reduce price volatility and lessen dependence on foreign suppliers. SUPPLIES TO TIGHTEN? Industry officials warn a slowdown in new plantations and tree replanting could tighten supplies from 2020 onwards, as rubber trees only become mature for tapping six to seven year after cultivation. "This will reduce supply, though demand has been rising from tyre makers," said Indian rubber dealer N. Radhakrishnan, a former president of the Cochin Rubber Merchants Association. Tyres consume about 60 percent of the global output of natural rubber. Rubber accounts for about 40 percent of tyre makers' costs and tumbling prices have boosted profits, although the industry is under pressure due to cheap product from China. Rubber futures in Singapore and Tokyo have tumbled more than two-thirds from record highs in 2011 to seven-year lows, due to slower economic growth in top buyer China. Tokyo prices, at around 150 yen ($1.28) a kilogram, are well below their 10-year monthly average of about 260 yen. The price plunge has already led to government support in Thailand, the world's top rubber producer, where farmers are demanding a guaranteed selling price and threatening protests. Malaysian rubber output fell 50 percent in the past two years and production has been stagnant in Thailand and Indonesia, according to the Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC). Farmers in these countries are turning towards oil palm cultivation, while growers in India, where production has fallen 28 percent over two years, are giving space to crops including banana and cocoa. Such crops can also be harvested more quickly after planting. "Smallholders are badly affected due to the price fall," said ANRPC secretary-general Sheela Thomas. "When it comes to replanting, these farmers have to think about survival. It is natural for them to shift towards crops they think will give better returns." ($1 = 117.3100 yen) (Reporting by Yuka Obayashi and Rajendra Jadhav; Editing by Richard Pullin) TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Feb 18, 2016) - Lundin Mining Corporation (LUN.TO)(OMX:LUMI) ("Lundin Mining" or the "Company") announces that the 2015 Annual Filings Document is available for download from the Company's website: http://www.lundinmining.com/s/FinancialStatements.asp. About Lundin Mining Lundin Mining Corporation ("Lundin", "Lundin Mining" or the "Company") is a diversified Canadian base metals mining company with operations in Chile, the USA, Portugal, and Sweden, primarily producing copper, nickel and zinc. In addition, Lundin Mining holds a 24% equity stake in the world-class Tenke Fungurume ("Tenke") copper/cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo ("DRC") and in the Freeport Cobalt Oy business ("Freeport Cobalt"), which includes a cobalt refinery located in Kokkola, Finland. On Behalf of the Board, Paul Conibear, President and CEO The information in this release is subject to the disclosure requirements of Lundin Mining under the Swedish Securities Market Act and/or the Swedish Financial Instruments Trading Act. This information was publicly communicated on February 18, 2016 at 6:15 p.m. Eastern Time. Skype Etiquette Microsoft is working on a program to hook up India's national identity system Aadhar with Skype, reports the Indian Express. In India, just as in the United States, there's only so much you can do when it comes to dealing with government agencies over the phone or e-mail. At a certain point, you have to go to City Hall (or whatever other municipal office) and show some kind of identification in order to get what you want. But if you could connect a national ID database to a video service like Skype, it cuts down on pesky travel time and waiting on lines. (It's also a little scary, privacy-wise, but we'll get to that.) The idea is to associate a person's Aadhar 12-digit identification code, almost like a Social Security Number, with their Skype account. Then, when the citizen dials in a video call to a government office, the public servant on the other end knows for sure that they're talking to the right person. Permits can be issued and business can be done, without anybody having to wait in line at the local equivalent of the DMV. But it also means that Microsoft has even more knowledge of your identity than ever before. It means there are some tricky ethical and legal questions that are still going to have to be answered before this catches on in the mainstream. On the Skype end, Microsoft President Brad Smith says in that report that this is still very much early days, but that fingerprint or facial scanners could be used to make sure that nobody is stealing your Skype account, and therefore your identity. Aadhar is a voluntary program, but as of the end of January, just under a billion Indian citizens had enrolled. With a population of about 1.3 billion, that's most of India on board. If this program is a success, and it eventually comes elsewhere, it could solve a lot of headaches for anyone who's ever had to wait in line at the DMV to fill out a form or go to City Hall to pay a bill. And at the very least, it has a lot of upside for people who don't want to take a day off work to go wait in line. Story continues NOW WATCH: A guy Skyped his parents while jumping out of a plane More From Business Insider WASHINGTON, DC--(Marketwired - February 18, 2016) - More than 300 security experts from around the globe gathered in Marrakesh, Morocco February 12-13 for the seventh annual Marrakesh Security Forum, hosted by the Moroccan Center for Strategic Studies (CMES) in partnership with the African Federation for Strategic Studies. Government officials, academics, think tank experts, journalists, and others from the United Nations, the European Union, the African Union, and other institutions and countries the world over -- including the US, Spain, France, Russia, China, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Senegal, the UAE, Turkey, Egypt, and Tunisia, to name a few -- participated in nine discussion sessions centered on the theme "Africa and the War against International Jihadism." Presentations addressed topics including terrorist funding; intelligence and shared security challenges; challenges to security and borders control in Africa; the emerging threats of cyber-terrorism, chemical and biological terrorism; strategies to manage the return of foreign terrorist fighters; and more. A framework document issued at the start of the conference noted that "10 African countries in total have had deadly bombings that caused five victims or more," and that "certain countries in 2015 have experienced their first attacks of wide scale." The document concluded that "the staggering increase of terrorist attacks is mainly the work of Boko Haram and to a lesser degree of Shabab." Over the course of the conference, there was consensus that military action alone will not be enough to stem the tide of terrorism as the number of extremist groups and attacks proliferates in Africa; that underlying socio-economic issues and border security must also be addressed; and that a key element is improved cooperation among international security services. One session was dedicated to the Moroccan model of fighting radicalization and violent extremism. A panel of speakers that included Dr. Ahmed Abbadi, Secretary General of the Rabita Mohammedia Oulemas; Mr. Driss El Yazami, President of Morocco's National Center for Human Rights; Mr. Nizar Baraka, President of Morocco's Economic, Social, and Environmental Council; and others discussed Morocco's multidimensional approach to the issue. This includes implementing economic development programs, strengthening human rights, and structuring Morocco's religious sphere to promote a moderate and tolerant version of Islam. "The fight against terrorism requires equal parts hard power and soft power, to fight both violence and the extremist ideologies that fuel it. That's why a year ago today the White House hosted its first Summit on Countering Violent Extremism," said former US Ambassador to Morocco Edward M. Gabriel. "Morocco is a leader when it comes to this multidimensional view of counterterrorism; and the Marrakesh Security Forum shows that it is willing to engage with us and the world as an active partner in this fight." The Moroccan American Center for Policy (MACP) is a non-profit organization whose principal mission is to inform opinion makers, government officials, and interested publics in the United States about political and social developments in Morocco and the role being played by the Kingdom of Morocco in broader strategic developments in North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. This material is distributed by the Moroccan American Center for Policy on behalf of the Government of Morocco. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC. Image Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2016/2/18/11G083537/Images/msf_logo_jpg-1a3805fcae3abc0491965380e7d73a62.jpg Could any two states be more different than Nevada and South Carolina? One is known for its Southern hospitality, tall trees, sub-tropical heat and its long and bloody history that goes back well before the Civil War. The other is known for its desert climates, legalized prostitution and gambling -- and a Western outpost built by gangsters and cowboys. These are two very different states, made up of very different types of people. And yet, these states with capitals more than 2,600 miles apart, share one big thing in common: Their combined 125,000 small business owners. Yes, these entrepreneurs share one other big thing in common. It is something that both the Democratic and Republican presidential hopefuls had better understand. That one thing is people. Ask any business owner what the most important asset is to their business, and the reply will almost always be their employees. You are only good as your people, youll hear them say. And theyre right. Companies are made up of people, and the most successful ones have the best people working for them. Small businesses struggle to find good people and then keep them motivated. They are in competition with larger companies offering more benefits. And business owners across the country struggle with training and developing skilled workers. In South Carolina, Nevada (and the rest of the country) the cost of hiring and keeping good people is becoming more and more prohibitive -- so much so that its become a significant issue to small business voters. And thats because the government, in recent years, has been hurting their efforts. The national rise in minimum wages is very much on their minds. This year, thirteen states will be increasing their minimum wages with another eight considering measures. Nevadas minimum wage is on the lower end at $8.25 per hour and South Carolina has no state mandated minimum wage. Will this change? The pressure is on. The cost of living in this part of the country is lower than other parts and a broad $15 per hour increase ignores this fact, says Kevin Pickens, President of Prime Line Digital, a South Carolina technology firm. His company has a unique program for training newly-graduated college students that starts at $10 per hour with the potential of much higher increases as the trainees progress. If minimum wage goes up to $15 per hour, it would kill this program, he says. Story continues Justin Ivory, the owner of a twenty-person steel manufacturing business in Nevada worries about workforce development. We are a non-union company that trains its own entry level employees and its hard to find experienced people, he says. Regulations that require paid time off, overtime and especially immigration reform impedes his business. The construction industry relies on immigration for workers and we need a real (immigration) process that allows us to fulfill our positions, not just an executive order. South Carolinas poverty rate is among the worst in the country, posing challenges to employers there to find good, skilled workers and compete with the larger companies that do. "We have significant job gaps, and we must move quickly to fill them or the projected job growth won't occur because there won't be an available workforce to fill them," said Mary Graham of the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce And of course, theres healthcare. I would like to provide health insurance to my employees, says Brock Ohlson, a lawyer and Certified Public Accountant in Las Vegas, but its just too expensive which makes it impractical. Healthcare expenses rank highest amongst the top of concerns for small businesses in both states. Both Nevada and South Carolina businesses are looking at 10% and 14% increases in their health insurance rates respectively in 2016. Kristin McMillan, who runs the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce, sees this a lot. While proposals such as raising the minimum wage or mandating businesses provide health insurance may win political points, they can be very costly to small businesses and impede their ability and desire to create jobs, she says. McMillan is also concerned about the quality of the states future workforce. She believes that in order to innovate and grow they need more skilled employees, particularly in the STEM disciplines. The business owners in both states face people issues that are common to so many others around the country. Even though many are still feeling successful, according to a study conducted at the end of last year by The Hartford, 64% have not hired new employees in the past 12 months, stating reasons from cant afford it to not growing to concerned about healthcare costs. What can the candidates do? Its obvious that small business owners are pleading for less regulations when it comes to their employees. And more investment wouldnt hurt. Nevada was hit hard by the last recession, and its effects stung many small businesses there. But Las Vegas has recovered and construction is booming. Its different in South Carolina, where there has always been a greater struggle with higher levels of poverty than the rest of the country. Andy Brack, the editor and publisher of the Charleston Current, laments that many small business jobs are low-wage, low-skilled and not upwardly mobile. More incentives are needed to bring in larger companies in order to grow their economy and attract better workers, he wrote - like the recent announcement by a European company that it would expand operations in one county with a $230 million investment. It was a win-win because it was outside investment and community development of an existing industry. All business, whether big or small, matters. Its frustrating to see business demonized, said Margaret Cavin of J&J Mechanical in Sparks, Nevada. Were the ones creating jobs and taking the risks. Related Articles Warsaw (AFP) - Poland's former president and Solidarity union leader Lech Walesa on Wednesday fought back renewed allegations that he was an agent for the Soviet era communist police. "You can't change the facts with your lies, allegations and counterfeits," wrote the 72-year-old Nobel Peace laureate who founded the Solidarity movement in 1980 that brought an end to communism in Poland. The blog was in response to a statement from Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), which is in charge of investigating Nazi and communist-era crimes. The IPN said it had on Tuesday acquired a handwritten piece of paper from 1974 recounting a conversation between a Polish secret police (SB) official and secret agent "Bolek". Certain historians and politicians have over the years attributed the codename to Walesa -- Poland's first post-communism era president -- though the IPN did not weigh in on the allegations and disclosed no further details. In 1992, former interior minister and current Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz published a list of 60 suspected SB agents, including Walesa as "Bolek". Walesa -- who served as Poland's president from 1990 to 1995 -- has always said that any accusations of collaboration are "absurd" and a special vetting court cleared him in 2000. But the rumours persist. The IPN said it had seized the document and others from the home of the widow of Communist-era General Czeslaw Kiszczak, who helped orchestrate a brutal 1981 crackdown on the pro-freedom Solidarity movement. He died last year. The IPN said the widow had offered to sell them the documents, but deciding they were held "illegally" the institute seized them through a police search of the home. In January, Walesa had called for a public debate at the institute so that he could take on his critics face-to-face and clear his name. But he later called off the debate amid conflict with the IPN, which said he had refused his critics the right to speak at the planned debate. Crowdfunding has democratised investing and made it more efficient. But the landscape has evolved significantly. Once dominated by pla... South Carolinas military community is a major force for the states economy and way of life. It is home to eight military installations employing more than 100,000 personnel and stimulates the economy with $19.3 billion annually, according to a report from the University of South Carolina. Military issues will play a key role for voters in the Palmetto state leading up to the first-in-the-South Republican primary on Saturday. When asked which issue mattered most to them in the presidential race, 41% of South Carolina voters said defeating ISIS and terrorism was their top concern, according to the Emerson College Polling Society. Veterans in South Carolina make up 11% of the voting-age population, which totals more than 391,000 people, according to Census data. The military vote is important in South Carolina but what difference it will make in the primary is very difficult to say. All the Republican candidates are really trying to outdo themselves in terms of making the case that they would be the strongest in building up the defense budget and fighting against ISIS, said Robert Oldendick, political science professor at the University of South Carolina. I think that Donald Trump gets some support in terms of his overall campaign and how strong he would be. In fact in a recent Fox News poll, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump ranks first place among veteran Republican primary voters with 37%. Texas Senator Ted Cruz is in second place with 22% and Florida Senator Marco Rubio rounds out the top three with 15%. Oldendick says Trumps tough talk such as vowing to cut the heads off ISIS members and ability to show leadership has been working to his advantage. In a CNN/ORC poll, the real estate mogul has 44% support from voters who believe he is best to handle the war on terror against ISIS. On Wednesday during a Trump rally in South Carolina, Thomas Andrews, a veteran that served two tours in Iraq was called up on stage after breaking up a fight with a protester. Standing next to Mr. Trump he told the crowd, This is the only man thats going to really bring America back - he understands what it means for me and my people out here, who have been to war, said Andrews. Story continues Its not the first time the billionaire businessman is making an appeal to veterans. In January, he held a veterans fundraiser in Iowa instead of attending the Fox News Republican primary debate. Trump announced his event raised $6 million for veterans. That make America strong again militarily and economically message is resonating even though there is no political track record to go on obviously. Trump has said look, I am extremely successful, I know what Im doing, I can take what I know about business and apply it in politics and people at this point are willing to give it chance, said Oldendick. Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who has been rising in recent South Carolina polls, is also working hard for the military vote. With a day left before the South Carolina primary, Rubio hit the campaign trail with U.S. Army veteran Sean Parnell, who served in Afghanistan and authored the book, Outlaw Platoon. In Afghanistan we faced annihilation pretty much every day and because we were unified we were able to make it through. I think Marco Rubio has that unifying voice, that message of hope that the country needs right now, said Parnell. He says Rubio has proved his commitment to the military with the Department of Veteran Affairs Accountability Act of 2014, a bill he wrote and got passed with bi-partisan support. This act helps veterans by giving the VA secretary the authority to fire employees who are not performing their jobs, therefore creating the most effective team to treat and respond to veterans needs with accountability. This was during the time of the Veteran Affairs scandal in Phoenix which exposed veterans dying while they waited for treatment. Senator Rubios actions did a lot of good for veterans, said Parnell. Rubio and Parnell split the day campaigning together in Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina on Friday. He says veterans in the Palmetto state have expressed their excitement about Rubios message in strengthening the military. When he talks about the military, he is saying we have a moral obligation to win the war we get involved in. Otherwise you have an entire generation of veterans wondering what it was all for, said Parnell. Anybody that has any interest in strengthening our military and putting veterans healthcare benefits before bureaucracy should be supporting Marco Rubio, he added. Oldendick says Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has also been promoting his endorsements from high-ranking former military personnel in addition to tag teaming the campaign trail with his brother, former President George W. Bush. Jeb Bush has been running ads down here for a couple weeks now with several generals and military officers, saying he is ready on day one to be president. Obviously all the candidates recognize it is important and have been trying to do different things to get that support, said Oldendick. According to a 2012 Fox News South Carolina GOP Primary Exit Poll, 21% of voters served in the U.S. military. South Carolina Republican primary voters head to the polls on Saturday, February 20. Related Articles T. Rowe Price Equity Income (PRFDX) provides substantial dividend income as well as long-term capital appreciation through investments in common stocks of established companies. PRFDX invests the majority of its net assets in common stocks, with 65% in the common stocks of well-established companies paying above-average dividends, with favorable prospects for both increasing dividends and capital appreciation. This Large Value fund, as of the last filing, allocates their fund in three major groups; Large Value, Intermediate Bond, Precious Metal. Further, as of the last filing, GENERAL ELECTRIC CO, JPMORGAN CHASE & CO and WELLS FARGO & CO were the top holdings for PRFDX. The T. Rowe Price Equity Income fund, managed by T. Rowe Price , carries an expense ratio of 0.66. PRFDX has a history of strong positive total returns for over 10 years. Specifically, the funds returns over the 3, 5 year benchmarks; 3 year 10.7% and 5 year 10.91%. To see how this fund performed compared in its category, please click here. PRFDXs performance, as of the last filing, when compared to funds in its category was in the top 56% over the past 3 years and in the 46% over the past 5 years. About Zacks Mutual Fund Rank By applying the Zacks Rank to mutual funds, investors can find funds that not only outpaced the market in the past but are also expected to outperform going forward. Pick the best mutual funds with the Zacks Rank. 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 >> View All Zacks #1 Ranked Mutual Funds 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 Get Your Free (PRFDX): Fund Analysis Report To read this article on Zacks.com click here. Zacks Investment Research HOLLYWOOD, FL--(Marketwired - Feb 19, 2016) - Telco Cuba, Inc. (OTC PINK: QBAN) Telco Cuba, a publicly traded telecom provider is pleased to announce that it has recently regained "current" status on OTC Markets by filing amended Audited 10K's for the years 2012, 2013, 2014, and 10Q's for 2015 Q1, Q2, and Q3 financials with the Securities Exchange Commission. "Being current affords Telco Cuba the ability to continue to implement its business plan and has created several business opportunities which we believe will increase the company's ability to increase shareholder value. This comes at a time when the loosening of restrictions towards Cuba is accelerating and providing the Company a unique position to capitalize on a large and untapped demand for wireless services now opening up in Cuba," stated William J Sanchez, CEO. On the political front, the backdrop could not be better for the market we are addressing. The State Department announced on Thursday that President Obama will make a historic trip to the Country of Cuba in mid-March. President Obama announced on Twitter that he will visit Cuba next month "to advance our progress and efforts that can improve the lives of the Cuban people." Obama would be the first sitting U.S. president to visit Cuba since Calvin Coolidge attended the Pan American Conference in Havana in January 1928. Furthermore, on Tuesday the United States and Cuba officially signed an aviation agreement that paves the way for the first regularly scheduled flights between the countries in nearly five decades. The deal opens up 110 flights to Cuba on U.S. carriers. "What this means for Telco Cuba, is that with 100,000's US travelers heading to Cuba on an annual basis, the demand for wireless services including voice, data and texting, is expected to surge in a country significantly lacking behind in telecom infrastructure. Currently, there are only 35 public WIFI spots in the entire country of Cuba. As further evidence that we are at the right place at the right time, last month the U.S. Federal Communications Commission removed Cuba from its "exclusion list," paving the way for U.S. companies to provide telecommunication services to the Caribbean country without separate approval from the agency," stated Mr. Sanchez. Story continues "This is a very exciting time for Telco Cuba, as the vision we had over 12 months ago is coming to fruition. In addition, management is exploring potential acquisition opportunities in the telecommunications industry and the Company is prepping to rapidly grow its own offerings through the acquisition of a telecommunications company, bolstering Telco Cuba's ability to provide cutting edge services," concluded Mr. Sanchez. About TelcoCuba, Inc.: Telco Cuba is a cellular service provider that is targeting the Cuban demographic in the United States and intends to offer its services in Cuba when legally able to. The vast majority of Telco Cuba's potential subscribers are Cuban expatriates living in The United States. All of Telco Cuba's calling plans will allow international calls at similar or lower rates than competitive landline rates. Additionally, as an MVNO of Sprint, Telco Cuba will offer direct text messaging and calling to the Country of Cuba. In Addition to its cell phone services, Telco Cuba offers digital home phone service and will be bundling its digital and cell phone service in Q1. Safe Harbor Notice Certain statements contained herein are "forward-looking statements" (as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995). Telco Cuba cautions that statements made in this news release constitute forward-looking statements and makes no guarantee of future performance. Forward-looking statements are based on estimates and opinions of management at the time statements are made. These statements may address issues that involve significant risks, uncertainties, estimates and assumptions made by management. Actual results could differ materially from current projections or implied results. Telco Cuba undertakes no obligation to revise these statements following the date of this news release. Additional details of the Company's business can be found in its public disclosures as a reporting issuer under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission's ("SEC") EDGAR database. This press release is issued on behalf of the Board of Directors by William J Sanchez, CEO and Chairman of the board. Disclaimer Regarding Forward Looking Statements Certain statements in this press release, on Telco Cuba's ("QBAN") website and other oral and written statements made by QBAN from time to time are "forward-looking statements", as that term is defined in Section 27A of the United States Securities and Exchange Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the United States Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, Forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements regarding beliefs, objectives, intentions, goals, plans, strategies, financial projections, any other statements regarding the future and any statements that are not purely historical. These statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Given these uncertainties, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made, and QBAN expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date thereof. All forward-looking statements, whether written or oral and whether made by or on behalf of the QBAN, are expressly qualified by these cautionary statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. QBAN's expectations, beliefs and projections are expressed in good faith and are believed by QBAN to have a reasonable basis, but there can be no assurance that management's expectations, beliefs or projections will result or be achieved or accomplished. A variety of factors, many of which are beyond QBAN's control affect QBAN's operations, performance, business strategy and results and could cause the actual results, performance or achievements of QBAN to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements that may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. For QBAN, particular uncertainties arise, amongst others but not limited to and not in any order of importance, from (i) focusing on and allocating more resources on certain target markets (ii) the possibility to raise further equity and debt to fund future growth, (iii) changes in demand for QBAN's products, (iv) performance issues with key suppliers, affiliates, agents, advisors or subcontractors, (v) changes in government changes in laws or regulations to which QBAN or its suppliers are subject, including environmental laws and regulations relating to water or water sources and (vi) the inability to complete announced acquisitions, difficulty or unanticipated expenses in connection with integrating acquired businesses and the risk that anticipated synergies and opportunities as a result of acquisitions will not be realized or the risk that acquisitions do not perform as planned, including, for example, the risk that acquired businesses will not achieve revenue projections. THIS NEWS RELEASE HAS BEEN PREPARED BY QBAN's MANAGEMENT, WHO TAKES FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR ITS CONTENTS. NO SECURITIES REGULATORY AUTHORITY HAS APPROVED OR DISAPPROVED OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS NEWS RELEASE. THIS NEWS RELEASE SHALL NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER TO SELL OR THE SOLICITATION OF AN OFFER TO BUY NOR SHALL THERE BE ANY SALE OF THESE SECURITIES IN ANY JURISDICTION IN WHICH SUCH OFFER, SOLICITATION OR SALE WOULD BE UNLAWFUL PRIOR TO REGISTRATION OR QUALIFICATION UNDER THE SECURITIES LAWS OF ANY SUCH JURISDICTION. donald trump Donald Trump on Thursday made voters a promise: If he's elected, he'll keep sending cease-and-desist letters. But he'll address them instead to China and Mexico. Trump, the Republican presidential frontrunner, was asked during a Thursday CNN town-hall event whether he would send cease-and-desist letters to China and Mexico, two major US trade partners that Trump asserts are "ripping off" the US. "Yeah, maybe to China, to stop ripping us off. I'd be sending them to other countries to stop ripping us off. I'd send them to Mexico." "And when I say cease-and-desist orders, maybe it'd be equivalent. Maybe I'll do it with my mouth." Cooper's comments came days after Trump sent Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) campaign a cease-and-desist letter. The letter threatened a lawsuit if the campaign did not take down a television ad in South Carolina showing a clip from a 1999 Trump interview with Tim Russert. Earlier this week, Cruz challenged Trump to file the lawsuit, saying he may take the case himself. "Even in the annals of frivolous lawsuits, this takes the cake," Cruz said. "So Donald, I would encourage you if you want to file a lawsuit challenging this ad, claiming it is defamation, file the lawsuit. It is a remarkable contention that an ad that plays video of Donald Trump speaking on national television is somehow defamation." NOW WATCH: Ted Cruz just released a Hillary Clinton attack ad that spoofs 'Office Space' More From Business Insider A worker walks past a pump jack on an oil field owned by Bashneft company near the village of Nikolo-Berezovka, northwest from Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia, in this January 28, 2015 file photo. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin/Files By Barani Krishnan NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices fell 4 percent on Friday, with Brent down a third straight week, as record high U.S. crude stockpiles intensified worries that a plan to freeze world output will do little or nothing to reduce massive oil supplies already in the market. A slide in the U.S. equity markets, which have for weeks been trading in tandem with oil, also weighed on crude, traders said. [.N] Brent crude (LCOc1) settled $1.27, or 3.7 percent, lower at $33.01 a barrel. U.S. crude (CLc1) lost $1.13, also finishing 3.7 percent lower at $29.64. Even data from industry firm Baker Hughes showing the U.S. oil rig count at its lowest since December 2009 after nine straight weeks of declines failed to lift crude prices. [RIG/U] Brent finished the week down 1 percent while U.S. crude ended flat after a particularly volatile week for oil, where prices fell and rose as much as 5 percent in a day. Oil has shed 70 percent from highs above $100 a barrel in a selloff that has seen little pause over the past 20 months. Since last Friday though, some traders believed the market had seen a bottom on talk that OPEC was on a plan to reign in production. This week, Saudi Arabia, the lynchpin of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, along with Qatar and Venezuela, and non-OPEC member Russia, proposed to freeze output at January's highs. Iran, the main stumbling block to any production control due to its zeal to recapture market share lost to sanctions, welcomed the plan without commitment. Iraq was also non-committal. U.S. government data on Thursday meanwhile showed crude inventories rose 2.1 million barrels to a new peak of 504.1 million last week, overshadowing the output freeze proposed by the producers.[EIA/S] "There's a stark contrast between a freeze and a cut and the continued U.S. inventory builds will show the ineffectiveness of any production caps," said Pete Donovan, crude broker at New York's Liquidity Energy. Story continues Analysts are generally of the view that U.S. stockpiles will rise amid seasonal spring refinery maintenance works. Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi will deliver a keynote on Tuesday at the annual IHS CERAWeek conference in Houston, his first public appearance in the U.S. since the kingdom OPEC's shock decision in November 2014 to keep heavily pumping oil even though mounting oversupply was already sending prices into free-fall. On the positive side, U.S. shale producers, for the first time in months, were placing new hedges to lock in 2017 prices at around $45 a barrel, prompting price recovery at the back end of the U.S. crude futures curve. Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a note that if the output freeze worked and gasoline fuel prices remained affordable, oil should rise to $47 a barrel by June. (Additional reporting by Ahmad Ghaddar in London; Editing by Marguerita Choy) UN soldiers patrol in the northern Malian city of Kidal on July 27, 2013 (AFP Photo/Kenzo Tribouillard) (AFP/File) Bamako (AFP) - The number of UN peacekeepers killed in an Islamist attack on their base in Mali has risen to seven following the death of a female force member evacuated to Senegal, the regional deployment said Tuesday. Six peacekeepers were initially killed and at least 30 wounded in the early morning assault on the camp belonging to the UN force, known by the acronym MINUSMA, on Friday in the northeastern town of Kidal. "We have unfortunately lost a seventh member. It was a woman who was injured and evacuated to Dakar," a MINUSMA source told AFP, referring to the Senegalese capital. All seven killed were Guinean, three of them women, the source confirmed, representing the first female members of the mission killed in Mali. Malian Islamist group Ansar Dine, responsible for several previous assaults, claimed the attack, which has highlighted the vulnerability of Mali's sprawling, arid north. UN troops and Malian soldiers are struggling in their fight against jihadists who seized vast swathes of territory in 2012. Three Malian soldiers also died in a separate ambush on Friday. The bodies of the six UN peacekeepers still in Mali will be returned to Guinea on Wednesday, accompanied by their mission chief Mahamat Saleh Annadif, a Guinean diplomat told AFP, requesting anonymity. "Guinea is touched by the gesture," the diplomat said. Annadif visited the devastated camp on Saturday, after suicide bombers drove a vehicle into the base between two rocket launches, then blew it up. The MINUSMA mission, launched in July 2013, has been the most deadly for the UN since a deployment to Somalia during the civil war between 1993 and 1995. Mali's north continues to be beset by violence having fallen under the control of Tuareg-led rebels and jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in 2012. The Islamists sidelined the Tuareg to take sole control, and although they were largely ousted by a French-led military operation in January 2013, extremist groups still pose a threat. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (R) meets Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at Villa Taverna in Rome December 14, 2014. REUTERS/Evan Vucci/Pool The US has given Russia a vague idea of where its special forces are operating in Syria. But that doesn't guarantee there won't be any future conflicts on the country's increasingly messy battlefield. And there's also the possibility that the Russians won't keep the sensitive information to themselves. "I don't have any assurances, really, from the Russians," Lt. Gen. Charles Brown, commander of the US Air Forces Central Command, told reporters during a briefing on Thursday. "But we told them these are the ... general areas, where we have coalition forces and we dont want them to strike there because all it's going to do is escalate things. And I don't think the Russians want to escalate against the coalition," he added. Brown's comments were the first confirmation from US officials that the US has provided such information to Russia. The US began sending special forces into Syria in December. Their location has been kept publicly secret for security purposes. Though the US is operating in Syria to fight the terrorist group ISIS, both by running airstrikes and deploying special forces, Russia became involved in the country's civil war mostly to prop up the regime of President Bashar al-Assad under the guise of fighting ISIS (also known as the Islamic State, ISIL, or Daesh). Experts said that while this coordination with Russia could help protect US troops, the information could also fall into the wrong hands. "Given that the Assad regime and ISIS have ways to communicate, I would hope the Russians do not share the information with anyone," Fred Hof, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former special adviser for transition in Syria under then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, told Business Insider in an email. Even if Russia did provide certain assurances to the US about protecting such location information, Hof said they would be "worthless." Story continues "Russian assurances would be worthless in any event, and I would assume that the Russians will share the information with other actors; surely with the Assad regime," Hof said. "Assad, after all, has an air force: the Russians can claim they passed the information to help protect Americans. But Assad also has the ways and means to convey information to ISIS." What complicates matters further is the chaotic nature of the Syrian battlefield rebels are fighting to oust Assad, and jihadist groups like ISIS and the Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front are fighting both the moderate rebels and Assad's forces. The US is fighting ISIS, but not Assad. And Russia, a major ally of Syria, says it's fighting ISIS even though it mostly targets anti-Assad rebels. Syria map "Syria is a very messy battlefield," Michael Kofman, a Russia expert and public-policy fellow at the Wilson Center, told Business Insider. "Theres nothing clean about war." And even if Russia knows vaguely where US special forces are located, the information isn't specific enough to eliminate any chance of conflict. "If Russia decides to go after after the Islamic State there's definitely a chance that they could take out US special forces and they wont know they're there," Kofman said. "The US will tell them a large geographic area and that's all the Russians are going to get." Still, Russia has so far generally avoided areas of Syria where the US is operating, and giving Russia a vague idea of where US special forces are is better than telling them nothing, Kofman said. "It would be completely reckless to send your guys there and not do the bare minimum coordination with Russia," he said. "If [there's a conflict], the first question that will be asked here is, 'did you try to coordinate with them at all? If you didn't, then its not their fault." Hof made a similar assessment. "I imagine the reasoning is to deny to the Russians any excuse for bombing American military personnel," he said of the US providing special-forces location information. Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook emphasized at the Thursday briefing that the coordination between the US and Russia was done out of an "abundance" of caution. "This was done geographical areas writ-large, not specific locations and not times," he said. "... This was a step we took to try to maintain [the operators'] safety in a dangerous situation." NOW WATCH: 'If you've got something to say, say it heres the most heated moment from last nights Democratic debate More From Business Insider (Adds further details on settlement, background) By Nate Raymond and Anthony Deutsch NEW YORK/AMSTERDAM, Feb 18 (Reuters) - VimpelCom Ltd , an Amsterdam-based telecommunications operator, said on Thursday it would pay $795 million to resolve U.S. and Dutch probes into a bribery scheme in Uzbekistan, in the second largest global anti-corruption settlement in history. The settlement was announced in a federal court in Manhattan, where a subsidiary pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate a U.S. anti-corruption law by paying $114 million in bribes from 2006 to 2012 to a Uzbekistan official. The official, described in court papers as high-ranking and a relative of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, matched the description of his daughter, Gulnara Karimova, who has long been identified as being at the center of the probe. In a related action, the U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit seeking the forfeiture of $550 million in Swiss bank accounts tied to corrupt payments to the official by VimpelCom and two other companies. The payments by VimpelCom, Teliasonera AB and Mobile TeleSystems, were paid to shell companies the official controlled for help entering and operating in the Uzbek telecommunications market, the Justice Department said. Combined with an earlier lawsuit, the Justice Department is seeking to recover $850 million paid in the scheme, the largest sum U.S. authorities have ever sought to recover from a government official. VimpelCom's settlement, which called for the retention of a compliance monitor, resolved probes by the Justice Department, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Public Prosecution Service of the Netherlands. It marked a near record for a global anti-corruption accord, behind only Siemens AG's $1.3 billion settlement in 2008 that resolved wide-ranging bribery probes in the United States and Germany. VimpelCom, whose biggest shareholders are Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman's LetterOne and Norway's Telenor, took a $900 million provision in November to resolve the investigations. Story continues Under the deal, VimpleCom entered into a deferred prosecution agreement in which U.S. criminal charges will be dropped in three years if it follows the agreement's terms. Uzbek subsidiary Unitel LLC pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. "The company deeply regrets its actions here, and we will make sure it never happens again," Scott Dresser, VimpelCom's general counsel, said in court. U.S. and Dutch authorities said the investigation continued into other companies and individuals involved in the scheme, including one man Dutch prosecutors said was arrested in November. Mobile TeleSystems declined comment. Neither Teliasonera nor lawyers for Uzbekistan responded to requests for comment. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; and Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam; Editing by Leslie Adler and Peter Cooney) The logo of German carmaker Volkswagen is seen on a Volkswagen Golf car at a showroom of Swiss car importer AMAG in Duebendorf, Switzerland February 12, 2016. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Top managers at Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) do not expect an agreement before the end of March with U.S. authorities over the German carmaker's rigging of emissions tests, German monthly Manager Magazin reported on Friday, citing company sources. Negotiations are dragging on because the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is demanding a long distance test of a technical solution proposed by Volkswagen, the magazine said. It also said the costs for recalls, buybacks of affected vehicles and compensation of customers would be significantly higher than previously expected. Volkswagen was not immediately available for comment. (Reporting by Maria Sheahan and Georgina Prodhan) Atlanta Airport TSA checkpoint Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the world's busiest airport, has issued a warning to the US Transportation Safety Administration to get its act together or be replaced. According to a letter from Hartsfield-Jackson general manager Miguel Southwell to TSA administrator Peter Neffenger, the airport's security screening checkpoints are woefully understaffed with no sign of significant improvement in sight. The letter, obtained from a source by Aaron Diamant of Atlanta's WSB-TV, was dated February 12. The TSA confirmed to Business Insider that it had received the letter and was evaluating it. In the letter, Southwell says the chronic staffing shortages are leading passengers to wait over half an hour at the TSA checkpoints. If things don't change, the airport will bring in private security personnel under the TSA's Screening Partnership Program, he warns. "Several times throughout the day from May to October 2015, wait times (at TSA checkpoints) exceeding 35 minutes were not uncommon," Southwell wrote. "This is unacceptable as reflected in the customer service surveys of our hub carrier Delta Air Lines." "This morning as I write this letter, wait times up to 52 minutes were experienced between 6:00 am and 6:30 am," he added. 'Dreading' 2016 According to Southwell's letter, the TSA's Atlanta team did manage to get a 7.5% staffing increase last year, but that proved to be "late and inadequate." This is because Hartsfield-Jackson, which had more than 96 million passengers in 2014, saw traffic increase 10% over that same period. Southwell says traffic jumped another 14% in the first quarter of this fiscal year, which has the airport "dreading the outcome of 2016." With no sign of additional staffing on the way from the TSA, airport management has initiated programs to promote expedited security programs like TSA Pre-Check or Global Entry and the adoption of new screening technology. Southwell, however, doesn't believe this will be enough to alleviate the airport's checkpoint problems. Story continues "Even with all of our efforts, however, as the airport's experience demonstrates, things appear to be only getting worse," Southwell added. "We recognize that the issues raised in the letter are a concern, not just in Atlanta, which is fueled primarily by the rapid growth in travel volume combined with a renewed focus on our security mission," Mike England, a spokesman for the TSA, wrote in an email to Business Insider. "Resolving these issues and achieving our common goal calls for a collaborative approach with our industry partners. While we are working on better solutions, we believe the public will support our vital mission of ensuring safe air transportation." We have reached out to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport for comment. Click here to read the full letter on WSB-TV.com. NOW WATCH: How to skip long lines at the airport just like the 1% More From Business Insider 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. Luke 18:27 | NIV Jesus replied, What is impossible with man is possible with God. Friends, this world is not your home, so dont make yourselves cozy in it. Dont indulge your ego at the expense of your soul. Live an exemplary life among the natives so that your actions will refute their prejudices. Then theyll be won over to Gods side and be there to join in the celebration when he arrives. 1 Peter 2:11-12 MSG If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. 1Tim 6:8 NASB For those going through difficult situations at work, remember it's only for a season. Remember you work for the Lord, not for man. Remember to soak in His word, and never forget to thank Him for the power and the strength He IS giving you. Your Situation is not permanent. Pray for change, have faith in your prayer, and get ready for it.God can change everything @wisdomfeed Four blocks. Thats the distance 22-year-old Katie Sepich had to walk to get safely to her Las Cruces, New Mexico, home after she stormed away from her boyfriend on a late August night in 2003. A stranger stopped and asked if she wanted a ride. No, she told Gabriel Adrian Avila, she lived just a few blocks away. He lingered in the area and came across her again. This time, he followed her. When she arrived home and went around the house to slip in a window to avoid waking her roommates mother, he attacked. He later confessed that he raped Katie Sepich, strangled her, took her body to a dump site near her home and set her on fire. He avoided arrest for more than three years, despite the fact that his DNA had been scraped from her fingernails and other areas of her body. The samples were sent to a national identification system, but Avila was not entered into it until 2006. During that interim, more than $200,000 was spent on the investigation, said Katies mom, Jayann Sepich. And so the mother travels the country state legislature to state legislature to convince lawmakers to enact Katies Law, which would require authorities to collect DNA samples from people who are arrested. This week, she touched down in Lincoln to visit the statehouse and plead the case for a bill (LB1054) that would expand Nebraskas DNA collection laws to include taking samples from people arrested and booked for certain violent crimes including rape, murder, robbery, assault, kidnapping, child enticement by electronic device, burglary. The bill, introduced by Omaha Sen. Robert Hilkemann, would allow people to request expungement of their DNA records if they are not charged for the crime for which they were arrested, if the charges are dismissed or they are acquitted of all charges or if the statute of limitations has passed. The bills hearing was before the Judiciary Committee Thursday afternoon, but one of its members, Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers, already has serious doubts. All this is is one of those schemes that theyve been using for years to try to get as much DNA on record as possible, he said. For whatever good they say its done, Chambers said, the damage is far greater. Sepich outlined the good Katies law has done in 28 states. It went into effect in New Mexico at midnight on Jan. 1, 2007. And at 1:14 a.m. the first man arrested was swabbed and his DNA matched a double homicide, she said. Since that time, she said, 1,056 crimes in New Mexico were matched in the DNA database. In one of those cases, it cleared a 17-year-old youth who had been charged in the rape and murder of an 11-year-old neighbor girl, and jailed for two years. Even though his DNA did not match, police believed he was an accomplice. Without the arrestee DNA law there, the true perpetrator would not have been caught, she said. He was in the country illegally, and when he was arrested for a burglary, authorities had decided not to press charges and were planning to deport him. So if we didnt have Katies law in New Mexico, if we didnt have arrestee DNA, they would have never swabbed his cheek, they would have never gotten that match, she said. And the 17-year-old could have been convicted and spent the rest of his life in prison, Sepich said. For people who believe taking DNA at arrest is an invasion of privacy, she said, the Combined DNA Identification System is not a genetic or medical database. An individuals DNA does not go into the database, but only a DNA profile, 13 non-coding paired markers out of 3 billion total markers. They have no genetic information and can be used only for criminal identification. No names are entered. If a match occurs and is verified, the name of the match comes from a separate secure computer system, and investigators must seek evidence and verify the match with a second DNA sample to charge the person with the crime. The U.S. Supreme Court said in 2013 in a 5-4 decision that ... taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestees DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legitimate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. DNA is the fingerprint of the 21st century, Sepich said. A study at the University of Virginia found that, based on FBI statistics, if every state tested arrestees, it would prevent 474 murders, 5,569 rapes and 22,061 aggravated assaults per year, she said. I would do anything if a law had been passed that could have saved my Katies life, she said. The time to act is now before another family knows the sting of losing a much-loved child. But there are other lives to consider, Chambers said. He will look at the bill to see what steps a person would have to go through to have the DNA sample removed. If its too onerous, the removal clause would have no meaning, he said. This S ite 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, Social Justice Issues, Teaching, and Research. 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. Visit the following link for more information: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode Indonesias national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia has been awarded the ultimate "5-Star Airline" rating from Skytrax for a second year running. The President & CEO of Garuda Indonesia, M. Arif Wibowo received the award from Edward Plaisted, CEO of Skytrax, at the Changi Exhibition Center during Singapore Airshow 2016. Indonesian Minister of State-Owned Enterprises Rini Soemarno expressed her highest regards "for all Garuda management and staff, their hard work, and their success in maintaining the quality and standards that exemplify a "5-Star Airline"." "We believe that recognition of Garuda Indonesia as a "5-Star Airline" for consecutive years will not only help to strengthen Garuda Indonesia as a global brand, but also support our efforts at "Nation Branding", as laid out in the Indonesian government's strategic program," Rini added. The Minister finished by suggesting that the global achievement would be followed by better financial results, and extended her appreciation for Garuda Indonesia's turnaround financial results which ended in net profit for 2015. Skytrax CEO Edward Plaisted said that the "5-Star Airline" rating awarded to Garuda Indonesia for two years consecutively was a result keeping consistently high service standards. Spurred on by a strong commitment from the airline's management and staff to deliver best service, Garuda Indonesia's performance continues to earn global recognition. In 2013, Skytrax awarded Garuda Indonesia for "The World's Best Economy Class". This continued in 2014, with recognition as "The World's Best Cabin Staff", a "5-Star Airline", and 7th rank in "The World's Top 10 Airlines". At the World Airline Awards, Paris Airshow 2015, Garuda Indonesia was once again named "The World's Best Cabin Staff", based on a global customer satisfaction survey conducted by Skytrax of more than 18 million passengers. The survey, which covers 245 international airlines, is held every year and measures standards across 41 key performance indicators of airline products and services. As part of a fleet revitalization program throughout 2016, the Garuda Indonesia Group will receive 16 new aircraft in total; 1 Boeing 777-300ER, 4 Airbus A330-300, 4 ATR72-600, and also 8 Airbus A320 to be operated by Citilink. By the end of 2016, Garuda Indonesia Group will operate a total of 188 aircraft; 144 aircraft for Garuda Indonesia and 44 aircraft for Citilink. To continue the positive growth achieved during its "Quick Wins" program in 2015, Garuda Indonesia will enter a "Sky Beyond" program for 2016 aiming at rapid company expansion, focusing on three 'core strategies' - company group synergy, effectiveness and efficiency, and service enhancement - to accelerate company achievement and performance. At Singapore Airshow 2016, the Garuda Indonesia Group, through Garuda Maintenance Facility AeroAsia, looks to several short- and long-term business contracts, with a value of nearly USD 100 milion. Turkish Airlines has signed a codeshare agreement with Royal Brunei Airlines (BI). Dr. Ahmet Bolat, Turkish Airlines Chief Investment & Technology Officer and Mr. Karam Chand, Royal Brunei Airlines Chief Commercial and Planning Officer signed the agreement in Antalya, Turkey. Under the codeshare agreement, Turkish Airlines will add its TK code to Royal Brunei Airlines operated flights from Bandar Seri Begawan to Dubai and vice versa. On a reciprocal basis, Royal Brunei Airlines will add its BI code to Turkish Airlines flights from Istanbul to Dubai and vice versa. The date for commencement of the codeshare is 22nd February 2016. Royal Brunei Airlines Chief Commercial and Planning Officer, Karam Chand said Royal Brunei Airlines is delighted with the recent enhancements of the commercial cooperation between both airlines. We are keen to further expand the codeshare arrangements in the future to our mutual benefit. Dr. Bolat stated that As Turkish Airlines, we are extremely pleased to sign this codeshare agreement with Royal Brunei Airlines, which will provide us to sell our offline destination Bandar Seri Begawan via Dubai and improve our partnership to maximize the travel opportunities offered to our passengers through the networks of both airlines. French media conglomerate and former Activision Blizzard owner Vivendi has purchased over 30 percent of Gameloft's stock, and as a result has tabled a mandatory takeover bid. According to French law, once a buyer owns more than 30 percent of a company's shares, it must make an attempt to purchase a controlling stake for a reasonable price. Although the takeover offer is mandatory there's no need for investors to sell, meaning the acquisition is still in the balance. That being said, Vivendi is doing its best to tempt shareholders by offering a price of 6 euros per Gameloft share, which represents a premium of 50.4 percent over the share price as of October 14, 2015. According to Vivendi, the proposed takeover would "create value for both companies." "Vivendi intends to offer Gameloft new development levers, both industrial and financial [and] is convinced that, as with its other businesses, the key to success for a company such as Gameloft is the development of its creative content and talent," read a Vivendi statement. "Vivendi and Gameloft share many commonalities, including French roots, an international dimension and a similar understanding of cultural diversity to meet the expectations of consumers in each country." The company's attempts to acquire Gameloft are unsurprising, with Vivendi having upped its stakes in the mobile publisher to 10.2 percent back in October last year. Vivendi has also shown interest in French game developer and publisher Ubisoft, buying a 10.39 percent stake in the Assassin's Creed creator for 244 million euros in October 2015. Ubisoft, however, has expressed a desire to remain independent, with Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot calling Vivendi's attention "unsolicited and unwelcome," and pledging to "fight to preserve our independence." Vivendi, though, has other ideas, and last year explained that its Gameloft and Ubisoft investments are "part of a strategic vision of operational convergence between Vivendis content and platforms on one hand and the Ubisoft and Gameloft productions in video games on the other." Are you interested in getting your company, event, or institution noticed? Advertise with the GRC on Global Geothermal News - Contact at dgroves@geothermal.org At midday on Friday 5 February, 2016 Julian Assange, John Jones QC, Melinda Taylor, Jennifer Robinson and Baltasar Garzon will be speaking at a press conference at the Frontline Club on the decision made by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on the Assange case. This blog grows out of my conviction that every aspect of our lives is sacred and is to be nurtured and celebrated as a good gift of God. Most of the posts will be the sorts of things you would expect from a historian and worldview teacher, but some are likely to be a bit surprising. Since God created all things good, including all aspects of human life, everything is interesting and important from the perspective of a biblical worldview. Everything under the Sun and under Heaven is thus fair game here. I hope you find it interesting and enjoyable. SACRAMENTO, Calif., Feb. 19, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aerojet Rocketdyne, a subsidiary of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AJRD), was recently awarded a contract from Hill Air Force Base to complete trade studies and hardware demonstrations for the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Demonstration and Validation Post Boost Program. The objective of the ICBM Demonstration and Validation Post Boost Program is to develop technologies that may be used to replace the capabilities of the current Minuteman III Propulsion System Rocket Engine (PSRE) in a new future system. The Post Boost Propulsion System is a critical element of the Minuteman III and future missile systems in positioning payloads accurately and supporting the potential deployment of countermeasures. The contract (Study A) is valued at more than $3 million and spans over a 24 month period. This study will evaluate various advanced technology propulsion systems followed by a down selection process. The candidate technologies will be further evaluated with hardware demonstration testing. Aerojet Rocketdynes Rocket ShopSM innovation organization is proud and honored to be selected for the critical role of supporting the USAFs nuclear deterrence mission, said Tyler Evans, vice president of Rocket ShopSM Defense Advanced Programs at Aerojet Rocketdyne. Our post boost technologies are nothing less than world class and we intend to continue servicing the customer with war-winning solutions for many years to come. 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. According to some estimates, over 30 percent of the carbon dioxide emi [ #permalink while in Japan automobiles release just over 10 percent of carbon dioxide. the meaning changes since we want to convey over 10 percent of CO2 released in japan comes from automobiles.The meaning of the sentence makes it sound as if talking about the composition of the automobile exhaust ie. the exhaust of automobile contains over 10 percent CO2. whereas automobiles release just over 10 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted in Japan. correct comparison and meaning compared to Japan, where automobiles release just over 10 percent. "compared to" is used to compare two different entities so firstly its usage here is wrong. Secondly meaning changes like mentioned in option A. whereas just over 10 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted comes from automobiles in Japan. changes meaning like in option A. with the carbon dioxide from automobiles in Japan, where it is just over 10 percent. wrong comparison and construction Regards, Dom. shreyashid wrote: By creating special export promotion zones along the coastlines, Splarchestein government was not only able to transform the impoverished coastal regions into thriving economic hubs, but it was also able to create a tribe of young and very successful entrepreneurs. A. was not only able to transform the impoverished coastal regions into thriving economic hubs, but it was also able to create B. not only was able to transform the impoverished coastal regions into economic hubs that are thriving but also creating C. was able not only to transform the impoverished coastal regions into thriving economic hubs but also creating D. not only were able to transform the impoverished coastal regions into economic hubs that thrived, but they also created E. was able not only to transform the impoverished coastal regions into thriving economic hubs but to create OA is E, but I think it should be A. Experts please help 1) most important point is that we have parallelism after 'not only' and 'but also' to check this, read the sentence in two parts separately for not only portion and for but also portion... 1) Splarchestein government was not only able to transform the impoverished coastal regions into thriving economic hubs... 2)but Splarchestein government was it was also able to create.... does it make sense ..NO.. for A to be correct.. it should have been:- Splarchestein government was not only able to transform the impoverished coastal regions into thriving economic hubs...but it was also also able to create.... 1) Splarchestein government was able not only to transform the impoverished coastal regions into thriving economic hubs... 2)but Splarchestein government was able to create... Hi,this Q is testing on the IDIOM not only.... but also....lets see how E reads:-Hope it helps._________________ The granaries in all the towns are brimming with reserves, and the coffers are full with treasures and gold, worth trillions, wrote Sima Qian, a Chinese historian living in the 1st century BC. There is so much money that the ropes used to string coins together rot and break, an innumerable amount. The granaries in the capital overflow and the grain goes bad and cannot be eaten. He was describing the legendary surpluses of the Han dynasty, an age characterised by the first Chinese expansion to the west and south, and the establishment of trade routes later known as the Silk Road, which stretched from the old capital Xian as far as ancient Rome. Fast forward a millennia or two, and the same talk of expansion comes as Chinas surpluses grow again. There are no ropes to hold its $4tn in foreign currency reserves the worlds largest and in addition to overflowing granaries China has massive surpluses of real estate, cement and steel. After two decades of rapid growth, Beijing is again looking beyond its borders for investment opportunities and trade, and to do that it is reaching back to its former imperial greatness for the familiar Silk Road metaphor. Creating a modern version of the ancient trade route has emerged as Chinas signature foreign policy initiative under President Xi Jinping. It is one of the few terms that people remember from history classes that does not involve hard power and its precisely those positive associations that the Chinese want to emphasise, says Valerie Hansen, professor of Chinese history at Yale University. Xis big idea If the sum total of Chinas commitments are taken at face value, the new Silk Road is set to become the largest programme of economic diplomacy since the US-led Marshall Plan for postwar reconstruction in Europe, covering dozens of countries with a total population of over 3bn people. The scale demonstrates huge ambition. But against the backdrop of a faltering economy and the rising strength of its military, the project has taken on huge significance as a way of defining Chinas place in the world and its relations sometimes tense with its neighbours. Economically, diplomatically and militarily Beijing will use the project to assert regional leadership in Asia, say experts. For some, it spells out a desire to establish a new sphere of influence, a modern-day version of the 19th century Great Game, where Britain and Russia battled for control in central Asia. The Silk Road has been part of Chinese history, dating back to the Han and Tang dynasties, two of the greatest Chinese empires, says Friedrich Wu, a professor at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. The initiative is a timely reminder that China under the Communist party is building a new empire. According to former officials, the grand vision for a new Silk Road began life modestly in the bowels of Chinas commerce ministry. Seeking a way to deal with serious overcapacity in the steel and manufacturing sectors, commerce officials began to hatch a plan to export more. In 2013, the programme received its first top-level endorsement when Mr Xi announced the New Silk Road during a visit to Kazakhstan. Since the president devoted a second major speech to the plan in March as concerns over the economic slowdown mounted it has snowballed into a significant policy and acquired a clunkier name: One Belt, One Road. The belt refers to the land trade route linking central Asia, Russia and Europe. The road, oddly, is a reference to a maritime route via the western Pacific and Indian Ocean. In some countries Beijing is pushing at an open door. Trade between China and the five central Asian states Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan has grown dramatically since 2000, hitting $50bn in 2013, according to the International Monetary Fund. China now wants to build the roads and pipelines needed to smooth access to the resources it needs to continue its development. Mr Xi started to offer more details about the scheme earlier this year with an announcement of $46bn in investments and credit lines in a planned China-Pakistan economic corridor, ending at the Arabian Sea port of Gwadar. In April, Beijing announced plans to inject $62bn of its foreign exchange reserves into the three state-owned policy banks that will finance the expansion of the new Silk Road. Some projects, already on the drawing board, seem to have been co-opted into the new scheme by bureaucrats and businesspeople scrambling to peg their plans to Mr Xis policy. They are just putting a new slogan on stuff theyve wanted to do for a long time, says one western diplomat. "Its like a Christmas tree, says Scott Kennedy, deputy director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. You can hang a lot of policy goals on it, but no one has done a proper economic analysis. The government money they are putting in is not enough; they hope to bring in private capital, but would private capital want to invest? Will it make money? As well as offering a glimpse of Chinas ambition, the new Silk Road presents a window into how macroeconomic policy is made in Beijing often on the hoof, with bureaucrats scurrying to flesh out vague and sometimes contradictory statements from on high. Part of this is top down, part of this is bottom up, but there is nothing in the middle so far, says a former Chinese official. The rest of the bureaucracy is trying to catch up to where Xi has planted the flag, says Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center in Beijing. This is something that Xi announces and then the bureaucracy has to make something of it. They have to put meat on the bones. Some clues emerged in March when the powerful National Development and Reform Commission, Chinas central planning body, published a clunky document, Visions and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-century Maritime Silk Road. It provides a great deal of detail in some places such as which book fairs will be held but is patchy in others, like which countries are included. Peru, Sri Lanka and even the UK are included in some versions of semi-official maps but left out of others. A complete list appears to exist, however. On April 28 the commerce ministry announced that Silk Road countries account for 26 per cent of Chinas foreign trade, a remarkably precise statistic. However, a request from the Financial Times for more specific details on the list of nations went unanswered. There is also no indication yet of how it will be run through its own bureaucracy, or as separate departments in different ministries and policy banks. With foreign governments and multinational banks eagerly following the Delphic utterances from Beijing to understand what it means, the vagueness and confusion has not gone unnoticed. If we want to talk to the Silk Road, says a diplomat from a neighbouring state, we dont know who to call. As the countrys economic interests expand abroad, its massive security apparatus and military will probably be pulled into a greater regional role. China has no foreign military bases and steadfastly insists that it does not interfere in the domestic politics of any country. But a draft antiterrorism law for the first time legalises the posting of Chinese soldiers on foreign soil, with the consent of the host nation. Chinas military is also eager to get its share of the political and fiscal largesse that accompanies the new Silk Road push. One former US official says he was told by senior generals in the Peoples Liberation Army that the One Belt, One Road strategy would have a security component. . Projects in unstable areas will inevitably test Chinas policy of avoiding security entanglements abroad. Pakistan has assigned 10,000 troops to protect Chinese investment projects, while in Afghanistan, US troops have so far protected a Chinese-invested copper mine. Port construction in countries like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan has led some analysts to question whether Chinas ultimate aim is dual-use naval logistics facilities that could be put into service controlling sea lanes, a strategy dubbed the String of Pearls. Achieving the trust of wary neighbours including Vietnam, Russia and India is not a given, and is consistently being undermined by sustained muscle flexing by China elsewhere. In the South China Sea, for example, naval confrontations have increased in the face of aggressive maritime claims by Beijing. Exporting overcapacity Lenins theory that imperialism is driven by capitalist surpluses seems to hold true, oddly, in one of the last (ostensibly) Leninist countries in the world. It is no coincidence that the Silk Road strategy coincides with the aftermath of an investment boom that has left vast overcapacity and a need to find new markets abroad. Construction growth is slowing and China doesnt need to build many new expressways, railways and ports, so they have to find other countries that do, says Tom Miller of Beijing consultancy Gavekal Dragonomics. One of the clear objectives is to get more contracts for Chinese construction companies overseas. Like the Marshall Plan, the new Silk Road initiative looks designed to use economic treats as a way to address other vulnerabilities. Chinas western frontiers and its central Asian neighbours are home to vast reserves of oil and gas. The Xinjiang region, sitting on some of Chinas largest energy reserves and crucial to the Silk Road project, is also home to a restive Muslim Uighur population that is culturally Turkish, far poorer than the citizens of coastal China and seeking a break with Beijing. The region has been the scene of serious outbreaks of violence in recent years. A push into central Asia will partly fill the vacuum left by the retreat of Moscow after the cold war, followed by Washingtons military pullback from Afghanistan next year. With Beijing saying it is facing a rising terrorist threat, stabilising the wider region is a priority. , But, in doing so, China will inherit the same chicken and egg problem that has plagued the US in its nation building attempts having to ask whether security and stability is a pre-requisite for economic development, or whether, as Beijing appears to believe, it can pacify local conflicts with a sea of investment and infrastructure spending. Combating radical Islam If this approach does not work, China will be faced with some grim alternatives either turn tail and leave, or risk getting bogged down in security commitments and local politics. It has made clear that it does not want to replace the US in Afghanistan nor does it see itself as a regional policeman. China will not fall into the same mistakes, says Jia Jinjing, a specialist on south Asia at Beijings Renmin University. Economic development, strategists in Beijing argue, will remove the appeal of radical Islam in China and Pakistan, Afghanistan and central Asia. But critics note that culturally insensitive policies, an enormous security presence and economic strategies that benefit Chinese communities at the expense of locals have so far only escalated tensions in Xinjiang, the desert region that has 22 per cent of Chinas domestic oil reserves and 40 per cent of its coal deposits. . Roads and pipelines across Pakistan and Myanmar will ultimately allow China to avoid another strategic vulnerability the chokepoint of the Strait of Malacca, through which about 75 per cent of its oil imports pass. Already, half of Chinas natural gas arrives overland from central Asia, thanks to an expensive strategy by Mr Xis predecessors to cut dependence on seaborne imports. While some neighbours will welcome the investment, it is less clear they will want Chinas overcapacity. Many have unemployment and underperforming steel mills of their own, or ambitions to develop their own industry rather than import someone elses. Large-scale investment could also trigger concerns about opening the floodgates to Chinese economic dominance as it has done in Myanmar and Sri Lanka and, by extension, political influence. But China is hoping the lure of massive spending will prove too great an incentive for its neighbours to resist. They [Beijing] dont have much soft power, because few countries trust them, says Mr Miller. They either cant or dont want to use military power. What they have is huge amounts of money. Additional reporting by Michael Peel and Ma Fangjing An on-duty Sanitation worker was caught throwing debris at a statue of Jesus on the cross outside of a Brooklyn church on Thursday, according to the NYPD. When officers approached him a few blocks from the scene, the worker allegedly tried to escape in his street sweeper. Roman Protas, 38, was observed in front of Saint Frances de Chantal Parish in Borough Park shortly before 9:00 a.m., throwing "unknown objects" at a crucifix statue, an NYPD spokesman said. Responding officers caught up with Protas several blocks east on Avenue L. The worker allegedly fled when they flashed their lights. Officers apprehended Protas at the corner of East 8th Street and Avenue M in Midwood, where they discovered prescription pills on his person. Protas was charged on arrest with criminal possession of a controlled substance, reckless endangerment, fleeing, reckless driving, and running a red light. His arraignment was still pending on Thursday evening. The News reports that Protas has been employed by the city since 2008, and made $94,000 with overtime in 2015. We rely on your support to make local news available to all Make your contribution now and help Gothamist thrive in 2022. Donate today It's going to be positively springlike this weekend, which is good news, since you'll probably want to walk whenever possible: the MTA is switching things up on 16 trains this weekend. Check out the changes slated for this weekend, and dream of a day with better transit options. 1 trains are not running from 11:30 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday. For service between South Ferry and Chambers St, 96 St and 168 St, or 207 St and 242 St, use free shuttle buses. For Dyckman St, use the M100 bus (does not run nights) to and from the Dyckman St A station. Flatbush Av-Brooklyn College-bound 2 trains will run local from 72 St to Chambers St from 11:30 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday. They'll also be skipping 86 St and 79 St; for service from those stations, take an uptown 2 or 3 local to 96 St and transfer to a downtown 2 or 3. Also during that time, Wakefield-241 St-bound 2 trains will run local from Chambers St to 96 St. New Lots Av-bound 3 trains will run local from 72 St to Chambers St, skipping 86 St and 79 St, from 11:30 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday. Also during that time, Harlem-148 St-bound 3 trains will run local from Chambers St to 96 St. 3 service will operate overnight between 148 St and Chambers St. 4 trains will skip Rockaway Av and Van Siclen Av in both directions. Pelham Bay-Park-bound 6 trains will skip 103 St, and will run express from 3 Av-138 St to Hunters Point Av from 11:45 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday. Flushing-Main St-bound 7 trains will run express from Queensboro Plaza to Mets-Willets Point from 6:45 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. A trains are not running in either direction between Euclid Av and Lefferts Blvd from 12:01 a.m. Saturday to 5 a.m. Monday. A service will operate between Rockaway Blvd and Far Rockaway, every 20 minutes, and between Inwood-207 St and Euclid Av. Free shuttle buses will operate between Euclid Av and Lefferts Blvd with stops at Grant Av, 80 St, 88 St, Rockaway Blvd, 104 St, and 111 St. Additionally, from 11:45 p.m. Friday to 6:30 a.m. Sunday and from 11:45 p.m. Sunday to 5:00 a.m. Monday, Brooklyn-bound A trains will run express 59 St-Columbus Circle to Canal St. Brooklyn-bound C trains will run express from 59 St-Columbus Circle to Canal St from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Coney Island-Stilwell Av-bound D trains will run express from Atlantic Av-Barclays Ctr to 36 St from 11:45 p.m. Friday 19 to 6:30 a.m. Sunday and again from 11:45 p.m. Sunday to 5 a.m. Monday. Jamaica Center-Parsons/Archer-bound E trains will run express from Roosevelt Av to Forest Hills-71 Av, from 12:15 a.m. to 7 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday and from 12:15 a.m. to 5 a.m. on Monday. Coney Island-Stillwell Av-bound F trains will be rerouted via the E line from Roosevelt Av to W 4 St-Wash Sq from 11:45 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday, and will skip 169 St. J trains are not running in either direction between Hewes St and Broad St from 11:30 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday. Free shuttle buses will run in the train's place. M trains are not running in either direction between Myrtle Av and Essex St from 6 a.m. to midnight on Saturday and Sunday. Take the J, L, or free shuttle buses instead. Coney Island-Stillwell Av-bound N trains will run express from Atlantic Av-Barclays Ctr to 59 St. from 11:45 p.m. on Friday to 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, and again from 11:45 p.m. on Sunday to 5 a.m. on Monday. Q trains are not running in either direction between 57 St-7 Av and Kings Hwy from 11:30 p.m. on Friday to 5 a.m. on Monday. There will be express, non-stop shuttles between Kings Hwy and Atlantic Av-Barclays Ctr, and local shuttles between Kings Hwy and Atlantic Av-Barclays Ctr making all stops. R service will be extended to Jamaica-179 St from 6:30 a.m. to midnight on Saturday and Sunday. From 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday, Jamaica-179 St-bound R trains will run express from Roosevelt Av to 71 Av. From 6 a.m. Saturday to 11:30 p.m. Sunday, February 21, Bay Ridge-bound R trains will run express from Atlantic Av-Barclays Ctr to 59 St. And from 11:45 p.m. Friday to 6:30 a.m. Sunday, and again from 11:45 p.m. Sunday to 5:00 a.m. Monday, Bay Ridge-bound R trains will skip 45 St and 53 St. Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird, has died at age 89. Lee was born in Monroeville, Alabama on April 28th, 1926, and published her famed novel in 1960 after spending several years in New York, basing a number of characters in the book on friends (including Truman Capote) and family from her hometown. To Kill A Mockingbird has since become widely regarded as a classic work of American literature, due in part to its bracing look at racial injustice in the Deep South during the Great Depression. Atticus Finch, the father figure and attorney whose stalwart defense of a black man wrongly accused of murder earned him accolades for being one of the best fictional characters in literature, was based on Lee's own father, Amasa Coleman Lee. For decades, To Kill A Mockingbird was Lee's only published work. But last year, Harper Collins published Go Set a Watchman, a novel that was apparently the initial story Lee submitted to her editor back in the 1950s before it was shaped into Mockingbird. Watchman was criticized for its depiction of an older Atticus Finch, who NYTimes reviewer Michiko Kakutani called "a racist who once attended a Klan meeting, who says things like 'The Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people.' Or asks his daughter: 'Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters? Do you want them in our world?' Lee suffered a stroke in 2007 and had been living in an assisted living facility for the last few years. The state of Alabama briefly conducted an investigation into whether or not Lee had been mentally sound when she agreed to publish Watchman. Officials found no wrongdoing. A stage production of To Kill A Mockingbird is expected to debut on Broadway next year, with a script written by Aaron Sorkin. The MTA today confirmed rumors that it is considering resurrecting the W trainthat local line from Astoria to Whitehall Street that got the axe in 2010, when the MTA budget deficit was a comparatively-paltry $1.2 billion. Pending the outcome of a public hearing this spring, the MTA stated on Friday that it could have the W up and running again before the end of the year. Indeed, the return of the W train is planned to precede the late-2016 opening of the first phase of the Second Avenue Subway, at existing Lexington Av/63 Street, as well as new stations at 72nd Street, 86th Street and 96th Street. The MTA will reroute the Q train, which currently serves Astoria along with the N, to 2nd Avenue between 63rd and 96th. "The W line would effectively replace Q service in Queens," the MTA announced today. The local train would not, however, run on weekends or late nights. Some mass transit advocates said that they were pleasantly surprised by the news. "My Astoria friends are thrilled," said Nick Sifuentes of the Riders Alliance. "The MTA clearly needed to do something to make sure that Astoria service continues unabated, but it's kind of funnyI don't think anyone expected it to come back." Here's a full breakdown of the proposed service changes along the N/Q/R/W line: N Line: Service in Queens and Brooklyn remains the same, but trains operate express in Manhattan on weekdays during peak hours, midday and evenings. Q Line: Northern terminus temporarily changed to 57 St/7 Ave until the Second Avenue Subway opens. At that point, trains will operate from 96 St in Manhattan to Coney Island-Stillwell Av in Brooklyn, stopping at: 86 St, 72 St, Lexington Av/63 St, 57 St/7 Av and all express stops on the Broadway Line in Manhattan. During late nights, the Q will run local between Brooklyn and Manhattan via the Manhattan Bridge. Service in Brooklyn remains the same. R Line: No service changes. W Line: Restoration of weekday service, making all local stops from Astoria-Ditmars Blvd to Whitehall St via the Broadway Line. No service on weekends or late night. Incorporated into the subway system in 2001, the W ran from Astoria all the way to Coney Island until 2004. That year, the W switched to a local route from Astoria to Whitehall. Along with the V train and several bus routes, it was nixed as part of the largest service cut in the MTA's historyat a time when Astoria was seeing an influx of new residents. ("To cut the only service to this neighborhood in half would be like choking the breath out of this community," Councilmember Peter Vallone Jr. said at the time.) Compared to the MTA's more ambitious and money-sucking projects (consider the Second Avenue Subway's illusive Phase II), reinstating the W would be relatively cheap and easy. For starters, all of the tracks and stations already exist. And according to AM New York, the MTA has already budgeted for new W train signage and maps. (The MTA says the total cost for implementing the proposed service changes is about $13.7 million.) John Montemarano, the MTA's director of station signage since 1994, estimated over the summer that his crew would need about four months to prep the system. Bill Reese, who works in publishing, hosted a boozy funeral for the W back in June 2010, cramming the train's last ride with fellow W enthusiasts. Reese moved to Greenpoint after the W decamped, but has since moved back to Astoriain time for the return of his old reliable. "I can't say that I have a fondness for the W on a real personal level, or that I was emotionally devastated [when it left]," he told us on Friday. "But I definitely remember right after they made those budget cuts that it was a lot longer to wait for trains, and that they were more crowded when they showed up." Judging by the below footage, a raging subway party in 2010 is basically the equivalent of 2016 rush hour. More W train funeral footage from 2010. This was shot by Chris O'Neill. Posted by Bill Reese on Friday, February 19, 2016 UPDATE: An earlier version of this piece inaccurately described the W as a Queens-Manhattan train from its injunction in 2001. In fact, the W ran to Coney Island from 2001-2004. You wouldn't have known it from the steady pop-pop-pop of exploding hoverboards this past holiday season, from the noxious battery smoke hovering from Brooklyn to New Jersey, from the PSAs and City Council debates and street fights, but U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been busy fighting the War Against Counterfeit Chargeable Skateboards That Might Spontaneously Combust. The CBP says it confiscated 1,378 (1,378!) counterfeit hoverboards at JFK airport in December alone. Apparently made in China with sub-par batteries, the lot would have been worth $447,000 at market value. As CBP's New York Director Robert Perez put it, "The interception of these potentially dangerous hoverboards is a direct reflection of the vigilance and commitment to mission success." That, and killing fun. Unfortunately for thrill seeking (or lazy) New Yorkers, even legit boards aren't wanted here. Get your hands on a board with a legitimate battery, and you're still dealing with an unregistered motor vehicle that isn't allowed to set wheels on a sidewalk, subway, bus, Amtrak train, or Access-a-Ride. And just yesterday, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (USPC) sent a notice to all retailers, manufacturers and importers mandating that hoverboards not compliant with new safety regulations be confiscated immediately. This order isn't the same as a nationwide ban on the boards, but it is likely to prompt recalls. "This is us drawing a line in the sand and a notice for the entire hoverboard community," CPSC Chairman Elliot Kaye told Mashable this week. "From our perspective, a smart retailer will put in place a stop sale to find out if their inventory complies with our standard. If they are certain that it doesnt, they should then issue a recall proposal." Opinion Clear message The Darwin awards are for the best approaches, normally successful, to removing yourself from the gene pool. The latest attempt by American Rebecca Clark shows how to do it in so many ways, a solo walk in a park, poor phone reception and then getting within a few feet of a 2000-pound bison. A blog detailing the work of Midwives for Haiti, as told through the experience of one of their volunteer midwives: Wendy Dotson. 404 No, I'm not in Mexico. I can't handle the altitude. So I am very grateful to professional photographer Jonathan Sa'adah, who has posted on his blog such illuminating narratives along with photographs of his recent trip to Mexico City, showing its people, its cultural treasures, and the celebration of the visit of Pope Francis. It's the next best thing to being there, as they say. It is good, also, to get the perspective of a progressive and a humanitarian on life in Mexico's major metropolis. Sa'adah also has published a book of photos titled How Many Roads, along with commentaries from Teju Cole and others. They are evocative of the 60's as many of us experienced that time. Here is something I wrote about that book a while ago: and the subject of several of the photos. * I highly recommend Jonathan Sa'adah's book, How Many Roads , of his photos, with essays by Teju Cole, Elizabeth Adams, Hoyt Alverson and Steven Tozer. Elizabeth is Sa'adah's wife Nothing I have read about the 60's resonates with me the way this book does. This is how people like us looked then, those of us in cold places. We lived in Madison, Wisconsin at the time in student poverty. We were overwhelmingly concerned about the war and the social injustices that were tearing the country apart, and we, as members of the student community and young people with liberal leanings, were scapegoated for the wrongs of those times. It was impossible to have civil conversations with Terry's older relatives, his aunt and uncle, and they virtually disowned their son for becoming a conscientious objector. I thought the title could be read as somewhat ironic, since all of our student friends from that time took the same road as we did, which led us to the upper middle class. But the old confusions remain. I still think for many of us this was a time of overwhelming events that we experienced in a very inward way. That is why this book appeals to me so much. It's intense, it's personal. And a lot of it was traumatic. We were trying to remember which of the many marches on Washington we went to: four, I think. Terry says we went to the '69 March on Washington, but that can't be right, because my elder daughter was born that year. I think he might have gone with his friend. Our memories of that era are flawed. I don't even recall whether I heard MLK speak in person or whether I only saw him on television. This was before social media, and our records and recollections of that time are haphazard and unorganized. If Terry ever retires, he is going to scan our photos from then. Perhaps we can gain some new insights from that. *Beth informs me that she was not in any of the photos but leading a "parallel life" at the time. That is what I find so interesting: that so many of us were on parallel tracks but unknown to each other. The much-beloved British farce, Noises Off, makes its Carroll College debut at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 19, and runs for six performances only at Carroll College Theatre. Written by the English playwright Michael Frayn, its a play within a play. It was inspired by his experiences watching a farce backstage, which proved funnier from behind the curtain than in front. Noises Off features lots of slamming doors and madcap mayhem backstage, which overflows on stage -- where timing is both impeccably good and bad simultaneously. The result has been called one of the funniest plays ever written. This play made me laugh more than anything else Ive ever seen, said director Kimberly Shire, who was charmed when she saw the movie version starring Carol Burnett and Christopher Reeve. Every time I watch it, I laugh so hard I cry. Noises Off is a play about a group of traveling actors trying to put on the play, Nothing On, without much success, said Shire. Theyre performing a farce but theyre not doing well. Their interpersonal problems backstage come to a boiling point, which overflows onto the stage, creating a production of fiasco proportions. It stars nine of Carrolls most experienced young actors, said Shire, and it takes some daring, innovative risks. The play is written for a rotating set, something Carroll doesnt have. So Shire, who has extensive experience in film, turned to technology. Thanks to backstage cameras and two large screens near the stage, the audience gets to see both the mayhem backstage and simultaneously the chaos happening on stage as the actors try to salvage Nothing On. It was really scary not knowing if the tech side of this would work, admitted Shire. But its working seamlessly. And, to Shires surprise, this just could be one of the first Noises Off productions to use such tech wizardry to show both sides of the curtain. The three student camera operators backstage are also actors, so they know how to focus in their shots for the best effect, she said. Not only is Shire having a blast with the production, so are her cast members. Al Olszewski, a Carroll senior, plays the actor Garry, in Noises Off, who acts the role of Roger, a sleazeball real-estate agent, in "Nothing On." In real life Garry is a very nervous person, who despite being an actor is very insecure, said Olszewski. Hes also very jealous of the character Dotty, who is playing Mrs. Clackett (Ellen Postlewait) in Nothing On. The more upset Garry gets, the more his roles get confused onstage, said Olszewski. All the actors in Nothing On are super awful, doing stereotypical bad acting, he said, but its all pretty funny. Its going to be really exciting, he said of the production. People dont usually perform it the way we do, using a video simulcast. Carroll sophomore Bailey Osborne plays the role of actress Belinda Blair, who in turn is playing the role Flavia Brent in Nothing On. Belinda is almost a mother figure, who is trying to hold the production together as things disintegrate, said Osborne. Its a crazy show, Osborne said. Ive never acted in any show like this. Theres lots of slapstick humor. Its a really fun play to watch. To see a live production that is simultaneously being performed and projected on the screen should be a fun experience, concluded Shire, who is also Carrolls director of theater productions. The show runs through Sunday, Feb. 28, in the Carroll College Performing Arts Center, with shows at 7:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and 3 p.m. on Sundays. Tickets are available at the door and online at www.carroll.edu/academics/theatre/season.cc. Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for students and seniors, and $2 with a Carroll ID. Visit the website for a $3 discount coupon, using the code word "bags." This will be one of the last productions in Carrolls old theater. Stay tuned to the IR for some exciting news about a new theater space on campus. Humanities Montana is now accepting online applications for 2016 Hometown Humanities at www.humanitiesmontana.org/programs/hometownhumanities/application.php. The deadline for applications is Feb. 29. Any Montana community with a population under 20,000 people is eligible to apply. Previous Hometown Humanities locations include Miles City, Dillon, Lincoln County, and Havre. Hometown Humanities brings a years worth of humanities-based programming to a single community 15 to 25 events all free of charge and open to the public, selected from Humanities Montanas extensive program catalog. Humanities Montana staff works with the selected community to design a schedule that includes public speakers from its Montana Conversations and Speakers in the Schools programs, community conversations on local issues, reading and discussion groups, and an array of other possibilities. Hometown Humanities supports the particular cultural interests of a Montana community, and explores the capacity of the humanities to enrich lives, foster inquiry, and stimulate civil and informed conversations about the human experience. It gets people talking sometimes about challenging and sensitive subjects in ways that broaden perspectives and bring people together. For more information visit www.humanitiesmontana.org or call 406-243-6022. Shortly after he shot and killed a neighbor in an altercation over land access, Joseph Campbell told detectives of mounting hostility in his community outside of Augusta. Before the shooting, those in the neighborhood started to warn Campbell a confrontation loomed, he said. "He's armed. Be careful. Watch your back," Campbell, in a taped interview on Oct. 28, 2013, quoted his neighbors as saying. "It kept getting more and more intense," he added. Jurors in Campbell's deliberate homicide trial, which began Monday, watched a video of the interview earlier this week. The trial is expected to take at least three weeks. It is overseen by Judge Jeffrey Sherlock, who came out of retirement to preside. The trial is being held in the Old Supreme Court Chambers of the state Capitol. The tension continued escalating until Campbell stood across his fence from Timothy "Tim" Newman. Both men were armed. Campbell says he thought Newman would kill him. Prosecutors say Campbell was the aggressor who shot Newman in the back. Campbell was trying to limit access to his 300 acres outside of Augusta. Newman defied Campbell's efforts and cut locks on his fences. "He knew he wasn't welcome on the property," Campbell told investigators in the interview from 2013. The two men, who knew each other since 2002, had been friends, according to Campbell. The relationship disintegrated over the years. Campbell said the two had limited, mostly contentious, interactions in the year leading up to the shooting. Newman became increasingly "erratic," "disjointed" and "anxious," Campbell told detectives. Prosecutors with the Montana Attorney General's Office say it was Campbell who was growing more aggressive with his neighbors, mainly Newman. He was known to confront residents at his fences armed. In charging documents, it is noted that authorities received more than 25 calls involving Campbell between 2000 and 2013, including allegations that he threatened people with a gun. A group of neighbors wrote to the Lewis and Clark County Attorney's Office in September 2009 to express their concern about Campbell's escalating behavior, including pointing guns at people. Jurors have seen the guns both men were carrying at the time of the killing. Newman had a pistol. Campbell was armed with a revolver. Campbell says he shot in self defense. Prosecutors say Campbell, who was 67 at the time, had intent and motive in shooting Newman deliberately in the back. The evidence does not match Campbell's account of the events by the fence that day, they say. After Campbell's wife called 911, a sheriff's deputy found Newman's corpse with bolt cutters at his feet in the woods nearly 20 miles southwest of Augusta on Oct. 18, 2013. In the weeks-long trial, much of the testimony will focus on the shooting itself, but another key component of the case is the ongoing battle regarding land access. Testimony from more than 60 witnesses is anticipated. In Our Care PENDING MERRILL, Marjorie A., age 91 of Helena, passed away Wednesday, February 17, 2016. Services are pending at this time and will be announced when complete. Please visit www.aswfuneralhome.com to offer a condolence to the family or to share a memory of Marjorie. MONDAY TOCCAFONDO, Antonio, age 76, of Helena, passed away February 13, 2016. A Funeral Mass will be celebrated at 3:00 p.m. on Monday February 22nd at St. Mary Catholic Community, 1700 Missoula Ave. A reception will follow the Mass at the Eagles Lodge, 801 N. Fee Street. Please visit www.aswfuneralhome.com to offer a condolence to the family or to share a memory of Tony. PFANKUCH, Dale J., age 88 of Helena passed away Wednesday, February 3, 2016. A service celebrating Dales life will be held at 1:00 p.m. in the chapel at the Masonic Home, 2010 Masonic Home Road. A reception will follow the service at the Masonic Home. Please visit www.aswfuneralhome.com to offer a condolence to the family or to share a memory of Dale. TUESDAY BENNETT, Lois A., age 81 of Helena passed away Tuesday, February 16, 2016. Visitation will be held on Monday, February 22, 2016 from 10:00-3:30 p.m. at Anderson Stevenson Wilke Funeral Home 3750 N. Montana Avenue. A Rosary will be prayed following the visitation at 3:30 p.m. A vigil will be held at 4:00 p.m. at Anderson Stevenson Wilke Funeral Home. A Funeral Mass will be held on Tuesday, February 23, 2016 at 12:00 p.m. at the Cathedral of Saint Helena, 530 N. Ewing St. with a reception to immediately follow in the Brondel Center of the Cathedral. Please visit www.aswfuneralhome.com to offer a condolence to the family or to share a memory of Lois. SODJA, Lester J. age 83, of Helena passed away at the Masonic Home of Montana Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016. The family will receive friends during a visitation from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Monday, February 22, 2016 at Anderson Stevenson Wilke Funeral Home. Funeral Mass will be 10:00 a.m. Tuesday, February 23, 2016 at SS Cyril & Methodius Catholic Church in East Helena. Burial with military honors will follow at St. Anns Cemetery. A reception will follow in the lower level of the church. Memorials in Lesters name are suggested to the Masonic Home of Montana, 2010 Masonic Home Road, Helena, Montana 59602. Please visit www.aswfuneralhome.com to offer a condolence to the family or to share a memory of Lester. WEDNESDAY HUNT, William E. Bill, age 92, of Helena passed away on February 16, 2016. A Vigil service will take place at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 23, 2016 at Anderson Stevenson Wilke Funeral Home, 3750 N. Montana Ave. A Funeral Mass will be celebrated at 12:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 24th at the Cathedral of Saint Helena, 530 N. Ewing St. A reception will follow Mass in the Brondel Center located in the lower level of the Cathedral of Saint Helena. A graveside service with Military Honors will follow the reception at Resurrection Cemetery, 3700 N. Montana Ave. Memorials are suggested to Helena Food Share, PO Box 943, Helena, Montana 59624 or to the American Civil Liberties Union, over the phone at 1-888-567-ACLU or online at https://www.aclu.org/about-aclu. Please visit www.aswfuneralhome.com to offer the family a condolence or to share a memory of Bill. Thumbs up Helena wouldnt be the outdoor adventurers oasis it is today if it werent for the Prickly Pear Land Trust. Since its start 20 years ago, the nonprofit land conservation organization has been intricately involved in a variety of local public access projects ranging from a recent fishing access site on Prickly Pear Creek to Helenas award-winning South Hills trail system. The local economic benefit of the organizations work is significant. The groups projects are used as selling points for nearby homes, and they have gained nationwide attention that draw in visitors from around the country. And for those of us fortunate enough to live here, the conservation projects have contributed greatly to our unmatched quality of life. Thanks to the PPLT and its many volunteers for the two decades you have spent making Helena a better place. We are fortunate to have you in our community and look forward to what you will accomplish in the next 20 years and beyond. *** Thumbs up Montana ranks fourth among states with the most breweries per capita, according to Brewers Association statistics. And it appears craft brewing is on the rise. Initially, the growth in tap rooms in Montana caused some concern among tavern owners worried about how that would affect their sales. But instead of bickering over their differences, the two groups have decided to team up with the Montana Restaurant Association for a promotion that should help them all out. Through the promotion, the alliance is distributing signs and stickers stating Buy Local Beer Here to bars, restaurants and breweries statewide to highlight Montana-made brews at Montana establishments. It is also encouraging consumers to post pictures with messages on social media and are using the hashtags #BuyLocalBeer and #MTBeer in an effort to get people talking. We see this promotion as a great way to highlight some great Montana-made products, and were delighted to see these old foes joining forces to make it happen. *** Thumbs up Calling all night owls and pizza lovers! Cleaning up after a major community event can be a big chore, but Florence Crittenton Home has a plan to make it fun for anyone willing to chip in after its annual Paint the Town Pink fundraiser Saturday night at the Lewis and Clark Fairgrounds. The all-nighter pizza party for the cleanup crew will start at midnight, and volunteers of all ages are invited to help out. One adult should accompany each group of 10 children. Those willing to help are asked to sign up at http://vols.pt/eiZypm to confirm their spot and receive email instructions and reminders. For more information, call Amy Smiedala at 406-442-6950 ext. 204. In this season of presidential debates, international warfare and refugee crises it's easy to often lose sight of more mundane issues like utility rates and rail safety. The fact is, however, that the actions of the Public Service Commission in these areas have significant and direct impacts on our daily lives. In recent newspaper articles, the PSC announced new electrical rate increases, sought to explain dangerously concerning railroad safety audits, and witnessed unmanaged problems spinning out of control. All of these issues have one thing in common, the misguided management by the current Public Service Commission. Thats why I was amazed at Public Service Commissioner Roger Koopmans recent editorials explaining why, in spite of voting for it, he was not responsible for Northwestern Energys recent interim rate increase. He should be excused, he explains, because he did his best, but at the time nobody would listen." Commissioner Koopmans response to the actions of his commission blames public ecstasy for the commissions lack of oversight. He also explained that his abstention from voting on the rate reconsideration was how he would register extreme displeasure at his fellow commissioners. I am hopeful Montanans dont excuse Commissioner Koopman for errors he admits the commission made, but instead they will see it as a clear indication of how dysfunctional our PSC has become. Just last month the state audit committee found that this Public Service Commission was so negligent in regulating rail safety that the auditors recommended that the commissions responsibilities be given to another agency. Rail safety is a key issue for Montana communities, and we hope the other guy is doing it is not a reassuring response. The PSC also recently became entangled in the sale of the Missoula municipal water utility. The Carlyle Group, an investment firm embroiled in court proceedings with the city of Missoula, sold the Missoula water utility without any notification to the commission. This issue dates back several years and has been a thorn in the side of the Missoula community, yet the only action taken by this PSC has been to allow the Carlyle Group management to keep their salaries secret from the water consumers. The failure to protect ratepayers is inexcusable. Commissioner Koopman recognized the dysfunction of the all-Republican PSC when he wrote, For this Commissioner, it is exceedingly frustrating to approve a rate hike that could have been avoided if the Commission had been more prudent and skeptical. The portions of the PSC that Commissioner Koopman finds so negligent are members of his political party. The commissioner would like us all to see the rate increase as a situation of those guys did it and not we did it. Excuses, shrugged shoulders and finger pointing are not effective forms of government regulation, and Montana consumers should demand that a commission charged with their protection not be used for furthering ideological agendas. According to Commissioner Koopman, the current PSC has been acting rashly, and I agree. Pat Noonan is a Democrat from Ramsay and candidate for Public Service Commission. Montana regulators are in no hurry to raise the states milk inspection fees -- at least not yet. The Board of Livestock on Thursday toyed with the idea of patching over a five-figure shortfall in this years budget by borrowing cash from other funds, as opposed to adopting oft-derided dairy fee increases. Board Chairman John Lehfeldt said he expects the seven-member governor-appointed panel to take a vote on that alternative sometime in the next three months. He suspects the board will need more time to mull solutions for bigger budget gaps expected to appear next fiscal year, when Department of Livestock Administrator George Harris said continued declines in the number of Montana dairies could open up a six-figure hole in the Milk and Egg Bureaus spending plan. That bureau -- funded largely through fees paid by Montanas dairy farmers, ice-cream makers and cheese producers -- faced scrutiny Thursday from board members who wondered why the bureaus inspection costs never seemed to fall in proportion with a much-discussed decline in dairies to inspect. Harris blamed rising employee benefit, fuel and vehicle costs for some of that trend, but conceded costs needed to come down somewhere. Board Vice Chairman John Scully has called for a cost analysis to help account for expenses in the milk inspection program. Fee increases proposed early this month to help prop up that program were met with fierce opposition from dairy farmers and producers, some of whom told legislators higher fees could drive them out of business. Others said it would simply drive them into the arms of out-of-state milk producers, or prompt them to flee Montana altogether. Despite the outcry, legislators assigned to the states Economic Affairs Interim Committee (EAIC) lifted their objection to the suggested increases, enabling livestock board-authored fee revisions the board hopes to draft over the next several months. Dairies are currently charged around 15 cents per hundred pounds of milk produced, with a minimum charge of $50 and a maximum of $1,050. Large plants, as well as yogurt and cheese producers, are not charged under existing rules. Rules suggested early this month would have nearly doubled that rate to 27 cents per hundred pounds of milk, while enacting a 350 percent increase in minimum charges for dairy producers. Other state Milk and Egg Bureau licensees would have paid a minimum of $725 a month and a maximum of $2,850. Livestock board members have agreed those figures are unworkable, though Chairman Lehfeldt doesnt think theyll have a revised fee proposal to bring to state lawmakers by the time the EAIC reconvenes on April 20. 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. When Gabrielle Wheeler was 13, her stepfather, a truck driver, came home and had a freak-out one morning. She was sleeping on a cot in the hallway of one of the two-bedroom apartments her family lived in between stays in motel rooms. Her stepfather tripped on her and was angry. When he did come home it was really bad and unsafe, she said. Her mom had her pack her bags and took her to live with a family friend. At 13, that was really scary, she said. Gabrielle and five other teens told the Protect Montana Kids Commission Thursday about their experiences in Montanas foster care system. The commission, created by Gov. Steve Bullock last September, is tasked with finding ways to improve the various programs in place to help kids in the state, like Child and Family Services. The commission will also make recommendations to the 2017 Legislature. The commission has been looking at issues with CFS, including complaints made by parents and grandparents about poor communication and actions taken by caseworkers, as well as issues the agency is asking for help fixing, including what it says are unreasonable workloads and low pay. Gabrielle, now 17, was born in Missoula. She told the commission her family moved 19 times between Montana, Colorado and Texas, where she said her parents started doing pretty hard drugs. She said she and her brother werent being fed and didnt feel safe. The family moved back to Arlee, which is where she was living when her parents sent her away to stay with a family friend. She missed four months of school her eighth-grade year. After 2 years, the husband and wife she was staying with with told her she needed to find a new place to live. She was a sophomore in high school and homeless, sleeping under the Reserve and Russell Street bridges in Missoula. Friends eventually realized she needed a place to live, and she ended up with a caseworker who took her to a short-term group home. They said, Oh this is going to be a week, youll be back with your mom in two weeks max. I was there two months, she said. She bounced through more group homes around the state and a foster family she had to leave without notice. I came home on a Thursday at 7 p.m. and they said I had to pack my bag and I was leaving tomorrow. The next day she got into a car and wasnt told where she was going. I wound up in Helena, she said. I wasnt able to say goodbye, close any doors. She was put in a youth home, stayed the maximum amount of time allowed and was eventually placed in a family here last summer. It has been an amazing place, she said. She said her foster moms parents are her grandparents, and she calls her foster parents mom and dad. Ive never had that, she said. It gets really, really hard and you feel like you have nobody. Several of the teenagers who spoke Thursday expressed frustration with a lack of communication with Child Protective Services caseworkers, their attorneys and others involved in their case. Some had good experiences in group homes while others didnt. Schylar Baber-Canfield, who is on the commission and is a foster care advocate, said these kids might struggle to explain if they got good help from their Child Protective Services worker because they dont know what a good job is. Gabrielle told the commission that at times during the process she felt like her rights werent being considered. Kids should be told where theyre going and if theres a reason theyre not being told they should be told of that reason, she said. She said she often couldnt leave voicemails for her caseworker because she didnt answer calls and her voicemail was always full. That really hindered a lot of trust boundaries being broken, she said. Isaac Brito, an 18-year-old who attends Montana State University, said he didn't trust his caseworker or attorney. One of my biggest issues was communication, he said. He told the commission his caseworker didn't return his calls and his guardian ad litem only spoke to him once, adding his lawyer only sometimes got back to him. Brito was placed in the care of his grandparents at 15 when on a summer trip to their home in Anaconda his younger sister told his grandma and grandpa about the emotional and physical abuse and neglect they were experiencing from their mother. He said the caseworker he was assigned didn't fight for him. I came into foster care completely damaged and just the process of going into foster care and everything, feeling like I wasnt ever heard, lowered my confidence and made me feel like Ive had more worth, he said. I never felt like I had a voice and all these people were making all these decisions about my life. Not all kids had the same experience. Charlie Heil, an 18-year-old who is a senior at Capital High in Helena, said she had positive experience with her court-appointed special advocate and others involved in her case. I was going to all of the court (hearings), had a CASA, talked to attorneys, knew everything that was going on. Child and Family Services Director Sarah Corbally asked the teens about how multiple placements in group and family homes affected them. Several of the kids who spoke said theyd been moved around to different group or foster homes, sometimes with little or no notification. Crystal LaMere, a 17-year-old from Great Falls, said transitions are the biggest issue shes dealt with. Foster kids need that stability, she said. They get attached to somebody and they leave. Ive had so many caseworkers since Ive been in the system, I cant get really close to them. Any time I get close to any of them they just leave again. I have a really hard time trying to trust caseworkers now. The commission also heard from foster parents about kinship care and from judges on ways they address abuse and neglect cases. The commission has until the end of May to make any recommendations on changes to state law, and then plans to focus on how to improve employee retention at CFS, which has seen high turnover rates. The agency has 178 investigator positions and at any given time about 30 are vacant, most employees stay less than two years and last year 77 of the 178 investigators left their jobs. BILLINGS A former Ravalli County treasurer who was placed on leave after she failed to pay bills and make reports has sued a western Montana newspaper for libel. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court on Feb. 11 by Richard and Valerie Stamey, even as county officials have been trying to serve legal papers to Valerie Stamey, the former county treasurer, since June 2014. The Stameys are requesting $8 million from the Bitterroot Star and its proprietors, Michael and Victoria Howell. The lawsuit alleges the Star falsely represented a dispute over a political ad that ran in the paper in 2010. The ad was for Richard Stamey's bid for state Legislature in 2014. His wife, Valerie Stamey, was the campaign treasurer. The Stameys claim the ad did not print as intended after they paid $125 up front, but the paper continued to bill them. In the complaint, the Stameys say the Star "failed to tell their audience the facts surrounding their breach of this agreement" in a subsequent article on Feb. 12, 2014. The Star story referenced in the lawsuit refers to a 2014 decision by the Montana commissioner of political practices that found the cost of the ad had not been forgiven, and the Stameys still owed $162 for it. Additionally, the Stamey campaign had reported the ad as an in-kind contribution by the paper, which the Howells have denied. Missoula radio station KGVO reported that Valerie Stamey made this claim on a radio show in 2014. Valerie Stamey was appointed as Ravalli County treasurer in September 2013 after the former treasurer resigned. The office fell months behind in its workload. A tumultuous relationship formed, and Ravalli County commissioners placed her on administrative leave in January 2014 after she refused to answer questions about her involvement in a South Carolina civil lawsuit. An audit of the treasurer's office found no indication of fraud. The county sought a $29,000 judgment against Stamey for the ordeal but has been unable to serve her with court papers. In late 2014, a bank purchased her house at an uncontested sheriff's sale. The lawsuit indicates that Stamey lives in South Carolina. By Lilit Shaboyan In October of last year, the Armenian government adopted a law stipulating that all imprisoned women taking care of children under the age of three would be allocated food, toys and clothes. Women inmates eligible for such items are still waiting to receive them. Gor Ghlechyan, who heads the public relations office at the Department of Correctional Facilities, says that of the 173 women serving time at the Abovyan penitentiary there is one taking care of a child under the age of three. A public group monitoring conditions in Armenias prisons say that the woman hasnt received any of these items for her child. The Ministry of Justice, which operates the countrys penitentiaries, has no explanation for the delay, only stating that the items will soon be delivered. The public monitoring group has also proposed that women in prison be provided with another stationary phone to use to call friends and family on the outside. Today, they have the right to make 15 minute calls three or four times per week. The ministry promises to look into the matter and quickly come up with solutions. (Lilit Shaboyan is a fourth year student at Yerevan State Universitys Faculty of Journalism) By Miranda Patrucic and Stella Roque VimpelCom, the Russian-Norwegian telecom operator, admitted to bribing Gulnara Karimova, daughter of Islam Karimov, president of Uzbekistan and agreed to pay US$ 795 million in penalties to US and Dutch authorities. VimpelCom, majority owned by Mikhail Fridman, one of Russia's wealthiest businessmen, and Telenor, which is majority-owned by the Norwegian government, was accused of paying more US$ 114.5 million to a relative of Karimov between 2006 and 2012 for mobile phone licenses and frequencies. A criminal investigation by US and Dutch authorities also revealed VimpelCom, registered in Netherlands and trading in the US, paid an additional US$ 30 million for sponsorships and charitable contributions to organizations controlled by Karimova and another government official whose name was not identified, and US$ 20 million in extra charges for currency conversion fees. Internal VimpelCom e-mails between company officials show VimpelCom considered paying US$ 16 million for the opportunity to conduct future operations without hurdles from the partner and regulatory agencies. An earlier investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) found five telecom companies including VimpelCom paid more than US$ 1 billion in bribes to Karimova. OCCRP also found another of Fridmans companies paid US$ 19 million making the total bribes paid by VimpelCom related companies closer to US$ 183.5 million. The settlement includes US$ 167.5 million to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, US$ 230.1 million to the US Department of Justice, and US$ 397.5 million to the Public Prosecution Service of the Netherlands. VimpelCom admitted to falsifying its books and records and to trying to conceal the bribery scheme by classifying the payments as equity transactions, consulting and repudiation agreements and reseller transactions. As they have admitted in court filings, VimpelCom, the worlds sixth largest telecommunications company, with securities traded in New York, and its subsidiary, Unitel, built their business in Uzbekistan on over $114 million in bribes funneled to a government official, said US Attorney Preet Bharara of the Southern District of New York. Those payments, falsely recorded in the companys books and records, were then laundered through bank accounts and assets around the world, including through accounts in New York. The investigation by the US and Dutch prosecutors sheds light on how Gulnara used threats and intimidation to extort money or to force companies to pay bribes in order to operate in the Uzbek market. Entering the Uzbek Market In mid-2005 two telecom operators were up for sale Buztel and Unitel. VimpelCom was interested. Documents obtained by Dutch authorities revealed that VimpelCom was aware that in order to really operate in the Uzbek market, it would need to use and work with a local partner and that a relationship with Karimova was a prerequisite for doing business in Uzbekistan. The negotiations started in December 2005. Their local partner would be Takilant, a Gibraltar-based offshore company beneficially-owned by Karimova. According to the terms of the cooperation agreement, VimpelCom would acquire both operators and merge them. Following the merger Takilant would get a 7% share and an additional agreement that would allow it to make at least US$ 37.5 million on the sale of shares in the future. VimpelCom's Board of Directors discussed Karimovas involvement at a board meeting held on Dec. 14, 2005. According to the Dutch investigation, Karimova actively influenced who would acquire Unitel and Buztel and in fact would decide who may take part in the bidding for both companies and probably could influence the price as well. An unidentified senior manager also informed the board that VimpelCom needed to acquire both companies, otherwise it would risk that the potential local partner would make it difficult to operate in the market. The board was informed acquiring Buztel was of special significance. Officially Buztel at the time was owned by Fridmans Alfa Group. Alfa bought this small, 2700-subscriber local company in December 2004 for US$ 4 million. Alfas Buztel significantly benefited from favorable decisions by Uzbek regulators throughout 2005, including the awarding of a license at the expense of the state-owned company. While the reasons made little sense at the time, the Dutch investigation showed Karimova had an indirect interest in Buztel and VimpelCom managers were aware of it. At the beginning of 2006, VimpelCom bought Buztel from Fridmans Alfa for US$ 60 million, a massive profit from the US$ 4 million it originally paid for the company. Two days later, Alfa made a US$ 19 million payment to Karimovas Gibraltar-registered Takilant. In February 2006, VimpelCom bought Unitel for US$ 200 million, one of the big remaining players in the Uzbek market. A couple of months later, it merged Buztel into Unitel. The plan was set in motion. In April 2007, Karimova entered into an agreement with VimpelCom to buy a 7 percent stake of Unitel for US$ 20 million through a subsidiary. A put option allowed either party to force the sale of the 7 percent stake back to VimpelCom two years later for between US$ 57.5 million to US$ 60 million. Karimova exercised that option in September 2009 earning a windfall of US$ 37.5 million as originally agreed. But that was not all. As with other telecom operators, Karimova requested payment for every telecom license VimpelCom needed to successfully operate in Uzbekistan. Earlier investigations by OCCRP showed that while licenses can be obtained directly from the Uzbek telecommunications regulator, Karimova would also obtain the only available license and then demand payment to return it to the regulator so it could be reissued to VimpelCom. Or she simply threatened them with harmful repercussions unless they paid consulting fees. Millions for Licenses Between 2007 and 2011, VimpelCom paid at least US$ 57 million to Karimova to obtain licenses. Documents obtained by OCCRP showed VimpelCom paid US$ 25 million to Karimova for 3G licenses in November 2007. The Dutch investigation revealed that Takilant offered licenses to VimpelCom even before the company obtained them themselves. VimpelCom first paid US$ 10 million to relinquish the rights, and an additional US$ 15 million for allocation. A year later, in August 2008, VimpelCom paid Takilant US$ 2 million for services including negotiating with different Uzbek agencies for the allocation of additional capacity. But the next payment to Karimova did not go as smoothly and required some arm twisting. In 2011, VimpelCom needed to obtain LTE (high speed data) licenses. While no payments needed to be made to the government agency, senior managers agreed to pay US$ 30 million to Takilant under a service agreement, including advising on the legislative framework in Uzbekistan and negotiating with authorities. Internal emails obtained by Dutch investigators showed that some VimpelCom managers questioned the transactions. One of the managers noted that he couldnt understand why the licenses would be issued for no cost when other countries were raising significant revenues from telecom licenses. Others expressed concern that the fee paid to Takilant was out of proportion with other consulting fees. The investigation revealed that VimpelCom management had been warned of potential harmful repercussions if this transaction did not go through. Karimova used the same method to force other telecom companies to pay or do what she wanted. On Sep. 21, 2011 VimpelCom paid US$ 20 million. One month later, two days after the allocation of licenses a remaining US$ 10 million was paid. In this and other cases, VimpelCom sought the opinion of a law firm to determine whether transactions in Uzbekistan were subject to the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. While the law firm said they were not, the Dutch investigation showed it was based on erroneous and incomplete information. Other Payments The Dutch investigation also revealed VimpelCom's Uzbek operator Unitel paid over US$ 30 million in sponsorships and charitable contributions to charities related directly to Karimova and another government official whose name was not identified. Some of these payments are linked to the acquisitions of licenses. In one case, according to the investigation, as soon Unitel filed a request with the government to obtain additional numbers, the company received a letter from an organization asking for a donation. The phone number blocks were approved following the payment. VimpelCom also paid US$ 20 million in indirect payments to Takilant through intermediaries using fake or inflated contracts for services so that they could use their revenues earned in Uzbek Sum to buy equipment or services priced in non-Uzbek currency. Conversion of local earnings into foreign currency is strictly controlled in Uzbekistan and the conversion of large amounts of money requires the approval from the president himself. Companies operating in the country often have difficulties taking profits earned out of the country. Internal correspondence obtained by Dutch investigators also show management at the regional level contemplated additional payments to Karimova in 2013 in the amount of US$ 16 million in exchange for, among other things, the opportunity to conduct future operations without hurdles from the partner and regulatory agencies. Those bribes were not completed before VimpelCom opened an internal investigation, according to the US Department of Justice. OCCRPs earlier investigation showed VimpelComs payments are just a fraction of the over US$ 1 billion Karimova made through telecom deals. TeliaSonera paid US$ 381 million and promised an additional US$ 75 million; the Russian giant MTS paid US$ 350 million. She also received nearly US$ 90 million from two other companies that ran fiber optic lines and provided WiMAX and WIFI services in Uzbekistan. The telecom case is the largest case ever brought under the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative, spearheaded by the Department of Justice to freeze and seize illicit assets stashed by corrupt foreign leaders in the United States. occrp.org Inspirational Weekly Parsha Insights and anecdotes of Rabbi Schwartz and his never dull family as they acclimate and absorb into their new home in Karmiel Israel, having made Aliyah- August 2010 Students from various high schools in the city gathered at Madison East High School along with parents and teachers to begin marching to the C 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. A New Lisbon man may have taken his job to keep people out of a bar a little too seriously leading to a confrontation with, and injury to, a police officer. Michael E. Breunig, 56, is charged with battery to a law enforcement officer, threat to a law enforcement officer, obstructing an officer and disorderly conduct. He could face up to a $10,000 fine and six years in prison for each of the first two charges. According to the criminal complaint, a police officer was called to the Detour Bar and Grill in New Lisbon Jan. 16 to attend to a male subject who was knocked unconscious and was bleeding from the ears and nose. Breunig, who said he was the bouncer of the bar, met the police officer and told him nothing happened and he could leave. The officer told Breunig he would not leave, as he could see a large pool of blood on the deck and significant injuries to the victim. After again being told to leave, the officer told Breunig to back into the bar. A second officer then arrived to assist the first. While an officer spoke to the victim of the fight, Breunig came outside with a mop and bucket and started cleaning the blood off the deck. The officers asked him to not mop, as they had not yet photographed the evidence. Breunig threw the mop handle down and walked into the bar. When one of the officers tried to enter the bar, Breunig would not allow him inside. After some argument, Breunig was told he was under arrest for refusing to let officers inside the bar. Breunig resisted when officers tried to place him under arrest, with a second officer having to assist the first. During the ensuing struggle, one officer received injuries to his left arm and his watch was broken. On the ride to jail, Breunig threatened the driving officer. He told him he could not wait to find him off duty so he could really have fun with him and kick his a**. He continued to insult and threaten the officer the entire ride to jail. Breunig is due in court at 9 a.m. Feb. 24 for his initial appearance. A former UW Hospital nurse was convicted Thursday of stealing morphine while working at the hospital in 2013 and 2014. Stefanie A. Jones, 32, of Cottage Grove, pleaded guilty to four counts of possession of narcotic drugs, and now faces up to 3 years of combined prison and extended supervision on each count when she is sentenced in about two months. Under a plea agreement, six other narcotic drug possession counts were dismissed. No sentencing recommendation or limits were mentioned in court on Thursday. According to a criminal complaint, UW Police began investigating the theft of narcotics at the hospital in April 2014. UW Hospital's compliance and privacy officer, Daniel Weissburg, told police that he investigated the thefts, including placing surveillance cameras at AcuDose machines, and saw that Jones was stealing morphine from patients and from the AcuDose machines. The complaint states that Jones was seen taking syringes out and putting syringes into the machines, which she did not have the authority to do, and testing found that the syringes she placed into the machines contained water. Jones told Weissburg that she had been taking morphine from the syringes since October 2013 and replacing it with water, and that she also had been taking leftover morphine that patients did not use from syringes, the complaint states. According to a search warrant filed in December 2014, police and the hospital also investigated whether Jones was responsible for an outbreak of an infection at the hospital in 2014 that caused the death of one patient. No charges against Jones related to that outbreak were filed. A Madison man was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison for helping procure the heroin that killed a 15-year-old Reeseville girl in 2014. Dane County Circuit Judge David Flanagan accepted a joint recommendation made by prosecutors and the lawyer for Antonio A. McCarroll, 33, and sentenced him to three years in prison. But Flanagan said the recommended five years of extended supervision wasnt enough and increased it to seven years. McCarroll, who pleaded guilty last month to first-degree reckless homicide, apologized for his role in getting the heroin that caused the death of Ciara C. Misiek, on Aug. 21, 2014. The drug was provided to her by Seth L. Schumacher, 22, of rural Marshall. Schumacher, who is also charged with first-degree reckless homicide, is scheduled for a plea hearing before Flanagan on March 4. I am sorry for the loss of Ciara, I truly am, McCarroll said, and I give my condolences. I apologize from the bottom of my heart. Misieks family did not attend the hearing. The sentence will be added to others that McCarroll is currently serving for unrelated convictions. Deputy District Attorney Matthew Moeser said that the combined sentences will keep McCarroll in prison until 2022, and hell remain on extended supervision until 2036. McCarrolls lawyer, Joanne Keane, said that he wasnt acting as a drug dealer when he helped Schumacher get the heroin that ultimately killed Misiek. She said he was more a middle man, who didnt profit from the transaction. She said he helped Schumacher get the drug because Schumacher said he was in pain and was begging for McCarrolls help in getting it. Keane said that McCarroll was unaware that the heroin would be used by anyone but Schumacher. She called McCarroll a hard worker, who otherwise had been living a law-abiding life, beyond the battery and cocaine delivery cases that got him in trouble in 2011. Flanagan said that no matter what McCarrolls role, he had to know that when dealing with heroin, there is always a risk that someone will die. A major budget cut and construction at the Memorial Union have forced organizers to slash the size and capacity of this years Revelry Music Festival, the spring concert for UW-Madison students and university-sanctioned alternative to the rowdy Mifflin Street Block Party. Ayla Kress, the festivals executive director, said only five or six bands will play at the April 30 concert, down from 27 acts last year. And while those bands in 2015 played at three stages to a crowd of nearly 8,000 people around the Memorial Union, this years event will be limited to the single stage at the Orpheum Theater, with its capacity of just 2,000. Were disappointed that more students wont be able to see the show, Kress said. The changes come after the festival lost three-quarters of its budget, Kress said, including all of the funding it received from the offices of UW-Madisons dean of students and Chancellor Rebecca Blank. While the 2015 festival had a budget of $200,000, organizers are working this year with just $50,000, most of which comes from the Wisconsin Union Directorate and a grant from the city of Madison. And the festival has had to move off campus to the Orpheum the third location in its four-year history because a major renovation project at the Union has made that space unavailable, Kress said. UW-Madison has promoted Revelry as an alternative to the Mifflin Street Block Party, the end-of-the-school-year bash known for binge drinking and overcrowded house parties that has long been the bane of many college and city officials. The concert was first held in 2013, two years after stabbings and sexual assaults at the 2011 block party led Mayor Paul Soglin and Madison police to work toward shutting down the Mifflin Street celebration. The unsanctioned party has not disappeared since then, but it has been reduced to what police consider a more manageable size. Dean of Students Lori Berquam, who has urged UW students not to attend the block party, declined to comment on the changes to Revelry or whether she was concerned the smaller music festival could result in more students going to Mifflin Street. Madison police Central District Capt. Carl Gloede did not respond to a message Friday seeking comment. Kress, a UW-Madison senior, acknowledged its possible that cutting the festivals size and moving it once again could make it harder for Revelry to become an established campus tradition. Her hope is for the concert to eventually return to the Memorial Union or move to the larger-capacity Kohl Center, though she said that would depend on its funding. Still, she said there is still a lot of interest in Revelry from students, including from freshmen who come to campus having already heard about it. And after festivals marked by well-known acts such as Chance the Rapper and Dillon Francis, Kress said organizers are working to secure a headliner for this years concert that definitely will be recognizable to the majority of the student body. The lineup will be announced next month. Its still a new thing on campus, and it will continue to grow, Kress said. The state Assembly on Thursday passed a bill to require greater legislative oversight of state agency rules costing municipalities, businesses or individuals more than $10 million. The bill, which passed on a 60-33 vote, was a top priority this session for the powerful business advocacy group, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce. Its supporters, which include a range of large industry groups, describe it as a check on the power of state bureaucrats who write administrative rules. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Adam Neylon, said Thursday that it will halt "expensive, sometimes unnecessary administrative rules." Critics, including environmental and small business groups, called the measure a bid to keep state agencies from doing their jobs in areas such as protecting the environment or public health. "Small business did not ask for this legislation," said Bill Smith, a lobbyist with the National Federation of Independent Businesses, which opposes the bill. Opponents such as Rep. Gary Hebl, D-Sun Prairie, also questioned if the bill will withstand court challenges. The nonpartisan Legislative Council, in a memo to lawmakers last month, said it's "possible, and is arguably likely" a court would find the bill violates the state Constitution by placing too much power in the hands of a single legislative committee, the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules. Administrative rules have the force of state law. Before they are published, they require a public hearing and review by the governor and three legislative committees. Assembly Bill 251 would require a new hearing before the rule is drafted, have the Department of Administration review each agency's economic impact analysis and authorize lawmakers to seek an independent economic impact analysis that could be used to challenge an agency analysis. If the impact is greater than $10 million over a two-year period, agencies would have to stop work on the proposed rule and draft legislation. Neylon, R-Pewaukee, said very few rules are adopted each year that would meet that threshold. He said there have so far been none over the past year. He also noted the law would only apply to state regulations, not federal ones. The bill was recommended for approval by the Committee on State Affairs and Government Operations on a 10-5 partisan vote. A day after thousands gathered in and around the Capitol to protest two bills they called anti-immigrant, the office of Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said Friday that one of the bills, which would withhold state funding from so-called sanctuary cities, is not a priority for passage. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said Friday that Madison is one of the sanctuary cities the measure is meant to restrict, but Madison police call that label inaccurate. On Wednesday, a crowd estimated to be as large as 20,000 gathered at the Capitol for a rally dubbed A Day Without Latinos and Immigrants in Wisconsin. The rally was to protest AB 450 and Senate Bill 533, which bars towns and counties from issuing local ID cards to residents. The sanctuary cities bill awaits consideration in the state Senate. Fitzgerald spokeswoman Myranda Tanck said Friday that while the bill remains up for discussion, no member has indicated its a top priority. A spokeswoman for Voces de la Frontera, the group that organized the rally, said the group was definitely pleased by those comments. However, we dont feel that we should get comfortable, said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, the groups executive director. We need to keep the pressure on. Neumann-Ortiz said Voces de la Frontera is now circulating online petitions, mobilizing support from dairy farmers who employ Latino workers and organizing more local chapters in addition to its existing chapters in Milwaukee, Madison and Racine. While the statement from Fitzgeralds office suggests Senate Republicans may not have an appetite for the bill, it is not a definitive sign the bill is dead. A Senate committee passed the bill earlier this month. The full Senate could take it up when it convenes in March before concluding business for the 2015-2016 session. Republican leaders in the Assembly said Thursday was its final work day for the two-year session. Meanwhile Friday, Vos cited Madison, along with Milwaukee County and Racine, as the sanctuary cities in Wisconsin that inspired the bill. The term typically is applied to cities that do not cooperate with federal officials to enforce immigration laws. (The bill) says that if somebody commits a murder, or rape, or is a drunk driver or any of those type of things; they should definitely ask about their immigration status and then potentially turn them over to the immigration services. They should already be doing that, Vos told WTMJ radio. Madison officials dispute being called a sanctuary city. Madison Police Chief Michael Koval, writing on his blog last year, called the term a legal fiction. MPD does not look for means to deport people, Koval wrote. However, we do hold people accountable for their criminal conduct. If the act(s) are egregious, we certainly cooperate with ICE (and will continue to do so) for acts that are worthy of deportation. PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii Tourist Shawn Winrich of Madison was taking photos of Pearl Harbor when he saw a helicopter essentially coming straight at us at the popular tourist destination. He switched to video, recording the helicopters dramatic drop into the water. All of a sudden it essentially just fell out of the sky and crash-landed in the water, Winrich said. He stopped filming and jumped in to help. The family of four visiting from Canada and the pilot on board made it out, but one passenger a 15-year-old boy who was trapped underwater and had to be cut free from his seat remained hospitalized in critical condition Friday. U.S. Navy spokeswoman Agnes Tauyan said the helicopter sunk shortly after going down near the visitors center Thursday. A 45-year-old woman and a 50-year-old man remained hospitalized Friday. A fourth family member was treated and released Thursday. Details on the pilot, who remained hospitalized Friday, were not immediately available. No names were released. Another bystander who jumped in to help was tour guide Chris Gardner who was with a group at the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center when he heard the crash. I took off my shirt and dove in, he said, describing how he, a Navy sailor, a federal police officer and another man took turns diving to the submerged helicopter and trying to free a passenger with a knife. He was strapped into his seat in the back of the aircraft. Honolulu paramedics treated the 15-year-old passenger and took him to a hospital, said Shayne Enright, spokeswoman for Honolulu Emergency Services Department. It was a team effort and we pray that hes OK, Gardner said of the teen he helped free. Jumping in to help is part of the instinct growing up in Hawaii, he said. His eyes were still burning from the fuel in the water, he said. Winrichs daughter, Justice Winrich, said she watched as the helicopter plopped down into the water and saw three people get out immediately and swim to shore. It was crazy, she said. You go on vacation and you never think youre going to see something like that. The footage captured by Shawn Winrich shows the helicopter heading toward the water and then crashing down. The blades stop spinning as it turns over in the water. In an interview with KHON2, Shawn Winrich said: We had just gotten off the boat to see the memorial out there, and got to the first stop, pulled the phone out to shoot some pictures and noticed a helicopter that started dropping in altitude. It seemed a little bit odd ... it was coming really slow and coming straight at me. It seemed out of place and not normal. I switched to video real quick and shot the video clip. He joined other people who ran to help, he said, and thats why the video ended real quick. Federal records show the helicopter is registered to Jeffrey Gebhard of Kailua, Hawaii. A man answering the phone at a number listed for Gebhard said: Im sorry, theres no comment. Theres an investigation going on. The Navy said the helicopter reportedly belongs to helicopter tour company Genesis Aviation. The website for Genesis Helicopters says it was founded by Gebhard. The visitor center was closed Thursday but was set to partially reopen Friday. The memorial honors the 1,177 sailors and Marines killed on the ship in the Dec. 7, 1941, attack by Japan. Civilian divers floated the helicopter to surface Friday afternoon and a crane pulled it out. The Navy said the helicopter will be taken to Genesis Aviations hangar at the airport, where the National Transportation Safety Board will conduct an investigation. It was the second major crash this year involving helicopters on Oahu. Twelve Hawaii-based Marines were killed when two military helicopters crashed during nighttime training on Jan. 14. Both aircraft were CH-53E Sea Stallion helicopters that were part of Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 463. State Journal reporter George Hesselberg contributed to this report. The horrific terrorist shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California, shook all of us. But tragedy should not provide an automatic mandate for government to encroach on the publics civil liberties. On Tuesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym ordered Apple to provide reasonable technical assistance to the FBI to help bypass or disable a security function on the iPhone of one of the shooters. Apple, to its credit, has made it clear it will fight this order. ... Law enforcement officials have been unable to access data on the shooters phone and hope to disable an iPhone security feature that automatically erases data after a certain number of incorrect password attempts. This would allow law enforcement to run software that would try myriad passwords until the correct one is found. It may be tempting to think that this case is so exceptional that it requires extraordinary cooperation from Apple. Further, such cooperation ultimately would be innocuous to everyone else. After all, any workaround developed to help the FBI crack the shooters password would only be used in this case, right? Wrong. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices, Apple CEO Tim Cook explained in a message to Apple customers. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable. While it may seem harmless for a company like Apple to just cooperate and help the FBI crack a phone, there is a wide range of repercussions that need to be considered. To date, governments have shown few reasons for confidence in their ability to respect electronic privacy and security. And, just as it would be wrongheaded and immoral to rush into blanket gun control laws or immigration restrictions in response to the massacre in San Bernardino, it, too, is wrong to exploit a tragedy to undermine electronic security. NEW YORK The results of a big physics experiment have delivered a long-sought, hard-won and resounding victory to Albert Einstein, confirming yet again the revolutionary theory of gravitation he put forward a century ago is the real deal. The findings cement Einsteins near-mythical stature as one of the greatest scientists of all time. In 1915, after almost a decade of work, Einstein outlined his sensational gravitation theory, which he called general relativity. It characterized gravity as the result of the curved geometry of space and time, and it predicted the existence of gravitational waves. After years of searching, the Laser Interferometric Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, finally observed gravitational waves from two colliding black holes. The discovery was just announced by the 1,000-strong team of LIGO scientists. To make the discovery more tangible, the team had converted its gravitational wave signal into audio, and the world heard the sound of two black holes merging. This was a scientific moonshot, said David Reitze, LIGOs executive director, and we did it. We landed on the moon. Gravity was discovered and first explained by Isaac Newton in the 17th century. (Every schoolchild has heard the story, most likely apocryphal, of Newton and the falling apple.) Newtons theory provided the framework for explaining Galileos observations of the moons of Jupiter and Johannes Keplers planetary laws. It also proved to be great at explaining lunar tides, the orbits of comets, the gradual change in the orientation of the Earths axis and why we dont fall off the Earth. It led the French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier to infer the existence of an unseen planet in the 19th century. It turned out to be Neptune. Yet Newtonian gravity had its limitations. The planet Mercurys point of closest approach (called perihelion) changed as it orbited the sun. For 150 years, astronomers noticed this anomaly and couldnt explain it using Newtons law. But Einstein was able to explain Mercurys odd behavior as a result of space-time curvature near the sun. Einsteins theory also predicted the apparent positions of distant stars would change during a solar eclipse, as the suns gravity bent the light from the stars. British astronomer Arthur Eddingtons experimental confirmation of this effect during the solar eclipse of 1919 catapulted Einstein to global fame. Einstein said gravity is basically acceleration in a four-dimensional fabric called space-time. Space-time has the three familiar spatial dimensions length, breadth and width and time is the fourth dimension. A massive object such as a star distorts the fabric of space-time by producing a dip, just as a lead ball would produce a dip in an elastic sheet of rubber. The heavier the ball, the bigger the dip. The more massive the object, the bigger the distortion of space-time. As any other body approaches a star, its path would follow the contours of the curvature of space-time, which is perceived as an acceleration: gravity. And when a massive object accelerates, Einstein said, it would produce gravitational waves, ripples in space-time. The theory was elegant, but detection such waves proved extremely difficult. Gravity is very weak compared to other forces in physics, such as electromagnetism. The gravitational attraction between a proton and an electron is a thousand trillion trillion trillion times smaller than the electrical attraction between them. So gravitational wave experiments must be incredibly sensitive. In the 1960s, American physicist Joseph Weber claimed to have detected gravitational waves, but his claim was later discredited. Yet there was indirect evidence for their existence. In 1974, Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor, found a system of two extremely dense stars orbiting each other. Their orbits evolved in a way that could be explained only if gravitational waves were carrying off some of their energy. Scientists knew if they were to try to observe gravitational waves from Earth, they would have to build an extremely delicate instrument and look for the most violent phenomena in the universe. Theory predicted that two colliding black holes would produce a cataclysmic burst of gravitational waves. This is exactly what they have found using LIGO. LIGO (or, more accurately, Advanced LIGO, because the observatory was recently updated) operates on the principle that a gravitational wave stretches space in one direction while compressing it in another. LIGO has two locations, in Livingston, Louisiana, and nearly 2,000 miles away in Hanford, Washington. Two tubes are arranged in the shape of an L at each site. Scientists split a laser beam and send half of it along each tube. After being amplified within the tube, each split beam strikes a mirror at the end. The light is then reflected back and forth down the tubes hundreds times before being sent back to where it originated. When the two light beams return, under ordinary circumstances, they should cancel each other out (the peaks of one half beam should coincide with the troughs of the other half). The situation changes if a gravitational wave arrives. The half-beams no longer cancel each other, instead producing a spike of light. LIGO saw this telltale spike of light Sept. 14, emanating from the merger of two black holes about 1.3 billion light-years away. With the memory of Weber never far away, the team checked and rechecked its findings. The signal withstood all checks.Scientists had finally found gravitational waves, and vindicated Einstein. Again. As he refined his theory, even Einstein had some doubts about gravitational waves, but he remained supremely confident about the underlying general theory of relativity. Shortly after Eddingtons observations confirmed that light was indeed bent by gravity, a student asked Einstein what he would have done if general relativity had failed in its description of nature. Einstein, invoking the Almighty, is supposed to have said, Then I would have been sorry for the dear Lord. The theory is correct. MILWAUKEE The Wisconsin Department of Corrections needs independent oversight and reform of its use of solitary confinement, particularly of juveniles. Revelations about the abuse of children at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake juvenile correctional facilities in northern Wisconsin should convince incoming DOC secretary Jon Litscher to prioritize change. My organization, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, also supports Milwaukee Countys efforts to return young prisoners at Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake, about 170 miles north of Madison, to their home communities. But that should only happen if they can be appropriately housed and cared for. Recent developments have brought momentum to the cause of curtailing solitary confinement. In a concurring opinion in June 2015, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy complained that the conditions in which prisoners have been kept simply has not been a matter of sufficient public inquiry or interest. He observed that near-total isolation exacts a terrible price, and invited a legal challenge to long-term solitary confinement. Late last year, a group of correctional system leaders, including former Wisconsin DOC Secretary Rick Raemisch, made recommendations to end excessive use of isolation in prisons. Advocates for prisoners participated in the effort. The recommendations included ensuring that vulnerable populations, including juveniles, be confined in isolated settings only when no alternative exists, and then only for a maximum of 15 days. In January, President Barack Obama prohibited solitary confinement of juveniles in federal prisons and adopted other recommendations to limit the use of restrictive housing. These developments coincide with the United Nations adoption of the Nelson Mandela rules for treatment of prisoners. They recognize solitary confinements devastating effect on physical and mental health and restrict its use to no more than 15 days. Solitary confinement in Wisconsins prisons and jails, especially when applied to young people, needs greater transparency so the public can monitor and deter abuse. In 2010, the ACLU questioned the closing of Ethan Allen School for Boys and Southern Oaks School for Girls, because many of the young people incarcerated there were from the Milwaukee area and would be more isolated from family if moved to Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake. The greater distance made family visits more difficult, interfered with rehabilitation, and put them further out of sight and out of mind. In 2012, the ACLU and Human Rights Watch documented the severe harm solitary confinement causes young people. The report noted that the DOC refused to allow interviews of children in its custody. Last November, we called on the DOC to contract with an independent entity, such as the National Institute of Corrections, to evaluate its solitary practices and policies, report its findings and make recommendations for improvements. While the department under outgoing Secretary Ed Wall made some progress toward reducing the use of solitary confinement, it did not respond to calls for greater oversight and transparency. The DOCs general lack of transparency raises serious concerns about the extent to which juveniles may have been subjected to solitary. Secretary Litscher should eliminate solitary confinement of juveniles, radically reduce its use among all prisoners, and submit to independent oversight. WASHINGTON, D.C. How can we ensure that welfare acts as a safety net for the truly needy and not as a handout to able-bodied adults who can work? Its a question that has long vexed federal and state officials, but there is a good answer. House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin recently announced the members of a task force who will be responsible for building an anti-poverty, welfare reform agenda. Welfare reform is one of Ryans top priorities in the coming months. For a model of successful reforms to means-tested welfare programs that promote self-sufficiency, the task force need look no further than Maine. In 2014, Maine took the initiative to require work participation for food stamp recipients who are able-bodied adults and have no dependents. As a result, its caseload plummeted. Technically, the federal food stamp program has a modest work requirement for able-bodied adults without dependents. They are limited to three months of food stamps unless they are working part-time or participating in job training or community service. But in 2009, the Obama administration suspended the work requirement for nearly two years. After that, most states were able to continue bypassing the work requirement due to work waivers that the law allows. In 2014, however, Maine chose to stop waiving the work requirement. After the work requirement was put into place, Maines caseload of able-bodied adults without dependents dropped by 80 percent within three months. In December 2014, when the work requirement went into effect, 13,332 such adults were receiving food stamps. By March 2015, only 2,678 were on the rolls. Job openings for lower-skill workers are abundant in Maine. If an individual cannot find work, the state provides training and community service options. Maines Department of Health and Human Services reached out to able-bodied adult recipients to let them know about community service opportunities that would fulfill the work requirement. But most chose to forgo their food stamp benefits rather than fulfill the requirement. A similar pattern of caseload decline happened after the 1996 welfare reform. The 1996 reform transformed the largest cash assistance welfare program by inserting work requirements. Within about five years of the reform, the caseload had declined by half. Work requirements serve as a gatekeeper to ensure that the truly in need receive welfare assistance. Benefits are available to those who need them, but individuals who could otherwise find a job are directed toward work. This policy benefits taxpayers and the individuals who are steered toward the job market, where they can build their resumes, skills and connections. Americans support the idea of work requirements for welfare. The vast majority nearly 90 percent agree able-bodied adults receiving means-tested welfare assistance should be required to work or prepare for work to receive benefits. Reforming welfare to promote work is crucial to getting the nations welfare system back on track. We cant promote self-sufficiency without it. The federal government should establish a federal work requirement for food stamps. Able-bodied adults without dependents should be required to work, prepare for work or look for work to receive benefits. If the same results that occurred in Maine took place nationwide, the overall savings would amount to $8.4 billion annually. Further reforms could add another $1.3 billion in savings, for a total annual savings of $9.7 billion. Work should be the underlying principle of welfare. Yet very few of the nations 80 means-tested welfare programs require work. Reforming food stamps with a work requirement for able-bodied adults would be a perfect place to start for promoting the principle of work in the nations welfare system. Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 16-02-19 Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article From: The Athens News Agency at CONTENTS [01] Tsipras to meet Merkel, Hollande;Athens satisfied by EU Summit results [02] Portuguese PM Costa expresses Tsipras his solidarity [03] "Ariadni" ferry with 1,835 refugees aboard docks at Piraeus [04] Number of new Greek entrepreneurers rose significantly in 2014 - IOBE report [01] Tsipras to meet Merkel, Hollande;Athens satisfied by EU Summit results Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, on Friday, at 11:00 am. The three officials are expected to discuss the agenda of the EU summit, the refugee issue and matters related to the Greek economy. Meanwhile, Greek diplomatic sources expressed their content over the final conclusions of the EU summit as agreed early on Friday in Brussels. Greece has managed to meet the four main goals it had set, they explained. The same sources noted they are particularly pleased with the statement that ensures the integrity of the Schengen Treaty, giving an end to scenarios over Greece's expulsion. They also stressed the need to avoid unilateral and uncoordinated actions, accelerate the relocation of refugees and implement the resettlement mechanism for refugees directly from Turkey. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras noted that from the 66,000 refugees to be relocated from Greece, less than 250 refugees have done so. He also stressed that there is no data on how many refugees have been relocated to the Western Balkans(Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia). On its part, Germany proposed an emergency EU summit on March 6, with the participation of Turkey, and has pledged that the current status on the borders' control will not change in the meantime. [02] Portuguese PM Costa expresses Tsipras his solidarity Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa in a letter to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras expressed his solidarity over the refugee issue. Costa stated that Portugal is willing to accommodate asylum seekers who are entitled to international protection and who can, without losing any of their rights, be transferred bilaterally in Portugal. The Portuguese Prime Minister said that his country can accommodate 2,000 people in the universities and 800 in technical colleges while considering the possibility of accommodating another 2,500-3,000. Costa warned against "internal borders" of the EU and as stated: "We are committed to ensuring that Europe will continue to have only one external border and no internal border." [03] "Ariadni" ferry with 1,835 refugees aboard docks at Piraeus "Ariadni" ferry with 1,835 refugees from Mytilene and Chios on board arrived at Piraeus port on Friday. Another two ferries are expected to dock at the port of Piraeus later in the day. "Blue Star 1" will transfer 908 refugees from Mytilene and 446 refugees from Chios and "Blue Star 2" will transfer 70 refugees from Kos. "Nisos Mykonos" with 593 refugees from Mytilene arrived late on Thursday. [04] Number of new Greek entrepreneurers rose significantly in 2014 - IOBE report The number of Greek citizens starting a business have risen significantly, while business closure rates are falling and export activity is growing stronger, the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE) said in its "Entrepreneurship in Greece 2014-15" report released on Thursday. The report noted, however, that this increased need for business activity was more the result of necessity and lacked innovation, while small and family businesses dominated, evidence that entrepreneurship in Greece remained shallow. IOBE said an improvement recorded in certain business activity indexes could be fragile, as conditions deteriorated in 2015 because of uncertainty, protracted negotiations, the imposition of capital controls and an economic contraction. The survey showed that the percentage of population aged 18-64 currently at the early stages of business activity was 7.8 pct in 2014 from 5.2 pct in 2013, although it fell to 6.9 pct in 2015. Greek entrepreneurship is mobilized by opportunity (30.5 pct), still very low compared with a 54.9 pct average innovative country rate, while the percentage of Greeks entering the business world because of necessity was 43.6 pct, sharply up from an innovative country average rate of 23.9 pct. Thus, Greece ranks at the bottom of an innovation list in the EU. Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 16-02-19 Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article From: The Athens News Agency at CONTENTS [01] Greece will not be expelled from Schengen zone, say Merkel, Hollande [02] Alternate Tourism Min Kountoura optimistic over 2016 tourist season [01] Greece will not be expelled from Schengen zone, say Merkel, Hollande German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande on Friday reassured Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras that the status quo on the borders of Europe will not change at least until the March 6 EU summit, according to government sources. The same sources said that Tsipras reiterated that Greece will not accept actions which are detrimental to the country, adding that Greece is the only country that has totally fulfilled its commitments. He also said that Greece has borne the biggest part of the refugee crisis and this is acknowledged from the other member states. The prime minister underlined that "unilateral actions" are not acceptable on Greece's part. According to the same government sources, the three leaders agreed that the "key" to addressing the refugee crisis is Turkey as well as NATO's coordinated action in order to efficiently control refugee flows. Merkel and Hollande reassured Tsipras that Greece will have the necessary assistance and that no further pressure will be put on the country. Both leaders pledged to maintain the status quo on the borders of Europe until the emergency EU summit on March 6, where the refugee issue will be reassessed with focus on Turkey. The possibility of expelling Greece from the Schengen zone was also ruled out during the trilateral meeting which was held ahead of the EU summit. On the Greek program, the three leaders agreed that the institutions should return to Athens soon so that the first phase of the program review is completed as soon as possible and pledged to take joint initiatives towards this direction. [02] Alternate Tourism Min Kountoura optimistic over 2016 tourist season Alternate Tourism Minister Elena Kountoura on Friday expressed her optimism over Greece's tourism sector in 2016. In statements to Praktorio 104.7 FM, she underlined that all messages are positive and outlined that Greece's targets are the extension of the tourist season and the opening to new - quality markets with direct flights. Referring to Greece's participation in Tehran's tourism exhibition as well as the oncoming visit to Egypt, Kountoura stressed the importance of opening to high income visitors as well as boosting tourism in seasons besides summer. Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 16-02-19 Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article From: The Athens News Agency at CONTENTS [01] Fifth checkpoint at Greek-Bulgarian border sealed off by Bulgarian truckers [01] Fifth checkpoint at Greek-Bulgarian border sealed off by Bulgarian truckers Bulgarian truck drivers closed the Zlatograd border crossing along the Greek-Bulgarian frontier indefinitely on Friday, leaving only one checkpoint open, as reprisals to the Greek farmers' blockades which have halted traffic towards the country, Bulgaria's BTA news agency reported. With this decision, all traffic between Greece and Bulgaria is conducted through the checkpoint in Ivaylovgrad, as the ones in Kulata, Ilinden, Kapitan Petko Voyvoda and Makaza were sealed off earlier in the week. Greek farmers, who are protesting against the government's proposed social security and pension reforms, started closing checkpoints along the Greek-Bulgarian border intermittedly several weeks ago. The International Union of Railways (UIC) said actions by the Bulgarian truck drivers will not back down until Greeks open their side of the border, the news agency said, noting that a long line of cars and trucks has already formed at Zlatograd. UIC also said Bulgarian truckers have so far suffered losses of more than 10 million leva (about 5 million euros) from the Greek strike. Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article I have learned the hard way not to put my personal life on the Internet. But suffice it to say that, God willing, things should be pretty much back to norm... 1 week ago The Human Rights Promotions Provide Exclusive Blog Site for the Promotions of Peace Talk and Human Rights and International Humanitarian Laws in Internal Conflicts... Human Rights and International Humanitarian Laws Promotions Peace Talks Promotions Internal conflict issues Other Human Rights Issues Exclusives: Rights to Educations Economic Rights Global to Local Issues The HRA Promotes and Supports Peace Talks and encourage uniting people to support the Peace Talk or Peace Process on the formulations of CHARTER CHANGE or CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM in the Peace Talk between Government and the Rebels OR INSURGENTS CPP/NPA/NDF and others at stake to END WAR and live in Peace and Equal and fair just society. The people has Democratic Rights to Intervene and empower the Charter Change in the Peace Talk between Government and the CPP/NPA/NDF and Others at Stake Insurgents and formally forge it in the Plebescite by the People...... SUPPORT THE CHARTER CHANGE IN THE PEACE TALK NOT IN ANY KIND OF CHARTER CHANGE INITIATED OR DRAFTED BY GOVERNMENT PEOPLE IN THE POSITION OR ANY POLITICAL PARTIES OR INFLUENTIAL PERSON.... " END WAR in PEACEFUL MEANS NOT IN VIOLENT SUPPRESSION'S OR REBELLION SUPPORT PEACE TALKS" A combination of cannabis oil and chemotherapy healed this mans incurable inoperable lung cancer. Now, hes paying it forward by helping others heal their lives, too. Not too long ago, a 50-year-old man from Illinois was diagnosed with incurable inoperable lung and pericardial heart sac cancer. The doctors told him he had about a year to live, but could opt to undergo chemotherapy to extend his life. As you may or may not know, the survival rate of lung cancer is incredibly grim. It is estimated that the prognosis for Stage IA non-small cell lung cancer is less than 50%. Sadly, this drops as the cancer progresses. For a Stage IV patient, the likelihood of recovery is 1%. Aware of the odds against him, patient Darren Miller decided to supplement his chemotherapy treatments with cannabis oil. Clearly, he didnt just want to extend his life, he wanted to save it. After researching the benefits of cannabis oil and reading hundreds of other peoples personal stories of healing, Miller was confident the treatment was right for him. Millers wife quit her job so they could qualify for medical assistance, and they moved to California where he could supplement with the controversial treatment legally. Seven months later, Darren is officially cancer-free and has the hospital documents to prove it. He told an affiliate of CBS News: Today, which is seven months later, they tell me I am completely cancer-free not remission. Ive cured my cancer. Now, am I giving credit to the cannabis oil? Absolutely. Am I giving credit to chemo? I would have to say yes, too. I did both. After recovering from the incurable cancer, Miller and his wife moved back to Illinois. He now runs a compassionate cannabis program to help others who are struggling like he was. What were doing is were just making small amounts to keep it around and educating others on how to do this, he said. Because if you have access to any kind of cannabis, I can give you links on my site to show you how to do this in your own kitchen and save your life. Darren is not the only individual to have benefited from cannabis oil, and he certainly wont be the last. By Amanda Froelich Innovation is needed more than ever to help make marginal environments agriculturally productive, says Dr. Ismahane Elouafi, ICBA. A second panel discussion, facilitated by IFAD Associate Vice President Perin Saint Ange, focused on innovative agricultural solutions to many of the global challenges discussed over the two days. IFAD/Giulio Napolitano At IFADs Governing Council, the role of innovation was discussed in the context of rural transformation during a dynamic panel session.In the first segment of the session, Dr. Ismahane Elouafi, Director General of the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture, observed the huge impacts of the Green Revolution on Asias agricultural productivity in the 1960s.This was a high-input agriculture that boosted key commodities such as rice, but also left behind marginal landscapes, upon which the majority of smallholder farmers work.Today, owing to strong population growth and climate change, Dr. Elouafi suggested that we need to mobilize innovation on a similar scale as the Green Revolution, because the alternative: an additional 1.2 billion food insecure people by 2050, is not a choice at all.Achieving SDG1 (no poverty) and SDG2 (zero hunger) will foremost require Africa to strengthen agricultural productivity and close its yield gap with the rest of the world. This necessarily calls for more public subsidies in the agricultural sector.But Elouafi also brought up the need for greater investment in upstream research and development.By testing crops within local agro ecosystems, smallholder farmers can optimize their production. This type of applied research generally comes with additional time and resource costs, but the commercial potential is huge.In the second segment of the panel, moderator Perin Saint-Ange, Associate Vice-President of IFAD, held a dialogue with Elizabeth Ssendiwala, Gender and Youth Technical Specialist (ESA), Ronald Hartman, Country Director for Indonesia, Glayson Ferrari Dos Santos, El Salvador Portfolio Officer and Jacopo Monzini, Senior Technical Specialist (NEN).Ssendiwala spoke on the utility of household methodologies as a means of improving intra-household gender relations.According to Ssendiwala, encouraging women to take up more economic responsibilities in the community can appreciably contribute to development. She also rightly noted the importance of men becoming champions of gender equality.Ronald Hartman underlined that middle-income countries such as Indonesia should ensure that economic growth is equitable.As the fiscal position of countries strengthen, IFADs role becomes more about facilitating innovation through policy dialogue and piloting new technologies on small farms, thereby contributing to more inclusive growth.Glayson Ferrari Dos Santos advocated for more democratic participation of young people in economic decision-making. He proposed moving from a project-based approach to an more integrated mode of engagement between political institutions and non-traditional actors in civil society and the private sector.Finally, Jacopo Monzini provided a review of IFADs experiences using GIS and earth observation to get a clearer picture of land use and environmental degradation, scaled down to the project area.Mapping the spatial data at project design, and going on to collect it during implementation has already led to better beneficiary targeting, and enhanced the capacity of ministries and universities to utilize such data in their own development strategies. The Blog of Less Renown, celebrating under-appreciated unusual, unique, sick or strange Singers, Songwriters and Songs HAWTHORN WOODS - Five conservative state lawmakers added their names this week to the list of conservative state lawmakers endorsing attorney Dan McConchie in the 26th Senate GOP primary to succeed retiring Senator Dan Duffy (R-Barrington). The five Republican lawmakers backing McConchie include House members Randy Frese, Sheri Jesiel, Margo McDermed, Grant Wehril and Keith Wheeler - bringing the total number of endorsements by conservative legislators to fourteen. "The overwhelming support across the 26th Senate District and from our conservative state leaders is humbling," McConchie said in a statement released Friday. "It is clear that my lifelong conservative values, 20-year record of conservative policy solutions, and vision for a new Illinois is connecting both with voters and those leaders who are going to be part of the solution to get our state back on track." Earlier this week, McConchie opponent Barrington Hills Village President Martin McLaughlin released a list of county leaders that are backing his bid for the open 26th District seat. McConchie's campaign cites a recent poll by We Ask America that puts him 10 points ahead of McLaughlin and third candidate in the GOP race, Matt Urlacher. T he Catholic News Agency has provided a transcript of the Holy Father's 60 minute press conference HERE, but the two major questions and answers are as follows. First on Trump: The Holy Father's comments suggested that anyone that focused on building walls more than bridges "is not Christian." The comments stirred angry reactions from Trump and his supporters. VATICAN CITY - Two controversies stemmed out of a press conference Pope Francis held on his flight from Juarez to Rome Thursday afternoon. One was on the topic of Donald Trump and the other on contraception for women exposed to the Zika virus. Phil Pullella, Reuters: Today, you spoke very eloquently about the problems of immigration. On the other side of the border, there is a very tough electoral battle. One of the candidates for the White House, Republican Donald Trump, in an interview recently said that you are a political man and he even said that you are a pawn, an instrument of the Mexican government for migration politics. Trump said that if hes elected, he wants to build 2,500 kilometers of wall along the border. He wants to deport 11 million illegal immigrants, separating families, etcetera. I would like to ask you, what do you think of these accusations against you and if a North American Catholic can vote for a person like this? Pope Francis: Thank God he said I was a politician because Aristotle defined the human person as 'animal politicus.' At least I am a human person. As to whether I am a pawn, well, maybe, I don't know. I'll leave that up to your judgment and that of the people. And then, a person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel. As far as what you said about whether I would advise to vote or not to vote, I am not going to get involved in that. I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt. On the topic of the Zika virus, Pope Francis said aborting affected babies was "a crime" and that "avoiding pregnancy" is not "an absolute evil." The comments have been interpreted by some media to say the Church no longer condemns contraception. The controversy is headline news Friday. The discussion on contraception and the Zika virus went as follows: Paloma Garcia Ovejero, Cadena COPE (Spain): Holy Father, for several weeks theres been a lot of concern in many Latin American countries but also in Europe regarding the Zika virus. The greatest risk would be for pregnant women. There is anguish. Some authorities have proposed abortion, or else to avoiding pregnancy. As regards avoiding pregnancy, on this issue, can the Church take into consideration the concept of the lesser of two evils? Pope Francis: Abortion is not the lesser of two evils. It is a crime. It is to throw someone out in order to save another. Thats what the Mafia does. It is a crime, an absolute evil. On the lesser evil, avoiding pregnancy, we are speaking in terms of the conflict between the fifth and sixth commandment. Paul VI, a great man, in a difficult situation in Africa, permitted nuns to use contraceptives in cases of rape. Dont confuse the evil of avoiding pregnancy by itself, with abortion. Abortion is not a theological problem, it is a human problem, it is a medical problem. You kill one person to save another, in the best case scenario. Or to live comfortably, no? Its against the Hippocratic oaths doctors must take. It is an evil in and of itself, but it is not a religious evil in the beginning, no, its a human evil. Then obviously, as with every human evil, each killing is condemned. On the other hand, avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil. In certain cases, as in this one, or in the one I mentioned of Blessed Paul VI, it was clear. I would also urge doctors to do their utmost to find vaccines against these two mosquitoes that carry this disease. This needs to be worked on. More on the press conference HERE. WASHINGTON - While Conservative diehards are focused on the battle of the century among Republican presidential candidates and Democrats' latest ploys to undermine the U.S. Constitution, there's an equally tense power struggle among Leftists in the Progressive camp. "DNC Superdelegates could flip the Democratic primary results if they wanted to, ignoring the will of the people," Progressive Kick said in a statement released today. "As we emailed about before, superdelegates are party leaders and politicians who get to cast special VIP votes for President at the Democratic National Conventions. They're about 700 people, insiders and party elites, and they get a way bigger say than any one state." Progressive Kick says the system is "just plain wrong," so they're working with other Leftist groups to change the system. They've gathered over 187,000 signatures from Democratic voters across the country to ask the Superdelegates to vote with the people if the race between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton tightens. The groups have built a website with all the superdelegates in all the states and their contact information at http://superdelegatedemocracy.com/. "Please take a moment to contact the superdelegates in your state (politely!) and ask them to not deny the wish of Democratic voters with their superdelegate vote," Progressive Kick says. They've put together a YouTube to explain the dilemma, and it's not very complimentary of the presumed Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton. Illinois has 24 superdelegates, and all of them are either committed to Hillary Clinton or uncommitted. None are listed as supporting Bernie Sanders. The list is found on the SuperDelegateDemocracy site HERE. Being that I am not a huge fan of Donald Trump (No! Really?) and being that I am a practicing if not always successful Catholic, I really resent that Pope Francis has put conservative American Catholics opposing Trump in a bad position. Now we may actually have to defend a man that we would otherwise happily criticize because he happens to be right about America's need to defend its borders. Yes, the Pope-Trump Wall War is so ridiculous that it screams for punchlines. This is shaping up to be just a terrible decade for conservative Catholics, isn't it? Michigan J. Frog for president and Foghorn Leghorn for pope. I really miss the bygone days when the adults were in charge rather than populist caricatures. The exact quote coming from Pope Francis when asked about his opinions on Donald Trump: "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian." Lots of dangling one liners there. Where to start? Trump is a developer. I'm sure with the right financial incentive, he'd be willing to build a bridge too. Have his people call your people and you can do lunch. Probably sushi since it's Lent. So is it just the walls then? If I put a fence up to keep the coyotes from eating my Shih Tzu, does that invite excommunication as well? What about an electric fence to keep my Doberman from eating passing school children? What about moats? Are moats okay? I know they've fallen out of favor over the centuries, but I've always been partial to moats. And think of the jobs that will be created. Low paying, of course. They'll have to be filled by illegal immigrants. How about fire walls? Do good Christians forego their Norton antivirus software in the name of Christian charity? For the sake of expedience, maybe we can just hand over our social security numbers and credit cards to the Mexican drug cartels now and avoid the middle man? It's weeks like these that I so terribly miss John Paul. Yet all of this wall business is actually a tremendous distraction from a bigger story that I'm quite certain the Catholic hierarchy wants to gloss over entirely. Donald Trump to the rescue, I guess. This post comes to us from the Associated Press in which Pope Francis was asked with regard to the Zika virus whether abortion or contraception would be the lesser of two evils. "Pope Francis has suggested women threatened with the Zika virus could use artificial contraception, saying "avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil" in light of the global epidemic." Francis sites a decision by Pope Paul VI in the 1960s in approving contraception for the nuns in Belgian Congo in order to prevent pregnancies because they were being systematically raped. I'm not sure what method of birth control was approved by Pope Paul in this matter. I would suggest that Paul would have been wiser to assign the protection of the nuns' whole personhood in the form of armed guards instead of merely their reproductive personhood. That would have quelled attempts by those future popes paralyzed by environmental apocalypses created by American capitalism from inching toward the slippery slope of one child reproductive policies. I know that it was within Paul's rights to grant special dispensation for a specific group of people using a specific method for a specific reason, and that this is then the exception that proves the rule. Just as the Pope's dispensation for Catholics to enjoy corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day does not absolve us of Lenten fasting, Pope Paul's dispensation for these nuns does not correlate to tacit permission for all South America women to use contraception because they might conceive a child while sick with the Zika virus. Quoting from the website Catholic Answers: The Church has always maintained the historic Christian teaching that deliberate acts of contraception are always gravely sinful, which means that it is mortally sinful if done with full knowledge and deliberate consent (CCC 1857). This teaching cannot be changed and has been taught by the Church infallibly. This is a barrier to Pope Francis's vague assertion that the avoidance of pregnancy is not evil. I find this obfuscation in light of the topic he was presented to be unfortunate. Abstinence is not evil. There is a clear distinction to be made and that distinction was his responsibility to make. The Church regards its teachings on contraception to be infallible. If you don't want to be pregnant during this outbreak of the Zika virus, then abstain from having sex. For two years. Yes, two years. As we discussed a couple of weeks ago right here at Illinois Review, there are possible links between Zika during pregnancy and a birth defect known as microcephaly. This is a disease which causes a baby to develop an abnormally small head and often serious, and sometimes deadly, developmental delays. There are, however, hundreds of causes of microcephaly and the increased occurrence of microcephaly in South American countries is still small enough to be considered a statistical anomaly, but that didn't stop South America at the behest of the World Health Organization from calling for a moratorium on all pregnancies for at least two years. Pope Francis's off the cuff discussion would make it appear that the Church is willing to collaborate with the World Health Organization and help that moratorium get off to a good reductive start. The philosophical misconception that may have been inadvertently furthered by Pope Francis's off-hand remarks to members of the press with regard to Zika (and I'm sure Church traditionalists are now busily dowsing a thousand pro-contraception wildfires started by dissidents within the faith) is that perhaps a child with a physical abnormality has a less worthy life and can or should be prevented through contraceptive methods because once that child has been conceived, you're stuck with her. Talk about a lack of Christian charity. That callous attitude toward human life is malformed, abhorrent and cannot be condoned by any Catholic of good conscience. It must be corrected immediately. That malformation of conscience is the same as that which is at the heart of every abortion performed on children with birth defects. It's the flagrant anti-life attitude that popes have fought against for 2000 years. Such a nihilistic approach to eugenics is the only "wall" with which Pope Francis ought to be concerned right now. So. As for Trump's wall. Does the Church hold any particular teaching regarding a nation's right to defend its borders? The Church holds that a nation not acting illegally has a right to maintain its sovereignty. Even if that nation has something that the people of another nation covet, the covetous people may not invade. For instance, the first papal encyclical issued by Pope Pius XII during WWII endorsed Catholic resistance to the invasion of Poland. It affirmed his disapproval of the war, racism, anti-Semitism, the Nazi/Soviet invasion of Poland and the persecutions of the Church. Although it was perhaps disproportionate in its diplomacy, the Church absolutely maintained that Poland had the natural right to its sovereignty. That means that standing at the American-Mexican border cursing an economic system that brought America's prosperity while blessing the illegal actions of the Mexican people to cross the border and get them some of that just because they want it is wrought with contradictions that are perhaps difficult to sort. Almost as difficult as making distinctions between abstinence and contraception, right? When in doubt, I guess it comes down to the basics. Thou shall not murder. Thou shall not covet. Thou shall not steal. Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor. It's all right there in God's Top Ten Countdown. By India Today Web Desk: In the earlier days, it was not easy to kill an aquatic animal. You had to have a gun or some kind of ammunition to shoot a shark or a dolphin for game. But now, thanks to the advancement of technology and deterioration of human conscience, all you need is a camera and a selfie stick to kill a dolphin. advertisement Yes, you read it right. It is that easy, at least for the people at the Santa Teresita resort in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The beach-goers at this famous tourist-ridden seashore found a rare baby dolphin which had been washed ashore. Image source: Phonearena It was a Franciscana Dolphin, a rare dolphin species belonging to the Pontoporiidae family, which are endangered, according to the World Wildlife Fund. The dolphin can't survive for long when taken out of the water due to their thick, greasy skin that makes them prone to overheating when exposed to direct sunlight. Hernan Coria, a Facebook user, posted a photograph that showed Argentinean beach-goers holding a baby Franciscana dolphin aloft like a trophy. They were busy taking selfies with the dolphin, least bothered about its discomfort. Rapid dehydration caused the dolphin to die after a while. Even after its death, the dolphin was left on the sand and people were still clicking pictures of it. According to a report of the Argentine Wildlife Foundation, the Franciscan dolphin is one of the smallest and rarest dolphins in the world. It is classified to be "vulnerable to extinction" with just 30,000 remaining in the wild. 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 --- The Supreme Court has admitted a plea filed by the Maharashtra government against the acquittal of actor Salman Khan in 2002 hit-and-run case. By India Today Web Desk: The Supreme Court has admitted a plea filed by the Maharashtra government against the acquittal of actor Salman Khan in 2002 hit-and-run case. The Supreme Court today issued a notice to Salman in this regard. Salman's counsel Kapil Sibal pleaded before the top court that the matter should be heard before notice is issued to the actor. advertisement However, the Supreme Court said it was in Salman's interest that the matter is heard in the court. Issuing notice returnable in six weeks, an apex court bench comprising Justice Jagjit Singh Khehar and Justice C Nagappan told Salman Khan that "it would be much, much better if he gets acquittal from this court as it will save him from all the repercussions". The Bombay High Court, in its December 10, 2015 verdict had held that 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 outside a shop in Bandra with his Toyota Land Cruiser, killing one and injuring four others on October 28, 2002. Also Read Salman Khan's acquittal 'travesty of justice', Maharashtra tells SC 2002 hit-and-run case: SC rubbishes bribery charges against Salman Khan Salman, Shah Rukh in trouble for entering sets of temple with shoes on Salman Khan hit-and-run-case: Victim's son challenges actor's acquittal in Supreme Court --- ENDS --- This story has expired. By India Today Web Desk: This story has expired. --- ENDS --- Go on a drive to these five towns right outside Kolkata to take a peek into the colonial history of West Bengal. By India Today Travel Plus: Let's begin with a lesser known historical fact. Contrary to popular knowledge, the British weren't the only colonisers to call Bengal a home away from home. Upstream along the quiet banks of the Hooghly river, not very far from the bustle of Kolkata, lie a string of dusty towns where much of Europe came to roost. And if you want to sample this slice of mothballed European heritage, a day trip out of Kolkata to Bengal's proverbial 'Little Europe' is all you need. Travelling about 40 km north from the city along the Old Grand Trunk Road, the first port of call is the town of Serampore, founded in 1755 by the Danish Asiatic Company as a trading outpost. advertisement Serampore Teeming with relics, Serampore was once known by its Danish moniker Fredericksnagore--in honour of the King Frederick V of Denmark--is home to the magnificent Serampore College (with its awesome library), the Danish Cemetery and Henry Martin's Pagoda. Chinsurah Your next stop is Chinsurah, where the Dutch settled in the early 17th century to deal in muslin, salt, spices and opium. You can admire the Chinsurah Court--formerly the Dutch Governor's residence and wander within the crumbling cemetery to sense the settlement's chequered past. Bandel Continue up the road to Bandel, where the Portuguese set up a colony as early as in 1635. Once a thriving Portuguese stronghold, Bandel eventually fell to the spoils of time, but the imposing Bandel Basilica--where many a seafaring captain once paid obeisance still embodies the essence and grandeur of the former colony. Hooghly Move on to the Hooghly Imambara, a behemoth of a structure built in the 1860s as a mosque and a centre for Islamic education. Climb up to the clock tower looming high above the ramparts of the building for superb vistas of the Hooghly river. The inner courtyard of the Hooghly Imambara. Picture courtesy: Wikimedia/Amartyabas/Creative Commons The final--yet perhaps the most charming stop--is Chandernagore (within shouting distance from Bandel). The most recent of all European colonies in Bengal, Chandernagore, was governed by the French until 1951, after which it was finally ceded to the newly formed Indian Union. A lovely town by the Hooghly, it is worth a visit if you want to stroll along the picturesque Strand by the riverside, admiring the French Church and the former mansion of the French governor general, now a museum. Walk through the old town, and you will chance upon bakeries serving croissants and French loaves, and might even hear a few elderly Bengali folk conversing in French! Good to know Stay: Try the basic, state-operated Rabindra Bhavan in Chandernagore. Shop: A must try are the freshly baked goodies from Das Bakery in Chandernagore. --- ENDS --- Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar is in favour of central universities hoisting the the national flag in their campuses. Akshay Kumar has been in patriotic mode on screen as well recently, in January release Airlift where he played Ranjit Katiyal. By India Today Web Desk: Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar has welcomed the Modi government's decision of central universities hoisting the national flag in their campuses. The Airlift actor today took to micro-blogging site Twitter to say that he is all for the tricolour unfurling across the country. "Totally with d decision of d Tricolour being hoisted at all Central Universities & why not as it brings out d best in us, inspires us 2 soar high," he tweeted. advertisement Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani recently said that all central universities will fly the national flag on a 207 foot high mast at a prominent place on their campuses. Akshay Kumar has been in patriotic mode on screen as well recently, in January release Airlift where he played Ranjit Katiyal. He has also spoken out against remarks of intolerance and has supported the government. He was also recently seen at the inauguration of the International Fleet Review. ALSO READ | High-mast Tricolours to fly in all central universities --- ENDS --- BJP MLA OP Sharma is in the midst of a political storm once again after reports of him being treated to a meal before being granted bail surfaced. Delhi Chief Minister has slammed the BJP and Delhi Police in a series of tweets. By India Today Web Desk: BJP MLA OP Sharma is in the midst of a political storm once again after reports of him being treated to a meal before being granted bail surfaced. Delhi Chief Minister has slammed the BJP and Delhi Police in a series of tweets. Launching a scathing attack on the BJP, Kejriwal tweeted that "it's not a crime to murder, rape or beat anyone" for those belonging to the ruling BJP. Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia too derided the Centre for the special treatment that Sharma got. Sisodia tweeted, "Free veg meal from a CP restaurant, several cups of coffee before arrest and letting him off within 15 minutes. VVIP." Centre's new IPC- it's not a crime to murder, rape or beat anyone if u r from BJP. Being opposed to BJP n RSS is biggest crime now(1/2) Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) February 19, 2016 Centre's new IPC- rape, murder or beat anyone. When questioned, just say that victim was shouting anti-India slogans, u will be let off(2/2) Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) February 19, 2016 Free veg meal from a CP restaurant, several cups of coffee before arrest and letting him off within 15 minutes. VVIP https://t.co/HWQnGRo2QB Manish Sisodia (@msisodia) February 19, 2016 advertisement OP Sharma was summoned by Delhi Police on Thursday after he was caught on camera on Monday attacking Left leader Ameeque Jamai in the Patiala House Court where JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar was to be produced. The BJP lawmaker, however, was defiant after receiving bail and said that judgements against him were passed by the media. "I was being tried by the media. Judgements were being passed while they sat in studios," Sharma said. "In the country, people who stop others from screaming "Pakistan Zindabad", if they have to go through this, it is shameful," Sharma said. "The investigation started at 11 am and I was questioned for 8 hours by the police," he added. Adding to the #PatriotWars narrative, Sharma said that he was harrassed for protesting against anti-nationals. --- ENDS --- The Ethics Committee of Delhi Assembly has recommended BJP MLA OP Sharma's expulsion from the house for using derogatory language against AAP MLA Alka Lamba. By India Today Web Desk: The Ethics Committee of the Delhi Assembly today recommended BJP MLA OP Sharma's expulsion from the House for abusing AAP MLA Alka Lamba. The 10-member Ethics Committee held Sharma guilty since he had been a habitual offender. The committee recommended Sharma's expulsion from the House to the Speaker. Though Sharma had been given several opportunities to explain the incident and apologise to Lamba, the BJP legislator from Vishwas Nagar had failed to do so. advertisement The committee, in its report, concluded that Sharma is a habitual offender of making unparliamentary remarks especially against women MLAs. The Delhi Assembly witnessed clashes between AAP and BJP lawmakers in November 2015 after reports claimed that OP Sharma had used abuses and unparliamentary language against AAP MLA Alka Lamba. Sharma had denied the charges. "I never abused Alka Lamba. AAP is free to file an FIR against me. In fact, it was Lamba who tried to slap me and abused me. CCTV footage will reveal the truth," Sharma had told India Today TV. Sharma was even suspended from the Assembly for a few days for his reported foul language against Lamba. Last week, Sharma was caught on camera thrashing a CPI worker outside Patiala House courts when JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar was being taken to the court. The Vishwas Nagar MLA was arrested yesterday but released on bail shortly thereafter. --- ENDS --- Shilpa Shetty is a proud yoga practitioner and has motivated many Indians to take it up, but now it is Dubai's turn. Watch the actress perform some beautiful yoga asanas here. By India Today Web Desk: Shilpa Shetty is a head-turner when it comes to fitness, in fact she was one of the few actresses who were into fitness until a few years ago. With a yoga DVD to her name, Shilpa motivated fans all over the world to take it up as a fitness routine. And guess what, the next thing we knew was that India had got it's new 'it' workout. advertisement Just like she made many Indians to come out of their shells, the lady is now spreading joy in other parts of the world, case in point--Dubai. Shilpa is currently in Dubai and has more than 10,000 people attending her yoga session, which is organised by X Yoga. You can watch all the videos here. Utkatasana in dubai ??#xyogadubai A video posted by Shilpa Shetty Kundra (@officialshilpashetty) on Feb 19, 2016 at 12:54am PST Virbhadrasana or warrior pose??#xyogadubai #stretch #health A video posted by Shilpa Shetty Kundra (@officialshilpashetty) on Feb 19, 2016 at 12:58am PST Half naukasan, (supporting) boat pose ???#xyogadubai #coreworkout #abs #weightloss #health #easyyoga A video posted by Shilpa Shetty Kundra (@officialshilpashetty) on Feb 19, 2016 at 1:00am PST --- ENDS --- A 27-year-old Colorado woman, whose baby was ripped out of her womb last year by a stranger, described to the jury this Wednesday how the brutal attack unfolded that fateful day. By India Today Web Desk: Losing a child is described to be the worst kind of pain a person can go through in life. But the way Colorado's Michelle Wilkins lost her unborn child is beyond horror. On March 18, 2015, an almost eight-months pregnant Wilkins visited Dynel Lane's house after seeing the latter's ad on Craigslist, offering free maternity clothes. advertisement A few hours later, Wilkins woke up to find her hip sliced open from one end to another and her fetus gone. Also read: Stranger stabs pregnant woman, removes baby from womb in brutal attack The 27-years old woman sat in a courtroom in Boulder, Colorado, on Wednesday and described to the jury in a trembling voice how the brutal attack that costed her her child unfolded that fateful day. I just remember asking her why she was doing that... Wilkins said she had never met accused Dynel Lane before and gone to her house in response to a Craigslist ad offering free maternity clothes. The two women chatted for more than an hour at Lane's home about pregnancy, shopping and their partners, but then, Wilkins insisted she had to leave. "Several times I told her I had to go and I thought she was lonely because she just kept talking over me," Wilkins said. "I felt like I was being thoughtful, you know, and listening to her and being kind to her. But eventually I said, 'I really have to go.'" Finally, Lane took her to the basement to look at baby clothes. That is when the accused, as Wilkins described, began acting differently. When Lane "kind of scratched at" her, Wilkins thought she might have had a spider or a bug on her shoulder, to which Lane responded "I think I got it,". But then, Lane hit her again and from there began a tussle between the two. A screen shot of the Craiglist Ad the accused had posted. Wilkins said the accused began hitting, pushing and choking her. As she tried to escape, Lane pushed her into a bedroom and pinned Wilkins under her weight. "I just remember asking her why she was doing that," Wilkins said, adding that she told Lane she loved her, hoping that would make her stop. To that Lane replied, "'If you love me, you'll let me do this,'" and stabbed her in the neck with a piece of broken glass, Wilkins testified. advertisement Wilkins recalled Lane smothering her with her hands and pillows, and then, breaking something over her head that made her faint. I could feel my intestines outside of my body... Wilkins, in an interview on Dr Phil's show, described that when she regained consciousness later that day at Lane's house, she realized she had "a really big cut across" her stomach. "I just felt the blood seeping through my pants and I could feel my intestines outside of my body," she testified. Bleeding profusely from her abdomen, Wilkins made a hurried emergency call to 911 for help, still thinking herself to be "a pregnant woman". Listen to her separate 911 call recording here: Rushed to the hospital, Wilkins later woke up to realise her unborn daughter, Aurora, had not survived. Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett said Lane "was obsessed with pregnancy in a bizarre way," showing to the jurors photos of her pretending to be pregnant. Lane is said to have arrived at a hospital, saying she had given birth at home and asking the doctors to 'save her baby'. An exam, however, revealed no signs of her being recently pregnant. advertisement Lane was charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault and unlawful termination of a pregnancy. --- ENDS --- Deepika Padukone has worked with some of the biggest names in Bollywood, but her fans are still waiting to see her share screen space with Hrithik Roshan. And now, it seems Sajid Nadiadwala is all set to make their wish come true with his next film. By India Today Web Desk: Deepika Padukone has worked with some of the biggest names in the industry, but her fans are still waiting to see her share screen space with the Greek God of Bollywood, Hrithik Roshan. And now, it seems Sajid Nadiadwala is all set to make their wish come true with his next film. Buzz has it that the producer is eager to rope in Deepika alongside Hrithik Roshan for his film. advertisement ALSO READ: Here's what Yami Gautam has to say about working with Hrithik Roshan ALSO READ: Plot of Deepika Padukone and Vin Diesel's XXX The Return Of Xander Cage According to a report published in DNA, the film will be directed by Kabir Khan. A source was quoted as telling the daily, "Sajid has been quite keen to work with Deepika. But that hasn't worked out due to several issues. However, there are chances that Deepika might sign up for his next production with Kabir." When Pinkvilla contacted the producer on the same, he said, "that film is in the scripting stage." If things work out, Kabir Khan will get to work with Deepika and Hrithik for the first time. On the work front, Hrithik is currently busy shooting for Ashutosh Gowariker's Mohenjo Daro, while Deepika is in Canada to shoot for her Hollywood debut XXX The Return of Xander Cage. The Piku actor will share screen space with Vin Diesel in the actioner. --- ENDS --- Batman V Superman actor Henry Cavill is dating 19-year-old Tara King. The actor does not feel age matters in their relationship as he himself dated a 32-year-old woman when he was 19. By India Today Web Desk: Henry Cavill, who is all set to don the Superman suit for the upcoming film Batman V Superman Dawn Of Justice, is in the limelight over his relationship with Tara King, who is 13 years younger to him. ALSO READ: Batman v Superman Dawn Of Justice - Get set for the clash of the superheroes advertisement ALSO READ: Batman vs Superman new teaser out - Sneak a peek into Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill's world Last year, the actor had to face a lot of criticism when he revealed that he is dating a 19-year-old girl. The 32-year-old actor said in an interview with Elle Magazine,"People say age is just a number. It's actually real and a true sign of someone's maturity. But in this case, she's fantastic." "When I met my girlfriend, I was super intimidated. I wanted to impress her. I was thinking, 'Don't mess this up, man'," Cavill added. Henry Cavill with his 19-year-old girlfriend Tara King. This image was posted by a Cavill fan on Twitter. Henry Cavill with his 19-year-old girlfriend Tara King. This image was posted by a Cavill fan on Twitter. The couple seem to be in serious relationship as there were reports that Henry took Tara to meet his family at home in Jersey. The Batman V Superman star has been linked to many women including Deadpool actor Gina Carano and Big Bang Theory fame Kaley Cuoco. He was even briefly engaged to English equestrian rider Ellen Whitaker in 2011. Now, after the misses, it seems like the actor has finally found his real-life Lois Lane. Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice is slated to release on March 25, 2016. (With inputs from PTI) --- ENDS --- At least three people were killed and nine others were seriously injured today in Rohtak, Haryana, as police opened fire on Jat protesters seeking reservation. The protesters also went berserk and set Haryana Finance Minister Captain Abhimanyu's house and a police vehicle on fire. By India Today Web Desk: Update: Shoot-at-sight orders have been issued in curfew-bound city areas of violence-hit Rohtak and Bhiwani in Haryana. At least three people were killed and nine others were seriously injured today near the Maharshi Dayanand University (MDU) campus in Rohtak, Haryana, as police opened fire on Jat protesters seeking reservation. The protesters turned violent and set on fire the house of Haryana Finance Minister Captain Abhimanyu. They also torched a police vehicle. Talking to reporters, Haryana DGP said paramilitary forces fired in retaliation and no one was targeted after mob vandalised DIG office and police vehicles. advertisement Meanwhile, the Haryana Police has imposed Section 144 in five 'volatile' districts. Keeping a close watch on the situation in the state curfew has been imposed in Rohtak and Bhiwani. According to sources, Army will be deployed in nine locations in Haryana. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today spoke to Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on the issue. Rajnath told Khattar that 24 companies of paramilitary forces have been sent to Haryana to maintain law and order and assured to send more if needed. Earlier, the protesters accused Khattar of resisting their demand as he was "not from the community" even as the state government called an all-party meeting to end the impasse. Jat community protesters have been protesting, after talks between leaders of the community and Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar failed to resolve the reservation issue. List of trains cancelled due to Jat agitation: Kalka Shatabdi Amritsar Shatabdi Chandigarh Shatabdi Ludhaina Shatabdi Paschim Express Kochivelli Amritsar Express New Delhi-Jammu Tawi Rajdhani Express Udhampur Sampark Kranti Express New Delhi-Katra Express Jat leaders said that the agitation will not be withdrawn till the Khattar government comes out with substantive action on their demand for reservation for Jat community in government jobs and educational institutions. The Haryana government on Wednesday had announced doubling of the quota for the EBC (Economically Backward Classes) category from 10 to 20 per cent after the meeting with Jat leaders. The Jats have rejected the move. Jat leaders on Friday rejected an appeal by political parties in northern-Indian state of Haryana to call off their quota protest even as Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar gave an assurance that a solution will be worked out to extend reservation to the community. The appeal to the Jat leaders was made by the parties at a meeting convened by Khattar to discuss the demands of the community and find a way out to end the impasse. However, the agitators refused to withdraw their protest till a legislation is passed giving quota to the community under OBC category and accused Khattar of having "casteist mentality" saying he did not belong to the community. advertisement Meanwhile, mobile Internet and SMS services were suspended indefinitely by the authorities in violence-hit Rohtak in the wake of the agitation spreading in the district. Trains on the Delhi-Ambala and Hisar-Dhuri routes were hit as the protesters squatted on railway tracks as part of their plan to intensify the stir. "The political parties have appealed to the agitating Jats to call off their protest to maintain peace and harmony in the state. "Our first priority is that the Jat agitation should end today and peace maintained in the state. A way will be worked out to give reservation to Jats," Khattar said after the meeting. He said blocking roads and hampering rail services were not the "right way" to hold an agitation. Normal life has been severely affected in various parts of Haryana with the agitation hitting supply of essential commodities like milk, vegetables, LPG and petroleum products. "Supplies of petroleum products are hit in Rohtak, Bhiwani and Jind due to the agitation," an official said. "Some of the fuel pumps in these districts have even gone dry. Similarly, the supply of LPG cylinders has also been affected in these areas," the official said. advertisement Asked about BJP MP Raj Kumar Saini's remarks against Jat quota, Khattar said Kurukshetra MP's statement "should be considered as withdrawn". Saini had earlier expressed objection over giving reservation to Jats and had even threatened to resign if there was "any loss" to reservation quota for OBCs. The schools and colleges will too remain closed till February 22 in Rohtak and Jhajjar areas.ALSO READ : Jat reservation protest in Haryana: Mobile internet services blocked in Rohtak Jat reservation row disrupts daily life in Haryana, vegetables, fuel running out of stock --- ENDS --- Owing to the ongoing Jat reservation stir in Haryana, the mobile internet services has been blocked in Rohtak. The schools and colleges will too remain closed till February 22 in Rohtak and Jhajjar areas. By India Today Web Desk: Owing to the ongoing Jat reservation stir in Haryana , the mobile internet services has been blocked in Rohtak. The schools and colleges will too remain closed till February 22 in Rohtak and Jhajjar areas. Internet services, including 2G and 3G, in the worst affected districts of Rohtak, Sonipat and Jhajjar have been since midnight, officials said. "This has been done so that rumours are not spread as this could lead to the situation getting out of hand," a senior Haryana police official said. advertisement Former Haryana CM BS Hooda said, "We gave ideal reservation, everyone was satisfied so no one protested. Today BJP leaders give irresponsible statements which have led to this state of affairs." Jat community protesters have been protesting, after talks between leaders of the community and Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar failed to resolve the reservation issue . Roads and railway routes continue to be blocked around Rohtak town, Jhajjar, Sonipat, Hisar, Bhiwani and Jind districts. Jat leaders said that the agitation will not be withdrawn till the Khattar government comes out with substantive action on their demand for reservation for Jat community in government jobs and educational institutions. The Haryana government on Wednesday had announced doubling of the quota for the EBC (Economically Backward Classes) category from 10 to 20 per cent after the meeting with Jat leaders. The Jats have rejected the move. --- ENDS --- On February 9, around a dozen former members of the Democratic Students' Union (DSU), an organisation active in the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, called for a cultural meeting to protest against what they called "the judicial killing of Afzal Guru" and express solidarity with "the struggle of Kashmiri people for their democratic right to self-determination". Around half-an-hour before the event was to start, members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) thronged the administrative building of JNU and demanded that the permission given to DSU to hold the event be withdrawn. They claimed the cultural programme was "harmful to the campus atmosphere". Fearing clashes, the administration acquiesced, and security guards were sent to keep the badminton court, where the meeting was supposed to take place, out of bounds for the organisers. But alleged DSU members-though many students in the campus claim that they were Kashmiri outsiders and not part of the university-gathered around a nearby dhaba and raised slogans demanding Kashmir's independence and India's destruction. As the video of some people-unidentifiable because of poor light-shouting these slogans went viral, all hell broke loose across the country. On February 12, based on an FIR filed by BJP MP Mahesh Giri, the Delhi Police arrested JNU students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar on charges of sedition and claimed there was evidence that he was part of the sloganeering. "I have evidence to justify Kanhaiya Kumar's arrest," Delhi police commissioner B.S. Bassi told India Today. advertisement While demands to shut down JNU because it had "become a hub of antinational elements" were made at various platforms, students and teachers claimed it was an attempt by the ABVP to dictate the discourse in the university (otherwise a Left bastion). According to his supporters, Kumar was only trying to defuse the tension inside the campus following the possibility of a clash between the ABVP and the DSU. Another video of a fiery speech in which Kumar pledged his allegiance to the Indian Constitution also went viral following his arrest. "The irresponsible language of some ultra-radical students cannot become the basis of labelling the whole university, with its 7,000-plus students, as anti-national," says Kamal Mitra Chenoy, professor, Centre for Comparative Politics and Political Theory, JNU. "The ABVP has provided police with a list of students to be picked up. They had no connection to the February 9 event, but all of them support Left ideology. It's clearly an attempt to crush any school of thought that is in conflict with the ABVP or other Sangh affiliates." This is not the first time that such an allegation has been made against the ABVP. Though the student wing of the Sangh parivar, with 33,00,000-odd members, is the largest in the land, the reins of power in most academically and politically significant universities in the country are firmly with Left-wing student organisations, notably the Students' Federation of India, which recently broke ranks with parent CPI(M), and the CPI(ML)-backed All-India Students' Association, backed in some places by the radical Left as well as newer caste-inspired cohorts like the Ambedkar Students' Association (ASA) in Hyderabad. Though the student group has recently emerged as more assertive and vocal, backed by the BJP government at the Centre, the ABVP has often been accused of using violence as a method of protest and assertion. The arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar has only added to the narrative that the current BJP government believes in suppressing even the right to dissent and ABVP has been given the task to "sensitise" the campuses to conform to the Hindutva agenda. The thrashing of journalists, Left leaders and JNU students by a group of men led by Delhi BJP MLA O.P. Sharma, when Kumar was presented at Patiala House Court in Delhi on February 15, has again brought forward the intolerance debate that started with the killing of a Muslim man at Dadri in Uttar Pradesh for allegedly keeping beef at home. advertisement Osmania students protest against police excesses in JNU. Photo: Mohammed Aleemuddin Set up in 1948, the ABVP has been at the centre of several campus controversies in the last two years, the most recent being the suicide of Dalit student Rohith Vemula at the University of Hyderabad on January 17. Vemula, an active member of ASA, hanged himself after he and four other Dalit students were suspended for allegedly assaulting a member of the ABVP. Even though a university-appointed proctorial board had investigated the incident and found no substance to the allegations, five students, including Vemula, were suspended following a letter written by BJP Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya to the human resource development ministry describing ASA students as "anti-national, casteist" elements on the campus. The ASA, founded in 1993 by a small group of Dalit students, is particularly strong in the University of Hyderabad where its support is essential for the left-wingers to capture power. It is largely focused on issues relating to the students and reservations though they join hands with other groups, except the ABVP, in specific campaigns, like the beef festival, or the screening of films like Nakul Singh Sawhney's Muzaffarnagar Baaqi Hai. "There is incongruity between what these groups and the left-wingers want to do on the one side, and the ABVP on the other," says Kancha Ilaiah, director, Centre for Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad. "While most groups like to be informed on issues of wider political and social concern by inviting faculty on campus or from outside, the ABVP is obsessed with festivals and temples." He is apprehensive of a deeper and longer conflict between the pro-Hindutva ABVP and groups like the ASA, which have Buddhist leanings. advertisement The triggers behind ASA being labelled as "anti-national" were the screening of the Muzaffarnagar films and the protest against the hanging of Mumbai bomb blast convict Yakub Memon. "Anyone can protest against capital punishment, a constructive debate is fine, but statements such as every house will deliver a Yakub are disturbing," says the ABVP's Susheel Kumar who was at the centre of the spat with the ASA activists. While ASA was successful in screening the film, ABVP members managed to stall its screening at Kirori Mal College in Delhi in August last year. More than 60 people were killed and 40,000 displaced during riots in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar district and neighbouring areas in September 2013. The film blames the Samajwadi Party and the BJP for the riots. advertisement The ABVP's interference isn't just restricted to banning films on campus. In 2014, backed by the Union HRD Ministry, it was instrumental in getting the controversial four-year undergraduate programme (FYUP) repealed in Delhi University. Though Left-wing leaders were on the same side of the fence during the FYUP agitation, following Vemula's death, the HRD ministry's interference was seen as an attempt by the Union government to back ABVP's mission to sabotage the growth of organisations that were diametrically opposite to its political philosophy. "The strong statements made against JNU and its students by Union ministers Smriti Irani and Rajnath Singh, make their agenda evident. They want to enforce the saffron ideology in the campus. If you don't subscribe to their beliefs, you are anti-national," says Chenoy. "When the government can shake hands with Kashmir's People's Democratic Party (PDP), who also denounced the hanging of Afzal Guru, how can they tell students not to talk or debate with each other?" asks Kavita Krishnan, secretary, All India Progressive Women's Association and politburo member, CPI(ML). In fact, political observers see the current campus unrest across the country as a direct conflict between two ideologies-the right, represented by ABVP, and the left, represented by SFI, AISA and AISF. That's not surprising as Rakesh Sinha, an RSS ideologue and columnist, says that ABVP was created to provide an alternative to the Leftist discourse. With the BJP in power, the impatience to make those changes has become explicit in the organisation's forceful assertions. That also perhaps explains the absence of tension in campuses where the ABVP and the NSUI, the student wing of the Congress, are in direct contest. "We do have political differences, but unlike the Mao-influenced Left groups, the NSUI doesn't indulge in anti-national activities. Our fight is against anti-national elements and we do it within the democratic process," says Sunil Ambekar, national organising secretary, ABVP. But the definition of anti-national often gets blurred. On January 20, ABVP leaders sat on an indefinite hunger strike outside the residence of the Allahabad University vice-chancellor R.L. Hangloo to demand the cancellation of a seminar where senior journalist Siddharth Varadarajan was invited as chief speaker. Claiming that Varadarajan had written "pro-Naxal and anti-national" pieces and that the "controversial man" had a communal mindset, they managed to get the venue changed and "held him hostage" in the V-C's office for half-an-hour shouting slogans outside until the police intervened and escorted him to safety. It's not only the ABVP but its parent organisation, the RSS, is equally active in purging educational institutes of ideas and intellectuals who don't conform to their idea of nationalism. Social activist and Magsaysay awardee Sandeep Pandey was sacked by the Banaras Hindu University on charges of being a "Naxalite", engaging in "anti-national" activities and screening a banned documentary on the campus. Pandey was a visiting faculty in the department of chemical engineering at IIT-BHU. Though the termination order did not state any reason, Pandey has alleged that the decision to remove him had been forced upon IIT-BHU director Rajeev Sangal by V-C G.C. Tripathi and dean of faculty affairs, IIT-BHU, Dhananjay Pandey, both of whom, he claimed, were "associated with the RSS". Ambekar and his colleagues believe that the growing acceptance of the ABVP ideology across campuses has created a scare among Left-leaning organisations, which have lost relevance in a resurgent India. "By accusing the government of trying to suppress freedom of expression, they are trying to divert attention from their anti-national agenda. They are trying to hide their criminal activities under the garb of the free spirit of JNU. We are not opposed to freedom of thoughts but we can't allow someone to seek the destruction of India," he says. Since the BJP government came to power in 2014, the ABVP has managed to grab some key positions in student councils in several universities such as JNU, Delhi University, Calcutta University and Allahabad University. Currently, it controls the student unions of 18 universities across India. In September last year, it swept the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) elections by bagging all four positions. It made a comeback in the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union panel after 14 years when it won the joint secretary post. (The first challenge from the ABVP in JNU came in 2002 when Sandeep Mahapatra won the JNUSU president seat by a single vote on an ABVP ticket. Then, as now, a BJP government was in power.) The ABVP's rise even rattled someone as feisty as West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee who, in December 2014, demanded a detailed report from district-level Trinamool Congress party workers on the rise of the activities of the RSS and ABVP in the state. ABVP leaders see the current strife as a panic reaction by left-leaning and other student organisations, "which are being funded by anti-Indian Islamic forces through Students' Islamic Organisation of India (SIO)". Though Union home minister Rajnath Singh caused a major embarrassment to the Modi government by claiming a Pak-based terror group's support to JNU students (based on a fake Twitter account of 26/11 mastermind Hafeez Saeed), Ambekar asks a pointed question: "Why is Afzal Guru celebrated in a Left bastion? What does a Dalit student group have to do with Yakub Memon? A new axis of Islamic forces and Naxal groups is emerging. They are trying to attract Dalits and other marginalised groups of Hindu society to split our country down the middle." Amid these allegations and counter-allegations, the primary discourse, which should concern every student, has taken a backseat. No one is asking the one question that must be asked: why is it that only two Indian institutes have made it to the top 200 list of the world's best universities? With Karishma Goenka and Amarnath K. Menon. Follow the writer on Twitter @KDscribe --- ENDS --- Author JK Rowling's response to trolls is the best thing on the internet today. By India Today Web Desk: This is not the first time author JK Rowling has shut down a troll. In the past, Rowling had single-handedly shut down controversies about all the backlash the 'Black Hermione' received, and also responded to Donald Trump's spokesperson and compared Trump to Voldemort. And oh, how we love how often she uses Harry Potter references in her tweets to shut them up! advertisement Also read: JK Rowling is helping muggles fight depression--and it's nothing short of magical This time, a conversation between Scottish politician Natalie McGarry and JK Rowling turned ugly when the politician shared a snapshot of a conversation Rowling was having on Twitter, accusing the her of "defending misogynists". But the 50-year-old author was actually thanking a man for supporting her charity, Lumos. Humiliated, McGarry apologised to the author saying, "The particular screen grab from JK Rowling didn't give the correct context to her relationship with a tweeter, so for that, I apologise.(sic)" Things got nasty when a writer called Kevin Williamson interrupted the feud and tweeted, "@NatalieMcGarry why apologise to her. She uses her obscene wealth & lawyer droids to threaten & bully. Tell the radge to bolt.(sic)" Also read: Surprise: JK Rowling just announced the 8th Harry Potter book and everybody is going crazy Quoting rapper's Chamillionaire's 2005 hit song Ridin's lyrics, Rowling perfectly replied to Kevin: "They see me Rowlin' They hatin'." And the tweet instantly inspired several memes. Seeing her Rowling, even Chamillionaire couldn't stop himself and tweeted: This was followed up by a virtual fist-bump later! --- ENDS --- The fight over the arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar on Thursday spilled on to the streets of Patna with student leaders of different outfits clashing with the Bharatiya Janata Party workers over the issue. Police stop BJP activists from clashing with students who were demanding the release of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, in Patna. By Giridhar Jha: The fight over the arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar on Thursday spilled on to the streets of Patna with student leaders of different outfits clashing with the Bharatiya Janata Party workers over the issue. A group of student leaders owing allegiance to the All Indian Students Federation and other Left wing organisations arrived at the BJP's headquarters protesting against the arrest of Kanhaiya, who belongs to Begusarai district. advertisement The BJP workers were, however, about to take out their own march to press for their demand for punishment to those who had shouted anti-India slogans during a recent meeting on the JNU campus. In a scuffle that ensued, the rival groups pelted stones at each other before the police intervened and used mild force to bring the situation under control. The police said that the students protesting outside had not sought permission from the police to take out the rally. Bihar BJP president Mangal Pandey said that the attack had been carried out under the protection of the state government. Also read #BigAfzalFight: Pakistan backs JNU students JNU row: Students from across Delhi demand Kanhaiya Kumar's release --- ENDS --- The ongoing JNU unrest is likely to result in two rival political outfits - the Congress and CPI (M) - joining forces ahead of the West Bengal Assembly polls ABVP members hold a rally on the JNU issue by marching towards Jadavpur University campus in Kolkata on Thursday. By Soudhriti Bhabani: The ongoing JNU unrest is likely to result in two rival political outfits - the Congress and CPI (M) - joining forces ahead of the West Bengal Assembly polls The CPI(M) Central Committee, which worked out the electoral tactics for the elections, in an official statement said, "In West Bengal, the main task is to restore democracy and foil the aggressive efforts by the communal forces to polarise the people in the state by ousting the present Trinamool Congress government." advertisement The statement further said the CPI(M) would seek cooperation of all democratic forces in Bengal to strengthen the people's unity, defeat the TMC and isolate the BJP and their machinations. Earlier on Monday, both the Left Front and Congress leaders jointly took to the streets of Kolkata protesting the police atrocities at JNU campus and arrest of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar. Several important leaders took part in the march, titled 'Kolkata Marches for JNU', that had begun from College Street and culminated at city's downtown Esplanade. There were no party flags in the rally organised by a non-political outfit Democratic Forum against Suppression. At Jadavpur University, a rally was organised by ABVP to counter pro-Afzal Guru sloganeering that took place on Jadavpur University campus on Tuesday night. It was spearheaded by state BJP leaders like Rupa Ganguly and Locket Chatterjee. To maintain law and order situation at the varsity, the rally was stopped by police about 150 metres away from the JU campus and Section 144 was imposed. The roads connecting the university were barricaded. According to sources, police also videographed the whole incident and sent live feeds to the control room. Also read JNU row puts BJP, Congress at loggerheads, Amit Shah demands apology from Rahul Gandhi --- ENDS --- Geelani was arrested on sedition charges and was sent to judicial custody till March 3 for allegedly organising an event at the Press Club of India to mark the death anniversary of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. By India Today Web Desk: Patiala House Courts on Friday rejected the bail plea of former Delhi University professor SAR Geelani, who was arrested on sedition charges for allegedly organising an event at the Press Club of India to mark the death anniversary of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. He was sent to judicial custody till March 3 earlier this week. advertisement Metropolitan Magistrate Harvinder Singh dismissed the bail application of former DU professor Geelani. Geelani's arrest comes amid the raging row over the arrest of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who was arrested on February 12 on charges of sedition for allegedly raising anti-national slogans at an event organised in the university campus on February 9 against the hanging of Afzal Guru. Police had registered an FIR on February 10 under sections dealing with sedition and criminal conspiracy over raising slogans by Kashmiri students in the club premises the same day to protest Afzal Guru's execution. The FIR was filed on the basis of complaint made by the club. Police said that they have been analysing over five to six video clippings of both the events organised on the consecutive day on JNU campus and the PCI premises. Separate police teams have been conducting raids at different locations in Delhi and outside the city to arrest those who were also present at both the events. At the PCI, in which Geelani was present on the dais along with three other speakers, a group allegedly had raised slogans hailing Afzal Guru. Taking suo motu cognizance of the matter, police registered a case against Geelani and other unnamed people. Police said that Geelani is presumed to be the "main organiser" of the event. "During initial investigation, we learnt that a hall was booked in the Press Club on the request of Geelani," a police officer said. Police have also questioned Delhi University professor Ali Javed, a PCI member, under whose membership number, the hall for the event was booked. Javed was expelled by the PCI following the event. Also read: JNU row: Ex-DU lecturer SAR Geelani, booked for sedition charges, sent to judicial custody JNU row: High court to hear Kanhaiya Kumar's bail plea next week Pakistan backs JNU students on Afzal Guru show, BJP calls support 'submission of guilt' --- ENDS --- The opposition parties are all geared up to take on the BJP-led Centre on the issues of JNU crisis and the attack on mediapersons and lawyers in the Patiala House court. On Thursday, both Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal led their respective party leaders and met President Pranab Mukherjee over the issue. By Amit Agnihotri: The opposition parties are all geared up to take on the BJP-led Centre on the issues of JNU crisis and the attack on mediapersons and lawyers in the Patiala House court. On Thursday, both Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal led their respective party leaders and met President Pranab Mukherjee over the issue. The Congress is all set to counter BJP's attempt to present the JNU crisis as nationalism versus anti-nationalism issue by targeting the ruling party's divisive politics and its track record in handling terrorism. advertisement After the BJP questioned Rahul's support to JNU students, he described the crisis and the attack on media and lawyers as a blot on India's image. "Nationalism is in my blood. My family has made sacrifices time and again for the country," Rahul said after he led a Congress delegation to petition President Pranab Mukherjee on the recent spate of violence across Indian campuses. Rahul alleged that the Centre was imposing a flawed and dead ideology on students. "It is not the government's job to destroy institutions," he said. Referring to the recent suicide of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula, Rahul said the student was suppressed by the government and forced to end his life. "We will protest it (BJP campaign) with all our might...this will boomerang on the BJP," Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said. Among the other issues the Congress will raise to corner the BJP, are that the RSS has never hoisted the national flag and that the ruling party was devoid of any single national icon who played a role during India's freedom struggle or made sacrifices in the fight against terrorism/Maoism. "There is a growing body of public opinion which believes that communal polarisation by using the nationalism card is BJP's attempt to deflect attention from its failures in protecting the country from terrorism and its inability in handling the economy," Tewari said. Also Read Rahul Gandhi is a traitor and should be shot, says BJP MLA Kailash Choudhary JNU vice chancellor says don't take your protests outside the campus --- ENDS --- After the Supreme Court refused to hear his bail plea, Kanhaiya Kumar today approached Delhi High Court for his bail. Hearing over the JNU student leader's bail plea is likely to be held next week. By India Today Web Desk: After the Supreme Court refused to hear his bail plea, Kanhaiya Kumar today approached Delhi High Court for his bail. Hearing over the JNU student leader's bail plea is likely to be held next week. Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested and slapped with sedition charges for organising and participating in an event supporting 2001 Parliament attack Afzal Guru. On Wednesday, a Delhi court sent to judicial custody till March 2. advertisement Kanhaiya approached the high court after the Supreme Court refused to hear his bail plea. The Supreme Court described the case as "extraordinary in prevailing circumstances," while underlining that, " People should not think only Supreme Court is capable of providing security and not the other courts. " In his petition, Kanhaiya had said there was "repeated breakdown of law and order at the Patiala House court" despite the directives of the apex court, making it "impossible for him and his lawyers" to approach the session's court for bail. Kanhaiya, in his petition, had also claimed of being punched by an unidentified person in the court room of the metropolitan magistrate at the Patiala House court earlier this week. Here are the latest updates: Hearing over Kanhaiya Kumar's bail plea in Delhi High Court likely next week. Former Delhi University professor SAR Geelani's bail plea dismissed by Patiala House Court. Over 200 lawyers hold a protest march from Patiala House Court complex to India Gate to show solidarity with those who attacked JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar and other students, journalists earlier this week. We are on the right track, I am confident that we will arrest the absconders soon: Bassi on Umar Khalid As Kanhaiya is involved in a controversial case, we might have to provide him additional security if he gets bail: Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi Kanhaiya Kumar's lawyers are likely to mention his bail plea for an early hearing before the high court later today. Counsel for all parties will be permitted in the high court courtroom but entry of others including journalists would be regulated by Registrar General. Supreme court also asks the government to ensure safety and security of the counsel representing different parties. Kanhaiya's bail plea in high court can now only be heard next week. Supreme Court has asked Delhi Police to ensure full security to Kanhaiya and his lawyers at the high court. Bail will set a wrong precedent as the hearing is on in a lower court: Supreme Court The Supreme Court asked Kanhaiya's lawyers why they had not moved the high court. Kumar's lawyers argued that he is not safe there. Supreme Court has asked Kanhaiya's lawyers to approach the Delhi High Court for the JNUSU president's bail . . Delhi Police has not sought extension of police remand for Kanhaiya Kumar, says lawyer. Delhi Police also submits their report on Patiala House Court violence in SC. Kanhaiya is being represented in the Supreme Court by top lawyers Raju Ramachandran and Soli Sorabjee, the former Attorney General of India. Sorabjee recently went on record saying Kanhaiya's words and action did not amount to sedition. "That is not sedition. Sedition, the Supreme Court has said, are the acts which have a tendency and intention to disturb law and order or incite violence," he had said. JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar was thrashed on Wednesday by a group of lawyers at Patiala House Court complex while he was being taken for hearing. --- ENDS --- The protesters raised slogans, waved flags and carried "Thank You JNU" posters. Soon after the Friday prayers were over, clashes broke out between the police and protesters. By India Today Web Desk: Fierce clashes between security forces and locals erupted in Old Srinagar today. Protest after Friday prayers is not new in the Valley but the latest protest witnessed people waving flags of Pakistan and Islamic State and also banners 'thanking' JNU for supporting Afzal Guru. Several men, with their faces covered, were seen pelting stones at security forces. Slogans and banners in support of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru were also raised. Several protesters were seen displaying 'Thank you JNU' posters. advertisement Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi's student union leader Kanhaiya Kumar is in jail under sedition charges for participating in an event in support of Afzal Guru. Kanhaiya Kumar's arrest last week has triggered widespread outrage among students and teachers and drawn severe criticism from non-BJP political parties. The Supreme Court today refused to hear the bail plea of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar. The top court has asked Kanhaiya's lawyers to approach the Delhi High Court for bail. Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested for sedition and was sent to judicial custody till March 2. In his petition, Kanhaiya had said there was "repeated breakdown of law and order at the Patiala House court" despite the directives of the apex court, making it "impossible for him and his lawyers" to approach the session's court for bail. Kanhaiya, in his petition, had also claimed of being punched by an unidentified person in the court room of the metropolitan magistrate at the Patiala House Court. Also read: Supreme Court to Kanhaiya Kumar: Go to Delhi High Court for bail Umar Khalid's father says his son is being targeted because of his religion --- ENDS --- By Suhani Singh: Director: Ram Madhvani Cast: Sonam Kapoor, Shabana Azmi, Yogendra Tiku, Jim Sarbh Rating: (3.5/5) Sonam Kapoor's adventures as a leading lady have largely revolved around sombre romances and romantic comedies. With Neerja, she tackles a story inspired by true events, a drama where reality bites. She has been entrusted to essay an inspiring young woman whose bravery outshined her beauty. Flight attendant-model Neerja Bhanot was just two days shy of her 23rd birthday when she was killed in a hijack in Karachi. As the head purser of the flight, her decisions (to hide the passports of the American passengers), actions (inform the pilots who would escape and foil the plans of the Palestinian terrorists) and selflessness (serve the passengers, comfort and calm them as well as her colleagues) would win her many posthumous awards including the Ashok Chakra and from United States (bravery) and Pakistan (human kindness). It is a dream role for any actress and Kapoor pulls it off, delivering her career-best performance as she assuredly plays an abused wife, a beloved daughter and a flight attendant caught in her worst nightmare. advertisement REVIEW: Sonam Kapoor brings Neerja Bhanot alive on screen ALSO READ: Sonam Kapoor opens up on her fears and playing Neerja Bhanot Neerja is as much a biopic as it is a taut thriller which keeps viewers hooked even as the fate of its protagonist is already known. Written by Saiwyn Quadras, who also wrote another woman-against-all-odds film in Mary Kom, the film respectfully and subtly pays a tribute to the young woman than be a glorifying hagiography. Ad filmmaker Ram Madhvani, who returns to feature films 14 years after Let's Talk, is the captain of the proceedings here. A large part why Neerja works is the way Madhvani, cinematographer Mitesh Mirchandani, editor Monisha R Baldawa and production designers Aparna Sud and Anna Ipe collaborate to create an earnest portrait of Neerja as India's daughter. Her rapport with her parents and two brothers makes her more relatable. Her bedroom feels lived in. And the aircraft where she is confined for more than half the film's running time credibly conveys the feeling of being trapped. Neerja is a rising model, a woman wary of embracing another man after an unhappy marriage and an avid fan of Rajesh Khanna. The latter is a running theme in the film which is a source for few initial laughs and credit to Quadras who weaves it beautifully in the film. When four men force their way into the aircraft, Neerja has to overcome her own fears and past to cope with a situation that no amount of training can truly prepare you for. The film shuttles between Neerja's difficult past and her more difficult present situation, but the transition is never jarring and enables viewers to better understand her state of mind. Shot in handheld, the occasionally jerky footage creates the sense of urgency and dread. The casting of the innumerable frantic passengers stranded on the flight is well done. So are the four terrorists including Jim Sarbh as the angry and uncontrollable one. Azmi as Neerja's mother is the commanding supporting character. The scene in which she has to wake up her daughter for the flight is a poignant one. There are many more well-crafted scenes including one in which Kapoor in near silence demonstrates exhaustion, sadness, joy and resolve. Bollywood has been short on films which can be billed as one-woman army and in Neerja we have finally one. This is a heartbreaking watch, but never a mawkish one. As the end credits roll, audiences will fall for Neerja Bhanot's valour and also her charm. --- ENDS --- advertisement Kal Ho Naa Ho director Nikkhil Advani is foraying into TV with the Indian adaptation of Homeland. The show is likely to go on air by year-end. By India Today Web Desk: Bollywood director and producer Nikkhil Advani will make his TV debut with the the Indian adaptation of US series Homeland. According to reports, the Airlift producer is scripting the show which revolves around two Indian Army soldiers, home-bound after a long war in Kargil. The story revolves around the two men and their struggle with readjusting to civilian life. advertisement Actors Purab Kohli and Satyadeep Misra have reportedly been roped in to play the two protagonists. The show will also star Sandhya Mridul as Satyadeep's wife and Amrita Puri as Purab Kohli's love interest. Manish Chaudhary has been signed on to play a RAW agent. Pune Mirror reports that the Hindi adaptation of Homeland has been locked for 85 episodes by a popular Hindi GEC. "There's still a lot of writing to be done. Only the casting has been completed. They plan to begin shooting in April and the show will go on air by the year-end," Pune Mirror quoted a source as saying. US series Homeland is adapted from an original Israeli series, Hatufim (Prisoners of War). The series follows US Marine Nicolas Brody (played by Damian Lewis) who returns home to a hero's welcome after eight years in captivity in Iraq. Hot on his trail is an Intelligence officer who suspects that Brody may have turned traitor. --- ENDS --- Even as the JNU row rages on, Pakistan jumped into the fray on Thursday by reiterating its concern over the arrest of Kashmiri students involved in a controversial debate at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. By Mail Today: Even as the JNU row rages on, Pakistan jumped into the fray on Thursday by reiterating its concern over the arrest of Kashmiri students involved in a controversial debate at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Muhammad Nafees Zakria said Kashmiris never accepted the 'unfair' trial of Afzal Guru, who was hanged after being convicted for 2001 Parliament attack. advertisement He pointed out that Pakistan has adequately and appropriately raised the Kashmir dispute at all international fora. The Congress used the remark to target the BJP government saying its inept handling of the JNU crisis gave Pakistan a handle to embarrass India. "We are against any anti-national slogans. But the Modi government mishandled the issue and this provided Pakistan an opportunity to exploit the situation," Congress spokesperson Meem Afzal told Mail Today. He said similar slogans were raised several times in Kashmir but the BJP-PDP government did not take any action against those responsible for it. "They sent the police to JNU whereas the matter could have been resolved at the level of the vice chancellor," said Afzal, adding the JNU crisis has been blown out of proportion. On the other hand, the BJP said Pakistan's support to Afzal Guru was a 'submission of guilt' for attacks ranging from the one at Parliament in 2001 to the most recent one at the Pathankot airbase. "Not unexpectedly, Pakistan has once again passed comments on the domestic issues of India. The 2001 Parliament attack as also Pathankot and virtually every terrorist attack in India always leads back to Pakistan. Their support for Afzal Guru is an unequivocal admission on their part and might be a self goal in their enthusiasm to meddle in India's internal affairs such as JNU," said BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli. On being asked if the JNU incident opened a window for outside powers to fish in troubled waters, Kohli said, "I am sure the concerned agencies would be exploring every angle since it is primarily a matter of sovereignty and internal security." Also Read JNU row: JNUSU chief Kanhaiya Kumar in jail No. 3, same as Afzal Guru Omar Abdullah brings JNU protests to Mehbooba Mufti's door JNU row: Former DU lecturer SAR Geelani arrested for sedition JNU row: PhD student Mudassar mobilised crowd at Press Club, says SAR Geelani JNU row: Delhi University teacher SAR Geelani sent to 2-day police custody JNU row: Rahul Gandhi to meet President Pranab Mukherjee today --- ENDS --- The FIR came on the basis of a special investigation team's recommendations. The investigation team had recommended that the FIR be lodged against Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar and others. However, while lodging the FIR, the Pakistan security forces have left out Masood Azhar's name. By India Today Web Desk: Pakistan on Friday morning lodged an FIR against unknown terrorists in the Pathankot attack case. The FIR came on the basis of a special investigation team's recommendations. The investigation team had recommended that the FIR be lodged against Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar and others. However, while lodging the FIR, the Pakistan security forces have left out Masood Azhar's name. advertisement The FIR comes after more than a month of the audacious terror attack at the Pathankot air base on January 2, this year. According to a report in Pakistani newspaper The News , the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) Punjab Police have lodged Pathankot attack case in Gujranwala. Sources said the case has been lodged against unknown terrorists on the plea of deputy home secretary Aitzaz-ud-Din. The case has been registered after the special investigation team formed to investigate the Pathankot terror attack "formally recommended to the federal government to lodge an FIR on the basis of the information provided to the National Security Adviser Lt-Gen (retired) Nasser Khan Janjua by his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval." According to reports, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had asked a case to be registered either in the FIA or in Lahore's Counter Terrorism Department against Masood Azhar, four attackers and some unknown accomplices. Under intense pressure from India and the international community, Sharif had directed concerned authorities to probe the Pathankot attack and punish the perpetrators. Pakistan's interior ministry had constituted a six-member team on January 13 to investigate the terror attack in which 6 attackers and 7 Indian securitymen were killed. The News further claimed that Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar, who was taken into "informal protective custody" is yet to be interrogated by the special Pakistani investigating team. Sources said that his interrogation would take place after the FIR is registered. The report also claimed that Nasser Khan Janjua is constantly in contact with his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval on the developments regarding the ongoing investigations. However, it is yet not clear if the Indian side has been communicated about the possibility of the registration of an FIR. --- ENDS --- During sit-ins in Bengaluru, Karnad blamed the home ministry for its irresponsibility for not verifying the claims against Kanhaiya Kumar. He said, "What's happening in JNU is tragic and comical". By India Today Web Desk: Distinguished writer and Jnanapith laureate playwright Girish Karnad today joined JNU protest as a mark of support to arrested student leader Kanhaiya Kumar. During sit-ins in Bengaluru, Karnad blamed the home ministry for its irresponsibility for not verifying the claims against Kanhaiya Kumar. He said, "What's happening in JNU is tragic and comical". advertisement The Jnanapith laureate had triggered a major row in Karnataka after he joined a group of Left activists who protested the beef ban in Maharashtra by eating beef biriyani in public. In November 2015, on the occasion of the birth anniversary celebrations of Tipu Sultan, Karnad had suggested that the government could have named the Bengaluru International Airport after the erstwhile ruler of Mysuru. Karnad had said 18th century Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan would have enjoyed the same status as of Maratha king Chhatrapathi Shivaji, if he was a Hindu and not a Muslim. On February 13, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi visited the Jawaharlal Nehru University to meet students who have been protesting against the arrest of their leader Kanhaiya Kumar. On February 16, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat was at the campus to express solidarity with JNU students who are on strike demanding release of Students Union president Kanhaiya. "Ever since the Modi Government came to power, universities across the country have been under siege. There have been constant attempts to impose ideological hegemony on universities," Karat said during his visit to protest-hit JNU. Rebel BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha also came out in support of JNU students and Kanhaiya. Kanhaiya was arrested on February 12 over a protest organized in the JNU campus on February 9 against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. He has been booked on charges of sedition. The Supreme Court on Friday transferred, to the Delhi High Court, Kanhaiya Kumar's petition seeking bail as it said that the direct hearing of the bail plea bypassing the high court would set a wrong precedent. A bench of Justice J.Chelameswar and Justice Abhay Manohar Sapre, while transferring Kanhaiya's petition, asked senior counsel Raju Ramachandran as to "what prevented you from going to the high court". The students' protest in Delhi against sedition charges on JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar has resonated in universities across the country, with detentions and clashes reported from Udaipur to Chennai, and from Patna to Hyderabad. ALSO READ: Shikhar Dhawan's advice to anti-nationals: Don't speak ill against your country Gen GD Bakshi slams 'leftist liberals' who opposed flying Tricolour in universities --- ENDS --- Both Modi and Sharif have accepted President Obama's invitation to attend a nuclear summit. This summit will be hosted by Obama in Washington on March 31 and April 1 By India Today Web Desk: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif in Washington next month on the sidelines of a nuclear summit hosted by United States President Barack Obama, according to a media report. Both Modi and Sharif have accepted President Obama's invitation to attend a nuclear summit. This summit will be hosted by Obama in Washington on March 31 and April 1. However, considering the volatile relationship between the two neighbouring countries no confirmation has been made about the meet. advertisement "The chances are strong, very strong, but knowing the history of India-Pakistan talks, you cannot be certain about an event until it has happened " said a senior official. If the meeting does go through, it will the first time that both Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers will be attending the nuclear security summit, which was started by President Obama in 2010. --- ENDS --- In his new avatar, Congress scion Rahul Gandhi is keen to assume new identities, seek new alliances, broker peace among the old guard in a bid to win over poll-bound states On February 5, in an informal interaction with journalists, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi suddenly revealed a new identity-that of a Kashmiri. Asked if the party was keen to cobble together a government in Jammu & Kashmir in alliance with the National Conference, given the quagmire the BJP-PDP coalition is in after Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's demise, Rahul did not give a straight answer. Instead, he said, "I'm a Kashmiri and the people of Kashmir want to protect Kashmiriyat." One-quarter Kashmiri through his grandmother Indira Gandhi, this was a badge he hadn't embraced until now. This is indeed a new Rahul, eager to assume new identities, create new political buzzwords, and seek out new friends. Sources close to him say the transformation has happened with a single objective in mind-to create an anti-Modi axis by uniting all the opposition forces. And though the Grand Alliance's success against the BJP in the Bihar assembly polls has been the catalyst, Rahul wants one change in the narrative: the pivot around which this axis revolves must be the Congress. advertisement "Rahul believes that Modi is the antithesis to his idea of India, and that's why he is ready to go any length to fight him," says a Congress Rajya Sabha MP. "That the prime minister has made little attempt to reach out to Rahul has also resulted in a bitter and unhealthy rivalry between the two." The last straw was the National Herald case, which the Gandhi family sees as a below-the-belt attack by the saffron party. For now, Rahul has set a one-point agenda for his party-hit the Modi government hard at every opportunity. Till now, the Congress has managed to block the passage of two big-ticket reforms of the NDA government, the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill and the GST Bill. Another big gain, Rahul believes, was reinforcing the perception that the Modi government is pro-rich. "The 'suit-boot sarkar' jibe has forced the Modi government to recycle, rebrand and celebrate Congress policies. Look at MNREGA," says the party's communication in-charge, Randeep Singh Surjewala. But a bigger revenge may come in Arunachal Pradesh, which is under President's Rule after the Centre dismissed the Congress-led state government. The Nabam Tuki regime had been on the verge of collapse, with over 20 Congress MLAs pledging support to rebel minister Kalikho Pul. In a meeting in Delhi with Rahul earlier this month, the rebel MLAs reportedly agreed on a reconciliation formula. If a united Congress stakes claim, the governor will have no option but to invite it to form the government, causing huge embarrassment to the BJP. "If Rahul can resolve the differences between Tuki and Pul, this episode may become a blessing in disguise as it will be a huge loss of face for Modi," says a Congress Rajya Sabha MP. With five states going to polls in May, the Congress strategy seems to revolve around replicating the Bihar model. All the warring factions of the West Bengal Congress have buried the hatchet and have asked the central leadership to join hands with the Left to counter the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government. But this will not be easy because in Kerala, where the Congress is in power, the principal opposition is the Left. Within the CPI(M) too, there are two views: party general secretary Sitaram Yechury is open to "being friends with the Congress in Bengal" while his predecessor Prakash Karat's dead against it. advertisement In Tamil Nadu, where the Congress is a minor player, talks of rebuilding the alliance between the Congress and the DMK have again gained ground, especially after the Chennai floods. But DMK chief M. Karunanidhi's son Stalin is a stumbling block, though his daughter, Kanimozhi, who enjoys a cordial relationship with Rahul, is open to a partnership. Rahul's biggest achievement, however, has been putting an end to the cold war between state president E.V.K.S. Elangovan and ex-finance minister P. Chidambaram. Chidambaram's son Karthi was involved in a bitter war of words with Elangovan, who had been handpicked by Rahul. Unlike in the past, when Rahul strongly believed in shutting out dissidents, he reached out to Chidambaram and the two state leaders now share "more than a working relationship", according to sources. T his is Rahul's new avatar. He does not hold grudges and is ready to forgive and move on. The best example of this newfound management style is Captain Amarinder Singh, who was a bitter critic of Rahul until two months ago. The Gandhi scion not only named Amarinder president of the Punjab Congress, he's also set up a communication hotline with the ex-CM. advertisement Rahul at University of Hyderabad, to protest the Rohith Vemula suicide. Photo: Mohammed Aleemuddin In Assam, Rahul has dumped the idea of an alliance and decided to go it alone under the leadership of three-time CM, Tarun Gogoi. Two factors worked against an alliance with the AIUDF, the probable ally in the state. A pre-poll tie-up with AIUDF, perceived to be the party backing the interests of 'illegal' Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants, could polarise the Hindu votes in favour of the BJP. Also, the party could not reach a consensus over seat sharing. Assam is politically significant as it's the only poll-bound state where the Congress and BJP are in a direct contest. The result will have long-term political implications because it could be the first major victory in two years for the Congress, if it pulls it off. But in Kerala, the state he's visited the most since his 56-day-long sabbatical last year, Rahul has been unable to set a divided house in order so far. As if the public spat between Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and state president V.M. Sudheeran, a Rahul favourite, was not enough, the leaking of a letter written by home minister Ramesh Chennithala to the Congress president alleging that Chandy was acting against the interest of Hindus, further embarrassed the party. And with Chandy now embroiled in the 'solar scam', the party seems to have given up hope on keeping power in the state. advertisement Apart from his state management, Rahul has also put to rest rumours of a revolt against him by the party's old guard. Barring general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi, he now has a cordial working relationship with veterans like Ahmed Patel, Anand Sharma and Kamal Nath. Having eased these complications, Rahul is now focusing single-mindedly on Modi, and eyeing the five upcoming Assembly elections as the first step towards 2019. Follow the writer on Twitter @KDscribe --- ENDS --- George W. Bush had a story of redemption. After years of hard drinking, he became a born-again Christian, which gave him the strength and clarity to become a two-term President of the United States. Rahul Gandhi may soon have his own narrative. A year after the devastating defeat of the Congress in the 2014 general election, he took a two-month-long sabbatical in Southeast Asia doing Vipassana meditation, among other things, and came back not just rejuvenated, but reborn. That rebirth was not before he relived the karma of the Congress loss by interacting with over 500 party workers to understand what went wrong. The answers were tough, likened to "a perfect storm". In the 10-year Congress-led UPA rule, the government had made many mistakes. The economy had slowed down because of spiralling oil prices, the government had pushed through a massive decentralisation of power, including the Land Acquisition Act and the Right to Information Act that had hit entrenched interests who, they claimed, then backed Narendra Modi. More importantly, there was a growing disconnect between the old Congress leaders and the new ones that Rahul had been grooming. There was an acknowledgement that Modi was successful in creating a perception among the youth that he was the only option for an India crippled with corruption and policy paralysis. advertisement All through the tortuous postmortem, Rahul would tell his close aides that losing badly was "the best thing" that had happened to him and his "biggest learning experience". On his return from his sabbatical in April 2015, the Congress vice-president set a clear agenda for himself-to demolish the perception Modi had painstakingly cultivated during his unprecedented election campaign. To borrow Paulo Coelho's words, someone Rahul has been quoting recently, the political environment of the country also conspired to back him in this mission. If Modi's suit with his name woven in pinstripes made headlines in January 2015, the humiliating defeat for the BJP in Delhi assembly polls the next month busted the myth of his invincibility. In his new avatar, first seen during the monsoon session of Parliament, Rahul invented the first political phrase of his career: "suit boot ki sarkar". The political vocabulary was not accidental. In his own words, it was the "sandpaper of Congress that was working on him". He still reached out to academic advisors of the past, but understood the importance of packaging the message with political rhetoric. Nobody in the party was untouchable; members of the old guard such as Ahmed Patel, P. Chidambaram and Kamal Nath, and young turks such as Jyotiraditya Scindia, Ajay Maken, Randeep Singh Surjewala, Sachin Pilot and Deepender Hooda were fed on speed dial for strategic inputs. In a country with 65 per cent of its population under the age of 35, Rahul was clear about the core constituency to win this perception battle. So he went on a campus tour across the country, from Bangalore University to the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management in Mumbai, from the University of Hyderabad to the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. There were faux pas and unimpressed audiences, but the attempt to connect was earnest. He wasn't a prince in an ivory tower, he was one of them. He traded his political garb of the white kurta for a grey t-shirt and blue denim. The next step was mastering the art of turning every issue into a battle between the rich and the poor-from land acquisition to GST, from Modi's foreign trips to farming distress in Maharashtra, Bundelkhand or Andhra Pradesh. The primary discourse shifted from development, jobs, corruption and poverty to the ban on beef, award wapasi, FTII appointment, caste war, and the right to dissent. The war cry came on a platter-a divisive BJP versus an inclusive Congress. If Rahul lent his voice to every issue, jumping from one to another, Modi made the Gandhi scion's voice louder by maintaining a stoic silence. The all-new Rahul has seen the Congress stock rise in the latest MOTN poll and emerging as Modi's chief challenger. advertisement Yet, in all the tactical moves that Rahul seemingly made, there was a deep underlying philosophy: the Congress represented the true idea of India as a country that was in constant conversation with itself; that it worked out solutions in a non-violent democratic way rather than imposing rigid dogmas from above. Implicit in it was the criticism of the RSS and the BJP as being arrogant about Hindutva and intolerant of dissent. If Modi's definition of a Congress-mukt Bharat was the end of corruption, Rahul now reads it as a suppression of dissent. "Congress is a continuous conversation. It's a convergence of multiple ideas. Modi wants to stop this conversation, whether it's JNU or Rohith Vemula," he told India Today in an informal conversation. advertisement Conversation is an idea he banks on to dismiss the criticism of playing disruptive politics by not letting Parliament function and blocking the passage of important legislations. As several Congress leaders close to him say, though the BJP had a muchimproved land bill, they failed to get it through because they refused to have a conversation with the Congress. "Prime Minister Modi, who has little idea about economics, lectured Manmohan Singh on the merits of GST. It was not conversation but arrogance. We brought the bill, so we know it's good, but the BJP did not listen to our reservations on the current form of the GST bill," says Randeep Singh Surjewala, in-charge of the party's communications department. There were other organic changes as well. For someone who did not join the Manmohan Singh cabinet fearing it would undermine the authority of a person he holds in high regard, the stint in Opposition has unshackled Rahul. Since he joined politics in 2004, his party was in power and he "felt trapped in a strange place" because he could not speak his mind if it contradicted the government's position. advertisement The 2014 drubbing pushed his learning curve to a new trajectory. He has got his voice back. Despite his reservations about Twitter, he joined the social media platform, which he now uses to voice his views, announce his tour itinerary and even his holiday plans. The easygoing new-age leader who travels economy class and obliges fellow passengers with selfie requests has replaced the reclusive Rahul of pre-2014. "We are getting positive traction among various social groups, from farmers to Dalits, from students to minorities," says K. Raju, head of the Congress SC cell and Rahul's chief political advisor. The barbs and uncharitable remarks that Modi made about Rahul on the campaign trail, and after he became prime minister, do seem to have angered the Congress vice-president. When he speaks about the PM, the contempt is evident. He has told his advisors that he believes Modi is incompetent. From a secretive Naga accord signed by an interlocutor to the policy disaster in Nepal, and from a whimsical visit to Lahore to meet Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif to policy declarations such as Make in India, which are not based on sound and long-term planning, he is unsparing of his bete noire. Rahul is now busy fashioning an alternative model to Modi's vision of India. According to Congress insiders, Rahul is leading the Congress in a state of transition and is in search of an idea which could be his definitive contribution to the country. There is clever calculus behind Rahul's ongoing narrative. If Modi's strength and weakness after he became PM was a centralisation of authority and power in the PMO, Rahul is pushing for the opposite. He is calling for greater decentralisation and dialogue among stakeholders. With the BJP facing criticism for being intolerant and divisive, Rahul joins issue by respecting India's diversity and lending his ears to the oppressed. If Modi is seen backing big business, Rahul believes that jobs will come from encouraging small and medium businesses. His answer to an India in transition is to focus on improving health and education, which he believes are essential building blocks. Yet, the battle is still a quarter won. As several Congress leaders admit, Rahul still has to find acceptability among corporate India who see him as anti-industry because of his unrelenting stands on land acquisition and environmental issues. Rather than being constantly negative, he needs to develop a more coherent vision for India. And he has three more years to do that. --- ENDS --- Shah Rukh Khan has appeared on Comedy Nights With Kapil four times and is likely to appear as a guest on the first episode of Kapil Sharma's new show. By India Today Web Desk: Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan, who promoted several of his recent movies (Dilwale, Happy New Year, Chennai Express to name a few) on Comedy Nights With Kapil, had expressed his disappointment over the closure of this iconic show. "He's a very talented man, one of the best stand-up comics we have. Apart from that, the film that he has done Kis Kisko Pyaar Karoon, he's done very good work in it. Hope he does something else soon so that we all can be entertained," SRK had said. advertisement If reports are to be believed, SRK's wish has come true. Kapil Sharma is coming up with his new show on a rival channel, and his first guest will be none other than Shah Rukh Khan, say reports. If all goes well, King Khan will promote his upcoming Maneesh Sharma film, Fan, on the show. In the meantime, Kapil and his team members--Sunil Grover, Ali Asgar, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Sumona Chakravarti and Kiku Sharda--are brainstorming on the new characters, so that there is no copyright violation with regard to Colors. Reports also suggest that the ace comedian will make an official announcement of his new show at a press conference in March. It is also being said that Bollywood actors like Kareena Kapoor Khan, Arjun Kapoor and Virat Kohli have already shot for the promos welcoming Kapil Sharma's return to TV. As per buzz, the title of Kapil's new show will include his name Kapil. --- ENDS --- Soon after the Friday prayers at the old city Srinagar, a group of youth, shouting pro-freedom slogans, tried to take out a march towards Nowhatta Chowk. Some of the protesters were also carrying posters of parliament attack convict Mohammad Afzal Guru, who was hanged in Tihar Jail on February 9, 2013, police said. By Naseer Ganai: For the first time since row over Pro-Azadi protests in Jawaharlal Nehru University erupted, protesters in old city Srinagar carried banners "Thank you JNU." Some of the protesters were also carrying posters of parliament attack convict Mohammad Afzal Guru, who was hanged in Tihar Jail on February 9, 2013, police said. Soon after the Friday prayers at the old city Srinagar, a group of youth, shouting pro-freedom slogans, tried to take out a march towards Nowhatta Chowk, police said. advertisement Police sources said a masked youth was seen carrying a flag of Pakistan and the ISIS. The protesters later clashed with police and security forces in Nowhatta area of Old Srinagar. The protesters were throwing stones at police while as police retaliated by firing tear smoke shells. "Sad that recent events and their handling have created a situation where #JNU now features alongside Pakistn and ISIS flags," former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah tweeted. Meanwhile, separatist Hurriyat Conference Friday termed silence of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over arrest of Prof Sayed Abdul Rehman (SAR) Geelani by Delhi police and alleged crackdown of the Delhi police on Kashmiri students as distasteful. Hurriyat Conference faction led by Syed Ali Geelani said at a time when Kashmiri students were facing onslaught, the PDP president Mehbooba Mufti was busy in having consultations with the BJP general secretary Ram Madhav over her coronation. The Hurriyat said that PDP was trying to create an aura around Agenda of Alliance but everyone in Kashmir knows that the PDP would not get anything from the rightwing party BJP. The Hurriyat Conference said the PDP and National Conference will be equally responsible if any anything happens to Professor Geelani and other Kashmiri students in Delhi. He alleged that both the mainstream parties played "a criminal role at the time of hanging of Afzal Guru and this time too they are engaging in the power politics". Moderate Hurriyat Conference chairman, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, who continues to be under house arrest for past 15 days, said it was heartening to see many among youth of India have risen up challenging narrow and unrealistic outlook of rightwing parties. "They understand that there are many issues such as Kashmir which have to be dealt with on the basis of principles of justice, which is not possible unless the whole perspective of the issue or issues is understood and there is a positive engagement and dialogue," Mirwaiz said. Mirwaiz said arrest and charge of sedition against JNUSU President Kanihya Kumar and SAR Geelani is highly condemnable. ALSO READ JNU row: High court to hear Kanhaiya Kumar's bail plea next week JNU row: Patiala House Courts rejects bail plea of former DU professor Geelani --- ENDS --- If India can't join the TPP, what can it do to overcome the disadvantages? Integrate closely with the Asia region, conclude FTAs with EU, Australia, Canada, as well as the African regional blocs. In Auckland, on February 4, the most voluminous trade deal in history, comprising over 5,000 pages of text, was signed formally by the 12 nations that are party to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP agreement covers 30 different chapters addressing issues like non-tariff barriers (NTBs), labour, environment, investment, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and regulatory coherence which have not been adequately tackled in the WTO. The TPP needs to be ratified by all the 12 countries by February 4, 2018, but even if that fails, it will still come into force if it is ratified by at least six countries representing a minimum of 85 per cent of the combined GDP of the partners. It means that the TPP can get implemented if just the US, Japan and four other countries ratify it. Jayant Dasgupta Will TPP affect India? To answer, consider its provisions. First, with import tariffs in developed countries having reduced to 4 per cent or less, tariffs are no longer as important. NTBs have become increasingly important determinants of trade flows. The TPP attempts to reduce or eliminate NTBs and lay down procedures for Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs) of standards and Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs). This will go a long way towards reducing NTBs among partners, enhancing the competitiveness of their producers. Second, barring a few exceptions, almost all products will be importable from other partners at zero duty. TPP non-members would face tariff barriers, thereby affecting their competitiveness. Third, with the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community in 2015, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, all LDCs, will also likely become part of TPP. Thus TPP will have several lower cost producers than India. Fourth, due to the emphasis on regulatory coherence and harmonising "behind the border measures", the transaction cost of doing business among enterprises in partner countries would get reduced substantially. This would lead to greater geographical clustering of industries, even if they are in different countries, signalling closer integration with global value chains. Fifth, given the cost advantages of being part of TPP, there would be trade diversion from non-partners to partner countries. Since trade and investment flows are interlinked, it would mean investment diversion too. advertisement What can India do to overcome these disadvantages? Joining the TPP is not an option in the short run as we still need time to carry out a number of reforms to fulfil the tough commitments required. Closer integration with the Asian region through an ambitious and early outcome in the Regional Cooperation and Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement negotiations and conclusion of FTAs with the EU, Australia and Canada could mitigate part of the problem. Africa, the fastest growing region, has been left out of TPP, the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and RCEP. Concluding the SACU FTA and other FTAs with groups of African regional groupings could also be beneficial. Simultaneously, focus on the following: first, accelerate the development of a few niche areas of manufacturing and services where India has comparative advantage; second, emphasise skill development and improve productivity in these sectors to be globally competitive; third, improve the ease of doing business and reduce transaction costs, both at and behind the border, to attract FDI and technology and integrate more easily with the global value chain; fourth, improve and align our standards with those in the major markets and strongly push for MRAs on standards and CABs with counterparts. The silver lining is that some of our recent initiatives such as Make in India, Skill India and Start-Up India are geared toward bridging these critical gaps in our economy. We need to get these programmes up and running, and fast. To understand how TPP benefits us, consider its history. TPP negotiations started in 2008 with the US in the driving seat. Australia, Brunei, Chile and Singapore were the initial partners; Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru and Vietnam joined subsequently. The growing US interest in TPP coincided with its increasing disinterest in the Doha Development Agenda and the WTO process of reaching trade agreements by consensus. It was part of US President Barack Obama's 'Pivot to Asia'. TPP and TTIP partners represent about 40 per cent and 50 per cent of global GDP and about 25 per cent and 33 per cent of global trade respectively. Since the US is common to both, there is bound to be great harmony between the TPP and TTIP provisions with a likely integration of the two. This would effectively cement the trading rules among nations with 70 per cent GDP. China, Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand are keen to join the TPP. The US did not allow China to join because it feared Beijing would dilute many of the provisions such as SOEs. Now that TPP has been signed, China and others are likely to be allowed in. With these five countries joining a potential TPP-TTIP integrated agreement, the global share of GDP of this bloc would be close to 80 per cent. advertisement The author is a former Indian ambassador to the World Trade Organisation. --- ENDS --- Three notorious dacoits from Uttar Pradesh were nabbed in a filmy style by the Bengaluru police after a hot chase on Thursday in the city. The fourth dacoit managed to escape and the police have launched a search operation to locate him. By Aravind Gowda: Three notorious dacoits from Uttar Pradesh were nabbed in a filmy style by the Bengaluru police after a hot chase on Thursday in the city. The fourth dacoit managed to escape and the police have launched a search operation to trace the dangerous dacoit. Two policemen were injured when the dacoits assaulted them. According to the police, Arjun Bala, Nakul Sarkar, and Aravind Kumar hailing from Meerut district in UP along with Kurshid Khan had committed several thefts and burglaries in Bengaluru. The police had prepared the sketches of the dacoits on the basis of information provided by the victims. On Thursday, policemen in plain clothes spotted one of them in Vijayanagar. They formed a team to nab all the four. advertisement However, when the police surrounded them, the foursome escaped in their car by injuring a police constable after driving almost over him. The police chased them till the Outer Ring Road where the police had put up a barricade. The dacoits rammed their car into the barricade and the vehicle came to a stop. The dacoits then assaulted the police with weapons. Another cop was injured in the assault. While Khan managed to flee from the scene, the police arrested the remaining three. All the four dacoits are supposed to be gang-members of Akhil Mama, another notorious thief in UP. Based on the information provided by the three accused, the police arrested another of their accomplices Sunil Kumar Mishra, a hawala operator. --- ENDS --- By Ananth Krishnan: Is the Make in India phone a Made in China replica? Chinese mobile phone sellers say the design of the Freedom 251 released in Delhi looks exactly like a China-made fake iPhone that was popular in China five years ago. Billed as the world's cheapest smartphone, the Freedom 251 has already made global headlines. But in China, the home of the cheap phone, the announcement has been met with some amount of disbelief. advertisement In Zhongguancun, Beijing's electronics market that is one of the world's biggest, even the cheapest phone here is thrice the amount of the Rs 251 priced phone. There is, however, a surprising familiarity with the Freedom 251. Or at least, the device launched on Thursday in Delhi. Ten different phone sellers that India Today spoke to said the phone bears a striking resemblance to a China-made fake iPhone 4, known here as a Shan-Zhai iPhone. Sellers did not agree to appear on camera, fearful of an ongoing crackdown on fakes. With the crackdown, sellers say there are millions of Shan-Zhai phones that will either go to waste - or exported abroad as different brands. Here in Zhongguancun in Beijing, one of China's biggest electronics market and the home of the cheap mobile phone, there is a sense of disbelief that India is selling a mobile phone for what is in China 25 Yuan or the price of a cup of coffee. The designs of the Freedom251, sellers in Beijing say, actually resemble that of a Made in China fake iPhone that was very popular five years ago - a phone so outdated that it is no longer available anywhere in China. The Freedom 251 device presented by Ringing Bells president Ashok Chadha in Delhi appeared to be a replica of a phone sold in India as the Adcom Ikon 4. Some even bore the logo of Delhi-based Adcom that had been whitened out. Delhi-based Adcom admits its phones are contract manufactured in China. But Chinese sellers say the Adcom Ikon 4 is essentially a Shan-Zhai iPhone. Its icons are clear copies of Apple's. Even Adcom's advertisements show apps in Chinese, same as a Shan-Zhai iPhone. These phones can be bought on Chinese websites. Chinese sellers say the fakes can still be made to order in Shenzhen, south China, in bulk for around Rs 1000 per piece. While the company Ringing Bells maintains that the phone released was only a 'beta' or trial device, it faces embarrassing questions over the device it launched with great fanfare this week. Was the device released in Delhi, rather than a symbol for Make in India, simply a Made in China replica? You may also like to read: Rang a bell: Office of Freedom 251 maker was deserted on the day of launch Freedom 251: How and why Ringing Bells can price it at Rs 251 advertisement Thinking of buying Freedom 251? 7 reasons why you should not Gabriel Font, a native of Reus, discusses the questioning to which he was subjected after seeing a phenomenon - from the control tower - which the Army investigated and kept "classified" for 24 years.Gabriel Font, 68, a native of Reus, spent decades in silence about the unidentified flying object (UFO) he saw on 13 May 1969 from his duty post, as he fulfilled his national service requirements at the Reus Air Base. "I didn't tell anyone. Only my wife and daughters knew about it. They believed me, but didn't give it much importance." The confidential nature of that event, transformed into a dossier and an investigation by the Army, kept him from disclosing any details.Following the sighting, Font and others working in the control tower (or who were mobilized on account of the sighting) were summoned for eyewitness statements. "A few days later they called us to the hangar, where a captain had his offices. We showed up in our best outfits, because it was all very formal, and they asked us: 'What did you see'?" explains Font, who can now openly say what he replied at the time, in a moment full of tension and certain astonishment. "We saw a very bright light near Quatre Carreteres. Then it moved and wound up vanishing. A lieutenant colonel happened to be in the air at the time and he was ordered to fly there, but saw nothing. Some went up to the [control] tower. Some eight or nine people gathered there."He says that after telling their stories, the captain adjured them. "He told us that what he had seen was secret, and if we said something, we would be court-martialed. It was very strong stuff. It shocked and frightened me...I was only 19 years old." No one spoke of it again. Gabriel completed his military service in the capital city of the Baix Camp without ever mentioning the case again, which was marked Classified and included in a report with the heading "Strange Phenomena Sightings", bearing the seals, signatures and flourishes of the senior military staff.That dossier, along with many others (some of which also occurred in Reus or Tarragona), was declassified in 1993, as stated inlast Sunday, breaking down the investigations carried out by the Defense Ministry in regard to certain UFO cases, due to a recent CIA declassification in the United States. "I had no evidence that there was a dossier, although the investigation must have been a fact since I testified," he says, while providing detail about his duties. "I aided my sergeant in the tower, going for the flight plans, helping where I could...," he recalls. "There wasn't much activity in the aerodrome at the time. They were basically military operations, and the first charter flights were starting to arrive. Sometimes pilots from abroad would bring the control tower staff a present, such as packs of cigarettes," he adds.His story coincides with the testimony offered by sergeants or controllers at the time, captured by the documentation in the hands of the Spanish air force authorities. The dossier mentions a "bright, motionless dot, evenly illuminated but for the exception of elongated spots of higher intensity, yellow in color," according to the traffic controller's description of the object through binoculars. "Was it a weather balloon?" Font now wonders. As with many of those inquiries, there was no conclusive result. After several consultations, however, also documented in the papers that remained classified for 24 years, the likelihood of a weather balloon was dismissed. It was suggested that "the hypothesis of a reflection, visible from a single direction" was the answer to the phenomenon.The conjecture is based on the fact that there were several airplanes in flight, among them five Portuguese ones and a two-seater. "That thing wasn't a reflection. I don't know what it was, but I know it was there and we all saw it," says Font.Some eyewitness reports recall that the phenomenon which occurred on 13 May 1969, analyzed at the time by the armed forces, was also seen from downtown Reus, not only in the military airport. Several citizens remember that it caused excitement on main thoroughfares such as Calle Llovera, from which the object could be seen. Some people, driven by curiosity, took to the streets to see what was going on in the skies that morning.[Translation (c) 2016, S. Corrales, IHU with thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Raul Cosano and Jaume Aparicio] Investigative reporting from the inner city to Wall Street to the United Nations This is the blogspot version InnerCityPress.com XPRIMM rewarded the best performers in Romanian insurance brokerage The best Romanian insurance brokers were rewarded on Thursday, February 18, in Bucharest, for the results achieved throughout year 2015. The Insurance Brokers Awards Gala rewarded innovation and high quality in the services provided to customers, as well as the most successful experiences recorded in the cooperation between insurers and insurance brokers. Prizes awarded by XPRIMM Publications were handed out in the special atmosphere of a Japanese evening, organized with the extraordinary support of the Embassy of Japan. The evening was animated by moments of traditional Japanese dances, performances of Taiko drums and a demonstration of the kendo martial art. Guests had the opportunity to try traditional Japanese cloths in the Yukata studio, get a traditional Japanese hairdo and write their names in the Japanese calligraphy Shodo. The fifth edition of the Insurance Brokers Awards unfolded with the extraordinary support of the Japanese Embassy in Romania. The event was supported by the Main Partners NTT Data, OMNIASIG VIG, ASIROM VIG, EUROINS Romania and CREDIT EUROPE Asigurari, as well as the Partners GOTHAER Insurance and Reinsurance, CertAsig and GRAWE Romania. The event also took place with the support of the Romanian-Japanese Studies Center "Angela Hondru" Tenshin - New Era Fashion, HARAMICH RO group and CONSIGLIERI. XPRIMM Trophies for Excellence were awarded to the companies and professionals with extraordinary results in 2015. The winners were: The Corporate Trophy for Excellence : MARSH ROMANIA; : MARSH ROMANIA; The Retail Trophy for Excellence : SAFETY BROKER; : SAFETY BROKER; Trophy for Excellence for Dynamism : INTER Broker; : INTER Broker; Trophy for Excellence : Romeo BOCANESCU; The winners of the XPRIMM Awards for the Contribution to the Development of the Brokerage Market were: Manager of the Year : Victor SRAER and Gheorghe GRAD; : Victor SRAER and Gheorghe GRAD; Contribution to the Development of the Brokerage Market : UNSICAR and Stefan PRIGOREANU : UNSICAR and Stefan PRIGOREANU Sustainable Development Award : VERASIG; : VERASIG; Tradition and Stability Award : CAMPION Broker; : CAMPION Broker; Customer-Care Award : MAXYGO Broker si AON Romania; : MAXYGO Broker si AON Romania; Professional Brokerage Award : ASIGEST; : ASIGEST; Creativity Award : DESTINE Broker; : DESTINE Broker; Partnership Award - Company : OMNIASIG VIG; : OMNIASIG VIG; Partnership Award - Specialist : Cosmin ANGHELUTA; : Cosmin ANGHELUTA; Brokerage Performance : INSIA Romania and GLOBASIG Broker; This year, the Special Awards for Young Successful Professionals were given to: Cosmin URS ; ; Florin Cristian MIHAIL ; ; Marian COSTIUG . Author: Daniela GHETU on 18.02.2016 Archive Comment this article 0 comments Atention! "Comment" and "E-mail" are mandatory Name: If you are logged on and you do not fill in your name, will be used the name that you used when you registered If you are not logged on, your name will appear preceded by '(Anonymous)'. For authentication, click here If you are logged on and you do not fill in your name, will be used the name that you used when you registered E-mail: Comment: < 10.000 car. Fill in the code from the image: National joint-stock company Naftogaz Ukrainy plans to initiate the reduction of oil royalty, Board Chairman Andriy Kobolev has said in an interview Novoye Vremia magazine. He said that in the current situation of low oil prices operations of the largest oil company public joint-stock company Ukrnafta could be loss-making. "We want to propose that the royalty is decreased, including for oil production. If you look at the rates for gas producers, they radically cut them. The oil royalty was not changed, and it is rather high. With the prices of around $30 per barrel oil production in Ukraine could become loss-making," he said. Kobolev said that the revoking of Ukrnafta's licenses due to the company's debts to the state would hit its value and affect its financial indicators. "We are involved in the process and trying to help Ukrnafta to find ways to pay the debt to the budget," he added. Kobolev also said that Naftogaz is waiting for the first negotiations with OJSC Gazprom on the application of new gas transportation tariffs in late February. Earlier Ukrnafta Board Chairman Mark Rollins said that if the price falls below $33 for Brent oil this will be a problem for the company. Naftogaz Ukrainy owns a 50% plus one share stake in Ukrnafta, a group of companies associated with the shareholders of PrivatBank holds about 42% of the shares. U.S. plans to move beyond emergency response to defense cooperation in 2016 This year the United States plans to move beyond emergency response and focus on defense cooperation in Ukraine, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt has said. "Especially this year, in 2016, our goal is to move beyond emergency response that deals with the immediate crisis of Russias invasion and focus on defense cooperation aimed at helping Ukraine to build the NATO-standard military structures and institutions," he said at the Ukrainian Defense & Security Forum 2016 in Kyiv on Thursday. The ambassador said that he is very encouraged to hear the positions of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Defense Minister of Ukraine Stepan Poltorak on a strong focus on defense sector reform. "We want to see Ukraine continue to make progress in developing modern military doctrines; to implement the excellent recommendations that the RAND Corporation has made for defense sector reform; and to improve Ukrainian interoperability with NATO partners and allies," Pyatt said. Naftogaz Ukrainy claims against Russia's Gazprom in the arbitration reach $30 billion, Naftogaz Head Andriy Kobolev has said. "The amount reaches $30 billion," he said at a meeting of the profile parliamentary committee in Kyiv. Kobolev noted that potential compensation, Naftogaz demands from Gazprom in the arbitration, is the potential assets of Naftogaz. He said that the existing contracts between Naftogaz and Gazprom, if the arbitration supports the Ukrainian side's position on the adjustment of the gas price formula, are valuable since they would allow to buy gas at an attractive price. As many as 137 Ukrainian citizens are being held captive in Donbas territories not controlled by Kyiv, says Iryna Gerashchenko, a Ukrainian representative in the humanitarian subgroup in the Trilateral Contact Group for settling the conflict in Donbas. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has had a meeting with the members of the humanitarian subgroup, the Petro Poroshenko Bloc party press service reported on Friday. "Based on the Ukrainian Security Service information, 137 people are being held hostage today. We are ready for compromises in exchange for their liberation. We have already made several proposals. The key of these is the liberation of 25 Ukrainians who are severely injured and women. We are also prepared to consider other options and are working to be able to report good news in the near future. But the Ukrainian side tries not to make announcements but to talk about events that have already happened," the Petro Poroshenko Bloc press service quoted Gerashchenko as saying. Kyiv also stands ready to free its captured opponents who did not commit grave crimes, she said. On Tuesday, February 23, at 10.30, the press center of the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency will host a press conference by representatives of the state higher educational institution Vadym Hetman Kyiv National Economic University entitled "Election of Heads of Departments in Higher Education Institutions: Academic Councils of Universities vs. Courts?" regarding the situation which emerged following the election of a new dean of the law department by the University's Academic Council. The participants will include director of the legal department of the Hetman Kyiv National Economic University Tatiana Ovsiannikova; representative of Ukraine's Education and Science Ministry; members of the student academic council of the Hetman Kyiv National Economic University; lawyers of Volkov and Partners law union Ihor Martsyn and Olha Halaka (8/5a Reitarska Street). Registration requires press accreditation. There have various rumblings about the decision of the Supreme Court of Indonesia involving the IKEA trademark. Prudence Jahja and Andrew Diamond of Januar Jahja & Partners, Jakarta, Indonesia , have prepared an analysis of what in their view the Court really decided.Much like Mark Twain, reports of IKEAs death in Indonesia have been greatly exaggerated. Over the past week or so, it has been widely reported that due to a recent Supreme Court decision cancelling two IKEA trademark registrations for non-use, Inter IKEA Systems B.V. had lost its rights to the IKEA trademark in Indonesia to a local company and would have to change its name. Yet IKEAs flagship store on the outskirts of Jakarta remains open for business as usual. Fittingly, this story requires a little self-assembly and as is often the case, the truth lies somewhere in the middlehere, between the initial erroneous reporting that was repeated with little independent fact-checking and the smart portfolio management by IKEA itself that turned this episode more into a public relations headache than an IP disaster. Whats more, the decision, while certainly not in IKEAs favor, could actually be beneficial for foreign companies in Indonesia going forward, by providing them with another tool to fight the ongoing problem of trademark squatting.First a discussion about the anatomy of the case. Well before Inter IKEA Systems B.V. opened its inaugural store in Indonesia, it filed on January 25, 2005 applications for its IKEA trademark in Indonesia, covering Class 20 and 21 goods. The Class 21 application was registered on October 09, 2006, while the Class 20 application was only registered some four years later, on October 27, 2010. Perhaps as a result of previous trademark litigation in Indonesia, it appears IKEA became aware that its original two registrations had become vulnerable to non-use cancellation. As such, it filed new applications in March 2012. These applications were successfully registered in September 2014. However, in the meantime, on December 20, 2013, a local company named PT. Ratania Khatulistiwa filed two applications in Classes 20 and 21 for the mark IKEA INTAN KHATULISTIWA ESA ABADI and four days later filed a lawsuit with the Central Jakarta Commercial Court to cancel the original two IKEA registrations based on the non-use provisions of the Indonesian Trademark Law.Article 61(2)(a) of the Indonesian Trademark Law states that a trademark can be cancelled if it has not been used in trade for relevant goods and/or services for at least three consecutive years from the date of registration or of last use, unless there is an acceptable reason. Under Article 63, non-use cancellation actions in Indonesia are proper civil litigation before the Commercial Courts rather than an administrative proceeding before the national IP Office. As the plaintiff had the burden of proof, it had engaged a local company to conduct a market survey in five large Indonesian cities (Jakarta, Bandung, Medan, Surabaya, and Denpasar (Bali)). Since there were not yet any IKEA stores in Indonesia, the resulting report unsurprisingly found that no IKEA products had been sold over the previous three years at any of the 140 stores surveyed. As such, on September 18, 2014, the Central Jakarta Commercial Court ruled that IKEAs original two trademarks should be cancelled due to non-use. One month later, IKEA both formally appealed this decision to the Indonesian Supreme Court and opened its first store in Indonesia. In May 2015, the Supreme Court affirmed the lower courts ruling. Although a few news stories started appearing as early as August 2015, it was not until February 2016 that the decision became widely reported.Based on a literal interpretation of the Trademark Laws non-use provisions, the decision appears to have a sound basis in law: while IKEAs two original applications were registered in October 2006 and 2010, the first IKEA store selling Class 20 and 21 goods did not open in Indonesia until October 2014, with no acceptable reason to excuse the non-use. Interestingly, the Supreme Courts ruling was a 2-1 decision, with Judge I Gusti Agung Sumanatha filing a rare dissent, arguing that because IKEA had proven that it was the owner of a legitimately registered well-known trademark, the non-use provisions should not apply. While not explicitly supported by the Trademark Laws text, Judge Sumanathas dissent speaks more to the spirit and purpose of the Law and is a welcome development. Troubling, however, is that both courts ruled PT. Ratanias applications for the mark IKEA INTAN KHATULISTIWA ESA ABADI were legitimate (sah). Such a ruling is as unclear as it is unnecessary and ignored clear evidence presented during the trial that PT. Ratania knew about IKEA prior to filing their own applications, strongly implying that the applications were impermissibly filed in bad faith. While the courts unclear language and meaning likely lead to the confusion in reporting on this case, neither the Commercial Court nor the Supreme Court said that PT. Ratania is now the true and legitimate owner of the IKEA mark in Indonesia.It is unclear at this time whether IKEA has already filed or will file one last appeal for reconsideration, as is its right. Regardless, thiscase primarily demonstrates the importance of reviewing trademark portfolios periodically and identifying which registrations (if any) are vulnerable to non-use cancellation. IKEA itself was clearly aware of this possibility when it filed new applications in 2012. These marks have now been registered and are not yet vulnerable to non-use cancellation. Given that IKEA is now clearly using its marks in Indonesia, it is unlikely that these registrations will be vulnerable anytime soon. Clearly, that is a big win for IKEA and is the main reason why its operations in Indonesia can continue as normal. Moreover, succeeding in non-use cancellation actions in Indonesia historically has been difficult. More decisions like this have the potential to help foreign companies, by providing them with additional leverage and/or options when confronted with situations of trademark squatting or conflicting prior marks. While it is tempting to fit this case into the easy narrative that Indonesia is a difficult place for foreign companies to do business, interested parties and observers should instead focus on the actions taken by IKEA years before that helped them keep control of their brand in this increasingly important emerging market and render any obituaries decidedly premature. 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. [February 18, 2016] Adimab Scientists Report the Isolation of Highly Potent Anti-Ebola Virus Antibodies from Recent Zaire Outbreak Adimab, LLC, a global leader in the discovery of human antibodies, today reported the isolation of a broad panel of neutralizing anti-Ebola virus antibodies from a survivor of the recent Zaire outbreak. The work, published online today in the journal Science, highlights the remarkable speed of Adimab's recently launched single B cell isolation platform, and constitutes the largest panel of functional anti-Ebola antibodies reported in the scientific literature to date. The sequences of all antibodies isolated in this study will be made freely available to the research community through the GenBank database. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160218006393/en/ Adimab-discovered neutralizing antibodies (in color) binding the the Ebola surface glycoprotein (grey spike) emerging rising out of the viral membrane. Credit: Christina Corbaci "Our Science paper describes the first in-depth view into the human antibody response to Ebola virus," said Laura Walker, Ph.D., Senior Scientist at Adimab, and the corresponding author of the study. "Within weeks of receiving a blood sample from a survivor of the 2014 Ebola outbreak, we wee able to isolate and characterize over 300 monoclonal antibodies that reacted with the Ebola virus surface glycoprotein." After the initial isolation and characterization of the anti-Ebola antibodies at Adimab, several leading institutions in the field of virology, including The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA (News - Alert) and the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), Fort Detrick, MD, provided an in-depth analysis of the therapeutic potential of these newly isolated antibodies. "Over the past decade, our laboratory has analyzed over one hundred antibodies against the Ebola virus," commented Pamela Glass, Ph.D., Senior Investigator at USAMRIID. "Several of the antibodies provided by Dr. Walker's team display the most potent neutralization and protection we have ever seen." Additional structural analysis at The Scripps Research Institute provided further insight into the diversity of the human immune response to Ebola. "The antibody panel discovered by Adimab covers every previously known binding site on Ebola virus and their work further revealed a new, highly potent neutralizing site, that has not been reported to date," said Prof. Andrew Ward, Scripps Research Institute, a co-author of the study. "In less than two months the Adimab team isolated more neutralizing Ebola antibodies than the entire Ebola field has reported in the past two decades," noted Tillman Gerngross, Ph.D., CEO and Co-Founder of Adimab and a Professor of Bioengineering at Dartmouth College. "The global public health community has been looking for a rapid response platform to emerging infectious disease threats and Laura's team has set an entirely new standard for rapidly isolating protective antibodies that could be turned into effective therapeutics. We now have a broadly applicable platform to deal with these threats." "Not only has the Adimab team isolated an extensive panel of therapeutically promising Ebola antibodies in such a short time frame, but the fact that they have made these antibodies available to the research community for further studies is remarkable and shows their humanitarian intent to advance the field without regard for commercial gain," said John Dye, Ph.D., Chief of Viral Immunology at USAMRIID. Adimab separately noted that it has applied its B cell isolation platform against the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) with similar results. The Company also intends to demonstrate the applicability of the B cell isolation platform against the Zika virus. The study, entitled "Isolation of Potent Neutralizing Antibodies from a Survivor of the 2014 Ebola Virus Outbreak", is available online and will be published in the February 18th, 2016 issue of Science. The sequences generated in this work will be made available to the research community via GenBank. About Adimab Over the past six and a half years, Adimab has established antibody discovery collaborations with over 35 pharmaceutical companies including many leading drug companies, such as Merck, Novo Nordisk, Biogen, GSK, Roche, Novartis, Eli Lilly, Genentech, Celgene, Gilead, Kyowa Hakko Kirin, and Sanofi. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160218006393/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 18, 2016] Video Surveillance Storage Market by Storage Technology, Storage Media, Deployment Model, Service, Vertical, and Region - Global Forecast to 2020 LONDON, Feb. 18, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Video surveillance storage market is gaining traction due to increasing adoption of the video surveillance cameras and systems for the safety and security of public, properties, and other valuable assets. This increasing adoption of video surveillance systems ultimately generates massive volume of data and is complementing the video surveillance storage market. The global video surveillance storage market is expected to be USD 6.65 billion in 2015 and is estimated to grow at a high Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) during the forecast period. This report provides detailed insights into the video surveillance storage market split across five major regions such as North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East Africa, and Latin America. The report broadly comprises video surveillance storage market based on the types of storage technologies, storage media, deployment models, services, verticals, and regions. The storage technologies include Storage Area Network (SAN), Direct Attached Storage (DAS), and Network Attached Storage (NAS). SAN is further segmented into Fibre Channel (FC) SAN, Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) SAN, and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE). The market is further classified into types of storage media, such as Hard Disk Drives (HDDs) and Solid State Drives (SSDs). Types of deployment models include on-premise and on cloud storage. Services with these solutions include system integration, consulting and design, and maintenance and support services. The market is also segmented on the basis of verticals into government and defense, education, BFSI, retail, utilities, healthcare, home security and others. The BFSI sector is expected to hold the largest market share during the forecast period. The education, retail, and home security verticals show great opportunities in this space. The report emphasizes on key adoption trends, evolution of video surveillance storage, drivers, restraints, future opportunities, and business cases in this innovative market. MarketsandMarkets expects growth of the video surveillance storage market as major vendors are aggressively investing and rigorously working towards building innovative and cost- effective storage solutions. The global video surveillance storage vendors include Cisco Systems, Dell, EMC Corporation, Hitachi, Seagate Technology, NetApp, Robert Bosch GmbH, Honeywell International, Avigilon Corporation, and Pelco by Schneider Electric. The report contains competitive landscape of top ten players in this market and studies new product launches, partnerships, collaborations, acquisition, and the major strategies adopted by these players to achieve growth in the video surveillance storage market. The report would enable both established firms as well as new entrants/smaller firms to gauge the pulse of the video surveillance storage market and penetrate the market share. Firms purchasing this report could use any one or combination of the below mentioned five strategies (market penetration, product development/innovation, market development, market diversification, and competitive assessment) to strengthen their market share. The report provides insights on the following pointers: - Market Penetration: Comprehensive information on power solutions offered by the top ten players in the video surveillance storage market. - Product Development/Innovation: Detailed insights on upcoming technologies, Research and Development (R&D) activities, and new product launches in the video surveillance storage market. - Market Development: Comprehensive information about lucrative emerging markets. The report analyzes the markets for video surveillance storage market solutions across the regions. Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/3336753/ About Reportbuyer Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers http://www.reportbuyer.com For more information: Sarah Smith Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com Email: [email protected] Tel: +44 208 816 85 48 Website: www.reportbuyer.com To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/video-surveillance-storage-market-by-storage-technology-storage-media-deployment-model-service-vertical-and-region---global-forecast-to-2020-300222542.html SOURCE ReportBuyer [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 18, 2016] Direct Relief Speeds Syrian Refugee Medical Outreach with Esri App, Nominated for Global Mobile Award International humanitarian organization Direct Relief and Esri, the world leader in GIS technology, are in the running to win a GSMA Global Mobile (Glomo) Award. Direct Relief and Esri are among the nominees selected by GSMA (News - Alert) from more than 900 entries worldwide. The nomination recognizes Direct Relief's application of Esri's Survey123 for ArcGIS app to help medical aid workers speed the triage of Syrian refugees. "GSMA recognizes the value of smart, map-based mobile solutions that are proving to make positive impacts on a global scale. At Esri, we're proud to partner with Direct Relief and be a part of the solution for mitigating humanitarian crises with the latest technology," said Randy Frantz, director of telecommunications solutions at Esri. Survey123 for ArcGIS helped bring immediate medical attention to refugees living in extreme conditions in Jordan. With the intuitive field data collection app loaded on mobile devices, Direct Relief medical teams treated and collected data, while working offline, on more than 1,200 patients in just six days. "Under demanding field conditions, any amount of time field workers spend unable to view a computer screen properly or waiting for the next survey to load - all of these moments add up and become critical to the whole process working smoothly," said Andrew Schroeder, Direct Relief director of research and analysis. "With Survey123 for ArcGIS, we were able toprovide treatment for everyone who needed it." If selected as a winner, Direct Relief and Esri will accept the award in the Social and Economic Development category for excellence in using mobile solutions in emergency or humanitarian situations. GSMA will announce the winners of the 2016 Glomo Awards at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Mobile World Congress (News - Alert) is the world's largest gathering for the mobile industry, where more than 94,000 industry professionals are expected to attend. For more information on Survey123 for ArcGIS, visit survey123.esri.com. About Esri Since 1969, Esri has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS technology, Esri software is used in more than 350,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. Esri applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world's mapping and spatial analysis. Esri is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit us at esri.com/news. About Direct Relief Direct Relief is a medical relief organization active in all 50 states and 70 countries. It works with more than 1,000 health clinics across the United States to assist in emergencies on an ongoing basis, providing them with free medications for people in need. The organization has been among the world's largest medical suppliers in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, has top charity ratings, including four-star and "top-notch" rating from Charity Navigator, and a 99 percent fund-raising efficiency rating from Forbes magazine. Direct Relief was awarded the 2011 Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation for its ability to adapt the insight, approaches, and tools of commercial technology for humanitarian purposes. For more information, please visit www.DirectRelief.org. Copyright 2016 Esri. All rights reserved. Esri, the Esri globe logo, GIS by Esri, esri.com, and @esri.com are trademarks, service marks, or registered marks of Esri in the United States, the European Community, or certain other jurisdictions. Other companies and products or services mentioned herein may be trademarks, service marks, or registered marks of their respective mark owners. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160218006597/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [February 19, 2016] CENTRI Discusses Next Generation Data Protection at IBM InterConnect 2016 SEATTLE, Feb. 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- CENTRI, a provider of enterprise data protection solutions, today announced it will be sharing insights and showcasing its BitSmart data protection platform at IBM InterConnect 2016, February 21-25, in Las Vegas, NV. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160218/334797LOGO Located in booth #431 at the Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, NV, the CENTRI team will discuss how BitSmart can help enterprises to protect their data anywhere it lives on Cloud, networks, applications and mobile devices. The solution is designed to provide full lifecycle data protection at rest, in transit and on endpoints. Mike Mackey, CENTRI's CTO and Vice President, Engineering will share insights on at the following demo theater presentation: What: Focus on Data Protection to Secure Your Organization's Connected World When: February 24, 2016, 1:45pm 2:05pm PST Where: Expo Theater, IBM InterConnect 2016 Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, NV "Enterprises are looking for a better way to protect their data and we welcome the opportunity to connect with them at IBM InterConnect," said Vaughan Emery, CEO and president of CENTRI. Legacy solutions and standards are letting them down as a cloud-first and mobile-intensive world requires a data protection platform like BitSmart that can secure data in all states." For demonstrations and more information on CENTRI's leadership in the data protection arena, visit booth # 431 and follow please connect with the CENTRI on LinkedIn, Facebook and follow @CentriTech on Twitter. About CENTRI CENTRI provides next generation data encryption and optimization solutions for the connected world. Our technology helps organizations secure what matters most their data by seamlessly integrating into their existing applications and services in the cloud, data centers or mobile devices and the Internet of Things. Enterprises and governments rely on CENTRI to seamlessly protect the full lifecycle of their data on the endpoint, in transit and in storage. For more information visit: centritechnology.com. Press and Media Inquiries James Salter Director of Marketing CENTRI Technology P: +1-206-395-2793 x105 Email To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/centri-discusses-next-generation-data-protection-at-ibm-interconnect-2016-300222526.html SOURCE CENTRI Technology [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Itongadol.- Hundreds of entrepreneurs, company representatives, doctors, and medical industry executives gathered on Thursday to hear more about what Israel is doing in the realm of mobile and digital health. And many industry experts paid special attention to the start-ups that, they said, are making Israel a world-wide hub for mobile health tech. Israels enormous contributions to the medical technology industry have not gone unnoticed, said Dr. Ashish Atreja, Chief Medical Technology Innovation and Engagement Office at Mount Sinai Hospital of New York. We are excited to see new developments for the medical community at the mHealth conference and are looking forward to building relationships in Israel. The mHealth event is one of a series of similar events held around the world to highlight mobile health technologies. mHealth Israel has about 1,400 members. According to Levi Shapiro, a founder and lead organizer of the group, and General Partner at Veritas Ventures, Israel is an ideal setting for mobile health technologies due to its start up culture and health care system. Israel has also had electronic medical records for 26 years, Shapiro added, giving start-ups a huge trove of historical data to tap into. Seven of the most innovative Israeli start-ups working in the mobile health space which reduces medical technology to fit into a smartphone or wearable device were chosen to participate in a start-up contest held Thursday at the 5th annual mHealth Israel Conference in Tel Aviv Thursday. The start-up contest is always the highlight, said Shapiro. This years winner, 6over6, was a great example of the innovation at work in the Israel mobile health ecosystem. The company has developed a technology to enable anyone to figure out whether they need glasses, enabling them to self-prescribe a pair via a smartphone app. Using a combination of math, physics, vision technology, and advanced algorithms, said 6over6 CEO Ofer Limon, we offer a full range of services for consumers, just as good, if not better more accurate as they can get at an optician or optometrist. Not that 6over6 (the name refers to a measure of perfect vision) is trying to put members of that profession out of business. We are aiming our GlassesOn app at the many consumers who want to buy glasses online, but have a hard time because sending in a prescription and measuring PD (pupillary distance, the proper distance between lenses to ensure they sit squarely on each eye), as well as using the other online tools and faxing in prescriptions is difficult. With GlassesOn, Limon said, users could create a new prescription or duplicate an existing one without a visit to the optometrist. We use light-based tech to discover eyesight, said Limon. Instead of sitting in front of the refractor machine where the optician puts lenses in front of your eye and asks you whether you see better with lens A or lens B. With our technology, a user could put their phone in front of their eyes for a few minutes, and get as accurate a reading as they could at the optician, if not more so, since there are no subjective feelings or environmental factors involved in our measurement. According to Limon, regulations in most US states allow for this kind of prescription. With the Copyglass function in GlassesOn, said Limon, you could quickly find out your most recent prescription. The app will give you a completely accurate prescription within a range of +/- 0.25D error for near and farsighted vision. With the iPrescribe function, its just like being in an optometrists office. iPrescribe manipulates the optical and perceptual phenomena to give you a completely accurate prescription for nearsighted vision, including astigmatism. Although GlassesOn uses a camera to read the data from a users glasses or to measure their eyesight, we are not bound by the quality of the camera, said Limon. We have been working with a Samsung Galaxy S3 as our base device, certainly not the newest technology. I have seen specs for very low-cost phones from India and the Far East, and those would work too. The power of the app is in its algorithms, said Limon, not in the power of the camera. The app will be available at the beginning of June for iPhone and Android devices, said Limon. We are already working with large online glasses retailers, with whom we have a revenue sharing program. The app will be free for anyone, and if a customer buys a pair of glasses through our app, we will get a commission. But Limon is thinking beyond Internet shopping. There are hundreds of millioms of people in the world who need corrective lenses of some kind but cannot afford them, said Limon. We intend to donate our technology to international organizations that are supplying glasses to these disenfranchised people, many of whom do have access to smartphones. With the app, organizations like LightHouse, which help people in the developing world to get glasses, will be able to examine people anywhere with just a smartphone, instead of having to buy and ship expensive equipment to remote areas. The company has already raised several million dollars in two financing rounds. We are growing, and we invite talented mobile developers and image processing engineers who wishes to harness their skill for the greater good to join us, he added. As winner of the start-up contest, 6over6 gets an all-expenses paid business development trip to the Medical World Americas Conference, set to take place in April in Houston, Texas, in association with Texas Medical Center, the worlds largest medical complex, where they will have an opportunity to show off their tech to the world, said Shapiro. Israel is a world leader in digital healthcare technologies, he said. There are more than 200 digital health startups in Israel, and funding has continued to reach record-breaking levels. The startup contest and mHealth conference are premier platforms for Israels burgeoning medical technology field to showcase their innovations to the world. We are honored to win this incredible competition, especially given the caliber of startups we were competing against, said Limon. This is a major milestone for us, as mHealth has enabled us to promote our idea with healthcare entrepreneurs, potential investors, and industry giants from around the globe. Este sitio utiliza cookies para mejorar la experiencia de usuario. Aceptar Ver mas This copy is for your personal, noncommercial use only. You can order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients... Endless Night: First Floor Index ENDLESS NIGHT A Fantasy Core Adventure Jerry Harris 2014 Published here as Open Game Content. (This link will take you to the Fan... St. Petersburg ALMS race: Something Missing I was planing on writing an Indy 500 blog and decided Im only commenting on other non-NASCAR races if I saw something worth writing about. ... Fantasy Core RPG FANTASY CORE PDF of Fantasy Core Rules Character Creation Rules , Spell Lists Weapons & Armor , Equipment , Travel & Transport ... 5e Confessions [I'm off Monday. I plan on doing sports posts next week, and then posting the new setting mentioned here.] Ive got one last new set... Artifacts: Valle Verde Maps These are maps of the El Paso Community College, Valle Verde campus, where I received a piece of paper for showing up f... Endless Night: Introduction ENDLESS NIGHT A Fantasy Core Adventure Jerry Harris 2014 Published here as Open Game Content. (This link will take you to the Fan... Artifacts: Archie #70 and Uncle Scrooge #14 [Cyber-Pulp update: Made up some sample characters today. A lot work left to do. I've shown some rough draft material to playtester Ev... Dark Continent Redux: Introduction Dark Continent Redux A Fantasy Core Adventure Jerry Harris 2016 Published here as Open Game Content. (This link will take you to... Fantasy Core Ireland--Adventure NPC & Monsters 6 FANTASY CORE RPG (c) Jerry Harris, 2012 Published here as Open Game Content. Adventure Index NPC & Monster Index Moin Coltna Bo... The LEAD Conference is an annual meeting for members of the National Honor Society and Student Councils from around the world. Fourteen students attended, along with Student Council advisor Charles Jacques and Kayla Napue. The 14 students who attended were Megan Woodruff, Brooklynne Oliver, Mikayla Kuznicki, Sarah Flight, Joe Perez, Michael Kuznicki, Nick Wood, Riley Cutright. Josh Johnson, Ethan Bennett, Abby Cabage, Rachel Hunter, Destiny Mitchell, and Payton West. Each day there was one general session, which everyone attended. These sessions included keynote speakers, such as Mike Smith, JC Pohl, and Phil Boyte, who spoke on how students can leave their legacies, build trust, and improve communications. Students were required to attended individual workshops. In these workshops, students learned various ways to diversify and improve their organizations. Some of the topics included goal setting, fundraising, and preparing for life after high school. When asked what her favorite thing about LEAD was, President of CHS Student Council Megan Woodruff said, My favorite part was meeting other student council representatives from around the United States and learning about what their councils do to help improve their school. The Pharo Foundation is a private foundation committed to the development of Africa. Our vision is an economically self-reliant Africa. Our mission is to facilitate economic independence of the African people through the promotion of sustainable livelihoods and job creation in Africa. We value sharing, passion, respect, humility and collaboration. In the last four years, we have funded projects worth over US$5 million in Ethiopia, Somaliland, Somalia and South Sudan. These projects are contributing towards improved access to financial services, education, health, water and sanitation. Based on lessons learnt from these projects and wide ranging consultation we have carried out, we have developed a new five-year strategy (2016-20). Our strategic objective is to significantly improve the income and livelihoods of 30,000 households in Africa. We are committed to scaling up our work; improving the quality and the effectiveness of our programme selection, design and implementation based on evidence; and achieving significant and lasting improvements in the quality of life of the people whom we support. The Water and Sanitation Development Coordinator, Benishangul-Gumuz Region (BGR), position is a senior programme leadership role within the Foundation that will be entrusted with the responsibility for developing and managing our water and sanitation development programme in the BGR of Ethiopia. S/he will also be expected to occasionally contribute to programme development in other regions in Ethiopia and nearby countries in the region. The position will be based in Assosa with regular travel within the BGR and occasional travel to Addis Ababa and nearby countries in the region. Reporting directly to the Programme Manager, BGR, this is a well-remunerated role that will give the right candidate an excellent mix of challenge, motivation and fulfilment. Contract type: Permanent Salary: Highly competitive and negotiable depending on experience Location: Assosa Key duties and responsibilities Reporting directly to the Programme Manager, BGR, s/he will have the following key duties and responsibilities with the objective of improving access to water, sanitation and hygiene: u Lead the design, implementation, monitoring and reporting of the water and sanitation development components of our integrated sustainable livelihoods programmes in the BGR. u By working closely with the BGR Programme Manager, the Regional Representative in Addis Ababa, and partners, generate new and innovative ideas and lead the design of the water and sanitation development components of new large-scale integrated livelihoods programmes. u While respecting their autonomy and independence, to effectively engage with, support and monitor partner agencies who will have the primary role of implementing the programmes. u Assess the capacity of partner implementing agencies, water user groups and community water and sanitation committees and design and implement appropriate capacity building plans. u Monitor legislations, policies and regulations affecting the water and sanitation sector, develop comprehensive guidelines, including limitations and opportunities, and ensure programme personnel and relevant stakeholders are fully updated. u Plan, design and oversee construction of schemes for storing, transporting and/or distributing water for domestic use, crop production and livestock consumption. u Lead the development and implementation of appropriate strategies and initiatives to organise communities into effective water and/or sanitation and hygiene groups in close coordination with other stakeholders. u Develop a communal ownership and use strategy for water user groups through a series of meetings with key stakeholders with a focus on sustainable use and management of structures constructed with support from the programmes. u Provide overall technical leadership and direction for programme activities aimed at sustainably increasing access to clean water and improved sanitation to national standards. u Participate in the ongoing and systematic monitoring of programmes to assess progress against objectives, to continuously learn, and to take timely corrective actions, if necessary. u Organise learning and experience sharing forums; and commission and/or participate in research that could lead to improved access to water and sanitation. u Under the guidance of the Regional Representative in Addis Ababa, occasionally contribute to the successful design and implementation of the water and sanitation development components of integrated livelihoods programmes in other regions in Ethiopia and nearby countries in the region, esp. in areas of your highest expertise. Required qualities and skills u Postgraduate qualification in engineering, hydrology, geology or other related disciplines. u Minimum five years experience in developing and managing largescale water and sanitation development programmes. u A high level of technical expertise in at least two of the following: water storage and irrigation schemes design and construction, domestic water supply and sanitation schemes design and construction, and facilitation of sustainable community ownership, use and maintenance of facilities. u Capable of managing the delicate balance between getting programmes implemented through partners while respecting their autonomy and independence. u Familiarity with the rural cultural, social and traditional contexts of the BGR of Ethiopia. u Team work that builds on colleagues knowledge and expertise to maximise learning, enhance programme teams skills and confidence and improve the quality of programming. u High level of interpersonal skills with the ability to work across organisations with strong communication and listening abilities and good problem solving approach. u Good understanding of financial requirements of the programme and ability to prepare and manage budgets. u A self-starter with initiative and the ability to work alone when necessary. u Ability to be creative and innovative in generating new ideas and putting them into practice. u Experience in participatory programme development approaches and techniques. u Good command of written and spoken Amharic and English; good command of one of the BGR languages is an advantage. u Proficiency in the use of basic computer applications such as MS Office, the internet, email and other relevant software for the position. u Ability to multi-task, work under pressure and meet deadlines. u Passion for increasing access to clean water and improved sanitation for rural Africans. u Ability and willingness to travel often in country and occasionally to other countries in the region. Reports to: Infrastructure Team Leader Location: Shire Start of Contract & Duration: 12 months with possibility of extension (Subject to fund availability) Posting date: February 16, 2016 INTRODUCTION The Danish Refugee Council (DRC) is a humanitarian, non-governmental, non-profit organization founded in 1956 that works in more than 30 countries throughout the world, including Ethiopia. DRC fulfills its mandate by providing direct assistance to conflict-affected populations, including refugees, internally displaced people and host communities. Under its mandate, the organization focuses on emergency humanitarian response, rehabilitation and post-conflict recovery. DRC commenced work in Ethiopia in 2009 and currently provides expertise in shelter, WASH, livelihoods and protection in the Gambella and Somali regions of the country. Activities implemented by DRC are funded by money raised from the Danish public and by project grants from the Danish government and other bilateral and multi-lateral donors. DRC is in the process of starting a new program in Tigray regional state, where the organization anticipates implementing a variety of youth protection activities in Hitsats, Shimelba, Mai-Aini and Adharush refugee camps, which are currently hosting a combined population of over 30,000 Eritrean refugees. POSITIONS OVERALL OBJECTIVES Working under the direct management of the Infrastructure Team Leader, the Infrastructure Officer will support the overall implementation and strategic direction of the organizations current and future infrastructure activities in Tigray regional state. The Infrastructure Officer may be tasked with the direct supervisor of assistant, foremen or laborers. Furthermore, the Infrastructure Officer may be requested to provide support and guidance to project cycle management, proposal development and program strategy, with specific contributions in the area of technical infrastructure knowledge. The Infrastructure Officer will work with the Infrastructure Team Leader will ensure the successful implementation of all infrastructure-related activities. RESPONSIBILITIES AND TASKS To achieve the overall and specific objectives of the position, the Infrastructure Officer, in coordination with the Infrastructure Team leader will perform the following tasks and undertake the following responsibilities: 1. Technical Support: Support the setup of the Shire infrastructure department, ensuring full compliance with DRC systems and strong organization. Initial responsibilities may also include overseeing upfront needs assessments, the identification of construction sites in coordination with ARRA and UNHCR representatives and researching building and construction regulations. Collaborate closely with the Infrastructure Team Leader to develop relevant and responsive infrastructure activities that are highly participatory and not only provide the targeted refugee populations with facilities, but also engage them actively in learning, capacity building and incentive work opportunities. This will require collaboration with DRC protection staff and a keen interest in learning and integrating protection considerations into all infrastructure activities. Assist the Infrastructure Team Leader to ensure high quality day-to-day technical management and quality assurance of all infrastructure activities. Key to this responsibility is a commitment to ensuring all infrastructure directly constructed by DRC or contracted by DRC is functional, effective and safe. Collaborate with the Infrastructure Team Leader and logistics and procurement department in developing Bills of Quantity and translating them into comprehensive procurement plans and order requests. Upon receipt of goods and services, the Officer will collaborate with the logistics and procurement teams in the receipt of goods and services and will lead in quality assurance. Work with both program and support staff to ensure quarterly procurement plans for all infrastructure activities are developed, detailed description of needs are documented and that accurate estimates of procurement timeframes are generated and agreed upon. Together with the logistics and procurement team, participate in designing market surveys of goods and services relevant to infrastructure activities. In collaboration with the logistics and procurement department, ensure all of DRCs facilities in camp settings, including office, educational and communal facilities, are well maintained, safe and secure. 2. General Management and Support: Manage all Infrastructure Assistants, foremen or laborers, supporting respectful and positive working relationships which allow for the effective implementation of all DRC infrastructure activities. This is to be achieved through leadership, team building, day-to-day support and capacity-building. Manage all Infrastructure Assistants, foremen or laborers, supporting respectful and positive working relationships which allow for the effective implementation of all DRC infrastructure activities. This is to be achieved through leadership, team building, day-to-day support and capacity-building. Undertake daily supervisory, monitoring and support visits to sub-offices and project locations. 3. Reporting: Start of Contract & Duration: 12 months with possibility of extension (Subject to fund availability) Posting date: February 17, 2016 INTRODUCTION The Danish Refugee Council (DRC) is a humanitarian, non-governmental, non-profit organization founded in 1956 that works in more than 30 countries throughout the world, including Ethiopia. DRC fulfills its mandate by providing direct assistance to conflict-affected populations, including refugees, internally displaced people and host communities. Under its mandate, the organization focuses on emergency humanitarian response, rehabilitation and post-conflict recovery. DRC commenced work in Ethiopia in 2009 and currently provides expertise in shelter, WASH, livelihoods and protection in the Gambella and Somali regions of the country. Activities implemented by DRC are funded by money raised from the Danish public and by project grants from the Danish government and other bilateral and multi-lateral donors. DRC is in the process of starting a new program in Tigray regional state, where the organization anticipates implementing a variety of youth protection activities in Hitsats, Shimelba, Mai-Aini and Adharush refugee camps, which are currently hosting a combined population of over 30,000 Eritrean refugees. POSITIONS OVERALL OBJECTIVES Working under the direct management of the Logistics and Procurement Coordinator, the Logistics and Procurement Officer will be responsible for assisting with all of the daily logistics and procurement related functions in DRCs Shire field office in strict compliance with the organizations and donors policies and procedures, and with strong attention to detail. RESPONSIBILITIES AND TASKS To achieve the overall and specific objectives of the position, the Logistics and Procurement Officer, in coordination with the Logistics and Procurement Coordinator will perform the following tasks and undertake the following responsibilities: 1. Logistics and Procurement: Assist with the setup of the Shire logistics and procurement department, including upfront procurement and inventorying, and ensuring the department it is fully compliant with DRC systems and is well organized and maintained. Provide high quality day-to-day support in all logistics and procurement functions to ensure strict compliance to DRCs procurement procedures, full transparency and timely delivery of quality goods and services as requested by the programs and other support functions. This responsibility may include assisting with tender processes, procurement committee meetings and bid analyses. Together with program staff, manage the quality control of all items received and ensure items are properly recorded, inventoried and stored or warehoused. In cases of distributions to beneficiary populations, the Officer may be asked to collaborate with program and monitoring and evaluation staff to ensure distribution lists are collected. The aforementioned tasks will require both adherence to DRC and donor policies and procedures. Assist in conducting regular market surveys of goods and services, and help the Logistics and Procurement Coordinator to develop a user-friendly procurement catalogue of local and regionally available items which is updated on a monthly basis. 2. Technical and Operational Support: Work with both program and support staff to ensure quarterly procurement plans are developed, detailed description of needs are documented and that accurate estimates of procurement timeframes are generated and agreed upon. Undertake weekly supervisory, monitoring and support visits to sub-offices and project locations as requested by the Logistics and Procurement Coordinator. Liaise with the Addis Ababa based Information Technology team to ensure all new IT equipment is best fit with the field offices needs and that existing equipment is maintained and well secured. Ensure all of DRCs facilities, including office and accommodation facilities, are well maintained, safe and secure. 3. Reporting: Job Description BA Degree in Management or related fields 3/ 4 years of experience on related jobs Competency: Very good knowledge of principles and practices of human resource management Very good knowledge of human resource policies and procedures of the bank Ability to communicate orally and in writing Ability to coordinate activities and maintain harmonious human relations Basic computer application skills Salary: As per the salary scale of the Bank Place of work: Head Office Applicants shall clearly specify the position and place of work for which they have applied At least one reference shall be stated in CV from current and/or former employment Closing date: Feb 24, 2016 Your rating: none Rating: 0 0 votes How to Apply Interested applicants who meet the requirements shall send application letter, CV and non returnable copy of other supporting documents within 10 days from the date of announcement to the following postal address: Addis International Bank S. C. HR & Facility Management Dept P. O. Box 2455 Addis Ababa 8 total views, 8 today In Nebraska -- the most irrigated state in the nation -- water has long been a valuable commodity. Even with the vast High Plains aquifer to draw from, its a limited resource. An innovative new virtual market for leasing rights to that liquid resource could help farmers get groundwater where they want it, bolster river conservation efforts and benefit endangered species. Being developed as a pilot program for the Central Platte Natural Resources District, the Groundwater Exchange would let farmers and conservation groups lease or buy water for a single growing season. The exchange, which would be accessed through a website, could begin a trial run this spring if Central Platte board members vote to move forward. Irrigation wells gushed into Nebraska agriculture beginning in the 1950s with the advent of the center pivot irrigation system. Nebraska went from having about 25,000 irrigation wells in 1960 to 80,000 in 1990 to more than 114,500 as of the end of last year. Farmers drilled more than 5,800 new wells in 1976 alone. But water systems are complex. Many rivers, including the Platte, depend on groundwater to keep streamflow up. With farmers pumping so much water out of the ground, flows important to ecosystems and surface water irrigation began to suffer in some areas. Looking to head off lawsuits and protect the states water resources, the Legislature passed a law in 2004 requiring Nebraska's 23 natural resources districts to keep a closer watch on the balance of water supply and demand. In some areas, that meant a moratorium on new irrigation, and in areas where too much water is being used to be sustainable, the NRDs must find a way to balance the system. The Central Platte NRD has more than a million irrigated acres of farm ground in its district, a 175-mile stretch along the Platte between Gothenburg and Columbus. About 80 percent of the district is fully appropriated, meaning no new groundwater irrigation can be developed unless it is offset by stopping irrigation somewhere else. The other 20 percent of the district is over-appropriated, which means too much water is being pumped to be sustainable. For over-appropriated areas, the NRD and the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources have to find a way to get water back into the Platte. Theyre still working with consultants to figure out exactly how much, said Central Platte NRD General Manager Lyndon Vogt. State and district officials hope the exchange will help get water into the watershed without them having to permanently buy water rights from farmers, dry up irrigated acres or put new regulations in place that would restrict irrigation. The state, NRDs and conservation groups could buy irrigation rights, then simply not pump the water, letting it stay in the system. At the same time, farmers who need more water but dont want the expense of permanently buying the right to irrigate can rent it for a year instead. Producers already can sell their water rights; the Central Platte NRD processes hundreds of sales a year. Other districts and states have computer systems for facilitating sales and matching buyers and sellers. What makes the new exchange unique is that it works as an auction site, and the algorithm that pairs buyers and sellers ensures all deals meet local rules and wont negatively affect the river system, officials said. The program uses existing models of river and groundwater flows to track impact on the Platte. Farmers get to set the price at which they are willing to buy or sell water, and the algorithm figures out the market price for groundwater at each location, ensuring farmers get the most value from the water, and streamflow in the Platte remains ample, said David McAdams, the Duke University economics professor who designed the computer algorithm for the leasing process. What is really important in this market is actually the way water flows in the ground," he said. "Because when a farmer takes water out of the aquifer, they also impact streamflow, and different locations have different stream impact. Part of the problem with the existing system is that it can be difficult to find people willing to sell their rights to water permanently. The new water market solves that problem, McAdams said. It also opens up new irrigation strategies to farmers. Previously it was a use-it-or-lose-it situation. Now if you dont use it, you can make some money, he said. Were freeing them up to make the decisions that are best for them, and we may conserve some water as well. Jesse Bradley, program director for the Nebraska Department of Natural Resources, echoed the sentiment, saying farmers who dont want to sell water rights permanently might be happy to rent them out for a year. As commodity prices change and the value of water goes up and down, people dont get locked into a situation that might be adverse in the future, which we found to be a very important element to the producers, Bradley said. Rural Kearney-area farmer Jim Bendfeldt, who serves on the Central Platte NRD board, is one of the farmers hoping to sell some water and predicts there will be more farmers wanting to sell than those looking to buy. Bendfeldt and his 38-year-old son, Shane Bendfeldt, manage about 2,000 acres of Nebraskas most fertile ground, 95 percent of which is irrigated. On a 160-acre quarter, a center pivot system might only reach 152 acres. They can offer up the water rights to the acres the sprinklers cant reach without negatively affecting the crop. Jim Bendfeldt doubts the exchange will result in farmers putting in new irrigation wells, simply because the cost of installing an irrigation system can hit $120,000. Thats too large an investment for a single year of guaranteed water, he said. But it might help farmers with equipment already in place but only able to irrigate part of a field due to restrictions. Jerry Kenny of the Platte River Recovery Implementation Program said his only concern about the exchange is that water will be in such demand his organization will be outbid. It plans to bid $300,000 the first year in hopes of getting 5,000 acre feet for enhancing, restoring and protecting habitat for endangered critters, including the whooping crane, piping plover, pallid sturgeon and least tern. Until there is a market, its hard to know what an appropriate value is, he said. Kenny said he hopes the exchange, if it catches on, will lead to Nebraskas groundwater being used more effectively. He said farmers with subpar farmland could lease water to producers with more productive acres. Its an important step in establishing water markets and recognition that in agriculture water itself can become a cash crop, he said. The Nebraska Department of Natural Resources paid $150,000 to develop the water exchange platform, Bradley said. If it proves successful, the department hopes to see it spread to other parts of the state. There could be hurdles to expansion, including installing the infrastructure to monitor how much water producers are using, which Central Platte NRD already had in place. Bidding in the new water market would happen once a year in the fall, but Vogt said the district might do a trial run this spring, with the pre-approval process starting the first week of March. A public hearing is set for 1 p.m. on Thursday at the Central Platte NRD office in Grand Island. More information at market4water.com. Maggie Smith has been the best at what she does for close to 60 years, winning acting awards for her work on stage, television and in the movies, where she got her first Oscar in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie back in 1969. Now the star of the PBS series Downton Abbey, Smith delivers another marvelous performance in The Lady in the Van in a role that couldnt be farther away from the Dowager Countess of Grantham. Shes Mary Shepard, a thoroughly disagreeable, malodorous homeless woman who parks her van in the London driveway of playwright Alan Bennett --- and doesnt leave for 15 years. Its a role Smith originated on stage and repeats on screen for director Nick Hyter and Bennett, who have brought the autobiographical play from stage to the screen, shooting it in the playwright's home. The script includes a gimmick with Bennett, played by Alex Jennings, talking to himself -- as two different people. One is a writer, while the other lives an admittedly dull life. Their conversations quickly wear thin. It probably worked a lot better on stage than it does on film. But thats not enough to derail the pleasant picture, which is carried by Smith, who is wrapped in filthy overcoats, berates neighbors, hates music and has a crushing backstory that is very slowly revealed. As Bennett deals with the woman in his driveway who comes rushing inside to use the lavatory, borrows electricity for her TV and sends him to the store, hes also coping with his mother -- the second old lady in the narrative hes writing about in his journal. Thats about all there is to The Lady in the Van, beyond some encounters with the neighbors and a mysterious man, played by Jim Broadbent, who turns up to extort money from poor old Mary. Why hes there is revealed in the movies final scenes, after Marys story has been spelled out. By then Smith has captivated with her performance, creating a woman who is hard to like, kind of tragic and unforgettable. You wont see better acting than Smiths. But thats the case with her every appearance. Shes simply the best -- and has been so for decades. As law enforcement agencies across the country roll out body-worn cameras to protect the public and officers, and hold officers accountable, many agencies have questioned their use without clear guidelines. Body cameras are being used in Nebraska -- the Omaha Police Department is about to put 150 into use -- but currently with no requirement for written policies. Enter Omaha Sen. Heath Mello and a bill (LB1000) he introduced this session to require policies for agencies that choose to use the cameras. "The mere presence of body-worn cameras fundamentally changes the dynamics of law enforcement encounters for both police and for the public," Mello said. Creating an objective visual record, body-worn cameras have the potential to protect the public from police officer misconduct, provide police officers a defense to allegations of misconduct, assist in law enforcement training and help prosecutors secure convictions, he said. At a hearing on the bill, some discussion centered on whether recordings would be a matter of public record. A number of police departments in the country have been involved in controversies concerning the release of recordings for high-profile cases of alleged police misconduct. Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers said he didn't trust that police would release those recordings so the public or the media could view what happened in a specific police encounter. Lobbyist Walt Radcliffe, representing Media of Nebraska, said the amended version of the bill does not include any reference to whether body camera recordings are or are not public records and so those recordings would fall under the public records law. And anything that is not specifically exempt is deemed a public record, unless it is considered part of a police investigation, he said. Even when an investigation is concluded, Chambers said, he has known police to disallow release of recordings. "I don't trust them at all," he said. Radcliffe said he realized the question of when an investigation is terminated or when something is no longer a part of investigative record, is not a settled matter. It's taken case by case. And that must occasionally be resolved in court, he said. Bruce Lang, Beatrice police chief and a representative of the Police Chiefs Association of Nebraska, testified in opposition to the bill saying law enforcement procedures put into state law can make dealing with issues difficult for agencies. Length agencies would have to store recordings could be such an issue, he said. "We don't think state law is a place to put this," he said. "Put procedures with the Crime Commission." Technology changes much faster than the Legislature can change laws, he said. No one knows what will happen in a year or two with body cameras, in-car cameras and computers. Mello offered an amended version of the bill at the hearing. With the amendment, any law enforcement agency that chooses to use body-worn cameras would have to adopt a written policy, particular to the agency, that provides for the use of the cameras. Those policies would be provided to the Nebraska Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice within three months. The policies would include: A requirement for training for any officer who uses a body camera and other employees who come into contact with the video; procedures to ensure the camera is working properly and problems are reported; a procedure for proper wearing of the camera; assurance that a body camera is activated only for law enforcement purposes; guidelines for notification of a recording or discontinuing a recording once in progress; and a requirement that all recordings be retained for a minimum of 90 days. The amended bill would disallow release or destruction of body camera footage by a law enforcement officer or employee without the permission of the agency. The man accused of critically injuring two people in a shooting last week is still at large, Lincoln police said Thursday. Leshawn Corey Wolfe Rogers, 28, might have left Lincoln and should be considered armed and dangerous, Officer Katie Flood said. The shooting happened about 5 p.m. on Feb. 11 after a botched drug deal, according to court documents. Steffani Weirauch, 24, and Alexander White, 26, were smoking weed at her home at 5441 Limestone Road North, and White decided he wanted to buy 3 pounds, documents say. Police believe Weirauch called Rogers and made arrangements for White to make the purchase for $7,200. An arrest warrant for Rogers said he and White went into the back bedroom to conduct the sale. Weirauch told police she remained in the kitchen and another man, Reginald McGraw Jr., 25, was in the front room. After a few minutes, Weirauch said, she heard yelling from the back room and saw White run out with Rogers chasing him and shooting at him, court documents say. Before leaving, Weirauch told police Rogers put the gun by the side of her head. He is alleged to have shot the gun one more time before leaving. White was found inside the home with multiple gunshot wounds. He was released from the hospital Thursday, Capt. Mayde McGuire said. Police said McGraw, who was shot once, was able to leave the house and drive away, then flagged down a Nebraska State Patrol trooper and was taken to the hospital. He was released last week after treatment. Police found 3 pounds of marijuana in the house along with less than $2,000 in cash, which was mostly $1 bills wrapped in larger bills, documents say. Rogers car was found abandoned in a Walmart parking lot the next day, documents say. Police have been pursuing leads in an attempt to find him and the SWAT team has been called out on two area searches, police said. After the shooting, police on the scene said children were in the basement while shots were fired. The state on Tuesday filed a petition to take Weirauchs two children, a boy, 4, and girl, 2, out of her custody for their safety. Weirauch was arrested and has been cited with being an accessory to a felony. The Lancaster County Sheriff's Department seized $2.4 million in suspected drug money from a truck on Thursday near mile marker 391 on Interstate 80. Deputies pulled over the driver and owner of the vehicle, Michael Melchior, 65, for following too closely, Chief Deputy Jeff Bliemeister said Friday. Melchior and his passenger, 63-year-old Peggy Brennan, are both from California. The pair was driving westbound, but deputies don't yet know where they were coming from or what their destination was. Sheriff's deputies stopped the 2006 Freightliner Renegade about 10:30 a.m. and asked to search it after deputies suspected criminal activity. The request was denied, but a police dog alerted officers to the odor of drugs, giving deputies probable cause to search, Bliemeister said. In the truck, they found luggage filled with heat-sealed and banded money. "The packaging and the investigation so far shows that the money is from the proceeds of narcotics," Bliemeister said. When the cash was unsealed, deputies said they smelled an overwhelming odor of raw marijuana, he said. At this time, Investigators believe the money is only tied to the sale of marijuana, but Bliemeister said enterprises like this are often involved in the distribution of multiple types of narcotics. The sheriff's office is working with local, state and federal authorities. "This investigation has shown already that this is the direct proceeds of the sale of narcotics," Bliemeister said. "We believe this money was intended to purchase additional narcotics to be resold again throughout the United States. We believe that in taking this money, we are not only charging them with a criminal offense, but we are inhibiting future distribution of narcotics." This is the largest cash seizure the sheriff's office has investigated. Melchior and Brennan are in jail in Lincoln. It's possible the pair can be charged federally, Bliemeister said. Local physician and community health advocate Bob Rauner announced plans to run for the District 1 Nebraska State Board of Education seat being vacated by Lillie Larsen. He will face former Lincoln High teacher Patsy Koch Johns in the officially nonpartisan race for the district that includes two-thirds of Lincoln and Lancaster County. He will run as an independent. Rauner, who has worked extensively with Lincoln Public Schools on improving the health of students and gathering data about obesity and fitness, said improving the physical and mental health of Nebraska students is the driving force behind his decision to run. I really think there needs to be a better link between health and education, he said. Many health problems impair students ability to learn. Offering health clinics at schools, for instance, could be a way to reduce absenteeism. Rauners work, which showed a link between fitness, obesity and test scores, has been highlighted nationally by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and published in the Journal of Pediatrics. Rauner, 46, is the director of Partnership for a Healthy Lincoln and has spent the last eight years working with LPS on projects to improve student health. Prior to starting Partnership for a Healthy Lincoln, he worked at Lincoln Family Medicine Program for seven years teaching health education and seeing patients in the clinic, which serves many of Lincolns low-income and refugee families. He organizes the Rotary Youth Exchange program for the Downtown Lincoln Rotary. The exchange provides Lincoln and Lancaster County high school students the opportunity to study abroad for a school year. He is past president of the Nebraska Academy of Family Physicians and has worked on health legislation. He serves on the National Quality Forums Standing Committee on Disparities, which provides advice on how to address disparities in health care which result from poverty, race and ethnicity, or disability. Rauner said his work with the committee on disparities would be helpful for the state board of education. The same disparities that result in worse health for some in our community also influence academic achievement in our students, he said. Rauner and his wife, Lisa, have three daughters. One is attending Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. The other two attend Southeast High School. Rauner ran for the Legislature in 2013. He graduated from the University of Nebraska Medical Center and earned a masters degree in public health from John Hopkins University, concentrating on child obesity and health policy. Nebraskans chuckled when comedian John Oliver compared Gov. Pete Ricketts to a dollar store Lex Luthor last year while he was trying to illegally import lethal drugs from India. The sad thing is, Ricketts acts exactly like Lex Luthor when it comes to health care for thousands of Nebraskans who right now cannot afford private insurance rates and could have access to Nebraska doctors through Medicare. For the last several years, Nebraskas elected officials have wasted $591,667,261.00 (and counting) while knowingly allowing over 77,000 individuals in our state to continue to live in pain and sickness needlessly because they cant get affordable health insurance on the private market. That is almost $600 million bucks that Gov. Ricketts left on our governments table for other states to put to good use keeping families insured and healthy. Most of us gripe about having to pay Uncle Sam to begin with, but having our tax dollars go to fix other states problems really stings. Instead of entering the governors mansion ripping open his shirt to display his inner Superman, Ricketts has repeatedly shown he is exactly like Lex Luthor; a villain who cares about big corporations over the safety of our families. The governors lack of leadership has damaged our entire state as we continue to lag behind 31 other states that have already expanded Medicaid. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it has a legal option for states to expand Medicaid for the working poor, utilizing Nebraskas hard-earned tax dollars for our own state to fund medical care, support jobs, and grow the economy. The reality is, Ricketts has no plan of his own to replace Obamacare. Ricketts has no plan to insure the 77,000 Nebraskans who cannot afford insurance on the private market. Ricketts has no plan to explain to Nebraskans why he is ignoring the obvious solution of opening up a system we know works to get people insured. Rickets has no plan to work with a bipartisan coalition of state senators, medical professionals, nonprofit advocates and citizens who all spoke with head and heart at the hearing on a bill to fix this problem in our state. Instead, all we are left with is a governor who acts like Lex Luthor a villain of the people and friend to big corporations. The governors sidekick, the Platte Institute, a group founded and funded by Ricketts is of course out doing their part to bring down the Medicaid bill waving expected red flags which turn out to be red herrings. If you do not like one idea on the table, the solution is to offer an alternative. Ricketts nor his Platte Institute have offered an alternative plan, with specifics and not simply talking points, to get 77,000 Nebraskans the care they need to stay healthy. Ricketts often laments he will not expand Medicaid because he is not sure if the federal money will be there in the future. Well, with that logic, Ricketts needs to figure out a revenue source for 32 percent of our state budget that we already get from the Feds to fund roads, agriculture, education and public safety. This is an argument that lacks honesty and is tired right-wing talking point trying to paint our government as ineffective rather than come to the aide of people when they are asking for help. As Ricketts flew to Chicago, using Nebraskans tax dollars to arrange personal travel for a knee surgery he could have received from one of our state's own excellent health care facilities, I wonder if he thought about the 500 Nebraskans who die every year according to the University of Nebraska Medical Center because they cant get the health care they need at home. Those Nebraskans do not have the luxury of the choice on where to get help because they do not have heath insurance in the first place. Somehow, I do not think the governor thought about our fellow Nebraskans who need him to leap tall buildings to tackle big problems because Ricketts is Lex Luthor at a time when we need Superman. The ink was barely dry on the U.S. Supreme Courts stay of the Clean Power Plan before state officials pulled the plug on planned community discussions. Thats disappointing. Nine meetings had been scheduled across the state from Feb. 16 through March 3. But Jim Macy, director of the Department of Environmental Quality, said the stay undercuts any urgency states have to submit a plan in September 2016. He said the department would not respond to inquiry until the courts make a final determination. The discussion at community events would have been beneficial, giving Nebraskans an opportunity to vent and learn about the challenges facing the warming world. Conventional wisdom about the high courts stay was that it signaled the likelihood the Clean Power Act would be struck down. That outcome appears less certain with the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. If Obama or his Democratic successor wins Senate approval for a nominee, probability is higher that the act will be upheld. If the high court remains at eight members, then it would probably split 4-4 on the acts constitutionality. That also would leave the lower court ruling upholding the act in place. Another scenario is that a Republican wins the presidential race and wins Senate confirmation for a ninth justice, which would probably mean the acts demise. Concern and interest about climate change, however, transcends politics. Demand for clean power continues to rise, independent of government mandates. Consumers are vociferous about wanting clean energy and the corporate world is responding. About half of Fortune 500 companies have clean energy goals. Blue-chip companies continue to join RE100, a global initiative of businesses that have committed to 100 percent renewable energy. The list of members includes names like Goldman Sachs, Google, Microsoft, Nestle, Nike, Inc. and Walmart. Its more than a public relations gimmick. Some of the companies have decided to generate their own electricity. Were actually energy independent in the Nordic area, our wind farms and solar installations produce more renewable energy than we consume, and the same will be true in the US in the very short-term, said IKEAs Steve Howard. Seventeen governors this week pledged to move their states toward reducing reliance on fossil fuels. The governors are mostly from Democratic-led states, which account for 40 percent of the nations population. Signees to the accord include nearby states like Iowa and Minnesota. All around the country and all around the globe people are talking about the need to reduce carbon emissions. Nebraskans need to be part of the discussion, or theyll be left behind. Good for Cliff Reynolds of Beatrice ("On Multiculturalism," Feb. 14). The current political environment is indeed "scary," especially the way freedom of religion is dissolving. There was a time when an attack on any religion would have been immediately recognized as a threat to all. Imagine, whatever your religion, hearing a prominent politician publicly call for exclusion of more of your own Protestants, Catholics, Jews or other believers, plus surveillance of those of you already here. Worse still, then to hear that significant numbers of their supporters do not object and, worst of all, actually endorse his proposed persecution. Make you feel like a free, loyal American? Politicians flock to support an elected official for refusing to perform the normal duties of her elected office because of her own religious beliefs, suggesting we now need a religious test for public office, so voters know beforehand what religion or bigotry they are voting for or against. We complain, with some good reason, that moderate Muslims aren't more effective at stemming the current violence committed in their name. However, the most dangerous to us are hypocrites here who remain silent as long as their own religious beliefs are momentarily not attacked, even while Black Lives Matter protesters are making the crucially valid point that an attack on one minority is an attack on all. Bigot, get this: you, too have some minority view or status that can eventually be reached if freedoms are chipped away in favor of some nebulous majority.. I fought in two wars and my father fought in three for the American freedoms and ideals that are dismissively being trashed by these guys. Dad and his brothers rest in Arlington, with many of their, as well as my own more recent, comrades than the Journal-Star has room to name. We didn't serve and risk our lives for this. Tom deShazo, Lincoln Eighty-two legislative bills have been named priorities by senators and committees this session, and soon 25 more will be designated by Speaker Galen Hadley. They touch all aspects of Nebraska life: health care, education, workplace equity, taxes, gun rights, politics and freedom to choose how to live and how to die. Hadley has set the lofty goal of seeing them all debated by the end of the session. Monday is the halfway mark, with 30 of 60 days remaining. Three rounds of debate are still ahead for many of those bills. "Obviously the way the session's gone so far, that may be an unrealistic expectation," Hadley said. This is how the first 29 days have gone: eight filibusters on seven bills; 36 hours and 57 minutes spent on seven bills; and senators are working on filibuster No. 9, with four hours and 17 minutes racked up on a bill (LB970) that has to do with pickle cards, keno and other forms of gambling. That will bring the total -- expected Monday, Day 30 -- to 43 hours spent on eight bills. Twenty-two bills have passed final reading and one failed the last vote. The governor has signed four of those, so far. Hadley will work on the speaker priority bill requests this weekend, he said, and the list of 25 will be made public Monday. His selection will be based on the bill's importance, coupled with what he believes senators would like to get done this year. But he also tries to select those that are noncontroversial so they don't end by chewing up even more time on the floor, he said. Senators and committees have designated bills that include a repeal of motorcycle helmet requirements (LB900), allowing people to choose their final day of life (LB1056), an increase in cigarette taxes (LB1013), legalization of medical marijuana (LB643), a change in presidential electors to winner-take-all (LB10). Also on the list: A proposal (LB1032) to access additional Affordable Care Act Medicaid funds to create and fund a program to purchase private health care insurance for the working poor and other Nebraskans who fell through the cracks of coverage under Obamacare. Another bill (LB1109) would change the process of selecting the University of Nebraska president and NU chancellors to keep the names of all applicants other than the final recommended choice private. Add to that a resolution (LR378CA) that would allow a constitutional change by voters to guarantee farming and ranching rights, and a bill (LB586) to ban workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation. Brandon McWilliams' living room table was getting a workout, and his roommate was getting annoyed. McWilliams would leave one full-time job at Cedars only to return home to another: Men With Dreams, the nonprofit youth development organization he launched in 2013 with lifelong friend Preston Harris. "My house was becoming basically my workspace, and I didn't like that too much," McWilliams says. Last March, the men of Men With Dreams moved into a new home: an office at Nonprofit Hub's 12,000-square-foot workspace at 14th and P streets. The change, McWilliams said, "has been great." "Just that visual, having an office, people would think that what we're doing is a little more legit," he said. "It kind of made it real to everybody that we were actually going in the right direction." Nonprofit Hub also provided them with extra meeting space, office supplies, wireless Internet, and, most importantly, a network of fellow forward-thinkers with shared experiences and community connections. "One of the things we're trying to do is create an environment where, if you're looking to do good in the world, we'll set you on the right path," said Randy Hawthorne, Nonprofit Hub's founder and executive director. Started as a nonprofit incubator and co-working space above Raising Cane's in the former Cornerstone building, Nonprofit Hub is already expanding both its mission and physical footprint as it approaches its official first anniversary in March. The doors opened this month to an additional 5,000 square feet of adjacent space in the building, enough for new three offices and a meeting area. And existing space at the Hub which includes private offices, cubicles and desks available for a daily or monthly fee is filling up with not just nonprofit organizations, but also for-profit companies that accomplish some form of public good. "Our mission is, 'Here for good.' It's that simple," Hawthorne said. "We're not just churning out nonprofits here." Hub staff is also working on new ways to help connect Lincoln's nonprofit scene, which includes some 1,400 organizations, as well as nurture new ideas and help existing nonprofits find innovative ways to deliver their services. That includes a series of initiatives called Revo, starting with events during which teams will have 73 hours to come up with a business to solve a community issue. Later, they plan to launch a 73-day "social impact incubator" that will act as a sounding board for potential nonprofits across the region. A major part of the Hub's mission is to guide those with new ideas through the complicated process of launching a nonprofit or similar entity, or in many cases, channel people's passion toward existing organizations with which they might be unfamiliar. "This new generation that's coming into the workforce may not be fully aware of all the different services and nonprofits that are available," Hawthorne said. Another initiative is to establish an innovation center at the Hub, where social change groups can go for advice on revamping their operations and others can present new methods of service delivery that might be of interest to established organizations. A local foundation approached the Hub with that idea, which is still in its early stages, Hawthorne said. But that kind of programming allows Nonprofit Hub to expand its reach beyond the 75 organizations that have used its physical space so far, or the 50 individuals who work there now. Marketing, branding and educational services were part of the vision Hawthorne illustrated when plans for Nonprofit Hub's Lincoln space were announced in 2014. The building is owned by Hawthorne's former boss, Jay Wilkinson, CEO and founder of Firespring and Cornerstone Print & Marketing, and his wife, Tawnya Starr-Wilkinson. Hawthorne founded Nonprofit Hub as an online-only venture in 2011 and left Firespring two years later. He got the idea for a brick-and-mortar Hub after visiting a similar space in Portland, Oregon, during its opening week in 2014. Nonprofit co-working spaces have also sprouted up in other cities. Hear Nebraska, a nonprofit organization dedicated to cultivating the state's music and arts community, started using the space as an alternative to working from a coffee shop all day. In December, managing editor Andrew Stellmon and a staffer moved from a day desk to a cubicle space that fits two people snugly, Stellmon said. "It's like any other office workspace," he said. "I can come and plan to be here all day as if it were an HN office. ... It's a really nice little private area that has amenities a kitchen, a fridge, coffee but that also we can retreat to." The energy is a plus as well, Stellmon said. A lot of young people use the space, he said. "They all like to have fun, too, so it's kind of a nice, loose atmosphere in that regard." Nebraskans for Civic Reform, a group that works to make civic institutions more inclusive, has held launch events, board meetings and retreats at the Hub. Nebraskans for Civic Reform has an office elsewhere, but the group's founder, state Sen. Adam Morfeld of Lincoln, said if Nonprofit Hub had been around when he founded his organization in 2007, he would have rented space there instead of working out of his college dorm room. "It's a great community collaboration space for nonprofits that's also central," he said. Social entrepreneurs are worthy of the same buzz being generated by technology startups, Morfeld said, and Nonprofit Hub and Hawthorne's role in the nonprofit community have helped boost the profile for social change groups. "Randy's a great facilitator and connector," Morfeld said. "That's what you need in the nonprofit startup world." Hawthorne is reluctant to take credit for the positive vibes surrounding Nonprofit Hub. But even in the early days, when just a handful of people were working there, people took note of the energy, he said. "It just emanates, I guess." RACINE COUNTY A Mount Pleasant man was arrested Wednesday in connection to several recent thefts at a landscaping store where he worked in Yorkville. Evan Eskola, 24, of the 6800 block of Mariner Drive, faces four counts of misdemeanor theft after allegedly stealing snow and leaf blowers from Aspen Property Care, 16615 Washington Ave., on four occasions since Jan. 22. Eskola, an employee of the store, would pawn the stolen items off at stores in Kenosha and Illinois, police said. Eskola made his initial appearance in court Thursday, according to court records. Records show his bond was set at $1,000 cash with an additional $4,000 signature bond. According to the criminal complaint, police were contacted Tuesday after the store's owner reviewed security footage from Sunday and noticed Eskola taking a snow blower. Eskola admitted to stealing the equipment from the store, police said. Each of the four charges carries a maximum sentence of nine months in prison and up to a $10,000 fine. School districts with students attending private voucher schools would collectively lose about $5.3 million under a change to the state's funding formula the Assembly passed Thursday. The bill passed on a 56-37 vote. The latest version of the bill still awaits a vote in the Senate. The 2015-17 state budget allowed school districts to increase revenues state aid and property taxes for students attending private voucher schools, typically about $10,000 per pupil. The districts also lose state aid based on the amount claimed for a voucher, which is capped at about $7,300 for K-8 and $8,000 for high school. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, took issue with districts being able to pocket the difference, potentially through higher property taxes. He originally proposed changing the formula in a way that would have cost school districts with voucher students collectively about $14.2 million in revenue authority in the first year. The scaled-back version of the bill that passed Thursday would allow school districts to retain as much funding in state aid and property tax levy authority per pupil as the amount of each students private school voucher. That would mean the collective reduction to the 142 districts with voucher students would be closer to $5.3 million. Vos said he reached a deal with Sen. Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, that the Senate would take up the amended bill in March. The bill's sponsor, Rep. John Jagler, R-Watertown, said Vos' changes to his bill are a break-even proposition for public school districts. "This gets them to a point where theyre held harmless," Jagler said. Rep. Sondy Pope, D-Cross Plains, blasted Republicans for grafting the changes onto a larger bill dealing with scholarships for students with special needs. Pope predicted GOP lawmakers would pay a price at the polls for decreasing school funding. Angered by bills in the state Legislature they consider anti-immigrant, thousands of Latinos and their allies descended Thursday on the state Capitol in what they hoped would be a persuasive show of unity and opposition. The rally, called A Day Without Latinos and Immigrants in Wisconsin, also sought to convey the economic power of the Latino community by illustrating what would happen if thousands of Latino employees and business owners didnt show up for work. Numerous local businesses, including a McDonalds in Middleton and the popular restaurant Quiveys Grove in Madison, closed Thursday, either in solidarity with their Latino employees or because they did not have enough staff to open. The Capitol Police Department estimated the crowd size inside the Capitol and on the grounds at 14,000. The Madison Police Department estimated there were 20,000 people on the streets around the Capitol at the peak of the days march. No arrests or incidents related to the rally were reported by either department. Many protesters were Madison students, some of whom marched in throngs from West and East high schools. Early estimates showed about 4,500 students, or 16 percent of the districts total enrollment, were absent Thursday, compared with 1,500 students and 5.5 percent on a typical day, said district spokeswoman Rachel Strauch-Nelson. The primary goal of the day was to defeat two anti-immigrant laws moving through the Legislature, said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, the rallys main sponsor. One bill, SB 533, would place restrictions on a local governments ability to issue identification cards to people such as immigrants who are in the country illegally. It has passed the Assembly and the Senate and is awaiting action by Gov. Scott Walker. The other bill, AB 450, would withhold state funding from so-called sanctuary cities. These are cities where public employees are prohibited from inquiring about someones citizenship status. The bill has passed the Assembly and is awaiting action in the Senate. Jennifer Mancera, 30, of Madison, who attended the rally, said she takes the legislation personally because, at one point, I was an illegal immigrant. At the end of the day, these bills push away people who are only trying to make this a better country, she said. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, told reporters Thursday that protesters misunderstood the impact of the sanctuary cities bill. The goal of the legislation is to make sure that people who commit crimes are punished, Vos said. The basic idea that fear is being instilled is not coming from the Wisconsin Legislature. Its coming from the activists who want to try to pursue a political agenda. Dave Gorak of La Valle, executive director of the Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration, also took issue with the rally, calling it outrageous. These people have no respect for our laws or our sovereignty, yet they want us to respect them for attempting to cut the legs off our enforcement policies, he said. However, Middleton dairy farmer Thomas Wagner, 62, said he doesnt think legislators understand the consequences of what theyre doing. He came to the rally to support the 13 Latinos who work for him, more than half of his farms workforce, he said. He and his brothers would not be able to continue operating their 1,700-head dairy operation without them, he said. We need these people in our state, he said. They are good, honest, hard workers. East High sophomore Alexandra Miranda, 15, came to the rally with her parents and two younger brothers. She said most of her friends also chose the rally over classes. This means a lot to me because I dont want my family to be torn apart, she said. Her brothers stroller was festooned with white balloons saying, Wisconsin is not Arizona. Javier Hernandez, 39, of Madison, waved a huge homemade white flag with red letters reading, The Land is to Who Works It. Each young person in a large group of students from the Watertown area held a placard with an individual letter that together spelled out, One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Neumann-Ortiz said her organization was keeping a list of businesses that had closed and said she was confident the number would end up being in the hundreds across the state. If you have a climate that is so unwelcoming that people leave your state, industries are going to die, she said. La Brioche, a bakery and restaurant in Madison that employs about 40, was among those that closed Thursday. We have a fair number of Latino employees, so it will be obvious to them where we stand on these issues, and I hope for some sort of ripple effect if enough people understand the negative aspects of this legislation, said owner David Yankovich. La Brioche and another Madison bakery, Le Petit Croissant, planned to make sandwiches to pass out at the rally so that people would not spend money at restaurants that remained open. Carrie Barndt, who owns six area McDonalds restaurants, said she closed the one on Allen Boulevard in Middleton Thursday because so many employees, both Latino and non-Latino, asked for the day off. She consolidated the remaining employees at the other five locations. At least half a dozen businesses on State Street in Downtown Madison were closed either part or all of the day on Thursday in solidarity with the rally. Tutto Pasta, Casa de Lara and Endless Knot closed for the day, while Hawks Bar and Grill, Roast Public House, and Himal Chuli were planning to reopen for dinner. Amy Moore, owner of Little Luxuries on State Street, said she did not close for the event because she wanted to be open for people who are Downtown for the event or not. She noticed an uptick in shoppers because of the rally specifically those in need of gloves and socks. 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... JURIST Guest Columnist James Tugee of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law discusses how Rwandan President Paul Kagame can save his legacy by retiring, despite recent amendments extending his term limits On December 18, 2015, Rwandans voted in a referendum to approve various amendments that had been proposed by the Senate to the 2003 constitution [PDF]. Key among the changes was the amendment of Article 101 of the constitution to change presidential terms of office from seven years each to five years each. The amendments, which were approved by 98.3 percent of the voters, include a special exception made for the incumbent president, Paul Kagame, who is currently serving his second, and what would have been his last, seven-year term in office under the 2003 constitution. Following the amendment, President Kagame can now run for another seven-year term in 2017 and another two five-year terms subsequently. Consequently, the amendments make it possible for Mr. Kagame, now 58, to remain in power until 2034. President Kagame has been the president of Rwanda since 2000, when his predecessor, Pasteur Bizimungu, resigned. He was, however, very much in a position of control since 1994 when his rebel forces took over the capital, Kigali, ousting Hutu extremists and ending the genocide. He was Rwandas de facto leader when he served as Vice President and Minister for Defence between 1994 and 2000. The genocide, the darkest blot on Rwandas history, remains very much alive in Rwandas national conscience. Around 800,000 Rwandans were killed, and over two million more displaced. Because of President Kagames contribution in ending the genocide, most Rwandans revere him. President Kagame has, however, perhaps unfairly, used the unfortunate history of the genocide to propagate dictatorial rule. Rwandans would never want a recurrence of a genocide. They perhaps live in daily fear of such recurrence. The government takes advantage of this by heavily regulating and censoring the media, stifling the opposition in its attempts to discharge its role, and unjustifiably limiting the freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. There is little space for dissent, and the excuse seems to be that disagreements may lead the country to civil strife. With these in mind, it is hardly any surprise that President Kagame has always registered overwhelming victory in elections, at least according to the official results. The results of the referendum vote, with some 98 percent of the voters supporting the proposed amendments, follows this script. The manner in which the Rwandan government and the National Electoral Commission managed the process left a lot to be desired. There was not enough time and opportunity for meaningful political discussions on the proposed amendments. The date of the referendum was announced on December 8, 2015, which was just 10 days before the vote. Campaigns against the proposed amendments were not allowed. The opposition Democratic Green Party of Rwandas planned NO CHANGE campaigns were rendered illegal by the electoral commissions confirmation that campaigns were not allowed. Moreover, since there was little time for civic education, and the text of the proposed amendments was only made publicly available less than a day before the vote, most of the voters probably voted for the changes without appreciating their full effect. In addition, there was no official provision for independent observation of the process. The flaws in the process did not go unnoticed internationally. The European Union Heads of Mission in Rwanda made a statement [PDF] to express their concerns that the one week run-up to the referendum in Rwanda neither fully explained the constitutional changes, nor offered sufficient time and space for debate. They faulted the fact that the text of the draft constitution adopted by the Parliament was only published publicly less than one day ahead of the vote in Rwanda and regretted that no process allowing for independent monitoring was put in place. The United States, in a statement by National Security Council (NSC) spokesperson Ned Price, expressed disappointment that a referendum was called on short notice to amend the Rwandan constitution and introduce exceptions to term limits and regret that the arrangements for the referendum failed to provide sufficient time and opportunity for political debate on the merits of the proposed provisions. While there is basis to fault the process, it is nonetheless true that some 4 million out of the 6.3 million Rwandan registered voters petitioned for the changes to allow President Kagame to run for a third term. It is not clear whether the seeming desperation of Rwandans to keep President Kagame in power is out of fear or love. Either way, President Kagame should preserve his legacy by retiring next year, or risk ultimately leaving office with his presidency being considered more of an error than an era. While presidential term limits may be an effective way of doing away with bad leaders, this is not, in fact, their primary function. There are elections, impeachments, and recall of leaders for that purpose. Term limits, rather, are an acknowledgement by society that national leadership is a privilege accorded to the first among equals, and that there are many people within society who are capable of leading a country. By imposing term limits, society allows transfer of power and transitions. Rwanda has the opportunity to experience this next year. They should neither be denied nor allowed to deny themselves this opportunity. While the populace is now used to the leadership of Mr. Kagame, and perhaps very comfortable with it considering what was there before it, the country will make significant steps in dealing with the fear that seems to control every decision the country makes when a proper democratic transition occurs. Rwandans should not have to wait for President Kagames death (God forbid), or 2034 to be part of this! President Kagame has done a good job during the time he has been in office. Rwanda has achieved significant economic and social development. Mr. Kagame has himself earned the respect and admiration of many Rwandans and the international community. This is, however, not a ticket to life presidency. In fact, holding on to power is only likely to lead to disastrous results for himself and Rwanda, if the experiences of other nations are anything to go by. President Kagame need not look far to see the potential disastrous consequences of holding on to power. Africa is replete with examples. Presidents Yoweri Museveni and Robert Mugabe of Uganda and Zimbabwe, respectively, are fine examples of leaders who during the initial periods of their leadership were national heroes who enjoyed a lot of domestic and international support, but have over time, by holding on to power for too long, not only lost a lot of this support but also transformed into despots. Burundi is currently experiencing turbulent times because President Pierre Nkurunzinza has held on to power beyond his term limit. On the other hand, Nelson Mandela of South Africa, who arguably made much more personal sacrifices for his country, and who enjoyed the overwhelming support of his people and the international community, served a single term as president and voluntarily relinquished power. Even Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique, who served as president for a longer period of time (1986 to 2005) knew the right time to relinquish power, having transformed the previously war-torn country into one of the most successful African democracies. The right moment for President Kagame to retire is 2017. The support and confidence President Kagame once enjoyed internationally has dwindled in recent times and continues to dwindle. He and the government of Rwanda have come under criticism following the December 2015 referendum vote. This will only heighten if President Kagame makes a definite decision to run for president in 2017. While there is a lot of merit in the argument that Rwanda is a sovereign nation whose people should have the right to choose how they are governed and who to have as their leader, it is also an insult to Rwandans to suggest that only President Kagame can lead the nation. It is inconceivable that Rwanda does not have other individuals who are able to lead the country as well as or even better than President Kagame. There should therefore be no justification for President Kagames continued stay in office beyond 2017. Indeed, if President Kagame has not, in his 16 years so far as president, groomed individuals within his own government and party who are ready to lead the country, he has failed. What happens if, God forbid, he dies or otherwise becomes incapacitated? To quote the NSC statement again, President Kagame, who in many ways has strengthened and developed Rwanda, now has an historic opportunity to enshrine his legacy by honoring his commitments to respect the term limits set when he entered office. By doing so, President Kagame would establish a credible foundation for democracy in Rwanda, reinforce the substantial progress that has been achieved towards sustained peace and prosperity for all Rwandans, and set a laudable example not only for Rwanda, but for the region and the world. What would be a greater legacy than an African leader voluntarily relinquishing power when he had the opportunity to rule for another 17 years? James Tugee is licensed to practice law in Kenya. He is an associate attorney at Hamilton Harrison & Mathews in Nairobi, Kenya. He specializes in commercial litigation and arbitration. He is currently on leave as he pursues his LLM studies at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. Suggested citation: James Tugee, President Kagame Can Preserve His Legacy by Retiring in 2017 Despite Constitutional Amendments, JURIST Student Commentary, Feb. 19, 2016, http://jurist.org/dateline/2016/2/james-tugee-president-kagame.php This article was prepared for publication by Dave Rodkey, an Assistant Editor for JURIST Commentary service. Please direct any questions or comments to him at commentary@jurist.org Chicago residents filed [complaint, PDF] a class action lawsuit Thursday accusing the city of Chicago of knowingly contaminating the citys water supply when replacing lead water pipes in the city. The elevated, unsafe levels of lead in the drinking water have persisted since 2008 when the city began construction on the old lead pipes, delivering water to 80 percent of Chicago. Lead is known to cause cancer, infertility, high blood pressure and other health related problems. The lawsuit claims that the Environmental Protection Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have issued warnings after conducting studies about the presence of lead in water prior to pipe construction. The complaint also states that Chicago contains more lead pipes than any municipality. Lead pipes were outlawed by the Safe Drinking Water Act [summary] in 1986. Until they can be replaced, chemically treated water is used to build up a coating inside the lead pipes to prevent corrosion. In January a federal lawsuit was filed in Flint Michigan [JURIST report] seeking the replacement of lead water pipes in the city. Flints drinking water supply was switched from Lake Huron water treated in Detroit to water from the Flint River treated at the Flint water treatment plant in 2014 to save money. The new supply was not treated with required corrosion control chemicals and caused lead and pathogens [report] to get into the towns water supply from pipes. Researchers from Virginia Tech concluded that lead levels were high enough to be designated as toxic waste [WP report]. The Supreme Court of India [official website] on Friday refused to intervene in the arrest of left-wing student leader, Kanhaiya Kumar, for sedition. Kumars arrest triggered demonstrations in universities across the country against Prime Minister Narendra Modi [official website] and his party. Kumar had sought the Supreme Courts intervention [Reuters report] after a previous hearing in a lower court was disrupted by lawyers chanting nationalist slogans who barged into the compound and began stoning reporters. Kumar was also physically assaulted [JURIST report] by right-wing lawyers on his way to the court. One of Kumars lawyers stated that It was a life-threatening situation, adding that it was not safe for the defense team to go anywhere except the Supreme Court to seek bail. Critics stated that the government was trying to crush opposition after it ordered police to detain Kumar for commemorating the anniversary of the execution of a Kashmiri separatist, Afzal Guru, who was convicted and hanged for an attack on the India Parliament in 2001. The government reminded citizens that the right to speech was not without limits while Home Minister Rajnath Singh [official website] put out a Twitter post warning that those who shouted anti-India slogans and challenge the integrity of the country will not be spared. The case against Kumar is under the colonial-era sedition law and has fueled fears that Modis Bharatiya Janata Party [party website] is creating a climate of fear in the country and is promoting a fiercely nationalist agenda aimed at the minority groups. The Supreme Court suggested Kumar should first approach the lower Delhi High Court for bail, stating it did not have to intervene in the case and that the lower courts were well qualified to handle the situation. Human rights and political groups in Jammu and Kashmir said that Guru did not get a fair trial, stating that the evidence against him was, at best, circumstantial. India is one among many countries that have struggled to balance citizens internationally recognized rights to free speech with domestic and international security concerns. Last August India, after widespread international criticism, ordered Internet service providers [JURIST report] to allow access to the 857 previously banned pornography and humor websites provided they did not include child pornography. Earlier last year Indias Supreme Court struck down [judgment, PDF] a law that gave authorities the power to jail people for offensive online posts. That ruling was welcomed and commended [JURIST report] by Modi. In May JURIST guest columnist Roy S. Gutterman noted [JURIST op-ed] that many countries throughout the world not only still have, but also actively enforce sedition laws. [JURIST] The Kentucky Senate [official website] approved a bill [SB 5] on Thursday that would create distinct marriage license forms for opposite-sex and same-sex couples. The bill in its current form provides [AP report] that opposite-sex couples register themselves as bride and groom while same-sex couples register as first and second party. Though former Democratic governor Steve Beshear removed the words bride and groom entirely last year, Kentucky Republicans have stressed the importance of respecting traditional families. Opponents argue that having one form that provides both proposed options would be more just and cost efficient. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] also voiced its concern that the new bill is discriminatory in nature. The bill is now planned to be reviewed and amended by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives. The new bill follows recent controversy surrounding Kentucky clerk Kim Davis. Earlier this month a federal judge found that Davis is obeying orders [JURIST report] to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples after much opposition. Following the US Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges [JURIST report] in June, Davis refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex or heterosexual couples arguing that her Christian faith should exempt her from issuing the licenses to same-sex couples. The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ordered [JURIST report] Davis to issue the licenses in August, but she continued to refuse [JURIST report]. The following week, the Supreme Court denied [JURIST report] her bid to continue refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples pending an appeal. A federal judge held Davis in contempt of court [JURIST report] in September for her continued refusal, releasing her after several days in jail. Davis claimed upon returning to work that she would not block her clerks from issuing the licenses. Khmer Rouge former head of state, Khieu Samphan, on Wednesday challenged the 2014 life sentence [JURIST report] imposed by the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) [official website] for crimes against humanity. Samphan stated that he was simply fighting for social justice in Cambodia and said [Channel NewsAsia report], I shall shout loudly that I never wanted to agree to any policy that is against the Cambodian people. Samphan, as well as another leader, Nuon Chea, were convicted [case materials] in 2014 after being found guilty of overseeing the death of nearly one fourth [AFP report] of Cambodias population. Samphan and Chea are the first leaders of the Khmer Rouge to be jailed for their actions in Cambodia. Cambodia continues to struggle with the legacy of the Khmer Rouge, an extremist group that attempted to set up an agrarian socialist society in the nation in the mid- to late-1970s. In December Cambodias Khmer Rouge Tribunal charged [JURIST report] Meas Muth, the Khmer Rouges ex-navy commander, with genocide, crimes against humanity and other crimes. In March the tribunal charged [JURIST report] former Khmer Rouge member Cadre Ao An with crimes against humanity for his role in the maintenance of an execution site and two security centers during the Democratic Kampuchea. Earlier in March Human Rights Watch called on [JURIST report] the Cambodian government to act on criminal charges brought against former Khmer Rouge leaders. Also in March the ECCC charged [JURIST report] district commander Im Chaem and navy chief Meas Muth, with homicide and crimes against humanity, despite a warning by the countrys prime minister not to add the defendants. Cambodias UN-backed tribunal restarted genocide hearings in a separate case in January after a delay in which defense lawyers refused [JURIST reports] to participate. The Khmer Rouge have been blamed for roughly 1.7 million deaths between 1975 and 1979 while leader Pol Pot was in power. The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) [official website] on Thursday strongly condemned [press release] the violence that took place Wednesday night between Shilluk and Dinka [African Press report] youths at one of its Protection of Civilians sites in South Sudan [JURIST archive]. Due to the civil war in the country, 198,440 Sudanese people reside at various UN protection sites, and more than 47,000 displaced persons reside at the Malakal protection site where the violent interaction, which resulted in multiple injuries and at least five casualties, took place. UNMISS called on the government and the citizens to end the violence and further warned that such attacks are not only prohibited, but may also meet the qualifications of war crimes. The human rights situation throughout Sudan has drawn global condemnation of Sudans political leaders. Earlier this month the UN Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in the Sudan, called for an end [press release] to conflict in Darfur between the Sudanese government and the Sudan Liberation Army/Abdul Wahid, which may have led to human rights abuses and violations [JURIST report] of international law. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights [official website] reported in January that shocking crimes have been committed [JURIST report] in the war-torn South Sudan. UNICEF [official website] reported Friday that the Ukraine conflict has severely affected [press release] children living in the area. The constant violence and fear has resulted in one in three children suffering psychologically. The UN reported nearly a quarter billion children have been internally displaced and more than 20 percent of the schools have been destroyed. Last year, 20 children were killed and 40 injured, mostly resulting from explosives. In an effort to restore the area, UNICEF has trained teachers and psychologists to identify signs of distress and provided psychosocial support for children in need. They have also been providing the area with clean water and essential hygiene products. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has continued to be a prevalent topic ever since the Crimean Annexation [JURIST backgrounder] in March 2014. Last week Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] reported that hostilities in eastern Ukraine have damaged [press release] or destroyed hundreds of schools, many of which were being used for military purposes. According to a detailed investigative report [text], government forces and Russia-backed militants have deployed forces in and near schools, turning the schools into legitimate military targets. The resulting destruction has either forced many children out of schools or caused schools to stop operating or to operate under overcrowded and difficult conditions. In December the UN released a report stating [press release] that serious human rights concerns persist, in Ukraine. The conflict has often been labeled the biggest crisis between Russia and the West since the Cold War. US President Barack Obama has strongly condemned [JURIST report] Russias military intervention in the region as a violation of international law. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed legislation [press release] Thursday that will effectively cut funding to Planned Parenthood in the state by millions of dollars, although the two bills do not target Planned Parenthood by name. The first new law [text] severs state funding, under Title X, for public providers of abortions. The money will be diverted instead to less controversial public entities. The press release stated that the Department of Health Services, will not send those funds to Planned Parenthood, which is currently the only Wisconsin entity to receive Title X funding. The other bill [text] requires state clinics to enroll in a federal program that reimburses drug costs. Clinics linked to abortion services, like Planned Parenthood, will be subject to lower reimbursement rates. Planned Parenthood has come under increased scrutiny recently following the release of video footage purportedly showing employees discussing financial remuneration in exchange for fetal tissue. Earlier this month Ohio lawmakers [JURIST report] approved a bill that would block federal and state funds from reaching groups that promote or perform abortions, effectively defunding Planned Parenthood. Last month President Barack Obama vetoed legislation [JURIST report] that would have defunded Planned Parenthood. Also in January a Texas grand jury has found no criminal wrongdoing [JURIST report] by Planned Parenthood over allegations of selling fetal tissue, instead indicting two activists responsible for releasing videos that spurred the allegations. 49 huts, animal shelters destroyed in fire A massive fire broke out at Rajapur VDC-1 in Dang district on Thursday, destroying at least 49 huts and animal shelters. A reset for India and Nepal Foreign relations among culturally similar states cannot be left to raw emotions and one-upmanship games Barter stores bring markets to Gulmi farmers doorstep A few youth entrepreneurs have opened barter stores where they offer goods like sugar, cooking oil, salt and garments to farmers in exchange for farm products. Although barter is the main feature of such shops, they also accept and pay cash depending on the customers wish. Donald Trump praises Pope Francis after US-Mexico wall row Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has heaped praise on Pope Francis, hours after the pontiff questioned his Christian faith. Govt says will miss economic targets The government has said it will miss the targets for economic growth, expenditure and revenue collection for this fiscal year due to the Indian trade embargo that affected economic activities in the first half. IBN: Compensation as per international standards Locals displaced by the Arun III hydropower project will be compensated as per international standards, Investment Board Nepal (IBN) said. India not to inject fresh funds into Postal Road Just ahead of a planned signing of new memorandum of understanding (MoU) to revive the venerable 1,700km Postal Road, India has said it will not be able to allocate additional budget for the project. It has also put forth a condition that an Indian consultant be appointed. Its inclusion, stupid! On Democracy Day, we must reflect on the past and plan for the future Missing girl found Mahottari District Police found and handed over a girl, who went missing from Fulhatta village of Sitamadhi district of Indian Bihar state for the past four days, to her parent on Thursday. NHRC to govt: Ratify Rome Statute The National Human Rights Commission has suggested that the government ratify Rome Statute to end impunity and to prevent recurrence of war crimes and crime against humanity in future. PMs India visit meaningless Sanghiya Samajbadi Forum Nepal Chairman Upendra Yadav has remarked that Prime Minister KP Sharma Olis upcoming visit to India without resolving domestic political disputes is futile. Power crisis, by govt lights, to end For the third time in eight years, the government has declared energy emergency with an ambitious target to end power crisis within two years. Prime Minister Oli off to India for six-day state visit Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli on Friday left for Indian Capital New Delhi, leading a 46-member delegation on a six-day official visit to India. SLMM obstructs ministers programme in Rautahat Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha (SLMM) supporters obstructed a programme of Minister of State for Health Mohammad Mustak Alam (Rajababu) at the District Hospital in Gaur, the district headquarters, on Thursday. Three of a family fallen sick after consuming intoxicating substance Three members of a family have fallen seriously sick while consuming intoxicative substance, Dhaturo, in Chandragadhi of Jhapa on Thursday. OWN A HOUSE AND PAY MONTHLY WE'VE GOT YOU COVERED: EMPOWERMENT TIME Blog Archive Blog Archive February (1) December (1) November (1) October (2) August (4) July (5) February (3) January (3) October (1) September (6) August (1) June (29) May (57) April (23) March (77) February (69) January (85) December (99) November (19) October (138) September (244) August (327) July (219) June (367) May (169) April (204) March (197) February (189) January (35) December (42) November (30) October (6) March (3) February (1) October (1) NAMBOOLE- Ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) candidate, Yoweri Museveni, 71, is leading with 61.75 per cent, according to provisional results released Friday morning by Electoral Commission Chairman, Eng Badru Kiggundu. By Friday morning, Mr Museveni had polled 1,362,961 votes from 6,448 polling stations, representing 23.02 per cent of 28,010 polling wards in the whole country. The partial results have put the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) candidate, Rtd. Col, Dr Kizza Besigye in the second slot, with 738,628 votes, representing 33.47 per cent of total results received at the National Tally Center at Namboole Stadium. The Independent Go Forward candidate, John Patrick Amama Mbabazi is distant third with 41,291 votes (1.87 per cent), followed by Abed Bwanika of Peoples Development Party (PDP) who polled 22,180 votes (0.69 per cent) and independent candidate Prof. Venacious Baryamureeba is in fifth position with 15,260 votes (0.69 per cent). The only female candidate in the race, Ms Maureen Walube Kyalya is in sixth position with 12,742 votes (0.58 per cent). Another , Maj Gen Benon Biraro of the Farmers Party of Uganda (FPU) polled 7,228 votes (0.33 per cent) and independent candidate Joseph Mabirizi managed 6,833 votes (0.31 per cent). Invalid votes are 116, 804. There are 15,277, 198 registered voters taking part in the 2016 general elections. Eng Kiggundu told the candidates agents, party representatives, media and election observers at Namboole Stadium that a winner will be announced on Saturday February 20th at 4pm. He earlier on indicated that there are 38 polling stations (16 in Makindye, a Kampala suburb and 22 in Wakiso district) where voting is expected to take place today (Friday). The voting in these areas did not take place because of delays and other logistical challenges. Although voting experienced unprecedented delays and reports of pre-ticked ballot papers, the national presiding officer described the election as successful in spite of the glitches. There is no any perfect election anywhere in the word, Eng Kiggundu said earlier on. 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. The Seoul metropolitan government said Thursday that a miniature sculpture symbolizing the South Korean capital will be erected in the Danish capital of Copenhagen in September as part of a cultural exchange program between the two cities. A city official said the sculpture will be selected from several historic and cultural relics in Seoul, such as Gwanghwamun Gate, Sungnyemun Gate, Hanyang Fortress Wall, or Bosingak Belfry. In exchange, in September Seoul will erect a statue of the Little Mermaid, from a fairy tale written by Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen, at a suitable place in the capital. It also aims to set up "Andersen Fairy Tale Park" as promised by Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon during his visit to the Danish capital in 2014. Mayor Park agreed to bolster cooperation with his Danish counterpart in the cultural sphere as well as the urban development, environment and public transportation sectors. Initially, Seoul City planned to erect a massive outdoor exhibition work in Copenhagen, but the plan was later scrapped, as the Danish side was opposed to the large scale of the sculpture. After a series of discussions, the two cities have finally agreed to place the miniature iconic symbol of Seoul inside the city hall of Copenhagen. The Seoul municipal authorities will hold a special exhibition for the Little Mermaid at Dongdaemun Digital Plaza (DDP) later this year and then select a place where the statue is set up. Candidate places in Seoul for the erection are Children's Grand Park, Seoul Forest and Cheonggyecheon. The city official said 10 Danish businesses stationed in South Korea will donate 95 million won for the establishment of the mermaid statue. (Yonhap) By Doug Bandow Yet again North Korea has angered "the world." Pyongyang violated another United Nations ban, launching a satellite into orbit. Washington is leading the campaign to sanction the North. Announced UN Ambassador Samantha Power: "The accelerated development of North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile program poses a serious threat to international peace and security to the peace and security not just of North Korea's neighbors, but the peace and security of the entire world." The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a bad actor. No one should welcome further enhancements to the DPRK's weapons arsenal. Yet inflating the North Korean threat also doesn't serve anyone's interests. For instance, the U.S. has the most powerful military on earth, including 7100 nuclear warheads and almost 800 ICBMs/SLBMs/nuclear-capable bombers. Absent evidence of a suicidal impulse in Pyongyang, there's little reason to fear a North Korean attack. And members of the Kim dynasty long have wanted their virgins in this world, not the next. Moreover, the North is surrounded by nations with nuclear weapons (China, Russia) and missiles (those two plus Japan and South Korea). As a "shrimp among whales," any Korean government could understandably desire to possess the ultimate weapon. Finally, Pyongyang actually sent up a satellite. Of course, there is reason to suspect that Pyongyang's launch was cover for a missile test. However, the satellite might be legitimate. "It must be very frustrating, and frightening, for the generals in Pyongyang to know that the enemy can see what they are up to, but they can't reciprocate," wrote NK News' Tim Beal. He noted that even Laos wanted its own satellite. Under such circumstances, allied complaints about the North Korean test sound an awful lot like whining. For two decades U.S. presidents have said that Pyongyang cannot be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. It has done so. Assertions that the DPRK cannot be allowed to deploy ICBMs sound no more credible. After all, the UN Security Council still is working on new sanctions after the nuclear test last month. China continues to oppose meaningful penalties. Despite U.S. and South Korean criticism, the People's Republic of China has reason to fear disintegration of the North Korean regime: loss of political influence and economic investments, possible mass refugee flows, violent factional combat, and loose nukes, and creation of a reunified Korea hosting American troops on China's border. Moreover, Beijing blames the allies for creating the hostile security environment which encourages the North to develop WMDs. Why should Beijing sacrifice its interests to solve a problem of someone else's making? Moreover, Pyongyang appears to have taken the measure of its large neighbor. The Kim regime announced its satellite launch on the same day that it reported the visit of a Chinese envoy. The trip appeared to result in another insulting rebuff for Beijing. Even if China does more, the North might not yield. Thus, the U.S. and Republic of Korea have no better alternatives in dealing with Pyongyang today than they did last month after the nuclear test. War would be foolhardy, sanctions are a dead-end, and China remains unpersuaded. The only alternative that remains is some form of engagement with the DPRK. Cho Han-bum of the Korea Institute for National Unification argued that the North was using the satellite launch to force talks with America. However, Washington showed no interest in negotiation, so the DPRK launched. Of course, no one should bet on negotiating away North Korea's weapons. If nothing else, Pyongyang watched American and European governments oust Libya's Moammar Khadafy after, in its view, at least, he foolishly traded away his nuclear weapons and missiles. Nevertheless, there are things which the North wants, such as direct talks with America, a peace treaty, and economic assistance. Moreover, the DPRK, rather like Burma's reforming military regime, appears to desire to reduce its reliance on Beijing. This creates an opportunity for Washington and Seoul. Perhaps negotiation would temper the North's worst excesses. Perhaps engagement would encourage domestic reforms. Perhaps an allied initiative would spur greater Chinese pressure on Pyongyang. Perhaps not. But current policy has failed. Yet again the North has misbehaved. Yet again other countries are talking tough. Samantha Power insisted that "we cannot and will not allow" the North to develop "nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles." However, yet again the allies are only doing what it has done before. Unfortunately, the same policy will yield the same result as before. It is time to try something different. Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of Tripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World and co-author of The Korean Conundrum: America's Troubled Relations with North and South Korea. South Korea and the United States on Friday conducted a joint drill aimed at promptly dispatching American troops to the Korean Peninsula on the occasion of contingency, the South's Army said. Heightened tensions on the divided peninsula remain following North Korea's latest nuclear test and long-range rocket launch. The drill between South Korea's 2nd Operations Command and the 8th U.S. Army called for the South's Army to provide support for Washington's expedited dispatch of its soldiers to the peninsula at the case of war, it said. In 1994, the exercise, known as the "RSOI" drill, kicked off as a simulation-driven drill aimed at upgrading the allied forces' capabilities. Since 2014, it has been conducted as a field exercise. RSOI is an acronym for "Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration." "The exercise would help check how the U.S. could promptly send its troops to the front lines on the occasion of war on the peninsula," said an official in the South Korean Army. About 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea as a deterrent against North Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce, not in a peace treaty. (Yonhap) South Korea wants to work closely with the United States to force a change in North Korea's behavior so as to curb its nuclear and missile development, a senior South Korean official said Wednesday. Cho Tae-yong, deputy chief of the presidential office of national security, made the remark upon arriving in Washington for talks with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken, underlining Seoul's push for greater pressure on Pyongyang. "The No. 1 goal of the Korea-U.S. collaboration should be on curbing North Korea's nuclear and missile development by forcing the North to change," Cho told reporters, adding that his talks with U.S. officials would be a meaningful opportunity to discuss strategies. Cho also said that discussions aimed at putting together a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on North Korea are going well as China shares a broad strategic goal with Seoul and Washington that the North's fourth nuclear test is unacceptable at all. "Consultations are proceeding well with the goal that a U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution should be much stronger than previous resolutions," Cho said. Cho also said that a decision on whether to deploy the U.S. THAAD missile defense system to the South are up to defense authorities in Seoul and Washington. (Yonhap) Police have strengthened security for a North Korean defector who serves as a ranking official at a South Korean state-run think tank after the North ordered his assassination, a source said Friday. Since mid-January, police have beefed up the guard over Ko Young-hwan, vice president of the Institute for National Security Strategy, as North Korea is believed to have issued an order to kill him according to a source familiar with North Korean affairs. Ko defected to South Korea in 1991 after serving as a North Korean diplomat at the North's embassy in the Congo. Police raised the number of armed guards assigned to him after South Korea's spy agency obtained the intelligence. South Korea said Thursday North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered greater preparations for terror attacks on the South, including cyberattacks. The North's Reconnaissance General Bureau, tasked with intelligence operations, is prepared for such disruptive acts, including terrorist attacks using poison or kidnapping South Koreans, it said. Seoul said that the North may target anti-North Korean activists, defectors and Seoul government officials with its potential terror attacks. (Yonhap) South Korea's previous liberal government was aware that North Korea had diverted money received from South Korea through their joint factory park to weapons programs, the prime minister said Friday. Hwang Kyo-ahn said in a parliamentary session that South Korea had knowledge of the money diversion when liberal President Roh Moo-hyun was in office. Hwang did not elaborate exactly when the liberal government was aware of the money diversion. Roh ruled South Korea from 2003 to 2008. During his presidency he met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang in 2007 during the second summit between the two Koreas. South and North Korea opened the factory park in the North's western border city of Kaesong, four years after Roh's predecessor, Kim Dae-jung, held a landmark summit with the North's Kim in Pyongyang in 2000. Hwang said that South Korea launched the factory park to try to induce changes in Pyongyang, though North Korea diverted the money for its nuclear and missile programs as well as for luxury goods and various campaigns to extol the achievements of its ruling family. The issue of money diversion came to the fore in the South after South Korea shuttered the industrial zone in response to North Korea's recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch. South Korea has said more than 120 of its firms provided around US$560 million in cash to North Korea for the income of North Korean workers at the sprawling zone. South Korea provided the money directly to the North Korean government, instead of its workers, creating a loophole for the diversion of the cash to North Korea's leadership. Pyongyang has expelled all South Koreans from the joint factory park, putting an end to the last-remaining economic cooperation project between the two Koreas. (Yonhap) Developer Geoff Palmer has produced an impressive list of enemies in his quest to speckle the LA map with his trademark Italy-meets-Epcot-meets-dormitory megafortress apartment complexes. Everyone from skybridge detractors to Yelp reviewers want his throat for one reason or another. Now add to that list the city of Los Angeles itself. City officials are claiming that the 2014 fire that destroyed the controversial Da Vinci apartment complex was Palmer's fault. According to the LA Times, Palmer has been hit with a $20 million lawsuit filed by the Los Angeles City Attorney. The suit alleges that Palmer was negligent in failing to incorporate "key safety measures" into his Da Vinci Apartments development. The whole Da Vinci incident did not sit well with City Hall. City Attorney Mike Feuer says the city is trying to recoup taxpayer losses that could have been avoided if the Da Vinci had been "better constructed." The suit claims the Da Vinci fire was the result of poor construction and fire safety planning on the part of Palmer. According to the lawsuit, the Da Vinci did not have "an appropriate fire protection plan" or provide proper security outside the construction site to protect it from arson. The suit alleges that Palmer failed to compartmentalize construction, which allowed the blaze to spread freely throughout the worksite. The lawsuit also claims that the apartment building did not have fire walls or doors or even the water supply necessary to fight a fire on the property. The Da Vinci was a bit of a recipe for disaster from the get-go. It was a wood-framed buildingwhich are far cheaper than constructing a steel framed structureand its frame went up like kindling. LA Fire Department Battalion Chief David Perez estimated at the time that 80 percent of the building was fully engulfed in less that 15 minutes. He went on to call the Da Vinci fire "by far the biggest single fire in an urban area" he'd ever seen. The blaze did significant damage to the neighboring buildings and closed the freeway. Heat from the Da Vinci fire damaged the Department of Health offices across the street and cracked 160 windows at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power building over 400 feet from the fire. The spreading flames even ignited a fire at the nearby Figueroa Plaza complex and melted freeway signs on the 110. Despite the fire and city lawsuit, Palmer's work lives on. He called the Da Vinci fire a "temporary loss" and vowed to rebuild in 10 months. Now, some thirteen months later, the Da Vinci redux is currently looming over the 110 Freeway, skybridge and all, just as it did before. Not even a blazing inferno the likes of which LA has never seen can bring down Geoff Palmer. L.A. files $20-million lawsuit against Da Vinci Apartments developer over huge downtown fire [LAT] 9 Weird Facts About Fighting Downtown's Massive Da Vinci Fire [Curbed LA] 6 Best Zingers On DTLA's Controversial Fauxtalian Skybridge [Curbed LA] Geoff Palmer's Burned Da Vinci Apartments Will be Back in Under a Year [Curbed LA] Severo Perez Chicano At Work is the writer, producer, or director (and often all three at once) of several well-respected and award-winning films including(1982),(1995),(2000),((2005), and(2008). Recently, Severo has turned to writing novels. He joins La Bloga today to talk about his historical fiction book, The Challengers Aero Club , and his future writing projects, as well as a few insights into the life and times of a Chicano filmmaker.Welcome to La Bloga, Severo. Real pleasure to have you here. First, give us a brief synopsis of your book. What can readers expect from this novel?is about black aviation in Chicago before World War II, and the three remarkable people who were at the right place at the right time to challenge the U.S. Armys exclusion of black aviators.What drew you to the stories about African-American aviator pioneers? How did the making of your documentary,fit in with the writing and publishing of your book?In 1995, I was commissioned to research and write a half-hour documentary about Willa Brown. As I interviewed the folks who had been part of the Chicago experience, I became aware that if I didnt record these 88 to 94 year-olds immediately, their words would be lost. I used my writers fee to hire a crew and flew them to Chicago and other locales where these folks lived and did the interviews. By the time I completed research and finished the documentary, nearly all of the interviewees had passed away.The half-hour documentary was well received and screened on PBS stations across the U.S. What weighed on me was that I had much more information about the lives of the main characters than I could use in the documentary. If I didnt tell the story I had heard and uncovered, it would be lost. I started to write sketches for a feature film and showed them around, but there appeared to be zero interest.Your book is historical fiction, which, for me at least, presents several unique challenges to a writer. For example, how much of the book comes from Severo Perez and how much from historical documents and first-hand accounts? What was your research process? And did you ever find that the history got in the way of telling your story?Real life does not have dramatic arcs. I made a few changes in chronology to get the story started. The chronology I gathered from black newspapers chronicling activities and events in Chicago. Handsome young people and airplanes made good copy. The interviewees had photo albums, and even better, they had boxes and envelopes with photo rejects, snapshots not enlarged and part of the albums. These rejected photos turned out to be revealing. There in the background were the actual locales and the planes they flew. Each photo was painstakingly copied. The images were then blown up to 8x10 and arranged chronologically. Thats where I found the story unfolding.To begin the tale, I had the the interviewees' versions about how they longed to learn to fly, and in the process they gave me gossip and details about the three main characters. As the wars in Asia and Europe began to loom, the activities of a flight school in Chicago gathered national and international notice. Learning to fly, to forming a flying club, to starting an accredited flight school, to the creation of the Tuskegee Airmen became the spine of the novel. Much of it is essentially factual. Who was present at this or that event, and what exactly was said is entirely imagined. I added fictional episodes to bring the world of 1930s Chicago into their lives.Another special aspect of historical fiction is that characters are based on actual people. Your Preface indicates that you had the cooperation of some of the people who lived through the events you write about, and also relatives and friends of your main characters. What has been the reaction from your sources to your depiction of people that they knew? And how much of the realororended up in your book?The real Cornelius Coffey and Willa Brown end up in the book pretty much as I found them. They were the right people at the right time. Johnny Robinsons personal story has taken on imagined and mythic qualities which I have attempted to keep realistic. I liked him a lot, part daredevil and talented pilot. He was used by Tuskegee to promote the institution and when the time came for Johnny to come to the school to start pilot training, Tuskegee dropped him in favor of a better connected, politically acceptable flight instructor. The episodes in Ethiopia are mostly fiction, though he was there during the Italian invasion. He did create a flight service. He wass personal pilot, which is saying quite a lot about his character. He lived out his life as a pilot in Ethiopia where he died in 1954.The relatives and participants who have read the book have liked it. Nobody is calling for it to become an HBO series, yet.Your book is self-published and available primarily (only?) online. Why did you opt to publish in this manner? What has been your experience with this format? Do you recommend this process to other writers?The book is available as a paperback or a kindle download. I was hoping for a publisher. A friend who happens to be a National Book Award finalist gave me the name of two agents. I followed the guidelines on the agents website and sent them what was asked for. I received nearly exactly worded rejection notices not signed by the agents. The majority of my films have been self-produced. Theyve been screened at festivals, licensed for television, earned royalties and no one looked down their nose at that. I can only speak for myself. I dont regret self-publishing for a moment. The book itself is quite handsome, and while its not a best seller, it does sell and the reviews have been good.Was the transition from filmmaker to novelist difficult? Which creative endeavor do you prefer? Are you working on another novel? Maybe another film?Writing a screenplay is demanding. Its similar to creating architectural drawings, except with language. Structure, story, character, and atmosphere are part of the design, and it also has to be a good read. However, some things are left to the imagination because the actors, costumes, set design, photography, sound, music and editing are what bring the film to life. In writing a novel, there are no shortcuts. Every word, sentence, paragraph and chapter has to stand on its own. Its an entirely different discipline, with some similarities. You have to sit for a long period of time to finish both.I started out to be a writer, wrote my first short story in the seventh grade, took short story and play writing classes in college. I had just gotten discharged from military service, was living in San Antonio and decided not to pursue academia. I was clueless as to how and where to publish. I picked up a 16 mm camera and fell in love with film making. It has been a forty-five-year journey and Ive enjoyed every minute of it.It didnt occur to me that undertaking a novel would be hard. After rewriting the first chapter for several months, I realized I wasin that moment when he runs off a cliff and discovers theres nothing below him. I didnt need a road runner to hand me an anvil. I had no idea what I was doing, and I was dropping fast.I humbly put aside Chapter 1, and got to work on Chapter 2. After that, when I finished a chapter I went on to the next. What followed was shaping the mass of chapters into a hopefully engaging, readable narrative. Now, as I work on a draft of my second novel, I look forward to the solitude needed to submerge myself in the narrative and exist on the page.Another film? Unless someone comes to me with money, it takes too much time and energy to launch a film project. Nothing takes less than 3 years, and most often longer. At 75 years of age I have to pick my creative projects carefully.How about other projects what can we expect from Severo Perez in 2016 2017?I hope my new book,, will come out this year. I have personal writing commitments I need to get to, and like planes lined up on a runway, they wont get clearance to take off untilis off the ground.Finally, I have to move our discussion to your remarkable film. In my opinion, that book is a masterpiece of writing. I even look to it for insight into what I call Chicano noir.precise writing cant be honored enough for what he did with the story of the migrant boy caught up in discovering the world and his own humanity. I also admire your film it managed to convey the feel of the book on the screen. You added what was needed for a movie but you preserved the honesty and reality of the book. Im sure youre very proud of that project. Unfortunately, there are few movies based on Chicana/o Literature. Do you have any thoughts about making another film based on another classic Chicano novel?has been done, but there are many others. Any suggestions for aspiring filmmakers?Thank you for the comments onFor me, Tomas Riveras book is like dense poetry. Powerful, beautiful, poignantly true. What struck me was that he wrote about a world familiar to me. My family didnt do migrant work, but my grandfather did sell vegetables from the back of a cart, and later a truck. I saw the movie in my mind the first time I read the book and became determined to make it into a film. I even called Tomas, who was at UTSA, and told him so. Of course, I had no idea how I would do it, and he must have thought I was nuts, except that I did everything in my power to make it happen. It took 21 years before the film premiered at the Santa Barbara Film Festival and won the audience award for best feature film. I am proud of the film. It went on to win 11 international awards, with special screenings at the Cannes Film Festival, Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, the Smithsonian among many others.My suggestion to aspiring filmmakers is to develop a mastery of the whole of the film making process: scripting, production planning, budgeting, production and post production. How do you get that kind of experience? By making yourself available to work on a crew. No matter how poor the pay, get on a professional production and figure out where you want to be. Volunteer if you can. Make yourself indispensable. Crews can be clannish, develop a tough skin, watch and learn. Never miss an opportunity to work on a production, experience is everything. Make a plan and see it through. Dont wait for an opportunity to come to you, make your opportunities.Is that the only way to break into the industry? No. You are all living in a fascinating time. The technology to make content is available on your phone; editing can be done on your laptop. And the cost is affordable. Give yourself a real project, not cat vines or stupid human fumbles. Learn to tell a story, whether its a documentary or a dramatic piece. Concentrate on the quality of the sound and images. Think about how your images flow one into the next. Take a risk by producing something suitable for broadcast. Consider every project you do a finger exercise for something more important to come, and get so good at it that producers will want you to make content for them.What project have I daydreamed about making? I would have loved to take part ofand parts of, and write a film about the Texas border. Its all there, epic and intimate.Thank you Severo - Excellent advice and I'm sure our readers enjoyed your perspective on writing, film making and the creative life in general. Good luck with your future endeavors. This website is intended for U.S. visitors only. HASTINGS, Minn. A former teacher is charged in Dakota County with stalking a 12-year-old female student. Prosecutors say 25-year-old Cody Woodrow Hansen sent numerous suggestive messages to the girl on social media from November to January. Hansen was a teacher at an Eagan middle school and has since resigned. A criminal complaint charges Hansen with two counts of stalking. Authorities say the girl had screen shots of some of the messages and told investigators she "felt creepy and unsafe" in Hansen's classroom. Hansen has not yet appeared in court and it was unclear whether he has an attorney. A recent gathering of representatives from 24 agencies and institutions showed how collaboration can be instrumental in accomplishing a community-wide goal. The representatives from area service and educational organizations met Feb. 1 at the Holland Town Hall to hear about the Holmen Area Community Center plans and were then asked to offer guidance for the proposed center. This was an unprecedented gathering of influential service sector leaders, said HACC co-chair Mary Lin Wershofen. We were so pleased with the turnout and the strong show of support for meeting citizen needs in the Holmen area. Organizations participating in the round-table discussion included Bethany St. Joseph, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Boys & Girls Clubs, Coulee Council on Addictions, Family and Childrens Center, Gundersen Health System, Gundersen RSVP, Health Science Consortium, Holmen Business Association, Holmen Area Foundation, Holmen Police Department, Holmens Hope, Holmen School District, Hunger Task Force, La Crosse County Human Services, Lutheran Social Services/Runaway Youth Services, Mayo Health System, Peace of Mind Counseling Services, Riverfront, The Parenting Place, WAFER, Winona Friendship Center, YMCA and YWCA. Boys & Girls Clubs Executive Director Mike Desmond said, Its not about turf. We need to collaborate to make our individual organizations stronger and thereby better serve our communities. The construction of a multi-generational community center in Holmen has been the goal of supporters for a number of years. HACC co-chair Laurie Kessler told the group proposals for a community center first focused on children and teens. Its still a priority to locate a safe, welcoming place for kids to go after school and on weekends, Kessler said. But over the four years or so this project has been in the works, it became evident that other generational groups want and would benefit from a multi-purpose facility. Volunteer meeting organizer Kelly Barton had participants meet in small groups for roundtable conversations. In the roundtable discussions, participants were encouraged to share their thoughts and expertise with a goal of determining how regional agencies could play a supportive role in developing a viable, financially sustainable programming plan for the HACC. Each discussion mainly focused on ways to monitor and otherwise stay in regular contact with the community to reflect citizen needs and interests. Other topics covered included developing creative workshops and mini-projects to engage older and younger community members in mutual-interest activities as well as a close collaboration with other organizations with similar service missions, such as the YMCA and the Boys & Girls Clubs. The enthusiasm and support from these agency leaders was so inspiring, said HACC co-chair Bob Stupi. Stupi also said that HACC committee members will seek to implement the advice given and noted by HACC Planning Committee, as well as actively pursuing the potential for collaboration brought out from this first-of-its-kind session. Stupi gave a brief visual overview of the issues driving the project. He described a building site already secured adjacent to Holmen High School and relatively near the districts middle school. He also related how the northern area of La Crosse County is among the fastest-growing population centers in Wisconsin as well as rapidly evolving into a regional partner with Onalaska and La Crosse. People live in Holmen and, for example, shop in Onalaska and work in La Crosse, Stupi said, citing merging educational, social and cultural needs as a primary reason for this meeting-of-the-minds. He reported around $2 million has been given or pledged thus far toward the $4.4 million building project. For more information about the proposed HACC or to contribute to the project, visit www.holmencc.org or contact a committee member. MILWAUKEE (AP) There is a mystique to the motorcycle. This is captured in Hollywood movies like Easy Rider to Milwaukees Harley Fest. Americans are intrigued by motorcycles. For Bradley Tech High School students in its BUILD program, the motorcycle is a unique way to learn job skills for the modern economy. Bradley Tech has a history of teaching the trades, WUWM-FM. Five years ago, the school implemented the BUILD program. The program teaches students skills to put together a fully functioning motorcycle. Steve Hopkins, an adviser for the program, says, (BUILD) just fits into the whole scope of what Bradley Tech is about. The program is not your typical science, math or English class in which students sit in desks all day; he says, it requires a lot of hands-on engagement with motorcycle parts and mechanics. Come on now, motorcycles, thats pretty cool, right? I mean, yeah, thats how I got interested in it, admits Alex Reyes, a Tech student. And they told me it was about building a motorcycle, so, I like the idea of that. While the glamour of motorcycles may be what initially attracts the students, Hopkins explains its not all grease and busted knuckles. We discuss history, design, engineering, fabrication, welding, powder coating, fiberglass mold making, tool identification and how to use them, and, yes, we do use math. For Angel Castro, another student in the program, this type of learning is working. I like that I get to learn more about the background history of the engineering of a motorcycle. We have fun. We work hard to get this done and try our best. Both Angel and Alex are interested in pursuing engineering after high school. I enjoy seeing the students become exposed to the hands on, the tool usage, the questions that are asked and the pride that ultimately shows when we go from a 1972 rusty, greasy, cruddy looking motorcycle to a freshly painted, freshly done, gone through from stem to stern motorcycle. Its a real treat, Hopkins says. Most importantly, Hopkins says, the skills learned in the BUILD program transcend motorcycles. That pride is something that were trying to build, a teamwork, pride in the end product. This happens to be a motorcycle, but it could be in any other discipline within that school, he says. The finished bike will appear in two races this summer: Gingerman Raceway in South Haven, Michigan on June 3-5 and Road America in Elkhart Lake, June 10-12 . At Road America, the students will compete for the BUILD Cup in which organizers will throw a wrench into the bike and the students will have to identify and fix the problem. The complete restructuring of the University of Wisconsin-Extension system announced last week is a drastic and unjustifiable reaction to a relatively small budget shortfall, La Crosse County officials said Thursday. The board unanimously approved a resolution opposing the plan and calling for county administrator Steve OMalley to reach out to other counties for support. La Crosse Countys share of the $1.2 million cut that prompted the reorganization plan announced by UW-Extension Chancellor Cathy Sandeen would come to less than $20,000 per year, according to OMalley. Dividing the budget shortfall per capita, the countys share comes to $18,788, an amount the county could easily absorb into its budget if it meant keeping the current level of services, OMalley said. Dividing the shortfall evenly by 72 counties, it would be $16,667 per county. OMalley and Supervisor Tina Wehrs, who is chairwoman of the committee that oversees La Crosse Countys extension office, met with Sandeen last month to suggest other options to offset that cut including the county covering the cost rather than the complete restructuring of the program. We can do our share. The chancellor and her staff were not interested in accepting that offer, OMalley said. Sandeen announced Feb. 10 that UW-Extension would eliminate 80 positions and combine county services into multi-county areas to offset a $3.6 million cut in state funding, $1.2 million of which is dedicated to county programming. The restructuring will combine La Crosse County extension programs with those in Monroe, Vernon, Richland and Crawford counties. Each countys office would remain open, but Sandeen said last week that each office would see staffing changes as agents are asked to cover the entire five-county area. The bottom line is that this new plan does not work for residents of La Crosse County, and I dont think, personally, any county in the state, Wehrs said. County supervisors warned that the loss in services caused by eliminating half of the areas educators would be reflected in the financial support provided by the county. This will be a large and clear message that going forward well have to reevaluate our relationship with UW-Extension, Wehrs said. The county currently funds 40 percent of all extension activities, with the UW System providing 60 percent. Will this county board continue to support funding that position to go serve other counties? OMalley asked. I doubt that. Supervisor Hubert Hoffman warned that the reorganization and cuts could lead to a chain reaction that chips away at the important services extension provides. I think the idea here is to do away with extension entirely, Hoffman said. OMalley added that he didnt believe the majority of counties have had the time to weigh in on the change yet, but those opposed needed to make a statement soon, as Sandeen plans to begin implementation this summer. If were going to have any influence on this, were going to have to take a strong position on it now and move ahead, OMalley said. With the approval of the resolution, OMalley will forward the countys opposition to all 72 Wisconsin county boards, as well as the Wisconsin Counties Association, UW System President Ray Cross and each of La Crosse Countys state legislators. Two seats are up for election, but the April 5 ballot will list only one Onalaska School Board candidate after a ruling released this afternoon by Wisconsins Government Accountability Board. The GAB upheld a challenge by Jake Speed to candidacy papers filed by incumbents Ann Garrity and Tim Smaby, overruling a decision by school board clerk Brian Haefs to allow them on the ballot. I was expecting it. I dont want to sound presumptuous, but there was just too much evidence in this case, Speed said after the ruling was announced. Im just happy that the GAB was there to make sure that the proper decision was rendered. Smaby and Garrity both said they were disappointed by the ruling. But we followed the process, Smaby said, and I respect the decision. It was an unfortunate mistake, theres no doubt about it. But now its time to move forward, he said. Both Garrity and Smaby said they plan to launch write-in campaigns. We both have something to contribute to the school district, Smaby said. Speed filed a challenge Jan. 8 to nominating petitions for Garrity and Smaby. The pages didnt include either the date of the election or the candidates home address, or both. When those pages were thrown out, the two incumbents fell short of the 100 signatures required to get on the ballot. After the invalid pages were thrown out, Garrity had 90 signatures and Smaby 93. The deficiencies of Garrity and Smabys papers were similar to those of Onalaska Mayor Joe Chilsens petition. After Jack Pogreba filed a protest over Chilsens petition, Onalaska City Clerk Cari Burmaster ruled that Chilsens name could not be included on the spring ballot, and the GAB supported Burmasters verdict when Chilsen appealed the ruling. Chilsen has since announced that he would run as a write-in candidate. One difference between Chilsens case and the school board candidates case involved the filing of affidavits of correction. Chilsen filed no affidavits, but Garrity and Smaby filed them before the hearing on Speeds challenge on Jan. 12. Thursdays GAB ruling indicated that those affidavits should have been filed before Jan. 8 and would have been invalid even if filed in time because the affidavits arent a legal remedy for missing header information. Speed, who owns a small business in Onalaska, didnt allege that Smaby and Garrity were trying to mislead anybody by not having complete information on their petition pages, but he argued their nomination papers betrayed a lack of attention to detail. They are responsible for $32-$34 million of taxpayer money every year. They need to show they can do everything required of the job, Speed said. This is part of the election process. Anybody that doesnt care enough to do that, I dont know what to say about that. Garrity, a former social worker who now works at West Salem Elementary as a special education paraprofessional, is president of the school board. Smaby, completing his first term on the board, is a former tenured finance professor at Penn State University-Erie who now works at Kaplan. Speed has never held public office locally, but hes a veteran campaigner, running unsuccessfully for Onalaska Town Board, La Crosse County Board and the state Assembly. He was involved in the local tea party movement early on but had a falling out with the group. Speed said he hopes to take part in some candidate forums so voters can get to know him. Im not afraid to tell people what Im about and what I believe, he said. DAVENPORT, Iowa Against a changing media landscape, Lee Enterprises is optimistic about its future as digital revenues continue to rise and it draws strong audiences to multiple platforms, company executives told shareholders Wednesday. Were upbeat about our accomplishments, and were on a positive, transformational path, said Mary Junck, the companys chairman, president and CEO, during the annual shareholders meeting at the publishers downtown Davenport headquarters. Before a standing-room-only crowd, most of whom were Lee employees, she said, Digital revenue is on a strong trajectory. Subscription revenue continues to grow, and the audiences in our markets are huge across all age groups and platforms. Junck, 68, who also was elected to her new position as Lee executive chairman, said the company is seeing a shift in its audiences. Our audience is migrating from using print exclusively to using a combination of print and digital or digital only. During a board of directors meeting following the shareholders meeting, Kevin Mowbray was elected president and chief executive officer in a leadership transition first announced in December. Mowbray, 54, had served as executive vice president and chief operating officer. Lee is the parent company of the La Crosse Tribune. The company reported a 28 percent growth in 2015 in its total digital revenue. These gains can be attributed to our ever-expanding suite of digital products and the talent and expertise of our sales force, Junck said, adding that digital subscription revenue has also been a key contributor to our growth. Junck and Ron Mayo, Lee vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer, both told shareholders that the company continues to focus on paying down its debt. Junck said the strong free cash flow has fueled aggressive deleveraging and kept us ahead of schedule in retiring debt, which we strongly believe drives long-term shareholder value. Mayo said the company has reduced debt by $80.5 million in the past 12 months, including $21.9 million in the first quarter of 2016. Lee also is reviewing its real estate portfolio with plans to monetize those assets where beneficial, he said. The undepreciated book value of its portfolio is worth about $200 million. We expect to reduce debt even further in the March quarter of 2016 as we continue to use all of our available free cash flow to reduce debt, he said. Carol Alexander, of Taylorville, Ill., a Lee retiree and shareholder, raised questions about the companys ability to meet the 2022 deadline to pay off its debt, as well as declining numbers in circulation, audience reach and print advertising. We have reduced our debt each and every year, and our forecast shows we will continue to pay down our debt and meet our obligations, Mayo said. To the questions about circulation, Junck said, There is no doubt we are in a changing industry. The mix of our audience is changing. Print-only is going down, but digital is going up. MILWAUKEE Gov. Scott Walker signed legislation Thursday that cuts millions of dollars in funding for Planned Parenthood in Wisconsin, which denounced the move as politically motivated and a detriment to the 60,000 women and men it serves in the state. One of the two bills the Republican governor signed at a faith-based counseling clinic in Waukesha requires clinics that participate in a federal program that allows them to purchase discounted drugs to bill Medicaid for the actual acquisition costs and a dispensing fee. The change will cost Planned Parenthood an estimated $4.5 million per year, according to the organization, because lower reimbursement rates are offered to clinics linked to abortion services. Although the bill doesnt mention Planned Parenthood by name, Democrats and others say it treats the organization differently than other clinics. The law is directed just at Planned Parenthood. Its to cut our funding so we cant provide services, said Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin director of government relations Nicole Safar. Legal action is certainly on the table. The law singles out Planned Parenthood. The other bill Walker signed at Lifes Connection prevents the state from directing any federal Title X grant money to an organization or affiliate that provides abortions. That could mean a loss of $3.5 million in federal dollars for Planned Parenthood. Safar said her organization will compete on its own for the Title X funding when the new grant cycle comes up in several years. Walker said the bills require the state Department of Health Services to apply for federal funding for womens health services on behalf of less controversial providers and ensures that prescription reimbursement processes are handled in a cost-based and transparent manner. Safar said the location of the bill signing sends a clear message about Walkers political motivation. It really is disingenuous to be talking about cuts to health care at an organization that provides religious counseling, but no health care, she said. Planned Parenthood has operated in Wisconsin for 80 years and has 22 health centers, three of which provide abortions. The bill signing comes four years after Republicans made other funding cuts to Planned Parenthood, which the organization said caused it to close five clinics. WASHINGTON There is an imbalance in the argument at the heart of the 2016 presidential campaign that threatens to undercut the Democrats chances of holding the White House. You might think otherwise. The divisions among Republicans are as sharp as they have been since 1964. Donald Trump may be building on the politics of resentment the GOP has pursued throughout President Obamas term. But Trumps mix of nationalism, xenophobia, a dash of economic populism and a searing critique of George W. Bushs foreign policy offers a philosophical smorgasbord that leaves the partys traditional ideology behind. Jeb Bush, the candidate who represents the greatest degree of continuity with the Republican past, is floundering. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, both Cuban-Americans, are competing fiercely over who is toughest on immigration. So much for the party opening its doors to new Americans. As for the less incendiary John Kasich, he probably wont be relevant to the race again until the primaries hit the Midwest. Add to this the GOPs demographic weakness young Americans are profoundly alienated from the party, and non-whites will only be further turned off by the spectacle created by Trump, Cruz & Co. and the likelihood of a third consecutive Democratic presidential victory is in view. But then comes the imbalance: If there is a common element in the rhetoric of all the Republican candidates, it is that Obamas presidency is an utter disaster, and he is trying to turn us, as Rubio keeps saying, into a different kind of country. Youd imagine from hearing the Republicans speak (Kasich is a partial exception) that we are in the midst of a new Great Depression, have just been defeated in a war, have lost our moral compass entirely, have no religious liberty, and are on the verge of a dictatorship established by a slew of illegal executive orders. Oh, yes, and the president who brought about all these horrors has lost the authority to name a Supreme Court justice, no matter what the Constitution which should otherwise be strictly interpreted says. You can laugh or cry over this, but it is a consistent message, carried every day by the media whenever they cover the Republican contest. The Democrats offer, well, a more nuanced approach. True, Hillary Clinton has embraced Obama more and more, seeing him as a life raft against Bernie Sanders formidable challenge. In particular, she knows that African-American voters deeply resent the way Obama has been treated by Republicans. (No other president, after all, has ever been told that any nomination he makes to the Supreme Court will be ignored.) Tying herself to Obama is a wise way of shoring up her up-to-now strong support among voters of color. Nonetheless, because so many Americans have been hurt by rising inequality and the economic changes of the last several decades, neither Democratic presidential candidate can quite say what hopefuls representing the incumbent party usually shout from the rooftops: Our stewardship has been a smashing success and we should get another term. Sanders, in fact, represents a wholesale rebellion against the status quo. He tries to say positive things about Obama and how the president dealt with the economic catastrophe that struck at the end of George W. Bushs term. But the democratic socialist from Vermont is not shy about insisting that much more should have been done to break up the banks, rein in the power of the wealthy, and provide far more sweeping health insurance and education benefits. A good case can be made and has been made by progressives throughout Obamas term that if Democrats said that everything was peachy, voters who are still hurting would write off the party entirely. But ambivalence does not win elections. Running to succeed Ronald Reagan in 1988, George H. W. Bush triumphed by proposing adjustments in Reagans environmental and education policies, but otherwise touting what enough voters decided were Reagans successes. Democrats need to insist that while much work remains to be done, the United States is in far better shape economically than most other countries in the world. The nation is better off for the reforms in health care, financial regulation and environmental protection enacted during Obamas term and should be proud of its energetic, entrepreneurial and diverse citizenry. If Clinton, Sanders and their party dont provide a forceful response to the wildly inaccurate and ridiculously bleak characterization of Obamas presidency that the Republicans are offering, nobody will. And if this parody is allowed to stand as reality, the Democrats will lose. The death of Justice Scalia places Supreme Court nominations as a prime election issue, as it should be. SCOTUS appointments are among the most enduring decisions of a president. Reagan appointed Scalia 30 years ago, and Scalias decisions raise questions about the type of judge who replaces him. Dead or living? Scalia believed that the Constitution is a dead document, that it should be interpreted literally as it was written for its time. Should it instead be interpreted as a living document according to issues of our time? Courts or voters? Scalia voted to stop the Florida vote recount and selected George W. Bush as president. Should voters or the court select elected officials? Are corporations people? Scalia voted to permit corporations to spend unlimited funds on elections. This has enabled wealthy interests to flood the media with attack ads. Foreign-owned corporations can even spend money on elections. This is a curious decision because at the time the Constitution was written information for elections came from local sources. Are corporations equal to people? Or should citizens decide how to fund election of their representatives? Organizations or individuals? Scalias decisions made it more difficult for individuals to bring cases to the Supreme Court. Should individuals have greater access to court consideration of their grievances? Should the president fulfill his constitutional responsibility and appoint a successor to Scalia, or should the opposition block the nomination? All of these questions and more are important issues for this presidential election. County executives could not serve concurrently in the state Legislature under a bill that passed the state Assembly late Thursday, which Democratic critics decried as a blatant attempt to target Winnebago County Executive Mark Harris. Harris is a Democratic candidate for an open Senate seat in Oshkosh and Fond du Lac that's expected to be hotly contested in the November election. The bill's critics note the issue didn't come up when Waukesha County Executive Paul Farrow continued to serve in the state Senate last year for three months so that he could vote on the state budget. Seven Republicans, including Rep. Michael Schraa, from Harris' hometown of Oshkosh, broke ranks to join Democrats in voting against the bill in Assembly Thursday. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said the bill simply treats county executives like county sheriffs, who also are barred from concurrently being lawmakers. "Double dipping is wrong," Vos said. "Take one job; be happy with it." Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, the bill's Senate sponsor, has acknowledged Harris is the impetus for the bill. He said Harris' candidacy raises questions about whether someone making six figures also should be allowed to collect an additional legislative salary of about $50,000 from taxpayers every year. "This is a Senate thing," Rep. Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, asked Assembly Republicans. "Why are you doing Sen. Fitzgeralds work?" Harris said in an interview Wednesday that the matter should be left to voters, who elected him to a county executive term that ends in April 2017. "I did expect that I would be able to finish my current county executive term," Harris said. "This isnt going to discourage me for running for Senate." If the bill becomes law and Harris wins the Senate seat, Harris would have to quit his $102,834-per-year job as county executive. He would make $50,950 plus an $88 per diem for each day spent in Madison as a senator. The Senate amended the bill to allow for a 60-day transition period, but it starts when the election results are certified, which is nearly 60 days before lawmakers are sworn into office. The Senate on Tuesday passed the bill 19-13 with one Democrat absent. Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, who is running for Milwaukee County executive, was the lone Democrat who voted for the bill, and Sen. Rob Cowles, R-Green Bay, was the lone Republican opposed. Gov. Scott Walker, a former Milwaukee County executive, was noncommittal about the bill when asked about it last week, but he brought up points raised by supporters. Colombia suspends safe passage for rebel peace negotiators BOGOTA, Colombia Colombia on Thursday suspended permits for rebel leaders negotiating a peace deal in Cuba to visit guerrilla camps after top commanders showed up with weapons in a towns main plaza in what the government said was a flagrant violation of the ground rules for such missions. The announcement by top government negotiator Humberto de la Calle followed the surprise appearance in photos and video footage of leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia interacting with townspeople with heavily armed guerrillas standing by. The incident took place along Colombias border with Venezuela, De la Calle said without providing more details. Among those present was the rebel leader known by his alias Ivan Marquez, who is head of the FARC negotiating team. UN says conflict in Ukraine has affected 580,000 children UNITED NATIONS The conflict in Ukraine has deeply affected 580,000 children close to the front lines and in areas in the volatile east not under government control, the U.N. childrens agency said late Thursday. UNICEF said in a statement that 200,000 youngsters more than a third need psycho-social support. Ukraine remains locked in conflict with Moscow, which annexed the Crimean Peninsula and has supported a pro-Russian insurgency in the east. Fighting there has killed more than 9,000 people since April 2014 and devastated the nations industrial heartland. Two years of violence, shelling and fear have left an indelible mark on thousands of children in eastern Ukraine, said Giovanna Barberis, UNICEFs representative in Ukraine. EU to hold migration summit with Turkey in early March BRUSSELS The European Union has called an extraordinary summit with Turkey for early March to coordinate efforts to stem the flow of migrants across the Aegean into Greece. EU Council President Donald Tusk said early Friday that the EUs joint action plan with Turkey remains a priority and we must do all we can to succeed. A precise date has not been set for the summit as the meeting still has not been discussed with Turkey but it is likely to take place in the first week of March. The EU has promised billions of euros, an easing of visa restrictions and fast-track membership for Turkey to persuade it to tighten border controls. More than 2 million refugees are on Turkish soil, most of them from Syria. Ex-presidential spokesman detained in activist death GEORGETOWN, Guyana A former spokesman for the two previous presidents of Guyana has been detained in the slaying of a political activist before last years general election in the South American country. Police officials said Kwame McKoy was in custody Thursday after turning himself in to authorities for questioning in the March 2015 death of activist Courtney Crum-Ewing. Police spokesman Wendell Blanhum said McKoy likely would be charged later in the week but did not provide details about his alleged involvement. McKoy did not yet have a lawyer representing him and has not made any public statements about the case. He was arrested along with several other men suspected of involvement in a killing that stoked tensions ahead of an election that ousted the governing Peoples Progressive Party. Argentina: 190,000 affected by power outages in heat wave BUENOS AIRES, Argentina A heat wave has led Argentinas government to schedule two days of power cuts in Buenos Aires and surrounding areas. Some 190,000 electricity customers were affected by Thursdays outages. More cuts are expected Friday. The planned electricity outages were ordered after citizens protested erratic power supply during the heat wave. Power outages are common in Argentina during the South American summer when temperatures can soar above 93 degrees and air conditioners are widely used. Argentinas energy ministry says the government is evaluating compensating affected users. A new degree program may make it easier for technical college students to transfer to a four-year college. Minnesota State College-Southeast Technical has applied to the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities board of trustees to confer an Associate of Arts degree beginning with the 2016 fall semester, college president Dorothy Duran said. Holders of the two-year liberal arts degree will be readily accepted with junior class status by most four-year colleges and universities, Duran said. The degree program is intended either as a terminal degree, or for students intending to transfer into a four-year degree program. Southeast Technical currently confers two-year Associate in Science and Associate in Applied Science degrees, in addition to technical certifications, but some colleges and universities are resistant to accepting credits earned in a non-AA program at a technical college. High school administrators were particularly passionate advocates for creation of an AA program, Duran said. About one-quarter of the students attending Southeast Technical are also high school students enrolled in the Post-Secondary Education Option programs offered through their high schools. The PSEO program allows high school students to enroll in a college or university and earn up to two years of college credit along with their high school diploma. "Students will be able to earn their AA degree while in high school," Duran said and begin their first year of college as a junior. Adding the AA degree will enhance the attraction of Southeast Technical and, hopefully boost enrollment. Assuring the transferability of credit will make the college a convenient, lower cost option for many studentsparticularly in the Red Wing areawho would otherwise have left their home communities for their first two years of college. Duran emphasized that the the proposed new degree option would not be created at the expense of the college's technical mission. "Our technical mission is just as important as our transfer mission," she said. The college will continue to work with business and industry to meet their need for qualified, skilled employees and student's desire for rewarding and remunerative careers. If the MnSCU board approves the degree in April as hoped for, the next task for the college will be to adopt a new name that reflects its added academic mission. Change is in the air at Minnesota State CollegeSoutheast Technical! We are now in the process of completing an application to expand our mission and offer an Associate of Arts (A.A.) degree. As a technical college, we currently offer certificates, diplomas, Associate of Science (A.S.) and Associate of Applied Science (A.A.S.) degrees. Most of these programs revolve around business, health care, the trades and technology. Southeast Technical has enjoyed a rich 64-year history in Winona and 42-year history in Red Wing. We have always endeavored to serve the educational needs of both communities. The technical education that our college is recognized for in its long history is at the heart of our mission and will continue to be our focus. In the process of expanding our programming, our mission will include not only preparation for the workforce but also the credit transfer component of the colleges program offerings. The Associate of Arts degree is especially designed as an option for students who are pursuing transfer to a four-year college or university. We are justly proud of our instruction in the liberal arts, humanities and sciences. Since 2009, Southeast Technical has offered the Minnesota Transfer Curriculum and students have enrolled in these courses to transfer to four-year institutions. In the future, a student who successfully completes an Associate of Arts degree at our college will be able to transfer to a four-year institution as a junior. Without an A.A. degree, the transfer of two-year programs is not always guaranteed. As we explore this exciting new opportunity, we are confronted with yet another major change. If our application to offer the Associate of Arts degree is successful, we will need to consider changing the colleges name. With an expanded mission comes a dual purpose we would become both a community and a technical college. Southeast Technical belongs to the Winona and Red Wing communities indeed to the entire region and we treasure the role we play serving your educational needs. For that reason, as the administration, faculty and staff work towards expanding our programming and updating our mission, we are seeking your suggestions for a new name for the college. We have created a simple online form and ask that you use it to submit your ideas for a new name. We value your suggestions and feedback. You will find the form at www.southeastmn.edu/name. As this process will evolve quickly, we will keep the form open until Feb. 10. Official approval of the new Associate of Arts degree, mission and name will not occur until April 2016. Thank you for your support of Minnesota State College-Southeast Technical! Please know that we are here to serve our students and our communities, now and in the future. Blog Archive Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (3) Oct 17 (4) Oct 16 (4) Oct 15 (2) Oct 14 (3) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (4) Oct 11 (3) Oct 10 (3) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (3) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (4) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (4) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (4) Sep 26 (3) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (5) Sep 23 (3) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (3) Sep 20 (4) Sep 19 (3) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (3) Sep 16 (3) Sep 15 (3) Sep 14 (4) Sep 13 (3) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (4) Sep 10 (2) Sep 09 (4) Sep 08 (4) Sep 07 (4) Sep 06 (3) Sep 05 (3) Sep 04 (3) Sep 03 (4) Sep 02 (3) Sep 01 (4) Aug 31 (4) Aug 30 (4) Aug 29 (4) Aug 28 (4) Aug 27 (4) Aug 26 (3) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (3) Aug 23 (3) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (3) Aug 20 (3) Aug 19 (3) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (4) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (4) Aug 13 (3) Aug 12 (3) Aug 11 (3) Aug 10 (3) Aug 09 (3) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (4) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (3) Aug 03 (4) Aug 02 (3) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (4) Jul 30 (3) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (4) Jul 27 (4) Jul 26 (5) Jul 25 (3) Jul 24 (4) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (3) Jul 19 (5) Jul 18 (2) Jul 17 (3) Jul 16 (4) Jul 15 (3) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (3) Jul 12 (3) Jul 11 (3) Jul 10 (3) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (4) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (3) Jul 05 (3) Jul 04 (3) Jul 03 (5) Jul 02 (2) Jul 01 (3) Jun 30 (4) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (3) Jun 25 (3) Jun 24 (5) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (3) Jun 21 (3) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (3) Jun 18 (4) Jun 17 (2) Jun 16 (3) Jun 15 (3) Jun 14 (4) Jun 13 (5) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (4) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (4) Jun 07 (5) Jun 06 (3) Jun 05 (3) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (4) Jun 02 (4) Jun 01 (3) May 31 (3) May 30 (3) May 29 (3) May 28 (3) May 27 (1) May 26 (4) May 25 (2) May 24 (3) May 23 (4) May 22 (3) May 21 (3) May 20 (3) May 19 (5) May 18 (4) May 17 (4) May 16 (3) May 15 (3) May 14 (3) May 13 (4) May 12 (3) May 11 (3) May 10 (3) May 09 (4) May 08 (2) May 07 (3) May 06 (4) May 05 (4) May 04 (4) May 03 (3) May 02 (4) May 01 (1) Apr 30 (5) Apr 29 (4) Apr 28 (4) Apr 27 (4) Apr 26 (4) Apr 25 (3) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (3) Apr 22 (4) Apr 21 (3) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (4) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (3) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (5) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (4) Apr 12 (3) Apr 11 (5) Apr 10 (3) Apr 09 (3) Apr 08 (4) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (6) Apr 04 (4) Apr 03 (3) Apr 02 (3) Apr 01 (3) Mar 31 (3) Mar 30 (4) Mar 29 (3) Mar 28 (4) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (4) Mar 25 (5) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (3) Mar 21 (5) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (3) Mar 18 (3) Mar 17 (4) Mar 16 (3) Mar 15 (4) Mar 14 (4) Mar 13 (3) Mar 12 (3) Mar 11 (4) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (4) Mar 08 (6) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (5) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (5) Mar 03 (3) Mar 02 (4) Mar 01 (4) Feb 28 (3) Feb 27 (4) Feb 26 (4) Feb 25 (5) Feb 24 (6) Feb 23 (3) Feb 22 (7) Feb 21 (6) Feb 20 (6) Feb 19 (3) Feb 18 (5) Feb 17 (5) Feb 16 (3) Feb 15 (3) Feb 14 (5) Feb 13 (3) Feb 12 (5) Feb 11 (3) Feb 10 (4) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (3) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (3) Feb 04 (3) Feb 03 (5) Feb 02 (3) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (3) Jan 30 (3) Jan 29 (4) Jan 28 (4) Jan 27 (3) Jan 26 (6) Jan 25 (3) Jan 24 (6) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (5) Jan 21 (4) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (3) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (3) Jan 16 (3) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (4) Jan 12 (3) Jan 11 (3) Jan 10 (3) Jan 09 (3) Jan 08 (4) Jan 07 (3) Jan 06 (4) Jan 05 (5) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (3) Jan 01 (4) Dec 31 (4) Dec 30 (3) Dec 29 (3) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (4) Dec 24 (4) Dec 23 (3) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (5) Dec 20 (2) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (4) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (5) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (4) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (3) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (4) Dec 08 (5) Dec 07 (4) Dec 06 (5) Dec 05 (4) Dec 04 (3) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (3) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (3) Nov 26 (4) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (3) Nov 23 (3) Nov 22 (3) Nov 21 (3) Nov 20 (3) Nov 19 (4) Nov 18 (3) Nov 17 (3) Nov 16 (3) Nov 15 (2) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (4) Nov 12 (5) Nov 11 (4) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (3) Nov 08 (4) Nov 07 (3) Nov 06 (3) Nov 05 (3) Nov 04 (3) Nov 03 (3) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (4) Oct 30 (4) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (3) Oct 25 (5) Oct 24 (2) Oct 23 (3) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (3) Oct 20 (4) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (5) Oct 17 (2) Oct 16 (3) Oct 15 (4) Oct 14 (4) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (3) Oct 11 (3) Oct 10 (4) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (4) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (5) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (4) Sep 30 (4) Sep 29 (5) Sep 28 (5) Sep 27 (2) Sep 26 (3) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (4) Sep 22 (4) Sep 21 (5) Sep 20 (3) Sep 19 (3) Sep 18 (4) Sep 17 (4) Sep 16 (5) Sep 15 (4) Sep 14 (5) Sep 13 (5) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (3) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (4) Sep 08 (3) Sep 07 (4) Sep 06 (5) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (3) Sep 03 (3) Sep 02 (3) Sep 01 (3) Aug 31 (4) Aug 30 (3) Aug 29 (4) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (3) Aug 26 (6) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (3) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (3) Aug 20 (5) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (5) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (4) Aug 13 (3) Aug 12 (3) Aug 11 (3) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (4) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (3) Aug 06 (3) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (2) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (4) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (4) Jul 30 (3) Jul 29 (4) Jul 28 (3) Jul 27 (4) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (4) Jul 23 (5) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (3) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (3) Jul 18 (3) Jul 17 (3) Jul 16 (3) Jul 15 (3) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (5) Jul 12 (5) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (3) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (4) Jul 05 (3) Jul 04 (3) Jul 03 (3) Jul 02 (5) Jul 01 (3) Jun 30 (4) Jun 29 (5) Jun 28 (2) Jun 27 (3) Jun 26 (3) Jun 25 (3) Jun 24 (3) Jun 23 (6) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (3) Jun 20 (3) Jun 19 (3) Jun 18 (3) Jun 17 (3) Jun 16 (3) Jun 15 (4) Jun 14 (5) Jun 13 (3) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (3) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (5) Jun 07 (3) Jun 06 (3) Jun 05 (3) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (3) Jun 02 (3) Jun 01 (3) May 31 (4) May 30 (3) May 29 (4) May 28 (4) May 27 (3) May 26 (5) May 25 (4) May 24 (4) May 23 (4) May 22 (3) May 21 (5) May 20 (4) May 19 (3) May 18 (3) May 17 (4) May 16 (3) May 15 (6) May 14 (3) May 13 (3) May 12 (5) May 11 (4) May 10 (3) May 09 (3) May 08 (3) May 07 (4) May 06 (3) May 05 (4) May 04 (4) May 03 (3) May 02 (3) May 01 (3) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (3) Apr 28 (3) Apr 27 (5) Apr 26 (4) Apr 25 (3) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (4) Apr 22 (3) Apr 21 (5) Apr 20 (6) Apr 19 (5) Apr 18 (5) Apr 17 (4) Apr 16 (5) Apr 15 (6) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (4) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (5) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (4) Apr 04 (4) Apr 03 (3) Apr 02 (6) Apr 01 (4) Mar 31 (4) Mar 30 (4) Mar 29 (4) Mar 28 (3) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (5) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (5) Mar 22 (5) Mar 21 (5) Mar 20 (6) Mar 19 (6) Mar 18 (4) Mar 17 (4) Mar 16 (5) Mar 15 (3) Mar 14 (7) Mar 13 (5) Mar 12 (8) Mar 11 (6) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (6) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (3) Mar 06 (5) Mar 05 (5) Mar 04 (5) Mar 03 (7) Mar 02 (4) Mar 01 (5) Feb 28 (3) Feb 27 (5) Feb 26 (6) Feb 25 (7) Feb 24 (4) Feb 23 (4) Feb 22 (7) Feb 21 (4) Feb 20 (3) Feb 19 (6) Feb 18 (5) Feb 17 (4) Feb 16 (4) Feb 15 (6) Feb 14 (6) Feb 13 (6) Feb 12 (4) Feb 11 (5) Feb 10 (4) Feb 09 (3) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (4) Feb 06 (7) Feb 05 (7) Feb 04 (7) Feb 03 (9) Feb 02 (7) Feb 01 (9) Jan 31 (5) Jan 30 (6) Jan 29 (5) Jan 28 (6) Jan 27 (6) Jan 26 (5) Jan 25 (6) Jan 24 (5) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (6) Jan 21 (6) Jan 20 (8) Jan 19 (4) Jan 18 (9) Jan 17 (5) Jan 16 (5) Jan 15 (6) Jan 14 (7) Jan 13 (7) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (7) Jan 10 (8) Jan 09 (7) Jan 08 (8) Jan 07 (11) Jan 06 (9) Jan 05 (5) Jan 04 (7) Jan 03 (6) Jan 02 (8) Jan 01 (8) Dec 31 (6) Dec 30 (6) Dec 29 (4) Dec 28 (7) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (5) Dec 25 (5) Dec 24 (5) Dec 23 (7) Dec 22 (5) Dec 21 (5) Dec 20 (5) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (6) Dec 17 (6) Dec 16 (4) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (5) Dec 13 (4) Dec 12 (5) Dec 11 (4) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (5) Dec 08 (6) Dec 07 (5) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (5) Dec 04 (5) Dec 03 (6) Dec 02 (4) Dec 01 (5) Nov 30 (4) Nov 29 (6) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (4) Nov 26 (4) Nov 25 (4) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (5) Nov 22 (7) Nov 21 (5) Nov 20 (6) Nov 19 (4) Nov 18 (3) Nov 17 (5) Nov 16 (5) Nov 15 (4) Nov 14 (5) Nov 13 (6) Nov 12 (6) Nov 11 (6) Nov 10 (8) Nov 09 (8) Nov 08 (7) Nov 07 (5) Nov 06 (5) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (6) Nov 03 (5) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (5) Oct 31 (4) Oct 30 (3) Oct 29 (5) Oct 28 (5) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (6) Oct 25 (6) Oct 24 (2) Oct 23 (3) Oct 22 (5) Oct 21 (4) Oct 20 (6) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (4) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (5) Oct 15 (2) Oct 14 (5) Oct 13 (2) Oct 12 (3) Oct 11 (7) Oct 10 (3) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (2) Oct 07 (7) Oct 06 (2) Oct 05 (6) Oct 04 (5) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (8) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (6) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (6) Sep 27 (4) Sep 26 (4) Sep 25 (4) Sep 24 (1) Sep 23 (5) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (2) Sep 20 (5) Sep 19 (3) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (5) Sep 16 (3) Sep 15 (4) Sep 14 (4) Sep 13 (4) Sep 12 (3) Sep 11 (3) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (4) Sep 07 (4) Sep 06 (4) Sep 05 (5) Sep 04 (2) Sep 03 (4) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (3) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (3) Aug 29 (2) Aug 28 (4) Aug 27 (4) Aug 26 (4) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (3) Aug 23 (2) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (4) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (4) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (5) Aug 12 (5) Aug 11 (3) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (3) Aug 08 (4) Aug 07 (3) Aug 06 (3) Aug 05 (3) Aug 04 (4) Aug 03 (4) Aug 02 (4) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (4) Jul 30 (5) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (3) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (4) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (3) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (5) Jul 19 (4) Jul 18 (4) Jul 17 (3) Jul 16 (4) Jul 15 (3) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (3) Jul 11 (3) Jul 10 (3) Jul 09 (4) Jul 08 (4) Jul 07 (4) Jul 06 (3) Jul 05 (5) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (4) Jul 02 (4) Jul 01 (4) Jun 30 (3) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (3) Jun 26 (3) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (5) Jun 23 (5) Jun 22 (5) Jun 21 (3) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (3) Jun 18 (3) Jun 17 (4) Jun 16 (4) Jun 15 (4) Jun 14 (4) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (6) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (4) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (5) Jun 07 (3) Jun 06 (3) Jun 05 (5) Jun 04 (5) Jun 03 (3) Jun 02 (5) Jun 01 (6) May 31 (3) May 30 (5) May 29 (3) May 28 (4) May 27 (5) May 26 (7) May 25 (4) May 24 (4) May 23 (4) May 22 (6) May 21 (4) May 20 (3) May 19 (5) May 18 (4) May 17 (4) May 16 (5) May 15 (4) May 14 (4) May 13 (5) May 12 (4) May 11 (5) May 10 (6) May 09 (7) May 08 (3) May 07 (6) May 06 (4) May 05 (6) May 04 (6) May 03 (4) May 02 (4) May 01 (4) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (3) Apr 28 (4) Apr 27 (4) Apr 26 (3) Apr 25 (6) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (5) Apr 22 (5) Apr 21 (7) Apr 20 (6) Apr 19 (5) Apr 18 (5) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (6) Apr 14 (5) Apr 13 (5) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (4) Apr 10 (6) Apr 09 (7) Apr 08 (7) Apr 07 (4) Apr 06 (7) Apr 05 (6) Apr 04 (5) Apr 03 (6) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (6) Mar 31 (4) Mar 30 (5) Mar 29 (5) Mar 28 (5) Mar 27 (6) Mar 26 (6) Mar 25 (7) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (4) Mar 22 (5) Mar 21 (5) Mar 20 (5) Mar 19 (4) Mar 18 (4) Mar 17 (4) Mar 16 (3) Mar 15 (4) Mar 14 (5) Mar 13 (5) Mar 12 (5) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (5) Mar 09 (5) Mar 08 (4) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (5) Mar 05 (6) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (5) Mar 02 (4) Mar 01 (3) Feb 29 (4) Feb 28 (4) Feb 27 (5) Feb 26 (5) Feb 25 (4) Feb 24 (5) Feb 23 (4) Feb 22 (5) Feb 21 (3) Feb 20 (4) Feb 19 (2) Feb 18 (5) Feb 17 (4) Feb 16 (4) Feb 15 (4) Feb 14 (4) Feb 13 (6) Feb 12 (5) Feb 11 (3) Feb 10 (5) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (5) Feb 06 (5) Feb 05 (5) Feb 04 (4) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (3) Feb 01 (2) Jan 31 (5) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (3) Jan 28 (5) Jan 27 (6) Jan 26 (4) Jan 25 (3) Jan 24 (4) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (3) Jan 21 (3) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (4) Jan 18 (3) Jan 17 (3) Jan 16 (3) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (3) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (3) Jan 09 (4) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (5) Jan 06 (3) Jan 05 (5) Jan 04 (3) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (1) Jan 01 (3) Dec 31 (3) Dec 30 (5) Dec 29 (4) Dec 28 (4) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (3) Dec 25 (3) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (3) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (4) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (4) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (5) Dec 15 (5) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (3) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (4) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (3) Dec 06 (5) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (3) Dec 03 (3) Dec 02 (4) Dec 01 (5) Nov 30 (3) Nov 29 (4) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (5) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (5) Nov 24 (3) Nov 23 (3) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (3) Nov 20 (3) Nov 19 (3) Nov 18 (3) Nov 17 (4) Nov 16 (3) Nov 15 (4) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (5) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (5) Nov 10 (2) Nov 09 (3) Nov 08 (3) Nov 07 (3) Nov 06 (1) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (3) Nov 03 (3) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (3) Oct 30 (3) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (3) Oct 25 (3) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (3) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (3) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (4) Oct 15 (4) Oct 14 (3) Oct 13 (4) Oct 12 (4) Oct 11 (4) Oct 10 (3) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (4) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (3) Oct 04 (4) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (4) Sep 30 (3) Sep 29 (4) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (4) Sep 26 (3) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (3) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (5) Sep 20 (3) Sep 19 (3) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (3) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (5) Sep 14 (3) Sep 13 (5) Sep 12 (5) Sep 11 (5) Sep 10 (5) Sep 09 (4) Sep 08 (3) Sep 07 (3) Sep 06 (3) Sep 05 (5) Sep 04 (3) Sep 03 (4) Sep 02 (3) Sep 01 (4) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (6) Aug 29 (3) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (4) Aug 26 (3) Aug 25 (4) Aug 24 (3) Aug 23 (4) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (3) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (4) Aug 15 (3) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (3) Aug 12 (4) Aug 11 (3) Aug 10 (3) Aug 09 (3) Aug 08 (4) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (3) Aug 05 (5) Aug 04 (3) Aug 03 (4) Aug 02 (3) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (4) Jul 30 (3) Jul 29 (4) Jul 28 (3) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (3) Jul 24 (4) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (3) Jul 20 (3) Jul 19 (3) Jul 18 (3) Jul 17 (3) Jul 16 (3) Jul 15 (4) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (3) Jul 12 (3) Jul 11 (3) Jul 10 (4) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (3) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (4) Jul 05 (3) Jul 04 (3) Jul 03 (4) Jul 02 (3) Jul 01 (5) Jun 30 (4) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (1) Jun 26 (5) Jun 25 (5) Jun 24 (4) Jun 23 (4) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (5) Jun 19 (3) Jun 18 (3) Jun 17 (3) Jun 16 (3) Jun 15 (3) Jun 14 (3) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (3) Jun 11 (4) Jun 10 (3) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (3) Jun 07 (3) Jun 06 (4) Jun 05 (3) Jun 04 (4) Jun 03 (4) Jun 02 (3) Jun 01 (4) May 31 (3) May 30 (3) May 29 (3) May 28 (4) May 27 (6) May 26 (3) May 25 (3) May 24 (3) May 23 (3) May 22 (5) May 21 (3) May 20 (3) May 19 (3) May 18 (4) May 17 (3) May 16 (3) May 15 (4) May 14 (4) May 13 (4) May 12 (5) May 11 (2) May 10 (3) May 09 (3) May 08 (3) May 07 (3) May 06 (3) May 05 (4) May 04 (3) May 03 (3) May 02 (4) May 01 (5) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (4) Apr 28 (4) Apr 27 (3) Apr 26 (5) Apr 25 (3) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (5) Apr 22 (3) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (1) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (3) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (3) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (4) Apr 11 (5) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (3) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (2) Apr 06 (3) Apr 05 (5) Apr 04 (3) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (3) Apr 01 (7) Mar 31 (2) Mar 30 (2) Mar 29 (1) Mar 28 (6) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (4) Mar 25 (4) Mar 24 (6) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (5) Mar 21 (4) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (3) Mar 18 (5) Mar 17 (3) Mar 16 (3) Mar 15 (4) Mar 14 (4) Mar 13 (6) Mar 12 (7) Mar 11 (4) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (4) Mar 08 (3) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (3) Mar 05 (3) Mar 04 (3) Mar 03 (3) Mar 02 (4) Mar 01 (4) Feb 28 (5) Feb 27 (5) Feb 26 (4) Feb 25 (4) Feb 24 (3) Feb 23 (3) Feb 22 (5) Feb 21 (5) Feb 20 (5) Feb 19 (4) Feb 18 (3) Feb 17 (3) Feb 16 (4) Feb 15 (3) Feb 14 (6) Feb 13 (4) Feb 12 (3) Feb 11 (6) Feb 10 (5) Feb 09 (3) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (6) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (6) Feb 04 (5) Feb 03 (3) Feb 02 (3) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (4) Jan 30 (6) Jan 29 (3) Jan 28 (4) Jan 27 (5) Jan 26 (4) Jan 25 (6) Jan 24 (3) Jan 23 (3) Jan 22 (4) Jan 21 (3) Jan 20 (4) Jan 19 (3) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (3) Jan 16 (3) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (4) Jan 13 (4) Jan 12 (3) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (5) Jan 09 (3) Jan 08 (4) Jan 07 (4) Jan 06 (3) Jan 05 (3) Jan 04 (3) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (3) Jan 01 (3) Dec 31 (5) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (3) Dec 28 (5) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (5) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (4) Dec 22 (7) Dec 21 (4) Dec 20 (5) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (6) Dec 17 (5) Dec 16 (3) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (7) Dec 10 (7) Dec 09 (4) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (4) Dec 06 (4) Dec 05 (4) Dec 04 (4) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (5) Nov 30 (3) Nov 29 (5) Nov 28 (4) Nov 27 (5) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (4) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (3) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (5) Nov 20 (3) Nov 19 (5) Nov 18 (3) Nov 17 (4) Nov 16 (5) Nov 15 (3) Nov 14 (4) Nov 13 (5) Nov 12 (7) Nov 11 (4) Nov 10 (6) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (4) Nov 07 (4) Nov 06 (3) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (3) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (3) Oct 30 (4) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (4) Oct 27 (4) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (4) Oct 24 (5) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (4) Oct 21 (3) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (4) Oct 18 (3) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (4) Oct 15 (4) Oct 14 (4) Oct 13 (4) Oct 12 (5) Oct 11 (3) Oct 10 (5) Oct 09 (5) Oct 08 (5) Oct 07 (6) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (3) Oct 04 (5) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (4) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (4) Sep 29 (4) Sep 28 (5) Sep 27 (5) Sep 26 (5) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (5) Sep 23 (5) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (4) Sep 20 (4) Sep 19 (3) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (4) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (3) Sep 14 (4) Sep 13 (4) Sep 12 (5) Sep 11 (4) Sep 10 (3) Sep 09 (4) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (4) Sep 06 (4) Sep 05 (5) Sep 04 (4) Sep 03 (3) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (3) Aug 31 (5) Aug 30 (4) Aug 29 (6) Aug 28 (6) Aug 27 (6) Aug 26 (5) Aug 25 (4) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (7) Aug 22 (4) Aug 21 (6) Aug 20 (3) Aug 19 (7) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (4) Aug 15 (3) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (6) Aug 12 (6) Aug 11 (4) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (3) Aug 08 (5) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (3) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (4) Aug 03 (6) Aug 02 (3) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (3) Jul 30 (3) Jul 29 (5) Jul 28 (5) Jul 27 (4) Jul 26 (6) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (3) Jul 23 (6) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (5) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (3) Jul 18 (3) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (6) Jul 15 (4) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (4) Jul 11 (3) Jul 10 (5) Jul 09 (4) Jul 08 (3) Jul 07 (4) Jul 06 (3) Jul 05 (3) Jul 04 (3) Jul 03 (3) Jul 02 (4) Jul 01 (4) Jun 30 (4) Jun 29 (3) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (3) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (5) Jun 23 (6) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (3) Jun 19 (4) Jun 18 (3) Jun 17 (4) Jun 16 (4) Jun 15 (4) Jun 14 (4) Jun 13 (3) Jun 12 (5) Jun 11 (5) Jun 10 (6) Jun 09 (5) Jun 08 (4) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (4) Jun 05 (3) Jun 04 (5) Jun 03 (3) Jun 02 (3) Jun 01 (4) May 31 (4) May 30 (3) May 29 (3) May 28 (5) May 27 (3) May 26 (4) May 25 (3) May 24 (6) May 23 (4) May 22 (5) May 21 (5) May 20 (4) May 19 (5) May 18 (6) May 17 (6) May 16 (4) May 15 (4) May 14 (5) May 13 (4) May 12 (3) May 11 (4) May 10 (5) May 09 (2) May 08 (4) May 07 (4) May 06 (4) May 05 (4) May 04 (4) May 03 (3) May 02 (3) May 01 (4) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (6) Apr 28 (6) Apr 27 (5) Apr 26 (5) Apr 25 (4) Apr 24 (6) Apr 23 (6) Apr 22 (5) Apr 21 (6) Apr 20 (4) Apr 19 (4) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (7) Apr 16 (5) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (8) Apr 13 (5) Apr 12 (3) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (6) Apr 08 (6) Apr 07 (5) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (3) Apr 04 (4) Apr 03 (6) Apr 02 (6) Apr 01 (3) Mar 31 (7) Mar 30 (6) Mar 29 (8) Mar 28 (5) Mar 27 (6) Mar 26 (8) Mar 25 (5) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (8) Mar 22 (5) Mar 21 (6) Mar 20 (5) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (4) Mar 17 (4) Mar 16 (5) Mar 15 (6) Mar 14 (5) Mar 13 (6) Mar 12 (4) Mar 11 (4) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (7) Mar 08 (4) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (4) Mar 05 (3) Mar 04 (4) Mar 03 (6) Mar 02 (3) Mar 01 (5) Feb 28 (7) Feb 27 (6) Feb 26 (8) Feb 25 (5) Feb 24 (8) Feb 23 (7) Feb 22 (8) Feb 21 (7) Feb 20 (7) Feb 19 (7) Feb 18 (5) Feb 17 (4) Feb 16 (6) Feb 15 (6) Feb 14 (5) Feb 13 (5) Feb 12 (7) Feb 11 (6) Feb 10 (7) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (6) Feb 07 (5) Feb 06 (5) Feb 05 (4) Feb 04 (4) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (5) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (5) Jan 30 (3) Jan 29 (6) Jan 28 (4) Jan 27 (3) Jan 26 (5) Jan 25 (4) Jan 24 (4) Jan 23 (5) Jan 22 (7) Jan 21 (6) Jan 20 (6) Jan 19 (3) Jan 18 (6) Jan 17 (5) Jan 16 (7) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (7) Jan 13 (5) Jan 12 (7) Jan 11 (5) Jan 10 (4) Jan 09 (4) Jan 08 (7) Jan 07 (3) Jan 06 (5) Jan 05 (5) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (4) Jan 02 (3) Jan 01 (6) Dec 31 (5) Dec 30 (3) Dec 29 (4) Dec 28 (7) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (6) Dec 24 (5) Dec 23 (5) Dec 22 (5) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (4) Dec 17 (6) Dec 16 (5) Dec 15 (4) Dec 14 (5) Dec 13 (4) Dec 12 (5) Dec 11 (7) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (3) Dec 08 (5) Dec 07 (6) Dec 06 (4) Dec 05 (4) Dec 04 (7) Dec 03 (6) Dec 02 (4) Dec 01 (4) Nov 30 (6) Nov 29 (4) Nov 28 (4) Nov 27 (7) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (5) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (4) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (7) Nov 20 (5) Nov 19 (4) Nov 18 (5) Nov 17 (6) Nov 16 (7) Nov 15 (5) Nov 14 (5) Nov 13 (5) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (7) Nov 10 (6) Nov 09 (7) Nov 08 (4) Nov 07 (9) Nov 06 (7) Nov 05 (7) Nov 04 (7) Nov 03 (5) Nov 02 (6) Nov 01 (6) Oct 31 (7) Oct 30 (6) Oct 29 (7) Oct 28 (4) Oct 27 (7) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (3) Oct 24 (6) Oct 23 (10) Oct 22 (6) Oct 21 (5) Oct 20 (5) Oct 19 (5) Oct 18 (4) Oct 17 (6) Oct 16 (5) Oct 15 (6) Oct 14 (7) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (5) Oct 11 (5) Oct 10 (6) Oct 09 (8) Oct 08 (6) Oct 07 (5) Oct 06 (4) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (4) Oct 02 (5) Oct 01 (5) Sep 30 (6) Sep 29 (5) Sep 28 (5) Sep 27 (6) Sep 26 (7) Sep 25 (6) Sep 24 (6) Sep 23 (6) Sep 22 (7) Sep 21 (5) Sep 20 (8) Sep 19 (6) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (5) Sep 16 (5) Sep 15 (5) Sep 14 (7) Sep 13 (5) Sep 12 (7) Sep 11 (5) Sep 10 (7) Sep 09 (7) Sep 08 (7) Sep 07 (6) Sep 06 (5) Sep 05 (3) Sep 04 (6) Sep 03 (7) Sep 02 (6) Sep 01 (6) Aug 31 (5) Aug 30 (5) Aug 29 (4) Aug 28 (5) Aug 27 (5) Aug 26 (3) Aug 25 (8) Aug 24 (5) Aug 23 (6) Aug 22 (7) Aug 21 (7) Aug 20 (6) Aug 19 (7) Aug 18 (5) Aug 17 (4) Aug 16 (6) Aug 15 (6) Aug 14 (6) Aug 13 (7) Aug 12 (6) Aug 11 (5) Aug 10 (6) Aug 09 (6) Aug 08 (5) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (4) Aug 05 (5) Aug 04 (6) Aug 03 (6) Aug 02 (5) Aug 01 (5) Jul 31 (7) Jul 30 (7) Jul 29 (4) Jul 28 (7) Jul 27 (6) Jul 26 (4) Jul 25 (3) Jul 24 (5) Jul 23 (4) Jul 22 (4) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (5) Jul 18 (5) Jul 17 (5) Jul 16 (4) Jul 15 (3) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (5) Jul 12 (6) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (4) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (4) Jul 07 (7) Jul 06 (5) Jul 05 (6) Jul 04 (3) Jul 03 (5) Jul 02 (4) Jul 01 (4) Jun 30 (3) Jun 29 (5) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (3) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (3) Jun 23 (4) Jun 22 (3) Jun 21 (3) Jun 20 (5) Jun 19 (3) Jun 18 (4) Jun 17 (5) Jun 16 (4) Jun 15 (4) Jun 14 (7) Jun 13 (5) Jun 12 (5) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (6) Jun 09 (4) Jun 08 (6) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (5) Jun 05 (4) Jun 04 (5) Jun 03 (5) Jun 02 (5) Jun 01 (5) May 31 (4) May 30 (5) May 29 (5) May 28 (5) May 27 (8) May 26 (7) May 25 (7) May 24 (5) May 23 (2) May 22 (5) May 21 (4) May 20 (5) May 19 (5) May 18 (5) May 17 (5) May 16 (7) May 15 (7) May 14 (7) May 13 (5) May 12 (6) May 11 (8) May 10 (4) May 09 (6) May 08 (10) May 07 (8) May 06 (5) May 05 (6) May 04 (7) May 03 (7) May 02 (8) May 01 (6) Apr 30 (6) Apr 29 (6) Apr 28 (9) Apr 27 (6) Apr 26 (5) Apr 25 (8) Apr 24 (7) Apr 23 (8) Apr 22 (6) Apr 21 (5) Apr 20 (10) Apr 19 (7) Apr 18 (7) Apr 17 (8) Apr 16 (5) Apr 15 (6) Apr 14 (9) Apr 13 (11) Apr 12 (8) Apr 11 (5) Apr 10 (10) Apr 09 (7) Apr 08 (5) Apr 07 (9) Apr 06 (10) Apr 05 (5) Apr 04 (5) Apr 03 (7) Apr 02 (6) Apr 01 (5) Mar 31 (3) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (1) Mar 28 (5) Mar 27 (7) Mar 26 (8) Mar 25 (4) Mar 24 (8) Mar 23 (5) Mar 22 (4) Mar 21 (5) Mar 20 (7) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (8) Mar 17 (8) Mar 16 (3) Mar 15 (6) Mar 14 (9) Mar 13 (6) Mar 12 (6) Mar 11 (7) Mar 10 (6) Mar 09 (8) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (9) Mar 04 (7) Mar 03 (6) Mar 02 (5) Mar 01 (7) Feb 28 (8) Feb 27 (7) Feb 26 (4) Feb 25 (9) Feb 24 (6) Feb 23 (6) Feb 22 (7) Feb 21 (3) Feb 20 (6) Feb 19 (5) Feb 18 (5) Feb 17 (4) Feb 16 (4) Feb 15 (5) Feb 14 (8) Feb 13 (6) Feb 12 (4) Feb 11 (5) Feb 10 (6) Feb 09 (7) Feb 08 (6) Feb 07 (6) Feb 06 (6) Feb 05 (5) Feb 04 (5) Feb 03 (10) Feb 02 (9) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (8) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (9) Jan 28 (6) Jan 27 (5) Jan 26 (6) Jan 25 (7) Jan 24 (6) Jan 23 (6) Jan 22 (5) Jan 21 (7) Jan 20 (8) Jan 19 (5) Jan 18 (5) Jan 17 (5) Jan 16 (5) Jan 15 (5) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (5) Jan 12 (6) Jan 11 (5) Jan 10 (5) Jan 09 (4) Jan 08 (3) Jan 07 (5) Jan 06 (5) Jan 05 (6) Jan 04 (5) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (3) Jan 01 (3) Dec 31 (3) Dec 30 (3) Dec 29 (3) Dec 28 (4) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (5) Dec 25 (6) Dec 24 (7) Dec 23 (7) Dec 22 (4) Dec 21 (5) Dec 20 (6) Dec 19 (10) Dec 18 (9) Dec 17 (10) Dec 16 (8) Dec 15 (4) Dec 14 (6) Dec 13 (10) Dec 12 (6) Dec 11 (5) Dec 10 (6) Dec 09 (5) Dec 08 (8) Dec 07 (5) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (6) Dec 04 (7) Dec 03 (7) Dec 02 (6) Dec 01 (9) Nov 30 (5) Nov 29 (9) Nov 28 (7) Nov 27 (6) Nov 26 (7) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (4) Nov 22 (7) Nov 21 (7) Nov 20 (4) Nov 19 (8) Nov 18 (12) Nov 17 (8) Nov 16 (6) Nov 15 (4) Nov 14 (11) Nov 13 (11) Nov 12 (9) Nov 11 (6) Nov 10 (9) Nov 09 (9) Nov 08 (7) Nov 07 (7) Nov 06 (8) Nov 05 (8) Nov 04 (6) Nov 03 (4) Nov 02 (7) Nov 01 (5) Oct 31 (7) Oct 30 (6) Oct 29 (7) Oct 28 (4) Oct 27 (7) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (7) Oct 24 (4) Oct 23 (7) Oct 22 (7) Oct 21 (6) Oct 20 (8) Oct 19 (7) Oct 18 (6) Oct 17 (6) Oct 16 (8) Oct 15 (5) Oct 14 (6) Oct 13 (7) Oct 12 (5) Oct 11 (5) Oct 10 (8) Oct 09 (8) Oct 08 (7) Oct 07 (7) Oct 06 (7) Oct 05 (8) Oct 04 (6) Oct 03 (8) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (6) Sep 30 (10) Sep 29 (7) Sep 28 (10) Sep 27 (10) Sep 26 (11) Sep 25 (5) Sep 24 (6) Sep 23 (5) Sep 22 (5) Sep 21 (8) Sep 20 (8) Sep 19 (6) Sep 18 (6) Sep 17 (7) Sep 16 (5) Sep 15 (6) Sep 14 (5) Sep 13 (6) Sep 12 (5) Sep 11 (10) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (3) Sep 08 (8) Sep 07 (4) Sep 06 (7) Sep 05 (8) Sep 04 (7) Sep 03 (6) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (3) Aug 31 (6) Aug 30 (3) Aug 29 (4) Aug 28 (5) Aug 27 (6) Aug 26 (5) Aug 25 (9) Aug 24 (7) Aug 23 (8) Aug 22 (5) Aug 21 (9) Aug 20 (8) Aug 19 (7) Aug 18 (6) Aug 17 (5) Aug 16 (8) Aug 15 (6) Aug 14 (5) Aug 13 (6) Aug 12 (5) Aug 11 (7) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (9) Aug 08 (9) Aug 07 (5) Aug 06 (5) Aug 05 (6) Aug 04 (6) Aug 03 (7) Aug 02 (7) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (6) Jul 30 (7) Jul 29 (8) Jul 28 (8) Jul 27 (6) Jul 26 (9) Jul 25 (9) Jul 24 (7) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (7) Jul 21 (9) Jul 20 (6) Jul 19 (9) Jul 18 (7) Jul 17 (2) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (7) Jul 14 (7) Jul 13 (8) Jul 12 (4) Jul 11 (4) Jul 10 (7) Jul 09 (6) Jul 08 (6) Jul 07 (4) Jul 06 (4) Jul 05 (6) Jul 04 (8) Jul 03 (3) Jul 02 (7) Jul 01 (6) Jun 30 (4) Jun 29 (6) Jun 28 (5) Jun 27 (6) Jun 26 (6) Jun 25 (7) Jun 24 (4) Jun 23 (5) Jun 22 (7) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (6) Jun 19 (4) Jun 18 (6) Jun 17 (5) Jun 16 (6) Jun 15 (4) Jun 14 (5) Jun 13 (7) Jun 12 (8) Jun 11 (5) Jun 10 (4) Jun 09 (7) Jun 08 (6) Jun 07 (5) Jun 06 (7) Jun 05 (5) Jun 04 (6) Jun 03 (5) Jun 02 (8) Jun 01 (6) May 31 (7) May 30 (4) May 29 (5) May 28 (1) May 27 (5) May 26 (8) May 25 (5) May 24 (8) May 23 (8) May 22 (7) May 21 (5) May 20 (6) May 19 (9) May 18 (5) May 17 (9) May 16 (7) May 15 (5) May 14 (11) May 13 (6) May 12 (13) May 11 (5) May 10 (7) May 09 (6) May 08 (8) May 07 (9) May 06 (6) May 05 (5) May 04 (2) May 03 (6) May 02 (7) May 01 (4) Apr 30 (5) Apr 29 (7) Apr 28 (6) Apr 27 (6) Apr 26 (10) Apr 25 (7) Apr 24 (5) Apr 23 (4) Apr 22 (7) Apr 21 (3) Apr 20 (6) Apr 19 (6) Apr 18 (3) Apr 17 (10) Apr 16 (6) Apr 15 (6) Apr 14 (5) Apr 13 (4) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (10) Apr 10 (6) Apr 09 (6) Apr 08 (10) Apr 07 (6) Apr 06 (6) Apr 05 (5) Apr 04 (4) Apr 03 (5) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (6) Mar 31 (5) Mar 30 (9) Mar 29 (8) Mar 28 (8) Mar 27 (7) Mar 26 (9) Mar 25 (11) Mar 24 (10) Mar 23 (6) Mar 22 (8) Mar 21 (3) Mar 20 (6) Mar 19 (2) Mar 18 (9) Mar 17 (7) Mar 16 (6) Mar 15 (10) Mar 14 (6) Mar 13 (6) Mar 12 (10) Mar 11 (7) Mar 10 (8) Mar 09 (6) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (6) Mar 06 (7) Mar 05 (6) Mar 04 (10) Mar 03 (2) Mar 02 (8) Mar 01 (9) Feb 29 (11) Feb 28 (8) Feb 27 (6) Feb 26 (8) Feb 25 (8) Feb 24 (9) Feb 23 (12) Feb 22 (10) Feb 21 (11) Feb 20 (6) Feb 19 (5) Feb 18 (9) Feb 17 (9) Feb 16 (10) Feb 15 (8) Feb 14 (9) Feb 13 (8) Feb 12 (8) Feb 11 (7) Feb 10 (7) Feb 09 (7) Feb 08 (9) Feb 07 (7) Feb 06 (10) Feb 05 (10) Feb 04 (6) Feb 03 (8) Feb 02 (7) Feb 01 (6) Jan 31 (10) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (6) Jan 28 (9) Jan 27 (7) Jan 26 (8) Jan 25 (8) Jan 24 (7) Jan 23 (6) Jan 22 (8) Jan 21 (6) Jan 20 (10) Jan 19 (8) Jan 18 (6) Jan 17 (7) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (8) Jan 13 (8) Jan 12 (6) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (6) Jan 09 (8) Jan 08 (4) Jan 07 (5) Jan 06 (6) Jan 05 (9) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (7) Jan 02 (6) Jan 01 (3) Dec 31 (6) Dec 30 (9) Dec 29 (6) Dec 28 (2) Dec 27 (8) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (6) Dec 24 (5) Dec 23 (6) Dec 22 (8) Dec 21 (8) Dec 20 (4) Dec 19 (8) Dec 18 (6) Dec 17 (8) Dec 16 (7) Dec 15 (9) Dec 14 (7) Dec 13 (4) Dec 12 (4) Dec 11 (5) Dec 10 (6) Dec 09 (4) Dec 08 (5) Dec 07 (4) Dec 06 (4) Dec 05 (5) Dec 04 (4) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (7) Dec 01 (7) Nov 30 (5) Nov 29 (5) Nov 28 (6) Nov 27 (3) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (5) Nov 24 (8) Nov 23 (2) Nov 22 (6) Nov 21 (5) Nov 20 (5) Nov 19 (4) Nov 18 (4) Nov 17 (4) Nov 16 (6) Nov 15 (5) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (6) Nov 12 (5) Nov 11 (4) Nov 10 (4) Nov 09 (2) Nov 08 (5) Nov 07 (4) Nov 06 (8) Nov 05 (5) Nov 04 (6) Nov 03 (6) Nov 02 (5) Nov 01 (5) Oct 31 (6) Oct 30 (6) Oct 29 (5) Oct 28 (5) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (5) Oct 25 (8) Oct 24 (7) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (7) Oct 21 (5) Oct 20 (5) Oct 19 (5) Oct 18 (6) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (2) Oct 15 (2) Oct 14 (2) Oct 13 (6) Oct 12 (9) Oct 11 (3) Oct 10 (6) Oct 09 (4) Oct 08 (5) Oct 07 (6) Oct 06 (6) Oct 05 (7) Oct 04 (5) Oct 03 (4) Oct 02 (5) Oct 01 (8) Sep 30 (3) Sep 29 (6) Sep 28 (6) Sep 27 (9) Sep 26 (4) Sep 25 (4) Sep 24 (5) Sep 23 (3) Sep 22 (6) Sep 21 (4) Sep 20 (4) Sep 19 (5) Sep 18 (7) Sep 17 (6) Sep 16 (7) Sep 15 (4) Sep 14 (8) Sep 13 (3) Sep 12 (7) Sep 11 (8) Sep 10 (5) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (8) Sep 07 (5) Sep 06 (6) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (7) Sep 03 (5) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (4) Aug 31 (5) Aug 30 (6) Aug 29 (5) Aug 28 (5) Aug 27 (4) Aug 26 (3) Aug 25 (7) Aug 24 (6) Aug 23 (6) Aug 22 (6) Aug 21 (5) Aug 20 (5) Aug 19 (5) Aug 18 (5) Aug 17 (5) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (7) Aug 14 (8) Aug 13 (8) Aug 12 (4) Aug 11 (6) Aug 10 (5) Aug 09 (4) Aug 08 (9) Aug 07 (6) Aug 06 (7) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (4) Aug 03 (6) Aug 02 (6) Aug 01 (6) Jul 31 (4) Jul 30 (5) Jul 29 (4) Jul 28 (6) Jul 27 (4) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (5) Jul 24 (4) Jul 23 (4) Jul 22 (5) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (2) Jul 19 (4) Jul 18 (7) Jul 17 (8) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (5) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (5) Jul 12 (4) Jul 11 (7) Jul 10 (5) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (4) Jul 06 (4) Jul 05 (6) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (10) Jul 02 (4) Jul 01 (2) Jun 30 (3) Jun 29 (3) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (3) Jun 26 (6) Jun 25 (3) Jun 24 (3) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (3) Jun 18 (3) Jun 17 (3) Jun 16 (4) Jun 15 (3) Jun 14 (4) Jun 13 (3) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (2) Jun 10 (2) Jun 09 (2) Jun 08 (3) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (3) Jun 05 (1) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (2) Jun 02 (2) Jun 01 (2) May 31 (2) May 30 (3) May 29 (3) May 28 (5) May 27 (1) May 26 (1) May 25 (2) May 24 (2) May 23 (1) May 22 (2) May 21 (2) May 20 (3) May 19 (3) May 18 (2) May 17 (2) May 16 (2) May 15 (3) May 14 (2) May 13 (2) May 12 (2) May 11 (3) May 10 (3) May 09 (2) May 08 (3) May 07 (2) May 06 (2) May 05 (2) May 04 (2) May 03 (3) May 02 (2) May 01 (2) Apr 30 (1) Apr 29 (2) Apr 28 (3) Apr 27 (2) Apr 26 (2) Apr 25 (2) Apr 24 (2) Apr 23 (3) Apr 22 (4) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (2) Apr 17 (2) Apr 16 (2) Apr 15 (2) Apr 14 (2) Apr 13 (2) Apr 12 (2) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (3) Apr 09 (2) Apr 08 (2) Apr 07 (2) Apr 06 (2) Apr 05 (3) Apr 04 (2) Apr 03 (2) Apr 02 (2) Apr 01 (2) Mar 31 (1) Mar 30 (1) Mar 29 (2) Mar 28 (2) Mar 27 (2) Mar 26 (3) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (2) Mar 23 (2) Mar 22 (1) Mar 21 (1) Mar 20 (2) Mar 19 (2) Mar 18 (2) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (2) Mar 14 (2) Mar 13 (2) Mar 12 (2) Mar 11 (3) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (3) Mar 08 (2) Mar 07 (1) Mar 06 (2) Mar 05 (3) Mar 04 (3) Mar 03 (8) Mar 02 (2) Mar 01 (1) Feb 28 (2) Feb 27 (4) Feb 26 (1) Feb 25 (1) Feb 24 (2) Feb 23 (2) Feb 22 (4) Feb 21 (2) Feb 20 (2) Feb 19 (2) Feb 18 (2) Feb 17 (2) Feb 16 (2) Feb 15 (1) Feb 14 (1) Feb 13 (1) Feb 12 (2) Feb 11 (1) Feb 10 (2) Feb 09 (1) Feb 08 (1) Feb 07 (1) Feb 06 (1) Feb 05 (5) Feb 03 (1) Feb 02 (1) Feb 01 (1) Jan 31 (4) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (4) Jan 28 (2) Jan 27 (5) Jan 26 (5) Jan 25 (5) Jan 24 (3) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (4) Jan 21 (3) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (4) Jan 18 (3) Jan 17 (2) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (5) Jan 13 (5) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (3) Jan 09 (5) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (4) Jan 06 (3) Jan 05 (4) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (6) Jan 02 (3) Jan 01 (4) Dec 31 (4) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (5) Dec 28 (5) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (4) Dec 24 (1) Dec 23 (4) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (5) Dec 20 (5) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (4) Dec 17 (5) Dec 16 (4) Dec 15 (6) Dec 14 (4) Dec 13 (4) Dec 12 (5) Dec 11 (5) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (5) Dec 08 (4) Dec 07 (4) Dec 06 (5) Dec 05 (4) Dec 04 (4) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (4) Nov 29 (4) Nov 28 (5) Nov 27 (4) Nov 26 (4) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (5) Nov 23 (4) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (4) Nov 20 (4) Nov 19 (5) Nov 18 (4) Nov 17 (4) Nov 16 (3) Nov 15 (5) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (4) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (4) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (3) Nov 08 (3) Nov 07 (4) Nov 06 (4) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (3) Nov 03 (2) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (3) Oct 30 (4) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (4) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (3) Oct 25 (3) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (3) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (3) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (3) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (4) Oct 15 (5) Oct 14 (3) Oct 13 (6) Oct 12 (4) Oct 11 (4) Oct 10 (3) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (3) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (3) Sep 26 (5) Sep 25 (5) Sep 24 (4) Sep 23 (5) Sep 22 (4) Sep 21 (4) Sep 20 (5) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (5) Sep 17 (5) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (5) Sep 14 (4) Sep 13 (3) Sep 12 (6) Sep 11 (6) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (4) Sep 08 (3) Sep 07 (3) Sep 06 (3) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (4) Sep 03 (3) Sep 02 (3) Sep 01 (4) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (3) Aug 29 (4) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (4) Aug 26 (3) Aug 25 (4) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (3) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (3) Aug 20 (5) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (5) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (3) Aug 12 (4) Aug 11 (3) Aug 10 (3) Aug 09 (4) Aug 08 (2) Aug 07 (2) Aug 06 (2) Aug 05 (2) Aug 04 (2) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (4) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (2) Jul 30 (5) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (3) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (6) Jul 24 (3) Jul 23 (4) Jul 22 (4) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (4) Jul 18 (4) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (4) Jul 15 (5) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (4) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (5) Jul 09 (2) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (2) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (3) Jul 03 (4) Jul 02 (5) Jul 01 (3) Jun 30 (2) Jun 29 (3) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (5) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (5) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (2) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (3) Jun 18 (3) Jun 17 (1) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (2) Jun 13 (5) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (2) Jun 09 (2) Jun 08 (2) Jun 07 (2) Jun 06 (2) Jun 05 (2) Jun 04 (2) Jun 03 (2) Jun 02 (4) Jun 01 (3) May 31 (4) May 30 (5) May 29 (3) May 28 (3) May 27 (3) May 26 (4) May 25 (4) May 24 (2) May 23 (4) May 22 (4) May 21 (5) May 20 (6) May 19 (4) May 18 (3) May 17 (4) May 16 (5) May 15 (6) May 14 (4) May 13 (9) May 12 (4) May 11 (5) May 10 (5) May 09 (4) May 08 (3) May 07 (5) May 06 (3) May 05 (4) May 04 (5) May 03 (1) May 02 (5) May 01 (7) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (5) Apr 28 (4) Apr 27 (1) Apr 26 (4) Apr 25 (4) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (4) Apr 22 (3) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (4) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (3) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (3) Apr 14 (4) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (6) Apr 10 (1) Apr 09 (4) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (5) Apr 04 (1) Apr 03 (3) Apr 02 (4) Apr 01 (3) Mar 31 (1) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (4) Mar 28 (3) Mar 27 (4) Mar 26 (2) Mar 25 (4) Mar 24 (6) Mar 23 (5) Mar 22 (5) Mar 21 (4) Mar 20 (6) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (4) Mar 17 (4) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (4) Mar 14 (3) Mar 13 (4) Mar 12 (4) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (5) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (3) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (3) Mar 03 (3) Mar 02 (5) Mar 01 (4) Feb 28 (2) Feb 27 (3) Feb 26 (3) Feb 25 (3) Feb 24 (4) Feb 23 (4) Feb 22 (3) Feb 21 (4) Feb 20 (4) Feb 19 (3) Feb 18 (3) Feb 17 (3) Feb 16 (5) Feb 15 (4) Feb 14 (3) Feb 13 (4) Feb 12 (3) Feb 11 (3) Feb 10 (4) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (3) Feb 07 (4) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (3) Feb 04 (3) Feb 03 (5) Feb 02 (4) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (3) Jan 30 (3) Jan 29 (4) Jan 28 (3) Jan 27 (2) Jan 26 (4) Jan 25 (3) Jan 24 (5) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (4) Jan 21 (3) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (3) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (4) Jan 13 (3) Jan 12 (6) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (4) Jan 09 (3) Jan 08 (4) Jan 07 (3) Jan 06 (4) Jan 05 (3) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (5) Jan 02 (4) Jan 01 (3) Dec 31 (2) Dec 30 (2) Dec 29 (2) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (3) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (4) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (5) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (3) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (2) Dec 11 (6) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (4) Dec 08 (6) Dec 07 (5) Dec 06 (3) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (4) Dec 03 (3) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (4) Nov 30 (2) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (2) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (5) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (6) Nov 22 (5) Nov 21 (4) Nov 20 (2) Nov 19 (5) Nov 18 (7) Nov 17 (5) Nov 16 (4) Nov 15 (6) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (3) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (3) Nov 07 (2) Nov 06 (2) Nov 05 (2) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (4) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (2) Oct 31 (3) Oct 30 (4) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (2) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (3) Oct 25 (2) Oct 24 (2) Oct 23 (2) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (2) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (2) Oct 17 (2) Oct 16 (2) Oct 15 (2) Oct 14 (4) Oct 13 (2) Oct 12 (3) Oct 11 (2) Oct 10 (2) Oct 09 (4) Oct 08 (4) Oct 07 (4) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (5) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (6) Oct 01 (6) Sep 30 (5) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (7) Sep 26 (4) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (5) Sep 23 (8) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (3) Sep 20 (6) Sep 19 (3) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (5) Sep 16 (7) Sep 15 (3) Sep 14 (4) Sep 13 (3) Sep 12 (5) Sep 11 (5) Sep 10 (5) Sep 09 (7) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (2) Sep 06 (7) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (4) Sep 03 (2) Sep 02 (2) Sep 01 (2) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (3) Aug 29 (3) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (3) Aug 26 (4) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (3) Aug 23 (3) Aug 22 (4) Aug 21 (4) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (2) Aug 16 (2) Aug 15 (5) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (5) Aug 12 (10) Aug 11 (5) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (5) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (6) Aug 05 (5) Aug 04 (5) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (5) Aug 01 (7) Jul 31 (5) Jul 30 (4) Jul 29 (4) Jul 28 (3) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (5) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (5) Jul 23 (5) Jul 22 (7) Jul 21 (5) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (5) Jul 18 (6) Jul 17 (5) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (6) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (3) Jul 12 (2) Jul 11 (2) Jul 10 (2) Jul 09 (2) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (2) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (3) Jul 02 (2) Jul 01 (8) Jun 30 (6) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (6) Jun 27 (6) Jun 26 (6) Jun 25 (6) Jun 24 (6) Jun 23 (4) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (5) Jun 18 (8) Jun 17 (6) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (5) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (6) Jun 10 (4) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (5) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (3) Jun 05 (3) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (3) Jun 02 (3) Jun 01 (4) May 31 (2) May 30 (2) May 29 (2) May 28 (2) May 27 (4) May 26 (4) May 25 (3) May 24 (2) May 23 (2) May 22 (3) May 21 (5) May 20 (4) May 19 (2) May 18 (3) May 17 (3) May 16 (3) May 15 (4) May 14 (5) May 13 (3) May 12 (4) May 11 (3) May 10 (4) May 09 (4) May 08 (4) May 07 (3) May 06 (2) May 05 (3) May 04 (4) May 03 (2) May 02 (3) May 01 (3) Apr 30 (3) Apr 29 (4) Apr 28 (2) Apr 27 (3) Apr 26 (4) Apr 25 (2) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (2) Apr 22 (2) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (4) Apr 19 (5) Apr 18 (7) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (10) Apr 15 (5) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (4) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (4) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (7) Apr 08 (4) Apr 07 (7) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (7) Apr 04 (5) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (5) Mar 31 (5) Mar 30 (5) Mar 29 (7) Mar 28 (6) Mar 27 (5) Mar 26 (5) Mar 25 (6) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (5) Mar 22 (5) Mar 21 (4) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (6) Mar 18 (6) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (5) Mar 14 (4) Mar 13 (5) Mar 12 (5) Mar 11 (4) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (2) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (3) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (4) Mar 02 (4) Mar 01 (5) Feb 28 (6) Feb 27 (4) Feb 26 (4) Feb 25 (6) Feb 24 (2) Feb 23 (3) Feb 22 (4) Feb 21 (6) Feb 20 (2) Feb 19 (6) Feb 18 (4) Feb 17 (2) Feb 16 (3) Feb 15 (6) Feb 14 (6) Feb 13 (6) Feb 12 (9) Feb 11 (5) Feb 10 (3) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (7) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (4) Feb 04 (5) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (3) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (4) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (3) Jan 28 (2) Jan 27 (2) Jan 26 (3) Jan 25 (4) Jan 24 (4) Jan 23 (2) Jan 22 (2) Jan 21 (5) Jan 20 (4) Jan 19 (5) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (4) Jan 16 (3) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (3) Jan 12 (3) Jan 11 (2) Jan 10 (8) Jan 09 (6) Jan 08 (2) Jan 07 (2) Jan 06 (3) Jan 05 (2) Jan 04 (2) Jan 03 (2) Jan 02 (2) Jan 01 (2) Dec 31 (2) Dec 30 (3) Dec 29 (3) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (2) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (2) Dec 23 (2) Dec 22 (2) Dec 21 (2) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (2) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (2) Dec 16 (2) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (2) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (3) Dec 10 (5) Dec 09 (3) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (2) Dec 06 (3) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (5) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (4) Nov 29 (4) Nov 28 (2) Nov 27 (2) Nov 26 (2) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (2) Nov 23 (2) Nov 22 (2) Nov 21 (2) Nov 20 (3) Nov 19 (3) Nov 18 (2) Nov 17 (2) Nov 16 (5) Nov 15 (5) Nov 14 (4) Nov 13 (2) Nov 12 (2) Nov 11 (2) Nov 10 (2) Nov 09 (2) Nov 08 (2) Nov 07 (3) Nov 06 (6) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (5) Nov 03 (5) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (5) Oct 31 (7) Oct 30 (5) Oct 29 (4) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (2) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (4) Oct 24 (4) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (2) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (2) Oct 18 (2) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (5) Oct 15 (4) Oct 14 (2) Oct 13 (2) Oct 12 (4) Oct 11 (5) Oct 10 (4) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (2) Oct 05 (5) Oct 04 (5) Oct 03 (4) Oct 02 (4) Oct 01 (5) Sep 30 (2) Sep 29 (2) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (6) Sep 26 (2) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (2) Sep 22 (2) Sep 21 (2) Sep 20 (2) Sep 19 (3) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (3) Sep 16 (2) Sep 15 (4) Sep 14 (3) Sep 13 (5) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (6) Sep 10 (2) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (5) Sep 06 (4) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (3) Sep 03 (2) Sep 02 (3) Sep 01 (3) Aug 31 (2) Aug 30 (2) Aug 29 (3) Aug 28 (6) Aug 27 (3) Aug 26 (2) Aug 25 (2) Aug 24 (3) Aug 23 (2) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (5) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (3) Aug 18 (2) Aug 17 (5) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (5) Aug 13 (2) Aug 12 (2) Aug 11 (2) Aug 10 (2) Aug 09 (2) Aug 08 (5) Aug 07 (5) Aug 06 (6) Aug 05 (2) Aug 04 (5) Aug 03 (2) Aug 02 (3) Aug 01 (2) Jul 31 (4) Jul 30 (2) Jul 29 (2) Jul 28 (2) Jul 27 (2) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (2) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (2) Jul 21 (3) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (2) Jul 18 (3) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (2) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (2) Jul 12 (3) Jul 11 (2) Jul 10 (2) Jul 09 (2) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (2) Jul 06 (2) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (2) Jul 03 (2) Jul 02 (2) Jul 01 (3) Jun 30 (3) Jun 29 (7) Jun 28 (3) Jun 27 (2) Jun 26 (3) Jun 25 (1) Jun 24 (2) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (5) Jun 21 (3) Jun 20 (2) Jun 19 (2) Jun 18 (2) Jun 17 (2) Jun 16 (2) Jun 15 (2) Jun 14 (2) Jun 13 (3) Jun 12 (3) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (2) Jun 09 (4) Jun 08 (2) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (5) Jun 05 (3) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (2) Jun 02 (2) Jun 01 (4) May 31 (2) May 30 (3) May 29 (3) May 28 (3) May 27 (2) May 26 (2) May 25 (2) May 24 (2) May 23 (2) May 22 (3) May 21 (3) May 20 (2) May 19 (2) May 18 (4) May 17 (7) May 16 (2) May 15 (2) May 14 (4) May 13 (3) May 12 (4) May 11 (4) May 10 (4) May 09 (3) May 08 (2) May 07 (2) May 06 (2) May 05 (1) May 04 (2) May 03 (4) May 02 (3) May 01 (4) Apr 30 (1) Apr 29 (3) Apr 28 (2) Apr 27 (3) Apr 26 (2) Apr 25 (2) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (2) Apr 22 (2) Apr 21 (2) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (5) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (3) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (4) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (2) Apr 06 (3) Apr 05 (3) Apr 04 (1) Apr 03 (1) Apr 02 (1) Apr 01 (2) Mar 31 (2) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (2) Mar 28 (3) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (3) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (2) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (3) Mar 21 (4) Mar 20 (2) Mar 19 (3) Mar 18 (1) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (2) Mar 15 (1) Mar 14 (3) Mar 13 (1) Mar 12 (2) Mar 11 (1) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (2) Mar 08 (1) Mar 07 (1) Mar 04 (2) Mar 02 (2) Feb 28 (1) Feb 24 (1) Dec 31 (4) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (4) Dec 28 (5) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (3) Dec 25 (4) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (3) Dec 22 (4) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (3) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (3) Dec 10 (3) Dec 09 (3) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (3) Dec 06 (3) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (3) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (3) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (3) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (3) Nov 23 (3) Nov 22 (3) Nov 21 (3) Nov 20 (3) Nov 19 (3) Nov 18 (3) Nov 17 (3) Nov 16 (2) Nov 15 (3) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (3) Nov 10 (4) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (4) Nov 07 (3) Nov 06 (3) Nov 05 (5) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (3) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (4) Oct 30 (3) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (2) Oct 27 (4) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (4) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (3) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (4) Oct 20 (4) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (4) Oct 17 (4) Oct 16 (3) Oct 15 (3) Oct 14 (3) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (3) Oct 11 (3) Oct 10 (4) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (4) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (4) Oct 02 (5) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (4) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (4) Sep 26 (3) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (3) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (3) Sep 20 (3) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (3) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (3) Sep 14 (3) Sep 13 (3) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (4) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (4) Sep 08 (4) Sep 07 (3) Sep 06 (3) Sep 05 (3) Sep 04 (3) Sep 03 (3) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (3) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (4) Aug 29 (3) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (3) Aug 26 (3) Aug 25 (4) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (5) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (3) Aug 20 (3) Aug 19 (3) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (3) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (3) Aug 12 (3) Aug 11 (4) Aug 10 (5) Aug 09 (3) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (5) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (3) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (3) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (3) Jul 30 (4) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (5) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (3) Jul 24 (3) Jul 23 (4) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (3) Jul 19 (3) Jul 18 (4) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (4) Jul 15 (3) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (5) Jul 11 (4) Jul 10 (4) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (3) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (5) Jul 05 (3) Jul 04 (3) Jul 03 (4) Jul 02 (3) Jul 01 (6) Jun 30 (4) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (3) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (4) Jun 25 (5) Jun 24 (4) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (5) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (4) Jun 18 (5) Jun 17 (4) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (3) Jun 13 (3) Jun 12 (3) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (5) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (4) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (5) Jun 05 (4) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (4) Jun 02 (5) Jun 01 (3) May 31 (4) May 30 (3) May 29 (3) May 28 (3) May 27 (3) May 26 (4) May 25 (4) May 24 (4) May 23 (4) May 22 (3) May 21 (3) May 20 (4) May 19 (3) May 18 (3) May 17 (4) May 16 (3) May 15 (4) May 14 (3) May 13 (4) May 12 (1) May 11 (3) May 10 (3) May 09 (3) May 08 (3) May 07 (4) May 06 (3) May 05 (4) May 04 (4) May 03 (3) May 02 (3) May 01 (6) Apr 30 (3) Apr 29 (3) Apr 28 (3) Apr 27 (5) Apr 26 (3) Apr 25 (3) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (3) Apr 22 (3) Apr 21 (3) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (3) Apr 17 (4) Apr 16 (3) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (3) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (3) Apr 09 (3) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (3) Apr 05 (3) Apr 04 (3) Apr 03 (3) Apr 02 (3) Apr 01 (3) Mar 31 (3) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (3) Mar 28 (4) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (3) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (3) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (3) Mar 21 (3) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (3) Mar 18 (3) Mar 17 (3) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (3) Mar 14 (3) Mar 13 (3) Mar 12 (4) Mar 11 (3) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (4) Mar 08 (3) Mar 07 (3) Mar 06 (4) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (3) Mar 03 (3) Mar 02 (3) Mar 01 (3) Feb 28 (3) Feb 27 (3) Feb 26 (3) Feb 25 (3) Feb 24 (2) Feb 23 (3) Feb 22 (3) Feb 21 (3) Feb 20 (3) Feb 19 (3) Feb 18 (3) Feb 17 (3) Feb 16 (3) Feb 15 (3) Feb 14 (3) Feb 13 (3) Feb 12 (3) Feb 11 (4) Feb 10 (3) Feb 09 (3) Feb 08 (3) Feb 07 (4) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (3) Feb 04 (4) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (4) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (3) Jan 30 (3) Jan 29 (3) Jan 28 (5) Jan 27 (4) Jan 26 (5) Jan 25 (5) Jan 24 (5) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (3) Jan 21 (4) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (5) Jan 18 (5) Jan 17 (4) Jan 16 (3) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (5) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (4) Jan 09 (3) Jan 08 (3) Jan 07 (3) Jan 06 (3) Jan 05 (3) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (3) Jan 01 (4) Dec 31 (3) Dec 30 (3) Dec 29 (3) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (3) Dec 25 (3) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (4) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (4) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (4) Dec 10 (3) Dec 09 (3) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (3) Dec 06 (4) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (3) Dec 03 (3) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (3) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (3) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (6) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (5) Nov 20 (4) Nov 19 (4) Nov 18 (4) Nov 17 (4) Nov 16 (3) Nov 15 (2) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (2) Nov 11 (3) Nov 10 (2) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (5) Nov 07 (3) Nov 06 (2) Nov 05 (2) Nov 04 (3) Nov 03 (2) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (2) Oct 30 (6) Oct 29 (5) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (5) Oct 26 (3) Oct 25 (4) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (5) Oct 20 (4) Oct 19 (4) Oct 18 (4) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (2) Oct 15 (3) Oct 14 (3) Oct 13 (2) Oct 12 (2) Oct 11 (2) Oct 10 (3) Oct 09 (4) Oct 08 (2) Oct 07 (2) Oct 06 (2) Oct 05 (3) Oct 04 (2) Oct 03 (4) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (3) Sep 29 (4) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (2) Sep 26 (2) Sep 25 (2) Sep 24 (1) Sep 23 (1) Sep 22 (2) Sep 21 (2) Sep 20 (1) Sep 19 (1) Sep 18 (1) Sep 17 (2) Sep 16 (1) Sep 15 (2) Sep 14 (2) Sep 13 (1) Sep 12 (1) Sep 11 (2) Sep 10 (2) Sep 09 (1) Sep 08 (1) Sep 07 (2) Sep 06 (1) Sep 05 (1) Sep 04 (2) Sep 03 (1) Sep 02 (1) Sep 01 (1) Aug 31 (2) Aug 30 (1) Aug 29 (1) Aug 28 (1) Aug 27 (1) Aug 26 (1) Aug 25 (1) Aug 24 (1) Aug 23 (2) Aug 22 (1) Aug 21 (1) Aug 20 (2) Aug 19 (1) Aug 18 (1) Aug 17 (2) Aug 16 (2) Aug 15 (1) Aug 14 (1) Aug 12 (1) Aug 09 (1) Aug 08 (1) Aug 07 (1) Aug 05 (1) Aug 04 (1) Jul 31 (1) Jul 30 (3) Jul 29 (5) Jul 28 (2) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (3) Jul 24 (3) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (3) Jul 18 (4) Jul 17 (6) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (3) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (4) Jul 11 (3) Jul 10 (4) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (4) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (5) Jul 05 (4) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (4) Jul 02 (5) Jul 01 (3) Jun 30 (4) Jun 29 (6) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (4) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (4) Jun 23 (4) Jun 22 (6) Jun 21 (3) Jun 20 (3) Jun 19 (6) Jun 18 (5) Jun 17 (5) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (4) Jun 14 (4) Jun 13 (5) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (4) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (3) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (3) Jun 05 (4) Jun 04 (5) Jun 03 (5) Jun 02 (4) Jun 01 (5) May 31 (4) May 30 (4) May 29 (4) May 28 (5) May 27 (5) May 26 (5) May 25 (4) May 24 (5) May 23 (4) May 22 (4) May 21 (3) May 20 (6) May 19 (4) May 18 (4) May 17 (4) May 16 (5) May 15 (3) May 14 (3) May 13 (4) May 12 (3) May 11 (3) May 10 (3) May 09 (3) May 08 (3) May 07 (3) May 06 (3) May 05 (3) May 04 (3) May 03 (3) May 02 (3) May 01 (4) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (6) Apr 28 (3) Apr 27 (3) Apr 26 (3) Apr 25 (4) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (3) Apr 22 (3) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (3) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (3) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (6) Apr 12 (4) Apr 11 (4) Apr 10 (5) Apr 09 (7) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (4) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (4) Apr 04 (6) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (4) Apr 01 (3) Mar 31 (4) Mar 30 (5) Mar 29 (5) Mar 28 (6) Mar 27 (5) Mar 26 (5) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (4) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (3) Mar 21 (5) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (4) Mar 17 (5) Mar 16 (5) Mar 15 (3) Mar 14 (6) Mar 13 (4) Mar 12 (4) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (7) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (4) Mar 03 (4) Mar 02 (6) Mar 01 (4) Feb 28 (4) Feb 27 (4) Feb 26 (5) Feb 25 (4) Feb 24 (5) Feb 23 (5) Feb 22 (6) Feb 21 (6) Feb 20 (3) Feb 19 (6) Feb 18 (7) Feb 17 (4) Feb 16 (5) Feb 15 (7) Feb 14 (5) Feb 13 (5) Feb 12 (6) Feb 11 (8) Feb 10 (4) Feb 09 (6) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (3) Feb 06 (6) Feb 05 (3) Feb 04 (6) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (3) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (5) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (6) Jan 28 (3) Jan 27 (6) Jan 26 (6) Jan 25 (4) Jan 24 (5) Jan 23 (5) Jan 22 (5) Jan 21 (5) Jan 20 (5) Jan 19 (5) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (6) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (5) Jan 13 (3) Jan 12 (4) Jan 11 (5) Jan 10 (3) Jan 09 (6) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (4) Jan 06 (5) Jan 05 (6) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (2) Jan 01 (4) Dec 31 (3) Dec 30 (3) Dec 29 (5) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (4) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (4) Dec 22 (5) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (4) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (7) Dec 17 (5) Dec 16 (5) Dec 15 (5) Dec 14 (5) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (6) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (3) Dec 08 (5) Dec 07 (4) Dec 06 (3) Dec 05 (4) Dec 04 (5) Dec 03 (5) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (6) Nov 30 (5) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (4) Nov 27 (4) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (5) Nov 24 (3) Nov 23 (4) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (4) Nov 20 (5) Nov 19 (5) Nov 18 (4) Nov 17 (5) Nov 16 (3) Nov 15 (4) Nov 14 (4) Nov 13 (4) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (3) Nov 10 (4) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (3) Nov 07 (5) Nov 06 (4) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (5) Nov 03 (4) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (3) Oct 30 (5) Oct 29 (4) Oct 28 (5) Oct 27 (5) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (3) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (5) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (4) Oct 20 (2) Oct 19 (4) Oct 18 (2) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (4) Oct 15 (5) Oct 14 (4) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (4) Oct 11 (4) Oct 10 (2) Oct 09 (5) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (5) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (6) Oct 02 (4) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (5) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (6) Sep 27 (4) Sep 26 (4) Sep 25 (5) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (3) Sep 22 (4) Sep 21 (4) Sep 20 (2) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (4) Sep 17 (4) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (5) Sep 14 (5) Sep 13 (4) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (5) Sep 10 (3) Sep 09 (3) Sep 08 (3) Sep 07 (3) Sep 06 (3) Sep 05 (6) Sep 04 (5) Sep 03 (4) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (4) Aug 31 (4) Aug 30 (4) Aug 29 (2) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (2) Aug 26 (3) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (4) Aug 22 (2) Aug 21 (5) Aug 20 (3) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (2) Aug 15 (3) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (4) Aug 12 (3) Aug 11 (4) Aug 10 (3) Aug 09 (3) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (6) Aug 06 (3) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (5) Aug 03 (4) Aug 02 (3) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (3) Jul 30 (4) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (4) Jul 27 (4) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (3) Jul 24 (4) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (2) Jul 20 (3) Jul 19 (4) Jul 18 (3) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (3) Jul 15 (5) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (5) Jul 11 (4) Jul 10 (4) Jul 09 (8) Jul 08 (6) Jul 07 (4) Jul 06 (3) Jul 05 (3) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (3) Jul 02 (4) Jul 01 (5) Jun 30 (3) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (3) Jun 27 (3) Jun 26 (4) Jun 25 (3) Jun 24 (3) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (2) Jun 21 (1) Jun 20 (2) Jun 19 (2) Jun 18 (4) Jun 17 (4) Jun 16 (3) Jun 15 (7) Jun 14 (3) Jun 13 (3) Jun 12 (5) Jun 11 (4) Jun 10 (3) Jun 09 (4) Jun 08 (3) Jun 07 (5) Jun 06 (3) Jun 05 (4) Jun 04 (4) Jun 03 (4) Jun 02 (3) Jun 01 (4) May 31 (3) May 30 (3) May 29 (3) May 28 (3) May 27 (3) May 26 (3) May 25 (4) May 24 (2) May 23 (4) May 22 (3) May 21 (2) May 20 (3) May 19 (2) May 18 (4) May 17 (4) May 16 (3) May 15 (2) May 14 (6) May 13 (4) May 12 (2) May 11 (3) May 10 (2) May 09 (3) May 08 (4) May 07 (4) May 06 (3) May 05 (3) May 04 (4) May 03 (3) May 02 (4) May 01 (3) Apr 30 (2) Apr 29 (5) Apr 28 (2) Apr 27 (2) Apr 26 (3) Apr 25 (3) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (4) Apr 22 (2) Apr 21 (3) Apr 20 (2) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (5) Apr 17 (4) Apr 16 (3) Apr 15 (2) Apr 14 (4) Apr 13 (5) Apr 12 (3) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (5) Apr 09 (4) Apr 08 (4) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (4) Apr 04 (4) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (6) Mar 31 (2) Mar 30 (5) Mar 29 (4) Mar 28 (4) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (4) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (4) Mar 21 (3) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (3) Mar 17 (5) Mar 16 (2) Mar 15 (4) Mar 14 (4) Mar 13 (2) Mar 12 (4) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (4) Mar 08 (4) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (5) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (4) Mar 03 (3) Mar 02 (4) Mar 01 (5) Feb 28 (4) Feb 27 (5) Feb 26 (6) Feb 25 (4) Feb 24 (5) Feb 23 (5) Feb 22 (4) Feb 21 (6) Feb 20 (6) Feb 19 (4) Feb 18 (4) Feb 17 (2) Feb 16 (4) Feb 15 (3) Feb 14 (4) Feb 13 (5) Feb 12 (4) Feb 11 (3) Feb 10 (4) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (3) Feb 07 (2) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (3) Feb 04 (4) Feb 03 (3) Feb 02 (3) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (3) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (3) Jan 28 (5) Jan 27 (3) Jan 26 (5) Jan 25 (3) Jan 24 (4) Jan 23 (2) Jan 22 (3) Jan 21 (4) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (4) Jan 18 (3) Jan 17 (3) Jan 16 (2) Jan 15 (2) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (2) Jan 12 (3) Jan 11 (3) Jan 10 (2) Jan 09 (4) Jan 08 (2) Jan 07 (2) Jan 06 (2) Jan 05 (3) Jan 04 (3) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (3) Jan 01 (1) Dec 31 (2) Dec 30 (2) Dec 29 (2) Dec 28 (2) Dec 27 (2) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (1) Dec 24 (2) Dec 23 (4) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (2) Dec 20 (1) Dec 19 (2) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (2) Dec 16 (2) Dec 15 (4) Dec 14 (2) Dec 13 (1) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (2) Dec 10 (2) Dec 09 (2) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (2) Dec 06 (1) Dec 05 (2) Dec 04 (1) Dec 03 (2) Dec 02 (2) Dec 01 (2) Nov 30 (2) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (2) Nov 27 (2) Nov 26 (1) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (1) Nov 23 (3) Nov 22 (1) Nov 21 (3) Nov 20 (2) Nov 18 (2) Nov 17 (1) Nov 16 (1) Nov 15 (1) Nov 14 (1) Nov 13 (2) Nov 12 (3) Nov 11 (2) Nov 10 (2) Nov 09 (1) Nov 08 (2) Nov 07 (1) Nov 06 (2) Nov 05 (2) Nov 04 (1) Nov 03 (1) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (2) Oct 31 (2) Oct 30 (2) Oct 29 (4) Oct 28 (2) Oct 27 (4) Oct 26 (2) Oct 25 (2) Oct 24 (4) Oct 23 (2) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (3) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (1) Oct 18 (3) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (2) Oct 15 (1) Oct 14 (2) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (2) Oct 10 (2) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (2) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (1) Oct 03 (2) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (1) Sep 29 (2) Sep 28 (1) Sep 27 (3) Sep 26 (3) Sep 25 (2) Sep 24 (1) Sep 23 (2) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (1) Sep 20 (1) Sep 19 (2) Sep 17 (2) Sep 16 (2) Sep 15 (1) Sep 14 (1) Sep 13 (1) Sep 12 (3) Sep 11 (1) Sep 10 (2) Sep 09 (2) Sep 08 (2) Sep 07 (1) Sep 06 (1) Sep 05 (3) Sep 04 (2) Sep 03 (1) Sep 02 (1) Sep 01 (2) Aug 31 (2) Aug 30 (1) Aug 29 (2) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (2) Aug 26 (1) Aug 25 (1) Aug 24 (2) Aug 23 (2) Aug 22 (1) Aug 21 (1) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (1) Aug 18 (1) Aug 17 (2) Aug 16 (1) Aug 15 (2) Aug 14 (1) Aug 13 (1) Aug 12 (3) Aug 11 (2) Aug 10 (2) Aug 09 (1) Aug 08 (2) Aug 07 (1) Aug 06 (1) Aug 05 (1) Aug 04 (1) Aug 03 (2) Aug 01 (1) Jul 31 (2) Jul 30 (1) Jul 29 (4) Jul 28 (2) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (1) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (2) Jul 23 (2) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (1) Jul 20 (3) Jul 19 (2) Jul 18 (2) Jul 16 (3) Jul 15 (1) Jul 13 (2) Jul 12 (1) Jul 11 (2) Jul 09 (5) Jul 08 (1) Jul 07 (1) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (1) Jul 03 (2) Jul 01 (1) Jun 30 (1) Jun 29 (2) Jun 28 (2) Jun 27 (2) Jun 25 (2) Jun 24 (1) Jun 23 (2) Jun 22 (2) Jun 20 (1) Jun 17 (4) Jun 16 (1) Jun 15 (1) Jun 14 (3) Jun 12 (1) Jun 11 (1) Jun 08 (1) Jun 07 (1) Jun 05 (1) Jun 04 (1) Jun 03 (1) Jun 01 (1) May 31 (1) May 27 (2) May 25 (2) May 24 (1) May 23 (2) May 22 (1) May 21 (1) May 20 (2) May 19 (1) May 18 (1) May 17 (2) May 14 (1) May 13 (1) May 11 (2) May 10 (2) May 09 (1) May 07 (2) May 06 (1) May 05 (1) May 04 (1) May 03 (3) May 02 (1) May 01 (1) Apr 29 (1) Apr 28 (1) Apr 27 (1) Apr 25 (2) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (1) Apr 22 (2) Apr 21 (2) Apr 20 (1) Apr 19 (2) Apr 17 (1) Apr 15 (1) Apr 13 (1) Apr 10 (2) Apr 08 (1) Apr 07 (1) Apr 06 (3) Apr 05 (3) Apr 03 (1) Apr 02 (1) Apr 01 (2) Mar 31 (2) Mar 30 (1) Mar 29 (1) Mar 28 (1) Mar 25 (1) Mar 24 (1) Mar 22 (2) Mar 21 (1) Mar 20 (1) Mar 18 (1) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (1) Mar 14 (2) Mar 13 (4) Mar 12 (1) Mar 11 (1) Mar 10 (1) Mar 06 (4) Mar 05 (1) Mar 04 (1) Mar 03 (2) Mar 02 (2) Mar 01 (2) Feb 28 (2) Feb 27 (1) Feb 26 (1) Feb 25 (1) Feb 23 (2) Feb 19 (2) Feb 13 (1) Feb 12 (1) Feb 02 (1) Jan 31 (1) Jan 22 (1) Jan 18 (1) Jan 16 (1) Jan 09 (1) Jan 01 (1) Dec 20 (2) Dec 15 (1) Dec 13 (1) Dec 11 (1) Nov 30 (1) Nov 27 (1) Nov 20 (1) Nov 11 (1) Nov 10 (1) Oct 23 (1) Oct 20 (1) Oct 01 (1) Sep 30 (1) Sep 29 (1) Sep 24 (2) Sep 15 (1) Sep 13 (1) Sep 12 (1) Sep 08 (1) Sep 02 (2) Aug 31 (1) Aug 28 (1) Aug 27 (2) Aug 24 (1) Aug 21 (1) Aug 20 (1) Aug 18 (3) Aug 16 (1) Aug 15 (1) Aug 14 (1) Aug 11 (1) Aug 08 (1) Aug 07 (1) Aug 03 (1) Jul 27 (1) Jul 26 (1) Jul 24 (1) Jul 22 (1) Jul 21 (1) Jul 19 (1) Jul 15 (1) Jul 14 (1) Jul 13 (3) Jul 10 (1) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (1) Jul 06 (1) Jul 03 (1) Jul 01 (1) Jun 28 (1) Jun 24 (2) Jun 20 (1) Jun 19 (1) Jun 18 (1) Jun 15 (1) Jun 14 (2) Jun 11 (1) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (1) Jun 07 (1) Jun 06 (1) Jun 04 (2) Jun 03 (1) Jun 02 (2) Jun 01 (1) May 31 (3) May 30 (1) May 29 (1) May 28 (2) May 26 (1) May 25 (1) May 18 (1) May 17 (1) May 15 (1) May 09 (1) May 07 (2) May 02 (1) May 01 (1) Apr 30 (1) Apr 27 (1) Apr 26 (2) Apr 23 (1) Apr 22 (1) Apr 19 (1) Apr 18 (1) Apr 12 (1) Apr 11 (1) Apr 09 (1) Apr 07 (1) Apr 05 (1) Apr 01 (1) Mar 30 (1) Mar 27 (1) Mar 25 (1) Mar 22 (2) Mar 19 (1) Mar 18 (1) Mar 16 (1) Mar 15 (2) Mar 13 (1) Mar 12 (1) Mar 11 (1) Mar 10 (1) Blog Archive March 2022 (1) January 2022 (1) November 2021 (2) October 2021 (1) September 2021 (6) August 2021 (1) June 2021 (1) April 2021 (2) February 2021 (2) January 2021 (1) December 2020 (1) November 2020 (7) October 2020 (4) September 2020 (2) August 2020 (4) July 2020 (6) June 2020 (20) May 2020 (9) April 2020 (15) March 2020 (3) February 2020 (5) January 2020 (11) December 2019 (5) November 2019 (9) October 2019 (13) September 2019 (12) August 2019 (13) July 2019 (12) June 2019 (6) May 2019 (11) April 2019 (10) March 2019 (9) February 2019 (6) January 2019 (10) December 2018 (3) November 2018 (15) October 2018 (16) September 2018 (11) August 2018 (15) July 2018 (8) June 2018 (17) May 2018 (20) April 2018 (16) March 2018 (22) February 2018 (14) January 2018 (20) December 2017 (18) November 2017 (27) October 2017 (16) September 2017 (21) August 2017 (27) July 2017 (20) June 2017 (19) May 2017 (21) April 2017 (31) March 2017 (21) February 2017 (20) January 2017 (21) December 2016 (29) November 2016 (31) October 2016 (18) September 2016 (34) August 2016 (37) July 2016 (28) June 2016 (30) May 2016 (32) April 2016 (23) March 2016 (29) February 2016 (28) January 2016 (20) December 2015 (32) November 2015 (29) October 2015 (26) September 2015 (29) August 2015 (28) July 2015 (27) June 2015 (15) May 2015 (7) July 2009 (1) May 2009 (1) March 2009 (7) January 2009 (8) 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. Apple says it will fight the U.S. government about sharing information from the iPhone used by a shooter in a deadly attack in California. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI, wants Apple to help agents get information from a phone that is locked. Apple head Tim Cook says the company will not assist the FBI. He says to do so could damage encryption for millions of other users. Cook's statement was posted early Wednesday on the company's website. It could start a legal dispute between the federal government and the U.S. information technology industry. A U.S. judge ordered Apple to help the FBI break into an iPhone belonging to Syed Farook. Farook was one of the shooters in the December 2 attack that killed 14 people. Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, died in a gun battle with police. The judges ruling requires Apple to help the FBI break into Farook's work iPhone. The iPhone has a self-destruct feature. The feature destroys iPhone data after several unsuccessful attempts at a password. The FBI wants to be able to try unlimited combinations of passwords until it finds the right one. President Barack Obama has called for stronger encryption to keep the Internet safe for users. Cook described the ruling as an example of government overreach. He called for public discussion. He said Apple wants people around the country to understand what is at stake." He argued that the order could lead to a key capable of opening hundreds of millions of (iPhone) locks." Federal prosecutors told the judge that they cannot access Farook's work phone because they don't know his password. Under U.S. law, a work phone is generally the property of a person's employer. The judge told Apple on Tuesday to estimate how much it would cost to break into the phone. Apple has provided encryption on its iPhones since 2014. Only the user can access the data through a password. The judges order requires that the software Apple provides be programmed to work only on Farook's phone. The order gives Apple five days to notify the court if it believes the ruling is unreasonable. Kevin Bankston is director of the digital rights group Open Technology Institute at New America. He said the ruling could make people suspicious that the government might secretly place malware on their devices or software. Investigators think Farooks phone may tell who communicated with Farook and his wife, and where they traveled. The police are interested in an 18-minute period after the attack when they did not know the location of the suspects. Farook was not carrying his work iPhone during the attack. It was discovered in a search. The phone was programmed to destroy data after 10 straight unsuccessful unlocking attempts. Im Caty Weaver. The Associated Press reported on this story. Caty Weaver adapted it for Learning English. Kathleen Struck was the editor. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story encryption n. the act of to change (information) from one form to another especially to hide its meaning data n. facts or information used usually to calculate, analyze, or plan something overreach v. to try to do something that is beyond your ability, or right, to do at stake expression in a position to be lost or gained Should Apple obey the court order? Let us know what you think. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. During a campaign visit in Nevada earlier this week, Hillary Clinton told a story about her husband, Bill. Bill, or William J. Clinton, was the U.S. president for eight years, starting in 1993. Before he was president. Clinton was a politician in his home state of Arkansas. One of his opponents produced an ad using the sound of a barking dog to mock Clinton and question his truthfulness. Hillary Clinton, who is running for U.S. president now, said the funny ad had people barking for days in Arkansas. And then she made her point by barking. She said she wished she could send that dog to the Republican candidates and have it bark every time they made a false statement. Alex Lee is a video producer from CNN. He used the social media app called Vine to put together a series of clips showing all the times presidential candidates have made animal sounds during the campaign. It shows Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Jeb Bush and Donald Trump making animal noises. And the video is called The Sound of Politics in 2016. Take a look. We are sorry, but this feature is currently not available Im Dan Friedell. Dan Friedell wrote this story for Learning English. Kathleen Struck was the editor. What do you think about the noises these candidates are making? Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story ad n. something (such as a short film or a written notice) that is shown or presented to the public to help sell a product or to make an announcement bark v. to make a short, loud sound like a dog mock v. to laugh at or make fun of by copying an action or way of behaving or speaking When he returned to Rome yesterday after a trip to Mexico, Pope Francis said women who live near the Zika virus should be able to use birth control. This breaks from traditional Roman Catholic policy that bans Catholic women from using contraception. Francis talked about the Catholic Church and called birth control a lesser evil for women in regions affected by Zika. He said that abortion of those fetuses was not an option for Catholics. The Zika virus is carried by mosquitoes. In South America, the virus has been linked to microencephalitis. Babies with that condition are born with smaller brains and skulls than normal. No cure or treatment is known. The pope also commented about the U.S. race for president. He was asked about Republican candidate Donald Trump, who has called for a wall to be built between the U.S. and Mexico. "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian," the Pope told journalists at a press conference. Trump also has called for deporting undocumented immigrants and not allowing Muslims into the U.S., even if they hold U.S. passports. The popes comments came after his sermon on immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border. He pleaded for governments to open their hearts to the human tragedy of forced migration. Francis told worshippers migrants are our brothers and sisters, who are being expelled by poverty and violence, drug trafficking and organized crime. Pope Francis stopped short of demanding that the United States open all its borders. The pope is concerned about Mexican citizens wishing to escape drug cartel killings and corruption. Before Mass, the pope paused at the U.S.-Mexican border for a prayer in memory of migrants who died trying to reach the United States. He also blessed some migrants on the American side of the fence. Im Kathleen Struck. Jim Dresbach adapted this story for Learning English. Kathleen Struck was the editor. What do you think about the Pope's message? Post your thoughts in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story pope n. the head of the Roman Catholic Church migrants n. a person who goes from one place to another especially to find work plead v. to ask for something in a serious and emotional way cartel n. a group of businesses that agree to fix prices so they all will make more money This is What's Trending Today. The Franciscan or Plata River dolphin is a threatened species that lives in the waters off the coasts of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. It is one of the smallest dolphins in the world, measuring only between 1.3 and 1.7 meters long. Their small size makes it easy for humans to approach them. The young dolphins are even smaller. Photos came out recently showing people on a beach in Argentina, southeast of Buenos Aires, taking photos with two of these small dolphins. At least one of them died, says Vida Silvestre, a wildlife foundation in Argentina. People passed the dolphins around, taking photos. One of the dolphins eventually died because of dehydration. Dolphins cannot survive very long without being in the water. Even through dolphins are mammals and breathe air, they must be in water so their body temperature does not get too high. Vida Silvestre says it is likely there are fewer than 30,000 of these dolphins alive. The major threat to the dolphins are fishing nets, not people. But on this day, people caused a death. And on social media, people are furious. Their reactions are similar to what happened last year when the news came out that Cecil the Lion was killed in Zimbabwe. An American hunter killed the protected lion. The people on the beach are being called morons, and being accused of having no brains. One person said she was absolutely raging. Here are some of the photos of the scene, and the comments people posted when hearing the news. One person offered an idea for how to punish the beach-goers. Pass them around amongst ourselves until they also die. And Thats Whats Trending Today. Im Dan Friedell. Dan Friedell wrote this story for Learning English. Kathleen Struck was the editor. What would you do about the people who took the dolphin from the water? Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. ___________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story scene n. the place of an event or action morons n. a very stupid or foolish person dehydrate v. to lose too much water, become dry raging v. to have a strong feeling of anger that is difficult to control furious adj. very angry mammal n. a type of animal that feeds milk to its young and that usually has hair or fur covering most of its skin scholarship, news and new ideas in legal history The relentless novelty of this presidential election year has produced a number of articles aimed at explaining just exactly what might be going on in the United States. A few have even postulated that what we are seeing can be explained as a general move of the nations voters to the left. Given the definite rightward drift of Republican politicians, this conclusion is a bit surprising. Let us see if this notion makes any sense. New York Times: How Far Left Has America Moved . Stevens is concerned with big-picture trends in politics. He begins by pointing out the vast difference between the Clinton presidency and that of Obama. Consider first an article by Stuart Stevens (Mitt Romneys chief campaign strategist in 2012) that appeared in the Though only 16 years separated the election of Bill Clinton and that of President Obama, the two politicians seemed to represent the same party in name only. The 1992 campaign was dedicated to defining a different kind of Democrat. That was basically a nicely packaged phrase to stress that Bill Clinton and Al Gore were not crazy or weak liberals like the partys recent lineup of losers. These new Democrats were for the death penalty and couldnt wait to get into office to end welfare as we know it..The 1992 Democratic campaign was a calculated defense against charges of liberalism. Mr. Clinton defined his candidacy by asserting that Democrats could handle center-right issues like crime and welfare. In 2008, Hillary Clinton tried to argue that Obama was too far to the left and that would mean he would lose the election. But win he did and the pundits had to explain that fact. From the earliest days of Barack Obamas presidency, a comforting assumption developed among much of the center-right political world. The thinking went like this: President Obama was far more liberal than the majority of the country. But given his extraordinary political talents, the fatigue of the George W. Bush years, the economic crisis and the excitement of electing the first African-American president, the country picked him not because of his ideology but in spite of it. Obama producedor tried to producea number of left-favored programs: universal healthcare, Keynesian stimulus, a cap and trade energy bill, market interventions. This was far different from the center-right mimicry of Bill Clinton. And Obama was reelected in 2012. As he nears the end of his second term, his own party seems to view him as someone who should have been even more aggressive in pursuing the demands of the left. Stevens addresses Obamas potential legacy with this comment. One point up for discussion: whether the president pushed the country left, or whether he was just in step with how people felt. He passed the Affordable Care Act, announced support for same-sex marriage, and has argued passionately (if unsuccessfully) for more gun control. A good argument can be made that the Democratic Party is moving to the left, but what about the Republicans. The Republican Party has evolved to an unstable structure in which a few wealthy donors have struggled to control the mass of less-than-wealthy voters they need to show up at election time by pandering to their cultural issues. It seems that mass of voters, who actually despise the elites, no longer wishes to be controlled. But so far into the 2016 election, conservatives are on the run. Democrats are battling over who can really move the country left. And the leading Republican candidate is a man who has previously praised Canadas single-payer health care system and described himself as very pro-choice. The biggest fear on the part of the wealthy elite is that the Republican masses are not as dependably small government as they would wish. Republican voters tend to like their existing social programs; they just dont like to admit that they need new ones. Stevens believes that fundamental changes are taking place. Its happening elsewhere. Canada has turned left, and a socialist, a long way from the days of Tony Blair, leads Britains Labour Party. In this global economy that everyone talks about but no one seems able to define, maybe larger forces are nudging the United States left. Unemployment is low and yet only 23 percent of the country believes we are headed in the right direction. Something clearly is wrong. Perhaps the reality of the new American economy is becoming too exhausting. Stevens finishes with a conjecture. Keep your government hands off my Medicare, opponents of the presidents health care bill once demanded. Like that confused, plaintive cry, will this be the election cycle when voters in both parties accept that they want a growing benevolent government, as long as they dont have to admit they need it? The Atlantic: Why America Is Moving Left. Peter Beinart believes he has the data that indicates what Stuart Stevens only suggests. He lays out his case in an article that appeared in Beinart covers the re-liberalization of the Democratic Party in some detail. He, in fact, pinpoints when the pivot occurred. If the lesson of the Reagan era had been that Democrats should give a Republican president his due, the lesson of the Bush era was that doing so brought disaster. In the Senate, Bushs 2001 tax cut passed with 12 Democratic votes; the Iraq War was authorized with 29. As the calamitous consequences of these votes became clear, the revolt against them destroyed the Democratic Partys centrist wing. By the time Barack Obama defeated Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, in part because of her support for the Iraq War, the mood inside the party had fundamentally changed. Whereas the partys most respected thinkers had once urged Democrats to critique liberal orthodoxy, they now criticized Democrats for not defending that orthodoxy fiercely enough. The presidency of George W. Bush had made Democrats unapologetically liberal, and the presidency of Barack Obama was the most tangible result. analyzing voting patterns in the 2012 election. The disasters of the Bush presidency had another epochal effect: it caused at least a generation of the young to break away from the voting pattern of their elders and look for more liberal options. Consider this chart from a Pew Reportin the 2012 election. Up until the 2004 election, the young followed closely their parents in voting. From that point forward they have been reliably more liberal. Beinart recognizes the crucial role the Bush debacle played in forming attitudes. Millennials are not liberal primarily because they are young. They are liberal because their formative political experiences were the Iraq War and the Great Recession, and because they make up the most secular, most racially diverse, least nationalistic generation in American history. And none of that is likely to change. On issues that have defined the differences between liberals and conservatives, the younger voters are pushing politicians to the left. In 2014, Pew found that Americans under 30 were twice as likely as Americans 65 and older to say the police do a poor job of treating racial, ethnic groups equally and more than twice as likely to say the grand jury in Ferguson was wrong not to charge Darren Wilson in Michael Browns death. According to YouGov, more than one in three Americans 65 and older think being transgender is morally wrong. Among Americans under 30, the ratio is less than one in five. MillennialsAmericans roughly 18 to 34 years oldare 21 percentage points less likely than those 65 and older to say that immigrants burden the United States and 25 points more likely to say they strengthen the country. Millennials are also 17 points more likely to have a favorable view of Muslims. It is largely because of them that the percentage of Americans who want government to promote traditional values is now lower than at any other time since Gallup began asking the question in 1993, and that the percentage calling themselves socially liberal now equals the percentage calling themselves socially conservative for the first time since Gallup began asking that question in 1999. The young voters also seem to have little of the fear of big government that Republican Party leaders are so desperate to generate. According to a July Wall Street Journal/ABC poll, Americans over 35 were four points more likely to say the government is doing too much than to say it is doing too little. Millennials, meanwhile, by a margin of 23 points, think its doing too little. In 2011, Pew found that while the oldest Americans supported repealing health-care reform by 29 percentage points, Millennials favored expanding it by 17 points. They were also 25 points more likely than those 65 and older to approve of Occupy Wall Street and 36 points more favorable toward socialism, which they actually preferred to capitalism, 49 percent to 46 percent. As the Pew report put it, Millennials, at least so far, hold baked in support for a more activist government. Even the young who identify as Republicans are straying from the revealed truth. The press often depicts American politics as a battle pitting ever more liberal Democrats against ever more conservative Republicans. Among the young, however, thats inaccurate. Young Democrats may be more liberal than their elders, but so are young Republicans. According to Pew, a clear majority of young Republicans say immigrants strengthen America, half say corporate profits are too high, and almost half say stricter environmental laws are worth the costanswers that sharply distinguish them from older members of the GOP. Young Republicans are more likely to favor legalizing marijuana than the oldest Democrats, and almost as likely to support gay marriage. Asked how they categorize themselves ideologically, more than two-thirds of Republican Millennials call themselves either liberal or mixed, while fewer than one-third call themselves conservative. Among the oldest Republicans, that breakdown is almost exactly reversed. Couple the liberal tendencies of the millennials with that of minorities, and conservatism has a dim future on the national stage. When Bush won the presidency in 2000, very few Millennials could vote. In 2016, by contrast, they will constitute roughly one-third of those who turn out. In 2000, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians constituted 20 percent of voters. In 2016, they will constitute more than 30 percent. And how important are these demographics? Whit Ayres, a political consultant for the Rubio campaign, calculates that even if the 2016 Republican nominee wins 60 percent of the white vote (more than any GOP nominee in the past four decades except Reagan, in 1984, has won), he or she will still need almost 30 percent of the minority vote. Mitt Romney got 17 percent. Can anything be more representative of these changes than the surprising credibility of Bernie Sanders as a candidate for the Democratic nomination and for the presidency? His opponent, Hillary Clinton, once banked the legacy of her husband as president, but now her association with the past is more a burden, one threatening to sink her candidacy. We are indeed living in interesting times. Given this leftward trend, and the apparent disassembly of the Republican Party, it is unlikely that politics in our country will ever be the same. LEXINGTON, Neb. For the past 18 years Dawson County Commissioners have had a hard time filling the position of Superintendent of Roads. Since Butch Hagan left the position in 1998, the position has been sporadically filled and often left vacant for numerous years. Thankfully Dawson County Commissioners Bill Stewart and PJ Jacobson will conduct two interviews this week with candidates hoping to fill the position. A vote would be taken by commissioners to appoint a new superintendent of roads during the boards next meeting on Tuesday, March 1. Hagan served as the superintendent of roads for DawsonCounty for more than 25 years. He left the position by mutual agreement in 1998, meaning he was ready to leave and knew differences with commissioners meant he would not be reappointed for another year. After two terms on the Dawson County Board of Commissioners, Hagan said he was running for re-election to ensure that not only is a new superintendent of roads hired, but that he has the opportunity to mentor and help that persons transition go well. As noted by Hagan, the history of the superintendent of roads position since 1998 goes as follows. A foreman was appointed to the position shortly after Hagans departure, this person held the position for two years. The position then was left vacant for five years until John Mooberry was appointed in the mid 2000s. Moobery served in the post for about one year. A big reason why the position has been so difficult to fill is because the superintendent of roads is appointed by the commissioners and serves on the whim of commissioners, Hagan said. This means that a difference of opinion, disagreement or sour relationship between the superintendent and commissioners often can lead to a superintendents position not being renewed the next year, he said. This was the reason why Hagan ultimately left the position, he said. Hagan said any candidate wanting to become a highway superintendent or city street superintendent must be licensed and is required to pass the Board of Classification and Standards exam. Only about 25 percent of those who took the classification and standards exam passed it, he said. Engineers are not required to take and pass the exam because their school and training already includes material covered in the exam, Hagan said. Hagan said the state of Nebraska provides a monetary payment from highway funds to counties for having a fulltime highway/roads superintendent. Blog Tour: Guardians of Tradition Guardians of Tradition: The Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan (2012) By Mae Astrid Tobias Illustrations by Rommel E. Joson Photos by Renat... Storytelling Guide: The Legend of the Cashew Nut This storytelling guide is prepared for librarians and storytellers who will use the story The Legend of the Cashew Nut taken from the book,... Dear Nanay: How It Came To Be An article about my creative process in writing Dear Nanay (Gagatiga and Flores, Lampara House, 2013). This article will appear in Mirror... Boycotting Tanya Markova's Linda Blair There's this interesting discussion in one of my egroups - Pinoy Teacher's Network, on the song Linda Blair by Tanya Markova . The ... Storytelling & the Macro Skills in Communication Arts Part 2 There are four macro skills involved in communication and language arts: listening; speaking; reading and writing. These macro skills can be... Ajooma Reviews: Kdramas and Mental Health In early 2020, my friends from work egged me to watch Crash Landing On You on Netflix. Averse from watching Pinoy telenovelas, I always repl... Inktober 2022 View this post on Instagram A post shared by Zarah Gagatiga (@teetahzee) About Me Name: David Yonki Location: Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania, United States Political analyst for WBRE TV's Pa. Live program and post election commentator for WBRE TV's Eyewitness News Daybreak show. Author of the book "A Radio Story/We Wish You Well In Your Future Endeavors" and "Leges Vitae" "26 Rules of Life" and the new novel, "Weather Or Knot". The blog editor also writes various news articles and columns as well as upcoming literary projects. The blog editor was a frequent guest on WYOU TV'S INTERACTIVE NEWSCASTS when political issues were discussed on the national, state and local level. Yonki was a weekly panelist on WYLN TV 35's Friday Topic A program. He also appeared on the Hazleton, PA. station on Election Night doing coverage and did special projects and stories for WYLN TV 35's 10PM Newscast "Late Edition". View my complete profile Chennai: Actor-filmmaker Kamal Haasan's period crime drama Hey Ram has turned 16, and the star went down memory lane, reminiscing some of the best moments of the film and thanked his actors and fans. Touched by Hey Ram fans celebrating 16yrs. Remember all who made it possible. Especially Shah Rukh Khan and Bharat Shah. Kamal Haasan (@ikamalhaasan) February 18, 2016 The film's semi-fictional plot revolved around India's partition and the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. On Friday, Kamal specially remembered the role essayed by actor Mohan Gokhale, who passed away while shooting for the film. The role was later offered to Atul Kulkarni. MohanGhokale .After sculpting Abhyankar beyond my expectation died. I Reshot with Atul K,who won the notional award..Thanks to Mrs.Ghokle Kamal Haasan (@ikamalhaasan) February 19, 2016 Kamal also wrote the above, adding that he wishes to showcase late Mohan's performance from the film to all. One day I wish to showcase late Mohan Ghokle's performance for all to see. A day before he died I told him he might win awards for his role Kamal Haasan (@ikamalhaasan) February 19, 2016 The film had music by legendary composer Ilayaraja. Kamal said Ilayaraja's score was a "case study in film-making". Written and directed by Kamal, the film featured an ensemble cast of Rani Mukerji, Hema Malini, Abbas, Girish Karnad, Vasundhara Das, Nasseruddin Shah among others. IANS New Delhi: The Supreme court on Friday issued notice to filmstar Salman Khan on the Maharashtra government's petition challenging a Bombay High Court verdict acquitting him in a 2002 accident case. Issuing notice returnable in six weeks, an apex court bench comprising Justice Jagjit Singh Khehar and Justice C Nagappan told Salman Khan that "it would be much, much better if he gets acquittal from this court as it will save him from all the repercussions". Senior counsel Kapil Sibal, appearing for Salman Khan, took the court through the proceedings of the trial court, contending that his conviction was based on the testimony of one person, which cannot be relied upon. He said besides that there was no other evidence before the trial court to convict Salman Khan in the case. However, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi that besides the sole witness being pointed to by Sibal, there were scores of other witnesses at the accident spot who saw Salman Khan in the driver's seat of the vehicle that ran over a group of people sleeeping on a pavement, killing one of them. The apex court was not in agreement with the arguments advanced by a battery of senior advocates including Soli Sorabjee, Raju Ramachandran and Rajeev Dhawan that extra-ordinary law and order situation, threat to life of the accused and his counsel, hostile environment at the lower court and the simmering situation compelled them to rush directly to it. The advocates also submitted that they moved the apex court for bail as already a writ petition concerning the arrest of the JNUSU President was pending before it. However, their submission was objected to by the lawyers for Centre and Delhi Police, including SG Ranjit Kumar, ASG Tushar Mehta and senior advocate Ajit K Sinha, who said the facts of the writ petition and bail plea are different and even opposed it being heard directly by the high court. The bench was also of the view, "What is under scrutiny is something different and the writ petition is to be heard on Monday. It is totally different than the bail application." When the argument was made by Kanhaiya's counsel about the law and security situation, the bench said, "We do agree with you that it is an exceptionally extraordinary circumstance." The counsel said that they preferred the apex court to hear his bail plea as the situation in the High Court also would not be much different, to which the bench asked, "Is it so in the high court? Are we to understand that the HC is also agitated?" While concluding the one-and-a-half-hour hearing, the bench said, "We permit them to make and amend the bail application today itself." IANS When 34-year-old DK Ravi, an additional commissioner of Commercial Tax (Enforcement) in Bengaluru was found hanging on 16 March, 2015 at his residence, the alleged suicide sparked off a political furore. It was the sand and real estate mafia which killed him, shrieked politicians in the opposition parties in Karnataka. The Chief Minister must resign, they demanded. Barely a few days after the young life was snuffed out, rumours began to circulate of a love affair, at times one-sided and at times jilted, of DK Ravi with a batchmate, another IAS officer. Finally the case was handed over to the CBI on 23 March, as a raucous opposition and an even more strident media hollered for justice. On the western coast, in 2010, a 26-year-old IAS officer Raja Murugan was found hanging from a tree outside his residence in Daman. He too was of the same 2009 batch as was DK Ravi. At the time, the Chief of Police of Daman had told reporters Primarily, it seems family problems may be the reason for the suicide, stated RP Mina. Almost a year after DK Ravis death, yet another young officer of the 2009 batch allegedly took his own life. N Harish, 32 years old, was found dead in his quarters at Egmore, Chennai on 18 February. Sources within the police department say that liquor bottles were strewn around, indicating that he was likely inebriated before his death. Chief Ministerial hopeful and the scion of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MK Stalin announced on his Facebook page that the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) government was to be blamed for a string of what he called mysterious deaths of officials in the state. When all his other batchmates had been promoted to the rank of SP, this 2009 batch officer Harish alone did not receive a promotion, stated Stalin. Other IPS officers themselves are wondering why Harish alone was not promoted. The Aftermath While N Harishs alleged suicide did not see the kind of national media and political frenzy as in DK Ravis case, accusations are inherent in the political rhetoric. Harishs batchmates and colleagues though cast some light on what went on in his life for a number of years. Harish had a lot of problems even during his NPA (National Police Academy) days, said a police officer who took him under his wing in Tamil Nadu. He was depressed, bordering on insubordination. Imagine a subordinate who doesnt speak to you, doesnt listen to orders and is absent most of the time, said the officer. Even then, say his colleagues, he was not hassled by his seniors. One report was sent up the hierarchy about Harishs erratic ways and chronic absenteeism. No action was taken on that either. Harish failed exams even at the NPA and recently failed his regional language paper, due to which he was not promoted, said another friend of Harishs. A departmental inquiry launched into a complaint of alleged misbehavior with a woman constable has been pending for a couple of years now. As the news broke, media reports, based on anonymous WhatsApp forwards began to point the finger of accusation at a former Director General of Police, K Ramanujam, as being responsible for harassing the young officer and denying him a promotion. On 19 February, Ramanujam issued a response via WhatsApp questioning the allegations. It is sad that Harish was not able to get promotion, but it was because he did not pass the test in Tamil language, stated Ramanujam. One has to clear the test for getting senior scale in this cadre. I had nothing against him personally. I retired more than a year back and I do not know whether he cleared the examination or not afterwards. This response was subsequently not reported by the media which had reported the allegations in the anonymous WhatsApp forwards. The tragic twist in this tale perhaps is that the initial postmortem reports now appear to show that Harish likely choked to death on food particles while in a drunken state. The media did not realize or maybe did not bother that unsubstantiated allegations like this will not just sully reputations of individuals but also cause legal issues for them, said a senior journalist in Tamil Nadu who did not wish to be named. It is the job of journalists to verify before making any information public. That was not done at all in this case, he said. Neither was this done in another suicide or murder case that hogged the headlines in September 2015. This case was that of young policewoman Vishnupriya who allegedly ended her life while in the midst of investigations of a high profile murder case. The CB-CID which is probing the suicide-murder theory confirms that the young officer in fact committed suicide. The reason, they say, is likely to be a combination of events work pressure, stress and possibly a love affair gone wrong. In any case, it does not appear to be the states conspiracy that it was originally made out to be by political parties and the media alike, and the unwarranted baying for blood of Vishnupriyas senior officers. DK Ravis case was probably even more tragic. His batchmate, who was alleged to have rejected his displays of affection towards her, continues to be spoken of poorly. This, despite the facts of the case being that Ravi committed suicide due to his inability to repay loans taken for a real estate project that he was personally dabbling in. Even the tragic love theory has now been proven wrong. It is really very sad for the lady IAS officer, said a senior journalist in Bangalore. She is a fantastic worker and has a great track record. But now she is spoken of derogatorily by politicians and other bureaucrats. It is very unfair, he said. Politicians and the media would do well to focus on the lack of support for civil servants suffering from mental health issues. Tamil Nadu has been amongst the top three ranks in the list of states with highest suicide rates for the past four years. Chennai has topped the suicide charts for the past four years, amongst all metros in the country. State governments must be prodded into implementing projects to address the issues of stress and mental health amongst civil servants and the police force. A pilot project conducted by the Tamil Nadu police in Madurai district in 2013 to provide counselling and techniques to cope with stress in policemen and their families showed that 56% of the police personnel, below the rank of sub-inspector, who participated in the five weeks training, suffered emotional disturbances. 46 per cent of them had disorders like insomania, hypertension or diabetes. 53 per cent of them experienced high level of stress, according to the report. This report though recommended for implementation across the state, gathers dust in the seat of power, Fort St George. In the heat and dust of elections round the corner, politicians too might be considerate in checking facts thoroughly before pronouncing statements and judgments at will. As for the media, truth must be the ultimate goal. Burying it under a cacophony of sensationalism is not an option. Even as BJP MLA OP Sharma remains defiant in defence of his assault on a CPI(M) activist outside Patiala House Court, the Delhi secretariat has recommended the expulsion of the leader from the Assembly. This comes a day after Sharma was arrested and subsequently released on bail in the assault case. After his release, Sharma told reporters, "If someone has to pay such a price for stopping a person who raised pro-Pakistan slogans, then I have got nothing to say." The ethics committee, in a stinging comment, termed Sharma a 'habitual offender' and observed that he has refused to apologise for his conduct. The police had on Wednesday issued summons to him as well as three lawyers in connection with the assault on journalists, JNU students and teachers, and some other persons at the court complex on Monday. The lawyers are yet to depose before police. The Delhi Police had come under severe criticism for not taking action against the legislator despite having clear video footage showing him beating the CPI(M) activist when the court was hearing the JNU case. Tensions have been running high in Delhi since Monday, when protests over the hanging of Afzal Guru saw assaults and accusations of the protesting students at JNU being 'anti-national.' Home Minister Rajnath Singh had called for strict action against 'anti-national' forces in the context of the JNU controversy. With inputs from PTI New Delhi: BJP on Friday said the Jat agitation for reservation has become leaderless and was being fuelled by "anarchists" and warned that those indulging in violence will be dealt with sternly. The party's tough stand came in the wake of the death of a person in police firing after the protest turned violent. BJP general secretary and Haryana in-charge Anil Jain, who is playing a key role in coordinating the response of the Central and state governments as well as the party, said the agitation has turned violent and "military" could also be sent if needed. "They (protesters) know the reality. The state government is doing everything within its powers. We had been dealing with them patiently. It is not possible that they keep attacking and we coddle them," Jain told reporters in New Delhi. A total of 10 companies of para-military forces have been dispatched to the violence-hit area, he said, adding that police fired after the attack on an Inspector General and the residence of Haryana Finance Minister Abhimanyu and police vehicles were torched. Jain said the state government had called an all-party meeting on Friday and been engaging with the Jat leaders. Some leaders accepted the government's steps and withdrew their protest, he said and alleged that a section of people, "who are anti-social and anarchists" is fuelling the protest and causing it to turn violent. "The death is painful but we cannot allow the situation to worsen. We cannot allow the law and order to deteriorate," he said, noting that places like Rohtak were under a virtual siege by protestors. He underlined BJP's support for quota for Jats but noted that the issue had become "complex" after the Supreme Court struck down the decision of the previous government in this regard and then quashed a review petition as well. "The Central government is speaking to different groups of Jats. It is working to find a solution that addresses their demand and also meet the constitutional requirements," Jain said. PTI Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students' union leader Kanhaiya Kumar on Thursday moved the Supreme Court for bail. In his application, the JNUSU president sought protection of "life and limb", saying there is "great likelihood of attack on him in prison". #JNU leader #KanhaiyaKumar moves for bail at SC. Seeks protection of "life and limb". SC to hear his bail plea on Friday. @htTweets rocky soibam (@rocky_soibam) February 18, 2016 The bail petition, which was filed in the Supreme Court on Thursday said: "...in light of the highly violent and surcharged atmosphere at the patiala house courts, posing a grave threat to the life of the petitioner, his counsels and possible sureties." Reports said that the matter will be heard on Friday. Senior lawyer Raju Ramachandran filed the bail petition on behalf of Kanhaiya on Thursday. ANI quoted Ramachandran as saying, "Now Soli Sorabjee will lead us." Kumar's mother Meena Devi also raised concern for her son's security in prison and slammed the attack on her son in the Patiala House Court premises and questioned who will be responsible if he dies in custody. "I am not a terrorist's mother. I know it will be proved some day but until then if my son dies in custody, who will be responsible for it? They can call Kanhaiya a threat to nation but cannot protect him from other threats?" his mother Meena Devi told PTI from Bihar over phone. "What if he had died that day and it was proved later that he was innocent? Will the government give me my son back then? They acted so fast on complaint against my son but they haven't arrested anyone for the attack on Kanhaiya in court," she added. Here is the full text of the bail petition filed by Kanhaiya Kumar. Kanhaiya Kumar v. State of NCT of Delhi Etah, Uttar Pradesh: A 27-year-old Dalit man was charred to death after he was set on fire in his house at Kherpura village here by some people who are absconding, police said on Friday. Santosh Kumar was sleeping on a heap of dry grass yesterday when the accused persons, identified as Bobby and his associates, set the hay on fire, according to the police. The man was charred to death by the time the family members came to his rescue, police said. The father of the deceased lodged an FIR yesterday in this connection, stating an old enmity to be the motive behind the murder, they said. Circle Officer Asharam Ahirwar said that no arrest has been made so far and investigation is underway. PTI IAS officer Bimal Julka to be the new Chief Information Commissioner, said news reports. Julka was previously the Information and Broadcasting (I and B) Secretary and retired from the post on 31 August 2015. Julka is an Indian Administrative Service officer of 1979 batch of the Madhya Pradesh cadre and worked as the financial advisor and special secretary with the Ministry of External Affairs, said a report in the Economic Times This move comes after Delhi Commissioner of Police BS Bassi's candidature was dropped from the list for the post of Information Commissioner, said news reports. Speaking to reporters, Bassi said that this move ''doesn't make a difference to him.'' He also added that the Delhi Police are on the right track and are confident that they "will arrest the absconders soon". The government had shortlisted Bassi for the post of Chief Information Commissioner, which had three vacancies. The committee that appoints the CIC is headed by PM Modi and also includes Finance Minister Arun Jaitely and leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge. The move comes days after the attack on JNUSU leader Kanhaiya Kumar, his lawyers and media-persons by 'goon lawyers' on Wednesday and Thursday. Bassi and his team's inaction was widely criticised and the Centre was slammed for promoting the Delhi Police Commissioner as the CIC. The opposition has also accused Bassi of favouring the BJP-led government to gain a position post retirement, said the report. RTI activist and former CIC Shailesh Gandhi wrote a letter to the Centre, objecting Bassi's appointment as the next CIC, reported The Hindu. The letter says that appointment of Bassi would be a "a travesty of the process" and "a sad day for democracy, and people will believe that the denigration of the two estates of governance had the approval of the government", added the report. The Delhi CP is set to retire on 29 February 2016 and has been said to be in the running to be the CIC since November 2015. Jat protest seeking reservation for the community took a bloody turn on Friday when one person fell to police bullets. According to Anil Jain, a BJP leader in Haryana, the police fired in its defence due to which one person was killed, reported ANI. Another report in Hindustan Times said that six others were injured near the Maharshi Dayanand University (MDU). The report added that the protesters tried to set the house of Haryana minister Captain Abhimanyu on fire. The minister, however, was not inside the house. The mob also burnt another house as the protest turned violent. Reports also said that Home Minister Rajnath Singh talked to Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar over the Jat reservation protest. Jat leaders on Friday rejected an appeal by political parties in Haryana to call off their quota protest even as Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar gave an assurance that a solution will be worked out to extend reservation to the community. The appeal to the Jat leaders was made by the parties at a meeting convened by Khattar to discuss the demands of the community and find a way out to end the impasse. However, the agitators refused to withdraw their protest till a legislation is passed giving quota to the community under OBC category and accused Khattar of having "casteist mentality", saying he did not belong to the community. Meanwhile, mobile Internet and SMS services were suspended indefinitely by the authorities in violence-hit Rohtak in the wake of the agitation spreading in the district. Trains on the Delhi-Ambala and Hisar-Dhuri routes were hit as the protesters squatted on railway tracks as part of their plan to intensify the stir. "The political parties have appealed to the agitating Jats to call off their protest to maintain peace and harmony in the state. "Our first priority is that the Jat agitation should end today and peace maintained in the state. A way will be worked out to give reservation to Jats," Khattar said after the meeting. He said blocking roads and hampering rail services were not the "right way" to hold an agitation. Normal life has been severely affected in various parts of Haryana with the agitation hitting supply of essential commodities like milk, vegetables, LPG and petroleum products. "Supplies of petroleum products are hit in Rohtak, Bhiwani and Jind due to the agitation," an official said. "Some of the fuel pumps in these districts have even gone dry. Similarly, the supply of LPG cylinders has also been affected in these areas," the official said. Asked about BJP MP Raj Kumar Saini's remarks against Jat quota, Khattar said Kurukshetra MP's statement "should be considered as withdrawn". Saini had earlier expressed objection over giving reservation to Jats and had even threatened to resign if there was "any loss" to reservation quota for OBCs. With inputs from PTI Begusarai (Bihar): JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar's father on Friday accused the BJP and RSS of "fixing" his innocent son and demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the JNU row. "Kanhaiya didn't shout anti-India slogans. He is innocent. The BJP and the RSS is trying to fix him," Jaishankar Singh told media in Begusarai. He also accused Delhi Police of working under BJP government's pressure. "Delhi Police is working under pressure from the BJP and the RSS. I would urge Prime Minister Narendra Modi to dismiss the case against Kanhaiya and hand over the case to CBI," he said. Kanhaiya's mother Meena Devi, an aanganwadi worker, added: "My son is being tortured under the very nose of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. My son has done no wrong." The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union president, who is from the CPI-affiliated AISF, was arrested a week ago on charges of shouting anti-India slogans. He was on Wednesday sent to judicial custody till 2 March. IANS New Delhi: Maoist menace is rearing its ugly ahead again in Odisha and the newly created state of Telangana after lying low for some time with the overall situation in LWE-affected states remaining "fluid", the chief of the lead anti-Naxal operations force Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has said. CRPF Director General Prakash Mishra said while the focus of anti-Naxal operations continues to be the worst Maoist violence-hit states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, areas around the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha Border (AOB) and those within Odisha "need more attention." The ex-Odisha DGP said while Naxal activity in the state had by-and-large cleared up, it is now "coming back" in the Narayanpatna area of Koraput district which borders Andhra. "There could be many reasons (for this) non-application of Standard Operating Procedures or lax policing. The inherent danger is always there...even in Telangana and some places in Andhra Pradesh," the CRPF chief told PTI. CRPF is drawing up a map for re-deploying its forces in Odisha with Mishra himself undertaking a number of operational visits to the state. "As of now, I would say the situation is fluid but if the drive (operations and development together) continues as it is at the present, then I think, it (Naxal violence) is going to take a turn for the better only. There shouldn't be any let down (in operations and development works) in affected areas," he said when asked to give his assessment of the Left Wing Extremism situation in the country. Mishra, who retires this month-end after heading the country's largest paramilitary for over an year, said this at a time when Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh is himself on a tour of these areas in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. The Union Home Ministry has recently sanctioned 1,000 more Border Security Force personnel to Andhra Pradesh for these tasks. The DG said security forces have made a good "dent" and hit at the strength of Maoist cadres in various states, demolishing the belief that they were "invincible". "But, you cannot wish away the problem (Naxal violence) till the area under their control is taken back totally. We have to create a development hub in these areas so that after security forces conduct an operation, the gap is filled up by ushering in development works in such areas. "The idea is that Maoists do not get space to organise themselves back," he said. Mishra said Naxal violence has been "going down" over the last year but he warned that these incidents have a "cyclic pattern" and they can come back after a brief lull. "While no one knows the future, about one-and-a-half or two years of sustained action can bring in the required results," he said. During his tenure, new operation policies were brought in which resulted in an all-time low casualty figure of CRPF personnel. While 52 CRPF men were killed in anti-Naxal operations in 2014, only five were martyred in these operations in 2015. The force, which leads anti-LWE operations across the country, also killed 40 Naxals in the year gone by. The last big casualty for the paramilitary in the Naxal operations grid occured in December 2014 when fourteen of its troops were killed in an ambush in Chhattisgarh. Mishra said after taking over he had made his stand clear to the field commanders that operations should be conducted keeping in mind their effectiveness. "Right from the day I had joined, I had been taking a stand that your (CRPF men) exhibitionism in the jungle should end. The moment you come out, it should be with a purpose. "Now we go with a purpose and agenda in mind and you take your own tactical moves and you come back," Mishra said, adding the force was initially criticised that it was not undertaking enough operations but the results have proven them wrong. He said earlier the elite jungle warfare unit of the force called CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action) was "mixing up" with regular battalions for such tasks but after he took over he made it a norm that CoBRA commandos go for "independent and deep penetration" operations with the regular units acting as support elements. The regular CRPF units, he said, were also asked to go out independently for specific intelligence-based operations. The CRPF chief said a lot of stress is being laid on training and now even small force units are being strengthened as part of widened training infrastructure so that men in operations keep doing their smaller drills quite often. While acknowledging that key Maoist leaders are still at large, Mishra said security forces had been continuously hitting the Naxal cadres due to which the recruitment in their ranks has gone down and a stage will come when the seniors will have no "executors" on the ground. PTI Senior journalist Rajdeep Sardesai, who has long been the whipping boy of jingioistic right-wing elements both online and offline has ignited a controversy after writing an article titled 'Yes, I am anti-national'. His article has come in the backdrop of a heated debate and physical assault over allegations that students and mediapersons are engaging in 'anti-national' activities. In a strong rebuttal to people attacking for his views, Sardesai said, "Yes, I am anti-national because I don't believe in doublespeak on issues of nationalism." He went on to raise a number of controversial issues, including the beef ban, criminalisation of homosexuality and the death penalty. Not surprisingly, #Iamantinational surged to the top of the Twitter trends, propelled by abuse, opinionated voices on both sides of the ideological divide, and a few stray voices calling for sanity. Wonder how would the Hanamanthappas be feeling seeing the #Iamantinational trend. Alas, you died in vain Sir. Nationalism is a certified sin Pranay Tiwari (@pranayom) February 19, 2016 Yes i do belong to the group who wants to have discusion on development not on RSS & VHP . Weather u can call me #Iamantinational Mehul Choradiya (@ChoradiyaMehul) February 19, 2016 Being so NATIONALIST if u are allowed to spread violence and hatred among the citizens, Then so sorry.. Let me be #Iamantinational Vikash Kedia (@vickykedia) February 19, 2016 There is half truth in Rajdeep's claim. He is for sure an anti - National, but a disgrace to Hindus. #Iamantinational Baba Satarangi (@BabaSatarangi) February 19, 2016 I'm VERY MUCH an INDIAN NATIONAL bcoz my allegiance to my country is NOT bound by the views of a bunch of hooligans/morons. #Iamantinational Nandini Tandon (@nandinitandon9) February 19, 2016 In a post on his blog, Sardesai wrote, "When I was first accused of being 'anti-national' on social media, I was angry. Now, a few years later, the coarse political discourse, where desh bhakti certificates are being liberally distributed, tempts me to scream: garv se kaho hum desh-drohi hain." Sardesai also made a reference to recent incidents in which female journalists were assaulted by angry protesters outside the Patiala House Court complex in Delhi. He also pointed out during the period surrounding the Babri Masjid demolition too, women journalists were attacked. On Tuesday, a case was registered against a Twitter user who made a gangrape threat to a woman scribe who put up photos of a protest organised by Mumbai Press Club on the social media. The incident was described as an example where 'nationalism' was used as a pretext to threaten or verbally abuse those criticising the government. Read Sardesai's blog titled Yes, I am anti-national here. And to find out how anti-national you are, take this quiz: New Delhi: Apparently concerned over the virtual wash out of last two sessions, Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari has called a meeting of leaders of all parties in the Upper House on Saturday amid possibility of a tumultuous Budget session beginning 23 February. This is perhaps the first such formal pre-session meeting convened by the Rajya Sabha Chairman. Significantly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also been invited for the meeting, which aims at ensuring a smooth three-month long session. Ansari had also held an informal meeting with leaders of Congress and BJP in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday as well. Rajya Sabha, where the government lacks majority, had seen repeated disruption in the Monsoon and Winter sessions with Congress and several other opposition parties blocking key economic reform measures of the Modi government. Repeatedly voicing his anguish over the disruptions, Ansari had in the past even toyed with the idea of possible changes in rules for smooth running of the House. As the Winter session of Rajya Sabha was adjourned sine die on 23 December, Ansari had lamented that the record of this session belied the commitment to the principles of the Constitution "in good measure". Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu have also called separate all-party meetings on 22 February, a day before the crucial session begins. Naidu had also held a meeting of leaders of a number of opposition parties on February 4 where it was decided to have a full-length session and not to go for any curtailment of its duration even as assembly elections in five states are scheduled in between. The government is keen to push its legislative agenda in the Budget session, including the pending bills on GST and real estate thwarted in the last two sessions, while the opposition is raring to target it on a host of issues, including the JNU row, dalit scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide, imposition of President's Rule in Arunachal Pradesh, terror attacks in Pathankot and Gurdaspur. Raising questions over the process of the appointment of Vice Chancellors of JNU and Delhi University, a number of opposition parties have come together against the government, accusing it of "undermining" the autonomy of the institutions. Naidu had last month met Congress President Sonia Gandhi seeking cooperation for the early passage of the crucial GST and the real estate bills. The Budget session of Parliament will commence on 23 February and will focus largely on the financial business of the government. The General Budget will be presented on 29 February. PTI Shoot-at-sight orders have been issued in Rohtak and Bhiwani in Haryana and curfew clamped down Friday in these two violence-hit districts and Jhajjar too. Three people have been killed, reports IANS even as the Army was rushed in Friday night across eight districts. Security forces opened fire after large-scale violence by Jat community protestors on the rampage for quotas spilled over into the streets and buildings set ablaze. Section 144 has been imposed in at least six districts. Protestors also took some police personnel captive besides going on rampage at many places including Rohtak, Jhajjar and Hansi targeting police and private vehicles, buildings housing offices, including two Toll Plazas at Hansi in Hissar district and near Rohtak, both located on the Delhi-Hisar-Fazilka National Highway. The Maharshi Dayanand University (MDU) campus in Rohtak, Haryana is at the epicenter of the action. More than 500 trains have been affected, reports The Indian Express. The Haryana government on Friday called in the army to contain the situation in eight districts of the state severely affected by the ongoing Jat agitation, including in Rohtak town as a violent mob went on the rampage. Rail and road traffic on the Delhi Ambala National Highway and mainline railway route was also blocked by protesters at various places including in Sonipat district. A number of trainshave been cancelled. Haryana Director General of Police Y.P. Singhal told media in Chandigarh that the army has been called in, in Rohtak, Jhajjar, Sonipat, Panipat, Jind, Kaithal, Bhiwani and Hisar districts. The agitation is now spreading to Uttar Pradesh too, reports The Hindustan Times. "The government has asked the army to be called in eight districts. The request has been sent. The chief secretary has spoken to the army chief. The chief minister (Manohar Lal Khattar) has spoken to defence minister (Manohar Parrikar). The effort is to deploy the army as soon as possible to control the situation," he said. A protestor was killed and at least 10 injured when a BSF unit fired in self-defence after being fired upon by the protestors. A BSF trooper was injured in the firing. The injured were taken to the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Rohtak, 75 km from Delhi, police said. "One person from mob fired on BSF personnel with a home-made weapon. The BSF fired in self defence and one person was killed," Singhal said, adding that the mob did not allow the injured trooper to taken to hospital and efforts were being made to rescue him. He said that a mob attacked a Haryana Police official and other policemen near the Maharishi Dayanand University gate and held the hostage and more forces had to be sent to rescue them. "A leaderless mob is moving through Rohtak town. They came near the Circuit House and damaged the vehicle of the deputy inspector general of police, two police vehicles and set on fire another police vehicle," Singhal said. The mob attacked the office of the DIG, and set the house of Finance Minister Abhimanyu on fire. At some places in the town, black smoke could be seen coming out of property set on fire by the agitators, who even manhandled media persons at some places. "We are trying to stop the mob," the police chief said, adding that three companies of paramilitary forces were already stationed and 30 more companies would be deployed in Haryana soon. Protestors had clashed with security forces in Rohtak on Thursday evening when police tried to remove the blockades. The authorities blocked Internet and SMS services in the affected districts. Appealing to protesters to end road and rail blockades, Singhal said that curfew had not been imposed in Rohtak or other places so far. Thousands of trucks, carrying supplies and goods, were stranded in the affected districts due to highways and roads being blocked. Over 40 trains were cancelled by railway authorities across Haryana on Friday as the Jat agitation escalated. In Gurgaon, Jat protestors blocked roads, leading to traffic jams and chaos in the city, adjoining the national capital. Life continued to be affected in most parts of Rohtak, Jhajjar Sonipat, Bhiwani, Jind, Hisar and some other districts as the agitation by Jats for reservation in jobs and educational institutions continued for the sixth day on Friday. The protestors have blocked roads, highways and railway tracks, inconveniencing the common man. Hundreds of railway passengers were stranded as protestors blocked the Delhi-Ambala-Amritsar railway track at Rajlu Garhi village in Sonipat on Friday evening. Railway authorities cancelled several trains, including express trains like Kalka-Delhi Shatabdi Express, Pashchim Express and others. The stir escalated even as the Haryana government called an all-party meeting in Chandigarh to discuss the reservation issue and the Jat protests. The meeting urged the protestors to end their agitation and remove blockades. Jat leaders however rejected the appeal. After the all-party meeting, Khattar said: "The government is in favour of reservation for Jats in the state and is trying to find out ways and means for the same." Referring to statements of BJP's Kurukshetra MP Raj Kumar Saini, who is opposed to reservation for Jats, Khattar said he had been asked to withdraw his statement against the protestors. Security had been tightened at Saini's house in Kurukshetra town. Agriculture Minister O.P. Dhankar meanwhile said in Gurgaon that the state government was ready to give special backward class quota to the Jats. I appeal to my brothers and sisters of Haryana to maintain peace and order in the state. Rajnath Singh (@BJPRajnathSingh) February 19, 2016 Army deployed in Haryana, requisition received in 9 locations including Rohtak, Jind,Jhajjar,Bhiwani,Hissar,Kaithal,Sonepat,Panipat&Karnal ANI (@ANI_news) February 19, 2016 With IANS New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the plea of Congress leaders seeking an interim direction that it be allowed to go in for a floor test in the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly to prove majority. "This may be a possible manner of dealing with the issue, but the matter is still pending before us and we have not yet tendered our decision," a five-judge constitution bench headed by Justice JS Khehar said. The observation of the bench, also comprising Justices Dipak Misra, MB Lokur, PC Ghose and NV Ramana, came on an oral plea of senior lawyer Kapil Sibal, representing Congress leaders of the state, that the party enjoyed majority and a direction be issued for holding floor test in the assembly. Sibal said, "we have suspected all this (alleged bid to revoke President's Rule and install a new government). We have told our apprehensions to the court and now all that are coming true. "We may agree with you and may not agree with you in the case. But if we agree with you, then everyone knows what will happen. Nobody will take that chance," the bench said while referring to the apprehension regarding the formation of a new government in the crisis-ridden state. Sibal raised another apprehension, asking what would happen if the Centre and Governor JP Rajkhowa swear in a new Chief Minister and go on to dissolve the House to ensure that power remains in their hand till snap polls are held. "Soon after swearing in of a new government, they will dissolve the House and exercise control through a care-taker government," Sibal said, urging that now some order should be given in the case as they have concluded the arguments. The apex court, however, declined this request too and said that members of the bench may have different view points and an order will be pronounced only after all arguments are concluded. The court had on Thursday vacated its interim order to maintain status quo in Arunachal Pradesh assembly, which could pave the way for government formation by rebel Congress MLAs with the support of BJP lawmakers. Referring to the Gauhati High Court order staying the disqualification of 14 rebel MLAs, the apex court had said "it does not call for any interference". Congress party, which has 47 MLAs seats in the 60-member assembly, suffered a jolt when 21 of its lawmakers rebelled. Eleven BJP MLAs backed the rebels in the bid to upstage the government. Later, 14 rebel Congress MLAs were disqualified. The bench is hearing a batch of pleas on the constitutional powers of Governors, besides those relating to disqualification of the legislators. Hours after the Union Cabinet had decided to recommend revocation of President's Rule in Arunachal Pradesh, the apex court had on 17 February ordered maintenance of status quo in the politically fragile state till it examined judicial and assembly records on disqualification of the 14 rebel Congress MLAs by former Speaker Nabam Rebia. On 16 February, the court had refused to pass an interim order on a plea of Congress leaders that Arunchal Pradesh Governor Rakhowa be restrained from swearing in a new government in Arunachal Pradesh. PTI On the evening of 9 February, 30 minutes before the scheduled start of a cultural event organised by the Democratic Students Union (an ultra-leftist group) titled A Country without a Post Office to protest against the judicial killing of Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhat, the university administration of Jawaharlal Nehru University cancelled the event. Dozens of students gathered on the Sabarmati lawns including Kashmiri students to protest against the cancellation and raised slogans. One among them was Umar Khalid. Former DSU leader Khalid, 28, resigned from his post in November 2015 along with 10 others and is now doing his PhD at JNU's Centre for Historical Studies. His college and university mates say he was always vocal and believed in extreme left ideology. Khalid wore a maroon printed muffler and a grey-and-white sweater while he spoke to a television channel after the protest. In the subsequent days, he appeared on different television channels defending the event. On Friday, immediately after Delhi Police arrested JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar on charges of 'criminal conspiracy' and 'sedition' under Sections 124A and 120B of the Indian Penal Code, JNU students say Khalid went missing from the campus. His disappearance led a certain section of the media to claim he was a Jaish-e-Mohammad sympathiser and that he had links with terrorist organisations. Other reports in media and posters outside JNU in the Munirka area described Khalid as a Kashmiri traitor. A few clarifications are required: First, Umar is not a Kashmiri. His parents live in Delhi and he is actually from the Amravati district of Maharashtra. His family moved to Delhi 35 years ago and they live in the Jamia Nagar area they have no connection with Kashmir. Although his views on Kashmir are known to everyone on campus, according to some JNU students he would encourage Kashmiri students and those from other parts to speak about their experiences in Kashmir. After the 9 February rally, this is what Umar told a television channel, I am not from Kashmir, but what is happening there is Indian occupation of Kashmir. Just like one territory is occupied by Pakistan, another territory is occupied by the Indian State. (Jawaharlal) Nehrus words in 1947 were very clear Kashmir will be given a plebiscite. Umars father, Syed Qasim Ilyas, says he is not the first one to say what he has about Kashmir. Many politicians, authors, journalist have talked about separation of Kashmir. Then should they also be charged with sedition? he asked. Second, he is a communist and self-proclaimed atheist not an Islamist, according to his friends at JNU. This is why there has always been some distance between him and his father Ilyas, a social activist who also runs an Urdu magazine in Delhi. He is not at all religious and we always have disagreements on the issue, Ilyas said. Joyeeta Dey, a family friend of Umar's, wrote on her Facebook page that she heard her friend (Umar's sister) saying on many occasions that her brother was a "communist pagal". Dey wrote during her extensive stay at Umar's house that she noticed the grief he caused his family (who are believers) by fiercely renouncing religion (as it clashed with his political ideology) was palpable". Third, did Umar travel to Pakistan? The former leader of the DSU faces far graver charges than sedition those of having links with militant groups, as reported in the media. Ilyas denied these claims and said his son had, until now, never even applied for a passport, despite receiving offers of international scholarships. My son and Kanhaiya Kumar are the worst victims of the media trial. My son is being called a terrorist and someone who travelled to Pakistan, even though he doesnt have a passport. He may be anything but he's not a terrorist, Ilyas said. His friends inside the JNU campus do not believe the allegations. Aparna (name changed), a classmate of Umar's, did her MA in History from JNU and has known him for many years, ever since he was an undergraduate student at a college in Delhi University. He (Umar) is being targeted because he is a Muslim. His face, name and his political views provide the best fit for media and State to brand him a terrorist. The ABVP pasted his posters in Munirka saying he is a traitor and militant sympathiser while as far as I know, he believes in the Constitution of this country, but has his views on issues, she said. Fourth, if he believes in the law of the land and the Constitution, why is he hiding and where? His father denied having any information and said the last time he spoke to his son was when he was coming out of the studio of a TV channel. This question was posed to many students during a protest rally organised by the students of JNU who've known Umar for years. Do you think he would be safe, if he was to come out in public? Lawyers and goons want to kill Kanhaiya in court and lynch him; how can you trust institutions of the State that have failed to protect Kanhaiya? Imagine a Muslim student bearded and having radical views who has worked with adivasis and is not scared like most of the Muslims in India today. They would lynch him, said Supriya, a student of JNU who was part of a protest match organised by the university students in New Delhi, on Thursday. Ilyas said he asked his son to return home on the day Kanhaiya was arrested, but his son refused saying he was going to JNU. His ideology has become his worst enemy. He is a meritorious student, did his MA and MPhil in such a prestigious institution. The countrys media is slowly turning on him because he is a perfect fit: A Muslim face with views that dont gel with the State's opinion on things, he said. I wish and appeal that my son returns soon to face the law of the land if he has done something wrong. Our family is worried about his safety and I am worried about him. We have been receiving threats. If he has raised any slogan that the state thinks is seditious, he should face the law of the land, said Ilyas. A WhatsApp conversation between Umar and his friend, which is in Firstpost's possession, reads: Friend: Bhai, calcium tablets khalo. Is umr mein daant jhadna think nahi. (Take calcium tablets. At your age, you don't want to lose teeth) You should take care of yourself Umar: Hyper mat ho. Thik hoon mein. Is desh ke logon ko do waqt ka khana nahi milita. Tum log selfish ho. Kabhi toh bada socho (Don't be hyper. I'm fine. In this country, people don't get to eat two meals a day. You people are selfish. Try and think big). Brussels: Prime Minister David Cameron faced off Thursday against the 27 other European Union leaders, telling them to grant his country a new deal to settle the festering issue of their relationship or face a possible divorce as soon as this summer. Cameron said he was "battling for Britain" at a Brussels summit and for a less intrusive EU that would benefit other countries, too. But French President Francois Hollande struck a cautionary note, warning that no individual leader should be allowed to stop closer European cooperation. "It's the EU in question, not just one country in the EU," Hollande said as he arrived. "I want Britain to stay in the EU. But I hope most of all that Europe can advance, can be stronger." Cameron is seeking changes to the UK-EU relationship that will let him urge Britons to vote "yes" to continued membership in a referendum that could come as early as June. He told his fellow leaders that he needed a substantial deal that would be "credible for the British people." The British referendum on EU membership is bound to be hard-fought, since few issues in Britain have as much resonance as its relationship with the EU. "The question of Britain's place in Europe has been allowed to fester for too long," Cameron said, arguing that this was a chance to settle the issue for a generation. But Britain also warned it would walk away if the deal was not good enough. "If we can get a good deal, I will take that deal. But I will not take a deal that doesn't meet what we need," Cameron said. He also tweeted: I'm in Brussels where I'm negotiating hard for Britain. I'm clear, I'm not prepared to take a deal that does not meet what Britain needs. David Cameron (@David_Cameron) February 18, 2016 The leaders discussed Britain's reform aims before a six-hour dinner meeting focusing on the migrant crisis. When the politicians finally dispersed at 2.30 am (0130GMT), EU President Donald Tusk said they had "made some progress but a lot remains to be done" to secure a deal for the UK. A British official said gaps remained on key issues and "there's a lot of hard work to do overnight." Bilateral talks and negotiations by diplomats and lawyers were expected to go into the early hours before the 28 leaders reconvene for breakfast on Friday. Britain, which has one of the strongest economies in Europe, has been a magnet for hundreds of thousands of workers from eastern EU nations who are seeking higher-paying jobs. Britain has no power to stop immigration from other EU nations, leading some in Britain to say that immigrants are taking their jobs. The EU immigrants can also claim unemployment, child care and other benefits in Britain, which Cameron's government says is straining the country's social services budget. Since none of the 27 other leaders wants to see Britain leave, there is broad consensus, if not agreement, on a deal which Cameron says he needs to win the referendum. It would give Britain more powers to limit benefit payments to workers from other EU countries for several years something Britain says will slow the pace of immigration. The draft deal also offers guarantees to countries, including Britain, that do not use the shared euro currency, and makes tweaks aimed at boosting competitiveness and giving national parliaments more power. But differences remain on key details, including Britain's wish to be exempted from the EU's longstanding aim of "ever closer union." One European official said a main source of tension was the length of time Britain's limit on welfare benefits would last, with the Czech Republic opposing the UK's aim of seven years. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, since the discussions were not public. The lingering disputes belie the fact that the other member states cherish Britain as an economic and diplomatic giant in a struggling EU. "I'm going into this debate with the position that we would like to do everything to create the conditions so that Great Britain can remain part of the European Union," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. But continuing differences remain. Cameron argues for a "live and let live" union in which some countries move ever closer together while others remain semi-detached. That grates against the wishes of France, Germany and others who believe strongly in an "ever closer union" among as many members as possible. Britain has long been a half-hearted member of the EU, staying out of both the euro currency and the passport-free Schengen travel zone. The perception of increasing Brussels meddling in affairs many Britons considered sovereign issues made the time ripe for a UK referendum. Cameron said he would not stop other EU members striving for more unity, but insisted Britain should have ironclad guarantees that it could stay on the sidelines. Cameron has lobbied relentlessly for months, visiting 20 EU nations and speaking to all the other leaders to bring the EU to the cusp of an agreement many had thought impossible. But even if he gets a deal, he will face loud opposition from anti-EU forces at home, including many members of his own Conservative Party. UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, who wants Britain to leave the EU, said the changes Cameron was seeking were trivial. "It's not worth a row of beans, whatever he gets," Farage said. As she arrived for the summit, Lithuanian Prime Minister Dalia Grybauskaite saw a long meeting ahead. "Everybody will have (their) own drama, and then we will agree," she said. AP Beijing: China has accused the US of militarizing the South China Sea, just days after it was revealed Beijing had deployed surface-to-air missiles on an island in the disputed area. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters Friday that patrols by US military aircraft and Navy vessels along with joint exercises with regional partners had raised tensions and constituted true militarization. US and Taiwanese officials this week confirmed commercial satellite images showing the missiles placed on Woody Island in the disputed Paracel chain. China has not denied the appearance of the missiles. The deployment follows China's building of new islands by piling sand atop reefs and then adding airstrips and military installations. The buildup is seen as part of Beijing's efforts to claim virtually the entire disputed sea and its resources. AP New Delhi: French President Francois Hollande vowed Monday not to weaken his resolve against terrorism as he held talks with India's leader on security cooperation and a long-delayed defence deal. Hollande said he and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had agreed to step up cooperation on counter-terrorism after deadly attacks on Paris in November that recalled the 2008 assault on Mumbai. But they failed to reach a final agreement on India's long-delayed purchase of 36 Rafale fighter jets from the French company Dassault. The French president said a new video which threatens countries of the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group would only strengthen France's resolve, which was tested by November's deadly attacks in Paris. "These odious provocations only serve to further increase the resolve that we have, that I have, to protect French people through the decisions that I have taken... but also to hit, and hit again, this organisation that threatens us and kills our children," he said. Hollande made the comments after talks with Modi that focused on security cooperation following the Paris attacks. Indian President Pranab Mukherjee, in the customary Republic Day eve address to the nation, called for a unified global approach to tackle terrorism. "Nations will never agree on everything; but the challenge today is existential. Terrorists seek to undermine order by rejecting the very basis of strategic stability," Mukherjee said. "Terrorism is inspired by insane objectives, motivated by bottomless depths of hatred," he added. Modi had also spoken of his and Hollande's joint resolve to increase security cooperation, recalling a deadly raid earlier this month on an Indian military base near the Pakistan border. "President Hollande and I have agreed to scale up the range of our counter-terrorism cooperation in a manner that helps us to tangibly mitigate and reduce the threat of extremism and terrorism to our societies," he said. Modi was speaking alongside the French president, whose visit had raised fresh expectations that the Rafale deal would be finalised after years of tortuous negotiations. A joint statement said the leaders welcomed the conclusion of an intergovernmental agreement on the purchase, but that "some financial issues" remained outstanding. A senior French official told reporters on Sunday the two sides were still haggling over the price, which experts say could reach around five billion euros ($5.6 billion). One sticking point is Delhi's insistence that arms makers invest a percentage of the value of any major deal in India. Manufacturer Dassault Aviation hailed the accord Monday, saying in a statement it "actively supports the French authorities in finalising a full accord within four weeks". Metro ride Hollande will be chief guest at Tuesday's Republic Day parade in New Delhi, an invitation Modi extended to show solidarity after the assault on the French capital which killed 130 people. Earlier, he said the extremist threat weighed as heavily on France as on India, recently hit by the deadly attack on a military base near the border with Pakistan. The 17-minute video put out by the IS group describes the Paris attackers as "lions" who "brought France to its knees" and urges Muslims in France to rise up against the country's leaders. It features the heads of Hollande, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls and British Prime Minister David Cameron with targets superimposed on them, and purports to show nine jihadists involved in November's slaughter. "Nothing will deter us, no threat will make France waver in the fight against terrorism," Hollande told reporters. "These images only serve to discredit the perpetrators of this crime." Hollande and Modi will sit together at the annual parade, a pomp-filled spectacle of military might which includes columns of Soviet-era tanks. On Monday the atmosphere was distinctly more down-to-earth as the two leaders took the metro for their journey to the satellite city of Gurgaon. There, they were set to lay the foundation stone at the new headquarters of the International Solar Alliance, a 121-nation group launched by Modi at the recent Paris climate conference to expand affordable solar power. Hollande has expressed hope that some of the French businesses travelling with him will be at the forefront of the solar energy push. The leaders are expected to announce a pact between France's CNES and India's ISRO space agencies for a joint satellite dedicated to climate change research. AFP Nepal prime minister KP Oli will make India his first foreign destination as Prime Minister of Nepal on Friday, when he arrives in New Delhi on a six-day visit. While arguably not quite as high-profile as some of the other recent visits to India by foreign leaders, Olis is a significant one. Significant, primarily because India-Nepal relations have been strained for a while now, and this visit gives the governments of both countries to set things right and the bilateral on a positive trajectory again. Almost like it was back in 2014. Prime Minister Narendra Modi kicked off his tenure by inviting Saarc leaders, including then Nepali prime minister Sushil Koirala to his swearing-in ceremony. He has since made two state visits to Nepal his most-visited country alongside the US, Singapore, Russia and France where he received a warm welcome from both, the government and the public. Its notable that his August 2014 visit was the first by any Indian prime minister to Nepal in 17 years. How relations soured A road-bump was hit in May last year, when the Indian media faced flak from Nepalis for its perceived insensitivity and exploitative behaviour in the wake of the massive earthquake. Remember #GoHomeIndianMedia? Admittedly, that didnt affect relations between New Delhi and Kathmandu, but people-to-people relations took a hit. Government-to-government relations would take a beating around four months later when Nepal adopted its first fully secular and democratic Constitution which led to the violent Madhesi revolt. Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar visited Kathmandu (and met political leaders representing all sides of the debate on the Constitution) and upon his return, stated We hope that Nepal's political leaders will display the necessary flexibility and maturity at this crucial time to ensure a durable and resilient Constitution that has broad-based acceptance. That seemed to be all it took for #BackOffIndia to start trending on Twitter. And despite the Ministry of External Affairs assertion that India had not handed over any list of specific Constitutional amendments or changes to the Government of Nepal, things went further downhill. The de facto blockade came soon after. This blockade prompted Oli to accuse India of treating Nepal as if the two countries were at war. By October, Beijing had caught wind of New Delhi-Kathmandu tensions. And after Olis election as Nepals prime minister, the Chinese media began to portray him as pro-China and the coalition he leads as Beijing-friendly. The efficacy of Modis Nepal policy was under the scanner. By mid-November, and after gentle talks and an economic blockade one with which the Government of India vociferously opposed any involvement it appeared New Delhi was in search of international support in its efforts to apparently influence the Nepali leadership to amend the Constitution and allay Madhesi fears. First, it was a throwaway line in an India-UK joint statement that raised the hackles in Kathmandu. Modi and his British counterpart David Cameron stressed the importance of a lasting and inclusive constitutional settlement in Nepal that will address the remaining areas of concern and promote political stability and economic growth. Kathmandu replied with this little stinger: Nepal respects the international communitys support and goodwill for peace, stability and prosperity. However, Nepal strongly views that the constitution making is an internal matter of the country and Nepal is capable of handling its internal affairs on its own. A diplomatic way of saying, Go- well, you know. And a few days later, Oli took umbrage at India raking up the decade-old issue of human rights violations in Nepal, at a UN Human Rights Council meet in Geneva. What now for bilateral ties? It was in January this year that Oli announced he would not be breaking from tradition all his predecessors with the exception of Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' in 2008 have made India their first state visit despite speculation in the Nepali media that he would opt for Beijing. But it was only after the five-month-long blockade was lifted that Oli greenlit his visit. And since then, the general mood surrounding the bilateral seems to be more upbeat. The Kathmandu Post suggests that more than four Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) will be signed, including one on the India-announced $1 billion line of credit and further assistance of $1 billion for Nepals reconstruction effort. Nepals High-Level Political Coordination Committee has reportedly urged Oli to focus on strengthening Nepal-India relations on a sustainable foundation, states The Himalayan Times. And while Indian Ambassador to Nepal Ranjit Rae has predicted a successful, productive and fruitful visit for Oli, former Nepali Ambassador to India Bhekh Bahadur Thapa said, The visit should lay the foundation for good ties. All of which is very nice, but it is instructive to look at the wording of statements emanating from Nepal that stress on 'mutual interests'. Nepal has been widely seen as a buffer state between India and China, and both New Delhi and Beijing are eager to secure Kathmandu's friendship. There seems to be a notion probably not completely unjustified, but likely very opportunistic as well that Nepal gets less out of the bilateral relationship than India. And playing an active role in perpetuating this paranoia is Beijing. The China factor Sample this for an idea of the sort of narrative that dominates the issue of India-Nepal relations in China: "Facing Nepal-India rows, China should be aware that the disputes cannot be resolved immediately. As a responsible country, Beijing ought to help address the issue in accordance with its own capacities. First of all, China is supposed to play a role as a mediator between Nepal and India," writes Xu Liang in Global Times. Just how responsible, is open to interpretation and just who decided China is supposed to play that role is unclear. But the article continues to stoke the flames by stating that Beijing must "be careful not to step into the minefields between Nepal and India". It goes on to flag 'territorial disputes over the Lipu-Lekh Pass (that) have been simmering for years between Kathmandu and New Delhi' and that the pass was mentioned in an India-China joint statement has 'triggered Nepalese protests'. Sidestepping China's overtures is something that Indian governments have traditionally managed to do vis-a-vis Nepal. But to manage that during this fractious period in India-Nepal relations will be a diplomatic feat for Modi and his Cabinet. And the meeting with Modi on Saturday will set the foundation for this feat. As per Oli's schedule, he is scheduled to meet Modi at Hyderabad following a ceremonial reception and guard of honour at Rashtrapati Bhavan and the customary payment of homage to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat. Style over substance? A potential hiccup during the visit could be India's decision earlier this month to offer the services of its Gurkha soldiers to Brunei, which reportedly goes against the 'spirit of the 1947 tripartite agreement' between India, Nepal and the UK. According to this agreement, Gurkha soldiers may be 'integrated into the Indian and British Army, but not treated as mercenaries'. Whether or not this issue comes up, it's bound to be sitting at the back of Oli's mind. For now though, we can expect the six-day visit to be high on optics, with plenty of hugs, tweets and photo-ops flying around. The message that India will hope to send out especially to China is that things are hunky-dory and at the end of the day, both countries are still good friends. To that effect, there will be MoUs mainily cultural or aid-based signed and all sorts of consultations on a variety of issues. Will there be any substance behind all that style though? We'll have a better idea next Wednesday when the Nepali prime minister returns to Kathmandu, but the significance of the opportunity that this visit gives India and Nepal to set their bilateral on the right path cannot be overstated. Washington: Amid reports that she was emerging as a "fantastic choice" for being Republican party's vice-presidential candidate, Indian-American South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has ruled out any such possibility, saying her "plate is full". Haley, who earlier this week endorsed Florida Senator Marco Rubio in the Republican presidential race, said she is quite "content" with her responsibilities as the Governor of South Carolina and bringing up two kids. "Not at all. I have said my plate is full," Haley told the Fox News in an interview when asked about latest media reports that Rubio-Haley would be a dream Republican ticket. "I am not only a mom, my daughter is going to college next year, son is in middle school. I got a State that I love. We have not done finished all the work we want to finish here," 44-year-old said. "So I am totally content and happy in South Carolina. What I do want to see that America gets a great president," Haley said in a joint appearance on the Fox News with Rubio in South Carolina. "I think, we can do that with Marco Rubio," she said responding to questions on her potential running as a Vice Presidential running mate of Rubio, as being reported by some of the major media outlets. Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina said that, he is "all for" Haley being picked for Vice President. Haley is articulate and a strong leader, who went "through the fire" during a tragic 2015 in the State, he said. "She would be a fantastic choice and one that I think the country would be quite responsive to," Scott said. However, The Washington Post offered a word of caution. "A Rubio-Haley ticket might be many things. But a panacea for the GOP's sundry political and demographic challenges? It certainly is not," it said. But for The New York Observer, a Rubio-Haley ticket would be a worst nightmare for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential front runner. "The sight of Florida Senator Marco Rubio standing side-by-side with South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, after her blockbuster endorsement of his candidacy for president days before the South Carolina GOP primary, gave the appearance of a presidential ticket that would be a game changer for the 2016 campaign," it said. "Maybe a Hispanic-Asian ticket with one candidate who's rediscovering his tea-party roots and another who's made herself into the top union-hater in the country is the best they can do," The New Yorker wrote. PTI The car is towed away after a crash that killed three women. Credit:Kirk Gilmour Mr Davies said he had just gone to bed when he heard a "huge crunch and a bang". He arrived at the the scene about 15 seconds after the accident occurred. One police car was quickly joined by several others. The car hit a power pole just seconds after the chase started. Credit:Kirk Gilmour "When I came out, a police car had just stopped and when I looked down there was a body on the corner over the drain," he said. "It was completely motionless and the police did cover it up." Another resident, Tony Jegede, said he arrived home minutes after the accident and neighbours could hear the occupants of the car screaming. Bruce Davies, one of the first at the scene of the crash. Credit:Fiona Morris "[Firefighters] couldn't get into the car and they had to cut it open first," he said. "I saw someone was lying down on the footpath and the crews were trying to attend to that person." One of the victims' daughters took to Facebook to express her disbelief that her mother had been killed. Police believe the dead women were all aged in their 20s. Credit:TNV News "This can't be true not my mum noo," she wrote. "Can't believe she's actually gone why did you leave me alone. "What is life now without you. Your the best mum ever I know you been through a lot I wasn't easy on you but now your resting. An ill always love you mummy" Another daughter of a victim wrote: "While I was out doing god knows what last night, the most beautiful person I have ever known was taking her last breath. A critical incident investigation has been launched after the crash. Credit:TNV News "I'm so sorry for everything mum, God knows you've had it rough. Now you get to rest. I love you, rest easy." Police said it was a matter of seconds between the start of the pursuit and the moment when the car, which did not have its headlights on at the time, careered off the road and hit a power pole and fence before flipping on its roof. A man and a women were injured in the crash. Credit:TNV News "The car, we would say, sped away and within a matter of seconds collided with a power pole and now we have three females who are deceased," Assistant Commissioner Dennis Clifford said on Saturday. "I understand the deceased appear to be in their 20s but I don't have any actual ages and they are yet to be identified," he said. He described the crash as a real tragedy. "There's a lot of people that will be very affected by what occurred tonight," he said. "A lot of lives that will be changed forever." Two women died at the scene and a third woman died after being taken to Westmead Hospital. They are believed to be aged in their 20s. One of the women killed was from Melbourne. Another woman, 43, is in a stable condition in the hospital while a 33-year-old man is in a serious but stable condition. All those dead and injured were in the car, police said. The car crashed through the fence and into the backyard of long-time resident Peter Eisenhuth. He was sleeping when he and his wife heard a loud bang. "The next thing I heard were sirens," he said. "It was shocking. I came out and had a look but the coppers told me not to go any further. There were coppers and tow trucks everywhere." Mr Eisenhuth said the accident was a tragedy. The tragedy is the first involving a police chase in NSW since January 2015 when 17-month-old Tateolena Tauaifaga was killed by a fleeing car that ploughed through her backyard where she was playing with siblings. Debate has raged for years as to whether police pursuits should be banned. In Victoria last year, police were forbidden from chasing cars that skip minor traffic incidents as part of a series of stricter guidelines on pursuing suspects. The changes followed a series of recommendations from a coronial inquest into deaths that were linked to police high-speed chases in 2013. Under the new laws, officers are only permitted to chase fleeing drivers when a serious offence has been committed or there is a threat to public safety. South Carolina has an intrinsic relationship with the GOP - it is Christian, conservative and proud of its military traditions. For this reason it has a history of correctly picking the eventual Republican nominee. But last election it failed to do so, selecting Newt Gingrich rather than Mitt Romney. Donald Trump with South Carolina supporters on Monday. Credit:Bloomberg There were those at the time who believed this was an anomaly. Now it is beginning to look as though the abandonment of the establishment's chosen candidate, Romney, was in fact a sign of the grass roots rebellion to come, a rebellion none could have foreseen was to be led by Trump. And all the signs are that the rebellion is snowballing rather than waning, and that the party has no idea how to counter the threat posed to it by Trump. Donald Trump, 2016 Republican presidential candidate, campaigning in South Carolina on Monday. Credit:Bloomberg In recent days he has merrily attacked the party position on a host of issues, further defining his populism and economic nationalism. He has refused to promise cuts to a popular public health program for the elderly and voiced support for Planned Parenthood, a government-funded women's health service that, alongside other services, provides abortions. Jeb Bush, former Governor of Florida and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, speaks during the Republican presidential candidate debate in South Carolina on Saturday. Credit:Bloomberg He is opposed to free trade and immigration reform, both policies backed by the GOP's donor class. Even some South Carolinian veterans back Trump's comments on the Iraq war. Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush in New Hampshire last week. Credit:AP "At the end of the day, a lot of good Marines and sailors and airmen died over something that wasn't there," one veteran at a Trump rally, Mark Jebbens, told The New York Times. "So you've got to ask tough critical questions. In the military we called it a debrief or a hot wash." Conservative pundits reacted to Trump's heresies with horror and predicted a swift rejection from the South Carolina electorate. So far Trump's lead has held steady. Jonathan Bush, 84, with signs for his nephew, Jeb Bush in South Carolina last week. Credit:AP Should he go on to win the primary, it would be the clearest signal yet that the party's establishment has lost its formerly vice-like grip on its voters and that a new, deeply conservative but less ideological bloc of Republicans has seized control of the GOP. Watching Trump and his fans at rallies you get the sense that the Republican Party has simply forgotten how to talk to the people it once relied upon to turn up and vote for whatever candidate it was pushing. Theodore Kraemer, 8, in New Hampshire last week. Credit:AP It's clear that many of them like Trump, not despite his failure to abide by the written and unwritten laws of the party, and certainly not despite his often profane and divisive language, but because of it. Perhaps John Baldwin, a used car dealer from Greenville, South Carolina, put it best when he told The Los Angeles Times: "We're voting with our middle finger." In normal circumstances it would be hard to consider any candidate who had polled so highly in Iowa only to win New Hampshire and then South Carolina as anything but the presumptive nominee. And should Trump win on Saturday as expected, this is the straw the GOP will cling to: that nothing in the 2016 race so far remotely resembles normal circumstances. Important questions from the past Trump blames George W. Bush for the September 11 attacks. Is this fair? It is something akin to a biblical truth in the Republican party that Bush "kept us safe" from terrorism; a belief Republicans justify by blaming the September 11 attacks on Bill Clinton, who left office almost nine months earlier. Trump argues Bush might have been able to prevent the disaster but "he didn't listen to the advice of his CIA". It is a matter of record that Bush was provided with several detailed warnings that al-Qaeda planned a spectacular attack on the US homeland in the northern summer of 2001. The Bush administration mostly dismissed concerns about non-state actors as an obsession of the Clinton administration. Instead Bush and his closest advisers, Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, focused on state-sponsored threats, which might explain their quick pivot to Iraq after the September 11 attacks. Trump went even further in Saturday night's debate, saying the Bush administration "knew" there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and lied in order to justify the war. This is almost certainly a bridge too far, as the evidence indicates the Bush administration, like the governments of many allied countries, believed former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had a WMD program he was concealing from the world. However, an official Senate report on the use of intelligence before the Iraq War concluded the Bush administration exaggerated evidence in order to take advantage of a climate of fear after the September 11 attacks. President Barack Obamas scheduled visit to Cuba next month, the first by a sitting president in almost 90 years, could be a key step forward in improving the communist nations troubled human rights record. In a Twitter message Thursday, Obama wrote, We still have differences with the Cuban government that I will raise directly. America will always stand for human rights around the world. The White House said bipartisan support for the presidents Cuba policy was growing, but news of the visit drew criticism from the head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The Obama administrations one-sided concessions have only shored up a communist regime that brutalizes its people, Representative Ed Royce, a California Republican, wrote in a statement. When President Obama lands in Havana, how will he stand up for human rights? Some advances The Cuban government recently released some political prisoners and has taken small steps to open up Internet access. But a 2015 Human Rights Watch report found the Cuban government continues to rely on arbitrary detention to harass and intimidate individuals who exercise their fundamental rights. The report found detentions actually increased after the diplomatic thaw, with arrests increasing from 2,900 to 7,188 in the first full year after the administration announced the resumption of relations. Human rights groups welcomed the news of the presidents visit as an opportunity, while cautioning that there was still much progress to be made. The presidents visit could signal a pathway for other human rights organizations and entities like the United Nations and the Inter-American [Commission on Human Rights] to be able to have a dialogue and visit the country, said Marselha Goncalves Margerin, advocacy director for the Americas at Amnesty International. Margerin said the thawing in relations should be an opportunity for the Cuban government to look at its internal laws on censorship, Internet freedom and right to assembly, now that the United States is no longer a threat to its sovereignty. Doubt among Cubans Cuban citizens expressed doubt there would be meaningful changes after the presidents visit. The heads of state must do everything possible in those encounters to work towards the needs of the people, and the Cuban people are in much need for human rights to be respected, said Eduardo Cardet, coordinator for the Christian Liberation Movement in Holguin, Cuba. The rapprochement process has been one-sided, said Dagoberto Valdes, the director of Convivencia, an independent Cuban magazine. Valdes said he would tell Obama that hes made concessions to the Cuban government without asking anything in return, without accomplishing anything in return. The repression has increased. Economic relations between the two countries improved last week with the signing of an agreement that would allow U.S. commercial airlines to significantly increase the number of flights to Cuba and the granting of permission for a U.S. company to build a tractor factory on the island. Sessions with Castro, dissidents The White House said Obama plans to meet with President Raul Castro and with Cuban dissidents during his visit to the country. Unless human rights is really at the focal point of the visit, a trip of this kind by a sitting U.S. president can't help but have a negative impact on the human rights situation in Cuba, said Marion Smith, executive director at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit that educates the public on the legacy of communism. Smith said the presidents meetings with dissidents would send a very clear signal to Cuba and the rest of the world that the opening of economic relations is not the only issue of importance for the United States. Even though we are opening up economic relations, and as of yet we got nothing for it from the Castro regime, we are still committed as we have been for many decades to a more democratic Cuba where the rule of law and human rights is respected," Smith said. President Barack Obama will pay a historic visit to Cuba in the coming weeks, senior Obama administration officials said, becoming the first president to set foot on the island in nearly seven decades. The brief visit in mid-March will mark a watershed moment for relations between the U.S. and Cuba, a communist nation estranged from the U.S. for over half a century until Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro moved toward rapprochement more than a year ago. Since then, the nations have reopened embassies in Washington and Havana and have moved to restore commercial air travel, with a presidential visit seen as a key next step toward bridging the divide. Obamas stop in Cuba will be part of a broader trip to Latin America that the president will take next month, said the officials, who requested anonymity because the trip hasnt been officially announced. The White House planned to unveil Obamas travel plans today [Macau time]. Though Obama had long been expected to visit Cuba in his final year, word of his travel plans drew immediate resistance from opponents of warmer ties with Cuba including Republican presidential candidates. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, whose father fled to the U.S. from Cuba in the 1950s, said Obama shouldnt visit while the Castro family remains in power. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, another child of Cuban immigrants, lambasted the president for visiting what he called an anti-American communist dictatorship. Today, a year and two months after the opening of Cuba, the Cuban government remains as oppressive as ever, Rubio said on CNN. Told of Obamas intention to visit, he added, Probably not going to invite me. With less than a year left in office, Obama has been eager to make rapid progress on restoring economic and diplomatic ties to cement warming relations with Cuba that his administration started. Following secret negotiations between their governments, Obama and Castro announced in late 2014 that they would begin normalizing ties, and months later held the first face-to-face meeting between an American and Cuban president since 1958. But Obama, facing steadfast opposition to normalized relations from Republicans and some Democrats, has been unable to deliver on the former Cold War foes biggest request: the lifting of the U.S. economic embargo. Opponents argue that repealing those sanctions would reward a government still engaging in human rights abuses and stifling democratic aspirations. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican born in Cuba, called the visit absolutely shameful. For more than 50 years, Cubans have been fleeing the Castro regime, said Lehtinen, the longest-serving Cuban- American in Congress. Yet the country which grants them refuge the United States has now decided to quite literally embrace their oppressors. Obama and supporters of the detente argue the decades-old embargo has failed to bring about desired change on the island 90 miles south of Florida. Still, while Obama has long expressed an interest in visiting Cuba, White House officials had said the visit wouldnt occur unless and until the conditions were right. If I go on a visit, then part of the deal is that I get to talk to everybody including political dissidents, Obama told Yahoo News in December. Ive made very clear in my conversations directly with President Castro that we would continue to reach out to those who want to broaden the scope for, you know, free expression inside of Cuba. Officials didnt immediately specify what had changed in the last few weeks to clear the way for the trip, first reported by ABC News. But on Tuesday, the two nations signed a deal restoring commercial air traffic as early as later this year, eliminating a key barrier to unfettered travel that isolated Cuban-Americans from their families for generations. Hundreds of thousands more Americans are expected to visit Cuba per year under the deal, which cleared the way for the U.S. Department of Transportation to open bidding by American air carriers on as many as 110 flights a day. Currently, there are about one-fifth as many flights operating between the two countries all charters. For Obama, the diplomatic opening with Cuba reflects one of the crowning achievements of a foreign policy rooted in a belief that the U.S. should test opportunities to ease hostilities with its historical enemies. Last month, the Obama administration lifted economic sanctions against Irans nuclear program, following a diplomatic deal that has raised hopes about warmer ties between the U.S. and Tehran. Yet those achievements have been offset by deepening security challenges in Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere as Obama nears the end of his term. According to the State Department historians office, President Harry Truman visited the U.S.-controlled Guantanamo Bay and its naval base on the southeast end of the island in 1948 and former President Jimmy Carter has paid multiple visits to the island since leaving office in January 1981. Not since President Calvin Coolidge went to Havana in January 1928 has a sitting U.S. president been to that city. Josh Lederman & Kevin Freking, Washington, AP Lightson Ngashangva still remembers the long train journeys followed by interminable bus rides each summer when he went home from New Delhi to his village in Indias remote northeast. Now, when the 26-year-old biotechnology student visits his home in Manipur state, his nearly three-day long journey by train and bus has been reduced to a four-hour flight. A fast-growing economy and an expanding middle class have made India the worlds fastest growing air travel market. The number of passengers grew 20 percent last year and airlines are announcing flights to new destinations almost every week. And yet, Indian airlines are in distress. Experts say the explosion in air travel of the past decade has happened despite major hurdles in the form of high jet fuel prices, lack of aircraft maintenance infrastructure, choked airports working beyond their capacities and fierce fare wars that have many carriers in the red. Although the problems appear huge, the size and potential of the Indian market continues to draw new players and several foreign airlines have also entered the market. Out of a 1.2 billion population, only about 70 million Indians fly on domestic routes in a year, just a quarter of the size of air travel in China which has a similar population. Air travel in India is showing double digit growth and will continue to grow at double digits for the next 10 to 15 years, said Kapil Kaul, regional head of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation. Indigo, Indias biggest and most profitable airline, ordered 250 new A320neo aircraft from Airbus in August in a whopping USD26.6 billion deal. At the Dubai Airshow in November, U.S. plane maker Boeing announced that Jet Airways had agreed to an $8 billion deal to buy 75 Boeing 737 aircraft. Jet Airways, part owned by Etihad Airways, will start taking delivery of the planes from mid-2018. The purchases are in line with Boeings forecast released in August that it expects demand for 1,740 planes in India over the next 20 years, at an estimated price of $240 billion. Most of these planes will be for fleet expansion and the rest to replace older aircraft. The industrys rapid growth is helping the millions of Indians who need to travel long distances to their countrys far northeast or deep south. Budget airline Indigo was the first private carrier to fly to the northeast, starting flights in 2006 to an area that was otherwise an epic train and bus journey. More and more airlines have started flights to my home town. Also, the competition between airlines means tickets are getting cheaper, said Ngashangva. Aviation experts say that in the past, socialist-leaning politicians viewed traveling by plane as a luxury and not as an enabler of business and economic growth. The luxury tag ensured punitive taxes on jet fuel, making it nearly 60 percent more expensive than in Singapore or Dubai, both home to busy international airports. Despite such hurdles, India is forecast to become the third largest aviation market by 2020. Domestic air passengers are expected to jump from the current 70 million to 300 million by 2022, and to 500 million by 2027. In an attempt to minimize the industrys growing pains, the government in October announced a draft aviation policy. It proposes the development of no-frills airports at more than 400 airstrips across the country. Some of the airstrips date back to British colonial days and have fallen into disuse and disrepair. The government announced it would spend up to 500 million rupees ($7.6 million) on each site to make it useable as an airport. Some problems remain, however. Aviation experts say the policy remains unclear on an existing condition imposed on airlines in India known as the 5/20 rule where the government does not allow new airlines to fly internationally until they have completed five years of operation and have at least 20 aircraft. The draft policys silence on the future of the countrys much-subsidized national carrier, Air India, has also been disappointing, aviation experts said. The governments ownership of the national carrier negatively influences policy decisions and has cost the Indian tax payer $3 billion in recent years, said Kaul, the aviation analyst. Air India needs to be privatized, or at least be prepared for privatization. As Indian airlines expand their operations, linking more second tier cities, another major problem facing them is the severe shortage of experienced pilots and technicians. As newer airlines entered the business, the hiring standards for pilots, including their hours of flying experience before taking command of an aircraft, were weakened. High demand for pilots with adequate flying hours has led to corrupt practices. A few years ago, civil aviation authorities detected fake pilot licenses, an unlicensed flying school supplying certificates and touts who helped unqualified candidates obtain licenses for a price. A government crackdown on those issuing fake certificates and tighter scrutiny of airlines hiring practices has curbed the problem. But the shortage of pilots persists. Last week, more than 250 passengers of a Jet Airways flight to Toronto were stranded for about nine hours as no pilot was available after a technical fault held up the flight. The shortage of pilots has also given them enormous power, leading to lack of discipline when it comes to flight schedules. Pilot unions often fight efforts by budget-strapped airlines to get them to work longer hours. But even with its litany of possible pitfalls, flying is the compelling choice compared with lengthy ground travel. Above all, its the time saved, said Lisa James, an interior decorator who hails from the southernmost state of Kerala. Her twice-annual trips home by train from New Delhi would take her nearly two days each way. It was exhausting, apart from the two days that went in travel, said James. Now that my business is picking up, I cant afford to spend time traveling. Flying just saves me so much time. And money. Nirmala George, New Delhi, AP A suspect was arrested in relation to the abandonment of a baby girl in the Flower City Building in Taipa earlier this week, said a Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman at a media briefing last night. The suspect, who is believed to be the mother of the abandoned child, is a 23-year-old Filipino domestic worker who arrived in Macau on February 4 traveling via the Macau International Airport. On February 16 the suspect went to the bathroom in the Flower City Building in the early hours of the morning and gave birth unassisted. She told police that she thought the baby had died, as it was not crying. Subsequently, the suspect covered the baby in a blanket and threw it into the garbage bin. According to the PJ, the woman traveled to Macau on a tourism visa, accompanied by her employer, who is also from the Philippines. The PJ told reporters that the suspect has another child a five-year-old son but that they are not certain of where he resides. They added that her employer also has children a five-year-old boy and a baby girl whose age could not be confirmed. The abandoned baby girl was discovered on Tuesday morning after residents of the 17th floor of the Flower City Building alerted a cleaner to the presence of blood in the garbage room. The baby was immediately sent to the hospital where it has since made a recovery. Later on the same day and in the same residential complex, the investigating police unit stopped another Filipino domestic worker and her boyfriend as they were behaving suspiciously. The PJ said that the woman told police that she was feeling unwell but after searching her bag they found a glass jar containing the dead fetus of a baby boy. The second domestic worker had also given birth in the building, in the bathroom of her employers home. She said that the baby had died during the premature birth. The Social Welfare Bureau says that there are few cases of mothers abandoning babies in the MSAR and that they mainly involve non-residents. A total of six incidents were registered by the bureau between 2011 and 2015, usually caused by parents incapacity to look after their children. If there really are few cases of such abandonment in Macau, then the dual incidents that occurred on Tuesday could be a disconcerting coincidence. Alternatively it could point to a larger, lesser-reported social problem in the territory. Staff reporter maid siphons mop850,000 A Filipino maid was arrested by the Judiciary Police after she allegedly stole nearly MOP850,000 from her employers father and uncle, both of whom passed away recently. The police said that the 42-year-old woman admitted to having used their ATM cards to repeatedly withdraw the maximum daily limit. They added that they had been notified of the case by the nephew of one of the victims. NORTH KOREA Kim Jong Un recently ordered preparations for launching terror attacks on South Koreans, a top Seoul official said yesterday, as worries about the North grow after its recent nuclear test and rocket launch. JAPAN A corporate whistleblowers eight-year courtroom battle against Japanese medical device maker Olympus Corp. has ended with a financial settlement and a promise from the company to end its harassment of the man. Under the deal, Masaharu Hamada will be paid 11 million yen by Olympus. Legal settlements for individuals in Japan are typically small. JAPANs trade balance returned to deficit in January, with a shortfall of 646 billion yen (USD5.65 billion) as exports fell 13 percent from the year before, led by an 18 percent plunge in the value of shipments to China. ABOARD PAPAL PLANE Pope Francis said that Donald Trump is not Christian if he intends to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. Trump immediately fired back, saying it is disgraceful for a religious leader to question a persons faith. PHILIPPINES Manny Pacquiao says he respects Nikes decision to sever ties with him over his comments about gay relationships but stood pat on his opposition to same-sex marriage and added hes happy that a lot of people were alarmed by the truth. POLAND Recently-seized documents show that Polands former president and Solidarity founder Lech Walesa was a paid informant for the communist-era secret security service from 1970-76, the head of Polands history institute said yesterday. A legend of the countrys successful struggle to topple communism, Walesa has previously acknowledged signing a commitment to be an informant, but has insisted he never acted on it. SYRIA A Syrian national with links to Syrian Kurdish militia carried out the suicide bombing in Ankara that targeted military personnel killing at least 28 people and wounded dozens of others, Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu said yesterday. The PM vowed to retaliate against these groups. However, the main Kurdish militia in Syria says it has no links to Wednesdays bombing. RUSSIAs top domestic security agency says it has tracked down a group of suspects accused of forging personal documents for Islamic State group militants. The Federal Security Service, (FSB), said that it has arrested 14 suspected members of the group during a raid in the Moscow region. The FSB said the suspects were forging documents for Russians willing to join IS in Syria and also making papers for IS militants sent to Russia to carry out terror attacks. Apple Inc. launched its smartphone-based payment system in China where the electronic payments market is already dominated by an arm of e-commerce giant Alibaba. Apple said Apple Pay could be used by 19 banks, numerous merchants and app developers. Apples electronic payment system started in the United States in October 2014 and has since spread to Britain, Canada and Australia. The merchants include supermarket Carrefour, fast food outlets McDonalds and KFC, and convenience store 7-Eleven, according to a news release Wednesday from China UnionPay, the countrys state- owned credit card processor with which Apple is working. Apple Pay is a late arrival in a Chinese electronic payments market that offers smartphone users not just online shopping but also the option to order taxis, send money to friends, pay bills and invest in wealth management funds. The market is dominated by Alipay, an arm of the e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. WeChat Payment, operated by social networking and gaming company Tencent Holdings Ltd, is also popular. Apples system will allow UnionPay cardholders to make payments via Apple iPhones, Apple Watches and iPads. Apple has declined to say how the company and UnionPay would divide the costs and revenues of their venture. AP Pope Francis finance minister said yesterday that he is prepared to meet in Rome with Australian victims of clergy sex abuse who are angry the cardinal wont travel to Australia to testify at a government inquiry. Cardinal George Pell, whom the pope placed in charge of the Vaticans finances in 2014, is to testify for a third time at Australias Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. But the inquiry ruled two weeks ago that the 74-year- old cleric could give evidence by video from Rome on Feb. 29 because he was too ill to fly to Australia. Many victims of sex abuse are angry that Australias highest-ranking Roman Catholic will not give evidence in person. Australian musician and comedian Tim Minchin has recorded a hit song in which he insults Pell and urges him to return to Australia. Crowd funding raised more than 170,000 Australian dollars (USD120,000) this week to send abuse victims from Pells hometown of Ballarat to Rome in the hope they can watch his testimony there. Pell will cooperate with any arrangements the royal commission makes for where and how he gives evidence, his office said in a statement. As Cardinal Pell has done after earlier hearings, he is prepared to meet with and listen to victims and express his ongoing support, the statement said. Pell is to give evidence about how church authorities responded to allegations of child sex abuse in Ballarat and in Melbourne, Australias second-most populous city after Sydney. Pell is accused of creating a victims compensation program mainly to protect the churchs assets and of using aggressive tactics to discourage victims lawsuits, all while he was a bishop in Australia. Pell also faces accusations from earlier in his career, when he was a Ballarat priest and auxiliary bishop and not in the ultimate position of authority, that he ignored warnings about an abusive teacher, attempted to bribe the victim of a pedophile priest to stay silent and was part of a committee that moved that priest from parish to parish. Pell denies any wrongdoing and defends his record on confronting the abuse scandal as archbishop of Melbourne, and later of Sydney. Pell said in a statement that his doctors say he should not take long-distance trips. A medical report said Pell suffers from hypertension, and from heart problems related to hypertension and ischemia. Rod McGuirk, Canberra, AP Set under gray Puritan skies in a deathly autumn, The Witch is a slow-burning 1600s horror thriller so bone-dry it would only take a match for the whole movie to go up in flames. A New England folktale is how the opening titles describe writer-director Robert Eggers impressively rigorous feature debut. The film doesnt just take place in early 17th century America, but it has effectively summoned the nightmares and superstitions of the era, much of which Eggers faithfully reproduced from various historical sources. The subject here is less witches as some supernatural fright than the Puritan psychology that dreamed them. Do not expect broomsticks. A family, led by a prideful patriarch, William (Ralph Ineson, terrific), is banished from the plantation after his stubborn refusal to accept common law as above his own, superior piety. I would be glad of it, he seethes when threatened with expulsion. Our images of the settlement are fleeting. The eldest of the five children, Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy, in a breakout performance) peers backward as the wooden gates close behind them as they ride out. The picture is drained of color and the score (by Mark Korven) is eerie and discordant: trouble waits outside the gates. After setting up a scrappy existence in the wilderness, misfortunes mount. The crops die and when Thomasin takes the newborn out near the forest, the child vanishes. That night, after frantic searching, an image flickers of a witch-like figure floating toward a full moon. A spell of mysterious source seems to have settled over the family that spookily manifests in various farm animals: a rabbit in the woods, a bloody chick in an egg. Eventually, a goat and a crow get in on the act. A suitably creepy set of toddler twins is here, too. As things get steadily worse and demons seem literally at the door, the faith of the family is tested. Suspicions begin falling on Thomasin, a fair, pale-white girl whose growth into womanhood is drawing the curious gaze of her younger brother, Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw). Could she be a witch? The spell is cast over the viewer, too, as the authentically resurrected world of The Witch transports to a time of suffocating fear, born out of a harsh new land and hardened religious fervor. Taking place decades before the Salem witch trials, The Witch is a kind of horror chamber piece, a stripped-bare prequel to the forces that propel Arthur Millers The Crucible and Nathaniel Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter. The characters speak in the formal diction of the period lots of thees and such. Its a kind of time travel, for those looking for a far grimmer trip to colonial America than New England tourist attractions afford. It is, to say the least, not a barrel of laughs. But what makes The Witch more than a mere museum reclamation project is Taylor-Joy. The movie is in many ways seen through Thomasin, who stands apart from her devote family. Wide-eyed and rebellious, she more resembles a girl of today. Whether she is, in fact, a witch remains in suspense. But we witness how Puritan paranoia and misogyny turns a pretty young woman like Thomasin into a fearsome seductress in the eyes of her family. When the combustible The Witch finally lets itself ablaze, the brutal and surprisingly sober finale is also and more thrillingly Thomasins awakening. Drawn by the lure to break free of her upbringing, to live deliciously, she turns out to be something scarier than the Puritans could fathom: a teenager. Jake Coyle, AP Film Writer The Witch, an A24 release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for disturbing violent content and graphic nudity. Running time: 92 minutes. Zurich-based Jet Aviation is scheduled to begin operations of its business jet maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) services at the Macau International Airport during the second quarter of this year. According to the companys website, the new MRO facility could begin operating as early as June 2016. The facility, which won the exclusive ten-year concession last year from the Macau International Airport Company (CAM), will operate from an airport authority hangar under the title of Jet Aviation Macau. The company plans to lease half of the new 8,000-square- meter hangar in addition to 1,000 square meters of workshop and office space. Jet Aviation will add its Gulfstream and Dassault Authorized Service Center (ASC) approvals to the site, and extend its European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approvals to Macau. We will be extending all approvals that we have from Jet Aviation Hong Kong, John Riggir, vice president and general manager of Jet Aviation Singapore, told Aviation Week. Macau is really part of our Hong Kong footprint and gives us the option to put aircraft into Macau for longer-term maintenance projects, added Riggir. The new MRO facility will allow Jet Aviation to alleviate congestion at other airports in the region particularly nearby Hong Kong International Airport by providing maintenance, aircraft cleaning and parking services in Macau. Hong Kong can be a challenge for hangar space so we now can take care of that by having Macau supplying extra maintenance capacity, Riggir told Aviation Week. As reported by the Times last year, the demand for business jets in the Asia-Pacific area has grown substantially in recent years, and has been unaffected by the gaming downturn in Macau. VistaJet announced in July that it would commence offering point-to-point services in mainland China using a Bombardier Challenger 850 business jet. The VIP charter company partnered with Apex Air, headquartered in Jiangsu Province, to provide services on its behalf. Thomas Flohr, CEO of VistaJet, told the Times that, despite the gaming downturn, the company has seen an increase in demand for VistaJet flights in [the] Asia-Pacific [region] with 2014 [presenting] year-on-year growth of 17 percent. We expect the growth trend to continue, said Flohr, but added, Declining revenues could perhaps have an adverse effect on people considering whole aircraft purchases, as this requires intensive capital investment. Staff reporter The First Standing Committee of the Legislative Assembly (AL) met yesterday afternoon to debate the Animal Protection Law. The committee and the government representatives agreed to consider cruelty to all animals as punishable by imprisonment. In the previous version of the law, only cases of cruelty to cats and dogs were considered for this form of punishment, while those found to have been cruel to any other animals would only be liable to pay a fine. The new proposal lists which animals are not allowed to be used for human consumption. In the case of dogs and cats, we cannot eat them, the president of the committee, lawmaker Kwan Tsui Hang, explained. The president of the standing committee also clarified that this law will not aim to regulate all animals that are customarily used for human consumption, as the Civic and Municipal Affairs (IACM) has pre-existing regulations covering them. This law will not regulate some animals designated for human consumption. In those cases, we will apply the instructions from the IACM, she said. Ms Kwan also mentioned that the main goal of yesterdays meeting was to discuss matters relating to cases of animal cruelty, as well as simplifying some sections. She revealed that the consensus between the committee and the government was to make cases of cruelty to all animals eligible for imprisonment penalties. For example, the rabbit is an animal that we can eat, so mistreatment to this animal were not considered in the previous version as eligible for higher penalties. Now we have reached this consensus with the government to change the text on this matter, she explained. Another topic for discussion was the possibility of adding the requirement to register cat ownership. Kwan admitted that there is no consensus on this issue. She revealed that the committee believes that registration for cats is needed but the government says that is too difficult to perform this task, because cats often run free and it is hard to control them. She also explained that dog registration is currently performed not to control the number of animals or for the possibility of spotting cases of cruelty, but rather due to matters of public health and prevention of the spread of diseases like rabies. According to the president, the next meeting of the committee is reserved for a more in-depth discussion of all the sections in the law, of which there are more than 40. The AL approved the creation of the Animal Protection Law in October 2014 and since then the details have been discussed over six meetings by the First Standing Committee. Electoral Law will be reviewed, Sonia Chan says Speaking on the sidelines of the First Standing Committee of the Legislative Assembly (AL) held yesterday, the Secretary for Administration and Justice, Sonia Chan, said that the government plans to hold a public consultation on the review of the Electoral Law in March or April. Following that, it plans to submit the review proposal to the AL, which it tentatively aims to do during July. The secretary said that this review aims to strengthen competitiveness and enhance the propriety of the election process, particularly focusing on preventing acts of corruption. On another topic, Ms Chan also revealed that she already submitted the draft law on Inter-regional Judiciary Assistance in Criminal Matters to the AL at the end of last year. There are no sovereignty conflicts between the different regions, she said, adding, We are following the principle of One Country, Two Systems. If a party asks the Macau SAR for the transfer of a person, the territorys courts will assess whether the crime presented by this party is considered a crime in Macau, she added. RM Pioneer Press - "This has been a very good job for me," Bloom said. "I like the community. I like my boss. I like the board." And village officials do not want to lose Bloom, especially at this time. "It's a unique set of circumstances," Gargano said. "There's a tenure gap. We have a lot of people at the top and a lot of people at the bottom." "I am going to miss that," Bloom said. "I am proud of being a police officer. But I still will be working with the same people." Village officials said they created the temporary position of assistant village manager/director of public safety specifically for Bloom, so younger officers could benefit from his experience.Bloom, 56, is not ready to retire, he said, but after 34 years as a police officer, his pension will not grow enough to offset his contribution into the pension system, if he continued as chief.The Village Board on Tuesday unanimously approved a three-year contract that pays Bloom $120,000 a year for the new full-time position. That's less than he currently earns as police chief. But in addition to the salary as director of public safety, Bloom will receive his pension, which will be 75 percent of his $151,576 annual salary as chief. And by Illinois pension laws, Bloom's pension will grow by 3 percent of that amount each year.In comparison, if he continued to work as police chief, he likely would receive the 2 percent raises village employees have gotten the past few years, but he also would have to pay 10 percent of his salary into the police pension fund.As public safety director, he no longer will have to pay into the police pension fund. He will contribute to the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, as other village employees do. But because his contract with the village is for three years, with two possible one-year extensions, he is not expected to reach the 10 years necessary to collect a pension from the municipal retirement fund."He will never collect two village pensions," said Village President Thomas Cauley, Jr. And the position will end when Bloom's contract does, Cauley said.Like all retiring village employees, Bloom also will be paid for his unused vacation time, which in his case equals about $26,000, village manager Kathleen Gargano said. The village also allows employees to deposit a portion of the amount of sick time they have accrued and not taken into a post-employment health benefit plan, which can be used only for health insurance costs after they retire. Bloom's balance is about $27,000, Gargano said.Other police and fire chiefs have retired from the department where they worked most of their careers and been hired in other municipalities, so they could collect both their pension and a salary, and potentially a second pension.Hinsdale's previous two fire chiefs retired and joined fire departments in Western Springs and Bartlett, Cauley said.But Bloom does not want to leave Hinsdale.Including Bloom, six of the eight members of the command staff of the Hinsdale Police Department will be eligible to retire within the next two to four years, which will leave "a vacuum of senior management," Cauley said.Because the command staff has been in place for years, there has not been the opportunity for younger officers to be promoted to leadership positions.Bloom will stay on to help mentor and prepare younger officers for leadership positions.Cauley said this arrangement will allow the village to find the next police chief from its own department, rather than hiring somebody from outside.Bloom said he looks forward to that role, which he begins Feb. 22.The Police Department has worked hard as a team to develop a culture where officers understand and respond to the community, Bloom said. He believes the community is pleased with the performance of the Police Department and how it treats people. But the future turnover in leadership puts that culture at risk, Bloom said.In his new position, he can help the young supervisors and leaders of tomorrow develop and preserve that culture, Bloom said.His responsibilities will include administrative duties and overseeing information technology functions. But he will no longer be a police officer, with a uniform, badge and gun.Hinsdale Deputy Police Chief Kevin Simpson will serve as acting chief effective Feb. 22. BOISE A bill introduced Friday would ban harvesting tissue and organs from aborted fetuses. Senate State Affairs Committee voted 7-2 Friday morning to print the Idaho Unborn Infants Dignity Act, paving the way for a full hearing. The committees two Democrats, Sens. Michelle Stennett of Ketchum and Cherie Buckner-Webb of Boise, voted no. The bill was introduced by David Ripley, head of Idaho Chooses Life, and sponsored by Sen. Clifford Bayer, a Boise Republican. Harvesting or selling organs or tissues from an aborted fetus would be punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 and up to five years in prison, while using the remains for experimentation would be a misdemeanor for a first offense, a felony for a second. Use of stem cells for research would also be banned if the stem cells were obtained from aborted fetuses. We must positively reject the notion that any good can be wrought from the practice of abortion, Ripley said. Fetal tissue or organ donation would be allowed in other cases, such as a miscarriage, when the mother consents. The bill, Ripley said, would not have any impact on a womans right to have an abortion. Its a broad response to the disturbing revelations weve all read and seen over the past six months or so regarding the treatment of pre-born children lost to abortion, Ripley said, referring to the controversy over videos released last year by an anti-abortion group that appeared to show Planned Parenthood officials talking about selling fetal tissue for profit, which is illegal. The videos led to renewed pushes by Republicans in many statehouses and in Congress to investigate and defund the organization. The only criminal charges so far have been against two of the people who filmed the video, who were indicted in Texas. Planned Parenthood officials have said they didnt break any laws and that the videos were deceptively edited. Idahos Planned Parenthood doesnt have a fetal tissue donation program, and the only state funding the organization gets is Medicaid reimbursements. Ripleys bill is the second abortion-related bill to be introduced this week one printed in House State Affairs on Wednesday would require abortion providers to give out lists of places where a woman can get a free ultrasound. We oppose the sale of any governor's Big Game Auction tags for Idahos wildlife. Recently Idahos legislators and the Idaho Department of Fish and Game are talking of selling 12 more Governor Auction Tags. The selling of these tags is for only a special-interest group of people. This plan would be an abuse of Idahos hunting heritage, of Idahos wildlife by Idaho sportsmen and would create additional resentment and distrust for the legislators and IDFG. If you think Governor Auction tags are so great, take a look at our neighbor state of Utah. They started off with a few auction tags and now they are selling between 300 and 400 tags a year. The tags sold are mostly in controlled-hunt areas along with a few resident and non-resident draw tags. The folks that get the draw tags are hunting with those who paid big bucks for the auction tag. Most residents call these hunts a hunt from hell, coping with all those who paid big bucks for hunts in prime units. Back in the '80s, Utahs resident license sales were 220,000; now they are only 80,000 with three times the population. The idea of family and friends being able to purchase over-the-counter tags to hunt together is a thing of the past and the same thing will happen in Idaho. Then in Idaho, like in Europe, only the rich get to hunt. Jim Hagedorn Idaho for Wildlife Foundation Viola , . , 12 2000 . , - . , . , . , . 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 Judo (black belt maybe). :) (First lesson - 9 Dec 2014) Gain a bit more weight and grow a bit taller. I'm not sure why... but I can't gain weight wth (currently at 57kg, 1.72m updated on 27 March 2016) Earn and save my first million before 30. I'm willing to live my life with just bread and instant noodles for 3 meals everyday just to save up that one million. But my previous goal cannot be achieved if that happens. (Bank account: More than 10k... 27 March 2016.. Hmmm still a long way to go...) I need to buy a new Lego toy worth at least 100 dollars. This is not a joke because I love Lego. Don't judge me. :( (Darn it, have yet but any cos I'm reluctant to use my savings) The Central Bank of Bahrain cancelled a $750million bond sale less than 48hours after it was launched and just few hours after Standard and Poors (S&P) rating agency downgraded its credit ratings by two notches from BBB- to BB as it also lost its investment grade. The announcement by the central bank through a statement clearly stated that the Issuer determined to not proceed with the offering announced on 16 February 2016 following the ratings announcement by Standard & Poors on 17 February 2016 and any future transaction will be subject to market conditions. The bond was launched on Tuesday in two parts and managed by Bank ABC, BNP Paribas SA, Citigroup Inc., HSBC Holdings Plc and JPMorgan Chase & Co. They were $450 million and $300 million to mature in 2021 and 2026 respectively with the former trading at 98 while the latter was at 92.25. Anita Yadav, head of fixed income research at Emirates NBD, said the central bank is likely to re-price the bond in order to appease the investors while a disappointed Angelo Rossetto, a trader at GMSA Investments Ltd. in London, who had already bought the kingdoms offering, acknowledged that to be fair it was a very honest move by them. They protected investors who went in for the tap. Bahrain is vulnerable to low oil prices due to the economys dependency on hydrocarbons. Increasing government expenditures since 2009 coupled with the internal crisis contributed to a budget deficit of around 11.5% of the GDP. S&P pointed out that the dropping oil prices exacerbate existing structural frailty in Bahrains public finances, despite an active response from authorities. Meanwhile, Qatar, Oman and Abu Dhabi are planning bond sales. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned that escalated military activity by several parties and threats of the use of force risk derailing efforts to find a sustainable political solution in Syria. In a report to the Security Council on the implementation of the December resolution for a peace process in Syria, Ban Ki-moon stressed that successful negotiations also depend on the genuine, committed and sustained backing of the International Syria Support Group. World powers agreed to stop hostilities in Syria by Friday following an agreement in Munich last week but efforts are not fruitful as fighting continues with Turkey getting more involved with its shelling of Kurdish forces from its border. German Chancellor Angela Merkel proposed a no-fly zone to end the increasing tension along the Syrian-Turkish border. Damascus reacted to her calls on Thursday with a Foreign Ministry spokesman saying the German Chancellor is interfering in its domestic affairs and sovereignty and contradicting international law and the UN Charter. The spokesman said Merkels statement does not contribute to ending the crisis and also coincides with the demands of the Turkish authorities, which are aimed at protecting terrorist groups and feeding crimes of extremists against the Syrian people. Russias Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin also questioned the German Chancellors proposal. Mr. Ban said the Syrian parties and their supporters can continue to pursue the bankrupt logic of a military victory which would continue worsening the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time and create safe havens for terror groups. He said those who committed war crimes must be held responsible for their actions. Meanwhile, the US asked Russia to avoid certain areas in Syria in order to maintain a level of safety for US ground forces training local forces to fight IS militants. Moroccan authorities announced Thursday the arrest of ten Isis members including a French national. This dangerous terror group was operating in the cities of Essaouira, Meknes, and Sidi Kacem. Their commander was nabbed in a house located in the Atlantic coastal city of El Jadida. Armed with weapons and ammunitions, the members of this cell were planning to carry out a series of terrorist operations targeting strategic sites and sensitive institutions. This operation led to the seizure of four automatic machine guns, four pistols, a rifle viewfinder and 13 tear gas grenades. Police officers also found six glass bottles containing hazardous chemicals and three other bottles containing substances used for making explosives, Isis flags, handcuffs and military uniforms. The arrest of this cell comes following the release of videos wherein so-called Moroccan Isis fighters have threatened Moroccos peace and security. Last week, another terrorist cell composed of four elements was dismantled. These arrests show Moroccos tireless war against jihadists. Moroccan intelligence and security services have dismantled 152 terrorist cells since 2002. The Moroccan strategy to fight terrorism is based on a global approach including prevention, anticipation, education, rehabilitation, eradication of terrorism roots and international cooperation This comprehensive and proactive counter-terrorism strategy has so far proven successful, in foiling deadly plots locally and internationally, making Morocco a model in the region. Campaign for next month election in Benin will kick off on Friday, it was officially announced on Thursday. The first round of the presidential election that had been scheduled for February 28 has been postponed to March 6 last week following delays in distribution of voters cards. The National Autonomous Electoral Commission (CENA), the body in charge of election organization, officially disclosed the campaign timeframe in a release in Cotonou, the capital city of the west-African nation. About 4.7 million voters, including 43,811 people living abroad, will cast their votes to elect among 36 candidates, in the first round of the presidential election, a new president for Benin. The election in the west African nation is considered open with several candidates jostling to succeed Benins president Boni Yayi who is barred under the countrys constitution from standing for a third term. Kenyan army on Thursday said it had killed the intelligence chief of al-Shabaab and a dozen other commanders in an air strike in Somalia. Mahad Mohammed Karatey, alias Mahat Karatey, the Al-Shabaab deputy commander and overall head of the Alamnyat (Al-Shabaab intelligence wing), was killed alongside ten other commanders in the strike in southern Somalia on February 8, the army said. Karatey had gone to the camp to preside over the passing out of an estimated 80 Alamnyat recruits who had completed their training and were due for deployment to carry out more terrorist attacks, Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) spokesman Colonel David Obonyo Obonyo said in a statement issued in Nairobi. Its believed that Karatey played a major role in the recent attack on KDF troops in El-Adde by the deployment of his suicide bombers. His killing now adds to that of the killing of Abdi Dek, the operational commander of the Abu Zubeir Brigade that carried out the attack in El-Adde, Obonyo said. However, Al-Shabab has dismissed the claim that Karatey has been killed. Kenya contributes more than 4,000 troops to the 22,000-strong AU force that is in Somalia helping the UN-backed government battle al-Shabab. Your digital subscription includes access to content from all our websites in your region. Access unlimited news content and The Canberra Times app. Premium subscribers also enjoy interactive puzzles and access to the digital version of our print edition - Today's Paper. 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 HTC One A9 Key Specifications: 5-inch 1080P AMOLED display Snapdragon 617 SoC @ 1.5GHz 2/3GB of RAM 16/32GB expandable memory Android 6.0 Marshmallow 13MP f2.0 rear camera with OIS 4MP Ultrapixel front camera 145.8 x 70.8 x 7.3mm (143g) 2,150mAh battery Govt Mulls GEL 400m Budget Cut Amid Planned Corporate Income Tax Reform The Georgian Finance Ministry said that it will have to cut about GEL 400 million from the 2016 state budget as planned corporate income tax reform will reduce tax revenues this year.According to the proposal, which the government says is based on the Estonian model, corporate income tax (with a regular rate of 15%) will only apply to distributed profit; undistributed profits, reinvested or retained, will not be subject to income taxation.The bill was endorsed by cabinet members at a meeting on February 12 and it will now be sent to the Parliament for consideration. The government hopes the reform will help to speed up economic growth.The proposed amendments to the tax code, if approved by the Parliament, will go into force from July 1, Finance Minister Nodar Khaduri said.The proposal, however, will not apply to banks, insurance companies and microfinance institutions, he said.A calendar year, which is now the tax period for corporate income tax, will be replaced by a monthly variant, according to the proposal.In another proposal, the Finance Ministry said that a company using fixed assets in VAT taxable operations will be exempted from VAT on the importation of fixed assets.These reforms both income tax and VAT will reduce this years targeted revenues by about 400 million lari, the Finance Minister said, adding that the planned budget cut will come mostly at the expense of reducing administrative expenditures.The 2016 state budget targets revenues from corporate income tax at GEL 980 million, accounting for over 11% of budget expenditures and 12.3% of total tax revenues of GEL 7.98 billion planned this year.Speaking at a meeting with the business community in Tbilisi in late January, PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili said that the government was ready for budget cuts associated with the planned corporate income tax reform even though 2016 is an election year in Georgia.Hopefully in a couple of months from now we will have a new tax code, where only distributed earnings will be taxed. Of course, it will require respective budget adjustments and we are ready to make these adjustments despite the fact that we are in an election year, the PM said on January 28.Kvirikashvili first voiced a proposal to introduce the so-called Estonian model zero corporate income tax on undistributed profits in March 2015 when he was the Minister of Economics. Although the government examined its possible effects, the proposal did not appear to gain traction at the time; the Deputy Finance Minister sounded skeptical over the proposal when commenting on the issue in October 2015. Kvirikashvili revived the idea in January, two weeks after becoming Prime Minister. Iran can use Georgias transit potential Iran can use Georgias territory for transit of energy resources, said Ivane Mtvralashvili, a member of the Board of Directors at the Georgia-Iran Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GICCI).Perspectives of Georgian-Iranian trade and economic relations were discussed at the conference organized by the GICCI and held at the Tbilisi Marriott Hotel.The Georgian officials and Irans ambassador to Georgia participated at the conference, Sputnik Georgia reported.Trade, economic and industrial relations between Georgia and Iran have dynamically developed in recent years, said Mtvralashvili adding that the abolition of visa restrictions for Iranian tourists gives an additional impetus to the development of these relations.After the removal of sanctions on Iran, monetary transactions will be restored and there wont be any problem with the arrival of large Iranian capital to Georgia, which will also contribute to the deepening of trade and economic relations, he added.The embargo on the export of oil and natural gas on Iran was removed and the use of Georgias territory as a transit for energy resources is possible on this basis, he said. We have great expectations that this relationship will also develop dynamically.The visit of Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili to the Islamic Republic is expected in the near future, during which some important agreements will be signed, Irans Ambassador to Georgia Abbas Talebifar said. Georgian officials meet ICC Prosecutor in Munich to discuss Russian-Georgian war case By Messenger Staff We asked the Russian delegation to hold meetings with us though have not received their answer yet. If they say yes, we will include them in our meetings. As for our plans, our team will visit the region (de-facto South Ossetia) in order to conduct a thorough investigation, Bensouda said.Georgias Minister of Justice Tea Tsulukiani has thanked the ICC Prosecutor and spoke about the details of the war.Transparency and cooperation are our main instruments in this case in order to prove that Georgia faced ethnic cleansing in 2008 and our cultural heritage was destroyed, Tsulukiani said.The Georgian side has expressed full readiness to provide all necessary materials over the war, while the Russians and the de-facto South Ossetian leadership have openly decried the investigation.The so-called Prosecutors Office of occupied South Ossetia has resumed its own investigation into the war, local media reported.The investigators have begun questioning representatives of law enforcement agencies and civilians that were victims of Georgian aggression.They will also interrogate residents who say they witnessed military crimes committed by the Georgian Army during the August War, the Sputnik Ossetia news agency reports.The investigation was launched in August 2008 and resumed in May 2015.According to the agency, 2, 850 local residents, harmed as a result of Georgias aggression have already addressed the so-called Prosecutors Office of the breakaway region.The Russians maintain that they helped South Ossetians against Georgian aggression and protected the locals.If they are honest about their involvement in the war, surely they can openly participate in an international investigation and help the Prosecutor to establish the real reasons behind the conflict.However, they continue to refuse to do so. Two top immigration officials say stricter border control would slow illegal immigration At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the topic of the two recent surges of minors across the U.S. border, Sessions provided the new numbers: 127,193, apprehended over last two and a half years and 4,680 returned. He later added, "97 percent of unaccompanied minors evade deportation through administration lawlessness."The rest, said the Alabama senator, have either been placed with family and friends or are in the legal system.Immigration has become a contentious issue on Capitol Hill and on the campaign trail, with GOP front-runner Donald Trump pushing for better border control.On the Hill, Sessions and other administration critics claim that by letting in so many illegal immigrants, especially youths, the message to those in Central America is that the United States has an open door policy.Sessions believes that if a majority of those trying to enter illegally were sent back, the message would be don't try to cross the border, and two different administration officials said a tougher border policy would likely limit illegal crossings."I don't disagree with that," said Thomas Homan, executive associate director for enforcement and removal operations with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.He added, "I think that if you have a consequence and deterrence to illegal activity the illegal activity will slow down."Ronald Vitiello, deputy chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, added, "Yes, I believe that matters."Sessions hit president for looking on every unaccompanied illegal minor as a victim of crime back home, and eligible for asylum."If caught, they should be treated fairly and sent home," said Sessions. But, he added, "it cannot be that every young person that appears from Central America is entitled to asylum or entry into the United States contrary to our laws. It just cannot be. Does anybody in this government not understand that? That's what people are upset about."Democrats approached the issue differently, backing the president's open door policy and calling for more legal and social aid for the children.Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin, for example, said that those given legal help typically have a better chance of getting asylum. He said that 73 percent of those provided lawyers got to stay in the country.Issues of sex abuse and forced labor involving the illegal minors was also raised, and officials could not rule out that there has been abuse. Angie Martinez, a 27-year-old mother of three, was killed in Laredo in 2015. Her estranged husband, an undocumented immigrant, is charged with her murder. The Texas Tribune is taking a yearlong look at the issues of border security and immigration, reporting on the reality and rhetoric around these topics. Sign up to get story alerts. Martha and her older sister Kimberly Martinez dont need TV cops to help solve the mystery of who killed their sister. They would still like someone to explain how a man with De Luna's lengthy criminal history could be living illegally in the United States. He had been caught illegally crossing the border under different aliases and sent back to Mexico four times, according to a statement the Department of Homeland Security issued after his murder arrest. But it is unclear if federal immigration authorities were told about all of De Luna's crimes or whether any effort was made to detect his return to the United States. De Luna was first arrested in January 2006, on an assault charge. That charge was dismissed, and De Luna was deported to Mexico later that month. In late June, the U.S. Border Patrol caught De Luna trying to come back in, and he was charged with improper entry by an alien, according to federal court documents. But less than a week later, Webb County records show he was again picked up and charged with evading arrest, resisting arrest and making terroristic threats. Those charges were still pending when Angie Martinez was killed. Read More Texas Sheriffs, Jails on Immigration Front Line Juan Francisco De Luna Vasquez is charged with the 2015 murder of his estranged wife. Texas Sheriffs, Jails on Immigration Front Line Feb. 16, 2016 The badge of Captain Jaime Magana in Webb County Jail in Laredo, TX, on Nov. 5, 2015. Photo by Martin do Nascimento The Texas Tribune is taking a yearlong look at the issues of border security and immigration, reporting on the reality and rhetoric around these topics. Sign up to get story alerts. *Correction appended With a $6 billion budget and more than 20,000 employees, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stands poised to seize and deport immigrants undocumented or not who commit serious crimes in the United States. Provided someone else catches them. The behemoth agency at the center of the nations immigration enforcement efforts has no proactive way watch lists, data mining or the like to systematically search for dangerous undocumented immigrants, including those who have returned to the United States after being deported for committing crimes. Instead, if an immigrant criminal is caught and thrown out of the country, the process most likely begins when a local police officer or sheriff's deputy pulls them over for a traffic stop or arrests them as part of a criminal investigation. The success of federal deportation policy in Texas and nationwide depends for the most part on a heads up from county sheriffs. They run the jails where people are taken when arrested and where the culling of criminal immigrants begins. Being at the bottom of the enforcement pyramid places tremendous pressure on them political, legal and otherwise sheriffs say, and with federal policy increasingly targeting serious, repeat criminal offenders, their role in the process has grown. When some of these sheriffs talk about bringing in an undocumented, it may be one a month, said Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez. With us, its several a day. The legal tool federal authorities use to take custody of immigrants they want is In its Texas is central to the federal agencys deportation efforts. Nationwide, only eight jails received more than 1,000 detainer requests in the last year, according to clearinghouse data. Four were in Texas Harris, Travis, Dallas and Hidalgo counties. A Many came from Texas, screened out of state prisons or found among the approximately 71,000 people who are booked into local Texas jails each month, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. On average, 3,724 undocumented immigrants were detained in Texas jails each month in 2015, according to a Texas Tribune analysis of immigration detainer reports from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. Between December 2012 and October 2015, undocumented immigrants who sat in Texas county jails cost taxpayers a total of $210.6 million, according to reports filed with the Texas Commission on Jail Standards that were released to The Texas Tribune. In 2015, the federal government provided about $12 million to Texas to care for incarcerated undocumented immigrants. Most of that - more than $8 million - went to the Texas prison system, not jails. Yet for all the statistics, no federal, state or local agency can claim it has a handle on the number of "criminal aliens" the government's term for foreigners who commit crimes in the U.S. who are currently in the country, how many crimes they are responsible for and what share the system catches. Local options In Harris, the states most populous county, 135,000 inmates each year come through the jailhouse doors. It and the city of Carrollton are the only two Texas jurisdictions that contract with the federal government to have immigration agents stationed at its jail helping pinpoint criminal immigrants. Nine federal officers and nine Harris County deputies schooled in federal procedures comb booking documents and interview inmates suspected of being in the country illegally. A guard inside the Webb County Jail in Laredo, TX, on Nov. 5, 2015. How does it strive to alert federal authorities when a criminal immigrant is arrested? Weve got a sign on the wall, jail administrator Lora Nussbaum told the Tribune, referring to a torn ICE flier taped on a jail wall that lists the agency's phone number. County jails may be the front line of efforts to keep undocumented immigrants who commit serious crimes from slipping through the cracks, but the state of Texas has no uniform method of going about that task, or measuring the scope of the problem. To gain a better picture of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants and how counties handle them, the Tribune asked for booking data and immigration procedure policies from 26 Texas counties, including the states 10 most populous. Almost none would provide it. Some, like Montgomery and Presidio counties, insisted that providing booking information, including an inmates date of birth, violated the inmates right to privacy. Harris County claimed that releasing a list of noncitizens was essentially creating new information something the Texas Public Information Act does not require a governmental body to do. Some counties argued that that federal law specifically prohibits releasing information about immigrants. Attorney General The Dallas County Sheriffs Office went a step further and insisted that booking records are court records and, as such, are not subject to the states open records law. The attorney generals office agreed, blocking their release. Five counties responded to the Tribunes request for booking data: Brewster, Nueces, Fort Bend, Travis and Tarrant. Of those, only Travis responded with enough detailed information to analyze. We dont want to be in a position where somebody loses their life because of something we didnt do that was legal for us to do. Maj. Wes Priddy, chief administrator for Travis County jails Maj. Wes Priddy, chief administrator for Travis County jails, said local law enforcements primary concern was public safety, not investigating immigration status. But he said that part of keeping dangerous people off the streets involved close cooperation with federal authorities. We dont want to be in a position where somebody loses their life because of something we didnt do that was legal for us to do, Priddy said. After arresting someone, the Department of Public Safety, county sheriffs, and even the Texas Department of Criminal Justice the nations largest prison system all have to rely on the federal government to inform them who is in the United States illegally. What our obligation is, is to provide ICE with the population information, said Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson. They go through it. They determine who theyre going to put a hold on and who theyre not, and our people dont really have a way to further investigate are they truly here legally or not. That typically happens during the booking process, when a suspects fingerprints are sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a procedure used for every new inmate. If the fingerprints match a profile in the federal database of non-U.S. citizens with previous criminal histories, ICE can decide to ask for a detainer. Texas jail officers do ask arrestees to name their country of birth as a part of the booking process, but an arrested immigrants answer is written down without being verified. The same holds true for inmates in Texas prison. As of Nov. 30, 2015, three-fourths of the 9,135 inmates in the Texas prison system with ICE detainers were in the United States illegally. The remainder include those serving time for crimes who had legal immigration status. Ultimately, ICE will make the determination whether that person is in country illegally, said Texas prisons spokesman Jason Clark. In 2010, the agency began asking for ICE help verifying those among the systems 148,000 inmates who were illegally in the country. But the federal tracking system of verifying what law enforcement refers to as criminal aliens is less than precise. It relies on someone's fingerprints being in the system because they have been arrested before. If an undocumented immigrant has never encountered law enforcement, the federal tracking system might not notice their first arrest. Jumbled numbers There is no definitive data showing that undocumented immigrants commit crimes at a higher rate than the citizen population, and a few indications that in Texas they do not. The Pew Research Center estimates undocumented immigrants comprise about seven percent of the Texas population. On average, 3,724 undocumented immigrants were detained in Texas jails each month in 2015, according to a Texas Tribune analysis of immigration detainer reports from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. Of the 148,000 inmates held in 100 Texas prison units, about 9,135 inmates have federal detainers asking that they be handed to federal officials when their sentences are complete. Not all were in the country illegally when arrested. Those that were illegal account for about 4.6 percent of the prison population. Nationwide, almost 60 percent of immigrants who are deported had some previous criminal charges, according to 2015 numbers from ICE. A group of undocumented Mexican nationals who were convicted of crimes in the U.S. enter Mexico at the US-Mexico border crossing at Brownsville/Matamoros after being deported from the United States on Nov 4, 2015. Estimates from the Texas Department of Public Safety, which gets the information from jails, are considered inaccurate because theres no uniform requirement to verify citizenship during the jail booking process. In 2014, then-Gov. One year later, DPS tried to clarify the numbers, but even director Steve McCraw, appearing before the Texas House Committee on State Affairs in December, tried to lower expectations about the criminal alien statistic his agency featured on its website. Its an undercount, McCraw testified on Dec 10. We acknowledge it woefully undercounts the amount, but it does accurately count the ones who are in fact here and the ones who have committed crimes. The DPS statistics continue to confuse both the public and lawmakers. ICE officials consider a foreign national here legally or otherwise a "criminal alien" if they've been convicted of a crime. DPS broadens the definition to include foreign nationals who have only been arrested. Criminal alien is a foreign national with a criminal record," explained DPS Assistant Director Skylor Hearn, who oversees the agencys law enforcement support division, which includes the state's crime records. There was probable cause to arrest them for something, and it would apply to the rest of us as well, generally speaking. If youve been arrested, you have a criminal record; you are not a criminal, but you have a criminal record. By DPS's count, 177,060 foreign-born individuals were charged with crimes from 2011 through Jan. 31. That's a much larger number than those foreign nationals actually convicted during the same time frame in Texas: 84,182 non-U.S. citizens. Of those, 58,128 were determined to be in the United States unlawfully. State Rep. Cesar Blanco, D-El Paso, says the DPS numbers on "criminal aliens" are artificially pumped up by counting the number of criminal charges filed against undocumented immigrants instead of actual convictions. Charges are routinely dismissed for lack of evidence or other reasons, he noted. But by hyping the number of charges, the agency bolsters the argument for more border security money. Last year, the Texas Legislature approved an additional $800 million for border security. "When crime rates were higher in this state, did the legislature move this much money?" Blanco asked. Adding to the mathematical murkiness, immigration status can be fluid. A foreign-born Texas jail inmate could be legally in the country at the time of one arrest but have an expired visa by the next arrest and be undocumented the second time around, further bedeviling Texas attempts at measuring unauthorized immigrants impact on the states criminal justice system. Attempts by DPS to connect criminal aliens to their crimes also fall short. The agency's data, obtained by the Tribune, shows that 177,060 non-U.S. citizens arrested from 2011 through Jan. 31 were charged with 252,083 offenses during that time. This is less than what DPS the agency counts crimes committed over a U.S. citizen's lifetime, outside the five-year span. DPS officials insist that its criminal alien counts, based on federal immigration data, are not an attempt to construe that foreign-born criminals are a greater threat than U.S. citizens. The department has not made that statement and does not have information to support that statement, DPS spokeswoman Summer Blackwell said in a statement. The Department of Public Safety believes any individual who has committed a violent crime or is party to criminal activities no matter their citizenship status or country of origin is considered a potential threat to public safety and the security of Texas. ICE and Texas Jails The arrest of an undocumented immigrant in the U.S. kicks off a complicated interplay between local and federal authorities. The behemoth agency at the center of the nations immigration enforcement efforts has no proactive way watch lists, data mining or the like to systematically search for dangerous undocumented immigrants, including those who have returned to the United States after being deported for committing crimes.Instead, if an immigrant criminal is caught and thrown out of the country, the process most likely begins when a local police officer or sheriff's deputy pulls them over for a traffic stop or arrests them as part of a criminal investigation.The success of federal deportation policy in Texas and nationwide depends for the most part on a heads up from county sheriffs. They run the jails where people are taken when arrested and where the culling of criminal immigrants begins.Being at the bottom of the enforcement pyramid places tremendous pressure on them political, legal and otherwise sheriffs say, and with federal policy increasingly targeting serious, repeat criminal offenders, their role in the process has grown.When some of these sheriffs talk about bringing in an undocumented, it may be one a month, said Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez. With us, its several a day.The legal tool federal authorities use to take custody of immigrants they want is the detainer . Around in some form or fashion since the 1950s, detainers are notices sent to jails asking them to hold on to an immigrant once local authorities are done with them so federal agents can come by and get them.In its latest incarnation , the detainer is reserved for the most serious convicted immigrant criminals. This new, narrower restriction, imposed in November 2014, has caused the number of detainers to drop . As of October 2015, the latest monthly figure available, 7,117 detainers were issued. That's down from an all-time monthly high of 27,755 in August 2011 , according to voluminous Freedom of Information Act requests made by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.Texas is central to the federal agencys deportation efforts. Nationwide, only eight jails received more than 1,000 detainer requests in the last year, according to clearinghouse data. Four were in Texas Harris, Travis, Dallas and Hidalgo counties. report last year on the federal agencys enforcement operations shows it plucked 139,368 people from the nation's jails and prisons during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2015. That accounted for about 59 percent of the total number of people ICE removed from the country that year for a variety of reasons.Many came from Texas, screened out of state prisons or found among the approximately 71,000 people who are booked into local Texas jails each month, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. On average, 3,724 undocumented immigrants were detained in Texas jails each month in 2015, according to a Texas Tribune analysis of immigration detainer reports from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards.Between December 2012 and October 2015, undocumented immigrants who sat in Texas county jails cost taxpayers a total of $210.6 million, according to reports filed with the Texas Commission on Jail Standards that were released to The Texas Tribune.Yet for all the statistics, no federal, state or local agency can claim it has a handle on the number of "criminal aliens" the government's term for foreigners who commit crimes in the U.S. who are currently in the country, how many crimes they are responsible for and what share the system catches.In Harris, the states most populous county, 135,000 inmates each year come through the jailhouse doors. It and the city of Carrollton are the only two Texas jurisdictions that contract with the federal government to have immigration agents stationed at its jail helping pinpoint criminal immigrants. Nine federal officers and nine Harris County deputies schooled in federal procedures comb booking documents and interview inmates suspected of being in the country illegally.By contrast, in Brewster County, the state's geographically largest as in, bigger than some states things work a bit differently. About 9,200 people live in the West Texas county, and its jail in Alpine has no official policy for handling undocumented immigrants.How does it strive to alert federal authorities when a criminal immigrant is arrested? Weve got a sign on the wall, jail administrator Lora Nussbaum told the Tribune, referring to a torn ICE flier taped on a jail wall that lists the agency's phone number.County jails may be the front line of efforts to keep undocumented immigrants who commit serious crimes from slipping through the cracks, but the state of Texas has no uniform method of going about that task, or measuring the scope of the problem.To gain a better picture of crimes committed by undocumented immigrants and how counties handle them, the Tribune asked for booking data and immigration procedure policies from 26 Texas counties, including the states 10 most populous.Almost none would provide it. Some, like Montgomery and Presidio counties, insisted that providing booking information, including an inmates date of birth, violated the inmates right to privacy. Harris County claimed that releasing a list of noncitizens was essentially creating new information something the Texas Public Information Act does not require a governmental body to do.Some counties argued that that federal law specifically prohibits releasing information about immigrants.Attorney General Ken Paxton 's office upheld most of the counties arguments, saying state open records laws don't compel release of the information.The Dallas County Sheriffs Office went a step further and insisted that booking records are court records and, as such, are not subject to the states open records law. The attorney generals office agreed, blocking their release.Five counties responded to the Tribunes request for booking data: Brewster, Nueces, Fort Bend, Travis and Tarrant. Of those, only Travis responded with enough detailed information to analyze.The numbers show that Travis County booked about 20,000 inmates with federal immigration detainers between 2008 and 2015, facing charges that were roughly evenly divided between felonies and misdemeanors. More than 7,000 of those inmates faced drunk driving charges, the most common charge by far. That was followed by family violence-related assault charges, which about 1,900 inmates faced. An estimated 2,400 of the total inmates were repeat offenders.Maj. Wes Priddy, chief administrator for Travis County jails, said local law enforcements primary concern was public safety, not investigating immigration status. But he said that part of keeping dangerous people off the streets involved close cooperation with federal authorities.We dont want to be in a position where somebody loses their life because of something we didnt do that was legal for us to do, Priddy said.After arresting someone, the Department of Public Safety, county sheriffs, and even the Texas Department of Criminal Justice the nations largest prison system all have to rely on the federal government to inform them who is in the United States illegally.What our obligation is, is to provide ICE with the population information, said Tarrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson. They go through it. They determine who theyre going to put a hold on and who theyre not, and our people dont really have a way to further investigate are they truly here legally or not.That typically happens during the booking process, when a suspects fingerprints are sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a procedure used for every new inmate. If the fingerprints match a profile in the federal database of non-U.S. citizens with previous criminal histories, ICE can decide to ask for a detainer. Texas jail officers do ask arrestees to name their country of birth as a part of the booking process, but an arrested immigrants answer is written down without being verified.The same holds true for inmates in Texas prison. As of Nov. 30, 2015, three-fourths of the 9,135 inmates in the Texas prison system with ICE detainers were in the United States illegally. The remainder include those serving time for crimes who had legal immigration status.Ultimately, ICE will make the determination whether that person is in country illegally, said Texas prisons spokesman Jason Clark. In 2010, the agency began asking for ICE help verifying those among the systems 148,000 inmates who were illegally in the country.But the federal tracking system of verifying what law enforcement refers to as criminal aliens is less than precise. It relies on someone's fingerprints being in the system because they have been arrested before. If an undocumented immigrant has never encountered law enforcement, the federal tracking system might not notice their first arrest.There is no definitive data showing that undocumented immigrants commit crimes at a higher rate than the citizen population, and a few indications that in Texas they do not.Of the 148,000 inmates held in 100 Texas prison units, about 9,135 inmates have federal detainers asking that they be handed to federal officials when their sentences are complete. Not all were in the country illegally when arrested. Those that were illegal account for about 4.6 percent of the prison population.Nationwide, almost 60 percent of immigrants who are deported had some previous criminal charges, according to 2015 numbers from ICE.The Pew Center, relying on 2012 U.S. Census numbers, estimated that Texas has 1.7 million undocumented immigrants, ranking second in the nation. What portion of that 1.7 million is responsible for crimes is a tougher calculus.Estimates from the Texas Department of Public Safety, which gets the information from jails, are considered inaccurate because theres no uniform requirement to verify citizenship during the jail booking process.In 2014, then-Gov. Rick Perry was criticized for relying on DPS first attempts to calculate the impact of crimes committed by immigrants. That year, Perry repeated the department's claim that criminal aliens had committed more than 642,000 crimes in Texas since 2008. It was later revealed that criminal aliens referred to all foreign-born immigrants in Texas, not just those in the state illegally, and the "crimes" counted included charges, not convictions, some dating back decades.One year later, DPS tried to clarify the numbers, but even director Steve McCraw, appearing before the Texas House Committee on State Affairs in December, tried to lower expectations about the criminal alien statistic his agency featured on its website.Its an undercount, McCraw testified on Dec 10. We acknowledge it woefully undercounts the amount, but it does accurately count the ones who are in fact here and the ones who have committed crimes.The DPS statistics continue to confuse both the public and lawmakers.ICE officials consider a foreign national here legally or otherwise a "criminal alien" if they've been convicted of a crime. DPS broadens the definition to include foreign nationals who have only been arrested.Criminal alien is a foreign national with a criminal record," explained DPS Assistant Director Skylor Hearn, who oversees the agencys law enforcement support division, which includes the state's crime records. There was probable cause to arrest them for something, and it would apply to the rest of us as well, generally speaking. If youve been arrested, you have a criminal record; you are not a criminal, but you have a criminal record.By DPS's count, 177,060 foreign-born individuals were charged with crimes from 2011 through Jan. 31. That's a much larger number than those foreign nationals actually convicted during the same time frame in Texas: 84,182 non-U.S. citizens. Of those, 58,128 were determined to be in the United States unlawfully.State Rep. Cesar Blanco, D-El Paso, says the DPS numbers on "criminal aliens" are artificially pumped up by counting the number of criminal charges filed against undocumented immigrants instead of actual convictions. Charges are routinely dismissed for lack of evidence or other reasons, he noted.But by hyping the number of charges, the agency bolsters the argument for more border security money. Last year, the Texas Legislature approved an additional $800 million for border security."When crime rates were higher in this state, did the legislature move this much money?" Blanco asked.The agency's data, obtained by the Tribune, shows that 177,060 non-U.S. citizens arrested from 2011 through Jan. 31 were charged with252,083 offenses during that time. This is less than what DPS reports on its own website becausethe agencycounts crimes committed over a U.S. citizen's lifetime, outside the five-year span.The department has not made that statement and does not have information to support that statement, DPS spokeswoman Summer Blackwell said in a statement. The Department of Public Safety believes any individual who has committed a violent crime or is party to criminal activities no matter their citizenship status or country of origin is considered a potential threat to public safety and the security of Texas. Read More Jails Refused to Hold Thousands of Immigrants for Feds LAREDO The sirens, the crime-scene tape, the tears and agony belonged on the television screen in Martha Martinezs living room.Some of her favorite evenings were spent there with her sister Angelica Angie, her siblings called her watching "The First 48," a reality television show on which investigators scramble to solve murders within two days or risk the crimes going unsolved.The sisters were open diaries, Martha Martinez recalled recently, best friends who kept tabs on each other daily.In 2015, Angie Martinez had turned a corner at age 27. After earning her degree in criminal justice, she'd landed a steady job at the Webb County Jail. But more importantly, as far as her sisters were concerned, Angie had gained some independence and confidence. She had separated from her husband, Juan Francisco De Luna Vasquez, an undocumented immigrant from Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, this Texas towns sister city just across the Rio Grande.He used to control her so much a lot, Martha Martinez said. She started to defend herself. But their lives were always very complicated.On the evening of July 2, Martha Martinezs phone calls to Angies cell phone went unanswered. An hour later, she saw flashing police lights up close. Angelica Martinez had stopped by the central Laredo apartment she previously shared with De Luna to pick up their three children, ages nine, eight and three.The kids were ordered outside and warned not to come back into the apartment, Martha Martinez recounted. Moments later the children said they heard their mother scream, and their father quickly packed them in his car and delivered them to a relatives house.Angie Martinez was found inside the apartment bludgeoned to death.When I got there, they wouldnt let me go up, and thats when a police officer told me that she had passed away, said Martha Martinez, who drove to the scene after her mom told her Angie hadnt shown up like she was supposed to. And I had told him No, its not her. She wouldnt give up that easily.Any hopes that her sister was still clinging to life were dashed when Martha realized there was no ambulance among the flashing lights. I remember telling him to give her CPR, to call an ambulance. [I said,] Theres no ambulance here you need to call somebody. But she was already dead, Martha Martinez recalled.De Luna allegedly bashed in the side of Angie's head and strangled her, according to Laredo police. Beside her body they found a hand-written confession from De Luna, who was caught after he allegedly tried to commit suicide in an upper-middle class neighborhood where Martha Martinez said De Luna used to work as a handyman. He is now awaiting trial for the murder.By the time he was arrested in July 2015 for the Martinez murder, De Luna had been through the Webb County Jail at least four times on a half-dozen charges, according to Webb County Sheriffs Department records.On July 3, 2006, a federal magistrate convicted De Luna of improper entry and ordered him deported and placed on unsupervised probation for three years. He was also ordered to pay a $10 fine, and he served no time in prison.In 2010, De Luna was arrested after a warrant was issued for failing to show up to court on his earlier charges, according to Webb County Jail records. But he was out on the streets soon after.Despite De Luna's arrest record, its unclear if federal authorities used any tools at their disposal including prison time or threats of penalties to delay or thwart De Lunas repeated returns to Texas.Immigration and Customs Enforcement referred all inquiries about federal interactions with De Luna to the U.S. Border Patrol. Agents with the U.S. Border Patrol's Laredo Sector said there is no record their office ever came across De Luna. A senior official for U.S. Customs and Border Protections public affairs office in Washington said the agency doesnt release details about some deportees due to privacy concerns.De Luna lived in Laredo enjoying his fresa lifestyle a border term for Mexican socialites who enjoy, and often demand, the finer things society has to offer no matter their social standing, Martha and Kimberly Martinez said. His arrest history prevented him from gaining legal status but didnt seem to affect his ability to live in Texas, working as a maintenance technician and handyman in the neighborhood where he was caught.A few weeks before Thanksgiving 2013, De Luna was arrested again and charged with DWI and striking an object on a highway. With his previous assault and evading arrest charges still pending, he was booked into Webb County Jail for the fourth time. But he was soon on Texas streets again, bonding out the same day he was arrested after posting $2,500. Immigration and Customs Enforcement hasnt responded to several requests asking if the agency took any actions to have De Luna transferred into their custody before he was released.Armando Martinez, Angies father, said De Luna's 2013 arrest should have been the last straw for a born criminal. Had De Luna been locked up, or deported, his daughter might still be alive.Why didnt the police or immigration go get him at his house? he asked. I never called the cops on him because I wanted to protect my daughter. But they should have gotten him. Hes nothing but aAngie Martinez was murdered in Laredo the day after a homeless undocumented immigrant in San Francisco allegedly shot and killed Kate Steinle. Steinle's death provoked national outrage, and state lawmakers often use it to highlight what they call the Obama administrations recklessness. But no one at the state Capitol mentioned the Martinez case during interim committee hearings on border security.The sisters arent sure why, but say it doesnt seem to matter. Theyre grappling with their own feelings about immigration something they say they never really thought heavily about until their sister was killed.Theres a lot of illegal people here, right? But sometimes you come back because you need to work, Martha said. But what he did and how he lived his life, it does make you angry because he got in a lot of trouble with the law.Despite his confession, De Lunas case remains pending in a Webb County court. During a court appearance Jan. 8, a judge set his trial date for May. Eduardo Pena, his court-appointed attorney, said his clients guilt isnt in doubt.Cases like De Lunas prove the border isnt as sealed as some say. After being arrested, its only a matter of time before dangerous immigrants are back in Texas, Pena said.[Undocumented immigrants] are sometimes just given time served. Its a merry go round, he said. Some are back in a day or two. Its definitely a problem. Its a race to post bond before ICE can detain them. Theres no question the border isnt properly secured.Its Pena's job to convince a jury the killing wasnt premeditated but a crime of passion that could win De Luna a lesser sentence.That would be a living nightmare for the Martinez family.After all the evidence and the autopsy, its more then enough to find him guilty and for him not to ever, ever come out. She didnt deserve to die that way, Martha said.Even when federal immigration authorities decide they want to take immigrants from the state criminal justice system into custody, there can be obstacles.Federal records obtained by the Tribune show that in more than 18,000 cases over the past two years, local jails across the country failed to hand over deportable immigrants to federal authorities. Jurisdictions in many states, including Pennsylvania, California and Colorado, have become reluctant to honor the detainers after facing a series of lawsuits from inmates challenging the constitutional legitimacy of the extended detention.Further information about the outcomes in cases where local officials declined to detain someone whether those inmates, many with previous criminal histories, had been released to the public proved difficult to come by, even in Texas, where there were only 146 such cases.Of the 11 state jails contacted by the Tribune, only one could provide definitive answers about what had happened with declined detainers in its jurisdiction.In Collin County north of Dallas, where agency records show two declined detainers, one for an inmate with a criminal history, a spokesman for the sheriffs office said it would literally be too manpower-intensive and potentially impossible to locate the reasons they were released.The Texas county with the most declined detainers Travis, which had 72 instances, including 33 on inmates with a prior criminal history referred all questions about the records to the federal government.I do not know how ICE came up with those numbers and we do not keep stats for ICE, Travis County Sheriffs office spokesman Roger Wade said in an email. You will have to ask ICE how they arrived at those numbers and what their definition is of declining detainers.The federal agency itself could not verify further details about the cases. An ICE official, who lacked authorization to comment and thus spoke on condition of anonymity, said a small number of the cases could be a result of administrative errors at the federal or local level.But beyond that, the official said it would be resource-prohibitive to determine what exactly happened in the individual circumstances.Step away from the direct cost to jails to house undocumented immigrants and the troubling lack of standardized record keeping and theres the added pressure of keeping up with the federal governments ever-shifting parameters of who in local jails is eligible for deportation.On Nov. 20, 2014 , ICEs parent, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, discontinued a policy known as Secure Communities in favor of a new plan called the Priority Enforcement Program. Secure Communities which targeted anyone in the United States illegally had faced fierce pushback from local officials across the country who feared legal liability under the program.With the new program, the federal agency decided to focus its deportation efforts on undocumented immigrants who committed the most serious crimes.In congressional testimony and internal documents detailing the new policys implementation, ICE officials have stressed the importance of local cooperation. A 2015 memo from the federal immigration agency describes expansive efforts to encourage state and local law enforcement partners to collaborate with the agency.The program was developed to bring back on board those state and local jurisdictions that had concerns with, or legal obstacles to, assisting us, said ICE Director Sarah Saldana in July testimony before a congressional committee.But the federal agency has opposed requiring local authorities to honor immigration detainers. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told members of the House Judiciary Committee in July that it would a huge setback to mandate compliance with immigration policy.I do not believe that mandating through federal legislation the conduct of sheriffs and police chiefs is the way to go, he said. I think it will be hugely controversial. I think it will have problems with the Constitution. I want to see us work cooperatively with state and local law enforcement, and I believe they are poised to do that.The voluntary guidelines from federal authorities can leave local officials in a politically precarious position often, no matter what decision they make will land them in hot water.Jurisdictions in Democratically controlled urban areas face intense pressure from activists critical of federal immigration policy to cease any cooperation with ICE.Our ideal situation would be for there to be no ICE collaboration whatsoever, said Carolina Canizales, the San Antonio-based deportation defense director of United We Dream, a national immigrant rights organization, which regularly stages protests at jails in the state, in an October interview. I think they shouldnt condemn thousands of undocumented immigrants for one crime that has been committed.At the same time, state lawmakers are on the watch for any sign that county sheriffs are failing to hold unauthorized immigrants singled out by ICE for deportation until federal ICE officers can pick them up and return them to their home country.Take the case of Dallas County Sheriff Valdez, who throughout her time in office has most often found herself in the crosshairs of immigrant rights activists. She currently faces a lawsuit alleging her jail has held immigrants for unconstitutionally long periods of time even after they received bond.But recently, she has become better known for the harsh public denunciation she received from Gov. Greg Abbott , who wrote her a letter saying that what he viewed as lacking enforcement of federal immigration policy posed a serious danger to Texans.Abbotts letter came after Valdez told reporters in October she would review federal detainers placed on inmates in her jail on a case-by-case basis and would not hold immigrants arrested for minor crimes for up to 48 hours for ICE officers.Her comments seemed to mirror ICEs changed focus on the most serious immigrant criminals but before she had a chance to clarify, Abbott blasted her stance and threatened to cut off grants to any sheriffs office choosing to not abide by federal immigration detainers.Valdez said late last year that her statement was taken out of context.What I said was, when theres a disagreement (over whether a jail inmate was undocumented or not) we look at it case-by-case, Valdez told the Tribune in December. But in this whole time we havent had a disagreement ... The feds and I are great. ICE and I are fine. A sweeping lands bill that gives state regulators the power to repurpose state parks and preserves for hunting, grazing, tree farming and even RV campgrounds passed its final committee in the state House Thursday after its sponsor removed provisions environmentalists feared would undermine the state's conservation programs. HB 1075, and its Senate companion SB 1290, is being proposed by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to consolidate state laws relating to land management and give the agency more flexibility as it attempts to manage the more than 13 million acres of land in the states control. But some environmentalists warn that the broad-based changes gives regulators too much control by allowing them to change whether land that was acquired for conservation can be changed to be used for recreation, thereby diluting the oversight of the governor and Cabinet. They fear that state preserves -- purchased over decades to protect sensitive aquifer recharge areas and endangered habitats -- could become hunting grounds, timber forests or leased by the state for farming and ranching. "We think this is the case of the tail wagging the dog,'' said David Cullen, lobbyist for the Sierra Club of Florida, at a meeting of the House State Affairs Committee. By legislative fiat, it employes a small piece of the executive branch -- that being DEP -- to overturn what the members of the Cabinet and governor have done. U.S. Senate candidate and current U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Orlando, has made headlines this past week because of mounting controversy and criticism over a once-offshore hedge fund he has managed. Bloomberg Politics is out today with a new report, this time about investments Grayson's children made. The news organization reports Grayson's children previously invested in -- and profited from -- a company that operates a mine in Eritrea, an African country that is accused of using slave labor. From Bloomberg Politics: Representative Alan Grayson holds an unusual position as a member of the U.S. Congress, an active investor and manager of a hedge fund. Now that the wealthy Florida Democrat is running for the Senate seat being vacated by Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio, his investments are becoming a more prominent liability. Last year, Grayson, who was first elected to Congress in 2008, made a passionate speech denouncing trade with dictatorships or countries that employ forced labor. But weeks earlier, his family cashed in a long-held investment in a mining company that derives its revenue almost entirely from Eritrea, an east African country labeled "a pariah state" by Human Rights Watch in part for its system of forced labor in service of a government that hasnt held an election since 1991. Grayson said he wasnt aware of the 2013 report criticizing the company. The Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid of Nevada, has already called on Grayson to drop out of the race, charging that he used his role as a member of Congress to promote his own hedge fund and saying he appeared to have "no moral compass." Grayson, 57, is running against fellow Florida Democratic Representative Patrick Murphy, with a primary set for Aug. 30. On Sunday, Murphy also said Grayson should close his hedge fund and even resign if allegations made in the New York Times and the Tampa Bay Times were proved true that his roles as a member of Congress and hedge fund manager had become intertwined. Grayson has denied using his office for personal gain. Asked last week about the investment in Nevsun Resources Ltd., Grayson says he wasnt aware of concerns expressed by human rights groups about Nevsuns mining operations in Eritrea before the stock was sold last year. Full story here. UPDATE: 9:55 a.m. Murphy's campaign released a statement this morning calling on Grayson to donate to charity the profits his family made off its investments in Nevsun. "Hedge fund manager Alan Grayson profited off of a company accused of using slave labor on a massive scale, and then sponsored legislation condemning those same practices. That kind of shameless hypocrisy is exactly what Floridians hate about Washington," Murphy campaign manager Josh Wolf said. "If Congressman Grayson still knows how to do the right thing, he should donate to charity every penny of his profit from the suffering of innocent people." Bloomberg Politics reported that Grayson said he "didnt know" and "couldnt have known" about this specific investment. "If I had known, then I would have divested," Grayson told Bloomberg Politics. "I did actually divest, but I didnt know when I divested, nor would I have any reason to know that, given the fact that literally thousands of different investments are involved, given the fact that nobody brought it to my attention until Im in the midst of a competitive campaign." The Republicans have repeated one specific verse in their chorus against President Barack Obamas expected Supreme Court nomination following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. It sounds something like this: There hasnt been a Supreme Court vacancy filled in an election year in 80 years. Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chair of the Judiciary Committee, firstsaid it on Feb. 13. During that nights GOP primary debate in South Carolina, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio repeated a variation of it. And the following morning, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said it on Meet the Press. The Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates have phrased this talking point differently with varying degrees of accuracy on the Truth-O-Meter. Heres what you need to know about this 80-year "tradition," in Cruzs words. Keep reading from PolitiFact. @ByKristenMClark State Sen. Don Gaetz said in a lengthy statement this evening that Miami Republican Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla "stretched" his authority as Judiciary Committee chairman and "stifled the will of the Senate to cast an up or down vote" on Gaetz's proposal to let people openly carry handguns in Florida. Gaetz, a conservative Republican from Niceville, also accused Diaz de la Portilla of lying about his intentions to find a compromise on the highly controversial measure. "Im deeply disappointed," Gaetz said. "It is perfectly proper to vote against a bill. It reflects poorly on any chairman to fear the debate. "The Judiciary Committee chairman promised and then reneged on a commitment to meet with me and other pro-Second Amendment legislators to try to negotiate differences in good faith," Gaetz added. The more-moderate Diaz de la Portilla made it official Tuesday that he would not hear Gaetz's bill this session -- killing it as he has two other gun bills this year that sought to expand how and where more than 1.5 million people with concealed-weapons licenses in Florida can carry handguns. Diaz de la Portilla said this evening that Gaetz was "disingenuous" with his criticism, because Gaetz himself is a committee chairman and former Senate president who understands the prerogative chairmen have. "Senator Gaetz knows that committees chairs cant possibly agenda every bill that is referred to their committee," Diaz de la Portilla said. Gaetz acknowledged that Diaz de la Portilla is "technically within his rights as a chairman not to hear the bill." Gaetz added: "I have faced the same question as Senator Diaz de la Portilla: Should I kill a bill that a majority of legislators want to debate, and perhaps pass, just because of my own personal preferences? In fact, I have faced that question on matters important to Senator Diaz de la Portilla and his constituents. The difference is I did not stretch my authority to stifle the will of the Senate to cast an up or down vote. "Put simply, Senator Diaz de la Portilla used his power as a committee chairman to deny senators and the public the opportunity even to discuss the issue of open carry and vote for or against the bill," Gaetz said. Current Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, has supported Diaz de la Portilla's decision, though. Gardiner left it to Diaz de la Portilla to decide whether the open-carry bill and other contentious gun proposals would be heard, and he has been consistent in empowering other committee chairmen with that discretion, also. Diaz de la Portilla said he and Gaetz "spoke briefly on the floor once" about open carry "and maybe on another occasion before that." He said Gaetz did not address his frustrations with him directly. Gaetz said he believes his open-carry bill could have passed the full Senate "with the constructive amendments recommended by The Florida Police Chiefs Association." But that's another point of disagreement between the senators. The police chiefs' provisions -- which included requiring openly carried weapons to be holstered -- were added to the House version, which was sponsored by Gaetz's son, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach. (That bill passed the Republican-heavy House earlier this month.) However, the Florida Sheriffs Association offered amendments of their own, which were rejected in the House and which Don Gaetz said he would have not wanted considered in the Senate. The sheriffs' proposal would have gutted the bill. It wouldn't have allowed open carry but would have solely addressed a problem that the National Rifle Association said was its motive for seeking an open-carry law: the prosecution of people who inadvertently display concealed weapons. Diaz de la Portilla said Thursday the sheriffs' proposal was "the only solution or compromise that I felt was workable." "I did rack my brain trying to find a workable solution on the issue of open carry, but at the end of the day, its such lousy public policy and so dangerous for the state of Florida," he said. "You cant fix something that is such terrible public policy." Emphasizing Floridians' Second Amendment rights, Gaetz said his bill "would have allowed only those persons lawfully able to carry handguns to do so without concealment, without brandishing them, without violating private property rights and without allowing weapons in any place where they are now prohibited." Diaz de la Portilla has said previously, though, he worried about "unintended consequences" of the legislation. "Some things are such bad ideas that theres no fixing them," he said Thursday. "Unfortunately, thats the case with Senator Gaetzs bad bill." Photo credit: AP Bill Johnson, who was named by Republican Gov. Rick Scott to lead an economic development agency, attended a fundraiser for hosted by Bill Clinton on behalf of Hillary Clinton Monday evening in Miami-Dade County. Johnson, who previously held several management positions at Miami-Dade County, appears to know Bill Clinton. Johnson, a longtime registered Republican, did not respond to a message left at his office and a spokesman did not provide a comment by deadline. In March, Scott named Johnson as the head of Enterprise Florida after a 35-year career at the county including as Director of Port Miami and as Assistant County Manager where he had oversight of the Miami International. "Previously he had a relationship with several presidents as head of our airport," including Bill Clinton, said Miami-Dade County Commissioner Sally Heyman, a Democrat who attended the fundraiser and saw Johnson there. Heyman said that top county government administrators regularly have relationships with the White House no matter party affiliation. "You have (mayor Carlos) Gimenez now that is a Republican and he is back and forth to Washington with the Obama administration ongoing. Especially at the local level you don't see the partisan dynamics as much as the result you see more in your face action which is what people want." Johnson has been a registered Republican since 1980, according to Miami-Dade election records. On Monday, Bill Clinton gave a speech at the Port of Palm Beach and held multiple fundraisers including one at the Gary Nader art gallery in Miami. One donor told us that the fundraisers raised about $950,000 combined. Hillary's campaign had announced last week that she would skip the events to campaign in Nevada which votes on Saturday. Florida's primary is March 15 although absentee voting is already underway. Bill Clinton will again appear on her behalf in South Florida Feb. 28 at fundraisers in Coconut Grove and at the Boca Raton Resort. @ByKristenMClark So much for peace among Republicans in the Florida Senate this session. After Sen. Don Gaetz issued a statement last night blasting fellow Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla for killing his open-carry bill, another Republican senator today is accusing Gaetz of being a hypocrite. "When Don Gaetz was Senate president and throughout my time serving with him, he has never hesitated to use whatever procedural options were open to stifle the will of anyone else in the Senate," Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, said today. He cited a couple of instances during Gaetz's presidency from 2012-2014 when he said he felt the Niceville Republican used his power as president to halt the progress of Latvala's own priorities. "For him to be talking about one senator stifling the will of the Senate, he needs to make sure he has clean hands," Latvala said. Latvala and Gaetz are not ones to mince words about each other and they have a history of showing publicly their dislike for one another. During the special session on Senate redistricting last fall, Gaetz rose for a 17-minute tirade on the Senate floor in which he called Latvala a "bully" and criticized him for being critical of Senate leadership. Latvala retorted to Gaetz shortly after, but those wounds clearly haven't healed. "This is a perfect example of him doing the same thing to somebody else, and Im just tired of it," Latvala said today. "Senator Gaetz is used to having his way, and he didnt get his way this time. Its unfortunate for him to put out a statement about another senator like that, and Im just sick of it." Gaetz today declined to respond to Latvala's comments. His controversial legislation would have allowed 1.5 million people with concealed-weapons permits in Florida to openly carry handguns. Earlier this month, the Republican-heavy House easily passed its version -- sponsored by Gaetz's son, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach -- but Don Gaetz's companion bill stalled in the Senate in front of Diaz de la Portilla's Judiciary Committee. The Miami Republican announced Tuesday he won't take up the bill, which prompted Don Gaetz's statement Thursday evening. Gaetz accused Diaz de la Portilla of "fearing the debate" over open carry, "stretching" his authority as a committee chairman and of "promising and then reneging" on plans to find a compromise on the legislation. Diaz de la Portilla stands by his decision. He said Thursday he couldn't see a workable solution for something he called "such lousy public policy and so dangerous for the state of Florida." He also said Gaetz was "disingenuous" to criticize him for exercising his authority as a committee chairman. (Gaetz himself is currently in charge of the education budget committee.) Latvala also said today that he doesn't think Gaetz really had the votes to pass his open-carry bill, which Gaetz maintains he does. The Republican majority isn't as large in the Senate, where there are 26 Republicans and 14 Democrats. Twenty-one votes are needed to pass a bill. Latvala said he's among the senators who had reservations about open carry and "probably would've voted against it" if it came to the floor. He said open carry isn't a constitutional issue, as the Gaetzes have proclaimed. Latvala said he sees the motive as more political and described it as something to help the National Rifle Association "gin up their numbers and to keep their members involved." "Nobodys trying to take anybodys rights away from them," Latvala said. Photo credit: Sen. Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, speaks on the Senate floor in 2014. Scott Keeler / Tampa Bay Times via @learyreports GREENVILLE, S.C. Jeb Bush tried to slow down Marco Rubio this week in South Carolina by attacking Rubio's claim that Bush has "zero" foreign policy experience. "Wow, coming from a guy whose office has a hard time actually saying what his accomplishments are," Bush said, adding that the senator's approach is "going to hearings to listen to smart people talk about things rather than actually leading." Bush used a variation of that line several times this week, which revives questions about Rubio's attendance at Senate Foreign Relations Committee meetings and his overall absenteeism in Washington. A new, sweeping review of all committees Rubio has sat on since taking office in 2011 paints a bleak picture of participation in the day-to-day responsibilities of the job. Rubio is on the Foreign Relations, Intelligence, Commerce and Small Business and Entrepreneurship committees. The Florida Republican has missed 68 percent of hearings, or 407 of 598 for which records were available. His skipped 80 percent of Commerce hearings and 85 percent of those held by Small Business, records show. He has missed 60 percent of Foreign Relations hearings since joining the Senate despite making his committee experience a centerpiece of his qualifications for president. via @jayhweaver His Hamlet act is over: Miami Lakes Mayor Michael Pizzi battered but not beaten by a barrage of setbacks has finally decided this week that he will pursue a third term in a fall mayoral election that has already drawn three other candidates. Pizzi, who was acquitted of federal bribery charges in 2014 and then spent months fighting town council members for his reinstatement as mayor, said he agonized over his decision. Ultimately, it came down to his belief that he is the only Miami Lakes politician who can protect the peaceful, tree-lined town from outside urban development pressures and overcrowded schools in neighboring Hialeah and other growing areas of northwest Miami-Dade County. Im very concerned about outside influences taking over our town and the lack of a strong advocate for Miami Lakes residents, Pizzi, 53, said in an interview Wednesday. I dont see strong leadership on the town council taking on these outside interests. More here. Texas presidential hopeful Ted Cruz vows not to cut deals with Democrats in a fresh TV ad that closes by showing the should-be-familiar-to-voters visage of conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh. After Cruz makes his vows to the camera, a female narrator is heard saying: "No wonder conservatives like Rush Limbaugh are saying" as Limbaughs face comes on the screen and his voice is heard, saying: "There is no other choice for you in this campaign than Ted Cruz." Next, Limbaugh is heard saying: "This is the closest in our lifetimes we have ever been to Ronald Reagan." We found that Limbaugh was even more emphatic, calling Cruz "the closest living thing to Ronald Reagan we're ever gonna have in our lifetimes." Voters could take that as a full-throated holler in Cruzs favor. But the Limbaugh moment in Cruzs ad doesn't fully reflect the commentators recent remarks--especially because Limbaugh also praised another high-profile candidate, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Keep reading from PolitiFact Texas. Blog: California Celtic Colloquium 18 FEBRUARY 2015 The program for next month's California Celtic Colloquium is now available online. The annual meeting held in early March alternates between Berkeley and UCLA, with this year's event running from 10-12 March at UCLA. Among the highlights this year are discussions of how digital humanities can assist Celtic studies, as well as the screening of a film, The Aran Islands Another View. Advance registration is not required, and there is no admission fee to attend. For more information, contact UCLA's Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at cmrs@humnet.ucla.edu. You can also download a PDF of the conference program. Blog Archive March (5) January (190) December (300) November (359) October (297) September (270) August (344) July (323) June (336) May (274) April (291) March (268) February (201) January (217) December (243) November (228) October (182) September (174) August (186) July (181) June (174) May (228) April (225) March (290) February (289) January (333) December (252) November (270) October (336) September (349) August (324) July (346) June (385) May (425) April (422) March (354) February (285) January (321) December (364) November (346) October (306) September (291) August (274) July (276) June (275) May (313) April (279) March (277) February (287) January (326) December (293) November (369) October (418) September (397) August (391) July (385) June (224) May (267) April (193) March (190) February (198) January (218) December (235) November (315) October (303) September (254) August (264) July (237) June (253) May (261) April (204) March (325) February (318) January (224) December (188) November (255) October (285) September (428) August (403) July (324) June (163) May (207) April (184) March (155) February (108) January (147) December (243) November (236) October (188) September (73) August (14) July (10) June (3) May (5) April (5) March (8) February (7) January (9) December (21) November (18) October (34) September (11) August (31) July (25) June (34) May (11) April (9) March (29) February (27) January (9) December (23) November (6) October (20) September (13) August (2) July (6) June (3) May (20) April (2) March (4) February (3) January (2) December (2) November (6) October (4) September (11) August (28) July (27) June (32) May (59) April (44) March (47) February (36) January (48) December (41) November (55) October (80) September (50) August (30) July (63) June (46) May (36) April (24) March (46) February (36) January (30) If you ask Yvonne Prinz, author and co-founder of Amoeba Music, how we met, she will tell you we were in a band together that broke up because she insisted on playing the theremin. She will be lying, but she loves a good scenario. We actually met after I wrote her a mash note about her YA book Vinyl Princess, which remains one of my very favorite reads of any genre. In part I loved it because for a while Yvonne blogged in the voice of its teenage vinyl-loving heroine and gave out astoundingly good music recommendations along the way. Yvonnes latest YA novel, If Youre Lucky, is a thriller set on the Cali coast, a page turner from the opening paragraph. And as youd expect from someone who founded the worlds largest independent record store, her books playlist is top notch. If Youre Lucky Mixtape by Yvonne Prinz If Youre Lucky is the story of Georgia, a paranoid schizophrenic teenager who lives in False Bay, a fictional hamlet on the foggy, moody North coast of California. On the first page of If Youre Lucky, Georgia learns that her only sibling, Lucky, a likeable, easy-going adventurer, has drowned in a surfing accident in Australia. This event sends her reeling. Almost overnight she goes from somewhat stable to fragile to increasingly volatile to believing that her dead brother who starts to appear to her as a ghost, is trying to tell her that he was murdered by the charismatic Fin who has arrived in False Bay claiming that he and Lucky were like brothers back in Australia. Fin has handily charmed the entire town in much the same way that Lucky did. Georgia, fueled by messages from her brother, pursues the notion that there is something more sinister in his intentions. This novel came to me in fits and false starts and middle-of-the-night epiphanies and endless rewrites. Some days it felt like the book was a beast that was haunting me, bullying the story out of me. Creating this story was a completely different experience from anything else Id ever written. I believe it transformed my writing, partly because it was my first thriller and partly because the rewrite process was so difficult. I lived in that foggy town for so long that I think I went a little crazy but theres something to be said for a writing experience that pushes the author to the edge. I think it might bring out your best work. My playlist is a combination of what I think might be going on in Georgias head and my own feelings about the place and what happened there: Poison Oak Bright Eyes I love these lyrics. I think that Oberst wrote this song to go with my story. That isnt true, of course, but the song reminds me of my character, Georgia, and her brother, Lucky. Georgia has always been in awe of Luckys ease in his life. He brought the world home to False Bay with him when he returned from his adventures and he made it seem small and friendly. After hes gone, Georgia doesnt know how to look at the world anymore. It becomes big and scary. When she starts to lose her grip on things, she knows something very frightening is happening to her but she cant quite define it or express it in a believable way and then it gets tangled up with her mental illness. She disappears into the woods and wakes up in a hospital with a bad case of poison oak. I fell asleep with you still talking to me and you said you werent afraid to die This ones a weeper. Georgia is hanging on to her dead brother too tight and she sees him in her dreams, always in the water, always reaching for her. She wakes up gasping for air. I dont remember where I found this song but it speaks to what Georgia is experiencing and her loss. The Felice Brothers are self-proclaimed slouching Hudson River Pirates. They seem to have a song for every occasion. This one speaks to me when I think about whats going on with Georgia as she starts to lose her grip. Her delusions start to define her life as she slips away from reality. I love the old-timey feel of this tune. The Felice Brothers are fearlessly atmospheric in their compositions and arrangements. Lots of surf culture in this story. Georgias brother Lucky thrived in that life. He worked here and there and then followed the waves around the world. Ive always loved the way this song speaks to that Gypsy life that Lucky embraced. We get to know Lucky through the backstory Georgia tells throughout the novel. This song goes nicely with that story. In Chapter Nine, Sonia (Luckys girlfriend) and Georgia take a drive down to a small bar in Bodega (near where Tom Waits now lives, incidentally) to see a Gypsy Swing band. Theyre surprised when Fin gets onstage to sit in with the band. Hes obviously an accomplished guitar player and neither of them knew anything about this. Later in the story its revealed that Fin is the son of a musician, who was very much like Django Reinhardt. This adds to Fins mystique and that night at the bar, Sonia starts to fall in love with him. How could she not? Im a fan of Gypsy Jazz and I loved building a character with a flourish like this, another dollop of intrigue, another layer to explore. I used this video to help me in creating the Fin character, a charmer with Romany roots and a certain worldliness, someone for Georgia to fall for and then start to wonder about. Eugene Hutz (of Gogol Bordello) is much older than Fin but I used him as a guide. Fin has that same swagger and charm to spare. Trickster and seductress, we, tap dancing on mine fields every day. *** And heres one bonus video for you the hot-off-the-presses book trailer for If Youre Lucky with the name of your lucky song (define it however you will.) Ill pick a winner using Random.org on Tuesday 2/23 at 5 pm PT. Yvonne Prinz is the award-winning author of The Vinyl Princess and All You Get Is Me. A Canadian, living in San Francisco Bay Area, she is the co-founder of Amoeba Music, the worlds largest independent record store. Related Posts: Before we get started, here's the music I want you play while reading this review. Done? Okay, let's get into it. Earlier ... Got some ideas about economics, policy, science, art or whatever, and you can write? Let us know here , we're looking for contributors! Thoughts on the military and military activities of a diverse nature. Free-ranging and eclectic. Blog ego cogito ergo sum. A prototype of the latest version of the MQ-1C Gray Eagle will be headed to Europe soon for a series of demonstrations, according to the ... Bozeman documentary filmmaker Jason Burlages first feature, Mi Chacra, examined the desire of people to leave behind the peaceful mountains of Peru for what they believed would be a better live in the city. In The Middle Kingdom, which makes its world premiere at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival on Sunday at 6 p.m. at the Wilma Theatre, Burlage turns his camera on people who have already made the move. This time the country is China. Zhudi town was, relatively recently, a small farming village on the outskirts of Shanghai. But Shanghais explosive growth it is now home to more than 24 million people has surrounded and swallowed Zhudi town. Its streets are crammed with humanity and its air filled with voices, pollution and honking horns. The Middle Kingdom marks a relatively rare occurrence at the festival a Montanans film up for Best Feature. It focuses on half a dozen people in the busy Shanghai neighborhood, including an 80-year-old cigarette-smoking fortune teller who becomes the films star. *** With no crystal ball to guide him but an array of other ways to gain insights, Mr. Che dispenses both fortunes (Your life was meant to be very hard, he tells one man) and advice on the streets of Zhudi. He warns one man away from a relationship, telling him Youre fire, she is metal, you cant get along. But Mr. Che encourages another man who says he believes his love interest may be a fraud. No problem, you two are fit for each other, Mr. Che says, adding, She was born in the pig year. She might be fat. Middle Kingdom is an observational documentary. No one is interviewed. No one narrates. Youll not learn Mr. Ches name, youll only watch him, from the time he rises in his small, squalid room, to the time he returns from a long day on the streets of Zhudi. Youll meet several other people, too. *** One of the more interesting is Mr. Zhou, who carries his hwamei birds to a park and hangs their cages in trees so they can spend the day outdoors. Mr. Li sells produce by the roadside, barking No deal! to some customers who try to get him to lower his prices, and going into great detail about why his prices are fair. Burlages camera hones in on three females as well. Youll watch Liu Wen Xia and her husband, working hard to make and sell flatbread out of a small stand (what the film wont tell you, but Burlage has in other outlets, is that the married couple left their young son behind in their hometown to come to the city and try to prosper). Theres also Zeng Xiaolan, 19, who has left her home to come to the city and found a job selling clothes. But the job evidently only pays if her sales reach a certain level. Youngest of The Middle Kingdoms subjects is Su Er Dai, daughter of a Muslim noodle shop owner, who amuses herself while the adult world goes about its busy ways all around her. *** Burlage says he set out to focus on one family in the Chinese city, just as he had focused on one family in Peru. The idea changed for good once I met Mr. Che, the Bozeman filmmaker says. I am a peasant, the fortune-teller told him. I am old, with no kids to take care of. I make just enough money to make a living. My kids dont need my money, nor do I need theirs. I am alone in this world, with no melancholy or burden. I am content. From that point, Burlage says, he knew Mr. Che would be a part of the documentary no matter what. Mr. Che did more than that. He became the anchor of The Middle Kingdom. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has denied a petition to rehear an appeal by a Kalispell woman who pushed her husband off a cliff in Glacier National Park, killing him eight days after their wedding. In an order dated Feb. 5, 9th Circuit judges Paul Watford, Marsha Berzon and Raymond Fisher denied a petition filed by Jordan Graham's attorney in mid-January to rehear her appeal. The 9th Circuit also denied Graham a rehearing en banc, which would have happened before a larger panel of judges. Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Hornbein said the denial of the petition means Grahams only remaining option to continue her case is an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, but Hornbein believes its unlikely the high court would take up the case. As far as were concerned, it doesnt present any new areas of law for them to rule on, she said. Michael Donahoe, Grahams federal public defender, said he has spoken with his client and they intend to file an appeal to the Supreme Court. He said the petition hasnt been filed yet, but Graham has 90 days after the 9th Circuit denial to submit it. Its pretty likely that we will file, Donahoe said. He declined to comment on the 9th Circuits rehearing decision. *** On July 7, 2013, Graham and her husband Cody Johnson scuffled and she pushed him backward off a cliff near the Loop trail along Glacier's Going-to-the-Sun Road. She then went home to Kalispell. It wasn't until July 11, after days of telling law enforcement that Johnson drove away from their house with friends, that Graham led a search party to his body. A week later, she confessed having murdered Johnson to an FBI agent. Shortly before closing arguments during her December 2013 trial in U.S. District Court in Missoula, Graham pleaded guilty to second-degree murder as part of an agreement in which federal prosecutors dismissed a first-degree murder charge and a charge of making a false statement to law enforcement. In Graham's appeal, Donahoe argued prosecutors unfairly claimed Johnson's murder was premeditated during sentencing. Once the first-degree murder charge was off the table, he said, so was the notion that Johnson's death was premeditated. Graham was subsequently sentenced to 365 months in prison. In November 2015, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit upheld Graham's sentence, finding that neither federal prosecutors nor U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy erred the process. "The government did not breach the plea agreement by arguing premeditation at sentencing," the judges wrote, "because the agreement contained no provision, express or implied, limiting such arguments. "The government satisfied its obligations under the plea agreement when it dismissed the first-degree murder charge and the false statement charge in exchange for Graham's plea to second-degree murder." Graham is being held in federal prison in Aliceville, Alabama. As Americans who treasure our legacy of religious freedom, diversity and openness to refugees from around the world, we are appalled by the ignorance of Islam and the hatred toward the Muslim victims of the Syrian civil war expressed in recent letters to the editor. Eric Knutson's poisonous proposal (letter, Feb. 14) that refugees should be required to renounce Allah is reprehensible. We are reminded of the horrific persecution of Christians in 17th century Japan by rulers who, like our contemporary hate-mongers, perceived a religion they did not believe in as an integral threat to Japan's national security and indigenous values. On pain of death should they refuse, Christian converts were made to stamp on pictures of Jesus. Is that an example Americans today should emulate in relation to Muslims? Where is the moral outrage and enlightened guidance among our own religious and civic leaders here in western Montana against those who demonize adherents of Islam? Like Christianity, Islam is a religion whose adherents include a wide spectrum of followers of different schools of thought and sects, and who number some 6 million of our fellow Americans, the overwhelming majority of whomlike the overwhelming majority of American Christiansare law-abiding, loyal and respectful of other faiths. It is a sign of our paranoid times that something this obvious even needs to be stated. Steven I. Levine, Madeline G. Levine, Stevensville BILLINGS - A 24-year-old Billings man pleaded guilty Thursday to posting nude photos of his ex-girlfriend on Craigslist and pretending to be her seeking sexual encounters. Mathew Christopher Connery was charged with misdemeanor privacy in communications for listing her phone number in the casual encounters sections of Craigslist. A nude photo she had provided him while the two were in a relationship was also posted. In his plea before Yellowstone County Justice of the Peace David Carter, Connery at first appeared contrite. "I realize what I did when I did it," Connery said. "I wasn't in the best state of mind when I did it." When Carter asked him to admit to the crime, however, he hesitated. "I wasn't trying to intimidate her," Connery said. "It was a really stupid joke between her and me when we were together." Asked by the judge if he was "trying to embarrass her or cause her emotional pain," Connery said, "I guess so, yeah." The woman filed a restraining order against Connery after he posted the photo and showed up unannounced at her home, her family's home and her work. She requested he destroy the photos so they could no longer be posted. Connery's sentencing will be Feb. 25, allowing the victim time to write an impact statement for the court. His conviction comes only a week after the Women's Media Center launched a site nationally to help identify and categorize harassment of women online. Director for the Women's Media Center Speech Project, Soraya Chemaly, said "revenge porn" or "non-consensual pornography" is a growing problem for women online. The speech project intends to raise awareness and understanding of the developing problem. "A lot of times, when these crimes are reported, they are routinely minimized by being categorized as a misdemeanor," Chemaly said. A nude photo of someone posted on the Internet is like stripping someone naked and throwing them into a public place, Chemaly said, although the crimes aren't treated that way. Connery faces a maximum punishment of six months in jail and a $500 fine, according to Montana Law. Although, Chenaly said her organization isn't focused on making changes through the legal system, "When you look at rape, at domestic violence and the legal remedies for these crimes, we know the court system is so biased." Deputy Yellowstone County Attorney Paul Chaon was the lead prosecutor on one of three related stalking cases charged during 2014. The offender, Terry Stoltz was sentenced to five years for felony drug possession and concurrent sentences of five years with two suspended for stalking. Stoltz had set up a video camera in the victim's shower, which he said he was using to watch some chickens he kept there. Chaon said Stoltz adopted a mentality toward his victim of, Im going to make your life miserable. According to the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative's "Effects of Revenge Porn" Survey, 90 percent of revenge porn victims are women, while 60 percent of perpetrators were men. Of those who have suffered from revenge porn, 49 percent were then harassed by people who saw the images, according to the survey. Victims of revenge porn are sometimes fired from their jobs. Harm is done to their reputation, there are psychological impacts and they face social stigma for their sending the photos in the first place, Chenaly said. It needs to start with education, Chenaly said. Society as a whole believes that women's bodies are a public resource, Chenaly said. "I had a young man ask me in a class once what the difference was between posting a photo of his girlfriend and a picture of a toaster," Chenaly said. "A toaster doesn't have rights," Chenaly said. What will most often happen in these cases is that two people will be in a relationship and use text messaging to send sexually explicit photos to one another, Chenaly said. These people are typically in their teens up to late twenties. While men and women share photos at about the same rate, men are three-to-five times more likely to share sexually explicit images without permission. When the relationship ends, men use this as blackmail. Chenaly has also seen cases where a man will rape a woman and video tape it. Yellowstone County saw this behavior with Toby Griego, a Yellowstone County serial rapist who recorded his attacks of women on his cellphone. "When we write stories about domestic violence, they are often the most salacious, stranger-based violence stories," Chenaly said. "But this ignores the day-to-day violence women face in their homes and on the Internet." In a 2010 Casper, Wyo., case, a man named Jebidiah James Stipe posted a photo of his ex-girlfriend on Craigslist saying the woman was seeking someone to help her play out a rape fantasy. Ty Oliver McDowell responded to the ad and assaulted the woman, according to a news story. He left the victim naked, tied up on the floor and actually locked the door when he left, Natrona County District Attorney Michael Blonigen said in the story. McDowell admitted to three counts of first-degree sexual assault, one count of aggravated kidnapping and one count of aggravated burglary. Stipe admitted to one count of conspiracy to commit sexual assault and four other felonies related to the rape. To learn more about the speech project, visit The Speech Project website where a list of the six types of abuse women face online are listed as well as articles and surveys conducted on the subject. HAMILTON The last of three people arrested in Ravalli Countys largest-ever heroin bust pleaded guilty Wednesday. Marlen Ravelo, 47, of Port Angeles, Washington, accepted an agreement with prosecutors that called for a 30-year prison sentence, all suspended, in exchange for her guilty plea to five felony drug charges. Ravelo also has entered into a plea agreement on federal charges she faces in Washington state that is expected to result in prison time. Ravelo was one of three people arrested last Halloween after law enforcement officers acted on a tip and stopped their vehicle in the Florence area. After being ordered out the car at gunpoint, members of the Ravalli County Sheriffs Office found nearly half a pound of heroin and a similar amount of methamphetamine in the vehicle. The drugs had an estimated street value of $250,000. According to federal court records, Ravelo was part of a drug-trafficking organization headquartered in western Washington led by a man named Antonio Contreras-Torres, aka "Pipi." The organization was tracked by federal officers, who documented at least four occasions when Ravelo allegedly obtained heroin and methamphetamine for distribution, including the drugs that were confiscated in Ravalli County. The court records said Ravelo commonly referred to the heroin she requested as coffee or dark and methamphetamine was called water. On June 26, 2015, the court records said she ordered 16 and 16 of the dark one, referring to 32 pieces of heroin at 25 grams each, and 1 pound of water, referring to methamphetamine. On Oct. 15, 2015, she ordered two big ones of the coffee, referring to 2 kilograms of heroin, and 10 waters, referring to 10 ounces of methamphetamine. Ravelo was stopped by investigators Oct. 15 after she was provided heroin and methamphetamine at a Taco Bell in Washington. During a search of her vehicle, investigators found 2,250 grams of heroin and 342 grams of methamphetamine. The federal court records dont indicate if Ravelo was arrested at that point. Instead, the records said investigators continued to intercept calls Ravelo made to order more drugs, including those she would eventually bring to Ravalli County. Court records filed in Ravalli County said Ravelo and Mason Gregory Skerbeck, 23, also of Port Angeles, brought the drugs into Montana with the intent to see if there was a market here. Once in the state, they met Crystal Lee Griffin, 21, of Stevensville, who brokered deals at the University of Montana and in Stevensville. The three were arrested while traveling to Stevensville to complete that transaction. Skerbeck accepted a plea agreement last week that included a sentence of 15 years with the Montana Department of Corrections, with 10 years suspended. Griffins plea agreement included a 15-year commitment with the Montana Department of Corrections, with 12 years suspended. The Ravalli County Attorneys Office is asking that all three pay a fine of $78,750 each that would be deposited in the state general fund. The amount is 35 percent of the estimated value of the dangerous drugs that were in their possession. The plea agreements allow them to argue that the fine should be waived or modified. While federal sentencing guidelines are complex, Deputy Ravalli County Attorney Thorin Geist said it appears that Ravelo likely will be sentenced to five to 10 years in a federal prison, all of which must be served. The 30-year suspended prison sentence in the Ravalli County case will run concurrent to the federal sentence. If she ends up doing five years in the federal prison, she will still have another 25 years of state time facing her if she does something wrong, Geist said. We have a huge stick hanging over her. Thats not Department of Corrections time. Its prison time. Knowing that she would be going to jail for five to 10 years made the agreement palatable to me. The University Center at the University of Montana will once again become Montanas largest venue for global sights, sounds and tastes during the annual UM International Culture and Food Festival planned for Sunday, March 20. The festival celebrates its 25th anniversary this year and has become Montanas largest annual internationally-themed festival. This years theme, 25th Jubilee! Around the World in 25 Years, highlights the many metaphorical global journeys that past festival-goers experienced during the past two and a half decades. These journeys have led to rich and unique international experiences in dance, music, food, film, and arts and crafts, said festival Director Mona Mondava. The festival has sparked multifaceted cultural discoveries and learning, and most importantly, inspired countless cross-cultural friendships and connections. This year, the festival expects 3,500 global travelers to once again enjoy this world journey. The UM International Culture and Food Festival is one of the cornerstone events of UMs International Month, a series of programs and activities on campus during March. For a full schedule of International Month events, call 243-2288 or visit umt.edu/international-programs/international_month_default.php. The 2016 International Culture and Food Festival will feature the world food bazaar, international culture show, an interactive childrens world festival, a cultural expo, the Montana International Childrens Film Festival, and a silent auction of arts and crafts from around the world. A parade of flags will kick off the festival at noon, and all activities will run simultaneously until 5 p.m. Admission costs $6 for the general public and $3 for children 12 and younger. Tickets can be purchased at the door or in advance by calling Foreign Student and Scholar Services at 243-2226. The world food bazaar in the UC Atrium will feature authentic dishes from regions around world. Food is priced from 50 cents to $4 and will include American Indian tacos; Greek souvlaki; Persian sambusas; Malaysian kam heong and teh tarik; Brazilian feijoada and brigadeiro; Indonesian soto ayam; Middle Eastern hummus, baklava and Bedouin coffee; and Native American buffalo tips and berry soup, among other culinary delights. The five-hour lively International Culture Show is planned for the third floor of the UC in the Ballroom and will include traditional and contemporary performances such an Indian dance depicting Lord Vishnus incarnations, Balinese shadow puppet music, a mask dance from Sierra Leone and Guinea, a traditional Japanese fishermans dance, and Brazilian music and dance. Childrens World, which is set for the second floor of the UC in the Commons, will present an imaginative childrens festival with activity stations featuring hands-on, fun, intercultural activities. Children can participate in games, dances, storytelling, multiethnic crafts and origami, as well as meet people from different cultures. Kids will be issued passports and can earn world citizen status by completing activities. At the same time, the Montana International Childrens Film Festival will feature entertaining, thought-provoking and visually stunning short films for all ages in the UC Theater on the third floor. In addition the Jeanette Rankin Peace Center will offer children peace-making activities. The cultural pavilions expo area in the UC Ballroom will present displays from individual countries and internationally focused local organizations. Displays will include colorful information about countries, a world-items market and information booths. Those interested in becoming a Community Friend to incoming UM international students will have the opportunity to sign up for information from the Missoula International Friendship Program. The organization also will hold a silent auction of arts and crafts from many parts of the world. The festival is sponsored by the UM International Student Association and Foreign Student and Scholar Services. 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 ... Welcome to the Social Media Research @ JNU Blog!!! This Blog is created to share information, knowledge networking and debating on the issues related to Social Media Studies and Advanced Social Media Research. Topics to be covered in this blog are (but not limited to): Mass Media, Social Media, New Media, Broadcasting, Print Media, Educational Media, Journalism, Mass Communication, Development Communication, Media Law, Media Literacy, ICT for Development and other relevant areas. Local artist Sarah Rowley has recently joined membership in the Main Stope Gallery, 8 S. Montana St. Rowley brings her connection with the wild environment of the West to her art. Primarily she is a printmaker and a painter and her work exemplifies new approaches to landscape and nature. Sarah writes: Experiencing landscape inspires my abstractions, my ideas are often discovered through some adventure outside. With a sculptural attitude towards material, I build images incorporating found objects while re-proportioning traditional material application to comment on the wilder landscape as well as how industry shapes our western landscape. While my impressions of place are based in reality, the content lives within an appreciation for being between the sky and the mud. Rowley has spent most of her life in the Northwest, with family in Idaho and attending school in Montana. She holds a BA in Fine Art from the University of Montana and has a variety of experience in art related fields. In addition to participating in exhibitions throughout Montana she has also curated shows and taught art through residency programs, summer camps, after school programs and Head Start. The Paris Gibson Square (Great Falls) and Silver Bow Arts both have Rowley work in their permanent collections. The gallery will feature Rowley and her work during March and a reception will be held on March 4. Details on the time to come. HELENA Montana courts are working to streamline their handling of child abuse and neglect cases and improve the results for children and their families, officials told the Protect Montana Kids Commission on Thursday. District Judge Ingrid Gustafson of Billings said that before she hears such cases, social workers, parents and a mediator hold a pre-hearing conference to identify what led to the court's involvement and to determine if the parents are willing to make improvements. If the parents are open to getting help, the mediator and social workers will pinpoint what kind of treatment, evaluation or education the parents might need, she said. The court has developed systems for getting contact information to the parents' court-appointed attorneys to eliminate other delays, Gustafson said. Five years ago, the District Court in Yellowstone County terminated parental rights in 45 percent of abuse and neglect cases, everyone involved was frustrated, and it was taking almost two years to close a case. A retired judge looked at the system and found it was taking around six months from when children were taken away from their parents to when they got a treatment plan. Parents were given a laundry list of things to do including mental health evaluations, chemical dependency evaluations, anger assessments, parenting classes and counseling all while getting a job, suitable housing, and being available for random urinalysis. "We had a system that set people up to fail," Gustafson said. Now, the pre-hearing conferences are held within 72 hours of when a child is removed, the parents' court-appointed attorneys are notified immediately, and those who are willing to work with the court can get working on their treatment plan right away, she said. The District Court in Yellowstone County is now terminating parental rights in 26 percent of such cases and is processing them more quickly, despite an increasing caseload. Gustafson's court is terminating rights in 16 percent of cases. Her court has used the same system for five years. Gustafson said she believes the reduction in terminations due to working with the families has saved the state around $1 million in foster-care costs during the past five years. "I have been pretty shocked at the parents that with the right help have been able to get their children back and they're doing a pretty good job," she said. Social workers and attorneys reported they were happier with their work and felt they were doing something meaningful, Gustafson told the commission, which is evaluating the state Child and Family Services Division. The commission is tasked with forwarding any recommendations for changes in policies, practices and state law to the governor's office by late March. Gustafson and District Judge Mike Menahan said it would be nice for the courts to have money available to help low-income parents with transportation and the cost of drug testing so they could meet the requirements of their treatment plans. The committee also heard from panelists involved in foster and kinship care and from teenagers who had been removed from their parents' custody. HELENA When Gabrielle Wheeler was 13, her stepfather, a truck driver, came home and "had a freakout one morning." She was sleeping on a cot in the hallway of one of the two-bedroom apartments her family lived in between stays in motel rooms. Her stepfather tripped on her and was angry. "When he did come home, it was really bad and unsafe," she said. Her mom had her pack her bags and took her to live with a family friend. "At 13 that was really scary," she said. Gabrielle and five other teens told the Protect Montana Kids Commission on Thursday about their experiences in Montana's foster care system. The commission, created by Gov. Steve Bullock last September, is tasked with finding ways to improve the various programs in place to help kids in the state, like Child and Family Services. The commission will also make recommendations to the 2017 Legislature. Gabrielle, now 17, was born in Missoula. She told the commission her family moved 19 times between Montana, Colorado and Texas, where she said her parents started "doing pretty hard drugs." She said she and her brother weren't being fed and didn't feel safe. The family moved back to Arlee, which is where she was living when her parents sent her away to stay with a family friend. She missed four months of school her eighth-grade year. After 2 years, the husband and wife she was staying with told her she needed to find a new place to live. She was a sophomore in high school and homeless, sleeping under the Reserve and Russell Street bridges in Missoula. Friends eventually realized she needed a place to live, and she ended up with a caseworker who took her to a short-term group home. She bounced through more group homes around the state and a foster family she had to leave without notice. "I wound up in Helena," she said. "I wasn't able to say goodbye, close any doors." She was put in a youth home, stayed the maximum amount of time allowed, and was eventually placed in a family in Helena last summer. "It has been an amazing place," she said. She said her foster mom's parents are her grandparents, and she calls her foster parents mom and dad. "I've never had that," she said. "It gets really, really hard, and you feel like you have nobody." Several of the teenagers who spoke Thursday expressed frustration with lack of communication with Child Protective Services caseworkers, their attorneys, and others involved in their case. Some had good experiences in group homes while others didn't. Gabrielle told the commission that at times during the process she felt like her rights weren't being considered. "Kids should be told where they're going, and if there's a reason they're not being told, they should be told of that reason," she said. She said she often couldn't leave voicemails for her caseworker because she didn't answer calls and her voicemail was always full. Isaac Brito, 18, who attends Montana State University, said he didn't trust his caseworker or attorney. "One of my biggest issues was communication," he said. He told the commission his caseworker didn't return his calls and his guardian ad litem only spoke to him once, adding his lawyer only sometimes got back to him. Brito was placed in the care of his grandparents at 15 when, on a summer trip to their home in Anaconda, his younger sister told his grandma and grandpa about the emotional and physical abuse and neglect they experienced from their mother. He said the caseworker he was assigned didn't fight for him. "I never felt like I had a voice, and all these people were making all these decisions about my life," he said. Not all kids had the same experience. Charlie Heil, 18, a senior at Capital High in Helena, said she had positive experience with her court-appointed special advocate and others involved in her case. "I was going to all of the court (hearings), had a CASA, talked to attorneys, knew everything that was going on." Child and Family Services Director Sarah Corbally asked the teens about how multiple placements in group and family homes affected them. Several of the kids said they'd been moved around to different group or foster homes, sometimes with little or no notification. Crystal LaMere, 17, of Great Falls said transitions are the biggest issue she's dealt with. "Foster kids need that stability," she said. "They get attached to somebody, and they leave. I've had so many caseworkers since I've been in the system, I can't get really close to them. Any time I get close to any of them, they just leave again. I have a really hard time trying to trust caseworkers now." WASHINGTON -- I had a twinge of nostalgia watching George W. Bush campaign for his little brother in South Carolina Monday night. He was earthy. He recalled a previous visit to a South Carolina breakfast spot, where an animal-rights demonstrator dressed as a pig interrupted Bush's meal by dumping a "steaming pile of manure" in the parking lot to block his exit. Bush was corny. He spoke about how, in his presidential "afterlife," he has become a tree farmer -- "gives me a chance to practice my stump speech." He was also self-deprecating. "I've written two books, which has surprised a lot of people, particularly up east who didn't think I could read, much less write," he said. But mostly, W's cameo in the 2016 campaign served as a reminder that, not too long ago, conservative politics wasn't so beastly. Bush, wading into the manure pile that is the 2016 Republican primary fight, was pleasant, civil and decent. "If serving as president of the United States makes me a part of the so-called establishment, I proudly carry that label," he said, responding to the "outsider" fury fueled by Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. "There seems to be a lot of name-calling going on, but I want to remind you what our good dad told me one time. Labels are for soup cans. The presidency is a serious job that requires sound judgment and good ideas." Without mentioning Trump's name, Bush belittled the bombastic billionaire. "These are tough times, and I understand that Americans are angry and frustrated, but we do not need someone in the Oval Office who mirrors and inflames our anger and frustration," Bush said. Then he made his best case for Jeb: "Strength is not empty rhetoric. It is not bluster. It is not theatrics. Real strength, strength of purpose, comes from integrity and character. And in my experience, the strongest person usually isn't the loudest one in the room." This isn't to idealize Bush, who did his share to coarsen political discourse: impugning his opponents' patriotism, exaggerating intelligence to lead the country to war, and building the false case that Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks. But even Karl Rove's underhandedness seems almost quaint compared with today's brutality. The party isn't necessarily more conservative; Trump is less a conservative than a purveyor of insults, nationalism and conspiracy theories. Trump and Cruz are making the Republican Party into a rage-filled movement, as the dueling demagogues chew up opponents and each other. Some excerpts from Saturday night's debate: "They lied!" "He lies." "This guy lied." "That's a lot of lies." "Why do you lie?" "You are the single biggest liar." "It's a disgrace and an embarrassment." "Give me a break." "This country is dying." "I don't know how he knows what I said on Univision because he doesn't speak Spanish." "He is so weak on illegal immigration it's laughable." "You want to talk about weakness? It's weak to disparage women. It's weak to denigrate the disabled." "He said he would take his pants off and moon everybody." "He called him pathological and compared him to a child molester." "Nasty guy." Trump took particular aim at the 43rd president, saying: "They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none, and they knew there were none." At a news conference on Monday -- the same event where Trump repeatedly called Cruz "unstable" and said he would file a lawsuit to disqualify Cruz from the presidency because of his Canadian birth -- Trump flirted with the "truther" accusation that Bush had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. "They knew some bad things were going to happen," Trump alleged. "They could have stopped it." Bush responded mildly to Trump's provocations, recalling the child's face he looked into when he first learned of the 9/11 attacks. The former president answered the Bible-bungling Trump with a passage on hypocrisy from Matthew about removing the speck from your brother's eye when there is a log in your own. "We need someone who can take a positive message across the entire country, someone who can inspire and appeal to people from all walks of life, not just one party or one class of people," he said. Jeb "will rise above the petty name-calling." Maybe, or maybe W's appearance will serve only to remind voters of Jeb's inferior political skills. Either way, the 43rd president's re-emergence offered Republicans a chance to reflect on how Bush's party of conservatism so quickly became Trump's party of rage. Follow Dana Milbank on Twitter, @Milbank. The recently proposed Park Street plan from Uptown to Tech which calls for a leafy median, two-lane slower traffic and wide spaces for outdoor tables and chairs reinforces what some of us think: city-county planners are in a state of denial. Get a grip. Summit Valley's longest season is winter. And spring is our "brown season," cold and leafless. This is not called Summit Valley for nothing. While the plan may be quaint, it just is not practical for various reasons, a major one being snow. Butte picks up and removes its snow from major thoroughfares. As a kid who lived on the West Park, I remember seeing the big yellow conveyor belt machine slowly climbing the Park Street hill toward town filling dump trucks with snow which had been plowed to the center. That's still being done after all these years. And a good thing too. Snow removal hasn't yet been perfected. Just ask the Uptown merchants on Main where the center snow pile stayed in place for at least a week during Christmas season. Curbs couldn't be seen since the snow had been pushed to the side and not removed, creating monstrous berms which had to be navigated to reach the sidewalk. People are told not to push snow off their walks into the street but where else are they to put it? Angle parking, so easy when the streets are bare, resulted in mega-sized pick-ups and large vans hanging out into driving lanes and dangerously narrowing them. If the city-county could clear all our streets and intersections Butte folks would not be so grumpy in winter. I guess Butte-Silver Bow can't afford that; but with federal funds and the cooperation of the state highway department they propose to create a fair weather corridor from Tech to town. What havoc would a median with shrubs and trees and left-hand turn lanes create for snow removal? Proposing to slow traffic, they want to funnel traffic into two lanes. Do they not know Park is four lanes from Idaho to Henry for a reason? That moves the traffic faster. I suppose you could admire the median shrubs while you were stuck in one lane of traffic inching toward Tech, especially when lots of running-late students are intent on getting to campus hoping to find a parking place before sprinting to class. Who's going to water, weed and prune these medians? Being between two lanes of traffic, plants will be even more stressed than trees beside streets. Watering our summer greenery is an increasing challenge, with more trees being planted and the petunia baskets needing an almost daily guzzle. A retired county extension agent once told me the trees in front of the Courthouse would be a great deal taller and leafier with sturdy trunks if they had been given proper care from the time they were planted. The "parklets" (what a Pooh-ish word!) in front of businesses are an option for businesses. If I were a business on West Park, I'd opt to keep parallel parking as opposed to having an outcropping for seasonal seating. Of course this new plan calls for bike lanes, which seems to be an obsession for planners these days, so much so that they sometimes forget people walk. A good example is Granite Street from Montana east which was repaved last summer. Apparently Public Works became so obsessed with their bike stencils, they forgot to reinstate the pedestrian crosswalks that ran from Alaska Street to the water company and from near the Standard's building across to Hamilton Street. Maybe that's part of the city-county goal to make citizens more fit. Booking it across the Granite without benefit of crosswalks is good exercise. On to the "cityscape" provided by Park Street. Many homes and businesses are nice, even historic and impressive. But how will these planners deal with the broken down houses and apartment buildings? Provide fix-up funds? I don't think so. The greatest eyesore is the City Center Motel which, back in the '50s, some planner thought was a great idea and now just looks cheesy and creepy. Nothing, not banners, not a green median nor "parklets," can do anything to hide the existence of the privately owned derelict structures. Having taught college students for over 20 years, I don't think they really give a darn how things look along the way to their classes or to their jobs, their apartments, pizza and beer places. Residents, parents, alumni and visitors heading to Tech and the World Museum of Mining are no doubt content with the graceful arches -- provided by private benefactors -- and the look of the handsome original Montana School of Mines buildings on the hill. To me, these ideas of prettying up Park Street fall into the same category as that private citizen's recent proposal to plop a convention center on top of the parking garage. Absolutely loony. As the old saying goes: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." -- Zena Beth McGlashan, Butte, worked on newspapers in Montana, Colorado, New Mexico and California. She taught journalism at various universities before returning home to Butte where she is a freelance writer, editor and photographer. If theres one area of public policy where kicking the can down the road hurts the most, its education. Parents with kids in Montana schools were understandably not thrilled when the Legislature last year failed to fund the Quality Schools Program, designed to help school districts make key facilities upgrades. But that epic screwup doesnt begin to reach the magnitude of the states overall failure. As documented this week in the Lee Montana Newspapers series Montanas schools: A building crisis, the state pays less per capita for school construction and repair than almost any state. Even when funded, the Quality Schools Program can address only a fraction of the need. This continues to be the case despite the fact that the state has lost or settled lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit over its failure to fund schools as mandated by its own Constitution. The Republican-led Legislature is begging for more litigation, and if it comes the state, once again, will not have a good defense. What the Legislature did in not funding school projects, in addition to other infrastructure, in 2015 is nothing short of scandalous. By contrast, local taxpayers across the state have been consistently heroic in assuming more and more of the burden. But they cant do it alone. The state must identify, develop and implement a funding source for school construction and repair. Currently the state is looking at a minimum of $360 million in deferred maintenance some put that number, computed in 2008, closer to $900 million at a time when enrollments are growing and the average age of a school building in Montana is 53 years. That tells us the problem is going to get worse before it gets better. Many of us who have children in school now are going to continue to watch them make the best their educational experience in inferior, run-down facilities. By the time they have their own children, we can only hope that the government of the state of Montana will have cast aside partisan pettiness and shouldered its responsibility to its citizens and its future. Mayor Diana Broderson called the meeting for the City Council's budget review session for Saturday, February 6, 2016, to order at 8:00 a.m. Councilmembers present were Rehwaldt, Fitzgerald, Natvig, Saucedo, Bynum, Harvey, and Spread. Also present were City Administrator Gregg Mandsager, Finance Director Nancy Lueck, Solid Waste Manager Laura Liegois, Transit Supervisor Kristy Korpi, Water Pollution Control Director Jon Koch, Housing Administrator Jodi Royal-Goodwin, Library Director Pam Collins, Fire Chief Jerry Ewers, Community Development Director David Gobin, and retired Public Works Director Randy Hill. Eastern Iowa Light and Power Cooperative prohibits discrimination against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, age, status as a qualified individual with disability, status as a protected veteran, national origin, participation in union activity, marital status, familial status, parental status, sexual orientation, genetic information, political beliefs, reprisal or because all or part of an individual's income is derived from any assistance program (not all provided bases apply to all programs) or any other characteristics protected by law. This includes promotion, transfer, training, compensation, layoff, and termination. It is Eastern Iowa Light and Power Cooperative's policy to take affirmative action to employ and advance in employment-qualified applicants. The person responsible for coordinating this organization's nondiscrimination compliance efforts is Kirk W. Trede, Chief Executive Officer. If you wish to file a Civil Rights program complaint of discrimination, complete the USDA Program Discrimination Complaint Form, found online at http://www.ascr.usda.gov/complaint filing cust.html, or at any USDA office., or call (866)632-9992 to request the form. You may also write a letter containing all of the information requested in the form. Send your completed complaint form or letter to the USDA by mail to U. S. Department of Agriculture, Director, Office of Adjudication, 1400 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20250-9410, by fax (202)690-7442 or email at program.intake@usda.gov. Eastern Iowa Liglit Power Cooperative is an equal opportunity provider and employer. MUSCATINE, Iowa The Muscatine Symphony Orchestra is hosting a "Battle for the Baton" fundraiser. Five members from the community have been chosen to enter the contest to be guest conductor during the July 4 fireworks on the Muscatine riverfront. Cast your votes with your donation to the symphony for Kas Kelly, Bob Allbee, Dave Bakke, Gerardo Gomez or Betty Collins. Allbee spent more than 35 years in education as both a teacher and administrator in Muscatine. He is a graduate of Muscatine High School and Muscatine Community College. He received his Bachelors degree from the University of Northern Iowa and went on to earn a Masters degree from the University of Iowa. He also earned additional graduate credits at Iowa State University. Bakke is a native Iowan, having been raised in Marshalltown and graduating from Luther College in Decorah. He did take a two-year hiatus for graduate work in Minnesota, and though he enjoyed his time there he was more than happy to return to the Hawkeye state. Bakke has worked in conservation for the past 32 years in Webster City, Mt Pleasant, and Muscatine. Muscatine children's librarian Betty Collins was born the same year that Wipeout was recorded in a garage by the Surfaris; and she has been wiping out ever since in the form of falls from bicycles, roller skates, trees, horses, and log bridges. She looks forward to a chance to stand steadily on her feet in front of the Muscatine Symphony Orchestra on July 4. Gomez graduated from Muscatine High School in 2015. He has been a musician from his early childhood, starting with the drums at age five, and then moving to saxophone, piano, clarinet, flute, and lastly trumpet. He is currently a freshman at the University of Northern Iowa as a Music Education- Jazz Studies emphasis major. With twelve years on the Muscatine County Board of Supervisors and close to 20 years at Safe Streets it is safe to say that Kas Kelly has a connection with the people of Muscatine and Muscatine County. Make checks payable to Muscatine Symphony Orchestra, P.O. Box 573, Muscatine, Iowa 52761 or select PayPal voting at www.muscatinesymphony.org. MUSCATINE, Iowa The Muscatine City Council has tabled plans to convert Second Street from a one-way to a two-way street. The council held a public hearing Thursday night on the plan to switch traffic on Second from Pine Street to Mulberry Avenue. The city evaluated making the conversion so Second Street could be used as a detour as work was underway on the Mississippi Drive corridor project. In a memorandum from the Public Works Department, city staff laid out some reasons to leave Second Street as a two-way including, avoiding the cost of converting it back, more convenient access to the proposed parking garage on Second Street between Iowa and Chestnut, and no one-way in the opposite direction. Before moving to table the issue for later discussion, Council member Phillip Fitzgerald asked for community members to share their concerns. One Second Street store owner, Brent Hill of Hill's Paint Store, came forward, stating his concern that the size of the street might not allow for easy access or for parking were it converted to a two-way. "It could negatively affect customers who are looking for a parking spot, for example," Hill said, "I drove five blocks and there were three open parking spaces, but they were all on the other side of the street, had it been a two-way I could not have parked in any of those spaces." Hill also stated that large trucks needed for deliveries may have difficulty fitting on a two-way street, and cars waiting for parking spots may also block the roadway for longer periods of time. City Engineer Jim Edgmond said that because of the delivery truck issue, part of the plan should include loading zones, parking spaces where trucks could unload and where customers could park for a short amount of time. The length of time people can currently park on the street was brought up at the beginning of the meeting during public comments by Claire Martin, who runs a business on Second Street. Martin stated her concern that three-hour parking not only allows many people to remain parked for a long period of time, but also does not allow her customers to stop by and leave quickly. Edgmond will present information about the Second Street plans at a public information meeting, to be scheduled at a later date. He will be presenting an outline of the current plans at the public information meeting, including parking, loading zones, and changes to the length of time on the metered parking spaces. Edgmond said he hopes to get as much input as possible from the store owners and residents on Second Street, and encourages all who can to attend the public meeting. "We want to get information from people who are invested in that area," Edgmond said. He also stated that he will try to get word to as many people as possible about the date and time of the meeting. If you cannot attend, contact Jim Edgmond at Public Works at 563-260-5724 or email jedgmond@muscatineiowa.gov. Other items on the agenda was approved, including: Resolution Accepting Easements for the Musser Park to Wiggens Road Trail project, which will begin construction this spring; Resolution Accepting Easements for the Mulberry Avnue from Palms Drive to Houser Street Reconstruction Project; Resolution Awarding bid for the Tob Bruner Field Rip-Rap Project to Brons Excavation; Resolution Setting Public Hearing on the Muscatine Art Center HVAC Replacement and miscellaneous window renovations, which will take place March 3 at 7 p.m.; Resolution approving contract and bond for the Clark House hot water heater replacement project; Request from police department to declare light bars as surplus property. The next Muscatine City Council Meeting will be held at 7 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 25. MUSCATINE, Iowa U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, toured UnityPoint Health- Trinity Muscatine hospital Thursday as part of her 99 county tour of Iowa. What I like to do in each community is try to reach out find areas that are really doing well or areas that we might be able to assist at the federal government level, Ernst said in an interview following the tour. Trinity CEO Jim Hayes and other staff members led Ernst on a tour lasting about 20 minutes, looking at the donors wall, emergency room, surgery area and pediatric care among other areas. Ernst said she wanted to learn what challenges the Muscatine hospital, part of UnityPoint, is facing. A lot of points made focused heavily on mental health and some of the concerns there, and those are some of the concerns I have as well, so it was great to hear some of their examples and stories, Ernst said. Dennis Duke, president of the Robert Young Center for Community Mental Health, told the Journal in a separate interview that the average wait time for a new patient to see a metal health professional in Muscatine County is seven to 10 business days and the average wait time to see someone licensed to prescribe medicine for mental health issues is 45 business days. That is too long, said Duke, who was not on the tour. He said mental health providers are scarce nationwide. Youre dealing with a very finite resource, Duke said. The Robert Young Center is mental health care branch of UnityPoint. Duke said the center is working toward expanding services in the future, but for now the shortage remains. This is where were going to require a lot of partnership through local, state, as well as federal government, and we really do need to find a way to encourage more providers in the mental health area, making sure that we are addressing the needs of the populations, Ernst said in the post-tour interview. She said federal policies alone wont help as each community has different needs. Ernst also complimented Trinity Muscatine. Youve got a great facility here, she said. Jim Hayes said in a separate interview after Ernst left that he appreciated her interest and that she seemed engaged in wanting to learn about Trinity. I really would like to give her a better understanding of some of the problems that we face, the challenges we face, Jim Hayes told the Muscatine Journal. Were here to take care of our community first and foremost. He said thats done despite struggles with things like payment and federal rules, and he likes when lawmakers can see the effects of their policies on the local level. Ernst, a member of the National Guard, also made it a point to compliment Trinity on the number of veterans who work there. MUSCATINE, Iowa A Supreme Court nominee by President Barack Obama will not be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee prior to Obama leaving office in January 2017, according to the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Charles Grassley. Grassley, R-Iowa, conducted a wide-ranging town hall meeting at Muscatine Community College on Thursday afternoon. Approximately 75 people packed a room in Strahan Hall with many of the questions focusing on the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. "My preference is that this isn't done by this president (Obama) but it's done by the next president whoever that is, Hillary (Clinton) or which one it is for the Republicans on the other side. That's my preference," Grassley told the Muscatine crowd. Grassley said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, set a precedent of sorts in 2007 when he said 18 months before the end of President George W. Bush's second term that a lame duck president shouldn't nominate a new justice. Grassley said he is concerned about ideological balance on the court. "This is a very balanced Supreme Court. Four liberals, four conservatives and one moderate in between. I think this is an opportunity to do several things: for the the people to have a chance to have a say, and then it also gives an opportunity to have a national discussion on the role of the Supreme Court in our constitutional system," Grassley said. He said his objection to moving ahead with an Obama nominee is about process. "I would say this isn't about a person at this point. This is about a process," he said. Grassley did say he is looking for a "strict constructionist." Strict constructionism refers to a particular legal philosophy of judicial interpretation that limits or restricts judicial interpretation. But the Supreme Court vacancy was not the only issue on the minds of those in attendance. Grassley was asked about global warming. "There's no doubt about it. The globe has warmed. There's no dispute about that because you quantify it. You can measure that. Some people say well, it warmed from 1930 until 1998 and it hasn't warmed since then and all that sort of thing. But anyway, there is no question about warming," Grassley said. "The only dispute would be how human action has brought it about or how much has been natural. That's the only dispute. There is no dispute on global warming." A woman asked if he would be willing to pledge to not raid the Social Security trust fund. Grassley took issue with the woman's premise that the trust fund has been raided leaving it solvent only until the year 2033. If nothing is done prior to 2033, future retirees will only get 78 percent of their benefits. He said any solution is complex and must be bi-partisan. "Raising the (retirement) age isn't the only thing that's going to have to be done. I'd rather give you a process answer and until that gets started, you don't have any chance of doing anything to save Social Security," Grassley said. A man asked if Grassley would be willing to pledge to debate his opponent in the November election at least four times. "In all my races for Congress I have always debated my opponent but I am not sure I want to sign on the dotted line right now without knowing who my opponent is," Grassley said. A woman called on Grassley to try and change the political tone in Iowa referencing President Obama's final State of the Union address last month. "You lay out a good case. A lot of what you said I agree with," Grassley said. "We have too much partisanship. We have more now than any time I've been in Washington. But there isn't as much as you think there is for this reason." He said the media stokes controversy and fails to report on bipartisanship. "You never hear about the fact that Sen. (Patrick) Leahy and I have run the judiciary committee so every bill comes out (of committee)," Grassley pointed out. In a lighter moment, Grassley commented on the use of the phrase "the full Grassley" to describe his annual tour of each of Iowa's 99 counties. The phrase was prominently featured in an episode of "The Good Wife" focusing on the Iowa caucus. "I am pleased that the examples I set are being followed," Grassley said. He's been touring all 99 counties during Washington recesses for 35 years. Grassley said the name was coined by Jason Noble of the Des Moines Register. MUSCATINE, Iowa Muscatine County Sheriff's Deputy Dustin Brooks doesn't know what all the fuss is about. "I was on my way to an accident call and I noticed a vehicle on the side of the road. I went and handled that accident and when I came back the vehicle was gone. So I thought, 'OK, they got it taken care of,'" Brooks said. "I went a few miles down the road and saw the same car on the side of the road. Obviously they were having car trouble. So I pulled in behind it and noticed there were four young females that were in the car." This happened about 5:45 p.m. Monday on U.S. Highway 61. They were heading back to Muscatine. Their car was overheating and they hand't been able to get anyone to come help them. Brooks has some mechanical background and asked if they knew where to fill the vehicle up with antifreeze and water. They didn't. He told them to follow him to the nearest gas station. When the women seemed unsure about what to buy, Brooks stepped forward and said he'd get what they needed at his own expense. The women offered to pay him but Brooks refused. While he was attending to their car, one of the women took video of him. She later posted the video to Facebook where it has been shared around Muscatine. "My fear was we have four females stuck on the side of the road. It's dark out. I don't want something to happen to them over something that I could control and potentially solve for them. So with this being said, I went ahead and took the actions that I did," Brooks said. "I made sure they would get home safely. We parted ways at that point and apparently they made it home OK." He didn't realize the story was spreading like wildfire on social media until he stopped at a convenience store for a soft drink and the clerk refused to take his money for the drink. "It was a gesture of me. I wanted to make sure they were safe. That's my objective out there to make sure the roads are safe and people get home safely," Brooks said. "I'm a little shell-shocked. It was just a little gesture of mine but it meant more to other people. I was just doing my job." Brooks has been a deputy with the Muscatine County Sheriff's Department for 10 years. Muscatine County Sheriff C.J. Ryan said he wasn't surprised to hear that one of his officer's acted in such a way. "It is really nice to recognize Deputy Brooks because he's out doing the job that we all do every day, help people every day," Ryan said. "Many times we don't get thanks for it. We don't expect thanks for it. But it was really, really nice to see that the young ladies did give him some public recognition for helping them out." The video has been viewed approximately 58,000 times on the Muscatine County Sheriff's office Facebook page facebook.com/MuscatineCountySheriff. The three restaurants that sold to underage buyers were Happy Joe's on Grandview Avenue, Pizza Hut and Guadalajara. They have been referred to Muscatine County Attorney for appropriate actions, according to a press release from Trinity Muscatine New Horizons. The Muscatine Police Department would like to remind residents that staff members caught selling alcohol to underage buyers will be fined up to $500, and a licensee who sells to a minor will be fined up to $1,500 for the first offense, along with other consequences for the business that may come from the State of Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division, the press release stated. The Police Department would also like to remind residents that underage drinking can be dangerous to youth. PAWLEYS ISLAND, S.C. "I want you to understand: I will not promise you something that I cannot deliver," Hillary Clinton told a rally here in South Carolina. "I will not make promises I know I cannot keep. We don't need any more of that." No, we don't. The disillusionment with politics and government now plaguing the election process has been badly aggravated by politicians in both parties making promises they knew they could not keep. And this epidemic of cynical simplification is getting worse. Whether it's Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, vowing to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, or Bernie Sanders rhapsodizing about a "political revolution" that will somehow change the nature of Washington, the campaign trail is flooded with fantasies that will never, ever happen. And yet the electorate seems hungry for those unrealistic and unachievable answers. More pies keep getting tossed into more skies and more voters keep gobbling them up. These voters are displaying a profound misunderstanding of two key elements of American democracy. The first is that elections matter and, therefore, so does electability. You cannot enact your program if you cannot win. And yet only 12 percent of the voters in both New Hampshire primaries cited electability as an important factor in making their choice. The second element kicks in once elections are over. Our political system was deliberately and brilliantly designed to distribute power, to slow down the process, to require negotiation and consensus. Easy and extreme slogans like "Expel the foreigners!" or "Soak the billionaires!" make great bumper stickers and applause lines. But they are not useful guides for governing the country. Governing is messy and complicated. It requires accommodation, not anger; determination, not delusion. But the overpromisers undermine that system and make compromise the essence of democracy much more difficult. Take immigration. The idea propounded by many Republicans, that undocumented immigrants can somehow be seized and sent home, is totally impractical and morally reprehensible. That policy would rip apart millions of families while undermining key sectors of the economy. Thousands of jobs, many of them in the service sector, would simply go undone. Moreover, these proposals play on the worst phobias that always lurk just below the surface of American life: the fear of "others," the irrational and ignorant belief that America is now perfect and the next wave of newcomers will somehow deface and degrade our culture. Or take health care. Sanders' proposal for a hugely expensive, government-run program of universal coverage is equally unsustainable. President Obama used every ounce of political capital to push through a much more modest program of expanded health insurance, and even then failed to attract a single Republican vote. The argument that this country is even close to ready for what Sanders proposes willfully refuses to recognize that stark lesson. As the Washington Post put it, the senator's "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." In addition, Sanders is deeply disingenuous about what his proposal would actually cost. According to "left-leaning economists" interviewed by The New York Times, his plan would "cost twice what the senator ... asserts." "The numbers don't remotely add up," concludes Austan Goolsbee, formerly Obama's chief economic adviser. Candidates on both sides are also overpromising when it comes to replacing Justice Antonin Scalia. Most are outlining "litmus tests" and guaranteeing outcomes an end to Obamacare, for example, or a reversal of the Citizens United decision that demolished the campaign financing system. But as conservatives have learned with Chief Justice Roberts, a lifetime appointment can liberate a judge freeing him or her from an obligation to adhere to ideological orthodoxy. The outbreak of overpromising didn't start this year. Tea partiers told their followers that if they were elected to Congress, conservative canons would become law a fanciful prospect that disregarded the basic power balance in Washington that they could not "wish away." Obama campaigned on creating a new era of "hope and change" that would unify the country, but in his recent State of the Union address, he conceded: "It's one of the few regrets of my presidency that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better." Realism is a hard sell. What do you put on the bumper sticker? "Dynamic moderation"? "Passionate pragmatism"? But the realists have to keep trying anyway. Otherwise, the disastrous cycle of overpromising and underperforming will continue to fuel voter despair and disillusionment. Steve and Cokie Roberts can be contacted by email at stevecokie@gmail.com. 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 [] The Asterisk Community Conference 2016 was a resounding success, with speakers, partners and delegates describing the event as fantastic. The event took place in Johannesburg on 16 and 17 February and was the first-ever Digium endorsed Asterisk community gathering in Africa. Delegates enjoyed training, discussions, presentations and exhibitions from South Africas top Asterisk companies, and listened to many prominent international speakers. Asterisk really is taking the world by storm, and what a great conference, said Aki Anastasiou of Talk Radio 702 who was one of the speakers at the event. It was very well-attended The conference attendance exceeded expectations, with many attendees gathering from around Africa to meet international industry leaders. David Duffett of Digium, one of the international speakers at the conference, said that it was great to see so many people gathering from around Africa. Weve got people here from Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique as well as South Africa here, and its nice to see the community gathering, having a conversation and looking at all the opportunities there are around Asterisk. Diego Gosmar of xCally added that, We already have quite a few customers in Africa, but it was amazing to share the vision of our products and the future of the Asterisk technology with other South Africans and others from around the continent. Networking and collaboration Another key theme for partners and delegates alike was the opportunity to meet other industry professionals and share knowledge and ideas. It was great to meet other people in the community and meeting the industry leaders was very exciting theyre so down to earth and it really feels more like a community now, said delegate Jaun Venter of Capfin. Jason Handel of Sangoma added that, The conference is a great opportunity for the like-minded community to collaborate, get together, share ideas, share content and really hear whats been happening for the Asterisk Conference here, around Africa and throughout the rest of the world. Craig McLeod of Clarotech Consulting echoed this, saying Its great to be able to talk with people that know what theyre talking about, share ideas, and take the opportunity to show them what we do. The conference was fantastic. I enjoyed the fact that there was so much knowledge sharing, a wealth of information and so much independent literature around Asterisk, said Michael Colin of BitCo. A unique learning opportunity The first day of the conference was focused on training, which many delegates found invaluable. The conference was awesome. We got to learn new things and see all the possibilities of what you can do with Asterisk, and when we go back home we are going to unlock the magic and see what this framework can do for us, said delegate Masimba Mangumbu of Leon Business Solution in Zimbabwe. Another delegate, Irene Chauke of Switch Telecom added that The conference has been very insightful, and Ive learned a lot. Its been really nice to work with other companies that are working with Asterisk here and weve got a lot of great ideas from it. Its been fantastic, said Sylvestor Kuisis of Teleforge. Rob Lith of Connection Telecom concluded that Ive been to a few of the Asterisk conferences overseas, and I think that this equals that. The following video includes more feedback from the speakers, partners and delegates. Theres been a whole lot of shaking going on in Oklahoma. Not one but two earthquakes hit the state Thursday morning. According to the U.S. Geological survey, a 2.6 magnitude earthquake hit the Fairview area and a 3.1 magnitude quake touched the Luther area. But it was Saturday that a 5.1 magnitude earthquake struck making it the third strongest earthquake ever recorded. While Oklahoma does have a history of earthquakes, the US Geological Survey noted there has been a 50 percent increase since 2013. So why have there been so many earthquakes? According to a federal lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club, fracking is to blame and the quakes are man-made. Three energy companies were listed in the suit brought under the Federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. That allows citizens to sue anyone who poses an imminent and substantial endangerment to health and the environment. Bay News 9 spoke with Lena Moffitt, the head of the dirty fuels campaign of the Sierra Club, who suggested one reason the suit was filed was because some people in Oklahoma live in fear. "We'll I'll say we were proud to file this suit this week of course on the heels of one of the biggest earthquakes Oklahoma has seen yet because it's time for someone to step in and do something. Oklahomans are feeling the impacts of multiple quakes a day and that is taking a severe psychological toll on many of our members in the state, she said. The U.S. Geological Survey also supports the notion that fluid injection which can accommodate fracking is a contributing factor to the multiple earthquakes in Oklahoma. Legislation to allow fracking in Florida is making its way through the Florida Senate meaning the fracking debate could more interesting in the coming months. Justice Antonin Scalia's flag-draped casket was carried up the marble steps of the Supreme Court on Friday in a somber procession that began a day of ceremony and tribute to one of the court's most influential members. Scalia's eight Supreme Court colleagues, his family and nearly 100 former law clerks watched solemnly as Supreme Court police placed the casket on a funeral bier first used after President Abraham Lincoln's assassination. The Rev. Paul Scalia, the justice's son and a Catholic priest, said traditional prayers. "You have called your servant Antonin out of this world," he said. "May he rest in peace." A 2007 portrait of Scalia by artist Nelson Shanks was displayed nearby. In it, the justice is shown surrounded by images representing important moments and influences in his life, including a framed wedding photograph of his wife, Maureen. She, their nine children and three dozen grandchildren were present. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama paid their respects to the late justice Friday afternoon. They prayed over his casket and then looked over the portrait. Justice Antonin Scalia's 8 Supreme Court colleagues, his family and almost 100 former law clerks watched solemnly as Supreme Court police placed the casket on a funeral bier first used after President Abraham Lincoln's assassination. Before Scalia's body arrived, his former clerks formed two lines down the court steps and across its marble plaza. A few wiped away tears after the casket arrived. The clerks will take turns standing vigil by their former boss throughout the day and night in a tradition most recently observed after the 2005 death of former Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The doors to the court chamber, where Scalia had served for almost 30 years, were open at the east end of the hall. Black wool crepe hung over the entrance, and Scalia's courtroom chair was draped in black. After a private ceremony for family, friends and justices, Scalia's casket was on public view from 10:30 a.m. until 8 p.m. The line of people waiting to pay respects stretched for almost a block just before the public was allowed in. Rhaleta Bernard of Queens, New York, where Scalia grew up, had been visiting Washington with her husband, Kelvin. They changed their bus tickets in order to pay respects. Bernard said Scalia "believes in interpreting the law, not making the law." "I want another Scalia," said Bernard, a reading specialist. "I don't think there's another one, though." Outside, fans of the former justice created a small memorial at the bottom of the court steps, leaving two jars of applesauce, a package of paper bags and a pile of fortune cookies - a nod to his biting dissents last year in the court's gay marriage case and its ruling rejecting a challenge to President Barack Obama's health care law. Scalia had called the ruling in the health care case "pure applesauce." He compared the gay marriage majority opinion it to the "mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie" and said he would hide his head in a paper bag if he ever joined such an opinion. Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, were to attend Scalia's funeral Mass on Saturday. The Mass open to family and friends will take place Saturday at 11 a.m. at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. Burial plans have not been released. Scalia's sudden death complicated an already tumultuous election year. His death gives Obama a chance to replace the conservative stalwart with a more liberal successor who could tilt the ideological balance of the court for decades to come. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other GOP leaders have said a replacement should not be named until the next president takes office. Obama has pledged to pick a replacement "in due time" and challenged Republicans to hold a vote on his nominee. Scalia was found dead on Saturday in his room at a remote Texas hunting resort. The 79-year-old jurist was appointed to the court in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan. I love sending and receiving postcard from all over the world. If you would like to send me a postcard or contact me, send an e-mail to ichabod.h (at) gmail.com *Tomorrow* is *Pumpkin Cheesecake Day, *and I thought I'd get a jump on the holiday! Here's an easy favorite recipe involving cheesecake and chocolate -... 16 hours ago Controversial blogger Cyprian Nyakundi has once again ruffled some feathers with a scathing attack on Kenyan Deejays. In his article titled, Kenya, The Land of Bullshit Deejays, Why Only GMoney&Stylez Make The Cut, Nyakundi asserts that Kenyan deejays are impostors whose mixtapes are mediocre and inconsistent. This is supposed to be a fun, entertaining career that any DJ would execute flawlessly. But what do we have in Kenya? A bunch of impostors who want to leverage their publicity to sleep with any willing girl. The mixtapes DJs produce are mediocre, inconsistent and sometimes riddled with technical errors. Reads an excerpt from the article. He goes on to single out G-Money and DJ Stylez as the only decent disc jockeys in the country. Perfectionists are always recognised and appreciated. Reason why we have named two of Kenyas best DJs. Not that we know them, or have ever interacted at any level, but we recognise the effort they put in their trade like the rest of us in our respective careers. They dont bask in lost glory, like DJ Pinye and his ilk, who had the chance to dominate the industry, but instead opted to be mediocre, just like Kenyan journalists. The article did not go down well with a lot people, including Kenyas reggae queen aka Fyah Mumma Njambi Koikai. The reggae queen who is currently bedridden after undergoing a surgery after her lungs collapsed, gathered enough strength to jump to the defence of the reggae fraternity. In her post on Facebook, Njambi dismissed Nyakundis article as pathetic and shallow. This was her post I have just come across this. Firstly its REGGAE!!! Secondly pathetic writing. Thirdly you know nothing about REGGAE and deejaying or better yet lemmi school youin REGGAE its selecting not deejaying. So unresearched. Im a fighter and defender of REGGAE before you write deep crap like this, research. Atleast thats what journalism dictates. You have no business comparing deejays. Gmoney is different and brought his own game, so was Styles. So is Adrian and Pinye. What your focal point should have been is how technology has affected or improved the art of deejaying. Jaribu kuingilia REGGAE tena even from my sick bed my friend utatii. Inform yourself and gain knowledge before shallow writing like this. Silver shakers and the silver screen go back a long time. Think French 75 from Casablanca and Agent 007s dry martinis. So for those of you planning to drink along at home for the Feb. 28 showing of the Oscars this year, now might be a good time to get your cocktail act together. And Tim Federle, author of Gone with the Gin, has a few ideas about that. From The Moon-Shining moonshine, ruby red grapefruit juice, rum, thats right, red rum to Tequila Sunrise Boulevard (probably best NOT served poolside), the best-selling author has a line-up of cinematically inspired cocktails meant to be shaken, stirred and sipped with tongue planted firmly in cheek. Bubbly as a Champagne cocktail, Gone with the Gin nonetheless has serious underpinnings. Federle worked with talented bartender Cody Goldstein, founder of Muddling Memories, a craft cocktail and bar consulting firm in New York. There also are useful sections on tools, techniques and even some fun food recipes. The approach was humorous and, yeah, theyd better taste good, too, said Federle. This cinematic cocktail collection follows Federles Tequila Mockingbird, which featured literary libations. For Gone with the Gin, Federle started by making a spreadsheet of the American Film Institutes Top 100 films. Then, he looked for cocktail-friendly titles. So White Christmas plus white Russian became a drink called White Russian Christmas. Then he and Goldstein looked for ways to tweak the recipes to match the movies. For the White Russian Christmas, the classic recipe vodka, coffee liqueur and cream got a seasonal twist of vodka, creme de menthe, coffee liqueur, eggnog and crushed candy cane for a garnish. (And for those movie buffs for whom this particular drink conjures up only one flick, the book also contains a Big Le-Brewski, a vodka, coffee and cream of coconut concoction in honor of the white Russian loving Dude of The Big Lebowski.) In all, Federle serves up 50 recipes organized by genre (drama, sci-fi, etc.), and each recipe comes with a brief but informative blurb about the movie in question. And if you are a punster, the titles will be a delight. A standout: Muppets Make Manhattans. Some of the cute drink names were arrived at with the help of Federles thousands of Twitter followers, who also voted on which proposed title for the book they liked best. Recipes arent just cleverly titled; they also have cunning tie-ins to the films. For example, hibiscus tea in the cocktail Boozy and the Beast echoes the roses of Beauty and the Beast. And Citizen Grain, named for the groundbreaking Citizen Kane, includes grain alcohol and just a touch of rose water. No promises that drinking it will help you better get to the bottom of the whole, Rosebud . thing, though. Goldstein was particularly pleased with Star Wars-themed The Empire Likes Jack, which contains Jack Daniels, ice cream and root beer. Its basically a root beer float. Youre dropping the light aspect, the vanilla ice cream, into the root beer, which is the dark side. Some sections took more time than others. We had a lot of days sitting and eating take-in and just going over some stuff, said Goldstein. An honest man, he admitted that was a really good time. Federle, who grew up in San Francisco and Pittsburgh before moving to New York to dance on Broadway as a teenager, writes in multiple genres, including young adult fiction. His current project is co-writing Tuck Everlasting, a forthcoming Broadway musical based on the novel by Natalie Babbitt. Like Goldstein, Federle seems happy in his work. Everything that got me sent to the principals office as a kid gets me paid now, he said. Monty Python and the Stoli Grail Serves 1 1 1/2 ounces vodka 1 ounce light rum 1 ounce coconut water 2 ounces pineapple juice Sparkling wine, to serve In an ice-filled cocktail shaker, combine the vodka, rum, coconut water and pineapple juice. Shake well, then strain into an ice-filled rocks glass. Top with a splash of sparkling wine. (Recipe adapted from Tim Federles Gone with the Gin, Running Press, 2015) The Muppets Make Manhattans Serves 1 2 ounces apple brandy 3/4 ounce sweet vermouth 1/2 ounce apple juice 1 1/2 tsp. honey 3 dashes baked apple bitters (or orange bitters) Green apple slice, to garnish Bacon, to serve In a mixing glass filled with ice, combine all ingredients except the apple. Stir well, then strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with the apple slice. Serve with a slice of bacon (with apologies to Miss Piggy). (Recipe adapted from Tim Federles Gone with the Gin, Running Press, 2015) Martin Shkrelis intellect might be intimidating to mere mortals but hes no threat to anyone, according to his lawyer. The attorneys boast was in response to government claims that potential witnesses fear the former pharma executive will retaliate if they testify in a criminal fraud case. Shkreli, the biotechnology company founder best known for raising the price of a drug for a rare disease by more than 5,000 percent, has a pattern of threatening or intimidating those who come into conflict with him, worrying potential witnesses in his criminal case, the prosecutors said in a court filing Thursday in Brooklyn, New York, federal court. They cited a letter to the wife of a former Retrophin Inc. employee in which Shkreli vowed to do everything he could to make sure the family ended up homeless. Any claim that Martin Shkreli intimidates witnesses is preposterous, Ben Brafman, the former executives lawyer, said Friday in an e-mailed statement. While his keen intellect can at times be intimidating to mere mortals, nothing else about Martin Shkreli is intimidating at all. Shkreli allegedly reached out to someone last year after learning about the criminal investigation and suggested that the witness agree to a false version of certain events, according to the prosecutors. They said several witnesses have advised that they have been threatened by defendant Shkreli in connection with past disputes. Shkreli, 32, is charged with illegally using Retrophins assets to pay investors who lost money in hedge funds he ran. Hes also facing civil claims brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Shkreli faces a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted. The SEC is seeking monetary penalties and an order barring him from serving as an officer or director of a public company. Prosecutors described what they called Shkrelis pattern of threats to co-workers and others who disagree with him in a filing urging U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto to delay the SEC case while they pursue the criminal charges. Shkreli has asked to move forward with the SEC case, arguing that his livelihood and reputation are at stake. One of Shkrelis former employees at Retrophin, a biotech company that specializes in developing treatments for rare diseases, accused him of a harassment campaign in a dispute over a share grant. The matter was unrelated to the fraud allegations and was raised by prosecutors as an example of past conduct. Your husband has stolen $1.6 million from me and I will get it back. I will go to any length necessary to get it back, Shkreli wrote Timothy Pierottis wife in a January 2013 letter, according to court filings. I hope to see you and your four children homeless and will do whatever I can to assure this, Shkreli wrote. Brafman declined to comment on Pierottis claims. Retrophin sued Pierotti in Manhattan state court in 2013 and accused him of reneging on a promise to seek out acquisition targets and of absconding with the stock. The suit was later dropped. Pierotti also accused Shkreli in court filings of hacking into his Facebook, Gmail, LinkedIn, AOL and Twitter accounts, and posting copies of Retrophins complaint against Pierotti. In December 2013, Pierotti filed a formal complaint against Shkreli with a local police department in New Jersey where Pierotti and his family live. Public records show that an officer contacted Shkreli by telephone and warned the former executive to stop bothering the Pierottis. Wine industry observers say changing economics have left Napa Countys small wineries more dependent than ever on attracting potential customers to their doors. Three of these observers delivered their message to the Napa County Planning Commission on Wednesday. The commission decides whether new wineries can be built and old ones expanded, as well as how many visitors they can have. Most small wineries in Napa County wouldnt survive without direct-to-consumer sales. Its a no-brainer, Rob McMillan, executive vice president of Silicon Valley Banks St. Helena-based wine division, told commissioners. During the public comment period, commissioners heard from members of Vision 2050. The group is concerned that too much tourism and an advent of wineries as event centers could destroy the rural qualities that attract people to Napa County. Theres a certain sustainability of the county that wasnt discussed this morning, Vision 2050 President Dan Mufson told the commission. Planning commissioners held a winery business study session. Presenters were McMillan, wine law expert Richard Mendelson of Dickenson, Peatman and Fogarty and Craig Underhill, a certified public accountant with Brotemarkle, Davis and Co. Mendelson described how the end of Prohibition in 1933 resulted in various local, state and federal alcohol regulations, rather than only federal regulations. This led to a three-tier system of selling wine that consisted of producers, distributors and retailers. The wineries were able to abide by this three-tier distribution system by finding a distributor in every state, Mendelson said. But times have changed. In 1995, there were 1,800 wineries nationwide and 3,000 distributors. Now there are 8,600 wineries and only 675 distributors, with the the top four distributors controlling 60 percent of the sales, he said. McMillan told commissioners that baby boomers fueled an increase in wine consumption in the 1990s. But wholesale distributors ended up with too much fine wine inventory by 2000 and dropped many small wineries. That was almost overnight like a switch, he said. It changed the nature of the wine business. Today, 39 percent of Napa County sales are through distributors and 56 percent of sales are through tasting rooms and wine clubs, with the remainder through Internet and phone sales. Wineries use tasting room visits as a way to attract wine club members, McMillan said. The wholesaler situation does not work for local small wineries, McMillan said. They have no choice but to emphasize direct-to-consumer sales. If you dont need direct as much, why would you do it? McMillan said. Youd rather sell by the pallet than by the bottle. Thats just the way it is. Its really just because of the market conditions that wineries go direct now. Customers want value, and that involves more than price for a luxury good such as wine, he said. Theres an experience that takes place as well, McMillan said. Underhill talked about the business model for small wineries. Wineries might spend $200,000 to $300,000 on bottling line equipment used only three weeks of the year. They wait several years from the time wine is put in barrels until it sells. This is a very complex industry that exists in Napa Valley, Underhill said. The wine industry is one of the most complicated business models ever to exist and frankly, I dont know why anyone does it. There are a lot easier ways to make money than being in the wine business. County Planning, Building and Environmental Services Director David Morrison touched on the complexities of starting a winery. Someone just buying their land faces spending a year or two years to obtain county permits and another year building the winery. A new winery starting from scratch could take seven years to 10 years to turn a profit, Underhill added. Mufson broached what he called the apocalyptic vision of Napa Valley having too many tourists and commuters. Thats an issue that concerns many residents as they hear about new wineries and expansions, he said. Vision 2050 will sponsor a forum of its own with speakers on April 1 titled Understanding the Tourist-Based Economy. Go to http://napavision2050.org for details. Gary Margadant of Vision 2050 said the quality of the Napa Valley visit is important. He asked whether problems associated with too much direct-to-consumer marketing could end up driving sales down because people no longer want to come here. Planning commissioners at some point will have to decide if another winery is needed based on the countys ability to support that winery, he said. Resident Patricia Damery said she supports direct marketing. But she wondered if theres a model thats not so hard on the hillsides and back areas, such as having tasting rooms in downtown Napa. McMillan said cost is a consideration for wineries in remote areas when it comes to building tasting rooms. They are probably not going to have that many visitors. You probably can have a very good experience selling wine on top of a plank held up by two barrels in the tasting room, he said. To actually spend money on that tasting room in a remote area probably doesnt make financial sense. Five years after Napa green-lighted a subdivision on the citys northwest side, developers came back with designs for 18 new homes. City planners accepted 17 of them. But the styling of a nearly 5,000-square-foot mansion, intended as the projects showcase, instead caused the Planning Commission to throw on the brakes for now. Thursday night, the citys development authority postponed approval of the designs for the Brioso, the cluster of homes Lafferty Communities seeks to build off Luke Drive. No date was announced for a new vote. At the top of the projects size and price scale is a villa-like design nearly 2,000 square feet larger than the developments smallest dwellings, with a broad facade, three-car garage and wide, arched windows in front. Though planners generally accepted the design of the smaller homes, Briosos intended trophy house struck them as excessive and out of place for a site so close to the vineyards and open country just beyond the city limits. I dont understand the Italian villa thing, Commissioner Gordon Huether said. This one kind of looks like it got dropped there. I dont understand what relationship it has with the rest of the neighborhood. It looks so discordant. Even if I did like fake Italian villas, I wouldnt like it there. We want architecture thats more compatible with the neighborhood youre building in, he told Mark Retherford, the project architect. Planners considered approving the rest of the 7.2-acre development while demanding a redesign of the mansion, but instead voted 3-1 (with Paul Kelley dissenting and Tom Trzesniewski absent) to delay a decision after city counsel said a selective veto would effectively reject the project as a whole. Lafferty Communities, a high-end home builder based in San Ramon, is working to build the subdivision approved by the City Council in 2011. While that decision set the layout for a project then named Mayacamas Vista Estates, it also required builders to come back to the Planning Commission to have the home designs approved separately. The project will offer buyers eight different floor plans in a variety of sizes and finishes, including some meant to evoke farmhouses in Napa Valley, Retherford told planners. The super-sized villa aside, city planners found most of the designs acceptable. But one neighbor worried some of the more villa-like options featuring stone facings and tile roofs could clash with the areas rural character, and slow down home sales. Im an advocate of this project, but Im concerned after having feedback from my buyer pool, said Hillary Marino, a local real estate agent, who asked developers to concentrate on designs more true to Napa. People want two or three consistent, cohesive styles, and people appreciate the farmhouse style, she said. I get people who specifically ask me not to show any Tuscans. Some of the frictions stemming from the projects original approval also returned Thursday, with some neighbors complaining about soil compaction worsening runoff and the loss of privacy for properties in unincorporated vineyard lands to the west. Despite such concerns, planners appeared nearly ready to let the long-deferred luxury home cluster become a reality. This is a very high-end project, and we want to be proud of it, said Commissioner Beth Painter. Were 80 percent of the way there. Two sisters with an improbable family history and a special niche in the wine industry will tell their story at the Napa County Library on Tuesday as part of African-American History Month. The story of the McBride sisters, Andrea and Robin, and their company, McBride Sisters wines, has garnered nationwide media attention. These half-sisters grew up 7,000 miles apart, each unaware of the other. Ricah Quinto, the librarys program coordinator, invited the McBride sisters to speak after learning of their life story, which has the ingredients of a tug-at-your-heart-strings movie. The sisters are great role models as they are very successful in a non-traditional African-American field creating opportunities for others, Quinto said. As part of their program, the McBride sisters will be sharing some of their wines with audience members 21 years and older. Accompanying the wine tasting will be a paring of hors doeuvres prepared by local chef and co-proprietor of The Inn on First, Jim Gunther. Both sisters were born in the Los Angeles area to different mothers but to a mutual fatherColen McBride. He was a Hollywood guy who had rough relationships, said Robin. When she was 2, her parents split up, with Robin and her mother moving to Monterey. Several years later, that pattern repeated with Andrea and her mother moving to New Zealand, the mothers home country. Eventually, Andrea lost her mother to breast cancer and lived with extended family in Marlborough, New Zealand. Fast-forwarding to the 1990s, their uniting was set in motion by their dying father who asked his family to help bring his two daughters together. He died of stomach cancer in 1996, several years before the sisters would be united. His family found Andrea fairly quickly. However, they had no idea how to locate Robin. It wasnt as easy as now in those days before Google and Facebook, Robin said in an interview. A break came when one of Colens siblings was watching an Oprah episode featuring detectives advising the audience on how to track down debtors. Following that advice, the family first searched Department of Motor Vehicle records for all Robin McBrides. With some additional effort, they verified the Monterey, California Robin to be Colens daughter. Then one of his siblings wrote a letter to Robin in 1999. It said, Im your aunt and I am sorry to tell you that your dad has passed away, but you have a little sister. Robin said. It was pretty emotional. With 16-year-old Andrea already in New York visiting family, Robin immediately flew to New Yorks LaGuardia Airport to meet her sister the next day. As 25-year-old Robin walked through the terminal she thought she had only caught a glimpse of her own reflection when suddenly she realized it was Andrea. After two weeks I had to return to New Zealand. It was so tough to go, said Andrea. Being a star athlete, she had been presented several recruitment offers. With Robin living in Monterey, California I had to get to California so I chose USC. Andrea continued, We met every other weekend. It was a long drive but definitely worth it. During those visits, Andrea and Robin discovered they had many things in common, especially their love for all things winefrom production to consumption. We found ourselves always talking and dreaming of one day being in the wine business, said Andrea. In 2005, they began the first of their wine business endeavors as importers. In the wine world, the McBrides would be know as negociant, a French word for a wine merchant who sells wine produced from and by smaller growers and winemakers under the merchants own label. While Robin had worked for import companies, she and Andrea had a lot to learn. The key is to turn adversity into innovation, allowing your passions to became reality, Andrea said. In addition to using real-life experiences as teachable moments, the sisters also sought out information. We accessed information through technology. Prior to online sources, youd pay thousands of dollars to gain that knowledgethose golden nuggets, Robin said. Five years later, they launched their first brandeco.love winesproduced from and by small family-operated vineyards and wineries in Wairau Valley Plains and Redwood Valley, New Zealand. According to their website, At launch we were the first African-American sisters to found a wine company and to launch on a digital platform, and the wines were made in the first CarboNZero-certified winery in the world. With eco.love paying homage to Andreas childhood home, the McBride sisters also wanted to honor Robins hometown regionthe Central California coast. The result was the Truvee label that debuted in February 2015. Regarding Truvee, their website said, Our McBride sisters story comes to life in this wine, and its name says it allderived from the French verb to find, we found each other, and now we want people to find a wine that matters. Her first clue that something was wrong came as she ran her hands through her baby boy's hair. "My child was losing his hair in clumps," Meagan Beckermann recalls. A doctor traced the problem to alopecia areata, an autoimmune disease that can be triggered by environmental factors. A frantic search for a likely source ended when neighbors advised Beckermann to follow her nose. That's when she learned that the charms of her St. Louis suburb of Bridgeton -- with its green parks and quality schools -- masked two massive landfills, one filled with radioactive waste, about a mile from her home. No one had mentioned them when she'd bought her house, she says. Four years later, she and other residents now describe the situation as only more extreme. Volatile chemicals 60 feet to 200 feet down are smoldering beneath one of the landfills in what scientists call a sub-surface burning event. The underground burn is only a few thousand feet from a Superfund site filled with waste from the World War II-era Manhattan Project, the federal government's ultimately successful effort to build an atomic bomb. The site is managed by the Environmental Protection Agency, which neighbors and state officials say has done little to stop the burn from reaching the radioactive waste. "Every day, I live with anxiety. I live in fear," said Beckermann, a 34-year-old mother of two. Before the agency was forced to defend itself against critics in Flint, Mich., who say it bears some of the responsibility for that city's lead-contaminated drinking water, EPA was on the defensive in north St. Louis County. Members of Missouri's congressional delegation have authored two bills that would strip EPA of its oversight of the 200-acre Superfund site, which is known as the West Lake Landfill. The legislation would give the Army Corps of Engineers authority over the clean-up and removal of up to 48,000 tons of nuclear waste. One bill, sponsored by Republican Sen. Roy Blount, passed that chamber earlier this month, while the House bill, sponsored by Democratic Rep. William Clay, is working its way through a committee. Missouri's attorney general is urging Clay to press on. "A burning radioactive waste dump requires the government to act with urgency, but EPA seems unable to move forward with a meaningful solution," State Attorney General Chris Koster wrote last week in an angry letter to members of the delegation, in which he called for the Army corps' intervention. The federal Superfund program addresses large and highly toxic hazardous waste sites. Although no credible link has been established between air quality near the landfills and prevalence of disease, residents are concerned about adverse health impacts. Mothers such as Beckermann, whose 6-year-old son Trevor now has no hair on his entire body, worry about the possible effects of the West Lake site's contaminants on their children. Some people have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. The burn at the Bridgetown Landfill has increased the stench. "It makes you gag," resident Robbin Dailey said. Families within a mile of both properties are demanding that the EPA relocate them, a move that would cost a half-billion dollars, according to some estimates. A group of mothers from the area traveled to Washington last week to press for action. While on Capitol Hill, they told lawmakers that their requests to speak with EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy had been ignored. At the EPA's regional headquarters in Kansas City, Kansas, Administrator Mark Hague counters that officials are acting as quickly as possible. "There was a lot of critical investigative work that went on for a period of time," stressed Hague, who said he has met "several times" with the mothers and has relayed their concerns to McCarthy. Scientists contracted by the EPA have determined exactly where the underground burn is located, and in late December the agency ordered the Bridgeton Landfill's owner, Republic Services, to construct a barrier to isolate the burn from the other site. Hague said that barrier will take a year to build. A Republic Services spokesman said in an email that the company would be responsible for costs up to $30 million unless the project is transferred to the Army corps. "It's my job to get this done," Hague said. The scientists' investigation showed that the burn is not moving toward the Superfund's radioactive material, but the barrier was ordered as a protective measure along with equipment to cool what's smoldering underground, Hague said. Air-quality monitoring to date shows readings in keeping with a metropolitan area, he added. But Bridgeton residents and state officials have little trust in the agency's actions and assurances. They say radioactive waste has been found beyond the area that EPA originally identified. The attorney general called for more extensive testing, and he and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources sued Republic Services for environmental violations at the Bridgeton Landfill. The company has denied the claim, and the litigation is pending. The West Lake Landfill is surrounded with a fence and notices identifying it as a Superfund site, but there's no other warning in the community. An EPA website allows Americans to "Search for Superfund Sites Where You Live," and the agency also puts notices in newspapers -- although an EPA spokesman for the region acknowledged that local residents can miss seeing those. Dawn Chapman, who lives nearby, said she's furious that federal government, state, county and local authorities didn't notify residents who purchased property in the area that a Superfund site had been designated there in 1989. Chapman discovered she was pregnant with her first child a few months after buying a house 11 years ago. Each of her three children have developmental problems that require special care. "I didn't know a landfill was there, and I definitely didn't know a Superfund site was there," she explained while in Washington. "Everybody has responsibility," Chapman said. "If you knew about this, you have responsibility. The failure to notify residents, the failure to advocate, falls on every elected official that covers the district. This is no place to raise a family." As the one landfill smoldered and word about it spread, Chapman and two other women co-founded a protest group. They called it Just Moms because whenever they contacted elected officials to help them, they'd be asked if they were advocates. "No," the women responded, "we're just moms." The St. Louis County health department soon will survey residents living within a two-mile radius of the Bridgeton site to determine if they have a higher rate of certain health problems compared to populations elsewhere in the county or state. Its director said the study will focus on asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and allergy-type symptoms. Beckermann said she worries constantly. In October, a letter from her children's school district scared her further. "Since the eastern part of our school district is only a few miles away from the West Lake Landfill," Superintendent Jeff Marion wrote, "please know that I will be working with the city and county emergency management officials to ensure we are prepared to respond in the event of an environmental accident." "It was terrifying as a parent to read that letter," she said. "It's terrifying every morning when you drop your kids somewhere knowing you might not be able to pick them up." One elementary school also sent a letter home advising parents to ask their children's doctors about medications they might need in case they are detained at the school during an emergency. Parents should consider leaving the medicine at school, the letter suggested. Both Beckermann and Chapman were women on edge as they made the rounds on Capitol Hill last week. "I don't want to be here," Chapman said. "I just want to be home with my kids." BUENOS AIRES, Argentina Mothers of Plaza de Mayo reject Obamas visit to Argentina The Argentine human rights group Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo on Friday rejected the timing of President Barack Obamas visit to Argentina. Obama is set to arrive on March 23 for a two-day visit where he will meet with President Mauricio Macri. The following day marks the 40th anniversary of the military coup that began Argentinas 1976-1983 military dictatorship, in which thousands of suspected leftists were seized, tortured and secretly killed. Nora Cortinas is a founding member of the group that has campaigned to find people forcibly disappeared by the dictatorship. She told local radio Friday that shes not amused that Obamas visit will coincide with the coup anniversary because the U.S. facilitated dictatorships in South America during the 1970s. The visit will only bring back the most haunting memories, to those who lost children in the military crackdown, said Cortinas. Her son was disappeared during Argentinas so-called Dirty War. Human rights groups say about 30,000 people died or disappeared under Argentinas dictatorship. GENEVA Zika virus will be way down before Rio hosts Olympics, U.N. says The head of the World Health Organizations Zika response team is predicting that Brazil will host a fantastic Olympics and that the mosquito-borne virus will be way down by the time the Summer Games begin in Rio de Janeiro on Aug. 5. Dr. Bruce Aylward, WHOs executive director for outbreaks and health emergencies, says the mosquito population is expected to drop off in the area around Rio since it will be the southern hemispheres winter by then. He said Olympic venues are also in a relatively confined area, making it easier for authorities to control the local mosquito population. Brazil has recorded hundreds of thousands of cases of suspected Zika infection in recent months amid strong concerns that the virus could be linked to a spike in the number of abnormally small heads in newborn babies. The Summer Olympics run from Aug.5-21. YAOUNDE, Cameroon 4 suicide bombers target market, school in Cameroon; kill 22 Two suicide bombers hit a market in the north Cameroon village of Meme (may-may), killing at least 22 people, and two others targeted a school in a nearby town on Friday, a Cameroon governor said. The attackers at the market disguised themselves as food vendors, said Far North Gov. Midjiyawa Bakari. The 105 wounded are being treated at the hospital in the nearby town of Tokombere, some in critical condition, he said. The other two attackers were targeting a school in Tokombere, but detonated their explosives in the bush about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) from the school after they were identified, said teacher Mamoudou Gonit. He said the explosions caused panic among teachers and students who ran in different directions, but no one besides the bombers was hurt. Boko Haram, an Islamic extremist group based in Nigeria, was suspected. In its six-year insurgency, Boko Haram has killed more than 20,000 people and displaced 2.8 million in the region, according to the United Nations and Amnesty International. MADRID Spanish police arrest 6th Chinese bank executive in fraud probe Spanish police say they have arrested a sixth executive of Chinas ICBC bank as part of a money laundering and tax fraud probe. Police said the senior employee previously worked in the Industrial and Commercial Bank of Chinas offices in Madrid but now works in the Luxembourg branch. He was arrested Friday in Madrid. Police raided the ICBCs downtown Madrid office on Wednesday and arrested five executives. They were expected to be brought before court Friday. A police statement said the operation was a follow-up on one in 2015 that targeted gangs using the bank to launder to China some 40 million euros ($45 million) proceeding from the Chinese-run bargain store sector in Spain. BEIJING Xi tours Chinese top state media, demands total loyalty Chinese President Xi Jinping made a high-profile and rare tour of the countrys top three media outlets, and told the editors and reporters that they must pledge absolute loyalty to the party and closely follow the partys leadership in both thoughts and actions. His remarks Friday after visiting the party newspaper Peoples Daily, the official Xinhua News Agency and the state broadcaster CCTV are the latest sign of the partys tighter controls over the media as Xi seeks to further cement his powers. Xi told the journalists that the state media are propaganda fronts for the party and its government, must be loyal to the party, reflect the partys will and safeguard the partys authority. Ladies and gentlemen, Thank you for welcoming me to your country and for inviting me to this seminar today. In recent years, Morocco has been a beacon of stability in a region beset with strife. It has gone further than most to thwart the chaos and violence that seized so many countries in North Africa and the Middle East not through repression, but by embracing reform. The social, political and economic reforms that have been implemented here have helped this country to chart a course of stability and progress. And you have worked to spread moderate Islam throughout North Africa and the Sahel. Morocco should be commended and it should be proud of the progress it has made so far. And I encourage you to continue along this path of reform. The Morocco I visit today is strong, confident and moderate. It has close relations with the European Union, strong bilateral relations with several NATO Allies, and it has proved itself to be a solid and reliable partner for NATO. While many people consider NATO to be a purely military organization, it is in fact primarily a political alliance linking the major democracies of Europe and North America. For more than six decades, the ever growing number of NATO Allies once just twelve, now twenty-eight have stood side by side, committed to defending and protecting each others security. All for one and one for all, as the saying goes. NATO provides a permanent forum for all Allies to discuss in detail the security issues of the day, and to come to decisions on the way forward. There is no majority voting at NATO. No country is forced to act against its own interests. Every decision is taken by consensus. And if there is no consensus, then there is no decision. This can slow the decision making process down at times, but it also gives those decisions real political weight. Of course, NATO was established during the Cold War in response to the Soviet threat. But as soon as that war was over, many countries in eastern and central Europe, nations which had until then been our enemies, reached out to NATO. The stability and security that NATO offered was very attractive, especially at a time of such enormous change. First they sought partnership, through the Partnership for Peace programme, and then they sought full membership in the Alliance. The growth of NATO has been one of the great success stories of the last 25 years. It extended a zone of stability to such an extent that today it protects more than a billion people. But it does more than that. NATO is an organisation based on values: respect for sovereignty, the rule of law, human rights and the rights of nations and of people to be free. This is what NATO seeks to promote, and to protect. Such was the success of our partnerships to the east, that we soon sought partnerships beyond Europe. Thus the Mediterranean Dialogue was born in 1994. The Mediterranean Dialogue aims to contribute to regional security and stability, to achieve better mutual understanding between its members, and to dispel any misconceptions about NATO among Dialogue countries. Hopefully, Im playing my own part in that last one today. For over two decades, both through the Mediterranean Dialogue and through NATOs individual cooperation programme, NATO and Morocco have been able to build a strong partnership, adapting to Moroccos evolving security needs. Morocco has always been a true believer in the power and potential of the Mediterranean Dialogue. Ten years ago, Morocco hosted the first meeting of the North Atlantic Council with the seven MD partner countries to be held in the region, and it hosted the first Mediterranean Dialogue Policy Advisory Group in 2012. And as part of that continuing Dialogue, I have had a number of meetings with members of the government on this trip. On behalf of NATO, I want to thank Morocco and to say that NATO stands with you. Through its partnerships, which now stretch to as far away as Japan and Australia, NATO seeks to help others to increase stability around the world. We work with the military and political authorities of our partners to strengthen their resilience and to improve their forces ability to work side-by-side with our own. But partnerships are very much a two-way street, with our partners making substantial contributions to NATO operations across the globe. With its professional and modern military, Morocco has contributed in various ways to NATO missions in the Balkans first in Bosnia-Herzegovina and then in Kosovo and to Operation Unified Protector in Libya five years ago. And in the last few weeks, it has played a major role in seeking to promote a political solution to the Libyan crisis, hosting the UN-led consultations and actively trying to find a bridge between Libyas warring parties. Today, the greatest challenge faced by Morocco, and by all countries in the region, is from terrorism and religious extremism. As states have failed, collapsing into civil war, terrorist groups like ISIL have been quick to fill the vacuum. This has led not only to a humanitarian crisis and untold suffering, but also to the largest refugee crisis since the Second World War, with millions internally displaced and many more seeking shelter in far off lands. If nothing else, the refugee crisis has shown Europeans just how interconnected the security of North Africa is with their own. This month, NATO Ministers agreed to send NATO ships to work alongside EU ships and national coastguards in the Aegean Sea to help stop illegal human trafficking. NATOs Standing Maritime Group 2 is now conducting reconnaissance, monitoring and surveillance in the Aegean Sea. This is not about NATO sending back boats of refugees, but about helping the responsible nations and organisations to destroy the business model of the smugglers who prey on the weak and the desperate, those fleeing the civil war in Syria and the brutality of ISIL. And while Morocco has gone in a very different direction to countries like Syria, there are still very real threats to confront. Fighters from Morocco, and from many NATO countries, have made their way to fight with ISIL and other terrorist groups. Many are now dead. Others are in prison. But those who remain may one day attempt to return, bringing the threat of further terrorist attacks with them. And so, along with political reforms, it is deeply encouraging to see Moroccos commitment to military reform and to international cooperation, as it works with others to destroy ISIL and to maintain security within its borders. Across the Middle East and North Africa, NATO is working to develop and strengthen the defence and security sectors of our partners. in Jordan, we have supported the recruitment and retention of women in their armed forces, and gender training for servicemen and women. We will be training Iraqi officers in Turkey and Jordan in areas such as countering improvised explosive devices, civil emergency planning, military medicine, and security sector reform. We have worked with Egypts military to introduce new mine detection and clearing technology. We are developing a programme with Tunisia to train their Special Forces. In Mauritania, NATO is supporting the construction of safe munitions depots and training military personnel as they return to civilian life. And here in Morocco, you have joined NATOs Interoperability Platform, so that our armed forces will be better able to operate side-by-side. The Defence Capacity Building work that NATO is doing with our partners is important, but I do not believe that its yet of a sufficient scale to make a strategic difference on the ground. In my view, NATO and its members need to invest far more to build the capacity of our partners. This will be high on the agenda of our next NATO leaders summit in July. NATO and its Allies are important players in this region, but we are far from the only ones. We also need to engage far more with regional organisations and, in particular, with the European Union. The challenges we face are not simply military, or political, or economic, or social. They are a complex combination of them all and cannot be tackled by military means alone. Instead, they require a comprehensive approach by all those with a contribution to make coming together in common cause. Cooperation between regional organisations, as well as bilateral cooperation, will be vital if we are to destroy the likes of ISIL and return long-term stability to North Africa and the Middle East. But in addition to strengthening our partners, we also need to destroy ISIL. ISILs strongest weapon is its narrative, the idea that, because it is successful on the ground, it is somehow "The Future". It is what draws people to fight for it and what inspires others to conduct terrorist attacks around the world. It is vital that we end that success and break that narrative. The weaker they are on the ground, the weaker their story will be, and the less hold it will have in the minds of their followers. This will create a virtuous circle that will end in their inevitable destruction. To that end, every NATO Ally is part of the US-led Global Coalition to destroy ISIL, whether they are contributing to air strikes or by training and equipping Iraqi security forces. And I was pleased to see the Defence Minister of Morocco at the table at the recent Coalition meeting in Brussels last week. Ladies and Gentlemen. For NATO, the challenges we face are not restricted to the Middle East and North Africa. We also face a significant new challenge from the east, from an aggressive, revisionist Russia. Russia has long had troops in Moldova and Georgia. In recent years, it has massively increased its defence spending and modernised its armed forces. It uses nuclear rhetoric to intimidate its neighbours. It challenges NATO Allies, flying its aircraft without transponders, close to or even into Allied airspace. And when it illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, Russia became the first European state to take part of anothers territory by force since World War II. The international community has responded to Russias aggressive actions against Ukraine with international sanctions, individual travel bans and exclusion from the G8. To deter Russia from threatening us, NATO is implementing the largest increase in our collective defence since the Cold War and ended decades of cuts to defence spending. And we are supporting our partners in Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. For the first time since the Cold War, our core mission of collective defence is back on the table. This month, the United States said it plans to quadruple its commitment to European security to $3.4 billion. This will mean more troops, more training and more pre-positioning of equipment. And it fits perfectly with the decision taken this last week by NATO Allies to increase our forward presence in Eastern Europe as part of a 21st- century deterrence posture. NATO does not seek confrontation with Russia and we certainly dont want a new Cold War. We continue to hope that Russia will come back into compliance with international law, respect the sovereignty of its neighbours, and create the conditions for rebuilding our partnership. Thats why we are keeping channels for dialogue open. But Russia needs to know that, if it attempts a short-notice attack or uses ambiguous hybrid methods against a NATO country, it will meet a swift response from all of the Allies. Ladies and gentlemen, NATO has been in the business of maintaining security in Europe for over six decades. Today, we face greater challenges than we have for a generation. Challenges from the east and from the south. One thing is certain, we cannot choose between them. We must address them both. Another certainty is that today our security relies as much on the stability of our neighbours as it does on the defences of our Allies. There can be no Fortress Europe. We cannot hide away from the world behind a wall. There is no wall. Instead, we must engage with the world in the spirit of partnership. In just five months, NATO leaders will meet in Warsaw to decide on the way forward for our Alliance, as we face these continued challenges. Those decisions will shape our Alliance and our security for years to come. One of the most significant decisions they will take will be on the investment we make in the security of our neighbours. And in Morocco, we have a neighbour, a partner and a friend that we can rely on. Spending as much time on the UK's inland waterways as all the other stuff of life will allow us! Erdogan: Armenia-Azerbaijan relations progress will contribute to Armenia-Turkey relations normalization Iranian Consulate General opens in Kapan Erdogan: Turkey is looking for alternative to American F-16 fighters Iran consul general: We are here for Armenian people Turkey FM slams OSCE decision to send needs assessment mission to Armenia Peskov reacts to Erdogan's words about Putin's softening on Ukraine negotiations European Parliament rapporteur on Armenia visits Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan European Parliament rapporteur on Armenia to legislature speaker: Attack was from Azerbaijan, naturally EUSR Toivo Klaars exclusive interview with NEWS.am on EU Monitoring mission,Nagorno Karabakh future and violence videos Explosions rock Ukraines Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia President meets with newly formed Artsakh Public Council members Armenia PM: We need understanding in price horizon, at least in medium term PM: Armenia trade with other EEU countries increased by 74% France region to provide 300,000 to Armenias Syunik Province affected by Azerbaijan military aggression Eurasian Intergovernmental Council extended meeting underway in Yerevan MOD: Armenia did not fire at Azerbaijan positions, vehicle MPs in Strasbourg, present threatening dangers: Armenia has powerful support in European Parliament Years first snow falls in Armenias Shirak Province World oil prices on the rise Newspaper: Russia dismisses Armenia PM's news on Karabakh Russia PM in Yerevan, to discuss with EEU colleagues single oil, natural gas markets formation Newspaper: Why is Iran in hurry to open consulate in Armenias Syunik Province? France, Spain, Portugal agree to build Barcelona-Marseille natural gas pipeline Admiral: U.S. should now prepare for Chinese 'invasion' of Taiwan Harutyunyan: I cannot imagine Artsakh's future without presence of Russia Harutyunyan: Without questioning path of our independence, we must meet with Baku Prime Minister of Finland does not think that Hungary and Turkey will block country's application for NATO membership Iranian FM: U.S. made hasty statements in connection with protests Former Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim involved in car accident in Karabakh Arayik Harutyunyan: Artsakh people's right to self-determination is non-negotiable Iranian MFA calls it important to form platform with Armenia and India on North-South corridor Details of EU monitoring mission in Armenia are known Foreign Ministry: It seems Ankara is more interested in opening corridor through Armenia than Azerbaijan Mirzoyan: Unexpected third countries support Azerbaijani interpretation of road to Nakhchivan Foreign Ministry: Armenia, Iran and Bulgaria initial agreement on creation of Persian Gulf-Black Sea corridor Israeli Defense Minister to visit Ankara Armenian Foreign Minister names main obstacle to solving problems with Azerbaijan Erdogan once again raises issue of so-called 'Zangezur corridor' Armenian and Iranian FMs to open Iranian Consulate General in Syunik province tomorrow Abdollahian: Aliyev assured that he does not want border changes, Iran will prevent implementation of such idea Iranian Foreign Minister in Yerevan supports '3+3' platform Iranian Foreign Minister recalls Tehran's 'red lines' in regional issues Mirzoyan: We highly appreciate Iran's principled position regarding territorial integrity of Armenia UK imposes sanctions against Iran for alleged delivery of drones to Russia Yerevan hosts meeting of Eurasian Intergovernmental Council in narrow composition Armenian and Iranian Foreign Ministers meet in Yerevan in extended format Charles Michel: EU energy deal possible, but difficult Erdogan says Baku should demand 'compensation' from Yerevan Pashinyan: EEU mechanisms are of great help, trade turnover between Armenia and Belarus has doubled Yair Lapid: Russia-Iran relations are serious problem for Ukraine, Europe, and whole world Amir-Abdollahian: Iran is against presence of foreigners in this region, both in Azerbaijan and Armenia Pashinyan at EAEU meeting: Fundamental principles of world economic system in question Iranian Foreign Minister's official visit to Yerevan begins Macron says Germany should not isolate itself in Europe EU begins deployment of mission on Armenia-Azerbaijan border Trump's son made fun of Zelenskyy's ability to ask West for money EU to provide emergency aid for Armenia residents affected by recent Azerbaijan military aggression Azerbaijan army units fire at Armenia positions Mikhail Mishustin arrives in Yerevan EU approves new sanctions against Iran over alleged drone deliveries to Russia Eurasian Intergovernmental Council meeting begins in Yerevan Baku calls OSCE mission to assess situation on Armenian-Azerbaijani border 'private visit' On fourth day of IRGC military exercises on border with Azerbaijan, artillery destroys planned targets Liz Truss quits as UK Prime Minister Turkey parliament to consider extending Turkish militarys mandate in Azerbaijan Dollar falls, euro rises in Armenia Russias Putin ratifies agreement on simplification of payments for goods transit within EEU territory Stoltenberg: Almost all NATO countries have agreed to Sweden and Finland joining the alliance Ombudswoman of Armenia: Azerbaijan prevents removal of remains of fallen soldiers Zakharova: Matter of holding CSTO Collective Security Council meeting being worked out Ombudswoman 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 President visits several leading Bulgaria IT companies Ruben Vardanyan: I will assume Artsakh State Minister position at beginning of November 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 Bandits in Russia cut off Armenian man's hands, shoot him in legs 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 The Ministry of Defense (MOD) of Azerbaijan had once planned to purchase North Korean-made surface-to-air missiles from the Hesong Trading Corporation. The respective business deal was to be signed with British arms dealer Michael Ranger, according to Haqqin.az news agency of Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijan Defense Minister at the time was Safar Abiyev, who held this office from February 1995 to October 2013. The deal, however, did not go through because Azerbaijan had asked for pilot batches of these missiles, but the aforesaid North Korean company had not accepted this term, and instead invited the Azerbaijani delegation to the North Korean capital city of Pyongyang. But since North Korea is under sanctions, Azerbaijan had not accepted this invitation. The abovementioned is noted in the files of the judicial case into Ranger, who was arrested in London in 2011. Even though these court documents do not contain any evidence that the Hesong Trading Corporation had agreed to supply missiles to Azerbaijan, the relevant correspondence between Michael Ranger, the said North Korean company, and the Azerbaijan MOD are attached to the files of this court case. Posted by Mark Williams | February 19, 2016 Beyond the big debuts at the 2016 Chicago Auto Show, which included the 2017 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro, the 2017 Ram Power Wagon and the 2017 Nissan Armada, there were plenty of interesting sights and sounds. Here are some of the highlights: Chevrolet Midnight Edition Interestingly, Chevrolet decided to bring an entire family of similarly dressed pickups to McCormick Place, with the Silverado 2500, 1500 and Colorado Midnight Editions. As one of the few truckmakers offering small, medium and large pickups, Chevy's blacked-out Midnight Edition is resonating with buyers, making it one of the automakers most popular sellers. Chevy is likely to extend the Midnight Edition with its Z71 suspension, black aluminum wheels, mud-terrain tires and accented interior to its full-size SUV lineup. Honda Ridgeline Parts With the 2017 Ridgeline set to go on sale in just a few months, Honda is offering more aftermarket parts for buyers who might want to customize their new midsize pickup. We saw this display near the Honda booth and it looks to be a good start. The Ridgeline on the show floor had a full roof rack, bed extender, fender flares and mud flaps, unique wheels, floor mats and side steps; we have the say it looked pretty good. Jeeps Climbing Steel One of the nicest things about the Chicago show is that there's more space for automaker displays, so a few of them provide on- and off-road courses. Toyota allowed attendees to get behind the wheel of a RAV4, while Jeep, once again, gave loyalists a chance to cross logs, climb steep metal mountains and navigate a short section of a rutted trail. Additionally, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles offered short drives in several vehicles to give potential buyers a chance to squeal the tires off the line of a mock drag strip. Nissan XD Platinum Reserve Nissan made big news at the show by releasing the first details about the all-new light-duty Nissan Titan set to debut later this year; unfortunately, all Nissan had to show the media and showgoers were a few photos. Thankfully though, several 2016 Titan XD pickups were on the floor for us to poke around. We especially liked the bright-yellow PRO-4X and top-of-the-line Platinum Reserve hooked up to a 21-foot twin-engine sport-fishing freshwater boat. The Few, the Proud, the Ford F-150 We found a base-level 2015 Ford F-150 XL Super Crew in the back of the U.S. Marines display sporting silhouette graphics of jet-engine, diesel-engine and prop vehicles. No doubt the paint and graphics are meant to get people to stop by and talk trucks. Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Worker The big news for Mercedes-Benz was the introduction of its most economically priced Sprinter full-size commercial van, the Worker. With many standard safety and convenience features, this will be the least expensive diesel player in the field at just less than $33,500 (including destination) and will offer more cargo space in its base configuration than the competition. Clearly, Mercedes is feeling the pressure from segment leader Ford Transit and Ram's growing ProMaster work van choices. The 2017 Nissan Armada With the addition of the all-new platforms for the Nissan Titan and Titan XD, many wondered if that meant Nissan's full-size SUV, the Armada (which shared its platform with the previous Titan), would disappear. Instead, Nissan redid the Armada with better underpinnings and a refined design, much of which is shared with the global Nissan Patrol SUV. We can't wait to see which automotive media outlet does the first Nissan Armada versus Toyota Land Cruiser contest. Cars.com 2016 Chicago Auto Show Content Since Cars.com and PickupTrucks.com are headquartered in Chicago, we had a full team of auto experts walking the floor, digging for news and shooting videos. Some of our Cars.com favorites were the new 2017 Chevrolet Camaro 1LE Performance Package, the Kia Niro Hybrid and the 2017 Nissan Armada. For a recap of the first day of our 2016 Chicago Auto Show coverage, click here, and click here for full auto show coverage. The 2016 Chicago Auto Show runs through Sunday at Chicago's McCormick Place, 2301 S. Lake Shore Drive. Show hours are 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $12 for adults, $7 for people age 62 or older and children ages 7 to 12, free for children 6 or younger accompanied by an adult. For more info, go to www.chicagoautoshow.com. Cars.com photos by Angela Conners and Mark Williams 23:31 Delhi Police on Friday issued fresh notices to three lawyers who despite being summoned for two consecutive days, did not turn up before the investigators in connection with the attack on journalists, students and teachers of JNU in Patiala House court on February 15. "This is the third time the police have sent them notices, asking them to join investigation. If they do not respond this time, we are likely to move court," a senior police officer said. While one of the three lawyers has been identified as Vikram Singh Chauhan, who led the groups of attacking lawyers on Monday and also on Wednesday defying Supreme Court instructions, names of the other two have not been disclosed by the police. Notices to them were first issued on Wednesday in which they were summoned at Tilak Marg police station by 3 pm but they did not appear, following which similar notices were again served in the next day, and for the third time on Friday. Two film festival entries win John Michaels award CARBONDALE, Ill. -- The 2016 Big Muddy Film Festival at Southern Illinois University Carbondale will honor two 2015 documentaries with the John Michaels Film Award. Then Then Then, described as a primer on civil disobedience, 1968-1972, by Canadian filmmaker Daniel Schioler, and The First Secret City, by filmmakers Alison Carrick and C.D. Stelzer, earn this years award. The films, along with others in that category, are part of the 38th annual Big Muddy Film Festival, Feb. 23-Feb. 28. Most of the festivals venues are the Student Center Auditorium and Morris Librarys John C. Guyon Auditorium. For a second year, films will screen during weekday afternoons in addition to evenings and weekends. The category honors films that reflect and increase awareness on social, community and environmental issues. The award honors the late John Michaels, an SIU Carbondale graduate student who earned his master of fine arts degree while here and was involved in community organizing and activism. Then Then Then is described as a 30-minute, short documentary that utilizes archival footage from 1968 to 1972, along with music, to examine civil disobedience in the search for social change during that period. The films screening is 2 p.m., Feb. 27, in the Student Center Auditorium. The First Secret City, a 120-minute film, looks at the history of the Mallinckrodt Chemical Works of St. Louis, a company that refined the first uranium used in the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The film examines the environmental impact on the St. Louis community. The films screening is at 4 p.m., Feb. 27, also in the Student Center Auditorium. A complete list of the screenings is available at bigmuddyfilm.com/. Katharine Jefferts Schori named Stanford Baccalaureate speaker The Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori, head of the Episcopal Church until November 2015, will serve as the 2016 Stanford Baccalaureate speaker on June 11. Jefferts Schori graduated from Stanford in 1974 with a degree in biology. The Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first woman to serve as presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, has been named Stanford's 2016 Baccalaureate speaker. Magnus Aronson/IKON Alumna Katharine Jefferts Schori, former presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, will be this year's Baccalaureate speaker. Baccalaureate is a multifaith, end-of-the-year celebration for graduating students, their families and the university community. The event, held the day before Commencement, is student-led and designed to recognize the vital role of spirituality in education. Organized by the Office for Religious Life, Baccalaureate will be held June 11 at 10 a.m. on the Main Quadrangle. For nine years (2006-2015), Jefferts Schori served as chief pastor to the Episcopal Church's more than 2 million members in 17 countries and 109 dioceses. As presiding bishop, she was responsible for initiating and developing policy for the Episcopal Church and for speaking on behalf of the church on issues ranging from the church's mission to its commitment to alleviating poverty and combating climate change. As such, Jefferts Schori was one of the most visible women in Christianity worldwide. "Katharine Jefferts Schori is a person of great courage, conviction and integrity," said the Rev. Professor Jane Shaw, dean for religious life at Stanford. "She brought extraordinary brilliance and bravery to a very demanding position at a crucial point in the history of the Episcopal Church. Her story is one of faith, perseverance and strength, and it is an important one for students to hear as they find ways to create their own change in the world." Jefferts Schori earned her Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Stanford in 1974. She later earned a doctorate in oceanography from Oregon State University and a Master of Divinity degree from Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley. She pursued a career in oceanography before being ordained as a priest in 1994. Before becoming presiding bishop, Jefferts Schori was the 9th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Nevada. As presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, Jefferts Schori steered the church through internal struggles as its members came to terms with issues of inclusivity, including the role of women, the ordination of gays and same-sex marriage. In a piece recapping her tenure in June 2015, the Washington Post called her "a tough leader." Jefferts Schori also focused attention on the Episcopal Church's social justice priorities, including the United Nations Millennium Goals, issues of domestic poverty, climate change and care for Earth. As a scientist, Jefferts Schori was an articulate spokesperson for the need to raise awareness of global climate change. She has called it "decidedly wrong to use resources that have been given into our collective care in ways that diminish the ability of others to share in abundant life." Jefferts Schori told Stanford magazine in 2007 that her interest in oceanography was partly spurred by a class she took at Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove. Her experiences at Stanford particularly with Memorial Church also proved helpful to Jefferts Schori as she sorted out her sometimes conflicting feelings about science and religion. "I was still at a pretty youthful faith-development stage," she said, "and there was all this great stuff I was learning in science. There was a disconnect, and I knew MemChu was a place where people wrestled, so I would go there in the middle of the night. I'd just sit." Faculty Senate hears presentations on academic computing and student government concerns The speakers at the Feb. 18 meeting were Vijay Pande, professor of chemistry; John-Lancaster Finley, ASSU president; and Brandon Hill, ASSU vice president. Twenty years ago, research computing was the domain of scientists, but in today's academic landscape computers play a key role in everyone's research, Vijay Pande, former chair of the Committee on Academic Computing and Information Systems, told the Faculty Senate yesterday. L.A. Cicero ASSU President John-Lancaster Finley speaking to the Faculty Senate on Thursday. ASSU Vice President Brandon Hill is in the foreground. Speaking at the Feb. 18 senate meeting, Pande, a professor of chemistry, said computation will continue to play a key role in university research in all disciplines. With its array of digital humanities endeavors, Stanford is a leader in the field, he said. Pande said one of the challenges facing Stanford is finding financial support for research computing. He wondered aloud what fraction of funding should come from the university and how much should come from principal investigators' research grants. "The challenge that we're facing is that the amount we can get from federal funding is getting more and more difficult, and we need to look for other ways to handle it," he said. In addition to research computing, Pande said other key topics discussed by the 2014-15 Committee on Academic Computing and Information Systems were computer security, specifically the tension between security and academic freedom; the infrastructure for basic academic work (email and calendaring); and learning management systems, specifically the role information technology and computers can play in teaching. The Committee on Academic Computing and Information Systems formulates policies to meet the academic and administrative needs of faculty, students and academic staff. Student leaders speak John-Lancaster Finley, president of the Associated Students of Stanford University, and Brandon Hill, ASSU vice president, said one of their priorities as student leaders was to "leave the university in better condition than we found it," by figuring out ways to partner with faculty in identifying curricular or institutional changes for Stanford to consider changes that would have a lasting impact on the university. They discussed three issues: ideas for strengthening the "engaging diversity" requirement in Stanford's new Ways of Thinking/Ways of Doing general education breadth system that would better meet its goals; ways to improve Stanford's efforts on prevention of sexual and gender-based violence; and ways to better celebrate the history of the Native people, such as the Muwekma-Ohlone people, who lived on the land long before it became Stanford's home. Regarding the "engaging diversity" requirement, Finley and Hill suggested that a "diversity in the major" course be taken around the time students declare their majors to provide them with an opportunity to reflect on diversity issues within their major field of study. They offered examples of possible class titles: "Women in Tech," "Understanding Diversity in Medicine," "Global Thinking in Management" and "Product Design for Diverse Communities." "This is an opportunity we see for Stanford to really pioneer a new type of diversity education," Finley said. They also proposed requiring freshmen to take a gender identity course during fall quarter in their residences. "We want to engage faculty in a conversation about a requirement for first-year students on human-centered, healthy sexual relationship education as a method for primary prevention of sexual assault," Hill said. "This means addressing the socio-cultural ground zero of rape culture at Stanford. By taking a fresh, kinetic, residential approach to fashioning a new sex-education requirement, we at once fulfill the recommendation of the Provost's Task Force on Sexual Assault Policies and Practices of 'ongoing and continuous education' around this issue, spark the potential for culture shift on sexual assault on campus, as well as position Stanford to be the first university in the country to pioneer this type of curricular amendment for first-year students." Finally, they discussed ways to reaffirm Stanford's "matchless commitment" to the Native community, by finding new ways to celebrate and commemorate Native history, such as honoring Ohlone words and distinguished Native graduates on campus. Hill said the ASSU Undergraduate Senate and the Graduate Student Council had both passed resolutions requesting that the university rename buildings currently bearing the name of Father Junipero Serra out of respect to the indigenous and Native American communities. The full minutes of the Feb. 18 meeting, including the question-and-answer sessions that followed the presentation, will be posted on the Faculty Senate website. UF entrepreneurs honored at 2nd Annual Gator100 Awards The University of Florida welcomed 57 new companies to the Gator100 family during the 2nd Annual Gator100 Awards today at UFs Reitz Union Grand Ballroom. More than 500 guests attended the luncheon and awards ceremony where former U.S. Senator Bob Graham (BA 59) was the keynote speaker. The Gator100, presented by UF, the Warrington College of Business and its Entrepreneurship & Innovation Center, celebrates the worlds 100 fastest-growing businesses owned or led by UF alumni. Companies are ranked by compounded annual growth rate over the past three years. The top-ranked company was Orangetheory Fitness, a Fort Lauderdale-based, fitness franchise, which had a compounded annual growth rate of 147.49 percent. Orangetheory Fitness was founded by Dave Long, an alumnus of UFs College of Public Health & Health Professions (BHS 00) and Warrington College of Business (MSM 01). Five companies, including Orangetheory Fitness, topped the 100% compounded annual growth rate mark. Boca Ratons Orange and Blue Construction (137.44%), led by alumnus William Randle, Jr., was second, and LeadingAgile (130.09%), a financial services company based in Duluth, Ga., and led by engineering alumnus Mike Cottmeyer (BSCEN 93), was third. Cabinets.com (125.97%), led by Benjamin Gordon (BSBA 04) and Christopher Larsen (BDES 04), was fourth, and ProctorU (118.47%), an online proctoring service led by Matthew Jaeh (BS 05) and alumnus Jarrod Morgan, ranked fifth. The Warrington College of Business led all UF colleges with 37 companies represented by its alumni, including eight in the top 20. The College of Liberal Arts & Sciences was second with 23 companies, and the College of Design, Construction & Planning was third with 18. In all, 13 of UFs 16 colleges were represented. This years Gator100 celebrated its first-ever international honoree as Ctrip.com International, an online travel service provider based in Shanghai, finished 70th. The company is led by Co-President and Chief Operating Officer Jane Jie Sun (BSAc 92). Additionally, Infinite Energy received the Pinnacle Award, which recognizes established Gator-led businesses that have made a significant impact over time through job creation, revenue generation and innovation in their industries. Infinite Energy is led by Chief Executive Officer Darin Cook (BS 87). To be considered for the Gator100, companies must have been in business for five years or more as of Oct. 1, 2015, and have had verifiable annual revenues of $250,000 or more in 2012. Additionally, a UF alumnus or alumni must have met one of the following three leadership criteria: A University of Florida alumnus* or group of alumni must have owned 50% or more of the company from Jan. 1, 2012 through Oct. 1, 2015. A University of Florida alumnus must have served as the Companys chief executive (for example: chairman, CEO, president or managing partner) from Jan. 1, 2012 through Oct. 1, 2015. A University of Florida alumnus must have founded the company and been active as a member of the most senior management team from Jan. 1, 2012 through Oct. 1, 2015. The Government of India is making a concerted effort to create 10 million jobs every year to fulfil the aspirations of the new age employee who is joining the workforce. But this goal can be achieved only with overhauling of the labour laws. The new set of labour laws seeks to give an entrepreneur the flexibility of hiring an employee while giving employment security to the worker. This was stated by Labour and Employment Secretary Shankar Aggarwal at a seminar on 'The Emerging Face of Labour Reforms and good IR Practice' organized by All India Organisation of Employers (AIOE), an affiliate body of FICCI. Mr. Aggarwal said that the labour codes were being formulated in four areas namely wages, industrial relations, social security and working conditions to strengthen safety and social security of workers. He added that the four codes would simplify, amalgamate and rationalize the relevant provisions of the central labour laws and would be ready soon. Mr. Aggarwal said that the wages code would unify the wage of a worker throughout the country across all sectors. The industrial relations code will amalgamate all laws and social security code will provide workers with health insurance and pension for old age. He added that the fourth code of working conditions will ensure that a worker is secure at his workplace. Ms. Panudda Boonpala, Director, ILO DWT/CO for India, said that one of the key themes embedded in the debate on employment relations in recent years is flexibility wished for by the employers and security as well as similar benefits/protection of the workers wished for by workers. While it is recognized that contractualization of labour is emerging as an integral component of contemporary employment relations, there is a need for policy to situate contractualization of labour from perspective of business requirement and needs as well as security, protection and dignity of, decent work for workers. Ms. Boonpala said that India is at a very crucial juncture in relation to bringing about labour law reforms. It is important that all stakeholders join in the discussion and arrive at a consensus that would be the best option for the country. She added that experience around the world suggests that new labour problems are solved neither by old forms of regulation nor by removing regulation but by better regulation and social dialogue is the best means to achieve this end. Mr. Sanjay Bhatia, President, AIOE, said that in a bid to do away with multiplicity of labour laws and fulfill their commitment of maximum governance with minimum Government, the ministry has proposed the introduction of 3 new bills 'The Labour Code on Industrial Relation Bill 2015', 'Labour Code on Wage Bill 2015' and 'The Small Factories (Regulation of Employment and Conditions) Bill 2014' which proposes to amalgamate existing labour laws. Mr. Bhatia said, "We are in the 'Make in India' week, an ambitious programme which endeavours to place India to become the world's manufacturing capital through business friendly government policies and labour reforms, this seminar so aptly fits into this entire framework and scheme of the Government of India as the Ministry of Labour and Employment has already embarked upon a series of Labour Reforms which are on the anvil on both Central and the State sphere in India." In his keynote address Mr. Y K Modi, Member-Governing Body, ILO and Chairman & CEO, Great Eastern Energy Corporation Ltd., said that there was a need for change in the mindset of the government. Labour laws should be simple and flexible to promote compliance and create jobs in a fast manner. He added that the labour policy should be an instrument to promote investment and employment generation and it was good to see the new government initiating changes in labour policy. Submitting his suggestions to improve labour laws, Mr. Modi said that it was time to treat labour as an asset and not a liability in India. Also to encourage new entrepreneurs and create job opportunities, incentives should be given to employers for employing workers rather than on making capital investment. He added that a conducive and trustworthy environment should prevail where a worker escalates his problems to his employer and not to an outside body and trade unions. (ANI) Szijjarto made the announcement following a meeting with Iranian Vice President and chief of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation Ali Akbar Salehi, Xinhua reported. The Hungarian foreign minister said the agreement called for expanding training for Iranian nuclear experts. He said his country would call on the European Union to help train Iranian nuclear professionals and to evolve scientific cooperation focused on peaceful uses of nuclear energy. He also said that Hungary was planning to begin talks with Iran on how its businesses could participate in extracting Iranian hydrocarbons (oil and gas). On his part, Salehi said links between Hungary and Iran truly had to be boosted in the new era, following international agreement on monitoring Iran's nuclear programme. He called his two-day visit to Hungary a successful one, adding that talks had focused on opportunities for scientific and industrial cooperation. Iran is an important country in its region and an important market, Salehi added. He described Iran as "an anchor of stability" in a very volatile region. Szijjarto said the success of negotiations between Iran and the international community had substantially increased global security which was very important to Europe. Given Iran's location and the heightening conflicts in the region, common sense cooperation with Iran could be an important advance towards overall Middle East stability and security, he added. Szijjarto, citing the immigration crisis triggered by the Middle East conflicts, said Iran was potentially part of the solution. He also suggested that the transatlantic community and Russia could cooperate on resolving problems in other parts of the Middle East, as they had in Iran. He called for multilateral diplomacy and common sense to alleviate the conflicts. --Indo-Asian News Service py/dg ( 311 Words) 2016-02-19-19:47:34 (IANS) On February 22, 2014, the 13-year-old victim along with her mother, was returning home from the agricultural field, when the accused, Madhav Parasram Sonkamble of Karegao in Dharmabad tehsil, caught hold of the girl and raped her. Her mother's attempts to prevent the crime went futile. She immediately went to the Dharmabad police station and lodged a complaint against the accused, prosecutor Dilip Kulkarni told the court yesterday. Accordingly, the police had filed a case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 against the accused and then filed the charge-sheet in the sessions court at Biloli. After examining six witnesses, Additional Sessions Judge Anand Patil awarded the punishment of three years rigorous imprisonment to Sonkambale. The court also slapped a fine of Rs 2,000 on the accused.UNI XR/VKB SS RSA VN2301 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0169-597306.Xml Reacting to Pakistan's concern over the unrest in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), the Congress Party on Friday said Islamabad should first set their own house in order and mind their own business. "Pakistan is on the verge of becoming Somalia of South Asia. They should worry about their own country. They should first set their own house in order. The only substantive export they have is terror over the last four decades. They should mind their own business," Congress leader Manish Tewari told ANI. The Ministry of External Affairs also condemned its Pakistani counterpart's statement on Jammu and Kashmir, and said that Islamabad's gratuitous references are unacceptable. "Jammu and Kashmir is an internal matter of India. Pakistan's gratuitous references to the Jammu and Kashmir are unacceptable," Ministry of External Affairs official spokesperson Vikas Swarup had said. According to reports, Pakistan's foreign office spokesperson Muhammad Nafees Zakria in Islamabad, while replying to a question about the "arrest of Kashmiri students" at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, said that Kashmiris never accepted the unfair trial of 2013 parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. While pointing out that Pakistan has adequately and appropriately raised the Kashmir dispute at all international forums, Zakria said that Islamabad has repeatedly voiced concerns and condemned the incidents in which the Kashmiris of occupied valley were subjected to atrocities by the Indian troops. (ANI) With the telecom ministry launching the 'Freedom 251' mobile phone at Rs. 251, BJP MP Kirit Somaiya on Friday levelled serious allegation against the company, saying it is a 'ponzi bogus company scam'. "This is a huge scam, that is why I went through all the papers of the company. The government has informed Uttar Pradesh government to check the bonafide of the promoter. This is a Ponzi bogus company scam," Somaiya told ANI. The BJP MP has approached telecom ministry, telecom regulator TRAI, consumer ministry, Sebi, corporate ministry, finance ministry, RBI and state governments to check various concerns that he has on company offering mobile phone for Rs 251-- which is proving the world's cheapest smartphone. Noida-based company Ringing Bells on Thursday started booking for the phone for Rs 251 and has said that delivery of all handsets will be completed by June 30. The 3G handset, Freedom 251, features a 4-inch display, Qualcomm 1.3-GHz quad-core processor and 1 GB RAM, according to details shared by the company. The BJP MP had earlier written a letter to IT Miniser Ravi Shankar Prasad questioning the abnormalities in the company. Somaiya in his letter asked whether the objective and aim behind the offer had been studied. Has it been investigated if it is a collective investment scheme or a ponzi scheme, he enquired. He also questioned the background, the financial status, the owners of Ringing Bells Pvt Ltd, saying that he was "far from convinced" with the response given by Ashok Chadha, President of Ringing Bells. Chadha, in the defence of his company and product, had said that cost was brought down due to local assembling and online marketing. (ANI) The apex court also noted that it would not be appropriate in its precedence to hear the matter. The Supreme Court also asked the Government of India to provide ample security to Kanhaiya and his lawyer Vrinda Grover. Kanhaiya yesterday moved a petition before the apex court, seeking his release from police custody under Article 32 of the Constitution. Kanhaiya stated in the plea that he "fears for the safety of life and limb" at the Delhi sessions court that had compelled him to approach the apex court. Kanhaiya had said in his petition that there is repeated breakdown of law and order at the Patiala House Court despite directives of the apex court, making it impossible for him and his lawyers to approach the session's court for bail. (ANI) Umar Khalid's father Syed Qasim Ilyas on Friday expressed disappointment over his son being branded as a 'terrorist' because of his past and said it was extremely unfortunate that he was being singled out from among the ten organisers of the event at the JNU because he is a Muslim. Ilyas said that the court must decide whether his son is guilty. "I appeal through the media that Umar must surrender before the court," said Ilyas, who was a Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) member three decades ago, further said that his son was being branded as the chief organiser and mastermind because he is a Muslim. "He doesn't believe in Islam. He is an atheist and doesn't subscribe to our ideology, and you are branding him as the chief culprit, chief organiser and mastermind. What is this vocabulary," he asked. Stating that he doesn't subscribe to the slogans that have been raised in the JNU campus, Ilyas, "Who have raised these slogans? Let it be proved in the court of law. And, if it is seditious, let the law take its own course." "But the way the media trial is going on, it is very unfortunate. Will the media decide who is culprit, who is guilty and who is innocent? Has this authority been given to the media, don't we have a judicial system? From lower courts up to the Supreme Court, we have a very strong judicial system. Let the court decide, why we are becoming judgemental, why we are branding a person as terrorist," he asked. He said his son doesn't have even a passport, adding there is an allegation in the media that he had been to Pakistan. "As a father, I know that his total life is dedicated for the cause of the Dalit, tribal and poor. He got an offer to study abroad, but he refused as he did not want to move out of the country for the people here, and you are branding him as a terrorist," he rued. "How're you associating my past with SIMI to Umar Khalid? I retired from SIMI in 1985, and Umar was born after that," stated Ilyas. Convinced that he was the organiser of the event to mark the death anniversary of Afzal Guru on February 9 on the JNU campus leading to students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar's arrest, the Delhi Police is making all attempts to arrest him at the earliest. Umar, a native of Bihar, is a leader of Democratic Student's Union (DSU), an extreme Left group active in JNU. Even though he was born in a Muslim family, he identifies himself as an atheist. He is a PhD student at the School of Social Sciences at JNU. He also did his MA and MPhil from JNU and has been doing field work in Jharkhand. (ANI) Sanghiya Samajwadi Forum Nepal (SSFN) Chairman Upendra Yadav said such a visit is a futile exercise that would not benefit Nepal at all. "It would have been better if internal issues were resolved first before leaving for India," the Kathmandu Post quoted Yadav, as saying at an interaction with the media in Biratnagar before moving on to Rangeli to attend a programme on Thursday. "The concerns of Madhes have not been addressed yet and, I believe, visiting India at this juncture would not yield any meaningful result," he added. (ANI) The slogan-shouting student demonstrators were allied to Left parties and had the backing of the ruling Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), officials said. The Sampark Kranti Express was halted at Darbhanga station, Janki Express at Khagaria station and Jainagar Samastipur passenger train at Madhubani station, reports received here said. The other trains were stopped at different railway stations across the state. The students who took part in the protest were primarily from the All India Students Federation (AISF), All India Students Association (AISA) as well as Students Federation of India (SFI). Kanhaiya Kumar, who has been sentenced to judicial custody till March 2, is a member of the AISF, which is affiliated to the Communist Party of India (CPI). He belongs to Begusarai district in Bihar. Kanhaiya Kumar has been accused of raising anti-national slogans at an event on the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus in Delhi on February 9. He has denied the charge. --Indo-Asian News Service ik/mr ( 200 Words) 2016-02-19-13:27:33 (IANS) Two hardcore extremists of the banded NLFT surrendered at remote Gobindbari area about 250 kilometer from here to the Tripura police without any arms. They have deposited one very high frequency hand set, Bangladesh currency taka 450, one Money Receipt Book and other incriminating documents. Police sent them for interrogation to special branch last night. According to report, the militants were identified as Prasad Manik Halam (35) alias Manik Mairong and Kuklaijoy Tripura (26). Prasad was a self-styled sergeant and Kuklaijoy had been working at the field level action squad. Police said Mairong is a resident of Jarulian of Panisagar in North Tripura and Kuklaijoy, a resident of West Gobindabari under Chowmanu police station of Dhalai district in North Tripura. Both of them were accused of several attacks on civilians and security forces besides, collecting subscription for NLFT in recent years when the outfit lost ground in interior places due to withdrawal of support by the common tribals. DIGP (Northern Range), Khatrajoy Reang said, Prasad Manik Halam had joined NLFT in April 2000 and Kuklaijoy Tripura joined in the group in the month January 2014. UNI BB PL SV GC1343 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0211-597819.Xml Train services were thrown out of gear across Bihar today as Left wing students` organisations squatted on tracks demanding immediate release of Jawaharlal Nehru University Student Union(JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar who had been put behind bars on sedition charges. All India Students Federation (AISF) activists squatted on the tracks at Rajendra Nagar station here preventing Rajendra Nagar-Indore Expressto roll out from the station for nearly an hour. Agitators also raised slogans against the Narendra Modi government at the Centre in their protest against the arrest of Kanhaiya. Students associated with AISF and other Left wing organisations also disrupted the movement of Bihar Sampark Kranti Express at Darbhanga railway station for nearly half an hour. Train services resumed after the intervention of senior civil and police authorities.According to a report from Madhubani, students' organisationsdisrupted the movement of Jainagar-Samastipur passenger train atMadhubani railway station for more than half an hour. Activists of organisations stopped Janaki Express at Khagaria railway station.UNI DH PL SV GC1337 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0211-597949.Xml Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh who arrived in Koraput from Visakhapatnam, today reviewed the Left wing extremism situation in the Naxal-affected Koraput and Malkangiri districts with senior officials of the BSF,CRPF and the Odisha police. Mr Singh is on a day-long visit to the state and after reviewing the Naxal activities in the state bordering Andhra Pradesh in Koraput, he will arrive here in the evening to hold discussion with Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, State Chief Secretary A P Padhi, Home Secretary Asit Tripathy and DGP K B Singh at the state secretariat. The Union Home Minister, sources said, had a detailed discussion on the Maoist operation in Koraput and Malkangiri districts with top officials from the Odisha police, BSF and the CRPF. He mostly reviewed the anti Maoist operations going on in the state and advised the officials to seek inter state cooperation with the neighbouring states in combating the menace. Mr Singh has appealed to the Maoists to shun violence and join the mainstream. The government,he said, was ready to hold talks with them and the Red rebels should avail of the benefits of various developmental schemes launched by the Union government. Home Secretary Asit Tripathy, Director General of BSF K K Sharma, DG, CRPF, K Durga Prasad, Odisha DGP K B Singh, IG (Operations) Soumendra Priyadarshi and Director Intelligence Sunil Roy, besides other senior officials were present at the review meeting.The SPs of Koraput and Malkangiri districts were also present at the meeting. UNI DP PL SV AS1401 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0211-598018.Xml The notice issued by a division bench comprising Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar and Justice C Nagappan, are returnable within six weeks. Appearing on behalf of the respondent actor senior counsel Kapil Sibal told the about how the trial court had erred in convicting the actor in the case as the whole testimony was based on the deposition of one person, which cannot be relied upon. Sibal told the SC that there was no other evidence before the trial court to convict Salman Khanin the case. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the Maharashtra government, made rejoinder sayingbesides the sole witness being pointed to by Sibal, there were other witnesses as well at the accident spot who saw Khan in the driver's seat of the vehicle that ran over a group of people sleeping on a pavement, killing one person and injuring four others.MORE UNI XC-SHS SS 1414 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0089-598065.Xml University Vice-chancellor Dr Devanand Shinde said here today that total 52160 students will be presented degrees from which total 24360 degrees will present in person on the function day while remaining will be posted at the respective students home address later. He said Ms Priyanka Patil and Ms Madhavi Pandit has been selected for president's gold medal and chancellors medal for their general skill and for received highest marks for Sanskrit subject in M A syllabus. Total 301 students will be confirmed by PhD degree while 93 students will be awarded by different prizes in this function, Dr Shinde said and added that out of total 52160 students including 27800 girls students, from Arts faculty 6800 students, Social Science- 8626, Science-9224, Law-957, Medicine-20, Commerce-11287,Education-3308, Engineering-11832 and Ayurvedic and Homeopathic-9 students wil be presented degrees. UNI SSS SM SHS AS1419 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0171-597906.Xml Alekha Behera (40), the farmer, consumed poison on Tuesday night. He was first rushed to the District Headquarters Hospital here and then referred to the SCB Medical College and Hospital Cuttack.But the farmer died on Wednesday. Susama, the widow of the deceased farmer, said her husband had taken Rs 60,000 loan from the Union Bank of India and Bank of India of Kendrapara branch for agriculture purpose. But he failed to pay back the money due to crop loss. He took the extreme step when the banks issued notice for the loan repayment. Some villagers staged a dharana carrying the body in front of the Collectorate yesterday demanding Rs 15 lakh as compensation to the deceased family . The villagers withdrew their agitation after the district administration provided Rs 10,000 from District Red Cross and asked the Sarpanch to provide Rs 2 ,000 under Harish Chandra Yojana to the deceaseds family for organizing the funeral. The district administration also assured to provide financial assistance to the deceaseds family from the chief minister's relief fund and to conduct a joint inquiry on alleged crop loss by the Deputy director of Agriculture and tehsildar of Kendrapara very soon. UNI XC BD PL SW GC1435 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0211-598067.Xml Security forces burst teargas shells and resorted to repeated lathicharge to disperse demonstrators, raising ''pro freedom slogans and waiving Pakistani flags'' in the Shehar-e-Khas (SeK) here this afternoon. The demonstrators were also waiving flags thanking the students and teachers of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) for supporting them. The trouble started immediately after Friday prayers were over in the historic Jamia Masjid and other mosques in the down town and SeK. Large number of people, mostly youths, raising slogans marched upto Nowhatta chowk, where security forces and state police personnel stopped them. However, when the demonstrators insisted that they should be allowed to go ahead, security forces resorted to lathicharge and later burst teargas shells. Traffic in the area was also diverted through other routes.UNI BAS DS GC1606 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0135-598298.Xml News Story not available This story has been published on: 2022-10-21. To contact the author, please use the contact details within the article. This story is no longer available on our site. deploy the forces in the interior pockets of the district and on Andhra Orrissa Border(AOB) areas. During the detailed review meeting yesterday with the Union Home Minister, the state police requested him exempt the height factor to take tribal community into the security forces deployed for anti- naxal.operations, Andhra Pradesh Director General Police DGP Ramudu said. He said t AP Cops had arrested 15 naxal leaders in the past one year including a central committee and a state committee leader. Mr Ramulu said he urged the home minister to involve police force in developmental activities of the ITDA, Health and Education wings. He also requested Rajnath Singh to take necessary action in bifurcating the police force of APSP around 20,000. Due severe shortage of forces, He said naxals have been using the Bauxite mining and Polavaram project issues only for their existence and presently there were only 150 armed naxals in the state, besides the militia members network. UNI BSR VV ADB1619 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0415-598289.Xml Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh today presented a budget estimate of Rs 10518 crore for 2016-17 in the assembly. Mr Ibobi, who also holds the Finance portfolio, said the total receipts is estimated at Rs. 10499.83 crores, out of which revenue receipts are estimated at Rs.9367.71 crores and capital receipts at Rs. 1132.12 crores. The Budget Estimates for 2015-16 had placed the total expenditure at Rs. 9728.61 crores. This has been revised to Rs 10293.03 crores showing an increase of Rs.564.42 crores. On the Non-Plan side, there is an addition of Rs. 101.47 crores in the Revised Estimates over the Budget Estimates of Rs.5576.30 crores mainly on account of increase in the expenditure on salaries and pensions due to payment of additional doses of DA/DR during the year. The state plan outlay has been finalised in the light of challenges posed by restructuring of Central assistance to State Plan and the 14th Finance Commission's recommendations. The state has witnessed rapid growth in the infrastructure sectors in the areas of power, road connectivity, administrative infrastructure, health, irrigation, information technology, tourism, infrastructure in hills, and water supply, he said. A total of 3.50 lakh electric prepaid meters will be installed so that majority of the consumers are brought under the efficient collection systems he said. An amount of Rs.33.67 crores has been provided for Infrastructure Development for Destination and Circuit at different tourist centres, and adequate allocation has been made for providing tourism infrastructure in and around Imphal City. Adequate allocation has been made for setting up of Cultural University, construction of cultural complex at Palace Compound, and for setting up of the Manipur Film Institute. Due importance has also been accorded to all round development and reducing regional imbalance between hill and valley. A number of important projects have been taken up with fund under NLCPR and NEC. Under NEC, installation of 2x20 MVA, 132 KV Sub-station along with associated lines 85 related works at Thoubal, Installation of 2X5 MVA, 33 KV Sub-station along with lines and related works at Mayangkhang, Mao and Senapati, Improvement of Bishnupur- Nungba road, Improvement of Tamenglong -Tamei road, Kangpokpi-Tamei road, Composite Water Supply scheme for Mualnuam & Songtal of Churachandpur district have been taken up. Under NLCPR, we are implementing several projects in the areas of health, education, roads 85 bridges, power, water supply and specific infrastructure projects in hills. With the assistance of Rs 1536.24 crore under NLCPR from the Ministry of DoNER, the state has taken up 163 projects of which 110 projects costing Rs 767.35 crore are completed. Remaining 53 projects are in good progress with the balance of fund amounting to Rs 768.90 crore. Most of the projects taken up under NLCPR are located in the hill districts. informed the assembly today that the Union Government has made far reaching changes in terms of the composition and quantum of flow of Central assistance to State Plan in the recent past. 'The 14th Finance Commission's recommendations for our State were far behind our expectations. To worsen our plight further, the Union Government has virtually done away with the concept of Special Category States. These measures have led to gross reduction in resources for development in states like Manipur. Thus the State is facing serious challenge on the fiscal management front. Such acute fiscal imbalance has a cascading effect on the state's finances and could jeopardize growth and development he added. He said the state had faced similar crisis from 2000 to 2004, when even the monthly salaries of Government employees could not be disbursed in time,' he told the members. The State's own resources comprise only 9 per cent of the total revenue receipts, while the remaining comes through Central transfers in the form of Grant-in-Aid and State's share in Central Taxes. On the other hand, the State Government has huge committed expenditure liabilities. On an average about 50 per cent of Revenue Receipts are marked for meeting commitments towards salary, pensions and interest payments, out of necessity. Of this, salary alone constitutes about 33 per cent of Revenue receipt. Clearly, while the resources of the State are limited with limitation on enhancing our tax base, there are huge expenditure liabilities, mostly recurring and unavoidable in nature leaving us with very little resources for investment in development infrastructure, he said.UNI NS PL JW AS1616 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0211-598170.Xml Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Chandrasekha, who is also a Member of the Standing Committee on Defence, Consultative Committee on Defence and the Central Advisory Committee for the National Cadet Corps, visited Western Command headquarters today. The MP was felicitated by Army Commander Lt Gen K J Singh with the GOC-in-C Commendation Card. Mr Chandrasekhar addressed all officers of Western Command headquarters on security challenges being faced by the Nation. Mr Chandrasekhar was born at Ahmedabad to Air Commodore M K Chandrasekhar and Ms Valli Chandrasekhar while his family originally hails from Kerala. An alumnus of Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, he founded BPL Mobile, a major mobile phone service provider. Currently he is serving a second six year term as an independent member of the Rajya Sabha since April 2012. The Army Commander lauded the efforts of the MP in actively pursuing various defence issues including welfare of the veterans at the national level and thanked him for the same. In the recent past, Western Command headquarters has recongnised the efforts and felicitated various civilians who have been actively involved in ensuring security of the nation in one way or the other as also those eminent citizens who are pursuing welfare of the defence veterans. Some of the citizens who have been recently honoured include Mr A Kumar of the 'Jagruk Hindustani fame, Maj N Dhanpalan, retd, Maj Navdeep Singh retd, Mr Narayan Ujjwal and Gatemen Darshan Kumar and Satpal of Indian Railways who had detected Improvised Explosive Devices on the railway bridge near Dinanagar, Punjab on July 27, 2015.UNI DB SW AS1634 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-598330.Xml Ten houses, six belonging to CPI(M) and four to BJP activists were attacked at Ellaththazhe and Vayalalam , near Thalassery on late last night and again early today. Tension prevailed at Thalassery and nearby areas for the last three days prior to the attack.. District Police Chief P Harishankar led team was camping at Thalassery and about 500 policemen were also deployed in sensitive areas in Thalassery. The situation was, however, brought under control. Police also decided to instal an helicamera at nearby places of Manolikavu and Jagannatha temple to monitor the situation as the temple festivals were on. According to police, four BJP workers houses came under bomb attacks late last night, However no one was injured. The BJP alleged that CPI(M) was behind the bomb attacks. Meanwhile, six CPI(M) activists' houses also came under attack allegdly by BJP activists who barged into the house of Sadhanadhan, CPI(M) Manolikadavu branch Secretary, and damaged the doors, windows and furniture. However, no one was injured. On February 17, country bombs were hurled at Jaganatha Mandiram Seva Kendram temple gat. This is run by RSS, and at the residence of a BJP worker Subramaniam at Ellath thazhe near Thalassery allegedly by CPI(M) workers. The compound wall of the house of CPI(M) local Secretary V K Surendran's house at Ellaththaze came undder bomb attack on February 18 night allegedly by BJP workers. UNI AK VV ADB1730 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0324-598521.Xml During her visit, she will participate in the two-day 'Mahotsavam' ofBrahmasthanam Temple at Mata Amritanandamayi mutt in Chennai. According to a press release, the two-day spiritual programme would include Ammas Satsang, bhajan, guided meditation and darshan for the devotees. The Lalita Sahasranama archana and special poojas would also be performed during her visit. From Chennai she would visit Devakottai on February 23, Madurai on February 25 and Kanniyakumari the next day. Since tens and hundreds of devotees were expected to participate in the spiritual programme, elaborate arrangements were being made at the venue for the smooth conduct of the event. As part of her tour to Tamil Nadu, the spiritual leader had already visited Coimbatore, Tiruchi and Puducherry.UNI GV VV ADB1716 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0415-598420.Xml : Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee(TPCC) hasdecided to wage a legal battle against "illegal tenders" called by the State Government for 'Palamuru Ranga Reddy Lift Irrigation Scheme'. Talking to newspersons here today, TPCC President N. Uttam Kumar Reddy described the entire tender process as farce. The tenders, which closes tomorrow, were manipulated, with the TRS Government imposing severe restriction bidding process to award the works to some favoured companies, he alleged. Mr Reddy said the State would lose 25-30 per cent of public money, if the tenders are allotted to the companies through the present illegal route, created by the TRS Government. The TPCC chief said the Congress would convene an all party meeting on the issue and explore legal means to expose the entire scam, which is worth more than Rs. 3,000 crore in Palamuru Scheme alone. He also nformed that tenders worth Rs. 29,333 crore for 18 packages of Palamuru Ranga Reddy Lift Irrigation Scheme were invited in complete violation of the rules and set-norms. Never heard before restrictions were imposed so as to prevent global and national companies from participating in the tender process, he said,adding, "It never happened in the past that CDR companies were prohibited from participating in Irrigation Department tenders in united Andhra Pradesh. International and national companies were barred from the tender process on thecondition that they must be registered in Hyderabad." Mr Reddy said, further, number of technical restrictions, such as, earlier experience of embankment works and revermen, among others, were imposed. This was done only to ensure that favoured companies get the works," he said, while alleging that TRS leaders were receiving huge kickbacks by doing so.MORE UNI VV KVV ADB 1825 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0415-598438.Xml A Government Order, according an administrative sanction of Rs 3.27 crore for appointing a consultative firm to implement the Athikadavu-Avinashi Flood Canal project, has been issued by the Tamil Nadu Government. Intervening during the debate on the interim budget in the State Assembly today, Finance Minister O Panneerselvam said with a view to starting the preliminary works under the project, the GO was issued yesterday. As per the GO, which has accorded administrative sanction for Rs 3.27 crore, a consultative firm would be appointed to get necessary approvals and clearancesfrom the Union Environment and Forests Ministry to take up preliminary works under the project, take up ground level visits for land acquisition and prepare documents for the project. Besides, the GO has directed the Chief Engineer of the Water Resources Department (Planning) to prepare a Detailed Project Report and submit it to the Government, Mr Panneerselvam said. While presenting the budget on February 16, theMinister said preliminary works on the Athikadavu-Avinashi Flood Canal Project, would commence immediately on the orders of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and that a revised project proposal would be sent to the Centre. Mr Panneerselvam said a Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the Project was prepared in 2011 at a cost of Rs.1,862 crores. ''This project envisages a diversion of flood surplus of 2,000 cusecs from the Bhavani River at Pillur to 31 Water Resources Department Tanks, 40 Panchayat Union Tanks and 538 Ponds in Coimbatore, Tiruppur and Erode Districts'', he said. Mr Panneerselvam said the report was sent to the Union Government for assistance. Though the then UPA Government at the Centre did not approve this project, Ms Jayalalithaa has ordered implementation of the Athikadavu-Avinashi scheme as an irrigation, ground water recharge and drinking water scheme forthwith. ''Accordingly, a revised proposal will be sent to theGovernment of India immediately and in the meanwhile preliminary works will commence at once'', he added.UNI GV VV ADB1720 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0415-598504.Xml Mizoram Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs Minister John Rotluangliana today dismissed reports on social media that some villages in remote southern parts of Mizoram have faced acute scarcity of food. There are reports on social media that some villages have been facing acute scarcity of food and people go to the forest in search of food. We have confirmed that there are no such incidents, Ms Rotluangliana said during the weekly session of Congress party at the Congress Bhavan here. However, the Minister admitted that fair price shops in some remote villages have run out of rice stock, which has been resulted by the preparations for implementation of the Food Security Act. The Food Security Act will be launched in Mizoram on February 24 by the chief minister. However, the actual implementation of the FSA was scheduled to commence from March as the Food Corporation of India (FCI) would issue the rice allotment only on March one, he said. He said over 7.06 lakh families in the state would be covered by the FSA where each family would receive 40 kg of rice at the rate of Rs 3 per kg. As of now, the AAP and BPL families purchased rice at the rate of Rs 6 per kg, he said, adding that the state consumers commission would look after implementation of the FSA without constitution a new FSA commission.UNI ZS AKM SW SB1748 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0213-598514.Xml The Karnataka High Court today orderedissue of notices to the State government on holding 'Kambala' event. Admitting a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by People forthe Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India seeking an end toKambala, the court issued notices also to other respondents in thePIL including the Animal Welfare Board of India and DistrictCommittees of Kambala in Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts. Senior advocate for the petitioner Mr Anand Grover argued thatthe Ministry of Animal Husbandry & Fisheries, Government ofKarnataka on December 17-2015 issued an order permitting Kambalaevents despite a 2014 Supreme Court judgement that categoricallyheld that such events are inherently cruel, violate the Preventionof Cruelty to Animal Act, 1960 and hence cannot be allowed. "Buffalo bulls are forced to run in Kambala events through theinfliction of fear and pain. India's Supreme Court has alreadyconfirmed that such events are inherently cruel," PETA IndiaDirector of Veterinary Affairs Dr Manilal Valliyate said in arelease here. "PETA will continue the fight to protect the bulls from abuse andwe are hopeful that justice to these animals will be served, asevents involving cruelty to animals have no place in civilisedsociety," he added. 65 non-cognisable offence complaints and one FIR were filed atjust three events inspected by Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI)during 2014-15 Kambala events. The AWBI inspection reports contain ascientific assessment of the welfare of buffaloes when they areforced to participate in Kambala events. The reports further pointsout different forms of cruelty inflicted on the animals withphotographic evidences, such as being subjected to verbal andphysical force including shouting, hitting with hands, slapping onface, violent pulling of thick nose ropes (in some cases 2-3 noseropes inserted through the same hole in the nasal septum), roughhandling by pushing and pulling the animal, overpowering, tailpulling, and restricting the movements of the head using a woodenpole tied to the horns of both the animals. Many of the buffalo whofinished the race frothed at the mouth, salivated heavily anddisplayed increased respiration rates, establishing that buffalosare anatomically unfit for running.UNI MSP VV ADB1732 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0284-598474.Xml Amritsar Vikas Manch patron Charanjit Singh Gumtala has demanded the date bound closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras project to curb rising crimes in the city. He said the project was supposed to be completed by 2011 end but five have passed nothing has been done. In a letter to Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, Mr Gumtala reminded him that this prestigious project was announced by then Lok Sabha MP Navjot Singh Sidhu in June 2011 and Amritsar Improvement Trust (AIT) was supposed to fund it but nothing happened. Moreover to make Amritsar a "safe city", Deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal also endorsed this project prior to 2012 Assembly elections and during 2014 Lok elections, he added. In annual budget 2014, Finance Minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa kept a provision of Rs 150 crore for making Amritsar and Ludhiana as 'safe cities' by installing over 1,000 CCTV cameras on the pattern of New York by deploying the latest and most sophisticated crime-prevention technology solutions. The same project was part of his earlier budget speech in 2013. Last year on June 17, a letter was written to the chief minister regarding the project. In reply to this letter Amritsar police commissioner stated on July 22, 2015 that a survey has been done by the Pride and Water Kupar Company and efforts are being made to start this project earliest, but nothing has been done. According to the plan a total of 1,577 cameras would be installed at 432 points in the city. Some major key locations identified by the police include Gumtala bypass, Chheharta Chowk, Fatehgarh Churian road bypass chowk, GNDU chowk, Putlighar chowk, Bus stand, Railway station, T-point Daburjee bypass, T-point Vallah bypass, Verka bypass, T-point Ram Tirath road, Majitha road bypass, besides inside city locations.UNI XC DS SW SB1730 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-598281.Xml The Jats were seeking reservation in government jobs under the OBC category. According to reports, Haryana Finance Minister Capt Abhimanyu's residence was attacked by the protesters though the Minister was not present there. The BSF opened fire on protesters when they tried to enter the residence of Rohtak range IG on the Rohtak-Delhi road. One protester was reportedly killed and several others injured in the firing. Later, the agitators attacked the residence of Capt Abhimanyu and tried to set ablaze the premises of the Minister situated near the IGs residence.More UNI NC RKS SW 1730 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-598547.Xml Minister of State for Ayush and Health & Family Welfare Shripad Yesso Naik today directed states to build a strong regulatory framework and quality control system to check sale of sub-standard Ayush medicines in the market.Underlining the need for a strong mechanism, Mr Naik urged the states to avail financial support under National Ayush Mission (NAM) for improving infrastructural and functional capacity of the public pharmacies, drugs testing laboratories, regulatory set ups and for engaging technical experts and testing of drugs as well.Inaugurating the second Conference of Health/Ayush Ministers of States/UTs organised by the Ayush ministry here, he expressed concern over poor quality control and wanted training to be imparted to experts posted for licensing and quality control work of Ayush drugs.He told the participants that the Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (Ayush) sector had done well over the past year, including the enthusiastic celebration of the first International Day of Yoga which was able to set two Guinness world records. This year too, the International Day of Yoga will be celebrated on a grand scale. MORE UNI SD AJ SW 1825 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0005-598691.Xml Vijay Rupani, close to both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah, was today unanimously elected as the president of Gujarat BJP. A legislator from Rajkot (West) and Cabinet minister in Anandiben Patel government, Mr Rupani, was unanimously elected on Vijay Muhurat at 1239 hrs amid chanting of shlokas at the state party headquarters Kamalam here. Mr Rupani took over as the 10th party president of Gujarat BJP amidst difficult times as the party recently lost its stranglehold over rural Gujarat, losing majority of taluka and district panchayats to Opposition Congress after a gap of 20 years. The defeat in rural Gujarat also came in less than two years of making a clean sweep in all the 26 Parliamentary seats. The party is also struggling hard to keep its traditional Patel vote back intact. A section of Patels have been on agitation since July last seeking quotas in government jobs and educational institutions on par with OBCs. This also saw OBCs come out in open opposing any move to dilute reservations. It is this quandary that had delayed appointment of new state party chief. The BJP did not want to antagonise both these dominant communities by appointing a party president from either side. It is believed that as a compromise, Mr Rupani, who is a Jain vanik, has been chosen to take over. The other key factor that helped Mr Rupani get party presidentship is his loyalty to the top leadership in the party. He is considered close to the Prime Minister and Mr Shah for a long time. Mr Rupani began his innings as a student wing activist of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Parishad. He first became a councillor in Rajkot Municipal Corporation in 1987, rising to become Mayor of Rajkot in 1996. He was also the head of 20-point implementation panel during Keshubhai Patels regime in the state before taking over as party general secretary and chairman of Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Limited between 2006 to 2012. He contested a bypoll from Rajkot West Assembly segment in 2015 and joined Anandiben Patel government as minister of surface transport. The next big challenge to face Mr Rupani would be to win over rural Gujarat to its side and trounce Opposition in 2017 Assembly polls. Though his challenges are more at regional level, he hinted at his future strategy by invoking Shivaji and one of the founding fathers of RSS Guru Golwalkar on their birth anniversary as well as raising national issues. "Ayodhya mein Ram, Yuvano ko kaam aur Kisano ko sahi daam (Ram Temple in Ayodhya, jobs for youth and right price to farmers) has been BJP's guiding force," He said soon after taking over as BJP president in the state. He also hit out at opposition Congress on its role in JNU by saying that a war has begun between 'nationalists' and 'anti-nationals'. UNI ND JW SW 1855 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0364-598820.Xml OMitra, Indias first rail social app, incubated at the International Institute for Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad has introduced an all new food ordering facility for the travellers of our Indian Rail Network. The app, which can be downloaded on android mobile platform, was earlier launched, keeping in mind, various requirements for a train traveller and also acted as a networking platform for the travellers on a particular train. Adding to their kitty of services, the food delivery option will be provided in the app, so that the travellers can choose their favourite cuisine and order it from any specific station en-route, a statement said here today. The app has collaborated with six major food suppliers that cater to the railwaysand have a selection of over 2800+ dishes with different cuisines made at over 650 different restaurants across 300+ stations in India, allowing users to eat what they want and wherever they want. These food suppliers include TravelKhana, KhanaGadi, RailRestro, TrainMeals, TravelersFood, Express food Service. We always wanted to give the traveller a comfortable travel experience without the need to worry about requirements like food. There are incidents we have come across, where people go hungry, because unable to find food to their liking ordownright, unable to place their orders. Such instances gave us the vision to add food services to our existing app. Now travellers need not worry about the food and can order any cuisine of their choice OMityra Co-Founder Vikas Jagetiya said. The app is quite user-friendly and the traveller just needs to input his PNR number and a route map is instantly downloaded and stored offline along with all the food catering options available along that route. Using the App, during his trip, the user can browse through a huge selection of food items [both veg/non-veg] and place his order to be picked up from any station of his choice. During the journey, even if a user is in a region that does not support mobile internet, the App has a built-in-functionality that will push a SMS and place the food order.UNI VV KVV ADB 1755 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0415-598603.Xml The new daily bus service was flagged off to Trivandrum from the Koyambedu Mofussil New Bus Terminus in the city. A cake was cut to mark the occasion and was distributed to the passengers. A company release here said the bus would leave Chennai at 1830 hrs and reach Trivandrum the next day at 0700 hrsafter travelling via Tirunelveli, Nagercoil and Marthandam. The bus was especially launched with the aim of enhancingcustomer experience and to provide the best possible premium journey at affordable rates. The launch of premium snooze bus services comes in thebackdrop of the launch of its elite Bus service between Chennai and Bangalore under the company's Go Green Initiative. Under the initiative, the company would donate a sapling for every passenger travelling in the Green Bus.UNI GV VV ADB1756 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0415-598644.Xml The autopsy on the body of IPS officer N Harish, who was found dead under mysterious circumstances at the Police Officers Mess in the city, was conducted today, even as the police did not rule out suicide theory into his death. "The post mortem was conducted on his body today and the whole process was video-graphed", police sources said, adding, the exact reason for the cause of his death would be known after the receipt of the autopsy report. The investigating team was probing all angles, including the possible suicide, into the death of the 2009 batch IPS officer, a native of Karnataka, and posted in Tamil Nadu. While preliminary inquiries revealed that Harish might have consumed excessive alcohol resulting in his death, his family members termed the death as natural and would have caused due to a cardiac arrest. Since the police found some anti-depression tables, they suspect that he mighthave consumed the pills along with the alcohol. Attributing heart attack as the reason for his son's death, Harish's father N Nagaraj, who spoke to the media here, said his son was brave person and there was no possibility of him taking the extreme step. The 32-year old Harish, who was transferred from Madurai to Chennai and posted in Vigilance department as ASP, was staying at the Officer's mess where he was found dead. The sources, Mr Harish was appointed directly to the IPS cadre and was awaiitng his promotion as Superintendent of Police. UNI GV VV ADB1815 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0415-598713.Xml Senior Superintendent of Police Diljinder Singh said police had arrested Arjun , a resident of Batala and Heera, a resident of Kalia village near, after a brief encounter while their accomplice Gurpreet Singh Ladi, a resident of Sherkhan village in Gerozepur district was taken into the custody after he was injured with his own bullet , He said Arjun and Heera was handed over to Nawan Shehar police while their accomplice was admitted to a private hospital and would be handed over to Nawan Shehar when he declared fit. Two US made pistols and 15 cartridges were recovered from them.UNI XC SW VN1853 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-598760.Xml Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Gurpreet Ghuggi today criticised BJP MP Gopal Shetty for his statement that the farmers do not commit suicide due to unemployment and starvation but a fashion and trend of killing themselves is going on. Disapproving the statement, the AAP leader, said that whatever said is so insensitive and shows MP and his Partys real face on farmers issues. "If committing suicide is in fashion then why do not BJP leader and his family follow the trend?" Mr Ghuggi asked. He said at a time when in Maharashtra 124 farmers have committed suicide in the first 46 days of 2016, this type of statement is even distressing for the families of the deceased farmers. The AAP leader also criticised BJP-Akali alliance government in Punjab for not paying heed to the farmers issues in the state. "Farmers in the state are under debt and are taking extreme steps of committing suicides and Sukhbir (Deputy Chief Ministger Sukhbir Singh Badal) is talking about launching 4G net in Punjab," he said. He said Mr Badal should come out of Fools paradise and concentrate on fulfilling the basic needs of the people rather that making tall claims. Mr Ghuggi said there is no use of Digital India programme initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi since the Food provider is dying of starvation. He also slammed so called Masiha of Farmers Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal for maintaining silence over the bilious statement of his ally party MP.UNI DB SW AS1858 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-598781.Xml The late last night incident is the fifth in the past six months and Pakistani marines have captured more than 35 Indian fishing boats and over 225 fishermen. According National Fish Workers Forum secretary Manish Lodhari, the seven boats captured by the Pakistani marine, six are from Okha port and one from Porbandar. He expressed fear that many more boats might have been captured than reported so far. Pakistan marines had captured two Indian fishing boats and 12 fishermen on January 7, half a dozen boats and more than 50 fishermen on January 25, ten boats and 68 fishermen on December 20 and over a dozen boats and 60 fishermen in October last year. UNI ND JW SW 1910 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0364-598912.Xml Speaking after laying the foundation stone for new facility of Cyient IT company, the minister said the state was poised to make further growth in the IT sector in the coming years. Mr Rao said two reputed IT companies would set-up their units in Nizamabad and Karimnagar, the two-tier IT hubs, in the near future.. Many IT companies were also setting up units in Warangal because of availability of quality human resource in the town, the minister said, adding, in the next 18 months Warangal was expected to generate employment for 1,000 people in the sector. NASSCOM Chairman and Cyient Founder Chairman Mohan Reddy said the company would take steps for the government schools in Warangal to provide corporate schools-type education to the children. UNI SMS KVV ADB 2040 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0415-599071.Xml The Centre is reviving the Integrated Action Plan (IAP) for the development of the tribal dominated and Naxal dominated areas in the country, Union Minister for Home Rajnath Singh said here today. The IAP is one of the eight central schemes scrapped by the central government last year Mr Singh who reviewed the Left Wing Extremist situation in Odisha with Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at the state secretariat here later told mediapersons that there was a lot of progressive improvement in the security situation in the LWE front in the state. The Union Home Minister arrived in Koraput from Visakhapatnam in the morning and review the LWE in Koraput and Malkangiri district with the senior officials of the BSF, CRPF and the Odisha Police. Mr Singh said the Union government is ready to hold dialogue with the Moists if they give up arms and shun violence adding that there was no room for violence in a healthy democracy. The Union Minister appealed to the Maoists to shun violence ,join the mainstream and help in building a prosperous India under the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mr Singh said he had assured Mr Patnaik to provide maximum possible assistance to the state available under the provisions of the central government to counter the Maoist activities. He said the Centre had launched schemes to provide social security to the poorest of the poor in the country and to empower them economically. Mr Patnaik said mainly three demands were put before the Union Minister by the state during the meeting. The state government demanded the Union Minister to provide two more battalions of central forces for the Odisha-Chhatisgarh border to combat extremists and provide financial assistance for the Phailin cyclone pending since long and drought assistance announced by the Union government. The central government had announced to provide Rs 815 crore drought assistance from the National Disaster Response fund but was later slashed by more than Rs 200 crore. Mr Singh said he had talked to the Union Secretary and said the amount announced by the Centre would be provided to the state after the Supplementary budget. The Chief Minister demanded the Union government to declare the districts of central Odisha through which the Maoist corridor from Jharkhand to Andhra Pradesh passes as Maoist dominated districts. He also demanded funds for the Gurupriya bridge constructed in the Maoist infested Malkangiri district, and improve telecommunication network and banking services in Maoist affeceted areas.UNI BD-DP KK PY SW VN2007 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0212-598982.Xml Appealing to the Jat protestors in Haryana to maintain calm and order, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday said that no problem can be solved through violence. "Have found out about the death an individual in the firing that occurred and offer my condolences to the family of the victim. I humbly request to all my brothers and sisters in Haryana to calm and order in the state," Rajnath told ANI. Asserting that a solution needs to be found through dialogue in a democracy, he added that nothing can be solved through violence. Meanwhile, shoot at sight orders have been issued in Rohtak and Bhiwani in Haryana after curfew was imposed in both cities on Friday, following violent protests by the Jat community demanding reservation under the Other Backward Classes (OBC). Earlier, the government rushed Army troops to nine locations in the state, including Rohtak, Jind, Jhajjar, Bhiwani, Hissar, Kaithal, Sonepat, Panipat and Karnal. The Army, which will help the district administration to contain the situation, has already left their bases in Jaipur and Hissar. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had earlier in the day appealed to agitators to maintain law and order and a peaceful atmosphere in the state while chairing an all party meet to discuss the ongoing Jats reservation strike in Jhajjar and Rohtak. The pro-reservation protests by Jats in Haryana had turned violent on Thursday, with several people being injured and reports of clashes between protesters and police personnel in Rohtak. (ANI) In a bid to promote Odisha Tourism and attract more tourists from Western part of the country Odisha Tourism & Culture Minister Ashok Chandra Panda has urged for Ahemmadabad-Bhubaneswar Air connectivity. Addressing 'Vibrant Gujarat', an International level Tourism Mart in Ahmedabad today, Mr Panda said Odisha located in the eastern part of Indian subcontinent, is one of the most gifted states in India from tourism view point. The temples, monuments, lakes , lagoons, forest , wildlife, beaches and riverines,dance and music, handlooms, handicrafts, rich tribal , Buddhist heritage of Odisha attract visitors and tourists.The state capital in Odisha has topped the list of 120 cities in the country to be adopted under the smart city programmes, Mr.Panda said and claimed that the Tourist arrival to Odisha is growing at a rate of 8 per cent. The Domestic Tourist arrival in 2014 was 108,62,048 tourists with a growth rate of 10.08 per cent as compared to 2013. Similarly, the Foreign Tourist arrival to the state in 2014 was 71426 with a growth rate of 7.13 per cent over 2013. The Minister further said as per the Toruism Policy, which have been launched in 2013, High level Committees at different levels have been formed for speedy and single window clearances of tourism related projects on a fast track basis.He said the Buddhist Circuits of Odisha as a niche product is very important for the state and country and to project it internationally, Odisha Tourism is organising International conference on Buddhism each year and inviting Scholars and Tour Operators from abroad. To give a major boost to this sector, Air India has started Direct Air Connectivity from Bhubaneswar to Varanasi for giving an opportunity to the Buddhist tourists to have a glimpse of the rich Buddhist heritage of Odisha. Odisha tourism, he further said, is organising Road shows within the country in different cities to attract large bulk of domestic tourists to Odisha and this year asd many as 10 Road shows have been lined up. UN BD-DP KK AJ 0006 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0212-599165.Xml Lt. Gen. Praveen Bakshi, GOC-in-C Eastern Command, awarded gallantry and meritorious service medals to Army personnel at an impressive and solemn Investiture ceremony here today. According to a defence release over the last one year the Command has acquitted itself commendably well in internal security and counter-insurgency operations and has extended invaluable aid to civil authorities in disaster management. Eastern Command is responsible for some of the most challenging and difficult terrain in the country with its soldiers deployed from super high altitudes up to 19,000 feet and the dense and impenetrable jungles of Nagaland and Manipur. On the occasion, 16 units received the Army Commanders Unit Citations for exemplary work and devotion to their tasks while deployed in Eastern Command. Earlier five units of Eastern Command were awarded Chief of Army Staff Citation at the Army Day Parade on 15 January last. Three Yudh Seva Medals and 21 Sena Medals (Gallantry) were awarded. Out of these, three jawans made the supreme sacrifice during operations and were given the award posthumously. Awards of Hav Durna Kanta Doley of 44 Assam Rifles and NK Damodar Thapa of 3/1 Gorkha Rifles were received by their wives and that of Rifleman T Gokil Singh of 13 Assam Rifles by his mother. The tradition of putting ones life in danger for the sake of the Nation continues to remain strong in the India Army. Amongst todays gallantry award winners this tradition has been conspicuous and prominent amongst them stands Rifleman T Gokil Singh of 13 Assam Rifles. On 21 May 2014 during a routine night patrol his party had stopped a Bolero pickup vehicle for checking. Two of the terrorists opened indiscriminate fire while stepping out of the vehicle which hit Rifleman T Gokil Singh in his abdomen. Unmindful of his injury the young soldier displayed conspicuous bravery by firing back accurately killing one Zeliangrong United Front cadre on the spot and blocking the escape of three others resulting in subsequent apprehension. The gallant soldier breathed his last while being evacuated to hospital. He was just 21 yrs old. His award of Sena Medal (Gallantry) was received by his mother. On the occasion four Sena Medals (Distinguished) & 11 Vishisht Seva Medals were also awarded for distinguished service. 13 civilians including two women who had assisted the Army in carrying out its task under the most challenging circumstances were also felicitated on the occasion. Out of the 21 gallantry awards given today nine were awarded to JCOs and other ranks. Assam Rifles were awarded nine gallantry awards indicating their invaluable contribution to internal security in the North East. Lt Gen Praveen Bakshi, Eastern Army Commander, interacted with award winners and their families and acknowledged their contribution towards maintaining the highest standards of professionalism as exemplified by the Indian Army, the release said. UNI AS KK AJ -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0212-599225.Xml Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) senior leader and national spokesperson Sanjay Singh will appear in Ludhiana court tomorrow in a case pertaining to defamation filed by Punjab Revenue Minister Bikram Singh Majithia for calling him a drug lord.The AAP leader, who appeared in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) Bikramdeep Singh in Ludhiana on February 8 on his own without even receiving the summons, was granted bail after he furnished a bond of Rs 50,000. Mr Majithia had filed a criminal defamation suit against Sanjay Singh on January 16 for calling him a drug lord. The Minister, however, did not appear in the court on February 8.Majithia has filed a defamation case against me for calling him a drug lord, but I am not afraid of it and I stand by my words. I will say it a thousand times that he is smuggling drugs in Punjab, Mr Sanjay Singh said when he appeared in the court last time. The AAP leader said no court summons had been served on him, but he came to know about the hearing through the media and appeared himself as a mark of respect for the judicial system. He had rather asked Mr Majithia to file an FIR against him in any police station of Punjab to lodge him in jail. ''The court case may take time before it reaches the final conclusion. But Majithia having the entire Punjab Police brass under the command of his deputy chief minister and brother in law Sukhbir Singh Badal can get me immediately behind the bars. But I will not stop calling him a drug lord. The day AAP comes to power we will surely put Majithia in jail,'' Mr Sanjay Singh said. UNI DB AJ 2333 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-599086.Xml Union Health and Family Welfare Minister J P Nadda today rebutted the statement made by Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh regarding blocking of central grant to various central sponsored scheme.In a statement issued by Mr Nadda to media here said charges were completely misleading as attempts were made to divert attention from non-performance of state government during its three years misrule. Mr Singh had recently alleged that Narendra Modi government had reduced the central grants for various schemes. Chief Minister had also said that NDA government only after repeated pleas had started giving grants on the UPA pattern. The union minister said on the contrary the NDA government had recommended highest ever increase in vertical tax devolution from 32 per cent to 42 per cent for all the states including Himachal Pradesh by accepting the recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission (FFC). The NDA government has also taken a historic decision to increase the ratio of Central governments share in all core schemes under CSS to 90:10 ratios thus meeting a long standing demand of the State of Himachal Pradesh in this regard. Many of the centrally sponsored schemes like Indira Awas Yojana, Sarv Shiksha Abhiyaan, RMSA and Command area development scheme where in the State government share used to be in the range of 25 to 35 percent has been brought to 10 percent State share thus giving a substantial relief to the hill State. By maintaining 90:10 funding for these States, the NDA government has devolved much more funds than the UPA, he claimed. Unfortunately, Himachal has frittered away this windfall on non-productive assets and the Chief Minister is still functioning in a dole and patronage mode. Contractors are determining investment priorities of the State, he blamed. While urging the State to spend the enhanced allocations for a wise and better economic development, he said the Centre is committed to fiscal devolution in the true spirit of co-operative federalism. All the cost disabilities of Himachal Pradesh like low level of economic activities, remoteness and proximity to international borders have also been taken care of while determining its share in Central divisible pool, said the Minister. Total tax devolution of Rs. 28,225 crore has been estimated to Himachal Pradesh for the period 2015-20 against actual release of Rs. 11,131 crore during the period 2010-15, an increase of Rs. 17,094 crore over a period of five years. Besides, grants-in-aid has also been recommended for the State to the tune of Rs. 43,810 crore for the period 2015-20, an increase of Rs. 33,356 crore over actual release during the period 2010-15, he added. During 2015-16 alone, tax devolution to Himachal Pradesh is estimated to be Rs. 3744 crore which is Rs. 1100 crore more than Rs. 2644 crore released during the previous year 2014-15. In addition, FC grants of Rs. 8436 crores (including the RD grant of Rs. 8009 crore), will also flow to the State during 2015-16, which is more than six times of Rs. 1109 crore released during previous year. Thus, funds transfer to Himachal Pradesh during 2015-16 alone is estimated to have increased by 86 percent to Rs. 12179 crore from Rs. 6548 crore released during 2014-15. It may be recalled that during the meeting of State Planning Board on February 15, Himachal Chief Minister had expressed concern regarding stoppage of release of grants to the tune of Rs 3000 Crore annually by the Central government under the Normal Central assistance (NCA), Special Central assistance (SCA) and Special Plan assistance (SPA) and reduction of central share is CSS from 90:10 to 80:20. It was a misleading statement and he was hiding the important facts, said the Union Minister. UNI ML AJ 2355 -- (UNI) -- C-1-DL0293-599274.Xml The US House of Representatives on Friday overwhelmingly passed the bill with a 408-2 vote. The legislation was approved by the senate earlier last week, Xinhua news agency reported. The legislation requires the Obama administration to sanction anyone involved with North Korea's nuclear program, luxury goods, money laundering and human rights abuses. The move cones after North Korea said it had launched on February 7 a Kwangmyongsong-4 Earth observation satellite into orbit earlier this month and tested what it claimed was a hydrogen bomb last month. --Indo-Asian News Service pku ( 123 Words) 2016-02-19-04:23:32 (IANS) US Vice President Joe Biden, in a telephone call, commended Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko on the passage of anti-corruption legislation sought by the International Monetary Fund and the European Union, the White House said."The Vice President also commended President Poroshenko's decision to replace Prosecutor General Shokin, which paves the way for needed reform of the prosecutorial service," the White House said in a statement. REUTERS PS RK0544 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0109-597640.Xml Call it the surrealist summit. How very Brussels.As Europe's leaders bargained through the night on a deal to help Prime Minister David Cameron keep Britain in the EU, a "war room" of lawyers wrangled over how to reconcile diametrically opposite meanings of the same three words - "ever closer union".It reminded one official of Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte's painting of a pipe, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (This is Not a Pipe), when is a thing real and when merely an image?Does the treaty vow commit governments to build a United States of Europe, as the Union's federalist host Belgium hopes and eurosceptic Britons fear? Or is it just an abstract political aspiration, a harmless adornment to the charter, as most other leaders -- and their lawyers -- argue.Other open issues came down to straightforward summit arm-wrestling how far could Cameron get away with taking welfare benefits away from east European migrant workers or with shielding the City of London from euro zone banking regulations.Yet perhaps the deepest dispute was about the meaning of the post-World War Two European project, pitting sovereignist Britain against federalist Belgium while most other leaders shook their heads and wondered why either seemed to care."Every lawyer in Europe agrees 'ever closer union' doesn't mean anything. It's just a nice phrase," said one EU official."Only two places share an opposite interpretation Britain and Belgium. But politically they look at it in opposite ways."The problem flared when draft proposals sought to reassure Britain that the phrase in the European Union treaty declaring a shared intent to "lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe" did not constitute an obligation to political integration that could be enforced by EU courts.In Belgium, where cultural and linguistic divisions among its 11 million people and a war-scarred 20th century have largely discredited nationalism in favour of the European ideal, outraged officials branded that interpretation "incredible".Cameron was determined to show patriotic voters that Britain was not on conveyor belt to a European super-state. But Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel argued that London's demand to opt out of ever closer union risked "dismantling" the EU.LAW VS POLITICSThat left the backroom lawyers poring over legal precedent in what one official called a "war room" close to the summit chamber and scribbling tweaks to bridge conflicting legal and political meanings into phrasing that could satisfy all."Legal reality is colliding with political reality," said one diplomat, from a third country, of the British-Belgian spat."We need some linguistic contortions on 'ever closer union' to say it is not legally binding (which matters to the British) but politically important (which matters to the Belgians).""They are arguing over amendments, over the commas."British officials conceded Cameron's insistence on quashing the phrase seemed quixotic to other leaders whose lawyers insist it is legally meaningless. But fear of what it means about EU power has made it a British political reality.A senior EU negotiator said Belgian officials had explained their political dilemma in terms of Magritte's 1928 painting."We need to find a common understanding ... which reflects on the one hand the legal dimension of it Ceci n'est pas une pipe, you can not really smoke it, that's what Magritte said -- but it's true, when you look at it, you see a pipe." REUTERS PS RK0735 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0109-597655.Xml Nepal Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli will arrive in New Delhi today on a six-day visit to India. This is first visit of Mr Oli abroad after assuming office in October last year. Mr Oli will be accorded ceremonial reception at the forecourts of the Rashtrapati Bhawan tomorrow. The visiting dignitary will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and hold delegation level talks. Thereafter, the two countries will exchange agreements. Mr.Oli will be accompanied by senior members of the Nepal Cabinet. During the visit, the two sides are expected to hold wide ranging discussions on issues of mutual concern, as well as on strengthening bilateral cooperation in diverse areas including developmental assistance, energy and connectivity. The visit is expected to lead a further strengthening of India's age-old, close and friendly relations with the Himalayan nation. Speaking to media on the eve of his visit to India, Mr Oli said, rebuilding the friendship with India is Nepal's biggest mission and the the focus is to take the bilateral relations to a new heights. Ahead of his visit, Prime Minister Oli said India's invitation to him for an official visit is indicative of its acceptance to Nepal's recently promulgated constitution. "It wouldn't be wise to say that the constitution has not been welcomed since the prime minister after its promulgation has been invited with the honour," he said. He said during his visit he will clear the doubts about Nepal in India, bring the relations between the two friendly nations back to normal, inform India about the growing investment-friendly environment in Nepal and strengthen the multidimensional Nepal-India relations. "As my India tour has been termed 'agenda less' so I have a bigger responsibility on me. With specific agendas, I would have been confined with limited issues but now I will have to talk about a range of issues," Oli told media at his official residence in Baluwatar in Kathmanduon on Thursday. "I have great expectation from this visit. India has already begun to show friendly gestures and I will make sure to take it to a new height. I will not forge any agreements that are against national interest." Oli also said that his India visit follows invitation from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "Like Nepal, India too has given utmost importance to this visit. So this visit has been called state visit," he said. When asked whether he will bring up the issues of Nepal-India border, Oli replied that this is not a time to talk about such issues. He said Nepal-India relations are based on honesty, friendliness and trust upon each other rather than on crooked diplomacy. Apart from having delegation-level talks with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, Oli will call on President Pranab Mukherjee and Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari, and interact with several Indian ministers and officials. According to a report in the Kathmandu Post, at least four memorandums of understanding (MoUs), including two on line of credit and reconstruction aid, are expected to be signed during the visit. The MoUs will be signed on an India-announced USD 1 billion line of credit and another USD 1 billion assistance for Nepal's reconstruction effort. These two MoUs will provide framework for utilising the Indian aid. During his visit to Nepal in August 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced USD 1 billion line of credit to Nepal for various infrastructure projects. Similarly, India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj during the donors' conference in June had announced another USD 1 billion loan and aid to Nepal for reconstruction efforts. Another MoU is expected to be signed between Sanggeetnatak Academy of India and Natya Sangeet Academy of Nepal to exchange various cultural programmes. Similarly, Radio Nepal and All India Radio will sign another MoU cooperation and exchange of various programmes. Respective governments from both sides have already got these MoUs approved from the respective Cabinets, said sources. During Oli's visit, a formal announcement of importing 80 MW electricity through the recently installed Dhalkebar- Muzaffarpur 400kV transmission line will also be made. Besides four MoUS, several other MoUs could also be signed. (ANI) US President Barack Obama on Thursday signed into law a North Korea sanctions bill that Congress overwhelmingly passed last week in response to Pyongyang's nuclear and long-range rocket tests, The Korea Herald reported. The sanctions bill calls for imposing mandatory sanctions on those assisting Pyongyang due to its nuclear and missile programmes, cyber-attacks, human rights abuses and imports of luxury goods. It is also aimed at choking off sources of cash for the regime by sanctioning trade in coal, minerals and precious metals, as well as blacklisting those helping with Pyongyang's money laundering, counterfeiting, cash smuggling and narcotics trafficking. "The bill was the first one exclusively targeting North Korea, which was passed in an unusually expeditious fashion. We expect it to provide a platform for the US to take strong and effective measures (against North Korea)," the ministry said. "We believe that the act demonstrates the US' strong will to respond sternly to North Korea's provocations of nuclear and missile tests." The ministry also said that the effectuation of the act will strengthen the concerted efforts by the international community to make Pyongyang "pay the price" for its latest provocations. --Indo-Asian News Service ksk/vm ( 224 Words) 2016-02-19-13:43:34 (IANS) Russia's government is considering cutting spending on defence procurement this year by 5 per cent, four official sources told Reuters, a move that would extend the budget squeeze to a sector that up to now has been immune from real cuts.The proposal has support across several ministries and in other state institutions, enough for it to go forward for discussion at a Cabinet meeting, the sources said. Until now, the idea has not gained traction beyond the finance ministry.That it is now poised to be put on the agenda of the full government is a sign that, as Russia begins its second year of recession caused by low oil prices and Western sanctions, no area is safe from budget cuts.Cutting defence spending is symbolically important because President Vladimir Putin has made restoring Russia's military might a priority, a stance reinforced by military engagements in Ukraine and in Syria.Russia spent 1.65 trillion roubles (21.60 billion dollars) on defence procurement in 2015, according to defence think tank CAST. That represented about half of total budget spending on national defence, the think tank said.A 5 percent cut in defence procurement spending is unlikely to bring in significant additional budget revenues. The saving would be not more than 100 billions roubles, according to an estimate from one of the officials who spoke to Reuters."But this is not about money, it is about a political precedent," the official said.One of the sources, who all spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said that there had been talk about a 7 percent cut, but there was "mighty opposition" from the defence ministry to that plan and most likely the cut will be 5 percent.There is no final decision and it is yet to be approved by the prime minister or the president, two senior officials said."But we are trying to persuade our bosses, that it is impossible for the budget to bear such spending today", a source in the finance ministry said.A spokeswoman for the Finance Ministry did not return calls seeking for comment. Defence Ministry did not immediately reply to Reuters request seeking for comment.REUTERS SHS PR1328 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0329-597994.Xml Israeli security forces shot dead a Palestinian man today after he stabbed two police officers outside Jerusalem's walled Old City, police said, as a wave of heightened violence persisted into its fifth month. The bloodshed has raised concern of wider escalation a decade after the last Palestinian uprising subsided. "The terrorist attacked a police team from behind, stabbed and lightly wounded them. The team responded by gunfire and neutralized the terrorist," police spokeswoman Luba Samri said, adding that the man was killed. Yesterday two Palestinian 14-year-olds stabbed and killed an Israeli in a supermarket in the occupied West Bank before an armed civilian shot and wounded the teens, who were taken for treatment to Israeli hospitals in Jerusalem. Since October, stabbings, shootings and car rammings by Palestinians have killed 28 Israelis and a US citizen. Israeli security forces have killed at least 164 Palestinians, 108 of whom Israel says were assailants, while most others were shot dead during violent anti-Israeli protests. Many Palestinian attackers have been teenagers. Tensions have been stoked by factors including a dispute over Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque compound and the failure of several rounds of peace talks to secure the Palestinians an independent state in Israeli-occupied territory. Palestinian leaders have said that with no breakthrough on the horizon, desperate youngsters see no future ahead. Israel says young Palestinians are being incited to violence by their leaders and by Islamist groups calling for Israel's destruction. Security officials have also pointed to economic hardship and social media as playing a role in triggering attacks. Briefing the UN Security Council yesterday, Nickolay Mladenov, the UN envoy on Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, said he was concerned the bloodshed may be entering "a new troubling phase". He called on both Israeli and Palestinian leaders to provide "a political horizon to their people" and reject incitement by extremists in their own camps. REUTERS DS GC1422 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0177-598077.Xml Australia and New Zealand strongly urged China today to refrain from stoking tensions in the South China Sea, after its apparent deployment of surface-to-air missiles on a disputed island.Tensions between China and its neighbours over sovereignty in the South China Sea were raised after Taiwan and US officials said China deployed an advanced surface-to-air missile system to Woody Island, in the Paracel Island chain."We urge all claimants in the South China Sea to refrain from any building of islands, any militarization of islands, any land reclamation," Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said after a meeting in Sydney with his New Zealand counterpart John Key. "It is absolutely critical that we ensure that there is a lowering of tensions."Turnbull said if Chinese President Xi Jinping was serious about avoiding the so-called Thucydides Trap, where a rising power causes fear in an established power that escalates toward war, he must resolve disputes through international law."President Xi is right in identifying avoiding that trap as a key goal," said Turnbull, who is expected to visit Beijing in April.New Zealand, the first developed country to recognise China as a market economy and to sign a bilateral free trade deal, was leveraging its relationship with China to urge measures to lower tensions, Key said."As we get a deeper and closer economic relationship with China, does that give us more opportunities to make that case, both privately and publicly? ... my view is yes," said Key, noting that both Australia and New Zealand are now also part of the Beijing-led Asian Investment Bank.The comments come after Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop visited Beijing, where she brought up the missiles and the South China Sea in meetings with Chinese officials, including top diplomat State Councillor Yang Jiechi."NOT INVOLVED"Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Australia and New Zealand "are not countries involved in the South China Sea"."We hope the two countries can objectively view the historical developments of the South China Sea, not neglect the facts, and not put forward proposals that are unconstructive," Hong told reporters at a regular briefing.The Chinese government has offered few specific details in response to the missiles claim, while accusing Western media of "hyping up" the story and saying China has a legitimate right to military facilities on territory it views as its own.China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than 5 trillion dollars in global trade passes every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims.The Philippines said it was "gravely concerned" about the reports of missiles being deployed on Woody Island."These developments further erode trust and confidence and aggravate the already tense situation in the region," said a statement from the foreign ministry in Manila.Beijing has been angered by air and sea patrols the United States has conducted near islands China claims in the region. Those have included one by two B-52 strategic bombers in November and by a US Navy destroyer that sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island in the Paracels last month.An influential Chinese state-run tabloid, the Global Times, in an editorial today, described the HQ-9 missiles that are apparently now on Woody Island as "a typical type of defensive weapon", but warned the People's Liberation Army may feel compelled to deploy more weapons."If the US military stages a real threat and a military clash is looming, the PLA may feel propelled to deploy more powerful weapons," it said.REUTERS DS AS1440 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0177-598092.Xml Turkey's foreign minister accused the United States today of making conflicting statements about the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, in a sign of deepening divisions between the NATO allies over policy in Syria.Mevlut Cavusoglu said US Secretary of State John Kerry had told him the Kurdish insurgents could not be trusted, in what Cavusoglu said was a departure from Washington's official position.Washington's support of the YPG in the fight against Islamic State in Syria has enraged Ankara, which fears advances by the Kurdish militia in northern Syria would stoke separatism among its own Kurdish minority. Turkey says the YPG was responsible for a car bombing in Ankara that killed 28 people this week."Resorting to terrorist groups like the YPG in the fight against Daesh in Syria is above all a sign of weakness," Cavusoglu said, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamist group. "Everyone must stop this mistake. In particular our ally the United States must stop this mistake immediately."He was speaking at a news conference in the Georgian capital Tbilisi and his comments were carried live on Turkish state broadcaster TRT Haber."My friend Kerry said the YPG cannot be trusted," Cavusoglu said. "When you look at some statements coming from America, conflicting and confused statements are still coming.... We were glad to hear from John Kerry yesterday that his views on the YPG have partly changed."The United States has said it does not consider the YPG a terrorist group. A spokesman for the State Department said yesterday Washington was not in a position to either confirm or deny Turkey's charge the YPG was behind the Ankara bombing attack.He also called on Turkey to stop its recent shelling of the YPG. The YPG's political arm has denied the group was behind the bombing and said Turkey was using the attack to justify an escalation in fighting in northern Syria.A car laden with explosives detonated next to military buses as they waited at traffic lights near Turkey armed forces' headquarters in the administrative heart of Ankara late on Wednesday.So far, authorities have detained 17 people in connection with the bombing and there was evidenced they were linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), state-run Anadolu Agency reported, citing sources from the Ankara prosecutor's office.Separately, security force members caught two people in a car loaded with 500 kg of explosives last evening in the Dicle district of the city of Diyarbakir in the mainly Kurdish southeast, security sources said.REUTERS DS VP1512 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0177-598182.Xml British Prime Minister David Cameron said today he was still working towards a deal with European partners on keeping Britain a member of the European Union, adding he would stand his ground to defend British interests."I was here till 5 o'clock this morning working through this and we've made some progress but there's still no deal," Cameron said on arriving at for a second day of a summit of European leaders in Brussels."And as I've said I'll only do a deal if we get what Britain needs," he added.REUTERS DS VP1540 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0177-598243.Xml Vietnam lodged a formal protest with China and the United Nations chief today, saying it was "deeply concerned" over Beijing's apparent deployment of an advanced surface-to-air missile system on a disputed island in the South China Sea."These are serious infringements of Vietnam's sovereignty over the Paracels, threatening peace and stability in the region as well as security, safety and freedom of navigation and flight," Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said in a statement.The statement, sent to Reuters, said diplomatic notes had been issued to China's embassy in Hanoi and to the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to protest Beijing's activities.Taiwan and US officials said on Wednesday the missile system had been deployed to Woody island, which is part of the China-controlled Paracel chain that Vietnam and Taiwan also claim sovereignty over.At a summit of Southeast Asian leaders in California on Monday, Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung suggested to US President Barack Obama that Washington take "more efficient actions" against militarization and island-building in the South China Sea. REUTERS DS AS1547 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0177-598256.Xml Vietnam protested to China today at a "serious violation" of its sovereignty over Beijing's apparent deployment of an advanced missile system on a disputed South China Sea island, while Australia and New Zealand urged Chinese restraint.Tensions between China and its neighbours over maritime territory have risen since Taiwan and US officials said Beijing had placed surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island, part of the Paracel archipelago it controls."Vietnam is deeply concerned about the actions by China. These are serious infringements of Vietnam's sovereignty over the Paracels, threatening peace and stability in the region as well as security, safety and freedom of navigation and flight," Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said in a statement."Vietnam demands China immediately stop such erroneous actions."The statement said diplomatic notes had been issued to China's embassy in Hanoi and to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to protest at Beijing's activities, including the building of a military helicopter base on Duncan island.Earlier, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had urged claimants to refrain from island-building and militarization in the South China Sea."It is absolutely critical that we ensure that there is a lowering of tensions," said Turnbull, speaking after a meeting in Sydney with New Zealand counterpart John Key.China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than 5 trillion dollars in global trade passes every year and which is believed to have huge deposits of oil and gas. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims.The Philippines said it was "gravely concerned" about the reports of missiles being deployed on Woody Island."These developments further erode trust and confidence and aggravate the already tense situation," its Foreign Ministry said in a statement.Australia's Turnbull said if Chinese President Xi Jinping was serious about avoiding the so-called Thucydides Trap, a foreign policy metaphor inspired by ancient Athens and Sparta in which a rising power causes fear in an established power that escalates towards war, he must resolve disputes through international law."President Xi is right in identifying avoiding that trap as a key goal," said Turnbull.US PATROLSBeijing has been angered by air and sea patrols the United States has conducted near islands China claims. Those have included one by two B-52 strategic bombers in November and by a US Navy destroyer that sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island in the Paracels last month.Key said New Zealand, the first developed country to recognise China as a market economy and to sign a bilateral free trade deal, was leveraging its relationship with China to urge measures to lower tensions."Does that give us more opportunities to make that case, both privately and publicly? ... my view is yes," said Key, noting that both Australia and New Zealand are now also part of the Beijing-led Asian Investment Bank.The comments come after Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop visited Beijing, where she raised the issues of the missiles and the South China Sea in meetings with Chinese officials, including top diplomat Yang Jiechi.Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Australia and New Zealand "are not countries involved in the South China Sea"."We hope the two countries can objectively view the historical developments of the South China Sea, not neglect the facts, and not put forward proposals that are unconstructive," Hong told reporters.The Chinese government has offered few details in response to the missile claim, while accusing Western media of "hyping up" the story and saying China has a legitimate right to military facilities on territory it views as its own.An influential Chinese state-run tabloid, the Global Times, in an editorial today, described the HQ-9 missiles that are apparently now on Woody Island as "a typical type of defensive weapon", but warned the People's Liberation Army might feel compelled to deploy more weapons."If the U.S. military stages a real threat and a military clash is looming, the PLA may feel propelled to deploy more powerful weapons," it said.At a summit of Southeast Asian leaders in California on Monday, Vietnam's prime minister suggested to US President Barack Obama that Washington take "more efficient actions" against militarization and island-building. REUTERS DS AS1706 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0177-598472.Xml A 25-year-old Swiss man has been charged with supporting Islamic State, the first time Switzerland has brought a suspected "jihadi traveller" before courts, the attorney general's office said today.It said he was suspected of being bound for the Middle East to join up with Islamic State before his arrest at Zurich airport last year."This represents the first time in Switzerland in which a suspected 'jihadi traveller' who was arrested before embarking on a trip to a conflict zone has been brought before the courts," Attorney General Michael Lauber's office said in a statement.The man, from near Zurich, is charged in Switzerland's Federal Criminal Court with violating the nation's so-called "Islamic State law" that bans the violent group and related organisations, the statement said.Officials said they found evidence on his electronic devices that he had "downloaded radical jihadist propaganda that glorified violent holy war", according to documents made public by the court, which also say the man intended "to travel to Syria to die as a martyr".The man, whose name has not been released publicly, disputes the contention that he wished to die as part of the conflict.The suspect's lawyer, Daniel Weber in Berne, said he is concerned that Lauber's office was orchestrating a public relations campaign, rather than a prosecution based on the law."How can he be guilty of a crime if he never set foot inside of the airplane, let alone landed in the Middle East?" Weber said. "I don't believe there is evidence in this case sufficient to fulfil the requirements necessary for a conviction."The man was arrested at the Zurich airport on April 7, 2015, before he was set to board a flight for Istanbul. He spent about two weeks in custody before being released.Lauber's office said there were 46 criminal cases in which it is working with police to investigate what it called "jihad-motivated terrorism". Most cases centre on propaganda alleged to be in support of organisations forbidden by Swiss law.REUTERS DS AS1750 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0177-598642.Xml The Syrian government and its allies, including Russia, must cease hostilities today in line with an agreement made between major powers on February 11, France's Foreign Ministry spokesman said."France remains extremely concerned by the dangerous escalation of the conflict, especially in Aleppo," Romain Nadal told reporters."It calls on the regime and its allies, including Russia, to stop its attacks against civilians and implement the commitments made in Munich on February 11 to cease hostilities from today."Nadal said while the delivery of aid to five besieged areas was a first step it was insufficient. REUTERS DS AS1804 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0177-598680.Xml Spanish police have arrested a sixth worker at the Madrid branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) , a Madrid court said today, after five directors were detained in a raid on Wednesday. The arrests follow an investigation by police, the Spanish tax agency and Europol into alleged money-laundering through the branch involving funds suspected of having been transferred via the bank to China by a criminal group. "The bank remains operative. The entrance and registration was done within the strict framework of the investigation and, so, there has been no judicial intervention in the bank itself," the court said in a statement. The six suspects are due to testify later today, it said. The arrested face charges of money laundering, fraud and tax crimes and include the Madrid branch's general manager, according to a legal source. "The bank is paying great attention to developments," an ICBC spokesman in Beijing said. No one at the bank in Madrid was immediately available for comment. China's foreign ministry said in a statement earlier today that the country attached high importance to the case and it had asked that Spain protect the rights and interests of Chinese firms and citizens there and handle the case in accordance with the law. REUTERS DS BL1929 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0177-598966.Xml IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said today that G20 finance ministers and central bank governors should focus on economic spillovers from their policy decisions when they meet in Shanghai next week. "The G20 I think, is going to have to focus on spillovers, on spillbacks and on the combination of various policies in play at the moment," Lagarde told reporters after she was re-elected to a second five year term as the crisis lender's leader.REUTERS PY BL2230 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0298-599316.Xml The Islamic State fighters in Libya that were targeted by US warplanes in an overnight strike posed a threat to the United States as well as its interests in the region, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told a news briefing today. "We've made clear that we need to confront ISIL wherever it rears its head," Cook said, using an acronym for Islamic State. "They have posed a direct threat to the United States, they have encouraged attacks against the United States and our allies and we're going to continue to confront it to protect our national security," Cook added. US warplanes carried out strikes targeting Islamic State militants at a training facility in Libya today. The facility was linked to Noureddine Chouchane, a Tunisian blamed by his native country for attacks last year on a Tunis museum and the Sousse beach resort, which killed dozens of tourists.REUTERS PY BL2310 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0298-599346.Xml Tripoli (AFP) - A US air strike on a jihadist training camp in Libya killed dozens of people Friday, probably including a senior Islamic State group operative behind attacks in Tunisia, officials said. Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said Noureddine Chouchane, also known as "Sabir," and other jihadists had been planning attacks against American and other Western interests. "We took this action against Sabir in the training camp after determining that both he and the ISIL fighters at these facilities were planning external attacks on US and other Western interests in the region," Cook said, without providing specifics. "We see what's happening in Iraq and Syria and we believe that these fighters in Libya posed a threat to our national security interests." It was the second US air raid in the violence-wracked North African country targeting the fast-expanding jihadist group in the past three months. The strike early Friday near the city of Sabratha "likely killed" IS operative Chouchane, a US official said earlier. Britain's defence ministry said the strike on the camp was carried out from a Royal Air Force base, RAF Lakenheath. A jihadist safe house was destroyed in the dawn raid about 70 kilometres (42 miles) west of Tripoli, according to Hussein al-Dawadi, an official in Sabratha near the border with Tunisia. "The latest toll shows that 49 people were killed," including up to three women, he told AFP. "There are also five wounded, some of them are in critical condition." "It looks like someone important was in the house, but we cannot confirm that for now," Dawadi added. US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that as IS came under pressure in Iraq and Syria it was seeking to establish itself elsewhere, and "Libya has been an area of concern for some time". "As we have opportunities we're gonna carry out airstrikes against those ISIL elements that are operating in Libya," he said. Story continues - 'Four big hits' - Tunisia's interior ministry issued a picture of Chouchane Friday and a statement saying that he was a "dangerous terrorist" and a wanted man. The Sabratha Municipal Council's website said rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons were found in the house, which was rented by foreigners including Tunisians. It posted pictures of mattresses and blankets among the rubble and a piece of metal bearing the inscription "Islamic State". An AFP photographer saw four large holes he said were probably caused by missiles. "We heard four big hits at around 3 am that shook our houses," resident Moussaab Kamouka said. Chouchane is suspected of being behind an attack in July on a beach resort near the Tunisian city of Sousse that killed 38 tourists -- including 30 Britons. He is also accused of involvement in an attack on the National Bardo Museum in Tunis in March that killed 21 tourists and a policeman. Both assaults were claimed by IS, which Washington is also targeting with air strikes in Syria and Iraq where the group has proclaimed an Islamic "caliphate" and committed widespread atrocities. The Pentagon's Cook said Washington was still assessing the raid's results. "Destruction of the camp and Chouchane's removal will eliminate an experienced facilitator and is expected to have an immediate impact on ISIL's ability to facilitate its activities in Libya, including recruiting new ISIL members, establishing bases in Libya, and potentially planning external attacks on US interests in the region," he said. He said the strike showed the US will target IS "whenever it is necessary". - Obama pledge - In November, a US air strike in Libya killed an IS leader, Abu Nabil, an Iraqi also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al-Zubaydi. It was the first US strike against an IS leader in Libya, where the Pentagon estimates the jihadist group has about 5,000 fighters. US President Barack Obama vowed Tuesday not to let IS build a base in Libya. "We are working with our other coalition partners to make sure that, as we see opportunities to prevent ISIS from digging in in Libya, we take them," Obama said. "We will continue to take actions where we got a clear operation and a clear target in mind." IS has exploited the turmoil in Libya since the overthrow of dictator Moamer Kadhafi five years ago, raising fears that it is establishing a new stronghold on Europe's doorstep. Last June, it captured the city of Sirte, 280 miles (450 kilometres) east of Tripoli, and has since attacked coastal oil facilities and staged a string of suicide bombings. The internationally recognised government has been based in the country's far east, having fled a militia alliance including Islamists that overran the capital in August 2014. The alliance has its own administration and parliament in the capital. The UN is pushing both sides to back a unity government to tackle jihadists and people-smugglers. BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A teenage Afghan immigrant has been charged with raping a female worker at an asylum seekers' center in Belgium, authorities said, prompting outrage from anti-immigrant politicians. The 16-year-old Afghan asylum seeker followed a worker from a catering firm into the basement and raped her at the center in Menen, near the French border, prosecutors said. The judge ordered him detained in youth custody until his next hearing. A spokeswoman for the Red Cross said it was the first time in 25 years such an alleged incident had occurred at one of the organization's asylum seeker centers in the country. "Two weeks ago we gave a course about how to treat women in Flanders and the boy was present there," the spokeswoman said. The allegation feeds into to a highly charged debate over immigration in Europe, particularly since authorities in neighboring Germany accused gangs of migrants of sexually assaulting women in Cologne on New Year's Eve. "I repeat: people who need a course on how to treat women should not be there in the first place," Tom Van Grieken, leader of anti-immigrant party Vlaams Belang said on Twitter. Belgium received 35,476 asylum requests in 2015, more than twice the level of 2014. (Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; Editing by Philip Blenkinsop and Alison Williams) By Ahmed Elumami and Aidan Lewis TRIPOLI (Reuters) - U.S. warplanes carried out air strikes against Islamic State-linked militants in western Libya on Friday, killing as many as 40 people in an operation targeting a suspect linked to two deadly attacks last year in neighbouring Tunisia. It was the second U.S. air strike in three months against Islamic State in Libya, where the hardline Islamist militants have exploited years of chaos following Muammar Gaddafi's 2011 overthrow to build up a presence on the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The mayor of the Libyan city of Sabratha, Hussein al-Thwadi, told Reuters the planes struck at 3:30 a.m. (0130 GMT), hitting a building in the city's Qasr Talil district where foreign workers were living. He said 41 people had been killed and six wounded. The death toll could not immediately be confirmed with other officials. Tunisian security sources have said they believe Tunisian Islamic State fighters have been trained in camps near Sabratha, which is close to the Tunisian border. A U.S. military officer said among those targeted in the air strikes was senior Tunisian operative, Noureddine Chouchane, believed to be connected to the attacks last year on a Tunis museum and the Souse beach resort which killed dozens of people. Officials have said those two attacks, both claimed by Islamic State, were carried out by gunmen who trained in Libya. "We are assessing the results of the operation," said Col. Mark Cheadle, spokesman for the Pentagon's Africa Command. Thwadi, the Sabratha mayor, said officials visited the site of the strike and found weapons in the building. Some Tunisians, a Jordanian and two women were among the dead, he said, and several Tunisians who had recently arrived in Sabratha were among survivors. He gave no further details. Since Gaddafi was overthrown five years ago, Libya has slipped deeper into chaos with two rival governments each backed by competing factions of former rebel brigades. As Islamic State has expanded in the north African country, taking over the city of Sirte and attacking oil ports, calls have increased for a swift Western response to stop the group establishing itself outside its territory in Iraq and Syria. Western officials and diplomats have said air strikes and special forces operations are possible as well as an Italian-led "security stabilisation" plan of training and advising. U.S. and European officials insist Libyans must invite help through a united government, but say they may still carry out unilateral action if needed. Last November the United States said it carried out an air strike on Libya's Derna to target Abu Nabil, also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al Zubaydi, an Iraqi commander in Islamic State. (Additional reporting by Warren Strobel in Washington; Writing by Aidan Lewis and Dominic Evans; Editing Patrick Markey and Alison Williams) When Google abandoned its former mantra, Dont be evil, last year, the motto had already become something of a joke. It originated in 2004, in a statement from the Google founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, as the company prepared to go public. At the time, it was seen as a barb to Microsoft, often cast as Goliath to Googles David, and which was sometimes described as the evil empire in Silicon Valley. Dont be evil was also, depending on whom you asked, naive at best and suspicious at worst. (If you need to remind yourself not to be evil, of all things, in your corporate slogan, perhaps something has already gone terribly wrong.) Or maybe it was just a sunny branding quip: Brin and Page said they wanted to do good, to change the world, to make it a better place. Its understandable, then, that the mantra naturally begged the question: Is Google evil, after all? (Dont be evil is an invitation to debate, the Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt said in 2008. It means we will fight over what it means.) Recommended: Inside the Artificial Universe That Creates Itself Perhaps a ramped-up lobbying presence in Washington was evidence of blossoming evil. Or Googles willingness to comply with Chinese censors. Or when Google combed through the contents of Gmail users inboxes so it could serve them relevant advertising. Or its business model, which is based on turning peoples data into profit. Or, when, between 2008 and 2010, Google collected massive troves of dataemails, user names, passwords, documents, imagesfrom unsecured wifi networks. Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line, Schmidt once told The Atlantic, and not cross it. But more recently, Google hasnt just crossed this lineits vaulted it, Charlie Warzel wrote for BuzzFeed in 2014. It bought a DARPA-funded robotics company whose demo videos routinely went viral for being deeply unsettling. It just spent over $3 billion for a company that makes thermostats that sense users presence in the room Its a subtle mutation of an old motto: Dont seem evil. Story continues Evil might seem hyperbolic were it not Googles word choice to begin with, but it began to represent Googles transformation from a garage-run startup into a global powerhouse. Now, Google is transforming again. Last year, Page announced Google would become Alphabet, a new parent company that would encompass all of Googles enterprises, including Google. It was a way to keep Google sleek, focused on its core mission and products; and allow Googles other brands and acquisitions to do the same. This week, Alphabet announced it would rebrand its innovation lab, formerly Google Ideas, as Jigsaw. To understand what these rebranding and restructuring efforts reveal about Google and Alphabet, it helps to look back to Googles origins, and the ongoing debate about good versus evil in Silicon Valley. Recommended: The First Campaign Websites We liked the name Alphabet, Page wrote last year, because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanitys most important innovations, and is the core of how we index with Google search! We also like that it means alphabet (Alpha is investment return above benchmark), which we strive for! Now, instead of avoiding evil, Alphabet is both all-encompassing and gets to be whatever its individual brands want. That earnestness! Those exclamation points! Classic dont be evil stuff. But theres more going on here. For one thing, Alphabet seemed, as many people have pointed out, overwhelmingly childish. Google has always wrapped itself in doodles and primary colors, but Alphabet took it to the next level. The building-block imagery of its logo wasnt elementary school, it was preschool. Alphabet seemed, as a colleague put it to me this week, menacingly infantile. Thats not a mistake. (Google declined to speak with me on-record about the rebranding.) In an effort to remind users that its the worlds most lovable mega-corporation strip-mining your personal data for advertisers use, John Teti wrote for the A.V. Club last year. Google has unveiled a new logo thats cuter and friendlier than ever. Its interesting that Google entrenches in this self-presentation as infantile and unthreatening, the University of Sussex English professor Natalia Cecire wrote on her blog, precisely in the act of basically announcing itself to be en route to multiplying itself 26-fold, which is, lets face it, terrifying. Recommended: Hearing the Lost Sounds of Antiquity Terrifying because Google is one of the technology behemothsalong with Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoftvying for an enormous amount of global power and influence. (We dont need you to type at all, Schmidt told The Atlantic in 2010. We know where you are. We know where youve been. We can more or less know what youre thinking about.) And, surely, Amazonwith its own A-to-Z brandingmust interpret Alphabet as a form of competitive posturing. All this amounts to cuteness as a distraction to consumers, cuteness as a message of aggression to competitors, cuteness with, as Cecire puts it, a violent undertow. The advance of information technology epitomized by Google heralds the death of privacy for most people and shifts the world toward authoritarianism, Julian Assange, the co-founder of WikiLeaks, wrote for The New York Times in 2013, criticizing Google for failing to recognize the titanic centralizing evil they are constructing. The answer to the question of whether Google was evil, he argued, was so obviously yes that just asking it had become banal. Now, instead of avoiding evil, Alphabet is both all-encompassing and gets to be whatever its individual brands want. (Naturally, Alphabet owns the domains abc.xyz and abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.com.) I should add that we are not intending for this to be a big consumer brand with related products, Page wrote when he announced Alphabet. The whole point is that Alphabet companies should have independence and develop their own brands. Theres C for Calico, N for Nest, S for Sidewalk Labs, V for Verily, X for X, and so on. J, of course, is for Jigsaw, a tech incubator that promises it can prevent digital attacks, keep critical data safe, and defend against the worlds most challenging security threats. Its ambitions are super-hero-esque in scope and scale. In announcing the rebranding, Alphabet said Jigsaw would counter money laundering, organized crime, police brutality, human trafficking, and terrorism. The name Jigsaw may call to mind a childs puzzle, but it also, as Julia Powles points out for The Guardian, evokes the words imperial origins: dissected maps of the British empirecultural objects of imperial ideology. At the very least, Alphabet has made it clear that it isnt just a rebrand of Google, but an expansion. This belief was the impetus for our organizational structure, which enhances focus on opportunities within Google and across Alphabet, while also pushing our leadership to extend the frontier that we are addressing, said Alphabets chief finance officer, Ruth Porat, in the companys last earnings call. Googles explanation of Jigsaw is, of course, far more parochial. Why Jigsaw? For one thing, the new name acknowledges that the world is a complex puzzle of physical and digital challenges, Schmidt, the Alphabet executive, wrote in a blog post. For another, it reflects our belief that collaborative problem-solving yields the best solutions. That includes, as Kurt Wagner wrote this week for ReCode, influencing policy in ways that benefit major tech players, including Alphabet. Dont be evil doesnt appear in Alphabets code of conduct. Instead, employees are told, they should do the right thing. But if the old motto evoked queries about what evil actually looks like in practice, this newer mantra begs a new question: Do good for whom? For Google, and for Jigsaw, and for every other letter in Alphabets alphabet, expanding global dominance is a way of ensuring that things, as Google wants them to be, all fall into place. Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. This month, the outgoing commander of Americas military effort in Afghanistan told Congress that the country the United States invaded more than 14 years ago was at an inflection point. The Taliban reportedly holds more territory than at any time since 2001, and civilian casualties are at record levels. Ethnic minorities are especially vulnerable; some fear that peace talks with the Taliban could open a place in the government for an organization that waged a campaign of ethnic cleansing against them. For all of these reasons, even as U.S. forces continue to depart the country, the war in Afghanistan isnt over yet, and by many measures its not going well. Related Story Forgetting Afghanistan But there are stories of hope, if you know where to look. One of the brightest is so small its invisible to many; to find it, you have to drive for the better part of an hour along rutted roads from the center of Kabul, to a Hazara slum in a desert on the citys outskirts. Its just a school. But it is, in many ways, exactly what the Americans and their Afghan allies have been fighting for more than a decade to protect. And its exactly what Afghanistan stands to lose now. * * * Recommended: Preparing for the Collapse of the Saudi Kingdom When the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, with a parade of foreign armies behind it, a group of refugees was waiting to take advantage. They were Afghans, though at the time of the invasion they were not in Afghanistan, not yet. They were Hazaras, and they were next door in Pakistan, where thousands of members of their ethnic group had fled during more than a century of persecution in their home country, committed most recently by the Taliban regime that America was about to overthrow. Because they were minorities in a country dominated by other ethnic groups, because of their Shia beliefs in a country dominated by Sunnis, and because of the pervasive origin myth that has them descending from Mongol invaders of the 13th century, the Hazaras occupied the bottom rungs of society even before the Taliban swept to power. In the late 19th century, the countrys ruler Abdur Rahmanknown as the Iron Amir for his ruthlessnesslaunched a war against Hazaras and oversaw their enslavement. A militia the Americans later supported took part in one of the worst crimes of Afghanistans civil war of the 1990s, massacring as many as 2,500 Hazaras and injuring and raping thousands more in 1993. Then the civil war ended with the Talibans takeover in 1996, and things only got worse for Hazaras. One governor reportedly issued a fatwa saying, Hazaras are not Muslim. Killing them is not a sin, and Taliban fighters evidently took those guidelines to heart. More massacres followed. The Hazaras have been denied access to power, property, or even education in their own country. Story continues The students marched up the uneven steps to class, without knowing how stable the foundation was on which they stood. So its unsurprising that among those waiting for the Americans were some Hazara refugee kids huddled under a few UNHCR tarps in Pakistan, learning to read. The young man instructing them was Aziz Royesh, whom they referred to, simply, as the Teacher. The group could barely be called a school, but Aziz had given it a name that spoke to his hopes for it, a single Farsi word that meant many things: enlightenment, spiritual awareness, the kind of understanding that comes from experience. Marefat. The three syllables held what a person could provide herself, regardless of where she was, or what had happened to her parents during the civil war. Right after the Americans came at the end of 2001 and, for the time being at least, cleared the land of the Taliban, the Teacher decided to bring his school from the refugee camps of Pakistan home to Afghanistan. He disassembled it and gave it piece by piece to the students, who carried it across the border one book, one chair, at a time, making their way through the Khyber Pass with an idea and their school on their heads. They went into Afghanistan, out to a desert slum of Kabul, where land was cheap. Then they put the school back together and changed the whole story of their people. Recommended: Winners of the 2016 World Press Photo Contest * * * By the time I came across Marefat in 2007when elsewhere in the country an insurgency was ratcheting upthe school had grown beyond even what Aziz had imagined. Back then I was a freelance writer with a day job, working at the American University of Afghanistan. My boss, an Afghan-born Hazara and naturalized American, knew of the school, and went out there every week to teach English. One day he was sick, or stuck somewhere else in the cityI dont remember exactly what he was doing that day, but he asked me to go in his place. I found I wasnt very good at teaching English, but I learned more from the 10 or 15 kids Aziz selected to have class with me than I had at any other time, any other place else in the country. The next week I went back. And the week after. I started following Aziz around, trying to understand how hed willed this place into existence, and built it up into what I saw before me. It had grown slowly at first, then much faster. In the early years after the Americans came, it was a few dozen kids, none beyond a fourth-grade reading level, but no longer gathered under a tarpfirst they were in a two-room apartment in the middle of the desert, then a new building, made of mud brick the students had mixed themselves and arranged around a courtyard. Then they built a second story, even though no one knew whether the first could support the weight. The students marched up the uneven steps to class, without knowing how stable the foundation was on which they stood. Little earthquakes happened all the time, back then. Aziz Royesh (Jeffrey E. Stern) Then it was not just a school; it was a forward operating base from which Aziz nudged his community toward his own progressive way of thinking. He met with his students parents, who were often illiterate, so they could gain from their childrens schooling. The kids published bulletins with news from the school; they put out a magazine with poetry and editorials; and Aziz helped them organize political demonstrations. When then-interim President Hamid Karzai made his first visit to the desert after the fall of the Taliban, Marefat students lined up on either side of the street, waving Afghan flags and photos of him. And when the country had its first post-Taliban elections, the students organized on the challengers behalf, establishing the school as not just an educational and cultural force, but a political one as well. Recommended: Photos of the Week: 2/13-2/19 One of the things I found most astounding about this whole enterprise was that despite his nickname, Aziz had no formal training as a teacher. He had no formal training as anything really, because in 1979 the Soviets invaded, and Aziz had to leave the country before finishing fifth grade. When he first returned it was as a holy warrior, and he was never given the chance to return to school, swept up like so many others by the wave of violence that had started rolling across the country. So as a teacher, he was improvising. He built a curriculum based on (what he thought was) the concept of humanism, which to him meant that value was within people, rather than passed down by some deity or leader. He predicted resistance, so he hid it within a Trojan horse of religion, selecting the ideas from the Quran that best fed the mindset he wanted for his students. He would point to the verse about mans creationWhen I have fashioned him and breathed into him of My spirit, bow before him in homageto argue that the human being is the bearer of Gods soul, that the human being is entitled to dignity and freedom of choice. His trick was using reverence for a holy book to teach irreverence in general. Given the battles and massacres he had lived throughsome barelyhe wanted students incapable of participating in such things. If they believed that humans had value because they were humans, not because of money or religion or family name, it would be harder for them to kill. They would be less easily swayed by the war cries of powerful men. He didnt want students who could recite passages of the Quran. He wanted students whothe next time a tribal leader, or a cleric, or a warlord, said: Fightasked: Why? Aziz was also adamant that Marefat be coeducational. Boys and girls in the New Afghanistan, as he began to call this country the foreign forces were ushering in, should be comfortable with one another. Boys at Marefat wouldnt view girls as strange things to fear or punish; girls wouldnt think of boys as overseers. No one would kneel. Literally: When parents pressured Aziz to build a prayer room, he held firm. This is a school, he would tell them, not a mosque. The students could pray if they wanted, but not here. Here, God was in the individual; the muscle that softened when you knelt before God was the one that could make you stand up and challenge a cleric. Or even a teacher: Aziz instituted a student parliament, so that every month, students gathered to appraise their teachers performance in public meetings. No one got to exert status, unchallenged, over anyone else. Class at Marefat (Jeffrey E. Stern) The contrast between what the school looked likebarren concrete walls and floorsand the energy in the classrooms was striking. Ive seen students there debate whether racism in Afghanistan is worse than in countries they will never see, but whose histories they seem to understand as if theyve lived it. I saw a girl say in class: Racism is worse here because other countries made it worse, speaking of the long history of foreign powers picking favorites among the ethnic groups in AfghanistanTurkey supporting Uzbeks, Pakistan supporting Pashtuns, other groups with their other regional backers. Another girl disagreed: Imagine Afghanistan was an island, and no one could reach it. You dont think there would still be racism? Of course there would still be racism. It's natural for people, another said, to want to be better than other people. Its natural for people, another said, to want to be better than other people. They criticized their country for its segregated cities, for its corruption, for its weak democracy. They were thinking critically. They were thinking for themselves. They were thinking just like Aziz wanted them to think. * * * That was more than two years ago, during a more hopeful time. The school has changed since then. As U.S. forces have left, the economy has fallen down around Marefat. Foreign organizations that once brought a steady flow of funding and jobs into the country have followed foreign forces out; wealthy Afghans continue to take their money (and their families) elsewhere; fewer people have good jobs. More and more Marefat students cant afford even the $300-a-year tuition, and the schools anonymous charity box has dried up. At the same time, kids have started disappearing from class, fleeing with their families from the horrendous violence thats begun again against Hazaras. A year ago, gunmen stopped two buses in the southern province of Zabul, separated out the Hazaras, and took them hostage; similar kidnappings targeted Hazaras throughout the year. Last July, Hazaras manning a security checkpoint west of the capital were overrun by Taliban fighters; 30 were killed, and their bodies mutilated. Late last year seven Hazaras civilians, including a young girl, were beheaded with razor wire. There are many other examples. All of them make it hard for a student to focus on her studies. Hazaras like Aziz cooperated with the Americans in exchange for protection; that makes them look like traitors to insurgents. And it leaves them exposed as that protection disappears. Yet for now, people like Aziz are trying to hold up their end of the bargain. The Americans, who may or may not be considering another five years of small-scale counterterrorism operations in the country, arent offering enough to hold up theirs. This article has been adapted from Jeffrey E. Sterns new book, The Last Thousand: One School's Promise in a Nation at War. Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. By Martin Petty and Colin Packham HANOI/SYDNEY (Reuters) - Vietnam protested to China on Friday at a "serious violation" of its sovereignty over Beijing's apparent deployment of an advanced missile system on a disputed South China Sea island, while Australia and New Zealand urged Chinese restraint. Tensions between China and its neighbors over maritime territory have risen since Taiwan and U.S. officials said Beijing had placed surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island, part of the Paracel archipelago it controls. "Vietnam is deeply concerned about the actions by China. These are serious infringements of Vietnam's sovereignty over the Paracels, threatening peace and stability in the region as well as security, safety and freedom of navigation and flight," Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said in a statement. "Vietnam demands China immediately stop such erroneous actions." The statement said diplomatic notes had been issued to China's embassy in Hanoi and to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to protest at Beijing's activities, including the building of a military helicopter base on Duncan island. Earlier, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had urged claimants to refrain from island-building and militarization in the South China Sea. "It is absolutely critical that we ensure that there is a lowering of tensions," said Turnbull, speaking after a meeting in Sydney with New Zealand counterpart John Key. China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes every year and which is believed to have huge deposits of oil and gas. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims. The Philippines said it was "gravely concerned" about the reports of missiles being deployed on Woody Island. "These developments further erode trust and confidence and aggravate the already tense situation," its Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Australia's Turnbull said if Chinese President Xi Jinping was serious about avoiding the so-called Thucydides Trap, a foreign policy metaphor inspired by ancient Athens and Sparta in which a rising power causes fear in an established power that escalates toward war, he must resolve disputes through international law. "President Xi is right in identifying avoiding that trap as a key goal," said Turnbull. U.S. PATROLS Beijing has been angered by air and sea patrols the United States has conducted near islands China claims. Those have included one by two B-52 strategic bombers in November and by a U.S. Navy destroyer that sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island in the Paracels last month. Key said New Zealand, the first developed country to recognize China as a market economy and to sign a bilateral free trade deal, was leveraging its relationship with China to urge measures to lower tensions. "Does that give us more opportunities to make that case, both privately and publicly? ... my view is yes," said Key, noting that both Australia and New Zealand are now also part of the Beijing-led Asian Investment Bank. The comments come after Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop visited Beijing, where she raised the issues of the missiles and the South China Sea in meetings with Chinese officials, including top diplomat Yang Jiechi. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Australia and New Zealand "are not countries involved in the South China Sea". "We hope the two countries can objectively view the historical developments of the South China Sea, not neglect the facts, and not put forward proposals that are unconstructive," Hong told reporters. The Chinese government has offered few details in response to the missile claim, while accusing Western media of "hyping up" the story and saying China has a legitimate right to military facilities on territory it views as its own. An influential Chinese state-run tabloid, the Global Times, in an editorial on Friday, described the HQ-9 missiles that are apparently now on Woody Island as "a typical type of defensive weapon", but warned the People's Liberation Army might feel compelled to deploy more weapons. "If the U.S. military stages a real threat and a military clash is looming, the PLA may feel propelled to deploy more powerful weapons," it said. At a summit of Southeast Asian leaders in California on Monday, Vietnam's prime minister suggested to U.S. President Barack Obama that Washington take "more efficient actions" against militarization and island-building. (Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard and Michael Martina in BEIJING and Manuel Mogato in MANILA; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Alex Richardson) Vienna (AFP) - Austria introduced a daily cap on asylum-seekers, sparking EU fears of a domino effect along the Balkan migrant trail and a threat from Greece to veto an accord keeping Britain in the bloc. A maximum of 80 migrants per day are now being allowed to claim asylum in Austria, and Vienna is also limiting the daily number of people transiting through to seek asylum elsewhere to 3,200. The arrival of more than a million refugees and migrants in Europe last year has caused a chain reaction of border clampdowns among several member states. As the main gateway into the EU, Greece has been struggling to cope with the new arrivals and fears new restrictions by other members will leave tens of thousands of people stranded on its territory. But EU sources said Greece had reached an informal agreement with Austria to "cooperate better" on migration. Faced with being excluded from the EU's passport-free Schengen zone, Greece had pinned its hopes on the EU and Turkey firming up a deal to stem the migration flow at a special summit on March 6. "We are asking for a unanimous decision that until March 6, no state will unilaterally close its borders," a Greek government source told AFP Friday before the reform deal was reached. "If not, the Greek government will not approve the conclusion text," the source said. But EU sources said Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras's concerns eased after meeting with Austrian Chancellor Werner Feymann on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels. The pair reached "an agreement to cooperate better" on migration, an EU source told AFP on condition of anonymity. "Tsipras seemed happy with the outcome." Another EU source told AFP that Austria would not close its borders before the EU-Turkey summit. Under a German-backed EU proposal to be discussed in March, Turkey would curb the flow of migrants and then fly refugees to Europe for resettlement in exchange for three billion euros ($3.3 billion). Story continues However, central European countries are opposing the resettlement scheme and are instead pushing to seal Greece off from the Schengen zone. - 'Put the brakes on' - Deep rifts within the 28-nation EU have opened in the face of Europe's biggest migration crisis since World War II. More than 80,000 people -- many of them children -- have endured the perilous journey across the Aegean Sea since January, most fleeing war and violence in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Brussels on Friday clinched a deal to keep Britain from potentially leaving the EU by giving it "special status" in the bloc, including allowing London to limit welfare payments for migrants. But Austria's move to cap migrant numbers has sparked an angry reaction from Brussels, which called it "incompatible" with EU law. Austria's Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner warned on Friday the cap could be lowered even further, saying: "We need to put the brakes on." Following Austria's tighter measures, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia have also tightened their borders. Austria announced last month it would only take in 37,500 asylum-seekers this year -- sharply down from the 90,000 it accepted in 2015, making it one of the bloc's highest recipients on a per-basis capita. Vienna has joined the so-called Visegrad Four (V4) group -- Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic -- in their call for tighter EU controls inside Schengen. Germany, which received more than one million asylum claims in 2015, acknowledged that the EU "must see quickly if measures (agreed with Turkey) work". A meeting with Turkey and the leaders of 11 EU countries had been planned before Thursday, but was cancelled when Turkey's premier Ahmet Davutoglu pulled out following a bomb attack in Ankara. Portugal said on Friday it had offered to take 5,800 extra asylum-seekers, on top of 4,500 already accepted, to help countries "where the migration pressure is strongest", including Austria, Sweden, Italy and Greece. A version of this story first appeared in the Feb. 26 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe. Berlin was abuzz with the secrecy surrounding the project that will return Steven Soderbergh to directing. Buyers have been dubbing Logan Lucky "Hillbilly Heist," "Redneck Robbery" and "Ocean's 7-11," which sources say are all terms used in the script. Another mystery? While the script being passed around says that Soderbergh will direct and Michael Shannon and Channing Tatum will star, it doesn't list a writer. Tilda Swinton slipped in to the Ballhaus Berlin club Feb. 10 to check out a cabaret-style tribute to her late friend David Bowie. Swinton stood discreetly at the back of the club, watching the show. It could have gone on all night, said a clearly impressed Swinton to the show's presenter afterward. ... See More: The Scene at Berlin Film Festival The Coen brothers took time out from opening the festival with Hail, Caesar! to honor indie distributor Ben Barenholtz, who received the lifetime achievement Berlinale Camera award Feb. 12. "He was the only one who didn't tell us to go f ourselves," said Joel Coen. "He introduced us to powerful people in the industry, and they told us to go f ourselves." After AMBI Pictures said Pope Francis would appear in the upcoming family adventure film Beyond the Sun, the Vatican said that "the pope is not an actor" and that the film would only be using footage of the pope. That didn't stop AMBI, which is selling the film in Berlin, from making sure their office posters featured the pope's name prominently as "attached" to the project, according to sources in Berlin. ... Mike Tyson, who plays an evil real estate developer in Hong Kong kung fu flick Ip Man 3, landed the gig in a funny way, it turns out. "I was visiting the Paramount lot and bumped into Mike in the hallway, says Wang Yu, producer of both Ip Man 3 and Berlin competition film Crosscurrents. We got introduced and he said, 'I love kung fu films!' So, I asked him if he wanted to be in mine we decided right there in the hallway that he'd fight Donnie Yen. Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders is encountering a fierce for recent remarks about gender and race, facing charges that he's in discussing Hillary Clinton's bid to become the first woman president and her efforts to woo African-American voters loyal to President Barack Obama. The backstory: Rapper Killer Mike, who's stumped for Sanders around the country, ignited the firestorm during a campaign event at Atlanta's Morehouse College on Tuesday. Urging voters not to back Clinton simply because she's a woman, the entertainer related a conversation he'd recently had with a female voter. "I talked to Jane Elliott a few weeks ago, and Jane said, 'Michael, a uterus doesn't qualify you to be president of the United States.' You have to be you have to have policy that's reflective of social justice," Killer Mike said. Read more: Clinton and Sanders Battle for Black Support as Campaign Shifts Focus to South Carolina Though the rapper argued that the full context of his remarks made clear that he wasn't making a sexist jab at Clinton, his words struck a nerve in large part because many critics believed they fit a larger pattern of Sanders' campaign dismissing the significance of sending the first woman to the Oval Office. Asked during the Democratic debate in Milwaukee last week whether he worried he'd be "thwarting history" if he defeated Clinton, the Vermont senator sidestepped the issue of gender entirely. "Well, you know, I think, from a historical point of view, somebody with my background, somebody with my views, somebody who has spent his entire life taking on the big money interests, I think a Sanders victory would be of some historical accomplishment, as well," he responded. Sanders opened himself to further criticism when NBC News asked him to weigh in on the controversy surrounding Killer Mike's remarks. Story continues "What Mike said essentially is that ... people should not be voting for candidates based on their gender, but based on what they believe. I think that makes sense," he said on Thursday. "I don't go around, no one has ever heard me say, 'Hey guys, let's stand together, vote for a man.' I would never do that, never have." The backlash was swift, with critics depicting those remarks as insensitive to matters of sexism and gender representation: This is incredibly tone deaf, though unfortunately not totally unexpected. https://twitter.com/benjysarlin/status/700472277029277696 ... Maybe the reason no one says "vote for a man" is because we've been doing that for 240 years... https://twitter.com/BenjySarlin/status/700473979866365952 ... https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CbiVXxBVIAAO-_3.jpg:large Really @SenSanders, to call this "tone deaf" would be charitable. Oooof. http://bigstory.ap.org/urn:publicid:ap.org:8f81037e42c94d989fcab22c654ea73a ... Sanders considers tougher stance on guns after shooting himself in the foot. #ImWithHer https://twitter.com/kasie/status/700474158933610496 ... https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CbiVh_GUkAAVXXx.jpg:large Good grief. https://twitter.com/benjysarlin/status/700472277029277696 ... That's not all: Sanders found himself embattled on yet another front Thursday, after he told BET that Clinton has ferociously tied herself to President Barack Obama as part of a cynical ploy to win black voters. "You know, Hillary Clinton now is trying to embrace the President as closely as she possibly can. Everything the President does is wonderful. She loves the President, he loves her and all that stuff," Sanders told the network. "And we know what that's about. That's trying to win support from the African-American community where the President is enormously popular." Though Sanders has at times been a harsh Obama critic even suggesting, in 2011, that the president deserved a left-wing primary challenger Sanders went on to praise Obama himself, while acknowledging that they haven't always seen eye-to-eye. "But you know what? I have enormous respect for the president. He's a friend," Sanders said. "We have worked together. I think he has done a great job in many respects. But you know what? Like any other human being, he is wrong on certain issues." Clinton supporters seized on Sanders' remarks to argue that he was breaking his pledge to run a positive campaign and suggested that Clinton would've been bombarded with criticism had she made similar comments. Not even pretending to run a "positive campaign"-->CNN-Sanders: Clinton is embracing Obama to pander to black voters http://cnn.it/1Uc6PuY Thought exercise: imagine if Hillary Clinton explicitly said "Bernie Sanders is doing X to try to get black voters." http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-cozying-obama-win-black/story?id=37040685 ... Will it matter? Such controversies are, in part, the stuff of which modern elections are made. Whether they'll move votes is another question. This much is clear: As Sanders looks to cut into Clinton's with nonwhite voters and erode her advantage with women, his campaign would be far better off without the dual controversies. While Sanders won women voters in New Hampshire and now trails Clinton by just three points nationally among women, according to the latest Fox News poll, further gains will be difficult if his campaign fuels the perception that he doesn't appreciate the significance many voters place on electing a female president, or if he appears dismissive of inflammatory remarks from supporters and surrogates. As Sanders on Clinton nationally and may score yet another early state in Saturday's Nevada caucuses scrutiny of how he handles such matters will only heighten. Throughout the topsy-turvy 2016 presidential campaign, one thing has held constant in the fight for the Democratic nomination: Hillary Clinton has led in every single national poll. Until now. A Fox News survey released Thursday evening found Sen. Bernie Sanders overtaking Clinton for the first time ever nationwide, with the Vermont senator garnering 47% support to the former secretary of state's 44%. Last month, Clinton led Sanders 49% to 37% in the Fox poll. Read more: New Poll Shows Bernie Sanders Closing the Gap With Hillary Clinton in Nevada But that was before the progressive populist virtually tied Clinton in the Iowa caucuses and proceeded to trounce her in the New Hampshire primary, riding a wave of anti-establishment sentiment. Polls taken since Sanders' Granite State victory have shown a tightening in the Democratic race, but Clinton has retained at least a nominal lead in each. Notably, the poll finds that Sanders has pulled nearly even with Clinton among female voters, trailing by just three percentage points after lagging behind by 28 points last month. Meanwhile, working class whites who strongly supported Clinton in her 2008 primary battle against then-Sen. Barack Obama are increasingly drifting toward Sanders. "Blue-collar, white Democrats have been a major source of Clinton's defection," pollster Daron Shaw told Fox. Looking ahead to the general election, Sanders starts out in a stronger position against Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, the poll found. Sanders boasts a 53% to 38% lead over the billionaire businessman, while Clinton edges Trump 47% to 42%. Clinton has made her electability a core argument in her case against Sanders, with her allies suggesting that the self-proclaimed democratic socialist is unlikely to withstand the scrutiny of a general election campaign. But Clinton faces an increasingly arduous path toward that campaign, with Sanders now outpacing her in fundraising and standing a real chance of pulling off yet another momentum-building victory in Saturday's Nevada caucuses. It's a fight that few observers were expecting after Sanders launched his improbable campaign last spring, when Clinton crushed him 63% to 6% in the Fox poll. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Thursday that he will be "deeply involved" in advising President Barack Obama on picking a candidate for the Supreme Court but said he had "no desire" himself to be named to the nation's highest court. Obama is preparing to name a successor to conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Saturday. The appointment could change the court's balance of power, and many Republican senators want to wait until after the Nov. 8 presidential election to give their consent to a new justice. Biden, who was a long-time chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in an interview that Obama has asked for his advice on who to choose, and believes the president will choose a "consensus candidate." "I haven't even had a chance to sit down with him yet to talk about the potential candidates," Biden told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. "When we do, as in the past, lay out all the people, go out and survey a little bit, and see who we think meets those criteria and we think could have a chance of being confirmed," he said. Asked directly whether he would do the job, Biden said he was not interested. "You never say to a president for certain you wouldn't do anything, but I have no - look at me now - I have no desire to sit on the Supreme Court, none," Biden said. Biden is known for having a good working relationship with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has said the seat should remain vacant until after the election. Biden said he would be an "interlocutor" with his friends on Capitol Hill on the issue, but said he did not know whether he could persuade enough senators to support Obama's choice. "I will be deeply involved," he said. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Eric Walsh) By Ayesha Rascoe WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama cannot select the most liberal possible candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court and should seek a "consensus" pick who could attract Republican support, Vice President Joe Biden said on Thursday. A fierce political fight is brewing as the Democratic president prepares to name a successor to conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Saturday. Obama's nominee could change the court's balance of power. Scalia's death left it with four conservative and four liberal justices. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid told MSNBC in an interview that he spoke with Obama on Thursday about the nomination and expected the president to name his choice in "a little over three weeks." Many Republicans, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have said the seat should remain vacant until Obama's successor takes office next January so voters can have a say in the selection when they choose a new president in the Nov. 8 election. "The Senate gets to have a say," Biden, a former senator, told Minnesota Public Radio in an interview broadcast on Thursday. "In order to get this done, the president is not going to be able to go out, nor would it be his instinct anyway, to pick the most liberal jurist in the nation and put them on the court." The Senate, whose Republican majority would be unlikely to embrace any selection seen as particularly liberal, must confirm nominees picked for lifetime appointments to the nation's highest court. "There are plenty of judges who are on high courts already who have had unanimous support of the Republicans. This should be someone who, in fact, is a consensus and whereby we can generate enough support to get a person passed," Biden said. In a separate interview broadcast on MSNBC, Biden said he would be deeply involved in advising Obama but that he had no desire himself to be named to the high court. Biden told MSNBC the president had sought his advice but they had yet to discuss potential candidates. White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Obama would draw on Biden's perspective, noting the vice president had served as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman and presided over confirmation hearings for past Supreme Court nominees. Those included the contentious 1991 hearings for Justice Clarence Thomas. 'GET ON WITH IT' Separately, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to serve on the court and a nominee of Republican President Ronald Reagan, took issue with Republicans who are demanding that Obama's successor pick the person to fill Scalia's vacancy. "I don't agree," O'Connor, 85, told an Arizona television station. "We need somebody in there to do the job - and just get on with it." Some Republican senators have urged their leaders at least to allow the customary Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings to proceed on any Obama nominee. "I do believe that the nominee should get a hearing," Senator Lisa Murkowski told reporters in her home state of Alaska on Wednesday. She added: "That doesn't necessarily mean that ends up in a vote" by the Senate to confirm the nominee. Senators Dean Heller of Nevada and Thom Tillis of North Carolina this week also indicated support for allowing the Senate to consider Obama's nominee. Obama will not attend Scalia's funeral on Saturday, a decision that provoked criticism from some conservatives. Earnest rebuked critics who he said "want to use the funeral of the Supreme Court justice as some sort of political cudgel." Earnest noted Obama would pay his respects by going to the Supreme Court building on Friday when Scalia's body will be lying in repose, and Biden would represent the Obama administration at the funeral. Obama's presence at public events requires a massive retinue of Secret Service agents and security measures, while Biden's "security footprint" is a little bit lighter, Earnest said, noting the White House had sought a "respectful arrangement." A CBS News poll and a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed Americans closely split along partisan lines on whether Obama should name Scalia's successor. (Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton, Lawrence Hurley, Richard Cowan and John Whitesides; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Bernadette Baum, Howard Goller and Peter Cooney) GETTY IMAGE Last month, BJ Penn made it official: he was stepping out of retirement to fight in the UFC again. He moved his training camp from its long time location in Hawaii to Jackson Winkeljohns in Albuquerque home to other champs like Jon Jones and Holly Holm and was penciled in to fight at UFC 197 in April. But now that return is in question as some serious-sounding allegations have been raised against the former lightweight and welterweight champion. For years, Penn has hosted a popular MMA news site at BJPenn.com, which was run by Pedro Carrasco up until October. Now Carrasco has come forward on Twitter claiming he left the site after Penn sexually assaulted his girlfriend: VIA TWITTER / PEDRO CARRASCO According to Bleacher Reports Jeremy Botter, Carrascos girlfriend Amber Soukus filed charges against Penn on the 16th of February. And now the UFC has taken note of the situation and is holding off on scheduling a fight for Penn until theyve conducted their own investigation. Via UFC.com: UFC is aware of the recent allegations made against BJ Penn. The organization requires all athletes who compete in the UFC to act in an ethical and responsible manner, as detailed in the UFC Fighter Conduct Policy. UFC will not tolerate violations of the policy. Every athlete is deserving of proper review and this situation, as with any serious allegation, will be investigated by an independent party and thoroughly reviewed by the UFC. The UFC organization will also cooperate with any law enforcement investigation. In light of the serious allegations, UFC has postponed plans to book Penn for an upcoming bout until more details are determined. UFC holds athletes who compete in the organization to the highest standard and will continue to take appropriate action, if and when warranted. It is important to note that Penn is considered innocent until proven guilty and UFC is not prejudging this matter. Penn and those around him have remained silent on the subject, with his brother JD telling MMAJunkie its in the hands of the lawyers. Story continues Share This Facebook Twitter EMAIL The "Blade Runner" sequel has a release date: Martin Luther King Jr. weekend in 2018. Starring Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, "Blade Runner 2" is scheduled to hit cinemas January 12. The sequel picks up decades after the 1982 original which was set in a futuristic, dystopian Los Angeles. Ford played a burnt-out Blade Runner, special police operatives tasked with hunting down genetically engineered replicants gone wild. The sequel is written by Hampton Fancher, who co-wrote the original, and Denis Villeneuve is directing. P More than half of people who menstruate suffer from varying levels of pain during their periods, with one in 10 women experiencing cramps that are so debilitating, they can't perform typical daily tasks including their jobs. Depending on where they live, though, those who experience the harshest period symptoms, known as dysmenorrhea, might not have to worry about work; they can take a few days of menstrual leave. On Sunday, Anhui province in China became the latest municipality to institute a menstrual leave policy, with new regulations that will allow workers up to two days off for difficult periods. The policy is similar to those already in place in the provinces of Shanxi and Hubei, and allows people who menstruate to leave work after presenting a doctor's certificate. It's a step forward in terms of recognizing dysmenorrhea as a legitimate medical condition . A to CNN, the policy might be difficult to enforce, as it doesn't specify which employees or industries qualify for menstrual leave, Additionally, finding a physician willing to provide a doctor's note is easier said than done, especially for the migrant workers most likely to need to take advantage of the new policy. While China's policies aren't perfect, they also aren't new: As the Atlantic reported, Japan has offered for people who menstruate since 1947. It was followed in 2001 by South Korea, where men's rights activists have challenged the policy; Indonesia, where women have reportedly been told to undergo an examination to "prove" to their employers that they're indeed menstruating; more recently in Taiwan, politicians pushed to guarantee three days of menstrual leave a year, in addition to the time already allotted for workers. Story continues In the United States, the idea to institute a similar policy isn't unheard of but it's certainly not popular. In keeping with Americans' propensity to work far more than other industrialized nations, leave policies in general are hotly debated, not to mention not guaranteed. "In a country where we're not even thinking about paid parental leave, the idea of paid menstrual leave seems impossible," Allyson Downey, a writer on work leave policies and co-founder of weeSpring, a social media network for parents, told Mic. "I think bigger priority really needs to be around enabling employees to have more flexible work-life schedules. It doesn't have to fall under banner of menstrual leave; a woman should be able to work from home without talking about it in the context of her period." Additionally, leave policies that apply only to certain groups of people (i.e. women) who experience certain conditions (i.e. menstruation or pregnancy) tend to be viewed even more harshly by employers and colleagues. "If something gets labeled as 'menstrual leave,' I'd worry about how that affects a woman's standing in the office about people saying, 'Why can't you buck up?'" Downey said. Indeed, some argue that menstrual leave policies are infantilizing to women and can reinforce damaging stereotypes. After all, if people still believe that women are too irrational and hormonally driven to become president, instituting menstrual leave might very well continue to reinforce that myth. That said, for those women who struggle with dysmenorrhea, a menstrual leave policy could be a way to validate their experiences, not to mention protect their jobs if they are genuinely unable to work. "It's important to acknowledge that for some women dysmenorrhea is a real issue," Dr. Raegan McDonald-Mosley, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told Mic. "For some women it's not an issue. But we don't want to dismiss it as being in a woman's head...or impeding daily living. Although it's part of normal physiology, [menstruation] can be extremely debilitating." It's possible to acknowledge that period-associated issues, from abdominal cramps to migraines, leave some people incapacitated, McDonald-Mosley said, "while not stigmatizing and pathologizing being a woman." Should Your Boss Be Giving You Time Off for Your Period? In real life, however, a menstrual leave policy could prompt employers to willfully avoid hiring women, for fear they'll be on their couches with a heating pad for half a business week every month. "If people were taking menstrual leave on a monthly basis," Downey said, "I can imagine even I would hesitate and I'm a feminist who tries to eliminate bias in my own hiring decisions." The same sorts of bad faith assumptions about women's abilities also come up in debates about pregnancy leave, she added. Such debates require a more nuanced understanding of reproductive health than most employers and much of society, for that matter typically have. For many people, menstruation is much as Rebecca Traister described pregnancy for the New Republic last year: "It is not a physical handicap...women are not rendered, by dint of their suddenly obvious femaleness, incapable of doing their jobs well. Except when, sometimes, they are." In some circumstances, menstrual leave policies could indeed be helpful to women, not to mention they could serve as an acknowledgment that for many, painful periods are a genuine medical condition. But, given the general hostility to women's health in the U.S., it's likely a menstrual leave policy would either be rejected outright, or used as a tool of additional sexist discrimination if it were ever enforced. "Menstruation and problems associated with it are disruptive, but there are plenty of other things that disrupt people as well," Downey said. "I would love to see a way of talking about this in the U.S. where it's not a women's issue, but an issue of employee health in general. We need to find a way to empower people to make work, work for them." Brasilia (AFP) - Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff led two dozen ministers on a campaign Friday to form what one official called an "army" of children against the Zika-carrying mosquito. Brazil is at the heart of an international scare over Zika, which has been linked to the serious birth defect microcephaly in babies born to infected women. With no cure to microcephaly or vaccine against Zika, Brazil's government has ordered out tens of thousands of troops and health workers in a door to door campaign to clean up stagnant water pools where mosquitoes breed. Joining that push, Rousseff and 25 ministers from her sprawling cabinet urged children to form the next wave. "The school can create a little army of children, adolescents and youths that will go home and mobilize the parents," Agriculture Minister Katia Abreu said in a visit to a school in Goiana, in the west. She said each tiny "soldier" would be armed with a supply of insecticide to take home. But at another school, Rousseff said the most important tactic in the government's declared war on mosquitos is to clear up water pools. "Fifteen minutes a week is all you need," Rousseff said in a speech in front of children in the north-eastern city of Juazeiro. "Talk with your parents, talk with your neighbors," she urged. "Because look how things are: if a mosquito produces 1,500 eggs and if there's a street with let's say 20 houses, then if 19 houses fight the mosquito and one doesn't, that's enough for the mosquito to have a party." Rousseff said that protecting pregnant women from the risk of Zika is to protect "the future of this country." Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - A nearly $5 billion expected settlement for last year's toxic flood that killed 17 people in Brazil could be challenged by prosecutors, who say the amount is not enough. The government has signaled that Samarco, co-owned by giants Vale and BHP Billiton, is ready to pay 20 billion reais for the collapse of a waste water dam at its iron ore mine in Minas Gerais on November 5. The accident, which unleashed a massive flood of mud into the River Doce, was described as Brazil's worst ever environmental disaster. Drinking water supplies were cut for hundreds of thousands of people, a village was flattened, and local fishing and tourist businesses were badly impacted. Amid expectations that the government is seeking a resolution with the mining giants, federal prosecutor Jose Adercio Leite Sampaio said he would appeal what he said was an overly hasty deal. "How can you define an amount if there are no criteria for evaluating the damage?" he told AFP. "Where did they get this number? For us it's a magic number.... It could be 23 or 24, 30, 40 billion." "We will appeal this agreement. We will have no other option than to take action, including against the state... which is responsible for not adequately overseeing Samarco," said the prosecutor, who is from Minas Gerais state. Sampaio said he was also concerned with plans for administering the proposed compensation fund, which he said had been politicized and had "absolutely minimal" input from civil society. London (AFP) - UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage on Friday said the agreement on Prime Minister David Cameron's demands for EU reforms at a key summit in Brussels was "not worth the paper it's written on". "This deal that he's done does not address the fundamental issues that people care about," Farage told an audience of around 1,500 people at a pro-Brexit campaign event in central London. "Dave's deal is not worth the paper that it's written on," he told cheering supporters, shortly after news broke that there had been an agreement in Brussels. Some well-known eurosceptic lawmakers also attended the event, as British media reported that justice minister Michael Gove was preparing to pledge support for the "Leave" camp. Cameron later confirmed the reports, telling a press conference in Brussels that he was "disappointed but not surprised" that Gove would campaign for Brexit. The Independent daily said five other ministers were preparing to pledge support for the "Leave" camp following a cabinet meeting on Saturday. "This is a historic moment. This is the moment when we fight back," said Bill Cash, a lawmaker and veteran anti-EU campaigner in Cameron's Conservative Party. "We have gone further and further forward and deeper and deeper into this morass of legislation, this increasingly offensive system which we now have to leave," he told the meeting. Fellow Conservative MP David Davis said it was time for Britain "to take control of its own destiny". The event was organised by the Grassroots Out movement, which unites several anti-EU groups. Much of the media attention remains on the intentions of Mayor of London Boris Johnson -- a popular politician who has expressed eurosceptic views. Johnson met with Cameron at the prime minister's 10 Downing Street residence on Wednesday but left saying: "I'll be back. No deal". Sofia (AFP) - Bulgarian truckers sealed off all six checkpoints along the country's land border with Greece on Friday to protest at weeks of intermittent blockades by Greek farmers that have disrupted road traffic. Parliament issued a special declaration urging the European Commission to start an infringement procedure against Greece for violating EU laws on the free movement of goods. Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has also intervened in the feud, accusing Greece on Thursday of "purposefully tormenting Bulgarians". Greek farmers have demonstrated for more than a month against pension and tax reforms demanded by the European Union in return for bailout funds, blocking roads into Bulgaria and across Greece with tractors. Bulgaria's busiest Kulata-Promachonas checkpoint has been shut for all vehicles since Tuesday and truckers stepped up their action on Friday by blocking all six posts along the 430-kilometre (270-mile) frontier, border police said. The action forced traffic to divert through neighbouring Macedonia and Turkey for as long as the protest action continues. Bulgarian truckers' unions are angry over the Greek farmers' protests that have blocked the passage of freight trucks, disrupting traffic and inflicting huge losses on the freight companies. A man walks on the blockaded motorway near the Promachonas border crossing on February 18, 2016. Truckers have vowed to maintain the blockade until the Greek farmers remove their tractors and free up all roads into Bulgaria. The EU member has the fifth-largest number of trucks in the European Union, according to unions figures. "Hundreds of Romanian, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Austrian truckers are also stuck at the border," Krasimir Lalov, deputy chairman of the National Union of Bulgarian Freight Forwarders told AFP after returning from the Kulata checkpoint on Friday. "Why do these governments remain silent?" By Robin Respaut SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California's ambitious plan for high-speed rail service will become reality within a decade with service between the state's agricultural Central Valley and high-tech Silicon Valley, state officials announced on Thursday. In an updated draft plan for the rail line that will whisk passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in under three hours by 2029, the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) revised downward the cost of the entire line, to $64.1 billion from nearly $68 billion. The draft plan includes a new initiative to request $2.9 billion in additional funding from the federal government. The first leg of the line would connect Kern County in the state's agricultural breadbasket to San Jose in Silicon Valley by 2025. The state had previously said the first leg would run from Merced, in the heart of the Central Valley, to Burbank, in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley, and would be completed by 2022. The newly defined initial leg, estimated to cost $19.8 billion, would be covered by funds already available for the rail line. Additional federal funds, if secured, would help extend the initial leg south to Bakersfield. "No other sequence works as quickly and as effectively," said Dan Richard, CHSRA board chair. "What we're talking about here is to do this in a way that is realistic, achievable, and fast. No one is getting left behind." Californias project is one of a handful of high-speed trains planned in the United States, which has failed to keep pace with Europe and Asia, where such trains have become commonplace. Of the U.S. plans, California's is considered the most ambitious - with travel speeds over 200 miles per hour - and the farthest along after breaking ground in 2014. The project has captured attention from international firms, financiers and train manufacturers that view it as a foothold into a burgeoning high-speed rail market in the United States. Story continues California would eventually tap private firms and investors to help cover roughly one-third of the total project cost. But first, the state must get an initial segment "up and running as quickly as possible" to prove ridership, said Richard. "That is the fastest way to unlock the private sector investment," said Richard. "That then helps us build out the rest of the system." The state has raised about $13.2 billion through state and federal funds, plus a pledge of cap-and-trade proceeds - funds paid by companies to offset carbon emissions. (Reporting by Robin Respaut; Editing by Leslie Adler) BRUSSELS (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Friday he was still working toward a deal with European partners on keeping Britain a member of the European Union, adding he would stand his ground to defend British interests. "I was here till 5 o'clock this morning working through this and we've made some progress but there's still no deal," Cameron said on arriving at for a second day of a summit of European leaders in Brussels. "And as I've said I'll only do a deal if we get what Britain needs," he added. (Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; editing by Philip Blenkinsop) The growth of at-home mixology (read: bartending for your friends and family) has presented a new opportunity for beverage giants like Pernod Ricard. Its latest earnings report showed organic growth of 3% year over year, up from 2% growth from 2013 to 2014. CFO Gilles Bogaert told Yahoo Finance that the United States is a big part of that growth and accounted for 17% of the companys net sales, making it the number one liquor market for Pernod Ricard. Whiskey continues to be the it alcohol. Globally whiskey is quite important for Pernod Ricard. Scotch and Irish whiskey represent 45% of the group's net sales. And in the U.S. in particular, Jameson is growing very fast. Double digits. Bogaert says a mix of big-name brands, including the aforementioned Jameson, Absolut, and othersalong with niche names such as Tequila Avion and Monkey 47 Ginhelps them serve different consumers while growing sales. The space between is being filled, he says, with innovations in brands. Last year, for example, the company released Jamesons Caskmates, a whiskey aged in old beer barrels. It is part of the newness we need to bring around the brand, Bogaert says. He says the company takes care to innovate with substance, not doing just a new flavor, but bringing something really new and disruptive. Pernod is also working to refresh its image. Millennials are a big part of their consumer base, which has forced the company to up its game in digital and social media. The industry in the past tended to be a bit conservative, Bogaert admits, and clearly in the past few years we have speeded up on the innovation side. They are digitally connected so we need to be strong in digital ... Its a strong and powerful way to engage our consumers, make them loyal to our brands, speak about our brands. More from Yahoo Finance: Heres how Jeb Bush ran short of cash Does the NCAA make its money from indentured servants? Trash the reporter: Your stinging feedback on Bernie Sanders TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadians remain divided about the resettlement of Syrian refugees, with some saying Canada should accept more despite a series of racist incidents that have marred a mostly smooth arrival of nearly 25,000 migrants, a poll showed on Friday. Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was elected in October on a promise to accept more Syrian refugees more quickly than the previous Conservative government had allowed, but the original deadline for accepting 25,000 by the end of 2015 proved too ambitious and the timeline was extended by two months. During his election campaign, Trudeau said a Liberal government would work with private sponsors to accept "even more" than the immediate goal of 25,000, and Immigration Minister John McCallum said in December the government could double the intake to 50,000 by the end of 2016. A poll by the Angus Reid Institute released on Friday showed 52 percent of Canadians support the plan to resettle 25,000 refugees before the end of February, while 44 percent opposed the program. The poll also showed that 42 percent of respondents want Canada to stop taking in Syrian refugees, while 29 percent said Canada should stop at 25,000 and 29 percent said the country should accept even more. Some 21,672 Syrian refugees - sponsored by both private citizens and the government - have arrived in Canada since November, dispersing into more than 200 communities, according to the Immigration Department. While the arrival has been smooth for privately sponsored refugees supported by families or community groups, hundreds of government-sponsored refugees have struggled to find housing and remain in hotels in Toronto, where the housing market is tight and expensive. There has also been a scattering of racist incidents, including one last week in which graffiti was sprayed on a school in the western Canadian city of Calgary urging "Syrians go home and die" and "kill the traitor Trudeau." The prime minister responded on Twitter: "Canadians have shown the best of our country in welcoming refugees. That spirit won't be diminished by fear and hate." In January, a group of Syrian refugees were pepper-sprayed by a cyclist in Vancouver, an attack Trudeau also condemned on Twitter. (Reporting by Andrea Hopkins; Editing by Sandra Maler) Ottawa (AFP) - The Canadian government said Thursday it is dropping its appeal of a decision to grant former Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr bail while he fights a US conviction for murdering an American soldier. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould made the announcement in a joint statement. A Canadian appellate court released Khadr last year after he had spent 13 years behind bars, most of it at the US prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But the previous Tory administration appealed the ruling. Toronto-born Khadr was 15 years old when he was captured on an Afghan battlefield in 2002 and sent to the US prison. In 2010, he was sentenced to eight years following a US military hearing in which he agreed to plead guilty to murdering a US soldier in violation of the laws of war, attempted murder, conspiracy, providing material support for terrorism and spying. As part of the agreement, he was sent home to Canada in 2012 to serve the remainder of his sentence. Since his release on bail, Khadr has been living with one of his lawyers in Edmonton, Alberta and taking college classes. By Zachary Fagenson MIAMI (Reuters) - A Canadian diplomats teenage son will serve nine months in boot camp for his role in a drug-related shooting that killed his older brother last year but was spared a lengthy prison sentence under a plea deal accepted by a Florida judge on Friday. Marc Wabafiyebazu, 15, pleaded no contest to two counts of third-degree murder, aggravated assault and attempted armed robbery over the March 2015 botched marijuana deal. His older brother, 17-year-old Jean Wabafiyebazu, was killed along with a suspected drug dealer. Marc Wabafiyebazu has been jailed without bond since his March arrest. He and his brother had gone to a Miami-area home to buy an estimated $5,000 worth of marijuana, according to police reports. He was indicted by a Florida grand jury on one count of first-degree murder as well as felony second-degree murder and other charges. Prosecutors agreed to reduce his more serious charges. The fatal shooting occurred shortly after the Wabafiyebazu brothers moved to Miami with their mother, diplomat Roxanne Dube, when she was appointed Canadas consul general in Miami in 2014. Under the deal, her son agreed to serve nine months in a boot camp followed by two years of house arrest and up to eight years of probation in the United States. Dube said she plans to stay in the United States as long as necessary to monitor her son during the punishment process that could take up to 10 years. She continues to work for the Canadian government but said she no longer is serving as consul general. Under Florida law, anyone who participates in a violent felony in which someone dies can be charged with murder. If he violates the terms of the agreement, he could face up to 60 years in prison, said Florida Circuit Court Judge Teresa Mary Pooler during a court hearing. If he completes all the terms of his agreement, the crimes could be removed from his record, Pooler said. (Editing by Letitia Stein and Cynthia Osterman) Miami (AFP) - A Canadian ex-diplomat's teenage son who was charged with murder over a Miami drug shootout, has been sentenced to boot camp, according to a plea deal released Friday. Under the agreement, Marc Wabafiyebazu, who was charged with first-degree murder after his older brother and one other person died in the episode, pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for six months of boot camp and two years of house arrest. "Today, it's the mother who is the happiest in the world because I get to have my son back," said his mother Roxanne Dube, who left her job as Canadian consul general after the shootout. She has said she will stay in Miami with her son. Wabafiyebazu, 15, was charged with multiple counts over the March drug steal that turned into a shootout. He and his brother, John, had come to live with their mother in Miami only weeks beforehand. Police say the brothers drove a vehicle with diplomatic plates to a house in a residential neighborhood, entered armed, and tried to steal a kilo of marijuana. The operation went wrong and a shootout took place between the boys and the drug dealers, killing one of the dealers and 17-year-old John. Two others were wounded in the shootings. Wabafiyebazu pleaded guilty to third-degree felony murder, attempted armed robbery and aggravated battery under his plea deal. According to the defense, Wabafiyebazu stayed in the car while his brother tried to carry out the theft, then shot into the air to draw the attention of police. Authorities said Wabafiyebazu had been charged with murder because under Florida law, defendants accused of committing certain felonies can also be charged with murder if someone dies during the crime. As part of his plea deal, Wabafiyebazu also faces eight years of probation. By Elinor Comlay MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A dinner of champagne, caviar and smoked salmon at up-market department store Harrods was how Hilda Garcia, a Mexican anti-corruption official, spent part of her $450 per day travel allowance in London last year. A colleague, Jorge Pulido, sent to Kuala Lumpur for a conference, managed to spend more on taxis and meals out during a layover in Frankfurt than he did on his six-day hotel stay in Malaysia. Jaime Cerdio was more austere. On a trip to Washington, he lived off $10 sandwiches and soda bought at the local Safeway and paid back almost a third of his total per diem allowance, replenishing the government's coffers with more than $1,000. Mexico's Public Administration Ministry (SFP), charged with oversight and accountability in government, is responsible for reining in spending and tackling corruption. But it admits it has little idea how its own employees spend public money abroad, an examination by Reuters shows. The SFP has only paper records of its employees' travel and government rules only require boarding passes and hotel receipts as verification. This means a large chunk of employees' per diem spending goes unchecked. The ministry's finance department could not answer Reuters' questions on how many employees traveled last year, for how long and how much they spent. Instead, it handed over about 1,000 pages of paper files in cardboard boxes to review. "We are reviewing this to make sure best practices are applied to this kind of spending," SFP head Virgilio Andrade told Reuters when asked whether officials should provide more details of how they spend government money abroad. A new transparency law, approved last year, will mean government agencies and entities have to electronically publish their travel spending, Andrade said. He hopes that will improve accountability since Mexicans will be able to see where government officials are traveling on official business and question travel spending. For now, though, the government, tarred by conflict of interest scandals over home purchases by President Enrique Pena Nieto, his wife and his finance minister, has yet to introduce proposed rules to enact the transparency law and there is no date for when entities will have to make additional information - such as travel spending - public. That has allowed Mexican government employees - even those at the SFP - to live large on foreign trips. One SFP official, Alejandro Bonilla, in Hawaii for Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, enjoyed the calamari at his hotel in Kona so much he ate three rounds in 24 hours. He said his job managing the government's contracting policy unit means that he has to attend events such the TPP talks, which included two meetings in Hawaii and one in Guam last year. EXPENSIVE Pulido, the SFP's head of legal affairs, who spent more than $500 on two taxis and two meals in Frankfurt en route to an anti-corruption conference in Kuala Lumpur, said meals and taxis in Frankfurt are expensive and that he still did not spend more than his $450 per diem over the two days he was traveling. In the United States, government officials are entitled to per diem allowances in limited circumstances and must provide receipts for reimbursements. The $450 per day allowances for Mexican government workers abroad is more than the U.S. government pays in many U.S. cities but it is below the U.S. rate for some expensive foreign cities, such as London and Paris. Per diem payments can lead to 'double dipping', for instance, if government officials also accept gifts of meals or travel, said Alexandra Wrage, founder of anti-bribery organization TRACE International in Annapolis, Maryland. "Then the extra is cash in hand for the government official, which is pretty close to a bribe," she said. Reuters found no evidence that any of the SFP officials accepted gifts of meals, travel or accommodation while also receiving a full per diem payment. Andrade defended the per diem, saying that giving employees government funds upfront reinforces the idea that the trip is for official business. Cerdio, the sandwiches-and-soda employee - who heads the transparency and accountability department - was the only one of 11 public servants who took trips between January and August last year to provide receipts and itemize all of the money that he spent from his $450-a-day-allowance. Cerdio did not respond to requests for comment. Garcia, the official who dined at Harrods, handed in most of her receipts. One of her other meals was at Starbucks, she noted, and she viewed the meal at Harrods as a reward after a tough day working on an extradition process that involved multiple meetings in English discussing unfamiliar British law. "We don't have the luxury and privilege to eat in Harrods every day." (Reporting by Elinor Comlay; Editing by Simon Gardner and Kieran Murray) Copenhagen (AFP) - In the dark Nordic winter, the Danish prime minister took off for a weekend in sunny southern Spain -- and raised political hackles not for being extravagant, but for being cheap. Lars Lokke Rasmussen and his companion flew to Malaga on budget airline Ryanair. "Disgusting!" said one opposition leftist lawmaker on his Facebook page, reacting to the news reported by the daily Ekstrabladet. Flying for a budget fare sends a "very bad signal", said social democrat Jeppe Bruus, quoted by the Ritzau news agency. While politicians are usually criticised for spending too much, in Denmark what's more important is where they spend it. The low-cost Irish airline Ryanair is not a favourite of Danish leftists and union leaders who claim the company's policies for employees are not in line with Denmark's social benefits. "Ryanair represents a direct threat to the Danish model," said Henrik Bay-Clausen, representative for the 3F union at Copenhagen airport. The unions have locked horns with Ryanair for years over working conditions and their political clout cannot be underestimated. In fact if you are a civil servant in Denmark's four biggest cities -- Copenhagen, Aarhus, Odense and Aalborg -- you are banned from flying Ryanair on any city business trip. No comment yet from the centre-right Rasmussen on his frugal travel plans. China's auto sales rose nearly eight percent year-on-year in January ahead of national holidays, an industry group said Friday, picking up pace in a traditionally strong period for car purchases. China is the world's largest car market, but its vehicle sales increased at their slowest rate in three years in 2015 as the country's economy encountered headwinds. Auto makers sold 2.5 million vehicles in China last month, up 7.7 percent year-on-year, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said in a statement. Vehicle sales traditionally peak in January, ahead of the Lunar New Year, the most important annual holiday in the country. China slashed the purchase tax on passenger cars with small engines in October, which continues to boost the auto market. China's gross domestic product increased at its the lowest rate since 1990 last year, when vehicle sales rose nearly five percent to 24.6 million. But industry group CAAM last month forecast auto sales would rise 6 percent year-on-year in 2016, improving from last year, Bloomberg News reported. Sales of major foreign brands were among those which increased in January. US auto giant General Motors sold more than 420,000 vehicles, up 7.3 percent year-on-year, according to the company. US auto maker Ford said sales surged 36 percent to a record 130,832 last month, helped by purchases of SUVs (sport utility vehicles). Three Chinese students have been jailed in California for attacks against two classmates that included burning one of the victims with cigarettes and forcing her to eat her own hair. The three attackers and their victims are among thousands of Chinese students known as "parachute kids," who travel to the United States to study and stay with host families while their parents remain in China. Yunyao Zhai, 18, was sentenced on Wednesday to 13 years behind bars, Yuhan Yang, 19, was sentenced to 10 years and male co-defendant Xinlei Zhang, 19, got six years. All three had admitted the charges of kidnap and assault and apologized in court for their actions. Investigators said the case against the defendants revolved around two separate attacks in March. The first involved Zhai and Zhang, who assaulted a 16-year-old girl at a restaurant and park in Rowland Heights, a neighborhood east of Los Angeles with a large Chinese population. Authorities said the attack took place because Zhai believed the victim disrespected her. The second attack took place two days later when the three defendants kidnapped an 18-year-old classmate and took her to a Rowland Heights park where she was stripped, repeatedly beaten, spat on, kicked and burned with cigarettes over a five-hour period. Zhang also provided scissors to cut the woman's hair, which she was then forced to eat, prosecutors said. Several people who witnessed the attack captured it on their cellphones. That attack, officials believe, likely stemmed from a dispute over a boy and an unpaid restaurant bill. The judge overseeing the case said it reminded him of "Lord of the Flies," the 1954 novel by William Golding about boys stranded on a deserted island who gang up on each other. The case has also prompted soul searching among the Chinese community in Rowland Heights and beyond, with some questioning the wisdom of sending teenagers to a foreign country with no close parental supervision. "Well-meaning parents of China should not send kids here alone and unsupervised," Yang's attorney, Rayford Fountain, told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune after the sentencing. "It is a recipe for disaster." Actress Chloe Grace Moretz poses with a group of University of Nevada students as she campaigns for Hillary Clinton at the Las Vegas campus on February 18. (Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images) LAS VEGAS Chloe Grace Moretz, a 19-year-old actress best known for starring in the romantic film If I Stay, entered a coffee shop in a Las Vegas strip mall to greet about 25 Hillary Clinton supporters Thursday, most of them young college students. She stood in front of Hillary signs and addressed the small group briefly, urging them to caucus for Clinton on Saturday. I think we can all sit back and say, Yeah, you know its time for Hillary to be president, its going to happen no matter what, she said. But it doesnt work that way. We have to go out there, we have to use our voice and our vote. Moretz is one of several famous young women who are popping up in ads and on the trail to help boost Clintons standing among young people, especially millennial women. Lena Dunham, America Ferrera and Katy Perry are among the others. Yet despite their star power and the obvious historic appeal of electing the countrys first female president, some polls indicate Sanders, a 74-year-old Vermonter, is beating Clinton among young women. Hes also beating her among young men, as younger people of all kinds have fueled his rise from long shot to serious contender. In Nevada, the latest poll shows Sanders and Clinton in a statistical tie. SLIDESHOW Clinton and Sanders go head-to-head in Nevada >>> Clinton volunteers ushered the starlet and her mother, Teri Duke Moretz, out of the shop and into 15 mile-per-hour winds. Moretz, in stiletto heels, walked across the street and onto the University of Nevadas campus, trailed by about a dozen students, to an empty picnic table across the way from a few Bernie Sanders supporters. A student zoomed by on a skateboard. One of the Bernie supporters screamed, Bernie will give you free tuition! But the growing group of students was too busy wordlessly pointing their smartphones at Moretz to notice. Slowly, the braver ones approached her, asking to take selfies. Story continues Moretz cheerfully obliged, handing each one a sheet with caucus information on it, and making them promise to caucus. To some, she explained why she supports Clinton, saying she believes the former secretary of state had the best plan for helping ease student debt loads, and that she thought it would be good for the country to see a woman in power. Moretz, who first became a Hillary supporter in 2008 when she was 11 years old due to her mothers influence, said in an interview that she has no understanding of why Sanders is beating Clinton among women her age. I think that theres a lot of young women who are terrified of being feminists, she said. Young women are afraid to stand up for who [they] are because we still live in a world in which its not OK for us to be young, powerful, strong, well-spoken, educated young women. And thats why we need Hillary in office. Gloria Steinem, the feminist icon, recently suggested that young women back Sanders because the men their age do. She later apologized after fierce criticism. But two college students who attended the Hillary event said they saw that dynamic at play on their campus. I feel like a lot of girls kind of want to go with the flow, said Alyssa Tortomasi, 19. They dont want to be criticized for being a feminist, chimed in her friend, Kylie Patterson, 18. To just come out and say that, I feel it takes a lot of courage because they get ridiculed for it, Tortomasi said. Guys our age think, Ugh, shes a feminist, Patterson added. I recounted these complaints and Moretz sympathized. You know, I go on dates with guys and a lot of them are mainly terrified of me because I have incredibly strong opinions on many things, she said. I have a very strong stance on certain subjects, and if I was a man no one would question it, they would say, Wow hes a go-getter. Whereas with a young woman, its a bit polarizing and its scary to see that with someone who is 55 with blonde hair and probably doesnt weigh more than 115 pounds, she said. Moretz then took a group picture with the remaining Hillary supporters, and walked back to the coffee shop. Although he is little known outside of South Carolina and national political circles, Rep. James Clyburn is considered a Democratic powerhouse in the Palmetto State, with huge sway over the states African-American voters. Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont have been clawing for endorsements from prominent black leaders in South Carolina in the run-up to next weeks Democratic primary contest there, and Clyburn was considered a major catch. Related: The Minority Divide Could Settle the Battle Between Clinton and Sanders Black voters make up more than half of the Democratic electorate in South Carolina. So it was a huge relief to the Clinton forces when Clyburn formally announced his endorsement on Friday in Columbia, helping to lock in support from most of the states black political elite. It was a crucial yet far from ringing endorsement for Clinton and suggested the dilemma that many minority Democrats are facing in choosing between a well-established Democrat and a self-described democratic socialist who has operated for decades on the fringes of the party. A few days ago, I admitted that my head and my heart were in different places relative to this years presidential primary, the veteran House member said at a campaign event at Allen University. Today, however, my head and my heart are in the same place. My heart has always been with Hillary Clinton, he added. But my head had me in a neutral corner. But after extensive discussions with my wife, Emily, our children and grandchildren and other constituents . . . I have decided to terminate my neutrality and get engaged. Related: Clinton Campaign Is Having a Panic Attack in Nevada and South Carolina Clyburn said he was convinced that Clinton is best able to lead their party to victory and that she would be more effective than Sanders in addressing problems including stagnant incomes for the middle class, soaring educational costs and poverty. Story continues I believe that Hillary Clinton is the best choice to help us conquer these challenges, he said. Clyburn, 75, the highest ranking African-American in Congress and the senior member of South Carolinas otherwise all-GOP congressional delegation, is a thoughtful and soft-spoken moderate who lacks the hard edge of many younger members. Even so, he is highly persistent, as was evident when he forced his way into a third-ranking slot in the House Democratic leadership in 2010 after his party lost control of the House. Related: Clinton Scrambles as Sanders Puts the Black Vote in Play During the 2008 presidential primary, Clyburn remained neutral in the battle between Clinton and Barack Obama. His decision angered Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and opened up a rift between Clyburn and the high-powered political couple. Relations grew tenser after Bill Clinton pooh-poohed Obamas victory in South Carolina that year and sought to diminish its importance by comparing it with the Rev. Jesse Jacksons victory there 20 years earlier. Clyburn told reporters that he has he has spoken with the former president several times over the past eight years and holds no ill will against him for some of his over-the-top behavior on his wifes behalf. A Bloomberg Politics poll published Thursday showed Hillary Clinton leading Sanders in South Carolina by 22 percentage points over all and by 39 percentage points among black primary voters. Tad Devine, a senior campaign adviser to Sanders, said he was not overly concerned about Clyburns decision, while acknowledging that Sanderss prospects are dimming in South Carolina. I think we recognize she has tremendous support there, the electorate is going to be very favorable to her cause, Devine told MSNBC on Friday. However, he said the Sanders campaign is very optimistic heading into Saturdays Democratic caucuses in Nevada and then a dozen Southern, Midwestern and Western states on Super Tuesday, Mar. 1. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia's government on Thursday suspended further visits to the country by Marxist FARC negotiators, saying they violated the terms under which they were allowed to return from Havana to explain agreements reached at peace talks to their fighters. Three members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia's, or FARC, negotiating team had been given permission to travel from Cuba, where talks have been held since late 2012, to a rural area in northern La Guajira province to provide details of accords. Chief government negotiator Humberto de la Calle said President Juan Manuel Santos had suspended any further visits and asked the International Committee of the Red Cross to help the FARC representatives return to Cuba immediately. It was the fifth time FARC commanders had traveled to Colombia to meet fighters in their encampments in visits meant to pave the way for rebel disarmament and implementation of a peace agreement. The five-decade war has killed more than 220,000 people and displaced millions. The visit by guerrilla leaders Ivan Marquez, Jesus Santrich and Joaquin Gomez upset Santos because they met with local residents and participated in public events with armed fighters despite restrictions on such activities. "On instruction of the president, pedagogical visits by FARC delegates to their encampments to explain the accords are suspended," de la Calle said in a televised statement. "A fundamental rule of the agreement was that they do not make politics with arms and so this is an unacceptable violation." Images of the three rebels appeared on Twitter surrounded by locals and FARC combatants wearing uniform and carrying weapons. The trip was meant to be low-key and was not previously announced by the government. Santos had ordered that armed forces cease operations in the area. Opposition leaders including former President Alvaro Uribe harshly criticized the visit and questioned how the "terrorists" would be permitted to visit areas they had victimized and without a military presence. FARC is considered a terrorist group by the United States and European Union. The insurgent group, which formed in 1964 to fight rural inequality, has said it will enter politics and seek alliances with other parties once it signs a peace deal. Negotiators have reached partial agreements on land reform, guerrilla participation in politics, transitional justice, efforts to find missing persons and remove land mines, and an end to illegal drug trafficking. A U.N. mission will supervise rebel disarmament once an accord is signed. (Reporting by Helen Murphy; Editing by Peter Cooney) By Anastasia Moloney BOGOTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Deep in the Colombian jungle, child fighter Yeimi Diaz feared for her life as members of Latin America's oldest guerrilla group held a meeting to decide whether to order a firing squad to shoot her. In the 14 years she fought for the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) rebels, Diaz faced two such councils. "A war council is almost always a death sentence," she said, recalling the way the FARC punished fighters who broke its rules. "I got lucky. A guerrilla commander who knew my mother stepped in at the last minute and voted to save my life," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. After years of skirmishes with government troops, long mountain treks and rationed food, Diaz escaped and turned herself in to the army in 2009, after finding a leaflet dropped by army helicopters urging rebels to surrender. Around 18,000 former child fighters, and adult rebels, have quit the FARC ranks since 2003 and joined the government's reintegration program. A further 8,000 FARC fighters may hand in their weapons over the coming months if peace talks in Cuba with the government result in agreement to end their 51-year war, which has killed 220,000 people and displaced 6.5 million. As the March 23 deadline for a peace accord looms, negotiators are discussing how best to reintegrate ex-fighters, while Colombians consider how far they will accept former combatants back into society. LONG, HARD STRUGGLE Demobilized fighters, many of whom have spent some 20 years in rebel ranks, face significant obstacles. Often traumatized by war and illiterate, many struggle to find jobs and reintegrate into society. Diaz says it has taken her six years to rebuild her life. Under the state reintegration program, she is paid a monthly allowance of up to $140, provided she attends school or university, takes free psychological counseling and vocational training schemes and does community service. After learning to read and write and completing secondary school, she found work as a cleaner at a construction site. "You have to stay positive. It's not easy," Diaz said. "The government provides opportunities and grants to start small businesses but it's up to you to take advantage of them. Some people don't. Some complain and don't stick it out." Boris Folero, who joined the FARC at 18 because he sympathized with its Marxist ideology, says finding his own identity after decades with the rebels was a struggle. "Leaving the group was painful. My personal identity was shaped there. I was formed as a man in the FARC," said Folero, 48, who left the group in 2005. "Before it was us, the collective. Now it's just me. You have to reconstruct yourself, find a new identity, find out who you really are. I had to grow up. It's been difficult," said Folero, who works with the reintegration program. HEALING TRAUMA At one government-run center for demobilized fighters in a poor neighborhood in south Bogota, Johanna Diaz is one of 860 state psychologists helping ex-fighters get used to civilian life. For ex-combatants, many from poor rural backgrounds, adapting to a new life in the capital is hard. Diaz helps them find a place to rent, get job interviews and write a curriculum vitae, and shows them how to use a knife and fork, take escalators, lifts and buses, and use an automated teller machine. "We have to see ex-combatants at least once every month and form a bond with them to make sure they stay on the straight and narrow. We go to their place of work and do home visits," said Diaz, who is helping 60 ex-fighters. "Whether or not a person can successfully rebuild their lives partly depends on the relationship we can build with them, their families and spouses." Years of fighting have led to mental trauma, including post-traumatic stress disorder and paranoia, driving some ex-fighters to alcoholism, drug abuse and gambling, she said. "Everyone has ups and downs. Our job is to show them another option, that another life is possible," Diaz said. LONG-TERM SUPPORT Joshua Mitrotti, head of the government's reintegration agency, says integrating thousands of ex-fighters into society hinges on long-term provision of education and training, and on rural communities - where many fighters come from - agreeing to give them a second chance. "A vocational component is going to be very important but there has to be a political component at the heart of training offered to ex-guerrillas, about how a democracy functions, because this is about the transition of people who once held arms to becoming citizens in a democracy," Mitrotti said. Around 650 local and international companies in Colombia offer jobs and training to former combatants in exchange for tax breaks. But only one-third of the ex-fighters who have joined the reintegration program have found jobs in the formal sector. Most find only temporary work, as builders, security guards and cleaners. Gaining social acceptance is another challenge, and many ex-fighters prefer to keep their past life a secret. "Much of society sees demobilized combatants as monsters. They are very strongly affected by stigma," said Mitrotti. The lack of jobs makes some give in to the temptation to earn more money working for criminal gangs. "If we don't give job opportunities the cycle of violence will repeat itself," Miotti said. "Just signing a peace agreement doesn't mean the drug trafficking, the organized crime, will go away. The offer of that kind of work will remain." The government estimates around 10 percent of combatants who have gone through its program are involved in some sort of crime - still well below the 30 percent of ex-prisoners who re-offend, Mitrotti said. (Reporting By Anastasia Moloney, editing by Tim Pearce. Reuters Messaging: 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 news.trust.org) HAMBURG (Reuters) - An owner of a Mercedes BlueTEC diesel car filed a class-action lawsuit in the United States, accusing the carmaker of knowingly programming its Clean Diesel vehicles to emit illegally high levels of nitrogen oxide, according to law firm Hagens Berman. Shares in Mercedes maker Daimler were down 3 percent at 62.82 euros at the bottom of Germany's blue-chip index <.GDAXI> by 0826 GMT after news of the class-action lawsuit filed by Hagens Berman, which also has a lead role in class-action suits against Volkswagen . Diesel car makers have been in the spotlight since Volkswagen admitted in September it had rigged U.S. diesel emissions tests, and that up to around 11 million vehicles worldwide could have illegal software installed. The U.S. Justice Department is suing the company for up to $46 billion for alleged violations of environmental law. Daimler has repeatedly denied that it has rigged tests as well, and said on Friday it saw the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey on Thursday, as unfounded. A spokesman said the carmaker would examine the levels and defend itself against the suit. Hagens Berman said in a statement that on-road testing had shown Mercedes's Clean Diesel cars produced average on-road NOx emissions that were 19 times above the U.S. standard, with some instantaneous readings as high as 65 times more than the U.S. limit. (Reporting by Jan Schwartz; Writing by Maria Sheahan; Editing by Georgina Prodhan) Berlin (AFP) - Maverick French actor Gerard Depardieu Friday took aim at the Oscars, "The Revenant" and George Clooney, criticising Hollywood for its "comfort" bubble. He rejected the pomp surrounding US cinema, saying he preferred to get into the gritty side of movies. "When I think about the Oscars, with 'The Revenant', the caravans, the warmth and all of that. We tell them: go roll in shit. I am sure that shit is fragrant," he said at a press conference during the Berlin film festival, referring to the movie staring Leonardo DiCaprio. "That's the fabulous comfort of cinema. I like things that are not comfortable, even if I scream all the time. I'm shouting all the time over a film. I start by saying 'no, nein'. And then I make it. That's how it is, that's life." Depardieu, 67, also took a dig at Clooney over his meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel when the Hollywood star offered to lend a hand solving Europe's refugee crisis. "We see these Syrian refugees, and George Clooney went to see Madame Merkel. I think that didn't go well. Today, we want to be an actor, a politician, an ecologist," he mocked. Depardieu is no stranger to controversy, and has even sparked an outcry in his native France for taking Russian nationality after befriending President Vladimir Putin. The actor, who was presenting his new film "Saint-Amour" in Berlin, reiterated that he has "a lot of admiration for Vladimir Putin, for what he has done, and for the Russian people". He acknowledged that his pro-Russian stance displeases his "some French intellectuals, including my friends". But he said: "I believe what I see." The Berlin film festival ends on Sunday. By Dustin Volz WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The chief of a Department of Homeland Security cyber organization tasked with protecting Internet infrastructure is stepping down, an agency official said Thursday. Ann Barron-DiCamillo, director of U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, or US-CERT, is leaving her post, the official said, though a specific timeline for her departure was not provided. US-CERT, formed in 2003, is responsible for helping to detect, analyze and respond to cyber attacks. Barron-DiCamillo has served in her role for over three years. News of her departure was first reported by Federal Computer Week. (Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Alan Crosby) Washington (AFP) - The US bombardment of an Islamic State camp in Libya dramatically highlights Washington's resolve to hunt the jihadists beyond their Syrian and Iraqi strongholds, but experts doubt it heralds any deeper engagement in the chaos-riddled country. In what was only the second time the United States hit an IS target in Libya, the air strike early Friday saw warplanes and drones obliterate a training center near the city of Sabratha west of Tripoli. Local officials said about 50 people were killed. The Pentagon would not confirm the toll, but said as many as 60 jihadists were spotted using the facility during weeks of surveillance ahead of the strike, and that a top IS operative, Noureddine Chouchane, was "likely" killed. The raid came just days after President Barack Obama vowed to hit IS in Libya, where the group has established a stronghold in the coastal city of Sirte. But with less than a year left in office, Obama is loath to get embroiled in a broader conflict in Libya -- for instance by sending large deployments of troops into the country. Former Iraq ambassador Christopher Hill of the University of Denver said Obama and the US public generally have little interest in a large increase in US military engagement, especially after 18 months of air strikes in Syria and Iraq have failed to destroy the IS group. "I don't see any appetite in the US for going back into Libya in any sustained way," Hill said. "We'll see these air strikes from time to time as targets of opportunity present themselves, but I don't think this presages any long-term commitment to Libya's future." Instead, Obama likely will continue to rely on occasional air strikes, coupled with small teams of US commandos working with sympathetic local partners on the ground. Washington has also pushed international allies -- especially former colonial power Italy -- to take the lead in any coalition operations there. Story continues Hill predicted that IS will continue to exploit the political chaos in Libya, but that tribal divisions will play a bigger role in determining the country's future than the jihadist group. - IS ranks swelling - Obama has faced criticism over the pace and scope of America's anti-IS operations, and the US-led coalition that has been bombing IS targets has come under increasing pressure to expand. "We hope today's air strikes signal the beginning of a new commitment by the Obama administration to put Libya at the center of a comprehensive strategy to defeat international jihadism," said Congressman Devin Nunes said, the Republican chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. While the coalition has seen some successes in Iraq and Syria, jihadists have flowed into Libya. The Pentagon estimates some 5,000 IS fighters are now in Libya, many from neighboring Tunisia. Jon Alterman, Middle East program director for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Friday's strike did not mark a significant change in military policy in Libya, but might help convince groups fighting with IS that the jihadists "can't win" and they are better off without them. He argued that the United States should focus on pursuing a diplomatic solution to the chaos that has engulfed the country since the NATO-backed ouster of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011. "You end up having a military strategy instead of an effective diplomatic effort because the diplomatic effort seems too hard and the military effort is relatively more straightforward," Alterman said. "The growing danger is that air strikes are used as an excuse not to develop the robust policies that are needed." - Targeting Western interests - Chouchane, an IS operative also known as "Sabir" believed killed in Friday's strike, had been linked to two deadly attacks in Tunisia last year. "We took this action against Sabir in the training camp after determining that both he and the ISIL fighters at these facilities were planning external attacks on US and other Western interests in the region," Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said, without providing specifics. The latest US strike in Libya comes after a November action that killed top IS leader Abu Nabil, an Iraqi also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al-Zubaydi. In December the Pentagon acknowledged that a group of US special operations troops who traveled to Libya to "foster relationships" was kicked out of the country soon after arriving. By Megan Twohey NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sometimes, workers who are recruited for temporary jobs in America assume that the U.S. government has vetted and is vouching for the brokers who help secure the visas. Thats not typically the case. In 2000, for example, Lourdes Navarro pleaded no contest to grand theft in a scheme to defraud Californias healthcare system and was sentenced to jail time and probation. In 2003, she was convicted of laundering money in New Jersey and placed on probation. Not long after, she became a labor broker. By 2007, Navarro was operating a Los Angeles-based business called Universal Placement International. She recruited Filipino teachers for her American clients. Nothing in U.S. Department of Labor regulations would have disqualified Navarro from working as a labor broker. Her criminal history came to light only after some of the Filipino teachers she recruited filed a class-action lawsuit against her in California court. Reached by Reuters, Navarro declined to comment. Mairi Nunag-Tanedo, 40, one of the victims, was outraged that Navarro had been able to establish a legitimate brokering practice despite her criminal past. When Nunag-Tanedo was recruited by Navarro, she said she assumed that brokers especially one employed by a school district -- must have been vetted by authorities before being allowed to recruit. It made me angry, said Nunag-Tanedo, who has remained in the United States on a visa for victims of human trafficking. Shouldnt there be background checks of these people? We thought, Wow, if this can happen here, what else can happen? (Edited by Blake Morrison.) LOS ANGELES Three global companies based here have expressed interest in doing more business in the Philippines and conveyed such plans during their executives meeting with President Aquino Tuesday. All three companies signified to the President their top-of-mind preference for the Philippines as an investment venue and source of high-quality talent and for Philippine organizations as business partners, Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said. He was referring to Walt Disney International, Western Digital Corp., and Architecture, Engineering, Consulting, Operations and Maintenance (AECOM). Aquino attended the two-day US-ASEAN Summit in California. In a note sent to Manila-based journalists who covered Aquinos attendance to the special summit, Coloma related that Walt Disney chairperson Andy Bird told the President that there are possibilities for tapping into the robust talent pool of creative Filipinos. There are several talented Filipinos in Walt Disneys pool, among them Ronnie del Carmen, co-director of Pixars Inside Out; Bobby Pontillas, one of the animators for Disneys Frozen; Armand Serrano, visual development artist for Walt Disney Animation Studio who worked on Mulan, Tarzan, and Big Hero 6; and Gini Santos, one of the animators for Pixars The Incredibles. At the same time, Bird also cited Walt Disneys commercial partnerships with big Philippine corporations such as the SM Group and Globe Telecom. Aquino thanked WDC for employing over 10,000 Filipinos in its Philippine operations in various fields including manufacturing, engineering, quality, information technology, finance, site operations, human resources, and supply chain management. Stephen Milligan, WDC chief executive officer, told Aquino that since 1994, their company has been a highly satisfied locator in the countrys export zones, on account of the excellent support provided by the Philippine Export Zone Authority. Story continues AECOM, for its part, employs 1,230 Filipinos in its global operations and over 1,000 more in its Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Philippine operations, according to Coloma. Michael Donnely, group president for AECOMs Enterprise Growth Solutions; Alma Madrazo, Philippines country leader; and Hugh Doyle, president for international development pledged to continue to participate actively in large infrastructure projects in the Philippines, Coloma said. AECOM recently won the Clark Green City design competition. It is also involved in, among others, the Mactan-Cebu International Airport passenger terminal building private-public partnership (PPP) project as concept designer; the Burgos wind and solar power project in Ilocos Norte which is the biggest wind power facility in Southeast Asia; and the Chevron Pandacan terminal decommissioning project. By Daniel Trotta HAVANA (Reuters) - Ostracized by the government and mistrusted by much of the public, Cuba's dissidents are hoping to receive a clear message of support from U.S. President Barack Obama when he visits the island next month. Obama plans to meet dissidents during his March 21-22 visit, the first by a sitting U.S. president since 1928. It follows the rapprochement of December 2014, when Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro ended more than five decades of Cold War-era animosity. Cuba's Communist government has long considered the dissidents a tiny and illegitimate minority funded by U.S. interests, while anti-Castro groups hold them up as champions of democracy. Political opponents say a public blessing from Obama might improve their standing and the cause of human rights in Cuba. "It's possible the visit will help raise the hopes of the Cuban people, which is important because Cuba is short on many things, most of all hope," said Elizardo Sanchez, leader of the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation, which monitors arrests of political opponents. Sanchez said Cuba is holding about 90 political prisoners, including some convicted hijackers and spies and 11 former prisoners out on parole. Cuba says it has no political prisoners. In addition Cuban officials briefly detain an average of more than 700 dissidents a month, the commission says. Obama's Republican critics have called the visit a capitulation, while Cuban dissidents are mostly supportive. "Any gesture of solidarity, any words or gestures, any contact with the peaceful opposition would be well received by the majority of the population," said Jose Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, which says it has about 3,000 members, making it the largest opposition group in Cuba. Cuban Foreign Ministry official Josefina Vidal said Cuba hoped Obama would meet with "the real Cuban civil society," a term making a distinction between most Cubans and anti-government activists. Some Cuban dissidents prefer the previous U.S. policy of isolating Cuba and say Obama has failed them. The Ladies in White, who march each Sunday in Havana, say Obama is unwelcome unless he responds to their request that he denounce the repression of activists and calls for amnesty for political prisoners. "If he makes a strong statement repudiating these human rights violations, then we will consider it an advance in human rights," said Berta Soler, leader of the group. "In practice, we have not seen a thing." (Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Tom Brown) The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday turned up the heat even more on Apple. Reuters is reporting that the DOJ has filed a motion that would legally compel Apple to obey a court order that the company refused to comply with this week. In case you havent been paying attention, Apple this week said that it would not obey a court order requiring it to help the FBI break into the iPhone used by one of the shooters in last years San Bernardino massacre. BACKGROUND: The FBI has laid a clever trap for Apple In its motion, the DOJ accused Apple of attempting to design and market its products to allow technology, rather than the law, to control access to data which has been found by this court to be warranted for an important investigation. The DOJ also used the motion to counter some of the claims made by Apple CEO Tim Cook in his open letter published earlier this week. The order does not, as Apples public statement alleges, require Apple to create of provide a back door to every iPhone, the DOJ writes. It does not provide hackers and criminals access to iPhones; it does not require Apple to hack [its] own users or to decrypt its own phones; it does not give the government the power to reach anyones device without a warrant or court authorization. One crucial point is that the DOJ alleges that the software Apple uses to break open the iPhone in question never has to be handed over to the government. In fact, the DOJ says that if Apple wants to open up the device on its own and then simply hand it to the DOJ afterward without explaining how it did so, it can. Apple has been taking criticism from several lawmakers over the past couple of days who have expressed outrage that Apple is refusing to help the FBI in this investigation. Senator Tom Cotton, for example, accused Apple of being more concerned with protecting a dead ISIS terrorists privacy over the security of the American people. Essentially, the FBI would like Apple to build software that would help it bypass its own passcode security protocols and eliminate the risk that the device could automatically delete all of its own data if the FBI tried to access it by entering in too many incorrect passcodes. This would allow the FBI to gain access to the device through brute force techniques. Story continues Apple has objected and says that doing this would tantamount to creating a backdoor to its own devices security. Whats more, Apple and other tech companies including Google have worried about the precedent that would be set by forcing tech companies to make it easier to hack their products. Related stories The DOJ is really accusing Apple of being shockingly cynical Why Samsung's chips can't beat the iPhone, and why Samsung still has to follow Apple Apple wanted to keep iPhone encryption issue private, but the FBI made it a public fight More from BGR: New report hints at major design changes for iPhone 7 This article was originally published on BGR.com Mexico City (AFP) - The wife of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman complained in a television interview about his treatment in prison and said she fears for his life. Emma Coronel, the mother of Guzman's US-born twin girls, told Telemundo that the authorities "want to make him pay for his escape" in July, when he embarrassed the government by tunneling out of prison. "I am afraid for his life. We don't know if he's eating well. We don't know what his situation is because we haven't seen him," the 26-year-old former beauty queen said, according to excerpts released on Friday. "They say that they are not punishing him. Of course they are. They are there with him, watching him in his cell. They are right there, all day long," she said. "They don't let him sleep. He has no privacy, not even to go to the restroom," Coronel said in the interview, which will be broadcast in full on Sunday by the US-based Spanish-language network. Eduardo Guerrero, the head of Mexico's penitentiary system, said last month that she was not allowed to see Guzman, 58, because he had not provided documents to prove that he divorced from his previous wife, casting doubt on the validity of his marriage to Coronel. Guzman and Coronel were reportedly married in 2007 in the northern state of Durango, when she was 18 years old. After recapturing Guzman on January 8, he was returned to the same prison he escaped from, the Altiplano, some 90 kilometers (55 miles) west of Mexico City. To prevent another escape, the authorities assigned two permanent guards in front of his cell, with a camera on top of their helmets to watch his every move. They also regularly move him to a new cell without warning. A dog tastes his food before it is served to him to thwart any attempt to poison him, Guerrero said. The government also ensured that there were no more blind spots for surveillance cameras looking into his cell. Story continues The night of his escape, cameras showed Guzman crouching behind his shower's low wall before disappearing. He slipped down a hole on the floor, which led to a 1.5-kilometer (one-mile) long tunnel. One of his lawyers said this week that Guzman complains that guards wake him up every two hours to check his presence and that "they're turning him into a zombie." "I think that all human beings have the right to have at least the vital things for a human. They are not giving that to him," said Coronel, who gave birth to the twins in Los Angeles in 2011. Cairo (AFP) - Egyptian police said Friday they had arrested an officer who allegedly shot dead a driver over a fare dispute, following a rare protest against security abuses and a backlash on social media. Police have been on the defensive after a string of deaths in custody over the past year, redolent of the abuses that fuelled an 18-day uprising that ousted president Hosni Mubarak in 2011. The non-commissioned officer, who was badly beaten after shooting driver Mohamed Ali Sayed Ismail on Thursday, was taken to hospital and arrested there, an interior ministry statement said. It said the policeman killed Ismail after an altercation with him and several other people in a working class Cairo neighbourhood. Ismail had transported the policeman's belongings when they quarrelled over the fare, the statement said. Dozens of furious residents later marched on the Cairo police headquarters chanting: "Dirty government, you sons of a whore," according to videos of the protest circulated on social media. Hundreds of mourners turned out for the driver's funeral on Friday and chanting for the policeman to face trial, the online Tahrir newspaper reported. "Do we need an 'Egyptian Lives Matter' campaign again?" asked one prominent Egyptian blogger, who goes by the name Zeinobia. The interior ministry had all but collapsed during the uprising against Mubarak, with protesters ransacking police stations across the country. But it had gained popularity after the overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, even as it carried out a deadly crackdown on Islamists that killed hundreds of protesters. Scores of policemen have been killed in attacks since, and the Egyptian media was reluctant to criticise them. But over the past year, several policeman have been detained for violence against prisoners, and some have been sentenced to jail. Last week, thousands of doctors held a protest against the police after officers allegedly assaulted two doctors in a hospital. Police have also been on the defensive after an Italian PhD student, Giulio Regeni, was found dead in Cairo on February 3 bearing signs of brutal torture a week after his disappearance in the capital. Italian media have reported suspicions that he was killed by Egyptian security services. The interior ministry said it was not involved and was investigating his death. Would Julie Andrews approve? Would audiences? Emily Blunt is rumored to play Mary Poppins, in a spinoff that would continue tale of the enchanted nanny and the Banks family. Blunt is said to be in talks with Disney to star in a "Mary Poppins" sequel set in Depression-era London, 20 years after the first film, reports Variety. Rob Marshall is attached to direct, with story lines taken from author P.L. Travers' "Mary Poppins" children's books. The casting could become complicated, however, given that Blunt is expecting her second child, Variety notes. Blunt has already proved her vocal chops in the 2014 film "Into the Woods" where she played the childless baker's wife. Istanbul (AFP) - President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday warned the United States against backing Kurdish fighters in Syria, saying there was "no doubt" they were behind a deadly attack on the Turkish military in Ankara. The attack on a convoy of military buses in Ankara left 28 people dead and has further complicated the search for an end to the Syrian conflict by creating a new bone of contention between Turkey and its chief NATO ally the United States "We have no doubt that the perpetrators are the YPG and PYD," Erdogan said in Istanbul, referring to the main Syrian Kurdish militia and their political wing. Ankara has insisted that the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and Democratic Union Party (PYD) were behind the attack but although its claims have met with scepticism from Washington. Erdogan said Turkey was "saddened" by the stubbornness of the West in not linking the YPG to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state and is recognised as a terror group by the United States and EU. He added he would speak to US President Barack Obama by phone later Friday to warn him over "the weapons support they (the United States) give to those organisations," referring to the PYD and YPG. "This incident will help our friends -- who have so far failed to be convinced -- better understand how strong the links are between the YPG and PYD in Syria and the PKK in Turkey," he said. "Who was the suicide bomber? Of course he was from the YPG," said Erdogan. - 'Open question' - The United States works with the YPG as the sole truly effective force on the ground in the fight against Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Syria and has shown no sign of changing its stance on the group. US State Department spokesman John Kirby said Thursday it was still an "open question" who had carried out the Ankara attack. Story continues "We're in no position to confirm or deny the assertions made by the Turkish government with respect to responsibility." But Erdogan refused to be drawn into a debate with Kirby, who has angered Turkey by repeatedly defending US support of the YPG in the last days. "He (Kirby) is not my interlocutor. I am going to speak to Obama at five (1500 GMT)," Erdogan said. Wednesday's attack -- blamed on a Syrian suicide car bomber -- struck at the heart of Ankara an an area where institutions including the army headquarters and parliament are concentrated. Ankara prosecutors said Friday that six more suspects had been detained in the investigation, bringing the total to 20, and that their links to Kurdish militants were being investigated. Erdogan said "three names" were being investigated for a particularly active role in the bombing, without giving further details. In Ankara meanwhile, eight victims of the attack were laid to rest following a funeral ceremony at the city's vast Kocatepe Mosque attended by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and chief of staff General Hulusi Akar. Six of those buried were civilian employees of the military and two were soldiers. In all 20 soldiers of varying ranks were killed in the attack, seven civilian employees and a young female journalist. Brussels (AFP) - Weary EU leaders take up the cudgels for a second day Friday, still with "a lot of work to do" to prevent Britain becoming the first country to crash out of the bloc. Talks ran through the night in Brussels as officials struggled to thrash out difficult compromises needed to get everyone on board, with Prime Minister David Cameron running into serious opposition to some of his reform demands. Under pressure from eurosceptics in his own Conservative Party and a hostile right-wing press, Cameron is seeking sweeping reforms to the 28-member bloc before putting Britain's membership to an in-out referendum. Cameron had earlier urged his EU peers on day one of the tense two-day meeting to reach a "credible" reform deal that would allow him to hold this referendum in June. But the British demands have experienced serious faultlines in the EU, also sharply divided on how to tackle its biggest migration crisis since World War II. And in the early hours of Friday, EU President Donald Tusk warned there was much more to do to bridge these sharp differences. "For now I can only say that we have made some progress but a lot needs to be done," Tusk told a brief press conference before rushing off to a fresh round of overnight meetings with key leaders. Earlier in the week, EU officials had hoped Friday would begin with an "English Breakfast," with a deal served up for final approval. However, as talks got bogged down, that became an "English Brunch" and now an "English Lunch" is on the menu. "Work ongoing on revised UK/EU settlement. Next round of bilateral (meetings) at 1100. 'English Lunch' foreseen at 1330 (1230 GMT)," the European Council said. - 'Goodwill' from Merkel - Cameron appears to have won the crucial support of German Chancellor Angela Merkel who said she has shared many of his wishes "for years." "The agreement's not easy to take for many but goodwill is there. We are ready to compromise because advantages are higher than disadvantages when there is Brexit," Merkel told reporters, referring to the popular term for a British exit from the EU. Story continues Others were less accommodating, especially French President Francois Hollande who insisted Britain could not expect to have a veto over other EU member states who want to press ahead with the European project. Hollande said earlier that he wanted an agreement and that it was "possible" -- but warned that "no country can have the right to veto" eurozone states. Cameron also ran into headwinds from Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, who said he was "very determined" Britain should not get a free ride and opt out on the EU's goal of "ever closer union". The Czech premier meanwhile leads a group of four Eastern European countries that object to Britain's request for a limit to welfare benefit payments for EU migrants working in Britain for four years. Brussels has offered an "emergency brake" to limit benefits for new migrants for four years, which Britain could invoke if its welfare system is overwhelmed by the inflow of workers, as it believes it has been. But Poland and other eastern European member states who have hundreds of thousands of citizens in Britain bitterly oppose such a change, saying it would discriminate against them and undermine the EU's core principle of freedom of movement. - 'Live and let live' - Cameron says he will back a 'Yes' vote in the referendum if he can cut a deal in Brussels. Failing that, he has said all options are open, refusing to rule out the possibility that Britain could become the first country to leave the EU in its more than 60-year history. In an impassioned speech to his colleagues, as the summit began, Cameron called for a "sort of live and let live" approach to reach a deal. He urged them to secure "a package that is credible with the British people", adding that the issue of Britain's place in Europe "has been allowed to fester for too long" and that there was now a chance "to settle this issue for a generation". Britons voted overwhelmingly in favour of staying in the EU in a 1975 referendum, just two years after joining, but the issue of "Europe" is never far from the top of the British political agenda. Recent opinion polls suggest a narrow lead for those who want to stay in the EU but there does seem to have been a modest increase in the 'No' camp. Many voters are thought to be undecided. Brussels (AFP) - The EU and Turkey will hold a special summit in early March to push forward a deal to stem the migration crisis, European Council President Donald Tusk said Friday. EU leaders meeting in Brussels also unanimously opposed "unilateral actions" by member states after Austria said it would cap the daily number of asylum claims. "We agreed that our joint action plan with Turkey remains a priority and we must do all we can to succeed," Tusk told a press conference after the first day of a two-day European Union summit in Brussels. "This is why we have the intention to organise a special meeting with Turkey in the beginning of March," Tusk said without elaborating. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany -- the EU country that received the most refugees last year at more than one million -- said the special summit with Turkey could take place on March 5 or March 7. She said the EU "must see quickly if measures work" under the plan agreed at another EU-Turkey summit in November, in which Turkey agreed to cut migrant flows in exchange for three billion euros in aid. - Pressure growing - Pressure to enforce the plan is growing as EU officials say thousands of migrants are still crossing the Aegean daily from Turkey after more than one million made the perilous journey last year, the greatest such movement in the bloc's history. A meeting of the leaders of 11 EU countries with Turkey had been planned before the full summit on Thursday but was cancelled after Turkey's premier Ahmet Davutoglu pulled out following a bomb attack in Ankara. European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker meanwhile said the EU leaders agreed "there was no alternative to smart, intelligent cooperation with Turkey." Central EU countries which oppose admitting asylum seekers said Wednesday they would push for further border restrictions in Europe's passport-free Schengen zone unless they see results from Turkey. Story continues Central European states say the number of asylum seekers arriving from Turkey needs to drop from as many as 2,000 a day to as low as dozens of people per day. Juncker also said EU leaders unanimously opposed "unilateral actions" to resolve the migrant crisis after Austria said Wednesday it would cap the daily number of asylum claims at 80. European migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos warned in a letter to Vienna that such plans would "be plainly incompatible" with EU law and Austria should reconsider them. - Austria hits back - But Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann hit back strongly at his fellow EU leaders and said he would not postpone the asylum cap. "I made clear, if everyone would take as much as Austria, the 37,500 (in 2016, down from the 90,000 it took in 2015), it would be two million in the European Union just in this year," Faymann told reporters. "There is nothing to postpone, nothing to change. 37,500 is not peanuts." Since January, the country of nearly nine million has already received 11,000 asylum claims, or around 250 a day. Last year we had "more asylum requests than Italy and much more than France. And everyone who looked at a map knows that these two countries are much bigger than Austria and have more inhabitants as well." The move came a day after Vienna said it would step up controls at existing checkpoints along its southern frontier with Italy, Slovenia and Hungary to curb the influx of migrants and refugees trekking up through the Balkans. Separately the police chiefs of Austria and four other countries on the migrant route through southeast Europe announced an agreement Thursday for a joint refugee registration point at the Greek-Macedonian border. Sweden said it plans to house nearly 1,800 migrants on a luxury cruise ship, as it struggles to cope with its share of the huge migrant influx into Europe. Meanwhile a top UN official said Europe has "completely failed" in its response to the migrant crisis. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, speaking in a German newspaper interview, referred to an EU deal struck last September on relocating 160,000 refugees from overstretched Greece and Italy to other EU states, but only about 600 have been moved until now. BERLIN (Reuters) - The European Parliament will not agree to special treatment for Britain, its president said on Friday as British Prime Minister David Cameron sought to hammer out a deal with European leaders that he could sell to the British public to stay in the EU. "It's certain that no one in the European Parliament would vote for special treatment for Great Britain," European Parliament President Martin Schulz told German radio station Deutschlandfunk. He spoke after Cameron spent much of the night arguing in Brussels with EU partners determined to limit concessions to help keep Britain in the 28-nation bloc. Schulz said two conditions needed to be met before a compromise could be reached. He said there should not be a split between euro zone and non-euro zone countries within the EU so that the level of supervision and control of banks is not lower in the City of London than in Frankfurt, Paris or Barcelona. He also said EU citizens who work in Britain should not be discriminated against when it comes to social benefits, adding that he was optimistic leaders would come to an agreement if these two conditions were met. There are concerns in eastern Europe that a deal to help Cameron cut immigration, by barring low-paid EU migrant workers from British welfare benefits for up to four years after they arrive, years would hurt their citizens. Schulz also said both the EU and Britain would be weaker if Britain left the bloc, so he thought Britain was prepared to come to a compromise with other countries. "It's not the case that everyone only has to come to a compromise with Great Britain - the opposite is also true." Turning to the crisis over migrants streaming into Europe from the Middle East and Africa, he expressed optimism that the EU would find common solutions as the bloc had taken "a few steps forward" during the current two-day summit in Brussels. (Reporting by Michelle Martin; Editing by Mark Heinrich) Europe's long-running and exceedingly kitsch pan-continental music competition has overhauled its voting process, introducing the biggest changes since 1975 in a bid to heighten the excitement. The European Song Contest, which this year is being held May 14 in Stockholm, will now see votes split, with each country's jury vote cast first. The votes from the viewers across all countries will be added in later and announced at the end. The new method will mean a song that scored poorly with the judges could still jump to the top should it rank higher with the public. In the past, the winner has often been known long before voting came to a close, but the new system will, organizers claim, create a "dramatic finish," with the overall winner only known once the final vote is in. "This format change will inject a new level of excitement into the finish of the Eurovision Song Contest," said Martin Osterdahl, executive producer for the 2016 show, while producer Christer Bjorkman said it was about "creating TV magic." Known for its rather colorful musical offerings think bands dressed as gypsies playing keytars or a group of Russian grandmothers inviting people to their Europop-fueled "Party for Everybody" the European Song Contest launched in 1956 for members of the European Broadcasting Union. It later expanded and is now billed as the world's largest nonsporting TV event. The competition has never been short of controversy, with voting among nations often reflecting current political relations and various onstage antics aimed at generating headlines, such as Finland's 2013 entrant, who kissed one of her female dancers in protest at her country's ban on gay marriage. In 2014, Austria's winner Conchita Wurst, a drag queen sporting high heels and a full beard, sparked calls for a boycott from Russia. Read More: Russian Legislator Calls for Boycotting Eurovision Song Contest Chicago (AFP) - A former Black Panther activist who spent a record 43 years in solitary confinement was freed from a US prison after decades of legal battles to prove his innocence. Albert Woodfox is the last of the "Angola Three" activists to taste freedom in a case which provoked outrage among rights groups. A federal judge had ordered Woodfox's unconditional release in June in a strongly-worded ruling that barred any further trial on charges of murdering prison guard Brent Miller. Woodfox twice managed to overturn his conviction for the crime, but Louisiana's attorney general had been determined to pursue a third trial and managed to bar Woodfox's release on appeal. He won his freedom Friday by pleading "no contest" to two lesser charges in a deal which allowed him to be released on his 69th birthday. "Although I was looking forward to proving my innocence at a new trial, concerns about my health and my age have caused me to resolve this case now and obtain my release with this no-contest plea to lesser charges," Woodfox said in a statement. "I hope the events of today will bring closure to many." The plea is not an admission of guilt but instead a legal maneuver in which he "does not contest that the State would present evidence at a new trial from witnesses who said he committed this crime," his lawyers said. - Obama pushes reforms - Lousiana's Attorney General Jeff Landry said in a statement that the plea deal brought "finality" and "closure" to the long drawn out case, adding that the arrangement "is in the best interest of justice." "Albert Woodfox, by his own plea, stands convicted of the homicide of Brent Miller. In accordance with that plea, he was sentenced to 42 years of incarceration and given credit for time served," Landry said. President Barack Obama's spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Friday that the US leader is convinced that solitary confinement should be used "appropriately and sparingly." Story continues Obama, who recently introduced a ban on solitary confinement for juveniles in federal prisons, is pushing to introduce broader reforms to America's overcrowded correctional system -- including a drastic reduction in the practice of solitary confinement in federal prisons. "If our ultimate goal of our criminal justice system is to give people a second chance, after they've paid their debt to society, we're basically setting them up to fail if we don't take seriously the long-term negative consequences of prolonged solitary confinement," Earnest said. "The kind of reforms that the president put forward are the kind of reforms that can only be implemented in the federal prison system," he said. The Angola Three said they were targeted by prison officials because they spoke out against inhumane treatment and racial segregation at the notorious Louisiana prison built on a former slave plantation. Woodfox and Herman Wallace, who were sent to Angola for unrelated cases of armed robbery, were convicted of the Rogers murder in 1972. Wallace was released in 2013 and died shortly thereafter from cancer. Robert King, the third member of the group, spent 29 years in solitary until his conviction for a separate prison murder was overturned in 2001. - 'Extreme and cruel punishment' - Woodfox's attorney George Kendall called his client's long imprisonment "inhumane." "Albert survived the extreme and cruel punishment of 40 plus years in solitary confinement only because of his extraordinary strength and character," Kendall said in a statement. "These inhumane practices must stop. We hope the Louisiana Department of Corrections will reform and greatly limit its use of solitary confinement -- as have an increasing number of jurisdictions around the country." The case of the Angola Three has brought attention to the psychological toll of solitary confinement, which typically means being locked in a tiny cell for 23 hours a day. Researchers have found that depriving someone of visual stimulation, human interaction, sunlight or physical activity can change their brain structure in a matter of days. Yet many of the 80,000 people estimated to be in solitary confinement in US prisons have been there for years on end. "Today should also mark a pivotal new chapter in reforming the use of prolonged solitary confinement in US prisons and jails," said Jasmine Heiss, a campaigner with Amnesty International USA. "Moving forward, Woodfox's case must serve as a tragic reminder of the cruelty inflicted by the prison system at its most extreme." BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon canceled a plan to export its rubbish to Russia on Friday, a government agency said, sending Beirut's six-month garbage crisis back to square one as mountains of trash choke the city's air and streets. Lebanese authorities shut the main landfill site for garbage from the capital in July, without providing an alternative. Frustrated protesters point the finger at Lebanon's paralyzed political system, made worse because of sectarian tension that has increased with Syria's civil war next door. The government has not passed a budget since 2005 and has been without a president for over a year and a half. The British firm chosen to export the rubbish to Russia for disposal, Chinook Urban Mining, failed to obtain documents proving Russia had agreed to accept the waste by Friday's deadline, annulling the deal, government agency the Council for Reconstruction and Development (CDR) said. It said this meant the Lebanese government could now claim $2.5 million from Chinook which the waste management firm put up as a guarantee it would get the required permissions. The CDR said the company apologized for not being able to provide the documents. Chinook declined to comment. "The CDR will now take the necessary administrative steps, including informing (Chinook) to consider the preliminary approval canceled, and that the financial guarantee, which the company offered as a guarantee they would secure the required documents, will be claimed," the CDR said in a statement. Untreated, unmanaged rubbish threatens the water supply and people continue to burn garbage -- despite a government ban -- filling the air with foul smoke that contains dangerous levels of pollutants and carcinogens. At a National Dialogue session on Thursday, Prime Minister Tammam Salam said if the export plan fell through, he would ask politicians to reconsider the original landfill plan, and also said he had asked for an incineration plan to be looked into. (Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Alison Williams) Brasilia (AFP) - A top US health official expressed "extreme concern" Friday over the potential for Zika to expand throughout Haiti and said the United States is helping the deeply impoverished Caribbean nation prepare. There was "extreme concern of Haiti in terms of impact that dengue has there, and of course, the vulnerable population is a challenge," said Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the US Centers for Disease Control. Schuchat spoke while in the Brazilian capital of Brasilia studying an outbreak of the Zika virus, which is widely believed to cause microcephaly, a serious birth defect, in babies born to infected women. The virus is transmitted by the same mosquito responsible for carrying dengue, a far more common disease. The US expert said that with the northern hemisphere summer approaching, a rise in mosquito numbers is expected and Haiti, which confirmed its first cases of Zika in January, needs to prepare. The "CDC has a very strong partnership in Haiti and we are already working on how to help them be ready for this," she told AFP. "We are concerned about many countries. Certainly in Colombia they have seen a rapid increase in Zika cases," she said. "In the US we are working very closely with Puerto Rico and we are very concerned about the months ahead." Most people who get Zika suffer no serious symptoms, but pregnant women are considered to be at risk and have been advised by numerous governments not to travel to Zika-prone countries. Brazil said this week that it has registered 508 cases of microcephaly since October, a huge increase on the average annual number of 150. Elite, stylish and extravagant, the social scene at the annual Lagos polo tournament is as much of a show as the game on the pitch. Big name politicians and businessmen hobnob with tribal kings and queens, while imported professional players from Argentina, Syria and South Africa up the stakes on the field. The Lagos Polo Club, a green gem in the heart of Ikoyi, one of the upscale neighbourhoods of Nigeria's commercial hub Lagos, has long been a watering hole for the country's elite. When the Lagos Bonhams face the Kano Akasma under the blazing sun, a small crowd of young women wearing ornate fascinators watch from the edge of the lawn, sipping from flutes of luxury champagne, one of the sponsors of the event. The tournament, which started last week Wednesday and ends Sunday, February 21, is "going to be the best tournament ever", Ayo Olashoju, captain of the Lagos Polo Club, said to AFP. The field has been fully renovated, explained Olashoju, while the foreign professionals, dubbed "hired assassins", have been contracted by local teams for extra strength. "This is my ninth year in Nigeria," Santiago "Chino" Estrada, a famous Argentinian professional player, said. "It's improving every year." Lagos is "becoming a really nice club to come and play" even if the hot and humid climate is not ideal for horses, he said, pulling his leather riding boots over his white pants before heading out to play. - Watering hole - British colonisers brought the sport to Nigeria at the turn of the 20th century, later converting a military airstrip into the polo club, Lagos Polo Club president Ade Laoye said. Far from becoming a colonial relic, over the years the polo club has grown to become the favoured meeting place of the most influential politicians and businessman. Dodan barracks, headquarters of the military dictator who assumed power in 1966, are conveniently located next door. Story continues Many heads of state played there, including avid polo player General Yakubu Gowon, who ruled for a decade until 1975. Today the club has 240 members -- a who's who of Nigerian society. On Friday, those spotted in the crowd included the son of Bola Tinubu, former governor of Lagos and one of the most powerful politicians in the country, members of the Dantata family dynasty from the north, and relatives of the richest man in Africa, Aliko Dangote. They will take in the polo over two weeks of competition, interspersed with fashion shows, art exhibitions and, of course, hat contests. - Accomplished equestrians - Businessman Murtala Dankaka, captain of Kano Akasma, Nigeria's largest city in the north, only started playing polo three years ago, though he has been riding horses since childhood. "There are about 15 teams from Kano. We have a club and there are private polo farms as well, " said Dankaka. Horses feature prominently in the country's predominantly Muslim north, where emirs and eminent personalities are more often than not accomplished equestrians. "The emirs, up north, were always great horsemen. And they enjoyed riding horses and encouraged their sons to ride horses. And that's why there's a big following in the North", Laoye said. The "durbar", a festival where horse riders dressed in billowing robes and colourful turbans pay homage to the emir, is also one of the great cultural attractions of Kano. Today, the cities of Kano, Katsina and Kaduna have major polo clubs, along with many private polo grounds, including luxurious hideaways like the Fifth Chukker in Kaduna. In total, Nigeria has between 35 and 40 clubs, estimates Laoye, who says he wants to make the sport "more accessible". Still, cost is an issue, Edozie Onwuli, an immigration agent who plays in Ibadan, 130 kilometres (80 miles) north of Lagos, said. "If you buy a pony -- the local word for horse -- which comes from Chad, Niger and Sudan, it costs between 300,000 and 1.5 million naira (between 1,300 and 6,500 euros, $1,400 to $7,200)," but for a pure Sudanese the price can go to three million naira (13,000 euros), he said. Meanwhile, an Argentinian horse, considered the must-have in Lagos, "can go up to $50,000", he exclaimed. "That's a whole lot of money." Taipei (AFP) - American ice dancers Maia and Alex Shibutani continued their winning streak by taking gold at the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships in Taipei on Friday. The sibling team clinched the victory after their free dance to "Fix You" by Coldplay, a boost of confidence for the newly crowned US National Champions. "We were very excited to win the national title for the first time and that has a level of confidence that comes with it that we've taken into this week of our skating," said older brother Alex, 21. "We feel like we're just starting to scratch the surface of what our potential can be so we're really looking forward to the lead up to 2018," added Maia, 21. They scored a personal best of 108.76 points in their free dance performance for an overall total of 181.62 points. Fellow American skaters Madison Chock and Evan Bates scored an overall 174.64, leaping their way to silver after a disappointing fourth place in Thursday's short programme. Last year's Four Continents champions Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje failed to defend their title, finishing third with an overall 173.85 points. "I did stumble in the program a couple times," Canadian Poje, 28, said, referring to Friday's free dance in which they ranked fourth. "I'm not proud of that. I'll go home and work on that in making sure that doesn't happen again." In the men's event, China's Boyang Jin shot ahead with a personal-best score of 98.45 points in the short programme. The 2015 World Junior silver medalist is trailed by Japan's Shoma Uno in second place with 92.99 points, followed by fellow Chinese skater Han Yan in third. Canadian favourite and 2014 Olympic silver medalist Patrick Chan ranked fifth with 86.22 points. The men's free skating is scheduled for Sunday, the last day of the competition. Mark Millar, one of the top comic creators whose works are snatched up by Hollywood, is just over a month away from unveiling his latest comic, Empress, which he created with artist Stuart Immonen. The comic centers on the wife of a galactic dictator (think someone akin to Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon), who makes the decision to take her three kids and leave her evil husband. With the aid of a bodyguard, she tries to take her brood Aine, her 15-year-old daughter who wants to be with her father; Adam, her gentle soul of a 10-year-old son whom she knows would not survive the trials ahead to be an elite ruler; and Puck, her 18-month-old to her home world. The Hollywood Reporter has an exclusive first-look at the variant covers which will be published with issue #1, which hits stores April 6. The artists include Millar pals Steve McNiven, Sean Murphy, Skottie Young and a variant from Immonen. Check them out below. Read More: First Look: Mark Millar's Sci-Fi Epic 'Empress #1' (Exclusive) By Anthony Boadle BRASILIA (Reuters) - Two U.S.-Brazilian studies on whether the Zika virus spreading through the Americas is causing birth defects and other neurological disorders will yield initial results by May, a senior U.S. public health official said on Friday. The studies seek to confirm the theory that the mosquito-borne virus is responsible for an unprecedented surge in Brazil of cases of babies born with abnormally small heads, a condition called microcephaly, and that it can cause Guillain-Barre syndrome, a temporary paralysis in adults. Since it appeared in Brazil last year, the virus first detected in monkeys in Africa in 1947 has spread to more than 26 countries in the Americas, and to several countries elsewhere. Zika had previously been viewed as a relatively mild illness, but concern over the possible links to birth defects prompted the World Health Organization to declare the outbreak an international health emergency on Feb. 1. Preliminary results of the two case control studies conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Brazilian biomedical research centers in the northeastern states of Bahia and Paraiba should be ready "this spring," said CDC principal deputy director Anne Schuchat. "Scientists are increasingly confident that Zika is causing microcephaly, but people may have different judgments about how much proof is enough," Schuchat told reporters during a two-day meeting in the Brazilian capital on how to deal with the virus, which is borne by the same mosquito that transmits dengue and yellow fever. "The epidemiologic studies ongoing here in Brazil and some being initiated in Colombia should help cement the link," she said. The WHO said on Friday it could take four to six months to prove the link. Brazil has said it has confirmed more than 500 cases of microcephaly, and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. Brazil is investigating more than 3,900 additional suspected cases of microcephaly. But the causual link with Zika has not been proven. CONCERNS FOR PUERTO RICO, HAITI Schuchat said the U.S. government is "very concerned" about a surge of the mosquito-borne virus in the U.S. Caribbean territory of Puerto Rico when the weather warms up in mid-year, and "extremely concerned" about the impact Zika can have on Haiti, where dengue is endemic. Brazil is scrambling to contain the Zika outbreak that threatens attendance at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in August. The United States and other countries are recommending that pregnant women stay away. The meeting between U.S. and Brazilian public health experts helped pool scientific information, remove hurdles and make sure "we are putting our best minds together" to advance research on Zika and its consequences, said U.S. delegation head, Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Jimmy Kolker. He said he was confident Brazil's government has removed legal obstacles to sending blood samples abroad, which has hindered international research into the virus by public institutions and private companies seeking a vaccine. The U.S. experts said Brazil was quick to recognize it had a problem and alert the world. "A new disease or syndrome like this is a global problem, and we are lucky that the Brazilians were very prompt and open with their experience," Schuchat said. (Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Frances Kerry) By Ingrid Melander PARIS (Reuters) - French President Francois Hollande stuck to a firm line on Friday on limiting concessions to London on financial sector reforms and welfare at a European Union summit struggling to work out a deal to keep Britain in the bloc. Hollande said he would feel regret if Britons voted to leave the EU in a planned referendum, but that there were limits to what Paris could agree to satisfy British Prime Minister David Cameron's push for EU reforms and persuade voters to stay. "There can be no special case for the City" of London, he told France Inter radio of Britain's push for safeguards for its financial sector against being harmed by decisions taken in the euro zone. Hollande said that reforms demanded by Britain could in turn give its financial sector an unfair advantage over other European nations, adding: "I cannot accept that". "Britain cannot have a right to veto what we are doing in the euro zone. That's a given," he said. Hollande also said that "many nations" at the summit opposed British Prime Minister David Cameron's calls to be able to restrict social benefits for migrants workers. "That is where it grates the most," he said in a two-hour interview during a break at the summit. "You can't give into any blackmail." Still, Hollande expressed hope that the summit would reach a deal on Britain but that it would be a long evening. "We will find a compromise, I hope so," he said. He added that whether or not Britain decides to stay, the bloc would have to make decisions in future to define the European project. Hollande also warned that disputes over the refugee crisis were a threat to Europe and urged a common approach to avoid countries re-establishing border checks. "Otherwise it would be the end of Europe," he said. (Reporting by Ingrid Melander, Matthias Blamont, Emmanuel Jarry in Paris and Jean-Baptiste Vey in Brussels; Writing by Alister Doyle) PARIS (Reuters) - French President Francois Hollande said on Friday that he had not yet made up his mind on whether to stand again in elections next year. Hollande, dogged by low popularity ratings, said he stood by a past pledge that he would only run in the 2017 vote if he managed to bring unemployment down. "I might be candidate, I might not be a candidate," Hollande told France Inter radio. "It's all about unemployment," he said, "I need to have results." Hollande said unemployment, now at an 18-year-high of 10.6 percent, would be the key focus of the last 14 months of his term, adding that he would press ahead with labour reform plans although they have raised strong criticism within his Socialist party. "I won't let that reform slip," he said. (Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau and Matthias Blamont; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Andrew Heavens) PARIS (Reuters) - French President Francois Hollande said on Friday that there was a risk of war between Turkey and Russia over Syria, adding that Moscow should stop backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Russia's foreign ministry said earlier on Friday that it intends to call a session of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the Turkish government's statements about a possible ground operation in Syria. "There is a risk of war between Turkey and Russia," Hollande told France Inter radio. "There is an escalation." "Negotiations must resume, bombardments must stop, aid must come," he said. Russian warplanes entered Syria's increasingly complex five-year-old conflict at the end of September, backing the forces of their ally Assad, and bombing rebel positions. The Turkish military shot down a Russian jet in November it said had breached its airspace while on a bombing campaign in neighboring Syria. "There must be pressure on Moscow so that we have negotiations," Hollande said. "Moscow will not succeed by unilaterally backing Bashar al-Assad." Hollande said in the radio interview that he had told Russian authorities: "You are not striking the right spots and you are striking civilian populations, which is unacceptable." Turkey, opposed to the government in neighboring Syria and worried about advances by Kurdish militants in Syrian territory, this week had to deny a media report that it had already sent troops over the border. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also told Reuters this week that his country, Saudi Arabia and some European powers wanted ground troops in Syria, though no serious plan had been debated. The Syrian government and its allies, including Russia, must cease hostilities on Friday in line with an agreement made between major powers on Feb. 11, France's Foreign Ministry spokesman said earlier on Friday. (Reporting by Ingrid Melander, Matthias Blamont, Elizabeth Pineau, editing by Alister Doyle) Washington (AFP) - France's Christine Lagarde, who battled financial fires across Europe as managing director of the International Monetary Fund, was officially named Friday to a new term at the global emergency lender. But with the world economy slowing, and a number of emerging economies plunging into crisis, Lagarde's second five years are not likely to be any quieter than her first term. Greece and Ukraine, two of the Fund's largest liabilities, remain on the precipice, and new challenges are cropping up as a consequence of China's slowdown and the global commodities collapse, war in the Middle East, and fears of return to recession in developed countries. The former French finance minister, 60, was unopposed for the position, and approved "by consensus" by the IMF executive board. It keeps her in charge of the institution's staff of 2,600 and more than $1 trillion in resources to be used to support struggling countries and, when needed, rescue them and shepherd them through often difficult reforms. That process is politically fraught and, as in the case of Greece, which is still struggling to get on its feet six years after its first financial rescue program, the focus of huge policy debates among the world's top politicians, bankers and economists. "In taking this decision, the board praised Ms Lagarde's strong and wise leadership during her first term," said Aleksei Mozhin, the dean of the board. "During turbulent times in the global economy, Ms Lagarde strengthened the Fund's ability to support its members with policy advice, capacity building and financing." - Need to anticipate crises - Lagarde arrived at the IMF in 2011 tasked with restoring the reputation of its leadership following her predecessor Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who resigned under the cloud of a sex scandal early that year. She built respect through tough, huge rescues of Greece, Ireland and Portugal in the European economic crisis. Story continues And she managed to advance crucial reforms which elevated the status of the new emerging economic powers like China at the IMF after decades of domination by Europe, the United States and Japan. Lagarde has "played a critical role in revitalizing the Fund's relations with its global membership, including its emerging market and developing members," noted Mozhin. Lagarde said she was "delighted" to accept a second term to lead the IMF, which represents 188 member countries. But she quickly turned her focus to the challenges ahead, saying the institution, while planning further in the future, has to remain focused in the short term on financial stability. "Are we in a 2009 moment?" she asked Friday, referring to the deep financial crisis that year. "I don't think so. Are we in a moment where coordination is needed? Yes." One key lesson of the past five years, she said, is the disruptive "spillover" effects that monetary policies in one country can have on another. And she said the IMF needs to take a more preventative role in advising countries. "I think we can play a bigger role in terms of trying to anticipate" what is needed. Bamako (AFP) - French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Thursday described the fight against Islamic militancy as a "battle against barbarity" as he visited Mali, where France has had troops tackling rebels and jihadist groups since 2013. The country's vast northern stretches continue to be beset by violence having fallen under the control of Tuareg-led rebels and jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in 2012. The Islamists sidelined the Tuareg to take sole control, and although they were largely ousted by a French-led military operation in January 2013, extremist groups still pose a threat. "Today, reconciliation is in progress," said Valls, who visited Bamako accompanied by defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, referring to the peace accord signed by the government and the Tuareg rebels last year. "Liberty must be defended. France is fully engaged. It's in essence a battle of humanity against barbarity," Valls said, speaking to members of the French community after meeting with Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. Although Mali has concluded a landmark peace agreement between the government and Tuareg-led rebels, jihadist violence has intensified on the ground and the management of the transition to peace has been criticised by the international community. On Friday, Valls will visit Gao, the largest city in Mali's troubled north, to meet with French troops stationed there as part of the anti-insurgent Operation Barkhane. Barkhane comprises at least 3,500 soldiers deployed across five countries (Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso) with a mandate to combat jihadist insurgencies in the region. Valls will spend two days in Mali and will then fly to Burkina Faso, both of which have been scarred by recent jihadist attacks. A November attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali's capital, Bamako, left 20 people dead, while in January, gunmen killed 30 people at a top hotel in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou, an assault claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Valls is also due to meet the chief of the UN force, known as MINUSMA, on Friday, just days after a jihadist attack on its base killed seven Guinean peacekeepers, as well as the head of an EU military training mission in the country. Jerusalem (AFP) - A bomb attack targeted the home of a leader of a Palestinian Shiite Muslim movement in the Gaza Strip Friday, causing damage but no injuries, the group and security sources said. The pre-dawn blast caused extensive damage at the home of Sheikh Hisham Salem, his Al-Sabirin group said in a statement. Shiite Muslims are a tiny minority among Palestinians who are almost exclusively Sunni Muslims or Christians. Al-Sabirin, which says it is supported by Iran, accused "the occupier (Israel) and its collaborators." The Israeli army declined to comment on the allegations. Reliable information is difficult to ascertain in Gaza, which is blockaded by Israel and Egypt and run by Islamist group Hamas. Hamas, a Sunni movement, seems to want to avoid conflict with Al-Sabirin, although there is no significant Shiite community in Gaza. Shortly after the explosion, Gazan security forces went to the scene and opened an investigation to find the perpetrators, security sources said. "We went out and found an explosive device placed near the door of the house," said a brother of the leader, Issam Salem, who was in the house at the time of the blast. "The windows of the house and those of a bus were blown out," he told AFP, adding that the explosion had sent children inside the home into a panic. Al-Sabirin was formed in 2014 by Hisham Salem, a former member of Islamic Jihad -- another Islamist group that also takes inspiration from the Shiite Iranian revolution but which is itself Sunni. BERLIN (Reuters) - A Berlin court rejected on Friday a legal complaint filed by German publishers which said Google was abusing its market power by refusing to pay them for displaying newspaper articles online. Germany's biggest newspaper publisher, Axel Springer, and 40 other publishers had accused Alphabet Inc's Google of unfair treatment. The conflict centered on a long-standing row over payments for newspaper content, which Google makes freely available via its online platforms Google News, YouTube and other services. While some in the media industry accuse Google of making money at its expense, the Silicon Valley company says publishers profit from advertising revenue generated through its site. The unfair treatment allegation centered on what German publishers said were threats by Google to punish those media outlets which demanded payment by displaying abbreviated versions of their stories. But the court declared Google's business model to be a "win-win" proposition for both parties and said that although Google had a 90 percent share of the German market, it was not treating certain publishers unfairly. "We don't want to have legal disputes with publishers," Google said in a statement after the ruling. "We'd much rather collaborate with them to direct visitors to their websites and apps in order to strengthen digital journalism." A related ruling on whether publishers should receive payments from Google for displaying their news articles is still outstanding. (Reporting by Klaus Lauer; Writing by Tina Bellon; Editing by Mark Potter) BERLIN (Reuters) - The German government on Friday accused Russia media of "biased reporting" on events such as the Ukraine crisis, reports on Russia's neighboring states and an alleged rape case involving a German-Russian girl. "We're very closely monitoring the increased activity of Russian media," said Christiane Wirtz, deputy spokeswoman for the German government. German-Russian relations have been tense since Moscow intervened in the alleged rape case of a 13-year-old German-Russian girl. She told police she had been kidnapped in Berlin by migrants, who raped her while she was held for 30 hours. The Berlin public prosecutor's office later said a medical examination showed she had not been raped. The case stoked concern among senior German officials that Russia was trying to erode public trust in Merkel using immigration, an issue that has already cost her support and caused tensions in the European Union. Wirtz did not comment on German media reports that said German intelligence agencies would investigate whether Russia was using an old Cold War tactic known as "active measures", which used propaganda and disinformation against other nations. (Reporting by Markus Wacket; Writing by Michelle Martin and Katharine Houreld) BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's interior minister warned fellow European Union states on Friday not to take national measures against a migrant influx that would burden Germany and threatened action if they did. Germany, the EU's largest and most dynamic economy, took in 1.1 million migrants last year, the vast majority of those who reached EU soil, and a backlash is building because of regional authorities' increasing struggle to cope with the newcomers. "We will continue to fight for a European way out of the refugee crisis as long as it also promises to be successful in diminishing the number of refugees," Thomas de Maiziere told the German Bundestag (lower house of parliament). "However, should some countries try to unilaterally shift the collective problem onto the back of Germany, it would be unacceptable and would not be without consequences from our side in the long term," he added. De Maiziere said Germany would "deal more harshly" with migrants who arrive saying they need protection from war or persecution but have actually come for other reasons, or try to prolong their stay by means of tricks or false statements. He also said it was German interests to stick to the EU's Schengen passport-free travel zone for as long as possible. But a survey published on Friday showed that 58 percent of Germans want border controls to be reintroduced to keep out migrants, even if that causes inconvenience when traveling or transporting freight around Europe. The Politbarometer survey for public broadcaster ZDF showed more than a third of Germans were against such controls. Concerns about integration of migrants in German society are also on the rise, with the poll showing that just over half of Germans doubt it will be possible. Slightly more than one in two think Germany cannot cope with the numbers of migrants arriving. The government expects hundreds of thousands more to come this year. (Reporting by Thorsten Severin and Reuters Television; Writing by Michelle Martin; Editing by Mark Heinrich) Berlin (AFP) - Germany doubled its arms exports last year to around eight billion euros ($8.9 billion), government figures showed on Friday, in contradiction to Berlin's pledge to rein in the amount of weapons Europe's biggest economy sells abroad. The increase was driven largely by "special factors," Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel explained when presenting the data. The economy ministry is in charge of approving arms exports and Gabriel had promised to limit them when he took up his position at the end of 2013. In particular, Berlin wanted to curb exports of light weapons and track them closely once they had left the country. Gabrial cited big-ticket contracts for tanker airplanes to Britain and guided missiles to South Korea among the "special factors". The volume of exports was also inflated by a delivery of Leopard 2 tanks to Qatar, a contract approved by the previous government in 2013, the minister explained. If it had been up to him, "I would not have approved them," he insisted. Before Gabriel's Social Democrat SPD party agreed to share power with Angela Merkel's conservative CDU party, the CDU had been in a coalition with the liberal FDP. Gabriel accused the previous administration of "not applying the rules as they should have been applied." Overall, Gabriel insisted the government was making progress in achieving its declared goals and in 2014, the exports of light weapons had dropped sharply. Detailed arms exports figures for 2015 are to be released in June. (Photo Illustration: Yahoo News, photos: Mike Dobel/Masterfile/Corbis, KCNA/Reuters, Korea Aerospace Research Institute/Reuters, AP) What do the James Bond film A View To A Kill, the dystopian John Carpenter flick Escape from L.A., and the grisly, made-for-TV movie The Day After have in common with the battle for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination? All have raised, to varying degrees, the possibility that an enemy of America could unleash a devastating electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack that would fry U.S. electronics. Last week, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush became the latest GOP White House hopeful to express his concerns about what he called the scary as crap possibility of an EMP strike on the U.S. In an interview with Politico, Bush described a back-and-forth on the subject with a woman at a town hall-style meeting in Concord, N.H. She said, Im worried about EMPs. Are you? he recalled in the interview. I had just read an article about electromagnetic pulse and [how it could] take out the grid. Its scary as crap. Its one of the scariest things that could happen. Its not often you hear a presidential candidate describe something as scary as crap. Not in public, anyway. But Bush is hardly the first 2016 hopeful to declare himself worried about EMPs Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former senator Rick Santorum and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee have all weighed in. Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush speaks during a campaign event Friday, Feb. 5, 2016, in Concord, N.H. (Photo: Jim Cole/AP) An EMP is a devastating explosion that sends a pulse that knocks out all electric, everything everything that is connected to any kind that is wired, that has a circuit board, gets fried out. Everything is gone. Cars stop. Planes fall out of the sky, Santorum said during a Fox Business Network debate in January. The former Pennsylvania senator had been asked whether he had a plan to protect Americas critical infrastructure from terrorist attacks. Story continues We have enemies who are obtaining nuclear weapons that they can explode in our exoatmosphere and destroy our electric grid, Carson, who has raised the issue before, said at the same debate. And Huckabee mentioned EMPs at his campaign launch in May 2015, citing threats of an electromagnetic pulse from an exploded device that could fry the electrical grid and take the country back to the Stone Age in a matter of minutes. At a time when Americans are focused on the possibility of terrorist attacks by the so-called Islamic State, EMPs might seem like a weird threat to single out for attention. Scientists and national security experts consulted by Yahoo News agreed that the electrical grid needs security upgrades, and that using a nuclear weapon to carry out an EMP attack might have the potential to be devastating but also said that scenario is far-fetched. Warnings about EMPs have been kicking around since July 1962, when the U.S. carried out a nuclear test named Starfish Prime. The military detonated a 2,200-pound thermonuclear bomb 250 miles above the Johnston Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The EMP that resulted from the 1.4-megaton blast knocked out some streetlights and telephones in Hawaii, some 900 miles away, and damaged a handful of satellites in orbit. The Starfish Prime nuclear test explosion, seen through clouds, from Honolulu, Hawaii, on on July 9, 1962. (Photo: Nuclear Weapons Archive via Wikipedia) While scientists knew that an atmospheric nuclear detonation would create an electromagnetic pulse, the range and effects of this test highlighted the phenomenons military potential. The U.S. and the Soviet Union began gaming out how best to use a high-altitude nuclear detonation to generate an EMP, and how to resist one. In the U.S., the military set about strengthening its facilities so they could survive electromagnetic pulses one of Jeb Bushs national security advisers, John Noonan, served in a nuclear-missile silo designed to resist them. The U.S. military also reportedly worked on a weapon that would operate like a non-nuclear EMP, but those efforts have apparently stalled, and no country is known to possess one, meaning an EMP attack would require an atomic detonation. Heading into the first Gulf War, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf asked President George Bush to green-light a nuclear EMP strike to knock out Iraqi electronics, according to Newsweek. Bush said no. Hollywood brought the idea into the mainstream. Twenty-three years after the Starfish Prime test, A View To A Kill kicked off with 007 recovering an EMP-resistant microchip. In the unrelentingly bleak The Day After, from 1983, a Soviet nuclear strike unleashes an EMP that fries American communications and even cars. In 1996, Escape from L.A. anti-hero Snake Plissken sets off a non-nuclear EMP weapon that knocks out power around the entire world. Most recently, in the 2012 version of Red Dawn, an EMP cripples American defenses, paving the way for a North Korean invasion of the U.S. mainland. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, gave the idea of an EMP attack new prominence in political circles, primarily among a relatively small band of conservatives. One of the first to sound the alarm was Republican former congressman Roscoe Bartlett. Bartlett, who today lives off the grid, played a leading role when Congress created its own Electromagnetic Pulse Commission 15 years ago. The panel released several reports, including one in April 2008 that warned of catastrophic consequences from EMP attack, and called for steps to protect vital national infrastructure. In hearings throughout the decade, lawmakers again and again suggested that China, Iran, or terrorist groups could someday launch an EMP attack to devastating effect. Jason Robards as Dr. Russell Oakes in the 1983 ABC TV movie, The Day After, a disturbing film about the effects of a devastating nuclear holocaust on small-town residents in eastern Kansas. (Photo: ABC/Getty Images) Bartlett worked harder than anyone to spread the word, repeating his warnings in countless congressional hearings. But perhaps no one ultimately played a bigger role in spreading information about the dangers of EMPs than former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Not only did Gingrich tell Congress in 2005 that Iran might launch a nuclear-tipped missile at the U.S. from the middle of the ocean, he raised the issue again and again in speeches during his 2012 presidential campaign. Today, the issue remains chiefly Republican, though the House of Representatives EMP Caucus founded in 2011 is a bipartisan 20-member affair. As is frequently the case when federal dollars might be involved, there is also an advocacy group, EMPact America, to pressure Congress to take action. And the conservative Heritage Foundation has repeatedly published warnings about the need to protect the electrical grid not just from military EMP strikes but also from solar flares that could have a relatively similar impact. Communications would collapse, transportation would halt, and electrical power would simply be nonexistent, according to a Heritage report from November 2010. Not even a global humanitarian effort would be enough to keep hundreds of millions of Americans from death by starvation, exposure, or lack of medicine. Nor would the catastrophe stop at U.S. borders. Most of Canada would be devastated, too, as its infrastructure is integrated with the U.S. power grid. Without the American economic engine, the world economy would quickly collapse. Much of the worlds intellectual brain power (half of it is in the United States) would be lost as well. Earth would most likely recede into the new Dark Ages. Bush told Politico that he was prepared to answer the womans question because he had read an article on EMPs a week earlier. Its not clear what article Bush read; his aides wouldnt say. And it wasnt clear why he chose to get up to speed on EMPs at this point in the campaign. But he had pretty good timing. Nuclear-armed North Korea recently fired a rocket that carried a satellite into orbit, prompting Cruz to raise the possibility that the Hermit Kingdom might attempt an EMP attack. People watch a news report on North Koreas latest nuclear test at a railway station in Seoul, Korea, on Jan. 6, 2016. (Photo: Jung Yeon-Je/AFP) One of the real risks of this launch [is] North Korea wants to launch a satellite, and one of the greatest risks of the satellite is they would place a nuclear device in the satellite, Cruz said at a Republican debate that followed the launch. As it would orbit around the Earth, and as it got over the United States they would detonate that nuclear weapon and set off whats called an EMP, and electromagnetic pulse which could take down the entire electrical grid on the Eastern seaboard, potentially killing millions. It wasnt the first time Cruz had delivered that warning. At a July 2015 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, the Texas senator used the same argument to attack President Obamas nuclear deal with Iran. The single greatest threat to the United States, if Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, is that of an electromagnetic pulse. A nuclear weapon detonated in the atmosphere over the Eastern seaboard that could kill tens of millions of Americans, he told Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz in a testy back and forth. Do you agree that an EMP detonated by Iran in the atmosphere could kill tens of millions of Americans? Cruz demanded. SLIDESHOW Republican candidates duke it out in South Carolina >>> An EMP detonated by anyone obviously is a very potent weapon, Moniz replied. But the energy secretary with Beethoven-style hair added that the amount of potential damage depends on the specifics of the weapon. Its not clear precisely when Cruz took up the EMP cause. He raised the issue at a July 2014 Senate hearing as well. But his foreign policy adviser, Victoria Coates, told Yahoo News it predates his time in Washington. It is a big issue in Texas, so Senator Cruz was aware of it coming in, and directed staff to pay attention, she said in a email to Yahoo News. Coates pointed to power outages caused by Hurricane Sandy as an example of the vulnerabilities of Americas electrical grid, and suggested that reasonably priced, common sense steps could mitigate the problem. But how big a problem it is remains unclear, according to several experts consulted by Yahoo News. According to the Federation of American Scientists, it would take a large device exploded 250 to 300 miles over Kansas to affect the entire continental United States. The Atlantic reported in July 2011 that one study predicted an EMP might knock out as much as 70 percent of U.S. electronics or as little as five percent. Meanwhile, electromagnetic pulses did not rate even a passing mention when Director of National Intelligence James Clapper appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee and Senate Intelligence Committee last week in wide-ranging hearings on threats to U.S. national security. Senate Armed Services Committee member and Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 29, 2015, during the committees hearing on the impacts of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on U.S. interests and the military balance in the Middle East. (Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP) The trouble is that the science is untested and the strategy is implausible, one retired career national security official told Yahoo News. Its not that the civilian electrical grid isnt vulnerable. Far from it, said that official, who requested anonymity because they are not supposed to talk to the media. But there are less risky ways to cause chaos. A cyberattack has the potential to cause just as much damage and would be easier to disguise potentially avoiding what would surely be massive retaliation by the U.S. military. EMP is real, arms control expert Joe Cirincione told Yahoo News. There are some scenarios in which an adversary starts a nuclear war with one solo launch at high altitude with a big multimegaton explosion to blind the enemys radars and C3 [command, control, communications]. But that is then followed by hundreds or thousands of warheads that hit their targets. While the Cold War-style scenario may be plausible, the rogue nation or terrorist threat is not, Cirincione said. First, a rogue nation would expose itself to an almost certain nuclear counterattack. Second, a terrorist group that somehow came into possession of a nuclear weapon would have better uses for it. Why would they waste it to cause some temporary damage to electronic systems when they could explode it in the middle of the city and cause permanent damage to a much greater extent? he asked. Do you want to blind New York or destroy New York? Thessaloniki (Greece) (AFP) - Greece has jailed three Britons caught carrying weapons and ammunition near the Turkish border apparently destined for Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State jihadists, officials said Friday. The three men, aged 35 to 40, will remain in custody at the Korydallos prison in Athens until their trial is held. No date has been given. They were arrested on Sunday near the border with Turkey with a large haul of rifles and thousands of bullets hidden inside two trailers. The 40-year-old suspect, said to be of Kurdish Iraqi origin, had four Walther handguns and 200,000 22mm rounds in his possession when he was picked up at the Kipi border post on the Evros River. Police arrested the other two men in the port of Alexandropolis, the main town in the Evros region and a key commercial centre in northeastern Greece. They were found in possession of 18 rifles and another 40,000 22mm and 5.5 mm bullets stowed in their trailer. According to police, the trio said they had been respectively paid 2,000 and 3,000 euros ($2,200 and $3,300) to take the trailers to northern Iraq, without knowing the weapons were on board. Counter-terrorism services are investigating the men after police said they suspected all three of "terrorism and belonging to a criminal organisation," as well as arms trafficking. On January 31, two men with Swedish passports were arrested in the same region after they were found carrying "combat material" having flown to Greece from Sweden before heading towards Turkey by bus. One, Mirsad Bektasevic, a suspected jihadist of Bosnian origin, was charged with "terrorist" activities along with an alleged accomplice believed to hail from Yemen. Bektasevic was previously arrested in 2005 in Sarajevo after a police search of his house uncovered ammunition and explosives and a video in which a masked man called for attacks on Capitol Hill and the White House in Washington. By Robin Emmott and Renee Maltezou BRUSSELS/ATHENS (Reuters) - European leaders played down a Greek threat on Friday not to sign off on final agreements at an EU summit on migration and Britain's membership of the bloc unless Athens wins assurances that EU states will not shut borders. The Greek gambit came after Austria infuriated EU peers on the eve of the summit by insisting on capping the number of migrants it takes - a move that threatened to clog up the route for migrants leaving Greece to head for Germany and other wealthier EU nations, exacerbating Athens' migration crisis. "EU at a critical crossroads: without solidarity, without sharing burdens and responsibility, it faces the risk of reaching a dead-end," Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said in a tweet. Earlier, a government official told Reuters Greece could not agree to the conclusions "unless there is a clear statement ... that there won't be any unilateral (migrant) action until the next summit. No borders should close until then." On the face of it, the Greek migration move risked complicating already delicate talks on Britain's renegotiation of its terms with the EU. However, EU officials and leaders played down the significance of the move. "It would be a mistake to mix those two files ... It would be an error to use blackmail," said Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel. The head of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, also dismissed the idea. "The Greek government mentioned that nobody should shut their borders otherwise Greece would not agree to Brexit issues. I don't think such package deals are wise," Schulz said, referring to the risk of Britain leaving the bloc. Austria's move to tighter border controls has been seconded by Slovenia, which plans similar policies in solidarity. Four skeptical eastern European members have also floated a fallback policy of ring fencing Greece to keep the migrants they expect to land there from proceeding through Macedonia and Bulgaria to other EU countries. EU leaders decided to hold a special summit with Turkey in early March to make a joint plan to stem the influx work better and said there was no alternative to a common European approach to the migration wave that exposed deep differences in the EU. The vast majority of migrants and refugees enter the EU in Greece and Athens is fearful that closed borders would leave thousands stranded there. "It doesn't make sense for Greece, which has made every effort to handle the refugee issue to carry all of the burden and risk being isolated," an official said. (Reporting by Renee Maltezou in Athens, and by Robin Emmott, Tom Koerkemeier and Andreas Rinke in Brussels; Writing by Paul Carrel; Editing by Ruth Pitchford) By Bill Trott (Reuters) - Harper Lee, who wrote one of America's most beloved literary classics, "To Kill a Mockingbird," and surprised readers with a second book about racial injustice in the U.S. South after living a largely reclusive life for decades, died at the age of 89 on Friday. "To Kill a Mockingbird" was published in 1960 as the civil rights movement was heating up and its unflinching examination of racial hatred in the South made it especially poignant. Its theme could be summed up with the advice that Atticus Finch, the noble lawyer, gave his young daughter, Scout: "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." A statement from Tonja Carter, Lee's attorney in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, said Lee had "passed away early this morning in her sleep" there and that her death was unexpected. She would have a private funeral but no date was announced. It had appeared that Lee's sole literary output would be "To Kill a Mockingbird," especially since she acknowledged she could not top the Pulitzer Prize-winning book. That was what made the publication 55 years later in July 2015 of "Go Set a Watchman" such an unexpected and somewhat controversial literary event. In the first book, Finch, the adored father of the young narrator Scout, stood up to a white lynch mob and unsuccessfully defended a black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman. But in "Watchman," an older Atticus had racial views that left the grown-up Scout greatly disillusioned. Lee reportedly had written "Go Set a Watchman" first but, at the suggestion of a wise editor, set it aside to tell a tale of race in the South from the child's point of view in the 1930s. For many years, Lee, a shy woman with an engaging Southern drawl who never married, lived quietly and privately, always turning down interview requests. She alternated between living in a New York apartment and Monroeville, where she shared a home with her older sister, lawyer Alice Lee. After suffering a stroke and enduring failing vision and hearing, she spent her final years in an assisted living residence in Monroeville. "When I saw her just six weeks ago, she was full of life, her mind and mischievous wit as sharp as ever," her agent, Andrew Nurnberg, said in a statement. "She was quoting Thomas More and setting me straight on Tudor history." The movie version of "To Kill a Mockingbird also became an American classic. It won the Academy Award for best picture in 1963 while Gregory Peck, who played Atticus and would become Lee's good friend, was named best actor. SAD DAY IN MONROEVILLE Spencer Madrie, owner of the Ol Curiosities & Book Shoppe dedicated to the work of Lee and other Southern authors, said Monroeville was in a somber mood. "You wish somebody like that could go on forever and be this lifelong legend," he said. "You dont ever consider somebody like that passing, even though her legacy will last for generations after." Monroeville, which inspired the town of Maycomb in the book, eventually took on aspects of a "To Kill a Mockingbird" theme park with statues of the main characters, murals of important scenes, a museum display and tours of the courtroom. Lee's state of mind would become an issue last year when plans were announced to publish "Go Set a Watchman." Some friends said that after the death of her sister Alice, who handled Harper's affairs, lawyer Carter had manipulated Lee to approve publication. Carter had said she came across the "Watchman" manuscript while doing legal work for Lee in 2014 and an investigation by Alabama state officials found there was no coercion in getting Lee's permission to publish. A family friend, the Reverend Thomas Lane Butts, told an Australian interviewer that Lee had said she did not publish again because she did not want to endure the pressure and publicity of another book and because she had said all that she wanted to say. Despite her private nature, Lee regularly attended an annual luncheon at the University of Alabama to meet the winners of a high school essay contest on the subject of her book. In November 2007, she went to the White House to accept a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush, who at the time called her book "a gift to the entire world." Bush said in a statement on Friday that he and his wife, Laura Bush, a former librarian, mourned Lee. "Harper Lee was ahead of her time and her masterpiece 'To Kill a Mockingbird' prodded America to catch up with her," he said. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Lee "had a way of telling stories that does have an influence and resonates with so many Americans." He said President Barack Obama had great respect for her. News of Lee's death spread widely on social media and tributes poured in from well-known figures, such as Apple Inc Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook, who quoted the author in a tweet by saying, "Rest in peace, Harper Lee. 'The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.'" CHANGING RACIAL VIEWS Nelle Harper Lee was born April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, the youngest of four children of A.C. and Frances Finch Lee and a descendant of Civil War General Robert E. Lee. Like Scout, Lee grew up a tomboy. Lee had studied law at the University of Alabama but, six months before finishing her studies, she went to New York in the early 1950s to pursue a literary career while working as an airline reservation clerk. In 1956 friends Michael and Joy Brown gave Lee a special Christmas gift, a year of financial support so she could work full time on "To Kill a Mockingbird." An estimated 30 million copies of the book were sold. It would become required reading in many American schools but the American Library Association said it was frequently challenged by those who did not like its subject matter. Lee also played a key role in researching another great American book by Truman Capote, her childhood friend and the inspiration for the frail, precocious Dill in "To Kill a Mockingbird." In 1959 she accompanied Capote to Holcombe, Kansas, to work on "In Cold Blood," the chilling account of the murders of a farming family. Her mannerly, down-home approach undoubtedly smoothed the way for the flamboyant Capote. There was speculation that Capote helped her write "To Kill a Mockingbird" but in his 2006 biography, "Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee," Charles J. Shields disputed that. He also said Lee's contribution to Capote's "In Cold Blood" was greater than believed. Lee's sister said the authors eventually fell out because Capote was jealous of Lee's Pulitzer, which she won in 1961. In 2006 Lee wrote a piece for O magazine about developing a childhood love of books, even though they were scarce in Monroeville. "Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books," she wrote. (Reporting and writing by Bill Trott; Additional reporting by Letitia Stein and Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Grant McCool) His campaign started out stuffed with money. By last July, Jeb Bush had raised $103 million for his super PAC, Right to Rise, an astonishing sum that seemed to foretell the most lavishly funded campaign in American history. No super PAC had ever raised so much cash so early in an election cycle. In fact, Right to Rise alone outraised all the super PACs combined at the same stage in the 2012 elections. Now, after primary elections in just three states, Bush is out. He finished sixth in the Iowa caucus, fourth in the New Hampshire primary, and now, fourth in the South Carolina primary. It has become a given in modern American politics that money buys results, but Bush's rapid flameout suggests a more nuanced reality: Money can buy an edge, but successful candidates still need broad-based support and lots of smaller donors. Bushs strategy from the beginning was to lure wealthy donors able to write six- and seven-figure checks to his super PAC. But his campaign itself was never well-funded, and that turned out to be a critical gap. Super PACs, which can accept unlimited amounts of money, can pay for ads and other types of advocacyeither for the favored candidate or against rivalsbut theyre not allowed to cover basic campaign expenses such as salaries for staff, travel costs, event fees and anything else done by the campaign proper. That's what the presidential campaign committee is for, and that's limited to maximum donations of $2,700 per person for the primary elections, and another $2,700 for the general election. So even with a gargantuan super PAC, it's still crucial to have a lot of donors funding the traditional campaign. Here are fundraising totals for the major candidates, which clearly show Bushs disadvantage. These are for the full year of 2015, the latest comprehensive figures available: Source: Federal Election Commission While Bush was tied with Democrat Hillary Clinton for the most money raised through a campaign committee and a super PAC combined, he ranked sixth in money raised by the campaign alone. Given that billionaire Donald Trump is funding his own campaign and has pledged to spend at least $100 million if needed, Bush effectively ranked seventh in campaign funding. Except for John Kasich, all of the candidates with less money have now dropped out. Story continues Bush also burned through money faster than some of the other candidates, and spent more overall, as this table shows: Source: Federal Election Commission. Note: Burn rates higher than 100% for Trump and Kasich indicate they have borrowed to cover spending; Trump, who's self-funding his campaign, essentially borrows from himself. Had Bush performed well in either Iowa or New Hampshire, his fundraising may have picked up in 2016. Instead, the opposite happened. Bush's poor showing strengthened Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and to a lesser extent Marco Rubio and John Kasich, all of them gaining momentum at Bush's expense. Rubio, who also has a high burn rate, is positioned to benefit from Bush's departure, since he may get many of the "establishment" donors Bush supposedly had locked up. Meanwhile, Ben Carson's days seem numbered, since he hasn't done well anywhere in actual voting. For a better fundraising model, compare Bush's strategy with that of Bernie Sanders, who foreswore coordination with a super PAC at the beginning of his campaign. Sanders has essentially zero Big Money backing, yet his fundraising surged after he won the New Hampshire primary earlier this month. Though he lost the Nevada caucus to rival Hillary Clinton, Sanders did much better than expected a couple of weeks ago, and his fundraising momentum should keep him in the race at least for the next few weeks. At the end of 2015, Sanders campaign had raked in $54 million in donations below $200, a sign of how broad his appeal had become. Bush raised just $1.6 million in such small donations, indicating that he gained little traction among rank-and-file voters and may not have reached out to them aggressively. The irony for Bush is that he had more rich donors than anybody, but too few mainstream backers. The rich can't but democracy just yet. Sanders has added at least $25 million more to his fundraising total in 2016. The Bush campaign, by contrast, never said how much it raised. Now we know--it wasn't enough. Rick Newmans latest book is Liberty for All: A Manifesto for Reclaiming Financial and Political Freedom. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman. From Cosmopolitan Sen. Bernie Sanders is a 74-year-old presidential candidate who's attracting a ton of support from people in their 20s, women included. He won the New Hampshire Democratic primary by a landslide, just a week after losing in Iowa to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by the narrowest of margins, thanks in large part to the twentysomethings who voted for him. In New Hampshire, CNN exit polls showed he won over 83 percent of voters between the ages of 18 and 29. Clinton only won with the over-65 set. Iowa was pretty similar - 84 percent of voters between the ages of 17 and 29 went for Sanders, according to CNN entrance polls, while Clinton only had the edge among voters 45 and older. Those numbers may not be unique to Iowa and New Hampshire - and they're not just "Bernie bros." A USA Today/Rock the Vote poll released on Jan. 14 showed that Sanders held a 19-point lead over Clinton among Millennial women who identified as Democrats and independents. A poll conducted by Monmouth University on Jan. 19 showed that age, not gender, was a better predictor of who supports Clinton versus Sanders. Cosmopolitan.com talked to four college students who have been vocal supporters of Sanders on their campuses about the issues that really matter to them - and why they don't see the urgency in electing America's first woman president. What issues do people on your campus care about the most? Elizabeth Lee, 21, junior at Middlebury College and head of College Students for Bernie: Student loans are probably nationally what I think get people the most excited. Environmental activism is big at Middlebury, and the idea of taking down Wall Street is appealing as well. That is the most appealing part of Bernie's campaign to me, is to take down the idea of having big institutions that control your life and limit your choices about what kind of career you want to pursue. Isabel Youngs, 23, senior at the University of Nevada at Reno: One of the most important issues for college students right now is a federal minimum wage. It's a persistent problem for us college students. Even if [college] weren't free, raising minimum wage would change how college students live. I have a lot of friends who had to drop out of school because the extra five to six hours a week would make a difference at work. If it were $15 an hour, it wouldn't make a difference. I have friends who work in the food service and they go to work with the flu because they literally can't afford not to. I see the federal minimum wage as a big one. Story continues What other issues matter to you personally? Youngs: For me, one of the biggest things is health care. That might be more because I'm an LGBT student, and I've also seen my family grow up without health care. My friends and I, we often need more medical care than most of the community because of surgeries, hormone therapy, and especially mental therapy and counseling. I have friends who can't access any of that stuff. They're having horrible mental health crises, getting no help to get the health care they need. Megan Taylor, 20, sophomore and head of University of South Carolina for Bernie: Student loans matter a lot to me because in the current economy, it's essential to have a degree. It's not really an option anymore if you want to have social and economic mobility. I don't think that we can require something of people in the job market and also ask them to pay for it no matter their circumstances. I'm also very passionate about social issues; I'm a bleeding-heart liberal. I'm interested in social welfare, food stamps, making health care accessible to people, reforming the prison system and the judicial system so that it's more equitable and produces the results. Let's think of people first and think of how to pay it later. As much as I respect moderate candidates and know that they are necessary for compromise, I'm also very liberal. My dad's Canadian and socialism is in my blood. I very much love the socialist parts of our government that do very well for us - roads, bridges, all those things that are created through the government. What makes you support Bernie Sanders? Lee: I support Bernie because I think that he takes very strong policy stances, which I really admire. He's unafraid to say what he thinks, and what he says is reasonable and very human-focused. He doesn't have strings attached to Wall Street and different interest groups. He speaks his mind and caters to what the actual majority wants and needs. Emmy Ham, 22, senior at the University of New Hampshire: I think that the main thing we all have in common is we really want a change in our political system. We want to go against mainstream politics and Bernie represents that for us. When I heard about his platform, I really identified with that pretty quickly. I jumped on board. He exposed so many things about our political system that I have been frustrated with for a very long time. I think that's where it stems from. Taylor: Bernie Sanders represents a lot for me what I wanted to see in politics, which is a change to the electoral system and a change to campaign finance, and really just a balance and a shifting of power within the government and within the political system. Youngs: I think that his policies, especially more so than Hillary Clinton's, would benefit the LGBT community. A single-payer health care system is infinitely better for us as a community than the Affordable Care Act. The ACA is great, I love it, it probably saved my dad's life, but I think we need more. I also think that it matters to me that Bernie has been with my community and standing up for my community [since] before I was born. Back in the 1970s, he was supporting LGBT rights. And it's confusing to me that Hillary is, like, categorizing herself as some kind of martyr for the LGBT community when she didn't come out in support of it until 2013. One of Sanders's main platforms is to reform Wall Street and break up the big banks. Why is that so important to you as a voter? Ham: I've learned about financial corruption in some of my history classes, learning about the economic crash, and how that stemmed from corrupt behavior on Wall Street and big banks. And so that was an issue that's always been really important to me. Especially for me, because I'm a college student paying these giant tuition bills, economics is at the top on my list in terms of a presidential candidate and what they're going to do for economic reform. Youngs: The economy globally crashed [in the financial collapse], and I think that the fact that just a handful of people can do that, through their own greed and through the guise of capitalism, is really sickening. We reward people for being cunning in such a selfish and thoughtless way. One of the reasons I really support Bernie is because he wants to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, and it's really important to me that he does that. I really want to see those big banks getting broken up so that we don't keep having situations where the deregulation of banks causes problems for the middle class. Lee: It's important for me as a young person to be able to choose what I want to do after college without the pressure from the big banks. It's a bit hard going into industries that I am interested in, like poverty alleviation, knowing that my wage is going to be so much lower [than it would be in another industry]. I'm going to have to live by my bootstraps, which I'm willing to do, but at the same time, it would be nice if we could create an economic system where not all the money is concentrated in the hands of a few people and have that spread out. Taylor: We need to have an economy that is going well because individuals are doing well, because our businesses are doing well, and because we're making good trade decisions. Not based on arbitrary measures and markets that are so changeable. When you do make a mistake, when you do betray the trust of the American people and your individual customers, you should have to pay for that. You should have to be responsible for it; you shouldn't get off scot-free with no jail time and an extra bonus in your salary for leaving. I don't think that's right. I think Clinton's proposed policies aren't bad - she does have a lot of good proposed policies for Wall Street - but I don't see her making it a priority. Do you worry about Sanders's ability to fulfill his campaign promises? Congress is likely to remain Republican, and Sanders's policies are pretty far to the left. Ham: For me, it's really apparent that no matter who is president, the problem is that Congress has been so polarized, and it just kind of seems like they're at a standstill. So yeah, that does concern me, but I think that it goes for any president, really. President Obama has acted way more moderately than Bernie Sanders intends to and even he has had difficulty getting things passed. Taylor: Hillary Clinton isn't particularly well-liked by Republicans either. I don't know that Hillary Clinton has a better chance of working with a Republican Congress than Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders has a very nuanced view on things like gun control, and that appeals to Republicans who are not willing to do huge, broad, sweeping gun control that doesn't include any sort of exceptions and nuances. And while I understand that Bernie Sanders is a democratic socialist, and "socialist" is the most feared word in American politics at the moment, Hillary Clinton doesn't fare much better. She is pretty much, especially as a woman, one of the most hated Democrats in the Republican establishment. Lee: There is a possibility of having some pretty major changes in the House and the Senate in terms of our representatives. With Bernie becoming president, there will be a larger push on the local level to get state representatives, governors, even mayors and things like that to be more progressive. People could see that having such a liberal president is possible, and having a liberal mayor or governor is also more possible in that world. Youngs: I believe that Bernie Sanders can change the United States if he has the House and the Senate with him. And I'm really hoping this time around that we don't let another 2012 happen where the entire House and the entire Senate get overthrown and taken over by Tea Party Republicans. But I think that a lot of people saw the damage of that and are awakening to that. Sanders gets criticized for not having a strong expertise in foreign policy. What part of his perspective do you like? Ham: I'm an international affairs student, so I study foreign policies in other countries and how they interact. I think Sanders's move to have more of a collaborative effort in terms of the major countries in the world coming together and working on the issues, that's really appealing to me. I think the United States does have a responsibility in foreign affairs, but I think it's kind of dangerous to put ourselves out there as the leader in solving these issues in a way. It kind of puts a target on us. Taylor: For me, Bernie Sanders, just on an ideological level, is a little bit more my speed. Hillary is quite hawkish. I align with him on foreign policy because while he doesn't have the hands-on knowledge that Hillary has, he sees foreign policy in a different way. I think a fresh set of eyes on a problem helps. Bernie Sanders has the ability to bring in a team of people in his Cabinet and in the State Department who are going to be creative problem solvers, who are going to want to look at those human outcomes more than they look at just the alliances we have abroad and our enemies, in those binary terms. Youngs: I don't want to see us getting involved globally as a global power. I want to see us disengage from that and fix our own stuff first. Globally there are a lot of problems, but at the same time, you know, no one president has made all the foreign policy decisions singlehandedly. They hire a Cabinet, they have people who are talking to them constantly about what the best form of action is, and I trust Bernie and his choice in the Cabinet that he picks to help him with those foreign policy issues. Lee: Right now, for me at least, domestic policy is the most important. Making sure that income inequality doesn't spin out of control is something that's way more important to me than the quagmire in Syria, and things like that. I think that with Syria, there's no good choice for the U.S. Whatever we do is going to damage Syria and the people there to some degree. But there are clear meaningful steps that we can take in domestic policy that can really better people's lives. Sanders is often criticized for being a single-issue candidate, focusing on the economy and campaign finance, but not other issues. How do you respond? Taylor: I will never say that Bernie Sanders is not on message. But I think the reason Bernie Sanders seems like a single-issue candidate is because he is looking at that issue so holistically. He's looking at the economy in this broad sense that involves everything from education to health care to racial justice to criminal justice. He wants to fix the economy by fixing all of these other individual problems that are so connected. Youngs: I'd never put the economy over any other things like social issues. I definitely do not think that Bernie Sanders is a single-issue candidate. If he does focus on the economy, he focuses on all aspects of the economy, including prison reform and making sure to get private prisons off the table and making sure that you legalize or decriminalize marijuana so you're not overcrowding prisons. It might have something to do with the economy, but it also has to do with social issues. What do you like about Sanders personally? Youngs: Bernie doesn't pander or patronize my vote. He doesn't think, How can I get young people to vote for me? He thinks, How do I make this world better for young people? It matters that he has a strong voting record that reflect those values. For me, Bernie is not for sale, which, I mean, that might be a kind of tried-and-true cliche of his campaign, but it means something to me. It means that he wouldn't turn around and abandon me and my cause and my people just for a political setup. Taylor: I find Bernie very genuine, and I think one of the appeals of him is that he's very straightforward to the point of being sort of brusque at times, but very straightforward and genuine, and people appreciate that. The genuineness of Bernie, who he is as a person as well as a politician, really appeals to me as well as individual policy things that would really even the playing field for Americans. What don't you like about Hillary Clinton? Lee: I wouldn't say I dislike Hillary Clinton. I wouldn't necessarily be against the idea. She doesn't make me very excited about politics. I just don't really know where she stands on issues because she changes a lot, in terms of what the issues are. She doesn't really address them in her speeches. If you look at the debates, she drills other candidates on issues, but she doesn't really take a stance on what her position is. Which I think makes me a little bit skeptical and unable to support something that I don't really know what it is. Youngs: I think Hillary's values have a price tag. In 2017, I don't think a corporate interest would be able to walk up to Bernie Sanders and say, "Here's $1 million, now's not the time for a social movement." She has the capacity to compromise if she gets [certain things she wants,] which is political sharpness, but that desperation scares me. Taylor: I was very much ready for Hillary, but as you look into her individual policy decisions, her various campaigns in the past, I had grown, sort of as most people do, less enchanted with her and with the political system in general. When she says she's an outsider in the political process, not like the Democratic candidates, and not an establishment politician, it's silly. Hillary has spent so much time in the political system, she's always a politician first, and people can tell when she's not being genuine. Ham: I think it's tricky. I get asked a lot why I don't support Hillary, and I don't think it's that I don't support her. I just truly identify with Bernie more, and I think he's more authentic, and he is really fighting for everybody and not just a select few. Does anyone question your feminism because you're not voting for Clinton, who could be the first woman president? Lee: I think it did make me hesitate a little bit, because I obviously want to see a woman in the White House as the president. But I think that we need to prioritize the issues before we can prioritize who this person is. In the future, there will be more women candidates running, and I can imagine a woman coming into the White House. It doesn't necessarily have to be Hillary Clinton; it can be someone else. Youngs: I haven't been challenged that much in my feminism. Much of my feminist friends are strong Bernie supporters. I think there's an element of truth that we desperately need a woman in the White House. If it were Elizabeth Warren or Barbara Lee, versus Bernie Sanders, I wouldn't hesitate for Senator Warren or Congresswoman Lee. But I strongly believe that Bernie's values align more with mine and that I'm going to vote more in my interest more so than in symbolism. Eventually we'll find someone we feel comfortable representing us, but it's just not her. Taylor: As much as I would like to see a woman president, and as happy as I would be with Hillary Clinton as president, I think Bernie Sanders's policies will do more for women, or at least the things that he's focusing on. Because women don't just need reproductive rights and a decrease in the pay gap, and they don't just need to see women represented in politics; they also need the same things that everybody else needs. That's really why I lean Bernie. Not that I fault any feminist who votes for Hillary. Ham: I think that our generation is very progressive, male and female. When looking at the candidates, we want to see somebody who's not only looking out for women's rights but also for black people, disabled people, and people of all types of minorities. Bernie fights that system in one fell swoop by trying to improve our economic system, which is the primary oppressor of these people. Do you think the symbolism of Clinton's gender matters? Youngs: I actually only know of one woman who I consider politically competent who supports Hillary, and I think that comes from the belief that she's more of a symbol than that she agrees with her policies. I've seen [Clinton] support the Iraq War, Wall Street bailouts, the TPP, Keystone XL for a while, I've just seen all this stuff that I can't see her as a symbol anymore. I don't think she stands for me; I don't think she represents women. There are some things I will ignore for the symbolism of having a woman in office, but there's just too much. Taylor: I very much respect Hillary as a woman, and I think she's one of the great examples of powerful women in politics. As much as I would like to see a woman as president, I don't think it particularly solves problems because I obviously believe in the glass ceiling, but I don't think that the glass ceiling is broken once and everyone soars through and suddenly you have a female president every other election. In high-up offices like that, you have a female president and it cracks the glass ceiling, but there's still a lot more work to be done then; it's still not easy to get through. Ham: I definitely identify as a feminist, and when I first started reading into the campaign and candidates, that was my one reluctance because I do want to see a female president. I think it's time for one in the United States, but I just don't think it's Hillary Clinton. For me, what's just as important is having the right female candidate, not just a female candidate. I just see Clinton as kind of another cog in the political machine. And I would like to see somebody who not only represents feminist rights, women's rights, but the rights of everybody. And I think that Bernie Sanders more broadly encompasses social justice for the majority of minorities and oppressed people in the United States. What do you foresee happening in the general election? Regardless of whether he wins, what's the future for Bernie's "political revolution"? Ham: I would say that Bernie is making fundamental change right now in how we elect candidates. In the beginning and even now, it's hard to see it happening, but there really is a movement going on. And once people start seeing his progress, and how many people are following him and joining his movement, then I think it's going to change, and it already has among youth. So of course the unknown is a little bit intimidating for some people. I'm interested in seeing that the United States is really ready for that change, and I really hope we are. Youngs: I really think that both candidates are so much better than anything the Republican candidates have to offer. I really resent the Hillary vs. Bernie rhetoric. It's so much more nuanced than that and there's so much that goes into it, and I really want to see young people go out and vote in the House and Senate. A lot of people just check Bernie or Hillary, and walk out of the polls and they don't consider the cause and effect of not researching all candidates available. When Bernie Sanders talks about a political revolution, he means more than just him. He means everyone across the board. Follow Megan on Twitter. PARIS (Reuters) - French President Francois Hollande expressed hopes of reaching a deal at an European Union summit on Friday to help keep Britain in the bloc. "We will find a compromise" over Britain, he told France Inter radio in an interview during the summit in Brussels, adding "I hope so". Hollande warned that disputes over the refugee crisis were a threat to Europe and urged a common approach to avoid countries re-establishing border checks. "Otherwise it would be the end of Europe," he said. (Reporting by Ingrid Melander and Mattias Blamont, editing by Alister Doyle) Paris (AFP) - French President Francois Hollande said on Friday he would do what is necessary to keep Britain in the European Union -- on condition that "Europe can still move forward". "I'll do what is needed to keep the United Kingdom in Europe, but on condition that Europe can still move forward," Hollande told French radio as a key Brussels summit was set to go on late into the evening. But with Prime Minister David Cameron seeking a package of reforms ahead of a referendum on British membership of the bloc, Hollande said Britain could not have "special rules" for the City of London, its powerful financial sector. One of Cameron's aims in the negotiations is to ensure that the City of London is not bound by rules governing the euro single currency area. "We can take into action what the City represents for Europe... but there cannot be special rules for the City," Hollande told France Inter radio. Cameron has said that unless he gets a satisfactory deal, he will not campaign for Britain to stay in the 28-nation European Union in a referendum that he is expected to hold as early as June. Hollande said the other EU nations "must not give in to blackmail" but he said he genuinely believed Britain was seeking a deal that would allow it to remain part of the bloc. "This is Britain, through the voice of David Cameron, saying 'help me to stay in Europe'," he said. But Hollande added: "If the British people want to leave, I will regret it for the sake of Europe, for Britain and for France, but I will accept it." The British prime minister faces opposition from eastern European countries such as Poland over his plans to limit access to benefits for migrants. Cameron also faces trouble from France and Belgium over his bid to make clear that Britain is not committed to ever-closer union. Harper Lee, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman "died peacefully" on Friday. She was 89. Hollywood stars and directors, authors and publishing houses quickly took to social media to mourn the writer and celebrate one of the most important novels of the 20th century. Mockingbird, a landmark novel bringing to life Southern lawyer Atticus Finch and his daughter Scout, was published in July of 1960 and Watchman was released last July. Robert Duvall, who portrayed Boo Radley in the 1962 film, told The Hollywood Reporter: "Harper Lee was a fine person and a wonderful writer. To Kill a Mockingbird was a masterpiece. I was privileged to be in the film version adapted to the screen by her good friend Horton Foote. I only hope that the film did justice to the book. She will be fondly remember by many. I remember when I started production Harper Lee sent me a telegram that simply said 'Hey, Boo.' I was so proud to be a part of that film." Read More: 'To Kill a Mockingbird' Author Harper Lee Dies at 89 Actress Mary Badham, who played Scout on-screen, stated: "Very sorry to hear this news. Obviously TKAM has been a big part of my life. Even though Miss Nelle is no longer with us, her insight into the human conditions so eloquently expressed in her writing will live on and continue to educate and inspire future generations as much as it has for over half a century. I will continue to be a champion for TKAM and its themes as I travel to to schools, colleges, Big Read events and other celebrations of one of our great works of American literature." "Harper Lee my 1st favorite author!" tweeted Oprah Winfrey. "I always wanted to interview her. She said" honey I already said everything I had to say". #RIPHarperLee" Read more of the heartfelt social media posts below. Harper Lee my 1st favorite author! I always wanted to interview her. She said" honey I already said everything I had to say". #RIPHarperLee Story continues Oprah Winfrey (@Oprah) February 19, 2016 When my son Henry was born, Ms. Lee signed a copy of Looking for Alaska for him with the inscription, "Welcome to the world Henry Atticus." John Green (@johngreen) February 19, 2016 That book is my most prized possession. Ms. Lee lived a private life, but she was quietly and extraordinarily generous. John Green (@johngreen) February 19, 2016 She revealed it all...the glory and the fear and the hate and the beauty. May she rest in peace. #HarperLee pic.twitter.com/3tfSEfSejxReese Witherspoon (@RWitherspoon) February 19, 2016 Rest in peace, Harper Lee. "The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience." Tim Cook (@tim_cook) February 19, 2016 You know what... #TKAMB is a book that changed my life. Maybe i should write one. Harper Lee inspired me & hopefully I can pay it forward erin brockovich (@ErinBrockovich) February 19, 2016 To Kill A Mockingbird was the first book I remember reading over start to finish. It propelled me toward my love for lit. #HarperLee = icon Josh Gad (@joshgad) February 19, 2016 So sorry to hear about Harper Lees passing. &lsquoTo Kill a Mockingbird was a gift to us all. https://t.co/oqDU2lOcLM pic.twitter.com/TSFPLSwPgs Katie Couric (@katiecouric) February 19, 2016 It is hard to overstate the impact of Harper Lee. I thank you as a reader, as a Southerner, and as an American. Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) February 19, 2016 Let's celebrate the life of Harper Lee, who wrote an American classic and helped her friend Truman Capote write another. Stephen King (@StephenKing) February 19, 2016 You never really understand a person until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. Thank you, #HarperLee. pic.twitter.com/8OuUiet7IL Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) February 19, 2016 RIP Harper Lee E L James (@E_L_James) February 19, 2016 RIP #HarperLee, whose "To Kill a Mockingbird" was one of our Books That Shaped America https://t.co/WXhxgdVYDz pic.twitter.com/0uLSfuVzsK Library of Congress (@librarycongress) February 19, 2016 Harper Lee did the extraordinary with her writing: she changed the world. We'll forever be thankful for her and her work. HarperCollinsUK (@HarperCollinsUK) February 19, 2016 Today we lost a beautiful writer. RIP Harper Lee. pic.twitter.com/aA0SgyV0j1 Random House (@randomhouse) February 19, 2016 #ThankYouHarperLee #Courage #Justice A photo posted by Mariska Hargitay (@therealmariskahargitay) on Feb 19, 2016 at 8:51am PST RIP Harper Lee. Thank you, thank you, thank you. #HarperLee #ToKillAMockingbird A photo posted by Sophia Bush (@sophiabush) on Feb 19, 2016 at 8:30am PST I used to teach 7th grade English. Helped my kids grapple w Mockingbird, & the courage it takes to fight injustice. Thanks, Harper Lee.Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) February 19, 2016 RIP Harper Lee. Thank you, thank you, thank you. #HarperLee #ToKillAMockingbird https://t.co/v7GDqKdL7W Sophia Bush (@SophiaBush) February 19, 2016 The world lost an incredible woman. Harper Lee, you'll be missed! #RIP #HarperLee #truewomen pic.twitter.com/LafpHde5Ne Marie Osmond (@marieosmond) February 19, 2016 Former President George W. Bush's statement on the passing of #HarperLee. pic.twitter.com/GWJpd8QMVq FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) February 19, 2016 BANGKOK (Reuters) - The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has warned that Bangkok's main Suvarnabhumi Airport is a safety risk, with "serious" overcrowding soon to become a critical issue, and urgent expansion needed, the Nation daily reported on Friday. Thailand is under pressure to improve its aviation standards after the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration downgraded the country's safety ratings in December last year. "There are also safety concerns on the airport's tarmac, taxiways and apron area because of soft spots," IATA director-general and chief executive officer Tony Tyler said. "Aircraft get stuck in the soft surface due to substandard materials," he told the newspaper in an interview in Bangkok, after returning from the Singapore Airshow. Thailand's aviation industry is under scrutiny after the U.N.'s International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO) downgraded the country in June 2015, giving it a red flag for missing a deadline to tackle safety concerns. This week, the Thai civil aviation authority said a review by ICAO was likely to be delayed until early 2017 because it needed more time to improve the qualification of Thai auditors. Tyler said the airport, which handles 52 million passengers each year, had a significant regional and global role but needed urgent expansion of its terminal capacity, the Nation said. "It was designed to handle 45 million passengers annually, but it exceeds that today and traffic is still growing at an annual 10 percent rate," he said. "Overcrowding is a serious issue that will become critical quickly," Tyler said. The IATA represents almost 260 airlines, accounting for 83 percent of global air traffic. Thai airport operator Airports of Thailand said it was aware of the problems flagged by IATA and has readied several measures to improve runways using concrete and expand capacity, which are awaiting government approval. "We have prepared short- to medium- and long-term plans to solve the problems," Sirote Duangratana, general manager of Suvarnabhumi Airport, told Reuters. (Reporting by Khettiya Jittapong and Manunphattr Dhanananphorn; Editing by Paul Tait and Clarence Fernandez) Beirut (AFP) - The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday it was "deeply alarmed" by the situation in Syrias Aleppo province, where fighting has displaced tens of thousands of people. The statement came as rights group Amnesty International criticised Turkey for refusing entry to some injured Syrian civilians fleeing Aleppo, describing its policy as "appalling". The ICRC said it was "deeply alarmed by the situation in the Aleppo region, where fighting is intensifying, hospitals and health workers have been targeted, people have no water or electricity and more than 70,000 have now fled their homes". "The most basic infrastructure to support the lives of the people has been critically damaged, worsening the situation of the population dramatically, with the number of newly displaced people rising by the day," ICRC Syria delegation head Marianne Gasser said. The comments come after a major operation by government forces backed by Russian air power that has seen the regime recapture territory north of Aleppo city. The advances have left rebels and some 300,000 civilians virtually encircled in the opposition-held east of Aleppo city, and prompted tens of thousands of people to flee the countryside north of the city. Simultaneously, Kurdish-led forces have advanced against rebels further north in the province, prompting Turkish shelling and further complicating the volatile situation there. The ICRC urged all parties to the conflict to avoid attacks on medical facilities and civilian infrastructure including water treatment plants. Amnesty International meanwhile criticised Turkey, saying it had denied entry to injured Syrians fleeing Aleppo in need of urgent medical care. It said Turkish security forces had also shot and wounded Syrian civilians who had "out of desperation" tried to cross the border illegally with the help of smugglers. The group was concerned about "civilians who remain trapped between daily airstrikes and dire humanitarian conditions", said Crisis Response Director Tirana Hassan. Story continues "Turkey's highly selective practice is appalling -- only severely injured people are allowed entry to seek medical treatment while everyone else fleeing the violence is left unprotected," Hassan added. Amnesty urged Turkey to keep its borders open, and called on the international community to increase support to Turkey and other countries neighbouring Syria that have taken in refugees. More than four million Syrians have fled their country's conflict, and Ankara says it is hosting more then 2.6 million of them. By Fiona Ortiz CHICAGO (Reuters) - An Illinois judge on Friday said she would decide next month whether she had jurisdiction over a voter's complaint that Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz should not be on the state's primary ballot because he was born in Canada. Lawrence Joyce, a lawyer and pharmacist, filed a complaint in January with the Illinois State Board of Elections saying that under the U.S. Constitution, the Texas senator cannot run for president since he is not a "natural born" citizen. Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta of a Cuban father and an American mother. The Board rejected Joyce's complaint - saying Cruz became a natural-born citizen at the moment of his birth because of his mother's citizenship - so he petitioned the Cook County Circuit Court to review that decision. Circuit Court Judge Maureen Ward Kirby said she was not sure she had jurisdiction, and set a March 1 hearing for arguments on whether to dismiss the complaint. The complaint comes in the wake of repeated attacks on Cruz about his eligibility by New York businessman and presidential rival Donald Trump. Children born abroad to American citizens can immediately be registered as U.S. citizens through a consular report of birth abroad, but Joyce said that process is a form of naturalization. A Reuters/Ipsos poll in January found that one quarter of Republicans did not think Cruz was qualified to be president because of his birthplace. [n:L2N14Z098] Cruz and Trump are locked in a battle to win the Republican nomination for the Nov. 8 election. Cruz won the first nominating contest in Iowa while Trump prevailed in New Hampshire. "A potential nightmare scenario may be developing if Ted Cruz becomes the nominee and is then forced to resign the nomination," Joyce told reporters. He backs Republican candidate Ben Carson but said no candidate was involved in his lawsuit. Voters in New York and in Alabama have also filed legal challenges to Cruz's eligibility. "It is widely assumed and believed that no court is going to invalidate a presidential candidate on this issue," said Gerald Rosenberg, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. Lawyers for both Cruz and the Illinois State Board of Elections said they would present motions to dismiss the case based on jurisdiction and because they said Lawrence did not properly serve notice of his complaint. The Illinois primary is March 15 but early voting has already begun. (Additional reporting by Tracy Rucinski; Writing by Mary Wisniewski; Editing by Mary Milliken) By Aditya Kalra and Suchitra Mohanty NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's Supreme Court on Friday refused to consider a bail plea from a left-wing student leader whose arrest for sedition triggered demonstrations in universities across the country against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling nationalist group. Rivals said the government was trying to crush dissent after it ordered police to detain Kanhaiya Kumar, the head of the Jawaharlal Nehru University students union, for commemorating the anniversary of the execution of a Kashmiri separatist. India's top court suggested Kumar, 28, approach the lower Delhi high court for bail, saying it didn't have to intervene in the case and that lower courts were qualified to handle a bail application. Kumar had sought the Supreme Court's intervention after a previous hearing in a lower court descended into chaos as lawyers chanting nationalist slogans barged into the compound and threw stones at reporters in a case that has become politically charged. "It was a life-threatening situation," one of Kumar's lawyer Vrinda Grover said, adding it was not safe for the defense team to go anywhere except the top court to seek bail. A lawyer for Delhi police, which has framed the case against Kumar, said police are duty-bound to provide security at the Delhi high court when the bail application comes up. The case against Kumar is under the colonial-era sedition law and has fueled fears that Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party is creating a climate of fear in the country and is promoting a fiercely nationalist agenda aimed at the minority groups. But the government said the right to speech wasn't unfettered and Home Minister Rajnath Singh put out a Twitter post that those who shouted "anti-India" slogans and challenge the integrity of the country will not be spared. Kumar and his colleagues were marking the anniversary of the hanging of Afzal Guru, who was convicted of an attack on Indian parliament in 2001. The attack which India said was masterminded by Pakistan-based militant groups nearly led to war between the nuclear rivals. Guru was convicted for providing logistics to the militants and hanged in 2013. Human rights and political groups in Kashmir said Guru did not get a fair trial and that the evidence against him was, at best, circumstantial. (Writing by Sanjeev Miglani; Editing by Michael Perry) (Reuters) - Manchester United fans turned on their own team after a Europa League defeat to Danish minnows Midtjylland, chanting obscenities that under-pressure manager Louis van Gaal admitted were justified. United's travelling support sang their displeasure as the 2-1 loss on Thursday evening dented the team's best hope of returning to the Champions League next season. Midtjylland were Danish champions last year but had won just one of their previous ten fixtures and not played a competitive match since December. Van Gaal, whose team trail fourth-placed Manchester City by six points in the Premier League, had played up United's "positive" start to the year after they came through their first four games of 2016 undefeated. But United have now recorded just two wins in six since they beat Liverpool on Jan. 17, increasing the pressure on their manager once again. "The fans can criticise. They are disappointed, like we are," the Dutchman said when told what supporters had been singing. "They can do because when you see the second half maybe they are right. We have to improve and then the fans shall support us again." With keeper David de Gea injuring a knee during the warm-up to join a lengthy casualty list that includes captain Wayne Rooney, Van Gaal cited injuries as a factor in the defeat. "It is difficult to cope with such a list of injured players," he said. That defence did not go down well at home. Columnists at the Manchester Evening News described the defeat as a "new low" and called for Van Gaal to be sacked, while many irate fans took to Twitter. "Please, please just sack Van Gaal he is the worst thing that has ever happened at United," one user tweeted. "The level of @ManUtd's uselessness is unmatched," said another. (Reporting by Simon Jennings in Bengaluru; editing by John Stonestreet) By Padraic Halpin DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland has enough parties sharing the center ground to form a stable government after elections next week, the leader of the main opposition party said on Friday, rejecting any comparison with Spain's election deadlock. Ireland risks the prospect of a post-election stalemate with the two dominant parties, Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, insisting they will not enter an unprecedented coalition that polls suggest would offer the only hope of a stable government. Spain is still without a government following inconclusive national elections in December but a strong economic recovery similar to Ireland's remains on track. "Irish politics is different from (continental) European politics in that there is a very significant center ground," Micheal Martin, whose Fianna Fail party lies second to Prime Minister Enda Kenny's Fine Gael in most polls, told Reuters. "In terms of our traditions and also ... the (economic) situation we've come out of, I think there is a lot of center ground opinion. Therefore I do believe that the next Dail (parliament) will have the capacity to form a government that will be good but also stable." Martin pointed to "center ground" among some smaller, new parties and a range of independent candidates set to perform strongly. He reiterated that he would not end a near century-old rivalry and join up with fellow center-right party Fine Gael. The two parties, whom analysts say would have very few differences on fiscal policy, have "very profound differences" in health, housing and education, Martin said. Having cut a 14 percentage point deficit between the parties to just seven in the most recent survey this week, Martin believes his party can outperform opinion polls as they did at local elections in 2014 and overtake Kenny. "We can become the lead party in the aftermath of this election. ... This isn't a coronation for Enda Kenny. Our message has struck a chord with the people," Martin said in a telephone interview. Martin said Fianna Fail would be fiscally responsible in government and confirmed that unlike Fine Gael, it would not use up the additional 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) of budgetary space freed up if the European Commission deems Ireland's budget to be balanced structurally by coming within half a percent of zero. Fianna Fail will target a balanced budget in both structural terms, excluding the effects of the economic cycle, and headline terms, Martin said. He also rejected the idea that it is just a matter of time before left-wing protest party Sinn Fein - vying with Fianna Fail for second place - enters government, as its leader Gerry Adams told Reuters this week. "I don't see it as inevitable," Martin, a foreign minister in the last administration, said. "Doubts will start emerging before the close of polling. They will gain seats but maybe not to the extent the polls are suggesting." (Reporting by Padraic Halpin; Editing by Ruth Pitchford) Tripoli (AFP) - The Islamic State group, targeted by a US air strike in Libya Friday, moved into the country in 2014 in the chaos that followed the ouster of dictator Moamer Kadhafi. IS has become yet another player in the lawless North African nation, where rival governments and militias are battling for control of territory and major oil reserves. -- 2014 -- - November 19: The US State Department says it is "concerned" by reports that radical extremists with avowed ties to IS are destabilising eastern Libya, having already seized vast swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria. News reports say the eastern coastal city of Derna is emerging as an IS stronghold. - December 27: A car bomb claimed by IS explodes outside the diplomatic security building in Tripoli without causing casualties. -- 2015 -- - January 8: IS claims to have killed two Tunisian journalists -- Sofiene Chourabi and Nadhir Ktari -- who went missing in September. - January 27: IS claims an attack on Tripoli's luxury Corinthia Hotel that kills nine people. - February 15: IS releases a video showing the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians, all but one Egyptians, that the jihadists say they filmed in January. Egypt carries out air strikes on IS in Derna. - February 20: IS claims suicide car bombings in Al-Qoba, near Derna, that kill 44. It says the attacks are to avenge losses in the air strikes. - April 19: A new video shows the execution of 28 Christians originally from Ethiopia. - June 9: IS announces it has captured Sirte, east of Tripoli. It already controlled the city's airport. - July 12: The group acknowledges it has been pushed out of Derna after several weeks of fierce fighting with members of the town's Mujahedeen Council. - August 11: Heavy fighting erupts in Sirte between residents and IS, with dozens of people dead. - November 13: The US bombs IS leaders in Libya for the first time and says it killed Abu Nabil, an Iraqi also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al-Zubaydi. Libyan officials identify him as the head of IS in Derna. Story continues - December 4: France says it carried out reconnaissance flights over Libya in November, notably at Sirte, and plans others. -- 2016 -- - January 4: IS launches an offensive to seize oil terminals in Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra, which lie in an "oil crescent" along the coast. - January 7: A suicide truck bombing at a police school in Zliten, east of Tripoli, kills more than 50 people, the worst attack since the 2011 revolution. A second attack kills six at a checkpoint in Ras Lanuf. Both are claimed by the IS. - February 19: A US air strike on a jihadist training camp near Sabratha, west of Tripoli, kills 41 people, probably including a senior IS operative behind attacks in Tunisia. Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - More than 700 Palestinians are currently being held by Israel without being charged or put on trial, the Palestinian Prisoners Club said on Friday. The number of prisoners held under Israel's controversial administrative detention law has spiked because of a series of arrests since a new wave of violence began in October, the prisoners club said in a statement. Under the administrative detention law, Israel can hold suspects without trial for periods of six months renewable indefinitely. The system is again under the spotlight because of a hunger strike by journalist Mohammed al-Qiq, who has gone without food for 87 days in protest at being detained without trial. The system has been criticised by Palestinians, human rights groups and the international community. The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, raised the issue of administrative detention on Thursday in a speech to the UN Security Council. He said that anyone held under the system should "be either charged or released immediately". He also said he was "deeply concerned about the deteriorating condition" of Qiq. Israel says administrative detention, a policy it inherited from the British rule in Mandatory Palestine, is an essential tool for preventing attacks while allowing to keep sensitive information secret. More than 7,000 Palestinians are currently in Israeli jails, including those under administrative detention, according to the prisoners club. Among them are around 30 people who have been in jail since before the signature of the 1993 Oslo Accords. The Palestinian Authority has made their release a condition of the resumption of frozen peace talks with Israel. BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A Polish minister accused Italy on Friday of trying to blackmail eastern European countries by threatening to cut European Union funding unless they show solidarity in the refugee crisis. At a dinner at the European Union summit in Brussels, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi had warned eastern European leaders to help with migration or risk losing their share of European Union development money. "Prime Minister Renzi cannot blackmail anyone," Polish Minister for European Affairs Konrad Szymanski told reporters on the sidelines of the summit, where leaders were discussing migration issues and the British terms of EU membership. Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Czech Republic have been among the staunchest opponents of EU plans to redistribute refugees among EU member states to share the burden of the worst migration crisis in Europe since World War Two. Szymanski said Poland had not pointed the finger at Italy during the depths of the euro crisis, and Italy should demonstrate equal restraint over migration. "There was a time when the Italian prime minister was indicated as one to blame for the situation in which the common currency was on the brink of collapse," he said. "We would expect that Prime Minister Renzi show similar sensitivity and recollection of the past." About one third of the EU's 1 trillion euro ($1.11 trillion) budget for 2014-20 is set aside for projects in poorer, mainly formerly communist countries and regions of the bloc. (Reporting by Francesco Guarascio and Jan Strupczewski, editing by Tom Miles) By Ange Aboa (Reuters) - A military tribunal in Ivory Coast on Thursday sentenced three senior military officials to life in prison for the 2002 murder of former junta leader turned president Robert Guei, and handed out lesser terms to others. The sentencing ends a three-week trial in the Ivory Coast, the economic powerhouse of francophone West Africa, which has been going through a reconciliation process after more than a decade of political turmoil. Guei was named head of state after a coup d'etat in 1999 but lost an election to Laurent Gbagbo a year later. He had been out of office for nearly two years when his bullet-riddled body was discovered on a roadside in the commercial capital, Abidjan, during a second attempted coup in 2002. The three high-ranking soldiers close to Gbagbo who received life sentences were Dogbo Ble, commander of the Republican Guard, gendarmerie Captain Anselme Seka Yapo and another officer named as Sery Daleba. At least five others received 10 years in prison as accessories to the killing. Lawyers for the defendants said they would appeal the verdicts. Dogbo Ble is already serving 15 years in prison for a 2012 conviction for complicity in violence including murder. Yapo was given a 20-year sentence for murder and assault last August. Although the 2002 coup attempt failed, the non-commissioned officers behind it maintained their grip on the northern half of the world's top cocoa grower, eventually becoming the New Forces rebellion. The group helped bring to power the current president, Alassane Ouattara, after Gbagbo refused to accept his defeat in a 2010 run-off election, triggering a brief civil war. Gbagbo's trial before the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity committed during the conflict opened last month in The Hague. (Writing by Edward McAllister; editing by John Stonestreet) Actress Jessica Chastain ("Zero Dark Thirty", "Crimson Peak") has launched a new production company, Freckle Films, reports Deadline. Chastain will serve as the president of Freckle Films along with executive Elise Siegel. She has already signed a first overhead deal with Trudie Styler and Celine Rattray's production banner Maven Pictures. The companies have deals for two books: "The Magician's Lie" by Greer Macallister and "Life and Other Near-Death Experiences" by Camille Pagan. Jessica Chastain is also reportedly in talks to star in director Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of Molly Bloom's memoir, "Molly's Game". Bloom ran secret poker games for Wall Street and Hollywood millionaires in the late 2000s. Her memoir by the same name was released in 2014. Washington D.C., Feb. 19 (ANI): The Philadelphia Police Department has offered Kanye West a job to help him pay off his 53 million dollars debt. Philadelphia police department photoshopped the face of the 38-year-old rapper onto a photo of two officers and shared it on Twitter alongside caption, "We R hiring, @kanyewest! Starting salary of $47,920; u could be debt-free by the year 3122!", TMZ.com reports. Last week, the `Gold Digger` hit-maker tweeted about his 53 million dollars personal debt and asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to invest 1 billion dollars into "Kanye West ideas". (ANI) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry expressed concern over the detentions of Uganda's main opposition candidate Kizza Besigye and harassment of opposition party members in a call to President Yoweri Museveni on Friday, the State Department said. Kerry also called on Museveni to rein in the security forces and to lift a block on social media and mobile money sites, the State Department said. "He urged President Museveni to rein in the police and security forces, noting that such action calls into question Ugandas commitment to a transparent and credible election process free from intimidation," it added. (Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Eric Walsh) (Reuters) - U.S. Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina backed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination on Friday, giving her campaign a vital boost from the states most influential black politician ahead of next weeks primary. Clyburns endorsement comes as Clinton battles rival Bernie Sanders for the support of blacks in the South Carolina contest on Feb. 27, when more than half of the voters are likely to be black. Polls show Clinton with a solid double-digit lead in South Carolina, fueled by strong African-American support. Clyburns backing could help solidify that lead. Campaigns are and should be about the future, and I believe that the future of the Democratic Party and the United States of America will be best served with the experience and know-how of Hillary Clinton as our 45th president, Clyburn said at a news conference in South Carolina. Clyburn, the No. 3 ranked Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives and the only Democrat in Congress from South Carolina, stayed neutral in the bitter 2008 race between Clinton and Barack Obama. But he said he decided to get involved this time because Clinton was well positioned to tackle many of the challenges facing minorities and the country. Hillary Clinton is a fighter, and thats what we need for our next president, Clyburn said. Clinton and Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, have been courting support from black civil rights leaders and voters as the Democratic race has moved on from mostly white Iowa, where Clinton narrowly won, and New Hampshire, where Sanders routed Clinton. For more on the 2016 presidential race, see the Reuters blog, Tales from the Trail (http://blogs.reuters.com/talesfromthetrail/). (Reporting by John Whitesides and Megan Cassella; Editing by Phil Berlowitz) (Cover tile photo: Sean Rayford/AP) Pristina (AFP) - Opposition MPs in Kosovo disrupted the first parliamentary session of the year on Friday with what has become their commonplace method of protest -- releasing tear gas in the chamber. Angry about a government deal with Serbia and demanding snap elections, the united opposition has almost paralysed parliamentary proceedings since October with their tear gas protests. "The people have turned their backs on the regime and the government must resign and respond to the people's will," Visar Ymeri, head of the Self-Determination party, told MPs before the session began and the first gas canister was opened. The session was suspended after deputies began to flee during a hurried vote -- despite calls from the parliamentary speaker, also donning a gas mask, for them to continue with proceedings. Two attempts to restart the session failed as they came up against more tear gas and 18 MPs were banned from the chamber, four of them forcibly removed by police. Proceedings resumed mid-afternoon without the banned MPs, seven of whom were arrested. The opposition is against a deal with Belgrade, backed by the European Union, to create an association giving greater powers to Kosovo's Serb minority. It fears the plan will deepen Kosovo's ethnic divisions and increase the influence of Serbia, which does not recognise Kosovo's sovereignty. The opposition also opposes a border demarcation agreement with neighbouring Montenegro. Protesters who have taken to the streets in recent months further accuse the authorities of widespread corruption, lagging development and a disregard for Muslim-majority Kosovo's 1.8 million people. - 'Ugly behaviour' - Several hundred opposition supporters gathered on Friday outside the parliamentary building in Pristina, sealed off by special riot police units, and chanted: "Down with the government". "The only solution we accept now is elections, free elections," Self-Determination activist Yll Hoxha told the crowd. Story continues The protesters, who later dispersed, also spoke against Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Hashim Thaci becoming president this year, a post for which he is currently the frontrunner. Thaci himself described the chaotic scenes inside as "a continuation of the primitive and ugly behaviour" of the opposition. US Ambassador to Kosovo Greg Delawie said the protesting deputies were "depriving the citizens of Kosovo of the right to live peacefully in an independent, democratic country and I deplore that". Friday marked the seventh tear gas protest by MPs, who have also thrown eggs, fired pepper spray and blown whistles in parliament in recent months. Ramush Haradinaj, leader of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo opposition party, resigned later in the day, saying tear gas had been "the only path forward" against the "extreme irresponsibility" of those in power. Thousands of protesters marched peacefully through Pristina on Wednesday, the eighth anniversary of Kosovo's independence from Serbia, calling for the government's resignation and new elections. Kosovo's pro-independence ethnic Albanian rebels fought a war against Serb forces in the late 1990s, which ended after a NATO bombing campaign against Serbia. The deal between Pristina and Belgrade was reached during EU-mediated talks to "normalise" relations. Beirut (AFP) - A Kurdish-led alliance backed by US-led strikes seized a stronghold of the Islamic State group in northeastern Syria on Friday, a monitor said. The Syrian Democratic Forces were now in full control of Al-Shadadi in Hasakeh province, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said. The Observatory said IS forces had withdrawn south of the town, and SDF fighters were engaged in "mopping up" operations outside Al-Shadadi. Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said the town's capture was due in large part to heavy US-led air strikes. The SDF began a new operation in Hasakeh province on Tuesday, and had been advancing towards Al-Shadadi in recent days. Earlier, it seized a nearby oilfield from IS and cut two routes leading from Al-Shadadi to Mosul in neighbouring Iraq and Raqa, the jihadist group's de facto Syrian capital. The SDF is an alliance of Kurdish fighters from the People's Protection Units (YPG) and Arab forces, although the Kurds dominate the coalition. It has successfully battled IS elsewhere in Hasakeh, with support from the US-led coalition that began strikes in Syria in September 2014. It is also waging a major operation in Aleppo province where it has seized key territory from Syrian rebels. Those advances have angered Turkey, which accuses the YPG of being the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, an outlawed group that has waged a decades-long insurgency against Ankara. ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A Kurdish militant group once linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) claimed responsibility on Friday for the bombing in the Turkish capital Ankara that killed 28 people this week, according to a statement on its website. The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) said the bombing was in response to the policies of President Tayyip Erdogan and said it would continue its attacks. It said the bomber was a 26-year old Turkish national born in the eastern city of Van. The group most recently claimed responsibility for a mortar attack at Istanbul's second airport in December that left an aircraft cleaner dead. TAK has in the past said its relationship with PKK militants has been severed. Both groups are regarded as terrorist organizations by Ankara and the United States. A car laden with explosives was detonated next to military buses as they waited at traffic lights in the administrative heart of Ankara on Wednesday. The government has blamed the PKK and the Syrian Kurdish YPG for the attacks. (Reporting by Ece Toksabay in Istanbul, Gulsen Solaker in Ankara; Writing by David Dolan; Editing by Nick Tattersall) By Sylvain Andzongo YAOUNDE (Reuters) - Two suicide bombers posing as food vendors killed at least 24 people and injured 112 others in a market in Meme, northern Cameroon, security sources said on Friday. It was the first time the town of Meme has been targeted but there have been previous assaults near the town of Mora, which lies near the border of northeastern Nigeria. Last week Cameroon's military killed 162 Boko Haram militants and arrested about 100 others in an assault, according to government spokesman Issa Tchiroma. A Cameroonian military source said two girls carried out the attack. Girls and young women have carried out a spate of suicide bombings in the region. "These two girls took advantage of the fact that it was the woman's market," said another military source. "They came like vendors, except they had explosives in their cooking pots." The death toll may still rise. There has so far been no official claim of responsibility for the attack, but officials pointed the finger at Nigerian-based Boko Haram. The group, which has sought to carve out an emirate in northeastern Nigeria, has been blamed for a campaign of suicide attacks in neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger over the past year. Boko Haram violence in Cameroon has caused about 1,000 deaths, according to the government and military sources. Boko Haram is thought to have killed about 15,000 people and driven more than 2 million from their homes during its six-year insurgency in one of the world's poorest regions. The U.S. military now calls it the most lethal violent extremist group in the world. Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Benin have set up an 8,700-strong regional force tasked with wiping out Boko Haram. The United States has also sent troops to supply intelligence and other assistance. (Additional reporting by Emma Farge in Dakar; Writing by Edward McAllister and Makini Brice; Editing by Ruth Pitchford) AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - At least one person was killed and dozens more injured when a Texas prison bus collided with a pickup truck in central Texas on Friday, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said. The driver of the pickup truck died in the collision in Gustine, the department said in a statement. The bus was carrying 31 offenders and two correctional officers. All were being transported from the scene with what appeared to be non-life-threatening injuries, the department said. The injured were being taken to area hospitals as well as a prison infirmary unit. A picture of the incident, which took place about 120 miles north of Austin, posted on the website of local TV station KWTX showed a bus perched on its side just off the roadway. (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Leslie Adler) I never thought Id say this, but I could definitely go for a VR headset right now. Samsung officially confirmed that the Galaxy S7 event will be streamed in VR, and it has provided information on how to watch it on your devices. The company did not specifically mention the upcoming Galaxy S7 handsets, but it didnt really have to. The Galaxy S7 series has appeared in so many leaks that we likely know everything about it already. DONT MISS: Legendary iPhone hacker weighs in on Apples war with the FBI Samsungs announcement also seems to confirm what we suspected a while ago, that theres going to be a virtual reality announcement made in this event. Samsungs teaser included VR references and the company might release a cool camera accessory that lets you record video in 360 degrees. I cant help but wonder if the rumored camera will be used during the Unpacked event. Samsung explained that there are three ways to watch the Unpacked event using the 360-degree cameras itll have in place, with the coolest one being Gear VR. If you have a headset, youll need to get the Unpacked 360 View app from the Oculus Store. Once the event begins on Sunday, youll be able to select one of the four viewing angles and use the headset to look around. If you dont have a VR headset, you can still enjoy 360-degree video on your computer or your mobile phone. On a PC, youll simply have to tune in when the event starts at this link. On mobile, youre going to need the Unpacked 360 View app, which is a free download from the Google Play Store or the App Store, depending on what device youre using. And voila, youll be able to live stream the Galaxy S7 event in VR. Regardless of your choice, youll be able to watch the event from the auditorium, stage left, stage right or from center stage. Related stories MWC 2016 preview: Will the Galaxy S7 and LG G5 eclipse everything else? Samsung hints Galaxy S7 will be waterproof and shock resistant Galaxy S7 stars in its first live hands-on video More from BGR: Legendary iPhone hacker weighs in on Apples war with the FBI This article was originally published on BGR.com LONDON (Reuters) - Lloyds Banking Group said on Friday it expected to pay around 60 million pounds ($85.68 million) in insurance claims to households hit by flooding in Britain in December. The bank helped more than 10,000 households affected by Storms Desmond and Eva in Scotland and the North of England through its Lloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland insurance brands, it said in a statement. Direct Line has said it expects up to 140 million pounds in claims from customers across three UK winter storms in December and January - Desmond, Eva and Frank. Ageas said its fourth-quarter results were hit by the December storms, while the extreme UK weather also contributed to a fourth-quarter loss in general insurance at Zurich Insurance . The Association of British Insurers said the floods were likely to lead to 1.3 billion pounds in insurance pay-outs.bri (Reporting by Carolyn Cohn; editing by Simon Jessop) KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia on Friday said it would freeze recruitment of all foreign workers and review employment policies, following protests over its plans to bring in millions of workers to satisfy industry demand. "The suspension will be in force until the government is satisfied with the manpower needs of the industries," state news agency Bernama said, citing Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. The protests by Malaysian labor groups and firms followed reports that the Southeast Asian country planned to hire about 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers over three years to meet the demand from industry for labor. Later the government clarified that its pact with Bangladesh would only allow 1.5 million workers to seek jobs in Malaysia, and did not mean that all of them would be recruited. Enforcement measures will also be stepped up against illegal foreign workers throughout Malaysia, Ahmad Zahid added. "Foreign workers without valid documents or those who have overstayed will be arrested and sent back to their country of origin," the agency quoted him as saying. Malaysia has about 2.1 million documented foreign workers, a figure that falls below its self-imposed cap of 15 percent of foreigners among a total workforce of about 15.3 million. It put on hold a plan to raise a levy on foreign workers, also announced this month, after opposition from businesses affected by the higher charges. Malaysian manufacturers on Friday urged the government for more clarity on the sudden freeze on foreign worker recruitment. "It is unclear to manufacturers how long the suspension would take effect," the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) said in a statement after the announcement. "FMM hopes that the issues of levy and recruitment of foreign workers can be resolved expediently to avoid any deleterious effect on our economy." (Reporting by Praveen Menon; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) (Reuters) - Maryland's highest court agreed to hear the appeals of several officers charged in connection with the death of Freddie Gray, halting all lower court proceedings for the time being, court filings showed on Thursday. The state's Court of Appeals agreed to hear arguments for five of the six officers involved in the Gray case, whose death after suffering injuries in police custody last April prompted the majority black city to explode in destructive protest. At issue is whether Officer William Porter, whose trial ended in a hung jury in December, can be compelled to testify against two other officers charged in the case, Officer Caesar Goodson and Sergeant Alicia White. Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbera also granted the prosecution's appeal of a lower court ruling that blocked them from compelling Porter to testify against the other three policemen: Officers Edward Nero and Garrett Miller, and Lieutenant Brian Rice. The death of Gray, a 25-year-old black man, intensified a national movement decrying police violence against people of color dubbed Black Lives Matter. Nero is charged with second-degree assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment. His trial was scheduled to start next Monday while trials for Miller and Rice were set for March. Porter's retrial was scheduled for June. (Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Scott Malone, Bernard Orr) By John Clarke Washington (Reuters) - A Baltimore jury convicted a man on Thursday in connection with the sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl at an off-campus Johns Hopkins University fraternity house party in November 2014, officials said. Ethan Turner, 20, was convicted of second-degree sexual offense and second-degree assault, according to the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office. He was acquitted on a charge of second-degree rape. Chaz Haggins, 22, was also charged in the case. He pleaded guilty last week to rape and will serve five years in prison. Attorneys for the two men, both of whom are from Reisterstown, Maryland, could not immediately be reached for comment. Neither men attended the university, the school said. The victim told police she was forced to perform sex acts and was later raped by two men during a party at the off-campus Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, according to charging documents. The victim had been drinking and had a blood alcohol level of 0.11 when taken for treatment at a hospital, police said. Legal intoxication in Maryland is a blood alcohol level from 0.04 to 0.08. College sexual assault has drawn increased national attention after a debunked Rolling Stone article purported to detail an alleged 2012 gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity. The pop culture magazine has been sued for defamation over the story. Turner is set to be sentenced on April 7. A spokesman for the fraternity's national headquarters said the Johns Hopkins chapter had since been closed because of health and safety violations. (Reporting by John Clarke in Washington; Editing by Curtis Skinner and Peter Cooney) Los Angeles (AFP) - A leaking gas well that spewed tons of methane into the air and forced thousands of Los Angeles residents from their homes has been permanently sealed, state officials said. The announcement confirmed earlier reports by the Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) that the well at its facility in Porter Ranch had been plugged. The news put an end to a four-month-long drama that saw thousands of Porter Ranch residents sickened by the fumes and forced to relocate to other areas of Los Angeles. "We have good news," Jason Marshall, deputy head of the California Department of Conservation, told a news conference. "We have confirmed that the leak of gas has been capped. We have the gas emissions under control." He said the damaged well was sealed with concrete, putting it permanently out of service. The leak, first detected on October 23 at the gas company's Aliso Canyon facility, has been described as an environmental disaster. Methane, which is colorless and odorless, is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. But public health officials and the gas company -- a division of Sempra Energy -- have said the fumes posed no danger to Porter Ranch residents. The gas company is facing a series of lawsuits, as well as criminal charges brought by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, which alleges SoCalGas failed to immediately report the leak. However, the company insists it broke no laws and its president, Dennis Arriola, said Thursday it was in the process of inspecting the other wells at Aliso Canyon. "We recognize the disruption the gas leak has caused to local residents," he told reporters. "We are committed to earning back their trust and confidence over time through our actions, not our words." Paula Cracium, president of the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council, told AFP that while news about the leak being over was welcome it would take time for residents to feel at ease again in their homes. "I think there is going to be a version of PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder) for a lot of families, Cracium said. "It's like an earthquake. After you go through it, it messes with your life for a while and then you have a chance to get back to normal." She added that she and another member of the council would be heading to the state capital Sacramento on Monday to push for long-term legislation on well safety. Istanbul (AFP) - A Kurdish militant group on Friday claimed the suicide car bomb attack on a military convoy in the Turkish capital Ankara that killed 28 people, threatening new attacks targeting the crucial tourism sector. The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), who have been linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), said the attack was revenge for operations by the Turkish military in the southeast of the country and warned foreign tourists not to visit Turkey. "On February 17 in the evening a suicide attack was carried out by a sacrifice warrior on a military convoy of the fascist Turkish Republic in Ankara... The attack was realised by the Immortal Battalion of the TAK," the TAK said in a statement on their website. Wednesday's attack struck at the heart of Ankara in an area where institutions including the army headquarters and parliament are concentrated. It was one of the deadliest attacks on the Turkish military in recent years. Ankara has insisted that the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and Democratic Union Party (PYD) were behind the attack, although its claims have met with scepticism from chief NATO ally the United States. The YPG and PYD deny accusations from Ankara that they are branches of the PKK and have rejected having any involvement in the attack. The TAK named the suicide bomber as Zinar Raperin born in 1989 in Turkey's Kurdish-dominated eastern region of Van, who had been involved with the Kurdish "freedom struggle" and since 2011 with the TAK. The TAK's claim of the bomber's identity is in contradiction to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu who said the bomber was a Syrian national YPG operative. - 'Stay away from Turkey' - In an additional English-language statement the TAK warned it aims to "destroy" tourism in Turkey. "We warn the foreign and native tourists not go to the touristic areas in Turkey. We are not responsible for who will die in the attacks targeting those areas," it said. Story continues The TAK is a little-known group which has nonetheless risen to prominence in recent months after it claimed firing mortar shells on Istanbul's Sabiha Gokcen airport on December 23. The firing left one airport cleaner dead and also damaged several planes. Turkish officials say the TAK is a front for PKK attacks on civilian targets, but the PKK claims TAK is a splinter group over which it has no control. In an interview published by pro-PKK media on Wednesday, PKK commander Cemil Bayik said he did not know who carried out the Ankara attack but said it could have been "revenge for the massacres" in Kurdish areas. - 'No doubt' - Keeping up the insistence that the YPG was to blame, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday warned the United States against backing the YPG, saying there was "no doubt" they were behind the Ankara attack. Erdogan said Turkey was "saddened" by the stubbornness of the West in not linking the YPG to the PKK which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state and is recognised as a terror group by the United States and EU. In a phone call later to US President Barack Obama, Erdogan emphasised "the importance of solidarity between allies in the fight against terrorism", the Turkish president said in a statement. Obama called for "the immediate halt" in territorial gains by the YPG and the Syrian regime in northern Syria, which he said "cause tension" and "affect the fight" against the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, the Turkish statement said. The United States works with the YPG as the sole truly effective force on the ground in the fight against IS and has shown no sign of changing its stance on the group. US State Department spokesman John Kirby said Thursday it was still an "open question" who had carried out the Ankara attack. Ankara prosecutors said Friday that six more suspects had been detained in the investigation, bringing the total to 20. In Ankara meanwhile, eight fatalities in the attack were laid to rest following a funeral ceremony at the city's vast Kocatepe Mosque. Six of those buried were civilian employees of the military and two were soldiers. In all, 20 soldiers of varying ranks were killed in the attack, seven civilian employees and a young female journalist. By Zakia Abdennebi SALE, Morocco (Reuters) - Moroccan authorities said on Friday they had arrested 10 suspected militants linked to the Islamic State, including a French citizen, and seized weapons and bomb-making materials in raids on their hideouts. The cell is the latest in a series of radical groups Morocco says it has uncovered. Thursday's raids took place at locations the group used in the southern city of Essaouira and the central cities of Meknes and Sidi Kacem, authorities said. At the offices of the Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation (BCIJ), reporters were shown weapons, ammunition, tasers, swords and bomb materials seized from hideouts. BCIJ is the judicial wing of Morocco's domestic intelligence service. "This new cell is too dangerous ... I don't call it a cell but an armed brigade," bureau head Abdelhak al-Khayyam told reporters. Al-Khayyam said the group had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and set up a hideout near the desert city of Tan-Tan in an arid area riddled with caves. The suspects include a French citizen, who converted to Islam and lived in Morocco for at least a year, and a 16-year-old Moroccan. The group was planning to use the 16-year-old as a suicide truck bomber, al-Khayyam said, and attack institutions and prominent Moroccans on Friday Feb. 19. The BCIJ's chief said the weapons came from Libya but declined to give further details. Morocco says it has dismantled 152 militant cells since 2002, including 31 since 2013 that it says were linked to armed groups fighting in Syria and Iraq. Hundreds of fighters from Morocco and other Maghreb states like Tunisia and Algeria have joined Islamist militants fighting in Syria. Some are threatening to return and create new jihadi groups in their home countries, security experts say. Morocco, a Western ally against Islamist militancy, has often been targeted by militants, most recently in 2011 in the western city of Marrakesh. (Writing By Aziz El Yaakoubi; editing by Katharine Houreld) RABAT (Reuters) - Morocco has decided not host the 2016 Arab League meeting, saying on Friday it wanted to avoid giving a false impression of unity in the Arab world. The annual meeting, which would have been the group's 27th, was initially set for on March 29 in the Moroccan tourist city of Marrakesh but had already been postponed to April 7 at Saudi Arabia's request. "Amid the lack of important decisions and concrete initiatives to submit to the heads of states, this summit will be just an other occasion to approve ordinary resolutions and to pronounce speeches that give a false impression of unity," a statement from the Moroccan foreign ministry said. "Arab leaders cannot confine themselves, once more, to simply analyzing the bitter situation of divergences and divisions without giving decisive responses," it added. Saudi Arabia said on Friday it suspended a $3 billion aid package for the Lebanese army in what a official called a response to Beirut's failure to condemn attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran. The region is riven by the rivalry between Sunni Muslim power Saudi Arabia and the leading Shi'ite power Iran. The two are backing different sides in Syria's civil war and different factions in neighboring Lebanon. Saudi Arabia was enraged when Iranians, protesting against the kingdom's execution of a Shi'ite Muslim cleric, raided its missions last month - and many countries in the region came out in support of Riyadh. (Reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Ruth Pitchford) Cape Town (AFP) - For the second week in a row all-rounder Chris Morris conjured a victory for South Africa, taking the hosts to a three-wicket win over England off the last ball of the first Twenty20 international at Newlands on Friday. England looked set to defend a modest total as Reece Topley started the last over, with South Africa needing 15 runs to win. Kyle Abbott stole a single to get Morris on strike. The tall Morris struck the next two balls for four and six. After a dot delivery, he hit twos off the last two balls. Topley had a chance to run out Abbott to force a tie and a super over but fumbled a throw from long-off. Morris finished with 17 not out off seven balls. A week earlier his 62 off 38 balls was a match-winner in the fourth one-day international. The man of the match, though, was leg-spinner Imran Tahir, who took four for 21 to restrict England to 134 for eight after the tourists were sent in to bat. "We let ourselves down with the bat," said England captain Eoin Morgan. "It is a huge credit to the bowling unit that we came close to defending that score." England looked set for a big total as opening batsmen Jason Roy and the in-form Alex Hales hit 38 off the first 3.3 overs before Roy clipped Kagiso Rabada to Hashim Amla at mid-wicket. Tahir came on to bowl after the six-over power play had yielded 50 runs for Roy?s wicket. He struck with his fourth ball when Hales top-edged a sweep to backward square leg. JP Duminy held the catch despite being knocked to the ground by Rabada, who was also running for the ball. Tahir followed up by dismissing Ben Stokes, Morgan and Moeen Ali. The latter two wickets were off successive balls and he narrowly missed a hat-trick when a googly went over Chris Jordan's middle stump. South Africa made a confident start, with Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers putting on 31 for the first wicket. But England bowled well on a slow pitch and no batsman was able to dominate. Story continues All-rounder Ben Stokes and leg-spinner Adil Rashid were impressive in the middle overs, taking one for 19 and one for 24 respectively. It seemed to be England's match when Jordan dismissed David Miller and David Wiese in the penultimate over. But that merely set the stage for Morris. The Delhi Daredevils, who paid over US$1-million for his services in the 2016 Indian Premier League, will feel they have made a good purchase. "Successful teams get over the line, even at times when they shouldn't," admitted South African captain Faf du Plessis. "It gives us a massive amount of confidence." The second and final game is in Johannesburg on Sunday. With hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, Netflix is not quite ready to let Relativity Media exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy without a new challenge. On Friday, the streaming video giant filed paperwork to appeal a bankruptcy judge's findings of fact, conclusions of law, and confirmation of its Chapter 11 reorganization plan. In U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Wiles' written order, he ruled that Relativity "may assume the agreements" struck with Netflix, that there "has been no default under such agreements, and that the Debtors have provided adequate assurance of future performance." The appeal now goes to a New York federal court. At this point, Netflix hasn't filed any motion to stop the judge's conditional confirmation order from moving forward pending an appeal. A Relativity spokesperson gave a statement to The Hollywood Reporter: "The Netflix appeal disregards what is in the best interest of all of our stakeholders and is merely is a last-ditch effort to unfairly leverage the Chapter 11 process to only their advantage. Weve continuously worked in good faith with Netflix throughout the Chapter 11 process." Netflix became vocal in bankruptcy court in late January, questioning the uncompleted paperwork and arguing that Ryan Kavanaugh's studio hadn't delivered a promised minimum number of films, nor could it guarantee such delivery in the future. The objection caused Kavanaugh to unleash on Netflix, saying, Netflix suffers from what everyone used to call 'Yahoo syndrome,'" and arguing that Netflix wanted to renegotiate its deal. "We made our deal with them in 2010 when not only would no other studio work with them, but there were public and known blacklists prohibiting studios and television companies from working with them. For the first few years after we made our deal, we were their knight in shining armor. Just look at Netflix even today. It's mostly Relativity movies. Story continues At the hearing, the judge wasn't impressed with Netflix attorney's preparation, but the streaming company's arguments largely failed because under the contract, Relativity only had to put forward best efforts to delivering minimums, and the penalties for failing to do so were not written particularly punitively. Judge Wiles moved forward on confirming the reorganization plan, though he conditioned a Chapter 11 exit on Relativity providing firmer documentation of new financing and the studio's Trigger Street deal with Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti. Netflix has yet to file substantive arguments about perceived errors in the bankruptcy judge's conclusions. Charleston (United States) (AFP) - The race to the White House entered its third round Saturday, with Republicans voting in their first southern primary in South Carolina and Democrats choosing between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in Nevada. Voters streamed to the polls in South Carolina after they opened at 7:00 am, in what is likely to be an important test of strength for frontrunner Donald Trump. Pre-vote surveys showed the billionaire businessman with a big lead over five Republican rivals in the Palmetto State. Tim Nielson, 56, emerged from a voting place in Mouth Pleasant, South Carolina wearing a red, white and blue "I voted" sticker. He said he had switched from Democrat to Republican to vote for Trump. If Trump wins the White House, said Nielson, "maybe he'll change some ways." Trump is banking on a big symbolic win ahead of "Super Tuesday" -- March 1, when about a dozen states will go to the polls to choose candidates for the November 8 presidential election, with a quarter of the nominating delegates up for grabs. "It's crunch time, folks," Trump, 69, told voters at a North Charleston rally, his final pitch Friday before the primary. He finished second to Texas Senator Ted Cruz in Iowa on February 1, but secured a commanding win in New Hampshire one week later. The onetime reality TV star, who has upended the political landscape with his brash style and controversial comments, has his eye on a particular date: March 15. After that day, many of the Republican primaries will be winner-takes-all in terms of delegates. If his five rivals are still in the race at that point, they will be splitting the anti-Trump vote -- and increasing his chances of winning the nomination. On the eve of the primary, Trump led with about 28 percent of likely Republicans voters backing him, according to an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll. The ultra-conservative Cruz followed with 23 percent. Trailing were Senator Marco Rubio at 15 percent and former Florida governor Jeb Bush at 13 percent. Story continues Rubio and Bush are under intense pressure to fare well Saturday, as is Ohio Governor John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, whose campaign has struggled to gain ground. Bush, who has enlisted his famous family to help his flagging cause, visited a voting station in Greenville, South Carolina with his 90-year-old mother Barbara. Carson, for his part, appealed to voters in a Fox News interview not to let the election become a choice between "the lesser of two evils." "You don't understand South Carolina politics. It's horrible," said Edwin Pearlstine, a retired beer distributor and brewery owner who voted for Kasich even while conceding the Ohio governor has little chance of winning. If Trump wins the Republican nomination, he said, "I got a pretty place right on the beach in the Bahamas. I'll just go stay there." In the past week Trump repeatedly called Cruz a liar, and his attorneys even sent the senator a cease-and-desist letter over a TV ad that uses a 1999 interview in which Trump said he was "very pro-choice" on abortion rights. Trump has since changed his stance on the sensitive issue. - Clinton bets on immigration - To the west, in the desert state of Nevada, Democrats will caucus -- group themselves together by candidate to voice their support -- starting at 11 am (1900 GMT). Both Clinton and Sanders have been working hard to reach out to the African-Americans, Hispanics and Asian-Americans that make up roughly half of the state's population. Clinton, who won by a hair in Iowa but was crushed by Sanders in New Hampshire, is counting on a major Hispanic voter turnout, especially among Las Vegas hotel and casino employees. Nevada has some three million residents, and the population is overwhelmingly concentrated in two large urban centers, Las Vegas and Reno. Since Wednesday, the former secretary of state has visited staff at casinos in Las Vegas, where workers can "caucus" right on the famous Strip. Clinton says she is the natural Latino ally on immigration, and if elected she promises a quick path to citizenship for those in the country illegally. The former first lady, 68, has relentlessly attacked Sanders for voting against immigration reform in 2007. Sanders, however, said the measure gave little protection for foreign "guest workers," and that he voted for a 2013 immigration reform bill that died due to Republican opposition. "As president, I will do everything that I can to pass immigration reform and a path toward citizenship for those who today are undocumented," Sanders, 74, said Thursday on MSNBC. Clinton claims that Sanders is offering impractical, pie-in-the-sky ideas. - Sanders's 1963 arrest - But Sanders's camp is convinced that young minority voters will back him. Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, is hoping that his own civil rights activist background will attract young voters. The Chicago Tribune on Friday unearthed a 1963 photo of a 21-year-old Sanders being hauled away by police during a protest against Chicago school segregation. "Bernie identified it himself," campaign adviser Tad Devine told the Tribune. At the time Sanders was charged with resisting arrest, found guilty and fined $25. Lagos (AFP) - A Nigerian court ordered the seizure of fugitive former rebel leader Government "Tompolo" Ekpemupolo's assets after he failed again Friday to appear on graft charges. Ekpemupolo, an infamous armed militant in the oil-rich Niger Delta who became a government contractor, faces theft and money laundering charges to the tune of $230 million. He has repeatedly refused to appear before the Federal High Court in Lagos and again failed to meet a Friday ultimatum to turn himself in. His case is one of many being pursued by President Muhammadu Buhari in his quest to put a stop to endemic graft at a time when the oil-dependent state's coffers are being drained by the plunging price of crude. "The combined team of the Nigerian police and the military have been combing the creeks and the entire nation for the arrest of the first accused person, but he continues to abscond and conceal himself," prosecution lawyer Festus Keyamo said. In a bid to force Ekpemupolo out of hiding, the judge ruled that Nigeria's anti-graft agency should seize Ekpemupolo's assets, including a mansion, boat, dockyard, and diving school in the oil-rich Delta State. Judge Ibrahim Buba adjourned the case until March 22, when he will rule on if the defendants charged alongside Ekpemupolo, including a former head of Nigeria's maritime agency, should be tried independently in his absence. Ekpemupolo, 47, is accused of theft and money laundering of just over $175 million between 2012 and last year. Last week, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission slapped fresh charges of illegal diversion of 11.9 billion naira ($60 million) against him. Ekpemupolo is a high-profile former leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), an armed group that attacked oil and gas facilities in the 2000s. The Niger Delta unrest disrupted Nigeria's oil exports, sending shock waves through the global oil market until a 2009 amnesty placated the rebels. Story continues Some, including Ekpemupolo, went on to be awarded lucrative government security contracts to protect the oil and gas facilities they once attacked. But it is alleged such agreements were often used as a front to steal money. Ekpemupolo's supporters are believed to be behind several attacks on oil pipelines in recent months, prompting fears of fresh unrest in the volatile region if he was arrested. By Oludare Mayowa and Chijioke Ohuocha LAGOS (Reuters) - Nigeria has set up a government committee to advise on issuing the country's first sovereign sukuk, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said on Thursday, citing the need to explore alternative funding sources. Africa's biggest economy plans to borrow as much as $5 billion to help fund a budget deficit worsened by the slump in oil prices that has slashed revenues and weakened the naira. SEC spokesman Nalf Abdusalam said the new committee, including officials from the Debt Management Office (DMO), would advise on the amount to be raised, the timing and jurisdiction of the issue. "Any time from the first week of March, the committee is expected to submit its report," he said. Islamic banking assets globally now exceed $1 trillion and could reach $4 trillion by 2020, analysts say. Nigeria has asked the African Development Bank for a $1 billion budget support loan and has held "explanatory talks" with the World Bank. Issuance of a sovereign sukuk is part of a strategic plan developed by the DMO three years ago to develop alternative sources of funding and to establish a benchmark curve for corporates to follow. In 2013, Nigeria's Osun State issued 10 billion naira ($62 million) of sukuk, but no other sukuk transactions have followed. Nigeria is home to the largest Muslim population in sub-Saharan Africa, with about half of its 160 million people members of the Islamic faith. It is also home to one of Africa's fastest growing consumer and corporate banking sectors. In January, the DMO and SEC agreed to work on a debut issuance of sovereign Islamic bonds (sukuk) before the end of the year. (Writing by Chijioke Ohuocha; Editing by Ulf Laessing and Susan Thomas) LONDON (Reuters) - Negotiations on a change to Britain's EU membership terms will continue into the evening and a British cabinet meeting will not be possible on Friday, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Twitter. Cameron, locked in talks in Brussels with fellow EU leaders, said a cabinet meeting in London would be held "if and when a deal is done". A cabinet meeting will be a crucial step for Cameron after any EU deal, as it will formalise the government's support for staying in the EU in an upcoming referendum. Cameron is also expected to announce the date of the referendum, which must be held by the end of next year but has been widely expected to take place in June, after the cabinet meeting. Cameron is expected to campaign for Britain to stay in, but he has announced that the cabinet's collective responsibility will be lifted on the EU issue, and a number of senior figures are expected to campaign for a so-called "Brexit". The ruling Conservative Party has been divided over Britain's EU membership for decades. (Reporting by William Schomberg, writing by Estelle Shirbon; editing by Guy Faulconbridge) Berlin (AFP) - Liverpool's German coach Jurgen Klopp had fun with an English translator after his side's goalless Europa League draw at Augsburg on his first trip to Germany with the Reds. Having previously said Liverpool have a good chance of winning what he describes as "the little Champions League", Klopp was frustrated as his side failed to take their chances in the round of 32, first leg in Bavaria on Thursday. Liverpool must now win the return leg at Anfield next Thursday, while his former club Borussia Dortmund won their corresponding match 2-0 at home to Porto and could potentially meet Klopp's Liverpool if both teams advance to the next round. The 48-year-old Klopp was asked how he would feel if Dortmund drew Liverpool in the last 16, but dismissed the question by pointing out that Borussia now face a tough away leg in Porto. With a smile, he used a German figure of speech, which translates directly as "the grapes are hanging high in Porto" -- meaning Thomas Tuchel's Dortmund face a tough match -- knowing the poor translator would struggle to make sense of that in English. When the red-faced translator, Englishman Peter Clark, said: "Dortmund will be in dreamland in Porto" -- confusing the German for 'grapes' with 'dreamland', which sound similar in the language -- Klopp was quick to correct him. "No! 'The grapes hang high' means it will be a big challenge. That it will be extremely difficult to win in Porto," Klopp told the embarrassed translator, followed by a peal of laughter. Klopp had earlier been irritated by the questions from a British reporter who suggested Liverpool's failure to win in Augsburg was a setback. "The English journalists must have more respect for the Bundesliga," snapped Klopp. "You cannot come here and just win 5-0 against Augsburg. Today, it just wasn't possible to beat Augsburg." But Klopp was clearly irritated by Liverpool's performance. Story continues "In various situations we made the wrong decisions," he fumed. "We have to play better going forwards, with more tempo, and we have to make more of our chances. "We need to use our counter-pressing more. The boys can do much better, but they also have to show that." The Europa League return leg next Thursday comes just three days before Liverpool play Manchester City in the English League Cup final -- Klopp's first chance of silverware in his debut season on Merseyside. Seoul (AFP) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un says his reclusive nation plans more "satellite launches" -- which the West sees as a cover for ballistic missile tests -- calling space exploration a "strategic goal", state media said Friday. "Conquering space is ... a fierce class struggle against the hostile forces seeking to usurp our peace and sovereignty", Kim was quoted as saying at a Wednesday awards ceremony for those involved in this month's rocket launch. He also underscored the need to successfully launch "more working satellites", Pyongyang's KCNA news agency said. "The advance toward space... is the DPRK's (North Korea's) strategic goal", he said. Calling the scientists involved in the February 7 launch "best patriots and admirable heroes", Kim gave out medals, prizes and wristwatches bearing the names of the two late leaders of the Kim dynasty -- Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il. North Korea sparked international outrage with the launch of the Kwangmyongsong-4 satellite, which came just a month after its fourth nuclear test. The launch, which most in the international community viewed as a disguised ballistic missile test, violated multiple UN resolutions banning the nuclear-armed country from the use of ballistic technology. The United States, along with Asian allies South Korean and Japan, are spearheading efforts at the UN Security Council for a strong resolution that will impose harsh sanctions on Pyongyang over the recent nuclear test and rocket launch. Separately, US President Barack Obama on Thursday signed off on new sanctions against North Korea, aimed at anyone importing goods or technology related to weapons of mass destruction into the North, or anyone who knowingly engaged in human rights abuses there. The measure also heaps additional financial pressure on the already-sanctioned regime by taking aim at money laundering and narcotics trafficking, two major illicit activities believed to be funnelling millions of dollars into Kim's inner circle. Under the bill already passed by Congress, penalties for the sanctionable activities would include the seizure of assets, visa bans and denial of government contracts. And for the first time, it establishes a framework for sanctions in response to North Korean cyber threats. The Norway-based budget airline will start flying a nonstop Paris-New York route with introductory fares starting at $US175/179 from July 29. Norwegian is also opening Paris-US routes connecting the French capital with Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale. Low-cost airlines have now officially brought their price-crunching battle to long-haul routes. Already known for budget fares between several European destinations, Norwegian is looking to boost market share with a new route from Paris to New York four times a week. But what's really new here is Norwegian's aggressive pricing, with tickets starting at just 179 or $175 from the US. Two other routes linking Paris to the US will open this summer to Los Angeles (twice weekly from July 30) and Miami/Fort Lauderdale (once a week from August 4). Norwegian's flights will operate from Paris Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport and the routes will be served by Boeing's fuel-efficient Dreamliner 787 aircraft, carrying 291 passengers, with 32 in first class and 259 in economy. The company is also launching other transatlantic services this spring: Boston-London in March; Boston-Oslo in April; and San Francisco-London and Boston-Copenhagen in May. Although Norwegian is the first carrier to offer such attractive fares between Paris and New York, it isn't the first airline to drive down prices on the popular route. XL Airways France already flies nonstop from Paris to New York with cut-price return fares and also operates a Los Angeles route. By Alastair Macdonald BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Call it the surrealist summit. How very Brussels. As Europe's leaders bargained through the night on a deal to help Prime Minister David Cameron keep Britain in the EU, a "war room" of lawyers wrangled over how to reconcile diametrically opposite meanings of the same three words - "ever closer union". It reminded one official of Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte's painting of a pipe, "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" (This is Not a Pipe), when is a thing real and when merely an image? Does the treaty vow commit governments to build a United States of Europe, as the Union's federalist host Belgium hopes and eurosceptic Britons fear? Or is it just an abstract political aspiration, a harmless adornment to the charter, as most other leaders -- and their lawyers -- argue. Other open issues came down to straightforward summit arm-wrestling -- how far could Cameron get away with taking welfare benefits away from east European migrant workers or with shielding the City of London from euro zone banking regulations. Yet perhaps the deepest dispute was about the meaning of the post-World War Two European project, pitting sovereignist Britain against federalist Belgium while most other leaders shook their heads and wondered why either seemed to care. "Every lawyer in Europe agrees 'ever closer union' doesn't mean anything. It's just a nice phrase," said one EU official. "Only two places share an opposite interpretation -- Britain and Belgium. But politically they look at it in opposite ways." The problem flared when draft proposals sought to reassure Britain that the phrase in the European Union treaty declaring a shared intent to "lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe" did not constitute an obligation to political integration that could be enforced by EU courts. In Belgium, where cultural and linguistic divisions among its 11 million people and a war-scarred 20th century have largely discredited nationalism in favour of the European ideal, outraged officials branded that interpretation "incredible". Cameron was determined to show patriotic voters that Britain was not on conveyor belt to a European super-state. But Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel argued that London's demand to opt out of ever closer union risked "dismantling" the EU. LAW VS POLITICS That left the backroom lawyers poring over legal precedent in what one official called a "war room" close to the summit chamber and scribbling tweaks to bridge conflicting legal and political meanings into phrasing that could satisfy all. "Legal reality is colliding with political reality," said one diplomat, from a third country, of the British-Belgian spat. "We need some linguistic contortions on 'ever closer union' to say it is not legally binding (which matters to the British) but politically important (which matters to the Belgians)." "They are arguing over amendments, over the commas." British officials conceded Cameron's insistence on quashing the phrase seemed quixotic to other leaders whose lawyers insist it is legally meaningless. But fear of what it means about EU power has made it a British political reality. A senior EU negotiator said Belgian officials had explained their political dilemma in terms of Magritte's 1928 painting. "We need to find a common understanding ... which reflects on the one hand the legal dimension of it -- Ceci n'est pas une pipe, you can not really smoke it, that's what Magritte said -- but it's true, when you look at it, you see a pipe." (Additional reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Paul Taylor) By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, the U.S. Supreme Court's eight remaining members, former law clerks and thousands of ordinary Americans paid respects to the late Justice Antonin Scalia on Friday as his body lay in repose in the stately, white-marble courthouse. The president and first lady Michelle Obama were greeted by Chief Justice John Roberts, spoke with some Scalia family members and briefly stood in silence, heads bowed, in front of Scalia's casket during an afternoon visit. Scalia, a staunch conservative and one of the court's most consequential justices during his three decades on the bench, died last Saturday at age 79 at a Texas hunting resort. Earlier, during a brief and somber morning ceremony inside the courthouse's Great Hall, Roman Catholic priest Father Paul Scalia, one of Scalia's nine children, delivered a prayer before the eight justices and members of the Scalia family quietly filed away. On a chilly, overcast day, Scalia's casket was carried up the courthouse's grand marble stairs and into its Great Hall by Supreme Court police officers in ceremonial dress, with a group of former Scalia law clerks flanking them in two long lines. Mourners filed past the casket, draped by the red, white and blue U.S. flag, and the line of people waiting to enter the courthouse stretched around the block. Among those who visited were two appeals court judges, Sri Srinivasan and Patricia Millett, who could be contenders to replace Scalia. Scalia's funeral service is scheduled for Saturday. Several of the justices, particularly Elena Kagan, a liberal who went on hunting trips with her conservative colleague, looked emotional as they stood in a row while Scalia's casket was placed on a raised bier. Chief Justice John Roberts, his hands clasped, bowed his head. Scalia, appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1986 as the court's first Italian-American, earned a reputation as a brilliant jurist during an era when the court was dominated by conservatives. He opposed abortion and same-sex marriage, supported the death penalty and gun rights, and was known for colorful writing and, when he was on the losing end of a ruling, stinging dissents. Story continues His family said he died of natural causes. His death has provoked a political clash between the Democratic president and Republicans in the U.S. Senate who are threatening to block any nominee put forward by Obama to fill Scalia's vacancy. The Senate must confirm any nominee. An Obama appointment could tilt the conservative-leaning court to the left for the first time in decades. A large entourage of Scalia family members, including his widow, Maureen, was in attendance. Ninety-eight former Scalia law clerks took turns standing vigil during the day. Obama will not attend Scalia's funeral on Saturday at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, a decision that provoked criticism from some conservatives. Vice President Joe Biden will represent the Obama administration at the funeral. (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Will Dunham) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday to offer condolences on a suicide car bombing this week that killed at least 28 people, the White House said. In a daily press briefing with reporters, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the two leaders also discussed the situation in Syria. Earnest said more details on the call would be released later Friday. (Reporting by Roberta Rampton and Doina Chiacu; Writing by Megan Cassella; Editing by Mohammad Zargham) By Rich McKay ATLANTA (Reuters) - Did you get enough sleep last night? If not, you are not alone. More than one out of three American adults do not get enough sleep, according to a study released Thursday from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Thats a big problem says, Dr. Nancy Collop, director of the Emory Sleep Center at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, who is familiar with the study. You dont function as well, your ability to pay attention is reduced, and it can have serious, long term side effects. It can change your metabolism for the worse." At least seven hours of sleep is considered healthy for an adults aged 18 to 60, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society. CDC analyzed data from a 2014 survey of 444,306 adults and found 65.2 percent of respondents reported getting that amount of sleep. "Lifestyle changes such as going to bed at the same time each night; rising at the same time each morning; and turning off or removing televisions, computers, mobile devices from the bedroom, can help people get the healthy sleep they need," said Dr. Wayne Giles, director of the CDC's Division of Population Health, in a statement. Getting less than seven hours a night is associated with an increased risk of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke and frequent mental distress, the study shows. Conducted by the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the study is the first of its kind to look at all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The study found that among those most likely to get great sleep were married or have a job, with 67 percent and 65 percent respectively saying they get enough. Only 56 percent of divorced adults said they get enough sleep, and just over half of jobless adults sleep seven hours a night regularly. Among the best sleepers were college graduates, with 72 percent reporting seven hours or more. The study found geographical differences as well as ethnic disparities. Hawaiian residents get less sleep than those living in South Dakota, the study found. Non-Hispanic whites sleep better than non-Hispanic black residents, with 67 and 54 percent respectively. (Editing by Karen Brooks and Cynthia Osterman) Jerusalem (AFP) - Three Palestinians were shot dead on Friday, two while carrying out attacks and a third in clashes, the latest in a more than four months of violence. In the first attack, a man stabbed and wounded two policemen outside Jerusalem's Damascus Gate before they shot him dead. "A terrorist attacked a squad of officers from behind, stabbed and wounded them lightly, the squad responded with fire and neutralised the terrorist," police said. Police confirmed the death of the assailant and identified him as a 20-year-old Palestinian from Kafr Aqeb. A spokeswoman for the Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem said they had admitted two men in their 20s suffering from stab wounds, and both were in a stable condition. Medics said they also treated a 50-year-old woman for a light leg wound, apparently as a result of the shooting, before evacuating her to a hospital in east Jerusalem. The site of the attack, in annexed east Jerusalem and adjacent to its Old City, has been a focal point in the latest wave of violence. Later on Friday, a Palestinian tried to run over Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank and was shot dead, the army said. "During a violent riot in Silwad, northeast of Ramallah, an assailant attempted to ram his vehicle into soldiers," an army statement said, referring to an area in the northern West Bank. "The soldiers responded to the immediate threat and fired towards the assailant, resulting in his death." Palestinian police sources identified the man as Raed Hamed, 20. Later, a third Palestinian died after being shot during clashes with Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank. A Palestinian health ministry statement said Khaled Taqatqa, 21, was shot dead by Israeli forces in Beit Fajjar near Bethlehem in the southern West Bank. The army said he had fired on soldiers. - Gaza clashes - Ten Palestinians were also injured in separate clashes on the Gaza-Israel border, the health ministry said. Story continues Since October 1, Palestinian knife, gun and car-ramming attacks have taken the lives of 27 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean, according to an AFP count. At the same time, 175 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, most while carrying out attacks but others during clashes and demonstrations. Some analysts say Palestinian frustration with Israeli occupation and settlement building in the West Bank, the complete lack of progress in peace efforts and their own fractured leadership have fed the unrest. Israel blames incitement by Palestinian leaders and media as a main cause of the violence. International efforts to halt the violence have so far failed. Nickolay Mladenov, UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said the violence showed "no sign of relenting". "The current trends on the ground -- including continued acts of violence against civilians, ongoing settlement activity, and the high rate of demolitions of Palestinian structures -- are dangerously imperilling the viability of a two-state solution," he said. Speaking in a Thursday briefing to the UN Security Council, Mladenov noted the accelerated rate of Israeli demolitions of Palestinian structures in the West Bank in 2016 -- 29 per week, "three times the weekly average for 2015". "The conflict has now arrived at a pivotal point," he said. "Against the backdrop of radicalisation, terror, sectarian violence, war and tectonic geo-political shifts in the Middle East, peace and security for Palestine and Israel is an imperative now more than ever." Mladenov also called on "authorities on both sides do more to address this scourge". "I am particularly concerned that some Palestinian factions continue to glorify violence and terror. Such acts only contribute to tensions and violence," he said. Brussels (AFP) - Salah Abdeslam, a key suspect in November's Paris attacks, was holed up for three weeks after the killings in an apartment in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek, a report said Friday. Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure said Abdeslam took refuge in the apartment from November 14, the day after the attacks in which 130 people died, until December 4 when special forces descended on the area. Responding to the report, Belgium's Federal prosecutor confirmed to AFP that a fingerprint belonging to Abdeslam was found in an apartment in Schaerbeek. But a spokesman said investigators were not convinced it meant he had been in hiding there for the three weeks in question. "We can confirm only the discovery of a fingerprint in the Schaerbeek hideout after a search conducted on December 10. We cannot comment further," a spokesman said. Abdeslam, 26, who is believed to have played a key logistical role in the attacks, fled across the border to Belgium hours after the November 13 killings and is now one of the most wanted men in Europe. A total of 130 people were killed and more than 350 were injured in the attacks that were claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group as revenge for French air strikes on the jihadists in Iraq and Syria. According to the report, on November 16 Abdeslam was on the third floor of a house at 86 Henri Berge Street in Schaerbeek at the same time as special forces were raiding a property in the Molenbeek area looking for him. "According to our information, he stayed there for 20 days," the daily said. Special forces carried out unsuccessful searches in Schaerbeek on December 4 at which point, the report said, Abdeslam probably left. Six days later, police raided 86 Henri Berge Street and discovered traces of explosives, three possible suicide belts, as well as the fingerprint belonging to Abdeslam. The Belgian federal prosecutor said it was impossible to date the fingerprint in order to establish if the fugitive was there before or after the attacks. Story continues Earlier this month, a source close to the French inquiry said no DNA from Abdeslam had been found on a suicide belt discovered in the French capital. The explosive belt was found in a dustbin in the southern Parisian suburb of Montrouge on November 23. Telephone data placed Abdeslam in the same area just after the attacks -- but the lack of DNA on the belt suggested that he had not worn it. MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Benigno Aquino on Friday signed an order raising the 2016 compensation of more than 1.3 million government workers, which should benefit domestic consumption, a key driver of economic growth. Aquino approved the pay increases, the first for government workers since 2009, less than five months before he steps down from office because of term limits. "The executive order effects compensation adjustments for this year," Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said in a statement. "This action by the president leverages the benefits package in order to increase the take-home pay of government employees." Abad said Congress had already appropriated 57.9 billion pesos ($1.22 billion) in the 2016 national budget for this year's pay increases. Increases in pay and allowances for government workers in the Philippines could boost domestic demand and offset a slowdown in remittances, said Michael Wan, a research analyst at Credit Suisse. However, Congress ended its session this month without passing legislation to adjust the compensation of uniformed personnel and civil servants, including senior Cabinet ministers, from this year to 2019. Investors are closely watching this year's presidential elections, as the Philippines under Aquino has racked up annual growth of more than six percent on average, its best five-year record in four decades. The latest poll puts Vice President Jejomar Binay, who favors amending the constitution to allow foreign ownership of land and income-tax cuts, five points ahead of contenders Senator Grace Poe and southern Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, who tied for second place. Manuel Roxas, Aquino's choice of successor, comes in a distant third in the February Social Weather Stations survey. More than 54 million Filipinos will choose a new president and vice president at the May 9 election, besides about 300 lawmakers in the two-chamber Congress and about 18,000 local government positions. (Reporting by Manuel Mogato; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) By Anthony Boadle and Stephanie Nebehay BRASILIA/GENEVA (Reuters) - Two U.S.-Brazilian studies will have initial results by May on whether the Zika virus spreading through the Americas is causing birth defects and other neurological disorders, a senior U.S. public health official said on Friday. The studies seek to confirm that the mosquito-borne virus is responsible for an unprecedented surge in Brazil of babies born with abnormally small heads, a condition called microcephaly, and that it can cause Guillain-Barre syndrome, a temporary paralysis in adults. Since it appeared in Brazil last year, the virus has spread to at least 32 countries and territories, mostly in the Americas, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Zika had previously been viewed as a relatively mild illness, but concern over the possible link to birth defects prompted the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare the outbreak an international health emergency on Feb. 1. The CDC will monitor 100 babies with microcephaly and their mothers in Brazil and compare them with healthy babies to determine whether Zika caused the brain defects during the early months of pregnancy. Another CDC study underway in Brazil is looking at whether there is a link between Zika and Guillain-Barre. Results are expected this spring, said CDC principal deputy director Anne Schuchat. "Scientists are increasingly confident that Zika is causing microcephaly, but people may have different judgments about how much proof is enough," Schuchat told reporters during a two-day meeting in the Brazilian capital on how to deal with the virus, which is borne by the same mosquito that transmits dengue and yellow fever. "The epidemiologic studies ongoing here in Brazil and some being initiated in Colombia should help cement the link," she said. Researchers are closely watching Colombia, the country with the most Zika cases after Brazil, but no microcephaly cases. Pregnant women in Colombia confirmed as being infected by the Zika virus will deliver babies in coming months, which is an opportunity for gathering further evidence, Dr. Bruce Aylward of the WHO said. The WHO said on Friday it could take four to six months to prove the link. "This does not still prove causation... but it is an increasing accumulation of evidence," Aylward told a news briefing. "We are seeing a lack of other explanatory causes." Brazil has said it has confirmed more than 500 cases of microcephaly, and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. Brazil is investigating more than 3,900 additional suspected cases of microcephaly. Brazil is scrambling to contain the Zika outbreak that threatens attendance at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in August. The United States and other countries are recommending that pregnant women stay away. The CDC's Schuchat said the U.S. government is "very concerned" about a surge of the mosquito-borne virus in the U.S. Caribbean territory of Puerto Rico when the weather warms up in mid-year, and "extremely concerned" about the impact Zika can have on Haiti, where dengue is endemic. The virus continues to spread with the CDC saying there are now active outbreaks in Aruba and Bonaire. (Reporting by Anthony Boadle and Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Bernard Orr) Supermodel Romee Strijd has been named as the face of the new Victoria's Secret scent, "xo, Victoria". The Dutch beauty, who became a Victoria's Secret Angel in 2015, unveiled the fragrance in New York following the shooting of a sultry black-and-white shoot to accompany the campaign, which is her first solo commercial. Inspired by the refreshing energy of springtime, xo, Victoria is a twist on the original Victoria fragrance, designed for a free-spirited client. The floral scent pairs the trademarked Victoria Rose and the exotic sparkling Twilight Orchid, a fragrance that can only be captured at nightfall. Featuring sparkling citrus notes and Lady Apple for a sunny feel, alongside hints of English Ivy for an added woody warmth, the perfume comes in a fun white lacquer bottle splashed with vivid watercolor blooms and accented with the iconic handcrafted Victoria bow. The scent is being rolled out as an eau de parfum, a fragrance mist, a rollerball and a fragrance lotion. It is the latest in a long line of perfumes for the lingerie and beauty giant, coming hot on the heels of the brand's exclusive scent for spring 2016, Love Me More. Strijd's previous modeling credentials include campaigns for fashion houses including Alexander McQueen, Donna Karan and Marchesa. She has appeared in Elle, Harper's Bazaar and Vogue UK, and has walked the runway for Burberry, Balmain, Prada, Louis Vuitton and Yves Saint Laurent, among others. Xo Victoria is the latest floral fragrance to be announced ahead of Spring 2016, with new scents also coming from Bond no.9 with its new Madison Avenue, British perfume house Penhaligon with Equinox Bloom and Dolce & Gabbana with Dolce Rosa Excelsa, featuring a campaign fronted by Sophia Loren. Xo Victoria is available to buy online or in store, priced at $52 for the eau de parfum 1.7 oz. or $68 for the eau de parfum 3.4 oz. (Reuters) - American Alexander Rossi said he lost his chance of racing for Manor in Formula One this season because Rio Haryanto's Indonesian backers had offered the team more money, but was hopeful the dream was not over. "I always knew going up against a country was going to be impossible," said the Californian who raced for the team in five grands prix last year. "We couldn't match some of what they were willing to do and sign and (Indonesia) really wanted him to be there so more power to them," he told racer.com in a story that was subsequently withdrawn from the website and replaced by a different version. Haryanto, who is backed primarily by Indonesian state oil and gas company Pertamina, was confirmed by the team on Thursday. The company's chief executive told reporters in Jakarta that Pertamina had contributed five million euros ($5.55 million) toward securing the seat. Rossi told Reuters that, while he had felt 'kind of helpless' in the face of Indonesia's support for Haryanto, some of his other comments to Racer had been misconstrued. "At the end of 2015 I felt I was in a very strong position to be in one of the race seats in 2016 but obviously being a very attractive team with the Mercedes power, it was always going to be a challenge," he said. "I feel we did a very good job from our end to try to make it happen. But unfortunately the way the sport sometimes works, all the cards don't fall in your favor." Rossi said he was still in "very positive discussions" with Manor about the future and hoped to return to Formula One "as soon as possible." The team, who competed as Marussia last year and have the smallest budget in the sport, have always been open about their need for drivers to bring financial backing to secure the seat. They went into administration at the end of the 2014 season before emerging under new ownership, and money remains tight. Their other driver is Mercedes reserve Pascal Wehrlein, with the German manufacturer and reigning champions also providing the team's engines. "We are trying to keep my hat in the ring in Formula One and keep the relationships alive," said Rossi. "The relationship I have with Manor is very strong but...it's no secret I have to look at other disciplines and see what other opportunities exist out there." (Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Toby Davis) The jet fighter war between the United States, China and Russia expanded this week when Moscow unveiled a new, export version of its Sukhoi-30 warplane. "The Su-30SME aircraft (the export version of the Su-30SM fighter jet) has been shown on the international market for the first time," a source in the defense and industrial sector told TASS, Russias state-owned news agency. Related: Russias Latest Weapons Sale to Iran Shifts the Balance of Mideast Power The new aircraft will be equipped with Russian-made avionics unlike previous versions that contained French components. The idea is to boost the jets air-to-air and air-to-ground combat capabilities. The industry source told TASS that Southeast Asian, Middle East and North African countries have already shown interest in the new fighter jet, which is already in service in Russia and Kazakhstan. Earlier this month Russia inked a deal to sell Su-30 fighters to Iran. However, the Obama administration on Thursday said the proposed sale would violate a U.N. arms embargo on Tehran, creating another potential flare-up in relations following last years nuclear negotiations. State Department spokesperson Mark Toner said the jets--comparable to American F-15E fighter-bombers--count as combat aircraft and therefore the deal requires the U.N. Security Councils approval. Toner said that the US will raise the matter of the sale with Russia, adding that all six countries that negotiated July's landmark nuclear agreement with Iran "should be fully aware of these restrictions. The accord keeps the arms ban on Iran in place for up to five years. Related: Stealth Wars: China Rolls Out a New J-20, Another Knockoff Fighter Not to be outdone, Sweden-based Saab plans to roll out a new generation of its Gripen fighter this spring, officials told Defense News. The Swedish and Brazilian air forces have already signed orders for the jet, which likely wont be airborne until 2018. Croatia, Bulgaria and possibly Colombia have also expressed interest in the fighter, company officials said. Story continues The Czech Republic, Thailand and Hungary already fly Saab-made machines, which cost around $43 million each, and the company is in talks to add Slovakia to its roster. Its possible that any of those nations could decide to upgrade their arsenal and go with the new model once its tested and ready. While Washington and Moscow duke it out for aerial supremacy, Saab has been flying under the radar, racking up small and mid-sized orders around the globe. Its a different approach from the one the US had taken with manufacturer Lockheed Martin and its pricey F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The fifth-generation F-35 warplane is being developed in tandem with eight partner nations -- Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Turkey, and the United Kingdom and has already cost the U.S. around $400 billion, making in the most expensive weapons effort in the countrys history. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: Moscow (AFP) - Russia's envoy to the UN on Friday warned long-term ally President Bashar al-Assad over his vow to retake all of Syria, saying he faced dire consequences if he did not comply with Moscow over the peace process. "Russia has invested very seriously in this crisis, politically, diplomatically and now also militarily," Vitaly Churkin told Kommersant daily, referring to an international agreement to cease hostilities sealed in Munich last week. "Therefore we would like Assad also to respond to this," he said, adding that the Syrian leader's stance "is not in accord with the diplomatic efforts that Russia is making." At their meeting in Munich, the 17-nation group backing Syria's peace process agreed to work for a ceasefire, the lifting of starvation sieges and the resumption of talks. In an interview with AFP last week, Assad defiantly pledged to retake the whole of the country, speaking before the plan for a nationwide "cessation of hostilities" in Syria was announced. Asked to comment to journalists on the unusually outspoken criticism of Assad, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday said President Vladimir Putin backed the Syrian peace process but stressed that the ceasefire had not yet been implemented. "Everyone including President Putin recognises that there is no alternative other than a political resolution," he said. Nevertheless the ceasefire "is now being worked out, discussed. Wait, let's not run ahead," Peskov said. In the interview, Churkin, who has served as Russia's ambassador to the United Nations since 2006, stressed that if Syria "follows Russia's leadership in resolving this crisis, then they have a chance to come out of it in a dignified way." "If they in some way stray from this path -- and this is my personal opinion -- a very difficult situation could arise. Including for themselves," he warned. Story continues "If they proceed on the basis that no ceasefire is necessary and they need to fight to a victorious end, then this conflict will last a very long time and that is terrifying to imagine." Syria is "already on the brink of falling apart," he said. - 'Too late' for no-fly zone - Churkin however also suggested that Assad's comments were made for political impact. "It isn't worth putting too much significance into one statement or another and dramatising them," he said. "We should be guided not by what he says, with all respect for the statements of a person at such a high level, but by what he finally does." Churkin said he hoped that Damascus realised that the Munich agreement was "a unique chance for Syria after five years of unremitting destruction." While German Chancellor Angela Merkel has repeated calls for a no-fly zone in Syria to protect civilians, Churkin dismissed this as unworkable. "It's already too late to talk about this. When everyone is flying and bombing, there is no question of no-fly zones," he said. He said it was "theoretically possible" to imagine such a proposal during the process of implementing the ceasefire agreement but called this "purely theoretical... particularly in the circumstances of our presence in Syria." Russia launched air strikes in Syria in September last year to support Assad and fight "terrorists", saying it was targeting the Islamic State group and other jihadists. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A reported sale of Russian combat aircraft to Iran would violate a U.N. arms embargo if it occurred without advance U.N. Security Council approval, the U.S. State Department said on Thursday. Russia's RIA news agency on Wednesday reported that Russia will this year sign a contract to sell a batch of its Sukhoi Su-30SM multi-role fighters to Iran. As the United States and five other major powers negotiated the July 14 nuclear deal with Iran, the six agreed to maintain a ban on conventional arms sales to Iran for five years unless they were blessed in advance by the Security Council. "U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231 prohibits the sale to Iran of specified categories of conventional arms ... without approval in advance on a case-by-case basis by the UN Security Council," said State Department spokesman Mark Toner. Toner said all U.N. members, and especially those such as Russia that negotiated the resolution as part of the nuclear deal, "should be fully aware of these restrictions." He said the ban covered "combat aircraft," including the Su-30SM fighter. "If the media reports are accurate, we will address it bilaterally with Russia and with the other members of the U.N. Security Council," Toner added. (Reporting By Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Chris Reese) Moscow (AFP) - Russia's parliament on Friday debated a controversial homophobic bill to fine and jail people for up to 15 days for coming out in public as gay. Lawmakers expressed support while rejecting the bill in its current wording as not legally valid. The bill proposed by two Communist MPs calls for a fine of up to 5,000 rubles ($65) for "public expression of non-traditional sexual relationships." It calls for a harsher punishment of up 15 days in police cells for being openly gay in educational institutions or in those related to the arts and youth. The authors of the bill said in an accompanying note it was necessary because a law banning "propaganda" of gay relationships to minors signed by President Vladimir Putin in 2013, and internationally condemned, was "not effective enough." One of them, Communist MP Ivan Nikitchuk told parliament he had "received hundreds of messages of support for the bill," waving a folder of letters and telegrams. He condemned the "aggressive propaganda of Western culture and non-traditional values," and called homosexuality "a huge threat for society, a deadly threat." The bill doesn't define what non-traditional sexual relationships are, but Nikitchuk told MPs they are "between adult men" while "traditional" relationships are between a man and a woman. Nikitchuk, the 71-year-old deputy head of the parliament's natural resources committee, said last year the bill would only apply to gay men. Lawmaker Viktor Shudegov of A Just Russia party spoke in support of the bill, adding he wanted a ban on gay people working in professions such as teaching. "Let the West rot," he said in angry rhetoric. "They will destroy themselves from within and we will survive, we must survive, so I back this bill." The MPs debated the bill despite it's being already rejected by the committee on constitutional law because it is not possible to introduce punishments for actions not legally defined as an offence. Story continues As homosexuality is not illegal in Russia this made it technically impossible to pass the bill and it was rejected unanimously. But that may not be the end of it. A representative of the constitutional law committee, Rustam Ishmukhametov of ruling United Russia party voiced support for the bill and the possibility of a new version. "As a lawmaker I also share this concern. I agree that possibly it would be worth further discussion of this bill, maybe to submit it in a reworked version," he said in parliament, quoted by TASS state news agency. Berlin (AFP) - Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said Syrian moderate rebels should be armed with surface-to-air missiles against the Russian-backed Assad regime, a German news weekly reported Friday. Anti-aircraft weapons could tip the scales on the battlefield as they did in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s, Adel al-Jubeir is quoted as saying in an interview with Der Spiegel. "We believe that introducing surface-to-air missiles in Syria is going to change the balance of power on the ground," he said, stressing this would have to be decided by a coalition of partner states. "It will allow the moderate opposition to be able to neutralise the helicopters and aircraft that are dropping chemicals and have been carpet-bombing them, just like surface-to-air missiles in Afghanistan were able to change the balance of power there." US deliveries of Stinger missiles to Afghan mujahideen fighters during that country's Soviet occupation is credited with having significantly turned around the conflict that ended in Russia's withdrawal. The minister cautioned that "this has to be studied very carefully, however, because you don't want such weapons to fall into the wrong hands". "This is a decision that the international coalition will have to make," Jubeir added. "This is not Saudi Arabia's decision." He also said that Russian support would not save the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in the long term, reiterating Riyadh's call for him to step down. "The other option is that the war will continue and Bashar al-Assad will be defeated," he is quoted as saying. Saudi Arabia has backed rebel forces fighting Assad in the country's nearly five-year civil war. It has also been part of the US-led coalition bombing the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria and Iraq since late 2014. Jubeir told AFP this week that any Saudi troops, including special forces, on the ground would make the battle against the IS its priority. Story continues "We expressed our readiness to join the US-led, international coalition against Daesh with special forces," he said, using an Arabic acronym for the group. "All of this, however, is still in the discussion phase and in the initial planning phase," he added. Der Spiegel also asked the Saudi chief diplomat about similarities between the ultra-conservative Islam practiced in his country and the Islamic State's religious ideology. "ISIS is as much an Islamic organisation as the KKK in America is a Christian organisation," he said, referring to the white-supremacist Ku Klux Klan movement. "They burned people of African descent on the cross, and they said they're doing it in the name of Jesus Christ. "Unfortunately, in every religion there are people who pervert the faith. We should not take the actions of psychopaths and paint them as being representative of the whole religion." PRAGUE (Reuters) - Slovakia will take measures to protect its border with Austria following Vienna's decision to cap the number of migrants traveling through its territory, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Friday. "We are launching all technical measures for the protection of our border with Austria for the eventuality that larger groups stay at the Austrian border ... and try to get around and get to Germany via a different route," Fico told a news briefing during an EU summit in Brussels. (Reporting by Jan Lopatka; Editing by Andrew Heavens) PRAGUE (Reuters) - Slovakia will take measures to protect its border with Austria following Vienna's decision to cap the number of migrants travelling through its territory, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Friday. Austria, sitting on the migrant route from Turkey via Greece and the Balkans to Germany, has set a daily limit of 3,200 migrants arrivals and 80 asylum claims - a move that Brussels says breaks EU law. Fico told journalists in Brussels that authorities would take technical measures to protect of the border with Austria "for the eventuality that larger groups stay at the Austrian border, for example in Slovenia, and try to get around and get to Germany via a different route." He did not go into further details. Slovakia has seen only small numbers of people move through its territory during the region's worst migration crisis in decades. (Reporting by Jan Lopatka and Tatiana Jancarikova; Editing by Andrew Heavens) People who belong to social groups such as book clubs or church groups after they retire may live longer, a new study suggests. In fact, the benefits that belonging to social groups after retirement has for longevity are comparable to those of regular exercise after retirement, the researchers said. "If you are in the process of retiring and don't belong to any group, join one," said study author Niklas Steffens, a postdoctoral research fellow in psychology at the University of Queensland in Australia. "If you belong to only one or two groups, you might want to think about how to make the most of these and what other groups you may want to join." In the study, the researchers looked at 424 people in England, ages 50 and older, who were about to retire. They asked the people how many organizations, clubs or societies they belonged to, and also asked them about their overall quality of life and physical health. The researchers then followed these people for the next six years, and looked at whether the people continued their memberships of social organizations during this time. They also tracked which participants died. It turned out that 28 of the people in the study died within six years after retiring, and that the strongest predictor of death during the study was a person's age: At age 55, the average risk of death among the people in the study was 1 percent, compared with an 8 percent risk of death at age 65. [Extending Life: 7 Ways to Live Past 100] But the number of social group memberships that the people maintained after retiring was also a significant predictor of death within the same period of time, according to the study, published Feb. 15 in the journal BMJ Open. For example, if a person was a member of two social groups before they retired, and maintained these memberships over the next six years, their risk of dying during the study period was 2 percent. However, the risk increased to 5 percent if they gave up the membership of one of the groups, and increased to 12 percent if they gave up both memberships. Story continues Similarly, if a person exercised vigorously once a week before they retired, and maintained this frequency after they retired, their risk of dying over the next six years was 3 percent. However, the risk increased to 6 percent if they reduced the frequency of exercising to less than once a week, and to 11 percent if they stopped exercising altogether. "People invest a lot of energy and effort into planning their finances, medical care and physical exercise as they look ahead to retirement," Steffens told Live Science. "Our research shows that 'social planning' that is, planning to maintain or develop new social group memberships may be equally important in promoting health and well-being in retirement." The researchers noted that the people's physical health at the start of the study, based on their own subjective assessment, was not a significant predictor of death within six years after the people retired. The new research shows that it really doesn't matter what kind of social group a retired person belongs to, whether it is a church group or a group of people who meet to play cards, as long as it is "an organized, scheduled activity," said Dr. Gisele Wolf-Klein, director of geriatric education at Northwell Health in New Hyde Park, New York, who was not involved in the new study. However, it is important that people actively participate in social activities on a scheduled, regular basis. Merely belonging to a gym or a social group, without participating regularly, will not benefit their health, Wolf-Klein added. The researchers said they don't know for sure why belonging to social groups after retiring appears to be linked to a longer life. However, previous research has shown that belonging to social groups helps people form a sense of identity, and this sense of identity may be critical for people's health, Steffens said. Follow Agata Blaszczak-Boxe on Twitter. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science. Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Republican race for the presidential nomination is becoming increasingly nasty as voters prepare to head to the polls in South Carolina on Saturday. So far this month, more than 15,200 TV ads have been blasted at South Carolinians, with nearly two-thirds of them negative, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of data provided by advertising monitoring firm Kantar Media/CMAG. The negative ad total includes spots that contrast multiple candidates and typically cast at least one in a disparaging light. Since TV ads from GOP candidates, super PACs and political nonprofits first began airing in South Carolina, nearly half have been negative. Thats a marked change from previous contests. In both Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states to host votes for a presidential nominee, only about one-third of all TV ads were attack ads. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and his super PAC allies are primarily responsible for the recent onslaught. So far this month, Cruz and his supporters have aired more than 5,400 TV ads an average of about one every four minutes. Many of these have gone after his rival Republican White House hopefuls Donald Trump, a real estate mogul who currently leads in the polls, and Marco Rubio, a U.S. senator from Florida. This story is part of Buying of the President 2016. Tracking the candidates, political committees and nonprofits that are making this presidential election the most expensive in history. Click here to read more stories in this investigation. Don't miss another Politics investigation: Sign up for the Center for Public Integrity's Watchdog email. Both Trump and Rubio have also been attacked by super PAC Right to Rise USA, which supports former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in the 2016 presidential race. Meanwhile, in his own TV ads, Trump has repeatedly chastised Cruz, who bested Trump to win the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1. At the same time, both Trump and Cruz have been criticized by groups whose donors are not immediately apparent. Story continues Our Principles PAC, a super PAC formed last month by a former aide to 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, has spent nearly $4 million attacking Trump, according to Federal Election Commission records. Because of a quirk in campaign finance regulations, the group wont be required to reveal any of its donors until Saturday. Meanwhile, an Iowa-based group called the American Future Fund has spent more than $1.5 million attacking Cruz in South Carolina. Because the American Future Fund is organized as a social welfare nonprofit whose primary purpose isnt influencing elections, its not required to disclose its donors. Its really ramped up recently, said Jeffrey Peake, a political science professor at Clemson University, of the intense battle in the Palmetto State. South Carolina is really important for setting the stage for March 1. March 1 is Super Tuesday, when a dozen states will hold their Republican primaries or caucuses, including several others in the South. Since 1980, the winner of South Carolina's Republican presidential primary has gone on to become the party's nominee every time except one. This story was co-published with the Huffington Post and Al Jazeera America. Related: How nasty are TV ads in South Carolina? This story is part of Buying of the President 2016. Tracking the candidates, political committees and nonprofits that are making this presidential election the most expensive in history. Click here to read more stories in this investigation. Related stories Copyright 2016 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C. By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - South Sudan's warring government and opposition are killing, abducting, and displacing civilians and destroying property despite conciliatory rhetoric by both sides, the United Nations said on Friday. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is due to travel to South Sudan's capital Juba next Thursday to meet with President Salva Kiir. A political dispute between Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar two years ago sparked a civil war and renewed hostilities between Kiir's Dinka and Machar's Nuer people. More than 10,000 people have been killed. After months of ineffective negotiations and failed ceasefires, both sides agreed in January to share positions in a transitional government and earlier this month Kiir re-appointed Machar to his former post as vice president. "It cannot be tolerated that leaders make declarations in Juba, while the hostilities and attacks on the civilian population continue and intensify across the country," said U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic. He told the U.N. Security Council that the conflict threatens stability in the entire region. Simonovich said that in the Greater Upper Nile region of South Sudan government forces had systematically razed villages and that sexual violence and abuse of children's rights were rampant. "During an attack on Koch county, one woman described how soldiers killed her husband, then tied her to a tree and forced her to watch as her 15-year-old daughter was raped by at least 10 soldiers," Simonovich said. U.N. peacekeepers are sheltering nearly 200,000 people at six protection sites in South Sudan and more than 2.3 million people have been displaced. Eighteen people were killed in fighting on Wednesday at one of those U.N. compounds and more than 90 were wounded, the U.N. Refugee Agency said. Two Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) workers were among the dead, the international medical aid group said. "Violence continues in many regions of the country, including in areas that had previously been relatively calm," Deputy U.N. envoy to South Sudan Moustapha Soumare told the council. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Toni Reinhold) Consumer Discretionary, Technology Bottom-Fishing Lead SPY US stocks close higher Wall Street rallied for the second day and posted its largest two-day gain since August 2015. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) rose 1.7% and closed at $189.78 on February 16, 2016. Similarly, it rose 2% on February 12, 2016. The bounce back in the energy sector on Friday, February 12 helped SPY to inch upward. A report released on Friday stated that OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) might agree to cut production to reduce the glut in the world supply market. For these reasons, crude oil bounced back 12% on the day, and the energy sector boosted its performance. Major integrated oil and gas stocks such as ExxonMobil (XOM), Chevron (CVX), and Occidental Petroleum (OXY) rose nearly 5% on the day. On Tuesday, February 16, a meeting was held between Saudi Arabia and Russia (RSX) in Qatar, with the presence of other OPEC countries. The outcome of this meeting was that both major producers and exporting countries agreed to freeze oil output to January levels. This propelled oil prices to rise 6%. However, later in that day, crude oil prices fell and closed on negative notes due to the global oil deal with Iran that was in focus at the time. What now? Though US oil prices came down by 1.4% on February 16, SPY was able to maintain its uptrend for the second straight day. In the course of this series, well analyze which sector drove SPYs movement and which stock contributed the most to SPYs performance. Well close the series with a look at SPYs bottom stocks. Lets begin by looking at the different sector performances on February 16, 2016, in the next part of this series. Continue to Next Part Browse this series on Market Realist: Stephen Colbert and James Corden both jumped into Thursday's war of words between Pope Francis and Donald Trump. Or as Colbert dubbed it, "the big celebrity feud everybody's talking about." (Sorry, Kanye West and Taylor Swift.) Calling himself "America's foremost Catholic," Colbert assumed the role of intermediary between the Republican presidential candidate and the Holy See. "I want to try to broker a peace between these two men. Mr. Trump, Mr. Pope I believe that's his formal name. Is it possible because you guys are fighting because you have so much in common? After all, you both think you're infallible. And you both sit on golden thrones," Colbert said as a picture of Trump's gold toilet and the Pope's throne in the Vatican. "And you both wear very silly things on your heads." Read More: Pope Francis on Donald Trump: Anyone Who Wants Border Walls Isn't Christian On The Late Late Show, James Corden didn't hesitate to choose sides. "I mean do you know how wrong you have to be for a pope to dislike you? The Pope's entire thing is literally forgiveness," Corden laughed. "Pope John Paul hung out with the guy who tried to assassinate him. And now Francis is like, 'I just can't with this Trump guy.' " Then he pointed out that the Pope made other big moves yesterday besides slamming Trump. "It's been a big 24 hours for the Pope. In a historic move, he also suggested that it might be acceptable to use contraception in order to prevent the spread of the Zika virus," said Corden. "And that's not surprising to me because once you start debating with Donald Trump, birth control starts to seem like a pretty good idea." Some security experts are worried that a cache of radioactive material reportedly stolen from an oil field in Iraq could be used by organizations such as the Islamic State group to produce a dirty bomb. A laptop-size case with about 0.35 ounces (10 grams) of the material, called iridium-192, allegedly went missing from an oil field storage facility in Basra that is run by the American company Weatherford, Reuters reported. Both the company and the Iraqi government declined to confirm the report. "We are afraid the radioactive element will fall into the hands of Daesh," a senior security official with the Iraqi government, told Reuters, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group, also called ISIS. "They could simply attach it to explosives to make a dirty bomb." [Doomsday: 9 Real Ways Earth Could End] So, what is iridium-192, and could it really be used in a dirty bomb? Based on reports of what was allegedly stolen, "you will not make a dirty bomb that has much of an actual health risk, because there's so little material," said Robert Rosner, former director of Argonne National Laboratory and a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Chicago. "But you can scare the bejesus out of people." Harmful substance Iridium is the 77th element on the periodic table, and is a very dense, platinumlike metal that is highly resistant to corrosion. It is often recovered as a byproduct of nickel mining, and is used in electrical connections and to harden platinum. Iridium-192 is a radioactive isotope, meaning it's a version of iridium with a different number of neutrons than is contained in the dominant forms of the element. Iridium-192 does not typically occur naturally. Instead, scientists must put iridium-191 in a nuclear reactor and bombard it with neutrons. The iridium-191 then takes up an extra neutron to become iridium-192. However, the iridium-192 is unstable and emits electrons and gamma-rays (highly energetic packets of light) to decay into osmium isotopes and platinum isotopes. The half-life of iridium-192 is about 74 days, meaning that in that space of time, half of the material will have decayed to more stable forms, Rosner said. Story continues The International Atomic Energy Agency defines iridium-192 as a category-2 radioactive substance. This means the substance can permanently injure a person who handles the radioactive material for minutes to hours, and it can kill people in close proximity within hours to days, according to the agency. The high-energy gamma-rays do their damage directly in the short term. "You actually get irradiation burns, tissue damage and necrosis [tissue death]," Rosner said. However, that acute form of radiation sickness would mainly occur if someone were to open up the case or hold the unshielded capsules in his or her hands. Longer-term damage, such as cancer, would occur only if the cells in the body absorbed the radioactive material, which would then continue to emit DNA-damaging gamma-rays over a long period, Rosner said. However, the body doesn't normally use iridium for biological processes, so such damage is less likely than with other radioactive substances, such as radioactive iodine, Rosner added. One 2008 case study found that a man exposed to a high dose of iridium-192 who was followed over 20 years did not develop some of the longer-term radiation illness found with other types of radioactive substances. Typical uses The oil field in Basra likely was using iridium-192 to image the inside of its pipelines, Rosner said. Pipelines are typically made of dense materials that X-rays can't adequately penetrate, so instead, oil companies use more energetic gamma-rays to peer inside the massive pipes. The iridium source is usually placed inside the pipelines, and a detector outside the pipe tracks the amount of gamma radiation, which reveals if the walls of the pipeline are thicker or thinner, or if there is a crack, Rosner said. Iridium-192 is also often used in radiation therapy. For instance, in a technique called Gamma Knife surgery, a focused beam of gamma-rays is used to directly cut or destroy tumor cells, Rosner added. Risk of dirty bomb or nuclear terrorism It's still not clear whether the material really was stolen or simply lost. Even if the material was stolen by bad actors such as the Islamic State group, the actual risk of mass casualties is small, Rosner said. "The amount of people hurt by being exposed to this stuff is not going to be very different from the number of people who are hurt by any bomb going off," Rosner told Live Science. For one, a dirty bomb would disperse the material out over an area dozens of feet in diameter, diluting the effects. Moreover, the first rainstorm would wash away much of the substance, and what was left in the environment would quickly decay naturally. Nonetheless, a dirty bomb could incite terror, Rosner noted. "If you spread the material over a fairly large area, the effect is relatively modest, but the psychological effects are huge," Rosner said. "People are scared of radioactive materials." Past thefts This isn't the first time that the radioactive material has been stolen. In 2011, a car thief stole a medical camera that contained iridium-192 from the parking lot of a Texas hotel. The material was never recovered. And in 2013, carjackers in Mexico unwittingly stole cobalt-60 a dangerous radioactive isotope used in both medical therapies and food irradiation from a truck fitted with a radiotherapy machine used for cancer treatment. While the material was eventually recovered, the event highlighted the danger that could result from unsecured sources of radiation. "Perhaps the most worrisome lesson of the Mexican incident and the other ones above is this: If hapless truckjackers can steal high-activity sources by accident, a well-organized terrorist group could certainly do so in a planned operation," scientists at the Bulletin wrote at the time. Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter and Google+. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. By John Miller ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland is looking into whether a former government minister struck a secret deal offering diplomatic assistance to the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1970 in exchange for the Arab group stopping attacks on Swiss targets. The allegation emerged this year in a book, "Swiss Terror Years," which has also raised questions whether a pact between the PLO and Switzerland interfered with an investigation into a bomb attack on a Swissair plane in 1970 that killed 47 people. No one was ever charged with that bombing. The foreign ministry said on Friday that a task force including police, justice and military officials would try to answer not only whether neutral Switzerland cut the deal with the PLO in September 1970, but whether the investigation into the Swissair bombing had been thorough. In his book, Swiss journalist Marcel Gyr wrote that former Foreign Minister Pierre Graber, who died in 2003 at age 94, secretly contacted the PLO after several attacks including the killing of an Israeli airline pilot in 1969 at Zurich airport and a September 1970 incident in which 300 hostages on three jets were forced to land in Jordan. Gyr wrote that Graber reached an agreement with the PLO: In exchange for the group refraining from further attacks on Swiss targets, Switzerland would provide the PLO with diplomatic assistance in Geneva, a base of the United Nations. Gyr said his research also unearthed legitimate questions about whether the Swiss justice system swept its investigation of the Swissair bombing under the rug in the wake of the PLO pact. Since his book's publication, some involved with the government during the period have expressed doubts about his conclusions. Gyr stands by his research, which he said included interviews with people involved with the matter at the time, such as former parliament minister Jean Ziegler, who said he helped Graber contact PLO leaders. Gyr said he was pleased the present Swiss government had opted to tackle the matter after nearly five decades. "I trust that the investigation goes really deep and brings the truth at light," he said. "My only concerns are that the working group seems to focus on written documents in the official archives. But it was a secret deal. So I hope the working group contacts the last oral sources as well. The working group pledged to fulfill a demand by a Swiss parliamentary commission this month that the investigation be completed and a report issued by the end of April. Parliament also said it expects the government to give the task force unfettered access to classified files from the era. The PLO was founded in 1964 with the purpose of the "liberation of Palestine" through armed struggle. It is now recognized as the "sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people" by over 100 states with which it holds diplomatic relations, and has enjoyed observer status at the United Nations since 1974. In 1993 the PLO recognized Israel's right to exist in peace and rejected "violence and terrorism". In response, Israel officially recognized the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people. (Reporting by John Miller; Editing by Toby Chopra) By John Miller ZURICH (Reuters) - A 25-year-old Swiss man has been charged with supporting Islamic State, the first time Switzerland has brought a suspected "jihadi traveler" before courts, the attorney general's office said on Friday. It said he was suspected of being bound for the Middle East to join up with Islamic State before his arrest at Zurich airport last year. "This represents the first time in Switzerland in which a suspected 'jihadi traveler' who was arrested before embarking on a trip to a conflict zone has been brought before the courts," Attorney General Michael Lauber's office said in a statement. The man, from near Zurich, is charged in Switzerland's Federal Criminal Court with violating the nation's so-called "Islamic State law" that bans the violent group and related organizations, the statement said. Officials said they found evidence on his electronic devices that he had "downloaded radical jihadist propaganda that glorified violent holy war", according to documents made public by the court, which also say the man intended "to travel to Syria to die as a martyr". The man, whose name has not been released publicly, disputes the contention that he wished to die as part of the conflict. The suspect's lawyer, Daniel Weber in Berne, said he is concerned that Lauber's office was orchestrating a public relations campaign, rather than a prosecution based on the law. "How can he be guilty of a crime if he never set foot inside of the airplane, let alone landed in the Middle East?" Weber said. "I don't believe there is evidence in this case sufficient to fulfill the requirements necessary for a conviction." The man was arrested at the Zurich airport on April 7, 2015, before he was set to board a flight for Istanbul. He spent about two weeks in custody before being released. Lauber's office said there were 46 criminal cases in which it is working with police to investigate what it called "jihad-motivated terrorism". Most cases center on propaganda alleged to be in support of organizations forbidden by Swiss law. Beirut (AFP) - US and Russian officials met Friday to discuss an elusive ceasefire in Syria, as fighting on the ground continued with Kurdish-led forces seizing a key town from the Islamic State group. The truce under discussion was meant to begin Friday, but has failed to materialise so far, with the UN's Syria envoy also acknowledging that a proposed February 25 date to restart stalled peace talks was no longer "realistically" possible. Meanwhile, tensions between regime backer Moscow and opposition supporter Ankara escalated, with Russia convening a UN Security Council meeting for later Friday to discuss the possibility of a Turkish ground intervention in Syria. French President Francois Hollande said Ankara's escalating involvement in the conflict was creating a risk of war between Turkey and Russia. "Turkey is involved in Syria... There, there is a risk of war," Hollande told France Inter radio. "That is why the (UN) Security Council is meeting." And Saudi's Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir raised the prospect that Syrian rebels could be supplied with surface-to-air missiles, though he said it was not a decision Riyadh would take alone. The US-Russian meeting in Geneva brought together military officials and diplomats, Russia's foreign ministry said. It is intended to pave the way for a broader meeting with participation by UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura. On the ground, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces alliance seized the town of Al-Shadadi from IS, with backing from US-led air strikes, a monitor and Kurdish sources said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said SDF fighters were carrying out "mopping up" operations around the town in Hasakeh in northeast Syria. Al-Shadadi was the largest town controlled by IS in the province, and the defeat extends earlier losses for the jihadists there. - Turkey, Russia tensions spike - SDF forces earlier seized a nearby oilfield from IS and cut the routes from Al-Shadadi to Mosul in neighbouring Iraq as well as IS's de facto Syrian capital Raqa. Story continues The SDF began a new operation in Hasakeh on Tuesday, following major advances by its forces in northern Aleppo province, where it has seized territory from Syrian rebel groups. The alliance groups the powerful Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and smaller Arab groups. Its advances in Aleppo have angered Turkey, which says the YPG is the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, an outlawed group that has waged a decades-long insurgency against Ankara. On Friday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeated accusations that the YPG was behind a Wednesday bombing in Ankara that killed 28 people. He said he would speak to US President Barack Obama to warn him over US weapons support to the YPG, a key ally for Washington in the fight against IS. Turkey has carried out nearly a week of shelling against SDF positions in Aleppo, intensifying its fire Friday and expanding it to target the Kurdish town of Afrin, where two civilians were killed, the Observatory said. Ankara fears the SDF advance in Aleppo province is intended to connect Kurdish-held areas in northern and northeastern Syria, creating an autonomous Kurdish region along much of its southern border. The Syrian conflict, which began with anti-government protests in March 2011, has become increasingly complex, drawing in several international players. Key regime backer Russia launched air strikes in support of President Bashar al-Assad's government in September, raising tensions with Turkey. Ankara has in recent days raised the possibility of sending ground troops into Syria to fight IS, sparking Russian criticism. - Peace talks resumption delayed - Moscow said it was convening a UN Security Council meeting Friday "to discuss this issue and to introduce a draft resolution calling for a halt to any actions that would undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria". Saudi's foreign minister meanwhile said Syria's moderate rebels should receive surface-to-air missiles, saying they would "change the balance of power on the ground". Speaking to the German Der Spiegel magazine, he acknowledged though that the idea should "be studied very carefully because you don't want such weapons to fall into the wrong hands". Syria's conflict is now approaching its sixth year, with more than 260,000 people killed and half the population displaced. World powers meeting in Munich last week announced a plan for humanitarian access throughout Syria and a ceasefire to pave the way for a return to negotiations that collapsed earlier this month. But De Mistura told a Swedish newspaper Friday that he could not "realistically call for new Geneva talks starting on February 25". "We need 10 days of preparations and invitations. But we will aim to do this soon," the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper quoted him as saying. He also said he hoped Moscow and Washington could agree a "beginning of a cessation of hostilities (in Syria) between today and mid-next week." PARIS (Reuters) - The Syrian government and its allies, including Russia, must cease hostilities on Friday in line with an agreement made between major powers on Feb. 11, France's Foreign Ministry spokesman said. "France remains extremely concerned by the dangerous escalation of the conflict, especially in Aleppo," Romain Nadal told reporters. "It calls on the regime and its allies, including Russia, to stop its attacks against civilians and implement the commitments made in Munich on Feb. 11 to cease hostilities from today." Nadal said while the delivery of aid to five besieged areas was a first step it was insufficient. (Reporting By John Irish; Editing by Janet Lawrence) This week, RootMetrics released the results of its extensive network performance test for the second half of 2015, with Verizon taking home a vast majority of the honors. AT&T and Sprint trailed behind, with T-Mobile bringing up the rear. And if you know anything about T-Mobile, you can probably guess what happened next. DONT MISS: Verizon snags the top spot in yet another national network performance test Hours after the report was published, T-Mobile CEO John Legere released an official statement, saying that RootMetrics should be banned as an independent source for network benchmarking, period! According to Legere, RootMetrics manipulated their testing of the T-Mobile network, choosing to turn OFF Voice over LTE (VoLTE), our network technology that is on every single phone we sell. In fact, VoLTE apparently accounts for 50 percent of the carriers calls, which would amount to billions of calls not included in the report. RootMetrics results are worthless, and raise just one real question for T-Mobile, Legere continued, swerving straight into serious allegation territory. Do we have to pay RootMetrics millions like the other carriers do to get them to stop deliberately turning off significant portions of our network and skewing results during their drive tests? Speaking with the Puget Sound Business Journal, RootMetrics noted that VoLTE isnt used in any of its tests, regardless of carrier, as many are still rolling the feature out. It plans to include VoLTE for T-Mobile and AT&T in its 2016 reports. A Verizon spokesperson also got in touch to clarify that the carrier doesnt pay RootMetrics for research or results. Related stories Everything you need to know about T-Mobile's earnings in one epic John Legere tweetstorm T-Mobile has the happiest wireless subscribers T-Mobile does a clever 'remix' of 'Hotline Bling' for its Super Bowl ad More from BGR: New report hints at major design changes for iPhone 7 This article was originally published on BGR.com Rome (AFP) - Italy's populist Five Star Movement has thrown down the gauntlet to the government in an unexpected political manoeuvre that could not only endanger a bill allowing gay civil unions but risks crippling the party, experts say. The anti-establishment party had promised Prime Minister Matteo Renzi it would support the bill legalising gay relationships. But in an unexpected about-turn, this week it refused to green-light a motion to speed up the draft law's adoption, opening the door to a series of wrecking amendments by opponents. Enraged grassroots supporters accused the party known as M5S of betraying their wishes in order to spite Renzi's centre-left Democratic Party (PD). "The civil union bill was an unmissable moment to put Renzi in difficulty," Franco Pavoncello, political science professor at John Cabot University in Rome, told AFP, though he warned the M5S could face "fallout" over the perceived betrayal. Italy is the last major country in Western Europe not to offer gay civil unions. Close ties with the Vatican have sunk all previous attempts. This time the bill has met more fierce Catholic opposition over its allowing gay couples to adopt under certain circumstances. M5S, founded in 2009 by Italy's famous acerbic comic Beppe Grillo, celebrated a shock success in the 2013 general election when it snapped up 25.5 percent of the vote, becoming the second biggest political force behind the PD. Grillo, 67, announced last year that he was taking his bushy beard and trademark rants back to showbiz. His name has gone from the Five Star logo and he brought a new stand-up routine to Rome this week. - 'Jackals, traitors, cowards' - His sharp-suited heir apparent, Luigi Di Maio, 29, defended M5S's political move on Twitter, saying it was protecting parliamentary debate -- a line which sparked catcalls from Internet users who branded the party "jackals", "traitors" and "cowards". Story continues Gay rights groups were also furious, with protesters holding a sit-in outside Grillo's show in the Italian capital. "It was a tactical move against the PD, but they (M5S) also want to arrive at the local elections without angering the right", where votes are up for grabs, said Francesco Maesano, Five Star expert for La Stampa daily. Political commentator Andrea Scanzi described the move as "cutting off your balls to spite your wife". "If they vote for the bill they clash with half of their electorate. If they don't vote for it they make the country miss a great chance to be less bigoted," he said in Il Fatto Quotidiano. Guido Moltedo, founder of online political magazine Ytali, told AFP the movement was "just like the scorpion in the fable" where he stings and kills the frog carrying him across a river because, despite his promises, he cannot help himself. The party, born as a protest group, won votes from across the political spectrum with its platform against corruption and in favour of a euro-membership referendum -- and refuses to make pacts with parties on the right or left. - Need to choose sides - The party's premise was that decisions should emerge from an egalitarian exchange of ideas by members on the Internet, but in fact the movement's "guru" Gianroberto Casaleggio dictates the party line, experts say. The movement has expelled anyone who would broker deals, hampering its own attempts to secure significant policy results in parliament. "How long can they remain without choosing sides on key issues? I don't think very long. What they are doing (over civil unions) is very dangerous and they risk losing swathes of voters," Moltedo said. Piergiorgio Corbetta, research director at Bologna's Cattaneo Institute and author of a book on M5S, said Grillo's dream of "direct democracy" had "proved an unattainable utopia", and the party would struggle without him. "The Five Star movement is a child of Grillo, his personality and communication skills. It's likely to slip into a rapid decline. We've seen it here, it's listing," he said. A poll by the Euromedia Institute this week showed the movement still has 24.5 percent of voter intentions but is slowly losing ground to Renzi's PD, which currently stands at 32 percent. Its strength will be tested this year at local elections in Rome, though many have warned winning the mayorship could be a poisoned chalice, given scandal-hit Rome's problems. "I hope for their sake they don't win, or they'll find themselves with an unmanageable hot potato," Corbetta said. By Fatos Bytyci PRISTINA (Reuters) - Kosovo opposition lawmakers released tear gas in parliament on Friday, forcing the abandonment of this year's first legislative session as part of a long-running protest against a deal to grant the country's ethnic Serb minority more power. They have kept up their protests since the government signed an EU-brokered accord with Serbia in August giving the Serb community a greater say over local government decisions and raising the possibility of financing from Belgrade. The agreement, yet to take effect following a critical judicial review by Kosovo's highest court, has set off the 90 percent ethnic Albanian country's worst political crisis since independence in 2008. In a parallel protest outside the building on Friday, hundreds of opposition supporters demanding snap elections clashed with police. There were no reports of injuries or arrests. Lawmakers released three gas canisters and, as the chamber filled with smoke, parliamentary speaker Kadri Veseli held a gas mask and urged MPs to continue debating, a live TV broadcast showed. The session was then postponed, repeating a pattern that has not varied since October, when the tear gas protests and street demonstrations began. "This regime is now is in its final days, they understood they have no legitimacy and they will not last long," Visar Ymeri, the head of the biggest opposition party Vetevendosje, told reporters outside the debating chamber. Three MPs were arrested, said police, who were forced to remove several opposition lawmakers who refused to leave the chamber. Opposition parties, who also reject a border accord with Montenegro that they say gives Kosovo land to its neighbor, have said they will keep organizing protests until the government, elected in December 2014, resigns. On Wednesday, thousands demonstrated in front of Pristina's main government building. The government accuses party leaders of fometing violence and attempting to drag the country into "crime and anarchy." "This is the continuation of their primitive behavior... but we will continue to work for democracy," Deputy Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said on Friday. Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, almost a decade after NATO air strikes drove out Serbian security forces accused of killing and expelling ethnic Albanian civilians during a counter-insurgency war. Many Kosovo Albanians believe last year's accord with Serbia represents a threat to that hard-won sovereignty, though its status is unclear after the constitutional court ruled in December that parts of it breach the country's basic law. (Reporting by Fatos Bytyci; editing by Ivana Sekularac and John Stonestreet) By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd has offered concessions to allay EU antitrust concerns over its $40.5 billion bid for Allergan's generics unit which will cement its position as the world's largest generics drugmaker. "Commitments have been submitted and the new legal deadline is set on 10 March," European Commission spokesman Ricardo Cardoso said in an email on Friday, without providing details. The EU competition enforcer is expected to seek feedback from third parties before deciding whether to accept the proposal, demand more changes or open a lengthy investigation that could last up to five months. Teva also declined to provide details. "Those discussions (with the Commission) are productive and positive, but were not in a position at this time to predict or comment on how or when they will be completed," it said. Teva plans to sell about $1 billion worth of assets in the United States, Europe and the Middle East to resolve antitrust concerns, people familiar with the matter have told Reuters. The deal also needs U.S. regulatory approval. Earlier this month, the American Antitrust Institute flagged competitive concerns about the deal to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Dublin-based Botox-maker Allergan in turn is to be acquired by Pfizer Inc which would slash the latter's tax rate once it moves its headquarters to Dublin. (Reporting by Foo Yun Chee, additional reporting by Tova Cohen in Tel Aviv; editing by Julia Fioretti and Adrian Croft) (Reuters) - A Florida mother on death row for the killing of her 3-year-old boy known in the media as "Baby Lollipops," was granted a new trial by the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday. The conviction and sentencing of Ana Maria Cardona, who was 29 at the time of the 1990 slaying of Lazaro Figueroa, were overturned because prosecutors made an "inflammatory, egregious, and legally improper closing argument" during her trial in 2010, according to the court opinion released on Thursday. It was the second time prosecutorial improprieties led to her conviction being reversed. Cardona's first conviction and death sentence in 1992 were overturned after the court decided prosecutors had withheld key evidence from the defense. Lazaro's dehydrated, malnourished, 18-pound body was found in November 1990 in the bushes of a home in Miami Beach. He was severely beaten and scarred, with bedsores from his head to his buttocks, and he was wearing a dirty diaper taped to his body with brown packing tape, the opinion said. Since he was not immediately identified, police and the media began calling him "Baby Lollipops" because his T-shirt had a lollipop on it. His cause of death was described as "child abuse syndrome" hastened by blunt force trauma to his head. "While we are saddened by today's Florida Supreme Court decision in the Ana Cardona murder case, we are prepared to retry this homicide," Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said in a statement. "The cruelty involved in young Lazaro Figueroa's murder deserves our fundamental commitment." In its 6-to-1 opinion, the court said the evidence was strong enough to convict Cardona in the killing, but it overturned the case because it said the prosecutors repeatedly mocked Cardona and went too far in their pleas to the jury. Cardona was described as being a "drama expert" who belonged in a telenovela, a Spanish-language soap opera, and prosecutors repeated the phrase "Justice for Lazaro" several times, over objections from the defense, the opinion said. Story continues "As we have stated for decades, we expect and require prosecutors, as representatives of the state, to refrain from engaging in inflammatory and abusive arguments, to maintain their objectivity, and to behave in a professional manner," the opinion said. Cardona's public defender told the Miami Herald her client "deserves a new trial." "In my heart, I always knew this case was coming back, Miami-Dade Assistant Public Defender Edith Georgi told the newspaper. (Reporting by Karen Brooks in Fort Worth, Texas; Editing by Peter Cooney) Late Wednesday, a new poll brought a brief glimmer of hope to the Ted Cruz campaign only to be snuffed out hours later. The poll from The Wall Street Journal and NBC News showed a massive swing in the Republican presidential primary horse race following the most recent GOP debate. Donald Trump, who had been leading polls by double digits for months, was shown trailing Cruz 28-26. While people following the race closely immediately flagged the poll as a likely outlier, there was at least some reason to believe that it might be reflecting real movement in public opinion because it was the first nationwide poll conducted in its entirety after the February 13 GOP debate. Related: Ted Cruz Has Four Weeks to Prove He Can Win Trump had what many believed to be his worst debate of the cycle that night, and there was considerable question about whether some of his more surprising positions expressing support for Planned Parenthoods non-abortion services, accusing the George W. Bush administration of leading the country into war under false pretenses would hurt him with Republicans in general and with South Carolina primary voters in particular. The WSJ/NBC poll seemed to confirm that they had done exactly that. While that poll has often shown the race much closer than almost every other national survey, its most recent finding had been a Trump lead of 13 points. The 15-point swing looked as though it could mark a huge turning point in the race. However, just hours after the results were released, a new Reuters/IPSOS poll finding was issued that showed Trump leading Cruz 40-17. The 23-point margin was among the largest the billionaire has enjoyed in the entire campaign. On Monday morning, CBS News released its newest poll, showing Trump ahead of Cruz 35-18, a margin in line with much of the pre-debate polling, which seemed to reinforce the impression that the WSJ/NBC finding had indeed been an outlier. Related: Trump Gets a Freebie from MSNBCs Morning Joe Story continues However, the effect of Trumps debate performance on his national numbers was only one of the key questions his campaign faced. A related, but separate concern was whether it would affect his standing in South Carolina, a state that is far more conservative and religious than the nation as a whole. South Carolinas demographics make it a natural for Ted Cruz, whose strongest appeal is to those who identify themselves as very conservative and to Evangelical Christians. But Trumps debate stumble if thats even a fair way of describing it doesnt appear to have moved the needle much in the Palmetto State. Five statewide polls conducted after the debate all show the billionaire maintaining a double-digit lead there. RealClearPolitics puts the average Trump margin at 16 points over Cruz in South Carolina, only slightly below where it was prior to the debate, suggesting that Trump wasnt hurt there either. South Carolina voters go to the polls on Saturday, and the result there could speak to Cruzs ability to compete with Trump into the later months of the primary season. Top Reads from The Fiscal Times: CHARLESTON, S.C. Donald Trump was apparently for the Iraq War before he was against it. The Republican presidential hopeful has made his opposition to the invasion of Iraq a major talking point of his campaign for the White House in recent days. But asked in a September 2002 interview with Howard Stern if he supported going to war in Iraq, Trump replied, Yeah, I guess so. In a CNN town hall Thursday, Trump said he did not recall the interview, which was unearthed by BuzzFeed, but he admitted he could have said it. Still, Trump defended the remark, insisting he wasnt a politician at the time and that it was probably the first time anyone had asked him the question. By the time the war started, I was against it, Trump insisted. And later, I was really against it. The muddled position emerged as Trump fended off criticism of his recent attacks against former President George W. Bush and his handling of the war in Iraq, which he has called the worst decision in U.S. history. At the CNN forum, a voter asked Trump if he regretted suggesting Bush had lied to the American public about the Iraq War during last Saturdays GOP primary debate. Donald Trump participates in a CNN town hall on Feb. 18 in Greenville, S.C. (Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP) Slideshow: Republican candidates duke it out in South Carolina >>> At first, Trump doubled down insisting Bush had wrongly led the country into war. But when the voter and later CNNs Anderson Cooper tried to pin Trump down on whether he actually believed the former president lied, Trump backed off. I dont know, he said. I dont know. The forum came just two days before South Carolinas pivotal Republican primary and after a wild day on the campaign trail, which began with Trump trashing Pope Francis after the pontiff suggested the GOP frontrunner is not a Christian because of his pledge to deport undocumented immigrants and build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. Story continues Trump had called the popes comments disgraceful, but at the CNN forum, he backed off ever so slightly, saying the pontiffs comments had not been as harsh as he first believed. I dont think this is a fight, Trump said. I think he said something much softer than was originally reported by the media. He added that he liked Francis, describing him as a wonderful guy with great energy who didnt have the full story before he spoke. The forum wrapped on a surreal note, as Trump spoke at length about his love of fast food (Kentucky Fried Chicken, not the worst thing in the world) and mused about the sexual relationship between Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley, who honeymooned at Trumps home in Florida. Michael Jackson was actually a very good friend of mine, Trump said. He was an unbelievably talented guy. He lost his confidence. He lost tremendous confidence because of, honestly, bad, bad, bad surgery. Charleston (United States) (AFP) - When Republican frontrunner Donald Trump offered a provocative retort to criticism by Pope Francis, it may have been a calculated political move to boost his standing ahead of South Carolina's presidential primary. Two-thirds of South Carolinians are Protestants, with evangelical voters comprising the largest voting block in the state during its Republican primary, which is being held on Saturday. The evangelical faithful are often suspicious of hierarchical authority, and a Pew Institute study in January said liberal Americans have a more favorable view of the leader of the Roman Catholic Church than conservatives. This could serve in Trump's favor when it comes to the spat between him and the pontiff, who triggered the controversy when he said the billionaire real estate mogul is "not a Christian" because he wants to build a wall on the US southern border to keep out illegal immigrants. The remarks led to a torrent of media coverage, even as Francis cautioned his statement by saying he still wanted to see if Trump had made such comments and would "give him the benefit of the doubt." Trump's response was swift, stern and par for the course for his campaign, in which he has refused to let a criticism go unchallenged. "For a religious leader to question a person's faith is disgraceful," Trump said in a statement that he read to a campaign crowd in Kiawah Island, South Carolina. Was Trump's biting response a ploy to gain evangelical support some 48 hours before the critical primary? "I don't do it for that reason," he told Fox News. "With me, I just tell the truth," he added, stressing that "we need borders, we have to stop illegal immigration. It's killing our country." A Trump surrogate wasted no time in pointing out the apparent hypocrisy in slamming Trump for wanting to build a wall. "Amazing comments from the Pope - considering Vatican City is 100% surrounded by massive walls," Dan Scavino, Trump's director of social media, posted on Twitter. Story continues - Careful criticism - The bombshell back-and-forth dominated the campaign Thursday, with rivals Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio wading in carefully to suggest the pope's advice was not entirely welcome. "I don't question anybody's Christianity because I honestly believe that's a relationship you have with your creator," Bush told reporters. "It only enabled bad behavior when someone from outside our country talks about Donald Trump." Bush is Catholic, as is fellow Floridian Rubio, and they appeared to send the gentle message that Francis, who had just completed a visit to Mexico, should stick to his role as a religious leader. "I think the Holy Father recognizes or should recognize -- and I believe he does -- how generous America is," Rubio said. "When it comes to accepting both refugees and immigrants, no nation on this planet is more welcoming, more open or more compassionate than the United States," Rubio added. "Certainly a lot more welcoming in our laws than Mexico is." In his historic speech before the US Congress last year, the pope urged US lawmakers to mobilize against climate change, take in more refugees and abolish the death penalty -- positions opposed by many Republicans. Religious figures rushed to Francis's defense. Catholic League president Bill Donohue told CNN he felt Francis was "set up" by a reporter asking about Trump. "I'll give him the benefit of the doubt," Donohue said of the pope's remarks. Father Timothy Kesicki, president of the Jesuit Conference, said the pope was reacting less to Trump himself and more to the gospel's opposition to building barriers. "I think he's attacking an issue more than a person," Kesicki said on CNN. The ultimate question is whether South Carolina's evangelicals line up behind Trump on Saturday. Senator Ted Cruz narrowly captured Iowa, the first state to vote in the nomination battle, thanks to evangelicals. Reverend Don Flowers of Providence Baptist Church in Charleston told AFP he was "not convinced this year there is going to be an evangelical bloc of voters going to one candidate." That could spell a clear victory for Trump if he neutralizes Cruz's advantage with religious voters. TUNIS (Reuters) - Tunisia is preparing to issue Euro-denominated bonds worth 750 million euros to 1 billion euros ($833.48 million to $1 billion)within a few weeks, a government official told Reuters on Friday. "We will go to the international market in few weeks ... it should be between mid-March and May 2016, for between 750 million euros and 1 billion euros," the official said. Tunisia last went to the international market a year ago when it issued a $1 billion bond. ($1 = 0.8998 euros) (Reporting By Tarek Amara; editing by Patrick Markey, Larry King) Paris (AFP) - French President Francois Hollande on Friday said Ankara's escalating involvement in the Syrian conflict was creating a risk of war between Turkey and Russia. "Turkey is involved in Syria... There, there is a risk of war," Hollande told France Inter radio. "That is why the (UN) Security Council is meeting," he added. Hollande also said "Russia will be unable to cope if it unilaterally supports (Syrian President) Bashar al-Assad" and called for "pressure" to be exerted on Moscow to negotiate on Syria. "I do not want to exclude Russia from the solution. I went myself to Moscow to tell Vladimir Putin, 'All of us have to work together to make this political transition'... but I cannot accept that at the same time that people are negotiating, they are bombing civilian populations," he said. Asked about the US position, he said "the Americans consider that they no longer have to be everywhere in the world as they were before.... Therefore the United States is pulling back. Of course I would prefer that the Americans were again more active". The Security Council is holding an emergency meeting at 2000 GMT at Moscow's request, to address Turkey's proposal for ground forces to be deployed in Syria, the Russian foreign ministry said in Moscow. Turkey has called for a joint ground operation in Syria with its international allies, insisting it is the only way to stop the country's five-year war. Saudi Arabia, which along with Turkey is backing rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces, has also said it would be ready to take part in an international force to be deployed in Syria. Russia, which has been carrying out air strikes in support of Assad's forces since the end of September, has called on the Security Council to press Turkey to halt its shelling of Kurdish forces in northern Syria. Ties between Turkey and Russia have broken down since Ankara downed one of Moscow's fighter jets along its border with Syria in November. France has been one of the most hostile opponents of Assad, and following the jihadist attacks in Paris in November it has stepped up air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq. Hollande told France Inter the strikes were effective and results could now be seen. Plagued with complaints from lawmakers and officials that its too soft on Islamic State terrorists and their online supporters, Twitter has stepped up the pace and breadth of account suspensions during the past year. And according to new research, its campaign to curb the groups propaganda reach seems to be working. According to J.M. Berger and Heather Perez, Twitters routine pruning of Islamic State-associated accounts has kept the size of the Islamic States propaganda network small, and has particularly damaged the reach and influence of the largest and most prominent accounts. The researchers findings, published Thursday by the George Washington Universitys Program on Extremism, temper a general sense of panic among government officials, sparked by the impression that the Islamic State is winning a propaganda war against the Western world. Top lawmakers have lamented the effectiveness of the groups grassroots-like Twitter apparatus, and have launched shaky attempts to counter it. In doing so, they have painted a picture of a well-oiled propaganda machine that floods Twitter, Facebook, and Telegram with pro-jihadi messages that inspire Westerners to either travel to Iraq and Syria, or commit acts of terrorism at home. Recommended: Inside the Artificial Universe That Creates Itself Indeed, Islamic State-affiliated accounts have spread violent images, propaganda videos, and calls to action online. But their influence is waning. Berger and Perez determined that theres usually an average of only 1,000 easily discoverable English-speaking terrorist accounts at a time, and that the average Islamic State supporter has only 300 to 400 followers. And those accounts appear to be stuck in an echo chamber: They generally only interact with other supporters, rather than spreading their message to new followers. The researchers monitored a list of ISIS supporters accountsmaintained by hand by a particularly active supporterfor a period of nearly four months in 2015, making note of account suspensions and new additions to the list. Story continues At times, Twitter suspended the list members accounts at a high pace, sometimes even suspending a user multiple times in one day. But most of the time, only about 2 percent of the list was suspended every day. Berger has long railed against the whack-a-mole thesis of Twitter takedownsthe idea that suspending an online account is a waste of time because new accounts will quickly sprout up to take the place of a deleted one. To test that theory, he and Perez tracked four users as they were repeatedly suspended by Twitter and reemerged every time with a different name. We found suspensions typically had a very significant detrimental effect on these repeat offenders, shrinking both the size of their networks and the pace of their activity, the researchers wrote. Returning accounts rarely reached their previous heights, even when the pressure of suspension was removed. Recommended: Hearing the Lost Sounds of Antiquity Twitter has further accelerated the pace of its account removals in the months after the researchers study period. Just a few weeks ago, the company announced that it has taken down 125,000 terrorist-related accounts since mid-2015. The company also said that staffing increases had led to quicker takedowns. But a few lawmakers have repeatedly pushed for legislation that would require social-media companies like Twitter and Facebook to do more. A bill from Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, the chairman and vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, would require the platforms to report terrorist activity on their networks to law enforcement. But concerns about freedom-of-speech violations and the potential loss of valuable intelligence from terrorists on Twitter has led opponents in and out of the Senate to speak out against the proposal. If Twitter can show that its own increasingly aggressive campaigns to stomp out propaganda are working, perhaps it can dodge a legislative interventionone that would burden social-media companies with heavy reporting duties and bring another platform under government surveillance. Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. By David Brunnstrom and Ben Blanchard WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) - The United States accused China on Thursday of raising tensions in the South China Sea by its apparent deployment of surface-to-air missiles on a disputed island. U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said commercial satellite imagery suggested "very recent" placement of missiles on Woody Island in the Paracel island chain that went against China's pledge not to militarize the South China Sea. "The Chinese have said one thing, and yet appear to be doing another," Kirby told a regular news briefing. "We see no indication that ... this militarization effort, has stopped. And it's doing nothing ... to make the situation there more stable and more secure. In fact, it's having quite the opposite effect." On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States would have "very serious" talks with China about militarization of the South China Sea. China has offered little specific response to the missile deployment reports, which first appeared on Fox News on Tuesday, but has accused Western media of "hyping up" the story and said China had a legitimate right to military facilities on territory it views as its own. China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims. Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, the first senior Western official to visit China since the reports appeared, said she raised the issue of the South China Sea's militarization in talks in Beijing on Thursday. She told reporters after meeting China's top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, that China had "challenged" the deployment report but had neither denied nor admitted the missiles were there. "So until such time as we have a clear picture of it, of course it's a matter of concern," she said. Bishop referred to comments by Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington last year that China did not intend to militarize islands in the South China Sea, and added: "We certainly hold China to that and that's been reiterated to me." 'LIMITED DEFENSIVE FACILITIES' Yang explained that the islands in the South China Sea had been China's since ancient times and that "the limited defensive facilities that China has deployed on its own territory have nothing do with militarization," a Chinese statement said. Yang added that Australia should stick to its promise not to take sides and "not participate in or take any actions to harm regional peace and stability or Sino-Australia ties." On Friday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said China was not militarizing the Spratly Islands and criticized U.S. air and naval patrols in the region. "These actions have increased tensions in the South China Sea and constitute the militarization of the South China Sea," Hong told a regular briefing, when asked about Kirby's remarks. The United States claims no territory in the South China Sea but has expressed serious concerns about how China's increasingly assertive pursuit of territorial claims there could affect the vital global trade routes that pass though it. Beijing has been angered by air and sea patrols the United States has conducted near islands China claims in the South China Sea. Those have included one by two B-52 strategic bombers in November and by a U.S. Navy destroyer that sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island in the Paracels last month. An influential Chinese state-run tabloid, the Global Times, said in an editorial on Thursday that China needed to strengthen its "self-defense" in the South China Sea in the face of "more frequent provocations from the U.S. military." "Jet fighters from the United States, an outside country, may feel uneasy when making provocative flights in the region. To us, that's a proper result," it said of the reported missile deployment. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Michael Martina in Beijing and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney and Clarence Fernandez) BEIRUT (Reuters) - A U.S.-backed alliance of Syrian fighters including the Kurdish YPG militia captured an Islamic State-held town in Syria's northeast on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said. The capture of al-Shadadi in Hasaka province came three days after the beginning of an offensive against Islamic State in the area by the Syria Democratic Forces backed by U.S.-led air strikes, and would help isolate Raqqa, the jihadists' de-facto capital in Syria. There was no immediate comment from the Syria Democratic Forces. The Britain-based Observatory's director Rami Abdulrahman said al-Shadadi's capture was a "psychological blow" to the Islamic State group. He said it still controlled dozens of villages in the area, but that the SDF had taken many more villages and farmland in the past few days. On Thursday the SDF announced it had launched an operation earlier in the week to seize al-Shadadi from Islamic State. The U.S.-backed alliance, formed in October, includes the powerful YPG, which has proved the most effective partner against Islamic State on the ground in Syria for a Washington-led air campaign against the group there and in neighboring Iraq. The SDF, which also includes Arab fighting groups such as Jaysh al-Thuwwar, captured areas of Hasaka from Islamic State late last year. The YPG took swathes of territory from the group last year. Most of Hasaka province is under Kurdish control. (Reporting by John Davison; Editing by Alison Williams) By Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon and the U.S. Air Force could still cancel the ground control system Raytheon Co is developing to operate new GPS satellites, if the company does not improve its performance on the troubled system, a top U.S. general said. Lieutenant General Samuel Greaves, who heads the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center, said officials were keeping close tabs on Raytheon's GPS Operational Control System, or OCX, which he described as the Air Force's "No. 1 troubled program." "OCX has significant promise, but no system is a no-fail system," Greaves told a breakfast hosted by the Air Force Association's Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. "Nothing is too big to fail."Pentagon chief arms buyer Frank Kendall is due to review the $3.6 billion program again in early March after a December restructuring that delayed its completion by two years. Officials have stopped short of cancelling the OCX program, which has seen costs double due to increased cyber requirements and poor contractor performance, citing the importance of the system. OCX will be the first satellite control system designed after the advent of significant jamming and other cyber threats. Greaves said both Kendall and Air Force Secretary Deborah James were demanding improved performance on the program by the company, but he gave no specific deadline for a decision on whether to proceed with the contract. Kendall is expected to review a new cost estimate for the program at his next "deep dive" review, where he will meet with Raytheon Chief Executive Tom Kennedy, according to an Air Force spokeswoman. Raytheon spokesman Mike Doble said the company was committed to delivering "without compromise" the modernized ground system and meeting all program requirements as specified by the Air Force. Greaves said the Air Force has alternatives in case it did have to cancel the Raytheon program. Those include a contingency plan announced earlier this month that would allow Lockheed Martin Corp, which is building the actual new Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites, to modify the current GPS ground system to work with the new satellites, he said. (Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Phil Berlowitz and David Gregorio) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. military forces conducted air strikes against Islamic State-linked militants in Libya on Friday, a U.S. military spokesman said. Among the targets in the air raids was a senior Tunisian operative, Noureddine Chouchane, who is suspected in two major attacks in Tunisia, said Col. Mark Cheadle, a spokesman for the Pentagon's Africa Command. "We are assessing the results of the operation and will provide additional information as and when appropriate," Cheadle told Reuters. (Reporting by Warren Strobel; Editing by Janet Lawrence) WASHINGTON(Reuters) - The United States and its allies conducted 22 strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria Thursday, the coalition leading the operations said in a statement. Thirteen strikes staged in Iraq were concentrated near Mosul and Ramadi, where they hit three of the militant group's tactical units as well as a weapons storage facility and a dozen fighting positions, the statement released on Friday said. Other strikes hit targets near Al Baghdadi, Albu Hayat, Hit and Sinjar. In Syria, nine strikes were conducted near five cities, including Al Hasakah, where four strikes hit two Islamic State tactical units, five vehicles and two fighting positions. (Reporting by Washington newsroom) GENEVA (Reuters) - U.S. and Russian military officials have held talks in Geneva ahead of a wider meeting on Friday aimed at trying to secure a cessation of hostilities in Syria, diplomats said. The unannounced bilateral meeting was aimed at narrowing positions before the two powers jointly chair a United Nations meeting on the issue, they said, declining to give details. "The idea of the whole exercise is for Russia and the United States to have a joint view. The U.N. will apparently promote a ceasefire and implementation, and will negotiate with the parties," a diplomat close to the process told Reuters. U.N. spokesman Michele Zaccheo said the larger meeting of the International Syria Support Group would take place at the United Nations on Friday afternoon. Moscow hopes that agreements on a ceasefire in Syria will be reached on Friday, Interfax news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov as saying on Thursday. Russian air strikes begun last September saved President Bashar al-Assad's forces after months of military gains by rebels and turned the tide of fighting in his favour, exasperating the United States and its allies which have been working for years to defeat him. Resuming Syrian peace talks on the scheduled date of Feb. 25 is not a realistic option, U.N. Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura was quoted as telling a Swedish newspaper on Thursday. "We need 10 days' preparation. But the talks ... can be successful if emergency aid continues and we get a ceasefire," de Mistura told the Svenska Dagbladet. His office could not immediately confirm the report. (This version of the story was corrected to remove reference to de Mistura taking part in U.S.-Russia videolink after clarification by U.N. spokesman) (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Dominic Evans and Alison Williams) UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Russia is "trying to distract the world" with a draft U.N. Security Council resolution calling for Syria's sovereignty to be respected, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, said on Friday. Speaking after a council meeting on the Russian draft, Power said Moscow should instead focus on implementing a U.N. resolution agreed by the 15-member body in December that endorsed an international road map for a Syria peace process. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Bernard Orr) U.S. airstrikes in Libya have reportedly targeted a Tunisian ISIS commander, multiple news organizations are reporting, citing U.S. officials. The airstrikes, which reportedly were carried out early Friday near the town of Sabratha, about 50 miles west of Tripoli, the capital, come as the White House is considering military action against ISIS, which has made significant recent gains in Libya. The New York Times, citing the Pentagon, reported the ISIS operative, Noureddine Chouchane, was most likely killed. A spokesman for the U.S. African Command, Colonel Mark Cheadle, told Reuters the Pentagon was assessing the results of the operation. An unnamed U.S. official told the Associated Press the target of the strikes was an ISIS training camp in Libya, but did not provide any indication as to whether Chouchane was specifically targeted. Chouchane is the ISIS militant who is believed to have masterminded two deadly attacks in Tunisia last year: one on the Bardo National Museum in Tunis killed 22 people; the other, in a coastal resort in Sousse, killed 38. Recommended: Preparing for the Collapse of the Saudi Kingdom There were varying reports of how many people were killed in the U.S. airstrikes. The Times, citing an unnamed Western official, said at least 30 ISIS recruits, many of them Tunisian, were killed at the site. Libya Herald, an English-language news website, quoted sources at the towns hospital as saying at least 41 bodies had been brought there. Hussein Dawadi, the towns mayor, provided similar numbers to Libya TV, adding most of those killed had recently arrived in town. The Times added that the strikes were carried out by Air Force F-15E jets. And, the newspaper added, the site was being monitored for several weeks by Special Operations forces, using reconnaissance drones, satellite imagery, and other surveillance equipment. A second Western official who spoke to the Times said it appeared that the militants were planning a major attack outside of Libya, either in the region or possibly Europe. Story continues Libya has emerged as the main focus of ISISs attention outside of the vast swath it controls across the Iraq-Syria border. Like those countries, Libya lacks a strong central government and well-functioning civic institutions. The country has mostly been in political turmoil since the ouster, capture, and eventual death of Muammar al-Qaddafi, its longtime dictator, in the wake of the Arab Spring. Fridays attack is by no means the first U.S. strike in Libya against ISIS. Last November, the U.S. killed Abu Nabil, an Iraqi militant who led the terrorist group in Libya, in the eastern town of Darnah. And, The Guardian reports: Unidentified aircraft have bombed other Isis bases in the eastern Libyan towns of Sirte and Derna in recent days, with Human Rights Watch saying a hospital was struck in the Derna raids. Speaking this week at a news conference about ISISs presence in Libya , President Obama said the U.S. would go after the group wherever it appears. We will continue to take actions where weve got a clear operation and a clear target in mind, he said. As we see opportunities to prevent ISIS from digging in, in Libya, we take them. Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. Stockholm (AFP) - The UN special envoy for Syria has warned that the planned resumption of troubled peace talks next week was not realistic, a Swedish newspaper reported Friday. "I cannot realistically call for new Geneva talks starting on February 25," Staffan de Mistura was quoted as telling the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper. "We need 10 days of preparations and invitations. But we will aim to do this soon," he said in a telephone interview from Damascus. Indirect talks in Geneva between the Syrian government and the opposition collapsed on February 3 after a Russian-backed regime onslaught on the northern city of Aleppo, and a second round was pencilled in for February 25. De Mistura made a surprise trip to Damascus after world powers last week called for immediate aid access throughout Syria and a "cessation of hostilities" to begin by Friday. "I cannot say when I will call for talks. We have been disappointed in the past, now I am pragmatic and determined," he told the paper. "We need real talks about peace, not just talks about talks. "I would like that the US and Russia, with their partners, agree about a beginning of a cessation of hostilities between today and mid-next week," he said. "Now the ball is in their court." De Mistura also warned of the dangers of the five-year Syrian war developing into a wider regional conflict, voicing concern about actions by neighbouring Turkey. He said Turkey's bombardment of Syrian Kurdish fighters across the border has made the need for a solution ever more pressing. "Turkey is complicating everything and it might complicate things further. This is a reason for more urgency. Major countries must realise that we need to put a lid on what can become even more of a regional and proxy conflict," he said. "Any type of further conflict along the border of Syria has the potential to spin out of control." The United Nations has also begun delivering aid to people living in areas of Syria besieged by the government, rebels and jihadist forces. "On the humanitarian side, the beginning is there but needs to be pushed ahead," de Mistura said. At least 70,000 Iraqis were among the more than one million migrants and refugees who sought shelter in Europe last year. Now disenchanted with the difficulties of life there many are choosing to return home. On Thursday, Finland helped by flying 103 Iraqis direct from Helsinki to Baghdad. Upon arrival, some members of the group, most of whom were young men, reportedly kissed the ground. Ahmed Jamal, an Iraqi Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman, told reporters in Baghdad Thursday that those people represent the first batch of Iraqi migrants in Finland who voluntarily wish to come back home. He added that he expects there will be at least one chartered, direct flight between the two countries each week, because the demand to return home is so high. Last year, more than 32,000 people roughly 20,500 of whom were Iraqi applied for asylum in Finland, which was initially an attractive destination because of its generous benefit programs. But in recent months, Finnish authorities have been overwhelmed by the number of asylum-seekers crossing their borders, and have moved to tighten entry restrictions. Meanwhile, many Iraqis waiting for decisions on their asylum applications decided they were no longer interested in staying there. Since January of 2015, more than 3,000 Iraqis have withdrawn their asylum applications in Finland and made arrangements to travel home. They have cited difficulties learning a new language and a lack of economic opportunity as their reasons. But Finlands freezing cold winters where Januarys average temperature sits right around freezing, and the sun is up for only a few hours a day certainly didnt help. In November, after announcing that some refugees whose home countries were becoming safer qualified for deportation, Jorma Vuorio, the director general of Finlands Migration Department, said she thought had developed unrealistic expectations about the quality of life in Europe. We are not telling them not to come, he said. But we are telling them that this is not paradise. Story continues Most of those who returned home paid their own way, but the 103 who returned home to Baghdad Thursday had their costs covered by the Finland. The flights reportedly run upwards of 900 euro per person. This isnt the first time Finland has found itself in a similar predicament. In the past year, Finland also chartered seven flights for Albanian asylum-seekers who also wished to return home. Photo Credit: Visam Ziyad Muhammet/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Washington (AFP) - The United States on Thursday blasted the Ugandan government after officials there briefly detained the countrys top presidential challenger. The United States condemns the detention of opposition presidential candidate Kizza Besigye while voting is going on, State Department spokesman John Kirby said. Such an action calls into question Ugandas commitment to a transparent and free election process, free from intimidation. Besigye, who is the strongest among President Yoweri Musevenis seven challengers, was arrested when checking on allegations of vote-rigging by the ruling party. He was released later in the day, but Kirby said that did not excuse his being detained. Kirby added the United states was also concerned by the late opening of many polling stations, as well as a Ugandan government move to block several popular social media and mobile money sites on election day. We continue to urge government authorities as well as all political parties and their supporters to refrain from further acts or rhetoric that may lead to more unrest or claim any more lives, he said. Washington (AFP) - The US on Friday strongly condemned a stabbing attack in the occupied West Bank that killed an off-duty Israeli soldier who was also an American citizen. Tuvia Weissman, 21, died Thursday after the attack at a supermarket in an industrial zone near Ramallah frequented by settlers. A 36-year-old man was also wounded. "We condemn in the strongest possible terms the attack," State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement. "There is no justification for terrorism," he said. "This horrific incident again underscores the need for all sides to reject violence, and urgently take steps to restore calm, reduce tensions, and bring an immediate end to the violence." Palestinian sources said the two assailants were both 14-year-olds. They were shot by an armed bystander and taken to hospitals. Weissman is the second American killed in a spate of Palestinian knife, gun and car-ramming attacks that have also have taken the lives of 27 Israelis and an Eritrean since October 1 last year. Washington (AFP) - The US government has declassified the fact it held nuclear weapons on Okinawa in Japan during the Cold War, though the matter had long been an open secret. A Department of Defense website states the Pentagon has declassified "the fact that US nuclear weapons were deployed on Okinawa prior to Okinawa's reversion to Japan on May 15, 1972." The National Security Archive at George Washington University welcomed the disclosure, but pointed to US Air Force photos depicting nuclear weapons on the island that have been publicly available for more than 25 years. "However welcome the release may be, its significance is somewhat tempered by (that) astonishing fact," the non-governmental research group said in a statement Friday. The group added that the US government had wasted an "inordinate" amount of time and resources by delaying the declassification. Japan is the only nation to have been attacked with nuclear weapons. The United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, killing more than 210,000 people and leading to Japan's surrender in World War II. Japan has since campaigned to abolish the weapons. Former prime minister Eisaku Sato won the Nobel Peace Prize largely for his "three principles" -- that Japan will not possess, produce or allow nuclear weapons on its soil. Okinawa remained under US control until 1972, and many parts of the archipelago are still used for US bases. Andorra la Vella (Andorra) (AFP) - The US Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) said in a statement issued Friday in the tiny European principality of Andorra it had lifted money laundering accusations against an Andorran private bank. FinCEN said last year that Banca Privada d'Andorra (BPA), the fourth largest bank in the principality nestling in the Pyrenees between France and Spain, took bribes over several years to channel profits facilitate laundering of cash from Russian and Chinese organised crime as well as Venezuela's state oil firm PDVSA. The charge led Andorran regulators to take control of the bank, whose CEO Joan Pau Miquel Prats was arrested and a "bad bank " set up to separate toxic from non-toxic assets. Andorra, one of Europe's smallest nations with a population of barely 90,000, is heavily reliant on financial services. FinCEN's statement said that after Andorra's restructuring action to clean up banking arrangements, BPA no longer posed a threat to the US financial system. At the end of 2013 BPA managed some 7.1 billion euros ($7.91 billion) of assets worldwide and represented around a fifth of Andorran banking assets and liabilities. Washington (AFP) - The US Treasury weighed in on Puerto Rico's battle with creditors Friday, urging bondholders to come to the table and work on debt restructuring. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew met with a group of bondholders and "explained that the crisis in Puerto Rico is severe and rapidly deteriorating," a statement said. He told them it was essential that the small US territory crumbling under $70 billion in debt needs Congress to pass laws establishing a process on orderly restructuring of the Caribbean island's debt. But some creditors have fought such a move and so far Congress, requested by Puerto Rico and the White House to give it the right to enter bankruptcy protection, has not obliged. Lew warned that without action from Congress, a disorderly default on the debt was "a likely outcome." That, he said, "could trigger protracted and costly litigation, threaten the delivery of critical public services, (and) delay or lower the ultimate recovery by bondholders and other creditors," according to the Treasury statement. "In order to resolve this crisis, Secretary Lew urged all stakeholders to come to the table." Lew "underscored that addressing the crisis will require shared sacrifice by all parties, including by creditors, and that without an orderly restructuring, there is no path out of insolvency and back to growth." At the beginning of February, Puerto Rico proposed that holders of its $49.2 billion in tax-funded debt agree to cut the value to $26.5 billion in a voluntary restructuring. It also proposed that interest payments, which would only begin in 2018, be limited to 15 percent of current government revenues, down from the current draw of 36 percent, which Puerto Rico says is "unsustainable." To make the proposal work, however, it requires a very high level of participation from creditors. Puerto Rico has been locked in recession for a decade, and defaulted on some debt payments at the beginning of the year. Despite sweeping spending cuts and some policy reforms, it has not been able to stop the deterioration of its budget deficit. SYDNEY (Reuters) - The Australian cardinal who oversees the Vatican's finances has strongly denied newspaper allegations of involvement in child sexual abuse, describing them as "utterly false". The Sun Herald newspaper reported late Friday that Cardinal George Pell was being investigated by Australian police over allegations of abuse while he was serving in senior positions within the Catholic Church in Australia. Pell has called for a public inquiry to be conducted into police in the state of Victoria, saying the allegations were leaked "to do maximum damage" before he gives evidence at the end of the month to a child abuse inquiry in his homeland. Victorian police said they could not comment on any investigations into any individuals. Pell, once seen as a contender to become pope, was cleared earlier this week to testify at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse via videolink, because of a heart condition. The ruling frustrated victim groups who wanted him to appear in person. They have since begun a crowdsourcing campaign to raise money to travel to Rome in the hope of seeing him testify in person. The Sun Herald report said Victorian police had compiled a dossier containing allegations that Pell committed "multiple offences" when he was a priest in Ballarat, a town in the west of the state, and also when he was archbishop of Melbourne. The inquiry has been gathering evidence for a year, the paper said. In a lengthy statement issued by his office in Rome in response to the report, Pell called on senior police and government officials to "immediately investigate the leaking of these baseless allegations." "The allegations are without foundation and utterly false," the statement said. "These undetailed allegations have not been raised with the Cardinal by the police." Pell would cooperate with police if they wished to question him, the statement added. The Royal Commission heard testimony last year that priests suspected of abuse in Pell's former diocese were moved between parishes and put in church-appointed rehabilitation instead of being reported to police. Pell, 74, has denied those allegations. He is due to testify from Rome via videolink on Feb. 29. (Reporting by Jane Wardell; Editing by Mark Trevelyan) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military's Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia has lifted a lockdown on Friday that was imposed after shots were fired, the base said on Twitter. The joint Army and Air Force base has resumed normal operations and the cause of the incident is under investigation. There was no active shooter or reported casualties, it said. Shots were fired outside a Fort Eustis building at 11:30 a.m. Langley-Eustis is near Hampton Roads and Norfolk, about 120 miles (190 km) south of Washington. (Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Bill Rigby) Warsaw (AFP) - Solidarity freedom hero Lech Walesa admitted Friday he had "made a mistake", but flatly denied he was ever a paid secret agent who collaborated with Poland's communist regime amid fresh allegation triggered by newly-found files. Poland's first post-communist president -- who was cleared of suspicion by a special vetting court in 2000 -- did not elaborate on what his mistake was -- but pointed to a mystery person who "should reveal the truth" about the past. "They didn't break me in 1970 and I didn't cooperate with the SB (secret police), I never took money, and I never ratted on anyone either verbally or in writing," the 72-year-old Nobel Peace laureate wrote on his blog. "I made a mistake, but not this (collaboration), and I vowed not to reveal it, certainly not yet, not now," he said, enigmatically. But he added: "There is a person -- a perpetrator, who is still alive who should reveal the truth and I'm counting on it. I had a soft heart." The Solidarity leader is currently on a trip to Venezuela and the United States. Poland's IPN institute responsible for prosecuting communist-era crimes on Thursday revealed a newly-found 1970s secret police file showing Walesa was a paid collaborator codenamed "Bolek". Experts have consistently raised doubts about the credibility of communist-era secret police files, arguing they could easily have been manufactured to frame opposition activists like Walesa. Although he previously admitted to having signed "a paper" for police during one of his many interrogations as a dissident, Walesa has always called allegations he collaborated "absurd". The Solidarity leader in 1989 negotiated a bloodless end to communism in Poland also vowed to prove his innocence in court again. Rumours have long swirled that he covertly fed the communist regime information while leading the freedom-fighting Solidarity, the Soviet bloc's only independent trade union. Story continues A book published by the IPN in 2008 alleged that while the regime registered Walesa as a secret agent in December 1970, he was cut loose in June 1976 due to his "unwillingness to cooperate". The allegations against Walesa first surfaced in 1992, two years after he was elected president. It was then that former interior minister and current Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz published a list of 60 suspected SB agents, including Walesa. Although Macierewicz and Jaroslaw Kaczynski -- the powerful head of the governing right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party -- worked with Walesa as dissidents during the communist era, they became his sworn enemies during Walesa's presidency. Poles have mixed feelings about Walesa. His boldness in standing up to the communist regime is still widely respected, but the combative and divisive tone of his later presidency earned him scorn in many quarters. Pope wades into U.S. politics: Francis, en route to Italy, was asked by a reporter about his views on Donald Trump. His reply: A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. In his response, Trump said it was disgraceful for a religious person to question someones faith: If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISISs ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened. ISIS would have been eradicated unlike what is happening now with our all talk, no action politicians. His full reaction: Update: More here Pope appears to support limited contraception use in Zika cases: In response to another question, Francis called the use of contraceptives a lesser of two evils compared to the birth defects associated with the virus that is sweeping Latin America. The World Health Organization has called the virus and the birth defects a global health crisis. Update: More here Was Lech Walesa a paid Communist informant?: Thats the claim being made by new documents unearthed by Polands National Remembrance Institute. The head of the institute says the documents appear to be authentic. Walesa has long denied he was an informer, and today suggested the papers are fake. News from this morning here. Read more from The Atlantic: This article was originally published on The Atlantic. The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in Bangalore is a kind of hacker club for wonks and lawyers obsessed with issues of digital rights and global development. Not exactly the mainstream kids lunch table. But the Center was brought into sudden relief this week, thanks to Mark Zuckerberg. In a splashy bit of news, Indias telecom authority rejected a program called Free Basics, which the Facebook team had been promoting as a way to get free Internet to the masses. (Here on the subcontinent, more than 300 million people use the Internet but thats only about a quarter of the population.) The idea: Facebook would allow free access to a handful of websites (the basics) to everyone; users would pay for further content. The objections: On the dramatic end came comparisons to colonialism; on the wonkier, objections based on the principles of net neutrality, or the idea that all Internet content should be treated the same. The threat the critics saw in Free Basics was that of the Web as a two-lane highway the free stuff for the poor folks, and the good stuff for those who can afford it. Mumbai-based Sanjena Sathian spoke to CIS cofounder and policy director Pranesh Prakash about the changing landscape of web rights that led up to the news. This interview has been edited and condensed. OZY: Tell us what youre thinking in the wake of Indias decision. Pranesh Prakash: The order seemed to fix the issue with a sledgehammer rather than a scalpel. It over-regulates and bans things that are beneficial along with that that arent. They should have aimed for discriminatory pricing, but theyve instead eliminated all differential pricing, even when its not discriminatory. What should come next, in my opinion it is imperative to ensure that governmental resources are used to provide free access to the Internet. If youve taken away something that could have helped and said no, no, no, its not good for you, then you are under an obligation to provide a replacement. Story continues OZY: How do you think the larger political conversations going on in India right now seep into the debates about digital rights? PP: Many people think the largest divider is between those who are from a developing country or a developed country. I think the larger divide is between those who are politically skeptical of states more libertarian versus those who are more trusting of states and see states as having a role to play in Internet governance. How you think the poor in India should get Internet should that be provided by government or by market mechanisms well, your political philosophies will play a role. In India, one tends to find fewer free-market fundamentalists than one would meet in, say, San Francisco. OZY: I think, increasingly, post-Snowden in particular, people think of digital rights as human rights. Where do you see things going wrong on a rights front here in India? PP: Oh, wow so many ways. In India we have a situation where, right now, more than 3,000 websites were blocked by the government, but no one knows what these sites are. No one knows whether they were blocked through mechanisms that ensure accountability. There is no transparency around any of these. And this is just the visible tip of the iceberg. And how do I know this? I sent a right-to-information request to the government and they gave me this answer. But beyond this, they put in place a few years ago a law which allows for websites and any kind of web content to be censored by anyone. And all they have to do is send a request to any intermediary, which could be anything from your ISP to your web host to your DNS provider. OZY: Wait, so what does that mean? I get annoyed at a site where do I go to lodge my complaint? PP: All these websites are required by the law to appoint a particular person as a grievance redressal officer. OZY: What a title! PP: Yes and there are more than 40 grounds for grievances that have been listed in the law, including things such as causing harm to minors and certain speech being disparaging. Now, I engage in disparaging speech at least 12 times a day. And thats perfectly legal under Indian law! OZY: Eep. Any good news, though? PP: A case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, [involving a young woman named] Shreya Singhal. There was a section 66A, quite an odious provision, that allowed for any kind of offensive or annoying speech to cause that person to be put in prison for up to three years. Two teenage girls in Maharashtra, upon the death of a politician, put out a comment on social media. The death had caused a bandh, a curfew of sorts in Mumbai, and done not officially by the government but by political party workers. One girl said on Facebook, sure, go ahead, respect this politician, but why inconvenience so many citizens? Her friend liked this. And a case was launched against them. Similarly, some cartoons by an anticorruption activist were challenged and he was imprisoned briefly and released on bail. OZY: Its always the cartoonists. PP: Yes, and one professor in Calcutta for forwarding a cartoon, he was placed under this law too. Many cases of perfectly fine political speech were made illegal thanks to this law. Eventually, though, in a landmark decision, the Supreme Court struck down this law, and this is the first time in almost three decades that the Supreme Court has struck off an entire law for being unconstitutional. But, yes. Mostly? Its not been pretty. Related Articles VIA WWE YOUTUBE I had a conversation with a few black casual wrestling fans a few weeks ago and, as usual, the conversation drifted to reminiscing on crazy-ass racist things weve experienced throughout wrestlings history. That conversation usually goes to guys like The Godfather and his hoes, when DX went on RAW in blackface, and the time Vince McMahon dropped the n-bomb on TV. Then the conversation took an unexpected turn: And then, who are those other guys in the group? New DayYeah, theyre GRE- COONS I was legitimately stunned. I couldnt believe what I was hearing. But I listened while they kept telling me that they were upset at seeing twerking, dancing black guys with unicorn horns on their heads. I had to go into defense mode immediately, explaining how New Day is bringing so much black culture to TV every week and have turned a stereotypical gimmick (black preacherssigh) and turned it on its head to become one of the most over acts in wrestling. And while we ended up agreeing to disagree, I couldnt help but figure that the biggest contributor to my friends disdain for New Day came from WWEs track record of being demoralizing and offensive every time a black person is on TV. Even as a New Day fan, it took me months to trust that their popularity wasnt part of some jig that would end up with a cross-promotion that has them feuding with Colonel Sanders or something. So, when Titus ONeil got suspended for grabbing Vince McMahon after RAW, a lot of peoples initial reaction was to assume this was another example of WWE being really f*cked up to a minority. This is, after all, the same company that Michael Hayes still has a job with after dropping n-bombs on company employees. Its also the company that didnt fire the guy who basically called Alberto Del Rio his servant. And on-screen, this is the same company that gave us Shelton Benjamins momma and told us that Booker T was too black to win the title at WrestleMania XIX. Story continues VIA IMGUR Now, let me be clear (again): Titus ONeil was totally in the wrong and I absolutely have no problem with the suspension. Vince McMahon was standing front-and-center while one of his top stars told the world how close wrestling brought him to death. The issue was serious and, from a PR perspective, Vince goofing around 10 seconds after Daniel Bryan exited would be another example of WWEs CEO not caring about his talent. So, I get the severity of the situation and dont think race had anything to do with it. But I cant blame anyone who sees the suspension and assumes WWE has racial motivations, because the company as a whole hasnt given us any reason to believe they have a firm grasp on what it means to treat people of different races (and genders) like individuals. Thats why its laughable to see so many WWE guys wave the company flag and act outraged when McMahon is accused of racism. On Tuesday, Stone Cold Steve Austin got passionately upset over accusations that race had anything to do with Titus suspension. Ironically, he said Titus was shucking and jiving during the whole process. Look, I dont know if a guy who calls himself The Texas Redneck is racist or not, but I am sure that Im not taking a guy who thinks its okay to say a black guy was shucking and jiving at face value when he says something isnt racist. Austin, though, has to realize why theres a gut reaction to assume race played a factor. He was there for The Godfather. He saw X-Pac dress like Mark Henry and do a Fat Albert voice. He should have been privy to enough structural racism to know why people feel how they feel. Or maybe his privilege has allowed him to stay oblivious. But Austin isnt the only guy to be upset over calls of racism within WWE. JBL of all people decided to whitesplain the race card during his Legends show with Ron Simmons: Does it upset you that the race card is still played, or do you think its appropriate? Because, at times, it looks like the race card is played in a self-serving way (that episode overall was upsetting because of Ron Simmons going all pull yourself up by your bootstraps the whole damn interview). JBL went on to say that the WWE locker room didnt care about race or sexual orientation when he was wrestling. why you lying First of all, the race card is the worst turn of phrase ever. Race card implies that theres some sort of magic Big Joker that black people have stored and itll somehow get us power over anyone. It also implies that we have an option as to when we can pull the card. Its a trigger phrase that diminishes real-life concerns about racial injustice and its just as ignorant as shucking and jiving. Secondly, the idea of JBL of all people one of the most legendarily vile hazers in WWE history championing racial and sexual orientation equality is just laughable. Then to act like racism, homophobia, and sexism never existed in WWE locker rooms is insulting. Ive never been in a WWE locker room, but enough former wrestlers and writers have come out to refute the idea of there being a post-racial utopia behind the Gorilla position. Also, Bill DeMotts go back to Africa and half-sissy form of motivation would like a word with you. Its just frustrating that WWE and some of the wrestlers are using one incidence of actual relative fairness to refute the sick history of racism the company has perpetrated. WWE has to reconcile with this history or else well continue to assume the worst. And every time anything of consequence happens to a person of color, well call upon that history and wonder if race played a part. And WWE has only itself to blame for that. Share This Facebook Twitter EMAIL New tests now officially confirm what doctors have long suspected: The Zika virus can cross the placental barrier in a pregnant woman and enter the amniotic fluid, the protective fluid that surrounds a developing fetus within the womb. However, the findings do not show that the Zika virus causes microcephaly, a congenital condition in infants that causes them to be born with very small heads, the researchers cautioned. "Previous studies have identified Zika virus in the saliva, breast milk and urine of mothers and their newborn babies" after the mothers had given birth, lead study author Dr. Ana Maria de Filippis, of the Oswaldo Cruz Institute in Rio de Janeiro, said in a statement. "This study reports details of the Zika virus being identified directly in the amniotic fluid of a woman during her pregnancy, suggesting that the virus could cross the placental barrier and potentially infect the fetus," she said. [5 Things to Know About Zika Virus] Rise in microcephaly The Zika virus spreads via the bite of infected mosquitoes. It was first discovered in 1947 in Uganda and, for years, was thought to cause only mild symptoms, such as a low fever, rash, red eyes and body aches. However, after a large Zika outbreak began spreading in Brazil, doctors noticed a dramatic increase in the number of babies born with microcephaly. Doctors have reported 20 times more cases of microcephaly in 2015 compared to 2014. For the new study, which is published today (Feb. 17) in the journal The Lancet Infectious Diseases, de Filippis and her colleagues examined samples of amniotic fluid from two women from Paraiba, Brazil, who had symptoms of Zika infection in the first trimester of their pregnancy. In their 22nd week of pregnancy, ultrasounds showed that the babies had microcephaly. Although the women's blood and urine tested negative for Zika virus, their amniotic fluid tested positive for Zika virus. Moreover, the virus that was present had a genetic sequence similar to that of a strain that first circulated in French Polynesia in 2013. Story continues Although the researchers had previously reported to health officials their findings that the virus could enter amniotic fluid, the report is the first publication of peer-reviewed results that also analyze the genetic sequence of those strains. Determining the risk Microcephaly can be caused by many factors, including genetic disorders and drug use. But there is strong circumstantial evidence tying Zika to the condition. A September 2015 study in the journal BioMed Central found that viruses from the same family as Zika can cause microcephaly in infected animals. And other viruses that cross the placenta such as HIV, herpes and chikungunya can also cause microcephaly in human infants. What's still unknown is whether Zika should be added to the list. "This study cannot determine whether the Zika virus identified in these two cases was the cause of microcephaly in the babies," de Filippis said. "Until we understand the biological mechanism linking Zika virus to microcephaly, we cannot be certain that one causes the other, and further research is urgently needed." To sort that out, doctors are currently conducting case-control studies to study and compare babies born with microcephaly to healthy babies from the same region born around the same time. "Even if all these data strongly suggest that Zika virus can cause microcephaly, the number of microcephaly cases related to Zika virus is still unknown," Didier Musso, an infectious-disease researcher at the Louis Malarde Institute in Tahiti who was not involved in the study, said in an editorial accompanying the new findings. "The next step will be to do case-control studies to estimate the potential risk of microcephaly after Zika virus infection during pregnancy, other fetal or neonatal complications, and long-term outcomes for infected symptomatic and asymptomatic neonates [newborns]," Musso wrote. Follow Tia Ghose on Twitterand Google+. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. Copyright 2016 LiveScience, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. By Spc. Lee Elder, 133rd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment KIRKUSH, Iraq (July 3, 2006) The Iraqi Armys 5th Division officially took charge of military operations in northern Iraqs Diyala Province from Coalition Forces during a ceremony held here today. The divisions colors were unveiled and presented to its commander, Maj. Gen. Ahmed Klepos Awad Majhool al-Kozaee by British Maj. Gen. Peter Everson, who serves as deputy commanding general, Multi-National Corps-Iraq. The division earned its colors after being validated as a viable fighting force by the 101st Airborne Division. Id like to say that this division will be successful because it is composed of the full spectrum of Iraqi people, Ahmed said. It represents the hand of the government that carries the weapon and the olive branch at the same time. The Hadeed Division was formed in April 2004 and was fully operational in February 2005. It consists of a headquarters and three brigades. Ahmed promised his division would be the strong hand of the Iraqi people in defeating the insurgency. He pledged to remain with the division as their brother, teacher and commander. Everson, a London native, said the 5th Division was the first Iraqi Army division in the Multi-National Division North validated to conduct independent combat operations. It is only the fourth division to attain that status. Gen. Ahmeds soldiers have worked hard for the day that this division would be prepared to assume responsibility for this large, complex province, Everson said. And that day has come. Diyala Province spans from the eastern edge of Baghdad to the Iranian border and covers 70,000 square miles. It is home to more than 1.7 million Iraqis. One of the divisions units, its 1st Brigade, was validated in April. It has maintained security for the eastern part of the province since then. Validation changes the roles of both Iraqi and Coalition forces. Now that it has been validated, the division will assume full responsibility for the province while Coalition forces will take on a secondary support role. Col. William Gothard, an Army Reserve Soldier with the Richmond, Va.-based 80th Division, commands the Military Transition Team in charge of training the division. His unit members work and live with their Iraqi Army counterparts preparing them for this day. They take the lead now, Gothard said. They conduct combat operations on their own with us providing support where they request it. Gothard said the walk toward validation has not been an easy one. In addition to training tasks, the divisions soldiers have seen action in campaigns not only in Diyala, but also in neighboring areas like Fallajah, Samarra and Baghdad as well. The greatest challenge in the 5th Division has been personnel strength, Gothard said. Unlike many divisions, the 5th Division is not native to Diyala Province, and so the Soldiers of this division come from many different areas of Iraq. Its been difficult to build the troop strength which is really necessary to beat back an insurgency. Gothard works as a Department of the Army civilian with U.S. Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C. He said his teams would remain in place supporting Iraqi forces, but combat operations here would have a decided Iraqi face. The actual combat forces will continue to show less of a role in the day-to-day combat operations as the Iraqis assume that responsibility, Gothard said. Both Ahmed and Everson praised the efforts of U.S. and Coalition forces to train their Iraqi counterparts. A moment of silence was observed for both the Coalition and Iraqi forces who have lost their lives in combat operations with the division. I would like to express my thanks and appreciation to my brothers in the Coalition forces the 101st Airborne Division; 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division; and all of our other friends, Ahmed said. The ceremony featured the traditional pass and review as the divisions Soldiers marched past the reviewing stand. Elements of all of the divisions units marched and were supported by both U.S. and Iraqi Army bands playing both the U.S. and Iraqi national anthems. The crowd of Iraqi Soldiers cheered as a team formed a pyramid and a lone Soldier climbed to its zenith. Cheers went out as the Soldier waved the Iraqi flag in mid air. TT should stop exporting oil Prof Theodore, a member of the Economic Development Advisory Board and Director of the Health Education Unit at the Centre for Health Economics at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, said at prevailing low oil prices the country should be preserving its petro- leum resources. He added that there are more than 6,000 by-products which could be made from petroleum and Trinidad and Tobago should target twenty of them for the next five years. Theodore was one of the speakers at the first meeting of the Trinidad and Tobago Bipartite Forum entitled Assessing the State of the Economy in Trinidad and Tobago held on Tuesday at the Kapok Hotel, Cotton Hill, Portof- Spain. It was organised by the Employers Consultative Association (ECA); the National Trade Union Centre (Natuc) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO). He gave an overview of the immediate, medium and long term impact and consequences for employment given the current economic realities in Trinidad and Tobago. Theodore said that in the recession the country is experiencing he believes the unemployment rate could rise to as much as 15 percent. He said that the last recession faced by Trinidad and Tobago began in 1982 and lasted ten years. He said when it began the countrys unemployment rate was eleven percent and it peaked at 22 percent and ended at 20 percent. The university lecturer said unemployment is now at about four percent, a figure he believes is underestimated. He added that if the rate follows the same trend as in the last recession the unemployment rate is likely to reach eight percent in four years although he maintained his belief that it will go higher to the 15 percent level. He warned that even after the recession ends it takes a long time for the economy to return to the unemployment rate it had before the onset of the recession. He said in Trinidad and Tobagos case it took ten years for the country to get back to the 11 percent unemployment. Theodore said that Trinidad and Tobagos employment has been anchored on earnings of foreign exchange which comes from the energy sector. Now if you build on a platform and that platform starts to collapse under you, your position cannot hold. You will come down. He said the country must make up its mind not to link its employment levels and current standard of living to its energy earnings otherwise it will be saying that when the nations energy earnings go down the country is prepared to go down with it. He said that in the current situation, the Government must look after the people who are badly off by boosting local food production and making sure that the cost of living is lower. He stressed that We have to produce more food. Arima man killed in gallery Newsday was told that Baliram Ramoutar of Temple Village, Blanchisseuse Road, Arima was in his gallery at about 2 pm yesterday when a man walked up to him, pulled a firearm from his pants pocket and shot him several times about his body. He died on the scene. Emergency services were contacted and a party of officers including Inspector Mark Maraj, Insp Naim Gyan and ASP Mack responded to the call. The area was cordoned off and Crime Scene Investigators processed the scene while a District Medical Officer viewed the body and ordered it removed to the Forensic Science Centre for autopsy. Police are working on the theory that Ramoutar was killed as an act of revenge. Sources told Newsday that he had recently been released on bail for a sexual offence charge. Cops update Minister on Asamis murder I met with the Ambassador of Japan in my capacity as Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, having conversed with him already on Monday. I offered condolences on behalf of the government and the people of Trinidad and Tobago on the murder of Asami Nagakiya and the people of Japan due to her untimely passing. I assured the Ambassador that the agencies of National Security will be working assiduously to conduct the necessary investigation to bring the perpetrator or perpetrators to justice as quickly as possible. We continue to build on the relationship between Trinidad and Japan through the years and we welcome the arrival of the Japanese cruise ship which docked in Port-of-Spain yesterday, Minister Dillon said. Newsday understands that the Japanese Ambassador expressed his appreciation for being invited to the Ministry and for the offer of condolences on behalf of the people of Trinidad and Tobago. According to Minister Dillon, the Ambassador said he will pass on the condolences to the family of Nagakiya and will continue to work together on future issues concerning both countries. Newsday understands that Nagakiyas body is still at a local funeral home and is expected to be returned to Japan in a few days time for last rites. Nagakiya, for several years, had visited Trinidad every Carnival to play in Panorama and play mas. Her body was found under a tree at the Queens Park Savannah on Ash Wednesday. An autopsy later revealed she died of manual strangulation. Sherons wife changes story Sukhdeo took to social media on Wednesday making the allegation.. Head of the Central Division Snr Superintendent Jayson Forde yesterday despatched an officer to the Chaguanas home of Sukhdeo to interview her on the allegations made. However, when the officer went to Sukhdeos home, she said that no senior officer had ever threatened her. On Wednesday, Sukhdeos husband appeared before a Chaguanas Magistrate charged with two offences against his wife. One is assault occasioning actual bodily harm and the other is malicious wounding.. He is on $85,000 bail and had pleaded not guilty with the matter being adjourned to March 15. Sukhdeo has since been debarred from entering his palatial home as per the instructions of a protection order taken out against him.. The accused spent another day in remand yesterday as there were problems sourcing certain documents as per standard regulations in acquiring bail.. Man in court on 6 charges It is alleged that on Saturday last at Sunflower Drive in Pleasantville, Pegus wounded Damian Nickchadee, 19, with intent to do him grievous bodily harm. It is alleged that Pegus had in his possession a firearm and ammunition. Two additional charges allege that Pegus had in his possession a firearm and ammunition with intent to endanger lives. A sixth charge alleged that he discharged said firearm within 40 metres from the public roadway. All charges were laid indictably and therefore, Pegus was not called to enter a plea as the charges would have to be determined by a judge and jury if a magistrate orders the case sent to the High Courts, at the end of a preliminary inquiry. PC Adrian Mungal of the Mon Repos Criminal Investigation Department laid the charges. Attorney Michelle Rampaul, who represented the accused, said Pegus was ill having undergone a colonoscopy procedure which had side effects. The attorney added that her client has a pending matter for shooting and is on bail for that charge. Court prosecutor Ramdath Phillip said spent shells recovered at the scene are being processed at the Police CSI (crime scenes investigation) office. Magistrate Wellington denied Pegus bail and remanded him into custody. The accused will return to court on March 16. PRAKASH COPS OUT Commenting on the resignation, UWI political scientist Dr Bishnu Ragoonath said Ramadhar has been somewhat estranged from the COP for some time and his resignation will give the party a chance to determine its future. Ragoonath also said he would not be surprised if Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar decides to relegate Ramadhar to the Oppositions backbench in the House of Representatives, since he is no longer COP leader. In a statement, COP general secretary Clyde Weatherhead said he received a letter from Ramadhar yesterday, confirming the tendering of his demitting that office of the party to the partys National Executive last night (Wednesday). Weatherhead, in the statement, said Ramadhar indicated an effective date for his decision, which he suggests will, allow the party sufficient time to organise an election to decide a successor. Efforts to contact Ramadhar for comment were unsuccessful Contacted yesterday, Weatherhead declined to give specific reasons for the resignation but indicated Ramadhar will do so following the National Council meeting on Sunday. Weatherhead explained that the COPs voice in Parliament will not be diminished by this development as Ramadhar remains an Opposition MP. In his letter, Ramadhar indicated that he was not resigning from the party but only leader. Ganga Singh, Dr Bhoe Tewarie and Gerald Hadeed were all COP parliamentarians in the last Parliament but are now United National Congress (UNC) parliamentarians in the current session. Ramadhar and Rodger Samuel (former Arima MP, now Opposition senator) are th e only current Opposition parliamentarians who are COP members. Commenting on Ramadhars resignation, UNC Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal said, Mr Ramadhar has been a close parliamentary and Cabinet colleague of mine and I wish him all the best. Saying Ramadhar has served well as COP leader, Moonilal wished the COP well in all its endeavours. The COP has been a valuable partner in our (Peoples) Partnership government. Following the PPs defeat to the Peoples National Movement (PNM) in the September 7, general elections, Ramadhar said the Peoples Partnership had ended and the COP would be looking to rebrand itself. As COP leader, Ramadhar resisted several calls from members of his own party for the Congress to leave the coalition, while the PP was in government. Moonilal also believed that as a MP, Ramadhar would, continue his public advocacy to defend the rights of citizens and promote good governance. PNM chairman Franklin Khan said the party maintains its position of not commenting on internal affairs of other political parties and Ramadhars resignation falls within that category. Asked if Ramadhar could join the PNM if he desired to do so, Khan (who is also Rural Development and Local Government Minister) said the PNM has clear procedures which must be followed by persons who wish to join. However, he indicated that Ramadhar would not qualify on the grounds that he contested elections against the PNM. Ragoonath said Ramadhars resignation at this time was not all that critical for the COP, given the relations which he had with some members of the party. He said whoever the COP elects as new political leader will have to decide whether the party continues to have an alliance with the UNC or not. With local government elections constitutionally due later this year, Ragoonath said it is important for the COP to decide whether it will join forces with the UNC against the PNM or go it alone in these polls. Ragoonath expressed surprise that Ramadhar was not demoted to the Oppositions backbench in the House when he openly stated that the PP no longer exists. However, the political scientist said Persad- Bissessar may still exercise this option $7M to fight Zika Additionally, Khan admitted that he had hoped to allocate more funds to the corporations, but was not able to secure the funds to do so. We are working closely with the Ministry of Health on the Zika virus. We have just allocated seven million to the regional corporations for clean-up, five hundred thousand per corporation. Funds are limited and I wanted to allocate one million each, but we werent able to get the funds. There will be a major clean-up campaign for white waste and containers that could possibly hold water, Minister Khan said. But not all corporation heads were happy with the allocation for Zika control. Premchand Sookhoo, chairman of the Penal/Debe Regional Corporation, stated he did not know of any allocation being made to the corporation. We have discovered several derelict vehicles to be removed; we have discovered there are several overgrown lots, abandoned lots, abandoned houses and the removal of solid waste, he said, adding that an effective figure for his corporation alone to combat Zika was $2.5 million. Mayor of Chaguanas, Gopaul Boodhan, said that while the $500,000 is insufficient, he appreciates the assistance from Government. Two weeks ago, we sent a supplementary budget for monies for the Zika campaign. What is happening, is that we, from our public health department, have intensified our campaign in terms of the entire Borough of Chaguanas. The Mayor said one of the ways the Chaguanas Borough Corporation plans to fight the virus is by instituting a Name and Shame program, whereby the name of the owner of derelict lot of land or house will be made known to the community in an effort to shame them into action to clean their property and reduce the breeding of mosquitoes which are the carriers of Zika and other diseases. San Fernando Mayor of San Fernando Kazim Hosein welcomed the $500,000, saying that he was quite grateful for the allocation and that if he had received only $100,000, he would have made it work. We are going to start on Monday. We put everything in place already and we are going to start four o clock on Monday evening. We are sensitizing the schools and raising awareness among everybody about keeping the premises clean. As I have said, we are going to start charging the owners for these lots, the San Fernando Mayor said. On Wednesday evening, Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh announced the first case of Zika in this country, that of a 61-year-old woman who had recently returned from New Zealand. Japanese tourists sail in The Asuka II docked at the Cruise Ship Complex in Port-of- Spain at about 7.28 am, with 500 passengers and 700 crew members aboard. The vessel is expected to leave Trinidad shores this afternoon. The crew members and visitors aboard the awarding-winning, luxury cruise line disembarked to explore the nations capital. The tourists were taken on a tour of the Port-of-Spain, Fort George, Angostura House and a Steelpan factory. A statement from the Tourism Development Company Limited (TDC) stated that the ships call to Trinidad is part of a world cruise with a 100-day itinerary that began in Tokyo, Japan. The ship came to Trinidad following an extensive South American itinerary from February 2, to 11, in Argentina and Brazil. When following her departure from Trinidad, the next stops on Asuka IIs itinerary are Curacao, and Panama. Around the city yesterday, large groups of Japanese nationals were seen taking photos with cameras and video recorders while others were seen shopping around the city. A resting post was set up in Woodford Square where several of the visitors were also seen sitting under a large tent provided by the TDC, taking shade from the blazing sun. TDCs officials were on spot assisting the visitors with information, and handing out maps of the island. At Woodford Square, the tourists relaxed under the close, watchful gaze of armed, uniformed police officers. Trini mom heading home with abducted children One of the children, aged four, was born here and the other, aged two, was born in Australia. Lacey came to Trinidad from Australia in 2013 and married an Arima woman, who after the birth of their first child, a girl, took them to Australia to live with him. The court ruling brought the curtain down on a bitter custody battle fought by the 36-year-old mother over the past three years. She was publicly accused by Lacey of abducting their children in March 2014, from Melbourne and bringing them back to Trinidad to live. Newsday was told that since the ruling, delivered last week Monday, the Trini mother and her children have been placed under protection of the Australian border police, in order to ensure their safe return to Trinidad. Lacey left Australia and came to Trinidad to work with a cellular networker provider. He met and got married to an Arimian and not longer after their daughter was born, they all left for Australia as Laceys contract ended. In March 2014, the woman flew back to Trinidad with both children, unknown to her husband. Lacey, on learning of this, arrived in Trinidad and issued a public appeal for his wife to return his children. He also petitioned the Australian Embassy in Trinidad to intervene. The embassy issued a statement to the media which was aired on local television news channels, that they had offered the Australian father legal advice on how to pursue his claim for custody. In June 2015, the father filed an application under the Hague Convention, Civil Aspects of Child Abduction, on the ground that his two children were abducted in Australia. The authorities in the Hague referred the matter to the Attorney Generals Office, Trinidad having been a signee to the Hague Convention on August 1, 2013, for the protection of children from abduction. The Single Fathers Association led by Rhondell Feeles, also got involved and issued a public appeal on behalf of Lacey, for the mother to return the children to the father. Proceedings were filed in the High Court, via the Attorney Generals Office, for a High Court judge to determine the issue of abduction. Madam Justice Betsy-Ann Lambert Peterson, presiding in the Family Court, ordered the mother to return the children. That ruling was appealed by the mother who petitioned the Court of Appeal for a stay of execution of the Order, but Justice Paula Mae Weekes, however, refused the stay. The mother did not give up her battle and she journeyed to Australia with the two children on November 16, 2015. Newsday learned that when she arrived there, an application in the Melbourne Circuit court to have the children placed on a watchlist, preventing them from leaving Australia, was listed for hearing. The children were immediately placed on a watchlist. The children were not be able to leave from any official port of entry, to return to Trindiad. Also engaging the attention of the judge in Melbourne, was an application by Lacey for custody. The mother challenged the application and on Carnival Monday, a judge in the Federal Circuit Court in Melbourne, granted her full custody of the children, on a consent order. According to the judges order, no visitation rights are to be granted to Lacey. Newsday learned yesterday that the mother has embarked on her journey to return with her children back to Trinidad. Suruj crashes PNM Meeting Rambachan cited the fact that he had lived in Avocat for most of his life and had served on the St Patrick County Council from 1983 to 1987 as two reasons for his interest in attending the meeting. In attendance at the forum were Dr Lackran Bodoe Fyzabad MP and UNC member; Nicole Olivierre, Minister of Energy; Edmund Dillon, Minister of National Security; Kazim Hosein Mayor of San Fernando and others. Rambachan, in support of some of the PNMs propositions for local government reform, said that like the PNM, the Peoples Partnership (PP) also had a vision for the improvement of local government. In fact, he asserted that it was not much different from the one that has been presented by the PNM, saying that a lot of the ruling partys proposals for change in local government to increase efficiency were contained in the PPs final document, especially legislative proposals. However, he lamented that, unfortunately, I spent only one year and two months in local government. But we also demonstrated during that period, that local government can perform if there is a shift in the consciousness of the people, at the Ministry of Local Government, not necessarily at the corporations alone, but at the Ministry of Local Government itself. Notably, he cited the construction of 31 pavilions as evidence of work that the PP had done. His assertions about progress made by his government was met with grumblings and calls for him to take his seat from the audience comprised of mainly Siparia residents. One attendee yelled, Time out! Another resident called on the moderator to silence Rambachan, pointing out that it was noted earlier that all comments should be kept short and no speeches given. A defiant Rambachan raged that, If it is that people do not want to listen to what I have to say, it shows their arrogance. I do not think this is a political affair. I think its an affair of being able to speak about important matters. I cant take my seatBut Im here as a member of the United National Congress and the Opposition and I intend to make my point! And no amount of shouting behind my back or insults will prevent me from doing it. I am going to do itYou need to do something with the attitude of people in the Ministry of Local GovernmentIf it is that the PNM people here want to say that the people of the Opposition have no place in the politics of the country they are wrong! Rural Development and Local Government Minister Franklin Khan, one of the speakers at the forum, chastised Rambachan for his PNM people remark and noted that if he does in fact, agree with the PNM on the need for local government reform, then they look forward to his vote in getting the reform bill passed in the Lower House. Khan reminded that with regard to the local government reform bill, it will be presented in Parliament in October or November. Asked later about whether or not he felt Mayor of Point Fortin Paul Clyde, should resign over his statements about the murder of Japanese national Asami Nagakiya, Khan who is also chairman of the PNM, declined comment. Earlier this week, Raymond Tim Kee, the PNMs Treasurer, resigned as Port-of-Spain Mayor following national outrage over remarks be made following Nagakiyas murder. Mayor Valentine ready to tackle Zika On Wednesday, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh reported the countrys first laboratory tested and confirmed case of the Zika Virus which is spread by the Aedes Aegypti mosquito which is prevalent in this country. He made the announcement at a Rapid Response Mosquito Eradication Exercise in Penal Rock Road, Penal. In a brief telephone interview yesterday, Mayor Valentine said with the high number of vacant, abandoned, empty and overgrown lots in the city which pose a serious hazard as breathing grounds for mosquitoes, they have begun addressing the issue. With immediate effect, we have received a communique from the Ministry of Health where some funds have been allocated to the Port-of- Spain Corporation to immediately treat with the issue. Our Public Health Department together with Engineering Department, we are going to embark on an immediate campaign, he said. He said they have started to deal with the matter because they do not want it to be a trouble throughout the city. We are dealing with that matter because we dont want it to be a trouble throughout the city for both our burgesses, residents and, of course, the transient population because more than 300 people visit, or conduct business in the city. All 12 electoral districts will be treated, the Mayor said. Valentine also indicated that they were going to aggressively tackle the clean-up campaign, and has stretched out the campaign for at least one month, ensuring cleaner spaces for both citizens, and visitors in the city. Finance, Legal Affairs JSC meets The committee is chaired by Independent Senator Sophia Chote SC. Other members of the committee include Public Administration Minister Randall Mitchell, Housing Minister Marlene McDonald and Opposition Senator Wayne Sturge. A statement issued yesterday by the Parliament said todays meeting with officials of the Judiciary is being held pursuant to the Committees inquiry into criminal case flow management in the judicial system. The House of Representatives will sit at 1.30 pm. During the sitting, Leader of Government Business Camille Robinson-Regis will move a motion that calls on the House to approve President Anthony Carmonas nomination of Dinanath Ramkissoon to be a member of the Police Service Commission (PSC). Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, who returned home last night from attending the 27th Inter-Sessional Caricom Heads of Government Conference in Belize, is also expected to make a statement regarding the restoration of historical buildings such as Presidents House, the Red House, Whitehall and the Mill Fleurs Building. Rowley is the chairman of a recently appointed ministerial committee to oversee the restoration of these buildings. Other members of the committee include Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi, Finance Minister Colm Imbert and Robinson-Regis. (GENEVA) Doctors Without Borders said on Thursday that it took the wrenching decision not to formally inform Syrias government or its Russian allies about the location of some medical facilities such as the one hit by a deadly airstrike this week, amid concerns that doing so could open them up to targeting amid recent violence that has killed many civilians. The charity, also known by its French acronym MSF, says repeated attacks against health facilities during Syrias five-year civil war have led medical staffers to ask the group not to provide the GPS coordinates of some sites. This was the case of the makeshift clinic run by the charity in the Syrian town of Maaret al-Numan, which was hit four times in attacks on Monday, killing at least 25 people. Deliberate attacks against civilian infrastructures, including hospitals struggling to provide life-saving assistance are routine, MSF International President Joanne Liu told reporters in Geneva. Health care in Syria is in the crosshair of bombs and missiles. It has collapsed. Let me be clear: Attacks on civilians and hospitals must stop. The normalization of such attacks is intolerable. Lius comments came as the U.N. made new aid deliveries to five besieged towns and said it plans additional deliveries, hopefully to the 4.6 million Syrians living in hard-to-reach and besieged areas, as called for in an agreement by 18 key nations in Munich on Feb. 12. That agreement also called for a cessation of hostilities within a week which would mean Thursday but there was no sign of a halt to fighting. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wants to see movement toward a de-escalation of violence and a cessation of hostilities as soon as possible. What weve seen recently goes against that, he said. We see very worrying escalation of military developments. MSFs Liu said the group has no certainty about who was responsible for the strikes, but the probability was that Syrian or Russian air power was to blame. She said MSFs policy of not informing Syrian or Russian officials about the location of health facilities has become a hot topic inside the organization. Also Thursday, the head of a U.N. task force on humanitarian aid for Syria said that 114 big trucks delivered life-saving supplies over the past 24 hours for 80,000 people in five besieged areas of the country. Jan Egeland called the deliveries a first step by the task force that was set up last week following a meeting of world and regional powers known as the International Syria Support Group. He said the supplies are enough to last about a month. Egeland said the aim is to reach other main besieged areas, or areas surrounded by government or opposition forces, and hard-to-reach places within the next week. He also expressed hopes for progress in air-dropping aid to Deir Ezzor, a city which is currently under siege by the extremist Islamic State group. The U.N. special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said from Damascus that the International Syria Support Group is very encouraged by the fact that the 114 trucks were able to reach 82,000 people in need and appealed for more such action. I must say that this was a difficult test for the United Nations to show they could do it, for the government and for the armed opposition, de Mistura was quoted as saying in a statement. Of course, we should go beyond that, we should go far beyond that in order to be able to reach everyone in Syria who is either besieged or in need of being assisted. He added that the idea of air drops in areas besieged by the Islamic State group and other factions has become a concrete proposal that the U.N. wants to work on. In New York, U.N. spokesman Dujarric told reporters Thursday that the World Food Program is considering using a Russian civilian contractor that has been used in the past in South Sudan, and that the contractor would be expected to seek instructions only from the United Nations. Russias deputy U.N. ambassador Vladimir Safronkov said Russian planes have been carrying out humanitarian air drops in Syria for a long time, and he welcomed the very important recognition that this may be the only way to supply aid to some areas. In Brussels, European Union leaders were expected to call on Russia and Syrian President Bashar Assads forces to halt attacks on moderate opposition groups and immediately end all airstrikes. A draft statement for their summit starting Thursday, seen by The Associated Press, calls on Russia and the Syrian regime to stop at once attacking moderate opposition groups and for an immediate cessation of aerial bombardments in civilian areas. MSF said that since the war broke out in 2011, the Syrian government has not granted permission for it to provide medical aid in the country, despite its repeated requests. Because of that, its work has been limited to areas held by opposition forces. After the latest strikes, MSF operations director Isabelle Defourny said she expects affiliated medical staffers in Syria will now ask that their locations be specified to government officials. We gave to the Russian ambassadors in Paris (and) in Geneva coordinates for three hospitals located in very intense conflict zones, but not for all of them, and it was a decision taken together with the medical staff of the health facilities that we support, she said. It was a huge discussion inside MSF and mainly with the medical directors of the health facilities that we support inside Syria, Defourny added. The staff of the hospital (and) the director of the hospital didnt know if they would be better protected if they give the GPS or not. She said the Maaret al-Numan hospital was widely known and had already been hit by strikes in the past. Those are not underground or invisible hospitals, she said of the medical sites, alluding to the difficulty of the decision not to formally identify its location. Even giving GPS coordinates is no guarantee of protection, she said, citing a deadly U.S. airstrike in October that destroyed a MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. That hospital had been identified to both Afghan and U.S. forces fighting an insurgency there. Also Thursday, MSF provided a report documenting war wounded and deaths that draws on information from 70 makeshift hospitals and clinics it works with in Syria. While only a small fraction of the health facilities in Syria, those medical facilities recorded a total of 7,009 people dead and 154,647 people wounded last year. The U.N. estimates that more than 250,000 people have been killed and at 11 million displaced from their homes during the war. ___ Up to 5,000 Isil-trained jihadists could be at large in Europe mikenova shared this story from World news. We can expect Isil or other terrorist groups to stage an attack in Europe, warns Rob Wainwright, the British head of Europol, the EU's police agency German government accuses Russian media of biased reporting mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. BERLIN (Reuters) - The German government on Friday accused Russia media of "biased reporting" on events such as the Ukraine crisis, reports on Russia's neighboring states and an allege... US says meeting for Syria cease-fire delayed, not canceled, as Russia claims - Washington Post mikenova shared this story from World - Google News. Washington Post US says meeting for Syria cease-fire delayed, not canceled, as Russia claims Washington Post BEIRUT A meeting of the international coordinating group charged with imp... Russia to call U.N. Security Council session on Syria on Friday mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's foreign ministry said it intends to call a session of the United Nations Security Council on Friday to discuss the Turkish government's statements about a p... Afghan teen charged with raping worker at Belgian asylum center mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A teenage Afghan immigrant has been charged with raping a female worker at an asylum seekers' center in Belgium, authorities said, prompting outrage from anti-immi... Behind Chinese Leaders Warm Visit, a Cold Reality mikenova shared this story from NYT > World. Bucolic scenes cast President Xi Jinping as a paternal leader in the mold of Mao, at home with rustic virtues, but those images do not match reality. Armed men attack army checkpoint in Mali, killing 2 soldiers mikenova shared this story from World. A Mali defense ministry official says armed men have attacked an army checkpoint outside the town of Menaka near the border with Niger, and a local official says two soldiers have been killed. Kosovo Opposition Releases Tear Gas in Parliament mikenova shared this story from NYT > World. Security officers wore gas masks while inspecting the Parliament building in Pristina, Kosovo, on Friday after opposition lawmakers disrupted the first session of the year by releasing tear... Xi Tours Chinese Top State Media, Demands Total Loyalty mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Chinese President Xi Jinping made a rare, high-profile tour of the country's top three state-run media outlets Friday, telling editors and reporters they must pledge absolute loyalty to t... Kurdish militant group claims responsibility for car bomb attack in Turkish capital mikenova shared this story from World. Kurdish militant group claims responsibility for car bomb attack in Turkish capital. In setback, Syrian peace talks not to resume next week - Washington Post mikenova shared this story from World - Google News. Washington Post In setback, Syrian peace talks not to resume next week Washington Post BEIRUT In another setback to international efforts to resolve Syria's devastating civil war, pe... Kurdish Militant Group Claims Ankara Car Bombing mikenova shared this story from World TIME. (ANKARA) A Kurdish militant group has claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack in the Turkish capital Ankara which killed 28 people. In a statement posted on its website, the Kurd... Saudi minister says Syrian rebels should get surface-to-air missiles mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. BERLIN (Reuters) - Moderate Syrian rebels should be supplied with surface-to-air missiles to defend against air strikes, Germany weekly Der Spiegel quoted Saudi Foreign Minister Adel a... Russian Duma Rejects Bill Criminalizing Gay 'Coming Out' mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Russia's lower house of parliament has rejected draft legislation that called for fines and arrests of people who publicly express their homosexuality. 1 in 3 Americans Not Getting Enough Sleep: Study mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. More than one out of three Americans are sleep-deprived, according to a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC. According to the CDCs Morbidity and Mortality... U.S.-backed fighters capture Islamic State-held town in northeast Syria: monitor mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. BEIRUT (Reuters) - A U.S.-backed alliance of Syrian fighters including the Kurdish YPG militia captured a strategic Islamic State-held town in Syria's northeast on Friday, the Syrian O... Hate Crimes Said Down In Russia As Kremlin Cracks Down On Nationalist Critics mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Researchers who track xenophobia in Russia have recorded an "impressive" decrease in hate crimes as the authorities appear to have stepped up pressure on far-right groups... Bomb Attacks in Turkey Fuel Erdogans Offensive Against Kurds mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Bombings in Turkey this week are escalating the conflict between Ankara and Kurdish separatists, as well as raising new questions of whom the United States is supporting in the Syrian co... Ex-Polish president Walesa denies he was a paid informant - Washington Post mikenova shared this story from World - Google News. Washington Post Ex-Polish president Walesa denies he was a paid informant Washington Post WARSAW, Poland Former Polish president Lech Walesa on Friday denied claims that he collabora... Albino Girl, 5, Kidnapped And Killed By Gunmen mikenova shared this story from World News - Breaking international news and headlines | Sky News. Armed men attacked the child's parents before taking her and police say she may have been dismembered for a witchcraft ritual. Intel senator: FBI's Apple strategy could backfire - The Hill mikenova shared this story from fbi - Google News. The Hill Intel senator: FBI's Apple strategy could backfire The Hill The FBI could end up driving terrorists further toward "going dark" by using a federal court to gain access... This is Apple's Most Likely Game Plan for Fighting The FBI - Fortune mikenova shared this story from fbi - Google News. Fortune This is Apple's Most Likely Game Plan for Fighting The FBI Fortune The FBI and prosecutors are seeking Apple's assistance to read the data on an iPhone 5C that had been used by R... Apple vs. FBI: Here's One Fact the Press Got Totally Wrong - Fortune mikenova shared this story from fbi - Google News. Fortune Apple vs. FBI : Here's One Fact the Press Got Totally Wrong Fortune At the heart of the misunderstanding is the difference between extracting data from an iPhone without unlockin... Turkey detains 3 more over suicide bombing that killed 28 mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes. Turkish authorities on Friday detained three more suspects in connection with the deadly bombing in Ankara that Turkey has blamed on Kurdish militants at home and in neighboring Syria, w... CIA has a program to recruit transgendered spooks - American Thinker (blog) mikenova shared this story from cia - Google News. CIA has a program to recruit transgendered spooks American Thinker (blog) I would be behind the CIA's diversity efforts if I could be convinced that they will enhance the agency's abilit... European spy agency to boost intel-sharing on militants mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes. European intelligence agencies plan to boost their fight against Islamic militants by creating a virtual network to share information among up to 30 countries, officials said Friday. How Obama changed America mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes. Marco Rubio was lambasted by his Republican competitors during a recent debate when he kept repeating a line about President Barack Obama trying to change America. They took him to tas... Apple gets more time to address order to unlock iPhone: reports mikenova shared this story from www.washingtontimes.com stories: Security. Tech giant Apple will reportedly get a three more days to respond to an order requiring the company to aid the FBI in hacking an iPhone belonging to one of the sh... US warplanes bomb ISIS base in Libya mikenova shared this story from DEBKAFile. February 19, 2016, 7:10 PM (IDT) At least 40 terrorists were killed in a US air strike Friday of an Islamic State base at Sabratha, west of the Libyan capital of Tripoli. American sources report... Justice Scalia's casket is put on view at the Supreme Court mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes News. Justice Antonin Scalia's flag-draped casket was placed in the U.S. Supreme Court's ceremonial hallway before a crowd of mourners that included somber and tearful colleagues, family ... 'Serial' podcast: Bergdahl feared his commander might kill him mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes. Bowe Bergdahl believed in an honor code that demanded action to right wrongs, no matter how futile the effort. He believed that a man should never bow to a corrupt system. And he also be... Actor Killed With Samurai Sword In Rehearsal mikenova shared this story . An actor has died after being stabbed in the stomach with a samurai sword during a theatre rehearsal in Japan. Tokyo police are investigating whether the death was criminal and do not know if the weapon was r... Kashin Explains His Letter to Leaders on Fontanka Office mikenova shared this story . Oleg Kashin (L) and Dmitry Medvedev (R) in Share 0 As we reported in recent weeks , prominent Russian blogger Oleg Kashin has revealed the identities of the men who brutally assaulted him in 2010 for his crit... middle east refugees as russia weapon against west - Google Search mikenova shared this story . Refugees are becoming Russia's weapon of choice in Syria ... www.theguardian.com World Russia Cached The Guardian Loading...... Today's Headlines and Commentary mikenova shared this story from Lawfare - Hard National Security Choices. Headlines continue to be dominated by the battle between the FBI and Apple taking place in the Central District of California. If youre just catching up, heres w... Isis suspects secretly monitored Belgian nuclear scientist, raising dirty bomb fears mikenova shared this story from The Independent - Europe. The scientist could be seen coming and going from his home during 10 hours of surveillance footage Refugees responsible for tiny proportion of sex crimes in Germany despite far-right claims following Cologne attacks mikenova shared this story from The Independent - Europe. Most crimes committed by migrants in 2015 were theft, counterfeiting and travelling on public transport without tickets Refugees weep as they are welcomed in Germany by mob shouting 'go home' mikenova shared this story from The Independent - Europe. The protesters shout 'we are the people' and 'go home' at the refugees Russia Law-Enforcers Clash in Airport Owner's Case - ABC News mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Russia Law-Enforcers Clash in Airport Owner's Case ABC News Russia's law enforcement agencies have clashed in court over the case of a billionaire owner of the nation's biggest airpor... Russia to initiate UN Security Council meeting over Turkey's plans to send troops to northern Syria - RT mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. RT Russia to initiate UN Security Council meeting over Turkey's plans to send troops to northern Syria RT Moscow is concerned about the escalation of tensions on the Syrian-Turkish bo... Can Scientists Prove Zika Virus Causing Birth Defects? mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Scientists suspect an outbreak of the Zika virus is behind a surge in a rare birth defect in Brazil. But how are they going to prove it? Authorities in the South American country were qui... Estonian Businessman Detained at Moscows Sheremetyevo Airport on Suspicion of Espionage mikenova shared this story from The Interpreter. LIVE UPDATES: An Estonian businessman was detained February 11 at Moscows Sheremetyovo Airport on suspicion of espionage Welcome to our column, Russia Update , where we will be clos... - .RU mikenova shared this story from Google. .RU .RU ... Is Russia 'Weaponizing Refugees' To Advance Its Geopolitical Goals? mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. A debate is emerging about whether the Kremlin is intentionally exacerbating Syria's humanitarian catastrophe or merely capitalizing on the tragedy. Even From Sidelines, US Governors Fixated on White House Race mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Nearly three-quarters of the nation's governors are gathering this weekend in Washington for wide-ranging discussions of public policy, including a heroin epidemic, the threat of terroris... Russia Calls For UN Session On Turkish Threat Of Syria Operation mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Russia's Foreign Ministry says it plans to call a session of the United Nations Security Council on February 19 to discuss statements by the Turkish government about a po... Big Tech Companies Join Apple in Encryption Fight mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. The tech industry is starting to line up with Apple in its fight against the federal government over the encryption it uses to keep iPhones secure. Earlier this week, a U.S. magistrate ... 'Everything Was Destroyed' -- Syrian Refugees Flee Air Strikes mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. With Syrian government forces advancing on the city of Aleppo, thousands of people have been fleeing north towards the Turkish border. Some have flooded into the Bab al-S... Russia, Saudi Arabia oil-production freeze 'a bunch of bull' mikenova shared this story from Business Insider. Reuters/Sergei Karpukhin Abdulrahman Al-Rassi, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Russia, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Tuesday, a group of countries that include Saudi Arabia and Russi... Post-war Iraq: 'Everybody is corrupt, from top to bottom. Including me' mikenova shared this story from Network Front | The Guardian. A corrupt political class has led a 13-year pillage on public money in the pursuit of power. As oil prices fall, further jeopardising the countrys revenues, there is little h... Turkey Blames Kurdish Militia for Ankara Attack, Challenging U.S. mikenova shared this story from NYT > Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In blaming a Syrian Kurdish militia supported by the United States, Turkey added urgency to a question its president asked about American support. Belgium Finds Video of Nuclear Official at Home of Terrorism Suspect mikenova shared this story from NYT > Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The footage indicated that the terrorist network involved in the Paris attacks on Nov. 13 may also have wanted to obtain radioactive material. Iran to Russia: Take $14bn and build us a modern army mikenova shared this story from DEBKAFile. February 19, 2016, 10:00 AM (IDT) Irans Defense Minister Gen. Hossein Dehghan arrived in Moscow this week at the head of a large military delegation and laid before President Vladimir Put... In Putins Shadow mikenova shared this story from Washington Free Beacon. Ever heard of the Republic of Gagauzia? I hadnt, as Im guessing is the case for most of us in the United States. Then again, before 2014 I was not aware that there existed enough ... Secret Memo Details U.S.'s Broader Strategy to Crack Phones - Bloomberg mikenova shared this story from james b. comey - Google News. Bloomberg Secret Memo Details U.S.'s Broader Strategy to Crack Phones Bloomberg But while the companies may have thought that was the final word, in fact the government was wo... U.S. airstrikes target Tunisian operative at ISIS camp in Libya: reports mikenova shared this story from www.washingtontimes.com stories: Security. WASHINGTON (AP) American warplanes struck The U.S. conducted airstrikes on an Islamic State training camp in Libya near the Tunisian border Friday, and a Tunisi... News Roundup and Notes: February 19, 2016 mikenova shared this story from Just Security. Nadia O'Mara Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Heres todays news. ANKARA BOMB ATTACK Turkeys ... European spy agency to boost intel-sharing on extremists mikenova shared this story from www.washingtontimes.com stories: Security. BERLIN (AP) - European intelligence agencies plan to boost their fight against Islamic militants by creating a virtual network to share information among up to 30... Islamic State increasingly using children in suicide missions mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes. There were at least 89 cases over the past year in which the Islamic State employed children or teenagers in suicide missions, according to new research that indicates the terrorist grou... Russia and Saudi Arabia's deal to freeze oil production is 'a bunch of bull' - Business Insider mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Business Insider Russia and Saudi Arabia's deal to freeze oil production is 'a bunch of bull' Business Insider Reuters/Sergei KarpukhinAbdulrahman Al-Rassi, Saudi Arabia's ambassador ... - mikenova shared this story from Google. . ... Dispute Over Kurds Threatens U.S.-Turkey Alliance mikenova shared this story from NYT > Russia. Here are five questions about the Kurds and their role in the rapidly evolving events in Syria and Turkey. Obamas Asia Pivot Increases US Influence But Fails to Stop China mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Five years after U.S. President Barack Obama committed to a strategic rebalance to Asia, shifting diplomatic and military resources to the globes economic engine, critics say the move wa... How ISIS Takes Revenge on Russia - Daily Beast mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Daily Beast How ISIS Takes Revenge on Russia Daily Beast CHERKESSK, Russia On a recent morning, armed and uniformed policemen patrolled nearly every block in downtown Cherkessk, the... When it comes to Russia, it's Munich all over again again - Reuters Blogs (blog) mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Reuters Blogs (blog) When it comes to Russia , it's Munich all over again again Reuters Blogs (blog) At the time, Putin insisted on a three-day buffer to give his proxies in Ukraine... Russia suspects Azerbaijan of re-exporting banned Turkish tomatoes - RT mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. RT Russia suspects Azerbaijan of re-exporting banned Turkish tomatoes RT "During the inspection to check whether Azerbaijan and Iran are fulfilling their obligations to prevent the ex... Putin's Syria campaign has drawn US focus back to Europe, says Polish official mikenova shared this story from Russia | The Guardian. Adviser to the Polish president says US realises pivot to Asia was a mistake as he urged west to be alert to Russian expansion Vladimir Putins new geopolitical ambitions have led ... : - - .RU mikenova shared this story from Google. . : - .RU - , ... Russia says international meeting for Syria cease-fire cancelled - Washington Post mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Washington Post Russia says international meeting for Syria cease-fire cancelled Washington Post BEIRUT A meeting of the international coordinating group charged with implementing a... - mikenova shared this story from Google. 53- . ... Obama Has Higher Opinion of Russian Army Than Russian Military Official mikenova shared this story from The Moscow Times Top Stories. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who oversees the Russian defense industry, ranks the Russian army lower than U.S. President Barack Obama does. Putin's Pre-emptive Strike: Kremlin Moves to Liquidate 'Foreign Agents' mikenova shared this story from The Moscow Times Top Stories. Kremlin officials insisted the "foreign agent" label did not mean an organization should automatically close its doors, but the moves this month would seem to suggest that pos... Russia wants to modify Cold War missiles to destroy asteroids - CNN mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. CNN Russia wants to modify Cold War missiles to destroy asteroids CNN Its 2016 threat assessment says that Russia continues "to pursue weapons systems capable of destroying satel... - . mikenova shared this story from Google. . . . . ... Triggered Avalanche Kills One In Russia's Far North mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. At least one person was killed by an intentionally triggered snow slide in the Russian town of Kirovsk in Murmansk Oblast. Exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky: I have no obligations to Putin mikenova shared this story from Russia | The Guardian. Outlining plans to back Russian opposition groups, Khodorkovsky pardoned in 2013 says said he never agreed to stay out of politics The exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky has sa... Western Libya Airstrike Kills 40 mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. U.S. warplanes have carried out airstrikes on an Islamic State training camp in western Libya near the country's border with Tunisia, according to U.S. officials. The strike early Friday ... Sex, syringes and the HIV epidemic Russia can no longer ignore | Alec Luhn mikenova shared this story from Russia | The Guardian. With Russias HIV infection rate continuing to spiral, activists say the state can no longer drag its heels over improved treatment and prevention measures Taking shelter briefly fro... German exports to Russia set to fall to 10-year low - Channel News Asia mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Channel News Asia German exports to Russia set to fall to 10-year low Channel News Asia BERLIN: German businesses are expecting to see a further drop in exports to Russia this year to... 6 Times Patriarch Kirill Entertained the RuNet This Week mikenova shared this story from The Moscow Times Top Stories. This week saw an historic meeting between the heads of the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. Then, Patriarch Kirill went to visit some penguins. Russian Analyst Flees Country Fearing 'Persecution' mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. A prominent Russian political analyst known for his critical stance toward the Kremlin has left Russia "fearing possible persecution," his lawyer said. OUTRAGEOUS VIDEO: NYC Sanitation Workers Throw Cases of ... mikenova shared this story from world news - Google Blog Search. The attached video is one of the most shocking and outrageous videos we have ever seen. YWN has not been able to verify where or when this was taken, but you will probably ... VIDEO: Can a modern plane be remotely hacked? mikenova shared this story from BBC News - World. Cyber-security is one of the hot topics at Asia's biggest airshow, currently underway in Singapore. Polish Hero Lech Walesa Denies Being a Paid Communist Informant mikenova shared this story from World TIME. More Poland Reopens Investigation of 2010 Plane Crash That Killed Its President The E.U. Is Contemplating Legal Action Over Polands New Media Law Controversial Legal Reforms in Poland ... Biden Commends Poroshenko For Anticorruption Efforts mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and commended him for passing anti-corruption legislation sought by the International Monetary F... EU and Turkey to hold a migrant summit mikenova shared this story from World news. Special meeting planned for next month to discuss cooperation in curbing flow of migrants E.U. to Hold Emergency Migration Summit With Turkey in Early March mikenova shared this story from World TIME. (BRUSSELS) The European Union has called an extraordinary summit with Turkey for early March to coordinate efforts to stem the flow of migrants across the Aegean into Greece. EU Counc... In Defense of Trump, Some Point (Wrongly) to Vatican Walls mikenova shared this story from NYT > World. Scholars say a basic misunderstanding of the geography and history of Vatican City is at the center of criticism that the pope is being hypocritical in his remarks about Donald Trumps call... Russia government mulls five percent cut in defense procurement spending: sources mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's government is considering cutting spending on defense procurement this year by 5 percent, four official sources told Reuters, a move that would extend the b... Mourners to pay respects Friday to late Justice Scalia mikenova shared this story from AP Top News at 9:05 a.m. EST. WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a day of ceremony and tribute, the casket carrying Justice Antonin Scalia will lie in repose at the Supreme Court where he spent nearly three decades as ... Eyewitness: Helicopter fell from sky into Pearl Harbor - Hawaii News Now mikenova shared this story from World - Google News. Hawaii News Now Eyewitness: Helicopter fell from sky into Pearl Harbor Hawaii News Now (Shawn Winrich via the AP). In this image taken from video provided by Shawn Winrich, a helicopte... U.S. Russia talks on Syria - Google Search mikenova shared this story . US and Russia hold talks on Syria ceasefire ahead of UN meeting Reuters - 4 hours ago "The idea of the whole exercise is for Russia and the United States to have a ... Resuming Syrian peace talks on the sched... U.S. and Russia hold talks on Syria ceasefire ahead of U.N. meeting mikenova shared this story . &amp;amp;lt;iframe src="//www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-W9SLGS" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden"&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;/iframe&... Report: Turkey presses ahead with cross-border shelling mikenova shared this story from World. Turkeys state-run news agency says the Turkish military is pushing ahead with its cross-border artillery shelling campaign against U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish militia positions in Syria. Finnish Court OKs Extradition Of Russian Opposition Figure mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. The Supreme Court of Finland has ruled that Russian opposition activist Vasily Popov can be extradited to Russia. US and Russia hold talks on Syria ceasefire ahead of UN meeting - Reuters mikenova shared this story from World - Google News. Reuters US and Russia hold talks on Syria ceasefire ahead of UN meeting Reuters GENEVA U.S. and Russian military officials have held talks in Geneva ahead of a wider meeting on Friday ... Chechen Separatist Leader: Kadyrov Is Here To Stay mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. The exiled head of the Chechen separatist government says strongman Ramzan Kadyrov is now so powerful that the Kremlin may have difficulty removing him. Akhmed Zakayev ac... Walesa Denies he Informed Regime on Others or Took Money mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Lech Walesa, Poland's legendary anti-communist leader and former president, denies he informed on people to the communist regime or took money from the secret security service. He was rea... US Strikes ISIS Camp in Libya, Killing More Than 30 - New York Times mikenova shared this story from World - Google News. NBCNews.com US Strikes ISIS Camp in Libya, Killing More Than 30 New York Times WASHINGTON American warplanes struck an Islamic State camp in Libya early Friday, targeting a senior Tu... Israeli military leaders warn troops not to be 'trigger happy' as Palestinian attacks continue mikenova shared this story from World news. Chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot and defence minister Moshe Ya'alon caution about lethal force against Palestinian teenagers armed with knives or scissors Russia warns Assad against trying to achieve total victory mikenova shared this story from World news. Moscow's UN envoy criticises Syrian leader for claiming he can retake the whole country and says he has to 'follow Russia's leadership' McAfee offers to unlock iPhone for FBI mikenova shared this story from BBC News - World. Anti-virus creator John McAfee has claimed he can break the encryption on an iPhone that belonged to San Bernardino killer Syed Farook. Moscow Stores Evacuated Following Bomb Threats mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. More than 20,000 people were evacuated from the stores of the Auchan supermarket chain in Moscow, after several bomb threats were received. U.S. Warplanes Hit Multiple ISIS Targets in Libya mikenova shared this story from World TIME. More (WASHINGTON)American warplanes struck multiple targets in Libya overnight, hitting what was apparently an ISIS training camp and a senior extremist leader, a U.S. official said Friday. ... Officials: US Warplanes Strike IS Facility in Libya - ABC News mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. CBS News Officials: US Warplanes Strike IS Facility in Libya ABC News American warplanes struck multiple targets in Libya overnight, hitting an Islamic State training camp and a ... Turkey's Erdogan says saddened by U.S. arming of Syrian Kurdish militia mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he was saddened by the West's refusal to call the Syrian Kurdish PYD a terrorist group and would speak with U.S. President Ba... UN Envoy: Syrian Peace Talks Will Not Resume Next Week - New York Times mikenova shared this story from World - Google News. Washington Post seattlepi.com UN Envoy: Syrian Peace Talks Will Not Resume Next Week New York Times BEIRUT The U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said that peace talks w... Saudi Arabia says suspends $3 billion package to Lebanese army, aid to security forces mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has suspended a $3 billion aid package for the Lebanese army to buy French weapons, state news agency SPA reported on Friday. Palestinian Shot and Killed After Stabbing Israeli Officers mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. A Palestinian stabbed two Israeli police officers before he was shot and killed at a main entrance to Jerusalem's Old City, police said Friday. Spokeswoman Luba Samri said the 20-year-o... Saudi Arabia halts $3B Lebanese arms deal amid Iran dispute mikenova shared this story from World. Saudi Arabias state-run news agency says kingdom is halting $3 billion arms deal with Lebanon over the Mediterranean countrys recent diplomatic positions a veiled reference to the kingdoms spat... European Divisions Drive Munich Conference, While Russia Circles mikenova shared this story . By Matthew Bodner, Defense News 8:38 p.m. EST February 18, 2016 US Secretary of State John Kerry, right, talks to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko at the Security Conference in Munich. (Photo: Matthias Sc... U.S. quietly tells Russia where American troops are located inside Syria mikenova shared this story . By Andrew Tilghman, Military Times 4:45 p.m. EST February 18, 2016 A Russian bomber lands at Hemeimeem Air Base in Syria on Jan. 20. The U.S. military told the Russians where American special forces troops ar... Russia seizes upper hand as US flounders in Syria - News mikenova shared this story from [Untitled]. STUTTGART, Germany Unity between air and ground forces and a clear objective have enabled the Russians to turn the tide of the Syrian civil war, reverse the fortunes of their longtime a... [Analysis] Russia's Syria tactics imperil EU-Turkey migrant plan - EUobserver mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. EUobserver [Analysis] Russia's Syria tactics imperil EU-Turkey migrant plan EUobserver Events in Syria raise doubts as to whether the EU-Turkey migrant plan is still relevant. They sh... Russia seizes upper hand as US flounders in Syria - Stars and Stripes mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Stars and Stripes Russia seizes upper hand as US flounders in Syria Stars and Stripes Russia has promised to protect Kurdish fighters in Syria in case of a ground offensive by Turkey,... U.S. quietly tells Russia where American troops are located inside Syria - Military Times mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Military Times U.S. quietly tells Russia where American troops are located inside Syria Military Times The Pentagon told the Russian military where U.S. Special Forces are located in ... European Divisions Drive Munich Conference, While Russia Circles - DefenseNews.com mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. DefenseNews.com European Divisions Drive Munich Conference, While Russia Circles DefenseNews.com MUNICH In the best of times, the annual Munich Security Conference serves as an alta... Donald Trump Fires Back at Sharp Rebuke by Pope Francis mikenova shared this story from NYT > Europe. Mr. Trumps attack on Francis reflected a political calculation that criticizing the pope will not hurt him with conservatives and might even improve his standing in South Carolina. World Briefing: Ukraine: Governing Coalition Splinters mikenova shared this story from NYT > Europe. The governing coalition lost its majority in Parliament after a second faction bailed out. Agreement Clears the Way for Airdrops of Humanitarian Aid in Syria mikenova shared this story from NYT > Russia. The United Nations World Food Program will start its first airdrops in Syria in coming days, using aircraft provided by a Russian contractor. North Korea satellite tumbling in orbit again: U.S. sources mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Koreas recently launched satellite is once again tumbling in orbit, after stabilizing briefly, according to a U.S. official and other sources. Russian arms sale to Iran without approval would violate ban: U.S mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A reported sale of Russian combat aircraft to Iran would violate a U.N. arms embargo if it occurred without advance U.N. Security Council approval, the U.S. Stat... US, Russia Launch Effort for Long-Term Syria Cease-fire mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. The U.S. and Russia will launch an effort Friday that could bring long-term stability to efforts to get humanitarian aid to besieged areas of Syria. The two countries, under the auspices ... As Drones Explode in Popularity, Potential Benefits, Dangers Emerge mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. An estimated 1 million drones were sold over the 2015 Christmas holiday period in the United States alone. The explosion in their popularity - and their plummeting price tag - has prompte... The Syrian Refugees Trapped Between an Angry Turkey and a Vengeful Assad mikenova shared this story from World TIME. More Syrian With Kurdish Links Behind Deadly Ankara Car Bomb, Turkey Says Germany Revives Calls for No-Fly Zone in Northern Syria Exclusive: Russias Prime Minister on Syria, Sanctions ... New West Bank Violence as Palestinian Boys Stab 2 Israelis mikenova shared this story from NYT > World. Israeli security forces at a supermarket in the occupied West Bank after two Palestinians stabbed two Israeli men on Thursday. One of the victims, an off-duty soldier, was killed. Biden welcomes passage of Ukraine reforms in call with Poroshenko: White House mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, in a telephone call on Thursday, commended Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko on the passage of anti-corruption legislation soug... Pentagon Asks Russia to Avoid Parts of Syria to Protect US Forces mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. The Pentagon has asked Russia to stay away from parts of northern Syria to protect U.S. Special Operations Forces there, according to military officials. The acknowledgment shows a level ... Police Seek Suspect After Fatal Brooklyn Shooting mikenova shared this story from NYT > N.Y. / Region. The victim was shot during an argument outside an apartment building that has a history of drug activity, the authorities said. MSF stops sharing Syria hospital locations after 'deliberate' attacks mikenova shared this story from Russia | The Guardian. Medecins Sans Frontieres believes giving GPS coordinates of its facilities to Assad and Russian forces increases chance of direct targeting Hospitals in opposition-held parts of Syri... . ? - 18 , 2016 mikenova shared this story from - . - . ... Pentagon: US has told Russia where US special forces are in Syria - Washington Post mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Washington Post Pentagon: US has told Russia where US special forces are in Syria Washington Post In October, roughly a month after Russia started airstrikes in Syria, the Pentagon an... Barclays Hints That Russia's Economy May Have Finally Bottomed - Forbes mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Forbes Barclays Hints That Russia's Economy May Have Finally Bottomed Forbes It's as close to a bottom call on Russia's two-year economic crisis as any. London-based Daniel Hewitt of ... The Guardian view on Turkeys Kurdish policies: compounding the regions troubles | Editorial mikenova shared this story from Russia | The Guardian. This weeks bombings in Turkey show that the country must radically realign its policies around the pursuit of peace with its own Kurds Turkeys misguided policies have been taking t... Poland to change its street names in bid to 'de-communise' the country mikenova shared this story from Russian news, all the latest and breaking Russia news. Experts say there are around 1,500 street names across the country which could be changed due to a ban on the promotion of totalitarian systems such a... ? mikenova shared this story from SvobodaRadio's YouTube Videos. From: SvobodaRadio Duration: 53:52 - . ... Unanswered Questions: FBI Hasn't Ruled Out 3rd Militant in San Bernardino Killings - ABC News mikenova shared this story from fbi - Google News. Unanswered Questions: FBI Hasn't Ruled Out 3rd Militant in San Bernardino Killings ABC News More than two months after a jihadi couple opened fire at a holiday party at the Inland Region... Scottish teen accused of hacking FBI computers: reports mikenova shared this story from www.washingtontimes.com stories: Security. A Scottish teenager was arrested in Glasgow on Tuesday and is being investigated for allegedly hacking into a computer system used by the FBI. Local police appreh... Radioactive material missing from Iraq mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes News. A Texas-based oil well firm said Thursday it was not at fault after radioactive material was reported missing from a storage bunker in southern Iraq. Have a slumber party with penguins in San Francisco mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes. Nearly once a month, the natural history museum in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park transforms into a sleepover science camp. The Penguins + Pajamas event, now in its sixth year, starts ... NY testing water near former Long Island plant contamination mikenova shared this story from In Homeland Security. Long Island: An underground toxic groundwater plume is believed to be spreading, potentially posing a risk to the drinking water of nearby communities. U.S. Told Russia Location of Special Forces in Syria mikenova shared this story from Washington Free Beacon. Russia knows where U.S. special forces are operating in Syria because the United States informed the Russians of their general location. The Washington Post reported that Air For... Venezuela Says Inflation Rose to 180.9% in 2015 mikenova shared this story from WSJ.com: World News. Venezuelas central bank said inflation last year surged to 180.9% and the economy contracted by 5.7%, reflecting the countrys deep economic crisis. US Airstrikes Destroy More Than $500 Million in ISIS Cash Reserves - ABC News mikenova shared this story from World - Google News. The Sun US Airstrikes Destroy More Than $500 Million in ISIS Cash Reserves ABC News The U.S. believes that airstrikes in Iraq and Syria have destroyed more than $500 million in cash th... Iran Proposes Nuclear Cooperation With Hungary mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Iran has proposed a project with Hungary to design and develop a small nuclear reactor that could be sold across Asia and Africa and built in the Islamic republic. OPEC Oil Production Freezes Could Impact Global Markets mikenova shared this story from World TIME. More How a Little-Known Federal Agency Has Slowed New Oil and Gas Drilling Traditional Energy Industry Declares War on Solar Energy Defying skepticism that their countries could agree on any ... Colombian medias airing of secret sex tape stirs debate mikenova shared this story from World. The broadcast of a secretly shot video in which a prominent Colombian politician discusses sexual encounters with other men is prompting a debate about homophobia and journalistic ethics in the Sout... Israeli stabbed to death in West Bank mikenova shared this story from BBC News - World. An Israeli man has been stabbed to death by two Palestinian teenagers in the occupied West Bank, officials say. Informant claims unlikely to alter Polish view of Walesa mikenova shared this story from BBC News - World. Poles unlikely to change minds over Lech Walesa Boutros Boutros-Ghalis Secret Career as KGB Double Spy and Agent | Israel mikenova shared this story . Boutros Boutros-Ghali was never caught out in his clandestine role as a faithful Russian double spy and agent, during which he surreptitiously subverted US interests in one international crisis after another. Preparing To Watch the Saudi Monarchy Get Flushed Into the Septic Tank of History mikenova shared this story from ThereAreNoSunglasses. Start Preparing for the Collapse of the Saudi Kingdom By Sarah Chayes, Alex de Waal Saudi Arabia is no state at all. Its an unstable business so corrupt to resemble a criminal ... Obama Admin Could Halt New Iran-Russia Weapons Deals mikenova shared this story from Washington Free Beacon. The United States has the authority to block new multi-billion dollar arms deals between Iran and Russia though the administration is not expected to exercise this authority, which ... UN chief warns military action risks derailing Syria talks mikenova shared this story from World. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is warning that escalating military activity in Syria and threats of further use of force risk derailing efforts to reconvene peace talks and finding a political soluti... Official: Evidence shows former Polish president Lech Walesa was communist-era informant mikenova shared this story from World. Official: Evidence shows former Polish president Lech Walesa was communist-era informant. Pope Francis Joins the 2016 Race at Key Time mikenova shared this story from World TIME. More See Presidential Candidates Say Whether Scalia Should Be Replaced Artist Behind Obama Hope Poster Makes a Bernie Sanders Design The feud between Pope Francis and Donald Tru... Severed Human Legs Found In Oz Rubbish Dump mikenova shared this story from World News - Breaking international news and headlines | Sky News. New South Wales police said the legs had been surgically removed but it was not clear if they belonged to the same person. Ankara Blast: Turkey Retaliates With Airstrikes mikenova shared this story from World News - Breaking international news and headlines | Sky News. Turkish warplanes have bombed Kurdish militant camps in northern Iraq - as an explosion hit a military convoy in southeast Turkey. Islamic State Twitter Reach Is 'Declining' mikenova shared this story from World News - Breaking international news and headlines | Sky News. The social network has suspended thousands of accounts associated with the terrorist group, limiting their growth, a report says. Wreckage of military convoy after bomb attack in south-east Turkey video mikenova shared this story from World news + Video | The Guardian. Footage shows the aftermath of a bomb attack on a military convoy in Turkeys mainly Kurdish south-east on Thursday , which killed six Turkish security force members and ... Baby dolphin dies after being paraded on beach for photographs mikenova shared this story from World news. Wildlife group warns holidaymakers that the vulnerable mammals should be returned to sea if they get too close to shore after animal dies at Argentine resort Trial begins of woman accused of cutting unborn baby from womb mikenova shared this story from World news. Colorado woman Michelle Wilkins tells court she tried to fight back in assault after responding to Craigslist ad, as details emerge about attacker's obsession with pregnancy Average Mohamed: The cartoon character fighting Islamic State mikenova shared this story from World news. Somali-American Mohamed Ahmed creates cartoon character to fight radicalisation Grace Kelly: her amazing life in pictures mikenova shared this story from World news. In pictures: the extraordinary life and career of Grace Kelly, film star and princess Spanish writer could face charges over 'vagina poem' based on Lord's Prayer mikenova shared this story from World news. Dolors Miquel reported to Spanish prosecutors for reading out a 'blasphemous' version of the Lord's Prayer written in praise of the vagina at an awards ceremony Boutros Boutros-Ghali remembered for tumultuous term as UN head (+video) - Christian Science Monitor mikenova shared this story from World - Google News. Christian Science Monitor Boutros Boutros-Ghali remembered for tumultuous term as UN head (+video) Christian Science Monitor He worked to establish the UN's independence, particularly ... Another faction quits Ukraine's governing coalition - Washington Post mikenova shared this story from World - Google News. Washington Post Another faction quits Ukraine's governing coalition Washington Post MINSK, Belarus Ukraine sank deeper into political turmoil Thursday as the governing coalition lost... Cruz tops GOP field for first time in new national poll; voters split over Supreme Court vote - CNN mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. CNN Cruz tops GOP field for first time in new national poll; voters split over Supreme Court vote CNN Washington (CNN) Ted Cruz has inched ahead of Donald Trump in a new national... UN: Nearly 50 civilians killed in Syria by airstrikes on hospitals, schools - THV11.com mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. THV11.com UN: Nearly 50 civilians killed in Syria by airstrikes on hospitals, schools THV11.com The United Nations said nearly 50 civilians were killed Monday in missile strikes ... Lech Walesa Was Paid Informant to Communist Regime: Documents - NBCNews.com mikenova shared this story from Top Stories - Google News. NBCNews.com Lech Walesa Was Paid Informant to Communist Regime: Documents NBCNews.com Seized documents show that Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Walesa was a paid informant for Pol... Islamic State finds 'diminishing returns' on Twitter: report mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Islamic State's English-language reach on Twitter has stalled in recent months amid a stepped-up crackdown against the extremist group's army of digital pros... Turkish army bombs Kurdish militant PKK camps in northern Iraq: sources mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. DIYARBAKIR (Reuters) - Turkish warplanes bombed camps belonging to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq late on Wednesday, security sources said, following a car... Syrian army says it captured strategic town in coastal area mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. AMMAN (Reuters) - The Syrian army backed by heavy Russian aerial bombing said on Thursday it had captured the town of Kansaba in the northern countryside of the coastal province of Lat... Poland's Walesa says will defend himself in court against new communist spy allegations mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's Lech Walesa, who shot to world fame for his role in the collapse of communism, promised on Thursday to defend himself in court against new allegations that ... Moscow expects explanation from Saudis over participation in Syria operation: TASS mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow expects an explanation from Saudi Arabia over plans to participate in the "anti-terrorist" operation against Islamic State in Syria, Russia's Deputy Foreign M... Russia warns Assad not to snub Syria ceasefire plan mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. MOSCOW (Reuters) - President Bashar al-Assad was out of step with the views of his main ally, Russia, when he said he planned to fight on until he re-established control over all of Sy... Palestinian teens stab, kill Israeli in West Bank supermarket mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Two Palestinian 14-year-olds stabbed and killed an Israeli in a packed supermarket in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, Israeli and Palestinian officials said, ... Turkey Bombs Kurdish Positions In Iraq After Ankara Blast mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Turkey says its warplanes have bombed Kurdish positions across the border in northern Iraq, following a deadly bomb attack in the Turkish capital. Car bomb kills 28 in Turkish capital mikenova shared this story from itnnews's YouTube Videos. From: itnnews Duration: 01:47 A car bomb was detonated near parliament in the Turkish capital of Ankara. . Report by Lydia Batham. Turkey vows revenge after deadly blast mikenova shared this story from BBC News - World. Turkey vows to retaliate against the perpetrators of a powerful blast in the capital Ankara that left at least 28 people dead and 61 injured. Orthodox patriarch walks with penguins mikenova shared this story from BBC News - World. The head of Russia's Orthodox Church follows his historic talks with Pope Francis by meeting a rookery of penguins in Antarctica. Iran proposes nuclear power cooperation with Hungary mikenova shared this story from Reuters: World News. BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Iran has proposed a project with Hungary to design and develop a small nuclear reactor that could be sold across Asia and Africa and also built in the Islamic repu... Drone harassment legislation passes judiciary committee - messenger-inquirer mikenova shared this story from house judiciary committee - Google News. Drone harassment legislation passes judiciary committee messenger-inquirer On a partisan vote, the Democratic majority of the House judiciary committee approved Hou... Iraq to shrink paramilitary forces due to shortage of funds mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes. The Iraqi government has decided to cut the number of state-financed paramilitary forces due to a shortage of funds as the international oil price declines, a spokesman for a leading pre... Netanyahu's envoy Gold, Russian FM discuss S. Syria situation mikenova shared this story from DEBKAFile. February 18, 2016, 5:38 PM (IDT) Dore Gold, director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Thursday afternoon to discuss the situa... A nervous Saudi Arabia just launched a massive military exercise - Business Insider mikenova shared this story from Cyber Warfare - Google News. Business Insider A nervous Saudi Arabia just launched a massive military exercise Business Insider Saudi Arabia military parade Ahmad Masood/REUTERSMembers of Saudi security fo... US: Russian fighter jet sale to Iran would violate arms ban mikenova shared this story from www.washingtontimes.com stories: Security. WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. says Russia's proposed sale of fighter jets to Iran would violate a U.N. arms embargo extended as part of the nuclear accord with Tehra... Hollywood hospital pays nearly $17K ransom after hackers seize computer files mikenova shared this story from www.washingtontimes.com stories: Security. Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles paid a ransom of nearly $17,000 in order to regain control of a computer system that had been compromised in ... So-called 'Islamic rape of Europe' part of a long, racist history mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes. A popular right-wing Polish newsweekly, wSieci or "The Network," published a deeply provocative magazine cover this week. It shows a young blonde woman, garbed loosely in the flag of the... US asked Russia not to bomb near US commandos in Syria mikenova shared this story from www.washingtontimes.com stories: Security. WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. defense officials say the U.S. has asked Russia to avoid airstrikes in an area of northern Syria where American special operations forces h... Obama to Meet with Black Lives Matter Leader, Rev. Al Sharpton at the White House - PJ Media mikenova shared this story from james b. comey - Google News. PJ Media Obama to Meet with Black Lives Matter Leader, Rev. Al Sharpton at the White House PJ Media President Barack Obama will be meeting Thursday with DeRay McKesson, a Blac... More Russian T-90 Tanks & MRLS Bring Extra Punch to Aleppo Offensive mikenova shared this story from DEBKAFile. February 18, 2016, 7:37 PM (IDT) A massive Russian air and sea lift is under way with large numbers of T-90 tanks and MRLS added to the northern Syrian front to speed the offensive for retaking ... Putin Snubs Iran on Advanced Tungsten for Nuclear-Capable Ballistic Missile mikenova shared this story from DEBKAFile. February 18, 2016, 7:37 PM (IDT) The Iranian defense ministers temper tantrum over Putins refusal to sell advanced tungsten for Iranian nuclear-capable ICBMs ended in Russia delayi... US & Israel Scale Down Air Exercise over Russian Electronic Surveillance from Syria mikenova shared this story from DEBKAFile. February 18, 2016, 7:37 PM (IDT) Obama used the pretext of Russian Syria-based electronic surveillance to cut back both on the joint exercise and defense assistance to Israel. Turkey and Saudi Arabia Talk Big, But Are Peripheral to Syrian Crisis mikenova shared this story from DEBKAFile. February 18, 2016, 7:37 PM (IDT) Obama and Putin have no intention of cutting Turkey and Saudi Arabia into their joint plans for the Syrian military conflict or future. Erdogan, while bitterly o... Boutros Boutros-Ghalis Secret Career as KGB Double Spy and Agent mikenova shared this story from DEBKAFile. February 18, 2016, 7:37 PM (IDT) Boutros Boutros-Ghali was never caught out in his clandestine role as a faithful Russian double spy and agent, during which he surreptitiously subverted US inter... Iran Sees Oil Freeze Pact As Not Enough To Help Market mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Iran believes a global agreement to freeze oil output will not be enough to help prop up prices as the world is producing too much crude, Iranian oil sources told Reuters. Iranian Oil Min... Most Americans Still View Russia Unfavorably Amid Conflicts In Syria, Ukraine, Poll Finds - International Business Times mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. International Business Times Most Americans Still View Russia Unfavorably Amid Conflicts In Syria, Ukraine, Poll Finds International Business Times Russia People wave U.S. flags durin... Kurds Warn Turkey of 'Big War' With Russia If Troops Enter Syria - Bloomberg mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Bloomberg Kurds Warn Turkey of 'Big `Big War' With Russia If Troops Enter Invades Syria Bloomberg Russia has promised to protect Kurdish fighters in Syria in case of a ground offensiv... The Problem With ISIS mikenova shared this story from Latest From the Wilson Center. The recent Congressional testimony of Director of National Intelligence James Clapper sharply frames the conundrum the United States faces when countering the Islamic State... : , - .RU mikenova shared this story from Google. .RU : , .RU ... Ukraine Seeks to Prove $3Bln Russian Debt Was Bribe mikenova shared this story from The Moscow Times Top Stories. Ukraine is set to prove in court that the $3 billion Russian loan Kiev failed to repay was a bribe, the Ukrinform news agency reported Thursday, citing Ukrainian Foreign Minis... Russia's Future Lies With Europe and the West - Huffington Post mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Huffington Post Russia's Future Lies With Europe and the West Huffington Post Like many high officials, the Polish foreign minister is now calling for NATO troops to deploy to the bor... Taliban Militants Kill 9 Pakistani Security Personnel mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. Taliban militants have claimed responsibility for killing nine Pakistani security troops in two overnight attacks in a restive tribal territory bordering Afghanistan. Officials in the sem... Owner of Moscow's Domodedovo Airport Arrested mikenova shared this story from The Moscow Times Top Stories. Dmitry Kamenshik, the owner of Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, was arrested on Thursday as part of the investigation into the 2011 terrorist attack on the airport. U.S. Criticizes Proposed Russian Sale Of Warplanes To Iran mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. The United States says Russia's proposed sale of fighter jets to Iran would violate a UN arms embargo extended as part of the nuclear accord with Tehran. Russia warns Assad not to snub Syria ceasefire plan - Reuters mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Reuters Russia warns Assad not to snub Syria ceasefire plan Reuters MOSCOW President Bashar al-Assad was out of step with the views of his main ally, Russia , when he said he planned ... Pentagon Sets Date for Change of Command in Afghanistan mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. The change of command for U.S. Gen. John Campbell, the leading American general in Afghanistan, and his replacement, Lt. Gen. John "Mick" Nicholson, is set for March 2, Campbell's top spo... Russia to Israel: Reservations About Rapprochement Deal With Turkey - Haaretz mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Haaretz Russia to Israel: Reservations About Rapprochement Deal With Turkey Haaretz Russia to Israel: Reservations About Rapprochement Deal With Turkey. Since the downing of a Russian... Brutal Prison Torture Videos Spark Russian Investigation mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Russian authorities say they are investigating the alleged torture of a prison inmate in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg after a local news portal published disturbing fo... Teen jailed for murder of gay man in which he 'wrapped a snake' around victim's neck mikenova shared this story from The Independent - Europe. The young man has been sentenced to four years and will be deported from the country once he has served his time mikenova shared this story from golosamerikius's YouTube Videos. From: golosamerikius Duration: 02:49 : . . Ori... mikenova shared this story from golosamerikius's YouTube Videos. From: golosamerikius Duration: 01:45 , Originally published at - http://www.... INTELLIGENCE: Do You Want That With Lies? mikenova shared this story from StrategyPage.com. None ISRAEL: Threats And Deceptions mikenova shared this story from StrategyPage.com. None Navy: Controlling seas is paramount amid threats mikenova shared this story from Stars and Stripes News. The U.S. Navy will have to get used to working in oceans where other nations challenge American control of the sea a change of focus after more than a decade of desert warfare in ... Dispute erupts between Russia, Iran over S-300 missile batteries mikenova shared this story from DEBKAFile. February 18, 2016, 8:29 AM (IDT) A ceremony marking the first transfer of Russian S-300 ground-to-air missile batteries to Iran, which was scheduled to be held Thursday at a Russian naval base i... Ex-NSA, CIA chief Michael Hayden sides with Apple in FBI iPhone encryption fight - The Week Magazine mikenova shared this story from cia - Google News. The Week Magazine Ex-NSA, CIA chief Michael Hayden sides with Apple in FBI iPhone encryption fight The Week Magazine Apple and the U.S. government are gearing up for a public and legal b... Radioactive material stolen in Iraq, sparking ISIS 'dirty bomb' fears mikenova shared this story from DEBKAFile. February 18, 2016, 10:38 AM (IDT) Islamic State may be in possession of 10 grams of the dangerous radioactive isotope "Ir-192" that were stolen from an Iraqi laboratory last year, and ... Kurdish underground carried out Ankara bombing, Turkish PM says mikenova shared this story from DEBKAFile. February 18, 2016, 11:42 AM (IDT) Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Thursday morning that the Syria-based Kurdish YPG militia was responsible for the deadly bombing in Ankara the ... Marine: New U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Threw Us Under the Bus mikenova shared this story from Washington Free Beacon. A Marine wrongfully accused of killing civilians says that President Obamas new Afghanistan war commander is unqualified to lead coalition forces. In January President Obama tapped... Netanyahu praises Britain's ban on boycotts of Israel mikenova shared this story from DEBKAFile. February 18, 2016, 11:22 AM (IDT) Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu met UK Cabinet Office Minister Matthew Hancock on Wednesday and expressed his gratitude for the British government's b... One Man's Syrian Resistance mikenova shared this story from NYT > Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The West has capitulated. Syria is a land of the dead and the dying, in need of heroes to redeem humanity. Israeli missile attack reported on Syrian army outposts on the Damascus-Daraa road mikenova shared this story from DEBKAFile. February 18, 2016, 3:36 AM (IDT) The IDF has declined comment on the report that three Israeli missiles struck Syrian military outposts on the road between Damascus and the southern Syrian town ... ISIS fake passport network broken up in Russia mikenova shared this story from DEBKAFile. February 18, 2016, 1:59 PM (IDT) Russia's FSB intelligence service announced Thursday that it had arrested 14 people suspected of belonging to an international network that produced fake passpor... News Roundup and Notes: February 18, 2016 mikenova shared this story from Just Security. Nadia O'Mara Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Heres todays news. ANKARA BOMB ATTACK A bomb atta... Israel's defense chiefs urges restraint amid attacks mikenova shared this story from www.washingtontimes.com stories: Security. JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel's defense minister on Thursday said Israeli forces "cannot be trigger happy" in the face of relentless attacks by Palestinians, echoing si... Netanyahu's envoy Gold, Russian FM to discuss S. Syria situation mikenova shared this story from DEBKAFile. February 18, 2016, 3:06 PM (IDT) Dore Gold, director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Thursday afternoon to discuss the... The US vs. Apple: Does the FBI Have a Case? - Fortune mikenova shared this story from fbi - Google News. Fortune The US vs. Apple: Does the FBI Have a Case? Fortune The government is frustrated with new iPhone security features that make it near impossible for the FBI or Apple or anyone els... Russia warns Turks: We might bomb your troops - WND.com mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. WND.com Russia warns Turks: We might bomb your troops WND.com WASHINGTON Turkey's bombardment of a Syrian airbase recently recaptured by the Syrian Kurds from Islamic jihadists coul... The One Shock Sidestepped by Russia Is Catching Up With Putin - Bloomberg mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Bloomberg The One Shock Sidestepped by Russia Is Catching Up With Putin Bloomberg Russia's longest recession in two decades is proving a test too far for the labor market. After defle... Russias Post-Crimea Enthusiasm Wearing Off mikenova shared this story from Institute of Modern Russia. Russias Post-Crimea Enthusiasm Wearing Off 16 February 2016 Sergei Aleksashenko Sergei Aleksashenko, nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former deputy ch... Officials: Obama to Visit Cuba Next Month mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. U.S. officials say President Barack Obama will visit Cuba next month, in what would be a major, symbolic step in the warming of ties between the two countries. The White House is expected... US Rapprochement With Cuba mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. US Rapprochement With Cuba Russia Deploys Advanced Spy Plane TU-214R In Syria's Hmeimim Military Base - International Business Times mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. International Business Times Russia Deploys Advanced Spy Plane TU-214R In Syria's Hmeimim Military Base International Business Times It said that the advanced Russian aircraft is capa... - mikenova shared this story from Google. , ... Turkey launches air strikes on Kurdish positions after Ankara bombing mikenova shared this story from The Independent - Europe. At least 28 people were killed in the car bomb attack and 61 injured. What Russia and Saudi Arabia's new deal means for the oil market - MoneyWeek mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. MoneyWeek What Russia and Saudi Arabia's new deal means for the oil market MoneyWeek In short, there's no reason to expect Russia and Saudi Arabia's pact to do much to the actual oil ... Turkey Blames Syrian Kurdish Militant for Deadly Car Bombing mikenova shared this story from NYT > Europe. The assailant, who struck a military convoy in the heart of Ankara during the evening rush, was identified by the prime minister as Salih Necar. Russia Nabs Group Forging Documents For IS mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. The Russian state security service says it has dismantled an "international criminal group" suspected of forging documents for people wanting to fight with the Islamic St... Documents Show Poland's Walesa 'Collaborated With Communist Regime' mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. A Polish history institute says newly found documents show former President Lech Walesa was a communist secret agent. UN Court To Announce Karadzic Verdicts Next Month mikenova shared this story from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. The UN war crimes court in The Hague will hand down on March 24 its long-awaited verdicts on wartime Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic. Swine flu outbreak kills more than 300 people in Ukraine as virus reaches epidemic levels in some regions mikenova shared this story from The Independent - Europe. Authorities in Kiev have brought in infection control procedures to slow its spread : - mikenova shared this story from Google. : CBS news, ... Patriarch Kirill meets penguins at Russian base as he becomes first Orthodox leader to visit Antarctica mikenova shared this story from Russian news, all the latest and breaking Russia news. Patriarch Kirill has become the first Orthodox leader to visit Antarctica just a week after meeting Pope Francis Kurdish Forces Say Islamic State Group Used Chemical Shells mikenova shared this story from Voice of America. A Kurdish military officer and a medical official say Islamic State militants Friday fired mortar shells believed to have been filled with a chemical substance, possibly chlorine, at Kurd... Head of Russian Orthodox church quizzes penguin on Antarctica visit mikenova shared this story from Russia | The Guardian. Patriarch Kirill meets scientists and converses with flightless bird on visit to Russias Bellingshausen Station on King Georges Island Fresh from his historic meeting in Cuba w... 'Russia a major military': President Obama backtracks on Moscow's defense capabilities - RT mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. RT ' Russia a major military': President Obama backtracks on Moscow's defense capabilities RT Russia's military campaign in Syria seems to have changed President Barack Obama's opinio... Turkey warns Russia over Ankara attack - Financial Times mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. Financial Times Turkey warns Russia over Ankara attack Financial Times Turkey has warned Russia it will hold Moscow responsible for terror attacks on its own soil in the wake of a dea... US merely creates impression it perceives Russia as threat FM spox Zakharova to Anissa Naouai - RT mikenova shared this story from Russia - Google News. RT US merely creates impression it perceives Russia as threat FM spox Zakharova to Anissa Naouai RT Anissa Naouai wanted to know if Russian media outlets are following a Kremlin nar... STUTTGART, Germany Unity between air and ground forces and a clear objective have enabled the Russians to turn the tide of the Syrian civil war, reverse the fortunes of their longtime ally President Bashar Assad and leave the already muddled American strategy in Syria in tatters. Rather than finding himself stuck in a Mideast quagmire, as was widely predicted in the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin has seized control of events and established himself and not President Barack Obama as the indispensable power broker in a crisis that has killed more than 250,000 people, displaced half the Syrian population and unleashed waves of refugees whose presence threatens to wreck the European Union. They have mastered the game by very effective tactics and they are on the winning side, said Marc Pierini, a former European Union ambassador to Syria. The best the West can hope for is a political arrangement dominated by the regime. When Russia intervened in Syria in September, Assads position seemed untenable as a mix of opposition forces, some backed by the United States, and the Islamic State group gained ground. A year after the U.S. and allies had been bombing Islamic State targets in Syria, the Russians entered the war to shore up Assad, launching a massive air campaign the West said focused mainly on U.S.-backed Syrian opposition forces, rather than the Islamic State group. And unlike the U.S., which failed at attempts to develop enough reliable local forces, Russia has been able to coordinate its air campaign with effective partners on the ground the Syrian army and its Iranian allies. Those tactical advantages are now on full display around Aleppo in northwestern Syria, whose fall to the regime could deliver a decisive blow to the five-year rebellion, carving out an expanding swath for Assad in Syrias west. Meanwhile, the U.S. efforts to train a Syrian opposition force have widely been deemed a disaster. The lone effective ground partner for the Americans have been Syrian Kurds, who now are taking advantage of Russias airstrikes around Aleppo to seize territory north of the city along Turkeys border. The U.S. support of the Kurds, is putting at risk the U.Ss 60-year alliance with Turkey, which views the Kurdish militia in Syria, the YPG, as its top enemy and fears that they could secure an enclave along the Turkish border and link up with the Kurds in southern Turkey, whom Ankara has been battling for months. Turkey, whose Incirlik Air Base is key to a U.S. airstrike campaign against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, has lashed out at Washington over the issue in a sign of conflicting priorities. Now, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, under pressure to stem the flow of refugees pouring into Europe, has revived talk of instituting a no-fly zone over Syria, a move Washington has long been cool to. Merkel, during a news conference Wednesday, said rather than establish such a safe zone by force, her plan would require the consent of the Assad regime, underscoring how little leverage the West possesses when dealing with Russia in Syria. Russia already has brushed the idea aside. Short of a dramatic reversal in American policy one willing to risk confrontation with Moscow Western calls for a halt to hostilities in Syria amount to more wishful thinking than strategy, critics of U.S. policy say. I think we need to establish a no-fly zone to start to stabilize parts of Syria, said Stephen Szabo, a security analyst with the Transatlantic Academy in Washington. If it comes to a conflict with Russia through miscalculation, so be it. Merkels public flirting with the idea of a no-fly zone, a reversal from past statements, is part of a percolating focus on the idea of setting up safe havens for civilians in Syria. In a Feb. 9 op-ed in the Washington Post, Syria observers Michael Ignatieff and Leon Wieseltier argued that failure to establish such a zone would make the U.S. complicit in war crimes given the toll on civilians in Aleppo. Operating under a NATO umbrella, the United States could use its naval and air assets in the region to establish a no-fly zone from Aleppo to the Turkish border and make clear that it would prevent the continued bombardment of civilians and refugees by any party, including the Russians. If the Russians and Syrians sought to prevent humanitarian protection and resupply of the city, they would face the military consequences, the authors said. A series of safe zones backed by U.S.-led coalition fire power could force Putin to the negotiating table on less favorable terms, said Szabo, the security analyst. However, he said, the chances of the White House taking such action were remote. They (the Russians) know we have air superiority. He (Putin) will push as far as he can until he gets push back, Szabo said. The question is whether the strategic stakes for the U.S. in Syria are high enough to test Putins resolve. A no-fly zone is a very difficult bet, said Pierini, a security analyst at the Carnegie Europe think tank in Brussels. This was a good idea the day before yesterday. Doing it in 2012 would have meant something. Now, with this massive and highly capable Russian presence, it is a very dangerous situation. Despite a deal negotiated last week in Munich between the West and Russia for a cessation of hostilities, international observers say Russian airstrikes continue in force. For years, the U.S. has largely stood on the sidelines as the civil war steadily intensified in Syria, focusing its energy on the campaign against the Islamic State group in Iraq and arguing that fighting in Syria could only be ended through political dialogue. Early on, long before the Russian military campaign, the White House resisted calls to arm rebel forces in Syria. While the policy of the administration was that Assad must go, the White House was skeptical about whether a credible opposition force existed that was worth arming. Critics from all sides, such as Republican hawk Sen. John McCain and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is now running for president, have argued that a more robust plan to support a secular Syrian opposition would have made a difference. Obama also rejected calls to establish a no-fly zone over Syria, which would have prevented regime fighter planes from carrying out strikes on rebel and civilian positions in Syria, but also immersed the U.S. in a messy civil war. The debate over a no-fly zone now comes as the Assad regimes siege on Aleppo sends thousands more civilians to Syrias border with Turkey, an upheaval that could eventually result in another tide of Europe-bound refugees. And it further complicates the U.S. relationship with its NATO ally Turkey and its nominal allies on the ground in Syria, the Kurds. For Russia, there are no such complications, and in recent months its willingness to align with those willing to hammer anti-Assad forces, has brought about an alliance between Russia and the Kurds, who view Washington as an unreliable partner. The intentions of Russia are very clear and very transparent, said Pierini. Now we have alliances and allegiances shifting for good and bad reasons. Syrian Kurds fighting in support of the U.S. and Russia to the great despair of the Turks. It could all get a lot worse. One concern is Turkey, anxious about Syrian Kurds carving out territory near its border, could launch a ground offensive that would bring it into direct conflict with Russia. That could prompt Turkey to appeal to the U.S.-led NATO alliance for support. However, the U.S. has warned Turkey against sending in forces, and Ankara appears reluctant to step inside Syria for direct confrontation without U.S. backing. But it has been shelling Kurdish positions for several days and demanded they withdraw from territory near the border. Turkeys original objectives in Syrias civil war to extend its regional influence and ensure the swift removal of Bashar al-Assad now seem a distant dream, said the Soufan Group, a New York-based security firm, in an analysis of the latest developments. Far from emerging triumphant from the current mess in the Middle East, Turkey appears to be the regions biggest loser. PM unveils operational guidelines for Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana Madhya Pradesh, Fri, 19 Feb 2016 NI Wire PM unveils operational guidelines for Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana; addresses massive farmers' rally in Sehore Digital Platform for National Agriculture Market to be launched on Babasaheb Ambedkar's birth anniversary on April 14th The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi, today unveiled the operational guidelines for the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana at a massive farmers' rally in Sehore in Madhya Pradesh. Explaining the benefits of this comprehensive crop insurance scheme to the farmers, the Prime Minister said it can provide a solution for the farmers problems, in times of difficulty. He said care had been taken to eliminate the shortcomings of previous crop insurance schemes, and create trust among farmers with regard to crop insurance. He said technology would be used extensively with this scheme to ensure early settlement of claims, and exhorted farmers to take benefit of this scheme. The Prime Minister outlined several other initiatives that have been taken by the Union Government for the welfare of farmers. He mentioned the steps taken to clear the pending dues of the sugarcane farmers, which had mounted to many thousands of crore rupees. Speaking about the Digital India movement, the Prime Minister said welfare of the farmers is at the core of this initiative. He announced the launch of the digital platform - National Agriculture Market from the 14th of April, 2016, on the birth anniversary of Babasaheb Ambedkar. This would enable farmers to get a better price for their produce. The Prime Minister also mentioned other major initiatives taken in the agriculture sector, such as the soil health card scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana, organic farming, and ensuring adequate availability of urea. Shri Narendra Modi congratulated the farmers of Madhya Pradesh, and the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shri Shivraj Singh Chauhan, for the State's excellent performance in the agriculture sector. The Prime Minister also gave away soil health cards, and settlement certificates for insurance claims to select beneficiaries. Source: PIB In order to remain stealthy, modern fighters such as the F-22 and F-35 have to carry all their weapons in internal bays, significantly reducing the payload they can carry. For example, the F-22 can fit four air-to-air missiles and two 1,000-pound bombs in its internal bay, whereas the F-35, next to two air-to-air missiles, can only carry two 2,000-pound bombs in its stealthiest configuration. The B-1 and B-52, however, can carry up to 75,000 pounds (34,000 kilograms) of weapons and are available in large numbers. The U.S. Airforce still operates 62 B-1B Lancer and 58 B-52 Stratofortress (with 18 in reserve) U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said in speech at the beginning of February, in which he discussed the Department of Defenses 2017 budget. And the last project I want to highlight is one that were calling the arsenal plane, which takes one of our oldest aircraft platform and turns it into a flying launchpad for all sorts of different conventional payloads. In practice, the arsenal plane will function as a very large airborne magazine, network to fifth generation aircraft that act as forward sensor and targeting nodes, essentially combining different systems already in our inventory to create wholly new capabilities. The arsenal plane/fifth-generation fighter jet interaction would be similar to the artillery observer and artillery battery in ground warfare: The fifth-generation aircraft will first identify and then direct fire from the arsenal plane unto a target. Depending on the battlefield environment, the arsenal plane would carry long-range standoff missiles such as the Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) to in order to stay outside the enemys air defense perimeter, or when engaging a technologically less advanced adversary move closer and drop precision-guided bombs. John Wick 2 is the sequel to the surprise action hit that starred Keanu Reeves as a skilled assassin who kills most of the Russian mafia in New York City. A handful of the co-stars from the first film, including John Leguizamo, Ian McShane, Bridget Moynihan, and Lance Reddick of Fringe and The Wire, would be returning to their original roles. New supporting actors, ranging from Ruby Rose and Laurence Fishburne to Peter Stormare and Common are joining. The sequel, now known as John Wick: Chapter Two, will be released on February 10th, 2017 in theaters nationwide. Beyond that, the film now has a new European place of business, with the tweet announcing that Reeves superior hitman will be kicking Italian ass in Rome in the upcoming sequel Here is the club scene from the original John Wick. Another combat scene with John Wick defending his home. We've also updated our development processes and recommitted to making Assassin's Creed a premier open-world franchise. We already knew that the annual release streak for the franchise would be broken when Ubisoft confirmed last week that there would be no new main series Assasssin's Creed game in 2016. Today, Ubisoft and Scholastic announced their partnership on a series of young adult novels based on the Assassin's Creed franchise. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said during Ubisoft's Investor Day that while releases would be "regular", they won't necessarily be annual. Student arrest protests spread across India The JNUSU president, who was remanded in judicial custody till 2 March, has been kept under tight security inside the Tihar jail. And a nationwide hunt is now underway to arrest dozens of other students believed to have participated in the JNU protest. Again, this sounds good from where we're sitting. Not even spin-offs like Assassin's Creed: Chronicles were spared, with pundits describing the series as "uninspired" or "simple". Assassin's Creed is taking this year off to re-evaluate, and when it comes back Ubisoft want it to be regular, but they won't commit to annual. Give it a rest in the comments section below. See Lady Gaga's tribute to David Bowie at The Grammy Awards The performance began with the image of Gaga's face, with Bowie's iconic Ziggy Stardust makeup projected onto her visage. Opening the performance dressed as Ziggy, Gaga kicked off events with the seminal classic Space Oddity . "We are setting up rules so that they will have enough time to polish the game and come with something really exceptional, so this is what we have for our first priority. We will be able to come on a regular basis, [but] we can't say every year". Ubisoft plans on releasing young adult novels set in the Assassin's Creed universe this fall, and the Assassin's Creed feature film is scheduled for release this year as well. And while the games preceding Unity have all received decent scores, many were nonetheless criticised for their formulaic approach. Martinez said: "We have focused one of our best teams behind what we are working on Assassin's Creed". "The deal doesn't add much to rebalance the market, but it is still important that the parties talk". "If Iran's not part of the deal, it isn't worth much", said Eugen Weinberg, head of commodity markets strategy at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt to Bloomberg. Still, expectations that Iran will continue to increase production and January's high production rates ensure that oil prices will remain under significant pressure. Iran exported around 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude before 2012, but sanctions cut that to around 1.1 million bpd. As the Iran nuclear agreement took effect last month, the sanctions were lifted and Iran says that within the next six to 12 months it intends to send another million barrels of oil a day onto the world market. Clinton expands lead in delegates despite Sanders' win in NH But at the town hall, Sanders tried to recast those comments as the kind of disagreement that is a fundamental tenet of democracy. She moved on to pledge to get rid of laws that bar immigrants deported from the USA from returning for three years or ten years. The fate of the first global oil deal in 15 years could be decided on Wednesday when OPEC members travel to Iran to persuade the country to participate in a deal to freeze output levels, possibly by offering Tehran special terms. However the country's OPEC envoy Mehdi Asali told Iranian newspaper Shargh on Wednesday that it was unlikely that Iran will cap production. "How can they expect Iran to co-operate now and pay the price?" But following Iran's failure to commit to a production freeze, Iraq's oil minister on Thursday signalled Iraq would wait for more cooperation between producers before committing to freeze its own production. 'The market needs a cut, not a production freeze, ' according to PVM analyst David Hufton. Obama welcomes Asian leaders for trade talks But unity could be hard to come by; ASEAN has avoided criticizing China by name in joint statements issued at past summits. Asean groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Venezuelan Oil Minister Eulogio Del Pino, Iraqi Oil Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi and Qatari Energy Minister Mohammad bin Saleh al-Sada sat down with Zanganeh at 3 p.m. (1130 GMT). MidEast stocks were mixed, with Saudi Arabia gaining before an oil producers' meeting that could result in curbed output, which would boost oil prices. It appears the move by Saudi Arabia and its allies to freeze oil price is a strategy to protect market share, not to stop the fall in oil price. "As I said, this is the initial step and we have to look at it positively". So on Wednesday, oil ministers from the four countries went to Tehran to try to talk Iranian officials into signing on as well. Russian Federation also failed to respect a similar agreement with OPEC producers in the 1990s and even when it last agreed to cooperate with OPEC back in 2001, Russian Federation never followed through on its pledge and rather, raised oil exports. Commercial flights between the United States and Cuba are set to resume for the first time in 50 years following the signing of an agreement between the two countries. The deal does not include flights from Cuba to the United States, where millions of dollars in legal claims against the Cuban government are pending that could result in seizures of planes owned by Cuba's national airlines. This agreement will mean the potential for 110 daily round-trip flights in and out of Cuba. Several airlines that offer flights in Central Florida have expressed broad interest in nabbing one of 20 spots for commercial air service between the United States and Havana, Cuba. China sends missiles to contested South China Sea island Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Australia and New Zealand "are not countries involved in the South China Sea". To deter China from taking provocative steps, it is essential for US warships to sail there regularly. The airline deal comes a day after the USA approved the construction of the first American factory on the island since the restoration of diplomatic relations, a farm tractor assembly operation that plans to hire Cuban workers. The US and Cuba "will conduct this proceeding in a manner created to maximise public benefits", said US Transportation Secretary Anthony Fox. Airlines will have 15 days to submit proposals to the U.S. Department of Transportation. "The adoption of this memorandum is an important step that will soon permit the establishment of regular flights between the United States and Cuba", said Mr. Yzquierdo Rodriguez. US and Cuba will sign an agreement that opens the skies for direct travel between the two countries. Applications are due March 2. The US- Cuba commercial air flights deal follows after Pres. Barack Obama and Raul Castro agreed to end the 50- year-cold war between the nations. Famous women rally female support for Hillary Clinton She apologized "for what's been misinterpreted as implying young women aren't serious in their politics". Later in South Carolina, Clinton got the name "hatchet man" for his attacks on Obama. If you've been wanting to go to Cuba, getting there just got a lot easier. So companies such ABC Charters, Havana Air and Cuba Travel Services, which serve as brokers between buyers and the airlines that fly to the island nation, can continue flying without going through the new DOT application process. Tourist travel is still barred under the trade embargo the USA hit Cuba with in 1960, but President Obama's administration is authorizing 12 categories as reasons to travel there, including family visits, business travel and support for Cuban people. "They have already had numerous trips and conversations to grease the skids for when this becomes a possibility", said Brandon Belford, the deputy USA assistant secretary for aviation and global affairs. The arrangement does not change charter services, which can still operate. If reports are to be believed, all this happened when Miley visited Australia in December to meet Liam when he, in order to avoid a long engagement, suggested they get married immediately. As per reports, neither Liam's nor Miley's parents were there, which has obviously raised questions about their approval. According to the report, the day was "very emotional" and the couple's wedding rings were allegedly fashioned out of palm fronds. After exchanging vows guests were all asked to light a candle which "represented the eternal flame of their love". SC Gov Nikki Haley Endorses Rubio Bush sits in fourth in polls with several recent surveys putting him behind Ohio Gov. Haley joins two other popular, younger-generation South Carolina Republicans - Sen. "It was so last minute, her family couldn't make it", a source tells. "Miley does not see what those around her see", a source says. Miley is also said to have toned down her wild ways since getting back together with her ex. "They're planning a European adventure later this spring". They've supposedly told close friends that they're already married. Now they both refer to each other as "my wife" or 'my husband, ' " an insider told the magazine, according to Hollywood Life. Even prior to the couple's breakup years ago, they spoke of their desire to start a family, and to do so right after their wedding. CDC issues travel advisory for Thailand over Zika virus Ever since Zika's detection in Brazil in May 2015, the virus has spread to nearly 25 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. The incubation period (the time from exposure to symptoms) of Zika virus disease is not clear, but is likely to be a few days. The pair have only recently rekindled their on-again-off-again romance, after Cyrus was spotted late last month in a moving van outside Hemsworth's million-dollar Malibu mansion. On January 21, a People Magazine source confirmed the couple's relationship was back on, but stated that they were keeping things to themselves, at least at that point, as they continued to figure out where they stood with one another. "Miley does not see what those around her see". Australia's Pattinson in for Siddle for second test He had a few pointers for himself and his mates on how to bowl on such wickets, though, "The mistake that some bowlers make is they see it's green and they float it up there. Miley Cyrus is so blinded by her love for Liam Hemsworth that she was ready to walk down the aisle without a prenuptial agreement - but her family quickly stepped in and put their foot down! During that jackpot run from November 5, 2015, to January 13, 2016, the Iowa Lottery sold about $34.2 million in Powerball tickets. Smith said she chose the lump sum because of her age, 70. The Florida Lottery is holding a press conference at its headquarters in Tallahassee. People nationwide have been wondering for over a month who the Florida Powerball victor was. The first winning ticket was claimed two days after the winning numbers were drawn on January 13. US warplanes hit multiple IS targets in Libya Forty-one people were killed and six were wounded when USA jets targeted an ISIS camp overnight in Libya, NBC News reports. Noureddine Chouchane is linked to two attacks in Tunisia past year , including an attack that killed 30 Britons. They're establishing a trust - called Nickel 95 - to help them spend their money. "I knew they were my numbers... we didn't believe it", said Smith. Now that they've been identified, Smith is "afraid it'll make me less friendly". "...It's scary and unknown". Kaltschmidt works as a manufacturing engineer at Northrop Grumman and, not surprisingly, said he will be retiring. "Instead of designing airplanes, I'm gonna be doing, you know, charities and tax strategies and investments", Kaltschmidt said. But Kaltschmidt said he has upgraded the home security system, and Smith, originally from Long Island, seemed especially tense. The couple is sharing their Powerball money with two other winners. They planned to keep their jobs because "you just can't sit down and do nothing". "It's just so overwhelming", said Kaltschmidt. South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn to endorse Clinton on Friday Clinton leads rival Bernie Sanders in the state, where black voters make up a majority of the state's primary electorate. Clinton received the endorsement of the congressional black caucus last week. Out of three winning tickets, one was purchased from a Publix supermarket in Melbourne, Florida. Neighbors of the Florida Powerball winners describe Kaltschmidt and Smith as wonderful, helpful, and kind. The winners said the ticket was purchased at the Melbourne Publix off State Road A1A. This POWERBALL jackpot roll series, which began on November 7, 2015, resulted in more than 5.3 million winning tickets in Florida, totaling more than $558.8 million in prizes. But the Chino Hills ticket holder's identity is a mystery. Kanye West vs Taylor Swift: The Feud That Made Them InFamous Swift will perform at the Grammys on Monday night, and we have a few ideas how she should address it during the show. Taylor's brother Austin posted an Instagram video that showed him throwing his Yeezy sneakers into the bin. Five second place tickets were sold in NY - three in Queens, one in Rockland County and one in Nassau County. More winners of massive Powerball prize come forward Unfortunately, the California ticket holder, who purchased their winning numbers in Chino, has yet to come forward. That prize was split January 13 by three lottery tickets purchased in California, Florida and Tennessee. Naira Plunges to N385 Per Dollar at Parallel Market The two-tier forex market is not unusual to Nigeria as it was employed during the regime of Late General Sanni Abacha although it was marred with corrupt practices . How the Dow Jones industrial average fared on Thursday Wal-Mart Stores, Inc is engaged in the operation of retail, wholesale and other units in various formats around the world. It may also gain from rising wages, particularly among lower-income consumers, and persistently low gas prices. Thiago Alcantara Dismisses Talk He Could Follow Pep Guardiola to Man City As for Bayern's desire to extend his deal, Alaba added: "That's an honour for me and I'm some kind of proud and grateful". Kate Hudson Pressed About Nick Jonas in Interview: See What Happens However, Hudson clarified that the chapter in question is "not necessarily about sex as much as it is about your sensuality and feeling connected". U of Illinois confirms Whitman is its new athletic director IL has been searching for a replacement for Mike Thomas for more than three months following Thomas's dismissal on November 9. He also joined the Washington, D.C., law firm Covington & Burling LLP, which is well known for its counsel work with the NFL. German Shorthaired Pointer Wins Top Honors At Westminster Dog Show CJ, a German shorthaired pointer, won Best in Show on the final night while a borzoi , named Lucy , finished second. A German shorthaired pointer called CJ has won America's most prestigious best in show dog competition in NY . Ryan Reynolds hijacked an interview with Hugh Jackman and it was hilarious The actor stated that many scenes have been removed from the R-rated film including the parts that they personally love. So, the big decision needs to be made as to whether we really need the film to have the adult rating or not. Gov. Announces Pipe Plans For Flint Governor Rick Snyder says the federal government has not been held fully accountable for its role in the Flint water crisis. Separately on Tuesday night, hundreds of people packed an informational meeting about lawsuits related to the water crisis. Trump just threatened to sue Cruz. Cruz's response? 'File the lawsuit' Katon Dawson, a former South Carolina GOP chairman who remains unaligned, put it more bluntly. "You are the single biggest liar". The candidates have been attacking each other all week as a way of campaigning for the SC primary on Saturday. South Dakota legislature sends landmark transgender-bathroom bill to governor Daugaard, who said that he has never met a transgender person, will have the final say over whether the bill becomes law. If he were to sign it, South Dakota would become the first state in the U.S. to enact such a law. Nevada caucus: Five reasons Hillary Clinton desperately needs to win "I'm going to do everything I can so you don't have to be scared", Clinton tells her. "But you're being very fearless ". Overall, Hillary Clinton has 48 percent of the support with Bernie Sanders trailing by just one percent with 47 percent. Explosion kills child in Ugandan capital ahead of election Eight candidates, including Museveni, his archrival Kizza Besigye and former Prime Minister Mbabazi are vying for the presidency. But other voters, like 56-year-old fruit vendor Nanteza Beatrice, said change made them nervous. Problems Grammy Adele console with a hamburger She soldiered through the issues and still sang " All I Ask ", the ballad she cowrote with Bruno Mars , like the champ she is. In fairness, she can also console herself with the fact that she'll be back in 2017 to win a bajillion Grammys for "25". Kia Optima Sportswagon to be unveiled at Geneva Show Kia's internet-connected infotainment system will be offered with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay smartphone streaming by the end of this year. Trump takes New Hampshire Republican primary AP Projection Ultimately, we won't really know how Iowa voters' choices fared until both parties' nominees are decided. On Wednesday, Rubio was upbeat on NBC's "Today" program. "Yes, we're going to compete here". Glastonbury 2016: David Bowie's 2000 headline set to be screened at festival PJ Harvey will be performing at this year's Glastonbury festival, according to Emily Eavis. While Jeff Lynne's ELO will fill the Sunday afternoon "legends" slot on the Pyramid Stage. Education bill could bring significant changes to Kentucky's education system Jay Inslee does not believe the changes are adequate for student needs or to comply with the order of the Supreme Court. Christine Rolfes, D-Bainbridge Island, agreed. "I appreciate all the work of prime sponsors Rep. UN plans food airdrops in Daesh-besieged Syria areas Egeland, who is head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, later told Reuters in Oslo: "It is either airdrops or nothing". Now, Syrian troops backed by Russian airstrikes have launched an offensive on rebel-held areas. Ringing Bells' smartphone to cost Rs. 251 For a $4 smartphone, it comes as a bit of a shock that is has support for a microSD card to expand the memory by up to 32GB. At 251 rupees/$3.67 Dollars , the Freedom 251 should help to connect a lot of folks that normally can't afford smartphone. Record Powerball Winner in Florida To Be Announced Florida alone generated $283 million in Powerball sales - more than $114 million/see add/rt of it will go toward education. The winning numbers were 4, 8, 19, 27 and 34, drawn from five white balls, and 10 as the "Powerball" number on a red ball. Clinton, Sanders battle for minority voters If anything, they have done the work of convincing me that Clinton is not who I want for the first female president. But Obama is a Democrat who had worked on campaigns and cultivated relationships with numerous superdelegates. Protests against India student leader's arrest spread Protests against Guru's execution have regularly been held in Kashmir, where many believe he was not given a fair trial. MWC 2016: $229 ARCHOS Diamond 2 Plus with 4GB RAM and 64GB The display resolution of the two smaller tablets is 1920x1200 while the 10-inch has a slightly higher resolution of 1920x1280. The tablets from the France-based electronics company will be officially unveiled at the Mobile World Congress 2016. Governor: At least 5 killed in Ankara blast A firefighter tries to put out a fire as Turkish army busses burn after an explosion on February 17, 2016 in Ankara , Turkey. Recent strikes on the city of Aleppo have sent tens of thousands of Syrians fleeing toward the border with Turkey. Ringing Bells Will Provide World's Cheapest Smartphone for Just Rs 251 At the back there is a 3.2MP autofocus camera, a VGA selfie camera, and connectivity options like 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. This is the same company that had earlier launched India's most affordable 4G smartphone, the Smart 101 at Rs. 2,999. Ellen Pompeo defends Meredith's attack on 'Grey's Anatomy' However, Hunt and Amelia's storyline is a little weird and they keep dancing around each other. One couple that we didn't get any more information on is Jackson and April. 'Grey's Anatomy' Episode 12.12 Photos: Meredith's Very First Patient Returns As for the other relations of Pompeo's character in the ABC series, actor James Pickens, Jr., who takes on the role of Dr. Meredith asks, talking about what it's like when her friends and co-workers are at her house, trying to keep her company. Turkey denounces 'barbaric' Russian bombings in Syria The report came two days after an MSF-supported hospital in Maraat al-Nouman was hit in an air strike that killed 30 people. Syria's envoy to the UN Bashar Jaafari on Tuesday also warned that "a ceasefire would take much longer than a week". Timberwolves stand pat at the trade deadline He can really be an asset for playoff-bound teams in need of reliable role players to get deeper into the postseason. It has been another rough season for the Timberwolves which will end without a playoff berth once again. Major U.S. airlines including, but not limited to, American, Delta, United, Jet Blue, and Southwest have expressed interest in providing service to Cuba. These restrictions figure to ease once commercial flights resume. "American Airlines commends the USA government for its commitment to re-establishing cultural and economic ties between the US and Cuba, and for laying the groundwork to restore scheduled air service between the two countries for the first time in more than 50 years", said American's chairman and CEO Doug Parker. The agreement permits twenty (20) scheduled non-stop flights between the us gateways and Havana, as well as ten (10) scheduled non-stop flights between the USA and nine (9) smaller Cuban cities - Camaguey, Cayo Coco, Cayo Largo, Cienfuegos, Holguin, Manzanillo, Varadero, Santa Clara, and Santiago de Cuba. Kurdish militants blamed for Ankara bombing that kills 28 Davutoglu canceled a planned trip to Brussels to meet with leaders from several European Union nations following the bombing. Merkel has been working closely with Turkey lately in an effort to reduce the flow of migrants to Europe. Following the signing, the U.S. Department of Transportation opened bidding by American air carriers on as many as 110 U.S.-Cuba flights a day, which is more than five times the current number, and these flights will be commercial and open for all Americans, as compared to the current setup that allow for only chartered trips. The department will consider which proposals will offer and maintain the best service to the traveling and shipping public. The Department recognises the eagerness of U.S. carriers to take advantage of these new Cuba opportunities, and intends to reach a final decision as expeditiously as possible. Applications to offer service to Cuba are due to DOT on March 2, 2016. "We are excited to announce the availability of new scheduled air service opportunities to Cuba for USA carriers, shippers, and the traveling public, and we will conduct this proceeding in a manner created to maximize public benefits", Foxx said in a statement released Tuesday by the Transportation Department. Presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro made the announcement that they will start to normalize relations between the two countries in late 2014, after more than half a century, interrupted by the Cold War. Clinton's lead narrows in CNN Poll of Polls Clinton. "I've still got an open mind", Frasier said. "What's the difference? Gee, maybe the color of our skin". Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton maintains a strong lead over U.S. All the flights that are now taking place between the two countries are only charter flights. Once the regulations are repealed, flights to and from Cuba would be subject to the same legal requirements as other worldwide flights. The trade embargo over Cuba dates back since 1960. "The resumption of flights represents a critically important milestone in the efforts to dialogue and normalisation of relations with Cuba". The deal does not contemplate flights by Cuba's national airline to the United States, where lawyers for families and businesses that have sued Havana over decades-old property confiscations are eager to freeze any of its assets that they can get their hands on. Passengers still are required to give their reason for traveling to Cuba and tourism is not one of the accepted reasons. The arrangement does not limit charter services, meaning that no DOT allocation procedures are needed and charter flights can continue as before. If someone were to be asked about self-driving cars 20 years ago, they probably wouldnt be able to say much. Now, these cars are the prime example of what kind of cars are seen today. While self-driving cars are convenient, they arent the safest to use. Big car companies, such as Tesla and 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. Norfolk has grown, but some of the needs and wants havent kept up with the growth. A proposed half-percent sales tax would get the city caught up with many of those needs and wants with safety, streets, sports and recreation. Hundreds of angry protesters turned up Thursday night at Egypts security headquarters in Cairo to protest police brutality after a policeman shot dead a driver in the street. The security directorate indicated that the protesters were furious after one policeman killed a driver in a dispute. The policeman ran away as an angry local mob attempted to arrest and kill him. The policeman was later on arrested. Egyptian security authorities have been vehemently criticized for police brutality and unpunished killings. This week, Egypts doctors syndicate notified the interior ministry it would stage a nation-wide protest in all hospitals of the country on Saturday. The doctors decision came after the syndicate held last Friday an emergency meeting in response to police raid of hospitals and also to the controversial new health insurance law. Thousands of doctors took to the street last month to protest police violence and governments silence over police assault on the Matareya Teaching Hospital; an assault during which two doctors were brutally beaten for refusing to falsify medical records. The policemen involved in the case were charged for violence but were later released, local media reported. The Egyptian regime has come under fire for its reluctance to punish police and security violence. Activists and human rights groups which attempt to speak out against the governments attitudes are silenced, arrested or subject to forced disappearance. Wednesday, the Egyptian Health Ministry ordered the closure of a rights organization which documents torture, rights abuses and death in police stations and prisons. Seven States, namely France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UAE, UK, and the US, Thursday issued a joint statement calling on the Libyan internationally recognized House of Representatives (HoR) to back quickly and unanimously the unity government proposed last Sunday. The joint statement issued by the seven governments leaves the HoR at a cross-road of decision which will save or plunge Libya into further chaos. In the statement, the seven governments said they noted the spirit of openness and reconciliation embodied in this cabinet. It is not easy to choose the path of reconciliation, but addressing Libyas humanitarian, economic and security crises requires great courage. We will stand with those who choose this path forward, the statement said. They also pointed out that continuing division would only benefit IS and other extremist groups that want to tear Libya apart. This call came a day after King Mohammed VI and French president Francois Hollande appealed on the HoR to quickly approve the new line-up of the unity government to restore peace to Libya, which is rocked by a violence threatening stability of the whole region. The Moroccan and French leaders made the call during a meeting they held Wednesday at the Elysee Palace in Paris, while discussing the latest developments of the Libyan conflict, which poses great security challenges in the Maghreb and Eastern Mediterranean. The joint statement by the seven states tallied warnings issued by the UNSMIL Head Martin Kobler on Wednesday as he met with Libyan Prime Minister-designate Faiez Serraj in Cairo where he called on the HoR and the Libyan sides in favor of the unity government not to waste time. Every day lost in political dialogue is a day of gain for Daesh (IS), Kobler said. He also warned them of the expansion of the terrorist group which is taking advantage of the chaos and anarchy. In a separate report, the Libya Herald indicates that Qatar is trying to mend fences between Islamists in the Libyan Dawn Administration which is in control of capital city Tripoli. The group supported by powerful militias is divided between supporters and opponents of the Libyan unity government. Unconfirmed reports suggest that a number of the Libyan Dawn rival brothers including GNCs First deputy president Awad Abdul Saddeq and Abdul Wahab Mohamed Abu Baker Gaed on one side [all opposed to the unity government] and on the other side former GNC second deputy president Salah Makhzoum, recently thrown out of the Tripoli-based parliament for signing on for the unity government, and Justice and Construction party leader Mohamed Sawan flew to Doha on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the Libyan revolution in a bid to end divisions. Meanwhile, Libya observer also reports that Khalifa Al-Ghawiel, Head of the Tripoli-based administration who also doubles as acting Defense Minister in the government Wednesday instructed armed forces affiliated to his government to move to late ruler Col. Gaddafis hometown Sirte and liberate the city from IS which has turned it into its new base after it took control of the city last year in June. The terrorist group believed to boast 5,000 fighters has expanded its orbit in the lawless North African country. The group has taken advantage of power struggle between rival administrations and armed groups. In January it launched sporadic attacks on Libyas main oil terminals in an attempt to control the oil production. News, notes, and observations from the James River Valley in northern South Dakota with special attention to reviewing the performance of the media--old and new. E-Mail to MinneKota@gmail.com books wanted Second Hand & Rare Books Postcards, Maps & Old Photos HIGHEST PRICES PAID WILL COLLECT - ANY AREA 01625 861608 0161 834 5964 By Fiona Ortiz By Fiona Ortiz CHICAGO (Reuters) - An Illinois judge on Friday said she would decide next month whether she had jurisdiction over a voter's complaint that Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz should not be on the state's primary ballot because he was born in Canada. Lawrence Joyce, a lawyer and pharmacist, filed a complaint in January with the Illinois State Board of Elections saying that under the U.S. Constitution, the Texas senator cannot run for president since he is not a "natural born" citizen. Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta of a Cuban father and an American mother. The Board rejected Joyce's complaint - saying Cruz became a natural-born citizen at the moment of his birth because of his mother's citizenship - so he petitioned the Cook County Circuit Court to review that decision. Circuit Court Judge Maureen Ward Kirby said she was not sure she had jurisdiction, and set a March 1 hearing for arguments on whether to dismiss the complaint. The complaint comes in the wake of repeated attacks on Cruz about his eligibility by New York businessman and presidential rival Donald Trump. Children born abroad to American citizens can immediately be registered as U.S. citizens through a consular report of birth abroad, but Joyce said that process is a form of naturalization. A Reuters/Ipsos poll in January found that one quarter of Republicans did not think Cruz was qualified to be president because of his birthplace. Cruz and Trump are locked in a battle to win the Republican nomination for the Nov. 8 election. Cruz won the first nominating contest in Iowa while Trump prevailed in New Hampshire. "A potential nightmare scenario may be developing if Ted Cruz becomes the nominee and is then forced to resign the nomination," Joyce told reporters. He backs Republican candidate Ben Carson but said no candidate was involved in his lawsuit. Voters in New York and in Alabama have also filed legal challenges to Cruz's eligibility. "It is widely assumed and believed that no court is going to invalidate a presidential candidate on this issue," said Gerald Rosenberg, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. Lawyers for both Cruz and the Illinois State Board of Elections said they would present motions to dismiss the case based on jurisdiction and because they said Lawrence did not properly serve notice of his complaint. The Illinois primary is March 15 but early voting has already begun. (Additional reporting by Tracy Rucinski) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. CHRIS KEANE (Reuters) - U.S. Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina backed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination on Friday, giving her campaign a vital boost from the state's most influential black politician ahead of next week's primary. Clyburn's endorsement comes as Clinton battles rival Bernie Sanders for the support of blacks in the South Carolina contest on Feb. 27, when more than half of the voters are likely to be black. Polls show Clinton with a solid double-digit lead in South Carolina, fueled by strong African-American support. Clyburn's backing could help solidify that lead. "Campaigns are and should be about the future, and I believe that the future of the Democratic Party and the United States of America will be best served with the experience and know-how of Hillary Clinton as our 45th president," Clyburn said at a news conference in South Carolina. Clyburn, the No. 3 ranked Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives and the only Democrat in Congress from South Carolina, stayed neutral in the bitter 2008 race between Clinton and Barack Obama. But he said he decided to get involved this time because Clinton was well positioned to tackle many of the challenges facing minorities and the country. "Hillary Clinton is a fighter, and that's what we need for our next president," Clyburn said. Clinton and Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, have been courting support from black civil rights leaders and voters as the Democratic race has moved on from mostly white Iowa, where Clinton narrowly won, and New Hampshire, where Sanders routed Clinton. For more on the 2016 presidential race, see the Reuters blog, Tales from the Trail (http://blogs.reuters.com/talesfromthetrail/). (Reporting by John Whitesides and Megan Cassella; Editing by Phil Berlowitz) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. RANDALL HILL (Reuters) - Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, who frequently touts his opposition to the Iraq war, appeared to support the idea in a newly unearthed 2002 interview, but said on Thursday he became an opponent by the time the invasion occurred. In the interview before the war began, which was republished by Buzzfeed on Thursday, radio personality Howard Stern asked Trump if he supported invading Iraq. "Yeah I guess so," Trump said, according to the audio clip. During a town hall event in South Carolina on Thursday, Trump said the interview was not relevant because his views changed before the invasion. "By the time the war started, I was against it, and shortly after, I was really against it," he said. The billionaire businessman and former reality TV star, who leads the field seeking the Republican nomination for the Nov. 8 election to succeed Democratic President Barack Obama, has cited his opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq as evidence of his foreign policy credentials. But his criticism of former Republican President George W. Bush's actions has aggravated some in his party, including in South Carolina, which holds its Republican primary on Saturday. Trump's comments on Thursday came after a participant at the CNN event said he was "stung" when the real estate mogul in a recent Republican debate accused Bush of lying about the reasons to go to war. He was referring to allegations, later proven false, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Trump walked back that criticism, saying the reasons for going to war were unclear. But he said the invasion was not justified and contributed to the destabilization of the Middle East. "Going into Iraq, it may have been the worst decision anybody has made, any president has made, in the history of this country. That's how bad it is," Trump said. (Reporting by Emily Stephenson in Washington and Emily Flitter in South Carolina; Editing by Peter Cooney) This article was funded in part by SAP. It was independently created by the Reuters editorial staff. SAP had no editorial involvement in its creation or production. A group blog featuring an international array of killer mystery, suspense, and romantic suspense writers. With premises and story lines different from your run-of-the-mill whodunits, we tend to write outside the box. We blog several times a week on all topics relating to romantic suspense and mystery, our writing, and our readers. We welcome all comments and often have guest bloggers. All our authors can be contacted separately, too, using their own social media links. We find our genre delightfully, dangerously, and deliciously exciting - join us here, if you do too! NOTE: the blog is currently dormant but please enjoy the posts we're keeping online. [Image via Gothamist by Andrew Lynch.] New York City's subway system is among the most used public transit systems in the world, and for also being among the world's oldest, it does a pretty good job. But the system hasn't really been able to keep up with the growth of the city, and with the MTA's disaster of a budget, adding more lines isn't really feasible. But a population can dream, right? Cartographer Andrew Lynch did just that with his new transit map of New York City, which introduces several new subway lines and extensions that would totally transform access to Manhattan and the city's hard to get to 'hoods (h/t Gothamist). Imagine if Utica Avenue had its own line, or if the L extended up Tenth Avenue to 72nd Street. Lynch, in his sadly fictional map, introduces the H, K, V, and (reinstated) W lines, which canvas the outer boroughs and even stretch into Jersey. Here's how they'd affect the city: The K line would run complimentary to the G line from Forest Hills to Bedford-Nostrand Avenues, at which point the K would branch off and do its own thing. The K would take the place of the Franklin Avenue Shuttle, and join the Q (and, in Lynch's plan, the T) at Prospect Park. The K would terminate at Brighton Beach. Lynch has all sorts of plans for the T (what we now call the Second Avenue Subway), V, and W lines. The three trains would run together in Manhattan from Grand Street through 55th Street, at which point the T would continue north to 116th Street before cutting across the island and terminating at Manhattanville Broadway -125th Street alongside the 1. The V would turn into Queens, passing through Roosevelt Island, and mirroring the N through 63rd Drive-Rego Park, at which point it'd nosedive south and meet up with another proposed line, the H, before terminating at Ozone Park-Liberty Ave. The H would mirror the F through Brooklyn and most of Manhattan, cutting east to Queens (slightly north of the F's exit) at 63rd Street. Like the V, it would pass through Roosevelt Island, then run express through the No Man's Land between the E and 7, stretching out to Rego Park before dipping south to link arm with the A out to Far Rockaway. Where the A turns north on the island, the H would turn south. Lynch's plans for the subway are exhaustive, and extend far beyond all that noise above. Take a peek at his map to explore the ins and outs of his plan, and, as always, sound off here in the comments. 5 Fantasy Subway Lines That Would Revolutionize NYC Transit [Gothamist] futureNCYsubway2016 [official] W Train To Make Triumphant Return Thanks to Second Ave. Subway [Curbed] It's no secret that many Cobble Hill residents oppose the redevelopment plans for the Long Island College Hospital complex, which has been a bone of contention in the neighborhood since pretty much ever. But some denizens have recently taken some extreme measures to keep progress on the project, which is being developed by Fortis Property Group, from moving forward. Demolition was set to begin with the new year, but DNAInfo reports that as recently as last month, it was held up by a property owner who wouldn't allow Fortis to access the LICH-facing land at 86, 90, and 92 Atlantic Avenue. According to court records accessed by DNAInfo, Fortis needed to access those three properties to erect scaffolding, netting, and construction fencing, before it could proceed with the demolition of the Fuller and Othmer Pavilions. Those buildings will eventually be replaced by a new NYU Langone Medical Center. But the property owner, named in the court records as Tulip Associates, wouldn't let Fortis get the process started. But almost as quickly as the fight started, it was over: a Fortis spokesperson confirms that the issue has since been resolved, and demolition is due to start soon on the Fuller and Othmer Pavilions. The developer has also added a note to its website for the project, intended, they say, "to provide a place for the public to share concerns regarding demolition activity so that we can address any issues as quickly as possible." (Presumably, that doesn't include outright stopping it from happening.) LICH Demolition Delayed After Neighbor Blocks Access For Scaffolding [DNAInfo] Despite Community Outcry, LICH Demolition Set to Begin [Curbed] All the LICH Coverage [Curbed] Its like the pope thinks hes some kind of authority on the Bible. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images Heading into the South Carolina primary, the already bonkers GOP presidential race has gotten particularly nasty. However, the candidates were mostly unified in their response to Pope Franciss claim on Thursday that Donald Trump is not Christian because he supports building a big, beautiful wall between the U.S. and Mexico. They agreed that its wrong (or at least misguided) to question another mans religious beliefs unless that man happens to be running against you for president of the United States. None of Trumps rivals joined in Pope Franciss attack, but Ben Carson came close, telling Fox Business Networks Neil Cavuto, I am not going to judge Donald Trump in terms of whether he is a Christian or not. Some of the things he does may not be suggestive of Christianity, but then again all of us have weaknesses and shortcomings. That is what it is all about. After an initial bout of denial, John Kasich, who grew up Catholic and is now Anglican,* said hes pro-pope at a CNN town hall on Thursday night. But he went on to defend Trumps immigration policy, saying, We have a right to build a wall, but Ive got to tell you, there are too many walls between us. Fellow Catholic Marco Rubio used a similar tactic earlier in the day. I think the Holy Father recognizes, or should recognize and I believe he does, how generous America is, he told CNN on Thursday afternoon. So when it comes to accepting both refugees and immigrants, no nation on this planet is more welcoming, more open, or more compassionate than the United States. Trumps two primary nemeses came down on opposite sides of the Trump vs. pope feud. While Cruz avoided the issue, telling reporters, Listen, thats between Donald and the pope, Bush came to the front-runners defense. I dont question peoples Christianity. I think thats a relationship they have with their with their lord and savior and themselves, he said at the CNN town hall. So I just dont think its appropriate to question Donald Trumps faith. He knows what his faith is. And he has a if he has a relationship with the lord, fantastic. If he doesnt, its none of my business. It was an impressive example of Bush taking the high road, especially since hes Catholic, too. Or rather, it would have been, had Bush not said the exact opposite last month. When asked about the strength of Trumps Christian beliefs after he won the endorsement of Jerry Falwell Jr., Bush said, I dont know what [religion] he is, adding, I dont think he has the kind of relationship he says he has [with God] if he cant explain it any way that shows he is serious about it. In Bushs defense, he was just trying to get in on a hot trend in the 2016 race. Scott Walker and Rick Santorum pioneered the maneuver more than a year ago when they hinted that they subscribe to the popular theory that President Obama is only pretending to believe in Jesus Christ. But unsurprisingly, it was Trump who brought the once-taboo accusation into the mainstream. He started in October with a dog whistle to conservatives who dont believe that Seventh Day Adventists, such as Ben Carson, are Christian. Im Presbyterian. Boy, thats down the middle of the road folks, in all fairness, Trump told a crowd in Florida. I mean, Seventh-Day Adventist, I dont know about. I just dont know about. In January, Trump moved on to Cruz, whos Southern Baptist, telling Iowa voters, to the best of my knowledge, not too many Evangelicals come out of Cuba, okay? Just remember that just remember. In case anyone didnt catch his meaning, Trump got rather explicit in recent days. He tweeted on Friday: How can Ted Cruz be an Evangelical Christian when he lies so much and is so dishonest? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2016 On Monday, he called Cruz a liar again, saying, he goes around saying hes a Christian. I dont know, youre going to have to really study that. Then on Tuesday he added, that Cruz holds up the Bible and then he lies about so many things. So without even getting into the larger problem of Trumps disparagement of non-Christians, his pope retort is pretty interesting. For a religious leader to question a persons faith is disgraceful, Trump said. I am proud to be a Christian and as president I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened, unlike what is happening now, with our current President. No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another mans religion or faith. But of course, its the pope whos the hypocrite here. As many noted on social media, he lives in a city surrounded by walls! Amazing comments from the Pope- considering Vatican City is 100% surrounded by massive walls. pic.twitter.com/g3iVLDVGe5 Dan Scavino (@DanScavino) February 18, 2016 Which were built hundreds of years ago and today millions of people roam through Vatican City every year and generally theyre only separated from their families if they get swept up in a pack of tourists. * A previous version of this post said Kasich is Catholic. He was raised Catholic and is now a member of the Anglican Church in North America. We regret the error. PR machine. Photo: Alessandro di Meo/AFP/Getty Images Pope Francis has had some week. Aboard the papal plane en route to Rome on Thursday, in response to a reporters question about the use of contraception to prevent the conception of children afflicted with deformities possibly linked to the Zika virus, he said this: Avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil. What? What does that even mean? Certain news organizations, smitten with Francis and hopeful of a more permissive church, were moved to interpret these remarks as a loosening of traditional strictures, a sign that under certain extenuating circumstances contraception might not be verboten after all. Contraception can be condoned, wrote the Guardian. Contraceptives OK, wrote CNN. But that isnt, actually, what Francis said; he was not making any meaningful statement about church doctrine. Instead, the pope was splitting hairs, walking a fine line between the established doctrine of his Church and the wishful thinking of his fans a line he has walked masterfully since he ascended to the throne of Peter, sending rhetorical signals about a modernizing, liberalizing church while not moving much on actual policy. (Just how much you think this counts as progress, and how much political savvy you think it entails to allow a basically backwards church to have it both ways, probably depends a lot on how moved youve been by Franciss progressive PR campaign.) In his remarks on the plane, he positioned contraception as a lesser evil to abortion which certain global health officials have suggested as an option for women concerned about the effects of Zika and which Francis characterized as a crime. But, no matter what CNN reported, the pope opened no new doors on birth control; he lifted no sanctions. The Roman Catholic Church still condemns the use of artificial means of contraception, which the Catechism still describes as intrinsically evil. In that light, his comments were not exactly another sign that the pope is a liberal superhero. They were more a reflection of his gift for political showmanship knowing how to mostly mollify a fractious Church on which that superhero reputation has been built. Political showmanship has value, of course, but perhaps on no question more than contraception are Franciss liberal bona fides more in doubt. As his predecessors have done, this Pope the worlds pastor has stood by and watched as millions of people have died annually of AIDS, particularly in Africa, refusing to promote condoms as a sensible public-health measure even in the face of that fatal epidemic. Death rates have dropped sharply since the introduction of antiretroviral drugs, but even so, more than a million people died of AIDS-related causes in sub-Saharan African in 2013 alone, according to UNAIDS the year before Francis became pope. That same year, 250,000 people died of AIDS in Asia and the Pacific and 47,000 people died in Latin America. Nevertheless, in November, Francis himself chided reporters for dwelling on this issue of condoms as potential HIV prevention overly much. The question of whether the church should revise its position was too small, partial, the pope complained so technical, when so many people lack basic housing and nutrition. It was a politicians evasion Bernie-esque in its redirection of focus toward grand claims in the hope that thornier practical problems might disappear. More technical than a much smaller health crisis limited to one area of Brazil? That Francis is talking about contraception now, in the limited way he is, says a lot less about his flexibility on condoms than his instinct for the political moment. And of course it doesnt hurt that he expects that, unlike AIDS, Zika will pass quickly; in fact, he concluded his remarks on Zika by urging scientists to hurry up and find a vaccine. Of course, all popes are politicians, some more or less explicitly so (John Paul II was visibly in the room with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher as they orchestrated the fall of communism). Francis has chosen to wage his politics thus far with a pastoral bent, focusing the worlds attention on the message of the gospels and the needs of the poor. But the condom comments were not the end of things for Francis. On the plane he also showed that he is interested in politics on a more granular level not just urging compassion for the poor and the planet, but, well, rhetorically bitch-slapping the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in public. A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian, he said, in reference to Trumps proposed (anti-) immigration policy, triggering a hailstorm of headlines around the world. (Trump, for what its worth, has said he is a Christian and is a devotee of the optimistic brand of the faith promoted by the self-help preacher Norman Vincent Peale. He also collects Bibles.) To many even Trump opponents these comments seem below the papacy. But Francis has much more at stake in American immigration policy than questions of theology. You might even say its political. One in five Americans identify as Catholic, and the proportion of those who were born in Latin America notably in Mexico, the country from which the papal plane took off last week is growing fast. According to a recent Pew poll, 27 percent of American Catholics were born outside the U.S., and an additional 15 percent have one foreign-born parent. The white Irish, Polish, and Italian Catholics who over the past century have stood for Catholic culture in America, have in one generation been replaced by the very people that Trump wants to exclude. For Francis, then, any prospective immigration plan by any presidential candidate pertains directly to his churchs survival in America. He is not bashing Trump because he thinks the mans an idiot; he is bashing him because American Catholicism will only grow and thrive if Spanish-speaking immigrants continue to fill the pews left empty when the grandchildren of the European stone cutters who built the urban parish churches moved to the suburbs and, for one reason and another, abandoned their childhood faith. For Francis, American immigration policy is a matter of Church life and death. Unlike, say, AIDS. Note, too, that Francis used the phrase not Christian to take down Trump, knowing as he must that Christian is the preferred moniker among every brand of conservative evangelical believer these days, including some Catholics. Christian denotes a purity of belief, a casting off of tribalism and labels, an adherence to the words of Jesus without the small-minded devotion to denominational distinctions that have dogged Christian history. This is, ironically, the kind of faith Francis would have the world believe he embodies and upholds a trick for a man whose job description requires him also to preserve centuries of antique doctrine as law, to figure out a way to board a jetliner in the 21st century and defend, say, a ban on condoms in the face of contagious disease. The term amounts to a claim on behalf of Catholics to the religious heart of American Christianity quite a dramatic political gesture, actually. Francis walks this line better than any pope in memory, navigating in and out of terrestrial politics masterfully. Who am I to judge?, his most famous statement of open-heartedness, is not after all an overt embrace of homosexuals or same-sex love, nor a doctrinal shift, but merely a personal expression of humility and imperfection welcome, yes, but withholding, too, and therefore, ultimately, a particularly genius version of the political no comment. With his pointed Trump remark, though, Francis has done something different, descending from on high into the mire of American politics. Hes picked a side. Frankly, though hes sure to be criticized for abandoning his throne, I wish hed do it more. Google Inc.s European headquarters are not too shabby. Photo: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images Google can give you instructions for anything, including how to dodge taxes. Newly published accounts show that in 2014 the tech giant, which now goes by the name of its parent company, Alphabet, moved 10.7 billion euros ($12 billion) the bulk of its overseas profits to avoid paying income taxes. Reuters is reporting that the companys Dutch affiliate, Google Netherlands Holdings BV, transferred almost all of its non-U.S. revenue to an Irish company called Google Ireland Holdings. That allows Google to exploit the differences between U.S. and Irish tax codes to move the funds to Bermuda, where companies arent required to pay income tax. This maneuver called a double Irish with a Dutch sandwich, which surprisingly enough is neither a pub lunch nor a sex act allows the company to avoid both U.S. income taxes and European withholding taxes. Thanks to the reshuffle, Alphabet only paid a 6 percent tax rate on its non-U.S. profits last year, which is about a quarter of average overseas tax rates. A Google spokesperson told Reuters the company follows the tax rules in all the countries where it operates. Google Netherlands Holdings, which has no employees, paid a Dutch tax bill of just 2.8 million euros. Google has been employing this tactic for years, prompting chair of the Public Accounts Committee Margaret Hodge to call the company evil, devious, calculating, and unethical, but Google was too busy counting its enormous piles of money to pay her tirade much attention. Photo: Ethan Miller/2015 Getty Images The Culinary Workers Union, the most influential labor organization in Nevada, says it will not pick a side in the hotly contested Democratic primary. According to the New York Times, leaders of the the 57,000-member union fear that endorsing either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders would divert resources, distract members and potentially polarize the union just as they are entering critical contract negotiations. They prefer to concentrate on the general election. The Culinary Workers have not had great experiences so far with either candidate. During her 2008 campaign, Clintons backers sued the union over its voting procedures after it endorsed Barack Obama in the Democratic primary, the Times recalls. More recently, Sanders campaign staffers were accused of posing as union workers to gain access to their members, but both the union and the campaign later said the matter had been resolved. Sanders has closed the gap with Clinton in recent polling and the two are now nearly tied in Nevada, so the union may be wise not to enter into the fray if its membership is strongly divided between them. In recent campaign ads, both candidates pander heavily to the states Hispanic community, to which more than half the Culinary Workers belong. Clinton has historically polled well with Latinos and leads Sanders among them in most key states. The Culinary Workers Unions decision not to endorse comes just one day after the AFL-CIO, the countrys largest federation of labor unions, did the same. Sanders supporters see the federations silence as an opportunity. Clinton has received the backing of many major unions, including the nearly two-million-member Service Employees International Union. For his part, Sanders has picked up endorsements from the Communications Workers of America, the American Postal Workers Union, and National Nurses United. Scene from the protests over Grays death. Photo: Eric Thayer/Reuters/Corbis The Maryland Court of Appeals the highest court in the state moved on Thursday to postpone the trials of five of the six Baltimore police officers charged with crimes in the death of Freddie Gray, the Baltimore Sun reports. The court is putting the trials on hold while it considers whether one of the officers, William Porter, whose trial ended in a mistrial in December, can be compelled to testify against his colleagues. The move is highly unusual, as the higher court typically considers cases that have already concluded in lower courts, not pretrial rulings. At issue are two orders from Circuit Judge Barry G. Williams, one forcing Porter to testify against two of his colleagues and another that prosecutors say prevents them from calling him as a witness in the trials of three other officers. Porter is contesting the former, and the Maryland attorney generals office is appealing the latter. Porters attorneys are arguing that compelling him to testify in the other cops trials before his own retrial in June would violate his Fifth Amendment rights. The prosecutors insist, however, that the states immunity statute is sufficient to protect his rights. Baltimore states attorney Marilyn Mosby issued indictments last May against the six officers involved in Grays death. Gray, a 25-year-old African-American, was arrested on April 12 and died a week later from injuries he allegedly received while in police custody. His death led to protests and rioting in Baltimore, triggering a citywide curfew as well as deployment of the National Guard to help quiet the unrest. After an investigation, officials in Baltimore determined Gray suffered his ultimately fatal injury as a result of being unsafely transported in the back of a police van, and the medical examiner ruled his death a homicide. Robby Mook and the Clinton campaign should have paid closer attention to the lesson Bruce Braley learned in 2014: The optics of donor events can matter a lot. Photo: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images; America Rising PAC Those who read this brief campaign news story from the New York Times Jason Horowitz early Thursday morning may have missed its significance: Robby Mook, the Clinton campaign manager, sat at the head of a conference table in the New York office of Clinton donor and Wall Street investor Marc Lasry, according to accounts from people in the room. Joining them for the state-of-the-race conversation over coffee were members of the campaigns finance steering committee, including Maureen White, the former Democratic National Committee finance chairwoman, Alan Patricof, Michael Kempner, Robert Zimmerman, Betsy Cohen, Jay Snyder and others. Mr. Mook told the donors that the outcome in Nevada, a state he ran for Mrs. Clinton in the 2008 campaign, was hard to predict and that, depending on turnout, Mrs. Clinton could win by a lot or win or lose by a tiny margin, according to several donors who requested anonymity to discuss the private meeting. But Mr. Mook stressed that the map leaned in Mrs. Clintons favor as the race moved to South Carolina, where he was confident she would win, and that she would do well on March 1, when more states voted. Mr. Mook told the donors that the outcome in Nevada, a state he ran for Mrs. Clinton in the 2008 campaign, was hard to predict and that, depending on turnout, Mrs. Clinton could win by a lot or win or lose by a tiny margin, according to several donors who requested anonymity to discuss the private meeting. But Mr. Mook stressed that the map leaned in Mrs. Clintons favor as the race moved to South Carolina, where he was confident she would win, and that she would do well on March 1, when more states voted. Im guessing the Times ruthless editors took out Sadly missing the irony at the beginning of the next sentence: The collected fundraisers, who for years have bundled checks for Mrs. Clintons campaign, listened approvingly as Ms. White, who seemed especially frustrated, expressed bewilderment that the campaigns mobilization of grassroots support had been eclipsed in the news media by Bernie Sanderss criticism of Mrs. Clinton as the establishment candidate representing big money Donors also voiced some frustration with the lack of media scrutiny of Mr. Sanders, who they said was essentially getting a pass. They pressed Mr. Mook to demonstrate that the Vermont senators policy proposals were entirely implausible promises and that his responses to essentially all substantive questions drew on excerpts of his stump speech and rants about the millionaires and billionaires. And heres the kicker: One donor also asked Mr. Mook to go after the youth vote. With a straight face, attendees said, the operative took the suggestion under advisement. Yuk Yuk. Yeah, wish we had thought of that. Now, anyone who has ever worked for an organization that depends significantly on the largesse of rich and self-important people is familiar with the kind of input briefing the Clinton campaign conducted here. Its mostly a courtesy, and, as in this case, its mainly an opportunity for donors to bitch and moan and kvetch and play the amateur political consultant, all the while reminding the unfortunate staffers briefing them that they help pay the bills. Im sure their advice to Mook including the brilliant suggestion that Clinton go after the youth vote went in one of Mooks ears and out the other, if indeed he was listening instead of taking peeks at his cell phone. The real problem that should have been anticipated along with the advisability of meeting in a union hall or the back room of a chain restaurant instead of in a donors office on Wall Street is that some of the donors involved would of course run straight to the Times with the story in order to share with the world their important role in Team Clinton. Robby Mook left Nevada at a critical moment to come brief me, the leak advertised. Suddenly a boring and probably meaningless meeting turned into big oppo fodder for the Bernie Sanders campaign. And Sanderss people took the cue. Heres an excerpt from a Facebook post by the campaign: Jeff Weaver, campaign manager for Bernie 2016 said, One of the biggest differences between our campaigns is that Bernies campaign does not take its marching orders from Wall Street and big money donors. Its shameful that the Clinton campaign is parroting attacks at Sen. Sanders that The New York Times has documented come right from her big money backers. Now we are beginning to get a glimpse into what goes on in all those closed door meetings with Wall Street interests. I doubt thats the case, but its not like the Clinton campaign can come out and say, This was a dog-and-pony show with no impact on our campaign. So theyve fed one of the central talking points of the entire Sanders campaign and can only hope its a one-day story that everybody forgets. Its not a bad bet. Optics matter, sometimes a lot. Unfairly persecuted American and/or secret Canadian Ted Cruz. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images During Wednesday nights CNN town hall, Ted Cruz dismissed the latest legal threat from Donald Trump, assuring a voter that hes definitely eligible to run for president. Under the law the question is clear, he said. There will still be some who try to work political mischief on it, but as a legal matter this is clear and straightforward. Unlike Cruzs right to air old footage of Trump on Meet the Press in a campaign ad, the issue raised by Cruzs birth in Canada to an American mother actually isnt settled but now it looks like we may finally get an answer. CNN reports that an Illinois judge has agreed to hear arguments in a lawsuit challenging Cruzs eligibility on Friday. The lawsuit in question actually has nothing to do with Trump (though, its unlikely wed be debating the obscure legal arguments over whether Cruz is a natural born citizen if it werent for the exreality star). Suburban lawyer Lawrence Joyce initially filed an objection to Cruzs placement on the primary ballot with the Illinois Board of Elections, but it was dismissed earlier this month. Now the Circuit Court of Cook County in Chicago has agreed to hear the case. Legal challenges over Cruzs eligibility have been filed in at least three states. Joyce seems primarily concerned about the political fallout from the questions surrounding Cruzs candidacy, rather than the possibility of a secret Canadian infiltrating the U.S. government. He told Chicagos WLS that hes concerned about what would happen if the challenge came from a Democrat in the fall after Cruz secured the GOP nomination. At that point, all of his fundraising would dry up. And his support in the polls would drop dramatically. He may be forced at that point to resign the nomination, he said. Joyce is a Ben Carson supporter, but hes said hed be happy to see Trump take up the issue as, It would no doubt be impossible for me to absorb all the legal expenses by myself and it would foolish to try to do so when Mr. Trump has so much personal stock invested in this issue. For now that seems unnecessary. Polls suggest Trump will beat Cruz in South Carolina on Saturday, and there are plenty of concerned Americans doing the job for him. Christi Howell was arrested February 9 on child-abuse charges. In a move that would make Donald Trump proud, a Texas woman has been arrested for allegedly helping her boyfriend waterboard her mentally disabled 13-year-old son and tying a rope around his genitals. According to the Dallas Morning News, Christi Howell, 40, and Casey Shackleford, 45, of Kaufman, Texas, were taken into police custody after Howells son accused the pair of torture. He stated that when he told Shackleford hed put his finger inside the family dogs butt, Shackleford grabbed him by the hair, pinned him down, and held a towel over his face while Howell poured water over his mouth and nose. The victim said that he was able to breathe slightly if he moved his head to the side and that kept him from feeling like he was drowning, reads the affidavit. Shackleford reportedly then told Howell to tie a rope around the boys genitals, which she did. She tied the other end around his neck, and she and Shackleford left him tied up for as long as 10 minutes, causing burns on his back and on his genitals. Howells son also referenced a previous incident in which his mother struck him repeatedly for not maintaining proper form while doing push-ups. Howell confessed to the torture when confronted by police, but she blamed Shackleford for coming up with the idea shes currently being held on a $250,000 bond. Shackleford is also charged with violating probation; last year he was convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Both Howell and Shackleford are charged with felony injury to a child, which could land them in prison for up to 20 years. The teenager has been placed in foster care. Photo: Ramin Talaie/AFP/Getty Images The W train last rolled into Astoria in 2010, after which the MTA axed it along with the V. But the transit authority announced Friday that its planning on bringing the W back this fall, in advance of the 97-years-in-the-making dedication of Phase I of the Second Avenue subway. The first stations on Second Avenue will (for now) open in December, and they will be served by the Q, which will turn onto the Upper East Side rather than continue into Queens. So the W will take its place on the run out to Astoria once that happens. It wont run on weekends or late at night (like the current Q in Queens). The return of the W will also mean changes to two other lines, via Second Avenue Sagas: N trains will run express in Manhattan between 34th St. Herald Square and Canal St. on weekdays. N trains will run local on weekends and late nights. Q trains will run express to 57th St./7th Ave. until the Second Ave. Subway opens, and then, Q trains will run to 96th St./2nd Ave. with additional stops at Lexington Ave./63rd St., 72nd St./2nd Ave. and 86th St./2nd Ave. The Q will not stop at 49th St. New York City Transit has proposed holding a public hearing this spring to discuss the changes, in order to implement them in the fall. When the W was retired in 2010, riders held a traveling party of sorts on its final trip to Astoria. Via the Times: The Ws valedictory journey took on the vibe of a New Orleans funeral. Ms. Carames, the conductor, took the troubles in stride: the twentysomethings who piled into the back car with pina coladas and acoustic guitars; the hipster who screamed, Murderer! in her face as she made her way along the car during her last inspections. Perhaps it was a joke, but given public attitudes toward the transportation authority, it did not strike Ms. Carames as particularly funny. I knew it was going to be a bit of a madhouse, she said. Bet that screaming hipster feels like an idiot now (though we hope he felt like an idiot then, too). Who are you voting for? Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images The latest big polling firm survey of the South Carolina Republicans who will hold their primary Saturday is from Marist for NBC and The Wall Street Journal. It shows longtime leader Donald Trump in front at 28 percent, with Ted Cruz at 23 percent and Marco Rubio at 15 percent. That happens to identically track the top three numbers for the final Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll in Iowa. As you may recall, Cruz upset Trump in Iowa on the strength of a grassroots organization focused on conservative Evangelicals, and Rubio enjoyed a last-minute surge that left him nearly even with Trump and reduced the other candidates considered friendly to the GOP Establishment to also-ran Lilliputians. In South Carolina, a state with even more conservative Evangelicals than Iowa, Cruz is again deploying his fearsome ground game. Rubio is also kicking out the jambs with an effort backed by the states three most popular Republicans (Senator Tim Scott, Governor Nikki Haley, and Representative Trey Gowdy). There are some big differences between Iowa and South Carolina, of course. The former involved relatively low-turnout closed caucuses, while the latter is a (likely) high-turnout open (the state has no voter registration by party) primary. Thats probably good news for Donald Trump, as is the Saturday primary date, which may make voting easier for his white-working-class core supporters. Its also true that Rubios Establishment rivals all but conceded Iowa, while the two survivors in that group, Jeb Bush and John Kasich, are frantically contesting the Palmetto State as though their candidacies depend on it which could well be the case. All the intangibles seem to favor Rubio, but its entirely possible negative perceptions of Rubios robotic debate performance two weeks ago have stuck with South Carolinians and will limit his upside. In any event, the NBC/WSJ/Marist poll is just one snapshot among several of the state of play in South Carolina on the eve of the primary. Two tracking polls, from ARG and Emerson College, have Trump still holding a double-digit lead but with Rubio passing Cruz for second place. Yet another late survey from Harper Polling has Cruz, Rubio, Bush, and Kasich all bunched tightly, with Trump ahead handily. So multiple outcomes are entirely possible; it seems Rubio, in particular, could either vanquish Bush and Kasich and regain the mojo he lost in New Hampshire or stumble yet again. His team seems to be trying to keep expectations low by suggesting that a third-place finish would be a big win. And after the results are in we will probably be regaled with stories about below-the-radar rumors and other skullduggery that played a role in this notoriously low-road state. South Carolina primaries are not for the faint of heart or weak of belly. You probably cant find one of these when you need it. Photo: NYC DOT A decade ago, New York City made a deal for 20 automated public toilets APTs, for short to be installed in all five boroughs, at the behest of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. They are squat, rectangular metal huts outfitted with the essentials: a low toilet, a shiny sink with running water, panic buttons. If a ticket booth and an Amtrak bathroom got together, this would be the result. A quarter gets you entry and 15 undisturbed minutes. Once you exit, the doors clamp shut and a mechanism releases a spray of disinfectant. Three were installed. Two more have been put in place but havent been switched on yet. The other 15 are still sitting in a warehouse in Maspeth, Queens. Other global cities have public restrooms everywhere. Yet the women (and the more decorous men) of Americas cultural capital still end up pleading with a restaurant hostess or Starbucks manager or hotel clerk or, God forbid, heading into Penn Station. Failing that, some of us just find a shadowy nook and pray that there arent any cops around. But the lack of public toilets, it turns out, is not for lack of trying. In a warehouse, of no use to anybody. Photo: Courtesy of JCDecaux Lest you think the lack of a place to pee is purely a matter of comfort, consider that its also a burden on the criminal-justice system. The NYPD issued 17,744 summonses for public urination last year, and those were just the people who got caught. (Last month, the City Council discussed a plan that would would give police more discretion in how they deal with urination and other low-level offenses. Those caught could end up in civil, rather than criminal, court, which is already drowning in these types of petty crimes.) The least ridiculous way to deal with that is to build some restrooms. A plan to do just that took shape early in Michael Bloombergs first term an early cause, if not the first unconventional one, for the mayor. The public does have a need, and most other cities, or many other cities, have solved this problem, Bloomberg said in June 2002. And were going to try to work on it. His predecessors, Rudolph Giuliani and David Dinkins, also tried to push through plans to give New Yorkers a place to go. Both had come up short. Bloomberg succeeded, sort of. The quest for toilets got rolled into a larger initiative to upgrade the citys newsstands and bus shelters, collectively known as coordinated street furniture. In 2006, the city awarded a Spanish company, Cemusa, a 20-year contract to build, install, and cover the costs of maintaining these urban furnishings. In exchange, the company gets any revenue from the ads they carry. (JCDecaux, a French company that invented these automatic toilets 35 years ago, acquired Cemusa, and with it the franchise agreement, late last year.) More than 3,450 Cemusa bus shelters and 300 newsstands have been installed in the past decade, but only three public toilets made it onto the streets. The first appeared in Madison Square Park in 2008, and the second in Corona Plaza in Queens later that year. Grand Army Plaza, in Brooklyn, got the last one in 2011. Why has installation been so backed up? A spokesperson for the Department of Transportation, which oversees the coordinated street-furniture program, would not comment on specifics but said installation is challenging. There is no specific timeline for getting all these APTs out on the street, and finding places that are ready and willing to install them turns out to be a pain. There are infrastructure requirements: enough sidewalk space; they must be certain distances from curbs, fire hydrants, grates, and other structures already built into the citys anatomy. Sewer access, obviously; electrical service. If theyre near parks, the Parks Department also weighs in. Since the exteriors carry advertising, which parks are required to eschew, thats an extra complication. Thats worth a quarter. Photo: Todd Maisel/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images Cost isnt a huge barrier. Each toilet costs about $175,000. That price tag does not include the cost of installation, which varies depending on the site and its covered by JCDecaux, not the city. Neither the DOT nor JCDecaux would confirm the cost of annual maintenance, but an inspector goes out three times per week, plus whenever a 311 call requires a response. The Public Design Commission adds another layer to the bureaucratic wrangling. The Commission reviews and approves every placement even if it meets all of DOTs requirements. The body polices the aesthetics, and can reject the toilet if it thinks it obstructs a landmark or plaza or some artwork. It can reject it if just one of the commissioners thinks a bathroom would make an outdoor space cluttered. Inside: Not so bad. Photo: Todd Maisel/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images Im still waiting, said Robert Perris, the district manager for Brooklyn Community Board 2, which covers downtown Brooklyn, to Daily Intelligencer. Perris just celebrated his ninth anniversary of trying to get just one APT in his neighborhood. The city had solicited suggestions, says Perris, and he and the community board threw out a few, including a spot in Columbus Park by Borough Hall and a location on Fulton Mall. Everywhere we tried to put it just met resistance, he said. Fulton Mall got shot down because of concerns about construction. Columbus Park was a solid candidate, until the idea came up against the Public Design Commission. The stainless-steel, modern-looking convenience was completely out of character with the Victorian park, Perris said theyd told him. The Victorian park was constructed in the 80s. Finally, a spot on Tillary Street on the edge of Cadman Plaza Park passed muster. A toilet is coming there in spring 2016. So things are finally moving again. Besides Tillary Street, two more toilets have actually left the warehouse and are almost open for your business: one in the newly redesigned pedestrian Plaza de las Americas in Washington Heights, and another at East Fordham Plaza and Third Avenue in the Bronx. The one uptown, says Dennis Reeder, the executive director of the Washington HeightsInwood Development Corporation, took all of a day to position, although the electricity hookup will take a few more weeks. They just hoist it into place, he said. Reeder said his group had a little ceremony in January upon its arrival; theyll have another in March to re-acknowledge it and also dedicate a new information kiosk. Twenty stalls for 8 million people, plus tourists, will chip away at the restroom problem the way a square of toilet paper can wipe up an oil spill. But its something, and the toilets do get used, though at rates lower than youd imagine. The three active public toilets had 912 users in December, according to the most recent stats from JCDecaux. Corona Plaza which is close to the 7 train had the most, with 414. Madison Square Parks toilet had the fewest of the three. Altogether, thats $228 worth of income, from about one user per hour in each restroom. I went there to have a look at it. The sliding door was stuck open to the street. The lights were on, and sent a dingy shadow out onto the sidewalk. Two buttons by the door were lit up: one to warn that the toilet was occupied, the second to indicate that it was out of order. The first, thankfully, was untrue. I ignored the second and put 25 cents worth of change in. The machine swallowed my dimes. Nothing happened. I stepped in. Wads of paper soaked in the toilet. The ground was speckled white, probably with salt dragged in on someones boots. The sink had hot water. The APT smelled exactly like every other public restroom: damp and sweaty, with a ghostlike whiff of bleach. But at 8 p.m. closing time for all APTs a man armed with a broom and dustpan who said he worked for the Department of Transportation pulled up. He said he would reboot the toilet, but since it was now after hours, the restroom wouldnt be in service until about 8 a.m. Ricardi Calixte, the deputy director of the Queens Economic Development Corporation, oversees Corona Plaza. He said he hadnt heard much about the toilet maybe a few complaints about the door not closing or its being out of order, but those are rare. Which makes sense. Who wants to talk about going to the bathroom, anyway? The eyes of the world are on a single iPhone this week. It belonged to one of the San Bernardino shooters, and the FBI would love to get its hands on the information contained within. But Apple has refused to assist, arguing that maybe its not a good thing for the government to have a backdoor into every iPhone. It seems were at an impasse. But wait, whos this? Its cybersecurity legend and psychedelic drug enthusiast John McAfee! You may remember McAfee as the founder of antivirus company McAfee and Associates, or, more recently, as a guy who went on the run to escape a bizarre murder investigation in Belize. Now hes volunteered to decrypt the iPhone for the FBI, avoiding the need for Apple to build that backdoor. McAfee is even more pessimistic than Tim Cook about the precedent Apple would set by complying with the FBIs demands, claiming our world, as we know it, is over. But, assuming the bureau would turn evidence over to an eccentric software millionaire with a colorful history, how does McAfee intend to break the encryption on the San Bernardino iPhone? Its assumed that brute force is not an option, because the phone will erase itself after 10 wrong passcode attempts thanks to a security feature that the FBI is asking Apple to disable. Its also assumed that the FBI cant disable the feature itself because doing so would require custom firmware, code-signed by Apple. McAfee is unimpressed, and claims that if the FBI had any true hackers in its employ, it would have opened the phone already. Conveniently, McAfee claims to have several such people working for him. With all due respect to Tim Cook and Apple, I work with a team of the best hackers on the planet, he writes. These hackers attend Defcon in Las Vegas, and they are legends in their local hacking groups, such as HackMiami. They are all prodigies, with talents that defy normal human comprehension. About 75% are social engineers. The remainder are hardcore coders. Its through social engineering the practice of talking people into giving you information theyre not supposed to reveal that McAfee plans to get into the phone. Its probably true that Apples people are more vulnerable than its software, but I cant imagine how this would work, and McAfee obviously cant reveal the details of his plan publicly. It will take us three weeks, he writes to the FBI. If you accept my offer, then you will not need to ask Apple to place a back door in its product, which will be the beginning of the end of America. The FBI will probably not accept his offer. Sunday 8.30am Mass (OF - said) 10am Mass (OF sung) During the Covid crises the EF 11.30am Mass is temporarily suspended What did you learn in life that you didn't learn in school, ONTD? We learned more from a three-minute record baby then we ever did in school Reply Thread Link I've never wanted kids but i'm 31 and starting to fear that i'll regret my choices later in life. It's stressful TBH. Reply Thread Link you can always adopt when youre 45 like sandra bullock Reply Parent Thread Link I mean I guess it's always better to regret not having them than the opposite lol. Reply Parent Thread Link tbh i don't know anyone who regrets having children asade from idk mothers of serial killers. do you? Reply Parent Thread Expand Link you can adopt sis. plus older parents tend to be more financially and otherwise stable so it's perfectly fine to start a family later in life Reply Parent Thread Link I'm 52 now and went through "maybe I'll regret it later" around 30, too. Now, I don't regret not having children, I'm happy with how my life turned out from back then. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link "he suggests she was Cambodian in a past life" Reply Thread Link Lol wtf Reply Parent Thread Link I mean... he's Cambodian and thus probably Buddhist and believes in past lives, it's not like he's appropriating anything saying what he believes? It would one thing if Angie said it but that's not the case. Y'all try to be so fussy on everything. Edited at 2016-02-19 12:22 am (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Expand Link iawtc Reply Parent Thread Link mte Reply Parent Thread Link There's no pleasing ONTD. Ever. Reply Parent Thread Link He actually is Buddhist, he's talked about it before and identified himself as one. But of course ONTD will drag him for his spiritual beliefs rn. Typical tbh. Reply Parent Thread Link he's probably buddhist jfc. Reply Parent Thread Link lol we really gonna call the man out for this? Reply Parent Thread Link He as a Cambodian, has the right to say whatever the fuck he wants. Reply Parent Thread Link I'm sure LA was sheltered for her but blaming the city for the emptiness of her life growing up is so yawn-inducing. Reply Thread Link when actors say that, i just assume they mean the toxic hollywood bubble los angeles has an incredibly rich culture, history, and there's plenty to care about and find meaning in. Reply Parent Thread Link yeah i feel like if you think los angeles is empty because lol showbiz, that says more about your inability to branch out than it does about LA. Reply Parent Thread Link Yup! /native angeleno Reply Parent Thread Link Exactly! I didn't enjoy my time living there, but there is culture literally everywhere you look in the city. Reply Parent Thread Link lol mte, i grew up poor in los angeles and i'm sure my experiences couldn't have been more different from angie's Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I'm kind of the opposite of her, tbh. When I was younger I wanted kids and would always imagine raising them, what I'd do with them, etc. But once I got married and started working and becoming stable, my want for kids has become pretty much zero. Reply Thread Link What did you learn in life that you didn't learn in school, ONTD? Do you want kids? Being an adult sucks. I had been going back and forth on having kids recently, but I always go back to not wanting kids. I've realized I wouldn't make a good parent. More power to everyone else who wants kids. You do you. Reply Thread Link That's such bullshit, IDK how people put up with that. Reply Parent Thread Link That was my life growing up and it was hard finding people who didn't also have that experience with both parents in the homes. Fathers just kind of exist and that is expected to be good enough. My mother always does everything and my father (no joke) will call you from another room or even the floor above to do and/or get something for him. Men are expected to work and write out checks to keep the lights on and the house's other utilities. Women are expected to do that too but on top of all the things you listed. It was one of the things that soured me from wanting kids (and being married). Reply Parent Thread Link I was talking to a friend today, and she was saying her husband was going through a stressful phase and how in the times he's like that she thinks on how helpful he was in the first days after their baby was born, during his license btw, and all I could think but not say was: girl that's his damn responsibility. It's such a bs how women are suppose to do everything, while men wash one damn baby bottle and suddenly they are awarded husband/father of the year Reply Parent Thread Link Yup, I see that in my married friends too. Things really haven't changed for women in the household since I was a kid. Reply Parent Thread Link I'm in the same boat. Every once in awhile I'll think I may regret not doing it but I look back and go "yeah, but I'll be in my early 40s jetsetting and when I retire I'll have a lot of money and can do what I want with virtually no responsibility" while everyone else still has high schoolers. And I say this as someone with two nieces, a nephew and a boyfriend with a kid, too (we'll be in our early 40s when the kid turns 18). Reply Parent Thread Link I want kids in the future no more than two and only when im ready. But i might change my mind.. I dont like babysitting tho..Its easy money and im patient with kids but i had to stop it cause this one kid i babysat was kidna cray...he bit me a couple times and threw up on me after throwing a temper tantrum Reply Thread Link What did you learn in life that you didn't learn in school, ONTD? maybe 10% of what i know about american history i learned from school, the other 90% i learned from twitter hashtags and tumblr posts and social media in general. you do have to do your own fact-checking wrt stuff on social media, but it at least spotlights so much stuff that we straight up did not learn about in school Reply Thread Link the problem for a lot of people when it comes to that other 90% is that at least on tumblr, most people are way too lazy and indifferent to fact-check basically anything Edited at 2016-02-19 12:25 am (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Link yeah it's kinda sad because thanks to the internet it only takes a second to fact-check anything and yet people won't bother. and it's so prevalent across age groups and social media sites like i'll be on facebook and someone i work with will be posting some pro-nra statistic that doesn't make any sense, and i'll turn around and someone else on tumblr is posting something that's straight up been debunked by snopes. Edited at 2016-02-19 01:01 am (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Expand Link IA with this comment. I'm learning a lot on my own from the internet nowadays. It makes me wish I took some more of these classes about history, womens studies, etc in college but I wasn't as interested then. At least we're learning now. Reply Parent Thread Link that is very sweet. I am 29 and not in a relationship and I never thought I would have kids, I would always say: lets see how life goes. but now that I am a few months away from being 30 I cant stop thinking about it. about kids, and marriage. it just feels like a huge clock ticking in my head. it is very weird, I was always so carefree about it. But oh well, lets see how life goes lol maybe I will figure it like angie lol Reply Thread Link are you me? I think it's because one of my closest friends has a one year old and she's the freaking bees knees so... it's increased the clucky-ness. Reply Parent Thread Link Ugh I'll be turning 30 next year and I'm already afraid I'll have to go through what you're going through right now. Reply Parent Thread Link I liked Home Ec, but looking back it was actually pretty idiotic - literally just teaching you how to make super specific recipes (like muffins or w/e), not enough basics like how to use a knife, what tools you should always have, how to use the stove, how to shop for produce, etc. Reply Thread Link Home Ec used to be bad fucking ass. I'm sure someone's written a book about it, but I wonder how it got distilled into some pathetic like "let's bake muffins and sew a button!" shit. Not that those are useless skills, but like I have my grandmother's Home Ec textbook circa 1929 and it's halfway to being a Biology textbook. Diagrams of all the parts of a grain of wheat, ergonomics for rearranging your home, how to determine when you buy in bulk vs not, what all the different vitamins and minerals do in your body, etc. It's crazy helpful for general adult life. Reply Parent Thread Link ugh that sounds like an amazing book tbh, and probably would have been my favorite class Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Remind me of my Family Studies class in grade 9. We actually only cooked about 4 times the whole semester. The rest is learning about different cooking tools, measurements, self-esteem, the nutrients in food and what your daily requirement. I wrote an essay about the nutrients in milk for my esl class thanks to FS class. I was a new immigrant so most of what we studied was lost on me. I think they incorporated early childhood education in there too cause we even visited a daycare when discussing on how to interact with kids. I remembered to this day one topic was on blackmail taking place in camp and something else. I didn't get it and I didn't know the term. Lol the teacher in the end had to gave me the answer because I was never going to realize which term I was supposed to fill in. Reply Parent Thread Link My high school had a course called "Independent Living" which sounded awesome but it really sucked. We spent two months on a module called "How to furnish an apartment for less than $500" complete with a trip to a huge interior design store. But only two days on how to budget and balance checkbooks. Reply Parent Thread Link I do not want children. I am way too selfish, I enjoy my routine, being able to do what I want when I want (for the most part) and having a nice disposable income along with my husband. Reply Thread Link There's no selflessness involved in having children. Reply Parent Thread Link mt bb. i don't see myself as a mom cuz i think i would make a bad one... Reply Parent Thread Link Same here. And a baby/kid's crying/whining gives me high BP. Reply Parent Thread Link I thought I wanted kids but I'm 27 and have been married for 5 years and I haven't had that moment yet where I feel like I want to be a mom. It also could be because I don't like when people try to tell me what to do and everyone I know has been on my case for years about having a baby so I'm just doing the opposite. Reply Thread Link It's crazy, I know a couple who aren't married but have kids together and everyone thinks it's so ~scandalous. I want to scream at these people that marriage =/= kids and vice versa. Also I sympathize with your friend. Whenever I have dinner with my in-laws I always get something alcoholic to drink because if I don't, my mother-in-law gets excited and thinks I'm knocked up. Some days I just want a glass of water!! Reply Parent Thread Link It doesn't end with the baby either. As soon as you have the first one everyone wants to know when the second one is coming along. After you've had two it just depends - if you have two of the same gender people will ask you about trying for the other; if you've had the boy/girl pair and you go and get pregnant with a third people will ask you why! Reply Parent Thread Link I also got married at 22. Going on 13 yrs. People have pretty much stopped asking! I may still do it, we'll see. Reply Parent Thread Link probably gonna get my tubes tied tbh Reply Thread Link Nope, no kids here. That way I can worry less about how much (environmental) shit this generation will leave for the next. And I like my body too much right now as well. I like children in small portions. For example, the six year old that helped me out snow shovelling and rolled her eyes at her older sister throwing a tantrum. What I didn't learn in school? That history is written by the white victor and how many awesome stories I was missing out on. Edited at 2016-02-18 11:58 pm (UTC) Reply Thread Link i would love to have a second child, but we just got a puppy so a sibling is gonna have to wait at least a year. the downside of angies statement is women who absolutely do not want children under any circumstance are going to have to hear "well angelina jolie didnt want kids either and now she has a shitload!" Reply Thread Link ^ I thought the same thing, great, now another example for people to use when they tell you "you'll change your mind eventually" lol. Reply Parent Thread Link It doesn't matter if someone famous says it, they're always going to say shit like that Reply Parent Thread Link lips of a black woman This is the True Story of how a rich, white girl from Calabasas, California went to great lengths to transform herself into a black woman.This post features graphic shots that your eyes may not be able to bear. If you are sensitive to inflated lips, oompa loompa levels of orange, unblended weaves, extreme discoloration, this is not the post for you.On August 10, 1997 Kylie Kristen Jenner was born in Los Angeles, California. Kylie is the youngest daughter of Caitlyn Jenner (English, Scottish, Irish, Dutch and Welsh) and Kris Jenner (English, Scottish, Irish, German, and Dutch). Despite popular belief, Kylie Jenner is not mixed with Armenian.At the age of 10, Kylie Jenner became a regular on E! reality television series that chronicled the lives of her family. In these early years of television production, Kylie lived life as a privileged Caucasian young girl. She was cute and full of life. It was too early to see any signs of what was to come.223 weeks ago, Kylie Jenner joined Instagram. Given her family name and television fame, Kylie was able to quickly cement her presence on social media. Note: This is where it all began.Caption :Tyga <3Nothing to see here really. Typical teenager behavior. You slowly start to notice her slightly fuller lips. Most of ONTD would say she looked her best during this period.Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.Over the next few months we start to observe a drastic change in the size of Kylie's lips and skin color. Her lips doubled in size and her look began to mirror other black women on social media. Kylie started frequently hanging out with Heather Sanders (IG model, entrepreneur, baby mama of Trell(Tyga's BFF)). She quickly morphed into a Heather Sanders understudy.She was so "inspired" by Heather's look that she made it into a lucrative business!Then Kylie did the unthinkable. The lip injections, alleged ass injections, tans were just not enough. So, she abandoned her race to become a black woman.Her shtick did not last long before she got called out by many people. Most notably, an enlightened young woman by the name of Amandla who was over her shit.However, all of the criticism did not stop Kylie. Nothing was going to get in the way of her full transformation. She had already begun building an empire with her new image. Impressionable teens everywhere wanted to get theKylie look!Her likes on IG continue to soar. People have become accustomed to her stolen, watered down, digestible look. In 2016, Kylie is known as a trendsetter for young girls. She even recently scored a six figure Puma deal.Kylie's metamorphosis is complete.Well thanks to the Internet, Kylie Jenner is able to hop on trends found within black communities much more rapidly. Look to see much more cultural appropriation in the future. Perhaps bantu knots, silk bonnet wraps, kinky curly weaves, complete surgical skin transformation. Who knows what is to come, the possibilities are endless.What we know for sure is that she shows no signs of stopping yet.Thank you for your time and patience. I put this together really quickly so my apologies if it isn't all you hoped for. Ok, idk why, but I kept falling asleep during this episode. The only thing that grabbed my attention was Rollo. What the fuck, Rollo. Oh, and Lagertha and Rolf's whole thing. I was awake for him killing those who were anti-Lagertha, and was pleasantly surprised. Good Rolf. I was hoping that Ragnar would see Athelstan at the gates of Valhalla tbh and am sorely disappointed. Anything involving Aslaug bores the hell out of me. Same with Rollo's wife. God, I wish they'd picked a better actor for her role. Reply Thread Link Rolf... lol Reply Parent Thread Link LMFAO IDK WHY I WROTE THAT Reply Parent Thread Expand Link i loved this episode, great start to the new season. and i can totally get on board with this new rollo who has FINALLY stopped whining about everything and done something about his life. there were so many good scenes in this episode, i loved all the new aslaug stuff. can't wait to see what she has in store for yidu and ragnar, i hope it works to her advantage. Reply Thread Link Me too. I like him being decisive. He was actually being very forward thinking getting rid of them PLUS he probably went a good way towards proving to the Franks that he was seriously about this treaty . It all starts putting him in good stead for his future. Reply Parent Thread Link "guest starring george blagden" what the i guess the next ep we can expect vision athelstan? Reply Thread Link Omg yasssss good to hear! :D I wonder who will be hallucinating him though, Ragnar or Ecbert? I'm going to need to get lots of Athelstan visions and mentions to get me through this season. Reply Parent Thread Link at first i thought it would be ecbert but i'm not so sure anymore. he might come to ragnar in a vision telling him to forgive floki. Reply Parent Thread Link I MISSED THAT oh god thank you Reply Parent Thread Link The preview for either the new season or the next episode that was shown last night had Judith (I think) whisper "Athelstan" and showed what looked like a vision of him. Even if it is just visions, I'm happy. Reply Parent Thread Link I AM SO HAPPY! Ahhhh..... My queen Aslaug was amazing this ep, I'm just going to bask in glory of that (and ignore what people are saying on Reddit and tumblr). I love that she's completely done with Ragnar shit. Her face as well when Bjorn turned away from his daughter, but at the same time she wasn't outright evil to Bjorn, like they were nice with each other. Also that scene where she's telling her boys (even Ivar!!) that they will be great warriors was just adorable, Aslaug x Chicken legs is the new OTP! My one thing though is that, that stupid interview is was always on the corner of my mind, so I was getting some really weird vibes off of Aslaug and Bjorn. IDK if that subtext was intended, but when they were staring at each other it was a bit weird. Ivar in his boat was sooooo cute, I thought I was going to die! I love that his brothers accept him and play with him. Floki... oh Floki, I can't help it Gustaf is such a good actor that I felt terrible for Floki. His scene with Angrboda nearly broke my heart and when Helga was trying to get the kids to stop throwing mud at him... I want Floki to survive just so that Helga can be happy, Maude did give an interview about Floki realizing they are stronger together, who knows. Lagertha, idk I enjoyed watching her castrate that douchebag and seeing Kalf kill the dissenters to a certain extent, but I'll admit that's not what I wanted to see for her storyline this season. There's still time though. Reply Thread Link anyway yes i agree with everything you said, i think lags story is only just beginning, its too soon to tell there and i loved her scenes in this episode. i think its funny that kalf looks at her like she's his world when shes castrating that guy knowing his ass will be next. floki's not going anywhere, ragnar will forgive him. i think the subtext with bjorn/aslaug wasn't intended to be sexual or gross, i think it's just that they're both aware the other could be in contention to rule once ragnar passes. bjorn wants the throne to be his and aslaug obviously wants one of her boys to have it. there was actually a good scene that was cut last year that brought this up too:anyway yes i agree with everything you said, i think lags story is only just beginning, its too soon to tell there and i loved her scenes in this episode. i think its funny that kalf looks at her like she's his world when shes castrating that guy knowing his ass will be next.floki's not going anywhere, ragnar will forgive him. Reply Parent Thread Link Oh yeah, I remember that scene. It was really good, I wish they hadn't cut it. Lagertha is totally going to castrate Kalf lol. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link lemme @ the people shitting on aslaug i think bjorn and aslaug are safe from the incest. honestly, i don't think aslaug will ever step over that line with any of them. i only see a certain character forming an unhealthy attachment and maybe trying to act on it, but not getting anywhere. hopefully. fingers crossed. what's your ideal lagertha storyline? Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Yeah, I hate to say it but I am also feeling for Floki, that is a VERY cruel punishment. When I remember that he took Athelstan away from Ragnar tho, I stop feeling bad, lol. But Helga trying to get the kids to stop throwing mud was TRULY breaking my heart. What a tough position to be in. Aslaug is finally great imo. I know many people have been on the Aslaug train for a long time but I haven't. I think this is the first season where I will really appreciate her character. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Lol seems a bit early to already deem it your favorite season! (Although for Rollo yes, seems like it will be). Solid premiere, but not as good as last year's, alas. (But I'm not sure this show can be as exciting for me without my favorite bae). I look forward to my Wessex crew next week, I missed them last night! Also lmao thank you for including that gif, OP! That was one of the ones I was hoping for. ;) Edited at 2016-02-19 02:42 pm (UTC) Reply Thread Link lol i'm the seer, i can foresee many good episodes to come tbh! Reply Parent Thread Link highlights so well how they don't know each other at all. also loved this scenehighlights so well how they don't know each other at all. Reply Thread Link Lol the bottom left gif is one that would be a great general reaction gif. Reply Parent Thread Link Ragnar always delivers great reaction gifs lol. Like the eye roll/flip combination. Reply Parent Thread Link The pure panic in his eyes is what got me. That man fuckin looooves Bjorn, and I love their relationship. Then his eyeroll, ugh, man. His facial expressions are EV-ER-Y-THING. Reply Parent Thread Link I really enjoyed this episode. Arranged marriage plots where the couple hates each other or one party hates the other are my fav, so I'm loving the Rollo/Gisla SL so far lol. Also I wasn't too surprised about Lagertha and Kalf, because even last season I thought she has a soft spot for him lol. At this point, after Ragnar, Ecbert and Kalf I think Lagertha has a type. The ambitious, smart-ish ones lmao. I also ~liked the part where he didn't tell her beforehand. He made a show of it for her, but it also seemed to have a touch of powerplay. I wonder how/when they'll clash again lol. Another thing I loved was the Ragnar/Floki stuff xD I know I'm in the minority in the fandom but I prefer the Floki/Ragnar relationship to Ragnar/Athelstan (no, Ragnar's personal preference is not rly swaying me lol). So, more of that pls. Last but not least, i'm quite curious about the interplay of Aslaug and Bjorn, both so obviously vying for Ragnar's throne after he dies. Whenever that will be lol. (Oh, no another thing: not rly here for Ragnar creeping on the new slave girl though tbh) Reply Thread Link I also prefer the Ragnar/Floki relationship, if only because I prefer Floki as a character. Reply Parent Thread Link sorry wrong thread lmao but IA, I love Floki as a character (and Athelstan kind of started to bore me a while before he died tbh) Edited at 2016-02-19 04:04 pm (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I didn't realize you watched this show! Good point re: Kalf not telling her in advance. And unfortunately Ragnar/Yidu is definitely going to be a thing. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I'm only halfway through the episode right now, but I'm so glad to have the show back! Reply Thread Link Okay, bummed that Lagertha only spoke in one scene, but holy SHIT what a scene. Kalf's ass is next lmao But now I'm left wondering how Rollo managed to communicate that he needed that many French soldiers to accompany him to the viking camp tbh. Reply Parent Thread Link I was wondering that about Rollo too! Like did he use body language, some random sign language, drawings??? To be a fly on that wall lol. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I can't post my full thoughts yet but Gisla tickling Rollo () was the highlight of the ep, alongside Aslaug and Lagertha doing stuff and things. I can't wait to re-watch and dissect everything better. Reply Thread Link this was my fav shot though: this is not the proper sleepover etiquette, Rollo! Edited at 2016-02-19 03:23 pm (UTC) the whole Rollo/Gisla thing was kind of hilarious lmaothis was my fav shot though:this is not the proper sleepover etiquette, Rollo! Reply Parent Thread Link i didn't even see this shot! adorable Reply Parent Thread Link I want to read all your thoughts bb! Do you have a blog you post them on? :D Edited at 2016-02-19 03:57 pm (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Expand Link When did she tickle Rollo? I missed that. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I loved how MAD she was that he actually went to sleep, she was like "What? You are not afraid of me and my knife?"(And now I hear Balin saying to Bilbo "More of a letter opener really") I do sympathize with her but it was still cute. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in Hello! Your entry got to top-25 of the most popular entries in LiveJournal!Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in FAQ Reply Thread Link Ragnar is such a passive aggressive bitch sometimes, it's hilarious xD Reply Parent Thread Link Lol only sometimes??? :p Reply Parent Thread Expand Link unsung hero of this shot: ivar being on ragnar's lap. i guess he has come a long way from exclusively referring to him as boneless while avoiding eye contact. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link LMFAOOOOO. He makes it look so effortless. Reply Parent Thread Link AMAZING PREMIERE. How cute was Ivar in his lil carriage thing tho. Lagertha cutting dicks off as you do. Travis is so beautiful tbh I also liked the vision scene of the gates of Valhalla at the beginning. Not ready to let him go >> FG to further reduce fuel price AhmedABUJA The outgoing Executive Secretary of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, Mr. Farouk Ahmed, yesterday, stated that the Federal Government was considering a review of the pricing template for Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, and might effect a further reduction in the price of the commodity from April 2016. READ MORE>>> Rickey Tarfa bribed judge with N225,000, EFCC allegesThe Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, in a counter-affidavit to the N2.5 billion suit by Chief Rickey Tarfa (SAN), before a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, challenging his arrest and detention, told the court that Tarfa allegedly bribed Justice Mohammed Yunusa of the same court with N225,000. READ MORE>>>_________________________________________ THE GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER Soyinka wants Buhari to fix economy, MAN decries taxesNOBEL LAUREATE Prof. Wole Soyinka yesterday said the Nigerian economy was in such dire straits that President Mohammadu Buhari should convene an emergency economic conference to chart the way forward. READ MORE>>> Fuel scarcity looms as marketers ration productAS long queues returned to filling stations in Lagos, there is the growing anxiety that the shortage of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) otherwise known as petrol may soon hit the nation . READ MORE>>> FCT may shut down 556 private schoolsCiting the need to ensure adherence to good quality and high standards, the Education Secretariat of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) administration has concluded arrangements to shut down 556 private schools it says are not up to standard and illegally operating in the capital city. READ MORE>>>_________________________________________ THE PUNCH NEWPAPER Troops rescue 195 captives from Boko HaramThe Nigerian Army has rescued 195 persons held hostage by the Boko Haram sect. The Acting Director, Army Public Relations, Col. Sani Usman, said in an electronic mail on Thursday that soldiers also recovered 300 cows, 200 sheep and 130 goats stolen by the insurgents. READ MORE>>> News of Ngiges rumoured death shakes NAssemblyA rumoured death of the Minister of Labour, Dr. Chris Ngige, shook the National Assembly on Thursday. READ MORE>>> MAN, LCCI back Soyinkas call for emergency economic meetingNobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to summon an emergency economic meeting to chart a course to save the country from further drift. READ MORE>>>_________________________________________ BUSINESS DAY NEWSPAPER Down! Down! Down! goes naira at N400 to $1Nigerias naira extended its fall to a record low of N400/$ on the black market on Thursday as demand for the U.S. currency increased amid a plunge in crude oil prices and foreign exchange restrictions by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The naira is being killed with it trading at N400/$ in the parallel READ MORE>>> Economic crisis looms as naira policy hits manufacturers, jobsNigerias Federal Government, the countrys economic management team and policy makers must wake up to their responsibilities and begin to formulate policy responses to the looming economic crisis exacerbated by the Federal Governments foreign exchange policy, with the sense of urgency that is required, stakeholders say. A recession cant be ruled out this year in READ MORE>>> PPPRA signals possible further reduction in petrol pump priceThere are indications that the Nigerian government may likely effect a further reduction in the price of Premium Motor Spirit, also known as petrol, following the continuous decline in the crude oil prices in the international market. Farouk Ahmed, outgoing Executive Secretary of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) signaled the possible downward review READ MORE>>>_________________________________________ THE NATION NEWSPAPER BoT gives Jonathan March deadline to reject SheriffPeoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders are still quarelling over the choice of Senator Ali Modu Sheriff as Acting National Chairman. READ MORE>>> Falana, others: well fight anti-graft battle obstaclesLawyers stormed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday to defend the integrity of their trade and support the anti-graft agencys battle against corruption. READ MORE>>> You will recall that the Award-winning journalist was accused of writing the article on The Economist, that described former President Goodluck Jonathan as an ineffectual buffoon. Ogunlesi is a blogger, who has also served as a member of the Editorial Board of NEXT Newspaper. He has also won the CNN Multichoice African Journalism Awards, twice. Ogunlesi, an alumnus of the prestigious University of Ibadan, also has a Masters degree in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, UK. Charles Sirleaf, formerly a deputy governor who has worked for the bank since 2004, will occupy the post for an undefined interim period. The previous head, Joseph Mills Jones, left to prepare his candidacy for a presidential election in the West African country due to take place in 2017. She is due to decide on a permanent successor to Jones, to steer Liberia's economic recovery after two years in which the country endured an Ebola epidemic and a collapse in the price of iron ore, its major export earner. A source close to the presidency confirmed the temporary appointment, without giving an indication of how long he would remain. Some critics accuse Johnson Sirleaf of appointing family members and other allies to key posts throughout her presidency in order to consolidate her position. Another one of her sons, Robert, was both chairman of the National Oil Company of Liberia and senior adviser to the president until he resigned in 2013. Fumba Sirleaf, her stepson, is the head of the National Security Agency. "This (appointment at the central bank) is unfair. It is not about qualifications, but about expediency," said Emmanuel Gonquoi, former chairman for the coalition of civil society in Liberia and a political commentator. However, central bank officials stressed that Charles Sirleaf was a suitable choice. Ukeje plays the role of an investigative journalist in Uru Ekes feature film, which is yet to be shown at Nigeria Cinema, yet predicted to gain a lot of positive reviews as it has been a trend for most movies who have featured the actor. The film tells the story of a community where the rights of the poor and vulnerable are trampled upon, where natural resources are stolen and witnesses are silenced The producer of the movie, Uru Eke expressed that the film was created out of the desire to address social issues and effect a change. According to her, The movie production was a massive leap because I have always wanted to produce my own movie. I feel it is my own way of telling my story of social change,. Although the year is somehow far gone today for me to say Happy New Year to all of you, but it is not too late to convey my very best wishes for your well-being, joy and peace in the rest of 2016. Meanwhile, the Ekiti state governor, Ayodele Fayose, has blamed President Muhammadu Buhari for the continuous fall of the naira,saying the currency was stronger under Goodluck Jonathan's administration. Buhari will be travelling to Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, today, Friday, February 19, 2016, to attend the Business for Africa, Egypt and the World Forum. Aduda stated this while submitting the report of FCT Ministerial Delegation for 2015 Christian Pilgrimage to the Holy lands of Israel, Rome and Greece to the Minister. He said: You have started well and you are doing well and we will support you and ensure that your policies scale through for the development of the FCT. Aduda who called for timely disbursement of funds to the FCT Christian Pilgrims Welfare Board, described the 2015 exercise to the holy land as successful. He said out of the 1,200 seats allocated to the FCT, only 358 residents participated in the pilgrimage without record of absconment. Receiving the report, the FCT Minister, Mohammed Bello said he was very happy with the performance of the 2015 Christian pilgrimage to the Holy lands. Ive had the honour of meeting the Board itself and read in the media concerning the operation of the last years Pilgrimage. Because of my very close relationship with the leadership of Nigeria Christian Pilgrims Commission (NCPC) over the years, Ive got an idea and kept track of what is been done at the FCT level. The PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) is determined not to support Sheriff and has urged Jonathan to reject the new Chairman or face a mass exodus from the party, The Nation reports. We have asked a team to meet Jonathan and draw his attention to the grave implications of having Sheriff as PDP national chairman. We believe the ex-President was ill-informed. We want Jonathan to withdraw his backing so that Sheriff can step aside in March, a source in the party said. We have weighed all options and the only midstream approach now is to prevail on Sheriff to complete Muazus tenure and quit in March. So Jonathan has to choose between the larger interest of the party and Sheriff, the source added. The sentiments were also mirrored by an ex-minister who spoke to The Nation. Well, at our session, some of us made it known that we cannot even wait till the end of March to determine our stay in PDP. Once Sheriff is in charge, we will abandon PDP for another party," the former minister said. The truth is dawning even on some of the governors and NWC members that Sheriffs selection was unpopular among Nigerians. We now have deficit in the opposition politics we are playing because we have to seek equity with clean hands. This is why he should step down in March, he added. The Chief Executive Officer of RMB Westport, Simon Fifield, spoke on the goal of the fund. "Despite a number of macroeconomic headwinds in certain of the territories in which we operate, strong long-term growth prospects, coupled with favourable demographics, and the pleasing trends of increasing urbanisation and consumer spending have all led to high demand for retail, industrial and commercial property space. It is a credit to both the capital raising abilities of our joint venture partner, (FirstRand's asset management business), as well as the mature, long-term view adopted by our investor base that we have been able to secure such a substantial amount of capital on the first close." Last year, $203 million (about N50billion) was also set aside for developing the real estate sector in Nigeria and other West African countries. According to Michael OMalley, Director of RMB, this particular fund was raised due to a belief in Africa's real estate industry. 45-year-old Mr. Adeyemi Tayo has been accused by a woman, Ogundare Victoria of using charms to force himself on her. According to Victoria, on December 29, 2015, she went to the police with a petition letter to tell her story. She explained that she was married with five children but she is being abused by her husband. Due to the abuse, she talked with someone who introduced her to Pastor Tayo. As she narrated her story to the pastor, he promised to to assist her with prayers and she ended up payingN3, 500, for that. The pastor gave her a charm and water and directed her to give her husband to consume and have sexual intercourse with her. As a Christian, she said that she ignored the pastor's directive, adding, however, that some days later, the pastor invited her to his place for prayer and, to her surprise, deceitfully used a charm and had sexual intercourse with her in his house. She added that after this incident, he forcefully took her from her matrimonial home and has been controlling her. Victoria said that during the course of their relationship, he collected the sum of N1, 185 000.00 from her under the pretext that he will lease cocoa farm and an apartment in Akure, and he only handed over the keys to her without showing her the house. The prosecution said: "During the course of investigation at the area commander's office, the accused confessed to have committed the crime." According to a statement from the teenager's school, the City of Knowledge Academy situated in Ijebu Ode area of Ogun State, his academic feat has landed him a placement at Phillips Academy Exeter USA (a world renowned Prep School that prepares students almost exclusively for the IVY League Universities in the USA). In a statement released by the City of Knowledge Academy, where Tasi-Amadi attends, the academic performance of the year nine student wasn't totally strange as he had earlier dazzled keen watchers of educational terrain with award-winning performances at both the American Mathematical Competition and the Cowbell Mathematics Competition. City of Knowledge Academy further boasts of an array of achievements by its students which include certification of 11 students of age range 10 to 14 years getting certified by Microsoft as Systems Administrators with proficiency in MS-Words 2010 after passing the examinations between 2015 and 2016 The students during the protest were demanding a reduction in their school fees and the suspension of the Nigeria Institute of Information Technology (NIIT) programme being organised for them by the college, among others. Adelekan told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan that the students had gone on rampage on Wednesday causing inconveniences to workers and members of the public. They blocked the gates leading into and out of the school and disturbed the environment. So, the authorities had to close the college till further notice to forestall a situation it will not be able to handle, he said. The provost said that the school fee was affordable for the students when compared to what was paid in other colleges of agriculture and polytechnics. Every returning student pays N33, 200 in a year, while each fresh student pays N51, 700 in a year; we afford them a bed space at N90 for a year per student. They do have water supply 24 hours, steady power supply and healthy environment for learning, the provost said. On the issue of NIIT programme, Adelekan said that the college agreed with the firm to teach the students computer studies and offer them international certificate apart from their normal certificates. The programme has been on for about three years now, students who passed through it have been grateful but all of a sudden some of them decided that they dont want it again. And we want the best for them, to equip them in all ramification so that it will enhance their marketability in the job market, he said. The provost said that the college would reopen for academic activities after all the students must have completed the payments of their school fees, stop their hooliganism and become remorseful. Minister of education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, reaffirmed the action at the flag off of the 2015/2016 annual school census in Abuja on Thursday, February 18. Last weekend, the government announced the sacking of 13 Vice Chancellors of newly established federal universities including VC of National Open Universities of Nigeria (NOUN), Prof. Vincent Tenebe. When asked about the motive behind Tenebe's sack, the minister explained that the professor was removed because of the petitions against him. Adamu was also asked if there is a possibility that the sacked VCs will be recalled. He confirmed that this will not happen, saying, Do you reverse government decision simply because somebody has criticized them? I dont think there is any decision of government not going down well with everyone in the country. The ministry has received communications from some people who feel like this and we are looking at this. "To think that Apple won't allow us to get into her cellphone? Who do they think they are? No, we have to open it," Trump said whilst on an interview on "Fox & Friends." The Republican presidential front-runner called it a matter of common sense: "I agree 100% with the courts. In that case, we should open it up. I think security overall we have to open it up. And we have to use our heads. We have to use common sense. Somebody the other day called me a common-sense conservative. We have to use common sense. Our country has so many problems." Months have passed since two shooters attacked a community center in San Bernardino, California, in early December, and law-enforcement officials are yet to get into an iPhone which belongs to one of the killers. James Comey, the FBI's director, told a Senate committee earlier in the month that officials hadn't been able to get past the lock feature on the device. According to the Associated Press, the encrypted phone is also equipped with a security feature that erases the phone's data after too many unsuccessful password attempts. A US court has ordered Apple to develop software that could break through that feature, which would allow the FBI to try every possible password combination to unlock the device. In response, Apple CEO Tim Cook published a strongly worded letter Wednesday calling the demand "chilling" and arguing that it "would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect." Trump struck back. No stranger to controversy, the longtime party front-runner in national opinion polls dismissed the leader of the world's Roman Catholics as "disgraceful" for questioning his faith. He said he was a proud Christian. Francis told reporters during a free-wheeling conversation on his flight home from a visit to Mexico: "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian." Trump has accused Mexico of sending rapists and drug-runners across the United States' southern border and has vowed if elected president to build a wall to keep out immigrants who enter illegally. More than half a million Britons signed a petition to bar him from entering Britain, where he has business interests, in response to his call to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States. British lawmakers decided against a ban as a violation of free speech. Asked if American Catholics should vote for someone with Trump's views, Francis said: "I am not going to get involved in that. I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt." It remained to be seen if the pope's comments would strengthen Trump in the run-up to the Nov. 8 election to succeed Democratic President Barack Obama. Trump's swipes at rival candidates and heated exchanges with others have bolstered his standing in nominating contests and opinion polls. Congressman Cresent Hardy heard many stories about the difficulties of receiving health care during his Pahrump veterans town hall attended by approximately 30 people on Thursday. Veterans also talked about problems that they encounter when trying to access benefits, or dealing homelessness and substance abuse. I spent 10 years trying to get my benefits and finally have done so. Thats outrageous. Thats outrageous, said a veteran who gave his first name as Jeff. Nye County Commissioner and U.S. Air Force veteran Frank Carbone praised the panel and said that officials only touch just small pieces of the county. Its nice to have a panel here and have the congressman here, as well as all these influential individuals, but as you know, you are looking into these folks, talking and asking you questions, you are far away, very far away, he said. Speaking about rural medicine specific to veterans Carbone said, It aint out there. We need to be more and closer to our veterans as much as we can. Im not a happy guy, Carbone said, pointing to the audience of several dozen veterans. And Im not happy because these guys are not happy. Thursday was Hardys second official visit to Pahrump in the past three weeks. He was among the many dignitaries who participated in the Jan. 29 groundbreaking of the $12.1 million Pahrump Valley Veterans Clinic on South Lola Lane. Hardy serves Nevadas 4th Congressional District that has nearly 58,000 veterans, according to official data. Hardy, whose brother served in Afghanistan and Iraq, talked respect for veterans stating that politicians often get involved and dont let them do the job, when veterans fight in wars. My little brother, I understand through him that military people are a brotherhood, different than anything that I think we can understand thats never served, he said. One of the panelists, Sheila Jackson, the director of the Reno VA Regional Hospital, said she is currently working on creating an umbrella for spreading VA services to Nevada communities. Ben Jefferson, a U.S. Air Force veteran who was also on the panel, said that theres a lack of a clearing house where veterans can have access to multiple services. There are so many resources out there, he said. My hardest problem that Ive had here is finding out who all those resources are, where they are all meeting at. We need to have it all and put into some kind of a resource book, a resource technology on the Internet or something (that) we can access, that we can get to and we can help those vets. Jefferson also spoke about the need to bridge the communication gap as some veterans are less comfortable using technologies for communication than others. Thats what they want and thats what we have to realize is that its not going to be just those new veterans that are getting out who can use computers and do it that way, but we still have other veterans out there who want that face-to-face time, Jefferson said. Jacob Fullmer, communications director for Hardy, said veterans who need help settling a claim with the VA or receiving benefits from a federal agency can contact Congressman Hardys office at 702-912-1634. The 90-minute question-and-answer session at the Nye County Commission chambers at 2100 E. Walt Williams Drive was teleconferenced to Beatty and Tonopah. Contact reporter Daria Sokolova at dsokolova@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @dariasokolova77 Since Nevada is at ground zero in the coming mega-battle over who will replace the late, great conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, lets set the stage and clear the air. First, I say Nevada is at the center or the storm because we have four political figures who are deeply ingrained in the controversy: Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Gov. Brian Sandoval, Rep. Joe Heck and a mystery guest. More on them in a minute. As for the air-clearing, understand this: Yes, President Barack Obama has the right to nominate a replacement. Not an obligation. The right. Yes, the Senate, for its part, has the power to approve or reject Obamas pick. And thanks to the filibuster which Democrats, including Reid and Obama, used extensively to block judicial nominations in the past Republicans in the Senate have the right, though not obligation, to return the favor. Before Scalias death the Supreme Court was evenly divided philosophically, with four conservative justices, four liberal justices, and Justice Anthony Kennedy who blows like a reed in a wind storm. As such, another liberal Obama pick like the ones hes already put on the bench would dramatically shift the courts disposition to the left. Which is why Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already thrown down the gauntlet and declared that no Obama nominee will be confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate. McConnell believes American voters should have a say in this decision by delaying it until after the November elections and let the new president and Senate, elected by the people with full knowledge of whats at stake, resolve the matter. That, of course, doesnt sit well with Reid, who believes and not without good reason that Republicans will cave-in to outside pressure and consider a closet liberal nominee put up by Obama. Enter tax-hiking RINO Sandoval. Reid put him on the federal bench once before and seems perfectly willing to do so again if it means not letting a potential new Republican president pick Scalias replacement. Yes, an ideology-free Sandoval would be perfectly acceptable to Democrats, and probably some mush-headed Republicans. But conservatives knew Justice Scalia. And Brian Sandoval is no Antonin Scalia. More like David Souter. McConnell & Company would be nuts to replace Scalia with Sandoval. Which brings us to Heck. Senate Republicans are defending a lot more seats this cycle than Democrats, and control of the Senate is absolutely up for grabs. Heck, running to replace Reid, is really the only shot the GOP has of picking up a Senate seat, which may determine who controls the Senate confirmation process next year. So the big question now is whether or not our mystery guest, Sharron Angle, will jump into the GOP primary and challenge Heck. Since Republicans rarely blow an opportunity to blow an opportunity, dont be surprised to see her try to blow this one for conservatives. Again. Chuck Muth is president of Citizen Outreach and publisher of NevadaNewsandViews.com. You can reach him at ChuckMuth.com In a quiet voice, a Davenport man told a full courtroom Thursday that he finally has closure over the death of his wife during a sentencing hearing for Gary M. Fortune, the man who attacked the couple in their apartment in September 2014. I can move on a little bit, Jack Simmons, 54, said of his wife, Betty. Its tough, but I just want to thank the court for giving us justice. We finally got justice." Betty Simmons' brother, Sherman Williams, said Thursday that he will never get over the death of his sister, whom he said raised him. For this man to take her from us, there will never be closure because I cant see my sister ever again, he said. During an emotional 30-minute sentencing hearing, Scott County District Court Judge Paul Macek sentenced Fortune, 49, of Rock Island to life without parole for his conviction on first-degree murder in the death of Betty Simmons, 61. He also was sentenced to up to 25 years each on charges of attempted murder, first-degree burglary and first-degree arson. The four sentences will run back-to-back. Macek said Fortunes criminal history, his utter lack of remorse or empathy and the "heinous, even monstrous nature of these crimes" justified running the sentences consecutively. To do otherwise would ignore that there were at least two separate victims of this crime, two separate and distinct victims, Macek said. Macek, in handing down his sentence, told Fortune, "You are peculiarly dangerous and should be segregated from society for as long as possible. You should never be released. Under Iowa law, Fortune must serve 70 percent of the sentence on the attempted murder and burglary charges. Prosecutors argued at trial that Fortune broke into the Simmonses' apartment at 1207 E. 11th St., Davenport, about 10:50 p.m. Sept. 8, 2014, and fatally stabbed Betty Simmons, the mother of his then-fiancee, Annette Aviles. He also stabbed Jack Simmons multiple times. A surgeon testified at trial that Jack Simmons had a punctured lung and lacerated liver, among other wounds. During the attack, Jack Simmons was able to barricade himself in a bathroom. Prosecutors say Fortune then lit an umbrella on fire on the other side of the door before Simmons was able to escape through the bathroom window. Fortune testified at trial that he had been under the influence of alcohol and a prescription drug that day and remembered only snapshots of the day. He further testified that Jack Simmons had fatally stabbed his wife and that the two men scuffled when Fortune confronted him. The jury rejected the claim and found Fortune guilty on Dec. 23. When asked if he wanted to make a statement at sentencing, Fortune said, "I have no comment, your honor." Aviles said after the hearing that she was not surprised that Fortune declined to make a statement and that "anything that he would have said would have been an absolute lie and he wouldnt have admitted any of it. If he showed any sense of remorse, would I not want him to get life? she asked. Absolutely not. I would still want the same sentence, but just to know that he had some type of true remorse behind it would have made me feel better. But he would never give that to us. Shirley Lewis Clayton, who testified from Atlanta via Skype, an Internet voice and video service, said her sister was her best friend whom she talked to for hours, especially on Wednesdays when their favorite show, Hells Kitchen, was on. I miss my sister so much, it hurts, she said. Clayton said it has been hard to make sense of the the very violent, brutal murder of her sister, which happened just days before her birthday. I pray to God that we get closure so our family can move on, she said. Fortune has 30 days to file a notice of appeal. The leader of a new conservative think tank said Friday it's time for Iowa to think about big changes to Iowa's income tax code. Ron Corbett, the mayor of Cedar Rapids, was in the Quad-Cities to push for simplifying the tax code. Corbett heads a group called Engage Iowa, which he describes as an incubator for conservative ideas. Last year, the group released a study that floated a range of flat tax plans to replace Iowa's current system. One scenario envisioned a 3.27 percent rate, while another had it at 2.86 percent. The study also talked about ridding the tax code of nearly all credits and raising the state's sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent, which would help pay for lowering income tax rates. Corbett, who is a former Iowa House speaker and potential 2018 Republican candidate for governor, said the state's complex tax code is sending people fleeing to other states. "Were pointing out that we have a problem with the competitive aspect of our income taxes, and its hurting us because wealth is leaving our state," Corbett said in an interview Friday. The Engage Iowa study last year said that between 1992 and 2013, the state lost $3.9 billion in wealth as people fled to other states. Florida, Minnesota, Arizona, Texas and South Dakota were the states where most Iowans went, according to the study. Currently, Iowa has a progressive rate structure, with the top marginal rate at 8.98 percent. That is one of the highest rates in the country, although high-income Iowans tend to pay less, mostly because they can deduct the federal taxes they pay from their state tax liability. Critics of the new group say the plan would simply raise a tax that hits lower-income people hardest to pay for lowering them on people who are wealthier. "What youre talking about doing once again is using a regressive tax, one that affects poor folks more than it does the wealthy, to buy down the only progressive tax we have, which is the income tax," said Mike Owen, executive director of the Iowa Policy Project, a progressive group. Politicians in Iowa have debated for years what prompts Iowans to move to other states. Republicans have tended to blame the tax code. Democrats say other factors, such as weather, jobs and family ties, are more likely the reason. Corbett, in an interview, said his group's research says that, as is, the state's tax code already has inequities. The effective income tax rate for people making more than $1 million a year is lower than than for those making $60,000, he said. Owen said that could be addressed by dealing with federal deductibility. Engage Iowa says that an increased sales tax would do more than just provide revenue to move to a flat tax. It also would mean more money to go to improving Iowa's water quality. In 2010, Iowa voters approved a trust fund for outdoors recreation and natural resources, with the first 3/8ths of a sales tax increase to be devoted to the fund, but lawmakers have not acted to raise the money. Corbett, who brushed aside questions concerning a possible gubernatorial bid Friday, said his group plans to issue new proposals having to do with education this fall, as well as job creation next winter. He was the featured speaker Friday at the North Scott Rotary club meeting. Scott Caulpetzer, a self-proclaimed child of the '60s, caught the activism bug a long time ago. During his teenage years, Caulpetzer sported a black armband at Rock Island High School and participated in various marches to protest the Vietnam War. Ive been involved in peace for a long time, the 63-year-old said. And thats pretty clear. About 7 p.m. Thursday, I knocked on his front door at the corner of East 29th Street and Jefferson Avenue, Davenport, and nearly interrupted the end of one of his meditation classes. He also teaches the Chinese martial art tai chi chuan. Since 2003, when American soldiers invaded Iraq, Caulpetzer has voiced his anti-war sentiment with an ever-present yard sign that simply says: "Support the troops, end the war." While public protests over the country's military actions in the Middle East may have withered over the years, Caulpetzer has maintained his own form of protest every day for the last 13 years. He would have been content with one sign if vandals hadnt stripped the last 11 from his yard. Fortunately, he said, his signs have garnered plenty of support from honking and waving passersby, as well. After it became clear what a complete debacle the Iraq War was, I got a lot more positive feedback, he said. Caulpetzer, who graduated from Western Illinois University-Quad-Cities, stressed that hes always supported American troops. I wasnt one of those ones that called them baby killers or any of that stupid, foolish stuff, he said. I thought they were brave people who were doing what they thought their duty was, and I think thats true today. He just thinks theyve been misinformed. Caulpetzer isnt just frustrated with the wars increasing cost of American lives and money. Since the start of the Iraq War, thousands of U.S. service members have been killed in Iraq, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. Meanwhile, American taxpayers have contributed hundreds of billions of dollars toward the effort initially dubbed Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report. Caulpetzer thinks the U.S. has completely destabilized the Middle East. If wed have left Saddam Hussein to stew in his own juices, we wouldnt have ISIS, would we? he said, sitting in an armchair in his living room, surrounded by hundreds of books on nearby shelves. Many of those people are the Iraqi army people we forced out, so we kind of created ISIS, but nobody seems to want to talk about that. Caulpetzer, who has lived in the same Davenport home for 30 years, also has endorsed Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders with a yard sign. He caucused for Sanders earlier this month because he thinks the Vermont senator is addressing the key issues of the times, including economic justice and the environment. To me, this place is on fire and the man (Sanders) is talking about putting the fire out while the rest of the people are trying to roast marshmallows. At home, in case another incident occurs on his lawn, Caulpetzer said he has several identical signs in storage and won't remove the fixture "until all the troops come home." Davenport Mayor Frank Klipsch is right to slow the screws until the city inks a formal deal with Viking River Cruises. Anything less could leave taxpayers all wet. Davenport would make a fine port of call for the well-known cruise company's riverboats, and a few dozen monied tourists disembarking on a regular basis would be a welcome addition downtown. But the city's change of tack since Klipsch succeeded Bill Gluba denotes a welcome new era of prudence at City Hall. Gluba was all about Viking. He campaigned on it. He talked as if, come 2017, boats would would be frequently stopping. Listen to Gluba, and you'd think it was a done deal. It isn't. A docking location hasn't been finalized. A few local engineers hope the city can buy a barge already parked at the soon-to-depart Rhythm City Casino, which might do the trick. No doubt, there's some permitting required. The casino's parking lot has yet to be transformed into a riverside park. And, of greatest significance, Viking hasn't made any legal promises. Or, as Klipsch said Wednesday, any evidence of Viking's intentions are "strictly anecdotal." The same can be said for La Crosse and Dubuque. Viking isn't locking itself in Hannibal and Fort Madison, either. And yet, in these towns, construction is under way. The cities assume the risk. A private, for-profit corporation hedges its bets. Gluba's willingness to go full-steam with the public portion, based solely on a few handshakes, is an unacceptable gamble with the taxpayers' dime. It's nothing new for taxpayers to dump piles of cash into would-be economic development. Corporate brass come to town. Local officials give the grand tour. Everyone laughs and shakes hands. A year later, local government has dumped millions into infrastructure solely for the private investment. But the company got a better deal a few states over. It's the competitive reality in a world of TIF financing and massive tax exemptions. Davenport's upsides are obvious. It's on the right river. It has a growing downtown. It has things to do. The city should be atop Viking's target list. But Gluba's willingness to go all ahead unacceptably shifted all risk to the city. The barge proposal, pitched by Davenport Levee Improvement Commission Bill Ashton and Alderman Bill Boom, has promise. Davenport would be wise to approach Rhythm City management about a possible purchase. A concurrent conference with the likes of the Army Corps of Engineers wouldn't be a bad idea either. Negotiating is one thing. Pulling the trigger is another. Davenport shouldn't spend a dime to develop the site until Viking commits to the city. A prudent Klipsch has doused the sails on a project with too many unanswered questions. It sure beats running aground. This was three days before Antonin Scalia died. President Obama had just spoken before the Illinois General Assembly. Now, he and some old friends, all retired from that body, were being interviewed by the Los Angeles Times. Obama was talking about the legislative gridlock that has marked his terms and how he might have avoided it. "Maybe I could have done that a little better," he said. One of his friends wasn't having it. "They were afraid of you for a couple of reasons," said Denny Jacobs. "Number one, you were black." Obama parried the suggestion, saying what he always says when asked about race and his presidency. "I have no doubt there are people who voted against me because of race ... or didn't approve of my agenda because of race. I also suspect there are a bunch of people who are excited or voted for me because of the notion of the first African-American president. ... Those things cut both ways," he said. Jacobs, who is white, was unpersuaded. "That's what they were afraid of, Mr. President," he insisted. Some might say his point was proven after the sudden death of the Supreme Court justice. The body was not yet cold when Republicans threw down the gauntlet. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that the president should not even nominate a replacement and should leave it instead to his successor. Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley seconded this, saying his panel would not open confirmation hearings, although Politico reported Tuesday that Grassley told Radio Iowa he would not rule them out. Understand: It's not uncommon for the opposition party to warn that a nominee better be to its liking. However, to declare before the fact that no person put forth by the president will receive even a hearing is not politics as usual, but rather, a stinging and personal insult without apparent precedent. It is simply impossible to imagine another president being treated with such malign contempt. But then, GOP contempt for Obama and his authority have been manifest since before Day One. McConnell's refusal to do his job is just the latest example. On Twitter, a person who tweets as "Josh(at)bravee1" put it like this: "Mitch McConnell just needs to admit that he thinks President Obama was elected to three-fifths of a term." It's a great line, but what is happening here is more subtle than just racism. To be, as McConnell is, a straight, 73-year-old white male in America is to have come of age in a world where people like you and only people like you set the national agenda. One suspects, then, that people like him see in Obama their looming loss of demographic and ideological primacy in a nation that grows more multi-hued and, on many vital social issues, less conservative every day. Some people can handle that. Others would rather cripple the country, leaving it without a functioning Supreme Court for almost a year, and never mind the will of the people as twice expressed in elections: Barack Obama is our president. He has the right and duty to nominate a new justice. It's grating to hear Obama act as if the GOP's unrelenting campaign of obstructionism and insult were the moral equivalent of some African-American grandmother or young white progressive who were proud to cast their ballots for the first black president. Moreover, his attempt to shoulder blame for the hyper-partisanship of the last seven years suggests a fundamental misreading of the change he represents and the fear it kindles in some of those whose prerogatives that change will upend. It's well and good to be even-handed and reflective, but there is a point where that becomes willful obtuseness. Obama is there. "They were afraid of you for a couple of reasons," said his friend. "Number one, you were black." It's interesting that a white man in his 70s can see this, yet a 54-year-old black man cannot. Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The Miami Herald, readers may email him at lpitts@miamiherald.com. SPRINGFIELD A Democratic state senator from Macoupin County is planning a new effort to reopen the shuttered Illinois State Museum after an attempt to override an amendatory veto from Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner failed. Rauner closed the museum last fall as a cost-saving measure, but unionized employees have continued reporting to work after they contested their layoffs. The governor and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources announced a plan earlier this month to reopen the main museum and two satellite facilities while permanently shuttering two others, including the Southern Illinois Art and Artisans Center at Rend Lake. The plan called for beginning to charge admission fees and ramping up private fundraising efforts. Rauner crafted the plan by using his amendatory veto power to rewrite a bill that simply required the state to operate the museum and the four branches and keep them open to the public. The General Assembly would have had vote to accept those changes. But Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, the sponsor of the original bill, on Wednesday called on his fellow senators to rescind Rauner's changes because he said the governor exceeded his constitutional authority to rewrite legislation. The Senate voted 32-15 on the override, four votes short of the threshold, effectively killing the bill. "My goal has always been to reverse the action taken by the governor. That's been my goal all along," Manar said. "The governor rewrote a bill that the Legislature passed in a bipartisan vote. There was no way ever the Legislature was going to accept that. No way." He said he now plans to draft a new bill that will incorporate the admission fees and private fundraising called for in the governor's plan, steps he said Rauner could have taken months ago without legislation. For his part, Rauner said his changes to the bill were well within the authority given to him in the Illinois Constitution. "I think what we did is absolutely constitutional, and it's the right thing to do," he said Thursday. "We don't want to have the museum closed. I certainly don't. I don't want to see any of our services cut, but we've got to come up with a way to pay for it." SPRINGFIELD Gov. Bruce Rauner has vetoed a bill that would have spent $721.5 million to fund community colleges and grants to low-income students. In his veto message, Rauner said the bill would explode the States budget deficit, exacerbate the States cash flow crisis, and place further strain on social service providers and recipients who are already suffering from the States deficit spending. Democrats passed the bill late last month without any Republican support. The state hasnt funded public universities, community colleges or grants through the Monetary Award Program this year because Rauner vetoed all but the elementary and secondary education portion of the state budget. Rauner is urging lawmakers to support a GOP plan that would spend $1.6 billion to fund all three areas by tying the money to a measure giving him authority to move money around within the budget to cover shortfalls. Senate President John Cullerton, D-Chicago, said the bill gave Rauner the chance to honor his commitment to funding MAP grants. He had a chance to back up his promises with funding, Cullerton said in a prepared statement. Instead, he let these students down, again. I dont understand how he can propose student financial aid on Wednesday (in his budget address), and then turn around and veto it on Friday. Sen. Donne Trotter, D-Chicago, one of the bills sponsors, issued a statement calling the move a slap in the face of the very students who will soon fuel our economic engine. John Charles, executive director for governmental and public affairs at Southern Illinois University, said the university system, which backed the bill, hopes lawmakers override the governors veto or come together on a bill that funds MAP and university operations very soon. Brooke Chilton is a senior in accounting at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington and a MAP grant recipient. Her school is among many in the state that stopped fronting MAP grant money to students this semester. Chilton said shes not sure how shell cover that cost if the state doesnt meet its obligation. She understands that Rauner is trying to fix the states shaky finances, but I dont think that taking it out on higher education is the way to go, she said. A roundup of legislative and Capitol news items for Thursday: FUEL PRICES: The price of regular unleaded gasoline averaged $1.60 across Iowa, according to AAA, which is two cents less than a week ago and 55 cents lower than a year ago. The national average on Tuesday was $1.71, down a penny from last week. Retail diesel fuel prices were a penny lower Tuesday at a statewide average of $1.88, 11 cents a gallon lower than the national average. Thats down from $2.64 a gallon last year. Wholesale ethanol prices were 2 cents lower, closing at $1.38. Natural gas prices also were lower by 25 cents, closing at $1.92/MMbtu. Propane prices were unchanged from last week with a statewide average of $1.01 per gallon. Home heating oil rose 3 cents from last weeks statewide average of $1.48. The price of global crude oil rose this week on the West Texas Intermediate by $2.95 per barrel over last week to $30.64. Brent crude oil rose $3.17 and is currently priced at $34.30. One year ago, WTI crude sold for $53.53 and Brent crude was at $60.78. NO TAX COUPLING: Senate Democrats said they do not plan to couple state tax laws with recent federal tax law changes for the tax year 2015. Sen. Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, chairman of the Senates tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, said the state cannot afford the reduction in state revenues that would result from coupling. House Republicans earlier this session passed legislation that would couple state tax laws with the recent federal changes; doing so would reduce state revenues and provide $96 million in tax relief to businesses, teachers, elderly and low-income Iowans. Republicans in the minority in the Senate have called for Democrats to support the House bill. Gov. Terry Branstad has proposed coupling for the current tax year but not 2015; that would provide $49 million in tax relief. We simply cannot afford to couple with federal changes this year and responsibly balance the state budget, Bolkcom said in a statement. BUSINESS COURT: The Iowa Supreme Court has announced the Iowa Business Specialty Court will remain an ongoing part of the state court system. In December 2012, the Supreme Court created a three-year pilot project following a key recommendation of the 2012 Report of the Iowa Civil Justice Reform Task Force. The business court pilot project began accepting qualifying cases May 1, 2013. The business court accepts a broad range of commercial cases with $200,000 or more in dispute and is staffed by three judges with experience in handling complex business issues. In July 2015, the Judicial Branch concluded its second evaluation and found that attorneys who have had cases in the pilot project strongly supported the business court and wanted it to become a permanent part of the Iowa civil litigation system. In its 2016 administrative term beginning July 1, the court will conduct its third annual review of the business court to determine if it should make any changes to the eligibility criteria or other aspects of the project. For more on the business court, visit www.iowacourts.gov/About_the_Courts/Specialty_Courts. NEW JUDGE: Gov. Terry Branstad has appointed Patrick Greenwood as judge to the 5B Judicial District to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge Sherman W. Phipps. Greenwood, 46, of Lamoni, currently is in private practice. He also serves as a Decatur County magistrate judge and adjunct faculty member at Graceland University. He received his undergraduate degree from Iowa State University in 1992 and his law degree from Drake University Law School in 1998. District 5B consists of Adair, Adams, Clark, Decatur, Lucas, Ringgold, Taylor, Union and Wayne counties. LEGISLATIVE FORUM: The African American Museum of Iowa will co-sponsor the League of Women Voters of Linn County Legislative Forum from 10:30 to 11:45 a.m. Saturday in the Hallagan Center at Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids. Sens. Rob Hogg, Wally Horn, Liz Mathis and Dan Zumbach and Reps. Liz Bennett, Kraig Paulsen, Ken Rizer, Kirsten Running-Marquardt, Art Staed, Quentin Stanerson and Todd Taylor have been invited. The lawmakers will discuss their legislative activities and take questions from the audience. Forums are planned for March 19 and April 16. QUOTE OF THE DAY: The fact is, Iowans hate to complain, but we would rather have them complain so we can serve them. Department of Human Services Director Charles Palmer discussing lawmakers concerns with the transition in Medicaid management. Times Bureau The views expressed in the articles published on Rainbow Stamp Club are solely those of the authors and contributors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Blog Owner . The Readers are requested to contact author or the contributor of the particular article if they have any objection or do not agree with the views expressed in the article . Please do not ask the Blog Owner to delete or change any Post published on this blog . The Post will be removed only after strong recommendation of the original author / contributor after proper verification . All contents provided on this blog is for information only. The owner of this blog makes no representations as to the accuracy or completeness of any information on this blog or found by following any link on this blog. The owner will not be liable for any errors or omissions in this information nor for the availability of this information. The owner will not be liable for any losses, injuries, or damages from the display or use of this information. In West Bengal, Rajbanshi community has been placed in the list of scheduled caste (SC). In rural South Bengal, they fall under. In North Bengal, these people are better known as Rajbanshi. Keeping in view of their backwardness, some scholars are advocatingstatus for them based on the principles propounded by late Shri Kanshi Ram and Ms. Mayawati of Bahujan Samaj Party. There is no similarity between Rajbanshis of South Bengal and North Bengal both socially and culturally. For this reason,status may suit Rajbanshis in South Bengal districts but it does not attract Rajbanshis of North Bengal. Educated and well to do Rajbanshis of North Bengal feel ashamed to call them as SC. They take pride in calling themselves as Kshatriya. Even, most of them do not advocate for grant tribal status (ST) as most of their counterparts (Koch-Rajbanshi people) in Assam demand for such status. In Purnia and Kishanganj districts of Bihar, Rajbanshis have been placed in the list of OBC. In Bangladesh and Nepal, such caste wise distinction does not exist among Rajbanshi people. Daily update All Commodity news like : Wheat, Rice, Maize, Guar, Sugar, Gur, Pulses, Spices, Mentha Oil & Oil Complex (Musterd seed & Oil, soyabeen seed & Oil, Groundnet seed & Oil, Pam Oil etc.) ST. LOUIS (January 18, 2016) U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack will make his seventh visit to Commodity Classic, the nations largest farmer-led, farmer-focused convention and trade show. Secretary Vilsack will deliver a keynote address to several thousand farmers and ag allies during the events General Session, to be held Friday, March 4, in New Orleans, Louisiana.Secretary Vilsack continues to be a strong voice for farmers and ranchers, and we are jazzed to welcome him back to Commodity Classic, said National Corn Growers Association President Chip Bowling. Secretary Vilsack brings a thoughtful perspective on the top policy issues affecting the ag industry. We are especially eager to hear from him about the new Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement and how that will impact farmers, ranchers, and the rural economy.Commodity Classic is a wonderful opportunity for Secretary Vilsack to get his message out directly to thousands of farmers, but also to hear from them directly during the convention and trade show, said American Soybean Association President Richard Wilkins. We are grateful for his leadership and advocacy, and the audience always looks forward to his insights.Secretary Vilsack was appointed by President Barack Obama as the 30th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and took office in January 2009. He is the fourth-longest serving Secretary of Agriculture in U.S. history. Previously, Vilsack served two terms as governor of Iowa.Established in 1996, Commodity Classic is America's largest farmer-led, farmer-focused convention and trade show, produced by the National Corn Growers Association, American Soybean Association, National Association of Wheat Growers, National Sorghum Producers and the Association of Equipment Manufacturers.For more information on registration, housing and the schedule of activities, visit www.CommodityClassic.com. HELENA When Gabrielle Wheeler was 13, her stepfather, a truck driver, came home and had a freakout one morning. She was sleeping on a cot in the hallway of one of the two-bedroom apartments her family lived in between stays in motel rooms. Her stepfather tripped on her and was angry. When he did come home, it was really bad and unsafe, she said. Her mother had her pack her bags and took her to live with a family friend. At 13 that was really scary, she said. On Thursday, Wheeler and five other teenagers told the Protect Montana Kids Commission about their experiences in Montanas foster care system. The commission, created by Gov. Steve Bullock last September, is tasked with finding ways to improve the various programs in place to help children in the state, like Child and Family Services. The commission also will make recommendations to the 2017 Legislature. The commission has been looking at issues with CFS, including complaints made by parents and grandparents about poor communication and actions taken by caseworkers, as well as issues the agency is asking for help with fixing, including what it says are unreasonable workloads and low pay. Wheeler, now 17, was born in Missoula. She told the commission her family moved 19 times between Montana, Colorado and Texas, where she said her parents started doing pretty hard drugs. She said she and her brother werent being fed and didnt feel safe. The family moved back to Arlee, which is where she was living when her parents sent her away to stay with a family friend. She missed four months of school her eighth-grade year. After 2 1/2 years, the husband and wife she was staying with told her she needed to find a new place to live. She was a sophomore in high school and homeless, sleeping under the Reserve and Russell street bridges in Missoula. Friends eventually realized she needed a place to live, and she ended up with a caseworker who took her to a short-term group home. They said, Oh, this is going to be a week youll be back with your mom in two weeks max. I was there two months, she said. She bounced through more group homes around the state and a foster family she had to leave without notice. I came home on a Thursday at 7 p.m. and they said I had to pack my bag and I was leaving tomorrow. The next day she got into a car and wasnt told where she was going. I wound up in Helena, she said. I wasnt able to say goodbye, close any doors. She was put in a youth home, stayed the maximum amount of time allowed and was eventually placed in a family here last summer. It has been an amazing place, she said. She said she calls her foster parents Mom and Dad, and her foster mother's parents are her grandparents. Ive never had that, Wheeler said. It gets really, really hard and you feel like you have nobody. *** Several of the teenagers who spoke Thursday expressed frustration with a lack of communication with Child Protective Services caseworkers, their attorneys and others involved in their case. Some had good experiences in group homes while others didnt. Schylar Baber-Canfield, who is on the commission and is a foster care advocate, said these kids might struggle to explain if they got good help from their Child Protective Services worker because they dont know what a good job is. Wheeler told the commission that at times during the process she felt like her rights werent being considered. Kids should be told where theyre going, and if theres a reason theyre not being told they should be told of that reason, she said. Wheeler said she often couldnt leave voicemails for her caseworker because she didnt answer calls and her voicemail was always full. That really hindered a lot of trust boundaries being broken, she said. Isaac Brito, an 18-year-old who attends Montana State University, said he didn't trust his caseworker or attorney. One of my biggest issues was communication, he said. He told the commission his caseworker didn't return his calls and his guardian ad litem only spoke to him once, adding his lawyer only sometimes got back to him. Brito was placed in the care of his grandparents at 15 when on a summer trip to their home in Anaconda his younger sister told his grandmother and grandfather about the emotional and physical abuse and neglect they were experiencing from their mother. He said the caseworker he was assigned didn't fight for him. I came into foster care completely damaged and just the process of going into foster care and everything, feeling like I wasnt ever heard, lowered my confidence and made me feel like Ive had no worth, he said. I never felt like I had a voice and all these people were making all these decisions about my life. Not all of the teens had the same experience. Charlie Heil, an 18-year-old who is a senior at Capital High in Helena, said she had positive experience with her court-appointed special advocate and others involved in her case. I was going to all of the court (hearings), had a CASA, talked to attorneys, knew everything that was going on, she said. Child and Family Services Director Sarah Corbally asked the teens how multiple placements in group and family homes affected them. Several who spoke said theyd been moved around to different group or foster homes, sometimes with little or no notification. Crystal LaMere, a 17-year-old from Great Falls, said transitions are the biggest issue with which shes dealt. Foster kids need that stability, she said. They get attached to somebody and they leave. Ive had so many caseworkers since Ive been in the system, I cant get really close to them. Any time I get close to any of them, they just leave again. I have a really hard time trying to trust caseworkers now. The commission also heard from foster parents about kinship care and from judges on ways they address abuse and neglect cases. The commission has until the end of May to make recommendations on changes to state law, and then plans to focus on how to improve employee retention at CFS, which has seen high turnover. The agency has 178 investigator positions and at any given time about 30 are vacant, most employees stay less than two years, and last year 77 of the 178 investigators left their jobs. BILLINGS Billings Police Departments Sgt. Matthew Brewer has been placed on administrative leave while the department investigates allegations of off-duty misconduct, Chief Rich St. John said Wednesday. St. John said he could not release details of the allegations. The leave will last until at least the end of the investigation, and its not clear how long that will take. Brewer worked as a night shift commander until Jan. 1 when he started a rotation with the detective division. He joined BPD in May 1999 and was promoted to sergeant in 2008. St. John said the detective division is operating with two fewer commanders after Brewers leave and the death of Sgt. Shawn Finnegan. Seven potential officers are currently enrolled in academy, and the department will try to hire eight more soon. St. John said filling lower-level vacancies will allow experienced officers to move into the available commander roles. JORDON NIEDERMEIER, for the Missoulian Bitterroot Valley Education Cooperative Director Tim Miller and Montanas Superintendent of Public Instruction Denise Juneau were joined by their staff for a discussion on mental health on Wednesday. The 63rd Legislature provided $215,700 for the Office of Public Instruction to increase school-based mental health coordination in rural Montana. Thirteen communities received this support including Bitterroot Valley Education Cooperative (Florence, Stevensville, Victor, Hamilton and Darby), Prairie View Coop in Glendive and Fort Peck network of schools and tribal health. According to their website, the Bitterroot Valley Education Cooperative is a full service education cooperative and licensed mental health center providing special education related services and school based mental health services to six Ravalli County member school districts (Florence, Lone Rock, Stevensville, Victor, Hamilton and Darby). We value our relationship with the OPI and the confidence it has in our organization, Miller said. By awarding contract funding for us to coordinate and develop suicide prevention and crisis response protocols among our members schools, we have significantly improved our ability to understand and prevent suicide attempts. Miller said Montanas suicide rate is double the national average according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey, completed by high school students in 2013, said 17.32 percent of Western Montana students indicated they had contemplated suicide in the last 12 months. Miller said the goal is to decrease youth suicide and better prepare schools to recognize mental health crises and connect students with needed services. A recent suicide in one of our valley schools had us all focus our attention and team up to prevent a similar tragedy because the pain is too great to repeat, Miller said. Depression and despair are treatable and we have incredible staff in our counseling and school mental health programs that make a difference. Miller praised project coordinator Steve Zieglowsky and the rest of his staff. Zieglowsky said the Bitterroot Valley Education Cooperative has found that rural community members are more willing to discuss mental health when it comes from a school and the previously established and trusted relationships between school staff and parents. We provide a lot of services at a different level that arent mandated, but there is a lot of belief in their effectiveness, Zieglowsky said. We do a lot of training of behavior planning, behavior interventions and the co-op has literally developed its own system. It tracks behavior planning and progress but also has tools built in to promote the effectiveness of the interventions. Professional mental health staff is perceived as an integrated part of the school staff. Miller shared some great collaboration with a big impact at a valley school. They identified themselves as a mental health team, Miller said. These are counselors and principals who meet on a regular basis and they came up with ways to support kids and make sure they get the help they need. Miller said this developed into district-wide training for all staff that also incorporated the Pixar movie Inside Out as a theme to look at moods. The entire district staff received the training, Miller said. Then came the culture that they are all part of the mental health team. Miller said that integration and use of common vocabulary has helped break barriers and reported that staff has referred back to that initial training positively. The Bitterroot Valley Education Cooperative staff also reported that training students on how to address a crisis is having a positive impact. The staff is getting the critical information and resources for help into the hands of the peers who the students turn to when they are in crisis. Zieglowsky reported another change that the co-op has implemented is a gradual discharging of a student from a tier three level of intervention. When students are discharged they will often go from intensive and individual level three services back down to level one, Zieglowsky said. Now there are supports to help with that transition so they can be successful. The discussion group on Wednesday agreed that community-based and school-based mental health recourses are critically needed in rural areas. Juneau and the Office of Public Instruction have a team of resources that are available to reach out and support the work that is being done locally. We want the good work to continue and when more grants come in well have the infrastructure of people in our agency to carry this forward, Juneau said. The other great thing that is happening is in Helena we are reaching out to the Department of Public Health and Human Services. They have similar services and we are doing a lot of collaboration with them right now. Because they are under the governors administration we are able to have those real conversations about what is happening all across the state. Juneau said that her goal is to have a plan to keep conversations and strong policies in place. BILLINGS When Billings Public Schools decided to upgrade Internet connections, the district was able to fold costs into a larger $122 million bond passed in 2013 for a pair of new middle schools and renovations to existing schools. Levies are often the only public funding for districts to upgrade technology, and costs fall back on local tax bases as schools try to keep pace with their peers across the state. Its those taxpayers, said Pam Meier, the principal of Arrowhead Elementary in Billings. We give a lot of credit to them. Arrowhead was the first school in Billings to test out fiber Internet, a faster, more reliable system for delivering information. It seems like we are able to get lots of kids on technology at one time without having issues, Meier said. The school has mobile iPad labs, and students had problems with overloading connections in the past. The iPads are paid for through a district technology levy, one of a few categories of levies that schools can put up for a vote for extra local funding. Billings passed a K-8 technology levy in May 2013 separate from the $122 million bond. The technology levy brings in about $1.2 million each year. Trout Creek is about as far away from Billings as you can get in Montana, both geographically and by school characteristics. The K-8 district has about 75 students and is surrounded by national forest land near the border with northern Idaho. But the district has an ambitious technology plan. Trout Creek wants to provide each student and teacher with their own wireless device and aims to have 90 percent of eighth-graders and teachers proficient in technology-based skills by 2017. Could the district implement the plan without a levy? Not at all, said Principal Daisy Carlsmith. Technology is becoming a bigger and bigger part of district budgets, said Dianne Burke, executive director of the Montana Quality Education Coalition. We dont have a good mechanic for that. Thats not part of the funding formula. With large-scale infrastructure projects facing similar funding problems, its hard to justify spending money that could go to other projects on technology. If you have a boiler thats going to blow up or you want to do broadband upgrades, youre going to replace the boiler, said Dave Lewis, a former Republican state senator from Helena who sits on an interim school funding commission. Most Montana Internet connections use copper wiring. The state was blasted for having glacial Internet speeds a few years ago, but has made strides in improving high-speed access. However, copper limits possible improvements. Fiber connections offer higher speeds and more reliable access, plus upgrade options. Its less expensive, along with being a higher-performing project it seems like a no-brainer to do it, said Billings schools director of technology Kyle Brucker. Its time to upgrade our schools. But many areas in Montana lack the infrastructure in place to accommodate fiber. It costs a lot of money for Internet providers to come in and run high-speed Internet to a rural community, Brucker said. If you dont have the infrastructure in a school, it doesnt matter how much speed you throw at it. Gov. Steve Bullock signed on to an initiative by Education Superhighway to improve Montanas access to high-speed Internet and cut costs. By the advocacy groups measure, 65 percent of Montana schools have fiber connections, and about a quarter of schools have wireless Internet. Montanas neighbors have slightly better figures. Montana ranks better for Internet affordability on a regional and national scale. Reliable networks have become even more important with the advent of computer-based standardized testing, like Montanas Smarter Balanced exams taken by students in grades 3-8. Technical glitches were chalked up to a problem with the test, not schools, which officials said performed well during a pilot run in 2014. If you dont have to think about (Internet), it means its doing its job, Brucker said. School officials cant say the same for funding mechanisms. Supreme Court nominations Its the year 2044. Moments after Malia Ann Obama is sworn in as the 50th President of the United States, Republicans vow to block any Supreme Court nominee to replace their conservative legal titan, Saint Antonin Scalia. They claim that the voice of America needs to be heard; that once again, 28 years after Scalias death and seven presidents later, America must wait yet another four years until maybe, just maybe, a Republican enters the Oval Office. Does this scenario sound far-fetched? Actually, its as ridiculous and radical as what current senate Republicans are promising: They will block consideration of any Supreme Court nominee put forth by President Obama for the next 11 months, until Americans have spoken, and we have a new president in 2017. Just what does the U.S. Constitution mean to Republicans these days? Have Republicans abandoned the Constitution as theyve abandoned their congressional duties? Article 2, Section 2, Clause 2 of our Constitution states the President shall nominate justices to the Supreme Court. The Constitution also says the Senate has the duty to confirm or not confirm the nominee. The Senate cannot shirk their advise and consent duties for a year, hoping a Trump, Cruz, or Rubio resides in the White House. The theme of obstructionism run amok has been a constant since Obamas inauguration; now Republicans are taking it to a radically new level. This dangerous new precedent will only serve to further divide our country. Americans want Congress to do their job. They dont want government shutdowns, credit defaults, or critical legal rulings in our highest court endlessly delayed while Republicans go on strike and refuse to uphold their constitutional duties. Republicans are not obligated to confirm Obamas nominee, but they must hold hearings to judge a nominees experience, character, temperament, and respect for the Constitution and rule of law. Sitting justice Kennedy, a Reagan appointee, was confirmed in the election year of 1988 by a Democratically-controlled Senate. Unanimously. Justice Scalia said, in 2010, that he was not happy about the intrusion of politics into the judicial appointment process. The longest delay ever for confirming a Supreme Court nominee was 125 days. Obama has over 330 days left in office. Its time for Republicans to get serious, do their job, uphold their constitutional responsibilities, and stop uber-politicizing everything. If they respect Antonin Scalia and our Constitution, then they must consider a nominee and take a vote. Americans deserve that. Van P. Keele Hamilton Masters Of War Come you masters of war You that build all the guns You that build the death planes You that build all the bombs You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks. You that never done nothin' But build to destroy You play with my world Like it's your little toy You put a gun in my hand And you hide from my eyes And you turn and run farther When the fast bullets fly. Like Judas of old You lie and deceive A world war can be won You want me to believe But I see through your eyes And I see through your brain Like I see through the water That runs down my drain. You fasten all the triggers For the others to fire Then you set back and watch When the death count gets higher You hide in your mansion' As young people's blood Flows out of their bodies And is buried in the mud. You've thrown the worst fear That can ever be hurled Fear to bring children Into the world For threatening my baby Unborn and unnamed You ain't worth the blood That runs in your veins. How much do I know To talk out of turn You might say that I'm young You might say I'm unlearned But there's one thing I know Though I'm younger than you That even Jesus would never Forgive what you do. Let me ask you one question Is your money that good Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could I think you will find When your death takes its toll All the money you made Will never buy back your soul. And I hope that you die And your death'll come soon I will follow your casket In the pale afternoon And I'll watch while you're lowered Down to your deathbed And I'll stand over your grave 'Til I'm sure that you're dead.------- Bob Dylan 1963 Revenue declines, the pandemic, and rising competition create new realities in higher education. Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next. 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. WARNING for European visitors European Union laws require you to give European Union visitors information about cookies used on your blog. In many cases, these laws also require you to obtain consent. As a courtesy, we have added a notice on your blog to explain Google's use of certain Blogger and Google cookies, including use of Google Analytics and AdSense cookies. Dawn - 4 February 2016 ELECTED civilian governments in Pakistan have mostly owed their fall less to the opposition partiesa doings and more to their own death wish. Hopes that our politicians had learnt enough to avoid history being repeated have unfortunately begun to fade. The public complaint that the stateas writ in regard to its benevolent functions, such as guaranteeing its citizens security of life, liberty and a means of a decent living, is shrinking is now old hat. A new cause of their anxiety is that the stateas growing reliance on its coercive powers is undermining its credibility as a responsible entity and is putting the democratic system at risk. Last Tuesdayas incident in which force was used to suppress the PIA employeesa protest was the result of a long history of the governmentas refusal to listen to labouras point of view on the controversial policy of selling off public-sector enterprises. In a similar fashion, Wapda workers are being provoked into resorting to extreme action to defend their rights. These issues will not be resolved until the government agrees to discuss its misguided enthusiasm for privatisation with workers, economists and the concerned citizens. Strangely enough labour is being denied a fair deal at a time when Pakistan is required to respect its rights in order to enjoy the GSP-Plus benefits. Civil societyas ties with the state cannot be modelled on the master-servant relationship. However, labour is not the only victim of the governmentas inability to address matters of grave concern to the people in a fair manner. Due notice has yet to be taken of the plight of farmers caused by an unprecedented failure of the cotton crop. Women, the largest vulnerable group in the country, cannot understand the stateas failure to manage the conservative clerics who wish to preserve the evil practice of child marriage and would not allow abolition of corporal punishment. Did the government listen to the wail of the mothers of the Bacha Khan University victims, who offered a significant variant on the official narrative on the campaign against terrorism? Likewise, little is being done to address the concerns of the minority communities. Many months have passed since the Hindu marriage bill was okayed by the federal cabinet but the delay in enacting the measure has deprived the government of the goodwill it could have earned. If some flaws in the text of the bill have been discovered at this late stage the government alone is responsible. The government has also missed the opportunity to mitigate the hardships faced by the minorities that was offered by the Supreme Court verdict of June 2014. Not only is the government inviting criticism for its failure to respect the Supreme Courtas advice, it does not seem keen to benefit from the institutions it has created. For instance, the National Commission for Human Rights (NCHR) is yet to be allowed to fulfil its mandate and help the authorities improve their human rights record. Nobody believes that some petty bureaucrats alone are responsible for preventing the NCHR from taking off. Besides, the government does not seem to realise the dangers it is courting by opening a front against civil society organisations that do it and the country good service when they point out its shortcomings and errors. The process of registration and re-registration has not only been made unnecessarily cumbersome, it also smacks of vindictiveness. Ever since junior intelligence and police functionaries were let loose to hound civil society activists they have been inventing ever new methods of obstructing and disrupting activities aimed at articulating the grievances of the underprivileged. A particularly vicious form of harassment is subjecting the office bearers and activists of civil society organisations to questions that encroach upon their rights to freedom of association and privacy. It should not be difficult for the exalted figures in authority to realise that by decimating civil society they will lose a cushion against militants and extremists who can promise nothing other than anarchy and death. The democrats in civil society are perhaps still prepared to give the political parties, those in government as well as those outside, a chance in the hope that they will not fail to complete the stateas transition to a functional democracy. But civil societyas ties with the state cannot be modelled on the master-servant relationship. The state has to conduct its affairs in a manner that civil society can defend it without losing the peopleas trust and respect. The government seems to have convinced itself that since it is engaged in a mortal combat with terrorists it can afford to ignore the abuse of law, which is evident in the curtailment of the right of the accused to due process, the extension of pre-trial detention to unreasonable limits and publication of statements of the accused before they are made in any court. The dictum that extra-legal measures can ruin the noblest of endeavours can hardly be ignored. The government also needs to realise that the Rangersa success in reducing lawlessness in Karachi does not mean that Balochistanas sores may be allowed to fester, and that the completion of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor will not eradicate the causes of poverty rooted in the archaic landownership pattern. The tales of increased prosperity in Punjab should not blind the government to the threats to the foundations of the federation posed by the growing disparity between the privileged province and the other regions, something the students of political economy have already begun to notice. The citizensa most fundamental grievance is that the system of governance is losing the quality of impersonal rule and the practice of taking decisions after due deliberation at the prescribed, democratic forums. It is time to rediscover the key role of the cabinet in the parliamentary system and realise that a genuine democracy demands not only rule by parliamentary consensus, but that it is also contingent on respect for the will of the people. On the 12 Feb 2016 the Maharashtra Adhashtradha Nirmulan Samitee [Maharashtra Anti Superstition Committee] (MANS) held a sit-in at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi they released later at a press conference a letter to Indias Prime minister and a note explaining the urgent need to coordinate and expedite the police investigations underway into the assassinations of Govind Pansare, Prof MM Kalburgi and Narendra Dhabolkar. sacw.net - 12 February 2016 To, Honorable Mr. Narendraji Modi Prime Minister of India, New Delhi-110001 Subject: Request for Appointment regarding the extreme delay in finding the culprits and mastermind behind the brutal murder of Shahid Dr Narendra Dabholkar, Com Govind Pansare, Prof Kalburgi Respected sir, You must be aware that renowned rationalist and founder president of Maharashtra Adhashtradha Nirmulan Samitee (MANS) Dr Narendra Dabholkar was brutally murdered in Pune on 20th August 2013. Dr Dabholkar dedicated whole of his life for inculcating scientific temperament in the society and stood for the values described in the Indian constitution. He was also founder member of Sadhana weekly for 12 years which is a renowned magazine dedicated for social reforms in Maharashtra established by Sane Guruji. Though twenty nine months have been passed there is no progress in the investigation. We strongly feel that the murders of rationalist Comrade Pansare in Kolhapur eleven months back and Professor Kalburgi in Dharwad four months back could have been prevented if the murderer of Dr Dabholkar were nabbed in time. We want to bring to your notice the neglect of Dr Narendra Dabholkar murder case by CBI. If we compare just the manpower allotted to Dr Dabholkar case vis a vis cases like Sheena Bora and Vyapam the neglect is evident. In Sheena Bora case there are four CBI teams investigating the matter and in Vypam case there are forty. In sharp contrast to these cases, Dr Dabholkar murder case there are only four officers of CBI in the investigating the team despite of the repeated requests by the family for increase the manpower. Hence we sincerely urge you to appoint a dedicated special investigation team of CBI to investigate Dr Narendra Dabholkar murder case which should be supervised by the joint director level officer posted in Mumbai or Pune. We also want to bring it to your notice the delay that has happened in appointing a full time IPS level officer for investigation in Dr Dabholkar murder case. The CBI Superintendent of police post at the Bellapur, Maharashtra office which is in charge of the investigation of this case is vacant for more than a year now. The person holding the charge of Superintendent of police at present has additional charge so we request you to give directions to CBI director for appointment of full time IPS level Superintendent of police at Bellapur office. All of this clearly indicates the extreme negligence on the part of the central and state government in the investigation We also want to bring it to your notice the support the organizations suspected by the state in Dr Dabholkar, Com Pansare and Prof Kalburgi murder case are getting support by certain members of ruling party in Maharashtra. All these things are highly detrimental to the free democratic discourse in the country and we reqest you as prime minster of India you look into this matter We sincerely urge you to give us an appointment at the earliest preferably between 11 to 13 February 2016 so we can bring our grievances to your notice. Yours sincerely Mr Avinash Patil Dr Hamid Dabholkar Megha Pansare Shrivijay Kalburgi SEE ALSO: Press Release by Maharashtra Adhashtradha Nirmulan Samitee (Maharashtra anti Superstition Committe) 12 Feb 2016 Urgent need for the coordinated efforts between teams investigating Dabholkar, Pansare and Kalburgi Cases Photos from 12 Feb 2016 sit-in in New Delhi to demand speedy trials of the murderers of Dr. Dabholkar, Prof. Kalburgi and Comrade Pansare http://www.sacw.net/article12382.html 19 February 2016 TEXT OF LEFT PARTIES MEMORANDUM TO THE PRESIDENT: Respected Rashtrapatiji, We, the undersigned, strongly condemn the attack launched by the RSS-BJP against the Left and all other democratic and secular forces in the country. It is clear that by spreading the canard of being "anti-national" the RSS-BJP have mounted an all India attack against the Indian people. While strongly condemning the attack mounted by the RSS under the patronage of this BJP-led NDA government against the Jawaharlal Nehru University, we, the undersigned, see this as part of a larger design by the communal forces to carry forward their agenda in institutions of higher learning. This systemic pattern is clearly visible in the incidents in Film & Television Institute of India, Hyderabad Central University leading to the tragic suicide of Rohit Vemula, the incidents in IIT Chennai and now in Jadavpur University. It is clear that the RSS-BJP are mounting an open attack on the democratic and constitutional rights of the people. Further, such attacks are part of the efforts to sharpen communal polarisation in the country. We, the undersigned, demand that the JNU Students Union President, Kanhaiya Kumar must be released and all cases of sedition filed against students must be withdrawn forthwith. No harassment and witch hunting must be allowed. The truth has now come out that most of the evidence produced by the government was fabricated. Those who have fabricated the evidence and propagated it, must be punished under the law. We, the undersigned, request the Honble President of India to immediately intervene to defuse the situation and prevail upon the Indian government to withdraw from this dangerous course that it has adopted. We are appealing to you, as the custodian of the Indian Constitution, to urgently intervene to defend the peoples Constitutional rights that are being trampled upon today. With regards, S. Sudhakar Reddy General Secretary, CPI Sitaram Yechury, MP General Secretary, CPI(M) Pawan Verma, MP, Janata Dal (United) Premchand Gupta, MP, Rashtriya Janata Dal D. P. Tripathi, MP, Nationalist Congress Party D. Raja, MP, CPI, Mohd Salim, MP, CPI(M) source: Facebook BBC News Attempt to crush independent media in Bangladesh Justin Rowlatt South Asia correspondent 18 February 2016 From the section Asia Image copyright Daily Star Image caption Mahfuz Anam has been accused of treason It can seem a bit self-righteous when journalists write about the importance of freedom of the press, a bit like a chef celebrating the virtues of a fancy meal or a hairdresser extolling the importance of a new haircut. But the publics right to know what is really going on in their country really is the cornerstone of a free society. Without free access to information, backed up by journalists who are willing to dig down and get to the truth, all the other liberties celebrated in democracies are endangered. Thats why the world should be worried by the concerted attacks on one of the leading newspaper editors in South Asia, Mahfuz Anam of Bangladeshs Daily Star. The Daily Star is the most popular English-language newspaper in Bangladesh. It was launched as Bangladesh returned to parliamentary democracy a quarter of a century ago, and has always had a reputation for journalistic integrity and liberal and progressive views - a kind of Bangladeshi New York Times. Thats why it is so shocking that Mr Anam now stands accused of treason, no less. Sajeeb Wajed, the son of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, has described him as "completely unethical" and a liar, and has demanded he be thrown in jail. Mr Wajed is at the head of a queue of dozens of politicians, student agitators and others who have launched criminal defamation charges against the eminent editor. I will go into the details of the allegations against Mr Anam in a moment, but first it is important that the claims are set in context, because it is hard not to see this as the latest line of attack in a concerted effort to gag one of the last independent media organisations in the country. The Daily Star Image copyright Getty Images Bangladeshs leading English-language daily, with an estimated circulation of 45,000 Independent and widely read by the elite Owned by industrial and marketing conglomerate Transcom, which also publishes Bengali-language daily Prothom Alo Has been observed to be critical of the Awami League government on various issues including the January 2014 national elections and the new broadcast policy Source: BBC Monitoring Bangladesh profile - media Incomes hit The Daily Star and its sister publication Prothom Alo - the most widely read Bengali newspaper in the country - are already the subject of a clandestine attempt to undermine their finances. The BBC understands that since last summer businesses, including some of the largest telecoms and consumer goods companies in Bangladesh, have been ordered to restrict their advertising in the two newspapers by the countrys military intelligence agency. The Norwegian company that owns Grameen Phone, Bangladeshs largest mobile phone operator, has admitted as much to Al Jazeera. Telenors head of communications confirmed that, "along with several other large corporations, [it] received an instruction from the authorities to stop advertisements in two leading newspapers in Bangladesh". The Daily Star and Prothom Alo are reckoned to have lost about a third of their income. Image copyright Daily Star Image caption Demonstrators in Thakurgaon formed a human chain to protest against the charges brought against Mr Anam Yet the order has no basis in law, according to the leading commentator on Bangladeshi politics, David Bergman. "It is simply enforced through the authority that comes from being the countrys most feared intelligence agency," he argues. But its intent is clear: it is about bringing independent media into line and stifling dissent. The message is "cross the line and well take action", but since no clear line has been drawn it is up to the media to police itself. And it seems to be working. Intimidation "There is not a single newspaper or TV editor in this country who does not know about the blockade," writes Mr Bergman, "yet not one of the nearly 30 TV stations, nor one of the countless newspapers has reported about this intimidation of the Daily Star and Prothom Alo." Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The advertising restrictions have received little coverage in the Bangladeshi press When I spoke to Bangladeshi information minister Hasanul Haq Inu, he denied that he knew of any such order. He told me that if the newspapers or any of the companies involved register an official complaint, he would be happy to investigate, and said that if any illegal restriction is being imposed on businesses in Bangladesh, he will take action. While the restrictions on advertising in the Daily Star are not getting much attention in the Bangladeshi press, the allegations of treason by Mr Anam are getting plenty of publicity. That is because Mr Anam has admitted he has made mistakes. Bad judgement - but treason? In a television interview earlier this month, he conceded that reports published in the Daily Star in 2007 alleging corruption by the woman who is now prime minister were based on uncorroborated leaks from the then military government. He said he was wrong to have published them. "It was a big mistake," he said during the interview. "It was a bad editorial judgement, I admit it without any doubt." Image copyright Reuters Image caption Mr Anam has admitted it was a mistake to publish corruption allegations against Sheikh Hasina in 2007 But whether his mistakes constitute treason is another matter entirely. The prime ministers son claims that the articles were an attempt by Mr Anam and the Daily Star to "support a military dictatorship in an attempt to remove my mother from politics". That is something Mr Anam vigorously denies, with justification. He points to 203 editorials published during the period of military rule demanding that democracy be restored. That amounts to one every three days of the so-called "emergency government". He also points out his newspaper was very critical when Sheikh Hasina was arrested in connection with the corruption charges. "To us Sheikh Hasinas arrest is totally misconceived and smacks of arrogant use of power without due process of law," his editorial thundered, the day after the arrest was made. Court decision What is more, none of the allegations against Sheikh Hasina and other party members was ever tested in court because all charges were dropped by executive order when her Awami League assumed power in 2008. By contrast, similar claims of corruption made against the main opposition party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), were allowed to stand. Many BNP politicians are still technically on bail from the charges. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Some believe attacks on newspaper editors are an attempt to crush independent media Mr Haq, the Information Minster, denies there is any campaign against the Daily Star. He says the complaints against Mr Anam are being made by individuals and are not being co-ordinated by the government. "A judgement on whether he is guilty will be made by the courts on the basis of the merits of the case," he told me. But Mr Bergman has no doubt about the real significance of these attacks on Mr Anam. He believes they are "an attempt to crush independent media". He is convinced that government loyalists want "to close down, or at least subdue, any influential independent media or dissent that is not within their control". Legal harassment That would represent a very sinister power grab in an already fragile democracy like Bangladesh. Since Bangladeshs media appears too cowed to speak out, it is time the rest of the world does. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has condemned what it calls the "legal harassment" of Mr Anam. Now governments must do the same. And where better to start than the UK government? A few weeks ago Alison Blake, the new British High Commissioner to Bangladesh, was celebrating how "as two Commonwealth countries, we share a set of core values, including a commitment to Parliamentary democracy and a tolerant and pluralistic system with a commitment to protect and uphold human rights". It might be time Ms Blake challenges the Bangladeshi government to deliver on that commitment. o o o PEN AMERICA Bangladesh: Defamation Charges Against Editor Representative of Broader Attacks on Media February 18, 2016 A deluge of lawsuits against editor Mahfuz Anam on charges of criminal defamation and sedition is an indication of the worsening state of free expression in Bangladesh, PEN America said in a statement today. Mahfuz Anam, editor of The Daily Starathe largest circulating daily English-language newspaper in Bangladeshafaces a total of 38 lawsuits, of which 30 are based on defamation charges and eight are based on sedition charges. It appears that the onslaught was in response to a televised admission on February 3, 2016, that he had made a mistake by running stories about corruption based on uncorroborated information provided by the DGFI, the countryas military intelligence agency, between 2007 and 2008. Subsequently, a number of politicians, including current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, were arrested on corruption charges by the then-ruling military-backed caretaker government. Under Bangladeshi law, a charge of criminal defamation carries a prison sentence of up to two years and/or a fine. aThe recent slew of charges leveled against Mahfuz Anam illustrates an escalation of the assault on media freedoms in Bangladesh,a noted Karin Deutsch Karlekar, director of free expression program at PEN America. aThe government and ruling party should cease using criminal defamation and sedition laws to harass the press, and should remove such restrictive statutes from the penal code. Bangladeshas democracy will be immeasurably weakened if the media is not able to fulfill its watchdog role and speak truth to power without fear of disproportionate repercussions.a Criminal defamation and sedition legislation is just one of many ways that the Bangladeshi authorities are stifling media and free expression in the country. The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Act and contempt of court laws are also used to silence critical voices, including that of British journalist David Bergman, charged with contempt of court in December 2014. Television talk shows have also been subject to censorship because of critical coverage, such as "Frontline" which was hosted by Matiur Rahman Chowdhury. Chowdhurys outspokenness and critical voice resulted in "Frontline" being pulled off the air indefinitely in February 2015. In November and December 2015, the government shut down Facebook, Twitter, Skype, WhatsApp, and other similar services that are crucial outlets for the sharing of news and information. Physical attacks against and harassment of reporters are on the rise, in addition to the attacks by Islamic extremists against secular bloggers and publishers last year that resulted in the deaths of five individuals in 2015. ### Founded in 1922, PEN American is an association of 4,300 U.S. writers working to breakdown barriers to free expression worldwide. www.PEN.org CONTACT Sarah Edkins, Deputy Director for Communications: sedkins@pen.org, +1 646 4830 o o o Bangladesh Politico - February 17, 2016 The increasing absurdity of the Mahfuz Anam affair by David Bergman A thoughtful Bangladeshi friend of mine told me the other day that he was glad what was happening to Mahfuz Anam. I asked him in astonishment, how could he say that. He said: "Politics in Bangladesh has become so absurd, and what is happening to the editor of the Daily Star may actually make people sit up and realise that things have simply gone too far." Well, I doubt that will happen. But it is certainly the case that what is happening to the Editor of the Daily Star is as an unedifying reflection of how in Bangladesh, the leader, the party and the state has increasingly meshed into one and how (using the courts) the governing party and its supporters can trample on the rights of just about any one in whatever way they wish. As John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton said: Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Yes, it is simply unbelievable that there are 55 criminal cases lodged against Mahfuz Anam - 12 for sedition (each of which allows for three years imprisonment) and 43 for defamation (each of which allows upto 2 years imprisonment). I have already written about some aspects of the hypocrisy and absurdity involved in this case, but here are four further points focusing on the legal cases against Anam. 1. Sedition charges: There is simply no way in which any conduct of Mahfuz Anam, even if given the most negative interpretation amounts to the offence of sedition - whether the offence is defined as it set out in the constitution or as it is in the penal code. (To read more about why, see point 12 here) How is it that none of the 12 magistrates who have accepted a sedition case, have simply not thrown the case out right at the beginning? 2. Multiple cases: How can a person be prosecuted for exactly the same offence in different courts throughout the country. Apart from the 12 magistrates who have accepted a sedition charge against Anam, there are 43 separate magistrates who have accepted a defamation case against him. It is obviously orchestrated harassment - but it also almost certainly in violation of the Bangladesh constitution: Article 35(2) states that: No person shall be prosecuted and punished for the same offence more than once. One would imagine that these magistrates, who are under an obligation to uphold the constitution, would consider the appropriateness of initiating a second, third, forth etc case when he or she is fully aware that a similar case has been filed elsewhere in the country. One would hope that before a court summoned Anam, the magistrate would seek to find out whether the case before him is or is not identical in facts to the other cases filed in other courts which have been highlighted in the media 3. Third party defamation cases: There should be only one person taking a defamation case and one person alone. That person of course is Sheikh Hasina. If she feels that her reputation has been inappropriately traduced due to inaccurate reporting then she should file a defamation case - noone else. There cannot be many other places in the world where a criminal (yes, not civil, but criminal) case of defamation is lodged by a third party claiming that another persons reputation has been traduced. 4. Compensation: In all of the defamation case, the plaintiffs have sought compensation - a total of 73, 831 crore Taka. This means for those who bemused by the idea of crores - Tk 738,310,000,000 which converts as $9381 million. But the penal code offence does not provide any opportunity for a person to seek compensation, and the magistrates has no power to deal with such claims. Musings This blog contains observations on life and nature written by Sage, satire and parody written by Nevada Jack, and an occasional book review or poem. As a general rule, the author of the blog doesn't write about his work or his family. Email at sagecoveredhills [at] gmail.com Another car wash company is coming to Salina The growth of car wash services have been increasing in Salina the past few years, with another coming after approval by the city. About ICARUS What's that you say? Icarus didn't make it? But that's because he flew too close to the sun. What if he'd used better judgment, or at least asked a better reference question, like 'How high can you safely fly if your feathers are glued on with wax?' 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. If you are currently a print subscriber but don't have an online account, select this option. You will need to use your 7 digit subscriber account number (with leading zeros) and your last name (in UPPERCASE). Reimer Priester knows the joys and occasional frustrations of owning a building in a historically-designated district. A managing member of Detroit-based DeCamp-Priester Real Estate Group, he loves historic architecture. But when he wanted to do work on the crown molding of a building in Midtown Detroit, he found that this minor, albeit attractive, detail would cost over $10,000 to faithfully restore. "We couldn't touch it because it was prohibitively expensive to do so," says Priester. This case exemplifies issues that can arise when renovating in a local historic district, as building owners who want to modify their facade have to adhere to the Secretary of the Interior's This process has been in place in Michigan for over 40 years, but could soon change fundamentally. Bills in Michigan's House ( The new House bill, sponsored by Rep. Chris Afendoulis (R, East Grand Rapids), would add challenges for historic district approval, increase leeway for homeowners to renovate a building within historic districts, and ultimately make it easier to dissolve such districts. For example, one clause requires two-thirds of a neighborhood residents' signatures just to direct a study committee. Another, known as the "sunset" clause, stipulates that historic districts must renew their designation every 10 years. Preservationists, it seems, are universally united against HB 5232. "There's nothing good about this bill," says Mac Farr, executive director of Detroit's West Village Historic District There are hundreds of historic districts in Michigan, and preservationists worry about the future of many of them, especially in neighborhoods with less active community groups. "If this bill passes, I doubt there will be any new historic districts formed," says Nancy Finegood, executive director of the Detroit's City Council The sponsors of the bill in Lansing argue that the current law creates unnecessary restrictions on homeowners. To them, it's a property rights issue. "This [bill] will help many communities maintain their historic identity while ensuring private property owners have a greater voice," said Afendoulis in a press release. They believe owners should have greater freedom to modify buildings, which is why the bill allows the historic district commissions to merely consult current standards. For example, one of the Secretary of Interior's guidelines states that "distinctive materials, features, finishes, and construction techniques or examples of craftsmanship that characterize a property will be preserved." This means that a homeowner could not use a less expensive composite material as a replacement under the current law. But preservationists argue these considerations are already taken into account. Building owners can appeal decisions by a historic district commission and, according to Finegood, over 90 percent of those appeals are approved. She also says there's flexibility in the standards themselves. In the same set guidelines, it states that, "The existing condition of historic features will be evaluated to determine the appropriate level of intervention needed." Simply put, if a feature or building can be preserved and salvaged, then preserve it. If it can't, then don't. The same principles apply to restoration, demolition, and new construction. Pontiac's Seminole Hills Historic District Implicit in the bill is a classic debate: whether free market forces or a degree of regulation will result in stronger local economies. But in this case, there's almost no argument. The data show an undeniable correlation between real-estate values and preserving the historic character of a neighborhood. "Almost 75 percent of neighborhoods that have now seen their property values exceed pre-recession values were located near or within historic districts," wrote James Turner, owner of Turner Restoration in Detroit, in an In many of Michigan's struggling cities, historic ordinances have been used to protect housing values. In Pontiac, historic neighborhoods are a bright spot in an otherwise flat housing market. Joseph Bishop, a 15-year resident of Pontiac's Seminole Hills historic district, Tim West, a 35-year resident of the Heritage Hill Historic District, Grand Rapids Detroit City Council's report noted that the 10-year renewal requirement could even negatively impact real-estate values in neighborhoods that aren't likely to lose their designation. "The attraction of historic district designation results, in large part, from the degree of stability it affords. Amending existing legislation to include a 'sunset' clause would add an element of uncertainty to the process that would negate many of its benefits," the Council writes. There's also a fear that outside speculators and developers would have a greater incentive to buy buildings and reshape them without considering the community's overall makeup. This might increase a building's value in the short-term, but destabilize a neighborhood long-term. "Many of these buildings are exquisite and their features give life and animation to a community," Priester says. "But if you have someone who doesn't care about the historic integrity, and there always will be, then you might lose that which gives an area its personality." But Priester's dilemma with repairing his building's crown demonstrates the current process could use, if not wholesale amending, some tweaking. Farr notes he's heard a few complaints from residents about overly stringent rulings from the historic district commission over shrub placement or color choices. "The historic commission could do itself a favor by focusing solely on aspects of preservation that are relevant," he says. Priester's real-estate group owns three buildings in historic districts and has dealt with Detroit's historic district commission numerous times. "They haven't placed undue or unexpected roadblocks in our way. But that may be because we've been proactive and never undertaken any action without their approval." By and large, these historic neighborhoods attract people who, because of their interest in preservation, don't mind the extra effort of applying to local commissions when renovating. Farr himself renovated a home in the Indian Village historic district. The process was more complicated, but he knew that going in. "I was aware well in advance of purchasing the house that I had to comply with certain regulations, that it wouldn't be easier or faster," he says. Aaron Mondry is a Detroit-based freelance writer. Follow him on Twitter Historic preservation is more challenging. For those who care about it, that's just the way it should be.Aaron Mondry is a Detroit-based freelance writer. Follow him on Twitter @aaronmondry This story is the third in a statewide series about cyber security and small businesses, supported by the Michigan Small Business Development Center . [Read the rest of the series here .]As our lives become more technologically connected, our sensitive information is increasingly at risk. Whether personal or business, networks are vulnerable to attacks every day. Fortunately for local small businesses, Michigan has been recognized as a state with serious cyber security credentials.Designated by the National Security Agency (NSA) as National Centers of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance, five Michigan colleges Walsh College, University of Detroit Mercy, Eastern Michigan University, Davenport University and Ferris State University are leading the pack when it comes providing students with tools they need to work in the burgeoning field of cyber security.The NSA and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) jointly announced in 2009 that the Michigan colleges are among the first 44 institutions designated as NSA/DHS National Centers of Academic Excellence (CAE) in Information Assurance (IA)/Cyber Defense (CD). The updated criteria benefit not only the institution, but also students, employers and hiring managers throughout the nation.What this means for local small business owners is that they neednt seek information from across the country, or around the world, to keep themselves and their customers safe from cyber-attacks. Everything they need is right here in Michigan.When breaches do occur, whether on the personal level, or the business level, having a contingency plan allows you to address them, says Dr. Pamela Imperato, the dean of Davenport Universitys College of Business Leadership. Davenport University received its designation in 2011.We do have the Internet of everything (IOE), and we really want people to participate in the new economyas much as it is important for companies to protect their networks, for us to provide those technical assurance, theres also that intended responsibilities for us as educators for us as community members and community members to not have people fear the new frontier. Thats a profound and interesting challenge, she continues.Obtaining the NSA designation was part of rising to that challenge. Initially, the part of getting the designation was just to reinforce that our curriculum was on target with what our students needed to learn to work in the industry, says Professor Lonnie Decker, department chair of networking in College of Technology at Davenport. Since then, its really become a part of us being part of the cyber defense community.With over 200 Centers of Academic Excellence designated by the NSA, Decker adds, they work together to advance the cyber security needs of the country. Part of the role of this community is to provide graduates, to fill these needs in private sectors as well as government.The biggest challenge, says Bob Clarkson, associate dean of the College of Business Leadership at Davenport, is ensuring that the curriculum is broad enough to cover all aspects of the industry.For Barbara Ciaramitaro, lead professor of IT and cyber security at Walsh College in Troy, the NSA designation is key to Michigans success.Walsh was one of the first universities in Michigan to actually achieve that designation of a Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance, Ciaramitaro says.In 2013, the NSA tightened its requirements. What the NSA and the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security said was we no longer want to treat it as a silo, Ciaramitaro says. We want you to integrate these concepts into all of your courses. One of the things we did at Walsh was redesign our undergrad and graduate programs. In a way, that allowed us to fully integrate cyber security into all of our courses.Ciaramitaro says its not just about data breaches anymore. Its about connectivity. Connected videos. Connected electric grids. Home alarms. Billions of devices are connected to the Internet, and whats alarming, he says, is that a majority of those devices have no security protection at all.What I think people dont realize is that connectivity is a playground for cyber criminals and other types of malicious attacks, Ciaramitaro says.Some companies are signing up for cyber risk insurance, and that might seem attractive for small business owners, however there are things to be aware of.When you look for cyber risk insurance, make sure that you truly understand what is required, what is covered, what is excluded, Ciaramitaro says. Most cyber insurance companies want you to follow a certain set of what they would call best practices or controls. You have to be vigilant.The ISI (information security and intelligence) program at Ferris State in Big Rapids, was the first university program in the United States to receive Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center and Air Force Office of Special Investigations Center designation as a National Center of Digital Forensics Academic Excellence.You have to map to certain competencies, says Dr. Greg Gogolin, professor and program director for information and security at Ferris State. Youve got to show that the faculty is competent to deliver the curriculum. I thought that was an important step. Youve got to have a minimal number of points, and minimal number of points overall to be certified. It helps to ensure a level of quality.Overall, Gogolin finds that small businesses are not always prepared. And often, theyre not looking at cyber security from the proper perspective.Within an organization, a lot of people view it as an IT issue, Gogolin says. Awareness is actually the number one challenge facing organizations in that everyday practices, most people dont understand the impact of a lack of good practices. You can really put a lot of time and effort into our security, but youre kind of at the mercy of other people or other organizations.Eastern Michigan University (EMU) has been a Center of Excellence in Information Assurance Education since 2005. They recently re-designated under the new criteria (an updated version in 2015).Its important to our school because it gives confidence to our students and their parents and helps us recruit students, says Dr. Xiangdong Sean Che, assistant professor, CISSP, School of Information Security and Applied Computing. This branding is going to be a shining point in their resumes when they try to look for a job. Also, this designation is often a requirement for the school to apply for more research and educational grants. Its a big deal for everybodyespecially our students.Che says that the designation is a group effort led by the school and fully supported by the faculty, staff, and administrators from all over the university. The university as a whole needs to comply with the NSAs information security standards and follow all the policies commanded by NSA.Small business owners need cyber awareness and should always be aware that no matter how small your business is, you can be a target, says Che. "Its all about having a security mindset," he adds.Many times, its not the users fault, but the software itself, says Che. In his experience, software developers should make their software more secure and less prone to malicious activities; however, many software companies will put productivity and profit before security and try to make money as fast as possible. This is an issue for the whole industry. They need to have a security mindset while theyre thinking about money.Basic passwords such as 12345 are also part of the problem.Without a security mindset, your system might be compromised sooner or later, Che says.All in all, the efforts to secure Michigans businessesparticularly small businesses and employeeshave been robust, an evolving series of steps for the ultimate goal: protecting our sensitive data.The effect is cyclical. Institutions such as Walsh College, University of Detroit Mercy, Eastern Michigan University, Davenport University and Ferris State University are educating the cyber security experts of the future (and present).Bottom line: It doesnt matter what sector you work in, or how well you might safeguard your information. Everyones at risk.Businesses are struggling to identify the threats when they come in, Ciaramitaro says. Its not if, its when.This story is a part of a statewide series about cyber security and small businesses edited by Lauren Fay Carlson. Support for this series is provided by the Small Business Development Center , which has just launched a free online security assessment tool and resources at www.SmallBusinessBigThreat.com to help small businesses measure their cyber security preparedness. When sales were down at Louisiana Creole Gumbo a couple years ago, owner Joe Spencer turned to Detroit's small business support system for help. Now he's opening a second location among other ambitious plans. When one pictures a doctor performing an autopsy of a murder victim, the image of an inadequately trained, unsupervised, part-time Peet's barista doesn't usually come to mind. And yet that is exactly who an ex-employee of the San Francisco Office of the Chief Medical Examiner alleges was responsible for numerous autopsies in 2013. If true, this could call into question the accuracy of the office's findings and force the Public Defender's office to review scores of homicide cases. The Examiner today reported on a sprawling account of alleged mismanagement taking pace at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner back in 2013. Primarily, at the time of her departure from the office, Dr. Judy Melinek gave a statement to prosecutors claiming that two technicians routinely conducted unsupervised autopsies of individuals at the instruction of then-chief medical examiner Dr. Amy Hart. It's this statement the Examiner has obtained. Melinek says that the two technicians, Jana Tawney and Kristopher MacFerren, were frequently left on their own to do the work of Hart. Hart, whom the Chronicle reports was demoted in 2014 after her office developed a backlog of hundreds of cases, allegedly conducted few autopsies herself and instead told Tawney and MacFerren to do the work on her behalf frequently without her supervision despite their lack of adequate training. "Sometimes [Hart] was in there for long periods of time, like during the cutting of the organs, the paper reports Melinek's statement as reading. But sometimes shed just send [the technicians] in to take these homicides, X-ray them, document the injuries, unclothe them, and she wasnt even physically in the room during that time. The paper also reports that, according to her (apparently now deactivated) LinkedIn account, Tawney was a part-time barista at Peet's while working in Hart's office. Tawney denied the allegations to the Examiner when reached for comment. The District Attorney's Office told the Examiner that the City Attorneys Office investigated at the time and found the claims to be unsubstantiated. Hart, the paper notes, is currently employed as a pathologist for the city and in 2014 was the second highest paid city employee with an annual salary of $479,652.21. Related: SFPD Drug Technician Accused of Stealing Cocaine Forces Lab's Closure The sad case of serial stowaway Marilyn Hartman popped its head up again today as we learn that the 64-year-old was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport yesterday for the second time. Hartman, who on at least a few occasions has successfully managed to board aircraft without purchasing a ticket, was charged with felony probation violation and misdemeanor criminal trespassing. Bond has currently been set at $150,000, reports the Chronicle, who also note that Hartman was living in Chicago after being released there in December with the terms of her probation stipulating that she stay away from O'Hare. Hartman first grabbed our attention when she was caught for the fourth time trying to board a Hawaii-bound flight leaving from SFO. Following the media scrutiny in the wake of that incident, she admitted to suffering from mental illness, and now it remains to be seen whether or not she will be able to return to the nursing home in Chicago where she had been staying since December. Either way, if the past is any guide, she's unlikely to remain in Chicago for too long. Update: Via Chicagoist, we hear that a Cook County judge admonished her "like an exasperated dad," and is trying to figure out a more restrictive place to house her to keep this from happening. This was her sixth arrest in Cook County in ten months. All previous coverage of Marilyn Hartman on SFist. That bright glow that appears to be lava? Don't worry. It's just light reflected on the Horsetail waterfall. The phenomenon referred to as the Yosemite Firefall, the Chronicle writes, is just observable twice a year or so. It was recently captured by photographer Sangeeta Dey, who explained the fortuitous shot to Facebook: This is the Horse tail waterfall in the Yosemite National Park. Every year for two weeks in February, the sun sets at a certain angle and illuminates the waterfall in luminescent orange and red, making it look like a fluid fire. Ive met photographers who said that they have been coming for 11 years only to see this happen 2 or 3 times. The phenomenon was supposed to happen at around 5:30 in the evening, but I was there at 2 PM to find a spot. I finally settled for a tiny space under a thorny bush. When the fall started glowing, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. For 10 minutes, all of us sat there mesmerized by this spectacle.When it ended, a few of us had tears in our eyes. Some people were clapping. And others were just ecstatic to finally get a chance to see it after trying for years. Some others were lucky as well: CBSSF tells us that images of the natural phenomenon were first captured in 1973. A photo posted by @archanjm on Feb 15, 2016 at 2:15pm PST It's also said that the firefall started as a manmade spectacle when, during the 19th century, a campfire was pushed over the cliff, a ritual continued until 1968. Related: Rare Fox Sighted In Yosemite For First Time In Almost 100 Years When video surfaced this past November of two Alameda County Sheriff's Deputies brutally beating a man with fists and batons in the Mission District, many were immediately shocked. But months have gone by and not only have the two deputies not been charged with any wrongdoing, but CBS 5 reports that the two deputies, Luis Santamaria and Paul Weiber, are currently on paid administrative leave. The beating went on for at least 15 minutes," San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi told the news channel. "What you can see is continuously beating and you can hear the batons hitting against bone and flesh and Mr. Petrov screaming." The surveillance camera that captured the scene records in ten-second segments, with gaps in between, so the beating is even longer than the video depicts. Petrov had allegedly led officers on a high speed chase across the Bay Bridge, crashed into two police cars, and injured one deputy all before the deputies caught up with him. Despite those allegations, the Alameda County District Attorney is reportedly not pursuing charges against Petrov. Adachi, for his part, is waiting for the San Francisco District Attorneys Office to bring charges against the deputies. "Its one of the most horrendous beating videos I have seen," he told CBS, "even worse than the Rodney King case in many ways and yet there has been no action. Previously: Video: Sheriff's Deputies Brutally Beat Suspect In Mission District LAS VEGAS | The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences wants to empower women to create video games. The organization unveiled a new initiative Wednesday called WomenIn that seeks to boost gender diversity in the male-dominated gaming industry. "When I grew up playing games and I can say this because it's true games were made by guys for guys," interactive academy president Martin Rae told a crowd gathered for a breakfast meeting kicking off the 15th annual DICE Summit. The event ended Thursday. "We have an entirely different industry today. Everybody plays games." The Electronic Software Association trade group says about 44 percent of gamers are woman but only about 18 percent of game developers surveyed at last year's Game Developers Conference identified as female. Rae said the initiative will include sponsoring scholarships and internships, building a mentor database and hosting events at studios for women interested in the gaming industry. "We're inventing this as we go," Rae said. "We're going to double on stuff that works, and if it doesn't work, we're going to change it." Don Daglow, president of 4thRing Inc. and the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Foundation, said the key to increasing diversity in the industry is establishing bonds between mentors and mentees. "What I care about is building connections between human beings who love to build games and who feel, like I do, that they were destined to practice this art form professionally with their lives," Daglow said. The DICE Summit which stands for design, innovate, communicate and entertain is an annual gathering of elite members of the video game industry. Organizers expected about 700 summit-goers this year to attend talks by such gaming industry veterans as "Metal Gear Solid" creator Hideo Kojima, "Fallout" creative director Todd Howard and "Rise of the Tomb Raider" writer Rhianna Pratchett at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. WASHINGTON | From the cacophony of day care to the buzz of TV and electronic toys, noise is more distracting to a child's brain than an adult's, and new research shows it can hinder how youngsters learn. In fact, one of the worst offenders when a tot's trying to listen is other voices babbling in the background, researchers said Saturday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "What a child hears in a noisy environment is not what an adult hears," said Dr. Lori Leibold of Boys Town National Research Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska. That's a Catch-22 in our increasingly noisy lives because "young children learn language from hearing it," said Dr. Rochelle Newman of the University of Maryland. "They have a greater need for understanding speech around them but at the same time they're less equipped to deal with it." It's not their ability to hear. For healthy children, the auditory system is pretty well developed by a few months of age. Consider how hard it is to carry on a conversation in a noisy restaurant. Researchers simulated that background in a series of experiments by playing recordings of people reading and talking while testing how easily children detected words they knew, such as "playground," when a new voice broke through the hubbub, or how easily they learned new words. The youngest children could recognize one person's speech amid multiple talkers, but only at relatively soft noise levels, Newman said. Even the background noise during relatively quiet day care story time can be enough for tots to miss parts of what's read, she said. It's not just a concern for toddlers and preschoolers. The ability to understand and process speech against competing background noise doesn't mature until adolescence, Leibold said. Nor is the challenge just to tune out the background buzz. Brief sudden noises someone coughs, a car horn blares can drown out part of a word or sentence. An adult's experienced brain automatically substitutes a logical choice, often well enough that the person doesn't notice, Newman said. "Young children don't do this. Their brain doesn't fill in the gaps," she said. Children who were born prematurely may have an additional risk. When preemies spend a long time in an incubator, their brains get used to the constant "white noise" of the machine's fan different from a full-term baby who develops hearing mom's voice in the womb and thus is wired to pay more attention to voices, said Dr. Amir Lahav of Harvard Medical School. He had mothers of preemies record themselves singing lullabies or reading stories, and filtered them along with the sound of mom's heartbeat into the incubator three times a day when she wasn't otherwise visiting. The brain's auditory cortex became more developed in babies given that extra womb-like exposure compared with preemies with typical incubator care, Lahav found. Moreover, when those babies were big enough to leave the hospital, they paid more attention to speech, he said. "Exposure to noises and sounds very early in life will spill over to affect how our brain is going to function," Lahav said. Noise also is a special challenge for children with hearing loss, who may need technology beyond standard hearing aids to cope, Leibold said, describing special receivers that can transmit a teacher's voice directly to the ear so it's not lost in classmates' chatter. The research has implications for classroom design, too, Leibold added, as the type of flooring or ceiling height can either soften kids' natural noise or bounce it around. But learning starts at home, and University of Maryland child language specialist Nan Bernstein Ratner often has parents ask if they should stimulate a tot's environment with interactive toys and educational TV. "We tend to think bustling environments and creating background noise is stimulating for kids," she said. But, she said, "what's stimulating on the part of the parent may not be for the child." Zoolander No. 2 is like a bad Saturday Night Live skit. It drones on. Picking up 15 years after the first film, it tries to make male model Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) relevant again. Unfortunately, hes so shallow, theres not much new to dig. Hiding in New Jersey like a hermit crab, the creator of "Blue Steel" returns to the fashion world as a way to reconnect with his son. Friend Hansel (Owen Wilson) is along for the ride, but theres a dastardly bunch of criminals trying to get to the son, too. Apparently, hes the secret to eternal youth. So all those fashion fossils want to get their hands on him before its too late. Kristen Wiig, as Alexanya Atoz, is the best of the bunch. She floats into fashion shows, wears a globe around her head and speaks in an accent that can best be described as alien. She knows how to find the funny. Unfortunately, her SNL partner, Will Ferrell, isnt quite tuned in as Mugatu, Zoolanders chief rival. He screams too much for his own good, gets far too many props that arent funny and seems too evil for something this frothy. Penelope Cruz as an Interpol agent trying to solve the crime is like an ear of corn in a sea of hams: lost. She tries to give Zoolander No. 2 some urgency but whole sections wallow. Directed by Stiller who should have known better the film seems like a conversation during the MET Ball that went awry. Fashion pros (including Vogues Anna Wintour) buy into the idea and turn out for a series of amateurish cameos. Justin Bieber, Susan Sarandon, Ariana Grande and a host of other boldface names do, too. But all the camera tricks and driving music cant hide the fact that this is woefully underwritten. Mike Myers was great at spoofing genres and pop culture. Stiller, sadly, isnt. A subplot with his sons weight problem almost seems cruel. Luckily, the actor playing Derek Jr. (Cyrus Arnold) is savvy enough to brush it all off. News anchors, music stars and fashion icons arent. They frequently look like theyve been caught by paparazzi, unaware of how bad their on-screen crimes are. Someone like Lorne Michaels, who rode herd on the SNL gang, should have been in charge here. He knows how to cut his losses. Stiller just throws more money at them. The recent death of Justice Antonin Scalia, a historically conservative firebrand on the Supreme Court, sent shockwaves through the political world. In the middle of a hectic and noisy presidential primary, the Republican candidates shared a moment of silence during their ninth debate and then dove into a conversation about whether President Barack Obama should nominate a successor. Scalia left his mark on the judicial branch of the U.S. government over the course of his 33 years in the public eye. The many bipartisan tributes pouring in after his death at the age of 79 have praised his intellect, wit and dedication to public service. InsideGov digs into Scalias personal history and record on the court to find 25 essential facts and figures that defined his life and career. Weve looked at it all, from his guest turn in an opera to that time he made a list of potential vice presidential candidates, ranking everything from the smallest to largest figure. 0 Breathing Documents Scalia was a strict constitutionalist, articulating that the Constitution was not a living document. Instead, Scalia said the document is dead, dead, dead and must be read exactly as the Founding Fathers wrote it. 1 Elephant Ride Scalia and his fellow Supreme Court justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, rode on an elephant together in India in 1994. The two justices, on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, were best buddies, according to Ginsburgs tribute to Scalia following his death. 1 of 3 Dissenters Scalia was one of three justices who dissented in Lawrence v. Texas, the 2003 case that invalidated a sodomy law in Texas and made consensual same-sex activity legal throughout the U.S. The majority found that consensual sex between adults was protected under the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. But Scalia argued the court took sides in the culture war and signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda. 1 Case, 1 Win Before he was appointed to the Supreme Court, Scalia served as the assistant attorney general under former President Gerald Ford. During that time, he argued his only case in front of the Supreme Court, Alfred Dunhill of London Inc. v. Republic of Cuba. The case looked at how to handle cigar manufacturing profits after Cuba nationalized U.S. businesses in 1960. Scalia argued for Dunhill, and won. 2nd Amendment In 2008, Scalia penned the majority opinion for the District of Columbia v. Heller case, which argued the Second Amendment provides Americans with the right to gun ownership. Scalia wrote that the militia referred to in the amendment pertains to individuals, not just the military. Heller was one of the five cases 2016 Republican presidential hopeful Sen. Ted Cruz won at the Supreme Court during his tenure as the Texas solicitor general. 2 Guest Appearances Scalia and Ginsburg, both opera aficionados, made joint guest appearances in performances of Richard Strausss Ariadne auf Naxos in 1994 and 2009. Their long friendship inspired a one-act comic opera, Scalia/Ginsburg, which premiered in July 2015. 3 Books A verbose and colorful writer on the bench, Scalia penned three books, starting with his 1997 tome, A Matter of Interpretation. He co-wrote his next two with Bryan Garner, a lawyer and legal scholar on language. 4 Years In 1982, former President Ronald Reagan appointed Scalia to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. During his four years in that role, Scalia developed his distinctive, sharp writing style that he became known for. 5-3 Vote In a 5-3 vote in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court ruled against military commissions for detainees at Guantanamo Bay. In the run-up to arguments at the court, five retired generals asked Scalia to recuse himself because of comments he made during a speech a few weeks earlier in Switzerland. He said foreigners who waged war on the U.S. had no rights under the Constitution. Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who said he was Osama bin Ladens driver and was designated an enemy combatant by the U.S., questioned the military commissions. Scalia was part of the three-person dissent in the case. Score of 5.25 According to data from OnTheIssues, Scalia was the most conservative justice on the bench, coming in at 5.25 on the scoring scale. OnTheIssues scores range from negative 10 (very liberal) to positive 10 (very conservative). Scalias more moderate views on international and economic issues helped to average out his very conservative perspective on individual rights. 7 in the Majority Scalia was part of the majority in the 2000 case Bush v. Gore, which stopped the recount in Florida and ultimately led to George W. Bush assuming the presidency. The case was split into two questions, about the constitutionality of the way the votes were counted and the feasibility of a recount. By a 7-2 vote, the court found there was a violation to the Equal Protection Clause when different standards of vote counting were used in different counties in Florida. The court also found, in a 5-4 decision, that a recount couldnt happen in a reasonable timeframe. 9 Children Scalia and his wife, Maureen McCarthy Scalia, had nine children, but the grandkid tally varies: some news outlets count 36 grandchildren while others count 28. Scalia himself was an only child, and was the lone kid of his generation within his larger family, as his parents siblings didnt have any children. 21 Pages In his 21-page dissent of the King v. Burwell case in 2015, Scalia delivered some of his most memorable zingers. In a 6-3 vote, the court upheld the tax subsidies in the Affordable Care Act, but not before Scalia described the decision as pure applesauce and interpretive jiggery-pokery. (Fact: Scalia used the phrase sheer applesauce in a 2007 dissent about school funding.) 29 Years, Five Months Scalia served on the Supreme Court for almost 30 years. Former President Ronald Reagan appointed Scalia to the high court in September 1986. 30 Days The flags in the plaza in front of the Supreme Court will fly at half-staff for 30 days after Scalias death. 31st of December Every year, Scalia and Ginsburg celebrated New Years Eve together. Scalia called the pair the odd couple during a 2015 speech at George Washington University in D.C. 50 Years Old Scalia was 50 years old when the Senate confirmed him, making him the youngest justice on the Supreme Court at the time. 54 Percent When he was among the dissenting votes on a case, Scalia wrote an opinion 54 percent of the time. 62 Years In the last 62 years of the Supreme Courts history, Scalia is the third justice to die while in office. Justice Robert H. Jackson died in 1954 and Chief Justice William Rehnquist died in 2005. 66.7 Percent Scalia was one of six Roman Catholics on the Supreme Court, meaning two-thirds of the current justices subscribe to that faith. The remaining three justices are all Jewish. 77 Laughing Episodes Although perhaps best known for his staunch conservatism, Scalia was also known for his sharp wit, in his writing and during arguments. According to a study of transcripts from the Supreme Courts 2004-2005 term, Scalia inspired 77 bouts of laughter during oral arguments by far the most among his colleagues. 85 Days It took 85 days for Scalia to go from Supreme Court nominee to confirmed justice. 98 Votes During his Senate confirmation in 1986, Scalia received 98 votes the second-highest margin since 1970. Former Justice Sandra Day OConnor received 99 votes in 1981. 1957 Valedictorian at Georgetown University For his undergraduate degree, Scalia studied history at Georgetown and graduated at the top of his class. He then studied law at Harvard Law School. 1996 Republican Ticket When former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., ran for president in 1996, Rep. John Boehner then the head of the House Republican Conference tried to persuade Scalia to run as Doles vice president. Scalia declined, and Jack Kemp, a longtime congressman out of New York, ended up joining the ticket. With former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vying for the presidency in 2016, theres a real chance Bill Clinton could return to the White House. Its unclear what Bill Clintons new title would be first gentleman is a leading contender and even less certain is how he would approach the role. A charismatic leader, Clinton rarely shies away from media attention. For the time being, its likely he will remain in the national spotlight at least through the election. With that in mind, InsideGov decided to look back at some of the key moments of Clintons presidency. Weve gathered 25 numbers that define his tenure in the White House and ordered them from smallest to largest. 1 Child Bill and Hillary Clinton's only daughter, Chelsea, has worked with both of her parents at the Clinton Foundation, and currently serves as its vice chair. 2 Judges appointed to the Supreme Court. Both of Clintons appointees, Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer, are still serving on the court today. 2.9 Percentage Points The decrease in the national unemployment rate during Clintons presidency. When Clinton left office, the unemployment rate was 4.2 percent. 4 Percent The average annual GDP growth rate under the Clinton administration. 5 Terms Before becoming president, Clinton served as governor of Arkansas for five terms. During this period, he emerged as one of the most prominent leaders in the Democratic Party. 5th Most Popular Clinton's average approval rating of 54.8 percent makes him the fifth most popular president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, when approval ratings were first recorded. Even with the Lewinsky scandal, Clinton left the White House more popular than when he entered. $5.15 per Hour In 1996, Clinton successfully raised the national minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.15 per hour. 8 Years Clintons eight years as commander in chief were sandwiched between two different Bush administrations. 14 Percent The decrease in the total number of active duty military personnel during the Clinton administration. 15 Speeches Bill Clinton made 15 addresses from the Oval Office to the American public throughout his presidency. March 24, 1999 The date on which President Clinton announced the U.S.s involvement in NATO airstrikes against the Serbian government. Prolonged ethnic conflicts in the Balkans were a major test of Clintons foreign policy. 31 States Clinton handily won re-election against Bob Dole in 1996, winning a total of 31 states. 37 Days The length of President Clintons impeachment trial, which lasted from Jan. 7, 1999, to Feb. 12, 1999. Although Clinton was found not guilty on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, the Lewinsky scandal still tarnished his legacy. 40 Years Bill and Hillary Clinton have been married for over 40 years. They met when they were students at Yale Law School. 43.01 Percent Despite winning just 43 percent of the popular vote in the 1992 election, Clinton still managed to defeat incumbent George H. W. Bush. Ross Perot, an Independent candidate out of Texas, received 18.9 percent of the popular vote. 46 Years Old Bill Clintons age at inauguration. He was the third-youngest president in U.S. history. 60 Congressional Seats ... lost to the GOP in the 1994 midterm election. Known as the Republican Revolution, the 1994 election was a major setback for Clinton and the Democratic Party, which lost its majority in the House. 103 Percent The percentage increase in total imports (in U.S. dollars) under the Clinton administration. Total exports also increased over this time period, but were outpaced by imports, resulting in a growing trade deficit. 364 Executive Orders President Clinton issued more executive orders than either former President George H. W. Bush or former President George W. Bush. But Clinton's count falls short of former President Ronald Reagans total of 381 orders. 33,500 Tons According to the Clinton Foundation, 33,500 tons of greenhouse gasses are reduced annually across the U.S. due to the foundations climate initiatives. 69,203 Military Personnel When Clinton left office, there were 69,203 U.S. military personnel stationed in Germany, more than any other country. 12.3 Million Deportations There were more deportations under the Clinton administration than any other modern president in U.S. history. Note that as defined by the Department of Homeland Security, total deportations include both removals and returns. $290 Billion Surplus One of Clintons most notable accomplishments during his presidency was leaving office with a surplus of $290 billion. This is especially impressive given that he started with a $354 Billion Deficit In total, Clinton increased the federal budget by about $644 billion. $6.9 Trillion The federal debt when Clinton left office. Although Clinton managed to control the budget deficit, the national debt still remained an issue. SIOUX CITY | The man accused of the first homicide in Sioux City in 2016 is being held on $750,000 bond and faces a 50-year prison sentence if convicted on the second-degree murder charge. The first court hearing for Elias Wanatee was Thursday morning when District Associate Judge Todd Hensley set Wanatee's bond. The Public Defenders Office was appointed to represent Wanatee, 47, of Sioux City, who was arrested Wednesday for the stabbing death of Vernon Mace, 50, also of Sioux City. Court documents said the two men had argued prior to the incident. Sioux City police received a report just after 2 a.m. Wednesday of Mace, 50, being stabbed and taken by a private vehicle to Mercy Medical Center - Sioux City. Court documents described lacerations of varying lengths to Mace's arm, ear and chest; the largest was at the top of his head. Mace was stabbed near West First and Turner streets and walked for help one block to his daughter's house at West First and Helmer streets, according to police. He was later pronounced dead at Mercy. Police on Wednesday did not indicate why the stabbing occurred or what events may have led to the incident. Thursday, court documents showed a woman called police to report Wanatee was at her home at 1900 W. First St., in the early Wednesday hours, then left. "(Wanatee) reportedly left because he had been having problems with Vernon Mace," those documents reported. "Vernon Mace left their residence a short time later on foot. The female 911 caller advised she heard the defendant and Vernon Mace arguing outside. A short time later, Vernon Mace arrived back at the door to their residence, disclosing that the defendant stabbed him." If convicted of the second-degree murder charge, Wanatee would have to serve 70 percent of the possible 50-year sentence before being eligible for parole. The court documents described Wanatee as a "habitual" felon. In 1991, Wanatee was convicted of first-degree murder and two other charges in the death of Kelton "Kelly" William DeCora outside a Sioux City bar. The conviction was later appealed, and the charge was reduced to second-degree murder. He completed his sentence and was released from prison in January 2015. In October, Wanatee was charged with misdemeanor charges of aggravated assault and carrying a dangerous weapon in connection with a verbal altercation with another man outside the Wal-Mart at 3101 Floyd Blvd. According to court documents, Wanatee reached into his truck and pulled out a machete-type knife with a 16-inch blade. He also told the man he was going to get a gun. When police arrested Wanatee after the incident, they found the knife and a tomahawk-style ax under the seat in his vehicle. Wanatee pleaded not guilty in that case. A warrant was issued for his arrest earlier this month after he did not show up for a pretrial conference. Hensley on Thursday scheduled a new pretrial conference for March 18. DES MOINES | An Iowa resident has tested positive for Zika virus, the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) said in a statement released Friday. Zika virus is a mosquito-borne illness that researchers suspect could be causing a spike in brain defects in children and paralysis in adults. Since last May, people living in more than 30 countries and territories mainly in Central and South America and the Caribbean have been infected with Zika virus, which was discovered in the Zika Forest in Uganda in 1947. The IDPH said the Iowa woman who contracted the virus is between 61 and 80 years of age. She has a history of travel to Central America. "The general public is not at risk of contracting this virus, because the mosquitoes that transmit Zika are not established in Iowa," IDPH medical director Dr. Patricia Quinlisk said. "However, Iowans traveling to areas where there is ongoing Zika virus transmission should take care to protect themselves from mosquito bites." Zika virus is most often transmitted through the bite of infected Aedes mosquitoes -- the same mosquitoes that spread dengue and chikungunya viruses. Researchers say Zika virus can also be spread through sexual contact. There is no vaccine to prevent infection or medication to treat Zika virus. One in five people who are infected with the virus develop symptoms, which include fever, rash, joint pain and red eyes. Although Zika virus is mild, it has the potential to cause Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare and potentially life-threatening condition in which the immune system attacks the nerves causing paralysis. Zika virus can also harm an unborn baby. There have been more than 3,600 suspected cases of microcephaly, a serious birth defect where an infant's head is smaller than normal, in Brazil since October 2015. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is currently advising pregnant women to delay travel to foreign countries where Zika is being transmitted. Men who have traveled to or lived in Zika-affected areas and have a pregnant partner, the CDC said, should abstain from sex or use condoms for the duration of the pregnancy. In grade school some teachers thought I was stupid. In middle school some thought I was a cheater because my grades were too good for a student like me, and in high school my guidance counselor encouraged me NOT to go to college because I wouldnt be able to handle it. I heard these things because I have dyslexia and (still) struggle with reading and writing. Thankfully, my parents were so encouraging; they always told me that there wasnt anything I couldnt do once I set my mind to the task. They also told me to never use my dyslexia as an excuse. I didnt. Instead, I focused on my strengths and found strategies that worked for me. I went to college and then to graduate school and fulfilled my dream of becoming a special education teacher. I also became an advocate for change to help kids with learning and attention issues here in Iowa, but we need more parents, educators and other concerned adults to join the effort and not just here, but across the country, where one in five kids have learning and attention issues. We also need to raise awareness so people understand that kids with learning and attention issues are just as smart as their peers. Thats why I was so excited to participate in a public forum on Jan. 6 in Des Moines, hosted by Understood. This nonprofit was launched in 2014 to inform and empower parents to get the support their children need. Understood provides daily access to experts and a community of supportive and vocal parents. This type of resource is something my parents could have only dreamed of having. Understood is starting to mobilize parents in a way that will help elected officials keep kids with learning and attention issues top of mind. I was thrilled when I was asked to join Understoods Iowa advisory committee. This effort is especially important right now as states are scrambling to make sense of the massive changes in federal education policy that were signed into law in December. This type of movement didnt exist when I was growing up. People were not aware of the challenges faced by kids like me; few people understood what my family was going through. I felt alone with my struggles. I can remember how frustrated I was in grade school being in the lowest reading group when I really felt that I could succeed at the higher level. I would always sit and listen to the advanced lesson rather than doing my own work. Because of my differences, I had trouble knowing where I fit in the world. That ended when I was 13 and joined a swim team. I took my frustrations out on the water. I also discovered that swimming was a huge strength for me. In high school, I landed a full scholarship to a Division I university where I was captain of the swim team all four years and missed nationals and Olympic trials by hundredths of a second. All of my success in college happened despite my high school guidance counselor telling me not to waste my parents' money on higher education. I remember him telling me to get a job and be happy with a simpler life. I am forever grateful to another counselor, who called me into his office and encouraged me to apply to schools and use my swimming as an avenue for success. In college, I found another place where I fit: studying to be a special education teacher. Teaching is my greatest passion. Ive received awards from Sioux City Community Schools, University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning, from CLD (Council for Learning Disabilities) and from LDA-IA (Learning Disabilities Association of Iowa) for the progress my students have achieved as a result of my instruction. My goal is to help more than just my own students to succeed, however. Along with many other dedicated people, Im working to raise awareness and support for all kids with learning and attention issues in Iowa. I urge parents, teachers and others to join the movement by emailing iowa@understood.org. This year presents a huge opportunity for change, and Im thrilled to be joining with Understood to make a greater impact. Our kids need more voices speaking out for them. They need to know their families, schools and communities support them and are working to help them find the place where they not only fit but also flourish. Together, we can do that. Paula Hamp is a special education teacher in Sioux City, president of Learning Disabilities Association of Iowa and a member of the Understood Campaign Iowa Advisory Committee. THUMBS UP Looking to the future The Woodbury County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted 4-1 to spend up to $110,000 of local-option sales tax money to help interested rural county communities create plans for economic growth. With the money, the county will hire a consulting firm to develop the plans. Such comprehensive plans, which summarize priorities and needs, can be used by rural towns to apply for government grants. "It is really going to generate consensus on what they want their towns to look like in the next 20 to 30 years," Rural Economic Development Director David Gleiser said. County tax rate will go down Woodbury County supervisors will hold a March 15 hearing on a fiscal 2017 budget in which the county property tax rates for both rural and city property owners will fall under the current rate for a second consecutive year. "It is a very responsible budget," Jeremy Taylor, county board chairman, said at Tuesday's board meeting. Private sector gets behind reading program More than $1.3 million was raised privately to support the start this year of a pilot summer reading program for struggling third-graders in Iowa, Gov. Terry Branstad announced Monday. The money will help fund the $1.9 million cost of the program, which also will be supported with public money, including money from the Iowa Department of Education and Iowa Board of Regents. Beginning next year, Iowa third-graders who fail a grade-level reading test at the end of the school year wont be promoted to fourth grade unless they participate in a summer reading program. The summer pilot project will test reading programs in anticipation of recommendations to school districts for 2017. Preliminary results of the pilot project are expected to be released this fall. "This is an important step in learning how we can do more to identify struggling readers," Branstad said at his weekly news conference. Some 150 Sioux City Community School District students will be among program participants this year. In total, more than 40 school districts and some 1,800 students are expected to participate. The heat is on Today's local forecast calls for temperatures in the 60s. Enough said. THUMBS DOWN It's too soon for trip to Cuba President Barack Obama will become the first sitting U.S. president since Calvin Coolidge in 1928 to visit Cuba when he travels to Havana March 21-22, White House press secretary Josh Earnest announced on Thursday. On this, we agree with Obama: It's time for a thaw in relations between the United States and Cuba. Last summer, in fact, we editorialized in support of the Obama administration's restoration of relations with Cuba because we believe a new course of improved dialogue with the Caribbean nation located only about 100 miles from our shores is in U.S. national security and economic interests. Still, a visit from Obama himself strikes us as premature. For any nation, the visit of an American president produces significant prestige. We would prefer tangible improvements by Cuba in areas of concern to America - on the issue of human rights, in particular - take place before the world is witness to the symbolism of a U.S. president on Cuban soil. Secretary of State John Kerry? Fine. President Obama? Too soon. It seems so logical. The best way to get and keep good customers is to respond quickly to them when they have an issue. But, even in 2016, more customer calls, emails, tweets and texts go unanswered than get responded to. Jay Baer, customer experience expert and New York Times best-selling author, joins us to share a few key points from his upcoming book Hug Your Haters. He touches on why companies have to stop treating customer service as a spectator sport, why companies with a call-center mentality are doomed, and why seeking to increase the number of customer complaints is key to better understanding customers and lowering customer churn. Small Business Trends: Maybe you can give me a little bit of your personal background. Jay Baer: I started out in politics a long time ago. I was a political campaign consultant, so its an exciting time of year for me right now. Then I got into traditional marketing for a few years, and then kind of accidentally got into online marketing a long time ago in 1993. So Ive been in digital marketing and customer service, customer experience, since the very, very early days. My company, Convince and Convert, does consulting for lots of really interesting brands all around the world, and weve got a media division as well. Small Business Trends: It seems like your book could be something that the presidential candidates might want to look at. Just a thought. Jay Baer: Yeah, the official book of the Republican primary. I should have worked on that. Small Business Trends: Yeah, well, you know, its still early in the campaign. Maybe you can give them a couple of copies and it would take care of that. Jay Baer: True. Small Business Trends: What led you to write the book, Hug Your Haters, and what is the overarching theme? Jay Baer: I set out to write the book to explain to companies how important it is to be answering customers online where customer service is a spectator sport, right? Youve got all these people watching how you handle it at Twitter and Facebook and Yelp and TripAdvisor, and all the other rating and review sites and discussion boards and forums, but whats crazy, Brent, is that a third of customer complaints are never answered, ever. Small Business Trends: Wow. Jay Baer: The overwhelming majority of those are online where its public. We answer every private phone call, but we answer very few public complaints online, and thats probably backwards if nothing else, so I conducted a huge research project to really figure out what was going on, and then wrote a book about it. Small Business Trends: Its kind of amazing that were in 2016 and thats still the case. Jay Baer: Absolutely. Well, theres a stat, its not from my research, its from Forrester, that I think really describes the state of the union particularly well. It says that 80 percent of businesses say they deliver superior customer service, but only 8 percent of their customers agree, so there you have it. Small Business Trends: Give us the idea of what an offstage hater is and whats their motivation for being an offstage hater. Jay Baer: When I did the research for the book, we just asked people, who complains and why and how, and using what channels and to what end, and I discovered that theres actually different types of complainers, different types of customers who complain. Offstage haters complain in private, they typically use the legacy channels, so theyre using phone and e-mail. They are slightly older than the other group of haters, a little less tech savvy, less likely to use social media, but its not a massive difference demographically. Its not like its only parents and grandparents. They just prefer to complain using those channels, but when they do that, when somebody calls or emails, what they expect and what they want is an answer, and thats true 90 percent of the time, so 90 percent of the people who complain in private want and expect an answer. Im sure thats true for you and for everybody. If you call a company, you expect them to answer. If you email them, you expect them to reply. Its just sort of how business works. For the most part, companies are pretty good in handling offstage haters because weve had decades worth of practice. Small Business Trends: Lets talk a little bit about onstage haters, because I think those are the ones that are using channels effectively to at least voice their displeasure, but have onstage haters changed a lot over the years? Are they getting even more sophisticated with using these channels to express their hate? Jay Baer: Absolutely. No question about it. The onstage haters are slightly younger, a little more tech savvy, a little more likely to use social media, but the onstage haters are the people who complain in public, so they complain in social media, review websites, Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc., and on discussion boards and forums, and they are getting much, much more numerous, number one. Right now as were having this conversation, about two-thirds of all complaints are offstage, phone and email and about a third are onstage, social media, etc., but that ratio is changing very quickly because it is, of course, much faster and easier for consumers to complain on a mobile device in a mobile app as opposed to sitting down, crafting an email, waiting on hold to get the phone answered, etc. Youre starting to see more and more people complaining onstage, and in many cases, people sometimes call or email, they dont like the answer that they got, so then they go to Twitter or Facebook, and they get a better result there. That kind of story is causing some customers to choose onstage channels any way because they think theyre going to get better treatment. And when you think about this demographically, todays young people, who are tomorrows dominant consumer group, theyre not going to just call. See Also: Beef Up Customer Experience with These 4 Tips I have two kids in high school at home. They dont use the phone. They never, I mean like they never ever, ever use the phone, and barely ever email. The only thing they use e-mail for is to check purchase confirmations, and thats it. They use texting and SnapChat and Instagram and Twitter and all that, but I refuse to believe they are someday going to wake up and say, oh I totally missed out on the joys of telephonic communication. Ive missed the boat, let me get back into that. Thats just not going to happen, right. If you still call your customer service department or call center, youve got a real problem, and customer service is being disrupted the same way that marketing has been disrupted, and we just got to get on top of it. Small Business Trends: Why do you think its taking so long for companies to see this happen and to begin to change the way they act? Jay Baer: I think some of its the technology because its pretty confusing, but I think largely its that we havent seen a tipping point yet in a lot of businesses from a volume perspective, right? Its the same reason that companies, in some cases were slow to adopt social media for marketing purposes, it was, well, yeah, theres some customers out there in social media talking about it, but not that many, right. Its easy to ignore shifts when you only look at your aggregate numbers, and most customer service departments, most customer service reporting looks at aggregate, so they say something like, well, in our business only 18 percent of all of our mentions are in social media, but weve got the 82 percent covered, right? You start to think about that, ignoring the fact that those 18 percent are now unhappy because you dont interact with them, and those 18 percent are in a public venue where there could be tens or hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of people looking on. I think thats one of the challenges is that it just doesnt get thought of in the right way. What I recommend in the book is to answer every complaint in every channel every time. That requires resources, and a lot of people say they just dont have the resources to do that, and Im like, well, you do! You just choose not to apply them that way. I think thats part of it. People want to keep their head in the sand because they know that if they actually take their head out of the sand, its going to get real hard real fast. Small Business Trends: Are there any really good examples of companies that are doing a great job in hugging their haters and answering all of the calls and emails? Jay Baer: Yes, and when I wrote the book, I was real careful and intentional in finding examples that will resonate with anybody, right? Theres small companies. Theres big companies. Theres American companies. Theres global companies. Theres B2B companies and B2C companies. I really tried to kind of do a Noahs Ark on the case studies in that theres something for everybody in there. One of my favorite examples of a medium-sized company is Le Pain Quotidien, which is a chain of bakeries and cafes. Theyre based in Brussels, but theyve got locations in Southern California and the Northeast U.S., and like 200 to 225 locations overall. Their director of customer experience, Erin Pepper, said her goal is to triple the number of complaints. Small Business Trends: Hmm. Jay Baer: That seems totally counterintuitive, but what she realizes is one of the most important things in the book, is if you hug your haters and answer your customers, it reduces churn, right? It increases customer loyalty, but just as important, it tells you all kinds of stuff you need to know to make your business better. Every complaint is free market research, and she understands that, so they go out of their way to make sure that customers have the opportunity to tell them every time anything is less than perfect. She has a whole program built around that. What most people try to do, of course, is minimize the number of complaints, and its real easy to do that. If you want fewer complaints, just stop listening for them as hard. Its an easy solution, so thats a really great example. Small Business Trends: Maybe you can give us a pointer or two on how a smaller business could get started with this concept, with this philosophy, and executing on it? Jay Baer: The first step is to have a real handle on whose actually talking about you, and where. You might think, well sure, we know, because we answer the phone and we answer email, but you really have to write it down and do what we call an honesty audit in my company. You say, okay, last month, how many phone calls did we get? What are the phone calls about? Lets categorize those and put them in a spreadsheet. How many emails did we get? What are those emails about? Categorize them and put them in a spreadsheet. How many times did people ask questions or complain in social media, Twitter, Facebook, etc.? Lets write that down. What about reviews? Did we get reviews on Yelp or places like that? Lets write those down. You actually create an audit of all the different ways that customers try to get in touch with you, and then say, okay, well, did we handle these, and if so, how long did it take us and did we do our very best job here? Are we treating customer service like marketing? Are we treating this like something that can set us apart from other businesses or are we not? Thats the best place to start. This is part of the One-on-One Interview series with thought leaders. The transcript has been edited for publication. If it's an audio or video interview, click on the embedded player above, or subscribe via iTunes or via Stitcher. 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. The Florida Legislature has passed legislation making it the first in the nation to call for an Article V amendment convention exclusive to the subject of putting term limits on Congress. The memorial, HM 417, passed the State House and State Senate by an overwhelming voice vote. It is part of a national movement led by U.S. Term Limits to fight careerism in Washington. Article V gives state legislators a way to make term limits on Congress a reality without needing congressional approval. For the convention to be called, 34 states must pass similar legislation. If the convention proposes an amendment, 38 states must ratify it for it to be added to the U.S. Constitution. The President of U.S. Term Limits, Philip Blumel said Seventy-five percent of Americans support term limits on Congress, including huge majorities of Democrats, Republicans and Independents. This is a rare, truly bipartisan issue with national support. This bill was supported by both Democrats and Republicans in the State House and Senate throughout the process and passed unanimously through two committees. This effort in the Florida Legislature was led by Florida Rep. Larry Metz, R-Groveland and State Sen. Aaron Bean, R-Jacksonville. Rep. Larry Metz and State Sen. Aaron Bean have been an integral part of the process in Florida and in making Florida the first state in the nation to call for term limits, Blumel added. There are now 11 states hot on Floridas heels, and the progress here has laid the groundwork for their success. Since 34 states must call for the Term Limits Convention to make it happen, U.S. Term Limits has spread its grassroots resources throughout the country. In addition to Florida, the group is also targeting Alabama, Alaska, Georgia, Colorado, South Dakota, South Carolina, West Virginia, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Tennessee and Utah. The Term Limits Convention will not impact the Florida Legislature, as they already have term limits which were voted on by the people in 1992 with 77 percent of the vote. That vote on Amendment 9 also enacted eight-year term limits on federal and state officials but, in 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could not enact congressional term limits by ballot measure. Thus congressional term limits need to be enacted by amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Multiple LGBT organizations have used a $50,000 donation to found the We Care Program and help prevent and reduce LGBT youth homelessness, which makes up an estimated 40 percent of the countrys total homeless youth population. Several years ago, Jamesly Louis was one of those statistics. Louis grew up in a conservative, Roman Catholic home that wasnt conducive to accepting him for who he is. Emotionally, mentally I did not feel safe. And as he got older and started high school, things got worse. Depression, thoughts of suicide, no job, no prospects, no college plans. I knew I was going to kill myself. If I would have stayed there [with my family] I would have killed myself. LGBT persons face social stigma, discrimination, and often rejection by their families, which adds to the physical and mental strains and challenges that all homelessness individuals struggle with. Fortunately for Louis, 24, who now works for South Beach Insurance and is working on his masters in business administration, Pridelines was waiting to offer the acceptance and support he needed. Finding Pridelines is like finding the Holy Grail. They make you feel at home. They changed my life when I realized I was not alone. Basically, they were the parents we wanted that we never had. Pridelines and its partners also provided counseling, helped Louis find a place to live, a job, clothing, gift cards to help pay for food, personal improvement classes and more. All of it at no cost to Louis. People underestimate the power of Pridelines. They have lots of powerful connections. If you need something, then ask. [Theyll get it for you]. Within six months I was independent. The only real requirement to receive help, said Louis, is you have to want to make something of your life. They are helping you to become a productive person. Everyone gets a job who goes there. Years after making it through his own ordeal, Louis has chosen to give back as a member of Pridelines board of directors and through monetary donations. Victor Diaz Herman, executive director of Pridelines, estimates about 100 young people have come to his organization over the last two years. We do have a large population of people who have been kicked out of their homes. But while many realize the full extent of their situation, Diaz Herman said some dont think of it as being homeless. Some young people may not realize they are at risk of homelessness. Theyre couch surfing with friends. Homelessness appears in many ways. One of them being not having a permanent place to live. The other is not [being] sure where youre going to stay, jumping from friends house to friends house. To address the problem in Miami-Dade, Pridelines has partnered with The Alliance for GLGBT Youth to create Project Safe. Both agencies under the umbrella of Project Safe provide access to services and resources for those who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, said Diaz Herman. Now, as in Miami-Dade, the $50,000 We Care funding, which is managed by Our Fund, will be used much in the same way through a partnership with The Pride Center, SunServe and Latinos Salud. It could be bus fare, tuition, clothing, food, whatever they need so that they are not out on the street, said David Jobin, CEO/president of Our Fund. To date, were really pleased with some of the outcomes. In the meantime, were trying to keep raising more funds to keep that flush. As the U.S. Presidential campaign heads south, so too has civil discourse. Republican candidates have resorted to name calling as they jostle for position ahead of Saturdays primary election in South Carolina. At last Saturday nights debate, broadcast on CBS, GOP front-runner Donald J. Trump blasted U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. This is a nasty guy, Trump said of Cruz. You are the single biggest liar. You are probably worse than Jeb Bush. Bush, a favorite target of Trumps throughout the campaign, fired back, Im sick and tired of him going after my family, he said. On Monday, former U.S. President George W. Bush surfaced in support of his little brother, taking a veiled shot at the billionaire businessman. These are tough times, President Bush told an estimated crowd of 3,000 people in North Charleston. And I understand Americans are angry and frustrated, but we dont need someone in the Oval Office who mirrors and inflames our angers and frustrations. Trump, bolstered by his big victory in the New Hampshire primary, attacked Cruz on Monday, calling the freshman senator unstable and a basket case and continuing to question whether he is legally qualified to serve as President. Cruz, son of a Cuban father and Canadian mother, was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The Democrats are going to bring a lawsuit, Trump said. Im doing him a favor by bringing this up now. Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is going after the cultural conservative vote in South Carolina. Rubio praised departed U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia for his dissent in the marriage equality case at Saturdays debate and closed by saying American values are upside down. Whats right is wrong and whats wrong is right, Rubio said. We are going to be a country that says a marriage is between one man and one woman. Combining the results of six polling firms, Real Clear Politics has Trump leading in the Palmetto State with 36.3 percent support, followed by Cruz (17.8), Rubio (15.8), Ohio Governor John Kasich (9.8), Bush (9.3) and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson (5.3). Meanwhile, Democrats are rounding up supporters for Saturdays caucus in Nevada. On Monday in Reno, Nevada, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested it was time to doggedly pursue Republican lies. Recalling an old radio ad from her time in Arkansas in which a dog would automatically bark at lies from politicians, Clinton said it was time to install a canine truth barometer for the GOP. We need to get that dog and follow them around and every time they say things like Oh the Great Recession was caused by too much regulation, arh, arh, arh, arh, arh, Clinton said, ending with a barking noise that produced laughs from the audience. Polls have Clinton leading U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in Nevada and also in South Carolina where the Democrats head to next for a closed primary on Feb. 27. Earth from Space: La Rochelle, France. ESA Capital of the Charente-Maritime department in western France, La Rochelle and surroundings are featured in this Sentinel-2A image, captured on 26 December 2015. Home to some 80 000 people, La Rochelle is a city and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean, connected to the Ile de Re by a 2.9 km-long bridge, clearly visible in the centre of the image. La Rochelle and surrounding areas sit on layers of limestone dating back some 160 million years, when a large part of France was under water. These various layers containing many small marine fossils are traditionally used as the main construction material throughout the region. The coastal area is dominated by sandy beaches, which are visible as white lines somewhat inland. Between the beach and the water-line, darker sand and silt layers are visible, which are exposed in this image taken during low tide. The 4-5 m tidal range creates a heaven for wild mussels and oysters, making it one of the major places for shell farming in Europe. Also visible just north of the city is the La Rochelle-Ile de Re airport. Thanks to the high-resolution multispectral instrument on Sentinel-2A, we can clearly make out the various agricultural fields around the city and surrounding towns, as well as on the Ile de Re Island. Part of the Natural Reserve of the Bay of Aiguillon is visible at top right. It is one of the most important reserves in France, hosting hundreds of thousands of migratory water birds every year. It is a place of synergy between land and sea, between saltwater and freshwater, and between nature and humankind. Sentinel-2A has been in orbit since 23 June 2015 as a polar-orbiting, high-resolution satellite for land monitoring, providing imagery of vegetation, soil and water cover, inland waterways and coastal areas. Download the full high resolution image. NASA International Space Station On-Orbit Status 18 February 2016. NASA The crew aboard the International Space Station is set to say farewell to a pair of spaceships over the next several days. The first spaceship, Orbital ATKs Cygnus cargo craft, is being readied for its release Friday morning. After that, the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft will return to Earth March 1 bringing home three crew members. Mission controllers in Houston are finalizing preparations before the 57.7 foot Canadarm2 robotic arm detaches Cygnus from the Unity module. NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Tim Kopra will command the Canadarm2 to release Cygnus at 7:25 a.m. EDT Friday. Finally, Orbital ATK controllers in Virginia will command Cygnus to move away from the station and head towards Earth to burn up high in the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. Kelly, along with cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, is in his final days of a mission that began in March of last year. The pair will take a ride home with three-time station resident Sergey Volkov who has been aboard the orbital lab since September. When the trio lands in Kazakhstan March 1, Kelly and Kornienko will have lived in space continuously for 340 days. Volkovs mission will have lasted 182 days. While the crew is busy with spacecraft departure activities, British astronaut Tim Peake worked on a variety of experiments today. He partnered with Kopra on a pair of experiments, one looking at how astronauts work on detailed interactive tasks and another researching cognitive performance. Peake also studied the thermophyscial properties of different metals inside Japans Electrostatic Levitation Furnace. On-Orbit Status Report Preparation for Cygnus Unberth and Release: The Crew has configured Cygnus and the Node 1 vestibule in preparation for Cygnus departure tomorrow. This morning, the Crew removed Intermodule Ventilation, Power/Data Jumpers, and closed the Cygnus hatch. Once the hatch was closed, the Crew installed the Common Berthing Mechanism (CBM) Center Disk Cover and four CBM Controller Panel Assemblies (CPAs) onto an Active CBM bulkhead, then closed the Node 1 nadir hatch. In addition, ground teams successfully checked out the Proximity (PROX) Communication Link. Cygnus is now being powered though its Power Video Grapple Fixture (PVGF) by the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) and is ready for unberth tomorrow at approximately 4:10am CST with release planned to occur at 6:25am CST. Electrostatic Levitation Furnace (ELF): Today Peake installed a sample cartridge in the ELF chamber. The JAXA ground team then started ELF checkout with that sample. The ELF is an experimental facility designed to levitate, melt and solidify materials employing containerless processing techniques that use the electrostatic levitation method with charged samples and electrodes. With this facility, thermophysical properties of high temperature melts can be measured and solidification from deeply undercooled melts can be achieved. Microbiome: Today Kelly continued his Return Minus 14 day Microbiome session by collecting body and surface samples. Microbiome investigates the impact of space travel on both the human immune system and an individuals microbiome (the collection of microbes that live in and on the human body at any given time). Cognition: Kopra and Peake each performed their Flight Day 60 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. Fine Motor Skills: Kopra and Peake each completed sessions of the Fine Motor Skills experiment today. During the experiment they performed a series of interactive tasks on a touchscreen tablet. This investigation is the first fine motor skills study to measure long-term microgravity exposure, different phases of microgravity adaptation, and sensorimotor recovery after returning to Earth gravity. Todays Planned Activities All activities were completed unless otherwise noted. BIOME Sample Collection IMMUNO. Saliva Sample (Session 1) Cygnus Cygnus PROX Power Activation IMMUNO. First stress test, questionnaire data entry Body Mass Measurement Calf Volume Measurement IMMUNO. Test-Tube Blood Collection (finger) Body Mass Measurement IMMUNO. Blood Sample Processing HRF Sample Insertion into MELFI IMMUNO. Equipment Stowage Body Mass Measurement ??-8. Closeout Ops Water Recovery System (WRS) Microbial Removal Filter (MRF) Purge [Aborted] Cygnus Mass Property Update [Aborted] Study of veins in lower extremities SEISMOPROGNOZ. Downlink data from Control and Data Acquisition Module (????) HDD (start). Fine Motor Skills Test BIOME Sample Collection Crew Departure Prep PPFS Experiment Ops HRF Sample Insertion into MELFI OTKLIK. Hardware Monitoring / r/g 0030 Cygnus Final Egress and Closeout for Departure BIOME Equipment Stowage BLR48 Card Exchange UDOD. Experiment Ops with DYKNANIYE-1 and SPRUT-2 Sets Assembly of Separation Unit in MRM1. Filling hoses with water Water Recovery System (WRS) Microbial Removal Filter (MRF) Purge [Aborted] Fine Motor Skills Test Cygnus/Node 1 Vestibule Configuration for Demate Installation of CBM Controller Panel Assembly in Node 1 Terminate transfer of water to water storage tank via MRF filter Cygnus/Node 1 Vestibule Configuration for Demate Disassemble the setup following Progress 431 (DC1) ???-?? test as a part of ISS mated stack Fluid Shifts (FS) Kit Reconfiguration Transition to nominal comm config in MRM1 SEISMOPROGNOZ. Download data from Control and Data Acquisition Module (????) HDD (end) and start backup COSMOCARD. Setup. Starting 24-hr ECG Recording HABIT Launching the Application ECLSS: Recycle Tank Drain, Part 1 HABIT End Task EPO Gathering items for EPO Scripts AstroPi and ARISS ECLSS: Recycle Tank Fill Hardware prepack for return and disposal on Soyuz 718 Vestibule Outfitting Kit (VOK) hardware stowage ??? Maintenance EPO Video Recording PCS Laptop Relocation PCS Laptop Relocation INTERACTION-2. Experiment Ops Hardware prepack for return or disposal on Soyuz 718 EPO Video Recording RWS Hardware Setup Robotic Work Station (RWS) Display and Control Panel (DCP) Checkout On-orbit Hearing Assessment using EARQ EPO Hardware Stow IMS Delta File Prep SAMS Screen Cleaning Crew Departure Prep BIOME Perspiration Collection Setup IMMUNO. Saliva Sample (Session 2) / r/g 1457 ??-2 Exercise, Day 3 XF305 Camcorder Setup IMMUNO. Second stress test, questionnaire data entry ELF Samples cartridge setup IMMUNO. Final Equipment Stowage URISYS Hardware Setup BIOME Perspiration Sampling INTERACTION-2. Experiment Ops BIOME Surface Sample Collection Water flow through Microbial Removal Filter HRF Sample Insertion into MELFI BIOME Equipment Stowage COGNITION Experiment Ops and Filling Questionnaire Completed Task List Items None Ground Activities All activities were completed unless otherwise noted. PROX/PLS Checkout Three-Day Look Ahead: Friday, 02/19: OA-4 unberth, EMU water conductivity test, Neuromapping setup Saturday, 02/20: Crew Off Duty, Weekly Cleaning Sunday, 02/21: Crew Off Duty 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 Override Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 Operate Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab Idle Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 Operate Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) Process Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) Shutdown Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab Off Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 Full Up BETTER collection of taxes and positive economic developments have boosted state coffers more than the Finance Ministry originally forecast. Font size: A - | A + The latest prognosis by the Financial Policy Institute (IFP), a think tank at the Finance Ministry, has increased revenues from taxes and levies by hundreds of millions of euros for the years 2015-2019. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement This prognosis is a result of good news about the positive development of [Slovakias] economy from the viewpoint of the economic growth and the labour market, said Finance Minister Peter Kazimir when introducing the latest prognosis. The state will collect 489 million or 0.6 percent of GDP more in taxes and levies for 2015 when compared to Octobers estimate, according to the tax prognosis published on February 15. Revenues will rise 410 million in 2016, 369 million above the 2017 estimate and 444 million more in 2018. Kazimir attributed it to higher collection of the value added tax (VAT), corporate tax, while noting that other tax revenues increased too. What is very important, out of additional revenues, this sum, 290 million or 60 percent, we ascribe to better collection of taxes and levies, said Kazimir. People and companies are paying taxes more properly, and the state has learned to collect them in a better way, said Kazimir. He also pointed to an end of a decline in collection of excise taxes on mineral oils and a favourable situation of Slovak companies, whose profits are forecast to have increased by 7.9 percent in 2015 compared with the previous year. In total, corporate tax revenues are forecast at 2.684 billion and revenues of income tax paid by private individuals should amount to 2.471 billion. Total tax and levy revenues should be 22.9 billion. The fact that our companies are profitable speaks about a strong economic growth, said Rastislav Machunka of the Federation of Employers Associations (AZZZ). Slovakias economy grew 3.6 percent in 2015 with the IT, construction, automotive and service sectors thriving, according to Peter Kremsky, executive director of the Business Alliance of Slovakia. Based on IFP data, Slovakia has managed to increase the effective VAT rate, when it amounted to 14.6 percent during the third quarter of 2015. This means the best result since the low of 12.1 percent during the third quarter of 2012. Slovakia has a long-term problem with effectiveness in VAT collection. Ivan Svejna of the opposition party Most-Hid, cites growth in neighbouring economies as the prime explanation for the better revenues, and pointed to still ineffective tax collection in Slovakia. Tax collection is better, but in comparison with what? asked Svejna during a discussion on the TA3 news channel. The effective rate is far from optimum and we are still on the tail of the EU in terms of effectiveness of collection, for example VAT. Based on a document of the European Commission from September 2015, Slovakia reported the third biggest VAT gap in the EU, after Romania and Lithuania in 2013, reaching 34.9 percent. The EU average was 15.2 percent. The EC defines the VAT gap as an indicator of the effectiveness of VAT enforcement and compliance measures based on the difference between the amount of VAT actually collected and the VAT Total Tax Liability which is an estimated amount based on the VAT legislation and related regulations. Kazimir agrees that there is a huge space for improvement. I publicly admit that if we got at least to the European average in VAT evasions, we would have 800 million more in the state coffers, he said. What to do with the money The additional prognosticated revenues of 489 million in 2015 will help the state to achieve the planned public finance deficit of 2.5 percent. Out of additional funds of 410 million in 2016, 30 million will go to health insurance companies, 130 million will go to the social security provider Socialna Poistovna, and 110 million will flow into accounts of municipalities. The remaining 140 million will be an income of the state that will keep it as a reserve for supporting investment, according to Kazimir. The rest is on the next government [to be created after the March 5 parliamentary election], said Kazimir, adding that the latest forecast gives a good background for achieving a balanced budget in 2018. The tax prognosis is for now a preliminary forecast by economists, the European Commission will give its assessment in May. Contribution by JLR The arrival of the British carmaker Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) should have a positive influence on tax revenues. The carmaker plans to start construction of its brand new plant near Nitra later this year, with production planned for 2018. IFP prognosticates that already in 2016 this 1 billion investment to be supported by investment stimuli of 130 million will channel 15.6 million of tax revenues into state coffers. In 2017 the revenues should increase to 45.6 million, in 2018 to 110 million and in 2019 to 220.4 million. After the carmaker launches production, the IFP forecasts the tax revenues at 265 million. The IFP estimates that especially JLRs contribution to the growth of employment and wages in the economy and the resulting consumption of employees as well as assumed profit of the carmaker and its subcontractors will reflect in higher tax revenues. The investment of JLR is so huge that within direct investments it can be compared with carmakers PSA Peugeot Citroen and Kia Motors Slovakia put together, Zdenko Stefanides, analyst with VUB banka, told the Hospodarske Noviny daily. HAD a general election been held in mid February, it would have been won by the currently governing Smer party on 34.6 percent of the votes. Font size: A - | A + The number comes from a poll carried out by the Focus polling agency on a sample of 1,005 respondents between February 6-14 and published by the Sme daily webpage on February 18. These figures could be the result of the fact that health care, education and corruption have become the main issues of the election campaign in the final few weeks before the election, according to Martin Slosiarik of Focus. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement The major problem for Smer is that there is little time left before the election, Slosiarik told Sme. Moreover, Smer has stated that it will not change their policies in relation to the education and health care sectors, and this might discourage some voters. Second in the polls was the Siet party with 14 percent, ahead of the Slovak National Party (SNS) with 8.7 percent. Four other parties would have cleared the 5-percent threshold needed to win representation in parliament Most-Hid on 8.2 percent, the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) on 7 percent, OLaNO-NOVA on 6.1 percent, Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) on 5.5 percent. The list of parties that would have failed to get into Parliament included, We Are Family-Boris Kollar on 4.2 percent, the ethnic-Hungarian SMK on 3.5 percent and the far-right Kotleba-Peoples Party Our Slovakia on 2.1 percent. As a consequence of these results, Smer would have 62 MPs out of a total of 150. Siet would have 25 MPs, SNS 15, Most-Hid 15, KDH 12, OLaNO-NOVA 11 and SaS 10. Prime Minister Robert Fico said that he felt "cautiously optimistic" when he left for the two-day summit of the European Council, slated to begin in Brussels later on February 18. Font size: A - | A + At the summit, specifics of the reform in relations between EU and Great Britain, demanded by London, are expected to be worked out, with the result of the upcoming UK referendum on EU membership hanging in the balance, according to the TASR newswire. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement I believe that some sensible compromise can be hammered out because we want Great Britain to remain in the EU, said Fico at the parliamentary European Affairs Committee session prior to his departure, as quoted by TASR. The Prime Minister said that he considers it important that the motion to address British demands, drafted by European Council President Donald Tusk, does not bestow veto rights on eurozone non-member states. Hence, they cant veto our decisions. However, were not opposed to having eurozone non-members involved in big decisions, said Fico, as quoted by TASR. Slovakia fully supports Britain's demands to bolster the EUs competitiveness and cut red tape. Bratislava also harbours no objections to strengthening the powers of national parliaments and the introduction of a so-called red card mechanism, allowing 55 percent of national parliaments to block European Commission-sponsored legislative bills. One issue still open is that of migration for work from other member states, which London wants to restrict. The Visegrad Four group (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia), for instance, advocates the notion that these limitations should not have a retroactive effect and should not apply to pensions. Also under debate is the length of the transitional period during which the access of foreign workers to social benefits is to be limited, TASR wrote. Looking back at elections past, some clear trends emerge: the average Slovak party survives about as long as a mayfly and comebacks are rare. Font size: A - | A + SLOVAKIA is a perfect democracy. No, really. The parliamentary elections on March 5 are designed to be perfectly proportional: everyones vote goes into a single, national ballot box. And almost every vote would count, were it not for the 5-percent threshold that each party must clear in order to win representation. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Unfortunately for most parties, that 5 percent is more of an aspiration than a threshold: all those now in parliament, bar the governing Smer party, have dipped dangerously close to (or well below) it in polling over the last year or two, and most of the 23 parties running in this election have never got anywhere near it. Looking back at elections past, some clear trends emerge. One is that the average Slovak party survives about as long as a mayfly. Of the 26 that ran in 2012, only 11 reappear (in one form or another) on this years ballot. The most significant expiry since 2012 is the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS), which dominated Slovak politics throughout the 1990s, and was part of the government until just six years ago. Few will mourn its passing. Another lesson is that comebacks are rare indeed. The only party in modern times to get back into parliament after dropping out is the Slovak National Party (SNS), which returned in 2006 after a four-year absence. It looks set to do so again at this election which would be a remarkable feat. As well as the mayflies, there are one or two hardy perennials. The unreconstructed Communist Party of Slovakia (KSS) will gamely contest this election, as it has all the others likely with similar results. For a party that once proclaimed Cest praci! (Honour work!), a striking number of its candidates are retired. Most parties are all well-educated. Smers candidates (average age: 50) boast enough doctorates between them to staff a hospital, while the upstart #Siet party (yes, that hash sign really is part of its name supposedly to show that its down with the kids) has a rather younger profile (average age: 39): at least one of its candidates (I should know: I teach him) is still studying for his first degree. True to hallowed tradition, few of the parties are troubling voters with anything so vulgar as a coherent policy platform. Smer promises to protect Slovakia though from what is unspecified (presumably, ethnic pollutants such as yours truly). Even that is something of an improvement on its non-committal, albeit election-winning, 2012 assertion that people deserve guarantees (of what, and from whom, were similarly undefined). Still not sure who to vote for? Fortunately, help is at hand. Professor Kevin Deegan-Krause of Wayne State University, the doyen of Slovak electoral analysts, has developed the simple (and light-hearted) guide to assist undecided voters. And one last tip: if you, like almost 0.1 percent of the electorate, somehow find yourself running for election, it might be an idea to actually turn up. In 2012, Marian Papp, a candidate for the Party of the Democratic Left (SDL), achieved the unique distinction of winning zero preferences meaning that he did not even vote for himself. With sincere thanks to Kevin Deegan-Krause for his valuable insights, and the diagram reproduced here. The opinions above are those of the authors. Instead of standing up in the parliament and addressing the protesting teachers, Fico sent other soldiers to fight his fight. Font size: A - | A + A PARODY of democracy is not a rare occurrence in the plenum of the Slovak parliament. Recently, however, one of the genres most exquisite pieces was staged for an audience other than politicians. There was even romance to the scene too, as it took place on a balcony and the protagonists showed a fervent devotion to their cause. Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Skryt Remove ad Article continues after video advertisement Those protagonists were several elderly men and women as well as others with an apparent preference for the ruling Smer party, who filled the seats of the balcony and prevented protesting teachers and nurses from attending the extraordinary parliamentary session convened on February 11 to discuss the ailing health care and education sectors in the light of the recent protests. At the start of the parliamentary debate (which eventually lasted until the small hours of the next morning but produced no substantial result), there was much more passion on the balcony than among MPs. The pensioners ripped down the banners rolled out by the few lucky teachers who made it to the balcony, ugly words, combined with twisted nostalgia for the pre-1989 times. Instead of standing up in the parliament and addressing the protesting teachers, Fico sent other soldiers to fight his fight. Young men who covered their faces when the cameras of nosy reporters approached, and most of all, the elderly ladies, burning with rightful anger, who looked ready to defend their political hero no matter what. The campaign has not reached its peak yet, and the final get-out-the-vote efforts are yet to come. But the past two weeks have shown that Smer is getting nervous and it has begun mobilising its forces. The prime minister brought up a fraud allegation against the leader of the opposition OLaNO, and has repeatedly tried to remind the people of the refugee agenda, even suggesting he is being scorned by Germany for his anti-refugee opinions. Just three weeks before the election, the ruling party suddenly convened a conference to approve its election programme. We will never know whether the conference would have taken place even if Smers preferences stayed where they were a few months ago that is, closer to 40 than to 30 percent. Perhaps Smer would be satisfied with its five general priorities, social packages, and tales about good sovereigns who protect their subjects from the evil that lurks beyond the border. That thought is even more disturbing than the phantoms of Meciars babky demokratky on the parliamentary balcony. The thought that the strongest party in the country, absolute favourite to win the election victory and the most likely to decide the next government, does not even find it important to formulate a concrete programme in advance and present it to voters. Then again, why would they? Their voters seem to be satisfied by emotion, with the awareness that there is someone to deliver them from evil, with a lousy joke jovially uttered to a crowd of thousands at a womens day celebration, with an arrogant smile that dismisses a report on the states human rights record, with a 10 euro cheque from the Economy Ministry. But are they? Earlier this weekon February 15thbeer-and-coffee loving New Yorkers were treated to a taste of the Midwest when Jonathan Moxey of Perennial Artisan Ales and Scott Carey of Sump Coffeeboth out of St. Louis, Missouricame to The Well in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The purpose of their visit? To engage with both casual and studious beer drinkers alike over their collaboration coffee stout. Were not just talking about a meet-and-greet over fresh kegs of a notable beer; this relatively informal tasting event was a little more educational and a little more hands-on than your average chug-a-lug. The brewer/roaster pair, along with staff from local distributors Remarkable Liquids, brought samples of the unblended stout and cold brewed Sump coffees for attendees to mix themselves, giving them a peek into the decision-making process behind creating a coffee stout ale. For the beer nerds, Moxey was on hand to answer brewing questions and supply the crowd with details on the boozy half of the collaboration. Perennial brews a single base stout that isnt intended for retail consumption. Instead, its brewed to be an ingredient thats barrel aged, spiced, or in the case of Sump Coffee Stout, combined with coffee in about a seven-to-one ratio and then sent out to be enjoyed by Perennials fans. Moxey wasnt shy with details on the stout, either. Like the fact that its the most difficult beer they brew, and that it starts at 30 plato and ends up at 12meaning there are a slew of fermentable sugars available for the yeast to spit out a 10.5% ABV heavy-hitter. Moxey also emphasized that some of the traditional coffee flavors drinkers may encounter such as roasty or bitter notes are actually from the beer. And in fact its the coffee that brings the gentler subtleties to the stout. On the coffee side, Carey gave the crowd an overview of coffee selection, brewing, and tasting for the purpose of making a beer blend. He talked a bit about his roasting profile, touching on the lighter, first crack roasting we know and love aimed at oil retention and nuanced flavors, and the cold brew method using a Toddy. He spoke at length about the two cold brewed coffees he brought for the attendees to blend: a washed Colombian from the COMEPCAFE collective and a natural process Costa Rican from Finca Las Lajas. Carey highlighted differences in cherry processing as well as the flavor profiles from each coffee, and how the beans get selected for the final stout. Their partnership is truly collaborative; Perennial trusts Carey to narrow down the coffee options and roast the coffee his way. When its time to put the beer together (usually early to mid-December) Carey organizes a cupping with the Perennial brewers using 200 gram samples from lots and lots of micro-lots. After cupping, the group will start blending, and come up with a short list of the coffees theyd like to use in the final product, though the final selection will often depend on whether they can get enough beans. This is the third year Perennial has joined forces with Sump to make the eponymous stout, and each year the production has grown, narrowing the array of coffees they can get enough of with which to make the beer. This year Carey roasted one thousand pounds to be cold-brewed for Perennials use. In the latest vintage 2016 Sump Coffee Stout, the Colombian coffee made the cut for its straightforward, gentler profile. But the team also brewed a variant using a washed Burundi (which fortunately was on hand at the bar for comparison). Its almost like the B-side remix for the fans, except it serves to highlight how both coffees compliment the base beer. By releasing an alternate version of the coffee stout to the public, the team can help beer drinkers understand what the coffee brings, Carey told us. It was to further that end that Carey brought along the Costa Rican for on-the-spot blending, showing what a dynamic, bright, and rich natural process bean with a little fermentation could add to the beer. Experiencing the beers side by side emphasizes how big an impact the coffee can have. His focus on consistent roasting means the only variables for flavor will be from the beans themselves. Where some stouts are brewed to be aged, building a richer, smoother flavor over time, Moxey and Carey warned the crowd that this stout was meant to be imbibed as soon as possible due to the delicate nature of the coffee. Over time, the coffees subtleties would die down, leaving the late drinker bereft of some of the smooth chocolate and dried fruit from the Colombian bean. So dont go cellaring this one, collectors. You can catch the Perennial/Sump combination this coming weekend at coffee beer classic Uppers & Downers in Chicago; Carey himself will be at the first session, and the Perennial team will have the base stout to blend with more Costa Rican coffee. Sump Coffee Stout will also be available soon (if not already) at craft beer bars in Perennials distribution footprint across the great and beer-rich American Midwest. D. Robert Wolcheck is a Sprudge contributor based in New York City. Read more D. Robert Wolcheck on Sprudge. MOSCOW (Sputnik)Some areas in the northeastern state of Borno are too dangerous for humanitarian organizations employees, who are engaged in the delivery of food to civilians in conflict zones. As a result, almost 54,000 of the states residents are in a "catastrophic" situation, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system, The Financial Times newspaper reported Thursday citing the UN report. Another 780,000 in the same area, as well as in two neighboring states are also living in difficult conditions with the second highest level of food insecurity. Nearly 4 million individuals in the north-eastern Nigeria require food assistance, since they are constantly living in the conflict-torn districts. Hundreds of thousands fled to the Borno state capital of Maiduguri during the peak of the internal conflict in 2014 and have regularly been provided with aid, since humanitarian services have full access to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps and settlements. However, those who are not able to move to relatively safe areas are still at a great risk, according to the newspaper. Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh also welcomed the agreement but said that Tehran is not committed to it. At the same, a source close to Iran talks with Venezuela, Iraq and Qatar in Tehran told Sputnik that Iran agreed to freeze oil production. "The market will show in the coming days whether it beliefs that this is the start of a process, as [Ali] Naimi [Saudi Arabian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources] suggested, or whether the fundamentals are still not such that more balance between supply and demand should be expected any time soon," Tim Boersma, the Acting Director of the Brookings Institution's Energy Security and Climate Initiative, told Sputnik. Boersma added that January output levels were "of course fairly substantial, to put it mildly." The expert also expressed doubt that the agreement would be joined by other major oil producers. "Whether others will follow time will tell, but one major producer, which was not as relevant in the last price slump as today, namely the United States, will surely not join. Therefore, I continue to have doubts whether this exercise will be fruitful," Brookings Institution's Energy Security and Climate Initiative acting director said. "In sum, the Chinese are simply adding complexity to the military challenge their fortified islands present," Macgregor, who also holds a Ph.D. in international relations from the US Military Academy at West Point, added. However, Beijing was generating for itself conflicts of needless complexity in the region, Macgregor cautioned. "Of course, the Chinese also have to contend with Vietnamese, Taiwanese, Filipino and, in all likelihood, Japanese opponents too. Thus, their militarization of the dispute is ultimately self-defeating. To date, their behavior has simply strengthened the forces against them." Chinese policies in the region currently played into the hands of US hawks by giving them justifications for massive forward deployments of forces, Macgregor maintained. "Given the distance from mainland China, Beijing would do better to opt for regional talks to sort out the claims. It is Chinese behavior toward its neighbors that provides the pretext for US naval intervention." Macgregor is a famous US war hero whose squadron destroyed an entire Iraqi Armored Brigade in 23 minutes, while suffering only one casualty, at the Battle of 73 Easting, a decisive tank fight during the 1991 Gulf War. Ohio Northern University Assistant Professor of History Robert Waters argued that the failure to coerce China in the region reflected the hollowness of President Barack Obamas "pivot to Asia" strategy. "President Obama has been saying for at least four years that he is going to pivot to Asia. I guess he's saving the pivot so that he has something to do after he retires," Waters told Sputnik on Thursday. The missile deployment was consistent with more than 20 years of steady Chinese commitment to maintaining its presence in the Spratly and Paracel Island chains, Waters observed. However, he added, before current Chinese President Xi Jinping took power, the Beijing government moved stealthily. "President Xi's government makes little effort to hide new deployments and its rhetoric has been very strident toward the United States," Waters pointed out. Xi sent missiles to Woody Island, also known as Yongxing Island, while Obama was meeting with Southeast Asian leaders, a painful embarrassment for Obama, he noted. "That suggests that Xi isn't worried about Obamas reaction." If China's economic slowdown worsens and leads to unrest, Chinese leaders might think that a more aggressive foreign policy would make people forget their economic problems, Waters concluded. Such was the case of Russian student Varvara Karaulova, who tried to join the militants because she fell in love with a Daesh recruiter, according to her father, Pavel Karaulov. Karaulova left for Istanbul in May 2015 without telling her parents before she was detained in early June on the Turkish-Syrian border with a group of 14 Russians, allegedly recruited by Islamic State militants, and was deported to Moscow. The incident influenced Russias decision to start a large-scale campaign to stem the recruitment of Russian nationals into the islamists' ranks, in August of last year. Similar campaigns were later launched by Washington and the European Union, as over 5,000 Europeans have left to fight alongside terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, according to Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koendera. According to the CTC report, children and youth are used mainly to attack civilian targets as it is believed they can blend in better, rather than to attack security forces. The monthly rate of young people dying in IS suicide operations has increased from six in January 2015 to 11 this January, CTC said. The issue of IS recruitment affected all countries across the world, including Tunisia and India, where officials have detained individuals involved in the recruitment of new IS members. In late December 2015, New Delhi instructed its national security and intelligence agencies to monitor potential recruits of the Islamic State, a group outlawed in many countries, including Russia and the United States, to counter the practice. In total, 89 children died in IS missions in the past year, according to CTC, one in three of whom were foreigners recruited by the radical group to be foot soldiers or propagandists. The threat of attracting youths into IS ranks to be later sent to hotspots has been formally recognized by the UN Security Council as one of the main threats to stability that leads to violence and terrorism in a resolution adopted on December 10. MOSCOW (Sputnik) On February 16, the energy ministers of the three Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) met in the Qatari capital of Doha to agree on freezing oil output at January 2016 levels. The agreement aiming to stabilize the volatile oil market is subject to other oil producing countries following suit. "In such an event we could see an increase in the oil price but there are a lot of 'ifs' in that line of reasoning," professor of Petroleum and Natural Gas Economics at the University of Wyoming Charles Mason said Friday. Among them is Iran's recent suggestion it would continue increasing output until pre-sanctions levels. Iran's OPEC representative Mehdi Asali was quoted as saying the day after the Doha deal that it would be "illogical" to ask Tehran to restrain production. "Russian-German trade volumes are falling quite sharply, but at a slower pace than with the European Union as a whole. Germany is Russia's leading trading partner," Ulyukayev explained. The minister also invited German businesspeople to participate in the 2016 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), to be held on June 16-18. "It is an excellent platform to reach a common understanding, exchange views and if there is an opportunity to, conclude investment agreements," he asserted. Russia is the European Union's third largest trading partner while the bloc is Moscow's most important market. Bilateral trade declined from 338 billion euros in 2012 to 284 billion euros in 2014, according to European Commission estimates. Washington could perhaps get away with cutting its losses by fudging some kind of apparent face-saving compromise with Russia over Syria. Even though Russia and Syria will have emerged vindicated and victorious. But anything short of regime change is an unacceptable defeat for Turkey and Saudi Arabia. This is why both these American clients are pushing so hard to provoke a wider war in Syria to embroil Washington. It is a measure of how deranged these two clients are that they seem prepared to ignite a global war between the US and Russia in order to satisfy their lust. Washington may have publicly endorsed the recent Saudi announcement of a regional military intervention more accurately, invasion of Syria. But the signs are that the US is squirming to restrain the Saudis and the Turks from actually sending in troops, as the FT report above indicates. The thing is that the Saudis and other Persian Gulf Arab regimes do not have the military mettle to dare a Syrian action. They are already getting whipped in Yemen. Say no more. Hence, the Saudis and the Turks while they are bragging about forming an invasion force, at the same time they are careful to qualify this by saying that no action will be taken without US leadership. In other words, these two paper tigers need Uncle Sam to prop them up. Dont be mistaken, the US is no moral arbiter. And if it got the chance, as it has before, it wouldnt hesitate to embark on a genocidal war. However, as noted, Washington knows better than its impetuous, irrational client regimes that Syria backed by Russian military prowess is beyond its capability. This is where the restive clients emboldened by Washingtons historic decline as a super power and frustrated by its passivity on the Syrian question are tempted to go even more rogue. Kiev has actually spent the year after signing the Complex of Measures by increasing the Ukrainian Armys potential, Alexander Lukashevich said. He said that new military forces and weapons have been deployed to the line of contact with the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and that foreign instructors and mercenaries have been invited. The danger of returning to a military solution to the crisis has grown significantly. It seems our foreign partners not only trying not to notice, but sometimes are directly indulging in similar dangerous steps, Lukashevich said. The Minsk agreement, aiming to deescalate the situation in eastern Ukraine, was signed by representatives of the Kiev government and the Donbas militias in February 2015. Key points of the Minsk agreements include a ceasefire, heavy weapons withdrawal from the line of contact in eastern Ukraine, constitutional reforms, including a decentralization of power in the country, and granting a special status to the Donbas region. The sides failed to fulfill the agreements by the end of 2015, as initially intended. The deadline for completion has been extended into 2016. BRUSSELS (Sputnik)EU-Turkey summit on the migration crisis should be held as soon as possible, European Parliament President Martin Schulz said Friday. "We need to hold a summit with Turkey as soon as possible, because the solution [to the migrant crisis] requires the implementation of all the measures that we have agreed with Turkey. The first step is to find a solution for the protection of the [EU] external borders," he told reporters prior to the second working session of the ongoing EU summit in Brussels. Consultations between Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and European Council President Donald Tusk on the matter could take place on Thursday, but were canceled due to the recent terrorist attack in Ankara. Temporary churches and mosques used by the refugees have already been demolished. Men, women and children including 500 unaccompanied minors have been left in no mans land. "Storage of Human Beings" Tony Dyer, Green Party mayoral candidate for Bristol, the city where Banksy grew up, recently visited the refugee camp in Calais, where he discovered a "terrifying" new container camp to house refugees overnight. "The scene is one of squalor and despair: muddy tracks, flimsy tents and wooden huts housing a mixture of people fleeing wars, genocide, religious extremism, absolute poverty," Dyer says. In an article published on B24/7, Dyer describes the French police watching over no-mans land from their vans, occasionally firing a tear gas round into the camp seemingly out of boredom. Shipping containers now used to house the refugees in a new camp surrounded by a wire fence, within the existing camp. "This is industrialized overnight storage of human beings." Around 6,500 refugees and migrants are living in two makeshift camps in Calais and Dunkirk in conditions described by human rights groups as "atrocious". Amnesty International (AI) is calling on the French and British authorities to allow migrants who have families in Britain to be reunited with them in the UK. Refugees & migrants in #Calais & #Dunkirk with relatives in UK must be reunited in Britain. Take action and retweet: https://t.co/CTbFwnYufO Amnesty UK (@AmnestyUK) February 16, 2016 "Effectively abandoned by authorities on both sides of the Channel, they risk their lives trying to cross by jumping in the back of a lorry, walking through the Eurotunnel or even setting off from the coast in small boats," says AI. "The vast majority of asylum seekers commit no crimes," the report stressed. It emphasized that while the amount of crime increased, the rise was less than could be expected relative to the 440 percent increase in the number of migrants and refugees who came to Germany in 2015, compared with the previous year. The BKA statistics show that while most refugees and migrants came from Syria (47 percent), Afghanistan (17 percent) and Iraq (8 percent), they committed proportionally less crimes. 'Refugee criminality 2015 the BKA report,' reported Bild. Syrians were responsible for the largest proportion of crimes, 24 percent of those committed. In second place were Albanians, who committed 17 percent of crimes but made up eight percent of those who migrated to Germany in 2015. In third place were Kosovans (14 percent of crimes and four percent of migrants), followed by Serbs (11 percent of crimes but two percent of migrants). Afghans committed 11 percent of crimes, Iraqis nine percent, and Pakistanis (three percent of migrants) committed four percent of crimes. The BKA noted that the number of crimes recorded rose sharply each month until the middle of the year, after which there was "stagnation in the monthly number of cases until the end of the year." "Since the attacks on New Year's Eve on Cologne many Germans have asked themselves, 'what impact has the influx of asylum seekers had on the number of crimes?" asked Bild on Wednesday when it revealed the report. While the sexual assaults committed in several German cities on New Year's Eve by migrants and refugees were not included in the report, its figures show that 1,688 sexual offenses were registered in 2015, 458 of which were rapes or sexual assaults. Sexual offenses were 0.8 percent of the total crimes registered in 2015. French MEP Alain Lamassoure expressed his frustration that the Brexit issue had robbed leaders of time to work towards a conclusion over the migration crisis. He told French newspaper Echos: "This [Brexit] is indeed a problem for the [European] Union, but its above all a problem of the first order for the British. Europes major problem is the migrant crisis, as the euro was [before]. And our experience has demonstrated the Council cannot deal with two problems at once." "We will therefore lose time discussing problems that are in fact internal to politics in Great Britain and no solution will be found for the migrant crisis Its above all a grave problem for the British." German View: British Want 'Extra Sausages' This frustration at the migrant crisis having to play second fiddle to British negotiations has also angered some in Germany, with the German press offering a criticism of the UKs unwillingness to integrate further with other EU partners, amid a perception that the British insistent on being granted special treatment and concessions. "Same procedure as every year, David" pic.twitter.com/nOzytpeos0 Philip Oltermann (@philipoltermann) February 19, 2016 Daily newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung quoted a Brussels diplomat who complained that "one single man is threatening to push the entire EU into the abyss", while other broadcasters have referred to the "Extrawurste" (extra sausages) Britain has received from the EU in the form of special favors and opt-outs. Europe Urged to Look at the Future However, perhaps the most stinging criticism came from Spanish MEP Enrique Calvet Chambon, who urged Europe to fight against the "blackmail of the United Kingdom". In a YouTube post, he argued that the British demands to be exempt from greater EU integration were damaging to the overall project, arguing that "a more integrated Europe is absolutely indispensable". Calvet Chambon argued that British efforts to reform its relationship with the EU were challenging the model that had prevailed in Europe for the past 60 years, which ultimately risked a return of the nationalism that plagued Europe last century. "You have to get a historical point of view for our future, and not to get small negotiations for political interests in the short term." The Parthenon temple in Athens sits at the top of the Acropolis, a site dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, marking the Greeks victory over Sparta in the 5th century BC. Marble friezes and statues that once adorned the pediments and pillars of the Parthenon are now on permanent display in the British Museum in London. Some say they were pillaged others believe they were saved. So wonderful for London to hold these great treasures for all the world to see for free.#ElginMarbles pic.twitter.com/DKAsb6gSlp Lummel (@fuzzle7777) January 9, 2016 Greece claims they were stolen by Lord Elgin in the early 1800s when he was the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Lord Elgin claimed he removed the sculptures under the permission of the Ottoman authorities, saving them for the sake of history while the temple fell into ruin. In 1816, the British government approved the legality of the acquisition, and the marbles have been on display in London ever since. 200 years agoParliament passed an Act to vest the #ElginMarbles to the trustees @britishmuseum for public view https://t.co/29rm5UaZk1 Parliament Archives (@UKParlArchives) January 19, 2016 The Trustees of the British Museum are convinced that the "current division allows different and complementary stories to be told about the surviving sculptures, highlighting their significance within world culture and affirming the place of Ancient Greece among the great cultures of the world". According their statement on the British Museum website: "Each year millions of visitors, free of charge, admire the artistry of the sculptures and gain insight into how ancient Greece influenced and was influenced by the other civilizations that it encountered." However, Skiadas believes that the UK is starting to see things a bit differently, considering that Greece now has advanced facilities to safely display the Parthenon marbles. "It would be a culturally significant step for the UK to join us in a public and transparent discussion on the Parthenon marbles." Bring Them Back Greece wants the marbles back they always have and now the historical Athenians Association has instructed proceedings against the United Kingdom at the European Court of Human Rights. The 120 year old group is made up of natives Athenians and ancestors of those who stood up to the "despoilment" of the Parthenon by Lord Elgin at the time. I've always said Britain should return Elgin Marbles etc with some British historical artifacts as a peace offering. ugh life (@whatkatie_did) January 26, 2016 The association claim that the retention of the Parthenon Marbles by the British government violates the following articles under the Human Rights Act: "Article 8, violation of cultural identity as an aspect of the right to respect for a private life; Article 9, violation of the cultural identity under the freedom of conscience right; Article 10, violation of the right to access cultural information under the right to freedom of expression; and article 13, violation of the right to an effective remedy and Article one, violation of the right to property, in the sense of integral public access to the monument." In a statement the Athenians Association said that it is "aspiring to raise international public awareness", hoping that the "monument will be restored and that history and tradition will shine forth for the good of mankind". I am greek and i want to go home! E ora di tornare a casa! #greece #greceeagapi #elginmarbles pic.twitter.com/NSbeZe8aFI ailinon80 (@ailinon80) February 18, 2016 The action follows another recent refusal by the British government to return the sculptures or even enter "mediation" over the marbles. The UK claim that the sculptures "were legally acquired by Lord Elgin according to the then prevailing laws" and that the British Museum has a proprietary right as it purchased them". A decision, the Athenians Association is now appealing. "The global community needs to actively participate and make the return of the Parthenon marbles a celebration and a message of civilization and peace," Skiadas told Sputnik. "As you know, there are many minorities in Syria. The society here is comprised of 23 religious and ethnic groups, and before the war we all lived in peace and harmony. To me, our pre-war society was like a beautiful mosaic which is now being destroyed by the war," Abou Khazen lamented. He also added that most Syrians consider the Russian military operation to be the countrys best hope for deliverance from the quagmire its been stuck in for the last five years. "Syrians react positively towards this operation. Like I said before, Russia's activity isn't just limited to military action alone. Russia does a good thing by stimulating the negotiations and inter-Syrian dialogue, and we hope that this process succeeds," Abou Khazen said. At the same time, the prospects for a peaceful resolution remain threatened as militants opposing the Syrian government regularly shell the civilian districts of the city with mortars, the priest ruefully remarked. "They cut our electricity five months ago. We have no water either. Nobody talks about it in the West, he said, according to Le Figaro. "We have wells in churches and mosques, plus those drilled by the government forces, but it is a disaster." Meanwhile, the hopes for the cessation of hostilities continue to diminish as on early Thursday Turkey allowed 500 "jihadists" to enter Syria via its border, the newspaper adds. According to Le Figaro, the militants were heading to the "rebel stronghold" of Azaz. The Turks have also resumed cross-border raids in Iraqi Kurdistan and are shelling Kurdish positions in northwestern Syria, Sinclair observed. "Basically it is a three-pronged attack aimed not only at wreaking havoc on Kurds and their regional aspirations for more autonomy, but also at creating the false impression on the world stage that Kurds are to blame for much of the regions woes and at branding all Kurds civilians and militants alike as terrorists," he claimed in the interview with Sputnik. Sinclair warned that if the United States or the United Nations were to censure or sanction Turkey for its current actions, "as contemptible as they are," it could push Ankara to intensify its attacks on Kurdish populations in the region. Webster Tarpley, a historian and author of "Obama: The Postmodern Coup," wrote on Tarpley.net that the incident appears to be a "false flag" that affords Turkeys Muslim Brotherhood leadership a pretext for "a large scale land invasion of northern Syria, supposedly to punish the YPG Kurds for this bombing." The Muslim Brotherhood movement is an international religious and political association established in Egypt in 1928 and supported in a number of Arab countries. It has been outlawed and branded as a terrorist organization in Egypt by President Abdul Fattah Sisi. "In reality, the Turkish forces will go into Syria in a desperate attempt to save the ISIS [Islamic State], [Jabhat al-] Nusra [Front], and other terrorists who now face military collapse at the hands of Syrian and Russian forces," Tarpley added. As for the Turkish government's accusations that Syrian Kurds, 'backed by the Assad government' were responsible for the wave of terror plaguing Ankara in recent days, Shaaban told the broadcaster that Turkey has repeatedly "accus[ed] the Kurds of things that they are not doing," adding that she hoped "that Western viewers would realize" that Turkey was responsible for starting the war on Syria, and for helping "to bring in so many terrorists from 83 countries from all over the world into Syria." "And now, at the moment when the Syrian Army is making real advances and liberating our cities and villages, Turkey is attacking our cities and villages directly, because these terrorists were the means for Turkey on the ground in Syria, and once Turkey saw that these terrorists are failing or are being defeated, Turkey jumped in to save them and to help them." Commenting on Turkey's role in the refugee crisis which has hit Europe, Shaaban emphasized that she sincerely hopes "that the Western world will stop looking at Erdogan's government as the means to help them, whether in fighting terrorism, or in stopping the refugee crisis. It is Turkey who started the refugee crisis four years ago. It is Turkey who put tanks on the borders well before any Syrian refugee was at any border. Turkey dismantled our factories, stole our heritage, had ambitions to recreate the Ottoman Empire in the Arab World, and Europe has no interest in following this example." "The refugee crisis, believe me has been created, manipulated and used by Turkey against Europe and against Syrian, and the only way I can seeis for Europe and Syria to speak together, and believe me, the refugee crisis would be solved, and terrorism would be eradicated from Syria," the official added. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu claimed that the perpetrator of the recent terrorist attack in Ankara which claimed the lives of 28 people was a man named Salih Neccar, a native of the town of Amuda located in the Syrian province of Al Hasakah an area predominantly populated by Syrian Kurds. However, following Davutoglu's statements the representatives of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) conducted their own investigation into the suspects identity, and the facts theyve uncovered may not be to the prime minister's liking. "The investigation revealed that no one bearing the family name of Neccar lives or ever lived in Amuda," Hakem Xalo, PYD representative and co-chairman of the legislative council of Syria's Jazira Canton, told Sputnik. "Furthermore, no one bearing this name has ever joined the People's Protection Units (YPG) in Amuda. We've interviewed the people living there and no one knew a man named Salih Neccar. It is a small town, and the residents know each other." But Toner did admit that more than four years of anarchy since Gaddafis violent death had allowed Daesh in the Libya. "Due to lack of a unified government in Libya, it has led to some of these ungoverned spaces where groups like ISIS [Daesh] can establish a foothold," Toner noted. US to Conduct More Anti-Daesh Airstrikes in Libya as Opportunities Arise The United States will continue conducting airstrikes in Libya when it sees opportunities to take out Daesh leaders and bomb camps, Toner also said. We [the United States] have been very clear that as we have opportunities we are going to carry out airstrikes against those ISIL [Daesh] elements that are operating in Libya, Toner stated. US Uncertain About Date for Cessation of Hostilities in Syria The United States lacks certainty about a specific date it wants to see cessation of hostilities take effect in Syria, Mark Toner stated. I dont have a certain date that we are saying now that we want a cessation of hostilities by this date, Toner stated. Once this task force convenes, it will work as quickly as possible to reach end of hostilities on the ground [in Syria]. The French proposal for a Palestinian-Israeli conflict resolution is the country's first since the 1967 Six-Day War, when France severed relations with Israel after then-leader Ben Gurion invaded Egypt. According to the French government, the initiative would serve to end the "American monopoly" on hosting the peace process in the region. But, says Talhami, France is now considered to be simply another Western power, along with the US, attempting to announce a major peace initiative to end the longstanding hatred between many Israelis and Palestinians. "Everybody knows that the US is really withdrawing from the Middle Eastern arena. I think we have seen it in Syria where the initiative has been seized by Russia. We have seen that the US worked through surrogates, particularly Turkey," Talhami said. The professor asserts that the Middle East is a region that the US would like to extricate itself from, following the country's many failures, both military and diplomatic. Europeans, facing an enormous immigration from Syria, are concerned that an escalation in the endemic Israel-Palestine violence will result in increased numbers of refugees seeking asylum in Europe, an era-defining event that is "baffling and upsetting for many Europeans." "I don't think for one moment that Europeans will ever act on their own, particularly on the Arab-Israeli arena. I think they probably have been consulted [by the US] and they probably were given some ideas," Talhami suggested. In December 2014 the French parliament took a non-binding vote, recognizing Palestine as an independent sovereign entity, and this contributed to the recent French peace initiative, according to the American professor. MOSCOW (Sputnik) The European Council president also expressed solidarity with Turkey condemning the recent car bomb explosion in Ankara that prevented Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu from attending the Brussels summit. "We agreed that our joint action plan with Turkey remains a priority and we must do all we can to succeed. This is why we have the intention to organize a special meeting with Turkey in the beginning of March," Tusk told reporters. In November 2014, Turkey and the European Union approved a joint plan to cut the influx of migrants into the 28-nation bloc. Turkey is to help protect EU borders, and is expected to agree to resettle refugees that have managed to get to Europe from Turkey. EU member-states are expected to provide Ankara with over $3 billion and give impetus to negotiations for Turkey's accession to the European Union. At the same time, he explained, with the US set to hold presidential elections later this year, the Baltics are becoming an element in global politics: "The Baltic countries are now a feature in the US presidential debates. All the candidates even Bernie Sanders, beloved by many on the Left in Russia, is in favor of NATO increasing the US's presence in Eastern Europe, and especially in Poland and the Baltic states." "On the one hand, the Baltic states are signaling that they cannot cope economically, and need more financial support, primarily from the United States. So they come up with reasons for such support. If large contingents of NATO troops were deployed, they would need additional infrastructure more housing, shops and so on; this is an opportunity for unemployed people in these countries' to earn a living. It sounds trite, but it's as simple as that." At the same time, "when one listens to statements by US presidential candidates on foreign policy, it is obvious that they have no idea what is happening in the remotest corners of Europe. So when they hear the latest accusation from some Baltic politician that Russia will soon attack, they transmit this idea to their constituents, and say that they must support their allies and grow US military power." For his part, Vladimir Simindey, Baltic region expert and the director of the Historical Memory Foundation, told the newspaper that Kazocins's struggle against Russia is really "a family affairHis father, Indulis Kazocins, was an officer in the Latvian Waffen-SS Legion, and was involved in calling up Latvian teens to serve in the Luftwaffe, and in other affairs. It's generally not customary to talk about his activities in 1941, when he served in the Auxiliary Police. Janis Kazocins, as he himself has admitted in an interview, was brought up in the spirit of the SS legionnaires. It's not so much a matter of Nazi ideology, as it is of an ideology of revanchism." However, the voice of reason did not prevent Davutoglu from making additional nonsensical accusations against Moscow. Following Wednesday's deadly car bombing in Ankara, the Turkish Prime Minister claimed that Ankara will hold Moscow responsible for terror attacks in Turkey amid the Syrian war. "If these terror attacks continue, they [Russia] will be as responsible as the YPG [Kurdish People's Protection Units]," he said in a televised statement as quoted by the Financial Times. Ankara's enmity against Russia and Kurds is deeply rooted in its neo-Ottoman ambitions in the region and the necessity to justify Turkey's meddling into Syrian affairs. Although the Turkish government insists that it were Kurds behind the deadly attack, experts assume that Ankara wants to use the Kurdish card in order to crack down further on the ethnic minority and justify the Erdogan government's Syrian adventure. General Comman of YPG: Turkey fabricates false accusations against us, to justify her attacks against Rojava. Perwer Muhammad Ali (@perwerjan) 19 2016 "The Turkish government is now charging YPG with responsibility for the blast in Ankara. It is an unbelievable scenario for many reasons. First, YPG has never looked for increased enmity on Turkey, they are just trying to equal the relations on both sides of the border. Secondly, the Turkish government is looking for an excuse to send troops to Northern Syria," Ertugrul Kurkcu, the honorary president of the Turkish Peoples' Democratic Party told Sputnik on Thursday. As a result, Obama suggested, "the only way to do that is to bring some sort of political transition." Analyzing the president's words, Svobodnaya Pressa columnist Andrei Ivanov remarked that Moscow, for its part, has always been in favor of a peaceful settlement and that in fact, "it is the opposition which has disrupted the peace talks, by setting impossible demands, including that Bashar Assad step down." "However," the journalist added, "Obama's words do mark an interesting change of rhetoric. Earlier, Washington had insisted that the opposition fighters they were preparing would simultaneously fight both the terrorists and overthrow Assad. Supposedly, if Moscow had not supported the government in Damascus, peace would have come a long time ago." "Now, Obama is openly saying that the opposition is facing defeat. It's true, the Syrian Army could not advance without Russian support. But the US no longer has any reason to put its hopes in the opposition. Put in another way, Washington will have to abandon its previous plans." The change in the president's tone, it seems, "was the result of the strength of the Russian military." In the past two years, after relations between the West and Russia took a turn for the worse, there has been a lot of talk about the growing strength of the Russian army, including a variety of analyses and tables, such as those from the respected open-source military ranking service Global Firepower. "However, it's one thing for analysts' rankings and articles in newspapers to say it; it's quite something else for the American president to do so," Ivanov noted. In an interview on The John Batchelor Show, Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and Princeton University, warned against irresponsible moves in the region. He referred to former British chief of the defense staff General Sir David Richards and former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, who claimed that Bashar al-Assad's Syrian Arab Army (SAA) is the only credible force that can defeat Daesh on the ground. While US President Obama pledged to avoid sending boots on the ground to Syria, the SAA remains the only military force to confront Daesh. In this light it is inconsistent to accuse President Putin of sending Russia's Air Force to bolster the Syrian government army, the professor noted. "On the issue of who should do and can do the fighting [in Syria] I always believed and in fact the retired chief of the British general staff Lord [Richards] said that there is only one real fighting force the Syrian Army. Therefore Obama's plan to get rid of Assad which would risk the stability of the Syrian state and thus the Syrian Army, as happened when they got rid of Gaddafi in Libya, was a mistaken policy. And we know from the recording of Seymour Hersh about a month ago in the London Review of Books that when Gen. Dempsey was Chief of Staff he told Obama that it was crazy to try to remove Assad. You need the Syrian Army to do the fighting," Professor Cohen underscored. Tania Corbett, the PR Manager of Open Doors UK & Ireland joins the programme to talk in some depth about the scale and seriousness of this trend. This theme was one of the key points of discussion at the recent meeting of Russias Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis. Open Doors has been helping repressed Christians throughout the world for the past 60 years. Here are some of the major points that Tania brings up: Persecution is not only from Muslims or Muslim authorities as prescribers to stereotypes about Islam might predict. Persecution is happening in a vast array of circumstances, countries and cultural environments. Thousands of Christians are suffering as the result of actions of Hindus in India for example, an estimated 70,000 Christians are in prisons in North Korea, and Christianity in places like the Maldives is banned completely. In Syria and Jordan, Christian refugees dont tend to access the main refugee camps because of the high rates of anti-Christian persecution happening in them. In many countries Christians are not going to churches but meeting in semi-secret locations; in homes, in woods, in private groups. Christianity appears to be going underground in some regions. The Open Doors charity also tries to counter the so called squeeze against Christians, where you may not get a promotion if you are a Christian, you may not get into college, or get planning permission for construction work for the local Church as in India for example. There are many insidious ways that Christians are being persecuted apart from violence. First up, on this day in 1988, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy was sworn in after the Republican nominee was unanimously approved by a Democratic-majority US Senateduring an Election Year, and with the passing of Justice Antonin Scalia, former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor calls on Republicans to "get on with it". Then, another reminder before this weekend's Democratic Nevada Caucuses and 100% unverifiable Republican South Carolina Primary of electronic election results that remain impossible to explain, including the conservative Texas Supreme Court Justice who reportedly received ZERO votes in one county back in 2006, after winning that same county by huge margins in both 2002 and 2004. (See our 2006 coverage of Steve Smith's eventually aborted election challenge back here. And see how this group of Bernie Sanders supporters is hoping to help oversee the results by filming the caucuses in Nevada.) Oh, and there was also that time in 2000 when Al Gore was credited with receiving NEGATIVE 16,022 votes on a paper ballot optical-scan system in Volusia County, Florida. Next up, we are joined by Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to discuss the disturbing rise in domestic hate groups in the US, after several years of decline. We talk about both the numbers and reasons and what Donald Trump and the Internet have to do with it all from Potok's new report on "The Year in Hate and Extremism".It's a fascinating discussion in which Potok explains how the SPLC defines "hate groups" including rightwing extremists as well as black separatists which saw an overall 14% spike in their 2015 numbers. Also on the rise were so-called "Patriot" movement groups, though they are not (necessarily) included among the "haters". KRASNOYARSK (Sputnik)Hydrocarbons exports will still remain the core of the Russian economy, but it is strategically more important for the country to become self-sufficient in food production and concentrate on technologies development, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said. "The hydrocarbons will remain the core of our economy in the future as well. It is foolish to renounce our natural wealth, however, at the same thing, two other riches are much more serious our land and our people. [The territory is] an opportunity to provide food, whereas the people are an opportunity to define technological development," Dvorkovich told reporters on the sidelines of the Krasnoyarsk economic forum on Friday. These two riches are strategically more importantly for Russia, he stressed. "I invited French cheesemakers to my farm in the Lipetsk region, who gave lectures and seminars about cheesemaking," explained Borev, who has 18 goats, more than 30 sheep, ten cows and five horses on his farm. "Every month we make a ton of goat's cheese, which is very popular. There is high demand for it even among French people living in Moscow, there are a lot of customers." "At the moment we are building a dairy which can produce 12 tons of cheese a month." "I must say thanks for the European sanctions, because thanks to them we are eating French cheese that is even better than before." "In the past cheese was mass produced, now we are delivering better-quality farmer's cheese to the Russian market. It is made in Russia, but professional French cheesemakers are here to help with its production." WASHINGTON (Sputnik) VimpelCom, headquartered in Amsterdam, describes itself as "one of the world's largest integrated telecommunications services operators" on its website. Thus, the combined total amount of US and Dutch criminal and regulatory penalties paid by VimpelCom will be $795,326,398.40, making it one of the largest global foreign bribery resolutions ever, the release said on Thursday. VimpelCom and its wholly owned Uzbek subsidiary Unitel LLC entered into resolutions with the Justice Department having admited to bribing a government official in Uzbekistan to gain access to the country's telecom market, according to the statement. Asked what it was that compelled him to write his article, Professor Eghigian explained that the one thing that really sparked his interest was "the very widespread sentiment that we are seeing, particularly in the United States, of various kinds of what's often called 'science denial' or the 'science-public confidence gap'. That is, people who are part of denying the science of climate change, or against the vaccination of children, creationism, things like that." "It seems to me that the history of ufology offers a kind of interesting insight an example of something that preceded a lot of these things," and something which, unlike many of the science denial and conspiracy theories of today, was a grass roots movement, one which "wasn't really being led by the nose by any major commercial interests, outside maybe some media outlets." The main factor encouraging ufology, according to Eghigian, was secrecy, "I think it was the sense that government did not tend to like to share information with enthusiasts; scientists for most of the history of ufology sort of had an attitude that 'we aren't going to entertain and talk about this kind of stuff'. And I think that secrecy, that opaqueness, that lack of transparency helped to feed speculation and lead a lot of these enthusiasts into really constantly having to turn to themselves." The FBIs demands are focused on last years terrorist shooting, in which 14 people were killed at a San Bernardino office holiday party. A federal judge previously ordered Apple to allow the FBI to break into an iPhone belonging to one of the shooters, Syed Rizwan Farook, and gave a February 26 deadline. Apple CEO Tim Cook promptly wrote an open letter to the public stating that the implications of creating a way to hack the iPhone would go far beyond San Bernardino, and added that his company was challenging the ruling. Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them. But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone, Cook wrote. MOSCOW (Sputnik)Tunisia's participation as an observer in the ongoing drills in northern Saudi Arabia does not mean the country is going to participate in any foreign military operations, the countrys defense ministry spokesman told Sputnik on Friday. "Tunisia will not participate in any military operation outside of the countrys borders. We have already said that we would only participate in the Northern Thunder exercises as an observer," spokesman Belhassen Oueslati said. The Northern Thunder military exercises in Saudi Arabia, in which 21 countries are participating, began on February 14. They include ground troops and air forces from Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, and a number of other Arab and Islamic countries that form part of the Saudi-led coalition against terrorism. The company that operates racing at a North American Standardbred track has been fined $5,000 in relation to the death of a longtime employee last fall. Hollywood Casino Hotel and Raceway, the operators of Bangor Raceway in Maine, has been handed the fine by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, according to an article by the Bangor Daily News. On September 9, 2015, longtime track employee Edwin Ed Reynolds was killed when a starting-gate vehicle struck him while he was on the track. Reynolds was also a Standardbred breeder and owner. The OSHA issued the citation last week, stating that Hollywood Casino Hotel and Raceway had been under serious violation because it had not assessed the workplace to determine if hazards were likely to be present, which would have necessitated the use of personal protective equipment. The article also explains that the citation also states that Hollywood Casino Hotel and Raceway did not assess the hazards associated with the operation of the open starting gate while foot traffic was permitted around the track. (With files from the Bangor Daily News) On February 15, Winbak Farm welcomed the first Winbak-bred colt sired by Heston Blue Chip, p, 2, 1:50.4f; 3, 1:48f ($1,781,881). Heston Blue Chip, the richest son of American Ideal, was a standout stakes performer. He was voted USHWAs top three-year-old pacing colt of 2012. At two, he won the John Simpson Memorial, Matron final at Dover Downs, seven New York Sire Stakes legs and final and the Tompkins-Geers Stakes. At three, he won the Breeders Crown elimination and final, Cane Pace elimination, Empire Breeder Classic elimination and final, Historic, Matron final, Meadowlands Pace elimination, four New York Sire Stakes legs and Progress Pace elimination and final. The colt is the third foal from his dam, Elegant Girl, p, 3, 1:54f ($88,175). Her oldest foal is now two. His maternal family includes Woodrow Wilson Winner Even Odds, p, 2, 1:53.4 ($976,683). The colt will potentially be eligible to the lucrative New York stakes program. Fans are welcomed to submit names for the colt. Reminder that names must be 18 characters or less (including spaces) and cannot be already registered or a trademark. Please send the names via email to [email protected] and be sure to include your first and last name. Names will be accepted until March 18. Also, a reminder that names are still being accepted for the Captaintreacherous-Restive Hanover colt contest until March 1. If submitting names for both, please just specify which name is for what colt. (Winbak Farm photos courtesy Winbak Farm) Malteser International Americas Supporting Global Effort to Strengthen Emergency Aid for Syrian Refugees bit.ly/1oKxumT Contact: Kevin Lampe, 312-617-7280MIAMI, Feb. 19, 2016 / Standard Newswire / -- Malteser International Americas has scaled up its support for tens of thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing for their lives from Aleppo the largest city in Syria- towards the Turkish border.Malteser International Americas is pledging to secure critical relief for refugees seeking safety, shelter, food and water from the ongoing civil war and persistent religious persecution in the Middle East. Malteser International, the humanitarian relief agency of the Order of Malta, has already distributed 1,000 warm blankets to the surge of newly displaced people."The global impact of the crisis in Syria is felt here in the United States. Disasters natural or manmade - do not have boundaries when people's lives are at stake, and support from faithful individual donors is more important than ever," said Ravi Tripptrap, Executive Director, Malteser International Americas. "We stand by our mission of supporting the world's most vulnerable, so that they may live a healthy life with dignity, in the Americas, and now in the Middle East."Humanitarian relief items desperately needed with recent fears that previously aid was lost in a political siege in a now occupied border crossing. Despite promises of increased humanitarian funding for the people being tormented by the Syrian Conflict made at a conference of donor nations earlier this month in London, there is little hope of an improvement of conditions for the Syrian people.For those who would like to contribute towards the Syrian relief efforts, Malteser International Americas is asking supporters to visit their website: bit.ly/MI-Donate-US Malteser International has been providing aid to people affected by the Syrian crisis since 2012. Malteser International provided medical treatment to almost 75,000 people in Syria during 2015 operating a field hospital, a children's hospital and two basic health units in the country. Malteser International also works with Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon and northern Iraq. Read more about the global efforts in Syria:About Malteser International Americas:Malteser International Americas is a global humanitarian organization with a mission of supporting the vulnerable and marginalized so that they may live a healthy life with dignity. Through our U.S. headquarters, Malteser International Americas provides immediate disaster response and preparedness as well as vital healthcare and nutrition to vulnerable people in North America, Latin America and the Caribbean.We are part of Malteser International, the humanitarian relief agency of the Order of Malta. With more than 100 projects annually in some 25 countries worldwide, we provide emergency relief after disasters and support recovery efforts, bridging the gap between humanitarian aid and sustainable development. For nearly 60 years, we have been standing by those affected by poverty, disease, conflict and disaster. Sen. Cruz Responds to Obama Administration Threat to Veto Bill Honoring Chinese Dissidents 'How Ironic it is that the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate is Threatening to Veto a Bill Honoring the 2010 One' Contact: Senator Ted Cruz Press Office, 202-228-7561 WASHINGTON, Feb. 19, 2016 /Standard Newswire/ -- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today responded to the Obama administration's threat to veto his bill to rename the plaza in front of the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C. as "Liu Xiaobo Plaza," after pro-democracy dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Liu Xiaobo. The U.S. Senate unanimously passed the bill on Friday, and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) has introduced companion legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives. "The Obama administration's veto threat is yet another outrageous example of its eagerness to coddle an authoritarian Communist regime at the expense of pro-American dissidents," said Sen. Cruz. "The pattern started weeks after President Obama was sworn in when Hillary Clinton travelled to Beijing to reassure the Chinese that they would put human rights on the back burner so they wouldn't interfere with climate change negotiations. It continued last September when the White House put barriers up around the formal reception for President Xi so the Chinese would not be offended by the sight of protesters across the street exercising their First Amendment rights. And it continued Friday when the White House threatened to veto my bill to rename the street outside the People's Republic of China (PRC) embassy 'Liu Xiaobo Plaza' in honor of the world's only jailed Nobel laureate -- despite the fact that it had just passed unanimously through the Senate. Sadly, President Obama and his administration would rather stand with the communist Chinese than with Dr. Liu, whose only crime was to peacefully protest for basic political freedoms. What Obama and Clinton didn't understand in 2009 and they don't understand today is that the moral high ground enjoyed by the United States is an advantage when dealing with a country like China, not something to be voluntarily abandoned. How ironic it is that the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate is threatening to veto a bill honoring the 2010 one. The PRC should be on notice that the obsequiousness of the U.S. administration will end in January, 2017." Sen. Cruz has spearheaded the effort to rename the plaza in Dr. Liu's honor since 2014, and delivered speeches on the Senate floor in September, October, and November of 2015 to call attention to Dr. Liu's plight and human rights abuses in communist China. While seeking passage of his legislation on the Senate floor, Sen. Cruz also highlighted a similar successful effort by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to rename the street in front of the Soviet embassy 'Sakharov Plaza' after Soviet dissident and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov during the height of the Cold War. C OVERAGE OF the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press. Reporting about carnage in the ancient city of Aleppo is the latest reason why. For three years, violent militants have run Aleppo. Their rule began with a wave of repression. They posted notices warning residents: Dont send your children to school. If you do, we will get the backpack and you will get the coffin. Then they destroyed factories, hoping that unemployed workers would have no recourse other than to become fighters. They trucked looted machinery to Turkey and sold it. This month, people in Aleppo have finally seen glimmers of hope. The Syrian army and its allies have been pushing militants out of the city. Last week they reclaimed the main power plant. Regular electricity may soon be restored. The militants hold on the city could be ending. Militants, true to form, are wreaking havoc as they are pushed out of the city by Russian and Syrian Army forces. Turkish-Saudi backed moderate rebels showered the residential neighborhoods of Aleppo with unguided rockets and gas jars, one Aleppo resident wrote on social media. The Beirut-based analyst Marwa Osma asked, The Syrian Arab Army, which is led by President Bashar Assad, is the only force on the ground, along with their allies, who are fighting ISIS so you want to weaken the only system that is fighting ISIS? This does not fit with Washingtons narrative. As a result, much of the American press is reporting the opposite of what is actually happening. Many news reports suggest that Aleppo has been a liberated zone for three years but is now being pulled back into misery. Americans are being told that the virtuous course in Syria is to fight the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian partners. We are supposed to hope that a righteous coalition of Americans, Turks, Saudis, Kurds, and the moderate opposition will win. This is convoluted nonsense, but Americans cannot be blamed for believing it. We have almost no real information about the combatants, their goals, or their tactics. Much blame for this lies with our media. Under intense financial pressure, most American newspapers, magazines, and broadcast networks have drastically reduced their corps of foreign correspondents. Much important news about the world now comes from reporters based in Washington. In that environment, access and credibility depend on acceptance of official paradigms. Reporters who cover Syria check with the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House, and think tank experts. After a spin on that soiled carousel, they feel they have covered all sides of the story. This form of stenography produces the pabulum that passes for news about Syria. Astonishingly brave correspondents in the war zone, including Americans, seek to counteract Washington-based reporting. At great risk to their own safety, these reporters are pushing to find the truth about the Syrian war. Their reporting often illuminates the darkness of groupthink. Yet for many consumers of news, their voices are lost in the cacophony. Reporting from the ground is often overwhelmed by the Washington consensus. Washington-based reporters tell us that one potent force in Syria, al-Nusra, is made up of rebels or moderates, not that it is the local al-Qaeda franchise. Saudi Arabia is portrayed as aiding freedom fighters when in fact it is a prime sponsor of ISIS. Turkey has for years been running a rat line for foreign fighters wanting to join terror groups in Syria, but because the United States wants to stay on Turkeys good side, we hear little about it. Nor are we often reminded that although we want to support the secular and battle-hardened Kurds, Turkey wants to kill them. Everything Russia and Iran do in Syria is described as negative and destabilizing, simply because it is they who are doing it and because that is the official line in Washington. Inevitably, this kind of disinformation has bled into the American presidential campaign. At the recent debate in Milwaukee, Hillary Clinton claimed that United Nations peace efforts in Syria were based on an agreement I negotiated in June of 2012 in Geneva. The precise opposite is true. In 2012 Secretary of State Clinton joined Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel in a successful effort to kill Kofi Annans UN peace plan because it would have accommodated Iran and kept Assad in power, at least temporarily. No one on the Milwaukee stage knew enough to challenge her. Politicians may be forgiven for distorting their past actions. Governments may also be excused for promoting whatever narrative they believe best suits them. Journalism, however, is supposed to remain apart from the power elite and its inbred mendacity. In this crisis it has failed miserably. Americans are said to be ignorant of the world. We are, but so are people in other countries. If people in Bhutan or Bolivia misunderstand Syria, however, that has no real effect. Our ignorance is more dangerous, because we act on it. The United States has the power to decree the death of nations. It can do so with popular support because many Americans and many journalists are content with the official story. In Syria, it is: Fight Assad, Russia, and Iran! Join with our Turkish, Saudi, and Kurdish friends to support peace! This is appallingly distant from reality. It is also likely to prolong the war and condemn more Syrians to suffering and death. I have ceased to post on this blog as I am now at steadyaku47.com All that is here have been included in that website and, where possibl... Hotel buffet Koh Hin Son Lots of people enjoying the clear water at Koh Rokroy "YOLO" at Koh Hin Ngam...someone apparently had too much time in hand to arrange this pebble. Can even see Nemo!!! Look how clear the water was. The prickly stuff at bottom was sea urchin. Super clear water Seaweed (greeny thing) with belacan sauce Skilled guy "pulling" the best cha yen in Koh Lipe Next, we headed to massage parlor for a good ol' Thai Massage. I requested back massage only, but it turned out she massaged my whole body while focusing longest time on my back. We all requested soft massage but nevertheless still felt the pain when they stretched, pushed and pulled our whole body. I was crying in my mind whenever she gave me the "punch". After enduring 1 hour of ordeal (good ordeal I guess since we felt sooo much better afterwards), we were served with hot tea after the massage. My friend in the midst of being "smackdown" by a professional massager. Pictures not clear due to me laughing at her before I end up with the same ordeal. I bought postcards to send to myself and my parents. Just a habit I started recently to keep some memories from any trip I make. We rested awhile at the beach while munching snacks and gazing at the stars before headed back to our room for a nightcap. Next, we headed to massage parlor for a good ol' Thai Massage. I requested back massage only, but it turned out she massaged my whole body while focusing longest time on my back. We all requested soft massage but nevertheless still felt the pain when they stretched, pushed and pulled our whole body. I was crying in my mind whenever she gave me the "punch". After enduring 1 hour of ordeal (good ordeal I guess since we felt sooo much better afterwards), we were served with hot tea after the massage.I bought postcards to send to myself and my parents. Just a habit I started recently to keep some memories from any trip I make.We rested awhile at the beach while munching snacks and gazing at the stars before headed back to our room for a nightcap. A new day came. We went to get breakfast at the hotel restaurant. The breakfast was served buffet style. The varieties were good enough. The 3-in-1 milo sachet here was smaller size than Malaysian size, good enough for a cup of milo. Fried rice was really good. We packed our stomach then headed to the snorkel shop for our trip today.We were handed a waiting number at the shop. We went to get our snorkel gear then waited to be called. They were 3 groups, 9 of us in total for a longtail boat. We started the trip by heading to the furthest spot, Hin Son (Rock on Top). We did not stop, just looked and took picture from the boat.We started to snorkel at Koh Lugoi. Most of the corals were brownish in color. Lots of fish. To be honest I was kinda disappointed because it was not as colorful as I imagined. I was hoping the next spot will be better than this one.We went to another spot which I forgot the name. I can find lots more Nemo here but the water was pretty deep so the coral looks far away. It will be interesting to view if you can dive.We had our lunch break at Koh Rokroy (or Lokloy?). This was one of the most beautiful beaches I've been. The island was small but the water was super clear and not too many rocks in the water for us to enjoy swimming and selfie sessions. The lunch was packed in a tupperware. We got seafood fried rice, lots of watermelons and sweet pineapples, and a 2L of mineral water. We ate lunch on the rock while enjoying the sea breeze and the breathtaking view.After lunch we headed to Koh Hin Ngam, the Island with lots of polished black stones. Didn't snorkel here, just took pictures and had some "Dilwale" moments using pareo and the strong breeze as our props (you know what I mean if you watched the movie).Just our luck, we didn't get to see 2 spots because Princess of Thailand was visiting the island and while she's there the area is off-limits. I wish I'm the princess so I can get such a royal treatment as well.We stopped at Hat Ling to watch the monkey's family being fed by our boatman. Then we headed to last stop, Jabang, which already near to Koh Lipe. This site has the most beautiful coral among many spots we went. However the current was the strongest here. I was panicking for awhile because I didn't move from my spot for awhile after swam hard to get back to our boat. Luckily there was rope connected to the boat so I just went along the rope to get back. One of the girl in our boat threw up almost all of her lunch. Hm..more food for the fishes I guess.We headed back to Koh Lipe afterwards, earlier than planned time. Wished they refund some part of our money because we skipped 2 spots. I am bit disappointed with the coral views (maybe because I have been to Perhentian Island which was wayyy amazing), but I would say Koh Rokroy saved the day. The beach was super beautiful.The water seems super clear today compared to the day before that we can see corals by just walking along the Pattaya Beach! I was super excited that we went back to the room just to pray then went back to the beach. The water level was low so we just kept walking in the water and took pictures of the coral from surface. There were lots of sea urchins so we were advised by the hotel receptionist to wear slippers while walking in the water, in case we step on it.We had fun observing the fishes and the corals nearby the beaches. When the night almost came, we headed back to the room.Since tonight was the last night, we went to eat at Khonlay Restaurant that we saw lots of people had dinner the night before. Ordered sweet & sour fish, tomyum goong, fried squid with salted egg, and stir fried veggies. The meal turned out superb! We tried a type of sea algae (or is it seaweed) and ate it with belacan sauce. The seaweed was naturally salted by the sea and a good companion with rice.There was this restaurant specializing in cha yen called Terbilang OTOP Satun that we saw since our first day but yet to try. We ordered cha yen and milk green tea. The skilled brother "pulled" the tea as high as he can, exactly like the poster behind him, leaving nice froth on the surface of the tea. Both cha yen and milk green tea were good so we made mental note to buy this again before we leave the island tomorrow. Note to readers This blog stands for faith in God and better stroke awareness. Everyone should be aware of stroke signs and know what to do. The life you save may be your own. Toward that end, stroke survivors and families are invited to share comments or stories. This is not designed to give anyone medical advice - we might talk about stroke care in general but always, always seek appropriate medical advice. Max Lucado Daily: LONG LISTS AND STINKY TRASHLife has a way of unloading its rubbish on us. Your boss expects too much. Your kids whine too much. Trash. Load after load of anger; guilt; pessimism; bitterness; and anxiety. It all piles up! As a result, we must guard our thoughts. Todays thoughts are tomorrows actions. Todays jealousy is tomorrows hate crime. Could that be why Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:5, Love keeps no record of wrongs? Paul also says in 2 Corinthians 10:5 that we have a choice: We capture every thought and make it give up and obey Christ.Selfishness, step back! Envy, get lost! Rather than store up the sour thoughts, store up the sweet ones. Make a list of Gods mercies; the many times he has blessed youthe many times he has forgiven you. And you will find your thoughts resulting in happy days.From A Love Worth GivingActs 16:1Timothy Joins Paul and SilasPaul came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was Jewish and a believer but whose father was a Greek. 2 The believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. 3 Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. 4 As they traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey. 5 So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers.Pauls Vision of the Man of Macedonia6 Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. 7 When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. 8 So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. 9 During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, Come over to Macedonia and help us. 10 After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.Lydias Conversion in Philippi11 From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis. 12 From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district[a] of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.13 On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. 14 One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Pauls message. 15 When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. If you consider me a believer in the Lord, she said, come and stay at my house. And she persuaded us.Paul and Silas in Prison16 Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. 17 She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved. 18 She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her! At that moment the spirit left her.19 When her owners realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. 20 They brought them before the magistrates and said, These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar 21 by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.Footnotes:Acts 16:12 The text and meaning of the Greek for the leading city of that district are uncertain.Our Daily Bread reading and devotionFriday, February 19, 2016Read: Habakkuk 3:16-19I trembled inside when I heard this;my lips quivered with fear.My legs gave way beneath me,[a]and I shook in terror.I will wait quietly for the coming daywhen disaster will strike the people who invade us.17 Even though the fig trees have no blossoms,and there are no grapes on the vines;even though the olive crop fails,and the fields lie empty and barren;even though the flocks die in the fields,and the cattle barns are empty,18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord!I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!19 The Sovereign Lord is my strength!He makes me as surefooted as a deer,[b]able to tread upon the heights.(For the choir director: This prayer is to be accompanied by stringed instruments.)Footnotes:3:16 Hebrew Decay entered my bones.3:19 Or He gives me the speed of a deer.INSIGHT:Habakkuks prayer in chapter three is the prophets response to a conversation he has been having with the Lord about justicefor Israel and the surrounding nations. After God responds to Habakkuks two complaints, the prophet launches into this song of praise for Gods righteous deeds and character. Habakkuk rehearses the great deeds of the Lord in protecting His people (vv. 115), but he also admits his fear when he sees the demonstration of Gods power and judgment (v. 16). But his fear does not control him, because God is his hope and strength (vv. 1619).The Voice of FaithBy Poh Fang ChiaThough the fig tree does not bud . . . yet I will rejoice in the Lord. Habakkuk 3:17-18The news was numbing. The tears came so quickly that she couldnt fight them. Her mind raced with questions, and fear threatened to overwhelm her. Life had been going along so well, when it was abruptly interrupted and forever changed without warning.Tragedy can come in many formsthe loss of a loved one, an illness, the loss of wealth or our livelihood. And it can happen to anyone at any time.Our God who has proven Himself faithful throughout the years is always with us.Although the prophet Habakkuk knew that tragedy was coming, it still struck fear in his heart. As he waited for the day when Babylon would invade the kingdom of Judah, his heart pounded, his lips quivered, and his legs trembled (Hab. 3:16).Fear is a legitimate emotion in the face of tragedy, but it doesnt have to immobilize us. When we dont understand the trials we are going through, we can recount how God has worked in history (vv. 3-15). Thats what Habakkuk did. It didnt dispel his fear, but it gave him the courage to move on by choosing to praise the Lord (v. 18).Our God who has proven Himself faithful throughout the years is always with us. Because His character doesnt change, in our fear we can say with a confident voice of faith, The Sovereign Lord is my strength! (v. 19).Dear Lord, when my world is turned upside down, help me to trust You. You have always been faithful to me.We can learn the lesson of trust in the school of trial.My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald ChambersFriday, February 19, 2016Taking the Initiative Against DrudgeryArise, shine Isaiah 60:1When it comes to taking the initiative against drudgery, we have to take the first step as though there were no God. There is no point in waiting for God to help us He will not. But once we arise, immediately we find He is there. Whenever God gives us His inspiration, suddenly taking the initiative becomes a moral issue a matter of obedience. Then we must act to be obedient and not continue to lie down doing nothing. If we will arise and shine, drudgery will be divinely transformed.Drudgery is one of the finest tests to determine the genuineness of our character. Drudgery is work that is far removed from anything we think of as ideal work. It is the utterly hard, menial, tiresome, and dirty work. And when we experience it, our spirituality is instantly tested and we will know whether or not we are spiritually genuine. Read John 13. In this chapter, we see the Incarnate God performing the greatest example of drudgery washing fishermens feet. He then says to them, If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one anothers feet (John 13:14). The inspiration of God is required if drudgery is to shine with the light of God upon it. In some cases the way a person does a task makes that work sanctified and holy forever. It may be a very common everyday task, but after we have seen it done, it becomes different. When the Lord does something through us, He always transforms it. Our Lord takes our human flesh and transforms it, and now every believers body has become the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19).WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERSCrises reveal character. When we are put to the test the hidden resources of our character are revealed exactly. Disciples Indeed, 393 RA Word with You, by Ron HutchcraftFriday, February 19, 2016The Reason For the Test - #7595When I was young, I hate to say it, so was television. Prehistoric guy you know! One of my television heroes was a space explorer called Captain Video. I wish I still had his decoder ring.The day they took me to that children's hospital for those tests, they tried to pull a Captain Video scam on me. See, I'd been born with a heart murmur, so I was in the hospital to have a series of what was then state of the art tests to see how my heart was doing.I remember they gave me this foul tasting liquid to drink. It was probably something they could trace as it moved through my system if I could swallow it that is. The next thing I knew, I'm in a dark room, looking up at this guy with a white coat and goggles. He told me he was Captain Video. I don't think so! Captain Video would never make me drink something this gross! All I know is they really put me through it that day. I'm sure the question I had was "Why?" Well, there was a very good answer. And thank God that heart murmur disappeared when I was a kid.I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Reason For the Test."Now has that question crossed your mind lately? God, why are you putting me through this? Why are you doing this to me? Maybe you've been through some really hard things lately, and they're hard to understand. It could be that your family, or your ministry, or your church have been facing some painful trials and you feel like I did on that stressful day in the children's hospital. What's going on here? I imagine God's ancient people were asking that same thing as God took them through a harsh and hostile desert.He answers the question "why" in our word for today from the Word of God. Deuteronomy 8:2-3 says, "Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these 40 years to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commands. He humbled you causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna which neither you nor your fathers had known."Now, God says He takes you through the desert first to humble you; to bring you to a place where your resources are useless. A place where your Lord is all you've got left to depend on. It could be that your loving Lord brought you into the desert to get you out of the way so He could be totally depended upon. So you can then experience His incredible power in ways you never dreamed of when you were still in control.But let's focus on that second reason. He says, "I bring you through the desert to test you in order to know what was in your heart." That's why Captain Video and my parents and all those other people were putting me through my hospital ordeal. The test would show what was going on in my heart. The good times don't show what's really inside of you. It's pressure that does that, it's pain, it's temptation, it's unanswered questions, unexplained problems. That's what exposes what's in your heart. The desert, the testing time, exposes what our real motives are, exposes our deep down resentments, our messed up priorities, our counterfeit faith, our unrepented sin, and our neglected relationship with our God.What the test shows could scare us, but it brings us to the place where we are finally humble and we're ready for Jesus to perform the spiritual surgery we have avoided way too long. The test can also show a healthy heart, by the way; one that trusts God even when He's silent, that puts other people first even when it's hurting, that testifies to all who will listen about the awesome grace of God, even in...especially in the desert times.Yes, you may be wondering what I was wondering that day of testing. Why are you putting me through this? Well, there was for me then, and there is for you now a very good reason. Because it's the best way to show what your heart is really like. Gay F. Thielen age 65 of Clewiston passed away on October 17, 2022 at home. Gay was born in Hialeah, Florida on March 29, 1957 to the late ... The Sea Hawks use a strong serve and balanced attack for a commanding win in the opening round of the Division 2 playoffs. When Meriwether Lewis stood near what is now Stevenson on Oct. 31, 1805, he gazed out at the Columbia River and described it in his journal as passing with great velocity forming and boiling in a most horriable manner. (sic) The Columbias wildest tendencies have long been reined in with dynamite and concrete, and humanitys interactions with the river have changed significantly since the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Today, most residents of Southwest Washington recognize the river for its migratory fish, power generation and shipping traffic. But, for those who share in the adventurous spirit that spurred American Expansion, the Lower Columbia River Water Trail offers an uncommon interaction with the Pacific Northwest landscape. Over the last several years, the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership worked with stakeholders from the Bonneville Dam to Astoria to change the way people think about the Columbia. One way theyve done it is by promoting and encouraging non-motorized recreation on the Columbia. Another is designing and distributing mile-marker signs for specific places along the river. Like those commonly seen along a hiking trail, theyre meant to inform recreationalists of the amenities at each location. Estuary Partnership Deputy Director Chris Hathaway was instrumental in establishing the trail. He said the signage project evolved significantly since the concept was first proposed about four years ago, but he anticipates the final 40 signs will be placed this year. Even though its been a trail for thousands of years, people dont think of it that way, Hathaway said. Weve been trying to get people to think of it that way and see it as a recreational resource and to get people to go out there. The river itself is part of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, but the lower Columbia River Trail was created with paddlers and non-motorized recreationalists in mind. It runs for 146 miles starting at Beacon Rock State Park and ending at Cape Disappointment. Last Monday, Hathaway and I took advantage of the sunshine and paddled a short stretch of river from Steamboat Landing Park in Washougal to the Port of Camas-Washougal marina. It was a warm, sunny mid-morning, but wind whipped the water into rolling whitecaps. The breeze pushed us quickly downstream, but we had to fight to keep our kayak pointed straight. One thing about the Columbia, its kind of like being up on a mountain. It can go from clear and calm to stormy pretty quickly, Hathaway said. The Ports marina is a popular hub for motorboats, but all that traffic can be intimidating to paddlers. As a solution, the port is installing a non-motorized access point at the Washougal Waterfront Park and Trail. Construction on the facilities began a couple weeks ago. We wanted to take away the danger for paddleboarders and kayakers and get them away from the marina, and make it safer for beginner and intermediate boaters, said Angelina Aiello, community relations specialist for the port. Seattle-based travel writer Charlotte Austin and a group of four other paddlers completed the trail in a week in October 2014. The lower Columbia, she said, could almost be broken into neighborhoods the rocky and dramatic area below the dam, the concrete and noisy Portland-Vancouver corridor, the pastoral landscapes out west and, finally, the broad, scenic estuary. Their trip wasnt without struggle. It rained the entire time they were out, and they had to be on constant alert for shipping traffic and other crafts. Still, they found the journey so inspiring, Austin and a few of her friends decided to spend the next few years paddling the length of the river, more than 1,200 miles. That was a particularly memorable trip, because youre right there in your own backyard a couple hundred miles as the crow flies from my own bed, she said. One day, my mom came down and we parked our kayaks and went to Red Lobster. Until a few weeks ago, it looked like Addy Jo Clifftons medical ordeal was over. The little girl with the beautific face and curly brown hair had finished four rounds of hospital-based chemotherapy, each about a month long. She was able to celebrate with her family in December by swimming with dolphins in Hawaii, thanks to the Make a Wish Foundation. But a lingering fever Addy Jo developed during the vacation troubled her parents, Aaron and Melissa Cliffton of Longview. When the family returned home, tests confirmed that Addy Jos acute myloid leukemia had returned. It definitely was like a punch in the stomach, Melissa said. Not only having the cancer come back, but we had just transitioned into being back home and together again. Now Addy Jo will need a bone marrow transplant as soon as her blood test results are satisfactory. A bone marrow donor match event Saturday will be held in her honor. If no match is found for Addy Jo, potential donors might be paired with someone who needs a transplant elsewhere in the country or the world. Addy Jo was diagnosed with AML, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow, when she was 2. The pediatric oncology ward at Doernbecher Childrens Hospital in Portland became a home-away-from-home for Melissa and Addy Jo during the childs rounds of chemo. The Daily News first wrote about Addy Jo when proceeds from the 2014 Toy Soldier Bazaar went to her family. With the relapsed AML diagnosis, Addy Jo, who will be 4 in April, will return to Doernbecher next week for the first of two more rounds of chemo, each lasting about a week. Shell need a new Hickman port in her shoulder, through which the drugs will be dripped. The Clifftons said doctors told them that there is no protocol for treating such a case for children. Its basically, Take what we do for adults and tone it down to her size of body, Aaron said. When its time for the transplant, Addys old bone marrow will be killed with either chemo or total body irradiation, Melissa said. Its kind of cool but kind of anti-climactic, she said. They hang (the donor marrow) like a bag of blood and the cells figure out where they need to go. Addy Jo will stay in the hospital 40 to 50 days after the transplant. She will likely need dialysis while her body adapts to her new bone marrow. Then the family will be able to stay at the Ronald McDonald House in Portland for up to 100 days. They want you to be a 45-minute drive away from the hospital in case anything happens, and the familys home in West Longview is too far away, Melissa said. The goal is to get to day 100 and get her immune system where it should be so she can go back to being a normal kid again." While staying at the hospital, Melissa hopes to keep up her studies at Breckinridge School of Nursing in Portland, from which she hopes to graduate in June of 2017. She has also been working part-time at St. John Medical Center. Aaron said hes mostly been able to mesh his work schedule in the wood room at Kapstone with the family routine. This last month has been kind of a bummer, Melissa said. But the Clifftons are thankful for help from friends, their church and their neighbors, who help watch son Jerry, whos in 2nd grade. The future looks better for the little girl, who snoozed contentedly during an interview with her parents. They consider a transplant the cure for cancer, Melissa said. In more cases than not, thats the end of it, Aaron added. The Washington State Republican party will hold its presidential precinct caucus meetings in Cowlitz County and around the state starting 10 a.m. Saturday. Those attending are asked to arrive by 9 a.m. The precinct caucus meetings are the first step in the process Republicans use to select the state partys presidential nominee. At the caucus meetings, delegates will be elected to county GOP conventions, to be held between March 12 and April 16. Saturdays caucus meetings will take place at seven locations around Cowlitz County: Mark Morris High School; Parkers Restaurant (1300 Mount St. Helens Way NE, Castle Rock); Sutinen Residence, 2930 Ammons Drive in Longview; General Meeting Room of the Cowlitz County Administration Building, 207 N. Fourth Ave. in Kelso; Woodland High School,1500 Dike Access Road; Kalama Oddfellows Hall 222 First St.; and Cowlitz County Republican headquarters, 1142 Washington Way in Longview. Those who attend must look up the caucus location for their voting precinct by checking the Cowlitz County Republican website at cowlitzcountyrepublicanparty.nationbuilder.com. The site also explains how the caucus process works. The Cowlitz County GOP convention is March 12 at the Cowlitz County Expo Center. The county conventions elect delegates to the state convention, which will elect delegates to the National Convention. At each level (county, state, national) other issues will be discussed and decided (Platform, Rules, etc.) The state GOP convention will be held May 19-21 in Pasco, where delegates to the national convention will be elected by Congressional District and on an at-large (statewide) basis. The Presidential Primary is May 24, when Republicans vote for their favorite candidates using a mail-in ballot. Using a proportional formula, the results (from the 10 congressional districts and also statewide) will determine the vote of the partys delegates at the National Convention. At the National Convention, if no candidate is chosen on the first ballot, delegates will no longer be bound by the primary results on successive ballots. A recent report from a globally respected research group says that declining coal prices and weak demand have made proposed Pacific Northwest coal projects, including one in Longview, economically unviable. Wood Mackenzie, an international energy consulting and analysis firm, had previously been enthusiastic about the prospects of the Gateway Project proposed at Cherry Point near Bellingham, the $680 million Millennium Bulk Terminal in Longview and the Westshore Terminals project in British Columbia. The intervening three years have made clear what a miscalculation this was, wrote Andy Roberts, a market analyst at Wood Mackenzie, in a Feb. 10 article. Millennium representatives, though, said their project would startup just as coal markets may improve next decade. Terminal developers already face opposition or scrutiny from environmentalists and tribal nations, as well as local and national government agencies. But, Roberts said, the biggest challenge for them is economic their projects dont make financial sense in the face of declining coal prices. Roberts wrote that coal from the Powder River Basin the source of coal that would be shipped through the Northwest can no longer compete with Indonesian prices. This is due in large part to the high costs of shipping coal 1,300 miles from Wyoming and Montana mines to the Northwest, then shipping it across the Pacific Ocean. To compound the problem, weak Asian demand for coal isnt expected to grow as robustly as it did in the past, he said, and Powder River Basin coal wont be competitive until well after 2020. Even then, though, demand could be curbed as policies encourage the use of non-coal alternatives. Building new Pacific Northwest coal ports, once seen as essential, is now viewed as nothing more than a risky long-term bet, Roberts wrote. On the heels of the Wood Mackenzie report, Wyoming-based Cloud Peak Energy announced that its earnings had dropped by a more than third as result of reduced coal shipments. Cloud Peak doesnt own Millennium, but it does have stake in its success. Cloud Peak has deals to use the port docks at Millennium Bulk Terminal, Gateway Pacific and Westshore Terminals. Those deals were worth a collective $52.2 million, including $5 million to access Millenniums docks. However, the volatile coal market and uncertainty in permitting have forced Cloud Peaks accountants to write off the port access deals as essentially worthless. They also wrote off a $6 million equity investment in Gateway Pacific Terminal. Last fall, Cloud Peak said it would could cut off shipments of coal from its Westshore terminal through 2016 and possibly to 2018. Aside from that news, a string of U.S. coal companies have declared bankruptcy in recent months, including Arch Coal, which has a 38 percent ownership of Millennium Bulk Terminals. Its basically an admission by the last holdouts in the coal export game that the coal exports are uneconomical, said Clark Williams-Derry, senior research at Sightline Institute, a Seattle environmental think tank. Shrinking Chinese demand and a glut in global coal from Russian, Australian and Indonesian competitors wont help, Williams-Derry noted. He added that Wood Mackenzies analysis is particularly noteworthy given their previous bullish attitude. Traditionally Wood Mackenzie have been sort of the coal industrys darling. They are the consultants of choice for the coal industry mostly because their forecasts have been so sunny-ly optimistic, Williams-Derry said. Yet Wood Mackenzies report only captures short-term market outlooks, said Wendy Hutchinson, vice president of public affairs at Millennium Bulk Terminals. She pointed out that Roberts expects Powder River Basin coal to be competitive sometime after 2020, about the same time that Millennium expects to be starting to ramp up shipments. Millennium representatives have recently made trips to South Korea and Japan, where 60 new coal-fired plants are proposed to come online in the next decade, she said. You dont spend $680 million on a capital investment project that you think is only going to last a few years, Hutchinson said. You build it for decades. Its the long term pricing outlook that makes us confident. Steve Robertson sat in his living room Thursday, talking candidly about his stint living on the streets and the relief he felt after moving into 33rd House in Longview, which provides permanent and transitional housing for homeless senior veterans. Nearby, Sen. Patty Murray listened intently. When I first got here, I was not in very good shape mentally, he explained to Murray. Alls I had when I got here was my clothes, couple books and 55 cents in my pocket. Robertson, 63, told her he lost his job at Summit Woodworking in 2008. Over time, he lost everything else his truck, his home and his sense of security. Its difficult for an older person to get a job, he said. When he first arrived at 33rd House, he says he had a bad attitude. He was stressed. But with the help of his case manager, his mindset improved. He said it helped to have some place to be some place stable and secure. Before Robertson shared his story, he walked Murray through his home, which he shares with one other veteran. He showed her his small but tidy bedroom, and the kitchen where he cooks all of his meals. Murray, a senior member of the Veterans Affairs Committee, visited 33rd House in an effort to better understand how the two-year-old project works. The senator also has a personal interest: shes pushing for a bill that would help homeless veterans secure housing. Though shes visited many veterans, she said she hasnt met any as relaxed as Robertson. I am completely impressed, she said of the senior veteran housing program, which also connects senior veterans to local social services. Ill just tell you these are the ... most relaxed veterans Ive seen who have a home, who feel secure, and that tells me a lot. Murray said projects such as 33rd House are incredible, and are an innovative way to deal with the veteran population. How we did things in the past isnt always the best thing for the future, she said. What Longview does better than anybody is think about the future and what we need to be doing. However, Murray warned theres still a lot of work to be done to improve services to homeless veterans overall. Theres progress that has been made, but we are absolutely not there yet, and as long as any veteran is waiting months to get their disability payment or to get their paperwork done, thats a veteran that ends up on the street, she said, referring to the lengthy waiting periods for veterans seeking appointments at Veterans Administration hospitals. Murray said the VA Choice bill, an initiative that allows veterans to see private physicians when they cant get an appointment at a VA hospital, was a step in the right direction to start making sure the veterans get in in a timely fashion. However, she said even that program has its share of problems. We need to relook at it, and were in the process right now of reevaluating that, she explained. Ive actually been out here this week talking to everybody from veterans themselves to VA officials about whats working and whats not. Murray also visited Clark College in Vancouver Wednesday to talk to cash-strapped students about free community college. As for recent reports that a suicide hotline operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs allowed crisis calls to go to voicemail, Murray said it was a tragedy for all of us. If they are asking for help, someone has to be on the other end of that line right now, she said. They cannot wait or be told to call back later. What Longview does better than anybody is think about the future and what we need to be doing. Sen. Patty Murray What Longview does better than anybody is think about the future and what we need to be doing. Sen. Patty Murray Here comes the sun The article in the Feb. 17 issue talking about putting solar panels on the old county landfill has some inaccuracies. The Swift 1 Dam and power plant that generates 240 megawatts is not partially owned by Cowlitz PUD, it is wholly owned by PacifiCorp. The Swift II power canal, dam, and power plant that generates about 67 megawatts is wholly owned by Cowlitz PUD and operated under contract by PacifiCorp. The maximum generation possibility of 307 megawatts is rarely if ever seen because that number is dependent on the elevation of water in Swift Reservoir. My point is that because the article says 7,000 panels can generate 1 megawatt, that does not mean they will generate that much. I dont think it is a bad idea to experiment with solar panels on the landfill but if there is going to be infrastructure added to support the solar panels, I think a couple of small wind turbines should be installed too. A small wind turbine could be defined as capable of generating 2 kilowatts on a tower that is about 80 feet tall. It would be interesting to see which does better in local conditions. Loren Sievila Kalama Citizen control Regarding the article in the Feb. 16 edition titled 365 people shot in Chicago this Year, the article goes on to tell how dismal the gun violence in the city is. How can that be, since Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws of all cities in the country? They even ignore Supreme Court rulings that tells them they cant make laws that restrict private citizens of their Second Amendment constitutional rights, i.e. McDonald v. City of Chicago. The reason being, is that the criminal element ignores all those laws and continues to arm and kill innocent people. Yes, they do kill one another also in their gang wars too. But it just goes to show what many studies have shown that strict gun control laws have no effect on the crime rates. In fact on a per capita basis there are hundreds of countries with higher gun deaths than the U.S. Why do we continue to pass these laws in the mistaken belief that they are going to lessen crime, when in fact they have no effect on it. Whatever the answer is, it isnt in passing more gun control laws, which is more about control than guns. F. R. Caron Castle Rock Big government, big lies When I went to school, we were evidently taught lies about the Constitution. We were taught it was government of the people, by the people and for the people. But it turns out, it is a government of Big Business and the Party. Marvin L. Snider Longview Get the memo There is something evil when you put your religion blindly above the common good, logic and basic human rights. Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia lifes filter was his religion, the Catholic Church. Not good for a country that based its self on freedom of religion. Like all Republicans, Scalia believes the U.S. Constitution is a dead and stagnant document that cannot be changed. Apparently, he was not aware that both the First and Second Amendments were modified years ago. The First Amendment, the freedom of speech amendment, does now not allow persons to say or print anything they want. There are things called libel and slander. Furthermore, you cannot walk into a movie theater and yell terrorists or fire when its not true. An organization cannot have mass assembly of people without the local government authorization. The Second Amendment does not allow fully automatic rifles, live hand grenades or rocket launchers, mortars, land mines or M-2 machine guns or any functioning machine gun. Apparently, he didnt get the memo in law school. Jerry Elliott Castle Rock Home, sweet home Would the writer of Fridays letter stating that Democrats have gotten everything they have asked for, with no opposition from the Republicans, please tell me the exact location of the rock hes been living under. I wish to move there at once. It sounds grand. Laura Di Bella Castle Rock "We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844 Sheldon Pinto Amid the hullabaloo around Apple rejecting the magistrate's order to give backdoor access to the FBI in the San Bernardino shooting case and everyone siding with Apple for standing up against giving that access, there is another angle to the story that becomes evidently clear. It's not that Apple cannot grant access to a single iPhone. It can do it by building a Software Image File (SIF) to be uploaded on to a single iPhone and that too inside Apple's premises (as per the request). Apple can do it, and the FBI's request is not a big one, as Dan Guido points out in his blog. It is just that Apple fears it will become a common exercise with the FBI coming up with more requests for the same. And it's not just the FBI, but governments around the world, (take for example our very own) who will put up requests (as mentioned in my previous article) for a variety of cases with the help of a number of Acts. And this is exactly what Apple fears! Clearly, it is not just the way that Apple thinks, but Google, Facebook and Twitter as well. In fact, few tech giants will willingly give out user data to any organisation. This is so because users may soon begin to move away form the service or product once they get to know that their privacy is pretty much non-existent or not protected. In Apple's case, the company is solely responsible for protecting the terrorist, Syed Rizwan Farook's iPhone 5c. So giving access will not just show that Apple can make a backdoor, but all those years about security being a priority suddenly won't make sense to a consumer (who may look at another product). As Vox's Timothy B. Lee rightly puts it, "Apple risks giving the impression that tech companies' objections aren't being made entirely in good faith." Something that BlackBerry finally gave up on after putting up its dukes with the Indian government back in 2012 after four long years. For those not in the know, the company was being forced into opening up its services by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia and recently Pakistan as well. Clearly, the requests don't stop pouring in. So if Apple does open a backdoor, you can be sure that everyone is going to lineup at Cupertino asking for access; which is definitely not a good thing both for Apple's massive customer base and the company's future. Anirudh Regidi The Freedom 251, the Rs.251 smartphone from Ringing Bells is certainly turning a lot of heads. That said, the amount of controversy and mystery surrounding the phone is also staggering. Yesterday, Akash Chadha, President of Ringing Bells, went on air with NDTV in an attempt to lay the controversies to rest and lay their cards on the table. The interview however, raised more questions than it answered. We got in touch with an industry expert in an attempt to get to the bottom of the mystery. It's all about numbers Considering the specs of the phone and the early "prototype" that was handed out to journalists in Delhi, Ringing Bells readily acknowledges that the phone costs around Rs.2000 to manufacture and that it was made by Adcom. How is he bringing the price down to a 10th of that? Akash Chadha states that four factors are responsible for this: 1. 'Economies of scale' bring down the price by Rs.400 (they're claiming to sell 50 lakh units by June, online and offline). 2. "Manufacturing" in India and the subsequent benefits of that bring down the cost by another Rs.400. This is an intriguing statement considering that the phone is not yet being manufactured in India. 3. Selling the device via their own portal and online slashes another Rs.400. Manufacturing cost: Rs.800 4. "Other partners" will make up the deficit. By our calculations, that amounts to at least Rs.551 (though the figure might be closer to Rs.1000). The nature of these partners is unknown because Ringing Bells insists that they're operating under a non disclosure agreement and can't reveal details. While the first three factors do make sense, the fourth one raises a very big question. Where's all that money coming from? Back of the hand calculations suggest that if Ringing Bells is going to be selling 50 lakh phones by June this year, their "other partners" have to give them Rs.200 crore just to bring the manufacturing costs below Rs.251. To put that number in perspective, Facebook is estimated to have invested around Rs.170 crores ($25 million) in India to promote their FreeBasics project. Who are these other partners and why are they willing to invest so heavily in this project? If all goes to plan, Ringing Bells hopes to sell 1 crore units a month. This means that they're going to be expecting almost Rs.500 crores a month from their "other partners". No matter how you look at it, that number is staggering. Where is all that money coming from? The company has relatively little experience in this field, don't even have a production ready model and claim that they will import, assemble and ship 50 lakh units by June this year. We're already getting reports that the device isn't certified, that their company has no license and a host of other issues. Too surreal When asked for comment, Vijay R. K., GM - Technology, Operations, Pre-sales at Sakri Group, said, "I did some analysis on the smartphone domain through my contacts in the industry here in India and from China. A bill of materials(BOM) of $5 might be possible later when Digital India initiative is really implemented but at this moment it is too surreal. Typical phones with Intel Sofia, Qualcomm, MTK chipsets range between $26 to $30." Here's what Vijay had to say on the Freedom 251 and Ringing Bells: Supposing we wanted to build a smartphone for Rs.250. Would that be possible? In my opinion, this is a far cry if legitimate chipsets, and other BOM (Bill of Materials) validated by OEM's (Original Equipment Manufacturers) like Intel, Qualcomm, MTK are to be considered. Given the fact, that these are imported in SKD (Semi-knocked Down) or CKD (Completely Knocked Down) as the company claims, in the initial run up, these have to be imported as a final product so it looks dicey to me. What would a bill of materials for such a phone [the Freedom 251] normally look like? Considering the BOM of any average performing smart phone it ranges in between $26 to $30 (Rs.1,800-2,100) and this does not even include shipping, customs costing. What sort of life expectancy can we expect from such a phone? It's good for as long as it goes. Just as they typically say for Chinese imports. It can run for years or die without warning. You definitely can't expect the same quality as you'd find on an iPhone or Samsung device. If we can't build a phone for Rs.251, how's Ringing Bells doing it? Especially as they claim that they're selling a phone that would normally cost Rs.2500 to manufacture. Now their claim of Rs.2500 is legit and given the above figures, it roughly falls in that ball park figure adding customs, logistics etc. Now how are they doing it? I am clueless and hopefully these are not low end or refurbished dumps. Overall, he concludes saying that it's "definitely a volume game" and that their [Ringing Bells'] estimates as far as tax exemptions are correct. He goes on to add that, "In all fairness, their bold idea to launch [the Freedom 251] at a throw away price is a challenge for both the manufacturers and the customers as durability, performance parameters are to be judged in the long run." Vijay R. K., GM - Technology, Operations, Pre-sales at Sakri Group, is responsible for defining the Technology and Engineering aspects of various products across AV (Anti-Virus), Electronics, Network Security and IT&ITES. hidden By Sandeep Budki Two days back, an unknown company - Ringing Bells, shocked the world by launching a phone at throwaway price of just Rs 251 for which you can't even afford a medium pizza these days. Even multiplexes charge more than that for 3D movies! Naturally the phone, which is named as Freedom 251, caught the attention of all, both in India and abroad. Freedom 251's features were even more shocking for the price it is being offered. To start with, the phone offers Android 5.1 Lollipop operating system and is powered by a 1.3 GHz quad-core processor. The phone has a 4 inch IPS touchscreen and WVGA (800x480 pixels) resolution. It has 8 GB of internal memory, 1 GB RAM, a 1450 mAh battery, 3.2-megapixel rear camera and a 0.3-megapixel front camera, and supports dual SIMs. Strangely, even before the commencement of its full-fledged operation in India, Ringing Bellss President Ashok Chadha has claimed that by the end of this year they will be able to capture 30 percent smartphone market share in India. But before I dwell into all the announcements made by the Ringing Bells top management lets me share my first impression of the device. What I Liked Freedom 251 is lightweight. Being a 4 inch device, the phone is quite compact and feels comfortable to use. Even though the device is made of plastic, the build quality is good. In the back panel, Indian Flag is imprinted which aims to highlight the fact that this smartphone has been made is line with Make in India imitative of Government of India (or is it to evoke the nationalists spirit which is in vogue these days?). The Freedom 251 has a 4-inch qHD (960 x 540 pixels) IPS display that is better than the display of most of the entry-level feature phones. It felt quite bright and didnt show any sign of bleeding. The design of icons and home button, which are borrowed from iOS, looks good. On the lighter side, if Apple ever comes out with a Rs 5000 iPhone we can imagine what their prototype device might look like. I also liked the stock Android 5.1 experience provided by the device. There were no lags either while switching between the apps and scrolling across different windows. What I didnt like The camera of Freedom 251 is not even satisfactory. It takes a long time to capture and in low lighting picture quality is pathetic. In decent lighting, the output is below average. But again one shouldnt expect miracles from a sub-Rs 300 device. Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar's dialogue, Bacche ki jaan lega kya, sums it up. The national flag was also poorly printed on the back of Freedom 251 and it will surely fade off completely within a few days of usage. What left me confused The Freedom 251 shown to the media was just a prototype. It was not even assembled in India. It was simply a Chinese device with an Adcom logo above the display covered by a white fluid and a Freedom 251 logo imprinted on the back panel. There was nothing Made in India about it. So, when the final product lands up in the market, if it does, what will it like be? Will it perform similarly to the prototype device and will it actually be assembled in India? So many questions like this are bothering me and in spite of repeated questioning. I never got the direct and straightforward answers to my questions from the spokesperson of Ringing Bells. Questions which were left answered The real cost of the device is Rs 2,500, which will be recovered through tie up with startups, innovative marketing, reduction in duties, economies of scale, and selling the device using the online media, according to Ashok Chadda. But there doesnt seem to be any logic in it because the reduction in duties have not been announced so far, selling through an online portal doesnt reduce the cost the components and even the names of the partners who will supply components at throw away price for this device has not been shared. Mohit Goel, director, Ringing bells said, We are in the final stage of discussion with the vendors and will let you know about them quite soon. The company is not aware of the copyrights that Apple has for its design such as its round home button and app icon's design and they have simply copied it which means if Apple presses charges for copyright infringements the complete design of the smartphone has to be reworked which may escalate the cost of the device, and in that case, how will Ringing Bells sell the device for Rs 251? And how will it take care of expected delay in delivery as a result of it? Chadda, claims that the partnership with startups will help in reducing the cost of the device. But didnt answer how? The thing that is bothering me that a partnership between startup /app player and OEM is nothing new but they usually have revenue sharing arrangement or a flat fee which is not so great that it will cover 50 percent price of any device. Conclusion Yes, Ringing Bells has come out with an announcement which has created more buzz than Make In India initiative of Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi on the day of its announcement. People who are below the poverty line and even those who pay taxes in crores each year are discussing Freedom 251. The device seems to be too good for a price tag of Rs 251. But, the device is still in its prototype form. It has nothing Indian about it except the National Flag imprinted on the back panel which was wearing out. Sandeep Budki is Managing Editor, The Mobile Indian, afaqs. hidden By L. Subramanyan Against the backdrop of what is happening in India in reference to the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) episode, there is this massive debate in terms of who is a nationalist and who is not. I'm told that my simple acts of omission and commission, including what meat I eat, may brand me "anti national". But this post is really not about me. It is about Apple chief Tim Cook. Just consider the facts. On December 9, two radicalised Americans massacred 14 people at the Inland Center in San Bernadino, California. The shooters, a married couple, were subsequently shot down by the police. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is investigating the case, has asked Apple to provide it with a key to unlock the iPhone of one of the shooters and even got a court order for Apple to comply. An open and shut decision for Tim Cook, right? Wrong. Cook refused to comply, citing grave security implications for iPhone users at large, and has moved the higher court. And he has got support from many in Silicon Valley, including the very influential Edward Snowden, and our "own" Sundar Pichai of Google. Let's chew on that for a moment. Tim Cook has said Apple will not unlock a phone used by a terrorist. The reason why this is important is that I don't see anyone in the US, including the far right (and yes, the US has its own share of its loony bins), screaming that Cook is anti-national. Amazingly, even Donald Trump has not yet threatened to banish Tim Cook from the US. Sure, there are people criticising Cook, like in any other society with free speech, but no death threats, no bunch of lawyers trying to lynch him or attack him for being against Uncle Sam (their equivalent to our Bharat Mata). I am just relieved that Tim Cook and Apple are not based in India. Had they been, their stand would have been immediately branded anti-national. Politicians of the ruling party in power would have sent goons to various Apple stores and vandalised them, with the cops looking on serenely. The educated middle class, would have reprimanded Apple for its "anti-national" stance and instantly branded them as traitors. Not that this would have stopped them from coveting the iPhones, but then words are cheaper than iPhones. Delhi Police Commissioner Bhim Sain Bassi would have immediately ordered the arrest of Cook and slapped him with charges of sedition, and the lawyers would have been busy slapping him more, literally and physically. News channels would have unearthed a video showing Cook saying that he won't accept the court order, and would have gleefully run a doctored video showing Cook disrespecting the flag, mouthing obscenities at the government and calling them names with a dangerously sounding anchor demanding that India wants to know. Parliament would have been paralysed with inaction, with every party staging a walkout and no business being allowed to be conducted. To hell with the running of the government, Cook-the-Traitor will be the bigger issue in the country, not the big infrastructure projects hung in balance, not the governance of the country coming to a halt and certainly not the millions of people living in hunger and poverty. GST will become the Great Satan Tim. Processions would be taken out by all political parties to protest the actions of Cook and at least 27 public interest litigation petitions would have been filed in the Supreme Court of India, urging urgent hearing on the matter, with some of the honourable MPs even asking for the company to be shut down for a few months and fumigated to rid it of all Cooksian elements. However, the next week, Supreme Court would announce its decision, Cook will comply and everything is back to normal. And the original undoctored videos of Cook would be found and Arnab Goswami would go back to shouting about something else. Tim Cook, see how lucky you are. You have escaped, by being born in the USA. IANS hidden Indonesia said on Thursday it will block access to microblogging platform Tumblr over pornographic content, the media reported on Thursday. "After an exhaustive study, the ministry has decided to ban Tumblr since it contains many videos and pornographic images," said the communication ministry's e-business director, Azhar Hasyim. The ministry has also decided to ban 477 other online sites for the same reason. According to Azhar, blocking access to these sites will take two to three days. Tumblr, which has about 280 million blogs, was set up in 2007 by David Karp and acquired by Yahoo! in 2013 for $1.1 billion. The ban was announced a week after the Indonesian government demanded the removal of emoticons representing homosexuality in messaging apps, following an internet campaign against Line, another popular messaging application, for the same reason. It was just last week that Human Rights Watch urged Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo to protect gay and lesbian rights, a day after his government told instant messaging apps to remove stickers featuring same-sex couples in the latest high-profile attempt to discourage visible homosexuality in the socially conservative country. In 2014, lawmakers in Aceh, a conservative Indonesian province, passed a law that punishes gay sex by public caning and subjects non-Muslims to the regions strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law. With inputs from IANS hidden Two of New York City's top law enforcement officials accused Apple Inc of being irresponsible by refusing to help the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation hack into an iPhone recovered from one of the two shooters who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, saying its stance could harm countless criminal prosecutions. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance waded into the raging debate over security and data privacy between federal officials and the world's highest valued public company, calling the iPhone the first consumer product in history designed to be "warrant-proof." At a news conference with New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton on Friday, Vance said the San Bernardino attack, carried out by a young married couple apparently inspired by Islamic State, is "the most visible example of how Silicon Valley's decisions are thwarting criminal investigations and impeding public safety." The case is just part of a larger problem that encryption creates for more common crimes like homicide, sexual abuse and identity theft, he said. Vance's office is currently holding 175 seized iPhones that remain inaccessible despite court orders allowing prosecutors to search the devices. The two officials cited both Apple and the widely used Android operating system produced by Alphabet Inc's Google unit as posing a concern. A report Vance's office first published in November cited a recorded phone conversation in which an inmate expressed hope his iPhone was running the latest operating system. "The DA Cyrus Vance, who's prosecuting me, is beefing with Apple because they put these phones that can't be (un)encrypted," the inmate said. "If our phones is running on the iOS8 software, they can't open my phone." A federal judge in Los Angeles on Tuesday ordered Apple to help government investigators seeking to read data on an iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the shooters. Apple CEO Tim Cook said on Wednesday that the government's request would force a "backdoor" that could imperil all iPhone owners, a position supported by Google CEO Sundar Pichai. "The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers - including tens of millions of American citizens - from sophisticated hackers and cyber criminals," Cook said. Vance and Bratton said they were simply seeking to execute lawful court orders based on probable cause. "This is the Wild West of technology," said Vance on Thursday. "Apple and Google are their own sheriffs. There are no rules." Reuters 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 Dedicated to the Restoration of Progressive Democracy This Page has moved to a new address: Sorry for the inconvenience Redirection provided by Blogger to WordPress Migration Service Malaysia now says foreign worker recruitment `suspended` Dhaka, Feb 19 (UNB) - In a quick reversal of its stance, Malaysia has decided to 'suspend' the recruitment of all foreign workers to Malaysia, including those from Bangladesh. "We urge all employers to recruit local workers," said Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, also the Home Minister, after meeting Army personnel at Kem Muara Tuang on Friday. The announcement came hours after the Human Resources Minister of the Southeast Asian country said not all of the 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers thought to be headed for Malaysia were meant for the country. Zahid was speaking in Kuching, Sarawak, today saying the decision of suspension came after a thorough consideration while the government would also review recent changes to the levy system on foreign workers, according the Malaysian Insider.com. He said the suspension would be in place while the government will review the two-tier levy programme for foreign workers, Malaysian media outlet The Star Online reported. Dr Ahmad Zahid added that the existing illegal workers in Malaysia would be detained and deported. Earlier, Malaysian Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri Richard Riot said the number actually referred to the number of Bangladeshis registered with the Ministry in Bangladesh to work in 139 countries worldwide. "There're a total of 1.5 million Bangladeshis registered for future employment in foreign countries, but that's not the number of workers coming to Malaysia," says Riot. "The perception that 1.5 million? workers will be brought in from Bangladesh to work in Malaysia is not true," Malaysian media outlet The Star Online quoted the Human Resources Minister as saying. At a press conference on Friday in Malaysia, he said the Bangladeshis were seeking employment in 139 countries, including Malaysia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, The Star Online reported from Putrajaya. He hoped the clarification would allay fears and concern that a huge influx of foreigners, particularly from Bangladesh, were on their way to Malaysia. As of December last year, there are 2,135,035 documented foreign workers in Malaysia, of which 282,287 are from Bangladesh. Riot also said the Memorandum of Understanding signed in Dhaka on Thursday was similar to what the government had previously signed with Indonesia, India, Thailand, Cambodia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Earlier, it was reported that Malaysia will recruit 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers in the next five years. Malaysia's Human Resources Minister Richard Riot Jaem and Bangladesh's Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Nurul Islam BSc signed the MoU on Thursday in Dhaka. Oil prices fall on oversupply concerns after US crude stocks hit record SINGAPORE | By Keith Wallis (Reuters): Oil futures fell in Asian trade on Friday as a record build in U.S. crude stocks stoked concerns about global oversupply, outweighing moves by oil producers including Saudi Arabia and Russia to cap oil output. U.S. crude inventories rose by 2.1 million barrels last week, to a peak of 504.1 million barrels, the third week of record highs in the past month, data from the U.S. government's Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed on Thursday. That came as Iraq's oil minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Thursday that talks would continue between OPEC and non-OPEC members to find ways to restore "normal" oil prices following a meeting on Wednesday. "The market is expecting continuing inventory builds," said Tony Nunan, oil risk manager at Japan's Mitsubishi Corp in Tokyo. "Key to any deal (to cap production) is Iran. But Iran has been clear, saying it wants to get back to its pre-sanctions (production) level," Nunan added. "Everything is pointing to the end of this year (before there is an agreement) when Iran gets to 4 million barrels per day. By that time the pain will be so great everybody will come to the table (to agree output caps)," Nunan said. A combination of increased global oil demand of between 1-2 million barrels per day, production cutbacks by non-OPEC members and the deal by producers to cap output could lead oil prices to climb to around $40 a barrel by year-end, Nunan said. Brent futures LCOc1 had fallen 27 cents to $34.01 a barrel as of 0746 GMT, after ending the previous session down 22 cents. U.S. crude CLc1 had slipped 32 cents to $30.45 a barrel, after settling up 11 cents the session before. The fall in oil prices hit Asian shares which slipped from near three-week highs on Friday. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS fell more than 0.8 percent, but gains in previous sessions left it up 4 percent for the week. [L3N15Y04H] Oil prices rose more than 14 percent in the three days to Thursday after Saudi Arabia and Russia, supported by other producers including Venezuela and Iraq, moved to freeze oil output at January's levels. Iran endorsed the plan without commitment on Wednesday. If approved, it would be the first such deal in 15 years between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-OPEC members. Islamic State: Bombing strikes militants in Libya BBC Online: US warplanes have carried out attacks on militants from the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Libya, killing at least 30 people. The targets included an IS training camp and a senior Tunisian extremist leader, US officials said. Noureddine Chouchane is linked to two attacks in Tunisia last year, including an attack that killed 30 Britons. IS has been operating in Libya for about a year and the US estimates it has up to 6,000 fighters there. Libya remains in chaos more than four years after the overthrow of former leader Muammar Gaddafi, and is being fought over by a number of groups, including IS. Sabratha city's mayor said that a building in the city, west of the capital, Tripoli, had been hit. He put the death count at 41, and said the majority of those killed were Tunisians. US Defence Secretary Ash Carter last week said the US would continue to target militants in Libya. "We always keep open the option to do things unilaterally," he told the BBC. Court cannot do so what law does not say High Court Division (Special Original Jurisdiction) Zubayer Rahman Chowdhury J Mahmudul Hoque J Judgment April 30th, 2015. Abdul Jalil (Md) & others .............. Petitioners vs Judge, Artha Rin Adalat, 2nd Court, Dhaka, & another ..Respondents Code of Civil Procedure (V of 1908) Order XXI, rule 37 Artha Rin Adalat Ain (VllI of2003) Section 34(1) Bank without taking recourse to provisions of law directly filed an application praying for issuance of warrant of arrest and order of detention which is palpably illegal and contrary to the provisions of law. The Order shows that the Adalat in issuing warrant of arrest and detaining the petitioners for six months in civil jail has assigned the reason only stating that the Judgment-Debtor failed to appeal before the Court and to show cause in spite of publishing notice under section 30 of the Ain in the Dailies, but the Ain does not say so... .. (8) Nashir Ullah Master vs Bangladesh, 61 DLR 760 and ABM Shirajum Monir vs Subordinate Judge, 14 BLC 716 ref. Julhasuddin Ahmed with Faisal Reza - For the Petitioners. Md Forrukh Rahman - For the Respondents. Judgment Mahmudul Hoque J: In this application under Article 102 of the Constitution of Bangladesh a Rule Nisi has been issued at the instance of the Petitioner calling upon the Respondents to show cause as to why the Order No. 4 dated 4-3-2008 passed by the Artha Rin Adalat, 2nd Court, Dhaka in Artha Execution Case No. 27 of 2012 issuing warrant of arrest and order of detention against the petitioner as reproduced in paragraph No. 9 of the writ petition should not be declared to have been passed without lawful authority and is of no legal effect and/or pass such other or further order or orders as to this Court may seem fit and proper. 2. Facts relevant for disposal of this Rule, in brief, are that the Respondent No. 2, First Security Islami Bank Limited as plaintiff instituted Artha Rin Suit No. 29 of 2007 in the 2nd Court of Artha Rin Adalat, Dhaka for recovery of Taka 1,93,54,953.29 against the petitioners as defendants. The said suit was decreed ex parte on 19-8-2007 against the petitioners. Thereafter the Respondent No. 2 Bank put the said decree into execution by filing Artha Rin Execution Case No. 217 of 2007 on 25-10-2007. The Respondent No. 2 Bank in the said Execution Case filed an application under section 34(1) of the Artha Rin Adalat Ain, 2003 ("Ain") on 4-3-2008 for issuing order of warrant of arrest against the present judgment-debtors petitioners. The Artha Rin AdaIat heard the said application and upon hearing vide its Order No. 4 dated 4-3-2008 issued warrant of arrest giving them detention for six months in the civil jail. It is in this backdrop, the petitioners filed this application challenging the validity and propriety of the said order and obtained the present Rule and order of stay. 3. The Respondent No. 2 Bank contested the Rule by filing an Affidavit-in-Opposition and supplementary Affidavit-in-Opposition denying all the material allegations made in the application contending, inter alia, that the judgment-debtor-petitioners furnished no security against loan in the form of mortgage and no property in the name of the petitioners was found after making search. In these circumstances the Respondent Bank has no other alternative other than detention of the petitioners in the civil jail to compel them to make payment of the Bank's dues. It is also stated that the instant Execution Case was filed in the year 2007, but the Petitioners did not come forward to settle the Bank's claim, cunningly avoiding arrest adopting various foul play. It is also stated that in the absence of any mortgage property, the order of arrest was rightly passed by the Artha Rin Adalat with a view to compelling the Petitioner for making payment of the decretal amount and, as such, the present writ petition is not maintainable. 4. Mr Julhasuddin Ahmed with Mr Faisal Reza, the learned Advocates appearing for the petitioners submit that before passing the order of detention and issuance of warrant of arrest, no show cause was issued and served upon the petitioners as provided under Order XXI, rule 37 of the Code of Civil Procedure ("Code"). It is also argued that the order of detention was passed in violation of principles of natural justice and without giving an opportunity of being heard to the petitioners. Mr Ahmed further submits that the order of detention and arrest was passed by the Artha Rin Adalat also in violation of section 34 (9) of the Ain as no auction was held before issuance of such order of detention and warrant of arrest. As such the impugned order is illegal and unlawful. He further submits that the application filed by the Respondent No. 2 Bank praying for issuance of warrant of arrest against the petitioner is not followed by any affidavit and sufficient statement necessitating issuance of warrant and order of detention against the Petitioners. It is also argued that the loan in question has been insured with the Sadharan Bima Corporation ("SBC"). Under the insurance policy, SBC undertook payment of the loan to the Respondent No. 2 Bank in the event of failure of the borrower to repay of the loan amount. In such a situation, the Bank, without exhausting process of recovery from SBC and adjustment of the amount to be received against the policy and finding any shortfall thereof, issued warrant of arrest detaining petitioners for six months in the civil jail. 5. Mr Forrukh Rahman, the learned Advocate appearing for the Respondent No. 2 Bank submits that the petitioners before this Court are fugitive in law and, as such, they cannot file this application seeking any relief against the issuance of warrant of arrest. In support of his submission, he referred to the case of Nashir Ullah Master vs Bangladesh reported in 61 DLR 760. It appears that the said judgment was passed relying on the decisions relating to criminal cases. He further submits that the loan in question was not secured by any mortgage of the property and no property of the borrower found available to be placed in auction. As such the Bank has/had no other alternative other than detention of the judgment-debtors in civil jail. He also submits that in the absence of any security and any other property owned by the judgment-debtor the executing Court on the prayer of the Decree Holder-Bank rightly passed the Impugned Order and there is no illegality. It is also argued that the Respondent Bank tried to settle the dispute in various way but the Petitioners were not at all willing to settle the Bank dues. Consequentially, as a last resort the Bank has compelled to file an application praying for warrant of arrest and for detention of the petitioners in civil jail, accordingly, the Court passed the order. He further submits that the Bank by its several correspondences requested SBC to settle the claim under policy and forwarded all the required documents as desired by them but on this and that plea SBC refrained from making payment of the money. In these circumstances finding no other way the Court at the instance of the Decree-Holder Bank issued and passed the impugned order. 6. Heard the learned Advocates for the parties, perused the Application, Affidavit-in-Opposition, Supplementary Affidavit-in-Opposition along with the annexures annexed thereto. 7. In the instant case the question raised by the petitioner's lawyer regarding issuance of show cause as provided under Order XXI, rule 37 of the Code is not acceptable in the present case as the matter already decided by this court in the case of ABM Shirajum Monir vs Subordinate Judge reported in 14 BLC 716 wherein it has been held that Artha Rin Adalat Ain, 2003 is a special law. Provisions of Artha Rin Adalat Ain shall prevail over other law. As such the said provisions under Order XXI, rule 37 of the Code is not identical with the provisions laid down under section 34 of the Ain. The Artha Rin Adalat is empowered to issue warrant of arrest and order of detention against the judgment-debtor subject to other provisions contained in sub-sections 2 to 13. (To be continued) Sub-section 9 of section 34 provides that before issuance of warrant of arrest and order of detention at least auction is to be held once and it is the sine qua non to the issuance of order of detention but in the present case no property was mortgaged by the borrower as security against loan to be sold in auction. However, the loan was secured by an Insurance Policy. As per terms of the Policy the Insurance Company i.e. SBC as guarantor is legally obliged to pay the outstanding dues of the Bank in the event of failure of the borrower judgment-debtors. It appears that the Respondent No. 2 took certain initiatives for recovery of the loan from SBC under Insurance Policy but the Respondent-Bank could not show any paper showing that SBC refused to pay the claim under the Policy rather it appears from the letter dated 20-6-2013 written by SBC to the Bank asking them to provide with some information regarding steps taken by the Bank for recovery of the loan against the Petitioners. It means that the process is not yet complete. In other words, if we consider that the beneficiary of the Insurance Policy is the Judgment-Debtors in that case section 36 of the Ain also provides provision for recovery of decretal amount from the persons from whom the money is due and owing to the judgment-debtor. For proper appreciation of the matter Section 36 of the Ain may be looked into which runs thus:- 36| (1) hw` wWx`vi Av`vjZK `iLvI viv AewnZ Ki h, Kvb GKRb ewi wbKU nBZ `vwqK UvKv cvIbv AvQ, Zvnv nBj Av`vjZ, D ewK ibvbx AsI h_v_ gb Kwij, Zvnvi wbKU nBZ `vwqK h UvKv cOvc nb, Dnv nBZ wWxKZ UvKvi mgcwigvY UvKv Av`vjZ Rgv`vbi Rb wjwLZfve Av`k cO`vb Kwie Ges Av`vjZ, D UvKv Av`vq nIqvi ci H eve` GKwU iwk` cO`vb Kwie ; Ges D iwk` viv H ew `vwqKi wbKU H cwigvY A_i Rb `bv nBZ AvBbZt gy nBeb| (2) cOPwjZ Ab Kvb AvBb wfbic weavb _vKv mEI, Dc-aviv (1) Gi weavb DjwLZ gZ weev`x-`vwqK Kvb cv Awdm, evsK, Avw_K cOwZovb ev BbwmIivi Gi wbKU nBZ Kvb UvKv cvIbv nBj, Av`vjZ D cv Awdm, evsK, Avw_K cOwZovb ev BbwmIivi Gi wbKU wWx cwiZzo Kivi Rb ibvbx Kwiqv ms''o nBj, D UvKv vK Kwiqv Av`vq KwiZ cvwie ; Ges GyI Kvb cvm eB, wWcvwRU iwk`, cwjwk KvMR, Ab Kvb cOKvi `wjj, GwU, BbWvimgU ev Abyic Ab Kvb BbygU Av`vjZ KZK ck Kiv AvekK nBe bv| (3) Dc-aviv (1) I (2) Gi Aaxb Av`vjZ KZK cO`E Av`k Agvb Kwij AgvbKvix ew ev cOwZovbi `vqx ewi wbKU nBZ mgcwigvY A_ Rwigvbv wnmve Av`vqhvM nBe, Ges GKB Av`vjZ cO_g kYxi gvwRU MY Ges Zrmswko ygZvej D UvKv Rwigvbv wnmve Av`vq Kwie| 8. In the present case admittedly loan of the Bank was secured by a Policy with SBC a statutory body corporate. Under the said Policy SBC undertook payment of the outstanding dues to the Bank. In the event of failure of the loanee the Bank as Decree-Holder is legally empowered to compel SBC to make payment of the money under the policy by filing an application before the Artha Rin Adalat and after receiving the money under policy and adjustment of the same with the decretal amount, if there be any short fall, the Decree-Holder Bank can proceed with the other properties of the judgment-debtors and finally by filing an application for arrest and order of detention. But in the instant case the Bank without taking recourse to such provisions of law directly filed an application praying for issuance of warrant of arrest and order of detention against the Petitioners which is palpably illegal and contrary to the provisions of law. Apart from this the application filed by the Bank (annexure-IV) is not supported by any affidavit. Moreover, no sufficient averment has been made in the application why the warrant of arrest and order of detention is necessary against the petitioners. The Impugned Order shows that the Adalat in issuing warrant of arrest and detaining the petitioners for six months in civil jail has assigned the reason only stating that the Judgment-Debtor failed to appear before the Court and to show cause in spite of publishing notice under Section 30 of the Ain in the Dailies, but the Ain does not say so. This Court finds that the application filed by the Decree-Holder Bank praying for issuance of warrant of arrest and detention of the petitioners and the impugned Order are contrary to the provisions as contained in Section 34(1) of the Ain. This Court also finds, that the application for issuing warrant of arrest was filed simply saying that no property of the judgment-debtors was mortgaged as security with the Bank and in the absence of security to compel the judgment-debtors warrant of arrest was issued. 9. That being the position, the Impugned Order in this Court's view has been passed without lawful authority and is of no legal effect. 10. In the light of the observations made herein above this Court finds merit in the Rule issued. 11. In the result, the Rule is made absolute, without any order as to costs. 12. The Impugned Order No. 4 dated 4-3-2008 passed by the Artha Rin Adalat, 2ndCourt, Dhaka, in Artha Execution Case No. 27 of 2012 issuing warrant of arrest and order of detention against the Petitioners as reproduced in paragraph No.9 of the writ petition detaining the petitioners in civil jail for six months is hereby declared to have been passed without lawful authority and is of no legal effect. However, the respondent-bank may further file a properly framed application under Section 34(1) of the Ain, upon compliance of the provisions of law as discussed above. 13. The order of stay granted earlier at the time of issuance of the Rule is hereby recalled and vacated. Communicate a copy of this judgment at once to the Court concerned. Sentence must aim to meet ends of justice Appellate Division (Criminal) Md Abdul Wahhab Miah J Md Imman Ali J AHM Shamsuddin Choudhury J Sohel Dewan @ Mehedi Hasan @ Chanchal ... Appellants vs State..........Respondent Judgment April 1st, 2015. Code of Criminal Procedure (V of 1898) Section 376 Where the conviction is not under section 302 of the Penal Code simplicities, and where the complicity of the accused is proved by the aid of section 34 of the Penal Code, then the sentence of death would not be appropriate. Penal Code (XLV of 1860) Section 302/34 Ends of justice will be sufficiently met if the sentence of death is commuted to imprisonment for life. . ..... (17) Hari Har Singh vs State of UP, 1975 4 SCC 148 ref. Md Helal Uddin Mollah, Advocate-For the Appellants (in both cases) Biswajit Deb Nath, Deputy Attorney-General-For the Respondent (in both cases) Judgment Md Imman Ali J: These two Jail Appeals, by leave, are directed against the judgment and order dated 17-5-2006 passed by the High Court Division in Death Reference No. 41 of 2003 heard along with Criminal Appeal Nos. 1181 and 1245 of 2003 and Jail Appeal No. 295 of 2003, accepting the death reference and dismissing Criminal Appeal No. 1181 of 2003 and Jail Appeal No. 295 thereby maintaining the conviction of those appellants under sections 302/34 of the Penal Code. Criminal Appeal No. 1245 of 2003 was allowed acquitting appellant Emran Hossain alias Rana of the charge levelled against him under sections 302/109 of the Penal Code. 2. Since both the appeals arise out of the same judgment of the High Court Division, these were heard together and they are dealt with by this single judgment. The relevant facts are as follows: On 8-8-2002 at about 5-30 pm victim Badsha Miah, elder son of the informant Nurjahan Begum, was sitting infront of his place of business, namely Badsha Community Centre. At that time the informant along with her grandson PW 2 Rafiqul Islam @ Suman, was going to her daughter Jahanara's house and on her way she talked with her son Badsha Miah. When the informant proceeded a little further, she saw Sohel, Billal, Manik and some other persons loitering on the right hand side infront of the market. As she proceeded further, she heard the sound of firing and looked back and saw accused Billal, Sohel and Manik shooting at her son Badsha Miah with the firearms in their hands. Then she cried out for help to save her son. Appellants Billal, Sohel and Manik along with others left the place of occurrence towards the south, firing blank shots from their firearms. The informant and Sumon went to Badsha Miah and saw blood oozing from his nose, mouth, neck, belly and his entire body was soaked with blood. Badsha Miah fell on the ground from the chair. Yasin (PW 3), Sumon (PW 2) and Dukhu (PW 4) took Badsha Miah to hospital in a baby-taxi. As the informant was crying, she was taken to her house. After a while she received information from the hospital that Badsha Miah succumbed to his injuries. When the other relatives came to the house of the informant, she along with her 'putra' (brother of daughter-in-law) Rezaul Karim (PW 8), Sumon and Dukhu went to Kafrul Police Station to lodge the First Information Report (FIR). Accordingly, Kafrul PS Case No. 11 dated 8-8-2002 was started. 3. After completion of the investigation police submitted charge-sheet No.4 dated 17-1-2003 against the appellants and two others under sections 302/34 of the Penal Code. 4. After submission of charge sheet the case record was transferred to the Druto Bichar Tribunal No.4, Dhaka for trial and the case was re-numbered as Druto Bichar Tribunal Case No. 1 of 2003. Charge was framed under sections 302/34 of the Penal Code against the appellants and under sections 302/109 of the Penal Code against the other two accused, which was read over to them, to which they pleaded not guilly and claimed to be tried. 5. During trial the prosecution examined as many as sixteen witnesses who were cross-examined by the defence, but the defence examined none. The defence case of the appellants, as it appears from the trend of cross-examination, was that they did not commit the offence as alleged by the prosecution and that they had been falsely implicated in the case. The appellants were examined under section 342 of the Code of Criminal Procedure when again they pleaded their innocence. 6. After hearing the parties and upon consideration of the evidence and materials on record, the Druto Bichar Tribunal, by the judgment and order dated 17-5-2006, convicted the appellants Sohel Dewan, Billal Hossain and Manik @ Omar Faruque under sections 302/34 of the Penal Code and sentenced them to death. The Tribunal also found the other two co-accused guilty under sections 302/109 of the Penal Code and sentenced each of them to suffer imprisonment for life and to pay a fine of Taka 5,000 each, in default to suffer rigorous imprisonment for one year more. 7. Reference under section 374 of the Code of Criminal Procedure was made to the High Court Division for confirmation of the sentence of death, which was numbered as Death Reference No.41 of 2003. The appellants also filed Criminal Appeal No. 1181 of 2003 and Jail Appeal No. 295 of 2003 before the High Court Division. The co-convict Emran Hossain @ Rana filed Criminal Appeal No. 1245 of 2003. 8. A Division Bench of the High Court Division after hearing the death reference along with the criminal appeals and jail appeal accepted the reference and dismissed the appeals filed by the appellants. However, the High Court Division allowed Criminal Appeal No. 1245 of 2003 and acquitted the co-convict Emran Hossain @ Rana. Hence, the appellants filed Jail Petition No. 11-12 of 2012 before this Division. 9. Leave was granted to consider the following: "I. Whether the High Court Division failed to consider the vital aspect of the case in confirming the sentence of death awarded by the Tribunal to the petitioners that although PWs 1, 2, 3 and 10 posing themselves to be the eye witnesses stated in their deposition that all the three condemned prisoners fired shots at the deceased from the firearms in their hands, the inquest report and the post mortem report show that the victim received two injuries only and thus, these lead to a controversy as to out of the three appellants whose shot struck the body of the victim; and II. Whether the above anomaly between the medical evidence and the testimony of the witnesses also create doubt about the prosecution case and in the circumstances whether their sentence of death may be commuted to imprisonment for life." 10. Mr Md Helal Uddin Mollah, the learned Advocate appearing on behalf of the appellants submitted that the alleged eye witnesses, namely PWs 1, 2,3 and 10 all deposed to the effect that the three accused appellants shot the victim with theft firearms as a result of which the victim died. Bu t only two bullets were recovered which belies the prosecution story that the three convict appellants shot and killed the victim. He further submitted that since the evidence of the eye witnesses are not fully consistent with the post mortem examination report and the evidence of the Doctor PW 14, creates doubt which is sufficient to commute the sentence of death to one of imprisonment for life and the High Court Division erred in law in not considering this aspect. 11. The State respondent did not file any concise statement. Mr Biswajit Deb Nath, learned Deputy Attorney-General appearing for the State with leave made submissions in support of the impugned judgement and order of the High Court Division. 12. We have considered the submissions of the learned Advocate for the appellants and the learned DAG for the respondent and perused the impugned judgment and order of the High Court Division and other connected papers on record. 13. It appears that only two injuries having been found on the dead body of the victim, there is some doubt created inasmuch as one of the convict appellants did not shoot the victim with any firearm, or his shot, if fired at all, did not hit the victim. There is no doubt from the evidence and materials on record that the presence of the convict appellants at the place of occurrence was established. There is no way of assessment as to which one of the three convict appellants did not use his firearm against the victim. Hence, there is no illegality in the findings of the trial Court which has been upheld by the High Court Division, that the convict appellants are guilty on an offence under sections 302/34 of the Penal Code. However, the question of sentence based on the given facts and circumstances, has to be looked at carefully. 14. In this regard we may profitably refer to the decision in the case of Hari Har Singh vs State of UP, 1975 4 SCC 148. In that case two of the accused had shot the victim and three others had struck with lathis. The medical evidence indicated that the victim died of the cumulative effect of the injuries. Out of four shots fired by the accused only two hit the victim. It was held that where the accused had not been convicted under section 302 simpliciter the death penalty ought not to have been imposed. On the medical evidence it could not be proved which of the two gunshot injuries was sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause the death of the victim. 15. In the facts of the case before us, where there is some inkling of a doubt as to which of the shots from the firearms of the accused caused the death, or conversely which one of the three accused who fired the shots missed his target, the application of sections 302/34 of the Penal Code was correct, but the question remains as to whether the death sentence would be appropriate. We are inclined towards the view that where the conviction is not under section 302 of the Penal Code simpliciter, and where the complicity of the accused is proved by the aid of section 34 of the Penal Code, then the sentence of death would not be appropriate. 16. Moreover, the accused appellants were convicted and sentenced to death by an order of the trial Court dated 21-4-2003. The convict appellants have therefore, suffered in the condemned cell for almost twelve years. In this connection we may refer to our earlier decision in the case of Manik vs State judgement delivered on 19lh January, 2015 (unreported) where the sentence of death was commuted to imprisonment for life considering, inter alia, the long period spent in the condemned cell. 17. In view of the discussion above, we are of the opinion that ends of justice will be sufficiently met if the sentence of death is commuted to imprisonment for life. 18. Accordingly, the jail appeals, which challenged only the sentence of the convict appellants, are allowed and the sentence of death imposed upon the convict appellants Sohel Dewan @ Mehedi Hasan @ Chanchal, Billal Hossain and Md Omar Faruq is commuted to one of imprisonment for life. 20 illegal establishments evicted Chittagong Bureau : A mobile court of Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) in a drive on Thursday evicted 20 different kinds of shops, restaurants and garages from it's land in city's under port area of Bandar thana. CPA Executive Magistrate Mohammad Abul Hashem alongwith police and CPA Ansar members conducted the drive and evicted the establishments. The court also fined TK 12 thousand to the illegal occupants. The CPA Executive Magistrate said the establishments were evicted under Port Authorities Lands and Buildings (Recovery of Possession) Ordinance, 1962. Latif files GD against Mohiuddin Chy Chittagong Bureau : Bandar thana under Chittagong Metro police received a General Diary filed by the lawmaker of Chittagong-11 constituency MA Latif against city Awami League President and former Mayor ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury for alleged threat to the lawmaker so announced in the recent public meeting at Laldighi Maidan. The city lawmaker sent the GD to all 16 thanas of CMP by mail and messenger on Thursday afternoon but only Bandar thana police took the GD in cognizance in the evening (GD NO.871). Bandar thana officer in-charge AKM Mohiuddin Selim told that they have taken GD of the lawmaker of Bandar constituency and taken initiatives for enquiry. On the other hand CMP commissioner Abdul JalilMondol admitted the receipt of GDs in 16 thanas under CMP which is under scrutiny. It is learnt from different sources of police , after receipt of GD copy , all Officer In-charges of CMP thanas sought specific directives of the CMP Commissioner over the GD matter . According to latest decisions of CMP, Bandar thana registered GD of the lawmaker because the complainant is the lawmaker of that area. In the GD , the lawmaker accused the former Mayor Mohiuddin chowdhury for his warning of movement and declaring persona non-grata in city in the public meeting held on February 15 last at Laldighi Maidan in city. The GD was told that the lawmaker fears of life risk or any physical assault by the followers of Mohiuddin Chowddhury as declared in the recent public meeting and the lawmaker also feels insecurity of life. Mentionable that four suits have been lodged before the Chittagong Metropolitan Session Judge court recently for alleged distortation of the portrait of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Vanessa Hudgens under investigation for defacing rock Actress Vanessa Hudgens and her boyfriend Austin Butler are under investigation for reportedly carving their names in a heart into a rock formation in Sedona, Arizona. A public affairs officer for Coconino National Forest has said the incident involving Hudgens and Butler is under investigation, reports etonline.com. Officials at the Coconino National Forest became aware of the incident when the media alerted them of the situation, the officer said. There is no deadline for this investigation -- it takes as long as it takes. The maximum punishment for this is $5,000 and/or six months behind bars. Eyebrows were raised after Hudgens posted a photograph of the carving on Instagram, but the post has since been deleted. Cameron hints at progress on EU reforms but still no deal European Council President Donald Tusk, left, and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, second left, participate in a meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron during an EU summit in Brussels on Friday. Reuters, Brussels : British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Friday he was still working toward a deal with European partners on keeping Britain a member of the European Union, adding he would stand his ground to defend British interests. "I was here till 5 o'clock this morning working through this and we've made some progress but there's still no deal," Cameron said on arriving at for a second day of a summit of European leaders in Brussels. "And as I've said I'll only do a deal if we get what Britain needs," he added. All-night talks failed to secure a deal to prevent Britain from becoming the first to crash out of the EU in the bloc's 60-year history. Fellow European leaders have dug their heels in over Cameron's demands, which include reducing welfare payments to EU migrants and opting out of a commitment to ever-closer union. "It's hard going -- some signs of progress but nothing yet agreed and still a lot to do," a source in Cameron's Downing Street office said on condition of anonymity. Under pressure from eurosceptics in his own Conservative Party and a hostile right-wing press, Cameron is seeking sweeping reforms to the 28-member bloc before putting Britain's membership to an in-out referendum as early as June. But the deadlock threatens to derail Cameron's plan to announce the date of the referendum in London on Friday after securing a deal in Brussels and holding an emergency Cabinet meeting. After talks with EU president Donald Tusk and French President Francois Hollande in the early hours, Cameron left the summit venue shortly after 5:30am (0430 GMT), Downing Street said. He is set to hold further talks with Tusk at 11:45am (1045 GMT). Cameron has run into opposition from France and Belgium over his bid to make clear Britain is not committed to ever-closer union and ensure that the City of London financial district is not bound by the rules governing the euro single currency area. Hollande made clear his objection on entering the talks Friday, saying he wanted a single rule book to "fight financial crises together". On day one of the meeting Thursday, Cameron urged his fellow EU leaders to reach a "credible" reform deal and called for a "sort of live and let live" approach to allow different visions of EU membership. He added that the issue of Britain's place in Europe "has been allowed to fester for too long" and there was now a chance "to settle this issue for a generation". Cameron says he will back a "Yes" vote in the referendum if he can cut an acceptable deal in Brussels but his aides say he is prepared to walk away if not. Officials are still refusing to rule out the possibility that Britain could become the first country to leave the EU in its more than 60-year history. BNP to field single candidate in UP polls Ehsanul Haque Jasim : The BNP is trying to reach a compromise with its alliance partners so that they can field single candidate for one seat in the upcoming Union Parishad (UP) polls. Sources said that the party intends to join the UP polls under the banner of the 20-party alliance to get a prestigious number of seats in the polls. The sources also said that the BNP has taken the UP polls seriously to boost the morale of grassroots leaders and activists. The party wants to take part in all local government polls to stay in politics at the grassroots level. However, BNP and its key ally Jamaat-e-Islami have not been able to reach consensus as yet. The two parties are maintaining silent distance from each other. According to insiders, Jamaat is moving towards fielding own candidates in many Unions in the country. Many Jamaat leaders, who are probable candidates for the chairman post, are working in their respective areas. Some of them said that they had got green signal from the party to take part in first ever party-based UP polls as independent candidates. BNP leaders said that the party would field party candidates in the chairman post across the country. They will share seats with partners in some Unions. BNP Acting Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir sat with counterparts of 20-party alliance partners on Friday evening at BNP chairperson's Gulshan office in the city to discuss the issue of the UP polls. After the meeting, Mirza Fakhrul said that they had decided to join the polls under the banner of 20-party alliance. He, however, said that they were joining the polls as part of the movement. Meanwhile, Jamaat and LDP skipped the secretary general-level meeting. It was known that Jamaat skipped the meeting for its strategy to avoid the UP polls issue. Secretary General of Bangladesh Kalyan Party MM Aminur Rahman, who attended the meeting, said that they did not know the reason behind absence of Jamaat. He, however, said that they agreed to give a single candidate from the alliance in each union to ensure the victory of their candidates. Sources said that the BNP is avoiding Jamaat, while the Jamaat is also not interested to negotiate with the BNP. A Jamaat leader said that they wouldn't reach a consensus with the BNP, as they believe that BNP don't appreciate them properly. "BNP will want to share a few seats only with the Jamaat. So, why Jamaat will hold talks with the BNP on the issue?" he said. Jamaat believes that the party will be able to field strong candidates in some UPs where the party has a good chance to win without support of the BNP. A BNP leader said that local leaders of both parties would communicate with each other on the issue. Train fare hike from today amid protest Kazi Zahidul Hasan : The new rates of train fare will come to effect from today (Saturday) amid resentment from the passengers and business community. Earlier, Bangladesh Railway (BR) raised train fares in June 2012 in an attempt to reduce its losses and improve services. But its service quality neither improved nor losses came down following the enhanced fair. Sources said, the Railway authorities had increased train fare by around 50 per cent when the annual losses of BR were over Tk 800 crore. Now its losses stands at Tk 900 crore and it is going to hike the fares again to the disadvantages of Railway commuters and businessmen "The new train fares come into effect from Saturday under a new format The Railway authorities, for the first time ever, used the format to determine new fares," Railways Secretary Firoz Salauddin, told The New Nation on Friday. Under the new format, he added, the Railway fares will be hiked every year. "We are increasing fares to improve the standard of passenger service and minimise continuous losses," said Railways Secretary. Firoz Salauddin stated that the hike this time will be a minimum of Tk 5 and a maximum of Tk 45. "We hoped the hike would stay in a comfortable level and would be comparatively lower than other existing transports," he added. According to him, BR has fixed the new tariffs after measuring yearly maintenance cost, staff salary, and upgrading service and travel distance, "We have already hanged the new train tariffs at all the railway stations for the convenience of the passengers," he said. When asked, the Railway Secretary expressed the hope that the rate of fare hike would come down if domestic fuel prices are lowered. Meanwhile, consumer right groups and business community leaders criticized the government's decision to hike railway fares, questioning the relevance of taking such a decision when the BR has failed to improve both passengers and cargo services. "We are strongly opposing the hike in railway fare. This is going to be a huge burden on the people at a time when they are already battling relentless price rise of everything," Ghulam Rahman, President of Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB), told The New Nation on Friday. He said, people are already affected by rising electricity, gas and transport fares and a new hike in train fares will further intensify their miseries. Strongly opposing the hike in railway fares, the CAB President urged the Railway authorities to roll back the increase in the interests of the poor and the middle class people. "The hike especially in railway cargo fare would severely affect the business community by further raising their cost of doing business," Abdus Salam Murshedy, President of the Exporters Association of Bangladesh (EAB) told The New Nation yesterday. He said, a large section of exporters is used to send their export cargoes to Chittagong port and carry their imported goods through railway's wagons because of low transportation cost. The cost of transportation through railway would escalate following effect of the new freight fares. "We do not see the justification of fresh fare hike when the quality of BR's services has not improved and goods wagons are in not adequate to send and carry the import and export cargoes to Chittagong port. Even, the passenger trains are running behind the schedules causing sufferings to the commuters," he said. Salam Murshedy further said, the Railway is incurring heavy losses because of corruption and misuse of funds. Now the authorities are trying to reduce Railway's losses putting burden on the commuters and businessmen. "The Railway authorities should plug the corruption within the department along with finding other income sources because raising the fare cannot be the only option to reduce losses. They also put especial emphasis on cargo carrying system to generate further revenue," he noted. EU patrol ship saves 900 migrants off Greece coast BBC Online : About 900 migrants have been rescued near the Greek island of Lesbos, the EU border agency Frontex has said. They were taken aboard a Bulgarian ship on patrol between Lesbos's port of Mytilene and the Turkish coast. Frontex said it was picking up all the migrants it encountered at sea because bad weather made the crossing more dangerous during the winter. More than 1m people arrived in the EU in 2015, making it Europe's worst refugee crisis since World War Two. Frontex announced Thursday's rescue in a tweet, posting a photo of some of the migrants who later disembarked from the Bulgarian ship at Mytilene. The migrants' nationalities were not immediately known. Earlier this week, Greek started to register asylum seekers at four new reception centres on islands near Turkey, including Lesbos. This is being done in line with a demand from the EU. Converted shipping containers and prefab shelters are being used to house thousands of people. The EU says they must all be registered there and fingerprinted before going anywhere else. Last year more than 850,000 migrants - mostly refugees fleeing war and abuses in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan - entered Greece as a gateway to the EU. During the summer months, some 7,000 migrants were arriving in Greece every day after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey. More than 700 died during their perilous journeys last year, and at least another 100 this year. The EU has pledged 3bn (2.3bn; $3.3bn) to Turkey in return for housing refugees and strengthening the country's borders. Turkey is home to nearly three million refugees, most of them from Syria. Many of them pay smugglers thousands of dollars to make the crossing to Greece. They then head north, trying to reach Germany and Scandinavia. What goes wrong with Malaysian recruitment OFFICIAL disclosure in Dhaka on Wednesday said Malaysia has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the city under which it would take 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers in next five years. But on Friday Malaysian Minister for Manpower cancelled out the claim in Kuala Lumpur saying that his country will not be taking the 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers based on the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). Malaysian Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri Richard Riot has been quoted in media reports yesterday as saying that the number actually referred to the number of Bangladeshis registered with the Labour Ministry in Bangladesh to work in 139 countries worldwide. The figure covered people for future employment in foreign countries, that's not the number of Bangladeshi workers coming to Malaysia. Bangladesh's Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Nurul Islam earlier signed the MoU in the city and it captured big banner headlines in national dailies in the following day. The rebuttal of the claim by Malaysian government left many to wonder in Bangladesh capital Dhaka what is wrong and what is at work behind all such mismatch. The Malaysian Minister said the perception these workers will be brought in Malaysia is not true. He said the figure covered Bangladesh government recruitment targets to 139 countries of the world. But what is at stake is that tens of thousands of young people in Bangladesh who are aspirants of taking a job in Malaysia and observers in Dhaka have been caught in the big dilemma. They wonder as to how and why such a big mistake and variation in official statements can occur and who will take responsibility of the misleading public disclosure. Why even the Malaysian Minister is defending the 1.5 million figure as the number for overall overseas employment. How then the figure can come in the MoU signed with his government. These are many questions that must find answers. Bangladesh government was highlighting Malaysia over the past years as the best manpower export destination. But manpower recruitment sources in the capital fear that the government was misleading the nation showing big manpower export contracts for political reasons, but they wondered how Malaysian government can be part of it. The government made sensational disclosure in 2012 saying Malaysia would take huge number of workers under government-to-government mechanism and carried out registration of 1.4 million young people through rural information centers. A similar MoU was also signed at that time. But consequently only 7000 workers were able to go to Malaysia as the process remained stalled for reasons not known to all. A powerful team again visited Malaysia in 2014 and on return made similar claim of big success to see eventual recruitment of several lakh workers. But 12,000 workers were recruited at the end. This time the declaration for recruitment of 1.5 million workers came only to be renounced by Malaysian government itself one day after the public disclosure. People wonder what is at fault. City taxicab service in bad shape TAXICABS in Dhaka city are still in small number but drivers are often blamed for not properly respectful to commuters' travel-destination choices. The high fare rates fixed by the concerned authorities are also hardly affordable by fixed income people. These are part of many impediments including impolite behaviour of cab drivers causing existential crisis to city taxicab services, but we can't surrender to these setbacks if we want to see that our cities are playing taxicab services like other cities in the world. Excessive fares and cab drivers' refusal to take short-distance trips are mainly blamed for major causes of poor commuters' response to cab service in Dhaka city. People keep the distance from them while they move empty in city streets for big passengers without much success. Cab operators also routinely face traffic police harassment when their area of businesses is equally shrinking from competition of rental car syndicates. Attacks from muggers are also there in a poor law and order situation hindering the expansion of the service. The government is not paying the due attentive to this problem when shortage of permanent taxi stands in city corners is also causing setback to make the service readily available and popular. News reports in a national daily on Friday said two latest taxicab service-providers - Trust Transport Services (TTS) owned by Army Welfare Trust and Toma Taxi Services by a private company suffered the setback from importing huge taxicab fleet as they found passengers' response quite poor to recover investments. Revenue from playing limited number of cabs in the streets proved it is not enough and it forced TTS to withdraw the entire fleet of 150 cabs from Chittagong city eight months after the launch. Many cabs are often sitting idle in Dhaka city corners as well without call. It is unfortunate that we can't even establish a world-class taxicabs service in our capital city when such services are in existence even in very small cities in other parts of the world. Though it is true that in a society where the middle-income families have not enough resources to spend in high taxi fares, we believe it is the responsibility of the government to create the positive environment to offer affordable fare and harassment free city cab system. They must have the call services for taxicabs to take passengers from certain places to destination of their choice. Users will also expect good cab drivers behaviour and the company must ensure it by motivation and proper training.Many believe the operators may also rightly demand some fiscal privileged to build the services as part of our social transformation in city traffic system. The authorities can't ignore such privilege if they are serious to bring about such transformation in city traffic. Obama imposes new N Korea sanctions BBC Online :President Obama has signed off new expanded sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear programme, weeks after it launched a long-range rocket.The country has refused to stop its nuclear programme and the bill was easily passed last week by Congress.The sanctions attempt to cut off money North Korea needed to develop miniaturised nuclear warheads.The US and China are negotiating over a UN Security Council resolution on new sanctions.China has said some of the measures could cripple North Korea's economy. The sanctions freeze the assets of anyone doing business related to North Korea's nuclear or weapons programme or involved in human rights abuses. The bill also allows for $50m (35m) to support humanitarian programmes and transmit radio broadcasts into North Korea.North Korea recently fired a long-range rocket, which critics said was a test of banned missile technology. State television announced that North Korea had "successfully placed a satellite in orbit".The morning after that launch, Mr Obama said: "This is an authoritarian regime. It's provocative. It has repeatedly violated UN resolutions, tested and produced nuclear weapons, and now they are trying to perfect their missile launch system." It came after the North's fourth nuclear test in January. Analysts say Kim Jong-un is looking to appear powerful before his important Seventh Party Congress in May."The bill was the first one exclusively targeting North Korea, which was passed in an unusually expeditious fashion. We expect it to provide a platform for the US to take strong and effective measures [against North Korea]," said South Korea's foreign ministry in a statement. The South has said it will be discussing with the US the deployment of a missile defence system. 'Coins' now enjoy value in antique market UNB, Dhaka :Officially local coins (paisa) of Tk 0.1, Tk 0.5, Tk 0.10, Tk 0.25 and Tk 0.50 denominations have not been withdrawn from the market, but their use has now become 'non-tradable'.According to both retail and wholesale traders, nobody wants to take the coins worth below Tk 1 (one) denomination. "Even, people are not interested to receive a coin of Tk 1 or Tk 5," said Saleh Ahmed, a 45-year-old grocer of Malibagh in the capital who had to face a lot of trouble with coins."May be people want to avoid taking coins for its non-convenient haulage. That's why they prefer receiving notes instead of metal coins," said another trader, Jahangir Alam, 50, of Nakhalpara area. The experiences of Saleh and Jahangir are not uniquein any way. Most traders in retail market or wholesale one have to deal with the same situation. And this is even worse in rural areas.But, the government or the country's central bank has not yet officially withdrawn any kind of coins of any value. "All coins of different values are still officially in circulation... may be the use of coins having the value of below Tk 1 has become very limited," said Bangladesh Bank's Executive Director Subhankar Saha.He said, there are coins of different values, worth about Tk 776 crore, in the market as those were released by the central bank on various occasions.Of this, 80 crore pieces of coins of Tk 5 having the total value of Tk 400 crore, 80 crore pieces of coins of Tk 2 having the total value of Tk 160 crore, and 200 crore pieces of coins of Tk 1 having the total value of the same are now in circulation in the market. Saha noted that as the country's central bank frequently issues coins of these three types and also receives from the banks and other institutions.But, the release of the coins of below Tk 1 (one) denomination remained suspended for last the 15-16 years although those are not officially declared non-tradable. There are coins of below Tk-one denomination, which are valued at Tk 16 crore, but it is not clear how many pieces are now there.He said, there is no intention from the central bank to declare these coins obsolete or non-tradable. Even the government has no such a decision. "If the government or the Bangladesh Bank wants to move to declare them non-tradable, then it needs amendment to the existing currency law." Freedom fighters should expose what is not their way : Mainul Staff Reporter : The land cannot have freedom it is the people who must have freedom. Freedom fighters fought for the cause of people's freedom and not for any class interest, said Barrister Mainul Hosein in a talk show of Channel-i, telecast on Friday. But in free Bangladesh the freedom fighters neglected to uphold the cause of the liberation war. Taking advantage of their silence some have been exploiting their name for doing the opposite of the cause of the liberation war. Bangladesh became an easy country to deprive the people of their rights. Mr Hosein continued that the government though claims to be running the country as freedom fighters and for the cause of freedom fighters, but the people are helpless because their freedom is not secure. If the selfless freedom fighters could come forward and speak collectively in support of the cause of people's freedom things would have been different. They should expose what is not the way of freedom fighters. We have been extremely unlucky for not having nation building leaders. The institutions of good governance were given no importance by the leaders from the beginning, Barrister Mainul lamented. He regretted that democracy was rendered unable to work by making journalists and lawyers party activists of undemocratic politics. The undemocratic method of politicisation of professionals to serve class interests was not in our pre-liberation politics. Our journalists and lawyers upheld their professional independence fiercely. He felt bewildered as to how this selfish idea of politicisation of professionals to kill democracy entered Bangladesh. Barrister Mainul found it shameful that the journalists became voice of the party leaders and ceased to be voice of the people. In the same way the lawyers lost interest as a force of the rule of law. The talk show was hosted by eminent journalist Mr Zillur Rahman and participated by Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury, a veteran freedom fighter. He expressed his deep anger and frustration at the mess in public life. He found the people's helplessness as unacceptable. He was most critical of the harassment of Mr Mahfuz Anam the editor of The Daily Star. . NEWS AND VIEWS THAT IMPACT LIMITED CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT "There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." - - - - John Adams 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. Wikimedia BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) Lawmakers clashed Thursday over a Louisiana tax credit for the working poor and whether it should be scrapped or expanded amid the state's deep financial problems. At issue in the House Ways and Means Committee were competing bills about Louisiana's Earned Income Tax Credit, aimed at working people with low to moderate incomes. Rep. Tony Bacala, R-Prairieville, is proposing to end the state tax credit to save Louisiana $47 million a year, to help offset a massive state budget gap. He said that could save some higher education programs and health care services from deep cuts. "I think it has some merit, except we're in a budget crisis," Bacala said of the tax break. He said the state has to make tough choices about what it can afford: "No matter what decision we make, it's going to pinch people." But he ran into pushback from advocacy groups and lawmakers who say the tax credit helps the working poor afford basic life expenses. Rep. Walt Leger, D-New Orleans, wants to double the credit, saying it could help offset the impact of a 1-cent sales tax hike sought by Gov. John Bel Edwards to help rebalance the state budget. "If we're struggling, then so are families in the state of Louisiana," Leger said. "Programs like this help to prop them up in a difficult time." Louisiana faces a budget gap of $850 million to $950 million this year, which must be closed by June 30. Edwards has asked lawmakers gathered in a special session to raise taxes to help offset part of the shortfall. On the books since 2007, the Earned Income Tax Credit piggybacks off a similar federal program, allowing families to receive a state tax credit that equals 3.5 percent of the federal credit. Twenty-nine percent of all tax filers in Louisiana claimed the credit last year, receiving an average $96.93, according to the Louisiana Budget Project, which advocates for poor and moderate-income families. Bacala said only half of states offer similar programs, and he noted Louisiana gives money to people above their state tax liability. "This is not an income tax return. This is an extra check," he said. Supporters of Leger's bill to double the credit said the program allows working people to keep more money to pay their bills and spend in the economy. They said studies show children in families who receive the tax break perform better in school, making them more likely to become taxpaying citizens themselves. "It is one of the very best tools available for fighting poverty," said Jan Moller, director of the Louisiana Budget Project. The House committee didn't make a decision on either bill Thursday. Lawmakers on the panel will consider the whole package of tax proposals together after reviewing all the bills. Planning officials floated an I-49 refinement concept that could utilize the Connectors alignment to repair the interior grid broken by the Evangeline Thruway. A slide shows how surface streets could reconnect under the I-49 Connector as part of a proposal which removes two interior interchanges. Lafayette Consolidated Government Local and regional planning officials rolled out an alternate design concept for the I-49 Connector at project committee meetings on Feb. 18 and Feb 19. While still very much a germ of an idea, the concept would remove some publicly maligned elements of the Connector's preliminary design, namely two full interchanges in Lafayettes urban core. The idea hinges on the use of the Evangeline Thruway as a reconfigured spine for an urban grid within Lafayettes historic core, re-connecting neighborhoods previously severed by the Thruways construction. According to preliminary design concepts distilled from 2003s Record of Decision defining the alignment of the Connector, the Evangeline Thruway from Taft Street to Congress Street would remain open as an ad hoc service road, while the Connector bends west toward the railroad tracks. By eliminating currently proposed full interchanges at Second/Third Street and Johnston Street, the plan presented by engineers and planners with Lafayette Consolidated Government and Acadiana Planning Commission would commandeer the remaining portion of the Thruway to serve as a possible boulevard or patch to the historic surface grid. Planners also recommended removing frontage roads throughout the historic urban core, narrowing the footprint of the Connector's right of way and improving grid interactivity. The Connector would then be elevated from Pinhook Road to Simcoe Street, while the urban grid would traverse the alignment underneath. The preliminary design brought the Connector to grade throughout much of the frontage adjacent to Downtown, including an earthen berm or retaining wall at Jefferson Street. The LCG/APC proposal raises the Connector such that a vibrant grid could be re-established in a manner more conducive to walking paths, street-side commerce and neighborhood revitalization. To allow access to and from the elevated Connector, planners proposed slip lanes near Pinhook and Simcoe that would serve as feeders to the Evangeline grid and emanating surface streets. By removing land and dollar-consuming interchanges, the idea also affords the expansion or possible relocation of the so-called signature bridge concept, which received vocal support from many at the Feb. 18 meeting of the Community Work Group, one of the appointed collaborative committees involved in the ongoing Context Sensitive Solutions process employed by DOTD and its consultants, the Lafayette Connector Partners. This slide shows the current proposed location (red circle) of the signature bridge concept. The latest proposal could open the possibility of expanding or moving the bridge within the Connector's alignment (yellow square). Lafayette Consolidated Government At that Community Work Group presentation, the concept received at least initial exploratory support from many appointees, including some otherwise skeptical of the project. The signature bridge, which One Acadiana CEO Jason El Koubi believes will help define a skyline for the city and improve Lafayettes travel gateways, is a concession to the need for the Connector to provide a tangible aesthetic benefit. One which CWG member John Arcenaux, a Connector skeptic, found at least tolerable. If I have to look at something loud and obnoxious, it better be beautiful, said Arcenaux, a Freetown resident and board chairman of the Lafayette Public Trust Financing Authority. The weakness of a signature bridge concept is that it still remains an additive feature to the citys environment. Beyond that, seminal bridges are generally thought to go over water, not traverse overhead houses and office buildings. Beautiful or not, people who live around the signature bridge, regardless of where it shows up, will have to look up and see it. APC director Monqiue Boulet pointed out that such a bridge should be designed from both above and below, such that the design and its impact is sensitive to nearby residents. A man needs to be able wake up and go get his newspaper, look up at the bridge and be at peace, Boulet said at the Feb. 19 meeting of the Technical Advisory Committee. Theres still plenty of devil in the details of this concept, a caveat heavily stressed by the proposals presenters. Some of the criticism or commentary levied by CWG members like former DOTD Secretary Kam Movassaghi spoke directly to the logistical ramifications of the concept. Removing the interchanges would affect traffic density currently planned for in that region as well its as its utility as a hurricane evacuation route, Movassaghi argued, and must be accounted for in that data. That comment spurned a back and forth among the members that spoke to the heart of the Connectors genetic tension: the conflict between quality of life in the adjacent neighborhoods and the rapid movement of high volumes of traffic. Whether local or not, the Connectors transportation purpose is to improve interstate system connectivity and provide an arguably vital enhancement to Louisianas supposed energy corridor. Part of the conundrum here is you want downtowns to be congested, and highway design is all about relieving congestion, said Harry Weiss, One Acadianas vice president of urban revitalization and development, at the CWG meeting. The decision to present at these most recent meetings reportedly came after a meeting in Baton Rouge featuring representatives from DOTD, LCG, APC and the Federal Highway Administration. Ultimately, it would be the FHWAs discretion if a concept like what LCG/APC presented would be actionable under 2003s Record of Decision. According to John McNamara of AECOM, the consultant company driving the Context Sensitive Solutions process, that federal officials did not kibosh the idea outright is a good sign moving toward establishing a baseline of flexibility. The best way to interpret it, because we havent gotten the FHWA to render an opinion one way or another, is were willing to push the bounds, McNamara told The IND. We as a team, and when I say a team I mean the partners LCG, APC, the FHWA at least they havent said no and DOTD, which I think theyve moved a bit in the last couple of months, are willing to test some big ideas. The CWG and Technical Advisory Committee will revisit the concept at their next meetings on Feb. 25 and Feb. 26, respectively. The meetings are open to public observation. More information can be found on the Connector's website. Pre-purchase property inspection is a relatively new thing in the United Kingdom. Its not something that most people have heard about, but it has become increasingly popular over the last few years with the rise in property prices and increased demand for high quality homes. What are the benefits of pre-purchase building inspection? What can you expect to find out when you pay someone else to inspect your home before you buy it? And what should you look for during an inspection? Many people want to know if theyre buying a house thats been well maintained or if its had any serious problems. If youve found a place on the market that seems attractive, but then discover some issues after moving in, you may not be as excited about buying it as you thought you were. Its important to do your due diligence when looking at properties. A lot goes into making a property appealing to potential buyers, from the landscaping to the flooring to the kitchen appliances. The same applies when inspecting a property there are many things that need checking over to make sure everything is running smoothly. Here are some of the benefits of performing a pre-purchase inspection: You get to see exactly what will happen to your money When you go shopping for a new car, youll probably be shown several different models. You might even be shown one that looks like a great value, but doesnt fit around all of the extra features that you want. When it comes time to actually buy the vehicle, however, you wont have seen how your money will be spent on it once you drive it off the showroom floor. Likewise, when you shop for a new home, you dont really know what youre getting yourself into until you move in. In order to get a feel for whether the home youre considering is what you want, you normally have to spend quite a bit of time inside it. This allows you to learn more about everything that youre going to be spending your hard-earned cash on. A pre-purchase building inspection gives you much the same kind of experience without having to spend thousands of dollars. Since youre paying for the service, you can expect to see exactly what youre paying for, instead of just seeing a vague idea of what you might end up with. You find out about potential major repairs Some buildings are very expensive to maintain, which means that owners often neglect them for the sake of saving money. While youre paying for a building inspection, youre also paying for a professional who knows how to spot signs of trouble and repair work that needs doing. If you notice that a particular area of your new home needs fixing right away, you can call in an expert to take care of it quickly. If you find that theres something wrong with your boiler, you wont have to wait weeks for a plumber to come over and fix it. Instead, youll have access to a solution immediately. You can save hundreds of pounds by finding out about potential problems early on One of the biggest expenses when you first buy a home is the cost of moving in. Many people dont realize this until its too late. Buying a home involves not only paying for the actual house, but also for moving costs, furniture, and other items that have to be moved along with the home. Having a good idea ahead of time of what youre likely to encounter can help you avoid these kinds of costs. If you know youll need to replace the plumbing system, for example, youll be able to put together a budget for the expense and plan accordingly. You can protect your investment by finding out if the homes been well cared for While there are plenty of people who think that houses always look better when theyre newly built, youd be surprised at how well maintained older residences can still look nice. Sometimes, though, those homes need some additional maintenance to keep them looking their best. This could involve repairs that arent so noticeable or small improvements that you wouldnt consider otherwise. Even worse, some houses have fallen into disrepair without anyone noticing. This is why having a professional perform a building inspection prior to purchasing a home is such a big benefit. Not only will it give you insight into the state of the property, but it will also give you peace of mind knowing youre not getting taken advantage of. As long as youre aware of the potential pitfalls, youll have less reason to worry about the state of your new home. You can use information gathered during a building inspection to negotiate a lower price If youre worried about buying a home because you suspect that it may need extensive renovation work, you may already have a rough idea of how much work youll need to do to bring it up to scratch. That knowledge can come in handy if you decide to buy the home. You can use all of the details that you gather during a building inspection to present a realistic picture of what the home is worth to prospective buyers. If a potential buyer thinks that the home is worth more than what you paid for it, you can try negotiating a lower price. You can sell your home faster and for more money If you decide to list your home on the market soon after buying it, youll need to price it accurately in order to attract buyers. But if youve already done a thorough building inspection, youll know exactly what work is needed and what the current market conditions are. In other words, youll be able to make a more accurate estimate of the amount of money youve invested in the home and how much its worth. If you find that youre selling your house for close to its full market value, you can use this information to convince the potential buyer that your home is worth the asking price. Even if youre planning to stay in the home for a while before you decide to sell, the fact that you did a thorough building inspection will give you more confidence when listing it. Prospective buyers will know exactly what theyre paying for. Your home will hold its value longer As mentioned earlier, the value of a home depends heavily upon the condition of the building itself. If your home is in bad shape, potential buyers wont be interested in buying it. On the other hand, if youve performed a thorough building inspection and know what sort of repairs are necessary, you can offer your prospective buyer a compelling reason to invest in your property. When you buy a home, youre essentially agreeing to have it inspected periodically to ensure that it stays in top shape. Not only does this allow you to avoid expensive repairs down the road, but it can also increase the value of your home. You can make smart decisions about property investments Buying real estate isnt as simple as just driving a couple of minutes to pick up a house. There are lots of considerations involved, ranging from location to cost. The same is true when youre investing in property. If you find a house that meets all of your requirements, youll want to make sure that you have a solid understanding of where it stands with regards to the rest of the market. If you havent spent enough time researching the area, you could inadvertently end up with a bad deal. There are lots of resources available online that can help you determine the overall level of competition in your area. They can also help you figure out if there are any properties that meet your requirements that you didnt know about. If you own rental property, you can use the information to identify tenants who might cause damage If you own rental property and youve noticed that certain tenants consistently cause damage, you can use the results of a building inspection to identify them. You can then contact them directly to let them know that youre watching them closely and that you dont appreciate the problem theyre causing. They might start taking better care of their homes, which would be good news for everyone. It could also be the case that youll find out that theyre responsible for previous damages that werent caught during a previous visit. You can make smarter decisions about hiring contractors If youve hired contractors to build or repair your home, you might want to ask them for references. However, unless you perform a thorough building inspection, you might not know exactly what to look for. For instance, maybe you only checked the roof for leaks or the walls for cracks. You might not have looked underneath the foundation for anything that could cause a future issue. By performing a building inspection, you can ensure that you hire reputable contractors who will be trustworthy with your money. You can avoid purchasing a home thats in poor condition Of course, the main benefit of structural inspections perth is that it helps you avoid purchasing a home thats in poor condition. Before you make the decision to buy a home, you should do whatever you can to find out about the state of the building. You can also ask your realtor about what sorts of inspections are typically recommended. Some agents say that its standard practice to check the heating system, the roof, the electrical wiring, and the floors. Others will tell you that they recommend that you check the entire structure. Either way, if you choose to hire an inspector, youll find out exactly what needs to be fixed and how much it will cost to do so. As a result, it can be concluded that a pre-purchase building inspection is highly important for the buyers because it provides transparency regarding the current conditions of the structure. Additionally, the building owner is made aware of any upgrades or repairs that are required, which could lead to a fair deal throughout the purchasing and selling process. I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. -Jesus -John 14:6 KSN&C is intended to be a place for well-reasoned civil discourse...not to suggest that we dont appreciate the witty retort or pithy observation. Have at it. But we do not invite the anonymous flaming too often found in social media these days. This is a destination for folks to state your name and speak your piece. It is important to note that, while the Moderator serves as Faculty Regent for Eastern Kentucky University, all comments offered by the Moderator on KSN&C are his own opinions and do not necessarily represent the views of the Board of Regents, the university administration, faculty, or any members of the university community. On KSN&C, all authors are responsible for their own comments. See full disclaimer at the bottom of the page. Parece que todos los dias la tecnologia se hace cargo de otro trabajo, y estas ocupaciones obsoletas no son una excepcion. Y es que los tiempos cambian, y debido a The S.P.D. Murder of John T. Williams On a sunny, warm Seattle August day in 2010, Native American wood carver John T. 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. Its a small world. And even though advice to writers always includes avoidance of cliches, Im using it, despite that advice, because its so appropriate. Heres why. In December, I had an unexpected opportunity to visit the Caribbean island of Jamaica. Richard Sitler, a photographer for The Southern Illinoisan, had taken an assignment updating information for Fodors Travel Guide. We share a love of traveling, and he had a special connection to Jamaica. He was there with the U.S. Peace Corps, mostly in the countrys interior, serving as an educator, and he returned a couple of times for short stints with the corps. He also has traveled the world on a number of photography assignments. Richard says he invited me on this Fodors trip to be his assistant along the way, but I still think it was mostly his humanitarian nature, expanding even to his friends and colleagues. We landed in Montego Bay, on the northern coast, and headed to our first stop in a rental car that Richard drove sitting on the wrong side of the car and driving on the wrong side of the road. Jamaica was ruled by Great Britain for hundreds of years and still adheres to that particular rule of the road. We headed east along the northern coast and arrived in Ocho Rios, where we spent several days. Then it was on to the southeastern coastal town of Port Antonio, back up to Dunns River Falls and Ochie, then down to Kingston, on the southwest coast. Nine days later, I took a bus back to Montego Bay; Richard stayed on alone to finish his assignment in Negril and surrounding beaches. When I arrived in St. Louis very late in the evening, I realized I had left my jacket on the seat in the boarding area of my previous stop. The temperature here was in the low 30s, and I had to wait on my hotel shuttle. So, I gathered myself and my luggage into a tight, little corner of the outside waiting area. It wasnt long, minutes really, when a man and a woman joined me. I asked the obvious questions Where have you been? Where are you from? and was delighted when they said they were from Southern Illinois, a town called Marion. We chatted about our trips and the high cost of parking; I dont remember if we exchanged names. Their shuttle arrived first, and off they went. A few days later, back at work, a family emergency made it necessary for me to fill in for Richard, photographing the Creal Springs home of Anna and Robert Bordenave, which is featured in this issue on page 22. Marilyn Halstead, a reporter and food writer for The Southern, went with me, armed with camera, to help capture images. We toured the home with writer Joe Szynkowski, and, toward the end of the morning, we were gathered in the entry way, saying our goodbyes and thank-yous. I apologized again for my terrible cold and mentioned something about the cure being a return trip to Jamaica as soon as possible. We just got back from the Dominican, Anna said. Ah, ha! Now I know where I know you from, I exclaimed. They, too, had been trying to figure out why I looked so familiar. The three of us had spent a few freezing minutes together, outside Lambert airport a week before. In January, I left my job at The Southern after 27 years and eight months. And while I have lots of plans and projects planned, I am sure I will see some of you out and about, because it is, after all, a small world. CAIRO An attorney for The Alexander County Housing Authority board told the Illinois Attorney Generals Office, in a letter, that members regret not allowing citizens time to address the board during the Jan. 19 meeting at which they hired Executive Director Jason Ashmore. Metropolis-based attorney Rick Abell, on behalf of the board, stated that board members did not realize the law required they allow members of the public time to address the board during specially called meetings. This Jan. 19 meeting occurred outside of the boards regular schedule, with the exclusive purpose of appointing Ashmore to the post. Durbin representatives meet with Cairo residents, Ashmore working without pay CAIRO -- Shanice Hardamon pointed to the two bullet holes in her apartment door. The Illinois Open Meetings Act requires that all governmental boards allow time for public comment, and Abell said he has advised board members of this fact, and they will comply going forward. "Unfortunately, at the time, the board and its chair were operating under the misunderstanding that it was not necessary under the law to provide an opportunity for the public to comment at a special meeting The board simply made a mistake, Abell wrote in the letter. Two complaints filed The boards statement was in response to two complaints filed with the Attorney Generals Public Access Bureau alleging the meeting violated the law when citizens were denied the right to speak. The Public Access Bureaus counselors, whose job it is to make determinations about alleged violations of the Open Meetings and Freedom of Information acts, have not yet weighed in on the complaints. The Southern Illinoisan Publisher John Pfeifer filed one complaint, and Phillip Matthews, a pastor based in Cairo and outspoken critic of the housing authority board, filed the other. The newspaper filed the complaint, Pfeifer said, because holding governmental bodies accountable to citizens and the law is a principle duty of the media. At that meeting, several members of the public who opposed the hiring of Ashmore asked for time to address the board. Board Chairman Andy Clarke, ignoring their requests, abruptly closed the meeting after allowing Ashmore to address the board, and the three board members quickly exited the room. Chairman had denied violation Though Abell's letter admits to the error, Clarke has never gone so far. At first claiming the law didn't require him to allow people to speak, he later stated counsel advised him he had misinterpreted the Open Meetings Act. He said in a previous interview that at future meetings he will allow more time for people to speak up, and said his only mistake was not pausing long enough at the end of the meeting when he inquired about whether there was any more business to come before the board. The Southern Illinoisan recorded the meeting, and a review of that recording showed that Clarke, at no time, not even briefly, invited comment from the public. Ashmore, asked in a recent interview for his opinion on whether the board violated the act at the Jan. 19 meeting, said he did not believe they did. He said he did not think it was necessary to have a new vote at a meeting that fully complies with the law. With three of five board members in attendance, a quorum was present, and the meeting notice and agenda were posted in accordance with the law. Attendees opposed Ashmore's hiring Several citizens who attended the Jan. 19 meeting said afterward they were concerned about the decision to hire Ashmore because he did not receive the blessing of HUDs Fair Housing director in Chicago, as required under the terms of a compliance agreement. They also cited his lack of housing experience, and his plans to commute daily from Sesser, where he serves as mayor. They wished to address the board with their concerns for the official record. Aggravating the situation that day was the fact that the majority of the citizens who were in attendance at the meeting are black, and the three board members who attended and denied them the right to speak are white, as is Ashmore. In August, the housing authority board entered into a compliance agreement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Developments Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity division. The agreement was to settle various Title VI violations stemming from a 2014 HUD review alleging discriminatory policies and practices disproportionately affecting African-American residents and workers. New housing director touts progress one week on the job in Cairo CAIRO Sesser Mayor Jason Ashmore has sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Housing and U It is under the terms of that compliance agreement that HUDs Region V Fair Housing Director Maurice McGough was to approve an executive director candidate before the board took official action. After board members ignored McGoughs request that they not hire Ashmore, and go back and review other applicants, McGough wrote a letter to the housing authority stating it was in violation of its compliance agreement, for this and other reasons, and was failing to meet its Civil Rights Act obligations. HUD yet to take action The letter listed possible ramifications that could include pulling funding, appointing a third-party receiver and forwarding the case to the Department of Justice, but there has been no further public communication since about HUDs plans. HUD spokeswoman Gina Rodriquez said earlier this week that the federal agency would provide an update in a timely manner after a decision, or further official communication with the housing authority, takes place. Individuals close to the matter indicate that the issue is being discussed by HUD official in Chicago as well as top-level officials in Washington, D.C. U.S. Sen. Dick Durbins office also recently met with interested parties in Cairo, and is part of the discussion. As to the Jan. 19 meeting where Ashmore was hired, even if the Attorney Generals Office determines the Open Meetings Act was violated, as the housing authority now admits to doing, that doesnt mean the votes made within that meeting would be overturned. But Matthews, who filed one of the complaints and was among those who wished to address the board on Jan. 19, said the most appropriate thing would be for the board to invalidate the meeting, and hold the meeting again in full compliance with the law. Ashmore has been working since that day without pay, because the next scheduled meeting where the board anticipated voting on his contract was abruptly canceled. A meeting has been scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday in Cairo, in the board room of the Connell F. Smith apartment complex. An agenda has not yet been posted. Policy drafted on public comments On a Facebook page he created for the Alexander County Housing Authority, Ashmore recently posted a draft policy for governing public comments at all future meetings. Governmental bodies are allowed and encouraged to establish reasonable rules for public comments, such as limiting time for speakers, and other measures intended to keep order and allow for the normal flow of business. CARBONDALE State Rep. Terri Bryant, R-Murphysboro, will host a news conference at noon Saturday at Carbondale Civic Center to announce the introduction of legislation dubbed "Molly's Law" that Bryant's office says will strengthen provisions of Illinois's Freedom of Information Act and Wrongful Death statutes. The legislation is named for Molly Young, a Carbondale woman who died in 2012 from a gunshot wound to the head in the apartment of her former boyfriend, Richie Minton, who was a Carbondale police dispatcher at the time. Since Young's death, questions have persisted about whether she committed suicide, as an initial autopsy stated, or was murdered, as Young's father, Larry Young, has maintained. The law would change the way the statute of limitations is measured in wrongful death lawsuits. Under the new law, the two-year statute of limitations would begin on the date the information is released that causes the lawsuit. "Mollys Law" also would increase the fines for not releasing information that has been requested through the Freedom of Information Act to $10,000 plus $1,000 for each day information is withheld. Larry Young has sought documents related to the investigation of his daughter's death from Illinois State Police and the Carbondale Police Department through FOIA requests. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan issued a binding opinion last week instructing ISP to turn over crime-scene photographs, ruling that ISP's denial to release the photos violated the Freedom of Information Act. A judge in May 2015 dismissed a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Young, ruling that he failed to file the lawsuit within the two years of Molly Young's death. Were going to make sure everyone gets the opportunity to have their day in court, Bryant said. For me, it is a victims right bill. Bryant will be joined by House Republican Leader Jim Durkin and Molly Young's father, Larry Young, and members of Molly Youngs family. CHICAGO David Fite had already earned the 21 Boy Scout merit badges needed to earn the coveted rank of Eagle. But he still had to complete a community service project. Now 16, he'd always been a gung-ho scout, dutiful, polite and committed. But he'd also been disappointed with the organization's longstanding ban on openly gay scouts and leaders, so much so that he'd considered quitting. "I knew it wasn't right," said Fite, who has many family friends who are gay or lesbian some of them honorary "aunts" and "uncles" who've given him money for camp and other scouting projects over the years. Instead of leaving his beloved Troop 115, the usually quiet teen decided to make some noise, writing letters and speaking out with other scouts and adults who also opposed the bans. And he knew his Eagle project was his best chance to make a statement. Though the Boy Scouts lifted the ban on openly gay scouts in 2013, the ban on gay leaders remained when he laid out his proposal early last year: community service projects in Chicago's main gay and lesbian neighborhood. It's what a Boy Scout does, he said stands up for his family and his community. "In my mind, I knew I was doing the right thing," he said. His plan had two parts. First, he, family members, including his mother, Jennifer Fite, and grandparents, and a group of volunteers and students at Chicago's Nettelhorst School would decorate around the school for the nearby Gay Pride Parade in June 2015. Then he and his mom would host a meal and dance party and distribute backpacks, transit cards and other gifts for young people who gather regularly for support and socializing at the Center on Halsted, which serves Chicago's lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual residents. Some are homeless or "couch surfing" with friends because their families have kicked them out. It was shortly after Fite completed his Eagle project that the Boy Scouts lifted their ban on openly gay leaders, too. These changes have not been without controversy. Several religious denominations, including Mormon and Southern Baptist, collectively sponsor close to half of all Scout units. In response to the changes in policies on openly gay scouts and leaders, some churches have considered creating their own scouting organization. Boy Scout officials in states such as Utah also say they've had trouble raising funds since the bans were lifted. End of Scouts' ban on gays prompts elation, alarm SALT LAKE CITY The lifting of the Boy Scouts of America's ban on gay adult leaders prompte For Fite, part of his Eagle project's purpose was to show the gay community "that not everybody in the Boy Scouts is like that." In September, he made his final project presentation to the local Scout council, detailing what he had done and showing photos. He entered the session nervously, but emerged smiling broadly: He won final approval. He received his Eagle award at a ceremony at a Roman Catholic Mass last month and said earning the award on his own terms felt important. "I'm also proud of the Boy Scout organization for making this change and being the change that other people want to see in the world," he said. "I think it says that if you fight hard enough, you can change anything." Sixth District Rep. Jim Clyburn is ready to endorse Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. A person close to Clyburn tells The Associated Press that the congressman will publicly back Clinton before the primary. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak ahead of the formal endorsement. Clyburn is one of the top African-American leaders on Capitol Hill and the highest-ranking elected Democrat in South Carolina. Clyburns backing should provide Clinton with a boost in a state where black voters are likely to make up a majority of the Democratic primary electorate. Clintons campaign announced on Thursday that it would announce a momentous endorsement at 11 a.m. Friday at Allen University in Columbia. Also on Friday, the Bernie Sanders campaign announced that activist Dr. Cornel West will visit Bamberg at 6 p.m. Friday. Hell hold a town hall-style meeting at T&D banquet hall at 3431 Main Highway. West previously campaigned in Orangeburg for Sanders, a Democratic candidate for president. The Democratic presidential primary will be Saturday, Feb. 27. The Times and Democrat contributed to this report. The Edisto High School Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps will be making two trips during the remainder of the 2015-16 school year. Trustees unanimously approved on Tuesday an April 13-16 trip to Florida, where students will visit classic battlement and historic sites at St. Augustine. Theyll also take a look at college opportunities at the University of Central Florida and advanced technology at Universal Studios. The AFJROTC also received permission to take part in summer camp at the Citadel from June 6-11. In other business, Carver-Edisto Middle School presented a program about courage, the Orangeburg County Community of Character trait for February. Thomas Rhode, of Rhodes Graduation Services, presented a Josten ring to each schools teacher of the year. A former bank employee is accused of cashing $19,000 in fake checks. Maleiah Asakee Phason Clayton, 23, of 173 Raymond Court, St. Matthews, surrendered to the Orangeburg Department of Public Safety. Municipal Judge Barney Houser released her on a $10,000 personal recognizance bond on Thursday. ODPS Detective Delores Felder charged Clayton with bank fraud, a felony offense which, if convicted, carries a maximum fine of $10,000, up to five years in prison or both. A warrant accuses Clayton of executing a scheme to defraud BB&T Bank at 500 Bennett Street, where she was employed. The warrant states that she cashed 19 fictitious checks in the amount of $1,000 each from a BB&T account between Nov. 13 and Nov. 17, 2015. Ms. Clayton had knowledge that these checks were fictitious but cashed them anyway. Giving cash out to several payees/suspects totaling $19,000, the warrant states. The other suspects, who have not yet been named, will be charged with forgery, the warrant states. Claytons alleged bank fraud was captured on the banks video surveillance. Ms. Clayton admitted in a written statement that she had knowledge these checks were fictitious but she cashed them anyway to pay off a debt she owed to someone, the warrant states. BB&T is currently at a monetary loss of $19,000, according to the warrant. Clayton told the court she would need the representation of a public defender. Gerald and Faye Stoudemire opened Little Mountain Gun and Supply near Columbia in 1987. In the nearly three decades since, the couple has listened to dozens of presidential candidates debate many issues. But one issue has always remained on their radar gun control. This year may be more intense. Republican and Democratic presidential candidates are campaigning against the backdrop of President Obamas call for greater restrictions on guns, including expansion of background checks, and the tragic slayings in a Charleston church allegedly carried out by a young man who should not have been able to purchase a gun. Gerald Stoudemire fixes firearms in his garage and has been teaching concealed weapons permit classes since 1996. He said "every time (President Obama) opens his mouth" gun sales and CWP classes increase. I stay informed on the gun laws, pro or con, because of the threat we have gotten from the anti-gun establishment in the White House, Stoudemire said. I just feel theres more talk about gun control in this years primary. Republican candidates have reached out to gun owners, some challenging President Obamas proposal for more gun control. Front-runner and real estate tycoon Donald Trump recently said there is an assault on the Second Amendment. However, Democratic candidates claim support for the expansion of background checks. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, leading in the states Democratic primary, released a gun control ad featuring Charlestons Rev. Anthony Thompson, husband of one of the Charleston shooting victims. In the ad, Thompson draws on Clintons promise of an expanded background check system, saying she can make sure guns dont get into the wrong hands. The ad hit close to home as the wrong hands being referred to are those of alleged shooter Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old who confessed to shooting nine churchgoers at Charlestons Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church last summer. Roof, who had been arrested for a drug charge, should not have been able to purchase the Glock handgun. Roof had been arrested by the Columbia Police Department months before acquiring the handgun and was detained at the Lexington County Detention Center. But a county clerk mistakenly listed the Lexington Sheriffs Department as the arresting agency. A county corrections officer changed the records two days later, but the change did not show on the FBIs system, causing confusion that allowed the three-day mandatory waiting period for gun purchases to expire without flagging Roofs arrest. The tragic shooting re-ignited a local and national discussion about background checks. The issue had quieted down since the Senate in 2013 refused to act on Obamas proposed legislation requiring background checks on all private sales or transfers. In January, President Obama announced executive actions, including hiring 230 additional FBI members to perform more effective background checks, to reduce gun violence. Between 2001 and 2010, 5,991 people were killed by guns, according to the Center for American Progress. South Carolina also ranks 11th in the United States for the highest gun death rate, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. And the number of people shooting at cops increased almost 45 percent, jumping from 18 instances in 2014 to 26 instances in 2015, according to SLED data. Democratic lawmakers in South Carolinas General Assembly have introduced gun control legislation this year that includes a ban on assault weapons and the registration of firearms. In Washington, Rep. James Clyburn, D-SC, introduced legislation to eliminate the so-called Charleston loophole illuminated by Roofs illegal gun purchase. The bill looks to guarantee that no gun is sold by a licensed dealer until a background check is completed. The number of background checks in the Palmetto state is already increasing. There were 327,000 in 2015, the second most ever in the state. The highest number of background checks occurred in 2012, the year of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting in Connecticut. South Carolina gun businesses have mixed feelings about background checks. Among the walls and shelves of Gerald Stoudemire's gun and supply store in Little Mountain, you will find signs of support for the National Rifle Association. Stoudemire, also the president of the National Rifle Associations Gun Owners of South Carolina, said expanding the background check system is a mistake because people wont be able to hand guns down to family members unregulated. Wayne Batson, owner of Sharpshooters Gun Club and Indoor Range in Greenville, said the three-day waiting period is too short because of the amount of labor force required to a background check. Batson said it should be extended to seven days. According to a recent poll, 92 percent of Americans support background checks on all buyers. Also, 80 percent of South Carolinians support requiring gun buyers to wait until a background check is completed before taking possession of the firearm, according to a Winthrop University poll released in October. Some gun owners are conflicted. Roe Young, a Columbia resident, said its a complicated issue but government should focus on education and mental health. And while he felt background checks are needed, he said additional background checks arent going to do much. Daniel Lee, a Greenville resident, said he supports the current background check system because three days gives the FBI enough time to run the check and stop the person from buying the gun illegally. It also allows the person time to consider their actions before committing a gun crime. Gun owners are among the most circumspect in how they will cast votes in South Carolinas primaries. None interviewed were willing to share who they would vote for. Donald Trump is still the GOP front-runner in South Carolina with 42 percent, according to the most recent CBS News/YouGov poll. Cruz placed second with 20 percent. On the Democratic side, Clinton leads with 59 percent, just ousting Sanders with 40 percent. Stoudemire said he believes Trump is leading the polls because he is saying what people want to hear and because others are trying to be too polite. South Carolinas Republican primary will be held Saturday, Feb. 20 and the Democratic primary will be held Saturday, Feb. 27. By Andrew Moore and John Del Bianco Carolina Reporter Gerald and Faye Stoudemire opened Little Mountain Gun and Supply near Columbia in 1987. In the nearly three decades since, the couple has listened to dozens of presidential candidates debate many issues. But one issue has always remained on their radar gun control. This year may be more intense. Republican and Democratic presidential candidates are campaigning against the backdrop of President Obamas call for greater restrictions on guns, including expansion of background checks, and the tragic slayings in a Charleston church allegedly carried out by a young man who should not have been able to purchase a gun. I stay informed on the gun laws, pro or con, because of the threat we have gotten from the anti-gun establishment in the White House, Stoudemire said. I just feel theres more talk about gun control in this years primary. Republican candidates have reached out to gun owners, some challenging President Obamas proposal for more gun control. Front-runner and real estate tycoon Donald Trump recently said there is an assault on the Second Amendment. However, Democratic candidates claim support for the expansion of background checks. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, leading in the states Democratic primary, released a gun control ad featuring Charlestons Rev. Anthony Thompson, husband of one of the Charleston shooting victims. In the ad, Thompson draws on Clintons promise of an expanded background check system, saying she can make sure guns dont get into the wrong hands. The ad hit close to home as the wrong hands being referred to are those of alleged shooter Dylann Roof, the 21-year-old who confessed to shooting nine churchgoers at Charlestons Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church last summer. Roof, who had been arrested for a drug charge, should not have been able to purchase the Glock handgun. Roof had been arrested by the Columbia Police Department months before acquiring the handgun and was detained at the Lexington County Detention Center. But a county clerk mistakenly listed the Lexington Sheriffs Department as the arresting agency. A county corrections officer changed the records two days later, but the change did not show on the FBIs system, causing confusion that allowed the three-day mandatory waiting period for gun purchases to expire without flagging Roofs arrest. The tragic shooting re-ignited a local and national discussion about background checks. The issue had quieted down since the Senate in 2013 refused to act on Obamas proposed legislation requiring background checks on all private sales or transfers. In January, President Obama announced executive actions, including hiring 230 additional FBI members to perform more effective background checks, to reduce gun violence. Between 2001 and 2010, 5,991 people were killed by guns, according to the Center for American Progress. South Carolina also ranks 11th in the United States for the highest gun death rate, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. And the number of people shooting at cops increased almost 45 percent, jumping from 18 instances in 2014 to 26 instances in 2015, according to SLED data. Democratic lawmakers in South Carolinas General Assembly have introduced gun control legislation this year that includes a ban on assault weapons and the registration of firearms. In Washington, Rep. James Clyburn, D-SC, introduced legislation to eliminate the so-called Charleston loophole illuminated by Roofs illegal gun purchase. The bill looks to guarantee that no gun is sold by a licensed dealer until a background check is completed. The number of background checks in the Palmetto state is already increasing. There were 327,000 in 2015, the second most ever in the state. The highest number of background checks occurred in 2012, the year of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting in Connecticut. South Carolina gun businesses have mixed feelings about background checks. Stoudemire, also the president of the National Rifle Associations Gun Owners of South Carolina, said expanding the background check system is a mistake because people wont be able to hand guns down to family members unregulated. Wayne Batson, owner of Sharpshooters Gun Club and Indoor Range in Greenville, said the three-day waiting period is too short because of the amount of labor force required to a background check. Batson said it should be extended to seven days. According to a recent poll, 92 percent of Americans support background checks on all buyers. Also, 80 percent of South Carolinians support requiring gun buyers to wait until a background check is completed before taking possession of the firearm, according to a Winthrop University poll released in October. Some gun owners are conflicted. Roe Young, a Columbia resident, said its a complicated issue but government should focus on education and mental health. And while he felt background checks are needed, he said additional background checks arent going to do much. Daniel Lee, a Greenville resident, said he supports the current background check system because three days gives the FBI enough time to run the check and stop the person from buying the gun illegally. It also allows the person time to consider their actions before committing a gun crime. Gun owners are among the most circumspect in how they will cast votes in South Carolinas primaries. None interviewed were willing to share who they would vote for. Donald Trump is still the GOP front-runner in South Carolina with 42 percent, according to the most recent CBS News/YouGov poll. Cruz placed second with 20 percent. On the Democratic side, Clinton leads with 59 percent, just ousting Sanders with 40 percent. Stoudemire said he believes Trump is leading the polls because he is saying what people want to hear and because others are trying to be too polite. South Carolinas Republican primary will be held Saturday, Feb. 20 and the Democratic primary will be held Saturday, Feb. 27. Find your polling place here. After two terms of failed leadership from President Barack Obama, America desperately needs a Commander-in-Chief who has the leadership skills to keep us safe in a world that is dangerously close to spiraling out of control. Governor Jeb Bush is the man who best meets the Commander-in-Chief test. As a World War II veteran and former U.S. Senator and Republican presidential nominee, I am deeply impressed by Jebs commitment to our military and the veterans who sacrificed to keep us safe. Twelve Medal of Honor recipients, including South Carolinians, Major General James Livingston and Corporal Kyle Carpenter, 42 retired admirals and generals, and leading national security experts like former Secretaries of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff and Tom Ridge, and former CIA Director Michael Hayden have joined me in supporting Jeb because he is a strong leader with a steady hand. Jeb is the conservative we all trust to rebuild our military, destroy ISIS and repair our alliances around the world. Governor Bush subscribes to the Reagan philosophy of peace through strength. Jeb knows that America must have superior military might to project power abroad and to deter our enemies from taking actions that threaten our national security interests. That is why Jeb has outlined a detailed plan to strengthen our military, which has been gutted by $1 trillion of Barack Obamas defense cuts. Jeb will increase the Army by 40,000 soldiers, increase the Marines by 4,000 and replenish the Navy, all while modernizing the weapons systems and equipment that are provided to our servicemen and women. As the Commander-in-Chief of the Florida National Guard, Jeb personally called more than 100 families of fallen soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. He understands fully what it means to send Americas young men and women into harms way and he would never do so without a clearly defined strategy that empowers them to carry out their mission effectively and return home safely. The war against radical Islamic terrorism is the war of this generation, and it must be won to keep our homeland safe. ISIS, which commands 40,000 battle-tested terrorists, now presides over a caliphate in the Middle East the size of the state of Indiana. Each day that Barack Obama ignores this threat is a day that ISIS grows stronger. Once again, Governor Bush stands alone in outlining the most detailed and realistic strategy to destroy ISIS. Jeb will mobilize an international coalition of our Middle East partners and European allies so we can fight against ISIS over there before they can wage jihadist attacks against our homeland. Governor Bush is also committed to reforming the Veterans Affairs Department to ensure that veterans receive the quality health care they deserve. The VA scandal that resulted in the deaths of thousands of veterans was a national disgrace. Jeb will take decisive action to ensure it never happens again by reforming civil service laws so incompetent bureaucrats can be fired. Jeb will also provide veterans with the right to obtain their health care through a private health plan. Governor Bush proved that competition and school choice worked in improving public education in Florida where graduation rates have increased by nearly 50 percent since his reforms were enacted. He correctly believes the same dynamic will hold true at the VA once veterans are given the right to choose a health plan that best suits their individual needs. Our veterans should not be forced to accept what the VA bureaucracy says is best for them. They deserve the right to choose from a variety of different health plans. Governor Bush was a transformational leader in Florida who made his state the national leader in job creation, while balancing eight budgets and cutting taxes by $19 billion. He managed Florida through an unprecedented eight hurricanes and four tropical storms over a 16-month period. Now he is putting forward the most conservative and responsible solutions to the thorniest domestic and national security problems facing our nation. Of all the candidates running, Jeb Bush is the most prepared to lead on day one of his administration. I am confident that he will be a Commander-in-Chief who will make our party and nation proud, and I urge my fellow Republicans in South Carolina to vote for him on February 20. Bob Dole was the Republican nominee for president in 1996, the former U.S. Senate Majority Leader and represented the people of Kansas for more than 30 years in the Congress. One poll after another shows billionaire Donald Trump leaving South Carolina with a victory in Saturdays Republican presidential primary. Late developments seem to assure the result. Trumps appeal to 30 percent and more of the GOP primary electorate is being helped by his critics: President Barack Obama saying Trump is not a person who should hold the nations highest office. Opponent Ted Cruz challenging Trump to a courtroom showdown. Popular S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley criticizing him and endorsing opponent Marco Rubio. Pope Francis questioning Trumps Christianity. Always a target of Trump and the GOP field, the president only serves to strengthen the opposition with his criticism. And he singled out Trump. Being president is a serious job, Obama said. Its not hosting a talk show or a reality show. Its not promotion. Its not marketing. Its hard. And a lot of people count on us getting it right. And its not a matter of pandering and doing whatever will get you in the news on a given day. Obama acknowledged the other contenders, but said further, Trump says in more interesting ways what the other candidates are saying as well. Cruz, hoping to get out of South Carolina with second place, now states he knew the cordial relationship he had with Trump, both positioning themselves as outsiders and anti-establishment, would come to an end sooner or later. It has, with Trump threatening to sue Cruz over political ads. Inviting Trump to do just that, Cruz goes so far as to say he would like to cross examine Trump in a courtroom. All this comes after Cruz has consistently begun painting Trump as a candidate who is losing it with his fiery retorts and outright disrespect of other candidates and anyone who criticizes him. Trump supporters love it. Haleys endorsement of Rubio was no shock, though Jeb Bush surely hoped the governor would join U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham at his side. As far back as her response to Obamas State of the Union, Haley made clear she would not support divisiveness, referencing Trump in every way but by name. Of course, then and now, Trump fired back at the governor, calling her weak in dealings with the federal government and her endorsement of no particular consequence. The 30-plus percent of voters backing Trump already knew Haley was not going to support him. As much as the governor was elected in 2010 as anti-establishment, she is now the establishment. She may sway votes that would have gone to Bush, John Kasich or even Cruz, but not those for Trump. And then there is Pope Francis. With Trump having begun his surge to national prominence in the GOP race with a controversial stand on immigration, the Catholic leader did him a favor by calling attention to Trump in the most high profile of ways. In the wake of Francis visit to Mexico, he on Thursday said Trump is not Christian if he wants to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the gospel. Never mind that all other GOP contenders in one form or another have promised to control immigration with an actual wall or its enforcement equivalent, the pope singled out Trump. Why? Because Trump is the one who speaks boldly about the matter. After years of hearing politicians promise to deal with illegal immigration, Trump supporters have faith his tough talk will be more than words. Trumps response to the pope: For a religious leader to question a persons faith is disgraceful. I am proud to be a Christian and as president I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened. So Trump marches on toward what is likely to be a long campaign. While the temptation is to say he will self-destruct as a candidate, no foe any longer should be confident of such. As long as Trump continues to attract those who believe he would be a strong president unafraid to take on anyone and anything, he is likely to hold the roughly one-third of GOP primary voters in his corner. As long as the field of GOP candidates remains large enough to continue splintering the vote, the challenge for Trump will be to grow his support beyond 30-plus percent. As difficult as that may be, many Trump critics only seem to help by making him and his positions the focal point of the campaign. Even people who disapprove of Trumps demeanor and his mouth are being swayed by his outright rejection of conventional political behavior. His critics only harden the hearts of Trump supporters. Strange Thoughts on Films. Turn Off Your Mind, Relax & Float Downstream. 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. Believe it or not, Thoughts On The Parsha is over I am looking forward to another year of learning the parshiyos and sharing my thoughts with you. Thank you again. Years Old! Thanks to all of you who have encouraged me to write each week. We started the first week three year's agowith about 30 readers. Now,, Thoughts on the Parsha has expanded and directly reaches hundreds of people each week and shared with many many more! There are readers across the United States, Israel, Russia, Central and South America, England, France, and Australia! Fellow Blog Readers, I am proud to be a friend and fan of our resident photographer: Tambako the Jaguar. Unless you have seen the full body of his work, you cannot know the excellence of his talent. Therefore, I encourage you to click on the following links, "like" his Facebook page, and get to know him better. He's not only one of the most talented animal photographers out there, but he is also one heck of a nice person. Enjoy! Tambako's bio: http://www.flickr.com/people/tambako/ More info and images: http://greenbuzzz.net/environment/40-exceptional-and-breathtaking-big-cat-photographs-by-emmanuel-keller/ And... tambako.ch Friend him here: https://www.facebook.com/tambakophotography >^..^< Nicht Ihr Computer? Dann konnen Sie fur die Anmeldung ein Fenster zum privaten Surfen offnen. Weitere Informationen /By Azernews/ By Aynur Karimova The Accounting Chamber of Azerbaijan has discussed a bill on amendments to the state budget for 2016 and the budget of the State Social Protection Fund. The Chamber reported that during the discussions the participants were informed about Azerbaijan's current macroeconomic situation, which led to the revision of the state budget, as well as the main directions of revenue and expenditure, budget deficit and the financing sources. The meeting also considered reports over the changes to the budget of the State Social Protection Fund for 2016. Taking into account that both bills were developed in accordance with the requirements of the legislation, the Board of the Accounting Chamber decided to submit its comments on the documents to the Parliament of Azerbaijan. Under the amendments to the state budget for 2016, which were submitted to the consideration of the Parliament, the budget revenues are projected at 16.822 billion manats ($10.6 billion), while budget expenditures - at 18.495 billion manats ($11.65 billion). The budget deficit will amount to 1.673 billion manats ($1.05 billion). Thus, the revenue part of the state budget will be increased by 15.5 percent, while the expenditure part - 13.7 percent. Transfers from the Taxes Ministry will increase by 6.2 percent - to 7.01 billion manats ($4.42 billion), and the State Customs Committee - by 13.8 percent - to 1.81 billion manats ($1.14 billion). Transfers from the country's state oil fund SOFAZ will be increased by 1.615 billion manats ($1.02 billion), or 26.9 percent, and amount to 7.615 billion manats ($4.796 billion). As a result, transfers from SOFAZ will provide 45.3 percent of the revenue part of the state budget for 2016. Other budget revenues will increase by 13 million manats ($8.2 million) and amount to 75 million manats ($47.24 million). The parameters of the state budget were revised given the price of oil at $25 per barrel. Forecasts of the approved budget were based on oil prices of $50 per barrel. Earlier, the budget revenues for 2016 were projected at 14.566 billion manats ($9.17 billion), while budget expenditures - at 16.264 billion manats ($10.24 billion). The budget deficit was approved in the amount of 1.698 billion manats ($1.07 billion). External debt Azerbaijan's Finance Ministry reported on February 17 that as of January 1, 2016, the country's external public debt amounted to $6.894 billion, which accounts for 19.8 percent of the country's GDP. The statistics on the loans included direct obligations of the state and contingent liabilities on loans under state guarantee. Of the total volume of borrowings, some 58.6 percent will be paid off within 10 years, 32.9 percent - from 10 to 20 years, and 8.5 percent - for a period exceeding 20 years. As of January 1, the currency structure of loans is as follows: 8.8 percent of funds were attracted to the SDR (Special Drawing Rights of the IMF), 66.3 percent - in U.S. dollars, 20.4 percent - in euros, 2.5 percent - Japanese yen, 0.8 percent - UAE dirham, 0.6 percent - the Islamic dinar, 0.4 percent - Saudi Arabian riyal and 0.2 percent - Kuwaiti dinar. The funds, which were mainly attracted from the World Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency, the Asian Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and other international financial institutions, were sent to support the economic reform programs, rehabilitation and reconstruction of infrastructure, including the construction and rehabilitation of power plants, construction of roads, improvement of water supply of regions, the development of services in the sphere of aviation and railways, as well as industry and energy. The official exchange rate on February 19 was 1.5635 AZN/USD. /By Azernews/ By Nazrin Gadimova The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has refused to examine the appeal of Azerbaijani hostages, who are in Armenian captivity for more than two years. Azerbaijans Plenipotentiary Representative in the Strasbourg Court, Chingiz Askerov said that refusal of the European Court to examine the appeal by way of precedent showed its bias position. The Court has gradually changed its structure from legal to political and therefore the organization has lost its features of the independent court, Askerov emphasized. Relatives of Azerbaijani hostages Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilgam Asgarov have appealed to various organizations, including the European Court of Human Rights. Although the appeal showed strong evidences, the ECHR refused to examine the case. Armenian forces killed an Azerbaijani, Hasan Hasanov, and detained Guliyev and Asgarov while they were attempting to visit the graves of their relatives in July 2014. Guliyev and Asgarov have been judged illegally by the unrecognized courts of a separatist regime in occupied Nagorno-Karabakh. Following an expedited judicial process" in December 2015, Asgarov was sentenced to life imprisonment and Guliyev to 22 years. A number of international organizations, as well as Baku, repeatedly urged Yerevan to start peaceful negotiations on this issue and to free the hostages, the Armenian side remained deaf. Furthermore, the Armenian side ignoring all calls and violating the international rules and norms was subjecting the hostages to various tortures. The official further added that the Azerbaijani government appealed to the European Court in connection with this issue, but has not yet received a response. Baku earlier announced that Armenia is responsible for the use of torture against Azerbaijani citizens, as well as for the improvised court as it contradicts the European Convention on human rights, international humanitarian law, the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Armenian aggression against its neighboring country resulted in occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijans internationally recognized territories. The large-scale hostilities resulted in death of over 20,000 Azerbaijanis while over 4,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis were taken captive, hostage, or went missing as a result of the war. The majority of those captured during the hostilities are children, elderly people and women. The Azerbaijani National Security Ministrys documents earlier revealed that Armenian vandals have set up six women- and children- only internment camps: Vardenis childrens camp (250 occupancy), Razdan children's camp (180 occupancy), Khankendi (Stepanakert) children's camp (180), Gechashen women's camp (320), Jermuk women's camp (250) and Kalbajar women's camp (150). The available data shows that Armenians have grossly violated the rules and provisions of the conventions on captives and hostages. They subjected hostages to brutal forms of tortures and forced them into hard labor. The US Utah State Legislature issued a proclamation (citation) Feb. 17, 2016 commending the long-standing traditions of interfaith tolerance, inclusion and harmony in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijans Consulate General in Los Angeles told Trend. The proclamation signed by the Utah State Senate and House leadership was presented to Azerbaijans Consul General in Los Angeles Nasimi Aghayev. In his address to the Utah State Senate, Consul General Aghayev noted that the Azerbaijani model of interfaith harmony has vividly proved the possibility for Muslims, Christians and Jews to live together in peace, dignity and mutual respect. He also thanked the Utah Legislature for this important proclamation, and for their support and friendship. The proclamation presented by Senator Gene Davis on the Senate floor and Representative Lynn Hemingway on the House floor, commends Azerbaijans example of interreligious tolerance and harmony. Stressing the important contribution of Azerbaijans Government, the proclamation noted that Azerbaijan has created an environment that nurtures and promotes the ancient traditions of religious tolerance, and rejects extremism and hatred The three major religions have prospered because of the respect and tolerance of the Azerbaijani people, and because of the role the government has played in fostering the environment of interfaith tolerance and mutual acceptance in the country. Azerbaijan has repeatedly, over the course of the last decade, brought together religious leaders from the region and around the world to promote greatly needed interfaith dialogue, said the proclamation. The year 2016 has been proclaimed a Year of Multiculturalism in Azerbaijan. In April 2016, Azerbaijan will host the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations Forum, further said the proclamation. The document ends by stressing that given the rising levels of intolerance, hate, terrorism and xenophobia in the world, it is important for the United States of America to support its tolerant and secular allies and consider the Azerbaijani model of interfaith acceptance and community engagement as a functioning example, and encourage this policy around the globe. During his visit to Utah, Consul General Aghayev also met Lieutenant-Governor Spencer Cox, Senate President Wayne Niederhauser and House Speaker Gregory Hughes. Short videos of the Senate and House floor presentations of the proclamation can be watched here: https://youtu.be/FElJS5-JwKQ https://youtu.be/9626HkLsS94 /By Trend/ Iran will be sending the second oil cargo to European Union before the end of February, a top Iranian oil official said. The Managing Director of National Iranian Oil Company Rokneddin Javadi told Shana on Feb.17 that the first cargo is being loaded, while the second and third cargoes are on the way. According to Javadi, Iran's exports (some 4 million barrels of crude oil) are to be delivered to French, Spanish and Russian companies. Before, Javadi told Shana on Feb.13 that at the first stage, about two million barrels of Iranian oil would be delivered to France's Total and the remaining cargo would be sold to Russian and Spanish companies. He didn't disclose the name of the companies, but added that the Russian company would deliver the Iranian oil to its refinery in Romania. Russian Lukoil has a refinery (Ploiesti) in Romania. /By Trend/ Norway says it has allowed its massive pension fund, the worlds biggest sovereign wealthfund, to resume Iranian government bond purchases following the removal of sanctions against Tehran, Press TV reported. The Scandinavian country puts most of its oil revenues into the fund, which is worth nearly seven trillion kroner (735 billion euros, USD 814 billion), to raise money for pensions and other government expenses. Iran had been denied the fund since January 2014 due to international sanctions slapped over its nuclear program. On January 16, Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany started to implement a nuclear agreement they had concluded in July 2015. After the agreement went into effect, all nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran by the European Union, the UN Security Council and the US were lifted. Following the removal of anti-Iran sanctions, the Norwegian Finance Ministry said in a statement that it would lift restrictions on trade with Tehran "Therefore the finance ministry, in agreement with the foreign ministry ... has decided that restrictions concerning trade in Iranian government bonds should be lifted," it said. Norway is one of the richest countries per head of population. /By Trend/ Hungarian deputy prime minister said his country's cooperation with Iran in the field of peaceful nuclear cooperation shall continue and promote in future, IRNAreported. Zsolt Semjen in a meeting with the visiting Head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO) Ali-Akbar Salehi in Budapest said: 'Iran's significant status is known to everyone.' 'Iran's assistance to Afghan and Iraqi refugees and to the crisis-hit countries deserves to be commended,' he added. Salehi said IAEO is ready for cooperation with is Hungarian counterpart calling for facilitating financial and banking operation for Iranian students following removal of sanctions. 'Iran enjoys appropriate capacities to expand nuclear cooperation with Hungary and both countries can play a mutual complementary role in this regard,' he added. In addition to bilateral cooperation, Salehi and Semjen reviewed regional and international developments including fight against terrorism, refugees crisis, plight of Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans peoples, and bombardment of Yemeni civilians by Saudi Arabia's planes. /By Trend/ Stones set to return for Bournemouth tie , 18 February, The 21-year-old has been sidelined since the Capital One Cup defeat at Manchester City at the tail end of last month but rejoined first team training on Monday and looks set to be fit enough to be included for the weekend. Stones may have to be content with just a place on the bench, however, given that Ramiro Funes Mori and Phil Jagielka have struck up an impressive partnership at centre-half in his absence, conceding just one goal in four matches. Muhamed Besic is unlikely to be ready, however, as he continues his own individual fitness programme to get over his own hamstring problem. He has been out for almost a month since coming off in the defeat against Swansea City at Goodison Park. And there are still doubts over the participation of new signing Oumar NIasse, with Martinez suggesting in his pre-match press conference that the club's medical staff are keeping an eye on a hand injury. Many photographs and clips of the Senegalese's recent matches for Lokomotiv Moscow showed him wearing a brace on his wrist which required corrective surgery but he is still feeling discomfort and has what the manager described as "an outside chance" of playing a role this weekend. Note: the following content is not moderated or vetted by the site owners at the time of submission. Comments are the responsibility of the poster. Disclaimer About these ads ToffeeWeb An ad opposing Medicaid expansion played on airwaves across the state in the weeks leading up to the legislative session, spreading what opponents described as inaccurate information about the Obamacare program. The ad claims that expanding Medicaid will hurt elderly Wyomingites and could result in cuts to education, roads and public safety or tax hikes. The Florida-based Foundation for Government Accountability paid for the minute-long spot. It ran on radio stations in Cheyenne and Casper, said Dave Owen, a Salt Lake City lobbyist who has a contract to consult for the foundation. Owen said the ad also ran for a shorter duration on stations connected to the Cowboy State News Network, which has about 45 affiliates across Wyoming. The ad features a man and woman talking about expansion in Wyoming. It is slightly reminiscent of a TV advertising campaign in the 1990s that's credited with killing health care reform proposed by President Bill Clinton. The spot concerns members of Healthy Wyoming, a coalition of business, health care and religious groups pushing the Legislature to adopt the Obamacare program. Healthy Wyoming is running its own radio ads. Theres information in there we know not to be true, and even misinformation, said Bri Jones of the Equality State Policy Center, part of Healthy Wyoming. Theres a bit of fear-mongering. Theres something in there about Medicare, and I think scaring the elderly is an unfair thing to do. About 20,000 Wyomingites would receive health care coverage if the Legislature adopted expansion. The Republican-controlled Legislature has rejected the program each year for the past three years. For the current session, Gov. Matt Mead who initially opposed the initiative but now supports it put expansion into the Wyoming Department of Healths budget. Lawmakers on the Joint Appropriations Committee rejected it in a preliminary review of the budget. Attempts to reinsert it into the budget bill have thus far failed. Mead has said accepting $268 million in federal money to pay for Wyoming's costs to expand Medicaid is not any different than the state recently taking from the feds $57.1 million for the Department of Family Services, over $313 million for roads or $115.6 million for education. I doubt theres few that are more skeptical to the federal government living up to its obligations than am I, Mead told the Star-Tribune earlier this month. My point on that is I think that can be taken care of by legislative language so that if the federal government does not live up to its promises, not in a few months but that day, that minute, that second, were out of the plan. Mead said he hadnt heard the radio ads but other Republican governors who support expansion, such as Gov. Dennis Daugaard of South Dakota, had told him similar ads were playing in their states. The Foundation for Government Accountability is a public policy organization that seeks to inform and influence health care and welfare issues. It is involved in about 18 states this legislative session, said Owen, who is a registered lobbyist in Wyoming. Owen said the organization receives donations from individuals and foundations. He declined to name any Wyoming contributors, saying the organization keeps such information private. The Star-Tribune could not independently verify who was funding the foundation, since campaign finance disclosure law targets political candidates and not campaigns against policies. At the Star-Tribune's request, Matthew White, an economics professor at the University of Delaware and an expert on Medicaid expansion, listened to the ad and said it contained numerous errors. Every claim from this group seems to be highly suspect, and its incredibly audacious for them to argue that the federal government cant be counted on to keep their funding promises, when (groups opposed to expansion) are the ones fighting to repeal the (Affordable Care Act) and to cut off Medicaid expansion funds, said White, who is on leave this year and is a visiting scholar at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Nic Horton, a senior research fellow for the foundation, said the organization, which promotes free market values, has employees in many states across the country. It is involved in Wyoming because the state is considering embracing a part of Obamacare at a time with the nation is in debt he said. We care about what happens in every state thats looking at expanding welfare to a group of able-bodied adults, he said. A fact check by the Star-Tribune found a number of inaccuracies and exaggerations in the radio spot. Man: They say (expansion is) only for the truly needy. Woman: Thats not true. Nearly 80 percent of those of those covered would be childless adults who are able to work. Fact check: Truly needy claim I guess it depends on what your definition of truly needy is, said Michael Fierberg, spokesman for the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. People must have lower income levels to qualify for Medicaid expansion. A single adult could earn up to $16,243 a year and qualify for Medicaid. That equates to an income of $312 a week. Thats basically someone working on minimum wage, Fierberg said. For a family of three, the income limit would be $27,700 a year, or $532 a week, he said. A 2012 analysis for the Wyoming Department of Health performed by Milliman Inc. concluded: About 59 percent of the expansion population was employed 55 percent was female two-thirds had income levels so low they couldnt get subsidies on the health care exchange -- another component of Obamacare. Fact check: Childless claim The foundation provided the Star-Tribune with an article by the Urban Institute that showed 77.3 percent of Wyomingites who would be eligible for expansion don't have dependent children. The authors used a model developed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to simulate, based on 2010 federal data, who would be eligible for Medicaid under expansion. Wyoming Health Department spokeswoman Kim Deti and Fierberg, of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, hadnt seen the study before and couldnt comment on it. However, I have no reason to doubt that many who will be eligible under Medicaid expansion are childless adults, Fierberg said. But thats the point. One goal of the Affordable Care Act is for everyone to obtain health coverage. Advocates believe that will lower overall health care costs. Because many Americans are poor and couldnt afford insurance, even if they qualified for a subsidy, the Medicaid program was extended to cover them, he said. Without expansion, working childless adults have no way to afford coverage, Fierberg said. Having children does not disqualify someone from Medicaid expansion. Some of the adults could have children receiving health coverage through programs such as the Childrens Health Insurance Program or even under Medicaid, Deti said. Man: They say it will save Wyoming money. Woman: Thats not true, and if we go over budget like most states well end up cutting education, roads and public safety. Or raising taxes. Fact check: Woodwork effect Expansion and the national discussion concerning health care has increased the number of people using the traditional Medicaid program. Its known as the woodwork effect. People in other states have signed up for health care after the program was expanded, only to find they already qualified for traditional Medicaid due to a health condition, such as being blind or disabled. While the federal government is paying 100 percent of the costs of expansion, it pays only half the costs of traditional Medicaid. States have been left with the other 50 percent. This is a fairly small effect, and I strongly doubt its affected budgets in a measurable way, said White, the economics professor. Its difficult to estimate the woodwork effect for Wyoming, since Medicaid hasnt expanded. The Health Department has data from 2014 showing Medicaid rolls increased by about 5,000 people, from roughly 68,000 to 73,000, as the ACA health insurance exchange began. Perhaps more people qualified for traditional Medicaid when they tried to sign up for insurance at healthcare.gov. However, Stefan Johansson of the Health Department said other factors could have played into the increase, such as the economy. For instance, if a pregnant woman lost her insurance after being laid off from a job, she might been able to get coverage through Medicaid. Fact check: Other states cutting services, raising taxes To bolster its claims, the foundation provided the Star-Tribune with articles by its researchers. Two articles showed that in many states, enrollment in Medicaid expansion was higher than anticipated. But the federal government is currently covering 100 percent of the states costs of expansion, so it is unclear which states are cutting education, roads and public safety. In another article, foundation researchers referred to cuts when writing about a different program -- traditional Medicaid -- that requires states to pick up half of the costs. Several states have seen larger-than-projected enrollment, said Deti, the Health Department spokeswoman. Interestingly, North Dakota expanded Medicaid and has so far been under projection for enrollment from the optional group. Would Wyoming would look more like North Dakota or Colorado and other states? There's not a clear answer. To be safe, the department recently raised its projections of the number of people who would qualify for expansion by 14 percent, she said. Fact check: Wyoming will end up cutting programs or raising taxes Seventy percent of state revenues for government operations come from oil, gas and coal all of which are down. The state is facing a projected revenue decrease of $447.4 million in the upcoming two-year budget cycle in the two accounts that fund government operations, according to revenue estimates. Wyoming is also facing a projected two-year shortfall of around $219.1 million in the School Capital Construction Account, which pays for new school buildings and major maintenance. Gov. Matt Mead and the Joint Appropriations Committee have separately recommended state program cuts. The budget bill as currently proposed leaves few agencies untouched by cuts. If the entire Legislature adopts those proposals, there will be cuts, regardless of whether the Legislature expands Medicaid. Other lawmakers have discussed increasing property taxes, although no such measures have gained momentum thus far. With expansion, an estimated $268 million is projected to flow into the state for the 2017-2018 budget cycle, according to estimates from Meads office. Mead has argued the federal money is especially essential during the budget crunch. Man: They say Medicaid expansion certainly wont hurt anyone. Woman: Thats not true. Expansion funding comes from cuts to Medicare and that hurts Wyomings seniors, and the people covered now who really do need help. They go to the back of the line. Facts Cuts to Medicare The foundation provided three articles about the Medicare program's relation to expansion -- two written by the group's researchers, and a 2012 piece written for Forbes by a journalist who has authored books against Obamacare and at the time was advising then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney on health care. The articles discuss cuts to Medicare Advantage, which were made at the time Congress passed the Affordable Care Act. People enrolling in Medicare have two choices: Traditional Medicare, which lets people visit any doctor or hospital in America that takes the program, or Medicare Advantage, which provides benefits through a private insurance company. Advantage customers are usually charged an extra premium for improved benefits, such as prescriptions, vision, hearing or dental, said Fierberg, of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Fierberg said Medicare Advantage is not popular in Wyoming because the state doesnt have a strong insurance network system. Uinta County has the highest percentage of people who opt for Medicare Advantage, at 7.3 percent, he said. The foundation estimated in 2014 that about 3 percent of Wyoming Medicare recipients had Advantage. Other Medicare changes included an increase in prescription drug spending for Medicare patients, Fierberg said. We didnt cut anything, Fierberg said. What we did was reduce the amount of spending on Medicare over 10 years by that $716 billion. But most of that was agreed to by the people by whom that money was going to be spent. For example, hospitals agreed and pharmaceutical companies agreed to take less money from Medicare. Facts check: Expansion hurts people who are already covered People who receive traditional Medicaid can qualify based on a number of conditions, including being blind or disabled. A foundation article states that because Medicaid often reimburses doctors and hospitals at lower rates than private health insurance, many dont accept Medicaid patients. Adding more people to Medicaid will not solve the problem. When broken Medicaid programs become too expensive, states often reduce and delay payments to doctors, hospitals and other health care providers to make ends meet, one foundation article says. However, in Wyoming, most hospitals are public and must treat everyone, regardless of their ability to pay. Wyoming hospitals rack up over $100 million yearly in uncompensated care costs from people who cannot pay. The Wyoming Hospital Association has argued that many of those people would be covered by Medicaid expansion. Some reimbursement for the costs to treat such patients would help hospitals bottom line, especially in rural areas. CHEYENNE The Wyoming Senate has voted down a bill that would have called on state voters to decide whether to amend the state constitution to recognize an individual right to privacy. The Senate voted 16-to-13 on Thursday evening against the joint resolution. The defeat followed a recommendation earlier this week from the Senate Appropriations Committee to kill the bill. The committee vote came after members heard from the state Secretary of State's Office that it would cost $45,000 to publish the proposed amendment around the state. The Legislature's Joint Corporations, Elections & Political Subdivisions Interim Committee had sponsored the proposed joint resolution. Supporters of the measure have said they're concerned new technologies such as automated license plate readers that track motorists threaten to erode individual privacy. After more than 60 years of selling shoes in Tucson, Sidney Hirsh is calling it quits. In April, when Hirshs Shoes celebrates its 62nd anniversary, Hirsh wants to close the doors for good. Im 85 years old, Hirsh said. I cant fight the clock. I dont want to do this when Im 90. Hirshs mother Rose opened the business at 2934 E. Broadway in April 1954 as a childrens shoe store. Fresh from the Army with a wife and child to support, Sidney Hirsh joined the store that November. He has worked there ever since. Our customers are going to miss us. We have already heard that, he said. I dont know if people are going to go to Phoenix or where, and I dont know who to recommend. The store specializes in dancewear and custom footwear for sensitive or hard-to-fit feet. For now, the store will continue to take custom orders but will stop as April nears and stock disappears. To clear the store, Hirsh is running small discounts. For example, some dance inventory is now 20 percent off. The bigger sales will come later. At one time, five Hirshs Shoes dotted the city, but by 1996, only the original Broadway location remained open. Refocusing on sore feet and dancing shoes turned Hirshs into a niche business and kept it alive. Its sad to see it go, said Craig Finfrock, partner with CRI Broadway Village Partners, which owns the property east of Hirshs. Hes a bit of an institution in Tucson. Mike Varney, president and CEO of the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce said, We cherish every business that is employing people and selling wonderful products. We hate to see any business close for any reason. We certainly salute the family for their great contribution to Tucson. Hirshs Shoes has seven employees, including Hirsh. Only one is part-time, he said. He considered selling the business, but because neither of his two living children could take over, he decided closing would be easier. At this point in my life, if were going to go, we just want to go out, Hirsh said. For now, the family still owns the building. Startup Tucson has announced the 13 companies selected for the third edition of the Thryve ScaleUp growth accelerator program. The 10-week training and mentorship program is funded through a contract award from the federal Small Business Administrations ScaleUp America program. About 70 companies have gone through the Thryve ScaleUp program since January 2015. In this round, the companies receiving training at no cost to them will be: Tucson native Adam Boyles, the former conductor of the Southern Arizona Symphony Orchestra and a native of Tucson, was named assistant conductor of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra in Connecticut. The orchestra made the announcement on Friday, a month after it hosted what was billed as a battle of the batons. Three conductors were brought in to lead the orchestra in a large piece and a concerto movement (or two), with a different soloist in the orchestra's masterworks series, according to the Hartford Courant. Boyles, who conducted the volunteer Tucson orchestra for three seasons, leaving in spring 2008 to take the job as director of orchestras at M.I.T. in Massachusetts. He also is music director of the Brookline Symphony Orchestra. In his new role, he will assistant Hartford Maestra Carolyn Kuan in programming and conducting the Discovery Series children's performances of "Exploring Emotions" and will begin work with her on this summer's Talcott Mountain Music Festival. The assistant conductor's position in new for the Hartford Symphony, orchestra officials said. Two brothers who pleaded guilty to aggravated assault charges on the Pascua Yaqui Indian Nation were sentenced to prison in federal court. U.S. District Judge James A. Soto sentenced Steven Gabriel North, 33, on Feb. 10 to five years in prison for stabbing four victims with a knife during a fight July 25, 2014, according to a news release. North's brother, Antonio Ruben North, 30, was sentenced Feb. 18 by Soto to two years for aiding his brother by fighting with the victims during the stabbings, states the release. Two more Tucson police officers who were fired in the midst of a long-running prostitution investigation are at risk of losing their state certification for police work, officials said. On Wednesday, the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board voted to initiate proceedings against Vincent Valenzuela and Martin Walker, said board spokeswoman Sandy Sierra. Valenzuela was fired in early August after police found evidence of felony computer tampering during the prostitution probe, internal affairs documents show. He appealed his termination with the citys Civil Service Commission in December and the departments termination was overturned. He returned to work after serving a 40-hour suspension. Valenzuela was reinstated to full-duty and is assigned to the unit that takes police reports by telephone, said Officer Daniel Lucas, a department spokesman. The internal affairs investigation revealed that Valenzuela had a personal relationship with the alleged operator of one of the brothels, Daisys Delights, according to AZPOST documents. In his interview with internal affairs, Valenzuela told detectives that he knew Stephanie Garcia from his previous job at her middle school, according to the internal affairs report. He saw her again during a call to service when he worked for TPD, and they soon became Facebook friends, AZPOST documents show. Valenzuela told investigators that he went to Garcias house in early 2014 to hang out, but after learning of her lifestyle he cut off contact with her. Internal affairs documents reveal that Valenzuela had phone contact with Garcia during the time he said they werent communicating. During the investigation, detectives learned that in April 2014, Valenzuela used his work computer to run Stephanie Garcias name through state and federal law enforcement databases for no valid law enforcment reason, AZ Post documents show. He told investigators that he didnt remember doing that. Last January, Valenzuela assisted in serving a search warrant on Garcias home without notifying his supervisor of their personal relationship, according to the AZPOST documents. He attempted to minimize her role in the search warrants, indicating that had she been at the location, he would have advised his sergeant of his relationship with her, but since she was not present, it wasnt necessary, the AZPOST document reads. Walker was fired from TPD last July for his alleged involvement as a customer of another illegal massage parlor chain, By Spanish, AZPOST documents show. Walker told internal affairs investigators that he contacted By Spanish after learning about it on Backpage.com, and received a massage, according to AZPOST documents. He told investigators that he didnt engage in any sexual activity, but he should have reported his suspicions about the business being a prostitution front to the departments chain of command, AZPOST documents say. Walker said that he didnt notify anyone because he was embarrassed. Walker was given a polygraph exam which resulted in Deception Indicated when asked if he ever engaged in sexual contact or conducted any fee agreement while employed by TPD. He also appealed his termination with the citys Civil Service Commission, but the departments decision was upheld. The Pima County Attorneys Office declined to file criminal charges against either man. Formal complaints will be mailed to Walker and Valenzuela, who have the opportunity for hearings with an administrative law judge, Sierra said. The board can suspend or revoke an officers certificate for misconduct, including unlawful sexual conduct, or any behavior that diminishes the public trust in law enforcement. Should either man lose his license, he will be prohibited from working as a law enforcement officer in Arizona. Another former officer who was fired in the prostitution probe is also facing loss of certification and a fourth officer who resigned, but was retroactively terminated by the department, surrendered his certification last month. An endorsement this week showed once again where Victoria Steeles support lies: in the bosom of the local Democratic Party. But is it enough for a victory in the 2nd Congressional District Democratic primary, let alone a general-election win over U.S. Rep. Martha McSally? Those are tougher questions. On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva endorsed Steele in her run against Dr. Matt Heinz. Like Steele, Heinz is a former state legislator. Unlike Steele, though, Heinzs local Democratic support is relatively weak. In fact, the key strengths and weaknesses of the two candidates seem to be opposite. Heinz has proven to be a strong fundraiser, reporting about $389,000 in contributions as of Jan. 31. But much of that support comes from fellow physicians around the country, people who share his profession but not his district. Locally, hes not that popular. Steele has proven a poor fundraiser, raising about $98,000 in the same period, about a quarter of Heinzs haul. Yet she has broad local support that could be essential in any run against McSally. These weaknesses have not escaped the notice of state Rep. Bruce Wheeler. The Tucson Democrat previously considered running for the seat, then abandoned the idea. Now hes considering it again. The reason? I dont think either one of them can beat McSally, Wheeler told me Thursday from the state Capitol. There are two big reasons that make McSally a tough challenge, as former Pima County Democratic Party chair Don Jorgensen pointed out. Its an uphill fight because she has a war chest. Shes been effective in running a two-year campaign since she was elected. She has avoided the ideological extreme during her two years. In other words, shes been a pretty good member of Congress. And on Jan. 31, she reported $3.2 million in campaign contributions, along with $1.6 million in expenses. So what would convince Wheeler, a long-time legislator and City Council member, to think he can challenge an incumbent with such advantages? He told me it all turns on what happens March 1. Thats Super Tuesday, the day 12 states have presidential primaries or caucuses. If Donald Trump or Ted Cruz remain the strong favorites to win the nomination after those results come in, Wheeler will likely jump in, he said. His thinking: A Trump or Cruz candidacy will prove disastrous for the Republicans, and the Democratic presidential candidate could well carry candidates further down the ticket to victory. While McSally has been a strong member of Congress and candidate, she only beat Democrat Ron Barber by 167 votes last time. Unpredictable winds are blowing through national politics, and it wouldnt be a shock to find a Democrat in her seat come January. JTED credit fight At long last, the popular Joint Technological Educational Districts have had their funding restored. But the way it got done was downright bizarre. Howard Fischer of Capitol Media Services kept us up-to-date these last few weeks, including the strange climax in which the state House of Representatives finally stopped trying to get its own bill passed and instead accepted the Senates version. The condition was that the bill include a long intent clause that named every House member who supported it. Thats 56 names now in the statute that restores almost $30 million per year in funding to these career and technical education programs. Its a hilarious piece of preening, Sen. Steve Farley, a Tucson Democrat, told me Thursday. Ive never seen anything like it in law. One of the beneficiaries of the intent clause, if you can say it was beneficial, was Tucson Republican Rep. Chris Ackerley. He introduced one of several bills early in the session that intended to restore funding to JTED, but his bill was not the one finally passed. However he wont go unnoticed: Since the list of representatives in the intent clause is alphabetical, Ackerleys name goes first. Flake, McCain on Scalia An increasingly common split appears to have developed between our U.S. senators, Jeff Flake and John McCain, this time over replacing U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. McCain called on President Obama not to nominate a replacement, though he acknowledged that of course the president can. The Senate shouldnt confirm the nominee in any case, McCain said. Flake, on the other hand, has not taken a stand. The difference could simply reflect where each senator is in his term. McCain is running in a primary election against a more conservative opponent, former state Sen. Kelli Ward. Flakes term has two years left. But Flake has also differed with McCain on issues such as the establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba. Flake was for it, McCain against. Downtown brewery debacle The news that city stopped renovation of the expanded Pueblo Vida brewery downtown was galling. In case you missed the story, the brewery got city permits for the renovation, but the owners did not know that because the building is historic, they also needed to go before the Tucson-Pima County Historical Commission for a review. Should the owners have known that? Maybe. Should the city have told them? For sure. This would be a good time for the city to own up to its mistake by shepherding the brewerys application through the historic preservation process and for the commission to look on the brewerys plans generously. A robbery suspect who was intentionally hit by a Marana police officers patrol car last year wants $850,000 for his pain and suffering. Mario Valencia, 37, is suing the town of Marana, the police chief and the officer who drove into him, explaining in court documents that he has pain in his head and hip, excessive headaches, and has lost his sense of smell, taste and some cognitive abilities from a skull fracture he received. His attorney, Paul Gattone, says Valencia has trouble remembering things, including Feb. 19, 2015. That was the day when he was accused of stealing a rifle from a Walmart, threatened to shoot himself and then fired the gun into the air before being rammed by the patrol car, throwing his body into the air. The incident was captured on the dashboard camera of the officers patrol car. Marana police officials said last year that Valencia had been on a crime spree across Tucson, linking him to cases involving armed robbery, home invasion, fire and auto theft. A claim filed last August by Gattone seemed to dispute the citys stated timeline and even whether Valencia went into the Walmart. Gattone is not representing Valencia in the criminal case, serving as his attorney only in the lawsuit against the town. The lawsuit and claim state the officer whose car struck Valencia, Michael Rapiejko, ignored orders to stand down and had no regard for Valencias well-being. It was clear that Officer Rapiejkos actions were meant to kill Mr. Valencia, wrote Gattone. Officer Rapiejkos actions were outrageous, shocking to the conscience and a reasonable officer would know that his actions were taken in violation of established law enforcement standards and in violation of Mr. Valencias civil and constitutional rights. A claim is a precursor to a lawsuit, offering to settle a case before it goes to court. Valencia is in the Pima County jail waiting for his trial, Gattone said. At the time of the incident, Marana Police Chief Terry Rozema praised his officers actions. A Marana police board of inquiry later found the nontypical force option used by Rapiejko, nicknamed Robocop, were justified. Rapiejko has since resigned from the department to pursue a law degree. Town Manager Gilbert Davidson vowed to fight the lawsuit. We are absolutely going to defend the town and its taxpayers against a frivolous lawsuit from a person who endangered and victimized the public, he said. Congressman Raul Grijalva is looking to improve the academic performance of English-language learners with an effort that starts at home. Legislation that he will introduce next week seeks to improve the literacy and English skills of recently immigrated families, Grijalva announced on Thursday. The FLUEnT act Families Learning and Understanding English Together argues that parents who speak little to no English struggle to help their childrens English language development, are limited in their ability to effectively interact with school officials, and in their ability to reinforce the school curriculum at home. In addition to language acquisition, services would include: interactive literacy activities between parents and their children; training for parents on how to be the primary teacher for their children and partners in the education of their children; parent literacy training that leads to economic self-sufficiency; an age-appropriate education to prepare children for success in school and life. The services offered by family literacy providers would have to be research-based and outcomes would be measured to determine their effectiveness. To qualify, parents would have to be 16 years or older and have at least one child under the age of 8. Grijalva plans to ask that $1.5 billion be allocated to the effort over five years. Last year, there were more than 66,000 English-language learners in Arizona public schools. The state assessment showed that only 2 percent passed language arts and 6 percent passed math on the AzMERIT test. English-language learners across the country have historically performed lower than their peers but more gains are being made on the national level than in Arizona. Grijalva plans to introduce a second education-related bill focusing on dual language programs. The Providing Resources to Improve Dual Language Education act PRIDE seeks to establish quality programming in low income communities. Research has shown that children exposed to a second language through dual language education demonstrate higher performance in comparison to their peers in traditional classrooms. Like the services offered under the FLUEnT act, dual language models implemented would have to be tried and true, Grijalva said. Under Arizona law, only students who are orally proficient in English can take advantage of dual language immersion programs. There are exceptions to the rule. Grijalva is seeking $2.5 billion for the dual language effort. Marisol Flores-Aguirre, a parent of two at Roskruge Bilingual K-8 School, says the programming has helped inspire a love of learning in her children. You see engagement with youth you havent seen before, she said. I see my kids more excited, coming in and throwing around language and conversation and asking questions in ways that hasnt traditionally engaged them. While the benefits of the legislation are clear to Grijalva, he is expecting some resistance. I think youll get the hysteria where people are going to go its not necessary, everybody should know English, Grijalva said. But the fact of the matter is the end result is a proficient English-speaking, comprehending individual and student. The end result also is they have that capacity in two languages and so one doesnt deter from the other. A man and his dog who were involved in a car crash last week were reunited on Friday afternoon. Wayne Schreder was separated from Radar when he was taken to the hospital following the Feb. 11 wreck on Interstate 10, said Marcia Zamorano, a Pima County spokeswoman. "The only thing I remember was that I woke up in a ditch and a helicopter took me away," Schreder said. "I was so out of it that I forgot he had been with us until I got home from the hospital Sunday and he wasn't there." Schreder and his friend encountered high winds when driving on I-10, and the hood of the Jeep blew up, blocking the windshield and causing his friend to crash into the median, he said. The driver suffered several broken ribs, a punctured lung and a broken clavicle. "I wasn't hurt too badly, but I can't walk great yet," Schreder said. He thought that the rescue dog who he'd taken in a little over a year ago was dead. Radar was found near the median, snuggled next to a bible and a hat, while two Arizona Department of Transportation workers were cleaning up the accident scene, Zamorano said. The dog was taken to Pima Animal Care Center, where staff and the Arizona Department of Public Safety collaborated and confirmed that Radar was Schreder's dog, Zamorano said. Schreder said he was so happy to get his buddy back, and Radar was neutered, vaccinated and microchipped before leaving PACC. OPINION: "Its time to look beyond the party affiliation and the big-name endorsements. We want Southern Arizona voters to be engaged and educated as they tick names on their ballot so they can select candidates who will advocate for the health needs of our community," writes Judy Rich, CEO and president of TMC Health. Help India! By Raqib Hameed Naik, TwoCircles.net The name of Aamir Edresy may not ring a number of bells in the social circles of India, but he is nevertheless making a difference. He can be summed up as a software engineer by qualification, a businessman by profession and a social activist by passion, currently heading the Association of Muslim Professionals. Support TwoCircles Edresy, the eldest of six siblings, was born in 1981 in a middle class family in Mumbai and after finishing his schooling he went to Pune University to complete his Computer Engineering in 2002. Having studied in an Urdu-medium school and grown up in Mumbai, Edresy was familiar with the condition of Muslims in India. Consequently, after he finished college, he decided to do his bit in helping the Muslim community and other underprivileged classes of conscientious individuals who will significantly contribute to the development of the Nation. Pitching together his dreams, in 2008, he started an online community of Muslim professionals. However, as a software engineer, his resources were limited and he had to take the help of social media (Orkut) to set up the Association of Muslim Professionals. However, the commitment of Edresy soon bore fruit, as the online community grew from a few members initially to dozens and such was the enthusiasm of the online community members that in 2008, they decided to call the first meeting of the group. Back in 2008, I didnt know anyone in the social circles of Mumbai. I didnt even know where to book a meeting hall for a meeting. So I organised that meeting on the terrace of my house in Buyculla area of south Mumbai, says Edresy. The first meeting of the online community of Muslim professionals left profound influence on them to do something for the community. We started in 2008 after our first meeting by organising awareness drives in schools and colleges about government schemes on education. We started a book donation drive, in which AMP members donated their old books which were distributed among poor and deserving students, recalls Edresy. Later, we started giving skill development lectures besides sharing job opportunities among the under privileged, he adds. Realising that AMP had a lot of potential, it was formally registered in 2011 under Societies Registration Act 1860, Maharashtra, Mumbai with Aamir Edresy as a president. Initially, I worked as a lecturer at the M. H. Saboo Siddik College of Engineering. Later on I worked as a software engineer in a company. But after registering AMP, I found it hard to manage time between my social activities and professional duties and I decided to quit my job and fully focus on AMP in 2012, he says. Presently, besides managing his real estate business, Edresy has been able to evolve AMP in into a vibrant pan-India organization of dynamic individuals. It now serves as a platform for all Muslim professionals and volunteers to share their knowledge, intellect, experience and skills for the overall development of not just the Muslim Community but also the society at large. The organization is entirely funded by its members and socially conscious individuals and it is presently having more than 50 active chapters in 12 states across India, with volunteers present in over 120- districts of India and growing further with a strong presence of professional base across the country. I want to kindle in the hearts of my educated Muslim brethren a passion for working towards the upliftment of the underprivileged sections of the community, he adds. According to Soheb Selia, organising secretary, Association of Muslim Professionals, Edresy has exceptional interpersonal skills and networking abilities which is quite evident from raising a strong social network from zero across India which includes professionals, students, politicians, bureaucrats and social leaders. He is also quite erudite in the matters of public administration and political governance and is abreast with all the recent developments and changes in government policies, adds Selia. AMP has been instrumental in conducting various activities for the benefit of the society across the length and breadth of the country. The association has successfully organised Career Fest in Mumbai for six successive years, where more than 1 lakh students from all over Maharashtra participated. Increasing competition has brought students under pressure. Students set their goal at an early age; however, an appropriate guidance from professional in the same sector is very necessary. Career fest is designed to achieve the same purpose, says Edresy. Laying greater emphasis upon online public forum, which is also the main reason for AMPs birth, has ensured maintaining online public forums on social networking websites like Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and Twitter etc. to interact and communicate with more than 50,000 Muslim professionals. Edresys AMP has been implementing skills development workshops all over India since its inception. Every month deserving students are taking the benefit of this service where AMP professional and experts are regularly taking classes at weekends. We have conducted more than 1,000 such lectures which have benefited more than 1 lakh students all over India, he says. In December 2015, AMP distributed Rs 10 lakh rupees to 100 students from poor background, pursuing mainly Engineering and Medical Education, running in its third consecutive year. In October 2015, Edresys AMP was in news for all good reasons after it hosted a job fair in a church at Mira Road in Mumbai which was attended by people from all communities thus setting a good example of communal harmony. More than 1,000 candidates had participated, 227 were shortlisted and 245 had got job offers on the spot. In 2015, he was the only Indian who was invited to the American Youth Leadership Summit. For Edresy, AMP stimulates every Muslim professional to come forward and make visible difference in lives of people and subsequently the whole nation. It gives us a single platform where our individual scattered efforts can transform into big collective and effective force for the renovation of whole of the Muslim community, he adds. Related: TCN Positive page Help India! By Parayi for Twocircles.net Everything is well with the republic. Nationalist gundas are beating up students and police is combing the hostels of one of the best universities in the country to identify those who have the ability to dismantle the nation with their tongues. And, a search is on for the real anti-Indian. Predictably, the search leads many of the barking dogs in news studios to the almost frail frame of Umar Khalid. Support TwoCircles He is the perfect target for the collective revenge fantasies of the bloodthirsty right wing mob. The nuance of being a communist with a Muslim name is not something that you can explain to those baying for his blood. The news channels are weaving tales about the many meetings that he was planning to organise at different universities. As if words are bombs. The outrage against words. Why are they afraid of words? In the RSS-Ambani-Modi Disney land, which is being made in India, there will be no JNU. No public university will corrupt the minds of the young with critical thoughts. Dalits will stick to caste occupations and none of them will ever stray into the centres of higher learning to pollute them with non-merit. All women will know their place and will live by the rules of different khap panchayats. Adivasis: obliterated. Minorities.I am sorry, but who are they? A corporate happy land, with no troublemakers to drop in, and spoil the mood with stray slogans. No country for Kanhaiya or Umar Khalid. In Nazi Germany, people used to go to great lengths to prove that they were indeed good national socialists (Nazis). Maybe we should consider taking a crash course in being Good Sanghis. And, one of the critical qualities to become a Sanghi is to have a brain which is as limited as a news channel debate. The first crop of heads which get harvested in every fascist enterprise will generally be that of intellectuals, writers, poets, artists. Once everyone is afraid to think, it is much easier to rule. So, from a tradition where Bhakti poets, Sufi saints and folk artists sang with illiterate peasants about philosophy and the nature of existence, let us try to mutate into a nation which gets epilepsy at the mention of the word Azadi. Let us lock our minds and give the keys to Sanghis and news channels and pursue the hunt for the real anti-Indian. It could be Umar Khalid or Kanhaiya. That real anti-Indian could also be Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, or Bhim Rao Ambedkar or Rabindranath Tagore. The Perfect Male Body What The Perfect Male Body Looks Like In 19 Different Countries Long Story Short Designers from around the world were asked to Photoshop an image of a regular guy and make him look like each culture's idea of the perfect male body. The results are... interesting. Long Story We all know that beauty standards are different across the world, but experiments looking at how extreme the differences are usually focus on women. Now, Superdrugs online doctor service has put the spotlight on perceptions of the perfect male body, by finding out what different countries find attractive in a man. It sent out an image of a photographer from New York to graphic designers in 19 different countries. Their brief: to make him look like the ideal attractive man by their countys standards. The man in question had short, dark hair and a thin beard. Im sure he wont mind me saying he was slightly overweight, and he was wearing only his boxers. Australia gave him an all-over tan, a smaller face and shed a few pounds off his stomach. Bangladesh took even more weight off him but added more hair on his head to compensate. China went a step further and added in some hipbones, chocolate brown hair and beard, with a golden tan to finish. Columbia was a bit more generous but still trimmed him down and gave him a tan. The people of Portugal apparently like their men to look like theyve been run over by a steamroller, and Russia well, as to be expected, Russia stands alone. They gave the guy long, wavy locks, rock-hard pecks and bulging arms, coupled with slimmer legs. South Africans like their men with a golden tan and modest, yet definitely present, muscles. If you still havent got rid of that Christmas weight, however, your best holiday destination might be Spain, who were relatively generous with their Photoshopping. The same cant be said for the UK, who slimmed him down to a point where he looked like he was recovering from a serious bout of the flu. But if you can add muscles and Ken-doll quiff to that, youll be well received in the United States. Here are the images... NYPhotoNY / Via onlinedoctor.superdrug.com NYPhotoNY / Via onlinedoctor.superdrug.com NYPhotoNY / Via onlinedoctor.superdrug.com NYPhotoNY / Via onlinedoctor.superdrug.com NYPhotoNY / Via onlinedoctor.superdrug.com NYPhotoNY / Via onlinedoctor.superdrug.com NYPhotoNY / Via onlinedoctor.superdrug.com NYPhotoNY / Via onlinedoctor.superdrug.com NYPhotoNY / Via onlinedoctor.superdrug.com NYPhotoNY / Via onlinedoctor.superdrug.com NYPhotoNY / Via onlinedoctor.superdrug.com NYPhotoNY / Via onlinedoctor.superdrug.com NYPhotoNY / Via onlinedoctor.superdrug.com NYPhotoNY / Via onlinedoctor.superdrug.com NYPhotoNY / Via onlinedoctor.superdrug.com A spokesperson said: The quest for a perfect body transcends gender. Fuelled in part by the media and popular culture, men around the world may feel even more body image-related pressure than women do pressure to be stronger or slimmer or more muscular. Lets just be thankful no one touched his bulge. Own The Conversation Ask The Big Question How much is a flight to Australia? Drop This Fact One study found that men from Venezuela are the most vain in the word, followed by Brazilians. Fancy a steak with red Wine...? is an invitation often heard among friends. In the past, this idea would havealways led to a dinner in a crowded steakhouse, starring a blood-dripping rib eye, fries and bottles of Chianti. Nowadays, chance is that the supper will be staged at a Japanese restaurant, featuring another superstar: a lean, meaty tuna steak, in partnership with a red such as a Syrah or Barbera suggests Fiona Beckett, an award-winning author of more than 20 books on Food and wine. However, sometimes part of the company longs for beef, while the other friends yearn for a fish-based dinner. What to do in this critical circumstance? A Genoa-born food entrepreneur, Roberto Costa, has recently found the diplomatic solution to make everybody in the group satisfied. His 2nd London restaurant, Macellaio Roberto Costa, based in Exmouth Market, offers a two-track menu: half menu focuses on Fassone beef recipes, ranging from an Italian-style beef tartare with spicy gorgonzola and Modena balsamic vinegar, flamed at the table, to a grilled Fassone rump steak served with Toscano extra-vergine olive oil and rock salt. The right side of the menu proposes various bluefin tuna-based dishes, from homemade bluefin tuna in Ligurian olive oil to the one week dry aged bluefin sirloin steak, among others. The connections between Fassone beef and bluefin tuna are multiple: for instance, bluefin tuna is one of the few warm blooded fishes on earth and is butchered in four quarts like beef; and both pair well with Italian red wines, such as Chianti or Dolcetto DAlba says Roberto. Fassone, or Razza Piemontese, is a breed of cattle used in Piedmont to provide exquisite meat and whose milk delivers well-known cheeses such as Castelmagno, Bra and Raschera. Mostly produced in the provinces of Cuneo, Asti and Turin, Fassone is well-known for the low-fat content: 0.5-1% against 3% of other major bovine breeds tells Albino Pistone, president of Associazione Nazionale Allevatori Bovini di Razza PIemontese (ANAPORABI), the association of local beef producers. Due to the low cholesterol, it is leaner than many white meats and with an even lower fat-content than many qualities of fish. Bluefin are the largest tuna and can live up to over 40 years. There are three species: Atlantic, Pacific and Southern. Most catches of the Atlantic bluefin tuna are taken from the Mediterranean Sea, the most important bluefin tuna fishery in the world. I would like to point out that fishing of bluefin tuna is now much more regulated than in the past and there is no risk of extinction for bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean sea; actually, the current population is back to the numbers of the Seventies says Roberto Costa. Choosing the right wine to pair with bluefin recipes is not a simple task: In order to ease the choice of the perfect wine, I have pairedthe cooking time of the meats with intensity, texture and body weight of the wines explains Roberto, who is about to open another restaurant in Union Street, whose ambience will recall a theatre stage. The longer is the grilling, the more aged and important the wine. The shorter the time, the lighter is the wine. So, If you prefer a medium-rare steak, you should choose Negramaro or Barbera; if, instead, medium-well cooking suits you more, Chianti Classico will be the right choice...! Libiamo! While on his way back to the Vatican in Rome from his Mexico tour, Pope Francis questioned billionaire Donald Trumps Christianity in regard to his immigration views. Even though he criticized the presidential hopeful, pope Francis kept off American politics, categorically stating that he did not want to advise the catholic believers in America on whom to vote for and whose candidature they should reject. As per the gospel teachings, Christians should be keen on building bridges and not walls to block immigrants. Pope Francis stated in a thin veiled attack on Republican Donald Trump who has vowed to build a wall between America and Mexico should he be elected U.s president A seemingly angry Mr Trump in a quick rejoinder replied the Pope saying that he (the pope) will certainly wish and pray that he (trump) was president if Vatican is attacked by ISIS. Mr.Trump thus said: "If and when the Vatican shall come under attack by the ISIS, which as anyone can guess is ISIS's ultimate goal, I can bet that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that I (Donald Trump) would have been the American president. It is disgraceful for a religious leader of the popes stature to question peoples faith. I am a proud Christian and should I win the presidency, I wont allow consistent attacks on Christianity that are meant to weaken it. Said the republican presidential hopeful who maintains that he is a Presbyterian. On the conclusion of his Mexico visit, pope Francissaid a mass on the American border where he opposed immigration policies which compel many into the dirty hands of drug dealers and human smugglers. Mr Trump has also stated that he would deport illegal migrants should he win the American presidential elections scheduled for November this year. The controversial Donald Trump has taken a slightly more than 20-points lead over his close opponent SenatorTed Cruz in the Republican race for the Us presidential nomination, with his campaign seemingly thriving on the endless controversies that he is generating. 2016 EPT Dublin 10,300 High Roller Day 1: Dominik Nitsche's Continues Big Irish Run February 19 2016 Will Shillibier Germany's Dominik Nitsche led the way after bagging up 305,600 in chips with 80 players advancing from Day 1 of the 2016 PokerStars European Poker Tour Dublin 10,300 High Roller. The German amassed a large portion of his chips in a hand against Darie Vlad. Nitsche three-bet out of the small blind and then fired all the streets on a board of ; Nitsche made it 28,000 on the turn, then shoved the river for 70,600. Vlad eventually called and showed the , but Nitsche had him beat with the to score a huge double shortly before the end of play. He's now in great position to make a run at the title, and it could mean a second trip to the winner's circle in Dublin for the German, who triumphed in the UKIPT 2,000 High Roller. Additionally, Nitsche came second in the 10,200 Single-Day High Roller. Day 1 Top 10 Chip Counts Rank Player Chips 1 Dominik Nitsche 305,600 2 Mark Radoja 280,000 3 Jerry Odeen 250,000 4 Sam Greenwood 248,300 5 Ben Heath 240,300 6 Felix Bleiker 212,000 7 Vladas Tamasauskas 198,100 8 Jason Mercier 189,300 9 Sam Chartier 187,400 10 Luuk Gieles 185,500 With 10 levels of play scheduled on Day 1, there was plenty of time for players to enter the event. As the day wore on, the amount of entries increased, and at the end of the day 181 piled up. Following Nitsche on the leaderboard were Mark Radoja (280,000), Jerry Odeen (250,000), Sam Greenwood (248,300), and Ben Heath (240,300). Also in the surviving field going to Day 2 were Jason Mercier (189,300),25,750 High Roller champion Mustapha Kanit (134,800), high-rolling icon Steve O'Dwyer (134,000), former World Series of Poker Main Event champion Ryan Riess (73,400), and reigning PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event winner Mike Watson (71,200). Short stacks to advance included Mohsin Charania (45,900), Igor Kurganov (35,000), and 2015 WSOP November Niner Pierre Neuville, who lost with versus the of Timothy Adams in the penultimate hand of the day after both players flopped a set and got their stacks in the middle. The Belgian will return with 15,800 chips, whereas Adams bagged up 133,200. It wasn't such a good day for several notables, including Charlie Carrel, Martin Jacobson, Felix Stephensen, Felipe "Mojave" Ramos, Bryn Kenney, Jeff Rossiter, Andre Akkari, Paul-Francois Tedeschi, Jean-Noel Thorel, and Ivan Luca. They all busted before play ended. So far, the field consists of 139 unique players and 42 re-entries, but the field size could increase with registration and re-entry open until 12:15 p.m. local time on Friday. The action will kick off at 12:30 p.m. for Day 2, so stay tuned to PokerNews for further updates from the 10,300 High Roller. Don't forget that you can also follow coverage of the 5,300 Main Event on PokerNews as well. Qualify for the Next EPT Event Think you've got what it takes to go deep in an EPT event? Qualify through PokerStars today and it could be your name PokerNews is writing about next! Check out the PokerStars review page on PokerNews to get started today. Check Out the Latest PokerNews Podcast While you're waiting for Day 2 of the EPT Dublin 10,300 High Roller to kick off, check out the latest episode of the PokerNews Podcast, with hosts Rich Ryan and Donnie Peters discussing Phil Galfond's op-ed, the Full Tilt-PokerStars merger, and more. Get all the latest PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+! Sharelines Dominik Nitsche leads after Day 1 of the 2016 PokerStars European Poker Tour Dublin 10,300 High Roller. Bill Perkins Bets Dan Bilzerian $600,000 He Can't Bike from L.A. To Vegas in 48 Hours February 19 2016 Donnie Peters Late on Tuesday night, Bill Perkins tweeted that he had just bet Dan Bilzerian that Bilzerian couldn't bike from his house in California to past the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada" sign in under 48 hours. Perkins confirmed to PokerNews that each man will put up $600,000 at even money. According to Perkins' tweet, Bilzerian has up until May 31, 2016, to start the trek. Bilzerian responded with a tweet of his own, saying that the distance was 278 miles and that he hasn't been on a bike in 18 years. The bet seemed to stem from an earlier proposal Bilzerian gave Samantha Abernathy. According to Abernathy's Twitter account six hours earlier, Bilzerian offered to bet her $10,000 that she couldn't bike from Vegas to L.A. in a 72-hour timeframe. Abernathy told PokerNews that "plans are in full swing to execute" her bet with Bilzerian. Speaking to PokerNews about the bet, Perkins, who is known to get involved in some interesting and outrageous prop bets, said that "it's the largest and craziest to date" he's ever made. While only Perkins knows if it's the largest, it could be argued that it's not the craziest. Perkins was the man who wagered against Antonio Esfandiari that "The Magician" couldn't lunge for 48 hours straight while at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. Esfandiari went on to win the bet, but it was a painful endeavor and one that saw him get disqualified from the PCA Main Event after he admitted to urinating in a container during the tournament. Esfandiari admitted to a lack of judgement and said he planned to donate the $50,000 he won from the bet to charity. Perkins is also known for his wide array of prop bets with Jeff Gross. In an article with Remko Rinkema for iGaming.org, Gross talked about a bet with Perkins worth $50,000 where he couldn't have alcohol for a full year. Gross also said he additional bets to not have flour for one year, to not check a bag when he traveled for 16 months, and to jump off the Stratosphere via an assisted free fall. While all of those bets might sound fairly easy to accomplish, Gross has a big fear of heights that made jumping off the Stratosphere seem nearly impossible. He won that one, though. Another bet Perkins and Gross made involved a tattoo on Gross' back. If you frequent Bilzerian's social media accounts, you're aware the tattoo bet was said to be worth a staggering $550,000. *Photo courtesy of Bill Perkins' Instagram account. Get all the latest PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+! Sharelines Bill Perkins bet Dan Bilzerian $600,000 that Bilzerian couldn't ride a bike from L.A. to Las Vegas in under 48 hours. Working to Win: The Business of Professional Poker February 19 2016 Jason Bloom People often wonder how a person can make a living at poker, a game involving elements of chance. On the outside, some think of dark smoky back rooms, or at the very least a table full of sharks hustling a drunk tourist out of his vacation funds. The simple fact is neither of these scenes much resemble the reality of what most professional poker players experience every day. This article will put into perspective the business side of professional poker, so that misconceptions can be tossed aside. Professional players should take heed of this articles focus on the necessity of approaching your line of work like a business owner. Risk versus reward and the direct pitting of skill sets against competition is the backbone of the journey that we all take in the professional world. Many realize this but most who are employed by others or who own their own businesses do not. The relationship between the various skill sets of providers and businesses will determine their success in the marketplace. This equation regulates a district managers prospective rise in the company, an accountants ability to be fortuitous, as well as a poker players ability to profit continuously over the long term. When an accountant prepares the return of one of his or her clients, a restaurant owner serves a meal to a customer, or a poker player sits down at a table, they are all directly pitting their skill set against that of their competition. The accountant and the restaurant owner do not feel the victory or taste the sting of defeat in their pocketbooks for many weeks or months. Professional athletes and poker players feel the immediate financial gratification of success or the disappointment of failure as it is right in their face. The accountant and restaurant owner must abide by the same direct laws of conflict and competition, only the outcome is delayed. Four out of five small businesses fail within the first five years of operation. The primary reason for this is that the provider of the good or service was inferior to their competition and their product delivery over the long run. A hard pill to swallow, but true nonetheless. Meanwhile poker players are forced to realize their mistakes right away as their bottom lines are affected immediately. Ultimately, winning this competition of skill sets results in promotion for the accountant, high profit and a successful business for the restaurant owner, and a high hourly win rate for the poker player. The fundamental route getting there was the same be better than your opponent or competition in the marketplace. One argument to my theory is that the poker player gambles when competing with his opposition, while the business owner does not. Au contraire! Again, the two paths to success or failure are still at their essence the same. Imagine a professional, seasoned accountant being pitted against a beginning, uneducated accountant. Whoever provides the better service is granted the fee in this scenario. It is obvious that the experienced accountant will more often save the client more money and provide a better service than the weaker counterpart. Every so often, though, the rookie accountant will be handed a slam dunk of a client, or the weak restaurant owner will be gifted a giant group of easy-to-please, high-spending customers. The gambling aspect of these careers is present, it is just as not as in your face as it is in poker. In the long run, the overall skill and experience level of the superior service providers will lead them to prevail against weaker competition in the free market. This equates to the better provider of poker skill in the poker room continuously making money off the weaker competition. For professional poker players and people in the business world, we must all strive for good lifestyle habits in and out of the office. Firstly, have hobbies outside of the workplace. These should be completely outside of the casino/office walls. Secondly, do not bring your work home with you. This can be hard for us all, but it is of the utmost importance. Finally, it is imperative to take your success seriously by studying and constantly striving to be more educated than your competition. In the end, professional poker is a business, no different in its essence than other professions. We all take risks, whether they are visibly in your face like a pot being pushed in your direction or to your opponent, or hidden behind walls of company financial statements. We all make the best living that we can while trying to avoid the grind or the rat race. As for me, I have not worked a day in 10 years. But Ive approached my business as though it were work in the same professional way every single day. Jason Bloom is a professional poker player of 10 years playing in mid- to high-stakes cash games in California, Las Vegas, Florida, and Belize. He writes about his play and other aspects of the poker world at The Poker Politico. Get all the latest PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+! Sharelines Poker pro Jason Bloom compares his line of work to other types of employment involving competition. In the end, professional poker is a business, no different in its essence than other professions. COSCO sets new course to create six businesses Updated: 2016-02-19 06:55 By Zhong Nan in Shanghai(China Daily) China COSCO Shipping Corp Ltd, now the world's largest bulk vessel and oil tanker operator by fleet size, is to deploy more resources to six new businesses, Chairman Xu Lirong said on Thursday. They will focus on logistics, industrial equipment manufacturing, financial and shipping services, investment, and operations linked to the country's "Internet Plus" development program, he said. Xu was speaking in Shanghai at the company's grand opening. The newly formed company brings together China's two biggest State-owned shipping conglomeratesChina Ocean Shipping (Group) Co and China Shipping (Group) Coto further compete against well-established global rivals. "New businesses such as multimodal transportation, warehouse network development, shipping insurance services, offshore engineering equipment manufacturing, hospital and hotel management are all included in the newly formed conglomerate's scope in the long term," Xu said. Employing 118,000 staff and managing 46 container ports and 190 berths around the world, the new entity has an annual throughput capacity of 90 million twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs. It also operates a number of shipyards and maritime engineering equipment manufacturing bases in Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shandong provinces. To enhance its earning abilities, the company will complete the reorganization for its container business by the end of March, said company officials. It also expects to restructure resources and staff at its bulk vessel and logistics companies from April. Xu said the planned six new businesses are expected to transform the group's operational model-shipping into a more diversified operation that can take full advantage of the opportunities likely to come from the Belt and Road Initiative, the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, as well as encouraging domestic companies to expand overseas. Zhang Xiwu, deputy head of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, said China COSCO Shipping will improve the country's ability to ensure its energy, economic and transportation security, as well as play a leading role in the ongoing reform of State-owned enterprises. China designs incentives for scientists to translate research into products Updated: 2016-02-18 04:24 (Xinhua) BEIJING -- China has created policies to encourage the country's scientists to translate their research into commercial products. The policies were laid out at the regular State Council executive meeting on Wednesday, which was presided over by Premier Li Keqiang. Attendees agreed that converting scientific achievements to products more quickly is vital to the country's economic restructuring, and supply-side structural reform in particular. According to the policies approved at the meeting, state-sponsored research institutions and universities will generally have autonomy in transferring their scientific outcomes to enterprises or social organizations, without having to file applications. All revenues generated from the work may be reserved by the research institutions or universities, which shall be used mainly for rewarding scientists, advancing research and industrial applications. Reward money should constitute no less than 50 percent of the net income earned from transferring scientific outcomes to enterprises or other social organizations, as well as stock shares gained. Major contributing researchers should take no less than 50 percent of the total rewards. The new policies also allow scientists and researchers to take part-time jobs in enterprises to convert their discoveries into products, and they may temporarily leave their posts to start their own businesses. Performance in translating scientific outcomes to products will be considered in the overall evaluation of research and higher learning institutions, according to the policies. Wang Bin, deputy head of the China Association for promotion of Private Sci-Tech Enterprises, said the policies are groundbreaking for granting autonomy to universities and research institutions in transferring their work and sparing them from approval procedures. Wang said the policies allowing scientists to start their own businesses while maintaining their posts are reassuring. A lot of researchers aspire to set up their own businesses but are reluctant to leave their jobs for fear of potential risks as they are not familiar with the market, Wang said. "The new policies will encourage more to venture into the business," Wang said. Wang Chengshe, professor with the Northwest A & F (Agriculture and Forestry) University, said the rewards spelled out in the policies will be great incentives for scientists to convert their discoveries to products. "I would like to give a thumbs up to the policies," said Shen Bilong, a doctorate student with the Institute of High Performance Computing, Computer Science and Technology Department of Tsinghua University. Shen said the policies promise tangible benefits to scientists and rid them of worries over the risks of start-ups. Protesters 'were determined to cause mayhem' Updated: 2016-02-18 21:34 By LUIS LIU in Hong Kong(chinadaily.com.cn) Protesters who turned Hong Kong into a battleground on Feb 9 were determined to cause mayhem with flammable liquids and by blocking firefighters, David Lai Man-hin, the city's director of fire services, said on Thursday. Twenty-two reports of fire were received that night and responses to all alarms were delayed by five to 60 minutes because of the protesters, who were throwing bricks and bottles, according to Fire Service Department statistics. Some protesters even used flammable liquids, making it harder to control the situation, Lai said. A liquefied petroleum gas taxi was also set on fire, putting people in the vicinity in great danger if the situation had not been controlled by firefighters, Lai said. Lai vowed to review the emergency management mechanism and consider equipping front-line firefighters with more portable tools. The rioters' behavior triggered concerns about escalating violence and radicalization in the city. Local political analyst Song Sio-chong said the riot was predictable to some extent after the 79-day illegal "Occupy" movement in 2014. He thought the punishment of those organizers and active demonstrators was not heavy enough, as the majority were only sentenced to imprisonment for several days, which failed to deter them. They are waiting for every chance to release their anger at society, Song said. According to Hong Kong police statistics, 70 percent of the 42 protesters who were arrested and charged after the Mong Kok riot were younger than 30. Explaining the reason behind the violence and radicalization, Song suggested the city's youth, who are facing a narrower social ladder than their parents' generation, could not cope with the current situation and refuse to put in effort to change it, instead putting the blame on society. Meanwhile, in this Internet era, people are more likely to get confined in their own social networks, which narrows their sources of information, Song said. Thus many become deeply-influenced by radical ideology delivered by some local media, publications, films and online videos, Song said. His opinion was echoed by Legislative Council member Priscilla Leung Mei-fun. At a Legislative Council meeting on Thursday, she cited a local publication that compared the riot with "a sacrifice for the future", stressing that such kind of incitement is a great threat to the city's law and order. Local education expert Li Hui also pointed out the failure in the city's education reform back in 2000, in which the authority removed a Chinese history course from the compulsory list and introduced a Liberal Studies course without comprehensive social and historic background. This resulted in young people's ungrounded criticism of society. Li urged the authority to review its education policy. Chinese, French FMs discuss bilateral ties, int'l affairs over phone Updated: 2016-02-19 06:10 (Xinhua) BEIJING -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday exchanged views via phone with new French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on their countries' relations and on international and regional issues of common concern. Wang congratulated Ayrault on his appointment. He said that the relations between China and France have been going well with deepening political mutual trust and mutually beneficial cooperation. China sees France as an irreplaceable strategic partner and has always taken France as a foreign policy priority, Wang said. He urged the two countries to maintain the strong momentum in the development of their relations, tap the potential for cooperation, boost the integration of their development strategies and explore new areas of cooperation. China is willing to boost strategic coordination with France in international and regional affairs such as global governance and climate change, said Wang. Ayrault said the relations between France and China are highly strategic and very important to the world. He pledged efforts to boost strategic communication with China and expand cooperation in innovation, investment, nuclear energy, and in the development of third-party markets. Hospitals to require advance bookings Updated: 2016-02-19 07:59 By Wang Xiaodong(China Daily) Patients with nonemergency conditions will soon have to make advance appointments before going to a major hospital in Beijing. All 22 major hospitals under the Beijing Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning will stop issuing registration tickets on site for nonemergency patients over the next 10 months. Patients can make appointments through the Internet, mobile phone, telephone and ticket machines at hospitals, Yu Luming, head of Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals, said on Thursday. The measure is expected to ease the excessive crowds of waiting patients, he said. It may also encourage patients with minor diseases to seek treatment in smaller hospitals so that more patients with serious diseases can be treated in big hospitals. The Beijing Children's Hospital has been piloting the program, Yu said. It is predicted that by the end of the year, 75 percent of patients going to the 22 hospitals for treatment will make reservations, according to Ju Xiaohong, spokesman of the Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals. "We will guide nonemergency patients to gradually shift to making reservations instead of on-site registration," he said. "Hospital volunteers will guide patients to make reservations online or through the auto ticket issuing machines in the hospitals." In addition to the 22 hospitals, Beijing has dozens of other big hospitals under the administration of different authorities, such as the National Health and Family Planning Commission and the People's Liberation Army. Since the Beijing Children's Hospital started to require nonemergency patients to make appointments in June, the number of patients waiting in line for registration in the hospital between 7 am and 8 am has been reduced by more than 18 percent, according to Ni Xin, president of the hospital. Before the system was adopted, it was common to see patients waiting overnight, he said. The measure also helped to reduce the number of scalpers at the hospital, which has been a complaint among patients for years, due to the real-name registration system that requires patients present their ID cards to be registered, he said. wangxiaodong@chinadaily.com.cn (China Daily 02/19/2016 page5) China urges caution over sanctions against DPRK Updated: 2016-02-19 20:54 (Xinhua) BEIJING -- China on Friday urged relevant parties to be cautious and show restraint to avoid complicating the situation as the United States passed a bill to impose more stringent sanctions on Pyongyang. No hot issues could be fundamentally resolved through simple sanctions or pressure. Actions that may harm third-party's legitimate interests will not help solve the issues, but only result in a more complicated situation, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei at a regular press conference. All parties concerned should stay calm and exercise restraint, sticking to the general direction of resolving issues through dialogue and consultations, said Hong. Protecting the wrong leads to more misdeeds Updated: 2016-02-19 07:18 (China Daily) The restaurant has been shut down. Photo taken on Oct 7, 2015. [Photo/IC] Harbin investigators have shot themselves in the foot by contradicting themselves. After their probe into claims by a tourist that he was ripped off by a restaurant in the city, capital of Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, which he said overcharged him for the fish he and his relatives consumed during Spring Festival, the local government investigators initially claimed that the restaurant was not in the wrong. It was the investigations conducted by reporters that have pushed the government investigators into revealing the truth of the scandal. Now the restaurant has been closed for operating with an expired license and cheating customers with cultivated fish it claimed were wild ones. The local government's admission of lack of supervision over the illegal practice has added to the drama. That more consumers have complained about how they were ripped off at the same restaurant has, to some extent, put the local government in an embarrassing situation, as it has clearly been turning a blind eye to the restaurant's wrongdoings, and presumably that of others. What this event has exposed is not just the cheating of restaurants, but also the local government's lack of awareness of what is required for a sustainable tourist industry. Rather than immediately conducting a thorough and impartial investigation into the tourist's claims and cracking down on the problematic eatery for the wrong-doings it uncovered, the local government tried to protect the fish restaurant and failed to take action until the pressure of public of opinion made it impossible for it to maintain its stance. If it was just a couple of heartless restaurant owners trying every conceivable means to make quick and easy money it would not be so bad. But it is clear the local government has failed to recognize the importance of maintaining a fair environment for the healthy development of the city's tourism market. When a local government is too lazy to exert proper supervision over the operation of the market, it risks its reputation being ruined by just a couple of bad apples. Similar scandals emerge almost every year, along with similar mistakes by local governments that only make things worse. The protection of local interest is understandable, but if the protection is used to protect such misdeeds it will only hurt local interests instead. US-ASEAN meeting proved largely symbolic Updated: 2016-02-19 07:52 By Yu Xiang(YU XIANG) The guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen (front) conducts a trilateral naval exercise with the Turkish and South Korean Navy on May 25, 2015. [Photo/IC] The first US-ASEAN meeting was hosted by US President Barack Obama at Sunnylands Rancho Mirage in California on Monday and Tuesday, the same venue where US President Barack Obama had his first informal meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013. Considering there are territorial disputes between China and some of the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the meeting and its location attracted much speculation. To some in the US, the meeting should be seen as a milestone in relations between the United States and ASEAN, as it is a concrete step in implementing the US' rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific given the importance of ASEAN's role in the strategy. Whether the US-ASEAN meeting will become a milestone in this respect is doubtful. For starters, although Obama is pushing the rebalancing strategy, there is limited time left for him. It is impossible to expect lots of promises to be put into practice within a year with the "poisonous political climate"as Obama has described itin the US. The next US president, especially if Republican, may not follow up on the promises made at the meeting. On the ASEAN side, not all ASEAN members want to side with the US against China. The Philippines and Vietnam are among the countries involved in territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea. But Philippine President Benigno Aquino III's six-year term in office will end in mid-2016. The future president may change his attitude toward China and pursue more rational and diplomatic ways to resolve their dispute. In Vietnam, the reappointment of Nguyen PhuTrong, 71, for a second term as leader could slow the pace of Vietnam's shift to a more open, market-oriented economy, but it is unlikely to alter its strategic balance in relations with China and US. More importantly, from an economic perspective, ASEAN has its own free trade plans, one is building an ASEAN Economic Community, and the other is leading the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which is endorsed by China. It is not in the interests of ASEAN to put itself in the dilemma of choosing between China and the US at the cost of economic development. Last year, ASEAN launched an ambitious integration plan to build the AEC aimed to create a big unified market for goods, services, capital and labor. Considering ASEAN now depends more and more on China, and China is playing a positive role in building the AEC, it is not in the interests of ASEAN to publicly go against China. China consistently appears among the top five trade partners for ASEAN members. Some ASEAN countries depend heavily on China. And ASEAN member countries are very interested in China's Belt and Road Initiative and eager to make connections. China, meanwhile, has a large say in the workings of multilateral lending institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the World Bank (which could have far-reaching implications for the future of ASEAN-China relations). The US is trying to enhance its economic connections with ASEAN, and wants to incorporate ASEAN into its trade and economic network. Four ASEAN member countries, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam, have joined in the US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. But according to a report titled Assessing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, released by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the TPP's benefits to ASEAN will be relatively small, with the US the biggest beneficiary. Considering ASEAN member states have their own different interests, and to choose sides would split the bloc, ASEAN will not choose sides or make a decision that harms regional stability; which means the US-ASEAN meeting was largely symbolic. The author, a Harvard University visiting scholar, is research fellow and director of the Division of American Economic Studies at the Institute of American Studies, China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. American Dream increasingly distant from most in US Updated: 2016-02-19 08:19 By Chen Weihua(China Daily) US President Barack Obama makes opening remarks at a gathering with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states leaders at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage, California February 15, 2016.[Photo/Agencies] US President John F. Kennedy was ambitious and idealistic in his "moon speech" on Sept 12, 1962, saying "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." However, when 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders laid out a vision for the United States to provide free college education, raise the minimum wage to $15, expand Social Security and address the widening income and wealth gap and the criminal justice system, he was labeled by his Republican and Democratic rivals as unrealistic or socialist. Michael Moore's new documentary Where to Invade Next reminds Americans that not only have many of these "unrealistic" and "socialist" ideals become a reality in European countries such as Norway, Sweden and Finland, they are described by those in Scandinavia as ideas that originated in the US. The movie struck a chord with the US audience as I watched it last weekend. Many of them applauded at the end, not to mention their laughter during the hilariously funny movie. Long, paid vacations in Italy, a year of paid maternity leave in Scandinavia and a surprisingly cozy prison in Norway are just some of the contrasts with US society today. The US and Papua New Guinea are the only two countries that don't offer paid maternity leave. And the Italian and Finnish employers/capitalists talk about the importance of treating their workers well and of having a society that is fair, unlike the one in the US. Moore believes most Americans have no idea that a large chunk of the US taxpayers' money is spent on the military. According to the White House Office of Management and Budget and the non-partisan, non-profit organization National Priorities Project, which aims to make the US budget transparent, 53.71 percent, or $598 billion, of the discretionary spending in 2015 was on the military, more than the combined spending on education, medical care and health, housing and community, energy and the environment, transportation, science, food and agriculture, veterans' benefits and government. Ironically, most of the 2016 US presidential candidates are still arguing for more spending on the military by exaggerating threats from Russia and China, among others. To them, maintaining absolute military supremacy is more important than the wellbeing of ordinary Americans. Having lived in New York and Washington for six years, I have always wondered why people living in New York and Washington don't complain about cellphone services being unavailable once inside the subway systems, considering communications are so vital for everyone in the 21st century. I told my American colleague that cellphone services are available in the Shanghai or Beijing subway systems. "Maybe Americans don't know you can have cellphone services in the subway," the colleague said. US highway systems and airports used to be the envy of the world after World War II, but they have become increasingly dilapidated, especially when the rest of the world has invested heavily in infrastructure in recent decades. At the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies last week, Larry Summers, a former chief economic advisor for President Obama, asked the audience if they feel proud as Americans of Kennedy or LaGuardia airports in New York. Many flights at Kennedy are international, and Summers asked if any of those international airports aren't nicer than Kennedy Airport. "And we are supposed to be the greatest and richest country on earth," he said. In her 2010 book Third World America, Arianna Huffington, argued that excessive spending on war and the military at the expense of domestic issues is denying ordinary Americans the American Dream. Moore's movie is the latest reminder that a nation that claims to be the greatest and most exceptional seems to quickly forget its ideals. The author is deputy editor of China Daily USA. chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com Citywide joint programs between China and the US to reduce carbon emissions and advance energy efficiency policies are in full swing, according to experts. "Leadership in local governments is showing an eagerness and determination to eliminate water and air pollution," said Debra Knopman, a researcher at the Rand Corporation. Knopman made the point in a panel discussion focusing on bottom-up innovation and partnerships to address climate and pollution in Chinese cities at the Wilson Center in Washington on Thursday. "There is more engagement for municipal governments to cooperate with us to conduct research and carry out policies because of its smaller scope," she said. Knopman is currently working on the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region to offer advice to cities and collect data. Her team's objective is to provide research and analysis to policymakers, build an indicator system to examine and monitor quality of life in the region and provide an analytical foundation to guide policy choices to better serve residents and attract new employers and employees, according to Zhimin Mao, an assistant policy analyst at Rand. "Energy efficiency reform on buildings can make cities more sustainable and successful," said Mark Ginsberg, principal of Ginsberg Green Strategies, which works to advance green buildings and Eco-Cities, Nearly 54 percent of the population on the planet is in cities, and collectively, cities account for more than 70 percent of global gas emissions and two thirds of the world's energy use, according to Shelly Poticha, of the Natural Resources Defense Council. There is still a gap of understanding that moving in the direction of environmental energy sustainability is also part of economic long-term viability, Knopman said. "If leadership is committed and attention sustained, our indicator system can increase accountability and transparency," she added. Zhimin Mao summarized the research and analysis they have conducted in the PDR region: "Implementation appears to be underway; the indicator system provides an opportunity to build a culture of evidence-based policymaking throughout the PRD." She also pointed out that "training of policy analysts and commitment to increasing the level of government performance will determine whether proposed approach will be effective and reliable." Pan Jialiang contributed to this story. China says US wrong on missiles Updated: 2016-02-19 12:32 By Wang Qingyun in Beijing and Chen Weihua in Washington(China Daily USA) China said that deploying national defense facilities on the Xisha Islands has nothing to do with the implementation of a code of conduct on the South China Sea. Deploying such facilities "is irrelevant to a comprehensive implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, or to the consultations over the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said on Thursday. Hong's words were in response to speculation that China's missile deployment on "disputed islands in the South China Sea" contravenes the principle of the code, and that China appears not to be serious about consultations over the code. In 2002, China and member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations signed the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea. They voiced agreement to work on the basis of consensus for adopting such a code of conduct. In 2013, China and the ASEAN countries began consultations on the code. Hong said China and "relevant countries" had been actively pushing consultations over the code. Western media have been following closely China's defense facilities on the Xisha Islands since Fox News reported on Tuesday that Beijing had deployed a missile system on Yongxing Island in the Xisha Islands. Hong stressed that the Xisha Islands are China's "inherent territory" and are not so-called disputed islands. Equipping them with defense facilities is not militarization, but a move "completely within China's sovereignty", he said. He said China has been deploying various kinds of national defense facilities on the Xisha Islands for several decades and it is nothing new and has nothing to do with the so-called militarization of the South China Sea. "It is hoped that the relevant country would stop pointless sensationalization which has ulterior motives and do more to uphold regional peace and stability," said Hong, clearly refuting US Secretary of State John Kerry's Wednesday accusation of China in militarizing the South China Sea by installing a surface-to-air missile system. Li Jinming, a professor of maritime policy and law at Xiamen University, said the code of conduct applies only to disputed islands, while the Xisha Islands, which have always been under China's administration, are not disputed. China had taken "very active steps" and had made much effort toward reaching a code of conduct, but attaining this goal took time, Li said. "China has always been coordinating, but neighboring countries should also invest (in such) efforts," he said. Li added that actions such as making a unilateral request for international arbitration, which the Philippines had asked for, are against the spirit of negotiations set by the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea signed by China and the ASEAN countries. Douglas Paal, vice-president for studies and director of the Asia program at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, stressed the importance of how both China and the US will view each other's actions, such as the missile system in the South China Sea and the THAAD system likely to be deployed in South Korea. "Both sides need to anticipate how the other will see their actions, communicate their intentions, avoid surprises, " Paal said. "This process will entail hard work and effective responsibility systems." At Thursday's daily press conference, US State Department spokesman John Kirby was challenged by Associated Press reporter Matthew Lee that it should be understandable from the Chinese perspective that US sailing military ships and flying military planes into the South China Sea raises tension and constitutes militarization. Contact the writer at wangqingyun@chinadaily.com.cn. Lang Lang, who was recently appointed image ambassador for the China-Latin America and Caribbean 2016 Year of Cultural Exchange, will perform in a handful of countries including Argentina, Chile and Peru. Provided to china daily The world has a lot to thank Tom and Jerry for. It was through a television episode of the American cartoon series that Lang Lang had his first contact with Western music, when he was 2 years old. Hearing Tom the cat masterfully play Liszts Hungarian Rhapsody No 2 albeit with unwelcome interruptions from a certain mouse inspired Lang to take up the piano, and now, more than 30 years later, he is one of the most sought-after players on the international stage. But there is much more to the Chinese musician than piano playing, and in 2013 the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, named him as a messenger of peace, a role in which Lang sees his main job as educating the young. More recently Lang was appointed image ambassador for the China-Latin America and Caribbean 2016 Year of Cultural Exchange, and in addition to a full itinerary of concerts in Europe he is now preparing for concerts and education projects in Latin America. He is no stranger to the region, having visited Latin America three times, so he is well acquainted with countries such as Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. I dont feel like an ambassador, Lang said. I just feel that we are connected through art. He has won numerous awards, is the first Chinese pianist to be a member of the Berliner Philharmonic and the top five symphony orchestras in the United States, has performed at the White House in Washington, and took part in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008. Im a big admirer of Latin American arts and dances, he said. Every time Im there I feel very inspired, not only for their passion for art but also the way they dance and express themselves. They are also very friendly to Chinese artists, enthusiastic, talkative and encouraging. Latinos have music in their genes, he said, and can sing and dance on any occasion. He recalls once having dinner with a Latino family and being impressed by the fact that unlike Chinese, who prefer to chatter away while they eat, Latinos express their mood by dancing and singing. I once watched tango and salsa performances in homes in Argentina and Brazil. From a very close distance I could feel the dancers passion for both dance and life. My heart almost jumped out of my chest. The China-Latin America and Caribbean 2016 Year of Cultural Exchange was mooted by President Xi Jinping in 2014, and, after months of preparations, the event will formally open next month. The event highlights the Chinese governments desire to promote China-Latin America relations and will improve cultural exchanges, said Zhu Qi, deputy director of the Bureau for External Cultural Relations in the Ministry of Culture. Lang will perform in a handful of countries including Argentina, Chile and Peru. Local artists will get the chance to perform with him, the idea being for people to learn about each others music. Its the first time a cultural group of this size has toured Latin American countries, and I hope people will sense our sincerity and that they will be enthused. Recently Lang has been honing his skills in playing Latin American music and said he hopes he can perform with the music genes that Latinos do. Music can strike chords in peoples hearts and connect their souls. Music flows into people, overcoming barriers of language and distance. In addition to concerts in Latin America, in which he will play both Chinese and Latin American music, Lang said he will give talks to young people there. Music combined with education is the best cultural exchange, because music resonates with peoples souls, and education makes that resonance take root. More than 100 young people will get the opportunity to communicate with Lang face to face in Peru and Argentina, playing music and exchanging cultures. Lang said he has learned a lot from Latino children, and he believes he has more to learn. Some young people I have met there have grown up in very poor circumstances but remain optimistic and happy through music, always open to make friends that way with people from all over the world. In a visit to Venezuela, Lang collaborated with conductor Gustavo Dudamel, and the two are now good friends. Dudamel has a project in which music is used to bring young Venezuelans out of poverty and lives of crime, a program that Lang said deeply touched him. Those children become confident and become better people because of music. I am so impressed by Dudamels efforts. I hope I can do a similar project in China. He also hopes Latin American artists can take their culture to China, he said. Latino artists he has worked with such as the Spanish tenor Placido Domingo and the Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Florez are all keen to work more with Chinese people. I hope that we can promote artistic exchange by holding multinational concerts and introducing more artist friends to our country. Despite the differences in their cultures, Chinese and Latinos have many things in common, he said. Its easy for us to become friends in two minutes. We should really communicate more, not only through music, but also on a people-to-people level. Chen Nan contributed to this story. Contact the writer through yandongjie@chinadaily.com.cn Terex stops Konecranes merger integration work Updated: 2016-02-20 04:41 By AGENCIES(China Daily USA) Terex Corp, the US crane maker that has received a $3.3 billion acquisition offer from China's Zoomlion, said on Friday that it had halted all integration work on its merger with Finland's Konecranes. While Terex has made no decision on whether it will abandon its agreed merger with Konecranes, the move is the clearest indication yet that it views a sale to Zoomlion as a realistic alternative despite concerns such a deal could be blocked by the United States on national security concerns, according to Reuters. Terex, a Westport, Connecticut-based crane maker, has 97 so-called priority-rated contracts with the US government that could attract scrutiny from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). It also provides mobile harbor cranes in ports that are seen as a critical part of US infrastructure. "Given the uncertainties involved with the merger and proposed acquisition (by Zoomlion), the decision was made to halt information sharing, work on integration, and synergies between the businesses, until further clarity can be had on the course of action," Terex said in a statement on Friday after Reuters reported on the cessation of integration work, citing sources. Financial and antitrust filings regarding Terex's merger with Konecranes that are in the works will continue unaffected, Terex added, emphasizing that it had not so far changed its recommendation on the merger with Konecranes. Zoomlion and Konecranes did not immediately comment, Reuters said. Zoomlion has offered $30 per share in cash for Terex, versus the Konecranes offer of 0.8 share for each Terex share, which Terex shareholders stand to receive under the deal that was agreed upon in August. A formal CFIUS review of Zoomlion's acquisition of Terex would likely take up to 75 days, according to people familiar with the matter, Reuters reported. Terex has not informed Zoomlion how long it will take to make a decision on its latest proposal, the people added. China committed to FOCAC resolutions: official Updated: 2016-02-19 05:34 (Xinhua) PRETORIA -- China is committed to fulfilling resolutions adopted at the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), a Chinese Embassy official said on Thursday. The Chinese government will implement what China and Africa agreed upon at the FOCAC Summit last December, said Hu Zhangliang, spokesperson at the Chinese Embassy in Pretoria. This would be done despite the global challenges and economic difficulties China is facing, Hu told journalists, diplomats, academics and government officials attending a round table discussion about the FOCAC Summit. "The Johannesburg Summit left a mark in China Africa relations. All those outcomes will be implemented in an honest manner. What we have achieved re-affirms the idea of mutual and win-win cooperation," Hu said. The summit, he said, showed strong unity and friendship between China and Africa. "The feature of our cooperation is sincerity, mutual benefit and respect," he said. Hu stressed the need for strong pillars to support the comprehensive strategic relationship between China and Africa, saying both sides have agreed and shown political will and commitment to the Sino-Africa relationship. "This cooperation will help in employment creation, food security and health development," Hu said. China and Africa will work together to achieve the FOCAC Summit resolutions, he pledged. "China would not have achieved what we have achieved without Africa and Africa would not be where they are without China,"Hu added. Professor Garth Shelton at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, concurred with the Chinese diplomat. Shelton said FOCAC has a success story, as can be shown by Chinese-funded infrastructure construction in many African countries. "FOCAC is unique and valuable to promote cooperation. By choosing China, Africa makes useful and positive arrangement ... FOCAC is not a one-way relationship, it works both ways," he said. Shelton encouraged African countries to make conditions more favourable for investment and remove red tape in ensuring that prospective investors do not encounter problems in terms of legislation and doing business. Phuilani Mthembu, a senior researcher at the Institute for Global Dialogue, said the Johannesburg FOCAC Summit has produced positive outcomes like the Johannesburg Declaration and Action Plan which will ensure compliance of the outcomes. World Bank announces funding to combat Zika outbreak in Latin America Updated: 2016-02-19 05:56 (Xinhua) A scientist is preparing samples for diagnostic testing at the National Microbiology Laboratory of Canada in Winnipeg, Manitoba on February 16, 2016 in this photo released on February 18, 2016. [Photo/Agencies] WASHINGTON -- The World Bank Group on Thursday announced that it has provided $150 million to help countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to combat the Zika virus outbreak. The Washington-based global lender said in a statement that this funding, which is immediately available, is based on current country demands for financing and the bank "stands ready to increase its support" if additional financing is needed. The World Bank estimated that the short-term economic impact of the Zika virus outbreak on the region will be about 3.5 billion dollars in total, representing only 0.06 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) of the region's economies, but countries highly dependent on tourism could suffer losses in excess of 1 percent of GDP. These initial projections of the economic impact of the disease are based on the expectation of "a swift, well-coordinated international response to the Zika virus" and on the assumption that the most significant health risks are for pregnant women, the bank noted. "Our analysis underscores the importance of urgent action to halt the spread of the Zika virus and to protect the health and well-being of people in the affected countries," Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank Group, said in a statement. The World Bank financing will support a range of activities critical to the Zika virus response, including vector surveillance and control, identification of the people most at-risk, especially pregnant women and women of reproductive age, and follow-up and care through pregnancy and postnatal care for neurological complications, the bank said. The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday launched a global response plan to address the ongoing spread of Zika virus outbreak, with 56 million dollars required for implementation. Chinese photographers' work shines in major photo contest Updated: 2016-02-19 10:31 (chinadaily.com.cn) The city of Tianjin in North China is shrouded in haze, Dec 10, 2015. This photo taken by Zhang Lei won first prize among single photos in the Contemporary Issues category of the World Press Photo competition. [Photo/IC] Two Chinese photographers' photos won prizes in the 59th annual World Press Photo contest on Thursday afternoon. The photos, portraying severe haze in northern China and the disastrous explosion in Tianjin municipality last August,won first and third prize, respectively. Australian photographer Warren Richardson won the World Press Photo of the Year 2015 with the picture called Hope for a New Life, showing a man passing a baby through the fence at the Hungarian-Serbian border near Horgos, Serbia, and Roszke, Hungary, on Aug 28, 2015. A total of 82,951 photos were submitted by 5,775 photographers from 128 countries and regions. All winners are invited to the annual awards days, a networking event and celebration of the prizewinners, which takes place in Amsterdam at the end of April this year. World Press Photo, founded in 1955, holds the world's largest and most prestigious annual press photography contest. Trade is a primary topic in South Carolina's Republican primary Updated: 2016-02-19 13:29 By PAUL WELITZKIN in New York(China Daily USA) Despite South Carolina's success in luring foreign investment from China, Europe and other areas, trade has become a major issue as the state holds its Republican presidential primary on Saturday. If the polls are right, businessman and reality-television host Donald Trump will emerge with a clear win in the voting. Trump has made trade a major topic in the US primary season so far, arguing that China, Mexico and other countries are taking jobs away from Americans. Yet South Carolina has been one of the most successful states in luring foreign direct investment (FDI) that has created thousands of jobs. In the 1970s, French tire maker Michelin established a plant in the state. Since 1975, Michelin has invested more than $5 billion in South Carolina. Currently, more than 8,000 of Michelin's 22,000 employees in North America are based in the state. The latest data from the International Trade Administration show that overseas firms employ 115,900 South Carolinians, accounting for 7.6 percent of private-sector employment, the second-highest share in the nation, according to an August 2015 economic outlook report about the state from Wells Fargo Securities. China has been a strong sourceof FDI for the state. The first Chinese manufacturing establishment in the US was made by Chinese appliance maker Haier Group with an investment of $40 million in Camden in 1999, according to Xiaobo Hu, director of the Center for China Studies at Clemson University. In August 2015, Haier announced that it would spend $72 million expanding its plant and hire an additional 410 people. Exports to China from South Carolina have surged nearly 400 percent over the past five years, making China the No 1 export destination for the state, according to the Well Fargo report. The top exports include transportation equipment, machinery, chemicals, computers and electronics. South Carolina is home to more than 20 Chinese companies that have brought in about $700 million in capital investment and directly employ more than3,000. One China-based manufacturer that has settled into the state is Sun Fiber. In 2013 it invested $45 million for a manufacturing facility in Richburg, generating more than 300 jobs in Chester County. When the company announced it would open a plant in the state, Governor Nikki Haley called it a "big win for one of our state's rural areas" at the time. The company recycles discarded plastic bottles and transforms them into fibers for use in home textiles, furniture and in the automotive industry. Cui Tiankai, China's ambassador to the US, praised the company when he visited its plant on Jan 28. "They don't fear the difficulties, and they have overcome a lot of them," Cui said. "They have adjusted to the environment and found room for development in a fairly short time. I'm very happy to see Chinese entrepreneurs find their path in the US." Sun Fiber CEO Cixi Jiangnan said the most difficult challenge for the company is to integrate the local employees. She said that one of the company's goals is to have its American employees embrace Sun Fiber as its Chinese employees do. "Similar to other international companies in South Carolina, the Chinese hire predominantly local talent. These companies sometimes only have one or two native Chinese from their headquarters in China." Hu said. In 2017, auto maker Volvo, a unit of China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co in Hangzhou, is scheduled to open a plant in Berkley County, about 30 miles northwest of Charleston. Despite this, Republican voters seem very receptive to Trump's trade message, said Frank Hefner, a professor of economics at the College of Charleston. "South Carolinians in general have been receptive and welcoming to foreign investment. However, that is different from the perception of jobs being exported overseas," he said. Apparently a disconnecthas developed between the thousands of mostly good-paying jobs FDI has created in the state and its residents, and Hefner said history is partly responsible. "In the 1970s and 1980s, the state lost thousands of textile jobs to the Dominican Republic and Central America. Some voters have parents or grandparents that lost jobs in that era," he said. Fear is another factor according to Jordan Ragusa, political science professor at the College of Charleston. "People react to the fear of losing their job. There is research in political science which shows that fear can sometimes be a better motivator in politics than hope," Ragusa said. Gibbs Knotts, another political science professor at the College of Charleston, said the development from FDI has been uneven in South Carolina. "The gains (from FDI) haven't been uniform across the state. A lot of rural areas haven't benefited and there is the lingering memory of the loss of textile jobs," Knotts said. Will trade still be a major issue in the presidential election? "I think so," said Knotts. "Even if Trump and Sanders don't end up being the nominee, the issue will remain. I do expect trade to be a part of what is going on in November." Ragusa doesn't think trade by itself will be a focal point in the fall campaign. "I think trade will be discussed within immigration, foreign affairs and the economy," he said. "I don't think trade will be a major factor." Aircraft strike Libya's Sabratha city, 40 killed Updated: 2016-02-19 20:15 (Agencies) Old Roman ruins stand in the ancient archeaological site of Sabratha on Libya's Mediterreanean coast, in this June 1, 2013 file photo.[Photo/Agencies] TRIPOLI - Warplanes carried out air strikes early on Friday morning in the western Libyan city of Sabratha, killing as many as 40 people, the city's mayor said. The New York Times, citing a Western official, said US jets carried out the attack. Hussein al-Thwadi told Reuters the planes struck at 3.30 a.m. (0130 GMT), hitting a building in the Qasr Talil district in which foreign workers were living. He said 41 people had been killed and six wounded. The death toll could not immediately be confirmed with other officials. Sabratha is near the Tunisian border, and it is also one of the areas where Western officials say Islamic State militants had some presence as part of their expansion in the North African state. The gunmen who carried out attacks at a Tunis museum and a beach hotel last year, killing dozens of people, all trained at militant camps in Libya before returning to their home country. The Western official cited by the New York Times said Friday's air strikes targeted a senior Tunisian operative linked to both of last year's attacks, which were claimed by Islamic State. 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. Hanoi, February 18 (VNA) French photographer Rehahn recently re-leased a photobook titled Vietnam, Mosaic of Contrasts Vol 2, sending a message of "Come back to Vietnam" to foreign tourists. The photobook was released following the success of his first photobook about Vietnam titled Vietnam, Mosaic of Contrasts introduced in 2014. More than 4,000 copies of the first book were sold in 29 countries. The new photobook includes 150 photos and is divided into four parts, featuring children, elders, lifestyles and landscapes. The new book is available in Vietnam and 15 other countries, said the photographer. The series of photo-books Vietnam, Mosaic of Contrast are like puzzles about the country, Rehahn said as he explained the name of his works. The first book showed some pieces of the puzzle and the second showed more, he added. "I want to continue representing Vietnam in more books, Vietnam cannot be explained in just one or two books," Rehahn told Vietnam News. In the first book, there are many photos of tourist attractions, but the second is more about ethnic minorities in Vietnam, he said while describing the differences between his latest photobook and the previous one. He said he read in the news that tourists coming to Vietnam often come once and do not return. Foreign tourists think they have seen all there is to see about Vietnam in a 15-day tour visiting famous places, he explained. "This book is meant to show them that there is more to see. I want to show different parts of Vietnam," Rehahn said. "I want to make people, who buy my book in France, Australia, the United States and other countries, curious about Vietnam and come back to see more incredible places." Traditional costumes Rehahn said that four years after settling down in Vietnam, he had developed a passion for the lives of the ethnic minority people. However, he was worried about the disappearance of traditional costumes among these ethnic groups. "Fewer and fewer ethnic people wear traditional costumes, I think it will disappear in the future," Rehahn said. He narrated a story about meeting a 73-year-old Bo Y woman who was the last person to make the Bo Y traditional costumes. She told him that young women do not want to learn how to make the costumes. "When she dies, the costumes will disappear and there are only 1,000 people there," the worried photographer said. The young are also no longer learning their own language but learning Vietnamese instead. "I want to document these people, to take the last photos of them. My wish is to take photos of these people before the end of their culture," Rehahn said. He has also bought and collected these costumes. He said he would bring his photos and costumes to the 2016 Foire Interna-tionale de Caen, an international travel fair to be held in France in September. The 10-day fair is expected to attract up to 200,000 visitors. "My wish is to do a promotion of Vietnam," Rehahn said, adding, "As the authorities are promoting famous destinations like Hoi An, Ha Long Bay, etc. I want to show other parts of the country to interest people enough for them to come back because there is more to see in Vietnam." Travel agencies should know that while Asian tourists love to enjoy landscapes, Western tourists are more interested in people and culture, the photographer explained. He wished that Vietnamese travel agencies would organise tours to the areas where ethnic groups live. "By doing that, travel agencies will have more customers, while the life of ethnic people will improve, and they will keep making traditional costumes because they know tourists love and want to see them," Rehahn said while suggesting a solution to help preserve the traditional costumes. "It is not only good for the economy but also good for the culture and the future," the photographer emphasised. "I want to make people realise that ethnic people are valuable to the country," he said. To promote the book, Rehahn said he hoped to organise exhibitions in HCM City, Hoi An, Hue, Nha Trang, Hanoi and in other countries. VNA/VNP The Vatican Information Service is a news service, founded in the Holy See Press Office, that provides information about the Magisterium and the pastoral activities of the Holy Father and the Roman Curia...[ ] Global software firm Microsoft on Thursday said it was working with the Indian government to use Skype with the Aadhar database. According to Brad Smith, president and chief legal officer, Microsoft Corporation, the company hopes to merge the two services and see if Skype's video-calling facility would be used as a way to authenticate government's various services. Smith said that the government's UID (Unique Identification) programme was a great initiative and the company stood by the system. "We have been pursuing work, initially on a pilot basis, to use this specific technology and integrate it with Skype. We see Skype evolving in a way that will enable someone at home to authenticate themselves by using that ID system with a fingerprint or iris scan and then communicate with someone on the other end, maybe even a government agency, which will know that person is the same as he or she is claiming to be," Smith said. On his views on governments insisting on setting up local data centres, he said it was a "mistake" as it pushed up the cost of cloud computing. "I think it's a mistake for governments to require data localisation. If every country said that all the data in the country needed to stay in the country, we would quickly see a spiralling cost to cloud computing," he said. Smith added security of data can be advanced through data classification since only some of the data is sensitive. "I think governments can advance digital transformation and security by developing a classification scheme that guides the different agencies... what it really does is, it protects the most sensitive data and moving other data to the cloud in a way that makes it accessible to the public at large," he said. Smith also expressed concerns over increasing intervention by governments to access consumer data. Meanwhile, Microsoft said regulations needed to keep pace with rapidly changing technology to secure and protect privacy of individuals. Microsoft, just like its peers Google, Apple and Facebook, has been strongly advocating protecting security of customers and their information. "Governments have a fundamentally important role in striking a balance between privacy and security. We want to live in a world where the public is safe and where privacy rights are secure. Governments need to strike a balance especially in democratic societies," Smith added. Smith said laws also need to "catch up" with technology as the latter has moved at a fast pace in the last two to three decades. "As we look to the future, we believe there is a need for legal modernisation at the national level and perhaps even more, there is a need for a new international legal processes... That's the only way we are going to ensure that law enforcement works effectively and privacy receives all the strong protection it deserves," he said. Apple recently opposed a US court's ruling to unlock the iPhone of Syed Farook, who shot dead 14 people and injured 22 others in San Bernardino, California, along with another shooter last December. According to Microsoft the company is working with the government on setting the Cyber Security Engagement Centre (CSEC) under the digital crimes unit of the company. "The centre will work with law enforcement agencies as well as customers and help stakeholders fight cybercrimes," he said. The company as of now said that is offering its cyber security services to the government, as well as defence forces and power plants in the country and would be expanding the initiative further. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has joined the chorus of protest at Washington's announcement that it will sell Pakistan eight F-16 fighters for $699 million, in the fighter's most potent configuration called Block 50/52. On Thursday, speaking to interviewer Karan Thapar on India Today TV, Parrikar termed the sale a "down" in the US-India relationship, stating: "I'm quite hurt by that and we have expressed our feelings very clearly to America." This came a day after Phil Shaw, the India head of Lockheed Martin, the company that builds the F-16, offered at the Singapore Air Show to "build the F-16 aircraft in India and to move our production line from the US to India with an Indian partner to help with the 'Make in India' process." Ministry of Defence (MoD) sources say the US proposal to establish an F-16 production line in India has been dead for some time now. The Pakistan sale only hammers a final nail into that proposal's coffin. The origin of the latest sale goes back to 2006, when Washington signed a $1.4 billion deal to supply 18 Block 50/52 F-16C/D fighters to the Pakistan Air Force (PAF), an order that was delivered in 2010-11. That contract included an option for 18 more aircraft. The eight new F-16s, about which the US Congress was notified last Friday, are being supplied under that options clause. The US Department of Defense (Pentagon) is reportedly paying almost half the cost as military aid. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports that, between 2002-2014, the US sold Pakistan military kit worth $5.4 billion under the Foreign Military Sales programme. About half consisted of F-16s and related equipment. The CRS reports that, since 2001, the US Congress has allocated $3.6 billion in Foreign Military Financing (an aid category) for Pakistan. More than two-third of this has been disbursed already. New Delhi is not hiding its anger at this US largesse. On Saturday, the day after the Congressional notification, India's foreign ministry summoned US envoy, Richard Verma, to protest the sale. The Pentagon has downplayed Indian concerns, indicating the F-16s were being supplied for counter-terrorist operations in Pakistan's federally administered tribal areas (FATA). On Tuesday, Pentagon Press Secretary Petro Cook stated: "We think these are important capabilities for Pakistan to go after terrorists We don't think it should be a cause for concern for India." Air Vice-Marshal Kapil Kak of the Centre for Air Power Studies, points out that such advanced fighters are not needed for striking terrorist targets. "When I last looked, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan didn't have an air force! The war on terror does not require air-to-air missiles, airborne radar, and digital avionics," says Kak. Aviation expert, Pushpindar Singh, points out that the US is supplying the Embraer A-29 Super Tucano to the Afghanistan air force. "In those narrow valleys, ground strikes against terrorist are best delivered by the propeller-driven A-29 Super Tucano, which has armour protection and can even deliver laser guided bombs. The Block 50/52 F-16C/D is primarily for use against a modern air force like India's," he says. India is not alone in protesting the latest F-16 sale. Influential Republican senator, Bob Corker, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has indicated he will, in the least, oppose the US subsidy on the sale. US assistance has raised Pakistan's F-16 numbers from two squadrons (40 aircraft) of earlier-generation F-16A/B fighters to four state-of-the-art squadrons that are a match for anything the Indian Air Force (IAF) can throw at them. The most potent are the 18 Block 50/52 F-16C/Ds that Pakistan obtained in 2010-11, which are based in in PAF Base Shahbaz, outside Jacobabad, forming the PAF's No. 5 Squadron. Along with these, the US supplied the AMRAAM (advanced medium range air-to-air missile), which can target enemy fighters "beyond visual range" (BVR). This was the first time the PAF obtained BVR missiles, obliging the IAF to transform their air-to-air combat tactics. That contract also provided the PAF with JDAMs (joint direct attack munitions), which convert regular gravity bombs into "smart munitions". A JDAM kit bolted onto a dumb bomb, guides it with pin-point precision to a target 28 kilometres away, using "inertial guidance" and a Global Positioning System receiver. With air-to-air refuelling, these F-16s can strike Indian targets near Mumbai and further south. The eight new F-16s would come with all this weaponry, as would the 10 additional fighters on which Pakistan could exercise "options" to make up a full new squadron. Like No.5 Squadron, the new squadron too will most likely be based at Jacobabad, since the US has imposed stringent conditions on where Pakistan can base F-16s. Wikileaks made public a cable (No. 113106/1201 dated June 22nd, 2007) that the US Embassy in Islamabad sent to Washington, revealing US conditions for basing and operating the new F-16s. It says: "The F-16 must be housed on separate, pre-designated Pakistan Air Force bases to ensure no unauthorised access. Furthermore, Pakistan may not have non-U.S./non-Pakistan origin aircraft or personnel at any of the bases with these F-16 aircraft and related equipment." Further, to keep Chinese technicians and pilots away from the F-16s, "No foreign units or personnel may be permanently or temporarily assigned at the bases where F-16 aircraft are assigned, parked, maintained or stored, or while deployed." Besides Jacobabad, Pakistan bases three squadrons of its older F-16A/B fighters - Nos 9, 11 and 19 Squadrons - at Sargodha, in PAF Base Mushaf. The first two operate 34 Block 15 F-16A/B fighters, which are what remains of the first 40 F-16s that Pakistan acquired in the 1980s. As part of the 2006 contract, the US provided mid-life upgrade (MLU) kits for these fighters, greatly improving their capability, though not to the level of the Block 50/52 F-16s. No 19 Squadron has been equipped from 26 older (but upgraded) Block 15 F-16s that the US supplied at throwaway rates, in the category of "Excess Defence Articles" that the US military no longer required. Pakistan also bought 12-13 Block 15 F-16s from Jordan. Now upgraded, these are used for training PAF pilots in establishments like the Combat Commander's School. Pushpindar Singh says Pakistan is also looking for old-model F-16s from European air forces - such as Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Greece and Italy - which are being replaced by new fighters like the Eurofighter Typhoon and the F-35 Lightning II. "These can be upgraded cheaply with US-supplied kits, to replace the PAF's obsolescent Mirage III, Mirage V and F-7 fighters that are nearing retirement," says Singh. Wikileaks revealed a cable sent by an exasperated US embassy official in Islamabad that noted: "The Pakistan Air Force is obsessed with F-16s The request for used F-16s represents the GOP's (government of Pakistan's) desire to acquire aircraft at an extreme discount." The battle between and law enforcement officials over unlocking a terrorist's smartphone is the culmination of a slow turning of the tables between the technology industry and the United States government. After revelations by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J Snowden in 2013 that the government both cozied up to certain tech and hacked into others to gain access to private data on an enormous scale, tech giants began to recognise the United States government as a hostile actor. But, if the confrontation has crystallised in this latest battle, it may already be heading toward a predictable conclusion: In the long run, the tech are destined to emerge victorious. It might not seem that way at the moment. On the one side, you have the United States government's mighty legal and security apparatus fighting for data of the most sympathetic sort: the secrets buried in a dead mass murderer's phone. The action stems from a federal court order issued on Tuesday requiring to help the FBI unlock an iPhone used by one of the two attackers who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, California, in December. In the other corner is the world's most valuable company, whose chief executive, Timothy D Cook, has said he will appeal the court's order. argues that it is fighting to preserve a principle that most of us who are addicted to our smartphones can defend: Weaken a single iPhone so that its contents can be viewed by the American government and you risk weakening all iPhones for any government intruder, anywhere. There will probably be months of legal tussling, and it is not at all clear which side will prevail in court, nor in the battle for public opinion and legislative favour. Yet underlying all of this is a simple dynamic: Apple, Google, Facebook and other hold most of the cards in this confrontation. They have our data, and their businesses depend on the global public's collective belief that they will do everything they can to protect that data. Any crack in that front could be fatal for tech companies that must operate worldwide. If Apple is forced to open up an iPhone for an American law enforcement investigation, what's to prevent it from doing so for a request from the Chinese or the Iranians? If Apple is forced to write code that lets the FBI get into the Phone 5c used by Syed Rizwan Farook, the male attacker in the San Bernardino attack, who would be responsible if some hacker got hold of that code and broke into its other devices? Apple's stance on these issues emerged post-Snowden, when the company started putting in place a series of technologies that, by default, make use of encryption to limit access to people's data. More than that, Apple - and, in different ways, other tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft - have made their opposition to the government's claims a point of corporate pride. Apple's emerging global brand is privacy; it has staked its corporate reputation, not to mention invested its considerable technical and financial resources, on limiting the sort of mass surveillance that was uncovered by Snowden. So now, for many cases involving governmental intrusions into data, once-lonely privacy advocates find themselves fighting alongside the most powerful company in the world. "A comparison point is in the 1990s battles over encryption," said Kurt Opsahl, general counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy watchdog group. "Then you had a few companies involved, but not one of the largest companies in the world coming out with a lengthy and impassioned post, like we saw yesterday from Tim Cook. The profile has really been raised." Apple and other tech companies hold another ace: The technical means to keep making their devices more and more inaccessible. Note that Apple's public opposition to the government's request is itself a hindrance to mass government intrusion. And, to get at the contents of a single iPhone, the government says it needs a court order and Apple's help to write new code; in earlier versions of the iPhone, ones that were created before Apple found religion on privacy, the FBI might have been able to break into the device by itself. You can expect that noose to continue to tighten. Experts said that whether or not Apple loses this specific case, measures that it could put into place in the future will almost certainly be able to further limit the government's reach. That's not to say that the outcome of the San Bernardino case is insignificant. As Apple and several security experts have argued, an order compelling Apple to write software that gives the FBI access to the iPhone in question would establish an unsettling precedent. The order essentially asks Apple to hack its own devices, and once it is in place, the precedent could be used to justify law enforcement efforts to get around encryption technologies in other investigations far removed from national security threats. Once armed with a method for gaining access to iPhones, the government could ask to use it proactively, before a suspected terrorist attack - leaving Apple in a bind as to whether to comply or risk an attack and suffer a public-relations nightmare. "This is a brand new salvo in the war against encryption," Opsahl said. "We've had plenty of debates in Congress and the media over whether the government should have a backdoor, and this is an end run around that - here they come with an order to create that backdoor." Yet it's worth noting that even if Apple ultimately loses this case, it has plenty of technical means to close a backdoor over time. "If they're anywhere near worth their salt as engineers, I bet they're rethinking their threat model as we speak," said Jonathan Zdziarski, a digital forensic expert who studies the iPhone and its vulnerabilities. One relatively simple fix, Zdziarski said, would be for Apple to modify future versions of the iPhone to require a user to enter a passcode before the phone will accept the sort of modified operating system that the FBI wants Apple to create. That way, Apple could not unilaterally introduce a code that weakens the iPhone - a user would have to consent to it. "Nothing is 100 percent hacker-proof," Zdziarski said, but he pointed out that the judge's order in this case required Apple to provide "reasonable security assistance" to unlock Farook's phone. If Apple alters the security model of future iPhones so that even its own engineers' "reasonable assistance" will not be able to crack a given device when compelled by the government, a precedent set in this case might lose its lasting force. In other words, even if the FBI wins this case, in the long run, it loses. 2016 The New York Times News Service French Prime Minister has described the fight against Islamic militancy a "battle against barbarity" as he visited Mali, where France has had troops tackling rebels and jihadist groups since 2013. The country's vast northern stretches continue to be beset by violence having fallen under the control of Tuareg-led rebels and jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in 2012. The Islamists sidelined the Tuareg to take sole control, and although they were largely ousted by a French-led military operation in January 2013, extremist groups still pose a threat. "Today, reconciliation is in progress," said Valls on Thursday, who visited Bamako, accompanied by Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, referring to the peace accord signed by the government and the Tuareg rebels last year. "Liberty must be defended. France is fully engaged. It's in essence a battle of humanity against barbarity," Valls said, speaking to members of the French community after meeting with Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. Although Mali has concluded a landmark peace agreement between the government and Tuareg-led rebels, jihadist violence has intensified on the ground and the management of the transition to peace has been criticised by the community. Today, Valls will visit Gao, the largest city in Mali's troubled north, to meet with French troops stationed there as part of the anti-insurgent Operation Barkhane. Barkhane comprises at least 3,500 soldiers deployed across five countries (Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso) with a mandate to combat jihadist insurgencies in the region. Valls will spend two days in Mali and will then fly to Burkina Faso, both of which have been scarred by recent jihadist attacks. A November attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali's capital, Bamako, left 20 people dead, while in January, gunmen killed 30 people at a top hotel in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou, an assault claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Valls is also due to meet the chief of the UN force, known as MINUSMA, on Friday, just days after a jihadist attack on its base killed seven Guinean peacekeepers, as well as the head of an EU military training mission in the country. A US official has confirmed that China has deployed surface-to-air missiles on a disputed island in the South China Sea, as the United States expressed growing concern over China's increased "militarization" in the region. Fox News said earlier in the week that images showed two batteries of eight missile launchers and a radar system had arrived on Woody Island, the Paracels' main island. "We believe the photos are accurate and that China has deployed SAMs to Woody Island," a US official told AFP, referring to surface-to-air missiles. The official said the missiles appeared to be HQ-9s, which have a range of about 125 miles (200 kilometers). Experts say they could be used to target enemy aircraft. The reports came as US President Barack Obama and Southeast Asian leaders issued a joint statement calling for the "peaceful resolution" of the myriad competing claims over islands, atolls and reefs. Beijing has insisted it has a right to build "self-defence" systems in the strategic region. Beijing has controlled all of the Paracels, which are also claimed by Hanoi and Taipei, since seizing several from South Vietnam in a brief, bloody battle towards the end of the Vietnam War. But tensions in the sea -- through which a third of the world's oil passes -- have mounted in recent months since China transformed contested reefs in the Spratly Islands further south into artificial islands capable of supporting military facilities. Washington says the move threatens free passage in a strategically vital area and has sent warships to sail close to the disputed islands to assert that right. Analysts said the latest deployment could be an attempt to deter such freedom of navigation operations. Australian military aircraft also routinely overfly the area. Coroners tragic conclusion on mystery disappearance of teen backpacker A coroner has handed down her findings on the Belgian backpacker who disappeared almost without trace in an idyllic New South Wales tourist town more than three years ago. Jim Chalmers warns disaster floods will weigh on GDP growth Treasurer Jim Chalmers has revealed the "initial estimate" the recent flooding would have on the economy but warns costs associated could be "even more significant" ahead of his first federal budget on Tuesday. Limited value: Liberal Senator against royal commission into COVID Liberal Senator Jane Hume acknowledged the long-term effects of lockdowns and school shutdowns but said Australia fared well compared to other countries. Heavy rain, hail and more flood warnings for four states this weekend Millions of residents along the east coast have been told to brace for more wet weather this weekend, with warnings of large hailstones for Friday and severe thunderstorms bringing heavy rain to already flooded river systems. MOLINE, Ill. Weak demand for agriculture and construction equipment showed up again Friday in the latest quarterly earnings report from Deere & Co. And the outlook doesnt look much different, according to the Moline-based manufacturer, which makes its large tractors in Waterloo. The company reported net income of $254.4 million, or 80 cents per share, for the first quarter ending Jan. 31, compared with $386.8 million, or $1.12 per share, for the same period in 2015. Worldwide net sales and revenues for the first quarter decreased 13 percent, to $5.53 billion, compared with $6.38 billion last year. Net sales of the equipment operations were $4.77 billion for the quarter compared with $5.61 billion a year ago. Deere said it expects equipment sales to fall 10 percent in the year ending in October, compared with an earlier forecast of a 7 percent decline. It lowered its earnings forecast to $1.3 billion from $1.4 billion. While Deere lowered our net income and sales forecast for the full year, most of the change is due to the weakness in foreign currencies, largely driven by the Euro and Brazilian real, Deere spokesman Ken Golden said. For the current quarter, Deere expects equipment sales to be down 8 percent from a year earlier. On the other hand, Deeres earnings beat analysts average prediction of 70 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. John Deeres first-quarter results reflected the continuing impact of the downturn in the global farm economy as well as weakness in construction equipment markets, Chief Executive Officer Samuel Allen said in a news release. Deere said it expected North American industry sales for agricultural equipment to decline 15 percent to 20 percent in 2016. Low commodity prices and stagnant farm incomes in the U.S. and Canada are continuing to pressure demand for farm equipment, with the decline being most pronounced in the sale of high-horsepower models, Golden said. Deere shares closed at $77, down 3.33 points or 4.15 percent Friday on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock had a year-on-year range of $98.23 June 30, 2015 and $70.16 Jan. 20. Sales in the companys Agriculture & Turf division, of which Waterloo is a part, decreased 12 percent for the quarter. Operating profit was $144 million, compared with $268 million for the period last year. Nobody was expecting a great quarter, said analyst Eli Lustgarten, who tracks Deere for Longbow Research in St. Louis. The question is how weak it would be, and the more important question is how is the year unfolding, given the coming growing season, Lustgarten said. It has to be in worse shape than last year, with a bigger (crop) carryover and lower commodity prices. The slump in commodity prices has settled in as big crops continue to pile up, Lustgarten said. Entering this year, again, theres a tough outlook, and you effectively need a weather event; otherwise, the downturn will continue for several more quarters, Lustgarten said. The analyst also noted Deere had expected quarterly performances to shift upward at some foreseeable point, but that doesnt seem to be the case today. Deeres rhetoric has changed a bit over the last several months or quarters, Lustgarten said. Theyre no longer talking about a robust rebound; theyre talking about a more muted rebound. They now sort of at least initially recognize the recovery of the industry will probably not be back to prior levels, at least that we saw in 2013. The internal structure of the company is to return to profitability. Allen noted Deere faces hurdles this year, but the company has seen worse situations. Although Deere expects another challenging year in 2016, our forecast represents a level of performance much better than we have experienced in previous downturns, Allen said. Lustgarten concurred. Theyre still making decent money, but I think they recognize as the recovery unfolds, theyre not going back to prior revenue peaks for awhile, he said. Waterloo Fire Alarms Feb. 7 5:48 p.m., 104 W. Fifth St., heat alarm. 10:12 p.m., 2815 Randolph St., power line down. Fire Alarms Feb. 8 4:06 a.m., 2514 Delane Ave., medical response. Fire Alarms Feb. 9 4 a.m., 264 Western Ave., building fire. 8:20 a.m., West Mullan Avenue and Washington Street, automobile accident. 9:59 a.m., Hammond Avenue and Shaulis Road, automobile accident. 4:06 p.m., 264 Western Ave., building fire rekindle. Fire Alarms Feb. 10 8:03 a.m., 3295 University Ave., false alarm. 10:16 a.m., 3350 University Ave., assist resident. 10:38 a.m., 900 La Porte Road, false alarm. 10:55 a.m., 1115 Bluff St., carbon monoxide alarm. 11:48 a.m., East Fourth and Webster streets, automobile accident. 3:39 p.m., 322 Glencoe Ave., investigate smoke. 4:43 p.m., 620 Lafayette St., overheated motor. Fire Alarms Feb. 11 6:11 a.m., Ranchero Road and Highway 63, medical response. Police Log Keenan Lenell Coleman, 27, of 3719 W. Ninth St., No. 8, was arrested Feb. 9 at 2104 Weis Court for domestic assault, child endangerment and violation of a no-contact order. He allegedly assaulted Ernestine Fields, 28, while she was holding a 1-year-old child. Sausha Shavon Holloway, 19, of 1120 W. Fifth St., was arrested Feb. 9 for forgery and third-degree theft. She allegedly passed a fraudulent check for $824 in January. Christopher McCune, 21, of 321 Clay St., Cedar Falls, was arrested Feb. 9 at 320 W. Eighth St. for third-degree theft. He allegedly took $607 worth of items from Von Maur in Cedar Falls on Feb. 5. Theresa Marie Bartzell, 39, of 1001 Heartland Hills Drive, was arrested Feb. 6 on Highway 218 for first-offense operating while intoxicated following a traffic stop. Aminta Yvette Bentley, 42, of 1048 Langley Road, No. 4, was arrested Feb. 5 at 1956 Lafayette St. for assault. She allegedly assaulted Brandy Lanier at Corks Grocery. Burglaries: Dennis Cook Jr. reported the theft of a laptop computer, a .22-caliber rifle, a 16-gauge shotgun and a leather coat during a burglary to his home at 611 Johnson St. on Jan. 27. Patricia McAhren reported the theft of a tablet computer and a GPS device during a burglary to her home at 3912 Memory Lane on Feb. 10. Casey James Fain, 35, of 705 W. Seventh St., was arrested Jan. 31 at his home for third-degree theft and forgery. He allegedly passed a forged check for $910 on Nov. 24. Jordan Welch, 19, of 417 Rhey St., was arrested Jan. 31 at 118 Argyle St. for serious domestic assault and interference. He allegedly assaulted Shaniyah Grisby. Jamaal McCall, 26, of 439 Cherry St., was arrested Jan. 30 at 2929 Dans Drive for domestic assault. He allegedly assaulted Elizabeth Hampton, 23. Shawn David Sexton, 34, of 827 Riehl St., was arrested Jan. 30 on Ankeny Street for third-degree theft. He allegedly passed $800 in bad checks. Randy James Simons, 32, of 1228 Lyon Ave., was arrested Jan. 30 in the 3200 block of University Avenue for first-offense operating while intoxicated following a traffic stop. Christopher Willie Wise Jr., 20, of 702 Allen St., was arrested Jan. 27 at 506 W. Ninth St. for possession of marijuana with intent to deliver. Police found marijuana during a traffic stop. Dontaevius Antwon Jones, 16, of Waterloo, was taken into custody Jan. 26 at 1410 W. Dunkerton Road for third-degree theft. He allegedly took a wallet with $432 in cash on Jan. 6. Johnquavius Antoine Jones, 23, of 1686 Woodmayr Drive, was arrested Jan. 26 at 127 Courtland St. for second-degree burglary, domestic assault with strangulation and violation of a no contact order. He allegedly entered 127 Courtland and assaulted Adriananna Thaxton-Cockran. Kerensa Joy Burkhardt, 41, of Readlyn, was arrested Jan. 25 at UnityPoint Health-Allen Hospital for assault on medical staff. She allegedly assaulted an emergency room doctor at Allen on Jan. 22. Dontaevius Antwon Jones, 16, of Waterloo, was taken into custody Jan. 25 at 1112 Columbia St. for second-degree theft and providing false identification information. He allegedly took a vehicle from the 700 block of Logan Avenue. Jennifer Rose Randall, 35, of 247 Kenilworth Road, was arrested Jan. 25 at 409 Home Park Blvd. for attempted third-degree burglary, possession of burglary tools and interference. She allegedly attempted to enter 409 Home Park. Jeffrey Curtis Russell, 39, of 1901 E. Mitchell Ave., was arrested Jan. 25 at the police station for second-degree theft. He allegedly took three phones from Boost Mobile, 1503 E. San Marnan Drive, and attempted to sell them on the Internet. Sandra Alexandra Huting, 49, of 1275 Westland Ave., was arrested Jan. 21 at her home for simple assault. She allegedly assaulted Davion McMullan, 21. Jeron Lavell Garrison, 34, of 425 Conger St., was arrested Jan. 19 at the jail for second-degree theft and forgery. He allegedly passed $1,717 worth of forged business checks in December. Rodney Lewis Cockhren, 26, of 609 Iowa St., Cedar Falls, was arrested Jan. 18 at 541 Dawson St. for simple assault. He allegedly assaulted Charles Sero, 53. Matthew Lloyd Harp, 35, of 1856 Easton Ave., was arrested Jan. 18 at 1010 E. Mitchell Ave. for first-offense operating while intoxicated following a traffic accident at 2001 W. Seventh St. Readly Listo, 38, of 1112 W. Second St., was arrested Jan. 17 on West Seventh Street for third-offense operating while intoxicated following a traffic stop. Madison Elizabeth Zesiger, 20, of 709 Walnut St., Cedar Falls, was arrested Jan. 17 at the Isle Hotel Casino. She allegedly used a fake ID to enter the casino. Sherice Marie Denniston, 48, of 318 Norma Ave., Evansdale, was arrested Jan. 16 at Adrian Street for first-offense operating while intoxicated, possession of prescription drugs and possession of marijuana. Police found a bag of marijuana and Tramadol pills during a traffic stop. Rozalynn Dove Digiovanni, 54, of 221 Thompson Ave., was arrested Jan. 16 at 62 Lafayette St. for third-degree theft. She allegedly took $120 worth of liquor from Wal-Mart. Dung Kim Nguyen, 32, of 1267 Ravenwood Road, No. 6, was arrested Jan. 16 at her home for assault on an officer, interference and disorderly conduct. Elizabeth Ann Roeder, 36, of 602 Fowler St., was arrested Feb. 2 on Black Hawk Street for third-degree theft. She allegedly took liquor from Kum and Go on Franklin Street on Jan. 15. Trevell Rashue McCoy, 32, of 304 Sumner St., was arrested Feb. 1 at his home for domestic assault. He allegedly assaulted Victoria Turner. Rachel Kay Miller, 39, of 918 Grant Ave., was arrested Feb. 1 at the police station for second-degree theft. She allegedly took $1,474 from Veridian Credit Union in November. Cedar Falls Police Log Erick Joseph Baxter, 29, of 307 N. Francis St., Cedar Falls, was arrested Jan. 25 at his home for serious domestic assault. He allegedly assaulted Jamie Becker. Brandon Keith Westpfahl, 29, of Des Moines, was arrested Feb. 7 on Greenhill Road for first-offense operating while intoxicated following a traffic stop. Willie Earl Johnson, 44, of Waterloo, was arrested Jan. 25 at 525 Brandilynn Blvd. for third-degree theft. He allegedly took $162 worth of items from Wal-Mart. Andrew Jordan Hughes, 21, of Cedar Falls, was arrested Jan. 23 on First Street for first-offense operating while intoxicated following a traffic stop. Joshua John Bradshaw Sr., 29, of Cedar Rapids, was arrested Jan. 22 at 525 Brandilynn Blvd. for third-degree theft. He allegedly took $210 worth of items from Wal-Mart. John Allen Cole Jr., 43, of Cedar Falls, was arrested Jan. 21 for second-degree theft. He allegedly took a Chevrolet Uplander van in Cedar Falls on July 25. Daniel Lee Oltrogge, 42, of 1710 Clay St., was arrested Feb. 6 on 13th Street for first-offense operating while intoxicated following a traffic stop. Justin Matthew Rice, 27, of Des Moines, was arrested Jan. 15 in the 200 block of Tremont Street for second-offense operating while intoxicated following a traffic stop. Carter Pearson Jones, 19, of Cedar Falls, was arrested Jan. 13 on West 23rd Street for first-offense operating while intoxicated and possession of marijuana following a traffic stop. Black Hawk County Sheriff Randy Lee Stewart, 32, of Waterloo, was arrested Dec. 3 at the jail for second-degree fraud, forgery and third-degree theft. He allegedly wrote $3,015 in checks on another persons account in September. Joseph Robert McGraw, 35, of 4923 Luke St., Cedar Falls, was arrested Dec. 21 for domestic assault with strangulation. He allegedly assaulted Jessica McGraw on Dec. 8. Amber Kay Schatz, 30, of 916 Alabar Ave., Waterloo, was arrested Feb. 7 at the police station for simple domestic assault. She allegedly assaulted Roby Preston. David Alan Habenicht, 46, of 921 Maple St., Cedar Falls, was arrested Dec. 15 at the jail for third-degree theft. He allegedly took beer from Dollar General on Center Street on Nov. 23. Nick Eugene Temple, 47, of Waterloo, was arrested Feb. 5 on Randall Street for manufacturing methamphetamine and possession of methamphetamine, marijuana, prescription drugs and drug paraphernalia. Police found items used to make meth, and containers of meth and marijuana and prescription pills during a traffic stop. Christopher Alan Vollbrecht, 46, of 1115 Doreen Ave., Waterloo, was arrested Dec. 15 at the jail for failure to register as a sex offender. Dontavius Eugene Wise, 35, of 316 Oneida St., was arrested Jan. 29 in the 1600 block of Airline Highway and charged with first-offense operating while intoxicated. Joshua Aaron Berendes, 35, of Waterloo, was arrested Dec. 1 at the jail for assault, false imprisonment and first-degree harassment. He allegedly assaulted Nina Thomas and threatened her with a knife Nov. 13, and Thomas fled through a window. Trista Kathren Nelsen, 30, of 139 Rhey St., was arrested Nov. 27 on Dubuque Road for first-offense operating while intoxicated following a traffic stop. Nella Tylishia Maldonado, 26, of Des Moines, was arrested Nov. 25 for third-degree theft. She allegedly took $83 worth of clothing from Wal-mart in Cedar Falls in July. Amy Lee Winn, 35, of North Liberty, was arrested Nov. 25 for simple assault, first-offense operating while intoxicated and possession of drug paraphernalia. She allegedly kicked a hospital security guard following a traffic stop. Brian John Cosgrove, 55, of 1112 Amherst Ave., Waterloo, was arrested Jan. 27 at the jail for possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver. Authorities found items used to make methamphetamine at a home during a June 14 search. Kameron Jay Bill, 21, of 1726 Schreiber St., Cedar Falls, was arrested Jan. 27 at his home for third-degree burglary and third-degree theft. He allegedly took tools and an air compressor from 3001 Jepson Road on June 10 and pawned the items. Juanrez Darryl Mark Jefferson, 19, of Waterloo, was arrested Jan. 26 at the jail for escape. He allegedly left the Waterloo Residential Facility while serving time for burglary Sept. 11. Dowell J. Smith, 67, of 621 Marsh St., Waterloo, was arrested Jan. 26 on West Third Street for first-offense operating while intoxicated following a traffic stop. Kendra Diane Kohlmeyer, 31, of Waterloo, was arrested Jan. 25 at the jail for third- and fourth-degree theft. She allegedly took money from Wal-Mart as part of a fraudulent return on Dec. 4 and accepted $450 to resurface a parking lot in August. Rachel Katherine Kroells, 28, of 2003 Falls Ave., was arrested Jan. 21 at 1827 Commercial St. for six counts of forgery. She allegedly passed another persons checks in October. Miquinn Djaun Stokes, 23, of 2215 Sage Ave., Waterloo, was arrested Jan. 20 at the jail for forgery. He allegedly passed a counterfeit check for $896 at Hy-Vee. Brayden James Lentz, 18, of 1526 Bertch Ave., Waterloo, was arrested Jan. 14 at the sheriffs office for possession of marijuana with intent to deliver. Authorities allegedly found bags of marijuana during a Dec. 20 traffic stop. Teonni Lasha Jones, 39, of Cedar Falls, was arrested Jan. 11 at the jail for third-degree theft. Jones allegedly took $41 worth of items from Wal-Mart in Cedar Falls on Oct. 16. David Armstead Jr., 48, of 807 1/2 W. Third St., Waterloo, was arrested Jan. 10 at the jail for third-degree theft. He allegedly took a furnace from Mike Fereday Heating on Nov. 20. Leundre Savod Williams, 28, of 1331 Englewood, Waterloo, was arrested Jan. 6 for domestic assault with strangulation. He allegedly assaulted Shanice Richards on Dec. 22. Kevin Bradley Jaramillo, 34, of Waterloo, was arrested Jan. 6 on Linden Avenue for eluding following a traffic stop. Brandon Michael Westendorf, 26, of Webster City, was arrested Dec. 14 at the courthouse for second-degree theft. He allegedly took $6,380 from Sears through false returns in 2013 and 2014. Katie Marie Torgerson, 18, of 517 Beverly Hills St., Waterloo, was arrested Dec. 11 on U.S. Highway 218 for first-offense operating while intoxicated following a traffic stop. Sidney Michael Hansen, 23, of 906 Riehl St., Waterloo, was arrested Dec. 6 in Linwood Avenue for possession of marijuana with intent to deliver, violation of the drug tax stamp act and interference. Deputies allegedly found marijuana growing in a trailer at 6421 Gilbertville Road. Whitney Lanique Gardner, 29, of 1017 Linn St., Waterloo, was arrested Dec. 6 at the jail for assault. She allegedly sprayed Terrell Smith with pepper spray. Evansdale Police Log Todd Anthony Cerwinske, 36, of 1138 Schons St., was arrested Nov. 23 for second-degree criminal mischief and possession of methamphetamine and marijuana. He allegedly keyed a truck, causing $2,903 in damage Nov. 17. Deairra Lousie Dutler, 28, of Iowa City, was arrested Jan. 26 for child endangerment and possession of marijuana and cocaine. Police found drugs and a 3-year-old child during a traffic stop. Iowa State Patrol Jason Dean Redix, 41, of Dike, was arrested Jan. 5 for carrying weapons. Troopers found a .45-caliber handgun under a seat during a traffic stop. District Court A third-degree burglary charge against Craig Eugene Moses, 59, of Waterloo, was dismissed Jan. 13 after the state filed a motion to dismiss the case. DES MOINES (AP) If you plan on carrying a stun gun in Iowa, you'd better have a permit for it, even if it doesn't work. The state Supreme Court on Friday restored the conviction of a woman who was charged with carrying a dangerous weapon, even though the weapon was a non-working stun gun police found in her purse during a 2013 arrest for shoplifting at a Waterloo Wal-Mart. According to court records, Taquala Howse, now 25, was handcuffed and taken to a police officer's vehicle after she was identified as a theft suspect at the store. Waterloo officer Kyle Jurgensen searched her purse and found a small hand-held stun gun, which Howse said she carried for her own security when she went to nightclubs. She did not have a gun permit and was charged with going armed with a dangerous weapon, an aggravated misdemeanor under Iowa law. Howse waived her right to a jury trial and a judge heard the case. He concluded the state had proven the stun gun was a dangerous weapon as defined by Iowa law and convicted her. As part of Howse's defense, her attorney presented testimony from an officer who said that when he tried to test the device, it didn't work. The defense said the state presented insufficient evidence that the stun gun was a dangerous weapon because it didn't work. The Iowa Appeals Court agreed and last year reversed her conviction, leading prosecutors to appeal. The state Supreme Court's opinion, written by Justice Bruce Zager and filed Friday, concludes that the Legislature amended state law in 2008 to include as a dangerous weapon "any portable device or weapon directing an electric current, impulse, wave, or beam that produces a high-voltage pulse designed to immobilize a person." The court concluded that stun guns fit that definition and therefore are considered dangerous weapons. It said it has ruled in previous cases that it's not necessary to demonstrate that a weapon is operable when it is used to prove it is dangerous. "A gun in the hands of a robber and pointed at the victim causes fear of death or injury and is so intended. The law does not contemplate that a victim under such circumstances must inquire if the gun is loaded. Neither does the law contemplate that there was no use of a dangerous weapon if it should be subsequently determined that the gun was in fact unloaded," the court concluded in a 1966 case. For Howse, the ruling means her conviction on the weapon charge stands. She also pleaded guilty to fifth-degree theft for the shoplifting, was given credit for the two days spent in jail and was ordered to repay the store. No one answered a phone number listed in her name and her attorney did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. DES MOINES Higher speed limits? No. Minimum wage hike? Not this year. Term limits? Not happening. Scores of would-be laws died Thursday at the Iowa Capitol when they failed to clear a key legislative hurdle. Thursday was a self-imposed deadline by which nonfinancial bills must clear at least one legislative committee to remain alive for debate in 2016. There were bills that would have raised the speed limit on some roads from 55 mph to 60 or 65 mph and on interstate highways from 70 to 75 mph. Also dead, a bill to ban the use of remote cameras to catch and fine traffic violations. There was a proposal to change the state Constitution to create term limits for elected officials. All of those proposals are essentially off the table for the remainder of the session. There was support among the committee. When word got out, our representatives started hearing from the people out in the country. When we went into committee, we didnt have the votes to pass it so there was no reason to bring it up, Rep. Gary Worthan, R-Storm Lake, said of the failed speed limit bills. Democracy works. Its alive and well. However, almost any piece of legislation can be resurrected in other forms later. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee pushed through a number of measures that beat the funnel deadline that officially arrives today when lawmakers are not in session. Sen. Tony Bisignano, D-Des Moines, shepherded a bill through committee that would expand state law dealing with the mistreatment of animals by upgrading some penalties. The panel also moved a bill addressing racial profiling by law officers, but backers said the measure needs work before coming up for debate. The bill you see today will not be the bill, if any, that comes to the floor, said committee chairman Sen. Steve Sodders, D-State Center. Committee members also agreed to request a task force to examine Iowas asset forfeiture law and policies related to the use of body cameras by law officers. Democrats also moved bills to halt the governors plan to move management of the states $5 billion Medicaid program to private health-care companies; provide additional oversight if the transition occurs; and strengthen enforcement of state equal pay and wage theft laws. Whats really important is that we keep in mind that this session should be about growing the middle class, said Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs. Republicans advanced legislation that would ban the use of fetal tissue for research purposes, a proposal to couple state tax laws with recent federal changes and the governors proposal to share future revenue from the state sales tax for school infrastructure with water quality programs. Republicans also passed a limited plan to expand Iowas medical cannabidiol program. I think weve gotten a lot of good work done, and were excited to see these bills move forward, said House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake. Im absolutely confident the chairs are bringing forward a good group of bills. Both parties passed legislation setting public school funding levels for the 2016-2017 school year, but the sides remain millions of dollars apart. Blame Edward Snowden for blocking access by law enforcement to information stored on the smartphones of terrorists and other criminals in what has become a legal conundrum. In June 2013, the former National Security Agency contractor now a guest of Russias democracy-challenged Putin regime revealed the NSA had collected all mobile phone data call location, time, duration and unique identifiers, but not conversations based on the post 9/11 USA Patriot Acts business records provision with the approval of the super-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. A federal appellate court ruled it exceeds the scope of what Congress has authorized. The revelation prompted Apple and Google to build impenetrable full-disk encryption into their iPhone and Android operating systems only accessible by the user beginning in fall 2014. Those operating systems are in 96 percent of U.S. mobile phones. The courts now will decide whether law enforcement will be given the tools to possibly circumvent that encryption. After Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfreen Malik, followers of the Islamic State, killed 14 people and injured 22 on Dec. 2 in San Bernardino, Calif., Apple helped the FBI recover information backed up on the iCloud from Farooks iPhone 5c. But it didnt cooperate with the decryption necessary for access to iMessages, photos and contacts. According to the FBI, Farook quit backing up data to the iCloud on Oct. 19, perhaps in his planning stages. Authorities also are interested in an 18-minute gap after the murders at the Inland Regional Center and before the couple died in a shootout. Rather than wade into the murky waters of decryption, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sherri Pym in Riverside, Calif., ordered Apple on Wednesday to write software to dismantle a feature that automatically erases information on newer iPhones after 10 unsuccessful password attempts. The FBI wants to override the autowipe with brute force trying millions of combinations of numbers, letters and symbols to find the password. Apple estimates it could take up to 5.5 years to determine a six-digit password mixing numbers, letters and symbols, although a supercomputer would be thousands of times faster. Pyms order was based on the All Writs Act, part of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which compels third parties to assist in searches. It was notably used in 1977 to require phone companies to install a device to record all numbers called from a particular line. The act precludes an unreasonable burden. Apple and its defenders, including Google, claim the order is just that. Apple had five days to appeal. Federal prosecutors stated in a memo accompanying the order the software would only concern Farooks phone, which is owned by his employer, the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health. However, Tim Cook, Apples chief executive officer, said it would be far-reaching. Once created, he stated, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable. As usual, Congress has punted on the matter. Last October, James Orenstein, a federal magistrate in New York City, suggested he would not issue a government-sought order for Apple to disable its security in a criminal case because Congress had failed to resolve the issue despite Justice Department requests. According to the Washington Post, bills are pending to ban government back doors into communications devices, but none would help law enforcement gain access to phones. While we empathize with the quest to stop terrorists and solve crimes, Cooks concerns about providing entry for hackers shouldnt be dismissed. Nor should we turn a blind eye to devious desires of authoritarian regimes. Last year the Chinese government tried to prohibit the sale of phones with encryption keys before acquiescing to foreign trade groups. Its new antiterrorism law, though, requires foreign firms to aid in decryption when demanded by police. With its broad definition of terrorism including virtually any dissident from freedom protesters in Hong Kong to those practicing religions not state-sanctioned on the mainland China, no doubt, is closely watching this case. Because the encryption was developed as a reaction to abuses of the USA Patriot Act, Congress needs to provide guidelines for if, when and how it can and should be overridden in national security and criminal cases. Dont bet on that happening any time soon. With the rest of the world looking on, including unsavory regimes eager to stifle opponents, Apple is right to maintain its position. WATERLOO The Mount Carmel Church ushers will sponsor a Southern-style breakfast at 8 a.m. Saturday. On the menu there will be grits, salmon patties, bacon, sausage, eggs, pancakes, biscuits and beverage. For more information, call the church at 233-9482. nnn CEDAR FALLS Orchard Hill Church, 3900 Orchard Hill Drive, will host its Lenten Lunch Speaker Series, Wednesday through March 16. Each Wednesday during Lent a meal will be served from 11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., followed by music and a speaker from 12:20 to 1 p.m. A $4 to $5 donation is suggested. Speakers will include: Wednesday: Dave Van Netten, Grace Reformed (chicken noodle, chili and split pea) March 2: Steve Williams, First United Methodist (vegetable beef and tomato cheese) March 9: Dave Kivett, Cedar Heights Presbyterian (cheeseburger and colony club bean) March 16: to be announced (chicken noodle and cheesy potato ham) For more information, email Jean at jgedlinske@orchardhillchurch.org. nnn CEDAR FALLS Riverview Womens Ministrywill host An Energetic Walk at 10 a.m. March 12. People can enjoy a health group walk led by Deb Brauchler and a short talk on nutrition snacks by Lew and Karen Everling. Lew is a personal trainer and Karen is a nutritionist. There is no charge to participate and no registration required. Meet at College Square Mall, main entrance (by the Food Court) at 10 a.m. March 12. For more information, email riverviewwomensministry@gmail.com, call the Riverview Conference Center at 268-0787 or go to riverviewministries.com. nnn WATERLOO Church Women United will host the World Day of Prayer celebration at 1 p.m. March 4 at Unity Presbyterian Church, 1149 Hammond Ave. All women from any denomination are welcome to attend. Theme for the day will be Gathering at Gods Table, and following the worship service there will be refreshments. The ladies from Unity Presbyterian and First Baptist will be in charge of the program. If you have opinions about the subject matter of posts on this blog please share them. Do you have a story about how the system affects you at work school or home, or just in general? This is a place to share it. Sunset at Hvar.This blog originally started as a place to record thoughts and experiences concerning my boat designing & building hobby. As the years went by, the boats I built got increasing complex and expensive. Completion of my 8th boat was about a $20K endeavor, and amateur-designed, home-built, wooden boats command very little resale value. My current boat functions well; thus, I have no logical reason to part with it and build another. As a result, the time previously spent on planning for a possible new boat has now been re-directed to planning new vacations. Today, with the internet, there is nothing a travel agent can do that you can't do yourself. A trip can be customized to the price range, destinations, time allotment and pace that you desire. You can explore accommodation alternatives, transportation schedules, local activities, whatever your interest.After a career in the US military, living overseas for nine years and visiting many countries, Dawn and I did not do much traveling for several years after settling in Colorado. Colorado itself was new to us. Then we started a few years ago (2010) with trips to Victoria, B.C., Spain (Barcelona and Costa Bravo), Turks & Caicos (nothing but beach) and Hawaii (western Maui). Next, we got more ambitious with separate trips to Costa Rica, Ecuador & Galapagos, Panama, and Belize. Each trip proved to be a real adventure. In Costa Rica, we rented a car and drove first to the coast for some snorkeling, then drove (narrow, winding roads) to the volcanic interior mountains for some zip-lining and hiking. When in Ecuador, we had to do some quick shopping in Guayaquil when the airline lost Dawn's luggage; then it was on to a memorable snorkeling tour of the Galapagos islands. In Panama we experienced the growth and prosperity of Panama City; revisited our old home and the ruins of Spanish forts on the Atlantic coast; and went snorkeling from remote Bocas del Toro. In Belize we swam with sharks and stingrays as the guide chummed with fish parts over the side of the boat near us. Last Spring, I planned a September extended European trip for us. At Christmas we went to the Yucatan in Mexico and swam (and hiked) in underground caves, "cenotes".Our goal in Europe was to re-visit Dubrovnik, Croatia (first visited in 1990). The history of the Balkan area is complex and worth studying. Being able to see it and listen to the experiences of people living there made it come alive. The first step in planning the trip was to book the international flights. What I discovered was that substantial money could be saved by booking separately for each airline and flight. Booking through one airline we were quoted about $7000 for airfare from Denver to Dubrovnik and return. Booking through multiple airlines with added stops, the total cost was reduced by half. Thus, we flew to Iceland and stayed there for 2 1/2 days; then we flew to Copenhagen and stayed for 3 days; then we flew to Zagreb and picked up a rental car. For the next two weeks we wandered through Slovenia, made side trips into Austria and Italy, then re-entered Croatia and, after four more stops, arrived in Dubrovnik (made another side trip to Montenegro), and finally flew to Dublin, Ireland for a three-day visit before flying home. Everything went absolutely perfectly. We stayed in some four-star hotels and some simple B&B's; whatever placed us in the location where we wanted to be (usually within walking distance of the old city center or other attractions). Most of the hotels were small; some with less than ten rooms. The roads were excellent. The restaurants catered to my lactose-intolerance. The ferry boats (3) were on time. The costs were moderate. It was attractive enough that I could see myself living there. It felt like Germany except less expensive and with better weather.Dawn says the "bar" has been set so high that future trips may not compare. I've taken that as a challenge. We are now scheduled for four weeks total to fly from Denver to Oslo; take a train over the mountains to Bergen; boat trip to the fjords; fly to Stockholm; overnight ferry (with cabin) to Helsinki; ferry to Tallin, Estonia; car rental for two weeks to wander south through Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; fly from Vilnius to Berlin; and then fly back to Denver. By careful planning, our flights from here to Oslo and Berlin back to Denver will be free, courtesy of frequent flyer miles. Our five-star hotel in Berlin will be inexpensive due to Expedia points accumulated (although I prefer Booking.com for Europe). The Scandinavian cities are expensive, but much less so when you book hotels on the internet rather than through a travel agent. The Baltic countries are a travel bargain.We leave in late May. As the trip progressed, I intended to use this site as a travel blog with photos but transferring photos from my iPad has proved difficult. Instead, I'll update this site once we are back home. If you're one of the people excited about the planned Blade Runner sequel - and you should be, considering the talent involved - get ready to have a focus point for your excitement. Blade Runner 2 is now currently lined up for release on 12th January, 2018. That aforementioned talent includes Harrison Ford returning to his iconic role of Rick Deckard, Ryan Gosling taking second billing, and Sicario director Dennis Villeneuve at the helm. As anyone who has seen Sicario will attest, the film is in great hands. Ridley Scott is steering the film from the producer's chair, having hashed out the story before passing it on to screenwriters Hampton Fancher (who had a hand in the original's script) and Michael Green (who cut his teeth on Smallville and is currently running the show on the television adap of Neil Gaiman's American Gods). Exactly what role Ryan Gosling will take is yet to be seen, but the smart money's on him playing a replicant, in the Roy Batty mould. No word yet on Edward James Olmos making a return, but here's hoping, as he was arguably the coolest part of the original. Sean Young, who portrayed Rachael in the original, is similarly unconfirmed. Blade Runner 2 is due for release on 12 January 2018. MGM Last November saw the release of the twenty-fourth James Bond film, Spectre, with Daniel Craig returning as the super-spy beloved of MI6. Over the decades, the franchise has seen the various 007 agents indulging in all sorts of ludicrous feats, from Roger Moore's ski jump to Pierce Brosnan referring to Denise Richards as a nuclear scientist with a straight face. Impressive though all those on-screen espionage stunts are, however, it's nothing compared to the real thing. Ian Fleming's original novels drew more on actual spy work - they had some of the more bombastic set pieces that the films would expand upon (and then some), but otherwise they mostly reflected how the likes of MI6, the KGB, and the CIA went about their war time business. Thanks to the likes of Bond, Bourne, and all points in between, spies seem more like works of fiction, stock action characters, than agents who exist in reality, ones who are particularly important in times of war. Even if, in filmmaking and thematic terms, the 007 movies have increasingly flirted with realism, they still feel a fair bit removed from real life. That's because the true stories are actually often far more unbelievable. Espionage is a dangerous enough game without throwing supervillains and volcano bases into the mix. There are agents who have risked life and limb (literally) and, for their efforts, have helped save the world innumerable times. These are ten real-life spies more badass than James Bond. I have naked pictures of you: please give generously (or send more naked pictures) past daily news Sep 13 (1) Sep 09 (15) Sep 06 (12) Sep 04 (10) Sep 03 (10) Aug 31 (17) Aug 29 (14) Aug 26 (13) Aug 22 (11) Aug 21 (12) Aug 19 (21) Aug 14 (6) Aug 13 (10) Aug 10 (10) Aug 08 (9) Aug 07 (10) Aug 06 (10) Aug 05 (8) Aug 03 (8) Aug 02 (7) Aug 01 (7) Jul 31 (14) Jul 29 (1) Jul 27 (7) Jul 25 (5) Jul 24 (10) Jul 22 (11) Jul 19 (16) Jul 17 (6) Jul 16 (10) Jul 15 (13) Jul 12 (7) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (8) Jul 08 (8) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (5) Jul 05 (8) Jul 04 (11) Jul 03 (8) Jul 02 (7) Jul 01 (5) Jun 30 (8) Jun 28 (7) Jun 27 (8) Jun 26 (7) Jun 25 (8) Jun 24 (6) Jun 23 (6) Jun 22 (9) Jun 20 (5) Jun 19 (9) Jun 18 (8) Jun 15 (9) Jun 13 (13) Jun 11 (11) Jun 09 (19) Jun 06 (10) Jun 04 (10) Jun 03 (8) Jun 01 (6) May 31 (5) May 30 (5) May 29 (6) May 28 (7) May 27 (7) May 26 (6) May 25 (4) May 23 (6) May 22 (6) May 21 (4) May 20 (7) May 19 (9) May 18 (4) May 17 (6) May 16 (5) May 15 (7) May 14 (3) May 13 (3) May 12 (9) May 10 (3) May 09 (7) May 08 (4) May 07 (3) May 06 (5) May 05 (8) May 03 (9) May 02 (1) May 01 (5) Apr 30 (8) Apr 29 (5) Apr 28 (4) Apr 27 (7) Apr 26 (12) Apr 25 (4) Apr 24 (8) Apr 23 (7) Apr 22 (5) Apr 21 (3) Apr 20 (1) Apr 19 (5) Apr 18 (3) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (6) Apr 15 (5) Apr 14 (2) Apr 13 (4) Apr 12 (2) Apr 11 (4) Apr 10 (3) Apr 09 (3) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (5) Apr 06 (3) Apr 05 (10) Apr 04 (2) Apr 03 (3) Apr 02 (9) Apr 01 (7) Mar 31 (10) Mar 30 (6) Mar 29 (7) Mar 28 (5) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (10) Mar 25 (4) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (10) Mar 22 (6) Mar 21 (5) Mar 20 (11) Mar 19 (8) Mar 18 (5) Mar 17 (4) Mar 16 (11) Mar 15 (10) Mar 14 (7) Mar 13 (7) Mar 12 (5) Mar 11 (3) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (5) Mar 08 (6) Mar 07 (8) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (12) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (8) Mar 02 (6) Mar 01 (8) Feb 28 (7) Feb 27 (5) Feb 26 (6) Feb 25 (7) Feb 24 (3) Feb 23 (6) Feb 22 (4) Feb 21 (3) Feb 20 (1) Feb 19 (6) Feb 18 (4) Feb 17 (4) Feb 16 (2) Feb 15 (5) Feb 14 (3) Feb 13 (6) Feb 12 (6) Feb 11 (4) Feb 10 (6) Feb 09 (6) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (6) Feb 06 (4) Feb 05 (2) Feb 04 (3) Feb 03 (5) Feb 02 (1) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (8) Jan 30 (2) Jan 29 (4) Jan 28 (1) Jan 27 (4) Jan 26 (7) Jan 25 (4) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (8) Jan 21 (2) Jan 20 (2) Jan 19 (3) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (2) Jan 16 (7) Jan 15 (6) Jan 14 (4) Jan 13 (6) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (5) Jan 09 (4) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (4) Jan 05 (5) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (2) Jan 01 (1) Dec 31 (5) Dec 29 (4) Dec 28 (5) Dec 26 (3) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (2) Dec 22 (4) Dec 21 (4) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (2) Dec 17 (1) Dec 16 (4) Dec 15 (2) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (7) Dec 12 (5) Dec 11 (4) Dec 10 (3) Dec 09 (2) Dec 08 (2) Dec 07 (4) Dec 06 (4) Dec 05 (1) Dec 04 (5) Dec 03 (3) Dec 02 (5) Dec 01 (6) Nov 30 (5) Nov 29 (10) Nov 28 (6) Nov 27 (2) Nov 26 (3) Nov 24 (2) Nov 23 (5) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (3) Nov 20 (6) Nov 19 (2) Nov 18 (5) Nov 17 (5) Nov 16 (3) Nov 15 (2) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (2) Nov 11 (4) Nov 10 (5) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (5) Nov 07 (5) Nov 06 (5) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (5) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (9) Oct 30 (9) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (2) Oct 27 (6) Oct 26 (6) Oct 25 (6) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (6) Oct 22 (4) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (6) Oct 18 (5) Oct 17 (5) Oct 16 (4) Oct 15 (5) Oct 14 (2) Oct 13 (4) Oct 12 (7) Oct 11 (5) Oct 10 (4) Oct 09 (5) Oct 08 (10) Oct 07 (1) Oct 06 (10) Oct 05 (6) Oct 04 (8) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (4) Oct 01 (6) Sep 30 (5) Sep 29 (1) Sep 28 (6) Sep 27 (6) Sep 26 (5) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (6) Sep 23 (5) Sep 22 (7) Sep 21 (6) Sep 20 (6) Sep 19 (5) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (5) Sep 16 (5) Sep 15 (5) Sep 14 (6) Sep 13 (4) Sep 12 (5) Sep 11 (7) Sep 10 (6) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (3) Sep 07 (4) Sep 06 (8) Sep 05 (6) Sep 04 (7) Sep 03 (3) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (5) Aug 31 (8) Aug 30 (6) Aug 29 (6) Aug 28 (6) Aug 27 (1) Aug 26 (4) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (7) Aug 23 (4) Aug 22 (4) Aug 21 (4) Aug 20 (7) Aug 18 (5) Aug 17 (8) Aug 16 (8) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (6) Aug 13 (5) Aug 12 (4) Aug 11 (2) Aug 10 (5) Aug 09 (4) Aug 08 (8) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (3) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (4) Aug 03 (10) Aug 02 (9) Aug 01 (8) Jul 31 (1) Jul 30 (3) Jul 29 (2) Jul 28 (11) Jul 27 (10) Jul 26 (10) Jul 25 (7) Jul 24 (5) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (2) Jul 21 (7) Jul 20 (10) Jul 19 (8) Jul 18 (7) Jul 17 (1) Jul 16 (10) Jul 14 (7) Jul 13 (6) Jul 12 (11) Jul 11 (7) Jul 10 (5) Jul 09 (6) Jul 08 (5) Jul 07 (8) Jul 06 (4) Jul 05 (6) Jul 04 (6) Jul 03 (7) Jul 02 (6) Jul 01 (2) Jun 30 (7) Jun 29 (7) Jun 28 (5) Jun 27 (8) Jun 26 (5) Jun 25 (6) Jun 23 (4) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (8) Jun 18 (2) Jun 17 (3) Jun 16 (4) Jun 15 (3) Jun 14 (7) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (7) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (2) Jun 09 (8) Jun 08 (8) Jun 07 (8) Jun 06 (10) Jun 05 (14) Jun 04 (6) Jun 03 (6) Jun 02 (8) Jun 01 (6) May 31 (7) May 30 (2) May 29 (7) May 28 (7) May 27 (2) May 26 (4) May 25 (5) May 24 (4) May 23 (5) May 22 (5) May 21 (5) May 20 (3) May 19 (10) May 18 (6) May 17 (3) May 16 (6) May 15 (2) May 14 (3) May 13 (5) May 11 (1) May 10 (5) May 09 (3) May 08 (4) May 07 (2) May 06 (4) May 05 (6) May 04 (5) May 03 (5) May 02 (1) May 01 (6) Apr 30 (6) Apr 29 (7) Apr 28 (8) Apr 27 (9) Apr 26 (14) Apr 25 (6) Apr 24 (6) Apr 23 (7) Apr 22 (1) Apr 21 (8) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (6) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (7) Apr 16 (1) Apr 15 (8) Apr 14 (1) Apr 13 (7) Apr 12 (10) Apr 11 (7) Apr 10 (2) Apr 09 (2) Apr 08 (4) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (6) Apr 05 (6) Apr 04 (9) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (2) Mar 31 (5) Mar 30 (4) Mar 29 (8) Mar 28 (5) Mar 27 (9) Mar 26 (4) Mar 25 (5) Mar 24 (11) Mar 23 (10) Mar 22 (9) Mar 21 (10) Mar 20 (11) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (7) Mar 17 (3) Mar 16 (7) Mar 15 (6) Mar 14 (6) Mar 13 (9) Mar 12 (6) Mar 11 (3) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (5) Mar 08 (6) Mar 07 (13) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (3) Mar 04 (7) Mar 03 (4) Mar 02 (5) Mar 01 (6) Feb 28 (6) Feb 27 (4) Feb 26 (5) Feb 25 (6) Feb 24 (6) Feb 23 (9) Feb 22 (6) Feb 21 (7) Feb 20 (8) Feb 19 (6) Feb 18 (3) Feb 17 (4) Feb 16 (6) Feb 15 (5) Feb 14 (7) Feb 13 (5) Feb 12 (3) Feb 11 (4) Feb 10 (5) Feb 09 (9) Feb 08 (8) Feb 07 (7) Feb 06 (10) Feb 05 (7) Feb 04 (2) Feb 03 (8) Feb 02 (7) Feb 01 (5) Jan 31 (4) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (7) Jan 28 (3) Jan 27 (7) Jan 26 (8) Jan 25 (6) Jan 24 (6) Jan 23 (5) Jan 22 (4) Jan 21 (6) Jan 20 (8) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (8) Jan 17 (12) Jan 16 (5) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (8) Jan 12 (6) Jan 11 (6) Jan 10 (7) Jan 09 (4) Jan 08 (6) Jan 07 (4) Jan 06 (6) Jan 05 (9) Jan 04 (9) Jan 03 (4) Jan 02 (6) Jan 01 (8) Dec 31 (2) Dec 30 (1) Dec 29 (5) Dec 28 (4) Dec 27 (8) Dec 26 (4) Dec 24 (5) Dec 23 (7) Dec 22 (12) Dec 21 (4) Dec 20 (7) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (5) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (1) Dec 15 (7) Dec 14 (10) Dec 13 (7) Dec 12 (12) Dec 10 (3) Dec 09 (6) Dec 08 (7) Dec 07 (12) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (13) Dec 04 (6) Dec 02 (8) Dec 01 (8) Nov 30 (6) Nov 29 (7) Nov 28 (7) Nov 27 (4) Nov 26 (8) Nov 24 (2) Nov 23 (5) Nov 22 (11) Nov 21 (7) Nov 20 (3) Nov 19 (10) Nov 18 (7) Nov 17 (6) Nov 16 (11) Nov 15 (10) Nov 14 (7) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (5) Nov 11 (12) Nov 10 (4) Nov 09 (14) Nov 08 (10) Nov 07 (11) Nov 06 (8) Nov 05 (5) Nov 04 (11) Nov 03 (9) Nov 02 (10) Nov 01 (8) Oct 31 (12) Oct 30 (5) Oct 29 (5) Oct 28 (5) Oct 27 (11) Oct 26 (13) Oct 25 (9) Oct 24 (10) Oct 23 (8) Oct 22 (5) Oct 21 (11) Oct 20 (8) Oct 19 (6) Oct 18 (5) Oct 17 (5) Oct 16 (6) Oct 15 (4) Oct 14 (9) Oct 13 (10) Oct 12 (11) Oct 11 (9) Oct 10 (10) Oct 09 (7) Oct 08 (5) Oct 07 (10) Oct 06 (9) Oct 05 (14) Oct 04 (9) Oct 03 (12) Oct 02 (4) Oct 01 (9) Sep 30 (5) Sep 29 (7) Sep 28 (13) Sep 27 (10) Sep 26 (11) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (9) Sep 23 (7) Sep 22 (10) Sep 21 (12) Sep 20 (12) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (5) Sep 17 (7) Sep 16 (11) Sep 15 (8) Sep 14 (5) Sep 13 (8) Sep 12 (8) Sep 11 (6) Sep 10 (10) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (9) Sep 07 (8) Sep 06 (11) Sep 05 (2) Sep 04 (8) Sep 03 (2) Sep 02 (6) Sep 01 (9) Aug 31 (9) Aug 30 (7) Aug 29 (9) Aug 28 (4) Aug 27 (8) Aug 26 (6) Aug 25 (5) Aug 24 (8) Aug 23 (4) Aug 22 (5) Aug 21 (2) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (6) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (4) Aug 16 (6) Aug 15 (3) Aug 14 (4) Aug 13 (7) Aug 12 (6) Aug 11 (3) Aug 10 (5) Aug 09 (8) Aug 08 (9) Aug 07 (7) Aug 06 (7) Aug 05 (7) Aug 04 (7) Aug 03 (11) Aug 02 (6) Aug 01 (9) Jul 31 (11) Jul 28 (7) Jul 27 (11) Jul 26 (5) Jul 25 (5) Jul 24 (1) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (2) Jul 20 (9) Jul 19 (8) Jul 18 (6) Jul 17 (7) Jul 15 (4) Jul 14 (2) Jul 13 (6) Jul 12 (10) Jul 11 (11) Jul 10 (2) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (5) Jul 07 (5) Jul 06 (6) Jul 05 (3) Jul 04 (6) Jul 03 (5) Jul 02 (3) Jun 30 (8) Jun 29 (5) Jun 28 (6) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (4) Jun 25 (1) Jun 24 (5) Jun 23 (11) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (5) Jun 19 (7) Jun 17 (4) Jun 16 (7) Jun 15 (4) Jun 14 (6) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (6) Jun 10 (6) Jun 09 (8) Jun 08 (6) Jun 07 (8) Jun 06 (7) Jun 05 (5) Jun 04 (7) Jun 03 (1) Jun 02 (9) Jun 01 (5) May 31 (8) May 30 (7) May 29 (5) May 28 (5) May 27 (4) May 26 (4) May 25 (4) May 24 (3) May 23 (5) May 22 (2) May 21 (3) May 20 (7) May 19 (11) May 18 (1) May 17 (7) May 16 (3) May 15 (4) May 14 (3) May 13 (4) May 12 (4) May 11 (11) May 10 (2) May 09 (6) May 08 (6) May 07 (2) May 06 (3) May 05 (4) May 04 (5) May 03 (8) May 02 (4) May 01 (4) Apr 30 (6) Apr 29 (13) Apr 28 (5) Apr 27 (7) Apr 26 (5) Apr 25 (5) Apr 24 (2) Apr 23 (7) Apr 22 (9) Apr 21 (11) Apr 20 (2) Apr 19 (2) Apr 18 (5) Apr 17 (5) Apr 16 (6) Apr 14 (5) Apr 13 (2) Apr 12 (9) Apr 11 (10) Apr 10 (6) Apr 09 (5) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (10) Apr 06 (7) Apr 05 (7) Apr 04 (7) Apr 03 (9) Mar 31 (12) Mar 30 (9) Mar 29 (7) Mar 28 (4) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (6) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (8) Mar 23 (7) Mar 22 (4) Mar 21 (10) Mar 20 (6) Mar 19 (6) Mar 17 (7) Mar 16 (11) Mar 15 (6) Mar 14 (9) Mar 13 (4) Mar 12 (6) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (9) Mar 08 (10) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (5) Mar 05 (3) Mar 04 (2) Mar 03 (4) Mar 02 (5) Mar 01 (5) Feb 28 (3) Feb 27 (8) Feb 26 (9) Feb 24 (11) Feb 23 (8) Feb 22 (9) Feb 21 (8) Feb 20 (7) Feb 19 (4) Feb 18 (9) Feb 17 (6) Feb 16 (5) Feb 15 (7) Feb 14 (11) Feb 13 (2) Feb 12 (5) Feb 11 (5) Feb 10 (3) Feb 09 (10) Feb 08 (9) Feb 07 (9) Feb 06 (2) Feb 05 (9) Feb 03 (7) Feb 02 (5) Feb 01 (7) Jan 31 (4) Jan 30 (5) Jan 29 (6) Jan 28 (5) Jan 27 (2) Jan 26 (7) Jan 25 (7) Jan 24 (8) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (14) Jan 20 (8) Jan 19 (10) Jan 18 (11) Jan 17 (9) Jan 16 (5) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (9) Jan 13 (6) Jan 12 (7) Jan 11 (7) Jan 10 (2) Jan 09 (7) Jan 08 (6) Jan 07 (10) Jan 06 (8) Jan 05 (7) Jan 04 (9) Jan 03 (8) Jan 02 (5) Jan 01 (14) Dec 30 (13) Dec 29 (13) Dec 28 (9) Dec 27 (5) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (7) Dec 24 (4) Dec 23 (5) Dec 22 (4) Dec 21 (8) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (8) Dec 18 (9) Dec 16 (8) Dec 15 (5) Dec 14 (5) Dec 13 (8) Dec 12 (4) Dec 11 (17) Dec 09 (8) Dec 08 (5) Dec 07 (10) Dec 06 (12) Dec 05 (6) Dec 04 (8) Dec 02 (6) Dec 01 (7) Nov 30 (9) Nov 29 (6) Nov 28 (11) Nov 27 (6) Nov 26 (15) Nov 24 (7) Nov 23 (15) Nov 22 (9) Nov 21 (6) Nov 20 (11) Nov 18 (11) Nov 17 (13) Nov 16 (8) Nov 15 (13) Nov 14 (7) Nov 13 (7) Nov 12 (3) Nov 11 (13) Nov 10 (13) Nov 09 (6) Nov 08 (9) Nov 07 (6) Nov 06 (4) Nov 05 (12) Nov 04 (8) Nov 03 (9) Nov 02 (8) Nov 01 (6) Oct 31 (10) Oct 30 (8) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (8) Oct 27 (15) Oct 26 (10) Oct 25 (10) Oct 24 (13) Oct 23 (9) Oct 21 (8) Oct 20 (13) Oct 19 (6) Oct 18 (11) Oct 17 (8) Oct 16 (14) Oct 14 (9) Oct 13 (11) Oct 12 (9) Oct 11 (13) Oct 10 (7) Oct 09 (15) Oct 07 (7) Oct 06 (11) Oct 05 (18) Oct 04 (14) Oct 03 (1) Oct 02 (10) Sep 30 (11) Sep 29 (11) Sep 28 (11) Sep 27 (15) Sep 26 (7) Sep 24 (9) Sep 23 (11) Sep 22 (7) Sep 21 (17) Sep 20 (20) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (11) Sep 16 (10) Sep 15 (12) Sep 14 (9) Sep 13 (12) Sep 12 (14) Sep 11 (4) Sep 10 (8) Sep 09 (9) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (13) Sep 06 (15) Sep 05 (8) Sep 04 (11) Sep 03 (10) Sep 02 (12) Sep 01 (12) Aug 31 (14) Aug 30 (14) Aug 29 (8) Aug 28 (8) Aug 27 (9) Aug 26 (12) Aug 25 (6) Aug 24 (8) Aug 23 (12) Aug 22 (6) Aug 21 (5) Aug 20 (6) Aug 19 (9) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (7) Aug 16 (11) Aug 15 (2) Aug 14 (12) Aug 12 (15) Aug 11 (11) Aug 10 (6) Aug 09 (7) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (5) Aug 05 (7) Aug 04 (7) Aug 03 (4) Aug 02 (5) Aug 01 (5) Jul 31 (7) Jul 30 (5) Jul 29 (9) Jul 28 (8) Jul 27 (8) Jul 26 (7) Jul 25 (6) Jul 23 (8) Jul 22 (6) Jul 21 (5) Jul 20 (9) Jul 19 (5) Jul 18 (15) Jul 15 (14) Jul 14 (5) Jul 13 (6) Jul 12 (12) Jul 11 (8) Jul 10 (3) Jul 09 (11) Jul 08 (8) Jul 07 (7) Jul 06 (10) Jul 05 (4) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (5) Jul 02 (7) Jul 01 (8) Jun 30 (7) Jun 29 (10) Jun 28 (8) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (5) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (2) Jun 23 (11) Jun 22 (5) Jun 21 (7) Jun 20 (3) Jun 19 (7) Jun 18 (10) Jun 17 (11) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (7) Jun 13 (14) Jun 11 (6) Jun 10 (8) Jun 09 (9) Jun 08 (11) Jun 07 (14) Jun 06 (16) Jun 03 (8) Jun 02 (12) Jun 01 (5) May 31 (7) May 30 (15) May 28 (7) May 27 (5) May 26 (21) May 25 (14) May 24 (10) May 23 (7) May 22 (8) May 21 (11) May 20 (5) May 19 (4) May 18 (10) May 17 (11) May 16 (5) May 15 (6) May 14 (7) May 13 (12) May 12 (10) May 11 (7) May 10 (13) May 09 (4) May 08 (7) May 07 (3) May 06 (6) May 05 (9) May 04 (14) May 03 (7) May 02 (10) May 01 (10) Apr 30 (6) Apr 29 (9) Apr 28 (5) Apr 27 (9) Apr 26 (8) Apr 25 (8) Apr 24 (6) Apr 23 (14) Apr 22 (16) Apr 21 (11) Apr 20 (7) Apr 19 (16) Apr 18 (8) Apr 17 (7) Apr 16 (10) Apr 15 (8) Apr 14 (5) Apr 13 (11) Apr 12 (10) Apr 11 (8) Apr 10 (12) Apr 09 (5) Apr 08 (13) Apr 07 (9) Apr 06 (11) Apr 05 (15) Apr 04 (7) Apr 03 (15) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (11) Mar 31 (12) Mar 30 (10) Mar 29 (8) Mar 28 (7) Mar 27 (12) Mar 26 (8) Mar 25 (8) Mar 24 (7) Mar 23 (15) Mar 22 (17) Mar 21 (9) Mar 20 (8) Mar 19 (4) Mar 18 (16) Mar 17 (8) Mar 16 (19) Mar 15 (13) Mar 14 (7) Mar 13 (20) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (11) Mar 09 (13) Mar 08 (13) Mar 07 (7) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (9) Mar 04 (10) Mar 03 (16) Mar 02 (16) Mar 01 (13) Feb 29 (8) Feb 28 (6) Feb 27 (16) Feb 26 (10) Feb 25 (6) Feb 24 (12) Feb 23 (14) Feb 22 (9) Feb 21 (11) Feb 20 (8) Feb 19 (12) Feb 18 (12) Feb 17 (11) Feb 16 (8) Feb 15 (9) Feb 14 (7) Feb 13 (10) Feb 12 (11) Feb 11 (13) Feb 10 (5) Feb 09 (6) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (9) Feb 06 (13) Feb 05 (10) Feb 04 (11) Feb 03 (7) Feb 02 (19) Jan 31 (21) Jan 29 (11) Jan 28 (10) Jan 27 (13) Jan 26 (7) Jan 25 (5) Jan 24 (2) Jan 23 (8) Jan 22 (13) Jan 21 (11) Jan 20 (9) Jan 19 (13) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (11) Jan 15 (7) Jan 14 (13) Jan 13 (9) Jan 12 (9) Jan 11 (5) Jan 10 (8) Jan 09 (7) Jan 08 (7) Jan 07 (6) Jan 06 (11) Jan 05 (7) Jan 04 (7) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (8) Jan 01 (5) Dec 31 (10) Dec 30 (9) Dec 29 (7) Dec 28 (9) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (1) Dec 25 (5) Dec 24 (6) Dec 23 (6) Dec 22 (7) Dec 21 (6) Dec 20 (7) Dec 19 (13) Dec 18 (16) Dec 17 (10) Dec 16 (13) Dec 15 (11) Dec 14 (8) Dec 13 (4) Dec 12 (9) Dec 11 (10) Dec 10 (12) Dec 09 (10) Dec 08 (13) Dec 07 (7) Dec 06 (12) Dec 05 (8) Dec 04 (11) Dec 03 (12) Dec 02 (16) Dec 01 (14) Nov 30 (10) Nov 29 (11) Nov 28 (15) Nov 27 (16) Nov 26 (11) Nov 25 (9) Nov 24 (13) Nov 23 (10) Nov 22 (1) Nov 21 (7) Nov 20 (12) Nov 19 (10) Nov 18 (11) Nov 17 (11) Nov 16 (10) Nov 15 (3) Nov 14 (10) Nov 13 (14) Nov 12 (8) Nov 11 (13) Nov 10 (10) Nov 09 (6) Nov 08 (9) Nov 07 (11) Nov 06 (12) Nov 05 (17) Nov 04 (12) Nov 03 (11) Nov 02 (5) Nov 01 (12) Oct 31 (11) Oct 30 (11) Oct 29 (10) Oct 28 (18) Oct 27 (16) Oct 26 (11) Oct 25 (9) Oct 24 (12) Oct 23 (11) Oct 22 (14) Oct 21 (12) Oct 20 (17) Oct 19 (12) Oct 18 (13) Oct 17 (15) Oct 16 (14) Oct 15 (10) Oct 14 (16) Oct 13 (12) Oct 12 (13) Oct 11 (8) Oct 10 (12) Oct 09 (21) Oct 08 (22) Oct 07 (19) Oct 06 (18) Oct 05 (6) Oct 04 (17) Oct 03 (13) Oct 02 (14) Oct 01 (13) Sep 30 (14) Sep 29 (15) Sep 28 (12) Sep 27 (11) Sep 26 (15) Sep 25 (13) Sep 24 (9) Sep 23 (10) Sep 22 (12) Sep 21 (8) Sep 20 (4) Sep 19 (12) Sep 18 (12) Sep 17 (16) Sep 16 (21) Sep 15 (14) Sep 14 (7) Sep 13 (5) Sep 12 (10) Sep 11 (16) Sep 10 (7) Sep 09 (8) Sep 08 (10) Sep 07 (7) Sep 06 (5) Sep 05 (8) Sep 04 (9) Sep 03 (8) Sep 02 (11) Sep 01 (10) Aug 31 (4) Aug 30 (6) Aug 29 (1) Aug 28 (10) Aug 27 (8) Aug 26 (8) Aug 25 (14) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (3) Aug 22 (5) Aug 21 (13) Aug 20 (9) Aug 19 (13) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (6) Aug 14 (8) Aug 13 (7) Aug 12 (12) Aug 11 (9) Aug 10 (8) Aug 09 (14) Aug 08 (6) Aug 07 (1) Aug 06 (4) Aug 05 (8) Aug 04 (6) Aug 03 (6) Aug 02 (2) Aug 01 (6) Jul 31 (6) Jul 30 (3) Jul 29 (6) Jul 28 (8) Jul 27 (7) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (6) Jul 23 (5) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (7) Jul 20 (5) Jul 18 (6) Jul 17 (5) Jul 16 (4) Jul 15 (9) Jul 14 (2) Jul 13 (8) Jul 12 (1) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (8) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (3) Jul 07 (13) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (5) Jul 03 (6) Jul 02 (6) Jul 01 (7) Jun 30 (7) Jun 29 (3) Jun 28 (1) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (7) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (6) Jun 23 (9) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (3) Jun 19 (4) Jun 18 (7) Jun 17 (7) Jun 16 (7) Jun 15 (11) Jun 12 (6) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (10) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (3) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (2) Jun 05 (9) Jun 04 (8) Jun 03 (9) Jun 02 (6) Jun 01 (4) May 30 (7) May 29 (9) May 28 (13) May 26 (8) May 25 (5) May 24 (2) May 23 (8) May 22 (9) May 21 (7) May 20 (4) May 19 (6) May 18 (7) May 17 (8) May 15 (9) May 14 (5) May 13 (8) May 12 (6) May 11 (6) May 09 (7) May 08 (6) May 07 (11) May 06 (7) May 05 (4) May 04 (11) May 03 (5) May 02 (4) May 01 (9) Apr 30 (6) Apr 29 (4) Apr 28 (9) Apr 27 (4) Apr 26 (3) Apr 25 (5) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (10) Apr 22 (8) Apr 21 (9) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (4) Apr 18 (8) Apr 17 (7) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (6) Apr 14 (8) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (6) Apr 10 (2) Apr 09 (4) Apr 08 (5) Apr 07 (5) Apr 06 (2) Apr 05 (2) Apr 04 (5) Apr 03 (7) Apr 02 (7) Apr 01 (12) Mar 31 (12) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (1) Mar 28 (2) Mar 27 (6) Mar 26 (2) Mar 25 (5) Mar 24 (4) Mar 23 (7) Mar 22 (4) Mar 21 (6) Mar 20 (9) Mar 19 (9) Mar 18 (8) Mar 17 (9) Mar 16 (7) Mar 15 (11) Mar 13 (5) Mar 12 (12) Mar 11 (9) Mar 10 (12) Mar 09 (4) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (5) Mar 05 (5) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (11) Mar 02 (5) Mar 01 (8) Feb 27 (9) Feb 26 (9) Feb 25 (8) Feb 24 (6) Feb 23 (4) Feb 22 (3) Feb 21 (6) Feb 20 (3) Feb 19 (10) Feb 18 (9) Feb 17 (7) Feb 16 (5) Feb 15 (2) Feb 14 (8) Feb 13 (12) Feb 12 (8) Feb 11 (10) Feb 10 (7) Feb 09 (6) Feb 08 (3) Feb 07 (2) Feb 06 (7) Feb 05 (4) Feb 04 (11) Feb 03 (5) Feb 02 (7) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (5) Jan 30 (8) Jan 29 (12) Jan 28 (6) Jan 27 (8) Jan 26 (13) Jan 24 (8) Jan 23 (12) Jan 22 (8) Jan 21 (10) Jan 20 (8) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (9) Jan 17 (6) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (11) Jan 14 (4) Jan 13 (6) Jan 12 (7) Jan 11 (6) Jan 10 (2) Jan 09 (6) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (6) Jan 06 (4) Jan 05 (4) Jan 04 (3) Jan 03 (6) Jan 02 (2) Jan 01 (3) Dec 31 (6) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (6) Dec 28 (4) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (3) Dec 24 (5) Dec 23 (7) Dec 22 (5) Dec 21 (4) Dec 20 (4) Dec 19 (5) Dec 18 (8) Dec 17 (5) Dec 16 (9) Dec 15 (7) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (10) Dec 12 (10) Dec 11 (9) Dec 10 (10) Dec 09 (11) Dec 08 (5) Dec 07 (5) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (9) Dec 04 (3) Dec 03 (8) Dec 02 (10) Dec 01 (6) Nov 30 (1) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (9) Nov 27 (3) Nov 26 (7) Nov 25 (12) Nov 24 (3) Nov 23 (8) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (3) Nov 20 (12) Nov 19 (6) Nov 18 (10) Nov 17 (12) Nov 16 (5) Nov 15 (5) Nov 14 (12) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (7) Nov 11 (8) Nov 10 (7) Nov 09 (6) Nov 08 (5) Nov 07 (5) Nov 06 (6) Nov 05 (12) Nov 04 (9) Nov 03 (6) Nov 02 (14) Nov 01 (3) Oct 31 (6) Oct 30 (7) Oct 29 (9) Oct 28 (9) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (6) Oct 25 (9) Oct 24 (8) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (4) Oct 20 (2) Oct 19 (11) Oct 17 (6) Oct 16 (7) Oct 15 (7) Oct 14 (8) Oct 13 (5) Oct 12 (8) Oct 11 (6) Oct 10 (5) Oct 09 (11) Oct 08 (10) Oct 07 (8) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (7) Oct 04 (8) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (10) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (7) Sep 29 (6) Sep 28 (5) Sep 27 (8) Sep 26 (11) Sep 25 (11) Sep 24 (15) Sep 23 (8) Sep 22 (9) Sep 21 (4) Sep 20 (8) Sep 19 (9) Sep 18 (10) Sep 17 (10) Sep 16 (5) Sep 15 (5) Sep 14 (7) Sep 13 (5) Sep 12 (5) Sep 11 (8) Sep 10 (6) Sep 09 (7) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (2) Sep 06 (4) Sep 05 (7) Sep 04 (11) Sep 03 (7) Sep 02 (7) Sep 01 (2) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (1) Aug 29 (10) Aug 28 (5) Aug 27 (4) Aug 26 (10) Aug 25 (6) Aug 24 (9) Aug 22 (11) Aug 21 (8) Aug 20 (12) Aug 19 (8) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (4) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (6) Aug 14 (4) Aug 13 (7) Aug 12 (8) Aug 11 (7) Aug 10 (12) Aug 08 (5) Aug 07 (6) Aug 06 (6) Aug 05 (8) Aug 04 (5) Aug 03 (4) Aug 01 (7) Jul 31 (6) Jul 30 (12) Jul 29 (4) Jul 28 (5) Jul 27 (7) Jul 25 (7) Jul 24 (8) Jul 23 (8) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (8) Jul 20 (6) Jul 19 (3) Jul 18 (8) Jul 17 (2) Jul 16 (7) Jul 15 (6) Jul 14 (9) Jul 13 (10) Jul 11 (9) Jul 10 (8) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (7) Jul 07 (7) Jul 06 (7) Jul 05 (10) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (6) Jul 02 (6) Jul 01 (8) Jun 30 (5) Jun 29 (6) Jun 28 (1) Jun 27 (15) Jun 26 (10) Jun 25 (9) Jun 24 (16) Jun 23 (6) Jun 22 (12) Jun 20 (6) Jun 19 (8) Jun 18 (10) Jun 17 (6) Jun 16 (7) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (5) Jun 13 (13) Jun 12 (7) Jun 11 (14) Jun 10 (3) Jun 09 (2) Jun 08 (2) Jun 07 (7) Jun 06 (16) Jun 05 (7) Jun 04 (18) Jun 03 (12) Jun 02 (8) May 31 (3) May 30 (6) May 29 (6) May 28 (7) May 27 (4) May 26 (4) May 25 (6) May 23 (4) May 22 (8) May 21 (5) May 20 (6) May 19 (2) May 18 (9) May 17 (1) May 16 (5) May 15 (5) May 14 (7) May 13 (7) May 12 (7) May 11 (4) May 10 (4) May 09 (5) May 08 (10) May 07 (4) May 06 (13) May 05 (4) May 04 (10) May 02 (2) May 01 (5) Apr 30 (9) Apr 29 (6) Apr 28 (3) Apr 27 (4) Apr 26 (9) Apr 25 (9) Apr 24 (7) Apr 23 (11) Apr 22 (7) Apr 21 (3) Apr 20 (10) Apr 19 (6) Apr 18 (5) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (6) Apr 15 (7) Apr 14 (11) Apr 13 (4) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (9) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (6) Apr 08 (6) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (6) Apr 05 (10) Apr 03 (9) Apr 02 (9) Apr 01 (12) Mar 31 (4) Mar 30 (9) Mar 29 (10) Mar 28 (7) Mar 27 (8) Mar 26 (8) Mar 25 (15) Mar 24 (11) Mar 23 (8) Mar 22 (7) Mar 21 (14) Mar 20 (6) Mar 19 (11) Mar 18 (11) Mar 17 (12) Mar 16 (8) Mar 15 (8) Mar 14 (13) Mar 13 (8) Mar 12 (10) Mar 11 (8) Mar 10 (7) Mar 09 (3) Mar 08 (12) Mar 07 (15) Mar 06 (16) Mar 05 (9) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (12) Mar 02 (20) Feb 28 (11) Feb 27 (8) Feb 26 (11) Feb 25 (6) Feb 24 (14) Feb 23 (5) Feb 22 (6) Feb 21 (8) Feb 20 (11) Feb 19 (7) Feb 18 (4) Feb 17 (8) Feb 16 (11) Feb 15 (3) Feb 14 (10) Feb 13 (4) Feb 12 (10) Feb 11 (7) Feb 10 (7) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (6) Feb 07 (5) Feb 06 (4) Feb 05 (10) Feb 04 (5) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (4) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (3) Jan 30 (5) Jan 29 (2) Jan 28 (6) Jan 27 (3) Jan 26 (2) Jan 25 (5) Jan 24 (7) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (4) Jan 21 (5) Jan 20 (5) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (7) Jan 17 (6) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (5) Jan 13 (4) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (3) Jan 10 (5) Jan 09 (6) Jan 08 (6) Jan 07 (3) Jan 06 (1) Jan 05 (4) Jan 04 (5) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (6) Jan 01 (2) Dec 31 (6) Dec 30 (1) Dec 29 (5) Dec 27 (1) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (4) Dec 24 (8) Dec 23 (2) Dec 22 (1) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (8) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (4) Dec 16 (3) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (4) Dec 11 (4) Dec 10 (7) Dec 09 (5) Dec 08 (2) Dec 07 (5) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (10) Dec 04 (9) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (2) Dec 01 (8) Nov 29 (5) Nov 28 (7) Nov 27 (5) Nov 26 (9) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (5) Nov 23 (6) Nov 22 (5) Nov 21 (12) Nov 20 (12) Nov 19 (10) Nov 18 (4) Nov 17 (3) Nov 16 (8) Nov 15 (7) Nov 14 (7) Nov 13 (6) Nov 12 (12) Nov 11 (6) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (10) Nov 07 (5) Nov 06 (5) Nov 05 (9) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (4) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (3) Oct 31 (10) Oct 30 (4) Oct 29 (11) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (7) Oct 26 (7) Oct 25 (6) Oct 24 (7) Oct 23 (11) Oct 22 (2) Oct 21 (7) Oct 20 (4) Oct 19 (6) Oct 18 (7) Oct 17 (5) Oct 16 (8) Oct 15 (5) Oct 14 (5) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (7) Oct 11 (20) Oct 10 (2) Oct 09 (4) Oct 08 (21) Oct 07 (20) Oct 06 (34) Oct 04 (24) Oct 03 (21) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (7) Sep 30 (3) Sep 29 (5) Sep 28 (6) Sep 27 (5) Sep 26 (6) Sep 25 (5) Sep 24 (2) Sep 23 (8) Sep 22 (4) Sep 21 (3) Sep 20 (9) Sep 19 (11) Sep 18 (5) Sep 17 (7) Sep 16 (6) Sep 15 (3) Sep 14 (7) Sep 13 (8) Sep 12 (11) Sep 11 (7) Sep 10 (6) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (3) Sep 07 (6) Sep 06 (10) Sep 05 (7) Sep 04 (7) Sep 03 (5) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (8) Aug 31 (5) Aug 30 (7) Aug 29 (10) Aug 28 (7) Aug 27 (6) Aug 26 (6) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (8) Aug 23 (6) Aug 22 (6) Aug 21 (8) Aug 20 (8) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (2) Aug 17 (5) Aug 16 (7) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (4) Aug 12 (6) Aug 11 (6) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (8) Aug 08 (6) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (6) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (12) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (4) Aug 01 (10) Jul 31 (3) Jul 30 (7) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (6) Jul 27 (4) Jul 26 (5) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (7) Jul 23 (10) Jul 22 (8) Jul 21 (5) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (7) Jul 18 (9) Jul 17 (10) Jul 16 (11) Jul 15 (5) Jul 13 (5) Jul 12 (9) Jul 11 (11) Jul 10 (12) Jul 09 (6) Jul 08 (5) Jul 07 (8) Jul 06 (9) Jul 05 (10) Jul 04 (8) Jul 03 (10) Jul 02 (12) Jul 01 (8) Jun 30 (5) Jun 29 (6) Jun 28 (23) Jun 27 (18) Jun 26 (12) Jun 25 (14) Jun 24 (15) Jun 23 (11) Jun 22 (11) Jun 21 (15) Jun 20 (9) Jun 19 (8) Jun 18 (11) Jun 17 (7) Jun 16 (6) Jun 15 (6) Jun 14 (6) Jun 13 (5) Jun 12 (6) Jun 11 (9) Jun 10 (10) Jun 09 (9) Jun 08 (6) Jun 07 (2) Jun 06 (6) Jun 05 (4) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (4) Jun 02 (3) Jun 01 (6) May 31 (3) May 30 (5) May 29 (8) May 28 (7) May 27 (2) May 26 (2) May 25 (8) May 24 (7) May 23 (6) May 22 (9) May 21 (6) May 20 (5) May 19 (6) May 18 (9) May 17 (10) May 16 (11) May 15 (5) May 14 (11) May 13 (6) May 12 (7) May 11 (7) May 10 (5) May 09 (3) May 08 (10) May 07 (8) May 06 (11) May 05 (5) May 04 (9) May 03 (3) May 02 (2) May 01 (5) Apr 30 (5) Apr 29 (8) Apr 28 (6) Apr 27 (4) Apr 26 (9) Apr 25 (11) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (11) Apr 22 (7) Apr 21 (5) Apr 20 (7) Apr 19 (10) Apr 18 (8) Apr 17 (10) Apr 16 (8) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (5) Apr 13 (7) Apr 12 (11) Apr 11 (6) Apr 10 (7) Apr 09 (6) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (9) Apr 05 (10) Apr 04 (7) Apr 03 (2) Apr 02 (6) Apr 01 (4) Mar 31 (3) Mar 30 (4) Mar 29 (3) Mar 28 (5) Mar 27 (10) Mar 26 (5) Mar 25 (4) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (7) Mar 22 (6) Mar 21 (9) Mar 20 (5) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (9) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (8) Mar 15 (10) Mar 14 (9) Mar 13 (10) Mar 12 (10) Mar 11 (2) Mar 10 (1) Mar 09 (6) Mar 08 (4) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (3) Mar 05 (3) Mar 04 (7) Mar 03 (6) Mar 02 (8) Mar 01 (9) Feb 28 (6) Feb 27 (3) Feb 26 (8) Feb 25 (7) Feb 24 (3) Feb 23 (4) Feb 22 (4) Feb 21 (7) Feb 20 (4) Feb 19 (4) Feb 18 (2) Feb 17 (1) Feb 16 (6) Feb 15 (6) Feb 14 (5) Feb 13 (4) Feb 12 (7) Feb 11 (2) Feb 10 (2) Feb 09 (5) Feb 08 (5) Feb 07 (9) Feb 06 (4) Feb 05 (9) Feb 04 (3) Feb 03 (3) Feb 02 (10) Feb 01 (9) Jan 31 (5) Jan 30 (8) Jan 29 (5) Jan 28 (3) Jan 27 (4) Jan 26 (5) Jan 25 (6) Jan 24 (5) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (8) Jan 21 (3) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (7) Jan 18 (3) Jan 17 (6) Jan 16 (8) Jan 15 (7) Jan 14 (9) Jan 13 (1) Jan 12 (7) Jan 11 (1) Jan 10 (3) Jan 09 (3) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (4) Jan 06 (2) Jan 05 (3) Jan 04 (5) Jan 03 (4) Jan 02 (4) Jan 01 (4) Dec 31 (3) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (5) Dec 28 (8) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (4) Dec 23 (4) Dec 22 (7) Dec 21 (5) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (6) Dec 17 (4) Dec 16 (5) Dec 15 (5) Dec 14 (8) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (6) Dec 11 (8) Dec 10 (5) Dec 09 (4) Dec 08 (4) Dec 07 (7) Dec 06 (7) Dec 05 (6) Dec 04 (6) Dec 03 (7) Dec 02 (1) Dec 01 (6) Nov 30 (2) Nov 29 (8) Nov 28 (16) Nov 27 (7) Nov 26 (5) Nov 25 (2) Nov 24 (6) Nov 23 (5) Nov 22 (5) Nov 21 (5) Nov 20 (15) Nov 19 (8) Nov 18 (2) Nov 17 (3) Nov 16 (5) Nov 15 (7) Nov 14 (6) Nov 13 (9) Nov 12 (7) Nov 11 (8) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (5) Nov 08 (8) Nov 07 (9) Nov 06 (9) Nov 05 (1) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (8) Nov 02 (6) Nov 01 (3) Oct 31 (6) Oct 30 (7) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (4) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (8) Oct 24 (4) Oct 23 (1) Oct 22 (6) Oct 21 (1) Oct 20 (8) Oct 19 (6) Oct 18 (10) Oct 17 (6) Oct 16 (15) Oct 15 (4) Oct 14 (5) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (9) Oct 11 (7) Oct 10 (1) Oct 09 (5) Oct 08 (7) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (8) Oct 05 (5) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (7) Oct 02 (6) Oct 01 (6) Sep 30 (8) Sep 29 (6) Sep 28 (13) Sep 27 (10) Sep 26 (8) Sep 25 (8) Sep 24 (8) Sep 23 (3) Sep 22 (7) Sep 21 (9) Sep 20 (7) Sep 19 (8) Sep 18 (4) Sep 17 (3) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (8) Sep 14 (5) Sep 13 (7) Sep 12 (7) Sep 11 (9) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (10) Sep 08 (4) Sep 07 (12) Sep 06 (13) Sep 05 (15) Sep 04 (5) Sep 03 (4) Sep 02 (6) Sep 01 (9) Aug 31 (7) Aug 30 (6) Aug 29 (8) Aug 28 (11) Aug 27 (2) Aug 26 (6) Aug 25 (15) Aug 24 (6) Aug 23 (8) Aug 22 (5) Aug 21 (6) Aug 20 (7) Aug 19 (2) Aug 18 (5) Aug 17 (5) Aug 16 (11) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (6) Aug 13 (9) Aug 12 (4) Aug 11 (5) Aug 10 (6) Aug 09 (5) Aug 08 (7) Aug 07 (9) Aug 06 (4) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (4) Aug 03 (8) Aug 02 (9) Aug 01 (10) Jul 31 (11) Jul 30 (4) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (11) Jul 27 (4) Jul 26 (7) Jul 25 (7) Jul 24 (4) Jul 23 (8) Jul 22 (5) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (10) Jul 19 (6) Jul 18 (9) Jul 17 (6) Jul 16 (7) Jul 15 (6) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (7) Jul 12 (8) Jul 11 (6) Jul 10 (14) Jul 09 (6) Jul 08 (5) Jul 07 (4) Jul 06 (9) Jul 05 (8) Jul 04 (5) Jul 03 (8) Jul 02 (5) Jul 01 (5) Jun 30 (6) Jun 29 (3) Jun 28 (3) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (8) Jun 25 (3) Jun 24 (5) Jun 23 (14) Jun 22 (11) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (8) Jun 19 (7) Jun 18 (4) Jun 17 (3) Jun 16 (12) Jun 15 (12) Jun 14 (10) Jun 13 (10) Jun 12 (9) Jun 11 (6) Jun 10 (12) Jun 09 (4) Jun 08 (3) Jun 07 (12) Jun 06 (6) Jun 05 (7) Jun 04 (6) Jun 03 (3) Jun 02 (4) Jun 01 (8) May 31 (4) May 30 (3) May 29 (8) May 28 (7) May 27 (4) May 26 (3) May 25 (5) May 24 (9) May 23 (16) May 22 (12) May 21 (11) May 20 (7) May 19 (10) May 18 (8) May 17 (8) May 16 (10) May 15 (8) May 14 (5) May 13 (1) May 12 (6) May 11 (9) May 10 (9) May 09 (10) May 08 (9) May 07 (6) May 06 (5) May 05 (7) May 04 (10) May 03 (7) May 02 (9) May 01 (10) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (9) Apr 28 (12) Apr 27 (9) Apr 26 (4) Apr 25 (5) Apr 24 (9) Apr 23 (4) Apr 22 (7) Apr 21 (8) Apr 20 (9) Apr 19 (6) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (2) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (10) Apr 14 (7) Apr 13 (5) Apr 12 (7) Apr 11 (7) Apr 10 (7) Apr 09 (6) Apr 08 (7) Apr 07 (10) Apr 06 (8) Apr 05 (8) Apr 04 (9) Apr 03 (6) Apr 02 (4) Apr 01 (4) Mar 31 (11) Mar 30 (12) Mar 29 (16) Mar 28 (8) Mar 27 (10) Mar 26 (12) Mar 25 (6) Mar 24 (9) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (12) Mar 21 (12) Mar 20 (14) Mar 19 (8) Mar 18 (7) Mar 17 (8) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (10) Mar 14 (9) Mar 13 (9) Mar 12 (6) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (13) Mar 09 (8) Mar 08 (10) Mar 07 (12) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (2) Mar 03 (3) Mar 02 (12) Mar 01 (8) Feb 29 (11) Feb 28 (5) Feb 27 (3) Feb 26 (13) Feb 25 (10) Feb 24 (13) Feb 23 (10) Feb 22 (9) Feb 21 (18) Feb 20 (6) Feb 19 (7) Feb 18 (9) Feb 17 (5) Feb 16 (9) Feb 15 (7) Feb 14 (6) Feb 13 (5) Feb 12 (6) Feb 11 (4) Feb 10 (8) Feb 09 (5) Feb 08 (8) Feb 07 (10) Feb 06 (7) Feb 05 (7) Feb 04 (5) Feb 03 (11) Feb 02 (4) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (12) Jan 30 (7) Jan 29 (7) Jan 28 (7) Jan 27 (12) Jan 26 (7) Jan 25 (11) Jan 24 (4) Jan 23 (6) Jan 22 (8) Jan 21 (12) Jan 20 (11) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (6) Jan 17 (11) Jan 16 (9) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (6) Jan 12 (9) Jan 11 (9) Jan 10 (10) Jan 09 (5) Jan 08 (10) Jan 07 (5) Jan 06 (6) Jan 05 (8) Jan 04 (5) Jan 03 (8) Jan 02 (7) Jan 01 (7) Dec 31 (10) Dec 30 (11) Dec 29 (6) Dec 28 (5) Dec 27 (10) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (5) Dec 24 (7) Dec 23 (2) Dec 22 (9) Dec 21 (8) Dec 20 (8) Dec 19 (5) Dec 18 (1) Dec 17 (5) Dec 16 (6) Dec 15 (5) Dec 14 (13) Dec 13 (8) Dec 12 (7) Dec 11 (9) Dec 10 (12) Dec 09 (7) Dec 08 (11) Dec 07 (9) Dec 06 (11) Dec 05 (10) Dec 04 (6) Dec 03 (8) Dec 02 (6) Dec 01 (14) Nov 30 (7) Nov 29 (8) Nov 28 (8) Nov 27 (6) Nov 26 (9) Nov 25 (10) Nov 24 (12) Nov 23 (10) Nov 22 (10) Nov 21 (10) Nov 20 (4) Nov 19 (4) Nov 18 (8) Nov 17 (9) Nov 16 (9) Nov 15 (12) Nov 14 (6) Nov 13 (9) Nov 12 (3) Nov 11 (9) Nov 10 (10) Nov 09 (10) Nov 08 (7) Nov 07 (8) Nov 06 (10) Nov 05 (8) Nov 04 (7) Nov 03 (10) Nov 02 (11) Nov 01 (10) Oct 31 (5) Oct 30 (8) Oct 29 (8) Oct 28 (8) Oct 27 (11) Oct 26 (6) Oct 25 (9) Oct 24 (10) Oct 23 (5) Oct 22 (14) Oct 21 (10) Oct 20 (8) Oct 19 (11) Oct 18 (13) Oct 17 (7) Oct 16 (6) Oct 15 (9) Oct 14 (7) Oct 13 (12) Oct 12 (13) Oct 11 (9) Oct 10 (8) Oct 09 (9) Oct 08 (7) Oct 07 (12) Oct 06 (8) Oct 05 (13) Oct 04 (11) Oct 03 (7) Oct 02 (5) Oct 01 (14) Sep 30 (12) Sep 29 (12) Sep 28 (11) Sep 27 (11) Sep 26 (7) Sep 25 (10) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (7) Sep 22 (8) Sep 21 (8) Sep 20 (8) Sep 19 (7) Sep 18 (5) Sep 17 (14) Sep 16 (7) Sep 15 (11) Sep 14 (13) Sep 13 (11) Sep 12 (9) Sep 11 (5) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (13) Sep 08 (11) Sep 07 (11) Sep 06 (16) Sep 05 (1) Sep 04 (10) Sep 03 (8) Sep 02 (8) Sep 01 (7) Aug 31 (1) Aug 30 (6) Aug 29 (2) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (6) Aug 26 (8) Aug 25 (5) Aug 24 (5) Aug 23 (6) Aug 22 (7) Aug 21 (6) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (9) Aug 18 (7) Aug 17 (7) Aug 16 (10) Aug 15 (2) Aug 14 (5) Aug 13 (5) Aug 12 (10) Aug 11 (5) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (8) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (5) Aug 06 (12) Aug 05 (5) Aug 04 (7) Aug 03 (6) Aug 02 (7) Aug 01 (14) Jul 31 (7) Jul 30 (7) Jul 29 (13) Jul 28 (10) Jul 27 (6) Jul 26 (7) Jul 25 (7) Jul 24 (4) Jul 23 (12) Jul 22 (14) Jul 21 (6) Jul 20 (9) Jul 19 (12) Jul 18 (9) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (6) Jul 15 (8) Jul 14 (15) Jul 13 (8) Jul 12 (10) Jul 11 (6) Jul 10 (6) Jul 09 (6) Jul 08 (6) Jul 07 (9) Jul 06 (15) Jul 05 (6) Jul 04 (10) Jul 03 (6) Jul 02 (6) Jul 01 (11) Jun 30 (7) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (8) Jun 27 (8) Jun 26 (5) Jun 25 (11) Jun 24 (9) Jun 23 (10) Jun 22 (8) Jun 21 (8) Jun 20 (6) Jun 19 (5) Jun 18 (15) Jun 17 (8) Jun 16 (13) Jun 15 (15) Jun 14 (11) Jun 13 (6) Jun 12 (15) Jun 11 (7) Jun 10 (7) Jun 09 (18) Jun 08 (20) Jun 07 (17) Jun 06 (9) Jun 05 (9) Jun 04 (12) Jun 03 (13) Jun 02 (14) Jun 01 (8) May 31 (13) May 30 (8) May 29 (6) May 28 (8) May 27 (17) May 26 (8) May 25 (13) May 24 (12) May 23 (9) May 22 (4) May 21 (4) May 20 (11) May 19 (14) May 18 (6) May 17 (10) May 16 (4) May 15 (5) May 14 (28) May 12 (9) May 11 (17) May 10 (15) May 09 (12) May 08 (5) May 07 (4) May 06 (10) May 05 (8) May 04 (10) May 03 (5) May 02 (6) May 01 (8) Apr 30 (8) Apr 29 (12) Apr 28 (6) Apr 27 (11) Apr 26 (12) Apr 25 (6) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (5) Apr 22 (10) Apr 21 (19) Apr 20 (13) Apr 19 (11) Apr 18 (11) Apr 17 (5) Apr 16 (12) Apr 15 (11) Apr 14 (17) Apr 13 (6) Apr 12 (16) Apr 11 (10) Apr 10 (1) Apr 09 (18) Apr 08 (14) Apr 07 (6) Apr 06 (10) Apr 05 (21) Apr 04 (12) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (13) Apr 01 (8) Mar 31 (10) Mar 30 (11) Mar 29 (10) Mar 28 (8) Mar 27 (6) Mar 26 (12) Mar 25 (15) Mar 24 (10) Mar 23 (12) Mar 22 (12) Mar 21 (8) Mar 20 (4) Mar 19 (11) Mar 18 (7) Mar 17 (7) Mar 16 (9) Mar 15 (10) Mar 14 (4) Mar 13 (2) Mar 12 (14) Mar 11 (13) Mar 10 (7) Mar 09 (9) Mar 08 (17) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (7) Mar 05 (13) Mar 04 (10) Mar 03 (14) Mar 02 (12) Mar 01 (18) Feb 28 (8) Feb 27 (2) Feb 26 (9) Feb 25 (13) Feb 24 (17) Feb 23 (13) Feb 22 (12) Feb 21 (11) Feb 20 (11) Feb 19 (16) Feb 18 (17) Feb 17 (15) Feb 16 (15) Feb 15 (15) Feb 14 (10) Feb 13 (8) Feb 12 (10) Feb 11 (15) Feb 10 (11) Feb 09 (13) Feb 08 (10) Feb 07 (9) Feb 06 (6) Feb 05 (15) Feb 04 (15) Feb 03 (11) Feb 02 (14) Feb 01 (15) Jan 31 (11) Jan 30 (9) Jan 29 (19) Jan 28 (9) Jan 27 (9) Jan 26 (16) Jan 25 (19) Jan 24 (17) Jan 23 (8) Jan 22 (15) Jan 21 (9) Jan 20 (11) Jan 19 (7) Jan 18 (9) Jan 17 (6) Jan 16 (7) Jan 15 (12) Jan 14 (9) Jan 13 (14) Jan 12 (11) Jan 11 (13) Jan 10 (8) Jan 09 (8) Jan 08 (20) Jan 07 (11) Jan 06 (11) Jan 05 (8) Jan 04 (14) Jan 03 (6) Jan 02 (7) Jan 01 (7) Dec 31 (14) Dec 30 (15) Dec 29 (7) Dec 28 (10) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (3) Dec 25 (11) Dec 24 (9) Dec 23 (9) Dec 22 (15) Dec 21 (12) Dec 20 (11) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (16) Dec 17 (6) Dec 16 (12) Dec 15 (14) Dec 14 (11) Dec 13 (10) Dec 12 (6) Dec 11 (10) Dec 10 (17) Dec 09 (11) Dec 08 (12) Dec 07 (16) Dec 06 (11) Dec 05 (5) Dec 04 (12) Dec 03 (15) Dec 02 (15) Dec 01 (12) Nov 30 (16) Nov 29 (7) Nov 28 (11) Nov 27 (13) Nov 26 (13) Nov 25 (16) Nov 24 (15) Nov 23 (10) Nov 22 (10) Nov 21 (4) Nov 20 (8) Nov 19 (9) Nov 18 (16) Nov 17 (11) Nov 16 (11) Nov 15 (10) Nov 14 (9) Nov 13 (6) Nov 12 (10) Nov 11 (12) Nov 10 (15) Nov 09 (9) Nov 08 (10) Nov 07 (6) Nov 06 (7) Nov 05 (12) Nov 04 (14) Nov 03 (10) Nov 02 (13) Nov 01 (9) Oct 31 (9) Oct 30 (11) Oct 29 (18) Oct 28 (13) Oct 27 (23) Oct 26 (12) Oct 25 (14) Oct 24 (20) Oct 22 (18) Oct 21 (18) Oct 20 (19) Oct 19 (12) Oct 18 (11) Oct 17 (5) Oct 16 (18) Oct 15 (8) Oct 14 (11) Oct 13 (9) Oct 12 (13) Oct 11 (6) Oct 10 (7) Oct 09 (27) Oct 08 (14) Oct 07 (10) Oct 06 (9) Oct 05 (7) Oct 04 (10) Oct 03 (6) Oct 02 (9) Oct 01 (13) Sep 30 (12) Sep 29 (13) Sep 28 (8) Sep 27 (9) Sep 26 (8) Sep 25 (14) Sep 24 (4) Sep 23 (14) Sep 22 (20) Sep 21 (11) Sep 20 (6) Sep 19 (9) Sep 18 (14) Sep 17 (8) Sep 16 (17) Sep 15 (6) Sep 14 (11) Sep 13 (9) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (7) Sep 10 (14) Sep 09 (12) Sep 08 (17) Sep 07 (12) Sep 06 (13) Sep 05 (9) Sep 04 (20) Sep 03 (16) Sep 02 (16) Sep 01 (10) Aug 31 (13) Aug 30 (4) Aug 29 (9) Aug 28 (6) Aug 27 (8) Aug 26 (11) Aug 25 (10) Aug 24 (14) Aug 23 (12) Aug 22 (13) Aug 21 (10) Aug 20 (13) Aug 19 (15) Aug 18 (8) Aug 17 (10) Aug 16 (8) Aug 15 (3) Aug 14 (11) Aug 13 (12) Aug 12 (15) Aug 11 (10) Aug 10 (17) Aug 09 (6) Aug 08 (13) Aug 07 (11) Aug 06 (13) Aug 05 (11) Aug 04 (11) Aug 03 (10) Aug 02 (7) Aug 01 (6) Jul 31 (10) Jul 30 (21) Jul 29 (14) Jul 28 (13) Jul 27 (16) Jul 26 (10) Jul 25 (15) Jul 24 (17) Jul 23 (15) Jul 22 (15) Jul 21 (19) Jul 20 (17) Jul 19 (9) Jul 18 (7) Jul 17 (26) Jul 16 (18) Jul 15 (20) Jul 14 (16) Jul 13 (19) Jul 12 (11) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (13) Jul 09 (11) Jul 08 (8) Jul 07 (12) Jul 06 (16) Jul 05 (9) Jul 04 (5) Jul 03 (15) Jul 02 (11) Jul 01 (14) Jun 30 (13) Jun 29 (19) Jun 28 (8) Jun 27 (9) Jun 26 (16) Jun 25 (22) Jun 24 (17) Jun 23 (11) Jun 22 (15) Jun 21 (14) Jun 20 (8) Jun 19 (17) Jun 18 (10) Jun 17 (10) Jun 16 (17) Jun 15 (13) Jun 14 (14) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (13) Jun 11 (15) Jun 10 (25) Jun 09 (10) Jun 08 (23) Jun 07 (14) Jun 06 (20) Jun 05 (10) Jun 04 (11) Jun 03 (12) Jun 02 (21) Jun 01 (14) May 31 (10) May 30 (14) May 29 (8) May 28 (23) May 27 (20) May 26 (16) May 25 (13) May 24 (12) May 23 (10) May 22 (18) May 21 (14) May 20 (12) May 19 (18) May 18 (14) May 17 (13) May 16 (4) May 15 (7) May 14 (16) May 13 (13) May 12 (8) May 11 (18) May 10 (8) May 09 (7) May 08 (13) May 07 (11) May 06 (15) May 05 (18) May 04 (17) May 03 (7) May 02 (5) May 01 (11) Apr 30 (19) Apr 29 (21) Apr 28 (18) Apr 27 (16) Apr 26 (8) Apr 25 (11) Apr 24 (9) Apr 23 (20) Apr 22 (23) Apr 21 (5) Apr 20 (16) Apr 19 (13) Apr 18 (6) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (16) Apr 15 (18) Apr 14 (13) Apr 13 (14) Apr 12 (9) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (16) Apr 09 (14) Apr 08 (12) Apr 07 (18) Apr 06 (7) Apr 05 (11) Apr 04 (9) Apr 03 (19) Apr 02 (17) Apr 01 (16) Mar 31 (16) Mar 30 (22) Mar 29 (16) Mar 28 (16) Mar 27 (19) Mar 26 (31) Mar 25 (25) Mar 24 (26) Mar 23 (27) Mar 22 (22) Mar 21 (22) Mar 20 (13) Mar 19 (21) Mar 18 (20) Mar 17 (24) Mar 16 (18) Mar 15 (9) Mar 14 (9) Mar 13 (29) Mar 12 (15) Mar 11 (11) Mar 10 (11) Mar 09 (20) Mar 08 (12) Mar 07 (6) Mar 06 (21) Mar 05 (22) Mar 04 (19) Mar 03 (9) Mar 02 (20) Mar 01 (11) Feb 28 (11) Feb 27 (27) Feb 26 (15) Feb 25 (18) Feb 24 (17) Feb 23 (19) Feb 22 (24) Feb 21 (10) Feb 20 (14) Feb 19 (25) Feb 18 (16) Feb 17 (19) Feb 16 (23) Feb 15 (8) Feb 14 (11) Feb 13 (25) Feb 12 (16) Feb 11 (12) Feb 10 (18) Feb 09 (12) Feb 08 (14) Feb 07 (8) Feb 06 (27) Feb 05 (28) Feb 04 (24) Feb 03 (17) Feb 02 (20) Feb 01 (23) Jan 31 (16) Jan 30 (20) Jan 29 (26) Jan 28 (17) Jan 27 (21) Jan 26 (24) Jan 25 (16) Jan 24 (14) Jan 23 (16) Jan 22 (17) Jan 21 (19) Jan 20 (21) Jan 19 (17) Jan 18 (13) Jan 17 (14) Jan 16 (10) Jan 15 (21) Jan 14 (16) Jan 13 (19) Jan 12 (30) Jan 11 (14) Jan 10 (11) Jan 09 (8) Jan 08 (23) Jan 07 (13) Jan 06 (21) Jan 05 (15) Jan 04 (18) Jan 03 (9) Jan 02 (12) Jan 01 (15) Dec 31 (18) Dec 30 (7) Dec 29 (13) Dec 28 (11) Dec 27 (8) Dec 26 (6) Dec 25 (8) Dec 24 (28) Dec 23 (12) Dec 22 (12) Dec 21 (17) Dec 20 (19) Dec 19 (19) Dec 18 (22) Dec 17 (24) Dec 16 (17) Dec 15 (29) Dec 14 (22) Dec 13 (12) Dec 12 (22) Dec 11 (24) Dec 10 (25) Dec 09 (18) Dec 08 (15) Dec 07 (21) Dec 06 (24) Dec 05 (30) Dec 04 (28) Dec 03 (26) Dec 02 (22) Dec 01 (33) Nov 30 (23) Nov 29 (9) Nov 28 (18) Nov 27 (25) Nov 26 (17) Nov 25 (23) Nov 24 (27) Nov 23 (12) Nov 22 (10) Nov 21 (15) Nov 20 (23) Nov 19 (23) Nov 18 (24) Nov 17 (21) Nov 16 (20) Nov 15 (13) Nov 14 (15) Nov 13 (27) Nov 12 (23) Nov 11 (19) Nov 10 (21) Nov 09 (13) Nov 08 (16) Nov 07 (16) Nov 06 (32) Nov 05 (24) Nov 04 (20) Nov 03 (29) Nov 02 (12) Nov 01 (15) Oct 31 (20) Oct 30 (22) Oct 29 (27) Oct 28 (20) Oct 27 (23) Oct 26 (21) Oct 25 (15) Oct 24 (23) Oct 23 (26) Oct 22 (27) Oct 21 (28) Oct 20 (24) Oct 19 (13) Oct 18 (9) Oct 17 (30) Oct 16 (8) Oct 15 (20) Oct 14 (14) Oct 13 (17) Oct 12 (16) Oct 11 (8) Oct 10 (19) Oct 09 (22) Oct 08 (16) Oct 07 (18) Oct 06 (23) Oct 05 (7) Oct 04 (15) Oct 03 (21) Oct 02 (17) Oct 01 (22) Sep 30 (25) Sep 29 (20) Sep 28 (17) Sep 27 (13) Sep 26 (20) Sep 25 (15) Sep 24 (24) Sep 23 (23) Sep 22 (18) Sep 21 (20) Sep 20 (11) Sep 19 (24) Sep 18 (25) Sep 17 (25) Sep 16 (19) Sep 15 (21) Sep 14 (15) Sep 13 (10) Sep 12 (23) Sep 11 (23) Sep 10 (25) Sep 09 (25) Sep 08 (17) Sep 07 (3) Sep 06 (17) Sep 05 (14) Sep 04 (24) Sep 03 (16) Sep 02 (11) Sep 01 (19) Aug 31 (20) Aug 30 (11) Aug 29 (24) Aug 28 (24) Aug 27 (16) Aug 26 (26) Aug 25 (21) Aug 24 (15) Aug 23 (19) Aug 22 (15) Aug 21 (25) Aug 20 (27) Aug 19 (19) Aug 18 (24) Aug 17 (14) Aug 16 (10) Aug 15 (15) Aug 14 (16) Aug 13 (21) Aug 12 (30) Aug 11 (19) Aug 10 (8) Aug 09 (12) Aug 08 (17) Aug 07 (21) Aug 06 (26) Aug 05 (23) Aug 04 (21) Aug 03 (12) Aug 02 (7) Aug 01 (19) Jul 31 (21) Jul 30 (25) Jul 29 (29) Jul 28 (23) Jul 27 (17) Jul 26 (11) Jul 25 (21) Jul 24 (14) Jul 23 (15) Jul 22 (19) Jul 21 (15) Jul 20 (9) Jul 19 (10) Jul 18 (15) Jul 17 (22) Jul 16 (18) Jul 15 (21) Jul 14 (20) Jul 13 (7) Jul 12 (9) Jul 11 (29) Jul 10 (19) Jul 09 (17) Jul 08 (26) Jul 07 (21) Jul 06 (18) Jul 05 (14) Jul 04 (20) Jul 03 (17) Jul 02 (24) Jul 01 (23) Jun 30 (23) Jun 29 (18) Jun 28 (16) Jun 27 (16) Jun 26 (17) Jun 25 (23) Jun 24 (32) Jun 23 (29) Jun 22 (8) Jun 21 (17) Jun 20 (25) Jun 19 (28) Jun 18 (19) Jun 17 (25) Jun 16 (23) Jun 15 (9) Jun 14 (11) Jun 13 (14) Jun 12 (22) Jun 11 (19) Jun 10 (17) Jun 09 (15) Jun 08 (16) Jun 07 (7) Jun 06 (29) Jun 05 (27) Jun 04 (24) Jun 03 (22) Jun 02 (22) Jun 01 (13) May 31 (9) May 30 (26) May 29 (19) May 28 (15) May 27 (15) May 26 (23) May 25 (13) May 24 (12) May 23 (24) May 22 (13) May 21 (21) May 20 (18) May 19 (16) May 18 (7) May 17 (12) May 16 (25) May 15 (24) May 14 (23) May 13 (19) May 12 (17) May 11 (8) May 10 (6) May 09 (14) May 08 (21) May 07 (26) May 06 (14) May 05 (14) May 04 (3) May 03 (3) May 02 (24) May 01 (13) Apr 30 (15) Apr 29 (24) Apr 28 (24) Apr 27 (11) Apr 26 (8) Apr 25 (13) Apr 24 (27) Apr 23 (15) Apr 22 (21) Apr 21 (19) Apr 20 (17) Apr 19 (8) Apr 18 (20) Apr 17 (27) Apr 16 (27) Apr 15 (21) Apr 14 (8) Apr 13 (8) Apr 12 (7) Apr 11 (7) Apr 10 (22) Apr 09 (15) Apr 08 (15) Apr 07 (17) Apr 06 (14) Apr 05 (5) Apr 04 (12) Apr 03 (19) Apr 02 (17) Apr 01 (19) Mar 31 (25) Mar 30 (13) Mar 29 (9) Mar 28 (16) Mar 27 (23) Mar 26 (22) Mar 25 (17) Mar 24 (25) Mar 23 (16) Mar 22 (13) Mar 21 (24) Mar 20 (27) Mar 19 (20) Mar 18 (24) Mar 17 (17) Mar 16 (11) Mar 15 (6) Mar 14 (20) Mar 13 (28) Mar 12 (30) Mar 11 (20) Mar 10 (21) Mar 09 (12) Mar 08 (8) Mar 07 (17) Mar 06 (20) Mar 05 (19) Mar 04 (15) Mar 03 (17) Mar 02 (8) Mar 01 (12) Feb 28 (16) Feb 27 (17) Feb 26 (8) Feb 25 (23) Feb 24 (15) Feb 23 (8) Feb 22 (10) Feb 21 (24) Feb 20 (14) Feb 19 (24) Feb 18 (19) Feb 17 (27) Feb 16 (13) Feb 15 (11) Feb 14 (15) Feb 13 (13) Feb 12 (13) Feb 11 (21) Feb 10 (16) Feb 09 (15) Feb 08 (10) Feb 07 (17) Feb 06 (21) Feb 05 (17) Feb 04 (14) Feb 03 (23) Feb 02 (5) Feb 01 (8) Jan 31 (17) Jan 30 (22) Jan 29 (23) Jan 28 (10) Jan 27 (24) Jan 26 (12) Jan 25 (9) Jan 24 (12) Jan 23 (19) Jan 22 (19) Jan 21 (14) Jan 20 (21) Jan 19 (12) Jan 18 (8) Jan 17 (20) Jan 16 (14) Jan 15 (23) Jan 14 (8) Jan 13 (20) Jan 12 (9) Jan 11 (7) Jan 10 (18) Jan 09 (11) Jan 08 (18) Jan 07 (13) Jan 06 (12) Jan 05 (12) Jan 04 (11) Jan 03 (10) Jan 02 (9) Jan 01 (9) Dec 31 (12) Dec 30 (11) Dec 29 (6) Dec 28 (9) Dec 27 (13) Dec 26 (15) Dec 25 (8) Dec 24 (6) Dec 23 (8) Dec 22 (5) Dec 21 (6) Dec 20 (14) Dec 19 (17) Dec 18 (14) Dec 17 (14) Dec 16 (13) Dec 15 (9) Dec 14 (9) Dec 13 (11) Dec 12 (16) Dec 11 (18) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (24) Dec 08 (11) Dec 07 (19) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (26) Dec 04 (15) Dec 03 (20) Dec 02 (17) Dec 01 (11) Nov 30 (10) Nov 29 (18) Nov 28 (21) Nov 27 (10) Nov 26 (22) Nov 25 (16) Nov 24 (12) Nov 23 (8) Nov 22 (18) Nov 21 (9) Nov 20 (17) Nov 19 (16) Nov 18 (16) Nov 17 (5) Nov 16 (9) Nov 15 (21) Nov 14 (17) Nov 13 (20) Nov 12 (16) Nov 11 (13) Nov 10 (9) Nov 09 (10) Nov 08 (16) Nov 07 (15) Nov 06 (18) Nov 05 (19) Nov 04 (16) Nov 03 (11) Nov 02 (5) Nov 01 (17) Oct 31 (17) Oct 30 (21) Oct 29 (9) Oct 28 (16) Oct 27 (6) Oct 26 (6) Oct 25 (16) Oct 24 (18) Oct 23 (14) Oct 22 (17) Oct 21 (10) Oct 20 (6) Oct 19 (8) Oct 18 (11) Oct 17 (12) Oct 16 (14) Oct 15 (19) Oct 14 (15) Oct 13 (11) Oct 12 (9) Oct 11 (10) Oct 10 (23) Oct 09 (13) Oct 08 (15) Oct 07 (20) Oct 06 (13) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (16) Oct 03 (17) Oct 02 (17) Oct 01 (20) Sep 30 (17) Sep 29 (9) Sep 28 (8) Sep 27 (14) Sep 26 (20) Sep 25 (19) Sep 24 (13) Sep 23 (11) Sep 22 (9) Sep 21 (5) Sep 20 (8) Sep 19 (21) Sep 18 (12) Sep 17 (20) Sep 16 (16) Sep 15 (10) Sep 14 (6) Sep 13 (18) Sep 12 (14) Sep 11 (24) Sep 10 (17) Sep 09 (16) Sep 08 (16) Sep 07 (10) Sep 06 (20) Sep 05 (13) Sep 04 (23) Sep 03 (14) Sep 02 (12) Sep 01 (11) Aug 31 (11) Aug 30 (13) Aug 29 (18) Aug 28 (14) Aug 27 (21) Aug 26 (10) Aug 25 (8) Aug 24 (10) Aug 23 (17) Aug 22 (15) Aug 21 (14) Aug 20 (20) Aug 19 (20) Aug 18 (7) Aug 17 (9) Aug 16 (11) Aug 15 (12) Aug 14 (14) Aug 13 (19) Aug 12 (14) Aug 11 (6) Aug 10 (12) Aug 09 (7) Aug 08 (18) Aug 07 (16) Aug 06 (16) Aug 05 (20) Aug 04 (12) Aug 03 (8) Aug 02 (12) Aug 01 (14) Jul 31 (16) Jul 30 (16) Jul 29 (11) Jul 28 (8) Jul 27 (9) Jul 26 (17) Jul 25 (20) Jul 24 (17) Jul 23 (11) Jul 22 (18) Jul 21 (7) Jul 20 (10) Jul 19 (14) Jul 18 (11) Jul 17 (15) Jul 16 (12) Jul 15 (10) Jul 14 (8) Jul 13 (8) Jul 12 (17) Jul 11 (18) Jul 10 (16) Jul 09 (13) Jul 08 (10) Jul 07 (12) Jul 06 (8) Jul 05 (16) Jul 04 (14) Jul 03 (17) Jul 02 (13) Jul 01 (16) Jun 30 (19) Jun 29 (7) Jun 28 (19) Jun 27 (21) Jun 26 (27) Jun 25 (23) Jun 24 (23) Jun 23 (12) Jun 22 (9) Jun 21 (18) Jun 20 (15) Jun 19 (24) Jun 18 (21) Jun 17 (13) Jun 16 (9) Jun 15 (9) Jun 14 (18) Jun 13 (24) Jun 12 (18) Jun 11 (23) Jun 10 (25) Jun 09 (24) Jun 08 (27) Jun 07 (5) Jun 06 (25) Jun 05 (30) Jun 04 (23) Jun 03 (22) Jun 02 (16) Jun 01 (17) May 31 (18) May 30 (19) May 29 (17) May 28 (23) May 27 (15) May 26 (10) May 25 (19) May 24 (16) May 23 (16) May 22 (27) May 21 (20) May 20 (26) May 19 (6) May 18 (8) May 17 (20) May 16 (8) May 15 (18) May 14 (5) May 13 (21) May 12 (9) May 11 (8) May 10 (12) May 09 (18) May 08 (11) May 07 (27) May 06 (12) May 05 (16) May 04 (19) May 03 (14) May 02 (18) May 01 (18) Apr 30 (25) Apr 29 (27) Apr 28 (11) Apr 27 (10) Apr 26 (18) Apr 25 (10) Apr 24 (29) Apr 23 (29) Apr 22 (14) Apr 21 (15) Apr 20 (20) Apr 19 (22) Apr 18 (16) Apr 17 (32) Apr 16 (12) Apr 15 (21) Apr 14 (21) Apr 13 (15) Apr 12 (13) Apr 11 (14) Apr 10 (16) Apr 09 (20) Apr 08 (36) Apr 07 (22) Apr 06 (11) Apr 05 (28) Apr 04 (20) Apr 03 (29) Apr 02 (32) Apr 01 (18) Mar 31 (12) Mar 30 (9) Mar 29 (15) Mar 28 (22) Mar 27 (24) Mar 26 (17) Mar 25 (17) Mar 24 (13) Mar 23 (5) Mar 22 (12) Mar 21 (15) Mar 20 (18) Mar 19 (19) Mar 18 (16) Mar 17 (10) Mar 16 (6) Mar 15 (18) Mar 14 (24) Mar 13 (18) Mar 12 (18) Mar 11 (17) Mar 10 (13) Mar 09 (12) Mar 08 (18) Mar 07 (25) Mar 06 (16) Mar 05 (16) Mar 04 (22) Mar 03 (17) Mar 02 (6) Mar 01 (23) Feb 29 (19) Feb 28 (25) Feb 27 (26) Feb 26 (23) Feb 25 (12) Feb 24 (13) Feb 23 (15) Feb 22 (26) Feb 21 (31) Feb 20 (12) Feb 19 (21) Feb 18 (15) Feb 17 (10) Feb 16 (15) Feb 15 (19) Feb 14 (15) Feb 13 (25) Feb 12 (20) Feb 11 (9) Feb 10 (7) Feb 09 (28) Feb 08 (20) Feb 07 (22) Feb 06 (20) Feb 05 (19) Feb 04 (14) Feb 03 (16) Feb 02 (28) Feb 01 (37) Jan 31 (27) Jan 30 (31) Jan 29 (18) Jan 28 (14) Jan 27 (10) Jan 26 (18) Jan 25 (26) Jan 24 (34) Jan 23 (21) Jan 22 (21) Jan 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) 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. 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. Canl bahis sitelerini kullanmadan once mutlaka guvenli olup olmadgna goz atmalsnz. Zira baz kullanclar guvenli olmayan sitelerden yaptklar islemlerden dolay magdur olmaktadrlar. Nitekim guvenli ve sorunsuz hizmet sunan yurt ds site tercih etmek en dogru secenektir. Sektorde uzun yllar faaliyet gosteren siteleri tercih edebilirsiniz. Bu alanda yer alan yabanc siteler musteri memnuniyetine onem vermektedir. Oncelik site kullanclarn sorunsuz sekilde bahislerini yapabilir olmasn saglamaktr. Bahis sitelerinde amac hem daha fazla kullancya hizmet vermek hem de sektorde emin admlarla ilerlemek onceliklidir. Dogru site tercihi ile sizde canl bahislerinizi sorun yasamadan gerceklestirebilirsiniz. Sizler icin hazrlams oldugumuz canl bahis siteleri listesi su sekildedir; Mobilbahis Tempobet Bets10 Bahigo 1xbahis Betboo Youwin Superbahis Sralams oldugumuz bu siteler sektorde basarl islere imza atms sitelerdedir. 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. Feb 19, 2016 | By Andre I dont think theres a question in anyone's mind that the internet is an incredibly vast place where one can spend a lifetime getting lost in. The most obscure hobbies or niche interests groups can find solace knowing that theres someone (or sometimes thousands of someones) out there that match up with exactly whatever it is that keeps them curious. So when I first heard about Europeana, its existence didnt surprise me in the least. Europeana is a project whose sole purpose is to promote, gather and distribute digital content from personal, communal and industrial resources that relate specifically to food & drink. The scale of the project did surprise me however. As of this writing, they provide integrated access to over 27 million books, films, paintings, museum objects and archival documents from over 2,200 content providers; all of which relate directly to food and drink. 3D printing makes its entrance to this story as the catalyst technology behind the winning entry of the Third Open Innovation Challenge hosted by Europeana. The contest, held late 2015 is focused around the idea of reimagining content available on the site into a completely new thing. The winning contestant, Gabriele Crivelli, used a painting called Still Life with Saltcellar as his muse and 3D printing as his medium when he converted this food & drink related painting into a 3D printed lamp called "MilleFori". Inspired by the shape and warmth of the cup in the painting, Crivelli went through a great number of sketches and design iterations before coming up with his final 3D printed reimagining of the painting. A mechanical engineer by day, he has been exploring his creative side in his free time and 3D printing has piqued his interest for some time now. After becoming aware of the competition, he focused his search on not so much on the shape of the element, but especially on the colors and patterns that can emerge from some details in the painting works. With this goal in mind, it wasnt long before he found the painting and immediately saw a lamp in its prominently featured glass. "With different drawings steps, the circular down pattern of the glass became quadrangular and took the top position becoming a technical distributor of light creating a luminous effect similar to the chromatic effect of the painting," he said. From there, early sketches turned into a 3D model which in turn was sliced to be printed using the Color Jet Printing (CJP) process by 3D Systems. Similar to other sintering based 3D printing techniques, CJP relies on a powder and a binder that gets selectively solidified based on the 3D print file being executed. As the 3D print process moved along, one layer at a time, Gabrieles lamp started to form (as can be seen in his contest submission video below). When it comes to contest challenges, he didnt even touch on the complexities of 3D design and 3D printing but instead discussed the challenge of trying to create an object that evoked a feeling of warmth like he discovered in the glass of the painting. So whats next for this creativity infused mechanical engineer? In the short term, hes hoping to use 3D printing technology as a tool to sell his unique products in limited numbers. I also imagine hell enjoy his contest winning of 2.000,00 in cash as well. I do say, what a wonderful world we live in that a mechanical engineer can enter a contest on a food & drink archiving website only to win by using modern 3D printing technology by reimagining a 17th century painting for inspiration. Posted in 3D Printing Application Maybe you also like: Charles Koch, yes, of the Koch brothers, in the Washington Post: As he campaigns for the Democratic nomination for president, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) often sounds like hes running as much against me as he is the other candidates. I have never met the senator, but I know from listening to him that we disagree on plenty when it comes to public policy. Even so, I see benefits in searching for common ground and greater civility during this overly negative campaign season. Thats why, in spite of the fact that he often misrepresents where I stand on issues, the senator should know that we do agree on at least one an issue that resonates with people who feel that hard work and making a contribution will no longer enable them to succeed. The senator is upset with a political and economic system that is often rigged to help the privileged few at the expense of everyone else, particularly the least advantaged. He believes that we have a two-tiered society that increasingly dooms millions of our fellow citizens to lives of poverty and hopelessness. He thinks many corporations seek and benefit from corporate welfare while ordinary citizens are denied opportunities and a level playing field. I agree with him. More here. This is ten years old but something I had never seen before (am surprised I missed it) and now find extremely interesting. Not only was Einstein wrong, he was wrong about gravitational waves! This is Daniel Kennefick in the September 2005 issue of Physics Today: Letter from Einstein to journal editor Albert Einstein had two careers as a professional physicist, the first spent through 1933 entirely at German-speaking universities in central Europe, the second at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey, from 1933 until his death in 1955. During the first period he generally published in German physics journals, most famously the Annalen der Physik, where all five of his celebrated papers of 1905 appeared. After relocating to the US, Einstein began to publish frequently in North American journals. Of those, the Physical Review, then under the editorship of John Tate (pictured in figure 1), was rapidly assuming the mantle of the worlds premier journal of physics. 1 Einstein first published there in 1931 on the first of three winter visits to Caltech. With Nathan Rosen, his first American assistant, Einstein published two more papers in the Physical Review: the famous 1935 paper by Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR) and a 1936 paper that introduced the concept of the EinsteinRosen bridge, nowadays better known as a wormhole. But except for a letter to the journals editor he wrote in 1952in response to a paper critical of his unified field theory workthat 1936 paper was the last Einstein would ever publish there. Einstein stopped submitting work to the Physical Review after receiving a negative critique from the journal in response to a paper he had written with Rosen on gravitational waves later in 1936. 2 That much has long been known, at least to the editors of Einsteins collected papers. But the story of Einsteins subsequent interaction with the referee in that case is not well known to physicists outside of the gravitational-wave community. Last March, the journals current editor-in-chief, Martin Blume, and his colleagues uncovered the journals logbook records from the era, a find that has confirmed the suspicions about that referees identity. 3 Moreover, the story raises the possibility that Einsteins gravitational-wave paper with Rosen may have been his only genuine encounter with anonymous peer review. Einstein, who reacted angrily to the referee report, would have been well advised to pay more attention to its criticisms, which proved to be valid. More here. [Thanks to Ashutosh Jogalekar. And plain text version here.] Thank You Your email address is now confirmed. You'll start receiving the latest news, benefits, events, and programs related to AARP's mission to empower people to choose how they live as they age. You can also manage your communication preferences by updating your account at anytime. You will be asked to register or log in. General Shareholder Update Melbourne, Feb 19, 2016 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Environmental Clean Technologies Limited ( ASX:ESI ) (ECT or Company) provides the following general update on recent company achievements, current activities and planned activities. The Company has delivered several significant outcomes in recent weeks: 1) Tripartite Agreement Signing 2) Enhanced capital management capability 3) Convened the Indian project working group & commenced activities 4) Presented at the India-Australia dialogue on energy security The tripartite agreement announced on (27 Jan 2016) is a first for an Australian company in the Indian market. It paves the way for the integrated, joint development of the Company's innovative resource upgrading technologies, Coldry and Matmor, in the worlds fastest growing large conomy. The capital management transaction, announced on 27 January 2016 saw the orderly conclusion of the Fast Finance facility and subsequently introduced New York based Brevet Capital to our financing mix (announced 2 Feb 2016). These activities, along with the receipt of the 2015 R&D Tax Incentive rebate, have delivered short term funding stability and flexibility and established significant capability around project financing as we step forward in India. The Company kicked-off the India project activities in Hyderabad on the 4 February (www.ectltd.com.au/shareholder-update-key-activites/), setting in motion the work plan to deliver the Techno-Economic Feasibility (TEF) study for the integrated Coldry-Matmor R&D project in India between now and June. ECT Chairman, Glenn Fozard was invited to participate in the India-Australia Dialogue on Energy Security in Brisbane on 8 February 2016. Mr Fozard presented the Company's Coldry and Matmor resource upgrading solutions and delivered an overview of the project being pursued with India's largest lignite miner, Neyveli Lignite Corporation and largest iron ore miner, NMDC. He also outlined highlights of the Company's engagement methodology to the Australian companies present. Managing Director, Ashley Moore commented "In contrast to these recent achievements and the valuation by ABID, the share price movement since 27 January has disappointed most shareholders." "The company has received much correspondence from shareholders expressing alarm as to pace and volatility of the share price movement since January 27 with most providing views as to the possible reasons for this movement." Chairman, Glenn Fozard added, "Whilst it is the responsibility of the Company to ensure that the market and its shareholders receive clear communication from the Company, and in some instances, even correct misinformation in the market, shareholder interests are best served by focusing our efforts on meeting stated milestones and deliverables rather than speculating on share price movement. "The Board is confident in the future of the business and we believe that expectations for the delivery of milestones are reasonable and on track. We've said it before and we'll say it again, the Company has never been in better shape to develop, commercialise and monetise its technology suite. But there is always room for improvement and with our shareholder's contribution, we aim to better communicate these goals and milestones" Ashley Moore continued, "As such, we're stepping up the communications and invite shareholders to direct any questions via email. "In this update we cover off several frequently asked questions, lay out the key messages since our AGM last November, and generally restate our pathway and objectives for our shareholders. "In coming weeks and months we'll also provide further updates as we get on with the job in India. Shareholders can expect regular web articles and other communications. As always, the Company will continue to remain compliant with its continuous disclosure obligations, so any material announcements will also be made via the ASX platform." Current Activities At the Company's AGM last November, the three priorities for the year ahead were outlined: 1) India project development 2) Australian Project Feasibility Study 3) Victorian Fuel Supply Opportunity The project in India is focused on the deployment of an integrated Coldry demonstration-scale plant and Matmor pilot-scale plant at India's largest lignite mine and power generation site. The joint development of the project with NLC and NMDC is driven by India's incredible growth story and desire to extract greater value from relatively low cost resources in support of the country's need for energy, and infrastructure-building iron and steel. Coldry has the ability to upgrade lignite to produce a black coal equivalent thermal coal, enabling its use in higher efficiency power generation or as a 'gateway' to further upgrading via coal conversion technologies to produce oil, gas and fertiliser. Matmor has the ability to produce iron and other higher value metals without the need for coking coal. At the 2015 AGM the Company provided an overview of the steps ahead as follows: Coldry: - Thermax ready to go, substantial preparation works complete o Proprietary equipment vendor development works o Integration engineering and site specific aspects scheduled following Matmor Pilot Plant Development works - Financial trigger - Construction - Commissioning, optimisation & validation - Commercial expansion Matmor: - MN Dastur appointed engineering partner - Pilot Plant development program commenced: o Test Plant upgrades already started o Data development runs to inform Pilot Plant design o Designs prepared for EPC costing o Financial trigger o Construction o Commissioning o Test program o Next Steps... following Coldry model The first activity under the India project - the preparation of the TEF Study - commenced on 4 February ( www.ectltd.com.au/shareholder-update-key-activites/ ) with the convening of the project working group consisting of ECT, NLC and NMDC and supported by Thermax (Coldry EPC engineers) and MN Dastur (Matmor design engineers). The TEF is the trigger that precedes finance and structuring, firming up the capital estimates to an appropriate level to define the overall financial requirement and by extension the parties' contributions. The capital cost for the Coldry demonstration-scale plant has been appropriately defined for some time. The task ahead is to bring Matmor up to speed and refine the integration aspects given the difference in size and stage of development between the two technologies. The study will include a look forward at the commercial scale application to quantify the financial opportunities likely to flow from this R&D scale project, supporting the business case for the allocation of R&D investment by the parties. Key points to note include: - The Tripartite Collaboration Agreement establishes the framework for activities that build toward the objective. - The parties will drill down to commercial agreements following the TEF study. - Each party intends to contribute finance and resources to the project, guided by the outcomes of the study. To meet financial control requirements for release of R&D funding via the parties, internal protocols must first be satisfied. The TEF study underpins this requirement. The intended timing sees the progress of the TEF study being completed during June 2016. The Australian Project Feasibility Study The Company is working through the initial scoping stage for its Australian Project as outlined at the 2015 AGM. Focusing on product and market assessment, the study aims to determine a logical commercial pathway for both Coldry and Matmor in Australia. Through this approach, R&D activities can be targeted toward practical commercial applications that reflect local market conditions. The Company's current preliminary view sees opportunities in developing Coldry-enabled solutions that produce gas, oils and metallurgical char products. On the Matmor front, there are several R&D pathways ranging from iron ore in Victoria and Tasmania to pre-processing of ilmenite (titanium sands) and remediation of waste (millscale). The Australian Project is of greater scale and complexity and will necessarily be informed by the outcomes of the Coldry and Matmor R&D activities in India. Victorian Fuel Supply Opportunity The Company has been exploring modifications to its Coldry Pilot plant at Bacchus Marsh to enhance its testing capability and generate new knowledge. The requirement for higher testing capacity has been driven by the need to provide a robust R&D facility that can provide sufficient flexibility and volume of Coldry product to satisfy minimum quantities for end user testing in large test boilers and live generation systems. This would typically be an R&D expense to the business in pursuit of generating new knowledge. Coinciding with this activity, a confluence of factors in the Victorian market has created a compelling economic opportunity. The Victorian market for thermal coal is experiencing a disconnect from the global market. While the global price for thermal coal is hovering around $60 per tonne, brown coal briquettes are fetching significantly higher prices in Victoria. The closure of the briquette factory in Victoria is having repercussions. And while there are solutions, such as importing black coal from NSW or connecting to the gas network, both options are very expensive. Some consumers have resorted to looking at the feasibility of importing brown coal briquettes from Germany. Solar and wind aren't appropriate for starting power stations or raising steam. This has created a potential opportunity to supply a dried brown coal product such as Coldry into the Victorian market. If successful, the Company hopes to defray some of its R&D costs through the sale of output from its R&D activities in the Victorian market while achieving valuable new knowledge from our pilot plant and its resulting products. The scoping of the pilot plant upgrade is currently proceeding, in addition to market and logistics assessment. Clarification on Trading Halt and Voluntary Suspension On 19 January 2016 the Company requested the ASX halt trading in its securities pending the completion of a transaction relating to its capital management plan. The completion took longer than expected, resulting in the Company seeking voluntary suspension on 21 January 2016, which was lifted on 27 January 2016. Feedback from shareholders reflected a broad degree of misinterpretation ranging from simple misunderstanding of terminology to wilful, yet incorrect, speculation. Some shareholders described the halt as 'backfiring', suggesting those shareholders believed the Company was using the halt as a build up to the signing of the tripartite agreement. This was not the intent. The market was kept fully informed of anticipated timing of the tripartite agreement signing. For avoidance of doubt, the Company only uses trading halts and voluntary suspensions as required to manage its continuous disclosure obligations. In this instance the Company was finalising a transaction in relation to capital management activities. The halt and voluntary suspension were implemented to prevent trading in the Company's securities as the circle of participants involved in the transaction widened. The subsequent announcement (27 Jan 2016) then provided full disclosure on the nature and outcome of the transaction under the heading of 'Capital Management', including the conversion of the previous 'Fast Finance' loan facility to equity. Shareholders are reminded that the Board has obligations under the Corporations Act and ASX Listing Rules to manage continuous disclosure. Trading Halts and Voluntary Suspensions are tools provided by the ASX for this very purpose. Understanding the Tripartite Collaboration Agreement Shareholders have posed several questions in relation to the nature of the agreement with NLC and NMDC. In order to gain a better understanding of what the agreement is, it is helpful to understand the Company's engagement with its Indian partners in the context of a first-of-a-kind deal with Public Sector Undertakings (PSU's). It became apparent as the engagement with the parties developed that typical Australian or Indian 'deal making' approaches would be inadequate. The challenge for the parties lay in bridging the gap between the need to drive R&D outcomes that require financial commitments on one hand, and the need to meet procedural controls within Indian PSU's on the other hand. Allocating taxpayer funds in any jurisdiction involves substantial probity and compliance considerations, which can take considerable time to satisfy. To bridge this gap required innovation in terms of agreement structure in addition to vision on the part of the PSU's. The key was the creation of a binding, collaborative framework, that incorporated both the necessary activity to drive project development through the TEF study stage towards execution of commercial agreements which will detail the equity investments and other contributions of each party, while allowing parallel compliance with policies, process and procedures. This balances the need for an appropriate level of investment certainty with the need for probity over allocation of public funds toward the R&D project. For further context, officials from the Australian High Commission in India have noted the significance and uniqueness of the achievement during discussions with the Company. In addition, the Company has received approaches from several Australian firms seeking guidance on how to enter the Indian market. Given the unique nature of the engagement and the innovative approach to structuring a balanced, collaborative approach, the Tripartite Collaboration Agreement isn't easily 'pigeon-holed'. The Company sees this innovative, 'trail blazing' approach as crucial to attracting and engaging partners and aims to further build this as a core competency in future developments. Conclusion The Company is focused on progressing the Techno-Economic Feasibility study for the India project through to conclusion by the end of June and will continue to provide updates and further clarifications on the way through. If shareholders have any questions, the Company encourages you to email us at info@ectltd.com.au. Topics of interest can then be covered in further updates. To view figures, please visit: http://media.abnnewswire.net/media/en/docs/ASX-ESI-438714.pdf About Environmental Clean Technologies Ltd Environmental Clean Technologies Limited (ASX:ECT) is in the business of commercialising leading-edge coal and iron making technologies, which are capable of delivering financial and environmental benefits. We are focused on advancing a portfolio of technologies, which have significant market potential globally. ECT's business plan is to pragmatically commercialise these technologies and secure sustainable, profitable income streams through licencing and other commercial mechanisms. The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged Marrone Bio Innovations, a pesticide company, and its former chief operating officer, with inflating financial results to meet projections it would double revenues in its first year as a public company. Marrone Bio agreed to pay a $1.75 million penalty to settle the SECs charges. The SEC alleges that former COO Hector M. Absi Jr. hid various sales concessions offered to customers from Marrone Bios finance personnel and independent auditor, leading the Davis, Calif.-based company to improperly recognize revenue on sales. Absi allegedly profited from the fraud. He resigned in August 2014 shortly before the alleged fraud came to light and the companys stock price plunged more than 44 percent. In a parallel action, the U.S Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of California announced criminal charges against Absi on Wednesday. We allege that Marrone Bio misled investors to make itself look like a fast-growing new public company, said Jina L. Choi, director of the SECs San Francisco Regional Office, in a statement Wednesday. Public companies and their officers should know better that taking shortcuts to recognize revenue in the near term is harmful to investors and can be damaging to a companys long-term success. According to the SECs complaint, Marrone Bio restated its results for fiscal 2013 and the first half of fiscal 2014 last November, reversing approximately $2 million of previously reported revenue. Absi had previously inflated Marrone Bios revenues by offering distributors inventory protection, a concession that allowed distributors to return unsold product. Absi allegedly also inflated Marrone Bios revenue by directing his subordinates to obtain false sales and shipping documents and intentionally ship the wrong product to book sales. The SEC contends that Absi abused Marrone Bios expense reporting system to pay for personal items, including vacations, home furnishings, and professionally installed Christmas lights for his home. The complaint said Absi falsified his bank and credit card statements to make it appear as though he had incurred the expenses for legitimate business purposes. Absi allegedly also personally profited from his scheme, receiving more than $350,000 in bonuses, stock sale proceeds, and illegitimate expense reimbursements. The SEC has also instituted a settled administrative proceeding against Marrone Bios former customer relations manager Julieta Favela Barcenas for violations of the books and records provisions of the federal securities laws. Favela entered into a cooperation agreement to assist in the SECs investigation and ongoing litigation against Absi. Marrone Bio CEO Pamela G. Marrone has reimbursed the company $15,234 and former CFO Donald J. Glidewell will reimburse the company $11,789 for incentive-based compensation they received following the filing of Marrone Bios misstated financial statements, as required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. They were not charged with any misconduct. In agreeing to the settlement, Marrone Bio neither admitted nor denied the SECs allegations. We have determined that resolving this matter serves the best interests of the company and its stockholders, Marrone said in a statement Wednesday. With this behind us, we can focus on our business going forward. Saying hello in Sindhi online just got a little easier along with the addition of 11 other languages to Google Translate today. This brings the total number of languages Google Translate supports to just over 100, making it simpler for people, no matter what language they speak, to communicate with one another. Now Sindhi speakers can type or handwrite a phrase on their phone or computer and it will be instantly translated into English, or vice versa. Sveta Kelman, Senior Program Manager, Google Translate says The Internet is transforming the way people around the world communicate, learn, live and work, but the Web is only useful if its in a language you can understand. By bringing more languages online with Google Translate, we hope more people can have a relevant and useful experience on the Web. With over 26 million Sindhi speaking citizens around the world, introducing Sindhi to Google Translate will help the new generation of Sindhis enrich their knowledge about their community.It will also be helpful for tourists visiting India making it easier for English and Sindhi speakers to communicate with each other. Some of the other languages added today are Hawaiian, Amharic, Corsican, Frisian, Kyrgyz, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Luxembourgish, Scots Gaelic, Shona, Sindhi, Pashto and Xhosa. Google Translate launched in 2006 in Russian, Arabic and Chinese. Today it supports over 100 languages, reaches over 500 million people around the world each month, and processes a million words a second. To make it easy to translate information across the web, Google Translate is also integrated into Google products like Chrome, Search, Gmail and YouTube. Google Translate helps billions of people communicate and learn new languages, but it could always use a little help. With the Translate Community tool, people who know and love their language can directly contribute to helping improve the representation, accuracy and understanding of their language online. At translate.google.com/community you can generate new translations and rate existing ones, match words, and compare translations of words and phrases. Every contribution to Google Translate Community helps improve the quality of translation over time. Earlier this month, British Airways launched its latest brand campaign, Fuelled by Love, and made the whole world smile and shed a few tears of joy. The film was inspired by real-life experiences of British Airways cabin crew flying to Indian routes. And now, British Airways is delighted to present its #crewstories who share their own fond memories and magical moments of flying to India over the past several decades. As part of the airlines latest brand campaign, Fuelled by Love, British Airways today released a cabin crew film capturing the true essence of its deep connection with the people of India. The airline will continue to release real crew stories through more short videos and photo essays over the next one month on its social media channels i.e. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and ba.com/fuelledbylove. In the short film, Cabin Services Director, Worldwide fleet, Jayne Deasy talks about her colourful memories of flying to India for the first time and the strong relationship and legacy that British Airways shares with its customers in the country. Deasy emphasises how she has felt great love and acceptance in India throughout her career spanning over 28 years. The film can be viewed on British Airways YouTube Channel - https://youtu.be/gM6IWiZbYUM. iContract has won the digital and social media mandate for Garnier India, one of the biggest personal care brands in India, following a multi-agency pitch. iContract will be responsible for crafting digital strategy, brand & product campaigns, social media management and influencer relationships for the entire Garnier portfolio. This also includes multiple products across Hair Care, Styling, Face Care, Men, Hair Colour & Season Care. Delighted with the win, Prashanth Challapalli, EVP & Digital Head - iContract said, "Garnier is a global leader in personal care and digital is a key platform for the company and it's brands to create connected communities. Our task is to deliver community building strategies, drive e-commerce and build brand love across digital and mobile platforms. This is a tremendous opportunity for us to leverage our strengths in consumer insights, brand strategy, creative and content to drive business growth and brand love for Garnier." iContract is the digital arm of Contract Advertising and handles the digital and social media duties for brands like Shoppers Stop, Wills Lifestyle, Asian Paints, UTI Mutual Fund, HSBC, Plobal Apps, Google, YouTube & YouTube Creators among others. The challenges for marketers in the financial industry are analogous to those being encountered in other industries. The industry is changing rapidly, with fads becoming obsolete at a fast pace. The challenge for everyone is to innovate incessantly as customers are becoming indifferent to traditional approaches. Rubeena Singh, Chief Operating Officer at moneycontrol, sheds light on how to successfully market in the financial industry. 1. Yes, Customer is still the king We research a lot and most importantly, place our customer at the centre. Yes, selling is important, but then understanding customers needs and putting them in the middle is the key. What I have observed is that other marketers try to sell the content/ offering rather than concentrating on their customers. Quality content, backed by research and customers needs, gives you an edge over others. It is simple quality content is what distinguishes brands from sellers. 2. You can keep shouting, but engaging them is the key It is very essential that your content engages audiences. The purpose of content is to build relationships and is much beyond CPAs. If end result is just about CPAs, then content is the root. But if it is to establish a brand, then content engaging customer is a crucial factor. 3. Think-out-of-the-box. Not just catchphrase. Implement it The main challenge for moneycontrol is that our core target audiences are 25-35 years old. How to become more relevant to the youth in their 20s was a test for us. So, the point here is barriers in reaching out to them as they are someone who are not fascinated by financial topics. So, we created an application and launched a music video to reach out to this age group. Also if you see, we tried to communicate in their language. This was a big risk for a brand in the financial industry. We also effectively use Facebook and Twitter to reach out to new audiences. So you have to continuously look for newer and innovative ways to reach out to new and even existing audiences. 4. Never overlook Personalisation Customers are bombarded with information. Marketers need to be careful and be aware of the needs and requirements of their customers.What I have seen is there is an overdose of content on digital platforms. So at moneycontrol, we have a message board. How it works is that customers send in their queries about which stocks they are interested in and which experts they want to consult with. Our in-house team takes cues from those suggestions and does a story revolving those suggestions. Also, your content should be in sync with the platforms through which you are delivering the message. So, our content for social media platform is quite disparate to the information in mobile application. Just because marketers have an offering, they cannot offer it to all their customers. Customers do not respond to one-size-fits-all strategies. Users expect personalisation. Personalisation is not a choice, it is a necessity. The way ahead As far as digital measurement is concerned, there is need to be more robust. I hope the system becomes more robust. Right now the focus is more on CPAs and CTRs. There are other brand metrics which also need to be measured. YouTube has already taken one step towards that. Content consumption: People are getting choosier and clearer about their needs and requirements. Native advertising will also change as users get smarter. About the author: Rubeena Singh, Chief Operating Officer, moneycontrol Rubeena Singh is the Chief Operating Officer of moneycontrol. With over 14 years of rich experience in Business & Product Development, Relationship management and Advertising sales, she has been part of brands like Network18, Forbes India, CNBC-TV18, CNBC Awaaz, IBN Network and STAR Group Rubeena has done her Master in Statistics from Mumbai University. LIC Nomura Mutual Fund Asset Management Company today announced the appointment of Rajesh Patwardhan as its new Chief Marketing Officer, effective immediately. Patwardhan brings with him a rich experience of over 28 years, out of which 22 years are in financial industry. He joins the AMC from Deutsche Asset Management (India) Private Ltd where he served the company as the Head Sales for Banks & National Distributors for 12 years. Prior to that, he was with ICICI Bank for 2 years as Regional Head Sales for Mumbai handling a large team of managers both in the Institutional and Retail Sales for Third Party products. He has also been associated with Tata TD Waterhouse Securities Ltd and Vans Information & Investor Services Ltd. As we focus on growth and profitability, with our improved and stable investment performance along with variety of products, we are confident of becoming a preferred investment partner for the investing public. As a part of the process, we have also strengthened our core team by appointing experts from the industry. So it was important to find the right person to lead and grow our marketing efforts, and we are enormously excited to welcome Rajesh to the team. Mr. Patwardhans extensive background in the financial industry will help evolve our marketing capabilities, renew our iconic brand, said Sarojini Dikhale, Director & Chief Executive Officer, LIC Nomura Mutual Fund. He holds a Bachelor's Degree in Science (Microbiology) with Post Graduation in Marketing Management from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (JBIMS), Mumbai University. The Fund house is expanding its reach through retail penetration. LIC Nomura Mutual Fund has emerged as the fastest growing mutual fund company in terms of AAUM by witnessing 62.55% growth for the quarter Oct Dec 2015 as compared to the previous year quarter Oct Dec 2014. The company has seen a remarkable increase in the AAUM growth which is 41.5% higher vis-a-vis the industry growth which has been recorded at just 21.05%. The Supreme Court today dismissed a Special Leave Petition (SLP) filed by the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) challenging a Bombay High Court order dated January 4, 2016 in the Digital Addressable System (DAS) Phase III implementation case. The apex court said that the Bombay High Court order did not grant a stay on the implementation of DAS Phase III in Maharashtra or pan India. The Supreme Court asked the IBF the grounds on which the High Court order was being challenged and said that an action by the apex court was not required on a reading of the Bombay High Courts order. Following this, senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, who represented the IBF in the hearing, withdrew the petition. The Supreme Court allowed the petition to withdraw the SLP since there was nothing to impugn in the Bombay High Courts order. Meanwhile, as per media reports, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has also filed a similar petition, which is slated for hearing on February 24, 2016. Vodafone, one of Indias leading telecommunications service providers, today committed investments totalling Rs 6,000 crore for capacity augmentation and new business initiatives in the state of Maharashtra. This significant investment was committed by Sunil Sood, Vodafone Indias Managing Director & CEO to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis at the recently held Make in India Summit. Welcoming Vodafones commitment to further invest in Maharashtra, Fadnavis said, Vodafone is Indias largest FDI investor headquartered out of Mumbai. It has played a pivotal role in transforming the telecom landscape of our country. This new commitment is an endorsement of Maharashtras stature and potential to fulfil the Make in India and Digital India vision. My government will extend all possible cooperation to Vodafone to ensure that the planned projects and initiatives are executed in time. The committed investment of Rs 6,000 crore will be used by Vodafone to: Make in India for the World Vodafones high end technology centre in Pune is being further upgraded and its capacity increased to develop products in both engineering and IT for Vodafone companies globally, exemplifying the Make in India opportunity and highlighting its success to the world. Expand and modernise network across the state, enhance voice and data capabilities, introduce new technologies State-of-the-art Tier-4 data centre in Airoli, near Mumbai - This is the first of its kind in the Indian telecom sector and is specially designed to service the evolving communications needs of businesses and enterprises Vodafone will invest in setting-up a payment bank that will help accelerate Indias journey into a cashless economy. This payment bank will be headquartered in Mumbai To cater to the above initiatives, Vodafone will increase its staffing levels to around 15,000 employees over the next few years. Speaking on the occasion, Sood, said, At Vodafone, we are enthused with the Governments vision of Digital India and Make in India and are keen to be a partner in its delivery. Vodafone India serves over 194 million citizens, of which almost 100 million are from rural areas. We remain deeply invested in and committed to Maharashtra and are pleased to announce our enhanced investments in the state. Since starting operations in India in 2007, Vodafone has already invested over Rs 113,000 crore in and over Rs 111,000 crore contributed to the exchequer and is today the largest FDI investor in the country. Desperate treatment used at Bagram to breathe life into NATO ally A specialized team dispatched from San Antonio Military Medical Center combined efforts with the 455th Expeditionary Medical Group to perform life-saving treatment on a NATO partner Feb. 18. The patient was suffering from adult respiratory distress syndrome secondary to influenza B, and had to be admitted and intubated to the Craig Joint Theater Hospital on Feb. 13. His condition worsened over the next 48 hours, and the decision to rapidly activate and deploy an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation team was reached in order to keep the patient alive. ECMO works by bypassing the lungs and infusing the blood directly with oxygen, while removing the harmful carbon dioxide from the blood stream. This procedure requires a team of eight, highly-qualified medical personnel to initiate and continue around-the-clock treatment. I am grateful for the team that came from SAMMC. This is truly the only chance our patient has of surviving, said Maj. (Dr.) Valerie Sams, the 455th EMDG trauma czar who coordinated the life-saving care. With his lung failure and kidney decline, he is still at about a 50 percent mortality risk. However, I think with his relatively young age and lack of significant chronic medical conditions, there is considerable hope. The hospital, supported with a staff of 40 providers, nurses, technicians, pharmacy, radiology, and lab personnel, provided tireless care in the intensive care unit. On top of that, around 30 transport medics were used to ensure that the patient could be moved out of theater to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Altogether, nearly 80 military members provided 120 hours of continuous medical care for one NATO ally to have a chance at life. I am extremely proud of how all the medics came together to care for this patient, said Col. Gianna Zeh, the 455th EMDG commander. They worked non-stop around the clock for six days. They had an unfailing commitment to serve this patient. They never gave up as a team and continuously problem solved to keep him alive. This is a great example of medics providing trusted care, anywhere. The patient will need at least seven to 14 days of additional ECMO treatment, and while his condition may still be grim, it is because of the combined efforts of deployed teams he now has a chance at recovery. 2nd ASOS An Airman with the 2nd Air Support Operations Squadron maneuvers to the objective during training at U.S. Army Garrison Bavaria in Vilseck, Germany, Feb. 9, 2016. The training consisted of 2nd ASOS Airmen calling in close air support, neutralizing opposing forces and practicing medical evacuation by helicopter. The Airmen swapped roles as opposing forces and U.S. forces throughout the training to challenge their capabilities in controlling airpower in an urban environment. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Jonathan Stefanko) AF announces Operation Colony Glacier casualty recovery The Air Force announced Feb. 19 the names of two Airmen who have been recovered from a C-124 Globemaster II aircraft that was lost in 1952. Capt. Kenneth Duvall and 2nd Lt. Robert Moon have been recovered and will be returned to their families for burial with full military honors. On Nov. 22, 1952, the Globemaster crashed while en route to Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska, from McChord AFB, Washington. There were 11 crewmen and 41 passengers on board. Adverse weather conditions precluded immediate recovery attempts. In late November and early December 1952, search parties were unable to locate and recover any of the service members. On June 9, 2012, an Alaska National Guard (AKNG) UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crew spotted aircraft wreckage and debris while conducting a training mission over the Colony Glacier, immediately west of Mount Gannett. Three days later, another AKNG team landed at the site to photograph the area and they found artifacts at the site that related to the wreckage of the C-124. Later that month, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command and Joint Task Force team conducted a recovery operation at the site and recommended it continue to be monitored for possible future recovery operations. In 2013, additional artifacts were visible and every summer since then, during a small window of opportunity, Alaskan Command and AKNG personnel have been supporting the joint effort of Operation Colony Glacier. Medical examiners from the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System used testing done by the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, along with other forensic evidence, in the identification of the service members. DNA testing continues to identify the remaining personnel. The crash site continues to be monitored for future possible recovery. For more information, contact Air Force Public Affairs at 703-695-0640. For service record specific information, contact the National Archives at 314-801-0816. CSAF celebrates Whiteman total force excellence Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III visited here Feb. 16-18 to engage with civic leaders and meet Airmen of the world's only B-2 Spirit stealth bomber base. While at Whiteman Air Force Base, Welsh met with leadership from the 509th Bomb Wing, the 131st Bomb Wing, the 442d Fighter Wing, and other tenant units to discuss the evolution of total force integration and to see firsthand the TFI model the base has established. Welsh communicated his support of the TFI mission with total force leaders during roundtable meetings and spoke about the modernization of TFI and B-2 bomber missions. During his visit, Welsh held an all call and stressed his three C's -- common sense, communication and caring -- to Airmen from the three total force wings at Whiteman AFB, and expressed how they can integrate these concepts into their unique missions. "Apply common sense to all we do. If it doesn't seem right, make the change and use the chain," Welsh said. "We have four generations in the Air Force; we must use accountable communication to work as a professional organization. And lastly, know your Airmen better. Every Airman has a story. Care enough to know it." Welsh also expressed his gratitude and support to the total force Airmen in attendance and reminded them that the Air Force is rich in pride. "Never forget how critically important you are to what we are doing," Welsh added. "We have great people with great training and education and pride -- we, the Air Force, are built on pride, and it shows in your performance. That's where we come from." Brig. Gen. Paul W. Tibbets IV, the 509th Bomb Wing commander, thanked Welsh for the visit and his leadership and echoed his sentiments. "Our wing's heritage inspires us to take pride in the work we accomplish," Tibbets said. "We have a legacy of excellence. Through your efforts, we will continue that tradition for many years to come. Our pride will help us remain focused and allow us to face resource-constrained environments and ever evolving adversaries as we continue our strategic deterrence, global strike and combat support mission." Welsh wrapped up the all call with a question and answer session and reminded Airmen why he loves the Air Force and why he's served for so long. "I will die for you," Welsh said. "We have only met for about an hour, and I'd die for you. I believe you'd do the same for me. That is what's so special about the Air Force." Here's how you know An official website of the United States government Cody meets with Airmen during NORAD, USNORTHCOM tour Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force James A. Cody met with Airmen from here and nearby bases as he toured North American Air Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command Feb. 10-12. The top enlisted Airman held two all calls at Peterson Air Force Base to thank Airmen and NCOs, and to answer their questions ranging from performance reports to retirement plans. He said he was impressed at the questions posed to him at both enlisted calls, citing his overall impression of today's enlisted corps. "We have amazing men and women serving in our armed forces," he said. "When I get to spend time with Airmen, I see they're dedicated, they're proud, they're motivated and they're certainly very aware of what's going on in the geopolitical environment, the instability that exists around the globe, and their role in ensuring our nation's security." After speaking with the enlisted corps, he met with Fleet Master Chief Terrence Molidor, the NORAD and USNORTHCOM command senior enlisted leader, and toured the commands' operations center. "This was a great visit," said Molidor, a 32-year Navy veteran. "I spoke to him as I do each service's senior enlisted and said what we need from the Air Force is to continue sending us quality Airmen. Also, as the senior enlisted for the command, if we have a service-related issue we can't address with my senior enlisted advisors, he's the one I go to in order to get the final word, so just getting another chance to meet with him was helpful." This isn't the first time the Air Force's top enlisted leader has been to the command. He said he's familiar with the unique mission sets of the command and the importance of defending the homeland. "I certainly think 9/11 still weighs heavily on those who continue to serve," Cody said. "There's no lack of appreciation and understanding what those events signaled to our nation and how we have evolved from that time. I certainly believe our top leadership in Washington, D.C., clearly understands the importance of this command and what you do every day to secure our nation." He also gave thanks to the Canadian and interagency counterparts working shoulder to shoulder with U.S. service members, stopping to present recognition coins to four U.S. and one Canadian enlisted member for excellence. "We can't do it without the partnership," Cody said. "We all understand that. We have common interests here to be as effective and as responsive as absolutely necessary -- we need to be a team." Overall, Cody said today's enlisted force is the best trained, most educated and most experienced fighting force the world has ever known. "They step up to the plate every single day to ensure the security of the nation and they will ensure the generations that follow in their footsteps are even better than them," Cody said. "They're just a dedicated great group of people and our nation should be extremely proud and grateful they have the watch." Coming down heavily on Delhi Police, an NHRC probe team on Friday said that the physical assault on JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar in the court premises appeared to have been organised and pre-planned. It also said Kumar was subjected to psychological pressure and was made to issue a statement before he appeared in the court, owing allegiance to Constitution which was dictated by police. Kanhaiya Kumar was abused and physically assaulted by some persons dressed as advocates in the Patiala House court premises on February 17. He was even physically assaulted inside the adjoining court room in the presence of police who did not do anything to prevent the assault or apprehend the attackers even though they were identified by Kanhaiya Kumar then and there. The physical assault on Kumar in the court premises appears to be organized and pre-planned, a report submitted to the NHRC by a fact-finding team of the Commission said. The NHRC team said what happened in the Patiala House court complex on Wednesday when Kumar was attacked was a major security lapse on the part of the police. There was serious dereliction of duty on the part of the police. Going by the sequence of events, the safety and security of Kanhaiya and his family members is a serious cause of concern, the committee said. In a damning indictment of the police, it said the statement which was issued by the force as an appeal on behalf of Kumar was not written by him voluntarily. The content, construction and framework of the statement were as dictated by the police. The panel, which visited Kumar in Tihar jail on Thursday, quoted him as having said that he was arrested without any valid reason and without disclosing to him even grounds of arrest. He had not committed any offences as now alleged. However, this aspect is under investigation by the police. Kumar did not complain of any physical assault by the police while in custody. However, he was subjected to psychological pressure during interrogation, it said. A copy of the inquiry report submitted by the NHRC team has been forwarded to Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi and the Director General of Tihar Jail. The Commission which had earlier issued notices to the Union Home Secretary, Delhi Chief Secretary, Delhi Police Commissioner and Registrar of Jawaharlal Nehru University, sent the team to Tihar to ascertain the treatment meted out to Kumar by the police and prison authorities while in custody. Australia and New Zealand on Friday strongly urged China to refrain from stoking tensions in the South China Sea after its apparent deployment of surface-to-air missiles on a disputed island. Tensions between China and its neighbours Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan over sovereignty in the South China Sea were raised after Taiwan and US officials said China deployed an advanced surface-to-air missile system to Woody Island, in the Paracel Island chain. We urge all claimants in the South China Sea to refrain from any building of islands, any militarisation of islands, any land reclamation, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said after a meeting in Sydney with his New Zealand counterpart John Key. It is absolutely critical that we ensure that there is a lowering of tensions. Turnbull said if Chinese President Xi Jinping was serious about avoiding the so-called Thucydides Trap, where a rising power causes fear in an established power that escalates toward war, he must resolve disputes through international law. President Xi is right in identifying avoiding that trap as a key goal, said Turnbull, who is expected to visit Beijing in April. New Zealand, the first developed country to recognise China as a market economy and to sign a bilateral free trade deal, was leveraging its relationship with China to urge measures to lower tensions, Key said. As we get a deeper and closer economic relationship with China, does that give us more opportunities to make that case, both privately and publicly? my view is yes, said Key, noting that both Australia and New Zealand are now also part of the Asian Investment Bank. The comments come after Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop visited Beijing, where she bought up the missiles and the South China sea in meetings with Chinese officials, including top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi. Yang, in a statement released by the Foreign Ministry late on Thursday, said he told Bishop that Australia was not a party to the dispute, should stick to its promises not to take sides and not participate in or take any actions to harm regional peace and stability or Sino-Australia ties. The Chinese government has offered few specific details in response to the missiles claim, while accusing Western media of hyping up the story and saying China has a legitimate right to military facilities on territory it views as its own. Beijing has been angered by air and sea patrols the United States has conducted near islands China claims in the region. Those have included one by two B-52 strategic bombers in November and by a U.S. Navy destroyer that sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island in the Paracels last month. An influential Chinese state-run tabloid, the Global Times, in an editorial on Friday described the HQ-9 missiles that are apparently now on Woody Island as a typical type of defensive weapon, but warned the People`s Liberation Army may feel compelled to deploy more weapons. If the US military stages a real threat and a military clash is looming, the PLA may feel propelled to deploy more powerful weapons, it said. Not only from the opposition leaders but Gopal Shetty get slammed from his own party and alliance too, he termed as lacks knowledge about agrarian crisis and problems of farmers. At a time when Maharashtra state is witnessing severe drought BJP MP from north Mumbai Gopal Shetty has made a controversial statement by saying that farmers suicides has become a fashion today. Shetty issued these statements in a programme held at Borivali. Opposition parties condemned the remarks made by Shetty and said that the BJP government has become insensitive towards the problems faced by farmers. They said that the government is working for corporates and is not bothered about the plight of farmers. A complaint has been filed against Gopal Shetty at Khadki Police station in Pune. Gopal Shettys comments come at a time when 124 farmers had ended their lives since January this year. Congress condemned Shettys statements and said that BJP remains insensitive towards farmers. At a time when Maharashtra is undergoing its worst-ever agrarian crisis, Shettys remarks show how insensitive he and his party are towards thousands of farmers who have committed suicide due to debt and crop failure, MRCC president Sanjay Nirupam said. Congress leader Bhai Jagtap said, We had taken steps to provide financial assistance to distressed farmers. The BJP had promised achche din but it is nowhere in sight. The government has only misled the common man by making false promises. The government has written off loans taken by corporate sector but it doesnt have money to provide financial assistance to farmers. MPCC President Ashok Chavan said, Whatever schemes implemented by the BJP is just a rehash of the policies implemented by us. The BJP doesnt work for the welfare of the farmers but is only making statements against those who work for them and take credit for it. Former Chief Minister of Maharashtra Prithviraj Chavan criticised Gopal Shetty and said, Gopal Shetty is unaware about the problems faced by farmers. He lacks knowledge about agriculture. How can farmers committing suicide be termed as a fashion? Shiv Sena MLC Neelam Gorhe said, The farmers suicide is a serious matter and it is very unfortunate that Gopal Shetty has made this statement. Even though the fashion statement might be misinterpreted but he has mentioned about the word trend in his comment. I dont think that BJP should apologise on behalf of Gopal Shetty but he should apologise to the nation. BJP spokesperson Shaina NC said, Gopal Shetty is a sensible man. This is the first time he has been involved in such controversy. More than apologising a clarification is needed. RTI activist Anil Galgali said, Gopal Shettys statement has proved that the government is not functioning and is ignorant about the problems faced by farmers. Definitely Shetty should apologise and he should also help farmers. He lives in Mumbai and lacks knowledge about the agrarian crisis faced by farmers in Maha-rashtra and elsewhere in the country, said Kishore Tiwari, chairman of Vasantrao Naik Sheti Swavlamban Mission. Raju Shetti of Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana, who is the alliance partner of BJP condemned Shettys statement and said, If a person is unaware about farming then he should refrain from speaking about these issues. If suicides have become trend then Shetty should tell us how many people have committed suicide in his constituency as a part of Fashion? BJP leaders have become insensitive. BJP should take stringent action against Shetty. Earlier too BJP leaders had issued irresponsible statements against farmers but no action has been taken against them. Last year in a rally, BJP MP from Akola, Sanjay Dhotre had said, Let these farmers fend for themselves. If crops fail, they will figure out what to do. And, if they are dying, let them dieThose who can afford farming will do it, others will not do it. In May, 2015, in an unusual advice to the farmers on irrigation, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari had said in Nagpur that he watered plants in his Delhi bungalow with his own urine-which was a free fertilizer that could help farmers grow bigger plants. In May, 2015 Maharashtras Agriculture Minister Eknath Khadse had said his government had no solution to stop farmers suicides. There was no concrete solution to completely stop these incidents. NCP spokesperson Nawab Malik said, BJP has always been an anti-farmer and pro-retail party. They have not taken any step to provide relief to drought hit farmers after coming to power but are busy giving such derogatory statements. The party should apologise publicly to the nation. Whenever, these political leaders face a foot in mouth situation, they blame it on media, claiming that their views have been misrepresented. Taking U-turn is nothing uncommon, said Pankaj Vaidya of MNS IT wing. Notably, the state government had two days back informed the Bombay High Court that 124 farmers have committed suicide in the state since January this year. The HC had asked the Centre what kind of assistance it provides to the state to deal with the grim agrarian crisis. Observing that this was a serious issue, a bench headed by Justice Naresh Patil had asked the Additional Solicitor General to inform the High Court whether the Centre can chip in to provide schemes and financial help to the state to tide over the crisis. Gopal Shetty clarified his stand on this issue and said, From morning I have been saying that my statements have been misinterpreted by the media. I had issued this statement to one particular channel and I dont know how it was circulated to other channels. I just received the CD where the words trends, competition and fashion have been mentioned by me. I admit that these kinds of words should not be used but it was a slip of tongue on my part. People have filed FIR against me even I will file complaint against the particular media channel. However, I admit that it was mistake and I apologise to the nation or to any one whose sentiments have been hurt. Shettys statement comes ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modis rally in Madhya Pradesh on Thursday where he highlighted the governments initiatives for the development of the agriculture sector and welfare of the agriculturists. He had said that not all farmers end their lives due to crop failures and in debtness. Singing legend Bob Dylan is recording the follow up to his 2015 album, Shadows in the Night. The 74-year-old eleven time Grammy-winning musician is recording in Studio B at Hollywoods famed Capitol Studios with engineer, Al Schmitt, who also worked on Shadows, reported Billboard. It?s going along great. He sounds great. His mood in the studio is fabulous. Were having a good time. Were like two old shoes together now, were so comfortable with one another now. Schmitt said. Dylan is also producing the record and the engineer praised him for his intelligence. Hes extraordinarily smart and hes so aware of everything thats going on, so he knows whats happening at every moment, he said. Nowadays, biopic is the most popular trend in Bollywood or we can say its become another genre in Hindi film industry. Continuing the series, Neerja is another upcoming Hindi movie based on Neerja Bhanot, an air hostess and the hijacking. The feature film is releasing very soon and with its released, once again she will be lived in our hearts. Neerja, the bubbly and brave senior flight purser of Pan Am was felled by hijackers bullets during the Pan Am holdup at Karachi airport on September 5 1986 barely 25 hours before her birthday. Neerja was a successful model and very beautiful girl. She was highly talented professional. Neerjas parents were journalists in Mumbai. They came to Mumbai (then Bombay) in March 1974, when Neerja was a student of sixth standard. I once read her fathers article about the tragedy which expresses, As terrorists rushed up the letter to capture the aircraft, Neerja dashed to inform the captain in the cockpit. The hijackers were part of the terrorist Abu Nidals Organization and were backed by Libya. The terrorists then instructed Bhanot to collect the passports of all the passengers so that they could identify the Americans. The terrorists wanted to put pressure on America by identifying and threatening the Americans on the aircraft. Bhanot and the other attendants under her charge hid the passports of the 41 Americans on board; some under a seat and the rest down a seat duct so that the hijackers could not differentiate between American and Non-American citizens. After 17 hours, the hijackers opened fire and set off explosives. A terrorist, however, caught her by her handy ponytail but she was able to shout the hijack code. Another flight attendant who got her code transferred it to the cockpit. Obviously, the cabin crew, including the two pursers, did not know the action the cockpit crew takes on hearing the hijack code. It is now known that the 3 member cockpit crew pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer slipped away, leaving the aircraft, 400 passengers and the 13 member cabin-crew at the mercy of an fervently surcharged 4 member team of burly terrorists. Since, Neerja was the cabin-crew leader; she took over the command, as soon as she found that the three seniors (cockpit crew) had deserted them. Neerjas notes say that she had to follow up the hijacking warning with 6 steps. In the Karachi situation, she was required to communicate with the hijackers. Her smiles, even in deep distress, won a response. She looked after the passengers, within permissible limits. Her smiles were taken as an assurance by the passengers and crew members that the worst was over. The power generator was running out of fuel and voltage was falling. Then something happened. Neerja was standing close to the leader of the terrorists. The light had become very dim. Suddenly, guns began vomiting fire within the aircraft. Neerja jumped to the emergency exit and threw it open. According to Malti Krishnaswamy and other eyewitnesses, Neerja was caught by the leader of the terrorists and shot at point blank. In the dead body, bullets were penetrated in her abdomen, on the shoulder near the neck and in the arm. When she opened the emergency exit, she could have herself been the first to slide down the chute. However, she was the captain, who believed that she had to be the last person to quit alive or dead. The terrorists guns silenced only after throwing out the last bullet. The cabin crew got together on the tarmac and found the leader missing. Two crew members ran back to the aircraft to find a profusely bleeding Neerja at her post of duty. The shock of being hit by bullets did not stop her heart-beat. She had been bleeding, from at least two bullet wounds, for nearly 15 minutes. However, she was in her full senses and told her 2 colleagues to take care of her bullet-hit arm. With a little assistance, she slides down the chute to be received at the other end by another member of the crew. She was helped to walk to the ambulance. However, she became a martyr before any medical assistance could help her to survive. In the normal course of events, Neerja would have been back in Bombay on that Sunday, September 7, it was her birthday. Instead of that, they collected her coffin from the airport. She died so that others could live, was cremated the following day at 11 a.m. amidst chanting of her favourite mantras as we said Goodbye darling, please keep coming. The young model has set a model for her class all over the world. Neerja was a very sensitive, deeply affectionate and an extremely decent person who believed in sharing with her people all her joys but not the jolts. She had well defined principles and there was little room for compromise in that area. Of the 23 years of her life, she had lived 22 years and 10 months under bracing sunshine. The two month long ugly patch was a dowry cloud. Following her ad-based arranged marriage in March 1985, she had gone to the Gulf to join her husband to set up a happy home. However, the marriage went sour within two months. She was starved off finance and food in a foreign land and the bright girl lost five kg of weight in two months. She had to borrow money from the husband even to make a telephone call. Before the marriage, it was made clear that it would be a dowry less marriage. Nevertheless, when she reached the ordained home she was taunted that even a very poor man gives something to his daughter in marriage. She came back to Bombay to honour a modelling contract. An ugly letter followed, listing terms for her return, which no person with self-respect could accept. The letter listed a straight formula: accept the humiliating terms without a whimper and return at your own cost or we will separate. The worst was that the letter asked her as to what was she? You are just a graduate. The young girl could not pocket this. She applied for a flight attendants job with Pam Am. There were nearly 10,000 applications but Neerja easily found place among the top 80. Some of her close friends in Pan Am knew of her marriage mishap. They say that Neerja had been clearly stating that if one day something happened to her, please see that even his shadow did not fall on her dead body. The girl with sinews of steel accepted the challenge what are you and has told what she was. (Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@afternoonvoice.com) Army was called in on Friday in nine districts of Haryana and curfew was imposed in two districts along with shoot-at-sight orders after two people died and 18 were injured during the Jat protest for quota which turned violent with mobs resorted to widespread violence. Haryana agreed to bring a bill declaring Jats and four other castes as backward communities amid after two people were killed and 18 others were injured in Rohtak city where Jat protesters have been waging violent protests to get reservation in government jobs. The agitationists, who are seeking reservation under Economically Backward Classes, also targeted police and private vehicles, buildings housing offices, including two Toll Plazas at Hansi in Hissar district and near Rohtak, both located on the Delhi-Hisar-Fazilka National Highway. One protestor was killed in Rohtak when the BSF personnel opened fire in self-defence after someone from the rampaging mob fired at and injured a BSF jawan, Haryana DGP Yashpal Singhal told a press conference in Chandigarh. Since the situation was going out of control, army has been called in for deployment in eight worst-affected districts Rohtak, Jhajjar, Jind, Bhiwani, Hissar, Kaithal, Panipat and Sonipat, the state police chief said. Army is also being rushed to Karnal, army sources said in Delhi, while informing that nine columns are being sent altogether. Tonight, curfew was imposed in city limit areas of Rohtak and Bhiwani city limit areas, an official spokesman told PTI. The agitation, which has been going on for last few days, escalated and turned violent soon after an all-party meeting held by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar issued an appeal for calling it off. The protesters rejected the appeal even as Khattar gave an assurance that a solution will be worked out to extend reservation to the community. Army units were being rushed to Rohtak from nearby Cantonment at Hissar, about 50 kms away, the official spokesman said, adding these will be deployed immediately in Rohtak and Bhiwani areas. He said army units are also being rushed from Jaipur for deployment in other worst-affected areas of the state. The army will assist the civil administration in restoring peace and law and order which worsened today shortly after an all party meeting here where an appeal was made for maintaining peace. Two senior civil and police officers Principal Secretary (Home) A K Singh and ADGP of Haryana Police B S Sandhu have been rushed to Rohtak to coordinate with the army and the civil administration to restore normalcy. The camp office of BJP MLA Manish Grover in Rohtak was also set on fire tonight. Authorities in Post Graduate Institute of Medical Science & Hospital, Rohtak, said 19 of the 25 injured people admitted there had bullet injuries. One person who was critical has been operated upon and his condition is now stable, they said. Besides stationing Principal Secretary (Home) A K Singh and ADGP B S Sandhu at Rohtak, government has rushed six other senior IPS officers to other districts. They are Paramjit Singh Ahlawat (Sonipat), B K Sinha (Jind), K K Rao (Jhajjar), P K Aggarwal (Bhiwani), O P Singh (Kaithal) and K K Sindhu (Panipat). The main impact of the Jats agitation is in various districts of the state including Rohtak, Jhajjar, Bhiwani, Hissar, Fatehabad, Karnal, Jind, Yamuna Nagar, Sirsa and Gurgaon where road transport has come to a halt. The Maharashtra government is in the process of appointing a consultant to help design the International Financial Centre (IFC), state Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said. The remarks by the CM come even as the controversy over providing the land to the Railways for setting up a bullet train terminal at the same location in Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) is yet to be resolved. Fadnavis said two task forces have already been formed to devise the final contours of IFC. As of now we are at a stage of appointing a consultant who would plan this entire area (BKC), Fadnavis said on the closing day at the Make in India (MII) Week. Fadnavis further said the (state) government is also contemplating on whether IFC should be a financial SEZ or just a centre. Earlier this week, the Railways had said it was in talks with the Maharashtra government on the issue of land allocation for the proposed Rs. 98,000 crore Mumbai-Ahmadabad bullet train terminal at BKC, even as the state had earlier ruled out the possibility. The land where the Indian Railways had proposed the station is the same place where the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) is planning to develop the IFC. One is working on the technicalities where in people from financial sector like RBI, SBI chairman are involved. The other task force which is under MoS Finance which is looking in to the legal framework, he said. Both the models are working globally and working well and have their advantages and disadvantages, so we have to take a call on this, he said adding in couple of months the government will announce the exact time line IFC. The Chief Minister further said he has spoken to Railway Board Chairman A K Mittal regarding the issue of the terminal. I have brought to his notice about the IFC issue and they have suggested a underground train terminal. We have also given some suggestions and we believe that centre and state can sit across the table and comets a favourable conclusion, he said. Mittal had said the state government hadnt refused the possibility of the terminal on the BKC land parcel. A bail petition on behalf of JNU Students Union President Kanhaiya Kumar, arrested in a sedition case, was filed in Delhi High Court following the Supreme Courts direction transferring the plea to the High Court. Security in and around the High Court was beefed up with the deployment of additional police force and CRPF personnel, as he and his lawyer were trashed by BJP supporting lawyers in Patiala court premises. Kumar, who is in judicial custody till March 02, had approached the apex court directly, seeking bail on the ground that his life is under threat in Tihar Jail. His plea was taken up earlier in the day by the Supreme Court which declined to entertain it saying if it does, it will become a precedent available to all the accused in the country. Kumar was arrested on February 12, on sedition charge following a controversial event at JNU campus where anti-India slogans were allegedly raised. India Today and its senior journalist Rahul Kanwal exposed everything about Kanhaiya Kumar, then how people still believe that he raised the anti-India slogan. Its proven that Kanhaiya Kumar is innocent, then why those people are still free who raised the Anti India slogan. It means the whole issue was created to divert the public attention from daily other issues which were going against the government. A sedition charge on Kumar is desperate act by police. Three veteran lawyers of India Soli Sorabji, Kamini Jaiswal and R. Ramachandran are representing Kanhaiya Kumar in the Supreme Court voluntarily, whereas Delhi Police Commissioner, Bassi however firmly believes that he has enough evidence to prove sedition against Kanhaiya. Lets see who will win, police, media, politicians or Kanhaiya. Meanwhile, sedition was not a part of the original Indian Penal Code (IPC) enacted in 1860 and was introduced in 1870. Since then, the law has been applied several times and has undergone several interpretations. Here are some of the sedition cases that have made an impact. Niharendu Dutt Majumdar Vs. King Emperor (1942) case: The Federal Court held that public disorder or the reasonable anticipation or likelihood of public disorder is the gist of the offence. These judges were of the view that sedition implies resistance or lawlessness in some form. If there is no incitement to violence, there is no sedition. Kedar Nath Singh vs State Of Bihar (1962): This was the first case of sedition tried under Independent India. The Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court interpreted the law in line with the 1842 case a person can be charged with sedition only if there is incitement to violence in his speech or writing or an intention to create disorder. Shreya Singhal vs U.O.I on (2015): The court ruled that a person could not be tried for sedition unless their speech, however offensive, annoying or inconvenient, had an established connection with any incitement to disrupt public order. Earlier too a cartoonist was slapped with sedition charges but bailed out after mass outrage. I hope Kumar too will come out proving his side. Looking at the threat, the court also ordered that special arrangements be made for the security of Kanhaiya Kumar, his lawyers and journalists. It noted that assuming exclusive jurisdiction over the case will send a wrong impression to lower courts that they are incapable of handling it. A Bench exuded judicial restraint throughout the hearing which started at 10.30 am. Protests erupted when a separate petition filed by advocate Subhash Chandran alleged that he was attacked in Patiala House Court complex on February 15 by a mob instigated by the RSS and other extremist organisations. Kanhaiya Kumar is a student leader of All India Students Federation (AISF), the student wing of Communist Party of India (CPI). He was elected as president of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union in 2015. He was born and brought up in a village called Bihat in Begusarai district in Bihar. This village is a part of the Teghra legislative assembly constituency, which is known to be a stronghold of Communist Party of India (CPI). Kanhaiya Kumars father, Jaishankar Singh, is suffering from paralysis and has been bedridden for a few years. His mother, Meena Devi, is an Anganwadi worker. He has an elder brother who works in private sector. His family has traditionally been CPI supporters. In September 2015, Kanhaiya Kumar became the first AISF member to become president of the JNU students union, defeating the AISA (All India Students Association), ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad), SFI (Students Federation of India) and NSUI (National Students Union of India) candidates. Kanhaiya Kumar, according to his friends and spectators is a great orator. Reportedly, it was his speech a night before the presidential elections last year that actually made him win the presidential election. Kanhaiya Kumars arrest soon snowballed into a major political controversy and has drawn sharp reactions from opposition parties, teachers, students and academics. Students at Jawaharlal Nehru University went on strike over Kanhaiya Kumars arrest which effectively paralysed the Jawaharlal Nehru University. Kanhaiya Kumars parents alleged that their son is a victim of Hindutva politics. (Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@afternoonvoice.com) One person has been killed in police firing at Haryanas Rohtak, where protesters demanding Jat quota burnt vehicles, blocked traffic and even attacked a ministers home. Mobile internet services have been blocked in that part of the state. The protesters also set on fire the house of Haryana minister Capt Abhimanyu, who was not inside. Another house was also burnt. Police did not confirm the toll, while the melee grew bigger despite efforts by the government. Jat leaders earlier on Friday refused to withdraw their agitation till a legislation is passed giving quota to the community under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category even as the authorities in the worst-affected district suspended Internet and SMS services due to the stir which has disrupted rail and road traffic. Internet and SMS services have been suspended till further orders in Rohtak, Rohtak SP Shashank Anand said in Friday. The decision has been taken to maintain law and order in the district, he said. However, he said mobile services will continue in the district. Normal life has been badly hit because of the ongoing agitation which has spread to more parts of the state after talks between the community leaders and the government failure to break the deadlock. The protests have disrupted road and rail traffic with the worst hit being the Rohtak-Jhajjar region, the epicentre of the protests, besides Bhiwani, Sonipat and Hisar. The protesters, who have rejected Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattars offer of enhancing quota for economically backward classes, also set up road blockade at many places in Panipat, which also affected movement of vehicles towards Uttar Pradesh. We are not going to withdraw our agitation till our demand is met. We will intensify our agitation in other parts of the state, including Panchkula and Yamunanagar, All India Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samitis national president Yashpal Malik said. We want BJP government in Haryana to bring a legislation in the upcoming budget session to include Jats in OBC category. They should bring a law in the Assembly with regard to Jat reservation and get it passed, he said. Pakistani authorities have lodged an FIR into the Pathankot terror attack case, officials said on Friday, after weeks of probe into the assault that led to the postponement of Indo-Pak Foreign Secretary-level talks. The FIR was registered at Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) centre at Gujranwala in Punjab province. According to a CTD official, the FIR was needed to start police and judicial proceedings on the basis of evidence collected in connection with the attack for which India has blamed Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) militant group. India has identified Maulana Masood Azhar as the mastermind of the attack. It has also blamed his brother Rauf and five others for carrying out the attack that killed all six terrorists and seven Indian soldiers. The FIR number 06/2016 was lodged under sections 302, 324 and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code, and sections 7 and 21-I of the Anti-Terrorism Act. Nobody has been named in the report lodged on the basis of information provided by Indias National Security Adviser Ajit Doval that four attackers probably crossed from Pakistan into India and attacked the airbase on January 2. The attack led to the postponement of a scheduled meeting between Foreign Secretaries of Pakistan and India in January in Islamabad. Since then, no date has been fixed for talks. The FIR also shows the telephone numbers contacted by the militants during the attack. A police official said that after the registration of the FIR, any accused can be presented before the court for start of a formal trial. According to intelligence officials, about a dozen suspects were arrested in Pakistan following the attack. The FIR has reportedly been registered on the recommendations of a six-member special team probing the attack. Last month CTD police Gujranwala had presented three JeM militants before an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) for possessing jihadi literature. The suspects were arrested by CTD from a seminary run by JeM in Mundeyki, where the headquarters of the 2008 Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeeds Jamaat-u-Dawah is located. Pakistan Prime Minister Sharif had formed the six-member investigation team headed by Additional Inspector General of Punjabs CTD Rai Tahir to probe Indias assertion that JeM was behind the attack. The Supreme Court issued notice to actor Salman Khan in the 2002 hit-and-run case on Friday on the Maharashtra governments petition challenging his acquittal by the Bombay high court. The notice issued by the Supreme Court to asks him why his acquittal in hit-and-run case should not be reversed. Salman has been granted a six weeks time to respond to Maharashtra governments appeal against his acquittal in the case. Issuing notice returnable in six weeks, an apex court bench comprising Justice Jagjit Singh Khehar and Justice C. Nagappan told Salman Khan that it would be much, much better if he gets acquittal from this court as it will save him from all the repercussions. Senior counsel Kapil Sibal, appearing for Salman Khan, took the court through the proceedings of the trial court, contending that his conviction was based on the testimony of one person, which cannot be relied upon. He said besides that there was no other evidence before the trial court to convict Salman Khan in the case. The high court, in its verdict passed on December 10, 2015, had held that 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 outside a laundry in suburban Bandra with his Toyota Land Cruiser, killing one and causing injury to four others on October 28, 2002. The high court had rejected as wholly unreliable the statement of eyewitness Ravindra Patil, former police bodyguard of Salman, recorded by a magistrate in which he had accused the actor of driving under the influence of liquor. The judge had said that Patil was a wholly unreliable witness because he had subsequently made improvements in his statement to the magistrate. However, attorney general Mukul Rohatgi that besides the sole witness being pointed to by Sibal, there were scores of other witnesses at the accident spot who saw Salman Khan in the drivers seat of the vehicle that ran over a group of people sleeping on a pavement, killing one of them. Thane guardian minister Eknath Shinde has lauded district Zilla Parishads unique scheme Avzar Bank (tool bank) of lending agricultural tools to Self Help Groups (SHGs) at a subsidised rate and said it should be replicated across Maharashtra. Under the scheme, run by Thane ZP, SHGs are given agricultural tools up to worth Rs 7 lakh at 90 per cent subsidy. The scheme was started as a pilot project in June last year and was formally launched yesterday in presence of Khadse, Kalyan MP Dr Srikant Shinde, Murbad MLA Kisan Kathore and other officials. Speaking at the function, Khadse said, The scheme is for the benefit of farmers and has proved to be successful. It should be replicated in other districts as well. District agriculture development officer, Dr Prafulla Bansode giving details of the scheme said, tools like power tiller, mini tractor, pump-set, grass cutter, spray pump, plastic crates, paddy trimming machine, paddy sowing machine are available with the bank. A provision of around Rs. 2.30 crore has been made for the purpose. There is also facility where farmers can take tools on rent and return them after work. A total of 32 tool banks are operating in different talukas of Bhiwandi, Sahapur, Murbad. One tool bank covers four-five villages of a taluka, Bansode said. Autism isn't new; we just never dealt with it before. We blamed mothers and neglected affected children. Imagine someone outside the autism community watching this interview. They'd already heard a lot about autism, including that there's an epidemic, its cause is a mystery, and it's linked to vaccines. These two researchers, however, explain it all. By Anne Dachel John Donvan and Caren Zucker continue to be the spokespeople for autism. I'm sure they'll be center stage in April, promoting their version of the history of the disorder. Donvan, as a recognized authority, assures viewers that the vaccine controversy is "a myth." The one good thing about it is that people linking autism to vaccinations made us aware of autism. See, everything's fine. Vaccines are safe. We just need to do for all the autism we've discovered is to be like the folks in Forest, Mississippi. This is a concerted effort to camouflage what autism is really doing to us. Making autism into a normally occurring human condition let's vaccine off the hook. Until enlightened people, like Donvan and Zucker, of the 21st century, we neglected, concealed and totally failed the autistic community. Now things are changing. No more talk about the vaccine controversy or refrigerator mothers. We need to "embrace" autism, like the residents of Forest, MS with Donald Triplett. Feb 17, 2016, CNN: Authors: Vaccine controversy raised profile of autism The CNN anchor starts by asking about the "myth" that vaccine, specifically ones with mercury, are responsible for "the epidemic." John Donvan: "The myth is a myth in the sense that the science has refuted that claim that vaccines cause autism, BUT, the fact is that most people in this county probably heard about autism for the first time in the last 15 years because the vaccine story came up and they were motivated by fear--not the best motivator, but it really works. In a backwards way, it actually raised the profile of autism as no advocacy or even movie had ever done." Anchor: "A silver lining indeed." Caren Zucker explained how mothers were blamed for causing autism in their children. There was no treatment for autism. Anchor: "It's relatively new, the diagnosis of autism..." Donvan discussed "our friend, Donald J. Triplett," and how his local community "embraced him." Zucker: "If you could bottle the way Forest [MS] has accepted the first person ever diagnosed with autism, the world would change significantly. It's just about embracing him." Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism. Albert Enayati, co-founder and board member of SafeMinds, testified in front of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) at its January 2016 meeting, to support SafeMinds' recommendation of forming a workgroup on co-occurring conditions with autism. He stressed that there "is an urgent need for a workgroup to follow promising treatment leads, shepherd existing treatments through clinical trials and facilitate FDA approvals and/or mainstream acceptance." His full testimony follows: My name is Albert Enayati. My son regressed into autism after receiving seven vaccines in the space of two days. Today, I would like to expand on the SafeMinds recommendation to establish a workgroup under the IACC to investigate co-occurring conditions. Many of the most disabling or fatal features that are present in a person on the spectrum are co-morbid conditions. These conditions are amendable to treatment. There is an urgent need for a workgroup to follow promising treatment leads, shepherd existing treatments through clinical trials and facilitate FDA approvals and/or mainstream acceptance. This group would require membership from within the committee as well as significant representation from the broader autism advocacy and research communities. An example is Isaac Kohane, MD of Harvard Medical School[i] who was invited to speak to the IACC in the past and who has the knowledge to advise IACC on this topic. Over the history of the IACC, there has been no coordinated effort to develop treatments for people on the spectrum. Despite 1.6 billion dollars in spending, parents still have few options that have been proven effective. Risperdal and Abilify are only appropriate for certain symptoms and have significant side effects. We can and must do better. In 2015, researchers at Johns Hopkins University Medical School in collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital for Children determined that chemicals extracted from broccoli sprouts may help ease autism symptoms[ii] . In another published paper, researchers at Stanford University found that symptoms of autism can be caused by a gene mutation that both blocks the body's natural production of endocannabinoids and also interferes with the way cannabinoids communicate with the brain[iii]. These leads need immediate follow-up and there is currently no mechanism to ensure this. There are existing medications such as antibiotics, pioglitazone (Actos), and naltrexone that need further study in autism. In addition, there are vitamins and supplements such as folinic acid, melatonin, methyl B-12, carnitine, folinic acid, probiotics and tetrahydrobipterin that have preliminary evidence of efficacy, but need further study. Lastly, many psychiatric medications are prescribed off-label for those with autism despite lack of properly controlled clinical trials and long-term safety studies in this population. A toll-free number and the IAN surveys should be used to collect community input on treatments to be investigated and to report side effects as a way to include the broad community's input. All of these areas need the concentrated attention of a dedicated workgroup to move the research forward. Perhaps most importantly, this workgroup should play a key role in identifying the biomarkers associated with various comorbidities, assessing what treatments might help, and shepherding these treatments through clinical trials. For example, someone with a co-occurring phenotype of PANDAs and tics will have an underlying immune problem (biomarker) and can be treated with an existing and validated intervention (IVIG) for PANDAS. Or, someone with co-occurring irritability and glutathione imbalance can be helped by N-Acetyl Cysteine treatment. We need to investigate broadly what differentiates the biology of people with autism compared to controls and pursue treatments that make sense. Related to all of this, I must draw attention to the fact that the IACCs database of published research in autism is now ridiculously out of date[iv]. Read the full post here. Excerpted from LILIPOH Author: Joseph Cooney, MD Issue: Winter 2016: Biodynamic Food & Farming - Issue #82, Vol. 21 Weve had many conversations with parents regarding their concerns over the decision of whether or not to vaccinate their children. They are actually quite torn about it. On one hand, the medical world makes the argument that you are either crazy or selfish not to vaccinate. Vaccines help us avoid acute illness and, in doing so, lower death rates. Its a no brainer, right? Not necessarily, because on the other hand, these parents hear about the association with declining acute illness in childhood and the growing chronic illness, allergy, and immune dysfunction in children and adults. They simply want whats best for their child and theyre not sure what to do. How can we resolve this? Now with mandatory vaccination being advanced in some places, the issue is begging for review and reflection. But arent vaccines accepted by scientific consensus? The fact that vaccine policy is generally accepted as safe and effective today does not protect it from being subjected to a shift in the field that will change the scientific consensus. Nor does that fact protect it from being subjected to scrutiny or debate. The medical world often makes the mistake of not recognizing which conclusions are firm or not. Many a young doctor in training hears the tale of the sage physician who warned the upstart doctors that half of what we know now is wrong, we just don't know which half. Experience plays this shifting field out in modern medicine. A major example in my career is the reversal of the decades-long recommendation for women to take replacement hormones at menopause. We thought we could improve on nature with our science. Now replacement synthetic hormones are discouraged because the natural state of menopause was found to be protective against breast cancer and heart disease. The list of therapeutic interventions that were once accepted but are now defunct is long enough to give one serious pause. For crying out loud, it took science decades to reach consensus that tobacco was bad for your health. Furthermore, bottle feeding with formula was once thought of as 'scientific' and modern and superior to breast feeding. 80% of women stopped breastfeeding during that time in the last century. The modern day reversal of this trend is a signature event for the movement of rediscovery of nature's deeply complex and wholly inclusive quality. Nature knows best. Cargolux and Oman Air are expanding their partnership with the addition of two weekly flights to Mumbai. The first service heads from Luxembourg to Bahrain before connecting with Mumbai, while the second flight goes from Luxembourg to Kuwait and then Muscat before heading to Mumbai. Oman Air chief operating officer Abdulrahman Al Busaidy said: Our product advantages include the carriage of project cargo, livestock, cargo aircraft-only freight, odd size cargo, vehicles and aircraft engines. And, importantly, the new service will make an even greater contribution to the development of Oman as a global cargo hub. Cargolux executive vice president sales & marketing Niek van der Weide added: With Indias growing importance as a manufacturing nation, we see a lot of future potential and possibilities for both our companies. The two carriers launched their partnership in April last year, which provided Cargolux with access to the Middle East airlines facilities in Muscat, Salalah and Sohar. Later, the two partners added flights to Chennai. The last few weeks have seen a lot of activity around Indias air cargo market as the countrys economy continues to grow while others flounder and logistics and transport firms look to capitalise on the development. Earlier this week, Quikjet launched a scheduled freighter service in the country. Share this story February 18, 2016 CAIRO She didn't know it would be so hard. Rania Ayman wandered around Cairos streets and alleys, seeking out the right women. Once she found people with the qualities she sought, she had to convince each one to record the story of her struggle, to set an example of resolution and determination. Ayman is a founding member of "One Girl is Worth 100," a project undertaken by a group of female activists who shed light on the struggles of women with onerous or hazardous jobs. The group's objective is to affirm that these jobs are not limited to men and that there are some women who are much more successful than men. Based on this idea, the campaign is achieving its goals. It has gained the support of many public figures in the community unlike many campaigns launched by social media activists. Ayman told Al-Monitor the impetus behind the campaign arose from the frustration that women suffer. For example, her research shows that 70% of TV, radio and newspaper stories about women are limited to topics of sexual harassment, homicide and rape. She felt the need for a campaign highlighting positive things women do, to give them hope and optimism. This campaign is the first of its kind, she said, as it focuses on women's work and highlights the struggles of women whose work situations are especially difficult. There are women working as butchers. Others work as waitresses in cafes patronized almost exclusively by men. There are also women cleaning sewer drains and tackling other tough jobs that need to be highlighted. The text of the interview follows. Al-Monitor: Tell us about the "One Girl is Worth 100" campaign. Ayman: "One Girl is Worth 100" is a media campaign designed to provide women with moral support, by inspiring them, through stories of struggle and success, of women of various social, economic and age categories. The common denominator between those categories is an ongoing real story of struggle that succeeded in turning all of the social and personal problems into challenges [that could be overcome]. Al-Monitor: Why was it named as such, instead of One Girl is Worth 100 Men? Ayman: The reason behind the campaigns title is that there are successful women despite the bad social conditions. The success each one achieves equates with the success of 100 people who gave up because of their problems and took easier paths. Yet, "One Girl is Worth 100 Men" would be a sexist title. Men are not better than women, and women are not better than men. The advantage goes to the one who defies society and refuses to give in to its rules and judgments. Al-Monitor: Where did you get the idea? Ayman: Honestly, I saw that media outlets whether TV, radio or daily news surround women with a significant quantity of negative news and terms. After a thorough search, I found out that 70% of the online headlines that include the term women are linked to sexual harassment, homicides and rape. All of these issues are negative and raise fear and frustration among women. This is why I believe there is a need to shed light on positive issues and fill women with positive energy. Al-Monitor: What are the objectives behind the campaign? Ayman: The objective of the campaign is to boost womens self-esteem, ambition and hope, to be able to carry on with their struggle, not to give up because of their personal and social problems, to be capable of dealing with their reality and try to change this reality even without any help from others. Al-Monitor: Why did the campaign focus on onerous jobs that women do? Ayman: This is because women doing these jobs are the most important evidence of equality between men and women in terms of obligations and duties. Shedding light on them in the community helps women break the circle of marginalization that society has tried to impose. Al-Monitor: What are the campaigns mechanisms to highlight women's struggle? Ayman: The campaigns mechanisms are based on expressing their stories in short episodes full of energy and great inspiration. At the beginning of the campaign, we filmed 15 episodes on successful women from the different provinces and we posted them online. We asked the viewers to write their stories, if any, and explain the reason behind their suffering and challenges they have faced. This is added to a letter encouraging Egyptian girls and motivating them to work hard and struggle to freely fulfill their ambitions. Al-Monitor: What were the difficulties during the campaigns implementation phase? Ayman: The major difficulties I faced was the search for women doing hard and hazardous jobs in all provinces. This is because they keep a low profile and work for a living. Most of them did not succeed with their education. There are women working as butchers, where they bravely use a sharp knife to cut the meat and sell it to the clients. We found a lady cleaning sewer drains, where she goes into the drain and cleans it without shame. There are also those working in a cafe, offering tea and coffee to clients, which is worthy of honor. Unfortunately, [it took] great effort to convince them to film and record their stories of struggle. After the issue was discussed with them, we succeeded in convincing them that they have an exalted message that everyone in the community needs to learn about. Al-Monitor: Does the campaign help women find jobs? Ayman: Yes, part of the campaigns objectives and plans is holding workshops to teach women about some skills that make them more successful and to help searchers find job opportunities to achieve their goals in life. February 18, 2016 GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip Rizk Abu Sitta climbed up to the top of the Radio Israa tower above the Dahdouh building facing Al-Azhar University in Gaza City Feb. 9. Though some observers at first thought he was a worker performing a repair, he was trying to commit suicide. Hundreds of people gathered to watch the young man standing between the iron bars on the top of the tower. Police officers also joined the crowd and prevented people from going up to the rooftop. One of the workers at the radio station told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, One of the building residents told us that there was a man on top of our tower, thinking that he was one of our employees. We immediately cut off the power to the transmission tower and informed the security services. Al-Monitor managed to go up to the rooftop, where the tension among the police and the mans relatives was clear. One of the police officers said, We did not climb up the tower that the man had climbed as we feared he might throw himself off. We are trying to communicate with him through his cell phone. Abu Sitta was standing between the bars, not moving a muscle, covering his face with his hands. The man seemed to be well aware of the danger he had put himself in, and his grip on the iron bars showed that he was reluctant to let go. His cousin Hussam told Al-Monitor, We are calling his cell phone but he is not answering me or his mother. He is desperate because of the dire economic conditions, and his salary has been cut off for several years now. Abu Sitta lives in Khan Yunis, in the south of the Gaza Strip. As a member of the Palestinian Authoritys (PA) security services, he is supposed to get paid by the Ramallah government. He is an only child. His father was killed and his mother was once detained in an Israeli prison. His mother, Fatima Abu Bakra, was sitting under the tower crying. Please, people, tell me my son is fine, she said. Abu Sitta was still on the tower above the Dahdouh building. One of the police officers asked Al-Monitors correspondent to take his mother down to the lower roof. After calming down, Abu Bakra told Al-Monitor, My son has not received his salary for five years. He has seven children and his debts are accumulating. May god take revenge on the oppressors. Tahsin Bakr, who heads the volunteer committee advocating for the workers who are not receiving paychecks, was also present on the rooftop. He told Al-Monitor that Abu Sitta is one of 300 workers whose salaries were cut off because of malicious reports against them. He said that these reports are sent by Ramallah government employees based in Gaza or abroad. Bakr said that the majority of those affected work with the security apparatus and the rest are employees in the civil sector. They file these reports for personal reasons or after receiving false information that we are working for the Hamas government in Gaza. Therefore, the Ramallah government cut off our salaries, Bakr said. These workers staged a protest in June 2015 at the house of Zakaria Agha, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, demanding to be paid. Bakr, who has not been paid since 2007, went on, We are always accused of not abiding by the rules of the [Palestinian] Authority, represented by President Mahmoud Abbas, which we have never been against. He said that Abu Sitta has been talking to anyone who might be able help him, but to no avail. He explaind, There are 2,300 employees who have voluntarily chosen to work with the Hamas-led government since 2007, after the Ramallah government cut off their paychecks, and they are now getting paid by Hamas. According to him, only 300 PA employees in Gaza are still receiving their salaries from Ramallah. When Hamas seized military control of Gaza in June 2007, Abbas ordered PA employees in all the governmental and security institutions in Gaza to stop their work, though he promised they would continue to receive payment. Some chose to work with Hamas-affiliated security agencies and government ministries to complement their salaries. Abu Sitta was finally talked out of his decision to kill himself after Fatah official Ibrahim Abu Naja went up and confirmed to him that Abbas will make sure that he will be paid. Five hours after the ordeal began, Abu Sitta climbed down slowly and was received with cheers as his crying mother embraced him. However, his possible victory does not mean that the salaries of the rest of the employees will be paid. Shujaa al-Safdi is another worker who has not been paid since early 2008. He told Al-Monitor, I have never worked with a government led by Hamas, and yet my salary has been cut off along with my colleagues' as a result of malicious reporting. We have tried to do something about it, but to no avail. We are now working in other fields to make ends meet. Safadi, who was a researcher for the Palestinian State Information Service which was later on subsumed by the Palestinian news agency Wafa in 2008 added, We are being unjustly treated, as those who are writing malicious reports against us hold higher positions with many privileges and benefits. For his part, Faisal Abu Shahla, a Fatah parliamentarian in the Palestinian Legislative Council, told Al-Monitor, We have and continue to call for the rights of the employees who have been wronged because of malicious reporting. They have never worked with the Hamas-led government and do not have any other source of income. However, officials keep responding to us with empty promises. Abu Shahla confirmed that the Palestinian president's office had previously formed a committee in November 2014 to address the issue. He stressed that the concerned workers have appealed more than once to the Fatah parliamentary bloc to claim their rights, but unfortunately matters are still suspended, he said. The dire living conditions in Gaza have driven many people to despair. Since the beginning of this year, six others have attempted suicide, and four of them have died. No solutions appear on the horizon in Gaza. The reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas is stalled, so is the reconstruction process. Poverty and unemployment rates are still soaring. Meanwhile, all officials do is criticize the hopeless young people who have killed themselves, as suicide is a sin. February 18, 2016 GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip Many, even Hamas political rivals, have described Ahmed Yousef as the most flexible, moderate and open of his peers. Yousef, a former political adviser to Hamas' deputy political bureau chief in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, joined the Muslim Brotherhood in 1968. He is highly knowledgeable in political matters and an important figure in the history of the Palestinian cause and Islamist movements. He has published more than 28 books in Arabic and English, dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict and the affairs of the Islamist movement in Palestine and the Arab and Muslim worlds. Notable titles include Contemporary Islamic Thought Transformations (1983), The Islamic Movement within the Green Line: Current Challenges and Future Horizons (1987) and Future of Political Islam: American Points of View (2001). He also established the House of Wisdom in Gaza for consultancy and conflict resolution, and he headed its board. In the mid 1990s, he called for the establishment of a bi-national state on Palestinian soil. He rejects violence as a means to solve conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians. Al-Monitor interviewed Yousef in his office at the House of Wisdom in Gaza City. The text of the interview follows: Al-Monitor: How do you view Fatah, in your capacity as a Hamas leader? Yousef: Fatah and Hamas are the pillars of our national project. Both enjoy widespread popularity among the Palestinian populace, representing more than 70% of the electoral base thereof. Fatah is a revolutionary movement that used to attract a great deal of support, which it now shares with Hamas. Both are essential, and neither can be excluded for the benefit of the other, unless the aim is to weaken the national project, for their joint existence on the scene guarantees the endurance and continuity of said project. Al-Monitor: In all of your statements, you allude to a rapprochement with Fatah, leading to criticism by some members of your movement. What is your opinion in that regard? Yousef: The dispute may further intensify and the rift widen between us and Fatah if we were to accuse, doubt and adopt a belligerent attitude. The split that occurred in June 2007 is the work of the devil, though a remedy can be attained. But unfortunately, belligerent attitudes emerge to exacerbate the situation whenever the voices of reason in both parties get close to prevailing. For both factions are equally responsible for the mistakes that have occurred, and I think that we must understand that we are the children of a single homeland and similar resistance movements facing the same enemy. Such methods should be discarded from our political discourse. Al-Monitor: It is truly a positive development when we hear, albeit infrequently, Hamas officials praising Fatah figures, in spite of the division between them. You recently completed a book about late President Yasser Arafat. Why did you choose him as a topic, and what is Hamas view in that regard? Yousef: I cannot reduce the Palestinian people to a few names belonging to a particular party. The Palestinian people include many individuals of great value, whom we must praise irrespective of any partisan affiliations. To me, Arafat is a hero and a symbol of the Palestinian cause and struggle who redefined the Palestinian identity, cemented it throughout the world and restored Palestinian respect through his sacrifices. No one in Hamas opposed the idea, and I asked many of its leaders to contribute to the book, to which they all agreed, among them the head of Hamas political bureau, Khaled Meshaal. We may disagree with Arafat politically, but we all agree [about what he represents]. Al-Monitor: What are your thoughts concerning a rapprochement with Fatah and the end of the internal Palestinian split? Do you think it is possible to reach reconciliation soon between the two parties? Yousef: As Palestinians, we do not represent a unique militant experiment, for there are dozens of such national liberation experiments that have taken place in both the Arab and the Muslim worlds, the examples of which we can follow. In that regard, we must endeavor to achieve political partnership on the basis of national consensus, and a single faction must not be allowed to impose its opinion at the expense of others. In the end, we are all national and Muslim liberation factions that have differing aspirations in implementing their visions. In Hamas, our vision is Islamic. Other factions have differing ideologies, in which we must find common ground that allows us to achieve our goals and aspirations, leading to a platform or political program to be adopted by any future government. In addition to internal political partnership, I think that at this stage, where the world, Arab and Islamic countries are preoccupied with their own internal issues, we must depend on nonviolent methods and draw attention to our suffering while refraining from giving Israel excuses to aggress upon us and abort our national project. Al-Monitor: In a 2010 study that you published titled Contemplations in Religion and Politics: Reading into the Palestinian Cause and in which you discussed Hamas refusal to recognize Israel as well as its vision of the West, you said that new ideas reflected the expanded openness of Hamas toward the international community, as more realistic political aspirations were being adopted. What is your opinion about Hamas rapprochement with the international community? Do you have new options that differ from those currently being put forward? Yousef: The international community is monitoring our situation and providing us with assistance. It proposed the two-state solution, and we stated that we endorsed said solution, but perhaps differed in the implementation thereof. We cannot really discuss the issue, as the details are yet undefined. I previously proposed a bi-national state solution, in the sense that it is a country for all of its inhabitants. I personally made the proposal in the 1990s and continue to endorse it. When we proposed it, the international community objected, using arguments advanced by Israel claiming that we wanted to erase it from existence. Unfortunately, in the absence of an opposing discourse on our part, the world has grown convinced of that pretext. But such contentions are unacceptable, for Hamas position vis-a-vis Israel as a state and its refusal to recognize said state does not equate to us objecting to living alongside it, as many other countries of the word live alongside countries toward which they harbor hostilities. For not everything can be resolved with weapons and violence. Al-Monitor: You have criticized Hamas on numerous occasions, including its exaggeration of its resistance potential and giving Israel a pretext to attack Gaza. Is such criticism received positively among the movements leadership? Yousef: I try to convey the pulse and qualms of the street. This is the situation that we live in and everybody is open to criticism. In my latest article, I stood against giving the occupation a pretense for aggressing against us and marketing to the West its war against us. I wanted to remove all such pretexts, and in doing so, I sometimes criticize everyone, among them Hamas, which hears our arguments. Time will lead to changes, and no one in Hamas opposes my criticism against it. Al-Monitor: What is your opinion of Hamas relationship with Iran, particularly in light of Hamas stance vis-a-vis the Syrian popular movement that began in March 2011 and its endorsement of said movement against the Iran-allied regime of [President] Bashar al-Assad? Yousef: Hamas relationship with Iran has historical roots that go back to the movements genesis in the 1980s, with Iran providing Hamas and the government in Gaza financial and logistical support. In Syria, Hamas stood against the regime and its relationship with Iran subsequently suffered. Iran is now part of the conflict in Syria, while Hamas completely withdrew from Syria after voicing its support for the Syrian people, without fearing the consequences of said disputes. But losing Iran is not something that we aspire to. For it is an important regional state and we want it to remain supportive of the Palestinian cause, and maintaining the dispute between us would be unwise. In this context, a healthy relationship requires both give and take. Al-Monitor: The situation in Gaza is catastrophic and deteriorating. In your opinion, what should Hamas do in that regard? Yousef: In Hamas view, it relinquished its rule and presented it on a silver platter to the Palestinian Authority and President Mahmoud Abbas. We reached an agreement in Doha, and Cairo before that. We stand ready to implement those agreements. But the other side, meaning the PA and Abbas, have failed to seriously deal with the situation and take steps to end the split between us. We are ready to hand over governance of Gaza when we determine that the PA is truly prepared to exercise its functions there. Matters can only progress gradually, and no change can occur overnight. Trust and honesty are required, for we do not cling to anything except protecting the resistance and safeguarding the continuity of Hamas. We must not be asked to relinquish anything while nothing is being offered to us in return, and we hope that President Abbas is spared external pressure aimed at thwarting any rapprochement with Hamas. February 19, 2016 TEHRAN, Iran Stuck between a biological mother and an adoptive father, the Palestinian Hamas movement has been straining to keep the balance without intimidating any of the two. The Muslim Brotherhood, which Hamas belongs to ideologically, wants the group to keep its distance from Tehran. Meanwhile, Iran, which has provided financing for years, is pushing for warmer relations so that Hamas can once again be counted on to be part of the wider Resistance Axis, which also includes the Syrian and Iraqi governments as well as Lebanons Hezbollah movement. On Feb. 9, a senior delegation from Hamas arrived in Tehran to take part in the 37th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Politburo members Mohammed Nasr and Osama Hamdan led the Hamas delegation, and both participated in the ceremonies but that wasnt all. Nasr and Hamdan seized the opportunity to meet several top Iranian officials including parliament Speaker Ali Larijani and Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani. Hamas officials came along with a delegation representing [other] Palestinian factions, but they stayed longer upon agreement with the Iranian side in order to pave the way for better relations, an Iranian official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. He added, For years, there were attempts to find common ground; there are several elements that caused this coldness in relations with the political wing [of Hamas], yet its important to say that this never affected relations with [armed wing] Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Now is the best time to try to build trust once again and go to further levels of cooperation with the [Hamas] movement as a whole. Al-Monitor learned that the Hamas delegation met with Maj. Gen. Qasem Suleimani, commander of the Quds Force the external operations wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and other officials who oversee the Palestinian file within the Islamic Republic. Meetings were up to expectations, said a Hamas official who asked not to be identified. He elaborated, The world has changed a lot since [the beginning of the Arab Spring in] 2011 and till now. Iran isnt the same as before, and we arent [the same either]. Yet, we both still have the same interest in having a strong resistance in Palestine to face the Israeli aggression. They know, and we believe, that theres no benefit to restoring the old relationship [we had]; we need to build the foundations for a new relationship based on new needs. When the invitation was sent to Hamas to take part in ceremonies marking the anniversary of Irans Islamic Revolution, Hamas Politburo deputy chief Moussa Abu Marzouk was on the guest list. However, a phone conversation leaked by Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat that showed Marzouk accusing Iran of lying about providing Hamas with financial aid led to changes in plans, with Hamdan ultimately replacing Marzouk. This meant nothing with respect to the plans to receive the delegation, the Iranian official said. Some personal views, the context in which they were expressed we do not know, wont affect a long-term cooperation with Hamas. The Hamas official whom Al-Monitor met preferred not to comment on the Marzouk leak, saying, Hamas official stance toward Iran is clear. Iran supported the resistance for a long time, and they are ready to continue this support now. There are new plans that are already on the right track. He added, In the past years, there were several mistakes and there were misunderstandings, but Iran knows as does Hamas that the resistance is in danger, and we know that the only country capable and ready to support the resistance is Iran. This is not an assumption; this is based on years of experience. The Hamas leadership has been based in Qatar for the past four years, after quitting the Syrian capital Damascus amid the outbreak of the Syrian Revolution in 2011. After this decision, Hamas relations with Syria gradually deteriorated. Iran and Hezbollah both close allies of the Syrian government saw the Palestinian movements position as hostile, and relations started taking a negative turn. The region is on fire, and the explosion has yet to come, said the Hamas official. Maps are being redrawn; all entities are variable now, nothing is constant. The only two constants if the situation continues this way might be Daesh [Islamic State] and Israel. We have to fight in order to avoid such an end. Israel should always feel danger; if Israel doesnt feel that its under threat, we are all going to pay the price. According to the Hamas official, the Palestinian movement believes that the Syrian conflict is only going to add to the sectarian strife in the region. He told Al-Monitor, The sectarian war is only benefiting Israel. There should be a political solution. Turkey and Iran are the only two powers capable of tailoring such a deal, and Palestine is the only unifying element. Palestine can rid the region from the sectarian war. He added, The resistance succeeded in making a big achievement. The whole Arab world will stand behind the resistance if it was unified; this is an opportunity to end the sectarian war. When we feel pain, Israel is comfortable; when Israel feels pain, we feel better. This is the equation. When asked about other Hamas members position on rapprochement with Iran, the Hamas official insisted, We are here officially representing the movement, have a clear mandate from the higher leadership, and we extended our stay upon consultations with them. Yes, there might be people inside Hamas who might have objections to having good relations with Iran, yet our movement is strong enough to enforce any decision it takes. February 19, 2016 BAGHDAD The city of Fallujah in Anbar province has been under the Islamic States (IS) control for nearly two years. When asked about the living conditions there, Mahmoud Falluji (a pseudonym) said, I reached a point where I was ready to slaughter a cat so my family and I could eat it. Al-Monitor met with Falluji, a former construction worker, in Baghdad after he paid IS militants $1,500 to let him, his wife and two children leave Fallujah. IS usually forces each person to pay $1,000 to leave, but Falluji was able to make a deal. Falluji collected this sum from his relatives and friends after he realized that staying in the city would be devastating. He said he was lucky to leave, because IS soon after imposed a blockade on the city and prevented anyone else from leaving. He added, Life in Fallujah has become dreadful. Children are wasting away from the lack of food. Falluji still has family in Fallujah, and he calls to check up on them. Falluji came across pictures from the Syrian city of Madaya under siege by the Syrian regime. He said, The situation in Fallujah is very similar to that of Madaya. But none of the political parties are talking about the pain of the besieged residents. Despair is plaguing Fallujah, where Iraqi security forces have failed to resume control, although Iraq's Interior and Defense ministries have announced the start of military operations to liberate the city from IS. Parliament member Liqaa al-Wardi, the head of the parliamentary committee on the displaced, told Al-Monitor, Fallujahs suffering is by far greater than that of the Syrian town of Madaya. People in Fallujah ate animal feed after grinding it. She went on, Yet the animal feed did not do them good and caused diseases, killing dozens of people. Wardi, a native of Anbar province, is active in reporting on the suffering of civilians in Anbars besieged cities. She has a diverse network of sources in those cities reporting on the conditions there. She said, No one cares or is aware of Fallujah, which has been suffering for months. The suffering has increased now and will continue to increase in the coming period. Wardi added, The Iraqi government and international community need to act seriously and genuinely to save the residents, because we do not want to lose more people. There are no official statistics on those who have died in the course of the humanitarian crisis in Fallujah, only one of many Iraqi cities suffering under IS. The residents of Mosul, which has been under IS control since June 2014, are in a similar crisis. IS seems to be deliberately creating these conditions for the residents to push them into hostility toward the government so they will sympathize with IS and join its own ranks. IS blames the government for besieging Mosul and tells the residents that their government is the one starving them. A representative of the Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights in Mosul who requested anonymity for security reasons told Al-Monitor, IS has adopted a policy leading to starvation among civilians in order to oblige them to abide by its orders and join its ranks to provide food for their families. The representative said over the phone from Mosul, In the city, the humanitarian situation is bad to the point that it cannot be described with words. The residents economic situation is also bad, and civilians are able to neither escape nor end their starvation, especially as there is a lack of milk for children and a lack of medication for the elderly. The representative could offer no statistics on the number of people starving or the number of besieged cities, because he is unable to gather them for fear of being recognized and killed by IS. Jamila Obeidi, a parliamentarian for Ninevah province, confirmed to Al-Monitor, The humanitarian situation in Ninevah, specifically in the city of Mosul, is horrible. She explained, There are critical medical conditions for which treatment is unavailable. There are children and elderly people who are sick and do not have access to medication and food. Unfortunately, the Iraqi government has cut off the income of its employees in Mosul. She described the governments policy as inappropriate behavior, saying, Citizens need money, and their presence under IS control does not mean that they agree on it. They are helpless civilian residents. The Iraqi government decided in July 2015 not to pay its workers and retirees in IS-controlled provinces, including the city of Mosul, as IS is using the money to purchase arms and carry out operations against security forces and cities under the Iraqi governments control. Al-Monitor tried to obtain information on the food and medication needs in IS-controlled cities, but the Iraqi lawmakers and residents fleeing the cities could offer little data. Media reports, however, agree that what residents need most is milk for children, medication for chronic diseases and basic food such as flour and vegetables. Iraqi parliamentarians told Al-Monitor that the residents in IS-controlled areas are most in need of money, as many of the people in those cities are government employees and retirees. So far, Iraqi security forces have not set a real timetable to liberate these cities from IS. The longer these operations are delayed, the worse the humanitarian crisis grows. February 19, 2016 When Washington Post Jerusalem bureau chief William Booth wanted to write a column about the recent violence in Jerusalem, he went to the most obvious location Jerusalems Damascus Gate. There he found exactly whom he sought to interview, but he also found jittery Israeli security officers. What transpired Feb. 16 is detailed in a statement of protest by the Foreign Press Association (FPA) in Israel. That day, Booth and his newspapers West Bank correspondent, Sufian Taha, were interviewing Palestinians and Israelis outside Damascus Gate. Israeli soldiers stationed there were not pleased about this. When Booth and Taha tried to interview some high school students on the steps opposite the gate, police waved them away. They then retreated to interview the teenagers under a tree. Shortly after, border police waved the two journalists over and asked them for their IDs, the FPA statement read. Although the journalists made it very clear that they were reporting a story for The Washington Post, police took them to a nearby police station, where they were held for about 40 minutes, then released. When they asked police why they had been held, police said they had suspected the journalists of inciting Palestinians. Damascus Gate has been the site of 11 violent confrontations between Palestinian protesters and Israeli security since Oct. 15, according to the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Nine Palestinians have been summarily killed in their attempts to stab Israelis there. In addition, an Israeli policewoman was killed and eight Israelis were injured. Palestinians have used live fire on at least two occasions at the gate. Azzam Soud, a well-known Palestinian writer whose stories are often set in Jerusalem, spoke to Al-Monitor about why so many incidents take place at Damascus Gate. First, it is the [Old City's] most important gate and the biggest, he said. Second, it is the closest gate to all the transportation coming from the north, and third, it is the most direct entrance to both Al-Aqsa Mosque and the famous Khan Ezzat souk, where goods of all sorts and forms can be found. Soud, who is also deputy director of the Palestinian Cultural Fund, noted that the beautiful gate, built by the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman al-Qanoni in the 16th century, is a popular location in literature about Jerusalem. He explained, Novels and short stories about Jerusalem always mention Damascus Gate. The female farmers coming from the West Bank villages and selling their fresh products at the gates entrance are often part of the colorful imagery shaping the stories about the city. While the major business district of Salah Eddin Street leads to a different gate, residents' primary focus especially after 1948 has been Damascus Gate. Before 1948 and the division of Jerusalem, Jaffa Gate competed with Damascus Gate. It was at Jaffa Gate that Britain's Gen. Edmund Allenby entered Jerusalem. After 1948, Jaffa Gate was unusable because the border between East and West Jerusalem ran so close to it, leaving Damascus Gate as the main gate for Palestinians. Nazmi Jubeh, a professor at Birzeit University, said of Damascus Gate, [It] has become a symbol for the Palestinian national struggle because of its accessibility to Palestinians and the main connecting point for both worshippers and for markets. Jubeh, an expert on the nexus of architecture and life, recalled that for decades, Damascus Gate and the pavilion in front of it have been the site of numerous protests and demonstrations. It has folkloric and sentimental value to many Palestinians. The leading newspaper kiosks along with women selling peanuts and the coffee shops all create this cultural icon, Jubeh told Al-Monitor. Shortly after the signing of the Oslo Accord in 1993, Afif Safieh, a longtime activist with the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian ambassador in Moscow, London and the Holy See, was allowed to return to his birthplace, Jerusalem. Accompanied by a French TV crew, Safieh stopped by a sweet shop just inside Damascus Gate. Before the occupation, during the occupation and after the occupation, there will never be anything like the Jafars kenafe, he told the French audience referring to the iconic hot, sweet pastry sold in the Old City. With every attack at Damascus Gate, the site gains ever more in symbolism, resulting in a double-edged sword of encouraging more attacks. Because of the attacks and the harsh Israeli response, some Jerusalemites have begun to refer to the gate as Martyrs Gate. Daniel Siedman, an Israeli researcher on Jerusalem, told Al-Monitor that Damascus Gate has become a lighting rod for attacks because of its accessibility and the presence of Israelis. While it is used by Palestinians, it is also on the route of ultra-Orthodox worshippers and Old City settlers, which means a constant heavy police presence and a permanent target, Siedman said. Amnon Ramon, another Israeli researcher, explained to Yediot Ahronoth on Feb. 18 why Palestinians use this gate. I guess that their aim first of all is to attack police officers, and second of all settlers. Attacks by Palestinians have generally not been directed at civilians living inside the Green Line, but at security forces and settlers, the researcher said. The continued confrontations at Damascus Gate have produced an unprecedented security clampdown. Israeli soldiers are constantly harassing and conducting body searches of almost every Palestinian entering the Old City. The Israelis have been so shaken up that they have even subjected members of the international press to their repressive measures, bringing even more attention to the place that has clearly become the symbol of the current wave of protest for Jerusalems Palestinians. February 18, 2016 Two of the top Republican candidates for president favor recognizing West Bank settlements as part of Israel, a sharp break with decades of US policy that could either revive or bury the moribund Oslo peace process. The hawkish stance is one of several controversial proposals floated during the 2016 race, which has moved far beyond the usual bipartisan boilerplate support for Israel. The debate underscores the increasingly polarized nature of US relations with Israel over the past few years, even if the follow-through from campaign rhetoric to presidential order remains an open question. Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., this month were the first to co-sponsor legislation that would allow goods from the West Bank and Gaza to be labeled as Made in Israel in response to the Obama administrations recent reaffirmation of long-standing US policy on the matter. The bill from Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., is the most transparent attempt to date to conflate settlements with Israel, an idea that has been gaining traction in Congress over the past year. [Cruz] considers Israel a sovereign nation, his national security adviser, Victoria Coates, told Al-Monitor. Obviously there are disputed territories in Israel there are disputed territories in Morocco, and India, and China and lots of other places but that doesnt mean any element in the country is somehow not Israel. Cruz, like Rubio, has referred to the disputed West Bank territories by the biblical Hebrew names Judea and Samaria and argued that the United States should not treat the Israelis and the Palestinians as morally equivalent. Instead, Coates said, the US should empower Israel and allow it to deal with the Palestinians on its own terms, if they ever decide they want to make peace. As the Oslo process has broken down, I think [Cruzs] view is that it is not beholden on the Israelis to carry that on by themselves absent committed Palestinian participation, she said. His feeling is that this is an issue for the Israelis to settle internally, and not one that should be subject to international arbitration. Thats why hes been so aggressive on the labeling issue. Predictably, the Palestinians have an opposite viewpoint. Cottons bill, the Palestinian Liberation Organizations delegation to Washington said in a statement, shows a complete disregard of decades of longstanding Democratic and Republican policy to separate Israel from its illegal settlement enterprise. Legitimizing Israeli settlements further strengthens radical settlers, incites them to commit more violence against Palestinians and prolongs the almost half-century old Israeli brutal military occupation of the Palestinian People, the statement says. The General Delegation of the PLO to the United States rejects all attempts to conflate Israel with Occupied Palestinian land that aim [to] destroy the possibility of the two state solution and the future viability of a Palestinian state. The two Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., appear highly unlikely to follow the Cruz-Rubio route. Sanders, the only major Jewish candidate, was the first US senator to announce that he would skip Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus address to Congress lambasting nuclear talks with Iran last year. He has been a longtime champion of a two-state solution, even if some liberals want him to more explicitly state his opposition to continued settlement expansion. Clinton, for her part, has a long track record of blaming settlement construction for harming the peace process. In 2014, she told CNN that her biggest complaint with Netanyahus government as secretary of state was its settlement expansion. The continuing settlements, which have been denounced by successive American administrations on both sides of the aisle, are clearly a terrible signal to send if, at the same time, you claim you're looking for a two-state solution, she said at the time. Clintons close ties with former ambassador to Israel and peace envoy Martin Indyk are also well documented. Indyk has largely blamed Netanyahu for the breakdown of Secretary of State John Kerrys recent efforts to restart peace talks, but he was warning Clinton about the self-defeating Israeli leader as far back as 2010, according to Clinton emails that were recently made public by court order. Ironically, Donald Trump, the current Republican front-runner, seems closer to the Democrats than to his main Republican rivals on the issue. In a December interview with The Associated Press, the real estate mogul called Israeli settlement construction a "huge sticking point" in peace negotiations. A lot will have to do with Israel and whether or not Israel wants to make the deal whether or not Israel's willing to sacrifice certain things," Trump told the wire service. "They may not be, and I understand that, and I'm OK with that. But then you're just not going to have a deal. That same week, he got booed at the Republican Jewish Coalition when he declined to take a stance on whether Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. Congress passed a law requiring the US Embassy to be relocated there from Tel Aviv in 1995, but US presidents since then have waived the law so as to avoid undermining peace talks that are supposed to determine the exact boundaries of the Israeli and Palestinian states. You cant go in with that attitude, Trump said. If youre going to make a deal and you could make a great deal you cant go in with the attitude Were going to shove in down your [throat]. Youve got to go in and get it and do it and do it nicely so everyones happy. This month, Trump appeared to have a change of heart. He now says he is 100% behind moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who is trailing in the polls, has also said he would like to move the embassy. Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, by contrast, has not joined that chorus. Aaron David Miller, the vice president for New Initiatives at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former adviser to both parties on Arab-Israeli negotiations, said the proposal from Cruz and Rubio would mark a sea change in US policy. But he questioned whether it would ever be carried out, even if one of them were to win the presidency. If an American president were to say we have no problem with the Israelis incorporating these settlements into the West Bank and Gaza or, frankly, annexing the West Bank or Jerusalem, it would constitute a dramatic, transformative change in American policy, probably rule out the United States as any kind of negotiator and would have a transformative impact on shutting down what remains of an Arab-Israeli negotiation, he said. But there are all kinds of factors and issues that would intrude, impede and prevent that from happening, even in a Cruz or Rubio presidency. February 18, 2016 Saudi Arabia is hosting large-scale military training maneuvers on its northeast border to signal strength to Iran and provide substance to its proposed Islamic military alliance against Iran and terror groups. The highly publicized maneuvers also deflect attention from the stalemate in Yemen, where the Saudi-led coalition backing the ousted government is still struggling to defeat the Houthi rebels and their allies. Called "Northern Thunder," the exercise involves 150,000 troops from 20 countries, according to the Saudi press: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the UAE, Oman, Jordan, Pakistan, Djibouti, Mauritania, Senegal, Sudan, Chad, Tunisia, Morocco, Comoros, Mauritius, Malaysia, Egypt and the Maldives. The force allegedly includes 2,540 aircraft and 460 helicopters, according to Saudi media, and 20,000 armored vehicles. The exercises are being held around the Saudi military facility at Hafr al Batin, which has long been the home of the Gulf Cooperation Council's Peninsula Shield task force, the GCC's rapid response unit. If the numbers reported by the Saudi press are accurate, this is the largest military operation in the region since the liberation of Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm, a quarter-century ago this month. Saudi commentary says the purpose of Northern Thunder is to deter Iran from aggression against the Gulf states. Implicit in their analysis is the Saudi assumption that Iraq or at least the Baghdad government is all but a satellite of Tehran and a potential Iranian ally in a future conflict between Riyadh and Tehran. From the Saudi perspective, Iraq has gone from being the Eastern shield of the Arab world resisting Persian and Shiite Iran to a puppet controlled by Iran. The exercises are also intended to show the Islamic military alliance announced last December by Saudi Defense Minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman has a solid base. The alliance is intended to both deter Iran and combat terrorists including the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda. The Royal Saudi Air Force has resumed combat operations against IS in Iraq after a hiatus due to the Yemen war and has deployed aircraft to Turkey to attack IS targets. King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud and his defense minister son are also eager to deflect attention from the Yemeni operation. They originally promised a "Decisive Storm" when they initiated the war a year ago next month. A decisive blow in Yemen against the Iranian-backed Houthis would send a sharp signal to Tehran. Iran would be prevented from building a base in the Arabian Peninsula on the kingdom's southern frontier. Instead, it has been a costly and difficult struggle. The 10-member coalition led by the kingdom has seized control of the southern port city of Aden and parts of southern and western Yemen, but the Houthis still control Sanaa and most of the north. A bitter and brutal battle for Taez, the birthplace of the Yemeni Spring five years ago, shows no end in sight. Both sides are accused of war crimes. The Saudi coalition is blockading the Houthi-controlled north from critical humanitarian supplies from the outside world, while the Houthis prevent humanitarian supplies from reaching Taez. The Yemeni people are paying an enormous price for the war. The conflict has become a humanitarian disaster for millions of people in what was already the poorest country in the Arab world. The Houthis' allies, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh's loyalists, continue to sporadically fire Scud missiles into the kingdom despite assurances months ago from the Saudi military that all of Yemen's Scuds had been destroyed by the Saudis. The missile attacks are mostly an irritant, but they demonstrate the limits of Saudi military power. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has expanded its emirate around Mukalla in the south this year and operates increasingly in Aden. AQAP has been a major beneficiary of the stalemate in the conflict. Iran has largely stayed out of the war. It gives the Houthis diplomatic and political support but pays no costs for the fight. It undoubtedly calculates that when the war ends, the Houthis will still look to Tehran for support since they will have no other options. The Saudi leadership faces a complex and interlocking series of challenges. Iran is no longer under damaging UN sanctions and is poised to pump more oil into an already glutted world market. IS and al-Qaeda are operating inside the kingdom and have bases to the north and south of it. The Yemeni war has no end in sight. Rumors about infighting in the royal family are persistent. Northern Thunder is helping project strength and international support, but the king really needs a face-saving answer to his Yemen conundrums. February 18, 2016 The Feb. 9 headline in the pro-government daily Bugun proclaimed, CHP spokesperson Boke has been baptized. The newspaper claimed that the Republican Peoples Party, the main opposition, was facing a crisis over the religious identity of its public voice, Selin Sayek Boke. The report detailed Bokes family's roots, revealing that her father was from Hatay province and an Orthodox Christian. Boke is a young, US-educated former economics professor. Having left a successful academic career, she joined the CHP and is considered a rising star in the party. Boke had recently emerged as the fiercest critic of the government, in particular of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. On Feb. 3, Boke went on the record criticizing Erdogans insistence on Turkey switching to a presidential system of government. Contrary to [Justice and Development Party] statements, Turkey does not have a political regime problem. Rather, President Erdogan has a personal problem, to become the one-man [rule], Boke remarked. It is not surprising that Bokes tough criticism, coupled with her perfect resume, could only be tarnished through ad hominem attacks. The Bugun report caused quite a stir. Most initial reactions came from members of the opposition, whose basic response was, so what if she's a Christian? A day after the Bugun story appeared, Boke held a press conference and said the following: "Today my family and I have been targets of a hate crime. We are not the first and not the only ones. I will make this statement once and for all. And let me be clear, as a citizen of the Turkish republic, in this day and age, I am ashamed to make a statement against such a hate crime. I am ashamed not as Selin Sayek Boke. I am ashamed as a proud citizen of Turkey. There is nothing for me to hide or be concerned about regarding my family history. Those who thought I have something to hide about my family therefore, committing a hate crime should be the ones who are ashamed. My family has been living in these lands for centuries. They belong to this country as much as anyone else and have dedicated their lives to serving this country. Now, for those interested in family ancestry, let me curb their curiosity: A part of my family is Christian, while the other part is Muslim." Despite the audio record of Boke's statement and its availability on YouTube, Bugun and other pro-government media outlets ran preposterous headlines misrepresenting her words. For example, Yeni Akit reported Boke as saying, I am proud of my Christian identity and ashamed of being a Turkish citizen. Several social media trolls lashed out, telling Boke to leave the country and saying that they were ashamed of her. Several Twitter users posted an inaccurate Boke family tree. During the first days of the attacks against Boke, Selahattin Demirtas, chairman of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, was the highest-profile politician to stand in solidarity with her. How can they question someones identity? What if someone is a Christian? This is the Islamic States mentality, Demirtas said. Hurriyet columnist Ahmet Hakan wrote a searing column under the title Why are you silent, Mr. Etyen and Mr. Markar? Etyen Mahcupyan is a former senior adviser to Erdogan and Markar Esayan is a Justice and Development Party (AKP) parliamentarian. Both are Christians. Hakan harshly criticized Buguns reporting. Other commentators joined in, questioning how the AKP, which came to power by championing religious rights and liberties, had become a party of such intolerance. As pressure built, on Feb. 15 Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said to the press, To question someones identity and generate a debate out of it is against human rights. Davutoglu also expressed his agreement with Bokes statement. The next day, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag condemned Buguns reporting, and Melih Gokcek, an important AKP figure and the colorful mayor of Ankara, tweeted about Yeni Akits manipulation of Boke's words and encouraged Boke to be proud of her Christian identity. Ironically, the Boke issue has created another rift in an already divided AKP. It is important to see prominent names in the AKP come forward to criticize such a hateful attack, but the event highlights two ongoing issues. One is that slander by pro-government media in Turkey is the new normal, for which there is little or no legal recourse. The other is the seldom mentioned hardship of interfaith marriages. These so-called hybrid, or mixed, marriages are neither new nor rare in Anatolia, but they are almost always kept quiet. I married a Turkish Jew and was happy and excited to learn about Judaism, a young Muslim woman raised in a secular family requesting anonymity told Al-Monitor. We were in New York during Hanukkah. I saw menorahs in windows and suggested to my husband that we should do the same next year at home. He said, Dont you dare do that. We do not want people to be reminded of my religion. This was the first of many moments where I learned how strong anti-Semitism is in Turkey and also how being an interfaith couple could mean you will face challenges from members of both families and faiths. Erdal Dogan, a human rights attorney, is married to Selina Dogan, a Turkish Armenian CHP parliamentarian. Dogan was open about observations gleaned from being in an interfaith marriage. Turkish society applauds the interfaith couple as long as it is no longer interfaith, he told Al-Monitor. That is, if the non-Muslim partner converts to Islam, then there is respect for the couple. If not, the validity of the marriage is questioned. Dogan said that even well-intentioned friends can sometimes utter offensive statements. For example, sometimes people will comment, Her religion is irrelevant as long as she is a good human, or Oh well, she is human as well, he said. Non-Muslims in Turkey face different layers of discrimination and challenges while constantly trying to prove they are Turks. Those in mixed marriages or children of interfaith couples face the confusion of not knowing how to respond when questioned about their religious identity or family tree. Keeping quiet often seems like the best solution, although that might not be the case. The attack on Boke, as horrible as it was, has actually provided an opportunity for a dialogue about the different religious and ethnic identities in Turkey. Sarah Slager has 122 college credits, a high school diploma, no criminal history and more than two decades of bookkeeping experience to her name. Still, the 45-year-old single mom is forced to work a second part-time job on the weekends at Waffle House on Hughes Road in Madison. While she picks up temporary work during the week to support her family, the $7.25 hourly wage she collects at Waffle House is barely enough to put food on the table. Slager was among about three dozen Raise the Wage supporters who gathered Thursday afternoon outside Huntsville City Hall to call on leaders to raise the local minimum wage from the federal rate of $7.25 per hour to $8.50 and later $10.10. Holding a handwritten sign that said, "Full-time workers should not live in poverty," Slager said many of her Waffle House co-workers wanted to be at the rally, but were on the clock or were too exhausted from working long shifts at the restaurant. "I can't believe Alabama doesn't think we don't deserve better," she said. "It really broke my heart that this is where I've lived most of my life and I feel like we're letting our people down." David Odom, volunteer organizer with Raise the Wage Huntsville, said the group launched last year to try to convince Huntsville to create a city ordinance that would push the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour over phases. Since that time, the Alabama House of Representatives has authorized a bill to block cities and counties from setting minimum wages. The bill came after the Birmingham City Council passed an ordinance last week to begin the first step toward raising the city's minimum wage to $8.50 per hour by July 2016 and $10.10 by July 2017. Odom said the new bill proposed by Rep. David Faulkner, R-Mountain Brook, would not only repeal Birmingham's effort, but prevent Huntsville and any other Alabama city from raising the minimum wage at a local level. "We're now fighting off that terrible bill in the state Legislature and trying to do the right thing here," he said. Raise the Wage Huntsville has met privately with each city council member and Mayor Tommy Battle's office to discuss the need to raise the minimum wage for workers, Odom said. The group now wants to see local leaders take up the cause and call on Gov. Robert Bentley to put a stop to Faulkner's bill. "The governor's talked a lot about poverty in this state and he seems genuinely concerned," said Odom, a federal worker at Redstone Arsenal. "He wonders about what can be done. Well, here's one thing, make sure that full-time workers aren't poor by raising the minimum wage." Parker Griffith, a U.S. Representative for Alabama's 5th congressional district from 2009 to 2011, was among those in attendance at Thursday's rally. The retired physician said raising the minimum wage was one of his platforms when he unsuccessfully ran against Bentley during the 2014 gubernatorial race. Griffith said the low minimum wage hits the female working population the hardest as they struggle to get out of debt and look after their children because they have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. The idea that raising the minimum wage will cause unemployment is a myth, he added. "It's a gradual increase, it's absorbed into the economy," he said. " ... When you pay somebody a living wage, they're stable. They stay in their jobs, they do a better job for you and the turnover rate is not nearly as great. Low turnover in a business means that your business is more efficient and more profitable." Raise the Wage Huntsville, which will talk about the need for higher wages March 3 at a council work session, said a minimum wage increase would directly benefit 34,000 local workers, boost consumer spending and grow the city's tax base. More than 400 people have already expressed support for the issue on thepetitionsite.com. excellance-mobile-stroke-unit.jpg Excellance Mobile Stoke Unit. (Courtesy) A Madison company is keeping the area's innovative spirit alive through the development of custom ambulances and emergency vehicles for clients throughout the world. Tommy Pugh, national sales manager at Excellance. (Courtesy) Excellance has been manufacturing vehicles in north Alabama since 1975 for local emergency management companies like HEMSI to the Royal Family of Saudi Arabia. The company's Mobile Stroke Unit is one of only a couple existing in the world with technology to help victims receive the fastest, highest-quality care available in the event of a stroke. Excellance is also the only company to design and build a custom ambulance that runs solely on compressed natural gas (CNG). Tommy Pugh, national sales manager for Excellance, joined the family-owned business 28 years ago as an electrician, where he quickly advanced before becoming regional sales manager in 2002. During his nearly three decades at Excellance, he has watched the company's strategic direction, growth and profitability soar. "We use state-of-the-art equipment for every phase of our construction," he said. "Part of what differentiates us from other ambulance manufacturers is that every truck that we build is custom to the needs of the customer we're working with." Excellance's groundbreaking Mobile Stroke Unit was delivered in 2014 to the Cleveland Clinic to better serve the 5,600 stroke patients who are hospitalized each year in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. The vehicle, which was built with financial help from the Maltz Family of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland, is designed to reduce the time it takes to diagnose a stroke through an on-board CT scanner and telemedicine unit that allows first responders to communicate quickly with nearby hospital staff. Diagnosing what type of stroke a patient is having is critical in determining whether to administer tissue plasminogen activator (TPA), a protein that breaks down blood clots and can diminish the effects of a stroke if given quickly. The Cleveland Clinic studied dozens of cases of stroke patients who were treated by the mobile unit versus the emergency room. The hospital found that stroke victims received a CT scan 20 minutes faster by using the mobile unit. The mobile unit also provided faster overall treatment at 64 minutes versus 104 minutes in the emergency room. For patients who may be suffering a stroke, every minute counts toward full recovery. Pugh, who said Excellance is one of only two manufacturers that have built one of these vehicles, believes every major metropolitan city will have at least one Mobile Stroke Unit or a similar vehicle within the next 10 years. "And depending on the size of the city, may have multiples just so that their response time is quicker," he said. "It's a big step in the emergency medical market to be able to respond and treat the patient at the scene, so you're basically bringing the hospital to them." A CNG-powered ambulance for the Bossier City Fire Department. (Courtesy) Also in 2014, Excellance unveiled the world's first Ford Qualified Vehicle Modifier (QVM)-approved CNG ambulance, which was built for the fire department in Bossier City, La. The cleaner-burning vehicle offers lower fuel costs over traditional gas and diesel engines. Bossier City plans to replace one diesel ambulance with a CNG each year because it saves at least $7,000 annually in fuel costs per vehicle. For areas that are rich in compressed natural gas or CNG fueling stations like Bossier City, the vehicle may be an option for the future. "From our city's perspective, ambulances were one of the busiest vehicles and used the most fuel in the city," said Bossier City Fire Department Chief of EMS Jeff Watson. "That's why they wanted to make sure that we started using those as soon as we could." Watson said the CNG-powered ambulance from Excellance gets about seven miles to the gallon, compared to 3 1/2 miles to the gallon on its diesel trucks. Excellance won the 2014 EMS World Award in Innovation for the CNG ambulance and the 2015 Award in Innovation for the Mobile Stroke Unit. The company, which has 90-100 employees on Lanier Road, also makes rescue trucks, command/communications units, bomb squad units, roll-off P.O.D. modules, hazardous materials vehicles, and special test vehicles for the U.S. Department of Defense. "We're not the biggest ambulance manufacturer, but I would say we're the most custom ambulance manufacturer," he said. One of Alabama's best-known authors died today, and her loss is felt far beyond state limits. Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning "To Kill A Mockingbird" affected many lives, and the world has been quick to respond to her death at age 89. Fellow Alabama author John Green shared a Lee memory: When my son Henry was born, Ms. Lee signed a copy of Looking for Alaska for him with the inscription, "Welcome to the world Henry Atticus." John Green (@johngreen) February 19, 2016 The Associated Press shared quotes from several people affiliated with Lee: --Aaron Sorkin, who has written an adaptation of "To Kill a Mockingbird" for Broadway: "Like millions of others, I was saddened to learn this morning of the passing of Harper Lee, one of America's most beloved authors. I'm honored to have the opportunity to adapt her seminal novel for the stage." --Mary Murphy, Emmy Award-winning independent film and television writer, producer and director whose documentary about Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird was broadcast on PBS American Masters: "I would say that her legacy is very much intact. 'To Kill a Mockingbird' is a rare, extraordinary novel that cut across everything in this country." --Longtime friend Wayne Flynt, who said he visited Lee last week: "She was witty, savagely witty as she always is. Her mind was keen." Esquire magazine weighed in with analysis of Lee's final year: Harper Lee's last year was the most interesting of her career: https://t.co/ueMOgDkFHf pic.twitter.com/wXsdkcd02C Esquire (@esquire) February 19, 2016 Birmingham-based Books-A-Million honored her memory: Truly one of the great authors of our time. Rest in peace, Harper Lee. Posted by Books-A-Million on Friday, February 19, 2016 Lee's publisher, HarperCollins, released a statement. In it, Publisher Michael Morrison said, "The world knows Harper Lee was a brilliant writer but what many don't know is that she was an extraordinary woman of great joyfulness, humility and kindness. She lived her life the way she wanted to - in private - surrounded by books and the people who loved her. I will always cherish the time I spent with her." In the statement, Lee's agent, Andrew Nurnberg, said, "Knowing Nelle these past few years has been not just an utter delight but an extraordinary privilege. When I saw her just six weeks ago, she was full of life, her mind and mischievous wit as sharp as ever. She was quoting Thomas More and setting me straight on Tudor history. We have lost a great writer, a great friend and a beacon of integrity." Gov. Robert Bentley issued a statement, quoting a beloved passage of "To Kill A Mockingbird" as a reminder of the lessons we should take from Lee's work: "Today, we mourn the loss of Alabama's treasured author Nelle Harper Lee. Harper Lee's literary impact reaches far beyond the borders of our state and nation. To Kill A Mockingbird has impacted people around the word. It is because of Harper Lee that the world knows about her special hometown of Monroeville, which celebrated the launch of Lee's second novel Go Set A Watchman last year. Harper Lee's legacy will live on as we introduce Scout, Jem, Atticus and Lee's beloved Macomb to future generations. I join Alabamians in praying for Harper Lee's family and the City of Monroeville in the difficult days ahead. "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view--" "Sir?" "--until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." May we honor Harper Lee by never losing sight of this." U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) released a statement on Lee's death: "Today I join Alabamians and all Americans in mourning the passing of Harper Lee. Ms. Lee's 'To Kill A Mockingbird' will live on as one of the most beloved, classic books in American history. Harper Lee was a true literary legend, and her work has impacted the lives of many. She will be deeply missed." Former President George W. Bush also spoke up: Former Pres. George W. Bush says Harper Lee "was ahead of her time...her hero Atticus Finch inspires every reader." pic.twitter.com/PyFXxU3X19 ABC News (@ABC) February 19, 2016 Birmingham Public Library Director Angela Fisher Hall said in a statement: "Lee's voice in the literary world will be sorely missed. The Birmingham Public Library joins fans across the world in mourning the death of author Harper Lee. She was a true icon in American literature." And of course, writers and fans responded: Harper Lee my 1st favorite author! I always wanted to interview her. She said" honey I already said everything I had to say". #RIPHarperLee Oprah Winfrey (@Oprah) February 19, 2016 Harper Lee said more in one book than most of us manage in a lifetime. Tony Parsons (@TonyParsonsUK) February 19, 2016 Harper Lee, thank you writing the single most important piece of fiction to ever come out of the Deep South. Your heart inspired us all. Aaron Suttles (@AaronSuttles) February 19, 2016 UA extends its deepest sympathies to family, friends and fans of literary legend Harper Lee, who studied law at UA. https://t.co/bRbexeOJHc The Univ. of Alabama (@UofAlabama) February 19, 2016 Nelle Harper Lee, 19262016, photo from 1945 Bells and Pomegranates (Huntingdon College yearbook). "It is an honor and a... Posted by Huntingdon College on Friday, February 19, 2016 Remembering Harper Lee, who died today. From the archives: Harper Lee, my daughter and me. https://t.co/J30DO09J7c pic.twitter.com/SXJDlSC43T NYT Opinion (@nytopinion) February 19, 2016 Rest in peace to Harper Lee. Here she is with her Rammer Jammer magazine staff at UA in 1947 (Corolla yearbook pic) pic.twitter.com/ltOi5UsK2s Mark Mayfield (@msm0202) February 19, 2016 You know what... #TKAMB is a book that changed my life. Maybe i should write one. Harper Lee inspired me & hopefully I can pay it forward erin brockovich (@ErinBrockovich) February 19, 2016 Now the NYTimes confirming it. RIP Harper Lee and thank you. Susan Orlean (@susanorlean) February 19, 2016 It's difficult to put into words how much I love "To Kill a Mockingbird". Harper Lee was an extraordinary author, and by... Posted by Dan Stout on Friday, February 19, 2016 The 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta on Thursday ruled against Alabama-based EWTN Global Catholic Network in its long-running battle against the government's insurance mandate requiring employer-sponsored health plans to provide coverage for contraception, sterilizations and abortion-inducing drugs. A three-judge panel issued a 2-1 decision more than a year after oral arguments before the Appeals Court. "We are extremely disappointed that the Court has refused to protect our religious freedom," said EWTN Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael P. Warsaw. "This decision by the Court of Appeals ignores the arguments that EWTN and numerous plaintiffs around the country have made with regard to this mandate. In effect, this decision orders EWTN to violate its religious beliefs and comply with the government's HHS mandate or pay massive fines to the IRS." EWTN, with headquarters in Irondale, Ala., filed its original lawsuit Feb. 9, 2012 against the Department of Health & Human Services, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and other government agencies seeking to stop the imposition of the contraception mandate as well as asking the court for a declaratory judgment that the mandate is unconstitutional. In the majority opinion, the Court said, "We accept the plaintiffs' sincere belief . . . that the accommodation puts them to a choice between honoring their religious beliefs and facing significant penalties. We nonetheless conclude that the accommodation imposes no substantial burden." "This is wrong,' said EWTN's lead attorney Lori Windham, Senior Counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. "Rather than provide these drugs and devices through its own exchanges, our government wants to punish EWTN for practicing its faith. This 2-1 decision is not the end. The government's unconstitutional mandate has lost repeatedly at the Supreme Court, and we believe it will lose again." The Attorney General of the State of Alabama filed a motion to join EWTN March 22, 2012 as a plaintiff in the lawsuit. That lawsuit was dismissed pending the final HHS mandate rules. The final rules released in July 2013 granted no relief to EWTN. In October 2013, EWTN and Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange joined together to challenge the HHS mandate. A federal judge ruled against EWTN in that case as well. Hours after the US Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby case in June 2014, the 11th Circuit granted EWTN an emergency injunction, protecting EWTN from the mandate while it filed an appeal. Today, a different panel of judges rendered a split decision, voting 2-1 against EWTN. In a dissenting opinion, Judge Gerald Bard Tjoflat wrote: "The majority runs roughshod over the sincerely held religious objections of Eternal Word Television Network," and concluded that "at bottom, the majority's reasoning takes aim at the heart of RFRA (the Religious Freedom Restoration Act) itself." EWTN has argued that as a Catholic institution it should not be forced to violate its beliefs. "As we have said repeatedly, contraception, abortion-inducing drugs and voluntary sterilization are not health care and the government should not force EWTN to provide them as part of our employer-sponsored health plan. We are grateful for the prayers and support of the EWTN Family over the course of this litigation, as well as all those who have written in support of our lawsuit and in support of religious liberty. We ask for continued prayers as we consider our response to the Court's decision." Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange issued a statement on the ruling: "I am disappointed in the ruling bu thte battle to defend religious liberty from federal assault continues as Alabama and 19 other states have joined a similar lawsuit, Zubik v. Burwell, before the U.S. Supreme Court this year," Strange wrote. "Religious non-profits like EWTN provide a tremendous service to the public and have no less a constitutional right to exercise their religious beliefs than an individual citizen." EWTN Global Catholic Network, in its 35th year, is the largest religious media network in the world. EWTN's 11 networks broadcast in multiple languages 24 hours a day, seven days a week to over 264 million television households in more than 145 countries and territories. EWTN services include direct broadcast satellite television and radio; AM & FM radio networks transmitted through SIRIUS/XM, iHeart Radio, and over 500 domestic and international radio affiliates; a worldwide shortwave radio service; the largest Catholic website in the U.S.; electronic and print news services, including "The National Catholic Register" newspaper, and two global wire services; as well as a publishing arm. Harper Lee, Wayne Flynt and Cathy Friedman stand together in 2006, when Lee came to Birmingham to accept a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Birmingham Pledge. Friedman was co-chair of the event. Dr. Wayne Flynt, a retired Auburn University history professor, and his wife, Dorothy, were longtime friends and visitors of Nelle Harper Lee, author of 'To Kill a Mockingbird.' Southern historian J. Wayne Flynt, a retired Auburn University professor who was a longtime friend of Harper Lee, reflected on her death today at the age of 89. Flynt refers to her novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" as "Harper Lee's gospel." He describes Lee as "a woman from the Southern edge of the Black Belt, chosen as the great prophet of justice and tolerance in America in the late 20th Century." Flynt was friends with Lee for decades and visited her frequently over the years. "It's a great loss," Flynt said. "She was a blythe spirit, a force." The foundation of Harper Lee the novelist was Harper Lee, the church woman, a devoted Methodist who studied the Bible and whose work echoed with its themes, he said. "That is the deep well from which she draws her literature," Flynt said. "It's unmistakably biblical." A lifelong Methodist, Lee was brought up in an era when biblical knowledge was the foundation of Southern literature. "She told me, 'Wayne, you're too intelligent to be a Baptist," said Flynt, an ordained Baptist minister. Flynt said her two published novels, "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Go Set a Watchman," have similar themes. For a clue on the meaning of "Watchman," look at how Lee viewed "Mockingbird," he said. Lee wrote a letter in 1966 to The Richmond News Leader responding to the Richmond, Va., area school board banning her book as "immoral" literature. "Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that 'To Kill a Mockingbird' spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code of honor and conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of all Southerners," Lee wrote. "She wouldn't consider herself a conventional Christian," Flynt said. But in a way, she wrote a Christian book. "It's about a fundamental set of Christian beliefs," Flynt said. "It's an allegorical tale of the gospel." Flynt and his wife, Dorothy, visited with Lee the Monday before the announcement of the publication of "Go Set a Watchman," and visited again the next Monday. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Harper Lee died on Feb. 19, 2016. She was 89. "She had 'The Collected Works of C.S. Lewis' on the ottoman," Flynt said, and it was obviously heavily used. "I just found that a strange possession," Flynt said. "I said, 'I didn't realize you were a C.S. Lewis fan.' She said, 'I think C.S. Lewis is the greatest Christian apologist of the 20th Century.'" She said her favorite was "Mere Christianity," and she'd also read "The Screwtape Letters" and the Narnia novels. "It was clear, she actually understands this guy," Flynt said. The journey of Atticus Finch Lee's sister, Louise Conner, once talked to Flynt about their father, Amasa Lee, the model for the fiction lawyer, Atticus Finch. "She said he was an inner Christian," Flynt recalled. "He was not ostentatious. He didn't go around asking if you were saved. He just tried to walk the walk as best he could within the confines of how he had to function." Lee burst back into the national headlines last year when the original version of her classic novel was published for the first time. It was originally called "God Set a Watchman," and Atticus Finch was not the saintly hero that appeared in a re-written novel done from the perspective of a child. "To Kill a Mockingbird" was published on July 11, 1960. "Go Set a Watchman" was published July 14, 2015 - a span of more than 55 years between publication of the two novels. While many objected to the publication of her original version, it actually worked as a sequel to "To Kill a Mockingbird," and Flynt found it a very powerful work. "After I read it, I realized, 'This is like Pilgrim's Progress.' It could be an updated version of John Bunyan. It's a pilgrimage that starts out in innocence. As Oscar Wilde said, as a child you think your father is perfect, then you realize he's not. Then we judge our parents. He's just a poor pilgrim on his way. He's tempted, he fails. Along comes his daughter, who says, 'You told me this, you told me that, you compromised, you're a hypocrite.'" That struggle with her father's identity as both hero and traitor reveals a complexity to the character and to her relationship with her father. "You can do what she did in 'Go Set a Watchman,' which is have it out with her dad," Flynt said. "As a consequence, you can find a way to forgiveness and reconciliation. It's a pilgrim's journey of innocence, sin, failure, forgiveness and reconciliation." Both novels address broad themes. "'To Kill a Mockingbird' was perceived originally as a race novel; now it's viewed as a novel on tolerance," Flynt said. "In a sense, it's beautifully relevant if you don't try to put it in cement." Biblical parables 'Go Set a Watchman' is a parable about generational conflict, sin," Flynt said. "'To Kill a Mockingbird' is more refined and beautiful, but 'Go Set a Watchman' is more believable. There are no perfect fathers, just like there are no perfect sons." That "Go Set a Watchman" works as a sequel and provides deeper insight into Atticus Finch was an amazing turn of literature, Flynt said. "Isn't wonderful?" he said. "The irony is too delightful. It's like a woman from the Southern edge of the Black Belt being chosen as the great prophet of justice and tolerance in American in the late 20th Century." The phrase "Go Set a Watchman" comes from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, in the King James Bible: "For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth." - Isaiah 21:6 It makes sense that Lee's first choice of a title for her novel was a King James biblical quote. "That's what she loved - the elegance of the language of the King James Version," Flynt said. "She grew up in a Bible-reading family. She was imprinted with it as a child." Isaiah was a prophet in the Kingdom of Judah, probably between about 740 B.C. and 698 B.C. In this verse, he is prophesying about the fall of Babylon. "Nelle (Harper Lee) probably likened Monroeville to Babylon," Flynt said. "The Babylon of immoral voices, the hypocrisy. Somebody needs to be set as the watchman to identify what we need to do to get out of the mess." Lee wrote "Go Set a Watchman" as the story of her protagonist, Scout, living as an adult in New York and returning home to Alabama. She was advised at the time by her editor to write the book from the viewpoint of a child, and to change the title, which became "To Kill a Mockingbird." Gregory Peck, who starred as Atticus Finch in the movie version of 'To Kill a Mockinbird,' accompanied Harper Lee to the movie's premiere in 1962. "It's about so much more than just race," Flynt said. "To me, Go Set, made Atticus real for me. I was just as adamant with my father as Harper Lee was with hers. We had this conversation through the great part of our lives. We came to peace with each other. You can only do that when you that when you allow somebody to be imperfect. That's what she did." Her choice of the phrase "Go Set a Watchman" as a title followed the tradition of William Faulkner, who liked biblical allusions in his work. "In the Southern literary renaissance, it was still a biblical culture in the South," Flynt said. "During that period, Faulkner turned out a piece called 'Absalom, Absalom!'" The title of Faulkner's 1936 novel alludes to King David's son, Absalom, who rebelled against his father. Faulkner's story creates a similar conflict between a father and son in Mississippi at the time of the Civil War. "Just about everything Faulkner writes, you can draw a scriptural message and a text," Flynt said. "'Go Set a Watchman' means, 'Somebody needs to be the moral compass of this town,'" Flynt said. "Isaiah was a prophet. God had set him as a watchman over Israel. It's really God speaking to the Hebrews, saying what you need to do is set a watchman, to set you straight, to keep you on the right path. What more elegant title could there be?" In the case of "To Kill a Mockingbird," Atticus Finch serves as the watchman. "Nelle saw her father as being the watchman on the metaphorical gate of Monroeville," Flynt said. "To me it's a beautiful title that was probably wildly out of fashion in 1960," Flynt said. "She had to change the title to 'Atticus,' then to 'To Kill a Mockingbird.'" Flynt said he likes the original title better. "It would have never been used as the first title," Flynt said. "There was not enough biblical literacy outside of the South." It reflected Lee's heroic view of her father, Flynt said. Thinking of Atticus Finch as a prophetic figure in Maycomb, Lee's fictional version of Monroeville, is the answer, he said. "It's clear she thinks her father was a watchman for the town," Flynt said. "He was a righteous and decent man who took a stand because it was the righteous and morally correct thing to do." Five (or so) new releases that are either good, not-so-good or just worth talking about. New this week SNOWFALL #1. Image. Written by Joe Harris. Art by Martin Morazzo. "Snowfall" in an interesting (shotgun?) wedding between two big picture concepts that both depict a depressing future for the United States with (1) a climate that has been so fundamentally altered that it no longer naturally snows (that "naturally" being a key word for some of the sci-fi elements in play here) and (2) corporations now so fully dominate the political landscape that the country's guiding philosophy is now a partnership between industry, government and community that has resulted in the Cooperative States of America. In the debut, college student Anthony Farrow decides to track down a mysterious eco-terrorist (here, meaning illegal snow-maker) called the White Wizard on the 10th anniversary of his last attack. Meanwhile, another "rogue" snowfall has occurred that may or may not be the Wizard's doing. Again, there are some big ideas going on in this book, and I'm not sure that pro-environment and anti-corporation necessarily go together at the high-concept level that writer Joe Harris is shooting for. "Snowfall" certainly presents some interesting ideas (and the debut was definitely not bad), but I'll need another issue or two before I'm sold on the book. Generalized Unique Emoticon Scientific Score: :-/, :-?, -\_(tu)_/- BILL & TED GO TO HELL #1. Boom!. Written Brian Joines. Art by Bachan. In order to appreciate or even comprehend "Bill & Ted Go to Hell" #1, you have to start with a pretty deep knowledge of 1989's "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" and the less excellent sequel "Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey" two years later. But if that's not enough, you also have to include "Bill & Ted's Most Triumphant Return," a six-issue miniseries from last year. So what I'm saying is that there's a pretty tall barrier to entry here. But saying you hop over it -- what's there to find on the other side? Well, it is cute and funny enough, I suppose, but "Go to Hell" #1 showcases the characters from the franchise doing more or less the things you'd expect them to do without much else. But outside of the titular quest to rescue an imprisoned Death from Hell, this feels like more of the same from "Triumphant Return." Unless this book adds something new to the mix in the remaining three issues, I'm not really sure there's much of a raison d'etre for Bill & Ted's latest adventure. GUESS: :-P, 0.o, :-/ SUPERZERO #3. Aftershock. Written by Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti. Art by Rafael de Latorre and Marcelo Maiolo. "SuperZero" is a charmingly funny and occasionally profoundly sad series about a teenager named Dru who is desperate to obtain superhero powers. She is, in essence, delusional and her plans, while reasonable to her, are obviously absurd: in #1, she hires a homeless veteran to mug her parents so as to gain Batman's angst and thirst for revenge, while in #2, she tries to arrange for a radioactive spider bite (she has to settle for ants and the result is predictably painful). In #3, Dru focuses on the occult and supernatural powers (ala Spawn and Ghost Rider), but her quest again fails when a dog ruins her seance. There's a lot to like in this series, with a special sweetness surrounding Dru and her continued insistence that her life (without these fantastic powers that are impossible to obtain) is meaningless. The series is also smartly based in the real comic book world with continued references to actual characters from other publishers. (I can think of few things more tedious than suffering contrived references to imaginary superheroes like "Vigilante Man" or something equally lame.) Two parts sweet, one part sad and one part comic book nerdery, "SuperZero" is a fresh and fun book. GUESS: :'-), \0/, :-) Last week's leftovers LIMBO #4. Image. Written by Dan Watters. Art by Caspar Wijngaard. If I could pick a comic book universe to live in, the bright, bold and beautiful world of "Limbo" would be pretty high on my list because it'd be fun to walk around in the neon pastels and soak up the realm that artist Caspar Wijngaard and writer Dan Watters have so expertly created over the course of four splendid issues. It would be magical (and impossible, of course, but stay with me) -- assuming I could avoid the alligators, crime bosses, cannibals and other catastrophes that always seem to be lurking on the murky edges of "Limbo." I obviously wouldn't bet on me staying alive for any extended period of time, but the wealth of weirdness alone could crack anyone -- just look at hero Clay's semi-rhetorical "Doesn't anyone in this town ever just shoot a guy?" line on the first page of #4. (That and "The alligator is eating your guests" are some of the best, quirkiest lines I've read in a long time.) Clay, abducted at the conclusion of #3, has been beaten and betrayed, but he's not broken. And, sure, he half-drowns while trying to avoid the aforementioned man-eating gator, but he's still standing, left at the end of this issue trying to figure out his past and his place in Dedande City. Sandy, seen in this issue reconnecting with the spirits, continues to be a strong ally, and her views on mixtapes give #4 a sweet sensibility. As Wijngaard suggested on Twitter, , and I get the sense that a powerful look at Clay and the other characters is now beginning. The world -- so alive in its color and detail -- is immersive, and the story will suck you in like swamp muck. "Limbo" continues to be a must read. GUESS: :-D, (@_@), (^O^) THE DARK AND BLOODY #1. Vertigo. Written by Shawn Aldridge. Art by Scott Godlewski and Trish Mulvihill. Iris Gentry is a good ol' boy in every sense of the phrase -- he served in Iraq (where he left his peace of mind) and returned to the hollers in Kentucky where he grew up to sell moonshine and look after his wife and young son. And things are good, with the law leaving him alone and the locals raving about his product. But it's easy to figure out in a series named "The Dark & Bloody" and billed as a horror book that things are going to go south, and indeed they do when two of Gentry's customers fall prey to a mysterious evil while driving home after picking up a batch of 'shine. I can't evaluate this book on its spooktacular merits as the debut issue really wasn't premised on delivering shivers. Instead, "The Dark & Bloody" #1 is focused on telling the story of Iris Gentry and building a relationship between him and readers, and on that count, the debut is a rousing success. Iris is a living, breathing man with hopes for his life in Kentucky and fears he brought home from war. If the series can bring new supernatural horror into his life and threaten what he loves, it could well be a captivating read. GUESS: :-), %-), =O A second Birmingham Baby Cafe opened last night in East Lake to encourage and support breastfeeding with a combination of peer support and expert advice. The latest Baby Cafe will happen every Thursday from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at East 59 Vintage and Cafe. The first Baby Cafe opened in 2013 and happens every Friday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Sixth Avenue Baptist Church. Dr. Elizabeth Sahlie, a pediatrician at the Simon-Williamson Clinic and one of the founders of Birmingham's Baby Cafes, said the goal of the program is to increase breastfeeding, particularly among low-income and African-American women. Breastfeeding rates in Alabama are far below the national average, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "The idea behind a Baby Cafe is that it's a very relaxed atmosphere," Sahlie said. "It's sort of a place where people can hang out there and talk, and help is available there." Two lactation counselors will be available to assist women or answer questions about breastfeeding. Food, diapers and T-shirts will also be available for women. Sahlie and several other providers joined forces to organize the Baby Cafe. Her partners included Dr. Jesanna Cooper, Dr. Marquisha Jarmon and lactation consultant Marcia Davis. They also received a grant in 2015 from the National Association of County and City Health Officials. The grant paid for training for 20 volunteers, Sahlie said. Two lactation counselors trained in the program will lead the Baby Cafe in East Lake. Sahlie said breastfeeding benefits babies and mothers, but more women need support with the process. She cited a recent study published in the medical journal Lancet that estimated that 800,000 child deaths worldwide could be prevented by universal breastfeeding. Infant death and poor health overall are more common in Alabama than other parts of the country, and Sahlie said citizens could improve those numbers in part by breastfeeding. Studies have shown that breastfed babies suffer fewer infections than formula-fed infants, Sahlie said. And other studies have suggested a link between breastfeeding and better health in the long-term. Mothers who breast feed have lower rates of breast cancer, heart disease and diabetes, Sahlie said. "We could improve health metrics in Alabama right now," Sahlie said. "We have poorer health metrics than the rest of the country. But you have to provide support. Women have to be educated about what the benefits are." The counselors at Baby Cafe can advise women about the benefits and help women troubleshoot some problems. Scales are available for women to use to weigh their babies. The services are free and available without an appointment, Sahlie said. "In another generation, it's what you would have done with your mom or your sister," Sahlie said. "Now women can also come here." Hoover Suspect Marquise Williams.jpg Marquise Williams is charged with 6 counts of robbery in Hoover and 4 counts of robbery in Birmingham targeting Hispanic victims. (Hoover Police) A 24-year-old man charged for robberies in Birmingham earlier this week is now charged in a string of Hoover holdups targeting Hispanic victims. Marquise Dante Williams is charged with six counts of first-degree robbery in three separate Hoover incidents, said Capt. Gregg Rector. His bond on the Hoover crimes totals $360,000. He already is being held on four robbery warrants from Birmingham where the victims were also Hispanic. His bond is $160,000 in the Birmingham crimes for a total of $520,000. "Marquise Williams is a violent and dangerous individual who has been arrested multiple times on a variety of charges," Rector said. "For at least the past four months, he has made it his habit to rob Hispanic victims at gunpoint. He has struck some of them in the head with a handgun, and recently struck a victim with his fists." "None of these individuals ever resisted or did anything in any way to provoke violence from their attacker,'' he said. "He was clearly picking on people he perceived to be easy victims who likely had cash. He was not going to stop until he was arrested again." The Hoover robberies began Nov. 17 when, police said, Williams robbed four men at gunpoint near the 1800 building at Hampton Place apartments. He stole cell phones and several hundred dollars, Rector said. On Jan. 6, another victim was robbed at gunpoint of $5 and a cell phone while he was inside the laundry room, also at Hampton Place apartments. That crime was captured on video and released to the media on Jan. 12. Less than a month later - on Feb. 10 - another robbery happened near an apartment patio, again near the 1800 building at the same complex. Rector said Williams stole three cell phones and hit the victim in the head with his fist before fleeing the scene. That victim was also one of the four men targeted in the November holdup. Rector said the charges announced today stem from those three incidents, but Williams is suspected in other robberies. One of those robberies he is suspected, but not charged in, happened at Lorna Place Apartments. The victim was in the 900 building when a black male with a handgun approached him and demanded money. When the victim refused, the assailant hit him in the head with the gun and fled on foot in the direction of the Walmart Neighborhood Market. Birmingham police on Tuesday announced their charges against Williams in connection with holdups on the city's Southside. Those robberies happened Feb. 10 and Feb. 13, all in the 600 block of Idlewild Circle. Birmingham police Lt. Sean Edwards confirmed those victims were also Hispanic. In the Feb. 10 Birmingham robbery, according to court records, two victims were robbed of a combined $530 and a cell phone. On Feb. 13, warrants show Williams robbed two more victims of a cell phone and a combined $800. Williams was armed with a pistol in both incidents. In addition to the robbery charges announced this week, Williams already was awaiting trial on a first-degree robbery charge. Court records show he was arrested Aug. 24 after police say he robbed a man at gunpoint in July of his watch, ring, wallet and $270. That case is set for possible settlement on March 22. Williams on Oct. 7, 2015 received a five-year sentence with two years to serve for third-degree burglary, but received credit for time already served in the Jefferson County Community Corrections Program, said Alabama Department of Corrections spokesman Bob Horton. In January, Williams was charged with escaped, Horton said. In October 2012, Williams was arrested on a charge of receiving stolen property. He pleaded guilty the following year and was sentenced to one-year suspended sentence. His probation on that case was revoked in July of 2014 when he admitted to a judge he had been charged with two new felonies and his original one-year sentence was put back into place. He was, however, given credit for time already served in the county jail. Also in 2012, Williams was arrested for attempted murder after police say he shot at a woman with the intent to kill her. In 2013, he pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment and received a 1-year sentence. Rector said Birmingham police patrol officers did a fantastic job apprehending Williams after a robbery and subsequent foot chase on Saturday. Birmingham Robbery Unit detectives then contacted Hoover detectives after making the connection to similar crimes in Hoover. "When our detectives interviewed Williams, he tried to minimize robbing people at gunpoint and insinuated that his crimes weren't that bad because he didn't shoot anyone,'' Rector said. "We obviously need to make room in prison for one more because our community is not safe with this person roaming the streets and preying on innocent people." Two teens already charged in the murder of a Hoover man and a string of car break-ins in that city, as well as Pelham, are now charged in Fultondale. Charleston Wells, 16, and Ahmad Johnson, 17, are charged with attempted murder after police say they shot at a man in Fultondale on Jan. 4 while breaking into cars in the Chapel Hills subdivision. The warrants in the Fultondale case were issued Wednesday, and made public late this afternoon. Bond for both teens on the attempted murder charge is set at $500,000 each. Just 25 hours before Hoover husband, father and Iraq war veteran Mike Gilotti was fatally gunned down on the steps of his Lake Cyrus home, another man narrowly escaped the same fate. The 39-year-old man leaving a Chapel Hills home in the predawn hours encountered two young men in his driveway. Moments later, he was dodging a hail of gunfire. The shooters missed, and the victim was spared. Investigators in both Hoover and Pelham have said there was little doubt those gunmen are the same that killed 33-year-old Mike Gilotti one day later and about 16 miles away. The victim in that case, police said, hasn't been cooperative but Fultondale police Chief D.P. Smith said today forensics connected the crime in Fultondale. "We're pleased the warrants were issued because this incident could have been as bad or worse than what happened in Hoover,'' Smith said. "By the grace of God, this man wasn't killed." Wells and Johnson are charged with murder in Gilotti's death as well as nine car break-ins in Hoover. In Pelham, they are charged with first-degree robbery and first-degree theft of property in a Dec. 31, 2015 incident that happened while a man was sitting in his car outside his home in the Holland Lakes subdivision. Police say the teens were going through the neighborhood, shaking car door handles to steal items from unlocked vehicles. Pelham police Capt. David Rushton said the teens stole the man's money and cell phone, but the victim wasn't injured. Authorities said police responded to the scene and later spotted the suspects. The officer stopped behind them and pulled back when all four windows on the stolen 2007 Chevrolet Silverado they were driving dropped down. Officers pursued the suspects on I-65 and lost them in Bessemer. The Fultondale charges are the latest in a string of accusations against Wells and Johnson. Investigators have said Johnson, Wells and the other suspects are members of a Bessemer-area gang called M-tre, which stands for Money Making Mafia. Though they claim to be aspiring rappers, Rector said M-tre members are street criminals who break into cars and commit other crimes to get money. They often post pictures of themselves on Facebook and other social media sites holding guns and money. Hoover police and Jefferson County District Attorney Bill Veitch announced the murder warrant against Wells on Jan. 15, and against Johnson on Feb. 4. Bond for Wells in the murder case is set at $1.35 million, Johnson's bond is set at $1 million. Their bond is Pelham is $255,000 each. At a recent court hearing, Veitch described this timeline of crimes in the days leading up to Gilotti's death that the gang is believed to have that Veitch described in court: - Dec. 28, 2015, four unlocked cars are broken into in Trussville and a Tacoma pickup truck is also taken. The gang is rolling through neighborhoods checking cars that are unlocked, Veitch said. - Dec. 29, the Tacoma is found wrecked with a cellphone recovered that is believed to belong to Wells. - Dec. 31, the suspects, in a stolen 2007 Chevrolet Silverado, find a man inside. They pull guns and steal the man's money and cellphone. A Pelham police officer stops behind them and when all four windows drop down the officer pulls back and the truck speeds off. A chase ensues on Interstate 65 but police lose them in Bessemer. - Wells' girlfriend admits to police that Wells contacted her early Jan. 1 from the cellphone belonging to the victim in the Silverado theft. Wells tells his girlfriend that he had lost his phone. - Jan. 4 about 4:20 a.m. shots are fired at a Fultondale resident as he walked to his vehicle from his house. His 2003 Chevrolet Malibu is stolen. - Jan. 5 a Chevrolet Tahoe is stolen from McCalla and several vehicles are broken into in Tuscaloosa County. One of those vehicles is that of a Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Deputy and .40 caliber ammunition and a Taser are taken. A 2004 Ford F250 pickup is also stolen in Tuscaloosa county and when it is recovered later that day property from the Hoover car break-ins is inside. - At 4:30 a.m. to 5 a.m. Gilotti is shot and a .40 caliber and 9 mm shell casings are recovered. Video surveillance from the neighborhood shows the Ford F250 pickup stolen that night out of Tuscaloosa County. - Jan. 7 Bessemer police recover the Chevrolet Malibu in possession of Johnson and a .40 caliber and 9mm pistol. Wells fingerprints were in the car. The Ford F250 also had Wells' fingerprints inside. After launching a database providing a behind-the-scenes look into Alabama Media Group's newspaper photo archives, we heard from many readers who picked specific sets of images they'd like to see revealed. Heather Youngblood expressed interest in an envelope containing Birmingham News photo negatives from 1976 showing Lakeview School students putting items inside a sculpture for future students to find. "The pictures were taken the day before I was born," Youngblood wrote, asking questions about the time capsule. "Has it been opened? What was in there? If not opened, when will it be opened? I would love to know what was going on with these kids/people the day before I was born. I'm nosy!" That envelope also caught the attention of University of Alabama journalism students working with Alabama Media Group in a digital storytelling partnership called "Lost Stories." Together, we're discovering new stories from the photos in our archives. In an examination of the photos you asked about, here's what we found: * * * By Maggie Rocker and Sammie Auer When Branko Medenica filed for unemployment in 1976, his job request was met with incredulity from the office's secretary. Never in her 20 years of work had anyone ever asked for an "art job." A week later, however, the secretary called Medenica. Lakeview School in Birmingham was requesting a sculptor to help commemorate its transition from a traditional elementary school to an alternative school with an "Arts-in-Education" curriculum. Branko Medenica works in steel and bronze to create another flame-shaped sculpture for Fort Mitchell in 2002. (Hal Yeager/The Birmingham News/ALcom/Alabama Media Group) For eight months, Medenica worked to construct a sculpture symbolic of the school's transformation, using concrete and steel rebar to make the piece as durable as possible. At 15 feet, it towered over students and faculty members. He called it "Resurgence." "It was a rebirth of the school, so that's where my inspiration for the piece came from," said Medenica, owner of Sculpture Sights in Birmingham. "I remember that when I made 'Resurgence,' I wanted it to look like it had come out of the ground, hence the raised area around the sculpture. Some people thought it looked like a flame, but I was just thinking in the abstract." Nestled within the center column of "Resurgence" was a time capsule containing the effects and creations of Lakeview School's student body. School administrators had installed the time capsule for future students to discover. Their plan went unrealized when the building was sold in 1981. The 12-ton sculpture was razed by a bulldozer that same year, along with the time capsule it contained. "[The company] called me up and asked me if I wanted the sculpture," Medenica reminisced. "I told them there was no way in heck they'd be able to move it; it was 12 tons and the foundation was solid concrete. But I asked them to tell me the day they were planning on demolishing it so I could get pictures. They never did." Debris from the sculpture's demolition was relocated to a tunnel that ran underneath 28th Street South, connecting Lakeview School to Underwood Park across the street. (The park was later moved to 10th Avenue South and 26th Street South when St. Vincent's expanded.) Five years later, the underpass was filled - effectively entombing the remnants of the sculpture and the time capsule. For Medenica, all of this is just a single memory in a decades-long career. Though he sometimes ruminates over fallen and neglected sculptures, he'd rather spend his time creating. "I've made hundreds of sculptures throughout my career," he said. "But I was amazed when I was going over some old files of mine and thinking, 'Oh my god.' I got tired of looking at them because I remembered all the work I put into them." According to Medenica's website, brankoart.com, the German-born artist has been a professional sculptor since 1983, though he worked as a sculptor for J.C. McGahan Company from 1976 to 1983. He was a business student fresh out of college when a chance encounter with a magazine first encouraged him to pursue a career in the arts. "I read that 74 percent of the public ends up in jobs they merely tolerate and don't like," he said. "I didn't want to be in that majority. When it came to art, time would just be meaningless for me." Sculptor Branko Medenica poses in his studio in Birmingham in 2012. (Michelle, Campbell, The Birmingham News/AL.com/Alabama Media Group) Medenica has designed a number of large-scale works, his tallest being "The Rainbow" at 32 feet, located in Rainbow City, Ala. He also constructed a miniature Vulcan in 1984 that was sent as a gift from Birmingham to its sister city, Hitachi, Japan. When asked about his success in the field of art, Medenica cited one attribute as being particularly influential in an artist's ability to make a living. "You have to have a passion for it," he said. "It has to be a driving force, because if it's not, you won't be able to endure the hard times, and there will be hard times - no doubt." Medenica's passion is evident in his studio surroundings. Scribbled on the walls in pencil are inspirational quotes, designed to stir his creativity. One quote etched into a door frame reads: "In order to reach your creative flow, concentrate on the pure joy of the process rather than the goal." The author behind this wisdom? Branko Medenica. Samantha Auer is a junior from Danville, Calif., double majoring in journalism and Spanish. Maggie Rocker is a senior from Robert, La., double majoring in journalism and political science. Hanna Curlette, who also contributed to this report, is a junior from Birmingham, double majoring in journalism and art. An envelope from the archives of The Birmingham News contains photo negatives from 1976 showing Lakeview School students putting items in a sculpture for future students to find. About the photos Found: Subject: Source: Photos by: Year: AL.com Vintage Stashed away and unseen for decades are millions more historic images from Alabama's largest newspapers. AL.com is opening the vault and inviting you in. Check out AL.com/vintage for more discoveries from the archives. John Clayton Owens penalty phase.jpg John Clayton Owens is escorted into the courtroom Thursday afternoon for the penalty phase of his capital murder trial. Owens, 32, was convicted of killing 91-year-old Doris Richardson in her Bide-A-Wee Drive home on Aug. 26, 2011. (Crystal Bonvillian/cbonvillian@al.com) Emotions were high Thursday afternoon as witnesses pleaded for the life - and for the death - of John Clayton Owens, convicted of capital murder in the death of his 91-year-old neighbor. Gone were the suit and tie Owens, 32, wore Thursday morning as the jury handed down the guilty verdict. When he returned to court after lunch, he wore the standard-issue orange jumpsuit of the Madison County jail. He was allowed to change back into his suit before the jury was brought back into the courtroom. Assistant District Attorney Tim Gann explained to jurors that the state would present to them three "aggravators" with which to weigh Owens' punishment: The murder occurred in the process of a burglary; Owens was a person under sentence - he was on probation for a previous offense at the time of the crime; and The murder was "especially heinous, atrocious and cruel" when compared to other cases. The defense would introduce "mitigators," Gann said, facts and details of Owens' life that could serve to lighten his sentence from death to life without the possibility of parole. "I believe that you will find that the aggravators outweigh the mitigators," Gann said. "At that time, we will ask you for a sentence of death." Defense attorney Brian Clark showed the jurors childhood photos of Owens as he described Owens' troubled childhood, during which he was sometimes forced to steal food in order for him and his younger brother to eat. He also used drugs at an early age to mask the pain of his upbringing, the defense lawyer said. "I wasn't familiar with the term feral until a few years ago," Clark said. "I love John Owens, but he was a feral young man. He had to be." Clark said mitigation is neither a reason nor an excuse, but that it should be given due weight in determining his client's punishment. Owens, 32, was convicted Thursday morning of capital murder in the 2011 strangulation death of his neighbor, Doris Richardson. The 91-year-old was found dead in her bed on Aug. 26, 2011, by her only child, Carolyn Bentley. Bentley declined to speak to AL.com about the case other than to say that it had been "a long four and a half years" awaiting the trial in her mother's murder. Owens' family members were adamant throughout the trial that Owens, who they called "Little John," did not kill Richardson, despite the fact that he admitted to burglarizing her home. Owens claimed he broke in and stole coins, jewelry and guns from the elderly woman more than a week before she was killed. Owens' stepsister, Jennifer Sheedy, who clutched rosary beads as the verdict was read, told AL.com that the jurors convicted the wrong man. "I just know that my brother is innocent. I feel for the Richardson family, but I just feel like justice wasn't done," Sheedy said tearfully. Bentley was the first witness called to the stand Thursday afternoon for the penalty phase of the trial. Prosecutor Bill Starnes walked her through her family's history in their home at 2206 Bide-A-Wee Drive, which Doris and Arnold Richardson moved into in 1954. Arnold Richardson died in December 2000 at the age of 80. Bentley talked about her mother's joy in socializing at the Five Points Beauty Salon, where she had a standing Friday appointment each week. It was when she missed that appointment that Bentley got worried and found her mother murdered. "She was 91, but she took pride in herself. She was dressed up every day with her hose and her makeup," Bentley said. Though Richardson was tiny, not even 5 feet tall, she was active and spent time with her daughter every day. Bentley said she last saw her mother when she dropped her off at her home around 9:30 p.m. on Aug. 25, just hours before Richardson was killed. Starnes showed Bentley an autopsy photo of her mother's arm, which had heavy bruising. He asked if her mother had those bruises their last evening together, and she tearfully said no. Bentley cried as she described the aftermath of the murder and having to go back into her childhood home, expecting to see her mother there but knowing she would not. "She was gone." 'I did the best I could as a mom' The defense called a number of character witnesses to the stand, including Owens' stepmother, Faye Owens. She testified that she came into the defendant's life when he was just 3 years old. John Owens put his hand over his face and cried as his stepmother wept over childhood pictures of him and his brother Greg, who is 11 months younger than John. The two were inseparable, Owens said. Both boys were classified in school as special education students. Though he was not one to pick a fight, John would be the first one there to protect his brother, she said. She described him as a gentle boy who delved into drinking and marijuana at a young age, prompted by his biological mother. She accused the woman of giving him wine coolers and marijuana when he was as young as 8 years old. Under cross-examination by Gann, Owens said she and her husband got custody of John Owens when he was six. They had primary custody, though his birth mother did have visitation rights. Gann asked if she and her husband tried to teach their children right from wrong. "I tried. I did the best I could as a mom. And he was going to the Mental Health Center. We'd go to the center once a month and he was on medication," Owens said. Gann asked if she or her husband had ever kept food from John or his brother, and she said they did not. She did say, however, that the brothers told of being denied food before they were placed in the custody of their father and stepmother. The prosecutor asked about trouble between John and his father. At trial, there was discussion of his being thrown out and forced to live with his uncle, Thomas Owens, who lived next door to Richardson on Bide-A-Wee Drive. Owens denied that John was thrown out of the house, but said that all of their children were urged to leave at 18 and make a life of their own. She told Gann she tried to help her stepson get a job. After his getting into trouble with the law, however, he moved in with his uncle. Less than a year later, Richardson was murdered. Faye Owens wept openly as she again talked about doing her best to teach her stepson right from wrong. "I'm so sorry, John," she cried. Other witnesses, including Owens' younger brother, cast doubt on some of his stepmother's words. Greg Owens, who is on disability for Tourette's Syndrome, post traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder and other mental conditions, testified that their father sometimes padlocked the refrigerator. Once, he said, their father caught them drinking and beat them until they were able to spell the word "Budweiser." He also testified that he cannot stomach seafood today because he and his brother were sometimes forced to eat cat food. "Mayonnaise and tuna fish can not enter my body," Greg Owens said. He credited his older brother with making sure he was fed and safe when they were young. "If not for John, I wouldn't be here," Greg said. Greg described growing up with his brother as a good experience, except for the situations the young boys found themselves dragged into. He said both he and his brother attended numerous schools as they were shuffled between Tennessee and Alabama by their parents. He described living with their biological mother as "interesting;" living with their father "shifted" over the years. Their father, John Clayton Owens Sr., at one point was a crack abuser, Greg said. Dr. Marianne Rosenzweig, a defense forensic psychologist, also painted a grim picture of Owens' background. His parents met in the U.S. Army and married while stationed in Texas, but his father, who Rosenzweig called "Big John," was arrested the day of their wedding for shoplifting alcohol. He had multiple arrests on drug charges as well, and the defendant's mother Lori, who found out she was pregnant while her husband was in the brig, ended up moving in with her in-laws in Huntsville. Rosenzweig testified that she spent about 52 hours talking to 20 people in Owens' life, as well as reviewing his police, medical and psychiatric records, along with medical, criminal and psychiatric records of his parents and brother. She also requested records from the Madison County Department of Human Resources documenting complaints of neglect. She said she had not caught Owens' biological mother in any outright lies and that the woman had owned up to her own faults as a parent. She said John Clayton Owens Sr. had lied multiple times, however, and that his own family members described him as a "compulsive liar who would lie even when there was no need to." The proceedings were halted for the day in the midst of Rosenzweig's testimony. She will return to the stand Friday morning. A lengthy criminal history Emily Johnson, John Owens' probation officer prior to the homicide, also testified for the state Thursday afternoon. Johnson testified that she became Owens' probation supervisor in October 2010. Owens was due to meet with Johnson the day Richardson's body was found. Prosecutors theorized that he broke into the woman's home in the hopes of coming up with cash for that meeting. In August 2011, Owens was required to meet with Johnson weekly because he had not been following the rules of his probation, including paying his fees and holding down a job. He had also tested positive for marijuana that summer. Johnson's testimony was the most that jurors heard about Owens' status as a convicted felon. That fact was mentioned during trial, but they were not allowed to take those previous crimes into consideration when determining his guilt. Prior to the break-in at Richardson's house, Owens had a lengthy history of burglaries that bore striking similarities to the most recent one. He was convicted of theft and criminal mischief in 2008, sentenced to time served and placed on probation. Court records show that he violated his probation the following year with a new arrest on three new burglary charges. According to court records in the first new case, Owens in January 2009 broke into his neighbor's home on Joe Quick Road in Hazel Green. Like in the Richardson case, there was damage to a door jamb from the door being pried open. At that time, a revolver was stolen from the victim. The woman called investigators again two months later, saying that her home had been broken into twice more and pointing to Owens as a suspect. He had recently moved in next door and she had seen him walking by her home multiple times. Owens confessed his involvement in that burglary to Madison County Sheriff's Office investigators, the documents show. In the second case, Owens broke into another home in Hazel Green twice in February 2009, stealing another revolver and loose change he found in a metal can. That case again had parallels to the Richardson case, in which guns and old collectible coins were stolen. Owens subsequently admitted to the second and third 2009 burglaries as well. He was ordered in May 2009 to serve the remainder of his sentence in the 2008 case. For the new crimes, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison, but that sentence was suspended and he was placed on probation for five years. During Owens' murder trial, jurors heard audio of his statement to police, in which he talks about having skipped a meeting with his probation officer the day Richardson's body was found. Owens' probation was revoked once again the month after Richardson was murdered for his failure to report and failure to pay his court-ordered costs and probation supervision fees. He was sentenced at that point to serve the 12 years he got in the 2009 burglaries. Court records show he was being held at Kilby Correctional Facility before being returned to Madison County for proceedings in his murder trial. bates massey Madison County school board president Angie Bates, left, and Superintendent Mat Massey. (Paul Gattis/pgattis@al.com) The Madison County Board of Education voted Thursday night to oppose a proposal by Superintendent Matt Massey to build a new high school in Monrovia for grades 11 and 12. The board approved a resolution opposing Massey's plan in a 3-2 vote. Board members Dan Nash, Jeff Anderson and David Vess voted against the plan while Angie Bates and Mary Louise Stowe voted in favor of Massey's plan. The board discussed the issue for about 45 minutes before voting, peppering Massey with questions about the plan that would split Sparkman High School that he first revealed at a press conference on Wednesday. "That was a slap in the face to me personally as a board member," Nash said of the press conference. Questions board members asked Massey about included the costs and logistics of transporting students between campuses as well as concerns about students in grades 9-10 taking AP courses in grades 11-12. Massey said that wouldn't be an issue. Massey, in a direct question from Nash on if he would support an 11-12 format elsewhere in the county and the superintendent said, depending on the circumstances, he would. The proposal to the U.S. Department of Justice and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund called for a 1,200-student high school at Monrovia. Plans originally called for a 1,600-student high school for grades 9 through 12. "This was a very thorough process that we went through," Massey said. "A lot of time and research went into it." After the meeting, Massey told AL.com that the grade 11-12 format for the new high school had been submitted to the DOJ and the NAACP in July 2015 with the board's knowledge. But that proposal was not publicly revealed until Massey's press conference Wednesday. Bates, the board president, said after the meeting that the board was advised by its attorney not to discuss the plan publicly because it was technically a part of pending litigation as the school system operates under a desegregation order. The board, in the 3-2 vote, expressed its opposition to the plan in a resolution, which is not a binding vote. Massey said it's possible that the 11-12 format could be considered again. "Everything is on the table," he said. Still, board members took issue with different aspects of the 11-12 plan. Jeff Anderson disagreed with Massey, saying it would decrease opportunities for students in extracurricular activities and athletics rather than increase them. Nash recounted steps the board has already taken over the years to ease overcrowding at Sparkman, describing the 9th Grade Academy and a new wing on the school as "band-aids." "This is a second band-aid to what Sparkman Nine was," he said. Massey repeated advantages of the 11-12 proposal that he outlined in Wednesday's press conference, saying it would maintained the academic standards already in place at Sparkman while also providing all students two years at the new school. Under the 9-12 plan, depending on where the zone lines were drawn, about half of the Sparkman students would not attend the new school, Massey said. The board meeting and the expected discussion on the Monrovia high school plan drew attention. Madison County Commission Chair Dale Strong, who has been outspoken against the 11-12 plan and critical of the slow pace of the project, attended the meeting as well as Commissioners Bob Harrison and Phil Vandiver. Alice Sams and Rev. Robert Shanklin of the Madison County-Huntsville chapter of the NAACP, also attended. The 11-12 proposal received a favorable review from 7 of the 13 community committee members appointed to study plans and develop proposed zone lines for the new high school, Massey said. Highlights of the proposal included plans to shuttle students between the campuses during the final block period each day for athletic practices and other after-school activities. While practice fields and a practice gym would be built at the new school, the proposal called for all athletic competition venues to remain at Sparkman. The 9th-grade academy at Sparkman High would be used for a to-be-determined purpose. Massey said the 11-12 format is used in a handful of school systems across the country but none in Alabama. Childrens voices rang out in the Chapel of the Good Shepherd, singing the title track Glory from the movie Selma. The Albany Middle Schools chorus sang to a capacity crowd during the annual Black History Program held aboard Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, Feb. 10. Col. James C. Carroll III, commanding officer, MCLB Albany, shared with the audience the reason for the program. He said it is to celebrate ancestors who gave so much to ensure greater opportunities for people today. Carroll pointed out, the common thread of each celebrated African-American in history is their service. He challenged people to evaluate their own legacy. He suggested evaluating milestones not yet achieved relating to service to others and how each person can contribute to bringing them to fruition. The keynote speaker, Michael Persley, chief, Albany Police Department, Albany, Georgia, has served more than two decades with both the police department and the Georgia Army National Guard. Although he has dedicated his life to serving people, Persley admitted to being shy when it comes to speaking to large crowds. He explained he uses an ice breaker to overcome the issue. You have the right to remain silent, the police chief said. Laughter erupted from the audience as Persley flashed a slight grin. Ok, I feel better, he said. Persley continued his speech by taking the audience back as far as the Mayflower and progressing through time, pointing out the struggles of African-Americans. He said there has been tremendous impact made by the sacrifices of ancestors who chose to serve. Persley chronicled events such as the end of slavery; the walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, Selma, Alabama; the Freedom Riders arriving in Montgomery Alabama and the Little Rock Nine, Little Rock, Arkansas, being escorted into Little Rock High School as pivotal moments in time. What was being said, he questioned about those events? Persley provided an answer for the audience. We were defining ourselves as a country accepting of all colors, races and a nexus for freedom. In closing, Persely urged each person to take full advantage of the opportunities available to them from those sacrifices. He also challenged everyone to contribute to the creation of new opportunities for future generations. Also during the event, Verda L. Parker, public affairs specialist, MCLB Albany, recited The Party by Paul Laurence Dunbar which allowed attendees to view a party through the eyes of a party goer in the early 1900s. Jasmine Cox recited a poem highlighting current events and struggles of today. Her presentation brought the crowd to their feet, giving Cox a standing ovation. Marines and civilian-Marines with Marine Corps Support Facility, Blount Island Command, Jacksonville, Florida, and soldiers from the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, conducted a four-day, joint redeployment operation aboard BICmd, Jan. 13-17. For the soldiers of the 101st CAB, nicknamed the Wings of Destiny, returning to BICmd has brought them full circle. The unit departed BICmd in March 2015 for a nine-month deployment to Afghanistan. During the joint redeployment operation, several Apache, Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters were offloaded from the Cape Race, a vehicle carrier stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, and taken to a storage lot aboard BICmd. The aircraft were then reassembled and flown back to Fort Campbell. Marine Maj. Perry Smith, operations officer, BICmd, said supporting the 101st CABs redeployment is a new operation for the command. We were asked several months ago to help the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade and we jumped at the opportunity with the deployment and now the redeployment, Smith said. It was important for the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade because it gave them a secure place where they could assemble their helicopters and fly them back safely. According to Smith, the joint operation is an opportunity to continue to strengthen the joint service relationship and for BICmd to conduct operations outside of supporting Marine expeditionary forces. (The operation) is another opportunity to exercise our capabilities as a support facility, he said. Army Lt. Col. Kenric Smith, commander, 96th Aviation Support Battalion, 101st CAB, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, said BICmd was critical for 101st CABs deployment and redeployment operations. This is the culmination of the nine-month event, Smith said. I think this is a very complex, expensive undertaking to move a brigades worth of aircraft over the sea, assemble them and fly them back to their home station. (An operation such as this) takes (several) months (of planning) and hundreds of people to pull it off and we really appreciate all the help we received, he continued. We have been doing port operations at Jacksonville Port, (Jacksonville, Florida) for more than ten years, Smith added. In the last year or so, we have built a relationship with the Marine Corps due to the facilities and some of the security they can provide. The commander said using BICmd facilities is critical as it helps expedite the 101st CABs redeployment and reduces the personnel cost, which is a win for the government. I have been working this particular mission for about three months and it has been great, Smith explained. There is nothing we have requested that (BICmd) has not provided. More importantly, they have provided a lot of their expertise with other missions they have done to streamline how we are doing our mission now. According to Smith, port operations is a fairly new concept for the U.S. Army. This is something the U.S. Army could not do by itself, he concluded. The fact that we have expertise from the Navy, some Army counterparts and Marine Corps has helped this become a joint operation. Army Lt. Col. Ben Walters, commander, 832nd Transportation Battalion, Jacksonville, Florida, assisted in the planning for the 101st CABs deployment and redeployment. Basically it is a two-fold operation, Walters said. We are responsible for all the stevedoring in relation to pulling the cargo off the vessel then members from the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, offloaded the helicopters. Being encapsulated on the Marine Corps side, the force protection issues are reduced because of the Marine Corps Police; in addition to the large space and areas Blount Island Command is allowing us to use is very conducive to aviation operations and we can do it in a safe fashion, he said. The coordination among the different services has been great and the support from the BICmd staff is world-class. New Zealand offers to take Australias refugees but there appears to be little chance Australia will accept the offer. You need to be security-vetted to go to a press conference with Australias prime minister. You have to have a National Visits Media Card. For that, you need to supply your passport and a letter from your employer. This morning, after showing my card, I and a handful of other journalists were escorted up the service elevator of a Sydney office block and into a small windowless room. There we waited for Malcolm Turnbull and his guest, John Key, the prime minister of New Zealand. As a group, the Australian-based journalists were allowed to ask three questions. We discussed among ourselves who should ask what: I wanted to ask about New Zealands offer to take Australias refugees Among those wanting to hear the prime ministers answers most, though, were people I met on Monday, at a protest outside a hospital in Brisbane. Inside the hospital was and, as of Friday still is, the baby known by the pseudonym Asha. One year old, she was born in Australia to Nepalese asylum seekers. But under Australias tough policy towards refugees, she and her parents were soon transferred to the Pacific island of Nauru. Asha is back in Australia now because, in January, she accidentally pulled a pot of boiling water over herself. Australia has the burns specialists she needed, and Asha was air-ambulanced to Brisbane. Shes now better, but doctors wont discharge her if they think shell be deported back to Nauru. With New Zealand offering to take refugees like Asha and her parents, would Australia accept? The short answer: no. The offer, with some caveats, still stood, John Key told me. But Malcolm Turnbull said that while he took the offer into account he wanted to give no encouragement, no marketing opportunities to the people-smugglers. The suggestion is that resettlement in New Zealand could be seen as a good outcome for refugees who originally tried to come to Australia by boat; it might encourage others to try their luck too. Boats of refugees might start coming, again, to Australian shores. Not mentioned by Mr Turnbull, but a concern to among other Australians Ive talked to and who post opinions online, is that any exception to Australias off-shoring of refugees could see others emulate the circumstances that led to that exception. Might refugees deliberately injure their children if they thought it could mean medical evacuation to Australia and, ultimately, resettlement in New Zealand? Natasha Blucher a former case worker with Save the Children who knew Ashas parents when she was working with them on Nauru is adamant that the babys injuries were accidental. In Brisbane she told me: If anything, [Ashas mothers] has been anxious about her parenting. Shes been saying Oh, I dont want to put her down, the grounds not clean. What if she falls over? What if she hurts herself? She cant crawl on the gravel. So in that sense I have absolutely no doubt [the burns were accidental]. Ive spoken to the social workers and the treating doctors in the hospital and they tell me theres absolutely no doubt in their minds that this was nothing other than an accident. But cynical Australians worry that other refugees might see an exception for Asha and her parents as repeatable for their ticket off Nauru. There was none of that cynicism at Mondays protest. More than 300 people were there; the rally had an energy Ive rarely seen when covering protests in support of refugees. And, more broadly, theres certainly sympathy for Asha and other refugees languishing within Australias domestic and international detention network. But, so far, that sympathy is not changing policy. New Zealands prime minister knows that. A cynic an this time that cynic is me might suggest that John Keys offer makes New Zealand look more compassionate than Australia, but has been made in the full knowledge its very unlikely to be accepted. The Kumtor mine, built on a glacier high in the Tian Shan mountains, continues to attract fierce criticism from locals. Tian Shan mountain range, Kyrgyzstan Hidden in a valley in Kyrgyzstans Tian Shan mountains lies the magnificent Issyk-Kul Lake, one of the highest and deepest lakes in the world and a top tourist destination in the region. In stark contrast to Issyk-Kuls natural beauty is the massive Kumtor gold mine to the lakes south, at an elevation of more than 4,000 metres. Kumtor, which has been operating for nearly two decades, is the largest open-pit mining operation in Central Asia, and the only one operating on an active glacier. The mine, owned by Toronto-based Centerra Gold, claims to provide 2,800 jobs and produces almost 8 percent of Kyrgyzstans gross domestic product. In a good year, Kumtor produces up to 18 tonnes of gold. But it has also been a flashpoint for unrest. Villagers living near the mine complain about what they describe as an unfair deal with Centerra Gold, an uneven distribution of wealth, high unemployment in surrounding communities, lack of healthcare, the loss of traditional pasture and the destruction of the glaciers at Kumtor. This negative sentiment exploded in 2013, when mass protests led to violence and a temporary shutdown of the mine after protesters briefly occupied a power station that supplies it with electricity. The Kyrgyz government responded by arresting and imprisoning local activists, who claimed to have been beaten and tortured at the hands of the state security services, according to Bakyt Amanbayev, a former ombudsman of the Kyrgyz Republic. Five community organisers who participated in the 2013 protests remain in prison, convicted variously of disturbing the peace, extortion, and the taking of hostages charges they deny. Five more were taken to court in October 2015. Although their cases have been in court for four months now, their defence lawyer, Chinara Dzhakupbekova, recently told Al Jazeera that prosecutors have yet to formulate charges against them, and that she could not comment further on the case. The most recent hearing took place in January. Activists say these legal proceedings are part of the crackdown by Kyrgyz authorities on public dissent against the mining project. In December 2015, Al Jazeera reported that the Kyrgyz state security service was pressuring relatives of imprisoned activists to silence remaining opposition in the villages. Environmental impact The Kumtor mine has long been a target of criticism. In 1998, after a mining truck carrying cyanide crashed, nearly two tonnes of the deadly chemical spilled into a nearby river that was a main source of drinking water for villages downstream. In the immediate aftermath of the cyanide spill, 2,600 villagers were treated and more than 1,000 admitted to hospital. Centerra Gold has also been accused of bribing corrupt officials in Kyrgyzstan during the first restructuring of the Kumtor project in 2002-03, charges the mining company repeatedly denied. These allegations exacerbated existing tensions in the district of Jety Oguz, where the mine is located. One member of the anti-mining protest movement, a native of Jety Oguz who requested that his name was not used in fear of government reprisals, told Al Jazeera: If not for these negative effects [environmental impact in the settlements], we wouldnt have known about how Kumtor mine is changing livelihoods in the district. The activist added that, after receiving an unsatisfactory response from local authorities about health and environmental problems related to the mine, communities have decided to deal directly with ministers, the prime minister and if they cant fix these issues, then with the president [of Kyrgyzstan]. Over the course of the past decade, anti-mine activists have said that those living near Kumtor became wary of the mines negative effect on the environment, and that dust from the mine is causing health problems in the district. Aware of the complaints For his part, John Pearson, the vice president of investor relations at Centerra Gold, told Al Jazeera by email that the company was in communication with local villagers, and that it has a specific stakeholder engagement and communication plan in this regard, as well as a way for them to file grievances. Centerra is aware of the complaints that have been made around the response of the Kyrgyz authorities to the protests in 2013, said Pearson. Our only knowledge of this situation is based on information we have seen and read in the local and international press. He added that the Kumtor project has been contributing 1 percent of its gross revenue to the Issyk-Kul Region Development Fund. Since these payments commenced in 2009, a total of $46 million as of the end of September 2015 has been contributed. Kyrgyzaltyn, a state-owned company that jointly manages the Kumtor mine, did not respond to Al Jazeeras request for comment. Meanwhile, the Kyrgyz government has been wary of human rights organisations that have tried to research the situation at Kumtor. In October 2015, a delegation of European observers from Bankwatch and Front Line Defenders made a fact-finding trip to villages near the gold mine, and met hostility and obstruction from the Kyrgyz state security service, according to a Bankwatch briefing (PDF) published after the trip. Front Line Defenders, a Dublin-based human rights organisation, said that the local state security forces were keen to prevent this delegation from meeting community leaders and organisers who were trying to compel greater environmental oversight and control over the Kumtor mine. Aziza Abdurasulova, the head of Kylym Shamy, a human rights NGO based in Bishkek, claimed that the Kyrgyz government had ignored community grievances against the mine for more than a decade and that, given the unresolved public concerns, the protests against Kumtor were likely to continue. READ MORE: Life by Latin Americas largest open-pit coal mine Follow Ryskeldi Satke on Twitter: @RyskeldiSatke In a Greek village at the heart of the refugee crisis, Father Schuff calls on priests and monasteries to do more. Boats of refugees have been coming to Skala Sikamineas, a village on the coast of Lesbos that was originally founded by those fleeing the 1919-1922 Greco-Turkish war, for almost two decades. The secluded village of fewer than 200 people is a gateway to Europe that has brought joy, but also grief as death blights the waters around this Greek island. The fishermen and other residents of the village have been saving their passengers for that long too. But these days the numbers are hard to cope with. A few years ago a boat arrived every week, carrying mostly refugees from Afghanistan. Now 40 boats packed with Iraqis, Syrians, Somalis, Afghans and other nationalities can come in a single day. The sea has always been integral to Skala Sikamineas. It provides its residents with food and an income, attracting the tourists who come to enjoy a day spent walking its beaches and tasting the local ouzo. But it is so much more than that. The vast, unknown expanse is the stuff of faith and legend; a subject of fascination and fear. The tales of Jonahs encounter with the whale and of Moses parting of the Red Sea appear in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. In Greek mythology, Poseidon, the god of the sea, could create calm waters and new bountiful islands. But he could also strike the earth with his trident and create death and destruction in the ocean at will. Now, an equally epic battle is playing out on these seas. Yet, this village leads a somewhat double life. On the calmer days, when fewer boats come in, it seems sleepy the sort of place where good morning kalimera in Greek is used as a greeting until late afternoon. A lone white goose, a village mascot of sorts, waddles back and forth around the harbour. It is chased into the sea every morning for a daily bath by a local who appears to own the bird. At a seaside cafe, the owner, Tula Koutalleli, jokes and tends to the customers. Some are older local men who briefly make conversation before returning their attention to the fishing boats that bob in the harbour. But many are humanitarian workers and volunteers, and the cafe often doubles up as a clinic for newly arrived refugees in urgent need of medical care. The Reverend Father Christoforos Schuff meanders between the tables, stopping to chat with each group individually either in Greek, English, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish or one of the other four languages he speaks. He is a striking figure, dressed from head to toe in black, a small wooden cross at his neck, his long blond hair hanging loose. Born in the US but with links to Scandinavia, Schuff has lived in and around the village for 14 years. He has a serene aura about him and helps to co-ordinate the different organisations and lone volunteers into a system that just about works, despite the clear lack of any sizeable NGOs and any significant funding here. Schuff, who works closely with the newly created Swedish NGO Lighthouse Refugee Relief organisation, can frequently be found on the beaches or in the makeshift refugee camps created and run by the small NGO that flank the village. He has been known to give out pieces of carpet so that Muslim refugees have something on which to pray when they arrive ashore. We all have the same God, he says. Because Im a religious figure, perhaps they feel safe, Schuff adds, mulling over the thought. I think there should be 100 priests down here. All the monasteries here on the island that have empty rooms and beds. They should be open too but theyre not. When Schuff speaks, it is as though he is moving his thoughts from his head and out into the air. All my brothers should be here, he says, his enthusiasm for the cause weighted by disappointment. I believe in a God of love. If we dont show love to our fellow man, we are not showing love to God. They go hand in hand. A few minutes later, Schuff gets up to leave. He is off to pick up debris from the beach. After that, he will help to distribute water to the refugees. Then he will drive families that have just survived the trek across the Aegean to designated camps so that they do not have to walk the several kilometres, wet and cold, up Mt Lepetimnos. You know, someone asked me why I came here 14 years ago, Schuff says, almost as a passing comment, and I said to them: To be here now. Dr Wael Haddara served as an adviser to former President Mohamed Morsi during his election campaign in 2012 and continued to serve as an adviser over the course of the president's year in office. One of the great lessons for the Egyptian military from Hosni Mubaraks 30-year reign must have been that it cannot allow executive power to wander too far from its own control. The military coup against Mohamed Morsi was about more than just wresting power from an Islamist president. It was about regaining control of the country from civilian control. This was first threatened under Mubaraks dynastic succession scheme and then after the uprising of January 25, 2011. To accomplish this re-appropriation of power, the military engineered a coup through a coalition of forces, some civilian, with shared interests, to give it a veneer of respectability. Immediately after the coup, however, the military quickly began to concentrate all economic power under its control. Contrary to the militarys hopes, its been nothing but bad news for the Egyptian government recently. To start with, it has had to contend with a wheat crisis. The General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) held a tender for wheat and the prices presented well above market prices, so the GASC was eventually forced to seek suppliers outside the tender process. Wheat crisis The poor tender competitiveness was the result of supplier confusion over the accepted amount of ergot fungus in imported wheat. While the GASC claimed that the international standard of 0.05 percent was acceptable, the agriculture ministry turned away a shipment of French wheat for containing exactly that amount. READ MORE: Boutros Boutros-Ghali Make diplomacy, not war In an about-face, the ministries of supply and agriculture held a joint news conference to assure suppliers, but so far the market is not reassured. The ministries apparently refuse to put that commitment into writing and so traders are attempting to factor the risk into the price of the wheat. The French supplier whose shipment was turned away is now threatening legal action and Egypt remains without a supplier. Markets have been rattled and the memory of the government's capricious behaviour will linger. by Does this mean Egypt is heading towards a potentially explosive food crisis? No. The crisis will be averted, but not without significant financial and political cost to the Egyptian government. Markets have been rattled and the memory of the governments capricious behaviour will linger. In other news, GM, the company that manufactures 25 percent of Egypts cars, announced a temporary suspension of operations in Egypt due to the lack of dollars. Central Bank policies aimed at shoring up the perennially weakening Egyptian pound and shutting down black market speculation have resulted in chronic shortage of dollars. This problem is also likely be resolved at some point in the not-too-distant future. Information has already been leaked that the government has factored in a devalued pound in next years budget. While this will help to shore the countrys foreign reserves, it merely delays the fundamental problem in light of the ongoing trade deficit and plummeting productivity. Cashflow problems Egypt is heavily dependent on three sources of hard currency, none of which are performing particularly well: expatriates remittances, tourism and foreign direct investment. Transfers by Egyptian workers abroad have been hit hard by the plunge in oil prices. Tourism has shrunk in the wake of travel bans following terrorist attacks in Sharm, Hurghada and the Western desert. Foreign direct investment is facing a number of problems related to infrastructure, power generation and the staid Egyptian bureaucracy. The government has been aggressively marketing Egypts economic potential, with Abdel Fattah el-Sisi personally meeting trade delegations and committing to various deals. But true to the pattern of unrelenting bad news, the body of an Italian graduate student, Giulio Regeni, turned up in the middle of a visit by an Italian trade delegation. In response, the delegation cut short its visit and subsequent reports by Italian authorities indicated inhuman torture inflicted on him. That incident has cast a pall on Egypts relations with a number of partners, and momentum is gathering to hold the Egyptian government accountable not only for this death, but for similar disappearances, torture and deaths of hundreds of Egyptians. READ MORE: The Mubarak mirage On the domestic front, a number of developments are equally worrisome. The Ahly Ultras, members of a hardcore fan association for Egypts leading football team, seem to be on a path of increasingly likely confrontation with the state. But hardcore football groups are not the only opposition forming against the regime. A disagreement between a doctor at a local Cairo hospital and a low-ranking policeman resulted in an assault by a gang of policemen on a group of doctors at Matariya hospital. That incident has spiralled out of control, with the doctors at the hospital embarking on a strike and doctors nationwide voting on a general strike soon. The issue ostensibly is doctor safety. Sisis extravagance Sisi himself has not emerged unscathed from the missteps and miscalculations besetting the Egyptian regime in these past few weeks. Desperate to achieve more budgetary controls, he delivered a speech big on austerity in which he appealed to Egyptians to economise and tighten their belts. On his way to the speech, his motorcade drove over 4km of red carpet laid out for his reception. The president endured bitter criticism for the extravagance. But this was not the only example of the state marching out of sync with the demands being placed on the people. Ignoring austerity and budgetary constraints, the minister of justice recently ordered a 10 percent pay rise for judges thats on top of the 30 percent raise they received last summer. Is all this a sign that the regime is crumbling? Hardly. But it may be a sign of something far more ominous. At best, it signals a lack of co-ordination between the different organs that make up the state. The left hand not only knows not what the right hand does, it is busy slapping it away. This lack of co-ordination has multiple root causes but may simply be due to the fact that Egypt is back under military government. READ MORE: Egypts revolutionary conundrum The military has proved itself incompetent at governing and this incompetence was on prominent display first in the 1950s and 1960s when Gamal Abdel Nasser appointed military officers in charge of almost every aspect of the state, and most recently in the 2011-2012 transition under SCAF. Lack of co-ordination But there is a more terrifying possibility. The lack of co-ordination may signal low-level resistance, infighting and the crumbling of the June 30 coalition. The most dangerous aspect of such resistance is that it does not seek to replace the current ruling arrangement, but it is rather only a fight for a greater slice of the pie. The military may be discovering that force does not equal power and that authority is different from influence. Mini-crises such as the wheat fiasco, the suspension of GM operations, and the brutal murder of Giulio Regeni may signify little more than the different elements of the June 30 coalition attempting to assert that they too have influence and must be given consideration. Why is this ominous? Because if the military buckles in to their demands, the country will continue to hurtle towards financial ruin and societal disintegration, as it has in an accelerated fashion for the past 15 years, and reconstitute the environment in which revolution becomes once again both necessary and possible. If the military does not acquiesce, there are no signs that segments such as the oligarchs, the judges or the security services are willing to sacrifice their own self-interest. Their resistance will continue, at huge cost to the country, and the military will find the job of governing impossible. Eventually, we will again have a situation where the forces arrayed against the regime are more, and stronger than those for it. In any case, the struggle between those various former partners is unlikely to conclude before the country has incurred significant monetary, political and societal costs. If economic recovery and political stability seem elusive, both appear far less likely in the near future. Wael Haddara is a Canadian-Egyptian physician who served as former senior adviser to former President Mohamed Morsi. The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy. TAK says deadly blast was in response to policies of Turkish government and that it would continue with its attacks. A breakaway faction of Turkeys outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has claimed responsibility for the bombing in the Turkish capital Ankara that killed 28 people this week, according to a statement on its website. The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) says Wednesdays bombing was in response to the policies of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the military operations going on in the countrys southeast. On February 17 in the evening a suicide attack was carried out by a sacrifice warrior on a military convoy of the fascist Turkish Republic in Ankara The attack was realised by the Immortal Battalion of the TAK, the statement said. TAK also said in its statement on Friday that it would continue its attacks. The group also warned foreign tourists not to visit Turkey, threatening to destroy the key tourism sector in the country. Tourism is a major target we aim to destroy. We warn the foreign and native tourists not go to the touristic areas in Turkey. We are not responsible for who will die in the attacks targeting those areas, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) said in an English-language statement. The group said in the past that its relationship with PKK has been severed. Both groups are regarded as terrorist organisations by Ankara and the US. A car laden with explosives was detonated next to military buses as they waited at traffic lights in the administrative heart of Ankara on Wednesday. The government has blamed the PKK and the Syrian Kurdish armed group YPG for the attacks. Turkey says the attack was carried out by a member of the YPG, which is supported by the US in the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in northern Syria. The group denied Turkeys claim. Kizza Besigye detained for third time in a week as provisional election results show incumbent President Museveni ahead. Correction: A previous version of this article erroneously identified Kampala as the capital of Kenya instead of Uganda. Clashes have erupted once again between supporters of Ugandas main opposition leader Kizza Besigye and security forces in Kampala after Besigye was arrested for the third time in a week amid a general election overshadowed by allegations of government vote-rigging. Police fired rubber bullets on Friday at protesters who hurled stones at officers outside the headquarters of the opposition party Forum for Democratic Change (FDC), following the detentions of Besigye, 59, and several other party members, including Mugisha Muntu, the FDC leader. The opposition has accused the government of vote fraud as provisional results gave President Yoweri Museveni, 71, an early lead in the polls. Final election results are expected to be announced on Saturday. IN PICTURES: Scenes from voting day in Uganda The tension began after police stormed the FDC offices to prevent the presidential candidate and Muntu from delivering a press conference following his brief detention for alleging yesterdays presidential and parliamentary elections were rigged. Police blocked off the FDC premises and began firing rubber bullets and in response several canisters of tear gas were thrown over the wooden gate of the party headquarters. A police spokesperson said the cordoning off of the FDC headquarters was necessary. We are in charge of this country and we have to enforce its laws. The FDC must fall in line with the laws and wait for the Electoral Commission to announce results. said Andrew Kaweso, head of police human resources. Tension in Kampala There were clashes between opposition supporters and security forces in other areas of Kampala. Shooting was heard in some neighbourhoods and the streets in the surrounding areas of downtown Kampala were strewn with embers of fires, stones and rubber-bullet shells from the streetfights between opposition supporters and security forces. Al Jazeeras Malcolm Webb, reporting from Kampala, said that at least four people were seriously injured in the police crackdown and were sent to the hospital for treatment. Partial results announced by the electoral commission showed Museveni had taken nearly 62 per cent of the vote far ahead of Besigye with 33 per cent, after about 23 percent of the votes had been counted. Election day on Thursday was dominated by claims of vote-rigging and a previous Besigye arrest when he and his supporters tried to show journalists what they said was a vote-rigging operation in a suburban house. Besigye was also arrested on Thursday when police stopped him from campaigning in the centre of the capital Kampala, prompting his supporters to stage an impromptu angry protest. The poll was also marred by delays in delivering voting materials, especially in areas seen as opposition strongholds, as well as a government shutdown of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Transparent and fair Jonathan Taremwa, a spokesman for the electoral commission, told Al Jazeera the vote was transparent and fair. Some people didnt get to vote. It was unfortunate, it was regrettable, and the commission offered an apology. We finally had stations [affected by delays] opened for votes and later extended the voting from 4pm to 7pm, Taremwa said. Where there was fracas and the vote was not able to continue we postponed it. As I speak to you now, voting is continuing in those polling stations. So all is settled and all is well, he said. READ MORE: Fear and hope surrounds Uganda election Besigyes supporters said the delays were deliberate and were aimed at favouring Museveni, whose rival is popular in Kampala. Museveni, 71, a former rebel who seized power in 1986, is widely expected to win a fifth term, which would extend his power into a fourth decade. Besigye was Musevenis field doctor during the war which brought him to power, and served as deputy interior minister in his first cabinet. He broke ranks with the president in 1999, saying Museveni was no longer a democrat. Additional reporting by Tendai Marima in Kampala Sources say air strikes on safe house in Sabratha targeted Tunisian man accused of organising attacks on tourists. US warplanes have carried out air strikes targeting fighters aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Libya, killing dozens of people, possibly including a senior leader of the armed group. US military sources told AFP news agency the operation hit an ISIL training camp early on Friday and was aimed at killing Noureddine Chouchane, a Tunisian accused of helping to organise two attacks on tourists last year. Peter Cook, Pentagon press secretary, said in a press conference that the operation was carried out in the North African country to prevent ISIL from carrying out external attacks against US interests. We made it clear that we need to confront to ISIL wherever it rears its head, Cook said in Washington DC. We feel confident that this was a successful strike. Under surveillance Cook said the training camp has been under surveillance for weeks. In a written statement, he earlier said the destruction of the camp and Chouchanes removal will eliminate an experienced facilitator and is expected to have an immediate impact on ISILs ability to facilitate its activities in Libya. Al Jazeeras Rosiland Jordan, reporting from Washington DC, said two F-15 US air force jets were involved in the attack. US President Barack Obama had pledged on Tuesday not to let ISIL build a base in Libya. A local Libyan official confirmed that a safe house was destroyed in the raid in Sabratha, about 70km west of Tripoli, located near the border with Tunisia. The raid killed 41 people who were all inside the house, Hussein al-Dawadi, an official in the city, told AFP. He said most of those who were killed were Tunisians, who were probably members of ISIL. Tunisians and Algerians Al Jazeeras Nazanine Moshiri, reporting from Tunis, said the countrys foreign ministry had no comment on the reported deaths of Tunisian nationals. She said Libyan authorities in Tunisia confirmed that Tunisians and Algerians were among the dead. At least six other Tunisians were reportedly injured. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Hillary Mann Leverett, a former White House official, said the high death toll raises some questions about how focused the attack was. She cautioned that recruitment could surge following the attack. The problem is, for each one of these targeted killing, what we have seen in the data that at least two more people sign up to join ISIL, she said. In July, an attack on a beach resort near the Tunisian city of Sousse killed 38 tourists, including 30 Britons. That followed an attack on the National Bardo Museum in Tunis in March that killed 21 tourists and a policeman. Both attacks were claimed by ISIL, which the US and its allies are also targeting with air strikes in Syria and Iraq. In November, a US air strike in Libya killed an ISIL leader, Abu Nabil, an Iraqi also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al-Zubaydi. It was the first US strike against an ISIL leader in Libya, where a US official estimated this month that ISIL has about 5,000 fighters. ISIL has exploited the turmoil in Libya since the overthrow of long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi five years ago, raising fears that it is establishing a new stronghold on Europes doorstep. Pledge made after hundreds protest outside security headquarters in Cairo over fatal shooting of taxi driver by officer. Egypts president said that he will introduce new laws to curb police abuse inside the country. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi urged the countrys interior minister on Friday to present proposals to parliament that hold any policemen who assault citizens accountable for their actions. The meeting came a day after a taxi driver was killed by a police officer in the street, prompting a protest in front of the Cairo Security Directorate [police headquarters] by hundreds of people. This shows that members of the police are now out of control. Its become easy for officers to use their weapons in the most unnecessary situations, said Abdel Fattah Fayed, Al Jazeeras editor of Egyptian affairs. The driver was Mohamed Ismail, a 24-year-old who was shot and killed by a police officer in El-Darb El-Ahmar, an impoverished district of Cairo. Ismail and the officer were reportedly in an argument before the officer pulled out his gun and shot Ismail in the head. A statement released by the Cairo Security Directorate stated that Ismail was killed by mistake. It also referred to the shooter as a low-ranking police officer. Egyptian newspaper Al Masry Al Youm reported that the officer was arrested and transported to a hospital in critical condition after a mob allegedly beat him and another person who was accompanying him that night. Witness account Fadel Ibrahim was at a nearby coffee shop when he heard gunfire. When he arrived, he saw the police officer lying on the ground with major wounds to his face and body. He initially thought the officer was dead. Speaking to Al Jazeera over the phone from Cairo, Ibrahim said: I didnt put my hand on his neck to feel his pulse, but he was in such poor shape that he looked like he wasnt breathing. The beating was hysterical, I really thought he was dead. Hundreds of people then surrounded the Security Directorate, which was minutes away, chanting anti-police slogans. An Arabic hashtag named after the district trended online on Thursday pictures and videos of the demonstrations were circulated. An image of Ismails bleeding body on the ground was also shared online. While there are differing accounts on what prompted the argument, Ibrahim says the argument between Ismail and the officer was allegedly over a taxi fare. After both of them started cursing at each other, the officer shot Ismail. He didnt even shoot a bullet in the air, he shot the driver in the head, Ibrahim said. RELATED: Egypts doctors vow to escalate against police abuse A video on Friday showed two police officers talking to a crowd of demonstrators outside the directorate. Are we in Iraq? one officer asked the crowd. This is a lawful country. Egypts presidency released a statement saying that el-Sisi has given Magdi Abdel Ghaffar, the interior minister, 15 days to submit to parliament proposals for law amendments that tackle police abuses. Heat on police Last week, thousands of doctors and their supporters gathered outside the Egyptian Medical Syndicate in Cairo, calling for the prosecution of police officers who allegedly assaulted two doctors in Cairos Matariya hospital. The policemen involved were questioned about the assault and then released, setting off the protest and an emergency meeting among doctors. Furthermore, the countrys interior ministry has also denied allegations of its involvement in the death of Giulio Regeni, an Italian student whose body was found showing signs of torture, earlier this month. Fayed said that Egypt should treat the death of Mohamed Ismail as a political crisis. Incidents like this will continue and may increase if these actions by the police and security forces go on without repercussions, he said. In January, Egypt marked its fifth anniversary since the 2011 uprisings. Police brutality was among the reasons that drove Egyptians to Tahrir Square during the uprisings that led to the fall of longtime leader Hosni Mubarak. Follow Mohamed Hashem on Twitter: @mhashem_ At least 18 people, including two NGO workers, killed at camp offering shelter to civilians fleeing unrest. The UN has said fighting at one of its camps housing civilians fleeing unrest in South Sudan may constitute a war crime. At least 18 people were killed, including two members of the aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF), at the facility in the northeastern town of Malakal. The fighting between rival groups of youths armed with machetes and small arms also left more than 40 people wounded. The site is one of eight UN bases in South Sudan providing a safe haven for displaced people since the civil war began in 2013. UN spokesperson Ariane Quentier said its forces had quelled the clashes but the situation remained very tense and volatile. I have to remind all the warring parties that the UN installations that are set are to be respected and the sanctity of this settlement is to be respected and committing an attack against the United Nations may constitute as a war crime, Quentier said. It started between the Shilluk youths and the Dinka youths who started fighting each otherimmediately we had the UN police who came on sight and dispersed the crowd with tear gas. Peace deal Around 6,000 UN peacekeepers are deployed at the Malakal base, keeping watch over 47,000 people. Both the government and opposition rebels have been accused of carrying out massacres and more than 2.8 million people are in need of aid. The war has its roots in a political rift between President Salva Kiir and his deputy Riek Machar, which gave way to ethnic violence. A peace deal was reached six month ago, with Kiir reappointing Machar as vice president, but Machar has yet to take up the post in the capital Juba. Palestinians gather in the West Bank town to demonstrate against Israeli occupation and the separation wall. West Bank, Palestine Hundreds of protesters gathered in Bilin on Friday to mark 11 years of weekly demonstrations against the Israeli occupation and the separation wall there. Villagers congregated in the centre of Bilin after Friday prayers at the mosque, where they were joined by Palestinians from nearby towns, Israeli and international activists. Chanting anti-occupation slogans, the protesters marched through the village into its agricultural land and up to the separation wall. As the crowd approached the wall, Israeli soldiers fired volleys of tear gas canisters into the crowd. The soliders later fired sponge tipped bullets at protesters, resulting in injuries to two Palestinians. Some of the crowd dispersed and some youths responded by flinging the tear-gas canisters back towards the soldiers. The episode lasted about an hour and a half, before the demonstrators returned to the village. Concrete wall Israeli bulldozers first arrived in the village in February 2005, ready to construct a concrete wall between the Israeli West Bank settlement Modiin Illit and Bilin. The planned route of the wall would have cut the village off from around 1,950 dunams (1,950,000sq metres) of its agricultural land. The plan would have amounted to around half of the villages total land, which provided the main source of income for Bilin. Villagers immediately protested against the Israeli militarys intentions to effectively annex the land, organising demonstrations and inviting international activists, including Israelis, to join them. READ MORE: How Israel is turning Palestinians into Zionists In 11 years we succeeded in reaching people from across the world, said Iyad Burnat, who operates a media centre in the village. We wanted to send the message to the people that this isnt a security war. Its an attempt to confiscate our land, demolish our homes and demolish our lives. We are working very hard against Israeli propaganda, to explain the life of Palestinians. Despite the weekly actions, where non-violence was preached and largely practised, the separation barrier was completed along its originally planned route in 2008.] Petition in court Two years later, after a petition was filed by an Israeli nongovernmental organisation in conjunction with the villagers, Israels high court ruled that the route of the barrier was illegal and should be moved. The decision effectively won the village back around 650 dunams of land from the initial loss of 1,950 dunams. The barrier was moved in 2011, meaning that around 1,300 dunams of Bilin land remains behind the barrier today, on the side of the Israeli settlement. Despite that, the decision was perceived as a victory of sorts among the villagers. We have succeeded in our struggle because we are right, said Abu Rahman, who has organised the weekly protest since it began. Its good for us to get back half of our land, but we will continue to struggle because this illegal settlement is being built on our land. There have been painful setbacks along the way. Two of the villages residents have been killed in the weekly demonstrations. In April 2009, Bassem Abu Rahmah was killed after he was shot in the chest directly with a tear-gas canister. Jawaher Abu Rahmah, Bassems sister, died as a result of tear gas inhalation in 2010. Painful loss Bassems mother, Subhia Abu Rahman, attended Fridays protest and told Al Jazeera that it was important for Palestinians to continue demanding their rights and the return of their land. It was so painful to lose two children, she said. But they died fighting for their country, and the whole village is proud of them. Bilin has become an international symbol of the wider non-violent resistance movement in the occupied West Bank. One of its residents made a documentary about the struggle which was nominated for an Oscar, while groups of international activists and curious travellers are brought in for the marches on a weekly basis. Over the last 11 years, we have reached people around the world and people are beginning to understand the Palestinian people. Bilins struggle has played a big part in that, Burnat said. Swedish non-government organisation condemns raid in which soldiers shot dead two patients and a teenage boy. Afghan soldiers dragged two hospital patients outside a Swedish-run clinic and shot them along with a 15-year-old boy, an NGO claimed on Friday. The soldiers raided a health clinic operated by the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) in Tangi Saidan in Wardak province late on Thursday, killing the three people, Al Jazeera has been told. The Afghan security forces barged in the clinic, misbehaved with some of our staff members and dragged out two injured patients from the health clinic along with their caretaker, the SCAs spokesman Muhammad Salahuddin Momand said on Friday. The caretaker was a young boy, around 15 years old. All three of them were shot dead outside of our clinic. This is unacceptable. They have violated humanitarian laws. We will protest against this. READ MORE: Afghan civilian casualties hit a record 11,000 in 2015 There was no immediate confirmation from the army. However, Afghan officials told Al Jazeera that the hospital was in a Taliban-controlled area and the victims were members of the armed group. The Afghan security forces raided the hospital as the members of the Taliban group were being treated there, Akhtar Muhammad Tahiri, head of the Wardak provincial council, told Al Jazeera. In any case, the hospital is in a volatile area and we are doing our best to provide security to it. In Stockholm, Jorgen Holmstrom, country manager for the SCA described the attack as a gross violation of humanitarian principles and the Geneva Convention. The patients who are being treated at our clinics have the right to be protected, Holmstrom said in a statement. The SCA runs education and other development programmes in almost half of Afghanistans 34 provinces. Wardak, southwest of the capital Kabul, has been the scene of some of the most violent battles between NATO forces and the Taliban. READ MORE: UN says Afghan hospital bombing may be war crime The attack came as the International Red Cross said on Thursday it had suspended its activities in the countrys central eastern Ghazni province after five of its local staff there were taken hostage by what it described as a local armed group. In a statement the charity said it was working to get the team released. ICRCs activities are currently suspended in Ghazni province. Security conditions are being reviewed in other ICRC offices, but activities are presently ongoing, the statement said. In October, US forces launched a deadly air strike on an Afghan hospital run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in the Taliban-held northern city of Kunduz, killing at least 30 people. They later said they intended to attack a nearby Taliban compound and the mistake was caused by human and technical error. Additional reporting by Shereena Qazi. Follow her on Twitter @ShereenaQazi Kizza Besigye arrested for the third time in a week after veteran leader Yoweri Museveni takes lead in early results. Ugandas main opposition leader Kizza Besigye has been arrested for the third time in a week, as provisional results gave veteran President Yoweri Museveni an early lead in an election overshadowed by persistent claims of vote-rigging. A Reuters news agency witness saw Besigye and several of his supporters loaded in the back of a police van. Earlier in the afternoon police fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse Besigye supporters outside the headquarters of his Forum for Democratic Change party. Several Ugandan journalists tweeting from the scene also reported the arrest. Partial results announced by the electoral commission showed Museveni had taken nearly 62 per cent of the vote far ahead of Besigye with 33 per cent, after about 23 percent of the votes had been counted. IN PICTURES: Scenes from voting day in Uganda The final election results are expected to be announced on Saturday. Election day on Thursday was dominated by claims of vote-rigging and a previous Besigye arrest when he and his supporters tried to show journalists what they said was a vote-rigging operation in a suburban house. Besigye was also arrested on Thursday when police stopped him from campaigning in the centre of the capital Kampala, prompting his supporters to stage an impromptu angry protest. The poll was also marred by delays in delivering voting materials, especially in areas seen as opposition strongholds, as well as a government shutdown of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Jonathan Taremwa, a spokesman for the electoral commission, told Al Jazeera that the vote was transparent and fair. Some people didnt get to vote. It was unfortunate, it was regrettable, and the commission offered an apology. We finally had stations [affected by delays] opened for votes and later extended the voting from 4pm to 7pm, Taremwa said. Where there was fracas and the vote was not able to continue we postponed it. As I speak to you now, voting is continuing in those polling stations. So all is settled and all is well, he said. Besigyes supporters said the delays were deliberate and were aimed at favouring Museveni, whose rival is popular in Kampala. The head of the Commonwealth Observer Group, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, called the long delays absolutely inexcusable, the AP news agency reported. READ MORE: Fear and hope surrounds Uganda election Museveni, 71, a former rebel who seized power in 1986, is widely expected to win a fifth term, which would extend his power into a fourth decade. Besigye, 59, was Musevenis field doctor during the war which brought him to power, and served as deputy interior minister in his first cabinet. He broke ranks with the president in 1999, saying Museveni was no longer a democrat. State visit follows lifting of blockade that caused acute shortage of fuel and essential supplies in landlocked nation. Kathmandu, Nepal Nepals prime minister has begun a six-day state visit to India after months of bitter relations between the two neighbours. Experts say the visit from Friday the first foreign trip by Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli as prime minister indicates that relations between the two nations are getting back on track. Relations deteriorated after India asked Nepal to amend the constitution adopted last September to address the grievances of historically marginalised groups such as Madhesis. This is a kind of goodwill visit. The distrust that was generated should be removed. That should be the objective of the prime ministers visit, Lokraj Baral, a former ambassador to India, told Al Jazeera. The prime minister has also said that he was for the restoration of the trust. Thats most important I would say the greatest benefit would be the restoration of trust and mutual confidence. The visit comes a week after a blockade of nearly five months on the India-Nepal border was lifted. The trade stoppage resulted in a severe shortage of fuel and essential supplies. The landlocked Himalayan nation almost entirely depends on India for fuel and other essential items such as medicines. Lifting of blockade Nepal accused India of interfering in its internal matters and imposing an unofficial blockade a charge India has denied. Anti-India and anti-Madhesi sentiment runs high in Nepal as India backed the demands of the Madhesi people, who say the new charter does not address their political and economic marginalisation. The current coalition government, led by Olis Communist Party of Nepal, passed amendments that they said would address the demands of the Madhesi, who share close cultural and familial bonds with people across the border in India. Oli, who earlier took strident positions against India, has said he would like to improve bilateral relations between the two neighbours. He will meet his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on February 20 but analysts say that no big ticket announcement is going to be made. He is not going to sign anything this time because this is not the correct time to do so. Agreements can only be reached on some positive things such as developmental things, Baral, the former diplomat, told Al Jazeera. Ranjit Rae, the Indian ambassador to Nepal, said the trip would help normalise relations. Prashant Jha, a senior journalist based in New Delhi, told Al Jazeera: The anti-Indian rhetoric of the Nepali politicians is hypocritical. He said the two countries were taking steps to normalise relations in the past two months. What we have seen in the last two months is that steps were being taken to slowly restore therelationship. Kathmandu took the first step the foreign minister [Kamal Thapa] came twice to New Delhi with proposals to address the political problems, said Jha, who has covered Nepali politics for more than a decade. I think the PMs visit definitely indicates that bilateral relations are getting back on track. Fragile relationship Jha said the diplomatic rapprochement is still fragile as the political issues that led to the blockade have not yet been fully addressed. The Nepal government has committed to creating a political mechanism to solve the political problems, and if it fails to do so in the next three months then we may expect more agitation in the southern Tarai plains, he said. Oli plans to visit Mumbai, Indias financial capital, to meet business leaders as his country is in desperate need of investment in infrastructure and the industrial sector. However, Jha says the domestic situation is not conducive for investment in Nepal. He said aid given by the Indian government earlier had yet to be utilised. There is already a $1bn line of credit announced by Modi in 2014 and another $1bn by India for quake reconstruction, he said. The Nepalese state has not used the assistance that has already been promised. Either it does not have the absorptive capacity or due to institutional dysfunction and instability, they have not been able to absorb. Security Council meeting to discuss protection of Syrias sovereignty as Turkish shelling of Kurdish bases continues. Russia has called an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss what it describes as the deteriorating situation on the Turkish-Syrian border and Turkeys plans to send troops into Syria. A statement posted on Friday on the foreign ministrys website said Russia intends to submit a draft council resolution calling on Turkey to cease any actions that undermine Syrias sovereignty and territorial integrity in the meeting later on Friday. Turkeys military has been pushing ahead with its cross-border artillery shelling campaign against US-backed Syrian Kurdish fighter positions in Syria. Erdogans charge For his part, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said US-supplied weapons have been used against civilians by Syrian Kurdish fighters. US support for the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which it considers a useful ally in the fight against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, has angered Turkey and risks driving a wedge between the NATO allies. Speaking in Istanbul on Friday, Erdogan said he was saddened by the Wests refusal to call the PYD and its military wing, the YPG, terrorist groups. He said he would explain to US President Barack Obama by phone how weapons provided by the US have aided the Syrian Kurdish fighters. I will tell him, look at how and where those weapons you provided were fired, Erdogan said. Months ago in my meeting with him, I told him the US was supplying weapons. Three planeloads arrived, half of them ended up in the hands of Daesh [ISIL], and half of them in the hands of the PYD. Against whom were these weapons used? They were used against civilians there and caused their deaths. Kobane airdrop Erdogan appeared to be referring to a US airdrop of 28 bundles of military supplies in late 2014 meant for Iraqi Kurdish fighters near the Syrian city of Kobane. The US defence department said at the time one had fallen into the hands of ISIL. The Pentagon later said it had targeted the missing bundle in an air strike and destroyed it. OPINION: Turkey is sinking into the quagmire of Syria Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkeys foreign minister, earlier accused the US of making conflicting statements about the Syrian Kurdish fighters. He said John Kerry, US secretary of state, had told him that Kurdish fighters could not be trusted, in what Cavusoglu said was a departure from the official US position. The US says it does not consider the YPG a terrorist group. A state department spokesman said on Thursday the US was not in a position to confirm or deny Turkeys charge that the YPG was behind the Ankara bombing. Officials yet to comment on case of Rami Jarrah, known for independent reporting at great risk, according to CPJ. A media freedom group says Turkish authorities have detained an independent Syrian journalist and called for his immediate release. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said on Friday that Rami Jarrah was detained in the southern city of Gaziantep on Wednesday while trying to apply for a residence permit. It said Jarrah was questioned about his reporting but the reasons for his detention were unclear. Turkish authorities had no comment on the reported detention. The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on Turkish authorities to immediately release Rami Jarrah, a Syrian journalist based in Turkey, who has been held since Wednesday, the CPJ said in a statement. It said Jarrah was initially held in a detention facility for foreign citizens, but was moved to a different facility on Thursday, and that it was unclear where he was currently being held. Nina Ognianova, CPJs Europe and Central Asia programme co-ordinator, said: Jarrah is known for his independent reporting on the war in Syria, which he has been covering for years at great risk. Syrian journalists like Jarrah, who have turned to Turkey for safe refuge, should be protected rather than subjected to detention and harassment. We call on Turkish authorities to immediately release Rami Jarrah and allow him to work in Turkey without fear of obstruction. Move prompted by Chinas deployment of surface-to-air missile battery on disputed Paracels islands in South China Sea. Vietnam has lodged a formal complaint to the UN over Chinas placement of a surface-to-air missile battery on a disputed island in the South China Sea. The countrys foreign ministry said on Friday it was deeply concerned by the Chinese deployment, which it said threatened regional stability. These are serious infringements of Vietnams sovereignty over the Paracels, threatening peace and stability in the region as well as security, safety and freedom of navigation and flight, Le Hai Binh, Vietnams foreign ministry spokesman, said in a statement. The statement, sent to the Reuters news agency, said diplomatic notes had been issued to Chinas embassy in Hanoi and to Ban Ki-moon, the UN chief, to condemn Chinas activities. Taiwan and US officials said on Wednesday the missile system had been deployed to Woody island, which is part of the China-controlled Paracel chain that Vietnam and Taiwan also claim sovereignty over. Tsai Ing-Wen, Taiwans recently elected president, said on Wednesday the move had created a tense situation, but Wang Yi, Chinas foreign minister, said the reports were being exaggerated by Western media outlets. At a summit of Southeast Asian leaders in California on Monday, Nguyen Tan Dung, Vietnams prime minister, suggested to US President Barack Obama that the US take more efficient actions against militarisation and island-building in the South China Sea. China claims nearly all of the South China Sea, including small islands that are hundreds of kilometres from its southern coast. Cameron is renegotiating terms for the UK to stay in the European Union, but voters may have the last word. British Prime Minister David Cameron is renegotiating terms for the UK to stay in the European Union, but voters may have the last word. The British have never been completely sold on the European project. As countries elsewhere on the continent moved towards greater political and economic integration, many Britons remain sceptical at best. At worst, they are mistrustful of the increasing say bureaucrats in Brussels have over how they run their affairs. And in just a few months time, the British people could be asked to decide in a nationwide referendum: Should they stay in the union, or leave? To persuade the doubters, Cameron has been trying to secure changes to the UKs relationship with the EU. Some of these are highly controversial among other EU members. As that deal is negotiated, Inside Story asks what Brexit a British exit would mean for the UK and for the European project. Presenter: Laura Kyle Guests: Matthew Goodwin Visiting Senior Fellow, Chatham House Daniel Hannan Conservative Member of the European Parliament London, Nina Schick Policy Analyst, Open Europe Jazz doesn't typically play a huge role in horror film soundtracks. Sure, there are exceptions. Jazz guitarist Joseph LoDuca scored Sam Raimi's adaptation of Stephen King's The Evil Dead.'s collaboration with the prog-rock group Goblin on Dario Argento's Suspiria certainly has some jazz-related elements, as does the work of(Rosemary's Baby), Bruno Nicolai,, and other European film composers. Sleazy funk and warped psychedelia are plentiful in the genre. Take, for example, the soundtrack to Jesus Franco's Vampyros Lesbos by Manfred Hubler and Sigfried Schwab. But one would be hard-pressed to find any jazz content in horror film scores, especially the recent ones. That said, horror soundtracks are usually pretty inventive and strongly influenced by the work of classical experimentalists such as Iannis Xenakis and Edgard Varese, if not completely awash in blast beats and cheesy synthesizer washes. While one would be stretching things a bit to describe's soundtrack to George A. Romero's 1977 slasher flick Martin as jazz, the music itself would be unthinkable without the contributions of now well-known jazz artists, and Steve Gorn, whose improvisations are central to composer / pianist Rubinstein's attractively multi-faceted score. Open-minded listeners will find a lot to appreciate in the grooves of this vinyl-only reissue.Rubinstein, who later performed and recorded withand other jazz artists, was then a 24 year-old self-described "music fanatic," in Boston studying piano and counterpoint with Madame Margaret Chaloff and Richard St. Clair. His brother Richard, a film producer, recommended him to director George Romero and the rest, as they say, is history. Rubinstein wrote and recorded the music almost simultaneously, pulling in his friends from Boston's always-fertile jazz scene. The result is closer, at times, to late 20th Century chamber music, though reed, flute and vibraphone improvisations by, Ehrlich, Gorn, andfigure prominently throughout. Rubinstein's own piano work has an off-the-cuff flavor to it, and his heavily-phased Fender piano conjures the spirit of contemporary jazz-rock stylings. Though divided into a plethora of cues, the music flows continuously throughout making it hard for the listener to determine which track is which. Disparate elementsjazz improvisation, operatic vocals, a string quartet, creepy soundscapes, and the sober main themeappear and disappear quickly, demanding attentive listening.Rubinstein's work proved to be first-rate, and Martin is universally recognized by horror film fans as one of the finest soundtracks in the genre. Rubinstein later collaborated with Romero on several film scores, including Knightriders, Bruiser and Romero's well-regarded television series Tales from the Darkside. His work on Martin stands as much more than an interesting footnote in the rather hermetic world of horror movie fandom. This is music that, unlike many movie soundtracks, rewards repeated listens. A group of 35 students is putting on a production for children with illnesses and disabilities today. The White Coat Company, a student-run organization through UFs College of Medicine, will give its last showing of Beauty and the Beast at 7 p.m. at the Stetson Medical Sciences Building Auditorium, situated at 1345 Center Drive. The play started Tuesday on the pediatric floor of UF Health Shands Hospital. The plays the White Coat Company performs are typically Disney productions and are full musicals, including live instrumentalists, singing and dancing, said Rachel Butts, a first-year UF medical student. In the past, theyve put on The Little Mermaid and Aladdin. The UF College of Medicine provides the company with a stipend, and the students create and gather the props, sets and costumes, Butts said. Performances are free for children and their families. Butts plays Belle in this years production of Beauty and the Beast. She said the group is excited to be able to perform for the children. It just brings so much joy to the kids, the 23-year-old said. The first performance we did on the pediatric floor, the kids faces were so in awe. Butts said the medical students in the company have been practicing during their lunch breaks in between classes almost every day since October. John Mayfield, a first-year UF medical student, plays the Beast. Mayfield said he believes it is important for medical students to do more for patients than the purely technical aspects of medicine. Medicine is a combination of science and art, and a lot of times in the classroom, we lose the art, the 37-year-old said. Its nice to have the pure art every now and then to balance our lives, because we do so much technical work. Mayfield said he enjoys performing for the children in the pediatric unit of Shands and for disabled children and adults, such as those at Tacachale, a center for people with developmental disabilities. They did a performance there Wednesday. Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now The most rewarding part is the children, Mayfield said. Mayfield, who has an almost-2-year-old daughter, said he wants her to see him act. He said he wants children to enjoy theater as much as he does. In the pediatric hospital, when I do my roar as the Beast and a little boy does the roar back, or when a little girl is giving me the stink-eye because Im yelling at Belle to come down for dinner, thats the best stuff, he said. Rachel Butts (left) plays the part of Belle in Beauty and the Beast alongside John Mayfield who plays Beast. Both first-year UF medical students, the pair performs with The White Coat Company, a student-run organization through the College of Medicine, on the pediatric floor at UF Health Shands Hospital. Josh Venkataraman met Carol Greenlee, the daughter of one of the men he hopes to exonerate for a decades-old sexual assault case, on Thursday. When they met for the first time, the two hugged at UFs Levin College of Law before an event discussing the Groveland Four. Venkataraman, a UF telecommunication senior, has been collecting signatures to exonerate her father and three other boys accused of raping a 17-year-old white woman in 1949. The boys are known as the Groveland Four. It was a frozen moment, Venkataraman said, about meeting Greenlee. That was like Wow, this is her. This is this person thats up on a pedestal for me. The 22-year-old said his petition has about 8,300 signatures. The families may have to wait until a bill reaches the Florida Legislature in February 2017 before knowing if the four will be exonerated. If Gov. Rick Scott acknowledges Venkataramans petition anytime before then, the boys will have justice sooner, he said. During the event, Gilbert King, the author of Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America, discussed his book, which outlines events surrounding the boys arrests and the lack of evidence that convicted them. King described the initial trial of Charles Greenlee, Samuel Shepard and Walter Irvin as a travesty of justice. The fourth boy, Ernest Thomas, was shot by a sheriffs posse before trial. Henrietta Irvin spoke to the crowd of around 70 about the day her brother was accused. She was 16 when the boys were arrested in 1949. Henrietta, the younger sister of Walter Irvin, said she had just married Shepards brother. I didnt know what to do because I was a kid, she said. It just broke my heart. I know hes innocent. After Irvin and Shepard were sentenced to death in Groveland in Lake County, Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a retrial, King said. Lake Countys Sheriff at the time, Willis McCall, was driving the two men to their retrial in 1951 when he turned down a dirt road. After McCall radioed for help, witnesses found Irvin and Shepard lying in a ditch, handcuffed and with multiple bullet wounds, King said. Henrietta Irvins brother was still alive; Shepard was not. Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now King said the FBI investigated the shooting after Walter Irvin claimed McCall shot both men in cold blood. One of the most horrifying things in all this research is that the report was sealed, King said. No one ever saw the results of these reports. Demarcus Merritt, a UF Housing and Residence Education area coordinator, said he attended the event to honor the Groveland Fours legacy. Its always a little painful to hear these stories, the 34-year-old said. I could have been this person; I can be this person. Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter @k_newberg. Gainesville became Floridas first city to granted the title of a Welcoming City on Thursday. Commissioners passed a resolution by unanimous consent to make the city more immigrant-friendly at the City Commission meeting. This was the third and final hearing to pass the title. Paula Roetscher, a UF geography and sustainability studies senior, will become executive director of the nonprofit Welcoming Gainesville, Inc., which was incorporated in December 2015. She told commissioners what it means to become a welcoming city. A welcoming city is one that welcomes immigrants and foreigners no matter where they come from, Roetscher, 21, said. Mayor-Commissioner Pro Tempore Craig Carter asked if the resolution was necessary. Roetscher replied Gainesville is already diverse and full of international students. By adopting the title, Gainesville will set an example for the rest of the state, she said. We can make it known to everyone, she said. This is a title not just given to anyone. Commissioner Harvey Budd said this title is relevant to him as an immigrant. A lot of the world doesnt know were an international city, he said. In real business terms, it will make a difference in marketing this place. When the commission allowed for citizens to comment, officials from UFs International Student Services offered support, while other residents thought the resolution was dangerous. Darlene Pifalo said Gainesville is already friendly. I feel its an inground for illegals coming into the city, she said. Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now Contact Molly Donovan at mdonovan@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter @Mollyidonovan. UF student veterans celebrated Students searched for little soldiers at UF on Thursday. To start the monthlong Bet on Vets celebration, two student organizations painted toy soldiers a brass color and hid them on campus. UFs Bateman Competition team, a public relations group, collaborated with UFs Collegiate Veterans Society to bring traditional and veteran students together. The organizations will hold several events on UF and Santa Fe College campuses in February and March. Stephen Spangler served six years in the U.S. Army before he moved to Gainesville. Spangler, a 30-year-old UF civil engineering junior, said his friend found a brass army man near Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, entering him into a drawing for Walt Disney World tickets. He said enrolling at UF was both a dream come true and a tough transition. In the military, the day ends after your shift, he said. In school, the work follows you outside of class. Everything is structured in the military, he said. In the civilian world, youre on your own. Erin Wronka, a Bateman team member, said about 750 veterans currently attend UF, and even more have enrolled at Santa Fe. Wronka, a 21-year-old UF public relations senior, said the event has led to meaningful interactions in the university community thus far. Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now Students are going to get to know these incredible men and women, she said. Spangler was among those veterans Thursday. It makes me really happy to see other people appreciate what you did, he said. - Catherine Dickson Locals host LGBTQ+ open mic The Civic Media Center will host an open discussion for the LGBTQ+ community Saturday night at 8 p.m. Queer People of Color United, a UF student organization, is partnering with Mellow Soul for the Queer People of Color Open Mic at the CMC, situated at 433 S. Main St. Attendees are suggested to give a donation of $3 to $5. Saturdays event is geared toward providing queer people of color from Gainesville and UF a safe place to share without fear of judgment, said Michael Caputo, president of QPOC United. QPOC United programs focus on race and ethnicity and how they interact with queerness and gender, Caputo said. When Caputo became president, he felt a disconnect between the QPOC communities of UF and Gainesville. This year, the organization programmed more off-campus events to encourage the communities to interact, Caputo said. Over the summer, Caputos friend convinced him to attended Mellow Soul Tuesdays, a biweekly open mic night at Rockeys Dueling Piano Bar. When he walked in, a biracial woman recited a piece on whether she was black enough. That really resonated with me because Im also biracial, Caputo said. I was kind of in awe of the whole experience. He reached out to the founder of Mellow Soul, Ashley Wallace, who said it made sense to team up. Queer people of color are underrepresented. Thats why we wanted to give them a space to express themselves, Wallace said. - Andrea Benaim What frustrates a student enough to deface university property? Organic chemistry, apparently. For the unfamiliar, organic chemistry, or orgo, is the study of carbon-containing molecules and their chemistry the endless means and manners through which molecules are broken, transformed, reconfigured and recreated. These molecules are enormously important industrially and biologically, from powering and lubricating machinery to brushing and rinsing your teeth. Its also become a bit of a cliche to say carbon is the foundation of all life on earth, but cliches are nothing if not reliably truthful. So why would a student want to f--- orgo? At least, this is what was spray-painted last weekend on the side of Keene-Flint Hall in addition to the slightly more general desire to f--- chem. Presumably, this individual was not trying to swipe right on orgo. The introductory courses to organic chemistry are notorious for containing some of the most challenging material presented to undergraduate students at this stage of their education. And this isnt exclusive to UF. The phrase Im taking orgo this semester is widely recognized as a universal cry for sympathy from Gainesville to Berkeley, California. Organic chemistry is required for most pre-health occupations, which is why the introductory courses to organic chemistry are referred to as weed-out courses. Now, Im not going to try to understand the mind of an individual who spends his or her time creating decidedly mediocre graffiti Im too busy trying to pass orgo 2 myself but if I had to guess, Im going to say this person was not happy about feeling stuck in a weed-out course. There was an excellent letter to the editor published Tuesday in the Alligator that addressed this incident and, indirectly, the idea of a weed-out course. First and foremost, what you study in college is your choice. For the most part, you have to contend with the implications that follow. I recommend anyone who hasnt read that letter to scour the internet or Library Wests third floor for a transcript. The letter goes on to say the implications of taking an advanced science course in a first-world country at a top-tier public research university cant ever be that bad. Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe Now Id also like to add to the quite truthful arguments against critics of supposed weed-out courses. Organic chemistry is a difficult subject; Ive heard more than one professor compare the number and uses of its terminology to a second language. Much of the material wont be useful for wherever you go in life, but a course cant be designed with a single student in mind. Rather, it must be for an entire class. And hell, to the aspiring graffiti artist in question, youre probably not old enough to legally drink; do you know where your life is headed? No course, orgo included, is deliberately designed to fail students or prevent them from reaching their long-term goals. Orgo isnt meant to weed out anyone without the specific type of intelligence or convictions to continue the premedical, pre-pharmaceutical or pre-physician assisting tracks thats just a side effect. Its simply designed to prepare every student in the class to move forward with his or her coursework and degrees, as is true for any other supposed weed-out course. In other words, its like any other class a student may take: The introductions to organic chemistry exist to teach students and to allow them to learn above all else. Neel Bapatla is a UF English Sophomore. His column appears on Fridays. This week Lauren Conrad wrote a post on her website discussing her philosophy about how often you should wash your face. She says that as a general rule, you should probably wash your face twice a day: once in the morning and once at night. But if you have oily skin, it's OK to wash your face only once a day. But what if (whether you have oily, regular, or dry skin) you're lazy and you always want to wash your face just once a day? When's the best time of the day to do so? I reached out to two top dermatologists, Joshua Zeichner, an assistant professor in the dermatology department at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, and Jason Emer, a cosmetic dermatologist and aesthetic surgeon in Beverly Hills, to get some intel. Both Emer and Zeichner agree that if you're only going to wash your face once a day, nighttime is the best time to do it. "Most dermatologists recommend face-washing twice daily, once in the morning and once before bed," says Zeichner. "In reality, this doesn't always happen. If you're going to skip [a wash], then it's better to skip the morning one than the evening one. At night, you want to remove the dirt, oil, and particulate matter that accumulate during the day." What's more, Zeichner says that skipping an entire day is just fine: "It's important to wash regularly, but a single missed day of face washing will likely have little effect on the overall health of your skin." Emer says that using the right cleanser for the specific skin type you have is equally as important as how often you're cleansing. "People with dry skin need to ensure their skin barrier is protected and should be washing with a gentle, hydrating cleanser that's milky with a moisturizing base, like CeraVe Foaming Facial Cleanser," says Emer. "Oily skin does well with salicylic or glycolic acid cleansers, like Neutrogena Pore Refining Daily Cleanser." There you go. Now you can go on living your lazy life without feeling like a dirty slob. Are you washing your bath towel enough? 2005 .. Press Statement John Kerry Secretary of State Washington, DC February 18, 2016 On behalf of President Obama and the people of the United States, I send best wishes to the people of The Gambia on the 51st anniversary of your independence on February 18. I look forward to working together in the coming year to []Source : http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Appa-sourceTheAfric... As the number of Mozambicans fleeing to Malawi continues to grow, UNHCR is calling on all parties to respect their right to seek asylum amid signs of pressure to return. More than 6,000 have arrived in Malawi since mid-December, citing clashes between armed elements of the opposition RENAMO and government forces. Nearly all of the []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] As the colors flapped under the overcast sky on this February day, Ziankahn returned to his seat next to Johnson Sirleaf and the outgoing army chief, Maj. Gen. Suraj Alao Abdulrrahman, a tall Nigerian man whose bright green uniform was weighed down by colored medals and other regalia. A lone medal hung from the left breast of Ziankahns jacket. Ziankahn, 42, joined the military in 2006, three years after the wars end, and with training from the United States has risen quickly to head one of the worlds youngest armies. Johnson Sirleaf appointed Abdulrrahman amid concerns that a Liberian would be too entangled by the various factions that fought in the war; Ziankahns rise marks the latest step in the armys efforts to reinvent itself. Thirty-four years ago, behind the walls of these barracks, on a stretch of sand beside the Atlantic Ocean, 13 top government officials were tethered to poles and sprayed with machine gun fire by soldiers who staged a coup. President William Tolbert was killed in the executive mansion. The executions precipitated the armys descent into violence, and it was deemed a warring faction during the civil war, which claimed more than 250,000 lives. After the war, the army was disbanded. In 2005 the United States and the Liberian government called for the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) to be rebuilt from scratch. The U.S. has spent more than $300 million on the effort, relying on the private military company DynCorp to recruit and train Liberian soldiers. In 2009, DynCorps contract ended, and U.S. military mentors took over. Today the AFL numbers just under 2,000 men and women, a small fraction of its size during the war. Analysts say that while the army is a professional force, it may be too small and weak to protect the country. As the U.S. draws down its financial support, questions remain about whether the money spent to rebuild the AFL has been used wisely. In many respects, this long, 10-year process has been successful in creating, I think, for the first time in Liberias history, a military that is well regarded, that is respectful of authority, that is popular with the people, says J. Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Councils Africa Center and author of Liberia: Portrait of a Failed State. But, he adds, the military force that Liberians can afford on their own is not likely to be large enough or sufficiently well equipped to do much good should they face a real, conventional threat. However, even a small force, especially if it is disciplined and nimble, can cause mischief. Liberia has avoided relapsing into violent conflict, even though many analysts expected it to do so within a few years of the wars end. Here in the capital, there are visible signs of change: new slick apartment complexes and tall commercial buildings, paved roads, neat rows of trees in the citys center and new electricity lines that deliver the most expensive public electricity in the world. The countrys security remains fragile, amid reports of endemic police corruption and mob and gender-based violence. A U.N. peacekeeping force of 5,700 still operates in the country. And while there have been changes in Monrovia, Liberia remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with the majority of the population living on less than a dollar a day. As the colors flapped under the overcast sky on this February day, Ziankhan returned to his seat next to Johnson Sirleaf and the outgoing army chief, Major General Suraj Alao Abdulrrahman, a tall Nigerian man whose bright green uniform was weighed down by colored medals and other regalia. A lone medal hung from the left breast of Ziankhans jacket. As the colors flapped under the overcast sky on this February day, Ziankhan returned to his seat next to Johnson Sirleaf and the outgoing army chief, Major General Suraj Alao Abdulrrahman, a tall Nigerian man whose bright green uniform was weighed down by colored medals and other regalia. A lone medal hung from the left breast of Ziankhans jacket. Kentucky's state Senate approved a bill Thursday that creates different marriage license forms for gay and straight couples, with one Republican senator saying any form that does not include the words "bride" and "groom" is disrespectful to traditional families. The primary purpose of the legislation was to remove the names of county clerks from marriage licenses a response to the controversy involving Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis, who was jailed after refusing to issue licenses to same-sex couples. But the Republican-controlled Senate amended the bill as a way to show support for traditional marriage. Democratic former Gov. Steve Beshear changed the marriage license form last summer after same-sex marriages became legal, removing "bride" and "groom" and replacing it with "first party" and "second party." Gov. Matt Bevin said shortly after his election in November only the second Republican elected governor of Kentucky after 1943 that he would change the forms, which had drawn objections from Davis and some other clerks, and shortly after taking office, he ordered county clerks names stricken from marriage licenses. "Quite frankly, it's almost disrespectful to the traditional family," said state Sen. John Schickel, R-Union. "That's why, wisely, we decided to have two forms. That has nothing to do with bigotry, nothing to do with discrimination. It has to do with the vast majority of Kentuckians that respect traditional marriage." Sen. Morgan McGarvey, D-Louisville, tried to amend the bill to create one form, with the option to check "bride," ''groom" or "spouse." He said having one form would be cheaper and more efficient and that it would treat everyone fairly. It failed. The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, which sued Davis on behalf of four same-sex couples whom she had denied marriage licenses, said in a press release the Senate was "setting a dangerous slippery slope precedent by catering to one specific religious belief and privileging that over others." "Separate forms for gay and lesbian Kentuckians constitute unequal treatment under the law," said Michael Aldridge, the executive director of the ACLU of Kentucky. "Pure and simple, this bill is motivated by the desire to accommodate discrimination against same-sex couples." Republican Sen. Stephen West, the sponsor of the bill, whose district includes Rowan County, said gay couples could choose to use the from with "bride" and "groom" if they wished. Two Republicans voted against the bill Julie Raque Adams of Louisville and Wil Schroder of Wilder citing their wish to have one form. Other senators, including Gerald Neal, D-Louisville, said creating two marriage licenses would take the state "down a path that has already been paved in this commonwealth that has a tendency to reinforce bigotry Separate has never been equal." The bill now heads to the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives; Speaker Greg Stumbo has said the chamber is likely to pass its own version. Al Jazeera with The Associated Press Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker signed two bills into law on Thursday that block federal funding from Planned Parenthood and could cost the organization millions of dollars. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin could lose about $7.5 million a year because of the measures, an organization spokeswoman said. Texas, Louisiana other Republican-controlled states tried to halt funding for the organization, which provides reproductive health services, after an anti-abortion group released videos last summer that purported to show Planned Parenthood officials trying to negotiate prices for aborted fetal tissue. Under federal law, donated human fetal tissue may be used for research, but profiting from its sale is prohibited. A grand jury in Texas cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing and indicted two anti-abortion activists behind the filming of the videos for tampering with a government record and violating a prohibition on the purchase and sale of human organs. One of the new Wisconsin rules requires the state to apply for federal Title X family-planning grant money and to give those funds to "less controversial public entities" such as state, county and local health departments and clinics, a statement from Walker's office said. Planned Parenthood was the only entity in Wisconsin receiving that federal money, and the funds will no longer be sent to the organization, the statement said. State entities providing abortions will now bill Medicaid only for acquisition costs and dispensing fees for prescription drugs. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin could lose roughly $4 million a year as a result of the measures, depending on patient volume and the type of birth control that patients choose, organization spokeswoman Iris Riis said. The legislation singles out Planned Parenthood and is an attempt to stop the organization from providing essential health care, the group said. "The move was the latest in a long line of attacks by the governor and the Republican-controlled state Legislature on the health of Wisconsin women and families," it said in a statement. Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has 22 health centers in the state, three of which offer abortion services, according to its website. Earlier this month, Ohio legislators approved a bill blocking state and federal funds for groups that perform or promote abortions, which cut $1.3 million annually used by Planned Parenthood clinics for HIV testing, prenatal care and other programs. States such as Alabama, Utah and Arkansas have fought losing court battles over their plans to cut funding for local Planned Parenthood operations. Reuters Todd Bloyer points to his collection of guns within a inside a gun safe at his home in Schaller, Iowa, Tuesday, March 19, 2013. The Bloyer family owns over 300 guns. Yue Wu / The Washington Post If there are fewer homes with guns, the decline in hunting due in part to urbanization may be one explanation. Forty percent fewer hunting licenses were issued in 2014 than in 1970, adjusted for population growth. Take Brian ONeel, 49. In 2012, he moved for a job, relocating his family from a 33-acre property in rural Wisconsin to Media, Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia exurb. At his previous home, he could step outside to hunt deer, rabbits and squirrels. Today hed have to travel at least two hours to get to land on which to hunt. My hunting days are at least on hold if not over, he says. Now hes going through a divorce and is sharing living quarters with housemates, who he says wouldnt be comfortable having his hunting rifle around. So he left it in his old house, where his wife lives. ONeels case illustrates another reason that there are fewer households with guns smaller household sizes. Census data show that the proportion of one-person households rose from 17 to 27 percent from 1970 to 2012 and that the average number of people per household declined by 16 percent. With fewer adults in a home, the less likely it is that there will be a gun. If theres a household with a man and a woman and the man owns the gun and then theres a divorce, now there are two households, one with no gun, says David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. In some sense, its not like shes gotten rid of a gun shes gotten rid of a husband. That points to a related factor in the changes in household composition: the increase in female-headed households. Men are three times as likely as women to own a gun, according to a 2013 Pew Research Center study. With the portion of households headed by single women more than doubling from 1970 to 2015, the share with guns has inevitably decreased. For example, Joni, a 60-year-old business owner from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, grew up around guns. Her father hunted and at any one time had five to 10 loaded guns around the house. He bought her a .22 rifle when she was 9, and she loved hunting. When she moved away from home, she took her rifle with her. But several years later, after a divorce, when she was living on her own, she got rid of the .22 because she didnt feel safe having it at home. Im a female. Im not the strongest person in the world, so statistically, theres an excellent chance that if Id confront a person with a gun, theyd take it away from me, she says. (She didnt want her full name used because she says that opinion is unpopular and might hurt her business.) GSS director Tom Smith points to yet another reason for the decline: the precipitous drop in crime since the early 90s. The proportion of respondents in the GSS who said they were afraid to walk alone at night decreased from 45 percent in 1994 to 34 percent in 2012. With less crime theres less demand, particularly for handguns, Smith says. (The National Rifle Association didnt respond to requests for comment on this story.) Two suicide bombers killed at least 12 people and injured dozens of others in a market in northern Cameroon on Friday, military sources told the Reuters news agency. Two men walked into the market in Meme and blew themselves up, one of the officials based in northern Cameroon said, adding that the number of dead and injured is subject to change. A local official said 70 people were wounded Friday and have been taken to a hospital in the town of Tokombere, some in critical condition. He said the attackers disguised themselves as food vendors in the market. There has so far been no official claim of responsibility for the attack, but officials pointed the finger at Nigeria-based Boko Haram, which has been blamed for a campaign of suicide attacks in neighboring countries Cameroon, Chad and Niger over the past year. Boko Haram violence in Cameroon has caused about 1,000 deaths, according to the Cameroon government and military sources. In all, the armed group is thought to have killed about 15,000 people and driven more than 2 million from their homes during a six-year insurgency in one of the world's poorest regions. The U.S. military now calls it the most lethal violent group in the world. Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Benin have set up an 8,700-strong regional force tasked with wiping out Boko Haram. The United States has also sent troops to supply intelligence and other assistance. Wire services Facebook and Twitter are siding with Apple in its fight against a court order requiring the company to help investigators break into an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino mass shooters. A U.S. has magistrate ordered Apple to produce software that would give investigators access to the iPhone at issue. Apple has until Tuesday to challenge the order, setting the stage for a legal clash that experts say could change the relationship between tech companies and government authorities in the U.S. and around the world. Twitter's chief executive Jack Dorsey tweeted that the microblogging site stands with Apple Inc. and its CEO Tim Cook and thanked Cook for his leadership. Facebook in a statement said it condemns terrorism and also appreciates the essential work of law enforcement in keeping people safe. But it said it will "fight aggressively" against requirements for companies to weaken the security of their systems. "These demands would create a chilling precedent and obstruct companies' efforts to secure their products," the statement said. The FBI and prosecutors are seeking Apple's assistance to read the data on an iPhone 5C that had been used by Rizwan Farook, who along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, carried out the San Bernardino shootings that killed 14 people and wounded 22 others at a holiday party. The government isn't asking Apple to help break the iPhone's encryption directly, but to disable other security measures that prevent attempts to guess the phone's passcode. Cook argues that once such a tool is available, "the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices," even as law enforcement insists that safeguards could be employed to limit its use to that particular phone. He has posted an open letter on how the FBI's request might have implications "far beyond the legal case at hand." I think everyone saw this issue coming down the pike and Apple always knew it was going to push back when the moment came. Wendy Patrick San Diego State University For months, Cook has engaged in a sharp, public debate with government officials over his company's decision to shield the data of iPhone users with strong encryption essentially locking up people's photos, text messages and other data so securely that even Apple can't get at it. Law-enforcement officials from FBI Director James Comey on down have complained that terrorists and criminals may use that encryption as a shield. "This is really a deep question about the power of government to redesign products that we use," said Ryan Calo, a University of Washington law professor who studies data security and privacy issues. While other tech companies have spoken against broad government surveillance in the past, the Obama administration has recently sought to enlist the tech industry's help in fighting terrorism. Several companies have recently heeded the administration's request for voluntary efforts aimed at countering terrorist postings on social media. Civil liberties groups warned the fallout from the San Bernardino dispute could extend beyond Apple. "This is asking a company to build a digital defect, a design flaw, into their products," said Nuala O'Connor of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington-based group that has criticized government surveillance. In a statement, the center warned that other companies could face similar orders in the future. Others said a government victory could encourage regimes in China and other countries to make similar requests for access to smartphone data. Apple sells millions of iPhones in China, which has become the company's second-largest market. "This case is going to affect everyone's privacy and security around the world," said Lee Tien, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group in San Francisco. The case turns on an 18th-century law that the government has invoked to require private assistance with law enforcement efforts. Apple has also challenged a federal search warrant based on the same law in a Brooklyn drug case. Apple has complied with previous orders invoking that law the All Writs Act of 1789 although it has argued the circumstances were different. Apple has retained two prominent, free-speech lawyers to do battle with the government, according to court papers: Theodore Olson, who won the political-speech case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010, and Theodore Boutrous, who frequently represents media organizations. Government lawyers from the U.S. Justice Department have defended their request in court papers by citing various authorities, such as a 1977 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld an order compelling a telephone company to provide assistance with setting up a device to record telephone numbers. The high court said then that the All Writs Act authorized the order, and the scope of that ruling is expected to be a main target of Apple when it files a response in court by early next week. A broader challenge A few hours later, in the West Bank, a Palestinian man allegedly tried to ram his car into a group of Israeli soldiers who then shot him dead, the military said. A third Palestinian man was killed by Israeli soldiers in a clash in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. An Israeli military spokeswoman said the man was armed with an automatic weapon and fired on soldiers during a protest. The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli forces prevented one of its ambulances from reaching the scene, Maan News Agency reported. Since October, stabbings, shootings and car rammings by Palestinians have killed 28 Israelis and a U.S. citizen. Israeli forces have killed at least 169 Palestinians, 110 of whom Israel says were assailants, while most others were shot dead during protests. The bloodshed has raised concern of wider escalation a decade after the last Palestinian uprising subsided. Briefing the U.N. Security Council on Thursday, Nickolay Mladenov, the U.N. envoy on Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking, said he was concerned the bloodshed may be entering "a new troubling phase." Mladenov called on both Israeli and Palestinian leaders to provide "a political horizon to their people" and to reject incitement by what he called radicals in their own camps. Tensions have been stoked by various factors including a dispute over Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound and the failure of several rounds of peace talks to end Israels military occupation of Palestinian territories and secure the Palestinians an independent state. Palestinian leaders have said that with no breakthrough on the horizon, desperate youth see no future ahead. Israel says young Palestinians are being incited to violence by their leaders. Security officials have also pointed to economic hardship and social media as playing a role in triggering attacks. Many alleged Palestinian attackers have been teenagers. On Thursday, two Palestinian 14-year-olds allegedly stabbed and killed an Israeli, who also had U.S. citizenship, in a supermarket in the West Bank before an armed civilian shot and wounded the teens. "This horrific incident again underscores the need for all sides to reject violence and urgently take steps to restore calm, reduce tensions, and bring an immediate end to the violence," the U.S. State Department said. Al Jazeera and Reuters BERLIN Like many other refugees, Mustafa experienced traumatic events before fleeing his homeland of Syria. In Damascus he was detained for two months and tortured by the authorities. On his long journey to freedom, he witnessed streets and bombed out buildings filled with dead bodies. Since January 2015, Mustafa (who asked to conceal his real identity for the safety of his family members in Syria) has taken refuge in Germany, far from any war zones. But the horrors he saw and felt in Syria continue to influence his daily life. He has had occasional panic attacks, loss of appetite, weight loss, depression and a recurring sense of hopelessness, particularly during half a year in Berlin when he knew little German and was living in refugee hostels. I dont go out a lot, said Mustafa, 28, who recently moved into his own apartment. I have problems with trust. I cannot trust people because in Syria you cannot trust anyone. More than half the people who escape war zones suffer from mental illness, according to research done by Germanys chamber of psychotherapists. I am an educated guy, I speak languages, and I had problems getting any kind of treatment. What about other refugees who dont speak the language and dont have anyone to help them? Mustafa Syrian asylum seeker These asylum seekers have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other trauma-related conditions, and about 40 percent of them have suicidal thoughts. A study by doctors at the Technical University of Munich found that at least a third of Syrian children and adolescents in Germany suffer emotional disorders, stress or PTSD. But at a time when Europe faces a dramatically large influx of refugees and governmental resources are overstretched, some European countries are neglecting to provide sufficient mental care for those who fled war and other violence, campaigners say. On Feb.10, the European Commission, the authority responsible for enforcing EU laws, announced it is pursuing infringement proceedings against Germany and several other member states for their failure to comply with the Asylum Procedures Directive and Reception Conditions Directive two EU laws regulating what conditions must be made available to asylum seekers and refugees. These directives state that EU member states must screen asylum applicants for mental illnesses and put in place supportive measures for vulnerable people such as torture victims or people with mental health problems. In Mustafas case, for example, German authorities have provided him with housing, language classes and emergency medical services. But he has not been screened for PTSD or other mental health problems, even though in his asylum interview he talked extensively about his experiences in Syria. In his first few months in Germany, when he sought psychological support, he encountered a complicated and slow bureaucratic procedure. The one social worker available in the refugee hostel where Mustafa was staying at the time was overwhelmed and unhelpful. Limited options Nora Berneis is employed at a hostel for refugees managed by the German Red Cross. She works as a Sozialbetreuer, or caretaker, a profession recently invented by the group to compensate for the fact there are not enough official social workers for all the refugees. She has a bachelors degree in political science, has done an apprenticeship as a medical assistant, speaks some Arabic and appears to be doing her job with a lot of enthusiasm and compassion. But she has not studied or been trained as a social worker and is underqualified to provide sufficient mental support for traumatized people. About 330 asylum seekers from war-torn countries like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan live in the 67-room hostel where Berneis works, in the western part of Berlin. She said it is rare for residents to request psychological support because people fear being stigmatized as crazy and because of language barriers. When someone does approach her and asks to meet a psychologist or other kind of professional mental treatment, she is frustrated because she cannot do much to help. Unfortunately, there are really limited options, she said. Berneis said that for children, she sometimes gets free appointments with psychologists, but it is much more complicated for adults, whose health insurance does not cover psychological care except in emergency situations. When adult asylum seekers request mental support, all she can do is suggest that they contact Xenion or the Berlin Center for Torture Victims (BZFO), the only two Berlin-based clinics whose expertise includes treatment of traumatized refugees and survivors of torture and other serious human rights abuses. However, these clinics, Berneis said, are overstretched at the moment. Berlin has seen a massive upswing in registered refugees, which is in line with the rest of Germany. The country received over 1 million applications from asylum seekers in 2015. We have more than 10 times more requests for places for treatment than we can offer, said Dr. Mechthild Wenk-Ansohn, the BZFOs outpatient clinic head. We are trying to shorten treatments in order to treat more people. We do not have enough capacity for the people who seek help." About 600 refugees are being treated at the BZFO. She said that requests for therapy always exceed capacity and that now is the most challenging time in the 21 years she has been working with traumatized refugees. Wenk-Ansohn said that there is an urgent need to hire and train interpreters, psychiatrists, psychotherapists and social workers in order to be able to offer refugees sufficient treatment and rehabilitation but that the BZFO and other similar nongovernmental organizations cannot hire additional staff because they are underfinanced. We could have here 10 times more professionals working, but we dont have the money, she said. The BZFO receives some federal and municipal funding, but for the most part, the center depends on donations. In 2015 the BZFO received about 150,000 euros from the city, and this year the sum will be increased to 250,000 euros, according to Monika Hebbinghaus, a spokeswoman for Berlins Office of Health and Social Affairs. She acknowledged that the mental care system available for refugees in Berlin is geared toward the treatment of acute situations rather than long-term therapy but insisted that psychiatric hospitals and ambulances are accessible in case of trauma-related emergencies. At the moment, a number of additional programs for the care of traumatized refugees are being planned and set up by the Berlin municipality to cater to the growing demand, said Hebbinghaus. PTSDs boomerang effect LEWISTOWN, Ohio Attempts to right a wrong exacted on the Shawnee Tribe almost 200 years ago are running into headwinds and government inertia in Ohio as the Native American nation seeks to reclaim its lost homeland. Theres scant trace of the tribes rich history in rural western Ohio. A little patch of land off State Route 235 near Lewistown was the final redoubt of the tribe there. The last Shawnee left in the 1830s, and treaties made with them about land ownership were broken. Indian Lake High School, with its Native American mural outside, might be the closest thing to homage that the area pays to its past. South of the school, farmland fans out in all directions, some of it marshy bottomland from the often overflowing Great Miami River. But now this land could see a Native American nation officially return to Ohio for the first time, with the Shawnee reclaiming a tiny slice of their lost territory. Some 50 acres on the east side of Route 235 was recently purchased by the Eastern Band of the Shawnee and they are trying to get the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to recognize the parcel as restricted Indian Country. Our situation is that land was taken We signed a treaty for what was then our reservation, and we were to come here to Indian territory, said Chief Glenna Walker, who presides over the Eastern Shawnee, from the tribal headquarters in Oklahoma. The government took additional land rather than just the reservation, land that belonged to [Nancy Stewart], a private tribal member. Unless the BIA designates the land restricted Indian Country, preferred development projects are stalled. We would love to be able to open the land for economic development like a casino. But getting the government to recognize our position and what happened is red tape upon red tape, Walker said. Getting the government to recognize our position and what happened is red tape upon red tape. Glenna Walker chief, Eastern Shawnee Tribe The tribal members contention is that the land has always been theirs. In 1831 the Shawnee near Lewistown signed a treaty with the government to cede their Ohio reservation and move to Oklahoma. But 168 acres adjacent to the reservation were owned by Stewart, the daughter of the storied Shawnee chief Blue Jacket. Stewart stayed behind and passed away in 1840, outliving her childless heirs. Per the treaty, the land was supposed to revert to the tribe, but the government simply took the land, which the Shawnee are trying to get back today. None of the tribes claims to the land would have seen the light of day had it not been for the sleuthing of a local attorney, Jim Calim, 78. The tribe first contacted him in 2002 to investigate whether there might be any land in the area that was wrongfully wrested from the Shawnee. After a lot of searching, he found some dusty deeds in an old courthouse book that hadnt been opened in 150 years. The deeds and accompanying paperwork prove the tribes position. I found the best claim any tribe could ask for. It was blatant theft, in spite of simple deeds in the courthouse. Thats like the federal government selling your house in spite of your deed, Calim said. Despite the Shawnees believing they already legally owned the land, they bought 50 of the disputed 168 acres that came on the market. It is that 50 acres they are trying to have recognized. It was faster to buy it than go through Congress, said Ray Williams, a partner in the Ohio Reservation Development Corp., which the tribe has hired to promote the project. It was a miracle [Calim] ever discovered this. The BIA does not necessarily agree about the status of the Eastern Shawnee land. It is the eastern Oklahoma regions understanding that the Eastern Shawnee Tribe owns about 50 acres in Ohio, but the property is not held in trust for the tribe, nor do we have a pending trust application at eastern Oklahoma or at the Miami agency. The tribe does have trust property in eastern Oklahoma already, said Nedra Darling, a representative for the BIA. The lack of a pending application doesnt mean that the BIA is unaware of the situation. They say there has not been a formal application, but we have met with officials in Washington, and every time we talk with them, they want trust, trust, trust, but if we filed for the land to go into trust, it would then be regulated by the 1988 Indian Gaming Act, and that stipulates that the land would have had to have been in trust before the act to be eligible for casino gaming, Walker said. There are two ways to acquire restricted status: have the land held in trust by the government or prove historical ownership, which is what the tribe is trying to do. The land is theirs. It has been theirs since time immemorial, said Ken Tankersley, a professor at the University of Cincinnati who has studied and written books about the Shawnee. Meanwhile, the Shawnee have plans for the land if the BIA recognizes their claim. Wed like to see it become a destination resort, which would help make the Indian Lake region an attraction again, a go-to place for central and southwest Ohio, said Williams. We have people who have been on government assistance for three and four generations. I want to know how and if this will create jobs for our area. Bill Coyer president, Indian Lake Chamber of Commerce U.S. warplanes carried out airstrikes against fighters linked to Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in western Libya on Friday, killing as many as 40 people in an operation targeting a suspect linked to two deadly attacks last year in neighboring Tunisia. It was the second U.S. airstrike in three months against ISIL in Libya, where the group has exploited years of chaos following Muammar Gaddafi's 2011 overthrow to build up a presence on the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. A senior Pentagon official confirmed to Al Jazeera that the most recent airstrike, which took place in the early hours of Friday morning, hit an ISIL training camp near Sabratha, Libya. The official said the strike likely killed ISIL operative Noureddine Chouchane. Tunisian security sources have said they believe Tunisian ISIL fighters have been trained in camps near Sabratha, which is close to the Tunisian border. Chouchane is believed to be connected to the attacks last year on a Tunis museum and the Sousse beach resort which killed dozens of people. Officials have said those two attacks, both claimed by ISIL, were carried out by gunmen who trained in Libya. "We are assessing the results of the operation," said Col. Mark Cheadle, spokesman for the Pentagon's Africa Command. Sabratha Mayor Hussein al-Thwadi said officials visited the site of the strike and found weapons in the targeted building. Some Tunisians, a Jordanian and two women were among the dead, he said, and several Tunisians who had recently arrived in Sabratha were among survivors. He gave no further details. Since Gaddafi was overthrown five years ago, Libya has slipped deeper into chaos with two rival governments each backed by competing factions of former rebel brigades. As ISIL has expanded in the North African country, taking over the city of Sirte and attacking oil ports, calls have increased for a swift Western response to stop the group establishing itself outside its territory in Iraq and Syria. Western officials and diplomats have said airstrikes and special forces operations are possible as well as an Italian-led "security stabilization" plan of training and advising. U.S. and European officials insist Libyans must invite help through a united government, but say they may still carry out unilateral action if needed. Last November the United States said it carried out an airstrike on Libya's Derna to target Abu Nabil, also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al Zubaydi, an Iraqi commander in ISIL. Al Jazeera and Reuters On Feb. 9, two young female bombers detonated explosives at a camp for people displaced by Boko Haram in Nigerias northeastern town of Dikwa. The attack left 58 people dead and many more wounded. Nine months after Nigerias newly elected President Muhammadu Buhari vowed to squash the insurgency, Boko Harams threat still looms large. Buhari clinched a historic victory in March 2015 elections in large part because of his reputation as an incorruptible leader. His campaign emphasized Buharis experience as a general and former military leader as key to defeating Boko Haram and restoring law and order to Nigerias war-torn northeast. As per his campaign pledge, shortly after taking office, Buhari moved the military command center in charge of the operation against Boko Haram to Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State and epicenter of the insurgency. The swift change signaled that the era of languid military operations against the insurgency had come to an end. But the fight against Boko Haram has stalled since that initial push to dislodge the insurgents from the territory they captured in 2015. Buharis administration has claimed that the group is technically defeated, but Boko Harams recent deadly attacks on markets and villages suggest otherwise. The Buhari administration has routinely underestimated the threat posed by the insurgents while overestimating the effectiveness of the Nigerian militarys counterinsurgency campaign. Buhari must engage in military action and reform not just rhetoric to get the job done. The territorial gains against the insurgency are encouraging, but Buharis government has yet to seriously degrade the groups capabilities. Boko Harams ability to overrun vast territories remains intact. As the dry season, which is typically favorable for ground offensives, draws closer, observers are wondering, What is Buhari waiting for? Buhari has failed to shift into a total war mode because of a narrow, poorly fitted definition of what victory against Boko Haram looks like and a misplaced trust in the executive leadership for guidance in the fight against the insurgency. In an interview with the BBC last December, Buhari insisted that the insurgency was no longer capable of mounting conventional attacks against the state and local communities. This sort of analysis overlooks Boko Harams modus operandi and ability to engage in ambush hit-and-run attacks. Structural issues within the security sector, including a culture of impunity, an unprofessional military and a corrupt bureaucracy, have further complicated efforts to establish lasting stability. Instead of celebrating half-victories, Buharis government should redouble its military efforts and prepare the Nigerian public for a long, difficult fight and by engaging in a robust planning for a post-conflict rehabilitation. Some displaced residents have returned to their villages and towns amid notable improvements in security. Urban centers boast increased military presence. Businesses and schools have resumed in cities such as Maiduguri. However, despite these improvements, Buharis campaign against Boko Haram Operation Zaman Lafiya has lacked serious follow through. Rural areas across the North East remain contested. Boko Harams raids in Dalori on Feb. 1, in which 65-100 residents were killed and the entire village was burned to the ground, illustrates the fact that the Nigerian military has not fully reclaimed all territories. In fact, the military has not led robust operations in Boko Harams strongholds most notably the Sambisa Forest, where a number of insurgent cells that were forced out of urban centers and rural holding have been regrouping for months. On Feb. 16, President Barack Obama and leaders of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) discussed tensions in the South China Sea, where China and several ASEAN countries continue to spar over competing territorial and jurisdictional claims. Regional leaders remain divided over how to resolve the simmering tensions. Washington hoped to persuade ASEAN nations during the two-day trade and economic summit at the Sunnylands resort in California to agree to a joint statement calling on Beijing to respect international law and commit to a peaceful resolution. But the statement released after the summit did not even mention China. Beijing appears to be solidifying its presence in the disputed waters through a sustained buildup of infrastructure on key re-claimed features such as Mischief and Fiery Cross Reefs. China, which has the most expansive claim to the disputed area, has condemned the U.S. freedom of navigation operation last month, in which an American guided missile destroyer came within 12 miles of the Chinese administered Triton Island. There is little sign that China will halt its expeditious land reclamation in the area. As Obama and his Asian counterparts wrapped up the Sunnylands summit on Tuesday, U.S. and Taiwanese officials said Beijing has placed surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island, which is claimed by China, Taiwan and Vietnam. Taiwan may not be recognized as a state party to this dispute, but it continues to play a critical role through both its claims and administration of Taiping, the largest island in the disputed waters. Taiwans lame duck President Ma Ying-jeou has been at the center of the burgeoning standoff in recent months. In November Ma held a landmark meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Singapore. It was first official interaction between mainland China and Taiwan since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. Ma followed up his provocations with a visit to the disputed Taiping islet last month. Taiping Itu Aba as referred to by the Philippines is the largest of the naturally occurring islands in the Spratly Chain, which covers a vast area of small reefs and islands claimed by a range of other regional states including China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines. Mas decision to visit Taiping drew widespread criticism and diplomatic rebukes especially from the Philippines and the United States. Washington expressed disappointment, saying the visit was extremely unhelpful and does not contribute to the peaceful resolution of disputes in the South China Sea. Manila emphasized shared responsibility and called on all parties to refrain from actions that can increase tension in the South China Sea. Beijings condemnation was noticeably absent. China views Taiwans buildup of infrastructure on Taiping as serving its own purposes under the premise that the island will likely eventually end up in its hands in a Cross-Straits reunification scenario. This creates a strategic quandary for the U.S. and its allies in Asia. Left behind by mainstream fashion, two Muslim women find their footing Growing up as young Muslim women in the US, shopping for clothes was difficult; now theyre hoping to change that Link to Video Embed Video Dismiss Share Overlay Share on Social Link to Video copy copy Embed Video Dismiss Share Overlay Left behind by mainstream fashion, two Muslim women find their footing Link to Video copy Dismiss Share Overlay Left behind by mainstream fashion, two Muslim women find their footing copy Embed Video Share Left behind by mainstream fashion, two Muslim women find their footing For Amirah Aulaqi and Mariana Aguilera, growing up as young Muslim women in the U.S., shopping for clothes was difficult. Now theyre hoping to change that. With Muslims expected to spend $484 billion on clothing and footwear annually by 2019, U.S. designers are looking to the modest clothing market. But Aulaqi and Aguilera have a long way to go. In this America Tonight Web exclusive, the two women, now fashionistas and entrepreneurs, talk about growing into the kind of role models they lacked when they were girls. The prophecy is more than seeing into the future. For the prophecy sees without the element of time. For the prophecy sees things as they were, as they are, and as they always shall be. Kenny Zulu Whitmore Herman Wallace Herman Zulu is a true warrior, Panther, a servant of the people. He has fought a good battle, for so long, unrecognized, unsupported! --Robert Hillary KingABOUT ZULU:I am. I have been enslaved in one of the most brutal and bloodiest prisons in the USA, Angola, LA, the "last slave plantation". Framed for a murder I never committed I have been in solitary confinement for over 30 years now.....In December 1973 I was arrested on frivolous charges and held over for a magistrate hearing where a bond would be set. While awaiting my court appearance I found myself in a cage right across from a black man who struck me as a fearsome revolutionary. It turned out to be. I was impressed with his words of wisdom, which enabled me to better understand the treatment and condition of my community by the police. I felt honored just to have been in his presence. There were others on the unit, but all you could hear was the voice of. We talked all through the night after he learned why I was arrested. He explained that if my concern was to protect the people, my only route of doing so would be to educate myself of the political Kingdom and then organize the people to effectively challenge the ill that cripple the people. I realized my speaking out against drug dealers and police brutality alone would be viewed as a personal war and wouldn't achieve anything.Herman told me he and others had established a chapter of the Black Panther Party in Angola, to fight against prison corruption. I gave him all my information because what he spoke of was what I needed in my life. I dare say it was my first true political education. The next day I learned he was there on trial for the death of a prison guard. At that time I believed he didn't stand a chance. In the mean time history has proven I was wrong. However, instead of focusing on his trial, he had many questions about community service and conditions. I ended up giving him my name and address. He told me he was officially making me a member of the Angola Chapter of the Black Panther Party. I was very honored but I had no idea what this man expected of me. But I knew about the Panthers and so I went back to the community with the idea of organizing the community against illegal drug trafficking.On February 19, 1975 I was arrested again. This time charged with two counts of armed robbery of a Zachary shoe store. In June of 1975 all charges were dropped after both victims argued with the judge that I was not the person who did this crime. But I still couldn't go free...Kenny Zulu Whitmore,86468 D/Hawk - 4LLouisiana State PrisonAngola, LA 70712 Poll Position, Neutral On Israel, Supreme Chaos by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Poll Position: The Democrats The 2016 presidential campaign diverges this weekend with Democrats holding caucuses in Nevada while Republicans have a primary in South Carolina. In both cases, the race is wide open. I'll start with the Democrats. After an extremely close and highly questionable win in Iowa, Hillary Clinton got trounced in New Hampshire. Her campaign and its media allies dismissed the results for a variety of reasons -- lack of diversity, familiarity with Sanders, etc. The Clinton campaign assured everyone that she would perform better in states -- like Nevada -- with larger minority populations. At the beginning of the year, Clinton enjoyed a 23-point lead over Bernie Sanders in Nevada. But two polls conducted this month find many Nevada Democrats are now "feeling the Bern" -- the race has turned into a dead heat. In fact, it is so scrambled that the big labor bosses at the AFL-CIO, who were expected to endorse Hillary Clinton next week, announced yesterday that they were canceling the vote and would "refrain from endorsing any candidate at this moment." Poll Position: The Republicans A new NBC/Wall Street Journal national poll stunned pundits with its extraordinary findings -- Texas Senator Ted Cruz has overtaken Donald Trump in the GOP primary. Here are the results: Cruz 28% Trump 26% Rubio 17% Kasich 11% Carson 10% Bush 4% To be fair, no other national poll shows Cruz ahead of Trump so this one could remain an "outlier." What about Saturday's vote in South Carolina? Polls in the Palmetto State have consistently shown Donald Trump with a large lead. But there is a trend emerging -- his numbers are falling. One poll conducted two weeks ago had Trump leading by 22 points. A new Fox News poll finds Trump leading by 13 points. The Fox and NBC/Wall Street Journal polls were conducted after last Saturday's debate, and could reflect a shift in voter attitudes after what many pundits have called Trump's worst performance. If he wins South Carolina by eight points or less, the second place finisher will claim a moral victory. Meanwhile, the real battle is for third place. There will be pressure on the lower-tier finishers to drop out so the field can coalesce around an alternative to Trump. And on that point, the NBC/Wall Street Journal survey has some interesting findings. In a two-man race, Cruz would beat Trump 56% to 40%, and Marco Rubio would beat Trump 57% to 41%. But Trump would beat Jeb Bush 54% to 43%, and he would defeat John Kasich 52% to 44%. Neutral On Israel? During a forum yesterday hosted by MSNBC, Trump was asked what he would do to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians. He acknowledged that it was "the toughest deal of all" to achieve, that good people had failed before, but he would try. Then host Joe Scarborough asked him which side was responsible for past failures -- Israelis or Palestinians. That's where Trump lost me. Here's what he said: "You know, I don't want to get into it. . . If I win, I don't want to be in a position where I'm saying to you [my choice] and the other side now says, 'We don't want Trump involved.' Let me be sort of a neutral guy. . . I'm going to give it a shot. . . So I don't want to say whose fault it is. I don't think it helps." I almost fell off my chair when I heard that. To his credit, Trump has been very vocal about radical Islam. So how in the world can he possibly remain neutral between Israelis and Palestinians? Israel is built on the same values we cherish. Palestinian society, which he acknowledged, is permeated by a culture of death. Israelis are being stabbed daily. Palestinian Islamists are the ones doing the stabbing! How can anyone be neutral between the region's only true democratic republic and a committed ally, and the death-worshipping jihadists of Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, etc.? The Palestinian Authority has rejected multiple peace offers. The Palestinians are not interested in peace with Israel or even a piece of Israel. They want the elimination of Israel. After eight years of Barack Obama, we need a president who will proudly stand with Israel against our common enemies. Supreme Chaos The death of Justice Antonin Scalia is creating chaos on Capitol Hill. Today's Washington Post reports, "Senate Republicans clashed Wednesday over how to battle President Obama's expected Supreme Court nomination." In addition, the White House is refusing to rule out a recess appointment. This president has stopped at nothing to push his radical agenda. Sadly, in many cases, GOP leaders have allowed him to stop at nothing. As one Republican leader told me, "We don't want to fall into Obama's trap and get distracted from our agenda." So Obama gets to do whatever he wants because we're too busy trying to do what exactly? I can't think of a more pressing item on the Republican agenda right now than preventing Barack Obama from appointing Scalia's replacement! If Obama makes a recess appointment, the Republican leadership will have no one to blame but itself. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, backed up by a By the way, Senate Democrats once Here's something to encourage the nervous Nellies in the GOP: The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that Americans were evenly divided over whether the Senate should vote this year on an Obama Supreme Court nominee -- 43% said yes, while 42% said no. Clearly, the country is not clamoring for a third Obama justice. ------------- Gary Bauer is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families Tags: Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, Poll Position, Democrats, Republicans, Neutral On Israel, Donald Trump, Supreme Chaos To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks! The 2016 presidential campaign diverges this weekend with Democrats holding caucuses in Nevada while Republicans have a primary in South Carolina. In both cases, the race is wide open. I'll start with the Democrats.After an extremely close and highly questionable win in Iowa, Hillary Clinton got trounced in New Hampshire. Her campaign and its media allies dismissed the results for a variety of reasons -- lack of diversity, familiarity with Sanders, etc. The Clinton campaign assured everyone that she would perform better in states -- like Nevada -- with larger minority populations.At the beginning of the year, Clinton enjoyed a 23-point lead over Bernie Sanders in Nevada. But two polls conducted this month find many Nevada Democrats are now "feeling the Bern" -- the race has turned into a dead heat.In fact, it is so scrambled that the big labor bosses at the AFL-CIO, who were expected to endorse Hillary Clinton next week, announced yesterday that they were canceling the vote and would "refrain from endorsing any candidate at this moment."A new NBC/Wall Street Journal national poll stunned pundits with its extraordinary findings -- Texas Senator Ted Cruz has overtaken Donald Trump in the GOP primary. Here are the results:To be fair, no other national poll shows Cruz ahead of Trump so this one could remain an "outlier."What about Saturday's vote in South Carolina? Polls in the Palmetto State have consistently shown Donald Trump with a large lead. But there is a trend emerging -- his numbers are falling. One poll conducted two weeks ago had Trump leading by 22 points. A newpoll finds Trump leading by 13 points.The Fox andpolls were conducted after last Saturday's debate, and could reflect a shift in voter attitudes after what many pundits have called Trump's worst performance.If he wins South Carolina by eight points or less, the second place finisher will claim a moral victory. Meanwhile, the real battle is for third place. There will be pressure on the lower-tier finishers to drop out so the field can coalesce around an alternative to Trump.And on that point, thesurvey has some interesting findings. In a two-man race, Cruz would beat Trump 56% to 40%, and Marco Rubio would beat Trump 57% to 41%. But Trump would beat Jeb Bush 54% to 43%, and he would defeat John Kasich 52% to 44%.During a forum yesterday hosted by MSNBC, Trump was asked what he would do to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians. He acknowledged that it was "the toughest deal of all" to achieve, that good people had failed before, but he would try.Then host Joe Scarborough asked him which side was responsible for past failures -- Israelis or Palestinians. That's where Trump lost me. Here's what he said:I almost fell off my chair when I heard that.To his credit, Trump has been very vocal about radical Islam. So how in the world can he possibly remain neutral between Israelis and Palestinians?Israel is built on the same values we cherish. Palestinian society, which he acknowledged, is permeated by a culture of death. Israelis are being stabbed daily. Palestinian Islamists are the ones doing the stabbing!How can anyone be neutral between the region's only true democratic republic and a committed ally, and the death-worshipping jihadists of Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, etc.?The Palestinian Authority has rejected multiple peace offers. The Palestinians are not interested in peace with Israel or even a piece of Israel. They want the elimination of Israel.After eight years of Barack Obama, we need a president who will proudly stand with Israel against our common enemies.The death of Justice Antonin Scalia is creating chaos on Capitol Hill. Today's Washington Post reports, "Senate Republicans clashed Wednesday over how to battle President Obama's expected Supreme Court nomination." In addition, the White House is refusing to rule out a recess appointment.This president has stopped at nothing to push his radical agenda. Sadly, in many cases, GOP leaders have allowed him to stop at nothing. As one Republican leader told me, "We don't want to fall into Obama's trap and get distracted from our agenda."So Obama gets to do whatever he wants because we're too busy trying to do what exactly? I can't think of a more pressing item on the Republican agenda right now than preventing Barack Obama from appointing Scalia's replacement!If Obama makes a recess appointment, the Republican leadership will have no one to blame but itself. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, backed up by a unanimous Supreme Court decision , has full authority to decide when or if the Senate goes into recess.By the way, Senate Democrats once went on the record in opposition to recess appointments of Supreme Court justices.Here's something to encourage the nervous Nellies in the GOP: The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that Americans were evenly divided over whether the Senate should vote this year on an Obama Supreme Court nominee -- 43% said yes, while 42% said no. Clearly, the country is not clamoring for a third Obama justice.------------- Posted by Bill Smith at 2:44 PM - Post Link U.S. Removed Cuba From Terrorist List After Hezbollah Opened Base On Island The information comes straight from Nevertheless, the administration knew that the radical Lebanon-based Islamic group Hezbollah had opened a base in Cuba, just 90 miles from the U.S, a few years earlier. In a cable dated September 9, 2011 Clinton is informed that extremely sensitive sources reported in confidence that the Israeli Intelligence and Security Service (Mossad) has informed the leadership of the Israeli Government that Hezbollah is establishing an operational base in Cuba, designed to support terrorist attacks throughout Latin America. The cable goes on to say that the Hezbollah office in Cuba is being established under direct orders from the current General Secretary Hasan Nasrallah, who replaced Musawi in 1992. According to the information available to this source, in preparation for establishment of the base, Nasrallah, working from inside of Lebanon, carried out secret negotiations with representatives of the Cuban Government, particularly the Cuban Intelligence Service (General Intelligence Directorate DGI), agreeing to , maintain a very low profile inside of Cuba. Nasrallah also promised to take measures to avoid any trail of evidence that could lead back to Cuba in the event of a Hezbollah attack in Latin America. Obamas report to Congress indicating his intent to rescind Cubas State Sponsor of Terrorism designation included a certification that Cuba had not provided any support for international terrorism during the previous six-months. It also claimed that Cuba had provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future. This was May, 2015 when the Hezbollahs involvement in Latin America is nothing new and in fact Judicial Watch has been reporting it for years. In 2013 JW published a Tags: Cuba, Hezbollah, Hillary Clinton, Obama, Terrorism To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks! by Judicial Watch : A few years before the Obama administration removed Cuba from the U.S. list of nations that sponsor terrorism Hezbollah established an operational base on the communist island, according to intelligence received by Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State.The information comes straight from electronic mail released by the State Department over the weekend as part of ongoing litigation from several groups, including Judicial Watch, and media outlets surrounding Clintons use of a private server to send and receive classified information as Secretary of State. This alarming information has been ignored by the mainstream media, which served as the presidents most vocal cheerleader when he established diplomatic ties with Cuba last summer. After appearing for decades on the U.S. governments list of nations that sponsor terrorism, the Obama administration officially removed it to lay the groundwork for a full renewal of diplomatic ties.Nevertheless, the administration knew that the radical Lebanon-based Islamic group Hezbollah had opened a base in Cuba, just 90 miles from the U.S, a few years earlier. In a cable dated September 9, 2011 Clinton is informed that extremely sensitive sources reported in confidence that the Israeli Intelligence and Security Service (Mossad) has informed the leadership of the Israeli Government that Hezbollah is establishing an operational base in Cuba, designed to support terrorist attacks throughout Latin America. The cable goes on to say that the Hezbollah office in Cuba is being established under direct orders from the current General Secretary Hasan Nasrallah, who replaced Musawi in 1992. According to the information available to this source, in preparation for establishment of the base, Nasrallah, working from inside of Lebanon, carried out secret negotiations with representatives of the Cuban Government, particularly the Cuban Intelligence Service (General Intelligence Directorate DGI), agreeing to , maintain a very low profile inside of Cuba. Nasrallah also promised to take measures to avoid any trail of evidence that could lead back to Cuba in the event of a Hezbollah attack in Latin America.Obamas report to Congress indicating his intent to rescind Cubas State Sponsor of Terrorism designation included a certification that Cuba had not provided any support for international terrorism during the previous six-months. It also claimed that Cuba had provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future. This was May, 2015 when the State Department announced the island nation was officially off the terrorist list because it meets the statutory criteria for rescission. In the announcement the agency also wrote this: While the United States has significant concerns and disagreements with a wide range of Cubas policies and actions, these fall outside the criteria relevant to the rescission of a State Sponsor of Terrorism designation. The new Clinton email creates a number of questions relating to the agencys abrupt move to clear Cuba as a sponsor of terrorism.Hezbollahs involvement in Latin America is nothing new and in fact Judicial Watch has been reporting it for years. In 2013 JW published a story about Hezbollah infiltrating the southwest U.S. border by joining forces with Mexican drug cartels that have long operated in the region. The recently released Clinton email, states that a particularly sensitive source confirmed that in the 1980s Hezbollah carried out similar contingency casing operations against U.S., British, and Israeli facilities and businesses in Latin America, Europe and North Africa. In 1992 Islamic Jihad, acting on behalf of Hezbollah, bombed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina in retaliation for the death of Hezbollah General Secretary Abbas al-Musawi, the email says. Posted by Bill Smith at 5:00 PM - Post Link News Blog for social, fiscal & national security conservatives who believe in God, family & the USA. Upholding the rights granted by God & guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, traditional family values, "republican" principles / ideals, transparent & limited "smaller" government, free markets, lower taxes, due process of law, liberty & individual freedom. Content approval rests with the ARRA News Service Editor. Opinions are those of the authors. While varied positions are reported, beliefs & principles remain fixed. No revenue is generated for or by this "Blog" - no paid ads - no payments for articles. Fair Use Doctrine is posted & used. Blogger/Editor/Founder: Bill Smith, Ph.D. [aka: OzarkGuru & 2010 AFP National Blogger of the Year] Contact: editor@arranewsservice.com (Pub. Since July, 2006) Home Page Follow @arra YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS. Armenpress state news agency introduces on the air of Lratvakan.am all that you will read, hear and see on todays news. February 19 Book Donation Day. The solemn opening of the 12th Childrens Book Fair is today. Pupils of the school after Andranik Margaryan will meet writer Vahe Arsen during the Book Donation Day. February 19 is Hovhannes Tumanyans birthday and each child, visiting a bookstore, will get Hovhannes Tumanyan's "Tales" audio books. How far are the Armenians book-lovers? What books are in most demand? How the book affects human psychology and how to choose age-appropriate books? Literary experts Arkmenik Nikoghosyan, psychologist Lilit Khachatryan and Director of Antares publishing house Armen Martirosyan are going to touch upon the aforementioned and other issues. The Republican Conference Current issues studying Armenian language is held along with Armenian Ministry of Diaspora and Language institute named after H.Acharyan. What is the international experience in the reforms of local self-government system? Decentralization and enlargement. Several remarks will be made on the enlargement of communities. Social Democrat Hunchakian Party (SDHP) is organizing conference Syrian conflict: The possible impact of Russian-Turkish relations on Armenia. Representatives of the embassies of the Russian Federation and the Syrian Arab Republic, political scientists and economists will participate in the conference. The negative impact of the internet on children: What is Internet addiction? What technical risks exist? Some remarks will be made on the mentioned topic. More on these and other topics is available on armenpress.am. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS. The Little Prince" by French author Antoine de Saint-Exupery tops this week's "Bestseller Books List" introduced by "Armenpress" News Agency. The novella is both the most read and most translated book in the French language, and was voted the best book of the 20th century in France. The book was translated into more than 190 languages. The Art of Dedication or Dithyramb to a Rose written by Edgar Harutyunyan occupies the 2nd position in the list. The Alchemist novel, one of the best creations of Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho is the 3rd. The novel is on ones having a dream and perseverance to make the dream come true coupled with love, kindness and ability to recognize a new country and a new culture. "The Picture of Dorian Gray" occupies the 4th position of our list. This is the only published novel by Oscar Wilde, appearing as the lead story in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890, printed as the July 1890 issue of this magazine. The magazine's editors feared the story was indecent as submitted, so they censored roughly 500 words, without Wilde's knowledge, before publication. But even with that, the story was still greeted with outrage by British reviewers, some of whom suggested that Wilde should be prosecuted on moral grounds, leading Wilde to defend the novel aggressively in letters to the British press. Wilde later revised the story for book publication, making substantial alterations, deleting controversial passages, adding new chapters and including an aphoristic Preface which has since become famous in its own right. The amended version was published by Ward, Lock and Company in April 1891. Some scholars believe that Wilde would today have wanted us to read the version he originally submitted to Lippincott's. American well-known writer Ray Bradburys Martian Chronicles ranks the 5th. It is considered as one of the best books of the 20th century. As Astronomer Carl Sagan once noticed, Mars is a kind of mythical arena, where our earthly hopes and fears are incarnated. Milan Kunderas The Unbearable Lightness of Being is in the 6th position in the list. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green comes next on our list. "The Great Gatsby" by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald appeared in the 8th position. The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that follows a cast of characters living in the fictional town of West Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of 1922. The story primarily concerns the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his quixotic passion for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan. Considered to be Fitzgerald's magnum opus, The Great Gatsby explores themes of decadence, idealism, resistance to change, social upheaval, and excess, creating a portrait of the Jazz Age that has been described as a cautionary tale regarding the American Dream. 1984" by George Orwell occupies the 9th position of the Bestseller Books List. While 1984 has come and gone, Orwell's narrative is more timely that ever. 1984 presents a "negative utopia", that is at once a startling and haunting vision of the world so powerful that it's completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the power of this novel, its hold on the imaginations of entire generations of readers, or the resiliency of its admonitions a legacy that seems to grow, not lessen, with the passage of time. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsches Thus Spoke Zarathustra is the last work in our list. It was first published in Armenian, in 2002. To complete the bestseller list, the following bookshops have participated in the survey: New Book (093-60-40-64), Noahs Ark (56-81-84), Armenian Book (54-07-06), Edit Print (57-70-09), Bureaucrat (50-01-52), Bookinist (53-74-13), Art Bridge (58-12-84) and Zangak (23-25-28). Completed by Roza Grigoryan As Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen recently told the Senate Banking Committee, the regulators' grades on the latest round of the "living wills" for the nation's 11 most systemically dangerous banks will be released shortly. It's not clear who should be the most nervous: the banks, the regulators or the American people. The banks should be nervous because they spectacularly flunked the last round of living wills for which they received grades. The Fed and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. effectively found that the 11 banks had failed to demonstrate that they could be resolved under the Bankruptcy Code without requiring taxpayer bailouts. This shouldn't really surprise anyone, since the too-big-to-fail banks want taxpayers to backstop their activities and bail them out if necessary. If their living wills are again subpar, the Fed and the FDIC will likely order the banks to take steps to become more resolvable. Under the Dodd-Frank Act, the regulators can ultimately require institutions with shoddy living wills to dispose of or spin off business lines or activities so that they can be resolved in bankruptcy. In other words, the regulators will order them to break themselves up. The regulators should be nervous because their credibility is on the line: After they failed the entire class it should not be surprising if an outbreak of passing grades is greeted with skepticism, especially when the regulators keep the tests and almost all details of the grading process secret. And perhaps the American people should be most nervous of all. It is their money on the line if they end up bailing these banks out again or they suffer the consequences when these banks fail catastrophically. When the nation's largest banks nearly collapsed in 2008, the ensuing crisis and recession cost the U.S. economy more than $20 trillion. In truth all three groups the banks, the regulators and the American people should be on edge. A lot is at stake here. And no matter what the regulators decide, there will likely be plenty of skeptics unsatisfied by the outcome because the process by which the regulators are reviewing and grading living wills has been flawed. Although the banks have released public summaries of their living wills, these summaries are a small fraction of the thousands of pages they have submitted confidentially to the regulators. And the regulators have evaluated these private submissions without any public scrutiny or accountability whatsoever. As former FDIC head Sheila Bair put it, the rest of us those of us who will be called upon to bail out the banks if the regulators get it wrong have to "take it on faith" that the regulators are doing their jobs and getting it all right. The irony, of course, is that the regulators could have done a lot more to get buy-in from the stakeholders in this process. Better Markets recently released a policy brief explaining several ways in which the regulators could improve the "living wills" process so that all of the parties could be sure that the process was both fair and effective. For example, the regulators should have been more transparent about how they were reviewing and grading these living wills. They could have required much more of the living wills to be made public so that outside experts bankruptcy lawyers and finance professionals could have independently evaluated whether the resolution plans were credible. Making these living wills public also would have provided the creditors and counterparties with valuable information they needed to price for risk, which would greatly strengthen market discipline. And those prices would perhaps have been the clearest signal on whether the plans are credible or not. Nothing inspires clear thinking like having money on the line. Such a transparent process could have reassured us all that the living wills were in fact credible. For example, one of the biggest impediments to resolving a financial institution with a trillion-dollar balance sheet under the Bankruptcy Code seems to be obtaining the funding to reorganize such an institution while in bankruptcy. Before the financial crisis, the largest debtor-in-possession funding facility that was put together by a consortium of private lenders was $11 billion. During the financial crisis, General Motors drew upon a $34 billion facility, which came from the U.S. Treasury. Some scholars have estimated that the funding facilities that will be necessary to wind down a bank with a trillion-dollar balance sheet could be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. If the regulators really want us to believe that these livings wills and the review process are credible, they should require these institutions to also publicly disclose how much funding they think it would take for these institutions to be resolved in bankruptcy, and where they think that money is going to come from. This information would establish whether or not taxpayers are on the hook. These changes are too late for this round of the "living wills" process. But these steps to reform the process can help make sure that the next round really does result in living wills that do exactly what they are supposed to: ensure that the biggest banks can be resolved in bankruptcy without having to be bailed out again by taxpayers. Dennis Kelleher is the president and CEO of Better Markets. Frank Medina is the senior counsel and director of research of Better Markets. Follow them on Twitter @BetterMarkets. On the surface, it may appear that the debate over financial regulation is stuck in a time warp. Candidates continue to rail against Wall Street and threaten to "break up the banks!" Rulemaking for the costly and often counterproductive Dodd-Frank legislation grinds along, with dozens of rules and billions in compliance costs yet to come. But a closer look at voters' attitudes indicates that Dodd-Frank is ripe for reform. That's the message of new polling by the American Action Forum. Importantly, the poll pays special attention to competitive swing districts whose crucial voters support reforms. For example, competitive district voters thought the inability of borrowers to afford credit caused the 2008 meltdown, rather than regulatory gaps. By a 61% to 29% margin, those surveyed in such districts agreed with this statement: "Although the Obama Administration claims that lack of regulation caused the financial crisis, the real cause was misguided federal policy that encouraged banks to offer loans to people who could not pay them back, leading to a nationwide real estate crash." Overall, voters in the survey endorsed this view by a margin of 65% to 26%. And they have watched what has happened since. Voters agree 56% to 33% 54% to 35% in swing districts "that federal government has issued an avalanche of new regulations which are strangling our economy, killing jobs, and eating away at our freedoms." But the clincher was this: Voters were asked, "Which of the following do you think has had more of a negative impact on your personal financial situation over the last decade?" They picked big government over big banks by a 47% to 33% margin (40 to 36 in swing districts). In short, voters are skeptical of federal policy. They believe the administration's record of 10 final regulations a day and $100 billion a year in compliance burdens is damaging the economy, and that this is translating into direct financial harm to communities. Voters also show little allegiance to Dodd-Frank. Unlike the Affordable Care Act, for example, there is little recognition of the 2010 financial reform law. The survey asked, "How familiar would you say you are with the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act?" In response, 63% chose "unfamiliar" and only 36% responded "familiar." The numbers are virtually identical in competitive districts 62% to 37%. Similarly, unlike the ACA, there are few strongly held beliefs about Dodd-Frank. Overall, 37% support it, while 39% oppose it. In swing districts, those in favor nudge out opponents 39% to 38%. But when voters are informed about the fallout from the law, things change rapidly. Respondents were told, "Before the Dodd-Frank Act, over 75 percent of banks offered free checking. However, after the Dodd-Frank regulations took effect, only 39 percent now offer free checking." As a result, 64% of respondents in competitive districts were less likely versus only 12% more likely to support the Dodd-Frank law. When voters were told, "The Dodd-Frank Act was aimed at big banks, but its crippling legal and administrative costs have caused many small banks to close or reduce lending which has harmed local economies and made it increasingly difficult for small businesses and entrepreneurs to thrive," 67% of swing-district voters were less likely to favor Dodd-Frank versus 14% more likely. Republicans have tried to correct the overreach in Dodd-Frank for years. To do so, they have to be able to appeal to those outside their base. These polling results show there is a predisposition for fixing regulatory overreach among swing voters. Moreover, if given concrete information about the consumer harms stemming from the Dodd-Frank reforms, they are inclined to try another approach. To be sure, it is still possible to stir populist discontent by invoking "greedy Wall Street executives," and the AAF polling confirms this. But if the issues are stripped of personal attacks and analyzed on the basis of policies, financial institutions and governments, the American public is prepared to trade Dodd-Frank for a less burdensome and more effective approach. Douglas Holtz-Eakin is president of the American Action Forum. He is a former director of the Congressional Budget Office and economic adviser to Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. A critic of the French Revolution, Joseph de Maistre, is said to be first to proclaim that a country gets the government it deserves. The same observation actually was made much earlier by numerous figures in the Bible. And what was true about ancient rulers and kings is probably just as germane to democracies like the United States today. In general, people support leaders that tell them what they want to hear. But what people hear and want to hear is not always what they need to hear. Additionally, what they hear and accept is affected by standards of behavior, cultural norms, media, and educational systems that are shaped and accepted by the ruling class. The results of first two presidential primaries in Iowa and NH -- in which Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sanders lead their respective parties -- should be cause for unease. Will we get the government we deserve rather than one we desperately need? Its not just that the U.S. is in decline, with neither allies trusting us nor enemies fearing us. The country is broke and on a financial crisis trajectory, with national debt nearly doubling in eight years of Obama, matching the accumulated debt of the previous 219 years. The ascendance of anti-establishment candidates Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump is surely attributable to citizens anger with the political establishment in both parties in Washington. The popularity of Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist, is greatest among the demographic too young to remember the economic collapse of the Soviet Socialist motherland. It also reflects a U.S. educational system that has been failing to provide a cursory understanding of why the free market system succeeds and lifts the fortunes of those who embrace it, and why socialist systems lead to decline. Bernie calls himself a revolutionary and his plan starts with eliminating the private health insurance industry that employees half a million people, and replacing it with single-payer government-run healthcare that centralizes more power in Washington bureaucracies. The price tag of this Medicare for all would likely exceed $1.5 trillion annually. In addition, his infrastructure Rebuild America Act and tuition-free public universities would add another $200 billion in annual federal spending. Sanders policy director acknowledges that this massive public sector expansion is unlikely to be covered with proposed marginal federal income tax rates approaching 60% and a Robin Hood securities transaction tax. In short, its more debt and dependency under Bernie. The consummate political outsider, self-funded and beholden to no one, is of course Donald Trump -- best known for his flamboyant Reality TV series, The Apprentice. Donalds claim to have become a conservative in the pattern of Ronald Reagan is at variance with his recent past. Only a few years ago, not only did the Donald say, I probably identify more as a Democrat, but he put his money where his mouth was, collectively giving over $250,000 to the Democrat Party of New York, the Clinton Foundation and also to Hillary Clintons senatorial campaign. Donald says making such political contributions was necessary to protect his business interests. But his record of inconsistency is not limited to the past. Recently, Donald praised Vladimir Putin as a great leader for Russia who can play a constructive role in the Middle East. In the end, Donald Trumps braggadocio, repetitive display of small-minded petulance, and bully-in-the-schoolyard temperament reveal a character not only unpresidential, but also one unlikely to deliver on his trademark slogan to Make America Great Again. Hillary Clinton has been considered the heir apparent of the Democrat Party. Her campaign pledges to keep the main tenets of the Obama agenda in tact: from protecting and expanding ObamaCare to ending the mass incarceration of minority criminals and continuing the war on fossil fuels. The problem for Hillary is that her proclivity for deceit and secrecy, played out on a grand scale while secretary of state, has now caught up with her. She lied about both the reasons for the Benghazi terrorist attack and her handling of classified and top secret information through her private unsecure email server -- an unprecedented action that likely compromised U.S. interests and personnel abroad. Hillarys reckoning with indictment may soon come if the complete email record during her tenure as secretary of state shows political favors to foreign entities who also made contributions to Clinton Foundation. So there you have it in the current front runners: a revolutionary socialist, a brash billionaire reality TV/crony business mogul with no foreign policy experience, and a serial liar from a scandal-prone political family who operates on the edge and above the law. When they drafted the Constitution, the founders made no assumptions about a highly informed electorate. But they did trust that citizens common sense grounded in morality from Christian beliefs and orientation would guide their choices at the ballot box. Unlike the Democrat Party which has no visible backup candidate, the GOP fortunately has a deep bench of alternatives to present front-runner Donald Trump. As the primaries progress, the candidates need to focus on the issues rather than the brawl. And lets hope common sense and preference for propriety among the electorate channels anger into constructive thinking and choice of a nominee who can not only win in November, but also deliver what is needed at this critical time in history. Scott Powell is senior fellow at Discovery Institute in Seattle and managing partner of RemingtonRand. Email him at scottp@discovery.org Few Senate actions are as dramatic or divisive as the advise and consent process for Supreme Court nominations. The replacement of Antonin Scalia is shaping up to be a barn burner, since Novembers outcome is not a solid bet. We can expect the Democrats to be going full out for rapid approval of any Obama nominee. The Republicans, if history holds true, will likely put up the same level of resistance as France did during Germanys Fall Gelb operations of May 1940. Democrats fear Republicans will not follow tradition and might actually offer resistance, thus they could use circumspect methods, such as a recess appointment, to slip in a leftist extremist, such as Holder, Lynch, or Kamala Harris. However, if the Democrats stick to principles they would honor their own Senate Resolution 334 which urges no SCOTUS recess appointments. The likelihood of that occurrence is about on par with Bill Clinton honoring his marriage vows. With decades of practice, the Democrats have mastered the art using the judiciary for agenda advancement and they play to win, no holds barred. Republicans still believe their Senatorial opponents are gentlemen who play by Roberts Rules of Order. They do so without supporting evidence. Past hearings have been fraught with difficulties, false charges, racist allegations, hypocrisy and despicable politics. As the battle looms it is worth recalling the advice of Sun Tzu: If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril. In order to move forward successfully, a refresher on the past is in order: Robert Bork (1987) Kevin Gutzman, then an intern for Congressman Dick Armey, described the hearing as having all the makings of a circus. Gutzman also described the men aligned against Judge Bork as being: the Democratic majority on the Judiciary Committee, includ(ed) a chairman (Sen. Joe Biden) in the midst of a scandal over his having delivered a speech plagiarized from a British politician, one member (Patrick Leahy) who had been tossed off the Intelligence Committee by its Democratic chairman for leaking documents, another senator (Robert Byrd) who had been a Ku Klux Klansman, and Kennedy, infamous for being tossed out of Harvard for cheating Indeed the men who sat in judgement of Robert Bork had issues of their own, but as we know Democrats are as forgiving of themselves as they are unforgiving of the opposition. Senator Kennedy fired a slanderous broadside against Bork: Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens. The well prepared speech had been on hold as the Democrats had been lying in wait for Borks expected nomination. The Republicans were stunned, and Bork, was Borked and ultimately rejected 42-58. Judge Bork became the fourth Republican nominee rejected in the past 100 years. A Democratic president has not had a nominee rejected since 1894 when Wheeler Hazard Peckham was voted down by the Senate. Clarence Thomas (1991) As ugly and as hard fought as the Bork hearing was, things got worse. Thomas, nominated to replace civil rights icon Thurgood Marshal, was seen as being too conservative and thus not black enough for such an honor. In reality, Thomas was a person worthy of emulation: born dirt poor, a direct descendent of slaves, he fought discrimination while young including desegregating the high school he attended. Hard work, as well as dedication to his studies, allowed him to rise above lesser individuals who lacked his will, character, and intellect. None of that mattered to Democrats or their backers in the NAACP; Clarence Thomas was seen as a Tom, pure and simple, thus the knives came out to stab him in the back. Having learned from the decimation Bork, Thomas treaded lightly with circumventive responses to loaded questions. The Baltimore Sun in its piece; The Real Clarence Thomas?described the testimony: Too often he chose to retreat into such safe responses as, "I have to wait to read the briefs and hear the oral arguments." Too often he obfuscated when asked about prior writings. He gave the impression that he is much closer to the right wing extreme than to closet liberalism. This became a source of irritation for those aligned against Thomas, as the Sun piece confirmed: Judge Thomas has been accused by some who have closely followed his career and his hearings as having experienced "a confirmation conversion." He is hiding his true and radical feelings in order to assure confirmation. This week's version is not the real Clarence Thomas As the hearing progressed the Democrats saw that they were losing this battle. Committee Chairmen Joe Bidens questioning had failed to reveal a chink in the defensive armor of Thomas. The Democrats were reduced to bringing in a ringer; an unknown women named Anita Hill. Her testimony elicited the intended, feigned outrage, fueled by coordinated efforts. However, Thomas, now justifiably outraged, struck back: This is a circus. Its a national disgrace. And from my standpoint as a black American, as far as Im concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate, rather than hung from a tree. Thomas fought back and was confirmed by the narrowest of margins. Miguel Estrada (2003) George Bushs nominee to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, was widely regarded as a prospect for a future appointment to the Supreme Court. If Clarence Thomas was not black enough for the left, Estrada was not brown enough. There are few things the left hates more than a person of color becoming, strong, well educated, successful, and Republican. People who rise above and desert them must be destroyed, least others get the same ideas that achievement is possible without the governmental largess of the Democrats. Best to nip this Estrada fellow in the bud as soon as possible. The day before the committee vote the New York Times editorialized: Mr. Estrada, now a lawyer in Washington, also had an opportunity to elaborate on his views, and assuage senators' concerns, at his confirmation hearing, but he failed to do so. When asked his opinion about important legal questions, he dodged. Lets be clear regarding the hearings of Bork versus that of Estrada: Bork was rejected, because he was honest in his wholly defendable legal views, while Estrada was rejected for evasiveness and lack of clarity regarding his views. Damned if you do, damned if you dont. Keep the above point in mind also as pertains to the future testimony of President Obamas nominee: Sotomayor. Regarding the wise Latinas testimony the NY Times stated: She strove to be as circumspect about her views as possible, while the Senate Judiciary Committee members played their preset roles as defenders and interrogators. David Brooks of the NY Times wrote of Sotomayor: In practice, Sotomayor is a liberal incrementalist In short, Sotomayors career surpasses the crude categories she sometimes articulates. Despite the ideas she picked up while young, she has, over many years, chosen to submit herself to the discipline of the law, and she has not abused its institutions. I hope shes confirmed. Sotomayor was confirmed, as well as Elena Kagan, who when combined with Ginsberg form a solid, unabashed trio of extreme left ideologues. All three were accepted by Senate Republicans with a minimum level of resistance. Obama will take the rare opportunity to nominate someone as a replacement for Scalia. Democrats will fight hard for the candidate. However, the rules need to be applied fairly and equally to both sides, but they never are. The real problem is the Republicans have yet to come to that realization. Public sector pension contracts have started to bankrupt communities and threaten the economic viability of states such as Illinois. Taxpayers are entitled to a conversation as to whether or not these contracts violate the U.S. Constitution. In many states, public sector pension contracts are protected by clauses in that states constitution. The words usually used are that public sector pension contracts are contractual agreements that cannot be diminished or impaired. An argument against these would take the position that under the Fourteenth Amendment all persons are guaranteed equal protection under state laws. No state can pass a law, for example, which clearly specifies that the minimum wage for a man must be four dollars an hour more than the minimum wage paid to a woman. No one would defend such a law because it clearly classifies persons into two groups. But this is exactly what state constitutions do with regard to pension contracts. These clauses clearly state that only government workers contracts are binding contractual agreements that cannot be diminished or impaired. One way to understand the principle involved is to understand it as specifying a group. What if these clauses of state constitutions said that only contractual agreements entered into with men cannot be diminished or impaired. Or white residents of the state. This would be considered so outrageous that states would never contemplate even proposing such a clause in their state constitutions. But these clauses clearly do specify only one type of contract to be protected; only those contracts made with one group of people, government employees. Those who do not have government contracts are not protected. While the Fourteenth Amendment was originally directed toward the southern states treatment of freed slaves after the Civil War, it has since been expanded to protect other groups of persons such as women and those desiring same-sex marriage. If one cannot discriminate based on race, sex, age, ethnic origin, gender identity, and other group identifiers, it becomes difficult to defend the idea that a group identifier that defines ones employer can withstand constitutional scrutiny. Illinois constitution actually specifies that government workers have their own Pension and Retirement Rights, rights denied to everyone else. These unequal rights are enforced by state government. The Supreme Court only ruled last year that persons who desire to be married and happen to be of the same sex are entitled to equal protection of the law. Then how can anyone defend the idea that those who happen to be employees of a school district, state, county or government agency, are entitled to contractual protection while those who happen to be employed in the private sector are not? In the past the Supreme Court has accepted arguments that proved discrimination based on the consequences of the actions. For example, if a police policy results in a disproportionate arrest of blacks over whites, then it can be seen as discrimination based on race. To this day the ACLU argues that blacks are disproportionately arrested and incarcerated based on their race alone. It is a demonstrable fact that not only do these clauses of state constitutions violate equal protection but they lead to, and in fact create, violations of free speech. Public sector unions that are protected by these clauses are the biggest campaign contributors to political campaigns. One can then argue that since the Supreme Court has already ruled that campaign donations are a form of speech, then these clauses give more weight to, and enable, more public sector speech. And when one considers that the power of the state is used to force all residents, through taxation, to subsidize the speech of this small group of people who are protected by the states constitution, then the effect is for the state to use its governmental powers to tax to promote the speech of only a select group of people, those who belong to public unions. This also violates the one person one vote mandate. That these clauses promote discriminatory speech is easy to prove. In Illinois when the state income tax was raised from three to five percent, 89% of this extra revenue went only to pay public sector pensions. Government cannot force taxpayers to fund the campaigns of only one political party, yet in states dominated by Democrat Party public unions, taxpayers of all parties are forced to support the political speech only of Democrats. This happens at the national level as well. Of the six biggest campaign contributors over twenty years, four are national public sector unions and this give virtually all of their national campaign contributions to only one political party, Democrats. Federal Election Commission records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics prove this. And in Illinois the two biggest campaign contributors are the Chicago Teachers Union and the Illinois Teachers Federation. Since these unions are in turn supported by property and other taxes -- in Cook County, Illinois, 90% of the recent sales tax increase goes to public pensions -- then every person in the state is forced to subsidize the Democrat Party. If this is legal then we are back in the middle ages, Democrats are the nobility, and everyone else a serf. Federal workers also have collective bargaining powers, are immune to Federal laws such as ObamaCare, social security contributions, and so on. In fact, of those IRS lawyers who made campaign contributions, 95% gave money only to Democrats, including Barack Obamas 2012 campaign. In effect the Democrat Party has slowly transformed the U.S. into an oligarchy where all persons are forced to support only their party. And if anyone sues a state for this clause they will go before Federal Judges who may belong to a union. If everyone involved in this issue is part of a public union there can be no protection under the constitution. This also provides another reason why these clauses are unconstitutional. Another violation results from the fact that these pension contracts are in force for decades. There is no constitutional basis to force voters who live thirty years from now to support appropriations contracted today. Anyone who does not see this as unconstitutional should imagine a situation in which all the oil companies of a state were the biggest campaign contributors to only one political party, with the party then giving them 0.9% of every dollar spent by consumers, alomg with most of the money from property taxes, and then protected this arrangement with a clause in the state constitution that specified: all contracts with oil companies cannot be diminished or impaired. Most Americans see that when states give contracts to lobbyist groups who have made campaign contributions, there is a potential for corruption. And while this arrangement is widely accepted as corruption, these contracts are not protected by state constitutions or persist indefinitely. Some may argue that oil companies dont perform public service. But theres nothing in the U.S. Constitution that says public servants are entitled to immunity from the Fourteenth Amendment. The primary function of the Constitution is to limit the power of government. If SCOTUS ever upholds these contract clauses, equality is over. Back in the days when Garrison Keillor was still funny, he told stories about the pioneering settlers who founded Lake Woebegon, Minnesota in the 19th century. In the story, Norwegian immigrants settled in the coldest part of Minnesota because it reminded them of home and then, when winter came, they remembered why they had left there in the first place. German Catholics wandered into Lake Woebegon by mistake, "but they refused to admit it." So they stayed. Today, Angela Merkel's Germany is making another suicidal gesture by opening the borders to tens of thousands of predatory, war-indoctrinated jihadis young men of military age, who have been taught to despise, hate, and beat up anybody outside their own Muslim sect. They are indoctrinated in war theology the last major war theology on Earth. Merkel and the EU have drifted into this suicidal fiasco by mistake but they still refuse to admit it. It's the German Catholics and Lake Woebegon again. Sweden and Germany (especially Prussia) have a long folk reputation for getting completely stuck in whatever the current absolutist ideology happens to be. This kind of fanatical belief led to centuries of bloody warfare between German-speaking Lutherans and Catholics. Then it was Prussian imperialism with Frederick the Great and later Bismarck, who turned the independent provinces of Germany into one unified and self-glorifying Reich. Prussian egomania turned into Karl Marx's "philosophy" and Richard Wagner's ideology in 1848; Marx preached revolutionary terror, and Wagner led directly to Hitler. But the absolutist pathology over there was still the same. Only the slogans changed. Today Angela Merkel and the EU preach peace, peace, but they stupidly let in 50 million easily indoctrinated Muslims so there will be no peace. Isaiah (48:22) was right again. The Swedes, Germans, and French still yearn for that Napoleonic absolutism, and the EU is always frantically denying that it plans to become another Roman Empire. Methinks they do protest too much. After Hitler and the Holocaust, West Germany had a long period of stability, under American defense guarantees, and many West Germans repented of the most disastrous mass regression in European history, the Nazi period. At the same time, East Germany under Soviet control refused to take any responsibility for the Nazi past, including the ex-Nazis themselves. It is difficult for human beings to confess to overwhelming guilt. People who lived under Stalin had their own Holodomor and Siberian concentration camps, and humankind cannot bear much reality. When the Berlin Wall went down around 1990, East and West Germany merged two halves of a troubled country with totally different ideologies and blame for the past. The unexpurgated ghosts of that past reared their ugly heads again. Rational adult responsibility for Hitler turned into compulsive self-loathing, which was as insane in its own way as all the other absolutist beliefs of the past. Multiculturalism took over as an irrational overcompensation for the sins of the fathers, who were long dead by the time the multicult took hold. The biblical wisdom is that children cannot be blamed for the sins of the fathers. Public guilt-tripping for the Holocaust was mighty convenient for the hard left, which never repented of 100 million victims of Marxist regimes in the 20th century (still growing in North Korea today). Freud thought that mental illnesses were irrational exaggerations of normal emotions. Paranoids suffer from intolerable suspicion about hidden forces, but there is such a thing as reasonable suspicion. Severe depression is the extreme of normal sadness, driven by irrational perfectionism. Anxiety disorders involve dysfunctional fears, but sane fear is a very healthy thing when a big truck is bearing down on you. Islamophobia is a fantasy disease manufactured by the Organs of Propaganda, but legitimate fear of jihad is completely sane. German-Swedish-French perfectionism and self-loathing are national manifestations of the same disorders we see in individuals. If you're haunted by deeply irrational self-loathing, insane fear, or suspicion, the answer is not to swing to the opposite extreme. Psychotherapists see reaction formations like that all the time, and extreme emotional swings can destroy the road to health. Still Angela Merkel overcompensated to an insane extreme when she opened Europe's borders to the closest thing to the Nazis since Hitler. This is a madness of Europe's political elites. ISIS is not at all different from the sadistic mass murders committed by the Nazis and by Stalin. War ideologies are pretty much the same; only the uniforms, the hats, and the flags change. What we see on ISIS murder videos is a bunch of adolescent males wearing Halloween outfits while they boast about murdering and abusing children and other innocents, who happen to believe in the wrong things. The Hitler Jugend was an earlier manifestation of ISIS, with different hats and flags. Human war cults are paranoid groups that shut out reality by mouthing the same stupid slogans over and over again until they themselves believe them. Mao's Red Guards killed their own teachers, Pol Pot targeted people wearing glasses, and Jim Jones did it with poisoned Kool-Aid. His followers were ordinary people from San Francisco who were desperate for some meaning and purpose in their lives. Murder cults are amazingly stereotypical. The biggest mistake Europe's ruling classes made was "multiculturalism": glorifying dysfunctional tribal cultures and spreading hatred against the successful West and Christianity. The multicult has now been denounced by Merkel, by Britain's David Cameron, Tony Blair, and other big politicians, but you can't wipe out decades of heavy indoctrination in one day. The European and U.S. left wing hammered multi-cultism into millions of human heads, 24 hours a day, shoving it down in the schools and insisting on perverse glorification of violent tribal groups, like Muslim Somalis in Minneapolis. The Multi Cult forbade rational thinking about importing violent Muslims and their hate-preaching imams. The current wave of holy war began with the rise of OPEC in the 1970s, as per Mohammed's specs from the Arabian desert 1,400 years ago. Saudi super-billionaire Walid bin Talal has just promised another 35 million dollars for Muslim expansion in the West. Holy struggle doesn't have to be violent; if you kowtow to them completely, they are happy to accept your surrender. But they'll watch you ever after for good behavior, and walking away is punishable by death. Jihad adapts its tactics to the enemy, but it never drops the goal of global conquest. This is not a secret; our ruling classes and media are not as stupid as they pretend to be. They know. The European Union never has to face an election. Eurosocialist politicians have lifetime tenure, and when they make ruinous mistakes, they always escape any blame. The euro currency has been a catastrophe for the weaker economies of Europe all except Germany and France. Importing 50 million easily radicalized Muslims was a history-making suicidal blunder, but nobody is allowed to say so, even today. Cannibalizing their defenses to feed the welfare state was yet another mind-boggling mistake. In the real world, suicidal mistakes are punished by reality, or by other people. Socialism evades any consequences. When Obama withdrew U.S. protection, Europe suddenly became vulnerable to Putin and jihad. Even so-called "conservative" (i.e., sane) newspapers over there can't bring themselves to tell the truth. The EU and its national elites own the media. Not all Europeans are blind to these gross, delusional mistakes. Millions of people see it happening, and they are afraid. But this bunch of Eurosocialist rulers are just as deaf and dumb as the Soviet apparatchiks were. They can see their delusions crumbling, but they can't stop it. The EU has a perfect formula for endemic corruption and betrayal, and Muslim regimes have always practiced political baksheesh. All the Saudis had to do was to import their own ancient political culture along with the mosques they built all over the place. Under Multi-Cult Jacques Chirac, Dominique de Villepin and Kofi Annan took big money from Saddam Hussein, money that was intended to feed Iraqi children. Nicolas Sarkozy took 50 million dollars from Moammar Gaddafi. Helmuth Kohl sold out to Putin's Gazprom, the Russian energy giant. The media shut their eyes. Today the London Daily Telegraph claims that 261 British politicians are directly implicated in child sexual abuse rings in the U.K., but they are never exposed. The BBC covered up their own child sex abuse scandal for decades. Every writer about Islam has known that underage sexual abuse is endemic in the Muslim world, following the example of the perfect man, Mohammed. Occasionally another "Asian" (Muslim) child abuse gang is arrested in the U.K., but the cops can never catch up. They can't even go into no-go zones in London. Nobody can purge the rot, because everybody is either on the take or open to blackmail. The Cambridge Spy Ring of the 1930s were gay college students who were easily suborned by the KGB. Today gay sex is legal, but child abuse is not, and to hostile regimes it's an obvious blackmail trick. In the U.S., Bill Clinton was caught going to Jeffrey Epstein's Lolita Island off the Florida coast, and yes, Mr. Epstein did have videocams recording what was going on. Nobody has ever told the U.S. public all the blackmail possibilities, but we know that unidentified hackers have stolen hundreds of personal identities of many federal officials. Hillary and Huma's email scam was a wide open invitation for predatory hackers from Russia, Iran, China, Israel, the EU, and all the rest. Once you can read hundreds of Hillary's SecState emails, it's a lot easier to break into more secure systems. Any sentient person now knows that Obama and Hillary are Eurosocialists. Chicago is a sort of Eurosocialist political machine. Obama's mentor is Emil Jones, the "godfather" of the Illinois Machine, and Michelle's father was a Chicago ward boss. Chicago is also a baksheesh culture. It makes Chicago Muslims feel right at home. The West has cooked up this devil's brew with the active help of hostile regimes. Angela Merkel will never admit to being wrong about the jihad invasion, because German politicians can't admit mistakes. The Euroclass keep committing lethal blunders, but they're afraid that public exposure will bring Dr. Guillotin to their door, just as with Marie Antoinette. Muslim infiltration by money, blackmail, and jihad immigration is still out of control. Fear of major terrorist attacks has now been added to all the other levers of manipulation controlled by the likes of the Saudis and Iran, primitive regimes that keep promising to go nuclear ASAP. Europe is still the second richest economy per capita, with more than 300 million productive people. It still has no serious defensive capacity, because Uncle Sam took care of all that until Obama pulled out the rug. Now Europe has sacrificed any serious defense capacity, and Uncle Sam has walked off. Europe has been emasculated by two generations of anti-male, anti-realist, fantasy propaganda. The last time I spent some time in Denmark and Sweden, the gay scene both male and female seemed to be all the rage. I don't have statistical evidence, but it's easy to see. When Obama gave his first "Look at me, citizens of the world!" speech in Berlin in 2008, he first wanted to talk at the Brandenburg Gate. Instead, the Germans proposed the Siegesaule Platz, the center of the gay scene in Berlin. Maybe it was the mayor's sense of humor. American television audiences didn't get a chance to see Obama's audience, but the scuttlebutt was that that nude gay couples were enjoying the sunshine on the grass while Obama paraded his ego. Wikipedia tell us that "Siegessaule ('Victory Column') is derived from, a phallus-shaped Berlin monument located near a (gay) cruising area in the Tiergarten park" (Berlin Zoo). Everybody over there understood the joke, but nobody told Americans. The Victory Column celebrates Prussia's victory over France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Otto von Bismarck ruled Prussia at the time, and the war was part of his campaign to unite all the German-speaking provinces under Berlin's control in a single Reich. Bismarck's unification of Germany led directly to World War I, which led directly to World War II and the Cold War. It's useful to know a little history. Eurosocialism has now managed to swing Europe away from its bloody past, which seems like a good idea. But under Angela Merkel the Germans have also managed to emasculate themselves, in another one of those pathological swings from one extreme to the other. The EU proclaims its peaceful intentions at the top of its voice, just like Stalin's Soviet Union. But Merkel's ground-kissing bow to the rapefugees tells us that Europe still hasn't found a sane political balance. Europe has only switched one political pathology for another one. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS. According to the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Emergency Situations (MTAES) of the Republic of Armenia (RA), on February 19 by 09.00 all state and interstate highways in the Republic are passable, Armenpress reports. As the department of ES of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of The Republic of Georgia informs Stepantsminda-Lars highway is closed. If you believe whats currently going on with Hillarys campaign is an indication that the Clinton political prowess has begun to falter, youd better think again. It may not seem like it, based on what the media and political pundits are saying about Hillarys campaign losing ground fast to Bernie Sanders, but everything is going exactly as planned by the Clinton campaign strategist. The Clinton team knew from the beginning that Hillary was an unappealing presidential candidate for anyone except the hardcore Democrat base. They also knew she carried the negative political baggage of lingering problems with her emails, Benghazi, and the Clinton Foundation. Knowing all this, the Clinton team knew that Hillary would never make it for all those months as a front-running candidate with a big target on her back. So the strategy has always been to keep Hillary under the media radar at least long enough for her to get the Democrat presidential nomination. It took a while for Bernie to gain some traction, but once he did, the spotlight dimmed on Hillary and began to light him up. Didnt anyone find it odd that questions about Hillarys emails and her other simmering scandals dried up all of a sudden? Could it be just a coincidence? Not with the Clintons. Every bit of news coming from the media about the Democrat primary these days is highlighted by Bernies surprisingly successful campaign. The media spouts that Bernies growing popularity could spell big trouble for Hillary. But no one is happier about this seemingly bad news than Hillarys campaign, because this is exactly the kind of trouble they prefer Hillary to have all the way to the Democrat convention. Bernie Sanders is the perfect shill in the Democrat presidential primaries. And so far, he is working exceptionally well for Hillarys low profile campaign strategy. The higher Bernie climbs in the polls, the better his chances are of staying longer in a primary battle with Hillary. And the longer he stays in the primary, the longer Hillarys shady political past stays under the media radar and out of sight of the American electorate. But theres not a political pundit on the planet who believes that Bernie Sanders has a snowballs chance of winning the Democrat presidential nomination. If you care to check out the delegate count as of today, Hillary is well on the way to being nominated. And getting to the nomination unscathed by any of her real political (and legal) troubles is the key to Hillarys success. When Hillary accepts the Democrat nomination for president, Bernie Sanderss valiant effort will become a big political feather in her hat. The media will say: Wow that Hillary sure is a fighter! (You do know her slogan is Fighting for Us, right?) And when the Republicans, and their beleaguered and battle-worn presidential nominee, finally get around to campaigning against only Hillary, all those questions and allegations theyll be making about her emails, Benghazi, and the Clinton Foundation will be noted and branded by the leftist media as old news, anti-woman, and you guessed it another right-wing conspiracy. Good luck with that, Mr. Trump. This is bizarrely and touchingly naive. John Kerry traveled to California to hobnob with studio executives, soliciting ideas on how to fight radical Islam. No, really. He did. What's more, the State Department was clueless enough to announce the purpose and location of the event. It doesn't matter what we think about Kerry asking ignoramuses about strategy to combat ISIS propaganda. What matters is what ISIS thinks about it. We'll ask them when they stop laughing. Matthew Continetti, writing in the Washington Free Beacon, imagines what the execs said to Kerry: If there is one thing we know about Hollywood executives, it is that they are full of perspectives, have plenty of ideas. You need to tell our story, Mr. Secretary. Fix the plot point in Act Two. The tweets we are sending to convince young Muslim men not to join the Caliphatedo they have character arcs? Are they bankable? We can work with the Chinese on this; they keep telling Jeffrey about their problem with the Uighurs. Perhaps we could enlist actors to speak out against ISIS. A public service announcement, with Hillary Swank gazing sadly into the camerathat might make Ahad al Islam think twice about taking a Yazidi sex slave. Or have Steven Spielberg direct a short film on American efforts to combat Islamophabia. We can get Kushner to write it: Allah in America! It wont be anything big, just 10 or 20 minutes long. A cost effective plan, if we can leverage viral propagation. I know George Clooney will be interested. When we stopped by the villa after Cannes last year Amal said something about how terrible it is, the killing. And it is terrible, awful. And the refugees: We can partner with Go Pro. Give them cameras to tell their stories. Well edit them here, in one of our studio bays, and release them via Youtube. Theyll become memes. And the memes can link back to the State Department homepage about all you and the president are doing to show that ISIS has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam. No we missed Davos this year because we were getting ready for Sundance. But anyway we have to be sure not to offend anyone. That would be the worst. That would just play into ISISs hands. Can you believe what Donald Trump said? Terrible. Sets us back. This probably isn't that far off the mark, despite Continetti's attempt at satire. But what's truly scary is that ISIS doesn't care if Kerry and the administration believe that the terrorists represent Islam or not. In their own minds, they do. And ignoring that singular fact in favor of a politically correct false consciousness guarantees failure in our efforts to destroy them. Pope Francis travels the world canoodling with dictators and mass murderers like Raul Castro and Hassan Rouhani. Breitbart reported that Pope Francis spent yesterday "slapping Americans in the face from across the U.S.-Mexico border." The pontiff specifically insulted capitalism: "The flow of capital cannot decide the flow of people." This is particularly senseless because he was referring to people who are trying to illegally escape into capitalism. Today, while kicking back on his jet, returning to the most heavily walled city in the world, the pope denigrated the Christianity of millions of Americans who support building a wall at the southern border. The pejorative "capitalism" to describe private enterprise was coined by Marx and Engels. Pope Francis is demonstrating the truism that when Christianity and Marxism marry, they became one, and that one is Marxism. That is inevitable because Christianity and Marxism are not merely an odd couple; they are irreconcilably different. One brings love; the other knows only how to bully. For all the high-sounding twaddle about liberation theology, theology is just another ology, and ologies have nothing to do with love. Christianity is the human response to God's love and all forms of socialism, including the pope's sermon-draped materialism, depend on man-made law enforced by man-made guns. The pope's gig traces to Peter. The gist of his anti-capitalist pronouncements traces to Karl. But there's an ironic twist. Marxism is an economic theory built around inevitable revolution due to class struggle. Karl must be spinning, because the Pope's brand of Marxism is to spread the world's greatest anti-revolutionary message. Workers of the world, run for the border, and then maybe unite! The pope is a dream come true for the ruling class of Mexico. Francis is the world's preeminent bourgeois reactionary, exhorting people to skip the class struggle and reject the revolution. Just run away from your homes, families, and country and invade the United States. Plenty of people there insist that other Americans take care of you and your extended families. Although I am officially (and, in fact, personally) neutral among the GOP candidates, I have long admired Ted Cruzs devotion to the Constitution and his disregard of the get-along/go-along ethic of the GOP Senate. Not to mention his formidable intellect. This background makes doubly disappointing his recent descent to deplorable (and easily discoverable) beyond-hardball tactics. If your campaign slogan is "TrusTed," you need a higher standard of behavior. Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal dispassionately chronicles the recent ethical problems of his campaign. Texas Sen. Ted Cruzs campaign on Thursday found itself in rough but increasingly familiar territory. It wasnt talking about policies or consistent conservatism. It was instead trying to explain why it had photoshopped a fake image of Marco Rubio shaking Barack Obamas hand. Its a true saying in politics that if you are denying or explaining, you have a problem. By that standard, Ted Cruz may have a problem. He does indeed have a problem. A very visible one. If you are going to commit a fraud, best not to do it with visual evidence. And it is not the first time his campaign has gone up to the edge and over it: Mr. Cruz provided the opening for this with his campaigns decision on Iowa caucus night to suggest to voters that Ben Carson was suspending his campaign, and to urge them to vote for him instead. Mr. Trump wanted Mr. Cruz disqualified for fraud. Dr. Carson accused him of deceit and lies and dirty tricks. Mr. Cruz blamed it on a mix-up and apologized. Yet before the dust had settled, reports came out of a Cruz campaign mailer sent to Iowa voters. The outside contained giant red letters reading VOTER VIOLATION and the words public record and further action needed. Inside, the mailer warned recipients of low expected voter turnout in their area, claimed that their voting record might be publicized, and pushed them to caucus. The Iowa secretary of state, a Republican, blasted the Cruz campaign for misrepresenting his office and Iowa election law. A new controversy has since sprouted in Ohio over another Cruz mailer. This envelope bears Mr. Cruzs name, as well as big black letters reading: Check Enclosed. Inside there is a check, only it is made out to Mr. Cruz from the recipientalong with an appeal to make a contribution. Ohio Republican Chairman Matt Borges complained that the letterwith its suggestion of a government checkwas shady and went right up to the edge. Mr. Cruzs problem is that these shenanigans have laid the groundwork for his campaign to be accused of far worse deeds in South Carolina. Mr. Trump used the most recent Republican debate to charge the Cruz campaign with orchestrating push-poll calls that trashed the other candidates. Recipients reported that the calls came courtesy of Remington Research, an outfit started by Mr. Cruzs campaign manger. The Rubio campaign meanwhile tagged the Cruz campaign with ginning up a fake Facebook page that falsely claimed popular South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy was switching his support from Mr. Rubio to Mr. Cruz. Push polls can be faked, and so can Facebook pages. It is not clear the Cruz campaign is responsible for these. But the other missteps weaken the benefit of the doubt instinct I would otherwise apply. This is all the more surprising because other than these ethical lapses, Cruz has run a very smart campaign, based on the notion that he can be trusted. When people try to get me to come out in favor of one candidate or another, I always point out that they are all flawed human beings. I will take any of the GOP field over the Dem nominee. But I really wish Cruzs campaign were not subject to these lapses. And I think they will hurt him in South Carolina, which supposedly is notorious for dirty campaigning. As soon as I read the pope's actual words, my first thought was that he probably was not speaking of physical walls and bridges, but rather of emotional, spiritual, and verbal walls and bridges. Admonitions to tear down all the barriers one has erected around one's heart in order to open it to Christ's love is, after all, a standard theme in Christian sermons. I ran that past people from two different evangelical Christian perspectives, and they concurred. Whenever they hear a religious leader speak in terms of tearing down walls or building bridges, their first thought is that those phrases are metaphorical devices. They also thought the pope is on solid theological ground: a Christian must tear down walls of hate and prejudice and build spiritual bridges to other humans in order to spread the Gospel. Charity confined to those who are exactly like us is tribalism, not Christian virtue. If their goal is actually to win an election, I find it puzzling that Trump and his supporters cannot or will not see this need to build bridges. I have to wonder: do they really prefer to revel in constant anger and outrage? The supporters certainly may feel a cathartic rush in watching their geriatric chosen leader oscillate between taunts that would be unbecoming in a junior high school bully and the vaporous threats of those special little millennial snowflakes to make a federal legal case over any statement that upsets his, her, or its exalted self-opinion. But what does Trump suppose will come next? This constant barrage of lowbrow political theater grows old very fast. With that fatigue, people often see themselves on the other side of all the walls Donald Trump seems to be erecting between himself and those who will cast the votes that will give someone 50% plus one Electoral College votes in the upcoming general election. How is the I am the greatest and you are a loser if you don't think so strategy a formula for anything other than catastrophic failure? The pope just warned people that they cant isolate themselves from huge slices of the human race and expect spiritual salvation. Secular therapists often note that it is much easier for a wounded spirit to build isolating walls than a proactive bridge that might restore health. A historian who specializes in elections may note that if a politician could isolate, insult, demean, threaten, and broken-catchphrase his way to political victor,y it would have regularly been done a long time ago. It is, after all, a lot easier to bask in applause after a barrage of us-versus-them insults than it is to spend months reaching out to cogently explain oneself to that 50% plus one of the population that is skeptical. In response to Donald Trumps call for constructing a wall at our southern border so as to stem the illegal migrations into our country, Pope Francis indicated that Mr. Trump is not a Christian, since, as the pope says, Christians build bridges, not walls. As a rabbi, it is not for me to decide what is Christian; however, I can speak to what the Bible says about such matters. Throughout the Bible, certainly the Old Testament, God impels us to do those things necessary for self-defense, those things required to ensure safety from disease, and to protect a nations borders so as not to suffer economic and health risks or violence. In Deutoronomy (22:26) we are told that if one sees a young lady being attacked, the good citizen should defend her in all ways necessary so as to protect her chastity, her dignity, and her well-being. Since we can do that on behalf of others, we can do that in behalf of ourselves. Self-defense is mentioned also in Exodus 22:1 Self-defense is not something merely permissible, but obligatory, a sacred duty. The purpose of building a wall is not to be mean-spirited, but to protect innocent American citizens from assaults that are happening, from diseases that are entering the country, and from the reported jihadists coming over the border in stealth with the intent of killing us. Prior to multiculturalism becoming the single most important virtue, as designated today by societys ruling class, there was one virtue that stood above all else namely, the duty of fathers and mothers to protect their children; brothers to protect their sisters; and a countrys leaders to protect the citizens, who rely on their leaders for such protection. In all classic religious philosophy, the notion of borders, of sovereignty, of responsibility to first protect those under ones charge was an uncontested imperative. Deriding the notion of borders, asking that citizens be vulnerable to safety and health dangers is not part of classical thinking; instead, it reflects an EU type of approach, which advocates a nullification of borders, identity, and distinctive cultures and nationhood. If it is un-Christian to engage in self-defense, then it is un-Christian to fight a defensive war. For sure, this is not a biblical attitude and, I imagine, not in sync with the Protestant outlook upon which this country was founded. In fact, acts of self-defense constitute not only virtue, but also morality. Morality is what we ought to do, and, first and foremost, we are required, in the name of personal responsibility, to meet our obligations toward those whom we have freely chosen in relationship. Mr. Trump has suggested not using weapons, but merely a static, non-aggressive wall to protect Americans who are pleading for protection. Up until now, nothing has worked; our borders are porous. A wall would be a major remedy. Perhaps the good pope has not read of the dozens of Americans who have been physically harmed, their property invaded and trashed, and threatened by those crossing the border illegally. Worse, under the burden of caring for illegals, many communities, especially in rural areas, have been forced to shut down clinics and hospitals that have gone bankrupt and are made dysfunctional by schools no longer able to teach and educate due to the excessive burdens of unprepared newcomers. I ask the pope the following question. No doubt, religion asks that we make sacrifices for others. But are those sacrifices to be so open-ended and so unpredictable that one is actually required to sufferand have his children suffer? At stake here is not merely doing without certain luxuries and opulence; rather, it is actual suffering by tens of thousands of innocent Americans. The elites asking that we make these enormous sacrifices are not, nor their children, having to sacrifice to any similar degree. In Exodus (21:19) we are told that we must make every effort to heal ourselves when confronted by disease. One of the best ways to do so is through preventative measures. As great as America is, we are not able to defend ourselves from new diseases and viruses running across our borders, which immediately spread out to every hamlet and urban area, from the hill country to the valleys, from the south upward to the north. No religious figure has the right to tell innocent citizens that the test of religiosity depends upon how willing they are to expose themselves and their children to unforetold disease. There's an old Jewish saying: "Before worrying about someone else's soul, first make sure not to harm his body." I know how in certain religious circles the idea of making a living seems secondary to the lofty notions and spiritual intonations regarding sacrifice and open-heartedness. The fact is, however, that while sacrifice and openheartedness have a significant place in our daily life, they do not supersede the hope God has for us being able to make a living and provide for our families. People bereft of a job are people bereft of dignity. When the Bible tells us, Six days shall ye work, it sends the message that working to make a living for ones family is not only noble, but also an end in itself. All countries must at times adjust immigration downward so as not to foreclose on their own citizens the possibility for dignified work and compensation. We are becoming a nation of unemployed, people without sustaining jobs. Receiving years of unemployment from the government, culminating often in permanent welfare recipient status, is not a solution. It may provide the wherewithal to eat, but it strips the recipient of dignity and purpose and takes away the wherewithal to strive and be proud. Religious thinkers have always made a distinction between what is incumbent upon the individual and what nations must do as a way of protecting their citizens. Whereas individuals are to give charity, a nation has no right, in the name of charity, to enact redistribution of wealth. To those who do not believe in nationhood, the idea of leaders of a particular nation first protecting the countrys citizens sounds strange. But most of us still believe in nationhood, in national identity, and gravitate to those societies where we feel that these protections will be granted. In fact, in Exodus (34:12), when speaking to the children of Israel, God says: I shall protect your borders so that strangers and enemies whom you do not know will not enter your camp and become thistles in your side who will afflict you. Nationhood, and a nation with secure borders, is a biblically blessed concept. In the name of multiculturalism, and in the hope by many to deface Americas historic uniqueness, there are many cheering on what is becoming an invasion: an invasion to change America by those wishing to exploit illegal immigration as a way of assuring their election, empowering their party, and transforming America into Europe or the Middle East. In the name of all this, the American people are being asked not only to sacrifice physical protection, and open themselves up to disease, bankruptcy, unemployment, and loss of home, but also to forfeit liberties and a way of life. There are those in liberal politics and in certain religious precincts who do not look at liberty as an ultimate value. Indeed, they see the socially engineered society, the top-down controlled society, as the utopia, the ultimate dream. For them, open-ended immigration is a crisis solvable by changing how we have lived until now, by curtailing certain freedoms we are accustomed to. But it was liberty that made America great. The Bible itself cherishes liberty: Proclaim liberty throughout the land. If the illegal invasions continue, our liberties will continue to be taken from us. The pope castigates us for wanting to build a wall...and not bridges. The truth is, we need bridges and we need walls. America, the worlds top destination for immigrants, has created enormous bridges of understanding as well as bridges of assistance to those in need. But we should not be in the business of building a bridge when a wall is needed, especially not a bridge that becomes a pathway to national suicide. Rabbi Spero is author of Push Back, Reclaiming the American Judeo-Christian Spirit. The ancient desert town of Chinguetti, in Mauritania, on the western edge of the Sahara, has changed little since it was founded more than twelve centuries ago. The houses are still built of reddish dry-stone and mud, with flat roofs made of timber panels from palm trees. The stone walls are punctured with tiny windows and hand-hewn doors cut from massive ancient acacia trees, which have long disappeared from the surrounding area. Many of these houses now lie in ruins, abandoned by their owners to escape the encroaching sand of the vast Sahara. Once a thriving metropolis of 200,000, Chinguetti now has only a few thousand residents left. As the town slowly disappears under the sand, some of the last remaining families cling desperately to their precious treasure one of the finest collection of ancient Islamic manuscripts. Photo credit: Micha Huniewicz Located at the crossroads of several trade routes through the Sahara, Chinguetti became an important trading center by the 11th century. Desert caravans would use the city as an oasis, stopping to peddle their wares and let the thousands of camels take rest. Later, it became a gathering place for pilgrims on their way to Mecca. As thousands of learned men passed through this place, exchange of religious and scientific ideas took place and the reputation of the small city flourished. What was once just a stopover point quickly became a destination in its own right. For centuries, people from all over West Africa travelled to Chinguetti to study religion as well as law, astronomy, mathematics, and medicine. Half a century ago, there were said to be 30 libraries with ancient leader-bound volumes and thousands of manuscripts. Now only five survive. These private libraries are watched over by the same families whove been passing down their literary treasures for generations. Lying in open shelves in the harsh desert climate, these precious artifacts are slowly crumbling away to dust. The government of Mauritania has been attempting to acquire these delicate manuscripts from their keepers so that they could be preserved, but the families refuse to part with their legacy. Its an honor to keep them. "Would you part with your hand or your foot? It is a part of us," says Seif Islam, the manager of the local secondary school, who has 700 dusty volumes in his collection. These librarians, however, will eagerly show their collection to any tourist curious enough to see them. It is estimated that there are 33,000 ancient texts in the country, but only a couple thousand have been properly cleaned and archived in the National Museum. Photo credit: Micha Huniewicz Photo credit: Micha Huniewicz Photo credit: Micha Huniewicz Photo credit: Micha Huniewicz Photo credit: Christophe Andre/Flickr Photo credit: Christophe Andre/Flickr An ancient Quran. Photo credit: Ammar Hassan/Flickr Photo credit: Ammar Hassan/Flickr A thousand year old Quran. Photo credit: Paul Williams Sources: The Guardian / The Daily Beast / Wikipedia YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS. The rival violated the ceasefire regime for over 60 times in the line of contact of the Karabakh-Azerbaijani opposing armies on February 18 and during the night of February 19. More than 800 shots were fired towards Armenian frontier troops from weapons of different caliber. The Press Service of the Defense Ministry of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic informed Armenpress that the frontier troops of the Defense Army gave relevant response to the rivals provocative actions and confidently carry out their military duty. In an unusual sign of solidarity within the tech community, Apple Inc. received additional support from two of its largest competitors on Thursday. Both Facebook and Twitter issued statements defending Apples decision to oppose a court order that demanded the company to assist federal investigators in bypassing the security of an iPhone linked to an ongoing terrorist investigation. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey used his very own platform to commend Apples firm stance on the issues at hand, tweeting his support of both the company and its CEO, Tim Cook. Facebook released an official statement echoing the same sentiments, while also promising to fight alongside Apple in protecting the security and privacy of users from overreaching governmental policies. Infamous whistle-blower Edward Snowden also chimed in his support for the company, while simultaneously taking Google to task for not offering their support for Apple as well. Google did eventually respond when CEO Sundar Pichai also expressed his support for Apples stance, representing a striking moment of accord between two extremely fierce competitors. Advertisement The phone at the center of this debate belonged to a man named Rizwan Farook, who along with his wife killed 14 people in a mass shooting in San Bernardino, California on Dec. 2, 2015. Federal agents recovered the shooters iPhone 5C, on which Farook implemented password protection. They plan to unlock the device using a brute-force hacking technique, but cannot do so without first bypassing an additional security wall that Apple has implemented within their iOS 9 software, the current firmware version of Farooks phone. Brute-force techniques involve entering an unlimited number of pass code combinations until the correct code is found, but Apple includes an option to completely wipe the device and all its contents after ten unsuccessful attempts. According to Apple, bypassing this security wall would require a specially-written build of the iOS 9 firmware exclusively for the phone in question. Its important to note that the company doesnt deny the possibility of writing such software, only that doing so poses a larger threat to the security of all of its users. The company fears that providing the government with specialized software, even for a single device, essentially creates a backdoor into an operating system which they go through great pains to secure. If Apples means of defeating their own software were to somehow get into the wrong hands, it could potentially threaten the security of hundreds of millions of users. Additionally, compliance in this case could set a precedent for the government to pursue similar paths in future cases, thus raising even greater concerns about the governments reach in matters of privacy. Regardless of the final outcome, Apple has gained several influential allies throughout the tech industry as the debate surrounding this matter continues. FalcoVPN Advertisement FalcoVPN is easily one of the simplest, securest, and fastest free VPN proxy for the Android platform. Boasting an ultra-secure OpenVPN over both TCP and UDP, it completely shuts out the threat of hackers and snoops intercepting your sensitive data while its in transit. A large network of servers located worldwide ensures the delivery of a reliable service and complete freedom from geo-restrictions. Zero-logs policy, easy setup, and user-friendly interface further adds to the appeal of the VPN app, making it just about perfect for those looking for a secure, private, and unobstructed online experience on their Android device. Advertisement Hola Free VPN Proxy Heres a free VPN proxy thats available. Its mostly available for using Netflix in other countries other than your own. Seeing as Netflix has different catalogs for each country. It can also be used to access sites that may be blocked in the country youre in. Particularly useful in countries like China and Turkey where websites are commonly blocked. Advertisement VPN Unlimited Advertisement A pretty simple and easy to use VPN here in VPN Unlimited. The service allows you to connect to various servers in many different countries. Including Singapore, Hong Kong, UK, and various ones in the US. This is great for when youre at Starbucks using free WiFi, as well as unblocking websites that may be blocked at work. Rocket VPN Advertisement Also useful for unblocking websites and such that may be blocked on your network or in your country. However, Rocket VPN gives you just 500MB of traffic every 30 days. Of course, you can purchase more with in app purchases starting at $0.99. By upgrading, youll also get the fastest possible speed in addition to unlimited bandwidth. Advertisement SuperVPN With this one here, youll get encrypted traffic as well as access to sites that may be blocked. However, SuperVPN does only offer a 20 day trial period for unlimited traffic. After that 20 days, you will get 60 minute sessions. Just disconnect and reconnect again to start a new session. It is free, but a bit annoying if you plan to use this VPN all day long. Advertisement Cloud VPN Cloud VPN will hide your IP address while youre browsing the web. Also works on both mobile networks as well as WiFi. Allowing you to surf the web without any issues, including sites that might be blocked in your country. Cloud VPN does offer unlimited traffic, so you dont need to worry about using it too much. Its super easy to set up and start using as well. Betternet Free VPN Proxy Looking for a free VPN without any ads or upgrades? Well then Betternet has what youre looking for. With Betternets VPN Proxy, you can access sites that have been censored in your country as well as encrypting your traffic while browsing the web. Once more, Betternet says that their VPN Proxy will be available for free, forever. Cant argue with that. TunnelBear VPN This app is also available for Windows and Mac OS X, its a pretty simple app to unblock websites that might be blocked due to the firewall. Additionally, its super simple to get it set up and connected. It will hide your IP address from trackers as well, so you are able to browse the web without being tracked. Hideman VPN Encrypt your internet traffic with Hideman VPN, thanks to their 256-bit encryption for their VPN. You are also able to access sites that are censored, or blocked by the network you are on. It works with both mobile networks as well as WiFi, so no matter what network you are on, itll work flawlessly. There are in-app purchases included here, which start at $1.01. Hotspot Shield Free VPN Proxy This VPN from Hotspot Shield is also free, and will allow you to visit websites that are censored by the network that you are currently connected to. Itll also protect you from hackers as well as snoopers looking to take advantage of anyone connected to the network. Hotspot Shield VPN Proxy does indeed encrypt your traffic as well as hiding your IP address. SecureLine VPN SecureLine VPN is brought to you by Avast, who is pretty popular for their antivirus protection. SecureLine allows you to browse the web securely, whether you are on a mobile hotspot, a wifi hotspot or any other open network. The VPN also allows you to visit websites that may be blocked by the network that you are connected to. There is a 7-day free trial here, and after that the pricing jumps to $19.99/year. Google Play Music has become a big competitor to the likes of Apple Music and Spotify, and Google isnt content to just let the service trudge along. Instead, theyve been adding new features and more value to the service for some time now, including the likes of a family plan and most recently, podcasts. As is often the case with upcoming Google app releases, an APK has been torn apart and has revealed upcoming features coming soon to the app and service. This time around, its Google Play Music version 6.4 thats gone under the knife, revealing some more podcast settings as well as a partnership for the upcoming BRIT Awards. Starting off with the news that will make our readers across the pond happy, theres a string inside of the APK teardown that states Check out this years nominees plus exclusive live performances from the show, only on Google Play Music. This is as much confirmation that Google Play Music will be the BRITS partner for 2016 as any, and it should allow those looking to hear the live shows a chance to catch up and re-listen whenever they want. For those unfamiliar, the BRIT Awards are essentially a cutdown mini-Grammys for British artists, and will be held this year on Wednesday 24th of February. Theres also some notes in the APK about ordering of playlists, including support for Podcasts now, too. Podcast apps, such as the excellent Pocket Casts, have been offering smart playlists and such making it easy to binge on something like the first series of Serial, for instance for some time and now Google is playing catchup. Theyve added options to allow playback from newest to oldest and the reverse, but there should be some more features launching soon, hopefully. Advertisement The new version of the app should be rolling out to users right now, and it might already have hit most of them out there. Its hard to tell whether or not podcast support is to become a big focus of Googles, but considering Spotify has branched out in the same area and iTunes has long been a big place for Podcast fans, its unlikely Google will sit idly by. Nokia has had a rough go of it these past few years, having gone in with Microsofts Windows Phone operating system and after finding that didnt work, selling their handset business to the very same software giant. Still, Nokia was always known for much more than just their handsets and hardware, and have oodles of patents to make money off of, as the recent deal with Samsung has shown. Now, the main business for the Finnish brand appears to be their network technology and equipment business. Recently closing the deal on acquiring 91% of rival Alcatel-Lucent, the network equipment market looks all but Nokia and Huaweis at this point. With Mobile World Congress just around the corner, its nice to see an old name like Nokia teasing a big announcement. The YouTube video, posted by the companys uniteChannel, has a short video of lots of people looking around, gazing at nature and architecture. This would presumably have a lot to do with the Finnish firms foray into virtual reality with their Ozo recording technology, but the description of the video paints a contrasting story. With the tagline of Have you ever wondered how mobile networks will change? it sounds more like Nokia will have something network-related to show off. Following on from ARMs Cortex-R8 announcement earlier this week, Nokia could be joining the growing list of names announcing plans for 5G networks and technologies. If anyone has something concrete to announce regarding 5G at a place like Mobile World Congress, itd be Nokia, so we wouldnt be too surprised if this is what they have in store for us. Advertisement There have been rumors of more Android-powered devices, similar to the Nokia N1 tablet, which was one of the first devices to launch with a USB Type-C connector. The announcement is teased for February 21st, this Sunday, the same day that LG and Samsung will be announcing the G5 and Galaxy S7. Also, Huawei and ZTE have events planned for this Sunday as well, so it looks like Mobile World Congress is to get underway before the show has even officially opened its doors on Monday the 22nd. LG and Samsung appear to be setting themselves up for a game of cat and mouse, according to the source news website. LG are expected to unveil their latest flagship device, the G5, and Samsung are expected to reveal their new Galaxy S7. Both devices are expected to be made official within hours of one another at the Mobile World Congress this Sunday in Barcelona. The devices will be revealed and should be available in stores for March, which is the start of the new semester for Korean students and this generates significant domestic demand for both LG and Samsung. What is not clear, however, is the exact timing of availability of the devices in the stores and this may depend on what features have been included in their device and on the manufacturer making the first move. Currently, sources close to the companies are reckoning on the devices being available in mid-March. We have covered the rumors of the new LG G5 and its second screen, not dissimilar to the LG V10 released lat year. We have also covered leaked photographs and featuresets of the Samsung Galaxy S7, believed to be available in both Qualcomm Snapdragon and Samsung Exynos-powered variants and to benefit from a pressure-sensitive display, not dissimilar to Apples 3D Touch feature. However, it is believed by some industry experts that customers will pay more attention to the company that is adopting carrier aggregation technology, which is a networking feature designed to bundle greater levels of spectrum in order to enhance Internet connection speeds. If one device were to implement this technology noticeably better than the other, this could drive sales. Meanwhile, Korean carriers are discussing with both LG and Samsung to establish a day when the device is to be made available for customers. Advertisement Whilst its the flagship devices that are grabbing the headlines, there are other planned devices for the Korean market in March including Samsungs low end Galaxy A3, a metal-shelled Android smartphone based around a 4.7-inch display panel. LG have said that they are to release three other smartphones with what it has called high end features, to include highlights of the display, camera and pen or stylus. Both companies have and will likely continue to face a difficult business market, as many customers are opting for mid-range and lower level devices in the face of the high prices of flagship devices. Lesser handsets in a given manufacturers portfolio typically have a smaller profit margin as they do not cost much less to manufacturer, but command a much lower street price. Another factor that may impact on both sales and profitability is how some customers may decide to defer purchases until later in March, waiting to see if the initial launch prices soften because of weak demand. Samsung has been throwing around ideas and plans regarding flexible and foldable OLED displays for quite some time now. Not long ago, they filed a patent application for a full-blown foldable smartphone, indicating that the relevant technology may be close at hand, if not already here. Part of that technology is what covers the display. A user obviously cant put their fingers on a bare OLED display without damaging it, but regular old glass, such as Corning Gorilla Glass, would simply break instead of bending. Rather than manufacturing something in-house or devising a workaround of any sort, Samsung has partnered up with startup Solip Technology, who has developed a display glass that theyre calling Hybrimer; a hybrid mix-up between glass and polymer that can be bent without breaking, while still being as smooth and translucent as glass. The Hybrimer material, made by combining organic and inorganic compounds, is made to be tougher than regular glass and not get bent out of shape with repeated folding and unfolding. This is, after all, going to be on a folding smartphone. With how often the average person checks their phone, the material would need to be stress tested. Thats exactly what Samsung and Solip did; they tested a slab of the material by folding and unfolding it to a 3 millimeter radius 100,000 times. The material did not lose its original shape, nor were there any structural or visual changes. The material is also said to be just as strong as Corning Gorilla Glass, if not stronger, with a hardness rating of 9H+. Advertisement Samsung was looking around for some time to find the perfect partner for their foldable displays. They looked to Sumitomo and Gunje out of Japan at one point, but wound up settling on Solip Technology and their Hybrimer material. The folding smartphone project from Samsung, called Project Valley, has been in the works alongside Hybrimer since 2014, with both technologies developing hand in hand to become the perfect compliment to one another. A Samsung rep said of Hybrimer and the deal, Since hybrimer is one of core technologies to realize foldable smartphone, Samsung seem to review the method of carrying out equity investment in Solip Technology. British directory enquiries service, 118 118 is notable for its retro-style and 1970s runners featured in commercials over the last fourteen years. 118 118 is the UKs largest directory enquiries service and connects more than eight million people every year with the businesses they are trying to call. In more detail, every year more than 700,000 people find the right number to call to order food or book a table, 350,000 pet owners find the right services they need and around a million people find the taxi they need. The company has explained that the most five popular numbers searched for are Hotels, Hospitals, Taxis, Pubs/Inns/Bars and Local Government. Rounding out the top ten we find Banks, Central Government, Restaurants, Car Dealers and Medical Practitioners/Therapists. The business takes pride on offering a fast service to callers, whereby calls are usually answered in a few seconds and the correct number given inside a minute. 118 118 has recently announced a new way for people to use the directory enquiry service via the launch of a new mobile app, which features a subscription service. The application offers a headline of unlimited calls and connections for a monthly cost of 2.48 or 4.98 respectively that does not use an Internet connection: the application explains that users must not exceed an average of 100 calls a month or exceed 300 minutes. 118 118 believe the service is ideal for elderly parents or grandparents, drivers out of Internet range, business people or perhaps more importantly their personal assistants. The application is available for both iOS and Android devices and works by offering four free calls on the service, before customers must pay the regular amount via their bank card. The mobile app will sit alongside 118 118s other four service options, which include a five star premier service available on 118 118, a free call, advert supported service on 0800 1183733, a one-off search option for 1 and a free search available at the 118 118 website. Advertisement 118 118s General Manager, Peter Trott, said this on the new app: We think that our new mobile App leads the way in the industry for mobile directory services at a highly affordable level with a subscription based app that people are used to with their mobile operator. At 118 118 we pride ourselves on the quality of the service we deliver, so much so that if we dont supply the right number, customers can have their money back. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenian National Assembly (NA) Galust Sahakyans health condition is assessed satisfactory, who is getting medical treatment at Hospital Complex N1 of the Yerevan State Medical University. Armenpress reports that Head of Public Relations and Media Department of the National Assembly of Armenia Arsen Babayan informed about the aforesaid, mentioning that NA Speaker feels very good. At this moment, he is still under doctors supervision. No decision was made on discharging him from the hospital. I would like to remind that Galust Sahakyan will be discharged from the hospital when doctors make appropriate decision. NA President gets medical treatment, Babayan informed. NA Presidents health was deteriorated at around 20:00, on February 17. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS. US President Barack Obama signed new sanctions on North Korea into law on February 18, punishing the regime after its nuclear and missile tests as well as suspected cyber-hacking incidents, Armenpress reports citing CNN. Obama stamped his approval on the sanctions bill after Congress overwhelmingly passed the measure earlier this month. The two Republican senators running for president, Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida both returned to Washington to cast "yes" votes on the bill. The measure is meant to compel American allies to enact similarly tough restrictions on North Korea as a way to further isolate the country, which conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and recently launched a satellite into space. Tough new multilateral sanctions have been held up at the United Nations Security Council over disagreements between China and other nations. China, a longtime sponsor of Pyongyang, has expressed concerns about measures that it worries could debilitate North Korea's economy. The unilateral U.S. sanctions that Obama approved on February 18 would freeze the assets of anyone doing business related to North Korea's nuclear or weapons programs or is involved in human rights abuses in the country. (ANSA) - Rome, February 19 - A majority of Italians are against Austria's increased controls along its Italy border in a bid to keep migrants out, according to an Ixe poll for RAI public broadcaster out Friday. At least 71% of respondents said they are against such a move, 26% approved it, and 3% said they don't know what to think. Austria has set up controls on its side of the Alpine Brenner Pass and capped at 37,500 the number of asylum seekers it is willing to take in this year. It also said it fixed daily entry quotas at 80 for people seeking asylum in Austria and at 3,200 for people passing through on their way to another country. On Thursday, two Italian and one Austrian regional governor representing Alpine districts on both sides of the border appealed for better management of the controls, which they say are damaging the local economy. (ANSA) - Pisa, February 19 - A trial against a Moroccan national accused of using Facebook to instigate the public to jihad, or Islamic holy war, kicked off Friday in the Tuscan city of Pisa. Jalal El Hanaoui, 26, was picked up in July 2015 after using three Facebook identities to call for holy war among 12,000 followers, posting photos of monuments around the world suspected of being targets for attacks - including the tourist-famed Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Statue of Liberty, the Cathedral of St Basil in Moscow and the Israeli wall separating Jerusalem from the rest of the occupied West Bank. In posts and chat with two other terror suspects the Moroccan proposed creating an Islamic state via massacres, murders, and other attacks, prosecutors said last summer. Born in Morocco, El Hanaoui joined relatives in Italy at age eight and has remained in the country ever since, notching up a criminal record for drug dealing. He was unemployed at the time of his arrest. El Hanaoui has rejected the charges against him and reportedly explicitly distanced himself from the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group and from radical Islam. On Friday, his defence lawyers argued the charges against him are based solely on "some phrases taken out of context". (ANSA) - Rome, February 18 - Pope Francis arrived back in Rome Thursday at the end of a six-day pastoral visit to Mexico in which he blasted graft and the power of drug lords, apologised to indigenous peoples, and urged authorities to ease the plight of desperate migrants. On board the papal plane, the pope condemned bishops who cover for paedophile priests, said he could not interfere with Italy's civil-unions row, said he dreamed of going to China and dreamed "in esperanto", said contraception was better than abortion in the Zika epidemic, and said Donald Trump "wasn't a Christian" if he wanted to build walls. Trump replied by saying the pope was "a very political figure" and was "being used as a pawn" by people who "should be ashamed of themselves". The pope began his Mexico visit in the nation's capital Mexico City and its surroundings, where he condemned political and police corruption. He then travelled to the states of Chiapas and Michoacan where he apologised to indigenous peoples before ending his trip in the northern town of Ciudad Juarez where he celebrated a Mass on the nation's border with the USA and asked for more to be done to help migrants. The pope called on governments to help the victims of forced migration before he took off to return to the Vatican. "No more death. No more exploitation," the pope implored as he held Mass at Ciudad Juarez on Mexico's border to the United States. "Here in Ciudad Juarez, as in other border areas, there are thousands of immigrants from Central America and other countries, not forgetting the many Mexicans who also seek to pass over 'to the other side'," he said. "Each step, a journey laden with grave injustices: the enslaved, the imprisoned and extorted. "So many of these brothers and sisters of ours are the consequence of a trade in human beings". Throughout his six days in Mexico Francis visited places where many people fear to tread. From the sprawling lawless 'barrio bravo' of Ecatepec where desperate people alleviate their pain by painting colour on to their miserable homes, to Mexico City's hospital for gravely sick children, to Chiapas were indigenous people have suffered abuse and to whom he asked forgiveness for the Church's wrongs of the past, the pope had a message for all the deprived, suffering, and underprivileged. From the chillingly drug-ridden Michoacan where young people are caught in a web of despair, to Ciudad Juarez where he met with the inmates of a high security prison and with immigrants with their dashed dreams, Francis expressed the wish that: "Mexican people might find, reflected in their faces, the Lord, the presence of God". And on another occasion he invited them not to be tempted by resignation in the face of 'paralyzing injustice". And upon his departure Francis said to the people of Mexico, "nights here can seem vast and filled with great darkness. "But despite this, in many of your faces I have encountered the presence of God." On his way to Mexico the pope met Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill in a historic encounter at Havana airport, the first in the history of two Churches that have been split since the great Schism of 1054. The meeting spurred hopes of further rapprochement after a thawing of relations in recent years, despite outstanding bones of contention such as the Greek Catholic Church in western Ukraine that uses eastern liturgy but owes obeisance to the Holy See. Italian President Sergio Mattarella spoke for many when, in welcoming Francis back to Rome, he said "the international community followed with particular attention Your meeting with patriarch Kirill in Cuba in the conviction that that meeting may produce new seeds of dialogue and peace for the whole world". Culture: Italys first Arabic certification in Milan ILA to be presented on the 25th at the Marcelline institute (ANSAmed) - ROME, FEBRUARY 19 - The first certification ever for the Arabic language in Italy, ILA, will be presented on February 25 at the cultural and language institute Marcelline in Milan, at the presence of Education Minister Stefania Giannini. The institute said in a statement that the certification abides by criteria set by the European community and the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). ''The Arabic language - it said - is increasingly present in professional and educational contexts in Italy and certifying its level of knowledge is becoming a pressing need. Moreover, this passage puts the Arabic language for the first time on the same level as other languages that already have an international certification''. The certification process was promoted and developed by the Istituto di Cultura e Lingue Marcelline which, strong of its experience in teaching languages dating back to the 1950s, among the first in Italy, has carried out the project for over two years. (ANSAmed) NEW YORK - Noureddine Chouchane, believed to have been the 'mastermind' behind two major attacks in Tunisia last year, was likely killed in a US airstrike conducted over the night, the Pentagon said on Friday. The attacks were one in March 2015 on Tunis's Bardo Museum and a June 2015 one on the Sousse beach. Calling the operation a success, the Pentagon claimed that the group targeted had been a threat to US national security. An ISIS training camo in Sabratha, in the east, was reportedly struck. Over 30 jihadists were killed, according to the New York Times, which quoted a western source. The source quoted by the New York Times said the Tunisian Chouchane is considered one of the most influential leaders of ISIS who has been linked to the deadly attack on the Bardo museum in March 2015, in which 24 people died including four Italians, and on a beach in Sousse last June that killed 38 others. Jamal Naji Zubia, director of the foreign media office for the Tripoli-based government of Libya, said the US raid struck a farm several kilometers away from Sabratha. The jihadists killed in the raid are reportedly mainly Tunisian nationals. Turkey urged to release well-known Syrian journalist Rami Jarrah reported under Russian and regime attacks (ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, FEBRUARY 19 - The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on Turkish authorities Friday to release the Syrian journalist Rami Jarrah. Well-known at the international level for his reporting under Russian and Syrian regime bombing, Jarrah was detained earlier this week in the city of Gaziantep, in southern Turkey. He was moved over the night to a different detention facility in Adana, according to an article posted Friday afternoon in Arabic on an independent citizen journalist media outlet he co-founded. It stated that he is currently imprisoned with Islamic State (ISIS) members and does not feel safe. Radio ANA, which he co-founded, is one of the most popular radio stations in northern Syria. CPJ released a statement calling on Turkish authorities ''to immediately release Rami Jarrah and allow him to work in Turkey without fear of obstruction''. CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said that ''Jarrah is known for his independent reporting on the war in Syria, which he has been covering for years at great risk. Syrian journalists like Jarrah, who have turned to Turkey for safe refuge, should be protected rather than subjected to detention and harassment. The Turkish authorities have not yet commented on the case or the reasons for Jarrah's detention. (ANSAmed). YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS. 12 years have passed since the murder of Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan, who was brutally killed by Azerbaijani criminal Ramil Safarov. Although Ramil Safarov had to face with the Hungarian justice, but the Azerbaijani petrodollars and caviar diplomacy managed to set the murderer free few years later. On January 11, 2004, he left for Budapest, Hungary, to participate in a three-month English language course which was part of NATO's Partnership for Peace program. On February 19 he was axed, while asleep, by his fellow Azerbaijani participant, Lieutenant Ramil Safarov. The murder took place at 5 am, while the victim was asleep. After he killed Margaryan, Safarov went forward with his plan to murder Makuchyan, but discovered his door was locked. A postmortem concluded that Safarov had delivered sixteen blows to Margaryan's face, nearly severing his head from his body. Earlier, a briefing given by the Hungarian police added that Margaryan had also been stabbed several times in the chest. After he killed Margaryan, Safarov went forward with his plan to murder Makuchyan, but discovered his door was locked. Safarov, who was sentenced to life imprisonment, was transferred back to his home country on August 31, 2012 under an extradition agreement. Although Azerbaijan formally pledged that the life sentence handed down to him in Hungary would be directly continued when he was returned to his homeland, the Azerbaijani president granted him a pardon and formally recognized him as a national hero upon his arrival. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan announced the same day that Armenia suspended diplomatic relations with Hungary. (by Patrizia Antonini) (ANSAmed) - BRUSSELS, FEBRUARY 19 - Vienna remains isolated in the EU over measures approved to cut down the inflow of migrants. Debate raged at a dinner during the summit of leaders from the 28 member countries dedicated to the refugee crisis, with strong tension for decisions that were defined as unilateral, not agreed at a EU level, and violating European and international laws, in particular the Geneva treaty, considered a cornerstone to be defended. European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker has rejected without appeal Austria's decisions: ''I don't like them''. And in the afternoon already the European commissioner for immigration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, in a letter to the interior minister, Johanna Mikl Leitner, called the daily thresholds imposed - 80 asylum applications - and transit (3,200 passages) ''clearly incompatible with obligations of EU and international laws'', inviting ''to reconsider'' their implementation already scheduled tomorrow. Premier Matteo Renzi has warned: ''We cannot think of closing the Brenner which is one of Europe's symbolic passages''. And Germany, sources explained, considers Austria's action as ''short-sighted''. Possible consequences cited by them is a worsening of the Greek economic crisis. Premier Alexis Tsipras, once again grilled, arrived with four planned hotspots out of five to show Greece's good intentions and gave a show of force, repeatedly refusing to sign the draft conclusions and asking an engagement also on reallocations. Premier Matteo Renzi also made a strong intervention, stressing the need for bilateral solidarity, citing structural funding plans for 2014-2020. Chancellor Werner Fayman during the day said Vienna would maintain its position. ''From a political standpoint, it is unthinkable for us to welcome all of Europe's asylum seekers''. Austria's measures also dominated a pre-summit with leaders from the western Balkan route, Croatia's Tihomir Oreskovic, Slovenia's Miro Cerar, Serbia's Tomislav Nikolic and Macedonia's Gjorge Ivanov. Strong concern was expressed by the four. Many stressed the will to remain countries of transit. Cerar says he back plan B promoted by the four countries of Videgrad (Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) for the reconstruction of the barrier in Macedonia, if the Turkish border will not be sealed successfully. Belgrade said it will behave like Vienna. ''Serbia will do what Austria does'', said the minister in charge of the refugee emergency, Aleksandar Vulin. Meanwhile police chiefs from the four countries in Zagreb reached an agreement for a new system of border checks between Greece and Macedonia to avoid chain rejections, as occurred over the past days for some 200 migrants, sent from the Austrian border to Slovenia and then Croatia and Serbia. Berlin criticizes the principle to reject migrants at the external border who ''don't satisfy entry requirements or who have not presented an asylum request although they had the opportunity to do so'', part of the summit's conclusions, and presses on the activation of article 26 of the Schengen code, which allows internal border checks for up to two years, to maintain the free exchange area alive. ''At the beginning of March we will hold an extraordinary meeting with Turkey'', announced in the end German chancellor Angela Merkel, adding that the date has not been decided yet given the absence of Turkish Premier Ahmet Davutoglu. (ANSAmed) Saudi Arabia suspends weapons accord with France and Lebanon USD 3 bln in aid to army, 1 bln to security sector halted (ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, FEBRUARY 19 - Saudi Arabia announced on Friday that it had halted an agreement to provide USD 3 billion in French weaponry to Lebanon, its state new agency SPA reported. The agency quoted an official source as saying that Saudi Arabia had also canceled the remainder of USD 1 billion in aid it had earmarked for Lebanon's internal security service. The decision seems to have been taken after an assessment of Riyadh's relations with Lebanon, where the Shia movement Hezbollah - ally of Iran and the Syrian regime - holds a great deal of power. (ANSAmed). BarcelonaCatalonias Minister for Foreign Affairs Raul Romeva has sent a letter in English to the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schultz, asking for his support to tackle the formidable challenges that the Catalan government faces and to accomplish the task with which our citizens have democratically entrusted us. In his letter which Spains El Mundo ran on Thursday Romeva tells Schultz that his job will be to provide the international community with a first-hand account of what Catalonia can offer as a country. In the opening paragraph Raul Romeva uses the English word minister to refer to his new position (Conseller, in Catalan), as some of his predecessors had done, because the original job title in Catalan has no other possible translation in English. This is also the term favoured by the governments of Scotland and Flanders. However, no Catalan government had ever included a Foreign Ministry before. In addition, Romeva mentions that he is taking up his new government duties with confidence and full determination and that he is fully aware of the responsibility that it implies, especially at this crucial time in Catalonias long history. Romevas letter is dated February 3 and has come to light two days after Spains Constitutional Court accepted an appeal by the Spanish government against some of the powers bestowed on Romevas ministry, which meant that some of its functions were automatically suspended. Nevertheless, in a speech in parliament Catalan president Carles Puigdemont was adamant that his government would continue to have a foreign policy, an idea which he reiterated this morning on RAC1, the leading Catalan radio network. He also gave his assurances that Raul Romeva would remain at the helm of the ministry. MadridOn Tuesday Spains Constitutional Court (TC) did not merely accept the Spanish governments appeal and suspend the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the Catalan government. It also decided to open a new front: it initiated proceedings against the study committee for the Constituent Process. The Spanish high court, gathered in a plenary session, gave ten days to the Prosecutor and the Catalan Parliament to report on the creation of the committee. That is, they must state their case in response to the objection to execution" raised by the Spanish government. With the creation of this committee the Spanish government believes that the Catalan parliament is implementing the secessionist declaration that was suspended by the TC. This means that the central government has activated the powers included in the reform of the law governing the TC which the PP passed on its own that would ultimately allow it to impeach public office-holders who do not comply with the courts rulings. The Spanish government is targeting, in this case, Carme Forcadell, the new Speaker of the Catalan Parliament. According to the letter sent by the Moncloa to the TC, which various news agencies had access to, the Spanish government is calling on the TC to warn Forcadell and the members of the Committee on the Constituent Process that they could be committing a crime if they keep the committee active and meeting regularly. Madrid wants it to be declared "null and void and without any legal effect", and for it to "refrain from carrying out any actions directed at putting into operation or giving continuity to the tasks of the committee". Emirates remains both the Worlds strongest and most valuable airline brand, with Qatar Airways at number eight, Turksih Airlines at 14, Etihad Airways at 19 and Saudia at 35. Brand Finance chief executive David Haigh said: Emirates continues to soar, adding 17% to its brand value this year. Brand Finances analysis shows that Emirates is more popular than ever its brand equity scores for consumer factors such as familiarity, consideration, preference, satisfaction and recommendation are up across the board. Emirates growth this year, which builds on impressive historic trends, suggests that by 2020 it could become the first Middle Eastern brand to enter the top 100 of our ranking. American Airlines has grown by a huge 69%. This is in large part due to the rebranding of US airways under the AA brand (following the merger in 2013) rather than organic brand value growth. However the rebrand contributes more than a mere re-allocation of revenues. The merged carrier can offer passengers a wider network of routes, improving brand strength and generating economies of scale for marketing investment. American is pioneering the opening up of Cuba to air travel from the US, helping to reinforce its position as more than just an incumbent. Qantas has also seen impressive brand value growth. Scores in the consumer section of Brand Finances Brand Strength Index have seen a marked increase, while perceptions among external stakeholders and staff have also improved significantly on 2015. The financial picture looks positive too with forecast revenues and margins on the up. Brand Finance Associate Director Savio DSouza said, Qantas has been able to maintain brand vitality in the face of some significant but important cuts that have improved profitability, brand value and Qantas financial sustainability. In contrast Malaysia airlines has had another bad year as it continues to endure the fallout of two notorious plane crashes in 2014. Brand value is down 26% to US$462 million and it has become the weakest brand in the top 50, with an A brand rating. Lufthansa has experienced an even more significant decline however. Brand value is down over a billion dollars following a 27% drop. Brand contagion from the Germanwings crash has been relatively limited, Lufthansas problems are rather more systemic. Its market share is being eroded by budget carriers, with Ryanair launching a four times daily service between Berlin and Cologne (one of Lufthansas key routes) in 2015. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS. By the February 19 decree of the President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan Vazgen Rshtuni was appointed Chairman of Armenia Criminal Court of Appeal, the Department of Mass Media and Public Relations of the Armenian Presidents office informed Armenpress. Le CBD, cette molecule active du cannabis a aujourdhui le vent en poupe. Et cela est en grande partie du au fait quil permet... YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS. Music written by Serj Tankian for Jivan Avetisyan's new film The Last Inhabitant is recorded in Armenia. National Philharmonic Orchestra of Armenia, headed by artistic director and principal conductor Eduard Topchyan, and Hover State Chamber Choir, headed by artistic director and conductor Sona Hovhannisyan, are involved in the recording of the music. The long years of work and caring team was needed to carry out the film. All participants were united by love towards the film. Rather long and hard work was carried out. The filmmaking is fully completed. The audience will judge the quality of the film, director Jivan Avetisyan said in the interview with reporters, Armenpress reports. According to him, along with Serj Tankian they worked for 2 months on creating the soundtrack. It seems that we have lived together with the characters every day and episode. Serj composed perfect and brilliant music and I am very grateful to him. To be sincere, if he did not like the scenario, he would not compose a soundtrack for it. He said that the movie will give him wings in order to create, jivan Avetisyan added, mentioning that the films premiere will be held within the framework of this year's "Golden Apricot" International Film Festival. The film is about people who have fallen from a lost paradise into hell but are saved by love, virtue, and self-sacrifice. It introduces the events of 1988-89. The film is connected with Artsakh and Sumgait tragedies which left an imprint on the fates of thousands of people. Numerous incidents happened to people that are of universal importance. So they must be noticed and told World-known Iranian actor Homayoun Ershadi, Sandra Dauksaite, Armenian actors Sos Janibekyan, Aleksandr Khachatryan, Naira Muradyan, Babken Chobanyan and many others star in the film. Three members of the famed Tuskegee Airmen visited with Airmen at the Pentagon during a meet and greet hosted by Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James Feb. 16.Retired Col. Charles McGee and former Cadets William Fauntroy Jr. and Walter Robinson Sr. shared stories and insights about their lives as Tuskegee Airmen and as civilians after they left the military.I had a breadth of understanding of what could be, because I had accepted the training and the discipline, said Robinson, who went on to be the first black postal manager in Washington, D.C.The Tuskegee Airmen were named after the Tuskegee Army Airfield near Tuskegee, Alabama, where they received their pilot and aircraft maintenance training during World War II. The Tuskegee Airmen were not just flyers but also radio operators, navigators, bombardiers, aircraft maintainers, support staff, instructors, and all the personnel who kept the planes in the air.It was an interesting concept because the policy was we (blacks) werent capable of doing anything technical, to include maintaining and flying airplanes, McGee said.However, Congress passed a law allowing the Army to contract the primary phase of military pilot training to civilian schools; the Tuskegee Institute applied and received the contract.We couldnt fly yet, but our instructors were black pilots, McGee said.While the Tuskegee Airmen were still learning how to fly, they were also dealing with segregation.I hate(d) segregation, yet on the other hand it brought us together from 1941 to 1949, when the Air Force closed the segregated bases, McGee said. We became lifelong friends and we still get together annually; of course, some of us come in wheelchairs now, but thats life.Fauntroy, who grew up in the District, remembered the cadet corps at his high school and was surprised by the synergy he witnessed.The thing that impressed me at Tuskegee was how the pilots and mechanics worked so closely together, Fauntroy continued. Thats the one thing I liked about the Army Air Corps was that we were working together and when I started to fly, I understood if it wasnt for that guy taking care of this airplane, I wouldnt be up here flying it was a team concept.While the red jackets the Tuskegee Airmen wear symbolize their Red Tails name and the achievements in the sky above Germany during World War II, they also represent other victories as well. The 996 pilots and more than 15,000 ground personnel who served with these units flew more than 15,500 combat sorties and earned more than 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses.Have you heard of Double Victory? We were fighting a war against Hitler in Europe and we were fighting a war against racism at home, said McGee, who has more than 6,000 flying hours.The Tuskegee Airmens successes encouraged President Harry Truman to integrate the armed forces in 1948.We honor the service and sacrifice of all our Airmen year-round, but Id like to take a moment to highlight the Tuskegee Airmen, James said. Their legacy is so important, not just to our Air Force, but to our nation. Their skill and bravery in the skies over Europe helped us win the war against fascism and their perseverance at home helped us down the path of diversity in our military and our nation. -- The head of Operation Inherent Resolves air campaign said Feb. 18 the most precise air campaign in history has severely hurt terrorist plans across Iraq and Syria, with more airstrikes to come.There is no doubt coalition airpower has and continues to dramatically degrade Daeshs ability to fight and conduct operations, Lt. Gen. Charles Brown Jr., commander of U.S. Air Forces Central Command, said of the terrorist group also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.Ongoing missions by the 19-nation air coalition is exploiting ISILs weaknesses, as its leaders and fighters flee in large numbers due to effective airpower, said Brown, who serves as the operations combined forces air component commander.As the coalition has garnered a greater understanding of the enemy, our airpower efforts have evolved and its clear airpower is a vital element to this fight, Brown said from Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar.There are no plans for the air campaign to be impacted by a possible ceasefire to let nongovernmental agencies deliver food and medicine to starving civilians in besieged Syrian towns.It doesnt stop operations against Daesh or ISIL, Brown said of the relief effort. The areas where most of the humanitarian aid is going are areas where we dont operate.The general also denied coalition involvement in the Feb. 15 bombing of four hospitals and a school in northern Syria that left dozens of people dead.There are only two people flying in that area -- the Russians and the Syrians, Brown said of the non-coalition forces. I can guarantee you that it wasnt the coalition.Brown also touted successful airstrikes against ISIL-controlled oil facilities and monetary centers, saying that theyve crippled their financial resources. This has resulted in ISIL cutting funds to its fighters and combat operations.During strikes Feb. 13, Air Force and Navy aircraft wiped out five financial targets in a few minutes in downtown Mosul, Iraq, using precision-guided bombs, he said.I think it surprised Daesh because we were able to do very precise weaponeering in order to strike them and also minimize civilian casualties, he said.Coalition aircraft, he said, have performed almost 120 airstrikes on bulk cash sites, gas and oil separation plants, and crude oil collection points to date.Eight coalition nations recently dropped about 80 precision-guided bombs at the heart of terrorist command and control, logistics and sanctuary areas in Al Qaim, Iraq, and Abu Kamal, Syria, during another set of strikes, according to the general.The objective of the coalition airstrikes was to restrict Daesh movement throughout the Euphrates River Valley, he said.Airpower has been instrumental in ground operations, particularly in Ramadi, a former stronghold for the extremists.The recent success of Iraqi Security Forces in clearing Ramadi comes after months of supporting ground forces with close air support, he said.Brown credited airstrikes with helping take back the city of Sinjar in northern Iraq, as well as Hasakah and the Tishreen Dam in Syria.We are making progress, he said. We will continue delivering airpower to destroy and eventually defeat Daesh. Honorary Commanders at play for Dobbins Day More than 50 members of the Honorary Commanders Association 2015 class experienced an up-close and personal look into the day-to-day responsibilities of Citizen Airmen at Dobbins Day here Feb. 12. The event was a full-day tour to various units around Dobbins that included business and civic leaders from the greater Atlanta area. Guests arrived to breakfast and a wing mission brief from Col. Jim DeVere, 94th Operations Group commander. The HCA members took flight in C-130 aircraft simulators, encountered the realism of aeromedical evacuation crew procedures, ate lunch in a field kitchen, observed a deployed-like environment, explored the flight deck of a C-130, and witnessed two air drop training missions. It is important to show civilians what we do inside the fence, said DeVere. Their tax dollars keep us functioning, so they deserve to know what happens here. Honorary commanders practiced co-piloting a C-130 Hercules in a realistic simulation session under the direction of a retired pilot and simulator instructor. The C-130 is capable of operating from rough, dirt strips and is the prime transport for airdropping troops and equipment into hostile areas. I got to do a flight simulation at Robins [Air Force Base, Ga.] before, but I crashed, exclaimed Sarah Baska, honorary commander participant from Georgia Senator David Perdues office. I enjoyed it so much. This one was way easier. Im just glad I didnt crash this time. Force Support Silver Flag Training Center staff provided lunch in an expeditionary kitchen tent replicating the conditions of a deployed environment. Silver Flag staff gave guests a taste of what deployed Airmen experience with a tour of their training grounds. The constructed tents allowed them a glimpse at canvas, pavilion-styled recreational, fitness and mortuary facilities. From an educational standpoint, its fantastic, said Charlie Barnwell, honorary commander participant. Ive been to Marine Day and Dobbins Day. They are great for connecting civilians and military. After lunch, the honorary commanders were escorted to the flight line observation deck. There, they observed two air drops. The first drop was a supply drop where the crew dropped supplies from a C-130 to an established ground target. Second was a Marine drop where four Marines parachuted from the plane prepared to land on their own established targets. The drop they got to experience today was a normal training operation, not just a demo for the tour, explained DeVere. I thought the drop was pretty spectacular, elaborated Barnwell. My favorite part was the simulator. Not many civilians will ever be able to see something like that. The HCA is a Cobb County Chamber of Commerce program that introduces local civic leaders to the U.S. military. By: Dezan Shira & Associates Editor: Ellena Brunetti Since the adoption of its new investment law in 2007, promoting an investors-friendly investment climate, The State of Indonesia has progressively become a new playground for foreign investors willing to expand their activities in ASEAN.To do so, according to the Article 5(2) of the said Law and its implementing regulations, foreign investors can perform a foreign investment in Indonesia by establishing a limited liability company (also known as Penamanan Modal Asing, which is often abbreviated as PMA , and stands for limited liability company with foreign direct investment). A company is a PMA as long as any of the shares are owned by foreigners. Investors can also, if they only want to test the market, use another form of foreign investment, aka representative office (Kantor Perwakilan Perusahaan Asing abbreviated KPPA), but currently, PMA remains the most common vehicle for foreign investment in Indonesia. However, several reasons can lead the company to be close down, amongst which, failure of the company to carry on business, lack of profits, inability to get along between shareholder or to pay its debts, or even corporate restructuring of the group to which the company belongs. Thus, in this article, we will focus on the deregistration ( heard as the whole process of closure of the company) of PMA, by offering a guide to the option available to close down a company in Indonesia. Difference Between Dissolution of RO and PMA The process of closing down a company is referred to as liquidation in common terms. However, companies can be liquidated either by De-registration or Winding Up. Although both the procedures will result in the dissolution of a company, the processes are significantly different. In order to fully understand the procedure to be followed in order to close down a company in Indonesia, a distinction must be made between the representative office and the PMA. Indeed, in order to end the existence of a RO, a simple de-registration in itself will be needed, while to close down a PMA, it will be needed not only to deregister the company, but also, previously to that, to go through what is called liquidation. Put simply, liquidation refers to the cessation of a companys operations and the sale of its assets to pay outstanding debts to creditors. The company will be de-registered and cease to exist following the completion of the liquidation process. Cases Leading to Dissolution According to the Article 142, paragraph 1 of the Company Law, liquidation of the company occurs if one of the following cases is met: Based on a resolution of the GMS (General Meeting of Shareholders) In other words, voluntary winding-up Due to the expiry of the company, as prescribed in the articles of association; Based on a court order (because of any non-compliance with the law) Due to a revoked bankruptcy statement, etc.; or Due to the revocation of the companys business permit, so that the company is obliged to conduct liquidation according to prevailing regulations. In this article, we will focus mainly on the first case expose above that is the voluntary deregistration of a company wanted by the shareholders themselves via a General Meeting of Shareholders, through mutual consensus. According to the Article 144 of the Indonesian Company Law, the General Meeting of Shareholder concerning the ending of the company can be held based on the proposal from the Board of Directors, Board of Commissioners or 1 or more shareholder representing at least one-tenth from the total number of shares with voting right. Article 89, paragraph 1 of the Company law stipulates that such a consensus is presumed to be reached, and thus, the liquidation of the company approved, if two conditions are met. First, regarding the quorum, at least of the total shares issued with voting rights must be present or represented, except if the companys articles of association stipulates a higher quorum. Second, a qualified majority must be reached: the resolutions resulting of this vote will be considered as valid if more than three-fourths of the total votes are in favor of the dissolution . Stages to be Followed for the Closure of the Company by Winding-up Once the decision of closing down a company has been taken by the GMS, the procedure to do so involves a certain number of formal steps. To put it simply, the deregistration process is the registration process done in the reverse order. It should be noted that during the liquidation stage, each outgoing letter of the Company must bear the wording in liquidation following the company name. Step 1 Designation of a Liquidator The shareholders must appoint a liquidator. In case no liquidator is appointed in the GMS, it is the Board of Directors that will act as liquidator. During the liquidation period, only the liquidator is allowed to perform any legal actions on behalf of the company. Step 2 Publication of the Dissolution According to the article 147 of the Company law, the liquidator has to notify, within thirty days from the date of winding up of the company, all creditors on the dissolution of the company by means of an announcement of the companys dissolution in the newspaper and the State Gazette of the Republic of Indonesia. Pursuant to the article 147 (3) of Company Law, from the date of announcement, the said creditors can submit their claims within a period of sixty days. Step 3 Settlement of claims and accounts receivables As stated in the article 149 of the Company law, The liquidator must settle Companys assets during the liquidation, and make sure all rights and obligations of the Company to third parties are settled. To do so, he will establish plan for division of the assets resulting from the liquidation. This plan will then be published in the Gazette. According to this plan, he will then pay the creditors, and eventually, pay to shareholders the remainder of the assets resulting from the liquidation. Creditors may submit an objection to the plan for division of the assets resulting from the liquidation within a period of sixty days. Step 4 General Meeting of Shareholders concerning Approval of Liquidators Duty and Effectiveness the liquidation of the Company This step must be taken very seriously, as the company dissolution does not cause the Company to lose its status as a legal entity until the liquidation is completed and the liquidators accountability has been accepted by the GMS or the court. Final step Tax Deregistration and Deregistration within the MOLHR Where the RO registration process would in general conclude with a tax registration, the deregistration process begins with a tax deregistration conducted with tax authorities. Investors must be aware that, as long as their company isnt properly shut down and dissolved from a legal point of view, they stay liable to the tax authority. Also, according to Article 152 of the Company Law, the liquidator must report to the MOLHR(Ministry of Law and Human Rights, formerly the Ministry of Justice) and announce the final outcome on the liquidation process in a newspaper at least 30 days from the date of the General Meeting of Shareholders approving the liquidators duties have been properly fulfilled. As a consequence, MOLHR will register and delete the Companys name from the Company Registry and will announce it in State Gazette of the Republic of Indonesia. About Us Asia Briefing Ltd. is a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. Dezan Shira is a specialist foreign direct investment practice, providing corporate establishment, business advisory, tax advisory and compliance, accounting, payroll, due diligence and financial review services to multinationals investing in China, Hong Kong, India, Vietnam, Singapore and the rest of ASEAN. For further information, please email asean@dezshira.com or visit www.dezshira.com. Stay up to date with the latest business and investment trends in Asia by subscribing to our complimentary update service featuring news, commentary and regulatory insight. The 2015 Asia Tax Comparator In this issue, we compare and contrast the most relevant tax laws applicable for businesses with a presence in Asia. We analyze the different tax rates of 13 jurisdictions in the region, including India, China, Hong Kong, and the 10 member states of ASEAN. We also take a look at some of the most important compliance issues that businesses should be aware of, and conclude by discussing some of the most important tax and finance concerns companies will face when entering Asia. Manufacturing Hubs Across Emerging Asia In this issue of Asia Briefing Magazine, we explore several of the regions most competitive and promising manufacturing locales including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Exploring a wide variety of factors such as key industries, investment regulations, and labor, shipping, and operational costs, we delineate the cost competitiveness and ease of investment in each while highlighting Indonesia, Vietnam and Indias exceptional potential as the manufacturing leaders of the future. An Introduction to Tax Treaties Throughout Asia In this issue of Asia Briefing Magazine, we take a look at the various types of trade and tax treaties that exist between Asian nations. These include bilateral investment treaties, double tax treaties and free trade agreements all of which directly affect businesses operating in Asia. All the latest Ashbourne news. Ashbourne is an historic market town in Derbyshire. Situated on the southern edge of the Peak District, it is known as the 'Gateway to Dovedale' and the 'Gateway to the Peak District'. Ashbourne is famous for the annual Royal Shrovetide Football Match, which has been played since at least 1667, although its origins may date back centuries earlier. Ashbourne became a Fairtrade town in March 2005. The popular Tissington Trail, which follows the route of the former Ashbourne to Buxton railway, starts on the edge of town. Keep up to date with the latest news from the town by signing up for our newsletter. The US president has approved a document passed last week in Congress. Assets frozen of anyone doing business with the North Korean nuclear program or involved in human rights abuses. 50 million paid for humanitarian programs and propaganda against the regime of Kim Jong-un. Washington (AsiaNews / Agencies) - US President Barack Obama has signed new sanctions against North Korea, after the refusal of the Pyongyang regime to halt its nuclear program and follows the launch of a long-range missile a few days ago. The new measures were approved last week by Congress and aim to reduce the availability of cash to Kim Jong-un. A resolution of the Korean crisis is still being considered by the UN Security Council, with China warning that further sanctions could cripple the economy of North Korea. The measures signed by Obama freeze the assets of anyone doing business with the North Korean nuclear program be that in selling weapons to the regime, or being involved in human rights abuses. The document also authorizes the payment of $ 50 million for humanitarian programs and radio broadcasts in North Korea. In a statement, the South Korea foreign minister said that the measures are "the first that exclusively target the DPRK, and were approved quickly." Seoul announced that it will discuss with the development of a missile defense system with Washington. A few days ago, Pyongyang launched a long-range rocket, with prohibited missile technology, and the regime's television announced that the regime "has successfully placed a satellite in orbit." The day after the launch, Obama called the act "provocative", and added that North Korea has "repeatedly violated UN resolutions, tested and produced nuclear weapons, and is now perfecting its missile system" . YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS. Governments regular extraordinary session kicked off in the Armenian National Assembly (NA). 105 MPs were recorded. Armenpress reports that 2 issues are included in the extraordinary sessions agenda. MPs will discuss the draft law on making amendments and additions to the Armenian Republics law on The structure of the Armenian Republics government. The draft law proposes to separate the Ministry of Territorial Administration from the Ministry of Emergency Situations. It is grounded by the fact that, conditioned by the necessity of cooperation, it is needed to establish the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Development and Ministry of Emergency Situations. The 2nd issue of the agenda is the legislative package on making amendments and additions to the Armenian Republics law on Notification of activity and State tribute. The mentioned legislative initiative aims at promoting the grape production in Armenia. by Sumon Corraya Last year Dhaka and Riyadh signed an agreement to send 120 thousand workers to Arabia. In 2015, 20,952 women left for Arabia, but many have already returned. They recounted stories of abuse and threats, domestic slaves by day, sex slaves by night. Saudi recruiter: "We love Bangladeshi women because they are Muslim and wear a headscarf." Dhaka (AsiaNews) - Thousands of Bangladeshi migrant women who travelled to the Saudi kingdom in search of work now want to return to the country of origin because of continuing harassment they suffer. Many of them have already returned and denounced the slave-like working conditions to which they were subjected by day as maids in the house, and that at night they were forced to satisfy the sexual desires of male employers and employees. Bangladesh suspended the sending of women workers to Saudi Arabia for seven years, allowing only men to migrate. But last year the Dhaka authorities have signed an agreement that also provides for the migration of women. They are educated in the country of origin, where the government has opened 26 centers for the professional training of maids and servants. Then they leave for the Middle Eastern countries, where, however, many suffer threats and sexual abuse. The agreement between the two governments is to send 120 thousand Bangladeshi women in the coming years. In 2015 there were 20,952 migrant workers, but many of them have already returned. Monira Akter (not her real name) is one of them and she told AsiaNews: "I followed the training course organized by the government to learn how to carry out domestic chores, but I could not do my job properly because my employer wanted to force me to have sex. " "I did not go there to sell my body she complains - I emigrated to raise money for my family." The woman says she knows five other workers who have suffered the same fate. Another victim of this exploitation reveals: "My master treated me badly, he did not allow me to call in Bangladesh and so I came back." Abdul Aziz, a Saudi who recruits women in Bangladesh, admits: "We love the Bangladeshi workers because they are Muslim and wear the burka [the full veil that leaves only the eyes uncovered, ed]." Rosaline Costa, Catholic activist, said: "It is not difficult to understand why women do not want to go to Saudi Arabia, when you consider the way they are exploited by employers: by day slaves in the house, sex slaves at night" . The activist believes that the recently approved provision, to allow a male relative to accompany workers as a "guardian" is insufficient. They have no way - he says to help their relatives. People are helpless and without legal protection, since their passport and airline ticket are withdrawn and they do not know where to seek help if they have problems at night". She concludes: "Given the recent news of exploitation, the relatives of the workers no longer want to allow their departure, if it means that almost all of them will be forced to be sex slaves for the employer and for his male employees." Msgr. Marcuzzo speaks to AsiaNews about attacks on Church property by some municipalities. They want to impose a fictitious administrative tax. Accounts have even been blocked. "We are worried about the decline of the pilgrims in the Holy Land. The prelate stresses that the local Christian community needs to feel supported. Lenten works of mercy for the sick. Jerusalem (AsiaNews) - The general situation "has worsened, there is no real willingness to resume peace negotiations, and there is always an excuse to put it off. Every day we expect more deaths, but nothing is done to resume dialouge": This is the picture of the Holy Land and the Middle East painted by Msgr. Giacinto-Boulos Marcuzzo, patriarchal vicar of Jerusalem. At the forefront of the battle of Catholic schools against Israeli Ministry of Education cuts, the prelate denounces' attacks by some municipalities on the goods and the coffers of the Church. "We've recently heard - he says - that some municipalities have blocked the accounts of churches, clergy, religious orders. Moreover in addition to the services we already regularly pay, they want to compel diocese to pay an extra administrative tax, but it is an absurdity because since the Ottoman empire religious orders have been exempt". The auxiliary bishop does not hide its concern for the near future and speaks of how he is baffled that "even my personal account has been blocked. The problem is that with the fact that bills are taken directly from bank accounts which are currently blocked account, we risk finding ourselves with nothing, not even electricity or gas ... nothing". The Maronites in Haifa and other religious in Jaffa find themselves in a similar situation. For the prelate these are "decisions made by local municipalities, but the government has done nothing to stop them. At the official level they say they are against it, but there is no great will to resolve the issue. The nuncio informed the Israeli Foreign Ministry, but nothing has changed. " Blocked current accounts, difficult situations for schools and hospitals, relations between church and state and dialogue with the Holy See interrupted, without any sign on the horizon or a resumption in the short term. The reality of the Church and the Christian community in the region is critical and also in terms of pilgrimages the news is not encouraging. Indeed, Msgr. Marcuzzo speaks of "complete crisis." One thing above all: in 2015 there was a decline of about 30% in visitors over the previous year. "Pilgrims from all the European countries, except Poland, have declined," said the Patriarchal Vicar of Jerusalem. "Globally, there are pilgrims from Nigeria, then Koreans and Japanese, Indonesians and Filipinos, but the overall figure is a crisis." The decline has an impact on the community of Israel, Palestine, Jordan because "nearly 30% of Christians work in this sector, in tourism and pilgrimages, and so they are not getting wages." "We must help these people - said Msgr. Marcuzzo - starting from the fact that the violence transmitted by TV on the Middle East have nothing to do with the Holy Land. The pilgrims here have never been touched; Jews and Muslims consider the pilgrim a person in search of God and respect him, so people should not be afraid. The patriarchal vicar emphasizes that peace is a basic requirement to restore cohabitation and dialogue in this land; to obtain it is necessary that the United States and Europe correct their "mistaken policy" in the Middle East. "You have to block aid and terrorist financing he warns - not only to Daesh [Arabic acronym for the Islamic state], but all terrorists groups." In this difficult context, the Jubilee of Mercy "has a very strong value" for which the Church of the Holy Land has promoted "a serious program, involving all communities." For the period of Lent, says Msgr. Marcuzzo, "we chose to visit the sick: not just in hospitals but also in homes, families, following the directives of Pope Francis ... that the sick themselves are evangelizers of suffering". Our example is Saint Mariam Bawardi, who "still being sick, was the first to help those who were suffering, a truly extraordinary witness." And then there is the distribution of aid and food for those who suffer in Gaza, refugees in Jordan. Finally, for the period of Lent the priests "they have pledged to ensure greater availability and more time for confessions". The faithful of the Holy Land speak of a feeling of "abandonment". And to understand how important the contact, closeness is, Msgr. Marcuzzo recalled the recent visit of the ambassador of Finland in a Catholic school in the Galilee. "She was met with great enthusiasm - tells the prelate - so much so that she herself was surprised. But when they see a person who is interested in them, who cares, these kids feel encouraged. But not only young people: all Christians in the region need to feel included, supported. " And the way to support us, he concludes, is "to make this pilgrimage, to be with us, pray with us." (DS) Epidermal Growth Factor 101 Everything You Need To Know About Epidermal Growth Factor Page 1 of 2 Miracle ingredients are a dime a dozen in the grooming industry (this months roundup focuses on Retinol, one such wonder active). And while impossible promises are par for the course in an industry hell bent on making sales, there are a few occasions when a piece of bona fide science rises to the surface, clinical evidence intact. In fact, the beauty industry is unusually fast to market with some of the latest breakthroughs in modern medicine, mostly because there are fewer loopholes to jump through when it comes to selling a moisturizer versus saving someones life. A glimpse of potential yet to be fully verified or rigorously tested by the medical community can become an infallible claim in the grooming industry. This was the case with sirtuins, a miracle cure for maturity that covered magazine pages but ultimately failed to live up to all the hype. But EGF or epidermal growth factor is something of an anomaly. It is not an overnight sensation or fleeting trend. In fact interest has grown at an uncharacteristically steady pace since its discovery in 1986 when its founders, biochemist Stanley Cohen and one Dr. Rita Levi-Montalcini, were awarded the Nobel Prize. It has taken the best part of three decades for EGF to find its way into an anti-aging unguent, a comparatively minor achievement given its involvement in cancer drugs and organ regeneration over the years. As its name suggests, this polypeptide stimulates epidermal tissue growth by triggering a receptor that activates the renewal of different cells, including keratinocytes the ones that make up most of the outer layer of skin. In other words, it causes skin to grow at an accelerated rate making it, among other things, an invaluable wound healer (to be precise, EGF is the exogenous substance your body releases when you get a scrape). To hammer home its miracle status, it is worth noting that EGF has been used since the late 80s to treat burn wounds and chronic ulcers. Given that ageing is tantamount to slow cell turnover and poor collagen synthesis, EGF is a veritable elixir of youth. Which begs the question: why hasnt EGF become bigger news? The growth factor has already found its way into cult Japanese brand DHC and Icelands Bioeffect, among others. For reasons Ill explain later, it was once the focal point of super-premium brand ReVive. But EGFs relatively low profile in the world of grooming is ultimately down to fears over its safety. The concern is that forced cell division at an unnaturally fast rate could play a part in the development of cancer. Growth Factors are mitogenic, meaning they do not cause cancer but they can cause cancerous cells to multiply. In other words, EGF, for all its intelligence, doesnt actually discern whether the cell it binds to is healthy or not. Naturally, this fear is more prevalent among those who have come into contact with the prescription grade stuff and not designer moisturizers, which have an incredibly low concentration of EGF. It is worth noting that, in a culture where everything from your microwave to your bottled water can supposedly cause cancer, there are no conclusive studies that substantiate the ill-effects of EGF (mostly because the stuff is hugely expensive). YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS. Russia expressed concern about a possible rapprochement between Israel and Turkey. The opinion of the Kremlin on this occasion, the Minister of foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov announced at a meeting with the Director General of the Israeli foreign Ministry Dori gold,Haaretz newspaper reads, Armenpress reports. Barack Ravid writes in Haaretz that Russia expressed concern about the likely strengthening of Turkeys influence in the Gaza strip, as well as in relation to alleged transactions regarding the purchase of Israeli gas to the Turkish side. The Israeli foreign Ministry refused to comment on the issue. According to Haaretz, although the main topic of the talks with the participation of the Israeli delegation, held in Moscow last Thursday, February 18, was the situation in Syria, the Russian side also raised the issue of the Israeli-Turkish rapprochement. In the framework of negotiations on the normalization of relations with Israel, Turkey has demanded access to Gaza for reconstruction. The Russian side expressed concern about this. It should be noted that earlier against Turkish presence in Gaza was made by the Egyptian government. Russia also expressed dissatisfaction with the likely deal to buy Israeli gas. At the moment the Russian suppliers have the largest share in the Turkish import of gas. The publication also reported that in Israel itself there were influential group of employees of the Ministry of defense, also urging not to rush to normalize relations with Ankara. They believe that the Turkish governments support the terrorist organization Hamas, as well as the objections of Russia and Egypt indicate that the hasty signing of the agreement may not correspond to the interests of Israel. Law firms seek changing skill-set for new business models A survey of legal hiring trends reveals the changing demands of law firms as the profession moves into new business models. Recruiter Robert Half examined thousands of job orders and placements and found that in-demand skills are changing and compensation for the right candidates are increasing. As older lawyers retire, firms are considering how to be more attractive to millennials (generation Z) and embracing flexible working, training, home-working and flexible dress codes. Strong technology skills are important for firms, especially in legal support positions where there is a blending of paralegal/legal secretary roles. Foreign language skills are also in-demand with greater cross-border work. There is also an increasing demand for junior lawyers as clients demand lower fees, although the demand is still below pre-recession rates. International firm appoints 50 new partners US-headquartered law firm K&L Gates has appointed 50 partners across its international offices. In Asia-Pacific the new partners are: Steven Wulff (patents) in Melbourne; Lucy Williams (disputes) in Sydney; Cindy Hong (compliance) in Shanghai; Ashish Chugh (arbitration) in Singapore; and Grace Fan-Delatour (energy) in Beijing. Simmons & Simmons announces new global employment head Julian Taylor has been appointed global head of the employment, pensions and incentives group, succeeding Simon Watson, who has become the firms first general counsel. Managing partner Jeremy Hoyland commented that the practice is key to the firms international success. Lawyers weigh in on US presidential campaigns While presidential hopes Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are in the long battle for the White House their lawyers are also weighing-in. Trumps lawyer Jeffrey Goldman has sent Cruz a cease-and-desist letter demanding that his campaign stops using a clip from 1999 in which Trump says he is pro-choice for abortion laws. NBC News reports that in a press conference Cruz said that Trump should go ahead with court action: "Mr. Trump, you have been threatening frivolous lawsuits for your entire adult life. Even in the annals of frivolous lawsuits, this takes the cake. HR professionals need to wind back the day-to-day focus and start speaking the same language as the board in order to cement their position as a strategic partner, a report from one of the world's largest corporate law firms says. Eversheds, in conjunction with business intelligence experts, Winmark, has just released a report entitled Navigating the Future: HR 2020. The report surveyed 75 UK HR and non-executive directors of major firms, looking specifically at the future of the HR function. The reports key observation was the potential for the HR profession to redefine its role at a more strategic level. HR has played a significant part in the growth and survival of organisations in recent years and it now has a real opportunity to cement its position in steering the strategic direction of organisations, London-based partner and head of the human resources group at Eversheds, Martin Warren, said. Economic, social and technological change puts HR at the forefront of organisational development, with HR holding many of the solutions to today's business challenges. However, HR departments need to ensure they are tuned into the same frequency as other areas of the business if they are to fully realise their impact. Key to this is speaking the same language as other areas of the business. While talent management is a perfectly valid priority for an HR director, it doesn't articulate the wider business objective it is supporting, Warren said. HR directors who discuss problems and opportunities in terms of financial implications and risk profile are more likely to have the ear of the rest of the business. The report focused on pensions and human rights two issues when new regulations are due to come into force in the UK. Over half of the respondents said they saw the responsibility for pensions-related issues sitting with HR, yet 41% said they had no planned changes in the pipeline in preparation for the pension freedom and change agenda. The report revealed the majority (92%) of HR directors are focused on attracting and retaining talent within their organisation, with succession planning (81%) and employee engagement (78%) also high on the agenda. 'With shortages of candidates in skilled roles set to increase significantly, it is unsurprising that this is where HR directors are currently focused, but it does highlight a somewhat narrow perspective, Warren said. Ironically, it is broad, lateral thinking that will help to win the war for talent and HR directors have an important role to play in building a genuinely diverse workforce for the long-term benefit of the wider business. Diversity isn't just about ethnicity or gender, it is about creating a workforce which fits into a more flexible and technologically advanced era of doing business, Warren said. Mobile and online technologies are enabling people to work remotely and collaborate across different countries and time zones, while organisations rely less on employees alone and are willing to explore other resources such as contractors and service suppliers. Tomorrow's HR leaders are those who will correctly assess the impact of these trends on their organisation and plan accordingly. Read the report at www.hr2020report.com. People in Australia are being asked to provide submissions to be considered in the planning and development of Australia's Humanitarian Programme for 2016/2017.The Minister for Immigration and Border Protection Peter Dutton said the consultation process will inform the Government's decision about the size and composition of the programme."Australia has a proud record of resettling refugees and people in humanitarian need from around the world," Dutton said but he has come under attack for dragging his feet in resettling refugees fleeing from war in Syria and Iraq.Dutton pointed out that since 1947 Australia has welcomed more than 825,000 people from different countries under the Humanitarian Programme in response to changing global resettlement needs.The programme provides permanent resettlement to those most in need, who are in desperate situation overseas, including in refugee camps and protracted humanitarian situations.Dutton pointed out that Australia is one of only a small number of countries that operate an annual permanent resettlement programme and ranks in the top three resettlement countries each year, along with the United States and Canada,The Government has committed to increase the size of the Humanitarian Programme from the current level of 13,750 places up to 16,250 places in 2017/2018 and 18,750 places in 2018/2019.In September 2015, the Government announced an additional 12,000 places to resettle people displaced by conflicts in Syria and Iraq but figures show that just 26 Syrian refugees have arrived since then and the Refugee Council of Australia says the government should be attacking more quickly.Dutton said the pace of resettlements was determined on national security grounds. "The Australian public demands that the government does everything possible to make sure that first and foremost our national security is protected and secondly to make sure that we're bringing the right people into our country so that they can start a new life," he explained."Our government is dragging its feet while the rest of the world is acting much more quickly to meet their promises. It is a shame for all concerned that the Australian resettlement programme is so bogged down in bureaucratic delays, when the governments of Canada and New Zealand have proven that it is possible to move much more swiftly," said Refugee Council chief executive officer Paul Power."Canada has resettled 20,490 refugees from the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts in less than half the time that Australia has taken to resettle just 26 people. New Zealand has already resettled 82 of the 200 Syrian refugees it plans to resettle by the end of June. Many organisations are desperate to help the increased resettlement plan and they have been left in the lurch," he explained."Some of the non-government organisations engaged by the government as contractors for post-arrival services for refugees have hired staff, secured additional housing and organised other assistance in the expectation that the refugees would have begun to arrive in large numbers some months ago, as the government had previously indicated. These organisations are now bearing the costs of the government's delay," he pointed out."We know that there is no shortage of appropriate applications. Thousands were received from UNHCR and through relatives and communities in Australia in the three months following the Government's September announcement," he added. The new pathway is a bit of a joke. Only about half of the non-protected SCV holders who were resident in Australia on Feb 19th 2016 will qualify to apply. There will still be 60-70,000 non-protected SCV holders who have no pathway to citizenship, as well as those NZ citizens who have arrived after Feb 19th 2016. The fact that non-protected SCV holders who have been living, working and paying taxes in this country for up to 15 years have to pay thousands of dollars to become permanent residents stinks. There are some lucky non-protected SCV holders who were in Australia at some time before Sept 1994 - these people should be eligible to apply for a Resident Return Visa (RRV), the fee for which is currently $360. I know of some NZ citizens who have been granted an RRV even though they only spent a matter of hours in Australia after clearing customs at some time pre-Sept 1994. Is there any chance you were in Australia at some time before Sept 1994? SUV To be more precise, Cayenne The Third has recently been spied wearing an active rear spoiler. The aerodynamic element comes with a flap running the entire width of the spoiler, whose angle can either increase downforce or make the vehicle more slippery to boost fuel efficiency.This is a first for thesegment, but it only seems natural, given the plethora of active systems modern Porsche pack, from the stabilizer bars to the yet-unrevealed variable compression ratio Zuffenhausen has patented.Speaking of which, now that the Audi Q7 has brought four-wheel steering to the segment, we're expecting the Porsche to follow suit.The rest of the spied prototype doesn't give us too many clues on what the next Cayenne will look like. However, we can tell you the vehicle will ride on the VW Group's fresh MSB modular platform, which has already been put to work in the second-gen Q7 and Bentley Bentayga.The new platform will not only increase structural rigidity but also bring a weight reduction of at least 220 lbs (100 kg).Porsche is known to be working on a new generation of turbocharged V6 and V8 units together with Audi and we expect to see these under the hood of the new Cayenne. In fact, the units will most likely debut in the 2017 Panamera.For one thing, the current twin-turbo V8 serving the Turbo models is not too different from the engine used when Porsche launched its first SUV in the early 2000s. Will these engines feature the electric turbo technology Audi has been showcasing in concept form? It's too early to tell.Mix the details mentioned above and you'll get to the conclusion that the current 8-minute (flat) Nurburgring lap time of the Cayenne Turbo S will be beaten by quite a margin.At the other end of the efficiency scale, we'll find the next-generation plug-in hybrid powertrain. Now that Porsche has set out to build an all-electric car ( Mission E , anybody?), expect significant advances on this front.We've seen the German automaker making the Cayenne more comfortable with the mid-cycle revamp of the second generation, with much of the credit going to the softer seats.The new model will follow this trend, but the most important change is the one we've already spied on the second-generation Panamera , namely touch controls.Zuffenhausen is expected to release the new Cayenne late next year as a 2018 model, but we'll have plenty of occasions to uncover new details by then. Before we go through those tips and tricks, did you ever wonder how batteries came to be such an important detail of everyday life? Benjamin Franklin coined the term battery in 1749 to describe a set of capacitors used for his experiments with electricity. Italian physicist Alessandro Volta is the father of the ancestor of the battery, though - the voltaic pile. As for the lead-acid battery we use in most of our cars today, that was invented by French physicist Gaston Plante back in 1859.The lead-acid battery is the first-ever battery design that can be recharged by passing a reverse current through it. With the aid of a voltage regulator and an alternator, the lead-acid battery doesnt die as fast as your iPhone does. The secret to its longevity is the humble alternator, which is driven by the engines crankshaft to produce AC power through electromagnetism. Thats how your vehicle generates electrical juice and the battery lasts an average of four to six years.Other than starting the engine, a car battery sends power to the lighting system, spark plugs, infotainment system, and so forth. The typical car battery provides 12.6 volts of DC power, yet the nominal value is 12V. In essence, the car battery is made up of six smaller batteries connected in series. These are also known as battery cells.The lead-acid battery started to gain importance in the 1920s, when passenger vehicles became equipped with electric starters. Those first batteries designed for cars were 6V units, but the 1950s saw the changeover to 12V. The automotive industry upped the ante to 12 volts due to the higher compression ratios of larger displacement engines.Now that you have learned (or recalled) the essentials, care to guess what are the most common cause batteries go flat? Old age, as expected, is the most common cause of them all. In second and third place are excessive heat and corrosion. If your car is cranking slowly, the headlights are dim, or the engine doesnt turn over, the battery is drained. Leaving the lights on or a defective alternator are other causes that could drain your battery flat. The biggest problem with a drained car battery is that it never wholly regains its charge.There are only two things you can do to prevent a dead battery scenario. You could either ring a buddy for a jump start or take the matter into your own hands by carrying a portable jump starter with you at all times. Juno Power manufactures the most portable jump starter of them all. Priced at $99.99 and weighing just 7 ounces (0.2 kilograms), the Juno Jumper doesnt only help you with jump starts but its also good for charging your mobile phone or tablet via USB.Dont forget that a correct jump start is done in steps. Step one: attach the red cables alligator clip to the + (positive) battery terminal. Step two: attach the black cable to the - (negative) terminal. If the car starts into life, just let it run for 5 minutes to ensure the battery is charged. Then you have to remove the cables in the reverse order and youre finished. But then again, its much easier to prevent a flat battery.The secret to long battery life is proper maintenance. Mechanics recommend to pop the hood once a month and inspect the state of the battery terminals. If corrosive buildup is on the menu, the trick is to scrub the terminals with baking soda. A toothbrush, a mixture of three tablespoons of baking soda and a tablespoon of warm water should do the trick. After brushing, clean the terminals with a towel then let them dry. Petroleum jelly should be applied to the cars battery terminals to deter corrosive buildup in the future. Thats all!For those who have a standard or low maintenance battery, a great piece of advice is to ensure the water level is always topped up. It's recommended to remove the filter caps and check the water level every month, especially if your battery is two to three years old. After topping up with distilled water, simply pop the filter caps back on.The past decade saw automotive manufacturers rely more and more on maintenance-free batteries. Dont, however, take maintenance free literally because sealed batteries also require regular cleaning and maintenance, according to the experts at Meineke Car Care . Though similar in design to a standard car battery, the maintenance-free genre cant be opened to be topped up with distilled water. Furthermore, this type of battery isnt leakproof since all lead-acid batteries allow gas to vent during charging. The BMW 5 Series from March 2007 onwards incorporates this type of battery, as do other modern cars. Motorcycles adopted the maintenance-free battery in the 1980s to reduce the likelihood of acid spilling during cornering and for packaging reasons.Another top tip is to avoid short trips because the less often you start your car, the less work the battery has to do. This applies to a certain point, though, because the car needs to run from time to time for the battery to hold a charge. The best solution to this is wrapping several short trips into a longer one. Cold weather can be a headache for most batteries as well, because the cold is extra taxing on batteries. Starting the car in the winter should be done after checking that everything electrical in the car is turned off. Air con, lights, audio system, heated seats, absolutely everything has to be turned off to ease the load on the starter motor and battery. Its as simple as that.Battery draining when the car is turned off is yet another problem that can be avoided. In this situation, a small electrical load from the cars computers or accessories draws current from the battery. Cables causing short circuits represent the most common scenario. Last but not least, what if you just installed an all-new battery but the engine stopped starting? You may want to tighten the clamps and turn the ignition again. That didnt solve it? The culprits in this situation could be the alternator or the alarm system. Given this worst case scenario and the complexity of the fix, the last resort is a trustworthy mechanic.Those who own a modern, highly technologized car with lots of electronics, computers, and sensors, be warned. Disconnecting the battery to prevent it from going flat could be a hellish experience. In the case of some German cars, disconnecting the battery erases the memory in multiple control units. Thats why the sunroof doesnt open or close anymore, the power windows refuse to go up or down, the steering angle sensor loses its normalization, warning lights come on, and the audio system goes into antitheft mode. So please, if you own a modern Mercedes, BMW or Audi, just dont disconnect the battery.If, however, the inevitable happens, the AAA will gladly offer road assistance provided that you call 1-800-222-4357. As a rule of thumb, ask the mechanic to check the battery every time you go for an oil change. Photo of Mazda CX-5 courtesy of Mazda. Mazda North American Operations is recalling 268,799 Mazda CX-5 SUVs in the 2014-2016 model years so dealers can address a fire risk associated with the fuel filler pipe, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported. The CX-5 SUVs at issue were manufactured from June 27, 2013, to Feb. 2 of this year, NHTSA said. They have a fuel filler pipe that may rupture in the event of a crash, increasing the risk of a fire. To resolve the problem, Mazda dealers will alter the attachment between the fuel filler pipe and the left rear side of the bracket of the fuel filler pipe. There will be no charge for this service. The recall is expected to begin March 1. Vehicle owners can reach Mazda customer service at (800) 222-5500, option 6. Mazdas number for this recall is 9216B. AVwebs search of aviation news around the world found announcements from Sonex Aircraft, The Squawk App, Parkland College and Advent Aircraft Systems.Sonex Aircraft announced its latest aircraft development project: Sonex and Waiex B-Models, offering more room and comfort, more panel space, more fuel, more engine choices, and more standard features combined with reduced build time.Pilots who are getting rid of paper now find themselves tied to multiple mobile devices. The Squawk App keeps track of pilot squawks and current aircraft time, on a free phone app. For aircraft operators, the Squawk App delivers structured, useful information by email. To help resupply American air carriers with well-trained pilots, the Institute of Aviation announced signing a guaranteed interview agreement with Republic Airways. For years, many aviation experts have warned of an impending shortage of pilots for airlines as current pilots reach retirement age, said Sybil Phillips, Director of the Institute of Aviation.Advent Aircraft Systems, in collaboration with Beechcraft Corporation, a subsidiary of Textron Aviation Inc., has received FAA approval of its advanced-technology GPS/digital anti-skid braking system (Advent eABStm) for installation on Beechcraft King Air B300 series aircraft. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS. NATO delegation, led by Commander of the NATO Special Operations Headquarters Lt. Gen. Marshall Webb, and the Ukrainian Armed Forces General Staff have signed a letter of intent for cooperation in special operations, Ukrainian General Staff Chief Viktor Muzhenko said. "As a result of the talks, a letter of intent for cooperation in the sphere of special operations was signed between the NATO Special Operations Headquarters and the Armed Forces General Staff of Ukraine," Muzhenko wrote on his Facebook account on February 19, Armenpress reports. He said that the NATO delegates' major goal is to familiarize themselves with the process of the formation of special operations forces in Ukraine and assist in the formation and development of these forces. 19 February 2016 13:06 (UTC+04:00) By Nazrin Gadimova Looking at the Nagorno-Karabakh images taken from outer space one gets stuck in the great number of forests covering this land. Closer eye at pictures makes available the images of certain villages. These are not ordinary villages and the scene is terrifying. From space, the destroyed houses without roofs look like lifeless skeletons. Such villages are numerous in Nagorno-Karabakh, an ancient and internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijani land which Armenia keeps under occupation despite international calls to withdraw. These areas look like ghosts still remembering the bloody and devastating war, that killed over 20,000 Azerbaijanis. Garadaghli is one of these villages located in the Khohavend region. Twenty-four years ago, on February 17, 1992, the Armenian armed forces captured Garadaghli. This large village was a great obstacle for the Armenian invaders to unite its front lines and to cut off Nagorno-Karabakh from the rest of Azerbaijan. Moreover, an important road connecting Khankendi and Khojavend passed through Garadaghli. The village was completely destroyed during the armed operations. Armenian military murdered in brutal ways, tortured and took hostages innocent unarmed people, including women and children here. They killed nearly 80 of 117 captivated villagers, while six went missing. After the capture, the Armenian gangs looted and destroyed the village. The Armenian armed forces committed a war crime and a brutal genocide against the Garadaghli residents. At the moment, those villagers who managed to survive the Garadaghli tragedy, live a refugee life in different parts of Azerbaijan. Destroyed, roofless, gloomy houses are waiting for their true owners to return back to their lands. Then the houses will get a roof and porch, there will be fruit trees, and children will run around in the yard. But now the houses are empty and sinister shadows fall to the ground through the knocked-out windows... -- Nazrin Gadimova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @NazrinGadimova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 19 February 2016 18:45 (UTC+04:00) By Nazrin Gadimova Yerevans position regarding the Azerbaijani captives once again proves that Armenia ignores norms of the international law. This was stated during the meeting of Ali Hasanov, Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the State Committee for Work with Refugees and IDPs with Elena Aymone Sessera, newly appointed head of the ICRC Azerbaijan office and her forerunner Denise Duran. Azerbaijan, whose 4,000 citizens were taken captive, hostage, or went missing as a result of the Nagorno Karabakh war, has repeatedly declared its readiness to begin negotiations with Armenia in this direction. In August 2014, in Sochi, Presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia once again confirmed their adherence to the principles stating the need to find a resolution by exclusively peaceful means while respecting territorial integrity and the right of peoples to self-determination. However, the Armenian government has ignored this statement by refusing to return hostages Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilgam Asgarov who are in Armenian captivity for more than two years. Hasanov and ICRC representatives mulled the release of the Azerbaijani hostages. Shahbaz Guliyev, Dilgam Asgarov and Hasan Hasanov (killed during arrest) have been detained in the occupied Kalbajar region while they were attempting to visit the graves of their relatives in July 2014. One year later, the unrecognized courts of a separatist regime in occupied Nagorno-Karabakh judged them illegally. Asgarov was sentenced to life imprisonment and Guliyev to 22 years, following the process. Addressing to the meeting, Hasanov said he has recently attended an international event in Geneva, where he met the ICRC president for the issue of Azerbaijans hostages. I asked the ICRC president to organize online communication between Dilgam and Shahbaz and their family members on Skype, Hasanov said, adding that necessary work is underway. Work on clarifying the fates of the hostages and missing citizens is a priority task for Azerbaijan, the Head of State Commission on Prisoners, Hostages and Missing Persons, Lieutenant-General Madat Guliyev stated earlier. We need to improve this activity in accordance with the strategic line established by President Ilham Aliyev, Guliyev emphasized. -- Nazrin Gadimova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @NazrinGadimova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 19 February 2016 10:00 (UTC+04:00) By Gareth Evans One of the most bizarre arguments made by the people who support Britains exit from the European Union is the notion that a self-exiled UK will find a new global relevance, and indeed leadership role, as the center of the Anglosphere. The idea is that there are a group of countries with the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing community of the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand at its core who share so much of a common heritage in language, history, law, democratic institutions and human-rights-respecting values, that they can be a new, united force for global peace and prosperity. Britains capacity to energize and become the heart of this group will, it is said, more than make up for its exclusion from the sclerotic, culturally and linguistically divided, and increasingly marginalized EU. Perhaps I am just a jaundiced colonial, but let me count the ways this all seems to me to be a fantasy. The basic problem for Anglosphere advocates is that none of the candidates for membership of this new club are likely to have the slightest interest geostrategic, economic or political in joining it. Geostrategically, the main game is, as it has been for most of recorded time, geography rather than history, and the biggest game of all for the foreseeable future is the emerging contest for global supremacy between the US and China. The US certainly wants allies and partners to help it stare down any overreach by China in East Asia, and Anglophone Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, and especially India are part of its thinking as it implements its pivot to the region. But even more important, collectively, for the US are Japan, South Korea, and the very non-Anglo Southeast Asian countries, especially Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand, whom President Barack Obama just hosted at an unprecedented US-ASEAN summit in California. Closer or more formal association with the UK would bring absolutely nothing to this table. The US does value highly its relationship with NATO members Britain and Canada, particularly in its renewed tussle with Russia. But what Australia, New Zealand, and a bunch of other far-flung Anglos could usefully bring to that particular table is not self-evident. It is equally hard to see US leaders devoting time and energy to attending Commonwealth Heads of Government meetings, which is essentially what any formal Anglosphere structure would amount to, not least given that the Commonwealth last had any discernible impact on any major international issue decades ago, in the fight against apartheid. Anglosphere advocates might also ponder the fact that, if there are any US voices supporting Brexit, they bear an uncanny resemblance to the tribe of neo-conservative pundits who primed Britain for entry into the Iraq war. Australia, for its part, sees its security future as wholly bound up in the Indo-Pacific region. While we value continuing remnants of our Anglo past including Britains participation in the Five Eyes group, and our Five Power Defense Arrangements with Malaysia, Singapore, the UK, and New Zealand the truth of the matter is that the UK has brought nothing of significance to the regions defense since the fall of Singapore in 1942. Economically, the story is the same. Anglosphere connections mattered a lot for Australians and others in the days before the UK joined the European Common Market. The severance of those ties was painful for our dairy and other industries, but for Britain hard-headed self-interest understandably prevailed. Self-interest now prevails for the rest of us. In Australias case, our trade future is bound up either with all-embracing global agreements, or at least substantial regional ones like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, with the US the key player, or the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership now being negotiated between ASEAN and Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand. Its hard to see any value in adding to the mix another spaghetti bowl of Anglos. The US manifestly feels the same way. It is investing energy in other regionally focused FTAs like the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the EU. Moreover, Trade Representative Michael Froman made it clear last October that the US was not interested in negotiating a free trade deal with Britain if it pulled out of Europe. Probably the hardest truth that Britains Anglosphere dreamers must confront is that there is just no mood politically, in any of the candidate countries of which Im aware, to build some new global association of the linguistically and culturally righteous. We just dont particularly think of ourselves as Anglo any more. Things might have seemed different when Stephen Harper and our even more cringe-inducing Tony Abbott were prime ministers of Canada and Australia. But with Justin Trudeaus election the Canadians have gone back to sounding and acting like Canadians, and with the Abbott governments mercifully early demise, any talk of the Anglosphere here has been banished to the far-right fringe. The writing was on the wall with the hugely negative reaction last year to Abbotts reintroduction of knights and dames to the national honors list, and even more with his elevation of the Queens curmudgeonly consort, Prince Philip, to a local knighthood. To Australians, 28% of whom were born overseas (only a sixth of these in Britain) and a quarter of whom speak a language other than English at home, this all seemed like preposterous yearning for a lost imperial age. True, many of us living in the so-called Anglosphere remain nostalgic about Britain. I, for one, yield only to the travel writer Bill Bryson in my passion for English country walks and pubs. But as the saying goes, nostalgia isnt what it used to be. The truth of the matter is that if Britain steps away from Europe, thinking it can compensate by creating an influential new international grouping of its own, it will find itself very lonely indeed. Copyright: Project Syndicate:The Anglosphere Illusion --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 19 February 2016 09:58 (UTC+04:00) A new print edition of the AZERNEWS online newspaper was released on February 19. The new edition includes articles about Baku to host biggest gymnastics event, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan to establish railway consortium, Novruz Bayram coming with first Tuesday, Georgia lacks real potential to deliver Iranian gas to Europe, Plunge into Tahir Salakhov's world in his house-museum, etc. AZERNEWS is an associate member of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA). The online newspaper is available at www.azernews.az. 19 February 2016 11:00 (UTC+04:00) The Utah State Legislature issued a proclamation (citation) commending the long-standing traditions of interfaith tolerance, inclusion and harmony in Azerbaijan, and applauding the efforts by Azerbaijans Government to foster these traditions on February 17. Signed by the Utah State Senate and House leadership, the proclamation was presented to Consul General of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles Nasimi Aghayev. In his address to the Utah State Senate, Aghayev noted that the Azerbaijani model of interfaith harmony has vividly proved the possibility for Muslims, Christians and Jews to live together in peace, dignity and mutual respect. He also thanked the Utah Legislature for this important proclamation, and for their support and friendship. The proclamation, which was presented by Senator Gene Davis on the Senate floor and Representative Lynn Hemingway on the House floor, commends Azerbaijans example of interreligious tolerance and harmony. Stressing the important contribution of Azerbaijans Government, the proclamation notes: Azerbaijan has created an environment that nurtures and promotes the ancient traditions of religious tolerance, and rejects extremism and hatred The three major religions have prospered because of the respect and tolerance of the Azerbaijani people, and because of the role the government has played in fostering the environment of interfaith tolerance and mutual acceptance in the country. The proclamation further notes: Azerbaijan has repeatedly, over the course of the last decade, brought together religious leaders from the region and around the world to promote greatly needed interfaith dialogue. The year 2016 has been proclaimed a Year of Multiculturalism in Azerbaijan. In April 2016, Azerbaijan will host the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations Forum. The document ends by stressing that given the rising levels of intolerance, hate, terrorism and xenophobia in the world, it is important for the United States of America to support its tolerant and secular allies and consider the Azerbaijani model of interfaith acceptance and community engagement as a functioning example, and encourage this policy around the globe. During his visit to Utah, Aghayev also met Lieutenant-Governor Spencer Cox, Senate President Wayne Niederhauser and House Speaker Gregory Hughes. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 19 February 2016 12:00 (UTC+04:00) By Aynur Karimova Tbilisi is hosting a trilateral meeting of Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and Georgian Foreign Minister Mikhail Janelidze. They are discussing relations between the three countries and joint regional projects, particularly Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, TAP and TANAP energy projects. Addressing the 5th trilateral meeting of the foreign ministers on February 19, Elmar Mammadyarov announced that Baku considers the trilateral meeting of Azerbaijani, Georgian and Turkish foreign ministers as a very fruitful platform of cooperation. We have successful results of this cooperation in political, economic and other fields, Mammadyarov said. He also emphasized the significance of regional projects and noted that the Southern Gas Corridor project is now beyond energy and element of development of the three countries. It is important to highlight that geographic location of our countries provides an ample opportunity to benefit from our countries competitive transit potential. Therefore, I believe that developing transport infrastructure, and most importantly, interconnectivity and infrastructure in our geography should remain one of key areas of cooperation, he said. The Southern Gas Corridor project envisages the transportation of the gas to be extracted from the giant Shah Deniz field in the Azerbaijani section of the Caspian Sea. Shah Deniz Stage 2 gas will make a 3,500 kilometer journey from the Caspian Sea into Europe. This requires upgrading the existing infrastructure and the development of a chain of new pipelines. The existing South Caucasus Pipeline will be expanded with a new parallel pipeline across Azerbaijan and Georgia, while the Trans-Anatolian pipeline will transport Shah Deniz gas across Turkey to join the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, which will take gas through Greece and Albania into Italy. Mammadyarov went on to add that there are obstacles to peace and development in the region. "There is a need to respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of internationally recognized borders of states in the region," he said, stressing that failure in the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the greatest threat to peace, stability in the region and regional cooperation. Turkey actively fights terrorist groups in the region, said Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. He made the remarks during a briefing in Tbilisi following the fifth trilateral meeting of Azerbaijani, Turkish and Georgian foreign ministers, TRT Haber reported. Cavusoglu noted that as distinct from some countries, Turkey doesnt make distinction among terrorist groups. The IS terrorist group (ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh) poses a serious threat to Turkey, Cavusoglu said, adding that Turkey urges all countries to actively fight terrorist groups without making distinction among them. Later, the three foreign ministers signed a joint declaration.The statement emphasizes the importance of joint regional projects, and reiterates support for territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and Georgia. During the Tbilisi visit, Mammadyarov also discussed regional projects with his Georgian counterpart Mikheil Janelidze. During the meeting they emphasized the importance of TAP, TANAP and Baku-Tbilisi-Kars projects, the implementation of which will make a significant contribution to regional cooperation. The foreign ministers also discussed the cooperation in political, economic and cultural spheres. Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, the troika engaged in implementation of giant energy and transport projects, regularly hold meetings at the level of various ministries. A few days ago, transport ministers of the three countries met in Tbilisi to discuss the prospects of implementation of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway. -- Aynur Karimova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 19 February 2016 13:23 (UTC+04:00) Ali Hasanov, Deputy Prime Minister, Chairman of the State Committee for Work with Refugees and IDPs has met Elena Ajmone Sessera, the new head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation in Azerbaijan and the ex-head of the ICRC office in Azerbaijan, Denise Duran. Congratulating Sessera on her new appointment, Ali Hasanov said her mission would be successful in development of relations between Azerbaijan and ICRC, Azertac state news agency reported. The Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, its history, the plight of refugees and IDPs in the country was the topic of discussions in Baku. The sides also mulled the release of Azerbaijanis Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilgam Asgarov, who were groundlessly taken hostage by the Armenian Armed Forces in Kalbajar region. I have recently attended an international event in Geneva, where I met with the ICRC president solely for the issue of our hostages. I discussed the issue with him and he promised to step up efforts for it. I asked the ICRC president to organize online communication between Dilgam and Shahbaz and their family members on Skype. Necessary work is underway to organize communication between the hostages and their family member, Hasanov said. Expressing gratitude for detailed information, the new head of the ICRC delegation highly appreciated the works to alleviate the plight of refugees and IDPs in the country, the development and progress she watched here. Armenian forces killed an Azerbaijani, Hasan Hasanov, and detained Guliyev and Asgarov while they were attempting to visit the graves of their relatives in July 2014. Guliyev and Asgarov have been judged illegally by the unrecognized courts of a separatist regime in occupied Nagorno-Karabakh. Following an expedited judicial process" in December 2015, Asgarov was sentenced to life imprisonment and Guliyev to 22 years. A number of international organizations, as well as Baku, repeatedly urged Yerevan to start peaceful negotiations on this issue and to free the hostages, the Armenian side remained deaf. Furthermore, the Armenian side ignoring all calls and violating the international rules and norms was subjecting the hostages to various tortures. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 19 February 2016 15:17 (UTC+04:00) By Nazrin Gadimova The OSCE Minsk Group, established to mediate between Baku and Yerevan to find a peaceful solution the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, maintains a double-standard position on the conflict and therefore cannot assess the situation objectively. Ali Hasanov, Azerbaijani presidents aide for public and political affairs made the remark while addressing a presentation ceremony of the Ceasfire documentary film by Hungarian director Erika Bognar. The film, which tells about the Nagorno-Karabakh realities and is the first joint work of Hungarian and Azerbaijani journalists, has caused serious resonance in Hungary after its presentation in December 2015. Addressing the event, Ali Hasanov mentioned that the tragic events that occurred in the country in the period of 1992-1993 have not been objectively assessed. Only in 1993, after the national leader returned to power, [crimes] committed against the Azerbaijani people gained objective and legal assessment, Hasanov said, adding that world countries were informed about these tragedies thanks to internal and external resources available to the state. The bloody Nagorno-Karabakh war, which flared up in the late 1980s due to Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor, left 700,000 civilians of Nagorno-Karabakh and the regions adjoining it, as well as the regions bordering with Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh without homes. Moreover, 250,000 Azerbaijanis were expelled from Armenia and became refugees due to Armenia's ethnic cleansing policy after the emergence of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan. Hasanov further emphasized that the work on bringing the realities of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to the worlds attention was carried out more intensively over the past five years. He reminded that following a special program of the Azerbaijani president, the Presidential Administration, Foreign Ministry, State Committee for Work with Diaspora, as well as the Heydar Aliyev Foundation in the framework of the Justice for Khojaly campaign bring the truth about the crimes committed in Khojali in 1992 to the worlds attention. Hasanov said President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly assessed the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh and its consequences at the international arena. He further added that the OSCE Minsk Group, created with the direct participation of the UN, uses double standards towards the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Because of this over, for over 24 years we cannot eliminate the consequences of the Nagorno-Karabakh tragedy, we cannot bring back the Azerbaijani citizens driven out from their native homes and achieve peace and reconciliation in the South Caucasus, Hasanov added. The OSCE Minsk Group, created for the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict could not find a way out of the situation so far. The conflict evolved in 1988 after Armenia territorial claims to neighboring Azerbaijan, whose 20 percent of lands it occupied in an unneighborly way. The OSCE Minsk Group acted as the only mediator in resolution of the conflict, but the statements promising a sincere contribution to the peaceful resolution of the conflict have become frequent, but declarative in essence. -- Nazrin Gadimova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @NazrinGadimova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 19 February 2016 16:48 (UTC+04:00) Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev received a delegation led by Fahri Hamzah, Vice Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Indonesian Parliament, on February 19, Azertac state news agency reported. The head of state expressed satisfaction with the high level of Azerbaijani-Indonesian bilateral relations, and said there was mutual understanding and support between the two countries. President Aliyev said Azerbaijan was interested in developing relations with Indonesia in political, economic, investment, cultural, tourism, educational fields, as well as inter-parliamentary cooperation. The head of state stressed the importance of building a stronger format of cooperation between the two countries. The president voiced hope that the visit of Indonesian MPS to Azerbaijan would be successful and important in terms of the enhancement of the bilateral ties. Hamzah, for his part, said they were interested in expanding cooperation with the Azerbaijani parliament. He said Azerbaijani-Indonesian inter-parliamentary friendship group was already established in Baku, adding that such a group would be set up in Jakarta too. Fahri Hamzah said the activity of the inter-parliamentary friendship groups would contribute to the expansion of cooperation between the two countries. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS. Series of consultations with Ambassadors and heads of missions of Armenia to foreign states and international organizations kicked off at the Presidential Palace. In addition to bilateral issues of foreign policy agenda, new prospects of advancing Armenias economic interests will be discussed at the consultations. As Armenpress was informed from the Department of Public Relations and Mass Media of President of the Republic of Armenia Office, the February 19 consultation was dedicated to issues on the agenda with the Islamic Republic of Iran, current projects, new initiatives as well as the implementation process of specific assignments. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Armenia to the Islamic Republic of Iran Artashes Tumanyan was the main reporter. The consultation was attended by Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandian, Co-Chair of the Armenian-Iranian intergovernmental commission, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Minister Yervand Zakharyan, Minister of Economy Karen Chshmaritian, Minister of Transport and Communication Gagik Beglaryan and other officials representing the Staff of the President. Addressing Ambassador Tumanyan, the President said, Mr. Tumanyan, we start our works from you today. I would like you to present a detailed report on the current state of our relations with friendly Islamic Republic of Iran and about the prospects of these relations, focusing mainly on the economic component. President Sargsyan asked Ambassador Tumanyan to detail on particularly the issue of what are the opportunities of Armenia to become a transit route linking Gulf ports to Black Sea ports after sanctions are lifted from Iran. The next issue that the President wanted to hear about referred to cooperation in the sphere of energy. Afterwards, President Sargsyan inquired about investment opportunities of Armenia particularly under the light that Armenia is the only EAEU member state sharing land border with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Serzh Sargsyan asked the Ambassador to clarify the expectations of the Iranian side from Armenia and what else Armenia should do in order to become interesting for Iranian business circles. This format of consultations is important in the sense that we have already made a decision and in the near future we will replenish the Foreign Ministry with a deputy minister who will engage in foreign economic issues, the President added. Ambassador Artashes Tumanyan first expressed gratitude for the format of discussing one of the key elements of foreign policy and assured that the embassy has made all its efforts to push forward and solve the issues on Armenia-Iran agenda. He informed about the ongoing infrastructural and energy projects. The next issue refers to transport corridor. It is of key importance for us. When recently Minister of Transport of the Republic of Armenia Mr. Beglaryan was on a working visit in the Islamic Republic of Iran at the invitation of his counterpart, it was officially declared in front to mass media representatives that Iran announces about its state policy of 4 corridors. One of them passes through the Republic of Armenia. It was an important announcement that also fits in global geopolitical projects, the Ambassador said. The Ambassador also referred to the lifting of international sanctions and Armenias membership to the EAEU. At the end of the consultation President Serzh Sargsyan gave assignments based on the outcomes of the discussion. 19 February 2016 13:55 (UTC+04:00) By Aynur Karimova Azerbaijan, which is keen to minimize the impact of global economic crisis to the national economy and diminish its dependence on the oil sector, sees the agricultural sector as a central direction in a bid to diversify the national economy. The country, with its advantageous climatic conditions and good opportunities to develop agrarian sector, has defined the establishment of agro-parks among its priorities to boost the agriculture development. In this regard, the country's Economy Ministry has approved an action plan to develop agrarian sector in 2016, which stipulates creation of agro-parks in the Azerbaijani regions. Agro-parks around the world have been designed to accommodate small farms, public areas and natural habitat. They provide an access of small farmers to secure land and local markets, provide fresh food, and are an educational, environmental, and aesthetic amenity for nearby communities. Currently, the establishment of agro-parks nears completion in Shamkir and Khachmaz regions, which will allow to expand domestic supply and support the exports. Last year, President Ilham Aliyev inaugurated the Garabagh Agrarian Industrial Park in Barda. The facility, with 5,000-tons logistic center, cattle-breeding complexes, a meat cutting and processing factory, and a fodder plant, has created 300 jobs. Azerbaijan plans to export its high-quality agricultural products, which enjoy popularity and are in demand, to neighboring countries. Meanwhile, the agricultural sector is important not only for increasing Azerbaijan's export potential, but also for restoring and protecting the country's food security. Given this, the country pays significant attention to the establishment of new agro-parks and attracting foreign direct investment in this sector. In August 2015, Japan allocated Azerbaijan a grant worth $900,000 for the development of the agricultural sector. This agreement played an important role in upgrading the technical park of the agrarian sector of Azerbaijan and the development of human resources. Over the past ten days, as a result of measures adopted in Azerbaijan to ensure food security, the production of husbandry goods has increased by 3.1 times, cattle-breeding by 3.4 times, meat production by 1.6 times, and grain production by 1.4 times. As a result of agrarian reforms carried out in Azerbaijan, the guarantees were made for the dynamic development of agriculture. -- Aynur Karimova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 19 February 2016 09:00 (UTC+04:00) The FRESCO supermarket chain is opening a new store at 20 R.Gafurov str., Narimanov district, Baku city on February19, 2016. Remaining true to Frescos tradition, the new supermarket will offer its customers the best world standards in shopping: - shopping space of 1,000 m2; - well-trained, courteous staff; - Over 20,000 types of food and household products; - farm fresh produce at permanently low prices; - fresh baked goods and pastries prepared by professionals; - the optimal allocation of products for customer convenience; - convenient parking; - immediate attention to customers needs; - acceptance and delivery of orders by phone. The FRESCO team has increased its service offering for your convenience. Now, you can order free delivery of any products to your house, office etc. The FRESCO supermarket chain, established with investment from EMSA Capital, an Austrian investment fund, has achieved the loyalty of its customers and contributed to the economic growth of the country. The management of Azeri Retail LLC supports the policy of Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan to provide new employment opportunities to Azerbaijani citizens. The new store adds 60 employees to the hundreds of employees already working in existing FRESCO supermarkets. Any company must have a powerful manager to succeed. The team of FRESCO has been making great strides toward success with its young Manager - General Director, PhD in Economics Kamran Eyyubov. Dr. Eyyubov was educated at elite schools in the UK, where he studied socio-economic development, employment issues and economic political models of Azerbaijan. His managerial potential, and expert knowledge of legislation, economics and management allows him to make correct and effective decisions. Under the leadership of Dr. Eyyubov, Azeri Retail LLC has become stable and innovative, has increased the number of services for its customers, and has proved itself under the FRESCO brand. The FRESCO supermarket advantages for shoppers include: - freshest and highest quality foreign and local goods; Working with domestic and international suppliers, FRESCO supermarkets chain offers both traditional and exclusive products; - Large variety of goods always on offer; FRESCO shelves are always stocked with a wide variety of goods to meet any customers needs ; - Stable and low prices; For our customers satisfaction, FRESCO supermarkets offer products at stable and low prices; - Fast and convenient availability of any product; Our convenient layout will help you to obtain any product quickly. You will not lose needless time searching; - High quality service at world standards; Our professional team is doing their best to further FRESCO brand. Our first aim is to render excellent service to each of our customers. Moreover customer satisfaction is an important priority of the team; - FRESCO supermarkets offers an excellent bonus program to its loyal customers, who will benefit from special offers; There are no restrictions on bonuses based on amount or time. You can use the card as soon as you sign up, no matter how big or small your purchase; Card holders will receive bonuses of various gifts, also discounts on a regular basis and obtain regular information about promotions. DEAR CUSTOMERS ! 19 February 2016 11:52 (UTC+04:00) By Aynur Karimova The Accounting Chamber of Azerbaijan has discussed a bill on amendments to the state budget for 2016 and the budget of the State Social Protection Fund. The Chamber reported that during the discussions the participants were informed about Azerbaijan's current macroeconomic situation, which led to the revision of the state budget, as well as the main directions of revenue and expenditure, budget deficit and the financing sources. The meeting also considered reports over the changes to the budget of the State Social Protection Fund for 2016. Taking into account that both bills were developed in accordance with the requirements of the legislation, the Board of the Accounting Chamber decided to submit its comments on the documents to the Parliament of Azerbaijan. Under the amendments to the state budget for 2016, which were submitted to the consideration of the Parliament, the budget revenues are projected at 16.822 billion manats ($10.6 billion), while budget expenditures - at 18.495 billion manats ($11.65 billion). The budget deficit will amount to 1.673 billion manats ($1.05 billion). Thus, the revenue part of the state budget will be increased by 15.5 percent, while the expenditure part - 13.7 percent. Transfers from the Taxes Ministry will increase by 6.2 percent - to 7.01 billion manats ($4.42 billion), and the State Customs Committee - by 13.8 percent - to 1.81 billion manats ($1.14 billion). Transfers from the country's state oil fund SOFAZ will be increased by 1.615 billion manats ($1.02 billion), or 26.9 percent, and amount to 7.615 billion manats ($4.796 billion). As a result, transfers from SOFAZ will provide 45.3 percent of the revenue part of the state budget for 2016. Other budget revenues will increase by 13 million manats ($8.2 million) and amount to 75 million manats ($47.24 million). The parameters of the state budget were revised given the price of oil at $25 per barrel. Forecasts of the approved budget were based on oil prices of $50 per barrel. Earlier, the budget revenues for 2016 were projected at 14.566 billion manats ($9.17 billion), while budget expenditures - at 16.264 billion manats ($10.24 billion). The budget deficit was approved in the amount of 1.698 billion manats ($1.07 billion). External debt Azerbaijan's Finance Ministry reported on February 17 that as of January 1, 2016, the country's external public debt amounted to $6.894 billion, which accounts for 19.8 percent of the country's GDP. The statistics on the loans included direct obligations of the state and contingent liabilities on loans under state guarantee. Of the total volume of borrowings, some 58.6 percent will be paid off within 10 years, 32.9 percent - from 10 to 20 years, and 8.5 percent - for a period exceeding 20 years. As of January 1, the currency structure of loans is as follows: 8.8 percent of funds were attracted to the SDR (Special Drawing Rights of the IMF), 66.3 percent - in U.S. dollars, 20.4 percent - in euros, 2.5 percent - Japanese yen, 0.8 percent - UAE dirham, 0.6 percent - the Islamic dinar, 0.4 percent - Saudi Arabian riyal and 0.2 percent - Kuwaiti dinar. The funds, which were mainly attracted from the World Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency, the Asian Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and other international financial institutions, were sent to support the economic reform programs, rehabilitation and reconstruction of infrastructure, including the construction and rehabilitation of power plants, construction of roads, improvement of water supply of regions, the development of services in the sphere of aviation and railways, as well as industry and energy. The official exchange rate on February 19 was 1.5635 AZN/USD. -- Aynur Karimova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 19 February 2016 12:44 (UTC+04:00) Azerbaijan Airlines has announced plans on establishing a new brand - AZALJET, representing low-cost destinations of the airline. Flights under AZALJET brand will be operated based on the existing infrastructure of Azerbaijans civil aviation from March 28, 2016. Baggage and meals on board will be offered for additional payment on the flights operated under AZALJET brand. This practice is successfully used partly since August 2015 and on the full scale since February 1, 2016 in a number of AZAL flights, due to which the airline decided to create a separate brand that will offer tickets on this scheme. Low-cost airlines have become popular all over the world in recent years. It is an approach to air transportation business, expressed by the formula "low costs - low tariffs - high demand - high income." After separating its own low-cost brand, Azerbaijan Airlines will continue to operate its classic flights, including baggage and a full range of meals on board as before. Thus, Azerbaijans flag carrier will be able to compete effectively in the aviation market with both classic and low-cost airlines, which are interested in our market. In particular, Turkish Airlines low-cost brand Anadolu Jet already operates flights to the regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and in the end of March Hungarian low-cost airline WizzAir will resume flights from Baku to Budapest. Other low-cost airlines, including Turkish Pegasus and Atlasjet are also interested in flying to Azerbaijan. "This business provides saving on a number of services that allows significantly reducing costs compared with classic air carriers. At the same time, we, as before, guarantee a high level of safety and service on all flights of Azerbaijans flag carrier," President of CJSC AZAL, Jahangir Asgarov said. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 19 February 2016 18:01 (UTC+04:00) By Aynur Karimova Amid the global economic crisis, Azerbaijan with its favorable transportation opportunities is set to derive benefit from its transit potential in the full capacity. Azerbaijan, a historical transit center of the Eurasian continent located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, has proposed to link the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas to Helsinki, Finland, by railway. Taleh Ziyadov, the Director-General of the Baku International Sea Trade Port addressing the CIS Global Business Forum in Dubai said that Azerbaijan, which borders Iran to the south, sees itself connecting Iran with Europe through its northern border with Russia. Geographically, by default, we are in a very good location," Ziyadov was quoted by Gulf News as saying. Speaking on logistics development as a mean to economic transformation, he stressed that the future is all about inter-modal transportation. "Azerbaijan has set up robust logistics infrastructure by building competitive routes to effectively handle time-sensitive and high-value goods which have contributed to business growth across the region," Ziyadov added. Enjoying good partner relations with regional countries, Azerbaijan has developed a modern transport infrastructure. Currently, the country eyes further developing railway transport and implementing major projects of international importance. Azerbaijan, being part of the North-South transport corridor, is ready to connect the northern countries to the southern and western countries with the eastern. In this regard, the North-South and the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railways are expected to serve as bridges from north to south and from east to west and vice versa. The North-South corridor, from India to Helsinki, is one of the most important routes for the region. It is a multimodal route for transportation of passengers and cargo from Russia's St. Petersburg to the Mumbai port. It is designed to carry transit cargo from India, Iran and other Persian Gulf countries to the territory of Russia (the Caspian Sea) and further - to Northern and Western Europe. The North-South corridor with a length of 5,000 kilometers is designed to carry more than 20 million tons per year, which is quite a significant figure to make it significant. After the realization of the above-mentioned railway projects, Azerbaijan will significantly increase the volume of cargo transportation through its territory while the country's revenues can reach $1 billion by 2025, with a subsequent increase. -- Aynur Karimova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 19 February 2016 18:24 (UTC+04:00) Fuad Guliyev Nakhchivan automobile plant NAZ will manufacture new generation of cars in cooperation with Chinese auto producer Lifan. NAZ will produce new series of Sino-Azeri cars, Lifan 820, Lifan X80 and X50. Production capacity of NAZ is 5,000 cars a year but this number can easily be doubled to 10,000 if there is an increased demand by customers. The plant has been already producing various models of Lifan and new models will be introduced to the production line. It is also planned to extend the warranty period for NAZ Lifan cars. Assembly of these new cars will mark beginning of an important milestone in assuring the best quality for cars, which are designed to feature better safety mechanisms. NAZ Lifan hopes to capture middle class section in the market of Azerbaijan, which has the most advanced economy in the region. Polad Sadikhov, deputy director of NAZ, automobile production plant in Nakhchivan, underlined that demand for Chinese automobiles has been growing rapidly and the plant plans to increase production to this demand. Ganja automobile plant, Azsigorta and Azpetrol are the very first large customers of NAZ-Lifan. Following the economic crisis by force of low oil prices the energy rich Azerbaijan is keen to expand the domestic production and encourages interior purchases within the country. Thus, buying 1,933 cars for war veterans from the manufacturer the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection in fact became one of the largest consumers of NAZ Lifan. Minister Salim Muslimov liked the cars so much he even decided to buy one for himself. President Ilham Aliyev recommended to officials buy more of domestically produced automobiles, during the conference dedicated to The State Program on Socio-Economic Development of Regions on January 26. During the meeting with NAZ, Chinese partners decided to establish a country office of Lifan. 19 February 2016 14:54 (UTC+04:00) By Amina Nazarli YARAT Contemporary Art Space will host a series of exhibitions that were selected through ARTIM project open call from February 19 to March 13. The first exhibition to inaugurate the programme is Habib Sahers solo show 'This Too Shall Pass'. The show 'This Too Shall Pass' draws its inspiration from various disciplines including the practice of sand mandala and Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam to muse on ephemerality of existence, inevitability of death and the beauty of that short period called life. The artist approaches sculpture as a metaphor for anything corporeal and presents a body of work that will auto-destruct in the course of the exhibition. Much in the vein of Auto-Destructive art of the 1960s, the artist aims at challenging the notion of art as a commodity and wants to emphasize its spiritual and philosophical capacity. The exhibition will be accompanied with a series of events that includes a conversation with the artist, a film screening and a poetry reading evening all held at the ARTIM Space, YARAT announced. Habib Saher (b.1986) is a Baku-based artist of Iranian descendant. He has obtained his bachelors and masters degrees in Sculpture from the Academy of Arts in Baku. Saher has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Baku and intenationally including Semeni International Art Exhibiton Heydar Aliyev Center, Caspian Art Exhibition, Zavod contemporary Art Exhibition and Summer Group Show at the Seed Corn gallery, Berkeley, CA. YARATs program ARTIM, meaning progress in Azerbaijani supports young practitioners in the arts providing opportunities to curate and feature their work in exhibitions. 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. YARAT, which means create in Azerbaijani has commissioned over 145 projects to date, the majority of which have been in the capital. Education is at the heart of YARATs work: they hold artist residencies, workshops, lectures and screenings. In 2014, there was launched a summer school and a new building housing artists studios and spaces to support their residency programme. In 2015, YARAT Contemporary Art Centre their first permanent exhibition space appeared in Baku. -- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 19 February 2016 18:23 (UTC+04:00) By Laman Ismayilova The Home-Museum of the outstanding Azerbaijani artist Sattar Bahlulzade has represented the first catalogue of his works titled "Caricatures of Sattar Bahlulzade", which were drawn during his work at Communist newspaper. The text of collection with a historic value belongs to the chief curator of the museum, PhD on art criticism, and member of the artist's family, Parzad Abdinova, the Museum said. Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Sevda Mammadaliyeva, honored art worker of Azerbaijan Ziyadkhan Aliyev and famous Azerbaijani artist Huseyn Haqverdiyev made speeches at the ceremony. Speakers told about Sattar's life and career, stressing his invaluable contribution to the development of national contemporary art. The visitors enjoyed incredibly beautiful art, once published in Communist newspaper. Laureate of the National Award and the founder of lyrical landscape in the fine arts of Azerbaijan, Sattar Bahlulzade was born in 1909 in the village of Amirjan, in about half an hour's drive east of Baku. Strong passion for art since childhood gave him the drive to began his professional education at the National Art Institute in Baku (1927-1931). Then, he began to work with Azim Azimzade at Communist. Bahlulzade entered in 1933 the department of graphic arts of Moscow Institute of Arts named after V. Surikov, where he studied in the workshops of famous Soviet graphic artist Vladimir Favorskiy. For the rest of his life, the artist felt the enormous influence of his teacher, who inspired a love of beauty in his student. The first personal exhibition of Bahlulzade was held in 1966 in Prague. It was the first personal exhibition of a soviet Azerbaijani artist in Europe. Many of his works include specific areas of Azerbaijan, for example, a series of landscapes dedicated to Guba area (in the north-east of Azerbaijan,): The Shore of Gudiyalchai, A Road to Gyz-Benevsha, The Valley of Gudiyalchai, and The Green Carpet. In 1940, Bahlulzade worked on his final project "Revolt of Babek", dealing with a great hero of the 7th-century struggling against the Arabic invasion. Bahlulzade died in 1947 due to the blood poisoning. Unlike other prominent art workers, he was laid to rest in his native village of Amirjan, next to his mother's grave. The 34th UNESCO General Assembly issued a resolution to mark the 100th anniversary of Sattar Bahlulzade in 2008-2009. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 19 February 2016 17:35 (UTC+04:00) By Aynur Karimova Georgia, which enjoys significant transit potential for delivering hydrocarbon resources of the Caspian basin, is ambitious to transit Iranian blue fuel to Europe. Georgian Energy Minister Kakha Kaladze's statement that his country can import Iranian gas either through Azerbaijan or through Armenia," has given birth to concerns about reliability of energy partnership with energy-rich Azerbaijan, Georgia's main gas supplier. Mariam Valishvili, Georgian Deputy Energy Minister, told local media that the country has not yet made a decision on the transportation of gas from Iran, because Azerbaijan is a strategic ally of the country in terms of gas supplies. If it is impossible to completely have the Azerbaijani resource in terms of meeting price and volumes, of course, Iran is considered as an additional opportunity, she said. Iranian gas currently costs more than that of Azerbaijan and Russia. Price of natural gas depends on the natural gas price, which dynamically changes. Therefore, Georgia will consider commercial details "after Iranian natural gas becomes an international product. Daily gas consumption in Georgia exceeds 11 million cubic meters per day and about 2.5 billion cubic meters per year. Azerbaijan is the main supplier of gas to Georgia with a specific weight of 74.9 percent of total imports in this category. Last year, the country imported 1.51 million tons of oil equivalent of natural gas in the amount of $314.3 million from Azerbaijan in 2015. On an annualized basis, the volumes of Georgian natural gas imports from Azerbaijan in terms of value increased by 9.4 percent, in quantitative terms by 127,170 tons of oil equivalent, or by 9.2 percent. Currently, Azerbaijan supplies gas to Georgia via the Hajigabul-Gardabani pipeline with a gas pumping capacity of 6.5 million cubic meters per day. The second way carrying gas to Georgian consumers is the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum (South Caucasus) Pipeline, through which the gas from the first stage of the Shah Deniz field is supplied to Georgia and a large proportion goes through its territory to Turkey. Annual growth of the Georgian market is up to 10 percent or maximum 250 million cubic meters per year. With such a growth rate, gas consumption in the country will reach five billion cubic meters in the next 10 years. No doubt that this amount is not beyond the power of Azerbaijan, which enjoys huge gas resources. Lasha Dzebisashvili, professor at the University of Georgia, told Trend that there is no alternative to the Azerbaijani gas for Georgia, considering its affordable price and the fact that Azerbaijan is the countrys strategic partner. Gas purchase from Azerbaijan is more favorable [than purchase from other suppliers] for Georgia, he said. If SOCAR is able to supply additional gas to Georgia, then I will not see an alternative to the Azerbaijani gas. However, if Azerbaijan refuses to increase the supply to meet Georgias growing needs in gas in the winter season, the current deficit will be reimbursed by supplies from other sources, such as Iran." The expert believes that the infrastructure for the supply of Iranian gas both through Azerbaijan and Armenia exists. But the admissibility of these gas prices remains an important question. Considering the prices for the Iranian gas, its transportation and transit, this idea becomes highly questionable, he explained. Currently, SOCAR has several plans to increase gas export to Georgia. In this regard, the company will fully upgrade the Hajigabul-Gardabani pipeline to increase its capacity. Also, works on the expansion of the South Caucasus Pipeline as part of the Shah Deniz-2 project have already commenced. These works include the construction of a new pipeline in the territory of Azerbaijan and two new gas compressor stations in Georgia. Expansion of the South Caucasus Pipeline will triple its capacity to more than 20 billion cubic meters a year. That will allow allocating more gas to Georgia. -- Aynur Karimova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 19 February 2016 15:28 (UTC+04:00) Azerbaijans State Oil Company SOCAR conducts negotiations with the Russian Transneft company on renewal of oil supply via Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline in 2016, Reuters reported on February 19 citing SOCARs representative. SOCAR exported 1.27 million tons of oil via the Baku-Novorossiysk pipeline in 2015, compared to 932,160 tons of oil exported in 2014. SOCAR official said that the company had not shipped its oil via Russia in December due to "technical limitations" at the Baku-Novorossiisk pipeline. "We've asked to temporarily use another route - to Makhachkala, an option envisaged by our contract, but Transneft refused, citing technical limitations," he said. The official said SOCAR had so far not exported its oil via Russia this year either but had held negotiations with Transneft on resuming shipments, suggesting the Makhachkala route be activated as per the contract. "We are still in talks with the Russians, they should be more flexible," he said, adding that SOCAR was ready to export about 1.4 million tonnes of crude via Russia this year. He further said that volumes which were meant to be shipped via Russia had been re-routed to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. After the lifting of international sanctions on Iran, he said SOCAR was also considering exporting refined oil products to Tehran as well as swap operations. "Our delegation was in Iran recently and discussed the possibility of reviving our cooperation," he said. He said that SOCAR planned to trade around 22 million tonnes of its own oil this year and about 11 million tonnes of non-Azeri oil worldwide, the same levels as in 2015. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS: Armenia is now in new political realities of new Constitution. One of the new realities is the combination of two nationalist political forces for the good of Armenia, Artsakh and all Armenians. During a discussion in the National Assembly the Deputy Speaker of the parliament Edward Sharmazanov responded in this manner to the head of the ANC (Armenian National Congress) faction Levon Zurabyan. I wish to underscore that this is not a political deal, but political cooperation. Maybe you have has political deals, which led to your demolition. This is not a deal; its long term cooperation, Sharmazanov said, Armenpress reports. Referring to Zurabyans statement that as a result of the constitutional changes NO completely defeated YES, Sharmazanov said If there are adversaries and enemies for you in Armenia that you wish to defeat, we dont have enemies. We dont have rivals and dont have the need to defeat anyone, because in our country everyone is ours including you. Earlier Zurabyan said in a statement that during the constitutional referendum, the people said NO to RPA (Republican Party of Armenia) and to ARF (Armenian Revolutionary Federation). Sharmazanov called on Zurabyan to look into their party ranks and understand who was told NO. You are the only political party, which was rejected. You were even rejected by your supporters. It would be enough if you would even look into your party ranks and understand that, the Deputy Speaker if the parliament said. He also called on Zurabyan not to be worried with the fate of RPA and ARF. Take care of your own problems. In contrast, we act not despite of someone, but for something. We work for the prosperity of the Republic of Armenia and are ready to cooperate with any political force, Edward Sharmazanov said. 19 February 2016 12:37 (UTC+04:00) Iran has proposed assistance to Uzbekistan in freight transit, Irans Ambassador to Uzbekistan Bakhman Agarazi Dormani said, Uzbek media reported. Irans authorities plan to provide Tehrans Imam Khomeini international airports capacity to Uzbekistan for freight transit, said the diplomat. Uzbekistans geological position in Central Asia can be useful for the development of Irans transport communications with the regions countries, he added. This implementation is geographically convenient for us [Iran] rather than remotely located European countries, as well as with more affordable prices, said Dormani. Considering that Uzbekistan does not have a direct access to the sea, we are ready to provide it, he noted. He also added that the representatives of the two countries successfully conducted negotiations in Tehran, during which the sides have previously agreed on the establishment of freight traffic between Uzbekistans Navoi and Irans Khomeini international airports. The signing of a memorandum of understanding was an important step in this direction for the two countries on the implementation of the agreement on the establishment of the Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan-Iran-Oman international transport and transit corridor, he said. The trade turnover between Iran and Uzbekistan can grow up to $1 billion (against $250 million in 2014) due to the development of transit facilities and the use of new transport communications, according to the Iranian side. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 19 February 2016 15:04 (UTC+04:00) Norwegian company Global Geo Services AS (GGS) plans to expand cooperation with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) in the post-sanctions era, Bjorn Ursin-Holm, the companys president and CEO, told Trend on February 18. Last November, Tehran hosted a conference to introduce the Islamic Republics new oil contract, called the Iran Petroleum Contract to foreign investors. GGS was among the participants of the conference. Ursin-Holm believes the new contract is attractive, but still need some negotiations. He also said GGS is interested to take part in exploration and production in Irans oil and gas sector. GGS has already signed a cooperation agreement with NIOC on geophysical data, covering all Iranian offshore areas, added Ursin-Holm. He also informed that the Iranian company Blue Calm Marine Services is representing the GGS in the Islamic Republic. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 19 February 2016 17:10 (UTC+04:00) A massive terror attack was prevented in Turkeys Diyarbakir province on February 19, the Sabah newspaper reported citing the provinces security forces. A truck mined with 500 kilograms of explosives was found in the province during a special operation. Two members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were arrested during the operation. Earlier, a military convoy was hit in the same province by a remotely controlled bomb attack, which killed six soldiers. The conflict between Turkey and the PKK, which demands the creation of an independent Kurdish state, has continued for over 25 years and claimed more than 40,000 lives. PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by the UN and the European Union. --- Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz 3.0 ( - - ): editor [at] bahrainmirror.com I tried to have an open mind when I walked through the door of the new Firestone Grill on California Avenue. Ive loved dining at the restaura YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS. Defense Army soldiers Kamo Hovhannisyan and Temur Suloyan, born in 1997, received fatal injuries during the incident of February 18 at about 07:00 in the conservation area of a military unit, located in the southeast direction of Defense Army. As Armenpress was informed from the press service of NKR Defense Ministry, investigation is underway to clarify details. NKR Defense Ministry shares the grief of the loss and extends condolence to the family members, relatives and fellow servicemen of the dead soldiers. It's been nearly two years since eight families living on Nelson Court in Arvin suddenly received a knock on their door from Kern County healt Ministry of Cake managing director Chris Ormrod has spoken to ITV News about immigration, ahead of the Brexit referendum. Talking about the impact of immigration on his business, Ormrod said: Wed be a much smaller business without it. At the Ministry of Cake factory in Taunton, most of the 226 workers are from abroad. Forty per cent are from Britain, 40% from Poland, 5% are from Portugal, and the rest are from around the world. The ITV News report said that at school, young people are discouraged from going to work in factories. But Ormrod said that without his immigrant workforce, his business wouldnt survive. He said: I suspect that, without them, wed either be a much smaller business, or wed be a more difficult business to attract good talent and wed have to go somewhere else. One Italian worker interviewed said she had no plans to go back to Italy in the next five or 10 years as the outlook there isnt very good at the moment, and I am building my family here. Diversity ITV News used a sliced Victoria sponge cake to demonstrate the diversity of the workforce and also spoke to Ministry of Cake head chef Lubo, as well as various workers who hail from around the world, from areas as diverse as Brazil and Vietnam. The programme said that British workers at the factory do not feel they are taking our jobs, as one woman put it. She went on to say: The jobs are advertised in this country as well, so there are opportunities for people from this country to take the jobs if they want them - they just dont. Bettys craft bakery in Starbeck was the last port of call for The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall yesterday. Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, were in Harrogate yesterday (18 February) to mark the 50th anniversary of Harrogate International Festival. As part of their trip, they visited Taylors of Harrogate to meet staff in the tea tasting rooms, before meeting craftspeople at Bettys craft bakery and young chefs at Bettys Cookery School. Chair of the group board, Lesley Wild, said: We welcomed His Royal Highness to Bettys in Harrogate in 2003, making this the second time The Prince of Wales has personally requested a visit to our business. Its a significant honour and recognises our commitment to quality, service and the work we do to put social and environmental responsibilities at the heart of our business. The school runs courses in everything from classic baking and intricate patisserie to three-course meals, suitable for amateurs and professionals alike. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS. Turkey considers the Middle East and the region from the perspective of neo-Ottoman syndrome. It does not come to terms with the loss of its influence in the region, expert in Turkish studies Aram Ananyan mentioned during the conference entitled Syrian conflict: The possible impact of Russian-Turkish relations on Armenia. When the Treaty of Lausanne was signed in 1923 and Turkey confined itself within the southern borders, even at that time there were complaints. Turkey had ambitions towards the north of Iraq and Syria. Examining the "Justice and Development" partys policy, we see that there is a big difference between their declared values and policy. This force came to power with such slogans that expressed willingness to solve problems, but, when faced with the reality both inside the Turkey and in the region, completely another situation was formed. Turkey led "zero issue with neighbors" policy and as the result it got Zero neighbors and numerous issues, Aram Ananyan said, Armenpress reports. Considering the issue of national minorities in the context of regional developments, Aram Ananyan noted that Turkey tries to get advantage from the Turkmen minorities, residing in the north of Syria, to conceal Kurdish issue which is very hard for it. Regional developments created a situation which arose expectations for Kurds to have their own state which disturbed Turkey. Returning to the recent developments, Aram Ananyan noted that having a lot of problems with its neighbors, it is not beneficial for Turkey to maintain political stability in the territory of the neighbors. According to expert in Turkish studies, the created instability stems from the interests of Turkey. As to the question whether in what terms the mentioned developments are important and fundamental for the citizens of Armenia, Aram Ananyan highlighted the issue on maintenance of Armenian community, historical, cultural and spiritual heritage. Armenian community of Syria is the direct generation of descendants of the Armenian Genocide and this community is the constant reminder of the Genocide issue. Today Syria is keen on conservation issue of the community, monasteries, churches and schools. There is another important issue for us: the memory of the Armenian Genocide. The north of Syria was the biggest concentration camp 100 years before when Ottoman power was destroying our nations people. Explosion of Holy Martyrs Church was a signal that development promoters in Syria have negative attitude towards the historical memory for Armenians, Aram Ananyan added. YEREVAN, 19 FEBRUARY, ARMENPRESS: The Eurasian Economic Union approved the initiative of the Russian Ministry of Economic Development, which proposes to reduce the import tax on a variety of vegetables, dates, nuts and raisin. The decision may be made in the second half of March. As "Armenpress" reports, RIA Novosti was informed about this by the first deputy head of the Ministry of Economic Development Alexei Likhachev. The first session regarding this initiative was held on February 18 in the Consultative Council of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EurAsEC). As the agency was informed from EEC, the import taxes of cauliflower, broccoli and Brussels sprouts are offered to be temporarily reduced from 11%-13% down to 5%, pistachio and dates taxes reduced on a permanent basis down to 0, and raisins also to 0, but on a temporary basis. Discover Mexico's Natural Diversity and Richness Mexico is a traveler's paradise, crammed with a multitude of opposing identities: desert landscapes, snow-capped volcanoes, ancient ruins, teeming industrialized cities, time-warped colonial towns, glitzy resorts, lonely beaches and a world-class collection of flora and fauna. Here are 7 amazing nature facts about Mexico, courtesy of Matador.com: 1. The terrain is full of mountains. For some strange reason, people rarely associate Mexico with mountains. But note all the ranges: The Western Sierra Madre essentially considered 'the Rockies' from the U.S. and Canada extends over 1,250 km from Sonora to Nayarit. Paralleling that is the eastern Sierra Madre range which spans 1,300 km from Texas to Oaxaca. The Southern Sierra Madre reaches from Jalisco to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Oaxaca. Finally, the jagged sierras of Chiapas and Baja California rise up through those states as well. 2. It has miles of virgin beaches. Mexico has over 11,000 kilometers of coastline along the Pacific and the Atlantic, and in fact is one of the few countries in the world that has more coastline than land borders. 3. Its a land full of volcanos. The Transverse Volcanic Belt, covering 900 km of territory from Nayarit to Veracruz, has at least 22 volcanos that average 2,500 meters above sea level in altitude. At least 10 of these volcanoes are active. In addition, there are more than 10 volcanos in the Baja Peninsula only. 4. It has 10 times as many islands as Hawaii. According to the National Commission for Biodiversity, there are 1,365 islands scattered along the coast of Mexico. They amass an area of 5,127 square kilometers, equivalent to 0.3 percent of the total national territory. 5. Mexico is not only a desert. In most American films, Mexico appears as a desert country, full of ghost towns. However, less than 40 percent of the territory of the country is arid or semi-arid. The desert in Mexico is characterized by different types of cacti and drought-tolerant species and varies greatly in flora and fauna. 6. It is one the most biodiverse countries in the world. Thanks to the heterogeneity of its terrain and the fact that it's between the tropics, Mexico has a great variety of ecosystems. These range from high mountain cloud forests to sea bottoms abundant in coral reefs, deserts, and coastal lagoons. The territory has about 50,000 square kilometers of humid forests equal to all of Costa Rica. 7. Throughout the landscape you find prehistoric ruins. As the center of hundreds of Mesoamerican cultures and civilizations such as the Maya and Aztec, Mexico boasts 187 archeological sites managed by the Institute of Anthropology and History, and still others yet to be discovered. In the Yucatan Peninsula there are more ruins than budget to unearth them (excavating a pyramid can take up to 20 years.) In short, everywhere in Mexico offers a unique travel experience. Whether your passion is throwing back margaritas on a beach, surfing the Mexican Pipeline, scrambling over Mayan ruins or exploring the jungles, Mexico extends to all a cordial invitation to discover its cultural, historical and natural diversity and richness. Advertiser Disclosure We are an independent, advertising-supported comparison service. Our goal is to help you make smarter financial decisions by providing you with interactive tools and financial calculators, publishing original and objective content, by enabling you to conduct research and compare information for free - so that you can make financial decisions with confidence. Bankrate has partnerships with issuers including, but not limited to, American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi and Discover. How We Make Money The offers that appear on this site are from companies that compensate us. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site, including, for example, the order in which they may appear within the listing categories. But this compensation does not influence the information we publish, or the reviews that you see on this site. We do not include the universe of companies or financial offers that may be available to you. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS: Within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Union, Belarus had the best commercial indicators with Armenia in 2015. This was stated in Yerevan by the Minister of Forestry of the Republic of Belarus Mikhail Amelyanovich, noting that the year was good. "We have reduced the total volume of bilateral trade in terms of sum, but we have had a quantitative increase. In the future we will develop these relations, which will have a positive impact on our joint work Armenpress reports, quoting the Belarusian minister who had a briefing in the Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Armenia. The Minister of Economy of the Republic of Armenia Karen Chshmaritian also noted that although bilateral trade levels have dropped, there has been a growth in imports of Belarusian products in 2015 compared to 2014. "It is noteworthy that the declines of imported goods from Belarus are from third countries, meanwhile the import of Belarusian goods increased by 10%," Minister Chshmaritian said. He added that no decrease in exports from Armenia in terms of volume have been registered, whereas there has been a decrease in terms of sum. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS. Chaired by Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan, the Cabinet discussed the 2015 performance report of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia on February 18. As Armenpress was informed from the press service of MFA Armenia, Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian reported that MFA Armenia continued its activities based on the foreign policy guidelines and instructions of the President of Armenia, aiming to strengthen external security of the country, ensuring favorable foreign conditions for the development of the country, expanding the countrys inclusion in international organizations and developments, reinforcement of Armenias reputation, development of cooperation with partner countries and so on. Within the framework of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide further efforts were made for international recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide, international awareness raising and prevention of genocides and crimes against humanity. Thousands of events were globally organized. Heads of a number of states, parliaments and international organizations have adopted special declarations and resolutions recognizing and condemning the Armenian Genocide. The special liturgy and the address delivered by Pope Francis at St Peters Basilica on April 24 were globally heard. Presidents of Russia, France, Cyprus, Serbia and high ranking delegations of dozens of countries and international organizations attended the events organized in Yerevan on April 24. United Nations Human Rights Council adopted the resolution on the prevention of genocides initiated by Armenia on March 27, Geneva, by which December 9 is declared as the remembrance day of victims of genocides. The report also touched upon the activities of Armenia in cooperation with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs aimed at finding a peaceful solution to Nagorno Karabakh conflict. It was also mentioned that Armenia became EAEU member in January, 2015. Development of Armenia-EU relations was also touched upon. The report stated that the MFA focused on the protection of the rights of Armenian citizens abroad and assistance to the citizens in emergency situations. Positively assessing the works done by the MFA in 2015, the PM mentioned that immense work was done in the sidelines of the events dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Armenia Genocide, and in terms of Armenias foreign policy in general. The Head of the Government also stated that it remains an important issue for diplomatic missions of Armenia abroad to activate efforts aimed at attracting foreign investments. In this context, Hovik Abrahamyan highlighted the coordinated and joint works of the MFA with interested bodies. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS. A Russian Mi-8 helicopter entered the Estonian airspace without permission. Armenpress reports, citing Interfax, the press service of the Armed Forces of Estonia announced about this. The helicopter stayed in the Estonian airspace for less than one minute. The craft's transponder was switched off and no flight plan had been presented to Estonia. There was no radio contact between the craft and the Estonian air navigation service during the incident. Estonian Foreign Ministry summoned the ambassador of Russia to deliver a protest. A Tampa man is facing charges after deputies said he robbed someone at gunpoint responding to an ad on Craigslist. Javario Funches, 18, was arrested when deputies said he reposted the ad - but undercover detectives responded this time. On Feb. 16, deputies said the victim responded to an ad to purchase a cell phone. When the victim arrived at the prearranged location, deputies said the victim exchanged $60 for the phone. Once the exchange took place, deputies said the suspect pulled out a firearm and pointed it at the victim, demanding the cell phone back. The victim complied and Funches fled with the victim's money and phone, deputies said. The next day, deputies said Funches placed the same ad on Craiglist advertising the same cell phone for sale. A tactical operation was put together, and undercover detectives arranged to meet with Funches to purchase the phone. Funches was located and arrested without incident. Deputies said Funches was in possession of a firearm and taken into custody. He is charged with robbery. The woman accused of hitting and killing a tow truck driver on the Howard Frankland Bridge and driving off earlier this week appeared in a Hillsborough County courtroom Friday. A judge set bond at $750,000 for Allison Faye Huffman. Huffman, 36, was taken into custody Monday night in St. Petersburg at the home of a friend, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. Huffman, of Riverview, had been in the Pinellas County Jail but was transferred to Hillsborough County, where the crash happened. She made a first appearance in a Pinellas County courtroom Tuesday. According to troopers, Huffman was driving on the bridge before 5 a.m. when she struck and killed 43-year-old Rogelio Perez-Borroto, who was assisting a couple whose vehicle had broken down on the bridge. After she hit Perez-Borroto, she kept driving, according to troopers. Her 2012 Volkswagen Passat was found later that morning in the parking lot of the Crown Plaza Hotel near Westshore Mall. FHP spokesperson Steve Gaskins said after the hit-and-run, Huffman took a taxi from the hotel to the Hard Rock Casino using the alias "Beth." According to records, Huffman has three previous DUI arrests in Hillsborough County. She faces a charge of leaving the scene of a crash involving a death. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Armenia Hovik Abrahamyan visited Megerian Carpets company on February 19. The Head of the Government toured in the industrial area of the company and the museum, familiarized himself with the activities of the company. The heads of Megerian Carpets company introduced future development plans to the PM. Hovik Abrahamyan mentioned that the Government is ready to render necessary assistance for the implementation of new investment programs and creation of new jobs. As Armenpress was informed from the Information and Public Relations Department of the Government, afterwards the PM attended the exhibition of cloth collection Future of the past of Teryan Cultural Center. The cloths presented at the exhibition were prepared in collaboration with Megerian Carpets company with the use of patterns and compositions of medieval Armenian carpets. Deputies say a man seen driving well below the minimum speed limit in the wrong direction on Interstate 75 Friday morning has been charged with DUI. According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, a deputy saw a black Dodge Avenger driving southbound in the northbound lanes on I-75 at approximately 30-35 mph shortly before 2 a.m. The deputy then saw the driver make an illegal U-turn in the middle of the roadway and continue in the correct direction on I-75, again at approximately 33 mph. Deputies say the driver, Kenneth Wishop, 51, of Jacksonville, had an open alcoholic beverage in one of the car's cup holders when they pulled him over. They administered field sobriety tests, but Wishop refused a breathalyzer test. At that point, he was arrested and charged with with driving under the influence. City of Tampa officials have announced rolling street closures in connection with the Gasparilla Distance Classic races this weekend. Street closures will observe the following schedule: Saturday, February 20 3:00 a.m. Little Bayshore Blvd. Selmon Expressway eastbound exit ramp to Florida Avenue Franklin Street from Old Water Street to Whiting Street Florida Avenue from Channelside Drive to Whiting Street Whiting Street from Florida Avenue to Tampa Street Westbound Morgan Street from Old Water Street to Brorein Street Northbound Morgan Street from Bell Street to Old Water Street Southbound Platt Street/Channelside Drive from Parker Street to Nebraska Avenue 6:00 a.m. Bayshore Boulevard from Platt Street to Gandy Boulevard Gandy Boulevard from Zion Street to Bayshore Boulevard Sunday, February 21 3:00 a.m. Bayshore Boulevard from Brorein Street to Swann Avenue Platt Street from Plant Avenue to Florida Avenue 4:00 a.m. Franklin Street from Whiting Street to Brorein Street Southbound Franklin Street from Channelside Drive to Old Water Street Whiting Street from Florida Avenue to Tampa Street westbound 5:00 a.m. Bayshore Boulevard from Swann Avenue to Gandy Boulevard 6:00 a.m. West Davis Islands Boulevard to East Davis Islands Boulevard Arbor Place from Davis Boulevard to Columbia Drive Columbia Drive from Arbor Place to Barbados Avenue Barbados Avenue from Columbia Drive to Channel Drive Channel Drive from Barbados Avenue to South Davis Boulevard South Davis Boulevard to West Davis Boulevard Streets affected by the races will reopen to traffic only after Tampa Police determine the course is clear of participants and is safe for travel. Drivers who need to move in this area on race days are asked to exercise caution, patience and courtesy. Please allow extra time to reach your destination, or plan an alternate route. Parking The following City of Tampa parking garages will open at 5:00 a.m. on Saturday and 4:30 a.m. on Sunday: Fort Brooke Garage, 107 North Franklin Street TCC Garage, 333 South Franklin Street South Regional Garage, 301 Channelside Drive Whiting Street Garage, 400 East Whiting Street (open Saturday only) Parking is $10 per vehicle The Tampa Police Department would like to remind all participants and spectators of the Publix Gasparilla Distance Classic Race Weekend to report any suspicious activity. No tip is too small. Report anything suspicious to the nearest police officer or submit an anonymous tip using the TPD mobile app available on iPhones and Androids. The Zika virus crisis, which is believed to have already caused the birth of thousands of newborns with microcephaly (which causes unusually small heads and underdeveloped brains), has created an acutely distressing situation for millions of women. Most of the affected countries, particularly in Latin America, have extremely strict policies about abortion and very inadequate provision of birth control. Most notably, in El Salvador, where the Minister of Health recently suggested that women delay pregnancy for two years because of the Zika virus, abortion is absolutely forbidden, even in cases where the pregnant womens life is at risk. Women suspected of abortion, or even in some cases, miscarriages, now languish in El Salvadors jails . (Other Zika-infected countries which have a similar absolute ban on abortion are Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic). But being pregnant while infected with the Zika virus is not life threateningso even in Latin American countries which would permit abortion in such cases would not do so, under current law, because of the possibility of the serious birth defects of microcephaly. The Zika crisis has led many observers to speculate whether this grave situation might be a game changer with respect to abortion in Latin America. There are, of course, many countries in Latin America, and they cant all be expected to react alike. But there are grounds to hope that at least some of the affected countries might be moved to change their laws to make abortion more readily available. Actually, the history of abortion in the United States offers an interesting case of a dramatic shift in public sentiment that might be a harbinger of whats to come in Latin America. Two events that occurred in the 1960s were instrumental in moving much of United States toward legal abortion. The first, in 1962, involved Sherri Chessen Finkbine, a Phoenix woman pregnant with her fifth child, who learned that the thalidomide pills she had been using for sleep were strongly associated with severe birth defects. Her doctor was able to arrange a therapeutic (i.e. approved) abortion for her at a local hospital, but Finkbine, in an act of decency that would prove costly, went public with her story, in order to warn other women facing the same situation. Her interview with a journalist created a media sensation, and nervous hospital authorities cancelled Finkbines abortion. Ultimately Finkbine, unable to find an abortion anywhere in the United States, obtained one in Sweden, where she delivered a fetus with missing limbs. Finkbines story spread beyond Phoenix to become a national story, including a sympathetic story in Life Magazine, a highly popular journal in that period. In the eyes of many observers, this marked a turning point in support for abortion among the general public. The second incident, which took place in 1966, had a similarly powerful effect, this time within the medical community. Nine highly-respected San Francisco doctors, affiliated with university hospitals, were abruptly threatened with the loss of their licenses because they had been performing hospital-based abortions on women infected with rubella, a practice that was increasingly common in a number of states by the 1960s, as evidence of the link between this disease and birth defects became known. The sudden decision to prosecute these physicians apparently was instigated by one person, a strongly anti-abortion member of the California Board of Medical Examiners. But the prosecution backfired. The case drew national media attention and an unprecedented show of support across the country; more than 100 deans of medical schools protested this prosecution, and ultimately the charges were dropped. A few years later, the American Medical Association reversed its longstanding position on abortion and voted, at its annual meeting, in support of a resolution calling for legalization. It is too soon to know whether the Zika crisis, in at least some of the affected countries, will have the same galvanizing effect as did the combination of thalidomide and rubella pregnancies in the United States in the 1960s. (Nor, for that matter, do we know yet whether Zika will come to the United States in significant numbers and impact the abortion debate here). Arguably, in the U.S. case back then, many Americans were already becoming increasingly in favor of legal abortion and these incidents simply crystallized sentiments that were already there. Today, abortion politics are far different than they were in the 1960s, and those in Latin America pushing for abortion liberalization have to contend with powerful religious organizations both within their own countries and globally. Much will depend, of course, on the willingness of the medical and legal communities, as well as the feminist health movements in these countries to take on these formidable opponents. Some hope that the Pope will soften the Churchs opposition to abortion and contraception because of this crisis. One thing is clear, as it always is in the reproductive wars: it is the poorest women and their families, most likely to live in Zika-infested areas and least likely to have the resources to prevent tragic births, who will suffer the most. Update: On February 18, the Pope, after a visit to Mexico, stated to reporters that women in areas affected by Zika were justified in using contraception, though he reiterated his opposition to abortion. About the Author Carole Joffe is a professor in the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at the University of California-San Francisco and a professor emerita of sociology at the University of California-Davis. She is the author of several other books, including Doctors of Conscience and Dispatches from the Abortion Wars. Follow her on Twitter at @carolejoffe. YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS. A Kurdish militant group once linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) claimed responsibility on February 19 for the bombing in the Turkish capital Ankara that killed 28 people this week, according to a statement on its website. Armenpress reports, citing Reuters, the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) said the bombing was in response to the policies of President Tayyip Erdogan and said it would continue its attacks. The group most recently claimed responsibility for a mortar attack at Istanbul's second airport in December that left an aircraft cleaner dead. TAK has in the past said its relationship with PKK militants has been severed. Both groups are regarded as terrorist organizations by Ankara and the United States. A car laden with explosives was detonated next to military buses as they waited at traffic lights in the administrative heart of Ankara on Wednesday. The government has blamed the PKK and the Syrian Kurdish YPG for the attacks. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 1 of 3 Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Show More Show Less 3 of 3 Former Disney Channel Star Orlando Brown got into some more legal trouble last month, getting slapped with battery and drug charges following an incident outside a California police department, according to police. Brown, 28, was arrested on charges of domestic battery, obstructing an officer, possession of drug paraphernalia, bringing a controlled substance into a jail and possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell, said Torrance Police spokesman Sgt. Paul Kranke in an interview with mySA.com. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The best way to bridge the divide between local Christians and atheists is to make city parks and city halls neutral ground, according to an Orange County secular leader and a Port Neches pastor. Joshua Hammers, a spokesperson for the Orange County Atheists group, and David Birdsong, pastor of Southside Baptist Church in Port Neches, debated the separation of church and state at a Press Club of Southeast Texas luncheon on Thursday. Both men agreed to take part in the forum following a flurry of recent incidents in which the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation asked Southeast Texas cities and school districts to ban or remove Christian symbols. Port Neches Mayor Glenn Johnson has yet to respond to two letters - the first sent in November, the second in January - from the group demanding the removal of a permanent cross display in the city's Riverfront Park. Birdsong spoke passionately to a large crowd during a Nov. 15 rally at Riverfront Park in support of the 45-year-old cross. On Thursday, he said he hopes the issue will be settled in court. For that to happen, attorneys for the Freedom From Religion Foundation will have to file suit against the City of Port Neches on behalf of a Southeast Texan who is offended by the Christian display. Hammers said he believes the separation of church and state issue as it pertains to the Riverfront Park cross already has been resolved in a court. A workable solution, according to Birdsong, would be to allow all religions and secular organizations to display monuments at the tax-payer funded park. "I don't think Christians, just because we're the majority, should have a monopoly on the park," he said. As an example, Birdsong talked about the City of Orange's decision this past December to remove its nativity scene from city hall rather than allow the Orange County Atheists group to hang a banner next to the display that read in full: "Whether you are celebrating Saturnalia, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, the Winter Solstice or any other holiday this time of year, The Orange County Atheists would like to wish you... Happy Holidays!" That decision, he said, showed that Orange doesn't want any sort of religious displays on government property. Hammers said his group asked to hang the "happy holidays" banner, not to antagonize Christians, but to show goodwill. He said the Orange County Atheists' adopted a mile of Orange County highway last year to give back to the community. Their "adopt a highway" sign was vandalized three times, he said. The group want the "happy holidays" banner to show they aren't bad people. Both Birdsong and Hammers agreed that opening up public spaces - like a park or city hall - to all organizations could lead to excessive signs, artwork and displays. Birdsong suggested city councils pass an ordinance to keep the displays in check. The best route, according to Hammers, however, is neutrality. "When you ask the government their opinion on religion, they should say, 'no comment,' he said. Birdsong brought up the little white crosses movement in Port Neches to emphasize his point that the majority of residents support the cross. The little white crosses, made from wooden pallets, have popped up in hundreds of yards throughout the region as a sort of protest against the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Hammers said he takes issue with the word "majority." "We want to see a government that doesn't show favoritism to a certain group," he said. MHeath@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/mheath31 YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 19, ARMENPRESS. The Public TV Company of Armenia has released the teaser of the official music video of Iveta Mukuchyan's entry song for the Eurovision Song contest 2016. As Armenpress was informed from the press service of the Public TV, the song is titled "LoveWave" and is the reflection of Iveta's inner world and personal emotions. Love changes people and their inner world, just like a "love wave" - the first wave of the earthquake - changes the structure of the earth. The song was created by Lilith Navasardyan and Levon Navasardyan, authors that co-composed Mika's "Love" for JESC 2015 and Aram MP3's "Not Alone" for ESC 2014 - songs that have undoubtedly become one of Europe's favorites. The lyrics of "LoveWave" were written by Iveta Mukuchyan and Stephanie Crutchfield. The official music video of Armenia's entry song for ESC 2016 is a co-production between AMPTV and German "BLACKSHEEP Communications". It will premiere on March 2 via the First Channel (AMPTV) and eurovision.tv. It will feature Iveta Mukuchyan and Swedish top model Ben Dahlhaus, who is based in Germany and is most famous for his work with world leading fashion brands. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A leading Republican consultant who worked for both former presidents named Bush and supports Jeb Bush's bid for the party's nomination said she thinks Texas Sen. Ted Cruz will be the party's standard bearer in the fall. Mary Matalin, appearing alongside her husband, the well-known Democratic Party strategist James Carville, was responding to a question of whether Cruz could win the nomination and unite the nation during an hour-long event Monday evening at Lutcher Theater in Orange. "I think he'll be the nominee," Matalin said, noting the "coalescing of various disparate factions in the Republican Party" around Cruz. "I think he has so far shown the best political skills." Carville added that Cruz "scares the hell out of me," and laughed at the idea the state's junior senator could unify a nation fractured along partisan lines. "Do I think he has the chance to unify the country? No more than I think I will grow some hair," the long-bald "Ragin' Cajun" said. They were responding to a question asked by Lamar State College - Orange President J. Michael Shahan during the college's Distinguished Lecture Series. The free-admission series, dating back to 2002, has hosted Peter Bergen, Ben Stein, Cokie Roberts, Ken Burns, Jessica Buchanan and more. Carville and Matalin are known not only for being a married couple resting on opposite poles of the political world, but for their political feats. Carville helped President Bill Clinton win in 1992 and Matalin was campaign director for President George H.W. Bush and was an assistant under President George W. Bush. Matalin, who has made the maximum allowable contribution to Jeb Bush's campaign, said she believes George W.'s brother will perform better than expected in the Saturday primary in South Carolina and elsewhere in the coming Southern states. "I do think he has a realistic chance," Matalin said. "I do not think his showing is representative of his skill. I think it's representative of this cycle." Carville, after mocking how the media places the utmost importance on presidential elections every four years, predicted that the losing party in next November's general election will suffer "dramatic" political consequences. A Republican victory would give them the presidency as well as majorities in both chambers of Congress and on the Supreme Court. Republicans also control a majority of state legislatures and a majority of states' governors. The Democrats, Carville said, would have the "least amount of political power any political party has had since World War II." He added, given the fault lines in the Republican Party, a loss would "fracture" the GOP. "One party is going to look down, depressed and different and the other party probably won't exist with the coalition it has," Carville said. Matalin, who repeatedly called Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton the "H-Bomb," said the media has focused on dysfunction in the Republican Party but that she thinks it is "spirited" and "healthy." "I do believe in this country," Matalin said. Read the complete story in the Feb. 16 edition of the Beaumont Enterprise. EBesson@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/EricBesson_news For the first time in 88 years, a sitting U.S. president will visit Cuba. Barack Obama and the first lady will fly to the Caribbean neighbor for a trip March 21 and 22. The White Houses statement on the trip notes this will be a very different kind of visit than the first time a president visited Cuba. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate An Oregon man who has spent more than 15 years living inside of a decommissioned Boeing 727 airplane converted into a home wants to build another in Japan. RELATED: Northside ISD students built these awesome tiny homes from shipping containers Bruce Campbell (not that Bruce Campbell) acquired his current Boeing 727 in 1999 and stuck it on a 10-acre lot in the Portland woods. Since then, he has updated his website AirplaneHome.com, which charts the progress he's made to turn the plane's cabin into suitable living quarters. "If a conventional home is a legacy age family Chevy or Ford, an airliner home is a fresh new Tesla or Porsche Carrera," Campbell told mySA.com. RELATED: Texas professor living in dumpster for science: 'My life is a lot better now' Boeing first commissioned the 727 in 1960 and only planned to build 250 at the model's outset, according to the company website. By the time Boeing ended production on the 727 in 1984, the company had manufactured 1,832 of the planes. RELATED: East Texas man turns mobile home into large two-story tin 'castle' with scrap parts Campbell said in an interview that the plane's design "seemed to offer the most attractive overall characteristics. It's a reasonable size home for an individual or small family, but not so large that it can't be transported over public roads." The renovated 727 contains many of the amenities found in a normal home: a kitchen, sleeping space with a cot, laundry area and a bathroom. "Airliners, free of hundreds of passengers and the clutter of their seats, are a sheer thrill to live within," Campbell said. "They impart a near science fiction aura to an otherwise ordinary life, truly." RELATED: Texas professor who lived in dumpster launches tiny apartment project The next step? Campbell, who spends half of the year in Japan, is looking for a decommissioned Boeing 747-400 which seats a maximum of 660 passengers, more than three times as many as the 727 to create a new home in the Japanese city of Miyazaki. United Airlines, British Airways and Delta Airlines all have 747-400 in use. Campbell said he believes "a superbly executed second project which very nearly fully preserves the original aircraft in all its sleek gleaming majesty will attract a great deal of world press interest for a very long time, and thus be of considerable promotional value to a partner airline." jfechter@mySA.com Twitter: @JFreports This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The wife of notorious Mexican drug cartel lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman fears for her husband's life at the hands of prison officials and the Mexican government, the former beauty queen told Telemundo News. RELATED: 'La Patrona,' financial operator for Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman captured in Mexico Telemundo will air an exclusive in-depth interview with Emma Coronel Aispuro, a California-born pageant queen who apparently married the drug lord on her 18th birthday, on Sunday, the network announced Friday. In a sit-down with Mexican journalist Anabel Hernandez, Aispuro claims that her husband's health has deteriorated in the Antiplano prison since the Sinaloa cartel leader was recaptured on January 8. "I am afraid for his life," Aispuro told Hernandez."We don't know if he is eating well. We don't know what his situation is because we haven't seen him." RELATED: Photos surface of new Mexican criminal organization declaring war on powerful drug cartel Guzman escaped from the Antiplano prison through a tunnel in the shower area of his cell in July. The drug lord's escape was considered a major embarrassment for the Mexican government as Mexican marines mounted a nationwide manhunt. Marines finally caught up to Guzman at a home in Los Mochis in January. Guzman's lawyer has alleged that prison guards in the Antiplano prison are not allowing his client to sleep. "They want to make him pay for his escape," Aispuro said in the interview. "They say that they are not punishing him. Of course they are. They are there with him, watching him in his cell. They are right there, all day long, calling attendance. They don't let me sleep. He has no privacy, not even to go to the restroom." RELATED: Alleged Sinaloa cartel hit man 'The Surgeon' arrested for drug possession near Texas border The special, titled "The Queen of El Chapo," will detail Aispuro's life with Guzman including when and where the pair were married, her life as Guzman's wife and the drug lord's relationship with his twin daughters. "Not everything people say is true," Aispuro says in the interview. "I think that all human beings have the right to have at least the basic things for life handy. They are not giving that to him." jfechter@mySA.com Twitter: @JFreports The Business Side of Green Blog is where Peter Arpin gets to interact with the community on an ongoing basis. Here, Peter will share his thoughts and ideas when it comes to helping our community move towards a more sustainable future. Peter is also looking for your ideas and thoughts to promote and share through the Arpin Broadcast Network and its affiliates, Arpin Group, Arpin Van Lines and Arpin International Group. Enter your email address to receive our updates (we never share your info, we hate spam too!) DuPage Medical Group plans to acquire majority ownership in a Naperville, Ill.-based ambulatory surgery center, according to a Chicago Tribune report. Here are five key notes: 1. DMG plans to purchase majority ownership in Naperville Surgical Centre for $1.7 million. The surgery center is currently 51 percent physician-owned and a subsidiary of Advocate Healthcare, which owned 49 percent of the center. 2. Forty-four physicians owned the surgery center, which includes four operating rooms. 3. DMG filed the acquisition plans with the state health planning board this month after looking for investors for expansion last year. Boston-based Summit Partners joined with DMG to form DMG Practice Management Solutions last year. 4. DMG Practice Management Solutions purchases a 75 percent stake in the center's operations. Advocate will own 12.25 percent of the center and purchase the building. 5. Surgical Care Affiliates plans to purchase the remaining 12.75 percent of the surgery center for $235,000, according to the report. Here are nine capital projects at hospitals and health systems that were recently announced or completed. 1. Pittsburgh-based UPMC is challenging a zoning code in an attempt to build a 300,000-square-foot hospital less than one mile from Allegheny Health Network's Jefferson Hospital in Pittsburgh. 2. The city of Custer, S.D., and Rapid City, S.D.-based Regional Health signed a merger that will include the construction of a 42,000 square-foot, $18.43 million hospital to replace Custer's existing 54-year-old hospital. 3. Kansas City-based University of Kansas Hospital plans to begin construction on a $320 million patient tower in 2017. 4. A zoning appeals board approved South Weymouth, Mass.-based South Shore Hospital's expansion plan, which will add 42,287 square feet of new space to its Messina Building and cost $60 million. 5. Pontiac, Mich.-based McLaren Oakland health system plans to open a freestanding 24/7 emergency center in Clarkston, Mich. The center will include 14 private exam rooms, a cardiac monitoring room and a clinical isolation room. 6. Coldwater, Ohio-based Mercer Health plans to begin a $24 million expansion project in 2017. 7. Chattanooga, Tenn.-based Erlanger Health System commenced its public fundraising drive to fund a new $35 million outpatient center for its Children's Hospital. The center represents the first phase of a $300 million three-part expansion plan Erlanger hopes to execute. 8. Bellevue, Wash.-based Overlake Medical Center plans to build a $20 million cancer center as the first phase of a $242 million expansion plan. 9. Savannah, Ga.-based St. Joseph's/Candler officials unveiled a $19 million expansion and renovation as part of the second phase of a systemwide expansion. More articles on healthcare finance: 5 latest hospital closures Highmark Health's GPO turns $42M profit on $1B in purchases CFO vacancies are tougher to fill here's why HHS is giving two Flint, Mich.-based health centers $500,000 to increase and expand their response to the water crisis, HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced Thursday. Hamilton Community Health Network and Genesee Health System will split the funds to hire more staff and provide the community with more testing, treatment, outreach and education to help address the crisis. The city switched its water supply to the Flint River in 2014 to cut costs while it built a new regional water system to bring in water from Lake Huron. However, after hundreds of children got lead poisoning from the Flint River water, the mayor declared a state of emergency in December, and President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in January. "We are focused on supporting the people of Flint by helping to ensure they have access to clean water and the health services they need to mitigate the effects of lead exposure," Secretary Burwell said in a statement. "This additional funding will allow health centers in Flint to enhance their lead testing efforts and quickly hire more staff for community outreach and to better meet the needs of the people they serve." Secretary Burwell also met with Flint community members, officials and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to discuss the federal response and recovery efforts. The federal response will aim to engage government at every level to ensure a safe water supply in Flint and mitigate the damage of lead exposure. More articles on finance: Georgia hospitals unite to avoid financial failure 9 recent hospital, health system capital projects Houston philanthropists donate $7.2M to address rising drug prices Many Georgia hospitals are financially distressed, with nearly two-thirds of rural hospitals in the state operating in the red in 2014. The state will reach the edge of a fiscal cliff in 2017, and rural and urban hospitals across Georgia formed an alliance to avoid the potential negative effects. For years, many Georgia health facilities offset the cost of caring for the uninsured with Disproportionate Share Hospital payments. However, the Affordable Care Act calls for those payments to be phased out, and since Georgia has not expanded its Medicaid program, the state still has more than 400,000 uninsured residents, according to Atlanta Magazine. DSH payments are slated to end Jan. 1, 2018, and the loss of those funds is a cause of concern for large and small hospitals alike. "A very large part of the rural hospital population is losing money and is financially distressed," Jimmy Lewis, CEO of HomeTown Health, an association of more than 60 rural hospitals in the Southeast, told Atlanta Magazine. "The loss of DSH in Georgia won't be a good thing." Large hospitals, such as Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, are also worried. Grady's mental health clinic could be forced to close if it is unable to offset the loss of DSH payments, according to Grady CEO John Haupert. In an attempt to resolve the funding gap before it's too late, hospital officials have joined with healthcare advocates and Georgia lawmakers to form a statewide alliance. The goal is to expand Medicaid in the state, but that requires creativity. Republican Gov. Nathan Deal, who opposes expansion of Georgia's Medicaid program, signed a bill two years ago that put the decision in the hands of the state's general assembly, most of whom oppose expansion. Two of Gov. Deal's former staffers were hired by the Georgia Chamber to help divert the conversation about expansion away from the ACA, which many members of the state's general assembly oppose. The ex-staffers are trying to garner support for Medicaid expansion by focusing on how expanding healthcare access benefits the state's economy. More articles on healthcare finance: 5 latest hospital closures Highmark Health's GPO turns $42M profit on $1B in purchases CFO vacancies are tougher to fill here's why The Laura and John Arnold Foundation donated $7.2 million to find ways to reduce rising drug costs. "There are major flaws in our drug-purchasing structures, and we must address these issues as part of the effort to improve patient health and manage the cost of care," LJAF Vice President Kelli Rhee said in a statement. "These projects will help to identify sustainable, evidence-based drug-pricing solutions that target the root causes of the broken market and can serve as models for reform across the entire healthcare system." The grant will fund research on regulatory policies and programs that impact drug pricing, drug development and access to medication, as well as pilot projects to test new drug pricing models. More specifically, the funds will be allotted as follows: $4.7 million will go to New York City-based Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for a three-year initiative that is evaluating alternative value-based payment structures for specialty drugs. $1.6 million will go to the Center for Evidence-based Policy at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland for a 15-month project that researches and pilots programs based on how drugs are developed, regulations for drug purchasing and alternative purchasing models. $748,445 will go to Boston-based Brigham & Women's Hospital for a one-year project to evaluate the effectiveness of regulatory programs that incentivize drug development. $200,000 will go to a two-year research project that looks at patient access to drugs at the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine. More articles on finance: Wyoming lawmakers sign off on $20k alternative Medicaid expansion plan 20 things to know about balance billing Payments for hip and knee replacements vary greatly in Colorado: 4 findings PHOTO: Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. (Photo courtesy of Thinkstock) The 2016 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Tourism Forum (ATF), held in Manila, saw diplomats, tourism delegates and media from the ten member nations meet to discuss the current state and future of travel in Southeast Asia. Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam compose the roster of participating countries. Started in 1981, this was the 35th year for the conference. "One Community for Sustainability," was 2016's theme, highlighting ASEAN's desire to work together as a region to responsibly develop and foster tourism. Airport Expansions on the Horizon Rising out among all the newsworthy items was a common theme of improved access for international travelers, including those from the North American market. Several countries reported that they were currently, or preparing to, renovate and expand their airports to accommodate more people and provide more direct flights from international cities. READ MORE: 6 Outstanding Cruises in Southeast Asia Host country Philippines laid out its plan for a new international airport in Bohol. Set to open in late 2017, it will be called Panglao Airport and will increase capacity to Bohol (known for its diving and unique "Chocolate Hills" land formations), to 1.7 million passengers a year. Elsewhere in the country, the island of Palawan will complete its upgrades to Puerto Princesa International Airport by the beginning of 2017, increasing passenger capacity from 350,000 to an astounding two million a year. Other Southeast Asia nations are not far behind. By 2020, Cambodia will have invested $100 million to expand both Phnom Penh and Siem Reap airports to accommodate increasing passenger demand. In Singapore, major renovations are ongoing at Changi Airport, with a new terminal, nicknamed Project Jewel, being built adjacent to Terminal 1. When it opens in 2018, it will be five stories tall, increase passenger capacity of the entire airport to 24 million per year, and showcase the world's largest indoor waterfall (130 feet high). Terminals 4 and 5 will follow with renovations that will increase capacity to 50 million by 2020. Travelers from North America should start to see the benefits of these new and improved airports in the form of more direct flights, or at the very least, easier connections. Here's a look at some of the other news from ATF 2016 in the Philippines: Singapore and Malaysia: One of the biggest potential projects in Southeast Asia is a cooperative high-speed railway link between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. It will be the first high-speed railway in Southeast Asia, and the fastest point-to-point mode of public transportation between the two cities. Construction is expected to begin in 2017 and be completed by 2020. Myanmar: Myanmar tourism has exploded in recent years. After welcoming only one million visitors in 2012, the country broke three million in 2014 and welcomed 4.6 million tourists in 2015. Yangon, Lake Inle, Mandalay and Bagan are currently the main attractions, but as the growth continues, the country is beginning to highlight other regions, such as the heritage trails and caves found in the Shan State and eco/marine tourism along the western and southern coastlines, like the Myeik Archipelago. Brunei: Brunei's quest to draw curiosity from western travelers to Borneo was reflected by its recent international airport overhaul and expansion that began way back in 2011. While fewer than 10,000 Americans visit Brunei each year, it is rich in rainforest and mountain terrain that could be very attractive to adventure travelers. It is also working to promote itself as a dive destination thanks to an abundance of mint-condition shipwrecks. Vietnam: Going along with the theme for increased accessibility, Vietnam began offering visa-free entry to citizens of a half-dozen countries last July (the U.S. was not one of them). Vietnam also announced it is allocating $16 billion to build a new airport that will increase the country's passenger capacity to 100 million per year by 2050. Thailand: At the moment, westerners flood Bangkok and the southern beaches. Thailand is seeking to promote experiences outside of the backpacker party circuit, like Loei in the north and Buri Ram in the east. That said, Thailand has little reason to alter its ways as it relates to world appeal. In 2015, it remained the top tourist destination in Southeast Asia. Philippines: Along with the country's airport improvements comes the addition of more direct flights. Highlighting this is the Philippines Airlines' direct flight from New York (JFK) to Manila that began last year on March 15th. Likewise, a continued push to attract cruise ship passengers has paid off: While there were only 20 ports of call in 2009, there are now 52 throughout the country. Indonesia: Last year, Indonesia launched a "Free Visit Visa" initiative that waived visa fees for travelers from 90 countries 75 on short stay visas and 15 without a visa entirely. Since that policy was enacted, the number of international tourists has increased by 19 percent. Laos: Luang Prabang continues to be one of the main draws for western travelers, and Laos is hoping that places like Vang Vieng and Vientiane are next to catch on for what it calls "green travel." To help, the country continues to make improvements to its roads and transportation infrastructure, allowing tourists to move easily throughout the country without flying. Laos is also in the process of upgrading all four of its international airports Vientiane, Luang Prabang, Pakse and Savannakhet. READ MORE: Why Malaysia Earned Its Spot As The Best Asia Pacific Destination Cambodia: Angkor Wat continues to be Cambodia's biggest tourism draw, but the country is working hard to promote other areas, and entice travelers to extend their stay. Specific regions include ecotourism in the northeast and the coastal beaches in the south, which remain under-visited when compared to beaches in neighboring Thailand. Source: ATF 2016: The Latest Southeast Asia Travel Trends Revealed During her visit to Flint, Mich., this week, HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell said Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder's (R) request for Medicaid expansion will most likely be approved, according to The Detroit News. On Feb. 14, Gov. Snyder sent CMS a request for a Medicaid waiver that would give benefits to 15,000 additional Flint citizens affected by the water crisis. Individuals covered by the waiver would include pregnant women and those up to 21 years old. Secretary Burwell believes the request will be granted. "We are focused on supporting the people of Flint by helping to ensure they have access to clean water and the health services they need to mitigate the effects of lead exposure," Secretary Burwell said, according to the report. Gov. Snyder previously sent a request to the USDA asking that the Women Infants Children program be expanded to cover older kids in Flint, but it was denied. Though Apple and Google may be market competitors, Google's CEO Sundar Pichai stands in solidarity with Apple's resistance to government orders to unlock the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor and whistleblower, also voiced his support for Apple, calling the impending legal battle "the most important tech case in a decade" on Twitter, reports USA Today. Mr. Snowden called on Google to back up Apple, tweeting, "Silence means @google picked a side, but it's not the public's." This is the most important tech case in a decade. Silence means @google picked a side, but it's not the public's. https://t.co/mi5irJcr25 Edward Snowden (@Snowden) February 17, 2016 Mr. Pichai did take to Twitter to weigh in on Apple CEO Tim Cook's decry of the federal order. While the timestamp of Mr. Pichai's tweet indicates he posted it after Mr. Snowden called him out, it can't be said if the Google executive posted as a response to Mr. Snowden. In a series of five tweets, Mr. Pichai acknowledged the challenges law enforcement and intelligence agencies face but is concerned about the precedent that may be set if Apple is required to "enable hacking of customer devices & data." 1/5 Important post by @tim_cook. Forcing companies to enable hacking could compromise users privacy sundarpichai (@sundarpichai) February 17, 2016 2/5 We know that law enforcement and intelligence agencies face significant challenges in protecting the public against crime and terrorism sundarpichai (@sundarpichai) February 17, 2016 3/5 We build secure products to keep your information safe and we give law enforcement access to data based on valid legal orders sundarpichai (@sundarpichai) February 17, 2016 4/5 But thats wholly different than requiring companies to enable hacking of customer devices & data. Could be a troubling precedent sundarpichai (@sundarpichai) February 17, 2016 5/5 Looking forward to a thoughtful and open discussion on this important issue sundarpichai (@sundarpichai) February 17, 2016 A federal judge ordered Apple to build a master key to unlock the shooter's iPhone, which is currently encrypted. Apple, and other tech companies, say building one key, even if for the government and intended for just one use, threatens the security of every customer's device and data, and building such a key would essentially mean the company is hacking its own customers. More articles on encryption: Gmail to alert users when email comes from unencrypted connections Hospital auditing company reports stolen laptop containing 31k patients' data Four industry challenges health informatics can solve CarePoint Health, based in Bayonne, N.J., has laid off less than 2 percent of employees at the health system's three hospitals and corporate office, a system spokesman confirmed to The Jersey Journal Feb. 18. CarePoint Health owns Christ Hospital in Jersey City, N.J., Bayonne (N.J.) Medical Center and Hoboken (N.J.) University Medical Center. Here are five things to know about the layoffs. 1. CarePoint Health attributed the layoffs to healthcare industry trends under the Affordable Care Act. "CarePoint has taken the necessary step of reducing and realigning our workforce in order to ensure that our healthcare delivery network can provide the care that is needed in the decades to come," system spokesman Jarrod Bernstein told The Jersey Journal. "The difficult decisions that had to be made are consistent with an industry-wide trend as a result of the Affordable Care Act that has seen care shift from inpatient facilities to ambulatory settings including clinics and physician offices." 2. Mr. Bernstein did not disclose to The Jersey Journal exactly how many employees will be laid off or provide a breakdown of affected employees by occupation. However, based on figures previously provided by CarePoint, the layoffs would affect less than 90 of the company's roughly 4,500 employees, the publication reported. 3. Layoff notices were sent out to 49 nurses at Christ, although Jeanne Otersen, a spokeswoman for Health Professionals and Allied Employees, the union that represents workers at Christ Hospital and Bayonne Medical Center told The Jersey Journal she expects far fewer will lose their jobs since many of them will move to different units or shifts, reduce their hours or transfer into other positions. 4. At Bayonne Medical Center, the equivalent of five full-time union jobs will be cut through a combination of reduced hours and layoffs, according to Ms. Otersen. 5. JNESO District Council 1, which represents roughly 400 nurses at Hoboken University Medical Center, couldn't immediately be reached by The Jersey Journal to discuss the layoffs. More articles on workforce issues: Houston Methodist Hospital System to relocate 250 administrative employees: 4 things to know Hospitals and unions: 13 recent conflicts, agreements New Kindred Hospital South Florida-Hollywood unit will create 50 jobs: 3 things to know Vice President Joe Biden's Cancer MoonShot 2020 has launched a Pediatrics Consortium led by Phoenix Children's Hospital to make combined immunotherapy the standard for pediatric cancer care. The consortium will be launched by 10 hospitals and its aim centers on three main drivers. First, it aims to lead and use precision clinical genomic-proteomics to get the best molecular diagnosis available today. Second, it aims to reduce fragmentation across the industry between pharmaceutical companies, oncology and others to make more progress in cancer treatments. Third, it aims to establish a National Pediatrics Cancer Learning System, which is a national cloud-based system with data from academic institutions and pharmaceutical companies to accelerate clinical trial and drug development. The following 10 hospitals will be founding members of the consortium. Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and its Aflac Cancer & Blood Disorders Center Children's Hospital of Orange County (Orange, Calif.) Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC Duke Department of Pediatrics Duke University School of Medicine (Durham, N.C.) Floating Hospital for Children at Tufts Medical Center (Boston) Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah and Intermountain Primary Children's Hospital (Salt Lake City) Phoenix Children's Hospital Sanford Health (Sioux Falls, S.D.) Joining the 10 hospitals in the effort is renowned surgeon Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD, who will help Phoenix Children's launch The Chan Soon-Shiong Children's Precision Medicine Institute. More articles on leadership and management: Study: Physician sexual misconduct oft missed by state board On his first day as 'full-time volunteer,' Quint Studer to host free workshop on leading and managing change Economists doubt math on Sanders' healthcare plan On his first day as a "full-time volunteer for the community," Quint Studer, founder of Pensacola, Fla.-based Studer Group, will be the main speaker at a free community workshop called "Leading and Managing Change." At the end of January, Mr. Studer disclosed plans to officially step down from the healthcare consulting company March 31. The workshop, presented by the Studer Community Institute and WSRE, will take place Tuesday, March 1 at WSRE-Amos Studio in Pensacola. Attendees will hear insight on ways to better handle change in their own role, as well as guiding others to do the same. The course is focused on increasing the understanding of the various aspects of organizational change and oneffective strategies to insert a sense of urgency, lead through the process and minimize resistance. For more information on the workshop and a link to register, click here. Porter Medical Center in Middlebury, Vt., has laid off eight registered nurses, according to a VPR report. Here are three things to know about the layoffs. 1. The layoffs come amid financial struggles. According to the report, PMC has lost $11 million since 2012, and is now trying to cut costs and increase revenue. 2. In addition to laying off eight registered nurses at the hospital, PMC will also close Tapestry Midwifery, its certified nurse-midwife practice in Vergennes, Vt. The hospital plans to merge those providers into Addison Associates in OBS/GYN in Middlebury, which will get a new name Porter Womens' Health, according to VPR. 3. PMC also laid off eight registered nurses from its physician practices. CMO Carrie Wulfman, MD, told VPR they plan to use more medical assistants. More articles on workforce issues: Houston Methodist Hospital System to relocate 250 administrative employees: 4 things to know Hospitals and unions: 13 recent conflicts, agreements New Kindred Hospital South Florida-Hollywood unit will create 50 jobs: 3 things to know Stay in the know with Becker's Hospital Review's weekly roundup of the nation's biggest healthcare news. Here's what you need to know this week. 1. Teen poses as physician again, this time at his own fake medical office A Florida teenager, Malachi Love-Robinson, is accused of pretending to be a physician for the second time in just over a year. Mr. Love-Robinson, 18, was arrested Feb. 16 and charged with practicing medicine without a license. He allegedly performed physical exams and gave medical advice to people including an undercover officer at an illegal medical office he ran in West Palm Beach, Fla., according to the Sun Sentinel. 2. 51 hospitals pay $23M for alleged overuse of cardiac devices The Department of Justice inked a deal for more than $23 million with 51 hospitals across the nation including Cleveland Clinic and San Francisco-based Dignity Health hospitals to settle False Claims Act allegations related to the implantation of cardiac devices in Medicare patients. The claims made against the hospitals involve a cardiac device called an implantable cardioverter defibrillator. 3. What Justice Scalia's death could mean for healthcare The death of 79-year-old Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Feb. 13 could muddle several important healthcare cases in the high court. Without the sharp-tongued, conservative Justice Scalia, the court is lopsided in favor of the liberal opinion. Eight justices remain, with four acting as liberal members, and three remaining in its conservative wing. Justice Anthony Kennedy is typically the swing vote, according to The New York Times. In his absence, the liberal justices need only to win the vote of Justice Kennedy to secure a win. The conservatives would have to attract Justice Kennedy and a liberal leaning justice. 4. Hospital pays $17k ransom to get medical records back from hackers Hollywood (Calif.) Presbyterian Medical Center paid $17,000 to hackers, ending an electronic standoff that began Feb. 5, in which a ransomware attack rendered the hospital's IT systems and medical records inaccessible. 5. Apple CEO defies order to unlock San Bernardino shooter's phone for FBI The FBI has ordered Apple to unlock an iPhone used by one of the gunmen in the December attack in San Bernardino, Calif., but Apple CEO Tim Cook said he will not comply with the order, citing customer security concerns, reports The New York Times. 6. Florida insurance regulators give Aetna-Humana merger the green light The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation approved Aetna's plan to purchase Humana but there are a few conditions. For instance, Aetna must enter five new counties by 2018 and offer a detailed plan for statewide expansion by 2020. It must also continue its "fair treatment" of its consumers with HIV, according to the report. In late 2014, Humana reached a similar agreement with the state due to a federal complaint regarding discrimination. 7. 5 things to know about WHO's emergency response plan for Zika outbreak The World Health Organization received considerable criticism for failing to respond promptly to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. To avoid making the same mistake again, WHO launched a global emergency response plan to handle the spread of Zika virus infection and the birth defects thought to be associated with the tropical disease. Click here to learn more. 8. Oscar Health sees low enrollment after premiering in California New York-based Oscar Health, an insurance company start-up, debuted in California during this year's open enrollment period. But the enrollment numbers prove it is off to a slow start in the state. Numbers from Covered California the state's public health exchange show Oscar signed up slightly more than 2,000 consumers on the exchange, according to The Orange County Register. Oscar said it also enrolled 3,000 members off the exchange. 9. LA physical therapy practice to pay $25k HIPAA fine for online testimonials CompletePT Pool & Land Physician Therapy in Los Angeles agreed to pay $25,000 to settle HIPAA violation allegations. The allegations stem from accusations the physical therapy practice posted online patient testimonials in 2012, including full names and photos. HHS' Office for Civil Rights received a complaint alleging the physical therapy practice did not receive proper authorization to disclose protected health information. A new bill in the West Virginia legislature would allow the merger between Cabell Huntington (W.Va.) Hospital and Huntington-based St. Mary's Medical Center to go through without approval from the Federal Trade Commission. The state Senate bill would exempt the actions of the West Virginia Health Care Authority and any actions of hospitals and health systems under the authority's jurisdiction from state and federal antitrust laws, according to The Herald-Dispatch. This is good news for Cabell Huntington and St. Mary's, as the FTC moved last November to block their proposed merger. West Virginia Sen. Bob Plymale (D-Wayne), one of the sponsors of the bill, said the decision whether the two hospitals should merge should not be made in Washington, according to the report. This is not the first time a state has attempted to escape the FTC's oversight. In 2013, the FTC won a Supreme Court case on the issue. In that lawsuit, Phoebe Putney Health System in Albany, Ga., argued its purchase of Palmyra Medical Center in Albany was immune to FTC scrutiny because Georgia law authorized county hospitals to make acquisitions. The high court held there was no affirmatively expressed policy in Georgia that allowed hospital authorities to make acquisitions that substantially lessen competition, according to The Herald-Dispatch. More articles on hospital mergers: Wellmont, Mountain States Health Alliance move forward with merger Akron General CEO says Cleveland Clinic merger saved hospital Jefferson and Kennedy Health explore merger Muskegon, Mich.-based Mercy Health Partners risked the lives of five pregnant women in a span of 17 months out of refusal to administer abortions out of adherence to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, according to a report leaked to The Guardian. Faith Groesbeck, a former Muskegon County health official, wrote the report when she was employed by a Muskegon County initiative to lower infant and fetal mortality, which allowed her to access medical data that is usually kept confidential. Here are eight things to know from her report, which "details some of the the most systematic collisions of religion and medicine ever to surface in public," according to The Guardian. 1. In the leaked report, Ms. Groesbeck accuses the Catholic hospital of forcing unilateral healthcare choices for five women without their knowledge or consent between August 2009 and December 2010. The women were all experiencing a rare complication in which the membranes surrounding the fetus rupture too early. When this occurs before the fetus is viable, the rare condition leads to a miscarriage. 2. All five women were less than 20 weeks pregnant four weeks before the fetus can survive outside of the womb and all of them presented symptoms of infection, such as elevated temperature or heart rate. 3. The guidelines of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists state the health of many women experiencing membrane rupture is not automatically at risk. However, danger arises if the woman shows sign of infection, in which case most physicians would induce labor, according to the ACOG. 4. Out of deference to the ERDs, the Mercy Health Partners physicians subjected the women to potentially life-threatening prolonged miscarriages. The ERDs, written by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, prohibits Catholic healthcare providers from terminating a pregnancy unless the mother shows signs of dying. The directives also stipulate all physicians working at a Catholic hospital must adhere to the rules, regardless of their personal beliefs. 5. The report stated a hospital executive told county health officials that Mercy Health Partners did not have a clear standard for determining when a woman's life was in jeopardy. 6. Several of the women suffered serious infections, such as sepsis, emotional trauma or had to undergo unnecessary surgery. One of the women included in the complaint was given Tylenol for a potentially life-threatening infection and sent home twice, where she miscarried alone on the toilet. Another woman spent three days in the hospital and required additional surgery. An ACOG physician described the hospital's actions as a "pattern of substandard care," adding, "It's not too strong to say that any one of these women could have suffered fatal consequences," according to the report. 7. On Aug. 7, 2013, Ms. Groesbeck reported Mercy Health Partners to a division of HHS, accusing the hospital of violating the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act of 1986, which requires hospitals to provide any patient with "stabilizing treatment" during an emergency situation. Before going to the federal authorities, Ms. Groesbeck presented her concerns to Mercy Health Partners, whose leaders stood behind its policies, according to The Guardian. 8. Federal investigators opened an inquiry into Mercy Health Partners based on the report, but ultimately took little action. They cited the hospital for a minor infraction failing to establish who counts as a qualified medical personnel in its bylaws and closed the inquiry in March 2014. Oregon lawmakers recently approved legislation that increases the minimum wage statewide, according to an OregonLive report. Here are three things to know about the legislation. 1. The Oregon House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 1532 with a 32-26 vote Feb. 18. The legislation is now headed to Gov. Kate Brown (D), who is expected to sign it into law. 2. Under the bill, more than 100,000 workers would receive pay increases, with some receiving nearly $6 more an hour, according to the report. 3. Specifically, Oregon's new plan, which includes gradual pay increases over six years, would raise pay starting this July to $9.75 an hour in urban areas and $9.50 per hour in a rural areas. By 2022, the state's minimum wage would increase to $14.75 in metro Portland, $13.25 in midsize counties and $12.50 in rural communities. The current minimum wage in Oregon is $9.25 an hour. 3. Rep. Peter Buckley (D-Ashland) said of the legislation, "No one who works hard living in Oregon or America should live in poverty. We are obligated and capable of taking courageous steps to help Oregon workers and their families," according to the report. On 11 March 2007, husband and wife Anita and Andrew Baikisa of Madang purchased fried rice from J & Z, expecting to enjoy their lunch under the shade of a nearby tree. Their enjoyment was short-lived. But this didnt prevent Chinese nationals Xing Wu Zhou and Zhongshen Zhang setting up kai bars through their company J & Z Trading Limited. Really? you ask. Yes, really. That is what the regulations say. UNDER Section 3 of the Investment Promotion Regulations 1992, certain businesses are reserved for citizens, fast food take-away, kai bars of all descriptions including mobile delivery food service. Hidden underneath the top layer of rice was a festering pit of mould. It was a free extra they could have done without. But Anita and Andrew werent your everyday consumers. They didnt throw away the food. They got sick all right, but not before they alerted the authorities. The couple reported J & Z to Sergeant Toby Kamseboda, who boldly tasted the food. He immediately took the couple to the local health inspector to report the incident. Later that night Anita and Andrew became violently ill and presented at the General Hospital, where doctors found them suffering severe abdominal pain, diarrhoea, vomiting and dehydration. When they recovered, the Baikisas took legal action. Last week the Papua New Guinea National Court found J & Z Trading Limited guilty of negligence. With assets of over K10 million, this Chinese business has done well out of the kai bar trade in a sector reserved for Papua New Guineans. The question must be asked why the Investment Promotion Authority has not enforced the regulations. And why arent the health authorities inspecting and fining these companies when their hygiene standards are so obviously low? According to the former chair of Political Science at the University of PNG, James Chin, the J & Z company is not alone. Many foreign nationals are entering PNG illegally and flouting the law. Looking at Chinese mainland migrants, he writes that, once they have bribed their way in, they immediately start small trading concerns, selling cheap Chinese consumer projects such as electronic goods and clothes. Others establish kai bars (fast food outlets) and Chinese restaurants. All these businesses are illegal because such commercial activities are reserved for nationals Other illegal operations run by mainland Chinese in PNG include brothels and money laundering. This is not about race or ethnicity; no one deserves to be judged on the colour of their skin. It is about foreign business people coming into PNG with a view to exploiting weaknesses in law enforcement and regulation. Whether it be in forestry, mining or services, why are foreign entities allowed to monopolise our resources, avoid taxes, damage our environment, avoid justice and make our people sick. Something stinks, and it isnt just Anita and Andrews fried rice. Investigators found that the teen presented two fraudulent degrees to his then-employer, Boynton Beach, Fla.-based New Directions, according to PalmBeachPost.com. Here are five points: 1. The teen, Malachi Love-Robinson, said he considered himself a physician and asked patients to refer to him as such because he had a PhD from Universal Church Seminary. Anyone can purchase a doctorate from the online institution for $29.95. 2. The teen had two additional degrees from Tempe, Ariz.-based Southwest College of Natural Medicine and Arizona State University in Phoenix, which investigators say are fraudulent. 3. Southwest College entices people to purchase a degree through its "Discover the Physician in You" program, which "recognizes that there is more to medicine than drugs and surgery." Investigators are not sure how much Mr. Love-Robinson paid for this 'degree.' 4. The teen claims he only practiced alternative medicine and denies allegations of practicing medicine without a license and fraud. Mr. Love-Robinson is out on bail after police arrested the teen on Tuesday. 5. On "Good Morning America," ABC's senior national correspondent Matt Gutman asked the teen if he was a fraud. After saying he did not like Mr. Gutman's tone, Mr. Love-Robinson walked off the interview set. More articles on practice management: 'Dr. Robinson' speaks out: Teen accused of posing as a physician claims he did not diagnose patients: 7 things to know In the world of patient satisfaction scores, how does a physician say 'no?' 9 key points The ramifications of Justice Scalia's death: 5 health-related cases that may be affected Pope Francis speaks to journalists aboard a flight from Mexico to Italy yesterday The pope has suggested women exposed to the Zika virus could use artificial contraception. Pope Francis said there was a clear moral difference between aborting a foetus and preventing a pregnancy. He made the comments after being asked if abortion or birth control could be considered a "lesser evil," when confronting the Zika crisis in Brazil, where some babies have been born with abnormally small heads. The pontiff excluded abortion absolutely from the debate. "Abortion isn't a lesser evil - it's a crime," he said. "Taking one life to save another, that's what the Mafia does. It's a crime. It's an absolute evil." Pope Francis drew a parallel to the decision taken by Pope Paul VI in the 1960s to approve giving nuns in Belgian Congo artificial contraception to prevent pregnancies because they were being systematically raped. Francis, history's first Latin American pope, also urged doctors to come up with a vaccine to prevent Zika from spreading. "This needs to be worked on," the pontiff said. He also made a surprising intervention in the US Republican election, strongly criticising Donald Trump. When asked about the controversial billionaire's views on immigration, Pope Francis said that anyone who wanted to build a wall along the US-Mexican border was not Christian. Responding to the pope's comments, Mr Trump said it was "disgraceful" for a religious leader to question a person's faith. Mr Trump has long promised to build a wall along the Mexican border from Texas to California and expel 11 million people who are in the country illegally if elected president. The World Health Organization has declared the Zika outbreak, and its suspected links to birth defects, a global emergency. The virus has been reported in an estimated 34 countries, many of them in central and Latin America. And three cases have been reported in the Republic of Ireland so far this year. The explosion of cases has prompted some governments in Latin America to urge women to avoid getting pregnant. It has also fuelled calls from pro-choice and women's rights groups to loosen strict anti-abortion laws in overwhelmingly Catholic south America. Two Shorts 360 aircraft damaged by an IRA bomb in 1989 Michael Ryan with the Duke of York inspecting the construction of a Challenger jet Bombardier's vice-president Michael Ryan says that despite the body blow of 1,000 jobs losses, this is not the toughest time he's dealt with during his 35 years at the company. And he told the Belfast Telegraph he doesn't believe the Canadian-owned plane maker was foolhardy in going after bigger rivals Airbus and Boeing, with its now long-delayed and overbudget CSeries jets. "We don't believe we are. If you look at the aircraft sales that the CSeries has obtained, it's not competing with the (Airbus) A320 or the (Boeing) 737-800. "What they have done is reacted with more fuel efficient engines. "I know there is a huge amount of talk around that. We are close to getting it into service, showing it is proven in delivering the cost efficiency, the environmental capability it has, and that will show other operators what the opportunity is." Asked, after 35 years with Bombardier, whether this was the worst time in the role, he said: "No, it's not. I don't mean to underplay it ... but in 1996 when Fokker went bankrupt, they were 40% of our business." Around 1,500 workers at the former Shorts plant were let go after the Dutch plane manufacturer went under. Shorts had been making wing sets for Fokker 70 and 100 passenger aircraft. "Post-9/11 we announced 3,000 redundancies ... we've been through proportionately tougher times, absolutely tougher times, and we've consolidated and stuck to what we are good at, we've invested in skills and technology," Mr Ryan said. And it's also been confirmed Bombardier is suspending recruiting new apprentices. It takes on several dozen trainees each year. But following this week's announcement that the firm is cutting 1,080 jobs, it has now suspended the scheme. A spokeswoman said: "We will continue to support our current apprentices to complete their training and gain the relevant qualifications." Meanwhile, Martin J Craigs - former Shorts/Bombardier worker and ex-chief executive of Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) - said Bombardier had been "naive" in going up against Boeing and Airbus with its CSeries planes. "It's naive to think the 800lb gorillas would not do everything within their means to crush the programme," he said. "They don't want a third player in the industry, in the narrow body (jet) market." Speaking about the CSeries, Mr Ryan said work is now continuing to "ramp up" on the passenger jets. "The CSeries is less than 20% of our workload ... the vast majority, over three quarters, is on our other Bombardier programmes. "We are ramping up, and we will continue to ramp up on the CSeries." But while Bombardier in Belfast was initially contracted to build the wings for the CS100 and CS300, it's also been producing many of the fuselages. It's understood around 20 have already been produced at the east Belfast site. But Mr Ryan said that is not in the long term plan. The Shenyang Aircraft Corporation in China had been due to produce the CSeries bodies. "That's not our plan, and that's not a secret. "We have been building the first fuselages, not all of them - our Chinese partners have been building them ... that will progressively slow down in Belfast." And speaking about whether Bombardier still required a further bailout from the Quebec or Canadian governments, Mr Ryan said: "Our chief executive Alain Bellemare was quite open about discussing further support from the federal (Canadian) government." He said the business was also closing the $1bn (0.7bn) deal from the Quebec government for the struggling CSeries. Asked whether there was any concern Belfast's workforce could get left behind, with Canada's focus on its own staff, Mr Ryan said: "No. We are a source of competitive advantage to them. Being in the UK is a source of competitive advantage to them." Bombardier's boss in Northern Ireland says he was "frustrated" and "not legally allowed" to tell his Belfast workforce that around 20% of them would be losing their jobs until he was given the green light by the Canadian owners. Staff told the Belfast Telegraph that they had only heard the news of more than 1,000 redundancies through the media. Addressing concerns that the bulk of staff found out about job losses through texts, social media, and the Press, he said: "The market communication was at 6am Canadian time, so we are not legally allowed to say anything before 11am our time. "By 11am our time, we need to cascade the communication, because we can't tell 5,000 people at once, otherwise we'd need to take the Odyssey. It frustrates me, it frustrates some of our people. The vast majority of people fully understand it. "With social media, with you guys being on the ball, at one minute past 11am, you are going to know there is 580 redundancies in Belfast. I won't have managed to get the guy walking from his locker to the briefing room in that time. "It's a downside of being part of a big global corporation." One worker, who did not wished to be named, told the Belfast Telegraph: "It's bad enough to discover that your livelihood is under threat in the normal way, but you shouldn't find out on social media. "It was my wife who got in touch with me to let me know the grim news." It was also revealed yesterday that Bombardier is putting the brakes on taking on new apprentices. Meanwhile, First Minister Arlene Foster has continued to pledge support to both Bombardier and its employees. And she said she was told by the firm that "nothing could have been done by the Northern Ireland Executive or indeed the UK Government to stop these job losses". But one aviation industry expert, and former Bombardier worker, told the Belfast Telegraph that Stormont is wasting time "spending energy on rear-view politics". Martin J Craigs, former chief executive of Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) and chairman of Aerospace Forum Asia, said: "They have to look outwards...you have to engage with world-renowned companies. "The world doesn't see Northern Ireland as a major player in the world economy. "But it punches well above its weight in sport and business success. "But it's far too parochial." Speaking about Enterprise Minister Jonathan Bell who has come under pressure following a deluge of manufacturing job losses, he said: "With due respect to him, if you look at his background - is he equipped to deal with global economics?" However, he also said no one in Belfast was to blame for the Bombardier job cuts announced this week. "I think you need more action backing up the politics. We need people inside the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment to tackle overseas markets." A new BBC drama set in Northern Ireland during World War Two will see Charlie Lawson return to the small screen. My Mother And Other Strangers stars English actress Hattie Morahan and has been written by Barry Devlin, the man behind Ballykissangel and The Darling Buds Of May. The series, filmed here, follows the fortunes of the Coyne family and their neighbours as they struggle to maintain normal life following the arrival of 4,000 United States Army Air Force (USAAF) servicemen and women in their rural parish in 1943. Lawson, who became a household name playing Jim McDonald in Coronation Street, assumes the role of parish GP, Dr Black. Stephen Wright, head of drama for BBC Northern Ireland, said he was pleased that Morahan will be leading the cast as Rose Coyne. "Barry Devlin's scripts are formed by his love of life with all its complexities, and a love for the place and people where he grew up," he added. "The scripts are in safe hands with the cast and our producer Grainne Marmion. "Adrian Shergold will do a brilliant job bringing this unique time and world to life." At the heart of the series is a romantic story involving Rose and her husband Michael Coyne in a dangerous love triangle with a handsome and charming USAAF officer, Captain Dreyfuss. Owen McDonnell (Single-Handed) plays Michael and Aaron Staton (Mad Men) plays Dreyfuss. Meanwhile, the Coynes' children Emma (Eileen O'Higgins), Francis and Kate have no idea of the strains their parents' marriage is experiencing. Also in the cast are Des McAleer (Hunger), Seamus O'Hara (6 Degrees) and Ryan McParland (The Survivalist) as the neighbouring Hanlon family. Their frustration at being displaced from their family home by the airfield is well vented. Kerr Logan (Game Of Thrones) plays Failey, local fisherman and boyfriend to Sally Quinn (Fiona O'Shaugnessy) who along with her brother Barney (Gavin Drea) works on the Coyne farm. Mr Devlin spoke of his excitement about the casting. "I wrote the series around Hattie Morahan because she somehow manages to combine a magical serenity with a capacity to be daft as a brush," the writer explained. "And Rose, our heroine, combines those two qualities in spades. "Watching Hattie work that magic on-screen is a true pleasure. "Owen McDonnell, Eileen O'Higgins, Aaron Staton lead a cast who excite me more every time I see them." My Mother And Other Strangers is the first drama commission to be announced since the publication of the BBC and NI Screen Partnership Agreement in March 2015. The purpose of the agreement is for the BBC and NI Screen to work together to develop an internationally competitive screen industry in the province. Looking for love, companionship or a welcoming port in a carnal storm couldn't be simpler in a 24-hour digital age of competing apps and online dating services. You no longer have to practise chat-up lines or reject potential suitors face to face. A casual swipe of a touchscreen relegates unsuitable matches to the scrapheap while an array of winks, woofs, whistles and growls alerts the lucky few to your piqued interest. Based on the book of the same name by Liz Tucillo, Christian Ditter's raucous comedy drama follows a group of hapless and hopeless romantics in New York as they stumble between one-night stands, missed opportunities and chance liaisons. It's a glossy and sporadically hilarious portrait of sleeping around in the city that never sleeps, populated by attractive and wealthy people who spend the best part of two hours vacillating about affairs of the heart when common sense dictates they would be inundated with offers. Perky heroine Alice (Dakota Johnson) meets her boyfriend Josh (Nicholas Braun) at college, but worries that the relationship has curtailed her journey of self-discovery and demands a single life. After landing a plum job as a paralegal at a top firm, she is befriended by spirited fellow employee Robin (Rebel Wilson) and the pair join forces in pursuit of handsome partners. How To Be Single is peppered with the usual array of heartbreaks and gushing declarations, underscored by a toe-tapping soundtrack of Taylor Swift and Guns N' Roses. Three stars Campaigners are concerned about the use of skinny models The founder of a British fashion label has suggested that celebrities should boycott fashion week in protest at the use of ultra skinny models. Heidy Rehman last month announced her label Rose & Willard will only use models who agree to eat on shoots after some became so hungry they were "delirious and talking gibberish". Speaking on the first day of London Fashion Week, Ms Rehman told the Press Association top names such as Karl Lagerfeld, head designer at Chanel, and Vogue editor Anna Wintour should take a stand against very skinny models. And she called for A-listers to shun catwalk shows that continue to use underweight models. She said: "If you actually had, as an example, celebrities shunning fashion week. They are all sitting on the front row, if they said 'We are not going to condone these skinny girls that are walking up and down here so we are not going to go'. "Or standing up and turning their back on the catwalk, that would be extraordinary - someone to boycott it. "Half of the story of fashion week isn't just what are the new trends, it is 'who is sitting on the front row?' It is almost an endorsement of the brand that you have got these celebrities. "That could be the beginning of the movement." She said "the customer doesn't realise how powerful they are" and called for the launch of a social media campaign like that against the controversial 'Are you beach body ready?' adverts. The advert, which saw a bikini clad model pose next to weight loss products, sparked outrage among many and claims that it objectified women. It was eventually banned by the Advertising Standards Authority because of concerns overs its weight loss claims. Ms Rehman said the public should apply a similar moral pressure to the use of thin models. While top movers and shakers in the fashion industry should also take a stand, she said. "In terms of the designers you are talking about the main names at fashion week - longstanding members of the institution who everyone else looks up to," she said. "If you had Karl Lagerfeld and Anna Wintour say 'We discourage the use of ultra skinny models and encourage the use of healthy models', I would bet my life that everybody else would change." Ms Rehman said her brand's policy of having models eat on shoots has been widely misinterpreted, and branded as "ludicrous" claims the label would stand over models and watch them eat. She acknowledged some will be under so much pressure to stay thin they may choose not to work with Rose & Willard because of its new clause. But she said designers have a moral obligation to take a stand. She said: "We had a casting for our last campaign, about 12 models came in. I always ask 'are you under pressure to lose weight?' and without exception they said 'yes'. And they are a size eight a lot of them. You think 'what? Really?' "We have been told of situations where models have eaten tissues to stop their stomachs grumbling. "We have got a model lined up for our next shoot and we are going to be very public about the fact that our model does eat at our shoot and that she is under no pressure, certainly from us, to lose any weight." Egyptologist Dr Chris Naunton has said it is "vital" to see television programmes about history and archaeology alongside EastEnders and Keeping Up With The Kardashians. The expert on ancient Egypt is featured in two Channel 5 documentaries which are scheduled for broadcast on Friday. In the first at 8pm, The Lost City Of The Pharaohs charts the discovery of Ramesses the Great's lost city of Pi-Ramesses. It will be followed by a programme about King Tutankhamun called King Tut's Tomb: The Hidden Chamber, in which, for the first time ever on TV, evidence will be presented supporting the theory that Queen Nefertiti is buried in a chamber next to his tomb. "It's great that we can get on Channel 5," Dr Naunton told the Press Association. "History and archaeology and understanding the past is an enriching thing. "The reality is that if anyone is ever going to get interested enough to think about the past like that, we need films like these to be given a platform." He added: "It's vital that this sort of stuff is given some space in and amongst EastEnders and Keeping Up With The Kardashians." The CEO of the Egypt Exploration Society, a charity dedicated to ancient Egypt, Dr Naunton presented the 2012 BBC documentary Flinders Petrie: The Man Who Discovered Egypt. A year later, he was the lead Egyptologist on a new investigation into the death and burial of King Tut for Channel 4's Tutankhamun: The Mystery Of The Burnt Mummy. When asked why the fascination with the boy king persists, Dr Naunton said: "Probably because of the discovery of his tomb intact and the gold death mask, I think. "An intact tomb with a load of rubbish made of cardboard would have been forgotten, but it's the gold and the glint of gold that has captured the imagination." In 1922, in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, Britain's Howard Carter made one of the greatest discoveries in the history of archaeology: he found the intact tomb of the boy king who had been buried with more than 5,000 priceless objects, including a gold throne. "Indiana Jones could not have been written without this - none of that genre of archaeological stories and films could have happened without it," Dr Naunton said. "I really think it's that death mask that gives you a face in the same way we all know magazines sell more if there's an attractive face on the cover. It's the great advert for everything that people think of ancient Egypt." Nearly a century later, laser and radar scans of the tomb walls have revealed a new twist to the story. Archaeologist Dr Nicholas Reeves thinks one of these chambers could hold the untouched, missing burial chamber of Queen Nefertiti, one of the most famous figures of ancient Egypt. On the subject, Dr Naunton said: "There is little doubt that this would be the most sensational archaeological discovery there has ever been." King Tut's Tomb: The Hidden Chamber follows the experts as they forensically analyse the tomb, and hunt down the clues to solve this 3,500-year-old mystery. "If we knew the full story, that story could be told and you could close the book and put it down," Dr Naunton stated. "But things like hidden chambers and new discoveries mean this story's never quite finished and there are gaps, so there's a tantalising possibility that if you just keep watching, there's going to be a revelation." :: The Lost City Of The Pharaohs and King Tut's Tomb: The Hidden Chamber will be broadcast on Channel 5 from 8pm on February 19. Stars Idris Elba, Helena Bonham Carter and Benedict Cumberbatch are among 145 stars calling on David Cameron to help save children based at the Jungle camp in Calais. They have signed an open letter to the Prime Minister asking the Government to step in and allow unaccompanied children living in the Jungle to be reunited with their families in the UK. The plea comes as the French authorities are due to demolish the southern part of the Jungle on Monday, home to 3,000 people. This section of the camp is predominantly occupied by unaccompanied children and families. Figures show that there are 440 children living in this section of the camp, 291 of them unaccompanied. Item No "x x x. The elements of the crime of theft as provided for in Article 308 9 of the Revised Penal Code are as follows: (1) t... Robertson has been a familiar face on TV screens since This Morning first broadcast in 1988 This Morning's resident agony aunt Denise Robertson has been diagnosed with cancer. The writer and broadcaster, 83, said: "I'm sorry I've not been around for a couple of weeks but a persistent health issue has turned into something quite a lot bigger. "I've been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It has come as a surprise to me and my family but we know that many others have suffered and dealt with this condition and I don't plan to give up without a fight. My doctor is referring me for chemotherapy and hopefully that will start soon. "I'd like to thank all the lovely viewers of This Morning who have been concerned about my health recently and I hope I'll be back on the sofa soon." Robertson, from Sunderland, joined ITV's This Morning for its first ever broadcast in 1988. She also has her own advice website, and has written a column for Candis magazine. Presenter Ruth Langsford told viewers: " Some news about one of our own that has all of us at This Morning in a state of shock. "After almost 30 years of providing comfort to millions of This Morning viewers, agony aunt Denise Robertson is in need of a lot of love herself today." Her co-host Rylan Clark called on fans to send messages of support, as Robertson - who is not known for being tech-savvy - "does know how to read Facebook comments". He suggested that well-wishers could send messages through the This Morning Facebook page. Robertson lost her first husband Alex Robertson to lung cancer in 1972. In 2006 her stepson, John, also died of cancer, at the age of 44. Within 20 minutes of the announcement, over 2,000 messages of support had been posted under the statement on Twitter. Maria Shankland, who said she was fighting lung cancer, commented: "Let's show cancer we can do it! It does not rule us!!! Good luck with your treatments. Positive thoughts sent your way." Facebook user Danielle Kerstein said: "You have given hope and prayers to so many people. I'm sure everyone reading this will send heaps of prayers and love back to you. You are an angel on this planet. Keep fighting." Luke Stevens wrote: "Absolutely adore this lady, so fair and wise. Beautiful woman inside and out I've said my prayers for her to get better. "Wishing her all the love and support, get well soon beautiful keep fighting like I know the strong woman you are." Alex Ford, chief executive of Pancreatic Cancer UK, said: "We are enormously sad to hear of Denise Robertson's recent diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, but we must thank her for speaking out about a disease which still has a relatively low profile, despite the fact one person is diagnosed with it every hour. "It can make a huge difference when someone like Denise gets people talking about the disease, and we hope her openness will encourage people to find out more about the symptoms. "We wish Denise all the best with her treatment and our specialist nurses are here for her and her family." He urged anyone affected to call the support line on 0808 801 0707. An Irish woman deemed too young to be tested for cervical cancer has urged others to learn the symptoms of the disease and get a smear test. Heather Keating shared her story on Facebook. At the age of 24, she visited her doctor complaining of bleeding in between periods and after sex, only to be told to return when she was 25, when she would be eligible for a test on the Irish National Cervical Screening Programme. However, as the symptoms persisted, she became anaemic and after a referral to a specialist was eventually diagnosed with stage one cervical cancer. Describing the moment she was given the news, Heather said: "You know the room where people get bad news - with the box of tissues on the table. I knew what was coming. "I was told I had cervical cancer and that box was handed to me. I needed an MRI to see if the cancer had spread from my cervix." Fortunately, the cancer was caught early and was confined to the cervix, so the malignant cells were removed in surgery with no need for further treatment. Four weeks later, after going under the knife, Heather was given the all-clear. Looking back on her ordeal, she wrote: "That was the most dramatic, emotionally painful experience of my life, and no one should ever have to go through it." Heather told how she wanted to share her story to help people recognise the symptoms so the disease can be caught "in time or before it even begins". Her Facebook post was liked and shared thousands of times, with people praising her bravery. Many hailed her as "an amazing role model" and passed on their best wishes. Heather initially shared her experience in January, but reposted it ahead of Cervical Cancer Awareness Week and World Cancer Day. It has since been shared more than 4,000 times. She said: "I hope my story will help others see the importance of going for smears and listening to your body and knowing when something isn't right. "And, for the under-25s, it's always worth knowing the symptoms of something that's already gone wrong." Long before the world knew about Harold Shipman, there was another "Doctor Death" - Dr John Bodkin Adams. The eccentric Ulster-born doctor is reputed to be one of the UK's most prolific serial killers. Many people may not have heard of him, but in 1957 he was headline news across the world - accused of killing off hundreds of wealthy patients. And while was never convicted of murder, it was believed the family doctor went on a killing spree that spanned decades and involved 300 suspicious cases. He died in 1983. Now a BBC Radio Ulster documentary has been granted access to the controversial police files which were meant to be locked out of sight until 2033. Can You Prove It Was Murder? will be presented by actor and former lawyer Tim McGarry. Expand Expand Previous Next Close The Belfast Telegraph front page on 18 March 1957, the day Dr John Bodkin Adams' trial opened at the Old Bailey. Belfast Telegraph coverage of Dr John Bodkin Adams' trial in 1957 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Belfast Telegraph front page on 18 March 1957, the day Dr John Bodkin Adams' trial opened at the Old Bailey. Speaking today on Radio Foyle, he said: "Dr Adams became the wealthiest GP in Britain and was well known for having a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce and then rumours started as to how he acquired this wealth. "The rumours basically said that Dr John Bodkin Adams was going around soliciting old ladies, getting them to change his wills in his favour and then these little old ladies would die. "At one stage there was a press frenzy when the police got involved, the police said up to 160 wills were being investigated. Then they said there were perhaps up to 400 people had been killed by Dr John Bodkin Adams." Mr McGarry added: "It was a massive case when it eventually reached trial. It knocked the Suez crisis off the front pages." The gripping true crime case is worth revisiting, he believes, at a time when armchair sleuths are hooked on the Netflix show Making A Murderer. Born in Randalstown, Dr Adams studied at Queen's University before moving to Eastbourne on England's south coast. The seaside town is often referred to as 'God's Waiting Room' because of the large proportion of elderly citizens. In 1957 he was tried at the Old Bailey for the murder of 81-year-old Edith Alice Morell, but was acquitted. "I am quite confident Adams is a mass murderer," said the detective in charge of the investigation. Can You Prove It Was Murder? will be aired on BBC Radio Ulster on Sunday, February 21 at 12.30pm. General view of the damage at Strawletterdallon Orange hall, near Newtownstewart in Co Tyrone. Picture by Lorcan Doherty / Press Eye. First Minister Arlene Foster surveys the damage at Strawletterdallon Orange hall, near Newtownstewart in Co Tyrone. Picture by Lorcan Doherty / Press Eye. General view of the damage at Strawletterdallon Orange hall, near Newtownstewart in Co Tyrone. Picture by Lorcan Doherty / Press Eye. General view of the damage at Strawletterdallon Orange hall, near Newtownstewart in Co Tyrone. Picture by Lorcan Doherty / Press Eye. First Minister Arlene Foster surveys the damage at Strawletterdallon Orange hall, near Newtownstewart in Co Tyrone. Picture by Lorcan Doherty / Press Eye. First Minister Arlene Foster surveys the damage at Strawletterdallon Orange hall, near Newtownstewart in Co Tyrone. Picture by Lorcan Doherty / Press Eye. First Minister Arlene Foster surveys the damage at Strawletterdallon Orange hall, near Newtownstewart in Co Tyrone. Picture by Lorcan Doherty / Press Eye. First Minister Arlene Foster surveys the damage at Strawletterdallon Orange hall, near Newtownstewart in Co Tyrone. Picture by Lorcan Doherty / Press Eye. First Minister Arlene Foster has visited a Co Tyrone Orange hall which has been the subject of two sectarian attacks in the past week. More windows were smashed on the front of Strawletterdallon Hall on Thursday night following a similar attack earlier this week. Police are treating the damage as a sectarian hate crime. On Friday, Arlene Foster visited the hall, viewed the damage and spoke with members of the lodge. The DUP leader said: "This is not my first visit to this hall. I attended an event here recently where I was impressed at improvements made by the lodge to the hall following previous attacks on it. "Strawletterdallon is a prime example of how many Orange halls are community hubs, particularly in rural areas. This is an attack on the entire community and I welcome the strong words from many different quarters in response to it. "It is important though that such solidarity is not just displayed in the aftermath of an attack. "We regularly see opposition to Loyal Order parades. Its members are often described as sectarian and as bigots. "Alongside the rightful condemnation of attacks on property we need to hear condemnation of such verbal attacks on the institution and its members also. "The Orange Institution is a valuable part of the fabric of life in Northern Ireland and we should all send out a message that attacks on its property or members are simply unacceptable." I deplore the two recent attacks on Newtownstewart Orange Hall.Those responsible for this sectarianism are despicable & represent no one. Martin McGuinness (@M_McGuinness_SF) February 19, 2016 In 2011, the hall suffered scorch damage in an attempted arson attack. Members of a local male choir who were congregating at the rural Plumbridge Road building on Wednesday evening discovered the latest damage. An Orange Order spokesman condemned the latest incident, stating a hate crime had now become a "hate campaign" against the local Protestant community. He called for a greater and more noticeable police presence in the area to deter such criminal activities, and prevent further and more serious damage to the rural property. "Given the similarities with the previous attack, there is little doubt that the perpetrators have reverted to type and once again, under the cover of darkness, brazenly reengaged in their wicked deeds. The sheer audacity of these criminals knows no bounds," he said. "Despite such destructive sectarian behaviour, the Orange fraternity in and around Newtownstewart will not be deterred by a minority rump whose futile activities are not representative of the wider community. We urge those responsible to think again and immediately desist. "It's a shame that a building, primarily associated with a Christian organisation, could provoke such hatred in the minds of a minority who have nothing positive to offer society." West Tyrone DUP MLA Tom Buchanan added: "This is an attack on an important rural community facility. It is an unfortunate reality that those who agitate against Loyal Order parades and seek to demonise the Orange institution help create a climate where others feel justified to attack property." It is the first reported attack on Orange property this year. Nine halls were targeted in 2015, including Ballytyrone Orange hall, Loughgall, which was destroyed by arsonists. Christopher Doherty back in 2009. Under a court order we can only publish his picture if it has been pixelated, lest the murderer be identified The Government has been ordered to pay a killer and child rapist almost 5,000 because his demands to be released from prison were not met quickly enough. Belfast man Christopher Doherty, who was returned to jail after he raped and sexually abused two little girls while on parole for murder, claimed that delays in reviewing his eligibility for release had left him "depressed" and breached his human rights. The European Court of Human Rights yesterday agreed that the violent offender's rights had been violated and ordered the Government to pay him damages. The decision has sparked outrage. Doherty (55) - dubbed 'Joker' by fellow inmates at Maghaberry - was jailed for life in 1982 for the murder of a pensioner in Londonderry. He and another man battered defenceless Gerald Farren to death and robbed him of 20. After 14 years he was freed on licence, but less than a year later he was returned to jail after two young girls, aged just nine and 13, made allegations of serious sexual abuse against the killer. A criminal prosecution was not taken to spare Doherty's young victims the ordeal of giving evidence in court. Instead, the then Secretary of State Patrick Mayhew revoked his release licence and had him returned to jail, only to be released when the Life Sentence Review Board, later to be replaced by the Life Sentence Review Commissioners, felt he was no longer a danger to the public. His detention was reviewed on a number of occasions between 1998 and 2008, but the review body refused to direct his release as it believed that he had committed the alleged offences and that there was a risk of committing further similar offences if released. He was eventually released in October 2008. Doherty then launched legal proceedings in the European Court of Human Rights against the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for damages. He claimed that reviews of his continuing detention were not conducted speedily enough and that this "gave rise to feelings of frustration, anxiety and depression". The DUP's Jonathan Craig slammed the ruling as "outrageous" and said it was an insult to Doherty's victims. Mr Craig, who is chair of the Policing Board's performance committee - formerly the human rights committee - added: "The police and judiciary in Northern Ireland uphold the rights of every citizen to protect them from people like this. "Here we have the European Court perversely taking the side of someone whose only purpose in life seems to be to destroy lives." The MLA added: "This is yet another example where the ECHR had missed the point. More focus should be on the rights of law-abiding citizens, not criminals like this. "This is an absurd decision and an insult to this man's victims." Justice committee chairman Alastair Ross said: "Cases such as this are why people can lose faith in the criminal justice system and why the European Court can be held in such low regard. "Irrespective of how 'anxious and depressed' this man claims to have been, it would be nothing in comparison to those whom he violated in the past." In its ruling yesterday, the European Court of Human Rights agreed that Doherty's rights had been breached under Article 5/4 of the Convention - the right to have lawfulness of detention decided speedily by a court. The court admitted, however, that some of the delays had been caused by Doherty and said that there was no evidence to suggest that had his detention been reviewed more regularly, he would have been released much earlier than he in fact was. "On the contrary, prior to March 2008 there was no evidence to suggest that the risk he posed was 'manageable' in the community," the court added. The court ordered that the Government pay Doherty 1,000 (773) in damages as well as 5,000 (3,868) to cover his costs and expenses. Doherty had attempted to claim for 20,980 in costs and expenses - 12,960 of which were lawyers' fees - but the court said he had failed to itemise the figure. The court rejected a claim from Doherty that his detention on recall to prison, between March 7, 1997 and October 7, 2008, had been unlawful. A teen has been left in a coma after an accident involving a PSNI car yesterday morning A teenager has been left in a coma after an accident involving a PSNI car yesterday morning. The 19-year-old, who is believed to be from the Coleraine area, had been on a night out at Portrush bar and nightclub Kelly's when he was struck by the police car. It is understood that the young man was being chased by a number of individuals when the incident happened. He reportedly suffered a broken spine and has been placed in an induced coma in hospital. A PSNI spokesperson confirmed that the incident has been passed to the Police Ombudsman's office. "A police car was involved in a road traffic collision on the Dunluce Road, Portrush, at approximately 2.15am on Thursday, February 18. "The car was in a collision with a pedestrian, a 19-year-old man, who was taken to hospital for treatment to his injuries, which are not believed to be life threatening. "As is normal procedure, PONI (Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland) has been informed of the incident." A local man, who does not want to be named, explained: "The young man was at Kelly's in Co Londonderry on Wednesday night and in the early hours of Thursday morning a fracas broke out and the young man was being chased. The next thing the police arrived to an unrelated incident and he was whacked and has now broken his spine and has other broken bones and is in an induced coma. "There were a number of police cars there and then an ambulance arrived. "The police cars were there until 12noon yesterday." The Police Ombudsman's office confirmed it is investigating the incident. A spokesman said: "The Police Ombudsman's Office is investigating the circumstances of a road traffic collision between a police car and a pedestrian. The incident happened on the Dunluce Road, Portrush in the early hours of Thursday, February 18." Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan held that he had acted with premeditation and determination A serving policeman jailed for trying to arrest one of Northern Ireland's most senior judges will attempt to appeal against his conviction in the UK's highest court. Thomas Anthony Carlin has also instructed lawyers to seek bail as he seeks to overturn the three-month prison sentence imposed for his approach to Lord Justice Gillen. His application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court will be dealt with at a specially arranged hearing in Belfast tonight. On Wednesday, the 43-year-old PSNI officer was found guilty of contempt of court in proceedings brought against him by the Attorney General. Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan held that he had acted with premeditation and determination. Sir Declan described him as a man driven by self-importance and attention-seeking who "revelled in being in the spotlight". After the verdict Mr Carlin was led from the Royal Courts of Justice in handcuffs to begin his jail term. At that stage he was told that if he seeks to apologise after 28 days, the rest of his sentence will be set aside. But the case took a new twist yesterday when it emerged that the policeman intends to appeal. Appearing again by video-link from Maghaberry Prison, he was at first only represented in court by a friend. But with Attorney General John Larkin QC and Sir Declan both urging Mr Carlin to consider accepting professional legal advice for the first time, Belfast-based law firm Madden and Finucane was instructed to represent his interests. The Lord Chief Justice and Mr Justice Horner, are expected to decide whether to grant leave to go before the Supreme Court based on the prospects of any appeal succeeding. If they hold that Mr Carlin has an arguable case with a reasonable chance of ultimately winning, he is almost certain to be granted bail. Due to time pressures and other judicial commitments, however, the application could not be dealt with yesterday. Sir Declan instead suggested convening the court again at 7pm today. Barrister Dessie Hutton, now representing Mr Carlin, acknowledged the offer as going "above and beyond the call of duty". Until then, his policeman client will remain in custody. Mr Carlin's actions and outburst came at the end of a ruling in an ongoing house repossession case last month. He had been representing himself in the legal battle with Santander bank over claims that he had failed to make payments on a 192,000 mortgage for a property in Co Antrim. At the end of that High Court hearing he got up and moved towards the bench, holding aloft what appeared to be a PSNI warrant card. He claimed he was going to arrest Lord Justice Gillen, before security and court staff intervened. Mr Carlin was arrested on suspicion of two counts of common assault, but subsequently released without charge. The Police Ombudsman has also launched an investigation. Mr Carlin faced allegations of having interrupted proceedings without justification, refusing to resume his seat, approaching the presiding judge, threatening to arrest him without lawful excuse and physically interfering with a court tipstaff. Convicted murderer Hazel Stewart has been given fresh hope of freedom A landmark court ruling could allow one of Northern Ireland's most notorious killers to challenge her conviction. Double murderer Hazel Stewart was convicted under the controversial 'joint enterprise' law. Yesterday the UK's highest court said the law may have been wrongly interpreted by judges for 30 years. The decision could pave the way for hundreds of prisoners to seek appeals. They include Stewart, convicted in 2011 of murdering her husband Trevor Buchanan and Lesley Howell in a joint enterprise with her ex-lover Colin Howell. Nigel Brown, jailed in 2010 for the sectarian killing of schoolboy Thomas Devlin, could also challenge his conviction. Last night, Thomas's mother Penny Holloway said she believed Brown's conviction was sound. "We are quite satisfied that the decision of the jury and the Court of Appeal was the right one," she said. The law on joint enterprise can result in people being convicted even if they did not strike the blow. Defendants have been convicted on the basis that they "could" have foreseen violent acts by their associates. Judges have now ruled it was wrong to treat "foresight" as a sufficient test. Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Thomas Devlin Stephen Lawrence Colin Howell / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Thomas Devlin Their decision could have huge ramifications. Belfast solicitor Patrick Madden said "a substantial number" of people in Northern Ireland could seek to overturn their convictions. "This momentous decision corrects the 30-year-old error in the law on criminal joint enterprise," he said. "We have a substantial number of clients who have passed through the criminal courts over the last 30 years, having mistakenly served very lengthy sentences, who will now look to appeal their convictions. "This correction has been a long time coming and is a sea change in the law. "There are still many defendants currently before the courts who can now hope to have their cases ending with a much fairer and proportionate outcome." Stewart, a former Sunday school teacher, was jailed for a minimum of 18 years in 2011. She was found guilty of the murders of Mr Buchanan and Mrs Howell as part of a joint enterprise with Howell. Their bodies were found in Castlerock in 1991 in a case which police initially treated as suicide. Brown, meanwhile, was found guilty of murdering Thomas Devlin in 2005 on the basis of a joint enterprise with Gary Taylor. The 15-year-old was knifed to death near his north Belfast home. Brown, from Whitewell Road in the city, and Taylor, of Mountcollyer Avenue, were both found guilty of murder. Ms Holloway said: "The decision is out there from the Supreme Court and anyone is free to make an appeal if they perceive that it could apply to them. "We've always said that the course of law is the right way to deal with it, and we would have to accept that, if he wanted to appeal, he clearly would have the right to do that." She added: "It's about whether foresight equals intent, and they say no it doesn't, but foresight can be evidence of intent. I think the case that was taken both in the court and the appeal court was quite robust in this regard. "The decision of the court was that both of the participants were involved in the attack on Thomas and his friends, and both had weapons with them. "The joint enterprise seems to me not to be solely based on the issue of foresight in Thomas's case, as it was in the case before the Supreme Court." Meanwhile, the mother of a convicted killer said she hoped the ruling could pave the way for an appeal. Mark Kincaid was one of three men convicted under joint enterprise of murdering David Hamilton in east Belfast in 2004. Kincaid denied being at the scene, but police found his partial thumb print on a fragment of glass. He has consistently denied having any role in Mr Hamilton's death. His mother, Ellen, said she has spoken to the family's solicitors about an appeal and is "getting things in motion". The ruling came after a panel of five Supreme Court judges considered the case of Ameen Jogee. He was convicted under joint enterprise of the murder of former Leicestershire police officer Paul Fyfe in 2011. The court heard that Jogee had "egged on" his friend Mohammed Hirsi, who stabbed Mr Fyfe in the heart. Both men received life sentences for murder. Jogee had argued he was not inside the house when the incident took place, and could not have foreseen what his friend intended to do. Delivering the judgement, Lord Neuberger said it was wrong to treat "foresight" as a sufficient test to convict someone of murder. Those convicted under joint enterprise can be classed as a secondary party who assists or encourages the main perpetrator in committing the act of killing. It is also used in cases where a victim dies as a result of an attack by more than one person and it is not clear which of them caused the fatal injury. The law was used to convict the killers of Stephen Lawrence. The 18-year-old was stabbed to death by a gang in a racially motivated murder in Eltham, south-east London. In another well-known case, three teenagers were jailed for life in 2008 for the murder of Garry Newlove. Mr Newlove was attacked in front of his daughters after he confronted a group outside his house in Warrington. The case of Shauna Hoare, convicted with her boyfriend Nathan Matthews of killing teenager Becky Watts, could be affected. Hoare claimed she knew Matthews wanted to kidnap Becky to have sex with her but was not with him when he throttled her, although she was in the house. Syracuse University is the first large private institution to sign on as a supporter of U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand's bill to combat sexual assaults on college campuses. Gillibrand, D-N.Y. a cosponsor of the Campus Accountability and Safety Act, which seeks to provide additional resources and services for survivors and establish training standards for college employees on addressing sexual assault cases. "I am grateful that Syracuse University has added their name in support of this critical legislation, and I will continue fighting to get this comprehensive, bipartisan bill passed to ensure campus sexual assault cases are handled with the professionalism and fairness students deserve," she said in a statement. The measure also would require campuses to release information on campus sexual assaults, implement a uniform disciplinary process for students, alters Title IX penalties and imposes tougher punishment for Clery Act violations. Syracuse University Chancellor Kent Syverud touted the school's work in combating sexual violence on campus, but acknowledged more action is needed. "I am fortunate to work with a dedicated team of student, faculty and staff leaders who strive to make Syracuse a safe campus, and be he ahead of the curve in working to prevent sexual assault," he said. In March 2015, Gillibrand held a roundtable meeting at Syracuse University to discuss her work to combat campus sexual assaults. When Vice President Joe Biden visited the school in November to highlight President Barack Obama's efforts to combat sexual violence, Gillibrand delivered remarks at the event. Following Biden's appearance, Gillibrand said in an interview that she's optimistic the bill will be approved by Congress. She noted that the measure has more than 30 cosponsors in the Senate 21 Democrats, 12 Republicans and one independent. (The independent is U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Democratic presidential candidate.) The Campus Accountability and Safety Act has been endorsed by other higher education institutions, including the State University of New York system and Southern Oregon University. Earlier this month, Daemen College became the first private school to endorse the legislation. "Sexual assault on college campuses is too often swept under the rug," Gillibrand said. "The bipartisan Campus Accountability and Safety Act will help address this pervasive problem and make college campuses across the country safer and more accountable." DUP Leader Arlene Foster has called for a new expenses system. Ms Foster said an independent watch dog monitoring MLA expenses at Stormont will help voters to have confidence in Northern Ireland's politicians. It comes following a week of headlines over MLAs expense claims. She was speaking on Friday evening during a speech to DUP party members and supporters in Cookstown, Co Tyrone. "If people are going to vote for us they need to have confidence in us," she said. "They need to be confident that were one of them, fighting for them and not for ourselves." It emerged earlier this week that MLAs claimed for work carried out by external research companies until 2014. The Independent Financial Review Panel (IRFP) maintains that none of these payments should have been made after April 1 2012. The current assembly members' handbook still allows an MLA to claim for third party research. The IFRP said in a statement on Thursday it did not believe it made a mistake in a ruling banning such payments in 2012. However, the Assembly Commission said that it had applied the ruling correctly. Assembly elections will take place in May. Ms Foster said she wants a new system to be in place from day one of the new mandate. She revealed on Friday evening that she will be sending a letter to every DUP Assembly candidate, the leaders of all the political parties represented in the Assembly and Stormont's Chief Executive stating her intention. "From day one of the next mandate I want a new system to deal with all financial matters for Assembly members," she said. "The DUP has consistently argued that politicians should have absolutely no role in either deciding the level of their pay or expenses or in administering the system by which those expenses are paid. "The completely independent system at Westminster may not be perfect, but it has instilled public confidence that failures of the past will not be repeated. "Currently at Stormont there is an independent regulator which determines the level of MLAs pay and Office Cost Allowances. However, claims are submitted to and processed by staff within the Assembly. "Of course it isnt MLAs deliberating on the staffing, stationery and travel costs of their colleagues, but the fact that decisions are even made within 'the Assembly' creates confusion and dents public confidence." Ms Foster said she wants a completely independent system, similar to the one in place at Westminster where expenses are taken out of the hands of MLAs and Assembly staff. "The DUP proposed exactly this kind of system eighteen months ago. Sadly, other parties did not agree with us at that time," she said. "The public want the Assembly to deliver on the issues that matter to their lives. It should be our health service, jobs and education which dominate the headlines. I want to see expenses dealt with entirely independently so we can get on with dealing with those issues that really matter to peoples lives here. "If other parties will not join me in reforming the system, I will take steps on the floor of the House to have this put in place. I accept IPSA is more expensive and bureaucratic but it is essential that people can have confidence." The DUP leader said she came into politics because she wanted to make Northern Ireland a better place. "At the minute no one can hear about my vision for Northern Ireland because the administration of expenses is the main issue," she said. "As leader of this party I am not going to let an issue like this destabilise our strategy. How we deal with this will reflect on how we deal with other matters of government." Sex worker Laura Lee, centre, with Kate McGrew, of the Sex Workers Alliance, left, and Dearbhla Ryan, a community worker with the group A bid to overturn the ban on paying for sex in Northern Ireland will be opposed by the First and Deputy First Ministers, the High Court has been told. Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness have instructed Stormont's chief legal adviser to intervene in the landmark legal action being brought by sex worker Laura Lee. Mr Justice Maguire had been expected to rule on whether to grant leave for a judicial review but adjourned his decision until next month after a last minute intervention from Attorney General John Larkin QC. Mr Justice Maguire told Belfast High Court: " I am disinclined to create circumstances where leave is granted without matters being properly rehearsed." Northern Ireland became the first part of the UK to make paying for sex a crime when the legislation was passed last year. The Bill, championed by Democratic Unionist Assembly member Lord Maurice Morrow, means anyone caught breaking the law could be jailed for up to a year and faces a hefty fine. Previously, paid-for consensual sex was legal although activities such as kerb crawling, brothel keeping and pimping were not. The law change was welcomed by Christian organisations but prostitutes' campaigners argued that it has endangered sex workers by pushing the industry underground. Judge Maguire expressed frustration at the late notice of the intervention by the Office of First and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) and said "a clear and cogent explanation" had not been provided. "The court has been provided with scant explanation from OFMDFM was to why, as of yesterday, at very late notice, they wish to contest this application and have the case adjourned for that purpose," the judge said. The court also heard that the Department of Justice (DoJ), the only named respondent, was not opposed to the case going ahead. Barrister Tony McGleenan QC said the department had been placed in an "unusual" position because Justice Minister David Ford had opposed the legislative change when it was debated in the Assembly. However, Mr McGleenan told the court: "In our view the matter is arguable." He said the OFMDFM intervention had not been anticipated, adding that Ms Le e had "got it right by directing fire towards this department." Meanwhile counsel for Ms Lee argued the case was of "genuine importance" for all sex workers. Steven McQuitty said: "We are concerned about the late, grossly late, improper intervention from the First and Deputy First Ministers. "We say at this stage that intervention is without merit." The barrister later added: "If not improper, (it is) highly unorthodox that they should now try to intervene when the DoJ recognises the substantial importance of this case." Outside the court, Ms Lee, a high profile campaigner for better rights for prostitutes, expressed disappointment at the delay. "I am disappointed but I understand that due process must be followed and I will be returning to court on March 14," she said. "I am taking this case because sex workers are placed in danger every single day when we are compelled to work on our own. "Last week saw the absolutely horrific murder of another sex worker in Aberdeen. "She suffered a fate that dogs in the street should never, ever meet. And, in her name and in the name of every other sex worker who has died under these nonsensical laws, I will fight this case." The hearing has been adjourned until next month. Officers from the PSNI's reactive and organised crime branch are investigating Detectives have appealed for fresh information about a "ruthless and reckless" shooting in west Belfast three months ago. A 41-year-old man is still fighting for his life after being shot in the head close to a school at Rossnareen Avenue on November 19. The victim, a member of the Traveller community, suffered life-changing injuries and the attack is being treated as attempted murder, police said. Detective Inspector Peter Mullan, from the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said: "We believe the two men came out of a vacant house in Rossnareen Avenue wearing high-visibility workmen's jackets. "One of them approached the victim's car and opened fire with what we believe to have been a shotgun. "They made off in a silver Honda Civic car which was abandoned a short distance away in Inishmore Crescent. "The victim remains in a critical condition in hospital and has sustained life-changing injuries. This was a ruthless and reckless attack in a busy street at a busy time of the day." The injured man had been in the passenger seat of a black Vauxhall car on a busy road, close to a primary school. His female partner was driving at the time. The window of the car was completely shattered by the bullets. Officers from the PSNI's reactive and organised crime branch want to hear from anyone who may have seen the shooting, the two suspects or the silver car. Detectives can be contacted at Musgrave police station on 101 or information can be provided anonymously to the Crimestoppers charity on 0800 555 111. Two men, aged 18 and 50, have appeared in court charged in connection with the overall police investigation. Lorna Moore is on trial at the Old Bailey A jury has retired to consider verdicts in the trial of a Muslim convert accused of planning to take her three young children to join their father in Syria. Trainee maths teacher Lorna Moore, 33, is charged with failing to tell authorities her teacher husband Sajid Aslam, 34, was poised to join Islamic State. Her co-defendant, Ayman Shaukat, 27, is accused of helping Aslam and Muslim convert Alex Nash, 22, on their way to fight. The Old Bailey has heard how Aslam and Nash were among a group of friends from Walsall, West Midlands, who allegedly set off for the war zone in 2014. At least one of them is now dead. Moore, of Glebe Street, Walsall, denies failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism on or before August 24 2014 that might be of assistance in securing the apprehension of Aslam. Shaukat, of Pargeter Street, Walsall, denies two counts of preparing for terrorist acts. Purdy the Jack Russell, who continuously faced rejection because of her wonky walk, has finally found a forever home with a new owner - who is also called Purdy! The adorable terrier was overlooked by potential adopters at a Co Antrim animal shelter for more than six months because she walks with a non-painful limp. But after Lou Purdy read about the little dog's plight and her name in the Belfast Telegraph last month, she knew she had to adopt her. Seven-year-old Purdy had been a resident at Dogs Trust Ballymena, where she arrived in August last year pregnant with two puppies, which have since been rehomed. But staff became concerned that this special little canine would never find an owner because of her deformed leg. However, they are now delighted that mischievous Purdy has at long last got somewhere to call home. These photographs of the Jack Russell at her new owner's place show Purdy is really enjoying the unfamiliar surroundings, snuggling up in blankets in her comfy bed and enjoying a root around outside. Lou said Purdy had settled in perfectly and she now couldn't envisage being without her. "I had only just decided that the time was right to get a dog when I spotted Purdy in the paper," she explained. "I always knew that I wanted to rescue a dog and when I saw Purdy, the little dog with the same name, I just knew I had to adopt her. "Purdy has settled in perfectly. Her wonky walk definitely doesn't slow her down, it just adds to her character. "It's not just our names that we have in common, we also have similar personalities - we are both mischievous. Purdy just loves to be loved and showered with affection, so she fits right in with me. "She's perfect, and I now can't imagine life without her." The staff at Dogs Trust Ballymena are over the Moon that little Purdy has finally found a caring new owner. Dogs Trust Ballymena assistant manager Sarah Park said: "All of us at the rehoming centre adore Purdy. "As she was with us for over six months, we were starting to become concerned that she was being overlooked due to her non-painful limp, but when Lou Purdy came along we just knew it was meant to be. What a perfect pairing." There are still 52 dogs waiting for that special someone at Dogs Trust Ballymena, including Vinnie, Northern Ireland's loneliest dog, who is still waiting to be rehomed. For more information about Vinnie and all the other dogs at Dogs Trust Ballymena visit dogstrust.org.uk or pop into the rehoming centre at Dogs Trust Ballymena. The mother of a man drowned while on holiday in Bulgaria has said he fled there to escape the UVF four years after the group shot dead his uncle. James Kelly from Belfast's Shankill Road died in an accident at the Sunny Beach resort where he had been staying with his partner. His family has flown to Bulgaria to bring the 25-year-old's body home. Mr Kelly was the nephew of Bobby Moffett, who was shot on the Shankill Road in 2010. He too is said to have been living under death threat and was previously beaten with bats in a UVF attack. James' mother Lily said her son had been under threat from loyalist paramilitaries. "I'm absolutely devastated, James was my world," she told Sunday Life. Expand Close James Kelly who died on holiday in Bulgaria Photopress Belfast / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp James Kelly who died on holiday in Bulgaria "He was tortured by the UVF for years because he was like his uncle Bobby, a really brave boy who stood up for himself. "I can't believe James is gone. "At the minute I'm taking comfort from the fact that the UVF didn't get him, if they had he would have been torn apart. James is at peace now. He was my beautiful son who meant the world to me. I don't know how I am going to cope." According to reports, the couple had hired a pedalo boat when tragedy struck last Wednesday. Mr Kelly is believed to have jumped into the waves coming into shore and somehow ended up under the water and drowned. One line of inquiry will be to see if he suffered an epileptic fit. Other tourists are said to have dived into the water in a bid to help him. Mr Kelly's body was later recovered by a specialist lifeguard boat. Mr Kelly's body is expected to be brought back to Belfast later this week. Victims campaigner Raymond McCord said Mr Kelly had gone to Bulgaria to escape the UVF. "James was a good kid at heart, and like so many other young men on the Shankill he was picked on by paramilitaries because he was brave enough to stand up to them," he added. DUP councillor Brian Kingston said it was a "terrible tragedy". Background Bobby Moffett (44) was gunned down by two masked UVF men in broad daylight on the busy Shankill Road on May 28, 2010. His murder was witnessed by a large group of passers-by. The killing was described by police as a public execution by the UVF. It followed an incident in which Moffett had challenged a paramilitary leader to a fist fight. The Independent Monitoring Commission found that the UVF leadership decided Moffett should be shot to eliminate the threat he posed to individual members of the organisation and to send a wider message to the loyalist community that the UVF would not tolerate its authority being flouted. Moffett had been a leading member of the UVF and the Red Hand Commando. An appeal by a man serving a life sentence for murdering his nephew has no merit, his lawyer told a court today. Defence counsel confirmed plans to come off record after being "dismissed" by Samuel Morrison over the legal opinion. The 52-year-old defendant was unanimously convicted of stabbing George Morrison to death in a north Belfast alleyway in July 2009. He had been found guilty of carrying out the fatal attack amid allegations the victim was a rapist. A jury at Belfast Crown Court was told Morrison had been overheard threatening his nephew George Morrison and calling him paedophile. It was claimed that after drinking at another relative's flat he left for a period, returning later to shout through a letter box that he had stabbed and slit the victim's throat. When asked why, he allegedly replied that his nephew was a rapist. The jury also heard that when arrested by police Morrison told them: "He was given every opportunity to leave the country and he never listened to me." Challenges to both his conviction and the minimum 16-year prison sentence have been lodged. But at the Court of Appeal today his latest legal team confirmed the breakdown in their professional relationship and the reasons behind it. Barrister Conor O'Kane said he had studied a large volume of documents obtained from previous defence representatives. "I simply came to the conclusion earlier this week... there was no merit in an appeal," Mr O'Kane told the panel of three judges. He added: "The sentence of 16 years in my view was not manifestly excessive or wrong in principle." The barrister explained how he went to brief his client before the hearing got underway. "Very quickly in that consultation Mr Morrison dismissed both me and my solicitor," he said. "I'm coming off record and my solicitor is coming off record." However, Lord Justice Gillen pointed to other legal procedures before the move can be formalised. Due to a medical report suggesting Morrison lacks mental capacity the judges have referred his case to the Official Solicitor's Office. Proceedings were then adjourned until April. U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is calling on the U.S. Department of Agriculture to expand a key program that is currently available in only 28 New York counties. Gillibrand, D-N.Y., sent a letter this week to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack asking his agency to provide barley crop insurance coverage for growers in counties that aren't included in the program. Twenty-eight counties are covered by the USDA's barley crop insurance program, including Cayuga, Cortland, Onondaga and Seneca counties in central New York. Currently, barley covers approximately 2,000 acres of the state's farmland, according to Gillibrand's office. "Expanding crop insurance for barley is a crucial first step to sustain and improve the viability of our farms and connected industries," Gillibrand said in a statement. "A key to encouraging producers to plant these crops is to ensure that they can manage their risk with appropriate crop protection programs." Gillibrand also noted barley's importance to New York's growing craft beverage industry. The number of farm breweries, cideries and distilleries has increased by 72 percent over the past five years. With the rising number of beverage producers, barley is in high demand. Kathryn Boor, dean of Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, said Gillibrand's push builds off the research conducted by the university's School of Integrative Plant Science. The school developed new strains of malting barley that grow in New York's climate, Boor said. "Senator Gillibrand has been a tireless advocate for expanding barley crop insurance to all of New York's counties, providing expanded opportunity for the Empire State's farmers to meet the growing demand of New York breweries looking for local grains of exceptional quality," she said. Here is the letter Gillibrand sent to Vilsack: Dear Secretary Vilsack, I write to request that your office assist the small grain producers in New York State to obtain crop insurance for barley for all counties in which production is feasible. Although barley crop insurance is currently available in twenty eight counties, there are many producers outside these areas that would benefit from a crop protection program. While New York barley production has grown slowly but steadily to 12,000 planted acres over the previous four years, this number is much lower than historical levels when New York barley production accounted for more than 69 percent of all domestic production. There has been a 72 percent increase in farm based breweries, cideries, and distilleries in New York since 2011, which has created significant demand for barley and other small grains. In order to sustain this robust industry and improve the viability of our farms and farming communities, it is important that barley and other grains are available. A key to encouraging growers to plant these crops is to ensure that they can manage their risk with appropriate crop protection programs. In the future I hope that your office will continue to work with New York researchers and producers to go further and establish crop insurance program for malting barley. Expanding the current barley crop and developing a more robust production history will enable insurers to create an actuarially sound program for malting barley that will afford additional protection to growers of this valuable crop that already covers nearly 2,000 acres of New York farmland. I thank you for your efforts on behalf of New York small grain growers, brewers, distillers, and consumers to ensure the continued growth of this important sector of our agricultural economy. Sincerely, Kirsten Gillibrand United States Senator Around 50 protesters faced off against police at the entrance to a Co Antrim forest where an oil consortium is attempting to carry out exploratory drilling. One man was arrested and several cars were towed away by police during the day-long stalemate, which saw the entrance to Woodburn Forest blocked by vehicles to prevent Infrastrata gaining access to start work. Protesters have been camped outside the forest for 24 hours a day in icy conditions since learning that Infrastrata was planning to go on site on Monday. Throughout yesterday, local residents arrived to offer support and deliver sweets and pizzas. Infrastrata wants to drill an exploratory well near Woodburn Reservoir, which supplies drinking water to Larne, Carrickfergus, Newtownabbey and large areas of Belfast. The plan has proved unpopular, with more than 100 people attending a public meeting at the Windrose in Carrickfergus on Wednesday night, where Mid and East Antrim Mayor Billy Ashe refused requests for an extraordinary meeting to air concerns that Infrastrata is going on site without all the correct permits in place. The council admitted a waste management plan had not yet been approved for the exploratory drill and that this process required a public consultation that had not taken place. Yesterday, local residents were angered as police said they were suspending the public right of way into the forest, a popular spot for fishing, walking and horse riding. Officers lifted the suspension later in the afternoon after a tractor and trailer blocking the entrance were removed. Last night, protesters and police remained in place after contractors for Infrastrata ferried in concrete blocks and built a wall blocking vehicular access to the forest. There were also raised eyebrows as one PSNI officer used bolt-cutters to detach a padlock placed on the gate by a protester. Campaigners claimed the police were aiding Infrastrata instead of upholding the law. Campaigner Lisa Armitage had her car impounded after she used it to block the entrance. "I jumped in the car and locked myself in to stop them moving me off," she said. "Eventually, they (police) got a hand in the door and said that I was obstructing the gate. "I think it's disgraceful that they have got all these police here. They said they are here to enforce the law, but they are not being impartial." Local resident Walter Johnston said he was angry at the way the deal had been pushed through without consultation. "You need planning permission for a porch, but they can do this under permitted development rights, which isn't full planning permission," he added. Fiona Joyce from the Stop the Drill campaign said Woodburn was a precious water catchment area and an amenity people love. "Belfast City Council took a motion in September that there needed to be a review, but Mid and East Antrim Council have refused to consider it," she told this paper, adding that Mid and East Antrim Council has ignored representations from campaigners. "There was a huge crowd of people calling on the council mayor last night to convene a special meeting this morning and he refused," she said. Dr James Orr, NI director of Friends of the Earth added: "One person said to me, 'we can live without oil but we can't live without our water' and I think that sums it up. What disturbs me is that this is publicly-owned land that was acquired by NI Water to protect as a water catchment, and they have leased it to a company that could seriously risk our drinking water supplies." Police said they arrested a man in his 50s in connection with a protest at the forest. Chief Inspector Stephen McCauley added: "As a police service, we respect the rights of people to protest, as long as it is within the law." A Mid and East Antrim Council spokesman said the proposed borehole exploratory drilling fell under permitted development rights. "The removal of trees does not fall within the definition of development and therefore does not require planning permission," he added. NI Water said a clause in its agreement with Infrastrata prohibited fracking and that it was satisfied the work would have no detrimental impact on the reservoir or the public water supply. A spokesman added there is no formal public right of way in Woodburn Forest, but NI Water has always been happy to permit recreational access. Infrastrata has insisted its methods are safe and that the water supply and surrounding area will be protected. Thomas Anthony Carlin is appealing a three month sentence for contempt of court after he tried to arrest Judge Gillen (pictured) A serving policeman's bid to appeal to the Supreme Court over being jailed for trying to arrest one of Northern Ireland's most senior judges has been adjourned. Thomas Anthony Carlin will remain in custody until at least next week, when his application will resume at the High Court in Belfast. Following a hearing tonight, lawyers now representing the 43-year-old PSNI officer are to make further arguments on mitigation over his approach to Lord Justice Gillen. Judges who sentenced him to three months imprisonment for his actions will then decide if it impacts on their view on whether to grant leave to go to the Supreme Court, according to his solicitor. On Wednesday Mr Carlin was found guilty of contempt of court in proceedings brought against him by the Attorney General. Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan held that he had acted with premeditation and determination. Sir Declan described him as a man driven by self-importance and attention seeking who "revelled in being the spotlight". Following the verdict Mr Carlin was led from the Royal Courts of Justice in handcuffs to begin his jail term. At that stage he was told that if he seeks to apologise after 28 days the rest of his sentence will be set aside. But the case took a new twist on Thursday when it emerged that the policeman intended to challenge the conviction. Belfast-based law firm Madden and Finucane were then instructed to represent his interests. Sir Declan, sitting with Mr Justice Horner, are expected to decide whether to grant leave to go before the Supreme Court based on the prospects of any appeal succeeding. If they hold that Mr Carlin has an arguable case with a reasonable chance of ultimately winning, he is almost certain to be granted bail. Mr Carlin's actions and outburst came at the end of a ruling in an ongoing house repossession case last month. He had been representing himself in the legal battle with Santander bank over claims that he had failed to make payments on a 192,000 mortage for a property in Co Antrim. At the end of that High Court hearing he got up and moved towards the bench, holding aloft what appeared to be a PSNI warrant card. He claimed he was going to arrest Lord Justice Gillen, before security and court staff intervened. Police detained him on suspicion of two counts of common assault before he was released without charge. The Police Ombudsman has also launched an investigation into the incident. He faced allegations of having interrupted proceedings without justification, refused to resume his seat, approached the presiding judge, threatened to arrest him without lawful excuse and physically interfered with a court tipstaff. Mr Carlin rejected offers of legal representation during the contempt proceedings and declined to apologise for his actions. The Attorney General argued that he had acted with flagrant illegality by an unreasonable and inexcusable disruption of proceedings. Finding him guilty of contempt, Sir Declan referred to aspects of his "self-importance and attention seeking", adding that inviting his supporters to stand up in court had been aimed at abusing the proceedings and gaining publicity. "It is clear that throughout this process he has revelled in being in the spotlight," the Lord Chief Justice added. ends Boarded up windows at Bairds Funeral Directors who carried out the funeral of Robert Black The funeral of child killing paedophile Robert Black at Roselawn Crematorium last Friday The ashes of serial child killer Robert Black have been scattered at sea. The Scottish-born sex attacker, who was serving multiple sentences for the murders of four schoolgirls during the 1980s, died in jail last month. The Northern Ireland Prison Service has confirmed nobody wanted his remains. A spokesman said: "In the absence of anyone claiming the remains of Robert Black, his ashes have been scattered at sea, without ceremony, beyond these shores. "This has been done in accordance with the legal requirements for disposal." Sixty-eight-year-old Black, from Falkirk, was a delivery driver who stalked the roads of the UK searching for victims. His reign of terror was ended in 1990 when he was caught red-handed by police with a barely alive six-year-old girl hooded, bound, gagged and stuffed in a sleeping bag in the back of his van in the Scottish village of Stow. He had sexually assaulted her moments earlier. Once in custody, the predator was linked to a series of unsolved crimes in the previous decade. In 1994, Black was found guilty of three child murders in the 1980s - those of 11-year-old Susan Maxwell, from the Scottish Borders, five-year-old Caroline Hogg, from Edinburgh, and Sarah Harper, 10, from Morley, near Leeds - as well as a failed abduction bid in Nottingham in 1988. In 2011, he was found guilty of the 1981 murder of nine-year-old Jennifer Cardy, from Ballinderry, Co Antrim. Black was also suspected of involvement in other killings and unexplained disappearances and had long been the prime suspect in the case of missing 13-year-old Genette Tate, who was last seen in a rural lane in Aylesbeare, Devon, in 1978. No trace of the newspaper delivery girl has ever been found. All that remained at the scene were her bike and scattered papers. Black died in non-suspicious circumstances in Maghaberry high security prison on January 12 and his body was cremated. No family members attended the short funeral service conducted by a prison chaplain. Sex worker and sex worker rights activist Laura Lee starts her challenge at the High Court in Belfast against the Human Trafficking & Exploitation Act NI which was implemented last year by the DUP's Lord Morrow. Laura Lee(right) is greeted by a supporter after she leaves court. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Sex worker and sex worker rights activist Laura Lee starts her challenge at the High Court in Belfast against the Human Trafficking & Exploitation Act NI which was implemented last year by the DUP's Lord Morrow. Laura Lee arrives at the court. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Sex worker and sex worker rights activist Laura Lee starts her challenge at the High Court in Belfast against the Human Trafficking & Exploitation Act NI which was implemented last year by the DUP's Lord Morrow. Laura Lee(right) is greeted by a supporter as she arrives at court. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye Sex worker and sex worker rights activist Laura Lee starts her challenge at the High Court in Belfast. Left to right are Kate McGrew, coordinator for Sex Workers Alliance of Ireland, Laura Lee and Dearbhla Ryan, Community Worker with Sex Workers Alliance of Ireland pictured outside the court. Picture by Jonathan Porter/PressEye A sex worker's legal challenge to a new law criminalizing clients in Northern Ireland was put on hold after a last-minute intervention by Stormont's First and deputy First Ministers. Laura Lee issued unprecedented judicial review proceedings in a bid to quash legislation making it illegal for men to pay for prostitutes. But the case was adjourned at the High Court in Belfast on Friday after a judge was told Attorney General John Larkin QC has been instructed to oppose her challenge on behalf of Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness. Lawyers for Ms Lee, a 38-year-old Dublin-born law graduate, claimed it was a "highly improper and unorthodox" attempt to stop the action advancing to a full hearing. As he put the case back until next month, Mr Justice Maguire requested full reasons for an intervention made on the eve of the hearing. He said: "I accept that this application made on behalf of the Attorney General who is acting for the First Minister and Deputy First Minister has not been accompanied with any clear or cogent explanation as to the course of events." Ms Lee is seeking a ruling that the law brought in last year after being championed by Democratic Unionist peer and Stormont assembly member Lord Morrow should be struck down. Northern Ireland is currently the only UK region to make the purchase of sex a criminal offence. Although the law shifts the burden from prostitutes to their clients, sex workers believe it could leave more vulnerable to violence. They fear it will drive the trade underground and expose them to increased danger by making it increasingly difficult to screen customers who may use fake names and disposable phones. Ms Lee's legal team contend that the amendments to the Human Trafficking and Exploitation Act breach her human rights entitlements to privacy and freedom from discrimination. They also allege a failure to comply with equality law. Counsel for the Department of Justice, against whom the challenge is directed, confirmed in court it was not opposing the granting of leave on the basis that an arguable case was established. Tony McGleenan QC explained that otherwise Justice Minister David Ford would be facing a position of trying to defend a legislative clause he had opposed. Based on that concession, Steven McQuitty, for Ms Lee, criticised the attempt by another branch of Stormont to become involved. "My client is deeply concerned at the proposed, grossly late intervention on the part of the Office of First Minister and deputy First Minister," he said. "We say it's highly improper and unorthodox, effectively OFMDFM are seeking to resist the grant of leave against the Department of Justice." However, with a potential devolution issue being raised, the judge held that an opportunity should be given to explain reasons for the late move. Outside court a disappointed Ms Lee, who travelled from Scotland for the hearing, described the motivation for her legal proceedings. "I brought this challenge because sex workers are in danger," she said. "We are compelled to work by ourselves and only in the last week have we seen another murder in Scotland of a lady working by herself. "I personally am in danger, I campaigned long and hard against Lord Morrow's bill, but I was left with no choice but to bring this action." Although she had wanted the case to go ahead, Ms Lee accepted why it was put on hold. "I understand there are submissions to be made by both sides and the legal process must be followed," she said. "I'm disappointed because I wanted to push on, but I will return to court on March 14." Her solicitor, Ciaran Moynagh, insisted the Department of Justice's position was a "positive outcome". He added: "It's highly regrettable that the Attorney General on behalf of OFMDFM has saw fit to cause the adjournment at such late notice." Ulster actor Stephen Rea is receiving rave reviews from the Dublin theatre critics for his performance as a psychotic loyalist in Cyprus Avenue, a new comedy play by Carrickfergus-born writer David Ireland. Award-winning Rea stars as Eric Miller, a Belfast loyalist who believes his five-week-old granddaughter is Gerry Adams. His family keep telling him to stop living in the past and fighting old battles which nobody cares about any longer - but Miller believes that his cultural heritage is under siege. Helen Meany, writing for The Guardian, described Cyprus Avenue as "a complex display of sectarian paranoia". In The Irish Times, Peter Crawley labelled the play as "caustically funny". Crawley described Rea's performance in the role of the psychotic loyalist, whose identity crisis stood for "the predicament of loyalism, a culture defined through rigid opposition" as "masterful". In the Irish Independent, Katy Hayes hailed Cyprus Avenue as a "brilliant and provocative" production. "All the performances are good, but Rea's superb talent, here witnessed up close in the round, is a treat not to be missed," she said. "If the work is to be taken at face value as a thesis, it suggests that loyalism is a bogus identity, invented to further British imperialism, and has its ultimate expression in psychosis." Directed by Vicky Featherstone, the play will transfer to London in April. The assault occurred after the crew responded to a callout in the Finaghy Road North area of south Belfast A teenager has been arrested after two paramedics were attacked in their ambulance. The assault occurred after the crew responded to a callout in Finaghy Road North in Belfast. The youth is alleged to have punched one of the paramedics in the face and chest. The man's female colleague was left badly shaken following the incident. The attack occurred just after 3pm on Wednesday. Both paramedics are now on sick leave as a result. The ambulance was damaged and has had to be withdrawn from service while repairs are carried out. It is believed that the 17-year-old allegedly involved requested that the ambulance be sent out in the first place. Police confirmed that the patient was arrested at the scene on suspicion of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and criminal damage. However, he was released on bail to return for a police interview at a later date. A spokesperson for the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) condemned the assault on its paramedics. "Any attacks on ambulance personnel are unacceptable and have a lasting impact on our personnel, who are victims when in fact they are simply trying to be carers," a spokesman said. "On this occasion, the male crew member was physically punched in the chest and face, sustaining injuries to his face. "The female crew member was badly shaken. "These types of attacks can leave emotional scars on staff and these scars can remain for some time. "Both crew members are now on sickness absence. "The ambulance vehicle was also damaged during the incident and is off the road for repairs. "All these types of incidents impact on the NIAS's ability to respond due to a reduction in staffing and vehicles resources. "The NIAS utterly condemns these assaults on staff, who are focused on providing emergency care to those who are in need of our service. "As an organisation, the NIAS will support all measures that may be taken to tackle the problem of attacks on healthcare and emergency staff. "We have also been active in the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety-led zero tolerance campaign." There are an estimated 250 assaults on ambulance workers across Northern Ireland every year. Prime Minister David Cameron speaks at a news conference after negotiating new EU membership terms for the UK, on February 19, 2016 in Brussels, Belgium. Mr Cameron tweeted the deal will give the UK 'special status in the EU' The development came late on the second day of gruelling talks in Brussels between leaders of the 28 member-states, which saw the Prime Minister face opposition to proposals to restrict migrant benefits and provide new protections for countries outside the single currency. Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite broke the news in a tweet from the round-table discussions: "Agreement #UKinEU done. Drama over." And Danish PM Lars Lokke Rasmussen said: "David Cameron fought hard for Britain. Good deal for UK and for EU. Congrats!" And minutes later, the breakthrough was officially confirmed by European Council president Donald Tusk, who said: "Deal. Unanimous support for new settlement for UK in EU." The agreement clears the way for David Cameron to return immediately to London and call a special Cabinet meeting on Saturday to endorse the deal and set a date for the long-awaited referendum - widely expected to come on June 23. The meeting will also give a green light to Eurosceptic ministers like Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Grayling to go out and campaign for Britain to leave Europe, and put pressure on waverers like London mayor Boris Johnson and Cabinet minister Michael Gove to spell out where they stand. Sources close to Mr Gove declined to comment on increasingly confident reports that the Justice Secretary is preparing to throw his weight behind Brexit. The deal came after behind-the-scenes talks which stretched through Thursday night and most of Friday, as Mr Cameron and Mr Tusk struggled to keep Britain's renegotiation on track. The 28 leaders had initially been due to gather early in the morning for an "English breakfast" meeting to approve a package of reforms to the UK's membership, but breakfast became brunch, lunch, high tea and then dinner as opponents of the deal dug in their heels. The delays forced Mr Cameron to scrap plans to summon ministers for a Cabinet meeting on Friday evening. I have negotiated a deal to give the UK special status in the EU. I will be recommending it to Cabinet tomorrow. Press conference shortly. David Cameron (@David_Cameron) February 19, 2016 Mr Cameron had faced concerns from eastern European countries like Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia over his call for an "emergency brake" on in-work benefits for migrant EU workers to extend for as long as 13 years. And the same nations put up stiff resistance to the UK's demand to impose cuts in child benefits for offspring living abroad on 34,000 existing claimants as well as future migrants. Meanwhile, France and Austria voiced anxiety that the protections for non-euro states sought by Mr Cameron might effectively grant special status to the City of London and allow Britain to hobble future deepening of the eurozone. The leaders tucked into decidedly un-English fare at the much-delayed English dinner. On the menu was crown of artichoke with goat's cheese and rocket, followed by fillet of veal with tarragon juice, wilted spinach and polenta, and a dessert of passion fruit bavarois. Leaked copies of the deal indicated that a compromise deal will allow existing claimants to carry on receiving child benefit in full for offspring living overseas until 2020, but that all member states will then be able to pay them at the rate of their home country. This rate - usually lower than that paid to British parents - will be applicable immediately to all new migrants whose children live abroad after the agreement comes into force. The agreement falls well short of the outright ban on sending child benefit abroad initially demanded by Mr Cameron, and marks a compromise solution with eastern states who had insisted that all 34,000 existing claimants in the UK should continue to receive the full payment until their sons and daughters reach adulthood - something rejected as "not acceptable" by the Prime Minister. A lengthy section making clear that the phrase "ever closer union" in EU treaties is not "in legal terms an equivalent to political integration" was struck out, in an apparent response to Belgian sensitivities. But the new text makes clear that EU treaties will be amended to make clear that references to ever closer union "do not apply to the United Kingdom". An "emergency brake" on in-work welfare payments for migrant workers will be made available for seven years - with no option for extensions - in cases where member states are facing excessive strain from new arrivals. The seven year period is shorter than the 13 years put forward by Mr Cameron in negotiations, but considerably longer than eastern European nations had argued for. David Cameron is to call a special meeting of Cabinet on Saturday to approve a deal struck with fellow EU leaders in Brussels which will pave the way for an in/out referendum on British membership by the summer. The historic poll is expected to be held on June 23 after the Prime Minister hailed an agreement which he said would provide "special status in the EU" and left no doubt that he will lead the campaign to keep Britain in the EU. The development came late on the second day of gruelling talks in Brussels between leaders of the 28 member-states, which saw the Prime Minister face opposition to proposals to restrict migrant benefits and provide new protections for countries outside the single currency. The new deal provides for a seven-year emergency brake on in-work benefits for EU migrant workers, as well as cuts in child benefit for their children living overseas - applicable immediately for new arrivals and from 2020 for the 34,000 existing claimants. It also says that EU treaties will be amended to state explicitly that references to the requirement to seek ever-closer union "do not apply to the United Kingdom". A jubilant Mr Cameron tweeted from the room where round-table discussions took place: "I have negotiated a deal to give the UK special status in the EU. I will be recommending it to Cabinet tomorrow." Garda officers attend the scene on Poplar Row, North Strand following the shooting of a second man in Dublin, in an apparent gangland feud which is suspected to involve drugs gangs in Ireland and Spain. PA Forensic experts remove the body of Eddie Hutch from a house in Dublin The coffin is carried into St Nicholas of Myra church on Francis Street in Dublin, during the funeral of David Byrne, who was shot dead during a boxing weigh-in at the Regency Hotel in the north of the city on Friday February 5 by a six strong gang, some armed with assault rifles. Niall Carson/PA Wire Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch has been told that his life is in danger as he prepares to bury his murdered brother. One notable absence at yesterday's wake for Eddie Hutch Snr was the brother of the deceased, Gerry, who was formally notified that his life was in danger on Wednesday night. Scores of mourners turned out at the home of Margaret Hutch to pay their respects to her brother, who was callously murdered last week. Sympathisers brought floral tributes as they entered the north Dublin home where the body of Mr Hutch was being waked. The 59-year-old was gunned down at his Ballybough home in Poplar Row by a four-man hit team in what is believed to be a revenge attack for the murder of David Byrne (35), who had been killed at the Regency Hotel three days previously. In the aftermath, local officers from Clontarf garda station are believed to have served official documents to Gerry Hutch, in which he was advised that detectives had received credible information that his life was in danger as a result of recent gang killings. Yesterday's wake lasted from 3pm until 6pm, with friends and family including the murder victim's sons, Ross and Eddie Hutch Jnr, attending. Expand Close Eddie Hutch / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Eddie Hutch Members of the Special Detective Unit (SDU), armed with automatic weapons, kept a visible presence outside the house, while uniformed gardai also manned a checkpoint near the home. Streets in and around the area were also being patrolled by members of the Garda Public Order Unit, while officers from the Armed Support Unit kept a floating presence. The murder of Eddie Hutch Snr, who sources described as an innocent man, is part of an ongoing feud between associates of his family and the Kinahan cartel. The funeral of Eddie Hutch Snr will take place at Our Lady of Lourdes Church on Sean McDermott Street this morning. His body will then be brought to Glasnevin Cemetery. A major garda operation will take place as the streets around the funeral will be in lockdown, with more than 100 armed and uniformed gardai keeping an eye on proceedings. Expand Close Garda at a scene on Poplar Row in north inner city Dublin where Eddie Hutch snr was shot dead / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Garda at a scene on Poplar Row in north inner city Dublin where Eddie Hutch snr was shot dead Specially trained members of the SDU, armed with sniper rifles, will also keep a detailed surveillance of the area. Retaliation The operation will be conducted by senior officers from Mountjoy garda station, with bomb sweeps also taking place as a precaution. This morning's service will take place at the same church where Gary Hutch's funeral was held in October. Gary, the nephew of Gerry and Eddie Snr, was shot dead at the Miraflores apartment complex near Marbella, Spain, on the orders of the mob that is now led by Daniel Kinahan. At the funeral, senior members of the Hutch family called for an end to the violence and for "no retaliation" for Gary Hutch's murder. Expand Close The Hutch family / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Hutch family However, a number of tit-for-tat shootings have taken place in the past number of months. By Robin Schiller, Irish independent The Auburn Police Department Local 195 sent a letter to Cayuga County legislators Friday asking them to accept funds from the state for the Crimes Against Revenue Program. The program, which District Attorney Jon Budelmann enrolled the county in last year, provides funds to prosecute welfare fraud crimes. The three-year grant would provide $321,000 to the county, but is distributed in about $107,000 increments each year. Budelmann expected grant funds to be utilized by July of this year, and hoped to pursue other grants in order to support the program and the three county employees working on it, for the remaining five months. Based on County Administrator Suzanne Sinclair's calculations, however, the county lost about $23,000 last year because of the program. She projects the county to lose about $74,000 in 2016 should the program continue. Budelmann argued that the grant pays for itself and actually makes the county money. He also said by prosecuting people for welfare fraud and making them ineligible for public assistance, his team has saved taxpayers' money. Legislators at the Ways and Means Committee Wednesday night failed to pass the motion and accept the grant funds, citing the county's $1.5 million budget deficit and the uncertainty of funds for the second half of the year. By not accepting the funds, the county will be responsible for $35,000 in salary and benefits for the assistant district attorney, investigator and grant administrator, who have been working on the program despite the lack of program funds, since the beginning of the year. Since the motion failed, it will not automatically carry through to the full Legislature meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 23. That did not stop Officer Chris Major, Vice President of the Auburn Police Department Local 195, from sending a letter to legislators asking to accept the funds. "Without the welfare fraud program, the D.A.'s Office didn't have the resources necessary to keep up with this growing problem," Major wrote in the email. "We see these disturbing circumstances on a daily basis. Welfare fraud isn't a fleeting problem or a self correcting issue. If it goes unaddressed, it will continue to grow at the expense of our County's hard working population." Budelmann said prior to the CARP grant his staff was prosecuting about nine cases of welfare fraud per year. Since the grant last year, they've prosecuted about 100 cases. Sinclair said the failed motion could be moved from the floor and seconded, and should that happen, the motion could be revived. She said there's a strong possibility that that will happen. The coffin is carried into Our of Lourdes Church in Dublin for the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead in the north inner city last week. Niall Carson/PA Wire Mourners arrive at Our of Lourdes Church in Dublin for the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead in the north inner city last week. Niall Carson/PA Wire Garda sniffer dogs patrol the area around Our of Lourdes Church in Dublin before the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead in the north inner city last week. Niall Carson/PA Wire Mourners arrive with flowers at Our of Lourdes Church in Dublin for the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead in the north inner city last week. Niall Carson/PA Wire The funeral cortege carrying the coffin arrives at Our of Lourdes Church in Dublin for the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead in the north inner city last week. Niall Carson/PA Wire The coffin is carried into Our of Lourdes Church in Dublin for the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead in the north inner city last week. Niall Carson/PA Wire Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch pictured leaving the church at the funeral of his brother. Veteran Dublin crime boss Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch has been pictured leaving the church at the funeral of his brother Eddie Hutch Snr. The Monk looked dramatically different, with long grey hair tied back in a ponytail and wearing a black baseball cap. He did not follow the funeral cortege that left his sister's family home on Portland Row towards shortly before 10.30am. The brother of the latest gangland victim was believed to have fled Ireland ahead of the funeral on Friday morning. However, these exclusive pictures show Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch braved threats to his life to pay his final respects to his brother. 'The Monk' was spotted leaving the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes on Sean Mac Dermott Street in Dublin's north inner city. Hundreds gathered to pay their final respects to gangland victim Eddie Snr who was shot dead in his home in Portland Row, Ballybough almost two weeks ago. The family of Eddie Hutch Snr made a plea for the cycle of gangland violence to stop. The father-of-five, was attacked just three days after Crumlin native David Byrne (34) was killed in the Regency Hotel shooting. He was described as a 'soft target'. He is the second victim of gangland violence in the family in less than a year. His nephew Gary Hutch was killed in a shooting in the Costa del Sol, Spain last September. The 34-year-old was gunned down beside a swimming pool in an apartment complex. Read More Fr Richard Ebejer addressed the congregation at the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes on Sean McDermott Street and said the Hutch family have asked that they be no retaliation for the murder. The family made the same plea following the murder of Gary Hutch, the killing which is believed to have marked the beginning of the latest outbreak of gangland violence. "...one does not want to seek revenge or to have retaliation," the funeral of Eddie Hutch Snr heard this morning. "This is what the family had asked for, right from the very beginning, that there will be no retaliation. "This is indeed goodness in the face of evil. "They now call on everybody for this cycle of violence to stop, and to stop now." "Nobody deserves to die in the way Neddy died", he added. The priest described the 59-year-old taxi driver as a 'good man' who loved a 'good joke'. His funeral cortege left his sister's family home on Portland Row shortly before 10.30am this morning. Several floral displays paid tribute to the gangland victim. Flowers spelling out the words 'Dad' and 'Uncle' were laid alongside the coffin in the hearse, while displays reading 'Grandad' were placed on top of the vehicle before it left Portland Row for the church on Sean Mac Dermott Street. And in a moving tribute to the taxi driver, Eddie Hutch's taxi sign was placed on top of the coffin before it was carried into the church. "The Goodness of the inner city is nourished by faith," Fr Ebejer told the congregation. "We see it in Neddy, who was basically a good man, who would as a taxi driver, wait on elderly ladies as they did their errands, he would share a good joke and was the life of a party, and he was good company in the pub. "He did not deserve to die in this manner." Fr Ebejer read a gospel that he said "was not chosen in particular for this sad occasion, but it does speak to the reality we are facing." The priest alluded to the recent increase in gangland violence in the capital, a situation he said that has 'shocked the whole nation'. He said: "We are all aware of the circumstances of Neddys death, circumstances that have spiralled out of control, circumstances that have left families grieving in shock and pain, circumstances that have shocked the whole nation. "All vengeful violence is to be condemned in the strongest terms possible, wherever it comes from. It only degrades the humanity of those who carry it out. "Nobody deserves to die in the way that Neddy died," he repeated. Speaking about the area in which the Hutch family lived, he said inner city Dublin has a 'great history' of people looking out for one another when times get hard. "It would be a tragedy if we were to lose that sense of good Dublin values," he added. He concluded his sermon by saying: "May Neddy Hutch rest in Peace; may God have mercy on his soul, and reward him for his goodness, real Dublin goodness!" Irish Independent Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin has reiterated his vow to work in the national interest Senior figures in Fine Gael and Fianna Fail have both ruled out the parties going into power together despite a former government minister claiming it is inevitable. Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin reiterated his vow to work in the national interest whatever the outcome of the election but dismissed any possibility of a pact with their old rivals. He also insisted his party would not share power with Sinn Fein as part of any post-election deal. "No deal with Fine Gael, no deal with Sinn Fein," he said. But Mr Martin said Fianna Fail would work with the next government "in whatever capacity the electorate give us". "We will behave responsibly in the interest of the country," he added. "We are going to win as many votes and seats as we can. It is important we debate the kind of society we want, the issues, rather than the horse trading." Separately on day 16 of the election campaign, Fine Gael Finance Minister Michael Noonan was categorical in his ruling out a coalition with Fianna Fail. "Never. Never is the word," he said. Despite the no love lost routine between the old adversaries, former Fianna Fail minister and founding Progressive Democrat leader Des O'Malley said the claims should be taken with "two or three pinches of salt". Mr O'Malley said he could see Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, whose enmity stretches back to the civil war, hammering out a deal with each other if each are unable to form a strong government with other parties. "I could see it happening, yes," he told RTE's Campaign Today. "It may well happen and it will give, I suppose, a certain stability to the country." He added: "It is going to be inevitable if we are going to have a government, I think there'll have to be a coalition." The three-times government minister said parties can not "throw back in the face of the electorate" the outcome of the general election. Under Mr O'Malley, the Progressive Democrats formed a coalition with Fianna Fail leader Charlie Haughey in 1989. He said the parties had a duty to respond to the mathematics of the election at the time as that was what the people had decided. Sir Richard Branson asked for people's help to end the 'inhumanity and injustice' of Europe's refugee crisis Sir Richard Branson has spoken of his admiration for the entrepreneurial spirit of refugees, migrants and volunteers at The Jungle camp in Calais. The Virgin tycoon told of the steps some have taken to ease their plight at the French camp where thousands are based after fleeing war, poverty and persecution. He asked for people's help to end the "inhumanity and injustice". And he spoke of his astonishment that such a crisis was happening in Europe, so close to Britain. Sir Richard said: "It's hard to look at the images of this camp and believe that this is happening in Europe, a mere 20 miles from the UK's shores. "At the same time, I admire the entrepreneurial spirit of the camp residents and volunteers in finding ways to ease their discomfort, from setting up shops to generating their own power through dynamo bikes that can charge mobile phones. "They also try to use the little resources they have to help others. I was inspired by the story of one Syrian refugee, Omar, who uses his mobile phone to help save refugee lives in the Aegean Sea. "His WhatsApp group provides weather reports and geo-tracking as refugees cross, and calls the coastguard if they lose contact." Sir Richard this week joined 145 celebrities in signing an open letter calling on David Cameron to help save children based at The Jungle. They want the Government to step in and allow unaccompanied children living in the camp to be reunited with their families in the UK. The call came as eight charities wrote an open letter condemning the bulldozing of the southern half of The Jungle. The organisations say the refugees will effectively be made homeless because no viable alternative accommodation options have been offered. Earlier an 'English Breakfast' meeting turned into a 20 hour marathon EU leaders have returned to the negotiating table after 20 hours of behind-the-scenes talks as David Cameron and European Council president Donald Tusk struggled to keep Britain's renegotiation on track. The 28 leaders had initially been due to gather early in the morning for an "English breakfast" meeting to approve a package of reforms to the UK's membership, but breakfast became brunch, lunch, high tea and then dinner as opponents of the deal dug in their heels. The delays forced Mr Cameron to scrap plans to summon ministers for a Cabinet meeting on Friday evening to endorse the deal and fix a date for the in/out referendum - widely expected on June 23. The meeting would also have given the green light to Eurosceptic ministers like Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Grayling to go out and campaign for Britain to leave Europe, and put pressure on waverers like London mayor Boris Johnson and Cabinet minister Michael Gove to spell out where they stand. Sources close to Mr Gove declined to comment on increasingly widespread reports that the Justice Secretary is preparing to throw his weight behind Brexit. Acknowledging his plans had been delayed, Mr Cameron said in a message on Twitter: "Negotiations are continuing into this evening. A Cabinet meeting won't be possible tonight. One will be held if and when a deal is done." After talks which stretched through Thursday night, Mr Tusk resumed one-to-one discussions with a series of leaders, including Mr Cameron, over the course of Friday, in the hope of forging a deal acceptable to all 28 members. By the time the leaders gathered at 8.30pm Brussels time, it was not clear whether he had found a form of words which would satisfy all of them. Mr Cameron faced concerns from eastern European countries like Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia over his call for an "emergency brake" on in-work benefits for migrant EU workers to extend for as long as 13 years. And the same nations put up stiff resistance to the UK's demand to impose cuts in child benefits for offspring living abroad on 34,000 existing claimants as well as future migrants. Meanwhile, France and Austria voiced anxiety that the protections for non-euro states sought by Mr Cameron might effectively grant special status to the City of London and allow Britain to hobble future deepening of the eurozone. President Francois Hollande said France wanted ''a financial regulation system which is valid in all parts of Europe'' with no ''right of veto'' for individual countries, while Austrian chancellor Werner Faymann said the UK must not be allowed to exercise ''a blockade against genuine banking union or other deepening of the eurozone''. Speaking on France Inter radio, Mr Hollande said he had floated a proposal for the eurozone to be given its own government, parliament and budget to make it "more dynamic", whether Britain stayed in the EU or not. "I will do what it takes for the UK to stay in Europe, but it is also necessary for Europe to be able to advance," said the French president. "There can be no special status for the UK and the City of London. "The UK's interests must be taken into account, but not to the detriment of Europe." He warned that, if Britain left the EU, other member states might consider doing the same, adding: "We must avoid national withdrawals." Belgium insisted on a "no second chance" clause in the summit conclusions to make clear that the UK would not be offered a better deal if it voted to leave the EU, in the hope of reversing the decision in a second referendum. And there was opposition to Mr Cameron's call for Britain's hoped-for exemption from the requirement to seek ever-closer union, as well as changes to the relations between euro 'ins' and 'outs' to be enshrined in law by incorporation into the EU's treaties. In a surprise move, Greece's Alexis Tsipras threatened that, unless other countries promised not to close their borders to the refugees flooding into his country, he would withhold his approval from the official summit conclusions - effectively vetoing not only the UK package but also an agreement on migration hammered out in the early hours of the morning. Arriving at the summit venue after just three hours of sleep on Friday morning, Mr Cameron promised to do ''everything I can'' to finalise a ''credible'' package of reforms. But he insisted he would not sign up to an agreement which fell short of Britain's requirements. He told reporters he was ''happy to stay until Sunday'' if need be, adding he had warned wife Samantha and their children he may not be home this weekend. As the day wore on, Mr Cameron had meetings with Mr Tusk, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Polish PM Beata Szydlo, as well as his Danish, Czech and Dutch counterparts. But Czech Europe minister Tomas Prouza suggested that the UK side was not engaging in negotiations, writing on Twitter: ''As the time passes, I am more and more perplexed by the British approach of non-negotiation. Quite unorthodox, to say the least.'' In a swipe at the PM, European Parliament president Martin Schulz said: ''We must make clear that the method 'I will tell you what you must do in order for me to stay' doesn't work. ''We have to reach out to one another. I have the impression that David Cameron sees that.'' David Cameron hailed his historic EU re-negotiation deal, declaring that he has secured Britain's "special status" in the 28 nation bloc. At the end of marathon talks in Brussels, the Prime Minister said he had achieved his negotiating aims and would be recommending the agreement to the British people in a referendum now expected to be held on June 23. "This deal has delivered on the commitments I made at the beginning of this re-negotiation process. Britain will be permanently out of 'ever closer union', never part of a European superstate," he said. "I believe that this is enough for me to recommend that the United Kingdom remains in the European Union." After finally securing the backing of the other 27 EU leaders for his plan, Mr Cameron was heading back to London to brief senior ministers at a Saturday morning meeting of the Cabinet at No 10. Mr Cameron said the deal would make the UK "stronger, safer and better off" as he set out the "once in a generation moment to shape the destiny of our country" at the referendum. "Turning our back on the EU is no solution at all," he said. "And we should be suspicious of those who claim that leaving Europe is some automatic fast track to some land of milk and honey. "We all need to step back and consider carefully what is best for Britain, what is best for our future. "Whatever the British people decide, I will make work to the best of my abilities. "But let me tell you what I believe: I do not love Brussels; I love Britain. "And my job, the job of the British Prime Minister, is doing all in my power to protect Britain's interests. "So when it comes to Europe mine is a hard-headed assessment of what is in Britain's interest." The changes fulfilled the reform objectives in the Conservatives' general election manifesto and were "legally binding" and irreversible without the agreement of all EU member states including the UK, he said. He said he was "disappointed but not surprised" that close ally, Justice Secretary Michael Gove, would be among those campaigning in favour of Brexit. "He (Mr Gove) has wanted to get Britain to pull out of the European Union for about 30 years," Mr Cameron said. "Of course, I'm disappointed that we're not going to be on the same side as we have this vital argument about our country's future - I'm disappointed but I'm not surprised." The new deal provides for a seven-year emergency brake on in-work benefits for EU migrant workers, as well as cuts in child benefit for their children living overseas - applicable immediately for new arrivals and from 2020 for the 34,000 existing claimants. It also says that EU treaties will be amended to state explicitly that references to the requirement to seek ever-closer union "do not apply to the United Kingdom". A jubilant Mr Cameron tweeted from the room where round-table discussions took place: "I have negotiated a deal to give the UK special status in the EU. I will be recommending it to Cabinet tomorrow." The Cabinet meeting will be the first to be held on a Saturday since the Falklands War, and was demanded by Eurosceptic ministers who did not want the Prime Minister to have free rein to trumpet the merits of the deal all weekend while they remained gagged. Mr Cameron has previously promised to suspend the principle of collective responsibility after the meeting, giving a green light to Eurosceptic ministers like Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Grayling to go out and campaign for Britain to leave Europe without having to quit their jobs. Waverers like London mayor Boris Johnson will now face tremendous pressure to spell out where they stand. Leaked copies of the deal indicated that a compromise deal will allow existing claimants to carry on receiving child benefit in full for offspring living overseas until 2020, but that all member states will then be able to pay them at the rate of their home country. This rate - usually lower than that paid to British parents - will be applicable immediately to all new migrants with children living abroad after the agreement comes into force. The agreement falls well short of the outright ban on sending child benefit abroad initially demanded by Mr Cameron, and marks a compromise solution with eastern European states who had insisted that existing claimants should continue to receive the full payment until their sons and daughters reach adulthood - something rejected as "not acceptable" by the Prime Minister. A lengthy section making clear that the phrase "ever closer union" in EU treaties is not "in legal terms an equivalent to political integration" was struck out, in an apparent response to Belgian sensitivities. But the new text makes clear that EU treaties will be amended to state explicitly that references to ever closer union "do not apply to the United Kingdom". An "emergency brake" on in-work welfare payments for migrant workers will be made available for seven years - with no option for extensions - in cases where member states are facing excessive strain from new arrivals. The seven year period is shorter than the 13 years put forward by Mr Cameron in negotiations, but considerably longer than eastern European nations had argued for. The deal came after behind-the-scenes talks which stretched through Thursday night and most of Friday, as Mr Cameron and European Council president Donald Tusk struggled to keep Britain's renegotiation on track. The 28 leaders had initially been due to gather early in the morning for an "English breakfast" meeting to approve a package of reforms to the UK's membership, but breakfast became brunch, lunch, high tea and then dinner as opponents of the deal dug in their heels. The delays forced Mr Cameron to scrap plans to summon ministers for a Cabinet meeting on Friday evening. Mr Cameron had faced concerns from eastern European countries like Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia over his call for an "emergency brake" on in-work benefits for migrant EU workers to extend for as long as 13 years. And the same nations put up stiff resistance to the UK's demand to impose cuts in child benefits for offspring living abroad on 34,000 existing claimants as well as future migrants. Meanwhile, France and Austria voiced anxiety that the protections for non-euro states sought by Mr Cameron might effectively grant special status to the City of London and allow Britain to hobble future deepening of the eurozone. Ex-royal butler Paul Burrell is due to learn the result of his privacy claim against jailed PR guru Max Clifford Former royal butler Paul Burrell has won a High Court privacy action against disgraced PR guru Max Clifford. A judge in London announced on Friday that his claim had succeeded - and awarded him 5,000 damages. Clifford, who is serving an eight-year jail sentence for sex offences, had branded Mr Burrell's 50,000 action for breach of confidence and misuse of private information an ''affront to common sense''. Mr Burrell said he hired Clifford to limit bad press coverage about him but, rather than stopping stories, he "betrayed" him by passing on material in a fax to Rebekah Brooks at the now-defunct News of the World. In a statement after the ruling, Mr Burrell, who was not in court, said: "I am extremely pleased with the outcome and am delighted to have been vindicated by the High Court." Lia Perin, of Taylor Hampton Solicitors, who acted for Mr Burrell, said: "This was a serious betrayal of confidence by Max Clifford. "Paul Burrell had sought Mr Clifford's assistance and reposed his trust in him at a time when he was at his most vulnerable." Deputy First Minister John Swinney has travelled to London for further discussions on the funding proposals Crunch talks over how Holyrood will be funded when MSPs are handed new powers are to resume, with the deadline for reaching a deal between the Scottish and UK governments looming. Deputy First Minister John Swinney has travelled to London for further discussions with Chief Secretary to the Treasury Greg Hands. The protracted negotiations are taking place in a bid to strike a deal over how the block grant Scotland receives from Westminster will be adjusted when tax raising powers are devolved. SNP ministers had wanted an agreement in place by February 12. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has told the Prime Minister a deal on the "ke y areas of principle" needs to be in place by the end of this week. Meanwhile, with the Scottish Parliament being dissolved next month ahead of May's elections, MSPs on the Devolution Committee have warned there would be "very substa ntial impacts" on their ability to scrutinise any proposals if talks go beyond Friday. The SNP administration in Edinburgh has been in lengthy negotiations with the UK Treasury over the fiscal framework, the financial deal which will underpin the new Scotland Bill. The two governments must agree on how Scotland's budget - the block grant - should be adjusted to take into account new tax-raising powers being transferred to Holyrood. Any deal must meet the principles of taxpayer fairness and ''no detriment'' - the idea that neither government should gain or lose financially simply as a result of the decision to devolve. The Scottish Government has already warned it will pull the plug on the Scotland Bill by recommending MSPs veto the legislation if an agreement over funding cannot be found. With the deadline looming, Mr Hands took time out from his holiday for telephone talks with the Deputy First Minister earlier this week. Mr Swinney said: "For both Parliaments to have adequate time to scrutinise an agreement it is important that we make progress. That is why I am travelling to London as part of our efforts to secure a fair deal for the people of Scotland and for the rest of the UK. "Crucially, for there to be an agreement which the Scottish Government could consider recommending we must ensure that the Barnett Formula is retained and that Scotland and the rest of the UK are no better or worse off as a result of the devolution of further powers, that is a key test of any proposal. "I remain committed to reaching an agreement that is in line with the principles of the Smith Commission." Ms Sturgeon stressed on Wednesday that the Scottish Government was " committed to reaching an agreement" but added that to achieve this " we must make substantial progress - and see significant movement from the Treasury - in a short space of time" The UK Government insists its latest offer goes ''beyond the letter of the Smith Agreement'' but says it is ''willing to compromise'' to secure a deal. However, it said the SNP administration ''has not moved from a position that is unfair to the taxpayers of England, Wales and Northern Ireland''. Meanwhile, Lord Darling, who led the Better Together campaign in the independence referendum, said the public was being kept in the dark over the funding negotiations. He told The Times newspaper: "Unless and until we know how the amount of money Scotland gets can be calculated, we can't possibly know if it is secure and stable. "I think it is a very real threat because if you have a document or a framework which is full of ambiguities and obfuscations it's inevitable that some years down the line something starts to go wrong." He added: "The only people who know anything are the Treasury and the Nationalists. The document should be in the public domain. It is simply not good enough to dump it on people in the closing hours of the debate." The imam of a mosque has died after being found with serious head injuries Muslims have been asked to remain calm as police held a man on suspicion of murder hours after a religious leader was left for dead from a brutal attack on his way home from prayers at a mosque. The victim, named locally as Jalal Uddin, was found with head injuries in a children's play area on South Street in the Wardleworth area of Rochdale on Thursday night. Detectives say a racist motive for the murder has not been ruled out but they are still investigating, with a 31-year-old man in custody. Local religious leaders have called for calm, asking for police to be allowed to do their work and for locals not to speculate about what prompted the attack. It is thought Mr Uddin, whose family is believed to be in Bangladesh, was on his way home from a friend's house, after earlier visiting a mosque, when he was assaulted between 8.40pm and 8.55pm. It is believed he was taking a shortcut through the playground on his way home after eating dinner at the friend's home. He was well known locally, and acted as a Qari, or a reciter of the Koran, at the Jalalia Jaame Masjid mosque. A major investigation has been launched by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) and a heavy police presence remains in the area, with the sight of the attack cordoned off as forensic officers continue the hunt for evidence. Dobir Miah, chief officer for the Rochdale Council of Mosques, said: "GMP are working closely with the Rochdale Council of Mosques and we remain in contact with police to offer any assistance to the investigation. "We would like to urge people to please remain calm and be reassured that everything possible is being done to find out what has happened. "Nothing has been said that suggests there is an immediate threat to people doing their day-to-day activities." Assistant Chief Constable Rebekah Sutcliffe said: "The investigation is at a really early stage and I must stress that. A man is in custody and has been arrested but at the moment we are keeping a completely open mind as to what the motive for this attack is. "I think it would be unhelpful at this stage really to speculate as to what has happened. "We really do not know what the motive for this assault was and we are really keen to understand that, and we do need people to come forward and talk to us." Ms Sutcliffe said detectives are looking at the possibility that the incident was racially motivated but added: "At the moment we just cannot say one way or the other." Police and paramedics were called at about 9pm after a member of the public found the victim critically injured. He was taken to hospital but died shortly after from his injuries. Police have not yet formally identified the victim. A Home Office post-mortem examination will take place later. In a statement on its Facebook page, the Jalalia Jaame Masjid mosque said: "It is with deep sadness we inform you that our dear Qari Jalal Uddin Saab passed away last night. "The cause of his death is yet to be confirmed, we recommend that you do not speculate but rather wait for the facts to be established by the police. "Instead we urge you to raise your hands and make sincere dua for our beloved Qari Saab. "There is not a day that would go by without seeing Qari Jalal Uddin at the masjid Subhan'Allah." A visible police presence was on site around a huge cordon surrounding the area which contained forensic tents. Officers were dotted around the cordon which also takes in the Bilal Jamia Masjid mosque in Bulwer Street, where Mr Uddin is thought to have attended for evening prayers. WASHINGTON (AP) Justice Antonin Scalia's flag-draped casket was carried up the marble steps of the Supreme Court Friday in a somber procession that began a day of ceremony and tribute to one of the court's most influential members. Scalia's eight Supreme Court colleagues, his family and nearly 100 former law clerks watched solemnly as Supreme Court police placed the casket on a funeral bier first used after President Abraham Lincoln's assassination. The Rev. Paul Scalia, the justice's son and a Catholic priest, said traditional prayers. "You have called your servant Antonin out of this world," he said. "May he rest in peace." A 2007 portrait of Scalia by artist Nelson Shanks was displayed nearby. In it, the justice is shown surrounded by images representing important moments and influences in his life, including a framed wedding photograph of his wife, Maureen. She, their nine children and three dozen grandchildren were present. Before Scalia's body arrived, his former clerks formed two lines down the court steps and across its marble plaza. A few wiped away tears after the casket arrived. The clerks will take turns standing vigil by their former boss throughout the day and night in a tradition most recently observed after the 2005 death of former Chief Justice William Rehnquist. After a private ceremony for family, friends and justices, Scalia's casket was to be on public view from 10:30 a.m. until 8 p.m. Dozens of mourners had already lined up outside the court to pay their respects. Hannah Moore and Emily Weatherspoon, both 17, were first in line just before 7 a.m. The high school seniors from Raleigh, North Carolina, were visiting Washington as part of an AP government class. "You can sleep any day. Justice Scalia only dies once," Moore said. The doors to the court chamber, where Scalia had served for nearly 30 years, were open at the east end of the hall. Black wool crepe hung over the entrance, and Scalia's courtroom chair was draped in black. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama planned to pay respects later Friday, while Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden were to attend Scalia's funeral Mass on Saturday. The Mass open to family and friends will take place Saturday at 11 a.m. at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. Burial plans have not been released. Scalia's sudden death complicated an already tumultuous election year. His death gives Obama a chance to replace the conservative stalwart with a more liberal successor who could tilt the ideological balance of the court for decades to come. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other GOP leaders have said a replacement should not be named until the next president takes office. Obama has pledged to pick a replacement "in due time" and challenged Republicans to hold a vote on his nominee. Scalia was found dead on Saturday in his room at a remote Texas hunting resort. The 79-year-old jurist was appointed to the court in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan. Michael Fallon allowed the use of RAF Lakenheath for the US air raid on a Daesh camp in Libya A US air raid on an Islamic State training camp in Libya was launched from an RAF base in Suffolk. The attack, launched from RAF Lakenheath on Friday, has been welcomed by Defence Secretary Michael Fallon. He said: "I welcome this strike that has taken out a Daesh (Islamic State) training camp being used to train terrorists to carry out attacks. "I was satisfied that its destruction makes us all safer and I personally authorised the use of our bases." A key Tunisian extremist is believed to have been killed in the attack on the camp, near the Tunisian border. US officials added that around 60 militants were present at the site when the war planes struck. In Libya, local officials estimated that more than 40 people were killed with more wounded. The Obama administration has previously vowed to strike key IS targets in Libya when opportunities arise, h owever, the strike did not appear to mark the start of a sustained US air campaign in the country. Earlier this month UK foreign office minister Tobias Ellwood confirmed that RAF war planes have already been involved in flying missions over the country but gave no further details. He said the UK was prepared to provide advice, support and training to the Libyan military if political agreement could be reached on the formation of a new government of national unity. But he said there were no plans to commit British troops directly against IS. Peers say that housebuilding regulations need to be examined Looser planning laws aimed at increasing house building risk heaping "misery" on communities, a parliamentary committee has said. The Government will fail to meet targets to deliver 200,000 new homes a year if it relies on the private sector, according to peers. But s peedy development is in danger of being prioritised over standards, the House of Lords committee on national policy for the built environment found. Peers warned they were " extremely concerned" about the state of new housing and called for reforms to ensure developers are not able to "play fast and loose" with quality. Baroness O'Cathain, chairman of the committee, said: "It is increasingly clear that we need to build more houses in England and we wholeheartedly support that objective. "However, if we build those houses in the wrong place, to a poor standard - without the consent of local communities, we are only storing up future misery for the people in those houses and others nearby." Planning rules were relaxed in England under the coalition and broad policies were set out in the National Planning Policy Framework ( NPPF). Under the reforms, a "presumption in favour of sustainable development" was introduced that meant building should go ahead if plans met the NPPF. But the changes, along with the removal of national building standards, are creating a risk that "mistakes of the past" will be repeated, according to the committee . It calls for rules allowing building on green belt in exceptional circumstances to be clarified and suggests the "brownfield first" policy should be reintroduced. The committee also said the Government must change financial rules to boost the ability of local authorities to build houses, warning that the private sector has rarely delivered 200,000 new homes a year in modern times. It said aspirations for t he quality of new developments have been "routinely too low" and urged the Government to appoint a c hief built environment adviser to champion higher standards. Baroness O'Cathain added: "Spending a little bit extra on good quality design at the outset can avert massive costs to people, society and government in the long-run. "The Government should review the National Planning Policy Framework to make sure developers aren't using financial viability to play fast and loose with design quality and sustainability. "If developers submit substandard plans local authorities should be able to ask them to think again without builders falling back on questionable viability assessments to get their way." She said: "We hope in responding to our report they will recognise that the drive for more homes must not come at the expense of quality. "Everyone deserves a home but they also deserve a good quality home, in a good quality place, that meets their needs as individuals and families. We don't think the Government's policy as it stands will deliver that." A Department for Communities and Local Government spokesman said: "We've got the country building again with new homes up 25% and the reformed planning system has given permission for 251,000 new homes in the year to September, higher than at the pre-recession peak in 2007. "We have set out the biggest, boldest and most ambitious housing plan in a generation to help a million more people into homeownership, including directly getting homes built. "Our policies ensure that all new homes are built to a high quality and local people have their say where developments should and shouldn't go." Commuters have suffered travel misery because of a spate of rail problems including broken-down trains. South West Trains (SWT) and Southeastern services into London were hit by broken-down trains, causing disruption to morning rush-hour services. SWT services into London Waterloo were also halted because of reports of a person hit by a train near Wimbledon. London Underground services were disrupted by a signal failure. Mick Cash, leader of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, said: "This morning's Tube problems are just another warning to London Underground management that they cannot play fast and loose with maintenance, renewals and track patrols as they come under intense pressure from the Government and Boris Johnson to bulldoze through massive cuts to budgets. "The Tube network has never been under such pressure and RMT is receiving regular reports now of dangerous overcrowding, a problem that is deepened by any attempt to casualise, cut and undermine safety-critical jobs across the combine. "The cuts, and the associated tampering with the Underground safety culture, have to stop." A British Transport Police spokesman said: "We were called to Earlsfield rail station in Wandsworth following reports of a woman being hit by a train. "Officers from BTP and Metropolitan Police force attended the incident, which is being treated as non-suspicious. "Paramedics from London Ambulance Service and London Fire Brigade also attended, and a woman in her 60s was taken to hospital." SWT said trains and crews were not in the correct location to start their next service after the woman was hit by a train at Earlsfield A British Transport Police spokesman said a woman in her 60s was taken to hospital after the incident. "To get trains back to their scheduled timetables some services may need to be cancelled or run non-stop between some stations," said a statement several hours after the incident, with disruption expected to continue until the end of the day. Steve Griffiths, chief operating officer for London Underground, said: "We apologise for the disruption caused to customers using the Circle, District and Hammersmith & City lines this morning. "This was caused by a signal failure at Tower Hill at around 5.40am and our engineers worked hard to fix the problem as quickly as possible. "The current work to improve London Underground is one of the largest programmes of infrastructure investment in the world. "We continue to invest all our income in modernising the service, improving safety, reliability, train capacity and frequency, and upgrading major stations to provide our customers with the service they want and need." A Muslim organisation has called for calm and unity following reports that a former imam has died after being attacked in a childrens playground on his way home from a mosque in Rochdale. The man, named locally as Qari Jalal Uddin, was understood to have been walking home from prayers at the Jalali Jame mosque on Thursday when the incident occurred. He was found by passers-by in a play area at the end of South Street, in Wardleworth, just before 9pm. Greater Manchester Police said the man, in his late 40s to early 50s, had sustained a serious head injury. He was taken to hospital, but died a short while later. Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, said Mr Uddins death was shocking and tragic. The news that a popular local Imam from Rochdale was murdered last night returning from prayers at a local mosque is shocking and tragic, he said in a statement. Whilst it is too early to speculate about the circumstances of the murder we would urge the community of Rochdale to stay united and calm. Qari Jalaluddin saab was on his return home from Jalali Jame Mosque when he died. We pay tribute to him and his unique contribution to our community in Rochdale. We offer our sincere condolences and prayers to his family, friends and the wider community. Police have not confirmed reports that Mr Uddin was attacked, but the Ramadhan Foundation - which aims to foster community cohesion - urged all mosques in Rochdale to consider emergency security precautions and facilities to help local people return home safely from the mosque. A major investigation has been launched into Mr Uddin's death by police, with a Home Office post mortem due to take place later today. Detective Superintendent Jon Chadwick, of GMPs serious crime division, said: A man has sadly died after being found injured by passing members of the public, and we are now doing all we can to try and identify who he is, so that we can speak with and support this mans family. Our investigation is at an early stage but we are keen to hear from anyone who may have been in the area near to where he was found in Wardleworth last night, as we work to establish how this man came to suffer his head injury. Superintendent Rick Jackson said police officers are carrying out extra patrols of the area. If you have concerns or believe you may have seen, heard or know anything that can assist this investigation then please approach one of these officers, he said. There has been a lot of speculation on social media about what has happened but I would to ask that people allow us to investigate this incident and if you have information then please contact police. Anyone with information should call the police on 101 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111 Viola Beach have not reached number one, despite a fan-led campaign to pay tribute to the band who were killed in a car crash at the weekend. The indie band made their official singles chart top 20 debut at number 11 with their song Swings & Waterslides, but failed to break the top 10. Kris Leonard, River Reeves, Tomas Lowe and Jack Dakin were killed alongside their manager Craig Tarry when their car plunged off a bridge into a canal in Sweden in the early hours of Saturday morning. Musicians including Paloma Faith, Gabrielle Aplin, The Stone Roses, Kasabian and Liam Gallagher called on their followers to help with the campaign to get them to number one. Following news of the tragedy, Swings & Waterslides entered the official singles chart and had reached number nine by Wednesday, according to figures from the Official Charts Company - but it slipped down to 11 by the end of the week. However, the single remains at the top of the iTunes songs chart after reaching number one on Thursday. The band's record label Communion has confirmed that the proceeds from the sale of singles will go to the families of the band and their manager. Danish quartet Lukas Graham retained the top spot with their single, 7 years. Frontman Lukas Graham said: "We're surprised, ecstatic, vibrant and exultant about the success of 7 years! It's very satisfying when you see your song at the top of the charts. "7 Years seems to have attracted a lot of age groups - people seem to see their own lives in the song and it's great to see so many people reacting in that way to it." The single racked up 134,000 combined sales, including 5.18 million streams, to hold the top spot. This is almost 30,000 more than their total last week, which also earned them a number one. Adele has also reclaimed her spot at the top of the official albums chart, returning to number one with 25 after losing out to David Bowie and Coldplay in the last five weeks. This is 25's eighth non-consecutive week at number one. US planes have struck multiple targets in Libya, hitting an Islamic State training camp and a senior extremist leader, American defence officials said. More than 40 people were killed and others wounded, some critically, according to local officials. One official described the strikes as being carried out "against an Isil training camp" and said an attack near Sabratha, not far from the Tunisian border, probably killed IS operative Noureddine Chouchane, who is believed to be Tunisian. The official said up to 60 people were at the camp at the time of the strike. A witness in the city said he heard two explosions coming from the nearby village of Qasr Talel. He said the house that was targeted belongs to Abdel-Hakim al-Mashawat, known locally as an IS militant. The official Facebook page of Sabratha city council put the death toll at over 40 with more wounded. "There are torn body parts buried under the rubble," it said in a posting. It noted that the victims were not all Libyans. The witness said he saw a hospital list that noted victims were also from Tunisia and Algeria. Sabratha is one of the main launching points for smugglers' boats heading to Europe. It has been also a transit point for North African jihadists joining IS affiliates in their strongholds in the central city of Sirte and eastern cities such as Benghazi. US President Barack Obama earlier this year directed his national security team to bolster counter-terrorism efforts in Libya while also pursuing diplomatic possibilities for solving its political crisis. US officials had said they were holding off on sustained military action against IS targets in Libya until a government was formed, a process that is still incomplete The US military has been closely monitoring IS movements in Libya, and small teams of military personnel have moved in and out of the country over a period of months. British, French and Italian special forces have also been in Libya helping with aerial surveillance, mapping and intelligence gathering in several cities, including Benghazi in the east and Zintan in the west, according to Libyan military officials who are co-ordinating with them. Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook confirmed the targeted extremist was Chouchane, a Tunisian national who was "an Isil senior facilitator in Libya associated with the training camp". Mr Cook said Tunisian officials in May 2015 named Chouchane as a suspect in a March 18 2015 attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunis. "He facilitated the movement of potential Isil-affiliated foreign fighters from Tunisia to Libya and onward to other countries," Mr Cook said. "Destruction of the camp and Chouchane's removal will eliminate an experienced facilitator and is expected to have an immediate impact on Isil's ability to facilitate its activities in Libya, including recruiting new Isil members, establishing bases in Libya, and potentially planning external attacks on US interests in the region." Another official said the US believes Chouchane was killed. He said the attack did not herald the start of a sustained US air campaign in Libya but was an example of opportunistic strikes targeting key IS operatives. The last of the Angola Three inmates still behind bars has been released after more than four decades in a US prison. Albert Woodfox was freed on Friday after pleading no contest to manslaughter and aggravated burglary in the 1972 death of a prison guard. Woodfox and two other men became known as the Angola Three for their decades-long stays in isolation at the Louisiana Penitentiary at Angola and other state prisons. Prison officials said they were kept in solitary because their Black Panther Party activism would otherwise rile up inmates. Woodfox consistently maintained his innocence in the killing of guard Brent Miller. He was awaiting a third trial in the case when he was released from custody. Woodfox turned 69 on Friday. Migrants walk between registration tents at the border with Slovenia in Spielfeld, Austria (AP) Austria vowed to press ahead with plans to cap the number of asylum seekers entering the country despite claims the move would break the law. The pledge came as EU leaders struggled to end their fragmented approach to managing Europe's biggest refugee emergency since the Second World War. In tense late night talks in Brussels, the leaders also decided to hold a summit in early March with Turkey, which has been the source of hundreds of thousands of people arriving in the EU over the last year. More than 1 million people entered the EU in 2015 fleeing conflict or poverty, and some 84,000 have entered so far this year. Overwhelmed by the numbers and frustrated by their inability to agree on an effective European response, some EU countries have begun tightening border controls or putting up fences without warning their neighbours. In the latest in a series of unilateral measures by nations, Austria announced that it would allow no more than 80 people a day to apply for asylum at its southern border points, as of Friday. But the EU's senior migration official, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said: "Austria has a legal obligation to accept any asylum application that is made on its territory or at its border." In a letter to Austrian interior minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner, Mr Avramopoulos said a ceiling on asylum-seekers "would be plainly incompatible with Austria's obligations" under EU and international law. Austria's chancellor, Werner Faymann, was not moved, saying his country would only accept 37,500 applications this year as planned. "Last year, we had around 6,000 more asylum applications than Italy. We have had a lot more asylum seekers than France. And anyone who has ever looked at a map knows that, for example, those two countries are larger than Austria and also have more inhabitants," he told reporters at the summit. The new rift laid bare the frustration of nations destabilised by the arrival of so many people, and the lack of confidence that any efficient European solution can be found. Belgian prime minister Charles Michel said the room was divided "between those who believe we can find solutions together and those who prefer to act alone". European Parliament president Martin Schulz pointed to selfishness and a lack of solidarity. "The problem is that everyone sees the situation from their individual standpoint and waits for the other to move first in implementing those necessary solutions," he said. "Lamentably, this crisis is exposing serious fault lines within our union." Greece has been overwhelmed by the entry of some 850,000 people last year, mostly from Turkey. Thousands are still entering every week, the Greek coastguard has been overwhelmed, and the country has barely 10,000 places to shelter those arriving. The EU has given Greece three months to restore order on its borders, but few believe Athens will be able to meet the deadline. In calling a summit with Turkey in just a few weeks, the leaders are looking at ways to persuade it to deliver on its pledge to crack down on migrants trying to cross into Greece. No migrants were arriving at the main border crossing with Slovenia on Friday - a situation police said might be due to bad weather in the Aegean Sea. Police spokesman Fritz Grundnig, at the Spielfeld crossing, said the reason is not clear but "we assume that there was a weather problem in the Aegean a couple of days ago". Former taoiseach Garret FitzGerald pleaded with Ronald Reagan to pile pressure on Margaret Thatcher over the hunger strikes Kieran Doherty died in the Maze prison in 1981 after being on a hunger strike Michael Fassbender stars in Hunger, the film about the last six weeks in the life of Bobby Sands Jonathan Porter/Presseye.com - Press Eye Ltd -Northern Ireland - 1st March 2011. Launch of the Hunger Strike 30th Anniversary Exhibition in the Linen Hall Library, Belfast. Ten republican prisoners died during the 1981 protest inside the Maze Prison. A letter written by Bobby Sands on cigarette paper which was smuggled out of the prison pictured at the exhibition. Several unionist politicians have called for Maze cells which housed hunger strikers to be flattened Hunger striker Bobby Sands funeral procession making its way down Stewartstown Road on Route to Milltown cemetery Deceased hunger striker Bobby Sands (seated fourth from left). The Star of the Sea football team. A man walks past the Bobby Sands mural, in the Falls road area of Belfast PACEMAKER BELFAST Rioting in west Belfast on the day hunger striker Bobby Sands died in 1981 Hunger strike marchers blocked by gardai as they approach the British Embassy in Dublin Hunger striker Bobby Sands' coffin, flanked by an IRA colour party, leaving his mother's home in Twinbrook. Bobby Sands' son Robert Gerald holds his mother's hand at the funeral of his father Bobby in west Belfast flanked by Masked IRA men. Picture by Martin Wright US presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders appealed to Margaret Thatcher to end the "humiliation and abuse" of IRA prisoners in the hunger strikes, papers show. The US senator, widely considered the frontrunner to secure the Democratic Party's nomination, wrote: "We are deeply disturbed by your government's unwillingness to stop the abuse, humiliation and degrading treatment of Irish prisoners now on hunger strikes in Northern Ireland. "We ask you to end your intransigent policy towards the prisoners before the reputation of the English people for fair play and simple decency is damaged." The correspondence was found in the senator's archive, held by the University of Vermont. In a separate development it emerged that the Irish Government's failure to extradite to the UK a priest wanted for trial on terrorist offences enraged the former prime minister. Released State papers detail the anger in Cabinet when the then Irish attorney general failed to act on a request for Fr Patrick Ryan to be sent to Britain, where he was wanted for alleged IRA activities. Mrs Thatcher said the controversial affair "sapped confidence" that the Irish authorities would tackle paramilitaries. Ryan was arrested by Belgian police who found large quantities of cash and bomb-making equipment in his home, two months after the IRA killed three off-duty servicemen in the Netherlands. Although British authorities tried to extradite him to the UK, he was instead sent back to Ireland in November 1988. A memo from a Cabinet meeting under a week after Ryan was sent to Ireland details how documents had been sent to the then Irish attorney general John Murray illustrating why Ryan was wanted. Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher PA A man walks past the Bobby Sands mural, in the Falls road area of Belfast Former PM Margaret Thatcher / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher But Patrick Mayhew, the then British attorney general was unable to get in contact with his opposite number for several days. Mayhew said Murray had been in possession of the documents for five-and-a-half days but had done nothing to facilitate the move. "It had been pointed out to them that he (Ryan) was in possession of a great deal of vital information for combating terrorism in the Irish Republic as well as the United Kingdom," the memo of the Cabinet meeting read. "The prime minister, summing up the discussion, said that the behaviour of the Irish authorities in the Ryan case sapped confidence in their willingness to combat terrorism in the spirit of the Anglo-Irish Agreement and made that Agreement appear to many as a hollow sham." The extradition request was eventually rejected after two weeks because Mr Murray said the priest would not receive a fair trial. Mrs Thatcher said in Parliament the claim was a "great insult to the people of this country". At the time, Ryan said in an interview that he had raised money for nationalist causes but never bought explosives for the IRA. Government ministers, state governors, health agents and members of the armed forces are visiting schools throughout Brazil to involve students in the nationwide campaign to eradicate the mosquito that spreads the Zika virus. The Health Ministry said on its website that schools in Brasilia, in the country's 26 state capitals and in 115 cities will be visited on Friday. The ministry said the objective is to raise awareness of the importance of eliminating the breeding ground of the Aedes aegypti mosquito that also transmits dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. Many health officials believe Zika is linked to severe birth defects. The Education Ministry said nearly 190,000 basic education schools, universities and vocational training centres are being visited. The mosquito lives largely inside homes and can lay eggs in even a bottle-cap's worth of stagnant water. The dishes beneath potted plants are a favorite spot, as are abandoned tyres, bird feeders and even puddles of rainwater that collect in the folds of plastic tarpaulins. Zika's immediate effects are mild, consisting mostly of a moderate fever and a rash, and only a fifth of those afflicted notice any symptoms. But Brazilian authorities also say they have detected a spike in cases of microcephaly, a condition that leaves infants with unusually small heads and can result in brain damage and numerous developmental and health problems. The link between Zika and microcephaly remains unproven. Since October, 5,280 suspected cases of microcephaly have been reported, Brazil's Health Ministry said. Of those, 508 had been confirmed and 837 discarded. Of the confirmed cases, 41 have been connected to Zika. Meanwhile, the head of the World Health Organisation's Zika response team is predicting that Brazil will host a "fantastic Olympics" and that the mosquito-borne virus will be "way down" by the time the Games begin in Rio de Janeiro on August 5. Bruce Aylward, executive director for outbreaks and health emergencies, said the mosquito population is expected to drop off in the area around Rio since it will be the southern hemisphere's winter. He said Olympic venues are also in a relatively confined area, making it easier for authorities to control the local mosquito population. MPs clear the hall after a tear gas canister was released during a parliamentary session (AP) Opposition policymakers in Kosovo have repeatedly used tear gas to block work in parliament as they pressure the government to renounce deals with Serbia and Montenegro. The session was initially suspended for about 50 minutes after a tear gas canister was launched from opposition seats. The session resumed, but was suspended again an hour later for the same reason. After the use of the tear gas for a third time, speaker Kadri Veseli, wearing a gas mask, could not keep his governing MPs from leaving the hall due to the gas. Then police forcefully removed all opposition members. One of them, Albulena Haxhiu, fainted while trying to re-enter and clashed with police guarding the main entrance. Mr Veseli said the session will resume after the problems, which occurred d espite security checks at the entrance at the beginning of the day. Outside parliament a few hundred opposition supporters gathered shouting anti-government slogans. Opposition MPs are determined not to allow normal operations at parliament, demanding the government's resignation and fresh elections. Since September, the opposition has disrupted parliament with tear gas, pepper spray, whistles and water bottles. They reject a deal between Kosovo and Serbia, reached last year, which gives more powers to ethnic Serbs in Kosovo. They are also against a border demarcation deal with Montenegro. In December, the Constitutional Court decided that part of the deal with Serbia was not in line with the constitution. Deputy prime minister and foreign minister Hashim Thaci, of the governing Democratic Party of Kosovo, said the government is determined to continue its daily agenda, and condemned the use of tear gas as "ugly". "Opposition reaction may continue but they should get used to the idea that they cannot come to power by violence," Mr Thaci said. Kosovo's Western backers have denounced the violence, calling on the opposition to resolve the political crisis in parliament. Kosovo's 2008 independence has been recognised by 111 countries, including the US and major European Union nations, but it is rejected by Serbia, with support from Russia, which has blocked Kosovo from becoming a UN member. Kosovo and Serbia are holding EU-mediated talks to try to overcome their differences. Police said they detained three opposition MPs and three other people for illegal possession of tear gas canisters. The session resumed successfully at the fourth attempt, but without the opposition members who denounced the decision to expel them as illegal. Turkish army commanders, ministers and family members attend funeral prayers for some of the 28 victims (AP) A Kurdish militant group has claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack in the Turkish capital which killed 28 people. In a statement posted on its website, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons group said it carried out the attack in Ankara to avenge Turkish military operations against Kurdish rebels in south-east Turkey. The Turkey-based group is an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. Ankara had blamed a US-backed Syrian Kurdish militia group for the attack, saying it acted in collaboration with the PKK. Turkish authorities earlier detained three more suspects in connection with the bombing. The Anadolu news agency said authorities have taken 17 people into custody as part of the investigation into Wednesday's suicide car bombing, which targeted buses carrying military personnel. It said the latest suspects were believed to be linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. The arrests came as Turkey's military pushed ahead with a cross-border artillery shelling campaign against US-backed Syrian Kurdish militia positions in northern Syria. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said three of the detained suspects are believed to have played "an active part" in the attack. Prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the attack was carried out by a Syrian national who was a member of the People's Protection Units, or YPG. He said rebels of the PKK, which has led a more than 30-year insurgency against Turkey, were also behind the attack. Mr Erdogan said Turkish authorities were certain that the YPG and its political arm, the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, were behind the bombing and said Turkey was saddened by its Western allies' failure to brand them as terrorist groups. Anadolu reported that Turkish artillery units were "intermittently" firing shells into Syria, targeting militia positions near the village of Ayn Daqna, south of the town of Azaz. The leader of the main Syrian Kurdish group, Salih Muslim, denied his group was behind the bombing, and warned Turkey against taking ground action in Syria. The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, also known as TAK, named the bomber as Abdulbaki Sonmez. "This act was conducted to avenge the massacre of defenceless, injured civilians," the group said, in reference to a large-scale Turkish security operation against militants in the town of Cizre. Rights groups have raised serious concerns over the operation in the town, which has been placed under a curfew that prevents journalists and observers from entering. The group threatened further attacks in Turkey. Most recently, TAK had claimed a mortar attack in December at Istanbul's second airport that killed a cleaner. It said the attack was in retaliation for the military's stepped-up operations against the PKK. Syria Democratic Forces said their fighters captured the town of Shaddadeh A predominantly Kurdish militia force in Syria has captured a major stronghold from the Islamic State group in the country's north east, according to activists and officials. Syria Democratic Forces fighters captured the town of Shaddadeh after sunset on Friday, said spokesman Talal Sillo. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the town fell to SDF forces under the cover of air strikes by the US-led coalition. SDF has become one of the most effective forces fighting IS and the capture of Shaddadeh boosts the group's image as a faction fighting the extremists. Mr Sillo said: "We have fully liberated Shaddadeh," adding that the next step is to remove booby traps and explosives left behind by extremists. Earlier, in a setback to international efforts to resolve Syria's devastating civil war, it was indicated that peace talks will not resume next week. UN special envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said the talks will not resume in Geneva on February 25 as he had previously hoped. He said that he cannot "realistically" get the parties in the conflict back to the table by then, "but we intend to do so soon". Meanwhile, Russia has called for an urgent Security Council meeting over the deteriorating situation at the Turkish border. A statement on the Russian foreign ministry's website said it intends to submit a draft council resolution calling on Turkey to "cease any actions that undermine Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity". Fighting has fighting intensified in Syria over recent weeks and a deadline to cease military activities was not observed. The US, Russia and other world powers agreed on February 12 on a deal calling for the ceasing of hostilities within a week, the delivery of urgently needed aid to besieged areas of Syria and a return to peace talks in Geneva. Mr de Mistura halted the latest Syria talks on February 3 because of major differences between the two sides, exacerbated by increased aerial bombings and a wide military offensive by Syrian troops and their allies under the cover of Russian air strikes. Lech Walesa, Poland's revered anti-communist leader and former president, has denied claims that he informed on people to the communist regime or took money from the secret security service. He was reacting to claims by a state history institute that recently seized documents showed a commitment to provide information signed with Mr Walesa's name and codename, Bolek, as well as reports and receipts for money, dating from 1970-76. "I was never broken (into collaboration) in December 1970, I did not collaborate with the (secret security), I never took money and never made any spoken or written report on anyone," he wrote in a blog. In 1970 Mr Walesa was a workers' protest leader and in 1976 was fired from his shipyard job. In 1980 he led the Solidarity freedom movement that eventually ousted the communists. Head of the National Remembrance Institute, Lukasz Kaminski, has said the documents look authentic but historians still need to check whether what they contain is true. Mr Walesa said in the blog that during the many raids on his home and workplaces, secret police seized his handwritten notes, also from a 1970 worker protest, that can now be "used as information on people". He is a globally recognised symbol of Poland's successful and peaceful struggle against communism and its transition to democracy. He won the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in ending communism in Poland and across eastern Europe. Observers note that the documents, for decades held at the home of the last communist interior minister, are being revealed now as Poland has a new right-wing ruling party that has voiced allegations against Mr Walesa. The party leaders maintain it was a corrupt deal that Solidarity struck with the communist authorities in 1989 that paved the way for democracy. Police search a Palestinian near the scene of the attack in Jerusalem (AP) Three Palestinian attackers have been killed in separate assaults on Israeli forces, including a stabbing in Jerusalem's Old City that left two officers wounded before one of them overpowered and killed the attacker. The assaults were the latest in a five-month wave of Palestinian violence that shows no sign of abating. In the Jerusalem attack, a 20-year-old Palestinian "walked through Damascus Gate and then turned around with a knife in his hand, ran at the officers and attacked them", a police spokeswoman said. One of the officers suffered knife wounds to the head, and the other was cut in the hand and struggled with the attacker before shooting him. Palestinian attackers have carried out numerous assaults at the Damascus Gate over the past five months, prompting Israel to significantly beef up security. The other two attacks took place in the West Bank during clashes with soldiers. A Palestinian rammed his car into troops during a "violent riot" near the city of Ramallah before troops opened fire and killed him, the military said. Later near Bethlehem, two Palestinians shot at soldiers who returned fire, killing one and wounding the other. The assaults were the latest in months of near-daily Palestinian attacks against civilians and security personnel, mostly stabbings, shootings and attacks in which cars are used to ram into Israelis. Since mid-September, 28 Israelis have been killed. During that time, 165 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, the majority said by Israel to be attackers. The rest died in clashes with security forces. Earlier on Friday, mourners gathered for the funeral of an off-duty soldier, 21-year-old Sergeant Tuvia Yanai Weissman, who was stabbed to death the day before by two Palestinian teenagers who attacked him and another shopper in a West Bank supermarket. The US Consulate in Jerusalem said Sgt Weissman was an American citizen. In a North Country snowstorm, when the winds howl down from the notches, the people of New Hampshire know how to communicate. They don't whisper. They shout. And the shout that roared down from the hills to the cities, the seacoast and the anxious nation beyond the state's natural boundaries had an unmistakable message: Outsiders rule, or at least should rule. But as clear as that message was - it carried businessman Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders to decisive New Hampshire primary triumphs there was a strong undertone to the raging tempest. It suggested that while New Hampshire had decided, one of the things that it had decided is that there were far more decisions to be made. For the Democrats, that didn't mean that Sanders, who as a socialist is an outsider's outsider, has a lock on the Democratic presidential nomination. It meant merely that he had the combination to the hearts of the contemporary Democratic Party. For the Republicans, it meant that Trump had discovered and captured a powerful sense of rebellion that even the establishment Republicans who performed well in New Hampshire must in the next several weeks heed and harness. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton still must be regarded as the favorite for the Democrats' August prize, but her slight victory in Iowa combined with her devastating defeat in New Hampshire is a sure sign that her campaign lacks the profile and passion expected or required of a front-runner. Indeed, Clinton's performance put her on the low, losing side of a landslide, for the margin that Sanders built against a once-inevitable candidate was roughly the size of the 1972 Richard Nixon defeat of Sen. George McGovern, a candidate for whom Clinton campaigned. And, for the Republicans, the (relatively) strong showings of Gov. John Kasich of Ohio and former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida are fresh signals that, while Trump has won the heart of many Republican rebels, these two men still have a claim on the GOP's head. The struggle in the Republican Party, which still includes Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who won the Iowa caucuses, is one between insurrectionists and insiders. But New Hampshire certainly will be remembered as the humbling hour of Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who, in an unforgettable weekend debate confrontation with Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, was revealed to have a political persona as thin as the glaze on a Coos County windshield on a frosty February morning. For only eight days earlier, Rubio, after delivering a remarkable Iowa speech that somehow transformed a third-place finish into a near triumph, was regarded as the candidate with the highest ceiling. Yet from the start, Rubio was an awkward if not a bad fit for the Granite State. Earlier in the campaign, a reporter for The Conway Daily Sun, up in the Mount Washington Valley, compared listening to Rubio to "watching a computer algorithm designed to cover talking points," adding: "He said a lot, but at the same time said nothing. It was like someone wound him up, pointed him towards the doors and pushed play." The night surely belonged to the unlikely couple of Trump and Sanders, but it also belonged to Kasich, who ran a classic New Hampshire campaign, even forgoing six of the seven final days before the Iowa caucuses to campaign in the small towns, fraternal lodges, church basements and college-commons rooms of the state. It turned out that Bush, punished for months for being a foil to Trump, profited by that profile in New Hampshire. In a Twitter message, he taunted the billionaire, saying: "You aren't just a loser, you are a liar and a whiner." Trump dismissed his rival as having a "breakdown" and being "an embarrassment to his family." Cruz was unable to match his Iowa performance, but that was more adherence to form than a break from custom. Four years ago, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania won the Iowa caucuses only to finish in single digits in New Hampshire. Cruz, who, like Santorum, profited from the support of religious conservatives in Iowa, now points to South Carolina, where that constituency is a powerful force. The shooting happened at the southern end of the Las Vegas Strip Two women have been killed and a man wounded in a shooting on the Las Vegas Strip. Police said the shootings happened after a fight broke out at Planet Hollywood at the southern end of the tourist hotspot. Officers were called after a car drove into the valet parking area of the nearby Cosmopolitan hotel-casino with a fatally injured woman and a wounded man inside. A second woman was found in the street at the scene of the shooting and died hours later. The injured man was taken to University Medical Centre. Police say they are reviewing surveillance video of the fight. The shots were fired from one car into another after an argument at the Miracle Mile shops. Surveillance video shows a scuffle, which is broken up by security guards, and a man with a gun gets into a 2015 Toyota Camry moments later. Police said shots were fired from the Camry into a Hyundai, which then rolled to a stop, bumping another vehicle with a woman slumped behind the wheel. Police in Uganda have arrested opposition leader Kizza Besigye at his party's headquarters after heavily armed officers surrounded the building and a helicopter fired tear gas at a crowd. Vote counting continued in the country's tumultuous elections as Mr Besigye challenges President Yoweri Museveni at the ballot box. Semujju Nganda, a spokesman for Mr Besigye's Forum for Democratic Change party, said police took him to an unknown location, and later fired tear gas and live ammunition into the air as warning shots, as well as detonating stun grenades. Mr Besigye had been holding a meeting with other leaders of his party in Kampala, said an aide, Ingrid Turinawe. "The police basically invaded us," she said. Armed police also parked their trucks near the gate of the home of another presidential candidate, former prime minister Amama Mbabazi. Josephine Mayanja-Nkangi, a spokeswoman for Mr Mbabazi, said he understood the deployment means he cannot leave his house. Protesters erected barricades of stones on the road leading to Uganda's only international airport. Police fired tear gas and struck demonstrators with sticks. Voting on Thursday suffered delays in delivery of voting materials, especially in areas seen as opposition strongholds. Voting is still taking place at 36 polling stations in Kampala and the neighbouring district of Wakiso. The government also shut down sites such as Twitter and Facebook, but using virtual private networks, many Ugandans are slowly getting back on social media. Mr Besigye was also briefly arrested late on Thursday after visiting a house in Kampala where he suspected ballot-stuffing was taking place. Police said the house was a security facility and accused him of trespassing on government property. Mr Besigye's party is running its own tally centre and claimed some results being announced by the election commission are a "concoction", Ms Turinawe said, noting that the election commission is announcing results according to tallies from polling stations, not according to districts as had been expected. Provisional results released on Friday showed Uganda's long-time president with an early lead over Mr Besigye. Final results are expected on Saturday. More than 15 million people were registered to vote, with members of parliament also up for election. Mr Museveni, 71, took power in 1986 and pulled Uganda out of years of chaos. He is a key US ally on security matters, especially in Somalia. Hs critics worry he may want to rule for life, and accuse him of using security forces to intimidate and harass the opposition. Mr Besigye, 59, was Mr Museveni's personal physician during a bush war and served as deputy interior minister in his first cabinet. He broke with the president in 1999, saying he was no longer a democrat. Put down that quarter-pounder with cheese, you evil glutton. The vegans are on the march and if they can't take you by force, they'll do it with emotional blackmail. See that cute little calf getting a loving lick from his mother? Well, he's for the chop and it's all down to you and your filthy, insatiable appetite for meat and dairy. I mean, why not just dice up a puppy and turn it into a tasty fricassee for dinner? People need to be taught, using dodgy anthropomorphism if necessary, that eating dog is no different from eating cow. Meat is murder, whatever way you look at it. So is taking eggs from hens, wickedly stealing their would-be children. Butter's bad - it doesn't belong to you. And don't get us started on leather or wool. Or honey. Think of the poor bees, sobbing their tiny hearts out. This seemed to be the implicit message behind a hyper-emotive advertising campaign that ran on buses and billboards across Ireland at the end of last year. It was the first-ever vegan campaign in Europe, and it aimed straight for the heart rather than the thinking parts. 'Dairy takes babies from their mothers,' said one ad, with the aforementioned cute calf and his mammy. Another showed an emaciated calf behind bars with the words: 'Milk: a mother's worst loss.' A third featured a different calf - to be honest, the whole enterprise was pretty bovine-heavy, perhaps because calves are more cuddly and appealing than beady-eyed hens - staring soulfully into the camera saying: 'My life is as valuable to me as yours is to you.' Well, it wasn't actually speaking because animals, you know, can't talk, but that's what we have vegan activists for. By a miraculous process of osmosis they can tell us what cows are really thinking. According to the campaigners, Go Vegan Ireland, the idea was to "give the animals the opportunity to look right at the viewer; to tell them how we harm them; to ask for what they want". I have no problem with people choosing to become vegan. I respect their choice. Although I eat meat myself, I live with two vegetarians and I count quite a few vegans among my friends. As far as I can see they just get on with it, feeling no particular evangelical urge to shove their views down anyone else's throats. Unfortunately, that's not enough for some vegans. Like proselytising preachers, they take to the streets, airwaves or social media and instruct the rest of us to join them in the true faith if we consider ourselves to be good people. Sometimes this takes the relatively benign form of gushing about how egg-free meringues can be made from chickpea brine (mmm, yummy), but it often goes worryingly further. The shadow Environment Secretary Kerry McCarthy, a vegan herself, says that meat-eaters should be treated like smokers and should be targeted with public ad campaigns to stop them eating the stuff. That's bad enough, but then there are the real nutters: the small minority fired up with quasi-religious fervour who feel inspired to go on a minor vegan jihad. For instance, a pub in Norfolk was forced to remove foie gras from its Valentine's menu after being targeted by vegan activists. Apparently the King's Arms in Fleggburgh was barraged with emails, texts and hoax phone calls, including about 200 death threats. I don't quite see how that fits with veganism as an ethical mindset that promotes non-violence. Aren't humans animals too? I do share some vegan concerns about animal welfare. Like many, I dislike the cruel practice of making foie gras - banned in the UK - by force-feeding geese or ducks so that their livers expand. I have serious issues with elements of the meat industry: the mass-produced chickens forced into growth so fast that their legs can't take their weight, the anaemic pork from pigs raised on plastic mats who never see the light of day. But that doesn't prove that eating meat is wrong; just that we're not eating the best kind of meat in the best way. It's not an either/or situation. Vegans are entitled to their views. They can dine on pickled carrots or chickpea pavlova while I reserve my right to tuck into an ethically-sourced, medium-rare Dexter beef burger - with cheese! - whenever I please. Or even have a McDonald's, if that's what you fancy. Whatever the morally superior militants might say, the choice is up to you. Heres todays dispatch from the crossroads of faith, media and culture. Risen opens nationwide in theaters tomorrow (2/19). Synopsis (from the films website): Risen is the epic Biblical story of the Resurrection, as told through the eyes of a non-believer. Clavius (Joseph Fiennes), a powerful Roman military tribune, and his aide, Lucius (Tom Felton), are tasked with solving the mystery of what happened to Jesus in the weeks following the crucifixion, in order to disprove the rumors of a risen Messiah and prevent an uprising in Jerusalem. Directed by Kevin Reynolds. Screenplay by Kevin Reynolds and Paul Aiello. Review: Joseph Fiennes (who played another sort of Jesus pursuer in the excellent 2003 biopic Luther) does an effective job portraying Clavius, a Roman-era Lt. Gerard (of Fugitive fame) in hot pursuit of a man who has already been executed. Of course, his prey is actually in pursuit of him (and all of us) and also happens to be the Son of God. All in all, the film offers a truly original perspective on the days following the Crucifixion, strong writing and production values and excellent performances, particularly by Fiennes, Felton, Peter Firth (as Pontius Pilate), Maria Botto (as Mary Magdalene), Stewart Scudamore (as Peter) and Cliff Curtis (as Jesus). For those wondering when current-day Hollywood would seriously produce a quality faith-based biblical movie with genuine mainstream appeal, I think that significant moment in time has arrived. Although its not nearly as significant as the one depicted in the film. Risen is Highly Recommended. John W. Kennedy is a writer/development consultant specializing in teleplays, screenplays and novelizations. He can be reached at john@jwkmedia.com. Encourage one another and build each other up 1 Thessalonians 5:11 SB Nations come under a lot of fire since publishing and subsequently pulling an almost-12,000 word piece on convicted rapist Daniel Holtzclaw Wednesday (cached version available here), and now it seems that piece may have larger implications for the sites longform program. Sydney Ember and Daniel Victor of The New York Times wrote Thursday night that SBN parent Vox Media is planning to conduct an internal review that will be led by Lockhart Steele, the companys editorial director, and Deadspins Greg Howard obtained a Vox Media-wide memo from SB Nation vice-president (editorial) Kevin Lockland Friday that not only goes into detail about that review, but includes that the sites longform program will be suspended while the review is ongoing: We are launching an internal peer review on the process and sequence of events that led up to our publication of this story as well as systemic and organizational factors ranging from how our team is resourced to our efforts to build a more diverse and inclusive culture. Because the review involves my team, I cannot be involved as an objective reviewer. Vox Media Editorial Director Lockhart Steele will lead the review, about which hell have more to say. While the review is being conducted, we have agreed with Lock to put the SB Nation longform program on temporary hiatus. Following the peer review, before we resume longform publishing, well make whatever adjustments are necessary to prevent something like this from happening again. In addition, we are severing ties with the freelancer who wrote the story and will not be working with him again. Howard adds Going by what weve heard, it wouldnt be a surprise if Glenn Stout, proprietor and editor of the Longform vertical, is done at SB Nation. That would certainly be a major change, but its notable that the Times quotes Stout as praising the Holtzclaw article extensively when it came out: The article was a nuanced portrait that never loses sight of the fact that women were victimized, the editor, Glenn Stout, wrote. I think people will be talking about this one. He was right, but not in the way he had hoped. Stout is a huge name in the sportswriting world, as hes the long-time series editor of the annual Best American Sportswriting books. Hes also overseen a lot of very impressive longform pieces at SB Nation, including ones on Mel Hall, mountain climbing and a 2008 street-racing disaster. Parting ways with him over this piece would be a huge change, and not necessarily a good one. However, we dont know what happened behind the scenes here and what his involvement was. Its positive that Vox is doing a major review, and that its being led by a long-time web media executive in Steele (who was Gawker Medias managing editor and also founded and ran the Curbed Network, now part of Vox); well see what it concludes and what, if any, personnel changes happen as a result. Its also possible SB Nation may be rethinking their overall commitment to longform in the wake of the criticism this piece has brought, and the wake of pieces like this one from Deadspins Barry Petchesky that blasted longform in general, not just this specific story. Those critics arent necessarily right, but they have made longform appear less positive overall, and its certainly entirely possible that SBN could change its course on longform after seeing the blowback here. It would be unfortunate to see them abandon or move away from a medium that theyve produced great work in, but its not an inconceivable outcome. A lot of what happens next for SBN may depend on the outcome of this review and whats found there. Well also see how much of the review and its conclusions, if any, they make public. A request for comment to Vox Media communications director Fay Sliger Friday wasnt returned by publication. SB Nation editorial director Spencer Hall wrote Wednesday when they pulled the piece that Were reviewing all of our processes in light of this failure. There are a lot of them, and I promise to talk in detail about them publicly while we work through all of them. Hopefully SB Nation will live up to that. This was a major mistake; Hall wrote that this was a complete breakdown of a part of the editorial process at SB Nation, while Lockland wrote to staffers that You have every right to be angry and disappointed. We are committed to taking appropriate actions to earn back your trust. Its not just staffers trust theyll need to win back, though; there are also plenty of readers that were hurt and disappointed by SB Nations decision to run this piece. Making this review as public and transparent as possible would be a significant step towards regaining those readers trust. [Deadspin] Bangladesh Expatriate Welfare Minister Nurul Islam (left) and Malaysian Human Resources Minister Richard Riot Anak Jaem sign a memorandum of understanding in Dhaka, whereby Malaysia will recruit 1.5 million Bangladeshis for jobs over the next three years, Feb. 18, 2016. Bangladesh and Malaysia on Thursday signed a memorandum whereby Kuala Lumpur will recruit up to 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers over the next three years for its agriculture and manufacturing sectors, officials in Dhaka said. Malaysian Human Resources Minister Richard Riot Anak Jaem and Bangladesh Expatriate Welfare and Overseas Employment Minister Nurul Islam signed the memorandum of understanding (MoU) in the Bangladeshi capital. We welcome the agreement. If the agreement is implemented through close monitoring, at least 1 million Bangladeshi workers would get jobs in the Malaysian plantation, agriculture and manufacturing sectors, Abul Bashar, president of the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA), told BenarNews. However, Malaysias biggest labor union sent a complaint to the government on Thursday, in which it objected to discussion by Malaysian officials in recent weeks about taking in as many as 1.5 million documented workers from Bangladesh. The MTUC feels if the government is serious about achieving high-income status for Malaysia, it should limit the intake of foreign workers, the state-run Bernama news agency quoted the Malaysian Trades Union Congress as saying in a memorandum that it sent to the Ministry of Human Resources. The country does not have to rely on labor resources from foreign countries. This situation will certainly harm the economy and have an adverse impact on the local population, the MTUCs memorandum added. On Thursday, Malaysian government officials did not issue any statements confirming the signing of the bilateral memorandum in Dhaka. In addition, Malaysian media accounts of the MoU signing were based on news reports out of Bangladesh. A legal immigration route The MoU will boost the population of Bangladeshi migrants working in Malaysia, where 600,000 Bangladeshis are employed in the construction and plantation sectors. The government-to-government plan apparently will also offer migrants from Bangladesh a legal route to jobs in Malaysia, rather than them paying human traffickers huge sums of money to smuggle them into the Southeast Asian country in search of work. I have to send 20,000 takas (U.S. $250) back home every month because my father has sent me here, taking a loan from my maternal uncle, Mohammad Shamim, a construction worker in Malaysias Selangor state, told BenarNews. In 2015, hundreds of Bangladeshis were among boatloads of undocumented people who landed on shores in Indonesia and Malaysia after the Thai government launched a crackdown on human trafficking and imposed a naval blockade on smugglers vessels. Malaysia is one of the big labor markets for Bangladesh after Saudi Arabia. If the recruiters bear the cost of travel, migration would contribute to reduce poverty, Saiful Haque, president of the Warbe Foundation, an NGO dedicated to the welfare of workers, told BenarNews. MoU limits relocation cost The memorandum signed on Thursday stipulates that employers will pay for travel costs to send Bangladeshi workers to Malaysia, but that these will be capped at 40,000 takas (U.S. $500) per worker, Ihsanul Karim, the press secretary for Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, told reporters in Dhaka. Private recruiting agencies would be involved in the process, Karim said. BAIRAs Abul Bashar said Malaysia had closed its labor market to Bangladeshi workers, which in turn caused many migrants to turn to traffickers to smuggle them into Malaysia by sea. The high migration cost is one of the reasons for the illegal trade in of the workers, Nazneen Ahmed, an economist at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies who specializes in labor, told BenarNews. Orderly migration reduces poverty, Ahmed added. Bangladeshs economy is largely dependent on remittances sent home by back to migrant workers. Bangladeshs expatriate migrant workforce numbers around 9 million people. In 2015, migrants sent U.S. $15 billion back home, according to the Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training of Bangladesh. No issue here The signing of the MoU came 12 days after Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi announced that the government would grant 2 million undocumented foreign workers, who were already in Malaysia, the opportunity to apply for work permits. Before the memorandum was signed, reports about the plan to bring in up to 1.5 million Bangladeshi drew criticism from Malaysian labor circles. On Thursday, a state minister in the eastern state of Sabah responded publicly to a message posted on social media that had gone viral and which suggested that Sabah was permitting the entry Bangladeshi workers. There is no issue here. The policy still stands not to allow them to come in, Bernama quoted Siringan Gubat, the state minister of Human Resource Development and Information Technology. He was referring to a policy announced by the Sabah government three years ago, when the states cabinet announced that it was no longer allowing Bangladeshi migrants to work there. Ahmad Najmi Nasruddin and Suhana Osman contributed to this report. An Indian student waves the national flag during a protest in New Delhi against sedition charges being filed against Jawaharlal Nehru University students, Feb. 18, 2016. Updated at 11:00 a.m. ET on 2016-02-19 Thousands of people took to the streets of several Indian cities Thursday to protest what they called the governments attempt to stifle dissent, after students from a prominent university were charged with sedition for allegedly voicing anti-national slogans. The protest marches in New Delhi, Kolkata, Srinagar, Vadodara, Bengaluru and Chennai came even as police officials confirmed that they would not oppose bail for Kanhaiya Kumar, president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU), who was arrested Feb. 12 on charges of sedition. A hearing for Kumar is scheduled for Friday in the Supreme Court. My son is a true patriot. He is not anti-national. He is a leftist, but what is wrong with that? He is being wrongly implicated, Kumars mother, Meena Devi, told BenarNews from Bihar state. Kumar, a member of the All India Students Federation (AISF) the student wing of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) is accused of expressing anti-India slogans during his speech at a JNU event on Feb. 9, which observed the anniversaries of the executions of Afzal Guru and Kashmiri separatist leader Maqbool Bhat. Guru, a Kashmiri, was executed in 2013 for his role in an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001, while Bhatt was hanged in 1984. Sedition charges were also brought against five other students who allegedly took part in the event along with a former Delhi University professor, S.A.R Geelani. Police said those students fled and are still at-large. Geelani, a Kashmiri separatist, allegedly referred to Guru as a martyr during an event in Delhi on Feb. 10. A court on Thursday remanded him to 14 days judicial custody. Delhi Police Commissioner B.S. Bassi told reporters Wednesday that his department would not contest Kumars bail plea, because the accused had expressed faith in the constitution and judiciary and he had appealed to JNU students to maintain calm and not indulge in anti-national activities. Bassi, however, insisted that Kumar had not been given a clean chit. We have adequate evidence against him to justify the sedition charge, he said. Spare me media trial Kumar denied that he voiced anti-India slogans. If there is evidence against me that I am a traitor, then please send me to jail. But if there is no proof, then spare me this media trial, Kumar said in a written statement to metropolitan Magistrate Loveleen Singh before he was sent to 14 days judicial custody on Wednesday. Kumars arrest sparked a series of protests in the national capital, with participants condemning the government action against JNU students as an attempt to curb free speech. How can the voice of dissent be termed anti-national in a democratic setup? I am against the sedition charges levied on Kanhaiya Kumar and other JNU students. It is clear, the government is trying to stifle voices that dont agree with its ideologies, Delhi protester Shravan Chaturvedi told BenarNews. Protests spread Demonstrations gradually spread to other Indian cities after Delhi and Kolkata witnessed clashes between self-proclaimed patriots and dissent-backing liberals. At Kolkatas Jadavpur University, members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a student group affiliated to the right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), clashed with protesters who were marching to show solidarity with JNU students. RSS is the ideological mentor of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which heads Indias ruling coalition. BJP member O.P. Sharma is accused of assaulting a left-wing activist within the court premises in Delhi on Monday. He (the activist) was shouting anti-India slogans. So I beat him up. If I had a gun, I would have shot him, said Sharma, who was arrested on Thursday and released on bail. Meanwhile, a group of lawyers allegedly assaulted JNU students, teachers and journalists in Delhis Patiala House court where Kumars case was being heard, on Monday and Wednesday. Grave fallout While hearing the case of violence in Patiala House, the Supreme Court on Wednesday observed that there was a tendency to adopt extreme views and stick to it without fathoming the repercussions. Moderation in public space is the need of the hour, otherwise there will be a grave fallout. Tabasum Guru, the widow of Afzal Guru, who is widely believed to have been executed on the basis of an unfair trial, said it was high time the Indian government realizes it cannot suppress peoples voices. The government should realize now that it cannot suppress the voice of people even if it resorts to the use of brute force, she told BenarNews, adding, The protests across India indicate that a lot of people, especially students, are aware that Afzal was falsely implicated and hanged. Meanwhile, the BJP stuck to its stance of taking firm action against anyone who indulged in anti-national acts. The government is very firm and BJP is very clear that we cannot allow anti-national acts by anyone. You cannot take the cover of students, Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu said. Archaic law Shameek Sen, a law professor at Kolkatas National University of Juridical Sciences, said it would be difficult to sustain a sedition charge. Quoting from a 2015 Supreme Court ruling, Sen told BenarNews: Mere discussion or even advocacy of a particular cause, howsoever unpopular, is at the heart of Article 19 (1) (a) [freedom of expression]. It is only when such discussion or advocacy reaches the level of incitement that Article 19(2) [restrictions on freedom of expression] kicks in. So, if there is no concrete proof that the assembly, for which the accused have been booked, [incited] hatred, it will be difficult to sustain charges of sedition, Sen said. Senior advocate Kamini Jaiswal said there was no need for the archaic law on sedition, which was established in 1860 by Britain to punish those who publicly criticized its rule in India. As per Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, the sedition charge is applicable when, whoever, by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visual representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the government established by law. This law was created by British colonialists and there is no need for it in India anymore, she told IBN Live. Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju clarified that people were free to criticize the government, but could not verbally abuse the nation. In a Facebook post Thursday, Rijiju said a group of people had taken a despicable vow to break India into pieces, and this would not be tolerated. But anti-government protesters and even some BJP affiliates were not buying Rijijus stance. After resigning from their ABVP posts at JNU on Wednesday, Pradeep Narwal, Rahul Yadav and Ankit Hans said in a joint statement, We cant be the mouthpiece of such a government, while noting that there is a difference between interrogation and crushing ideology and branding the entire Left as anti-national. Amin Masoodi and Masuma Parveen contributed to this report. This story was updated to correct that five additional students face sedition charges and that alleged assaults of JNU students, teachers and journalists at Delhis Patiala House court occurred on Monday and Wednesday. BJP member O.P. Sharma is accused of assaulting an activist on Monday. 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. Nicht personalisierte Inhalte und Werbung werden u. a. von Inhalten, die Sie sich gerade ansehen, und Ihrem Standort beeinflusst (welche Werbung Sie sehen, basiert auf Ihrem ungefahren Standort). Personalisierte Inhalte und Werbung konnen auch Videoempfehlungen, eine individuelle YouTube-Startseite und individuelle Werbung enthalten, die auf fruheren Aktivitaten wie auf YouTube angesehenen Videos und Suchanfragen auf YouTube beruhen. Sofern relevant, verwenden wir Cookies und Daten auerdem, um Inhalte und Werbung altersgerecht zu gestalten. Wir verwenden Cookies und Daten, umWenn Sie Alle akzeptieren auswahlen, verwenden wir Cookies und Daten auch, umWahlen Sie Weitere Optionen aus, um sich zusatzliche Informationen anzusehen, einschlielich Details zum Verwalten Ihrer Datenschutzeinstellungen. Sie konnen auch jederzeit g.co/privacytools besuchen. The foundation of Italian born cinematographer Vittorio Storaros career is his unique vision and the relationships hes established especially with three directors, having done multiple films with Bernardo Bertolucci, Warren Beatty, and Francis Ford Coppola, having won an Oscar and a BAFTA award with each of them. His current project is Woody Allens upcoming film. He won his first Oscar and BAFTA for the two plus years he spent in the jungles of the Philippines, shooting Coppolas Apocalypse Now. Coppola shot two Godfather films and The Conversation in less three years, but it took him nearly two and a half years to complete Apocalypse Now, almost going crazy in the process, contemplating suicide, and dealing with nature (a typhoon), governments (he paid the Philippine government for use of their helicopters which were regularly sent off to fight a civil war), and catastrophic illness (star Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack at the age of 36). The 200-plus-day shoot has become Hollywood legend, documented by Eleanor Coppola (Francis wife) and used in the documentary Hearts of Darkness, revealing a creative process that was constantly behind schedule and over budget. George Lucas had originally been set to direct Apocalypse Now in black and white, up around Stockton, California, in a neo-realistic, documentary-like style. But Lucas got hooked on a little idea about wars in outer space. So since Coppolas Zoetrope production company already had the money to make the film, Coppola decided to direct and go big. He wanted to make a Guns of Navarone type blockbuster action war picture and make lots of money to plug back into smaller Zoetrope productions. This was his master plan going in. Instead he ended up pouring his own money into completion of the film. John Milius, co-screenwriter with Coppola, has explained that the title was a play on and a critique of the counter culture tagline Nirvana Now, which would usually be seen printed in a peace sign. His inspiration for the story was a challenge: having heard heard that other screenwriters and filmmakers, including Orson Welles, had failed to adapt Joseph Conrads The Heart of Darkness into a film, Milius broke the novella down, updating it into Vietnam War allegory. In Apocalypse Now Captain Willard (Sheen) is ordered to find the renegade Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brandon), who Willard is to exterminate with extreme prejudice. The visual geography of a boat going up river, deeper and deeper into the heart of the jungle, provides a natural structure in a film that takes up from civilization into the heart of darkness. That Kurtz represents a form of insanity that needs to be eliminated eventually seems to Willard as mad as the war itself. Willard comes to realize that the military brass, like any corporation, doesnt like that Kurtz has become competition, having moved into Cambodia, invading the land and winning the hearts and minds of the locals, making him dangerous and better off dead. Apocalypse Now is perhaps the best war and anti-war film ever made. Coppola and Milius both said they referenced Dr. Strangelove, but instead of satire theirs is a serious look at the human condition in conflict with itself. Dont miss this beautiful looking gem on the big screen. For Immediate Release, February 19, 2016 Contact: Brett Hartl, (202) 817-8121, bhartl@biologicaldiversity.org Historic Settlement: Wildlife Agency Will Finally Examine How Roundup, Atrazine Harm 1,500 Endangered Species Harms Caused by Atrazine, Roundup Will Be Fully Assessed, Mitigated WASHINGTON The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will analyze the impacts of atrazine and glyphosate the two most commonly used pesticides in the United States on 1,500 endangered U.S. plants and animals under the terms of a historic settlement reached today with the Center for Biological Diversity. The agreement ensures that the Fish and Wildlife Service will develop conservation measures on these two pesticides, along with propazine and simazine, which together represent nearly 40 percent of annual pesticide use in the United States. This agreement will result in long-overdue protections for our countrys most endangered species, said Brett Hartl, endangered species policy director at the Center. Once the Fish and Wildlife Service completes its analysis, and the public finally learns just how toxic and deadly these pesticides are to endangered species, we hope that the government will ultimately take most of these products off the shelf. Despite a clear legal requirement to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service on the impacts from pesticides on endangered species, the Environmental Protection Agency has repeatedly failed to do so when it registers a pesticide under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. A series of lawsuits by the Center has forced the EPA to begin consulting on the impacts of pesticides, including an agreement reached last summer for EPA to begin the process to analyze the harms from atrazine and glyphosate by June 2020. Todays settlement follows a similar framework and requires the Fish and Wildlife Service to finish the consultation process on these chemicals by December 2022. The analysis is likely to lead to permanent restrictions on some of the most harmful uses of these highly toxic pesticides. With more than 300 million pounds of Roundup and 80 million pounds of atrazine being dumped on the landscape each year, its hard to even fathom the damage being done to endangered species, our environment and our own health, said Hartl. The analysis required under the Endangered Species Act is our best bet for forcing the EPA to stop acting as a rubber stamp for industry, and to finally make environmental protection the highest priority in decisions about these dangerous pesticides. Glyphosate has also been linked to the decline of many wildlife species, including monarch butterflies. The increase in use within the United States has come with the widespread adoption of herbicide-tolerant, genetically engineered crops such as corn and soy. The World Health Organization recently declared glyphosate a probable human carcinogen, and just last week, the Food and Drug Administration announced that it would begin testing for glyphosate in food. In addition to causing severe harm to endangered species, atrazine exposure may be linked to increased risks of thyroid cancer, reproductive harm and birth defects in people. A 2013 study showed that children whose mothers were exposed to atrazine had an increased risk of birth defects. Atrazine is the second-most commonly used pesticide after glyphosate, more commonly known as Monsantos Roundup. Government agencies have a legal and moral duty to ensure that harmful chemicals arent sprayed in the same places where vulnerable wild animals are trying to survive, said Hartl. Pesticides found in endangered species habitat can also contaminate our drinking water, food, homes and schools, where they pose a disturbing health risk. 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. For Immediate Release, February 18, 2016 Contact: Ileene Anderson, (323) 490-0223 or ianderson@biologicaldiversity.org California's Santa Cruz Cypress Recovering, Reclassified as 'Threatened' SANTA CRUZ, Calif. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today reclassification of the Santa Cruz cypress from endangered to threatened status under the Endangered Species Act. The tree was protected in 1987 due to threats to its habitat, but now the habitat for all five populations is secure. Santa Cruz cypress photo by Kristina Barry, USFWS. This photo is available for media use The heartening rebound of this precious little California evergreen is the latest proof that the Endangered Species Act puts species on the path to recovery, said Ileene Anderson, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. Before the Santa Cruz cypress was protected under the Act, it faced intense pressure from development, logging, disease and competition from non-native species, which ultimately stifled its ability to repopulate and thrive in its historic habitat. Through the cooperative efforts of local, state and federal agencies, most of the trees now live in fully protected areas. The recovery plan developed by federal scientists determined that the cypress, which now numbers between 33,000 to 44,000 trees, could be downlisted once all five of its populations were protected from threats that include development, non-native species and unauthorized trail-building. Though the exact number of trees at the time of listing was unknown, the Service estimated there were only around 2,300. The cypress is found only in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California, in Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties. This compact, coniferous tree with dense, cone-producing branches thrives in coastal chaparral communities above the fog belt. Opponents of the Endangered Species Act unfairly criticize the law for recovering too few species, failing to acknowledge that most protected species are still many years away from their projected recovery dates. Todays announcement reinforces what studies have already shown: that the Endangered Species Act has not only prevented the extinction of 99 percent of the plants and animals under its protection, but has consistently helped those species to recover. The success of the Act is evidenced in a 2012 report published by the Center called On Time, On Target: How the Endangered Species Act Is Saving Americas Wildlife, which evaluated 110 species and found that nearly all the animals and plants are recovering on time to meet federal goals. 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. Jem's Birding & Ringing Exploits in the Eastern Province and elsewhere in Saudi Arabia Topco Media, the renowned publishers of 90 The Nelson Mandela Years, 20 Years of Democracy, Vision 2030 and Impumelelo - South Africa's Top Empowered Companies, and KPMG Zambia, a member firm of KPMG International, the world-renowned professional services organisation - are excited to announce a new venture going forward, to develop a publication that will become the authoritive guide to the top companies in Zambia. Compared with some of its sub-Saharan African peers, Zambia has shown promising growth in recent years and looking forward - despite certain challenges facing the country - the outlook remains positive. It is for this very reason that Topco Media in collaboration with KPMG, have decided to launch a new publication and award ceremony. The first edition of Top300 Companies Zambia will be published in April 2016 and will showcase the 300 top companies in the country. Much like the publication, the Zambian National Business Awards, which will take place later this year, will identify and profile Zambias leading businesses, creating a reputation benchmark. On a sociopolitical level, Zambias robust parliament currently supports political stability in the country and beyond 2016 overall stability will continue to improve. On an economic level, policy will focus on boosting investment and mining as well as the creation of employment. This is very positive, especially due to the fact that Zambia also finds itself in a rapidly growing region in Africa. GDP remained under 4% for Zambia during 2015, but despite global headwinds, GDP is projected to increase steadily in 2017 and going forward. This will be coupled with growth in the same years for the agriculture, industry as well as services sectors. KPMG Zambias Senior Partner and CEO, Jason Kazilimani, has stated that at KPMG, one of our focal points is turning knowledge into value for the benefit of our clients. This is why we are collaborating with Topco Media to develop what is likely to become the authoritative guide on the top 300 companies in Zambia. Globally, KPMG is an international leader in the provision of audit, accounting, advisory and tax services with operations in more than 150 countries worldwide. KPMG and Topco Media have forged a strong business relationship in the past, with a vision to continue in the future. We hold KPMG in high esteem, as they consistently perform as a top company and also understand and share our business values, Ralf Fletcher, CEO of Topco Media said on the Top300 Companies Zambia publication. We feel that we have made a strong contribution in positioning South Africa as a economically competitive country over the last 20 years. It is now time to take that experience into the rest of Africa, Zambia will be our first step - a diving board into Africa. Topco Media is a leader in South African business-to-business communications; working to ensure that local and international companies have access to effective vehicles of communication and marketing that are distributed to key public and private sector stakeholders. For more information, contact: Judy Twaambo Chileshe Country Manager Zambia az.oc.ocpot@ehselihc.yduj 086 000 9590 SAN FRANCISCO - Google said on Wednesday it was adding fresh foods to its grocery delivery service, ramping up its challenge to Amazon and a long list of delivery startups. Getty/AFP/File / Kevork DjansezianGoogle Express servicewhich launched in 2013 by offering non-perishable goodswill now include a range of fresh items in test markets in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas. The US online giant said its Google Express service - which launched in 2013 by offering non-perishable goods - would include a range of fresh items in test markets in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas. "Everyone wants milk delivered with their cookies - that's why we're excited to start adding fresh groceries to Google Express," said product manager Prabhu Balasubramanian. He said consumers liked the service but that "we've also heard your feedback that you'd love for Express to help you check off your entire grocery list, including fruit, vegetables, meat, seafood, dairy, and frozen foods." "Whether you need to restock your pantry, get some ingredients for tonight's dinner, or just need some help carrying the heavier stuff - all you have to do is place your order, and we'll take care of the rest," he said in a blog post. Google Express, which is offered in a handful of US cities, takes a delivery charge of $3 for members and $5 for non-members. Google has ramped up the service as Amazon has expanded its grocery delivery program to include fresh items. Both online giants are competing against a wave of startups in the US and around the world that offer fast grocery delivery, with the help of mobile applications. The Competition Commission on Thursday announced the appointment of a panel for the grocery retail sector market inquiry which is due to tackle the exclusivity of lease agreements at shopping malls - a battle being fought largely among big retail chains. Halton Cheadle, Lulama Mtanga and Lumkile Mondi have been appointed as chairman and panelists of the enquiry, respectively. The hearings are likely to be completed by 29 May next year. First announced in May last year by Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel, the enquiry will also look into whether there are features in the grocery retail sector that lessen, prevent or distort competition market dynamics. The probe comes as the long-delayed private healthcare market inquiry got under way in Pretoria this week. By far the most contentious issue to be scrutinised is that of lease exclusivity at malls. Court cases on exclusivity clauses involving Shoprite, Pick n Pay, Massmart and Fruit & Veg Citys Food Lovers Market have so far delivered mixed results. In some instances exclusivity clauses have been relaxed but Massmart, which is pushing into the grocery space, has hit a brick wall, spurring it to file a complaint with the competition authorities in September 2014. Mall developers often sign exclusivity agreements with anchor tenants in the hope that they will attract other high-quality businesses and shoppers. The agreements block the sale of certain types of food by other retailers. Liquor brands conglomerate Distell reported strong growth in Southern African markets, but the economic hangover from a lower oil price has drastically curtailed expansion plans in Angola. Speaking after the release of well-fortified interim numbers on Wednesday, Distell CEO Richard Rushton said double-digit growth for the companys cider, wine and spirits brands in most Southern African markets had been diluted by challenging trading conditions in Angola. He said business had dropped considerably in Angola in the six months to December. Angola, which has recently faced economic challenges as the crude oil price slipped to close to $30 per barrel, accounted for 50% of Distells African business in the year to end-June 2015. Rushton said consequently Distell had decided to scale back plans for a $40m greenfields production plant for spirits and RTDs (ready-to-drinks). The firm would now follow a "more modular" approach to expansion in Angola. "We planned to build a plant with a production capacity of 400,000 hectolitres with sufficient capacity for five years. Now we will track this back to a 100,000-hectolitre plant with capacity for 18 months, and use the proceeds to reinvest back into the plant. Its essentially a pay-as-you-go model." Lentus Asset management chief investment officer Nic Norman-Smith said the Distell interims confirmed that the rest of Africa was now proving a "tougher growth story" for South African companies. The rest of Africa, though, remains a key focus for Distell, which generated about 25% of its R12.2bn interim sales outside SA. The rest of Africa represented about 55% of the total international business. Rushton said participation on the continent was part of Distells long-term goal to increase competitiveness in delivering sustainable revenue and profit growth. International sales revenue crept up to R3.16bn, but operating profits fell from R561m last year to R498m. Interestingly, SA was the star performer for Distell whose well-known brands include Fleur du Cap, Klipdrift, Zonnebloem, Nederburg and Amarula. Local revenue was up almost 15% on volume growth of about 13%. Mr Rushton said the South African performance was driven by enhanced market penetration as well as improvements in product mix and customer service. The wine segment continued to recover spurred by a strong performance from 4th Street, which Mr Rushton reckoned was "now by far the countrys biggest-selling wine brand". He said the spirits division had an improved performance, but there were signs that the brandy market had bottomed. Other strong selling brands during the period included cider brands Hunters and Savanna as well as Scottish Leader whisky and Viceroy brandy. Distell disclosed operating profit from South African operations rose more than 20% to more than R1.7bn. Rushton said local consumers had responded positively to Distells product offerings and promotions especially over the festive season. "Our performance also reflects the continued progress we are making in SA, where we are strengthening our market position with improvements in market penetration and customer service." Distells total operating profit was up 12% to R2.2bn. Finance director Lucas Verwey said the weaker rand had helped buoy profits, adding about R190m. He estimated that normalised earnings before interest and tax would have grown by between 6% and 7%. Distell increased its interim payout by 4.4% to 165c a share. Where has El Nino gone? In the midst of the current stretch of balmy weather, its a question many in northern Arizona are asking after being told to expect a wet and snowy winter. Meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Bellemont put together their best answer to the question in a report released this week. In short, El Nino, the weather pattern fueled by the warming of ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, isnt gone yet. While dry and warm weather is expected to continue for the next week or two, the region is forecasted to see a more active weather pattern return in March. The Climate Prediction Centers latest outlook calls for a 40 percent to 50 percent chance of above-normal precipitation over the Southwest in March, April and May. Other points made in the report include: This has been one of the top three strongest El Ninos on record and very warm waters, which are the basis for the weather pattern, continue to persist in the equatorial Pacific. Theres still a lot of atmospheric fuel out there with the El Nino conditions, and additional strong storms are expected, the report said. While prolonged warm, dry spells arent unusual during the winter in Arizona, the streak of high temperatures that have broken records across the state this month are quite unusual, especially in comparison to other strong El Nino events. Flagstaff is still above normal in terms of snowfall this winter. The city has received 71.7 inches of snow so far this year while the average through Feb. 17 is 64.8 inches The long-range forecasts are indicating a transition between the current El Nino conditions to what could be La Nina conditions next fall. La Nina conditions, indicated by colder-than-normal ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific, are frequently associated with drier than normal winters for the Southwest U.S. This week, our 'Biz Online Insights' section explores the South African online population's views on the State of the Nation Address (SONA) 2016. The survey was carried out by Panel Services Africa on their premium online research panel, TellUsAboutIt, comprising 40,000 registered online users. Who better to ask then, to glean insights into the local online population? With last week's State of the Nation Address (SONA) dominating social media, we wanted to find out whether the average South African watched President Zuma's address live on TV as well as all the reaction on social media. Overall the response was 'yes', with respondents stating they watched both on TV and through social media, with more of the youth (aged 18 to 34) selecting this option. You can browse the results in the following SlideShare, which shows the 300 targeted responses, with additional quota control of sample according to age group, gender and province summary, in order to be nationally representative of the general South African adult online population: Were your viewing habits similar? Share your thoughts in the comments section below and click here for a reminder from Louise Marsland on just how SONA was trending this year. The customer loyalty and satisfaction measure the Net Promoter Score (NPS), established by Bain & Company in 2003, is an evaluation tool designed by Fred Reichheld, a partner in the company. It is a one-question survey, which evaluates how an organisation treats the people whose lives it affects. It measures the state of the company, organisation or product. If one took South Africa as an investment destination, it would be as an example of an organisation. If a robust and representative sample was asked, both globally and locally, How likely would you be to recommend South Africa as an investment destination to a friend or colleague? Then one used the NPS formula, explained below, one would probably get an accurate picture of the state of the nation, in investment terms at least. In the NPS survey, customers are asked simply, How likely is it that you would recommend company X, organisation X, or product X to a friend or colleague? The question has a 1-10 rating scale for respondents to answer - with 10 being extremely likely to recommend and 0 being not at all likely. The responses are then divided into three categories: promoters, passives and detractors. The NPS is the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors. According to the companys website, Almost a decade ago, Bain & Company set out to find a simple, practical and actionable indicator of what customers were thinking and feeling about the companies they did business with. We wanted a number that reliably linked these attitudes both to what customers actually did and to the growth of the company. We wanted, in short, to provide a basis for linking improvements in customer loyalty to business outcomes. The Client Heartbeat Blog explains why NPS is important to businesses and lists six benefits companies can get from using it: 1. It measures, evaluates and builds customer loyalty; 2. It increases customer satisfaction; 3. It creates more customer advocates; 4. It gets customer feedback by closing the loop; 5. It reduces customer churn; 6. It drives revenue growth and boosts customer lifetime value Promoters account for 80% of referrals in most businesses and detractors account for 80% of negative word-of-mouth. Promoters generally defect at lower rates than other customers, which means that they have longer, more profitable relationships with a company. On average, an industrys NPS leader outgrew its competitors by a factor greater than two times. Southern African success Freshly Ground Insight (FGI) is a South African based market research company that operates throughout Africa and has the field force and analytic teams to competently conduct NPS surveys as one of the weapons in its arsenal. It has experience conducting NPS research in Botswana, Kenya, Mozambique and South Africa for various companies. In Botswana, FGI was asked to conduct an NPS study by Incite Consulting and the Botswana Post in 2013, as well as by the Botswana Bureau of Standards in 2014/15 and the Local Enterprise Authority in 2014. In Ethiopia, the NPS was commissioned through Deloitte to conduct the measure for PAIHL and in Kenya for the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC). In Mozambique, it did NPS research for Vodacom and in South Africa for Jeep and Brand Leadership for SANRAL. Often NPS is just part of the research and FGI can conduct a full performance audit for companies that can be directed towards communication, customer service or brand development. An example is an organisation Marketing and Communication Strategy (MARCOM) review for a company. Communication forms an integral part of any organisations effectiveness. Timely, yet flexible communications are an important strategic tool to build understanding around a company and increase the uptake of its products and services. In a MARCOM study we conducted in Botswana in 2012 the organisation had the primary goal of effectively promoting itself and its products and services, to ensure more visibility of the organisation to its potential and current customers, says Graeme Pitt, MD of FGI Africa. The strategic objectives of this MARCOM study were to increase local and regional awareness of the service offering and brand and improve the image and reputation of the organisation. The study looked to find the best way to position the organisation brand and services as a worthwhile investment for stakeholders and to influence the purchasing process of the organisations customers. In addition, retaining the existing and increasing customer base was important as was improving the organisations competitiveness. The MARCOM study aimed to contribute to the organisations knowledge management and to provide market intelligence to management for informed decision-making. The communication audit that we used interrogated the existing strategy in terms of what was working well, what was not, what might work better if adjustments are made. It has both evaluative and formative value; evaluative it provides a snapshot of where an organisation currently stands in terms of its communication capacity/performance. It is formative in that it also points to areas in which the organisation can strengthen its performance, continues Pitt. The NPS was one of seven deliverables measured in a perceptions index. The others were overall performance/company rating, services, level of interaction (based on knowledge of the organisation) with organisation, reputation, performance attributes, and issue/dispute resolution. The research report highlighted areas of strength, weakness and gave advice on how to improve both internal and external communications. Strategies needed to be put in place to increase customers, the publics knowledge of the organisation, service delivery required improvement and communication to all the companys stakeholders required attention. One of the results was the employees had a much higher NPS than customers. One might indeed find a similar result if the South Africa as an investment destination NPS was measured as mentioned above and a well-researched and conducted State of the Nation Address would be one of the recommended communication strategies. For more information, go to www.fgi.co.za. Clover's CSI project, Clover Mama Afrika, has received the Diamond Arrow Award by the Performance Management Review (PMR). The awards ceremony recently took place at The Houghton Golf Club in Johannesburg. Professor Elain Vlok Clover won the award in the 2015 Corporate Social Responsibility category by Food Manufacturers/Processors with a highest rated mean score of 4.35 out of a possible 5.00. The PMR award recognises the company's attributes such as commitment to communities, job creation and social upliftment. This is not the first PMR award for Clover Mama Afrika. They previously won the Overall PMR Diamond Award for the company in South Africa with the best Social Responsibility project in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 and for Corporate Care in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015. Self-sustaining Clover Mama Afrika identifies women who are already making a difference in their communities and helps them to become self-sustaining, by teaching them skills they can derive incomes from, in order to support orphaned and abused children and the elderly and infirm. The PMR Awards assesses companies and institutions based on respondents perceptions with a strong focus on economic development, growth and stability. The purpose of the awards is also for the winning companies to recognise its employees and to use the award, not only as a marketing tool, but to thank their employees for creating the perception that the company or institution is a respected leader in the industry. We at Clover are honoured to receive this award as it is our aim to make a difference in the lives of many people and communities throughout South Africa. On behalf of Clover and our Clover Mama Afrika partners, I would like to say a special thanks to all of our mamas around South Africa, who have put their heart and soul in improving the lives and well-being of their fellow community members. Clover Mama Afrika wouldnt be possible without their efforts. Tax season is upon us and it is vital for businesses, big and small, to make sure that they are compliant and up to date with their tax submissions to the South African Revenue Service. Andriy Popov via 123RF Ensuring that your business is fully compliant in terms of SARS standards can be a daunting task for any small, medium or micro enterprise (SMME). For any normal business, regardless of whether it is tax season or not, the day-to-day running of the business needs to continue and this means that financial experts such as accountants and auditors cannot always dedicate 100% of their time to ensuring that compliance is obtained for the business. South Africa has one of the most advanced tax systems in the world and was ranked 20th out of 189 economies in terms of how easy SARS has made it for a small to medium-sized domestic company to do its taxes. According to the tenth annual Paying Taxes 2016 report by the World Bank and PwC, it takes a typical medium-sized company in South Africa approximately 200 hours to comply with its tax obligations. Research conducted by the aforementioned report shows that not only has the tax rate increased for SMMEs in Africa as a whole, but that the number of SMMEs being fully compliant and the time in which it takes to do so has decreased year, after year. For South Africa this means that SMMEs need to be very diligent in ensuring that they are not only fully compliant, but that this happens within the specified time period. Penalties for non-compliance It is imperative for SMMEs to ensure that they are accurately reporting their financials to SARS. Administration penalties for non-compliance varies across the board and could be anything from having to pay a heavy penalty to company liquidation. In my experience as an SMME and having personally dealt with many finance divisions within these companies, ensuring SARS compliance can be a daunting and a very difficult task. In most cases it is better to call in experts that are not involved in the day-to-day running of the business, because this allows for a deeper sense of interrogation into the financials of the company. The use of an experienced yet part-time financial executive is often a viable solution for SMMEs as this gives them the expertise they need without the overhead cost of a full time employee. While many small businesses feel that they can operate below the SARS radar and continue operating without being noticed, it has been proved time and time again that following the law, while it can be a long and tedious task, is better than being caught out and risking losing your entire business. Fortress Income Fund's development plans were given a boost when it raised R1.3bn in an oversubscribed accelerated bookbuild. CEO Mark Stevens said on Thursday, 18 February, that the funds raised would be used to pay for vacant land and certain projects. Stevens said that the oversubscription suggested investors were keen to support more equity raises this year. The company's shareholder base has expanded since it took over Capital Property Fund last year. It also joined the MSCI Emerging Markets index, which prompted global index trackers to buy into it. The bookbuild was raised by R300m from R1bn to R1.3bn following the oversubscription. Fortress Fund, the best-performing property fund of last year, last week announced that it had grown its B-unit dividend 101.2% in the six months to December, in the period which saw it complete the takeover of Capital Property Fund. The deal enhanced Fortress's portfolio, which was dominated by shopping centres that serve the country's commuter market. Capital owns more industrial property than any other listed fund in SA and Stevens said he was trying to grow its "already impressive logistics assets". Its logistics pipeline is worth about R4.5bn, according to Stevens. In terms of new acquisitions, Stevens said he had found various opportunities in retail. "You are only as good as your latest results, and we keep this in mind as we progress as a fund. I believe that there are many opportunities in SA right now, in the retail space where we invest," Stevens said. Source: Business Day The average annual cost of an undergraduate course of study in South Africa is R30,000. This includes living expenses and tuition for an average student. If a student wishes to study overseas, then the cost of education rises considerably. This is one reason that alternate forms of education are becoming so popular. Virtual education offers savings and deeper understanding Online courses are becoming an increasingly popular option for students in South Africa. Not only are these courses less expensive than traditional classroom learning, but the style of study can accommodate a busy schedule. For students supporting themselves with full-time work, the needs of learning without impacting their work schedule necessitates virtual learning. If a student chooses to study for their degree online, they not only save on tuition but other traditional costs of college attendance. Because more programs are accessible to students in South Africa via the internet, or distance learning, there is more competition for keeping costs lower. An online course can cost as much as 50% less than the same course offered at a traditional campus. In addition to the cost savings, students who take courses online have the freedom to study at their own pace. Because lectures arent scheduled and attended at set times, a student can spend time rereading and diving into the lesson plan from their professor. Virtual learning is 24/7. A professor or instructor is always just an email away. Plus, the online discussion boards where students share ideas is a great way to continue learning around the clock. Entrepreneurship promoted by online learning For those starting a business, the process of learning the information they need in order to succeed is a never-ending journey. Industries evolve and technologies change. If a small business owner doesnt understand the latest technologies in use, then they will be at a competitive disadvantage against other companies that are able to operate more efficiently. There is always new information to learn, understand and apply. Online students have more time available to apply their lessons to the world around them. For some students, this takes the form of a startup. The lessons taught in books and in the lecture hall can come alive when put into practice. Online learning allows a student to come back to the virtual classroom at any time and dive into subjects and topics that are relevant to what they are building. Easier to access for disadvantaged students The cost of attending a college or university in South Africa is two-fold. There is both a financial commitment and a time commitment. For students or prospective students living in less populated regions, attending school may require a move to an area that is completely foreign. Without family support and ties to the community, attending college can be nearly impossible. Online, or distance learning allows students to remain active members of the towns and villages they call home. In addition, they can immediately apply what theyre learning to the developing cities that need their knowledge and passion most. PHOENIX Arizonans could soon get the chance to blow stuff up to celebrate Independence Day and New Years Eve. And they also could light up some kids of aerial fireworks. Members of the House Committee on Military Affairs and Public Safety agreed Thursday to make firecrackers and keg mortars legal in Arizona. The 4-2 vote for HB 2398 came six years after Arizona first made sparklers and other similar safe and sane devices legal for the first time. It also comes six years after Mike Williams told lawmakers that his client, TNT Fireworks, would be satisfied with that change. But Williams, saying Thursday hes only speaking now for retailers, said that things have changed in that time. Weve looked at things that have gone on in other states, he said. New Mexico sells these, Williams continued. And we havent had any issues. The vote came over the objections of Jim Ford, deputy fire marshal for the city of Scottsdale and a member of the state Fire Safety Committee. Ford said the 2010 law was the product of a carefully negotiated deal designed to balance the desire of some Arizonans for some more expressive ways of celebrating with the chances that these devices could end up burning up large swaths of forests and preserves. We can handle what weve been given so far, Ford told lawmakers. But he said expanding whats allowable is likely to lead to more accidents and more fires. Current law limits Arizonans to things like sparklers, smoke snakes, fountains and ground spinners. Anything that blows up or launches is strictly prohibited. Local officials in the 13 rural counties can restrict the sale and use of all kinds of fireworks during periods of high fire danger, a term that each community is allowed to define. Got a question or tip? Contact us at bizmojoidaho@gmail.com. The City of Flagstaffs new Deputy City Manager, Shane Dille, attended his first Council meeting Wednesday. City Manager Josh Copley selected Dille following a national recruitment effort and interview process. The screening of 106 applications resulted in four finalists being invited to participate in a series of interview panels that included employees, leadership, government agency partners, and community members. Dille most recently served as city manager for Nogales for nearly six years. Previously, he served as town manager for Wickenburg and Gila Bend. He has also served as an assistant town manager for Queen Creek and Buckeye. Dille is a certified senior executive in state and local government through the Harvard Kennedy School and is an International City/County Managers Association credentialed manager. He has a master of Public Administration degree from Brigham Young University and has been certified in public policy and management through the University of Arizona. Dille will spend the next week and a half working with Deputy City Manager Jerene Watson before she retires next Friday. It was mid-December when residents in the Fort Valley area started receiving letters from the Arizona Department of Water Resources. The letter referenced a general adjudication, a hydrographic survey report, water rights and a somewhat ominous statement, written in all capital letters, to PLEASE READ THE ENCLOSED INFORMATION CAREFULLY. Kim Campbell is a Baderville resident and said she got word of the letters through her neighbors. The statements have spurred widespread concern among the many people who have wells and pump groundwater in the area, she said. Everyone was kind of shocked, Campbell said. It caught everyone off guard. While a surprise to some, the letters will not have any direct or immediate impact on the water use or rights of residents in the Fort Valley area. Instead, they represent the latest chapter in a long-running process to adjudicate surface water rights in the Little Colorado River basin. The legal and technical procedure hashes out the priority of each water user in the basin and the amount of water they are entitled to use. A similar process is happening in the Gila River basin. Together, the adjudications cover water users in about two-thirds of the state and have been going for four decades, making them the longest-running litigations in the states history, said Sarah Porter, director at the Kyl Center for Water Policy at Arizona State University. While an enormous task, resolving the claims is fundamental to the states ability to effectively plan for the future, Porter said. This uncertainty means we dont have incentives in the right places for doing the water planning our state needs to do, she said. Without any resolution, people aren't recognizing that there is going to be a cost for the water they want in the future. Water worries for residents? The letter sent to Fort Valley residents and thousands of other water rights claimants in the basin was a notification that the Department of Water Resources had finished a hydrographic study of the Hopi Tribes water claims. The report determined the volume of water, in acre feet, that the tribe is entitled to in order to support everything from agriculture to resource extraction to recreation. The entire adjudication is still far from settled, so there isn't a definite answer about how the process will affect local groundwater users. However, because the adjudication deals only with surface water, it's likely that the rights of residents to pump groundwater in the area wont be affected unless their pumping is determined to appreciably and directly affect surface water flows, said Jeff Trembly, the Arizona Department of Water Resources adjudications program director. It's a tricky task to figure out the area in each basin where groundwater pumping is connected to surface water flows, water experts said. Its literally drawing a line in the sand between groundwater and surface water. It is such an impossible line to draw and that is what drags the process on, said Rhett Larson, a senior research fellow at the Kyl Center. If pumping that groundwater could affect any part of a river system then it could conceivably, debatably be brought into the adjudication. The answer is more clear for people who use surface water even springs and stockponds. They will certainly be affected by the adjudication, Trembly said. Trembly also encouraged anyone who has drilled a well in the Little Colorado River basin to enter a statement of claimant, essentially getting themselves a spot in the adjudication process, just to be safe. How Flagstaff fits in The city of Flagstaff is located in the Little Colorado River basin as well and got involved in the adjudication process in the mid-1990s. Since then, the city has reached water rights settlements with the National Park Service and the Forest Service, giving it rights to surface water in Lake Mary and the right to pump 22,000 acre feet of groundwater now and an additional 20,000 acre feet per year in the future, Flagstaff Utilities Director Brad Hill said. For comparison, the citys groundwater wells pump about 15,000 acre feet per year, according to a 2011 city report. Those settlements are beneficial because they are effective now and give the city more certainty about its water resources without having to wait for the final adjudication, Hill said. Flagstaff also has participated in negotiations to reach a water settlement with the Navajo and Hopi tribes, but so far they have been unsuccessful. Most recently, the tribes voted down legislation sponsored by former Arizona Sen. Jon Kyle that would have settled their claims on the Little Colorado River as well as disputes over groundwater beneath the two reservations. In January, Gov. Doug Ducey sent letters to both tribes, inviting them to restart settlement negotiations, though an initial meeting has not been scheduled, according to the governors office. Tribal water claims are another major hurdle to the resolution of the adjudication process, Larson said. As long as tribal water rights are contested then that keeps a cloud of uncertainty over entire process, he said The probability is very low that the adjudication would call into question Flagstaffs groundwater pumping in and around the city given the areas hydrology and the distance from the Lower Colorado River, Hill said. The City also doesnt believe planned groundwater pumping at its Red Gap Ranch property east of the city will negatively affect other claimants in the adjudication, Hill said. While many other Western states have taken on adjudications and resolved them, Arizonas process is made more difficult due to the scarcity of the resource and rising demand, Porter said. A resolution will likely mean some parties wont have enough water to support future development and growth plans without augmenting their supplies, while other users may be told they dont have the right to water they thought they had been using legally for years, she said. Its clearly not a simple problem to solve the water rights at issue, Porter said. They are peoples livelihoods and lives. Its a very sensitive and serious thing to be talking about, the prioritization and quantification of water. Today is Friday, Feb. 19, the 50th day of 2016. There are 316 days left in the year. Todays Highlight in History: On Feb. 19, 1986, the U.S. Senate approved, 83-11, the Genocide Convention, an international treaty outlawing acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, nearly 37 years after the pact had first been submitted for ratification. On this date: In 1881, Kansas prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages. In 1915, during World War I, British and French warships launched their initial attack on Ottoman forces in the Dardanelles, a strait in northwestern Turkey. (The Gallipoli Campaign that followed proved disastrous for the Allies.) In 1934, a blizzard began inundating the northeastern United States, with the heaviest snowfall occurring in Connecticut and Massachusetts. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, clearing the way for the U.S. military to relocate and intern people of Japanese ancestry (including U.S.-born citizens) during World War II. In 1945, Operation Detachment began during World War II as some 30,000 U.S. Marines began landing on Iwo Jima, where they commenced a successful month-long battle to seize control of the island from Japanese forces. In 1959, an agreement was signed by Britain, Turkey and Greece granting Cyprus its independence. In 1963, The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan was first published by W.W. Norton & Co. In 1976, calling the issuing of Executive Order 9066 a sad day in American history, President Gerald R. Ford issued a proclamation confirming that the order had been terminated with the formal cessation of hostilities of World War II. In 1984, the Winter Olympics closed in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. In 1997, Deng Xiaoping, the last of Chinas major Communist revolutionaries, died at age 92. In 2001, President George W. Bush opened a museum dedicated to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Movie producer-director Stanley Kramer died in Woodland Hills, California, at age 87. In 2008, an ailing Fidel Castro resigned the Cuban presidency after nearly a half-century in power; his brother Raul was later named to succeed him. Ten years ago: A gas explosion in northern Mexico killed 65 miners. Thought for Today: Passion and prejudice govern the world; only under the name of reason. John Wesley, English theologian (1703-1791). 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 WASHINGTON Backers of a bill that would create a new national monument on 1.7 million acres of federal land around the Grand Canyon touted a new survey Thursday that they said shows broad support for the plan. The telephone survey of likely voters across the state found 80 percent of respondents said they somewhat supported or strongly supported establishing the Greater Grand Canyon Heritage National Monument, while just 14 percent opposed and 6 percent had no opinion. The political firestorm will be shrill, but its on strong legal ground, said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson, who sponsored the bill to create the monument. The poll helps us to build support across Arizona and the rest of the nation. Critics of the plan were not impressed, noting that the release of the poll comes a week after President Barack Obama used his authority under the Antiquities Act to make national monuments out of about 1.8 million acres of federal land in California. That nearly doubled the amount of public land hes protected during his presidency. I think with the current attitude in the country, I cant believe that thats what Western voters want, said Mohave County Supervisor Buster Johnson, in response to the poll results. Its another example of the federal government taking land away. Johnson said that uranium mining in his county could be worth $29 million, but that the Department of the Interior set a 20-year moratorium on new mines in 2012. He cited it as another example of federal intrusion that can lead to problems at the local level. No one wants to see the Grand Canyon go unprotected, Johnson said. Were just getting far away from the idea of protection. That land could be used to create more jobs. But Grijalva said his bill was introduced, in part, to protect the land from uranium mining, as well as to help preserve sacred tribal lands. He was joined Thursday by leaders from the Hopi and Havasupai tribes in a conference call to release the poll. The poll by FM3 Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz & Associates was based on phone interviews with 703 Arizonans from Jan. 14-17, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Flagstaff, whose district includes the Grand Canyon, said in an emailed statement that the monument proposal is an important issue to our entire state, especially to our tribal communities and the people of northern Arizona. I strongly encourage folks throughout Arizona to study this proposal and voice their opinions. Grijalva said that since introducing the bill in November he has received a lot of political pushback, particularly concerning recreational activities on the land. But he said the bill includes guaranteed protections for hunting and fishing in the targeted monument area. To those who have complained about Obamas use of executive authority to create monuments, Grijalva notes that his proposal is a bill that will be considered by lawmakers although he thinks the president could use his authority if he had to for this monument. The Antiquities Act is federal law and were not there yet, Grijalva said. Although I think the president would be on comfortable historic and legal ground to use his executive power. The number isn't a coincidence. Bundy militia member Shawna Cox (pictured above, top right), who was arrested and charged for participating in the occupation of the Malheur refuge, has filed a lawsuit against the devils in the government claiming damages totaling $666 billion. Cox hopes to call virtually everyone to testify in her case -- which will never see the inside of a court room -- including local and state police, federal agents, and even law professors. Cox said she plans to ask a jury to deliver civil and criminal penalties against many of those same people, who she says have worked to subvert the constitutional government and impose "socialism, communism and imperialism types of government onto the people of the United States of America." [...] Saying that she's the victim of malicious prosecution, Cox states that her group was using the legal tactic of "hostile adverse possession" to expose what they see as the federal government's fraudulent handling of land in the former Northwest Territories. These people are not as much a militia as they are a cult. You cannot wage a hostile defense of land that isn't yours. Maybe we should be thankful that they're too goddamn stupid to actually have an impact on policy or discourse and too cowardly to die for their cause even though they claim they're ready to. We haven't seen the last of their type and the next group of self-styled "patriots" who take up arms against the government may not be so comically inept. If you're curious what the language of these people is even suppose to mean, I recommend reading the Southern Poverty Law Center's profile of sovereign citizen legal tactics. The short answer is it doesn't actually mean anything. They have a kind of special sovereign code language that judges, lawyers and other court staff simply can't understand (nor can most non-sovereigns). Sovereigns believe that if they can find just the right combination of words, punctuation, paper, ink color and timing, they can have anything they want freedom from taxes, unlimited wealth, and life without licenses, fees or laws, are all just a few strangely worded documents away. It's the modern-day equivalent of "abracadabra." Beth Cobert was nominated to become the director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in November of last year and she has served as the acting director ever since, but every decision she has made as the acting director since November is "void" according to Inspector General Patrick McFarland. This is cutting it quite close to ridiculous. McFarland argues that a recent decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected the Department of Justices interpretation of the law, effectively narrowing the conditions under which a nominee may serve in an interim capacity. Specifically, the ruling states that a nominee may only fulfill the position on an acting basis if that person has served as first assistant to the office for at least 90 days. Cobert came to the OPM directly from a role as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. For their part, the White House and the Justice Department disagree with the court and the inspector general and have asked the full 4th Circuit Court to rehear the case en banc. In the meantime, it's not clear how many decisions handed down by the now-former director of OPM may need to be reissued by a new acting director if all other decisions made since last November are void. None of this would be a concern if Congressional Republicans got off their asses and confirmed a permanent director for the Office of Personnel Management. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee finally confirmed Beth Cobert a couple weeks ago, but the full Senate has yet to vote. It's not as if the Senate has other important businesses to attend to. As you know, Congressional Republicans have decided not to release a budget or begin the appropriations process so there's not much else on their plate at the moment. (Cartoonist - Joel Pett) In other news, the Oregon state Justice Department is investigating the behavior of a local sheriff who apparently greeted the Bundy militiamen with open arms. There's also this: One of the other militants who met with [Sheriff Glenn Palmer], Jon Ritzheimer of Arizona, said he was one of those who met with Palmer. He said he and Payne autographed Palmer's pocket copy of the Constitution at the sheriff's request. Ritzheimer also is facing a federal charge for his role in the occupation. A pocket copy of the Constitution. Jesus shit. Meanwhile, the National Sheriffs Association executive director has denounced Beyonce's Superbowl half-time show and "Formation" music video because it incites violence against cops, he says. And finally, police officers in Tampa, Florida apparently don't want to provide security for a sold-out Beyonce concert because she's anti-cop. Or something. Beyonce's Formation is about appreciating your heritage, being proud of who you are and where you came from. It's about using the power you have and standing up for yourself. It has nothing to do with killing cops. Racist police seem to think being black and proud and standing up for your fellow citizens means you're "anti-cop." I wonder why that is. WASHINGTON Lawyers and others following separate Puerto Rico cases on sovereignty and debt restructuring that are pending before the Supreme Court are divided about how the death of Justice Antonin Scalia might affect the forthcoming rulings. Scalia's death last weekend leaves the court with eight members considered to be split evenly along partisan lines. One of the cases, Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle, asks the court to weigh the extent to which Puerto Rico is sovereign from the U.S. The high court already heard oral arguments in that case on Jan. 13. The other case, Puerto Rico v. Franklin California Tax-Free Trust, deals with a local Puerto Rico debt restructuring law for the commonwealth's public authorities that lower courts have deemed illegal. The oral argument for that case is scheduled for March 22. Justice Samuel Alito previously recused himself from the court's consideration of whether to accept the restructuring case because he reportedly has investments in funds holding Puerto Rico bonds. He would likely recuse himself from the case's oral argument if he has not divested those investments by March. Scalia's death and Alito's recusal would leave the justices who are considered more conservative in the minority. Eric LeCompte, executive director for Jubilee USA Network, said the more liberal justices are more likely to side with Puerto Rico on the legality of its restructuring law and increase the possibility that the lower courts' decisions will be reversed. The liberal justices are also expected to be more sympathetic to Puerto Rico's arguments that it has more sovereignty from the U.S. in a case involving two individuals who want to claim double jeopardy. Matthew McGill, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, is the lead counsel for BlueMountain Capital, which along with Franklin Templeton and Oppenheimer are challenging Puerto Rico's restructuring law. At a seminar on Puerto Rico sponsored by EMTA in New York, McGill said the restructuring case would be the first time in a long time that a predominantly liberal Supreme Court would hear oral arguments in a case. However, McGill said he doesn't think the case would be decided along liberal and conservative lines. It would instead be decided on the law, he said. James Spiotto, managing director of Chapman Strategic Advisors in Chicago, agreed with McGill, saying the basic tenants of the Constitution and federal law are still the same as they were before Scalia's death. The decision in both cases is more likely to be based on the legal interpretation of whether Puerto Rico has a sovereign status and whether Puerto Rico's restructuring law is illegal because it contradicts federal bankruptcy law, he said. "We maybe put too much emphasis on what the perceived political persuasion of a justice may be," Spiotto said. "If you talk about what the court does and what the justices decide, it [has] less [to do with] political persuasion and more [to do with] their perceptions of the law and their application of the law to those principles." The Puerto Rico v. Sanchez Valle case hinges on whether Puerto Rico and the federal government are separate sovereigns for purposes of the U.S. Constitution's double jeopardy clause, which prevents a defendant from being tried again on the same or similar charges in the same case following a legitimate acquittal or conviction. Donald Verrilli, the U.S. solicitor general, filed a controversial "friend of the court" brief on Dec. 23 that argued that Puerto Rico's transition to self-government between 1950 and 1952 did not change its constitutional status as a U.S. territory or give the territory sovereignty. Instead, Congress exercised its authority under the territory clause to authorize Puerto Rico to pursue self-government, under which local officials would exercise power under a framework approved by Congress, he said. Puerto Rico Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla responded to Verrilli's brief by arguing in a letter that Congress gave Puerto Ricans the right to govern themselves by passing a law giving the commonwealth the "principle of government by consent." The governor added that Verrilli's argument was "misguided and should not prevail in the Supreme Court." The Puerto Rico v. Franklin California Tax-Free Trust case involves the Puerto Rico Public Corporation Debt Enforcement and Recovery Act, which the commonwealth enacted last year to allow the its cash-strapped public authorities to restructure. The authorities, unlike most U.S. localities, don't have access to bankruptcy protection under Chapter 9. The funds are arguing that U.S. bankruptcy law preempts Puerto Rico's restructuring law. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston sided with a lower court in July, ruling in favor of the funds. Robert Slavin contributed to this report. The idle musings of a former military man, former computer geek, medically retired pastor and now full-time writer. Contents guaranteed to offend the politically correct and anal-retentive from time to time. My approach to life is that it should be taken with a large helping of laughter, and sufficient firepower to keep it tamed! Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/02/2016 (2437 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. VICTORIA A failed classroom experiment four years ago in northwestern British Columbia has spawned widespread concern from parents who fear their children face risks of lead poisoning from drinking water at their schools. A science class in Kitimat was trying to raise salmon eggs in an aquarium in 2012 but the eggs kept dying, prompting water tests that found copper and lead, said a B.C. Centre for Disease Control report released Thursday by the Opposition New Democrats. Here, the death of the salmon eggs in a classroom aquarium triggered an investigation that found elevated levels of copper and lead in the schools drinking water, said the report, dated April 2014. A district-wide investigation then found varied levels of lead and copper in drinking water in other schools. Flushing school water taps every morning was deemed a cheap and effective means of keeping the water safe, read the report, which suggested these mitigation actions may be informative for health authorities across Canada. But North Coast New Democrat MLA Jennifer Rice said Thursday it took four years for the investigations results to filter to Prince Rupert, located about 200 kilometres from Kitimat. Earlier this week, students received a note from the local school district that elevated levels of lead were found in the drinking water at four schools in Prince Rupert. Parents are scared, said Rice. Parents are wondering if they should be testing their children for lead poisoning. The Feb. 16 letter stated: School District 52 is working with Northern Health to address elevated levels of lead detected in water at four schools in Prince Rupert. The school district is committed to ensuring that the drinking water provided to staff and students at local schools is safe and has taken steps to address possible health concerns related to exposure of lead, including the implementation of a flushing program before the start of each school day. Exposure to elevated levels of copper is linked to acute gastrointestinal effects in the short term and possible liver effects in the long term, while even low-level lead exposure is associated with neurodevelopmental effects, said the centre for disease control report. Rice said shes concerned Prince Rupert residents only learned this week about a problem discovered four years ago. It has been four years since the situation in Kitimat, which was identified at that time as a possible similar situation in other northwest communities, she said. Four years is too long. They waited four years to even test Prince Rupert. Health Minister Terry Lake said the government is aware of the issue in Prince Rupert and is taking action. School water lines are being flushed every morning and filters are being installed on water fountains, he said. Provincial medical health officer Perry Kendall said hes not sure why broader warnings about school water quality were not issued following the Kitimat issue. He said school water systems in southern B.C. schools were tested for lead levels during the 1980s and 1990s, but the program apparently did not extend to the north. Ideally, it would have happened earlier, said Kendall. I dont know why it didnt. Kendall said lead exposure for children is harmful, but blood tests taken from children over a two-year period from 2009-2011 did not find elevated lead levels. From what we can see from the previous testing that was done in areas where kids were drinking water with higher levels of lead, were not seeing higher levels of lead in those children. He said the situation is Prince Rupert is not an acute health problem. A proposed constitutional amendment to allow Nebraskans as young as 18 to be governor or hold other state office gradually melted down in the Legislature on Thursday and ultimately was laid to rest. With the proposal (LR26CA) obviously leaking legislative support, efforts to salvage it by limiting the reduced age requirement to members of the Legislature or returning the measure to the Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee for further consideration and possible amendment were either ignored or rejected. In the end, a cloture vote to halt a filibuster mounted by Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha failed on a 26-18 vote. That motion fell seven senators short of the number required to proceed with consideration of the resolution. Thirty votes ultimately would have been required to approve the resolution and send the proposal to the people for consideration in November. Sen. Tyson Larson of ONeill, sponsor of the proposal, told senators he was willing to compromise by removing the governorship, seats on the Nebraska Supreme Court and other state offices from the measure, leaving only seats in the Legislature. The age minimum for state senators now is 21. Sen. Adam Morfeld of Lincoln prepared an amendment to accomplish that, matching the age of eligibility to the federal minimum voting age, but it was trapped in the filibuster. I shall not yield, Chambers said. Limiting the reduced age requirement to state senators demeans and derogates this body, he said. Some will not allow the middle ground to happen, Larson said. Sen. Bob Krist of Omaha said life experience and education are important to the process of being an effective legislator. Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 18/02/2016 (2437 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Second-year agribusiness students at Assiniboine Community College culminated months of teamwork at the annual Agribusiness Plan Competition, held this past week on campus. In addition to bragging rights, the winning team received $1,200. That team consisted of Donovan Hickson, Laura Sytnyk and Charlee McLaughlin-Ventnor, who developed a plan for a fictional company named Agricultural Training Farm of Manitoba. Im very proud of my team and how hard weve worked the last few months to achieve this amazing win, McLaughlin-Ventnor said. Submitted Assiniboine Community College agribusiness students showcased their hard work at the annual Agribusiness Plan Competition last week. The winning team included (from left) Laura Sytnyk from Shoal Lake, Charlee McLaughlin-Ventnor from Rivers and Donovan Hickson from Forrest. All second-year agribusiness students formed teams to prepare business plans for fictional agriculture businesses. Students kicked off their projects in year one and were encouraged to begin collecting information during their co-op work experience over the summer. Theres tremendous value in students working through the challenges and complexities of a complete plan from start to finish, said agribusiness instructor Terry Powell. They have to think through all aspects of their business model as well as challenges and opportunities in the marketplace to deliver a strategy for success. Along the way, students were tasked with finding suitable mentors in the business community to provide real-world expertise in operations, business management and accounting. Each of the 10 teams presented their plans to peers during Manitoba Ag Days in January. The four top-ranked teams from that event continued on to present at the final competition round this past week at ACCs Victoria Avenue East campus. Graduates of the agribusiness program judged those presentations and selected the order of winning teams. For the third year in a row, Redfern Farm Services Ltd. has contributed $3,450 in monetary awards for the top four plans and presentations. Its always exciting to see an idea and a concept come together in a finished project as all four of those projects did, said Ray Redfern, owner of Redfern Farm Services Ltd. It really does prepare those participants for tomorrows world. The other three teams in the finals developed business plans under the names Synergy Silage Ltd., Western Prairie Seed Cleaning Ltd., and Prairie West Butchers Ltd. Agriculture training has been a significant focus at ACC since the early 1980s. The two-year agribusiness diploma program averages more than 30 graduates a year and has more than 600 alumni. For more information, visit assiniboine.net/agribusiness. Submitted TOP TEAMS First place ($1,200) Agricultural Training Farm of Manitoba Donovan Hickson Forrest Charlee McLaughlin-Ventnor Rivers Laura Sytnyk Shoal Lake Second place ($1,050) Synergy Silage Ltd. Sydney Hore Wawanesa Brayden Kreshewski Minnedosa Brandon Smith Plumas Aaron King Killarney Third place ($750) Western Prairie Seed Cleaning Ltd. Maggie Funk Roblin Taylor Schettler Plumas Carley Paulenko Roblin Fourth place ($450) Prairie West Butchers Ltd. Jesse Bernard Killarney Josh Wood Minto Andrea Poirier Reston Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 19/02/2016 (2436 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Community members welcomed a national memorial for missing and murdered indigenous women into Brandon University with an emotional pipe ceremony on Thursday morning. The more than 1,800 vamps the decorative tops of moccasins that make up the Walking With Our Sisters memorial were brought to Brandon by volunteers from the touring installations last stop in North Battleford, Sask. The round ceremony room in BUs health studies building was filled with roughly 75 people, as elders and grandmothers smudged and welcomed the spirits of murdered women and girls into the space. When the spirits come, we have to be clean no negative things inside you, just the positive things. This is why we smudge, this is why we do the ceremonies, said elder Frank Tacan, adding that the pipe, or chanupa, is an extremely sacred object, not unlike the Bible. We honour our ancestors in this way. During the two-hour ceremony, attendees sat in a large circle around a sacred fire that will burn continuously while Walking With Our Sisters is in the city. The pipe carriers sat on colourful blankets closest to the fire and burned smudging herbs and tobacco throughout the event. Tacan led the ceremony with a prayer and a song before the inner circle of pipe carriers shared their own words of strength and hope one by one. A number of people broke down in tears while the speakers shared. Its very emotional, Tacan said. Its supposed to be. Walking With Our Sisters was created by Metis artist Christi Belcourt to memorialize the lives of the more than 1,181 indigenous women who have been murdered or reported missing in Canada since 1980. Tacan says an important aspect of the project is sharing traditional teachings and encouraging men and women to take care and respect each other. When you look at Mother Earth, she gave us everything that we need to survive in this world we have to honour that because women are life-givers, just like Mother Earth, he said. Over the weekend, a local organizing committee will be busy laying out the Walking With Our Sisters memorial in BUs Down Under space beneath the schools dining hall. It takes four days to lay them out and then to take them down is four days as well, grandmother Barbra Blind said after the pipe ceremony. Walking With Our Sisters opens to the public on Monday and will be on display until March 6. During the two-week period, community members will be volunteering their time to help out in various capacities fire keepers will work in shifts to tend to the sacred fire and elders and mental-health workers will be available for people dealing with the emotions brought on by the memorial. This is a lot of work and involves a lot of people because of the length of time that it is, Blind said. Its bringing the community together. The exhibit is free to attend, but visitors are not allowed to take photos or videos within the installation space. Were encouraging the public to come because this is about awareness. Its also, though, a very sacred space, said Tracie Louttit, who is part of the Walking With Our Sisters national collective, which travels with the memorial and assists host communities with its installation. The entire time from now until we de-install, its considered ceremony space. ewasney@brandonsun.com Twitter: @evawasney Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 19/02/2016 (2436 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. The unease Canadas top diplomat in Miami was feeling as her car threaded its way to work that bright, warm early morning was becoming more insistent. Her phone rang. Are your kids OK? a senior official at Canadas Embassy in Washington was asking. Marc Wabafiyebazu, 15, appears in adult criminal court for his arraignment, Monday, April 20, 2015, in Miami. Wabafiyebazu, the 15-year-old son of a Canadian diplomat charged with first degree murder in a double killing in Miami, is expected to plead guilty to reduced charges Friday. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Walter Michot/The Miami Herald via AP, Pool) And then, Roxanne Dube says in her French-accented lilt, I knew something was not correct. As she would later discover, local authorities had contacted the U.S. State Department, which had in turn contacted the Canadian Embassy. Her unease turned to alarm as, at the urging of her embassy contact, she directed her driver to a hospital, where she was ushered into a VIP room. Someone handed her a piece of paper with a phone number to call for information. She did. Im afraid I have bad news, I think we should meet, Det. Rolando Garcia was saying. And he said: Jean is dead. I knew it was true because of the way he pronounced Jeans name. Dube dropped the phone. Her world had imploded that sunny day on March 31, 2015. Dube could barely stagger outside. Now 53, Dube had arrived from Ottawa with her two teen sons exactly two months earlier to take up her post as Canadas consul general in Miami. It had been a whirlwind of wrapping up her old job she had been director general for North America, helping oversee Canadas consular network in the U.S. and Mexico finding housing, moving, unpacking, getting the boys settled in school. I needed a wife, basically, she says. Thats what I needed. It was very demanding. *** Dube had thought little of it when her 18-year-old son, Jean Wabafiyebazu, had asked for money to buy a textbook and take his younger brother, Marc Wabafiyebazu, 15, to a restaurant and movie. The older teen had been doing well and she thought he could do with a reward. She gave him $80 and allowed them to use her black BMW, its diplomatic licence plate sporting the word Consul, because Jeans car, which she now drives, was in the shop that day. Instead, that March 30 afternoon, the brothers headed to a dingy apartment, Jeans math homework in a black Jansport backpack on the back seat. He was carrying an American-made .40 calibre Smith and Wesson handgun. His plan, police would allege, was to rob a drug dealer of about 800 grams of marijuana. Jean left Marc sitting in the passenger seat, nearby trees waving in the breeze, as he went into the apartment clutching a green duffel bag emblazoned with a Moosehead beer logo and the words Jean/Marc written in fading ink. Inside, Jean and Anthony Rodriguez, then 19, had a back and forth, according to court evidence, along the lines of, Show me the money, Show me the drugs. And then, it went horribly wrong. Within minutes, Jean and another teen, Joshua Wright, 17, had died in an exchange of gunfire. Jean had been shot three times, including in the head. Rodriguez, a bullet wound to his arm, would tell police that he picked up a handgun as he bolted into the sunshine, stopping only to rush back inside to retrieve his drugs. His green iPhone was left inside in a pool of blood. Outside, an agitated and distraught Marc Wabafiyebazu, who had tried in vain to get some answers from the fleeing dealer, could only watch as Rodriguez drove off to abandon his silver Chevy Malibu at a gas station the same place he had been arrested a month earlier with a loaded gun for drug trafficking. Police had released him without charge two weeks before Jeans death. Minutes after the dealers hasty exit, police ordered Marc to his knees and arrested him on the sidewalk as they swarmed the bloody, casing-riddled crime scene. For hours, Marc was left in an interrogation room, handcuffed to a chair. No one read him his rights or warned him about the perils of speaking to the officers. Investigators refused his pleas to call his mother, who would go to bed about 10 p.m. that night wondering why she couldnt reach her kids, but assuming their phone batteries had died or that they were in a movie theatre and had turned their devices off. In court the following day, the judge gave Dube, now stricken with the knowledge her older son was dead, 30 seconds to hug her bereft, defeated younger son. He said, Jean est mort, Jean est mort. And I said, Were going to be brave now, she says. I couldnt grieve for Jean at that point. There was no space. Most pressing for Dube was ensuring that Marc survived. The brothers had developed an extraordinarily close bond through his mothers various postings and moves, including a stint as ambassador to Zimbabwe that began in 2005. More of a pliant follower, Marc kept saying he didnt know if he could live without his brother. In the gloom of the courtroom that day, Dube realized she had to shape up for her boys sake. *** Neither police nor prosecutors would allege Marc shot or even threatened anyone. Surveillance video at the two-storey apartment complex backs that up. But based on a purported confession he gave over a couple of minutes from the back seat of a cruiser to a rookie officer who was driving, police alleged Marc was in on his brothers planned armed robbery of the drug dealer. He says, It was a job gone wrong. I know youre a police officer but everyone is going to talk, so I may as well talk, Officer Juan Velez testified the accused told him. Marc, the officer testified, also said he and his brother had done such ripoffs before in Ottawa. Dube, however, is adamant that Marc said something quite different: That while Jean might have done something like that, he himself had never done so. Nevertheless, police argued, Marc had now confessed to being a party to the botched robbery and hence was, under Floridas felony law, culpable in the killings. These brothers know the business. They know what theyre buying, prosecutor Marie Mato declared. (Marc) didnt even have to be there at all, but the fact is that he was. He was there to assist his brother in the rip. *** Even though he had turned 15 a mere two weeks earlier and had never been in trouble with the law, Marc would be formally indicted as an adult on seven charges including felony first-degree murder, with its maximum sentence of life behind bars. Also charged separately with third-degree felony murder were the 21-year-old tenant of the apartment where the shooting happened, which police described as a filthy drug den, and Rodriguez, who had turned himself in. Police found an Argentina-made .380 Bersa Thunder handgun and bag of pot on the front seats of his car. Both co-accused would soon be granted bail and later plead out to lesser marijuana drug charges in exchange for boot-camp sentences and probation. The man who admitted to brokering the deal he arrived at the scene in his dads shiny gold Cadillac and fled unhurt when the shooting started was never charged. At Marcs bail hearing, Dube buried her face in her hands or dabbed at her eyes as investigators described in gruesome detail how her older son had met his violent end. She listened as they described her younger sons arrest, interrogation and confession. And then, as a witness, Dube found herself impugned as a negligent mother who had failed to properly supervise her teenaged offspring. Momentarily combative at one point, she looked the prosecutor in the eye and asked rhetorically: You dont have children, do you? The judge would later lend an official stamp of approval to the jaundiced view of Dube as a parent by stating that a desperate mother might resort to desperate measures to spare her son a lengthy prison term and, given her status as a diplomat, that made the child a flight risk. In addition, Circuit Court Judge Teresa Pooler decided the mother could not be trusted to supervise him properly. Despite being the only juvenile charged in the case, Marc was the only one denied bail pending trial. My vision for a better world is a world in which greed, jealousy violence etc. does not exist. Where people are not judged by their race Marc had written in a high school essay shortly before the killings. This is a world I doubt would ever happen because of human nature. *** Almost a year later, Dube is still piecing together the shards of her life. At times, she talks with confidence and an unabashed optimism. Other moments, she is clearly close to tears. She stepped down as consul general last August, but remains a Canadian government employee on sick leave. The driver, who allowed her to work en route to the office, is gone, as is the packed schedule of a consul general. Shes moved into a more modest rental apartment. The minimally furnished space feels temporary, makeshift, almost empty. Everything is completely different, she allows. Everything has changed. The unfathomable grief at losing Jean, she says, has begun subsiding. As evidence, she says, she can now look at the many photographs she has of her older son, smile and say to herself, Wow, it was a blast for those 18 years. I have almost a sense of joy. That hes with me. Hes with Marc, and he will live through us. He has managed to tell me somehow that this was meant to happen and hes OK. Dealing with the guilt has taken a lot longer. When a child falls ill, the usual reaction from others is one of sympathy. When a child is accused of being a criminal, Dube would soon learn, a more common reaction is that the parents must have somehow failed. It is, she came to understand, a way for other parents to protect themselves, to be able to declare privately that something that awful could never happen to their kids. You really feel the blows, she says, growing quiet, her gaze fixed on the living room window overlooking a manicured, suburban lawn. A counsellors words offered another revelation: Focus on what she had done right as a mother and show herself compassion for any mistakes she might have made. It was a pivotal turning point on the winding path to healing. It was a very long road to go from I am a bad mother to I have made mistakes. And theres a difference between the two. *** A French-Canadian raised in Quebec, Dube had put herself through university before working for a decade on Parliament Hill for a prominent MP who became foreign affairs minister. Her boys dad, Germano Wabafiyebazu, was a Congolese refugee who came to Canada in 1992. They met at the University of Ottawa in 93. She was in her early 30s when Jean was born. Marc, the son every mother would want to have, followed a couple of years later. The photographs spread out on her dining room table show the smiling siblings in various stages of childhood. In most, they sport broad winning smiles, in stark contrast to the perplexed upturned face a taller, gangly Marc would later show as he sat in brown prison garb quietly watching court proceedings. Dube waves her hands as she talks about feeling the need to dig deeper, much deeper, to ask herself what had happened to explain the calamity that had befallen them. Jean had done well in school. He was popular, athletic, smart. She and his father, from whom she separated after her tour as ambassador to Zimbabwe, loved him. They had been strong, supportive, hard-working role models. She had done all the right mom things. She drove him everywhere. They talked. And yet he had drifted into a rougher crowd in Ottawa and had started dabbling in drugs, apparently more with the notion of selling them than using them. He wanted money. He wanted to be rich quickly, she says. He knew what he was doing. Jean had been arrested in Ottawa on a minor drug-possession charge. He talked of dropping out of high school. Dube and his father sat him down to talk about what was happening with him. He agreed to change schools, away from what they considered the bad influence of his older friends. He wept in embarrassment. He knew we wanted the best for him, she says. But there was something yet deeper that Dube now faults herself for not recognizing. She had tried to exercise parental authority by doling out money, by forbidding his unsupervised use of the car _ external things, she calls them. What she might have missed, she says, was the internal: Jean was in the throes of a biracial identity crisis. The son of a black father and white mother, he had started bumping up against the negative views too many people hold of black youth. It destabilized him, she says. Despite what many might see as the wealth of resources available to her, she found it difficult reaching out to family or friends for help in dealing with a troubled, independent-minded son she wanted to protect. In retrospect, she says, she had become isolated as a parent and needed help. She should have done more to find it, she says. He needed help and I needed help, she says. He could have been saved. *** Ironically, Dube has now become a source of wisdom and strength for other parents going through their own versions of child or teenage hell. She has, she believes, become a better mother. She has visited Marc whenever allowed over the past year mostly through glass in the juvenile section of an adult prison where she was invariably the only white woman among Hispanics and blacks. Everyone, it seems, knows who she is. Despite her own pain, or perhaps because of it, she talks of the strong urge to want to comfort the often bewildered relatives she encounters on visiting days. I want to scream, Im so with you!' she says. Dube is acutely aware of the special ridicule reserved for mothers who declare their children innocent, no matter how heinous their crimes. Jean, she says, most certainly played a crucial role in what happened that fateful March day; he committed a crime, with devastating consequences. You have two young lives, full of talent, full of dreams, who died so unnecessarily for two stupid pounds of marijuana, she sighs. On the other hand, she insists, Marc was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. He knows he should not have been there. He has taken responsibility for his role, she says. But whats equally clear is that he did not commit murder or even an armed robbery. He did not participate in the felony. He was sitting in the car in the passenger seat, no means of communicating with his brother, unarmed. Still, rather than submit to the vagaries of a trial at which his co-accused would testify against him, and the potentially severe consequences of a conviction, Marc pleaded no contest on Friday to four charges, including two counts of third-degree felony murder one for his brothers death as well as aggravated battery. From her seat below a sign reading, We who labour here seek only truth, and after grilling Dube on whether she would properly supervise her son, Judge Pooler accepted the plea along with the jointly recommended sentence of boot camp, modified house arrest and up to eight years of probation. Crucially, if he completes the sentence without incident, he will have no criminal conviction. Essentially, he is paying the price for Jean. He is also pleading to the murder of his own brother, Dube says. *** Its been tough, Dube says reflectively. She still doesnt have her car back from police. Her surviving son is still not home. But Marc, who once told her they would get through the ordeal one day at a time, has been doing well, although forced to grow up faster than they might have wished. In his fellow inmates, he has seen first-hand the consequences of parental neglect, abuse and cripplingly broken homes. He speaks with compassion about them, she says. If she has grown as a mother, so has her son. They have started looking forward to the day when they can put this tragic chapter of their lives behind them and really start to move on, to rebuild, although exactly how and where is not clear. The no-contest plea and conditional sentence, at least, has allowed for more certainty. Jean is long buried in Ottawa. He was, his mom says, fiercely protective of his only sibling. At Marcs request, his tombstone carries the epitaph: Forever my brothers keeper. Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 19/02/2016 (2436 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. @Saturday Tab Brown=[C] For this weeks edition of First Draught, Im taking on Auld Skool Scottish Ale by Vancouvers Granville Island Brewing (Molson). Aside from Big Rock and Innis & Gunn, Scottish ales arent that common in Manitoba. In the case of Innis & Gunn, their beer is more about the barrel the beer is being brewed in, rather than being a Scottish ale. I tend to stay away from Granville Islands typical offerings in regular 341ml bottles because I just find them too watered down, with a manufactured taste. On the flip side, Granvilles 650ml bomber bottles have been a real treat over the years, with styles ranging from a Belgian-style saison to stouts and hoppy dark ales. Im glad that the brewery is continuing to experiment, especially with British Columbia having one of the largest beer scenes in Canada now there are just too many breweries to check out! Auld Skool is rated at 6.25 per cent ABV, making it a bit lower in alcohol content than most Scottish ales Ive tasted in the past. It has a whopping 20 IBU, meaning that the hop bitterness in this beer wont be overbearing or anywhere near the time to get out the Tums stage. Auld Skool pours a heavy and cloudy copper-brown, with half a finger of cookie dough beige foam on top thats just staying still not much carbonation taking place. The aroma is mildly nutty, with notes of fresh baked biscuits, toffee, raisins and an earthy whiff of peat from the roasted malt used in the beer. For the taste, I get the earthy peat notes appearing immediately as Im sipping on this. Following the peat, theres a mild amount of toffee that just briefly hits near the middle of my tongue, leaving only lingering memories of other Scottish ales of my past. Its fairly nutty and the hop presence is minor just a hint of a light, bitter metallic aftertaste. Im liking that this is a fairly sweet, earthy Scottish ale, but I expected a bit more toffee in this Auld Skool party. I find that this is a good beer for people who like a mild brown ale, nothing as dark and heavy as a Fort Garry Dark or a stout. In most of my favourite Scottish ales, I usually get more bite out of the toffee and even a hint of raisins and other dried dark fruits in the taste. Scottish ales are hard to find, so I recommend taste testing this with a bottle of Innis & Gunn Original or a Big Rock Scottish-style Wee Heavy Ale. You can find Auld Skool at the Corral Centre and 10th and Victoria Liquor Marts in Brandon for $6.10 per 650ml bottle. Pint Rating: 3 pints out or 5 Cody Lobreau is a Canadian beer blogger who reviews every beer he can get his hands on as he believes that he should try every beer twice to get an understanding if its truly good or bad. BeerCrank.ca. Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 19/02/2016 (2436 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett recently outlined how she sees the scope of a national inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women shaping up. Ms. Bennett believes the fact-finding must also hear the stories of those victims not yet counted. So the official number set at 1,181 by the RCMP in 2014 will rise. The tally of the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls has been a moving target for years. From the hundreds first believed to be in RCMP files, the 582 counted by the Native Womens Association of Canada in 2010, to the 800-plus painstakingly collected by a University of Ottawa PhD candidate. The organizers of the cross-country Walk4Justice say theyve gathered upwards of 3,000 stories. The high-water mark continues to move. Ms. Bennett is absolutely right; Canada needs to fill in the gaps on the toll violence takes on indigenous women. The inquiry, then, will be lengthy and many are OK with that. Dont rush. Get it right. Set the record straight and find the right solutions to the causes of rampant some call it endemic violence aboriginal people meet daily in cities and towns, in their neighbourhoods and their homes. But for a national fact-finding mission to have value, it needs to set goals. The inquiry should describe the roots of the violence that grew out of a history of racist policies in this country and morphed into a culture of institutionalized racism. That culture, today, devalues aboriginal lives on our streets and inflicts routine insult to injury on those seeking justice and answers in a loved ones death. Further to that, here are some ideas for organizing the inquiry: First, listen to those left behind, in confidence or in public meetings, in the way the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up its hearings. Gather details of the homicides and missing cases families say were mishandled or not investigated. Engage police agencies, including the RCMP, to ensure they are co-operating fully with the commissioners, opening their files. Hire forensic experts and researchers to trace the unaccounted cases. Many aboriginal people harbour distrust of police, and allegations homicides were dismissed as suicides or accidents persist. Resolving such accusations, where possible, helps families and law enforcers. Conduct an audit, sampling cases in a number of police agencies to compare the speed and quality of investigations against the cases of non-aboriginal victims. Too many families say they get short shrift when reporting a missing loved one, or in homicide cases. In some parts of Canada, native people have a deep-seated fear out of experience: in 2013, Human Rights Watch compiled numerous grave allegations of abuses by the RCMP in northern British Columbia. As yet, the report of an external review has not been made public. But a similar pall lingers over urban and provincial police forces. Do what can be done, quickly. Those living in aboriginal communities and on-reserve have done their own research. Manitobas own First Nations groups, for example, called for a community alarm, like an amber alert, as soon as a woman goes missing. The dearth of abuse shelters on reserves and in rural areas is well-known. Finally, listen to victims of violence who escaped with their lives. Their experiences hold insight on why aboriginal people are disproportionately vulnerable to being preyed upon. Yes, the body count will rise, and maybe the bloody accounting will enlighten Canadians about how the roots of the violence nurture everyday racism in this country. Understanding that is critical to stemming the violence to cut its deadly toll. Winnipeg Free Press Opinion Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 19/02/2016 (2436 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current. Thanks for the heartwarming article I am going to Sound Off with something positive today (sorry folks). I loved the article on Feb. 13 regarding Ryan Nelson, who is non-verbal due to cerebral palsy. He and his support worker, Matt Harrison, are writing a book series entitled The Crusades of Captain Rye and His Renegades. It just made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Thanks to The Brandon Sun for bringing this to light. Awesome! Just say no Until a few years back, we had a school board that ran more or less a balanced budget. They were quite satisfied to have teachers teach students the ABCs, reading, writing and arithmetic the reason for schooling. They werent concerned with bus rides around the country and all these (splish/splash) new programs. Teachers enjoyed teaching students, for a livable salary with a little volunteer work in school sport activities. Now most of our teachers find it as only a job, with exceptional pay. Our NDP school trustees and supervisory staff seem to forget about the reason for schooling and love new programs and raising taxes. Maybe thats why we have the lowest marks in Canada. Because with all these ridiculous new programs, there is no time for real schooling. Our school trustees had better learn how to say NO to new programs and raising taxes. OAS increase is a total insult to seniors What an insult to our senior citizens by our bleeding-heart Liberal government in Ottawa. A one-third of a per cent, a 57 cent raise in the Old Age Security pension. Our civil servants probably all received a two per cent increase in cost of living allowance in their union contracts. Whoever the bureaucrats are who figured this increase out must be living in la-la land. If they figured that the cost of living only increased by one-third of one per cent,they certainly have not been grocery shopping in the past six months. A simple solution would be to increase the OAS pension by the same per cent raise as members of Parliament get, a 2.3 per cent raise. Problem solved! The peasants then get the same per cent raise as the upper class get. Justice system desperately needs overhaul So three people can assault a vulnerable person in his own home to the point of death. Having his hands tied behind his back and face shoved into the carpet with a person sitting on top would suffocate anyone. One got two years minus 655 days. Wow, what does that leave for time? The main perpetrator, who carved his initial in the victims back, got 10 years minus 3.5 years because it took the court system 2.5 years to go to trial and our justice system lets a criminal apply for parole after serving one-third or automatically released after serving two-thirds of the sentence. So he is eligible to apply now. Isnt that justice? The third hasnt been brought to court yet as he sits in remand taking 1.5 times off his sentence. If no means no, then 10 years should mean 10 years. Come on people, lets keep it clean If I understand correctly, downtown businesses have to have the sidewalks cleaned in front of their premises before a certain time in the morning after a snowfall or there is a penalty assessed. But what about the rest of the city? Look around, how many other businesses in town do this? Lets include revenue buildings and apartment blocks (is this not a business?). And you homeowners come on, I know its only common courtesy to keep your few feet clean, but it makes so much of a difference to the people that have to, or choose to walk. Lets take a little pride in our city. A Limerick based software company has announced plans to hire 30 new staff. Kneat has said the new positions are being created through a new investment of 5.5m. The firm has signed a transaction agreement with Canadian company, Fortune Bay Corp. Kneat provides software solutions for the global life sciences - healthcare and other regulated sectors. Jobs will be available in roles such as experience software developers, testers, pharmaceutical process specialists and business development managers. Eddie Ryan, CEO at Kneat, said: We are excited to take this important step in capturing the rapidly growing market for compliance related document and data management software for regulated Industries. In acquiring access to increased financial resources and entry into a lucrative marketplace, we can accelerate our international growth plans. We launched our first solution in 2014 initially targeting validation applications for the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, and can now count several blue-chip biotech and pharmaceutical companies as clients. Our software is also applicable to other industries such as oil and energy, aviation, nuclear and automation where good data management, good documentation practices and regulatory compliance are highly valued. As we enter this next chapter in our companys history, I would like to acknowledge the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through Enterprise Ireland, whose support in growing our business has been invaluable. Its been a quick year since the Des Moines Water Works (DMWW) sued the boards of supervisors of three ag-based Iowa counties over alleged violations of the Clean Water Act. It has not, however, been a quiet year. The lawsuit against 10 drainage districts in Sac, Buena Vista, and Calhoun counties, explains the DMWW, is over the discharge of nitrate pollutants into the Raccoon River, the utilitys chief source of water, and the counties failure to obtain a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Permit in violation of the Clean Water Act. In the intervening year, claims the DMWW, the river water has gotten worse. On Jan. 4, DMWW reported it had spent $1.5 million to operate its nitrate removal equipment a record 177 days in 2015 so the water sold to its 500,000 customers would meet federal drinking water standards. The other side of the fight has been equally active. Iowas farm-centered politicians continue to condemn the DMWW as over-wrought and its lawsuit as legal over-reach. Last July, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad again blasted the lawsuit and the DMWW (which delivers water to his Des Moines home). He suggested the utility start working with others rather than continue to sue and attack other people. In an October visit, former governor and current secretary of agriculture Tom Vilsack also encouraged cooperation and cautioned, You do not want a federal judge deciding this.... Jawboning aside, the lawsuit continues. In January, the federal judge mentioned by Vilsack, Mark Bennett, asked the Iowa Supreme Court to rule on several legal questions before, he said, he could proceed because of the suits importance to the states key industry and its legal novelty. That novelty is, in fact, why most Iowa politicians and farmers alike are trembling at the very idea of the suit going forward. Heres how Neil Hamilton, director of the Agriculture Law Center at Drake University in Des Moines, explained it in a lengthy, jargon-free blog post last March: The key legal claim is the [three Iowa counties] drainage districts built, manage, and maintain the system of drainage ditches which artificially collect, convey and discharge polluted groundwater into Iowas rivers and streams imposing costs on the DMWW and others who use the water. This makes the districts point sources under the [Clean Water Act] need permits to discharge.... On Feb. 16, Hamilton, an ag law expert, explained to Kristina Johnson of the Food & Environmental Reporting Network (FERN) that if the suits key claim is proven that underground farm tiles in artificially created and maintained drainage districts constitute traceable source points of alleged pollution then long-exempt normal farming activities may fall under the Clean Water Act. Moreover, in the long run, Hamilton suggested, it isnt necessarily important whether DMWW wins or loses the suit because it already has changed the discussion around water quality and agriculture An eye-popping, Feb. 7 report titled Fooling Ourselves only adds to that evolving discussion. Researched and written by Environmental Working Group, EWG, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental non-profit that most U.S. farmers love to hate, the report found that while USDA has spent $3 billion in Iowa alone since 2005 on programs to help farmers farm in more environmentally friendly ways, theres little to no conservation benefit to show for all the dough. In fact, EWG claims, We are fooling ourselves by clinging to the hope that voluntary conservation measures will clean up Iowas water. In his FERN interview, lawyer Hamilton agreed. Theres no question that Iowa has a water-quality issue, and that its getting worse. The dirtier water, however, is an indication of a dirtier secret we in agriculture would like to keep: yesterdays rules cover an agriculture that no longer exists in either Iowa or the rest of the country. The rules covered traditional agriculture; todays agriculture is industrial. Therein lies the rub; more non-farmers than farmers water customers in Des Moines and Akron, federal judges, members of Congress, your state legislators are working to bring the old rules up to the publics new needs. By Denise O Donoghue Following Read More: William 'Bill' Kelly, 77, and his twin, John, moved to London from Cork when they were 18. Both recently passed away and there were concerns the twins would be buried in paupers' graves if family members weren't identified. Sean Kelly from Cork came forward with information to prove he is the twins' next-of-kin. Details of Sean's family history match those discovered by a genealogy organisation tracing the Kellys family. My uncle Dennis Kelly had three children, Jack [nicknamed John], Bill and Mary, he told The Irish Post. He died in 1947 and the mother and kids went over to London soon after. They ran a place called The Oval Bar on South Main Street in the city, Mr Kelly said. I think it was shortly after my uncle died that his wife and the kids headed over to England. Sean Kelly hopes to bury the pair with their father in their native Cork. Dennis is buried in St Finbarrs cemetery in the city here so if they are my cousins, well bury them here with him, he said. If we cant do that, well bury them in our own cemetery up the road. Via Irish Examiner The Teachers Union of Ireland could be set to go on strike at Institutes of Technology. The 4,000 members of the union who work at ITs - have voted in favour of industrial action over the Technological Universities Bill. Taoiseach Enda Kenny has arrived for more talks with his fellow European leaders after a long night around the negotiating table. Britain's prime minister David Cameron has said he will do 'everything he can' to secure a deal on his proposed EU reforms. Fans of Irish rugby have been dealt a triple blow today, with the news that Sean OBrien, Dave Kearney and Mike McCarthy will all miss the rest of the Six Nations. All three were injured during Irelands bruising defeat to France last weekend, with many supporters unimpressed with some of the cynical play from the French team. Talks in Brussels on a possible Brexit are resuming this morning. The British Prime Minister is hoping for an agreement that will pave the way for an in/out referendum later this year. EU leaders - including the Taoiseach - will resume their summit on the issue at lunchtime. Sticking points are thought to include plans for a so-called 'emergency brake' on benefits for migrant workers, and how a deal would be made binding. David Cameron is back in negotiations in Brussels after talking through the night about his plans for EU reforms: I was here until 5am this morning, working through this and we have made some progress, but there is still no deal. As I have said I will only do a deal if we get what Britain needs. So we are going to get back in there, we are going to do some more work and I will do everything I can. Demonstrators chanting "we are the people" surrounded a bus carrying asylum seekers as it arrived at a shelter in a German village, trying to preventing them from getting off. The state interior minister described the incident as "deeply shameful". Phosphorus is a critical nutrient for early season plant root growth and shoot development. When phosphorus is deficient, the older plant leaves will usually turn a purple color due to anthocyanin pigments accumulating in older leaf tissue. While this is rare beyond the seedling stage, I have seen in several fields where the phosphorus soil test level was 3. If the phosphorus deficiency is severe, plants later become stunted and lower yielding. Warmer temperatures increase natural mineralization of phosphorus from the rock, clay and other minerals within the soil for plant growth. Our soils are rich in phosphorus with levels up to 3,000 pounds per acre. In order to become available to the plant, this native phosphorus needs to be mineralized each year. This soil mineralization may seem like producers are getting something for nothing and may seem like a logical fertilizer cost savings for producers facing lower commodity prices. However, before producers start lowering their phosphorus fertilizer rates based on lower commodity prices and potential increased winter mineralization, Charles Shapiro, Nebraska Extension soil scientist, shares this research finding: After comparing long-term phosphorus soil storage levels in Nebraska, Shapiro has concluded that our statewide average stored phosphorus soil content levels has been decreasing each year by about 10 pounds per acre for at least the past 25 years. Why this decrease? First, consider that corn yields have almost doubled in the past 25 years. When harvested, each bushel of corn contains about 0.35 pounds P2O5 (phosphorus); thus, corn fields now yielding an extra 100 bushels per acre will remove an additional 35 pounds of phosphorus from the field each year in grain harvested. Livestock manure applications have decreased during the past decades for many farms. Thus, less phosphorus has been moved back onto the fields in the manure to replace nutrients taken away or harvested in grain and forage. For some operators, tillage adding to erosion losses has also been a factor. The target critical soil phosphorus content levels may need to be adjusted higher. For example, based on an 8-inch soil sample, past University of Nebraska deficiency correction recommendations have been maintaining a soil phosphorus content level of 15 ppm (30 pounds) per acre. The target soil level we recommend today is to 20 ppm (40 pounds) per acre based on these new soil phosphorus storage state average findings. More information regarding corn fertility and rates is available on our Nebraska Extension website, http://cropwatch.unl.edu. This still leaves room for many farmers to reduce phosphorus applications without yield impact at this time of tight returns. This could involve reducing broadcast applications, adjusting starter fertilizer type and rate, and utilizing manure more precisely. SINGAPORE: US oil may test a support at $83.78 per barrel, a break below which could open the way towards... It has been far too many years since the Woke theology 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 array 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. KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that some portions of the old and recently restored walls... Trump's arrogance and egoism had been more detrimental to our system that it has been inspirational. I knew he was an amoral phony when I read his book "The Art of the Deal" years ago. My mistake was in believing that the American people could see through his obvious maneuverings on the way to the convention. I felt he would just fall by the wayside as time went on. Bobby Tony was wrong, The circus has not left the town. It is no longer the carnival circus it was at the start for me.I may be wrong here but I am beginning to have some doubts about Donald Trump's real motives. Having dealt with blowhards and egoist before, I am wondering whether The Donald is starting to set up his exit strategy, in case he is rejected by the voters in either the primary or general election. I can hear him saying "You people are too dumb for me to be your leader".First he floats the idea that he may back off on his pledge to support the eventual Republican candidate. He is blaming that on the boos he got at the last debate and claiming that the deck was stacked against him. Does anyone believe that he is really that thin skinned or is he just so insulated from reality that he cannot handle real criticism? No, he is building a fall back position.Secondly, his attacks on George W. Bush using the talking points of the left is way beyond any realistic truth. No less that a confirmed Liberal columnist, Bob Woodward says The entire world's intelligence agencies thought Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and the fact that Assad has used them during his civil war may add credence to the existence of the weapons.Thirdly, Trump seems to want to blame G.W. Bush for the attack on the World Trade Tower. There were mistakes made and it was a clear failure of the immigration and tracking procedures for the terrorists. Trumps statements that it would not have happened if he were president ring hollow to me when he could not prevent four of his companies from going bankrupt under his watchful eyes. Or maybe he was so smart he did see the bankruptcies coming and was able to leave a bunch of others holding the bag. Either way, that is not presidential material, because we are the ones who will be left holding the bag.I gave him a half-pass for his comments on John McCain's capture and days as a POW as just being off the cuff remark in the heat of the moment. But when his ego would not let him retract it he lost any semblance of support from me. I have to admit that I never for once supported him or thought he could win the nomination.I have indicated before that I would have to turn on the fan in the voting booth to keep the stench down if I only had the choice between Trump and Bernie or Hillary. I would reluctantly pull the Trump lever, punch the card slot, or touch the screen icon for his name but it would not be out of enthusiasm for his policies or his character. It would not be the first negative vote I have cast for president. I voted for Nixon twice. Once as an absentee ballot in Vietnam in 1968 and second as a negative voting disillusioned veteran in 1972. I find both men devoid of any character and so consumed with winning that they had no core sense of belief other than doing whatever it takes to win.What amazes me in this whole fiasco of this election cycle is how both Hillary and Donald can attract an enthusiastic audience from people who you would think were smarter than that. It indicates how bad our politics have become that we would ever put any faith in either of these two. Hillary, attracts the same mind numb supporters in spite of personal lapses in honesty and judgement as well as her active attempts to discredit other women who were subject to the horny Bill's advances. I will give Bernie Sanders credit for at least one thing, he is honestly spelling out his agenda. Why he is attracting a groundswell of support is not his fault but the fault of an American populace that is so angry and searching for answers to their situation which I maintain was created by the very policies he advocates. But at least it is an honest debate. However, I don't think Bernie has a snowballs chance of getting the Democratic nomination. The Democrats have taken rigging elections to an art form and poor old Bernie still thinks it is about the votes. Can you say Super Delegates.What we need desperately is some adults to tell Hillary it is over for her as well. "On the night of August 7, 1974, Senators Barry Goldwater and Hugh Scott and Congressman John Jacob Rhodes met with Nixon in the Oval Office and told him that his support in Congress had all but disappeared". Wiki Link He was toast and he knew it. That would not work with Trump since he does not listen to anyone but his own inner voice and I am not too sure he pays that much attention. It will be up to the voters to make the decision on Donald Trump.One of the major flaws in our system of government is the inability to throttle an out of control President when the Congress and Senate is just a corrupt as the President. The "MY GOOD FRIEND" sham has been around too long. The system is incestuous and the whole concept of a limited government has been lost in our quest to let the government solve all our problems large and small. It is just as unfortunate the our judicial branch cannot bring itself to just stick to the constitution without expanding the it's meaning by looking within the spaces between the letters.Once again I resort to a movie clip to make the point. The new commander of Russian forces in Ukraine made a rare acknowledgment of the pressures they were under from... Telling the stories behind the passionate pursuit of great beer since 2005. Do you need a copy of my book - Beer Lover's Mid-Atlantic? Chief Minister Andrew Barr has restated his calls for intervention in Canberra's petrol pricing by the competition watchdog, concerned the city is being overlooked in favour of regional centres. This week Mr Barr wrote to Australian Competition and Consumer Commission boss Rod Sims for a second time in two years, seeking a meeting to discuss higher prices paid by Canberra motorists compared with drivers in other capital cities. Call for action: ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr. Credit:Jay Cronan In its February report, the commission found regular price cycles existed for petrol in Australia's five largest cities, but similar cycles did not occur in regional centres or Canberra, Hobart and Darwin. Canberra and Hobart prices were consistently higher than in the five largest cities, the report showed. Chief Minister Andrew Barr wants the population of Canberra's city centre to swell six-fold within five to 10 years, from 3500 to 20,000. Speaking after addressing a meeting of business leaders in Canberra, Mr Barr said the city could reach the target through ongoing population growth and an increasing number of retirees choosing to stay in Canberra after quitting the workforce. Barr's vision: A digitally altered image showing more activity in Canberra's city centre. Credit:Rohan Thomson At the last census in 2011, the city centre, bounded by Cooyong Street, Barry Drive and the edge of the Australian National University campus, had a population of 2823. The 20,000 target for the city centre, including the new lakefront area to be opened up at West Basin, is in addition to the thousands more the ACT government wants living in the Northbourne Avenue corridor between the city and Dickson and further north along the tramline to Gungahlin. Lucky for her, young tradie Josh Lancaster was working nearby and found Pumpkin running up the road towards him before "straight on to her back for a tummy rub". It seems her nine-year-old staffy Pumpkin is a bit of an escape artist and recently got out of her yard by pushing aside bricks that were blocking a hole in the side gate. Jenny was out at the time. An amazing random act of kindness - Canberra tradie Josh Lancaster with Pumpkin the staffy and her owner, Jenny Spear, of Wanniassa. Credit:Rohan Thomson Josh Lancaster with Pumpkin and her owner Jenny Spear. His return of Pumpkin to her Wanniassa home was something special. Credit:Rohan Thomson He called the number on Pumpkin's collar and got Jenny who was at work. Josh said he would return Pumpkin back home and "see what he could do". He got Pumpkin back in the yard and blocked up the hole but it wasn't long before the dog had escaped again. So Josh took an old iron gate he'd just removed from the job he was working on and used it, some wood and some occy straps to secure Jenny's fence. But then he returned the next day and took the whole gate off, moved it closer to the post, rebolted it and put a new latch on the gate. All without payment or any fanfare. Just a lovely surprise for Jenny who told her story on Facebook. Her post was then shared by dog walker Carolyn Kidd, who put the story on her North Canberra business' Facebook page Dogs on the Run. The Civil Aviation Safety Authority has launched an investigation after a drone crashed during a Last Post ceremony at the Australian War Memorial. It is understood the drone was operated by a visitor from NSW and landed at the feet of the memorial's director, Brendan Nelson, who picked it up and handed it to security staff. Visitors gather at a Last Post ceremony at the War Memorial last year. Credit:Jay Cronan A War Memorial spokesman confirmed there was an incident involving a drone during the ceremony, held daily at 4.55pm, on Thursday. He said while the incident had presented a safety risk, no one had been injured. PROCLAMATION OF AN EXTRA SESSION Raleigh, N.C. Governor Pat McCrory has signed a proclamation calling the General Assembly to convene for an extra session and issued the following statement.Governor McCrory said.on February 5, 2016, a three-judge panel for the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina ordered the General Assembly to draw new congressional districts by February 19, 2016; andState defendants will exercise all avenues of appeal, but intend to fully comply with the Court's order; andthe three-judge panel for the United States District Court for the Middle District ("the Court") recognized "well-established precedent that a state should have the first opportunity to create a constitutional redistricting plan"; andlegislative leadership took steps to prepare for a possible extra session by appointing a Joint Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting ("the Committee") on Friday, February 12, 2016; andthe Committee held a series of public hearings across the State in Raleigh, Halifax, Charlotte, Fayetteville, Wilmington and Asheville on Monday, February 15, 2016; andthe Committee met in Raleigh to discuss public feedback and to review the Court's order on Tuesday, February 16, 2016 and Wednesday, February 17, 2016; andlegislative leadership requested an extra session for the purpose of expeditiously approving new congressional districts so as to comply with the Court's order and minimize delay of the primary election currently underway;I, Pat McCrory, Governor of the State of North Carolina, pursuant to the authority vested in me as Governor by Article III, Section 5(7) of the Constitution of North Carolina, due to this extraordinary occasion, and by and with the advice of the Council of State, do hereby proclaim that the General Assembly shall convene for an extra session on Thursday, February 18, 2016 at 10 am, and shall continue as provided by law and the rules of each house until both houses shall have adjourned sine die, for the purpose of apportioning congressional districts as required by the three-judge panel and to consider any other legislation necessary to hold the 2016 congressional elections.I have hereunto signed my name and affixed the Great Seal of the State of North Carolina at the Capitol in the City of Raleigh this 17th day of February, 2016.View the proclamation here Crystal Feldman Missy Higgins' latest single is dedicated to the victims of the Syrian refugee crisis, after she was overcome with emotion after seeing images of a young boy's body washed up on a beach. The Australian singer-songwriter has written the song Oh Canada and dedicated it to the memory of three-year-old Alan Kurdi, who drowned along with his mother and brother on their way to Greece, via boat, to seek asylum. Missy Higgins Credit:Cybele Malinowski Only his father, Abdullah survived. "From where I sat in my comfortable living room nursing my newborn son, the tiny child in that wrenching image could have been my own little boy," Higgins said in a statement. The Prime Minister said the Labor policy would effectively remove all would-be investors in existing properties from the market, leaving only people looking to buy a family home. That, in turn, would mean that up to 30 per cent of would be purchasers of a property would be removed from the market for existing properties and "if you do that, you obviously drive prices down". "If you are going to look at an issue like this, into negative gearing of residential real estate, you need to look at it very carefully. You need to use great care and attention, you need to use a scalpel, rather than an axe.What Bill Shorten has done is he has set out to smash the residential housing market." Pressed for details of the Coalition's negative gearing policy - it is said to be considering either a cap on the number of properties that can be negatively geared, or a cap on the total dollar amount that can be deducted - Mr Turnbull declined to give specifics. "We are not going to run our tax reform agenda in a political way, what we are looking at is a whole range of measures across the board. But I can tell you the big difference between our approach and Bill Shorten's is that we will think the consequences through." Peter Beattie had a famously close relationship with then-Brisbane lord mayor Campbell Newman. Credit:Robert Rough During all this time the powers of the CJC to keep the 'bastards honest' remained. Then the Newman government introduced a bill which, in effect, could have destroyed the ability of the CCC to independently keep Queensland politics honest. Removing the need for the bipartisan appointment of the independent chair and commissioners of the CCC destroyed one of Fitzgerald's key inquiry outcomes as enshrined in the CJC's (now CCC's) governing act. Under the proposed new rule, the independent watchdog would have been politicised. The chair would have needed the support of the cabinet to be appointed and not the bipartisan parliamentary committee. In other words he or she would have become a political appointment. As chair of the PCJC, I worked with Nationals Mike Ahern and Bill Gunn as deputy chairmen to make the committee work in a bipartisan way under the governing act of Parliament. That would have been lost in the Newman government changes. It took years for the state to get over the political appointment of a corrupt police commissioner, Terry Lewis, who won his position through political favour. My criticism of the Newman government here is neither political nor personal. To the annoyance of the Labor Party at City Hall, I enjoyed a good relationship with Newman when he was lord mayor of Brisbane and it was also no secret that I did not agree with the targeting of Newman's family in the 2012 state election campaign. However, in office, the Newman government did all it could to blacken everything Labor, even ignoring the obvious impact of the global financial crises on the state's finances. The signing of the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement is a golden opportunity for Australian innovation, says Peter Beattie. Credit:Kym Smith So what are our weaknesses? Without large Australian corporates to take on the commercialisation of Australian innovation Australia has become the innovation mine for the world. Being an innovation mine doesn't create jobs and a sustainable future. Part of our problem is that we don't have the equivalents of Microsoft, Intel or Google. The Australian equivalents, Telstra and Optus, are not in the same league and are service-based companies with little emphasis on innovation. Nor do we have the healthcare equivalents of Pfizer, GSK, Johnson & Johnson or Merck. Australia's largest biotech, CSL, was government-funded for 75 years before privatisation. Because we do not have large domestic corporates, the traditional venture-capital model of building innovation businesses and then selling to the large corporates in the local ecosystem is a structural problem. That is why the traditional US venture-capital model has not succeeded in Australia. US venture capitalists only need to be successful in their own backyard to generate successful companies and strong returns. In fact, most of them only think about the US. For more than 100 years, Australian governments have remained committed to supporting research. Currently $9.7 billion of taxpayers' money is invested annually which has led to the creation of our world-leading research organisations and infrastructure. However, less than 1.5 per cent of that money is spent on commercialisation and translating the outcomes of this research into products, jobs and income for the country. Historically, almost half of the government's commercialisation funding was directed to supporting the automotive industry. The heart of our problem is that we have a shortage of venture capital. Money sadly makes the world go round. Our funding of commercialising research has not evolved with the developed world's transition to innovation and knowledge-based economies. To be a clever country we need a sustained investment in commercialising science and R&D. The investment tax initiatives announced in December 2015 by the Turnbull government in its innovation policy are a good start but only part of the solution. In themselves they are not enough. Another dimension is needed. The free trade agreement with China allows Australia to tackle our lack of venture capital. China can now provide a portal for Australian venture capital and innovation companies. This strong and formal link will enable our innovative products to be co-developed and commercialised in China. Like the US, you only need a product to gain broad adoption in China for it to become an enormous success. This could therefore overcome the lack of both a large population and sufficient multinational companies in Australia. A smart Australia should establish two joint venture capital funds in collaboration with China: one to invest in the commercialisation of our world-leading biotechnology research and the other to invest in general innovation. It would be a marriage made in heaven where Australia's world class research would be taken to the world market with Chinese capital and with both countries benefiting. Australian brains and Chinese money! Joint boards should be established in Australia consisting of both Australian and Chinese representatives. However, there are three problems. Firstly, we only have a window of opportunity of five to 10 years to do this, otherwise Chinese biotechnology research will catch up to Australia and the Chinese will then partner elsewhere or internally. China is big enough and with enough foreign reserves to collaborate internally. Sometimes we do not fully understand the vast potential of China. Secondly, we have to overcome our phobia about Chinese investment in Australia. Collaboration is vital for our future. We sell China our minerals, now we have to invest together. Finally, government has to understand this is a long-term strategy and think long-term. In the past there has not been enough understanding in government of what the biotechnology industry can do for the Australian economy and our personal health and wellbeing. Think Gardasil, it took 15 years to get to market. A specialist commercialisation venture capital fund would be an ideal way to cement a maturing of the relationship with China post the mining boom. It could also encourage superannuation funds to invest in Australia's future. The next generation of Australians need us to be smart about money now. In the US, venture capital-backed companies account for 9 per cent of all private-sector jobs and 17.6 per cent of gross domestic product. Australia has an ideal partner to work with a Chinese/Australia investment fund in biotechnology to minimise investment risk and maximise returns. It is the Medical Research Commercialisation Fund (MRCF) of which I have been a director since 2010. In its simplest form, successful biotechnology is simply 'manufacturing' manufacturing to make the drug, vaccine or medical device. However, it is a manufacturing industry protected by patents and strict international regulatory guidelines, meaning that it cannot be easily undercut by lower-cost countries and therefore can afford to pay Australian wages and remain competitive. The demise of our traditional manufacturing jobs and industries, including automotive, is a key challenge facing Australia. The biotech industry can help replace these jobs with smart manufacturing. The announcement in early 2015 of the successful raising of a new $200 million life-science venture fund by the MRCF and Brandon Capital is truly a beacon of hope that Australia can evolve its economy away from the unhealthy reliance on commodity-based products into sustainable industries that rely on knowledge and innovation. It is the MRCF's third successful fund (MRCF3). The new fund comes at a critical time in the evolution of the Australian economy. With falling mining-based commodity prices signalling the end of the resources boom, we are seeing the end of an unprecedented period of continuous economic growth. While at $200 million the MRCF3 may appear modest in comparison with the billion-dollar figures we are accustomed to seeing in relation to our mining companies, banks and even superannuation funds, it is in fact the largest life sciences innovation fund raised in Australia. The MRCF is an ideal partner because it is a unique collaboration among more than 50 of Australia's leading medical research institutes and research hospitals, which provide the intellectual property and expertise. Four superannuation funds provide the investment capital to support the commercialisation of medical discoveries. The MRCF is run by Brandon Capital, a team of sector specialists that has the expertise to guide the research discoveries through a complex development path. The impact that the MRCF's first funds, totalling $50 million, have already had on the local biotechnology industry is significant, with more than 20 new companies created. In the past 18 months the MRCF has had major achievements with two of its companies. A company developing a novel therapy for the treatment of chronic pain, Spinifex Pharmaceutical, which grew out of research at the University of Queensland, was sold for more than $700 million to Swiss-based company Norvartis. And Melbourne-based Fibrotech, which is developing novel drugs to deal with fibrosis, was sold to Shire for US$557 million. The promise of this new MRCF fund, with its significantly greater pool of capital, is that it will have the capacity, along with a direct co-investment mandate from the superannuation funds, to help create companies that remain in Australia, manufacturing high-value products that are exported to the world. The support of AustralianSuper, HESTA, Statewide and Hostplus in this new fund is significant. It is in the long term interests of nation building that Australian superannuation funds have made large new commitments to early-stage investments. Two other funds are on the horizon. In September, 2015 Blackbird Ventures raised $200 million including from First State Super and Hostplus, with this fund focussing on information technology opportunities. Now the G8 universities are working to set up another $200 million early stage commercialisation company to be announced in 2016. With our superannuation industry worth more than $2 trillion, tapping even a fraction of these funds would transform our innovation ecosystem, creating new jobs and income for the country. However, Australian superannuation funds need to do more. Australian universities and research institutes may be at the heart of Australia's innovative future but they cannot roll out companies centred on commercialising research on their own. We are therefore undermining our children's future by not investing more superannuation and Future Fund dollars in Australia's innovative research in our world class institutes. Superannuation has empowered Australians to enjoy a dignified retirement. Its evolution should add the extra ingredient of nation building. I may be an idealist but I believe if Australians were asked by the managers of their superannuation funds to agree to invest just 0.2 per cent of their money in Australian innovation to ensure future jobs and prosperity, they would overwhelmingly say "yes". Maybe it is time Australians were given that choice. Australia's superannuation industry has one of the largest pools of capital in the world. As superannuation funds grow, their challenge will be whether there is enough diversity for Australian investors. At the moment 61 per cent of ASX earnings are generated by three industries: financial, property and mining, represented by 10 companies. Indeed four banks and two mining companies account for 49 per cent of ASX earnings. The superannuation industry can't afford to ignore investing in innovation and the development of the next generation of industries and jobs. These future jobs would underpin the long-term strength of the trillion-dollar superannuation industry. Without continued contribution growth from the next generation of employees, the superannuation industry won't be able to continue to support superannuants in their retirement. This should be the next stage of the evolution of Australian superannuation. It completes the virtuous circle that our superannuation industry is reliant upon. I understand the need for superannuation funds to deliver growth and investment returns for their members based on sound investment practices. Indeed the superannuation industry cannot be expected to invest in research without an appropriate return. Trustees must by law maximise the returns to the members for their retirement. However, a tiny fraction of their funds invested long-term in well-managed Australian innovations will generate good financial returns with a higher risk but with a higher return trade-off, ensuring our economic growth and being part of a diversified investment portfolio. With the sale of Spinifex and Fibrotech, the MRCF has already demonstrated that this strategy works. Sadly, the drivers of short-term investment decisions are undermining Australia's future. The careers of superannuation fund investment officers depend on short-term performance, so it is not in their professional interest to recommend long-term, nation-building asset classes. In addition there are new factors conspiring against long-term investment thinking, including a focus on low-cost investments and increasing competition between super funds. It is almost impossible for government to direct super funds to invest in a particular asset class, especially in a defined contribution environment where the member assumes all the risk. Why do we need to be obsessed about venture capital? China is spending $308 billion in its current five-year plan on developing its biotechnology industry, covering bio-manufacturing, biological equipment, bio-engineering, bio-agriculture and bio-pharmacy. Its strategy is to focus on the 'development' in research and development. It is accelerating its biotechnology industry by learning from the achievements and mistakes of developed countries. Its best and brightest student researchers are being sent to the world's leading research universities and companies. This program is assisted by the return of Chinese scientists to take advantage of the increasing opportunities in their country. China is seeking new solutions to environmental problems and new energies. I spent time there recently and saw first-hand their determination to build a new energy future. While this will take time and money, it will happen. China has nine universities ranked in the top 200 in the world. Australia has 12. That is why an investment partnership with China is so important. At the same time, Russia, India, Brazil, the Middle East, South Korea, Malaysia, Poland, Taiwan, Turkey and South Africa are all building a biotechnology capacity. Indian drug makers have become very good at making cheaper copies of pharmaceutical molecules, while South Korea and Singapore have become centres for clinical trials and research and development. Growing health demands in Asia's emerging middle class will accelerate this drive for innovation. How things work in the future economy will be nothing like the past. While there will be a long transition, by 2050 any economy not driven by knowledge will be the New Poor. This is the innovation century. Therefore, the Australian government's facilitation of innovation investment is about resetting the balance between short- and long-term investments. In a time of relative prosperity, Australia should also think about establishing a pool of capital to invest in next-generation industries. Superannuation investment returns are taxed at 15 per cent. A fraction of a percentage of this should be invested in innovation translation and commercialisation, creating a knowledge-based economy and leading to jobs and wealth creation. The Future Fund and the Medical Research Future Fund both have a role to play. They need a focus on investing in commercialising innovation. What is the point of the Future Fund investing in European highways when Australian innovation is put on the backburner? It too should be investing a tiny percentage of its money in commercialising Australian innovation research. Where will the jobs come from to support economic growth if we don't drive the Australian economy by investing in innovation? A new internet messaging tool, which sidesteps the federal government's metadata collection regime to assist human rights activists and help journalists protect whistleblowers, has received a tick of approval from security experts. The software, called Ricochet, has been in development for around two years, however now the team behind its creation says it's ready for use following a formal security audit conducted in the United States. Richochet uses the Tor network to automatically give users dark web anonymity. Dr Suelette Dreyfus, a vocal privacy advocate and University of Melbourne information system researcher who has already been teaching journalism students how to use Ricochet, said its security accreditation was a major step forward for investigative reporting. "The release of Ricochet with its audit is a moment for celebration because, even if you're not a journalist or a source, as a member of the public you should feel happier that it's now a little safer for sources to reveal wrongdoing to journalists and for journalists to tell the truth about that wrongdoing. That's definitely something worth celebrating," Dr Dreyfus said. For Peter Brown it is the worst of all worlds. Three huge open cut mines mines - Mt Arthur, Mangoola and Bengalla mines - are edging closer to his property near Muswellbrook. They are now within 3 kilometres and more mines are planned. Peter Brown's property is surrounded by coal mines, but he is unable to require the mines to buy him out due to NSW's mining land acquisition policy. Credit:Rod Thompson "We are just bombarded by dust and noise," he said. But despite clouds of brown-black dust that seep through every crack and noise that forces him to sleep away from the property, Mr Brown is unable to require the mines to buy him out. Instead he is stuck, unable to sell at any price and dealing with his wife Julie's poor health. She has a chronic lung condition, known as MAC (Mycobacterium avium Complex) which is associated with underlying lung disease or suppressed immunity. He believes her condition is due to the poor air quality in their part of the Hunter Valley. The long-serving leader of one of Sydney's most prestigious schools, John Vallance, has resigned as headmaster from Sydney Grammar. Dr Vallance will end his 16-year stint as headmaster of the elite secular boys school at the end of the first school term next year, parents and staff were told on Friday. Sydney Grammar School Headmaster, Dr John Vallance has resigned. Credit:SMH "I write with much regret to inform you that Dr John Vallance has decided that it is time for his tenure as headmaster of Sydney Grammar School to come to an end," the school's chairman of Trustees David Kirk wrote in a letter to the school community. "The trustees are of course disappointed in John's decision to leave but we respect and understand his desire to undertake new challenges and to do so when he is unquestionably at the top of his game," A woman who lived through years of men being directed to her door for random sex has slammed a senior police officer for "victim shaming", after he called for people to "grow up" and stop sharing naked pictures. A parliamentary inquiry on Thursday examined ways to tackle the problem, which it heard was growing exponentially. Signs and security put up by Robyn Night and her husband in response to dozens of visits from men expecting sex. Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner Shane Connelly told the inquiry: "People just have to grow up in terms of what they're taking and loading on to the computer because the risk is so high". "[They say] if you go out in the snow without clothes on you'll catch a cold if you go on to the computer without your clothes on, you'll catch a virus," he said, according to The Guardian. A 117km/h wind gust has already been reported as a severe storm warning covers a large span of south-east Queensland. A very dangerous thunderstorm was bearing down on the Ipswich area just before 7pm. A very dangerous storm features in the Bureau of Meteorology 6.50pm storm warning. Credit:Bureau of Meteorology The Bureau of Meteorology reported that 99 millimetres of rain fell south of Gatton and Laidley in just half an hour, creating a significant flood risk. It warned of damaging winds and possible flash flooding from heavy rainfall for an inland area stretching from the New South Wales border almost to Kingaroy. An elderly Queensland woman in poor health is distraught after a pair of dog nappers duped her into giving them her "best friend". The woman had advertised her beloved dog Peppe on a website because her own health was deteriorating and she was no longer able to give him the care he deserved. A Rochedale South woman has lost her pet dog Peppe. Credit:Rob Homer She was flooded with inquiries and a man and a woman rushed to her home at Rochedale South, south of Brisbane, on February 7 to meet the jack russell/chihuahua. The pair convinced the elderly woman to let them take Peppe home for a "sleepover" to ensure he would get along well with their existing dog. Elective services can't be guaranteed following the suspension of seven Gold Coast University Hospital staff over an alleged corruption scandal, the hospital's chief says. The cardiology department workers were stood down with full pay on Friday evening and referred to the Crime and Corruption Commission over allegations of serious fraud in the patient referral process. Seven Gold Coast Health staff members have been stood down and referred to the Crime and Corruption Commission. Credit:Louie Douvis GCUH chief executive Ron Calvert declined to give details, saying he was deliberately kept away from the specifics of the investigation. He confirmed five doctors were among those stood down and the alleged fraud could extend to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Gold Coast mayor Tom Tate has a simple message for federal bureaucrats insisting a $20 million business case be finished before the Logan-Underwood section of the Pacific Motorway gets widened. "I say to them, 'Get off your arse, get out of your office in Canberra. Drive from the Gold Coast through Logan. That should take you 10 minutes and it takes you 50 minutes. There's your business case you dummies'," Mayor Tate said. Cr Tate was asked his comments after Fairfax Media on Friday morning published Department of Main Roads data showing "peak hour" now lasted for five hours from 5am to 9am - on the Pacific Motorway, with a 53 per cent traffic increase at 5am. The figures show traffic on the Pacific Motorway is increasing throughout the day jumping 14 per cent at 2pm, by 10 per cent by 3pm, 11 percent by 4pm, 9 per cent by 5pm and 10 per cent by 6pm. Australian television viewers may know her as 'Shaz' but the ballot nomination form says Sharon Sellings. Mrs Sellings says there is more to her identity than just being a 2015 My Kitchen Rules finalist and that she was qualified in becoming a Mount Isa City Councillor. Jac and Shaz on My Kitchen Rules. The Mount Isa resident has worked locally for the justice department for 26 years. In fact, in her former position in the Mount Isa Magistrate's Courthouse a job she left in December she frequently sent this reporter the daily magistrates court lists. In the 2012 local government election she was Mount Isa's returning officer, meaning she coordinated the local government election and trained staff in making sure it was organised. A motorcyclist has been rushed to hospital after he was flung into the air in a traffic crash at Toowong. The rider was travelling along Frederick Street at 3.30pm when a car rammed into the back of him, which saw him thrown from his motorbike and land on the bonnet of the car in front of him. Three vehicles were involved in the Toowong crash. Credit:Nine News/Twitter The male rider sustained significant hip injuries and was transported to Royal Brisbane Hospital in a serious condition. The drivers of both cars were also transported to Royal Brisbane Hospital, one woman with minor injuries and the other woman with significant injuries to her arms and legs. Production has begun in Ipswich on a film that delves into the true story of one woman's legal case that broke the silence on child sex abuse in Queensland. Based on lawyer Stephen Roche's book 'Don't Tell', the Australian film starring Rachel Griffiths and Jack Thompson follows the true story of 22-year-old child abuse survivor Lyndal, who took on a legal battle and won against Toowoomba Preparatory School in 2001 after she was sexually abused in 1990. 'Don't Tell' Actress Kiara Freeman, who plays Lyndal. The 2001 civil court decision was the catalyst for improved childcare safeguards in Queensland and paved the way for survivors to come forward. Shine Lawyers National Legal Partner Jodie Willey was just 21 when she took on the case as lead lawyer and said it was "one of the highlights" of her legal career. A Queensland Rail whistleblower has been the subject of disciplinary action for exposing the unsafe behaviour of a colleague. The female train driver was a co-driver on The Spirit of the Outback taking passengers to Longreach. The co-driver of the train took this photo of the colleague climbing onto the bonnet of the train. At a point in the journey, her male co-driver inexplicably climbed out of the driver's cabin onto the bonnet of the train. The female driver took photographs of the incident on her mobile phone and reported his behaviour to Queensland Rail management. It can be as simple as leaving the light on overnight, keeping breakfast time very quiet and calm or putting a note in the lunchbox to let them know you're thinking of them throughout the day. For foster carers, struggling to form a bond with children coming to them from a whole gamut of tough experiences, small daily gestures can have a big impact. Foster Family parents Natasha and Andrew with their two children, Tilly and Jackson. Credit:Simon Schluter Professor Gillian Schofield, who has been researching foster care for close to 20 years, advises foster parents and the case workers who support them to go "a step beyond common sense". Professor Schofield said understanding some of the reasons for children's behaviour can be crucial. For some children, shutting down, becoming aggressive and controlling or feigning independence can be survival strategies they used to protect themselves from past trauma. A Melbourne barrister plans to fight charges relating to the stalking and harassment of two people, the possession of illegal drugs including ice, and the handling of a strange collection of stolen goods, including a "slippery when frosty" road sign and a fire hydrant cover. Cameron Baker, who was previously a solicitor at the Office of Public Prosecutions but has been a barrister since 2008, appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Friday charged with 10 offences. Cameron Baker has been a barrister since 2008. Credit:James Davies Police allege that ice, ecstasy, amphetamine, and the drugs GHB and 1, 4-butanediol, were found in Mr Baker's Southbank apartment on October 30 last year. It is also alleged that Mr Baker stalked two people. Most myki fare evaders who take their case to court and plead guilty escape without having to pay a fine, a situation that seems to strike at the heart of the government's fare enforcement regime. Of about 300 cases represented by QC Julian Burnside's pro-bono flying squad about 120 have been withdrawn by the prosecution. Myki fares are rising in 2017 Of the remaining 180 or so, only a single fine has been issued. The problem for The Department of Transport is wider than this. On Thursday, February 18, Fairfax Media sat in the 18th Division of the Melbourne Magistrates Court, which was packed full of alleged fare evaders. Bill Cosby is seeking the return of money he gave in a confidential financial settlement to a woman who accuses him of drugging and sexually assaulting her in 2004, according to a complaint filed on Thursday. The civil complaint, filed in US District Court in Philadelphia, says the woman, Andrea Constand, broke the terms of a 2006 confidential agreement by, among other things, voluntarily co-operating with Pennsylvania prosecutors last year. After reopening the investigation the Montgomery County district attorney's office in December charged Cosby with sexual assault in Ms Constand's decade-old case. She has said he assaulted her at his suburban Philadelphia home. The complaint does not disclose the size of the settlement Ms Constand received beyond describing it as a "substantial financial benefit". Washington: President Barack Obama has announced a historic visit to Cuba next month, speeding up the thaw in relations between the two Cold War former foes but igniting opposition from Republicans at home. In the first US presidential trip to the Caribbean nation in nearly 90 years, Mr Obama will meet with Cuban President Raul Castro, entrepreneurs, and "Cubans from different walks of life" during the trip on March 21 and 22, the White House said on Thursday. After decades of animosity following Cuba's 1959 revolution, the two countries agreed in 2014 to move to reopen ties. It was diplomatic feat that is likely to be a highlight of Obama's foreign policy legacy along with the reaching of a nuclear deal with another long-time US foe, Iran. Your RSS feed from RSSFWD.com. Update your RSS... Latest News Australia's record property market run comes to an end PEXA NSW sees the largest declines in both property sales volume and aggregate value MFAA offers cybersecurity resources to members Optus data breach a 'wake-up call' for businesses Rental yields currently sit at record-low levels after rents failed to grow at the same pace as house prices over the past decade.Looking at rental growth over the past decade across the combined capital cities, data from CoreLogic RP Data show rental rates have increased by 50.7% over the period, or 4.2% per annum. This is much lower than the increase in home values, which have increased by 72%, or 5.6% per annum, over the same period.CoreLogic RP Data research analyst Cameron Kusher says this represents a historically weak market for rental growth. Rental yields are now at an historic low of 3.5%.Perth and Hobart are the only cities in which yields are now higher than they were 10 years ago while in Brisbane they are unchanged over the period.Melbourne and Darwin have seen the greatest softening in gross rental yields over the past decade. Melbourne, where gross yields are the lowest of any capital city, have slipped from 4.2% ten years ago to 2.9% currently.Kusher says there is reason to expect rental yields to drop further.With rental rates falling and yields sitting at record low levels at a time when housing construction is at its highest level on record it is reasonable to expect that rents and yields will slip further over the coming years.He also says the low yielding rental environment may change the focus of investors over the coming year.Whereas over recent years their focus has clearly been on value growth, attention could begin to become more balanced where investors place a higher degree importance on the yield profile and potential for positive cash flow, Kusher said. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams Friday February 19 We Khan do it! If the recent passing of David Bowie has taught us anything, its to go see your heroes when you get the chance! So head out to catch the Queen of Funk Chaka Khan will bust out hits like Im Every Woman and I Feel For You at the Kings Theatre tonight. And tickets are still available! 9 pm at Kings Theatre (1027 Flatbush Ave. between Tilden Avenue and Duryea Place in Flatbush, www.kings theat re.com ). $84$124. Sunday February 21 Sheer talent You may have seen comedian Sasheer Zamata in sketches for Saturday Night Live and Inside Amy Schumer, or doing short sets at dozens of comedy nights around Brooklyn, but tonight she breaks out of the five-minute format with Sasheer Zamata for An Hour. With Matteo Lane and Liza Treyger. 8 pm at the Bell House [149 Seventh St. between Second and Third avenues in Gowanus, (718) 6436510, www.thebe llhou seny.com ]. $12 ($10 in advance). Monday February 22 Ford focus You know that rock goddess Lita Ford has some great stories from her days with girl-group the Runaway, and from touring in the 1980s with Ozzy, Bon Jovi, and Motley Crue. Hear all the dirt first-hand when she reads from her memoir Living Like a Runaway and answers audience questions tonight at metal venue St. Vitus. 7:30 pm at St. Vitus (1120 Manhattan Ave. between Clay and Box streets in Greenpoint, www.wordb ookst ores.com ). $27 (includes a copy of the book). Wednesday February 24 High five! Beloved nerd bar the Way Station turns five years old today! Owner Andy Heidel (pictured in younger, more carefree days) will regale the Doctor Who-loving drinkers with the bars origin story at 8 pm. With drink specials all night and swing band Double Down at 9 pm. 4 pm2 am at the Way Station [683 Washington Ave. between Prospect and St. Marks places in Prospect Heights, (347) 6274949, wayst ation bk.blogs pot.com ]. Free. Thursday February 25 Freedia at last Cops in Mississippi just canceled a performance by exuberant hip-hop diva Big Freedia, due to excessive gyrating. But in Brooklyn, the queen of sissy-bounce is going to shake it up when she performs with brass ensemble Soul Rebels. But keep an eye out for liquor authorities enforcing the cabaret laws! 8 pm at Brooklyn Bowl [61 Wythe Ave. between N. 11th and N. 12th streets in Williamsburg, (718) 9633369], www.brook lynbo wl.com . $20. Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams They want to break the bank! The developers behind Brooklyns first supertall skyscraper want to demolish part of Fulton Malls landmarked Dime Savings Bank to make room for the 73-story behemoth, and build stores inside the rest of the 108-year-old cash repository. And locals say they cant wait to crack the vault after seeing the plan on Wednesday night. Its a beautiful project and a great opportunity to save the bank, said Hazra Ali, a member of Community Board 2s land-use committee, which enthusiastically approved the changes 110 with one abstention at a meeting on Wednesday night. Reps for builders JDS Development and the Cherit Group told residents they want to pulverize a segment in the back of the bank at Flatbush Avenue Extension so they can create a glassy new entrance and set the Chrysler Building-sized tower off to the side. The portion of the building slated for destruction is a service area that is not architecturally significant, the firms claimed. If city officials dont approve the change, the developers told residents they would just erect their massive new tower flush against the back of the bank blocking its windows, and creating an unattractive flat wall along Flatbush Avenue Extension. The citys Landmarks Preservation Commission has shot down changes to the protected building before it refused to let previous owner JP Morgan Chase build a handicap ramp there in 2013. But one preservationist says he thinks the body wont have too many gripes with this alteration, and doesnt think its members will object to the neighboring tower, either. Inside look: Pedestrians on Flatbush Avenue will be able glimpse into the revamped Dime Savings Bank through the new entrance. Shop Architects Getting landmarks approval is not going to be the thing that stops it if someone wants to stop this tower, said Simeon Bankoff of preservation advocacy group the Historic Districts Council. The developers bought the bank primarily so they could use its air rights to construct the 1,066-foot tower next door, but they do plan to renovate it. Inside, they intend to rip out the 1970s Formica teller stations to make room for retail stores, and they promised to restore the buildings cracked facade and steps out the front. The reps also offered new details for the gargantuan high-rise itself. The needle-like building will boast a bronze, stone, stainless steel, and black granite exterior that will change colors as pedestrians walk it from Fleet Street to Flatbush Avenue Extension, they said. And the interior will include four floors of retail and office space at the base, with 417-units of housing which will be rentals, according to a New York Times report above that. The full community board will vote on the changes to the bank next, but its vote is only advisory the landmarks commission will ultimately say yea or nay. Reach reporter Lauren Gill at lgill @cngl ocal.com or by calling (718) 2602511. Follow her on Twitter @laurenk_gill Sign up for our amNY Sports email newsletter to get insights and game coverage for your favorite teams It is the tunnel of shove! The Metropolitan Transportation Authority must add a second entrance to York Street station, say Dumbo residents and workers, who claim the daily hordes are already pushing each other out of way to get in and out of the F stops lone, long egress and an emergency situation could end in tragedy. Its unsafe now, said Dumbo resident Anna Lawton. If anything ever happens, theres going to be a massive problem. Modern stations have to sport at least two escape routes, but the only way to enter or exit the 79-year-old station on the corner of Jay and York streets is make a lengthy trek up or down a single ramp and flight of stairs a set-up that leads to impenetrable crowds moving in one direction en masse at rush hour, according to one commuter. There should be another entrance because there are huge crowds and its overwhelming, said artist Elizabeth Hazan, who works in Dumbo and avoids the station altogether during rush hour. If youre trying to go against the grain its impossible. The pit-stops popularity has swelled in recent years as the formerly industrial area has boomed with new residents, businesses, and tourists an average of 9,000 people swarmed the station every weekday in 2014, up from around 6,000 in 2009, according to agency data. And the neighborhoods numbers are set to surge even further in the coming years there are several huge office buildings in the pipeline, plus a massive empty lot for sale next door, where real-estate experts say a developer will likely build several big residential towers that could add more than a thousand additional denizens to the hood. A rep for the transit agency said it is speaking with the city about forcing developers to help pay for station upgrades when their buildings add a significant number of riders. And local leaders are demanding the city lay down the law before the new towers rise in Dumbo. They shouldnt move on anything until theres two exits in the York Street subway, said Doreen Gallo, who is president of the area civic group the Dumbo Neighborhood Alliance and who saw how things could go disastrously wrong at the stop first-hand in 2014 when an unprecedented throng showed up to outdoor arts gala the Festival of Lights, overwhelming the platform and forcing police to functionally shut it down. The agency spokesperson refused to comment on any hypothetical changes at York Street, but one unaffiliated transit maven was more than happy to. Flatbush railroad aficionado Bob Diamond who has been traversing the citys rail tunnels since he was a teen speculates that adding a new entrance at York Street would be particularly challenging because the tracks are so deep underground. The transit authority would need to install high-speed elevators or escalators to cover the distance, and may have to extend the platform which runs between York and High streets as well. But, he added, it would be money well spent. It would be costly but it would be worth it from the point of view the area is developing very quickly, said Diamond, who guessed escalators could cost run between $7 and $15 million alone, and a full renovation could balloon up to $100 million if a platform extension is required. The transit buff also had a proposition for covering the costs he expects the streetcar Mayor DeBlasio is planning to build along the boroughs waterfront will run nearby on Water or Plymouth streets, and suggested the city foot the bill for a new entrance at the corner of Water and Jay streets itself. Reach reporter Lauren Gill at lgill @cngl ocal.com or by calling (718) 2602511. Follow her on Twitter @laurenk_gill Rock and Roll Hall of Fame update Ritchie was honored by the offer of induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was discussing the possibility of attending, until we received correspondence from the President of the Rock Hall of Fame, who said that Bruce Payne, management for the current Deep Purple Touring Band, had said "No"..........!!!!!" Therefore Ritchie will not be attending the ceremony. He sincerely thanks all the fans that voted for him for their support. by Andrew Sacher photo: Frameworks at Saint Vitus in 2014 (more by Greg Cristman) The increasingly interesting Gainesville screamo revivalists Frameworks just released the Time Spent EP on Topshelf earlier this month, and now they announced that they'll follow it with a new full length. They also signed to a new label, Converge frontman Jacob Bannon's Deathwish Inc, making them labelmates with Touche Amore, Loma Prieta, Modern Life Is War and many more. They'll fit right in. They've got a previously-announced tour with Donovan Wolfington coming up that hits NYC on March 3 at Saint Vitus with Descender (tickets), and they now added a second leg of dates with O'Brother. That leg brings them back to NYC on April 15 at Rough Trade with Big Jesus. Tickets for that show are on sale now. All dates are listed, with a stream of Time Spent, below... --- Frameworks -- 2016 Tour Dates 2/25 Bloomington, IN @ The Brick House * 2/26 Chicago, IL @ Subterranean Downstairs * 2/27 Columbus,OH @ Ace of Cups * 2/28 Pittsburgh, PA @ Smiling Moose * 3/01 Baltimore, MD @ Sidebar * 3/02 Cambridge, MA @ Out Of The Blue Gallery * 3/03 Brooklyn, NY @ St Vitus * 3/04 Philadelphia,PA @ The Pharmacy * 3/05 Amityville, NY @ Amityville Music Hall * 3/07 Richmond, VA @ Strange Matter * 3/08 Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade Purgatory * 04/09 Chicago, IL @ Beat Kitchen ^ 04/10 Lansing, MI @ Mac's Bar ^ 04/12 Lakewood, OH @ Mahalls ^ 04/13 Pittsburgh, PA @ Club Cafe ^ 04/14 Philadelphia, PA @ Milkboy ^ 04/15 Brooklyn, NY @ Rough Trade ^ 04/16 Buffalo, NY @ The Studio at Waiting Room ^ 04/17 Allston, MA @ Great Scott ^ 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 ... Giving birth is hard enough. Giving birth to magical babies when youre a vampire and theres a vampire hunter after everyone? Its even harder, and thats exactly whats in store on The Vampire Diaries in This Womans Work. In this episode, complications from her pregnancy leave Carolines life hanging in the balance, and Stefan and Valerie take extreme measures to try to save her and the babies. Meanwhile, after uncovering a dark secret about Damon, Enzo uses that to force him into helping track down Rayna Cruz, a ruthless vampire hunt on the loose. When Damons actions inadvertently put everyone he loves in her path, he must make things right before its too late. The Vampire Diaries Recap: Stefan Ups the Body Count>>> Watch the promo for This Womans Work: Raynas on the hunt, which means trouble for everyone. Bonnies worried Damons going to get himself killed, and he will be facing off against the vampire hunter. You look a lot like my girlfriend and her three doppelgangers, he tells her. Check out the producers preview of this TVD episode: Last Caroline was seen, she was desiccating in a hospital bed, thanks to the twins inside her. How is she going to stay alive and keep babies alive? This episode explores what actually happens when a vampire gives birth, executive producer Caroline Dries previews. The stakes are very high. Alarics babies are basically the only thing keeping him sane and happy, so theres a lot on the line. And its going to be especially hard since Valerie realizes the babies dont want to be born and lose their magical source of Carolines vampire blood. Meanwhile, Enzos been off living another life, and the result of that was Rayna coming back to life in a sea of fire, as executive producer Brian Young called the end of the last episode. Now, shes a young, scary foe, and shes coming for everyone when its the last thing they need: while Carolines trying to give birth. The Vampire Diaries season 7 airs Fridays at 8pm on the CW. (Image courtesy of the CW) Charles Ledigo, chairman of Reisser, has significantly funded the production of a new musical based on the lives and music of The Small Faces. All or Nothing captures the very essence of all that was cool in the 1960s, and will play at The Vaults Theatre in Londons Waterloo from 31 March until 30 April, 2016, with a full UK tour in the pipeline. Telling the rollercoaster story of The Small Faces, All or Nothing is an exciting, poignant, and bittersweet tale of Kenney Jones, Ian McLagan, Ronnie Lane and Steve Marriott; four charismatic young kids from East London with humour, attitude, passion and above all talent. The Small Faces were rocketed into the big time, only to discover the path to fantastic success heaving with exploitation, corruption, betrayal and tragedy. Speaking about the musical Mr Ledigo said: The Small Faces are a legendary British band and I am delighted to be associated with this show. Their iconic sound influenced further generations, such as Paul Weller and The Jam, and this musical is an authentic and hugely entertaining depiction of a great period from UK music history. Written by actress, writer and producer Carol Harrison, who also stars in the show, and directed by BAFTA winner Tony McHale, All or Nothing celebrates the unique sound of the iconic Mod band. The musical is packed full of all the hits, including Whatcha Gonna Do About It, Tin Soldier, Lazy Sunday, Here Comes the Nice, Itchycoo Park and All or Nothing. For more information visit: www.the-vaults.org/#!all-or-nothing/c3kz. Global building product manufacturer, Sika, has appointed Dragan Maksimovic as general manager, a role that will see him build on the continued growth of the company across its multiple UK markets. Mr Maksimovic joined Sika in 2002; based in Belgrade he was responsible for developing the companys operation in Serbia. The new appointment will see him build on the already well-established Sika brand in the UK. In 2016, the company is aiming to achieve 6% growth in net sales whilst maintaining profitability levels. Major focuses that will help the company achieve this centre on further development of its network of specifiers, strengthening relationships with key specialist distributors and adding to the Sika contractor networks. Mr Maksimovic said: I strongly believe that teamwork stands behind every result and that people do make the difference. Relationships inside the company and towards the customers are the main drivers for sustainable good results. Sika UK is a strong company and I am looking forward to the challenge of growing the brand in the UK. Mr Maksimovic takes over from Ivo Schaedler who has taken on the extended responsibility of area manager Europe south, responsible for the UK, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Greece and Mauritius regions within Sika. Burnham-On-Seas BARB Search & Rescue has this week been awarded a 16,000 grant towards the cost of new flood rescue equipment and training. The long-running Burnham charity has been successful in its bid for funding from the Department of Transports Inshore and Inland Rescue Boat Grant Scheme. Almost 1million has been awarded to 51 rescue charities across the UK to support water rescue services at a local level, it was announced on Thursday. The funding will be used by BARB to buy a new multi-terrain vehicle to make it easier for its crews to launch rescue boats and access areas of limited access, such as narrow country lanes and flooded fields, plus access rocky terrain. BARB will also get new inflatable rescue paths to safely move people and equipment over flood water, plus new high-power water-proof GPS radio sets to improve communications at incidents, plus enhanced water rescue training courses for its crewmembers. The new equipment will be used at a wide range of incidents. BARBs volunteer crews spent hundeds of hours helping cut-off communities during 2013 and 2014 when flooding hit the Somerset Levels, and the charity had its busiest year on record last year attending almost 40 coast and inland incidents. BARB Chairman Mark Newman said: Were delighted to be receiving this grant, which will allow us to buy new rescue equipment and training, bolstering our overall capabilities. BARBs crews are always on-call 24 hours a day to respond to incidents and the new equipment will help us save lives and keep our crews safe. BARB relies on generous donations and the support of the local community to meet our operating costs and that fundraising continues. Maritime Minister Robert Goodwill said in a statement this week: This funding recognises the enormous efforts of voluntary rescue boat teams and their tireless work in providing 24/7 services during emergencies and extreme weather. These groups often rely on charitable donations to sustain their operations. This additional funding will make a real difference to them and the communities they serve, enabling them to buy the essential equipment and training. An expert panel including representatives from the devolved administrations, Defra, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, RNLI, and the Royal Yachting Association assessed applications submitted to the Department for Transport under the 2015 to 2016 round of the scheme. Burnhams former MP Tessa Munt, who supported BARB with its application, said: Im a huge fan of BARB and am absolutely delighted that this brilliant local organisation with its amazing team of volunteers has received much-deserved funding for its essential work in Somerset. I congratulate all those who give their time to help BARB whether in the water, on the beach, or in the office, including fundraising which allows BARBs important rescue work to continue. Two hands and 12 tiny gleaming diamonds have put Karnataka Chief Minister in a spot. A Rs 70-lakh diamond-studded Hublot watch that the leader flaunted on his wrist for a few weeks has come back to haunt him. The watch, claims, is a "gift from a friend" - the reason why it has raised issues of propriety. It is now up to Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Rudabhai Vala to decide whether he should approve a petition from a Right to Information (RTI) activist R Bhaskaran, who has asked that - a public servant who has received an expensive gift and not declared it to relevant authorities - be investigated under the Prevention of Corruption Act. It is not only the diamond-studded Hublot that Siddaramaiah has flaunted on his wrist; other luxury watch brands that he has worn include Rolex and Audemars Piguet. The complaint has come at a time when the chief minister, who has his base in rural Mysuru, is leading the Congress in fighting the local body elections. Siddaramaiah is also known for his penchant for designer sunglasses. "Personal ostentation can elicit greater moral disapproval among people than scams that cost crores of rupees to the government," says Chandan Gowda, a professor of sociology at Azim Premji University. "The episode of the expensive watch has been especially hard on Siddaramaiah, since he had identified himself as a pro-poor, pro-backward communities politician," he added. Siddaramaiah's watch has also become a talking point for the chief minister's political rivals. It was Janata Dal (Secular) president H D Kumaraswamy who first called attention to Siddaramaiah's Hublot and questioned his socialist credentials. "He wears an expensive watch and, at the same time, he claims to be pro-poor and a socialist. This doesn't tally," said Kumaraswamy. "If someone gives an expensive gift, the payback will be many times more," said Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson Suresh Kumar. "Shouldn't the chief minister come clean on what the deal is about?" That the issue has stung Siddaramaiah is evident - this past week, he stopped sporting his fancy watch at public events. He first denied that the watch and sunglasses were as expensive as they were made out to be, going so far as to offer them to anyone who would pay Rs 1 lakh at a press conference. Major Rajesh Bhardwaj (retd) of the Armed Medical Corps was part of Operation Meghdoot in 1984, when India gained control of the Glacier. This is his account of what living on the glacier was like. The occupation of the glacier began in 1984 with a very hush operation. The troops occupied all the heights on the glacier so as to get the strategic advantage so important in mountains. At that time living conditions were very basic. We used to live in regular tents and had the regular high-altitude clothing and equipment not the (high quality) kind supplied now. Because there were no glasses to drink from, our Ladakh Scouts troops used to make glasses by cutting bottoms of bottles. To make curd, we used Vitamin C tablets as a souring agent. Letters from home would reach about three weeks after they were dispatched. We had no real-time connection with the outside world. On a lucky day we could pick up a newspaper from a helicopter pilot. Otherwise our news of the outside world was weeks old. A chopper had crashed at an assault camp and it made a nice glass house. I used to get in and sit in it for hours on end with my copy of Robert Frosts poems. The challenges then and now have always been related to two main things: the terrain and the climate. By terrain I mean extreme high altitude where it is impossible for humans to acclimatise, the crevasses, avalanches, blizzards and problems related to the extreme cold. Things are better now because of better facilities and equipment, but it still does not take away the hostility of the glacier. There were no toilets. We used to go out in the open. Sometimes going out was a problem because of the crevasses that open out in the summer months. We used to rope up before going for our daily ablutions two officers together not only because of the crevasse but because sometimes the weather could turn nasty in minutes causing a whiteout and obscuring visibility. To take a bath the troops had to melt snow. That was a very difficult task because it takes an enormous amount of snow to make half a bucket of water. I took a bath once in six weeks! We were so starved of fresh food that once, after a gap of more than a month, some fresh food was dropped. I ate a bhindi (okra) raw just to get a feel of fresh food. It is a male bonding exercise out there. You stay with your buddies. Once we had two young officers who were part of a high risk mission. They had formed a dancing troupe of two and their routine was to dance to the steps of female dancers from old Hindi movies you know, with those elaborate hand and neck movements. I was in charge of many camps that came under my medical care, so I would talk for hours with other camp commanders. Playing cards helped. There were only two officers at the camp where I stayed Camp V. We would call one more officer from some other camp and play three-man bridge for hours together. I also carried some books with me. That helped cope with the boredom and loneliness. Believe it or not, I also learnt how to ski there by picking up skis used by our ski troopers and taking a few basic lessons. But the single biggest stress buster was a letter from home just like in the movies, Haqeeqat or Border. The army tries its best to keep the morale of the soldiers at up. We were sent packets made by AWWA (Army Wives Welfare Association) volunteers officers wives in Delhi with chocolates, cards and letters of encouragement. Everyone would laugh on receiving these letters but secretly each soldier liked it and cherished the letter. The unforgiving conditions on the glacier also lead to medical problems in soldiers: hypoxia, including acute mountain sickness, high altitude pulmonary oedema, constant breathlessness, headache, loss of orientation, frostbite of the extremities and hypothermia. There are other effects too like nose bleeds because of nasal drying and crusting, stomach ulcers, skin problems, respiratory problems, loss of memory, depression and a sense of isolation. Because of the extreme hypoxia and low partial pressures of oxygen, any pre-existing medical condition is likely to be aggravated. If a soldier started to behave abnormally after some time at the glacier, it was said, Usko high alti ho gaya hai! (he is having high altitude related problems). Prolonged exposures at these altitudes can cause long-term ill effects on the lungs, the heart and the brain, apart from the strain put on all aspects of locomotion, including the knees. I think this is an impossible war in an inhospitable place and it is inhuman to expect our soldiers to fight from there. We should demilitarise the zone as soon as possible the human cost is very, very high. I begin this piece with a sad incident. Not too long ago, my friend's niece committed suicide. All of 16, she was a charming young girl, a bright student who was doing well at school and seemed reasonably well adjusted. She was soon to appear for her Class X board examinations. There was no apparent reason for her actions and when the parents thought about it -and were pushed to come up with an explanation - they felt that perhaps the academic pressure was what pushed her to take this extreme step. As with all child suicides - since one cannot enter the child's mind - one chooses to believe what is the most believable and in many cases the most acceptable explanation to the parents. Whether this was the real reason or not in this particular case, there is no denying the fact that society has become far more performance-driven than ever before, and the extent of it has reached scary proportions - both in India and overseas. When we were growing up as children, we were always encouraged to do our best. Parents were focused but they were not obsessed with results. In our time, parents by and large put their wards in a good school and put their feet up, letting the school do its job. They were good conscientious parents but they didn't live their lives through ours. But somewhere between the 1980s and 1990s, things changed dramatically. It begins right from the word go. Milestones - crawling, smiling, the first spoken word, walking - are recorded and there is intense discussion on who did what first. Mothers spend hours comparing notes on their toddlers. Children reach school-going age and there is pressure to put them into the best schools. Kindergartens and play schools are actively discussed and pursued. Three-four year olds often travel the distance from Gurgaon and Noida to Delhi to be in the "right" play school. Competition for admission into the best schools reaches scary magnitudes and people stop at nothing to get their children into the most prestigious ones. Then comes college and further studies, and the pressure only keeps mounting. What's also changed is that the competitive urge is on all fronts. It's no longer only academic - competition is on every parameter one can humanly think of. As a result, when one looks around today, one sees many children - and even parents - cracking under the pressure society puts on them. Cases of suicide and drug abuse are on the rise and there seems no end in sight. I spoke to two psychologists whom I happen to know to ask them why this was happening to the extent we see and what parents could do to deal with this change. They pointed out a few things that seem worth repeating. In the performance-driven society we live in, pressure isn't likely to reduce in a hurry. So parents - and children in turn - need to find better ways to deal with it. With families turning more nuclear by the day, the support system one had in the past is eroding. Faced with this, parents need to be alert. If a child is crumbling under pressure, there are several early warning signs and parents need to be more intuitive and alert. For instance - as one of them pointed out - a socially well-adjusted child displaying signs of anti-social behaviour is a sure sign of trouble. Problems arise when parents choose to ignore the warning signs or are too pre-occupied to see them. As with everything else, a lot depends on the parents themselves. A tense parent is likely to raise a tense child. If the parents are themselves wired up, they have almost no hope of raising a calm, confident child. Of course, children come with their inherent attitudes and nature, but nurturing is in your hands. What children see around them is what they imbibe. The anxiety gets compounded when parental love appears conditional upon performance. If a child ends up feeling that his parents' love depends on how well he does academically or otherwise, it is a recipe for disaster. Moreover, parents need to stop expecting the moon. Whether the parents themselves were overachievers or not, they seem to want their children to outperform others. Effort is usually not recognised and applauded; only outcomes. Whether you are raising an academic scholar or a well-adjusted compassionate human being is a choice parents make. And above all, parents need to remember that children don't need to be good at everything. They need to find what they are good at and try and be the best at that. On the battlefield, as the Pandava and Kaurava armies lay arraigned against one another, letting out bloodthirsty roars from time to time, Yudhishthira stepped out of his coat of mail and armour and descended from his chariot. His army stood by shocked. His brothers ran after him in horror while the only god on that battlefield, Krishna, looked on bemused. Yudhishthira walked over to Bhishma, then Drona and Kripa and Salya, his grandfathers and uncles but also enemies on the battlefield. From all of them he sought blessings and permission to go to battle against them. Was Yudhishthira seditious? He was engaging with the enemy after all; unthinkable and unpardonable it would seem for the times we live in. Read more from our special coverage on "KANHAIYA KUMAR, JNUSU, SEDITION" Kanhaiya Kumar sent to judicial custody till March 2 If not him, then Bhishma surely would have fallen foul of modern-day nationalists. When Yudhishthira went up to him, he replied in anguish, calling himself a eunuch because he had been bound by the wealth of the Kauravas and, hence, could not give Yudhishthira what he wanted. Even Drona, guru of the Pandavas and the Kauravas, told him that though he would fight for the Kauravas he would pray for the Pandavas victory. Yet, Duryodhana handed over command of his army to these men, without letting the petty objections of naysayers hinder of his faith in their leadership. Draupadi, too, would have been in chains for her denouncement of the Pandavas and even Krishna. She called them weak, incapable of doing their duty and even called Yudhishthira, the king in waiting, a desperate gambler. None, she said, deserved her, for they had failed to protect her. She was speaking against her husband and prospective ruler of the nation and would surely have crossed every barrier that nationalists, especially women, are expected to hold. Much like the factory-assembled lion that has been chosen as mascot of the ongoing Make in India initiative, the epics, Puranas and other such narratives are made of ideas, experiences and ideals that went into building the character and value systems of a people, a tribe and, ultimately, a nation state. They reveal a peoples insecurities and epiphanies in equal measure. Scholars have chosen to interpret them through multiple lenses; linguists have used words, philosophers have dug for concepts and religion has sought meaning. Strangely, though, myth today has been reduced to jejune symbols and rituals that have become meaningless or irrelevant over time. Take the popular image of Mother India; the country is shown in the image of a goddess who needs protection from anyone who even harbours doubts about the people who rule her. Ancient goddesses, however, were such that the people sought protection from them. Saraswati, as journalist Mrinal Pande writes in Scroll.in, is a feminine force that creates intimate partnerships of the mind not through a macho display of power or feminine wiles, but through gender, creed and caste neutral sakhyatva or friendship. She is fearless, quick of tongue, and ever ready to give back as good as she gets. Goddesses get even more fearless if we step beyond the main Vedic pantheon. Manasa, goddess of the snakes, destroys those who refuse to worship her. She does not depend upon her worshippers to come to her rescue. In a well-known parable where she converts a die-hard Shiva devotee to her fold, she forces him to accept her divinity by killing his sons and destroying his home and family. She is even known to have poisoned a flock of sheep because the shepherd community resisted her worship. When they came around, she revived their sheep. Interestingly, the image of this goddess is a far cry from the one that we see sprawled across posters where a benign goddess holds up the flag. It is in her name that, for two days in a row, a band of goons have beaten up people and shouted down a dissenting point of view. There seems to be little that these people have in common with the original character of the country they are fighting to uphold. But the political leaders (past and present, right and left and centre) bear a striking resemblance to another character from Mahabharata, Dhritarashtra, who stood by silently while his children killed each other. For someone who has never been to India, French Guianese tap dancer Tamango believes he'll fit right in, "like fish in water." The country's culture is replete with rhythms, and tap dancing is all about being one with the rhythm, he explains. Known for stellar theatrical performances, which have included elements such as dry ice on stage, Tamango's maiden trip to India will see him performing at the ninth edition of the World Sacred Spirit Festival (WSSF) at Jodhpur's Mehrangarh Fort on February 26, when the sun has set and the fort is bathed in the ethereal glow of a thousand candles. "Tap dancing has a lot of history; it arose as a reaction to slavery, when people's hands were taken away and foot-tapping became a dance expression," says Tamango. "Take that history, and add Rajasthan's history and setting to it and I know it's just going to be amazing." Joining Tamango at the three-day festival are a host of celebrated names, including sarod master Amjad Ali Khan, who will be accompanied by his sons, Amaan and Ayaan. This edition's highlights also include Kabul's Daud Khan Sadozai, who comes with his 17-string Afghan rubab, and Spanish flamenco artist Andres Marin. While Tamango connects to India's rhythms, Marin's love for Rajasthan's cultural heritage is well known. "Though flamenco has evolved with its contact with European music, the dance form has stayed true to its primary bases - the very ones that continue to be an integral part of Rajasthan's traditions," says Marin. This year around, his radical yet aesthetic dance style will be accompanied by traditional Rajasthani music by the globetrotting Divana Yatra ensemble. "We have performers from across the globe and they bring with them a unique understanding of music that is central to their own experiences," says Karni Singh Jasol, director of the Mehrangarh Museum Trust, which powers the annual festival. With such a mix, he elaborates, the idea is to intermingle different musical practices to create "a unique sound that is the soul of the entire festival". But before the festivities take off in Jodhpur, the small town of Nagaur will host WSSF between February 22 and 24 at the Ahhichatragarh Fort - this one promises to be a more intimate experience. WSSF, which began in Nagaur in 2008, saw its first Jodhpur edition in 2011. With Nagaur being a significant centre of the Chishtiya Sufi movement, it's only fitting to continue a tradition of Sufi music in Nagaur, adds Jasol. The move to add Jodhpur as a venue was to reach out to a wider audience, he explains. Bringing Sufiana kalam to WSSF will be Delhi-based artist and musician Deveshi Sahgal, who fondly remembers the days when she was part of the "wider audience" Jasol refers to. It was many moons ago, and Sufi mystic Abida Parveen had just taken the stage. "Her performance, her voice ... it completely changed me," says Sahgal, who began learning Hindustani classical music when she was four but picked up the guitar and formed a western music band when she was 16. Much has changed since then. "I got drawn to Sufi music after listening to Parveen. Hindustani classical has strict guidelines, but Sufi music is all about breaking barriers - you don't need religion to put you in touch with a higher power when you have Sufi music," says Sahgal, adding that festivals such as these help reach out to newer audiences. While you are at WSSF, do catch Egypt's Sufi legend Sheikh Yasin al-Tuhami in action. He adds the soul to a wholesome experience. February 22-24 and February 26-28Ahhichatragarh Fort, Nagaur, and Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur A day after took the country's mobile phone market by storm with its Rs 251-smart phone, Business Standard went looking for its registered office. According to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) filings, the registered office is "Old-678-B-New-I-X-6273 G/F Mukharjee Gali, Gandhi Nagar New Delhi - 110031 Delhi - INDIA". Till this week, not many would have identified Gandhi Nagar market with mobile phone makers or electronics of any kind. The bustling East Delhi locality is a wholesale hub of local textiles and ready-made garments. Tiny 4ftx4ft shops line its dirty, narrow main road with garments of all kinds - traditional, jeans and kidswear, some on mannequins others on hangers - inviting potential customers from around the country. Pan chewing shopkeepers direct enquiries for "Mukharjee Gali" with a slant of the head hinting down the road. The main road intersects with Ashok Bazar, slightly broader but cut by a median restricting transportation to three wheels or less. Mukharjee Gali makes an appearance after lanes named after Arya Samaj and Jawahar Lal Nehru. About half the width of the main road, the lane is lined with more whole sale garment shops on both sides with the odd tea shop or a grocer in between. Legal and illegal overhead electrical wires threaten to fall over any time. At the far end of the lane, door numbers went missing after 6271. A new series began. Random enquiries for mobile phone maker get responses like, "The entire market is of readymade garments. You won't find any mobile company here." Finally, strangers lead us to an unmarked shop, which also has racks with garments, but relatively spacious and empty. A bespectacled man in his late twenties confirms that the shop was indeed the address we are looking for. He also sounds familiar with . Identifying himself as Hemant Surana, he explains that though this is the given address, the books of accounts and other functions are now at the company's "Corporate office" in Noida. Surana initially identified himself as the proprietor of Shree Suswani garments. When asked how he came to be related to Ringing Bells, he said it was a client relationship in which Anmol Goel of had reached out to him through a chartered accountant named Sumit Gupta. Gupta, who is said to have an office in Barakhamba Road, said the books of accounts and statutory documents are in its corporate office at Noida. Meanwhile, Surana changed his version and said he was also a chartered accountant and even shared a business card, which identified him as a partner of Surana Associates. He admitted that Ringing Bells was looking to create hype and ensure a minimum demand for their products but the response far exceeded their expectations. According to MCA documents, Mohit Goel owns 499,990 shares of Rs 10 each in Ringing Bells. Anmol owns the remaining 10 shares taking the total paid up capital to Rs 50 lakh. The authorised share capital of the company is Rs 1 crore. Bank statements of Goels filed during the time of incorporation in September show balances of a few thousand rupees. To put this in perspective, even going by the official figures of 30,000 orders received by the company for its Rs 251 phone, it has raised Rs 75.30 lakh. In January, the company whose original objects included "telecom products" and "m-commerce" filed an altered memorandum which additionally included "e-commerce, virtual shopping mall with online catalogues." Some of the filings in January mention the Noida address as "Corporate/Branch office." BJP parliamentarian Kirit Somaiya is worried that this could be a money raising scheme and has moved authorities, there are other troubles coming up as well. Kamal Gandhi, proprietor of the Mukharjee Gali property, where Ringing Bells is registered, said he has filed a police complaint against the company on Friday. "We don't have anything to do with the company. We have not allowed them to use the address. We have let out the place to a garment shop owned by Kamal Nahata. We understand Nahata's nephew by name Hemant Surana has used it for this company. Anybody can misuse other's address, what can we do?" Accepting the fact that the company or Goels did not have any legal arrangement with Gandhi to use the place as their registered address, Sumit Gupta, the Chartered Account who incorporated the company, and Chadha revealed to Business Standard that they only had a "verbal arrangement with him to use the address for six months". Anmol Goel, a shareholder and brother of promoter Mohit Goel, who is also said to have liaised with Gupta and Surana, initially said "Our manager Hemant Surana is there. He is managing the office." When asked about how nothing related to Ringing Bells or mobile phones or even a name board could be found in the office, he said he would connect to the president Ashok Chadha. As we left, Surana had promised to meet us at our office in a couple of hours with all documents and explain everything in detail. When reached on his mobile phone after he did not turn up even long after the appointed hour, he directed us back to the Noida office. Ltd (ABNL) on Friday announced the formation of a joint venture with group firm Idea Cellular to set up a payments bank. A payments bank can only accept deposits and transfer money from one account to another. It cant lend. Last year in August, the central bank had given in-principle approval to to set up a payments bank. The company, with Idea Cellular, has incorporated a subsidiary, said in a BSE filing. Aditya Birla Nuvo will hold 51 per cent of the shares and the rest 49 per cent will be held by Idea Cellular, it added. Payments banks are allowed to collect deposits (initially up to Rs 1 lakh per individual), offer internet banking, ease money transfers, and sell insurance and mutual funds. A total of 11 entities, including Reliance Industries, Airtel M Commerce Services, Vodafone m-pesa, Tech Mahindra, and Department of Posts, were given in-principle approval by the central bank to set up payments banks. Are you planning to buy the worlds cheapest smartphone? You might want to hold on as the Rs 251-smartphone has come under a cloud after the website to book the handset has been crashing since the open sale began. An overload on the servers due to six lakh clicks per second on its website has forced the company to halt bookings. The sale will resume after 24 hours, the company said. Ordering the phone online has been a struggle for many as the server directs them to the homepage even if all the required details are entered correctly, The Huffington Post reported. Moreover, there is no limit on the quantity that can be ordered. Even if one enters 0.5 units as quantity, the system accepts it and just halves the price, the report added. Ashok Chadha, the company's president, had said at the launch that after 2.5 lakh units were sold on the website, it would stop accepting orders. Questions Raised Who is behind the making the finished product is still unknown. A report from NDTV Gadgets 360 said that the shipment of the final product will be different from the ones handed out as review units. Not just that, there have been questions raised on the device's low cost. Chadha had said the real cost of the device was Rs 2,500, Hindustan Times reported. This money will be recovered through a series of measures like innovative marketing, reduction in duties and creating an e-commerce marketplace. The estimated cost of the phone is valued at $60 (Rs 4,125), Pranav Dixit, Tech editor for the Hindustan Times also said in a Reddit AMA. He received this information in a letter from Indian Cellular Association (ICA), written to Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. Moreover, the phone is unsafe to use as it is not registered at Bureau of Indian Standards, the report added. The icons and software design is blatantly an iOS ripoff, and the phone has copied elements from the iPhone on hardware and software sites as well, reports suggest. Meanwhile, The BGR certifies that the phone is not made in India, as the Adcom logo on the top is covered by whitener. Ringing Bells, the company that shocked the Indian mobile market by launching a phone at an unbelievably low price tag of Rs 251, has set alarm bells ringing and stoked a media storm of sorts. People are wondering how the company could so aggressively price a cellphone loaded with specs that cannot be procured for less than Rs 1,000. Some experts even gave a scathing review to the phone, Freedom 251. Moreover, questions are being asked about the owners of Ringing Bells, the Goel family in general and Mohit Goel, the face of the company, in particular. Ringing Bells president was quoted in a Business Standard report as saying, the Goel family has been into the agri-commodity business, with interests in UP and Haryana, and is the proprietor of Ringing Bells. The family is investing Rs 200 crore into the venture in the form of equity capital. The funds will be used to set up two plants- one in Noida and another in Uttarakhand-to manufacture handsets. In addition to the family investment, the company will raise Rs 300 crore in bank loans for the plants. However, a news report in The Times of India says Mohit's father Rajesh Goel still has a grocery shop in Garhipukhta, a small town in Shamli district of Uttar Pradesh. And Mohit is believed to have worked with his father, assisting him at the shop. But not many people knew about it. And now, suddenly everybody is talking about their company and the big launch of the world's cheapest phone. Rajesh Goel, who is one of the directors of the company, told TOI, "Mohit went to Noida and completed his graduation from Amity University. He had expressed his desire to open a company and I loaned him some money. Little did we know what it meant then. It's really big, is it?" So who really is Mohit Goel? According to International Business Times, the Goel family is claimed to have been running an agriculture-related businesses. And every precaution has been taken to keep the name of the "family-run, three-decade-old business a secret". The report says that according to Mohit's Linkedin profile, he has undertaken two graduation courses, but he does not mention when he pursued them. The account also states that Goel worked for the Canada-based Shaw Communications firm for more than nine years. IBTimes UK says it repeatedly tried to contact Mohit Goel, but he remained unavailable for comment. Incidentally, Ringing Bells has suspended taking further pre-orders for the phone as its website was brought down with more than 600,000 visitors. Japanese car maker Honda Motor Co on Friday said it would recall 57,676 vehicles, mostly the City, to replace driver-side air-bag inflators free of cost. This is a part of Honda Motor's global recall campaign on air-bag inflators. This would be the car maker's sixth recall in the Indian market in 20 months. The company said it would recall 49,572 units of City made between January 2012 and June 2013; 7,504 units of Jazz made between February 2012 and February 2013; and 600 units of Civic made between January 2012 and August 2012. An inflator inflates airbags in case of a major collision. In September last year, the car maker announced its biggest recall in India, to replace air-bag inflators in 223,578 units of City, Civic, Jazz, and CR-V, made between 2003 and 2011. This was the second-biggest recall in India after Volkswagen's recall of 323,700 vehicles in December last year. The car maker, which sells 16,000 vehicles in the domestic market every month, has recalled 382,635 units so far in the current financial year. Globally, Honda Motor is recalling millions of vehicles to solve the air-bag inflator problem. The car maker said, "The replacement would be carried out free of cost at Honda Cars India (Japanese car maker's local unit)'s dealerships across the country in a phased manner, starting from February 20. The company will communicate with customers directly." India does not have a mandatory recall policy for vehicles, but have voluntarily announced recalls from time to time. Over 1.5 million passenger vehicles have been recalled by domestic since July 2012, when Siam (Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers) announced a voluntary recall code for its member . Chennai-based auto components maker Rane (Madras) Limited has acquired US-based Precision Die Casting, Inc. USA and infused $2.02 million as equity capital. The company has executed a share purchase agreement in the United States on February 17 with DPI/PDC Holdings and acquired 100% per cent of PDC's equity. In an announcement to NSE today, the company said that it has incorporated Rane (Madras) International Holdings B. V, a wholly-owned subsidiary in Netherlands as a private company The company has aslo issued a limited guarantee by way of SBLC for $2 million towards the term loans facilities availed by PDC. Rane (Madras) is part of $511 million Rane Group. The company has two divisions -- steering and linkage products and diecasting products. Companies in the finance and consulting sectors dominated final placements at Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM-C). These included Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citibank, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, JPMC, Avendus Capital, ICICI Securities, Kotak IBD, Edelweiss. IIM-C achieved 100 per cent final placements for the Class of 2014-16 in 2.5 days. For a batch of 439 students, 500 offers including 21 international were made during the entire process. While some banks brought investment banking roles exclusively to IIM-C, consulting firms continued their dominance on the campus with 20 per cent of the total offers. Major firms in the consulting sector included Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Co, McKinsey, AT Kearney, and Accenture Management Consulting. In the consulting domain, Bain & Co emerged the largest recruiter. Others that hired from IIM-C included Alvarez and Marsal, Opera Solutions, Ernst & Young and Deloitte Consulting. Among recruiters for sales & marketing roles were Hindustan Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Reckitt Benckiser, Johnson & Johnson, STAR India, Asian Paints, ITC, Phillips and International offers were made by AdCuratio, a first-time recruiter at IIM-C. This year also saw a marked rise in the number of leadership and general management roles, with Tata Administrative Services, Aditya Birla Group, C K Birla Group, Samsung India, Reliance Industries, and Wipro hiring in large numbers. The Aditya Birla Group with 17 offers for IIM-C students was the highest recruiter in this category. The steady growth of the e-commerce sector, fuelled by the governments initiatives such as Start-up India, was echoed in the placement statistics. Around 20 per cent of the offers were made by e-commerce and web-based start-ups such as Amazon, Snapdeal, Flipkart, PayTM, Olacabs, Uber, RedBus, etc with Amazon being the top recruiter. Chinese firm Xiaomi hired exclusively from IIM-C for the product manager role. Online medical practice management firm CallHealth, digital marketing firm Amagi Media Labs and logistics start-up Loginext Solutions participated for the first time and offered managerial roles. Placement chairperson Rajiv Kumar said, It is satisfying to be able to place the entire batch in about 2.5 days. Such results are obtained due to a variety of factors such as the quality of our admission as well as education, relentless efforts put in by the placement team, the societal and market acceptance of IIM-C and the support of our alumni. The expectations from stakeholders continue to increase, and well strive even harder in coming years to meet these expectations. At the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group and Tech Mahindra extended the highest number of offers in third cluster of final placements IIM-As PGP Class of 2016. The two companies made five offers each. Key recruiters included PwC, Axis Bank, YES Bank, Sulekha, Groupon, People Interactive, IBM, and Directi. The Army was on Friday called in for deployment in eight districts of Haryana after three died and at least 21 were injured, as a agitation for quota turned violent. Rampaging mobs set ablaze the house of state's Finance Minister Captain Abhimanyu, besides several government and private properties. A school belonging to Abhimanyu, and a shopping mall were also set on fire. leaders also threatened to block roads to Delhi if their demand for inclusion in the Other Backward Classes or OBC list was not met. Top Union ministers Rajnath Singh, Manohar Parrikar, Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj reviewed the law and order situation in Haryana. The Union Ministers, along with Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, Director of Intelligence Bureau Dineswar Sharma and others took stock of the situation. The Centre rushed 3,300 paramilitary personnel to Haryana and assured Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar of help. Khattar held an all-party meeting and asked the protesters to call off the agitation. Khattar gave an assurance that a solution would be worked out to extend reservation to the community. Internet and mobile SMS services have been suspended indefinitely by authorities in Rohtak district in the wake of protests. Protesters took some police personnel captive and went on the rampage at many places, including Rohtak, Jhajjar and Hansi. The DGP said police personnel were taken captive by the large number of protesters at some places including Rohtak and the cops were unable to perform their duties. Rail and road traffic on the Delhi-Ambala Highway and the mainline railway route were blocked by protesters at various places. A number of local, short distance and long distance trains were cancelled. Almost all the main roads and NH-65 and NH-71 at six places passing through Jind district were blocked besides five state highways at 12 places. The BJP said the agitation for reservation has become leaderless and was being fuelled by "anarchists" and warned that those indulging in violence will be dealt with sternly. BJP General Secretary and Haryana in-charge Anil Jain said the agitation has turned violent and "military" could also be sent if needed. Jat leaders today refused to withdraw their agitation till a legislation is passed giving quota to the community under OBC even as the authorities in the worst-affected district suspended Internet and mobile SMS services due to the stir which has disrupted rail and road traffic. The protesters accused Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar of resisting their demand as he was "not from the community" even as the state government called an all-party meeting to end the impasse. Normal life was badly hit as the ongoing for quotas spread to more parts of Haryana after talks between community leaders and the government failed to break the deadlock, even as prohibitory orders were clamped in Rohtak, banning assembly of five or more persons. The agitation spread to Kaithal, Karnal, Jind and other districts, disrupting road and rail traffic as protestors blocked various highways and railway lines. While college and university students had yesterday joined the protest at Rohtak, today students from various places, including Hisar, Kurukshetra and Kaithal also joined them. Jats are demanding reservation in government jobs and educational institutions under OBC category. While rail and road traffic has been worst hit in the Rohtak-Jhajjar region, the epicentre of the protests, Bhiwani, Sonipat, Hisar have also been adversely hit by the agitation. The protesters, who last evening rejected Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar's offer to enhance quota for economically backward classes to include Jats, also blocked roads in many places in Panipat which also affected movement of vehicles towards Uttar Pradesh. Due to the blockades set up by the agitators, Haryana Roadways suspended its bus services on many affected routes. The Rohtak administration today imposed prohibitory orders in the entire district banning assembly of five or more persons. Rohtak is the native place of former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and the Parliamentary Constituency represented by his son, Deepinder. "Section 144 has been imposed with immediate effect from today in Rohtak," Additional Deputy Commissioner Amit Khatri said. Noting that the protesters have been asked to clear the blockades and disperse, he said, "We have warned them first and are hoping they will comply." The orders were passed by Rohtak's Deputy Commissioner D K Behera amid reports that anti-social elements might join protesters to disturb law and order situation in the district. Khatri said paramilitary forces have been put on standby in the district. Traders and advocates today clashed outside the court premises at Rohtak during a protest in connection with the ongoing agitation by members of Jat community. Advocates of the district court at Rohtak were protesting over non-inclusion of Jat community in the OBC category outside the court premises from where traders of the city were passing in a procession to submit a memorandum to the Deputy Commissioner, police said. Some unidentified persons also set on fire a motorcycle in Rohtak. As the protests continued, supply of milk, vegetables, fruits and other items on the highway connecting Rohtak with other parts of the state and NCR was also affected. Meanwhile, blockade also continued on roads from Rohtak to Delhi, and roads to Sonipat, Jhajjar remained blocked while those leading to Hisar, Jind and Bhiwani were also affected. Railway traffic on the Rohtak-Delhi section was affected due to the agitation, officials said, adding many trains had been cancelled or diverted through alternative routes. Jat protesters have blocked Badahurgarh-Delhi road at Bahadurgarh affecting vehicular movement to Delhi from Haryana. They have also blocked Saharanpur-Kurukshetra road at Pipli, Ladwa in Kurukshetra district and Radaur of Yamunanagar district while several roads in Hisar and Hansi also remained blocked. A 'kutcha' road, which was being used by people for going to Bhiwani as the protesters had blocked main road, was dug up by protesters at Charkhi-Dadri today. Managements of private schools, which fall in the affected areas, have also declared holidays due to the stir while Maharishi Dayanand University announced postponement of some of its undergraduate and postgraduate examinations that were scheduled to be held between February 17-22. A group of Kurukshetra University students, belonging to the Jat community, held a demonstration in the KU today over the reservation issue. They held demonstration in front of Vice-Chancellor's office and raised slogans against the BJP-led state government. Later, the students led a procession to Jat Dharamsala at Kurukshetra, where other members from the community joined them. They sat on 'dharna' on Kurukshetra-Pehowa road and blocked vehicular traffic. Police diverted the traffic from Panorama chowk to Pehowa road via out-ring road from Jhansa road. The protesters also blocked all main roads in Jind district including those leading to Patiala, Panipat, Kaithal, Rohtak, Gohana, Hansi and Bhiwani. Meanwhile, INLD senior leader Abhay Singh Chautala, who is also Leader of Opposition in Haryana assembly, today demanded that a session of state assembly be convened immediately on the Jat stir issue. Chautala said a two-line resolution should be passed in the assembly and later forwarded to the Centre favouring reservation for Jats and other communities, including Jat-Sikhs, Tyagi, Ror and Bishnois. The reservation benefit which the Jats are getting in four states should be implemented in entire country, he said in a statement. Chautala also appealed to various communities to maintain peace and brotherhood and not lend an ear to any rumour which may disturb peace. The Jat community agitation for government reservations on Friday again disrupted major highways and rail traffic in large parts of Haryana after protestors took to the streets against government inaction on their demand. An earlier round of disruption had invited censure from the Supreme Court. Taking strong exception to the Uttar Pradesh and the Haryana chief ministers' support to Jats' demands, an SC bench in March last year said: "We make it clear that while citizens have the right to protest, resorting to such steps should not lead to disruption of supply of essential commodities." Heres a quick look at key facts that explain how and why the hullaballoo around the Jats and their agitation campaign became a mainstream news. The current situation Five days into the agitation for reservation, Indian Railways has lost almost Rs 100 crore due to the blockade across Haryana which has affected 206 trains. Nearly 100 trains were cancelled and 70 diverted as Jats occupied the railway tracks. Section 144, which prohibits the public assembly of more than 4 persons, has been imposed to avert any further deterioration in law and order situation. Following clashes on Thursday, mobile internet services have also been blocked in Haryana's Rohtak district. Normal life was hit as the ongoing agitation for quotas, as identity-based reservations are colloquially known, spread to more parts of the state after talks between community leaders and the government failed to break the deadlock. The agitation spread to Kaithal, Karnal, Jind and other districts; while rail and road traffic has been worst hit in the Rohtak-Jhajjar region, the epicentre of the protests, Bhiwani, Sonipat, Hisar have also been affected. As the protests continued, supply of milk, vegetables, fruits and other items on the highway connecting Rohtak with other parts of the state and NCR was also affected. Private schools in the affected areas have declared holidays. What are they asking for? The Jats are demanding Other Backward Classes (OBC) status for the community in the central list of castes eligible for reservations. Currently, Jats enjoy reservations in four states, but are asking this to be extended to the rest of the country. This will aid the community getting into central government jobs and institutions under the category. When was the last agitation? Lat year in July, factions of Jat samiti and khap panchayat announced their decision to resume the stir after Supreme Court sets aside the notification dated March 4, 2014, granting OBC status to Jats in March. Ram Bhagat Malik, spokesman of All India Jat Aarakshan Sanghrash Samiti (AIJASS) Jat community said they were planning for an "all-out" battle against the government. What is the trigger for the latest round of protests? The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed the Centres petition asking the apex court to reconsider its verdict scrapping the March 2014 notification to include Jats in the central list of the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category in nine states. Also, a plea by some Jat applicants, who cleared various stages of Probationary Officers recruitment exam under the reserved OBC category but were not given letters of appointment, was rejected. A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Rohinton F Nariman junked the review petition filed by the government against the March 17 verdict by the judges. It held there was no error apparent on the face of the record and the review plea was bereft of merit. The review petition claimed that the court could not have sat over the decision by the government to grant OBC status to Jats since it was taken under a constitutional authority. The government cited its powers under Articles 15 (4) and 16 (4) to make special provisions, including reservation in appointments for certain disadvantaged classes, and contended that it could not be denuded of its authority by an interpretation of the court. It had added that the test laid down by the Supreme Court in its previous judgments for determination of social, educational and economic backwardness of Jats had been fully met and it was only after that a decision was taken to include Jats in the list of OBC communities. On March 17 last year, the Bench has quashed the notification, and ruled that caste and historical injustice cannot blind a state in according backward status to a community and that new emerging groups such as transgenders must be identified for quota benefits. It was a poll-eve decision by the UPA-II government in March 2014 to include Jats in the central list of OBC. What has been the government's stance? The Haryana state government extended an olive branch to Jats by agreeing to double the existing 10 per cent reservation in jobs and educational institutions for economically backward persons (EBPs) in the general caste category, including Jats, Jat Sikhs, Rors, Tyagis and Bishnois. It was also decided to enhance the annual income ceiling from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh to accommodate more people under the EBP quota. But, Akhil Bharatiya Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti Chief Yashpal Malik said: In my opinion, the state government is trying to mislead Jats of Haryana by floating this proposal. But the final decision about the agitation will be taken on Thursday. West Bengal finance minister Amit Mitra was on Friday appointed the chairman of the goods and services (GST) panel, a move that came three months after the previous head, former Kerala finance minister K M Mani, resigned in November 2015. The move comes just ahead of the Budget session, which starts from Tuesday. Mitra was elected at the meeting of state finance ministers that was also attended by Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.. Read our full coverage on Union Budget 2016 The West Bengal finance minister, who couldn't attend the meeting as he was unwell, was informed about the decision of the committee over phone by Jaitley. Confirming the development, minister of state for finance Jayant Sinha expressed hope that the Constitution amendment Bill on would be passed by Parliament in the Budget session. With this, the tradition to have the finance minister of an Opposition-ruled state to be the head of the empowered committee of state finance ministers has been maintained. This tradition was broken when Abdul Rahim Rather was appointed by former finance minister P Chidambaram. Rather belonged to the National Conference, an ally of the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre then. West Bengal is ruled by the Trinamool Congress. In November last year, Delhi finance minister Manish Sisodia was selected to chair that particular meeting for a day after Mani resigned as the finance minister of Kerala over corruption charges against him. The committee is to deliberate on the exemption thresholds and Bill. A panel, headed by chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian, had suggested a higher GST exemption threshold of Rs 75 lakh annual turnover against Rs 50 lakh recommended by the Centre. States are divided on the limits, with most including Karnataka seeking a lower exemption limit of Rs 10 lakh annual turnover. The empowered committee also has to discuss the GST law and business processes for payments, refunds and return filing. GST could not be cleared in the winter session of Parliament, as Congress wanted to fix the GST rates in the Constitution amendment Bill itself. The Centre opposed the demand arguing such a move would limit the flexibility of the GST council to change rates, because it will have to seek Parliaments approval each time it wants to revise rates. Although the week-long event managed to create a buzz to boost manufacturing in India, a lot is still to be done to take the share of manufacturing from the current 17 per cent to 25 per cent of the gross domestic product, say chief executive officers (CEOs). Odisha emerged as the favoured destination for investors at the recently concluded 'Make In India' week, garnering investment commitments worth Rs 70,959 crore. Apart from the flagship mines and minerals sector, the state government pulled investors in areas like food processing, IT & electronics manufacturing, textiles, renewable energy and gems & jewellery. "Odisha has secured investment commitments to the tune of Rs 70,959 crore. Of this, around RS 30,000 crore investments are from the mineral sector while the rest are from areas like food processing, electronics, textiles and renewable energy," said Sanjiv Chopra, principal secretary (industries), Odisha. The Odisha Investors' Meet organised during Week in Mumbai from February 13-18, received an overwhelming response. An Investors' Meet of this nature and magnitude was organised by the state for the first time. In the metals sector, the state received investment proposals from National Aluminium Company (Nalco), Vedanta and Larsen & Toubro (L&T). Nalco has announced an investment commitment of Rs 20,550 crore for expanding its alumina refinery at Damanjodi and setting up an aluminium park at Angul. Vedanta has proposed to invest Rs 1,000 crore on an aluminium downstream park, close to the site of its existing smelting facility at Jharsuguda. Adani Group plans to invest on an industrial park, an LNG terminal an LPG facility and a solar power manufacturing plant. GMR Group has announced an additional investment of Rs 1,800 crore. An Indonesian major has committed an investment of Rs 5,000 crore across multiple sectors. In electronics space, Sanmina Corporation has announced an investment of Rs 1,000 crore on an electronics manufacturing facility while a team from mobile handset maker Lava International is set to visit Odisha soon to explore possibilities of manufacturing unit. In the renewable energy sector, Panchavaktra Holdings has committed to invest Rs 8,350 crore and generate more than 2,000 jobs. At the 'Make In India' week, chief minister Naveen Patnaik unveiled the 'Odisha Industrial Development Plan. The Vision Document aims to draw investments of the order of Rs 2.5 lakh crore by 2025, generating employment for one million people. Patnaik met a cross section of industry leaders and business delegations from countries like China, Italy, Japan and Korea. Apart from Vision 2025, the chief minister launched the e-Biz portal, a common inspection framework and GOiPlus, a web enabled land information system for hassle free business. Harald Sandberg, ambassador of Sweden to India, tells Subhayan Chakraborty that despite a slight dip in business confidence, Swedish companies are willing to increase investment. Edited excerpts: According to a business climate survey of Swedish companies operating in India, fewer firms in 2015 considered India's business climate favourable compared to previous years... The 141 companies which took part in the survey look at India as a growing place to invest in. The projections for investments and hiring are good. The slight dip in figures (in 2015) represent the anxieties businesses have on delays in implementation of key reforms. What is the current profile of Swedish business in India? There are 160 Swedish companies operating in the country, employing 160,000 direct jobs and 1.1 million indirect ones. Swedish firms in India increasingly want their voices to be heard. While only about 50 per cent of such companies participated in the survey two years ago, the figure rose to 90 per cent this year. Are these firms looking to increase operations here? Eight out of 10 Swedish companies are looking to raise investments, buoyed by increasing profits especially in the automotive and engineering products categories. One-third of such companies are into manufacturing and 70 per cent of them have started producing for the domestic Indian market as well as for foreign export purposes. A significant share of Swedish businesses in India belong to the SME category. What is attracting these firms here? Most of the SMEs have entered India in the past five years. They are far more sensitive to some of the reforms undertaken by the government especially in labour laws, infrastructure development and ease of business. Since they don't have the infrastructure and resources available like their larger counterparts, those things matter to them more. Not only SMEs, major companies such as H&M, Ikea, Saab, Volvo and Scania have also scale up their operations in India. Are companies operating outside the traditional Swedish strongholds of information technology, electronics, and heavy engineering entering the Indian market? We have just started seeing such firms coming in to India. Areas such as life sciences, bio-technology and retail are expected to grow significantly in the next few years. Nearly 65 per cent of existing firms have complains about India's taxation policy. Why is that? In the taxation space, we are really looking at the goods and services tax (GST) amendment kicking in to transform the way business is conducted. Is the Swedish government looking to shore up investment from India into Sweden? There's a growing presence of Indian companies in and around the capital region of Stockholm. Besides major companies such as Bharat Forge, L&T Infotech and Cadila Pharmaceuticals, around 20 Indian IT companies operate Sweden. A large number of Indian students and professionals go to Sweden for education and employment. Will the European migration crisis impact Indians wanting to go to Sweden? Absolutely not. Yearly, around 6,000 Indians get entry visas for working in Sweden. Also, Indians represent the largest non-European group of students in Sweden. We have one of the most liberal visa regimes in the world. What is the perception of Swedish business moving out of the country among Swedish citizens? We are a small free-trade nation based heavily on foreign investment and trade. As we a have a smaller population, Swedish people believe it is as important to have a business flourish in Sweden as it is in other parts of the world. Swedish companies are mostly concentrated in the Delhi national capital region, Maharashtra and Karnataka. Any particular reason? It's mostly due to historical reasons. Swedish industry first came to India when Ericson landed a hundred years ago. The second wave of industries came when Karnataka became a hub of automotive engineering. 2nd Joint Working Group on Aircraft Carrier Technology Cooperation (JWGACTC) meeting between India & United States concludes in New Delhi . . The 2nd meeting of the Joint Working Group on Aircraft Carrier Technology Co-operation (JWGACTC), constituted under the auspices of the Indo US Defence Trade and Technology Initiative, was organised in India from 15 to 18 Feb 16. An 11 member delegation of the US Side, headed by Rear Admiral Thomas J Moore, Program Executive Officer, Aircraft Carriers (United States Navy), visited various defence/ industrial installations in India including the Shore Based Test Facility at Goa, Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), Bengaluru and Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL), Kochi. The delegation also visited the first Indian Indigenous Aircraft Carrier being constructed at CSL. . . The concluding session of the Joint Working Group Meeting was held on 18 Feb 16 at New Delhi and was co-chaired by Vice Admiral GS Pabby, Controller Warship Production and Acquisition and Rear Admiral Thomas J Moore, Program Executive Officer, Aircraft Carriers (United States Navy). During this meeting, various aspects of cooperation in the field of aircraft carrier technology were discussed and a joint statement signed. . . The meeting was attended by members of the Joint Working Group and relevant representatives from IHQ MoD (N), HQIDS, DRDO and Ministry of External Affairs, India. . . DKS/CKP Dr Jitendra Singh addresses workshop on Anubhav and Sankalp, . . Minister presents Anubhav awards for Best write-ups . . The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr. Jitendra Singh has said the government will soon devise an institutional mechanism and devise pre-retirement and post-retirement policy including counseling. Addressing the workshop on Anubhav and Sankalp here today, Dr. Jitendra Singh said a scheme will also soon be unveiled for involving Pensioner Organisations on how to make best use of the services of pensioners. . . Recalling that the Anubhav idea is a brainchild of the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, Dr. Jitendra Singh said the pensioners welfare and utilizing the vast resource pool of pensioners is the concern of the entire country and we all have stake in it. He said that at present there are more number of pensioners than the serving employees. For good governance, we need good tools and in this case the best tools are the government employees themselves, he added. . . Addressing the gathering, Secretary, Department of Pensions & Pensioners Welfare and Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, Shri Devendra Chaudhry said the workshop will provide new energy to the retiring employees and also boost their confidence. He said that the retiring employees should give something back to the society and get something back from the society as well. He said that the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi had given the vision about Anubhav initiative on September 12, 2014. He said that the retired employees need to engage themselves and contribute to Government initiatives like educating the people to use the accounts opened under Jan Dhan Yojana, Swachh Bharat Swachh Vidyalaya and Kaushal Vikas Yojana etc as per their interests. . . Earlier inaugurating the workshop, he said that the workshop of Anubhav and Sankalp together, is being held for the first time. Commenting upon the Anubhav Awards given on the occasion, he said that the present (serving) is giving awards to the past (retired) in recognition of their contribution. There is a great energy in synergy, he added. He said that this workshop is a step towards preserving the institutional memory. He also said that the Department plans to hold one such workshop at a large scale in the month of May this year, where the senior officials from railways, defence, postal and telecom departments will be participating. . . Dr Jitendra Singh also gave away awards for best write-ups received under the Anubhav scheme. Shri PK Panigrahi, Sr. DDG, Department of Telecommunications, Shri A. Natarajan, Sr. Section Engineer, Railways and Shri M. Balaraj, Technical Officer, DRDO were presented awards for their Anubhav write-ups. Special prizes were also conferred upon Shri Alok Rawat, former Secretary, Department of Pension & Pensioners Welfare, Shri Jai Narain, Postman and Shri R.K Sharma, Sr. Commandant, CISF. . . The Anubhav awards are being given on the completion of one year. The Department received over 1,000 write ups of the retired employees. The criteria for selection of awards is job related enthusiasm, performance orientation, subject knowledge and practical suggestions. The write ups have been evaluated by IIPA and 73 profiles were shortlisted. . . The workshop emphasised that the retiring employees should be given their rights with dignity and should also be a source of inspiration due to their rich experience. The retiring employees shared their experiences and also gave their suggestions to make the retired life an engaging, healthy and happy life. . . The Department of Pensions & Pensioners Welfare has now also enabled acceptance of audio files on the online software Anubhav. Anubhav files can be submitted by retiring employees along with their pension application form. These however need to be approved by their Head of Office. . . Another initiative called Sankalp has also been launched by this Department to channelize the experience and skill of retired Government servants towards meaningful interventions in society. The Sankalp is a project to channelize the skill, experience and time available with Central Government Pensioners into meaningful social intervention. The project has started on pilot basis for 2,000 pensioners. The Department has so far registered more than 1500 pensioners and 19 Pensioners' Associations under this project. The Department has also registered 16 NGOs to involve Central Government Pensioners in social activities. . . During the workshop the participants were exposed to the activities of organizations working in society and where the retired government servants could engage themselves after retirement. Many participants opted to work for one or more of these organizations. . . This step will certainly provide new energy to the retiring employees as well as boost their confidence at this crucial stage of life. . . India and Armenia Sign MoU on Agriculture Cooperation . . A meeting was held between Shri Radha Mohan Singh, Union Agriculture Minister and Mr. SergoKarapetyan, Armenian Agriculture Minister in New Delhi today. The two Ministers recalled the partnership, the two countries have shared, and discussed several areas of interest for cooperation between the two countries, and emphasized on furthering relationships not only for catalyzing trade and investment prospects but also sharing the knowledge that the two countries have accumulated over the years. . . The two Ministers signed an agreement for cooperation in the field of agriculture sectors. The MoU envisaged various priority sectors such as plant-breeding, including agricultural crop seed-breeding and plant protection; buffalo-breeding and poultry, including pedigree; exchange of experience on agricultural organization in dry lands; milk production and processing; development of new forms of farming in agrifood complex; agrarian education, training for agricultural specialists; exchange of experience in irrigation and water management (rain water) progressive technology systems exchange of fruit-trees, germplasm (apricot, grapes, apples, pears etc.); exchange of technical expertise and research in fruit-tree disease management; exchange of information on technologies in mechanization of agricultural farming (including research, design, production, installation of agricultural machinery/equipments); hi-tech horticulture including irrigation and water management technology; exchange of information on technologies in processing sector; phytosanitary measures during export and import of plant and plant materials; Animal husbandry including cattle identification; cooperation in the field of Agricultural Census. . . The MoU provides for establishment of Joint Working Group and preparation of Work Plans, and will be valid, initially for a period of five years, and would be extendable beyond five The two Ministers further identified sectors such as cattle identification, cooperatives, agriculture machinery, plant breeding and exchange of agri scientist and students, as the priority areas and resolved to constitute the JWG at the earliest to move the agreement . . Parliamentary Consultative Committee of Ministry of Coal Reviews Status of Implementation of Coal Washeries and Steps Taken for Improvement of Quality of Coal . . Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to the Ministry of Coal held its meeting in Tirupati , Andhra Pradesh today and reviewed status of implementation of coal washeries and measures being taken for improvement of quality of coal by Coal India Ltd and its subsidiaries . The meeting was chaired by Shri Piyush Goyal , Union Minister of State (IC) for Power, Coal & New & Renewable Energy and was attended by members of the Lok Sabha Shri Dalpat Singh Paraste, Shri Hari Manjhi, Shri Kaushlendra Kumar , Shri Midhun Reddy, Shri Santosh Kumar , Shri Laxmi Narayan Yadav, Shri Ramchandra Paswan, Shri Ravindra Kumar Pandey, Shri Vijay Kumar Handsdak, and Members of the Rajya Sabha Dr. Bhushan Lal Jangde and Shri Dhiraj Prasad Sahu and Smt. Renuka Chowdhary . . . Shri Piyush Goyal welcomed the Members and informed them historic growth of 9 percent in production of coal by CIL and 23 percent by SCCL achieved during current FY. Higher production of coal has resulted in about 16 percent downfall in import of coal which has resulted in saving of about Rs 22,000 crore of foreign exchange , Shri Goyal added. . . Shri D.N.Prasad Advisor ( Projects), Ministry of Coal gave detailed presentation highlighting long term plan of washing and crushing of coal by setting up new coal washeries. Members were informed that CIL has existing 15 washeries with capacity of 38 MTY and as part of future plan CIL plans to build 15 new washeries for augmenting the demand of washed coal for energy needs and compliance of environmental regulations. These washeries will be built in two phases on Build-own Maintain and EPC contract on turnkey basis and would be operational by September 2017 . Regarding new initiatives taken for quality improvement of coal , the Members were informed that from 1.1.16 , it has been made mandatory to supply 100 percent crushed coal of ( -) 100 mm size to power sector consumers having FSA excluding pit head power plants of NCL and ECL. During 2015-16 a total of 63.8 MT crushing capacity has been added with installation of mobile crushers and feeder breakers . . . Giving details of further improvement of Third party sampling introduced on 26.11.2015 , it was stated that an independent Third Party Agency is to be empanelled by Central Institute of Mining and Fuel Research at the loading end at the loading end on behalf of both the power plant and coal companies . The new system has commenced on 1.1.2016 in Northern Coalfields Limited. . . During discussion, all members appreciated the efforts taken by the Ministry of Coal and CIL. Members gave several suggestions for mitigating water scarcity problem in the villages surrounding mining areas, using fly ash as a soil nutrient , setting up of washeries and crushers at same location, utilisation of washeries wastage and reducing coal thefts. . . In his response, Shri Piyush Goyal thanked all members for their valuable ideas given during discussion. Shri Goyal said that directions have already been given to all companies to process the extracted water from the coal mines and supply to the villagers nearby. Regarding utilisation of washeries wastage , Shri Goyal said that efforts will be made to set up small power plants to supply power in nearby locality in consultation with State Governments. In order to resolve issues concerning coal mining areas faster , Shri Goyal directed CMDs of coal companies to interact with Members of Parliament from Coal bearing States on last Saturday every 3 months. . . Shri Anil Swarup , Coal Secretary , CMD s and Directors of CIL and NLC Ltd and senior officers of the Ministry of Coal also attended the meeting. . . RM/RS Shri Shripad Naik inaugurates the Conference of Health/AYUSH Ministers of States/UTs in New Delhi; . . Directs states to build up a strong regulatory framework and quality control system for AYUSH . . International Yoga Day will be celebrated on a grand scale this year: AYUSH Minister . . The second Conference of Health/AYUSH Ministers of States/UTs organized by the Ministry of AYUSH was held in New Delhi today. It was inaugurated by the Minister of State for AYUSH (Independent Charge) and Health & Family Welfare Shri Shripad Yesso Naik. The conference was held to provide an opportunity to interact with all the States/UTs for the development of AYUSH sector, and was attended by state AYUSH/Health Ministers/officials; senior officials of AYUSH Ministry and representatives of AYUSH organizations of the Ministry. . . Addressing the participants, Shri Shripad Naik said that the AYUSH sector has done well over the last one year including the enthusiastic celebration of maiden International Day of Yoga which was able to set two Guinness World Records. The Minister said that this year too, the International Day of Yoga will be celebrated on a grand scale. A common Yoga Protocol of 45 minutes has been developed by an Expert Committee of Yoga Gurus, and Yoga institutions will provide necessary technical support to the States for celebration of this event, the Minister explained. The Ministry of Human Resource Development has also been requested to organize a Yoga Olympiad involving School children, Shri Shripad added. . . The AYUSH Minister said that the Union Cabinet has this week approved the landmark proposal to collaborate with World Health Organization (WHO), which will help in global positioning of AYUSH. Also, India is developing bilateral cooperation with USA in areas of Research, Capacity Building/Training and scientific endeavors in AYUSH for which a high level meeting is slated to be held in the first week of next month in New Delhi. . . The AYUSH Minister expressed concerned about the weak quality control and sale of substandard AYUSH medicines in the market. He strongly directed the states to build up a strong regulatory framework and quality control system, as well as impart training to the experts posted for licensing and quality control work of AYUSH drugs. Shri ShripadNaik urged the States to avail financial support under National AYUSH Mission (NAM) for improving infrastructural and functional capacity of the public pharmacies, Drugs Testing Laboratories, Regulatory Set ups and for engaging technical experts and testing of drugs as well. . . Shri Shripad Naik disclosed that the AYUSH Ministry will support an International Convention to be held on 9th-10th April, 2016 to celebrate World Homoeopathy Day. Homoeopathic experts and leaders of key homoeopathic organizations of different countries will participate in the event. . . The Minister informed that under National AYUSH Mission, grant-in-aid of Rs. 75.28 Crore has been provided during 2014-15 to 25 states/UTs, and Rs. 296.42 Crore during 2015-16 as on January, 2016 to 26 States/UTs. The Central allocation for NAM has been increased from Rs. 331 Crores during 2015-16 to Rs.400 crores during 2016-17. In his welcome address, Secretary AYUSH Shri Ajit M. Sharan gave details of the steps taken by the Ministry for the rapid development of AYUSH Sector. He urged the States to take rapid steps for organizing the AYUSH Sector better, providing infrastructure facilities, maintaining strict quality controls and setup AYUSH related facilities with the help of assistance provided under National AYUSH Mission to give a good health delivery system to the people at affordable cost. . . The State Ministers/representatives of AYUSH/Health briefed about the steps taken by the respective states in the field of AYUSH, the issues related to the sector and the assistance required from the Centre for the further development of AYUSH facilities. . . Sonowal expresses grief over the demise of SSB Personnel deployed in Games duty. Ex- Gratia of Rs 5 lack announced for next of kin. . . Head Constable (GD) Suresh Pathak of 32 BN of Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), Howly, Assam, who was attached with the Assam Police for Anti- Sabotage Check duties at the 12th South Asian Games died in a tragic road accident near Sonapur on 17th February at around 8.25 AM. He was immediately rushed to the Sonapur District Hospital where he was declared brought dead. Expressing grief over the accident and offering his condolences, Shri Sarbananda Sonowal, Chairman, Organizing Committee, 12th South Asian Games as Minister of States (Independent Charge) Youth Affairs and Sports, Govt. of India sanctioned an Ex Gratia amount of Rs 5 Lack to be granted to the next of kin of the deceased. . . The OCSAG stands in solidarity with the bereaved family of the deceased and assures them of all support. . . Uma Bharti asks her Ministry Officials to Work in Mission Mode for Successful Completion of Various Schemes . . Union Minister for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Sushri Uma Bharti has asked her Ministry officials to work in mission mode for successful completion of various schemes. Chairing a high level meeting held in New Delhi today to review the progress of various schemes and programme of her Ministry, she exhorted senior officials of her Ministry to fulfil the task assigned to them in the given time frame. Referring to the various important schemes of her Ministry such as Namami Gange, programme Inter-linking of rivers, Integrated Water Resources Management Study of ten prioritized river basins, Jal Kranti Abhiyan and Ground Water Identification of Ground Structure and aquifer mapping, Sushri Bharti said that some of these progammes are flagship programmes of Modi Government. She stressed the need for achieving 100% e-governance in her Ministry and said that it should be achieved by the next meeting. . . Referring to the need for determining e-flow of all important rivers of the country, the Minister underlined the need for keeping the e-flow factor in mind while approving the designs of new dams. Sushri Bharti said that she is aware of the fact that no country in the world has been able to evolve a proper formula to determine the e-flow. She said Central Water Commission (CWC) should come forward with some guidelines for e-flow which may also be a guiding principle for other countries. The Minister also referred to the urgent need of updating the details of various water bodies in the country. She said CWC should collect these details from States on priority basis so that Kedarnath type tragedies could be avoided in future. The Minister also referred to the depletion of ground water level in and around Puri in Odisha due to illegal activities of building mafia and directed Central Ground Water Board to submit a report on the water level of Puri. Sushri Bharti also referred to some reservations expressed by a section of people in Odisha regarding Mahanadi- Godavari river link project and said that she was able to dispel this fear without much efforts. She also praised the role of media in this. . . Senior officials from various organisations, wings and divisions of the Ministry gave power point presentations about the achievements of their respective departments. . . Samir/jk Google moved euro 10.7 billion euros ($12 billion) through the Netherlands to Bermuda in 2014, as part of a structure which allows it to earn most of its foreign income tax free. Accounts for Google Netherlands Holdings published on Thursday show the unit transferred almost all its revenue, mainly royalties from an Irish affiliate through which most non-US revenue is channelled, to a Bermuda-based, Irish-registered affiliate called Google Ireland Holdings. The tax strategy is known to accountants as the "double Irish, Dutch Sandwich". It allows Google, now part of holding company Alphabet Inc, to avoid triggering US income taxes or European withholding taxes on the funds, which represent the bulk of the group's overseas profits. A Google spokesman said the company follows the tax rules in all the countries where it operates. The decade-old arrangement allowed Alphabet to enjoy an effective tax rate of just 6 per cent on its non-US profits last year, around a quarter the average tax rate in its overseas markets. Bermuda charges companies no income tax. Corporate tax avoidance has risen to the top of the political agenda in European in recent years and Google in particular has been under pressure for the low tax it pays on profits generated from sales in the continent. Last week Google was called to testify to a UK parliamentary committee about a 130 million ($186 million) back tax bill, agreed with the British tax authority in January, that the Opposition Labour party described as "derisory". The deal brought Google's total British tax bill for 2005 to 2015 to around 200 million, whereas its UK revenue amounted to 24 billion. Google Netherlands Holdings NV, which has no employees, had a Dutch tax bill of just euro 2.8 million, its accounts showed. Harper Lee, the American writer whose book To Kill a Mockingbird was voted the best novel of the 20th century and became a classroom standard for the study of racial injustice in the US, has died. She was 89. Her death was reported by the New York Times, citing her publisher, HarperCollins. No details were provided. Lee won both critical acclaim and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her 1960 work. US librarians named To Kill a Mockingbird the best novel of the 20th century, according to a 1999 survey by Library Journal. The book is among the most popular pieces of fiction ever, having sold ... ended marginally higher on Friday, amid a rangebound trading session, led by select state-owned banks and auto shares while energy shares reversed early losses. The S&P BSE Sensex ended up 60 points at 23,709 and the Nifty50 ended up 19 points at 7,211. In the broader market, the BSE Midcap and Smallcap index ended mixed. Market breadth was slightly higher with 1295 gainers and 1213 losers on the BSE. "There was shortcovering and selective buying in select stocks and traders were unwilling to extend positions. Market are likely to be volatile next week ahead of the Budget," says Mayuresh Joshi, Fund Manager, Angel Broking. Foreign institutional investors were net buyers in equities to the tune of Rs 419 crore on Thursday, as per provisional stock exchange data. SECTORS & STOCKS BSE Auto, Bankex and IT indices were the top gainers while Capital Goods, Oil & Gas indices were the top losers. State-owned oil exploration major ONGC recouped early losses to end nearly 1% higher. Maruti Suzuki ended 2% lower after media reports suggested that the company may fail to meet its volume growth target for the year ending 31 March 2017 (FY 2017) because of capacity constraints. L&T ended flat. The company said its construction arm won orders worth Rs 1,404 crore across various business verticals. State Bank of India ended up 3.1% after the bank said it has raised Rs 3000 crore through issue of bonds on private placement basis to fund business growth. Punjab National Bank gained over 5% after reports suggested that Punjab National Bank (PNB) is weighing options of diluting stake in some of its subsidiaries and selling off real estate assets. HDFC Bank ended flat. The bank said in a release on the BSE that it will modify all the issuance done from Bahrain branch after Standard and Poors lowered long and short term rating on Kingdom of Bahrain. Axis Bank eased 1.2% while mortgage lender HDFC ended down 1%. BHEL ended down 1.9%. Foreign brokerage UBS has maintained its 'sell' call on BHEL and has reduced target price to Rs 70 from Rs 115 per share. UBS says EBITDA break-even unlikely by FY'20 and BHEL is likely to report losses till FY'18. Among others, airline shares ended higher after most of them reported higher passenger load in January. SpiceJet was the leader with 92.1% followed by GoAir and IndiGo, at 84.9% and 84.7%, respectively. SpiceJet gained 4% and Jet Airways surged 2.8%. Meanwhile, reports suggest that Etihad Airways plans to raise its stake to 49% from 24% in Jet Airways. Shares of railway related stocks like Texmaco Rail & Engineering, Titagarh Wagons, Kalindee Rail Nirman (Engineers), BEML and Stone India ended up to 9% on the BSE ahead of Rail Budget next week. Shriram EPC rallied 16% on the BSE after the company said it has bagged contracts worth over Rs 438 crore from the Ministry of Road & Highways and Government of Jharkhand. Gayatri Projects ended up 5.8%, extending its previous days 4.5% gain on the BSE, after the company said its wholly-owned subsidiary Gayatri Energy Ventures signed an eight-year power purchase agreement with Telangana Power Distribution companies (TPDC). TeamLease Services reversed intra-day losses to end 1.3% higher while Quick Heal Technologies ended up 1.6%. Thirty-five eminent citizens of Bangladesh have, in a statement, called for the withdrawal of sedition charges against Daily Star editor Mahfuz Anam. Anam has been charged with sedition for publishing unverified stories of corruption against Sheikh Hasina during 2007-08, when a caretaker regime was in force. Condemning the filing of 75 cases against Anam, including 17 sedition-related prosecution pleas, the citizens, in their statement, called for an end to the smear campaign. They said the Daily Star editor should have been commended for a rare display of professional values after he had regretted "publishing without verification a few stories based on information provided by a state intelligence agency during the military-backed caretaker government rule in 2007". Instead, they said, he is being harassed, which is sad, unexpected and frustrating, adding that the present scenario would discourage journalists and even others from spontaneously admitting their mistakes in future and would give rise to falsehood in society. The eminent citizens also called for a constructive discussion on what legal and administrative actions should be taken to stop interference of the state intelligence agencies in the functioning of a free media in the country. Anam has been charged with trying to uproot the democratic government system by helping the unconstitutional government in its efforts to banish Hasina and other political leaders from politics. The cases against Anam were filed after he attended a television talk show on February 6, where he admitted that he had had a lapse of editorial judgement in publishing a few reports which were based on information provided by the Task Force Interrogation Cell during the 2007-08 tenure of the last caretaker government. He said he had published those without verifying them independently. The lawsuits against Anam claimed that the reports run by the newspaper led to the arrest of Bangladesh Awami League president Sheikh Hasina. An automobile workshop in Tripura capital Agartala has become tech savvy to develop the skills of local youth and provide them with job options. Array The upgraded workshop, supported by TATA Motors Ltd., was inaugurated at ITI Indranagar. Array "Tata Motors help in playing a pivotal role in helping the youths from Northeast India and help in finding them the job through skills upgradation. It started when we responded as Tata group to requirement from the government of Assam to upgrade ITI's in some of the Assamese areas. Today, we have completed the upgradation at Nagaon, Tinsukia and we have moved on to others states," said Biswanath Sinha, Associate Director, TATA Trust. Array Along with TATA Motors Ltd, Bosch, Fleetguard, Wabco, TATA Technologies, Castrol, JK Tyres and ZF Steerings are actively providing training to students on latest technology. Array Chairman of the Skill Development Corporation believes the centre will help students sharpen their understanding of modern vehicles. Array "Industry related standards, a new state of the art workshop with modern instruments which will give the students understanding of the modern vehicles so that everyone can drive on road safely. Also, I have been told that the intake capacity of the ITI Agartala may go from 350+ to 770 plus," said S Ramadorai, Chairman, NSDA and NSDC. Array In the age of globalization and cut throat competition, students are expected to have extraordinary skills. Array The workshop will help students from the Northeastern region to get better know how of latest automobile technology and face future professional challenges. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Calcutta High Court demanding NIA probe over the anti- slogans raised in the Jadavpur University. Jadavpur University Vice Chancellor Suranjan Das, who called on West Bengal Governor K.N. Tripathi amid row over pro-Afzal guru slogans, earlier today, said that he was against filing First Information Report against any student as the varsity has always stood for freedom of expression and autonomy. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) earlier sought a report from the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) Government in West Bengal over the protest by Jadavpur University students. The ongoing protests in Delhi against the crackdown on the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) seems to have reached Jadavpur University with students of varsity taking out a torch rally and raising slogans against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. The students, affiliated to various Left Parties, took to the streets in Kolkata to protest the alleged police atrocities inside the JNU campus. The Congress Party on Friday blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government in Haryana for protests by the Jat community demanding reservation in government jobs. Array Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi said the state government has been a complete failure as they have not managed to tackle the law and order situation, eventually resulting into violence. Array "The Congress has always condemned all forms of violence and here whether it is category A or caste B, we must condemn all such forms of violence. We must also condemn this violence whether it is a political party A or B," Singhvi told ANI. Array "It has no place in our system but I am regretfully forced to say that law and order and this violence issue being entirely in the domain of the state government, they have been a complete failure on that front," he added. Array The Congress leader further stated it is vital for the state government to get their house in order. Array "It is vital to defuse this provocative atmosphere because this conflict can have serious consequences. We would charge straightly the state government for a failure on this front. We hope that they would move fast to get this under control," he said. Meanwhile, the Haryana Government said that it was working hard to fulfill the demands of the protesting Jat community. Array Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar's OSD Jawahar Yadav in an exclusive conversation with ANI said that he was baffled by the state-wide agitation and added that no one has the right to take the law into their own hands. Array Meanwhile, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar and Army Chief General Dalbir Singh have been conveyed about the deployment of Army personnel in the violence struck area. Array Adamant on their agitation till a legislation giving quota to the community under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category is cleared, the protest by the Jat community intensified earlier as they torched the house of Haryana Finance Minister Captain Abhimanyu today. Array The Finance Minister was not in his residence at the time. Array Firing also broke out in which one person was injured and the protestors set up road blockade at many places in Panipat, which also affected movement of vehicles towards Uttar Pradesh. Array Violence had broken out during the protest in Rohtak on Thursday, leaving at least 15 persons injured. The administration clamped prohibitory orders in the district by imposing Section 144 of CrPC to avert any further deterioration in law and order situation. Array Police and paramilitary forces resorted to baton-charge and teargas shells to control the situation after some unidentified people torched motorcycles and pelted stones during clashes. The Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to actor Salman Khan on the Maharashtra Government's plea challenging his acquittal in the 2002 hit-and-run case. While issuing notice to the Bollywood actor, the apex court said the matter needs to be considered in the evidence, including the statement of author of FIR Ravindra Patil, which was discarded by the Bombay High Court. The court has also agreed to hear the plea of the family members of the victim seeking compensation. Salman's counsel told the apex court that the police had implicated him in the case and he was not driving the car that night. His counsel also said that there was no reference in prosecution evidence that he was drunk. Array 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 to five years imprisonment. Array 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 'unreliable' and that there were discrepancies in the case. The actor is accused of killing one person and injuring four others in Bandra, Mumbai, in 2002 while driving his car under the influence of alcohol. The Ninth Indo-Nepal combined battalion level military training exercise 'Surya Kiran' is being conducted at Pithoragarh from 8 February to 21 February under the aegis of Panchshul Brigade of Central Command. During the exercise, an Infantry battalion each from Indian Army and the Nepalese Army would be training together and sharing their experiences of counter terrorism operations and Jungle warfare in mountain terrain. The Surya Kiran series of exercises is a bi-annual event which is conducted alternatively in Nepal and India. The aim of this combined training exercise is to enhance inter-operability between the Indian and the Nepalese Army units in jungle warfare and counter terrorism operations in mountainous terrain. The training will also focus on humanitarian aid and disaster relief including medical and aviation support. Both the armies will stand to benefit mutually from shared experiences. The combined training, mutual interaction and sharing of experiences between both the countries shall further strengthen the historical military and strategic ties, giving further fillip to the bilateral relations and existing strong bonding between both countries. Iran has indicated that it wants to settle payments for its new and outstanding oil sales in euros and not in dollars or any other currencies. Iran has also told its trading partners, including India that it owes it billions of dollars that it wants to be paid in euros rather than U.S. dollars. Today, the European Court of Justice upheld the decision that Bank Mellat did unfairly have sanctions placed upon it by the European Council, and The Court of Justice confirmed the annulment of the fund-freezing measures in place against Bank Mellat since 2010. The European Court of Justice also ruled that the European Council had failed to provide sufficient grounds or evidence. International law firm Zaiwalla and Co., an English solicitors firm of Indian origin had been appointed by Bank Mellat in place of Stephenson Harwood to represent the bank both at the UK and EU level, challenging both the UK Supreme Court and EU Court respectively of their unlawful sanctions on the bank. Bank Mellat was unlawfully sanctioned by HM Treasury and after the UK Supreme Court dismissed HM Treasury's appeal, the bank is pursuing a damages claim against the HM Treasury to the tune of USD 4 billion. The judgment will have significant implications for the bank's pursuit of a damages claim for significant pecuniary losses and substantial reputational damage suffered whilst under sanctions. Mr. Sarosh Zaiwalla, the founder of the firm, said, "The sanction free Iran is now ready to take the step to keep trade with India going and regain its lost market share. The imposition of extensive sanctions and trade restrictions on Iran have crippled its economy in the past few years, particularly in the financial and energy sectors, significantly affecting the day to day lives of local Iranians and their businesses, in addition to foreign companies and individuals with an interest in investing in the country. India and Iran are now negotiating to evaluate the Asian Clearing Mechanism (ACU) to increase its oil exports to India and address the payment issue between the two countries. Iran is ready to take the SWIFT route to unblock the pending oil payments. Iran is in the process of opening euro accounts with Indian banks for easy transfer of payments from the Indian oil companies. Another major development for Iran is that The appeal court of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg delivered its judgment this morning in favour of Bank Mellat which was represented by Zaiwalla & Co an English solicitors firm of Indian origin in respect Of EU Councils appeal in which European Court of Justice (ECJ) has affirmed that the European Council did not have evidence to substantiate its claim that Bank Mellat was involved in supporting Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile program and has unfrozen the assets of the Bank. This is very good news both for Bank Mellat and also for Iran and the Iranian people. It not only shows to the world that Iran is an enlightened ancient civilisation which believes in the principle of the Rule of Law but today's ruling paves the way for Bank Mellat to freely trade which will further enhance its stagnant economy." It may be recalled that in order to strengthen efforts to combat Iran's nuclear proliferation-sensitive activities and the development of nuclear weapon delivery systems in Iran, the Council froze the funds of various Iranian financial entities, including Bank Mellat, 1 from 2010 onwards. The reasons given for freezing Bank Mellat's funds were essentially as follows: 'Bank Mellat engages in a pattern of conduct which supports and facilitates Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. It has provided banking services to United Nations and EU listed entities or to entities acting on their behalf or at their direction, or to entities owned or controlled by them. It is the parent bank of First East Export [FEE] which is designated under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1929'. Bank Mellat successfully challenged the freezing of its funds before the General Court.2. The Council subsequently appealed to the Court of Justice to have the General Court's judgment set aside. In today's judgment, the Court of Justice, confirming the principles established in Kadi II,3 found, as did the General Court, that the first two sentences of the reasons set out above do not enable Bank Mellat to establish specifically which banking services it provided to which entities, particularly as the persons whose accounts were managed by Bank Mellat are not identified. As regards the reason citing the fact that Bank Mellat is the parent company of FEE (designated by the United Nations Security Council), the Court of Justice notes that, according to the General Court's findings, the Council did not produce any evidence that would have enabled the courts of the EU to determine whether that reason was well founded. The Court of Justice also declared that justifying the freezing of Bank Mellat's funds on the basis of the freezing of FEE's funds, when FEE was designated in the United Nations resolution because of the very activities being carried out by Bank Mellat, is a circular argument. As regards the Council's argument that the evidence concerning Bank Mellat's support for Iran's nuclear activities comes from confidential sources which, if disclosed, would enable those who provided the information to be identified (which could endanger their safety and their lives), the court noted that that argument was relied on for the first time at the stage of the appeal, and is therefore inadmissible. The Court of Justice therefore dismissed the Council's appeal. Agitating Jat protestors demanding reservation under the Other Backward Classes category on Friday blocked the Delhi-Ambala rail route near Sonipat. The blockade of the route disrupted movement of trains between Amritsar and Pathankot in Punjab, Jammu in J and K, Una in Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh. The pro-reservation protests by Jats in Haryana had turned violent on Thursday, with several people being injured and reports of clashes between protesters and police personnel in Rohtak. The state government ordered the district administration to block use of mobile internet services in Jhajjar and Rohtak in the wake of the agitation. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar chaired an all-party meeting to discuss the demands of Jat community. Media reported that police and paramilitary forces had to resort to baton charges and firing of teargas shells to bring the situation under control. Prohibitory orders has also been imposed in Rohtak. The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union council passed a resolution on Friday, condemning the 'anti-India' and 'anti-Pakistan sloganeering campus on the night on February 9 and also slammed the lack of 'on-the-spot' action. Amid the ongoing crisis on the campus, the council held a meeting today where they passed a resolution demanding a thorough investigation and appealed to the JNU administration to desist from interfering with the due process of law. "The JNUSU condemns the Anti-India and Pro-Pakistan sloganeering on campus in presence of JNUSU President and some other office-bearers. JNUSU also condemns them for not stopping such an act on spot and not filling any complaint against them with the JNU administration of the Police. This shows open complicity in this condemnable act," the resolution read. Asserting that the incident had sent a wrong message to the entire nation, the students' council said that the 'attempt by a section of JNU community who interferes with the process of investigation is seen as an open support to the culprits of the event. The resolution stated clearly that that the entire JNU disassociates themselves from such condemnable incidents and that they take responsibly to ensure that such incidents do happen in the future. The JNUSU has also resolved to work in identifying, isolating and ensuring punishment for the 'subversive' elements that have brought disrepute to JNU. "JNU has faced such crisis in past and its responsible teachers, students and Karamcharis have come together to overcome the crisis. Let us join hands and strengthen the glorious tradition of JNU," the resolution added. Earlier today, JNU Students' Union president Kanhaiya Kumar's bail plea in the High Court was not be heard today. Registrar General Lopen Bomniyal said that the additional application in the matter is yet to be filed. Meanwhile, another petition was filed in the court saying that Police Commissioner B.S. Bassi's statement of not opposing Kanhaiya Kumar's bail may hamper the trial. The petition seeks to ensure fair trial in the case and the matter is likely to be heard next week. Array The bail plea was filed earlier in the afternoon by his lawyers Vrinda Grover and Sushil Bajaj. This came after the Supreme Court refused to entertain their plea and directed them to move the High Court. Counsel Raju Ramachandra appearing for Kanhaiya had told the apex court earlier that the atmosphere of Patiala House Court is not safe for the accused and his lawyers. "The Defence lawyers are not able to perform their duty in such a hostile environment. That is why the bail application had been moved to the Supreme Court," he said. Vikram Singh Chauhan, the lawyer who allegedly led the attack on journalists and students at the Patiala House Court, on Friday rejected that JNU students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar was attacked. "Kanhaiya was not attacked at the Patiala House Court complex," he said, adding that if anyone raises anti-India slogans on the court premises, nobody would listen to it. "JNU students in black coats raised slogans at Gate No. 2. And no citizen of this country can bear anti- slogans," said Chauhan. "If they provoke and challenge our patriotism and attack us, we will definitely respond," he added. When asked that a person visiting the court is not safe, he said, the enemies of the country would definitely think hundred times before entering the court premises. He, however, denied that they attacked journalists at the court, and accused JNU students in black coats for it. Lawyers on Friday took out a massive "peaceful" protest march against "anti-national" sloganeering at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), and burnt an effigy of "traitors of the country". The lawyers, who took out the march from the Patiala House court, raised "nationalistic" slogans against those who raised anti- slogans. "We will not accept any anti- element to raise slogans against our country. This is highly condemnable. The lawyers' fraternity opposes such sloganeering," one of the protesters told ANI. Holding Tricolours, the protesting lawyers marched towards the India Gate, while chanting 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' and 'Vande Mataram', some of them were even heard saying 'Pakistan Murdabad'. The lawyers further reiterated that they were protesting against 'anti-national' forces in the capital. Leaders of Left Parties, RJD, JD (U) and NCP will on Friday meet President Pranab Mukherjee to seek his intervention in the Jawaharlal Nehru University students-related row. "The MPs from Left Parties, RJD, JD (U), NCP would meet President Mukherjee and would seek his intervention since he is also the visitor of JNU," CPI (M) leader Sitaram Yechury told ANI. "These attacks on us are actually the attacks on our constitutional rights and that he should take a call on it," he added. This meeting comes in wake of the attack by a bunch of lawyers on JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar at the Patiala House District Court premises which injured several journalists and JNU students. The Delhi Police failed to protect the victims for the second time in three days. Meanwhile, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal along with his cabinet ministers had yesterday met President Mukherjee to brief him over the situation in the capital. Talking to reporters after meeting President Pranab Mukherjee on the JNU row, the Chief Minister said if Supreme Court's order is not followed within the 200 meters of its periphery, "then there will be no such thing called Constitution. Then it will be the Centre and the Prime Minister's dictatorship. This is something very serious. There is no judiciary after that. New Delhi, Feb. 19 (ANI): Based on a true incident, the movie is about a Pan Am 73 aircraft that was hijacked on September 5, 1986 in Karachi, Pakistan. The story of 'Neerja' revolves around the life of flight attendant Neerja Bhanot, played by Sonam Kapoor, and her heroic effort to rescue the passengers of the hijacked flight. The film also features veteran actress Shabana Azmi as Rama, Neerja's mother. With an excellent mix of emotion, action, direction, screenplay and performance, the movie gives us an emotional roller coaster ride. A fearful past with a disturbed marriage and a cruel husband turned Neerja into a petrified person until she boarded her first flight as Head Flight Attendant from Mumbai to New York via Karachi and Frankfurt on September 5. The flight got hijacked when it landed at Karachi. That is when Neerja shows great presence of mind in alerting the people in cockpit about the mishap. The pilot and his crew flee from the cockpit by following the standard procedure in case of a hijack which makes the situation easier for the cabin crew and passengers. The motive of the militants was to free their leader locked up in Cyprus. This was followed by a series of thrilling moments between Neerja and the militants and how she overcomes her fear. The movie also shows the emotional ride which Neerja's family goes through. Speaking about the performance, Sonam has done an awesome job. Shabana Azmi, playing Neerja's mother, too was excellent but the spotlight was on Sonam Kapoor. It will not be surprising if she gets a national award for this performance. This movie should be watched for its amazing direction, screenplay and power packed performance. K P Sharma Oli will arrive in New Delhi on Friday on a six-day visit to India. This is first visit of Oli abroad after assuming office in October last year. Oli will be accorded ceremonial reception at the forecourts of the Rashtrapati Bhawan. The visiting dignitary will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and hold delegation level talks. Thereafter, the two countries will exchange agreements. Oli will be accompanied by senior members of the Nepal Cabinet. During the visit, the two sides are expected to hold wide ranging discussions on issues of mutual concern, as well as on strengthening bilateral cooperation in diverse areas including developmental assistance, energy and connectivity. The visit is expected to lead a further strengthening of India's age-old, close and friendly relations with the Himalayan nation. Speaking to media on the eve of his visit to India, Oli said, rebuilding the friendship with India is Nepal's biggest mission and the the focus is to take the bilateral relations to a new heights. Ahead of his visit, Prime Minister Oli said India's invitation to him for an official visit is indicative of its acceptance to Nepal's recently promulgated constitution. "It wouldn't be wise to say that the constitution has not been welcomed since the prime minister after its promulgation has been invited with the honour," he said. He said during his visit he will clear the doubts about Nepal in India, bring the relations between the two friendly nations back to normal, inform India about the growing investment-friendly environment in Nepal and strengthen the multi-dimensional Nepal-India relations. "As my India tour has been termed 'agenda less' so I have a bigger responsibility. With specific agendas, I would have been confined with limited issues but now, I will have to talk about a range of issues," Oli told media at his official residence in Baluwatar in Kathmanduon on Thursday. "I have great expectation from this visit. India has already begun to show friendly gestures and I will make sure to take it to a new height. I will not forge any agreements that are against interest." Oli also said that his India visit follows invitation from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "Like Nepal, India too has given utmost importance to this visit. So, this visit has been called state visit," he said. When asked whether he will bring up the issues of Nepal-India border, Oli replied that this is not a time to talk about such issues. He said Nepal-India relations are based on honesty, friendliness and trust upon each other rather than on crooked diplomacy. Apart from having delegation-level talks with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, Oli will call on President Pranab Mukherjee and Vice-President Mohammad Hamid Ansari, and interact with several Indian ministers and officials. According to a report in the Kathmandu Post, at least four memorandums of understanding (MoUs), including two on line of credit and reconstruction aid, are expected to be signed during the visit. The MoUs will be signed on an India-announced $1-billion line of credit and another $1-billion assistance for Nepal's reconstruction effort. These two MoUs will provide framework for utilising the Indian aid. During his visit to Nepal in August 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced $1-billion line of credit to Nepal for various infrastructure projects. Similarly, India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj during the donors' conference in June had announced another $1-billion loan and aid to Nepal for reconstruction efforts. Another MoU is expected to be signed between Sanggeetnatak Academy of India and Natya Sangeet Academy of Nepal to exchange various cultural programmes. Similarly, Radio Nepal and All India Radio will sign another MoU cooperation and exchange of various programmes. Respective governments from both sides have already got these MoUs approved from the respective Cabinets, said sources. During Oli's visit, a formal announcement of importing 80 MW electricity through the recently installed Dhalkebar- Muzaffarpur 400-Kv transmission line will also be made. Besides four MoUS, several other could also be signed. Nepal Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli will arrive in New Delhi today on a six-day visit to India. This is first visit of Mr Oli abroad after assuming office in October last year. Mr Oli will be accorded ceremonial reception at the forecourts of the Rashtrapati Bhawan tomorrow. The visiting dignitary will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and hold delegation level talks. Thereafter, the two countries will exchange agreements. Mr.Oli will be accompanied by senior members of the Nepal Cabinet. During the visit, the two sides are expected to hold wide ranging discussions on issues of mutual concern, as well as on strengthening bilateral cooperation in diverse areas including developmental assistance, energy and connectivity. The visit is expected to lead a further strengthening of India's age-old, close and friendly relations with the Himalayan nation. Speaking to media on the eve of his visit to India, Mr Oli said, rebuilding the friendship with India is Nepal's biggest mission and the the focus is to take the bilateral relations to a new heights. Ahead of his visit, Prime Minister Oli said India's invitation to him for an official visit is indicative of its acceptance to Nepal's recently promulgated constitution. "It wouldn't be wise to say that the constitution has not been welcomed since the prime minister after its promulgation has been invited with the honour," he said. He said during his visit he will clear the doubts about Nepal in India, bring the relations between the two friendly nations back to normal, inform India about the growing investment-friendly environment in Nepal and strengthen the multidimensional Nepal-India relations. "As my India tour has been termed 'agenda less' so I have a bigger responsibility on me. With specific agendas, I would have been confined with limited issues but now I will have to talk about a range of issues," Oli told media at his official residence in Baluwatar in Kathmanduon on Thursday. "I have great expectation from this visit. India has already begun to show friendly gestures and I will make sure to take it to a new height. I will not forge any agreements that are against national interest." Oli also said that his India visit follows invitation from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "Like Nepal, India too has given utmost importance to this visit. So this visit has been called state visit," he said. When asked whether he will bring up the issues of Nepal-India border, Oli replied that this is not a time to talk about such issues. He said Nepal-India relations are based on honesty, friendliness and trust upon each other rather than on crooked diplomacy. Apart from having delegation-level talks with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, Oli will call on President Pranab Mukherjee and Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari, and interact with several Indian ministers and officials. According to a report in the Kathmandu Post, at least four memorandums of understanding (MoUs), including two on line of credit and reconstruction aid, are expected to be signed during the visit. The MoUs will be signed on an India-announced USD 1 billion line of credit and another USD 1 billion assistance for Nepal's reconstruction effort. These two MoUs will provide framework for utilising the Indian aid. During his visit to Nepal in August 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced USD 1 billion line of credit to Nepal for various infrastructure projects. Similarly, India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj during the donors' conference in June had announced another USD 1 billion loan and aid to Nepal for reconstruction efforts. Another MoU is expected to be signed between Sanggeetnatak Academy of India and Natya Sangeet Academy of Nepal to exchange various cultural programmes. Similarly, Radio Nepal and All India Radio will sign another MoU cooperation and exchange of various programmes. Respective governments from both sides have already got these MoUs approved from the respective Cabinets, said sources. During Oli's visit, a formal announcement of importing 80 MW electricity through the recently installed Dhalkebar- Muzaffarpur 400kV transmission line will also be made. Besides four MoUS, several other MoUs could also be signed. The Party on Friday launched an attack on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for targeting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) over the ongoing JNU campus row, saying the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was also the other side of the same coin because they think themselves to be above the law of the land. "Kejriwal has not tweeted anything new. Since the last few days, the anti-BJP and the anti-RSS handles are trending on Twitter, thousands of people are portraying the same sentiments that the BJP and the RSS are thinking themselves to be above the law," leader Sharmistha Mukherjee told ANI. "AAP or the BJP and the RSS are two sides of the same coin because they all think themselves to be above the law of the land. Whenever there has been any allegation against any senior AAP leader or MLA, Kejriwal and his party have been crying hoarse," she added. Kejriwal today said the Narendra Modi led-NDA Government has formed a new definition of Indian Penal Code (IPC), under which any opposition against the BJP and the RSS was the biggest crime. "The Centre's new IPC- it's not a crime to murder, rape or beat anyone if u r from BJP. Being opposed to BJP n RSS is biggest crime now. Centre's new IPC- rape, murder or beat anyone. When questioned, just say that victim was shouting anti-India slogans, u will be let off," Kejriwal tweeted. The Delhi Chief Minister had yesterday attacked the Centre for not following the Supreme Court's order of maintaining peace at the Patiala House court premises. Jadavpur University Vice Chancellor Suranjan Das, who called on West Bengal Governor K.N. Tripathi amid the row over pro-Afzal guru slogans at the varsity, said on Friday, that he was against filing the First Information Report against any student as the varsity has always stood for freedom of expression and autonomy. "It is not in Jadhavpur's tradition to file FIRs against the students. The chancellor had asked me to send a report and obviously I will send the report on lines he has asked for. On Monday, we have an executive council meeting in which we will discuss the whole matter," Das told reporters here. "I have also impressed upon the chancellor that Jadhavpur University has a particular tradition to ensure that the university remains a place for debate and discussion, and we will maintain that tradition. It has a tradition of autonomy, we will maintain that autonomy. Whatever needs to be done, will be done in accordance with rules, regulations and conventions," he added. Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has filed a PIL in the Calcutta High Court demanding NIA probe on the issue of anti- slogans in Jadavpur University. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) earlier sought a report from the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) Government in West Bengal over the protest by Jadavpur University students. The ongoing protests in Delhi against the crackdown on the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) seems to have reached Jadavpur University with students of varsity taking out a torch rally and raising slogans against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. The students, affiliated to various Left Parties, took to the streets in Kolkata to protest the alleged police atrocities inside the JNU campus. An oposition leader in Nepal has criticised Prime Minister K.P. Oli for undertaking a six-day official visit to India when the country is still in the throes of resolving its domestic issues. Sanghiya Samajwadi Forum Nepal (SSFN) Chairman Upendra Yadav said such a visit is a futile exercise that would not benefit Nepal at all. "It would have been better if internal issues were resolved first before leaving for India," the Kathmandu Post quoted Yadav, as saying at an interaction with the media in Biratnagar before moving on to Rangeli to attend a programme on Thursday. "The concerns of Madhes have not been addressed yet and, I believe, visiting India at this juncture would not yield any meaningful result," he added. A Delhi Court on Friday dismissed the bail plea of former DU professor SAR Geelani, who was arrested on charges of sedition in connection with an event at the Press Club of India. Geelani, who has been lodged in Jail No. 1 of Tihar, was sent to 14-day judicial custody yesterday. He was produced in the court yesterday after his two-day police custody ended on Thursday. Geelani was detained on Monday night and questioned for several hours before being put under arrest. Geelani's arrest came amid a raging controversy over the arrest of Jawaharlal Nehru University's students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar on sedition charges. After a case was registered, the police questioned DU professor Ali Javed, a Press Club member, who had booked the hall for the event. A group, which was allegedly led by Geelani, had shouted slogans hailing Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru during a public meeting at the Press Club on February 10. The recent social media post of Shah Rukh Khan's wife Gauri suggests that Karan Johar is a godfather of her daughter Suhana Khan. Taking to her Instagram, the 45-year-old Gauri shared a pic of her 15-year-old daughter with Karan, captioning it as, "Godfather .. @karanjohar." Interestingly, the pictures surfaced online have given rise to rumour that the 43-year-old film-maker may launch SRK daughter. Recently, the film director announced that he would be happy to launch Suhana's older brother Aryan. Suhana and Karan were spotted at the Mumbai airport. Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli arrived in New Delhi today on a six-day visit to India and was greeted by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. This is first visit of Mr Oli abroad after assuming office in October last year. "Welcoming our Northern guest. EAM @SushmaSwaraj receives Nepal's PM KP Sharma Oli on his State visit to India." Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted. Oli will be accorded ceremonial reception at the forecourts of the Rashtrapati Bhawan on Saturday. The visiting dignitary will meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and hold delegation level talks. Thereafter, the two countries will exchange agreements. Oli is accompanied by senior members of the Nepal Cabinet. During the visit, the two sides are expected to hold wide ranging discussions on issues of mutual concern, as well as on strengthening bilateral cooperation in diverse areas including developmental assistance, energy and connectivity. The visit is expected to lead a further strengthening of India's age-old, close and friendly relations with the Himalayan nation. Speaking to media on the eve of his visit to India, Mr Oli said, rebuilding the friendship with India is Nepal's biggest mission and the the focus is to take the bilateral relations to a new heights. Ahead of his visit, Prime Minister Oli said India's invitation to him for an official visit is indicative of its acceptance to Nepal's recently promulgated constitution. "It wouldn't be wise to say that the constitution has not been welcomed since the prime minister after its promulgation has been invited with the honour," he said. He said during his visit he will clear the doubts about Nepal in India, bring the relations between the two friendly nations back to normal, inform India about the growing investment-friendly environment in Nepal and strengthen the multidimensional Nepal-India relations. "As my India tour has been termed "agenda less" so I have a bigger responsibility on me. With specific agendas, I would have been confined with limited issues but now I will have to talk about a range of issues," Oli told media at his official residence in Baluwatar in Kathmandu on Thursday. "I have great expectation from this visit. India has already begun to show friendly gestures and I will make sure to take it to a new height. I will not forge any agreements that are against interest." Oli also said that his India visit follows invitation from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "Like Nepal, India too has given utmost importance to this visit. So this visit has been called state visit," he said. When asked whether he will bring up the issues of Nepal-India border, Oli replied that this is not a time to talk about such issues. He said Nepal-India relations are based on honesty, friendliness and trust upon each other rather than on crooked diplomacy. Apart from having delegation-level talks with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, Oli will call on President Pranab Mukherjee and Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari, and interact with several Indian ministers and officials. According to a report in the Kathmandu Post, at least four memorandums of understanding (MoUs), including two on line of credit and reconstruction aid, are expected to be signed during the visit. The MoUs will be signed on an India-announced US $1 billion line of credit and another US $1 billion assistance for Nepal?s reconstruction effort. These two MoUs will provide framework for utilising the Indian aid. During his visit to Nepal in August 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced US $1 billion line of credit to Nepal for various infrastructure projects. Similarly, India?s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj during the donors? conference in June had announced another US $1 billion loan and aid to Nepal for reconstruction efforts. Another MoU is expected to be signed between Sanggeetnatak Academy of India and Natya Sangeet Academy of Nepal to exchange various cultural programmes. Similarly, Radio Nepal and All India Radio will sign another MoU cooperation and exchange of various programmes. Respective governments from both sides have already got these MoUs approved from the respective Cabinets, said sources. During Oli's visit, a formal announcement of importing 80 MW electricity through the recently installed Dhalkebar- Muzaffarpur 400kV transmission line will also be made. Besides four MoUS, several other MoUs could also be signed. The UK's Immigration Minister James Brokenshire met school students from Inventure Academy, Bangalore, today, to find out their views on UK education and studying overseas. The visit was organised with the British Council to one of Bangalore's top international schools. The Immigration Minister is currently on a five-day visit to India where he met important UK visa customers from the education, travel and business sectors, in Delhi and Bangalore, to gain insight into how they use the visa service. At the roundtable discussion, around 15 students were asked what considerations they took into account when choosing a university and when deciding whether or not to study overseas. The Minister outlined the strengths of a UK education and that the UK is home to some of the most respected and recognised universities in the world. Immigration Minister James Brokenshire said: "India continues to be one of our largest and most important visa markets, and whilst here I have been listening to our customers to gain a better understanding of how our immigration policies work for them in practice. "Today has provided a really positive opportunity to speak to students to find out both how they view UK education and if the UK's immigration policies have an impact on their decision to study at a UK university. "The UK government is keen to see more Indian students choosing to study at our world-class universities and they will receive a warm welcome. Our visa policy supports this aim and we continue to have an excellent offer for students --- nine out of 10 Indian students who apply for a student visa receive one and top graduates can stay in the UK, after their studies, if they secure a graduate level job." The visit builds on the success of Prime Minister Modi's visit to the UK in November 2015 when Prime Minister Cameron offered to India in its goal to prepare its next generation for the 21st Century. The two leaders decided to mark the year 2016 as the UK-India year of Education, Research and Innovation. This will highlight the strengths of the bilateral relationship, drive further collaboration, including a range of digital technology enabled education and training initiatives, so that both countries create a new 21st century framework as partners in education, research and innovation partners, in the global context. Inventure Academy Principal Mallika Sen said: "We were honoured to have the UK Immigration Minister James Brokenshire with us at Inventure Academy today. As increasing numbers of our graduates wish to pursue their higher studies overseas, it is important for them to know about various options open to them globally. The UK has some of the finest universities and some of the graduates from the Class of 2016 are indeed privileged to have been accepted at some of these prestigious institutions. These students benefited greatly from Mr. Brokenshire's visit. MLA from Rajkot (West) constituency and Cabinet Minister Vijay Rupani on Friday elected as the president of the Gujarat BJP. Rupani was elected unanimously as only one nomination was filed. Rupani's nomination was filed by Chief Minister Anandiben Patel, which was supported by other cabinet ministers. After scrutiny of nomination paper, Rupani was declared "unanimously elected" for the top party post in the state at state BJP headquarter Kamalam. Earlier this morning, Rupani visited the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) headquarters of Gujarat in Ahmedabad and met senior RSS functionaries. Rupani was also met former Gujarat chief minister Keshubhai Patel on Thursday and took his guidance and blessings for the new responsibility. The election of the new State BJP president is became necessary following completion of term of present president R.C. Faldu. The major challenge before the new State BJP president will be to lead the party in coming state Assembly elections scheduled in 2017. According to party sources, Rupani will resign from the cabinet Minister after the completion of State Assembly budget session starting from next week. Winter birth puts you at the risk of developing asthma and other lung related problems in old age, according to a recent study. Smoking mothers, respiratory infections and the date you were born contribute to determine how fast your lungs are aging. Cecilie Svanes from the University of Bergen (UiB) has recently discovered three development factors that influence aging of the lungs. Svanes explained that having a mother who smoked when she was pregnant with you will affect your lungs in a negative way. The same is the case if you were born during the winter months, or if you experienced a severe respiratory infection at a very young age. "It is logical that early life development also affects the systems that maintain our body and repair damage. If so, this could explain why some people do not tolerate exposure to certain toxics in later life. And that is actually what we found," she says. Svanes believes that the discovery of some people being more vulnerable than others can be used in a positive way in preventive health care. The discovery is published in the journal PlosONE. At least 12 people, including a child, were killed on Friday in a collision between a speeding truck and a maxi cab on National Highway-13, a police officer said. "The mishap occurred near Chikkagodanahalli in a head-on collision between the truck and the maxi in which the victims were travelling," Chitradurga police superintendant M.N. Anucheth told IANS. Chitradurga is about 200 km northwest of state capital Bengaluru. Under the impact of the collision, the truck, laden with at least 16 tonnes of steel rods, fell on the maxi. "We have registered a case against the driver (Rahul) and the truck owner, who both hail from Uttar Pradesh. The truck driver, who survived the mishap, was rushed to a district hospital here for treatment," Anucheth said. The victims were returning to their village (Kondlahalli), after attending a late night event in Chikkagodanahalli. At least 19 people were killed and 50 injured in twin suicide attacks on Friday at a market in Cameroon's Far North region bordering Nigeria, security sources said. Explosive devices carried by two militants exploded in the market, killing 10 people and injuring several others, Xinhua quoted the sources as saying. Some of the injured succumbed to their injuries in hospital, bringing the toll to 19, including the two suicide bombers. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack but Cameroon's intelligence services pointed at Boko Haram, a Nigerian terrorist group operating in Cameroon's Far North region. The oldest ever complete wheel to be found in Britain, around 3,000 years old, has been unearthed during excavation work at the site of a Bronze Age settlement in England. Experts from the Cambridge Archaeological Unit, carrying out the dig at a site in Cambridgeshire known as "Britain's Pompeii" said on Friday the wheel is the largest and earliest of its kind ever found in Britain. Archaeologists have already discovered the remains of what is Britain's best preserved Bronze Age dwellings in a river channel near the city of Peterborough, Xinhua reported. The metre wide wheel, still fixed to its hub, was discovered sitting in sediments close to the remains of a dwelling house. A spokesman at the unit said: "It raises a whole host of questions, mainly why is there a wheel in the remains of a river channel." Even more intriguing is that close by they have already discovered the remains of a horse. Experts believe the discovery of the horse remains suggest the wheel may have belonged to a horse drawn cart. Archaeologist Chris Wakefield said it was too early to know at the moment how the wheel was used. In such a marshy area, boats were thought to have been the most common method of transport, confirmed by the discovery of eight dug-out canoes of varying sizes found nearby. Duncan Wilson, CEO of Historic England, which is jointly funding the $1.6 million excavation, described the discovery of the wheel as "unprecedented in terms of size and completeness." "This remarkable but fragile wooden wheel is the earliest complete example ever found in Britain. The existence of this wheel expands our understanding of late Bronze Age technology, and the level of sophistication of the lives of people living on the edge of the Fens (marshland) 3,000 years ago," he said. The Bronze Age settlement at a site known as Must Farm, described as unique, has been preserved in silt after the round houses fell into a river during a fire. The Cambridge Archaeological Unit, part of Cambridge University, is half way through a dig at the site of Must Farm, but they said the discoveries made will provide research work spanning some years. At least 40 militants were killed as US warplanes on Friday bombed positions of Islamic State (IS) in the Libyan city of Sabratha. The attack left six others injured, Xinhua quoted a senior official as saying. The airstrike targeted Noureddine Chouchane, a senior Tunisian militant linked to two deadly attacks last year in Tunisia, the media reports said. Sabratha is a Libyan coastal city located near the Tunisian border. Western officials claim the city is a haven of IS affiliated militants. The IS in Libya dominates the city of Sirte as well as the eastern city of Derna. Libya has been suffering a security vacuum and a state of anarchy since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's administration in 2011. The poor security conditions in the north African country enabled militants to spread and gain more power on ground. Around a million farmers are involved in the National Dairy Development Board's activities, earning a profit of Rs. 15-20 per litre by selling milk to its various federations, a top official said here. T Nanda Kumar, chairman of National Dairy Development Board (NDDB), said Gujarat topped the list in milk production followed by Karnataka. The total milk production in the country was over 140 million tonnes in 2014-15. Nanda Kumar said the National Dairy Plan-1, now into its third year, is being implemented in 15 states, which account for more than 90 percent of the country's milk production, over 87 percent of the breedable cattle and 98 percent of the country's fodder resources. Initially, NDP-I was approved for implementation in 14 milk potential states by the NDDB with a total outlay of Rs.2,242 crore for a period of six years from 2011-12 to 2016-17. Now the implementation period has been extended by two years till 2018-19 to achieve key outputs. Nanda Kumar informed that NDDB now procures 400 million litres of milk and the two-year extension would help in achieving the desired results. He said the government last June decided to include the three states of Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh that were formed in 2000 under NDP-1. "It is extremely important to develop these three states, where poverty is an issue, as dairy development benefits the states socio-economically," Nanda Kumar told IANS. The NDDB had taken up the management of the Jharkhand State Cooperative Milk Producers Federation Limited in 2014, which has been selling milk under the Medha brand for five years. "Once the 100,000 litre milk processing plant in Ranchi becomes operational, more and more farmers would be joining the state milk federation because of increase in price realisation," he said. "More than 20,000 farmers would be getting higher remunerative price at around Rs.27-Rs.28 per litre against Rs.16-Rs.17 per litre they used to get when private players used to procure milk from them," he said. The board has set up milk storage plants at 370 villages, where farmers from around 600 villages bring in their milk daily for purchase by the state milk federation. However, in Jharkhand, power was a major constraint and the expenses get escalated as diesel-run milk coolers have to be pressed into service. He said milk consumption was less in the eastern region, including Jharkhand and Assam. NDDB, founded by Verghese Kurien, in 1965, fulfilled the desire of India's second prime minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, to extend the success of the Anand Cooperative Milk Producers' Union (Amul) in Kaira, Gujarat, to other parts of India. (Nityanand Shukla can be contacted at nityanand.s@ians.in) The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will fund $1.5 billion for building a rail line that will connect Cox's Bazaar, Bangladesh's beach resort, to neighbouring Myanmar as part of a larger Trans-Asian Railway network. Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2011 opened construction work on the rail line but it has been on hold due to lack of funds, Xinhua reported. "The ADB has been prioritising Bangladesh's policy for development through regional connectivity," the country's Economic Relations Division (ERD) Joint Secretary Saifuddin Ahmed said in a report on Friday. "The project under Trans-Asian Railway corridor will set up rail links with Myanmar. The ADB wants to fund it because of its tremendous prospect," he said. Some 100 km of rail lines will connect Bangladesh with Myanmar through Ghumdhum border. "We've had two meetings with the ADB mission on this project. The ADB has agreed to give $1.5 billion in loan at two percent interest." Bangladesh has a 300 km-border with Myanmar and the country expects to connect by road and rail with Kunming in China through Myanmar. Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar has hailed the decision to hoist the national flag in all central universities in the country, saying the tricolour inspires Indians to soar high and reach new heights. The actor took to Twitter on Friday to express his views on the human resource development ministry's directive to all central universities in the country to fly the national flag. "Totally with the decision of the tricolour being hoisted at all central universities and why not it brings out the best in us, inspires us to soar high," Akshay tweeted. The decision to have the national flag atop all the varsities came on Thursday at the meeting of vice chancellors of central universities chaired by HRD Minister Smriti Irani. Akshay, son of an Army man, is known for featuring in films running high on patriotic sentiment, with his last Bollywood outing being "Airlift", which revolves around the evacuation of Indians from Kuwait during the 1990 Iraq-Kuwait war. One of the highpoints in the film is when the national flag is unfurled, evoking patriotism and a twirl of emotions among the cine-goers. Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain on Friday said that the government will add 10,000 beds in its hospitals by 2017, among a slew of other facilities including free insurance for people. "We will transform the healthcare of Delhi by March 2017 and add another 10,000 beds for the hospitals with free insurance services to masses of Delhi," said Jain speaking at the India Hospital Summit-2016 here. Jain, however, refused to seek more money for health services in the upcoming budget session. "Budgetary allocations for improved health and medical services are more than sufficient in my view and I won't seek higher allocations for them," said Jain at the event organised by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and the Delhi health department. Jain also disclosed that the government would shortly create a central warehouse that would preserve medicines for three months, the distribution of which would be outsourced to all government hospitals in Delhi for their timely delivery. The army was deployed in agitation-hit districts of Haryana on Friday evening as large-scale violence by Jat community protestors left three people dead in firing by security forces. Authorities clamped curfew and issued "shoot-at-sight" orders in the worst-affected Rohtak and Bhiwani districts on Friday evening. Friday's violence left three protestors dead and dozens of others injured, police sources said. One person was killed when Border Security Force personnel opened fire in self-defence after being fired upon by a mob. Two other people succumbed to their injuries in hospital after police fired on rampaging mobs. The injured included a BSF trooper. The unruly mob indulged in arson. A mall in Rohtak town was looted, reports said. A gun house was also looted, police officials said. A toll plaza was set on fire near Rohtak while another one was damaged near Sampla. The Haryana government called in the army to contain the situation in eight districts severely affected by the ongoing Jat agitation. Haryana Director General of Police Y.P. Singhal told media in Chandigarh that the army has been sought for Rohtak, Jhajjar, Sonipat, Panipat, Jind, Kaithal, Bhiwani and Hisar districts. "... The chief secretary spoke to the army chief. The chief minister (Manohar Lal Khattar) has spoken to defence minister (Manohar Parrikar). The effort is to deploy the army as soon as possible to control the situation," he said. About Rohtak, he said: "One person from mob fired on BSF personnel with a home-made weapon. The BSF fired in self defence and one person was killed," Singhal said, adding that the mob did not allow the injured trooper to taken to hospital initially. The injured were taken to the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Rohtak, 75 km from Delhi, police said. He said that a mob attacked a Haryana Police officer and other policemen near the Maharishi Dayanand University gate and held the hostage and more forces had to be sent to rescue them. "A leaderless mob is moving through Rohtak town. They came near the Circuit House and damaged the vehicle of the deputy inspector general of police and two other police vehicles and set on fire another police vehicle," Singhal said. The mob attacked the office of the DIG, and set the house of Finance Minister Abhimanyu on fire. At some places in the town, black smoke could be seen coming out of property set on fire by the agitators, who even manhandled media persons at some places. "We are trying to stop the mob," the police chief said, adding that three companies of paramilitary forces were already stationed and 30 more companies would be deployed soon. Jat leader Hawa Singg Sangwan said that the youth have taken over the agitation. "They do not have any organised leader and hence the violence is happening. Some mischievous elements have infiltrated the mobs," he said. The authorities have also blocked Internet and SMS services in the affected districts. Thousands of trucks, carrying supplies and goods, were stranded in the affected districts due to highways and roads being blocked. Over 40 trains including express trains like Kalka-Delhi Shatabdi Express, Pashchim Express and others were cancelled by railway authorities across Haryana on Friday as the agitation escalated. In Gurgaon, Jat protestors blocked roads, leading to traffic jams and chaos in the city, adjoining the national capital. Life continued to be affected in most parts of Rohtak, Jhajjar Sonipat, Bhiwani, Jind, Hisar and some other districts as the agitation by Jats for reservation in jobs and educational institutions continued for the sixth day on Friday. The protestors have also blocked railway tracks. Hundreds of railway passengers were stranded as protestors blocked the Delhi-Ambala-Amritsar railway track at Rajlu Garhi village in Sonipat on Friday evening. The stir escalated even as the Haryana government called an all-party meeting in Chandigarh to discuss the reservation issue and the Jat protests. The meeting urged the protestors to end their agitation and remove blockades. Jat leaders however rejected the appeal. After the all-party meeting, Khattar said that his government was "in favour of reservation for Jats in the state and is trying to find out ways and means for the same". Referring to statements of BJP's Kurukshetra MP Raj Kumar Saini, who is opposed to reservation for Jats, Khattar said he had been asked to withdraw his statement. Security had been tightened at Saini's house in Kurukshetra town. Agriculture Minister O.P. Dhankar meanwhile said in Gurgaon that the state government was ready to give special backward class quota to the Jats. Australian scientists have moved a step closer to preventing the spread of Zika virus, after exposing mosquitoes to bacterium that could limit the ability of the virus to be transmitted to humans. The "super-infected" mosquitoes were exposed to two strains of Wolbachia, a bacterium which traditionally reduces the risk of dengue fever spreading to humans. But scientists from the University of Melbourne have said new applications could help reduce the risk of humans contracting the Zika virus, Xinhua news agency reported. Cameron Simmons from the university's Peter Doherty Institute said while the Wolbachia mix was proven in preventing the spread of dengue, it could be some time before researchers are able to restrict the spread of Zika, which has no known cure and has spread rapidly throughout South America and Asia. "(Zika) would be a higher hurdle for the virus to get over the top of," Simmons told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) on Friday. Testing the effectiveness of the Wolbachia is expected to take part in Latin America, Indonesia and Vietnam early next year, and Simmons said he expects the Wolbachia to perform similarly to how it does against dengue. He said laboratory evidence has suggested that Wolbachia could also slow the spread of other viruses carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, including chikungunya and yellow fever virus. Previous studies undertaken by the institute found the ability of a virus, in previous cases, dengue, to spread throughout the Wolbachia-infected insect's tissues was "limited". Simmons said the Wolbachia prevents the virus from passing through the mosquito's salivary glands, and therefore, prevents it from being spread to humans. "It's a dead end essentially for the virus," Simmons said. "The Wolbachia stops the mosquito being able to onward transmit the virus to a human host." China was closely following a probe into the Madrid branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, or ICBC, over alleged money laundering by Chinese mafia groups which has seen six arrests so far. Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Liu Haizing received the charge d'affaires of the Spanish embassy in Beijing, Jose Luis Garcia Galan, to express his concern and to ask for the case to be dealt with "justly and according to law," Efe news agency cited a statement issued by the Beijing ministry as saying on Thursday. Spanish diplomatic sources in Beijing confirmed the meeting which was held on the capital's request, and which, they said, was cordial and constructive. The official note also indicated Liu asked the Spanish side to ensure respect for "the legal rights and interests of Chinese organisations and personnel" in their country and safeguard healthy bilateral relations between the two nations. The meeting concluded with the Spanish side expressing its commitment to investigate the case within the legal framework and without letting the countries' bilateral relations get affected. On Wednesday, officers of the Spanish Civil Guard raided the Madrid branch of ICBC while probing an alleged case of money laundering, and arrested five executives, including the director general. The first director of the ICBC Madrid office, currently Europe deputy director of the bank, was also arrested Friday, sources close to the investigation said. Amid a political furore over JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar's arrest, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday asked the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to explain their definition of 'desh-drohi' (anti-national). "One week has passed (since Kanhaiya's arrest) but government agencies concerned have failed to come out with evidence against Kanhaiya. Is it not a fact that the government has no evidence against him? What is the definition of anti-national; please explain it to the people," Nitish Kumar told the media here. He said some powerful people were trying to defame and destroy the unique character of JNU, one of the best educational institutions in the country. "If talking of and slogan-shouting against the hanging of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and freedom of Jammu and Kashmir are crime and anti-national, why is the BJP again keen to form a government in that state with the Peoples Democratic Party, whose leaders openly opposed the hanging of Guru." Nitish Kumar also questioned the meetings of senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Ram Madhav with PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti. "Is it not a fact that Ram Madhav met leaders of the PDP which openly talked against Guru's execution and the right to self-determination in Jammu and Kashmir." Nitish Kumar asked the BJP to explain to the people what their definition of nationalism was. "Is it not a fact that the PDP openly hails Afzal Guru as a Shaheed (martyr) but BJP has no problem for sake of sharing power to join hands with them." The chief minister said what happened in the wake of incidents on the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus in Delhi "is a part of a deliberate attempt of the Narendra Modi government to divert attention from the poor condition of the country's economy". He said the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and like-minded organisations were out to destroy the country. "People like Nathuram Godse (Mahatma Gandhi's assassin) are being glorified and the BJP leaders are openly attending such functions. No action is being taken against anyone," the chief minister said. Brazil's air force (FAB) has joined the fight against the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the carrier of the Zika virus, a military sources said. Accompanied by eight health surveillance agents, the air force personnel spread across Rio de Janeiro searching for possible mosquito breeding grounds, Xinhua reported. The members also located zones considered at risk such as areas with stagnant water or unfrequented areas like car parks, barrels, rooftops and fountains, where mosquitoes spread more easily. The FAB unit will visit about 125 houses, shops and other grounds in the centre of Rio de Janeiro as part of the anti-Zika campaign started by the Air Force. Almost 200,000 Brazilian military personnel are currently involved in the "Zika zero" campaign, visiting all schools to make students aware of the importance of fighting the mosquito and avoiding any type of breeding ground where they could reproduce. During the first days, the soldiers raised public awareness by handing out flyers about how to eliminate the mosquito breeding grounds. The government has decided to inspect around three million houses in the country's 350 municipalities. In Rio de Janeiro, where the Olympic Games will be staged in August, at least 9,000 military personnel began the fourth phase of the prevention operation through Monday to Friday. Brazil is currently in a state of emergency due to the spread of the Zika virus and its possible link to the increasing microcephaly registered in the South American country. Do you go fetching menus for different food outlets when you crave for different cuisines? Bueno, a Gurgaon-based home delivery platform, pulls you out of your woes by offering American, Mexican, European, Italian, Lebanese, Indian and Asian cuisines at your doorstep - with the convenience of the online and app route. What makes Bueno stand out from most home delivery platforms is that for those who either live or work in the capital suburb, it is a one-stop to get the most popular dishes from all seven cuisines. Trying out its pasta, biryani, burgers and brownies, all prepared by Bueno's team of five-star chefs, turned out to be satisfactory. Explaining the concept behind the platform, Bueno co-founder Rohan Arora told IANS: "As the name suggests, Bueno means good. It is largely about serving good food. We don't stand for a specific cuisine, we serve in all locations here (in Gurgaon) as our platform is consumer- centric. "People are different, they eat different things, so why do you really need to contain them to 'I serve Indian, I serve Mexican or I serve Chinese' be there? I serve what you want to eat." The Bueno special chicken biryani with raita (flavoured and beaten curd) will impress you with its good quantity, especially if you are the only one eating it and depending on your hunger level. The chicken was well-cooked and the spices were just right - neither too chilli nor too bland. "Indian cuisine sells the most here; biryanis and curries the most. Then comes Italian... pastas and Chinese dishes are ordered often. But these are meals and away from meals, snacky food, rolls and burgers sell really good," Arora said. It was best then to try the burgers, which turned out to be scrumptious. The mutton seekh burger was different and melted in the mouth. Huge and packed with minced meat and veggies, this one is a must try if you are a burger lover. Also, if you are inclined towards healthy food, try the pita bread and hummus. While the hummus is finger-licking good, the pita bread tasted like white bread after a while. The pasta, for many, is a safer option to order from an international cuisine outlet. So, I went with the penne basil pesto chicken variety. But something was amiss. Perhaps some cheese? A caution: Consume the pasta when it arrives, or the dried version won't be tempting at all! Now for those with a sweet tooth, Bueno is coming up with a broader and new menu, but still offers walnut brownie, tiramisu (in a jar) and blueberry cheesecake (in a jar). The brownie is a delight. Keep some vanilla ice-cream ready in the freezer, and it gets better with every bite. The Bueno team plans to expand operations in Delhi and Noida, but they want Gurgaon to be "our anchor". FAQs: * order online at bueno.kitchen or through their app * Price for two: Rs.600 approximately * Timings: 11 a.m. to 4 a.m. (Kishori Sud can be contacted at kishori.s@ians.in) The reaction to the protests at the Jawaharlal Nehru University has shown the real face of today's India, and it is "not the Shining India propaganda", a Pakistani daily said Friday, adding that terming "the brave students of JNU anti-Indian is a slur". An editorial "Fighting fascism in India" in The News International said that the reaction to the protests at the Jawaharlal Nehru University has shown the real face of today's India, "not the Shining India propaganda we hear about so much". "First there was the police which manhandled protestors and arrested student union leader Kanhaiya Kumar. They then produced a report saying the protestors were seen eating beef, a big no-no in Modi's India, and revealed they had been spying on students for two years," said the editorial. "Then there was the BJP government which called the protestors anti-Indian and desperately tried to find a Pakistan link, first saying Hafiz Saeed was behind the protests and now accusing Umar Khalid, a PhD student at JNU of being part of a Pakistani militant group," it added. "Then you have the lawyers, who should be upholding the right to protest and rule of law, chanting slogans against Kumar at his hearing and pelting reporters with stones." The daily said that these protests "are really a test of whether dissent is allowed in India". It added that to show their peaceful intentions, JNU students, joined by labourers in Delhi, marched on Thursday armed with nothing but flowers and tricolour flags. "They were rerouted by an apprehensive police force but this was more than compensated by the solidarity shown at universities around the country. It is a sign of how this protest has grown that disenfranchised workers too have joined in," it said, adding: "The BJP, mixing xenophobia with neo-liberalism, is the most anti-worker government possible." One of its MPs, Gopal Shetty, has even said that farmers are committing suicide not because of starvation and poverty but because it is in 'fashion'. The Indian government also ordered that the Indian flag be flown at all central universities. "None of this stopped students, not just from JNU, but around the country, from taking out solidarity rallies. They even had to endure clashes with BJP goons in places like Bihar. Congress has also taken the side of the protestors, although one cannot be sure if that is for opportunistic political reasons. "The Aam Aadmi Party, which rules Delhi, has shown its name to be a misnomer. While it has attacked the government, it has done so on the wrong grounds. It taunted the BJP, claiming that if it cannot arrest a few anti-Indian protestors it will never be able to find those who carried out the Pathankot attack." The daily noted that calling "the brave students of JNU anti-Indian is a slur. They are holding up the best progressive traditions, aspiring to form a more democratic society". China on Friday urged the relevant parties to be cautious and show restraint to avoid complicating the situation as the US passed a bill to impose more stringent sanctions on North Korea. No hot issues could be fundamentally resolved through simple sanctions or pressure, Xinhua reported. Actions that may harm third-party's legitimate interests will not help solve the issues, but only result in a more complicated situation, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei. All parties concerned should stay calm and exercise restraint, sticking to the general direction of resolving issues through dialogue and consultations, said Hong. The Congress on Friday accused the BJP and the RSS of raising nationalism "as a bogey to repress students and gag campuses" and said it was totally unacceptable. Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi said in a statement here that the party was deeply concerned that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Sangh Parivar outfits and the Bharatiya Janata Party were "treating youth as experimental guinea pigs in the laboratory of divisiveness". Singhvi alleged that a national spokesperson of the BJP showed a doctored video "on national television (Times Now and NewsX)" to provide "clinching evidence" against protesting students. "It comes out now through another video aired by national TV channels (ABP News and India Today), that the purported video was doctored, wherein words were replaced. The students were shouting slogans demanding freedom (azadi) from feudal forces (samantvaad), freedom from hunger, freedom from poverty and freedom from Sanghvad (RSS ideology)!" "Are these slogans anti India? Do these slogans make people chanting them, anti-national," Singhvi asked. The agitations follows arrest of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union leader Kanhaiya Kumar's arrest on sedition charges. The controversy began when some JNU students organised a meet on February 9 to mark the anniversaries of executions of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front co-founder Maqbool Bhat. Anti-India slogans were reportedly raised at the gathering. Singhvi said Prime Minister Narendra Modi should come clear on the authenticity of the video shown by his party's spokesperson and "apologise to the nation". He also sought action against the concerned spokesperson. Singhvi alleged that the RSS was trying a "new ploy of masking their bigoted ideology into nationalism and trying to fit its ideology into the minds of the people through repression and coercion". He said the party strongly condemned all kinds of anti-national activities and demands strict action in such cases. "But raising nationalism as a bogey to repress students and gag campuses is totally unacceptable to the polity of this nation," he said. "A government with a clear majority mandate of the people has turned against the people themselves. It is for the first time since 1989, that the youth and students of India are being treated as experimental guinea pigs in the RSS/BJP laboratory of divisiveness by pitting one against the other," he said. Singhvi said the advocate identified on national television as the person assaulting journalists and students on two different days had been facilitated with garlands instead of being arrested. Move over literary and cultural festivals, it's time for Delhites to join a Walk Festival to explore the cultural and heritage aspects of the city on foot. Beginning February 22, the week-long festival will offer over 80 walking tours offering experiences like paranormal activity to street life explorations to performative walks, food and much more. In its first edition, the festival will bring together over 30 different walk specialists (organisations, academicians and seasoned walk leaders) to conduct tours through different city neighbourhoods. Organised and curated by the cultural groups 'Delhi, I Love You' and 'Delhi Dallying', the participants can choose walks from categories like Nature, Heritage, Food, Alternative and Experimental, Art and Photography and Architecture and Design. "The idea is to push people to explore the city on foot. We also intend to introduce the idea of walking and thus bringing awareness about pollution," said 'Delhi, I love you' director Aastha Chauhan. For the enthusiasts, here is a glimpse of the walks to choose from. Off-the-beaten path 'Salaam City Walk' offers a guided tour around New Delhi Railway Station and Paharganj areas during which former street children will share their personal stories of survival with the participants. In a spooky experience, 'Paranormal activity in Mehrauli' will teach you how to communicate with the other world. In this, walk specialist Ravi Shekhar has been touched by the spirits in his youth and since then has been helping people and families with their issues with ghosts. "It is going to be a thrilling experience. I don't want to divulge the details," Chauhan said. The 'Masakkali and the Empress' walk is dedicated to Razia Sultan, the only empress to have ruled Delhi inside Razia's mazaar. The walk will explore Turkman Gate and the story behind gates, visit the dargah of one of the oldest Sufi aints who was the inspiration behind the gate's name and the peer of Razia Sultan. The food trail offers several gastronomical tours that showcase the culinary heritage of the city. In this, the participants are spoilt for choices from the wide range of chaats, badami pooris, kebabs, tikkas, halwas and kulfis. Don't miss the 'Pub (Till You) Crawl'! which takes you on a traditional curated pub crawl to some spectacular pubs and bars around one of the best historical and tourist hot spots in the heart of the city, Connaught Place. While 'Twilight in Jungles of Delhi' explores the historic and supernatural tales of Mehrauli, 'Moonlit walk in Sanjay Van' opens an experience through sound, smell and sight in a full moon night. The walk begins at Qutub Institutional Area, snaking through one corner of the forest as the trail takes you to the bird watching tower close to the JNU exit. The event, supported by Delhi government, has already received tremendous response, Chauhan said. "The bookings for some of walks are already full," she added. Another interesting walk, 'Saari, Kinaari, Bazaari: Festive saris and kinaris of Chandni Chowk' will feature the shimmering spectacle in Chandni Chowk, a popular destination for bridal shopping in the city. On this trail, one can wander into Kinari bazaar, the wholesale market for fabric trimmings where any saree can be accessorised with the relevant trim. The 'Secret Old Delhi' walk will take you through the bewildering maze of alleys and transport you to the times of the grandeur and subsequent ruin of the Mughal empire. If 'Mehrauli and You' offers a beautiful night walk to explore the galis of Mehrauli, 'Begum and Her Hookah' will tell you the little known stories of the women who have enriched the city. Brides and grooms-to-be, will cherish the 'Shopping Walk (Wedding) in Lajpat Nagar' as it will provide a few tips and tricks for the D-day. This walk will take one around the budget friendly shops in Lajpat Nagar's Central Market for wedding outfits, trousseaus, jewellery, shoes, packaging and much more. For tickets and more information, log on to the website www.delhiwalkfestival.com Actor Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson might return to play the protagonist in the upcoming sequel to the 2015 natural disaster film "San Andreas". Production banner New Line Cinema and Johnson are developing the film. The banner has roped in Neil Widener and Gavin James to write the script for the second instalment, reports hollywoodreporter.com. Johnson played the role of Ray, a search-and-rescue helicopter pilot, in the first part. Carla Gugino and Alexandra Daddario are also back as his onscreen wife and daughter respectively. They are joined by Paul Giamatti who played seismologist in the original film. The first film follows Ray teaming up with his estranged wife to save their daughter when a series of quakes crush Los Angeles and San Francisco. It grossed over $473 million worldwide. Brad Peyton, who directed the first film, will return for the upcoming sequel. European Union (EU) leaders agreed early Friday to implement existing agreements on the ongoing migration crisis in Europe, especially cooperation with Turkey in handling the crisis. "The full and speedy implementation of the EU-Turkey Action Plan remains a priority, in order to stem migration flows and to tackle traffickers and smugglers networks," Xinhua quoted the leaders as saying. The plan was signed in November 2014 between Turkey and the EU, in which Turkey agreed to protect EU borders from the flood of refugees in exchange for $3 billion and a new look at its EU membership bid. European Council President Donald Tusk said in a joint press conference with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker that the EU was to organise a special meeting with Turkey in March. The EU leaders welcomed NATO's support in monitoring illegal crossings on the Aegean sea and called on all NATO members to support this measure actively. The meeting also called for unity of all EU institutions and member states. "We must look for a synthesis of different approaches. There is no good alternative to a comprehensive European plan," Tusk said. A joint effort is needed to solve the migration crisis, Juncker said, adding "solo, national approach is not recommendable." Junker's words were seen as directed at Austria, which drew fire from other EU states for deciding to cap the number of migrants it takes in. Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo believes that Formula One racers will gain from the increased head protection starting from 2017. The sport's governing body Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) has told the various teams about its plan of introducing a device called 'halo' which has been specially designed to protect driver's heads from airborne debris. "It's not taking away anything from the driver in terms of courage or anything like that. It's a simple little benefit that we can all gain from and no-one wants to see another fatality," Ricciardo was quoted as saying by the BBC on Friday. In 2015, French racer Jules Bianchi passed away nine months after suffering from a crash in which he injured his head severely. British driver Justin Wilson also died last August after being hit on the helmet by flying debris from another car during a IndyCar Series race in the United States. The FIA is working with F1 teams to finalise safety plans for next year. Though there are alternatives the halo is the preferred option. The halo will be attached to the car on each side of the rear of the cockpit and it will have a single strut in front of the racer. "Our head is the only really vulnerable thing at the moment," said Ricciardo. "I honestly don't think anyone is against it. Sure, some people probably didn't have an opinion, but most people spoke up about it and said 'it's what we want'." "With Jules and then Justin, it just seems like a bit of tradition, for what in the end? If this is just a little 'halo', within a race or two people will think it looks normal," he added. A leaked document from Facebook has revealed that the social networking giant may launch ads within Messenger in the second quarter of 2016. The document, obtained by the tech website Tech Crunch, read: "Businesses will be able to send ads as messages to people who previously initiated a chat thread with that company. To prepare, the document recommends that businesses get consumers to start message threads with them now so they'll be able to send them ads when the feature launches." The document also notes that Facebook has quietly launched a URL short link fb.com/msg/. However, it does not open and says Page does not exist. "We do not comment on rumour or speculation. That said, our aim with Messenger is to create a high quality, engaging experience for 800 million people around the world, and that includes ensuring people do not experience unwanted messages of any type," the website quoted Facebook as saying. Facebook is not going to let brands send ad messages to just anyone or even people who have liked their Pages but to only those who have voluntarily chatted with businesses. On Wednesday, micro-blogging website Twitter said it is bringing video support to Direct Messages to iOS and Android smartphones. A day after Google's Indian-American Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sundar Pichai supported arch rival to fight a court order to help the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) break into the iPhone 5c, used by California shooter Syed Rizwan Farook, social media giant Facebook and micro-blogging website Twitter also came out in the company's support. "We will continue to fight aggressively against requirements for to weaken the security of their systems," Facebook posted on Friday. Read more from our special coverage on "APPLE" Apple gains Silicon Valleys backing in fight against government Apple CEOs face-off with FBI reveals a tech industry raring to fight back Apple launches payments service Apple Pay in China Apple rejects dangerous order to hack US shooters iPhone "We condemn terrorism and have total solidarity with victims of terror. Those who seek to praise, promote, or plan terrorist acts have no place on our services. We also appreciate the difficult and essential work of law enforcement to keep people safe," the Facebook statement added. Meanwhile, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted: "We stand with @tim_cook and (and thank him for his leadership)!". Farook and his Pakistani-origin wife, Tashfeen Malik, gunned down 14 people at a social services agency in December last year in San Bernardino, California, before being killed in a shootout with police. Pichai on Wedenesday directed followers to read CEO Tim Cook's open letter, arguing that helping the FBI try to get into the phone used by Farook would sabotage the security of "tens of millions of American citizens." WhatsApp co-founder and CEO Jan Koum and technology giant Microsoft also voiced their support for Tim Cook on Facebook on Thursday. "Technology should not be required to build in backdoors to the technologies that keep their users' information secure," a statement from Microsoft said. Some of the US lawmakers and Republican front-runner Donald Trump consider Apple's staunch refusal as a serious roadblock in the fight against domestic terrorism. According to tech website The Verge, "The case, which Apple may fight all the way up to the Supreme Court, is the most significant battle yet in the ongoing encryption debate." With support from New York Police Department Commissioner Bill Bratton, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said that "Apple and Google are acting like teenagers saying 'nobody can tell me what to do and the situation has become, ladies and gentlemen, the wild west of technology. And Apple and Google are their own sheriffs," the report added. Cook said the court order sought and obtained by the FBI, which is investigating the December 2015 attack, would pose a serious threat to data security. "The US government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers," Cook said in a message on the company's website. FBI Director James Comey said last week that investigators still have not been able to get at the information on Farook's iPhone 5c. Four Maoist guerrillas including one female member were killed in gun battle with security forces in the outskirts of Ranchi, police said. The gun battle began in Nawadih jungle on Thursday night and ended early Friday morning. Two security personnel were injured. Police recovered one AK-37 gun, an INSAS rifle from the victims. The Haryana government on Friday called in the army to contain the situation in eight districts of the state severely affected by the ongoing Jat agitation, including in Rohtak town, where one person was killed and over 10 were injured, including a BSF trooper, as a violent mob went on the rampage. Haryana Director General of Police Y.P. Singhal told media in Chandigarh that the army has been called in, in Rohtak, Jhajjar, Sonipat, Panipat, Jind, Kaithal, Bhiwani and Hisar districts. "The government has asked the army to be called in eight districts. The request has been sent. The chief secretary has spoken to the army chief. The chief minister (Manohar Lal Khattar) has spoken to defence minister (Manohar Parrikar). The effort is to deploy the army as soon as possible to control the situation," he said. A protestor was killed and at least 10 injured when a BSF unit fired in self-defence after being fired upon by the protestors. A BSF trooper was injured in the firing. The injured were taken to the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Rohtak, 75 km from Delhi, police said. "One person from mob fired on BSF personnel with a home-made weapon. The BSF fired in self defence and one person was killed," Singhal said, adding that the mob did not allow the injured trooper to taken to hospital and efforts were being made to rescue him. He said that a mob attacked a Haryana Police official and other policemen near the Maharishi Dayanand University gate and held the hostage and more forces had to be sent to rescue them. "A leaderless mob is moving through Rohtak town. They came near the Circuit House and damaged the vehicle of the deputy inspector general of police, two police vehicles and set on fire another police vehicle," Singhal said. The mob attacked the office of the DIG, and set the house of Finance Minister Abhimanyu on fire. At some places in the town, black smoke could be seen coming out of property set on fire by the agitators, who even manhandled media persons at some places. "We are trying to stop the mob," the police chief said, adding that three companies of paramilitary forces were already stationed and 30 more companies would be deployed in Haryana soon. Protestors had clashed with security forces in Rohtak on Thursday evening when police tried to remove the blockades. The authorities blocked Internet and SMS services in the affected districts. Appealing to protesters to end road and rail blockades, Singhal said that curfew had not been imposed in Rohtak or other places so far. Thousands of trucks, carrying supplies and goods, were stranded in the affected districts due to highways and roads being blocked. Over 40 trains were cancelled by railway authorities across Haryana on Friday as the Jat agitation escalated. In Gurgaon, Jat protestors blocked roads, leading to traffic jams and chaos in the city, adjoining the national capital. Life continued to be affected in most parts of Rohtak, Jhajjar Sonipat, Bhiwani, Jind, Hisar and some other districts as the agitation by Jats for reservation in jobs and educational institutions continued for the sixth day on Friday. The protestors have blocked roads, highways and railway tracks, inconveniencing the common man. Hundreds of railway passengers were stranded as protestors blocked the Delhi-Ambala-Amritsar railway track at Rajlu Garhi village in Sonipat on Friday evening. Railway authorities cancelled several trains, including express trains like Kalka-Delhi Shatabdi Express, Pashchim Express and others. The stir escalated even as the Haryana government called an all-party meeting in Chandigarh to discuss the reservation issue and the Jat protests. The meeting urged the protestors to end their agitation and remove blockades. Jat leaders however rejected the appeal. After the all-party meeting, Khattar said: "The government is in favour of reservation for Jats in the state and is trying to find out ways and means for the same." Referring to statements of BJP's Kurukshetra MP Raj Kumar Saini, who is opposed to reservation for Jats, Khattar said he had been asked to withdraw his statement against the protestors. Security had been tightened at Saini's house in Kurukshetra town. Agriculture Minister O.P. Dhankar meanwhile said in Gurgaon that the state government was ready to give special backward class quota to the Jats. Hungary and Iran have agreed to boost their cooperation in nuclear technology, Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Friday. Szijjarto made the announcement following a meeting with Iranian Vice President and chief of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation Ali Akbar Salehi, Xinhua reported. The Hungarian foreign minister said the agreement called for expanding training for Iranian nuclear experts. He said his country would call on the European Union to help train Iranian nuclear professionals and to evolve scientific cooperation focused on peaceful uses of nuclear energy. He also said that Hungary was planning to begin talks with Iran on how its businesses could participate in extracting Iranian hydrocarbons (oil and gas). On his part, Salehi said links between Hungary and Iran truly had to be boosted in the new era, following international agreement on monitoring Iran's nuclear programme. He called his two-day visit to Hungary a successful one, adding that talks had focused on opportunities for scientific and industrial cooperation. Iran is an important country in its region and an important market, Salehi added. He described Iran as "an anchor of stability" in a very volatile region. Szijjarto said the success of negotiations between Iran and the international community had substantially increased global security which was very important to Europe. Given Iran's location and the heightening conflicts in the region, common sense cooperation with Iran could be an important advance towards overall Middle East stability and security, he added. Szijjarto, citing the immigration crisis triggered by the Middle East conflicts, said Iran was potentially part of the solution. He also suggested that the transatlantic community and Russia could cooperate on resolving problems in other parts of the Middle East, as they had in Iran. He called for multilateral and common sense to alleviate the conflicts. Indian officials really ought to be directing their energies to achieving an immediate resumption of the bilateral dialogue with Pakistan, an influential Pakistani daily said Friday, adding that New Delhi should not be annoyed over the the sale by the US of F-16 fighters to this country. An editorial "Indian objections to F-16 sale" in the Dawn on Friday said that the sale of F-16 aircraft has appeared to annoy India more than it helps Pakistan's overall counter-insurgency efforts. It should not. "But the very fact that it does - that New Delhi appears to feel it necessary to protest the American sale of F-16 aircraft to Pakistan - demonstrates the extent to which the Pakistan-India relationship needs to be protected from reactionaries in India," it said. The daily said it may be true that the use of F-16s is not central or fundamental to the Pakistani counter-insurgency effort in Fata. "But neither are the additional aircraft vital for Pakistan's overall deterrence efforts against India." "What is troubling though is that Indian authorities appear to insist that the Pakistan-US relationship has some automatic implications for the Pakistan-India context. It does not. "Eight new aircraft does not change the strategic - or operational balance - anymore than a similar addition of similar aircraft by India would." It noted that much as Pakistan - and possibly India - is trying to restart dialogue between the two countries, it appears that the old approach continues to dominate. "The Pakistani state's deterrence against armed conflict with India has neither been shaped nor determined by US arms transfers. "Much as Pakistan achieved deterrence capability against India while US sanctions were in effect against Pakistan, the same logic applies today: US transfers to Pakistan will not change the latter's fundamental ability to protect itself against Indian hegemony." The daily went on to say that perhaps what Indian authorities ought to consider is another reality: can Pakistan really ever defeat terror - the kinds that threaten the Pakistani state and also regional powers - if it does not have all the necessary tools at its disposal? "India wants to not only dictate to Pakistan what the latter's national security interests ought to be, but also the manner in which they ought to be fought - and the resources with which they should be fought. "Pakistan has every right to the F-16s and doubly so when it comes to the possibility of using them to combat perhaps the foremost threat to regional stability." It added: "What Indian officials really ought to be directing their energies to is achieving an immediate resumption of the bilateral dialogue. Pakistan and India deserve better than the old approach of endless complaints and no forward movement." Global software major Infosys Ltd. on Friday hired Michael Pesch as the new chief executive of its consulting business from April 1. "As chief executive of Infosys Consulting Holding AG, Pesch will be responsible for its consulting practice in Europe, Latin America and the Asia Pacific region," the IT outsourcing firm said in a statement here. The former chief executive of arvato Systems Group in Germany, Pesch has over two decades of experience in global consulting and management roles. Pesch will report to the subsidiary's global head Sanjay Purohit. At arvato, Pesch had set up new cloud-oriented services and led four-fold growth of consulting and IT services business across China, Europe and the US. "Pesch will focus on expanding the reach of our consultants and experts in digital transformation and design-led innovation, besides increasing our expertise in large-scale SAP programmes," the statement noted. Pesch will also serve as the regional head for DACH countries, including Deutsch (Germany), Osterreich (Austria), Schweiz (Switzerland) and many countries that speak German with members in the Germany Scratch community. "We have reinvigorated our global consulting business, strengthening our team. We are working with global corporations in 20 countries, developing solutions to address their complex business challenges using new capabilities in design thinking and landscape transformation, creating value for them," Sanjay Purohit said. Authorities in Haryana called in the army in a few districts, including Rohtak, on Friday evening after the agitation by Jat protestors turned violent. Haryana DGP Y.P. Singhal told the media here that the army has been called in Rohtak, Jhajjar, Sonipat, Bhiwani and Hisar districts. He said that a leader-less mob of the Jat community was moving in Rohtak town and resorting to violence. He said that someone from the protestors fired at Border Security Force (BSF) personnel in Rohtak town. The Haryana government on Friday agreed to provide Special Backward Class (SBC) status for Jats in the state, Agriculture Minister O.P. Dhankar said. A bill regarding this will be brought in the assembly in the upcoming budget session, Dhankar told the media here. He added that the government had accepted all the demands raised by Jats in Haryana. Dhankar spoke after attending an all-party meeting held in Chandigarh. "We have accepted all the demands of Jats demanding reservation to include the community in the backward class category." The community will get SBC status and 10-20 percent reservation based on economic stauts as immediate relief. BJP MP Rajkumar Saini, who has been issuing statements regarding the demands made by Jats, has been directed not to say anything that hurts the sentiments of the community, he said. Cabinet Minister Rambilas Sharma also withdrew his charge that former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda was instigating the Jats. Dhankar, a Jat leader, appealed to the community to end its protests "as all the demands has been fulfilled". Jats have been blocking roads in the state. A few students from Jammu and Kashmir alleged harassment by Delhi Police in the wake of raids at their present and permanent residences. The police, however, denied the allegation. The JNU Students Union on Friday criticised the alleged police action against Kashmiri students who it said were unconnected with the happenings on the campus after the January 9 incidents. "The JNUSU strongly condemns the harassment of students from Jammu and Kashmir whose present and permanent residences are being raided. These students have approached the JNUSU saying that police have gone to their houses for 'verification'," JNU Students Union vice president Shehla Rashid said on Friday. These students had earlier also approached the university administration with the same complaint. "A few students had approached me saying police were visiting their homes in the name of verification," JNU Registrar Bhupinder Zutshi told IANS. "But perhaps this could be a routine process as police have not updated us in this regard. They gave us a list of 20 students who they were looking for, but there is no Kashmiri boy or girl on that list," Zutshi added. The police, too, denied investigating any students from Jammu and Kashmir. "Why would we raid Kashmiri students? That is not part of our investigation," Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Prem Nath told IANS. However, he added, "I can't say if other agencies are probing these students." Actress-dancer Julianne Hough won't return as a judge on the upcoming 22nd season of dancing reality show "Dancing with the Stars". The 27-year-old, who won the coveted Mirrorball Trophy twice as a professional on the show, announced she is taking a break from the glitz and glamour of the dancing competition, reports femalefirst.co.uk. "I promise it's not the last you'll see of me in the ballroom. I will miss being on the panel for season 22, but have a lot of exciting stuff coming that I look forward to sharing," Hough said. However, there is some good news for fans as head judge Len Goodman will be back alongside Bruno Tonioli after sitting out the last series to spend time with his family. Hough's departure may not be permanent as show bosses are keen to see the star "back in the ballroom" in the future. Producer Rob Wade said: "Julianne will always be a part of the 'Dancing with the Stars' family and we hope to see her back in the ballroom in the future." The opposition mounted fresh attacks on the government on Friday over the arrest of JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, whose bail plea in a sedition case is likely to come up on Monday. The issue continued to generate passions, with hundreds of Left student activists blocking trains in Bihar demanding Kanhaiya Kumar's release and hundreds of lawyers taking out a noisy march in Delhi denouncing him. Kanhaiya Kumar, arrested a week ago on charges of shouting anti-India slogans, moved the Delhi High Court after the Supreme Court refused to entertain his bail plea. The high court is likely to hear the case on Monday. On Wednesday, a lower court sent Kanhaiya Kumar, who is from the CPI-affiliated AISF, to judicial custody till March 2 amid violence blamed on a section of lawyers. Kanhaiya Kumar came under attack that day. On Friday, a Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital report revealed that the student leader suffered multiple injuries, contradicting Delhi Police Commissioner B.S. Bassi's claims that Kanhaiya Kumar was not assaulted. The Congress accused the BJP and RSS of "treating youth as experimental guinea pigs in the laboratory of divisiveness" and said raising nationalism "as a bogey to repress students and gag campuses" was wrong. Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi said the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its related outfits were trying to fit their Hindutva ideology on the nation. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar - Kanhaiya Kumar is from Begusarai in the state - accused the central government of creating an emotional issue to "hide its failure" on the economic front. "If they have any evidence that justifies Kanhaiya Kumar's arrest on sedition charge, why don't they make it public?" he asked. In Begusarai, Kanhaiya Kumar's father, Jaishankar Singh, said his son was innocent and demanded a CBI inquiry in the case. He accused the BJP and RSS of "fixing" his son. The student's mother Meena Devi, an aanganwadi worker, added: "My son is being tortured under the very nose of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. My son has done no wrong." Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal rubbed it in, saying opposing the BJP and RSS had now become the biggest crime in the country. Mocking at what he said was a new "IPC" (Indian Penal Code), the AAP leader tweeted: "It's not a crime to murder, rape or beat anyone if u r from BJP. Being opposed to BJP n RSS is biggest crime now. Centre's new IPC - rape, murder or beat anyone. When questioned, just say that victim was shouting anti-India slogans, you u will be let off." Six Left parties meanwhile sought Kanhaiya Kumar's immediate release and punishment to those who they said doctored "evidence" to charge him with sedition. Kanhaiya Kumar has denied the charges against him. The Left said his arrest was "part of efforts to sharpen communal polarization". "The truth has now come out that most of the evidence produced by the government was fabricated," a joint statement by the parties said. In Bihar, hundreds of slogan-shouting Left-leaning students seeking the release of Kanhaiya Kumar stopped half a dozen trains. The affected trains included Sampark Kranti Express, Janki Express and Jainagar Samastipur passenger. In Delhi, hundreds of equally vocal lawyers marched from the Patiala House Court complex to India Gate demanding action against "anti-national" JNU students. They were led by, among others, Vikram Chauhan, who has been accused of attacking journalists and JNU students at the Patiala House court on Monday and causing more disturbances there on Wednesday. In Goa, the Congress-affiliated National Students Union of India (NSUI) said it will collaborate with Leftist student unions countrywide to combat "a concerted effort by the ABVP and BJP to take control of campuses". Malaysia will suspend the hiring of foreign workers, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi announced on Friday, a day after the government announced an agreement to recruit thousands of Bangladeshis. Hamidi said the measure will remain in place till the government has reviewed the two-tier levy programme for foreign workers. The authorities, according to Hamidi, are studying the personnel re-hiring programme to prevent an excess of foreigners flooding the job market, and those who are working illegally in the country will be detained and deported, Efe news reported. He said the government plans to postpone the intake of foreign workers till it had identified the exact need of Malaysia's industries, in an informal meet with military personnel. Hamidi urged the youth to take up jobs currently held by foreigners. His statements come after Malaysia and Bangladesh on Thursday announced an agreement to allow absorption of 1.5 million Bangladeshi nationals by Malaysian firms in the next three years. Following the announcement, which drew criticism from Malaysian trade unions, Human Resource Minister Richard Riot said it only referred to Bangladeshis who are registered with the Malaysian government as residents in the country. Each year, thousands of Bangladeshi immigrants travel to Malaysia in search of employment, mainly in construction, plantations or as domestic help. Maoists on Friday blew up a panchayat building and later set on fire a tower of a private telecom company in Latehar district of Jharkhand, the police said. The guerrillas belonging to the banned CPI-Maoist group blasted Newadi Panchayat Bhawan at Dihi village and later torched a tower of Airtel at Chope village of Latehar district which is about 130 km from here, said a police official. The Maoists also pasted posters at the two villages. Eighteen of the 22 districts of Jharkhand are affected by Maoist insurgency. Hundreds of thousands of devotees paid obeisance to tribal deities in Medaram of Telanagana's Warangal district on Friday, the third day of Sammakka Sarakka jatara, said to Asia's largest tribal fair. Medaram and surrounding villages in Eturanagaram forests were teeming with massive crowds of devotees, participating in the biennial event. The devotees were waiting for hours to have 'darshan' of Samakka and Sarakka installed on special platform for the four-day festival. Performing the unique rituals associated with the fair, the devotees offered jaggery to the deities while women believed to be possessed by goddesses were seen dancing. There was hardly any space available at Jampanna rivulet, where in the devotees are taking a dip with the belief that this will wash off their sins. The devotees from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Maharashtra and other states have raised temporary sheds and makeshift kitchens. Most of them were seen buying live chickens and preparing their food. Sammakka and Sarakka were legendary warriors from the Koya tribe who fought against the Kakatiya empire 800 years ago and were killed in battle. Large-scale arrangements made by Telangana government have ensured smooth conduct of the festival so far. The authorities have spent Rs.180 crore to provide best facilities to the devotees. These include uninterrupted water and electricity supply. Deputy Chief Minister Kadiam Srihari said 50 lakh devotees were expected on Friday. He said all steps had been taken to ensure smooth conduct of the jatra, which is Asia's biggest tribal festival and the first to be held after formation of the Telangana state. Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) was operating buses from all districts of Telangana. TSRTC officials said they so far transported four lakh people by operating over 10,000 buses. A heavy rush expected on Friday and Saturday. Railways are also operating 16 special trains for the devotees. A private aviation firm also launched helicopter service from Hyderabad and Warangal to Medaram. The Hyderabad-Medaram-Hyderabad trip on a Bell 429 four-seater costs Rs.65,000 per head and a Warangal-Medaram-Warangal trip costs Rs.26,500 per head. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who was scheduled to visit the jatra on Friday, cancelled his visit. Officials said the chief minister cancelled the visit due to "unavoidable reasons". It was not clear if he will be visiting Medaram on the last day. Telangana assembly Speaker Madhusudhana Chary, Commercial Taxes Minister T. Srinivas Yadav, and Director General of Police Anurag Sharma were among those who offered prayers on Friday. Popular actor and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) legislator N. Balakrishna and his wife visited Medaram. The couple had darshan of the deities. He told reporters that they prayed for the happiness and well-being of people. He described the festival as reflection of Telangana's rich culture. The release date of actor Matt Damon's upcoming 3D science fantasy adventure-monster action film "The Great Wall" has been pushed back by three months to 2017. "The Great Wall," originally slated to hit theaters on November 23 this year will now release on February 17, 2017, reports variety.com. The film also stars Pedro Pascal and Willem Dafoe alongside Chinese stars including Andy Lau, Zhang Hanyu and Eddie Peng. The story of the film is described as "an elite force making a last stand for humanity on the world's most iconic structure". "The Great Wall" is directed by Zhang Yimou and is described as the largest film ever shot in China. Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday accused the government of keeping the nation in the dark on the contents, nature and status of the peace dialogue with the National Socialist Council of Nagalim-Isak Muivah (NSCN-IM) faction. "We are not privy to the contents of the Naga peace accord and we cannot give a blank cheque of support as of now," Gandhi told the Parliamentary Working Committee of the Joint Legislators' Forum (JLF) from Nagaland in New Delhi. The delegation was led by Nagaland assembly Speaker Chotisuh Sazo. He was accompanied by Chief Minister T.R. Zeliang, Lok Sabha member Neiphiu Rio and a host of Nagaland legislators. At the meeting, Gandhi promised the Naga parliamentarians of her party's support for the Naga peace accord "if the contents of the agreement were in the interest of the Nagas, the Northeast and the nation". "We are not privy to the contents of the Naga peace accord and we cannot give a blank cheque of support," an official statement issued by the Nagaland Chief Minister's Office quoted her as saying. "But when the government reveals the contents for discussion in parliament, and if it is in the interest of the Nagas, the Northeast and the nation, my party will surely support it," Gandhi said. However, she expressed solidarity with the Naga people for the need to find an amicable, honourable and permanent peace in the state. The delegation explained to the Congress chief about the formation of the JLF comprising leaders of all political parties in the state, mainly to project a common voice of the representatives of the people of Nagaland on the urgency to solve the protracted Naga problem. "The merger of the Congress legislators with the NPF was solely for the purpose of finding an early solution to the Naga political problem and not because of any other exigency," the delegation said. The delegation members later left for Kolkata to meet leaders of West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress. Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli arrived here on Friday on a six-day visit to India -- his first foreign visit after assuming office in October last year. He was received at the airport by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj. The visit of Oli, who is accompanied by his wife Radhika Sakya, is the first bilateral visit by a prime minister from the Himalayan nation since 2011 when then prime Baburam Bhattarai visited India. In 2014, then prime minister Sushil Koirala visited India for the swearing-in ceremony of the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government. In August 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi went on a bilateral visit to Nepal which was the first by an Indian prime minister in 17 years. Modi again went in November 2014 to attend the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) summit in Kathmandu. Oli and his wife will stay as state guests at Rashtrapati Bhavan. "During the visit, we expect discussions on all issues of mutual interest," external affairs ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said during a media briefing here on Thursday ahead of Oli's visit. "Bilateral cooperation, particularly in the key areas of energy, connectivity, and people-to-people linkages will form the main focus of the visit, he said. A high-level delegation is accompanying Oli during the visit. The delegation includes Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Kamal Thapa, Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel, Home Minister Shakti Bahadur Basnet, Chief Advisor to the prime minister Bishnu Prasad Rimal, chief executive of the National Reconstruction Authority, and 13 MPs from various political parties, besides senior government officials as well as representatives of Nepal's business community. On Saturday, Sushma Swaraj will call on Oli after which the visiting dignitary will meet Prime Minister Modi. This will be followed by delegation-level talks and signing of variousagreements. Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will then call on the Nepalese prime minister. Oli will also call on Vice President Hamid Ansari and President Pranab Mukherjee later in the day. On Sunday, he will leave for Dehradun where he will visit the Tehri hydel power project. After returning to New Delhi the same day, the Nepalese prime minister will meet leaders of various political parties. On Monday, Minister of State for Power Piyush Goyal will call on Oli after which the visiting dignitary will address the Indian Council for World Affairs. In the evening, Oli will attend a business meeting. On Tuesday, he will leave for Bhuj in Gujarat to take stock of the earthquake reconstruction work there. Later in the day, he will leave for Mumbai where he will meet Maharashtra Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao. Oli will depart from India on Wednesday. A day after the government formed a political mechanism - a 11-member panel - to consider demands vis-a-vis the provincial boundaries, the main opposition Nepali Congress and agitating Samykta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha (SLMM) on Friday formally refused to be a part of it, saying it was formed 'unilaterally'. In a press statement, SLMM - an umbrella alliance of agitating Madhes-based parties - said the mechanism was formed unilaterally when efforts to seek a consensus were on through talks and negotiations. The formation of the political mechanism was a last ditch effort by the Nepal government to address the demand of the agitating Morcha activists under the new constitution. Earlier, the government amended the constitution in a bid to address the demands of the Morcha and made the constitution more inclusive. "The Morcha believes the unilateral mechanism, which is supposed to resolve the problem, cannot address our demands. And we reject such mechanism," said the statement issued by the seven Madhes-based parties on Friday. The statement said the mechanism was formed as part of a design to foil protests launched by the minorities and backward communities, including Madhesis, and appease 'foreigners' instead of addressing the problem. On Thursday night, just a day before Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli's scheduled India visit, the Nepal government announced the 11-member mechanism headed by the deputy prime minister and minister for foreign affairs Kamal Thapa and including leaders from the agitating Madhes-based parties. The panel is expected to suggest an appropriate solution to address the demands of revising the provincial boundaries within three months. Similarly, the main opposition Nepali Congress, which took the lead to address the demands of the agitating parties, also refused to have anything to do with the unilateral decision of the government. "We were kept out of the process; so we are not going to own up the mechanism," said Nepali Congress leader Mahesh Acharya. "We were in talks and we were about to complete the negotiation with agitating parties but the unilateral formation of mechanism has sent a negative message," he said. It is widely believed in Kathmandu that Prime Minister Oli wanted to send some positive signal to India ahead of his Delhi visit and so decided to form the mechanism as a symbolic gesture rather than for any other reason. India has been consistently maintaining that there is a need to address the demands of the agitating parties by making the new constitution more inclusive as it has huge security implications on its borders. (Anil Giri can be contacted at girianil@gmail.com) Nepali writers, intellectuals and ex-JNU students on Friday condemned the arrest of JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar on a sedition charge and termed it "gross violation of the freedom of expression". "His arrest is against freedom of expression," said a statement issued by over three dozen Nepali writers, journalists and intellectuals. Most of them are Nepali Left activists and writers who often criticise the 'nationalist' posture of the Nepal government and advocate a more inclusive Nepali society. Prominent Nepali writers and columnists like Khagendra Sangarula, C.K. Lal, Kishor Nepla, Hari Rokka, Rajendra Mahanrjan, Manju Shree Thapa and over a dozen ex-Jawaharlal Nehru University students have supported Kumar. The Indian government is trying to destroy intellect in an academic institution, they said. "Such act is not only a matter of concern for the Indians but also every citizen who voiced support for an equitable and just society," the statement said. "We condemn the Indian government's action of trying to muzzle different voices and the freedom of speech," they said. The National Students Union of India (NSUI) will collaborate with left-aligned students unions countrywide to combat "a concerted effort by the ABVP and the BJP to take control of university campuses", NSUI national secretary Hasiba Amin said on Friday. "We will fight, together with the left-aligned students unions, the attempt of the BJP and their students wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, to take over university campuses and spread their hate ideology," Amin said here. Amin was responding to a question from the media about the controversy surrounding the arrest of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar, who has been booked on sedition charges. The NSUI leader also said that JNU was one of the early pitstops of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's attempts to "target" top educational institutions. "They are targetting universities like JNU, Hyderabad Central University and other leading educational institutes. We are sure that universities are on the BJP's hitlist," Amin added. NSUI is the students wing of the Indian National Congress party. US President Barack Obama has signed into law the legislation to impose more stringent sanctions on North Korea, the White House said Thursday. The US House of Representatives on Friday overwhelmingly passed the bill with a 408-2 vote. The legislation was approved by the senate earlier last week, Xinhua news agency reported. The legislation requires the Obama administration to sanction anyone involved with North Korea's nuclear program, luxury goods, money laundering and human rights abuses. The move cones after North Korea said it had launched on February 7 a Kwangmyongsong-4 Earth observation satellite into orbit earlier this month and tested what it claimed was a hydrogen bomb last month. Barack Obama will head to Cuba next month for the first visit by a US president to the Caribbean island nation in 88 years, in a trip fraught with controversy at home though it is being hailed across the world as a progressive development. Obama announced last summer the re-establishment of relations with the island nation in a historic move, putting an end to the chill that has featured relations between the two neighbours for more than 50 years, Xinhua reported. But critics in the Republican Party and among the Cuban-American community have decried the move, saying the Obama administration would give Cuba what they called undeserved recognition and would get nothing in return. In an online post after the trip's announcement, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes wrote: "There is much more that can be done -- by the US and by the Cuban government -- to advance this opening in ways that will be good for Cubans, and good for the United States. That is why President Obama is travelling to Cuba." But many Republicans continue to view Cuba in an unfavourable light. Two of the biggest critics of Obama's move are Republican presidential hopefuls Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Marco Rubio. Experts said both of them have a shot at clinching the Republican nomination for the 2016 race to the White House. Both senators, sons of Cuban immigrants, hold opinions that reflect a long-standing argument among the Cuban-American community -- namely, Washington should not open up to full relations with Havana till certain stipulations are met on issues such as human rights. In a Wednesday speech on his campaign trail, Rubio said Cuba is "anti-American", reflecting the opinions of a large chunk of the Cuban-American community. Cruz has also slammed Obama's Cuba policy as a kind of "weakness and appeasement". House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, a Republican, also criticised Obama's visit, alleging on Thursday that "Cuban workers continue to be exploited". The US-based experts are split over whether re-establishing US-Cuban ties is a positive move. Ana Rosa Quintana, Heritage Foundation's Latin America analyst, said Cuba has made no concessions whatsoever to the US, reflecting a common argument that the island nation has given the US nothing in exchange for re-established ties with Washington. She added that re-establishment of relations between the two countries without pre-conditions sends out wrong messages. Although official ties have once again been established, it remains doubtful that the US trade embargo will be fully lifted anytime soon. The embargo has been in effect since 1962 amid the Cold War, as the US worried that Cuba would be allied with the Soviet Union in its back yard. In 1996, the embargo was codified into US law and put under Congressional control, with only the Congress having the full power to reverse it. Though Obama has chipped away at some stipulations within the embargo, most of the sanctions still exist. It is unlikely that the Republican-led Congress will overturn the embargo. The US Congress has been unwilling to work with Obama on lifting the embargo, according to Quintana. "(Obama) is weakening the embargo. He says you know what, I disagree with it, I'm going to see what I can do to undermine it," she said. Brookings Institution's senior fellow Darrell West said Obama wants to push along the relationship with Cuba so the next president can't roll back his rapprochement. "His goal is to open up trade and investment and put the policy back on a more normalised basis. Opening up trade will boost the Cuban economy and generate more trade and commerce between the two nations," West said. "There is likely to be a flood of American tourists to Cuba so that will encourage the construction of new hotels and restaurants. Cuba likely will be a popular destination for many American businesses," he added. President Barack Obama will become the first sitting US President to visit Cuba in 88 years, when he visits Havana in March, the White House announced on Thursday. The visit, which is scheduled for March 21-22, is another big step by the administration in ongoing efforts to normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba, CNN reported. "Fourteen months ago, I announced that we would begin normalising relations with Cuba - and we've already made significant progress," Obama said in a tweet. "Our flag flies over our Embassy in Havana once again. More Americans are travelling to Cuba than at any time in the last 50 years," he added. "We still have differences with the Cuban government that I will raise directly. America will always stand for human rights around the world. "Next month, I'll travel to Cuba to advance our progress and efforts that can improve the lives of the Cuban people," he said in a series of tweets. According to White House, Obama will meet with Cuban President Raul Castro, as well as entrepreneurs and different members of Cuban society. He will be joined by the first lady on his trip to Cuba, after which they will visit Argentina for two days. The last sitting US president to visit Cuba was Calvin Coolidge in 1928. The trip, long expected, comes after Obama's administration formally reopened ties with Havana in late 2014, following a half-century of enmity. Cuban officials reacted positively to the announcement on Thursday. "...Obama will be welcomed by the government of Cuba and the Cuban people with our traditional hospitality. It will be an opportunity for (the) president to appreciate the Cuban reality," Josefina Vidal, the general director for the US affairs at the Cuban foreign ministry said at a news conference in Havana Thursday. "His visit will represent a step forward in relations between Cuba and the US." At least one person was killed and 10 injured in police firing on Jat protestors in Haryana's Rohtak town on Friday afternoon, official sources said here. The police fired as the protestors attacked the residence of the inspector general of police and that of a state minister, BJP leader Anil Jain said. The protestors also torched police and private vehicles in Rohtak as the agitation took a violent turn on the sixth day. The injured people were rushed to the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Rohtak, police said. Life in Haryana was hit as the for quotas moved to various parts of Haryana after talks between community leaders and the government failed to break the impasse, even as prohibitory orders were clamped in Rohtak, banning assembly of five or more persons. Protesters blocked roads in many places in Panipat which also affected movement of vehicles towards Uttar Pradesh. Rail and road traffic were the worst hit in the Rohtak-Jhajjar region. The protesting Jats are demanding reservation for the community in jobs and educational institutions. At least one person was killed and 10 injured when police fired on Jat protestors in Haryana's Rohtak town on Friday afternoon, officials said. The police fired when the protestors attacked the residence of the inspector general of police and that of Haryana Finance Minister Abhimanyu in Rohtak, police officials said. Life continued to be affected in most parts of Rohtak, Jhajjar and some other districts of the state as the agitation by Jats continued for the sixth day on Friday. The Jat protestors, who have been demanding reservation in jobs and educational institutions, torched several police and private vehicles in Rohtak. The protestors also damaged private property, and even manhandled media persons at some places in the town. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar's officer on special duty Jawahar Yadav dubbed the firing incident as "unfortunate". BJP leader Anil Jain confirmed the death of one person in police firing. The injured were rushed to the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Rohtak, police said. The protestors agitating for the past six days have blocked roads, highways and railway tracks in Rohtak, Jhajjar, Sonipat, Bhiwani, Jind, Hisar and some other districts, inconveniencing the common man. The Jat stir escalated even as the Haryana government called an all-party meeting in Chandigarh to discuss the reservation issue and the Jat protests. The meeting urged the protestors to end their agitation and remove the blockades. Jat leaders rejected the appeal to withdraw their agitation. After the all-party meeting in Chandigarh, Khattar said: "The government is in favour of reservation for Jats in the state and is trying to find out ways and means for the same." Khattar said the government will prepare a draft bill on reservation and seek suggestions in this regard. "The government has positive approach on this demand," Khattar said. Referring to statements of BJP's Kurukshetra MP Raj Kumar Saini, who is opposed to reservation for Jats, Khattar said Saini had been asked to withdraw his statement against the protestors. "If the words of Saini have hurt the sentiments of the Jats, all his statements may be treated as withdrawn. Saini was out of station and as and when he comes back, he would take his words back," Khattar said. The chief minister warned that no one would be allowed to take the law in his hands. Haryana Agriculture Minister O.P. Dhankar said in Gurgaon that the state government was ready to give special backward class quota to the Jats in Haryana. With the Jat agitation spreading in Haryana, authorities blocked Internet services in the affected districts. Internet services, including 2G and 3G, in the worst affected districts of Rohtak, Sonipat and Jhajjar have been withdrawn since midnight, officials said on Friday. "It has been done to prevent spread of rumours, as this could lead to the situation getting out of hand," a senior Haryana Police official told IANS. Jat protestors clashed with security forces in Rohtak on Thursday evening when the police tried to remove the blockades. The protestors attacked police with stones and bricks. A police vehicle was damaged in the clash. "Some roads are blocked by the protestors. We are trying to persuade them to remove the blockades. We have requisitioned paramilitary forces. We are prepared to tackle the situation," Rohtak police chief Saurabh Singh told the media. A Pakistani truck driver arrested by Indian police after he accidentally ran over a labourer in the neighbouring country was released, a media report said on Friday. According to a press release issued by the Customs Collectorate (Preventive) Lahore on Thursday, Ali Mohammad, a resident of Makin district in North Waziristan, was arrested on April 27, 2015, when an Indian labourer died after being hit by his truck, Dawn online reported. The accident took place when the driver was unloading a gypsum consignment at the Indian Customs Port in Attari. The driver was to return to Pakistan the same day, in accordance with the time-specific entry permit issued by the Customs authorities at the Wagah border crossing. However, he was detained detained after the accident. Pakistan Customs kept taking up the matter with the Indian authorities through the Indian Customs, using the platform of Customs Border Liaison Committee (CBLC). In the last CBLC meeting held in India on January 28, the matter was again raised by the Pakistani officials. On Wednesday, Ali Mohammad was handed over by the Indians to the Customs Deputy Collector of the Land Freight Unit, Tauqeer Ahmed Dar, at Zero Point. June 19, 2019, Wednesday All private universities in Uttar Pradesh will now have to give an undertaking to the government, saying that their campuses will ... Film distribution company Pinakin Studios will release actor Simbu-starrer Tamil romantic-drama "Idhu Namma Aalu" in the US. "We have acquired the film's release rights in USA. We're planning for a grand release and the official release date will be announced soon," the company's spokesperson told IANS. The rights are said to have been purchased for a whopping price. Directed by Pandiraj, "Idhu Namma Aalu" is tipped to be one of the most anticipated films of this year. Also starring Nayanthara, the film marks the debut of Simbu's brother Kuralarasan as composer. Republican front-runner Donald Trump "is not Christian" if he calls for the deportation of undocumented immigrants and pledges to build a wall between the US and Mexico, Pope Francis said on Thursday. The Pope, who was travelling back to Rome from Mexico, where he urged the US to address the "humanitarian crisis" on its southern border, did not tell American Catholics not to vote for Trump, CNN reported. But Francis left little doubt where he stood on the polarizing issue of immigration reform. "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel," the Pope told journalists who asked his opinion on Trump's proposals to halt illegal immigration. Trump immediately fired back, calling Francis' comments "disgraceful". "No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man's religion or faith," he said in statement. Trump added that the government in Mexico, where Francis spent the past five days, has "made many disparaging remarks about me to the Pope". "If and when the Vatican is attacked by IS, which as everyone knows is IS' ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president," Trump said. The tussle between Trump and Francis -- two outsized personalities who seldom shy from speaking their minds -- seems to have been building for some time. Before the Pope traveled to Mexico, Trump cast the pontiff as a political naif who "doesn't understand the dangers" at the US-Mexican border. Asked whether American Catholics should vote for Trump, Francis demurred. "As far as what you said about whether I would advise to vote or not to vote, I am not going to get involved in that. I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that," he said. The Pope appeared somewhat unaware of Trump's exact stance on illegal immigration, though, saying that he would give him "the benefit of the doubt" until he had heard exactly what the billionaire businessman had said. A subsidiary of Rolls-Royce signed a deal with China's leading engine-maker Yuchai on Friday to set up a joint venture. Germany's MTU Friedrichshafen and Yuchai Corp., based in Yulin city of Guangxi Zhuang region, each hold a 50 percent stake in the new venture, MTU Yuchai Power Co. Ltd, Xinhua reported. Using MTU's S4000 engine technology, the new plant will start production in 2017 with a capacity of 1,500 engines per year. The Chinese market is MTU's third largest and the company will build the assembly line and establish a quality assurance system, said Ulrich Dohle, CEO of Rolls-Royce Power Systems AG. Yan Ping, chairman of Yuchai Corp., said the venture will focus on engines for generators or oilfield purposes rather than engines for road use. Engine parts will be gradually manufactured in China, said Yan. Guangxi Yuchai Machinery Co. Ltd was floated on the New York Stock Exchange in 1994 as China's first engine manufacturer listed abroad. The Congress on Friday hit out at the RSS and its affiliated groups for trying to "camouflage their bigoted ideology as nationalism". "The RSS is now trying to project its bigoted ideology and it is camouflaging this bigoted ideology as 'nationalism'... trying to pass off their fake view of India as 'nationalism' and they are doing it through repression and coercion," said senior Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi. "The Indian National Congress is deeply concerned that outfits like RSS, Sangh Parivar and ABVP are trying to fit their square ideology into the circular democratic tradition of this country. In other words, they are trying to achieve a misfit," he added. Singhvi said his party was "in the first line of condemnation of anti-national activities". "We are not here to give justifications, defences and certificates... we stand rock solid on issues of 'nationalism' but we also stand equally rock solid against the bogey of 'nationalism' and when that bogey is used to repress students to carry on campaigns to infiltrate the RSS and ABVP ideology into our institutions, we will rise and speak up because we think it is utterly unacceptable to the idea of India," he added. Abu Dhabi, Feb 19 (IANS/WAM) India's oil imports from Saudi Arabia and Iraq hit the highest in more than a decade in January as OPEC's top producers gained at the expense of Latin American crudes, a validation of the OPEC policy of maintaining output and fighting for market share. Competitive prices and shorter shipping distances were giving the Middle East members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) the upper hand in India, the world's third-largest crude oil importer. Saudi Arabia was the top supplier to India in January, with volumes jumping 29 percent from the same month a year ago to nearly 940,000 barrels per day (bpd), ship tracking data obtained from sources and data compiled by Thomson Reuters Oil Research & Forecasts showed on Friday. Just behind was Iraq at 930,000 bpd, up 52 percent from January levels last year. The daily rates from both were at their highest since at least 2001, according to data available on the Thomson Reuters Eikon terminal. In contrast, India's total imports from Latin America fell by a quarter in January from a year ago to 706,000 bpd, the data showed. "We are going slow in the purchase of Latin America oil and have raised supplies from the Middle East," said H. Kumar, managing director of Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd. Indian refiners said they increased imports of Middle Eastern crude after Brent rose relative to the Dubai benchmark, making oil priced off the latter more attractive. As well, on top of competitive monthly prices for its oil compared with similar grades, Iraq provides discounts that could amount to more than $1 a barrel to compensate for crude quality changes, trade sources said. "Basra Heavy is better priced compared to any other heavy crude. Even Basra Light is better priced compared to other heavy crudes," A. K. Sharma, head of finance at Indian Oil Corp said last week. IOC buys about 300,000 bpd of Iraqi oil, including a recently signed term deal for Basra Heavy. Reliance Industries Ltd., owner of the world's biggest refining complex, has also entered into a long-term deal with Iraq to buy Basra Heavy, according to its website. Indian refiners that have invested billions of dollars in upgrading their plants are scouting for cheaper heavy, sour grades such as those from Iraq and Iran to maximise gross refining margins. "For a country like India where value of local currency is fluctuating and so are global oil markets, it's better to go for nearby markets for oil purchases than going for a parcel that takes up to two months to reach India," said Ehsan Ul-Haq, senior analyst at London-based consultancy KBC Energy Economics. The Indian rupee is edging near a record low of 68.85 to the US dollar hit in August 2013 -- when India was mired in its worst currency turmoil in more than two decades. In January, India also took just over 170,000 bpd of Iranian crude, down nearly 40 percent from the same month last year, the data showed. Volumes from Iran were expected to surge from this month as Indian buyers start receiving barrels snapped up from Tehran soon after economic sanctions were lifted. --IANS/WAM py/dg Saudi Arabia announced on Friday that it will stop helping the Lebanese army and security forces because of the Lebanese political stances, Saudi Press Agency reported. Saudi Arabia has decided to protect its own interests through stopping the military assistance worth $3 billion to the Lebanese army and the unpaid $1 billion dollars to the security forces, the report said. A Saudi government official said that despite the decision, the country will continue to stand with Lebanese nationals as such stances do not represent them. Lebanon has not condemned the attacks on the Saudi diplomatic missions in Tehran and Mashhad last month. Suspected insurgents shot at and wounded three people, including a school girl, in Manipur on Friday, police sources said. Yumnam Suraj, a school van driver, was at a restaurant at Wangkhei in Imphal east district when three youths stormed the place, asked the driver some questions and then shot at him. The girl, a tribal girl hailing from Churachandpur district and studying in Imphal, was with him when she was shot at in the arm. On hearing the gunshots, Romila, the owner's wife rushed out to intervene. The suspected rebels shot her three times in the chest from close range. She is battling for life in a hospital. The sources said the driver had brought the girl to the restaurant. The driver maintained that he and the girl did nothing objectionable, but the sources said that they were "dancing". The driver could not explain why he had brought the girl to the place. The incident comes after some outlawed underground organisations issued a public warning not to indulge in immoral activities. Locals had burned down some restaurants, claiming they were being used as love nests. Police said members of a banned outfit are responsible for Friday's shooting, though no group has made a claim so far. The owner was not in the restaurant at the time of the incident. At least seven occupants of a vehicle were killed after it collided head on with a private bus in Madhya Pradesh's Rajgarh district on Friday, police said. The accident took place on the Agra-Mumbai highway. The bus was headed to Indore. An eighth person was seriously wounded in the accident and warded in an Indore hospital. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Shairf is likely to meet his Indian counterpart in Washington next month on the sidelines of a nuclear summit hosted by US President Barack Obama, a media report said on Friday. Sharif and Modi have both accepted President Obama's invitation to attend a nuclear summit he is hosting in Washington on March 31 and April 1, diplomatic sources told Dawn. Read more from our special coverage on "NARENDRA MODI" Farmers to have pan-India access to mandis: Modi "The chances are strong, very strong," said a senior official. "But you know the history of India-Pakistan talks, you cannot be certain about an event until it has happened," the official added. It will be the first time that both Indian and Pakistani premiers will be attending the nuclear security summit, which President Obama initiated in 2010. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Shairf is likely to meet his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in Washington next month on the sidelines of a nuclear summit hosted by US President Barack Obama, a media report said on Friday. Obama has invited both the prime ministers for the Nuclear Security Summit to be held on March 31 and April 1. The invitations have been accepted. "If we look at the history of relationship between Pakistan and India, everything looks uncertain and nothing can be confirmed till it happens," Dawn quoted a Pakistani foreign ministry official as saying. "The chances are strong, very strong," the official added. Meanwhile no formal announcement has been made so far regarding any such meeting however Pakistani officials are confident of the meeting. The last time the two premiers met was on December 25, 2015, when Modi made a surprise visit to Lahore, a first by an Indian prime minister in over a decade. Modi briefly attended Sharif's grand-daughter's wedding ceremony and then held a brief meeting with his Pakistani counterpart. The visit came a few days before the attack on the Pathankot Air Force Station, part of the Western Air Command of the Indian Air Force, on January 2. President Obama has named 106 researchers, including six of Indian origin, as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, the highest US government honour for young independent researchers. The winners will receive their awards at a Washington, DC ceremony this spring. "These early-career scientists are leading the way in our efforts to confront and understand challenges from climate change to our health and wellness," Obama said. "We congratulate these accomplished individuals and encourage them to continue to serve as an example of the incredible promise and ingenuity of the American people." The Awards highlight the key role that the administration places in encouraging and accelerating American innovation to grow our economy and tackle our greatest challenges, a White House announcement said. Established by President Bill Clinton in 1996, the awards recognise pursuit of innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology and awardees' commitment to community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, public education, or community outreach. The six Indian-American recipients are listed below: Milind Kulkarni, an associate professor with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University -- His research focuses on programming languages and compilers that support efficient programming and high performance on emerging complex architectures. Kiran Musunuru, assistant professor of stem cell and regenerative biology at Harvard University -- His research focuses on the genetics of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Sachin Patel, assistant professor of psychiatry, molecular physiology and biophysics at Vanderbilt University Medical Centre -- Patel's overall research goal is to understand the role of neuronal cannabinoid signalling in brain function relevant to psychiatric disorders. Vikram Shyam, a member of the turbomachinery and heat-transfer branch at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Glenn Research Centre -- His research includes computational and experimental analysis of and concept development in unsteady engine flow physics, biomimetics, energy harvesting, active and passive flow control, flow visualisation and water purification. Rahul Mangharam, an associate professor in the department of electrical and systems engineering at the University of Pennsylvania -- His interests are in real-time scheduling algorithms for networked embedded systems with applications in energy-efficient buildings, automotive systems, medical devices and industrial wireless control networks. Shwetak Patel, endowed professor in computer science and engineering & electrical engineering at the University of Washington, where he directs his research group, the Ubicomp Lab -- His research interests are in the areas of human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing, sensor-enabled embedded systems, and user interface software & technology. His work includes developing new sensing systems, energy and water sensing, mobile health, and developing new interaction technologies. Sri Lanka's opposition on Friday said it has decided to oppose a proposed Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement (ECTA) with India. A statement by the opposition, which includes some members of the political party headed by President Maithripala Sirisena, said an economic and technical pact with India will make sense if Sri Lanka can obtain some technical or economic input from New Delhi which Colombo cannot provide for itself, Xinhua reported. However, the opposition said the present government seems to be intent on handing over to the Indians what can easily be done by locals. The opposition said that before any new agreement is entered into, the shortcomings in the existing Free Trade Agreement with India should be ironed out and bureaucratic blocks that Sri Lankan exporters have experienced in India should be eliminated. "In 2014, we imported $4,023 million worth of goods from India and exported goods worth only $625 million to India. After more than 15 years of FTA, Sri Lanka's largest export item to India is areca nut," the opposition said. "If the FTA with India was working as it should, nobody would object to further expanding economic cooperation with our neighbour. Furthermore, we believe that a satisfactory solution to the Indian fishermen's issue should be found before going on to other bilateral matters." The opposition called upon the Sri Lankan business community, professionals and the general public to oppose the "foreignisation" of the Sri Lankan economy by surreptitious means. The opposition said it believed that any foreign investment in Sri Lanka should be channelled into areas that Colombo was unable to develop on its own. Vietnamese authorities have started examining suspected plane debris, the media reported on Friday. The military command of Van Ninh district in Khanh Hoa province are examining the debris found by a local fisherman in Dai Lanh Commune, and initially thought that it came from an aircraft, Xinhua news agency reported citing Tuoi Tre Thanh pho Ho Chi Minh daily as saying. The 41-year-old fisherman Le Tan Binh said he found the aluminium debris with 3.1 metres in length, and nearly 100 km in weight on February 11 off Khanh Hoa's coast. However, he did not report the findings to local authorities. On Wednesday, a group of photographers came to Dai Lanh to take photos, heard about the debris and reported to local press. No further details about the findings were provided. The new Taiwanese parliament began its new session on Friday, with 30 priority bills, seeking a reform of the island's political system. The current Speaker, Su Jia-chyuan of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), will succeed ruling Kuomintang Party's (KMT) Wang Jin-pyng who led the legislative branch for the last 17 years, EFE news reported. With only 35 out of 113 seats, this is the first time in the history of Taiwan's Parliament that the KMT does not have an absolute majority. The DPP, with 68 of the 113 seats, seeks to enact laws of political transition, gradual phasing-out of nuclear energy, pension for the elderly and monitoring agreements with China, announced the party's parliamentary spokesperson Ker Chien-ming. Other projects led by the DPP include "transitional justice" and of opening secret government archives to the public, Ker added. The KMT, which for the first time in its history is in a minority in the Parliament, will support the priority projects of the government, a package of legislative reforms and reform of the law of parties and party properties, said its parliamentary chief, Lai Shyh-bao. With the start of the new parliamentary session in Taiwan, the island begins a transition period until May 20. The deployment of an advanced US missile system in South Korea in the wake of the launch of a satellite by North Korea earlier this month could raise tension in the region, a Russian expert has warned. The deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) "will lead to a dangerous increase in tension between the US and a number of Northeast Asian nations", Xinhua quoted Yevgeni Kim as saying on Thursday. Kim, a senior researcher at the Centre for Korean Studies of Russian Academy of Sciences, said the move was aimed at Russia and China, rather than Pyongyang as it claimed. Washington and Seoul started earlier this month to negotiate the deployment of THAAD to South Korea in response to the launch of a satellite by North Korea. The launch, which took place about a month after Pyongyang claimed it had successfully tested its first hydrogen bomb, raised serious concerns around the world as many considered it was a test of a ballistic missile that could be used to launch a nuclear weapon. Kim said though the US cited Pyongyang's move as a pretext for deploying THAAD, it is the North Korea's two bigger neighbours that THAAD is targeted. The THAAD system was designed to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles at an altitude of over 50 km, but if North Korea wanted to use nuclear weapons against South Korea, it would use rockets that fly at much lower altitudes, Kim said. "The deployment of the THAAD missile defence system in South Korea is not directed against Pyongyang. North Korea's nuclear activity is just an excuse," Kim said. Kim recalled the US and the Soviet Union signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty in 1972, which for a number of years contained the development of new missile defence systems. However the treaty was terminated as the United States withdrew in 2002. "Now the US is talking more and more about new missile defence areas and about the need for a global missile defence system," Kim said. He also noted that the US had not abandoned its plan to deploy missile systems in Europe even after the alleged Iranian missile threat, which the systems are said to counter, was gone. "Now they are applying the same pattern for the Korean peninsula," he said. Kim suggested that the deployment of the THAAD system in South Korea was aimed at intercepting Russian and Chinese ballistic missiles that could be launched in retaliation against a possible US nuclear strike. "It is a step that undermines the global balance of power, and the existing security system in Northeast Asia," Kim said. At least three terrorists have been captured in Kabul, the Afghan intelligence agency said on Friday. Three handguns and a huge amount of AK-47 bullets were found from them, Xinhua news agency quoted an official statement as saying, without specifying when the arrests took place. In addition, a would-be suicide bomber, Atta Mohammed, was arrested in Laghman province, the statement said. It said that the arrest had foiled a major terror attack. The Afghan security forces have stepped up security operations against militants as the Taliban has been trying to take territory and consolidate its position during winter in Afghanistan. Talks between Turkey and Israel over ending around nine years of Israeli blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip have made progress, a senior Islamic Hamas movement official said on Friday. Hamas deputy chief Ismail Heneya told a prayer congregation at one of Gaza city's mosques that the Turkish talks with Israel aim at speeding up the construction plan for Gaza and its seaport, Xinhua reported. Haneya did not give more details on the issue. However, a senior Turkish official had announced two days ago that talks on normalising ties between his country and Israel, that have been going on for a long time, have reached their final stage. Israel Public Radio reported that according to Turkish official, the two countries were very close to signing an agreement on all issues the two sides have been negotiating and discussing. Turkey had conditioned an end of the Israeli blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip for the normalisation of political and economical ties with Israel. The blockade was imposed in 2007, following Hamas's violent takeover of the coastal enclave. Meanwhile, Haneya said his movement's armed wing, al-Qassam Brigades, discovered listening devices and cameras underground to unveil the armed resistance tunnels that militants dig underneath Gaza. "Gaza has now a deterrence power for any upcoming confrontation with Israel," Haneya said, adding "there is no imminent war (with Israel) on Gaza in the horizon". He said the Israeli occupation is carrying out defensive manoeuvres "and this is a clear evidence that they (Israelis) are not preparing to wage a war on the Gaza Strip soon". Is the JNU incident part of a series of unfortunate events that have been unfolding since the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party took over in May 2014. There seems to be a pattern, and if the pattern is correct, we have a clear indication of what lies next. "Is this Narendra Modi's Theek hai moment?" a friend asked a couple of days ago, as we watched the pseudo-patriots performing at Patiala House. I had no difficulty understanding that apparently cryptic remark. Cast your mind back to the dim-distant past of December 2012; to the gang rape and murder of "Nirbhaya" and to the events it sparked off. Do you remember the crowds of young men and women marching through central Delhi asking for justice, for safety - indeed for any signs that an administration run by geriatrics cared for the youth? Those days, when the Delhi Police demonstrated its professional expertise at using expired tear-gas shells and water cannons? Finally, (drumroll!) Manmohan Singh spoke. It was the usual anodyne pap prime ministers dish out when they are compelled to make speeches they would much rather not. As Dr Singh wound down, and obviously after he thought the mike had been switched off, he asked "theek hai?" ("Was it ok?") it wasn't. The UPA continued to rule for another 16 months. But it had lost the youth vote. Mr Modi is reckoned a much better public speaker than his predecessor. No doubt, as and when he gets around to referring to the incidents that have dominated the headlines for the past few days, he will say memorable things. Grieving mothers, puppies, catchy acronyms - Mr Modi has already introduced so many new elements to public discourse. He is also unlikely to say something unguarded while the cameras are live. He is all too aware of when he is on display. But the BJP may indeed have lost a large chunk of the youth vote that fell into its lap after the 2012 gangrape. What interested me was that my friend did not refer to our esteemed prime minister as "Modiji" or as "Namo", or even as plain "Modi". He used one of the derogatory nicknames that are inevitably coined for any political personage. My friend is a businessman from West Delhi, the scion of a Punjabi refugee family. He is a diehard BJP supporter and an erstwhile "Namo" fan. If he's lost his reverence, there has been a tectonic shift in attitudes somewhere. A polarising figure may be an effective politician so long as the aura remains; if he or she is being referred to in comedic terms by erstwhile supporters, the aura has evaporated. Student agitations are peculiar things. They can change embedded political dispensations, (not always for the better) and even when they don't seem to work. In the 1960s students changed the map of the subcontinent. Students in Lahore and Karachi toppled Ayub Khan. In Dhaka, students helped bring Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to power (India's defence forces played a large role as well). The students who backed Jayaprakash Narayan in the 1970s helped force the Congress out after the Emergency. Some of them are part of the current dispensation. But they have either forgotten their youth, or they have little influence in decision-making. The Naxal ideologues of Bengal and Andhra set up a template for armed struggle, which continues to plague vast tracts of India to this day. The All Assam Students Union changed the politics of the Northeast's largest state. The Mandal movement led to an ongoing shift in the way political power is sliced up between castes and caste is certainly part of the text and subtext in the current narrative. The latest demonstrations were centred on JNU. But versions have been playing across India's campuses for a while. There have been multiple agitations across campuses, by student groups with nothing in common with JNU's esoteric politics. The government has displayed a tin ear in its responses by using the sedition law - and by encouraging lawyers who wear their political affiliations on their sleeves to display utter contempt for the Constitution. The Modi Sarkar has over three years of its term to run. But it may well have already sown the seeds of defeat. Twitter: @devangshudatta The Fortis Healthcare stock rose 12 per cent on reports that the company was in talks for an investment in diagnostics subsidiary SRL. While Fortis clarified it was talking to investors to facilitate the exit of existing private equity investors in SRL, there were other triggers as well. Fortis Healthcare had increased its stake in SRL by 3.1 per cent to 57 per cent in September 2015 for Rs 105 crore. The transaction valued SRL at Rs 3,394 crore, much lower than what the Street was estimating. JPMorgan analysts had estimated SRL's valuation at Rs 4,864 crore, valuing the company at 20 times its enterprise value to operating profit. Given that its size of operations is of the same scale as that of Dr Lal PathLabs, a re-rating was already on the cards with new entrant on the bourses boasting of Rs 7,000 crore market capitalisation. The company had reported a 28 per cent margin in the September 2015 quarter, too. The other trigger is that while the management has indicated a bit of volatility due to seasonality, SRL has set a goal to expand margins to 30 per cent levels over the medium term. SRL continues to rationalise its portfolio with a focus on balanced growth. It opened 24 new laboratories and 45 collection centres in east and south India, while shutting down two laboratories and 38 collection centres in the December 2015 quarter. On the revenue growth front, SRL expects growth to be at 20 per cent levels in FY17. SRL accounts for 17.5 per cent of Fortis revenues and 24.5 per cent of the overall operating profit as there is a 800-basis point margin gap between SRL and the larger hospitals business. Margin expansion of the hospitals business (current margins at 14.3 per cent before business trust costs, in line with peer Apollo Hospitals) coupled with improvement in SRL could lead to a re-rating of the stock, which currently at 15 times its FY18 enterprise value to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation estimates is trading at a 20 per cent discount to market leader Apollo Hospitals. Of the 13 analysts tracking the stock, 10 have a buy rating, with a target price of Rs 214, which from the current levels offers a return of 22 per cent. A chance conversation with a domestic worker the other day made me realise that there are times when even the most positive social change can inadvertently inflict collateral damage. Here's what happened. So who is he talking to in the Indian ad world for a takeover? I have known Sandeep Goyal, founder chairman of Dentsu India, for over a decade now, which is why I am going straight for the most important question at the beginning of our lunch meeting. As everyone knows, India is business heaven. We dont rest on piffling perfection, however, and invite you to invest your money in the many more booming opportunities we are determined to think up. Do stop mumbling about Vodafone and check out this very cool lion! Look, weve had a bad few months in the anti-national paid media. There was a bit of bad business with beef. We tanked in Bihar. The Delhi chief minister took our raid badly. There was a slight national security cockup at an air base. Then a student called Rohith Vemula offed himself in Hyderabad, and everyone jumped down our throat. The stock market has been feeling poorly, and the rupee Look, please just give us your money?Just promise to, so that we can put a bit of good news in the papers. Thank you! We just concluded our huge investment-attracting #MakeInIndia week in Mumbai, and boy, was it a big impressive jamboree. Heres how it went. The Jawaharlal Nehru University-Kanhaiya Kumar-Delhi Police story takes me back exactly 35 years, to that fraught 1981 when I covered the Northeast as five insurgencies raged. Any number of insurgents, merely described as ANEs (anti-national elements) or UGs ("undergrounds") in official briefings, were caught, interrogated and often killed. It was easier to do all of the above than file a sedition case against anybody. It also led to situations of incredible stupidity. While many recent events bear out Samuel Johnson's famous pronouncement that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, the bigger question centres around the future climate of the country we live in. The formal political future is safe after a fashion. Governance might become ever more presidential, but the trappings of the parliamentary structure will survive. The social ambience is a different matter. Even self-professed independent TV anchors take their cue from the ruling party and jabber on about "anti-national" and "seditious" slogans when reporting protests against an official action like Mohammed Afzal Guru's hanging, forgetting that the country and the government of the day are two different entities. "Loud thunder, little rain" is supposed to be an old Chinese saying. Nothing would describe the Modi government better. There can be no doubt that, in 21 months, it has been able to register improvement on several economic fronts. But the tendency to make exaggerated claims diverts attention from what is real, and affects credibility. Last week, Mr Modi was back to doing what he does best: organising a spectacle. As is usual with such shows, the investment promises emanating from a 'Make in India' week were vastly exaggerated. Maharashtra, for instance, is said to have signed more than 3,000 Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with the potential to create three million jobs. In a curious irony, Justice Antonin Scalia of the US Supreme Court passed away on the eve of Valentine's Day. Justice Scalia, widely regarded as a conservative champion in the court, was one of the dissenters to the legalisation of the gay marriage verdict delivered by the court last year. Vice-President and chairman of the Rajya Sabha, M Hamid Ansari, has called a meeting of leaders of all parties in the Upper House to ensure smooth passage of the Budget session. Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan has also called the customary all-party meeting on Monday. The Rajya Sabha chairman isnt known to call an all-party meeting before a Parliament session but Ansari has reached out to the parties to ensure the upcoming session transacts business and doesnt meet a fate similar to the previous two sessions. The Budget session will start on Tuesday and continue until the second week of May, with a month-long recess. The Vice-President had held an informal meeting with leaders of Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday as well. Ansari has time and again spoken out about the need to change the rules of procedures and business of the Rajya Sabha to ensure smooth functioning of the House. Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu has also called an all-party meeting on Tuesday. Naidu had met leaders of all parties on February 4. Earlier this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, had met leaders of all political parties. The opposition is likely to raise the issues of the suicide of Rohith Vemula, while the BJP is keen to discuss the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) row. Several key reform Bills, including the goods and services tax (GST) Constitution amendment Bill, are pending before Parliament. Opposition parties are also likely to raise the issue of the Centre undermining the autonomy of the institutions. The Rail Budget will be presented on February 25, the Economic Survey on February 26 and the General Budget on February 29. The session will break for a recess from March 17 to April 24. At a meeting convened by the PM on February 16, Modi assured all Opposition parties that their concerns would be addressed. The government has been unable to push through its legislative agenda because of frequent disruption of the proceedings of the two Houses, particularly the Rajya Sabha, where the BJP-led Democratic Alliance (NDA) is in a minority. At the end of the winter session, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said how an un-elected House could overrule the mandate of the elected House. In the winter session, the Rajya Sabha saw passage of nine Bills, but lost 47 hours due to disruptions caused almost every day by the Congress, which raised one issue after another. The Lok Sabha performed slighter better as it passed 13 Bills and saw discussions on various issues such as price rise, floods and drought, despite repeated uproar by the Congress over several matters. Delhi Police has seized 1,620 kg of banned red sandalwood worth around Rs one crore from a locality in west Delhi. The police said it received a tip-off that the banned red sandalwood was being dumped at a godown in Mundka here, and later a team of cops and forest officials recovered 56 logs. Deputy Commissioner of Police (West Delhi) Pushpendra Kumar said the plot owner in Mundka could not be traced and on breaking open the lock of the room, 56 wood logs of banned red sandal weighing 1,620 kg, worth around Rs one crore, were found and they were taken into police possession. An FIR was registered at Mundka Police Station under the provisions of the IPC and the Indian Forest Act. Police said further investigation is in progress to find out the sources, sellers and receivers of the red sandals logs. Haryana government today said the Centre has given its approval to set up 10 clusters to boost the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector in the state. "Special focus is being laid on the traditional clusters, rural functional clusters and thrust or focus clusters," Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said. The central government has accorded approval for setting up of six clusters and in principal approval has been granted for four clusters of MSMEs, he added. He said there are a total of 92,525 MSMEs in the state and out of these 2,835 such units have been set up during last 15 months tenure of present state government. These have catalyzed an investment of Rs 2,297 crore and provided employment to 50,730 youth in the State. He said that special emphasis is being laid on 'Make in Haryana' on the pattern of 'Make in India' programme launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The state government has implemented new Enterprises Promotion Policy - 2015. He said the aim is to exceed the growth rate of State's Gross Domestic Product by more than eight per cent, create employment opportunities for four lakh youth and attracting investment of Rs 1 lakh crore. Khattar was speaking at a Regional Conclave on MSMEs, Northern Region organised by Union Ministry of MSMEs here. The conclave was presided over by union minister Kalraj Mishra. Describing MSMEs as the backbone of any State, he said the state government, under its new Enterprises Promotion Policy, has identified a number of areas for setting up of MSMEs. These included auto, auto components and light engineering, agro-based, food processing and allied industry, textiles, apparel, knitting, embroidery, technical textiles, footwear and accessories, electronics and IT/ITES, defence and aerospace manufacturing, renewable energy and solar parks, pharmaceutical and chemical industry. MSMEs not only provide maximum employment opportunities to the youth with less investment but also ensure industrialisation in the rural areas, he added. He said that under this policy, emphasis has been laid on minimising the cost of business to encourage innovation and entrepreneurship and promote MSMEs. He said that for the rejuvenation and protection of traditional industries, Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries (SFURTI) has been implemented in the State. Similarly, the youth were encouraged to set up MSMEs under the Prime Minister Employment Generation Programme. "We are committed to create an atmosphere of ease of doing business", said the Chief Minister adding that for this, various processes have been simplified by using Information Technology at a large scale. He said that minimum inspection and maximum facilities is the base of our new Enterprises Promotion Policy. A 16-year-old boy from Bihar had the gift of sight restored to him in what doctors described as a special and rare achievement after a tumour inside his brain that was causing him to lose his vision was removed at a city hospital. Ashish Ranjhan first complained of blurred vision in his right eye in December last year. Despite repeated consultations with the ophthalmologist, the vision in his right eye continued to dim until it was lost completely. As his condition continued to deteriorate, an MRI revealed the presence of a tumour, which needed to be surgically removed. Gradually, the boy completely lost his vision in both the eyes and there was no perception of light and no pupil action for more than two-and-a-half-months in the right eye and about a week in his left eye, doctors said. The boy was then brought here for treatment and admitted at a private hospital on February 13 where a team of doctors concluded that there was an urgent need to surgically remove the tumour. "The tumour was growing and progressively affecting the optic nerve. Further delay in removing it could have been extremely dangerous as tumours in the brain can affect a patient in unforeseen ways. "Though we decided to remove the tumour, we were not sure of the possibility of saving his vision since not many cases in medical history have shown us a reversal of damaged vision in such cases," said Dr VS Mehta, Director, Neurosciences at Paras Hospitals, Gurgaon. His parents were counselled about the boy's condition and the operation was conducted immediately thereafter. Following a surgery that lasted four hours, the tumour was successfully removed and it was also found that the procedure had led to the fortunate restoration of the boy's vision. Doctors said that the reversal and restoration of vision in both his eyes was a "special and rare achievement in such cases". Two brothers were killed today when their tractor trolley overturned in Karauli district of Rajasthan, police said. Kuldeep Singh Meena (25) and Prem Singh Meena (22) were on their way to a nearby town from Dholpur to sell potatoes in the tractor trolley which overturned at a place in Mansalpur police station area, they said. The bodies were handed over to family members after postmortem, police added. Three Palestinian attackers were killed in separate assaults on Israeli forces today, including a stabbing attack in Jerusalem's Old City that left two Israeli officers wounded before one of them overpowered and killed the attacker. The assaults were the latest in a five month-long wave of Palestinian violence that shows no sign of abating. In the Jerusalem attack, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the 20-year-old Palestinian "walked through Damascus Gate and then turned around with a knife in his hand, ran at the officers and attacked them." One of the officers suffered knife wounds to the head, she said, the other was cut in the hand and struggled with the attacker before shooting him. Palestinian attackers have carried out numerous assaults at the Damascus Gate over the past five months, prompting Israel to significantly beef up security there in response. The other two attacks today took place in the West Bank during clashes with soldiers. A Palestinian rammed his car into Israeli troops during a "violent riot" near the West Bank city of Ramallah before troops opened fire and killed him, the military said. Later, in separate clashes near Bethlehem, also in the West Bank, the military said two Palestinians shot at soldiers who returned fire, killing one and wounding the other. The assaults were the latest in months of near-daily Palestinian attacks against civilians and security personnel, mostly stabbings, shootings and attacks in which cars are used to ram into Israelis. Since mid-September, 28 Israelis have been killed. During that time, 165 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire, the majority said by Israel to be attackers. The rest died in clashes with security forces. Earlier today, mourners gathered for the funeral of an off-duty soldier, 21-year-old Sgt. Tuvia Yanai Weissman, who was stabbed to death the day before by two Palestinian teenagers who attacked him and another shopper in a West Bank supermarket. The U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem said Weissman was an American citizen. In Washington, State Department spokesman Mark Toner also said today that Weisman was a U.S. Citizen. Toner condemned Thursday's attack, saying it underscores the need for Israelis and Palestinians to reject violence, reduce tensions and restore calm. The Rami Levy supermarket, popular with both Israeli and Palestinian shoppers has been targeted by Palestinian attackers before over the past months of violence. It is located in the West Bank, territory Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 war that the Palestinians demand for part of their future state, a position that has global support. As many as 3477 devotees would attend the annual St Anthony's Church festival to be held at Katchatheevu on February 21, according to the priest of the church, Justin. He further said the pilgrims would arrive in 92 boats for the festival. Food for the pilgrims would be provided by the Sri Lankan officials. Meanwhile, Ramanathapuram District Collector Natarajan warned pilgrims against carrying with them any banned articles including liquor. The pilgrims should board and alight only at Rameswaram harbour, he said. Officials including Joint director of Fisheries Amala Xavier inspected the boats that are scheduled to leave for Katchatheevu on February 20 morning. Four naxals, including a woman ultra, were killed in an encounter between security forces and Maoists at a village bordering Nawadih jungle near here late last night, a police officer said today. The encounter took place at Ghagrabeda village, about 35 km from Ranchi, on Ranchi-Jamshedpur National Highway 33 last night, Superintendent of Police (Rural), Raj Kumar Lakra said. Lakra said two policemen who sustained injuries, were airlifted to Ranchi at midnight where they were undergoing treatment. Their condition was stated to be out of danger. Acting on a tip-off about the movement of a group of Naxals who had assembled in the jungle, security personnel comprising district armed police and CRPF rushed to the spot, Lakra said. The rebels opened fire on them and the security personnel retaliated killing four naxals including a woman, he said, adding that the bodies have been recovered and two SLRs and two 303 rifles were recovered. Some other naxals were suspected to have sustained injuries in the encounter, which lasted for a couple of hours, but managed to escape, Lakra said, adding that a massive search operation was launched this morning to trace them. A section of advocates today boycotted the courts observing today as a "black day" protesting the police lathi charge on advocates in the Madras High Court premises on February 19, 2009. On February 19, 2009, police tried to arrest some lawyers in connection with the attack on then Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy in the court sparking off the protest by the advocates who resented the police action. A large number of advocates started pelting stones at the police prompting the police to wield their batons. Several advocates and judges were injured and several vehicles damaged in the incident. The boycott however did not affected functioning of the Court proceedings. An air strike by an unidentified warplane today killed more than 40 people near the Libyan capital where suspected members of the Islamic State group were gathered in a house, officials said. The house in Sabratha was completely destroyed in the raid, said Hussein al-Dawadi, an official in the city located about 70 kilometres west of Tripoli near the border with Tunisia. A Western official quoted by the New York Times said US warplanes carried out the strike targeting a senior Tunisian operative linked to two major jihadist attacks in Tunisia last year. Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi continued to face protests over lending support to the JNU agitation with ABVP workers trying to stall his entry into his constituency waving black flags and asking him to go back. After a visit to Rae Bareli late yesterday, Gandhi arrived here today to stiff opposition from the protesting ABVP workers led by district unit president Neeraj Singh. More than a dozen activists of Bhartiya Janta Yuva Morcha (BJYM) were rounded up and some were also taken into custody by Amethi police for raising slogans against the Congress Vice President, Inspector in-charge SK Mishra said, adding that the decision to release them will be taken later. ABVP's district head alleged that some workers received minor injuries in the process and also claimed that Gandhi's arrival to the town was delayed by three hours because of the protests. BJP youth wing leader Sudhanshu Shukla also alleged that some Congress workers clashed with them, when they were protesting against allowing entry to Gandhi in the district for his "anti-national" statements. Some BJP activists led by district party leader Chandra Mauli Singh burnt an effigy of Rahul here. Yesterday, Rahul had faced similar protests when he arrived in Lucknow to attend the Congress party's Dalit conclave. Delhi's Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) today raided the office of the city government's Subordinate Services Selection Board in connection with alleged irregularities in examinations conducted by the board. "A team was sent at the board's office at Karkardooma to collect relevant documents, as evidence in connection with the case," said Joint Commissioner of Police M K Meena, who is also the chief of the ACB. Yesterday, the ACB had registered a case under the Prevention of Corruption Act, based on a complaint alleging malpractice and irregularities committed during examinations conducted by DSSSB for the post of Grade-III level officials. The complainant had submitted to ACB, a list of allegations including that people in the board made money by selecting candidates through "unfair means". The other charge levelled on it is that almost half of the selected candidates have police records related to paper leaks in connection with UPSC, SSC and DSSB examinations earlier. Also, out of the 42 selected candidates, 21 were close relatives, 70 per cent of them were resident of outer Delhi areas which include Narela, Bawana and Kanjhawla and belonged to same community, the complainant alleged. The complaint said that candidates were asked to report at the board's examination centre at Shakarpur with ulterior motives, on the pretext of maintaining sanctity of the examination. The selected canditates also have their roll numbers in sequence and all of them have scored marks which the person sitting a seat ahead of them scored in the examination, the complaint said. The February 9 event in support of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru at Jawaharlal Nehru University was carried out under a false pretext, according to a professor at the university. "It was done on a false pretext. People who wanted to hold that event said they would conduct a poetry reading and that there would be seven people. It was called 'A Country Without a Post Office'. Instead it became a commemoration for Afzal Guru. So it was done on the false pretext," Makarand Paranjape, a member of JNU Teachers' Association, said. He said this while participating in the Sahitya Akademi's ongoing National Festival of Letters. Paranjape was critical of the lack of action against the organisers on the part of the university over the use of such "subterfuge" and expressed surprise at the condemnation of the arrest of JNU Students' Union President Kanhaiya Kumar. "I am a member of JNUTA. No resolution was passed condemning that misuse, that subterfuge which was used but there was a condemnation of the arrest of a student? I am also very regretful that happened," he said. He was speaking at a session titled, "Freedom of Expression" organised by Sahitya Akademi as part of its annual national seminar. He also questioned the absence of protests in JNU during the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from their homes and the recent lynching of a RSS pracharak in Kerala. "I don't want to wash dirty linen in public but many people and their families were displaced and driven out of their homes in Kashmir. There were no protests in JNU when that happened. But to commemorate Afzal Guru there were protests. "Whether you accept capital punishment or not is a different issue. You are using the ideas of democracy and dissent to justify the commemoration of those who want to destroy the Indian democracy. So are we trying to say that when we do not 'tolerate' the commemoration, the deification of a persons such as Afzal Guru, we are being intolerant?" Paranjape asserted that it was important for the students at JNU, which is considered an institution of "national integration", to study and not do politics or they will be "neither here nor there". "I tell my students, 'have you come to JNU to do politics or to study because in the end you will be neither here nor there. The cadres will be picked up and patronised but what about the majority of you from the middle and lower middle class who have to earn a living?" He claimed that most students spend four to five years in the university but don't attend classes because "attendance is not compulsory", and by the time the course ends they "are incompetent to face the world because they don't have any skills". Air India today announced the launch of non-stop flight services to Vienna from New Delhi following the Austrian Airlines' decision to opt out of the route for unspecified reasons. Starting from April 6, the national carrier would operate flights three times a week to the Austrian capital city, Air India Director for Commercial Pankaj Srivastava told reporters here. The new route would be serviced by the 256-seater Dreamliner Boeing 787-800 plane with 18 business class seats and the rest in economy, he said. "Air India has taken a conscious decision to grow further in the European market and operate as a dominant player on the (new) route," Srivastava said while announcing the new flight in the presence of Air India Chairman and Managing Director Ashwani Lohani. The government-run airline currently operates 58 flights from Delhi and Mumbai to seven major European destinations, of which 51 flights take off from the national capital. Both Air India and Austrian Airlines, a subsidiary of German aviation major Lufthansa, are members of the global airlines' club Star Alliance. "We are also in talks with the Austrian Airlines for operating code share flights as we aim to offer seamless connections to our passengers from New Delhi to 25 European cities beyond Vienna," Srivastava said. Code-sharing allows an airline to book its passengers on its partner carriers and provide seamless transport to multiple destinations where it has no presence. The Austrian Airlines, which yesterday announced opting out of the route, currently operates five weekly service to Vienna and will continue till the first week of April. As a standard practice, airlines generally first evaluate the viability of a new route with a feasibility study which may take about six months' time. Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar is in favour of central universities hoisting the the national flag in their campuses. Human Resource Development Ministry led by Smriti Irani recently said that all central universities will fly the national flag on a 207 feet high mast at a prominent place on their campuses. The 48-year-old "Airlift" star took to Twitter to welcome the decision made by the ministry. "Totally with the decision of the Tricolour being hoisted at all Central Universities and why not it brings out the best in us, inspires us to soar high," he wrote. The move came in the backdrop of the massive controversy over alleged anti-India protests in JNU "prominently and proudly" to signify a "strong India". Apparently concerned over the virtual wash out of last two sessions, Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari has called a meeting of leaders of all parties in the Upper House tomorrow amid possibility of a tumultuous Budget session beginning February 23. This is perhaps the first such formal pre-session meeting convened by the Rajya Sabha Chairman. Significantly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also been invited for the meeting, which aims at ensuring a smooth three-month long session. Ansari had also held an informal meeting with leaders of Congress and BJP in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday as well. Rajya Sabha, where the government lacks majority, had seen repeated disruption in the Monsoon and Winter sessions with Congress and several other opposition parties blocking key economic reform measures of the Modi government. Repeatedly voicing his anguish over the disruptions, Ansari had in the past even toyed with the idea of possible changes in rules for smooth running of the House. As the Winter session of Rajya Sabha was adjourned sine die on December 23, Ansari had lamented that the record of this session belied the commitment to the principles of the Constitution "in good measure". Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu have also called separate all-party meetings on February 22, a day before the crucial session begins. Naidu had also held a meeting of leaders of a number of opposition parties on February 4 where it was decided to have a full-length session and not to go for any curtailment of its duration even as assembly elections in five states are scheduled in between. The government is keen to push its legislative agenda in the Budget session, including the pending bills on GST and real estate thwarted in the last two sessions, while the opposition is raring to target it on a host of issues, including the JNU row, dalit scholar Rohith Vemula's suicide, imposition of President's Rule in Arunachal Pradesh, terror attacks in Pathankot and Gurdaspur. Raising questions over the process of the appointment of Vice Chancellors of JNU and Delhi University, a number of opposition parties have come together against the government, accusing it of "undermining" the autonomy of the institutions. Naidu had last month met Congress President Sonia Gandhi seeking cooperation for the early passage of the crucial GST and the real estate bills. The Budget session of Parliament will commence on February 23 and will focus largely on the financial business of the government. The General Budget will be presented on February 29. Government is expected to impose of up to 44.74% on imports of plastic-processing machines from Chinese Taipei, the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam. 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) has concluded that "plastic-processing machines or injection-moulding machines" are entering the Indian market from these countries at throw-away prices. The performance of the domestic industry has deteriorated due to the impact of dumped imports, according to the findings. "... The authority (DGAD) considers it necessary and appropriate to recommend imposition of on imports of (the) goods from these countries," the commerce ministry said in a notification. DGAD, the nodal agency under the commerce ministry for such investigations, has recommended an in the range of 6.06-44.74%. "Accordingly, anti-dumping duty as a percentage of the landed value of the goods... Is recommended to be imposed on all imports of subject goods originating in or exported from the subject countries for five years from the date of notification to be issued in this regard by the central government," it added. While DGAD recommends the duty, the finance ministry imposes it. Countries initiate anti-dumping probe to determine if the domestic industry has been hurt by a surge in below-cost imports. As a counter-measure, they impose duties under the multilateral WTO regime. Anti-dumping measures are taken to ensure fair trade and provide a level-playing field to the domestic industry. They are not a measure to restrict imports or cause an unjustified increase in cost of products. Amrita University, run by Mata Amritanandamayi Trust, has come forward to set up a world-class medical university at Amaravati, the new Capital region of Andhra Pradesh. The Trust will also set up a 2250-bedded "multi super speciality" hospital, research and healthcare complex attached to the university, a communication from the Chief Minister's Office said. Representatives of Mata Amritanandamayi Institute of Medical Sciences met Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu here this evening and discussed the proposals, it added. They also submitted a detailed project report to the Chief Minister. The "mega project" would be taken up at a cost of Rs 2,500 crore, the CMO said, adding that Naidu had earlier requested Mata Amritanandamayi to set up the medical university in the new Capital region. This would be the second mega project in the medical and health sector in the Capital region as a British firm already came forward with a plan to set up a health city, the CMO communication said. The prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences is also coming up at Mangalagiri that forms part of the capital region. Army was today called in for deployment in eight districts of Haryana after one person was killed and 21 were injured in police action as Jat stir for quota turned violent and the rampaging mobs set ablaze the house of state's Finance Minister besides several government and private properties. Protestors also took some police personnel captive besides going on rampage at many places including Rohtak, Jhajjar and Hansi targeting police and private vehicles, buildings housing offices, including two Toll Plazas at Hansi in Hissar district and near Rohtak, both located on the Delhi-Hisar-Fazilka Highway. The agitation, which has been going on for last few days, escalated and turned violent soon after an all-party meeting held by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar issued an appeal for calling it off but it was rejected by the protesters. Khattar gave an assurance that a solution will be worked out to extend reservation to the community. ALSO READ: What the Jat agitation is all about One protestor was killed in Rohtak when the BSF personnel opened fire in "self-defence" after someone from the rampaging mob fired at and injured a BSF jawan, Haryana DGP Yashpal Singhal told a press conference in Chandigarh. Since the situation was going out of control, army has been called in for deployment in eight worst-affected districts -- Rohtak, Jhajjar, Jind, Bhiwani, Hissar, Kaithal, Panipat and Sonipat, the state police chief said. About 20 companies (about 2000 personnel) of central para military forces (CPMF) have been sought from the Centre, police said. Today, for the first time, the rail and road traffic on the Delhi Ambala Highway and mainline railway route was also blocked by protestors at various places including in Sonipat district. A number of local, short distance and long distance trains, including Kalka Chandigarh Delhi Shatabdi have been cancelled in view of the Jats agitation. The DGP said police personnel were taken captive by the large number of protestors at some places including Rohtak and the cops were unable to perform their duties. Army was called in today in nine districts of Haryana and curfew was imposed in two districts along with shoot-at-sight orders after one person died and 25 were injured during the Jat stir for quota which turned violent with mobs resorting to widespread arson. The Centre also rushed 1,000 personnel of paramilitary forces as rampaging mobs held some policemen captive besides setting ablaze the house of state's Finance Minister Abhimanyu and several government and private properties in Rohtak, Jhajjar, Hansi and several other parts of the state. The agitationists, who are seeking reservation under Economically Backward Classes, also targeted police and private vehicles, buildings housing offices, including two Toll Plazas at Hansi in Hissar district and near Rohtak, both located on the Delhi-Hisar-Fazilka National Highway. One protestor was killed in Rohtak when the BSF personnel opened fire in "self-defence" after someone from the rampaging mob fired at and injured a BSF jawan, Haryana DGP Yashpal Singhal told a press conference in Chandigarh. Since the situation was going out of control, army has been called in for deployment in eight worst-affected districts -- Rohtak, Jhajjar, Jind, Bhiwani, Hissar, Kaithal, Panipat and Sonipat, the state police chief said. Army is also being rushed to Karnal, army sources said in Delhi, while informing that nine columns are being sent altogether. Tonight, curfew was imposed in city limit areas of Rohtak and Bhiwani city limit areas, an official spokesman told PTI. The agitation, which has been going on for last few days, escalated and turned violent soon after an all-party meeting held by Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar issued an appeal for calling it off. The protesters rejected the appeal even as Khattar gave an assurance that a solution will be worked out to extend reservation to the community. Army units were being rushed to Rohtak from nearby Cantonment at Hissar, about 50 kms away, the official spokesman said, adding these will be deployed immediately in Rohtak and Bhiwani areas. He said army units are also being rushed from Jaipur for deployment in other worst-affected areas of the state. The army will assist the civil administration in restoring peace and law and order which worsened today shortly after an all party meeting here where an appeal was made for maintaining peace. Two senior civil and police officers - Principal Secretary (Home) A K Singh and ADGP of Haryana Police B S Sandhu - have been rushed to Rohtak to coordinate with the army and the civil administration to restore normalcy. The camp office of BJP MLA Manish Grover in Rohtak was also set on fire tonight. Authorities in Post Graduate Institute of Medical Science & Hospital, Rohtak, said 19 of the 25 injured people admitted there had bullet injuries. "One person who was critical has been operated upon and his condition is now stable," they said. Besides stationing Principal Secretary (Home) A K Singh and ADGP B S Sandhu at Rohtak, government has rushed six other senior IPS officers to other districts. They are Paramjit Singh Ahlawat (Sonipat), B K Sinha (Jind), K K Rao (Jhajjar), P K Aggarwal (Bhiwani), O P Singh (Kaithal) and K K Sindhu (Panipat). The main impact of the Jats' agitation is in various districts of the state including Rohtak, Jhajjar, Bhiwani, Hissar, Fatehabad, Karnal, Jind, Yamuna Nagar, Sirsa and Gurgaon where road transport has come to a halt. Today, for the first time, the rail and road traffic on the Delhi Ambala National Highway and mainline railway route was also blocked by protestors at various places including in Sonipat district. A number of local, short distance and long distance trains, including Kalka Chandigarh Delhi Shatabdi have been cancelled in view of the Jats agitation. The DGP said police personnel were taken captive by the large number of protestors at some places including Rohtak and the cops were unable to perform their duties. In Rohtak, the protesters set on fire the residence of Finance Minister Abhimanyu, police said, adding a car parked outside the house was also set on fire. In view of this incident, security in and around the residences of ministers and legislators has been beefed up, officials said. The protesters, who had gathered at the Rohtak bye-pass road of Delhi Hissar National Highway, also allegedly attacked police vehicles which were parked there in which window panes were damaged, officials said. The security personnel deployed there had to use force, including firing, to control the violent mob. The Circuit House and the office of Inspector General of Police (IGP), Rohtak. Were also attacked by the protestors who pelted stones on the buildings. A car parked at the IGP office was also damaged, officials said. A police vehicle and some private vehicles, including a two wheeler, were also set on fire. The scooter of a person who was taking a sick to a local hospital was also set on fire by the protestors. Elsewhere in various places in the state, protestors deflated tyres of cars of a number of people trying to travel on various National and State Highways in the state. Haryana Roadways has suspended its local and inter-state bus services in the affected districts. Mobile internet services have also been suspended in various districts including Rohtak and Jhajjar. (Reopens DEL69) Meanwhile, reacting to protests by Jat community, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal accused the BJP of playing "caste politics" and dividing Haryana between Jats and non-Jats. "pl maintain peace. BJP is playing caste politics dividing Haryana into Jats n non-Jats. Pl don't fall into BJP's trap n stay united(sic)," Kejriwal tweeted. A Supreme Court judge today recused himself from hearing a plea seeking CBI probe into the mysterious disappearance of a prosecution witness and assaults on other witnesses in a rape case involving controversial self-styled godman Asaram Bapu. Justice U U Lalit who was part of the bench headed by Chief Justice of India T S Thakur recused himself without citing any reason. The matter was posted for further on February 26, before a bench in which Justice U U Lalit is not a member. The plea filed by activist Bennet Castelino sought CBI probe into the mysterious disappearance of key prosecution witness Rahul Sachan since November 25 last year. Sachan was also stabbed in Jodhpur court on February 13, 2015 where he was summoned as prosecution witness in the case. "It is a matter of concern that coincidentally important Prosecution Witnesses are being killed or assaulted in this case. It is likely that Prosecution Witnesses have personal knowledge of events that can expose a history of sexual abuse that many minor children and women have been exposed to," the plea said. The petition further said that Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat governments were conducting parallel probes into Sachan's disappearance but till date he has not been traced. "He was in constant touch with the Petitioner and had told the Petitioner that in case there is no contact with him, the Petitioner must immediately alert the police authorities and make an application to the Supreme Court for a probe as he feared for his life," it said. The petition further said since November 21, 2015 there has been no contact with Sachan and UP police has been following this case. "Till date there is no success in tracing Rahul Sachan and the petitioner fears that due to its wide ramifications, delays and complexity only Respondent 5 (CBI) can probe this disappearance," it said. The petition further said, "It is not the case of the Petitioner that the Accused are involved in the deaths and threats of Prosecution Witnesses but the Petitioner seeks that all witnesses in these cases be protected by the CISF (Central Industrial Security Force) and all cases related to the deaths and threats to witnesses be investigated by the CBI and, if need be, under the monitoring of this Court. Coming down heavily on Delhi Police, an NHRC probe team today said that the physical assault on JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar in the court premises appeared to have been "organised and pre-planned". It also said Kumar was subjected to psychological pressure and was made to issue a statement before he appeared in the court, owing allegiance to Constitution which was dictated by police. "Kanhaiya Kumar was abused and physically assaulted by some persons dressed as advocates in the Patiala House court premises on February 17. "He was even physically assaulted inside the adjoining court room in the presence of police who did not do anything to prevent the assault or apprehend the attackers even though they were identified by Kanhaiya Kumar then and there. The physical assault on Kumar in the court premises appears to be organized and pre-planned," a report submitted to the NHRC by a fact-finding team of the Commission said. The NHRC team said what happened in the Patiala House court complex on Wednesday when Kumar was attacked was a major security lapse on the part of the police. "There was serious dereliction of duty on the part of the police. Going by the sequence of events, the safety and security of Kanhaiya and his family members is a serious cause of concern," the committee said. In a damning indictment of the police, it said the statement which was issued by the force as an appeal on behalf of Kumar was not written by him voluntarily. "The content, construction and framework of the statement were as dictated by the police." The panel, which visited Kumar in Tihar jail yesterday, quoted him as having said that he was arrested without any valid reason and without disclosing to him even grounds of arrest. "He had not committed any offences as now alleged. However, this aspect is under investigation by the police. Kumar did not complain of any physical assault by the police while in custody. However, he was subjected to psychological pressure during interrogation," it said. A copy of the inquiry report submitted by the NHRC team has been forwarded to Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi and the Director General of Tihar Jail. The Commission which had earlier issued notices to the Union Home Secretary, Delhi Chief Secretary, Delhi Police Commissioner and Registrar of Jawaharlal Nehru University, sent the team to Tihar to ascertain the treatment meted out to Kumar by the police and prison authorities while in custody. It was also tasked with ascertaining whether the statement released to the press by the Delhi Police Commissioner in the name of Kumar was made by him voluntarily and without any extraneous influence. The team formed following direction of NHRC Acting Chief Cyriac Joseph, comprised the Commission's Registrar (Law) C K Chaturvedi, and S K Jain, SSP (Investigation). It said Tihar has made special arrangements to ensure safety and security of Kumar and that he has been kept in an independent and separate cell. "Dedicated security staff has been deployed to ensure his safety and security round the clock. Several security instructions have been issued by the prison authorities in this regard. With concerns being expressed over standard of Ayush medicines, the Centre today asked states to equip their regulatory framework and infrastructure to meet the quality requirements prescribed by law. "We are very much concerned about the weak control and sale of sub-standard and spurious Ayush medicines. In every Parliament session, we get a lot of questions on sub-standard drugs and quality," Union Minister of State for AYUSH, Shripad Naik said. Particularly, complaints about misleading advertisements and tall claims of Ayush medicines have been brought to "our notice by Ministries of Consumer Affairs and Information and Broadcasting and Drug Controller General," he said addressing a conference on Ayush here. "Quality control of Ayush drugs is statutory requirement in accordance to the quality requirement in provisions of Drug and Cognitive Act. Unfortunately, on this front, focussed efforts have not been made in the enforcement mechanism by states to ensure manufacturing and sale of quality-assured medicines," he said. The Ayush Minister rued that several states do not send Action Taken Report despite several advisories and directives. "I call upon all state authorities to equip their regulatory framework and add up their infrastructure facilities and technical manpower," Naik said. Noting that there are several financial constraints being faced by the states in building up infrastructure, he suggested that they can avail funds under National Ayush Mission for the facilities. Dropping controversial Delhi Police chief B S Bassi from the list of contenders, three former bureaucrats were today chosen Commissioners in Central Information Commission by a selection panel led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Former Information and Broadcasting Secretary Bimal Julka, Gujarat cadre IAS officer Amitava Bhattacharya and former Special Director of Intelligence Bureau D P Sinha have been selected as Information Commissioners in the transparency panel, official sources said. The decision to drop Bassi's candidature was taken in the face of stiff opposition from Congress Leader in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge. Kharge is believed to have presented a note citing several instances including the alleged inaction of Delhi Police during two days of violence in Patiala House Court complex during the hearing of JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar's case this week. Bassi had also come under attack from other opposition parties, rights activists and others over the violence in the court premises. However, Bassi, who retires as Delhi's top cop this month end, said he was not disappointed. He had applied for the post. "I am happy and have no issues with that (the decision). I am not disappointed," the police chief said, adding that it won't be a legitimate thing to comment further on the decision made by the selection panel. Julka, a 1979 batch IAS officer of Madhya Pradesh cadre, retired as Information and Broadcasting Secretary in August last year. His batchmate and retired IPS officer Sinha last served as Secretary (security) in the Cabinet Secretariat after a long stint in the Intelligence Bureau during which he headed the prestigious Operations unit. Under his leadership, the agency had been able to trace the footprints of American-born Lashker-e-Taiba terrorist David Headley in India after his role in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks was unearthed by the US' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Bhattacharya, a 1980-batch IAS officer of Gujarat cadre, retired in 2013 after serving as Chairman, Staff Selection Commission. Besides the Prime Minister, the meeting was attended by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Kharge. Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office Jitendra Singh also attended the meeting as a special invitee. Sources said the recommendations of the selection panel has been sent to President Pranab Mukherjee for his assent so that final orders for their appointments can be issued. There is a vacancy of three Information Commissioners against its total strength of 10. With today's decision, all vacancies in the CIC will be filled up. The meeting of the selection panel was held to meet Supreme Court's six-week deadline for the appointments. The apex court had on January 8, asked the government to appoint three Information Commissioners within six weeks. A 1977-batch IPS officer, Bassi's name was shortlisted last November by a search committee headed by Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha. Bassi had applied for both the post of Information Commissioner and Central Information Commissioner. The government had in December appointed former Defence Secretary R K Mathur as head of the transparency panel. Mathur has tenure as CIC till he attains the age of 65 on November 25, 2018. Delhi Police chief B S Bassi, under fire for alleged mishandling JNU row, was today dropped from the list for the post of Information Commissioner in Central Information Commission by a selection panel led by the Prime Minister which has cleared three names. The decision to drop Bassi was taken amidst mounting pressure from Congress along with other opposition parties and civil society activists citing alleged inaction of Delhi Police as violent mob had beaten up journalists, teachers and students inside Patiala House Court complex during the hearing of JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar's case, official sources said. Meeting the six-week deadline set by Delhi High Court to fill vacancies in the transparency watchdog, the panel met here this morning in which various names were discussed. The meeting was attended by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjuna Kharge at the Prime Minister's South Block office here. Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office Jitendra Singh also attended the meeting as a special invitee. Sources said Kharge was against Bassi's candidature, a stand made already clear by some of his party leaders. A 1977-batch IPS officer, Bassi, who is due to retire this month-end, was one of the applicants for the post of Information Commissioner. His name was shortlisted last November by a search committee headed by Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha. There is a vacancy of three Information Commissioners against its total strength of 10. The names of candidates for all three vacancies were decided at today's meeting,they said. Sources said the selection panel has sent its recommendation to President Pranab Mukherjee for his assent so that final orders for their appointments can be issued. Besides Bassi, former Secretary of Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) Shyamal K Sarkar, Anup K Pujari, the then Secretary of Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and former Information and Broadcasting Secretary Bimal Julka were also shortlisted then. Bassi had applied for both the post of Information Commissioner and Central Information Commissioner against the government's order issued in September last. The government had in December appointed former Defence Secretary R K Mathur as head of the transparency panel. Mathur has tenure as CIC till he attains the age of 65 on November 25, 2018. (Reopens Del 21) On his part, Bassi said said that he is not at all disappointed over the decision to drop his name from the list of contenders for the post of Information Commissioner in CIC. "I am happy and have no issues with that (the decision). I am not dissapointed," the police chief said, adding that it won't be a legitimate thing to comment further on the decision made by a selection panel led by the Prime Minister. "It (the decision) doesn't affect me," Bassi added. (Reopens DEL 28) Opposing Bassi's appointment for the post, Kharge is learnt to have cited a number of reasons including his "track record". Sources said that Delhi Congress Chief Ajay Maken had earlier communicated to Kharge the party's reservations against Bassi's name, faulting him on many counts including "failure to control law and order in Delhi" and also took umbrage to his role in the JNU row. He had urged Kharge that as a representative of the opposition in the selection committee, the party must express its strong dissent to Bassi's candidature for the post Information Commissioner. The party said that Bassi in his tenure as Delhi Police Commissioner acted "completely contrary" to purpose of the RTI Act that envisages a confidence-building institution for the people of India. The party raised questions over Delhi police's handling of incidents that took place in the national Capital over the past week, where students, faculty and journalists were attacked within and outside the court premises and "despite clear evidence of the offenders, the police, acting on instructions of their political masters, remained a mute spectator and later chose to file an FIR against unknown persons". In the letter to Kharge, Maken had also raised questions on the neutrality of Bassi and claimed he was "unfit" for the position. He also referred to a purported case related to a cooperative housing society against Bassi to drive home the point. "His candidature for an independent and transparent institution of RTI will be extremely unfit and an appointment to that effect will be a huge setback for the confidence of the people in our democracy," Maken is learnt to have said in his communication to Kharge. The new proposed Textile Policy, which is likely to be placed in the Budget session of Parliament is expected to benefit West Bengal as special incentives may be announced for the eastern region states. "We expect to place the new policy in the Budget session and it will be a long-term policy for 10 years," Minister of State for Textiles Santosh Kumar Gangwar said here at the National Jute Board event. The government was also looking into special incentives for manufacturing units to be set up in the Northeast, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, officials said. The textile sector employs 35 million people and aims to double the number by 2022. The government is focusing on training youths in different skills to meet this target. Speaking about need for jute diversification, the minister said it is possible in several product lines at launch of three Common Facility centres for jute at National Jute Manufactures Corporation mills at Howrah, Alaxendra and Kinnison at a cost of Rs 6.40 crore and provide direct employment to over 5,000 people. Gangwar announced another two at Jalpaiguri and Sunderbans and sanctioned Rs 2 crore for each centre. With one each at Assam and Bihar, total jute CFCs count will be seven. Gangwar also launched a new Jute Raw Material Bank (JRMB) Scheme under which each JRMB will be supported by over Rs 15 lakhs annually to help provide jute raw materials at reasonable price and in required quantity to the artisans, crafts person and weavers. Union Textile secretary and Jute Board chairperson Rashmi Verma said, "diversification is the only solution for sustainability and growth of the jute sector." "At these new skilling centres and CFC centres, our collective effort will be to return jute to its rightful place as a glory of the state. We will implement reforms and policy measures to put jute production back on the map," said Jute Commissioner Subrata Gupta. A CBI Special Court here today sentenced two officials of the Bureau of Indian Standards to two years rigorous imprisonment for graft-related charges. According to a CBI release, The CBI Anti-Corruption wing filed a case against Bureau of Indian Standards Scientist (Grade E), G Venkata Narayanan, and Dealing officer (Marks department), P M Murali, following allegations that the duo entered into a "criminal conspiracy" to demand and accept "gratification" from manufacturers of packaged drinking water plants for processing and recommending their applications. The agency filed a charge sheet against the duo before the Special Judge Court, Chennai, under IPC section 120-B (punishment for criminal conspiracy) read with other relevant sections and Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988. Additional Special Judge for CBI Cases S Jawahar sentenced the duo to undergo two years rigorous imprisonment each and slapped a fine of Rs 30,000 on them, it said. Mocking at the proposed Congress-CPI(M) alliance in West Bengal ahead of the state assembly polls, BJP today said it is a tie up between two political parties "trying to stay relevant in state politics". "The alliance is basically an alliance without any ideology or principle. This is an alliance between two political parties who are weak and are trying to stay relevant in state politics as they are incapable of fighting Trinamool Congress alone," BJP national secretary Siddharth Nath Singh today said. Congress had hailed the decision by CPI(M) yesterday to seek cooperation from all "democratic forces". CPI(M) Central Committee after its meeting had said "In West Bengal the main task is to restore democracy and foil aggressive efforts by communal forces to polarise people in the state by ousting the incumbent Trinamool Congress government. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff led two dozen ministers on a campaign today to form what one official called an "army" of children against the Zika- carrying mosquito. Brazil is at the heart of an international scare over Zika, which has been linked to the serious birth defect microcephaly in babies born to infected women. With no cure to microcephaly or vaccine against Zika, Brazil's government has ordered out tens of thousands of troops and health workers in a door to door campaign to clean up stagnant water pools where mosquitoes breed. Joining that push, Rousseff and 25 ministers from her sprawling cabinet urged children to form the next wave. "The school can create a little army of children, adolescents and youths that will go home and mobilize the parents," Agriculture Minister Katia Abreu said in a visit to a school in Goiana, in the west. She said each tiny "soldier" would be armed with a supply of insecticide to take home. But at another school, Rousseff said the most important tactic in the government's declared war on mosquitos is to clear up water pools. "Fifteen minutes a week is all you need," Rousseff said in a speech in front of children in the north-eastern city of Juazeiro. "Talk with your parents, talk with your neighbors," she urged. "Because look how things are: if a mosquito produces 1,500 eggs and if there's a street with let's say 20 houses, then if 19 houses fight the mosquito and one doesn't, that's enough for the mosquito to have a party." Rousseff said that protecting pregnant women from the risk of Zika is to protect "the future of this country. Four Bangladeshis, including a businessman and another who had just returned from the Gulf, were arrested after they were found to have crossed the International border illegally at two places in Meghalaya, BSF officers today said. The incident took place last evening even as they were handed over to the state police early today, they said. "We have arrested four Bangladeshis from two locations in Meghalaya frontier. One Shamin Noor Islam was apprehended in South West Garo Hills district, while the rest were arrested from Jaliakhola in East Jaintia Hills district," the BSF spokesperson said. He said the other three were identified as Sarif Ahmed, Samyal Ahmed and Kamal of Kanaighat PS limits in Sylhet district. Three mobile handsets and Rs 4,500 were seized from their possession, he said. During preliminary investigation, it was revealed that Sarif had worked in Saudi Arabia and had come to Bangladesh last month to meet his relatives, while Samyal was a businessman based in Sylhet. Asked on how these people strayed into India, the BSF officer said they had hired a local boat man to take them to Jaliakhola. The BSF spokesperson said vigil on the Indo-Bangladesh border has been intensified. Bihar Cabinet today gave nod to implement Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's 'Saat Nischay' scheme in the next five years. "As part of its 'Sushashan' programme, the Cabinet in a meeting chaired by the Chief Minister, gave its nod for implementation of 'Saat Nischay' scheme in the next five years which starts from 2016-17 to 2020-21," Cabinet Secretariat Department's Principal Secretary Brajesh Mehrotra said. The 'Saat Nischay' (seven resolves) scheme aims at making younger generation self-reliant through education, skill development, education loan, electricity connection to all villages, providing piped water supply to every household, road and drainage in urban areas. The Cabinet sanctioned Rs 1,897.50 crore to give power connection to every household and the process would be completed in the next two years, Mehrotra said. It also gave nod for providing free wi-fi connectivity to all universities and colleges of the state, he said. The proposal also includes providing piped water supply to all the households of urban areas. As per estimate, 20.13 lakh families would be provided with the facility, Mehrotra said. All households would also be connected with 'pucca' drainage for which the Cabinet sanctioned Rs 140 crore for 2016-17, the Principal Secretary said, adding toilets would be constructed in all households under 'Lohia Swachh Bihar Abhiyan' as part of the scheme. The Cabinet also approved proposal to open an engineering and polytechnic college in every district which would cost Rs3,015.96 crore and Rs 841.09 crore respectively, Mehrotra said. The Cabinet decided that Industrial Training Institutes would be opened in 54 sub-divisions of the state from 2016-17 in phases under the 'Saat Nischay' scheme, Merhotra said,adding that women's ITI would be opened up in 22 districts. Under the scheme, the Cabinet also gave nod for setting up five new medical colleges in the state and para medical institutes in 24 districts at an estimated cost of Rs 2120 crore, he said. It also decided to set up nursing colleges in all the medical colleges at a cost of Rs 528 crore, the Principal Secretary said. The Cabinet also decided to give education loan up to Rs 4 lakh, which is one of the key promises of 'Saat Nischay', through credit cards to students who want to pursue higher education, Mehrotra said. As per an estimate, around 35 lakh students would avail the benefit, he added. During the 2015 Assembly election campaign, Nitish Kumar had announced a Rs 2.70 lakh crore 'Saat Nischay' scheme for Bihar's development to counter Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Rs 1.25 lakh crore special package. The state Cabinet in January cleared the setting up of 'Bihar Vikas Mission' to ensure fast implementation of the scheme in the next five years. While the Chief Minister will head the mission, ministers and principal secretaries of departments, the chief secretary and the development commissioner, among others, will be its members. A group of journalists, including a few who were attacked at a court complex here, today met President Pranab Mukherjee, saying the freedom to report without fear was "under threat" and that they cannot work in an atmosphere of "fear and intimidation". "The delegation of journalists and others led by the Indian Women's Press Corps, Press Club of India and Editors Guild met the President and presented a memorandum to him regarding the attacks on journalists in the premises of Patiala House court on February 15 and 17," an official statement said. "The delegation included five journalists who were attacked by lawyers and they narrated their experiences to the President," it added. T K Rajalakshmi of the IWPC, Seema Mustafa from the Editors Guild, Nadeem Kazmi from the Press Club of India and Prashanth Raghuvamsom of the Kerala Union of Working Journalists, who led the delegation, conveyed to Mukherjee that the journalistic community across the country was concerned with the events in Patiala House Court premises and the freedom to report without fear was under threat. "They expressed a concern that the perpetrators involved in both occasions were still roaming freely. The journalists pointed out how they were attacked by the lawyers in full presence of the police and how despite their complaint no FIR had been registered as yet," the statement said. The memorandum submitted by the scribes said, "journalists and journalism cannot operate in this atmosphere of fear and intimidation. There is a growing impression that violence is acceptable in name of nationalism and patriotism". "It is our collective apprehension that if unchecked and in the absence of any accountability, such violence will continue unabated, rendering journalists and journalism vulnerable to more such attacks elsewhere in the country as well. A free and fair press cannot operate under the threat of intimidation and violence," the memorandum added. Journalists, students and teachers of JNU were beaten up allegedly by groups of lawyers in Patiala High court premises where the students' union president of JNU, Kanhaiya Kumar was to be produced in a sedition case. Top Republican candidate has been slapped with a lawsuit challenging his eligibility to serve as US president over citizenship issues, raising doubts about his status ahead of the crucial South Carolina primary. In his lawsuit, Lawrence Joyce from Illinois has objected to Cruz's placement on the Illinois primary ballot next month. As per the American constitution, only US-born citizens are eligible to run for presidency. Cruz, who was born in Canada, argues he is a natural US citizen as his parents were US citizen. At a CNN-townhall, the 45-year-old Texas senator said the issue has been clear from the very first day of the republic. "I was a citizen by birth, by virtue of my mother's citizenship, so I've never been naturalised. I've never breathed air on this planet when I was not a US citizen," he said. "It was the act of being born that made me a US citizen. So under the law, the question is clear. There will still be some that high to work political mischief on it, but as a legal matter, this is clear and straightforward," Cruz said. Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump described this as a big problem. He has threatened to sue Cruz on this. "I don't think he's got a very good chance of getting it. But he was sued today on the fact that he was born in Canada. It's a big problem," Trump said last night. The Centre today said the private industries need to invest in mega projects and they will be provided with all necessary supports from the government in this regard, Union Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said today. The Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, who participated in a session on "Corporate Engagement", organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry, here today said government is willing to provide necessary assistance if the private sector came up with big industrial projects like BHEL. Assuring help to industries which wanted to start defence-based industrial cluster in the same corridor, she said, "You let me know the opportunities, and I will try to help you on forming defence-based industrial clusters in Madurai-Tuticorin corridor." Referring to the fireworks industries in Sivakasi which had the potential to do business worth Rs 5,000 crore, she said, "Fireworks industries should improve their quality and variety besides changing manufacturing technique, diversify them to compete with the Chinese fireworks sector." All products (other than fireworks) in India should be of good quality to compete with ones imported, she added. Regarding the Skill Development Programme, the minister said the Centre wanted to develop skilled labour of international standards. "Once we certify a person as a skilled labourer, he should be accepted as the same in any country in the world. He should be of international quality in terms of his or her skill," she said. On oil prices, she said, the Centre did not reduce the price of oil despite a steep fall in the international market to invest more on infrastructure building. Discussing the problems faced by the tyre industries in getting advance licence for rubber procurement, she said the import of rubber was tied to the issue of enabling the poor rubber farmers get better price for their produce. The rubber prices have fallen, but it was not reflected in the price of tyres, she said. Stressing the need for making products that had Zero defect, the Minister said, "You should follow the mantra of zero defect, zero effect (on environment) to become best exporter." "Various efforts of the government ensured that Indian economy grew by seven per cent, despite the fact that the global economy was slowing down and contracting." The scope for export was declining, forcing government to focus on local market, she said. According to her, the Chinese were heavily subsidising their products. They (Chinese) had produced in excess, keeping in mind three year requirement. They were helping their industries export. Despite all this the Indian economy was growing at 7 per cent, she observed. "Growth will be better and economy will stay strong.The Make in India flagship initiative is encouraging its investors. Many financial institutions have offered financial support," she noted. The Prime Minister was reviewing the free trade agreement, and was positive that Indian products were of high quality with zero defect. She also promised to take up with the External Affairs Ministry, issues relating to patients who want to take treatment in India, if any. She was replying to a query on patients experiencing problems in obtaining visa and other documents. China today confirmed a third case of deadly Zika virus, nine days after the first one was reported amid mounting fears over the fast-spreading mosquito-borne disease that has been linked to severe birth defects. The patient developed a fever when he returned to the city of Yiwu in east China's Zhejiang Province on February 15 from Fiji and Samoa. According to the patient, he was bitten by mosquitos. Already quarantined, he was confirmed as infected by the Zika virus. His temperature is now normal and his condition has improved, the National Health and Family Planning Commission was quoted as saying by state-run Xinhua agency. Symptoms of the Zika virus, which spreads to people through mosquito bites, include fever, joint pain, a rash, conjunctivitis, headache and muscle pain. Disease prevention experts said the risk of the spread of the virus from this case is low due to the current low temperature which inhibits mosquito activity. China's first Zika patient was discharged from hospital on Sunday after a full recovery. The second case, also imported, was detected in southern province of Guangdong on February 15. At least two teens were killed and 15 other people were wounded in a clash between stick-wielding gangs in a juvenile detention centre near Honduras' capital, officials said. Both of the dead were 17-year-old inmates, according to the authorities in charge of the Renaciendo facility 25 kilometres north of Tegucigalpa. Police and soldiers were called in to put down the unrest. Initial information from officials said a police officer and a soldier were among the wounded. Violence incidents at the centre are common. Around 300 juvenile inmates are held at the centre, many of whom belong to one of two rival street gangs known for waging turf wars for narcotic sales and extortion. Democratic presidential front runner Hillary Clinton's popularity appears to be dropping nationally while her primary rival Bernie Sanders gained a slight lead for the first time, according to a latest national poll. Sanders, 74, now has support of 47 per cent of Democratic primary voters as against 44 per cent people who back Clinton. A month ago, Clinton, 68, had support of 49 per cent of the Democratic primary voters. And last summer, Clinton had a lead of 46 points and that of 22 points as recently as two months ago. This is the first time that Sanders is leading a national poll against Clinton, who not long ago was regularly described as the "presumptive" Democratic nominee, according to the poll released by Fox ahead of the South Carolina primary on February 27. "One thing that is clear from our poll - and others - is that Clinton has been losing support and Sanders has been gaining. And this process appears to have accelerated since the contests in Iowa and New Hampshire," said Democratic pollster Chris Anderson. "Historically, lesser-known candidates beating establishment candidates in early contests have seen the biggest boost in their national support," said Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who jointly conducted the Fox poll with Anderson. Clinton, however, continues to lead in South Carolina where the Democratic primary is scheduled for later this month. But her lead with Sanders has reduced. Likely Democratic primary voters favor Clinton over Sanders by 28 points (56-28 per cent), the poll said. In December, Clinton held a 44-point lead (65-21 per cent). On the Republican side, front runner Donald Trump leads with 36 per cent support from Republican primary voters. He is followed by Texas Senator Ted Cruz with 19 per cent and Florida Senator Marco Rubio 15 per cent. Giving signals of some sort of an alliance with the Left Front in poll-bound West Bengal, Congress today said there is no contradiction if it ties up with the CPI(M) to take on Mamata Banerjee while fighting against it in Kerala. "If and when any alliance of the kind you are imagining happens in Bengal, that has absolutely no contradiction because alliances are state specific. This is true of every political party in this country", party spokesman Abhishek Singhvi told reporters. When pressed further as to how could Congress align with the CPI(M) in West Bengal when it is fighting the party in Kerala, he remarked "alliances apply within the boundaries of a state". While Singhvi gave ambivalent answers on questions regarding Cong-Left alliance in West Bengal, a senior leader, who declined to be identified, spoke of a tactical understanding between the two parties. Only yesterday, CPI(M) had indicated it is willing to have an understanding with Congress for the upcoming assembly polls in West Bengal to "oust" TMC from Government and "isolate" BJP in the state. CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury had said the Left party will seek support and co-operation from "all democratic forces" to dethrone the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC in the state. "In order to restore democracy and foil communal polarisation by BJP ... That is the main task we think can be achieved only by ousting TMC from Government in West Bengal. "In order to achieve this objective, the CPI(M) will seek support of all democratic forces in Bengal," Yechury had said without naming Congress. He had said the CPI(M) West Bengal committee will work out a proposal on having understanding with other "democratic" forces and on the basis of the same party politburo will take a final decision in this regard. Talk in Congress is that the JNU row has helped the party leadership get closer with that of the CPI-M. Opposition Congress and NCP today demanded sacking of BJP MP Gopal Shetty for his controversial remarks over farmers' suicides and threatened to raise the issue in forthcoming Assembly session if he "is not made to pay for hurting sentiments". Congress spokesperson Al-Nasser Zakaria said Shetty has "laid bare the gross neglect" of the BJP towards the plight of drought-hit farmers in the state. "Gopal Shetty's comments have laid bare gross neglect of the party towards farmers who are committing suicides due to the hardships they are facing. It seems BJP thinks that its party leaders can say whatever they like and get away with it always. "But, this time, they have mocked the helpless farmers who are expecting assistance from the government. Prime Minister Narendra Modi should intervene in the matter and sack him (Shetty) from the party and take away his membership status," he said. Shetty has kicked up a storm, at a time when Maharashtra is battling an agrarian crisis, by attributing farmers' suicides to a "fashion" and "trend" to end lives. However, he later said his statement was "completely distorted" and taken out of context by the media. Condemning his remarks, NCP senior leader Nawab Malik said the Sharad Pawar-led party cannot dissociate itself from "anti-farmer" comments and that the issue will be raised in the Assembly session. "The real face of the BJP, which has always been anti-farmers is out. If Shetty has made the remarks in his individual capacity, he should be thrown out of the party. Until that happens, the party cannot dissociate itself. "We have protested against his comments today and will continue to do so. This issue will also be taken up on the floor of the House," he added. A day after Congress said the party might go solo in the Goa Legislative Assembly polls next year, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) today claimed their number of seats will reduce further. "Congress was ousted from power in 2012 Goa Assembly polls due to rampant corruption and their misdeeds. This time their number (of seats) will shrink further," MGP President Dipak Dhavalikar claimed. AICC General Secretary Digvijay Singh yesterday said the party might contest in all 40 constituencies of Goa Legislative Assembly on its own. The party would take its cadres into confidence before deciding on any alliance, he had said. Dhavalikar, who is also a minister in the Manohar Parsekar-led Goa Cabinet, "challenged" Digvijay Singh to let Congress "contest in all seats and get elected with majority". The MGP had shared power with Congress in the state from 2005-2012, but joined hands with the BJP before the 2012 elections. Of the 40 seats in Goa Assembly, 21 seats are with BJP, three with MGP, nine with Congress, two with Goa Vikas Party, and five with Independents. Congress will support the Naga peace accord between the Centre and NSCN(IM), "if the contents of the agreement were in the interest of the Nagas, Northeast and the nation", Nagaland Chief Minister T R Zeliang said. Congress president Sonia Gandhi gave the assurance to visiting Parliamentary Working Committee of the Joint Legislator's Forum (JLF) of Nagaland Assembly on Naga political issue led by Zeliang and Speaker Chotisuh Sazo, a CMO statement said this evening. The delegation called on Gandhi this morning at her residence in New Delhi. She also expressed solidarity with the Naga people for the need to find an amicable, honourable and permanent peace in the state and the region, the statement said. The JLF comprising of leaders of all parties in the state last year, mainly to project a common front and voice of the representatives of the people of Nagaland on the urgency to solve the protracted Naga political problem. The JLF apprised her of the necessity to form an opposition-less Assembly in the state to give a more cohesive, more concerted voice and views on the Naga political problem. The merger of Congress legislators with ruling Naga Peoples Front (NPF) was solely for the purpose of finding an early solution to the Naga political problem and not because of any other exigency, the delegation said to Gandhi. Eight Congress MLAs merged with the ruling Naga Peoples Front leading to the formation of an opposition-less government in Nagaland in November last year. Gandhi assured her party's support in Parliament as and when any Bill comes up for discussion "if it was in the interest of the Nagas, the Northeast and the nation," the statement said. The JLF members are in Delhi since February 16 meeting leaders of national parties to seek their support towards early resolution of the decades old Naga issue. They have called on BJP president Amit Shah, JD(U) president Sharad Yadav, Shiv Sena's Leader of Parliamentary Party in the Lok Sabha Anand Rap Absul. They also met NSCN(IM) general secretary Thuingaleng Muivah and few other top leaders of the group. A Delhi court today decided to record pre-charge evidence in a case filed by Income Tax Department against businessman Moin Akhtar Qureshi's wife for allegedly giving false information about her foreign bank accounts. The court fixed the matter for April 25 after the counsel for accused Nasreen Moin Qureshi informed it that they have received complete set of documents filed by the department along with the complaint. Nasreen, who had earlier sought legible copies from the department, was granted bail by the court on January 6 when she appeared before it with her husband standing surety for her. Qureshi is also facing prosecution in a black money case for allegedly not disclosing an income of nearly Rs 20 crore. The court had earlier summoned Nasreen as an accused in the case after taking cognisance of the complaint filed by the IT department under the IT Act and the IPC. It was alleged in the complaint that a search was carried out by IT Department in Nasreen's case and in other connected cases of Qureshi's AMQ Group on February 15, 2014. In her preliminary statement, Nasreen stated on oath that she had only one account in HSBC and denied owning any asset in any foreign country, the department has said. "Evidence clearly showed that Nasreen Moin Qureshi has not disclosed deposits in JP Morgan Chase Bank in USA for income tax and such deposits represent her undisclosed income, not offered to taxation in returns of income filed by her, thereby causing huge loss of revenue," the department claimed. It alleged that she made false statement in verification in her returns of income filed for the relevant period. In her statement to the IT department in April 2014, Nasreen said before marriage, her father, a Pakistan citizen, would have opened her bank account in Pakistan and other countries but no account was opened abroad after the marriage. The complaint, however, said Nasreen's claim that foreign bank account was opened by her father was found to be false and investigation has confirmed that she maintained an account with the bank in the US. It also alleged that Nasreen had signed the documents in April, 2010 to open two accounts in the US bank and total deposit in them were over USD 3,02,599. The complaint said she used debit cards for expenses or withdrawal from the foreign account and had withdrawn USD 1,79,532. At least 52 activists of CPI and other Left-wing organisation were today taken into preventive custody when they tried to march towards Raj Bhavan here demanding JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar's immediate and unconditional release, police said. Police also took as many as 10 advocates (of two different groups) into preventive custody when they tried to gather in front of the Bar Council Office over the JNU row, on the premises of High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad for the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Charminar Division) K Ashok Chakravarthy told PTI. "Out of the ten advocates, who were taken into custody -- three of them are pro-Kanhaiya and remaining are anti- Kanhaiya," the ACP claimed, adding, there is no permission either for holding processions or organising meeting on the High Court premises. Earlier, several CPI and Left-wing activists led by Telangana state CPI secretary Chada Venkat Reddy, raised slogans and attempted to take out a rally towards the Raj Bhavan, but were prevented by police at Khairtabad cross itself and 52 of them were placed under preventive arrests, Saifabad Police Station Inspector K Poorna Chander said. All those who were taken into preventive custody were later released. Police lathicharge Jat community members during their agitation for reservation in Rohtak. Photo: PTI Curfew was imposed tonight in Rohtak and Bhiwani city limit areas and army was being rushed there in view of worsening situation with Jats agitating over reservation issue going on rampage there. An official spokesman told PTI here tonight that curfew has been imposed with immediate effect in view of protesting mobs going on rampage and indulging in violence. Shoot-at-sight orders were issued in curfew-bound city areas, as agitators overpowered and captured some law-enforecment personnel and targetted police vehicles. There was large-scale destruction of public and private property in Rohtak, Jhajjar and Hansi. Army units are being rushed to Rohtak from nearby Cantonment at Hissar, about 50 km away, he said these will be deployed immediately in Rohtak and Bhiwani areas. He said army units are also being rushed from Jaipur for deployment in other worst-affected areas of the state. The army will assist the civil administration in restoring peace and law and order which worsened today shortly after an all party meeting here where an appeal was made for maintaining peace. Two senior civil and police officers -- Principal Secretary (Home) A K Singh and ADGP of Haryana Police B S Sandhu -- have been rushed to Rohtak to coordinate with the army and the civil administration to restore normalcy. Delhi Government has directed principals of all private unaided recognised schools not to refuse admission to EWS category children on "unjustified grounds" including that of distance. "It has come to notice that private schools are refusing admission to the EWS and DG category children selected in the computerised draw of lots on unjustified grounds. It has also been reported that some schools are not entertaining the selected children for completing the admission formalities," the Directorate of Education (DoE) said in a communication to schools. "It is directed that schools shall not refuse to grant admission to the children on the ground of distance range. They should also satisfactorily attend the selected applicants and complete the admissions formalities appropriately," it added. The schools have also been directed to wait for the selected applicants to report till the last date which is February 22. The Department of Telecom plans to set up a lab for testing telecommunication equipment in the national capital as part of efforts to strengthen network security amid rising cyber threats. "(Telecom) Equipment testing lab is being set up in Delhi. We will float tender for setting up the lab in Delhi," Telecom Commission Member (Technoology) Peeyush Agrawal said at Cyber Security India 2016 summit. He said the government has concern on cyber security and is making effort to keep away the threats. "The industry needs smart and powerful tools to protect the network which needs to be fully secured. Special protection is required, which the service provider have realised," Agrawal said. He said that IISc Bangalore is already assisting the Department of Telecom in testing telecom equipment. "Since the telecom is the backbone of all the critical business, such as banking, telecommunications, defence, transport etc, we as the service provider have to be on a constant alert. "Wherever there is a security breach, we have to identify such threats and close that gap by keeping a close watch and proactively work on meeting such security threats," Aircel CIO Rajesh Rampal said. Amarinder Singh today blasted Deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal's claims that the state had only 16,620 drug addicts, saying that SAD-BJP government had admitted a much higher figure in the High Court, only about seven months ago. He asked the Deputy CM to refer to his own government's affidavit submitted to the Punjab and Haryana High Court on July 13, 2015 on behalf of the Chief Secretary whereby it had admitted to having identified more than three lakh drug abusers. The former Chief Minister said that in response to a PIL in the High Court, the affidavit was filed on behalf of the Punjab Chief Secretary Sarvesh Kaushal. "This is just about 7 months ago and now the Deputy CM says there are just 16,620 drug addicts in Punjab which is an outright lie,"he remarked. Amarinder said although he did not agree with the figure in the affidavit as the number of addicts was "much more as an entire generation has been destroyed by drugs." He claimed, the government had even provided wrong information about the treatment by saying 13,000 addicts were being treated in OPD as the drug addicts have to be admitted indoor. "This is the characteristic attitude of the Badals to deny the very existence of a problem," he remarked. Meanwhile, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Sangrur MP, Bhagwant Mann also lambasted Sukhbir for allegedly distorting the recent study of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to "subvert the widespread menace of drugs in the state." Mann said instead of tackling the peril of extensive drug abuse in Punjab especially among the youth, Sukhbir juggled with the figures of the AIIMS study released in the month of January which clearly found that opioids and other synthetic derivatives worth Rs 7,500 crore were being consumed in the state every year. "And of the drug consumption the share of heroin was pegged at massive Rs 6,500 crore, AIIMS had pointed in the study," said Mann. Mann was referring to the claim made by Sukhbir yesterday in Jalandhar that only 16,000 people of Punjab which constitutes just 0.06 per cent were hooked on to the drugs and the problem was more severe in Mumbai and Delhi. Terming Sukhbir a "compulsive liar", Mann said either Sukhbir himself was ignorant of the massive drug problem or hoodwinking the people of Punjab. The deputy CM should not forget his "alliance partner BJP's brand ambassador, Baba Ramdev, who had said in the month of May last year that 80 per cent of youths in Punjab have fallen prey to the drug menace." Mann said the AIIMS study had also pointed that 2.3 lakh people in Punjab were opioid dependent and more than 8.6 lakhs were estimated to be opioid and users of synthetic drugs. Dutch and international criminal investigators will "within months" establish the spot from where the missile that downed Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was fired, prosecutors said today. A joint investigations team "expects to deliver judicial proof" of what type of BUK rocked was used "as well as pinpoint the position from where MH17 was shot down, before the second half of this year," chief investigator Fred Westerbeke said. All 298 passengers and crew - the majority of them Dutch - died when the plane was shot down with a Russian-made BUK anti-aircraft missile over war-torn eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. Officials with the Dutch Safety Board (OVV) concluded last year in their investigation that the Boeing 777 was hit by a BUK fired from rebel-held territory, but did not give precise details nor definitively say who was responsible. A separate criminal investigation is underway by a Dutch-led investigations team which also includes officials from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine. In a letter to relatives published by Dutch media today, Westerbeke said there were no film or video images of the actual missile launch. "There are also no satellite images as a result of cloud cover" on the day over the area in war-ravaged eastern Ukraine, the Dutch Public Prosecution services officer told victims' families. Relatives last month urged the Dutch government to launch a global campaign to obtain primary radar images which may help pinpoint who fired the missile. But Westerbeke wrote that Ukraine did not have the data and that investigators were still "in talks" with Moscow for their primary radar images, while the United States has handed over its radar data. Investigators "are looking in which form the confidential American information can be used in a criminal investigation," said Westerbeke. Russian aviation authorities earlier this month told victims' families in a separate letter that they had handed over primary radar data to the OVV and "still keeps the data and is ready to re-submit it to relevant authorised organisations." Westerbeke's letter added that finding and prosecuting those responsible "could take a long time," similar to that of those responsible for the Lockerbie bombing in 1988. A sequel to natural disaster movie "San Andreas" is in the works from Dawyne "The Rock" Johnson and production company New Line. The original director, Brad Peyton, is attached to return at the helm, said The Hollywood Reporter. Neil Widener and Gavin James have been tapped to write script for the second installment. The Rock is expected to reprise his role as Ray, a search-and-rescue helicopter pilot. Carla Gugino and Alexandra Daddario are also back as his onscreen wife and daughter respectively. They are joined by Paul Giamatti who played seismologist in the original flick. The first film, released last year, follows Ray teaming up with his estranged wife to save their daughter when a series of quakes crush Los Angeles and San Francisco. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al- Sisi said he would ask parliament to amend the law to toughen sanctions for police abuses, his office said today, a day after an officer shot dead a driver. The statement from his office came as dozens of demonstrators gathered outside Cairo police headquarters chanting: "The interior ministry are thugs," after the officer killed the driver over a fare dispute. The interior ministry had announced earlier today that the policeman, who was badly beaten by a crowd after the killing, was arrested in hospital. Police have been on the defensive after a string of deaths in custody over the past year, redolent of the abuses that fuelled an 18-day uprising which ousted president Hosni Mubarak in 2011. The statement from Sisi's office said he told Interior Minister Magdy Abdel Gaffar that abuses were carried out by a "number of policemen," and he praised the ministry's "sacrifices." "But these actions must be stopped and the perpetrators held to account," Sisi told Abdel Ghaffar, according to the statement. "This may require some legal amendments, or new laws, that regulate police performance on the street, and that ensure all who violate the rights of citizens will be held to account." Sisi will present the amendments to parliament within 15 days. A top US health official expressed "extreme concern" today over the potential for Zika to expand throughout Haiti and said the United States is helping the deeply impoverished Caribbean nation prepare. There was "extreme concern of Haiti in terms of impact that dengue has there, and of course, the vulnerable population is a challenge," said Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the US Centers for Disease Control. Schuchat spoke while in the Brazilian capital of Brasilia studying an outbreak of the Zika virus, which is widely believed to cause microcephaly, a serious birth defect, in babies born to infected women. The virus is transmitted by the same mosquito responsible for carrying dengue, a far more common disease. The US expert said that with the northern hemisphere summer approaching, a rise in mosquito numbers is expected and Haiti, which confirmed its first cases of Zika in January, needs to prepare. The "CDC has a very strong partnership in Haiti and we are already working on how to help them be ready for this," she told AFP. "We are concerned about many countries. Certainly in Colombia they have seen a rapid increase in Zika cases," she said. "In the US we are working very closely with Puerto Rico and we are very concerned about the months ahead." Most people who get Zika suffer no serious symptoms, but pregnant women are considered to be at risk and have been advised by numerous governments not to travel to Zika-prone countries. Brazil said this week that it has registered 508 cases of microcephaly since October, a huge increase on the average annual number of 150. As Prime Minister K P Oli began his visit to India, today warned that failure to implement past bilateral agreements and projects may lead to a "deficit of trust", even as the country is set to sign a trade and transit treaty with China. "The main aim of the prime minister's visit to India will be to strengthen friendly ties between the two countries," information minister Sherdhan Rai said. "No doubt, the bilateral relations have passed through a rough phase and there have been some misunderstanding between the two countries in the recent period due to certain reasons. We need to clear the misunderstandings, and there is also a need to make Nepal-India relations strong and vibrant for all time," he said. The six-day visit is Oli's first to a foreign country since taking over as prime minister some five months ago. Besides, many development projects have been signed between and India in the past which were pending for various reasons and "there is a need for expediting implementation of these projects," Rai said adding the visit would be fruitful towards that direction. "If past agreements and understandings are not translated into reality it may lead to a deficit of trust," he said. "Therefore we want to implement the past understandings and agreements in their letter and spirit," he said adding important dialogue will be held between officials of the two countries keeping Nepal's interest. Oli will also be visiting China shortly after his return from India, he said. "The visit will be a historic one and fruitful for the country. Some people have been making remarks that was playing China card and the PM's forthcoming visit to the northern neighbour will be just a formality," he said. "However, we are laying down important foundations for making the proposed visit a fruitful one. Nepal government has made necessary preparations for signing trade and transit treaties with China during the upcoming visit," Rai said. Concrete foundations have been laid towards that direction after the formal talks were held between the officials of the two countries, he added. "The government is also working out grounds for fuel trade with China on long term basis and efforts are on to open and operationalise more trading points in the country's northern border with China. "Besides these, other important agreements and understanding will be reached with China keeping our interest at the centre and development needs of the country in mind," he said. A former chief of a disbanded peace committee was today killed in a land mine explosion in Pakistan's restive northwest province. Tribal elder Malik Subedar Nokar sustained serious injuries in a landmine explosion in Safi tehsil of the Mohmand Agency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, police said. He was rushed to a nearby hospital where he succumbed to his injuries, they said. The security forces cordoned off the area and started a search operation. Meanwhile, four persons were arrested today by the special Unit of police for distributing pamphlets of a banned terrorist group in Peshawar. They were distributing pamphlets of banned group asking people to join the group and not to vaccinate their children against polio virus. They have been shifted to unknown location for interrogation. As many as four banks are contemplating selling assets of beleaguered air carrier Kingfisher Airlines to asset reconstruction (ARCs) to recover part of their dues. Led by State Bank of India (SBI), the 17 bank consortium is struggling to recover Rs 6,963 crore debt due from Kingfisher Airlines. "Three-four banks are looking for stake sale to ARCs to realise some value out of Kingfisher Airlines assets that they posses," sources said. Without disclosing the names of the banks, they added that these lenders are weighing options and are in talks with asset reconstruction . Earlier this week, Punjab National Bank (PNB), one of banks of the consortium, declared Kingfisher Airlines, its guarantors Vijay Mallya and United Breweries Holdings as wilful defaulters. PNB became the third public sector lender to declare the beleaguered air carrier a wilful defaulter. Earlier, United Bank of India and SBI had done the same. As per RBI guidelines, once declared as wilful defaulters, no additional facilities will be granted to these borrowers by any bank or financial institution. Besides, such and promoters will be debarred from the institutional finance for floating new ventures for a period of 5 years from the date of removal of their name from the list of wilful defaulters. The SBI has the highest exposure of Rs 1,600 crore to the beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines. Other banks that have exposure to the airline include PNB and IDBI Bank (Rs 800 crore each), Bank of India (Rs 650 crore), Bank of Baroda (Rs 550 crore), Central Bank of India (Rs 410 crore). UCO Bank has to recover Rs 320 crore, Corporation Bank (Rs 310 crore), State Bank of Mysore (Rs 150 crore), Indian Overseas Bank (Rs 140 crore), Federal Bank (Rs 90 crore), Punjab & Sind Bank (Rs 60 crore) and Axis Bank (Rs 50 crore). As part of the recovery process, the SBI-led bank consortium has decided to auction Kingfisher House in Mumbai next month. SBICAP Trustee Company Ltd, which took possession of the property last year, will do the e-auctioning of the 2,401.70 square meter property on March 17. The Trustee Company has kept reserve price of Rs 150 crore and the bid increment amount is Rs 5 lakh. Four members of a family, including three brothers, were gunned down after a fight broke out over a minor dispute between two families in this northwestern city of Pakistan, police said today. The incident occurred in Balogram area of Swat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province last night when two groups traded fire after children belonging to the two families quarrelled. Three brothers and a sister belonging to the same family were killed in the firing, while one man from the other group sustained injuries, police said. Three of the accused have been arrested by the police. France has rejected a Russian draft UN resolution aimed at halting Turkey's military actions in Syria, and said Moscow's backing of Syrian forces had led to a dangerous escalation in the war. "We are facing a dangerous military escalation that could easily get out of control and lead us to uncharted territory," French Ambassador Francois Delattre said ahead of a Security Council meeting yesterday. Russia called the emergency council meeting to present a draft text that "strongly demands" an immediate end to cross-border shellings and plans for foreign ground intervention in Syria. Turkey has called for a joint ground operation in Syria with its international allies, insisting it is the only way to stop the country's nearly five-year war. Asked whether he thought the council would endorse the Russian draft resolution, Delattre said: "The short answer is 'no'." Russia, which has been carrying out air strikes in support of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad's forces, has called on the council to press Turkey to halt its shelling of Kurdish forces in northern Syria. But the French ambassador argued that the escalation was the "direct result of the brutal offensive in the north of Syria led by the Syrian regime and its allies. "Russia must understand that its unconditional support to Bashar al-Assad is a dead-end and a dead-end that could be extremely dangerous," said Delattre. The closed-door meeting of the Security Council came as international efforts to negotiate a ceasefire and re-start peace talks stumbled. The United Nations peace envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said a new round of peace talks scheduled for February 25 was unlikely. France's envoy called for redoubling efforts to ensure humanitarian aid reaches those in need in Syria, and to agree on a ceasefire that would allow the peace talks to move forward. A bomb attack targeted the home of a leader of a Palestinian Shiite Muslim movement in the Gaza Strip today, causing damage but no injuries, the group and security sources said. The pre-dawn blast caused extensive damage at the home of Sheikh Hisham Salem, his Al-Sabirin group said in a statement. Shiite Muslims are a tiny minority among Palestinians who are almost exclusively Sunni Muslims or Christians. Al-Sabirin, which says it is supported by Iran, accused "the occupier (Israel) and its collaborators." The Israeli army declined to comment on the allegations. Reliable information is difficult to ascertain in Gaza, which is blockaded by Israel and Egypt and run by Islamist group Hamas. Hamas, a Sunni movement, seems to want to avoid conflict with Al-Sabirin, although there is no significant Shiite community in Gaza. Shortly after the explosion, Gazan security forces went to the scene and opened an investigation to find the perpetrators, security sources said. "We went out and found an explosive device placed near the door of the house," said a brother of the leader, Issam Salem, who was in the house at the time of the blast. "The windows of the house and those of a bus were blown out," he told AFP, adding that the explosion had sent children inside the home into a panic. Al-Sabirin was formed in 2014 by Hisham Salem, a former member of Islamic Jihad - another Islamist group that also takes inspiration from the Shiite Iranian revolution but which is itself Sunni. Government today approved eight highway projects worth Rs 6,000 crore for six states - Punjab, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Odisha. With today's approval, the number of projects cleared by Road Transport and Highways Ministry this month so far has swelled to 37, entailing a total investment of about Rs 34,000 crore. "The Ministry has approved eight projects with a total length of about 350 kms and aggregate total project cost of Rs 6,000 crore," Road Transport and Highways Secretary Sanjay Mitra said. Of these, six will be implemented in EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) mode and two in hybrid annuity mode, he said. The projects approved today include construction of partially access controlled four-lane elevated highway between Samrala Chowk to Ludhiana Municipal limit on NH 95 in Punjab on hybrid annuity mode to be executed at a cost of Rs 910 crore. Another project for Punjab pertains to four-lane Laddowal Bypass (linking NH 95 WITH NH 1 via Laddowal seed farm at Ludhiana) under NHDP on hybrid annuity mode at a cost of Rs 444 crore. Two projects approved for Jharkhand today include four/two laning with paved shoulder of Govindpur Chas-West Bengal border section of NH 32 on EPC mode at Rs 946 crore and four-laning of Barhi-Hazaribag section of NH 33 on EPC mode at a cost of Rs 700 crore. A Rs 302 crore project was approved for Madhya Pradesh for balance work of 2 lane with paved shoulder of Bhopal to Sanchi section of NH 86. Three more projects -- one each for Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Odisha -- were approved today at a cost of Rs 396 crore, Rs 887 crore and Rs 1,369 crore for NH 116, NH 22 and NH 23 stretches, respectively. No clearance is required for approval of these projects as their construction cost is less than Rs 1,000 crore, the limit fixed by the government recently for award of projects by the Road Transport and Highways Ministry. The government plans to award most of these projects within this fiscal. The government has a target of awarding road contracts of 10,000 kms for this fiscal and it has so far awarded 7,677 kms. It has already set a target to increase the length of National Highways to 2 lakh kms from the existing 96,000 kms. Last week, the Ministry had approved 13 projects worth Rs 10,300 crore that included five projects by National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and eight projects by the Ministry. As many as 18 projects worth Rs 17,000 crore for building about 1,000 kms of highways, including nine on the recently approved hybrid annuity mode, were approved in a meeting, chaired by Mitra, earlier this month. No Cabinet approval is required for the projects cleared this month as the government, in a bid to fast-track highways projects, had recently empowered Road Transport and Highways Ministry to approve projects with civil construction cost up to Rs 1,000 crore. It has made it clear that civil construction cost would be segregated from capital cost of projects. This was done to reduce time as multiple stages of examination and appraisal of the same project by different Ministry/Department/Committees caused delays in award of National Highways projects. Taking note of such difficulties and with a view to minimise levels of decision making, the CCEA has empowered the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways to decide on the change in the mode of delivery of individual NH projects. The Cabinet had last month approved hybrid annuity model for building roads to fast-track highway projects, revive the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) mode and attract more investments in the sector. Under this model, the government provides 40 per cent of the project cost to the developer while remaining 60 per cent investment has to be made by the developer. Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari had recently said, "No one (private players) was ready to participate in the PPP-based projects as they had lost faith (in the previous government). "However, to encourage private participation, we have also introduced a hybrid model, where we will share the risk with them," he had said, adding that majority of land acquisition has been done for all these projects. Congress leader Digvijaya Singh today alleged that the BJP-led Centre was not taking action against those who actually shouted anti-India slogans in JNU campus because it was more concerned about forming government with PDP in Jammu and Kashmir. Elsewhere in the city, Union Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu said the NDA government would deal with the anti-national elements with a firm hand. "No charges were framed against Umar (Khalid) who actually organised the event in commemoration of Afzal Guru. It was he and others who raised anti-national slogans but no action has been taken against them. But Kanhaiya Kumar, against whom there is not a single evidence that he raised anti-India slogans, was charged and arrested. This exposes the doublespeak of the BJP," Singh said. Noting that it was a "clear fight between ideologies", he regretted that Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi was being branded as anti-national for having taken up a fight against BJP's ideology of "exploitation". Singh was addressing a press conference at the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee headquarters here this evening after the party coordination committee and extended executive committee meetings ended. Singh, a Rajya Sabha MP, accused the BJP-RSS-VHP combine of trying to impose their ideologies in the national universities. Rahul Gandhi condemned the anti-national slogans raised in JNU campus by some and even sought action against them. But the Delhi Police, acting at the behest of the Centre, was not taking any action against the real culprits because the government was worried about formation of alliance with PDP in and Jammu and Kashmir, he said. "India has two sets of ideologies and two sets of parties. One protects the exploiters, industrialists, business houses and also exploits the poor. The second is that of Mahatma Gandhi, which is the Congress ideology that is for the poor, labour, SCs, STs, underprivileged. It's a fight between the exploiters and exploited. Rahul Gandhi is fighting for the ideology the Congress stands for. That is why he went to JNU," Singh said. A group of lawyers supporting the BJP heckled even the Supreme Court-appointed panel and a BJP MLA was involved in the incidents at Patiala House Court, he said, adding, "No action has been taken against them." The Congress general secretary wanted the people to judge who was patriot and who anti-national. Union minister Naidu, speaking elsewhere in the city today, lashed out at the political parties "supporting" anti-national elements. "How can these parties support elements who shouted slogans in favour of Afzal Guru and against India? Guru was hanged after a verdict by the Supreme Court. There were prolonged hearings in the case and several mercy petitions. How can the nation allow those who attacked the Parliament to go without any punishment?" Venkaiah said. The international Yoga Day will be celebrated on a "grand scale" this year with the government issuing an "improved" common protocol of asanas, besides holding other events to attract people specially students. Ayush Minister Shripad Yesso Naik today said the Ministry of Human Resources Development has also been asked to organise a Yoga Olympiad to popularise the practice among students. "The Ayush Ministry has decided to celebrate the International Yoga Day on a grand scale as compared to last year. A 45-minute common yoga protocol has been developed by experts committee of the yoga gurus, which is an improved version of last year's event. "We are requesting various yoga institutions to provide necessary technical support and guidance to the state for the event," Naik said. He was addressing the ministers and senior bureaucrats of states and Union Territories. June 21 is celebrated as the World Yoga day. "In addition, we have also requested Ministry of Human Resources Development to organise a Yoga Olympiad involving school children," Naik said. Anil Kumar Ganeriwala, Joint Secretary in the Ministry, said "we are requesting important yoga institutions to provide technical guidelines to a group of states within their states so that there will be collaboration between the state governments and yoga institutions." The Centre for Support for Yoga and Naturopathy will give funds to NGOs in each district of the country to organise a one-month training programme. Pakistani police say two gunmen shot and killed three police officers in an attack on a patrol in the central city of Faisalabad. Police officer Hidayat Ali says the two gunmen escaped on a motorbike after the shooting late today on a busy road of the industrial city. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the assault but a local affiliate of the Islamic State group claimed a similar attack on police patrol in capital, Islamabad, last week. The previous claim came through a statement circulated online. One officer was killed and two wounded in the Islamabad attack. Pakistan's interior minister, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, denies the existence of any IS affiliate or branch in the country, saying militants operating for different groups invoke the name of IS to spread fear. Amid reports that she was emerging as a "fantastic choice" for being Republican party's Vice Presidential candidate, Indian-American South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has ruled out any such possibility, saying her "plate is full". Haley, who earlier this week endorsed Florida Senator Marco Rubio in the Republican presidential race, said she is quite "content" with her responsibilities as the Governor of South Carolina and bringing up two kids. "Not at all. I have said my plate is full," Haley told the Fox in an interview when asked about latest media reports that Rubio-Haley would be a dream Republican ticket. "I am not only a mom, my daughter is going to college next year, son is in middle school. I got a State that I love. We have not done finished all the work we want to finish here," 44-year-old said. "So I am totally content and happy in South Carolina. What I do want to see that America gets a great president," Haley said in a joint appearance on the Fox with Rubio in South Carolina. "I think, we can do that with Marco Rubio," she said responding to questions on her potential running as a Vice Presidential running mate of Rubio, as being reported by some of the major media outlets. Senator Tim Scott from South Carolina said that, he is "all for" Haley being picked for Vice President. Haley is articulate and a strong leader, who went "through the fire" during a tragic 2015 in the State, he said. "She would be a fantastic choice and one that I think the country would be quite responsive to," Scott said. However, The Washington Post offered a word of caution. "A Rubio-Haley ticket might be many things. But a panacea for the GOP's sundry political and demographic challenges? It certainly is not," it said. But for The New York Observer, a Rubio-Haley ticket would be a worst nightmare for Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential front runner. "The sight of Florida Senator Marco Rubio standing side-by-side with South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, after her blockbuster endorsement of his candidacy for president days before the South Carolina GOP primary, gave the appearance of a presidential ticket that would be a game changer for the 2016 campaign," it said. "Maybe a Hispanic-Asian ticket with one candidate who's rediscovering his tea-party roots and another who's made herself into the top union-hater in the country is the best they can do," The New Yorker wrote. (Reopens FGN 4) "President-elect Trump deserves tremendous credit for the way he was able to connect with the electorate, but he did not do it by celebrating the Republican Party. And the American people did not vote for him because he had an 'R' next to his name," Haley said. "(Voters) rejected the political class of all stripes, Republicans included, and we have no one to blame but ourselves. There have been broken promises at every level of government. We need to go back to the basics and remember that we are the party of limited government...The party of inclusivity. We've moved away from that over the last decade," she said. The Madras High Court today took suo motu of a item published in a Tamil daily and ordered issue of notice to Government Pleader S T S Murthi on behalf of secretaries of Home, Social Welfare and Commissioner of Police. The court comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice M M Sundreh gave the order on when Nasurullah, an advocate, mentioned about the item on the death of a differently abled person during a protest by differently abled persons. The bench also directed the Government Pleader to file status report by March 1. Delhi High Court today restrained Indian firm Nuziveedu Seeds from selling Bt cotton seeds using the trade-mark of US-based agro major Monsanto's Indian arm Mahyco Monsanto Biotech Ltd (MMBL). Justice Vipin Sanghi also asked the Hyderabad-based seed company to pay the royalty to MMBL, a joint venture between US-based Monsanto and Mahyco, after selling the old stock manufactured prior to November 2015. The bench restrained Nuziveedu Seeds from selling seeds manufactured after November last year when the license agreement was terminated. It also appointed Local Commissioners to make an inventory of stocks available with Nuziveedu. The court's order came on a lawsuit moved by the MMBL. Senior advocates Sandeep Sethi and Pratibha M Singh, appearing for the agro major submitted that the domestic company was selling their product by infringing the Monsanto trade mark. Monsanto has also urged that seed manufacturer Nuziveedu was selling Bt cotton seeds manufactured using patented Bollgard-II gene technology of Monsanto. The local company was selling the seeds under Monsanto's trademark subsequent to termination of the license agreement between the two parties on 15 November 2015, the counsel had submitted. MMBL had terminated the license agreements of Nuziveedu and its group companies on account of continued refusal to pay contractually agreed trait fees amounting to more than Rs 165 crore. MMBL has also approached the Bombay High Court over non-payment of about Rs 400 crore of royalty fees by some Bt cotton seed manufacturers including Nuziveedu. These companies, which had licensed the technology from MMBL, have not paid the trait value to MMBL for the seeds they sold to farmers in the current and last year's kharif seasons. A court here today put off for tomorrow the hearing on absconding RJD MLA Raj Bhallabh Yadav's anticipatory bail application in connection with a case of alleged rape even as the police took his son into custody on the charge of destroying evidence. Additional District Judge of Nalanda Rashmi Sikha put off the hearing on the anticipatory bail plea of the MLA on a request of his lawyer Sitaram Lord seeking time to read the police diary. The court had first heard the matter on February 17 but had posted it for hearing today. The police, in the meantime, today took Yadav's son Akhilesh into custody from Anisabad in Patna on the charge of destroying evidence in the case. Akhilesh was being brought to Nalanda for questioning, Nalanda Superintendent of Police, Vivekanand said. Raj Bhallabh Yadav, RJD MLA from Nawada, who had served as a minister in the Rabri Devi ministry, is underground for the past one week after Patna Range Deputy Inspector General Shalin ordered his arrest in an alleged case of rape of a girl studying in class X. In another development, Nalanda SP Vivekanand was shifted today to the police lines, apparently reflecting Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's unhappiness over the police failing to arrest the RJD MLA so far. Kumar Ashish has been made the new SP of Nalanda. RJD had suspended Yadav after of the MLA's alleged involvement in the rape case came to the fore. US-based Caterpillar expects India's heavy equipment market to double to over USD 4 billion over the next three years given the pick-up in mining, but ruled out capital investment as it already has built enough capacity for the next decade. "I see the resources and the infra sector related equipment, which is the largest market here, doubling to over USD 4 billion over the next three years. The current market is around USD 2 billion or around 80,000 units per annum," Caterpillar India Managing Director Vivekanand Vanmeeganathan told PTI here today. The world's largest heavy equipment maker has been present here since the 1930s and sells massive cranes, earthmovers, off-roaders, gensets among others for the construction, resource, and energy and transportation segments. When asked to comment on 'Make in India' Week, where the company had put up a large stall, he said this has changed the investment mood in the country, but was quick to add his company has already built enough capacity at its five plants for the next many years. "The industry has already built enough capacity to meet the projected demand growth during the early part of this decade. What will happen is better capacity utilization," Vanmeeganathan said, adding the industry is yet to recover from the downturn that started three years ago. "Moreover, we are about to commission our Aurangabad plant, wherein we have invested USD 150 million. The commissioning is expected sometime next month," he added. While the mining and construction sector has many players such as JCB, the state-run BEML, Hitachi among others, the energy and transportation sector, that needs much larger and heavier equipment, is dominated by Caterpillar. Caterpillar India has five plants and distributes products through 180 dealers via CK Birla-controlled General Motors Marketing and Tractors India. The firm has plants in Thiruvallur and Hosur in Tamil Nadu and Aurangabad and Banda in Maharashtra. It employs around 6,000 people directly and 4,000 through the dealers. It has a wide product range for the sectors like mining, quarry, power generation, construction, road works, petroleum and rail. It manufactures, sells and finances products like backhoe loaders, compact, small and medium wheel loaders, small and medium track-type tractors, skid steer loaders, multi-terrain loaders, compact track loaders, track excavators, motor graders, pipe-layers,and tele-handlers. Caterpillar is also majorly into exports to the tune of 50 per cent of its output, shipping its equipments to China, Latin America, Africa, west Asia and Russia among others. A Hizbul Mujahideen militant was arrested and a militant hideout busted in two separate operations by the security forces in Kashmir valley, police said here today. Abid Ahmad Bhat, a resident of Kanihama village in Shopian, was arrested from nearby Habdipora area in a joint operation of army and police, police said. In a separate operation, troops of CRPF conducted a search operation in an orchard in Lar area of Ganderbal district following information about an ammunition dump of militants there, police said. Four electric detonators, two IED remote controls, one AK magazine and 30 AK rounds along with a wireless set were recovered from there, they added. French President Francois Hollande said today that he would do what is necessary to keep Britain in the European Union -- on condition that "Europe can still move forward". "I'll do what is needed to keep the United Kingdom in Europe, but on condition that Europe can still move forward," Hollande told French radio as a key Brussels summit was set to go on late into the evening. But with Prime Minister David Cameron seeking a package of reforms ahead of a referendum on British membership of the bloc, Hollande said Britain could not have "special rules" for the City of London, its financial sector. One of Cameron's aims in the negotiations is to ensure that the City of London is not bound by rules governing the euro single currency area. Cameron has said that unless he gets a satisfactory deal, he will not campaign for Britain to stay in the 28-nation European Union in a referendum that he is expected to hold as early as June. The British premier faces opposition from eastern European countries such as Poland over his plans to limit access to benefits for migrants. He also faces trouble from France and Belgium over his bid to make clear that Britain is not committed to ever-closer union. In the wake of ongoing protest by members of Jat community across the state, Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC) today rescheduled the written examination for filling up various posts to be held at Kaithal. The examination, which was to be held on February 21, 2016, would now be held on March 20, 2016. While stating this here today, a spokesman of the Commission said that a notice to this effect has been issued. He however, said that the written examination has been postponed on "administrative grounds". According to the fresh schedule, the examination for the post of Statistical Assistant would now be held at Kaithal during the morning session from 10.30 am to 12 pm. Similarly, the examination for the post of Veterinary Livestock Development Assistant (VLDA) would be held at Kaithal during the evening session from 3 pm to 4.30 pm. With his plea being rejected by the Supreme Court, deposed Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh Nabam Tuki today said there is an "apprehension" that if a new government takes charge in the state, it may dissolve the Assembly soon. The Supreme Court today rejected the plea of Congress leaders seeking an interim direction that it be allowed to go in for a trail of strength on the floor of the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly to prove majority. Tuki, through his counsel informed the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court that he is ready and willing to face composite floor test in the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly in case President's Rule is revoked, Tuki's spokesperson and Congress Legislature Party leader Geetartha Darshan Barua said. "There is an apprehension that the Governor, upon revocation of President's Rule, may swear in a new government which would then recommend dissolution of the sixth Arunachal Pradesh Assembly," Barua said. "The Hon'ble Judges observed that there should be no fear about such an eventuality as it is unlikely that such a step would be taken in view of the fact that the matter is going to be decided by the Supreme Court," he said. He said, "it was orally observed by the Bench that nobody would take such a risk as it would be a shame that a person is sworn in and the ultimate judgement of the Supreme Court may set aside everything. "It is thus the hope of Congress Party that the Governor would exercise due restraint and act judiciously," Barua added. Healthcare on Friday said it was in talks with a number of investors to facilitate an exit by the existing private-equity investors from the company's diagnostic arm, SRL Diagnostics. "The company is in the process of facilitating a third-party exit for the existing private-equity investors in SRL Diagnostics Ltd," Healthcare said in a filing to the BSE (formerly known as the Bombay Stock Exchange). Read more from our special coverage on "FORTIS" Fortis Healthcare says in talks with investors for pathology chain SRL The process is on and the company is in dialogue with a number of investors who have shown interest, it added. "As on date, there is no firm proposal under consideration of the management," Healthcare said. It did not elaborate. The stock of Fortis Healthcare on Friday closed at Rs 175 on the BSE, up 12 per cent from its previous close. Telangana government has reiterated its request to the Centre for enhancement of number of Legislative Assembly seats in the State from 119 to 153. Telangana Chief Secretary Rajiv Sharma has written a letter to Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi, to this effect. "As the new State of Telangana came into existence on June 2, 2014, and in order to strengthen the Democratic Institutions and to provide Social Justice to the people of Telangana, the Government of India may initiate action to place the matter before the Election Commission of India for increase of seats in Legislative Assembly of Telangana State from 119 to 153 as envisaged in the AP Re-Organisation Act, 2014 as expeditiously as possible," the letter said. In support of his request, the Chief Secretary quoted relevant provision under section 26 of AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, regarding delimitation of constituencies. It has been provided in the section 26(1) that subject to the provisions contained in Article 170 of the Constitution and without prejudice to section 15 of this Act, the number of seats in the Legislative Assembly of the successor States of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana shall be increased from 175 and 119 to 225 and 153, respectively, he said. Delimitation of the constituencies may be determined by the Election Commission, the chief secretary added. India and Armenia today signed an agreement for cooperation in the sector. In this regard, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed by Minister Radha Mohan Singh and Armenian Minister Sergo Karapetyan here, which provides for setting up of a joint working group (JWG) and preparation of work plans in priority areas of farm sector. "The two ministers further identified cooperatives, cattle identification, agriculture machinery, plant breeding and exchange of agri-scientist and students as priority areas and resolved to constitute the JWG at the earliest to take the agreement forward," an official release said. They also emphasised on furthering relationships not only for catalysing trade and investment prospects but also sharing the knowledge that the two countries have accumulated over the years, it said. The Armenian minister also reiterated his country's support for India's claim to a permanent seat in UN Security Council, the statement added. The agreement is valid for five years and extendable beyond five years. An Indian citizen who has been living in Pakistan since 1982 and embroiled in a family feud has been arrested here after he was found allegedly possessing a Pakistani National Identity Card, officials said today. Rustam Sadhua was arrested yesterday by Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and is accused of obtaining his National Identity Card (NIC), issued only to Pakistani nationals, through fraudulent means. He was arrested from a court in Islamabad after his pre-arrest bail was rejected and is being "probed", an FIA official said. According to available evidence, Sadhua arrived in Pakistan from India in 1982 and since then has been living in the country, the official said. Sadhua is the brother-in-law of Pakistan's influential minority lawmaker Asfandyar and son-in-law of well-known brewery tycoon late MP Bhandra. Sources said that after the death of Bhandra, differences cropped up between his son Asfandyar and daughter who is married to Sadhua. Asfandyar published several notices in the past against the couple for grabbing his ancestral property, accusing Sadhua of trying to usurp the property by using his influence over his wife. The two families have also court cases against each other and Asfandyar has been trying to exploit Sadhua's Indian background. Sadhua had filed an application for pre-arrest bail in the court of special judge central Malik Nazeer which was rejected, leading to his arrest. Expressing satisfaction over the arrest, Asfandyar, who has been exploiting Sadhua's Indian background, said he had time and again complained about the suspect's conduct and had publicly dissociated himself from him. "This man has defamed my late father and my family and I hope his other frauds also surface during investigation," Asfandyar was quoted as saying by the 'Dawn'. Sadhua will be presented before the court again tomorrow to obtain a physical remand, but it may not be the end of the family feud. Indian journalists based in the UK today expressed "grave concern" over the recent attack on media persons in a court premises in New Delhi and sought action against those found guilty. The London-based Indian Journalists' Association (IJA) Europe issued a statement expressing "grave concern over the recent attacks on journalists in the Patiala House court premises in New Delhi." "Indian journalism has a long history of performing its vital function, and any attempts to hinder the work of journalists can only be detrimental to democratic traditions that India is justly proud of. "The IJA calls upon all stakeholders to take action against whom there is evidence, recognise and value the role of journalists, and ensure that such incidents do not recur," the statement said. Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) leader Kanhaiya Kumar and some journalists were attacked in the court complex earlier this week in defiance of the orders of the Supreme Court. A number of international organisations have expressed concern over the incidents, including the India and South Asia departments of leading UK universities and human rights group Amnesty International. An Indian-origin man has been found guilty of bigamy by a UK court after he confessed to marrying a second time in London despite having a wife back in Goa. Wilfred Souza admitted the bigamy charge at Feltham Magistrates' Court in west London yesterday and was handed a punishment of one-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay a fine of 100 pounds. Magistrate Chris Hack told the 35-year-old man that the offence was on the "lower end" of the scale. "We find that the circumstances surrounding this case of bigamy puts the offending at the lowest end. "We accept an offence has been committed which involved some deceit but there has been little if any harm to either party and the deceit was limited. "We note Mrs Souza's behaviour in this matter and the support being displayed by your partner," the judge said. According to the 'Hounslow Chronicle', Souza married first wife Ezmy in Goa in December 2012 but left to live in the UK in 2013 to study and look for work. He then started "ignoring" his wife's telephone calls after she kept asking him when he was "coming home". The court was told Souza repeatedly dodged his first wife's calls and attempts to get in touch on social media. And on March 23, 2015, he got married to Sheiza Colaco - who is also originally from Goa - at the the Hounslow Civic Centre without getting a divorce. His first wife found out about Souza's marriage and alerted the authorities in the UK, saying she was still married to him - leading to Souza's arrest for bigamy. The prosecution told the court: "Mrs Souza states Mr Souza left India to go to England for work and on the second occasion failed to return and had been avoiding her calls." Souza's defence lawyer, Stefan Baard, described how Miss Colaco - Souza's second wife - knew all about his first wife in India. He said Souza had "gone to great lengths" to try and resolve issues with his first wife, but that she had told him she was "not interested in a divorce or in joining him in England". He said Souza and his second wife were "very keen to move on and try to get the divorce sorted out in India". Baard said: "The reason for this second marriage taking place was that Miss Calico fell pregnant and there was huge pressure on him for cultural reasons to get married. "They're very keen to move on and try to get the divorce sorted out in India so they can marry properly this time around." Under conditional discharge, the offender is released but his offence is registered on criminal record. No further action is taken unless they commit a further offence within a time frame of around three years. (REOPENS FGN19) Overall, Liberty House estimates the investment will generate up to 2,000 jobs in the supply chain and add around 1 billion pounds to the local economy in the next decade. It forms part of the group's wider strategy for the UK's steel industry, having taken over large parts of Tata's British steel operations and previously acquiring much of the Caparo engineering business when the Lord Swraj Paul owned units went into administration. As well as the smelter and the hydroelectric plants, the latest acquisition includes a 100,000-acre estate which captures rainwater to power the hydro-electric generators. Liberty has said that under the banner of Liberty British Aluminium it will add value to the production of aluminium by integrating the smelter with a new engineering and downstream manufacturing facility. Kolkata-based Infinity group which is constructing a temple township in Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh with ISKCON Bangalore has launched the second phase of the project. Showcasing the highlights of the project here, the group chairman Ravindra Chamaria said that the second phase will have 760 flats besides villas. "Uniqueness of this project is its iconic Krishna temple which will be tallest Krishna temple in the word with a height of 210 metres over 70 acres of land. The township is spread over 40 acre in Vrindavan," he said here. The entire project will have nearly 2000 apartments. A US air strike targeting ISIS training camp in Libya today likely killed a senior militant who was linked to two major attacks in Tunisia last year in which nearly 60 people lost their lives, the Pentagon said. ISIS operative Noureddine Chouchane alias Sabir, a Tunisian national and senior facilitator of the group in Libya, likely killed in the attack. The US military conducted the air strike in Libya's Sabratha and destroyed an ISIS training camp. Chouchane was associated with the training camp which was wiped out in the air strike, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said. "Destruction of the camp and Chouchane's removal will eliminate an experienced facilitator and is expected to have an immediate impact on ISIL's ability to facilitate its activities in Libya, including recruiting new ISIL members, establishing bases in Libya, and potentially planning external attacks on US interests in the region," Cook said. In May 2015, Tunisian authorities named Chouchane as a suspect in the March 18, 2015, deadly attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunis. Chouchane was also linked to June's hotel attack in Sousse, which killed 38 people, and the massacre that killed 22 people at the Bardo National Museum in Tunis. "We are assessing the results of the operation and will provide additional information as and when appropriate," Cook said, adding the strike demonstrates the US will go after ISIS whenever it is necessary, using the full range of tools at our disposal. The Egyptian branch of the Islamic State group has posted pictures online of what it says was the execution of two men caught spying for the army in the Sinai. One of those decapitated was presented by the IS offshoot Sinai Province as a "spy for the military intelligence" services, while it said the other was a "spy for the army". The images which were distributed on Twitter yesterday night were deemed authentic by US monitor SITE Intelligence Group. The IS affiliate is waging an insurgency in the restive peninsula that has killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen since the military overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013. The jihadists say they caused the crash of a Russian passenger plane carrying holidaymakers over Sinai last October, killing all 224 people on board. IS said it had smuggled a bomb onto the plane at an airport in the south of the peninsula. The Sinai jihadists pledged allegiance in November 2014 to IS, which controls parts of Iraq and Syria. More than 700 Palestinians are currently being held by Israel without being charged or put on trial, the Palestinian Prisoners Club said today. The number of prisoners held under Israel's controversial administrative detention law has spiked because of a series of arrests since a new wave of violence began in October, the prisoners club said in a statement. Under the administrative detention law, Israel can hold suspects without trial for periods of six months renewable indefinitely. The system is again under the spotlight because of a hunger strike by journalist Mohammed al-Qiq, who has gone without food for 87 days in protest at being detained without trial. The system has been criticised by Palestinians, human rights groups and the international community. The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, raised the issue of administrative detention on Thursday in a speech to the UN Security Council. He said that anyone held under the system should "be either charged or released immediately". He also said he was "deeply concerned about the deteriorating condition" of Qiq. Israel says administrative detention, a policy it inherited from the British rule in Mandatory Palestine, is an essential tool for preventing attacks while allowing to keep sensitive information secret. More than 7,000 Palestinians are currently in Israeli jails, including those under administrative detention, according to the prisoners club. Among them are around 30 people who have been in jail since before the signature of the 1993 Oslo Accords. The Palestinian Authority has made their release a condition of the resumption of frozen peace talks with Israel. The Jammu and Kashmir police today arrested a former assistant of the controversial godman Asaram Bapu in a case registered in 2013 in that state. Satish Wadhawani (38), was produced before a magistrate here who granted the J and K police his transit remand. Wadhwani is facing a case under sections 120-B, 153 A, 194, 195, 295 and 383 of the Ranbir Penal Code at Navabad police station in Jammu and Kashmir. Wadhawani, who worked as driver and bodyguard for Asaram and his son Narayan Sai from 1994 to 2009, later fell out with them and made some public statements against the father-son duo. He had also taken police protection in Indore saying he was getting threats. Jat leaders today rejected an appeal by political parties in Haryana to call off their quota protest even as Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar gave an assurance that a solution will be worked out to extend reservation to the community. The appeal to the Jat leaders was made by the parties at a meeting convened by Khattar to discuss the demands of the community and find a way out to end the impasse. However, the agitators refused to withdraw their protest till a legislation is passed giving quota to the community under OBC category and accused Khattar of having "casteist mentality" saying he did not belong to the community. Meanwhile, mobile Internet and SMS services were suspended indefinitely by the authorities in violence-hit Rohtak in the wake of the agitation spreading in the district. Trains on the Delhi-Ambala and Hisar-Dhuri routes were hit as the protesters squatted on railway tracks as part of their plan to intensify the stir. "The political parties have appealed to the agitating Jats to call off their protest to maintain peace and harmony in the state. "Our first priority is that the Jat agitation should end today and peace maintained in the state. A way will be worked out to give reservation to Jats," Khattar said after the meeting. He said blocking roads and hampering rail services were not the "right way" to hold an agitation. Normal life has been severely affected in various parts of Haryana with the agitation hitting supply of essential commodities like milk, vegetables, LPG and petroleum products. "Supplies of petroleum products are hit in Rohtak, Bhiwani and Jind due to the agitation," an official said. "Some of the fuel pumps in these districts have even gone dry. Similarly, the supply of LPG cylinders has also been affected in these areas," the official said. Asked about BJP MP Raj Kumar Saini's remarks against Jat quota, Khattar said Kurukshetra MP's statement "should be considered as withdrawn". Saini had earlier expressed objection over giving reservation to Jats and had even threatened to resign if there was "any loss" to reservation quota for OBCs. Jat protesters demanding reservation for the community under the OBC category blocked roads and National highway for third consecutive day in Jind district. Almost all the main roads and NH-65 and NH-71 at six places passing through Jind district were blocked besides five state highways at 12 places. Apart from these, about 30 link roads in the district which include Jind-Patiala, Jind-Panipat, Jind-Rohtak, Jind-Hansi, Jind-Gohana, Jind-Kaithal and Jind-Bhiwani roads were also blocked. Due to the blockade residents of Jind are facing great hardship and inconvenience as the essential commodities are said to be in short supply. Many passengers stranded at the local bus stand as Haryana Roadways buses of Jind Depot remained off the roads for the second day today. NCP leader has accused the BJP-led government of pursuing double standards in categorising violent incidents, which he says is a dangerous trend. "Jihad and terrorism are two different things, like the two banks of a river that could never meet," Anwar said. "But the government today, as a matter of policy, categorises the violent act of a Hindu as 'goondagiri' while the same of a Muslim as an act of terrorism, and this is a dangerous trend," he said at a recent seminar on 'Jihad against Terrorism', organised by All India Qaumi Tanjim, headed by state NCP functionary Munaf Hakim, here. "The Home Department, instead of doing its duty to establish and maintain peace, is falsely implicating educated youth and branding them terrorists," Anwar alleged. He also said that media should bring forth the true meaning of 'Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas' slogan. On the occasion, All India Marathi Literary Conference president Sripal Sabnis said "those causing misunderstanding among people for political gains and spreading hatred should desist from this". "Jihad as discussed in Islam is all about self restraint to control one's senses and purify the heart and it has nothing to do with terrorism," he said. "The true enemies of India are bigots causing breach in the integrity, unity and peace of the nation," Sabnis said. Arya Samaj leader and social activist Swami Agnivesh said people want to listen to people speaking of united India. "If there has to be a Jihad, it should be against poverty and inequality," he said. He challenged those who question the contribution of Arya Samaj in freedom struggle. "Give me name of single RSS member who died fighting the British. There were many from Islam who contributed for our country's freedom." "Jihad should be against alcoholism, drugs, and infanticide. Religious bigotry is causing untold harm to the nation," he said. Scores of lawyers, including Vikram Singh Chauhan and others who beat up journalists and JNUSU leader Kanhaiya Kumar in a Delhi court complex, today took out a protest march here against those indulging in "anti-national" acts. Clashes between rival student groups in Jaipur and police action in Hyderabad where several people were detained marked the protests in other cities. In the national capital, the lawyers, mostly from Patiala House and several other district courts, marched around the India Gate circle, shouting slogans and waving the tricolour, amid heavy police security. They were demanding action against those "indulging" in "anti-India" activities. Some of the lawyers, including Chauhan, who were caught on camera leading brazen assaults on journalists and JNU students in Patiala House courts, on Monday and Wednesday were part of the protest and appeared to be unfazed by the outrage over their actions. Chauhan's colleagues told the media that the lawyers did not indulge in violence against anyone, including journalists. Three lawyers, including Chauhan, have been summoned by Delhi Police in connection with Monday's attack but they are yet to appear before it. Members of ABVP, a RSS student wing, and Congress' student wing NSUI clashed during their protests over the JNU row outside Rajasthan University campus in Jaipur. The groups of students clashed at the main gate of the University. They were holding their respective protests and demonstration on the JNU issue when the incident occurred, Deputy Commissioner of Police (East) K Rastradeep said. Leaders of Left and other opposition parties today sought President Pranab Mukherjee's intervention in the immediate release of JNU Students' Union president Kanhaiya Kumar and others. CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, who led the delegation to Mukherjee, claimed that the President expressed "great degree of concern" over issues it raised and assured that he will look into the matter. Besides Yechury, CPI leaders S Sudhakar Reddy and D Raja, NCP's DP Tripathi, JD(U) MP Pavan Varma and RJD MP Premchand Gupta were part of the delegation. "We demanded the President to see that Kanhaiya Kumar and other students who are charged based on fabricated evidences, are released immediately and not harassed. We also have submitted a memorandum to this regard to the President," Yechury told reporters after the meeting. The delegation also noted "those who worship" Mahatma Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse tried to position themselves as nationalist and opposition parties as "anti-nationalists" on the pretext of the JNU row and stressed politics of this sort "cannot go on" in the country. "And hence, we urged the President to step in to protect sanctity of Constitution," Yechury said. The leaders observed right-wing outfits were spreading "anti-Dalit" and "anti-marginalised" venom in varsities across the country "as seen" in Hyderabad Central University, FTII and Jadavpur University and yet the Union government, it alleged, is not acting against them. They also accused the government of trying to convert Indian democratic republic into RSS' version of Hindu Rashtra and allegedly attacking education system to achieve that goal. "The government it seems is encouraging these things, because it is not taking any step for country's security even though everything is happening right under their nose. So, we urged the President to step in also to save the Indian Republic," Yechury added. He also said the opposition leaders will "mount pressure" on the government over the issue during forthcoming budget session of Parliament beginning on February 23. Accusing RSS and BJP of making "false allegations", Left parties today said they will hold nationwide protests next week against the alleged "anti-national" tag being given to them by Hindutva forces. After a meeting of six Left parties here today, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury told reporters that the protests will be held between February 23 and 25. He said a delegation comprising leaders of Left parties and MPs from JD(U), RJD and NCP will call on President Pranab Mukherjee seeking his intervention in the row even as he stressed that JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar must be released forthwith". "On the basis of false allegations, the RSS-BJP have mounted an all-India attack against Indian people, targeting the Left. This anti-national label they want to give to all others except themselves is something completely unacceptable. "So, Left parties have decided to hold an all-India protest campaign against what the RSS-BJP is doing under this Government's patronage," Yechury said. Targeting right-wing forces on the issue, he said those who "glorify" Mahatma Gandhi's killer Nathuram Godse as a national hero, are in "no position" to term Left leaders as "anti-national". Referring to the decision that all central varsities will fly tricolour atop a 207-feet tall mast on their campuses to signify a "strong India", Yechury took a dig at the Centre saying such "whipping of jingoism" will not earn it "credible" points on nationalism. "The size of the tricolour in our hearts and the comrades of the Left is much larger than any size this government may hoist in any university," Yechury, flanked by other Left leaders, said. Citing the alleged attack on CPI(M) head office and "threats" to him and CPI national secretary D Raja over their stand on the varsity row, he said that Left leaders will meet the attack "politically and democratically". Meanwhile, a delegation of Left leaders, along with MPs of NCP, JD(U) and RJD, will meet President Pranab Mukherjee in the evening, seeking his intervention in the JNU row being Visitor of the university. "We will convey the decisions taken by Left parties along with other democratic secular parties who are present in Parliament to the President. The President is the Visitor of the JNU. "He has and he should in that capacity as the Visitor of the university intervene to stop this sort of a direct insurrection against the Indian Constitution that the RSS-BJP have launched under the patronage of the Modi government," Yechury said. Besides Yechury and Raja, the meeting was attended by CPI(M) leaders Prakash Karat and S Ramchandran Pillai, CPI general secretary S Sudhakar Reddy, CPI(ML)-Liberation's Swapan Mukherjee, RSP leader Abani Roy, AIFB general secretary Debabrata Biswas and Pran Sharma of SUCI(C). The Modi government faced more flak from the opposition over the escalating with chief ministers of Bihar and Delhi today alleging it has triggered an emotional issue to "hide its failure" on economic front and that opposing BJP and RSS has become the "biggest crime". "Since they have failed miserably on economic front after making tall claims during 2014 Parliamentary elections, they (BJP and RSS) have triggered an emotional issue (JNU event) to hide the failure," Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said emerging from a meeting of state cabinet in Patna. Nitish, who is senior leader of JD(U), once again attacked the Centre for levelling sedition charge on JNU Student Union President Kanhaiya Kumar without any evidence. "If they have any evidence that justifies Kanhaiya Kumar arrest on sedition charge why do not they make it public?" Nitish said, backing the stand of Congress and Left parties on the controversial slapping of sedition case on Kumar. Kanhaiya Kumar hails from Bihar. "JNU is on their (BJP and RSS) target because there is negligible percentage of people who believe in saffron ideology," he said. "People of other parties are also nationalist...But they do not require to take a certificate of nationalism from them," Nitish said. Recently condemning arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar on sedition charge, Nitish had said it was "too much of a design" to impose the ideology of ABVP, the student wing of the RSS, on the nation. He had claimed on Monday last it was "like imposing Emergency" in the country. Stepping up his attack on the central government over the JNU row, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said opposing BJP and RSS is the "biggest" crime under the present dispensation and accused it of failing to act against its sympathisers who indulge in criminal activities. "Centre's new IPC--it's not a crime to murder, rape or beat anyone if u r from BJP. Being opposed to BJP n RSS is biggest crime now (sic)," Kejriwal tweeted. In another tweet, the Delhi Chief Minister said, "Centre's new IPC--rape, murder or beat anyone. When questioned, just say that victim was shouting anti-India slogans, u will be let off." Though the Chief Minister did not name anyone, he was apparently referring to Centre's alleged inaction against BJP legislator OP Sharma and the lawyers who were caught on-camera beating people outside Patiala House Court Complex where hearing of Kanhaiya Kumar took place on Monday. Sharma was arrested yesterday in connection with the incident, but was given bail later in the day. Scores of lawyers, including those who defied police summons over the violence in a Delhi court complex, took out a protest march today even as the JNU row sparked clashes between rival student groups in Jaipur and police action in Hyderabad where several people were detained. In the national capital, the lawyers, mostly from Patiala House and several other district courts, marched vigorously around the India Gate circle, shouting slogans and waving the tricolour, in presence of heavy police security. They were demanding action against those "indulging" in "anti-India" activities. Some of the lawyers who were caught on camera leading brazen assaults on journalists and JNU students in Patiala House courts, on Monday and Wednesday were part of the protest and appeared to be unfazed by the outrage due to their acts. Three lawyers have been summoned by Delhi Police in connection with the Monday attack but they are yet to appear before it. Members of ABVP, a RSS student wing, and Congress' student wing NSUI clashed during their protests over the JNU row outside Rajasthan University campus in Jaipur. The groups of students clashed at the main gate of the University. They were holding their respective protests and demonstration on the JNU issue when the incident occurred, Deputy Commissioner of Police (East) K Rastradeep said. Police later dispersed the protestors, the DCP said, adding no one was injured in the incident and the situation was normal now. "We were protesting to demand that the main accused in the JNU incident should be arrested because there is no evidence against the JNU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar," NSUI leader Rakesh Meena said. "We were also demanding action against BJP MLA Kailash Choudhary who made derogatory remarks against (Congress vice president) Rahul Gandhi when the ABVP activists clashed with us," Meena, who led the NSUI protest, said. At least 52 activists of CPI and other Left wing organisations were taken into preventive custody when they tried to march towards Raj Bhavan in Hyderabad demanding Kumar's immediate and unconditional release, police said. Similarly, police took 10 advocates (from two different groups) into preventive custody when they tried to gather in front of the Bar Council Office over the JNU row, on the premises of High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad for the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Charminar Division) K Ashok Chakravarthy told PTI. "Out of the ten advocates, who were taken into custody-- three of them are pro-Kanhaiya and remaining are anti- Kanhaiya," the ACP said, adding there is no permission either for holding procession or organising meeting on the High Court premises. Several CPI and Left-wing activists led by Telangana state CPI secretary Chada Venkat Reddy raising slogans attempted to take out a rally towards Raj Bhavan but were prevented by police on Khairtabad cross itself and 52 of them were placed under preventive arrests, Saifabad Police Station Inspector K Poorna Chander said. All those who were taken into preventive custody were later released. Supreme Court today said the situation at the Patiala House Court complex after the arrest of JNUSU leader Kanhaiya Kumar was "not normal" and expressed satisfaction that BJP MLA O P Sharma, accused of thrashing a CPI activist, was arrested. "At least the MLA was arrested. That MLA had allegedly beaten. Does this happen anywhere? It is not a normal situation. We believe there is something more to it and that is why we do not want them to go back to Patiala House courts for bail," a bench comprising Justices J Chelameswar and A M Sapre said. Sharma, a first-time MLA, was yesterday arrested on charge of causing hurt and granted bail immediately. He was quizzed for around eight hours at the Tilak Marg police station in connection with the case. The Delhi Police had come under severe criticism for not taking action against the legislator despite having clear video footage showing him beating up the CPI activist when the court was hearing the JNU case. The police had issued summons to Sharma on February 17 after which he appeared before the investigators. The case against Sharma was registered under sections 323 (causing hurt), 341 (wrongfully restraining) and 160 (punishment for committing affray) of the IPC. The BJP legislator denied beating the CPI activist and had, in turn, claimed that he was beaten by the crowd. JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar, arrested in a sedition case, today moved the Delhi High Court seeking bail. Kanhaiya's lawyers Sushil Bajaj and Vrinda Grover, who were escorted by Delhi Police, directly went to the high court's listing Registrar Loren Bamniyal and mentioned the petition behind closed doors. The lawyers came to the high court following today's direction of the Supreme Court, which transferred the bail petition to the HC and also asked the Centre and Delhi Police to ensure proper security arrangements for counsel of the students' union leader at the high court premises. Soon after the apex court order, security in and around the high court was beefed up with the deployment of additional police personnel and CRPF jawans. The matter is yet to be listed before a bench of the high court for hearing. Kanhaiya, who is in judicial custody, had yesterday approached the apex court directly, seeking bail on the ground that his life was under threat in Tihar Jail. His plea was taken up earlier in the day by the Supreme Court which declined to entertain it saying if it does, it will become a precedent available to all the accused in the country. Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested on February 12 on sedition charge following a controversial event at JNU campus where anti-India slogans were allegedly raised. The student leader was produced in the court on Wednesday after the end of his police custody, where a group of men dressed in lawyers' robes unleashed a brazen attack on him and others, including journalists present there. Kanhaiya had sough the apex court's intervention, saying no purpose would be served by keeping him in the jail and the police was finding it difficult to even produce him in the court. Meanwhile, High Court Bar Association President Rajiv Khosla condemned the violence in the Patiala House court complex and urged lawyers to maintain peace and not do anything which would lead to such untoward incidents. A Jadavpur University student today visited the cyber crime section of the Kolkata Police to complaint that unknown right wing supporters have been threatening her with dire consequence on Facebook as she has joined a protest demanding release of arrested JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar. Triparna Sarkar, an Arts faculty student of Jadavpur University, had lodged a complaint with Jadavpur police station yesterday regarding the threat. She was asked by the police to meet the cyber crime section with a copy of the complaint. "Cyber crime section officers have taken my complaint. I have submitted screen shots of my Facebook account and links to those groups who have been threatening me since yesterday. Officers said they will take quick action," Sarkar told PTI. Sarkar, a member of Arts faculty students union, said threats continue to appear on her Facebook wall even after lodging complaint with the police. The threats began from Tuesday night when a protest rally of JU students was organised and more threat messages were posted on her Facebook wall the next day, she alleged. "I did not join the protest rally to support any kind of secession nor I questioned why Afzal Guru was hanged. I have full trust in the Constitution of my country and I don't know why I am being called anti-national. I want the police to ensure my security," she said. Asked if she was part of any right wing forum that she claims are threatening her, she said she does not know them and "I don't believe they know me personally." Asked if she would close her Facebook account, she said she will not as "I have done nothing wrong". "We have received a complaint from Triparna Sarkar. We are looking into it," a cyber crime section officer said. Bollywood actress Kajol was today appointed as a part-time member of the Prasar Bharati Board which runs public broadcasters Doordarshan and All India Radio (AIR). The actress, known for starring in hit films like 'Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge', 'Baazigar', 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai' etc., will serve as a part-time member on the Board till November 2021, sources said. "It is expected that Kajol would be present during the upcoming meeting of the Prasar Bharati board on February 24," a senior official said. Among the key matters that would be taken up at the meeting is the appointment of the DGs of Doordarshan and All India Radio (AIR) which have been functioning under interim heads for close to a year. Recently, the interim chief of Doordarshan, C Lalrosanga, had also put in his papers citing personal reasons. Apart from Kajol, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has also appointed Shashi Shekhar Vempati, who heads an online media company, to the Board. Earlier, a committee headed by Vice President M Hamid Ansari and comprising I&B secretary Sunil Arora and Press Council of India chairman Justice (retd) CK Prasad had chosen Kajol and Vempati for the two vacant positions on the Prasar Bharati board. The I&B Ministry had forwarded around 7-8 names from which the committee made the selection. As per the Prasar Bharati Act, the public broadcaster should have six part-time members on its Board which is headed by its chairman. JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar sustained external injuries during the attack on him at the Patiala House court complex, his medical examination report showed even as Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi refuted the allegations. The medical report noted that there were multiple abrasions on his left foot and nose, apart from tenderness in his left toe, a police source said today. Reacting to this development, Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi said, "My officers have told me that the allegations (of attack on Kanhaiya) are incorrect. It won't be appropriate to comment further on the matter as is it pending before the Supreme Court." The student leader was produced in the court on Wednesday after the end of his police custody, where a group of men dressed in lawyers' robes unleashed a brazen attack on him and others, which included journalists, who were present there. Following the incident, the Delhi Police Commissioner was severely criticised for alleged inaction with regard to the violence that broke out at the Patiala House court, not once but twice. Bassi had said that Kanhaiya Kumar was "well-protected" and he was "not beaten up". He, however, initiated inquiry into reports of stone pelting on him. On Wednesday night, police registered two fresh cases in connection with the violence at the court complex, of which one pertained to the attack on the student leader, who has been arrested on charge of sedition over a controversial event at JNU campus where anti-India slogans were allegedly raised. Former Congress leader, P Kannan who recently joined the AIADMK was given a rousing reception by functionaries and cadres of the AIADMK at the party headquarters here today. Kannan garlanded the statue of founder of the AIADMK and former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu M G Ramachandran amid slogans raised by party cadres in praise of Jayalalithaa. Talking to reporters, he claimed AIADMK under Jayalalithaa would come back to power again in the coming assembly polls, while stating that there was every need to establish AIADMK rule in Puducherry also. AIADMK Puducherry state unit Secretary, P Purushothaman, MLA, received Kannan at the party office. A Kurdish militant group today claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb attack in the Turkish capital Ankara which killed 28 people. In a statement posted on its website, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons said it carried out the attack to avenge Turkish military operations against Kurdish rebels in southeast Turkey. The Turkey-based group is considered an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, and has carried out several violent attacks in the past. Turkey had blamed a U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish militia group for the attack, saying they had acted in collaboration with the PKK. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had identified the bomber as Syrian national Salih Neccar and said he was a member of the Syrian Kurdish militia group People's Protection Units, or YPG. Following the attack, Turkey stepped up pressure on the United States and other allies to cut off support to the militia group. Turkey views the YPG as a terror group because of its affiliation with the PKK. The YPG, however, has been most effective in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria. The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, also known as TAK, however, named the bomber as Abdulbaki Sonmez. "This act was conducted to avenge the massacre of defenseless, injured civilians," the group said, in reference to a large-scale Turkish security operation against militants in the town of Cizre. Rights groups have raised serious concerns over the operation in the town, which has been placed under a curfew that prevents journalists and observers from entering. The group threatened further attacks in Turkey. Most recently, TAK had claimed responsibility for a mortar attack in December at Istanbul's second airport that killed a cleaner. It said the attack was in retaliation to the military's stepped up operations against the PKK. Today, Turkish authorities said they had detained three more suspects in connection with the bombing in Ankara, raising the number of people in custody to 17, the state-run Anadolu Agency said. The latest suspects are believed to be linked to the PKK, it said. Turkey's military pushed ahead with its cross-border artillery shelling campaign against YPG positions in Syria, Anadolu reported. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said three of the detained suspects are believed to have played "an active part" in the attack. Erdogan said today that Turkish authorities don't have the slightest doubt that the YPG and its political arm, the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, were behind the bombing and said Turkey was saddened by its Western allies' failure to brand them as terrorist groups. A Kurdish-led alliance backed by US-led strikes seized a stronghold of the Islamic State group in northeastern Syria today, a monitor said. The Syrian Democratic Forces were now in full control of Al-Shadadi in Hasakeh province, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said. The Observatory said IS forces had withdrawn south of the town, and SDF fighters were engaged in "mopping up" operations outside Al-Shadadi. Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said the town's capture was due in large part to heavy US-led air strikes. The SDF began a new operation in Hasakeh province on Tuesday, and had been advancing towards Al-Shadadi in recent days. Earlier, it seized a nearby oilfield from IS and cut two routes leading from Al-Shadadi to Mosul in neighbouring Iraq and Raqa, the jihadist group's de facto Syrian capital. The SDF is an alliance of Kurdish fighters from the People's Protection Units (YPG) and Arab forces, although the Kurds dominate the coalition. It has successfully battled IS elsewhere in Hasakeh, with support from the US-led coalition that began strikes in Syria in September 2014. It is also waging a major operation in Aleppo province where it has seized key territory from Syrian rebels. Those advances have angered Turkey, which accuses the YPG of being the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, an outlawed group that has waged a decades-long insurgency against Ankara. Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatraya has asked Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to clear dues worth Rs 1,127.87 crore relating to ESIC healthcare scheme -- a move that may trigger another confrontation between the Centre and the AAP-led government. The Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) provides medical care facility to its beneficiaries. Since health is a state subject, this facility is provided by respective state governments, the said today. "However in Delhi, administration for medical care for ESI beneficiaries was taken over by ESIC from the Delhi administration as on April 1, 1962 and as per the MoU at that time it was agreed upon that Delhi government will continue to bear 1/8th share of expenditure on medical care," it added. The Delhi government is complying with the provisions, but "not of a regular basis" owing to this arrears payable the government has accumulated to the tune of Rs 1,127.87 crore, the Ministry said quoting from a letter written by Dattatreya to Kejriwal. "This has been taken up with your government previously also. However, the issue remains unresolved till date," it said. Dattatreya asked Kejriwal to expedite payment of the dues for the continuation of the ESI scheme in Delhi. ESI scheme is designed to protect formal sector workers against the events of sickness, maternity, disablement and death due to employment injury and to provide medical care to the insured employees and their families. Sri Lanka's opposition today criticised the proposed Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) with India as an attempt to "foreignise" the country's economy and demanded that the shortcomings in the existing FTA should be sorted out before concluding the deal. In a statement issued the opposition said the agreement would be advantageous to India. "Before any new agreement is entered into, the shortcomings in the existing FTA with India should be ironed out and the bureaucratic blocks that Sri Lankan exporters have experienced in India should be eliminated". It slammed the agreement as an attempt to "foreignise" Sri Lanka's economy. It says that Sri Lanka in 2014 imported USD 4,023 million worth of goods from India and exported only USD 625 million worth of goods. The opposition charges that the agreement include goods, trade in services and investment and the Indian companies are under no obligations to recruit Sri Lankans. "An economic and technical pact with India will make sense if Sri Lanka can obtain from India some technical and economic input which Sri Lanka cannot provide for itself," the statement said. Meanwhile addressing reporters, Harsha de Silva, the deputy foreign minister, said the pact's content had not been agreed upon yet. Consultations with professional groups would commence next month. He said the government was keen to explore the agreement to further economic opportunities to Sri Lanka. Scores of lawyers, including those who allegedly assaulted journalists, JNU students and teachers on two occasions, today held a protest march demanding action against those "indulging" in "anti-India" activities. The lawyers, mostly from Patiala House and several other district courts, marched around the India Gate circle, shouting slogans and waving the tricolour, in presence of heavy police security. Some of the lawyers who were caught on camera leading brazen assaults on journalists and JNU students on Monday and Wednesday were part of the protest and appeared to be unfazed by the outrage due to their acts. "We will keep attacking the anti-nationals no matter what. We will not tolerate any insult to our motherland. Let police issue summons against us," said a lawyer involved in the assaults. Another lawyer claimed those who attacked the mediapersons were outsiders and do not belong to the legal fraternity. "They were not lawyers. Lawyers do not cross limits set by the rule books. Outsiders may have been there. Media is defaming the community," he said. Groups of lawyers had attacked mediapersons and JNU students and teachers at the Patiala House court complex on Monday when JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar was to be produced for remand proceedings. The lawyers repeated the act on Wednesday too and even roughed up Kumar, triggering widespread criticism. The police had issued summons to three lawyers in connection with the assaults but they are yet to respond. Father of Umar Khalid, one of the ten JNU students accused of shouting "anti-national" slogans on the campus, today said it is for the judiciary to decide whether he was involved in the case and demanded that he be spared a "media trial". Syed Qasim Rasool Ilyas said his son was fighting for the cause of tribals and poor farmers and that he has always stood with them. "If they were seditionist, it should be decided by the court. There should not be a media trial. He was fighting for adivasis and poor farmers. Most of his time was spent in JNU or Jantar Mantar. He used to reach wherever there was crisis," he said. Police is looking for Khalid, who is accused of shouting anti-India slogans during an event on February 9 at the campus against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. Ilyas criticised the arrest of JNU students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar on charges of sedition as well as the "atmosphere that is being created against Khalid and his friends". JNU has been an educational centre where such things have been happened in the past as well, he said, adding that the varsity accommodates people of different ideologies and provides platform for their voices. "The beauty of JNU is that it accommodates (people of different ideologies) and gives a platform to raise their voice," he said. Left Front today questioned Trinamool Congress' silence on the situation in JNU and Jadavpur University. "When the entire country is speaking out against the police action on JNU student Union leader, TMC is maintaining a complete silence on this matter. Just like Prime Minister Narendra Modi is maintaining a silence on this matter. Till date not a word has been said by the Prime Minister," Left Front Chairman Biman Bose told reporters here. The TMC so far has not made any official statement on the JNU situation. The Left Front along with other Left parties is scheduled to take out a rally demanding the immediate release of student leader Kanhaiya Kumar. The rally will be taken out on February 21 the International Language Day in Kolkata. Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis today exhorted sarpanchs to work towards transforming the lives of farmers and common people. He was speaking after inaugurating a two-day 'Sarpanch Conference' under way here. Fadnavis urged the sarpanchs to work to bring about a change in the lives of farmers and the common man, and build "a new Maharashtra". He said the government has accorded priority to the agro-processing industry under its 'Make in India' programme. Maharashtra MoS for Home (Rural) Ram Shinde, state Rural Development Minister Pankaja Munde, noted industrialist and Force Motors Chairman Abhay Firodia, Sakal Media Group Chairman Pratap Pawar among others were present on the occasion. Standard IV textbook would have a chapter on Shivaji Maharaj as management guru, Education Minister Vinod Tawde said here today. The eight-page lesson would be incorporated in school curriculum from next academic year, the minister said. "Everybody knows his valour, but not many know that he was an administrator as well," Tawde said. Students will get to know this facet of Shivaji Maharaj as well, the minister said after an event at Mantralaya to celebrate Shiv Jayanti, birth anniversary of the Maratha king. Malaysia today froze recruitment of foreign workers until it ascertains the workforce needs of the industries in the country, a day after it made a deal with Bangladesh for hiring 1.5 million workers which drew criticism from local trade unions. The freeze on hiring foreign workers would be enforced with immediate effect and will stay in force while the government reviews the two-tier levy programme for foreign labourers, Deputy Home Minister Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed said. Mohamed, who is also the Home Minister, said the recruitment of foreign workers will resume once the government evaluates the current pool of foreign workers in the country. "We are now focusing on the programme to review the need for foreign workers. We will look at their total numbers and then assess the new foreign workers," he told The Malaysian Insider. He said that there was no fixed timeline for the recruitment freeze. "We'll take the time we need to conduct the review," he said. The announcement came a day after Malaysia signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Bangladesh to bring in 1.5 million workers from the country over the next three years. The minister, however, said the MoU with Bangladesh could be implemented anytime in the next three years. "Therefore, even if we don't implement it next year, it does not matter," he said. The Malaysian government was facing resistance and criticism from several civil and trade groups over its move to bring in the foreign workers in significant numbers. Worker groups such as the Malaysian Trade Unions Congress (MTUC) had said locals should be given priority for jobs. There are currently an estimated 2.1 million registered foreign workers in Malaysia, along with 1.7 million illegal foreign workers. The migrants, who are mostly from India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal and Bangladesh, work mostly at construction sites, palm plantations, vegetable farms and restaurants. A man accused of stalking Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow has been found not guilty for a second time, with the jury deciding he did not mean to frighten her. Dante Soiu was previously found not guilty of stalking Paltrow by reason of insanity in 2000 and sent to a mental institution for several years, reported Female First. After his release he has been accused of sending the actress up to 66 letters between 2009 and 2015, which she found "disturbing". Paltrow, 43, testified in court that he had sent her letters and packages dating back to 1999, containing pornography, earrings and a statement that he wanted to "excise her sin with a scalpel". "I felt very upset by it. This has been a very long and very traumatic experience already," she said. He also said he wanted to marry her. While his lawyer admitted Soiu had written to Gwyneth, he insisted that recent letters hadn't included pornography. In Los Angeles on February 17, the jury said it had doubts that Soiu intended to frighten the actress. Jury foreman Ryan Austin said they did not feel it amounted to felony stalking. Soiu testified that his most recently letters "a matter of seeking forgiveness" and his lawyer Lynda Westlund, said she believed the jury had made the right decision. A gas well leak that spewed tons of methane into the environment and forced thousands of Los Angeles residents from their homes has been permanently capped, state officials said. The announcement confirmed earlier reports by the Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) that a leaking well at its facility in had been plugged. The news put an end to a four-month-long drama that saw thousands of residents sickened by the fumes and forced to relocate to other areas of Los Angeles. "We have good news," Jason Marshall, deputy head of the California Department of Conservation, told a news conference on Friday. "We have confirmed that the leak of gas has been capped. We have the gas emissions under control." He said the damaged well was sealed with concrete, putting it permanently out of service. The leak, first detected on October 23 last year, at the gas company's Aliso Canyon facility, has been described as an environmental disaster. Methane, which is colourless and odourless, is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. But public health officials and the gas company -- a division of Sempra Energy -- have said the fumes posed no danger to residents. The gas company is facing a series of lawsuits, as well as criminal charges brought by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office, which alleges SoCalGas failed to immediately report the leak. However, the company insists it broke no laws and its president, Dennis Arriola, said on Thursday it was in the process of inspecting the other wells at Aliso Canyon. "We recognise the disruption the gas leak has caused to local residents," he told reporters. "We are committed to earning back their trust and confidence over time through our actions, not our words. Slamming the Narendra Modi government over the police crackdown on JNU and the attack on students and journalists at a court complex here, Swaraj Abhiyan leader Yogendra Yadav today said its message is that those who disagree and dissent "will not be spared". "When I saw what happened in the Patiala House (court premises), I realised that anti-nationalism is just a pretext. JNU is just an excuse, Kanhaiya is just a symbol. "The message to the country is, if you hold a different view which is contrary or opposite (the government or the BJP), if you try to think which is contrary, then you will not be spared. If JNU cannot escape, nor can a students' leader and journalists in court, then who can escape. This is an open challenge," he said in a video clip posted on Abhiyan's Facebook page. Yadav, himself an alumnus of JNU, also defended JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar saying, he has been arrested "despite no iota of evidence against him". He said even the Supreme Court has said that sedition charges cannot be slapped upon the way it has been in this case. He said that more than JNU, it was important to save the concept of a university. Incidentally, Swaraj Abhiyan Convenor Anand Kumar is a professor at the JNU. Yadav had yesterday joined a teeming mass of protesters in the heart of the national capital demanding imediate release of Kanhaiya, who is facing sedition charges. He had described the crackdown on the JNU as an attack on the "idea of India", alleging the Kumar episode was "carefully planned" to eventually "strike" at the very roots of the ideals on which this university was founded. The MSME Ministry will work out modalities to revive sick industry soon, Union Minister Kalraj Mishra said today. The MSME minister held first of its kind regional conclave of MSMEs from states of Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Uttrakhand, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh. "The idea behind such conclave is to have first hand account of whether policies and programmes of the centre percolates down the order in the state," he said. Mishra said that his ministry will work out modalities to revive sick industry soon. He said that his ministry had launched a one-page online format 'Udyog Aadhar Memorandum' by filling which any entrepreneur will get online registration with immediate effect. "The portal was launched in September last year and so far 2.4 lakh entrepreneurs have got registered," he said. MSMEs contribution in the manufacturing sector is around 48 per cent, he said adding that MSMEs contribute 44 per cent in export sector. Besides, 11 crore youths got employment in the MSMEs, he said. Describing MSMEs as "backbone of the country", he said that the focus of his ministry is to create cluster of industry in villages. "This (disturbances) will keep taking place in the democracy, but we will keep working to instill confidence among people to invest in the industrial sector of country," he said. Mishra, in the conclave, highlighted the role of existing and new Technology Centres/Tool Rooms for skill training and technical support to the MSMEs. He said that an amount of about Rs 2000 crore will be incurred on creating new technology centres. Two Tool Rooms are functioning in Ludhiana and Jalandhar while 15 new Technology Centres would be set up with the assistance of World Bank including four in Baddi (HP), Rohtak (Haryana), Sitarganj (Uttarakhand) and Ghatti (J and K), he said. He said that the framework for the Revival and Rehabilitation of MSMEs had been notified by his ministry. The importance of Public Procurement policy Order 2012 is being implemented by the ministry, he said. He said that the Prime Minister's Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP) provides margin money subsidy for setting up of micro enterprises for employment generation. He said that new schemes like SFRUTI and ASPIRE have been launched. "22 Livelihood Business Incubators and two Technology Business Incubators have been approved under the ASPIRE," he added. The Minister also met several CPSUs of the region and discussed various issues on implementation of Public Procurement Policy Order 2012 for MSMEs. The government today said the revival of state-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd (MTNL) is tough but not impossible even as it assured to provide all possible help to resurrect the loss-making telecom firm. "Revival of MTNL is tough but not impossible. Government will provide all possible support for its revival," Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said at a convention organised by MTNL Mazdoor Sangh on the revival of the public-sector firm. The minister also cited the turnaround at another state-run telecom firm BSNL, which posted an operating profit after many years. MTNL posted a net loss of Rs 704.93 crore in third quarter ended December 31, 2015 while its total income during the quarter stood at about Rs 770 crore. Prasad said both public sector firms BSNL and MTNL turned into loss-making units during the 10 years of UPA regime, and added the telcos were in profits when BJP-led NDA government relinquished office in 2004. The government this month provided a refund of Rs 492.26 crore to MTNL on account of liability arising out of levy of minimum alternate tax towards its financial support. MTNL Mazdoor Sangh handed over a memorandum to Prasad over a report of IIM-Bengaluru that examined financial situation of the company and suggested measures for revival. The IIM-Bengaluru report has suggested that MTNL will not be in a position to continue the business beyond one or two years without government support. The report has examined five options for MTNL's revival: raising equity from the market, merger with BSNL, sale of mobile division along with licence and all related assets, surrendering 2G and 3G spectrum to government and the strategic sale by way of transferring 51 per cent or more stake to a private entity. The report has recommended two options surrender of spectrum and taking service of MTNL in Digital India, in order of preference that government can consider. "Our focus is on surrendering of excess of 2G and 3G spectrum which government can put for auction and give MTNL money so that the company is able to lower debt burden. When MTNL exhausts its spectrum then further procurement can be done," MTNL Mazdoor Sangh General Secretary Dharam Raj Singh said. He said the telecom minister has assured MTNL employees that he will look in to their request. Singh said that MTNL Mazdoor Sangh has separately requested minister to fill up vacant position at MTNL and appoint permanent chairman and managing director of MTNL. Government has given additional charge of MTNL CMD to Telecom Commission Member (Services) N K Yadav since June 2015. Before Yadav, MTNL director finance P K Purwar was given additional charge of the post after company's CMD A K Garg retired on 30 May 2014. A 32-year-old man from Chhattisgarh sustained serious injuries after he was allegedly attacked by a group of Naxals at a remote place in the distict on the suspicion of being a police informer. According to police, the victim, identified as one Lakhan, was brought to the forest area of Kottagudam in the district from Chhattisgarh last night, where he was thrashed. "A woman Naxal Commander Mangi was killed in an encounter near Damrancha last month. To take revenge of this killing, Naxals picked up Lakhan from Chhattisgarh and brought him to Kottagudam under Damrancha Police Assistance Center, where he was assaulted with sticks and stones, suspecting him to be a police informer," a police statement said. Lakhan was badly injured in the incident, police said adding that when the villagers found him this morning, they informed the police, following which he was taken to Damrancha and given preliminary treatment. The victim was then shifted to the General Hospital in Gadchiroli by a helicopter, which was on surveillance duty in the remote area. After some medical tests, he was shifted to Nagpur for further treatment. Lakhan's condition is stated to be stable, police said. According to police, this is the third incident of Naxal violence in the district in the last one week, as two persons had been killed by the outlaws four days back. Tamil National Movement founder-leader P Nedumaran today appealed to the state government to find a solution to the ongoing indefinite strike by Tamil Nadu Government Employees Association. Addressing reporters here, he claimed that more and more associations were joining the stir and goverment should find an immediate solution. The government should also immediately find a solution to the ongoing hunger strike by some farmers in western region by ordering implementation of the Avanashi-Athikadavu Ground Water Recharge scheme with announcement of specific date, he added. Nepal has formed a political panel for resolving the thorny issue of delineation of provinces under the new Constitution to achieve reconciliation with the Madhesis who dismissed the "unilateral" move today as a bid to make Prime Minister K P Oli's India trip successful. A cabinet meeting held last evening, ahead of Oli's maiden India visit, took the decision to constitute an 11-member political committee under the leadership of Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Kamal Thapa to recommend solutions for resolving the dispute on provincial boundaries. Minister for Information and Communications Sherdhan Rai told the media that the political committee has been formed with an aim to resolve the ongoing political crisis in the country. Rai said the committee would try and work through political consensus among all parties including the United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF) that had been protesting for months over division of their homeland. The members of the committee were to be named through political consensus among all parties including UDMF. However, the UDMF said it would not accept the political mechanism formed by the government. The UDMF, in a statement, said the panel would be unable to address its demands as it was formed "unilaterally". The government decision to form the committee did not have an intention of solving the current problems but was just a bid to make Prime Minister Oli's India trip successful, it alleged. Rai last night said the committee would announce the 'Terms of Reference' as soon as it gets a final shape. Defining the ToR has remained a major bone of contention with the agitating Madhesi parties. The committee has been allotted three-month's time to submit its final report on the demarcation of provinces. "Today's cabinet meeting has decided to constitute the body which will be given full shape once the prime minister returns home from India visit," Education Minister Girirajmani Pokharel was quoted as saying by My Republica. "We have decided to select its members later with the view to incorporate representatives from agitating Madhesi parties as well," he said yesterday. The cabinet decision on forming the committee came a day before Oli's six-day India visit as part of his commitment that the government would form the political body prior to his trip. Earlier, Nepal's three major parties -- Nepali Congress, CPN-UML and UCPN (Maoist) -- and the constituent parties of the agitating UDMF had agreed to form a high-level political committee to suggest a solution for the demarcation dispute within three months of its formation. Madhesis, who are largely of Indian-origin, led a nearly six-month-long violent protest over better representation in the Parliament and the federal structure of the new Constitution that divides their ancestral homeland that claimed over 50 lives before being called off unexpectedly. The UDMF officially announced withdrawal of their protests including the border blockade earlier this month. Nepal has formed a political committee to resolve the prickly issue of delineation of provinces under the new Constitution as part of government's efforts to achieve reconciliation with the Madhesis. A cabinet meeting held last evening, ahead of Prime Minister K P Oli's maiden India visit, took the decision to constitute an 11-member political body under the leadership of Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Kamal Thapa to recommend solutions for resolving the dispute on provincial boundaries. Minister for Information and Communications Sherdhan Rai told the media that the political committee has been formed with an aim to resolve the ongoing political crisis in the country. Rai said the committee would try and work through political consensus among all parties including the United Democratic Madhesi Front, the four-party alliance, that had been protesting for months over division of their homeland. He said the committee would announce the 'Terms of Reference' as soon as it got final shape. Defining the ToR has remained major bone of contention with the agitating Madhesi parties. The committee has been allotted three-month's time to submit its final report on the demarcation of provinces. "Today's cabinet meeting has decided to constitute the body which will be given full shape once the prime minister returns home from India visit," Education Minister Girirajmani Pokharel was quoted as saying by My Republica. "We have decided to select its members later with the view to incorporate representatives from agitating Madhesi parties as well," he said. The cabinet decision came a day before Prime Minister Oli's six-day India visit as part of his commitment that the government would form the political body prior to his trip. Earlier, Nepal's three major parties -- Nepali Congress, CPN-UML and UCPN (Maoist) -- and the constituent parties of the agitating UDMF had agreed to form a high-level political committee to suggest a solution for the demarcation dispute within three months of its formation. Madhesis, who are largely of Indian-origin, led a nearly six-month-long violent protest over better representation in the Parliament and the federal structure of the new Constitution that divides their ancestral homeland that claimed over 50 lives before being called off unexpectedly. The UDMF officially announced withdrawal of their protests including the border blockade earlier this month. Nepal's Prime Minister K P Oli today left for India, leading a jumbo 77-member delegation on a fence-mending visit that is aimed at normalising ties after turbulence caused by the country's new Constitution. This would be Oli's first visit to a foreign country since taking over as prime minister some five months ago. During the six-day visit, Oli will be accompanied by wife Radhika Shakya, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Kamal Thapa, Finance Minister Bishnu Poudyal, Energy Minister Top Bahadur Rayamaji and Home Minister Shakti Basnet. The council of ministers yesterday approved a list of 46 people for the prime minister's delegation and six officials will be included from the Nepalese Embassy in Delhi. There will be 25 members from Nepal's business community and parliamentarians representing various political parties, including two from Madhesi parties in the delegation. No lawmaker from the main opposition party Nepali Congress has been included in the prime minister's entourage. The visit comes after a turbulence in bilateral ties over protests by Madhesis who share close family and cultural ties with Indians against Nepal's new Constitution. Earlier this month, the Madhesis announced withdrawal of their protests including the border blockade. They had launched an agitation protesting against the new Constitution promulgated on September 20 last year, saying it failed to address their concerns over representation and homeland. Jitendra Dev, vice president of Madhesi Peoples Rights forum-Democratic -- a ruling coalition partner -- and Dimple Jha, belonging to a smaller Madhesi party, are the two Madhesi lawmakers in Oli's delegation. Chief Secretary of Nepal government Somlal Subedi and Foreign Secretary Shanker Das Bairagi would also accompany Oli. Oli is visiting at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi from today, according to a press release issued by the Foreign ministry here. While in New Delhi, Oli will call on President Pranab Mukherjee and Vice President Mohammad Hamid Ansari. He will talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Hyderabad House. He is scheduled to address the Indian Council of World Affairs at Sapru House and the Indian business community. The Nepalese Prime Minister will inspect Tehri Hydropower Project in Uttarakhand and will also visit Bhuj in Gujarat to get acquainted with the post-earthquake reconstruction there. He will also head to Mumbai to meet business leaders before wrapping up his six day visit. In his first overseas trip after assuming charge of the top office, Nepal Prime Minister K P Oli arrived here on a six-day visit during which he will hold extensive talks with the Indian leadership with a major focus on mending ties hit by issues relating to the Himalayan nation's new Constitution. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj received Oli, accompanied by a 77-member delegation, at the airport, reflecting importance India attaches to the visit. Oli and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold extensive talks on a range of issues tomorrow following which both sides are expected to sign a number of pacts to step up cooperation in several key sectors. It is expected that India will ask Nepal to complete the "unfinished task" of making the Constitution more inclusive to address the concerns of the Madhesi community which share close family and cultural ties with Indians. Ties between the two countries had soured in the wake of agitation by the Madhesi community opposing Nepal's Constitution, saying it failed to address their concerns over representation and homeland. The agitators had blocked the trading points for almost four months crippling supply of petroleum products, medicines and other commodities by India to that country. The blockade was lifted this month. It is the first bilateral visit by a Nepalese Prime Minister here after the trip by the then premier Baburam Bhattarai in October 2011. Oli's predecessor Sushil Koirala had attended Modi's swearing-in ceremony in May 2014. "Welcoming our Northern guest. EAM @SushmaSwaraj receives Nepal's PM KP Sharma Oli on his State visit to India," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted along with a photographs of Swaraj receiving him. Oli is accompanied by wife Radhika Shakya, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Kamal Thapa, Finance Minister Bishnu Poudyal, Energy Minister Top Bahadur Rayamaji and Home Minister Shakti Basnet among others. The Nepalese Prime Minister will stay at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Modi had paid a bilateral visit to Nepal in August 2014 which was the first such trip by an Indian Prime Minister to the neighbouring country in 17 years. Modi had gone to Nepal again in November 2014 for the SAARC Summit. Swaraj, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will be among those who will call on the Nepalese Prime Minister. Oli will also call on President Pranab Mukherjee and Vice President Hamid Ansari. He will visit Dehradun on Sunday to inspect the Tehri hydel power project and will return here in the evening. On Monday, he will address the Indian Council for World Affairs and attend a business meeting. He will leave for Bhuj in Gujarat on Tuesday to have a first hand experience of the earthquake reconstruction work there. Nepal was struck by a devastating quake in April last year and is currently in the process of carring out reconstruction work. The same day he will leave for Mumbai from Gujarat and will meet Maharashtra Governor. He will leave for Nepal from Mumbai on February 24. A Nepali youth has been arrested and 160 gm heroin has been seized from him at a place along the Indo-Nepal Border here, an SSB official said today. Acting on a tip-off, Suraj Thapa (19), a resident of Rupendehi in Nepal, was arrested yesterday with 160 gram of heroin with a street value of Rs 32 lakh at Sonauli border, SSB Commandant K S Bankhothi said. During interrogation, the accused confessed to selling the contraband to youths in the area and that he was the main supplier of the drug, the SSB Commandant said. He was booked under various sections of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, Bankhothi added. A glimpse of the vital role played by Indian soldiers in the World War II is now available at the National Film Archives Of India (NFAI) which has acquired some rare footage of the war. The footage, running into 30 hours and dealing with the Allies campaign against Germany and Italy, has been procured from the Armed Forces Film and Photo Division of the Ministry of Defence, NFAI director Prakash Magdum said here today. "The material was in U-matic and 35mm print format, which NFAI has recently digitised. This is an important acquisition for NFAI, as this rare footage would be safely preserved in NFAI vaults in ideal temperature and humidity conditions," Magdum said. The NFAI, under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, is trying to rope in military historians and authors specialising in the WW-II studies for cataloguing the footage, he added. "A day with Indian troops in Egypt", "From India to Tunis", "Johny Gurkha," "Madras Guards" are some of the titles which are part of the footage which also includes rare audio visual interactions involving Mahatma Gandhi, Muhammed Ali Jinnah and Vallabhbhai Patel. North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un says his reclusive nation plans more "satellite launches" -- which the West sees as a cover for ballistic missile tests -- calling space exploration a "strategic goal", state media said today. "Conquering space is ... A fierce class struggle against the hostile forces seeking to usurp our peace and sovereignty", Kim was quoted as saying at a Wednesday awards ceremony for those involved in this month's rocket launch. He also underscored the need to successfully launch "more working satellites", Pyongyang's KCNA news agency said. "The advance toward space... Is the DPRK's (North Korea's) strategic goal", he said. Calling the scientists involved in the February 7 launch "best patriots and admirable heroes", Kim gave out medals, prizes and wristwatches bearing the names of the two late leaders of the Kim dynasty -- Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il. sparked outrage with the launch of the Kwangmyongsong-4 satellite, which came just a month after its fourth nuclear test. The launch, which most in the community viewed as a disguised ballistic missile test, violated multiple UN resolutions banning the nuclear-armed country from the use of ballistic technology. The United States, along with Asian allies South Korean and Japan, are spearheading efforts at the UN Security Council for a strong resolution that will impose harsh sanctions on Pyongyang over the recent nuclear test and rocket launch. Separately, US President Barack Obama on Thursday signed off on new sanctions against North Korea, aimed at anyone importing goods or technology related to weapons of mass destruction into the North, or anyone who knowingly engaged in human rights abuses there. The measure also heaps additional financial pressure on the already-sanctioned regime by taking aim at money laundering and narcotics trafficking, two major illicit activities believed to be funnelling millions of dollars into Kim's inner circle. Under the bill already passed by Congress, penalties for the sanctionable activities would include the seizure of assets, visa bans and denial of government contracts. And for the first time, it establishes a framework for sanctions in response to North Korean cyber threats. Even as all latest polls have indicated that Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is headed towards an impressive victory, Vice President Joe Biden believes that it is not a Trump moment. "I'm still not sure," Biden told Politico and The Washington Post in a joint interview when asked if this is like a Trump moment. "You know, in the land of the blind, a one-eyed man is king. Has he gotten above 38 per cent in any primary? He's 38 per cent in the minority party - a minority within the minority party," he said. "So I don't doubt that Trump moment. And, what is always the case in primaries, the most conservative and liberal elements of each party have a larger say than they do in the electoral process overall," Biden observed. Responding to a question, he said Florida Senator Marco Rubio could have a moment. "Well, Rubio, if he were a little sm-well, Marco Rubio could, but he missed it so far. That's why you see him now lurching towards Morning in America," he added. Rejecting apprehension of Odisha government about possible deduction of Rs 214 crore from the drought assistance earlier announced by the Centre, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today said the state will get the amount as decided at the high level committee. "The fund is not fully released for the state yet. However, the state will get the amount (Rs 815 crore) as decided by the high level committee," Singh told reporters after a meeting with Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik here. Stating that the Chief Minister has drawn his attention to possible deduction of Rs 214 crore from the announced drought assistance of Rs 815 crore, Singh said "The state will get assistance in the supplementary budget." "During the meeting, I had drawn attention of the Union Home Minister regarding deduction of 20 per cent of the announced amount," Patnaik told reporters. Earlier, the state government had protested the Centre's decision to cut the financial assistance for drought in 2015 by Rs 214 crore. Though the Centre had announced assistance of Rs 815 crore for Odisha drought in 2015, which affected 28 of the total 30 districts, the Ministry of Home Affairs, in a letter to the state government on January 22 this year stated that it would provide drought assistance of Rs 600.52 crore as against Rs 815 crore it had announced earlier. "I had also drawn attention of the Union Home Minister on non-payment of arrear amount of assistance towards 2013 Cyclone Phailin," Patnaik said. The issue had also sparked a political row with the opposition Congress criticising the NDA government for deducting the drought assistance. fell in Asia today after a sharp rise in US crude stockpiles and Saudi Arabia's rejection of proposed output cuts shot down a rally by the battered commodity. The about-turn came as the US Energy Department reported a 2.1 million barrel increase in US commercial crude inventories, to the highest in more than eight decades, as well as sizeable increases in gasoline and other refined products. An inventories rise typically suggests soft demand in the world's biggest oil consumer and is bad news for a market wallowing in excess supply. The price rally also fizzled out after Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir rejected any reduction in his country's crude output. "If other producers want to limit or agree to a freeze in terms of additional production, that may have an impact on the market, but Saudi Arabia is not prepared to cut production," Jubeir said. At 0400 GMT, US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for delivery in March was down 29 cents or 0.94% to $30.48, while Brent crude for April tumbled 30 cents, or 0.88%, to $33.98. On Wednesday, WTI jumped more than seven percent while Brent added 5.6%, after Saudi and Russia, the two biggest producers in the world, agreed to limit their pumping but only if others followed suit. This sparked hopes the market would stabilise after prices sank to near 13-year lows last week. However, CMC chief market strategist Michael McCarthy said more market volatility can be expected. "I don't think anybody seriously believes that anything useful is going to come out of these discussions between OPEC and Russia," he said. Saudi Arabia is regarded as the de facto leader of OPEC. BMI Research also said any output freeze was unlikely. "Given weak forecast output growth amongst committed countries, the agreement will remove few, if any, barrels from the market," a commentary said. "Countries with strong forecast production growth this year - including Iran - are unlikely to submit to the freeze." Saudi Arabia and other OPEC producers have refused to reduce output in an attempt to drive less competitive players, in particular US shale oil producers, out of the market. Leading bourse National Stock Exchange (NSE) today said that 'one person company' can act as stock broker provided the entity has at least two directors. However, such broker would not be allowed to trade in his proprietary account. "One Person Company (OPC) as described under the Companies Act is eligible to be registered as a stock broker, provided it satisfies the condition of minimum two directors, as stipulated under...Securities Contract (Regulation) Rules, 1957," said in a circular. Further, OPCs can register as a sub-brokers too. At the end of January, a total of 5,402 OPCs were registered in the country. The OPC concept was introduced in the Companies Act, 2013 to primarily benefit entrepreneurs and facilitate easier access to funding sources through an institutional establishment. Apart from India, many nations, including the US, China and Singapore, allow businesses to be structured as OPCs. Stepping up attack on the central government over the JNU row, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today said opposing BJP and RSS is the "biggest" crime under the present dispensation and accused it failing to act against its sympathisers who indulge in criminal activities. "Centre's new IPC- it's not a crime to murder, rape or beat anyone if u r from BJP. Being opposed to BJP n RSS is biggest crime now (sic)," Kejriwal tweeted. In his another tweet, the Delhi Chief Minister said, "Centre's new IPC- rape, murder or beat anyone. When questioned, just say that victim was shouting anti-India slogans, u will be let off."Though the Chief Minister did not name anyone, he was apparently referring to Centre's alleged inaction against BJP legislator O P Sharma and the lawyers who were caught on-camera beating people outside Patiala House Court Complex where hearing of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar took place on Monday. Sharma was arrested yesterday in connection with the incident, but was given bail later in the day. After coming out of the police station, Sharma had told reporters, "If someone has to pay such a price for stopping a person who raised pro-Pakistan slogans, then I have got nothing to say." Besides the Left Front and Congress, the AAP too has been targeting Centre over the JNU episode, especially after Kanhaiya's arrest on sedition charges. Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS), which is leading the Quota stir for Patels, today said it wants Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi to take up the issue of their jailed leaders facing sedition charges. Drawing parallels between the ongoing JNU row and their leaders facing sedition charges in Gujarat, PAAS spokesperson Varun Patel said Rahul Gandhi is only interested in JNU students and has completely ignored PAAS leaders, including Hardik Patel, who are behind bars for the past four months under sedition charges. "As soon as police booked some JNU students under sedition charges, Rahul immediately swung into action and went to JNU campus in support of these students. He even met the President and made a representation about the issue and urged him to save the democracy," Varun said during a press conference. "Many of our Patel leaders are lodged in jail (in Gujarat) for past four months in false sedition cases. I want to ask Rahul Gandhi where was he when our leaders were booked? Why he never raised his voice? If he can extend support to JNU students, then he can show solidarity with our leaders too," said Patel. He warned Congress of grave consequences if the party and its leaders fail to do their bit in the case of jailed Patel leaders. "PAAS wants Rahul Gandhi to take up the issue of sedition cases against our leaders and visit Gujarat at the earliest. We also want him to make similar representation to the President. If he will not come here, we will believe that he is not interested in our cause," said Patel. The spokesperson said Congress must remember that it was Patel voters who made them victorious in the recently held panchayat polls and warned that if they fail to do something about the issue, the party will have to face the wrath of Patel voters in 2017 Assembly elections. Patel quota stir spearhead Hardik Patel is lodged in Lajpore Hail in Surat since September in two sedition cases, while his three close aides are also behind bars in sedition case. JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested under sedition charges in a sedition case lodged in connection with an event held on the JNU campus where anti-national slogans were raised allegedly. The Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (MSA) has apprehended at least 40 Indian fishermen and seized seven of their boats near Jakhau port off the Gujarat coast in the early hours today, according to the National Fishworkers' Forum. "The Pakistan Maritime Security Agency apprehended at least 40 Indian fishermen along with 7 of their boats near Jakhau port off the Gujarat coast at Arabian sea late last night," Secretary of National Fishworkers' Forum (NFF) Manish Lodhari told PTI. Out of these seven boats, six had ventured into the sea from Okha port while one is registered in Porbandar, Lodhari claimed. "Primary reports have revealed that all of them were captured near International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL), as these fishermen may have crossed the line due to dense fog during early morning. There is a possibility that the count of seized boats and fishermen may rise," he said. Since there are no physical markings in the sea, fishermen are dependent on the GPS system installed on their boats to find out their exact location in the sea and proximity with IMBL. "However, GPS is not fitted in all the boats. Moreover, only latest GPS devices show the IMBL on the screen, while older such devices do not support that function. As a result, it is difficult for fishermen to determine their exact location, even if they have GPS facility," Lodhari said. A Pakistani truck driver has returned to his country, 10 months after he came here to deliver some material and was arrested when a porter was crushed to death under his vehicle. 30-year-old Ali Mohammad could go home as he was released after the deceased's family withdrew the case against him, officials at the Attari border said. However, it took six months for the processes to be completed for him to cross over to Pakistan on the basis of 'Emergency Travel Certificate' granted by the government of India. Mohammad had crossed over to India on April 27, last year with his truck laden with gypsum. During the process to unload gypsum, the truck moved a few yards backwards, crushing Indian porter Rashpal Singh to death, officials said. After the incident, Indian porters staged a protest at the Attari border and Mohammad was arrested on the spot and sent to judicial custody. Pakistani High Commission in Delhi was informed about it and a lawyer was engaged who procured bail for him with the condition that he wouldn't cross over to Pakistan till the case was disposed. A few months later, a compromise was struck between the driver and the deceased porter's family who understood that it was an accidental death and the driver's intention was not malafide. Subsequently, a fresh plea was filed in the local court for the cancellation of FIR. The request was accepted by Chief Judicial Magistrate Yukti Goel and the case was quashed in August last year, the officials said. When Ali reached Attari border to cross over to Pakistan immediately thereafter, he was not allowed by the Indian Immigration Authorities as his EMC was required to be stamped by the Ministries of Home Affairs and External Affairs. When the Ministries concerned were asked, they demanded NOC from Secretary Home Punjab government along with local police report. All these processes took six months from the date the CJM issued the release order. After completing all the formalities, Ali managed to cross over to Pakistan two days back on February 17 with case property (truck involved in the accident), officials said. Pakistan High Commission has expressed regret to a management institute in Greater Noida after authorities here apparently did not give permission for Pakistan envoy Abdul Basit to address a conference there. Basit was invited by IIMT college as a keynote speaker to address the international conference on latest advances in technology and management tomorrow. It is learnt that the envoy expressed his inability to attend the conference as required permission for him to travel out of Delhi was not given by the External Affairs Ministry. There was no immediate comment on the issue by the MEA. Pakistani authorities have lodged an FIR in connection with the Pathankot terror attack without naming JeM chief Masood Azhar who India has accused of having masterminded the strike. The FIR was filed against "unknown persons" after weeks of probe into the assault that had led to the postponement of Indo-Pak Foreign Secretary-level talks. It was registered at Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) centre in Gujranwala, Punjab province, yesterday. According to a CTD official, the FIR was needed to start police and judicial proceedings on the basis of evidence collected in connection with the attack for which India has blamed Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) militant group. India has identified Azhar as the mastermind of the attack. It has also blamed his brother Rauf and five others for carrying out the attack. The FIR has been lodged on the basis of information provided by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval that four attackers probably crossed from Pakistan into India and attacked the airbase on January 2. The FIR number 06/2016 was lodged under sections 302, 324 and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code, and sections 7 and 21-I of the Anti-Terrorism Act. The FIR also mentions the telephone numbers contacted by the militants during the attack. The attack led to the postponement of a scheduled meeting between Foreign Secretaries of Pakistan and India in January in Islamabad. Since then, no date has been fixed for talks. The FIR has reportedly been registered on the recommendations of a six-member special team probing the attack. Pakistan Prime Minister Sharif had formed the six-member investigation team headed by Additional Inspector General of Punjab's CTD Rai Tahir to probe India's assertion that JeM was behind the attack. Meanwhile, Pakistan's Punjab province Law Minister Rana Sanaullah today said India will be asked for more information after the registration of the FIR. Sanaullah told reporters in Lahore that the FIR shows Pakistan's "commitment" against militancy. "We will seek more information from India," he said. Responding to a question, Sanaullah said anyone including Azhar if found guilty of involvement in the attack will be prosecuted. "No one becomes guilty by naming him. I don't want to name anyone at this stage. Let the probe be completed and if Masood Azhar was involved, action will be taken," Sanaullah said. He also urged India to provide any evidence it has on Azhar or anyone else's involvement in the attack. Sanaullah said that a new Joint Investigation Team (JIT) will be formed after the FIR for further investigation. The minister said the Special Investigation Team (SIT) formed on the orders of the Prime Minister was for initial investigation. However, he did not clarify if the SIT will be dissolved or converted into JIT or a new probe team will be formed. "The entire world and also India should acknowledge our seriousness in rooting out militancy from the region. India, especially, should not doubt our resolve and honesty," he said. Sanaullah acknowledged that it was first incident that an FIR was registered at the compliant by a top Indian official. "I think militancy can be eliminated from this region if India and Pakistan are on one page," he said. According to intelligence officials, about a dozen suspects were arrested in Pakistan following the attack. Last month, CTD police Gujranwala had presented three JeM militants before an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) for possessing jihadi literature. The suspects were arrested by CTD from a seminary run by JeM in Mundeyki, where the headquarters of the 2008 Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed's Jamaat-u-Dawah is located. Salah Abdeslam, a key suspect in November's Paris attacks, was holed up for three weeks after the killings in an apartment in the Brussels district of Schaerbeek, a report said today. Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure said Abdeslam took refuge in the apartment from November 14, the day after the attacks in which 130 people died, until December 4 when special forces descended on the area. Responding to the report, Belgium's Federal prosecutor confirmed to AFP that a fingerprint belonging to Abdeslam was found in an apartment in Schaerbeek. But a spokesman said investigators were not convinced it meant he had been in hiding there for the three weeks in question. "We can confirm only the discovery of a fingerprint in the Schaerbeek hideout after a search conducted on December 10. We cannot comment further," a spokesman said. Abdeslam, 26, who is believed to have played a key logistical role in the attacks, fled across the border to Belgium hours after the November 13 killings and is now one of the most wanted men in Europe. A total of 130 people were killed and more than 350 were injured in the attacks that were claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group as revenge for French air strikes on the jihadists in Iraq and Syria. According to the report, on November 16 Abdeslam was on the third floor of a house at 86 Henri Berge Street in Schaerbeek at the same time as special forces were raiding a property in the Molenbeek area looking for him. "According to our information, he stayed there for 20 days," the daily said. Special forces carried out unsuccessful searches in Schaerbeek on December 4 at which point, the report said, Abdeslam probably left. Six days later, police raided 86 Henri Berge Street and discovered traces of explosives, three possible suicide belts, as well as the fingerprint belonging to Abdeslam. The Belgian federal prosecutor said it was impossible to date the fingerprint in order to establish if the fugitive was there before or after the attacks. Earlier this month, a source close to the French inquiry said no DNA from Abdeslam had been found on a suicide belt discovered in the French capital. The explosive belt was found in a dustbin in the southern Parisian suburb of Montrouge on November 23. Telephone data placed Abdeslam in the same area just after the attacks -- but the lack of DNA on the belt suggested that he had not worn it. India today expressed disappointment that neither terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed nor its chief Masood Azhar were named in an FIR registered in Pakistan to probe last month's Pathankot terror strike. "It is a small step in the right direction. But it is disappointing that neither the name of Jaish nor Masood Azhar was incorporated in the FIR," a senior government official said. Pakistan filed the FIR against "unknown persons" after weeks of probe into the attack on the air base on January 2 in which seven security personnel were killed. It was registered at the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) in Gujranwala in the neighbouring country's Punjab province. "We have failed to understand why Jaish and its chief's names were not included in the FIR despite India giving adequate evidence about their involvement," the official said. According to Pakistan's CTD, the FIR is needed for starting police and judicial proceedings on the basis of evidence collected in connection with the attack for which India has blamed Pakistan-based JeM. India has identified Azhar as the mastermind behind the attack. It has also blamed his brother Rauf and five others for carrying out the attack. Law Minister of Pakistan's Punjab province, Rana Sanaullah, said if anyone, including Azhar, is found guilty of involvement in the attack, they will be prosecuted. "No one becomes guilty upon naming (in a case). I don't want to name anyone at this stage. Let the probe be completed and if Masood Azhar is involved, action will be taken," Sanaullah said. He also urged India to provide any evidence it has on Azhar or anybody else's involvement in the attack. A group of Hyderabad traffic police personnel has initiated a novel campaign to stop people urinating in public by garlanding those who commit the act. Policemen attached to Mahankali traffic police station, led by Inspector T Rama Swamy, launched the campaign yesterday. So far we have "felicitated' at least 26 persons caught at various places including the Secunderabad railway station area, Swamy said. "I had seen some social workers garlanding those urinating in public places in Delhi when I was posted there in 2011-12. That inspired me," Rama Swamy told PTI. "After garlanding them, we request them not to create filth and use the public toilets instead," he said. This was a small contribution to 'Swachh Hyderabad' campaign and it will continue for the next 8-10 days under Mahankali police station limits, the inspector said. His team consists of two sub-inspectors and three constables. Asked about people's response, Rama Swamy said, "Those, whom we caught urinating in public places and garlanded, promised that that they will not do this again. They praised our campaign." Rama Swamy and his team also distributed chocolates to the two-wheeler riders who wear helmets. Scores of people, including political activists, were today administered on oath to respect and protect the country and the Constitution by BJP here as part of its three-day campaign 'Jan Swabhimaan Abhiyan' aimed at building up public opinion against the alleged anti-national activities in JNU. Addressing a gathering at Patel Chowk, BJP's Delhi in-charge Shyam Jaju alleged "some political parties are trying to "appease" the "anti nationals and terrorists". "Encouraging sedition and separatism is a burning issue and the entire country should condemn it because some political parties are trying to appease the anti nationals and terrorists," he said. Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay also demanded all the political parties to condemn the JNU event where anti-India slogans were allegedly raised. JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar was booked for sedition charge and arrested by the police. Delhi Police today issued fresh notices to three lawyers, who despite being summoned for two consecutive days, did not turn up before the investigators in connection with the attack on journalists, students and teachers of JNU in Patiala House court on February 15. "This is the third time the police have sent them notices, asking them to join investigation. If they do not respond this time, we are likely to move court," a senior police officer said. While one of the three lawyers has been identified as Vikram Singh Chauhan, who led the groups of attacking lawyers on Monday and also on Wednesday, defying Supreme Court instructions, names of the other two have not been disclosed by the police. Notices to them were first issued on Wednesday in which they were summoned at Tilak Marg police station by 3 pm but they did not appear, following which similar notices were again served the next day, and for the third time today. When contacted, Chauhan said that he will "follow" his senior's instructions on whether to appear before the police or not. He also joined a lawyers' march protesting against alleged "anti-nationals" near India Gate today. On Monday (February 15) violence broke out in Patiala House court complex where groups of men dressed in lawyers' robes attacked journalists, political activists, students and teachers of JNU, dubbing them as "anti-nationals" in the wake of a raging row over the arrest of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar. On Wednesday, another such group led another attack on journalists and Kanhaiya Kumar who was produced at the court at the end of his police custody. Meanwhile, police are also probing the role of one Surendra Tyagi, who came outside the court on Wednesday and claimed that he was among the attackers too. However, no notice has been sent to him yet as the police have so far found no evidence to verify his claims. A Delhi-based journalist, who is a friend of Umar Khalid, has been questioned by Delhi Police about the whereabouts of Khalid, who the police are searching for in connection with the sedition case registered over the controversial event at JNU held last week. The journalist, Sadiq Naqvi, was at Bijnor in Uttar Pradesh when a team of Delhi Police officials approached him today, following which he was questioned about Khalid's whereabouts. They also asked him to come to Delhi and Naqvi is presently on his way. The developments have been confirmed by a senior official in south district of Delhi Police. Naqvi was Khalid's classmate in Delhi University, where they both pursued graduation together. "It was routine questioning and I shall make myself available for another round of questioning once I reach Delhi," Sadiq told PTI. Khalid is one of the ten youths who the police are looking out for in connection with the event in JNU in which anti-India slogans were allegedly raised. Delhi Police has conducted a numbers of raids in Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in search for 10 persons, including Khalid, in connection with the case of alleged sedition for which JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested. A Delhi court today dismissed the bail plea of former-DU lecturer SAR Gilani, booked for sedition charges in connection with a Press Club event here, as the police alleged that "hatred" was being generated against the government. Metropolitan Magisrate Harvinder Singh heard the arguments of both the parties and rejected the bail plea of Gilani, who was arrested on February 16 and is in judicial custody till March 3. During arguments, the police opposed the bail plea saying the offence was grave and there was apprehension that he might try to influence the investigation and tamper with the evidence if released on bail. The counsel for the police also alleged that "there has been incitement and hatred generated against the government of India. The entire purpose of the event was to create disloyalty among the people of India." It also claimed that Gilani was not cooperating with the probe and not telling the whereabouts of the others involved in booking the conference hall where the event was held. Advocate Satish Tamta, appearing for Gilani, told the court that the police was relying on clips of channels and a CCTV footage recording of the Press Club of India. "I have no role to play in the slogans raised in the event and in fact I was the one who pacified and made the persons raising slogans to stop," Tamta said. Police had earlier told the court that an event was held on February 10 in which banners were placed showing Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhat as martyrs. It had also said the hall in the club was booked by Gilani through one Ali Javed by using his credit card and another person Mudassar was also involved. At the Press Club event, a group had allegedly shouted slogans hailing Guru, following which the police had lodged a case under sections 124A (sedition), 120B(criminal conspiracy) and 149 (unlawful assembly) of the IPC against Gilani and other unnamed persons. The police had claimed to have registered the FIR taking suo motu cognisance of media clips of the incident. Following registration of the FIR, the police questioned DU professor Ali Javed, a Press Club member who had booked the hall for the event, for two days. Gilani was arrested in connection with the 2001 Parliament attack case but was acquitted for "need of evidence" by the Delhi High Court in October 2003, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court in August 2005. Former DU lecturer SAR Gilani, booked for sedition charges in connection with a Press Club event here, was today denied bail by a Delhi court which said the slogans raised at this meeting could have incited violence and created public disorder. Metropolitan Magisrate Harvinder Singh dismissed Gilani's bail plea after taking note of a CCTV footage produced by the police. "Since the applicant/accused along with 20-25 other youth were raising anti-national slogans, slogans for Azadi of Kashmir and were raising slogans hailing Maqbool Bhatt and Afzal Guru as martyrs who were convicted and executed..., it can be inferred from the slogans raised by the applicant/ accused along with 20-25 other youth that they intended to bring Government of India into contempt with likelihood of eruption of violence and public disorder... "Hence this court do not find force in the submissions of the counsel for accused that even prima facie case for offence punishable under section 124A of IPC is not attracted in this matter... Therefore the application of grant of bail is hereby rejected," the judge said. The court also took note of the statements of two Press Club officials who stated that Gilani, along with other youths, was chanting slogans on freedom for Kashmir and calling Maqbool Bhat and Afzal Guru as martyrs. "In view of the same, in the opinion of this court, there is prima facie case for offence punishable under section 124-A (sedition) read with section 120B (criminal conspiracy) against the accused," the court said. During arguments, the police opposed the bail plea saying the offence was grave and there was apprehension that he might try to influence the investigation and tamper with the evidence if released on bail. The counsel for the police also alleged that "there has been incitement and hatred generated against the government of India. The entire purpose of the event was to create disloyalty among the people of India." It also claimed that Gilani was not cooperating with the probe and not telling the whereabouts of the others involved in booking the conference hall where the event was held. Advocate Satish Tamta, appearing for Gilani, told the court that the police was relying on clips of channels and a CCTV footage recording of the Press Club of India. "I have no role to play in the slogans raised in the event and in fact, I was the one who pacified and made the persons raising slogans to stop," he said. "The police is saying the investigation is at initial stage and I should be in jail till the same is completed. But I am not running anywhere," Gilani's counsel said. He also said the police has been trying to prejudice the mind of this court, saying that Gilani was an accused in Parliament attack case. "The Delhi high court and the Supreme Court have acquitted me in the case. I cannot make confession in the name of cooperation. I have been acquitted in 2003. I have my roots and my family here. To keep me in jail on apprehension that I will run away is denial of my right," he said. At the Press Club event, a group had allegedly shouted slogans hailing Guru, following which the police had lodged a case under sections 124A (sedition), 120B(criminal conspiracy) and 149 (unlawful assembly) of the IPC against Gilani and other unnamed persons. The police had claimed to have registered the FIR taking suo motu cognisance of media clips of the incident. Following registration of the FIR, the police questioned DU professor Ali Javed, a Press Club member who had booked the hall for the event, for two days. Gilani was arrested in connection with the 2001 Parliament attack case but was acquitted for "need of evidence" by the Delhi High Court in October 2003, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court in August 2005. Punjab government today set up a Police Prison Co-ordination Group (PPCG) for effective communication between police and prison departments regarding intelligence about crime and illegal activities organised from within jails. The Punjab Director General of Police (DGP) will be the chairman of PPCG, while Additional DGP Prison, DGP Intelligence and Secretary of Jails in Punjab will be members and Additional DGP-cum-Director, Bureau of Investigation will act as the member-Secretary, an official spokesperson said today. Identification of criminal elements lodged in prisons, which are playing a role in gang crimes, drugs, robberies and other heinous offences aside from developing and sharing actionable intelligence is a key objective of this newly-created group, he said. The group also aims to strengthen existing security of prisons, evolve mechanisms to escort under trials, re-arrest of parole jumpers and better co-ordination between police and prison departments. Meanwhile, the state government has also approved the transfer of 37.68 acres of land of Irrigation Department at Jugial village in Pathankot district to the Police Department, he added. He revealed that this land will be utilised for construction of Police Lines in Pathankot district and Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) headquarters. Accusing Rahul Gandhi of supporting the "anti-national" students in JNU and stooping to new lows to gain political mileage, Punjab BJP today said he should be "sent to Pakistan". "What Rahul Gandhi has done is anti-national. The country does not need such leaders. He should be sent to Pakistan," senior BJP leader Manoranjan Kalia said. Kalia questioned Rahul's meeting with President Pranab Mukherjee yesterday, saying that the move was only meant to defend himself. "If Rahul was indeed doing the right thing, then why did he have to clarify that nationalism runs in his blood? "He considers himself to be a claimant to the PM's office and he is supporting those who raise slogans against this country? How can such a person lead the country?" Kalia asked. BJP workers led by Punjab party President Kamal Sharma burnt an effigy of Rahul calling him "anti-national". "Since Congress is losing their nation-wide support base, Rahul Gandhi has started supporting anti-nationals. How far will he droop to gain political mileage?" Kamal Sharma said, adding that the country will not tolerate such a leader. Punjab Congress President Amarinder Singh today said Rahul Gandhi needs no certificate of patriotism from a party like BJP which had "released" dreaded terrorists like Masood Azhar. "BJP has the dubious distinction of being in government while Parliament was attacked and also not only releasing dreaded terrorists like Masood Azhar but also sending them to Kandahar in Afghanistan in a special plane with the then Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh playing the host and escort," he said in a statement here. The Amritsar MP blamed BJP for creating a mountain out of a molehill over Rahul's visit to JNU. "I am surprised as how BJP was maliciously trying to wriggle out of the situation and malign Rahul Gandhi," he said. Defending the Congress Vice President's support to the agitating JNU students, Amarinder said that Rahul had made it clear that he stood by freedom of speech and expression as guaranteed by Constitution, while strongly rejecting, opposing and condemning anything that was anti-national. "BJP's rabble rousing notwithstanding, it has a weak case when it comes to nationalistic and patriotic credentials in comparison with the Congress", he asserted. He added that Rahul's patriotic credentials are "too strong" for BJP to criticise, pointing out how his father Rajiv Gandhi and grandmother Indira Gandhi had laid down their lives to safeguard integrity of the country. Amarinder also said even though Parliament was attacked under BJP's rule, perpetrators like Afzal Guru as also Ajmal Kasab were hanged by the Congress government. Attacking Rahul Gandhi, BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya today said he was shedding "crocodile tears" in his support to the JNU agitation, and questioned why Congress was silent when "Kashmiri pandits were hounded out". "It is really astonishing that some students of JNU raise anti-India slogans and nobody raises a single question. When they are charged with sedition, various political parties stand in their support. This is really shameful," Vijayvargiya said at a meeting of state BJP's media cell. "The Congress and Rahul Gandhi are shedding crocodile tears over the JNU issue because of vote bank politics. Why were they silent when Kashmiri Pandits were hounded out of the valley and were forced to lead the life of refugees? The Congress and the Gandhi family didn't go there," he said. Asked to comment on the attack on journalists at the Patiala House Court in Delhi, the BJP leader said "We condemn the assault on journalists. We condemn any attempt of taking law into own hands." BJP national secretary Siddharth Nath Singh too condemned the assault on journalists, but said there should not be a selective approach while doing so. "We condemn the assault on journalists. But there should not be a selective approach while doing so. Journalists took to streets to protest against the assault in the Delhi court. But when scribes were beaten up in West Bengal during the civic polls there were no protests. Commenting on the protests in Jadavpur University, Vijayvargiya said he felt bad for the teachers who have taught students who were involved in anti-India sloganeering. Rare war-time footage including visual of Indian soldiers in action during the Second World War in several countries has been digitised and preserved at the National Film Archives of India (NFAI). Some of the footage digitised are titled -- India Strikes, From India to Tunis, Battle of Britain, Fire over London, A Day with Indian Troops in Egypt, Johny Gurkha, Baluch Regiment, Madras Guards --and also selected sequences from Burma Campaign, among other material. The digitised items also include visuals of Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Muhammed Ali Jinnah and other national leaders. According to a statement by Pune-based NFAI, it had received these rare footage, recently, from the Armed Forces Film and Photo Division, Ministry of Defence. With a total duration of 30 hours, the films involved scenes of various war fronts across the world, including some related to Indian forces in action during the World War II. "The material was in U-matic and 35 mm print format, which NFAI digitised them recently. This is an important acquisition for NFAI, as these rare footage would be safely stored in our vaults, at ideal temperature and humidity conditions, which would ensure their preservation for posterity", said Prakash Magdum, Director of NFAI. He said that the NFAI is in touch with military historians and authors who have done studies on World War II, so that cataloguing of these footage can be taken up. "Also we are exploring further possibility of getting more material from the Ministry of Defence, so that it can be preserved for posterity," he was quoted as saying. Leading automotive components maker Bosch today said the government's decision to transition from BS-IV to BS-VI standards is "a big challenge", but the firm is ready with the technological know-how. "Implementation of systems for Euro-V and Euro-VI norms in other countries has taken about four years for each step. "In India, jumping directly from BS-IV to BS-VI within four years is a big challenge, but the company is in the know-how of the technology," Bosch Executive Vice President (Gasoline Systems) Werner Philipp told PTI. He added that the company was waiting for detailed specifications on the new norms, which would reduce carbon emissions and fuel consumption. He was on a visit to the Bosch unit situated at Koramangala here. However, Philipp said the company has the ability to meet the deadline of 2020 for BS-VI rollout as it is already supplying high-technology components in US and Europe. "Looking at our experience in Europe and the US, it will be easier to achieve the government's BS-VI deadline, because most of us are speculating that the Indian BS-VI norms will be equivalent to the Euro norms. "This, however, is a speculation at this point of time, and the company as also other competitors and OEMs are expectingthe government to come out with detailed specifications," he said. About the overall cost implications of BS-VI, he said it will depend on the final specifications laid down by the government. "It could be quite low or quite high depending on the requirements such as software or any other minor changes to bebrought in the engine," he said. Asked how domestic OEMs are preparing for BS-VI guidelines, Bosch Vice President (Regional Business Unit) Srinivasa said, "We don't know what is going on with the Indian OEMs in designroom...Based on that, it has to be assessed. Pakistan's army chief General Raheel Sharif today said the armed forces are aware of "all campaigns" against multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that passes through PoK and vowed to "pay any" price to turn this dream into a reality. The USD 46-billion corridor to connect Western China to Pakistan's Gwadar deep seaport on the Arabian Sea in the south was announced last year. "We are totally aware of all campaigns against the corridor and I vow that the security forces are ready to pay any price to turn this long cherished dream into reality," the army chief said, according to a statement. General Raheel called for coordination in law enforcement agencies and other stakeholders to ensure security for the project. The army chief also reiterated the commitment of Pakistan Army to provide security for the project and the workforce involved, terming it a game changer having the potential to transform lives of people of the country. He also emphasised the need to ensure peaceful environment to be able to push all planned development projects. Pakistan has tasked army to provide security for hundreds of Chinese experts and workers who are becoming part of various projects related to rails, roads, and energy projects. Gilgit-Baltistan government has already allocated a piece of land to army in Diamer district for army set up headquarters for the security of CPEC and the army chief was visiting the headquarters of the newly raised Special Security Division (SSD). According to a media report, Pakistan is planning to set up a brigade-level military infrastructure in Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) to provide security to the ambitious project. Russia called for a UN Security Council meeting today over fears of a possible Turkish ground operation in Syria, after Ankara mooted a possible joint intervention with Gulf and Western allies. "Russia intends to convene a UN Security Council meeting today to discuss this issue and to introduce a draft resolution calling for a halt to any actions that would undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria," Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement. Turkey has called for a joint ground operation in Syria with its international allies, insisting that such an intervention was the only way to stop the country's five-year civil war. A senior Turkish official said on Tuesday that Ankara wanted such an operation to be carried out with it allies but emphasised there were no plans to act unilaterally. Russia is currently flying a bombing campaign in Syria to back up the forces of President Bashar al-Assad, who is fiercely opposed by Turkey and its allies. Turkey is part of a separate US-led coalition that is carrying out its own air strikes in Syria, targeting jihadists from the Islamic State group. Turkey today also intensified its nearly week-long shelling of positions in Aleppo province, where it has sought to halt the advance of a Kurdish-led alliance against rebel forces. Ties between Turkey and Russia have broken down since Ankara blasted one of Moscow's fighter jets out of the sky along its border with Syria in November. Meanwhile, Russian and US officials were meeting in Geneva today to try to help hammer out a possible ceasefire deal between regime and opposition forces in Syria after a hoped- for halt in hostilities failed to materialise. The sit down between military officials and diplomats from the two sides was meant to pave the way for a broader UN-led meeting on a ceasefire between international players involved in the Syrian crisis. Russia today was set to order the formal arrest of the owner of one its largest international airports on charges of safety violations over a 2011 suicide bombing, a day after he was taken into custody. Dmitry Kamenshchik, the owner of Moscow's Domodedovo airport, faces charges over the lack of scanning equipment on entry to the airport which allowed the bomber to bring explosives into arrivals hidden under his clothes for the attack that killed 37 people. The airport owner was detained overnight after arriving voluntarily for questioning as a witness at the powerful Investigative Committee. A Moscow court was set to formalise his arrest at 2 pm (local time) today. Kamenshchik faces up to 10 years in prison after being charged with providing unsafe services that caused multiple deaths. Domodedovo airport said in a statement that Kamenshchik's detention was "groundless." It said the airport would continue operating as normal. The Investigative Committee said in a statement that Kamenshchik and other officials "introduced a new system of inspection at the entrances to the airport, which increased the airport's vulnerability." The airport argues that 2010 legislation allowed airports not to put all those entering the building through a metal detector, instead opting for selective inspection. It denies it was economising on security measures. "The transport safety of the airport met and meets the legal norms," Kamenshchik said at a briefing on Wednesday, adding that "the law has evolved." Kamenshchik arrived at the Investigative Committee on Thursday carrying a bag of personal belongings, an indication he expected to be detained, Kommersant daily reported. "I'm not afraid because I know that I have the truth behind me," he told journalists. Russian Forbes magazine last year listed 47-year-old Kamenshchik as Russia's 27th richest businessman with a fortune of USD 3.8 billion. Russia earlier this month arrested three former and acting airport officials in the same probe. Bomber Magomed Yevloyev died in the attack in January 2011 claimed by the Caucasus Emirate movement of Islamist warlord Doku Umarov. Russia in 2013 sentenced three men to life in prison for their roles in helping the suicide bomber. Domodedovo, Russia's only privately controlled airport, has been rebuilt from an ageing Soviet relic to a bustling hub used by 86 airlines. After the attack the authorities voiced concerns over Domodedovo's complex ownership structure. The state owns a blocking stake in the two other major Moscow airports, Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo. Russia's VimpelCom has agreed to pay USD 835 million to settle US and Dutch charges it paid massive bribes to get into the Uzbekistan telecommunications market, the US Justice department announced. The huge Russian mobile phone operator, controlled by billionaire Mikhail Fridman, was accused under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of paying more than USD 114 million to a "relative" of Uzbek President Islam Karimov between 2006 and 2012 for mobile phone licenses and frequencies. The Justice Department also said yesterday it had moved to seize USD 850 million in Swiss and other European accounts controlled by the relative that came from bribes paid by VimpelCom and other companies doing business in Uzbekistan. Karimov's eldest daughter Gulnara Karimova was placed under house arrest two years ago as she was probed for corruption, a spectacular fall from grace for the flamboyant figure who once served as the country's envoy to the United Nations, as well as dabbling in fashion design and pop music. US officials were unwilling to identify the relative involved in the VimpelCom case. The settlement includes USD 167.5 million for the US Securities and Exchange Commission, USD 230.1 million for the Department of Justice, and USD 397.5 million to the Public Prosecution Service of the Netherlands. "These cases combine a landmark FCPA resolution for corporate bribery with one of the largest forfeiture actions we have ever brought to recover bribe proceeds from a corrupt government official," said Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell. Russian and American officials held talks today in Geneva to discuss a stalled ceasefire deal in Syria, Russia's foreign ministry said. The sit-down between military officials and diplomats is meant to pave the way for a broader meeting of international players involved in the conflict as a hoped-for ceasefire in Syria failed to materialise. "Russia and the United States are holding consultations at the expert level on issues that will be submitted for approval" to the broader international group, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. No time has yet been set for such a broader meeting, she added. A UN spokesman in Geneva said that the international body's Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura was flying back to the city from Damascus Friday and expected to attend a broader meeting on the ceasefire originally planned for the afternoon. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told Ria-Novosti agency that "intense consultations" between the Russian and American sides started on Thursday. The group of international players on Syria announced on February 12 they hoped to have a ceasefire in Syria by Friday but there was no sign of the halt in hostilities. Russia is currently flying a bombing campaign in Syria to support forces loyal to its ally President Bashar al-Assad, while the US heads a separate coalition targeting the Islamic State group. Russia's envoy to the UN on today warned long-term ally President Bashar al-Assad over his vow to retake all of Syria, saying he faced dire consequences if he did not comply with Moscow over the peace process. "Russia has invested very seriously in this crisis, politically, diplomatically and now also militarily," Vitaly Churkin told Kommersant newspaper, referring to an international agreement to cease hostilities sealed in Munich last week. "Therefore we would like Assad also to respond to this," he said, adding that the Syrian leader's stance "is not in accord with the diplomatic efforts that Russia is making." At their meeting in Munich, the 17-nation group backing Syria's peace process agreed to work for a ceasefire, the lifting of starvation sieges and the resumption of talks. In an interview with AFP last week, Assad defiantly pledged to retake the whole of the country, speaking before the plan for a nationwide "cessation of hostilities" in Syria was announced. If Syria "follows Russia's leadership in resolving this crisis, then they have a chance to come out of it in a dignified way," Churkin stressed. "If they in some way stray from this path -- and this is my personal opinion -- a very difficult situation could arise. Including for themselves," he warned. "If they proceed on the basis that no ceasefire is necessary and they need to fight to a victorious end, then this conflict will last a very long time and that is terrifying to imagine." Churkin however also suggested that Assad's comments were made for political impact. "It isn't worth putting too much significance into one statement or another and dramatising them," he said. "We should be guided not by what he says, with all respect for the statements of a person at such a high level, but by what he finally does." Churkin said of the Munich agreement that "Damascus, as I hope, understands this is a unique chance for Syria after five years of unremitting destruction." Russia launched air strikes in Syria in September last year to support Assad and fight "terrorists", saying it was targeting the Islamic State group and other jihadists. A Russian woman has been held for carrying US dollars worth over Rs 24 Lakh in an unauthorised manner at the Delhi airport here. Officials said the incident occurred yesterday when G Khosiyatkhan arrived at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) to take a flight to Bishkek and her suspicious movements were detected by CISF security personnel. "USD 34,950 were recovered from the woman's inner wear after she was frisked. She was later handed over to Customs authorities," a Central Industrial Security Force spokesperson said. The spokesperson said the lady was not able to give any substantial proof or reason for carrying such huge cash. The estimated cost of the foreign currency, he said, is more than Rs 24.11 lakh. Saudi Arabia announced today it is halting deals worth USD 4 billion aimed at equipping and supporting Lebanese security forces in retaliation for the tiny country's siding with Iran amid the Sunni kingdom's spat with the Shiite power. The surprise announcement, carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency, comes as deeply divided Lebanon struggles to handle the fallout from neighboring Syria's raging civil war. The Lebanese government declined to immediately comment on the Saudi decision. One deal involves a four-year, USD 3 billion Saudi pledge to buy French arms for the Lebanese military, which already has seen the Mediterranean country receive modern anti-tank guided Milan missiles last year. The other involves a USD 1 billion support deal for the Lebanese police. The decision came after Lebanese Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil declined to support Saudi resolutions against Iran during two meetings of Arab and Muslim foreign ministers. Bassil is the president of the right-wing Christian Free Patriotic Movement, which is one of the strongest allies of the Iran-backed militant Hezbollah group in Lebanon. Saudi Arabia long has been suspicious of Iran, which also supports Syria's embattled President Bashar Assad. Relations took a turn for the worse at the start of the year, when Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Shiite cleric and protesters stormed Saudi diplomatic posts in Iran. That prompted Riyadh to cut diplomatic relations with Tehran. The Saudi agency statement said the kingdom halted the deals because of Lebanon's "non-condemnation of the blatant attacks against the Saudi Embassy in Tehran and its Consulate-General in Mashhad, which are contrary to international law and diplomatic norms." "Saudi Arabia considers these positions as regrettable and unjustified," the report said. The Lebanese decision is "inconsistent with the fraternal relations between the two countries and they are not taking into account their interests." The Saudi decision likely will be a painful one for the Lebanese army. The army is generally seen as a unifying force in Lebanon and draws its ranks from all of the country's sects. However, it's widely viewed as being much weaker than Hezbollah. Historically, the Lebanese army has been equipped by the United States and France. The Saudi pledge by the late King Abdullah, announced in December 2013, was described at the time as the largest-ever single grant to the Lebanese armed forces. Also at play since that time is the dramatic drop in world crude oil prices. Once over $100 a barrel, crude now sells at around USD 30, putting tremendous strain on Saudi Arabia, which has been burning through billions of its reserves. This week, ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded the kingdom's credit rating due to low oil prices. Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said Syrian moderate rebels should be armed with surface-to-air missiles against the Russian-backed Assad regime, a German weekly reported today. Anti-aircraft weapons could tip the scales on the battlefield as they did in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s, Adel al-Jubeir is quoted as saying in an interview with Der Spiegel. "We believe that introducing surface-to-air missiles in Syria is going to change the balance of power on the ground," he said, stressing this would have to be decided by a coalition of partner states. "It will allow the moderate opposition to be able to neutralise the helicopters and aircraft that are dropping chemicals and have been carpet-bombing them, just like surface-to-air missiles in Afghanistan were able to change the balance of power there." US deliveries of Stinger missiles to Afghan mujahideen fighters during that country's Soviet occupation is credited with having significantly turned around the conflict that ended in Russia's withdrawal. The minister cautioned that "this has to be studied very carefully, however, because you don't want such weapons to fall into the wrong hands". "This is a decision that the international coalition will have to make," Jubeir added. "This is not Saudi Arabia's decision." He also said that Russian support would not save the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in the long term, reiterating Riyadh's call for him to step down. "The other option is that the war will continue and Bashar al-Assad will be defeated," he is quoted as saying. Saudi Arabia has backed rebel forces fighting Assad in the country's nearly five-year civil war. It has also been part of the US-led coalition bombing the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria and Iraq since late 2014. Jubeir told AFP this week that any Saudi troops, including special forces, on the ground would make the battle against the IS its priority. "We expressed our readiness to join the US-led, international coalition against Daesh with special forces," he said, using an Arabic acronym for the group. "All of this, however, is still in the discussion phase and in the initial planning phase," he added. Der Spiegel also asked the Saudi chief diplomat about similarities between the ultra-conservative Islam practiced in his country and the Islamic State's religious ideology. The SC/ST Faculty Forum at the Hyderabad Central University (HCU) here today said it was deeply disturbed by the events unfolding at Jawaharlal Nehru University and other institutions of higher learning, and demanded release of JUNUSU leader Kanhaiya Kumar. The Forum, which was in the forefront of protests following the suicide of Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula at HCU, demanded withdrawal of police from the institutes of higher education, and restoration of their autonomy. "The arrest of JNU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar on false charges is unacceptable and we demand his immediate release. We condemn the manhandling and assault of Kanhaiya within the Patiala House court by lawyers thus bringing disrepute to the very protectors of law," it said in a statement. In a separate statement, Maulana Azad National Urdu University Teachers Association (MANUUTA) said it discussed the events at JNU at a meeting today to express solidarity with the struggle of students. MANUUTA also demanded immediate withdrawal of cases against Kumar and other JNU students. A scan centre run by a woman doctor in nearby Attur has been sealed by a Central team for allegedly carrying out foetal sex determination test violating a ban on it, a state health department official said today. A team of doctors led by Dr Subrathara Roy deputed by Central Government inspected the Saravana Scan Centre operated by Dr Damayanthi and found sex determination tests were done there clandestinely and ordered its sealing yesterday, a state health department official said. The team also seized scan equipment and accessories from the centre, Salem Joint Director (Health) Dr Subbulakshmi told PTI today. Severe action would be initiated against the clinic. Incidentally, the clinic was sealed in 2014 for the same offence and had been fined Rs 1,000 by a court. With repeated complaints surfacing against the clinic again, the health department officials had informed the Centre which deputed the team for an on-the-spot inquiry. Pre-natal sex determination is banned under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act, 1994, as part of efforts to prevent female foeticide. Seven members of a family, including two women and a minor girl, were killed and one person was seriously injured when their car collided with a bus near a village here in the wee hours today. The car was going to Pratapgarh in Uttar Pradesh from Mumbai when it collided head-on with the private bus near a culvert at Dhanora village on Agra-Mumbai National Highway, police said. Seven occupants of the car died on the spot while one person was seriously injured, Sarangpur Police Station Inspector Narendra Singh Raghuwanshi said. The deceased were identified as Mehfooz Khan (70), Sakdar Khan (35), Haider Nazmi (37), Akbari Begum (60) Husna Bi (45) Mariam (10) Dr Yusuf (40), all residents of Pratapgarh in Uttar Pradesh, he said. The injured person was referred to Indore for treatment, police said, adding a case has been registered against the absconding bus driver. Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi may meet next month in the US on the sidelines of a nuclear summit being hosted by President Barack Obama, a media report said today. Both Sharif and Modi have accepted Obama's invitation to attend the nuclear summit in Washington on March 31 and April 1, Dawn newspaper said. "The chances are strong, very strong," said a senior official who did not want to be identified. "But you know the history of India-Pakistan talks. You cannot be certain about an event until it has happened," the official added. It will be the first time that both Indian and Pakistani premiers will be attending the nuclear security summit, which President Obama initiated in 2010. The summit, which is aimed at preventing terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons, brings leaders from across the world to discuss various proposals for attaining this goal. The first summit was held in Washington on April 12-13, 2010. Since this is President Obama's final year in office, the administration is pushing hard for achieving some concrete results during the fourth summit. Meanwhile, in an editorial Dawn newspaper said, "What Indian officials really ought to be directing their energies to is achieving an immediate resumption of the bilateral dialogue. Pakistan and India deserve better than the old approach of endless complaints and no forward movement. With IT firms struggling to find quality and right number of professionals, a top American CEO has called for a dramatic expansion of the H-1B visa scheme popular among Indian tech firms to meet the growing demand. The entire Silicon Valley believes that the H-1B visa policy needs to be dramatically expanded, Bill Coleman CEO of Veritas told PTI in an interview. We cant hire enough good people. They are just not available here. The salaries here are going through the roof, because everybody is competing to hire from everybody else, he said. Coleman, a former chairman of Silicon Valley Leadership Group, is involved with the Silicon Valley for about 40 years. Early this month, he became the CEO of Veritas, which has re-emerged as a newly-independent company after its purchase by The Carlyle Group for $7.4 billion on January 29. Soon headed to India, where Veritas has about 1,700 people working for it with Pune being a major centre, Coleman said he plans to migrate some of his facilities to India from Florida. That is a priority, he said. The H1B visa is designed to allow US employers to recruit and employ foreign professionals in speciality occupations within the US. But in a blow to Indian IT firms, the US has imposed an additional fee of up to $4,500 for certain categories of H-1B visa. Amidst revival of the US economy wherein the unemployment rate has hit below five per cent, Coleman referred to the huge shortage of quality IT professionals the Silicon Valley faces. In Silicon Valley you go to Apple, Facebook or Google, open their websites, you will find thousands of open jobs. One of the biggest problem here is that everybody is trying to hire from everybody else. As they cant find enough good candidates what they are doing is pushing the salaries through the moon, he said. Referring to a conversation he recently had with Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt, Coleman described a crazy incident when the hiring-salary of a data scientist skyrocketed. Family membersof sub-inspector Mallikarjun Bande who died of bulletwounds during an encounter with a notorious criminal inJanuary 2014 at Kalburgi, today staged a protest heredemanding that the state government fulfill its promises. Asking the government to take care of the medical expenses of his daughter in-law Mallamma Bande, who issuffering from brain tumour, Bande's father Karibasappa said, "Now my daughter-in-law is also battling forlife. What will happen to the children? Where do we go if government can't keep up their promise?" he asked. Mallamma is undergoing treatment at National Instituteof Mental Health and Neurosciences here sinceDecember. "Government had made us certain promises that include monthly salary of my son till the completion of his service period, that will be paid to us along with land and others, but nothing has happened so far," Karibasappa said. The family complained that Bande's salary wasstill not paid as the file related to it "is pending with the Chief Minister for approval formore than one and half years." "Regarding the land, they are seeking about Rs one lakhfor registration," Karibasappa rued. Holding government responsible for his son's death andill-health of his daughter in-law, he said he will continue his protest until government takes action. "One life has gone. At least one has to be saved now," he pleaded. Known for daredevilry in dealing with criminals, Bandewas injured in the shootout with alleged criminal Munna Darbar, who was shot dead, on January 8, 2014 in Kalburgi. He later succumbed to injuries at a hospital in Hyderabad. "We are only asking government what they had promised. They (government)had given Rs 50 lakh which we have deposited inthe bank, in the names of the children, but now we had to use Rs 20 lakh formy sister's treatment as we had no other source of money wehad to use money from the FD," Mallamma's brother Virupakshasaid. We are now concerned about the children's future who have lost their father, he said. The family members urged the government to respond and start paying the salary they had promised. (REOPENS MES5) Meanwhile, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who met Karibasappa at his official residence, has directed officials concerned to take immediate action to provide Bande's salary to his wife. Assuring government's support to the family, he has directed officials to see to that the education of Bande's children is borne by the state, as promised, Chief Minister's officesaid. Siddaramaiah has "positively responded" toKaribasappa's request that government should take care of the medical expenses of Bande's wife Mallamma, it added. Drinks firm SodaStream warned today it could suspend production at its main factory in Israel if the government does not grant work permits for dozens of its Palestinian staff. The Israeli company, which manufactures a device for making fizzy drinks at home, announced in late 2014 it was closing its plant in a West Bank settlement, following a boycott campaign that included targeting Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson after she advertised its product. The plant closed in October 2015, with more than 500 Palestinians made redundant, the company said. They relocated the factory inside Israel, bringing 74 Palestinian workers with them, as well as hiring hundreds of Israeli workers. But the Israeli government has refused to grant the Palestinians work permits beyond the end of this month, the company's head of global communications, Maayan Nave, said. "We are not willing to let Israeli bureaucracy determine the future of 74 people," he said, adding many have worked for the company for at least six years. "We hope that the current government will be able to solve the bureaucracy that now points to the termination of the contracts of our 74 Palestinian workers," Nave said. He said the company would consider suspending production at the factory in the Negev region if the government did not meet its demands. "We are determined to stand by our employees and fight," he said. A Palestinian employee quoted in the Israeli media said that, since the factory move, he had to leave his home in the occupied West Bank at 4:30 am and did not return until 7 pm. "It's a long day and I don't get to see my children during the week, but I'm happy that I have this job," he told The Jerusalem Post, which first reported SodaStream's concerns. COGAT, the defence ministry body responsible for coordinating Israeli government activity in the Palestinian territories, said it was trying to help the company as much as possible. "COGAT has taken many measures to help the factory and provided temporary permits to hundreds of labourers in the past year and a half to enable the transfer (of the factory)," a spokeswoman said. According to COGAT, 58,000 Palestinians hold permits to work in Israel, with another 27,000 working for Israeli businesses in West Bank settlements and industrial zones. Nave called for an increase in the number of permits, but COGAT said it would need a ruling from the government. Congress President Sonia Gandhi will hold deliberatations with senior party leaders tomorrow to firm up the party strategy for the upcoming Budget session at a time when Opposition and Government have locked horns over a number of contentious issues. The meeting will take place soon afer Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari holds discusion with leaders of all parties of the Upper House tomorrow ahead of the Budget session beginning February 23. Congress has upped the ante against Government on the JNU row in the wake of a sedition case against the varsity's students union president Kanhaiya Kumar, dalit scholar of Hyderabad University Rohith Vemula's suicide and the imposition and susequent revocation of President's Rule in the party-ruled Arunachal Pradesh. Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi today urged parties not to be "disruptive Opposition", stressing that dissent, disruption and disturbance should not dominate debate, discussion and decision. The Congress meeting also comes ahead of two separate all party meetings called on Monday by Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu during which the government is likely to make a fresh appeal to Opposition parties to help pass key reform bills like GST, which is stuck in Rajya Sabha. The meeting called by Ansari tomorrow is likely to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On February 16, the Prime Minister had reached out to the opposition by holding a meeting of leaders of major political parties. In the first-ever exercise initiated by Modi against the backdrop of repeated stalling of sessions, he sought their cooperation saying, "I am not the Prime Minister of BJP alone but the entire country." He had also expressed the hope that Parliament will function and assured opposition parties that the government will work to address their concerns during the Budget session. Rajya Sabha, where the government lacks majority, had seen repeated disruption in the Monsoon and Winter sessions with Congress and several other opposition parties blocking key economic reform measures of the Modi government. Naidu had last month met Congress President Sonia Gandhi seeking cooperation for the early passage of the crucial GST and the real estate bills. However, immediately after the meeting, Congress made it clear that there was no forward movement on the issue, claiming that the government did not make any substantial offer on its demand for certain changes in the bill. The Budget session of Parliament will commence on February 23 and will focus largely on the financial business of the government. The General Budget will be presented on February 29. South Australian government is considering setting up an international centre of excellence in water resources management in collaboration with the Rajasthan government to share and exchange knowledge and expertise on water issues. "We are looking for collaborating arrangements with the state of Rajasthan. Discussions are progressing rapidly we are looking for setting up an International centre of excellence in collaboration with the state," Karlene Maywald, South Australian Government's Special Advisor on International Water Opportunities, told PTI here. She said that the proposal was presented to the state government last year by South Australia and both the sides are rapidly working in this direction. She said that the proposed facility, which will be the first in India, would be similar to that of the Centre which is presently working in Australia. South Sudan government troops took part in a possible "war crime" attack killing at least 18 civilians inside a United Nations base, residents, rebels and aid sources said. At least 18 people were killed and over 70 wounded in the clashes in the UN camp on Wednesday to Thursday in the north-eastern town of Malakal, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has said, including two of their own staff killed. Forty-six of the injured had bullet wounds. Residents reported gunmen shooting in crowded areas in the tightly packed camp of tents and basic shelters housing over 47,700 people fleeing a civil war that began in late 2013. The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) blamed the clashes on rival tribes inside the camp -- "between Shilluk and Dinka youths" -- saying "at least seven" people were killed. It added that "such an attack against civilians and UN premises may constitute a war crime." Resident Jacob Nhial described government troops wearing the uniform of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) "shooting at civilians" with fighting taking place in the camp, as well as gunfire coming from soldiers outside. Confidential UN communication seen by AFP also said that SPLA soldiers took part in the attack. "SPLA troops numbering 50-100 have entered the UNMISS POC Sector 1 and 2 in Malakal reportedly attacking IDPs, shooting sporadically, burning tents and looting properties," the internal UN document reads. A POC, or Protection of Civilian site, is the UN acronym for places where South Sudan civilians are supposed to be safe, defended by peacekeepers while IDPs is the term the UN uses for internally displaced people. An entire section of the camp was razed to the ground, with sporadic shooting still heard in Malakal on Friday morning, aid workers said. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said half the camp had fled their shelters -- some 25,000 people -- with areas, "looted and burned, including shelters, clinics and water tanks." The UN mission has more than 12,000 peacekeepers with half of them deployed solely to protect the nearly 200,000 civilians sheltering in their bases around the country. SPLA spokesman Marko Mayol said he had no information on the reports that government troops were involved. Rebel spokesman James Gadet, condemned the "heinous crimes committed by the government", claiming militia were issued with guns "by elements of the government" in what he called, "a violation of the peace agreement. Two out of the five SIMI operatives arrested from Rourkela two days ago, were today taken by the Special Task force of Odisha's Crime Branch police to Bhadrak where they had stayed in a hide-out earlier for two months. The STF team led by Special DGP (Crime Branch), B K Sharma and accompanied by IG Arun Bothra took the duo to the area to gather further information about the SIMI operatives and to unearth their links in the area. During interrogation of the arrested persons, who had escaped from a jail in Madhya Pradesh in 2013, it was found that they had stayed in a rented house at Bhadrak's Nangamohalla area before moving to Rourkela, the police said. The five arrested early on Wednesday have been identified as as Mehboob Khan, Zakhir Khan, Ahmed khan, Saliq and Najma (Mehboob's mother), the police said. Special DG Sharma said the SIMI operatives, during interrogation, had confessed about their Bhadrak hideout. Their hideout at Nangamahala under Purunabazar police station limits was searched by the STF team in presence of two SIMI activists and witnesses, Sharma said adding, the STF seized some SIMI literature, mobile phones, pen drives, a battery and wires form the house. Meanwhile, the Bhadrak police have detained Tajul Khan alias Munu, the owner of the house where the arrested SIMI operatives had stayed six months back and was being interrogated, the police said. The Special DG said investigation by STF was on to ascertain the local links and activities of the SIMI operatives in the area. National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories (NFCSF) today asked its members to export the entire quota allocated by the government and not withhold stocks in anticipation of rise in prices in the coming season. The government has made it mandatory for mills, both private and cooperatives, to export 4 million tonnes of sugar in the 2015-16 season (October-September) in order to sell surplus stocks in global market and improve cash flow of the millers for making sugarcane payment to farmers. India has surplus sugar stock on account of bumper production in last five years, depressing local prices. "Sugar exports under the Minimum Indicative Export Quota (MIEQ) scheme is mandatory, failing which the mills shall be deemed to be violating the directives of the government. "We would, therefore, urge the member factories to cooperate with the government in its initiative to improve the financial liquidity of the sugar industry through liquidation on surplus stock by way of fulfilment of quota obligations and participation in supply of ethanol to OMCs for blending in petrol as early as possible and take advantage of the production subsidy," NFCSF said in a statement. Stating that the market sentiments have improved in the last six months on likely decline in production in 2015-16 season, the Federation said, "In anticipation that sugar prices in the coming season would go up, Indian sugar mills have started holding sugar than to export." Many sugar mills are focussing more on domestic sales thereby delaying their export obligation. "More and more sugar exports will help in reducing the sugar stock, which has started depressing the domestic prices. If domestic prices of sugar will improve on compulsory exporting sugar, it would help mills to clear their cane price dues to farmers." Mills have so far exported only 0.92 million tonnes sugar, it said, adding that "if sugar export does not speed up, industry will not be able to achieve the target of MIEQ and the 2015-16 season will close with higher sugar stock". Sugar production in India, the world's second biggest producer after Brazil, is expected to decline to 26 million tonnes in 2015-16 season, as against 28.3 million tonnes in the previous year. However the total availability this season is pegged at 35.1 million tonnes, which is much higher than the domestic demand of 25.8 million tonnes. Fighting raged on in Syria today, as a hoped-for ceasefire failed to materialise and Turkey intensified its shelling of Kurdish-led forces. Further dampening hopes for an end to the conflict, the UN peace envoy admitted a February 25 date for a resumption of stalled peace talks was no longer "realistically" possible. Key regime backer Russia meanwhile warned that recent comments by President Bashar al-Assad about retaking all of Syria were out of step with Moscow's diplomatic efforts. On the ground, Turkey intensified its nearly week-long shelling of positions in Aleppo province, where it has sought to halt the advance of a Kurdish-led alliance against rebel forces. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said Ankara's overnight bombardment was the heaviest since it began targeting the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Saturday. Turkey also expanded its fire, the Britain-based monitoring group said, hitting the Kurdish town of Afrin for the first time, where two civilians were killed and 28 wounded. Ankara has been angered by the SDF's operation in Aleppo province, where it has seized key territory from rebel forces supported by Turkey. Ankara considers the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) that dominate the SDF to be an affiliate of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state. It accuses the YPG and PKK of being behind a bombing that killed 28 people in the Turkish capital on Wednesday night, a claim denied by the Syrian Kurdish group. Ankara fears the SDF advance in Aleppo province is intended to connect Kurdish-held areas in northern and northeastern Syria, creating an autonomous Kurdish region extending along most of its southern border. Further east, SDF forces were advancing against the Islamic State group in Hasakeh province, the Observatory said. The monitoring group said the alliance was now just five kilometres (three miles) from the IS stronghold of Al-Shadadi, and had cut two key routes leading from the town to Mosul in neighbouring Iraq and to Raqa, the jihadists' de facto Syrian capital. The advance was assisted by heavy air strikes by the US-led coalition fighting IS, the Observatory said. The coalition has backed the Kurdish-led SDF against IS, but Washington has cautioned the alliance against taking "advantage" of the situation in Aleppo, wary of angering its Turkish ally. Government recognised body TCOE will facilitate Rs 24 crore funding from Entrepreneurship Venture Capital (EVC) to institutions developing patent in India in the field of mobile apps and Internet-based products. "EVP and TCOE have partnered with EVC for funding innovations in the field of mobile applications, Internet of things and Internet of everything. It has been done with aim to reduce funding gap that comes in the way on innovation," Telecom Centers of Excellence Director RK Pathak told PTI. The EVC has Rs 24 crore venture capital fund for the project that will be invested in projects across public and private institutions through TCOE under Innovation in Mobile App Development Ecosystem (I-MADE) framework. "I-MADE is 5-year program, under which 11 institutions were selected to be part of Phase I. One hundred institutes will be selected to be a part in Phase II of the program and Phase III will include up to 35,000 institutions," Pathak said. EVC is a USD 50-million fund focused on early stage enterprise software, Internet and mobile companies that target the education market or companies created from intellectual property technology transfer from colleges and universities. "India has 315 million students - the largest in the world. The goal of I-MADE is to give students in India the tools, training and mentorship to launch 1 million apps and as many startups," EVC Managing Partner Anjli Jain said. Besides funds, EVC will also provide mentorship to researchers to market and establish their product. "We will complete phase I in next one and half months. By end of this year we will reach out to 100 institutions under phase 2," TCOE Deputy Director Anurag Vibhuti said. The reference to RSS as an "extremist" organisation by a lawyer in his plea seeking an SIT probe into recent incidents of violence at Patiala House Courts, today sparked a strong reaction from another lawyer who sought Supreme Court's intervention in expunging the word. "I am pained. My Lords, please ask him to immediately expunge the remarks used for RSS. RSS is not an extremist organisation," lawyer R P Luthra, who has sought to intervene in the matter arising out of the violent incidents when JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar was produced in the lower court, told a bench of Justices J Chelameswar and A M Sapre. The exchange took place during the hearing of a fresh plea by lawyer Subhash Chandran, who said he was part of the team of lawyers representing Kumar and claimed he was attacked by some "rowdy" colleagues in the New Delhi district courts premises at Patiala House here. Chandran further alleged that defence lawyers were called "Pakistani agents" and the "murderous" attack on them and others including journalists was planned by BJP-RSS leaders. Senior advocate Chander Uday Singh, representing Chandran, said the police has so far not registered the FIR on his complaint. The reference to RSS as an "extremist" organisation irked Luthra who sought its expunction by arguing at the top of his voice that it was a "nationalist" organisation and use of such words would "provoke" the people. The court referred to prayers like a direction to police to register the FIR and asked Singh to withdraw his plea and file a fresh one, saying "You say that you have also been assaulted. We would certainly like to examine the allegations". Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar, appearing for the Centre and Delhi Police, opposed the plea saying there was no specific allegation that the petitioner lawyer was attacked or "somebody tried to kill him". The bench then permitted Singh to withdraw the plea and asked Luthra to calm down, saying the plea now stands withdrawn. Luthra had yesterday objected to "out of the way" hearing of Kumar's bail plea. "There is a well calculated design to terrorise the subordinate judiciary and the authorities and ... The lower judiciary be allowed to function as per law," he had said and alleged that the police was being pressurised not to oppose the bail application of Kumar. Earlier, the apex court had termed as "extraordinary circumstances", the violence in the Patiala House courts while rejected a lawyer's contention that exceptional importance was being given to one case which would demoralise lower judiciary and police. Ruling Trinamool Congress won by one vote, a no-confidence motion moved by it in the Congress run Kandi Municipality in Murshidabad district, in the absence of a key councillor who was allegedly kidnapped by the TMC. Calcutta High Court yesterday directed the Murshidabad Superintendent of Police to ensure the presence of the missing Independent councillor, Debajyoti Roy, when voting takes place at the municipality to elect the chairman. However, Roy was not present when the voting took place and Trinamool Congress won 9-8, officials said. Police said it has started an investigation regarding the councillor who has gone missing on February 17. The High Court has given the order on a petition by Roy's wife Santana Roy, also an Independent councillor, who alleged that her husband was kidnapped by TMC as the couple had said they would support Congress during voting. State Congress president Adhir Chowdhury demonstrated in front of Kandi police station against the alleged police inaction in finding out the missing councillor. He said Congress and Left parties will remove the TMC from power in the coming Assembly election. TMC district president Mannan Hossain, however, denied any role in the disappearance of the councillor and said the Congress is playing dramatics. Meanwhile, district officials said the new chairman will have to be elected within 15 days. The Congress formed the 18-member municipal board in Kandi with 13 councillors. But six of them, including the chairman, joined Trinamool last month, taking TMC's tally to nine. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today announced a slew of concessions, including hike in assistance under Family Welfare Fund, for state government employees amid protests by some sections among them. Other concessions announced included increase in pension for nutritious meal workers, relaxation in norms for promotions and a rise in honorarium for guest lecturers. In a suo motu statement in the Assembly, Jayalalithaa said the assistance under the Family for the kin of government employees, if they die in harness, would be increased to Rs 3 lakh from the present Rs 1.5 lakh, accepting the request of several employees associations. According to the plan, the employees' contribution would be Rs 60 from the previous Rs 30, she said. As of now, the government subsidy for the scheme is Rs 6.18 crore, and the increase in assistance would entail an additional expenditure of Rs 6 crore and it will be borne by the state government. Amid a stir by sections of government employees pressing for several demands since February 10, she said government employees "are the face, foundation, and backbone of the government" who take government welfare schemes to the people. She said government employees had given several demands and representations over which senior ministers and officials held talks with them. "My government has decided to give them various concessions," she said. On the demand of several government employees unions for scrapping the Contributory Pension Scheme and reverting to the Old Pension Scheme, she said, "the demand should be thoroughly scrutinised. Hence, an expert committee will be set up to go into the demand and make recommendations to government. An appropriate decision will be taken based on the report of the panel." For those who joined government service on or after April 1, 2003, the Contributory Pension Scheme is applicable under which employees and the state both contribute for the Pension Plan. Under Group Insurance Scheme for employees including those in local-bodies, government aided educational institutions, and nutritious meal programme, the sum insured would be increased to Rs. 3 lakh from the present Rs 1.50 lakh. It would mean an additional expenditure of Rs 20 crore for the government over and above the Rs 22 crore per annum being spent now, she said. Chief Minister Jayalalithaa today announced a slew of concessions, including hike in assistance under Family Welfare Fund, for state government employees amid protests by some sections among them. Other concessions announced included increase in pension for nutritious meal workers, relaxation in norms for promotions and a rise in honorarium for guest lecturers. In a suo motu statement in the Assembly, Jayalalithaa saidthe assistance under the Family Welfare Fund for the kin of government employees, if they die in harness, would be increased to Rs three lakh from the present Rs 1.5 lakh accepting the request of several employees associations. According to the plan, the employees' contribution would be Rs 60 from the previous Rs 30, she said. As of now, the government subsidy for the scheme is Rs 6.18 crore, and the increase in assistance would entail an additional expenditure of Rs six crore and it will be borne by the state government. Amid stir by sections of government employees pressing for several demands since February 10, she said government employees "are the face, foundation, and backbone of the government" who take government welfare schemes to the people. She said government employees had given several demands and representations over which senior ministers and officials held talks with them. "My government has decided to give them various concessions," she said. On the demand of several government employees unions for scrapping the Contributory Pension Scheme and reverting to the Old Pension Scheme, she said, "the demand should be thoroughly scrutinised. Hence, an expert committee will be set up to go into the demand and make recommendations to government. An appropriate decision will be taken based on the report of the panel." For those who joined government service on or after April 1, 2003, the Contributory Pension Scheme is applicable under which employees and the state both contribute for the Pension Plan. Under Group Insurance Scheme for employees including those in local-bodies, government aided educational institutions, and nutritious meal programme, the sum insured would be increased to Rs.Three lakh from the present Rs 1.50 lakh. It would mean an additional expenditure of Rs 20 crore for the government over and above the Rs 22 crore per annum being spent now, she said. MDMK General Secretary, Vaiko today urged Tamil Nadu government to take immediate steps to seek the release of 10 persons, hailing from Tuticorin, who were arrested on charges of smuggling red sanders by the forest department of Andhra Pradesh. The state government should intervene and seek their release, Vaiko told reporters here. While stating that People's Welfare Front, of which the MDMK is a constituent, had already extended invitation to Tamil Maanila Congress and DMDK to join it, he expressed hope that both the parties will join it soon. He claimed that the PWF would form the next government in Tamil Nadu. Besides, MDMK, PWF comprises the left parties and VCK. Hours after calling Pope Francis's explosive remarks against him "disgraceful", Republican presidential frontrunner in a damage-control move appeared to have mellowed down his outburst saying he does not "like fighting with Pope". The pontiff in a criticism of the controversial real- estate tycoon had said that Trump cannot claim to be a Christian and slammed his comments on immigration in particular building a wall along the US-Mexico border. Trump, 69, in a swift reaction had fired back at the Pope calling Francis's remarks "disgraceful" but later softened his stand on the Catholic leader. "I don't like fighting with the Pope, actually. I don't think this is a fight. I think he said something much softer than was originally reported by the media. I think that he heard one side of the story, which is probably by the Mexican government," Trump said. "I have a lot of respect for the Pope. I think he's got a lot of personality. He's a very different kind of a guy, and I think he's doing a very good job. He's a lot of energy," Trump said at a townhall organised by CNN in South Carolina. Pope's comment had come in an interaction with reporters travelling on his plane on his way back to Vatican from Mexico where he visited this week. "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian," Pope Francis had told reporters. "Thank God he said I was a politician, because Aristotle defined the human person as 'animal politicus.' So at least I am a human person. As to whether I am a pawn - well, maybe, I don't know. I'll leave that up to your judgment and that of the people," said the 79-year-old leader of 1.2 billion Catholics. Trump late last night said: "I would say that I think he was very much misinterpreted, and I also think he was given false information. If he would have heard our side from people that live in the United States?" But earlier in the day he had called Pope's comment "disgraceful." "For a religious leader to question a person's faith is disgraceful. I am proud to be a Christian and as President I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened, unlike what is happening now, with our current President," Trump had said. He said he was surprised to see the comment from the Pope. "I didn't think it was a good thing for him to say, frankly. He was talking about the border. I'm very strong on border security. We are talking about building a wall. We're gonna build a wall, and Mexico's gonna pay for the wall, and that's the way it is," Trump had said. Trump's rivals from his own Republican party supported him and differed with Francis in separating religion and politics. "I just don't think it's appropriate to question Donald Trump's faith. He knows what his faith is. And if he has a relationship with the lord, fantastic. If he doesn't, it's none of my business," former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, a Catholic, said. "We have a right to build a wall, but I've got to tell you, there are too many walls between us. We need bridges between us if we're going to fix the problems in Washington because all they do is have walls," Ohio Governor John Kasich said. Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a devout Catholic, said he disagreed with Francis. "I disagree with a lot of thing that has said, but I do think America has right to secure its border," he told Fox News. Rubio stressed that America is "one of the most generous countries" in the world when it comes to immigration. "We admit a million people every year permanently legally to this country. Mexico does not do that, other countries do not do that," he said. The White House refrained from entering into the controversy but took a dig at Trump. "I think I can just say, as a general matter, that President Obama had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to address the National Prayer Breakfast, where he talked about his own personal faith, his own personal Christian faith, informed his view of the values and priorities that he has chosen to champion in the White House," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said. "We have noted, I think on a number of occasions, we've had the opportunity to note that many of those values and priorities are not shared by Trump. So I will, however, though, extend to Trump the courtesy that he has not extended to the President, and not use this opportunity to call into question the kind of private personal conversations that he's having with his God," Earnest said. French President Francois Hollande today said Ankara's escalating involvement in the Syrian conflict was creating a risk of war between Turkey and Russia. "Turkey is involved in Syria... There, there is a risk of war," Hollande told France Inter radio. "That is why the (UN) Security Council is meeting," he added. Hollande also said "Russia will be unable to cope if it unilaterally supports (Syrian President) Bashar al-Assad" and called for "pressure" to be exerted on Moscow to negotiate on Syria. "I do not want to exclude Russia from the solution. I went myself to Moscow to tell Vladimir Putin, 'All of us have to work together to make this political transition'... But I cannot accept that at the same time that people are negotiating, they are bombing civilian populations," he said. Asked about the US position, he said "the Americans consider that they no longer have to be everywhere in the world as they were before.... Therefore the United States is pulling back. Of course I would prefer that the Americans were again more active". The Security Council is holding an emergency meeting at 2000 GMT at Moscow's request, to address Turkey's proposal for ground forces to be deployed in Syria, the Russian foreign ministry said in Moscow. Turkey has called for a joint ground operation in Syria with its international allies, insisting it is the only way to stop the country's five-year war. Saudi Arabia, which along with Turkey is backing rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces, has also said it would be ready to take part in an international force to be deployed in Syria. Russia, which has been carrying out air strikes in support of Assad's forces since the end of September, has called on the Security Council to press Turkey to halt its shelling of Kurdish forces in northern Syria. Ties between Turkey and Russia have broken down since Ankara downed one of Moscow's fighter jets along its border with Syria in November. France has been one of the most hostile opponents of Assad, and following the jihadist attacks in Paris in November it has stepped up air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq. Hollande told France Inter the strikes were effective and results could now be seen. Two Palestinians carrying out attacks on Israeli forces were shot dead today, the latest in a wave of violence that has lasted longer than four months. In the first attack, a man stabbed and wounded two policemen outside Jerusalem's Damascus Gate before they shot him dead. "A terrorist attacked a squad of officers from behind, stabbed and wounded them lightly, the squad responded with fire and neutralised the terrorist," police said. Police confirmed the death of the assailant and identified him as a 20-year-old Palestinian from Kafr Aqeb. A spokeswoman for the Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem said they had admitted two men in their 20s suffering from stab wounds, and both were in a stable condition. Medics said they also treated a 50-year-old woman who had suffered a light wound to her leg, apparently as a result of the shooting, before evacuating her to a hospital in east Jerusalem. The site of the attack, in annexed east Jerusalem and adjacent to its Old City, has been a focal point in the latest wave of violence. Later today, a Palestinian tried to run over Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank and was shot dead, the army said. "During a violent riot in Silwad, northeast of Ramallah, an assailant attempted to ram his vehicle into soldiers," an army statement said, referring to an area in the northern West Bank. "The soldiers responded to the immediate threat and fired towards the assailant, resulting in his death." Palestinian police sources identified the man as Raed Hamed, 20. Since October 1, Palestinian knife, gun and car-ramming attacks have taken the lives of 27 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean, according to an AFP count. The father of Umar Khalid, Syed Qasim Illyas Rasool today lodged a complaint with Delhi Police claiming that he received a phone call "threatening to kill" his son (Umar) if he doesn't leave the country. Several police teams are looking out for Khalid in connection with the sedition case registered over the controversial event at JNU campus last week, which led to the arrest of the varsity's students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar. Syed Qasim Illyas Rasool in his complaint claimed that he received the phone call around 5 pm when he was in office. "The caller identified himself as Mumbai-based gangster Ravi Pujari, threatened Rasool that he would kill his son Umar if he doesn't leave the country," police said quoting the complaint lodged by Rasool. The call was internet-generated. We are looking into the matter. An FIR is yet to be registered, a police official said. Umar's sister Maryam Fatimah told PTI that her younger sisters have received threats over the past few days on social media. Umar's father also asked police to provide security to his family. UN climate chief Christiana Figueres says she will leave her post in July after six years in charge of the diplomatic effort to fight global warming. The Costa Rican diplomat's announcement today comes two months after a historic international agreement on climate change was adopted in Paris. In a letter to governments and observers of the talks, the 59-year-old Figueres said she would "not accept an extension" when her term ends in July. Figueres helped rescue the climate talks after a tumultuous 2009 summit in Copenhagen and put them on a path that culminated with the Paris Agreement, the first deal asking all countries to rein in their greenhouse gas emissions. "The Paris Agreement is a historical achievement, built on years of increasing willingness to construct bridges of collaboration and solidarity," she wrote in the letter. "It has been an honor to support you along this path over the past six years." Figueres said U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "will soon initiate the search" for her successor. Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a veteran observer of the climate talks, said Figueres would leave on a high note. "She was an essential part of the success in Paris," he said. "She had the knowledge of the issues, the understanding of the politics and the willingness to engage with non-state actors and use them to build momentum." Set to take effect in 2020, the Paris Agreement requires all countries to submit plans for climate action and to update them at regular intervals. The plans themselves are not legally binding. The UN's expert panel on climate science says soaring emissions of greenhouse gases, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels, are the main reason for the rise in global temperatures since the middle of the 20th century. Also today, the executive director of the Green Climate Fund, Hela Cheikhrouhou, said she will step down when her three-year term ends in September. The fund is one of the main channels of climate finance to help poor countries reduce their emissions and adapt to rising sea levels, droughts, floods and other impacts of climate change. The UN special envoy for has warned that the planned resumption of troubled peace talks next week was not realistic, a Swedish newspaper reported today. "I cannot realistically call for new Geneva talks starting on February 25," Staffan de Mistura was quoted as telling the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper. "We need 10 days of preparations and invitations. But we will aim to do this soon," he said. Indirect talks in Geneva between the Syrian government and the opposition collapsed on February 3 after a Russian-backed regime onslaught on the northern city of Aleppo, and a second round was pencilled in for February 25. ALSO READ: UN chief warns military action risks derailing Syria talks "We need real talks about peace, not just talks about talks," de Mistura said. "Now the Americans and Russians must sit down and agree on a concrete plan on a cessation of hostilities," he said. Asked about his comments, Geneva-based UN spokesman Michele Zaccheo told reporters: "I can't independently confirm it to you. At this stage, I would just take the special envoy at his word. "The special envoy has gone on the record and I am not sure how much more of a confirmation is needed. A US air strike targeting an Islamic State training camp in Libya "likely" killed an IS operative linked to two major jihadist attacks in Tunisia last year, a US defence official said today. "The US conducted an air strike early this morning (Libya time) against an ISIL training camp near Sabratha, Libya, that likely killed ISIL operative Noureddine Chouchane," the official said, using an alternative acronym for the IS group. Chouchane is suspected of being behind two IS-claimed assaults. The first, in March, saw an attack on the National Bardo Museum in Tunis that killed 21 tourists and a policeman. In July, an attack on a beach resort near the Tunisian city of Sousse killed 38 tourists -- including 30 Britons. Libyan officials said today's dawn raid killed more than 40 people, but the US defence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, could not immediately confirm the number. The US-led coalition that has been bombing IS targets in Iraq and Syria for the past 18 months has come under increasing pressure to expand its operations beyond those two countries. While the campaign has seen some successes in Iraq and Syria, IS jihadists have expanded their presence in Libya and established a stronghold in the Mediterranean coastal town of Sirte. The Pentagon estimates there to be some 5,000 IS fighters in Libya, many of whom come from neighbouring Tunisia. The latest US strike in Libya comes after a November action that killed top IS leader Abu Nabil, an Iraqi also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al-Zubaydi. And in December the Pentagon acknowledged that a group of US special operations troops who traveled to Libya to "foster relationships" was kicked out of the country soon after arriving. A US air strike on a jihadist training camp in Libya killed dozens of people today, probably including a senior Islamic State group operative behind attacks in Tunisia, officials said. "The US conducted an air strike early this morning (Libya time) against an ISIL training camp near Sabratha, Libya, that likely killed ISIL operative Noureddine Chouchane," a US official said, using an alternative acronym for the IS group. A jihadist safe house was destroyed in the dawn raid in Sabratha about 70 kilometres west of Tripoli, according to Hussein al-Dawadi, an official in the city, located near the border with Tunisia. "The raid killed 41 people who were all inside the house," Dawadi told AFP. "The vast majority of those killed were Tunisians who were probably members of IS." In July, an attack on a beach resort near the Tunisian city of Sousse killed 38 tourists -- including 30 Britons. That followed an attack on the National Bardo Museum in Tunis in March that killed 21 tourists and a policeman. Both attacks were claimed by IS, which the United States is also targeting with air strikes in Syria and Iraq. In November, a US air strike in Libya killed an IS leader, Abu Nabil, an Iraqi also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al-Zubaydi. It was the first US strike against an IS leader in the North African country, where a US official estimated this month the jihadist group has about 5,000 fighters. US President Barack Obama vowed on Tuesday not to let IS build a base in Libya. "We are working with our other coalition partners to make sure that, as we see opportunities to prevent ISIS from digging in in Libya, we take them," Obama said. "We will continue to take actions where we got a clear operation and a clear target in mind." In December, the Pentagon acknowledged that a group of US special operations troops who had travelled to Libya to "foster relationships" was kicked out of the conflict-torn country soon after they arrived. IS has exploited the turmoil in Libya since the overthrow of dictator Moamer Kadhafi five years ago, raising fears it is establishing a new stronghold on Europe's doorstep. Last June, IS fighters captured the city of Sirte, 450 kilometres east of Tripoli. The recognised government has been based in the country's far east, having fled a militia alliance including Islamists that overran the capital in August 2014. The alliance has its own administration and parliament in the capital. The United Nations is pushing the two sides to back a unity government to tackle jihadists and people-smugglers. against ISIS in Iraq and Syria have reportedly destroyed more than $500 million cash reserves and 20 kilograms of gold stored by the terror group. The estimate comes amid reports that the terror group is facing cash shortage in its so-called caliphate, slashing the perks and salaries of its fighters across the region. Recent reports have stated that the extremist group has started accepting only dollars for tax payments, water and electric bills. The US believes that ISIS used to pay its fighters and fund its terror and military operations, ABC News reported. A US official said the actual figure is in "the high hundreds of millions of dollars." As part of the effort to weaken ISIS, the US military has struck at the terror group's finances, particularly its lucrative oil smuggling enterprise in Syria that provides revenue for its operations. The US also began targeting ISIS "cash distribution centres" in Syria where it stored hard cash used for its operations. Ten strikes have been conducted since then with the most impactful being two airstrikes in Mosul, in northern Iraq, targeting facilities that American officials characterised as ISIS banks. As proof of their successful targeting the US-led coalition released video of one of the Mosul airstrikes that showed what appeared to be large amounts of bills fluttering in the air after the airstrike. American officials believe the strikes have had an impact on ISIS operations often citing anecdotal reports that ISIS fighters are now being paid half of what they had been receiving prior to the airstrikes. "It's a significant amount of cash that we believe was in those various collection points before we struck them," Colonel Steve Warren, the US military spokesman in Baghdad, told reporters this week at a Pentagon briefing. The official said five airstrikes near Mosul this weekend targeted two ISIS financial distribution centers and two ISIS financial storage centers. Amidst renewed tensions between NATO and Russia, US Marines are stationing battle tanks, artillery and logistics equipment inside climate-controlled Cold War-era caves in Norway. "Any gear that is forward-deployed both reduces cost and speeds up our ability to support operations in crisis, so we're able to fall in on gear that is ready-to-go and respond to whatever that crisis may be," Colonel William Bentley, operations officer for the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade, said in a statement. Russia shares a 195-km long border with Norway. The border was heavily militarised during the Cold War, and the Russian navy's Northern Fleet is in Murmansk, about 160 km from the border. The caves are located throughout central Norway. The storage of American equipment there first began in 1981 during the Cold War in an effort to bolster NATO's defenses against the Soviet Union, according to the Marines statement. The secured cave complex is a modern and robust facility, staffed by about 100 Norwegian and US personnel, and it contains enough equipment to support 15,000 Marines. The deployment of new equipment to the caves comes amid renewed tensions between NATO and Russia, CNN reported. Heather Conley, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Europe Programme, said changes in the geopolitical landscape had once again made the caves a strategic asset. "Now that we have a very new security context with Russia, it now makes sense to rethink what is needed," she said. Conley said the new military exercises were critical to ensuring that NATO could test its equipment and personnel in cold weather environments. Some 6,500 pieces of the equipment in the cave will be used in an upcoming training exercise, Cold Response 16, which will take place later this month, the Marines said. The announcement comes just days after the US announced it was spending USD 3.4 billion for the European Reassurance Initiative in an effort to deter Russian 'aggression' against NATO allies. President Barack Obama has sought to affirm America's commitment to NATO ever since Russia annexed sections of Ukraine in 2014, causing alarm in other neighbouring countries, some of which belong to the military alliance. Partial results in Uganda's chaotic election gave veteran president Yoweri Museveni a solid lead as the US urged him to "rein in" the police after his main challenger was detained for the third time this week. As voting concluded yesterday, provisional results gave the 71-year-old leader 63 per cent of the vote with nearly half of polling centres counted. His chief rival Kizza Besigye -- in second place with 33 per cent -- was arrested again yesterday after police stormed his party headquarters in the capital. The police raid came as people continued to vote at dozens of polling stations in the wider Kampala area, where voting was extended in 36 sites for a second day after delays on Thursday that Commonwealth election observers called "inexcusable". While Museveni maintained his lead in the presidential tally, at least 17 of his ministers lost their parliamentary seats, among them defence minister Crispus Kiyonga -- who is spearheading regional efforts to end the political crisis in Burundi -- and attorney general Fred Ruhindi. The former rebel fighter faced a challenge from seven candidates, but is expected to win re-election for a fifth term in office and extend his 30-year rule of the east African country. Thursday's presidential and parliamentary votes were disrupted in the capital Kampala by the late arrival of ballot boxes and papers, angry demonstrations by frustrated voters and police using tear gas. At nearly 28,000 other polling centres voting passed off smoothly on election day. Besigye, who was arrested during campaigning on Monday and again on Thursday evening, was taken into custody for a third time yesterday. Police surrounded Besigye's Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) headquarters, firing tear gas and water cannon, before bursting inside and arresting top party officials. "Some reasonable measures have been applied to rein in FDC supporters who wanted to disturb the peace and the ongoing exercise," said senior police officer Felix Andrew Kaweesi. He accused Besigye's FDC of planning to publish its own tally of results, contravening electoral law. US Secretary of State John Kerry, visiting London, voiced concern. "(Kerry) urged President Museveni to rein in the police and security forces, noting that such action calls into question Uganda's commitment to a transparent and credible election process free from intimidation," the State Department said in a statement. Holding that writing of a date in National Calendar format in any instrument is valid, the Thane District Consumer Redressal Forum has asked the country's second largest telco Vodafone to compensate a customer for not processing his bill payment. The calendar format, sometimes referred to us 'shaka calendar', was adopted in 1957. In their order issued on Wednesday, forum president Sneha S Mhatre and members Madhuri S Vishwarupe and N D Kadam have ordered Vodafone to pay a compensation of Rs 7,000 to the customer, Shripad Bambhorikar, toward mental harassment and legal charges. Bambhorikar, a Vodafone customer, had deposited a cheque written with the national calendar format against the payment of his monthly bill, which did not get processed by the company. Bambhorikar had alleged Vodafone had not not sent the cheque for clearance stating the reason that the date format was not valid. He informed the service provider about a circular issued by RBI on July 01,2009 directing the banks to accept the cheques written in the National date format. After hearing both the sides, the forum concluded that the service provider was at fault and there was deficiency in its services in not sending the cheque with date in National Calender format on it for clearance. When contacted, a Vodafone India spokesperson said it did present the cheque with its bank, which in turn returned it on technical grounds. "An earlier plea made to the court by Vodafone to make the bank a party to the case was not accepted. We will now once again appeal against the above mentioned order along with an application for the concerned bank to be made a party to the case," he said in a statement. The forum has also asked Vodafone to restore Bambhorikar's connection by March, or else pay a compensation of Rs 1,000 per month. On July 01,2010 the RBI forwarded a copy of the circular to the complainant who in turn made a complaint to the TRAI, against the service provider who refused to accept the cheque with National calendar date format. The TRAI had on March 30,2014 directed the service provider to accept the cheque after which the service provider sent the cheque for clearance and it was cleared on April 07,2014. However the next payment which was made vide cheque with the date in the National Calender format was returned by the service provider mentioning as invalid date and the service provider disconnected the mobile services. In its submission, Vodafone informed the forum that its banker refused to send the cheque for clearance as the date was invalid on it. On the eve of World Pangolin Day, a wildlife body today highlighted the extreme impact caused by poaching and illegal trade of the species and stressed the need for coordinated action to save the Pangolins from getting extinct. 'TRAFFIC India', a division of WWF-India released a poster "Scaly future for the Indian Pangolin" portraying how the scope of survival of the species in India is in "question" due to poaching. "Reports in the past have indicated that the poaching and trade in Pangolins is blatant mainly owing to little awareness about this mammal among the enforcement agencies as well as general public. It is evident that hundreds of Pangolins from across India are caught every year from the wild and are smuggled through porous international borders to other countries. "With virtually no information available on their population status, the current level of illegal utilisation could have a severe detrimental impact on the future of the Pangolins in the wild," said Shekhar Kumar Niraj, Head, TRAFFIC India. Pangolins, often called scaly anteaters, are toothless and have large keratin scales covering their skin and are the only known mammal with this adaptation. Of the eight species found worldwide (four each in Asia and Africa), two are known from India- Indian Pangolin Manis crassicaudata and Chinese Pangolin Manis pentadactyla. The wildlife body said that in India, Pangolins, are netted, trapped, shot or snared for local trade while they are are also captured to meet the demand from international markets in Far East and Southeast Asia. Pangolin meat is considered a delicacy among several communities in India as well as a 'tonic food' because of its alleged medicinal properties. "A coordinated approach among Indian enforcement and international agencies, an improved intelligence networking and thorough investigative procedure could be extensively helpful in containing the situation," said Tilotama Varma, Additional Director of Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB). The poster has been jointly produced by TRAFFIC, WWF-India and the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) with the purpose of generating awareness about Pangolins. Noting that hunting or trade in Pangolins in India is a criminal offence and can lead to imprisonment between 3-7 years, the body said that international trade is also prohibited under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). In his fresh anti-China tirade, Republican presidential frontrunner has said if elected to the White House he would send "cease-and-desist" letters to China and other nations that are "ripping us off". Trump said he would send such letters "to China to stop ripping us off. I would be sending them to other countries to stop ripping us off. I'd send them to Mexico." Read more from our special coverage on "DONALD TRUMP" Torture works, Donald Trump says as South Carolina primary looms "Look, our country is going to hell. We have a problem with China. We have a problem with Japan. We have a problem with Mexico both at the border and in trade," he said during a townhall in South Carolina. He said this when asked about the cease-and-desist letter he sent to his Republican rival Ted Cruz and whether he would do the same if elected as the US president in November. Trump said he would appoint smart businessmen to negotiate trade policies with China. "I want the greatest negotiators. We can't lose $505 billion next year with China," he said. "We have the greatest business people in the world in this country. We don't use them. We use political hacks to negotiate with China, with Japan," Trump said. During the townhall, Trump had a tough time defending his previous remarks calling the last Republican president George Bush a liar for going into war with Iraq. "Going into Iraq may have been the worst decision anybody has made, any president has made in the history of this country. That's how bad it is," he said. "He went into Iraq. He started something that destroyed the Middle East. And I said, 'Don't go in because you're going to ruin the balance in the Middle East; you're going to have a total imbalance; you're going to have Iran taking over Iraq.' Everything I said turned out to be true," Trump claimed. Trump even claimed that he opposed the Iraq war from the "very beginning" and that it started the whole destabilisation of the Middle East. "It started ISIS (Islamic State). It started Libya. It started Syria. That was one of the worst decisions ever made by any government at any time," he insisted. "We have spent $2 trillion in fighting Iraq. Thousands of lives. We have wounded warriors," he said. Indian banks' loans rose 11.5% in the two weeks to Feb 5 from a year earlier, while deposits rose 11.3 percent, the Reserve Bank of India's weekly statistical supplement showed on Friday. Outstanding loans rose Rs 63,090 crores ($9.21 billion) to Rs 71,53,000 crores in the two weeks to Feb 5. Non-food credit rose Rs 56580 crores to Rs 70,45,000 crores, while food credit rose Rs 6510 crores to Rs 1,09,000 crores. Bank deposits rose Rs 91,260 crores to Rs 93,61,000 crores in the two weeks to Feb 5. ($1 = 68.5350 Indian rupees) Healthcare on Friday said it is in talks with "a number" of parties for investment in its subsidiary SRL, which operates a chain of pathology clinics. Fortis, which runs hospitals and pharmacies, is talking to investors to facilitate the exit of current SRL private equity investors, it said in a statement. "No firm proposal" is being considered as yet, it said. By Olesya Astakhova KRASNOYARSK (Reuters) - Russia's First Deputy Energy Minister Alexey Texler said on Friday that the global oil market was over supplied by 1.8 million barrels per day, but that half of that glut could disappear if an output freeze deal worked. Even if Iran did not agree to join the deal, which is being proposed by Saudi Arabia, Russia, Qatar and Venezuela, Texler said there would still be an effect on the market. Leading OPEC member Saudi Arabia, non-OPEC member Russia, Qatar and Venezuela this week agreed to freeze output at January levels if others joined in. Iran welcomed the move but stopped short of pledging to act itself and it is unclear whether the freeze will actually happen. Texler, calling the agreement "useful and necessary", said he thought Iran should be interested in joining the pact because it would help Tehran secure a better price for its oil. "Any country may join in the deal. But we are realists. Not every country will", Texler told reporters on the sidelines of an economic forum in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia. He also said Russia would increase its own oil production by 1.5 percent in 2016 and that a price level of $35-40 per barrel would allow the Russian oil industry to move forward. (Writing by Denis Pinchuk/Katya Golubkova; Editing by Andrew Osborn) By Olesya Astakhova KRASNOYARSK, Russia (Reuters) - The global oil market is over-supplied by around 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd), but that glut could be halved if a deal to freeze oil production at last month's levels takes effect, a top Russian energy official said on Friday. Leading OPEC member Saudi Arabia, non-OPEC member Russia, Qatar and Venezuela this week agreed to freeze output at January levels if others joined in. Iran welcomed the move but stopped short of pledging to act itself and it is unclear whether the freeze will actually happen. "If the agreement is properly fulfilled and it definitively enters into force then around half of that excess supply may be removed from the market," Alexey Texler, Russia's first deputy energy minister, told reporters in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. "Even without Iran there will be an effect from the agreement. But Iran ... might also be interested in such a deal," he said, noting Tehran had a choice of increasing output at a time of falling prices, or joining the production freeze and potentially getting a higher price for current volumes. "We are optimistic," he added. Russia and OPEC were both pumping oil at near record volumes last month, with Russia reaching another post-Soviet high of 10.88 million bpd. "We are talking about freezing January production levels. It would be higher than the annual average for 2015 by around 1.5 percent," Texler said. Oil production in Russia last year averaged 10.72 million bpd. OTHER COUNTRIES The first mooted global oil pact in 15 years will depend on other producers, but it remains unclear which other countries need to sign up for the deal to be implemented. Asked if Russia will talk to the United States, Brazil, Mexico and Norway, Texler said: "Any country may join. But we are realists and, in general, we understand which countries it will be. Many of those you named, obviously, will not do that." He added that some producers, still, were uniting round the idea. Texler did not name them. "We consider such an agreement useful and necessary. It will allow us to forecast the output volumes of key market players, and such an agreement will allow to continue the market process of influencing expensive projects." The Russian oil industry would "move forward" at a price of $35-40 per barrel this year, Texler said. Earlier on Friday, he said that investment in the Russian energy sector was likely to be lower this year than in 2015. Brent crude is currently trading around $33.40 a barrel. (Writing by Denis Pinchuk and Katya Golubkova; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Mark Potter) By Maytaal Angel LONDON (Reuters) - Liberty Steel has expanded its investment in the troubled UK steel sector by buying a second plant, but warned it could move planned work overseas if it could not secure a reliable and affordable energy supply. The private company, part of Liberty Group, did not say where the plant was, nor how much it cost. Sanjeev Gupta, executive chairman of Liberty Group, said his hope was to move equipment from the plant to Wales to increase steelmaking at the group's Newport plant to some 2 million tonnes and boost the 170-strong workforce by another 1,000. Liberty Steel said the Newport plant, which began operations in October, had already turned a profit, and was on course to produce 600,000 tonnes of hot rolled coil this year. However, the company said energy costs and concerns about security of supply could push it to move equipment from the new plant to India, depriving Wales not only of 1,000 new steel jobs but also of 3,000 or so jobs indirectly related to steelmaking. The Gupta family owns a power plant in Wales, but is awaiting further policy support from government before developing it further. "If we had a cheap long-term energy source like tidal lagoon or if we are able to convert our power plant to biomass in the short term, that would give us energy security," Gupta said. Producing steel profitably in Britain is difficult because of energy costs and green taxes that are some of the highest in the world, steep labour and logistics costs and high business rates. Steel prices are also near their lowest in a decade, mostly due to cheap exports from top steelmaker China. Since October, 5,000 British steel jobs have been axed, equivalent to about a quarter of the sector's workforce. Gupta's model for producing steel profitably involves importing cheap semi-manufactured 'slab' and re-rolling it into finished steel. He has also ensured Liberty's steel gets sold through his purchase last year of parts of Caparo Industries. Upstream, Gupta hopes to re-open the electric arc furnace in Wales in order to make steel from scratch using scrap metal. "The Caparo businesses were basically engineering business, we bought our customer so to speak. We're supplying growth industries like autos, defence and aerospace (but) we want to go end-to-end, from liquid steel to slab to coil to end products." (Editing by Susan Thomas and Mark Potter) By Yuka Obayashi and Rajendra Jadhav TOKYO/MUMBAI (Reuters) - Fed up with rubber prices languishing at seven-year lows, Sunny Joseph, a farmer in Kerala, has uprooted his two-acre (0.8 hectare) rubber plantation to make way for a more lucrative crop. A similar trend among growers in Southeast Asia is alarming Japanese tyre makers and spurring them to seek new sources of supply away from traditional producers, amid fears that today's glut could turn to a shortage. Tyre makers in Japan and the United States have even been looking at extracting rubber from alternatives sources such as guayule, a desert shrub. "For three years I had been waiting for rubber prices to improve. Prices were so low that I cannot even pay workers wages, so I decided to shift to nutmeg," said Joseph. "It can easily give me a better return." Producers worry low prices will mean even farmers who stick with rubber could lack the funds to renew ageing plantations. Japan's big tyre makers account for nearly a quarter of global tyre sales and are major buyers of natural rubber, which is combined with synthetic rubber to give tyres better grip. Top growers Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia announced plans this month to curb exports by nearly 6 percent of global output, with Indonesia saying its output was set to fall as farmers dig up trees. "Japanese tyre makers have become increasingly worried about the future supply of natural rubber since (last) summer, as falling prices could push farmers out of business," said Shinichi Kato, president of rubber material dealer Shinichi Kato Office. "Tyre makers are trying to buy more rubber from countries with lower labour costs such as Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in case some producers at other countries with higher costs such as Thailand stop making rubber," he said. Yokohama Rubber Co Ltd, Japan's third-biggest tyre maker, started buying rubber from Myanmar in 2014, widening its supply sources to seven countries. "We've heard some rubber farmers in northern Sumatra island in Indonesia had shifted to palm oil trees due to sagging rubber prices. That made us worried," a company spokesman said. "We want to widen our procurement network beyond mainstay sources." Japanese trading firm Mitsui & Co said last year it planned to start rubber farming and processing in Cambodia, collaborating with a local firm, and sees low-cost producers like Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar emerging as key output centres. Bridgestone Corp, the world's top tyre maker by sales, aims to boost productivity at its company-owned farms in Indonesia and Liberia in west Africa through breed improvement and tree selection. Bridgestone is also trying to develop tyre grade rubber from guayule, which is native to Mexico and the southeastern United States. U.S.-listed Cooper Tire and Rubber Co is also investigating guayule, which it has said could ensure a stable natural rubber supply, reduce price volatility and lessen dependence on foreign suppliers. SUPPLIES TO TIGHTEN? Industry officials warn a slowdown in new plantations and tree replanting could tighten supplies from 2020 onwards, as rubber trees only become mature for tapping six to seven year after cultivation. "This will reduce supply, though demand has been rising from tyre makers," said Indian rubber dealer N. Radhakrishnan, a former president of the Cochin Rubber Merchants Association. Tyres consume about 60 percent of the global output of natural rubber. Rubber accounts for about 40 percent of tyre makers' costs and tumbling prices have boosted profits, although the industry is under pressure due to cheap product from China. Rubber futures in Singapore and Tokyo have tumbled more than two-thirds from record highs in 2011 to seven-year lows, due to slower economic growth in top buyer China. Tokyo prices, at around 150 yen ($1.28) a kilogram, are well below their 10-year monthly average of about 260 yen. The price plunge has already led to government support in Thailand, the world's top rubber producer, where farmers are demanding a guaranteed selling price and threatening protests. Malaysian rubber output fell 50 percent in the past two years and production has been stagnant in Thailand and Indonesia, according to the Association of Natural Rubber Producing Countries (ANRPC). Farmers in these countries are turning towards oil palm cultivation, while growers in India, where production has fallen 28 percent over two years, are giving space to crops including banana and cocoa. Such crops can also be harvested more quickly after planting. "Smallholders are badly affected due to the price fall," said ANRPC secretary-general Sheela Thomas. "When it comes to replanting, these farmers have to think about survival. It is natural for them to shift towards crops they think will give better returns." ($1 = 117.3100 yen) (Reporting by Yuka Obayashi and Rajendra Jadhav; Editing by Richard Pullin) By Barani Krishnan NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices fell 4 percent on Friday, with Brent down a third straight week, as record high U.S. crude stockpiles intensified worries that a plan to freeze world output will do little or nothing to reduce massive oil supplies already in the market. A slide in the U.S. equity markets, which have for weeks been trading in tandem with oil, also weighed on crude, traders said. [.N] Brent crude settled $1.27, or 3.7 percent, lower at $33.01 a barrel. U.S. crude lost $1.13, also finishing 3.7 percent lower at $29.64. Even data from industry firm Baker Hughes showing the U.S. oil rig count at its lowest since December 2009 after nine straight weeks of declines failed to lift crude prices. Brent finished the week down 1 percent while U.S. crude ended flat after a particularly volatile week for oil, where prices fell and rose as much as 5 percent in a day. Oil has shed 70 percent from highs above $100 a barrel in a selloff that has seen little pause over the past 20 months. Since last Friday though, some traders believed the market had seen a bottom on talk that OPEC was on a plan to reign in production. This week, Saudi Arabia, the lynchpin of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, along with Qatar and Venezuela, and non-OPEC member Russia, proposed to freeze output at January's highs. Iran, the main stumbling block to any production control due to its zeal to recapture market share lost to sanctions, welcomed the plan without commitment. Iraq was also non-committal. U.S. government data on Thursday meanwhile showed crude inventories rose 2.1 million barrels to a new peak of 504.1 million last week, overshadowing the output freeze proposed by the producers. "There's a stark contrast between a freeze and a cut and the continued U.S. inventory builds will show the ineffectiveness of any production caps," said Pete Donovan, crude broker at New York's Liquidity Energy. Analysts are generally of the view that U.S. stockpiles will rise amid seasonal spring refinery maintenance works. Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi will deliver a keynote on Tuesday at the annual IHS CERAWeek conference in Houston, his first public appearance in the U.S. since the kingdom OPEC's shock decision in November 2014 to keep heavily pumping oil even though mounting oversupply was already sending prices into free-fall. On the positive side, U.S. shale producers, for the first time in months, were placing new hedges to lock in 2017 prices at around $45 a barrel, prompting price recovery at the back end of the U.S. crude futures curve. Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a note that if the output freeze worked and gasoline fuel prices remained affordable, oil should rise to $47 a barrel by June. (Additional reporting by Ahmad Ghaddar in London; Editing by Marguerita Choy) Oil futures fell in Asian trade on Friday as a record build in US crude stocks stoked concerns about global oversupply, outweighing moves by oil producers including Saudi Arabia and Russia to cap oil output. US crude inventories rose by 2.1 million barrels last week, to a peak of 504.1 million barrels, the third week of record highs in the past month, data from the US government's Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed on Thursday. That came as Iraq's oil minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Thursday that talks would continue between OPEC and non-OPEC members to find ways to restore "normal" following a meeting on Wednesday. "The market is expecting continuing inventory builds," said Tony Nunan, oil risk manager at Japan's Mitsubishi Corp in Tokyo. "Key to any deal (to cap production) is Iran. But Iran has been clear, saying it wants to get back to its pre-sanctions (production) level," Nunan added. "Everything is pointing to the end of this year (before there is an agreement) when Iran gets to 4 million barrels per day. By that time the pain will be so great everybody will come to the table (to agree output caps)," Nunan said. A combination of increased global oil demand of between 1-2 million barrels per day, production cutbacks by non-OPEC members and the deal by producers to cap output could lead to climb to around $40 a barrel by year-end, Nunan said. Brent futures had fallen 42 cents to $33.86 a barrel as of 0153 GMT, after ending the previous session down 22 cents. US crude had slipped 31 cents to $30.46 a barrel, after settling up 11 cents the session before. rose more than 14% in the three days to Thursday after Saudi Arabia and Russia, supported by other producers including Venezuela and Iraq, moved to freeze oil output at January's levels. Iran endorsed the plan without commitment on Wednesday, If approved, it would be the first such deal in 15 years between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-OPEC members. Moves to curb output growth come as Saudi Arabia's crude oil exports fell by more than 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) to almost 7.49 million bpd in December compared with the previous month, official data showed on Thursday. "The agreement has value in restricting major producers from adding incremental barrels to a saturated marketplace. However, it does little to correct the existing imbalance between global crude supply and demand," said BMI Research in a note on Friday. China's crude oil and liquids production is set to decrease at an average rate of 1.8% over the next two years as sustained weakness in oil prices prompt the country's largest producers to reduce upstream spending and disengage from high-production, BMI said in a separate note on Friday. Oil futures fell in Asian trade on Friday as a record build in US crude stocks stoked concerns about global oversupply, outweighing moves by oil producers including Saudi Arabia and Russia to cap oil output. US crude inventories rose by 2.1 million barrels last week, to a peak of 504.1 million barrels, the third week of record highs in the past month, data from the US government's Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed on Thursday. That came as Iraq's oil minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Thursday that talks would continue between OPEC and non-OPEC members to find ways to restore "normal" following a meeting on Wednesday. "The market is expecting continuing inventory builds," said Tony Nunan, oil risk manager at Japan's Mitsubishi Corp in Tokyo. ALSO READ: Oil rally halted by US stockpiles rise "Key to any deal (to cap production) is Iran. But Iran has been clear, saying it wants to get back to its pre-sanctions (production) level," Nunan added. "Everything is pointing to the end of this year (before there is an agreement) when Iran gets to 4 million barrels per day. By that time the pain will be so great everybody will come to the table (to agree output caps)," Nunan said. A combination of increased global oil demand of between 1-2 million barrels per day, production cutbacks by non-OPEC members and the deal by producers to cap output could lead to climb to around $40 a barrel by year-end, Nunan said. Brent futures had fallen 25 cents to $34.03 a barrel as of 0630 GMT, after ending the previous session down 22 cents. US crude had slipped 23 cents to $30.54 a barrel, after settling up 11 cents the session before. The fall in hit Asian shares which slipped from near three-week highs on Friday. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell more than 0.8%, but gains in previous sessions left it up 4% for the week. Oil prices rose more than 14% in the three days to Thursday after Saudi Arabia and Russia, supported by other producers including Venezuela and Iraq, moved to freeze oil output at January's levels. Iran endorsed the plan without commitment on Wednesday. If approved, it would be the first such deal in 15 years between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-OPEC members. Moves to curb output growth come as Saudi Arabia's crude oil exports fell by more than 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) to almost 7.49 million bpd in December compared with the previous month, official data showed on Thursday. "The agreement has value in restricting major producers from adding incremental barrels to a saturated marketplace. However, it does little to correct the existing imbalance between global crude supply and demand," said BMI Research in a note on Friday. China's crude oil and liquids production is set to decrease at an average rate of 1.8% over the next two years as sustained weakness in oil prices prompt the country's largest producers to reduce upstream spending and disengage from high-production, BMI said in a separate note on Friday. India's imports from Saudi Arabia and Iraq hit the highest in more than a decade last month as OPEC's top producers gained at the expense of Latin American crudes, a validation of the OPEC policy of maintaining output and fighting for market share. Competitive prices and shorter shipping distances are giving the Middle East members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) the upper hand in India, the world's third-largest crude importer. Saudi Arabia was the top supplier to India in January, with volumes jumping 29% from the same month a year ago to nearly 940,000 barrels per day (bpd), ship tracking data obtained from sources and data compiled by Thomson Reuters Research & Forecasts showed on Friday. Read more from our special coverage on "OIL" Oil extends rally towards after Iran welcomes output freeze Oil & Gas shares gain; Cairn, ONGC up 5% Just behind was Iraq at 930,000 bpd, up 52% from January levels last year. The daily rates from both were at their highest since at least 2001, according to data available on the Thomson Reuters Eikon terminal. ALSO READ: World stocks end their advance as oil rally falters In contrast, total imports from Latin America fell by a quarter in January from a year ago to 706,000 bpd, the data showed. "We are going slow in the purchase of Latin America oil and have raised supplies from the Middle East," said H. Kumar, managing director of Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd. Indian refiners say they increased imports of Middle Eastern crude after Brent rose relative to the Dubai benchmark, making oil priced off the latter more attractive. As well, on top of competitive monthly prices for its oil compared with similar grades, Iraq provides discounts that could amount to more than $1 a barrel to compensate for crude quality changes, trade sources said. "Basra Heavy is better priced compared to any other heavy crude. Even Basra Light is better priced compared to other heavy crudes," A. K. Sharma, head of finance at Indian Oil Corp said last week. IOC buys about 300,000 bpd of Iraqi oil, including a recently signed term deal for Basra Heavy. Reliance Industries Ltd, owner of the world's biggest refining complex, has also entered into a long-term deal with Iraq to buy Basra Heavy, according to its website. Indian refiners that have invested billions of dollars in upgrading their plants are scouting for cheaper heavy, sour grades such as those from Iraq and Iran to maximise gross refining margins. "For a country like India where value of local currency is fluctuating and so are global oil markets, it's better to go for nearby for oil purchases than going for a parcel that takes up to two months to reach India," said Ehsan Ul-Haq, senior analyst at London-based consultancy KBC Energy Economics. The Indian rupee is edging near a record low of 68.85 to the U. S. dollar hit in August 2013 - when India was mired in its worst currency turmoil in more than two decades. In January, India also took just over 170,000 bpd of Iranian crude, down nearly 40% from the same month last year, the data showed. Volumes from Iran are expected to surge from this month as Indian buyers start receiving barrels snapped up from Tehran soon after economic sanctions were lifted. By Keith Wallis SINGAPORE (Reuters) - U.S. oil futures fell in early Asian trade on Friday as record crude stocks renewed concerns about global oversupply, outweighing moves by oil producers including Saudi Arabia and Russia to cap oil output. U.S. crude had slipped 30 cents to $30.47 a barrel by 0016 GMT, after settling up 11 cents in the previous session. The benchmark had this week risen more than 14 percent up to Thursday after Saudi Arabia and Russia announced plans to freeze oil output at January's levels. That would be the first such deal in 15 years between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-OPEC members. Iraq's oil minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Thursday that talks would continue between OPEC and non-OPEC members to find ways to restore "normal" oil prices. A meeting between oil ministers from Iran, Iraq, Qatar and Venezuela in Tehran on Wednesday to agree a production cap ended inconclusively. Iran has endorsed the plan but without committing to an output cap. Moves to curb output growth come as Saudi Arabia's crude oil exports fell by more than 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) to almost 7.49 million bpd in December compared with the previous month, official data showed on Thursday. That came as U.S. crude stocks rose 2.1 million barrels last week, to a peak of 504.1 million barrels, the third week of record highs in the past month, data from the U.S. government's Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed. Gasoline stocks also hit a record high, while stocks of distillates, including heating oil and diesel, were also up. "Strong U.S. imports continue to hurt inventories. U.S. imports climbed 11 percent, the largest gain since April," ANZ said in a note on Friday. (Reporting by Keith Wallis; Editing by Joseph Radford) By Anya George Tharakan and Abhirup Roy (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc, under pressure from impatient investors, took steps on Friday to handle the possible sale of parts of the struggling Internet company. Yahoo shares jumped after the company announced its board has formed a committee of independent directors to explore strategic alternatives. This signalled Yahoo is open to selling its core business including search, mail and sites, rather than spin it off as previously planned. Yahoo advisers started working on the sale process on Friday, people familiar with the matter said. The step followed more than three years of effort by CEO Marissa Mayer to turn around Yahoo, focusing on mobile apps and trying to boost advertising revenue. Despite her efforts, revenue has dipped since she took the helm in July 2012. Yahoo shares rose 2.26 percent to $30.09 in midday trading. The announcement came as activist investors appeared to be preparing for a possible proxy fight for control of the board. Starboard, which owns about 0.75 percent of Yahoo, has been pushing for changes since 2014, asking it to separate its Asian assets and sell the core business. On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that Starboard was taking initial steps towards a potential proxy fight. "It seems pretty clear that the only reason this is happening even is because of the threat of the proxy fight," Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser said. Yahoo said the newly formed committee and its advisers are working on a process for reaching out to and engaging with potentially interested strategic and financial parties. Earlier this month, Yahoo dealt with interested parties individually, without running a formal auction process, according to people familiar with the matter. Yahoo announced this month it was considering strategic alternatives for its core Internet business, after shelving previous plans to spin off its stake in ecommerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. "Separating our Alibaba stake from Yahoo's operating business is essential to maximizing value for our shareholders," Mayer said on Friday. Starboard was not immediately available for comment. "I think a proxy fight would be the right thing to do," said investor SpringOwl Asset Management's Managing Director Eric Jackson. Yahoo's board is concerned about the risk of losing a possible proxy contest, he said. The committee has engaged Goldman Sachs & Co Inc, J.P. Morgan and PJT Partners Inc as financial advisers, and Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP as legal adviser. Verizon Communications Inc is among the companies seen as a potential buyer of Yahoo's core business. Every time thought of an insurance agent, the image that came to his mind was of a pesky person thrusting insurance policies under peoples noses. This was one profession he was certain that he never wanted to pursue. Yet, today he is Life Insurance Corporation of Indias (LIC) record-breaking star insurance agent. Last year, he earned LIC Rs 51 crore worth of fresh business, an industry record. To put this in perspective, 60 per cent of insurance agents in India do business worth Rs 2 lakh to Rs 3 lakh a year. Vakalapudi, 42, who grew up in a village in West Godavari in Andhra Pradesh, today drives a Range Rover Sport, has a sea-facing bungalow at Vizag, has high net-worth individuals (HNI), non-resident Indians (NRIs) and corporate houses as his clients and travels around the world for business and to give motivational talks. This is the busiest time for him. Between January and March, when rush to buy insurance policies, he works 18 hours a day. Catching him is not easy. It takes a series of interviews over days to get a sense of his life and work. A farmers son, Vakalapudi wanted to become an engineer but flunked all subjects and had to drop out of the engineering college he went to in Hyderabad. His father, disappointed, wanted him back in the village to help in the fields. But Vakalapudi had other plans. He says he could not return to the village a defeated man. So, with the help of a cousin who worked with State Financial Corporation, he got a loan of Rs 50,000 under the unemployed youth scheme and started a notebook manufacturing business. He was 19 then. By the time he was 23, the business bombed and Vakalapudi had accumulated a loss of Rs 15 lakh. Bankers, financiers and suppliers started hounding him. Now he started a parcel services agency that earned him a monthly commission of Rs 30,000 to Rs 40,000 not enough to pay back the debt. In 1997, his father died. Vakalapudi went into depression, moved back to the village and starting helping his brother with the farm. But he soon shifted to Vizag and started a poultry business. He would collect feed from companies like Hindustan Unilever and Godrej and sell it to farmers for a credit. The going was good. He repaid his debts. But three years later, the farming community found itself in stress. Business plunged. Around his time, some of Vakalapudis friends from the engineering college in Hyderabad moved to Vizag. Besides helping them relocate, Vakalapudi introduced them to his insurance agent from whom he had bought a policy for himself and his mother. But the agent was erratic and his friends werent satisfied with him. When he casually mentioned this to his godfather and uncle Krishna Babu, an MLA from Rajamundry, over breakfast, Babu turned to him and said: Why dont you become an insurance agent and help your friends? I dont want to be recognised as an insurance agent; run away from them, Vakalapudi recalls replying. Babu persisted and, three months later, Vakalapudi took the plunge. In the first year, he sold 12 insurance policies, six to his friends and the rest to his customers in the poultry business. The breakthrough came in 2001. LICs popular policy, Jeevan Shri, was to be discontinued. His development officer, K Raghu, told him to rush and sell the policy to his friends and family before it was scrapped. In 15 days, Vakalapudi did business worth of Rs 4 crore and earned Rs 4 lakh as commission. (Typically, an insurance agents commission ranges from 2 per cent to 30 per cent, depending on the value of the policy.) He was very clever in how he tapped this opportunity and converted many of his business associates into his clients, says Raghu, who has trained about 350 insurance agents in the last 25 years. Vakalapudi was selected as member of Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT), a premier association of financial professionals in the world. The five-day MDRT meet he attended in Las Vegas changed his perception towards the profession. I realised an insurance agent is like a doctor, he says, helping manage their lives and needs. In the second year, he sold an insurance policy worth Rs 1 crore for which he got a commission of Rs 11 lakh. But this was to his uncle, Babu. The real learning was yet to happen. It happened when he sold a Rs 10-lakh policy to an HNI customer. Two years later, he learnt that the same person had now bought another insurance policy worth Rs 1 crore from some other agent. Instead of coming back to Vakalapudi, the man had gone to another agent. This called for introspection. He decided to rethink the way he engaged with and built his relationship with his clients. Vakalapudis approach is different from other agents, says Raghu. He first sells himself to the prospective customer before he sells the product. He listens well, tries to closely follow the customers needs, inspires confidence in himself and then offers the policy, says the development officer. It is this unique attitude and approach that has made him successful, Raghu adds. Vakalapudi now has two offices, at Hyderabad and Vizag, and a 15-member team. He has launched a financial consultancy called Anand Jeevan. For an insurance agent to survive and thrive, networking is critical. Vakalapudi realises this, more so because 90 per cent of his business comes through referrals. Initially, he tapped his friends and the Telugu diaspora living in the United States. He continues to reach out to them by sponsoring events, organising social activities and helping at temples. The logic is simple: I invest a certain percentage of whatever I earn in organising local functions. This helps me network and brings in more customers, says Vakalapudi, who has around 200 NRI clients. In all, he services about 4,000 customers and aims to take that number up to 1 million by the end of 2020. He also wants to start tapping the retail sector. As of now, the success rate is 30 per cent to 40 per cent of every 100 people he approaches with an insurance policy, 30 to 40 translate into business. He is a trainer and motivator for many, says Raghu. But he also attends as many training sessions as possible to get better at what he does. The Rs 51-crore record has only added more steam to his momentum. This is, after all, a figure many LIC branch offices with a strength of 300 agents put together couldnt achieve. KEY DEVELOPMENTS Termination charges: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) came out with regulations reducing termination rates for the sector by 20 paise a minute to 14 paise a minute, effective from March 1, 2015. Fixed-line termination charges was reduced to nil. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) came out with regulations reducing termination rates for the sector by 20 paise a minute to 14 paise a minute, effective from March 1, 2015. Fixed-line termination charges was reduced to nil. Digital India: The government's significant push to 'Digital India' will benefit the telecom sector. The government plans to roll out free high-speed Wi-Fi in 2,500 cities and towns across India over the next three years. The government's significant push to 'Digital India' will benefit the telecom sector. The government plans to roll out free high-speed Wi-Fi in 2,500 cities and towns across India over the next three years. Spectrum trading: Issuance of guidelines for spectrum trading will allow telecom firms to buy and sell rights to unused spectrum among themselves, to improve spectral efficiency and quality of service.. Read our full coverage on Union Budget 2016 . . Issuance of guidelines for spectrum trading will allow telecom firms to buy and sell rights to unused spectrum among themselves, to improve spectral efficiency and quality of service.. Make in India: The campaign appears to have had a positive effect on mobile handset makers, with big ones showing interest in making and assembling handsets in the country. KEY ISSUES Taxes & fees: High tax incidence and multiple tax levies on the sector in the form of spectrum fees, license fees, service tax, VAT, etc. High tax incidence and multiple tax levies on the sector in the form of spectrum fees, license fees, service tax, VAT, etc. Infra incentives for tower firms: Need to allow higher limit of funds through the ECB route and tax holidays and low-cost loans for tower firms. Need to allow higher limit of funds through the ECB route and tax holidays and low-cost loans for tower firms. Lack of clarity on tax issues and prolonged litigation involving huge cash flows for firms are affecting daily operations. Also, clarity needs to be provided on the withholding tax obligation on payment for spectrum trading. on tax issues and prolonged litigation involving huge cash flows for firms are affecting daily operations. Also, clarity needs to be provided on the withholding tax obligation on payment for spectrum trading. Cess: With introduction of a Swachh Bharat cess of 0.5%, the service tax rate has risen to 14.5% from Nov 15, 2015. Such a cess is not creditable and becomes a cost to the service provider. EXPERT VIEW : Sandeep Chaufla PwC expert answers Business Standard readers' questions on what to expect from the BudgetIncentivising is happening for start-ups using telecom as a platform. What about new ideas for developing telecom infra? In what way can the govt incentivise new ideas that will facilitate better services, equipment and better reach at lower costs, to the areas still out of the reach of telecom majors?The government has adopted a much focused approach to promoting and incentivising new ideas. It recently introduced the 'StartUp India' scheme, which has proposed various incentives, including three years of tax and compliance breaks, cheaper and faster patent applications, a capital gains waiver if the money is reinvested in a similar venture, as well as easier exit for failed projects. To promote new ideas developing telecom as a platform, the govt may do the following:> Provide that expenses in developing an idea are allowed to be amortised on a deferral basis for tax purposes> Reduce or remove certain regulatory levies on telecom firms operating in rural areas> Make spectrum available for rural wireless deployments at reasonable costs> incentivise infra sharing in rural areas to reduce cost. RAJIV: What are the telecom industry's hopes from the Budget on Customs duty front? One issue for the telecom service providers on the Customs duty front is non-creditability of special additional duty paid at the time of import for service providers. Such a duty paid on import of telecom equipment becomes a cost for the service provider. Currently, the duty is creditable to manufacturers and refundable for traders. So, only the service sector bears the cost of the duty paid. The industry expects it be removed or credit for it be allowed to service providers. Additionally, for telecom infra, as well as handset firms, the key issue for customs remains removal of concessional rate of duty on various goods (this has been restricted to only manufacturers vide recent changes to boost 'Make in India'). The industry is strongly representing before the government to allow such benefits on imports as well. The wish list for the Budget includes extension of such benefits /concessions to imports. Sandeep Chaufla Partner (Direct Tax), PwC "The govt has permitted spectrum trading among telcos. But there is some uncertainty on the withholding tax obligation under Section 194J of the I-T Act on payments made for the spectrum acquired. A clarification may be issued that payments in connection with spectrum trading/sharing are not in the nature of royalty and so they do not attract withholding tax. Also, Swachh Bharat Cess should not be levied on telecom industry" Rajan Mathews Director-General, COAI The Budget for 2016-17 is expected to deliver extra to rural India, with increased spending on irrigation, crop insurance, roads, the employment scheme, and perhaps a new legal framework on leasing of farmland. Consecutive droughts and a record fall in farm-gate prices has necessitated this thrust.. Read our full coverage on Union Budget 2016 The previous Budget allocated the agriculture sector Rs 16,646 crore, around 13 per cent less than the revised estimates of 2014-15 as states' share rose on account of the 14th Finance Commission devolution. The revised estimate for 2015-16 is expected to be Rs 15,500 crore and in the next financial year officials said the department of agriculture might get an increase of 30 per cent over the revised estimate. "The ministry is pursuing with the finance ministry to allocate more to achieve the desired growth. It is indicated that the plan budgetary allocation for DAC may cross Rs 20,000 crore in 2016-17," officials said, according to a PTI report. Around Rs 15,100 crore was allocated under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana in 2015-16 after the first two quarters, which included additional allocation of Rs 5,000 crore. The ministry hopes this will be further improved in 2016-17. In total, the rural development ministry was granted around Rs 72,000 crore in 2015-16, which will go up if allocations to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme (MGNREGS) are increased. For the Krishi Sinchaee Yojana, Rs 5,300 crore was sanctioned in 2015-16 and the Centre plans to spend Rs 50,000 crore on it in the next five years. Crop insurance could get Rs 8,000 crore, up from Rs 2,000 crore last year. Programmes for creation of houses in rural areas and civic amenities are also expected to receive substantially more. Many within the government expect a significant jump in allocation for the MGNREGS, which recently completed 10 years. The Centre has now accepted its utility in boosting rural consumption, and officials said the budgetary allocation could be over Rs 40,000 crore. The Centre first allocated Rs 34,699 crore in the 2015-16 budget and then topped it up by another Rs 7,000 crore through supplementary demands for grants during the year, taking the total to over Rs 41,000 crore. A rise in BE for 2016-17 is also expected. The food subsidy might have to be increased if the Centre plans to roll out the Food Act in most parts of the country by April 2017, as announced by Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan a few months ago. In 2015-16, the Centre provided Rs 125,000 for the food subsidy, of which around Rs 65,000 crore was exclusively earmarked for the NFSA. Last year's allocation was made when just 11 states were willing to be part of the NFSA. Now with the number of states poised to double, the subsidy in 2016-17 is bound to climb. However, some officials said substantial savings were expected from the NFSA after nationwide rollout because the main condition for states to join the NFSA platform was they should digitise their ration cards. "The 2016-17 Union Budget should work towards enhancing farmers' income, which has dipped to historic lows. Enhancing credit disbursal targets is fine, but that does not impact many small farmers because of low profitability of farm produce. The rate of farm credit should be linked to agriculture growth. That apart, I feel that the allocation of Rs 500 crore for the Price Stabilisation Fund in 2015-16 Budget is too little as this year almost the entire corpus was spent on onions and other farmers did not receive any benefit," Sudhir Panwar, member of the UP Planning Commission and President of the Kisan Jagriti Manch, told Business Standard. He said rural demand needed to grow to give a strong push to the manufacturing sector and that would come by pumping more money into rural areas. "Linking MNREGA wages to the consumer price index will ensure farm labourers get a big financial boost," Panwar said. BUDGET BOOSTERS A few years ago, the iPhone and Android platforms took the smartphone world by storm, and players who dominated this space at that time started losing out. Nokia's Symbian, for example, gave in and its smartphone portfolio was sold off to Microsoft. BlackBerry, which was once a cult, revamped its operating system to come up with BlackBerry 10 OS to stay relevant. The OS offered flawless productivity and multitasking, but again, the company did not have the necessary apps to take on competition. Now, BlackBerry is trying something new - adopting the Android operating system for its hardware. But is it too little, too late? Physical Keyboard Is Back Be it the BlackBerry Bold 9900 or the Playbook tablet, it always offered sturdy devices. The overall build quality, including the display, the back panel and the physical keyboard, was a rage. Now, with the Priv, Black-Berry is trying to recreate the magic of touch and feel yet again - blending the virtual keyboard with physical keys. At first glance, the Priv's 5.4-inch display makes it look like a bulky all-touch phone till you discover the slider, hiding away the QWERTY keyboard. While many would argue against a physical keyboard, BlackBerry claims to have an audience that has been asking for a touch display with physical keys and a better selection of apps. This may be true, but will the same set of customers be willing to shell out Rs 62,900 for the Priv? That, I am not sure about. Coming back to my experience with the Priv. It's been over half a decade since I used a physical keyboard, and getting back to one was a task. I was more comfortable using the touch keyboard. However, Black-Berry smartphone users were overwhelmed by it. Android OS, Finally Although the BlackBerry OS 10 was a great operating system, especially the multitasking part, it did not have the required apps portfolio.The company allowed users to install the APK Android apps, but users did not find it appealing. Now, the integration of the Android OS to its superb hardware makes me feel at home. Navigation was simple as the user interface was simlar to Android with a few additional features from the company's own stable. The Black-Berry Hub stores all important communication from accounts, services and apps under one hood. The predictive text comes handy and makes typing much easier with time. You also get access to the Google Play store for downloading Android apps. Security and BB's DTEK BAG IT OR JUNK IT: Designed for power users, including individuals and enterprises, the premium pricing makes it favourable for a niche audience. The company plans to launch two more devices with Android OS, which will be priced much lower than the Priv. > RATING: 4/5 > PRICE: Rs 62,900 > PLUS: Android OS, Camera, DTEK security app > MINUS: Price There is no doubt that BlackBerry smartphones were the most secure devices. But now that it is opting for an open source Android OS, will it be compromising on security? BlackBerry has added DTEK, an extra layer of security, to prevent users from installing third-party launchers and apps from unverified sources. It also monitors the apps closely as well as the information they are accessing, to help users customise permission settings. In my case, it threw up a list of apps accessing my location and other personal information. The Camera BlackBerry scores full marks on the imaging front. The 18-MP camera captures superb images - colours are rich and images sharp. But, the camera starts struggling a bit in low light environment. The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) has warned that Irish vegetable growers are in crisis due to a combination of continuing low farm gate prices and the on-going adverse weather conditions. They claim that exceptional levels of rainfall and mild weather have led to quantity and quality issues on all winter field vegetable crops. Waterlogging and higher disease levels have resulted in crop losses running up to 30% across all lines. The IFA claims that in some instances entire farm businesses are in jeopardy. IFA Field Vegetable and Protected Crops Chairman, Matt Foley said, Continuing price wars among the retailers has resulted in unsustainable farm gate prices. Growers have limped along with poor returns and survived only due to exceptional yields and recent benign winters. "However, the current crisis was always a question of when - and not if - it would occur. Existing producer returns include no accommodation for natural yield reductions and leave no leeway for reinvestment in farm businesses. Source: www.businessworld.ie It was announced today that Bord na Mona has secured planning permission from Limerick Co Council for a Smokeless Fuel plant in the port of Foynes. The project will generate 140 jobs during the construction phase. The facility will also generate 60 jobs when it becomes operational, not including indirect employment arising from stevedoring, material handling and local haulage. The facility will manufacture up to 150,000 tonnes of smokeless and biomass home heating fuels. Head of Fuels at Bord na Mona, Eddie Scaife said, "This is great news on a number of fronts. Its good news generally for air quality in Ireland that we will be able to meet the future demand for smokeless, cleaner and greener fuels. "Consumers will be able to choose Irish manufactured fuels with lower emissions. We are delighted to continue our support of the Limerick economy as the plant will generate 140 jobs during construction and a minimum of 60 jobs when it becomes operational." Source: www.businessworld.ie About us Google moved 10.7bn through the Netherlands to Bermuda in 2014, as part of a structure which allows it to earn most of its foreign income tax free. Accounts for Google Netherlands Holdings BV published on Thursday show the unit transferred almost all its revenue, mainly royalties from an Irish affiliate through which most non-U.S. revenue is channelled, to a Bermuda-based, Irish-registered affiliate called Google Ireland Holdings. The tax strategy is known to accountants as the "double Irish, Dutch Sandwich'. It allows Google, now part of holding company Alphabet Inc, to avoid triggering U.S. income taxes or European withholding taxes on the funds, which represent the bulk of the group's overseas profits. A Google spokesman said the company follows the tax rules in all the countries where it operates. The decade-old arrangement allowed Alphabet to enjoy an effective tax rate of just 6% on its non-U.S. profits last year, around a quarter the average tax rate in its overseas markets. Bermuda charges companies no income tax. Corporate tax avoidance has risen to the top of the political agenda in European in recent years and Google in particular has been under pressure for the low tax it pays on profits generated from sales in the continent. Last week Google was called to testify to a UK parliamentary committee about a 130 million pounds back tax bill, agreed with the British tax authority in January, that the Opposition Labour party described as "derisory". The deal brought Google's total British tax bill for 2005 to 2015 to around 200 million pounds, whereas its UK revenue amounted to 24 billion pounds. Google Netherlands Holdings NV, which has no employees, had a Dutch tax bill of just 2.8 million euros, its accounts showed. (Reuters) Source: www.businessworld.ie About us Limerick-based software company, Kneat Solutions Limited, have today announced that they have entered into a transaction agreement with listed Canadian company, Fortune Bay Corp. The deal represents an initial investment of 5.5m and will create 30 new jobs. It is part of a five-year growth strategy, will facilitate increased access to finance and entry into new and lucrative international markets for Kneats unique software solutions. Recruitment is underway for the new roles, including experienced software developers, testers, pharmaceutical process specialists and business development managers. Kneat currently employs 30 people between their Limerick and Philadelphia offices. They have entered into a transaction agreement with listed Canadian company, Fortune Bay Corp (Fortune Bay), which will create a new listed Canadian software company. Kneat shareholders will own 68.7% of the resultant merged entity and the current Fortune Bay shareholders will own the remaining 31.3%. The new company will retain the Kneat name and Eddie Ryan will remain as CEO. While its stock will trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange, its key operations will remain in Ireland with an increasing sales and support capability in the United States. This gives current Kneat shareholders the opportunity to trade on an international stock exchange. CEO at Kneat, Eddie Ryan said, "We are excited to take this important step in capturing the rapidly growing market for compliance related document and data management software for regulated Industries. In acquiring access to increased financial resources and entry into a lucrative marketplace, we can accelerate our international growth plans." Source: www.businessworld.ie About us The annual British Irish Chamber of Commerce Conference was held in the InterContinental Hotel in Dublin today. The event was sponsored by Ulster Bank and focussed on a potential Brexit and the outcome of the General Election. The British Irish Chamber of Commerce was established in 2011 and works to promote business interests and policies that will help further develop the trading relationship between Britain and Ireland. Its membership combines over 33 billion of business interests and supplies approximately 55,000 jobs on both sides of the Irish Sea. In addition to main sponsors Ulster Bank, other supporters of the 2016 Conference include Virgin Media, Lloyds of London Ireland, ABP Food Group, Computershare, CRH, Dillon Eustace, ESB and Tourism Ireland. The key speakers included: Humza Yousaf MSP, Scottish Minister for Europe and International Development Paschal Donohoe, Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport HE Dominick Chilcott, British Ambassador to Ireland Eddie Cullen, Managing Director, Commercial Banking UIster Bank Paul Drechsler, President, Confederation of British Industry John Fitzgerald, Adjunct Professor, Dept of Economics, TCD Simon Barry, Chief Economist, Ulster Bank Tony Hanway, CEO, Virgin Media Resources plc Niamh Townsend, GM, Dell Ireland Larry Murrin, Co-founder and Chief Executive, Dawn Farm Foods Conor OLeary, Group Company Secretary, Greencore Tim Arnold, GM, Hailo Ireland Rachel Collier, Founder and CEO of Young Social Innovators Ellvena Graham, Chair, ESB President of the British Irish Chamber of Commerce and Vice President and General Manager of GSK Ireland, Aidan Lynch commented, "As Ireland and the UK head to the polls on a new government and Brexit respectively in 2016, this year will be a pivotal one for both nations and the relationship between us. "One thing is clear on both: certainty and stability are good for business which is why the chamber is firmly advocating for a Europe with Britain in it." Source: www.businessworld.ie About us It was announced this week that ConnectIreland has been shortlisted for an international media award, recognising their contribution to economic development. The company was shortlisted in the FDI and economic development promotion category at the World Media Awards. The international awards are designed to benchmark the best in international advertising and communication strategies. According to organisers, the awards celebrate the very best in international, content-led advertising. ConnectIreland CEO, Joanna Murphy says, "We are delighted to have been shortlisted alongside our partners in IDA. It is great recognition for Ireland that two agencies that work so well together have both been recognised for their contribution to FDI and economic development. Irrespective of the outcome this is a win for Ireland." Source: www.businessworld.ie About us The Mansion House and City Hall in Dublin were illuminated in red this week, to mark the 2016 Chinese New Year and welcome the Year of the Monkey. Dublin City Council and Tourism Ireland arranged for the two important civic buildings to be illuminated in red, in appreciation of Beijings agreement to turn the iconic Great Wall of China into the Green Wall of China once again on St Patricks Day this year joining Tourism Irelands Global Greening initiative for the third year in a row. The installation of green lights on the famous wall will be made possible by the combined efforts of the Irish Embassy and the Tourism Ireland team in China, as well as the Beijing Municipality Government. Chinese Ambassador to Ireland, Mr Jianguo Xu commented, "I'm absolutely delighted to learn of the plan of Dublin City Council and Tourism Ireland to have the City Hall and the Mansion House lit up in red in honour of Spring Festival, which is also known as Chinese New Year. "I commend Dublin City Council and Tourism Ireland for doing this in appreciation of, and in reciprocity for, Beijing's agreement to light up the Great Wall in green on St Patrick's Day since 2014. Red is China's national colour, and most appropriate for a festive occasion like the Lunar New Year." CEO of Tourism Ireland, Niall Gibbons added, "Tourism Ireland was delighted to co-operate with Dublin City Council, to arrange for City Hall and the Mansion House to go red this week. This is the seventh year of Tourism Irelands Global Greening initiative and the fact that a major UNESCO World Heritage site like the Great Wall of China is taking part is a major triumph. "China is an important emerging travel market and one that Tourism Ireland is committed to growing over the coming years. In 2015, we welcomed more than 45,000 Chinese visitors to the island of Ireland. Our aim is to grow the number of Chinese visitors to 50,000 per year, by 2017." Source: www.businessworld.ie About us Standard Life Ireland were celebrating today after it was announced that their overall sales in 2015 were at a record high of 1.36bn. This is an increase of 20% compared to 2014. Sales and assets under management were at 9bn . The strongest contributors to retail sales growth were approved retirement fund pensions (ARFs or DIY pensions) which increased 27% and executive pension plan (EPPs) sales which rose by 41% Standard Life Investments is ranked number one over 5 and 10 years in the traditional group pension managed fund league tables to end of January 2016. Its five year annualised return is 10.8% compared to the average fund return of 9.5% p.a. Its ten year annualised return is 5.3%, compared with the average fund return of 4.2%. Head of Standard Life distribution, Nigel Monaghan says, "In 2015 we continued to grow our assets under management significantly with a strong broadening of our financial adviser and customers support base. "We know customers are concerned about recent stock market volatility and we'd like to re-assure them that Standard Life is viewed as the top provider for investment expertise and importantly long term performance. Source: www.businessworld.ie About us Yahoo Inc said its board has formed a committee of independent directors to explore strategic alternatives, alongside its plan to revamp and spin off its Internet business. The move comes two days after Bloomberg reported activist investor Starboard Value LP was taking initial steps toward a potential proxy fight with Yahoo. Starboard, which owns about 0.75% of Yahoo, has been pushing for changes at the Internet company since 2014, asking it to separate its Asian assets and sell the core business. Shares of the company were up 2.6% at $30.19 in premarket trading. Yahoo and its Chief Executive Marissa Mayer are under growing pressure from impatient shareholders to turn the web pioneer's flailing Internet business around. Yahoo announced this month it was considering strategic alternatives for its core Internet business, and said it would cut about 15 percent of its workforce. In December, Yahoo shelved plans to spin off its stake in Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and said it would create a separate company that would house Yahoo's Internet business and its stake in Yahoo Japan. "Separating our Alibaba stake from Yahoo's operating business is essential to maximizing value for our shareholders," Mayer said in a statement, while emphasizing that everyone at Yahoo wanted to return the "iconic company to greatness." The committee and its advisers are working on a process for reaching out to and engaging with potentially interested strategic and financial parties, the company said on Friday. Yahoo had earlier this month engaged with interested parties individually, but had yet to run a formal auction process, according to people familiar with the matter. The committee will recommend any proposed transaction to the board which it feels is in the "best interests" of Yahoo and its shareholders. Verizon Communications Inc is among the technology, media and telecommunications companies seen as potential buyers of Yahoo's core business. Verizon's chief financial officer said in December such a sale could make sense though it was premature to discuss. The committee has engaged Goldman Sachs & Co Inc, J.P. Morgan and PJT Partners Inc as financial advisers, and Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP as legal adviser. (Reuters) Source: www.businessworld.ie When the U.S. Federal Reserve's newest policymaker Neel Kashkari dropped a bombshell with a call to break up big banks on Tuesday, it was met with a predictably indignant response from their lobbyists. One described his comments as "blind." But while no one in the executive suites of major global banks would want authorities to force them to split up or downsize, many top bankers acknowledge that their institutions might be better off smaller and simpler. They just worry that any major restructuring could go all wrong because of the way post-financial crisis regulations are applied. In interviews with Reuters, six senior bankers said they are struggling with the costs and restrictions they face as a result of new regulations, as well as a weak global economy and troubled financial markets. The bankers, who are or recently were in positions ranging from business division head to CEO, spoke on the condition of anonymity so they could be candid without upsetting regulators or investors. "Fundamentally, the business has to change," said one veteran banker who was on the executive committee of a major European bank until recently. Big banks' shareholder returns have sunk "too low," he said. These problems are not new, but they have fresh relevance as Deutsche Bank AG confronts questions about its capital adequacy, Barclays PLC faces pressure to break up and CEOs of big U.S. banks struggle with a loss of investor confidence in their stocks. Management teams in the U.S. and Europe are now taking a hard look at dramatic business model changes, but none of the options are particularly attractive, the bankers said. Merging to cut costs and improve margins is out of the question, given the hurdles banks would likely face from regulators who do not want "too-big-to-fail" institutions getting any bigger. Splitting apart is complicated by capital requirements that would make standalone trading businesses economically unfeasible - and by the fact that there are few, if any, buyers for the assets banks want least. Some top bankers say they are left with little choice but to muddle through what they fear will be a long, dark period of weak earnings, angry shareholders and gradual shrinkage. The problem has gotten so bad that Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan recently said on a public conference call that he'd much rather be CEO of a simpler, retail-focused bank like Wells Fargo & Co, which has only a modest investment banking operation. "Unfortunately," he said, "there are lots of things I wish for that are not going to come true." Kashkari's comments, in his first speech as head of the Minneapolis Fed, were surprising because he is a former Goldman Sachs banker, a Republican, and was a senior Treasury official in President George W. Bush's administration during the financial crisis. They partly echoed the stance of Bernie Sanders, who has also called for big bank breakups and criticized Hillary Clinton, his rival in the struggle to be the Democratic presidential candidate, for being too close to Wall Street. Some of those vying for the Republican nomination have also criticized regulations brought in after the crisis, saying they would repeal the Dodd-Frank reform law. In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, Kashkari criticized Dodd-Frank's so-called "living will" rule, which requires banks to show how they can be dismantled in an orderly way if they fail, without creating risk to the broader financial system. Kashkari said he believes the rule would not work in a crisis scenario - that banks would simply be bailed out again. "I challenge anybody who thinks, in a stressed time, we would put these banks through resolution," he said. "I really don't think it will happen." One way to force large financial firms to break up is to "aggressively ratchet up" their capital or leverage requirements, Kashkari said. He warned, though, that banks would likely fight hard against any such proposal. Indeed, Tony Fratto, who worked with Kashkari at the Treasury Department and is now a bank lobbyist at Hamilton Place Strategies, said his former colleague's comments were out of touch with reality. "This is something like re-opening the barn door after the horse is in the stable," Fratto said. "Love or hate Dodd-Frank, it's simply blind to say that it hasn't significantly improved safety and soundness." Securities analysts and consultants say that banks are in an unenviable position because moves they might have made in the past to improve profitability have been hindered by regulation. As a result, they have struggled unsuccessfully for years to get their returns on equity above single digits. "In some ways, banks have become bad utilities," said Fred Cannon, a bank stock analyst with KBW. "With utilities, you have strict regulation in what you can do and charge, but in the end investors get a reasonable return. With banks, that last piece hasn't happened." Bank executives have long argued that weak returns are a "cyclical" issue that should go away when markets begin to flourish again. But as the industry approaches the eighth anniversary of the financial crisis's nadir, questions about whether they face a secular rather than a cyclical profit problem have only grown louder. And top bankers are now wondering how they can possibly grow revenue under a sprawling set of global financial regulations that limit what they do, and sometimes conflict with one another. One common example raised is how new capital rules can penalize banks for being big but also discourage them from getting smaller. For instance, due to their size, the eight largest U.S. banks must collectively hold $200 billion in extra capital, which weighs on shareholder returns. Included in the capital requirement is a fixed amount each bank must hold to represent "operational risk." Although the Fed does not explain exactly how it comes up with that figure, it is not just a function of size: Bank of America Corp must hold 25 percent more operational risk capital than JPMorgan Chase & Co, the biggest bank in the country. Bank of America has said it's taken steps to address the Fed's concerns by cutting back on certain revenue-producing activities that created operational risk. Nonetheless, the bank says it has so far been unable to persuade the Fed to reduce that capital requirement. Its shareholder returns suffer as a result, because revenue is dropping faster than capital costs. "Every bank is trying to figure out, with bigger capital requirements and profit pressure, how can they create acceptable returns for their shareholders," said John Weisel, an Ernst & Young executive who advises global banks on business strategy. After years of cost-cutting, he said, CEOs are asking themselves: "We've used all the arrows in our quiver, so what are we going to do next?" European banks are behind their U.S. competitors in addressing a more regulated environment and, in some cases, are flailing around for answers. Last week, Deutsche Bank shares hit an all-time low on worries that it won't be able to buy back some bonds that can convert into equity. Deutsche regained some value after it outlined plans to repurchase $5.38 billion worth of other bonds, but investors' concerns don't seem to have been entirely assuaged. Meanwhile, Barclays has come under pressure after a Bernstein analyst wrote an open letter on Feb. 5 imploring CEO Jes Staley to break up the bank. Rob McDonough, who advises financial institutions on risk management at Angel Oak Consulting Group, says megabanks may have little choice but to get significantly smaller. "It's too expensive," he said, "for banks to be big." (Reuters) Source: www.businessworld.ie About us Victoria Asta appears in 1st District Court for a pretrial conference, Tuesday in Logan, Utah. Asta is being charged with aggravated robbery and burglary as well as other charges after she led police on a high speed chase. LOGAN A couple suspected in at least eight burglaries throughout Cache County waived their preliminary hearing rights and will appear again in court on March 8. Douglas L. Birkinbine and Victoria Asta each made separate appearances in 1st District Court Thursday afternoon. Birkinbine has been charged with 39 felonies and 13 misdemeanors, while Asta faces 14 felonies and 12 misdemeanors. The offenses range from aggravated robbery and burglary, assaulting a police officer, failing to stop at the command of police and other charges. Birkinbine appeared first in court and said, he was following his attorneys advice, when Judge Brian Cannell asked if he wished to waive his right to the preliminary hearing. His public defender, Shannon Demler, asked for a pre-trial conference to be scheduled for three weeks from now. Asta appeared second. Her attorney, Kyler Ovard told the court they had worked out a partial resolution. Under conditions of the agreement, prosecutors are dropping 19 charges against her, and she is agreeing to meet with investigators to provide them with information regarding six of the burglaries. Ovard said the agreement also stipulates that prosecutors cant use what she tells investigators against her, in her remaining case. She will also appear again in court on March 8 for a pre-trial conference. Birkinbine and Asta are suspected of robbing a home in Paradise at gun point and later leading deputies on a high speed chase that ended in Logan on November 17. Both of them remain in the Cache County Jail without bail.

will@cvradio.com Published on February 18, 2016 Maybe it's crunch time for David Cameron but with the refugee crisis and the Visegrad group it will be a very rough Summit. Map of the week: Research across the continent Published on February 19, 2016 en it pl de es fr The European Research Council had announced the winners of the Consolidator Grant Competition 2015: 302 researchers working in Europe coming from 34 countries around the world. With the help of a snazzy animated map, weve tried to find our more about the nationalities of these academics and discovered how different European countries fare in the rankings. 585 million euros in research grants are destined to be distributed to 302 researchers working throughout Europe, all thanks to the Consolidator Grant Competition 2015. The European Research Council (ERC) is giving a helping hand to those researchers who excel in their academic fields: across the physical, biological and social sciences. Each winner could benefit from a sum of up to 2 millions euros to consolidate their team and develop innovative projects: to name just one example, there's a method of controlling the mosquitos that carry the Zika virus. In the latest edition of the competition, Germany has the most researchers represented having been awarded 48 grants, followed by Britain (32), France (30), Italy (30) and the Netherlands (20). 30 out of the 302 selections originate from countries outside of Europe. However, if we look at the countries that accommodate the largest number of winning researchers within their scientific institutions, the classification turns on its head: Britain attracts 67 awardees, from a plethora of different nationalities. Germany hosts 45, followed by France with 31. Based on this approach, Italy only counts 13 researchers working within their own institutions. This highlights the fact that only 40% of the best Italian researchers as selected by the ERC have developed their projects within the country itself, compared to 64% of German researchers and 76% of French researchers. In blue (Map No. 1): number of grants per country based on the nationality the researcher In green (Map No. 2): number of grants per country based on the HQ of the research institution --- The ERC is a European Union body that since 2007 has had the mission of financing research and attracting the brightest and best minds to Europe. The team that attributes the Consolidator Grant is aimed at researchers of any age or nationality, who have between 7 and 12 years of experience and who seek to develop a project within a public or private institution operating within the EU or associated countries. Translated from Mappa della settimana: la ricerca in Europa (e i suoi confini) This is a key distressed market to follow since Phoenix saw a large bubble / bust followed by strong investor buying. For the fourteenth consecutive month, inventory was down year-over-year in Phoenix. The Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service (ARMLS) reports (table below): 1) Overall sales in January were up 8.7% year-over-year. 2) Cash Sales (frequently investors) were down to 27.4% of total sales. 3) Active inventory is now down 5.5% year-over-year. More inventory (a theme in 2014) - and less investor buying - suggested price increases would slow sharply in 2014. And prices increases did slow in 2014, only increasing 2.4% according to Case-Shiller. With falling inventory, prices increased a little faster in 2015 (something to watch in 2016 if inventory continues to decline). Prices are already up 5.3% through November according the Case-Shiller (more than double the increase in 2014). January Residential Sales and Inventory, Greater Phoenix Area, ARMLS Sales YoY Change Sales Cash Sales Percent Cash Active Inventory YoY Change Inventory Jan-08 2,907 --- 553 19.0% 56,8741 --- Jan-09 4,736 62.9% 1,625 34.3% 53,581 -5.8% Jan-10 5,789 22.2% 2,475 42.8% 41,506 -22.5% Jan-11 6,539 13.0% 3,263 49.9% 42,881 3.3% Jan-12 6,455 -1.3% 3,198 49.5% 25,025 -41.6% Jan-13 5,790 -10.3% 2,555 44.1% 22,090 -11.7% Jan-14 4,799 -17.1% 1,740 36.3% 28,630 29.6% Jan-15 4,785 -0.3% 1,529 32.0% 27,238 -4.9% Jan-16 5,199 8.7% 1,425 27.4% 25,736 -5.5% 1 January 2008 probably included pending listings Contributed photo The Earth as Specimen will be on display at the 50th annual National Drawing and Small Sculpture show at the Cain Memorial Art Gallery. SHARE Contributed photo Autumn Lanterns will be on display at the 50th annual National Drawing and Small Sculpture show at the Cain Memorial Art Gallery. Contributed photo Conventions will be on display at the 50th annual National Drawing and Small Sculpture show at the Cain Memorial Art Gallery. By Esther Hackleman Half a century of art appreciation will awaken as the Fine Arts Museum of Del Mar College celebrates its 50th annual National Drawing and Small Sculpture show. The show's opening reception will begin at 6 p.m. Friday with a book signing by faculty member Cynthia Perkins who compiled a brief history of the show. "We've made some special plans for the 50th anniversary," chairman of Del Mar College's Art and Drama Department, Ken Rosier, said. "But the main celebration is the artwork." The show will include 130 entries from artists throughout the United States. "The exhibit has a sampling of current thinking by artists that reflect a greater culture," Rosier said. Rosier said the exhibit will not only bring exposure of cultural progress to the community but also is important for bringing that talent to the students. One of those artists is Alex Van Zandt, a Del Mar College art student whose drawing "Bonsai" will be exhibited. "A lot of my work, I try to capture the beauty of nature," Van Zandt said or his portrait of a Douglas fir bonsai tree. "I'm a little bit nervous about (the exhibit). I wasn't expecting to be selected." The student's talent on display is especially significant, Rosier said, because in his 28 years as chairman, he could only recall one other student selected for the show. "It's an incredible thing for young artists because they're competing against seasoned professionals," Rosier said. Twitter:@Caller_Esther IF YOU GO What: 50th Annual National Drawing and Small Sculpture Show When: 6-8 p.m. Friday, opening reception; exhibit open through May 6 Where: Cain Memorial Art Gallery, Del Mar College East Campus Cost: Free Information: 361-698-1216 Other visual arts events: COASTAL BEND COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOL ART COMPETITION What: Coastal Bend College Visual Arts Division: High School Art competition. When: Feb. 17-25 Where: Frank Jostes Visual Arts Building, 3800 Charco Road, Beeville Information: 361-354-2320 ART MUSEUM OF SOUTH TEXAS 'EXPLORING THE LAND: LANDSCAPES FROM THE HUNTER MUSEUM COLLECTION' What: The exhibit explores how depictions of American landscapes have evolved over more than 200 years of art, including the variety of style and social influences. When: Through April 26 Where: 1902 N. Shoreline Blvd. Information: 361-825-3500 'Visionarios 2016 Youth Art Contest' What: The 15th annual Visionarios Youth Art Contest will showcase the work of artists from first to 12th grade representing concepts of science, technology, engineering and math through art. Artists in the exhibit, sponsored by Flint Hills Resources and the Art Museum of South Texas, will be recognized at an awards presentation during the museum's free family day. When: Free family day from 1-3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 21; exhibit runs until March 20 Where: 1902 N. Shoreline Blvd. Information: 361-825-3500 Adult workshop What: This adult workshop will focus on landscape painting for beginners. When: 1 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 20 Where: 1902 N. Shoreline Blvd. Information: 361-825-3500 BEEVILLE ART MUSEUM 'Paintings from the Nave' What: A collection of 40 paintings by Royston Nave, the namesake of the Nave Museum, will be on display showcasing the works of the La Grange native. When: Through April 30 Where: 401 E. Fannin St., Beeville Information: 361-358-8615 ISLANDER ART GALLERY 'THE REVIVAL' What: Corpus Christi-based artist Gerald Lopez will showcase his mixed media works, which blend 19th century portraits with popular culture. When: noon to 6 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday Where: 4024 Weber Road Information: 361-852-3350 JOHN E. CONNER MUSEUM 'A Celebration of Quilts ...' What: "A Celebration of Quilts 2016: A Heritage of Texas Quilts" showcases the hours of design and creativity stitched into the 36 quilts featured. When: Through March 19 Where: John E. Conner Museum, 905 W. Santa Gertrudis St., Kingsville Information: 361-593-2810 K SPACE CONTEMPORARY 'BRIDGING CLEVELAND' What: K Space Contemporary will host the pinhole photography of Vaughn Wascovich, highlighting his work created with handmade cameras and long exposures. The exhibit, an aggregate of six black-and-white photos that are 150 inches wide and 60 inches tall, are the result of Wascovich's darkroom experiments. When: Through Feb. 26 Where: 415 Starr St. Information: 361-887-6834 'NEOCRYPTOFUNK 2.0, THE EXQUISITE BRUTALITY OF SECRET REALITY' What: The Islander Art Gallery welcomes sculptor Dewane Hughes, who will display works that challenge the notion of communication, language, materials and the spaces between. When: Through Feb. 27 Where: Public artist's lecture, Island Hall, room 163; opening reception, Islander Gallery, 4024 Weber Road Information: 361-852-3350 TREEHOUSE ART COLLECTIVE 'PAUL PADILLA' What: Artworks by Paul Padilla When: Through February Where: 309 N. Water St., Suite D Information: 361-882-4822 WEIL GALLERY 'RE-MEMBERING' What: The Weil Gallery at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi presents Atlanta-based artist Fahamu Pecou's "Re-Membering." Concerned with notions of representation and black masculinity, Pecou's works reflect upon ideas of philosophy, spirituality and hip-hop bravado, via the channels of popular culture and fine art. When: Through March 11 Where: Weil Gallery, 6300 Ocean Drive Information: 361-825-5700, ext. 5752 ROCKPORT CENTER FOR THE ARTS CLAY EXPO What: Vorakit Chinookoswong, known as V. Chin, has been crafting porcelain and stoneware for more than 30 years. Chin creates glossy stoneware vases, bowls, cups and pieces bearing his signature mark: a clay frog. Dozens of his works are on display. When: Through March 5 Where: 902 Navigation Circle, Rockport Information: 361-729-5519 REALIST WORKS What: Bastrop resident Renate Kasper has worked in a variety of media including acrylic, oil, watercolor, pastel, pencil, photography and clay. Her favorite medium is graphite pencil, which she mixes with other media. "I may paint the background entirely in acrylic, and I may lay a quick wash of color all over the paper before I start shading, but I regard those few minutes of work as negligible when I spend dozens or sometimes hundreds of hours shading intricate details with graphite," she explained. When: Through March 5 Where: 902 Navigation Circle, Rockport Information: 361-729-5519 Compiled by Esther Hackleman John Bruce/Caller-Times Revive the look Brush off those shoulder pads and find your hair spray. Bring back these 80s favorites for the night. Short but strong Take a page from Pat Benatars book with stylish wispy bangs, a short crop and hair spray to give it volume. Leaning Amp up that ponytail with a tilt and angle it to rock the side ponytail. Add a little frizz to hype up the fun. Long live the mullet No matter how many decades have gone by, the mullet will always rock a party in the back. Grow that mane out for a righteous look that would leave Road House Patrick Swayze jealous. SHARE Caller-Times file Pat Benatar By Esther Hackleman Pat Benatar has brought her definition of love to her fans since the 70s, and as boom boxes changed to Walkman's, which changed to iPods so has that definition transformed. Now, love is no longer a battlefield, but a reason to live. With her iconic short hair and high cheekbones, the rock legend paired her lyrics of fierce independence with the twangs of electric guitars. The Four-time Grammy Award winner has risen through the charts with her hits such as "Love is A Battlefield," "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," "We Belong" and "Heartbreaker." One of Benatar's enduring tunes holds a special significance for fans throughout Corpus Christi because of its tie to local pop culture. Benatar's "Invincible," became the theme song for "The Legend of Billie Jean," a teen movie turned cult classic filmed throughout the Coastal Bend. In 1984, "Invincible" earned Benatar a Grammy nomination. Her lyrics, which championed female empowerment through rock and roll, set Benatar apart as a trailblazer as one of the genre's most popular women of that era. Benatar and her husband Neil Giraldo will bring those time-honored songs to the Selena Auditorium stage Sunday, performing in front of Corpus Christi for the first time since 2013. After 37 years as bandmates, the two continue to share their love with Texas through the We Live for Love Tour. Corpus Christi will be the second stop for the tour, which will also visit Beaumont, Houston, Austin and San Antonio. The two will also speak at 2016 South By Southwest music festival on March 16 at the Austin Convention Center. Twitter:@Caller_Esther IF YOU GO What: We Live for Love Tour When: 7:30 p.m. Sunday Where: Selena Auditorium, American Bank Center, 1901 North Shoreline Blvd. Cost: tickets range from $33 to $57 Information: 361-826-4700 What has Gov. Abbott done about the six mass shootings on his watch? SHARE CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Isaac Avila (left) with his younger brother Horace Avila. The brothers reunited after losing contact for 40 years. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Isaac Avilas elementary school photo as a child. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Isaac Avila makes horns with his fingers in this family photo. Avila recently reconnected with his family after losing contact for 40 years. By Fares Sabawi of the Caller-Times For the past few weeks, Isaac Avila has had one song on his mind "Reunited" by Peaches & Herb. The 1978 hit song has taken on a new meaning for the 64-year-old Aransas Pass native. "Reunited and it feels so good" are no longer just lyrics to him. They're the only words that can capture how he feels after seeing his family for the first time in decades. After 40 years apart, the past 10 of which he has spent homeless in Miami, an organization named Miracle Messages tracked down his siblings to bring them back together. "It was a long time coming," Isaac Avila said. It all started with a video. Isaac Avila used to visit the Adrienne Arsht Center every Tuesday, where he met Gabby Cordell, a volunteer with Miracle Messages. The organization is dedicated to reuniting the homeless with their families. "I volunteered and gave my info to her," he said. Cordell shot a video of Avila calling out to his family on YouTube. She also tracked down his younger brother, Horace Avila, who lives in Newport News, Virginia. "She said 'We may have somebody that may know y'all,'" Horace Avila said. "She (sent us the video) and once we opened it we knew right away it was Isaac." Horace Avila quickly told the rest of his family in South Texas. Emotions ran high for Norma Castillo, the firstborn of the family. "It's exciting. It's sad. You want to cry and you want to celebrate," Castillo said. Even their mother, 91-year-old Cecilia Avila, recognized her long lost son. "My nephew showed her the video until it sunk in," Castillo said. "She started kissing the phone." Castillo said she remembered Isaac Avila was a free spirit who couldn't live under their parents' roof anymore. Isaac Avila said he just lost contact with his family as he bounced from city to city before ending up on the streets. Over the years, he worked in press rooms for several newspapers. First with the Caller-Times, then in Houston and Fort Worth until he was laid off in Miami. He was working as a cook until he had a heart attack that ultimately led to him becoming homeless. Now, he is staying with his brother in Virginia, but said he plans on returning to Texas as soon as he can. "I'm getting old," he said. "If I'm going to die, I want to die in Texas." Castillo said the family doesn't want to dwell on the past. All that matters to them now, Castillo said, is making up for all the time they've lost. "There's 40 Christmases and birthdays we've missed," Castillo said. "We have a lot of plans for him." Twitter: @Caller_Fares SHARE Travis Hellman By Julie Garcia of the Caller-Times U.S. Marshals in Florida arrested a man linked to three aggravated robberies in Corpus Christi. Investigators with the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders and Fugitive Task Force believe Travis Hellman committed three robberies on Shoreline Boulevard in early February. He was arrested Tuesday. Starting Feb. 2, there were three aggravated robberies over the course of three days between the 300 and 800 blocks of Shoreline Boulevard, according to Corpus Christi Police Lt. Chris Hooper. About 4 a.m. Feb. 4, a group of people robbed and assaulted a 35-year-old man of his wallet, jewelry, three cellphones and cash in the 800 block of Shoreline Boulevard, according to a police news release. The man had accepted a ride from three men and two women after he met them at a club on Everhart Road. When they were downtown, the suspects demanded that he withdraw cash from an ATM, police said. The robbery was caught on camera surveillance that was set up in a hotel parking lot. During his arrest in Fort Lauderdale, fugitive task force officers found a handgun and a ski mask, which were taken as evidence, according to a U.S. Marshals news release. Hellman, 32, is at Broward County Jail in Florida awaiting extradition to Nueces County. He was arrested on suspicion of three aggravated robbery charges with bail set at $300,000, according to jail records. Twitter: @Caller_Jules SHARE Caller-Times file Police officer Olga Flores gives direction at the scene of a crash on the corner of Elizabeth and Santa Fe streets. Caller-Times file Police officer Rex Johnson directs traffic at the intersection of Twigg and Mesquite streets after a minor crash between a Ford Ranger and a Nissan Altima. By Fares Sabawi of the Caller-Times Police officers will soon fill out crash reports in fender benders, reversing a roughly two year policy prohibiting the practice, Police Chief Mike Markle said. In 2013, the Corpus Christi Police Department stopped writing reports for minor wrecks to free up officers to respond to other calls. After comparing average response times during the past five years, Markle said the change hadn't made a significant difference. Officers would respond to check on the well-being of drivers and passengers, but would leave the rest of the work to claims adjusters. Minor wrecks are ones that result in no injuries and don't disable either vehicle. "Our goal was to recapture those man hours ... and reallocate those to where it would better serve the public," Markle said. "The time taken to show up and respond to help the involved parties exchange information was nearly as long as it took to work an accident." Markle said more hit-and-run wrecks have been reported since officers stopped writing reports, he said. "I hope (the change) will cut down on the number of hit-and-runs," Markle said. "I hope it'll provide a better service to the public." Officers will begin writing crash reports as soon as they are trained to use a Texas Department of Transportation program, Capt. Billy Breedlove said. The program, named Crash Records Information System, will allow officers to create crash reports and produce diagrams faster. When it's ready, people in a minor wreck can print the report out online instead of picking it up from the police department. "This is going to keep a clerk from having to do that back end clerical work," Breedlove said. Before, officers would have to fill out every detail in a crash report, Breedlove said. With the new system, officers enter the license plate number and the rest of the information will be automatically filled in with the help of several law enforcement databases. Police are confident the change will be welcomed by the community. It was one of the issues Markle said has been brought up by residents constantly. "(Not writing reports) didn't (reduce man hours) that much," Markle said. "It's not worth taking away such a service to the public." Twitter: @Caller_Fares SHARE In assessing Texas Supreme Court candidates it's important for voters to remember that experience matters in the legal profession in general and the judiciary in particular. It's also important not to let that be a cop-out that perpetuates problem incumbencies at the expense of worthy up-and-comers. So we did the homework. And we still concluded that the best candidates in the Republican primary are the three incumbents, Debra Lehrmann in Place 3, Paul Green in Place 5 and Eva Guzman in Place 9. These incumbents bring more than seniority. They bring fine legal minds and work ethic to the unglamorous task of reading legal records and writing opinions. The state's highest civil court is a quiet place for the studious ill-suited for attention-seekers who like to perform for an audience, or for those who crave confrontation with argumentative lawyers. Lehrmann is the only contested incumbent with an opponent whose resume is worthy of discussion. It need not be a long discussion. Michael Massengale is a Houston appeals court justice who wants to move up. In Lehrmann he chose an accomplished opponent with a stellar record and a who's-who of endorsements from former Supreme Court chief justices. Massengale asserts that Lehrmann isn't conservative enough odd, considering that more-than-sufficiently conservative Gov. Greg Abbott, a former Supreme Court justice, is among those who has endorsed her. Massengale also says she dissents too much. She doesn't, but why would judicial dissent be a bad thing. She dissented eloquently in the Severance case that speciously undermined the Texas Open Beaches Act, and for that we appreciate her. Green's extensive experience as a trial and appellate lawyer and judge prepared him for his current position. It did not prepare him for a challenge in a typically low-interest race by another candidate also named Green. Rick Green is a former legislator with little courtroom experience, no judicial experience and a questionable performance in the Texas House. The best way not to confuse the two Greens is to remember: Don't pick Rick. His platform amounts to vague tea party-esque sloganeering about limiting the court's power in defense of the Constitution. Justice Paul Green is vastly better equipped to defend the Constitution. Guzman is a former Houston trial and appeals court judge. Being the first Hispanic female on the court makes her the closest thing to a rock star this subdued venue will allow. She has served with distinction since being appointed in 2009. Since 2010 she has chaired the court's Permanent Judicial Commission on Children, Youth and Families. Her opponent, Joe Pool Jr., is a frequent candidate who has no judicial experience and was disciplined by the State Bar in 2011. He ran for the court in 2012 and 2014. All three of the incumbents made the trip to Corpus Christi to seek our endorsement. We did not have the opportunity to meet with their opponents. That's not grounds for an automatic disqualification. But all three incumbents exuded the attitude that the more voters can know about them, the court and what it does, the better for everyone. We agree. Arshan Saha, vice president of Xaxis SEA, said that knowing someones political affiliation is crucial for campaigns looking to reach reliable or persuadable voters. Xaxis Politics provides that critical advantage to political advertisers to target voters in real time; which is a dream for any politician, he added. Political advertisers will also be able to know which audiences are most interested in which issues. Scheduled to take place on 9 May, election campaigning in the Philippines kicked off on 9 February, with four presidential aspirants seeking the mandate to succeed Benigno Aquino, who is a popular leader but is prevented by the constitution from running for a second term. Powered by Xaxiss proprietary data management platform (DMP), Turbine, the offering is touted to enable advertisers to engage with voters based on a multitude of hot-button issues, political affiliations and other demographic information. This means that political candidates can reach their most relevant voters across display, mobile, online video, digital radio, connected TV and social media. Campaigns can be locally focused or nationally scaled across digital inventory. Laurent Goirand, head of digital at GroupM Philippines, said that knowing where, how, why and what voters are talking and getting concerned about is the crux of every politicians campaign. These insights not only help them communicate their messages effectively, but also craft the right message to the right demographic in a crowded digital space, he added. The insights and data exclusive to Xaxis and GroupM were collated from joint research in Philippines to identify and analyse the different segments in demographics that were skewed to each presidential candidate. Besides using Turbine data, a survey targeting both in-country and overseas working Filipinos was conducted to further understand voter sentiments and behaviours. Xaxis Politics was first launched in the United States for the 2016 presidential elections, billed as the first targeted political advertising solution to reach voters across all digital channels without utilising personally identifiable information. We have seen some very good results from campaigns that have ran, said Saha. We have taken that success and learnings and adapted it for the Philippines presidential elections, and we cannot wait to see the results. Ad Nut may be a cynical little creature, but is not ashamed to admit to weeping a little during this video. According to a study cited in the agencys press release, students in South Korea rank lowest among all OECD nations in life satisfaction, and they tend to suffer from stress and depression. Starting at the age of 5, all the studying efforts of South Koreans lead up to one important exam: the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test). EBS (South Koreas Education Broadcasting Network) and Cheil Worldwide embarked on a campaign in November last year to boost students self-esteem. According to Cheil, the agency secretly contacted students parents to write letters of encouragement to their children. The letters were inserted into the individual students' exam papers as if they were articles for the reading-comprehension part of a test (presumably a practice exam and not the actual SAT). The film above, 'The healing exam', follows the emotional changes among the students as they discover the letters from their parents during the exam. The students were also able to write answers that were then shared with their parents. According to Cheil the video exceeded 7 million views in two days. The campaign was then extended in a few ways. Firstly, other schools launched similar efforts to spread messages of encouragement. The schools also held exhibitions where the exam papers and answers written by the students were displayed. EBS also added the related documentary video to its program on the topic of school education. Said Sungjun Park, creative director, Cheil Worldwide: Healing Exam project is about curing the stress caused by exam, with the exam. We wanted to send a message to students who learn how to grade themselves even before they learn to love themselves, to cherish their lives more and realize that their lives cannot be judged by scores. As with many such films, Ad Nut is not entirely certain whether the reactions of the students are sincere, or perhaps played up for cameras. They could all be actors, for all Ad Nut knows (see, Ad Nut's cynicism remains intact!). However, the idea of encouraging parents to be, well, more encouraging, especially in a country where the pressures on young people are so dreadfully high, has value well beyond such concerns. | BY Ricki Green | The Gunn Report has today released Cases for Creativity 2015, a round-up of the campaigns that have achieved the Holy Grail in advertising by winning both a Cannes Gold Lion for creativity and a Gold Effie award for effectiveness. Saatchi & Saatchi Sydneys Penny The Pirate campaign for OPSM has ranked #11 on the list. Cases for Creativity is a yearly study by James Hurman, author and founder of innovation consultancy Previously Unavailable and former head of planning at Colenso BBDO, Auckland. Representing the high watermark of advertising achievement, 17 campaigns have accomplished such a feat in 2015. Their common theme demonstrating that more than ever, ideas that get shared socially are the ones that are winning big in terms of both effectiveness and creativity. Says Hurman (left): There are two distinct types of campaigns that tend to be shared. Firstly, campaigns that put the brand in the service of a social cause or purpose; and secondly, where creative efforts are actions more than words, with the brand saying less and doing more. Brands are being ever-more inventive as they seek to do some good in the world. 2015 gave us 17 Cases for Creativity. Back in 2012 there were just 9. In 2013 and 2014 there were 12 apiece. Creativitys effectiveness is growing over time, and I hope these new cases spur on more creative and effective work this year. 1. #LikeAGirl for Always by Leo Burnett Toronto, London & Chicago 2. Abla Fahita for CBC by J. Walter Thompson Cairo, Egypt 3. Bald Cartoons for GRAACC by Ogilvy Sao Paulo, Brazil 4. Give Mom Back Her Name for UN Women by Impact BBDO Dubai, United Arab Emirates 5. Greatness Awaits for Sony Playstation by BBH New York, USA 6. I Will What I Want for Under Armour by Droga5 New York, USA 7. If We Made It for Newcastle Brown Ale by Droga5 New York, USA 8. Inglorious Fruits & Vegetables for Intermarche by Marcel Paris, France 9. Kan Khajura Tesan for Unilever by MullenLowe Group, Mumbai 10. Not A Bug Splat for Reprieve Foundation by BBDO Lahore, Pakistan 11. Penny The Pirate for OPSM by Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney, Australia 12. Between Us Red Light App for Vodafone by Y&R Team Red Istanbul, Turkey 13. Rice Code for Inakadate Village by Hakuhodo Tokyo, Japan 14. Smellcome To Manhood for Old Spice by Wieden+Kennedy Portland, USA 15. The Salt You Can See for Fundacion Favaloro by Grey Buenos Aires, Argentina 16. The Scarecrow for Chipotle by Creative Artists Agency Los Angeles, USA 17. This Is Wholesome for Honey Maid by Droga5 New York, USA "We have already seen that the introduction of Costco has resulted in surrounding retailers reducing their prices to around $1 a litre. Yet the same retailer is charging close to 30 a litre more on the other side of town." But the date is not firm and other aspects of the City to the Lake vision remain up in the air. There has been no decision on when Parkes Way will be lowered to link the city more closely with the lake, and no decision on when work will begin on the new lakeside swimming pool, allowing the Civic pool to be demolished to make way for a planned city stadium. But then he returned the next day and took the whole gate off, moved it closer to the post, rebolted it and put a new latch on the gate. All without payment or any fanfare. Just a lovely surprise for Jenny who told her story on Facebook. Her post was then shared by dog walker Carolyn Kidd, who put the story on her North Canberra business' Facebook page Dogs on the Run. The efficiency dividend approach in the cultural sector is a particularly ineffective and blunt instrument with the institutions too small to experience savings in economies of scale. The National Library, that in terms of staff is the largest of the Canberra-based cultural institutions, has a little over 400 staff, the National Gallery is next with about 240 staff, while the others are even smaller. The envisaged cuts of about 10 staff in each of the larger institutions will be crippling, while the savings will be negligible. All of them are now operating below the required critical mass and the present path adopted by the federal government is simply a path to disaster, where the cutting of the fat and flesh have long passed and we are now hacking into the bone that supports the structure. This won't be the last you hear from the Australian Christian Lobby as the election year wears on. Not only is the ACL the most visible proponent of the "no" camp on same-sex marriage, they have a track record of attracting the biggest of political wigs - from John Howard to Bill Shorten - to speak at their events. 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. Engineers in India can advance their knowledge, skill sets and career opportunities with master's degrees from the University of California at Los Angeles' #1 ranked in Master of Science Online programme The programme has a strong impact on employees of leading Indian MNCs. Employees have learnt cutting-edge research and creative problem-solving from UCLA's world-renowned faculty. By joining MSOL, students can earn a degree in two years through online classes. Alternatively, they can earn a hybrid programme (first year online, second on UCLA campus), then work in USA. The cost of the programme is ~$35,000, far less than the same programme on the UCLA campus. MSOL degrees are fully equivalent to campus degrees. Areas of study include computer networking, electrical, IC, engineering management and more. "Access to high-quality online education is of growing importance for working engineers and companies," said Jenn-Ming Yang, UCLA Engineering's Associate dean. "We offer students the flexibility to build a programme of study to suit their professional needs," he added. The programme is coordinated by Dr. Sanjay Singh, director of Vinvest and a PhD from UCLA Engineering. For more information, contact Dr. Singh at: msol.ucla.edu/international email-id: sanjaysingh@ucla.edu A special Jensen Interceptor, first owned by comedian Eric Morecambe, will be on display at the London Classic Car Show. The car originally left factory on Kelvin Way in West Bromwich, on September 23, 1968, and was delivered to Eric Morecambe, in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, who used it personally and with his chauffeur. Despite becoming his favorite car, according to his chauffeur, Eric was dissatisfied with rust to the wheels and bumpers and pitted chrome, stating that it is not what I expect of a 4,500 motor car, in correspondence with Jensen Motor Company Managing Director A.W. Wickers, in 1970. Not wanting to upset the important customer, the companys chief replied and work was undertaken to resolve the problems. The comedian spoke about his Interceptor on an episode of Parkinson, in 1972, describing how he was driving late one evening and felt increasingly ill, being forced to stop and ask a passer-by to drive him to hospital, in the classic car. The driver was apparently so excited about grabbing the wheel of an Interceptor that it took him several minutes to realize who he was helping. It turned out that Eric suffered a mild heart attack. Silverstone Auctions purchased the car in September 2014 and one month later, restoration process began, with work carried on the rear axle, braking system, engine, exhaust and body. Visitors to the 2016 London Classic Car Show will get to see this Jensen Interceptor live, between February 18 and 21, at Excel, London. PHOTO GALLERY Volkswagen announced that its European recall campaign is progressing normally, with the first 4,300 affected diesel cars already fixed. The first model to be recalled was the Amarok pickup truck with the 2.0-litre diesel engine, of which VW has already fixed half of the affected models in its home market. Next up are the Passat sedan and wagon, which are expected to be recalled in late March. After the fix is applied, all the cars will be Euro-5 compliant. The European affected diesel models are 5.2 million vehicles equipped with the 2.0-litre engine, 3 million with the 1.6-litre and around 300,000 with the 1.2-litre engine. Over the next few months, the recall will be extended to models equipped with the 1.2-litre and 1.6-litre diesel engines. Although the giant recall of almost 8.5 million vehicles in Europe has already started, the automaker is still negotiating with US regulators for the recall of almost 600,000 vehicles in that market. Every proposal has so far has been rejected, leaving the time frame for the US recall an unsolved problem. VW is facing billions of dollars in regulatory fines and lawsuit costs on top of the expenses associated with fixing the manipulated US diesel models. In Europe, the three affected diesel engines require a software fix that takes less than half an hour per car to be applied. The 1.6-litre engines require an additional part fitted to the intake which is supposed to make the engines filters work better, with the repair time taking less than 45 minutes. Story References: Bloomberg PHOTO GALLERY Nissa has announced that it will begin producing cars in the Southeast nation of Myanmar for the first time by the end of 2016. Vehicle assembly will be made in partnership with Tan Chong Motor Group and there are plans for a new manufacturing facility, in the Bago region, which will employ approximately 300 workers and have a capacity of 10,000 units, at full production. Nissan and Tan Chong officials were joined by Bago government officials to sign a land lease agreement: Nissan is pleased to have the opportunity to be part of new motoring growth in Myanmar, said Nissan Motor Asia Pacific President and Corporate VP of Nissan Motor Co., Toru Hasegawa. Until work will kickoff, an existing plant owned by Nissans local partner will start assembling the Sunny compact sedan. Tan Chong will also be in charge of training 200 employees for the Bago facility, at a different factory, in Malaysia, as part of a knowledge-transfer initiative. Nissan and Tan Chong will continue to enhance and expand their business network, which currently includes a branch office and dealers in Yangon. The Japanese brands expansion in Myanmar is part of the companys wider growth in emerging markets, which includes production in countries like Russia, Brazil, India and Nigeria. The automaker started vehicle sales in the Southeast Asian country in 2013 and its product lineup includes the Altima sedan, Civilian minibus, X-Trail SUV and Navara pickup. Note: Chinese Nissan Sunny pictured PHOTO GALLERY The Spanish animation festival Animac has selected Female Futures as the theme for its 2016 edition, which will take place in Lleida, Spain, next week. Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, Animac will highlight female creators at a key moment in animation history when there is increased awareness of their place within the art form. On one hand, we celebrate the extraordinary incorporation of female filmmakers, new themes and sensibilities on the independent field, the festival stated in a press release. But, the festivals focus also highlights the fact that this relevancealso found in the academic fieldis still far away from a correspondence in the equal participation in filmmaking, TV production, or videogamesin other words, the industry. For its Female Futures theme, Animac will present six programs of recent animation work by female filmmakers, in addition to a masterclasses by Portuguese filmmaker Regina Pessoa, and three lectures by women artists: Romanian filmmaker Anca Damian, whose feature Magic Mountain also screens in competition, Spanish stop motion costume designer Flora Cuevas (Pos Eso), and Belgian animator An Vrombraut, who created the popular TV series 64 Zoo Lane. Photo: Deborah Pfeiffer A previous schools closure meeting in Penticton Alternative uses of schools eyed for closure were considered by Penticton council this week. Council directed staff to share its notes on the matter with the local school board. The board had invited council to participate in the consultation process on possible school closures and alternative uses. Penticton's director of operations Mitch Moroziuk told council the six schools being considered for possible closure are: Carmi Elementary, McNicoll Park Middle, Parkway Elementary and West Bench Elementary in Penticton and Giants Head Elementary and Trout Creek Elementary in Summerland. Suggested possible uses for the facilties were subdividing off the playing fields and that buildings could be used for purposes provided under public-use zoning. The public board meeting on potential uses is on Monday, from 7 to 9 p.m., at the Shatford Centre. The meeting is to receive input for alternate uses of the facilities being considered for closure. Emails on the matter must be submitted by Sunday to [email protected] and will be shared with the public. Questions may be directed to secretary-treasurer Bonnie Roller Routley by email or by calling 250-770-7700, ext. 6104. The decision-making meeting on school closures will be held March 9. Photo: Contributed - Evgeny Gromov Oil companies have been conditioning us for years, with regard to responses to oil price hikes and declines. The conditioning is working. The condition is worsening. Slowly, very slowly, they managed to get us used to the fact that there is no relation between gas prices at the pump and oil prices in the markets. Just listen to Dan McTeague next time he throws up a pile of BS on television or a newspaper page somewhere. Listening to McTeague is akin to listening to a high school student offering excuses for showing up late. Excuses are like armpits, Mr. McTeague, we have more than one, and they stink. At some point McTeague will run out of excuses, but in the meantime we know that gas prices are not mirrored by oil prices when they decline. We know it because that is what weve seen. However, when oil prices rebound, although there is no relationship (as we are led to believe), there is, apparently, a very complicated mathematical formula akin to a stretched rubber band. A formula that we could not possibly understand, but which is similar to a rubber band very quickly returning to its previous position. It is probably as complicated as gravitational waves that have taken billions of years to finally identify. Aversive conditioning is a process to stop a bad behaviour. For example, complaining about gas prices. aversive conditioning. noun, Psychology, Psychiatry. 1. a type of behaviour conditioning in which noxious stimuli are associated with undesirable or unwanted behaviour that is to be modified or abolished, as the use of nausea-inducing drugs in the treatment of alcoholism. Also called aversive therapy, aversion therapy. The aversive conditioning is working, but in reverse. We are becoming averse to the virtual monopoly that oil cartels have on the world and oil companies have at the pumps. The important thing to remember is that there is nothing much we can do about it. If we want cheaper gas, we must stop using cars or move to Edmonton. I dislike it, but I do like the freedom we have to start and operate a business and to generate an income from it that has no ceiling other than that which the market dictates. That is why Canada is such a popular destination for migrants such as myself. There are some solutions in various market segments. For example, for years we have had a problem in Canada with prescription drug pricing until provincial cooperation led to a stronger bargaining position. We have since seen radical price changes for many prescription drugs. If we strong-arm oil companies and gas stations to lower prices, and we put some form of governmental regulation in place for gas pricing, where does it end? It would be the start of a very slippery slope, the ultimate end game being communism and government controlled pricing across all sectors. So, as much as I grumble and complain, just as you probably do, the truth is there are no tools to combat the pricing unless we all hop on bicycles (which is a great idea, by the way) and stop consuming fuel. Boycotting a brand for a few weeks will never happen, and if it did, it would mean nothing in the long run. Understand that we are fed BS to keep prices artificially high, and that we are conditioned to accept it. Maybe Tesla is onto a good thing. This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet. Photo: Castanet Staff The appeal of an Oliver man over his conviction for sexual offences against a minor has been rescheduled to later in the year due to a scheduling conflict for the prosecutor. As a result, Crown Counsel asked the hearing be postponed to provide a new prosecutor adequate time to review the case against TJB* and prepare for the hearing, said Neil MacKenzie, of the Criminal Justice Branch. The appeal, previously set for April 15, will now be heard on Sept. 12. TJB was sentenced last May to four years and six months in prison for the sexual offences. An appeal of his conviction was filed on May 4 and TJB was released on $50,000 bail plus conditions, including a no contact order with the victim's family and that he must reside at a set residence in Oliver. In November of 2014, Madame Justice Catherine Bruce found TJB guilty of sexually assaulting a boy between June 2011 and July 2012. TJB denied the charges throughout his August, 2014 trial and friends and family members wrote letters of support on his behalf. *this story has been modified to comply with a court ordered publication ban Photo: Contributed - NASA The International Space Station just got a whole lot tidier. A pair of NASA astronauts released a capsule loaded with 1.5 tons of trash Friday as the space station soared over Bolivia. The capsule should re-enter the atmosphere and burn up harmlessly over the Pacific on Saturday. NASA supplier Orbital ATK launched the capsule to the space station in December, full of food, clothes and other goods. The astronauts removed the precious contents, then filled it with garbage and old equipment for incineration. Commander Scott Kelly and Timothy Kopra, the Americans on board, sent computer commands to set the Cygnus free. The stunning 250-mile-high view showed the capsule slowly backing away, its two circular solar wings looking like open umbrellas. Kelly, who's less than two weeks from wrapping up an unprecedented yearlong mission for NASA, thanked everyone who worked on the Cygnus "this great vehicle." "It's been a pleasure," he noted. "A beautiful release," replied Mission Control. Virginia-based Orbital ATK plans to launch another Cygnus with more supplies from Cape Canaveral, Florida, late next month. The flight was delayed a few weeks after black mould contaminated some of the cargo bags. Technicians had to disinfect everything. SpaceX, meanwhile, another commercial cargo carrier for NASA, is aiming to make a delivery in the next few months. The company is working to get back on track following a launch accident last summer. NASA has handed off space station shipments to private business so it can focus on getting astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit, namely to Mars. It hopes to do the same with space station crews next year. For now, U.S. astronauts are hitching rides with the Russians. Photo: Twitter Six lions walked out of Nairobi National Park and were roaming through parts of the city on Friday, scaring residents for a few hours before the big cats returned to the reserve. The lions were first spotted at 4 a.m. near a hospital in the suburb of Langata, and later near Kibera, Kenya's largest slum, said Kenya Wildlife Service spokesman Paul Udoto. A team of wildlife rangers went out to find the lions "prepared for anything" and return them to the park, but the lions were later spotted back in the park, having made their own way back, Udoto said. Nairobi National Park's 117-square-kilometres are home to endangered black rhinos, lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, buffaloes, giraffes and diverse birdlife. The animals roam just 10 kilometres from downtown Nairobi, which lies north of the park. It's unclear how the lions got out of the park, most of which is surrounded in that area by an electric fence. Occasionally lions will clash with people on the southern side, which is not fenced. In 2012, six lions were killed after the pride of eight lions attacked and killed eight goats of Masaai herdsmen. Only about 2,000 lions are left in Kenya after years of hunting and then poaching. The government has announced plans to build a railway that will traverse part of the reserve. Conservationists have opposed the railway line, saying it will further damage wildlife habitat. Well, at age 53, I had to call an ambulance for myself for the first time in my life. The ambulance was here in less than 4 minutes. The medics were extremely professional and polite. When we arrived at KGH emergency, my week-long headache was taken very seriously. I was in a CAT/MRI scanner within 1 1/2 hours of arriving. The nurses were just awesome. So caring. I was shivering as I was not dressed to leave my home. They brought warm blankets to me, and checked on me every 10 minutes. Within 3 hours of arriving at KGH, they had a complete diagnoses of my condition (a rare familial brain disorder affecting less than 20 families in all North America). Hats off to the doctors and nurses who treated me so kindly and with such respect and professionalism! Thanks to you all! David A. Linge Photo: The Canadian Press A man considered everything from a heroic whistleblower to a traitor is making a cyber visit to British Columbia. Edward Snowden will make the keynote presentation, via web link, as part of a Simon Fraser University program examining the opportunities and dangers of online data gathering. The presentation, at Vancouver's Queen Elizabeth Theatre on April 5, will be followed by a moderated discussion with expert panellists from SFU and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. Snowden is a former employee of the National Security Agency in the United States. In 2013 he quit his job and left the U.S., before revealing how the NSA conducted secret information-gathering programs, spying on the online activities of hundreds of millions of people. Snowden, who remains exiled in Russia, has been charged with espionage in the U.S. and could face 30 years in prison, but his lawyer has said he wants to return to the United States, if he could be guaranteed a fair trial. Photo: Google Maps Nine years after the disappearance of a 47-year-old Valemount, B.C., man, his family finally has some answers. The BC Coroners Service confirms human remains found near that east-central B.C., community are those of Richard Olson. He was last seen near Valemount in 2007 and extensive searches of the area failed to find any trace. A surveyor spotted skeletal remains in the Robson Valley in late May 2014. The coroners' service says advanced DNA testing was needed to confirm identification. The service also says the cause of death is still under investigation. China: Anhui Conch Cement's Shaanxi unit suspends production 19 February 2016 Chinese cement major Anhui Conch Cement has confirmed that its subsidiary Liquan Conch Cement, situated in Shaanxi province, has suspended production. The decision follows legislation by the provincial government of Shaanxi requiring all cement and clinker producers to adopt off-peak production. Most producers based in the province are required to stop production from 15 December 2015 until 15 March 2016 with a few exceptions. A total of 25 cement companies, with 37 clinker lines, are based in the province. In compliance with the notice, Liquan Conch is currently suspending its production, Conch confirmed. Liquan Conch has a cement production capacity of 4.4Mta, accounting for 1.5 per cent of Anhui Conch's total capacity. The parent company noted that it does not expect the temporary suspension of production at Liquan Conch to adversely affect its operating results. Published under Saudi producers prepare for discussions over export ban 19 February 2016 Saudi cement producers will meet government officials soon to discuss lifting the ban on their exports by around 20 per cent, a Saudi daily reported. In turn cement producers will ensure a two-month supply for the local market, the Arabic-language Alyaum newspaper said, quoting Abdullah Ridwan, chairman of the construction and property committee at the Jeddah chamber of commerce and industry. The cement companies in the Kingdom are preparing to meet representatives from the commerce and industry ministry to discuss allowing them to export 20 per cent of their production...if the export is approved, the companies will be committed to supplying the local market with production for two months, he said without specifying a date for the talks. Mr Ridwan said cement supply in the Saudi market is currently higher than demand, warning that some cement firms could suspend production if they are not allowed to export their surplus output. This is because demand is currently weakif the companies are allowed to export that quantity, this will positively affect the market and their business, he said. Earlier this month, Saudi Cement Co said it has decided to temporarily stop kiln 6 until domestic market conditions improve, including the lifting of the export ban. The company has also postponed replacing three cement mills with two newer ones that would have raised cement milling capacity by 600,000tpa. Published under BUA Group reportedly in talks to build two plants in east Africa 19 February 2016 The BUA Group of Nigeria in talks with Chinas Sinoma to build two cement plants in east Africa and a steel plant in Nigeria for US$1.9bn, according to a report by Reuters. BUA Group chairman, Abdulsamad Rabiu, told the international news agency that the two cement plants will have a capacity of 3Mta and cost US$700m. The steel plant will have a capacity of 1.2Mt at a cost of US$1.2bn. In a statement, BUA said the pact came following the successful start of production at its new Obu cement plant in Nigeria, adding that it is set to further double the capacity of the plant to 7Mta. This agreement, signed at the Sinoma CBMI offices in China will further bolster BUA Groups share of the cement market in Nigeria. Published under Agilent Technologies Inc. announced that the Chinese American Chromatography Association has honored Xiaoli Wang, Ph.D., with its Young Investigator Award. Dr. Wang is an Agilent scientist who has been instrumental in extending the companys Poroshell 120 technology into biopharmaceutical columns that enable faster, more accurate analysis of monoclonal antibodies and peptides. He also helped commercialize a new surface modification that enables rugged high pH separations using Poroshell 120, enabling users to save money with longer column lifetimes. Applicants were judged on the originality and overall quality of their work, its significance to the advancement of separation science, and other supporting factors. To evaluate the impact of the work, the association considered publications, presentations, patents and the applicants leadership role in his or her research field or place of business. Dr. Wang was nominated by Ron Majors, a renowned chromatography expert who recently retired from Agilent. Xiaoli is part of the new generation of chromatography experts, and his many contributions in his young career have been quite remarkable, Majors said. Agilent hires and nurtures leaders like Xiaoli as part of our commitment to drive innovative product development and superior solutions for our customers, said Helen Stimson, Agilent senior vice president and general manager of the companys Chemistries and Supplies Division. Xiaolis work in research and development leverages insights that boost productivity, sharpen analytical accuracy and improve economics in the lab. Gov. Bruce Rauner and the Democratic-led House have failed to agree on a 2016 budget since July. The affects are trickling down to state schools including The Research Park at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. (Michael Noble Jr., Chicago Tribune) The robust University of Illinois technology hub is feeling the pinch of the state's budget woes: It's absorbing a 6 percent funding cut that impacts support to faculty and startups. The Research Park at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is dealing with the effects on nearly every level, said director Laura Frerichs. A major construction project is on hold, student intern positions are set to be cut this summer, and the more existential threat of failing to provide necessary resources to faculty and startups is looming. Advertisement EnterpriseWorks-Chicago, an operation at the University of Illinois at Chicago that hopes to boost the school's entrepreneurial ecosystem, has already cut programs and staff positions, director Kapila Viges said. Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and the Democratic-led House have failed to agree on a budget since July, leaving no 2016 spending plan in place. Rauner delivered his second budget speech Wednesday, proposing a 2017 budget that includes a 20 percent cut in funding to the University of Illinois. Democrats have not yet proposed any changes. Advertisement The Research Park gets $450,000 annually in state funding through the university. That's about one-third of its overall budget. Frerichs is planning to lose 20 percent of that funding, or about $90,000. Although that sum isn't huge, university officials worry losing it could stall progress vital for supporting fledgling startups. One looming issue: An $11 million building project will come to a halt if the budget is not sorted out before construction is to start this summer, Frerichs said. The Research Park has a deal with its developer: It funds the infrastructure roads, utilities, etc. to connect the new buildings to campus, and the developer tracks down investors to finance the construction. Frerichs said the Research Park doesn't have the money to keep up its end of the deal. "We're going to run out of money soon, and the project will just not happen," Frerichs said. "We have to keep moving forward, otherwise we're going to hit a stalled point where we don't have any place to put anybody." The Research Park typically remains about 90 percent full, with one new building constructed each year to accommodate growth. In 2015, eight corporations opened innovation centers in the park, the most in one year since it opened in 2001. Chicago Mercantile Exchange, AARP and business management consultant CEB have already leased space for 2016. That's on top of the nearly 20 startups that move into the park's incubator every year. The proposed three-story, 65,000-square-foot building would house office spaces for startups and innovation centers, similar to those AARP and CME are planning, plus apartments and commercial space. The park pays 10 entrepreneurs from the private sector who advised more than 250 faculty and students in the park last year. Without state funding, Frerich will have to scale back that program. She plans to cut down on full-time interns this summer too, hiring only nine compared to its usual 17. The interns work for the startups in the park, providing services including graphic design and data analytics. Andalyze, a company that develops technology that tests heavy metals in water, has used some of those Research Park interns and gotten funding from the park's venture arm, Illinois Ventures. Support from the park helped the company through tough development stages, said chief marketing officer Marty Dugan, and if the university wants to continue to help grow successful companies, they need to provide support. Advertisement The fate of other startup services remains unclear. If those services experience cuts, the "rainmaker faculty," as Frerichs calls them, the ones that bring in federal research funds and launch startups, will start looking to private universities that can provide more stability. Jim Applegate, executive director of the Illinois Board of Higher Education, said he has already seen "some of the best faculty, the people most vulnerable to being attracted to another private sector" leaving public universities across the state. Kapila Viges, director of EnterpriseWorks Chicago, describes how it's tackling its mission to support innovation and build community around it at the University of Illinois at Chicago. (Blue Sky) Vigas, director of EnterpriseWorks at UIC, said it has cut programming and been unable to fill two vacated positions. She could not say how much of EnterpriseWorks' budget comes from the state, but she is planning for the 20 percent funding cut. To be sure, these are insiders protecting their own budgets. But they also worry the crisis is further tarnishing Illinois' image as a place to do business. Andreas Cangellaris, dean of the college of engineering at U. of I., is concerned that the hit Illinois is taking to its reputation could hurt the school's strong applicant pool down the road. "We have been in difficult times before and we found ways to take care of the excellence of our programs," he said. "But at that time it was a global event, and now it has become a problem that is localized in the state of Illinois, and that is what makes me nervous. Advertisement "After a while, they say, 'Well, the state of Illinois has problems, and why should I invest my talent into the state of Illinois?'" amarotti@tribpub.com Twitter @allymarotti An earlier version of this story misstated the location of CEB's headquarters. The golden age of air travel has long since passed, and it's not coming back any time soon, if consumer complaint data released this week by the U.S. Department of Transportation are any guide. More than 20,000 air travelers filed complaints in 2015, an increase of 30 percent over the previous year. And at a time when low fuel prices are helping U.S.-based airlines record fat profits, complaints about fares nearly doubled to more than 1,800. Advertisement American Airlines the nation's largest carrier received the most complaints with 3,983 passengers complaining about its service. Chicago-based United the most-complained-about airline in 2014 was in second place with 2,721 complaints. United passengers complained most often about flight problems, baggage problems and customer service. But low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines had, by far, the most complaints per passenger, recording nearly 12 complaints for every 100,000 passengers who got on one of its flights. By contrast, Southwest Airlines had just half a complaint per 100,000 passengers, a feat bettered only by Alaska Airlines. Advertisement On average, domestic carriers received just under two complaints per 100,000 passengers. While the price of an average airfare fell by 6.2 percent to $372 between the third quarter of 2014 and the third quarter of 2015, the most recent period for which Department of Transportation data are available, the "big four" U.S. carriers (American, Delta, Southwest and United) made profits of $22 billion last year, an increase of more than $15 billion over 2014. Melanie Hinton, a spokeswoman for airline industry group Airlines for America, said that despite the increase in complaints, the total number of complaints remains low relative to the number of air passengers. Cancellations, delays and mishandled baggage incidents all fell slightly in 2015, she noted. kjanssen@tribpub.com Twitter @kimjnews Zolona Jones, left, and her 19-year-old daughter, Yasmeen, pack food Feb. 15, 2016, at their home in West Englewood before Zolona Jones left for a double shift at the Mondelez bakery. Jones has been warned she will be laid off in March. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune) Zolona Jones returned to her West Englewood home last month to find a letter jammed in a crack of the doorway. "We regret to inform you that your position will be eliminated on March 21" the letter stated. Advertisement The 60-day clock began ticking for Jones and 276 other workers at the old Nabisco bakery on Chicago's Southwest Side, where Oreo cookies and other snacks have been made for decades. Deerfield-based Mondelez International, the global snack food company that owns the plant, intends to lay off about half of its 1,200 workers this year and shift some operations from Chicago to a plant in Mexico, a move intended to boost profit margins. The layoffs mean lives disrupted, dreams deferred, in a city that's bled manufacturing jobs for decades. Those who will be laid off are trying to figure out how to move forward without suffering a steep drop in income. Advertisement Zolona Jones is seen Feb. 15, 2016, at home in West Englewood before she left for work at the Mondelez factory. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune) For most of her seven years at the plant, Jones has worked as a processor inspecting the quality of Oreos, Ritz crackers and other food a $25-an-hour job with good benefits. "It's really a raw blow. But I have to realize that life is not over," said Jones, 39, who lives with two of her three children and a chronically ill friend in one of Chicago's most violent neighborhoods, and one she dreamed of leaving. In its heyday, the hulking brick bakery at 7300 S. Kedzie Ave., which dates from the 1950s, employed more than 4,000 people. By 1993, when politicians and Nabisco executives held a press conference touting tax incentives and job retention tied to plant upgrades, there were 2,400. Mondelez executives say the Chicago facility and the 600 jobs remaining there will continue to be an important piece of the company's North American supply network, but some of its longest-tenured employees are skeptical. They say the layoffs mark the further decline of a once-proud bakery in a part of the city that desperately needs jobs with decent wages. Last spring, there was brief hope the jobs would stay in Chicago. The so-called "lines of the future" manufacturing lines with more advanced technology would be installed either in the Chicago bakery or a newer plant in Salinas, Mexico. But Jones was among workers who had doubts. "I was thinking to myself, it's such an old building and they just built the Salinas plant," Jones said. "Why would they put the machines here?" Zolona Jones, in red hat, is seen with her children Yasmeen, 19, and Xavier Jones, 17, and family friend Peter Hamilton, right, on Feb. 15, 2016 outside their home in West Englewood before Zolona Jones left for a double shift at the Mondelez factory. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune) Mondelez executives said they could save $46 million a year by installing the lines in Salinas. The company invited three unions Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers; International Union of Operating Engineers; and International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers to come up with plans to close the multimillion-dollar gap. By July, it was settled: Mondelez would move some of its lines to Mexico and lay off half the Chicago workforce. Advertisement The move's in line with Mondelez's recent efforts to increase margins in its developed markets, while pushing for growth in emerging markets. Mondelez, a $30 billion company, came into existence when Kraft Foods split into two publicly traded companies in 2012. The spun-off North American grocery business, Kraft Foods Group, later merged with Heinz to become Kraft Heinz. Like other food manufacturing companies, such as Kraft Heinz and ConAgra Foods, Mondelez is under tremendous pressure from shareholders to cut costs and improve profit margins as more consumers eschew processed food for healthier options. Zolona Jones knows something about pressure. With curtains drawn in a dimly lit living room decorated with family photos, she recounted years of striving to make ends meet as a single mother of three, bouncing from bad to worse neighborhoods to find affordable housing. For the past six years, Jones and her two children, Yasmeen, 19, and Xavier, 17, have helped take care of Peter Hamilton, 49, a longtime friend and former colleague who suffers from various chronic illnesses, such as pancreatitis, sickle cell disease and rheumatoid arthritis. "Without her help, I probably wouldn't even be alive," Hamilton said. Losing the Mondelez paycheck that keeps them all afloat will be "devastating," Hamilton said. Advertisement Boy pleads for dad Each day, Jesus Herrera makes the hourlong drive from his home in Merrillville, Ind., to the bakery, where he works the overnight shift as a machine operator in the packing department. When he's lucky, he works an eight-hour shift. Other times, those shifts stretch to 12- and 16-hour slogs when he's called upon to work overtime. Bleary-eyed, fueled by coffee and energy drinks, Herrera returns home through morning traffic and cares for his youngest two kids, ages 1 and 3, until his wife gets home from work and his 6-year-old son returns from school. Herrera, 26, isn't complaining about any of that. "It's meant everything to my family." Herrera said of the job, which he's now poised to lose. We decided, let's put school on hold and get back to work." Jesus Herrera The job allowed Herrera and his family to move out of his parents' house and into their own two-bedroom apartment near a good school the young family's first home of their own. Advertisement The $25 hourly wage and robust benefits opened new doors for Herrera's family. He started dreaming of buying a house and sending his kids to private school. His wife, Anahis, had plans to enroll in nursing school but instead got a job at McDonald's last summer, bracing for the inevitable loss of her husband's paycheck. "We decided, let's put school on hold and get back to work," Jesus Herrera said. Herrera said he doesn't know what he'll do next, possibly another manufacturing job if he can find one. He's still hoping that Mondelez executives might change their minds. And his 6-year-old son Alejandro wrote a letter to Mondelez powers-that-be, begging them to spare his father's job. "I finally have my own room and if he loses his job I will be very sad," the boy wrote. Herrera hoped to share the letter with Mondelez. Jesus Herrera's 6-year-old son Alejandro wrote this letter to Mondelez, his father's employer, after he heard his parents talking about his father being laid off. (Jesus Herrera) The baker's union is the plant's largest union and stands to lose the most members through layoffs. Those union members with the least amount of service time those like Herrera, who has only been at the plant two years are being laid off first, as per the terms of the labor contract. Advertisement Herrera recalled it was eerily quiet walking into work on Jan. 19, when the layoff notices were handed out. Some workers openly wept. Herrera held his emotions in. "I didn't want to show it, but I felt like a kid without the parents. Everywhere I look, there's no help," Herrera said. 2 generations at bakery Herman Owens, who's worked at the Nabisco bakery for 38 years, fell to the concrete factory floor last month when a stool collapsed beneath him. He hurt his head, neck and back. Owens was suspended from work for five days without pay for not inspecting the stool first. "Given his time and experience with the company, (Owens) is expected to use better judgment and assess his work environment in order to ensure he is performing his job safely at all times," according to the personnel record on the incident provided by Owens. Advertisement Owens, a steward with the baker's union, claims it's an example of how drastically the work environment's changed under Mondelez's ownership. Union representatives are being unfairly disciplined to further weaken the union's position within the plant, Owens said. He's since filed a grievance. Mondelez employee Herman Owens on Feb. 14, 2016 outside his Evergreen Park home. He says life at the Mondelez plant has changed since the company was made independent of Kraft: "It's totally different now. You don't know if they're going to suspend you if you sneeze the wrong way." (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune) "It's totally different now," said Owens, 57. "You don't know if they're going to suspend you if you sneeze the wrong way." Laurie Guzzinati, a Mondelez spokeswoman, declined to comment specifically on Owens' situation, saying it's a confidential personnel matter. But she said union representatives are not being singled out and that safety is paramount. "We deny the assertion that employees were disciplined without appropriate cause," Guzzinati said. As a boy, Owens visited the bakery, where his late father, General Owens, worked for more than 40 years. Now with his hair and mustache streaked with gray, Owens still remembers the enticing smell of real butter used in the cookies then. The Nabisco bakery was once known for its family atmosphere and healthy wages, Owens said. Working there allowed his father to buy a home for his family in Englewood and put his five children through school. Advertisement "They're going to have to start all over again. Their lives are going to be completely changed now." Herman Owens, 57, on his younger colleagues And Owens, in turn, made enough money to move out of Englewood when the neighborhood grew more gang-infested and rife with violence. Owens is unlikely to fall victim to the layoffs, considering his lengthy tenure at the plant. He's planning on retiring at age 62, like his father. But he laments what it means for some of his younger colleagues. "They're going to have to start all over again," Owens said. "Their lives are going to be completely changed now." Keeping hope alive Jones, Herrera and others like them are facing uncertain futures. The bakers union resolves to fight the layoffs. It has filed a lawsuit and a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, claiming the layoffs are discriminatory and in violation of the labor contract. Advertisement The baker's union is also the only one of the plant's three unions to not negotiate the terms of the layoffs with the company, a point that's caused some discord among its members. Union representatives have said they won't surrender those jobs in advance of labor contract negotiations, which are now underway. Mondelez' Guzzinati stressed that the company's Mexico investment and corresponding layoffs in Chicago are "separate and distinct" from the ongoing contract negotiations. Since the first 277 workers were warned of layoffs, state and federal agencies have held numerous post-employment workshops at the Mondelez plant, offering assistance with finding other jobs, vocational training and continued education. Jones is taking a measured approach. She's been laid off before, in fact, from the former Wrigley gum plant on the South Side, where she worked for about seven years. She'd like to get out of factory work, which has taken its toll on her own health in recent years. Her face lights up when talks about her passion: music. Her family's started a music production business, a social network designed to promote unsigned artists. Jones hopes to take advantage of federal assistance for laid-off workers to go back to school and study business management. It could be a while until it pays the bills, but it's something to dream on. Advertisement "I keep hope alive," Jones said. "With God's help, I'm going to find a way." gtrotter@tribpub.com Twitter @GregTrotterTrib Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, is standing his ground. The company is defying a court order. He posted a letter arguing that while the company has "done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them," this workaround is "something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create." A female Aedes aegypti mosquito acquires a blood meal from her human host at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The mosquito is a transmitter of the Zika virus, which may be linked to microcephaly in newborns. (James Gathany / Centers for Disease Control and) With the world on high alert about the Zika virus, employers who require business travel to affected regions are being advised to balance employee concerns about infection with evolving and uncertain information about the virus's effects. Though Zika seems to present the greatest threat to pregnant women, given the possible link between the virus and microcephaly in newborns a condition of an abnormally small head employers must not keep pregnant women or those of childbearing age from traveling, even in a well-intentioned effort to protect them from exposure, as it could trigger gender or pregnancy discrimination claims, said Denise Dadika, a partner in the employment and labor group at the law firm Epstein Becker and Green. Advertisement At the same time, employers should be careful not to require an employee to travel to an affected region if the employee wishes not to, as the employer could be liable if the person does contract Zika and that leads to birth defects. It could be considered a pregnancy accommodation, Dadika said. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's all-clear for men, who, public health officials have warned, could transmit the virus to women through sex. Better to educate about the risks and let the employee decide, which would absolve the employer of any liability, she said. Advertisement "Because it's probably a small portion of the workforce, employers need to be sensitive, understand the concerns and if at all possible to put those employees at ease to make other arrangements," said Dadika, whose law firm last month started advising clients to craft policies or communications about Zika for their employees. United is allowing concerned employees to reschedule flights to avoid affected regions, said Charlie Hobart, a spokesman for the airline. Several employees have taken advantage of the option, which is available to both men and women, he said, though he declined to say how many. With 12,000 full-time pilots and 20,000 flight attendants, the airline is able to shuffle people around, Hobart said. At Mesirow Financial, there is a note on the internal website advising employees to contact the corporate travel agent if they wish to change or cancel an itinerary, plus links to information about Zika, said Taryn Gluskin, marketing manager. The corporate travel manager and the company's risk manager receive a list of all traveling Mesirow employees each week and can take action as needed, but so far there have not been any trips scheduled to affected regions, Gluskin said. At Mondelez International, any employee who wishes to postpone travel may do so, said company spokesman Michael Mitchell, though he doesn't know of any travel plans that have been changed because of the virus. Consistent with the public health guidelines, the company encourages pregnant women considering travel to speak with their doctor, he said. The snack-maker several weeks ago posted an advisory on its global travel booking page and last week published a story on Zika on its global intranet site reminding employees to review materials from the World Health Organization to learn more. Mondelez is monitoring employees' travel activity and the virus situation closely, but so far it is not aware of any immediate threats, he said. "We've not changed our business travel policy due to the virus," he said. "As a global company, we already provide easy ways for employees to connect remotely through videoconferencing or other means that don't require travel." Advertisement Shortly after WHO declared Zika a global public health emergency Feb. 1, the State Department's Overseas Security Advisory Council conducted a survey of employers to determine how they were responding. Nearly 40 percent of the 321 respondents said they are allowing female employees to defer travel to or to leave Zika-affected countries, according to Reuters. A fifth said they were also letting men opt out. The largest share of the respondents, which included multinationals, universities and nonprofits, were only advising employees on how to avoid mosquito bites or find out more information. Zika, transmitted by mosquitoes, is being actively transmitted in 28 countries in South America, Central America, the Caribbean, plus Cape Verde and some Pacific Islands, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The greatest alarm has been raised in Brazil, where there are 508 confirmed cases of microcephaly and nearly 4,000 suspected cases. In the U.S., there were 84 travel-associated Zika virus disease cases as of Wednesday, including three in Illinois, according to the CDC. Most cases are in Florida and Texas. No cases in the states have been transmitted locally. One of the most important things employers should do, Dadika said, is provide information to all employees who might travel to the region about how Zika is transmitted and how to prevent infection to help dispel panic. Zika is transmitted only by bug bite and, possibly, sex, but not casual contact. And there are preventive measures, including using insect repellent and wearing long sleeves and long pants. There is no vaccine. Dadika advises employers to take positions on travel consistent with the CDC. The CDC has advised that pregnant women consider postponing travel to Zika-affected regions and protect against mosquitoes if they must go. It has advised men who have traveled to a Zika area who have a pregnant partner to abstain from sexual activity or to use condoms. Couples with a male partner who has traveled "might consider" doing so. Advertisement aelejalderuiz@tribpub.com Twitter @alexiaer 1. Be the first to brunch at Latinicity The Latin food hall launches all-you-can-eat brunch on Sunday ($25 with two cocktails; $17 without), with different items at each counter. Try the waffle bacon burger, a chorizo burger with bacon and chipotle-cheese sauce on a Belgian waffle; breakfast tacos with short rib barbacoa, avocado and a fried egg; or the Egg Aeropuerto, a meat-and-seafood fried rice with a poached egg and chaufa sauce. New cocktails include a Bloody Maria (made with tequila instead of vodka) and a lavender-pear mimosa. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 21 at Latinicity in Block 37, 108 N. State St., www.latinicity.com. Advertisement 2. Eat all the chocolate in Homewood Homewood hosts its annual chocolate festival. (ANDREW SCRIVANI / NYT) The 14th annual Homewood Chocolate Fest returns to the south suburbs with more chocolatey desserts and baked goods for the family. This year's free festival includes children's activities, baking demonstrations and a sweet competition as amateurs and professionals battle for the title of Home Sweet Homewood's Master Pastry Chef. 11 a.m. to 2 p.m on Saturday at the Homewood-Flossmoor Park District Auditorium, 2010 Chestnut Rd., Homewood, www.homesweethomewood.com. Advertisement 3. Hit up a Creole dinner (with beer pairings) Get beignets paired with beer. (Chicago Tribune) It's OK if we celebrate Mardi Gras all month, right? For a taste of New Orleans cooking, check out A Night on the Bayou: Creole Cuisine and Beer Dinner. At the five-course meal ($65), each French Quarter-inspired dish will be paired with a beer think shrimp boil with Revolution Anti Hero IPA and beignets with Fallin' Oats Amber from Hopothesis Beer Company. 6:30-8:30 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 21 at Four Star Lounge, 2666 N. Halsted St., www.eventbrite.com. 4. Drink half-price wine, watch "House of Cards" Discounts on wine and a Netflix marathon make for the perfect Sunday night. (Michael Tercha / Chicago Tribune) We don't normally do our Netflix binging in public, but if you're looking for an excuse to finally start "House of Cards," sister bars Old Town Pour House and The Boundary are playing episodes 1-3 back-to-back on Sunday, with 50 percent off wine bottles. That counts as being social, right? Starts at 6 p.m. on Sunday at The Boundary, 1932 W. Division St., and Old Town Pour House, 1419 N. Wells St. 5. Build a better breakfast sandwich Become a legendary maker of breakfast sandwiches. (Michael Tercha / Chicago Tribune) Columnist James P. DeWan schools you on the techniques to make the ultimate breakfast sandwich, whether you love bagels, biscuits, croissants, English muffins or his sleeper hit a portobello mushroom "bun." Goose Island founder John Hall has sold the original Goose Island Brewpub, on Clyborn Avenue, to Anheuser-Busch InBev, the corporation that bought the Chicago brewing company five years ago. In that deal, Hall had retained ownership of the brewpub (pictured here in 2008). (Heather Stone / Chicago Tribune) Five years after selling Goose Island's production brewery to Anheuser-Busch InBev in a deal that launched an era of consolidation in the craft beer industry, brewery founder John Hall is selling the brewpub where Goose was founded to the same global beer behemoth. Terms were not disclosed. Advertisement Fulton Street Brewery, which operates as Goose Island Beer Co., will become the parent company of the brewpub on Clybourn Avenue, which Hall started in 1988 after a career in the corrugated box industry. Hall said AB InBev was unable to buy the brewpub under Illinois law at the time of the first sale, in 2011, but also didn't have much interest. Advertisement "They didn't understand the value, which they do now," he said. To comply with state law, the Clybourn brewpub will be reclassified as a taproom subsidiary of the Fulton Street production brewery, and no longer be able to sell wine or spirits. Goose Island President and General Manager Ken Stout said little will otherwise change at the Clybourn location, and that the kitchen will remain open. Eventual equipment upgrades are likely, including to the brewing equipment, which is the same as when Goose Clybourn opened 28 years ago. "We've got to get a handle on things, but we made this purchase with full intention of continuing John's great tradition," Stout said. Hall said that operating as separate entities for the past five years "made it difficult to take advantage of all the things that make the (Goose Island) brand strong." As a result of the deal, he said, there will be more collaboration between Fulton Street and Clybourn Avenue on both operations and marketing. Clybourn brewers will have access to the laboratory at Goose Island's Fulton Street brewery and its barrel aging warehouse on Sacramento Boulevard, Stout said. The brewpub has endured in its original location despite periodic challenges. Demolition of an attached building slowed business dramatically during its second year of operation, and Hall has been on the brink of moving twice over lease disputes in 2008 and 2013. The current lease expires in 2023. "I don't want to talk about a lease ever again in my life," he said. Advertisement Stout said it was too soon to discuss long term plans for the space. "For the foreseeable future, there will be no seismic change," he said. "We'll see what unfolds after that." Hall said he announced the sale to Clybourn staff Friday morning. "As I told my employees, it' s very bittersweet," he said. "It's been the best 30 years of my life. But it's kind of a natural progression." Hall, who is 73, said he will continue to be involved with the operation in a role he joked could best be described as "grandfather." "Quite frankly, I've got another year on me and I've got some things I want to do," he said. "I can do them now." Advertisement The deal is expected to close within 60 days. jbnoel@tribpub.com Twitter @joshbnoel I'm an equal-opportunity drinker, but the first time I had the opportunity to drink Cynar an artichoke liqueur from Italy I decided it was about equal to drinking grass that had been through the washing machine. Blech. Not that "artichoke liqueur" had been the most appealing phrase to begin with, but hey, what's life without rolling the dice on a bottle of funky sounding alcohol? (To be fair, it doesn't taste like a mouthful of booze-soaked artichokes; the veggie is just one of many ingredients, including about a dozen botanicals. It does taste bitter and herbal and, to then-24-year-old me, unpalatable.) Advertisement That was 2009. My bottle sat at the back of my bar, collecting dust next to all the vodka I never use, for a couple of years, until I spotted Cynar in a cocktail at a bar I respect. And I learned: If you know what you're doing with it, it's a pretty great ingredient. That's the case at La Sirena Clandestina, a lovely bar and restaurant on what I like to call Cocktail Row (a strip also home to The Aviary and The Betty). In the Peruvian Ambassador, bartenders mix Cynar with pisco, cognac, sweet vermouth and demerara sugar. Even with the bite of the cognac, it would be too sweet of a drink if not for our vegetal friend, whose bitter nature adds character and depth. The result is a smooth, balanced cocktail with the kind of edge that helps you sip slowly, and savor my favorite sort of drink. Advertisement The next time Au Cheval quotes you a three-hour wait, pop over here and say you came for the Cynar. La Sirena Clandestina, 954 W. Fulton Market, 312-226-5300, www.lasirenachicago.com Now, the Thompson Hotel's general manager, Steve Shern, says: "We are what is called a luxury lifestyle hotel, but when we opened two years ago it was important to me to have authenticity, to be a vital part of the city. We did a lot of research and eventually came upon the Hyde Park Art Center and what was going on there. So we reached out about doing something together. They were thrilled and we are thrilled to be involved with something so distinctive." A great one-page poem can have all the power and breadth of a whole novel, but no great poet writes just one poem. In a way, a poet's work takes a lifetime. To measure a poet's accomplishment, one must survey his or her writing to date. This February, we have the chance to do just that with three important poets who are publishing retrospective volumes gathering poems from their entire writing lives. Advertisement The first is firmly in the mature stage of her career, the second squarely in the middle, and the third is a long-revered major poet who died two decades ago, whose new book offers readers a chance to remember and reassess. Lucia Perillo, author of the book "Time Will Clean the Carcass Bones." Published by Copper Canyon Press. (James Rudy / Copper Canyon Press) For a poet obsessed with the steady degradation of the body and looming of death, Lucia Perillo manages to be highly entertaining. A MacArthur fellow and Pulitzer finalist, Perillo, who suffers from and writes implicitly and explicitly about multiple sclerosis, picks poems from her six previous books and adds new ones in this new and selected volume. Advertisement Perillo approaches mortality with a light touch and self-deprecating humor. Long before the final humiliation of death, she notes in poem after poem, there are innumerable instances of minor everyday shame: "this is the problem of the body," she writes, "not that it is mortal/ but that it is mortifying." It is the site of the "juicy scab" and "the head... held between the hands." Perillo also has other if related interests. She worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and nature is full of lessons and cautionary tales, as in "The Great Wave," an ambitious, longish new poem: Now that we've entered the wave of extinction let's sing while we still can, before we all go where the dinosaurs went, dropping our bones down into the shale and the floor of the sea becomes the top of the mountain, the top Advertisement of the mountain the trough of the ditch. Each dose of hopelessness is met with some kind of call for singing. Even in a poem about being "fatally allergic" to bees, Perillo plumbs the depths with a little joke: "didn't Robert Lowell say, if people were equipped with switches,/ who wouldn't be tempted, at some point,/ to flick themselves off?" Humor is actually the key to the power of her poems: While it's tempting to assume Perillo jokes to protect herself from life's dark inevitabilities, in fact, her jokes serve to expose her. She rolls up her sleeves for our benefit, shows us her skin, giving the bees a target. Cover of the book "Time Will Clean the Carcass Bones," by Lucia Perillo. Published by Copper Canyon Press. (Copper Canyon Press / Copper Canyon Press) Meanwhile, over the last two decades, Kevin Young has become one of the poetry stars of his generation, prolifically publishing ambitious collections that mix a wise and witty and sometimes sexy swagger with modes borrowed from many sources. Young loves blues and jazz music and has sought ways of adapting their rhythms to poetry. He addresses a wide variety of subjects and is deeply concerned with the legacies and ongoing aftereffects of slavery in America. His work attests to a belief in the capacity of language to affect the present by reanimating the past. This first hefty retrospective collection surveys Young's eight books of poetry, beginning with his remarkable debut "Most Way Home," published when he was just out of Harvard. A sequence that tours a circus shows Young's early command of his powers, describing "a still bull/ elephant brought/ and tamed from/ the plains of greyest// Africa/ acrobats with flesh/ colored costumes lying// beneath his harmless dark/ foot." Few poets begin with that kind of poise and reserve. Advertisement Young's second book, "To Repel Ghosts," remains for me his most rewarding. It contains Young's first masterpiece, the long poem "Jack Johnson," a capacious homage to the outspoken, pioneering black boxer of the early 20th century. Presented here only in selections, it shows how Young spins a powerful yet humanizing myth: They call me dog, cad or card, then bet on me to win. I'm still an ace & the whole world knows it. Don't Advertisement mean most don't want me done in. But I got words for them too when I'm through most chumps wish they were counting cash instead Advertisement of sheep, stars. Young is capable of talking back to his most imposing forebears, as in "For the Confederate Dead," which rewrites Robert Lowell's famous Civil War elegy: In my movie there are no horses, no heroes, only draftees fleeing into the pines, some few Advertisement who survive, gravely wounded, lying burrowed beneath the dead-- silent until the enemy bayonets what is believed to be the last of the breathing. Advertisement Books about his father's death and his own coming to fatherhood "Dear Darkness" and "The Book of Images" are also astonishing and contain some of Young's best poems. At just under 600 pages, this book is hardly a culling. Not only does Young print large swaths of his previous books, but he includes many uncollected poems. Among these, a sequence about Phillis Wheatley is absolutely necessary, while various poems written for friends' weddings could have been omitted. Yet, given how good he is at his best, I'm glad he's erred on the side of abundance. Kevin Young, author of the book "Blue Laws." (Melanie Dunea / Knopf) Allen Ginsberg was also a poet of abundance, recasting Whitman's oracular long lines in the roiling rhythms of the American midcentury. This new book surfaces uncollected, sometimes unpublished, poems from throughout Ginsberg's writing life, spanning the 1940s through the '90s. One doesn't read this book because these poems in particular are important, but because it's Ginsberg, whose importance is unquestionable. Among his many roles in 20th century culture '60s protest jokester, Zen ambassador, literary lion he was also, for many, the gateway poet. These are not unlike other Ginsberg poems fierce, funny, libidinous, subversive but here they afford a fresh chronological tour of Ginsberg's life, which is also one version of the story of the second half of the 20th century. It begins with the teenage Ginsberg, well on his way to his mature voice, calling a congressman "half a man/ The other half/ Republican." By the '50s, he's in full swing, as evidenced by minor examples of the kind of improvisatory poems that made him famous "my soul woke/ arm in arm with a youth:/ hours of communion/ warm thighs." The high point is a long poem called "New York to San Fran," the book's most ambitious and fulfilled piece. Advertisement Poet Allen Ginsberg stands in Jack Kerouac Alley next to City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco's North Beach district in September 1994. (Elizabeth Mangelsdorf / Associated Press) Ginsberg made his own meaning of the present tense: His poems are set insistently in the now; their power isn't in particular lines so much as the whole aesthetic, the continuous decision to return, again and again, to his own mind and perceptions, like a meditator to his breathing. He treats everything with an utterly absorbing present-tense vividness, which this book lets us view through grown-up eyes. Poetry is a practice as much as it is a product, a way of living and the evidence left behind. These books show three poets making their own particular kind of sense of the uncertain world. We are lucky to be able to join them. Teicher is the author of several books of poetry and fiction and the editor of "Once and For All: The Best of Delmore Schwartz," coming from New Directions in April. :: Time Will Clean the Carcass Bones Selected and New Poems Lucia Perillo Copper Canyon: 200 pp., $23 Advertisement :: Blue Laws Selected and Uncollected Poems, 1995-2015 Kevin Young Knopf: 608 pp., $30 :: Wait Till I'm Dead Uncollected Poems Allen Ginsberg Grove Press: 272 pp., $22 Reporting from Washington Hillary Clinton's campaign had planned for any number of troubles on her path toward the Democratic nomination; money was never supposed to be among them. Now, at a crucial point in the race, Clinton finds herself under financial stress. The Bernie Sanders money machine keeps churning, sweeping up millions of dollars more than the Clinton campaign has been able to find of late, positioning the democratic socialist from Vermont to compete in states where he was never expected to be a threat. Advertisement As Clinton's network of fundraisers in cash-rich regions like Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area struggles to fill events where tickets typically cost $2,700 the maximum a donor can give in the primary Sanders is not holding any. His money comes almost entirely online and keeps coming and coming, far faster and more steadily than small donations do on Clinton's website. Clinton's rainmakers have grown anxious. She began the month with $18 million more in the bank than Sanders, but he is replenishing funds so fast that he has been able to vastly outspend her on the campaign trail lately, enabling him to start building support even in states where she had a months-long head start. Advertisement "The pond is getting fished out. Everyone is sending invitations to the same group of people. And those people have already given as much as they are allowed to give," warned a Clinton loyalist in Los Angeles who has raised tens of thousands of dollars for the campaign. "There are only so many people in Hollywood with $2,700 to give. Eventually you burn through them," said another political insider, an advisor to wealthy donors in Los Angeles. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity to comment on the fraught issue of cash. Clinton is again fishing for contributions in California, with events planned up and down the coast Sunday and Monday. Yet her campaign anticipates that Sanders will raise more than her in February, as he did last month. The super PACs that support Clinton have additional tens of millions of dollars in their accounts. But that money can provide only little help right now. The largest such political action committee, Priorities USA, has put up $5 million for efforts to increase minority turnout in the next several primary states, a move that would presumably help Clinton, who has drawn more support than Sanders from blacks and Latinos. But several factors limit the role the PACs can play: Clinton has no control over the super PAC money, and she has said publicly that she would prefer that the people who do control it use it to fight Republicans this fall. And any super PAC attacks on Sanders would create a host of headaches for her campaign. Raising money from Wall Street, which has backed Clinton in the past, also would prove problematic. Clinton is locked in "Goldman handcuffs," a term increasingly used in the campaign to describe the constraint generated by Sanders' criticism of the huge speaking fees she has collected from Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms. The Sanders windfall of small-dollar donations enabled him to spend more than Clinton on television advertising in the final days before the New Hampshire primary and then to immediately get a jump on the airwaves in Nevada, where an initial onslaught helped him give her a considerable scare. Her dominance in that state vanished by the time she won its caucuses Saturday. More than 47% of caucusgoers chose Sanders, and he earned just a handful fewer delegates than Clinton. For a candidate who rails against the corrupting influence of money in politics and shows disdain for deep-pocketed donors, Sanders has a remarkable amount of cash to spend nearly $35 million in January compared with the nearly $20 million spent by Clinton. Advertisement The average size of a Sanders contribution in January was $27, a figure the candidate repeats so often that it became a joke on "Saturday Night Live" this month. Only about 600 people have given Sanders the $2,700 legal maximum. Clinton has received 23,000 donations at the maximum. But such checks are becoming harder to find. Clinton's team is now intensely focused on expanding its network of small givers. She has about 700,000 such donors. Sanders has double that. "The problem for Clinton is nobody thinks she needs their money," said Nicco Mele, a technologist who in 2004 helped Vermont Gov. Howard Dean use the Internet to shatter fundraising expectations by mobilizing the same type of progressive now giving to Sanders. By contrast, "everyone in the world thinks Bernie can't survive without their money," said Mele, a former executive at The Times. Comments on the Facebook pages of the two candidates make the difference explicit, as one big-dollar Clinton fundraiser in California noted in anxiously reading them aloud during a recent phone call with a reporter. The Sanders page is full of small donors evangelizing about the importance they attach to their small gifts. Not so on the Clinton page. "I'm glad I'm not in the middle of this," said Lindsay Mark Lewis, a former national finance director for the Democratic Party and author of "Political Mercenaries: The Inside Story of How Fundraisers Allowed Billionaires to Take Over Politics." Advertisement Clinton has a clear path out of her doldrums, Lewis said: Start winning states. A big night for Clinton on March 1, when 11 states vote, could lead to a significant pruning of the Sanders money tree. Clinton's big lead in the polls in several of those states has some of her supporters confident of that outcome. "From where we sit, she is right on track with plenty of room to grow," said Andy Spahn, whose political consulting firm advises Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg. "Nothing fuels fundraising like winning, so let's talk after Super Tuesday." Former California state Treasurer Phil Angelides and Board of Equalization member Fiona Ma, both of whom have raised more than $100,000 for Clinton, said in interviews that they also were confident that Clinton was where she needed to be. Clinton's relatively narrow victory Saturday in Nevada, though, is unlikely to create a sea change in cash flow to the candidates. Neither is expected to collect the kind of windfall Sanders attracted after he routed Clinton by 22 percentage points in New Hampshire, when he raised more in one day than Clinton raised on average over 10 days in January. The Clinton campaign, faced with the possibility of a continued onslaught from Sanders' legion of small donors and trying to grow its own such army, has been sending fundraising appeals online with an increasingly alarmed tone. "The Sanders campaign is outspending us on television in key Super Tuesday states, just like they did in New Hampshire," warned a pitch sent Thursday. "We absolutely must fight back can you help?" Advertisement The ask? $1. evan.halper@latimes.com For more on the Clinton campaign, follow @evanhalper ALSO: Timing is everything, and Clinton's timing is terrible Pope and Trump clash in an extraordinary campaign twist Advertisement In Nevada, young Latinos are 'Bernie kids' while parents are 'with Hillary' Sanders wages war on outside groups, but several back him Who might replace Scalia on the Supreme Court? Hillary Clinton campaigns Thursday in Las Vegas. She has seen her sizable lead in Nevada polls all but vanish. (John Locher / Associated Press ) Reporting from Las Vegas Hillary Clinton has done just about everything right ahead of Saturday's caucuses in Nevada. She began organizing early, visited the state repeatedly, hired some of its most talented political professionals and cultivated broad support from organized labor, Democratic leaders and the party's grass roots. Advertisement But Clinton made one glaring mistake: She failed to take Bernie Sanders seriously enough. Most crucially, she allowed him to dominate the television airwaves in the state starting in December and continuing through his momentum-building performances in the first two presidential nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. Advertisement Now Clinton's once-sizable lead in voter surveys has all but vanished, and both sides are bracing for a close finish. "Nevada has become a highly contested race and could either be Clinton's firewall or Sanders' proving ground," said Rebecca Lambe, a top strategist for Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who has not taken sides. It is far too soon to talk in terms of political life and death, or other such melodramas. But a loss in Nevada, which once seemed almost inconceivable, would do grave harm to Clinton and establish the Vermont senator as more than a charmingly irascible distraction en route to her certain nomination. Even a close Sanders finish could raise strong doubts about Clinton's candidacy, especially if he manages to cut deeply into her presumed base among Latino, black and Asian American voters. In a last sprint Friday, Clinton sought to bolster her support among women and Latinos. Appealing to both, her latest TV spot featured a scene from a meeting last weekend in East Las Vegas, where Clinton hugged a young girl who was afraid her parents would be deported. "Let me do the worrying," Clinton said. Sanders took his populist message to rural Nevada. He spoke Friday at a town-hall event in Elko, calling for a higher federal minimum wage and free college tuition two hallmarks of his campaign. "This is not a radical idea," he said. Advertisement Nevada has none of the storied history of Iowa's caucuses or New Hampshire's primary. But the vote here could go much further than either of those contests in shaping an increasingly unpredictable fight for the Democratic nomination. The only other time Nevada mattered this much in the primary season was in 2008, the first time it held its early caucuses, when Clinton and Barack Obama fought to a split decision; Clinton won the popular vote while Obama edged her in the delegate count. As in other early states, the fight here is less about delegates there are only 43 at stake, out of nearly 2,400 needed to win the nomination than expectations and perception. Had Clinton handily carried both Iowa and New Hampshire, the fight for the nomination would have essentially ended, even if Sanders continued campaigning. But Sanders nearly beat Clinton in the Iowa caucuses, and then won New Hampshire in a landslide the next week. Each of those setbacks came with caveats, however, or at least a rationale that Clinton and her supporters could use to explain away concerns. Iowa is overwhelmingly white and its Democrats have a broad progressive streak, which helped the more liberal Sanders. New Hampshire borders Vermont, giving Sanders an advantage as a next-door neighbor. That is why, even though many were stunned by the size and breadth of Sanders' New Hampshire victory, there was nervousness but not full-fledged panic within the Democratic establishment, which strongly leans in Clinton's favor. Advertisement Nevada is different. This vast desert state was supposed to be Clinton's fail-safe, or firewall, decisively stopping the Sanders conflagration before the flames spread. "Clinton country" is how Dina Titus, the congresswoman from Las Vegas and a supporter of the former first lady and secretary of State, describes it. Bill Clinton, running as "a different kind of Democrat" which is to say a relative moderate carried the state both times he ran for president. Hillary Clinton took vestiges of his support and remnants of her 2008 political organization and bolstered them by hiring veterans of Obama's successful campaigns here. She also enjoyed a huge advantage over Sanders in name recognition and, it was believed, an enormous edge among minority voters, who have been Clinton loyalists going back to her husband's years in the White House. That is why the stakes have grown so high. Advertisement Already facing doubts about his electability, a poor showing would send Sanders limping into the primary next weekend in South Carolina, where he is already the underdog, and after that the sprawling set of contests stretching nearly coast-to-coast on March 1. For most Nevadans, the caucuses will be an afterthought; only a small fraction of eligible voters are expected to turn out on a sunny Saturday afternoon. But the outcome could go a long way toward determining whether Clinton's firewall holds, or the Sanders insurgency blazes on brighter and stronger than before. Follow @markzbarabak for national & California politics MORE ON CAMPAIGN 2016 Hillary Clinton faces one problem she didn't expect: Money Advertisement Latinos seek answers from Sanders and Clinton in Las Vegas Trump and Pope Francis clash over immigration, another extraordinary campaign twist Driving a cab has never been easy, and it's never been harder since Uber and Lyft came to town with a new model of ferrying people from place to place. Saeid, who is 56, said he drives 15 hours a day now to make the money he could once make in eight. Damien Williams speaks about returning to Illinois from North Dakota after losing his job because of the fracking bust. (Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune) (Chicago Tribune) When the oil boom was churning in remote expanses of Montana and North Dakota, Andy Turco left college in Illinois to take a chance on finding backbreaking, dangerous and high-paying work on the Great Plains. He landed in Williston, N.D., where he lived in a car in a Wal-Mart parking lot for weeks, eventually getting hired as an oil roughneck. Turco worked 90 hours a week, earning nearly six figures, and said it was the best thing he'd done in his life. Advertisement "I'm finally living an adult lifestyle," Turco, then 24, said in March 2013, "instead of a teenage dropout lifestyle." But the floor dropped out from under Turco in the middle of 2014, when an oil glut led to a plunge in gas prices that delighted drivers but indirectly put an estimated 250,000 global oil and gas employees out of work, including Turco. He returned home to the Midwest and self-destructed. Advertisement A few minutes before dinner on Oct. 5, his mother found him in his bedroom dead of a heroin overdose. Andy Turco, shown in March 2013 after a 12-hour shift on an oil rig near Williston, N.D., returned home in mid-2014 after the oil glut put him out of work there. He died of a heroin overdose at the family home in Kenosha in October 2015. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune) Turco's fall is part of the boom and bust narrative unfolding in the oil range of the Great Plains, where many of the wind-swept fields that yielded economic abundance now stand idle. He and others from the Chicago area moved to North Dakota to follow the oil fracking boom, an opportunity that in Illinois has yet to materialize. Those who uprooted themselves from Illinois have seen the arc play out in ways that are disappointing and promising. Thousands of workers have lost jobs in North Dakota and moved. Other newcomers have planted roots and are trying to create a different identity for a community that's shrinking. Williston shed Turco and Damien Williams, a Naperville North High School graduate who went to North Dakota in April 2012 to work at an energy company and now works at an Aurora beer distributor. But Williston still is home to Rachel Laqua and Amy Liebel, who have settled there after arriving in 2012 from the Chicago area. Both moved as single professionals to take jobs created by the boom. Today they own homes and are married to local men. Liebel has a 2-year-old son. Once considered the epicenter of the boom, Williston has lost at least a quarter of its population, which was as high as 42,000 in 2013. Unemployment claims in Williams County, where Williston is located, have tripled. The county's taxable sales revenue in the third quarter of 2015 dropped by more than 44 percent from the same period a year earlier. But the city also has a new $70 million recreational center that the park district director says is among the largest in the nation. Construction is nearly finished on a $60 million high school and a $115 million wastewater treatment plant. A $160 million truck bypass opened last year, and the city has about half the funding lined up for an expanded, relocated $245 million airport, Mayor Howard Klug said. "It feels," said Laqua, taking a break from her job as a senior planner with the city, "like a town that's kind of settled into itself." Advertisement Boom and bust Robust economic expansion hit western North Dakota starting in 2009, thanks to the improved technology of horizontal hydraulic fracturing commonly known as fracking which frees oil from deep underground shale by injecting millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals into the stone. At the same time, oil prices began a strong rise, said Rob Grunewald, an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank in Minneapolis, who has studied the region's economy for years. Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 12 Damien Williams, 24, a former machinist in North Dakota during the oil boom, at his apartment in Aurora on Feb. 19, 2016. He moved back to Illinois after losing his job in the oil bust. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune) Illinois started feeling the rush in 2012, when energy companies descended on oil-producing counties in southern regions of the state and began leasing mineral rights. In November 2014, the state approved regulations for fracking. Two companies have applied for permits but neither has begun hydraulic fracturing, said Illinois Department of Natural Resources spokesman Chris Young. North Dakota's boom was epic. Thousands moved to Williston, nearly tripling the population in five years, pushing rental prices to the highest in the U.S. and prompting the construction of temporary "man camps," among other measures. Streets, stores and restaurants were overwhelmed. Unemployment dropped to 0.7 percent. The city's economic development department reported that the average salary was nearly $71,000 a year. So strong did the boom reverberate that even Hollywood got in on it. ABC produced a TV drama series, "Blood & Oil," based on the boom. Then, in June 2014, oil peaked at $107.95 a barrel and started dropping, largely because the global supply was increasing while demand waned. Advertisement Several factors contributed. U.S. production has risen significantly in recent years. Meanwhile, the 13-country Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, led by Saudi Arabia, has balked at cutting oil production to drive up prices because OPEC wants to maintain or grow its share of the market, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In addition, Western sanctions on Iran have been lifted, bringing its oil to market. And previously strong economies in China and Brazil slowed, easing oil demand there. This week the price of a barrel of oil stood at slightly more than $31. Four former Illinois residents share their thoughts about working and living in the city of Williston, which is in the middle of the oil boom territory of North Dakota on March 13, 2013. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune) (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune) In search of a better life Turco, born in Hoffman Estates and raised in the McHenry County community of Richmond, was a high school dropout who earned his GED and tried college for a while. But he left school and was working dead-end jobs when a friend in Williston told him about the opportunities there. He had some drug problems and was nearly homeless. Clearing out of town and starting anew seemed like a smart move. It worked. His job on the drilling rig kept him too busy to use drugs, he and friends said. His typical work schedule was nearly 13-hour days for two consecutive weeks, then two weeks off. He got a serious girlfriend and an apartment. Advertisement "I have an oil field lifestyle," Turco said in 2013, when he, Williams, Liebel and Laqua were subjects of a Tribune story. "It's a different life experience. It's kind of cool to learn about a new job that no one else knows about." Williams, of Naperville, arrived in April 2012. His father, who was working in northwest North Dakota, persuaded Williams to leave his restaurant server job and move to Williston, where he found work cleaning pipe then got promoted to machinist. "I've gotten used to the realization that Chicago's not home anymore," Damien Williams said in 2013. "This is where I plan on living the next 20 to 30 years." But in the late spring of 2015, Williams lost his machinist job in Williston, a few months after his father lost his job, Williams said. Today he works stocking beer kegs in Aurora, where he lives. He earns about one-third of what he was making in Williston, he said, adding that he hopes the oil industry rebounds so he can return to North Dakota. "It'll pick up," Williams said, "once all this political BS is cleared up." Advertisement Liebel, of Libertyville, had a teaching degree and was unable to find a job in the field in Illinois. Then she heard about Williston, applied for a job and was hired six days later. She began teaching 8th grade math to start the school year in 2012. Today she works as an elementary school teacher. Her husband, whom she met at the middle school, continues working there and "doesn't want to move anywhere near Illinois," Liebel said. "I'm stuck here forever. We are lifers." She misses home but likes the slower version of Williston more than boomtown Williston. Today the city offers more family-oriented activities and has imposed measures that will require two downtown strip clubs to stop selling liquor or move to an industrial district. The truck bypass has diverted virtually all of the semis that used to rumble through town, Liebel said. Train cars are lined up near Williston, which is in the middle of the oil boom territory of North Dakota, in 2013. (Zbigniew Bzdak, Chicago Tribune) "It's still buzzing, in a different way," she said. "I'll grow to like it." Raised in North Aurora and living in Wrigleyville while she completed her master's degree in planning at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Laqua was offered a job in the Williston planning department in July 2012. She viewed it as a chance to broaden her work experience and as an adventure. She was promoted to senior planner, bought a two-bedroom ranch house in September 2014 and got married on New Year's Eve 2015. Advertisement Like Liebel, Laqua prefers the downsized Williston, which, she noted, has added finer restaurants and four or five boutiques. And she loves her job. "I think it's a much more permanent community," Laqua said. "I see people getting more involved now. This is home." Life, death and oil On a visit back to his parents' home in mid-2014, Andy Turco was aware the boom was ending. "This thing's going to come screeching to a halt and we're all going to be out of work real soon," his father, Rick Turco, recalled the young oil worker saying. Daywatch Weekdays Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. > By early 2015, Andy had been laid off and was home with the family, which had moved to Kenosha. Boredom led him back to heroin, Rick Turco said. At Andy's wake, the impact of his life became clearer. A woman embraced Rick Turco and told him that Andy saved her son's life by plucking him from a drug house and taking him to a treatment center. A bunch of his oil crew buddies drove more than 800 miles overnight to attend the memorial. Advertisement In the months since he'd returned home, other job opportunities had come Turco's way. A company that cleaned ethanol manufacturing plants offered him a five-year contract, Rick Turco recalled. His former oil field boss, who'd also been laid off, asked Turco to help build a landscaping company. But nothing appealed to him like oil field work, Rick Turco said of his son. Andy Turco took a great deal of pride in the physically demanding, high-pressure aspects of the job and held out hope that he would return. It might sound odd now, his father said, but the oil boom saved Andy Turco's life for a time. tgregory@tribpub.com Twitter @tgregoryreports In his nine years as a Pullman porter, Benjamin Gaines waited on high society types as they traveled across the country aboard luxury rail cars. Gaines, who moved to Chicago in 1945, washed dishes, mixed drinks, served aged cheese and sardines, shined shoes, changed bedsheets and also found time to regale passengers with stories on routes from Seattle to Miami. Advertisement "I always catered to the kids," Gaines said. "They'd come back to the club car. I would point out scenery to them as we traveled out west and their parents were appreciative of the fact I had knowledge about where we were going to." Gaines, now 93, is a member of a dwindling fraternity of Pullman porters who have lived to see their legacy immortalized, first with the creation of the A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum in 1995, and, one year ago, when President Barack Obama proclaimed the South Side Pullman district as the nation's 406th national park. Advertisement The National Park Service and several of its partners will gather Friday in the visitors center of the Pullman National Monument to commemorate the monument's first anniversary and elaborate on what's next for the site. Mayor Rahm Emanuel U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly and Ald. Anthony Beale, 9th, are also expected to speak at the private event. The Pullman Palace Car Co., founded by George Pullman, leased a variety of cars to railroads and directly employed the attendants, including porters, many of whom were recently freed slaves. For much of the early 20th century, the company was the largest employer of African-Americans, with porters contributing to the significant growth of the black middle class. Their union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, secured the first major labor agreement between a union led by African-Americans and a corporation. "The porters, believe it or not, we had a celebrity status," Gaines said during a recent interview at his Evanston home. "We were upper-class because it was a prestigious job. "A lot of porters bought homes from working on the railroad. Many of the brownstones on the South Side of Chicago, porters bought them with tips and money they made from working extra runs." Born in a Kentucky town "that wasn't as big as Soldier Field" and raised in Evansville, Ind., Gaines relished the opportunity to travel all over the country. He recalled a seemingly vertical ascent on a route to Denver, and snaking through the nearly 6-mile Moffat Tunnel that cuts across the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains en route to Salt Lake City. Porters had to bid for routes, with the most coveted destinations going to those with seniority. As a newly minted porter, Gaines got lucky when an older colleague retired and he was put a route from Detroit to Miami. Tourists heading south tipped well and the porters got some time in sunny Florida. When more seasoned porters asked about how passengers tipped, Gaines lowballed in an effort to keep the route. But veteran porters eventually caught on and he got bumped, Gaines said. Advertisement Passengers rode in high style. On club cars, porters mixed a gin and soda for 90 cents. On the end of trains was generally a bullet-shaped observation car that provided passengers with panoramic views of the countryside. And, of course, the renowned sleeping cars, where passengers lodged in roomettes with two bunks. Porters had much more modest accommodations, with most having to settle for about three hours of sleep in dining or club cars after they'd closed, Gaines said. "We broke the tables down and slept on cots," Gaines said. "We got up the next morning, picked up and everything looked like the day before." Gaines fondly remembers sharing the company of celebrities like "The Invisible Man" actor Claude Rains, who enjoyed a nightly glass of whiskey on train rides to his farm in rural Pennsylvania. Gaines also met actor Victor Mature, who regularly traveled on routes to his home in Louisville and had once asked Gaines for a favor. "He asked me one evening, 'Can I get off from your car when we arrive in the terminal?'" Gaines recalled. "He said, 'The reason being, I know the press is going to be there and I'll be two hours trying to get away from them. If I can get off on your car I can duck him.' And that's what he did." And while most of Gaines' encounters with passengers were pleasant, he and other porters also endured racial prejudice during times of segregation. Some passengers disparagingly referred to all porters as "George." Advertisement "My answer was, 'My name is Benjamin Franklin Gaines. There's no George anywhere,'" Gaines said. "I think it caught them by surprise because there would be no follow-up insult behind that." Daywatch Weekdays Start each day with Chicago Tribune editors' top story picks, delivered to your inbox. > Gaines, who worked as a porter from 1945 to 1954, doesn't have much in terms of memorabilia from those days. He didn't visit the former Pullman company town during his time as a porter. But he has visited the A. Philip Randolph Museum to view items from the collection like the signature blue jacket and cap of the sort he once wore. After his time with Pullman he went on to work in the stockroom of Encyclopedia Americana and for the Postal Service. His railroad days inspired a lifelong love of travel. He has visited all 50 states as well as Europe and Asia. A few years after leaving his porter job, Gaines and his wife, Lydia, who died in 2008, built a home in Evanston, where they raised their two sons. He and one son still live there. "I like to think we served people with dignity, without being Uncle Toms," Gaines said. "It was small things that we did endeared us to a lot of passengers out there. If you were courteous to people, they appreciated it." "I just enjoyed taking care of people," he said. "To me, it was fun and it made the trip a lot shorter." Advertisement tbriscoe@tribpub.com Twitter @_tonybriscoe The state's debt to Chicago's Catholic Charities, Illinois' largest social services agency, now tops $25 million because of the state's ongoing budget impasse, forcing the agency to do something it's never done before appeal to priests and parishioners to lobby politicians in Springfield on behalf of the needy. The cash reserves that have kept the archdiocese agency alive until now are quickly running dry as the state falls further behind in paying its bills. Services that for years the state has hired the charity to provide are not covered by the budget proposed Wednesday by Gov. Bruce Rauner, said Rep. Greg Harris, a Chicago Democrat who heads the House Human Services Appropriations Committee. Advertisement In a letter going out to parish priests Friday, Monsignor Michael Boland, president and CEO of Chicago's Catholic Charities, is urging parishioners to remind their legislators that lives are at stake if the financial crisis isn't resolved. The agency provides services across Cook and Lake counties, from in-home care and early childhood education to feeding the homeless and substance abuse treatment. "The safety net is fragile to begin with in social services," Boland said in an interview Thursday. "Our elected officials have to realize these are human beings we're talking about human lives. Once these things start to unravel, it creates less options for people. For us, some of these situations can be life or death." Advertisement Since last year, Republican Rauner and the Democrat-controlled General Assembly have been deadlocked on how to solve a $6.6 billion budget deficit a stalemate that has led to billions of dollars in unpaid bills, social service agencies shutting their doors and some state universities considering mass layoffs. At Catholic Charities, where 70 percent of the $200 million annual budget relies on government funding, the budget impasse has led to belt-tightening, layoffs coupled with a hiring freeze and a drain on cash reserves. A second round of layoffs could be coming soon. The state's debt to the charity has been going up $2 million each month since July 1, the charity said. Boland said he is less concerned about the agency's future and more about its 1.3 million clients in Cook and Lake counties who have watched the state's social services network crumble during the eight-month budget impasse. Smaller agencies with no reserves have been forced to cut services or shut down, programs that won't reopen when a budget is finally passed, he said. Earlier this month, Lutheran Social Services of Illinois announced it would cut 750 jobs and close 30 of its 190 programs for veterans and substance abuse clients. According to the United Way of Illinois, 83 percent of the state's social service agencies have cut programs, largely due to the deadlock. Boland said he does not want to make that choice, especially since many clients from terminated programs have landed on his doorstep. "I don't want our clients to think that we're not going to be there. What we want to have (legislators) realize is (that) the impact can be very grave if agencies continually have to spiral down and close down." But options are dwindling, he said. Belt-tightening is difficult at an agency that spends 8 cents of every dollar on overhead. And in addition to the $2 million monthly reimbursements for contracted services that Catholic Charities has been providing, the state remains about $10 million behind in passing along federal money. According to a spokesman for the state comptroller, since July Illinois has paid only vendors authorized to bill the state with an appropriation or a court order. Other invoices from Catholic Charities are hung up at various state departments, primarily the Department on Aging, which owes the charity about $15 million so far. Advertisement The closure of other agencies' programs also affects referrals that Catholic Charities makes for services it does not provide. When an addict walked into the emergency assistance center at 721 N. LaSalle St. on Wednesday, director Sharon Tillmon, struggled to find an agency to take her, since both Lutheran Social Services and Haymarket Center recently closed their residential detox units. On Thursday, she was still searching. "If she's willing to come and say, 'I need help,' we're going to try to figure out a way to try to help her," Tillmon said. "That's what you do with your partnerships. People are suffering all over. Programs are full. Programs are trying to hang on. Who's trying to get new clients?" While 30 percent of the Catholic Charities budget comes from donations raised during the annual Mother's Day collection in parishes and 37 other fundraising events throughout the year, Friday's appeal is unusual in that it urges political advocacy on top of volunteer efforts and financial support. "All of us have an obligation to speak on behalf of those struggling in our communities, in our neighborhoods, in our parishes," Boland said. Ann Rainey, 70, of Maywood, said she could not make it if Catholic Charities closed the adult day care center that watches her mother, Willie Beasley, every day. Though Beasley, 89, has dementia and sometimes misremembers her name, she is physically more agile than her daughter, who endures constant pain from sciatica. Overcome with boredom and confusion one day, Beasley tried to break out of her daughter's house using a knife, Rainey said. Rainey found help at Accolade Adult Day Care Services in Oak Park. Now her mother spends five days a week working puzzles, playing chair volleyball, coloring and taking field trips. Advertisement "She actually runs to the bus to get on," Rainey said. "She hates Saturdays, Sundays and holidays because she's not there. There is no way with her activity level and my slight disability I can run around with her all day long. Just trying to keep her content was becoming a problem." Boland says people like Rainey and her mother are being held hostage by Springfield's ideological battles, adding that lawmakers have a moral obligation to solve the budget impasse. "I'm worried about the million people we serve or more," Boland said. "They should not be pawns in this game. ... We're trying to say the priorities for us are the poor, and their services should not be denied because they don't have a voice." Chicago Tribune's Monique Garcia contributed from Springfield. mbrachear@tribpub.com Twitter @TribSeeker Not along ago, Illinois pharmacist and attorney Lawrence Joyce began to realize his country and his political party were facing what he considered to be a nightmare. Concerns about the eligibility for the presidency of Republican candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas, who was born in Canada to a Cuban father and an American mother, were raised by rival Donald Trump. Though they may at first have seemed laughable, the legal case against Cruz was one Joyce, a Ben Carson supporter, thought he understood. Advertisement The Constitution requires the president to be a "natural born" citizen of the United States, and as far as Joyce is concerned, Cruz isn't one. And Cruz, who won the Iowa caucuses earlier this month, appeared to be rising in the polls. What would happen if Cruz won the Republican nomination, then was somehow disqualified from the general election? Advertisement So Joyce took action, filing a complaint with the Illinois State Board of Elections to get Cruz's name off the primary ballot in the state. The board dismissed the claim after a hearing officer found, as Cruz argues, that the "Candidate is a 'natural born citizen' by virtue of having been born in Canada to a United States citizen, thereby not causing the Candidate to have to take any steps or undergo a naturalization process to become a United States citizen." Joyce, not satisfied, filed an appeal in Cook County Circuit Court. The Associated Press reports that Friday, Cook County Judge Maureen Ward Kirby set a hearing on a motion to dismiss the suit filed by Cruz's lawyer for March 1 the first day Joyce said he'd be able to get off work to return to court. By then, ballots for Illinois' March 15 primary will be printed and early voting underway. "Senator Cruz has been whistling past the graveyard all along," Joyce wrote in a statement posted to 888 Web Today, a conservative, Christian site to which he contributes columns. "That he should happen to do so within the thoughts of his own mind would be one thing, but that he should now drag the entire Republican Party through a potential nightmare simply because of his negligence, his own private, wishful thinking, and his lack of due diligence is inexcusable, and such conduct hardly signifies the type of person whom the American people need in a President of the United States, and whom members of the conservative movement need in order to prevent the Establishment Wing of the Republican Party from depriving us of one of our own candidates." It is this "establishment wing" that Joyce appears to fear the most. Should party bosses select a candidate in lieu of Cruz, that candidate would likely not appeal to its base. "The party elders would decide who the new nominee would be," Joyce said in an interview with a Christian media outlet earlier this month. "Karl Rove and company would pick perhaps Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney or Chris Christie." He added: "I am quite frankly terrified of such a scenario taking place." "Ted Cruz was born in Canada," he said. "His mother was a U.S. citizen at the time. Under statute, Ted Cruz became a citizen at birth ... but citizenship by statute is not natural-born citizenship." What makes Joyce so certain is unclear, as the question has never been adjudicated by the Supreme Court and is the subject of disagreement among some of the nation's most respected constitutional scholars, with only a small minority believing that Cruz might be ineligible. Advertisement What gives Joyce the right to contest Cruz's eligibility is also unclear, as courts, even state courts, do not generally recognize being "terrified" as granting standing to pursue a legal challenge like his. While that may or may not doom Joyce's case in the courts, he's persisting. Should Cruz win the nomination, Joyce said, the dominoes would begin to fall. The Republicans would be vulnerable in every jurisdiction as their opponents sought to disqualify Cruz with the help of a friendly judge anywhere in the country. "If Ted Cruz becomes the nominee of the party, then say sometime around September, Democrats ... (will) file a suit challenging Ted Cruz's eligibility," he said. "... All fundraising for Cruz's campaign would instantly dry up. He would be pressured from multiple sources to resign the nomination." Joyce also said that Trump should consider his pending lawsuit as well. "My case presents the perfect opportunity for Donald Trump himself to step forward and bring the matter to court personally," he told CBS Chicago. Saying he did little more with his law practice than file friend of the court briefs in support of anti-abortion groups, he added: "It would no doubt be impossible for me to absorb all the legal expenses by myself and it would foolish to try to do so when Mr. Trump has so much personal stock invested in this issue." The Cruz campaign declined comment about the suit to USA Today. Cruz takes the position, as did the Illinois State Board of Elections, that he is a natural-born citizen because his mother was a citizen at the time of his birth in Canada. Advertisement "I never breathed a breath of air on this planet when I was not a U.S. citizen," Cruz said Wednesday, according to USA Today. "It was the act of being born that made me a U.S. citizen." Cruz, a lawyer, former Supreme Court clerk and former Supreme Court litigator, added, "There will be some who try to work political mischief on it, but as a legal matter, this is clear and straightforward." "I'd be very, very surprised if (the judge) were to say he's ineligible," Sanford Levinson, constitutional law professor at the University of Texas School of Law, also told USA Today. "At that point, all hell would break loose." A federal lawsuit regarding Cruz's presidential eligibility was filed in Texas in January, according to USA Today, and two voters in New York filed a lawsuit Wednesday in New York state court seeking to compel that state's board of elections to strike Cruz's name from the ballot, Bloomberg reported. Whatever happens to Cruz, Joyce made it clear he would prefer Carson, who he said has a "serious demeanor," as Republican nominee and president. "You rarely see him in the debates with his hands below his waist," Joyce said. "That comes from 30 years of being prepared from surgery." He stuck to the agreement reached by Bush for the withdrawal of U.S. troops by the end of 2011. But he ordered a major escalation in Afghanistan, hoping for a success that would facilitate an early exit. Things didn't work out that way. Nearly 10,000 U.S. troops are still there, with no exit date on the calendar. The top American commander in Afghanistan said in December, "My intent would be to keep as much as I could for as long as I could." The crisis in Flint, Mich., has focused attention on lead-tainted water flowing through taps in the U.S. as well as lead paint exposures that continue to plague cities such as Baltimore and Philadelphia. While there's skepticism surrounding recent claims that lead poisoning rates are higher in Philadelphia than in Flint, there's no disputing that there's a serious problem in both cities and many others. The term "poisoning" is the source of some confusion. Since Flint switched to a more corrosive source of water in 2014, bringing lead from pipes into the drinking supply, some residents have reported rashes, hair loss, fatigue and other classic symptoms of lead poisoning. But scientists now believe that exposures too low to cause people to feel sick can do serious and possibly permanent neurological damage, especially in children. Advertisement Studies have found evidence of learning and behavior problems in children with blood lead levels of less than 10 micrograms per deciliter, which until a few years ago was considered safe. That's well below the average of 15 micrograms per deciliter back in the 1970s, when people were exposed to lead from gasoline. The biggest concern is for very young children and developing fetuses, scientists say, because lead can interfere with the way the brain develops. The effects, they say, are more likely to be permanent when exposure comes early. That doesn't mean kids can't be helped. Some scientists have found that enriched learning environments mitigate lead's damage. Advertisement The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now considers anything above 5 micrograms per deciliter to be high enough for concern. Since the start of the lead crisis in Flint, the percentage of U.S. children measuring over that limit doubled to nearly 5 percent. Meanwhile, some studies show that around a tenth of the children living in Philadelphia exceed that limit. But Flint's problem is uneven and unpredictable, with water contamination much worse in some homes than others. Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 27 Former Michigan State Police Inspector Ellis Stafford, left, and Jeff Seipenko, special agent for the Michigan attorney general, sit in court with arrest warrants in their hands on April 20, 2016. (Rachel Woolf / The Flint Journal) A report from the American Chemical Society shows that while many cities safely rely on lead pipes, authorities in Flint failed to use required anti-corrosion additives in particular, a phosphate compound that was recommended at a cost of $50,000. The result was that some samples of residents' tap water measured 900 times the allowable limits on lead. Twentieth-century Americans couldn't have done a much more thorough job of maximizing lead exposure, said Harvard University neurologist David Bellinger. They coated the insides of homes with lead, used it to carry drinking water and burned it in cars. Until recently, it wasn't widely appreciated that lead from pipes, paint and gasoline were exposing people to unnatural levels, said Christopher Sellers, a historian specializing in environmental issues. Lead is an element that is part of the Earth's crust. In the early 20th century, people didn't know how much lead would naturally occur in air, water or dust. That changed, said Sellers, after a mid-century geochemist named Clair Patterson started a project to calculate the age of the Earth using the rate of decay of uranium to lead. Patterson found he had to contend with a surprising amount of lead contamination and set to work investigating the source and consequences of it. Using clues such as the abundance of lead in ancient layers of Greenland's icecap, he concluded that environmental lead had spiked. "A prevailing belief is that industrial and natural sources contribute more or less equal amounts of lead to the body burdens of the general population," he wrote in 1965. "A new approach to this matter suggests that the average resident of the United States is being subjected to severe chronic lead insult." Manufacturers of leaded gasoline fought back, going so far as to offer his institution, the California Institute of Technology, an endowed chair if they would fire him, according to Bill Bryson's book, "A Short History of Nearly Everything." Later, doctors started to make equally alarming findings. In one 1979 study, the physician Herbert Needleman measured lead in baby teeth from seemingly healthy children living near Boston. He found that kids with higher-than-average lead levels showed more behavioral and learning problems. Lead-industry researchers disputed the finding, but other studies were starting to bolster the idea. Advertisement One study showed a connection between lead in umbilical-cord blood an indication of prenatal exposure with the IQ scores measured 30 years later. In the early 21st century, studies were showing reduced IQs in kids, in some cases by more than 7 points. It looks like most of us are not as bright as we would have been if leaded paint and gasoline had never been invented. Lead is absorbed by the brain because the body mistakes it for necessary elements zinc and calcium said neuroscientist Tomas Guilarte. Once there, lead interferes with the mechanism of learning a series of changes involving the brain's delicate system of chemical signaling and growth of new neurons. In experiments on lab rats, he said, they found that the best countermeasure to lead exposure is not a chemical strategy. What helped was exercise and stimulation from toys and other challenges. In a study of children exposed to lead in Mexico, he said, adding an enriched learning environment was beneficial. This could amount to going to museums, art and music lessons and physical exercise, he said, exactly the things that wealthy kids will get from their parents if not provided at school. Guilarte says that just getting bottled water to Flint isn't enough. Without extra help, kids there, whether sickened or not, could suffer long-term consequences from the months they drank contaminated water before the problem came to light. Enriched learning is the least the country owes them in compensation. Bloomberg Faye Flam writes about science, mathematics and medicine. She has been a staff writer for Science magazine and a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer. She is author of "The Score: How the Quest for Sex has Shaped the Modern Man." Brazil has dispatched nearly 250,000 military personnel to defeat an enemy that is wily and relentless: Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that transmits the Zika virus. The virus has been blamed for a spike in the number of infants born with brain damage in Brazil and other countries. The World Health Organization has declared a global emergency and is scrambling to contain Zika. Advertisement The troops in Brazil, however, didn't wield the typical weapons of mosquito warfare trucks laden with insecticide, bottles of repellent, reams of netting. Instead they came armed with fliers. Yes, sheets of paper that instructed residents how to eradicate a pest that thrives in poor communities where residents gather water in rooftop tanks or containers, inadvertently creating ideal breeding conditions for the insect. These soldiers and residents battle an aggressive and resilient foe, and, increasingly, the fear, suspicion and misinformation that can sweep through communities with as much virulence as the virus itself. Advertisement Is Brazil up to the challenge of defeating Zika in time for the Summer Olympics, set to begin in Rio de Janeiro this August? Stay tuned. This will get up close and personal. The country has a huge economic and political stake in staging a thrilling Olympiad, which doesn't include a medal competition for mosquito swatting. Bronze won't do. Brazilian leaders have donned T-shirts bearing a deceased cartoon mosquito for the optimistically dubbed "Zika Zero" campaign. There's a catchy slogan: "A mosquito is not stronger than an entire country." But Brazil is going to need more than a tag line to triumph in this fight. It will have to punch above its weight. The Zika crisis is only the latest Olympics-sized challenge for Brazil. Last August brought headlines that the sewage-clotted waters of Rio's Guanabara Bay, site of the aquatic events at the Olympics, had sickened a South Korean windsurfer. He was hospitalized for dehydration, vomiting and dizziness after an Olympic sailing test. In September, the recession-bound country's finances took a major hit, when its sovereign debt rating was cut to "junk." And there's a blossoming corruption scandal involving the state-controlled oil company, Petrobras, and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. The Brazilian president's popularity is racing toward zero: Only about 5 percent of her constituents say she is doing a good or great job, Reuters reports. A recent poll found that 92 percent of Brazilians think the country is "not on the right track." Ouch. And now ... Zika. Advertisement How goes the battle? Too early to tell. But there are cautionary tales from the front: One Brazil state recently halted the use of a mosquito larvicide after an Argentine doctor's group warned that the chemical could be causing infant brain damage. Their proof? None. Zilch. Zero. Scientists in the U.S. and Brazil say that there is no scientific basis to make that claim, The Wall Street Journal reports. Armed forces personnel take part in the day of national mobilization against the Aedes aegypti mosquito that transmits dengue and chikungunya fever and Zika virus, in Vila Isabel, north of Rio de Janeiro on Feb. 13, 2016. (Tasso Marcelo, AFP/Getty Images) Some Brazilians blame Zika on a British biotech company that released a re-engineered mosquito strain. Others promote conspiracy theories that involve childhood vaccines. Some doubt the disease even exists. All of that could impede prevention. Zika and the mosquito can be vanquished. We're happy to see that the World Health Organization has reversed course and signed on to our editorial board's previously declared anti-mosquito crusade: Use genetically modified mosquitoes to wipe out pest populations. That is a smart long-term strategy, with emphasis on long. Brazil has only five-plus months before more than 10,000 athletes from 206 countries arrive. It has to show the world that after a muddled start, it can mount a credible campaign against Zika-carrying mosquitoes. Brazil will need to convince athletes that it is safe enough to compete, and convince potential visitors that it is safe enough to watch particularly women who are pregnant or plan to try soon. We imagine there are quite a few airline and hotel reservations that are now on hold, as people around the world watch the epic battle of Brazil vs. the mosquito. Follow the Editorial Board on Twitter @Trib_Ed_Board and on Facebook. There is some good news in reference to Illinois. The Animal Legal Defense Fund has reported that Illinois has the strongest animal protection laws in the nation. These laws were enacted to deter violent individuals from abusing, mistreating, neglecting, abandoning and cruelly harming animals in general and companion animals in particular. We need law enforcement officers, prosecutors and judges to pro-actively arrest, convict and imprison inhumane criminals who kill, torture and traumatize dogs, cats, horses and other innocent creatures. This is a very important issue because dangerous culprits who abuse animals also have a pattern of assaulting and harming innocent humans too. All efforts are needed to reduce rampant violent crime in Illinois. Advertisement Brien Comerford, Glenview It is frustrating to witness the continued stalemate between House Speaker Michael Madigan and Gov. Bruce Rauner. Apparently "we the people" of this beloved state have no standing when it comes to the politicians' decisions as to how "they" want to run the government. The citizens of the state of Illinois sent a message to the state legislature that we wanted change. We bought into Rauner's agenda and voted him into office to "clean up the mess" that was created by the politicians acquiescing to the unions and being fiscally irresponsible. Illinois has the proud distinction of being one of the worst states in the Union from a financial perspective. How in the world will we turn this around when Madigan refuses to allow our elected governor the opportunity to do what he promised and was elected to do. It is complete disregard for what the voters desired. Advertisement The cost to us taxpayers to bail out our state will be enormous. Until we can get this fixed we will have to pay more and settle for less all because of the irresponsibility of those in the General Assembly who got us into this mess. It is long past due to vote these ineffective, self-serving politicians out of office. Dave Roberts, Frankfort The Democrats all but dared him to take part last year when they sent him their spending wish list. It was a series of appropriations bills that totaled some $4 billion more than anticipated tax revenues, not a budget, as some have characterized it, but an opening gambit. The implicit invitation: "Yes, we know it's out of balance, as was your own budget proposal, but hack away, guv! And when you've decided what and where you want to spend, it'll be our turn." David Olsen is sworn in as College of DuPage's seventh board member by Judge Liam Brennan during a meeting Feb. 18, 2016, at the college in Glen Ellyn. (Rob Hart / Chicago Tribune) The College of DuPage board of trustees decided to give local prosecutors recordings of two past closed-door meetings after a debate Thursday in which the board's newest member cast the deciding vote. The bitterly divided board voted 4-3 to turn over the recordings, which could shed light on a contract extension given to former President Robert Breuder shortly before he began severance negotiations in 2014. Trustee David Olsen who was sworn in earlier Thursday night made no comment before voting to end a six-week stalemate on the issue. Advertisement DuPage County prosecutors first asked the college in January to turn over minutes and a "verbatim record" from closed-session board meetings in February and March 2014. Assistant State's Attorney Gregory Vaci, who heads the office's civil division, wrote that he intended to review records to see whether the board complied with the state's open meetings act. Acting chairwoman Deanne Mazzochi called a special meeting last month to discuss the request, but it was boycotted by longtime trustees Dianne McGuire, Erin Birt and Joseph Wozniak. Without their participation, the board did not have a quorum and could not vote on the request. Advertisement Prosecutors have said they need the board's cooperation to obtain the recordings because they can't subpoena them as part of a civil investigation. The longtime trustees have argued the recordings should be turned over only in response to a court order because the closed-door discussions contain sensitive personnel information that is protected under the law. "My concern is protecting this college, not (protecting) the closed session," McGuire said. The college's attorney, Tim Elliott, said state law allows for the release for this purpose. In his wrongful termination lawsuit against the college, Breuder says he was informed March 7, 2014, by then-Chairwoman Birt that a majority of the board had approved an extension of his contract until 2019. College records show the board had a special meeting March 6, 2014, and met in executive session for 2 1/2 hours to discuss personnel issues. McGuire, Birt and Wozniak were in all those closed-door meetings, according to college records. Breuder began negotiating a severance agreement with trustees the next month. The lawsuit's mention of the March discussion has become a flash point for Breuder critics, who have asked DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin to review whether there was an illegal closed-door vote. The decision could depend on the interpretation of a trigger clause in Breuder's contract that automatically extended his three-year employment deal for another year every April unless the board opted to fire him. According to the contract, the board did not have to vote on its decision in an open meeting a caveat that arguably violates the spirit of the state's open meetings law. Indeed, Berlin signaled his concern for the trigger clause last year. In a letter to then-Chairwoman Katharine Hamilton, Berlin said if the board decided in a closed session to let Breuder's contract renew, it would have been a violation of state law because it is essentially the taking of a final action even though there was no official vote. But the legal remedy would be of little use, Berlin said, because courts cannot reverse a nonaction. Advertisement Berlin's earlier review looked into a 2011 contract extension, not the 2014 extension. The board fired Breuder in October, rescinding his $763,000 severance deal. Breuder filed his lawsuit the next day. His attorney, Martin Dolan, has said Breuder was not present when the contract extension was discussed and relied on the board's chairwoman to communicate the board's position. The prosecutors' interest in the recording came during a period of intense infighting among the board, which had been deadlocked 3-3 since Hamilton abruptly resigned in December for undisclosed personal reasons. Since that time, trustees have struggled to agree on meeting agendas and have frequently brought college business to a standstill. They also could not agree on Hamilton's replacement, a failure that left the decision to Illinois Community College Board Chairman Lazaro Lopez. On Saturday, Lopez appointed Olsen, 27-year-old Downers Grove village commissioner, to the post. sstclair@tribpub.com Advertisement jscohen@tribpub.com Twitter @stacystclair Twitter @higherednews Clockwise: Miriam and Marty Lebedun of Lincolnshire have been married for 62 years. Terry (left) and Rockie McConnaughhay will celebrate 70 years of marriage in May. Evanston residents Dr. Leigh Rosenblum and his wife Betty met in Germany while in the military. Love and marriage is good for you. Studies show and experts agree married people typically enjoy better emotional and physical well-being than those who aren't married. While stress and conflict can be a part of any relationship, a good relationship with low conflict can help lower the risk of mortality and improve quality of life. Advertisement Older adults especially benefit from a long-lasting, happy marriage. We spoke with three couples who have nearly 192 years of marriage between them. Residents of GreenFields of Geneva, Terry, 95, and Rockie McConnaughay, also 95, will be married 70 years in May. Miriam, 81, and Marty Lebedun, 86, have been married for 62 years and now reside in Sedgebrook in Lincolnshire. Betty, 88, and Dr. Leigh Rosenblum, also 88, have been married for 60 years and live in The Merion in Evanston. Advertisement Be mine Times may have changed but some of the ways people meet haven't, whether it's in college, in a bar or through relatives. "My brother threw me at him," says Miriam Lebedun. She explains that she was with her brother at a campus carnival at the Medical Center of University of Illinois in Chicago, where she was attending nursing school. Marty, who had graduated from the pharmacy school, was there as well. Miriam's brother knew Marty. He introduced the two, and then disappeared for the night. The McConnaughay also met through family members their siblings. Rockie's sister married Terry's brother. They met several times while their siblings were dating, and then both stood up for their wedding. The Rosenblums were brought together through the military in post-World War II Germany. They met in a bar. Betty was teaching children of servicemen in the American school and Leigh had been drafted by the Army as a physician. "I had to break someone else's heart in order to date Leigh," says Betty. That indefinable thing called "chemistry" began to work. The Rosenblums agree they knew they liked each other right away. Eight months later they married in May 1955. The McConnaughays also had WWII as a backdrop. Terry went into the service on Jan. 1, 1942. The night before he left they were at a party together at Rockie's home. Terry left the party, but then came back to tell Rockie that he liked her. "He was slightly inebriated," recalls Rockie. "He's kind of shy and had to be inebriated to tell me that he liked me. She liked him too and told Terry that if he wanted her to wait for him while he was in the service, he'd better send her a ring, so he did. He was in the service for four years, and when he returned they married on May 2, 1946. Advertisement Marty Lebedun fell hard. "For me, it was love at first sight," he says. "I came home, woke up my mother and said, 'I met the girl I'm going to marry.' '' Miriam says she knew Marty was someone special. "I knew right away I wasn't going to date anyone else." While Marty may have told his mother he had met the right girl, he played it cool with Miriam. "When we first started dating, Marty told me he was never going to get married. I was 18 at the time and I said that was fine by me. We'll just go out. On our third date, he asked when we should get married," says Miriam. They dated for about six months before they got engaged. "We got engaged in the winter," says Marty. "I had purchased a ring that I thought was nice. We drove to Garfield Park near the conservatory. It was really cold outside. We sat in the car and I gave her the ring. It got pretty heated up when I presented the ring. The windows got fogged up. A policeman came and rapped on the windows and asked what was going on." Advertisement Forever yours So what's kept the flame of love lit? What is it that these partners like about each other? The Rosenblums prize the space in their togetherness. Betty says Leigh always encouraged her to do whatever she wanted to do. For Leigh, it was Betty's understanding and support of his busy medical practice. Also key to their successful relationship is "not being too critical, and to be wiling to talk things out," says Betty. The McConnaughays are members of a mutual admiration society. "I've always admired Terry. He loves history and reads all of the time and loves 'Jeopardy.' I admire how smart he is," says Rockie. "And he did a good job helping to raise our boys. That's a big accomplishment." As for Terry, his favorite trait of Rockie's is her likability. "Everybody likes her," he says. "She's got a great personality." Terry credits the longevity of their marriage to a generational attitude. "Back in our day, people married with the intention of making it last. People didn't file for divorce because of a disagreement. Commitments aren't as serious as they used to be." Rockie acknowledges the occasional tiffs. "We have had our disagreements. But we worked them out and every night we kiss before we go to sleep," she says. "We also joke around a lot and stay active." Advertisement What Miriam loves about Marty is his sense of humor. "He makes me laugh every day," she says. As for Marty? He credits Miriam with his very life. "She's kept me alive," he says. "She's sent me to doctors when I've needed to go. She's pressured me as women can do. When I get into bed at night and she's sleeping, I make sure she's breathing because I wouldn't know what to do if she wasn't with me. She does everything for me. It's an unbelievable bond I have with my wife. She's my world," says Marty. Marty looks across the years and sees the fullness of his life with Miriam. "We have fun. We laugh a lot," he says. "We've had a lot to cry about too. Tears go with it. Life isn't always smooth. But if you stay the course through the ups and downs, everything works out. If you use your brain, you understand that you've got the best and you don't screw it up." By Dezan Shira & Associates Editor: Jake Liddle With 14 of the worlds 55 gigawatt solar panels installed in the country, China became the largest solar panel market in 2015. This rapid expansion of investment into solar energy can be attributed to the generous incentive programs that the country offers, as well as the governments five-year plan to hit 100 gigawatt installations by 2020. Other studies, such as one conducted by Xinhua, forecast an even brighter outlook for the industry, with figures as large as 150 gigawatts by 2020 predicted. Solar Power Generation Revenue in Chinas solar power generation industry rose at an annual rate of 145.3 percent between 2010 and 2015, totaling US$2.6 billion. This amount was largely spurred by rising household demand for electricity, which has caused several cases of power supply shortages in the past and brought exceptional demand for solar power generation. Environmental consciousness and pollution problems have also contributed to the want to shift from a reliance on imported fossil fuels to renewable energies. Under the twelfth five-year plan, the State Energy Administration made aims to increase solar power generation capacity from 860 megawatts to 21 gigawatts. However, Chinas solar power resources and infrastructure are fragmented, and a more cohesive and developed distribution network will be required to efficiently utilize its solar power generation capability. Solar Panel Manufacturing Chinas solar panel manufacturing industry has also been developing at a fast pace: from 2010 to 2015, the industry saw an annual growth rate of 2.4 percent, with revenue totaling US$29.8 billion. Over the same period, Chinese solar cell output has been increasing by 21.3 percent per year, with an estimated output of 27.6 gigawatts in 2015. Polysilicon solar panels are the most popular choice, as they are relatively cheaper and take less energy to produce. They accounted for the majority of the solar panel segment, making up 56.8 percent of total industry revenue in 2015. However, the conversion efficiency rate of polysilicon solar panels is only about 12.0 percent, whereas monocrystalline, which accounted for 28.6 percent of total industry revenue in 2015, converts between 15 and 24 percent. It is estimated that over 90 percent of Chinas territory has the potential to support some form of solar power generation, and although China is the worlds leading solar panel manufacturer, over 95 percent of its panels are exported. Government Incentives Corporate investment in solar installations is met with generous policies and incentives. In 2013, the Chinese government introduced new feed-in tariffs (FITs), deployed at both state and provincial levels to fuel the growth of distributed solar rooftop installations. The central government currently provides 20-year subsidies of US$0.06 per kilowatt-hour of output from solar rooftop projects. For surplus power, RMB 0.40 per kilowatt-hour is awarded from the state grid, for any surplus power they generate. The National Energy Administration aims to deregulate the electricity market for small distributed solar generation, including rooftop projects. Projects producing fewer than six megawatts of energy are exempt from the application of a power generation license. Since 2014, a streamlining of payments and subsidies has existed to aid solar projects undertaken by individuals and private enterprises. Industrial and commercial entities setting up solar rooftop projects are offered a payback period of 7-9 years with an eight percent return rate. Future Outlook Two factors are combining to incentivize the Chinese government to strengthen the solar panel industry: increasing awareness of environmental pollution, and concerns over power supply and generation. While large solar power markets in Europe such as Germany and Italy begin to reduce subsidies for solar panels, endorsement in Beijing looks set to make China not only the leading manufacturer of solar panels, but also the leading buyer. About Us Asia Briefing Ltd. is a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. Dezan Shira is a specialist foreign direct investment practice, providing corporate establishment, business advisory, tax advisory and compliance, accounting, payroll, due diligence and financial review services to multinationals investing in China, Hong Kong, India, Vietnam, Singapore and the rest of ASEAN. For further information, please email china@dezshira.com or visit www.dezshira.com. Stay up to date with the latest business and investment trends in Asia by subscribing to our complimentary update service featuring news, commentary and regulatory insight. 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. Selling, Sourcing and E-Commerce in China 2016 (First Edition) This guide, produced in collaboration with the experts at Dezan Shira & Associates, provides a comprehensive analysis of all these aspects of commerce in China. It discusses how foreign companies can best go about sourcing products from China; how foreign retailers can set up operations on the ground to sell directly to the countrys massive consumer class; and finally details how foreign enterprises can access Chinas lucrative yet ostensibly complex e-commerce market. Importing and Exporting in China: a Guide for Trading Companies In this issue of China Briefing, we discuss the latest import and export trends in China, and analyze the ways in which a foreign company in China can properly prepare for the import/export process. With import taxes and duties adding a significant cost burden, we explain how this system works in China, and highlight some of the tax incentives that the Chinese government has put in place to help stimulate trade. A South African academic on Thursday said the Confucius Institutes help enhance China-Africa relations. "The Confucius Institutes are meant to make people understand evolving China and for the Chinese to understand Africa," said David Monyae, co-director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Johannesburg while addressing members of the diplomatic corps, government officials and academics in Pretoria. He said the institutes are also meant to make people understand the philosophy of Confucius and compare it with ubuntu, an ethical concept of southern African origin, for similarities and differences. The academic said the Confucius institutes also provide access to Chinese funding and achieve political and economic growth for African countries. He stated that the relationship between China and Africa goes beyond the signing of trade deals and high political elite meetings. Monyae said China and Africa have a long lasting friendship dating back to ancient times and the two sides nurtured this relationship even when China was poor. "We share a rich background of solidarity with China. We were both humiliated by the West in terms of colonialism and subjugation. They (the Chinese) supported the liberation struggle movements in Africa with training and supplying ammunition in South Africa and Zimbabwe among others," he said. Monyae stated that many Chinese died while helping Africans in the construction of Tanzania-Zambia Railway in the 1970s. The link extends more than 1,800 km from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia, and has become a symbol of traditional China-Africa friendship. He said Confucius Institutes tell the Chinese story not from the Western lenses but gives direct contact with the Chinese, removing misconceptions about China. China also helps Africa address illegal poaching, the academic said. "Africa can count on China for fair trade, for African voices to be heard in the United Nations Security Council," he said. Confucius Institutes, he said, also give Chinese academics access to African universities and understand African cultures. One of the resolutions adopted at the Johannesburg Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) last year is to strengthen people to people relations, Monyae said. He expressed belief that Confucius Institutes will enhance such relations. For trade deals to be done, there have to be understanding, Monyae said. "In every relationship there are differences. When tempers rise in trade misunderstanding, the understanding brought by these Confucius Institutes comes to the fore," he noted. For the people to people relationship to be improved between China and Africa, there has to be seminars as well as cultural exchanges, he said. China yesterday urged Spain to "safeguard the legal rights and interests" of employees of Chinese bank ICBC, following their arrest on suspicion of laundering tens of millions of euros. Spanish police searched the Madrid branch of ICBC on Wednesday, arresting five of its directors as part of an investigation into the suspected laundering of at least 40 million euros (US$44.5 million). "We hope that the Spanish side would deal with the relevant issue in accordance with the law and honestly safeguard the legal rights and interests of Chinese companies," foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a regular press briefing. A spokesman for the bank in Beijing told reporters that its Madrid branch will cooperate with the investigation, adding that the bank "strictly implements anti-money laundering provisions" and operates in compliance with regulations. He said the banks Europe-based lawyers had gone to Madrid in response to the investigation. The bank is suspected of allowing funds earned through alleged smuggling, tax fraud and labor exploitation to be transferred "to China in a way that appeared legal," Spanish police said in a statement. "Spain has become an important destination of investment from Chinese companies and financial institutions," Hong said, calling on the country to "safeguard the sound state" of the relationship. Spanish police said the raid was a follow-up to an operation last year that targeted Madrid-based Chinese gangs suspected of importing huge amounts of goods from China without declaring them on customs forms to avoid import and tax duties. The gangs allegedly deposited their proceeds in ICBC accounts, with the lender accused of sending the funds to China without checking their origin as required by law. ICBC is not the first Chinese bank to be embroiled in controversy over money-laundering overseas. Last June, Italian prosecutors alleged that the Bank of China was involved in illegal transfers of large sums of money out of the country. ICBC is the worlds largest bank by market capitalization. It entered the Spanish market in January 2011 with the inauguration of its branch in Madrid. More than 190,000 Chinese nationals live in Spain, making the Chinese immigrant population the fourth largest foreign community in the country, according to Spains national statistics institute INE. You are here: Home Uber's Chinese unit losing over US$1b a year. Uber Technologies Inc is burning through more than US$1 billion a year in China, where it is locked in a fierce battle with larger local rival Didi Kuaidi to attract consumers with cut-price taxi rides, according to its chief executive. Ubers China unit boosted its valuation beyond US$8 billion last month after raising more than US$1 billion in its latest funding round, although the ride-hailing app is not yet profitable in Chinas mainland due to intense competition. Were profitable in the US, but were losing over US$1 billion a year in China, CEO Travis Kalanick told Canadian technology platform Betakit. Uber officials in China confirmed the comments in an e-mail to Reuters yesterday. We have a fierce competitor thats unprofitable in every city ... but theyre buying up market share, he said. Uber and Didi Kuaidi, backed by Chinese technology giants Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group have both spent heavily to subsidize rides to gain market share, betting on Chinas Internet-linked transport market becoming the worlds biggest. Chinese police confiscated a record amount of narcotics in 2015, 102.5 tonnes in total, for an increase of 48.7 percent year on year, according to a report released by the National Narcotics Control Commission (NNCC) on Thursday. The report said the police handled 165,000 drug-related criminal cases in 2015 and captured 194,000 suspected criminals. Liu Yuejin, deputy director of the NNCC, said the prevalence of narcotics in China is generally under control, but several problems have arisen, including the growing popularity of synthetic drugs, greater inflow of drugs from overseas, and domestic drug production. According to the report, 531,000 people without previous records were punished for drug abuse, with 80.5 percent punished for synthetic drug use, including methamphetamine (ice), magu (a stimulant composed of methamphetamine and caffeine), ecstacy and ketamine. In the first three quarters of 2015, 93.8 percent of confiscated heroin and 87.9 percent of ice tablets came from the "Golden Triangle" in southeast Asia. The report also said 79 tonnes of domestically produced narcotics were confiscated in 2015, accounting for 77.3 percent of the total amount seized. China is encouraging its scientists to translate their research into commercial products with policies laid out at a State Council meeting yesterday. It was agreed that converting scientific achievements to products more quickly was vital to the countrys economic restructuring. State-sponsored research institutions and universities will be given autonomy in transferring their scientific research to enterprises or social organizations, without having to file applications. All revenues generated from the work may be reserved by research institutions or universities, to be used mainly for rewarding scientists, advancing research and industrial applications. The new policies will also allow scientists and researchers to take part-time jobs in enterprises to convert their discoveries into products, and they may temporarily leave their posts to start their own businesses. Performance in translating scientific outcomes to products will be considered in the overall evaluation of research and higher learning institutions, under the new policies. Wang Bin, deputy head of the China Association for Promotion of Private Sci-Tech Enterprises, said the policies were groundbreaking for granting autonomy. You are here: Home Threee Chinese students accused of kidnapping and torturing a peer stand trial at the Pomona Superior Court in Pomona, California, on June 3, 2015. [Photo: youth.cn] Three Chinese high school students studying in the U.S. have been sentenced to jail terms for kidnapping and assaulting another Chinese teenager by a court in Los Angeles on Wednesday. Zhai Yunyao, Yang Yuhan, and Zhang Xinlei, were respectively sentenced to 13, 10 and 6 years in prison. Once they are released from the prison, they will be deported from the United States immediately. All the three were born in 1996 and are students at Oxford School, a private middle school for Grades 7-12 in Rowland Heights, California. They were convicted of kidnapping and assaulting a fellow Chinese student surnamed Liu in March 2015. According to Liu's statement to police, she was lured by a primary-school peer to "discuss something." Liu was then forced into a car and taken to a nearby park. There, Liu said she was beaten by a group of girls and stripped naked by them. The assault lasted five hours and left Liu seriously injured. The case has shown a lack of knowledge by Chinese students and their parents concerning U.S. laws. According to Deng Hong, a lawyer overseeing the case, the father of one of the defendants attempted to pay off a witness in the assault, attempting to "settle" the situation. He was eventually arrested for bribing a witness. Mike Li, an overseas Chinese student was denied entry by Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) seemingly because pornographic messages from a chat group of WeChat (a popular messenger app in China) were found on Li's cell phone. Li had been included in a 500-people WeChat group with little knowledge of its content. He even didn't notice that there were some messages including some obscene videos and emoticons posted on the online social platform, said Li's lawyer surnamed Lu. However, Li had never imagined the CBSA would refuse him entry to Canada when officials from the customs found the pornographic contents and called police upon his arrival from Shanghai. After rechecking the videos and emoticons, the police left the airport after pronouncing Li's innocence. However, the CBSA insisted on revoking Li's visa and sent him back by the same airliner. "I ignored the chat group as soon as they had added me in and did not send a single word," Li said in a recent interview with Southern Metropolitan Daily. The lawyer said the reason was rather his academic record with eight years in a row of language study in a number of different schools that aroused the suspicions of the CBSA. Li confirmed that, while holding a student visa, he had been hardly concentrating on studies but rather doing business. However, because he was not repatriated from Canada, he can soon re-apply for a visa to the country. From 2008 to 2013, there were about 2,700 overseas Chinese students being repatriated because of expired visas and legal violations in addition to other problems, according to Beijing General Station of Exit and Entry Frontier Inspection. In 2014, Canada alone repatriated over 300 Chinese students. Pediatrics may again have a featured role in bachelor degree programs of China's medical schools amid a shortage of pediatricians after the country introduced the two-child policy, China's National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) revealed on its official website on Feb. 18. A large number of sick children were seen at Nanjing Children's Hospital in Jiangsu province in last April due to a sudden drop in temperature. [Provided to China Daily] The commission said it will coordinate with the Ministry of Education to expand enrollment after 17 years of interruption and make it a priority of 2016 work. There are no official statistics on the exact size of the shortage, but experts say it may be as large as 200,000. The number of pediatricians in China has dropped from 105,000 to around 100,000 within the past five years, according to China's public health statistics yearbook for 2015. Research has shown that even in first-tier cities like Shanghai, there are only 40 doctors per 100,000 children whereas the proportion in the United States is 160 per 100,000. According to a media report, 70% to 80% of the pediatricians in Shanghai are in four children's specialized hospitals. In the US, up to 80% work in primary-level clinics. Even when a child is given treatment, conflict arises. Child patients are usually too young to give a precise description of their symptoms while the parents have high expectations of the doctors. A medical graduate confessed that being a pediatrician is a difficult profession in which doctors need to grapple with emotional youngsters in complex situations, indicating that the job is not an appealing one for future doctors like himself. In addition, over 30 years of the one-child policy in China has made it even more stressful and risky for pediatricians when confronted with doting and anxious parents who view the offspring as the "apple of their eyes", he added. Some medical schools like the one in Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) started to enroll students of clinical medicine with pediatrics as their research focus. The number, however, is rather small and unlikely to make up for the shortage created by a potential baby-boom after the two-child policy took effect on Jan.1 this year. If the overall environment for pediatrics in China remains unchanged, some of the graduates may still refuse to work in the field, claimed Chen Guoqiang, dean of the medical school at SJTU. Flash Yunnan Lucky Air plans to launch direct flights between two cities in Yunnan Province and two in Taiwan, the subsidiary of China's HNA Group announced on Thursday. Launching on Feb. 27, the service between provincial capital Kunming and Taiwan's Hualien will be the first direct flight connecting the two cities, according to a statement from the Kunming-based carrier. It will run once a week, using a Boeing B737-800. The outbound trip from Kunming will take three hours and 10 minutes and the return journey just under four hours. Another flight linking Lijiang and Taipei will be launched on March 7. An Airbus A320 will fly the route once a week in spring and winter and three times a week in summer and autumn. The outbound journey from Lijiang will take three hours and 50 minutes and the return trip five minutes more. Flash The shipment of Russian S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran has been delayed due to payment issues, said the Kremlin on Thursday. "The deal has not been paid for properly, so it is premature to speak about a concrete delivery date," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. He did not say whether the issue was discussed at a Tuesday meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and visiting Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan. On Wednesday, Iranian media reported that Russia was expected to hand over the first batch of the missile system on Thursday and that Dehghan would attend a ceremony in Russia's Astrakhan port city for the purpose. But a high-ranking official of the Russian Defense Ministry dismissed the media reports, according to Tass. Russia and Iran signed an 800-million-U.S. dollar contract in 2007 to supply Iran with five S-300 systems. In September 2010, then President Dmitry Medvedev canceled the contract in line with a resolution of the UN Security Council, which banned such supplies to Iran. In April last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin lifted the ban while Iran withdrew the lawsuit against Russia. The original S-300 system, also named SA-10 Grumble by NATO, was first deployed in the former Soviet Union in 1979 to defend the country against aircraft and cruise missiles. Subsequent modernized versions were developed to intercept ballistic missiles, and the S-300 is currently regarded as one of the most potent air defense systems. Flash Somali security forces on Thursday arrested 300 suspects in a swoop conducted in the capital Mogadishu and its environs to clear the city of criminals, officials said on Thursday. The security operation was carried out by Somali National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA) in Helliwa and Yakhshid districts in the capital Mogadishu. Spokesman of Benadir Regional Administration, Abdifitah Omar Halane said that the operation aimed to ensure adequate security in the city and wipe out militants who have been hiding inside the capital to wage attacks on the government. "The operation was carried out by NISA in two districts, Yakhshid and Helliwa districts; it began last night and concluded this morning, the forces arrested about 300 suspects," Halane said in Mogadishu. He said some of the suspects have been released after interrogations while the remaining 26 are being treated as suspects and will be arraigned in court soon. "This is very productive and successful operation against terrorist elements here in the capital," Halane added. The security operation comes after several deadly terrorist attacks in Mogadishu early this month where a suicide bomber attacked an airline at the Mogadishu airport. In January, the insurgents who were allied to Al-Qaida network used vehicles loaded with explosives and suicide bombers to attack military bases belonging to Kenyan troops, killing an unknown number of troops and captured others. Al- Shabaab claimed to have killed 100 Kenyan soldiers and captured 12 of them who are being used as human shield. You are here: Home Flash Turkey conducted airstrikes on positions of the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq late Wednesday, authorities said Thursday. The operation came shortly after a suicide bombing killed at least 28 people and wounded 61 others in the capital, Ankara. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blamed Kurdish militants for the Ankara bombing. The Turkish military said the attack struck military service buses stopping at a traffic light, setting at least four buses ablaze within the vicinity of the Turkish General Staff headquarters and Parliament. The airstrikes late Wednesday hit PKK posts including the group's leaders, said a written statement issued by the Turkish Armed Forces. The PKK resumed its violent offensive against the Turkish government following the collapse of the peace process last summer. Turkish security forces launched military operations against PKK militants in southeastern Turkey last December. Flash The Syrian army captured on Thursday the town of Kinsaba, the last rebel bastion in the northern countryside of the northwestern province of Latakia, near Turkey, state TV reported. Capturing Kinsaba, which was under the control of the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front and the rebels' Free Syrian Army, ushers in the end of the militant presence in the northern countryside of Latakia. The achievement comes as part of a wide-scale offensive by the Syrian army, backed by the Lebanese Hezbollah group and Russian air cover, in a battle believed to aim at closing the borders with Turkey. After Kinsaba, the Syrian army and allied troops have become only 10 km from the strategic town of Jisr al-Shughour, in the countryside of the northwestern province of Idlib, which fell largely to the Jaish al-Fateh group, a coalition of jihadist groups, mainly the Nusra Front. A military source in Latakia said the Syrian army's campaign in Idlib will soon start after the capture of Kinsaba. Government troops are also reportedly fighting in the northern province of Aleppo to cut the countryside of that key province from the city of Aleppo and deprive the rebels from their supply lines from Turkey. Observers say the sweeping military campaign near Turkey has raised the ire of Ankara and Saudi Arabia, prompting them to threaten sending ground troops into Syria. You are here: Home Flash The Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) on Thursday denied Turkish accusations that Kurdish militants were behind the suicide bombing in Ankara on Wednesday that killed at least 28 people. Salih Muslim Muhammad, a PYD co-chairman, said the Islamic State (IS) group was responsible for the Ankara attack, which also injured 61 others. He was responding to an announcement earlier Thursday by Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu that identified a Syrian national with "direct links" to PYD as the suicide bomber in the Ankara blast. Davutoglu also said the bomber, Salih Necer, received logistical support from the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) in Turkey. The Ankara bombing and the subsequent accusations and denials came amid mounting tension between Turkey and the Kurds. Turkish artillery has been shelling Kurdish fighters' positions in northern Syria to prevent them from advancing near the Turkish borders. Flash An Iraqi court on Thursday sentenced 40 defendants to death over charges of killing about 1,700 soldiers when Islamic State (IS) militants seized the city of Tikrit in June 2014, an Iraqi official television reported. "The Central Criminal Court issued a verdict to execute 40 defendants by hanging after proving they were involved in Speicher massacre," the state-run Iraqiya channel quoted Abdul Sattar al-Biraqdar, spokesman for Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council, as saying. Biraqdar said that the death sentences are preliminary and subject to reviewing by the Court of Cassation. In June 2014, armed Sunni insurgents, spearheaded by IS group, an al-Qaida offshoot, launched a surprise offensive on Iraqi security forces and captured a large part of the country's northern and western territories after government troops abandoned their posts and military equipment. Reports said that among the dozens of thousands of soldiers who abandoned their posts in June, some 1,700 soldiers who walked out of an air base, known as Camp Speicher north of Tikrit, were abducted and killed by IS militants. In Thursday's sentencing, the defendants were found guilty as the evidences were enough for their conviction, Biraqdar said, adding that the court also released seven other defendants for lack of evidence. Last year, on July 8, the court sentenced 24 other defendants to death over the Speicher killing. The IS group later posted video footage and still images showing the execution of Iraqi government soldiers. You are here: Home Flash At least 15 civilians were killed Thursday in U.S.-led airstrikes in Syria's northeastern province of al-Hasakah, a monitor group reported. The airstrikes targeted areas controlled by the Islamic State (IS) group in al-Hasskah, according to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which says it relies on activists on the ground inside Syria. The air raids apparently came in support of the Kurdish-backed Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), which is approaching the IS-held city of Shaddadi in the countryside of al-Hasakah. The U.S.-led coalition started its operations specifically against the IS group in Syria over a year ago. Syrian officials have repeatedly questioned the intention and seriousness of the U.S. coalition in the war on terror. Flash Iraqi security forces on Thursday foiled four attempted suicide car bomb attacks by Islamic State (IS) militants in Iraq's western province of Anbar, a provincial security source told Xinhua. Four suicide bombers drove their explosive-laden cars toward military positions near Nadhum al-Tharthar, north of the IS-held city of Fallujah, some 50 km west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, the source said on condition of anonymity. Security forces fired anti-tank missiles and destroyed three of the suicide car bombs, killing the three suicide bombers, while a U.S.-led coalition warplane destroyed the fourth and killed its bomber, the source said. Government troops and allied militias have been fighting for months to retake control of key cities and towns in Anbar, Iraq's largest province, from IS militants, who previously seized most of Anbar and tried to advance toward Baghdad. In a separate incident, an army helicopter reportedly crashed late on Wednesday near the town of Ameriyat al-Fallujah, some 40 km west of Baghdad, killing two crew members. The crash, blamed on apparent technical malfunctions, occurred after another chopper went down the day before in Iraq's eastern province of Wasit, leaving up to nine people dead, including three crew members, according to Iraqi military sources. Tuesday's crash of the Russian-made Mi-17 was also said to be caused by technical malfunctions. Flash Deploying national defense facilities on the Xisha Islands has nothing to do with negotiations over a code of conduct on the South China Sea, China said on Thursday. The comment was made as Beijing emphasized the efforts made by the country in negotiations to arrive at the code. Deploying such facilities "is irrelevant to a comprehensive implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, or to the consultations over the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei during a media briefing. Hong made the remarks in response to speculation that China had deployed missiles on disputed islands in the South China Sea and that the country appeared not to be serious about consultations over the code. Western media have been following closely China's defense facilities on the Xisha Islands since FoxNews reported on Tuesday that Beijing had deployed a missile system on Yongxing Island in the Xisha Islands. Hong stressed that the Xisha Islands are China's "inherent territory" and are not so-called disputed islands. Equipping them with defense facilities is not militarization, but a move "within China's sovereignty", Hong said. In 2002, China and member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations signed the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea. In the declaration, they voiced agreement to work on the basis of consensus for adopting such a code of conduct. In 2013, China and the ASEAN countries began consultations on the code. Hong said China and ASEAN countries had been actively pushing consultations over the code. Li Jinming, a professor of maritime policy and law at Xiamen University, said the code of conduct applies only to disputed islands, while the Xisha Islands, which have always been under China's administration, are not disputed. China had taken "very active steps" and had made many efforts on reaching a code of conduct, but attaining this goal took time, Li said. "China has always been coordinating, but neighboring countries should also invest in such efforts," he said. Li added that actions such as making a unilateral request for international arbitration, as the Philippines had done, are against the spirit of negotiations set by the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea signed by China and the ASEAN countries. Flash Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday exchanged views via phone with new French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on their countries' relations and on international and regional issues of common concern. Wang congratulated Ayrault on his appointment. He said that the relations between China and France have been going well with deepening political mutual trust and mutually beneficial cooperation. China sees France as an irreplaceable strategic partner and has always taken France as a foreign policy priority, Wang said. He urged the two countries to maintain the strong momentum in the development of their relations, tap the potential for cooperation, boost the integration of their development strategies and explore new areas of cooperation. China is willing to boost strategic coordination with France in international and regional affairs such as global governance and climate change, said Wang. Ayrault said the relations between France and China are highly strategic and very important to the world. He pledged efforts to boost strategic communication with China and expand cooperation in innovation, investment, nuclear energy, and in the development of third-party markets. Flash Somalia Islamist group Al-Shabaab on Thursday dismissed claims that its senior intelligence chief was killed last week by Kenyan soldiers. Speaking on the Al-Shabaab allied radio station, Al-Andulus, the group's spokesman Abdiasis Musab said the reports were misleading. "The statement is unfounded and not true. No Al-Shabaab official has been killed. The statement is aimed at only giving false assurance to Kenyans who are still panicking after the El-Adde attack," said Musab. Al-Shabaab did not however air any recording or live voice of Karatey in Thursday's announcement as a further confirmation that he was not killed. The rebuttal came a few hours after Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) spokesman Colonel David Obonyo said Al-Shabaab's deputy commander Mahad Mohammed Karatey alias Mahat Karatey who was behind the El-Adde attack has been killed last week. Karatey was also the overall head of the Alamnyat, the Al-Shabaab's intelligence wing. Obonyo said he was killed together with 10 middle level commanders and 42 recruits in the airstrike on Nadris camp on Feb. 8. "Karatey had gone to the camp to preside over the passing out of an estimated 80 Alamnyat recruits who had completed their training and were due for deployment to carry out more terrorist attacks," Obonyo said in a statement issued in Nairobi. Obonyo said Alamnyat is the Al-Shabaab intelligence wing that composes of suicide bombers, assassins, explosive experts and information gatherers and the killing of the overall commanders is a major blow to the Al-Qaida allied militant group. Karatey was poised to succeed former Al-Shabaab emir Ahmed Abdi aw-Mohamed (Godane) but Ahmad Ubaidah who was one of the members of the Godane inner circle took over reigns of the group. Karatey became the group's senior intelligence officer after former intelligence chief Abdishakur Tahlil was killed in another U.S. airstrike in December 2014. Al-Shabaab militants launched an attack on the El-Adde base of Africa Union peacekeepers in Gedo region in southern Somalia on January 15. The exact number of soldiers killed in the attack remains unestabilished, though the terror group claimed to have killed 100 Kenyan soldiers in the attack. You are here: Home Flash The rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM)/northern sector on Thursday claimed killing 16 government soldiers in Blue Nile State, but the Sudanese army denied the claim. "The fighters of the movement ambushed Wednesday a Sudanese army unit at al-Yarmouk area, some seven km south of Bot town in Blue Nile State," Sudan Tribune Thursday quoted Arno Taloudy, spokesman of SPLM/northern sector, as saying in a statement. "At least 16 government soldiers were killed, while we lost one soldier," he added. However, Sudanese army spokesman Ahmed Khalifa Al-Shami denied the rebel's claim. "During the recent period, the rebel movement tended to fabricate information about delusive victories to lift the morale of its soldiers," Al-Shami told Xinhua. South Kordofan and Blue Nile have been witnessing armed clashes between the Sudanese army and the SPLM/northern sector rebels since 2011. So far 10 rounds of peace talks have been held in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa between the Sudanese government and the SPLM/northern sector, under the patronage of the African Union, but have failed to end the conflict in the two areas. Flash The World Bank Group on Thursday announced that it has provided $150 million to help countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to combat the Zika virus outbreak. Image taken on Feb. 17, 2016 shows Dr. Juan Garcia, Director of the Center for Parasitological Studies and Vectors (CEPAVE) of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of La Plata National University, looking at a sample of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes sheltered for study at one of the Centre laboratories, in La Plata city, Argentina. [Photo/Xinhua] The Washington-based global lender said in a statement that this funding, which is immediately available, is based on current country demands for financing and the bank "stands ready to increase its support" if additional financing is needed. The World Bank estimated that the short-term economic impact of the Zika virus outbreak on the region will be about 3.5 billion dollars in total, representing only 0.06 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) of the region's economies, but countries highly dependent on tourism could suffer losses in excess of 1 percent of GDP. These initial projections of the economic impact of the disease are based on the expectation of "a swift, well-coordinated international response to the Zika virus" and on the assumption that the most significant health risks are for pregnant women, the bank noted. "Our analysis underscores the importance of urgent action to halt the spread of the Zika virus and to protect the health and well-being of people in the affected countries," Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank Group, said in a statement. The World Bank financing will support a range of activities critical to the Zika virus response, including vector surveillance and control, identification of the people most at-risk, especially pregnant women and women of reproductive age, and follow-up and care through pregnancy and postnatal care for neurological complications, the bank said. The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday launched a global response plan to address the ongoing spread of Zika virus outbreak, with 56 million dollars required for implementation. Flash Seriously concerned at the ongoing conflict in Yemen and the dire humanitarian conflict it has produced, the United Nations Security Council Thursday urged all parties to the conflict in Yemen to take urgent steps towards resuming a ceasefire. In a statement to the press, the Council underlined its full support to relief workers delivering aid "in very difficult conditions across Yemen." Council members expressed concern at all reports of obstruction of the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Yemen. They welcomed the establishment of the UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism (UNVIM), and called upon all States to adhere to its provisions. Urging all parties to fulfil their commitments to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance, including measures to further ensure rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access, the Council further underlined the importance of the delivery of commercial goods and fuel for civilian purposes to all parts of Yemen. Further to the statement, the Security Council called upon all sides to comply with international humanitarian law, including to take all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and civilian objects, to end the recruitment and use of children in violation of applicable international law, and to work urgently with the UN and humanitarian aid organizations to bring assistance to those in need throughout the country. "The members of the Security Council urged all parties to the conflict in Yemen to take urgent steps towards resuming a ceasefire," said the statement, emphasizing that cessation of hostilities and compliance with related Council resolutions should lead to a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire. The members of the Security Council further emphasized the importance of establishing fully the "De-escalation and Coordination Committee." The members of the Security Council also urged the Yemeni parties to fulfil their commitments made during the last round of talks between 15-20 December 2015 and further urged the parties to participate in a new round of talks, building on the progress that has been achieved so far on ending the conflict. Calling on all Yemeni parties to engage in political talks "without preconditions and in good faith, including by resolving their differences through dialogue and consultations in accordance with the Gulf Cooperation Council Initiative and its Implementation Mechanism," the Council underlined its strong support for the UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed in facilitating these talks. In a briefing to the Council yesterday, Mr. Ould Cheikh Ahmed said a "deep divide" between the warring parties in Yemen, following the collapse of a truce, is forestalling the next round of peace talks. As such, he called on Council members to support efforts towards a cessation of hostilities. "The parties are divided over whether a new round of talks should be convened with or without a new cessation of hostilities," he explained, adding that: "I have not, unfortunately, received sufficient assurances that a new cessation of hostilities, should I call for one, would be respected." Flash A high-ranking Cuban official welcomed the upcoming visit of U.S. President Barack Obama Thursday, saying it was "a further step toward improving relations" between the Caribbean nation and the United States. Josefina Vidal, head of U.S. affairs from the Cuban foreign ministry, said at a press conference that the historic visit, the first by a U.S. president since 1928, will offer Obama a chance to get firsthand information about the isolated island. The visit, due to take place from March 21 to March 22, will provide Obama with "an important opportunity to directly appreciate the Cuban reality and everything we have been doing in recent years", which will "better the wellbeing of the Cuban people," said Vidal. The White House website dedicated its frontpage to the visit Thursday. The announcement, headlining "President Obama is going to Cuba," came with a picture of a plane flying over the Caribbean island. Obama also posted a flurry of messages on his Twitter account, saying the trip is "to advance our progress and efforts that can improve the lives of the Cuban people." The U.S. top leader also said that "we still have differences with the Cuban government that I will raise directly," including the issue of human rights. In response, Vidal said that "Cuba is open to talking with the United States on any issue," and "Cuba has its opinions too about how human rights have been exercised in many countries, including the United States." The normalization of bilateral relations depends on the resolution of key outstanding issues, including the lifting of the blockade, and the return to Cuba of the territory illegally occupied by the Guantanamo Naval Base, Vidal said. A Cuban netizen said on the Cubasi website that "I'm going to take him to have lunch at my local diner so he can see the effects of his government's cruel and ruthless embargo against us." Obama's Cuba visit will be part of a Latin America tour that will also take him to Argentina. After more than 50 years of icy interactions, Cuban President Raul Castro and Obama met in the United Nations General Assembly last September, after their first historic face-to-face encounter at the Summit of the Americas last April. The last U.S. president to have visited Cuba was Calvin Coolidge, according to the White House. Flash An Afghan police official on Friday said that five kidnapped staff of the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) were released in eastern province of Ghazni earlier on the day. "As soon as the provincial officials were aware of the abduction, efforts were put in place by local officials and tribal elders to secure the safe release of the abductees. Following the mediation of local elders, the five were freed in Chahar Deah area of Waghaz district at around midday," provincial police spokesman Fahim Amiri told Xinhua. Unknown armed men in Ghazni kidnapped the aid workers along a roadway on Tuesday in the province with Ghazni city as its capital, some 125 km south of Kabul. Further details about the kidnapping remained unknown. The aid agency has suspended its operations in the province in the wake of abduction. Ghazni and the neighboring Zabul province has been the scene of hostage attacks along main roads over the past one year. Radio Free Asia 2016-02-18 Some notable civil rights activists, known to be a thorn in side of the Peoples Republic of China. blamed Beijings influence for visa troubles that kept them out of Taiwan for an international conference on religious freedom this week. Blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng, who has worked on human rights issues in rural areas of China, and Uyghur activist Dolkun Isa will both miss the first Asia-Pacific Religious Freedom Forum because they couldnt legally enter Taiwan. Chen Guangcheng, who now lives in the U.S., said he was invited by the forums organizers, but did not get a visa from Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy over which authoritarian Beijing claims sovereignty. If we dont put the universal value of human rights in the right position, but continue to ignore it, we will spoil the dictators so they will not abide the law, he told RFAs Cantonese service. Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng gestures during his appearance at Taiwans parliament in Taipei, June 25, 2013. AFP Rebiya Kadeer, president of World Uyghur Congress, told RFAs Uyghur Service that Beijing wanted to keep the Taiwanese in the dark about the treatment of her people. China did not want its severe human rights religious abuses against people of East Turkestan, and the reality of how they are suppressing the Uyghur people for all kinds of reasons, to be publicized in Taiwan, so they pushed Taiwanese government not to give us a visa, she said. Kadeer currently lives in the U.S. It would have been a great opportunity for me to meet Taiwanese people, and the Asia-Pacific Religious Freedom Forum would have been a great stage for me to show the reality of Uyghurs right at the moment, such as how Uyghurs are migrating to other countries because of the religious repression against them, she added, using the Uyghurs preferred name for their region, which China calls Xinjiang. In a statement to the forum, World Uyghur Congress Executive Secretary Dolkun Isa said he was disheartened when I learned that my inability to take part in the forum was likely because of pressure from the Chinese government on the Taiwanese. The forum is jointly hosted by several groups in the U.S. and Taiwan and is chaired by former Republic of China Vice President Annette Lu. The ROC is Taiwans official name. I believe that any discussion taking place around religious freedom must focus some attention on the treatment of Muslims in China, Uyghurs living in East Turkestan in particular, as the issue is too often overlooked, Isa said. While the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) decisively defeated the pro-China Kuomintang (KMT) in January, the DPP wont assume power until May 20. Taipei Times By Peng Hsien-chun, Chou Min-hung and Jake Chung / Staff reporters, with staff writer Chinas oppression of Falun Gong and nations and territories in the Asia-Pacific region that lack religious freedom were among the concerns expressed by participants at the Asia-Pacific Religions Freedom Forum in Taoyuan yesterday. More than 99 religious freedom advocates, leaders of non-governmental organizations and religious leaders from 26 nations are attending the three-day forum, which is being jointly hosted by a group of organizations, including the Democratic Pacific Union, China Aid and Freedom House. US Commission on International Religious Freedom chair Katrina Swett told the forum that the oppression of religions in the Asia-Pacific region, including Chinas oppression of Falun Gong and North Koreas autocratic rule, is severely affecting global stability and peace, adding that every effort to remove such oppression must be made. Swett said that under the leadership of Chinese President Xi Jinping (), churches are being destroyed, while Muslims and Tibetans are also being oppressed. Freedom House president Mark Lagon said the Chinese government still does not allow religious freedom within the nation and the the Chinese Communist Party monitors all religious activities and oppresses all religious groups that are not collaborating with the government. Tibetan traditional religious ceremonies that have been performed for hundreds of years have been banned by the Chinese government, Lagon said, adding that China is an example of the radical oppression of religious freedom. Former vice president Annette Lu (), who founded the Democratic Pacific Union, said in her speech that weight needs to be given to the core values that are shared by all major religions. Those values are the ability to tell right from wrong and to stand up for what is right, she said. The oppression of women by men, the poor by the rich and the weak by the strong have directly led to the conflict-filled world we live in today, Lu said. She said that religion is as important to people as air and water, adding that religion teaches us right from wrong. Religion is like a mirror, reflecting humanitys beauty and ugliness alike, or a washing machine, cleaning the sins from the soul, Lu said. Everyone needs religions and they should always have the freedom to choose which religion to believe in, she added. 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 KIEV - A Ukrainian trade mission will travel to China in September in search for new business opportunities, a senior Ukrainian government official said on Thursday. "Currently, China is particularly important for us in the light of wide prospects for cooperation in many sectors," Natalia Mykolska, Deputy Economic Development and Trade Minister, told a news briefing. The delegation would pay special attention to developing business ties with Chinese partners in agriculture and machine building sectors, Mykolska said. Ukraine's statistics showed China became the largest partner of the East European country last year in agriculture and food products, with bilateral trade rising by 39.5 percent to $1.3 billion. The overall trade turnover between the two countries fell 15.4 percent to $5.5 billion in January-September of 2015, compared with the corresponding period of 2014, the data showed. China has expressed its concern over a raid by Spanish law enforcement officers on the Madrid branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd as part of an investigation into alleged money laundering. Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Hong Lei said on Thursday: "The Chinese government always demands that domestic companies operating abroad strictly abide by the laws, both of China and the country they are working in. "At the same time, we hope Spain will handle relevant issues fairly according to the laws, guarantee the legal rights of Chinese companies and staff there, and maintain good development of Sino-Spanish relations." He said Spain has become an important destination for Chinese investments, which have benefited both countries. Reuters reported the Spanish authorities had arrested five ICBC directors in its capital branch on Wednesday, as part of a joint investigation by the country's Civil Guard and Spain's Anti-Corruption Attorney's Office into the laundering of at least 40 million euros ($44.5 million). Agence France-Presse quoted the Spanish police as saying the raid was a follow-up to a major operation launched last year that targeted Chinese gangs based in Madrid suspected of importing huge amounts of undeclared goods from China, to avoid paying import duties. The crime groups allegedly deposited their earnings into ICBC, which is accused of then sending the funds to China without checking their origin, AFP reported. The bank said in a statement it is closely following the investigation, and has sent directors of ICBC (Europe) and lawyers to its Madrid branch to cooperate with the investigators. "We always maintain the basic management principles of strictly enforcing anti-money laundering regulations and insisting on legal and compliance management. "Our Madrid branch is cooperating actively with the investigation," the bank said. The Chinese embassy in Spain reiterated in a statement on Wednesday the Chinese government demands all accredited Chinese companies working abroad strictly abide by the law. "According to the information in our possession, all the Chinese offices in Spain have acted according to these demands," the embassy said. ICBC opened its first Spanish branch in Madrid in January 2011, followed by a second one in Barcelona a year later. At present, the bank has 400 overseas outlets in 42 countries and regions. Gao Ming, general manager of the lender's international banking department, said last year it would further expand its global footprint. Like other Chinese commercial lenders, ICBC is adjusting its business strategy to deal with challenges such as interest-rate liberalization, the reduction of banks' role as middlemen, and increasing competition from Internet finance. Chairman Jiang Jianqing said its global expansion has helped the bank overcome these challenges by boosting profits. Zeng Gang, director of banking research at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Finance and Banking, said it is inevitable that banks and companies from all countries face legal risks during transnational development. "Chinese banks should carefully plan their internationalization strategies, paying close attention to compliance risks, and defending their legitimate rights and interests," he said. China Tower Corp, a joint venture created to handle the telecom tower assets of China's top three carriers, is in discussions to install air monitors and surveillance cameras on its towers, to diversity its business and make more efficient use of resources. The move come over expectations that the number of telecom towers will surge in the next couple of years to meet consumers' growing demand for better Internet speed and call quality. "In future, the density of telecom towers will be higher in cities. Equipped with both wired networks and mobile networks, our towers are in good positions to play a bigger role, like holding air monitors, surveillance cameras and satellite receivers, " said Tong Jilu, general manager of China Tower. As of now, the state-owned company has over 1.5 million telecom towers across China after it completed an injection of 203.5 billion yuan ($30.8 billion) worth of telecom tower assets from shareholders China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom. The company came into existence in 2014 when the above big three telecom carriers pooled their assets to reduce duplicate construction and expenditure, as the country rolls out faster networks. But to generate more revenues, China Tower is speeding up efforts to branch into new areas. "The demand for telecom towers often sees drastic ups and downs, affected by industry cycles. When the 5G communication technology arrives, for instance, it will boost the demand. But once it reaches saturation, business will level out," Tong said. In addition to diversifying the uses of telecom towers, the company is also expanding in directions like offering technologies and services to boost telecom signals inside houses, he added. Chery's corporate logo is seen in a car at a service center in Caracas May 25, 2015.[Photo/Agencies] HEFEI - Chinese auto maker Chery Automobile Co said Thursday it has signed a deal to develop an aircraft engine for Austria's Austro Engine and China's CETC Wuhu Diamond Aircraft Engine. The engine will replace Austro Engine's current model on light aircraft DA40 and Da42 made by Austria's Diamond Aircraft and its Chinese partner, CETC Wuhu Diamond Aircraft, said Jin Gebo, Chery's assistant general manager. The main parts will be produced in Chery's factories in Wuhu, Anhui province, where it is headquartered, and the engines will also be assembled there, said Jin. As a major auto maker in China, Chery has developed and produced more than 20 car engines. It has exported more than 300,000 engines to customers in countries including the United States, Italy and Japan. Chery sold 550,100 vehicles last year, up 8.3 percent year on year. It remained the country's largest auto exporter for the 13th consecutive year with sales of 87,000 vehicles. Market research company IDC's latest data showed that a total of 21 million smart wearables were shipped in the third quarter of 2015, up by 197.6% year-on-year. As a rather new area, market players change positions frequently. China's BBK, owner of a children's phone watch brand Xiaotiancai, outperformed Samsung and broke into the top five club, gaining a market share of 3.1 percent. Let us have a look at the top 5 vendors. No 5 BBK Shipment volume: 0.7 million Market share: 3.1% BEIJING - Apple officially launched its much anticipated Apple Pay service in China on Thursday, through a partnership with China UnionPay, entering the country's competitive mobile payment race. Users of the iPhone 6 or more advanced versions, certain iPads and Apple Watches will be able to use their devices to buy items across Apple's second-largest market by revenue. China is the fifth country where the service has been launched, after the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia. Last year, 620 million people in China, or 90.1 percent of the nation's Internet users, used a smart device to go online, according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CINNIC). The potential market for Apple Pay is huge as 358 million people used mobile payment service last year, according to CINNIC data. The customers of 19 Chinese banks will be able to link their bank accounts to Apple Pay, and UnionPay has provided compatible point-of-sale (POS) terminals for users to complete the transactions. McDonald's said on Thursday that it will accept the contactless payment in 1,700 restaurants in China. Apple also lists Lane Crawford, Carrefour, 7-Eleven, Burger King, and KFC among the merchants already accepting in-store Apple Pay in China. Several Chinese Internet firms also began accepting Apple Pay, making the service available alongside Alibaba's Alipay and Tencent's Tenpay. Chinese restaurant review and group buying services Meituan and Dazhongdianping and online retailer dangdang.com have also released Apple Pay-compatible versions of their apps. More online and offline retailers are going to accept the new payment service, chief among them being JD.com, Alibaba's arch rival in e-commerce. A merchant told Xinhua on Thursday that Apple Pay could potentially be used across a wide range of offline merchants as long as they have UnionPay's NFC compatible POS machines. "It's fast and no password is required. All I need to do is placing my iPhone in front of the POS machine, put my fingers on the Touch ID and it's done." said Wang Tian, an office worker who bought lunch at KFC using Apple Pay on Thursday in Beijing. UnionPay has long sought to make a dent in China's mobile payment market, which is dominated by Alibaba and Tencent. It previously worked with the country's three telecom operators to promote NFC-based mobile payment services. The project failed to gain a sizable share of the mobile payment market, in part because of different technical standards employed by telecom operators and lack of merchant interest. China's third party mobile payment market was valued at 16.36 trillion yuan in 2015, according to research firm Analysys. Alibaba and Tencent dominate the market. Alibaba's Alipay held 71.51 percent of the market in the third quarter last year, while Tencent's Tenpay had carved out a 16 percent share, data from Analysys show. "Curiosity will definitely drive a lot of sign-ups to Apple Pay, but the key challenge for Apple and UnionPay is how to turn this initial interest into deep-rooted habits in the long term." said Sandy Shen, research director at tech consultancy firm Gartner. Alibaba and Tencent have spent the past two years working to address that challenge. The two rivals have been locked in a breakneck race to lure consumers to choose to use their mobile payment service in a growing number of offline settings. Progress came after both splurged heavily to offer discounts. Value propositions are therefore critical in persuading the country's penny-wise users to switch to a new payment service, Shen said. Unclear of what benefit can be reaped through Apple Pay, some are holding out, preferring to just "wait and see." "So far, I didn't see how it differs from the services offered by Alibaba or Tencent. There's just not that much incentive for me to use it," said Cheng Xiaosun, an iPhone 6s user in Beijing. Analysts predict that a promotional campaign similar to those that gave Alipay and Tenpay mass exposure will be used for Apple Pay in China, but UnionPay and the banks are more likely to take the lead in this regard, rather than Apple. "I choose electronic payment over cash because I can get discounts. That's why I began using Alipay and Tenpay in the past and if Apple wants me to use its payment service, it will have to do the same," Cheng said. BEIJING - A vagrant boy sat all huddled up in a corner of Beijing Railway Station, trying to keep himself warm in the chilly wind on Tuesday afternoon. A teenager, unsure of his identity and living on a street corner near Beijing Railway Station, is helped by China Daily photographer Wang Jing on Tuesday before being taken to a care center. [Wang Jing/China Daily] He could only remember that he was 16 and that his home was far away from Beijing but failed to provide other vital information such as his name or home address. Two officials from the social assistance center for the homeless in Beijing's Dongcheng district came to his assistance within half an hour of receiving a passer-by's call. The boy was taken to the center's office for some paper work and then sent to a shelter for the homeless in Fengtai district. "Our center handles about three or four similar cases every month. Those whose family cannot be contacted immediately are sent to the shelter," said Cao Hui, an official who came to the railway station to pick up the boy. The method of collecting vagrants and sending them to shelters would include an extra step by 2013, according to a notice jointly issued by eight government departments, including the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA), on Monday. The circular required the public security, urban management authorities and rescue centers nationwide to collect blood samples from vagrant children. Their DNA information will be recorded and checked against the national DNA database to see if these could be matched with that of missing children's parents', in case they were kidnapped or stolen by criminals. The eight government departments will start a year-long national campaign in 2012, aiming to return street children to their homes, which will be led by the MCA. The MCA urged provincial governments to set up special offices to coordinate the campaign. Civil Affairs minister Li Liguo said on Monday that the ministry will speed up revising the management regulations related to the homeless and beggars in cities, introduced in 2003. Detailed rules about how different government departments should cooperate with each other to help vagrant children would be formulated in the revised regulation. The notice also urged the civil affairs authorities to organize social workers to provide one-on-one psychological counseling and aid services to street children. Educational authorities in locations where the vagrant children are originally from are required to facilitate their returning to schools or vocational institutions. Those from poor families can have their school fees reduced or waived. Yu Jianrong, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and an initiator of a grassroots campaign to help child beggars, begun in January, applauded the government's consistent efforts to help street children to resume a normal life. "The notice definitely shows the government's determination to keep children away from begging or performing on the street." "However, seeing no vagrant children on the street doesn't mean all problems have been solved. The government should make more efforts to improve the social security network for children," he added. Ablikim has been working with a non-governmental organization in Urumqi of Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region that has helped about 300 children - originally from Xinjiang who turned up on the streets of more prosperous cities, begging and picking pockets - to reunite with their families or put them in child rescue centers. The 27-year-old Uygur volunteer, urged the police to carefully check the identities of adults who brought several children to the railway station or bus stops, as they could well be human traffickers. A teenager, unsure of his identity and living on a street corner near Beijing Railway Station, is helped by China Daily photographer Wang Jing on Tuesday before being taken to a care center. [Photo by Wang Jing/China Daily] Demand for DNA tests has soared in Southwest China's Sichuan province as unregistered citizens look to obtain household registration permits following a national policy change. A directive issued last month by the State Council instructed all regional governments to devise new ways of registering citizens that do not have a household registration, or hukou. Around one percent of China's population, or 13 million people, are unregistered according to the latest national census dataand although detailed implementation rules have yet to be unveiled, it is believed DNA paternity testing will form a key part of their hukou applications. Genegle Forensic, a private scientific institute in Sichuan's capital of Chengdu, received so many requests for DNA testing over the Spring Festival holiday that for the first time its staff could not take time off. They carried out 40 paternity tests and answered more than 300 calls inquiring about testing in the space of one week, according to Chengdu Commerical Daily, which reported that more than 100 such tests had been carried out in the city of 15 million permanent residents since mid-January. The most common reason for someone not to have hukou is that they were born in violation of China's recently-abolished one-child policy, to parents who could not afford to pay the hefty fine required to register them legally. Other "black" children, as they are referred to in Chinese media, were born out of wedlock or do not have a legal birth certificate. Hukou is important because it provides access to state education and healthcare, and those without it can find it difficult to open a bank account, get married or find formal employment. Liu Bing, a resident of the Chengdu suburb of Jintang, said he was waiting for detailed rules to be released before he attempted to get his adopted daughter a hukou. As a third child, she was born in violation of the family planning policy in place at the time and was never officially registered. Liu said he had spoken with a Genegle Forensic representative, who suggested obtaining a paternity test from the girl's parents and applying for hukou under their name before transferring it to him after he proved the adoption was legal. Zhang Yuan, from the company, said that they had "felt the effects of the central government decision in mid-January almost instantly." Most customers came from outlying areas to the city's northeast such as Jintang county and Qingbaijiang district and paid between 2,000 ($307) to 5,000 yuan for the test, he said. Wu Feng, chairman of Chengdu Forensic Expertise Association, predicted a "steep rise in testing cases around the country" as each regional government formulates its own detailed implementation rules. Wang Yan, an engineer at the Beijing Environmental Monitoring Center, checks the quality of air samples. FENG YONGBIN/CHINA DAILY Beijing is to strengthen research on air quality forecasting with data from more monitoring stations to improve decisions taken to curb smog. In the capital, 35 stations monitor air quality and upload the real-time data to the Environmental Protection Bureau. To provide better information on air quality, the capital plans to raise the number of stations to more than 70 and increase the number of mobile monitoring vehicles to cover a wider area. Smog forecasts help the municipal government to decide on the level of alerts it raises against air pollution. In December, for example, the city issued two red alerts - the first time it had adopted the highest-level response to air pollution. The alerts were issued based on air pollution forecasts from the Beijing Environmental Monitoring Center. Qiu Qihong, a senior forecaster who has worked at the center for 15 years, said, "We can release an accurate forecast on air quality three days in advance with detailed information on pollution levels and also give a trend forecast for the coming 10 days." He said that based on this trend information, the center can also give predictions on the air quality outlook for the next six months at most. Beijing has carried out research on air quality forecasting since 1999 with cooperation from the local meteorological bureau. Qiu said the capital started to release the forecasts in 2001, adding that the ability to forecast air pollution had served the city well and had been improved during the 2008 Olympic Games. Sun Feng, another senior forecaster at the center, said the experience gained had been an important factor in improving the ability to provide accurate forecasts. Xin Lianzhong, another senior forecaster, said forecasters make an analysis, combine the data with information on the weather and pollutant emissions, and release a pollution forecast every afternoon. Li Shixiang, the city's deputy mayor, said, "Only when we have better monitoring data can we perform better in curbing smog in the capital." After the center completes the forecasts, it sends them to the Environmental Protection Bureau, which informs the municipal government if severe smog is predicted. Qiu said, "We hand in severe smog forecasts about a week ahead," adding that before the second red alert was issued on Dec 19 they had completed an accurate forecast five days previously. But after this red alert was lowered on Dec 22, smog lingered for two days, making residents question whether it had ended too early. All three senior forecasters said this showed that forecasting air pollution is never easy and can be affected by various factors, including changeable weather. Patients with nonemergency conditions will soon have to make advance appointments before going to a major hospital in Beijing. All 22 major hospitals under the Beijing Municipal Commission of Health and Family Planning will stop issuing registration tickets on site for nonemergency patients over the next 10 months. Patients can make appointments through the Internet, mobile phone, telephone and ticket machines at hospitals, Yu Luming, head of Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals, said on Thursday. The measure is expected to ease the excessive crowds of waiting patients, he said. It may also encourage patients with minor diseases to seek treatment in smaller hospitals so that more patients with serious diseases can be treated in big hospitals. The Beijing Children's Hospital has been piloting the program, Yu said. It is predicted that by the end of the year, 75 percent of patients going to the 22 hospitals for treatment will make reservations, according to Ju Xiaohong, spokesman of the Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals. "We will guide nonemergency patients to gradually shift to making reservations instead of on-site registration," he said. "Hospital volunteers will guide patients to make reservations online or through the auto ticket issuing machines in the hospitals." In addition to the 22 hospitals, Beijing has dozens of other big hospitals under the administration of different authorities, such as the National Health and Family Planning Commission and the People's Liberation Army. Since the Beijing Children's Hospital started to require nonemergency patients to make appointments in June, the number of patients waiting in line for registration in the hospital between 7 am and 8 am has been reduced by more than 18 percent, according to Ni Xin, president of the hospital. Before the system was adopted, it was common to see patients waiting overnight, he said. The measure also helped to reduce the number of scalpers at the hospital, which has been a complaint among patients for years, due to the real-name registration system that requires patients present their ID cards to be registered, he said. China's rising technological innovations helped brighten its image overseas last year, according to a report released by Xinhua News Agency on Thursday. Xinhua gathered 5.2 million overseas online articles and comments from media and social networking services that reflect foreigners' impressions of China. Technology featured prominently. Of 365,000 items on China's high-speed rail network, the world's largest, nearly 200,000 were deemed positive and more than 111,000 neutral. Nuclear power won about 164,000 favorable and 78,000 neutral reviews in 301,000 items, while nearly 60 percent of 15,000 items on cloning offered praise. Chinese Nobel Prize-winning pharmacologist Tu Youyou, who discovered the malaria-fighting drug artemisinin, generated nearly 22,000 mentions, 17,000 positive. For the Belt and Road Initiative, the regional trade and infrastructure network, about 126,000 of 249,000 items were positive, in addition to 69,000 neutral. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank got about 99,000 positive and 50,000 neutral mentions out of a total 197,000, according to the report. Meanwhile, overseas media and Internet users showered positive comments on China's UN peacekeeping work, its medical assistance to African nations and withdrawal of nationals from conflict-hit Yemen. For instance, more than 74 percent of 27,000 items about Chinese peacekeeping missions were positive. Another big focus for overseas commentators was Chinese cuisine, with 54 percent offering praise and 30 percent being neutral out of about 354,000 mentions. Specialized court would improve efficiency and ensure quality verdicts A special court may be set up to hear disputes relating to the environment and ecology in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province, to ensure the quality of verdicts and improve coordinated developments in the area, an official of China's top court said. As the region with the country's worst air pollution, the number of environmental disputes in the cluster has been rising in recent years, "which is a major reason that we are planning to explore a new way to deal with such litigation," said Yan Maokun, director of the research department under the Supreme People's Court. "We hope to first name a court in Hebei, which suffers from frequent heavy smog, to specialize in handling environmental and ecological cases in the province, in a bid to get experience in the hearings and then ask it to hear such disputes across the area," Yan said. The top court issued a guideline on Thursday asking every court in the area to provide effective legal services as the country improves regional coordination. The Beijing Intellectual Property Court, established in late 2014, and the Tianjin Maritime Court are also required to hear related cases in the region, he said, which will unify trial standards and increase efficiency. Yang Tai'an, executive vice-president of the Hebei High People's Court, said that the regional courts will share case information and build a mechanism to increase communication. "Information sharing will provide more convenience for litigants in the region, as similar cases sometimes received different verdicts in the past," Yang said. "But the sharing and the communication will solve this problem to a large extent." Ma Qiang, vice-president of the Beijing High People's Court, said that the information sharing will also be used by litigants, "which means people can enjoy equal quality litigation services". Ma said the guideline provides a legal basis to handle disputes caused by coordinated regional developments. The stressful, and sometimes dangerous, working conditions, scant salaries and low social status endured by children's doctors in China has resulted in a lack of qualified practitioners. Cang Wei reports from Nanjing. ZHU HUIQING/CHINA DAILY Zhang Fan, a sophomore at a medical school in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province in East China, is considering which department to choose when he graduates. "Many teachers and classmates have urged me not to choose obstetrics and gynecology because of the great pressure of work, but no one has suggested that I should not choose pediatrics or emergency treatment because they have already been ruled out of the list of options. Most medical students don't even consider them. "I will probably choose ophthalmology or cardiology. In China, we say 'Ophthalmology is gold, the surgical department is silver, and pediatrics is rubbish'. Some of my classmates have pointed out that pediatricians only earn half the average salary of other specialist doctors," he said. The shortage of pediatricians, highlighted by the closure of a number of children's hospitals in recent years, is now attracting attention nationwide. According to the 2015 China Health Statistics Yearbook, the number of pediatricians has fallen from about 105,000 to 100,000 in the past five years, and on average, there are only 43 pediatricians for every 100,000 children. Since December, pediatrics departments at a number of hospitals in Guangdong province have stopped accepting patients, or have ceased to provide services at night. Meanwhile, pediatricians in some hospitalssuch as the Lingnan branch of No 3 Hospital Affiliated with Sun Yat-sen University, the Guangzhou Integrative Medicine Hospital and the Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical Universitywill only treat urgent cases. Shan Yutao, director of the medical management department at the Lingnan branch of the No 3 hospital, said that since 2012, the number of pediatricians has been so low the hospital can barely meet the demand for services. Four of the eight pediatricians recruited by the hospital in 2011 have quit, and others are considering leaving soon. "In 2012, the hospital treated 51,000 patients. In 2014, the number exceeded 63,000, and last year patient numbers rose by 12 percent. Every day, each pediatrician treats more than 100 children. Some pediatricians in the emergency department have to work 24-hour shifts, so it's understandable that some of them choose to leave," he said. By 9 am every day, the pediatrics department at Xinhua Hospital in Shanghai has registered about 200 patients, who then wait to consult pediatricians. Airglow rippling over the Himalayas, taken on April 27, 2014.[DAI JIANFENG/CHINA DAILY] 'Universe Boy' wins photo honors from NASA, magazines and websites Dai Jianfeng took four years to complete his transformation from automobile engineer to astronomy photographer. His stunning work has been published on the websites of NASA, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States, and other international media sites dedicated to space and astronomy. A Japanese website even dubbed him "Universe Boy" in a story about his photos. "Shooting the starry night is not only about the artistic beauty in photography, but also about the implementation of astronomy, geology, history, culture and meteorology," Dai said. "Sometimes, you risk your life." NASA has published four of Dai's images online, under his English byline, Jeff Dai, as its "Astronomy Picture of the Day", including a recent photo depicting a colorful solar corona over the Himalayas. Another shot, an image of a starry night sky over the Himalayas taken in 2014 graced the cover of the Dec 8 issue of PNAS, the official journal of the US National Academy of Sciences. The photo taken from the Tibetan Plateau showed gravity waves "revealed in a thin layer of glowing atmosphere called airglow". "The orange colors come from excited hydroxyl radicals, and the green colors from oxygen light emissions," the journal explained. "In the foreground are the Himalayas, and astronomy photographers capturing the night sky." Scientists from NASA and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration captured the same starry sky from space with the help of satellites, so Dai's photo provided "precious synchronous data" observed from the ground, the journal said. The 27-year-old, soft-spoken Dai was born in China's southwestern municipality of Chongqing. In a mega city of nearly 30 million people, light pollution obscures the upper atmosphere and his childhood memories do not include a starry sky. After graduating from Chongqing University in 2011, Dai became an automobile engineer and played video games in his free time. However, a weekend stargazing trip to Mount Fanjing in nearby Guizhou province changed everything. He fell in love with astronomy, and set out to record beautiful moments of light in the dark. In August 2012, he published his first photo in Astronomy, a US monthly magazine. Shot in Southwest China's Yunnan province, the photo shows the Milky Way at moonrise. On another shoot, he almost got lost when crossing a glacier. And he was once chased by nine wild dogs in the Tibet autonomous region at midnight. A woman dozes on a subway while letting her head hang in a scarf tied to a handrail. [Photo/cqnews.net] A woman was so tired that she dozed on a subway while letting her head hang in a scarf tied to a handrail, a local newspaper in Southwest China's Chongqing reported. The woman named Yang, said the idea was inspired by her mother who used a similar technique to relieve pressure on the spine. Yang said she had spent the day at a wedding and felt exhausted during her ride on Subway Line 6 in Chongqing. Yang added that she found it hard to maintain a comfortable position to sleep on subway trains. She is calling for operators to try make seats more comfortable for passengers wishing to nap while they travel. A picture showing her sleeping has gone viral on social networking sites. A survey on Weibo found more than 53 percent of respondents praised the woman's "creative" sleeping position, though others said they were worried about her safety. A staff member from the Chongqing subway said the weird way of sleeping was dangerous and could hurt her neck in the case of the emergency brake being applied. In an old Chinese story, it is said that a young learner tied one end of a rope to their hair and the other to a beam on the roof in order to stay awake at night and study. The story is often quoted to encourage more dedicated practice. President Xi Jinping visited the headquarters of major State media in Beijing on Friday morning and sent an audio greeting for the upcoming Lantern Festival to people across China. At around 8:40 am, Xi arrived at the headquarters of People's Daily newspaper and sent the greeting on its social media platforms WeChat and Weibo and its news app. "Hello, everyone. With the Lantern Festival around the corner, I wish you all happy, healthy and successful new year," said President Xi in a short audio message recorded at the newspaper. Xi pressed the keyboard and sent the greetings on the three platforms, generating warm response from netizens. As of 11:20 am, the greeting has been forwarded nearly 10,000 times and liked by more than 17,000 people on the Weibo account of People's Daily, about two hours after it was published at 9:36 am. Many netizens thanked Xi and extended an early Lantern Festival greeting to him. One netizen named "What she does not know" said, "Hi, uncle Xi, I wish you a happy Lantern Festival in advance." Xi also spoke with villagers from Chixi village in Ningde city, East China's Fujian province through a live video chat at the newspaper's studio, and wished them a better life. Chixi is a poor village and when Xi was the former Party secretary of Ningde city, he paid much attention to poverty alleviation in the village. Xi also visited the headquarters of Xinhua News Agency and China Central Television (CCTV) later on. President Xi Jinping visited three Beijing-based State news organizations on Friday morning. At the command center of China Central Television, his last stop, Xi talked with staff at CCTV North America branch through live video and learnt about the operation of the branch which was set up in 2012. The North America branch produces five hours' program every day and 90 percent of the staff are local residents. Also at CCTV's headquarters in Beijing, Xi visited the newsroom where the TV station's flagship evening news broadcast, known as Xin Wen Lian Bo in Chinese, is produced. Earlier in the day, President Xi visited Xinhua News Agency and People's Daily newspaper. In Xinhua's history exhibition room, Xi learnt the history of the news agency and looked at the telegraph transmitter used in the past, and the state-of-the-art equipment such as maritime satellite and drone used nowadays. During the trip to People's Daily, Xi sent audio greeting message to Internet users through social media accounts of the newspaper. Representatives of six major business chambers urge the public to voice against filibuster in the legislature and violent acts at a press conference at the building of the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce on Feb 19, 2016. [Parker Zheng/China Daily] Six major business chambers in Hong Kong today jointly expressed their concern on violence on Hong Kong's streets and filibustering in the city's legislature. They urged local people to stand out and speak up to say no to those who are "getting Hong Kong stuck" and will destroy Hong Kong's competitiveness. The six business chambers are: the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce, the Chinese Manufacturers' Association of Hong Kong, Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, Federation of Hong Kong industries, the Real Estate Developers Association of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Chinese importers' and Exporters' Association. Vice-chairwoman of the Chinese General Chamber of Commerce Betty Yuen said an accumulation of incidents, from the 79-day illegal Occupy movement in 2014 to the recent Mong Kok riot, have greatly hurt Hong Kong's international image. Investors, both local and from overseas, would reconsider their investment plan in Hong Kong for fear of unpredictable social movements. Meanwhile, filibustering in the Legislative Council (LegCo) has halted Hong Kong's infrastructure building process, she cautioned. As competition from regional countries and regions is growing fiercer, Hong Kong may lose its advantages in the short term, she warned. According to LegCo statistics, out of 72 proposed public work projects submitted to LegCo in the current legislative year starting in April 2015, only two have been passed. BEIJING -- China on Friday urged relevant parties to be cautious and show restraint to avoid complicating the situation as the United States passed a bill to impose more stringent sanctions on Pyongyang. No hot issues could be fundamentally resolved through simple sanctions or pressure. Actions that may harm third-party's legitimate interests will not help solve the issues, but only result in a more complicated situation, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei at a regular press conference. All parties concerned should stay calm and exercise restraint, sticking to the general direction of resolving issues through dialogue and consultations, said Hong. A formation of the Nanhai Fleet of China's Navy on Saturday finished a three-day patrol of the Nansha islands in the South China Sea. [Photo/Xinhua] Experts said that if Washington continues to flex its military muscles in the South China Sea, it may prompt China to boost its defense buildup there to safeguard its lawful rights. That observation was made in response to a series of incursions US naval warships have made into Chinese territorial waters in the South China Sea in the name of "Freedom of Navigation". Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a daily news conference in Beijing on Friday that the US "has consistently strengthened its military buildup in the South China Sea", and it has lured or pressured its allies or partners to embark on joint military drills or joint patrols in the South China Sea. "Such actions have worsened the tense situation in the South China Sea and are acts of boosting 'militarization'," Hong said. Hong made the comments in answer to US State Department spokesman John Kirby's claim on Thursday that Washington sees no indication that China's "militarization effort" has stopped. Hong added that China has deployed defenses on Yongxing in the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea since 1959. Jin Canrong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University of China in Beijing, said if Washington continues to flex its military muscle in the South China Sea, "China would be forced to boost its defense capacities there". "One could conceive of Washington motivating countries to get into a dispute with China to challenge China militarily. That could lead to a security dilemma and a vicious circle in which both sides would race to boost their military buildup," Jin said. But China would not take such a path, Jin said, because it has been seeking peaceful uses of the construction on the islands there. And in any case, given its overall strengths, China "would still win in the event of such an arms race there". Ruan Zongze, vice-president of the China Institute of International Studies, said that if the US continues its provocations, China should further fortify its defense facilities there "in accordance with the degree of the threats posed". "International law gives sovereign states the right to self-preservation and self-defense," Ruan said. Regarding Southeast Asian countries, Ruan said that "when dealing with the major countries (such as China and the US), they are actually carefully working toward maintaining a certain balance. This effectively serves their interests." President Xi Jinping visits the newsroom of Peoples Daily in Beijing on Friday. LAN HONGGUANG / XINHUA President Xi Jinping showed interest in new media on Friday, sending greetings for the upcoming Lantern Festival and other messages via social media during visits to three major news organizations. He visited People's Daily, Xinhua News Agency and China Central Television. "I wish all of you good health, progress in work and family happiness," Xi said as he visited the People's Daily newsroom in the morning. Xi inspected the operation of the newspaper's new media center, and his voice message was delivered through its micro blog, WeChat accounts and app for portable devices. Xi also spoke with reporters and editors there, many in their 20s and 30s, who waved and applauded his visit. At CCTV's prime time news program studio, Xi sat at the desk as anchors briefed him on how to use a teleprompter for reading aloud bulletins. The visit to the country's leading news outlets was part of Xi's efforts to enhance the media's role in informing people. After the visit, Xi chaired a seminar in the afternoon, saying that "China should enhance its international communication capacity, strengthen its voice in the world arena and tell China's story well". Liu Chang, dean of the School of Journalism at Communication University of China, said Xi's visit and remarks are part of China's top-level plan for media buildup, including increased priority on emerging media outlets and media integration. "The president has observed the latest changes in the country's media industry. He aims to expound on the importance of respecting the natural laws of news communication. Without such respect, China's communication with the world won't succeed," Liu said. During his visit to Xinhua's news center, Xi clicked on a thumb-up icon on an app run by the news organization to praise the work of journalists nationwide. He also tried video calls, an increasingly popular media platform, to offer ideas on how to improve people's livelihoods and boost the economy. During a videoconference with villagers in Ningde, Fujian province, at the People's Daily website studio, Xi endorsed the progress in eliminating poverty there and expressed best wishes for the villagers. Ningde has a special meaning for Xi, since he once worked there. Also at Xinhua, Xi used a video call to talk with a reporter in Lankao, Henan province, encouraging him to try his best to get firsthand information about the work style of local officials. Zhang Yue contributed to this story. An ambulance rushes Chen Xinyi to a hospital after she and two other missing children were found on Friday in Zhejiang province. Shen Zhicheng / For China Daily The three children who went missing from a village in Zhejiang province were found safe on Friday morning after nearly 72 hours. Chen Xinyi, 12, her 7-year-old brother Chen Hanlin and Chen Minjie, an 8-year-old girl, were found by rescue teams at about 10:30 am on a mountain in Changshan, a village about 7 kilometers away from their home village of Jianguang in Pujiang county. The three children left their homes at around 11 am on Tuesday, and their parents called the police in the evening. The children were either carried out on stretchers or in the arms of rescuers and taken by ambulance to a local hospital. "The three kids were cuddled together by a creek and burst into tears when they saw us. Their condition was all right and they could respond to our words. We gave them some water and food immediately," said Ge Zhebin, head of a rescue team that found the children. "The sister was very concerned about her brother. She asked about the condition of the brother several times when we rescued her." The children suffered frostbite but were in stable condition, according to Hong Yansheng, a publicity officer from the county. The children got lost on the mountain and couldn't find their way home, and they relied on water in the creek for the past three days, Hong said. By Thursday evening, about 4,000 people from across the county were formed into 59 rescue teams. They scoured reservoirs, rivers, valleys, ditches and the mountainside for the missing children within a search area of 70 square km. Two police helicopters and two amphibious rescue vehicles joined the search effort. "I want to say thank you to ... everybody involved in the rescue," the brother and sister's uncle said with tears in a video clip uploaded from Sina Weibo by Pujiang county's information office. The rescue efforts were applauded by Internet users. "I really appreciate the local government authority that mobilized all the rescue resources. They prioritized the value of life," an Internet user named Zhuangxia wrote on Sina Weibo. Xiong Qiang runs a teahouse in his family compound in the suburb of Chengdu.[Photo provided to China Daily] On the seventh day of Lunar New Year, which fell on Sunday, residents of Chengdu gathered at Du Fu's Thatched Cottage in the city's Qingyang district to recite poems and celebrate. The custom has been followed for decades, and Qing Dynasty writer Fu Chongju (1875-1917), a Chengdu native, recorded it in his book An Overview on Chengdu. In a city where traditions are alive and valued, Xiong Qiang happily speaks about his family values passed down through generations. "It's about being authentic and always having goodwill towards others," the 52-year-old owner of the mid-sized farmhouse resort says. "My father, being a teacher, always tried to inculcate these values in his four children. They're deeply rooted in our minds," says Xiong. Xiong and his wife, a teacher, manage their compound containing a teahouse and restaurant Mei Lu in the southeastern suburb's Sansheng Flower Town, and these are values they follow even today. The flower town is known for its horticulture business, scenery, and numerous farmhouses that have been turned into resorts. They are representative of the city, which aims to develop its leisure economy. "I'd rather tell customers in advance that we offer only a set menu and charge a little bit more, which might put them off, rather than offering low-quality food at a lower cost," he says, adding that customers often appreciate his being upfront and accept his way. Xiong's 20-year-old son skipped university and is devoted to starting an IT business. The father finally supported the son's decision after lots of contemplation. "But I told him the same thing my father told me - be credible and be kind in all circumstances," he says. Xiong says he believes that people are born nice and kind, even despite the years of pervasive mutual distrust during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76). "I don't resent anybody, and am always willing to help if necessary," he says. It might be due to Xiong's family values, but his father, now 92, still enjoys life, which consists of two hours of computer games and two hours of reading daily. As Xiong's wife says: "I'm really lucky to have a father-in-law like him. He's so easy-going, happy and kind and he even manages to turn his hospital stays into party time for the family." meijia@chinadaily.com.cn Models display a fall/winter collection by Bibhu Mohapatra at New York Fashion Week.[Photo by Wang Lei/ Xinhua] Indian-born designer Bibhu Mohapatra, who has dressed Michelle Obama and Gwyneth Paltrow, unveiled a stunning fall/winter collection in New York inspired by one of the most important women in Chinese history. Mohapatra, who has been a fixture at New York Fashion Week since 2009, was inspired by empress dowager Cixi, the former concubine turned 19th century regent who was a powerful figure in China for nearly 50 years. British-Indian author Salman Rushdie, one of the greatest living writers in the English language, was guest of honor and posed for a series of selfies with Mohapatra and female guests backstage. Mohapatra says the collection celebrates "the prowess and poise of the mysterious female mind", and was greeted by ecstatic applause when he appeared on the runway at the end of the show. The designer, who dressed the first lady when she and Barack Obama made a landmark visit to India in 2015, says he would "love" to dress Hillary Clinton, campaigning to become America's first woman president. Dragonflies were leitmotif of the collection, fashioned into double-wrap leather belts, made into leather chokers and picked out in embroidery and sequins on evening dresses and coats. "Dragonflies really have a lot of cultural meaning to everything," Mohapatra says. "They're prophetic in a lot of instances, it's about good crop, good weather and it's meaningful." As a child, he used to try to catch them but his mother would warn him to be careful. "They're very delicate, so I love them. I wanted to incorporate them," he says. Daywear was a lean silhouette with high necklines and long skirts. Evening wear was sumptuous - the overall effect princess meets Bollywood meets Star Wars with regal trains. There were strapless ballgowns, figure-hugging sheaths and black velveteen that fell in soft folds. Grecian-style dresses in silk chiffon billowed in white and green, and his final gown was strapless ivory and ebony with a thick gold train. There was lavish use of imperial red, pagoda embroidery, embroidered dragonfly and a chocolate chinchilla coat with alligator waist detail. Mohapatra grew up in Orissa, in eastern India and moved to the United States in 1996. After getting a masters in economics from Utah State University he studied at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology. He launched his eponymous collection in New York in 2009 and his clothes sell across the United States, Europe, Russia and the Middle East. Lemon chicken, a staple of a restaurant in London's Chinatown.[Photo by Mike Peters/ China Daily] When in London for the Lunar New Year week, I met an old friend in Chinatown: lemon chicken. If you are a foreigner in China, you are no doubt nodding your head. If you are a mainland Chinese, however, you may be scratching yours in confusion. Lemon chicken, you see, is a staple of Chinatown restaurants around the world. I've never seen it in China, though, despite having lived in Beijing for almost seven years. I'd known it well as a US college student, though I'd rarely craved the gooey stuff enough to make it myself. I didn't know I'd missed it until this chance encounter in London. Suddenly, it sounded delicious. A Chinese friend from Shanghai was traveling with me in London. When the dish arrived - crisp strips of deep-fried chicken in a tangy sweet-and-tart lemon glaze - he poked it with his chopsticks tentatively. He took a bite and pronounced it good, but then shrugged: "Well, it's not Chinese food." Our server, a young woman from Hainan, burst into giggles. "Foreigners like it," she says, "but Chinese never eat it." Until she came to London, she adds, she'd never heard of it. On New Year's Eve night, we'd strolled under Chinatown's red lanterns and feasted on more authentic fare amid the smells of roast duck and stir-fried home-style cooking. Lines were long all day - no reservations, sorry, first come is first served - and we finally sat down at Gourmet Kitchen to hong shao rou. The stewed fatty pork beloved by Mao Zedong, was the center of our meal, along with a mix of stir-fried greens (terrific), Shanghai-style soup dumplings (dry) and chicken fried rice (not sexy but flawless). The next night, we went upscale, tempted by Mr Chow in Knightsbridge and a magnet for the glitterati in London, Beverly Hills and New York. Low lighting, chic decor, and a glamorous crowd of international hipsters give the place a wonderful vibe. The menu leans to Cantonese with nods to Beijing, Shanghai and Sichuan. Like on many Chinese menus in the West, there is a romance with fermented black beans. Seafood populates much of the menu at Mr Chow, and it's generally handled with brilliance: glazed prawns with walnuts retain a crisp edge under the light goo, while the fresh crabmeat soup was simple but very pleasant. Shanghai little dragon, those soup dumplings that disappointed us in Chinatown the night before, were spot-on here. The disappointment came in the main, when we were encouraged to order the signature Ma Mignon, a tender and delicious tenderloin that's been a menu star here since 1975. We're not quite sure why: it's basically steak au poivre, with black pepper run amok and a sweet-spicy sauce that combined to mask the meat's obvious quality and less obvious flavor. (The by-the-glass Barolo, robust and elegant, paired so sweetly with the beef that it almost saved it. Almost.) We wished we'd stuck with our first choice, lamb with spring onion, or the drunken fish poached in wine sauce, which the Lebanese guys at the next table got that smelled so heavenly. So what exactly was wrong with the Ma Mignon? "Well," says my Shanghai friend, "it's not Chinese food." US engineer David Beatenbough introduces the "wall of history" at the Liuzhou-based LiuGong Machinery Corp. On display are photos of the company's products, revealing the development and ambition of the company.[Photo by Huo Yan/ China Daily] American engineer reluctantly takes up a job at a Chinese company and is happily surprised, report Zhang Li in Nanning and Liu Xiangrui in Beijing. David Beatenbough, a 58-year-old mechanical engineer from the United States, didn't expect to join a Chinese company in its bid to go global. In fact, it took him a while to decide that he wanted to work for Liuzhou-based LiuGong Machinery Corp in South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region. He met Zeng Guang'an, president of the State-owned enterprise, two years after he began to work for an international machinery company in Shanghai in 2001. Beatenbough has a degree in mechanical engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology. Impressed by his background and insights into the global market, Zeng invited him to join LiuGong, but Beatenbough wasn't sure about joining a Chinese company. Zeng's persistence finally persuaded him to change his mind. "The management group here is smaller than my former employer's, so we can make decisions and move faster," Beatenbough tells China Daily. LiuGong was looking to expand globally when he joined it in 2007. But Beatenbough, realizing that the company was mainly a maker of wheel rollers, found the challenge greater than he had expected. "We needed to expand the product line to attract quality dealers in the international market," he adds. Beatenbough helped the company form the LiuGong Development Process, a system based on teamwork for new products. The model, still used by the company, managed to improve the success rate of such projects and shortened the launch time of new products. "It forces our engineers to look at what our customers really need and want," he says. The company's D series excavators, developed by following that model, won the company immediate attention in the market following their launch in 2010. The model has contributed to the company's growth in the past few years, helping it enrich its product line and turning it into a full-scale manufacturer of construction equipment that makes wheel loaders, skid steer loaders, motor graders and excavators. But Beatenbough wasn't satisfied with just developing new products for the company as he thought most wheel loaders made in China looked the same no matter which company they came from. Then, he tried to build a brand for LiuGong, with methods including the distinctive use of industrial designs so people could recognize its machines easily. He also played a leading role in establishing the LiuGong Global R&D Center that opened last year. So far, it is the only unit of its kind for earthmovers in China. Chinese visitors at Stonehenge, a prehistoric site in Wiltshire, England. [Photo by Zhang Guilan / For China Daily] Media reports about the amount Chinese tourists spent in Japan during the just-concluded Spring Festival holiday will no doubt once again rankle with domestic manufacturers. But they should not simply complain about Chinese consumer's having an "unprincipled preference" for foreign brands. Reports about Chinese visitors to Japan snapping up Japanese toilet seat covers in late 2015 already gave a slap in the face to domestic manufacturers, and sparked calls for them to raise their product quality. If domestic manufacturers are reluctant to reflect on why Chinese consumers exhibit such enthusiasm for buying foreign brands, the recent warning by the media in the Republic of Korea that some of the country's vendors have been swindling money out of Chinese tourists, and this has been driving Chinese shoppers from the ROK to Japan should cause them pause for thought. Domestic manufacturers have no reason to remain indifferent to the continuous outflow of domestic buyers when ROK vendors and manufacturers are being urged to retain Chinese buyers. Mainland tourists have become increasingly discerning about the quality of products and services they buy. And Chinese people travelling overseas are no longer "fools with money" as they were labeled by some in the past. They have become more rational and mature about their spending, as indicated by their preferences when buying abroad. Quality and value for money are now the main factors deciding whether and where they will open their wallets. With China opening wider to the outside world, Chinese people are increasingly choosing to cast a vote with their feet against any low quality and bad services. The Supreme People's Court holds a public hearing over the environmental public interest case on the afternoon of Jan 21, 2016. [Photo provided by the Supreme People's Court] A 70-year-old woman sued the local government of Huayin city, northern China's Shaanxi province, for wrongly registering her property under the name of her son. The local government neither sent a representative to court, nor executed the court's ruling which went against it. Why not introduce a compulsory enforcement system against such powerful institutions, asks jschina.com.cn: There is a growing awareness among ordinary residents that they can use the courts to defend their rights and interests. The judge in this case said it was just one of about 200 against local governments within the province in their courts for the past two years. That's a positive trend, because only when people seek solutions to disputes via the courts, will rule of law be possible. However, local governments seem to be lagging far behind. The local government in Huayin has demonstrated the contempt local governments tend to show court rulings that go against them. It was only after the national media picked up the story that it promised to implement the ruling. Many people say leading local government officials need to change their mindsets and give up old thinking that local governments are sacred and inviolable. They are right. But more importantly, the case reveals the lack of a means of enforcing court rulings when local governments refuse to abide by them. A mandatory execution mechanism is necessary, so that local governments cannot simply ignore court judgments that go against them. When a government refuses to execute a court ruling, a court should also be able to punish government officials if they do not abide by its ruling. The Huayin incident has already ruined the credit of the local government because it has treated the law as simply a worthless scrap of paper. To uphold the rule of law, local governments must be made to execute court rulings that go against them, because a court that has no authority will not be trusted by ordinary people. Patients wait in line for the registration windows to open at the Beijing Stomatological Hospital on Wednesday. The windows open at 7 am to sell tickets for treatment, and it is a common practice for people to use stools or other objects to reserve a place in the line.[Photos by Zou Hong / China Daily] A number of hospitals in Beijing have said they intend to do more to try and put an end to the organized rings of scalpers that profit by snapping up the appointments with doctors and then selling them to genuine patients. Beijing Tongren Hospital says it will offer unlimited registration tickets in some clinics and extend the clinic hours of specialists, while Beijing Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital is also launching a campaign against the hospital scalpers. That determination is important but we need more actions, comments Beijing Youth Daily: Scalpers have become a growing cancer in the country's healthcare system and a disease that the authorities have failed to effectively treat. Faced with tremendous harm and abnormally stubborn swindlers, hospitals in Beijing seem to have decided to take action. Although the city's medical institutions do not seem to have come up with a unified move or tactics to crack down the scammers, a number of hospitals have announced that they will make special efforts to combat the reprehensible practice that potentially puts patients at risk. Their willingness to take responsibility is actually a positive development in the face of the authorities' inertia, and such an attitude and determination are important to cure this sickness in our society. Hospitals are meant to help people in need, faced with the patient's frustration, resentment and anger, every hospital should seek to eliminate the scalpers. These unscrupulous people know that the hospitals have a limited number of security guards and the medical staff are busy with their duties. Therefore, they are exceptionally rampant, and have continued to multiply as they have, up until now, been able to operate unhindered. To cure this sickness, law enforcement is needed. We are glad to see hospitals have taken the first step and hope they will accomplish much. MA XUEJING/CHINA DAILY The just concluded meeting between leaders from the United States and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations at Sunnylands Rancho Mirage, California, the first for both sides, produced several agreements on economic cooperation, as well as traditional and nontraditional security coordination. The two-day gathering focused on building a stronger US-ASEAN strategic partnership and economic community. However, Washington's touting of so-called freedom of navigation and binding standards to "demilitarize" the South China Sea has the potential to hijack the interests of ASEAN and its members and further complicate the regional situation. As he is in his final year in office, US President Barack Obama wants to further his rebalancing to the Asia-Pacific strategy as part of his legacy while he can. Therefore, the meeting outcomes might have been less than satisfactory for him, especially given his desire to exploit the US-ASEAN partnership against China. Being a key player in the Asia-Pacific affairs, ASEAN is trying to strike a balance between Beijing and Washington, two major regional powers it maintains close relationships with. In fact, ASEAN has been mature and wise enough to do so in the past years. Most member states, particularly the less developed ones, such as Brunei and Cambodia, have more interest in receiving financial aid and an economic boost from the US, rather than military support, although the Philippines may be an exception. In other words, when it comes to the South China Seas issues, which are basically about territorial disputes and maritime interest clashes between China and a few ASEAN members, the bloc is unlikely to pick a side. Instead it will give priority to economic improvement, not endorse some-US backed members to confront China. Like all peace-loving regional players, Beijing has long advocated the demilitarization of the waters. The most noteworthy hindrance to this is the US and its actions. Driven by its hegemonic ambitions, the US government has significantly enhanced its military presence and intervention in the South China Sea, which does not concern its homeland security at all. With the claim it is protecting "freedom of navigation", it keeps stirring up trouble in the South China Sea. A US Navy destroyer intruded in Chinese waters off the Xisha Islands last month, and was quickly forced away by the Chinese military. In December, a US Air Force B-52 bomber "accidentally" flew within 2 nautical miles of China's Huayang Reef. Provocative moves like these are clearly about flexing the US' military muscles, which poses a grave danger to regional peace and stability in the waters, as well as damaging efforts by both China and the US to build a new type of major power relationship, a proactive proposal made by Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Pacific Ocean is wide enough to accommodate the interests shared by both nations, as Xi said. The proposed new type of major power relationship should be forged with the principles of non-confrontation, non-conflict, and peaceful negotiation. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the establishment of dialogue between China and ASEAN, and they are expected to expand their cooperation in poverty-alleviation, bridging the digital gap, and their efforts to combat climate change. The US could cooperate in the same areas with the ASEAN members with no political conditions attached. As for the South China Sea issues, they have to be carefully dealt with by relevant countries in accordance with the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, not those outside the region. The author is a senior researcher in Southeast Asian affairs at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The article is an excerpt of his interview with China Daily's Cui Shoufeng. Workers process hot pepper sauce at Yiliuxiang Food Co in Shizhu county, Chongqing. The company is one of the beneficiaries of the poverty relief financial programs. [Photo by Tan Yingzi / China Daily] First, a woman from Shanghai caused an uproar after she posted online about her experience of accompanying her boyfriend to his hometown in a poor village in Central China's Jiangxi province during the Spring Festival. She said in a post that she was "deeply shocked" by how poor his family is. Their relations came to a sudden end as she decided to return to Shanghai the same night. Then a reporter with Caijing, a business magazine, lamented in an article the moral deterioration he found in his hometown, a small village in Northeast China, when he returned during the holiday. An elderly woman was beaten up by her daughter-in-law simply because the daughter-in-law was not satisfied with the meal she cooked, and a group of young women, tried to attract rich men to marry through WeChat, a popular instant messaging app, the reporter wrote in his story. Last but not least, a Xinhua News Agency report revealed that migrant workers, who had returned to their villages in Anhui province for their annual family reunions, gambled away all their hard-earned earnings for the preceding year in just a few days playing mahjong. It has almost become a norm that each year during the Spring Festival, such stories focusing on the dark side of rural life hit the headlines. But problems, such as gambling, have always been prevalent in rural areas. They are not phenomena that only appear at this time of year. Yet sadly, only when thousands of millions of people leave the cities where they work for their annual homecomings are these problems in the public eye. Like a virgin island that has never been explored, the vast rural areas seem to suddenly come into sight during the Spring Festival, only to gradually recede and fade from view after people return to the cities. These stories, in a sense, are like an annual writing competition with the theme "Discover Rural China". Indeed, these stories, that often quote the hearsay and gossip heard at dining tables during reporters' short stays at home, do not fully reflect the whole picture of rural life. However, the problems and attitudes revealed in these stories should not be lightly dismissed. Despite the nation's unremitting efforts to speed up urbanization and change the backward situation in its rural areas, the problems in the countryside remain severe. Paradoxically, it is the cities that hold the key to solving many rural problems. The huge number of migrant workers who toil in the cities now account for a majority of the floating population in the cities. Like other residents, they eat, live, raise children and pay taxes in the cities, but unlike the other residents they still possess a rural hukou, or household registration. These small pieces of paper that tie them to their rural hometowns deny them welfare such as education and medical treatment that are enjoyed by those who have an urban hukou. The difficulty they have in sending their children to schools in cities is one of the reasons for the huge number of left-behind children in the countryside. And without the medical insurance enjoyed by urban residents, the unbearably high costs of medical fees at big hospitals in the cities finally drive many of them away. The central government's first policy issued this year stressed the importance of hukou reform, which aims to gradually grant the migrant population the same rights as urban residents. If they can settle down in the cities, some of the rural problems will disappear. So instead of hitting headlines briefly during the Spring Festival each year, the problems of the rural areas deserve constant attention and more efforts to allow migrant workers to settle in the cities permanently. The writer is an editor with China Daily. lifangchao@chinadaily.com.cn US President Barack Obama makes opening remarks at a gathering with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states leaders at Sunnylands in Rancho Mirage, California February 15, 2016.[Photo/Agencies] US President John F. Kennedy was ambitious and idealistic in his "moon speech" on Sept 12, 1962, saying "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." However, when 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders laid out a vision for the United States to provide free college education, raise the minimum wage to $15, expand Social Security and address the widening income and wealth gap and the criminal justice system, he was labeled by his Republican and Democratic rivals as unrealistic or socialist. Michael Moore's new documentary Where to Invade Next reminds Americans that not only have many of these "unrealistic" and "socialist" ideals become a reality in European countries such as Norway, Sweden and Finland, they are described by those in Scandinavia as ideas that originated in the US. The movie struck a chord with the US audience as I watched it last weekend. Many of them applauded at the end, not to mention their laughter during the hilariously funny movie. Long, paid vacations in Italy, a year of paid maternity leave in Scandinavia and a surprisingly cozy prison in Norway are just some of the contrasts with US society today. The US and Papua New Guinea are the only two countries that don't offer paid maternity leave. And the Italian and Finnish employers/capitalists talk about the importance of treating their workers well and of having a society that is fair, unlike the one in the US. Moore believes most Americans have no idea that a large chunk of the US taxpayers' money is spent on the military. According to the White House Office of Management and Budget and the non-partisan, non-profit organization National Priorities Project, which aims to make the US budget transparent, 53.71 percent, or $598 billion, of the discretionary spending in 2015 was on the military, more than the combined spending on education, medical care and health, housing and community, energy and the environment, transportation, science, food and agriculture, veterans' benefits and government. Ironically, most of the 2016 US presidential candidates are still arguing for more spending on the military by exaggerating threats from Russia and China, among others. To them, maintaining absolute military supremacy is more important than the wellbeing of ordinary Americans. Having lived in New York and Washington for six years, I have always wondered why people living in New York and Washington don't complain about cellphone services being unavailable once inside the subway systems, considering communications are so vital for everyone in the 21st century. I told my American colleague that cellphone services are available in the Shanghai or Beijing subway systems. "Maybe Americans don't know you can have cellphone services in the subway," the colleague said. US highway systems and airports used to be the envy of the world after World War II, but they have become increasingly dilapidated, especially when the rest of the world has invested heavily in infrastructure in recent decades. At the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies last week, Larry Summers, a former chief economic advisor for President Obama, asked the audience if they feel proud as Americans of Kennedy or LaGuardia airports in New York. Many flights at Kennedy are international, and Summers asked if any of those international airports aren't nicer than Kennedy Airport. "And we are supposed to be the greatest and richest country on earth," he said. In her 2010 book Third World America, Arianna Huffington, argued that excessive spending on war and the military at the expense of domestic issues is denying ordinary Americans the American Dream. Moore's movie is the latest reminder that a nation that claims to be the greatest and most exceptional seems to quickly forget its ideals. The author is deputy editor of China Daily USA. chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com A foreign teacher teaches Chinese children how to learn English through paintings. Many students in China have trouble learning English and using it in their daily lives. [Photo/China Daily] I've been in China for almost four and a half years now, teaching more than 4,000 classes and nearly as many students. Its given me experiences I'll never forget. I didn't come here in need of job. I was semi-retired in 2005. I wrote a book that sold quite well and got hundreds of invitations to speak at various venues regarding my message. However, after many years of building a private school and watching it thrive and succeed, I never got education out of my heart and soul. It had become a part of me. In 2011, I found myself in a place where I could give back in a more significant way than I had ever before. That's when I came to China. I came here at the invitation of a highly successful educator in the USA. He was from China and held a doctorate level degree from an Ivy League school. He had 20 years of experience and tenure as a professor in the USA. A good man and friend, however, after I arrived here it didn't take long to realize we had two very different ideas about serving the educational needs of Chinese children. So, we parted ways on very good terms and rather than return to the USA, I chose to stay here and make a difference in the lives of Chinese children. One thing that I realized right away is that very few, if any, foreign teachers really knew how to develop educational programs that were effective in producing high quality students who were prepared and equipped to study in the West. I knew how because I'd done it successfully in my own school in the USA for 15 years. My school there had about 750 students when I sold the property and transferred the school to very capable and experience educators. Something has 'gotten into my blood' over the last four years. My passion, rather than declining or waning, is stronger today than it has ever been. I've enjoyed watching students go on to excel in ways that I'd hoped and dreamed for them. There are so many stories I wished there was enough time for me to share. I've changed in the past 4.5 years. I will say that my change has been welcomed and all for the better. One thing that I've done that suits my character well is that I've stayed in one place for all of this time. I've had invitations to some rather well funded and excellent schools in Beijing, Harbin, Shanghai and Guangzhou. However, I believe that the greatest need was right here in Henan. It's not the most glamorous and certainly not the most metropolitan place in China, but, it is where the need is. That's why I stay. It is why I stay in China where I can add my contribution in making the world a better place. The original blog is at: http://blog.chinadaily.com.cn/blog-787069-34778.html BEIJING -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday exchanged views via phone with new French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault on their countries' relations and on international and regional issues of common concern. Wang congratulated Ayrault on his appointment. He said that the relations between China and France have been going well with deepening political mutual trust and mutually beneficial cooperation. China sees France as an irreplaceable strategic partner and has always taken France as a foreign policy priority, Wang said. He urged the two countries to maintain the strong momentum in the development of their relations, tap the potential for cooperation, boost the integration of their development strategies and explore new areas of cooperation. China is willing to boost strategic coordination with France in international and regional affairs such as global governance and climate change, said Wang. Ayrault said the relations between France and China are highly strategic and very important to the world. He pledged efforts to boost strategic communication with China and expand cooperation in innovation, investment, nuclear energy, and in the development of third-party markets. BEIJING -- China said on Friday that it does not intend to pursue militarization of the Nansha Islands in the South China Sea and criticized US air and naval patrols in the region. China has indisputable sovereignty over the Nansha Islands and their adjacent waters, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei, adding "China is serious about its commitment not to pursue militarization of the Nansha Islands." Hong made the remarks after US State Department spokesman John Kirby said commercial satellite imagery suggested "very recent" placement of missiles on Yongxing Island that goes against China's pledge not to militarize the South China Sea. "We see no indication that ... this militarization effort, has stopped. And it's doing nothing ... to make the situation there more stable and more secure," Kirby said at a regular news briefing on Thursday. Hong said that demilitarization in the region is not a matter for just a single country. "There should not be double standards or multi-standards for demilitarization in the South China Sea, and the process requires joint efforts from countries in the region and beyond." He said the United States is strengthening military deployment in the South China Sea and frequently sends military vessels or planes to waters in the South China Sea to conduct close-in reconnaissance against China. He also accused the United States of sending missile destroyer and strategic bombers into waters and airspace adjacent to the Nansha Islands and had its allies hold targeted joint military exercises or joint cruises in the region. The US actions have escalated tensions in the South China Sea and constitute the militarization of the South China Sea, said Hong. Yongxing Island, the largest island in the Xisha Islands group in the South China Sea, is an inherent part of China's territory, he said. In 1959, the Chinese government set up an administrative office and the ensuing government facilities on the Yongxing Island. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, flanked by Chief of Staff General Hulusi Akar (L), talks to journalists at the Army headquarters in Ankara, Turkey February 18, 2016 in this handout photo provided by the Prime Minister's Press Office. [Photo/Agencies] ANKARA/ISTANBUL - Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blamed a Syrian Kurdish militia fighter working with Kurdish militants inside Turkey for a suicide car bombing that killed 28 people in the capital Ankara, and he vowed retaliation in both Syria and Iraq. A car laden with explosives detonated next to military buses as they waited at traffic lights near Turkey's armed forces' headquarters, parliament and government buildings in the administrative heart of Ankara late on Wednesday. Davutoglu said the attack was clear evidence that the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish militia that has been supported by the United States in the fight against Islamic State in northern Syria, was a terrorist organisation and that Turkey, a NATO member, expected cooperation from its allies in combating the group. Within hours, Turkish warplanes bombed bases in northern Iraq of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state and which Davutoglu accused of collaborating in the car bombing. Turkey's armed forces also shelled YPG positions in northern Syria on Thursday, a security source said. Davutoglu said the artillery fire would continue and promised that those responsible for the Ankara attack would "pay the price". "Yesterday's attack was directly targeting Turkey and the perpetrator is the YPG and the divisive terrorist organization PKK. All necessary measures will be taken against them," Davutoglu said in a televised speech. President Tayyip Erdogan also said initial findings suggested the Syrian Kurdish militia and the PKK were behind the bombing and said that 14 people had been detained. The political arm of the YPG, denied involvement in the bombing, while a senior member of the PKK said he did not know who was responsible. The attack was the latest in a series of bombings in the past year mostly blamed on Islamic State militants. Turkey is getting dragged ever deeper into the war in neighbouring Syria and is trying to contain some of the fiercest violence in decades in its predominantly Kurdish southeast. The YPG militia, regarded by Ankara as a hostile insurgent force deeply linked to the PKK, has taken advantage in recent weeks of a major Syrian army offensive around the northern city of Aleppo, to seize ground from Syrian rebels near the Turkish border. That has alarmed Turkey, which fears the advances will stoke Kurdish separatist ambitions at home. It has been bombarding YPG positions in an effort to stop them taking the town of Azaz, the last stronghold of Turkish-backed Syrian rebels north of Aleppo before the Turkish frontier. Hundreds of Syrian rebels with weapons and vehicles have re-entered Syria from Turkey over the last week to reinforce insurgents fending off the Kurdish-led assault on Azaz, rebel sources said on Thursday. The city of Tianjin in North China is shrouded in haze, Dec 10, 2015. This photo taken by Zhang Lei won first prize among single photos in the Contemporary Issues category of the World Press Photo competition. [Photo/IC] Two Chinese photographers' photos won prizes in the 59th annual World Press Photo contest on Thursday afternoon. The photos, portraying severe haze in northern China and the disastrous explosion in Tianjin municipality last August,won first and third prize, respectively. Australian photographer Warren Richardson won the World Press Photo of the Year 2015 with the picture called Hope for a New Life, showing a man passing a baby through the fence at the Hungarian-Serbian border near Horgos, Serbia, and Roszke, Hungary, on Aug 28, 2015. A total of 82,951 photos were submitted by 5,775 photographers from 128 countries and regions. All winners are invited to the annual awards days, a networking event and celebration of the prizewinners, which takes place in Amsterdam at the end of April this year. World Press Photo, founded in 1955, holds the world's largest and most prestigious annual press photography contest. Two Chinese groups in San Francisco Bay Area said they were confident that the Supreme Court will accept their petition for writ of certiorari to reverse an appeals court's decision not to overturn California's ban on sale, distribution and possession of shark fins. Chinatown Neighborhood Association (CNA) and Asian Americans for Political Advancement (AAPA) sued California in 2012 over claims that the state's ban, which was passed by the legislature in 2011 and went into full effect in 2013, conflicts with a federal law "Magnuson-Stevens Act" (MSA) that protects the "optimum yield" from commercial fishing. After a Ninth Circuit panel upheld a district court's dismissal of the case in July 2015, the groups brought the case to the Supreme Court in December, which requested a response from the California Attorney General and the Director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife by Feb 28. "It's quite significant," Michael Tenenbaum, the lawyer representing the petitioners, told China Daily. "These state defendants had told the Court that they were not going to respond to our petition, which parties often say in the hope that the Court will not find the petition important. But the issue we raised is important enough that the Court wants to hear from the state." Shark finning is the practice of removing the fins from a living shark. The primary market for shark fins is for making shark fin soup, a traditional Chinese dish. The California legislature passed the ban on the basis that "California is a market for shark fin" that "helps drive the practice of shark finning," which causes "tens of millions of sharks to die each year". The petitioners argue that it's a huge waste of shark fins as the state law blocks all trade in the most valuable parts of sharks even if the sharks are landed with their fins attached. "Shark fin soup has been a Chinese cultural tradition for thousands of years. The ban not only causes a waste but also poses an insult to Chinese people," said Taylor Chow, president of AAPA. "We uphold environment conservation, but unfortunately the ban has somehow increased the total landing of sharks in California." "In response to falling prices caused by state-level shark fin bans such as California's, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) promulgated a final rule on Aug 18, 2015, amending the Fishery Management Plan for the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico to increase catch limits for sharks from 36 to 55 to allow fisherman to catch more than 50 percent additional sharks per trip," said the petition. "That rule increased quotas for several, but not all, shark species, and the bases for NOAA's changed quotas include several factors that are entirely unrelated to state restrictions on the sale of shark fins," said Ralph Henry, director of animal protection litigation at the Humane Society of the United States, which supported passage of the law in 2011 and has joined California in defending the law in court. "There is no evidence that California's prohibition on the sale of shark fins, or any other state law like it, will produce results opposite of their intended goals. Scientists estimate that more than 70 million sharks are killed for their fins each year, all over the world," Henry told China Daily. "Eliminating demand for shark fin products can do nothing but help address that problem." Last month, seven fishing associations, including the Sustainable Fisheries Association, Rhode Island Fisherman's Alliance, Long Island Commercial Fishing Association and North Carolina Fisheries Association, filed an amici brief in support of the petition, considering the ban a direct assault on the MSA and lawful businesses. Supporters of the law hold that California's shark fin sales ban is not a fisheries management regulation and its purposes, implementation and impacts are largely independent of fisheries regulations. Laws requiring that sharks be landed with fins naturally attached focus on production of shark fin products the act of shark finning itself, but "California's new prohibition on the sale of shark fins is a different kind of law, focused on the state's market for sale of shark fin products and eliminating the demand that fuels the cruel and unsustainable practice of shark finning," said Henry. "This kind of market-based regulation is a valuable tool for addressing the conservation and welfare concerns associated with shark finning," he added. A Syrian refugee teacher distributes books to her refugee students in their classroom at Fatih Sultan Mehmet School in Karapurcek district of Ankara, Turkey, Sept 28, 2015. [Photo/Agencies] BRUSSELS - European Union (EU) leaders agreed early Friday to implement existing agreements concerning the ongoing migration crisis hitting Europe, especially cooperation with Turkey in handling the crisis. "The full and speedy implementation of the EU-Turkey Action Plan remains a priority, in order to stem migration flows and to tackle traffickers and smugglers networks," the leaders concluded during a two-day summit. The action plan is a document signed in Nov 2014 between Turkey and the EU, in which Turkey agrees to protect EU borders from the flood of refugees in exchange for $3 billion and a new look at its EU membership bid. European Council President Donald Tusk said in a joint press conference with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker that the EU was to organize a special meeting with Turkey at the beginning of March. The EU leaders welcomed NATO's support in monitoring illegal crossings on the Aegean sea and called on all NATO members to support this measure actively. The meeting also called for unity of all EU institutions and member states. "We must look for a synthesis of different approaches. There is no good alternative to a comprehensive European plan," Tusk said. A joint effort is needed to solve the migration crisis, Juncker said,"solo, national approach is not recommendable." TOKYO -- The Japanese government on Friday approved its new sanctions against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) over its recent rocket launch and nuclear bomb test. The new sanctions include banning entering of ships from third countries that have visited ports in the DPRK into Japan and banning remittances to the DPRK in principle, according to local reports. The DPRK earlier this month launched a long-range rocket, saying it carried an earth observation satellite, but Japan and the U.S., among other nations, believed the launch was a test of a long-range ballistic missile. It is the first time since December 2012 that the DPRK has conducted such a test. The DPRK is banned from test-firing any rockets based on a ballistic missile technology under UN Security Council resolutions. The DPRK also tested its first hydrogen nuclear bomb last month which was also a violation against related UN resolution and was criticized by the international community. Japan lifted parts of its unilateral sanctions against the DPRK in 2014 since the DPRK agreed to restart investigations on some of Japanese nationals it abducted in the 1970s and 1980s. Reports said that the DPRK has ended investigation into Japanese abductees in the country in response to Japan's expanded sanctions. British Prime Minister David Cameron arrives at the EU council headquarters for the second day of a European Union leaders summit addressing the talks about the so-called Brexit and the migrants crisis in Brussels, Belgium, February 19, 2016.[Photo/Agencies] BRUSSELS - Prime Minister David Cameron faced a second day of tough talks with European Union partners on Friday after arguing for much of the night over concessions to help keep Britain in the bloc. The following are comments by EU leaders and senior EU officials ahead of Friday's summit resumption: BRITISH PRIME MINISTER DAVID CAMERON "I was here till 5 o'clock this morning working through this and we've made some progress but there's still no deal. And as I've said I'll only do a deal if we get what Britain needs. So we are going to get back in there, and we are going to do some more work and I'll do everything I can." AUSTRIAN CHANCELLOR WERNER FAYMANN "The question is whether the United Kingdom can block the banking union or other deepening of the euro zone or is it really an indication that in a community we can work together with different currencies without disadvantaging the other. There are two sides to this. The talks are going on... hopefully not just talks but successful talks. I hope that something comes out." ESTONIAN PRIME MINISTERS TAAVI ROIVAS "I do believe that it is possible to reach a fair deal today. I understood that we all of course pursue our national interests but we should also bear in mind that should Britain leave we all get nothing. So as prime minister of Estonia I'm a firm supporter of reaching an agreement and getting David the deal that he actually can recommend for the British people to vote for." LUXEMBOURG PRIME MINISTER XAVIER BETTEL "The proposals on the table at the moment don't satisfy all the parties. We haven't finished yet. I hope that by the end of the afternoon we will have a text that everyone can live with." FRENCH PRESIDENT FRANCOIS HOLLANDE "We will still work this morning as there were some proposals overnight which have been changed between the ones and the others. Notably, as regards France, the desire to have a financial regulation which is applicable to all centres in Europe and that there won't be a right to veto or block the fight against speculation and financial crisis everywhere and with the same agencies. That's where we are now. "We are waiting for Britain's response. We have made our proposals." Old Roman ruins stand in the ancient archeaological site of Sabratha on Libya's Mediterreanean coast, in this June 1, 2013 file photo.[Photo/Agencies] TRIPOLI -- US warplanes on Friday bombed positions of Islamic State (IS) affiliates in the Libyan city of Sabratha, killing more than 40 extremists, a municipal official said. The attack left six others injured, Mayor of Sabratha Hassan Thwadi said in statements. The airstrike targeted Noureddine Chouchane, a senior Tunisian militant linked to two deadly attacks last year in Tunisia, media reports said. Sabratha is a Libyan coastal city located near the Tunisian border. Western officials claim the city is a haven of IS affiliated militants. The IS in Libya dominates the city of Sirte, nearly 450 km east of the capital Tripoli, as well as the eastern city of Derna. Libya has been suffering a security vacuum and a state of anarchy since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's administration in 2011. The poor security conditions in the north African country enabled militants to spread and gain more power on ground. US President Barack Obama will end decades of hostility and mistrust by visiting Havana in March, in a swan song gesture during the final year of his presidency. Observers said the move will also free Beijing to develop closer ties with Havana without hindrance from Washington. "Next month, I'll travel to Cuba to advance our progress and efforts that can improve the lives of the Cuban people," Obama wrote on Twitter on Thursday. Shi Yinhong, a professor of US studies at Renmin University of China in Beijing, said that thawing of ties between the two nations has created a win-win situation. After being the target of US-backed sanctions for more than 50 years, Cuba will see its internal environment and economic and social development greatly improve, and the US is regaining respect from the Latin American community, Shi said. Tao Wenzhao, an American studies researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said Washington realized that its embargo policies were not working and that attempts to isolate the island distanced it from Latin America. They are correcting their mistaken approach, Tao said, and as an "old friend" and "brother" of Cuba, China should benefit from improved US-Cuba ties, since it means Beijing will have more to offer a Cuba that is no longer subject to Washington's trade embargo. Zuo Xiying, an international studies specialist at the National Academy of Development and Strategy at Renmin University of China, said the thaw means the US will be able to devote more energy to Asia-Pacific affairs once it has soothed relations in its "backyard" in Latin America. The normalization of ties between Cuba and the US "also means that the US will get an even better external environment," which will re-energize its focus on the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East, Zuo said. Together with his wife, Michelle, Obama will visit Havana on March 21 and 22, during which time he will meet with Cuban President Raul Castro and "Cubans from different walks of life". He also is expected to give a speech to the Cuban people, according to the White House. He will be the first incumbent US president in nearly 90 years to set foot on the island. Also on Thursday, Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz, the Cuban foreign trade minister, told the Associated Press during a visit to Washington that Obama's plan to visit is good news for his country. Contact the writers at wujiao@chinadaily.com.cn Chinese students in the United Kingdom can now get a "taste of home" in their campus canteens. The UK has 150,000 Chinese students, more than 89,000 of them in higher education, and college kitchens are adapting menus to provide authentic Chinese food for these students. In the last week of January, Scott Girvan, executive chef at the University of Glasgow, introduced new dishes more suitable to the Chinese palate. "Before, it was a case of 'here's some sweet and sour chicken and that'll be great'," said Girvan. "It was a bit embarrassing." But Girvan had something of an epiphany into the eating habits of international students during a fact-finding mission to China. The 11-day trip in September was organized by The University Caterers Organisation after its research found that menu changes were needed to accommodate campuses' changing demographics. Fourteen TUCO members visited Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong and learned that Chinese food varies by region, and that offering menu choices from both the north and south of China was crucial. At Peking University's Nong Yuan canteen, for example, over 350 different dishes are prepared daily and 47,000 lunches served. Inspired and enlightened by the Chinese food, Girvan and other TUCO colleagues returned home to implement the lessons they had learned. Chinese students assisted Girvan in tasting sessions and accompanied him to a local Chinese food wholesaler, where assistant managers pointed out the best-sellers. Peter Griffiths, president of the British Culinary Federation, said: "Asian-influenced food has become more popular over the last several years. Standards have had to move in the right direction to pacify and meet people's expectations. Without doubt, more authenticity and quality of produce prepared correctly can only increase demand and sales." Girvan said he's confident this will be the case. Dishes now being prepared include chicken and ginger, salt and chili ribs and steamed mackerel. UNITED NATIONS -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will leave New York over the weekend for a visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan, where dire humanitarian situation attracts global attention, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters here Friday. On Feb 23, the secretary-general will be in Goma, a city in eastern DRC, where he will visit people impacted by the insecurity and humanitarian crisis in the region, including those living in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps, Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here. He will then move to Kinshasa, the DRC capital, the next day for the opening session of the Great Lakes Private Sector Investment Conference. "He is also expected to meet with President Joseph Kabila and several government officials, as well as political and civil society representatives," said the spokesman. On Feb. 25, Ban will leave Kinshasa for Juba, the capital of South Sudan, where he will meet with President Salva Kiir and visit a Protection of Civilians' site of the UN Mission in the country (UNMISS). (Photo : Getty Images) Samsung may be planning to release a Galaxy S7 Active smartphone soon. Advertisement The 2016 Mobile World Congress is slowly closing in and the tech world is buzzing with rumors, leaks and speculations. The latest to join the mill is a handful of leaked information regarding the next flagship devices from Samsung; the Samsung Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 Edge. Early in February, a leaked patent application surfaced online revealing the "Always on Display" feature developed by Samsung. At the time it was leaked, some tech analysts said that it is too late for the feature to be integrated into Samsung's upcoming flagship devices. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement However, new leaks suggest that the feature is available on Samsung's new phones. Although Samsung is yet to confirm it, there are strong indications that the South Korean tech company will integrate the feature into its upcoming flagship devices. A handful of leaks have also revealed some of the specs of the Samsung Galaxy S7. According to the leaks, the flagship smartphone from Samsung will run on Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box. Other leaked specs include an IP68 rating, a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera, microSD support and 2800mAh battery pack. Although the USB Type-C standard is slowly becoming a trend, the feature will not be supported by the Samsung Galaxy S7. Regarding the inner hardware of the Samsung Galaxy S7, much is still left to debate. A handful of indicate that the smartphone will have the Snapdragon 820 from Qualcomm, while a significant faction of devoted fans suggest that the device will run on Samsung's own Exynos 8890 chipset. Regardless of the chipset that will power the Galaxy S7, experts and fans alike agree that the smartphone will have 4GB of RAM, something that is slowly becoming a standard for premium devices. In terms of storage options, some suggest that the Galaxy S7's local storage option will be limited since the device features a microSD card slot. Advertisement TagsSamsung, Samsung Galaxy, Samsung S7, Galaxy S7, Samsung Galaxy S7, Samsung Galaxy S7 news, Galaxy S7 specs, Galaxy S7 news (Photo : Reuters) Instagram has added a two-factor authentication system to improve security on its platform. Advertisement As part of the company's effort to curb incidents of identity theft and online hacking, photo-sharing app Instagram recently add a two-factor authentication system to improve its security protocols. Instagram said that the feature will not be rolled out to all users at once, instead it will slowly release the feature its users. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement When logging in using two-factor authentication system, a user will receive a temporary code sent through a text message, which serves as the second form of the login process on top of the regular password. Security experts claim that the two-factor authentication system adds another layer of protection for sensitive user information. Since codes generated through two-factor authentication are only good for a one-time use, hackers will have a hard time figuring out a way to access user accounts even if they have access to email or user passwords. Just like most companies that use the two-factor authentication system, Instagram will send its second authentication code to users via text message. The two-factor authentication system is becoming a de facto standard and is being slowly adopted by companies to boost their online security protocols. There are some reported cases where hackers have bypassed two-factor authentication by hacking a user's mobile phone, but tech analysts claim that Instagram's decision to use the protocol is more geared towards preventing spammers and trolls rather than blocking financially motivated hackers. While for some casual users, Instagram is just a medium to post selfies and regular photos, a dedicated niche of users use the platform to promote their trade or products. Instagram has become a well-known outlet for professional photographers to flaunt their projects. According to The Register, artist Rachel Ryle claims that she lost at least 35,000 followers when her Instagram account was hacked. Some Instagram users also claim that they have lost sponsors after their account were hacked. Advertisement TagsInstagram, Two-form Authentication, online, online security, Instagram password, Instagram News, Instagram security (Photo : GETTY IMAGES/Rafe Swan) A Russian hacker has gained access and is spreading email access of over 200 million accounts. Advertisement A Los Angeles hospital has been forced to pay nearly $17,000 worth of bitcoin as ransom to hackers who were able to penetrate and remotely disable the hospital's computer network. The cyber attack started on Feb. 5 and the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center decided that it was in its best interest to pay the ransom in order to make sure that its computer network remains functional. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement The Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center paid 40 bitcoins to the hackers. The bitcoins, when converted at the current rate, amount to about $16,664. The hospital's CEO Allen Stefanek confirmed that they had indeed paid the ransom in order to stop the attack. During the entire period that it was being hacked, the hospital's email and digital patient records were not accessible. On top of that, some internet-connected medical devices were also compromised. In a statement, Stefanek said, "The quickest and most efficient way to restore our systems and administrative functions was to pay the ransom and obtain the decryption key. In the best interest of restoring normal operations, we did this." Stefanek added that the hack did not affect any of the hospital's patient care operations. Also, evidence show that no sensitive patient data was compromised during the attack. However, the hack resulted in some emergency room delays as 911 patients are being diverted to nearby hospitals and all hospital registrations and medical records were done manually by hand. Some doctors working at the hospital claim that computers used for lab tests like documentation, work transmittal, sharing of CT and X-Ray scans were disrupted by the hack. Some hospital employees claim that several outpatients missed their scheduled treatment as a result of the hack. According to the BBC, some patients were forced to personally pick up their medical test results since the hospital could not deliver them electronically. At the moment, no hacker group or entity has claimed responsibility for the attack. Advertisement Tagshackers, online, online security, online hacking, hospital hack, hospital hacking, holywood, hackers ransom, online ransom (Photo : Getty Images) Officials from the Madrid branch of the industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) have been arrested for money laundering. Advertisement Spanish Police raided the Spanish headquarters of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. (ICBC) on Wednesday. The raid led to the arrest of five directors of the bank over charges of money laundering. Europe's law-enforcement coordinating body (Europol) said ICBC, which is world's largest bank by assets, is suspected of laundering at least 40 million ($44.6 million) on behalf of a Chinese criminal syndicate. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement ICBC is also accused of providing services to other Chinese and Spanish criminal syndicates "to introduce into the financial system funds earned through the crimes of smuggling, tax and excise fraud and labor exploitation, allowing the transfer of the funds to China in a way that appeared legal", Europol said. Preliminary investigations have revealed that this laundering case has links to France, Germany and Lithuania. Europol officials, however, refused to reveal any further details about these international links. Reacting to Wednesday's raid, an ICBC spokesman in Beijing said ICBC's Madrid branch is offering full cooperation to the investigation agencies. "Strictly implementing anti-money laundering regulations, and strictly operating within the law and regulations have always been our fundamental operation and management principles," the ICBC spokesman added. The Chinese government also took note of Wednesday's raid on ICBC Bank. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said the Chinese government hopes Spain handles the current situation "justly and according to law, effectively guaranteeing the legal rights and interests of Chinese organizations and personnel". The raid on ICBC is part of the ongoing 'Operation Shadow', which was started last year to probe into Chinese organized crime groups based in Spain. This raid is also the latest in slew of serious money laundering allegations leveled on other Chinese Banks. In June 2015, a branch of the Bank of China in Milan was accused of money laundering and smuggling, among other crimes. Exactly a month later, the U.S. Federal Reserve reprimanded China Construction Bank Corp to address deficiencies in money laundering compliance or face consequences. Advertisement TagsICBC Bank, Spain, china (Photo : Reuters) Advertisement The United States and the European Union (EU) on Thursday challenged Beijing's position that the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) has no jurisdiction over a case filed by the Philippines against China's claims in the South China Sea. The challenge follows reports that the Philippines expects the international tribunal to issue a ruling on the case by May. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Speaking before participants at a seminar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, the Pentagon's deputy assistant secretary Amy Searight said the US and its allies like the EU, Australia, Japan and South Korea must be ready to make Beijing accountable should it choose to flout international law. "We need to be very loud and vocal, in harmony together, standing behind the Philippines and the rest of the ASEAN claimants to say that this is international law," Searight said. "This is incredibly important, and it is binding on all parties." The Philippine government's case calls into question the legal basis of China's claims over the South China Sea. "Creative Ways" Manila brought its case to the Hague-based tribunal in 2013, shortly after the Philippine coast guard was involved in a standoff with Chinese maritime law enforcement vessels over Scarborough Shoal, in the South China Sea. China took control of the ridge, eventually enforcing restrictions on Filipino fishing rights and other maritime activities in surrounding waters. Seabright said many nations in the Asia-Pacific have expressed concern over China's behavior in the territory. She said this behavior is an indication of how Beijing intends to wield its growing power in the region. "Certainly, reputational cost is at stake, but we can think of other creative ways to perhaps impose costs, as well," Searight said. In the same panel was Klaus Botzet, head the political and security section of the EU delegation to the US, who said: "Giving the rule of law supremacy over all areas is to the benefit of all -- and this is what we are sharing with ASEAN." "Absolutely Ingrained" The Chinese government has said the PCA has no jurisdiction over its dispute with the Philippines as it involves issues on sovereignty and the delimitation of a maritime boundary between two countries. Beijing has also accused the US of taking sides in the case. The tribunal has responded to China's position by pointing out that the case filed by Manila is premised on arguments concerning the interpretation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), of which both China and the Philippines are signatories. Beijing has rejected this argument, and made clear it will not recognize the PCA's ruling. "How do we deal with a China that believes the rules for everybody do not apply to it?" Botzet continued. "Do not underestimate the force of joint world opinion about what's going on." Using remarkably candid language, the EU delegate went on to criticize Beijing's increasingly intimidating military posture in the South China Sea. "It's investing much more in its military relative to its economic growth," Botzet argued. "It's forcing neighbors into alliances against itself -- positions its neighbors otherwise wouldn't take, and the return on investment in this policy is negative." Noting that the US has exceptional military capabilities in the Asia-Pacific region, Botzet said the EU strongly supports "the American guarantee of international law in Asia," according to Reuters. In Singapore earlier this week, a British official said the UK -- which set to decide its future in the EU through referendum -- has been following the Philippine arbitration case "with great interest." "We are a maritime nation that has been dependent on open access to the oceans for trading going back several centuries," UK Defense Procurement Minister Philip Dunne told Bloomberg News. "So it's absolutely ingrained in our being that we believe in freedom of navigation and believe that nations need to respect the rules of maritime law -- and generally international laws -- when they go about their business." Advertisement TagsChina-EU relations, US-China relations, Permanent Court of Arbitration (Photo : Getty Images) President Xi Jinping has sent Lantern Festival greeting to netizens via social media. Advertisement Ahead of the upcoming Lantern Festival, Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a visit to the major State media headquarters on Friday morning and personally sent an audio greeting to all Chinese netizens. Xi arrived at the headquarters of People's Daily newspaper at around 8:40 AM. He sent the greeting on three social networking platforms, namely, WeChat, Weibo and the newspaper's app. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement In the short audio tape recorded at the headquarters, President Xi said: "Hello, everyone. With the Lantern Festival around the corner, I wish you all happy, healthy and successful new year." The message has been warmly received by netizens. About two hours after the greeting was released, it had been shared almost 10,000 times and liked by over 17,000 people on People Daily's Weibo account. In response, netizens thanked the leader and have also extended to him their early Lantern Festival greetings. The president also had a live video chat with locals from Chixi village in Ningde city, Fujian province and wished them a better life. Chixi is one of the country's poorest village. During Xi's reign as party secretary of Ningde, he paid particular attention to fighting poverty in the village. Xi also paid a visit to the Xinhua News Agency and China Central Television headquarters. Throughout China, everyone is gearing up for the Lantern Festival. The Gelao people in Guizhou province have a long celebration for the Lantern Festival that usually lasts from the 1st to the 15th of the first lunar month. Local folk artists usually stop at doorsteps with various lanterns and songs, and in response, householders give money or liquor as a sign of good luck for the coming year. The Maio ethnic people also from Guizho also wear traditional costumes and accessories and gather in a square to dance, play musical instruments, sing and just be merry. Advertisement TagsPresident Xi Jinping, Lantern Festival, china, China stock market, weibo (Photo : YouTube Screenshot) The National Museum of China has been named the second most popular museum in the world. Advertisement China's National Museum ranked second in a list of the "top 20 most popular museums around the world" created by German newspaper Die Welt, with France's Louvre and Washington's National Museum of Natural History in the first and third place, respectively. Besides the National Museum, there were also two other contingents in China, namely, Taipei's The National Palace Museum and Shanghai Science & Technology Museum, in the 10th and 13th spots, respectively. Moreover, China's National Museum is dubbed the world's largest museum spanning an area of 195,000 square meters. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement The report revealed that European museums remain the most visited with nine of them in the final list, while US has six and Asia with five. In terms of museum resources, the cities of London has three, Washington four and Paris three included in the newspaper's list. Last month, China's National Museum started embracing tradition mixed with a tinge of technology as it launched its online shop to expand its market for cultural items. The online shop will reportedly feature themed products as well as limited seasonal items on festivals and holidays. Beijing's Palace Museum, which launched its online store on October 2010, was the first to take this step, while many others are attempting to venture into the online world. It displays not only China's history but also the history of other parts of the world. The National Museum of China is the product of two merging museums, namely, National Museum of Chinese History and the National Museum of Chinese Revolution. Tourists can visit the museum which is located on the east side of Tiananmen Square. Advertisement Tagsmuseums, China National Museum, The National Palace Museum, Shanghai Science & Technology Museum (Photo : Getty Images) The drug menace has become a major headache for China, prompting the police to intensify their crackdowns on drug traffickers and users. Advertisement Chinese police stepped up their crackdown on drug trafficking syndicates last year, busting more than 5,900 drug pushing gangs - this represents an 18.1 percent increase compared to the figure recorded in the same period in 2014. The National Narcotics Commission said on Thursday that of those arrested for drug trafficking, 1,500 were foreigners from 39 countries including Myanmar, Nigeria, Vietnam, and Pakistan. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement The commission noted that rampant drug trafficking is also taking place online with 15,000 drug sales cases aborted by the police last year. Drug-related crimes The Commission expressed concern over the high incidence of drug-related crimes in the mainland, prompting the authorities to intensify their crackdown. According to the gathered data, the number of drug-related crimes rose to 174,000 last year, accounting for 14 percent of all criminal cases which include murder, kidnappings, robberies, and rape. The commission said the number of drug users in the country has also risen significantly. 2.3M drug users There were more than 2.3 million drug users recorded in China last year. Of this number, more than a million were arrested, the report said. The recorded number of arrests represents a 20 percent increase compared to the arrests made in 2014. Almost half of the 1,062,000 people arrested last year were reportedly new offenders, a 14.6 percent increase compared to the number of first time offenders recorded in 2014. Amphetamine The report said more than half of those arrested last year (72.6 percent) abused amphetamine (known by its street name 'ice') as the drug of their choice and 80.5 percent used assorted drugs. Opioids and heroin were also highly abused by the offenders. Of the 2.3 million drug users, more than half or 60.6 percent were between the ages of 18-35, while 1.8 percent were below 18. About 37.6 percent were aged 36 and above, the commission said. Young students were the lowest number of drug users arrested at 0.5 percent ,while the number of farmers was pegged at 18 percent. Around 70 percent were unemployed. Records shows that the farmers and laborers were the most involved in drug trafficking at 80 percent, while the rest of the drug pushers were the youth. Other offenders who were caught pushing drugs include civil servants, laborers and students. Advertisement TagsNational Narcotics Commission, Chinese police, foreigners, drug menace (Photo : Getty Images) With the aim of attracting more investors and talents, China has loosened up its permanent residency requirements. Advertisement With the aim of magnetizing more foreign talents and investors, China has introduced more flexible and practical terms on acquiring a green card. According to state-run Xinhua news agency, currently, gaining permanent residency in China is open only to a handful of foreign nationals and the standards are too high. But the new policy, which was implemented in 2004, is a bit more relaxed. Under the new policy, foreigners, who already have permanent residency, will no longer need a visa to enter the country. Furthermore, they are now entitled to drive, invest and even enroll their kids in schools without having additional approvals or extra fees to pay. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement Until June last year, only foreigners, who are under the government or those involved in key national projects, were eligible to apply. The rule was then loosened up to include researchers from more institutions and even those with international grants. The latest directive states that the rule should also be made available for other industries, but did not clearly specify which ones. It also proposed that all government levels should make application process easier. Premier Li Keqiang told foreigners in February 2015 that the city of Beijing would be the easiest place to apply for a green card. Meanwhile, some requirements have not been modified. Existing permanent residency regulations stipulate that only applicants, who have invested at a certain level or who make outstanding contributions to the country, can be approved. Moreover, applicants are also required to be healthy. According to the directive released in June 2015, green card holders will be able to stay in the country for more than three months every year, or if with special permission, more than one year in five. All eligible applicants need to have been employed in the country for a minimum of four years and have been in China for at least three of the previous four years. Advertisement Tagschina, China permanent residency visa, permanent residency (Photo : YouTube Screenshot) A new policy directs companies in Anhui to grant their female employees menstrual leave. But experts have noted that the policy may have unwanted consequences on the number of women employed. Advertisement Companies in Anhui province will start giving employees a one- to two-day menstrual leave starting next month, a move already implemented in neighboring provinces Hubei and Hainan. According to government officials, the new rule was decided during its 67th annual meeting in January. The new policy, which will take effect in March, will allow women who are suffering from painful cramps to take between one and two days off. Like Us on Facebook Advertisement The new regulation, however, stipulates that women must first obtain a certificate from an attending physicians before the company would grant the leave application. In the provinces of Hubei and Hainan, where this rule was first promulgated, it has been taken time to catch up. Hainan province did not made it mandatory, allowing some employers not to adhere to the new regulation. But in Anhui, local media report that fines will be imposed if companies refuse to follow the policy. Guangdong province, on the other hand, is conducting a consultation and trial period. It is still uncertain if the law will be passed this December. Other measures covered in the meeting include maternity leave and breastfeeding leave, which allows mothers with infants below one year old to have a one hour per day leave. However, there are several controversies surround the latest policy. Some gynecologists believe it will be difficult to assess patient's level of pain to determine if they are eligible for leave. Furthermore, a study performed in 2015 revealed that about 20 percent of women are less likely to use the opportunity for reasons such as exposing their private lives and delaying their works. On the other hand, for employers, granting women leave would mean extra costs in operation, leaving a possibility of hiring fewer female workers. Chinese netizens have noted on Weibo that although this policy intends to protect women's rights, it might also result in work discrimination. One netizen wrote "I think this regulation will make it even harder for women to find jobs." Advertisement Tagschina, Anhui Province, paid menstrual leave The Chocolate Math of it All - v. 9/30/2022 Number of Days Since This Chocolate Bet Started: 5,860 Number of Chocolate Items Eaten: 5,860+ Number of different items combined with chocolate: 371 - from Absinthe to Zucchini) Weight of Chocolate Eaten: ~ 5,860 oz. (366.25 lbs. or 166.12 kg) Total Number of Chocolate Calories Consumed to date: ~ 879,000 (There are, on average, 150 calories in 1 oz. or 28.3 grams of chocolate.) Number of Companies producing chocolate items I've eaten: Approx. 1,592; Number of bean-to-bar makers: 194 Number of Countries where chocolates were made: 66 Number of Pounds of Chocolate Americans Eat: Approx. 11-12 pounds per year; I eat 27 lbs. (more than 12 kg.)/year. Per capita chocolate consumption in Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Ireland: 8-9 kilograms (17-22 pounds)/year. Global demand has stayed high, despite economic fluctuations. Cost of all these Chocolates: A lot of money, but worth every penny. Chocolates range from $1 to $20 each. Occasionally I receive gifts or samples. Copyright Information All other product names, logos, trademarks, and product packaging designs belong to their respective owners. Content and photos are by Corinne C. DeBra unless otherwise noted; all photos are posted in low resolution. Copyright (c) 2006-2021 Corinne C. DeBra, Chocolate Banquet (Photo : Courtesy of "21 Martyrs" (Screengrabbed and edited)) Christians all over the world observed a moment of silence on February 22, 2015 in remembrance of the 21 Coptic Christians who lost their lives. The week of February 15 is being remembered as the first anniversary of beheading of 21 Coptic Christians, who were marched on the beach and decapitated by Islamic State militants. The video of the beheadings was then circulated on the internet in a threatening message to the "nation of the cross," where the ISIS militants dressed in black were standing behind the Christians in orange jumpsuits. The Copts from Egypt had gone to Libya to work as construction workers, and were kidnapped separately between December 2014 and January 2015. Christian experts who studied the video said the martyrs cried out together "Ya Rabbi Yasou" (which is translated as "O My Lord Jesus") before the knives touched their necks. The video was titled in Arabic, "A Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross." And a caption read, "These insisted to remain in unbelief," as they did not accept Islam, according to BosNewsLife. The Coptic Orthodox Church celebrated Divine Liturgy in Samalot, where most the slain belonged, in masses and prayer meetings to honor them. Priests of the church dedicated the services to the 21 Christians, and recorded them in the liturgy to be remembered as "martyrs of Libya," as they were slain for their faith. The martyred Copts were officially registered by Patriarch Tawadros II in the Synaxarium, which chronicles the martyrs of the Coptic Church, and will celebrate February 15 as a day of remembrance every year. "We remember them, we remember what happened to them, and we will forgive because we belong to God. I also hope that it is sending a message that we stand together," he was quoted as saying by Independent Catholic News. Coptic Catholic Bishop Anba Antonios Aziz Mina said that the 21 martyrs displayed the passion of the early Christians when they "entrusted themselves to Him who would receive them shortly thereafter. And so this is a celebration of their victory, a victory that no perpetrator can take from them." press@cdaily.co.kr - Copyright , #IS #ISIS Last of Louisiana's 'Angola Three' inmates released 19 February, 2016 by Reuters , | ST. FRANCISVILLE, La. (Reuters) - The last of three black inmates who spent decades in solitary confinement in Louisiana's notorious Angola prison was released on Friday after pleading no contest to manslaughter in the 1972 death of a prison guard. Albert Woodfox served more time in solitary confinement than any prisoner in U.S. history, according to his attorneys, after being convicted of killing Brent Miller at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola. He was ordered released from jail after his no contest plea, attorney Katherine Kimpel said. Woodfox also pleaded no contest to aggravated burglary. Woodfox was picked up from the West Feliciana Parish Jail, where he had been most recently held, by his brother and driven away. "Concerns about my health and my age have caused me to resolve this case now and obtain my release with this no-contest plea to lesser charges," said Woodfox, who turned 69 on Friday. Woodfox maintained his innocence in a statement released by his attorneys. "I hope the events of today will bring closure to many," he said. He spent more than four decades in prison in isolation, his attorneys noted. Another inmate convicted for Miller's death was released in 2013 and died three days later. A third inmate, who also spent much of his sentence in isolation for another crime, was released years ago. The men were dubbed the "Angola Three" and their cases drew international condemnation. Despite its infamous reputation, Angola State Penitentiary, the site of a former slave plantation, is also where New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary has one of the most unusual prison programs in the country. The college related to the seminary offers degrees and dozens of graduates have gone on to preach, serve as missionaries or counsel in other prisons. Woodfox had legal proceedings pending in state and federal courts, Kimpel said. He was convicted twice of Miller's murder, but both convictions were ultimately thrown out in court. Louisiana state prosecutors had sought to try him a third time. Woodfox spent most of the time in a 6-by-9-foot- (1.8-by-2.7-meter-) cell in a prison that was once a part of a Deep South plantation and was known for seething racial tensions and harsh treatment of inmates. (Reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Florida and Bryn Stole in Baton Rouge, La.; Editing by Paul Simao) Ryrie shunned the classroom yet became a beloved scholar Editorial Staff | 19 February, 2016 by Joni B. Hannigan DALLAS (Christian Examiner) For a man who shunned the classroom as a boy, Charles Caldwell Ryrie went on to produce one of the most beloved study Bibles of all time. Ryrie was born March 2, 1925 in St. Louis, Missouri and died Feb. 16, just after midnight, in Dallas, Texas. He was age 90. The Ryrie Study Bible, the publication which bears his name and is perhaps what Ryrie is best known for, has been translated into at least 21 languages since its release by Moody in 1978, and is available in at least five versions, including the KJV, NKJV, NIV, NASB and the ESV. In the preface of the first edition, he wrote, "The Bible is the greatest of all books; to study it is the noblest of all pursuits; to understand it, the highest of all goals." The Ryrie Study Bible contains over 10,000 explanatory notes and has sold more than 2.6 million copies. The fifth generation Baptist went on to publish more than 50 more books, teaching systematic theology at Dallas Theological Seminary before serving as the dean of doctoral studies before his 1983 retirement. A little known fact about Ryrie's hesitation to attend school surfaced during an interview honoring him as the recipient of the annual Homer G. Lindsay Jr. Lifetime of Ministry Achievement Award in 2012 at the First Baptist Church of Jacksonville's annual Pastors' Conference. Mac Brunson, senior pastor of First Baptist Jacksonville, and the former pastor of First Baptist Dallas where Ryrie was a member, in a videotaped interview with his son Trey, asked the Bible scholar and teacher about his early interests. "Well, my mother had to force me to go to kindergarten," Ryrie chuckled. For one with such an early suspicion of school, the celebrated professor left St. Louis to attend Haverford College in Pennsylvania, a Quaker school, where he felt a call to ministry after attending a local meeting. From Haverford he went to Dallas Theological Seminary where he earned his a masters and doctorate in theology, and on to the University of Edinburgh where he completed a doctor of philosophy. Ryrie later earned the Litt.D from Liberty University School of Divinity. In the interview with the Brunsons at his home around table, Ryrie talked about expository preaching based on an exegesis of the Scripture and why pastors today are more apt to preach topically. "One reason is that it is hard (to do exegesis)," Ryrie said. "It's just plain hard to dig everything up. It takes less time if you just hit the surface. It takes more time if you are patient and you don't hop, skip and jump all over the place. "Sometimes we don't even know what true biblical exposition is," Ryrie sighed. In an email to Christian Examiner from a ship where he is preaching, Mac Brunson said he and his wife Debbie just had dinner with Ryrie a month ago. "His mind was sharp and his wit sharper," Brunson recalled. "He asked me what was the greatest need in the church and we agreed it was a return to strong, expositional, biblical preaching." Noting the older man was in "rare form," Brunson said their last words were personal and comforting. "The Brunsons rejoice through tear-stained eyes that our friend and God's man is now home with the Lord." Paige Patterson, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and his wife, Dorothy, also shared with Christian Examiner their personal tributes to the revered dispensational scholar. "Rare is the arrival of a scholar whose abilities of communication are such that at the same time he has the attention of his fellow scholars as well as the common man," said Patterson, who described Ryrie as "God's precious gift to the churches for the teaching of God's Word." Ryrie was so "thoroughly familiar with the intellectual world, he had the ability to take difficult and profound insights and describe them in such a way that almost anyone could comprehend," mused Patterson. "As I listened to him I often thought that this man could explain Einstein's Theory of Relativity so that even I could understand it. "Add to that a wry sense of humor and a ready wit, and few ever heard him who did not benefit profoundly," continued Patterson. "We will miss him in the academy, and they will miss him in the worldwide ministries of Word of Life. Farewell honored professor. " Dorothy Patterson, a professor of theology in women's studies at Southwestern, said there have been few men or women who have impacted her as personally as have "the great theologian and Bible teacher" Charles Ryrie whose works she first encounted during her college years. A favorite book, Patterson said, outside of the Bible, is Ryrie's What Can a Woman Do in the Church God? "This volume is a masterpiece of blending historical records with biblical exegesis to present a well-reasoned biblical answers to the burning questions from this generation and those to come," Patterson said. "As I have wrestled with challenging texts of Scripture and examined the legacy to be found in the annals of church history, I have continued to come back to the clear presentation of biblical truth by Charles Ryrie." Noting his long history of influence on her life, Patterson praised Ryrie's scholarship and leadership, noting she will miss their fellowship even as she grieves one she calls a "great and godly patriarch." "[Charles Ryrie] has been my teacher through the pages of his books; he has been my instructor through lectures and sermons in the marketplace of ideas; he has been my mentor in answering my questions with patience and precision; he has been my counselor in wrestling with spiritual struggles in the midst of often being among the minority, and thus rejected even my colleagues, when addressing what have become divisive issues within the church," she said. "May God grant that I be a faithful steward of all he invested in me over these decades," Patterson told Christian Examiner. Mac Brunson, in the 2012 interview asked Ryrie for the Scripture that was his greatest source of comfort. Speculating that most people might anticipate his choice would be "Psalms," Ryrie took a deep breath and said, "I got more comfort out of Ephesians, not Psalms," calling the New Testament book "more basic and foundational," although he did not elaborate on his choice. Responding to Trey Brunson's request to provide one word of advice for young pastors, Ryrie said he had three words but in a spirited and quick delivery, instead gave three imperatives: 1) "Do your very best to keep out of debt"; 2) "When you have a need, trust the Lord to bring the right people across your path at the right time"; and 3) "At every stage of life, be willing, sincerely willing, to do any thing, any time, any where. Period." Ryrie is survived by his children Elizabeth Ryrie Anthony; son-in-law John, Bruce Caldwell Ryrie; Carolyn Ryrie Howard; and son-in-law Rick, all of Dallas; grandchildren Steven Charles Anthony of Des Moines, Iowa; Matthew Anthony of Lugano, Switzerland; and Claire Howard of Dallas; Brian Howard and Whitney Howard of Dallas; sister-in-law Virginia Ryrie of Alton, Illinois; numerous nieces and nephews; as well as innumerable friends and former students. Brunson announced Sunday, Feb. 21 he will preach at the memorial service scheduled Wednesday, Feb. 24 at 1 p.m. in the sanctuary of First Baptist Dallas. Memorials to be used for student scholarships may be sent to The Ryrie Foundation, c/o 3310 Fairmount St, Dallas, TX, 75201 or Word of Life Bible Institute, 4200 Glendale Rd, Pottersville, NY 12860-2300. Turkey blast news: Turkish community building explosion in Sweden; 28 dead in Ankara blast 19 February, 2016 by Genevieve Que , | Hours after Turkey's capital Ankara suffered an attack Wednesday, another explosion was reported in a Turkish community building in Sweden. The Daily Star reported that all the windows of the Turkish cultural building were blown out. Witnesses said that they have seen some people throwing something unidentified into the room. Meanwhile in Ankara, BBC reports that Turkish officials have already confirmed that 28 people were pronounced dead and 61 were badly injured in a deadly blast that rocked the capital earlier. The blast happened near the Turkish Parliament building, military headquarters, and other government buildings. The blast destroyed three military buses passing by. In a statement, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blamed Syrian Kurdish rebels, while Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag called it an act of terrorism. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a statement reported on CNN, "Our determination to respond in kind against such attacks against our unity and future from outside and inside is even more strengthened through such attacks. Turkey will not hesitate to use its right to self-defense anytime, anywhere, and in all situations." U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter echoed the Mexica president's criticism. CNN reports that the Secretary calls it a blatant act of terrorism and confirms its support to Turkey. The blasts are the latest in a series of bombings that has rocked Turkey in the past few months. In October last year, more than a hundred people died after a series of explosion in Ankara targeted protesters who were doing a peace march. Women and girls who have been released into their communities after having been captured by Boko Haram face rejection and ostracization, a new report by UNICEF and International Alert finds. As the Nigerian Armed forces recapture territory claimed by Boko Haram, women and children are being released to return to their communities. Hundreds of women and girls have experienced sexual violence at the hands of the jihadist group, many pregnant due to rape. When these women and girls return to their communities, they are met with rejection and persecution, according to the report. "As they return, many face marginalization, discrimination and rejection by family and community members due to social and cultural norms related to sexual violence," the report says. There is also the fear that the women have been radicalized by Boko Haram, with many instances of Boko Haram deploying more female suicide bombers in recent months. Children conceived with members of the terror group also face discrimination. Many perceive these victims of conflict as being partly responsible for the violence and losses suffered by entire communities during the insurgency. As a result, children and newborns as well as their mothers are being increasingly ostracized and are at risk of further violence, the report adds. The report was released this week, titled Bad Blood: Perceptions of children born of conflict-related sexual violence and women and girls associated with Boko Haram in northeast Nigeria.' The West Virginia Senate passed a bill on Wednesday banning dismemberment abortions which account for about 95 percent of all abortions in the second trimester. The Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act was passed with 24-9 votes in the senate, and now goes to House of Delegates where it has bipartisan support, according to LifeSite News. The bill will ban an abortion procedure, known as Dilation and Evacuation (D&E), where babies are extracted from the womb piece by piece, and their limbs are torn off for evacuation. It will not be applicable for babies who have been miscarried. Doctors who carry out the D&E procedure for abortions would be liable to lose their medical licenses, should the bill passed by the West Virginia Senate become law. Sen. Ron Stollings (D-Boone), a physician, did not vote for banning the bill, which he said was the safest second-trimester abortion method. However, other experts say that generally no situation requires dismemberment abortions. "In ordinary medical care, doctors have testified that there is no emergency that requires dismembering a living unborn baby," writes Wanda Franz of West Virginians for Life on the organization's website. Dr. Anthony Levantino testified before the US House in 2012 for hearing on another Pain-Capable Unborn Child protection Act which was to be effected in Washington DC, in which he took a pro-life stance after admitting to committing about 1,200 abortions. In the testimony, he gave details of how he would remove baby's limbs by tearing them off the body. The bill was to ban abortions after 20 weeks when the baby's body is capable of feeling pain. The bill was defeated in Senate in September 2015. Senator Dave Sypolt (R-Preston), told the Charleston Gazette-Mail that "dismemberment abortion is a barbaric practice that we wouldn't do to a criminal." The practice was deemed illegal in Oklahoma and Kansas, but the court in both the states have blocked its enforcement. If the bill is passed in the House, West Virginia will become the third US state to ban late-term dismemberment abortion. Similar dismemberment abortion bans have been introduced or are about to go on the floor in other states including Minnesota, Idaho, Nebraska, Kentucky, New Jersey, South Carolina, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Missouri. How can the church, in its eagerness to engage mainstream culture, avoid merely floating along with the cultural tide? Its a problem that has long vexed Mark Sayers, an Australian pastor and author of Disappearing Church: From Cultural Relevance to Gospel Resilience (Moody). Here, Sayers recommends five books to make the church less culturally relevant. The Present Age Sren Kierkegaard Writing in 19th-century Denmark, philosopher Kierkegaard worried that in the process of creating a state founded on Christian values, a society would lose Christ. With staggering prescience, The Present Age diagnoses many current ills: most strikingly, the superficiality of a culture that has swapped the authority of God for the authority of public opinion. Nation of Rebels Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter The evangelical movement often seems to blend in seamlessly with mass culture, suburban lifestyles, and conservative politics. Some evangelicals have tried to chart a prophetic highway out of this collusion by embracing city life and progressive politics. Heath and Potter demonstrate that the Wests countercultural streams are less an escape than another form of consumerism. As it turns out, the church can fall captive to a counterculture as readily as to mainstream culture. How (Not) to Be Secular James K. A. Smith In his masterwork, A Secular Age, Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor describes secularism with incredible skill. But the books size and depth counseled against recommending it to most readersuntil Smith offered this punchy yet deep reflection that both affirms and critiques Taylors work. Whether you read it as an initiation, a guide, or a summary of A Secular Age, it can help you wrestle with Taylors ... 1 You have reached the end of this Article Preview You have reached the end of this Article Preview To continue reading, subscribe now. Subscribers have full digital access. Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here. 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. Virginia Court's Dismissal of Suit against Fairfax Will be Appealed Contact: Liberty Counsel, 800-671-1776, Media@LC.org FAIRFAX, Va., Feb. 19, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ -- Today the Fairfax County Circuit Court wrongfully dismissed Liberty Counsel's lawsuit on standing. Liberty Counsel sued the School Board of Fairfax County, Virginia, for illegally changing its nondiscrimination policy and adding "sexual orientation" and "gender identity," conflicting with Virginia Civil Rights Laws. Liberty Counsel will appeal this decision soon. The court ruled that Jack Doe, the anonymous Fairfax County student named in the case, did not face an injury, such as being expelled or suspended, so he lacked standing to file the lawsuit. "Under today's ruling, students in Fairfax County Public Schools are told, 'We do not care if your fundamental right to education and right to privacy have been violated'" said Liberty Counsel Litigation Counsel Daniel Schmid. "Minors in Fairfax County, Virginia, will now be subjected to invasions of their privacy, inside the very school district tasked with protecting them. Once again, the fundamental rights of minors were trampled by a lack of common sense and an appropriate understanding of biology," Schmid continued. Virginia law explicitly prohibits local governing bodies from altering the state's nondiscrimination policy. "Today, the Fairfax County Circuit Court ignored Virginia's long-standing Dillon's rule and permitted school districts to become enclaves of totalitarianism," Schmid continued. The Dillon Rule narrowly defines the power of local governments in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It states that if there is any reasonable doubt whether a power has been conferred on a local governmentin this case, changing the nondiscrimination policythen the power has not been conferred. "Civil rights are coded in Virginia law. In changing the nondiscrimination laws, the school board acted recklessly and unlawfully," said Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. "The strength of America's foundation is that no school may disregard our laws. Just as a board may not remove 'race' or 'religion' from its nondiscrimination clause, it cannot add groups that are not recognized by the Virginia Legislature." Liberty Counsel is an international nonprofit, litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family since 1989, by providing pro bono assistance and representation on these and related topics. Share Tweet 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. Baptist 'Cathedral of Europe' is to close down A prominent Baptist church in Scotland, which is known informally as the Baptist 'Cathedral of Europe' is going to close down. Thomas Coats Memorial Baptist, in Paisley near Glasgow, was built to seat 800 people, but now the congregation numbers around 40. The plan won't be put into action immediately, but unless there is a rapid turnaround, it's reported the church will be closed within five years. The Minister of the church, Revd Theo Corney, told The Daily Record it was heartbreaking for the congregation. "It's disappointing and it's a shame," he said. "Coats Memorial has got a lot to offer Paisley. It's disappointing for the people who have worshipped at the church for a number of years. It's very sad for them to see its decline." The building was constructed in 1894, but the congregation's history goes back to 1795. The church's website says, "We are a Baptist church and our services often represent the liturgical year. We aim to be warm and welcoming and to share the love of Christ with all." There are now around 12,000 members of churches in the Baptist Union of Scotland. Only 55 per cent of Scots now say they have a Christian faith, and declining numbers have been recorded for a number of years in the country's main denomination the Church of Scotland. It's thought the building will remain open for civic and music events but there won't be a worshipping community in the building for the first time in more than 100 years. Renfrewshire Council leader Mark Macmillan said: "The Thomas Coats Memorial Church is one of the jewels in the town's architectural crown and the council has to, and will do, everything it can to make sure this magnificent and world-renowned building is saved." Bezalel: Meet the artists bringing creativity and community together Artists are often depicted as solitary characters, whiling away days and nights in their studios, often with a tortured expression. But while creativity can sometimes inspire an isolated lifestyle, a collective of Christian creatives are seeking to offer an alternative. Bezalel an arts community set up in 2011 to bring creatives together believes that creativity has an essential role to play in enabling any community to flourish. This group of 20-something artists have united around their shared love of community, creativity and God to develop Bezalel, which hopes to bring together other artists and support them. Although there's a danger of this all sounding pretty theoretical and convoluted, the idea is simple: "God created us to be both creative and to live in community with each other", says Christy Balfour, an artist involved with the project. And so that is what these friends are seeking to live out. The idea is in Bezalel's DNA, right down to the choice of name. Bezalel was the first artist in Bible, found in the book of Exodus, who created beautiful things and was surrounded by a community that supported him in it. The word in Hebrew means "under the shadow of God". Three of the collective Dom, Becky and Christy are in the middle of launching workshops in London as a way of putting their theory into practice. They will offer activities such as drawing, weaving, flower arranging, calligraphy, cooking and photography and the hope is to bring people together over a shared interest, and encourage them to explore creativity. "You're all coming together with a common purpose, and you're working with your hands so you have a distraction," Christy says. "There's no pressure to talk, if there are gaps in the conversation it doesn't feel awkward." The group are keen to avoid the stereotypes often attributed to religious organisations, and said that Bezalel workshops wont be explicitly evangelistic, although they aren't adverse to chatting about their faith if asked about it. Rather than creating an environment where people "feel preached to or controlled in any way", the "dream is for people to be able to come as they are, and be honest," Christy says. Where many fear religion is synonymous with control, Bezalel is seeking to defy this. "Bezalel wasn't formed around a set of rules, it was formed around the desire to encourage, ennoble and inspire people to find their own creative expression," says Becky. This approach is foundational to Bezalel they are a group seeking to build relationships, not an organisation seeking to constrain. They want to create something people are keen to get involved in, not impose themselves, or their ideas, on people who don't want to listen. The vision is not to be a group of artists "desperately trying to persuade our culture that they are needed", but rather to live "in a way that people can begin to see and understand how necessary creative expression can be," Dom says. All of this is rooted in the group's scriptural understanding of God's creativity and how that impacts on humanity, as people made in his image. While the world might put "creatives" in a box, as a separate sub-genre alongside the "sporty" or the "clever", Bezalel suggests creativity is inherent in everyone's identity. "The question ceases to be whether one is creative, rather, how one is creative," says Dom. In this way, "creativity isn't confined to art... but is the idea of creating something that wasn't there before," Becky adds. But what does this actually look like? Although the image of creative community may sound attractive, the reality is that it hasn't come easily. There's been a lot of 'stuff' to work out, and many uncomfortable and honest conversations had in order to cultivate the community growing with Bezalel. It has "been a challenge to obey God in how we love each other," says Christy. "There have been so many miscommunications, difficult conversations, grumpy emails, and so many opportunities for us to withdraw from each other, to stop being honest with each other and prioritise our own comfort or safety over our relationship. "However, time and time again, God has pushed us to commit to one another and to what we are building," she says. Instead of being a community plagued by rules, Bezalel has chosen to build its foundations on relationships and God. "He has enabled us to build relationships not built upon agreement, but on a commitment to understand, respect and pursue one another regardless of our opinions," Becky says. But this remains a challenge. "Intimacy is scary, letting someone in to see your more ugly character traits at the risk of being rejected, is never going to be easy. "The beautiful thing is that God always pursues us, always welcomes us to go deeper with Him because He's not afraid of our flaws and has already given us victory over them. Therefore in order to love one another we simply have to believe what He is saying about us and what He's saying about the person we are working with!" Can Christian men and women really be just good friends? It was a gift to headline-writers. Pope John Paul II, it turned out, had a 32-year "intense friendship" with a married woman. They exchanged secret letters. "What really happened between Pope John Paul II and his close friend, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka?" asks one headline, setting you up for some really juicy revelations. Scandal-hunters were disappointed. The friendship was just a friendship. The letters weren't secret, just private. And what really happened was nothing untoward at all. Yes, they were close and very fond of each other, but they were just good friends. It was a pity for those seeking ammunition against the Church, but rather heartening for others. It was perfectly possible to be a Christian even a celibate Christian leader and have a normal friendship with someone of the opposite gender. It's a question that's been asked for years, and not just in the Church. It was the theme of a famous 1989 film, When Harry Met Sally, starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan: can men and women ever be just good friends? As Harry says: "What I'm saying is and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form is that men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way." But does it? Not according to a book by Joshua Jones, a missionary with World Horizons UK. In Forbidden Friendships: Retaking the biblical gift of male-female friendship he argues that Christian men and women can indeed be friends. It's a brave thesis. Jones argues that in evangelical churches particularly, there's been "a growing relational chasm within the church that seeks to keep men and women from engaging in genuine friendship. This separation has been parading under the banner of integrity and it has become unhealthy." He continues, "Not all agree with the new boundaries which keep men and women apart. But those who disagree often fear to raise their objections." Jones argues that friendship between people of the opposite sex, whether married or not, is normal and healthy. He says it's part of being a fully-functioning Christian community. Our suspicion of it is basically worldly, he argues, arising from a preoccupation with sex under the influence of Freud: "It is now assumed that any meaningful interaction between a man and a woman must involve some pursuit of sex, making real friendship impossible." This goes along with a culture of blaming women for men being tempted and setting rules to keep them apart. For Jones, it doesn't have to be that way. Cross-gender friendships can help defend against temptation and keep marriages strong. They don't have to be threatening and people like Mark Driscoll, who says that "having as your close friend someone of the opposite sex who is not your spouse" is "emotional adultery", have got it wrong. Jones gives biblical examples from the lives of Elijah (1 Kings 17) and Elisha (2 Kings 4:8), not to mention Paul (Colossians 4:15) and the Lord Jesus himself. There are plenty of examples from Church history, too, such as the Celtic Church where an "anamchara" a 'soul friend' or spiritual mentor might be someone of the opposite gender. Of course there are emotional risks, and Jones addresses those. But there are always risks in friendship, he says, and our lives are much richer and fuller if we open ourselves to to the gifts that an opposite-gender friend can offer. Is he right? I'd like to think so. The premise of When Harry Met Sally is that, in the end, sex does get in the way. But that's a worldly film, and romance sells. Pope John Paul's experience, and that of many others, is that it needn't. It's very hard to define and the boundaries do tend to blur, but there are masculine and feminine ways of thinking and feeling, and perhaps to be really well-rounded human beings we need to be able to draw on both. For single people, friendships with people of the opposite sex can be deep and enriching. For married people, it takes trust, openness and maturity. But the idea that someone's automatically being unfaithful to their spouse if they become friends with someone else needs to be challenged. Friends of whatever gender can surely be just good friends. Follow Mark Woods on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods Church leaders in India condemn decision to deny equality to low-caste Christians and Muslims Church leaders in India have spoken out against the decision to deny equal rights to low-caste Christians and Muslims. Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs who are born into the lower castes have been granted special privileges to help them break free of discrimination. The government has refused to give the same rights to low-caste Christians and Muslims, however, apparently out of a fear of encouraging conversions. One official spoke of fears that it would "hurt the Hindu religion." This prioritisation of Hinduism over Christianity and Islam shows that India "isn't entirely the pluralistic and secular nation" it claims itself to be, said International Christian Concern. Church leaders wanted Dalit Christians and Muslims to be granted quotas for government jobs and in education. Samuel Jaikumar of the National Council of Churches in India told UCANews: "This is very humiliating for Dalit Christians and Muslims." Dalits are those considered "untouchables" by the higher castes. Dalit Hindus can however receive benefits, but Christian and Musim Dalits cannot. Thawar Chand Gehlot, federal minister for social justice, was reported as saying the Indian government feared that giving special rights to Dalit Christians and Muslims "would encourage conversions" and "weaken the Hindu religion". Dalit Christians are now planning a nationwide rally in March to demand equal rights. There are thought to be about 25 million Dalit Christians in India. International Christian Concern said: "It has left millions of Dalits to have to decide between choosing to follow Jesus as their Lord and Savior and receiving government benefits that have the ability to take their families out of poverty. All added up, this discrimination has affected the official appearance of India's religious landscape." Director of church-run nursery released after two years in prison in China The director of a nursery run by a church in China has been released from prison after serving two years for "engaging in illegal business operations", the charity China Aid reported. Cheng Jie, director of the Hualin Foreign Language Experimental Kindergarten in Guangxi, was picked up from the prison by her husband and two sons. Lizhou authorities took Cheng into custody in February two years ago. A few months later, officials also crossed the border into the neighboring Guangdong province and detained Huang Qiurui, the elder of Guangzhou's Liangren Church, which founded Hualin Kindergarten. Along with Huang, authorities detained Li Jiatao, a Liangren Church member, and Fang Bin, a man contracted to print textbooks for the school. All four were convicted and imprisoned for printing non-government educational textbooks and then selling the books. Their defence argued unsuccessfully that the books were sold only for enough money to allow the nursery to break even on its printing costs. The defence believed the school was targeted because of its church links. China has a fast-growing Christian minority. Although the cross-removal campaign in Zhejiang province has apparently slowed, church meetings are still vulnerable to being targeted in other provinces such as Guangdong. The objective appears to be one of maintaining strict control of all religions, not just Christianity, according to Open Doors. Does the Pope really think Donald Trump isn't a Christian? Pope Francis and Donald Trump are having a bit of a spat. The Pope told reporters on the plane back to Rome after his Mexican trip that Trump was "not Christian" for wanting to build a wall between Mexico and the US. Trump was annoyed and it was a gift to journalists and social media. Was the Pope right to get involved in US politics? Was it fair to cast aspersions on someone's faith? Would it harm Trump's chances in South Carolina? It's all a bit predictable. What's interesting, though, is what it reveals about how people talk about religion in different cultures and contexts, and what vast possibilities for misunderstandings there are when we don't understand each other. Because Francis wasn't, in his own terms, saying that Trump was not a Christian, in evangelical terms, because he wants to build his frontier wall. When he said: "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian," he was saying Trump was not behaving in a way appropriate for a disciple of Christ. He was not placing him on a par with an atheist or making a statement about his eternal destiny, though some of Francis' Republican critics assumed he was doing exactly that. What we have are two different uses of the word "Christian". One is describing a type of action, as we might say, "That's not a very Christian thing to do." It's about a generally shared moral outlook characterised by kindness, generosity and charity. The other is more precise, defining who is able to use the title; and in evangelical terms, this is someone who has put their trust in Jesus Christ as their saviour and Lord, which Trump assures us that he has done. So is Trump a Christian? That's between him and God, though most evangelicals seem happy to take him at his word. Are Trump's behaviour and opinions Christian? There's much more room for debate about that, and it's there that the Pope pitched in. A great deal could be said about his plan for a 2,000-mile-long wall along the southern border of the US. Critics have pointed out that it wouldn't work and would cost billions of dollars. It would also do permanent damage to US-Mexico relations and is a populist attempt to get votes from people who haven't really thought it through but know they don't like migrants. In the light of this, saying it's not very Christian seems rather mild. Donald Trump and the Religious Right. Is Jesus really into politics? Jerry Falwell Jr seems confused. The head of Liberty University is one of Donald Trump's most vocal and significant evangelical supporters. His father Jerry Falwell was one of the most significant leaders of the Religious Right, the founder of the Moral Majority and one of the key players in the transformation of the evangelical vote into a solid Republican bloc. Jerry Jr had seemed set to continue his father's legacy, especially after replacing his late dad as Chancellor of Liberty one of the world's most prominent evangelical educational institutions. So is Falwell Jr, like his father, a proponent of the Religious Right, which wants to win political power and install evangelical values into Washington DC? Or does he actually think politics isn't something Christians shouldn't be involved in? While being interviewed by CNN about his support for Trump, the younger Falwell said, "Jesus never intended to give instructions to political leaders on how to run a country. That's clear through all his teachings he made that more clear than almost anything else." When asked about the refugee crisis, Falwell added, "When Jesus said 'turn the other cheek' he didn't mean that instruction for Roman soldiers who happened to be Christian. You step into a different role when you become a citizen, when you become a president of a country, when you become a Roman Emperor. So Jesus said leave those things to the political elite, let them make those decisions. Jesus taught personal charity, he taught us how we treat each other, to love our neighbour as ourselves, in our personal relationships." It seems that Falwell Jr has become the latest figure to fall into a trap which has ensnared countless Christians since the Reformation and the Enlightenment. Falwell's view of the gospel is personal but not corporate. "You step into a different role when you become a citizen," he says. Really? I can't find that anywhere in my Bible. This distinction between Christian private life and secular citizen is a distinctly modern invention. In the clip, Falwell shows a lack of understanding about the context into which Jesus spoke. He draws a distinction between the 'religious leaders' Jesus criticised and the 'political leaders' of the day the Romans. This would be odd to a First Century Jew. Yes, the Romans were in control politically, but the Jewish religious elite was also a political elite. The Chief Priest and his court had political power in that world. Falwell is reading back into Jesus' time a division between religion and politics which is a thoroughly modern innovation. When the founders and framers separated the US Church and State (in a way that has never been the case in the UK) they were influenced by the political theorists of their day. John Locke and Thomas Paine were the intellectual powerhouses behind the separation of Church and State not the Bible. That Falwell's Jesus is only interested in our personal lives is unsurprising. Falwell isn't a theologian and is steeped in a peculiarly American, individualist faith. American evangelicalism is a product of the Protestant Reformation which wrested back a requirement for personal relationship between an individual and God rather than a person being reliant on priest or other intermediary for salvation. This vital corrective of Protestantism has been accentuated beyond caricature in Falwell's words. He implies that as long as we treat our neighbours well and have our own relationship with God, then politics isn't our domain. In support of this, Falwell suggests Jesus' famous saying, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." Individualist Christians say this proves Jesus wasn't interested in temporal political structures at all. But this is a crass misreading of Jesus. NT Wright explodes this individualism as a myth. "It is not an isolated 'political' comment in an otherwise nonpolitical sequence of thought," he says. Wright suggests Jesus is very definitely not advocating a complete divide between faith and politics. "Jesus did not mean it as indicating a separation between the spheres of Caesar and God, with each taking responsibility for a distinct part of the world... Of course, Jesus acknowledges, you may have to pay taxes to the pagans, just as Jews in exile had to pray to God for the welfare of Babylon; but that doesn't mean that God is only concerned with a different, 'spiritual' world. God is present in the ambiguity, summoning people to an allegiance which transcended but certainly included the position they found themselves in vis-a-vis the occupying power." NT Wright is drawing on the tradition of St Augustine. While some individualists have suggested that Augustine's City of God actually supports an ironclad separation of Church and State, that isn't the case. As Peter Rozic says, "While Augustine's doctrine of the two cities does defend the glorious city of God against the pagan city of humanity, it also invites the reader of De Civitate Dei to find genuine references common to the two cities. Moreover, Augustine's use of the two-cities doctrine does not restrict a Christian to a passive obedience of any regime whatsoever. Despite Augustine's emphasis on both the primacy of God's action and the sinfulness of humanity, he calls for an active Christian involvement in political life and thus for a nonexclusionary church-state relationship." This nuanced position gets us beyond simplistic claims that 'Jesus is only interested in our personal lives' or 'Jesus only wants us to do charity, not government.' Actually, the Bible and Church teaching have an awful lot to say about how society should be structured. From Calvinists to Catholics there are solid theological bases for speaking about how politics should work, not just our personal lives. Protestant theologian and Prime Minister of The Netherlands Abraham Kuyper famously declared, "There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'" This doesn't mean Kuyper set out a specific political programme which all Christians must follow; but the idea that Christians shouldn't seek to be involved in politics at all was anathema to him. (Ironically, Kuyper's own theology was taken to extreme lengths via RJ Rushdoony and the Christian Reconstructionist movement which inspired Falwell Sr's Religious Right.) From a Roman Catholic standpoint, since 1891 the whole area of Catholic Social Thought has been expounded and extended to give a strong set of guidelines as to how society should be organised, in terms of property rights, just wages and more again, without going so far as to recommend specific policies. Why then should we care what Falwell says? For two reasons... Firstly, if Falwell is seeking cover for his endorsement of Trump, this is a bad idea. Trump's policies need to be critiqued from our perspective as Christians, rather than just as secular citizens. His ideas are radical and before voting for him, Christians will want to interrogate his positions. Secondly, we miss out on the gospel's transforming power if we limit its sphere of influence to merely our 'personal lives.' The radical good news of Jesus isn't just for us personally, it's for the whole of the created order. That doesn't mean a theocracy (at least not that kind of theocracy). It does, however, mean a place for our faith in politics, in government and in the public square. It also means politicians should be held to a high standard. Something Falwell would do well to remind Trump and the rest of the Republican and Democratic candidates of. Euthanasia in Holland: Loneliness cited as key motivator in majority of cases Loneliness is a key motivation behind the majority of those seeking, and receiving, euthanasia in Holland, a new report has found. Research by the National Institute of Health found that 37 of 66 cases (56 per cent) of people killed by euthanasia between 2011 and 2014 for so-called psychiatric reasons had cited "social isolation" as a key motivator. The law in Holland states that euthanasia is only legal if the person is suffering unbearably from an untreatable condition. Fifty-six per cent of patients reported having refused at least one kind of treatment, and half of those had refused said treatment due to "lack of motivation". The US-based research, published in the JAMA Psychiatry journal, also found that euthanasia clinics were willing to over-ride decisions made by family doctors who had deemed euthanasia was not justified. Holland was found to essentially be operating an on-demand euthanasia service, in which patients were "shopping" for doctors who were willing to provide the lethal injection. One case, cited by the author of the report, psychiatrist Dr Scott Kim, was that of a woman killed by lethal injection who had no physical or mental ill-health, but felt lonely after her husband died earlier that year. The author suggested that further investigation was needed to determine whether regulations were effective. "The retrospective oversight system in the Netherlands generally defers to judgements of the physicians who perform and report EAS (euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide)," the report said. "Whether the system provides sufficient regulatory oversight remains an open question that will require further study." The research led to renewed warnings from UK politicians and campaigners that it was not possible to effectively regulate either euthanasia or assisted suicide. The report "makes for chilling reading... and makes a compelling argument for why MPs, peers, doctors and disability rights advocates in the UK consistently resist any attempts to legalise assisted suicide or euthanasia," Alistair Thompson of Care Not Killing told Christian Today. "The Dutch system echoes the research done in the state of Oregon which found that very, very few people wanted to end their lives because of the medical condition and its symptoms, and so here we have two different evaluations of assisted suicide and euthanasia systems that both show why they do not work and why they are not the norm anywhere in the world." Every Catholic bishop should watch 'Spotlight', says former Vatican sex abuse prosecutor All bishops and cardinals in the Roman Catholic Church should watch the film Spotlight, according to the Church's former main prosecutor in child sex abuse cases against priests. Archbishop of Malta Charles Scicluna said: "All bishops and cardinals must see this film, especially those in charge of souls, because they have to understand that it is the complaint that will save the Church, not the conspiracy of silence." Spotlight shows the investigation by the Boston Globe's Spotlight team between 2001 and 2002 into clerical sex abuse in the US city, and how the team overcame numerous attempts to cover it up. "The movie shows how the instinct that unfortunately was present in the Church to protect a reputation was completely wrong," Archbishop Scicluna told La Repubblica after a showing of the film in Valletta, Malta. Before moving to Malta, first as an auxiliary, Scicluna, aged 56, worked in Rome for 10 years, handling sex abuse accusations against priests. In December 2002, Cardinal Law, Archbishop of Boston, resigned and moved to Rome. The investigation uncovered 249 priests accused of abuse. By 2008, nearly 1,500 victims were known about. Scicluna said: "The numbers are impressive. But the strength of this film is not the numbers, but one key word: omerta (silence). The film shows how the instinct, which was unfortunately present, to protect the Church's good name, was totally wrong. There can be no mercy without justice." In the middle of the film, the journalist heading the investigation, Walter Robinson, played by Michael Keaton, says it takes a whole village to raise a child, and a whole village to abuse one. Scicluna said: "The child is being abused by an adult, in this case by a priest, of course. But offenders are also those who know and do not speak." He also recalled that four months after the Globe began publishing its stories, the then Pope, Benedict XVI, summoned all US cardinals and told them: "There is no place in the priesthood and religious life for priests or religious who abuse minors." He said it was the beginning of a new era for the Church, and that he believed in God's mercy for all, even the guilty, but the basis of mercy in justice was truth. Former trainee vicar and youth leader facing jail after multiple rape conviction A former youth leader and trainee vicar who preached a gospel of abstinence is facing many years in jail after being convicted of the rape of two teenage girls. Police are appealing for anyone with more information about the one-time Wycliffe student to come forward. Timothy Storey, 35, was described in court as "every parent's worst nightmare". He preached the virtues of chastity and abstinence while grooming girls in the congregation at the prominent evangelical church of St Michael's Chester Square in the heart of London's exclusive Belgravia disrtrict. Court News reported that the Oxford theology student began his "incremental, insidious" grooming by sending the girls flattering messages through social media. One of his victims, who was raped twice, was so under his control she described him as "more influential than God". Both victims complained to the Church of England about Storey, but the allegations were "brushed aside," Woolwich Crown Court heard. Storey, of Peckham Grove, Peckham, was found guilty following a retrial of the following offences: three counts of rape and one assault by penetration. All offences relate to two women now aged in their 20s, and were committed between early 2008 and 2009. Storey, who claimed the abuse was consensual, was known to both victims as a youth leader at church and summer camps which they attended. Over time he befriended the girls and gradually became more inappropriate with them, sending them messages of a sexual nature including on social media and texting. He managed to manipulate both girls into meeting with him. One of the girls had a much longer relationship with him where he subjected her to inappropriate phone calls to differing degrees of sexual intimacy. Using his position as a youth leader he gained the victim's trust which enabled the sexual activities to continue, the police reported. Previously, in May 2014, Storey was convicted of several offences where he groomed girls between 10 and 16 and encouraged them to perform sexual acts via social media. Following his conviction and subsequent three year rehabiliation order, the two other women came forward to report that they too had been victims of Storey and he was arrested and charged. Detective Constable Paul Hill, of the Metropolitan Police Sexual Offences Exploitation and Child Abuse Command, said: "The victims in this case were young teenagers when Storey assaulted them, having been groomed from a very young age. In his position as a youth leader he manipulated the victims and forced them to engage in sexual acts that they did not want to do. "They have shown courage in coming forward after so many years to tell us what happened to them. This conviction goes to show that the sexual offences, exploitation and child abuse command will pursue sex offenders and bring them to justice. "Storey thought he had got away with it, but the victims in this case were determined to see him brought to justice. With appropriate support from the police and our partners I urge any other victims of Timothy Storey to come forward and tell us what has happened to them." Anyone with further information is asked to call the police non-emergency line on 101. The Diocese of London said in a statement: "Timothy Storey has today been convicted of a series of appalling crimes and we are profoundly sorry for what his victims endured. "The Diocese of London first received complaints regarding Timothy Storey's conduct in early 2009. He was then training as a Church of England ordinand at Wycliffe Hall. "The diocese's child protection adviser at the time looked into the allegations and spoke with the Metropolitan Police Westminster Child Protection Team, raising concerns that his actions were an offence under the 2003 Sexual Offences Act. "Whilst the diocese's child protection adviser recorded that police did not believe any criminal act had been committed, the diocese nevertheless took the decision to withdraw him from ordination training. The diocese subsequently submitted a report to the Independent Safeguarding Authority, now known as the Disclosure and Barring Service. "Within the submission, the diocese stipulated that it deemed Timothy Storey's behaviour to pose a risk to those under the age of 18 and included first-hand statements that the diocese gathered from the individuals who had made allegations against Mr Storey. The national Church of England was also notified, to prevent him from applying for ordination elsewhere in the country." How can we believe in the God of the Old Testament? It's like an evangelical rally. The main speaker comes out on to the stage and begins a reading from the book, his voice full of emotion. And the 'congregation' respond often with applause, raising of hands and a standing ovation. You would hear the 'Amens' and the 'Praise the Lords' if it were not for the fact that this particular group are atheists who have come to mock the Lord, not praise him. And their prophet does not let them down. The author of The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins, often began his tours of the US with a reading from chapter three of his book: "The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." Cue applause, cheering, laughter and sage nodding of heads. In passing, note how strange it is that those who don't believe in God waste so much emotion hating him! However Dawkins is on to something. It is perhaps (along with suffering) the Achilles heel of the Christian faith. How can we believe in the God of the Old Testament? The God who apparently commands genocide and mass slaughter? It is for me the most difficult question of all to answer. Not long after I became a Christian, many moons ago, I was given a book with the sub-title '101 problems from the Bible solved'. I was a new believer and still at the phase of the 'grass being greener, the sky being bluer' and everything being wonderful seen through the eyes of my newfound faith. I had no problems with the Bible. I loved it. It lived for me and it brought me Jesus. But after I read this particular book, I had 101 problems with the Bible because while the problems were real, the answers given seemed to me largely superficial and shallow. It caused my first crisis of faith. The feeling was dreadful, but then the rationality and renewed mind that Christ had given me kicked in. Wait a minute, I thought, I am a baby Christian who cannot be expected to know everything and I cannot sit in judgement upon God. Of course there are things that will be hard for you to grasp and understand, just take a deep breath, take your time and trust in the goodness and mercy of God, and he will eventually answer your questions. He is good and wise and all knowing. You are not. And so gradually over the years I have come to appreciate more and more the wisdom and goodness of God and have seen these problems being answered one by one. Of course there are still some that remain and even additional ones that I have come across the devil, after all, constantly wants to accuse and cause doubts in the believer's mind about the goodness of God and the truthfulness of his Word. And I am still very limited in my understanding and knowledge and will be so until glory! However this question of the OT genocidal God is one that I have really struggled with, until recently. And I have to thank Richard Dawkins for pushing me to wrestle with it even more. I knew when I read Dawkins that his description of God was a grotesque caricature, based upon ignorance and prejudice, but how could I answer the accusations for what is surely one of the ultimate defeater beliefs? Firstly I realised that this could only be a problem for Bible-believing Christians. For the consistent atheist it cannot be a problem; it just becomes an accusation. It was actually Dawkins who put me on to this when he was seeking to defend the writer HG Wells, a liberal social Darwinist, who had suggested that for the sake of humanity the Africans and the Chinese would have to be wiped out. Dawkins simply pointed out that we could not judge people from other 'zeitgeist' with the values of our own. And thus with one fell swoop he destroyed all his criticism of the portrayal of God by people from a vastly different zeitgeist. At various times human cultures have decided it is OK to kill infants, enslave adults, mass murder Jews and abort the handicapped. For the atheist each culture determines its own meanings and morals. Only if there is an absolute God can there be an absolute moral law which applies across all nations throughout all ages. For the consistent atheist there is ultimately nothing but chemicals, and chemicals don't have morals. People being killed is really just a rearrangement of chemistry within the amoral universe. Morals and concepts of good and evil are just human social constructs. There is no absolute morality and therefore no one is in a position to judge whether what anyone else does is right or wrong. In other words, the atheist has no philosophical or logical basis on which to judge the God of the Old Testament, and so they have to resort to Christian ideology to do so ultimately a self-defeating position. Which brings us on to the Christian position. There are of course those professing Christians for whom this is not a problem. They have their own personal 'Jesus' and they just know what their Jesus would or would not do. They don't accept the whole Bible as the Word of God and so they chuck out anything that they don't like, or that they think is not quite appropriate for today's culture. Anything you don't like in the Bible you can just remove and then claim Jesus/the Holy Spirit/scholarship told you to. No problem. No answer. But ultimately no Christ. As Augustine pointed out, if you believe in the Bible what you like, and leave out what you don't like, it's not the Bible you believe, but yourself. So how can I as a Bible-believing Christian be comfortable or live with my faith in a God who apparently commanded genocide? We have to be very careful how we answer this. Beware of shallow and superficial answers that do not seem to recognise the depths of the problem or the answer. I remember a young deacon who heard someone speaking on the destruction of the Amalekites and eventually turned away from the faith. The sermon lacked passion, compassion, logic and Christ. Far too often our answers come over as if they were the result of a computer generated logic machine, rather than something that involves the nature and justice of God, and the fate of our fellow human beings. If we in Milton's words "seek to justify the ways of God to men", we had better be sure that our answers are biblical and from the heart. This is very emotional and right on the edge of human understanding and comprehension. In my own struggles this is as far as I have reached. I apologise if this is not philosophical or evidenced enough for you, and if it does not provide all the answers you are looking for, but I hope it may help at least some. Firstly I start with the Old Testament picture of God. I live with the psalms. They are my spiritual lifeblood and they express every emotion I have. Immediately when I read Dawkins I thought of Psalm 86:15, "But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness," or Psalm 103:8, "The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." You will note that there is a common misunderstanding which is now deeply ingrained in the biblical illiteracy of Western culture. The God of the Old Testament is an ogre; the Jesus of the New is Love. Apart from the fact that the God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament and that he is the same yesterday, today and forever, what this meme fails to see is that the portrayal of God in the OT is primarily as a God of mercy. Watch this wonderful sermon jam that Solas produced with the inimitable Dick Lucas: "The New Testament message foretells the coming of the Lord in judgement, the Old Testament message foretells the coming of the Lord in salvation... so much for those ignorant people who say the Old Testament God is an ogre and a monster." Then I set my boundaries. We all have boundaries in which we think. You cannot understand the small picture until we get the big picture. Here are the biblical boundaries in which I think about this particular question the North, South, East and West of theology. God is love. What that means will take an eternity of searching out, but I know this there is nothing that contradicts the love of God in the commandments of God. When I look at Christ, I see God. There is nothing unGodlike in Christ, and nothing unChristlike in God. The Father, Son and Spirit are One God. God is just. He cannot do anything unjust or wrong. For us to accuse God of injustice is for us to set ourselves as more righteous than he is. We judge the Judge. A foolish and immoral thing to do. God is holy. His eyes are too pure to even look upon evil. Therefore he by definition cannot command that which is evil. The holiness of God is a much neglected doctrine, because too often we have confused it with the holiness of man. He is good. We are not. God is all-knowing. He knows past, present and future. He knows circumstances, hearts, thoughts and 'secret' actions. When I combine all of these it makes me realise that I cannot sit in judgment upon his actions. When I see this it teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen. With that as my framework and context I then go on to ask what does the text actually say? I need to work out what is descriptive rather than prescriptive (for example, God did not command Jepthath to kill his daughter Judges 11). Then when we come to the commands I need to work out what they mean. For example the word often translated 'destroy' means to 'irrevocably hand over'; it does not necessarily mean kill. Then I need to try and understand why it is being said. For example the Amalekites for hundreds of years consistently sought to wipe out Israel, they were warned to leave, they represented a culture in which infanticide and gross sin were present. Usually the judgement of God is pronounced long before and all people everywhere are commanded to repent. Explusion from the land was the primary judgement rather than death. However it should be noted that the judgement for sin, according to the New Testament, is death. We are all ultimately going to die. And it should be added that none of the historical incidents recorded in the history of the Old Testament are precedence or authority for Christians to do such actions today. Indeed the very opposite. It is ONLY God who could command such actions. The fact that he did so, albeit rarely and sparingly, is a warning to us of a far greater judgement to come. It is appointed unto man, once to die, and after that to face judgement. In summary I would argue that a society which kills millions of human beings in the womb every year and is happy about euthanising the elderly, sick and depressed, is not really in a position of moral superiority where it can sit in judgement upon a holy, just, loving and all-knowing God. Once we understand the horrors of sin as the ultimate rebellion against such a God, once we get both the text and the context, then, and only then, will we begin to understand why God permitted and, in a few cases, commanded something that appears so evil. The surgeon's knife may appear cruel but ultimately it brings greater mercy. The commands of God are always gracious, true and good. I see through the glass darkly. I am the pot. I don't accuse the potter. I rejoice in his goodness. And I thank him for his revelation of himself in Christ. This weeks recommended book is one that has helped me enormously with this question: Paul Copan's Is God a Moral Monster? (See also his follow up Did God command Genocide?) David Robertson is the moderator of the Free Church of Scotland and director of Solas CPC, Dundee. Imam found dead in Rochdale, Muslims told to be cautious A man who was found dead near a mosque in Rochdale has been confirmed as an Imam. The man, Jalal Uddin, was said to be on his way home after leading prayers at the Jalali Jame mosque. The 56-year-old was found with a head injury in a playground that was on his route. A post mortem is due to take place shortly to establish the cause of death but in the meantime, police and civil leaders are calling for calm in the town just north of Manchester. Speaking to the Manchester Evening News, Greater Manchester Police's Mark Smith said, "We know local people will be worried when they hear news of what has happened and we have extra patrols in place to try and reassure the community. We are asking people to speak with officers if they saw, heard or know anything that can assist this investigation." Like other towns in the area, Rochdale has a significant Muslim population. At the last census, there were just under 30,000 Muslims out of a total population of 211,699 in the town, which was the birthplace of the co-operative movement. Mr Uddin is believed to have been of Bangladeshi origin. The mosque confirmed his death on its website, while the head of the Ramadhan Foundation, Mohammed Shafiq, warned that extra caution was needed for Muslims in the area. He said, "We would urge all local Mosques in Rochdale to consider emergency security precautions and facilities to help local people return home safely from the mosque. Furthermore mosques should also consider buddying various people together to ensure vulnerable people are supported." According to the Guardian, a 31-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the murder. ISIS is using child soldiers at an 'unprecedented rate', report warns Islamic State is using child soldiers at "an increasing and unprecedented rate", according to a report released yesterday. The death rate for children recruited by and fighting for ISIS has doubled since January 2015. ISIS has used children in a number of its propaganda campaigns, but analysis of the use of child and youth "martyrs" by ISIS between January 2015 and January 2016 discovered that they are being used on a grander scale than previously recognised. "The Islamic State has so heavily championed the mobilisation of children on a scale rarely associated even with violent extremist organisations that it suggests organisational concerns that far outweigh short-term propaganda benefits," the report by the Combating Terrorism Centre in New York said. Researchers analysed 89 recorded deaths of child soldiers via social media and encrypted communications app Telegram. "The data unambiguously suggests that the Islamic State's mobilisation of children and youth for military purposes is accelerating," the report said. "On a month-by-month basis, the rate of young people dying in suicide operations rose, from six in January to 11 in January 2016. "The rate of operations involving one or more child or youth is likewise increasing; there were three times as many suicide operations involving children and youth in January 2016 as the previous January." While most children involved were described as "adolescent", some were also believed to be under 12 years old. Charlie Winter, one of the authors of the report, noted that, unlike many other extremist organisations, ISIS was not using children in a markedly different way to how they used adults. "The way children are being used is perhaps counterintuitive in the context of child soldier precedence. They aren't just being used to buoy the ranks of ISIS nor are they being used in roles that adults can't engage in," he said. "Children and youth don't really receive any special treatment from ISIS propagandists. They're celebrated in exactly the same way adults are. And they're celebrated alongside adults rather than being given any recognition for their age... It's almost an incidental fact." Almost 40 per cent of the children's deaths were in car and truck bombs, another third were killed on the front line as fighters, and a fifth were killed attacking enemy fighters. Six per cent died while working as "propagandists". The use of child soldiers is expected to rise, according to the report. "They are an effective form of psychological warfare to project strength, pierce defenses, and strike fear into enemy soldiers' hearts," it said. "We can expect that, as their implementation increases, so too will the reported rate of child and youth deaths." The report also warned that ISIS' leadership had "a long-term vision for youth in its jihadist efforts" and that it was likely to be a source of challenge to ethical discourse surrounding military action. "While today's child militants may well be tomorrow's adult terrorists, in all likelihood, the moral and ethical issues raised by battlefield engagement with the Islamic State's youth are likely to be at the forefront of the discourse on the international coalition's war against the group in years to come," it said. Missouri court backs Catholic diocese in dismissing female church official found to be married to woman pastor A Missouri court has ruled in favour of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph in dismissing a woman from her job after she was found to be "married" to another woman. Judge Kenneth Garrett of the Jackson County Circuit Court ruled that the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph is protected by the First Amendment and as such the court could not decide on the fraud claim filed by Colleen Simon. The Catholic diocese dismissed Simon as social ministries director of St. Francis Xavier Parish in May 2014 after the Kansas City Star published an article that revealed she was married to a woman pastor. "Lest we dash our foot against the obdurate edifice of reversible error in stumbling to address what are here essentially religious questions, this Court shall instead rely on the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to deprive it of subject-matter jurisdiction," the judge ruled. According to the diocese, Simon's same-sex marriage "contradicts church laws, discipline, and teaching and the diocesan Policy on Ethics and Integrity in Ministry," the WND reported. "At the very heart of these ... allegations is the diocese's determination of plaintiff's fitness to be its representative," the court ruled, adding that "such allegations take on the hue of theological propriety, and as outsider, the court cannot but see through a glass darkly the inherent truth and falsity." The court, however, upheld the two other claims by Simon against the church. Following the decision, the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese settled with Simon, but the terms were not disclosed. Jack Smith, a spokesman for the diocese, said the church "just decided to settle" on the two issues, reported KCUR 89.3. "We agreed not to discuss the terms of the settlement." The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which represented the diocese in the case, lauded the favourable ruling of the court. "A church isn't obligated to employ those who act contrary to the church's teachings. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed this as recently as four years ago," said ADF Senior Counsel Erik Stanley. "If churches are forced to employ people who do not follow the religious teachings of those churches, the church will no longer be able to minister consistently or freely in accordance with its faith," added ADF Legal Counsel Jeremiah Galus. Russian action in Syria offers hope, claims Catholic bishop Most people in Syria support the Russian military action against terrorists, according to the country's senior Catholic bishop. They are pinning their hopes on Russia helping negotiate peace in the war-torn land, he said. "We see Russia's military operation as a real effort to fight terrorism. What is especially important is that this military campaign goes in parallel with promotion of peace process," said Georges Abou Khazen, Apostolic Vicar of Aleppo for the Latins. "We really hope that the peace process will soon prevail over fighting all across Syria," he told Novorossia Today in a telephone interview. Most Syrians of all backgrounds and faith regard Russian military campaign as "salvation, a way out of the state we've been enduring for five years," he said. Syrians were "very positive" about the Russian involvement. "Russia's actions are not limited to the military operation. Russia makes a very positive impact by stimulating the negotiations process, and promotes dialogue between various Syrian groups." He regretted that the traditional harmony between the 20-plus cultural and religious minorities in Syria had gone. "Our pre-war society was like a beautiful multicolored mosaic. But unfortunately, it has been destroyed," he said. He described conditions in Aleppo with no electricity and limited water. At least nine million Syrians have fled their homes since civil war broke out in 2011, alhough more than six million of those still in Syria. "In light of recent military advances in the Aleppo region, we hope that tension will ease and situation in the city will improve," Bishop Khazen said. In their historic meeting last week, Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church signed a joint declaration pledging, among other things, special focus on the challenges in the Middle East. Ted Cruz says 'disastrous' gay marriage ruling helped him build support among Christians Presidential hopeful Senator Ted Cruz has said the "disastrous" gay marriage ruling in the US last year is helping him build support among conservative Christians. Cruz, speaing to prominent Christian broadcaster Janet Mefferd, said his supporters inclded Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and the National Organization for Marriage. Painting the move to gay marriage as part of a campaign against religion, he said: "We are seeing an assault on religious liberty from Washington that is unprecedented.... these threats are growing and growing". Cruz added: "Much of this persecution is the fruit of the Supreme Court's disastrous gay marriage ruling last year." He referred specifically to the Obergefell v Hodges landmark Supreme Court ruling where same-sex couples won the right to marry. He said it was "very sad" that some of the other Republican candidates held the ruling to be "settled law". He continued: "I believe that decision was fundamentally illegitimate, it was lawless, it was unconstitutional and it will not stand. And I would note, that is precisely why Dr James Dobson has endorsed me in this campaign, it is why Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council has endorsed me in this campaign, it's why the National Organization on Marriage has endorsed me on this campaign and has said it cannot support Donald Trump or Marco Rubio because if we're not willing to defend marriage, we are giving up the foundational building blocks of the family, we're giving up the Judeo-Christian values that built this great nation." The surprising Christian faith of Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson According to the US constitution, there is no religious requirement for someone taking a position in public office though if you've paid any attention in the run-up to the 2016 election so far you might be surprised by this. Every single one of the candidates, barring left-wing socialist Bernie Sanders who has approached the race in his characteristically unique way, has professed some kind of faith. And not just any faith, either; Christian faith. One by one, each of the prospective future presidents has played up their Methodist (Clinton), Baptist (Huckabee), or Presbyterian (Trump) roots. They've campaigned hard for the so-called 'evangelical vote'; courting key Christian leaders like Jerry Fallwell Jr and Rick Warren. "I really appreciate the support given to me by the evangelicals," Trump effused in a recent video, brandishing a Bible and apparently seeing how many times he could fit the word 'evangelical' into a 30-second clip. "I want to thank the evangelicals. I will never let you down." But while a rhetoric of persecution has emerged from the Republican movement, and Christians bemoan that the US is slipping away from its Christian roots, it seems to have escaped many across the pond that their country wasn't actually built on Christian principles at all. In fact, the constitution expressly states that "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States". Thomas Jefferson famously referred to the First Amendment as erecting a "wall of separation between Church and State". The founding fathers were clear on one thing: America is a secular nation. That's not to say that those who have taken the presidency haven't had a faith; in fact, almost every single one has been a Christian. A recent Pew Research study showed that of the 44 men to have taken office so far, nearly half have been Episcopalian or Presbyterian, with Baptists and Methodists coming in third and fourth place. Current president Barack Obama joins Hayes and Andrew Johnson in defining himself simply as "Christian", while Nixon and Hoover were Quakers and Kennedy a Catholic. But two names stand out from the rest, as having "no formal affiliation" with any Christian Church: Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. Thomas Jefferson (in office 1801-09) One of America's Founding Fathers, Jefferson expressed unorthodox religious views. Raised in the Church of England in Virginia, he later abandoned traditional Christian teaching and was accused of secretly being a Muslim by his opponents (something Obama has made references to a number of times, having himself faced similar accusations over the past eight years). While he praised the teachings of Jesus, Jefferson denied Christ's divinity and the resurrection, and even compiled The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, a version of the New Testament that omitted Jesus' miracles. Often identified as a deist, Jefferson did believe in a God that created the universe, but that he was impersonal, though benevolent. He was a strong advocate of religious liberty, and before his presidency in 1777 he drafted the Virginia Statute for Religious freedom that stated citizens "shall be free to profess...their opinions in matters of religion". Abraham Lincoln (in office 1861-65) Widely considered to be one of America's greatest presidents, and named by Obama as one of his own favourites, Lincoln never actually joined a church which would seemingly disqualify him in the eyes of many voters today. Though raised in a devoutly Baptist household, Lincoln was a sceptic as a young man and his actual religious beliefs, which developed throughout his lifetime, remain a subject of contentious debate. He's been labelled a deist, an atheist and a universalist, and in 1834 he allegedly wrote a book challenging the principles of orthodox Christianity. "Lincoln often, if not wholly, was an atheist," James H Mahaney, a close political associate, said. "Lincoln was enthusiastic in his infidelity." However, religion no doubt shaped Lincoln's politics. He had a deep appreciation for the Bible and often quoted from Scripture. Addressing the schism emerging between the North and South in his first inaugural address in 1861, he said: "Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet forsaken this favoured land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty." His second inaugural address, delivered a month before his assassination, is considered one of the most overtly religious in American history. Mentioning God 14 times, it discussed the concept of divine providence and God's hand in the Civil War. Though both secularists and Christians have tried to claim Lincoln as their own, however, it's possible to argue he didn't fit neatly into either camp. Biographer Ron White says of Lincoln's final address: "He was theological but not religious". In the light of what seems to be the current obsession with candidates' religious views, it's fascinating to look back and see that two of America's greatest presidents weren't conventional Christians at all. Christians today might hope for someone who shares their faith in the White House, but it can hardly be healthy when they're so concerned about this that neither Jefferson nor Lincoln would stand much chance of being elected today. Triple 9 review: Sin is a serious business Some people would argue that in the modern world, we've lost sight of the seriousness of sin. Previous generations might have been fed a little too much of it; the Christian message of grace swamped by a doctrine of the extreme sickness of fallen man. Today, the gospel is often accused of being watered down; as if the pendulum has swung back too far the other way. If that's the case, then John Hillcoat's brutal, blood-soaked new thriller is a throwback to a theology of hellbound man. Artily shot and packed with star names, Triple 9 is the story of a crew of men who have all chosen the wrong path, ending up as a heist team for an Israeli-Russian mobster, played somewhat unexpectedly by Kate Winslet. They're in too deep and they know it; despite successfully completing what they think will be their final job, they're forced into beginning another by their unrelenting boss. Several of them (Aaron Paul, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Anthony Mackie among them) want to stop; to step away from the life of violence in which they've become embroiled, but of course they can't. They're trapped by their sin. Mackie plays Marcus, one of several crooked police officers on the crew, who realises that the best way to buy time for the final job would be to kill a police officer (the 'Triple 9' of the title), as doing so will draw the staff of the entire precinct to that murder, and away from their heist. They identify Marcus's new partner Chris (Casey Affleck), as the potential victim; an innocent sacrificial lamb to enable their otherwise-impossible plan. Chris is the film's one truly sympathetic character, a crucifix-wearing idealist who still believes he can make a difference through policing. The cross around his neck isn't accidental (neither, you feel, is the pitchfork tattoo on the soul-selling Ejiofor or Winslet's constant devil-red attire); he's determined to remain a shining light in the midst of so much darkness. And while the film doesn't convince anyone that violence can be truly redemptive, it does allow for a sense of hope that good can prevail, or at least that while the light shines in the darkness, it won't be overcome. The rest of the characters can't even aspire to Chris' hopeful reality however. Caught between the evil that they're being asked to perform and the fate that will befall them if they don't, they're fallen and can't see a way out of the hole. It's fitting that so much of the film takes place among the gang-dominated projects of Atlanta, where young gang members find themselves in the same hopeless cycle of violence and self-destruction. It's as if Hillcoat is suggesting not just that humanity is on its way to hell, but that some of us are already living there. Chris isn't quite a saviour figure, but he does at least illuminate a different path; a different set of choices that even the young gang members he meets could make. Ultimately though, the film seems to suggest that once we've really fallen, there's no way for a person to really drag themselves back out. It's a bleak view, but it's hardly a new one. Triple 9 isn't a perfect thriller, and arguably the degree to which its pivotal idea is executed is bordering on the implausible, but it takes an interesting, unpredictable route which is at times heart-in-mouth suspenseful. As you might expect for a film set among gangs, the language is distractingly profane, and the violence fairly constant (severed head alert). There's a healthy dose of Christian symbolism, but that's balanced by a couple of blasphemous moments. It's hardly family viewing then, but as an extreme illustration of the seriousness of sin, it'd make Spurgeon proud. Martin Saunders is a Contributing Editor for Christian Today and the Deputy CEO of Youthscape. You can follow him on Twitter: @martinsaunders World War 3 knocking on Mideast door as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their allies gird for Syria invasion World War III could explode at any moment in the Middle East as military forces from Iran and Syria, backed up by Russia, as well as those from Turkey, Saudi Arabia and many of their allies, backed up by the United States, are gearing for a colossal battle. Writing for Charisma News, journalist Michael T. Snyder warned that he has not seen a scenario more likely to lead to World War III than the one playing out right now in the Middle East. Synder noted that Turkish forces are massing along the border with Syria, even as Saudi Arabia hosts the largest "military exercises" in the history of the Middle East. The ongoing Saudi-led military exercises dubbed "North Thunder" include troops from 20 nations, according to Saudi state media, noting that they include air, sea and land forces. Aside from Saudi Arabia, the nations participating in the exercises are Jordan, Bahrain, Senegal, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Kuwait, the Maldives, Morocco, Pakistan, Chad, Tunisia, Comoro Islands, Djibouti, Malaysia, Egypt, Mauritania, and Mauritius Reports said the exercises involve 350,000 soldiers, 20,000 tanks, 2,450 warplanes and 460 military helicopters. Synder expressed doubt that this huge army now assembled in the north of Saudi Arabia is just for "training." Moreover, Saudi Arabia has sent troops and fighter jets to a Turkish military base ahead of a possible ground invasion of Syria. Giving even clearer hints of Saudi Arabia's military objective, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told CNN that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad "will leave have no doubt about it. He will either leave by a political process or he will be removed by force." But if the Saudis and their allies send their armies to Damascus to try and remove Assad by force, the Syrians and their allies will certainly fight back. That means the Saudis will be fighting Hezbollah, the Iranians and the Russians, Synder said. "And if fighting does break out, how is the United States possibly going to stay out of it?" asked Synder, the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and author of the book "The Beginning of the End." "The truth is that Saudi Arabia and Turkey would never invade Syria in the first place without the express approval of the Obama administration," Synder said. The author said the next two weeks would be crucial for all the players in the region. "If we can get into early March without an invasion, by that time, Saudi Arabia and Turkey may have missed their window. The troops who are gathered for the massive military exercise in northern Saudi Arabia will start to go home, and by then, the Sunni militants remaining in Aleppo will probably be pretty much completely defeated," Synder said. But then, will Saudi Arabia and Turkey simply retreat after pouring so much time, effort and money into the conflict in Syria? "They had dreamed of turning Syria into a full-blown Sunni nation, and if they give up now, Syria will end up being dominated by Iran and Hezbollah. It will be a result that is far worse than if they never tried to overthrow Assad in the first place," Synder said. With this in mind, Synder feels that the obsession of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their Sunni allies with Syria "threatens to plunge us into World War III." And if that happens, the consequences will be felt by every man, woman and child on the entire planet, he warned. We can thank 19th century families' entertainment demands for these fascinating photos of Texas in the late 1800s through about 1915. According to the New York Public Library, which owns these images and released a vast collection of them for public use, stereoscopes had become so popular by the 1850s that they were "perhaps second only to reading as a personal leisure activity." Dear Abby: When purchasing concert tickets online for others, when should you expect reimbursement? I say the charge hits your credit card immediately, and so should the payment you've advanced for that person. My husband thinks it should be when the tickets are mailed to you - which can take two to four weeks - and you either bring the tickets to your friends or they pick them up. What do you think? Cautious Friend Dear Cautious Friend: Your mistake was in not discussing payment arrangements before you bought the tickets. Unless immediate repayment was agreed upon at the time they were ordered, I agree with your husband that reimbursement when the tickets are delivered is appropriate. Dear Abby: My boyfriend and I have been together for three years. We are both 29. When we have a fight, the first thing he does is text message my parents and tell them everything. I have asked him many times to please not involve them. We are adults and we should be able to handle our problems without interference from my parents. I never have, and never would, complain to his mother about him. His response has always been, "I can involve whoever I want." He knows I feel disrespected when he does this, and he still won't change. Is there anything else I can do? Hurt in Santa Maria Dear Hurt: Yes, you can change boyfriends. Dear Abby: I'm a 26-year-old man, currently living in Boston and in my final year of grad school. My parents help me out with finances because I have very little income. One of the things they have done is keep me on the family phone plan. However, there's a catch: They recently announced that my "cost" for staying on their phone plan is installing an app that allows them to track my location at all times. In Boston, that's not a huge deal, but when I'm visiting them in Georgia on breaks, it's a point of contention, since I must let them know I'm taking a car. This will alert them to the fact I'll be out and remove any trace of privacy I might have while I'm there. When I told them I'll pay my portion of the bill, their response was, "Would you prefer more texts and phone calls?" How can I deal with this situation? Needs My Privacy Dear Needs Privacy: Your parents are treating you like a child, although you are an adult and should be entitled to some privacy. Look into ways of getting a reasonably priced phone plan, i.e., a prepaid phone. And when you visit them, refrain from using their car if it's an issue. DearAbby.comDear AbbyP.O. Box 69440Los Angeles, CA 90069Universal Press Syndicate University of Houston faculty, students and staff may need a little luck on their side to get a seat in the Moores Opera House for the Republican debate next week. As part of its agreement to host the final Republican debate before Super Tuesday, the University of Houston will give CNN access to an 800-seat venue. Just 25 of those seats will be reserved for the university. They'll be given out randomly, a university spokeswoman said Friday. Eric Kayne/For the Chronicle A Pasadena Police Department officer is serving a 30-day suspension without pay after video evidence revealed that he was using the back seat of his patrol car for something other than hauling bad guys to jail. According to a release from Pasadena PD it was the routine check of a video system in a patrol car that revealed that officer Jeff Mubarak had sex in the back of that car. He admitted to the incident which happened while he was on duty. A dash cam captured what happened. An altercation at a bar in Richmond turned ugly Thursday night with off-duty Fort Bend County Sheriffs Office deputies getting involved in the action. According a release from the sheriffs office, the incident at the Z-Bar stemmed from a husband and wife team arguing with a woman who was a part of another group at the bar. The argument turned heated with the husband and wife being asked to leave the bar. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Campaigns to fill chairman positions for Fort Bend County's Democratic and Republican parties have each centered on how much information on group spending should be revealed at regular party meetings. The incumbents, who are vying for re-election March 1, each limit presentation of party expenditures at meetings, saying a detailed breakdown at every executive committee session would reveal campaign strategies to the other side. Each faces an opponent calling for more financial transparency. Current Democratic Party chair, Donald Bankston, 68, is running against retired Alief ISD human resources director Cynthia Ginyard, 57. The Republican Party chair, Mike Gibson, 59, is challenged by retired scientist Bill Michie, 64. Each party's treasurer presents at executive committee meetings a summary report of finances, with a total raised and spent. For Ginyard and Michie, this isn't enough. On the Republican side, Michie wants detailed information of GOP donors and how much they gave, whereas Democrat Ginyard called for a line-by-line breakdown of monthly donations and expenses to her party. The Democratic executive committee meets monthly; the Republican executive committee is required to meet four times per year, but typically meets about every six to eight weeks. "No Democratic chair in any state or county will give a full itemization at meetings," Bankston said. "If they do that, the Republicans will have a road map of what they're doing." In the Democratic Party, the total raised is now broken down into categories such as sustaining membership and events, and the total spent is divided into categories such as printing, salaries and WiFi, Bankston said. At Republican executive committee meetings, the treasurer presents major expenditures and answers questions regarding finances. A complete list of expenditures and donations is available for review by any member of the committee through an appointment with the treasurer. There has only been one request in four years to do this, Gibson said. Both parties are required to submit a list of all expenditures and all income to the Texas Ethics Commission, which are available online at www.ethnics.state.tx.us. Bankston and Gibson both said they do so at times of year when the information would no longer be as useful to the opposing party. In the Republican race, Gibson said he hasn't had complaints about how the treasurer shares the budget, but Michie said party members he speaks with are frustrated. "No one likes this," Michie said. An additional theme in the chairman races in both parties is a call to increase diversity. All candidates in each race called for broadening their parties, with goals of specifically recruiting young and Latino voters. GOP issues Gibson wants to foster new leadership in the Republican Party to take over in 2018. He said that this would be his last term if elected. Initially gaining office through appointment, he has been chair for 4 years and is seeking his third full term. "Too much of the party looks like me - graying, older," said Gibson, a Sugar Land resident who is a consultant in the oil-and-gas industry. "We're the most diverse county in the nation. The Republican Party needs to look like that." Gibson cites the party's electoral success as his primary accomplishment. The county party had its highest percentage of straight-Republican votes in Fort Bend's history and increased its margin of victory over Democrats in both election cycles in which Gibson was chair. He said he has endorsements from groups including Hispanic Republicans of Texas, Indo American Conservatives and the Texas Asian Republican Club. He said he does not publicize individuals who endorse him to maintain party unity after the election. In addition to wanting to make the party's finances more transparent, Gibson's challenger, Michie, aims to provide leadership to unite the party, something he says his experience as a scientist working on teams in industry has given him the skills to do. "There's a number of precinct chairs who really don't participate anymore," Michie said. "They don't participate because they don't feel like they're valued." Michie has lived in Sienna Plantation for 14 years and has been the chair of Precinct 1118 for three years. Michie said he has endorsements from various precinct chairs, including Bill Benton, who is also a Rosenberg City Council member. Leadership a theme Leadership has also emerged as a central issue in the Democratic race. Ginyard wants to strengthen existing positions and create new ones to get more people fully engaged in the party. A Sugar Land resident, Ginyard has been a precinct chair since 2008. Ginyard references the 2008 presidential election, when 49 percent of Fort Bend County voted for Obama, as evidence that there is a population of Democrats in Fort Bend County that need to be engaged. With her background working in human resources in public education, Ginyard thinks she can increase Democratic participation in the county. "I want us to be visible," Ginyard said. "I want us to be highly engaged. I want us to have a bigger impact on our community." If re-elected, Bankston said his first priority would be supporting local and national Democrats in the 2016 general election. After that, his goal is to keep growing the Democratic party in Fort Bend County. Bankston, who has been party chair since 2013, and was also the party chair for two years in the 1990s, is a lawyer and lives in Richmond. Bankston said he has been endorsed by the Asian American Precinct Chairs of Fort Bend and the Muslim Democratic Caucus of Texas, plus by state Sen. Rodney Ellis, U.S. Rep. Al Green and Fort Bend County commissioners Grady Prestage and Richard Morrison. During his time as party chair, Bankston launched a ballot-by-mail program for Fort Bend County seniors as part of a statewide initiative. He also campaigned for local elected officials, including Missouri City Council Member Chris Preston and Richmond City Commissioner Jesse Torres. Early voting ends Feb. 26. For more information about where to vote early and on Election Day, go to fortbendcountytx.gov. Click on "Departments" and then "Elections/Voter Registration." For information on Bankston, visit democratdon.com. Information on Ginyard is at cynthiaginyardforcountychair.com. To contact Gibson, send an email message to mgdaggie@yahoo.com. Information on Michie is at vote4bill.net. A vote will be taken Wednesday that decides whether the Montgomery County United Way will merge with the United Way of Greater Houston to salvage dwindling funding. Without the merger, the Montgomery County United Way would lose major contributors, dropping the funds for community service from $3.4 million in 2015 to $2.6 million in 2016 and $1.9 million in 2017, resulting in significant cuts in staff and programs, officials said. The agreement with United Way of Greater Houston would guarantee at least $4 million for community services and programs in both 2016 and 2017 and at least one year of employment for current staff. NEW YORK (AP) Harper Lee, the elusive novelist whose child's-eye view of racial injustice in a small Southern town, "To Kill a Mockingbird," became standard reading for millions of young people and an Oscar-winning film, has died. She was 89. Lee died peacefully Thursday, publisher HarperCollins said in a statement Friday. It did not give any other details about how she died. FROM THE BOOK CRITIC: Thoughts on re-reading 'Mockingbird' "The world knows Harper Lee was a brilliant writer but what many don't know is that she was an extraordinary woman of great joyfulness, humility and kindness. She lived her life the way she wanted to in private surrounded by books and the people who loved her," Michael Morrison, head of HarperCollins U.S. general books group, said in the statement. For most of her life, Lee divided her time between New York City, where she wrote the novel in the 1950s, and her hometown of Monroeville, which inspired the book's fictional Maycomb. "To Kill a Mockingbird," published in 1960, is the story of a girl nicknamed Scout growing up in a Depression-era Southern town. A black man has been wrongly accused of raping a white woman, and Scout's father, the resolute lawyer Atticus Finch, defends him despite threats and the scorn of many. The book quickly became a best-seller, won the Pulitzer Prize and was made into a memorable movie in 1962, with Gregory Peck winning an Oscar for his portrayal of Atticus. As the civil rights movement grew, the novel inspired a generation of young lawyers, was assigned in high schools all over the country and was a popular choice for citywide, or nationwide, reading programs. By 2015, its sales were reported by HarperCollins to be more than 40 million worldwide, making it one of the most widely read American novels of the 20th century. When the Library of Congress did a survey in 1991 on books that have affected people's lives, "To Kill a Mockingbird" was second only to the Bible. Lee herself became more mysterious as her book became more famous. At first, she dutifully promoted her work. She spoke frequently to the press, wrote about herself and gave speeches, once to a class of cadets at West Point. But she began declining interviews in the late 1960s and, until late in her life, firmly avoided making any public comment at all about her novel or her career. Other than a few magazine pieces for Vogue and McCall's in the 1960s and a review of a 19th-century Alabama history book in 1983, she published no other book until stunning the world in 2015 by permitting "Go Set a Watchman" to be released. "Watchman" was written before "Mockingbird" but was set 20 years later, using the same location and many of the same characters. Readers and reviewers were disheartened to find an Atticus who seemed nothing like the hero of the earlier book. The man who defied the status quo in "Mockingbird" was now part of the mob in "Watchman," denouncing the Supreme Court's ruling that school segregation was unconstitutional and denouncing blacks as unfit to enjoy full equality. But despite unenthusiastic reviews and questions whether Lee was well enough to approve the publication, "Watchman" jumped to the top of best-seller lists within a day of its announcement and remained there for months. Much of Lee's story is the story of "Mockingbird," and how she responded to it. She wasn't a bragger, like Norman Mailer, or a drinker, like William Faulkner, or a recluse or eccentric. By the accounts of friends and Monroeville townsfolk, she was a warm, vibrant and witty woman who enjoyed life, played golf, read voraciously and got about to plays and concerts. She just didn't want to talk about it before an audience. Claudia Durst Johnson, author of a book-length critical analysis of Lee's novel, described her as preferring to guard her privacy "like others in an older generation, who didn't go out and talk about themselves on Oprah or the Letterman show at the drop of a hat." According to Johnson, Lee also complained that the news media invariably misquoted her. Lee emerged more often over the past few years, although not always in ways she preferred. She was involved in numerous legal disputes over the rights to her book and denied she had cooperated with the biography "The Mockingbird Next Door: Life With Harper Lee," by Marja Mills. Other occasions were happier. She wrote a letter of thanks in 2001 when the Chicago Public Library chose "Mockingbird" for its first One Book, One Chicago program. In 2007, she agreed to attend a White House ceremony at which she received a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Around the same time, she wrote a rare published item for O, The Oprah Magazine about how she became a reader as a child in a rural, Depression-era Alabama town, and remained one. "Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cellphones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books," she wrote. By 2014, she had given in to the digital age and allowed her novel to come out as an e-book, calling it "'Mockingbird' for a new generation." A new play adaptation of "To Kill a Mockingbird" will land on Broadway during the 2017-18 season under the direction of Tony Award winner Bartlett Sher, written by Oscar-winner written by Aaron Sorkin. Born in Monroeville, Alabama, Nelle Harper Lee was known to family and friends as Nelle (pronounced Nell) the name of a relative, Ellen, spelled backward. Like Atticus Finch, her father was a lawyer and state legislator. One of her childhood friends was Truman Capote, who lived with relatives next door to the Lees for several years. (A book about Lee in 2006 and two films about Capote brought fresh attention to their friendship, including her contributions to Capote's "In Cold Blood," the classic "nonfiction novel" about the murder of a Kansas farm family. Capote became the model for Scout's creative, impish and loving friend Dill. In the novel, Dill is described as "a pocket Merlin, whose head teemed with eccentric plans, strange longings, and quaint fancies." Lee's friendship with Capote was evident later when she traveled frequently with him to Kansas, beginning in 1959, to help him do research for what became his own best-seller, "In Cold Blood." He dedicated the book to her and his longtime companion, Jack Dunphy, but never acknowledged how vital a role she played in its creation. Charles J. Shields, in the first book-length attempt at a biography of Lee, "Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee," showed how Lee helped Capote gain entrance to key figures in the murder investigation and provided keen observations and myriad notes that Capote wove into his book. (He also debunked a long-standing rumor that Capote had actually written much of "Mockingbird.") In the 2005 film "Capote," Philip Seymour Hoffman won the best actor Academy Award for his portrayal of Capote struggling with his demons as he works on the book. Catherine Keener was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Lee. The next year, Sandra Bullock took the role of Lee in "Infamous," with Toby Jones as Capote. Lee said in the 1960s that she was working on a second novel, but over time it dropped from view and never reached a publisher. Lee researched another book, a non-fiction account of a bizarre murder case in rural east Alabama, but abandoned the project in the 1980s. Lee, who attended Huntingdon College in Montgomery as a freshman, transferred the next year to the University of Alabama, where she wrote and became editor of the campus literary magazine. After studying to be a lawyer like her father and older sister, Lee left the university before graduating, heading to New York to become a writer, as Capote already had done. Lee worked as an airlines reservation clerk in New York City during the early 1950s, writing on the side. Finally, with a Christmas loan from friends, she quit to write full time, and the first draft of "To Kill a Mockingbird" reached its publisher, J.B. Lippincott, in 1957. The manuscript, according to the publishing house, arrived under the title "Atticus." The title later became "To Kill a Mockingbird," referring to an old saying that it was all right to kill a blue jay but a sin to kill a mockingbird, which gives the world its music. Lee worked with the editor Tay Hohoff in bringing the book to its final form, a period when Lee was scrimping financially and dealing with the difficulties of rewriting. "Though Miss Lee then had never published even an essay or a short story, this was clearly not the work of an amateur or tyro," the editor wrote in an account published by Lippincott in 1967. "... She had learned the essential part of her craft, with no so-called professional help, simply by working at it and working at it, endlessly." Capote, in a letter to an aunt in July 1959, said that a year earlier Lee "showed me as much of the book as she'd written, and I liked it very much. She has real talent." Her novel, while hugely popular, was not ranked by many scholars in the same category as the work of other Southern authors such as Eudora Welty or Flannery O'Connor. Decades after its publication, little was written about it in scholarly journals. Some critics have called the book naive and sentimental, whether dismissing the Ku Klux Klan as a minor nuisance in Maycomb or advocating change through personal persuasion rather than collective action. The novel was also considered patronizing for highlighting the bravery of a white man on behalf of blacks. O'Connor, in an October 1960 letter, said, "I think I see what it really is a child's book. ... I think for a child's book, it does all right." Parallels were drawn between Lee and Margaret Mitchell, another Southern woman whose only novel, "Gone With the Wind," became a phenomenon and was made into a beloved movie. But Mitchell's book romanticized the black-white divide; Lee's work confronted it, although more gently than novels before and since. Lee's book features Scout's often meandering recollection of the people some eccentric, such as the reclusive Boo Radley in rural Maycomb County, during the years when her brother Jem reaches adolescence and she enters school. Some critics said it relied at times on stereotypes, such as the mean, trashy whites making false charges against a virtuous black. But the tomboy Scout and the quietly courageous Atticus Finch drew praise as memorable, singular creations. The book's tension is built around the lynching atmosphere in Maycomb as the black man goes on trial, a scenario reminiscent of the Scottsboro Boys rape case of the same period. Scout, Dill and Jem, whose playful curiosity takes scary turns, witness the drama of an adult world with its own frightening lessons. "Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that 'To Kill a Mockingbird' spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code of honor and conduct," Lee wrote to an editor in the 1960s. "Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of all Southerners." ___ Weaver reported from Montgomery, Alabama. ___ This story has been corrected to give the proper spelling of William Faulkner's last name and to correct the name of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Last year, Anikka Gray's apartment was destroyed by a neighbor's kitchen fire, forcing her to move to the building next door. Thursday night, she again watched her home go up in flames as a second fire in less than a year engulfed 16 units in a northwest Houston apartment complex. The two-alarm fire was at Aurora Place Apartments in the 10700 block of Glenora. It was formerly known as Hastings Place. The fire drew 100 firefighters from 28 response units and five departments. The call came in at 5:15 p.m. Monday, according to Cy-Fair Volunteer Fire Department Public Information Officer John Hurt. "Most of our things were safe last time, but this time everything is gone," said Gray, 24, who lives with her mother and 6-year-old daughter. She carried a cardboard box full of the little she could salvage to her car, joined by a friend, Jasmine Griffin, who had helped a group of children look for their parents as the flames raged. At least 10 residents tried to quell the flames with fire extinguishers, the pair said, to little avail. No residents were injured in the blaze. One firefighter was monitored for smoke inhalation, said Lt. Ravi K. Maini, a Cy-Fair Volunteer Fire Department spokesman. The building that caught fire, in the complex made up of several three-story apartment buildings, was directly behind the building that burned in March. Last year's fire started from the inside, and responders were able to stop it before it reached the edge of the building, in an effort that injured three firefighters, Hurt said. This time, the entire apartment building was lost. The first and second stories of the three-story building were on fire when units arrived. Fire officials said the blaze is believed to have started on the first or second floor. The cause is under investigation. Wind caused flames to spread to a nearby field. Responders fought the two fires at the same time. The Red Cross is helping affected residents. Aurora Place may have unoccupied units available for residents whose apartments were destroyed, Maini said. Gray said she did not receive any assistance relocating to a new apartment after her residence was destroyed last year. Hugh Morton, who lived on the second floor with three children, said his home was destroyed. Morton says he has renter's insurance, but will stay with his mother for the night. He says he watched last year as the fire broke out. "Last year I was sitting on my porch saying this is too close," he said. Mark Mulligan and Chron.com producer Dana Thompson contributed to this report. More than 145,000 inmates sit behind the bars of Texas prison units across the state, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The total amount of offenses committed far exceeds that number. Using TDCJ data, the Texas Tribune examined each prisoner's charges and tallied the number of offenses across the state. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Texas had the most hate groups in the United States dedicated to promoting anti-LGBT sentiment and racism in 2015, according to a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Additionally, rhetoric by Texas politicians could be partially to blame for a 14 percent rise in the number of hate groups across the country, the report's author said. The number of those groups increased from 784 groups in 2014 to 892 in 2015, the report says. RELATED: Pope vs. Trump: 'Not Christian' to only build border walls Mark Potok, the report's editor, told The Dallas Morning News that the behavior of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Gov. Greg Abbott, both Republicans, introduced harmful rhetoric to the mainstream political discourse. "We're living in an era of incredible political irresponsibility," Potok told the newspaper. RELATED: Meet Amy Lindsay, the porn actress who starred in a Ted Cruz ad Cruz spoke at a conference in November organized by Kevin Swanson, a Christian pastor who has repeatedly called for LGBT people to be killed, according to the report. Cruz himself has also included people in his presidential campaign that are "violently" anti-LGBT, Potok told the newspaper. The report also blasts Cruz for incorrectly suggesting that Robert Lewis Dear, Jr., the suspected shooter in the Nov. 27 shooting at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado, was a "transgendered (sic) leftist activist." RELATED: Protesters perform exorcism on Ted Cruz at New Hampshire event: 'He's possessed by a demon!' The freshman senator also advocated for instituting religious tests to bar Syrian refugees who are Muslim while admitting those that are Christian, the report notes. "We can't roll the dice with the safety of Americans and bring in people for whom there is an unacceptable risk that they could be jihadists coming here to kill Americans," Cruz said, adding that "there is no meaningful risk of Christians committing acts of terror." RELATED: KKK plans protest of Syrian refugees in Texas Potok also cited Abbott to the newspaper, who "virtually endorsed" the beliefs of conspiracy theorists who posited that the federal government's Jade Helm 15 military exercise was a secret plot to impose martial when he ordered the Texas State Guard to monitor the operation. Other Texas events were of note: the city of Irving received its own section in the report, citing Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne's trumpeted beliefs that an Islamic tribunal designed for civil arbitration purposes was attempting to institute Sharia law in her city; a series of armed protests staged by the Bureau of American Islamic Relations; and the saga of Ahmed "Clock Boy" Mohamed, who was placed in handcuffs after a teacher believed a homemade clock designed by the high school student was a bomb. The report also named the Houston-based Conservative Republicans of Texas, headed by Steve Hotze, to their list of hate groups. The group campaigned against Houston's nondiscrimination ordinance which would have barred discrimination against Houstonians on the basis of race, gender identity and sexual orientation among other categories by dubbing the ordinance the "Sexual Predators Act." Hotze's group routinely referred to people who are transgender as "perverts" and "pedophiles." Scroll through the above slideshow for a look inside the state's most notorious hate groups. jfechter@mySA.com Twitter: @JFreports When its trash day for most of us we wheel out a few tall trash bins to the curb and thats the end of it. If you are lucky you can make one of your children do it. In a few hours the bins are empty and the cycle starts all over again. For the men and women aboard the International Space Station its a little more complicated than wheeling a bin down a driveway. When they need to take out the trash its broadcast live for all to see. 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. Braves advance to semis at Unity CHEROKEE - Cherokee's volleyball girls took down Harlan 3-0 on Monday and headed to Orange City this past Wednesday to... Wolverines end season at West Bend-Mallard WEST BEND - The South OBrien volleyball team traveled to face West Bend-Mallard in the first round of the regional... Warriors suffer 44-14 loss to Gehlen Catholic ALTA - The Alta-Aurelia football team hosted Gehlen Catholic on Friday evening, but lost the game 44-14. The Warriors struck... Warriors take down Raiders to finish regular season ALTA - The Alta-Aurelia volleyball team hosted East Sac County on Thursday evening and took down the Raiders 3-1 to... Braves go 3-6 at Heelan Invite SIOUX CITY - Cherokee's volleyball team, 23-9, worked on fine tuning its skills here Saturday in a 12-team Sioux City... Sumitomo to Launch Cambodia EMS Operations Published: 19 February 2016 by Mike Buetow by Mike Buetow POIPET, BANTEAY MEANCHEY, CAMBODIA -- Changes in local customs laws have prompted Sumitomo commit roughly $180 million to establish an EMS subsidiary here, the company announced. Sumitronics Manufacturing (Cambodia) Co., will provide contract electronics manufacturing services in Poipet, on the Cambodian-Thailand border, in collaboration with affiliate Alpine Technology Manufacturing (Thailand) Co., and Sumitronics Thailand. Sumitronics expects to hire 50 workers to launch operations. SMC is the company's effort to provide low-cost, reliable EMS to Japanese automotive and consumer electronics makers engaged in manufacturing in Thailand. Company registration will be completed in April, with manufacturing scheduled to begin in October. The project will cost a total of 2 billion yen ($177.5 million), with the aim of producing revenue worth 4 billion yen in five years. In a statement, Sumitomo said the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community at the end of 2015 led to the removal of customs duties. "[With] further economic integration planned between now and 2025, especially in the area of liberalization ... the Greater Mekong Subregion is expecting to experience an ongoing ripple effect from economic development centered on manufacturing in Thailand. "Cambodia enjoys a geographical advantage, possessing logistical infrastructure and a plentiful supply of young, low-cost labor. It benefits from companies seeking to safeguard their Thai operations through a 'Thailand-Plus-One' strategy, with the result that many foreign-owned companies have already entered the market, creating a cross-border economic zone." Thailand-Plus-One refers to a business model whereby Japanese businesses concentrated in Thailands industrial cluster transfer the labor-intensive aspect of their work to special economic zones close to the border in neighboring countries. Poipet is located in the Southern Economic Corridor close to the Thai border and is mainly expected to develop as a manufacturing site targeting Thailand. In announcing the plan, Sumitomo said AOTH is a "leading EMS business in Thailand," with high-level manufacturing technology and "meticulous" quality control. "By combining AOTHs strength in manufacturing technology with the business management and marketing expertise of Sumitomo, SMC will be able to quickly establish its business foundation in Cambodia." Financial details were not disclosed. Sumitomo owns a 43% stake in AOTH, which employs 850 workers in Thailand. Sumitronics has been an EMS provider since the 1990s and operations in eight countries including Japan. It ranked no. 30 on the CIRCUITS ASSEMBLY EMS Top 50 in 2014 with sales over $600 million. Which of these two statements about policing and racism come from a Democratic politician and which from a Republican? The law too often feels like its being applied in a discriminatory fashion . . . communities of color arent just making these problems up . . . these are real issues. And we have to lift them up and not deny them or try to tamp them down. So I also know that in this country, there is a significant number, particularly of young African-American males, who feel as if theyre treated differently than the rest of society. And heres the bottom line, whether you agree with them or not, I happen to have seen this happen. Speaker one is President Obama, addressing the nation in November 2014 after a grand jury declined to indict Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson for the shooting death of Michael Brown. Speaker two is senator and presidential candidate Marco Rubio during the town hall in South Carolina on Wednesday night. An audience member had asked Rubio how he would address the issue of racism, as manifested in the massacre at a predominantly black Charleston church in June 2015. Rubio answered by turning his attention to law enforcement and police departments. He began, as Obama often does, with a disclaimer that the overwhelming majority of the men and women who serve us in law enforcement are incredible people, who, every single day, put their lives potentially on the line for our safety and for our security. He then invoked an acquaintancea police officer and a young African-American malewho has told Rubio that he has been pulled over seven, eight times in the last four years and never gets a ticket, according to the senator. What is he supposed to think? Rubio asked twice. Rubio brought up this same acquaintance in an August interview on Fox News Kelly Files, but with different details: I have one friend in particular whos been stopped in the last 18 months eight to nine different times. Never got a ticket for being stopped just stopped. In his first version, Rubio left out the fact that the friend was a police officer, though that affiliation would seem salient. On Wednesday night, Rubio claimed that the friend gets pulled over for no reason, never gets a ticket, no one has any explanation for why hes being pulled over. Pulled over eight times and never once did an officer say why? The odds of such an uninterrupted string of unprofessional stops are low. The dashcam videos of allegedly racist traffic stops that have circulated recently all show officers behavinginitially at leastby the book. Now perhaps Rubios acquaintance has a 100 percent accurate view of his situation. But its also the case that officers say that when they pull over black drivers for traffic offenses, often the first thing they hear is You only stopped me because Im blackeven though, say, the driver was going 68 miles per hour in a 45-mph zone. The fact that Rubios acquaintance may be a police officer is no guarantee against racial misperception. Brooklyn borough president Eric Adams, formerly a sergeant with the New York Police Department, specialized in lodging phony racial complaints against the department and the NYPD commissioner. And if Rubios friend was never given a ticket, assuming that he was in fact stopped eight times over 18 months (or four years), perhaps the reason was that the officer wanted to cut him a break precisely because he was black. Though researchers have shied away from the explosive topic of racial driving patterns, the few studies that exist suggest that blacks speed more and use seatbelts less often than drivers of other races. Its just possible that Rubios friend has a heavy foot on the accelerator. On Wednesday night, Rubio reiterated the claim that blacks are being treated differently than everyone else before taking his response in a more productive direction. He spoke about the academic underperformance of black and Hispanic children growing up in broken homes and dangerous neighborhoods, as if to suggest, however implicitly, that if blacks have more interactions with law enforcement, the reason may be behavioral, rather than police racism. Unfortunately, however, he shied away from calling for the reconstitution of the black family as the best solution to inner-city disparities, instead invoking a much-touted Harlem social-service programa reflex that also recalls Obamas preference for programs over fathers. Rubios town hall performance was at least less deferential to the Black Lives Matter movement than his August Fox News interview. During that earlier interview, widely celebrated on the left, he claimed that the issue of racial disparities in the criminal justice system was a legitimate one. He also invoked the left-wing chestnut that black males in some communities have a much higher chance of interacting with criminal justice than higher educationas if that chance reflected anything other than criminal behavior, especially given the desperate crusade on the part of every college admissions officer in the country to admit as many remotely qualified black students as possible. But if Rubio slightly toned down the Black Lives Matter echoes on Wednesday, it is nevertheless not helpful to the cause of honesty regarding policing and race when a leading Republican candidate for the presidency fails to dispel the myth that we have a policing problemrather than a crime problemin the United States. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images Peste 300 de liceene s-au inscris in Startup School si sunt gata sa invete bazele antreprenoriatului tehnologic. Vezi cum a fost la evenimentul de lansare a programului national de educatie antreprenoriala In keeping with the rich tradition of religious ambiguity, Pope Francis made a provocative and vague statement directed at Donald Trump that dominated headlines Thursday. News outlets, primarily broadcasters, ran with the most sensational interpretation, which played into the hands of Trumps outrage strategy and was less charitable to Francis, and probably less faithful. A fairer reading could have prompted an entirely different conversation. Francis was flying to the Vatican from Mexico, where just several hours earlier hed conducted Mass before 200,000 near the border, close to El Paso, Texas. In that speech, and then in speaking with reporters from the aisle of his plane, Francis addressed contraception ethics in response to the Zika virus as well as anti-immigrant hostility. He was asked: Donald Trump, in a recent interview, said you are a political man and that maybe you are a pawn of the Mexican government as far as immigration policy is concerned. He has said that if elected, he would build a 2,500-kilometer-long wall along the border. He wants to deport 11 million illegal immigrants, thus separating families, etc. I would like to ask you, first off, what do you think of these accusations against you, and if an American Catholic can vote for someone like this. He replied, in part: Sign up for CJR 's daily email A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel. Its worth reading the question and response in full. The popes ambiguity comes down to the fact that Christian in English is both an adjective and a noun. Was the pope saying Trump is not a Christian or Trumps behavior is not Christian? The latter, as an adjective, is a stern rebuke. The former, as a noun, challenges the validity of Trumps claim to the faith. It distantly echoes excommunication. Even from a pope, the appearance of condemning someone as not (a) Christian is striking. Questioning that persons understanding of Christian teaching, on the other hand, though perhaps still open to debate, is hardly incendiary. Its difficult to make the case, for instance, that getting married three times is in the Gospel. No matter the interpretation, a stern message from the pope about a presidential candidate is undoubtedly big news. But in a rush to make that news maximally inflammatory, media mishandled the popes statement in five key ways. News reports across the board presumed the noun reading, the one that would call Trumps faith into question. To make this version more explicit, one would add an a before Christian. In fact, broadcasters did just that. Sean Hannity of Fox News previewed a segment in Thursday nights program: Donald Trump responds to the pope saying he is not a Christian. The ambiguity inherent in the statement was never acknowledged, nor was the context of the popes comment. The troublesome a was used repeatedly that night. One guest, Evangelical leader and Trump advocate Jerry Falwell, Jr., said, unchecked, I think the pope is confusing people by asking, Is this person a Christian, or Is that person a Christian? Interviewing Vice President Joe Biden, MSNBCs Rachel Maddow twice inserted an a in reference to the popes statement. Although print outlets surveyed didnt go so far as to embellish the popes statement into a Christian, many advanced that interpretation, underscored by excessive paraphrasing. A New York Times report filed from aboard the papal airliner begins, Pope Francis on Wednesday suggested that Donald J. Trump is not Christian. In truth, a subtle distinction is crucialthat the pope suggested Trumps wall policy is not Christian. Its the difference between whether something is properly Christian and whether its identity is Christian. The Associated Press story, also written from the plane, starts, Pope Francis declared Thursday that Donald Trump is not Christian if he wants to address illegal immigration only by building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. (Discrepancies in the day attributed to the comment apparently reflect confusion over time zone.) The provocative phrase Trump is not Christian was too much to pass up in the interest of nuance. The New York Daily News put it bluntly: Donald Trump has been declared not Christian by the worlds foremost expert on the topic. That popular interpretation played right into Trumps messaging and media strategy. It allowed him to hammer home signature themes about Mexican immigrants and the danger of ISIS. Many reports referenced or linked to his response on Facebook, which Friday morning showed more than 180,000 likes. Although fighting back against the pope is an audacious move for anyone, Trumps indignation garners more sympathy when his faith is under attack (something disgraceful, he says) as opposed to his political views. In response to the Pope:If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISISs ultimate Posted by Donald J. Trump on Thursday, February 18, 2016 Journalists reduced the event to a cliche head-to-head or back-and-forth, a dust-up in ABC News words. Trumps disregard for institutions, from the news media to the Catholic Church, apparently, insulate him in such a clash. The Trump v. Pope treatment also distracts from the actual critique, which, most journalists neglected to note, applies to all GOP frontrunners, who compete to prove themselves most unsympathetic to illegal immigration. Breathless coverage that drums up the square off and blows by the ambiguity doesnt adequately maintain the attention of journalists or their audience. Just after midnight Friday, Hunter Schwarz, a political reporter at Independent Journal, tweeted: Trump v. Pope was literally like 10 hours long. It started and ended before it could be printed in a daily newspaper. Hunter Schwarz (@hunterschwarz) February 19, 2016 And this (sarcastic?) observation came from Politico reporter Glenn Thrush during that rush: If you are not tweeting about the Pope and Trump, please leave Twitter immediately Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) February 18, 2016 If comments from Francis are significant enough to garner major coverageand they arethen its stunning to suggest theyd be adequately analyzed within a daily news cycle. It seems a clear case of media feverishness outpacing a reasonable rate of consumption by the public, and reporters instinctively reducing a complex debate to the days campaign fodder. The popes statement can be read multiple ways, but most news reports present a single, simplistic, sensationalist takeaway. Francis cooperation with journalists reflects good faith, and it wasnt reciprocated. 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 In the past few months, a veteran Israeli radio presenter lost half his airtime because he asked a top security official a tough question. Members of the foreign press were called before parliament twice to answer charges of bias. A lawmaker claimed that journalists were inciting violence to besmirch his nations good name, and The Washington Posts Jerusalem bureau chief was briefly detained by police on suspicion of doing exactly that. Israels top political correspondent describes the current media climate as Bolshevik. The 59-year-old Foreign Press Association of Israel agrees, calling the recent Knesset hearings a tactic usually associated with authoritarian governments. Perhaps the comparison seems overwrought in a country with a rambunctious local media scene and hundreds of foreign correspondents, with the critical liberal voice of Haaretz and a big Al Jazeera office. Indeed, nobody is comparing the state of media freedom in Israel to that in Egypt (23 journalists locked up) or in NATO member Turkey (14 in jail). Quietly, though, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israels long-serving prime minister, has extended his reach over every corner of the Israeli media. The countrys largest newspaper acts so openly as his mouthpiece that two cabinet ministers have likened it to Pravda, the Communist Party organ in the former USSR. For the past year Netanyahu has also run the communications ministry, the first time since the 1970s that an Israeli premier has held that job for longer than a brief transitional period. He sets policy for the ministry, but is too busy to handle its day-to-day operations; after he formed his fourth government in May, one of his first acts was to fire Avi Berger, the respected (and non-partisan) director-general, and replace him with Shlomo Filber, who used to be Netanyahus chief of staff. Journalists at Israels largest online news portal, Walla, complain that critical stories are changed under pressure because the sites wealthy owner fears running afoul of the prime minister. Sign up for CJR 's daily email What the politicians are interested in is for us, the journalists, to know that they have their fingers on the red buttons, says Amit Segal, the political correspondent for Channel 2, Israels largest network, referring to Netanyahus control over broadcast licenses and proposed reforms of the television industry. And to know that they will press them. The foreign press, meanwhile, has faced mounting official criticism, with journalists mocked by the foreign ministry in a cartoonish video. Officials insist that the media are inherently biased against Israel. Yet the criticism is frequently based on scant evidence; more often, journalists argue, it seems to reflect a fear that Israel is losing the battle of ideas in Western countries that were long its staunchest allies. Israel in 2016 finds itself, perhaps for the first time, unable to plausibly tell the world that its occupation of the Palestinian territories is a temporary affair. The diplomatic process is sufficiently comatose that even Thomas Friedman, a barometer for elite opinion, pronounced the two-state solution dead in a recent column. The European Union recently decided to start labeling goods produced in illegal Jewish settlements, a sign of growing impatience with the pro-settler government; the Obama administration is exasperated with Netanyahu, and has little interest in promoting another round of talks. All of this has driven Israelis to circle the proverbial wagons, and the local press has become a brutal critic of its foreign counterpart. Last month, Khaled Abu Toameh, a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, wrote a thinly-sourced broadside that accused the foreign press of harboring hatred for Israel and for Jews. A widely-shared 2014 piece by former AP correspondent Matti Friedman accused the press of paying excessive attention to Israel. Yet it also described Israel as a tiny village on the slopes of the Middle Eastern volcanomaking it sound like a rather worthwhile and fascinating story to cover. Theres a real sense that Israel is hunkering down, says one longtime wire service reporter, who asked to speak anonymously because of the sensitivity of the topic. Attitudes are changing in Europe and in America, and Israelis are blaming us for that. Netanyahus first stint as prime minister lasted only three years. He blamed his 1999 defeat on the media, telling aides I lost because I didnt have a newspaper. Today he has twoeven if he doesnt own them outright. His friend and ally, the American casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, founded a free daily in 2007 called Yisrael HaYom (Israel Today). It became the countrys most popular paper, read by two out of five Israelis, according to a 2014 study. Adelson further expanded his media empire in 2014 with the purchase of Makor Rishon (Primary Source), a flagging conservative daily that now publishes weekly. Adelson says he wanted to correct a deep bias in the Israeli media. The newspaper [sic] there was so far to the left politically that it was misleading the public, he told the Macau Daily Times in December. (Some Israelis wonder wryly how he would know: Adelson has never lived in Israel, nor does he speak Hebrew, though his wife is Israeli.) Maybe you believe him, maybe you dont, says Oren Persico, a reporter for The Seventh Eye, an independent media monitor.* But he had a mission, and he did this on behalf of his close friend, the prime minister. It was an expensive mission. Yisrael HaYom does not disclose its finances, but a former business partner alleged in a 2011 deposition that it loses $3 million per month. The billionaire mogul uses his deep pockets to kneecap media rivals, particularly Yediot Aharonot, a popular tabloid that is relentlessly critical of the Netanyahusnot only the prime minister, but also his wife Sara, who is widely believed to play a major role in her husbands administration. She once compared its publisher to Lord Voldemort, the villain in the Harry Potter novels. A vendor distributes free copies of Israel HaYom in 2009 (Wikimedia) A 2014 report by The Seventh Eye found that a full-page advertisement in Yisrael HaYom could be bought for one-third the price of a similar ad in Yediot. Israelis call Yisrael HaYom Bibiton, a combination of Netanyahus nickname and the Hebrew word for newspaper. The Economist reported last year that its headlines are routinely approved by the prime ministers office. In its most egregious moments, the paper lives up to the Pravda comparisons. On the Saturday before last years election, Netanyahu and his top challenger, Isaac Herzog, faced off for a mini-debate on Channel 2. Herzog was in the studio; the prime minister spoke from his residence, looming over Herzog on a giant screen. That Sundays Yisrael HaYom featured a photo of the debate on page three, with an accusatory red circle around the earpiece clipped to Herzogs collar. Herzog was the only interviewee with a headset, it noted matter-of-factly, implying that someoneperhaps his campaign staff, perhaps the Channel 2 producerswas feeding him material. The incriminating headset, of course, was the IFB earpiece that any television guest wears. Herzog couldnt hear Netanyahu without one, and the prime minister surely had one of his own. But Herzog had a reputation for being indecisive and clueless. Yisrael HaYom found a way to reinforce it, two days before the ballot. With two newspapers in hand, Netanyahu has now set his sights on the electronic media. Israels most popular network, Channel 2, is run jointly by two companies called Reshet and Keshet. The prime minister wants to break it apart, arguing that a split would encourage diversity and competition. It would also force both companies to hire their own news teams, at a cost of perhaps tens of millions of dollars, and strip Channel 2 of its status as the countrys leading evening news program. Israel is a small media market, says Segal, the outlets political correspondent. It would be better to have one big channel than two smaller ones that probably wouldnt be viable. Channel 10, the countrys most liberal (and a thorn in Netanyahus side), narrowly escaped bankruptcy last year, owing to an arcane licensing dispute. It blamed the prime minister for its financial woes, because he blocked a deal to settle the channels long-standing debts. The specter of reform also hangs over the broadcasting authority, which operates the state-run Channel 1 and several radio stations. On the other hand there is Channel 20, a new station launched in 2014 to offer programming about Jewish culture and heritage. It is positioning itself as an Israeli version of Fox News, complete with a fluttering flag graphic in the lower-left corner. The channel has been fined several times for airing news content, which its charter does not allowincluding covering a big right-wing rally just days before the election. Yet it continues to push an agenda: After President Reuven Rivlin appeared at a December conference that also hosted a left-wing NGO, it accused him of crossing a red line and spitting in the faces of Israeli soldiers. The digital media, too, are coming under pressure. Last year Haaretz reported that editors at Walla, the news site, had been instructed to post more positive coverage of the prime ministers wife, Sara. Online media is outside the governments purview. But Walla is owned by Bezeq, Israels largest phone company, which is currently engaged in sensitive talks with the government about reforming its lucrative landline business. And whos handling the negotiations? The communications minister, says one Walla journalist, who was granted anonymity to speak openly about the company. The editor in chief has asked to personally review any stories dealing with Netanyahu. Netanyahu has no quarrel with the foreign press; indeed, hes more likely to appear on Meet the Press than Channel 2. Other members of his coalition tend to be less sympathetic. The Knesset held its first hearing about the foreign media on February 2. It was ostensibly meant to discuss recent acts of violence against the press, like when Israeli troops smashed the cameras of two AFP photographers in September. (The army quickly dismissed the soldiers commanding officer.) Soldiers attacking AFP photographer and cameraman. .. Posted by Atef Safadi on Friday, September 25, 2015 But the hearing also gave lawmakers a platform to attack the press. Michael Oren, an American-born freshman lawmaker, even claimed that journalists were inciting violence in the occupied territories, albeit without providing any examples. We know with certainty about many cases that were staged and orchestrated, said Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington. The media needs to ask itself if it is truly balanced. His words came to mind on Tuesday, when William Booth, the Washington Post bureau chief, was detained by police outside of Jerusalems old city. They brought him to a nearby police station for questioning, then released him; the incident ended within an hour, and the Israeli foreign ministry promptly apologized. We do not arrest journalists, Netanyahu said. What was particularly striking, though, was the rationale: A civilian passerby apparently told the police that the journalists were paying cash to Arabs in order to create provocations outside the old city, exactly what Oren had alleged weeks earlier. Was the civilian a member of the Knesset by chance? joked Jonah Mandel, a correspondent for AFP. @Benhartman was the civilian a member of the Knesset by chance? Jonah Mandel (@mandeljonah) February 16, 2016 The Knesset held a second small hearing on February 9. The proximate cause, according to Tzipi Livni, the subcommittee chair, was a headline published on CBS the week before, after three Palestinians armed with guns, knives, and explosives tried to carry out a serious attack in East Jerusalem. Two Israeli policewomen foiled the plot by killing the attackers. Both officers were hurt, and one, Hadar Cohen, died of her wounds that evening. CBS News published a story with the headline Three Palestinians killed as daily violence grinds on. The foreign ministry spokesman immediately sent a screen grab of the headline to journalists, calling it unprecedented chutzpah. The image rocketed around social media, with Livni, a former foreign minister, accusing CBS of choosing sides. This time we wont let it pass in silence, Nitzan Chen, the head of the government press office, wrote on Facebook. We will consider revoking press credentials from journalists and editors who are negligent in their work, and give headlines that are the opposite of reality. " " Posted by on Wednesday, February 3, 2016 It was, to be sure, a poor headline, casting the gunmen as victims. Yet it was also a single headline, written in the early-morning hours by a producer half a world away, and the network amended it a couple of hours later. CBS did not respond to CJRs requests for comment. Lawmakers asked Chen to provide other examples of media bias. He cited three other headlines, from CBS, CNN, and the BBC. That was the extent of his presentation: four faulty headlines, out of thousands filed since October. I fail to see how the media has something to answer for in terms of systemic bias, says Luke Baker, Reuters Jerusalem bureau chief and the head of the Foreign Press Association. Israeli officials deny that there has been any undue scrutiny of the foreign press. Chen was quick to apologize for the Washington Post incident, calling it unfortunate. Livni, for her part, said that the Knesset hearings were not meant as a field trial for journalists, and that her main complaint is the headlines rather than the substance of the coverage. It feeds the perception of one strong state, Israel, and the victims, the Palestinians, she said. The Jerusalem beat has always been heavily scrutinized, with pro-Israel groups like CAMERA that pore over every word written about the conflict. The pressure has grown in recent years, partly due to the advent of social media. Oren, the lawmaker, suggested that Israels advocates engage in online shaming of journalists (which, as any correspondent can attest, they need little encouragement to do). How #media would report the 9/11 attacks based on their (miss)reporting of #Palestinian terror wave in #Israel. pic.twitter.com/gOjeweLDBz Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) October 15, 2015 But the heightened sensitivity also reflects an increasingly strident and nationalist tone in Israeli societyand here the criticism is not limited to foreign journalists. Razi Barkai, a veteran host on Army Radio, an Israeli army-run station that is nonetheless often a leading source of critical journalism, has been subjected to a withering attack by both politicians and the public because of a recent interview he conducted. The macabre subject was how to handle the bodies of Palestinian attackers. His interviewee, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, said he did not believe they should be returned to families for burial. Barkai wondered whether their families were any different from the families of two Israeli soldiers whose bodies have been held by Hamas since the end of the 2014 war in Gaza. It was an emotionally charged comparison, but it was nonetheless a valid question about a deeply controversial topic (the Israeli defense minister, for example, disagrees with Erdans policy). But the director of Army Radio quickly apologized to listeners, and announced that Barkais airtime would be cut in half, with the second hour given to Erel Segal (no relation to Amit), a right-wing commentator who once contemplated running for parliament with the ruling party. Its no secret that I support Netanyahu and the Likud, he said last year. What was, a few years ago, the opinion of the hard right in Israel has now become the mainstream, says Persico, the media reporter. And I think journalists are looking around and seeing how the public opinion is moving. Israel prides itself on having the freest press in the Middle East, and often compares itself to the West in this regard. As I can personally attest to you, the press in Israel is robust, free, very energetic, and free to say anything that it wants, Netanyahu said on Tuesday during a press conference in Berlin with the German chancellor. Yet the trends sending a chill through the media scene seem likely to continue. The foreign presslike left-leaning NGOs, which have also recently come under firewill continue to draw the blame for Israels eroding diplomatic position in the West. Netanyahu, meanwhile, is determined to become Israels longest-serving prime minister; some believe that his attempts to control the media are only beginning. Netanyahu is almost obsessed with the media, says Channel 2s Segal. Honestly, one should be almost amazed that he hasnt done more yet. *An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that The Seventh Eye is published by the Israel Democracy Institute. CJR regrets the error. Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today Gregg Carlstrom is a reporter for The Times and The Economist, based in Tel Aviv. Follow him on Twitter @glcarlstrom. As the Takata airbag saga drags on, concerns are growing that tens of millions of U.S. drivers with cars that havent been recalled could be at risk of death or injury from the potentially defective devices. Federal safety regulators last month confirmed that a South Carolina mans death in December was caused by a drivers airbag inflator that wasnt under recall. It was the ninth Takata-related fatality in the U.S. In a Feb. 10 letter to Mark Rosekind, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., urged the agency to recall all Takata inflators in U.S. cars. He said the agencys current approach of issuing recalls piecemeal, appears to be confusing many consumers who wonder if their cars have an unsafe airbag that hasnt been recalled. Since 2008, 14 automakers have recalled 24 million vehicles to replace the inflators, which can rupture in a crash, shooting metal shards at the driver and passengers. Experts say there could be as many as 50 million Takata airbag inflators in cars that have yet to be called back for repairs. For drivers of those vehicles, finding out if their car has a Takata inflator can be tricky. They either have to convince a dealer to take apart the car to look, or get the automaker to tell them. Some, like General Motors and Ford, wont tell. Nissan and Toyota wont say if they will disclose a Takata inflator. Fiat Chrysler, Mazda, Mercedes and BMW say theyll tell if asked. NHTSA spokesman Gordon Trowbridge says the agency doesnt have the data yet to justify a recall of every Takata inflator. The agency has given Takata until the end of 2018 to solve the problem or issue a blanket recall. Takata says it continues to investigate the cause; NHTSA and the auto industry also have investigations under way. The death of Joel Knight, 52, underscores how perplexing the search for a solution is. On Dec. 22, Knights 2006 Ford Ranger struck a cow on a rural road near his home in Kershaw, South Carolina. He died after metal fragments from the drivers inflator impaled his neck. According to a law firm representing Knights family, the crash was moderate and otherwise survivable. NHTSA says Knights driver airbag hadnt been recalled because tests on hundreds of inflators like the one used in his Ranger did not show any failures. The passenger airbag had been recalled. Knights death fits into one prevailing theory about the cause of the ruptures: his truck was an older model, and spent a long period of time in a region with high humidity. Takata is nearly alone among inflator makers in using the chemical ammonium nitrate to create a small explosion that inflates the bags in a crash. Tests show that over time, high temperatures and humidity can degrade the chemical, causing it to explode with too much force, rupturing a metal canister thats supposed to contain the explosion. The pieces can hit a cars occupants. Initially, the recalls targeted older vehicles along the Gulf Coast, and NHTSA has ordered that dealers in those areas receive the bulk of replacement inflators as theyre made. But the latest recall from Volkswagen includes cars from 2014, and a recent Honda recall has a 2016 model. Recent events and recalls involving relatively new vehicles with these types of inflators raise serious questions as to whether Takatas ammonium nitrate propellant is inherently dangerous, Nelson wrote to Rosekind. I am concerned that the current approach may be needlessly incremental and fail to adequately protect public safety. Scott Upham, who runs a Rochester, New York, research firm that tracks airbag sales, estimates there are 50 million unrecalled Takata inflators on U.S. roads today. Until theyre all recalled and fixed people are going to keep dying, he says. Takata maintains that most of its inflators are safe, but says it agreed with government demands to stop making those with ammonium nitrate by 2018 except for inflators with a drying agent. All of the deaths have been caused by drivers inflators, and NHTSAs Trowbridge says all but a few thousand of those without a chemical added to keep them dry have been recalled. That means most of the unrecalled inflators are on the passenger side, where there have been fewer serious injuries. Still, the piecemeal approach to recalls has allowed the population of Takata inflators to grow so large that a total recall wouldnt immediately fix the problem because replacements cant be manufactured fast enough. Takata says it and other suppliers can make up to 1.5 million replacement inflators per month, meaning up to 18 million a year. But some of those must go to other countries, where about 30 million more inflators are being recalled. In the U.S., it would take about four years to replace inflators now under recall. So far, automakers have replaced about 5 million inflators. That low rate is due both to the limited number of inflators and to an issue common to most recalls: People dont take their cars in for repairs, even with a problem this serious. Two other senators want to make sure everyone with a Takata inflator can get a replacement. Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Edward Markey of Massachusetts, in a separate letter this month, asked NHTSA to recall all the inflators and force Takata to publish all makes and models for which it has supplied airbags since 2000. The public also should be allowed to see inflator test results, they said. Every consumer deserves to know whether their vehicle could be lethal in a fender-bender, the senators wrote. (Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina; Joan Lowy in Washington and News Researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.) Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Last years income tax season was marked by an explosion of refund theft. Will this year be any different? Increased protections may cut down on fraud but will likely draw out the wait for your money. Changes will be visible when you use tax preparation firms and filing software, with warnings akin to those from your bank if you try to log in from a new device or change account information. Less visible will be broader changes, such as revamped fraud-sniffing programs used by the IRS, states, and the tax prep industry, as well as new information-sharing agreements among all three. Whether theses measures will make it appreciably harder for someone to use your identity to claim your refund isnt clear. One of the best consumer defenses against refund fraud is to file as early as possible, starting Jan. 19, beating would-be thieves who depend on your procrastination. But the best defense is to set your deductions ahead of time so that you get no refund at all. Heres what taxpayers can expect this season: More identity verification Yes, this means wider use of those multiple-choice questions about where you lived 30 years ago if youre filing electronically. It also means a lot more reactive warnings to users that something has been changed, and making sure it was them that changed it, said JoAnn Kintzel, chief executive of Tax Act, a tax software firm. If an e-mail address changes, a message will go both to the new e-mail and the old e-mail. Taxpayers will also get a notice if bank deposit information or their home address is changed, said Julie Miller, a spokesperson for tax software company TurboTax, and companies will check to see if more than one account is using the same Social Security number. Leading tax prep and software companies, as well as payroll and tax financial payment processors, working with states and the IRS, have all agreed to a set of minimum security measures. Companies and states may put in place additional measures, as Alabama did this year, requiring anyone filing electronically in that state to provide information from a drivers license or state ID card.Stronger passwords Though complex passwords are commonplace on other consumer and bank websites, the tax industry has finally joined the club. The passwords must now include a lowercase letter, an uppercase letter, a symbol, and a number (for example, #H8This). A new timed lockout feature will kick in after repeated failed login attempts. The IRS launched a consumer education and awareness campaign this past November about security basics. They include not using the same password for multiple accounts, using anti-virus protection, and encrypting sensitive data.Looser refund timing There will be less certainty about when taxpayers can expect state refund checks, said Verenda Smith, deputy director of the Federation of Tax Administrators. In the past, there was a political imperative to get refunds out the door, and that has certainly changed, she said. You may have a perfectly fine return, but the state will take just a little longer to confirm that its you who is filing it.More paper checks There may also be more refunds that come in paper checks, even for those who request direct deposit. That may prove particularly true for first-time filers, said Smith. Last year, many fraudsters changed a taxpayers preferences in favor of direct deposit to a prepaid debit card account created before filing the false return. So this year, Utah will directly deposit a refund only into a bank account or prepaid debit card issued by a taxpayers financial institution. Alabama also changed its policy so that its Department of Revenue can send paper checks to your mailbox even if a taxpayer requested direct deposit, which will be done on a case-by-case basis. Prepaid cards are the currency of criminals, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told 60 Minutes in 2014. Our problem is you cant distinguish the number of a prepaid card from a legitimate bank account. Copyright 2022 Bloomberg. LANDER, Wyo. Cloud Peak Energy reported Wednesday a $205 million loss for 2015, as coal shipments fell and weak prices ate into the company's profits. The Gillette, Wyo.-based firm is the most financially stable of the publicly traded mining companies in the Powder River Basin. The company has not encountered the concerns over its debt that have plagued Alpha Natural Resources, Arch Coal and Peabody Energy. But a historically weak market weighed on Cloud Peak's earnings nevertheless. The deteriorating conditions were particularly evident in the company's export business. Slumping Asian demand and a strong U.S. dollar prompted Cloud Peak to write off $53 million in port access rights at three terminals in the Pacific Northwest. Those write-offs were in addition to a $6 million loss on Cloud Peak's stake in the planned Gateway Pacific Terminal in Bellingham, Wash. The company said it would suspend Asian exports sent through Westshore Terminals in British Columbia during 2016, unless market conditions resumed. Cloud Peak struck a deal with Westshore last year, agreeing to pay for a space at the Canadian docks even as shipments are halted. Westshore is a critical part of our effort to build a viable long-term Asian export business," Cloud Peak CEO Colin Marshall said in a statement. "We value our strong relationship with Westshore and appreciate their willingness to work with us in recognition of extremely depressed international prices. We believe in the long-term opportunity for Asian exports of Powder River Basin coal as oversupplies of seaborne thermal coal are rationalized." Analysts are increasingly wary of those prospects, however. Two conditions must exist for U.S. producers to make money on Asian shipments, Andy Roberts, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie, wrote in a recent blog post. Asian coal demand must exceed the continent's coal supply, or U.S. producers must sell their product for less than their international competitors. Neither looks likely given a strong dollar and a 35 percent drop in Chinese demand for thermal coal used in power generation. "Building new Pacific Northwest coal ports, once seen as essential, is now viewed as nothing more than a risky long-term bet," Roberts concluded. The domestic market was similarly grim. Cloud Peak executives estimated U.S. coal consumption fell 100 million tons to 750 million tons in 2015, as a warm winter and competition from natural gas and renewables resulted in reduced demand. The impact was felt across Cloud Peak's balance sheet. Total shipments for 2015 were down 10 million tons to 75 million tons, as Cloud Peak implemented long-planned production cutbacks at its Cordero Rojo mine. Revenues declined from $225 million in 2014 to $186 million in 2015. Cash flow from operations was $41.6 million, compared to $98.2 million for 2014. Cloud Peak executives signaled they expected output to decline further in 2016. The company's guidance estimates mining between 64 million tons and 70 million tons of coal this year. The earnings were announced after the market closed Wednesday. Cloud Peak shares were down 3.7 percent Thursday to $1.56. Former St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Cellist Arrested with 100 Pounds of Pot A police man in riot gear watches as protesters continue to chant slogans and sing songs near the Occupy Portland encampment November 13, 2011 in Portland, Oregon. Portland police have reclaimed the two parks in which occupiers have been camping after a night of brinksmanship with protesting crowds of several thousands. (Photo : Natalie Behring/Getty Images) Perhaps not all pot-users are junkies, but former St. Paul Chamber Orchestra cellist David Roy was arrested this week after being discovered with more than 100 pounds of marijuana in his car. The marijuana, police say, could have sold for upwards of $226,000. David Roy Huckaby, 33, was detained on Friday in Oregon after a trooper pulled the musician over at about 12:15 p.m. for speeding. Once to the side, the officer searched the car to unfurl a trunk load of pot totaling to about 113 pounds. Speaking to the character of Mr. Huckaby, and orchestra spokesman said in a statement: "He is a gifted musician and was actively involved in the SPCO's community engagement and education initiatives. He left the organization in good standing at the end of the 2013-14 season." Mr. Huckaby joined the SPCO in 2009 after graduating from the Juilliard School with a master's degree. He took an indefinite leave of absence in 2013 which resulted in his full resignation a year later. As of late, Huckaby had gone west not to indulge in the "green rush" that is sweeping states with legal jane but instead to be a substitute cellist. He held the title of substitute cellist, also, with the Detroit Symphony once before. And while he may have been arrested in Oregon, David Roy resides in California. The charges levied against Mr. Huckaby include unlawful possession and distribution of marijuana. Oregon is on the bandwagon with other states in the U.S. that has legalized the recreational use of marijuana. The legalization took effect in late 2014 and has since nearly eradicated all felony counts for possession. Mr. Huckaby's latest stint with the law may harsh his vibe but at least the state of Oregon doesn't appear to be throwing the book at him. Check out the St. Paul Chamber below. 2016 The Classical Art, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. TagsDavid Roy Huckaby, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Cecil Taylor Tells Prize Money Thief Noel Muir to 'Die' After Trial An upright piano is on display with its actions revealed during 'It's All About Piano!' festival at the The Institut Francais on March 22, 2013 in London, England. The festival is a collaboration from French Music Office to celebrate the piano with recitals from classical to jazz, film screenings, children's activities, workshops and cinema screenings exploring the musical instrument. (Photo : Amy T. Zielinski/Getty Images) Perhaps one of the largest figures in jazz still living today, Cecil Taylor was scammed out of half a million dollars in 2013 when his Kyoto Prize money went to a fake organization called The Cecil Taylor Foundation. The mastermind, Noel Muir, could face 15 years in prison if indicted. Mr. Taylor is an archetype of free-form jazz and has been a towering figure in the genre since his youth. Having played with Billie Holiday, John Coltrane and more, the 86-year-old pianist was awarded the Kyoto Prize for his contributions to the "scientific, cultural and spiritual betterment of mankind." But as the media has proven, Mr. Taylor is a man of few words. When asked what he would like to say to Muir, who befriended Taylor when contracted to work on a brownstone next to the musician's apartment, Taylor remained minimal, uttering one word: "Die." Yes, Cecil Taylor, a world-leading jazzer, told his robber to die in a talk with the press. He also added, "He had no right to do this ... he's not a spiritual man, he'll get what he deserves." Taylor had met Muir through a mutual friend when Muir was working on said brownstone. Apparently the friendship took off to such a degree that Taylor asked Muir to accompany him to the awards ceremony. When Muir was asked where the prize money should be deposited, Muir instructed officials to place it into a fake account that ultimately benefitted Muir and his company alone. As of late, Muir has paid back $200,000 of the money that he swindled. Still, the courts are pressing the verdict that Muir is to pay back Taylor in full, with $292,000 still remaining to be reciprocated. A most unfortunate circumstance, we hope the issue will resolve itself after the issue goes to court in March. Here's Cecil for your pleasure below. 2016 The Classical Art, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. TagsCecil Taylor, Noel Muir Venezuelan Orchestra Held Hostage as Robbers Pilfer Wallets, Phones Maestro Gustavo Dudamel conducts the children from the Big Noise Orchestra during the Big Concert on June 21, 2012 in Stirling, Scotland. The Big Concert is the opening event of the London 2012 festival. The special outdoor event set against the backdrop of Stirling Castle, features a full performance by lead by conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Orchestra of Venezuela. (Photo : Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images) The Venezuelan Orquesta Sinfonica de Falcon was held at gunpoint this week while two men robbed members of the symphony and took off without any indication of their destination. Law and order are merely a guideline in Venezuela as news of a robbery involving a Venezuelan orchestra company surfaced. In a translated NotiFalcon article, it's been reported that the musicians were only robbed of their cash and phones and that no one in the company was harmed. When the assailants sieged the Harmony Choir theater, orchestra members were forced into the basement and told to leave their wallets and cellulars for the robbers. Venezuela may be a lawless country but news of the robbery still resonates with horror as the incident could have escalated to homicide. The Orquesta Sinfonica de Falcon was founded in 1992 by a group of first generation graduates from the Youth Symphony Orchestra. Under the direction of maestro Maiolino Conte and Abraham Guanipa, the symphony aims at accommodating high artistic integrity with an orchestra to match. Since January 2004, the orchestra now operates under the tutelage of Artistic Director Teresa Hernandez Vega. The company consists of 90 musicians and aims at providing audiences with special performances each and every concert. According to their website: "The orchestra creates opportunities for social and cultural development of communities falconianas, encourages the pursuit of individual and collective excellence of all members of orchestras and future generations; supports, promotes and spreads knowledge and values the regional, Venezuela, Latin American and universal music as heritage of all citizens." It's most fortunate that none of the orchestra members were harmed during the theater invasion. Nonetheless, the attack proves that any kind of organization is susceptible to the nature of violence. 2016 The Classical Art, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. TagsOrquesta Sinfonica de Falcon, Venezuela BBC Recording Gordon Greenbergs Guys and Dolls with Jamie Parker & Sophie Thompson London is about to get really lucky. Not only did Guys and Dolls recently make its way to the West End but soon it will be heading into the living rooms of all of Britain. The BBC will be recording the production of the classical musical directed by Gordon Greenberg. The recording will come soon to include the initial cast which includes: Jamie Parker as Sky Masterson, Siubhan Harrison as Sarah Brown, Sophie Thompson as Miss Adelaide and David Haig as Nathan Detroit. Parker and Thompson first appeared together in the 2014 Chichester Festival Theater. The current production is playing at London's Savoy Theatre. Director Gordon Greenberg recently spoke to Playbill about BBCs plans for the production, saying: "The BBC have asked to film the production. The idea is to shoot it in early March so that we preserve the Savoy cast." The BBC also recently produced a filmed a production of Gypsy at the Savoy theater starring Imelda Staunton. Greenberg is also working on a Broadway version of the Bing Crosby hit Holiday Inn for Roundabout Theatre Company. The show is based on the 1942 version was famous for introducing Crosbys hit song White Christmas. The movies story and music were written by the legendary Irvin Berlin. Greenberg directed a first draft adaption of the film back in September of 2014 at Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Connecticut for Universal Stage Productions. Greenberg also spoke with the work he has done on the production since: "We've been working on a new draft, and Chad Hodge and I are fearless re-writers. We like to fiddle and get back under the hood. We've got some new context. Each new group of people that come on board lend their own brand of expertise and insight." No word yet on if there will be any black face or not. 2016 The Classical Art, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. TagsBBC, Recording, Gordon Greenberg, Guys and Dolls, Jamie Parker, Sophie Thompson AKRON, Ohio -- Lead-tainted tap water in Flint, Michigan, has roiled the nation over perceptions of failed leadership and cost-cutting. But Flint isn't alone in its lead-pipe infrastructure. Almost all American cities, including Akron have lead pipes and connections somewhere in their water supply network. Akron Water Supply Bureau Manager Jeff Bronowski told a City Council committee earlier this month that about 5 percent of Akron's 95,000 service lines include some form of lead. So, should Akronites worry that their water, too, might be contaminated with lead? The short answer is no. Though the city will notify you if you have a lead connection. Akron's water supply is not corrosive Elevated lead levels in Flint were discovered after the city switched its water supply. In 2014, in a cost-saving effort, Flint disconnected from Detroit's municipal water supply and starting drawing water from the Flint River, notorious for industrial pollution. The Flint River water was more corrosive than the Detroit water that Flint's pipes were designed to carry, and Flint's new water treatment plant failed to add anti-corrosive chemicals to prevent the water from damaging water mains and waterline connections. In homes that had lead pipes or lead connections, that meant that lead was now leeching into the tap water at dangerously high levels. Akron has used the same water supply, Lake Rockwell, and water treatment plant for over 100 years and regularly tests its water to make sure that it is both safe to drink and safe for the city's old pipes, whether they are made of copper, iron or lead. "We have a facility specifically dedicated for corrosion control," Bronowski said. The city spent $1.3 million on zinc orthophosphate over the last three years, Bronowski said, which forms a barrier to seal lead inside the pipes. The city also spent $4 million over the last decade on caustic soda, which is used to make water less corrosive. Akron is working to eliminate lead in its pipes Many of the city's service lines, which connect the water main to the water meter at homes and businesses, are made of lead, Bronowski said. However, the city has been actively working to eliminate those lead service lines, Brunowski said, and has reduced the number of lead service lines by 90 percent since 1985. Brunowski said the city is continuing with plans to remove the remaining 5 percent of service lines owned by the city that are still made of lead. Fewer than 50 house lines in all of Akron are made of lead, Bronowski said. Unlike many cities, Akron actually knows where its lead pipes are Finding lead pipes in water systems that were built before telephones were in use can be difficult, and has proved problematic in Flint and even in Cleveland. As a result of efforts to eradicate its lead pipes, Akron is unusual in that it actually has a comprehensive map that shows where its lead water lines are. If you have a lead service, Akron will notify you The city is mailing letters to every home that is connected to city water that still has a lead service line in use. If your home has a lead service connection, expect to be contacted directly. The city is not revealing the addresses of homes with lead connections, citing privacy laws. CLEVELAND, Ohio - Anxiety, doubt and a queasy view of the present and future are leitmotifs of the new suite of exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland. Body parts pop out of walls, strangers with invented identities are made to look familiar yet beyond recognition, people sprout machine-like limbs, and in one case a man's head and shoulders detach and float into space. These are some of the moments you encounter at MOCA, where the artwork on view evokes a nervous, unsettled mood. It may be that the participating artists are channeling the fears of an age in which computers, robots and machines are quickening the pace of life and are ready to start replacing humans at work. Or it could be that the artists don't trust their fellow humans at a time when sleeper cells wake up and turn deadly without warning. Review What's up: "Stranger" and other exhibits exploring contemporary depictions of the human figure. Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland. Where: 11400 Euclid Ave., Cleveland. When: Through Sunday, May 8. Admission: $9.50. Call 216-421-8671 or go to mocacleveland.org. Such thoughts are not stated explicitly as the themes or subtexts of MOCA's major show, "Stranger," organized by Rose Bouthillier, MOCA's associate curator, which focuses on how nine contemporary artists from around the world depict the human figure. Yet the show's title unquestionably brings to mind fears of immigrants, people who look or behave outside the norm yet can also seem normal or perhaps even familiar. Examples include a sculpture by the Georgian artist Andro Wekua, now based in Zurich and Berlin, which depicts a slender blond woman astride a large black wolf. With her slim physique and flowing locks, the woman represents the contemporary ideal of beauty. Yet her left arm is a robotic-looking prosthesis, creating a sense that she has been rebuilt from mechanical parts after a strange, sci-fi transformation. In a series of eerie, twilit portraits by Portland, Me., artist Sascha Braunig, human faces whose proportions are distorted and whose eyeballs bulge bizarrely are depicted in a strangely lighted close-ups with Op Art patterns that stripe their features and the adjacent backgrounds, melding flesh and space oddly together. An even weirder work by Braunig portrays the rippled ridges of a human brain as both subject and background of an imaginary portrait. The construction "Je suis une image," by Montreal artist Valerie Blass, consists of a woman's arm and leg jutting oddly from a wall, with the woman's hand provocatively appearing to remove a pink panty stretched from the woman's ankle. A cascade of blonde hair - made from hair extensions, acts like a shield to cover sexual parts, rendering the entire experience a surreal strip tease. One of the stranger moments of the show occurs in a video by Danish artist Simon Dybbroe Moller in which the head and shoulders of a male actor reciting stream-of-consciousness poetry detach from his torso and float magically into space. Such transformations occur rapidly and repeatedly in an untitled animated video by Berlin artist Oliver Laric, which is on display in MOCA's ground floor multi-purpose space. The Laric video is not part of "Stranger," but appears very much related, given its emphasis on flowing changes in depictions of humans that veer from innocent to terrifying in seconds. In one scene, for example, a woman's breasts morph into gaping jaws. In another, a strong-jawed young man turns into a pixie-like girl with Mickey Mouse ears. Rounding out MOCA's unsettling current emphasis on metamorphosis is "Abduct," a new video installation by Los Angeles artist Xavier Cha, also curated by Bouthillier, in which actors rapidly and randomly express a wide range of moods. Their faces go from tears to laughter to expressions of hatred, anger and dread in sequences unmoored from narrative. It's a lexicon on the loose, and a vision of human faces as scary, untrustworthy masks that may or may not be telling the truth about what's going on behind the signals on the surface. None of the written material surrounding the MOCA shows makes any reference to the current presidential campaign, in which fear, anxiety and economic uncertainty are major themes. Yet it's clear that at least some of the artists whose works are on view are tapping into the same feelings emerging in the presidential debates. The experience is very much in the moment, and what it conveys is not reassuring. The stage at the Alberta Bair Theatre was transformed into the backyard of small-town America on Feb. 9, as the Montana Repertory Theatre explored guilt, tragedy and father-son relationships in its production of Arthur Millers All My Sons. Millers play begins with a windstorm, an apple tree snaps and falls to the ground. It lingers in the backdrop as the plot unfold helping to paint that ominous tone that we have come to associate with Millers oeuvre. Everything that happened seems to be coming back, Ann says when she steps out of the Kellers house the morning after the storm. With Anns return to the Kellers family homestead, the pieces of a disjointed and jarring past slowly come together, and it just might be the tempest it takes to bring the Keller family crashing down. The center of the play and the highlight of the evening was the dynamic between Joe Keller, portrayed by Mike Boland, and his son Chris (Colton Swibold). Boland and Swibold captured the essence of the father-son relationship that Miller is famous for writing. I'm yellow. I was made yellow in this house because I suspected my father and I did nothing about it Chris says. In his depiction of Chris, Swilbolds makes a compelling portrayal of a mans whose childhood innocence has been ripped away. An idealist, he starts the play seeing his father as a hero but has to reckon with the realization that his father may be human after all. Even by todays standards, All My Sons is bold: a brutally honest portrayal of life after war for both those who served and those back home. We are left to wonder if there are any true idealists, cowards or heroes among the characters. MORELAND HILLS, Ohio -- Driving on a closed roadway, Miles Road: Police stopped a Chagrin Falls man, 62, after they say he drove past multiple flashing cruisers and two plow trucks as they were attempting to get another driver's car out of a snow drift about 12:30 a.m. on Feb. 13. One service department worker claimed the man had almost hit him near the Chagrin Valley Estates. The driver became upset, asking if the emergency lights meant that the road was actually closed, then telling an officer to shove the ticket up his posterior, which he would soon "have in court" since he is a local attorney. The driver also called the emergency dispatch center, asking them to dispatch a Chagrin Falls officer, since the Moreland Hills cop was taking too long writing the ticket. Family trouble, Chagrin River Road: A man reported that his wife was drunk and beating him with a stick late on Feb. 11, adding that there was a gun in the house safe. Dispatchers heard a lot of yelling in the background, with police determining that there were no signs of physical violence that night and any alleged attacks with a stick would have taken place several days before. A report was taken, but no charges were filed. Structure fire, Ellendale Road: A malfunctioning bathroom exhaust fan is believed to have been the cause a small fire and lots of smoke inside a home on Feb. 15. The residents -- listed as three adults, one of them elderly and upstairs at the time -- were outside by 3:30 p.m., with the fire being brought under control within 20 minutes. Insurance companies were handling temporary lodgings for the residents, who returned to the home several hours later to retrieve personal belongings after the village Service Director secured the front door. Elevator rescue, Chagrin Boulevard: A Feb. 15 power outage led to a person getting stuck in an elevator between the first floor and the garage level of the Heritage Development Co. building. It was reported at 5:45 p.m. and the person was rescued by 6:06 p.m. Trespassing, Park Lane: A caller reported on the afternoon of Feb. 15 that a man was standing at the edge of a property where he was not supposed to be, by way of a "cease-and-desist" order circulated among the family's attorneys. Officers in Bentleyville and Orange were asked to assist, and police were determining Feb. 17 if any further action was needed. CINCINNATI, Ohio -- A federal appeals court on Friday revived parts of a lawsuit brought by the family of a Cleveland man who died in police custody following a New Year's Eve 2010 traffic stop. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati ruled that police officer Erick Melendez could be held liable in the death of Rodney Brown, who died after being restrained in handcuffs and put in a patrol car following a struggle. Evidence shows that Melendez, when Brown told him "I can't breathe," responded by saying "So? who gives a f--k." The opinion (see below), written by Judge Karen Nelson Moore, also says eyewitness testimony and depositions show that Melendez was with Brown "when he went limp and the officers had to drag him onto the backseat of the patrol car" and when Brown was grunting. While Melendez argued -- and a lower court's judge agreed -- that Brown resisted arrest, Moore wrote it "does not foreclose the possibility that Melendez knew Brown needed medical help." The court also ruled that the city of Cleveland may be liable in the case because it provided training to its officers on how to use Tasers, and one of the officers may have used excessive force when he used his Taser on Brown. The appeals court added that a jury should decide whether any wrongdoing occurred. David Malik, an attorney representing the Brown family, said that "the ultimate result is outstanding. "God willing, it's going to lead to more reform and support the notion that the consent decree is necessary," Malik said, referencing a settlement the city entered into with the U.S. Justice Department over police use of force. The city did not respond to a request for comment. Brown, 40, died Dec. 31, 2010. The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office determined Brown died after exerting himself in the struggle. Brown's family filed suit in 2011. Officers Michael Chapman and Belal Ilain pulled him over East 113th Street and Benham Avenue. They said he was driving with his headlights turned off and then would not provide identification. During the stop, the officers said Brown followed their orders but was combative, Moore's opinion says. When the confrontation became heated, Chapman shot his Taser at Brown's chest. Eyewitnesses said that Chapman shocked Brown after hitting him in the neck and after Brown broke free. Brown, after being shocked once, ran away, and Ilain fired his Taser at Brown's back. The scuffle continued. After Brown was subdued, he went limp and officers had to drag him to put him in the back of a patrol car. Senior U.S. District Judge Lesley Wells, who retired in October, ruled in January 2015 that large parts of the family's lawsuit should go to trial. She dismissed parts of the case that pertained to Melendez and that called into question Chapman's use of a Taser. But Moore wrote that when considering the facts the put forth by Brown's attorney, that the use of the Tasers could be seen as unreasonable. The city could be on the hook because it may have trained its officers with outdated materials, the judge wrote. The Taser's manufacturing company had revised its materials and said to avoid discharging them into a person's chest. The 6th Circuit, in a separate opinion also released Friday, ruled against the city and the officers who tried to overturn Wells' decision for the claims she upheld. Updated with more from the opinion, as well as quotes and background. CLEVELAND, Ohio - Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor helped the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Drug Court celebrate its 300th graduate Thursday evening. Graduates, drug court participants, loved ones and law enforcement representatives packed the jury assembly room at the Justice Center as Common Pleas judges David Matia and Joan Synenberg praised the graduates' commitment to themselves and the program. Twenty-six men and women graduated from Matia and Synenberg's court dockets Thursday evening. Drug court serves defendants who face qualifying non-trafficking felony drug charges or non-violent theft charges. Eligible participants commit to the program for about one year, the court's website says. Upon completion and graduation, defendants' cases are dismissed and their records expunged. The ultimate purpose of the court, though, is to end substance abuse through a coordinated effort to keep participants sober and out of trouble. O'Connor gave a short speech at the beginning of the ceremony, congratulating the graduates. "Somebody here is going to be the 300th graduate for this court, which is absolutely phenomenal," O'Connor said. "Through this essential intervention, getting clean and not reoffending are just two benefits that are achieved through these specialty docket courts." Besides the recognition of the 300th graduate, O'Connor further commended Thursday's graduation as marking the first that graduated two dockets, not just Matia's. Synenberg took on a drug court docket, a "recovery court," in late 2014. Her court focuses on rehabilitating defendants with addictions made more difficult by underlying mental health issues. Synenberg's specialty docket is also the first one certified by the Ohio Supreme Court. Matia has been handling drug court cases since his appointment in 2008. Thursday's graduates struggled with all kinds of addictions to drugs such as heroin and fentanyl, and alcohol abuse. "It is true that drug courts don't work 100 percent of the time for every offender. We know that... But it's clear that after more than 20 years in Ohio that the drug court recovery model does work and must be part of the solution to this opiate epidemic," O'Connor said during her speech. When graduates were called to the front of the room to accept their graduation gift, they were given a brief opportunity to speak. Graduates profusely thanked their respective judge and drug court team for their help. At times, graduates' voices broke as they held back tears and loved ones openly shed tears in their seats. At the podium, some women thanked drug court for helping them regain custody of their children. One graduate, Denver Robertson, said that drug court helped him realize that his addiction is a "physical allergy," and that only accountability to himself and the program will help him maintain sobriety. Another graduate, Allyson Mitchell, addressed the audience, thanking everyone on her drug court team and relaying a sentiment shared by many other graduates. "When I woke up this morning, my heart was just filled with gratitude," Mitchell said. "Congratulations to every single person graduating and thank you to you guys. A lot of you I know, a lot of you I don't know but you have all been there for me." EUCLID, Ohio -- A Euclid police officer pleaded not guilty Thursday to a charge accusing him of firing a gun in a park while off-duty. Officer Todd Gauntner, 29, of Willowick, is charged with discharging a firearm, using a weapon while intoxicated and criminal trespassing in a Thanksgiving incident at Sims Park in Euclid. He is scheduled to appear at a pretrial hearing March 11 in Euclid Municipal Court. Gauntner's attorney filed a motion requesting a jury trial. The matter will be discussed at the pretrial hearing, a court employee said Friday. Defense attorney Robert M. Phillips was not immediately available for comment Friday. Gauntner is serving a 90-day suspension that began Dec. 12, Euclid Police Chief Thomas Brickman said. He will return to duty if he meets several conditions outlined in a disciplinary agreement. The city denied a request to release a copy of the agreement because it references Gauntner's medical records, Euclid Law Director Kelley Sweeney said last month. Gauntner was not using his service weapon when he fired shots into Lake Erie on Thanksgiving, Brickman said last month. Witnesses reported hearing about a dozen shots fired at Sims Park just after 2 a.m. on Nov. 26. Officers arrived at the park's pier and found Gauntner and a woman, according to a police report. Gauntner was holding two guns and said he fired shots at the water. Gauntner told an officer he'd been drinking, the report says. The woman told officers that Gauntner was "blowing off steam" by shooting at the water. Gauntner never threatened her, the woman said. Officers took Gauntner to the Euclid Police Department, where he refused a breath test. He was then taken to Euclid Hospital for an evaluation. Gauntner said at the time that he was dealing with the recent death of a family member. He is also a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who served two tours of duty in Afghanistan, Phillips said last month. Gauntner has been with the Euclid Police Department for two years and has no previous disciplinary issues, Brickman said. Documents included in Gauntner's personnel file show he has been commended for his role in several arrests over the past two years. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The former lawyer for slain Beachwood nurse Aliza Sherman, accused of lying to police investigating her slaying, is scheduled to appear in court Friday. Gregory Moore was charged last month with sending Sherman text messages that said he was in his Erieview building office and waiting for their appointment on March 24, 2013. Sherman was stabbed 11 times by a hooded assailant outside Moore's law office. Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty said investigators found Moore had left the office an hour before sending the messages. Moore is also charged with calling in bomb threats to several courthouses on days he had divorce proceedings. Moore faces charges of tampering with evidence, telecommunications fraud, possessing criminal tools, obstructing official business, falsification and two counts of forgery. The indictment also includes three counts of terroristic threats and six counts of inducing panic in connection with three bomb threats Moore is accused of calling in to courthouses in Cuyahoga, Geauga and Lake counties the year before Sherman's death. Moore was an attorney at Stafford and Stafford at the time. Moore has been free on bond since he was first charged in connection with the bomb threats in 2013. cleveland.com will Mark-Howington.png Mark Howington, a Christian radio host accused of slapping a woman's butt at a Target in Toledo, has resigned his position as a pastor at a suburban Toledo church. (Courtesy of Lucas County Sheriff's Office via WTOL-TV Toledo) TOLEDO, Ohio - The Toledo Christian radio host accused of slapping a woman on the rear in a Target restroom has voluntarily resigned his position at an area church. Mark Howington, 52, who pleaded not guilty Wednesday to slapping a woman's rear-end inside the women's restroom at a Toledo Target Feb. 11, has voluntarily resigned from his position as a pastor at The Dwelling Place - a church in suburban Holland. Josh Plaisance, lead pastor at The Dwelling Place, issued the following statement to Toledo media today: "Because these allegations are severe in their nature, and because The Dwelling Place exists to serve our community, Mark Howington voluntarily resigned from his position on February 13, 2016, realizing his actions do not exemplify that of a minister within our organization. We continue to pray for all parties that are involved." Howington, 52, has been suspended from Proclaim FM's 102.3 morning show and, according to WNWO-TV in Toledo, he is no longer listed on the radio station's website. Here are other stories today from Toledo and Northwest Ohio: EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The family of a 22-year-old man who died after being hit by an East Cleveland police car is suing the city and the officer who was behind the wheel. The wrongful death lawsuit in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court says that the officer who hit Christopher Lashon Kimble, Jr. with his car was driving recklessly and that the city failed to maintain its streets, police cars and traffic control devices. The family is seeking at least $25,000 in damages. Kyle Pettus, 35, was driving the cruiser on Oct. 3 when it struck Kimble, who was crossing Superior Avenue near Emily Street. Police said Pettus was driving to the scene of a car crash. A complaint filed Feb. 12 by attorney Michael D. Goldstein, accuses Pettus of speeding through an intersection known to be heavily populated by pedestrians. He also failed to use emergency lights or sirens, and was driving a car with one broken headlight, the suit says. The city is also at fault for failing to maintain the intersection, according to court documents. An initial crash report from the State Highway Patrol said multiple street lights in the area were burnt out, the painted crosswalks were "worn out and difficult to see" and all of the crosswalk signals were broken. The suit says the city failed to properly train its police officers, including Pettus, who had only been on the force for a year at the time of the crash. The complaint also cites the lack of video evidence from the incident, saying Pettus "intentionally and/or negligently destroyed or failed to record and preserve evidence, including but not limited to, body camera footage." East Cleveland Sgt. Scott Gardner told cleveland.com in October that Pettus's dashboard camera may have malfunctioned during the crash. He told a reporter that the computer connected to the police car's dash cam powered down right before the car struck Kimble. Police also said Pettus didn't turn on his body-worn camera until after the collision. Cleveland.com has submitted multiple requests for that footage. Pettus was suspended after the crash, East Cleveland Police Chief Michael Cardilli said on Friday. This story has been updated. One way to look at Puccinis Turandot is as the The Hunger Games of the opera world. There is no female warrior wielding a bow, but the title character of Turandot has been described as tiger-like" and of unrelenting pride. She has beheaded so many princes she feels immortal. Andrea Garritano, who plays Turandot in the Feb. 27 production at the Alberta Bair Theater, believes her character is out of touch with humanity so she doesnt feel sorrow for the princes who risk their lives for a chance to marry her. Like the dark games in "Hunger Games," "Turandot" features a dark game of riddles. Winner takes the princess for his bride, the loser is beheaded. And there are lots of losers. Its kind of adventure at the opera, Garritano said. Because Turandot is set in an ancient Chinese city, the costumes and the set are even more elaborate than those of other operas. And because it was written by Puccini, the music is complex and beautiful. The production is being presented by NOVA Center for the Performing Arts. Show time is 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 27. Tickets range from $21 for students to $36 and $46 for adults. Puccini died in 1924 before he was able to finish the score for Turandot, but his student Franco Alfano completed the final duet in 1926 using Puccinis notes. Music director Andy Anderson has researched Turandot and led eight previous productions of it. He said Turandot is his favorite, partially because of its challenges. It is a spectacle with the Chinese folklore, all of the singing, the cast, the set. Its is one of the grandest of the grand operas, Anderson said. The tenor aria, "Nessun Dorma, sung in this production by Bozeman native Jeff Kitto, is one of the most well-known in the opera world, made famous by Luciano Pavarotti's performance of it. For Kitto, the challenge is saving himself for that iconic aria because it falls in the second half of the production. And hes on stage and singing in almost every scene. The aria is so climactic in the opera. I have to make sure I have saved enough to make it magnificent because everybody is waiting for that, Kitto said. Kitto plays Prince Calaf, but his character is referred to as the unknown prince for most of "Turandot" because he is traveling incognito after being banished from his country. Prince Calaf is hoping to find a new country to reign over. His father is the deposed King Timur, played by Douglas Nagel. Turandot challenges each of her suitors to solve three riddles. If they cannot solve all three, they are beheaded. Prince Calaf takes on the challenge and gets all three correct, making Turandot upset because she does not want to keep her part of the bargain and marry Calaf. So he challenges her to find out his real name. No one knows who this foreign prince is except for the slave girl Liu, played by Megan King. I am a very selfless character, King said of her role. I have this infatuation with Calaf because he smiled at me one day. That is the motivation for everything Ive done to help him and his father. In a compelling scene in Act 3, Liu commits suicide rather than reveal Calafs real name. King said she has performed the role three times and it has now become her favorite role. For me, she is the most perfectly written character, King said. She has a pure, genuine love not realistic, but the purity of heart. King said her voice has matured since she last performed as Liu and she expects to be able to bring more to the role than ever before. Lius suicide changes Turandots attitude, and at last she realizes that she is human, too. The slaves suicide rocks my character to the core, Garritano said. "Finally, my character says, What is this force in your heart that drives you? It is love. Share Save Amy Webb understands data. In fact, according to her book, Data: A Love Story, she "gamed" online dating sites like JDate, OKCupid and eHarmony and met her eventual husband. But that's just the start of the interesting things about her. Webb is a digital media futurist and founder of Webbmedia Group, a digital strategy agency that spots near-term emerging technology trends and develops strategies for media organizations, Fortune 100 and 500 companies, large nonprofits, universities and government agencies. She's also the co-founder of Spark Camp, which Fast Company described as"the ultimate summer camp for influencers" (only it actually happens year round). The camp encourages "creative conversations between genius strangers. Woman of Influence Last year, Forbes named Webb one of the Women Changing The World and the Columbia Journalism Review included her on its 20 Women To Watch in Media list. This week, she sat down with CMSWire to share her thoughts. Sobel: You are quite the Renaissance woman. You graduated from Indiana University/Jacobs School of Music with a concentration in clarinet performance and have a master's in journalism from Columbia. Now you run Webbmedia Group. Can you tell us a bit about your journey? Webb: In a sense, Ive been doing the same thing all these years, just via different outlets. My parents started me on piano lessons when I was four, and my teacher insisted on rigorous music theory study. Learning music is learning to study and recognize patterns quickly, and then interpret those patterns in a meaningful way. Studying music is not unlike studying math, or computer programming or languages, all of which I started when I was quite young. It also applies to the kind of journalism I did, which was to look for patterns and trends. For me, that initial skills set from music has been transferrable again and again. While I don't work as a marketer, Id say that pattern recognition and trendspotting is a key component to effective marketing. When weve worked with marketers as clients, I often urge managers and executives to participate in exercises with us recognize patterns in order to imagine their own futures. Sobel: I was impressed with what you describe as your Digital FuturePrint, where you focus on reshaping an organization for disruptive tech trends in the next two to five years. Can you talk a bit more about that? Webb: In the decade since Webbmedia Group has been advising clients, I've seen one mistake thats endemic. The latest, buzziest app/gadget/tool has a snake-charming effect on executives. These days, founders are putting on great shows and making big promises. I either see companies immediately invest or try to acquire, or I see them become paralyzed and unable to make any decision about that technology or indeed any similar technology within the same sphere. Its difficult to make a sound decision when confronted with something thats really cool. But as we all know, really cool doesn't equate to sound business model. We developed a decision matrix that forces an exec or manager to objectively evaluate a new project/ product/ app/ etc. Its called our F.U.T.U.R.E Test and its been deployed by many organizations with successful results. Our Digital FuturePrint uses that test and others as part of our assessment and near-term strategy for companies. The rate of technological change is so fast that consumer behavior towards it has become somewhat unpredictable. For that reason, we strictly focus on near-future strategy, which means at the most well look out seven years. Weve been right on all but one recommendation: near-field communication (NFC) in iPhones. We quickly revised our recommendation to Bluetooth LTE. Sobel: In 2012 you developed a program for public libraries in the 21st Century with the Knight Foundation. Essentially the goal of this key performance indicator (KPI) report and InfoStat Scorecard is to provide the all libraries with a concrete set of metrics that can be used to measure success in a digital age. Can you talk a bit about that? Webb: We were asked by the City of Chicago to re-imagine the future of libraries, given the prominence of e-readers, the proliferation of home computers and, to be frank, our decreased reliance on book lending. In Chicago, as in many large cities, the library has become an extension of city agencies rather than a true anchor of the community, where the public can learn, share ideas and transfer knowledge. And the library hasnt marketed itself well, especially not to millennials. As a result, the people who might benefit the most from using the librarys resources never visit. We worked on a Digital FuturePrint for Chicago to detail all the ways in which a modern library should incorporate technology and digital media in the coming years, and one thing we noticed was that libraries havent been using data effectively -- if at all. Traditionally, libraries measure circulation and foot traffic, but those really arent metrics reflective of all the services a modern library provides. So we developed a set of 80 KPIs so that the library cannot only analyze its effectiveness, but so that it can more effectively identify potential collaborators and seek more diversified funding. Its hard to argue in favor of closing library branches or cutting staff hours if the library has hard numbers proving just how important it is to a local community. People forget that data can tell a far more compelling story than anecdotes or traditional narratives. Sobel: Speaking of libraries, one of your current interests is something you call The Lendership Economy essentially the shift from ownership to lendership. One example you described was the death of Blockbuster and the birth of Netflix. But it goes way beyond video. Can you explain a bit more? Webb: At any given time, Webbmedia Group is tracking more than 100 near-future trends. One that I find especially interesting is what we call The Lendership Economy.A few weeks ago, Rent The Runways co-founder Jennifer Hyman announced its Closet in the Cloud, an unlimited subscription service for fashion-forward women. For $75 a month, youll get three designer accessories (handbags, necklaces, scarves) at a time. Return one and get the next in your queue. If it sounds a lot like Netflix, youre not far off. In fact, I hear a lot of startup founders now calling themselves the Netflix of X. At Webbmedia Group, we consider RTRs latest move to be part of a larger trend were seeing in lendership. Platforms are quickly replacing brick-and-mortar retailers and CD cases. The appeal of having access to the latest dress/movie/song, along with the ability to re-borrow it, increasingly trumps consumers desire to actually own and store it in their closets. In fact, you may be part of the lendership economy without even realizing it. If you own a Kindle and youve purchased books for it, youve actually purchased a license for the book not the book itself. Impermanence puts enormous pressure on CMOs to tell a different story. As the lendership economy grows, brand visibility will become more important, as will the consumers relationship to the brand. We expect to see new subscription lending platforms for prescription glasses, baby gear and equipment, home and office furnishings, art and even personal technology. Sobel:We spoke about the relationship of boomers and millennials and some of the research you are doing in that area. In a recent tweet you noted, millennials have a different relationship to technology. Unlike boomers, they dont give drunk photos the same weight. Can you share your thoughts about that? Webb: Recently, I met with a group of business leaders to advise them against using data to make assumptions about millennials. Everyone's eager to hire/ monetize/ exploit this generation using big data as their guide. "The numbers don't lie!" one of them argued. Ill offer you the same explanation as I did for him. Marketers love data. Human resource execs love data. But what they love is the idea of data, really. One CEO told me his company uses a social media background checking service as part of its millennial hiring process. If the service finds any drunken photos posted to Facebook, it counts as a big negative mark. So I asked that CEO if he ever got drunk in college. He nodded yes. I asked him if he was opposed to a college kid experimenting, having too many beers one night. He said no. So it's not behavior he objected to. It was the fact that the behavior had been captured and published. Millennials are the most surveilled generation in our history. They've been exposed to computers, recorders, and mobile phones since birth. In fact, millennials' parents have uploaded millions of hours of them biting each others' fingers and emerging from Novocain hangovers. Why on earth would they think posting a photo, laughing with friends, beer in hand would be problematic? We're more connected than ever before, and we're creating massive amounts of data with each click, swipe and page view. Millennials have a very different relationship to technology than the boomers who now market to and manage them. You can't just collect their data, whether it's from social networks, or watching them click from site to site, and assume that previous behavior correlates with future action. Not without building a new model that accounts for the particular characteristics of this age group. The problem is that many company execs and the data/ predictive analytics firms they hire decontextualize the data they're using to make important decisions. Without context, I can assure you that those numbers do lie. Sobel: Our readers are focused on digital marketing and social business solutions. What advice can you offer them? Webb: About eight years ago, Webbmedia Group tracked all of the new mobile phones and their specs, and we'd make those charts available to our content and marketing clients. It was six pages long. If we were to create that same chart today, it would require more than 50 pages. My point is that technology is evolving quickly. Weve gone from PCs to smartphones to wearables in under a decade, and thats just hardware. When you factor in all of the apps and software, as well as platforms and backend systems, thats a lot to monitor. Savvy marketers tend to pick a few areas of specialization and track whats happening just within those areas. Marketing firms should divide in order to conquer -- assign a different segment to each staff and ask them to become experts. CMOs within larger organizations can do the same with junior staff, or they can deputize other members of the organization to share knowledge. Theres another option, of course. Hire us! We offer a subscription service for CMOs and marketing firms where well come to your office once a quarter and tell you all of the tech trends you need to know to keep you ahead of your competition. For years, Alliance Data seemed it could do no wrong as the stock more than quadrupled from the beginning of 2009 until its peak in the middle of Apr '15. The stock then stalled in '15, and by the time 2016 began it was totally crushed. Even though Jim Cramer was encouraged by the rally this week, there are still plenty of stocks that are well off their highs. The downturn in 2016 effectively broke stocks that were previously some of the hottest growth plays out there. While this story isn't red-hot like it used to be, I think the recent weakness in Alliance Data needs to be viewed as a buying opportunity. When the stock peaked in April, things were looking good for the company. It had just reported a strong quarter, and even though the valuation was a bit high at around 20 times earnings, there wasn't much to worry about when the stock began to trade sideways. Cramer traced the moment of Alliance Data's fall to July when the company reported its second-quarter results. The actual numbers were pretty good, but management provided a pessimistic forecast for the next quarter. The company's loyalty card business was also down 15 percent during the quarter, which many investors interpreted as a shocking decline. Cracks began to appear in the story during the second half of 2015. When 2016 rolled around, the stock fell about 10 percent in the first four weeks in a brutal market wide sell-off. Read more from Mad Money with Jim Cramer Cramer Remix: A real change from pain in 2016 Cramer: Is the rally just a dead cat bounce? Cramer: Could gold be ready to roar higher? Additionally, when the company reported at the end of January, guidance was weak. That prompted the stock to fall even further. In other words, when Alliance Data missed its revenue projections in the latest quarter, it resulted in a full-year revenue miss for 2015. "Remember, money managers loved Alliance Data for accelerating revenue growth, but when that ARG is gone, many of these shareholders decided to leave, too," Cramer said. Alliance Data could have had a credibility problem at that time, which made it hard for investors to believe the company's positive full-year forecast for 2016, Cramer added. With the stock roaring back in the past three days, and an increased buyback, could Alliance Data be worth investing in? "While this story isn't red-hot like it used to be, I think the recent weakness in Alliance Data needs to be viewed as a buying opportunity, especially since the company will be in there buying the stock with you," Cramer said. Even though growth has slowed, the stock still trades at just 10 times next year's earnings estimates. Cramer is willing to pay 10 times earnings for a company with 10-percent growth, even if some think that management has lost credibility and the guidance is too high for 2016. However Cramer warned that if the market goes back to hating growth stocks, then Alliance Data will be hated, too. Nevertheless, he still thinks it is poised to benefit from many trends, and at some point the stock could be too cheap to ignore. "The stock may have been humbled by the recent sell-off, but the story, while not perfect, is still sound enough to be worth investing in as long as long as you remember to be patient and buy on the way down," Cramer said. Starting an upmarket clothing line for children is a gamble not many fashion designers take but for French designer Stephanie Lemaire, it paid off. Lemaire, the founder and CEO of Chateau de sable, started by exhibiting her small, but growing collection at trade fairs in Singapore before opening her first shop at Tanglin Mall in 2001, in the heart of the city-state's shopping district. After 15 years, Lemaire now owns four stores in Singapore and Paris and operates another 20 with franchise partners around the world. The company manufacturers approximately 300,000 pieces of clothing each year. "There is a need in this market," Lemaire, told CNBC's "Managing Asia." "You can do so many things, from baby, girl, boy...it's really fun," she added. Despite her success, the early days were tough. "It was a tiny shop, like 65 square meters," she said, describing her first store. "I didn't want to invest too much but I wanted to do a shop." Exhibiting at fairs about four times a month was not enough to run a business. On the first day at her shop, she made 3,200 Singapore dollars ($2,274.10) by selling around 100 pieces of clothing. For the first two years, the designer made each piece of clothing on a sewing machine at her home, before finding her first manufacturer in Malaysia. The recent talk by oil-producing nations about a possible output freeze is a positive sign even if it may not actually lead to an agreement, according to one analyst. "The Saudis and Russia and even indirectly Iran they're talking to each other, so you now have the beginning of a process," Mike Wittner, head of U.S. commodities research at Societe General, told CNBC's "Closing Bell." Russia and OPEC countries talked about an oil production freeze this week, but Iran did not commit to following suit. Iran's oil minister did say, however, that the country is supportive of initiatives that will stabilize crude prices. Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh's comments came after Iran said it planned to increase oil production by 500,000 barrels per day. The rise in output is a result of sanctions on Iran being lifted earlier this year. On the other hand, Wittner foresees that "perhaps a few months down the road, after Iran has finished ramping up ... they might be willing to have that conversation." Still, market watchers remain wary that a supply freeze may will budge the crude glut. Wittner argues, however, that oil prices have been driven not by fundamentals but by external reasons, namely China and emerging markets. Also, In the event that oil producers cap production, the uncertainty may drive investors with a short position to be skeptical, he said. "We are already way below fundamentals," he said, adding that fundamentals suggest $40 oil. Getty Images If you're in Asia and single but want to turn that status around, there's a mobile app which even has a date-guarantee program for you. Paktor is a Singapore-based mobile-dating app which offers users the chance to reject (swipe left) or approve a match (swipe right) with over 5 million users across Asia. The app operates in six Southeast Asian countries and in Taiwan, and often draws comparisons to Tinder, except that it has some Asia-specific tweaks. "We observed that there is a more conservative culture in Asia," said Joshua Phua, CEO and co-founder of Paktor in a CNBC interview. Online dating is big business. A flurry of apps have mushroomed in recent years hoping to lure busy professionals hooked on to their cellphones. Shares of Match Group, the parent of Tinder, OkCupid and other online dating services rose nearly 23 percent on their debut late last year. watch now watch now watch now Even celebrities have chimed in on the popularity of these apps. "Today, if you own a smartphone, you're carrying a 24-7 singles bar in your pocket," wrote American actor and comedian Aziz Ansari in an essay for Time Magazine. According to Paktor's Phua, his findings show that Asians prefer to first meet fellow users in groups, rather than a more intimate one-on-one date. A feature on Paktor are the group chats based on common interests or careers, which Phua said helps to foster a more comfortable and genuine connection between "like-minded people." The app also has several language settings including Tagalog, Korea, Thai, Japanese, Melayu and Bahasa Indonesia. The app also has a offline date-guarantee program for premium subscribers. In the event that the member does not manage to score an actual date after three months of following the program's guidelines, Paktor will provide the member with a further three months of subscription for free. Even so, Paktor might not be for everyone. Serial dating-app user, Matthew Ali (not his real name), shared that he has not gotten much luck on Paktor and prefers Tinder. "In some ways, I find Paktor a bit kitschy and childish," said Ali in a CNBC interview. He points to the Paktor Leaderboards where the most popular female and male users are ranked and Paktor's 'gift-giving' culture. "You get notifications about people you've swiped right (liked) getting gifts, and asking if you'd like to buy her a gift as well, this turns it into a competition which is childish," said Ali. In response, Paktor's spokesperson said "these [features] are all attempts to make the dating process fun and not so 'stuffy'." "The leaderboard [is] actually one of the most popular feature on the application, it's a discovery tool rather than a game," said the spokesperson. "In fact, we often receive enquiries on how users can be featured on the leaderboard." Ali told CNBC that he has had more luck with 'matches' on Tinder which he claimed has a more diverse user base. "Of course, there are some strange users to be found on Tinder," said Ali, who explained that he has come across Tinder profiles where users are very open about their sexual fetishes. Who are mobile dating apps for? The news follows a series widely-criticized policy moves overseen by Xiao Gang, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, that have been blamed for exacerbating a global stock market sell-off in recent months. China will announce its top securities regulator is stepping down within days, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing officials. Those include a stock price "circuit breaker" mechanism that halted trade for 15 minutes if a Chinese index rose or fell 5 percent and for the rest of the day if it dropped 7 percent. That much-derided policy tool was suspended after only a week after sending jitters throughout global markets in January. It's understood that Gang will be replaced by the current chairman of the Agricultural Bank of China, Liu Shiyu, who formerly served as the deputy governor of China's central bank. You can read the full article here. This story is developing.Please check back for updates. Follow CNBC International on Twitter and Facebook. Many Latinos today blame President Barack Obama for the continuing stagnation of the Latino community. As the son of a former Cuban political prisoner, I am eager to see immigration reform, and I am sympathetic to those who feel the political frustration. However, I disagree that Obama is to blame. Though we haven't had reform, Latinos are flourishing under this president. Under Obama's administration, the rate of Latinos under the age of 65 without health insurance has plummeted. According to The National Center for Health Statistics, the uninsured rate for all Latinos under the age of 65 is about 21.2 percent, down from 30.3 percent in 2013. According to the Pew Research Center, the number of Hispanic 18 to 24 year-olds enrolled in college has reached a new high2.4 millionand has been growing since 2009. The French used to call it "cinq-a-sept,": That time of the afternoon for men to meet their mistresses before returning to their wives. But in modern times, could it be a savior for struggling hotel chains? French website Dayuse.com is one company helping traditional hoteliers to sell rooms for just a few hours during the day. Buyers include travellers who want a second office, a place to stay between flights rather than use an airport lounge or somewhere to grab a quick rest. Currently on the website, a 5 hour day time slot at a Best Western hotel in Manhattan is available from $105 dollars. The site claims that's a 70 percent saving on night time use. Growth Story DayUse launched in Paris in November 2010, focusing only on the French market. It now operates in 14 countries across Europe and North America. After announcing 15 million euros of funding in January, the platform says it intends to expand to Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, Australia and Argentina. According to one article published on the website, the UK business witnessed 150 per cent growth over the past two years, and expects a similar rise this year. The firm itself says it will double staff at London and New York offices this year. Lorenzo Sciotti, Dayuse's business development manager, says most daytime reservations are now used for business. 'In London we get more business clients. Perhaps people want to rest after travel or they want to conduct a quick meeting. "Near airports we get a lot of clients who have missed flights and prefer a bed to an airport lounge," he said. We are aiming for 5,000 hotels by the end of the year Lorenzo Sciotti Mr. Sciotti says in other markets, such as Italy, leisure bookings are more common. But even here Sciotti says the main reason is not for love, but rather for what the company calls a "daycation". "Imagine you can book a 5 star hotel for the price of a 2 star and you can use all the facilities such as a spa or swimming pool," he said. Bookings on the site can be made in cash and reservations cancelled without cost. Mr Sciotti says hoteliers were initially reluctant to risk their brand against accusations of seediness but 320,000 rooms have been booked since its launch. He claims the business is now better understood and he expects more chains to come on board. "On the site we have 2,000 hotels and we are aiming for 5,000 hotels globally by the end of the year," he said. The hotel industry has suffered as internet disruptors such as Airbnb have grabbed market share. A 24-year-old Billings man pleaded guilty Thursday to posting nude photos of his ex-girlfriend on Craigslist and pretending to be her seeking sexual encounters. Mathew Christopher Connery was charged with misdemeanor privacy in communications for listing her phone number in the casual encounters sections of Craigslist. A nude photo she had provided him while the two were in a relationship was also posted. In his plea before Yellowstone County Justice of the Peace David Carter, Connery at first appeared contrite. "I realize what I did when I did it," Connery said. "I wasn't in the best state of mind when I did it." When Carter asked him to admit to the crime, however, he hesitated. "I wasn't trying to intimidate her," Connery said. "It was a really stupid joke between her and me when we were together." Asked by the judge if he was "trying to embarrass her or cause her emotional pain," Connery said, "I guess so, yeah." The woman filed a restraining order against Connery after he posted the photo and showed up unannounced at her home, her family's home and her work. She requested he destroy the photos so they could no longer be posted. Connery's sentencing will be Feb. 25, allowing the victim time to write an impact statement for the court. His conviction comes only a week after the Women's Media Center launched a site nationally to help identify and categorize harassment of women online. Director for the Women's Media Center Speech Project, Soraya Chemaly, said "revenge porn" or "non-consensual pornography" is a growing problem for women online. The speech project intends to raise awareness and understanding of the developing problem. "A lot of times, when these crimes are reported, they are routinely minimized by being categorized as a misdemeanor," Chemaly said. A nude photo of someone posted on the Internet is like stripping someone naked and throwing them into a public place, Chemaly said, although the crimes aren't treated that way. Connery faces a maximum punishment of six months in jail and a $500 fine, according to Montana Law. Although, Chenaly said her organization isn't focused on making changes through the legal system, "When you look at rape, at domestic violence and the legal remedies for these crimes, we know the court system is so biased." Deputy Yellowstone County Attorney Paul Chaon was the lead prosecutor on one of three related stalking cases charged during 2014. The offender, Terry Stoltz was sentenced to five years for felony drug possession and concurrent sentences of five years with two suspended for stalking. Stoltz had set up a video camera in the victim's shower, which he said he was using to watch some chickens he kept there. Chaon said Stoltz adopted a mentality toward his victim of, Im going to make your life miserable. According to the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative's "Effects of Revenge Porn" Survey, 90 percent of revenge porn victims are women, while 60 percent of perpetrators were men. Of those who have suffered from revenge porn, 49 percent were then harassed by people who saw the images, according to the survey. Victims of revenge porn are sometimes fired from their jobs. Harm is done to their reputation, there are psychological impacts and they face social stigma for their sending the photos in the first place, Chenaly said. It needs to start with education, Chenaly said. Society as a whole believes that women's bodies are a public resource, Chenaly said. "I had a young man ask me in a class once what the difference was between posting a photo of his girlfriend and a picture of a toaster," Chenaly said. "A toaster doesn't have rights," Chenaly said. What will most often happen in these cases is that two people will be in a relationship and use text messaging to send sexually explicit photos to one another, Chenaly said. These people are typically in their teens up to late twenties. While men and women share photos at about the same rate, men are three-to-five times more likely to share sexually explicit images without permission. When the relationship ends, men use this as blackmail. Chenaly has also seen cases where a man will rape a woman and video tape it. Yellowstone County saw this behavior with Toby Griego, a Yellowstone County serial rapist who recorded his attacks of women on his cellphone. "When we write stories about domestic violence, they are often the most salacious, stranger-based violence stories," Chenaly said. "But this ignores the day-to-day violence women face in their homes and on the Internet." In a 2010 Casper, Wyo., case, a man named Jebidiah James Stipe posted a photo of his ex-girlfriend on Craigslist saying the woman was seeking someone to help her play out a rape fantasy. Ty Oliver McDowell responded to the ad and assaulted the woman, according to a news story. He left the victim naked, tied up on the floor and actually locked the door when he left, Natrona County District Attorney Michael Blonigen said in the story. McDowell admitted to three counts of first-degree sexual assault, one count of aggravated kidnapping and one count of aggravated burglary. Stipe admitted to one count of conspiracy to commit sexual assault and four other felonies related to the rape. To learn more about the speech project, visit The Speech Project website where a list of the six types of abuse women face online are listed as well as articles and surveys conducted on the subject. Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Check out which companies are making headlines before the bell: Deere & Co. The heavy equipment maker earned 80 cents per share for its latest quarter, 10 cents above estimates, but revenue fell short as top line results were pressured by a strong dollar. Deere said its financial condition is strong, but it expects another "challenging" year ahead. VF Corp. The parent of North Face and other apparel brands earned an adjusted 95 cents per share for its latest quarter, missing estimates by 6 cents, and its revenue also fell below analyst forecasts. VF blames a softer consumer environment, warmer than expected weather, and a stronger U.S. dollar, but adds it considers these factors a relatively short term challenge. Best Buy Goldman Sachs downgraded the electronics retailer to "neutral" from "buy," saying a sluggish wireless market would negate ongoing strength in TV sales. Starbucks The coffee chain's shares were rated "buy" in new coverage at Nomura Securities, which said that the company's digital initiatives like mobile ordering would help keep same-store sales momentum going. Baker Hughes , Halliburton , Schlumberger , Weatherford International D.A. Davidson began coverage on these oilfield services stocks with "buy" ratings, saying diversified companies such as these as best prepared to weather the current low price cycle and come out stronger. Nordstrom The retailer missed estimates by five cents with adjusted quarterly profit of $1.17 per share. Revenue was also below forecasts, as is Nordstrom's full-year earnings and sales outlook. Nordstrom has been negatively impacted by heavy discounting and unseasonably warm weather. Applied Materials The company reported adjusted quarterly profit of 26 cents per share, 1 cent above estimates, with revenue slightly above forecasts. The semiconductor equipment manufacturer gave an upbeat forecast for the current quarter, helped by strong demand for equipment used to make OLED display monitors. Boston Beer Boston Beer came in 8 cents above Street forecasts with quarterly profit of $1.21 per share. The brewer of Sam Adams beer saw revenue miss estimates, however, as does its full-year earnings outlook. The company has cited increasing competition among negative factors hurting its sales. Boeing The jet maker's engineers have approved a six-year contract extension, replacing a 2013 agreement that would have expired in October. Apple Apple's court response to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's demand for encryption-breaking technology is now due February 26 instead of the original deadline today. Companies like Facebook , Twitter , and Walt Disney have sided with Apple in its resistance to the FBI's order. Amazon.com The online retailer has bought the North American rights to Woody Allen's next film, due for release this summer. TrueCar TrueCar lost 13 cents per share for its latest quarter, a wider loss than the 4 cents analysts were forecasting. The car-shopping website operator also saw revenue miss the mark, as did its 2016 outlook. A combination of fewer site visitors and higher costs is weighing on TrueCar's results. Titled the "Islamic Rape of Europe," a right-wing Polish magazine has caused controversy with its latest cover depicting a blonde, white woman being physically harassed and pulled in all directions by three pairs of dark-skinned hands. The magazine wSieci, or the Network teases a "report about what the media and Brussels elite are hiding from the citizens of the European Union," according to an unverified translation, and its article refers to the Cologne attacks on hundreds of women on New Year's Eve. Refugees and migrants were largely accused after over 1,000 complaints were filed in the German city that included theft, sexual assault and rape. The complaints sparked a backlash against German Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to have an open-door policy to refugees who had recently arrived in Europe from war-torn Syria and Iraq. watch now watch now watch now Turkey is facing renewed security concerns following a bombing in Ankara earlier this week that's highlighted the severe challenges the country faces at home and abroad. Experts are concerned the government, headed by President Erdogan Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has found itself in a toxic mix of being unable to focus on much-needed economic reforms, renewed fighting with Kurdish militias, the rising threat of Islamic State forces, and a growing refugee crisis all with the Syrian war on its doorstep. CNBC takes a closer look at the biggest of Turkey's problems: Too many enemies: The terrorist threat Ankara is fighting a growing number of enemies within and outside its borders. Turkey, which is believed to have the world's 10th largest army, is not only taking aim against the terrorist group known as Islamic State (IS) along with coalition forces in Syria, but it is now shelling Kurdish separatists from the People's Protection Units (YPG) in the north of Syria and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Iraq. A collapsed ceasefire with the PKK back after two years of relative peace in July has sparked a flare-up of violence, attacks and government crackdowns. The PKK, which have been fighting for regional independence, are recognized as a terrorist organization by Turkey and western allies and have been blamed for numerous attacks. However, Ankara blamed Wednesday's deadly bombing on the YPG, a Syrian Kurdish militia group, that Turkey is urging allies to similarly recognize as a terrorist organization. It's proven difficult, though, given the YPG is helping the U.S. fight IS in Syria. There is speculation that the country's latest call for boots on the ground to end the war in Syria amid a precarious ceasefire may be partly driven by an interest in eliminating an alleged Kurdish threat. watch now There is speculation that the country's latest call for boots on the ground to end the war in Syria amid a precarious ceasefire may be partly driven by an interest in eliminating an alleged Kurdish threat. Meanwhile, IS has been blamed for attacks that gained some of the greatest international attention in recent months, including October's Ankara suicide bombing which left over 100 dead, and January's attack which left 10 foreign tourists killed in Istanbul. Its efforts to stamp out Kurdish threats may help further isolate the country among its neighbors, but "Turkey couldn't care less," Wolfango Piccoli, a co-president of political risk analysis firm Teneo intelligence told CNBC by phone on Thursday. The Turkish government's priorities lie with subduing Kurdish militias, making sure President Assad's regime is out of office, and preventing the development of autonomous Kurdish areas in Northern Syria, he said. In other words, concerns about becoming an outcast, are "just not part of equation," Piccoli said. The feud with Russia There is a battle of egos taking place between Russia's President Putin and Erdogan after Ankara failed to apologize for downing a Russian fighter jet that allegedly ignored warning calls after entering Turkish airspace back in November. It exacerbated mild tensions between the former allies after Russia officially intervened in the Syrian war in September with an air campaign on the side of the Assad regime. Russia has since restricted tourism to Turkey, clamped down on its former trade partner's agricultural imports and set stringent visa limits that have notably impacted the Turkish economy. Relations between Putin and Erdogan don't look ready to thaw, Anthony Skinner, a director at Verisk Maplecroft told CNBC on Tuesday. "Russia is enjoying squeezing Turkey through Syria," he said. Economic repercussions Perhaps most worrying for investors are the repercussions for Turkey's economy from all these tensions. While Ankara has played down the effect of Russian sanctions, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development suggested the row could shave 0.4 percent off Turkish economic growth rates. That's not to mention the costs of a migrants crisis that's seen the country play host to over 1.8 million people fleeing violence in neighbouring states as of December 2015. The government's growth forecasts have already been slashed for both 2015 and 2016, down one percent each to 3 and 4 percent respectively. Aston Martin is going electric. The very British car manufacturerbest known for its association with that other perfectly proportioned British export, James Bondjust inked a deal with China's LeEco to make an electric version of the luxury car by 2018. Aston Martin made the announcement Thursday at a press conference in Frankfurt, adding that the cars would be manufactured at the company's flagship plant in Gaydon, England. Aston Martin's RapidE concept vehicle following the announcement of a joint venture between Aston Martin and LeEco on Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016 in Frankfurt, Germany. Salome Roessler | AP HELENA Montana courts are working to streamline their handling of child abuse and neglect cases and improve the results for children and their families, officials told the Protect Montana Kids Commission on Thursday. District Judge Ingrid Gustafson of Billings said that before she hears such cases, social workers, parents and a mediator hold a pre-hearing conference to identify what led to the court's involvement and to determine if the parents are willing to make improvements. If the parents are open to getting help, the mediator and social workers will pinpoint what kind of treatment, evaluation or education the parents might need, she said. The court has developed systems for getting contact information to the parents' court-appointed attorneys to eliminate other delays, Gustafson said. Five years ago, the District Court in Yellowstone County terminated parental rights in 45 percent of abuse and neglect cases, everyone involved was frustrated and it was taking almost two years to close a case. A retired judge looked at the system and found it was taking around six months from when children were taken away from their parents before they got a treatment plan. Parents were given a laundry list of things to do including mental health evaluations, chemical dependency evaluations, anger assessments, parenting classes and counseling all while getting a job, suitable housing and being available for random urinalysis. "We had a system that set people up to fail," Gustafson said. Now, the pre-hearing conferences are held within 72 hours of when a child is removed, the parents' court-appointed attorneys are notified immediately and those who are willing to work with the court can get working on their treatment plan right away, she said. The District Court in Yellowstone County is now terminating parental rights in 26 percent of such cases and is processing them more quickly, despite an increasing caseload. Gustafson's court is terminating rights in 16 percent of cases. Her court has used the same system for five years. Gustafson said she believes the reduction in terminations, due to working with the families, has saved the state around $1 million in foster-care costs during the past five years. "I have been pretty shocked at the parents that with the right help have been able to get their children back and they're doing a pretty good job," she said. Social workers and attorneys reported they were happier with their work and felt they were doing something meaningful, Gustafson told the commission, which is evaluating the state Child and Family Services Division. The commission is tasked with forwarding any recommendations for changes in policies, practices and state law to the governor's office by late March. Gustafson and District Judge Mike Menahan said it would be nice for the courts to have money available to help low-income parents with transportation and the cost of drug testing so they could meet the requirements of their treatment plans. Mobile World Congress, Europe's biggest consumer electronics show with an expected 95,000 attendees, kicks off next week. It's a show where the world's biggest electronics companies show off their latest devices that could make or break their year. Firms from Samsung to Huawei have scheduled events on Sunday, just before the official start of the conference on Monday and while much of the focus will be on the big players, themes from the future of 5G to driverless cars will be in focus. CNBC takes a look at what to expect. Samsung, Huawei launches Sunday is a day packed full of launches and two of the biggest are Samsung and Huawei's. Samsung is expected to unveil its Galaxy S7 smartphone and S7 Edge, the latest flagship handsets in its range. The world's biggest smartphone maker warned of possible softer earnings this year due to a slowdown in the market and is looking to new areas such as virtual reality (VR) to fill the gap. In a video teasing the event, Samsung showed a person putting on their newly-released Gear VR headset and reaching out towards a slightly open box. Huawei has had an impressive year with Smartphone sales up 44 percent year-on-year in 2015. Rumors about the company's next device have been swirling around the internet, and Huawei will be looking to build on its success from last year. Xiaomi is also making its first appearance at MWC, hosting a press conference just after an event in Beijing where it is expected to show off its latest handset, the Mi 5. "We continue to believe that Chinese players such as Alcatel OneTouch (TCL), Huawei, Lenovo, Xiaomi and others are the companies to watch in this space as traditional players like HTC, Microsoft and Sony lose market share," research company CCS Insight said in a note. 5G: How close is it? A lot of the chatter at MWC will be around 5G, the next generation of mobile internet that will not only power our smartphones, but also the so-called "Internet of Things" (IOT). That includes your washing machine wanting to send you a message and anything else connected to the internet. The number of IOT devices will number 38.5 billion in 2020, up for 13.4 billion in 2015, a 285 percent rise, according to Juniper Research. But the current network infrastructure will not be able to cope. That's why the industry is pushing forward with 5G, with fairly ambitious targets. The year 2020 has been touted as a deadline of the arrival of 5G, but there is still no global standard for the technology. That's what players from network equipment makers to semiconductor firms are trying to establish. "You'll see demonstrations from vendors and from the handset guys to show the kind of speeds you can get over 5G networks," Michael O'Hara, chief marketing officer of GSMA, the organizers of MWC told CNBC. Driverless cars An increasing number of automakers have been attending consumer electronic shows recently as the driverless car comes closer to being sold on the car lot. Google is testing driverless vehicles and a number of tech players and car manufacturers have touted the potential of the future autos. "Cars are emerging as one of the largest near-term opportunities for connected devices beyond mobile phones. Numerous partnerships and technology initiatives will be highlighted at the show," CCS Insight said. Virtual reality It's been a big buzzword for the past year, but virtual reality (VR) has been thrust into the mainstream. Device makers from HTC to Samsung have released VR devices while content is on the rise. Samsung is expected to focus heavily on VR in its launch on Sunday. CCS Insight said VR products are "poised for explosive growth in 2016". Connecting the unconnected Wood panel producer Norbord rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange on Friday. Representatives of the company attended the event to celebrate its listing on the NYSE, and its president and CEO, Peter Wijnbergen, did the honors. Norbord's shares trade under the ticker symbol OSB in the United States, and on the Toronto Stock Exchange, where it was already listed, its ticker symbol has changed from NBD to OSB. Norbord has 2,600 employees and produces wood-based panels in 17 locations in the United States, Canada and Europe. watch now A former sales manager for Insys Pharmaceuticals , which manufactures a highly addictive painkiller and is under investigation in multiple U.S. states, has pleaded guilty to charges of fraud. Former Insys sales manager Natalie Reed Perhacs recently pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit health care fraud including engaging in kickback schemes in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama (Southern Division). Insys was the subject of a CNBC investigation in November which revealed that two physicians in Mobile, Alabama, Dr. Xiulu Ruan and Dr. John Couch, partners at a practice, received over $210,000 from Insys Therapuetics in 2013 and 2014 for things like speaking fees, travel and meals. The company's main revenue generating drug is a highly addictive opiate 100 times more powerful than morphine, called Subsys Fentanyl. In May 2015, Drs. Ruan and Couch were arrested on drug and fraud charges and both pleaded not guilty. The agreement with the Insys sales rep, filed on Feb. 17 and obtained by CNBC, states that Perhacs was hired by Insys as a kickback to Dr. Ruan, who became fond of her and "went out of his way" to try to get her hired as a sales representative with a pharmaceutical company. In an e-mail sent on November 7, 2012, Dr. Ruan asked Perhacs,"Well, I want to ask you a personal question and hopefully you would not be offended. Are you involved with someone now? . . . You don't have to answer any of these if you do not feel comfortable." The plea agreement states that Perhacs was not hired because of her knowledge or experience working with controlled substances like Subsys; but rather, she was hired to "induce, and in exchange for, Dr. Ruan continuing to prescribe Subsys." "Perhacs had a strong financial incentive to do so, and to turn a blind eye to illegal kickbacks being paid by Company A [Insys] to Dr. Ruan and Dr. Couch. Despite earning a base salary of only $40,000.00 per year, commissions from off-label prescriptions written by Dr. Ruan and Dr. Couch resulted in Perhacs making over $700,000.00 between April 2013 and the doctors' arrests on May 20,2015." Not only did Drs. Ruan and Couch co-own and co-direct a pain management clinic (Physician's Pain Specialists of Alabama) with two locations in Alabama, but they also owned a pharmacy next to one of the clinics called C&R. The plea agreement states that nearly all of these prescriptions were written off-label to non-cancer patients and that all of these prescriptions were filled at C&R Pharmacy, which then billed federally-funded and private health insurance providers a total of $572,626.62. That's important because the drug in question, Subsys Fentanyl, is only approved by the FDA for breakthrough cancer pain. Though it is not illegal for doctors to prescribe off label, it is illegal for the company to market a drug outside of FDA approved use. The deal is not the first plea agreement involving allegations that the company used doctors and illegal business practices to try to grow profits. A nurse practitioner in Connecticut pleaded guilty to accepting kickbacks from Insys last year. A class-action lawsuit filed against the company on Feb. 18 alleges that the company "was engaged in the illegal and improper off-labeling marketing of Subsys" and that certain employees, including former CEO, Michael Babich, "were complicit in an illegal kickback scheme operated for the purpose of increasing prescriptions of Subsys." Babich was replaced as CEO of Insys two days after the CNBC report aired in November 2015. watch now Former high profile Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi was replaced over the weekend in a far-reaching government shake-up as the kingdom deals with the long-term fallout from low oil prices. Heinz-Peter Bader | Reuters When the energy industry gathers in Houston Monday, the big topic will be whether oil prices are actually close to stabilizing after months of painful declines. The 35th annual IHS CERAWeek conference comes just as the world's largest oil producers Saudi Arabia and Russia are talking about ways to support oil prices through a production freeze. While a cap on output will not reduce the world's oil glut, the idea has certainly helped lift crude prices off their lows, but WTI crude was still trading below $30 on Friday afternoon, down near-4 percent. On Friday, Alexey Texler, Russia's first deputy energy minister, was quoted as saying that the world's excess oil supply could be halved if the freeze takes effect. Qatar and Venezuela joined Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC member Russia in the proposed agreement earlier this week. The very individuals that could comment on this proposal will be attending the meeting: Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi and OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem El-Badri. El-Badri speaks Monday afternoon, and Naimi speaks Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. CT. This is a day of reckoning for oil companies and oil countries. Daniel Yergin Vice Chairman of IHS The idea of a production freeze has many proponents, including Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of IHS. "This is a day of reckoning for oil companies and oil countries, and they need to stabilize the market," Yergin said. Getting such a deal approved poses challenges since many producers would have to agree to cap production. But there is hope talks could lead to a policy change at the next meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in June. There has also been speculation members could seek an emergency meeting before then. "I think the market is beginning to stabilize and perceptions are changing," Yergin said. He noted that there are less negative prognosticators talking about oil prices sinking to $15 to $20 a barrel. But there is a wild card for the market, and for any producers' deal: Iran. While Iran has said it supports a freeze, there's been no indication it is willing to impose one on its own production. It's in the process of ramping up production with sanctions against its nuclear program being lifted. The idea of more Iranian crude has weighed on the market as traders attempt to gauge just how much oil Iran can actually export. Iran also faces elections at the end of the month, and some analysts say it's unlikely it would agree to hold back on oil sales ahead of that. At the same time, other forces are at work that will affect the future of the energy industry. "The market is trying to determine whether this is a new era of cooperation between Russia and OPEC," said John Kilduff, partner with Again Capital. For that reason, industry experts are anxious to hear from the Saudi oil minister Naimi at the event since Saudi Arabia is the driver of OPEC's market-based pricing policy. In an effort to secure its global market share, Saudi Arabia was willing to accept much lower prices. "Hopefully he'll give us some clarity on what the Saudis' commitment is freezing production or doing more to stabilize the market," Kilduff said, noting that market watchers wonder if this is just lip service or a game they are trying to play against Iran. The question of price stability will be an important topic for the global energy industry officials, regulators and political leaders expected to attend IHS CERAWeek. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto speaks Monday, as does Mexican Finance Minister Luis Videgaray Caso. Royal Dutch Shell CEO Ben van Beurden is speaking Tuesday, as does Yilin Wang, chairman of China National Petroleum Corp. At this time last year, Mexico was playing up plans to bring in outside investment for its natural resource industry. "The challenge for Mexico is they launched this reform when the mentality was $100 a barrel, and that's not the reality so they've had to have a lot of adjustments. One of the big benefits they're getting is cheap gas from the United States which is helping them bring down electricity costs," Yergin said. Jose Antonio Gonzalez Anaya, the new CEO of Pemex, the Mexican energy company, will also attend IHS CERAWeek. Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, has been hit hard by a new round of spending reductions announced this week. Pemex had a roughly $10 billion third quarter loss, and it has been cutting costs and workers. Gonzalez Anaya was named CEO earlier this month to turn around the struggling company. He was a former deputy finance minister, and last serviced as director of the Mexican Social Security Institute. According to Eurasia Group analysts, about $5.4 billion will be cut from Pemex which "will keep Pemex's finances strained and affect Pemex's ability to maintain investment plans." The analysts said Pemex will soon announce its new business plan, and it will try to prioritize the most productive projects and attract investment while cutting costs. The analysts, in an note, said the Mexican government would also be ready to inject capital into Pemex. watch now Industry cutbacks Another big topic at the conference will be how the industry is scaling back, and the tactics it is using to get by on oil prices that have fallen further than most predicted. Last year, the industry was just coming to grips with the idea of lower prices for longer, and now it's been living it. Yergin said absent a deal among producers to curb production, the industry should have a very difficult first half, but a better second half. "This year is going to be very rough on the industry, very turbulent. We think that the decline in U.S. production is going to get more serious another 600,000 to 800,000 barrels a day in this kind of price environment. The U.S. would decline that much by summer, and that starts to set the basis for a greater stabilization," Yergin said. The U.S. is the world's third-largest oil producer and its rapid arrival on the world scene over the past five years contributed to the roughly 1.5 million to 2 million barrels a day in global oversupply. Globally, the industry has trimmed upstream oil and gas capital spending in 2015 by nearly 30 percent from the 2014 level, according to IHS CERA data. But North America saw an even steeper cut back, with spending falling 41 percent in 2015. For 2016, IHS CERA stated that several large North American upstream companies are cutting spending by 50 percent or more compared to 2015 levels. Companies are also moving beyond capital spending cuts. Ryan Lance, CEO of ConocoPhillips will also participate in the IHS CERAWeek conference and his company, earlier this month, became the first large oil company to cut its dividend. Wall Street analysts expect other companies to follow with dividend cuts of their own. "I think we'll hear a lot of debate about how much capacity in the industry will be lost. Can you bring it back when you need it? There is a short-term question of protecting your balance sheet and being in survival mode. There is a question longer term about the resilience of the individual companies and the resilience of the industry. That's going to be on the minds of a lot of people," Yergin said. Boosting efficiencies watch now Travel search site Skyscanner is capitalizing on China's growing outbound tourism rates by catering to regional tastes, the company's chief financial officer told CNBC. In full-year earnings released Friday, the company said it clocked a 67 percent rise in Chinese visitors to the site, while its mobile users nearly doubled, helping deliver a 28 percent jump in revenue to $183 million. Global visitors now average 50 million per month. "The outbound travel for us is a major opportunity and we're obviously seeing increasing levels of outbound travel," Shane Corstorphine told CNBC on Friday. "We have to understand China better." After Skyscanner's acquisition of Chinese travel search startup Youbibi back in 2014, Corstorphine said that the company is working to cater more to local tastes, explaining that the company's strength is customizing its online site for regional users. They've tweaked their online booking platform, for instance, noting that Chinese users prefer bigger buttons, and filters at the top of the web page rather than on the left hand side. China outbound travel rose by 7.8 percent in 2015 compared to a year earlier, according to estimates by market intelligence firm Euromonitor International. That number is expected to jump a further 6.2 percent in 2016 to total over 72.5 million trips, thanks to rising discretionary spending. Households with an annual disposable income over US$ 35,000 which is the industry threshold for international travel is set to increase from 34 million in 2015 to 121 million in 2030, Wouter Geerts, a travel analyst with Euromonitor International told CNBC by email. Passengers walk through the terminal building of Shanghai Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, China, on Saturday, Oct. 26, 2013. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images HELENA Advocates for Yellowstone National Park's wild bison are thanking Gov. Steve Bullock for extending the herd's legal range over 400 square miles outside the park. Mike Mease, the co-founder of the Buffalo Field Campaign, said Bullock's decision is a better approach to managing the wild bison population. Representatives of the group and Native Americans gathered in the Capitol on Thursday. Wildlife advocates have been critical of the slaughter of some bison that roam outside the park. Ranchers have opposed giving the animals more protections because of limited grazing land and the possible spread of disease. The governor was not at the Capitol to accept the group's gratitude. Bullock is in Washington, D.C., for a meeting of the National Governors Association. RAWLINS Despite expecting evidence back from the Wyoming State Crime Lab in December, the Carbon County Coroner still has no information about the death of a woman who caught fire while working at the bar she owned in Rawlins. Coroner Paul Zamora said Wednesday that he has nothing new to update in the death of Denise King Martinez. Martinez died in November, days after she somehow caught fire at the County Six Bar. Crime lab results were expected last month, but now Zamora says he doesn't know when it will be returned. An inquest is planned in Martinez's death to determine the manner of her death. CHEYENNE, Wyo. An ad opposing Medicaid expansion played on airwaves across the state in the weeks leading up to the legislative session, spreading what opponents described as inaccurate information about the Obamacare program. The ad claims that expanding Medicaid will hurt elderly Wyomingites and could result in cuts to education, roads and public safety or tax hikes. The Florida-based Foundation for Government Accountability paid for the minute-long spot. It ran on radio stations in Cheyenne and Casper, said Dave Owen, a Salt Lake City lobbyist who has a contract to consult for the foundation. Owen said the ad also ran for a shorter duration on stations connected to the Cowboy State News Network, which has about 45 affiliates across Wyoming. The ad features a man and woman talking about expansion in Wyoming. It is slightly reminiscent of a TV advertising campaign in the 1990s that's credited with killing health care reform proposed by President Bill Clinton. The spot concerns members of Healthy Wyoming, a coalition of business, health care and religious groups pushing the Legislature to adopt the Obamacare program. Healthy Wyoming is running its own radio ads. Theres information in there we know not to be true, and even misinformation, said Bri Jones of the Equality State Policy Center, part of Healthy Wyoming. Theres a bit of fear-mongering. Theres something in there about Medicare, and I think scaring the elderly is an unfair thing to do. About 20,000 Wyomingites would receive health care coverage if the Legislature adopted expansion. The Republican-controlled Legislature has rejected the program each year for the past three years. For the current session, Gov. Matt Mead who initially opposed the initiative but now supports it put expansion into the Wyoming Department of Healths budget. Lawmakers on the Joint Appropriations Committee rejected it in a preliminary review of the budget. Attempts to reinsert it into the budget bill have thus far failed. Mead has said accepting $268 million in federal money to pay for Wyoming's costs to expand Medicaid is not any different than the state recently taking from the feds $57.1 million for the Department of Family Services, over $313 million for roads or $115.6 million for education. I doubt theres few that are more skeptical to the federal government living up to its obligations than am I, Mead told the Star-Tribune earlier this month. My point on that is I think that can be taken care of by legislative language so that if the federal government does not live up to its promises, not in a few months but that day, that minute, that second, were out of the plan. Mead said he hadnt heard the radio ads but other Republican governors who support expansion, such as Gov. Dennis Daugaard of South Dakota, had told him similar ads were playing in their states. The Foundation for Government Accountability is a public policy organization that seeks to inform and influence health care and welfare issues. It is involved in about 18 states this legislative session, said Owen, who is a registered lobbyist in Wyoming. Owen said the organization receives donations from individuals and foundations. He declined to name any Wyoming contributors, saying the organization keeps such information private. The Star-Tribune could not independently verify who was funding the foundation, since campaign finance disclosure law targets political candidates and not campaigns against policies. At the Star-Tribune's request, Matthew White, an economics professor at the University of Delaware and an expert on Medicaid expansion, listened to the ad and said it contained numerous errors. Every claim from this group seems to be highly suspect, and its incredibly audacious for them to argue that the federal government cant be counted on to keep their funding promises, when (groups opposed to expansion) are the ones fighting to repeal the (Affordable Care Act) and to cut off Medicaid expansion funds, said White, who is on leave this year and is a visiting scholar at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Nic Horton, a senior research fellow for the foundation, said the organization, which promotes free market values, has employees in many states across the country. It is involved in Wyoming because the state is considering embracing a part of Obamacare at a time with the nation is in debt he said. We care about what happens in every state thats looking at expanding welfare to a group of able-bodied adults, he said. A fact check by the Star-Tribune found a number of inaccuracies and exaggerations in the radio spot. Man: They say (expansion is) only for the truly needy. Woman: Thats not true. Nearly 80 percent of those of those covered would be childless adults who are able to work. Fact check: Truly needy claim I guess it depends on what your definition of truly needy is, said Michael Fierberg, spokesman for the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. People must have lower income levels to qualify for Medicaid expansion. A single adult could earn up to $16,243 a year and qualify for Medicaid. That equates to an income of $312 a week. Thats basically someone working on minimum wage, Fierberg said. For a family of three, the income limit would be $27,700 a year, or $532 a week, he said. A 2012 analysis for the Wyoming Department of Health performed by Milliman Inc. concluded: About 59 percent of the expansion population was employed 55 percent was female two-thirds had income levels so low they couldnt get subsidies on the health care exchange -- another component of Obamacare. Fact check: Childless claim The foundation provided the Star-Tribune with an article by the Urban Institute that showed 77.3 percent of Wyomingites who would be eligible for expansion don't have dependent children. The authors used a model developed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to simulate, based on 2010 federal data, who would be eligible for Medicaid under expansion. Wyoming Health Department spokeswoman Kim Deti and Fierberg, of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, hadnt seen the study before and couldnt comment on it. However, I have no reason to doubt that many who will be eligible under Medicaid expansion are childless adults, Fierberg said. But thats the point. One goal of the Affordable Care Act is for everyone to obtain health coverage. Advocates believe that will lower overall health care costs. Because many Americans are poor and couldnt afford insurance, even if they qualified for a subsidy, the Medicaid program was extended to cover them, he said. Without expansion, working childless adults have no way to afford coverage, Fierberg said. Having children does not disqualify someone from Medicaid expansion. Some of the adults could have children receiving health coverage through programs such as the Childrens Health Insurance Program or even under Medicaid, Deti said. Man: They say it will save Wyoming money. Woman: Thats not true, and if we go over budget like most states well end up cutting education, roads and public safety. Or raising taxes. Fact check: Woodwork effect Expansion and the national discussion concerning health care has increased the number of people using the traditional Medicaid program. Its known as the woodwork effect. People in other states have signed up for health care after the program was expanded, only to find they already qualified for traditional Medicaid due to a health condition, such as being blind or disabled. While the federal government is paying 100 percent of the costs of expansion, it pays only half the costs of traditional Medicaid. States have been left with the other 50 percent. This is a fairly small effect, and I strongly doubt its affected budgets in a measurable way, said White, the economics professor. Its difficult to estimate the woodwork effect for Wyoming, since Medicaid hasnt expanded. The Health Department has data from 2014 showing Medicaid rolls increased by about 5,000 people, from roughly 68,000 to 73,000, as the ACA health insurance exchange began. Perhaps more people qualified for traditional Medicaid when they tried to sign up for insurance at healthcare.gov. However, Stefan Johansson of the Health Department said other factors could have played into the increase, such as the economy. For instance, if a pregnant woman lost her insurance after being laid off from a job, she might been able to get coverage through Medicaid. Fact check: Other states cutting services, raising taxes To bolster its claims, the foundation provided the Star-Tribune with articles by its researchers. Two articles showed that in many states, enrollment in Medicaid expansion was higher than anticipated. But the federal government is currently covering 100 percent of the states costs of expansion, so it is unclear which states are cutting education, roads and public safety. In another article, foundation researchers referred to cuts when writing about a different program -- traditional Medicaid -- that requires states to pick up half of the costs. Several states have seen larger-than-projected enrollment, said Deti, the Health Department spokeswoman. Interestingly, North Dakota expanded Medicaid and has so far been under projection for enrollment from the optional group. Would Wyoming would look more like North Dakota or Colorado and other states? There's not a clear answer. To be safe, the department recently raised its projections of the number of people who would qualify for expansion by 14 percent, she said. Fact check: Wyoming will end up cutting programs or raising taxes Seventy percent of state revenues for government operations come from oil, gas and coal all of which are down. The state is facing a projected revenue decrease of $447.4 million in the upcoming two-year budget cycle in the two accounts that fund government operations, according to revenue estimates. Wyoming is also facing a projected two-year shortfall of around $219.1 million in the School Capital Construction Account, which pays for new school buildings and major maintenance. Gov. Matt Mead and the Joint Appropriations Committee have separately recommended state program cuts. The budget bill as currently proposed leaves few agencies untouched by cuts. If the entire Legislature adopts those proposals, there will be cuts, regardless of whether the Legislature expands Medicaid. Other lawmakers have discussed increasing property taxes, although no such measures have gained momentum thus far. With expansion, an estimated $268 million is projected to flow into the state for the 2017-2018 budget cycle, according to estimates from Meads office. Mead has argued the federal money is especially essential during the budget crunch. Man: They say Medicaid expansion certainly wont hurt anyone. Woman: Thats not true. Expansion funding comes from cuts to Medicare and that hurts Wyomings seniors, and the people covered now who really do need help. They go to the back of the line. Facts: Cuts to Medicare The foundation provided three articles about the Medicare program's relation to expansion -- two written by the group's researchers, and a 2012 piece written for Forbes by a journalist who has authored books against Obamacare and at the time was advising then-presidential candidate Mitt Romney on health care. The articles discuss cuts to Medicare Advantage, which were made at the time Congress passed the Affordable Care Act. People enrolling in Medicare have two choices: Traditional Medicare, which lets people visit any doctor or hospital in America that takes the program, or Medicare Advantage, which provides benefits through a private insurance company. Advantage customers are usually charged an extra premium for improved benefits, such as prescriptions, vision, hearing or dental, said Fierberg, of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Fierberg said Medicare Advantage is not popular in Wyoming because the state doesnt have a strong insurance network system. Uinta County has the highest percentage of people who opt for Medicare Advantage, at 7.3 percent, he said. The foundation estimated in 2014 that about 3 percent of Wyoming Medicare recipients had Advantage. Other Medicare changes included an increase in prescription drug spending for Medicare patients, Fierberg said. We didnt cut anything, Fierberg said. What we did was reduce the amount of spending on Medicare over 10 years by that $716 billion. But most of that was agreed to by the people by whom that money was going to be spent. For example, hospitals agreed and pharmaceutical companies agreed to take less money from Medicare. Facts check: Expansion hurts people who are already covered People who receive traditional Medicaid can qualify based on a number of conditions, including being blind or disabled. A foundation article states that because Medicaid often reimburses doctors and hospitals at lower rates than private health insurance, many dont accept Medicaid patients. Adding more people to Medicaid will not solve the problem. When broken Medicaid programs become too expensive, states often reduce and delay payments to doctors, hospitals and other health care providers to make ends meet, one foundation article says. However, in Wyoming, most hospitals are public and must treat everyone, regardless of their ability to pay. Wyoming hospitals rack up over $100 million yearly in uncompensated care costs from people who cannot pay. The Wyoming Hospital Association has argued that many of those people would be covered by Medicaid expansion. Some reimbursement for the costs to treat such patients would help hospitals bottom line, especially in rural areas. CASPER, Wyo. Dozens of men and women, dressed in tan and chocolate sheriffs uniforms with silver stars over their hearts, lined the inside of a Casper church Thursday. They were there to pay respects to Lt. Jerry Clark, who oversaw the countys jail for many years. He was known by everyone as the kindest man who ever put a star on his heart, a screen at the front of the church read. Clark died Saturday at the age of 65 from complications following surgery. Hundreds of people attended his funeral at Highland Park Community Church, including uniformed officials from the Casper and Mills police departments, Casper Fire-EMS Department, Wyoming Highway Patrol and Converse County Sheriffs Office, among other agencies. Many others from the community joined Clarks family as they honored the lieutenant. During his eulogy, Bert Eldredge told the church how he met Clark in 2002 while he was an inmate at the detention center. With Clarks blessing, Elbridge went on to become a chaplain at the jail many years later. I just want to say Thank you, Jerry, because I am a better man today because of you,' Eldredge said. Choking back tears, Eldredge described how Clark had invested in him. He saw people for what they were, he said. Not what they were on the street, but what they actually had it in them to be." For many years after his release from the detention center in 2003, Eldredge pleaded with Clark to allow him to be a chaplain at the jail. Clark gave Eldredge that chance in 2008. He taught me what it meant to respect people and to respect myself, Eldredge said. The following year, Clark allowed Eldredge and his fellow chaplains to bring gifts to the inmates on Christmas Eve. Clark stood alongside the chaplains that night, and even replaced his lieutenants uniform with street clothes. He was a rare man and a brother in Christ, Eldredge said. A man of integrity, honor and kindness I was blessed to call him a friend. Clark was born in Canyon City, Ore. He married his wife, Maggie, at age 20. They had two daughters. Clark joined the Natrona County Sheriffs Office in 1988. He was promoted to detention division lieutenant 11 years later. While overseeing the jail, Clark initiated the GED and chaplain's programs. He was also an advocate for the Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous programs and participated in many community events, such as Shop with a Cop. He was renowned for his integrity, compassion, respect and dependability, to name just a few, the Rev. Brian Oliver said at the funeral. He had the presence of someone who could command a room with his firm convictions, yet also do so with his humble and gentle soul. Clark was a kind and compassionate mentor who always left his office door open, Oliver said. Jerry was extremely passionate about helping other people, the reverend said. He always saw the good in other people. He always brought out the gold in them. Many times Clark and his wife would be shopping at Eastridge Mall or Wal-Mart when former inmates would approach the lieutenant, Oliver said. Theyd walk up to Clark and thank him for what hed done for them. One man even approached with his daughter and told her, This is the man who changed my life. Following a performance of Amazing Grace by the Casper Fire Department Pipes and Drums Band, Sheriff Gus Holbrook presented Maggie Clark with an American flag. CHEYENNE, Wyo. Lawmakers in the state House amended a bill to boost funding to local governments Thursday, to the elation of elected officials in cities, towns and counties. However, elected officials and the associations that represent them warned that even with more money in House Bill 51, the overall level of funding from the state for the next two years would decrease by 42 percent from the current budget cycle. They are warning of cuts in workers and services throughout the state. Lawmakers in Cheyenne are advancing a variety of proposals to slash funding and borrow from the states rainy day fund to balance the states budget at a time when revenues from oil, natural gas and coal are sliding downward. As originally written, HB51 was to provide $90 million to local governments from the rainy day fund. Local governments lobbied lawmakers for an increase to $105 million, which they received Friday morning in an amendment sponsored by Rep. Sam Krone, R-Cody. We hear a lot about government and what form of government is best, he said. And I think all of us would say the government closest to the people is the most responsive. Pete Obermueller of the Wyoming County Commissioners Association said his organization pushed for the increase. For us, the $105 million is a very big deal, he said. Nevertheless, it is lower. The Legislature gave local governments $183 million for the current two-year budget cycle, he said. In Natrona County, the funding level would be a decrease of about $300,000, said County Commissioner Rob Hendry, who is also vice president of the County Commissioners Association and was in Cheyenne to speak to lawmakers about local government needs. The current years budget was around $50 million in Natrona County, although lower revenues are expected to result in a lower budget next year, he said. The state funding decrease comes at a time when receipts from sales and property taxes, which provide the bulk of local government revenue, are dropping for the same reasons the state is hurting financially: the downturn in energy prices. The Natrona County Commission will likely have to make cuts to balance next years budget, Hendry said. Commissioners will meet beginning in April to work on a budget for the year beginning July 1. Services, payroll, no new cars and trucks, those are the kind of things weve got to look at, Hendry said. Cities and towns may also have to cut, said Shelley Simonton of the Wyoming Association of Municipalities. I have heard there will be potential reductions in force, she said. On Friday, lawmakers also adopted an amendment sponsored by Rep. Mike Madden, R-Buffalo, that would change the funding formula for the distribution of money among cities and towns. The Wyoming Association of Municipalities opposed it because the differences between cities receiving a lot of money and hardly any money were too extreme, although the association supports the overall effort to try to adjust the funding model to make it more equitable across the state, Simonton said. A similar change to the funding formula for counties passed Wednesday and the County Commissioners Association supported it. Simonton said she would consult with members of her association before deciding whether to oppose the new formula in the Senate. The bill faces one more round of voting in the House before moving to the Senate. Its a divisive issue under any formula, Simonton said. There are winners and losers. Young players seize chances during Tigers' bye week During the bye week, Missouri football's younger players got more chances in practice. See who was able to seize the moment. February 16, 2016 Restaurateur and tissue engineer Will Clem pulls pork alongside Lance Newcomb at his barbecue restaurant, Baby Jacks, in Bartlett. Clem is one of the co-founders of Memphis Meats, a start up company that is developing a process for commercially producing meat from cultured animal cells in tanks. (Jim Weber/The Commercial Appeal) SHARE By Thomas Bailey Jr. of The Commercial Appeal A futuristic company in San Francisco will exploit Memphis brainpower and reputation for good, old-fashioned eating to help sell meat that comes from cells instead of slaughterhouses. The start-up named Memphis Meats is perhaps the leader among the world's four fledgling companies rushing to convert proven science growing real meat from animal cells into packages of hamburger, sausages and other meats at your local Kroger. "We love the meat-loving culture of Memphis; it's an iconic place,'' said Dr. Uma Valeti, a Minnesota cardiologist who is Memphis Meats' chief executive officer and co-founder. "There's an association with good meat.'' The nation thinks so, too. The startup tested about a dozen potential company names in a survey of 1,000 people, and "Memphis Meats'' was most popular by far, Valeti said. Such word choice and associations are important for a new bio-tech firm that will strive to win doubters over. For example, Memphis Meats prefers "cultured meat'' to "lab meat'' or "test-tube'' meat. The other two co-founders are Nicholas Genovese, a stem cell biologist who has pioneered ways to cultivate livestock stem cells, and Will Clem, a Memphian perfectly suited to bridge the divide between vegetarians and meat lovers. Clem, 37, has both a background in tissue engineering and a restaurant he opened four years ago in Bartlett called Baby Jacks BBQ. "I really advised them about that,'' Clem said, referring to his Memphis Meats partners. "I said you don't want to get into saying 'meat-eating is bad.' You're just going to anger people and push them away. "Honestly, I think your meat-eaters are going to be the first ones to try this. It's going to be a new type of food.'' Clem is an Alabama native whose grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles founded and grew the Whitts Barbecue chain to more than 40 restaurants in Alabama and around Nashville. He chose a different path, earning a master's degree from the University of Michigan and Ph.D. from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in tissue engineering. The medical device company Wright Medical recruited him to Memphis to help grow human tissue used in some of its products. But Clem weaned himself away from Wright Medical after the Baby Jacks BBQ he opened on the side in 2012 rocketed in sales; without exception, every month has set a sales record, he said. Now, he's about to open in Arlington a second Baby Jacks BBQ for carry-out business only and has long-term plans to saturate the Memphis market with dozens of restaurants the same way Whitts Barbecue covers the Nashville area with 25 restaurants. Clem was poised to open the Arlington restaurant last fall when he received a drop-everything phone call. "I got a call from Nick (Genovese) saying he wanted to start a company in cultured meat,'' he recalled. "After talking to him five or 10 minutes, I packed up the truck and was on the way to visit him the next day.'' Clem would remain hunkered down in a business incubator in San Francisco for the next four months. Consider that he had just signed a lease and was only two or three weeks away from opening the second Baby Jacks, and had at home a wife, six-year-old and newborn. "That's how important I thought that project was,'' he said. Clem, Genovese, Valeti and others worked day and night alongside 14 other start-ups at IndieBio, a downtown San Francisco accelerator devoted to addressing the world's big problems with biology. They had a state-of-the-art lab, office space and other start-ups with which to bounce around ideas. "Because we are so far away from home, literally, the focus is on this business and nothing else the entire time,'' Clem said. And several times a day they met with investors to pitch their business. The pitches worked. By the time Memphis Meats and the other 14 companies gave their seven-minute presentations on "Demo Day" Feb. 4, Memphis Meats had raised $2.75 million, far exceeding its goal of $1.5 million. Despite that success, the biggest challenge facing Memphis Meats will be raising the much larger amount of money required to scale up for commercial production, Valeti said. Clearing any regulatory hurdles once they are written for this new paradigm in food should not be difficult, Clem said. "The USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) is telling us since this is meat, it's mainly USDA approval,'' he said, adding that Memphis Meats has also reached out to the Food and Drug Administration to "keep them in the loop.'' Just like with traditionally produced meat, regulators are most interested in ensuring the products are safe. Since cultured meat will be made without bacteria, "that's actually not that tough a hurdle,'' Clem said. Here's how cultured meat is made: Isolate cow, pig or chicken cells that can regenerate; feed the cells oxygen, sugar, minerals and other nutrients; and use a tank to grow the cells into skeletal muscle that can be harvested in nine to 21 days. Bruce Friedrich is both executive director of the nonprofit The Good Food Institute and trustee of New Crop Capital, which has invested in Memphis Meats. "The two big questions in food technology are: How do we feed 9 billion people by 2050; and what do we do about climate change?'' he said. The meat industry produces 40 percent more climate change than all forms of transportation combined, Friedrich said. "The solution to the inefficiency of the meat industry is cultured meat. We think the meat industry itself will be shifting to cultured meat and more and more governments will be investing in cultured meat.'' The other three companies working to bring cultured meat to the market are Mosa Meats in The Netherlands, Modern Meadow in New York, and the Modern Agriculture Foundation in Israel. Memphis Meats seems "a little further along,'' especially in fund-raising, Friedrich said. But by most accounts, the firms are about five years away from offering cultured meat through high-end stores and further away from selling it at prices comparable to supermarket meats. Memphis Meats this month released a video of its cultured meatball that took two weeks and cost $18,000. But that is 100 times cheaper than it would have cost before the co-founders began their incubator work last fall, Clem said. "And we've got a plan to bring that down over time,'' he said. "Once we are equal to the price of (traditionally produced) meat, that's kind of the Holy Grail. That's what we're shooting for.'' Clem and Friedrich foresee production of cultured meat being like the beer industry, which includes giant producers like Budweiser and craft breweries and restaurants. The traditional meat industry may choose to transition into large manufacturing of cultured meat. But local, smaller companies even restaurants could make the meat. "Let's say you go into a restaurant and you see someone brewing beer in the corner,'' Clem said. "This (cultured meat production) doesn't look unlike a beer brewery. When you think about how a lot of beers are cultured, it's not unlike those techniques ... This is something we could bring into a restaurant.'' Memphis could offer more than its barbecue cachet to Memphis Meats. The city could host a big, cultured-meat production facility. "We love Memphis,'' Valeti said. "If there is an opportunity for setting up a company plant there, we would love that. But at the same time we will explore the skills sets at other places in the U.S.'' Meanwhile, Clem is eager for the day when he can add a cultured meat item to the Baby Jacks BBQ menu. "I'd probably start with something simple like smoked sausage,'' he said. March 16, 2015 - The long vacant Medical Center Towers located at 969 Madison might be torn down to make way for a new conference center, UTHSC's Kennard Brown said. SHARE By Ted Evanoff of The Commercial Appeal Locating a medical conference center Downtown in the empty Peabody Place mall or building a new center in the Medical District will be decided late this summer by University of Tennessee officials. Large gatherings that bring in specialists from around the world could be staged in a conference center that would serve several of the institutions in the Medical District, said UT Health Science Center chief operations officer Kennard Brown. "We don't have any facilities now that can accommodate large groups," Brown said, noting Methodist University Hospital and LeBonheur Children's Hospital, which are near the 55-acre UTHSC complex, could also make use of a new center. "We travel to them all the time,'' Brown said about medical conferences in other cities attended by hundreds of the 17,000 employees in the Medical District. "They're just not happening in this community." UT Health Science Center is a school that employs 2,100 faculty and staff and houses the state's oldest and largest medical college. It educated most physicians practicing in the Memphis area. Two companies have responded to the university's request to submit ideas for building a conference center and hotel on the UTHSC campus at Madison and Pauline. The site presently contains an empty garage and office high-rise once linked to the Baptist Memorial Hospital complex. Baptist razed the 2,000-bed skyscraper hospital fronting Union Avenue in 2005 and donated the garage-office building to UT Health Science Center. Vacant for years, the building could be unsuited for renovation and might be torn down to make way for a new conference center and hotel if the decision is made to build on campus, Brown said. He declined to identify the companies that responded to UT's request for proposals or detail their ideas. The proposals were passed for evaluation to UT's real estate officials in Knoxville. Those officials will weigh the proposals and report back by late April. "We'll see how practical they say this really is," Brown said, referring to a Madison-at-Pauline project. If real estate officials approve a project, UT would have to turn to the Tennessee state building commission in Nashville to request construction money. A decision from Nashville could come by early autumn. The conference center would tie into university plans to broaden a research park on the campus for scientists and entrepreneurs. For an expansion, Brown said, the university possibly could buy an existing apartment building on Pauline next to the garage-office structure and the nearby Bioworks Foundation building on Dudley near Madison. Even as the university sought the proposals, developers and government officials in Downtown Memphis raised the idea of locating the conference center in the vacant Peabody Place mall near Beale and Second streets. Bringing more visitors to the central business district is a goal of the Downtown Memphis Commission, and visitors possibly could support plans to construct a hotel needed to help accommodate larger conventions at the Memphis Cook Convention Center. Belz Investco, a Memphis real estate developer, opened the 300,000-square-foot enclosed Peabody Place mall in 2001, closed it in 2012, and has explored new uses including conference facilities. Obtaining an agreement from the university and others to use the old mall for conferences could lead Belz to construct a hotel nearby, real estate experts suggest. The developer recently bought the nearby Tri-State Bank property at Beale and Main. The bank must move by mid 2017. "They actually came over and talked to us," Brown said of Belz. "They have a very attractive idea. It makes a lot of sense. It's very much under consideration. Our challenge is, as a state entity, what is legally permissible. I'm not so sure we could participate in a real estate venture like that even if we wanted to. We'll have to look at the legal question." Once the UT real estate office weighs in with a decision about the proposals submitted by the two companies, Brown said, officials at UT Health Science Center will decide whether to build on campus or look deeper into the Downtown idea. Belz Investco president Ron Belz said the Peabody Place project remains in the early stages. The firm is looking for tenants including universities and permanent office residents for the property. We havent found a way to finance this thing to have it make sense at this point, Belz said. MICHAEL DONAHUE/The Commercial Appeal Scallop Benedict at Flight Restaurant and Wine Bar includes latkes, seared scallops, cured ham and quail eggs. SHARE By Michael Donahue of The Commercial Appeal I love eggs Benedict of any kind, so when my colleague Nina Goldman told me about the scallop Benedict at Flight Restaurant and Wine Bar, I didn't waste much time trying one. Usually, an eggs Benedict is a poached egg over an English muffin with Canadian bacon or ham and hollandaise sauce. Nick Scott, the restaurant's culinary consultant, told me what comprises a scallop Benedict: latkes (shredded potatoes), Nantua sauce (a shellfish-based cream sauce), seared scallops, cured ham and sunny-side-up quail eggs. The whole thing is topped with hollandaise sauce. In other words, it's over the top. "It's really rich, buttery and shellfishery," Scott said. Goldman ordered the small scallop Benedict plate, which comes with two other dishes in the "flight." She got only one scallop and one quail egg. My server, Tiffany Pham, told me she previously ordered it, but only on the small plate. "I wanted more," she said. I was in heaven when Scott told me the entree order consists of five scallops and five quail eggs. Russ Graham said he and Flight co-owner Tim Powers collaborated on the dish. "Everything on the menu is done in flights," he said. "So we had two dishes already on the menu that were a play on breakfast items: chicken and waffles and, at that point, we had a lobster biscuit." Scallops, which are "popular in the area," came to mind. "What if you took a took a scallop and made it look like an English muffin?" Then add the hollandaise sauce and "turn it into a fine dining item," Graham said. Flight Restaurant and Wine Bar is at 39 S. Main St.; 901-521-8005. CHEYENNE, Wyo. The Wyoming Senate on Thursday voted to approve first reading of a bill that would criminalize possession of marijuana edibles. The Senate also approved an amendment to Senate File 96, which would decrease the amount of marijuana edibles considered a felony from one pound down to three ounces. Bringing forth the bill, Sen. Jeff Wasserburger, R-Gillette, said that as a school principal, he was particularly concerned about edibles making their way up from Colorado into Wyoming schools, as well as the fact that some district courts have taken a pass on adjudicating edible marijuana cases. The real concern is (manufacturers) can essentially take marijuana, turn it into an oil, put it into Gummi bears, and each one is like three hits of a marijuana cigarette, Wasserburger said. Ive been very concerned since the state to the south of us has legalized marijuana. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Leland Christensen, R-Alta, explained the rationale for the three ounces amendment, arguing that modern marijuana cultivars contain much more of the active ingredient, THC, than they did a generation ago. Edibles, once the oil has been refined, can be up to 70 percent THC, he said. There are 36 Gummi bears in some packages; thats 108 doses in a package that you can hold in your hand. So when we look at the strength and the ability to have it in a very small amount, thats why we came back with this amendment for three ounces. Christensen added that he shared Wasserburgers concern for youth in particular, given that some marijuana edibles are marketed and packaged in ways very similar to existing products. For example, he said he was familiar with a product called Ganja Joy, which he said resembled an Almond Joy candy bar. Its not just a homemade brownie; youre seeing an intense marketing focus to more prepackaged products up (to Wyoming), he said. Sen. Michael Von Flatern, R-Gillette, pushed back on the amendment, repeating comments he made in the Judiciary Committee that setting the felony limit to three ounces without accounting for actual THC content was a mistake that could make it far too easy for someone to wind up as a felon for having edibles with very low doses of THC. A very large cookie over three ounces may have been manufactured in a kitchen where a cook was helping himself to something, Von Flatern said. But a drug-sniffing dog picking up the odor on that cookie could be used as evidence, and the person (in possession of the cookie) is a felon. Sen. Dave Kinskey, R-Sheridan, said that Wyoming law enforcement officers typically have not distinguished between purity of a drug versus its mass when making arrests. For example, he said, law enforcement doesnt distinguish between 30 grams of pure cocaine and 30 grams of cocaine mixed with baking powder. He didnt see why the same standard shouldnt apply to edibles. The reason this bill is so compelling is because Im concerned that more district judges will follow the district judges (that have already given edibles a pass), and we will have effectively legalized marijuana in Wyoming, Kinskey said. Weve got to move something through. Sen. Chris Rothfuss, D-Laramie, suggested that even if SF96 did pass with the amendment, it would only prompt manufacturers to concentrate THC even more so that a potent dose could fit in a form weighing less than three ounces. Sen. Larry Hicks, R-Baggs, said Rothfuss had a good point, and suggested the felony amount be amended down even further, to just half an ounce, and indicated he may bring such an amendment for the bills second reading. Ultimately the three ounce amendment passed on a voice vote, as did SF96 itself. June 11, 2015 - Katie Flynn holds Charlotte Abedi, 14-months-old, while spending time at the fairgrounds. Flynn is Abedi's nanny and often walks down to the fairgrounds while watching her. "It's really quiet here," Flynn said about the number of people who use the area. SHARE By Ryan Poe of The Commercial Appeal Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said Thursday that the city will restart the discussion about what to do with the Mid-South Fairgrounds but not anytime soon. Strickland, speaking at his first town hall meeting with City Council member Jamita Swearengen in Orange Mound, said that when he does begin looking at the project, he'll start fresh. But in his first month and a half in office, he said he's focused on the "basics of government," including crime and blight. "It's not one of my top priorities," he said of the Fairgrounds after the meeting at Mt. Pisgah CME Church on Park near Airways. Under previous mayor A C Wharton, the project to create a tourism development zone to pay for a redevelopment of the Fairgrounds anchored by an amateur sports complex became mired in controversy and stalled last year. The town hall meeting was the first in a series that Strickland is planning to host with council members in the seven single-member council districts. The next is scheduled for March 31 in District 2. A crowd of more than 150 questioned Strickland and nearly all of his directors about a range of issues, including a new fee on Memphis Light, Gas and Water Division bills that would go into a fund that the city and Memphis Area Transit Authority could tap for transportation-related expenses. Last year, the city and MATA had more than $74 million in transportation expenses that would have been eligible to receive money from such a fund. But Strickland distanced himself from that proposal, which he opposed as a council member, by saying Wharton's administration began investigating the possibility of the fee. "I have been skeptical of fees also," he told the citizen who raised the issue. Most of the questions from the often-passionate audience focused on blight and crime issues that were close to home for many of the Orange Mound residents. One women complained about prostitutes near her house; another said she was being overcharged for her grass being cut. Questions were posed about 911 response times, the mow-to-own program, and whether the city would demolish the old Melrose High School. (Strickland said that wouldn't happen "anytime soon.") Patricia Rogers, a 29-year resident of the Fox Meadows neighborhood, said blight is "taking over our neighborhoods and communities." "We're tired of talking," she said. "We want some action." Swearengen said the issues of crime and blight were what led her to run for City Council last year, and has seen the effects as someone who was born, raised and lives in the district. "What we heard tonight, these are the main concerns of the constituents," she said. "I see that the people are passionate about them." Asked about jobs, Strickland said it doesn't help that the city has had twice as many homicides as last year. "Frankly, with our violent crime rate, it's really hard to recruit businesses." Strickland said he plans to meet personally with representatives from Memphis' 100 largest companies to ask them what the city can do to get them to stay and expand in the city. Another question put to Strickland was why a speed bump request hadn't been fulfilled more than three years later. Public Works Director Robert Knecht said there's currently a two-year backlog on speed bumps. A statue of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest sits on a concrete pedestal and atop his grave in the Memphis park that carried his name until the Memphis City Council voted this month to rename it and two other city parks with names tied to the Confederacy. By Richard Locker of The Commercial Appeal NASHVILLE The state House of Representatives approved a bill Thursday that would, if it becomes law, make it more difficult for a local government in Tennessee to alter, rename or remove a historical monument on public property. The bill by Rep. Steve McDaniel, R-Parker's Crossroads, isn't limited to Civil War monuments and memorials, like Memphis's Nathan Bedford Forrest statue, but much of the 30-minute floor debate centered on the bill's impact on Civil War era iconography. It would replace and strengthen a 2013 law McDaniel sponsored as the Memphis City Council was renaming Forrest Park and two other Confederate-themed city parks. The new bill would require a two-thirds majority vote by the 29-member Tennessee Historical Commission before a local government could "remove, rename, relocate, alter, rededicate or otherwise disturb or alter" any memorial or monument regarding a "historic conflict, historic event, historic figure or historic organization" located on public property. The 2013 statute required only a majority vote of the commission. House bill 2129 would also set out a process in which either the local government, or groups and in some cases an interested individual, could appeal the Historical Commission's action into Chancery Court. McDaniel said after the House session that the bill can't be used to seek to reverse the renaming of Forrest Park to Health Sciences Park, Confederate Park to Memphis Park and Jefferson Davis Park to Mississippi River Park, but he's not sure whether it might impact the City Council's vote last summer to remove the statue of Forrest astride his horse and the remains of the Confederate general and his wife from the park to another location. The City Council still has not petitioned the Historical Commission for approval to move the statue and remains, as apparently required by the 2013 act, and a lawsuit challenging the parks' renaming is still pending in the courts. On the House floor, some black lawmakers argued against the bill but it ultimately passed on a 71-23 vote. Rep. Larry Miller, D-Memphis, asked whether a city council or county commission could vote to remove a Confederate flag that might be flying on public land. McDaniel said he's unaware of a Confederate battle flag flying on any local public property but removing "a monument or emblem or symbol put there legally by a local government" would require petitioning the Historical Commission for approval and a two-thirds vote. Conversely, if Nashville's Metropolitan Council wanted to rename Rosa Parks Boulevard in Nashville, McDaniel said in response to questions from Rep. Brenda Gilmore, D-Nashville, the council would also have to win the commission's approval because Rosa Parks was a historical figure. Rep. Jeremy Faison, R-Cosby, argued for the bill and urged his colleagues to consider the bill an effort to preserve history. We have a stain on our history because of what took place with the black community of our country, he said. But it would be wrong to our children and grandchildren to erase and pretend that part of our history didnt happen. We know what we did wrong because we still have the history of what we did wrong. Rep. Joe Towns, D-Memphis, said he agreed with much of Faisons remarks but is concerned that the state is removing the authority of local governments to make their own decisions. At some point were going to have to stop constricting the ability of local officials, he said. We become the dictator to locals. We dont like it when the federal government does it to us. The locals dont like it when we do it. The discussion involved a brief heated exchange of words in the rear of the House chamber when Rep. G.A. Hardaway, D-Memphis, walked across the chamber to chastise Rep. Curry Todd, R-Collierville, for Todds failed effort to cut off debate on the bill. When Todd rose to face him, Secretary of State Tre Hargett and Rep. John Mark Windle, D-Livingston, separated the two. February 18, 2016 - Teresa Jeans, right, raises her hands along with other residents of the Warren Apartments when asked if they wanted to move from the troubled complex. The Warren Apartments community room was standing room only during the first of two tenants' meetings about the planned relocation of the residents. By Maria Ines Zamudio of The Commercial Appeal Teresa Jeans couldn't stop smiling Thursday evening as she listened to federal housing officials describe the relocation process for her and her neighbors, who live at the troubled Warren apartments. Jeans was one of dozens of residents who attended two meetings held by officials from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development at Warren apartments. Meetings will continue Friday at Tulane apartments. During the meeting Thursday evening, officials told residents they would be getting a voucher to move anywhere in Memphis and some will receive relocation assistance, including application fees, travel, security deposits, utility deposits and moving expenses. When asked who wanted to move out of Warren, all the tenants raised their hands as they laughed some whispered amen and others applauded. "I'm ready to go," Jeans said smiling. "I was excited (to hear about the relocation). I was surprised it happened." Memphis Housing Authority will be in charge of distributing vouchers to 359 families who live at Warren and Tulane. The local agency will start the process of giving out vouchers in March, said Regina Fisher, who works for MHA. She reminded tenants to continue paying rent to make the transition easier. Ed Jennings, region director for HUD, came from Atlanta to assure residents of HUD's commitment to provide quality housing for them and to help with the relocation. "Our purpose is to make sure this transition for you is as smooth as possible," Jennings told tenants. "The owner of Warren and Tulane was not able to perform the responsibilities set by the HAP contract ... to provide safe, secure, affordable housing." Holly C. Malloy, director of property disposition with HUD, told residents they would have help from the government with the relocation process. "We are working to provide assistance to make your move as easy as possible, because moving is never an easy endeavor," Malloy said. Jeans has lived at Warren for six years. In January 2015, her apartment had a holes in the walls made by rats, a moldy, non-working refrigerator, broken counter tops and window frames, moldy bathroom and leaky roof. She was featured in an investigation The Commercial Appeal published in April. On Thursday evening, she said she wanted to move to East Memphis because she wants a better environment for her kids. She doesn't feel bad for property owner Global Ministries Foundation and its founder, Rev. Richard Hamlet. "He got what he deserved," she said. "He should have fixed the property. He should have done it right instead of just patching things up." Earlier this month, HUD announced that more than 1,000 tenants would relocated from Warren and Tulane apartments because the owner, GMF, failed to make repairs and provide quality housing. HUD also ended its Housing Assistance Payment contract with GMF. GMF has been under scrutiny since April 2015 following an investigation by The Commercial Appeal that found poor living conditions, including bedbugs, mold, leaking plumbing and other problems that made some apartments unlivable. SHARE By Kayleigh Skinner of The Commercial Appeal The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is looking into the the death of an elderly woman in Munford. TBI is conducting an investigation at the request of District Attorney Mike Dunavant. Officers from Munford Police Department were sent to perform a welfare check on 72-year-old Anita Rieben at her home in the 300 block of Reeder Avenue after she missed an appointment, said TBI spokesman Josh DeVine. Officers found Rieben dead in her home. The TBI Violent Crimes Response Team has taken over the investigation, DeVine said. Authorities did not provide any additional information about the death. SHARE The roll call is under way on the question of whether the United States Senate should move expeditiously on the appointment of a successor to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia or drag its feet a decision that will put Washington's deep partisan divide on full display. Scalia died last week at a hunting lodge in Texas with 342 days remaining in President Obama's term. Republicans hope that a replacement for him can be provided in 2017 by a newly elected Republican president, despite the precedent set in eight instances since 1900 when the Senate has voted on a Supreme Court nominee in an election year. Tennessee Sens. Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander have followed the lead of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and supported a delay of over a year in filling the vacancy, although both senators have argued in the past that a president's Supreme Court nominees should receive up-or-down confirmation votes in the Senate and should not be subject to a filibuster, except in extraordinary circumstances. In Mississippi, Republican Sens. Roger Wicker and Thad Cochran also have held tightly to the party line, Wicker declaring that "this decision is too important and too consequential to let this current president make the decision in an election year. The next president should choose Justice Scalia's replacement, and American voters should have an opportunity to speak on this issue." With a number of important issues on the Supreme Court agenda, there is no reason beyond partisan politics to deprive the court, or the American people, of its full complement of nine justices. This is not to suggest that Democrats in the Senate have not expressed an excess of party loyalty with the shoe on the other foot. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., argued in 2007 that Democrats should not allow President George W. Bush the chance to fill any vacancy that might open up that year "except in extraordinary circumstances." By that standard, the vacancy would be filled and the court fully staffed in time to avoid setting a record for Supreme Court vacancies. Current members of the court, plus Scalia, were confirmed after an average wait of 71 days. Extraordinary circumstances? How about a court whose current ideological divide could produce 4-4 votes on some of the most critical issues facing the United States in modern times from abortion to immigration to affirmative action and the right of labor unions to collect dues through mandatory payroll contributions. President Obama has stated that he will send the Senate a nominee in short order and he expects action. But there seems to be little doubt now that the Senate, in an abdication of its constitutional responsibility, will fail to act. The pity is that this outcome would be no surprise. Select Commodity All Ajwan Alasande Gram Almond(Badam) Alsandikai Amaranthus Ambada Seed Amla(Nelli Kai) Amphophalus Antawala Anthorium Apple Apricot(Jardalu/Khumani) Arecanut(Betelnut/Supari) Arecanut(Betelnut/Supari) Arhar (Tur/Red Gram)(Whole) Arhar (Tur/Red Gram)(Whole) Arhar Dal(Tur Dal) Ashgourd Astera Avare Dal Bajra(Pearl Millet/Cumbu) Bajra(Pearl Millet/Cumbu) Balekai Bamboo Banana Banana - Green Barley (Jau) Bay leaf (Tejpatta) Beans Beaten Rice Beetroot Bengal Gram Dal (Chana Dal) Bengal Gram(Gram)(Whole) Ber(Zizyphus/Borehannu) Ber(Zizyphus/Borehannu) Betal Leaves Bhindi(Ladies Finger) Bitter gourd Black Gram (Urd Beans)(Whole) Black Gram Dal (Urd Dal) Black pepper BOP Bottle gourd Bran Brinjal Broken Rice Broomstick(Flower Broom) Bull Bunch Beans Cabbage Calf Capsicum Cardamoms Carnation Carrot Cashewnuts Castor Seed Cauliflower Chapparad Avare Chennangi Dal Cherry Chikoos(Sapota) Chili Red Chilly Capsicum Chow Chow Chrysanthemum Chrysanthemum(Loose) Cinamon(Dalchini) Cloves Cluster beans Cock Cocoa Coconut Coconut Oil Coconut Seed Coffee Colacasia Copra Coriander(Leaves) Corriander seed Cotton Cotton Seed Cow Cowpea (Lobia/Karamani) Cowpea (Lobia/Karamani) Cowpea(Veg) Cucumbar(Kheera) Cummin Seed(Jeera) Custard Apple (Sharifa) Dalda Dhaincha Drumstick Dry Chillies Dry Fodder Dry Grapes Duck Duster Beans Egg Elephant Yam (Suran) Field Pea Firewood Fish Foxtail Millet(Navane) French Beans (Frasbean) Galgal(Lemon) Garlic Ghee Gingelly Oil Ginger(Dry) Ginger(Green) Gladiolus Cut Flower Goat Gram Raw(Chholia) Gramflour Grapes Green Avare (W) Green Chilli Green Fodder Green Gram (Moong)(Whole) Green Gram Dal (Moong Dal) Green Peas Ground Nut Oil Ground Nut Seed Groundnut Groundnut (Split) Groundnut pods (raw) Guar Guar Seed(Cluster Beans Seed) Guava Gur(Jaggery) He Buffalo Hen Hippe Seed Honge seed Hybrid Cumbu Indian Beans (Seam) Indian Colza(Sarson) Isabgul (Psyllium) Jack Fruit Jaffri Jamun(Narale Hannu) Jarbara Jasmine Jowar(Sorghum) Jute Kabuli Chana(Chickpeas-White) Kacholam Kakada Kankambra Karamani Karbuja(Musk Melon) Kartali (Kantola) Khoya Kinnow Knool Khol Kodo Millet(Varagu) Kulthi(Horse Gram) Lak(Teora) Leafy Vegetable Lemon Lentil (Masur)(Whole) Lilly Lime Linseed Lint Litchi Little gourd (Kundru) Long Melon(Kakri) Lotus Lotus Sticks Lukad Mahedi Mahua Mahua Seed(Hippe seed) Maida Atta Maize Mango Mango (Raw-Ripe) Marasebu Marget Marigold(Calcutta) Marigold(loose) Mashrooms Masur Dal Mataki Methi Seeds Methi(Leaves) Millets Mint(Pudina) Moath Dal Mousambi(Sweet Lime) Mustard Mustard Oil Myrobolan(Harad) Neem Seed Niger Seed (Ramtil) Nutmeg Onion Onion Green Orange Orchid Ox Paddy(Dhan)(Basmati) Paddy(Dhan)(Common) Papaya Papaya (Raw) Patti Calcutta Peach Pear(Marasebu) Peas cod Peas Wet Peas(Dry) Pegeon Pea (Arhar Fali) Pepper garbled Pepper ungarbled Persimon(Japani Fal) Pigs Pineapple Plum Pointed gourd (Parval) Pomegranate Potato Pumpkin Raddish Ragi (Finger Millet) Raibel Rajgir Ram Rat Tail Radish (Mogari) Raya Resinwood Rice Ridge gourd(Tori) Ridgeguard(Tori) Rose(Local) Rose(Loose) Rose(Loose)) Round gourd Rubber Sabu Dan Sabu Dana Safflower Sajje Same/Savi Season Leaves Seemebadnekai Seetafal Seetapal Sesamum(Sesame,Gingelly,Til) Sesamum(Sesame,Gingelly,Til) She Buffalo She Goat Sheep Snake gourd Snakeguard Soanf Soapnut(Antawala/Retha) Soji Soyabean Spinach Sponge gourd Squash(Chappal Kadoo) Sugar Sugarcane Sunflower Sunhemp Suram Surat Beans (Papadi) Suva (Dill Seed) Suvarna Gadde Sweet Potato Sweet Pumpkin T.V. Cumbu T.V. Cumbu Tamarind Fruit Tamarind Seed Tapioca Taramira Tender Coconut Thinai (Italian Millet) Thogrikai Thondekai Tinda Tobacco Tomato Toria Tube Rose(Double) Tube Rose(Loose) Tube Rose(Single) Turmeric Turmeric (raw) Turnip Walnut Water Melon Wheat Wheat Atta White Peas White Pumpkin Wood Yam Yam (Ratalu) Select State Select Market The government today filed a motion in federal court asking a judge to immediately compel Apple to assist the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in accessing the iPhone 5C used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the people accused of killing 14 in San Bernardino, Calif. two months ago. "Rather than assist the effort to fully investigate a deadly terrorist attack by obeying this Court's Order of February 16, 2016, Apple has responded by publicly repudiating that order," the government's motion stated. "Apple has attempted to design and market its product to allow technology, rather than the law, to control access to data which has been found by this Court to be warranted for an important investigation." [ BACKGROUND: Apple to challenge court's backdoor ruling, failure could set dangerous legal precedent ] The Department of Justice (DOJ), whose attorneys filed today's motion, seized on Apple's public comments earlier this week as it asked the court to make the firm follow the court's command. On Tuesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook published an open letter on the company's website. "We are challenging the FBI's demands with the deepest respect for American democracy and a love of our country," Cook wrote. "We believe it would be in the best interest of everyone to step back and consider the implications." Under the decision reached Tuesday, Apple had until Feb. 26 to rebut the order by arguing that it would be "unreasonably burdensome." Essentially, the government now wants the court to pick up the pace. "Apple's public statement makes clear that Apple will not comply with the Court's Order," today's motion by the DOJ said. "The urgency of this investigation requires this motion now that Apple has made its intention not to comply patently clear. This aspect of the investigation into the December 2, 2015 terrorist attack must move forward." In the 35-page filing, government lawyers argued that forcing Apple to assist in accessing Farook's iPhone would not be a burden to the company -- a preemptive strike against what Apple will almost certainly spell out in its rebuttal -- and along the way, took a swipe at many of Cook's rationales for challenging the court order. "To the extent that Apple objects on the grounds that it would undermine its marketing strategy to comply with this Court's Order, or that it has an overall objection to anything that enables lawful access by the government to encrypted information, the government believes these objections are irrelevant and not legally cognizable before this Court," the DOJ's motion read. In his Tuesday letter, Cook made reference to factors that the DOJ may have interpreted as "marketing strategy." "Customers expect Apple and other technology companies to do everything in our power to protect their personal information, and at Apple we are deeply committed to safeguarding their data," Cook said. The DOJ also rejected Cook's use of words like "back door" and "hack" in his letter when he said, "[The FBI has] asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone" and "The government is asking Apple to hack our own users...." "That is an unwarranted and inaccurate characterization," the government said. Elsewhere in the motion, the government noted that Apple had told authorities that the company could assist, as several security experts had concluded this week, but that it chose not to. "[Apple] conceded that it had the technical capability to help," the motion stated. This story, "DOJ ups ante: New motion asks court to force Apple to help FBI crack attacker's iPhone" was originally published by Computerworld . As the renegotiation has dragged on, and Remain has continued to slide in the polls, the pro-EU campaign seem to be getting somewhat desperate in their search for arguments that will scare people off voting Leave. This weeks winner of the Project Fear Scare Story of the Week is particularly farcical. First, the AA claimed that Brexit would instantly cause petrol prices to rise by 18.7p a litre. The claim was scorned instantly by the RAC and by FairFuel UK, who campaign for lower fuel prices. Then the plot thickened further faced with a backlash by customers, Edmund King, the AAs President, apologised and said that the organisation doesnt take a view either way on Britains membership of the EU. His colleagues had, he claimed, been citing a report warning that sterling could fall if we vote Leave. The reports authors? Goldman Sachs who fund the pro-Remain Britain Stronger in Europe campaign. On Newsnight earlier this week, Evan Davis called Tim Montgomerie the most well-known Tory who isnt an MP. So his resignation as a Party member is news, no matter what some might say. The editor of this site has described it as akin to ending a marriage. What Tims critics need to understand is that no one resigns from a political party without serious thought and deliberation. Tim quitting is no flight of fancy. He will have agonised about it for a long time. Successful political parties are big tent coalitions. Margaret Thatchers Conservative Party was just that. The likes of John Carlisle and Harvey Proctor happily coexisted in a party with people like Jim Lester and Stephen Dorrell. There is a certain intolerance in todaysParty which didnt exist in previous times. If you dont sign up to the Cameron/Osborne project you are ignored, briefed against or ridiculed. There are plenty of MPs who will attest to that. There will be few tears shed in Downing Street or Crosby HQ about Tims departure. Indeed, I suspect champagne corks will have popped. The turbulent priest has got rid of himself. But there are few people in Conservative politics who can look in the mirror and say: well, I may have gone, but look at my legacy. And Tim can justifiably do that. He was the inspiration behind the Centre for Social Justice, and of course without him, this website would not exist. Hes had his failures, but has learned from them. In some ways Tim is a bit of a dreamer and an individualist more comfortable ploughing his own furrow rather than operating as part of a team. He recognised that early on. He and I are polar opposites in how we operate. Hes a man of ideas, Im not. He likes nothing better than to develop innovative policy; Im better at marketing the policy. But to one extent or another, during the five years leading up to the 2010 election, he and I become the go to Tory gob-on-a-stick for the broadcast media. I bowed out from that role after 2010 but, if anything, his reputation as a Conservative commentator burst into a new era. Barely a week went past without an appearance on Newsnight. Who will they go to now? I suspect the lazy producer will still book Tim when he is back in the country, partly because its difficult to think of anyone else who knows the party like he does. Theres a gap in the market now for a top class Tory pundit. But who will fill it? Potential prime ministers need to be leaders, not followers. The fact that we wont find out until today which side of the EU argument Boris Johnson will fall down on says a lot. We all know that hes not a genuine Eurosceptic, so for him to continue to flirt with the Leave campaign tells us much about his political calculation. I still think he will ally himself to the Prime Minister in the end, but lets assume he doesnt. Does anyone believe that such a move would be fired by genuine political conviction? Of course not. In such circumstances, he will have calculated that if he becomes the de facto public face of the Leave campaign and that Britain then votes for Brexit, David Cameron would have no alternative but to resign and that he himself would become party leader by acclamation. Such a calculation may be right. But it would make Frank Underwood and Francis Urquhart look like amateurs. Some people may think that wouldnt be a bad thing. I think it would stink. As I have said before, I think this so-called EU renegotiation is a pathetic attempt to hoodwink the British people into thinking something has really changed when it hasnt. There is nothing in it that is of any real importance. If there had been, the negotiations would have stalled at the first fence. Ive come to the conclusion that the EU is unreformable. Look at how the Prime Ministers child benefit changes have been completely watered down. They are now a very poor reflection of the sentiments uttered by the Prime Minister in the Bloomberg speech or as written in the Conservative manifesto. People see through these things. A substantial part of the electorate is undecided on the EU issue. How will the rest of it make up its mind? Will Project Fear win the day? Who will influence voters decisions? Surely in the end people feel in their gut that Britain should either be an independent country or part of Europe? I suspect that it isnt the likes of Boris Johnson or David Cameron who will shape the debate it is peoples family and friends who will be more of an influence. They, in turn, will be influenced by people they respect. It wont be the likes of Emma Thompson or Michael Caine who decide the debate it will be moderate, normal people. As I have written previously, the Leave campaigns problem is that it appears to be full of people who would look at home at a John Redwood leadership campaign launch (thats a comment for people of a certain vintage). Redwood is a very great man and I bow to no one in my admiration of him, but on both sides of the argument the campaigns need to think very hard about who they put up in front of camera. This is where the Remain camp have an advantage. They can wheel out people-friendly spokespeople like Ken Clarke and Alan Johnson. Im afraid that whatever their merits might otherwise be, Peter Bone and Jacob Rees-Mogg dont quite cut it. My column last week was given a headline which was totally misleading.* It said that I was making the case for David Davis to lead the Out campaign. I actually did nothing of the sort, but I think we can all agree that he has much more cross-party appeal than many of the people appearing on our TV screens for the Outers at the moment. I was asking some of my younger colleagues at LBC the other day how they would vote in the referendum. To my surprise, several of them revealed themselves as Outers. I was tickled that two of them were LibDem supporters. I was going to say theres always one, but in this case there were two. Fancy that, two LibDems in the same room. Earlier this week, I interviewed the man who tried to smuggle an Afghan girl into this country from the Calais Jungle camp. You may remember the story. When we were offered the opportunity we were told hed be accompanied by the musician Alex James. The news hook was that they were both going to Calais this weekend, and that Alex would perform an impromptu concert for the migrants. Im not a fan of Blur, but Alex James is quite an interesting person, so I was looking forward to it. So as the 4.45 break loomed, I trailed them both by saying In a moment, well be talking to the man who tried to smuggle an Afghan child into the country and one of the countrys top music stars, Alex James from Blur. But there turned out to be a problem. The musician was indeed Alex James, but I soon realised he wasnt the Alex James we had assumed he was! What to do?! Well, the show had to go on. They both came into the studio, and I just carried on. I actually thought it was very funny, and could well have been part of the plot for Alan Partridges Mid-Morning Matters. Aha! * Iain wrote that Davis gave a lengthy death by powerpoint lecture to the Centre for Policy Studies during which he carefully went through all the positive reasons for leaving, and scotching many of the scare stories. It was immediately interpreted as a bid to lead the Leave campaign. Whether it was or not (and I genuinely dont know), it could do far worse. The headline on the article was The case for Davis leading the Leave Campaign Editor. There is no deal at the EU Summit and talks resume later this morning. But whatever the outcome may be in Brussels, many Party members are set on Brexit: over two-thirds, according to the monthly surveys conducted by this site. The relationship between Downing Street and CCHQ on the one hand, and local Associations and Party activists on the other, will therefore need a bit of tender loving care during the months ahead. Instead, the Feldman Review proposals for Party Reform, as being briefed out to senior Party activists, are a slap in the face. We wrote recently that it would be fair for the review to balance give and take. Proposals that move more power to the centre, such as centralised record-keeping, should be balanced by lower costs and more debate at Party Conferences, and a credible plan for the medium and long-term future of the Party. The headline points of the proposals, according to sources who have briefed about the Review, are as follows: Mandatory centralised membership record-keeping. A recommended minimum membership fee cost of 25 per member with CCHQ taking 15 of each payment an increase of 5 and Associations keeping 10. Revised membership levels: 25 standard, Silver at 50 and Gold at 100. Silver and Gold would have additional benefits including Conference enhancements. Maximum five year Association Chairmanships. Association Annual General Meetings to be moved to June, after the May elections. More federations. Absent in the briefings so far are any plans that propose Electing more members of the Party Board. Ring-fencing money for the medium and long-term among ethnic minority voters, students, business, the professions, universities, charities, campaign groups, unions and so on, as well as building up backing in development seats? Informing Association members the prospect of knowing who potential Parliamentary candidates are before they turn up to the final round of selection. Bursaries for less well-off candidates and finding more with experience of working in the public sector. The briefings are only partial, and the bursaries idea may yet see the light of day. Some of the suggestions are sensible enough. But the thrust of the review is clear: it is all take from the centre and no give to local activists. The generals are treating the troops as cannon fodder. Many of the latter have already deserted Party membership has halved since David Cameron became leader and more will doubtless follow. Tim Montgomerie is already off. It is flammable timing given the crossover with the EU referendum, but the view in Downing Street and CCHQ seems to be that Associations are now so emasculated as to be rolled over without resistance. SUBSCRIBE Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates straight in your inbox. Close A recent landmark study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reveals that testosterone gel treatment does not result in increased youth-like vitality but confirms that it does result in modest enhancement of sex drive and mood of based on a clinical trial involving a select group of aged men. Supplemental testosterone and their effects on better sexual function and vitality has been controversial for a long time as there were quite a few and often inconclusive past studies that looked into its benefits and risks. Recent findings are only confined to use of testosterone gel by nearly 800 men aged 65 and above with low sex hormone levels and symptoms of declining libido across 12 centers nationwide. The government-sponsored study involved answering of survey questionnaire and a 6-minute walking test. According to a Chicago Tribune report, 20% reported greatly improved sex drive, 30% reported a slight improvement, and nearly half reported no change at all. About less than a third of those who used a placebo gel reported minimal improvement in their libido. In the walking test, 21% of testosterone gel users showed achieving their walking goal compared to just 13% of those who used fake gel. The figures on walking test suggest no hormone-induced improvement on vitality. "The testosterone concentrations in the men in this trial [who got the active treatment] were increased, on average, to just the middle of the normal range for young men," remarked lead author Dr. Peter Snyder of the University of Pennsylvania as quoted in a report by NPR. However, the researchers themselves admitted that the study requires more trials to as the main issues regarding the widespread use of testosterone supplement remain unanswered. "Sometimes the best studies raise more questions than they answer. The jury is still out. I don't think the study shows testosterone should be used liberally," said study co-author Dr. Thomas Gill of the Yale University School of Medicine as mentioned in an article by MedPage Today. See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare Close Zika virus scare appears to be holding steady in Florida as one confirmed case reported Wednesday in Brevard County brings statewide infections to 22 according to recent updates from state health officials. According to a report by the Miami Herald, all cases originated outside Florida with no pregnant women involved so far since expectant mothers are extremely vulnerable due to the suspicion by experts that the mosquito-borne virus could be responsible for neurological birth defects such as microcephaly, a condition that causes unusually small heads in infants. As a result of the statewide Zika surge, Florida's health department declared a public health emergency in 9 affected counties: Broward, Miami-Dade, Alachua, Hillsborough, Lee, Osceola, Santa Rosa, St. Johns and Brevard. Health officials also established Zika information hotline (855-622-6735) to accommodate all Zika-related inquiries. Since the activation of the new Zika-specific hotline, the health department has been getting huge volumes of calls especially from out-of-state tourists who are concerned about getting infected especially in places where mosquitoes are particularly common according to a TC Palm news report. Meanwhile, American and Brazilian experts confirmed a meeting Thursday in a bid to pool resources in a joint research effort to come up with a viable anti-Zika vaccine as mentioned in a Reuters news update. In another development, the World Bank has announced Thursday of extending $150 million worth of aid to Latin American and Caribbean nations in their fight against the spread of Zika virus that is projected to cost $3.5 billion worth of short-term economic loss to the region as mentioned in a Washington Post article. See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare DEAR DOCTOR K: Can you explain why "moderate" drinking is defined differently for men and women? Is it because men tend to be heavier? Or is there more to it? DEAR READER: Women are advised to drink less alcohol than men because they are much more vulnerable to alcohol's harmful effects. For example, research has found that if a woman has more than one drink a day, she increases her risk of car accidents and other traumatic injuries. Her risk of high blood pressure, stroke, suicide and breast cancer goes up. And drinking more than one drink a day also increases the risk that she will go on to abuse or become dependent on alcohol. Women also tend to advance from their first drink to their first alcohol-related problem to the need for treatment more quickly than men. Why are women more sensitive than men to the effects of alcohol? There are two main biological explanations. The first involves an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH). ADH breaks down alcohol, first in the stomach and then in the liver. Women have considerably less ADH in their stomach linings than men. That means that more alcohol leaves their stomach and is absorbed into their blood. As a result, one drink for a woman has about twice the effect as one for a man. Second, pound for pound, a woman's body contains less water and more fatty tissue than a man's. Water dilutes alcohol in the blood; fat retains it. So alcohol remains at higher concentrations for longer periods of time in a woman's body. This exposes her brain and other organs to more alcohol. Together, the increased absorption of alcohol into the blood plus lower total body water explains why women may become intoxicated more easily than men. These factors also suggest why women are more likely to suffer adverse consequences after drinking less and for fewer years than men. Most health professionals recommend no more than one drink a day for women and no more than two drinks per day for men. One standard drink is defined as 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of hard liquor. For pregnant women, as a report recently released by the American Academy of Pediatrics confirmed, no amount of alcohol is safe. Although it is generally true that women tolerate alcohol less well than men, I can say from my own experience that there are plenty of exceptions to this "rule." I've known women who could drink most men under the table. My guess is that they inherited an unusually efficient ADH enzyme. As a result, they rapidly break down alcohol in their stomach, and less alcohol gets into the blood. With less alcohol in the blood, there's less that travels to the brain. And I've known some men who get pretty silly after the first few sips. Although in several cases, it would be more accurate to say they get sillier than usual. (Dr. Anthony Komaroff is a physician and professor at Harvard Medical School. Go to his website to send questions and get additional information: www.AskDoctorK.com.) Close Lamborghini is one of best auto-makers out there who have done fairly well under the leadership of Volkswagen Group. With the help of VW's resources, the company could develop high quality cars as the company was committed to the Lamborghini brand name for a long time. However, it would be unfair to say that pre-VW days were not just as glorious for the Italian carmaker. Lamborghini Diablo, one of the most sought after cars to be manufactured by anyone, it was also the last one to be designed by the company before VW took over. 1999 Diablo SV is all set to be sold at Silverstone Auctions scheduled to take place next month at Practical Classics Restoration and Classic Car Show in the United Kingdom. On December 21, 1999, this was the last car to leave Sant'Agata Bolognese on December 21, 1999, soon before the factory was closed for the Christmas holidays. As year 2000 rolled, VW was all set to acquire the Italian carmakers replacing their "magic of Italy" with "Teutonic efficiency," as mentioned by the auction press release for a dramatic effect, says Motor Authority Diablo SV is built with a right-hand drive configuration and has only been driven for 32,000 miles from the time it was bought, said the seller. Available in Pearl Red/Orange, it comes equipped with black/grey leather interiors. Diablo SV was one of the few cars that came with rear-wheel drive. Apart from the chassis and suspension work done on the car in 2013, it is mostly original. It has undergone service and has already gone through the MOT inspection in UK to check for its road-use status. The seller also added that the car has an original tool kit. Silverstone Auctions is expecting to fetch between 150,000 - 170,000. The auction is slated to happen on 6th March, reported Fox News See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare Video: Palestinian Hunger Strikers Wife Makes Urgent Plea By Ali Abunimah 19 February, 2016 Electronicintifada.net In this video, Fayha Shalash makes an urgent appeal on behalf of her husband, who is gravely ill and could die at any time after 86 days on hunger strike. Muhammad al-Qiq, a 33-year-old father of two, has refused food since 25 November to protest his detention without charge or trial by Israel. Muhammad is fighting for his freedom, Shalash says in the brief English-language video, He is on hunger strike because he wants to be free. The video also shows al-Qiq crying out in pain from his hospital bed. Al-Qiq is a journalist for the Saudi news agency al-Majd, and Shalash says he was arrested for exercising his profession. We appeal to free people in the world who can help us to put pressure on the Israeli government and let Muhammad free, Shalash says. Right to choose On Wednesday, Amnesty International called on Israel to urgently facilitate [al-Qiqs] transfer to a Palestinian hospital in Ramallah. A day earlier, the Israeli high court rejected a petition by al-Qiqs lawyers demanding such a transfer. The Israeli high court ostensibly suspended al-Qiqs administrative detention on 4 February, but he effectively remains a prisoner. According to lawyers and others who have visited him at HaEmek hospital in Afula, Israel, in recent days, he remains conscious, but his medical condition is extremely grave and his vital organs could fail at any time, Amnesty states. He continues to reject medical treatment as long as he is confined at HaEmek hospital. Amnesty says that the decisions of the Israeli courts on Muhammed al-Qiq, including the latest high court refusal to allow him to go where he chooses, fit a wider pattern of abuse. Israeli courts have failed, over many years, to provide effective legal recourse to the thousands of Palestinian administrative detainees held without charge or trial on the basis of secret evidence withheld from them and their lawyers, under orders that can be renewed indefinitely, Amnesty states. As an unconvicted detainee, al-Qiq has the right to treatment by doctors of his choice. Given his critical health situation, the Israeli authorities must respect his wishes and transfer him to the hospital that he has chosen without delay, Amnesty adds. Four more strikers Meanwhile, the Palestinian Prisoners Club announced on Thursday that four more Palestinians were on open-ended hunger strikes against administrative detention. In a statement to media, the Palestinian Prisoners Club named three of the hunger strikers. They include Samer Issawi, who stopped eating five days ago in solidarity with al-Qiq. Issawi and his sister, the lawyer Shireen Issawi, are both currently in administrative detention. They and their family have faced years of harassment by Israeli occupation authorities. Rabie Jibril from Bethlehem began a hunger strike eight days ago against his administrative detention and to demand proper medical care. Muhammad al-Mahr from the occupied West Bank city of Jenin has been on hunger strike for 46 days, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club. Earlier this week, the Palestinian Authoritys Committee for Prisoners Affairs accused Israel of concealing al-Mahrs hunger strike to keep him out of the public eye. There are currently 650 Palestinians in Israeli administrative detention, according to prisoners rights group Addameer. Ali Abunimah Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books. Also wrote One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. A #FlowerPowerRevolution Blooms In JNU By Countercurrents.org 19 February, 2016 Countercurrents.org When the Hindutva goons beating up anyone who looks like a JNUite, and the Delhi police are acting like the paramilitary wing of these goons, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students in true Gandhian style marched in their thousands through the streets of Delhi with flowers in hand and handing it out those who malign the institution. When 'nationalists' in news rooms call them anti-nationalists, these students handed flower to these same journalists and asked them not to spread rumours about JNU. This was a moment when the violence unleashed by the BJP government, and their goons on the students stood powerless before the nonviolent resistance of these students. A Flower Power Revolution has bloomed in JNU! #JNU Students give Zee News reporters a red rose and ask them not to spread rumours #FlowerPowerJNU @Samar_Anarya pic.twitter.com/AkUba7iBpo Countercurrents.org (@Countercurrents) February 18, 2016 Thousands of students, teachers, ex-students and concerned citizens marched peacefully from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar. It is estimated that about 15 thousand people turned up to show solidarity to the striking students of JNU. They sang songs, danced and shouted slogans as they marched along the street. It was nonviolent student power on display against the brutality unleashed on them by the state , police and the Hindutva goons. "JNU is not a university, it is a dream" a slogan rang out in the street loud enough to be heard by the powers that be. Students from Delhi University, IGNOU, Ashoka University, Delhi's intelligentsia, academics, activists from Delhi, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, trade unionists, members from various left parties and ex-students of DU and JNU also joined the march. Ealier in the day, Dr M Jagadesh Kumar, Vice Chancellor of JNU issued a notice asking the students to reconsider their decision for undertaking a march outside the campus. It only increased the resolve the students to turn out in large numbers. As one JNU student Shubhda Chaudhary wrote in Countercurrents.org yesterday, Not only was it out-of-depth, it signaled that the VC did not believe in students protests, especially with the intensity that it eventually concluded. More than 15,000 students took part in the protest demonstration from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar, shouting slogan of I Stand with JNU and demanding the release of JNUSU President Kanhaiya, who would be in Tihar Jail till 2nd March. Kanhaiya Kumar, president of Jawaharlal Nehru University's students union was arrested on 12th February in a case of sedition and criminal conspiracy. Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested allegedly for raising anti-India slogans at an event organised by the students to commemorate the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, who was hanged in Tihar Jail on February 9, 2014. He was arrested by the Vasant Kunj north police in south Delhi. Police took suo-moto cognizance and registered an FIR against unknown students. Kanhaiya told the court that he was neither shouting any slogan nor saying anything against integrity of the country and said he had rushed to the spot only to prevent a clash between ABVP workers and students organising the event. He claimed in the court that this was a politically-motivated case and he was being framed by the police as he had defeated the ABVP candidate in the presidential elections of the JNU students union (JNUSU). On 17 th February, in blatant violation Supreme Court order to ensure the security of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar when he is produced in Patiala House court, he was beaten up by lawyers in the court premises. The lawyers also beat up a journalist and a student. Despite the Supreme Court putting restrictions on who can enter the court during his appearance, a group of lawyers assembled inside the complex shouting slogans and beat up Kanhaiya Kumar when he was brought to the court by the police. On February 15 also a section of lawyers had beaten up JNU students and media persons inside the court premises when Kanhaiya Kumar was produced in the court to extend his police custody. Photos By Joe Athialy More photos here Photos of yesterday's historic protest in Delhi - by Joe Athialy Posted by Benny Kuruvilla on Thursday, February 18, 2016 India: Prioritise Free Speech, Not Frivolous Sedition Charges By FORUM-ASIA 19 February, 2016 Countercurrents.org BANGKOK: The Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA) strongly condemns the use of colonial-era sedition laws to stifle freedom of expression, including the arrests of the former Delhi University lecturer SAR Geelani and a student leader at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi on sedition charges under section 124A of the Indian Penal Code. On 12 February, Delhi Police arrestedKanhaiya Kumar, president of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)Student Union on charges of sedition. The arrest followedraids on several JNU hostels after reports emerged of alleged anti-national slogans during apublic meeting on the JNU campus on 9 February protesting the execution of Afzal Guru. Afzal Guru wasconvicted of an attack in 2001on IndiasParliamentand executed on 9 February 2013. While students claim the public meeting was organised to protest capital punishment and the judicial killing of Afzal Guru, Delhi Police alleged students were engaging in anti-national activities.Kanhaiyas arrest has been condemned by civil society groups and academic fraternities across India. On 16 February, former Delhi University lecturer SAR Geelaniwas also arrested and charged with sedition in relation to an event organised in Delhi on 10 February where alleged anti-national slogans were raised. He has been sent to 2-day remand. Geelani was arrested and charged in connection with the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament but was lateracquitted by the Delhi High Court in 2003. In the recent past, disturbanceshave been witnessed in several academic institutions across the country,like at the University of Hyderabad, the Ambedkar-Periyar Study Circle at IIT Madras, the Film and Television Institution of India (FTTI), and Pune, creating an atmosphere of unrest. India's sedition laws were enacted in 1870 by the colonial Government to clamp down on freedom fighters, political dissenters and other critics.FORUM-ASIA believes they fall short of international human rights standards and are a barrier for free speech in the country. The British Government abolished similar sedition laws in 2009, while they remained in force in India and other Commonwealth countries. Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code defines sedition as any attempt by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise to bring into hatred or contempt the lawful government and prescribes punishment of life imprisonment and fine. This provision has been systemically used against human rights defenders, writers, and political opponents resulting in shrinking space for lawful dissent and critique. Sedition laws are against Indian tradition of a diverse and pluralistic society. For a robust and vibrant democracy to flourish, the Government of India must stop criminalising critical voices and respect legitimate criticism and democratic disagreement, says Evelyn Balais-Serrano, Executive Director of FORUM-ASIA. Itis the duty of the State to protectthe freedom of expression of all people. The right to freedom of speech and expression is guaranteed under the Indian Constitution (article 19.1.a) and prohibits unreasonable restrictions. Indias sedition laws are in direct contrast with this basic fundamental right. The Supreme Court of India, in 1962,framed safeguards against the abuse of the sedition laws and ruled that seditious speech and expression may be punished only if the speech is an incitement to violence, or public disorder (KederNath Singh vs. State of Bihar, 1962 AIR 955). Subsequent governments have been bypassing these safeguards and abusing the sedition laws to target legitimate criticism, dissent, and protests, indicting activists and writers. In 2012, the Indian Government carried outmass arrests and lodged more than 50,000 First Information Reports (FIRs) against demonstrators involved in anti-nuclear protests at Kudankulam, Tamil Nadu. Some 7,000 ofthese protesterswere charged with sedition. Human rights defenders and writers have also been arbitrarily charged with sedition, including writer Arundhati Royandsocialactivist Binayak Sen. In September 2012,Aseem Trivedi, a prominent cartoonist, was booked under charges of sedition for a series of anti-corruption cartoons published in a national newspaper. FORUM-ASIA urges the Government of India to take immediate steps to withdrawseditioncharges imposed on activists and writers,and repeal the sedition laws as they contravene Indias human rights commitments nationally and internationally. About FORUM-ASIA: FORUM-ASIA is a regional human rights group with 58 member organisations in 19 countries across Asia. FORUM-ASIA addresses key areas of human rights violations in the region, including freedoms of expression, assembly and association, human rights defenders, and democratisation.FORUM-ASIA operates through its offices in Bangkok, Jakarta, Geneva and Kathmandu. Website: www.forum-asia.org For further inquiries, please contact: South Asia Program, FORUM-ASIA, sasia@forum-asia.org FBI Wins Court Order Forcing Apple To Install Backdoor In iPhone Security Systems By Thomas Gaist 18 February, 2016 WSWS.org The Obama administration secured a court order from a California-based federal judge on Tuesday to force tech giant Apple to develop special software designed to compromise encryption security features embedded in the iPhones iOS 9 operating system. The court decision, utilizing an obscure and antidemocratic law from the 18th century, is part of efforts to utilize last years attack in San Bernardino, California to intensify the assault on democratic rights and expand the police-state spying powers of the government. The FBI and the Justice Department claim that the new software is necessary to enable federal investigators to search through an iPhone belonging to Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the attackers responsible for the mass shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino. At stake, however, is far more than the data on Farooks phone. The government wants broad authority to bypass encryption mechanisms on any communications that it is not presently able to monitor. US agents have been unable to access Farooks phone as a result of Apples built-in auto-erase feature, which deletes the smartphones data after ten or more incorrect attempts to unlock it. The phones security features prevent the agency from employing its preferred method of brute forcing entry, i.e., trying every possible password. Judge Sheri Pym of the Federal District Court for the District of Central California ruled Tuesday that Apple must find a way to bypass and disable the security features on Farooks phone. Apple will appeal the ruling within days, and the case could be decided in the Supreme Court. Government attorneys claim that the ruling compels Apple to design software that can penetrate the iPhones data protection systems, citing a statute known as the All Writs Act, which allows judges to issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law. The administration has adopted a broad interpretation of the law that effectively allows the courts to overrule constitutional limitations on state powers. Making clear that the court action has the support of the White House, spokesman Josh Earnest said on Wednesday that the Justice Department and the FBI have the Obama administrations full support. The ruling is only the latest stage in the efforts of the Obama administration and the political establishment to use the attacks in San Bernardino to counter the widespread opposition to domestic spying that followed the revelations of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. Along with the terror attacks in Paris, the events in southern California have become the central pretext for a new expansion of the US governments mass surveillance programs. Snowden spoke out against the FBI assault on encryption Wednesday, describing the events as the most important tech case in a decade. The FBI is creating a world where citizens rely on Apple to defend their rights, Snowden said in a tweet. Apple, Google, Yahoo, Facebook and other leading firms entered into secret contracts with the US government from the mid-2000s onward, giving the NSA access to electronic communications data stored on their servers, as revealed in NSA documents released by Snowden beginning in the summer of 2013. The documents also showed that the NSA had set up numerous illegal and unconstitutional programs that seek to monitor all telephone records, emails and other communications in the US and internationally. Pointing to the broad implications of the ruling in a letter released on Wednesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook described the governments request as unprecedented, saying that the technology demanded by the FBI could be used against hundreds of millions of devices. It would be the equivalent of a master key, Cook wrote. Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features. The government is asking Apple to hack our own users, Cook wrote. The spy software could be used to intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phones microphone or camera without your knowledge. The software hack would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someones physical possession. However, lest there be any doubt about Apples allegiance to the intelligence establishment and its war on terror, Cook went on to insist that Apple has done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help [the FBI]. When the FBI has requested data thats in our possession, we have provided it, Cook wrote. We have great respect for the professionals at the FBI, and we believe their intentions are good. Apples opposition to the FBIs anti-encryption drive flows from the material interests of its shareholders. Apple is engaged in a competitive struggle for market share on a world scale and stands to lose business, both from consumers and from foreign governments, if it is perceived as being completely penetrated by the US spy apparatus. According to an article in the New York Times, Apple had hoped to resolve the impasse without having to rewrite their own encryption software. The company was frustrated by the Justice Departments refusal to file its demands under seal rather than airing them in court, according to an industry executive with knowledge of the case. In other words, because the request became publicly known, the company felt compelled to release a statement opposing the ruling. Intelligence agencies have been pressing for legislation to bypass encryption mechanisms since long before the San Bernardino attacks. FBI Director James Comey has agitated for new laws requiring the installation of backdoor access to encryption technology almost continuously since taking office. The attacks, however, were immediately used to escalate the war on terror campaign and shift the entire political establishment to the right. One of the possible outcomes of the dispute with Apple is the passage of legislation in Congress that would explicitly authorize the government to force companies to give it access to text messages and other encrypted data on cell phones. Leading Democrats and Republicans in Congress moved quickly to back the court decision and criticize Apple for opposing it. The basic target of these movesas with the police-state spying apparatus as a wholeis not the Islamic State or Al Qaeda, but all opposition to the American ruling classs policy of war and social reaction. As the United States prepares for a massive escalation of military violence, it is at the same time intensifying the assault on democratic rights at home. Europe Is Following Obama - Washing Its Hands Of Palestine And Why By Alan Hart 19 February, 2016 Countercurrents.org My headline is a response to recent comments made by German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a joint press conference in Berlin with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the decision of the Cameron government in the UK to make boycotting goods from "Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank" by publicly-funded bodies including local councils and universities a criminal offence. Much to the delight of Netanyahu who has rejected a French initiative to convene a regional conference to try to get a peace process going, Merkel said, "Now is certainly not the time to make really comprehensive progress." She added: The European Union, and Germany as a member state, is very concerned about seeing things realistically. (My emphasis added). We know the threat of terrorism that Israel has to endure. We believe, on the other hand, that we have to advance a process of peaceful coexistence, and this, according to our opinion, is ultimately built on a two-state solution. In my view Merkel's words were, to say the least, disingenuous. (My dictionary definition of that term is "not frank or open; merely posing as being frank or open; crafty, devious.") If Merkel and all other European leaders and their governments had any interest in acknowledging the reality on the ground in Israel/Palestine they would refrain from describing the attacks by individual Palestinians on Israeli Jews over recent months as terrorism. To qualify as an act of terrorism an attack has to be motivated/driven by the need and determination to achieve a political goal. In the case of the Palestinians that would be ending Israel's occupation and securing an acceptable amount of justice. That has not been the motivation or drive of any of the Palestinians who have attacked and sometimes killed Israeli Jews in recent months. The attacks were and still are motivated/driven by total despair - the abandonment by individuals of all hope for an end to Israel's on-going and ever-expanding colonization of the occupied West Bank and all it means of terms of the theft of more and more Palestinian land and water and the destruction of more and more Palestinian homes. In other words, the individual Palestinian attacks on Israeli Jews over recent months are best (most accurately) described as understandable responses to Israel's brutal repression. My other reason for describing Merkel's words as disingenuous is that she knows, as all other European leaders and their governments know, that the two-state solution is dead, killed by Israel's on-going colonization of the occupied west Bank. All Western leaders also know that even if they summoned up the will to use the leverage they have to try to cause Israel to agree to bring the concept of a two-state solution back to life as the way to peace, there could never be such a solution to the conflict because no Israeli government is ever going to initiate a Jewish civil war to make the space for a viable Palestinian mini state. The problem for all European leaders and the American president (Obama at present and whoever succeeds him after the November election) is that they can't acknowledge that the two-state solution is dead because to do so would leave them with only two options. One would be to go for a confrontation with Zionism and its monster child and use all of their leverage to try to bring about a one-state solution with equal political, other civil and human rights for all. (Yes, that would mean the de-Zionization of Palestine) The other would be to say (as Obama has said more than once) that they can't want peace more than the parties themselves; and that, of course, would be the cover for indicating without saying so that they were washing their hands of Palestine and leaving the fate of its Arabs to be determined by Zionism. On the subject of the Cameron government's decision to make boycotting goods from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank by publicly-funded bodies a criminal offence, I agree with a comment made by Glenn Greenwald in a recent article. Cameron was, he wrote, playing his part in a very co-ordinated and well-financed campaign led by Israel and its supporters to destroy the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment (BDS) movement. (In Jerusalem on 15 February, at the annual conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, retired Israeli Brigadier General Yossi Kuperwasser described BDS as "anti-Semitism" and "terrorism." I imagine he's deluded enough to regard all and any criticism of Israel's policies and actions as both). Hillary Clinton, still it seems the most likely next president of America, has been advancing this Zionist campaign to de-legitimize and outlaw the BDS movement for many months. She and others who are dancing to Zionism's tune are not concerned that they are, as Hanan Ashrawi and Saeb Erekat put it in a PLO statement, "perpetuating injustice and empowering occupation." Now back to Merkel's statement that the European Union, and Germany as a member state, is "very concerned about seeing things realistically." There is actually a great and little known truth hidden behind those words. It is to do with the real reason why Israel possesses nuclear weapons. As I explain in detail in my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, those Israeli leaders who insisted that anything should be done to enable their state to possess and develop nuclear weapons never believed they were necessary as a part of Israel's defense against the Arabs. (In fact Ariel Sharon was the leader of those who were opposed to Israel acquiring nuclear weapons. Behind closed doors he argued that if Israel had them, the Arabs at some point would also acquire them. And if that happened, he said, Israel's ability to impose its will on the Arabs with conventional/non-nuclear weapons would be seriously compromised). The possession of nuclear weapons is Zionism's ultimate blackmail card. That was indicated to me in 1969 by Moshe Dayan, Israel's one-eyed warlord. He assumed that a day would come when just about the whole world, governments as well as peoples, was fed up with Israel and would subject it to immense and possibly irresistible pressure to end its defiance of international law and denial of justice for the Palestinians. At a point I said to Dayan, "What you seem to be saying is that if ever such a day comes, Israel's leaders will say to the world, 'Don't push us too far or we'll use these things.'" Dayan gave me a big smile and replied, "You're understanding me." (Three days before Israel went to war in June 1967 I asked him what he thought the coming days would bring. He smiled, made a gesture with a finger to illustrate what he was about to say, then, directly to the camera, he said, "The desert is beckoning." That told me Israel was about to strike. In a report to ITN on the evening of Sunday 4 June I speculated that Israel would go to war the following morning. It did. And that's why I had no problem believing what Dayan indicated to me in 1969). The conclusion I draw from everything I have learned from nearly half a century of engagement in various capacities with the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel is that there are two main reasons for the refusal of the major Western powers to confront Zionism in order to provide the Palestinians with an acceptable amount of justice.. One is the influence (declining a little but still awesome) that the Zionist lobby in all of its manifestations has in the corridors of power together with unlimited funds to buy politicians. The other is fear that if pushed further than they were prepared to go, Israel's leaders would press a nuclear button or two and more if needed. This fear is no doubt reinforced in the minds of those Western leaders who are aware of what Prime Minister Golda Meir once said to me in an interview for the BBC's Panorama programme. As readers of my book and one or two of my blog posts over the years know, she said that in a doomsday situation "Israel would be prepared to take the region and the whole world down with it." To those who are clinging to the hope that Europe will take the lead in pressing Israel to be serious about peace on terms the Palestinians could accept I say - It won't happen. Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent. He is author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. He blogs at http://www.alanhart.net and tweets via http://twitter.com/alanauthor . Printer Friendly Version Gulf War Syndrome: Killing Our Own (Part 1) By Dr. Gary Null 19 February, 2016 The Progressive Radio Network After their service in the Gulf War conflict from 1990-1991, hundreds of thousands of our country's veterans began suffering from multiple and diverse debilitating symptoms including neurological and respiratory disorders, chronic fatigue syndrome, psychological problems, skin conditions and gastrointestinal issues. This cluster of symptoms came to be known as Gulf War syndrome. Independent investigations, including those conducted by many of the Gulf War veterans themselves, showed multiple causes behind Gulf War syndrome, including experimental vaccines and medications; exposure to depleted uranium (DU); toxicity from biological and chemical weapons, oil fires, and other environmental contaminants. Yet for nearly two decades, the official word from the Veterans Administration (VA), the Department of Defense (DoD), and the White House was that Gulf War syndrome did not exist. The result? Countless returning military personnel struggled for years to have their physical illnesses recognized as something other than psychological. The latest official statistics compiled by the VA show that 25%-30%, or as many as 250,000 Gulf War veterans have suffered from this life-threatening spectrum of illnesses. (1) The number of deaths attributable to Gulf War syndrome remains elusive, however, the US government has failed to address this critical matter. A VA report released in 2014 weighs in on the disturbing oversight: No comprehensive information has been published on the mortality experience of U.S. Gulf War era veterans after the year 2000. The 14 years for which no mortality figures are available represent more than half of the 23 years since Desert Storm. Mortality information from the last decade is particularly crucial for understanding the health consequences of the Gulf War, given the Epidemiological Research latency periods associated with many chronic diseases of interest. Despite specific recommendations over many years from both the current Committee and Institute of Medicine panels, federal research efforts to monitor the mortality experience of 1990-1991 Gulf War veterans remain seriously inadequate. (2) How has the federal government managed to avoid taking responsibility on an issue that profoundly impacts the lives of hundreds of thousands of our veterans? Such is the power of the military-industrial complex and the political machine in Washington DC. It seems that as long as the government can deny its role in exposing our soldiers to unproven and toxic vaccines, medications, biological and chemical weapons and depleted uranium, it wouldnt have to provide medical care to the victims of Gulf War illness. This is, quite simply, one of the largest medical scandals and coverups in American history. For nearly two decades, the American media supported the official position that Gulf War Syndrome was only in the heads of our veterans, while legions of vets and their families were hung out to dry and die. The administrations of George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, have been complicit in the plot, and therefore stand accused of massive human rights violations. Yet American media denies it completely. In this special two part investigation it will become clear that these claims are not wild conspiracy theories or anti-government rants, but based on firsthand testimony from veterans and years of solid scientific research. All these facts paint a sobering picture of the insidious corruption, lies and negligence on the part of our government, which has, quite literally, killed our own. *** I started reporting on the alarming emergence of Gulf War syndrome in the mid nineties. In a 1994 cover story in a national publication and based on my original 2 year investigation, I discussed the disturbing link between exposure to experimental drugs and other chemical toxins and the host of serious health problems among servicemen and women who participated in the Gulf War, also known as Operation Desert Storm. In the article, I interviewed vets who spoke not only about suffering deeply from various symptoms, but also how their attempts to bring their circumstances to light and receive healthcare were effectively stonewalled by US government. One such serviceman was Paul Sullivan, who spoke to me about the hardships he faced, stating: I first became ill right there in the gulf, with rashes and what we just considered runny noses. It never went away. I ended up with chronic sinusitis, chronic bronchitis, learned I had a tuberculosis infection. The rashes still haven't gone away. The VA completely blew me off for two years until I went publicand talked on your radio station.... Before then, the VA was in the process of purging people's records, denying them service.... This denial of the problem-that it even exists-by the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans' Affairs is absolutely shocking, immoral, and unconscionable-absolutely outrageous. (3) My investigative article also covered the findings of two federally appointed researchers who presented an incendiary report at a May 1994 Congressional hearing on the topic Is Military Research Hazardous to Veterans Health?. The report, written by Dr. Diana Zuckerman and Dr. Patricia Olsen, points to an effort by the DoD to fast-track Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of certain experimental drugs designed to protect soldiers against wartime chemical exposure. According to the report, the DoD told the FDA that botulinum toxoid (botulism) vaccine and the anti-nerve gas drug pyridostigmine bromide were safe and effective for long-term use, despite the fact that no such evidence existed. Further, the researchers showed that DoD studies on the drugs employed shoddy scientific methodology and turned up ample evidence of serious adverse side effects. Another disturbing fact was the lack of soldiers informed consent. I explained in the article that: According to Zuckerman and Olson, initially the Department of Defense assured the F.D.A. that investigational drugs would be administered to soldiers on a voluntary basis. Information on the products would be provided, and soldiers would be monitored for ill effects. As it turned out, though, none of these conditions were met. The Defense Department got the F.D.A. to grant them waivers from informed-consent regulations for the use of pyridostigmine and botulinum-toxoid vaccine. As a result, many gulf veterans were not told what vaccine they were being given or what the risks were. (4) Despite years of mounting evidence, it was not until 2008 that Gulf War syndrome was officially recognized as a distinct illness after a US Congress-appointed committee released an analysis of over 100 studies related to Gulf War illnesses. The committee concluded that there was a clear link to specific chemical exposures. The chemicals identified included pesticides, pyridostigmine bromide, and the nerve gas sarin that troops may have been exposed to during the demolition of a weapons depot. The committee's chief scientist, Dr. Beatrice Golomb, singled out the acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitor drugs such as pyridostigmine bromide as having a particularly strong connection to the development of veterans ill health. She also revealed that some people appear to be particularly at risk from such chemicals due to genetic variations that impair enzyme function. When exposed, these people run a much higher risk for developing symptoms and disease (5). The committee concluded that Gulf War illnesses are certainly physical in nature and that the psychological stressors experienced by Gulf War vets, while substantial, were inadequate to account for the extent of their illnesses. The committee findings reported that more than a quarter of the 700,000 US veterans of the 1991 conflict have suffered from the illness.(6) *** Before we dig deeper into the politics and deceit that has, and in some ways continues to suppress the Gulf War syndrome issue, lets first take a closer look at the 25 years of scientific inquiry establishing a link between the multiple toxins to which our soldiers were exposed and the long list of Gulf War-related illnesses . Deconstructing the Symptoms and Science of Gulf War Syndrome The term Gulf War syndrome is not an easily defined condition, but rather encompasses a wide variety of ailments. Former congressman Steven Buyer (R-IN), whose Army reserve unit was stationed at a prisoner of war camp in the region, calls Gulf War syndrome a misnomer, explaining that he and other afflicted servicemen have been plagued with a broad spectrum of chronic disorders. Having experienced some of the symptoms firsthand, Buyer attributes the heightened frequency of illnesses among veterans to the wide variety of hazardous substances they encountered in the Gulf, including poison gases, diesel fumes, petroleum-related pollution, parasites, experimental medications, and biological warfare agents.(7) According to the Association of Birth Defect Children, Gulf War exposures include, but are not limited to: DEET, permethrin, pyridostigmine, pentachlorophenol, benzocaine sulfur, aluminum phosphide, baygon, boric acid, Sevin, amidinohydrazone, diazinon, Dursban, dichlorvos, Ficam, carbaryl, lindane, malathion, oil well fires, leaded fuels, depleted uranium, solvents, DeContam agent, malaria pills, campfires, leishmaniasis, chemical warfare agents, CARC, experimental vaccinations (including those with squalene), D-phenothrin, allethrin, paint toxins, and many others. (8) Dr. Boaz Milner, who practiced at the VA hospital in Allen Park, Michigan, treated hundreds of patients claiming to have become ill as a result of their Gulf War experience. Milner agrees with Buyer that the collection of symptoms that have manifested can be attributed to a variety of factors, which he has categorized into five syndromes. Milner's first category of Gulf War syndrome sufferers consists of soldiers who were exposed to excessive quantities of radiation, likely a result of the depleted uranium used in munitions. The second form was induced by the widespread use of experimental vaccines that were designed to protect the troops from the harmful elements they would encounter, while another category encompasses veterans exposed to various environmental pollutants, including the more than 700 burning oil wells that contaminated the region's air and water. Milner believes that other soldiers may have contracted illnesses due to the presence of toxic chemical compounds, such as pesticides. The fifth form of the syndrome was brought on by the release of biological warfare agents.(9) With so many exposures, it is logical to anticipate a broad spectrum of symptoms for sufferers of Gulf War syndrome. Chronic fatigue immune dysfunction syndrome affects over half of Gulf War victims, according to Dr. Garth Nicolson, President and Founder of the Institute for Molecular Medicine, who, with his wife, molecular biophysicist Dr. Nancy Nicolson, spent years studying veteran health conditions. Other symptoms pointed out by Nicolson include lymphoma, cardiac ailments, memory loss, leukoencephalopathy, and neurological diseases such as multiple sclerosis. Also common to sufferers are dizziness, nausea, stomach pains, light sensitivity, intense anxiety, breathing difficulty, muscle spasms, diarrhea, blurred vision, inexplicable skin rashes, hives, bleeding gums, eye redness, night sweats, and acute migraine-like headaches. (10) Vaccines The effects from the melange of chemicals Gulf War vets were exposed to is impossible to unravel fully after examining the brutal fact that the experimental vaccines mixed with unmonitored medicine had never been proven safe. In fact, the widespread use of experimental vaccines during Desert Storm has been cited by many as a possible cause of Gulf War syndrome. Dr. Garth Nicolson elaborates, "I'm not a big fan of experimental vaccines. There have been too many mistakes. Usually you find these things out years later. Often agents that we think innocuous turn out to be harmful."(11) Even worse, during the Gulf War, the established procedures of vaccination were neglected and ignored. Normally, only one inoculation should be given at a time, but the military insisted on giving multiple shots at once, which, according to Nicolson, is the worst thing you can do because it suppresses the immune system. (12) The troops immunized for the Gulf became government guinea pigs. They received experimental vaccines, such anthrax and botulinum, which were not approved for use by the FDA and have since been shown to cause potentially dangerous side effects. Soldiers who were given these experimental vaccines, without informed consent, have reported suffering from a variety of neurological problems and aberrant bleeding from various parts of the body. Neil Tetzlaff, a lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force during the Gulf War, testified at a senate hearing of his symptoms: On the plane ride to Saudi and during my first day in-country, I was nauseated and vomited. I attributed the sickness to the plane ride and tenseness of the situation. On my second day there, I vomited again and felt different. I attributed the sickness to something I'd eaten. On the third day, I was extremely nauseated and vomited multiple times. I sought out the doctor and discussed my illness with him. We dismissed it as something I had eaten at the Saudi canteen. On my fourth day there, I vomited violently, the worst ever of my life, and was acting a bit off center and muddled. On the morning of the seventh day, I vomited about a quart of blood. Since deployed for Desert Shield, I have been suffering moderate to severe and intolerable pain, and fatigue, and lately have developed one heck of a palsy. I've lost [much of] my ability to speak because I can't recall words, have extreme problems with my short-term memory, and I had a dramatic change in my olfactory system. The last three and a half years have been extremely difficult on me and my family.(13) Not only did the experimental vaccines pose a threat to the troops' immune systems, the anthrax vaccination contained squalene, an unapproved adjuvant linked to devastating autoimmune diseases. The DOD made every attempt to deny that squalene was indeed an added contaminant in the anthrax vaccine administered to Gulf War military personnel. (14) Despite these efforts, unusually high antibody levels for squalene have been measured in blood samples of Gulf War vets. A clear link was established between the contaminated product and all the syndrome sufferers who were injected with squalene. This was confirmed in an investigation conducted by Insight magazine, which also reported that VA spokespeople have no explanation for these findings.(15) The mystery is compounded by the disappearance of up to 70,000 service-related immunization records. One of the scientists hired by Insight to investigate the presence of squalene in veterans' blood elaborates on the study's findings: "We found soldiers who are not sick that do not have the antibodies. ... We found soldiers who never left the U.S. but who got shots who are sick, and they have squalene in their systems. We found people who served overseas in various parts of the desert that are sick who have squalene. And we found people who served in the desert but were civilians who never got these shots ... who are not sick and do not have squalene." (16) According to one government official familiar with the blood test results, veterans illnesses were correlated with increased levels of antibodies for squalene. Another official explained, "I'm not telling you that squalene is making these people sick, but I am telling you that the sick ones have it in them." (17) Research immunologist Pam Asa has worked with about 150 sick Gulf War individuals. Asa reported that the autoimmune manifestations of squalene vary from person to person, depending on the patient's genetic makeup. "In other words, patient A will have a certain spectrum of symptoms, and patient B will have another. But it's still the same disease." (18) Mark Zeller is a serviceman suffering from Gulf War Syndrome. He revealed the following to me in a radio interview: I sent my blood and got a notice back that I'm positive for this stuff called squalene, which is an adjuvant, which goes into a vaccine. This adjuvant is still not for human use. I'm here to tell you, I've got squalene in my body. And I said, it's not supposed to be in humans. To this date, it's still not used in humans except for research. I never sought to be a guinea pig out in the desert. I signed on to protect my country. At least that's what I thought. (19) Zeller isn't alone. A study conducted at Tulane Medical School and published in Experimental Molecular Pathology included these stunning statistics: The substantial majority (95%) of overtly ill deployed GWS patients had antibodies to squalene. All (100%) GWS patients immunized for service in Desert Shield/Desert Storm who did not deploy, but had the same signs and symptoms as those who did deploy, had antibodies to squalene. In contrast, none (0%) of the deployed Persian Gulf veterans not showing signs and symptoms of GWS have antibodies to squalene. Neither patients with idiopathic autoimmune disease nor healthy controls had detectable serum antibodies to squalene. The majority of symptomatic GWS patients had serum antibodies to squalene. (20) According to Dr. VieraScheibner, a former principal research scientist for the government of Australia: This adjuvant [squalene] contributed to the cascade of reactions called "Gulf War Syndrome," documented in the soldiers involved in the Gulf War. The symptoms they developed included arthritis, fibromyalgia, lymphadenopathy, rashes, photosensitive rashes, malar rashes, chronic fatigue, chronic headaches, abnormal body hair loss, non-healing skin lesions, aphthous ulcers, dizziness, weakness, memory loss, seizures, mood changes, neuropsychiatric problems, anti-thyroid effects, anemia, elevated ESR (erythrocyte sedimentation rate), systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), Raynaud's phenomenon, Sjogren's syndrome, chronic diarrhea, night sweats and low-grade fevers. (21) Although the US government has been reluctant to associate squalene, and vaccines in general, with Gulf War syndrome, a 2014 VA report concedes that vaccine exposure cannot be discounted: Taken together, the scientific literature published since 2008 supports and reinforces the conclusion in the 2008 RACGWVI report that exposures to pesticides and pyridostigmine bromide are causally associated with Gulf War illness and that exposures to low-level nerve agents, oil well fires, receipt of multiple vaccines, and combinations of Gulf War exposures cannot be ruled out as contributing factors to this condition. (22) Biological and Chemical Weapons Disclosures by high-ranking Iraqi officials have confirmed that Iraq possessed an extensive chemical and biological arsenal during the Gulf War. After his defection in August 1995, Saddam Hussein's top biological weapons adviser, Lieutenant General Hussein KamelMajid, unveiled an abundance of classified information to United Nations investigators documenting the development of Iraqs biological and chemical warfare arsenals. Prior to the Gulf War, the Iraqis engaged in a top-secret program to develop biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons that could be used against their enemies, including the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. Prior to the disclosures, Iraq claimed it had only 10 people employed in its biological programs. Since then it has admitted that 150 scientists and an extensive support staff were involved in the mass development of biological warfare agents throughout the 1980s. According to UN officials, Iraq possessed at least 50 bombs loaded with anthrax, 100 bombs containing botulinum, and 25 missile warheads carrying other germ agents. The Iraqi government's goal was to create a diversified arsenal that went far beyond conventional weapons. For instance, one viral agent manufactured by the Iraqis was capable of generating hemorrhagic conjunctivitis, which commonly results in temporary blindness or bleeding eyes. Another agent could be used to induce chronic diarrhea, a condition quite effective in immobilizing troops. The secret Iraqi programs were also responsible for the production of at least 78 gallons of gangrene-inducing chemicals that were capable of penetrating the body and infecting wounds. Other agents included "yellow rain," a lethal fungus responsible for bleeding lungs, and ricin, a deadly toxin derived from castor oil plants. Was Iraq ready to use its poisons on the battlefield? Jonathan Tucker documents in the Nonproliferation Review that Iraq used them on 76 separate occasions.(23) Tucker notes that during the conflict London's SundayTimes reported on intercepted Iraqi military communications indicating that Saddam Hussein had authorized front-line commanders to use chemical weapons as soon as coalition forces began their ground offensive.(24) The American Newsweek also reported this fact. (25) We have military documentation to support assertions of biological and chemical weapons presence. Battlefield reports of the 513th Military Intelligence Brigade confirmed the release of anthrax on Feb. 24, 1991, at King Khalid Military City, while documentation from the following day reveals the presence of lewisite, a nerve gas that may have been released either by an Iraqi assault or from secondary explosions. Depleted Uranium In addition to the chemical and biological warfare, there is another disturbing legacy left by the American invasion of Iraq: depleted uranium. DU is a byproduct of the uranium enrichment process. Its name implies it is a harmless material, but in actuality it is still a highly poisonous, radioactive, heavy metal. The term depleted comes from the process of extracting and removing the highly radioactive isotope U-235 from natural uranium and thereby leaving the relatively stable and less radioactive isotope, U-238. After U-235 is extracted from U-238 for use in nuclear weapons and breeder reactors, only U-238 remains. Although it is considerd depleted because it no longer contains U-235, U-238 still emits one-third of its original level of radioactivity. The DoD claims that DU is used only on bullet tips and tank shells in order to enhance penetration of steel as easily as butter. The truth is that the entire bullet or shell, not just the tips or coating, contain U-238, making them especially hazardous. Furthermore upon explosion the uranium can be present at a nano-scale. Dr. Doug Rokke, a retired major who served as the director of the US Army Depleted Uranium Project in the mid-90s is a specialist in uranium cleanup efforts. He was an advisor for DU science and health for the Centers for Disease Control, US Institute of Medicine, Congress, and the DOD. Rokke has been at the forefront in efforts to alert health and military officials about DU's enormous health risks: It is important to realize that DU penetrators are solid uranium 238. They are not tipped or coated! DU oxides are shed during flight spreading minute contamination all along the flight path. The Cannon bore is also contaminated as is the inside of each tank or bradley fighting vehicle or LAV. During an impact at least 40 % of the penetrator forms uranium oxides or fragments which are left on the terrain, within or on impacted equipment, or within impacted structures. The remainder of the penetrator retains its initial shape. Thus we are left with a solid piece of uranium lying someplace which can be picked up by children. DU also ignites in the air during flight and upon impact spreading contamination everyplace. The resulting shower of burning DU and DU fragments causes secondary explosions, fires, injury, and death. (26) US and British forces used Operation Desert Storm as a testing ground for the widespread employment of DU during Gulf War I. It is estimated that over 940,000 30 mm uranium-tipped bullets and 14,000 large-caliber depleted rounds were released. Even before the second Gulf War, between 350 and 800 tons of DU residue, with a half-life of 4.4 billion years, permeated the ground and water of Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Such immense radioactive pollution has exposed countless people. Inhalation and ingestion of DU were unavoidable for troops in proximity to exploding shells. In addition, soldiers spent long hours sitting in tanks, handling uranium-laced shells and casings. Weapons were also taken home as souvenirs. Families of veterans came in contact with the substance after handling clothing laced with it. The insidious adverse effects of DU in the body was illustrated by scientists at the DOD's Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Maryland, in research presented to the American Association for Cancer Research and the Society of Toxicology. They tested the effects of embedded DU by inserting shrapnel-like pellets into the legs of rats. The researchers were surprised at how quickly oncogenes--genes believed to be precursors to cancer--formed. Another discovery was that DU kills suppressor, or health-maintaining, genes. The experiments also demonstrated that DU spreads throughout the body, depositing itself in the brain and spleen, among other organs, and that it can be passed by a pregnant rat to a developing fetus.(27) Many of the symptoms experienced by Gulf War veterans and their families are indicative of radiation poisoning. These include nausea, vomiting, memory loss, and increased cancer rates. In addition, veterans' children are manifesting an alarming rate of birth defects, lowered immunity, and childhood cancers. Radiation-affected sperm may be contributing these defects. Dr. Jay Gould, author of The Enemy Within: The High Cost of Living Near Nuclear Reactors, has been an outspoken critic of low-level radiation. Gould says that exposure to DU released into the atmosphere poses the same grave dangers any other exposure to uranium. "There is nothing new about it," Gould says, stressing that a biochemical impact of low-level radiation can immediately attack the immune response.(28) Since immune response is a key factor in maintaining good health, a weakened immune system makes people vulnerable to any kind of infection or allergic response. Consequently, everything from cancer to allergies and multiple chemical sensitivities can be activated by the uranium dust. Gould adds that one reason why people generally ignore the dangers of low-level radiation is because it is often confused with background radiation: Background radiation is something that humans have lived with for hundreds of thousands of years. Over that long period, our immune response has developed a capacity to resist natural forms of radiation from cosmic rays and radiation in the soil. But ever since the nuclear age began, we have introduced new fission products, like radioactive iodine and radioactive strontium that are released in the operation of a nuclear reactor or an explosion of a bomb. These have the ability to impact the immune response. This is what we mean by low-level radiation. It's an internal radiation. In other words, if you ingest a fission product or a piece of uranium dust, it is like having a tiny x-ray go off for a tiny fraction of a second for the rest of your life. The effects of low-level radiation are quite awful, depending on which organ is affected. (29) A University of Aberdeen peer-reviewed study of Gulf War vets equivocated on the reality of Gulf War illness. It admitted a higher, but not statistically significant, increase in death rates among soldiers who came into contact with DU and pesticides. A recent examination of the effects of DU in lung cell lines indicates that uranium changes regulatory biomolecular pathways within the lung tissues.(30) In rat tissue cells, a dramatic decrease in certain liver enzymes occurred. Other results indicate an increase in mRNA response (precursors to the cellular enzymes) to make up for the previous decrease in enzyme production. Another paper by the Laboratoire de RadiotoxicologieExperimentale in Marseilles, France, suggests that in animal studies, DU inhalation can damage lung cells by changing DNA base pairs.(31) Introduction of DU into rat tracheae caused increased enzyme activity in rat testes three months later. In mouse cell lines, DU caused DNA mutations, and the authors point out that these were not only caused by radiation, but the actual presence of the chemical was toxic as well. (32) White blood cells of people exposed to the effects of DU in Bosnia and Herzegovina had measured changes in their genetic material.(33) In addition, an Israeli study showed that concentrations in hair, nails, and urine were directly correlated to the amounts of DU ingested in the water.(34) A further rat study shows that neurological exposure to DU may influence motor behavior and memory loss.(35) Despite the lack of extensive human cohort studies, these data suggest that DU present in bodily systems affects the various tissues throughout the body. The University of Maryland School of Medicine studied vets who were exposed to friendly fire during the first Gulf War. During the course of a decade, vets continued to show elevated DU levels in their urine. The presence of increased DU research in the literature indicates a growing consensus that exposure to DU is a cause for concern.(36)One soldier who was struggling with terminal colon cancer described the environment where he was stationed as a toxic dump of "oil refineries, a cement factory, a chlorine factory and a sulfuric acid factory" all polluting the air. (37) Gulf War Illness and Birth defects Unfortunately, the suffering has not been limited to veterans. As early as 1994, the LA Times reported on birth defects appearing in the children of soldiers exposed to various chemical agents. (38) Reed West, daughter of Gulf veteran Dennis West from Waynesboro, Mississippi, was born prematurely with collapsed lungs and a faulty immune system. Joshua Miller, the son of veteran Aimee Miller, chronically suffers from unusual colds, pneumonia, and high fevers. In Waynesboro, Mississippi, the site of the National Guard Quartermaster Corps, 13 out of 15 children born to Gulf veterans suffered from serious disorders. Infant mortality rates have dramatically escalated in four counties in Kentucky and Tennessee, where the Army's 101st Airborne Division is based; in three counties in Georgia, where the Army's 197th Infantry Division is located; and at Ft. Hood, in Texas.(39) According to Dr. Ellen Silbergeld, a molecular toxicologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, men pass toxic chemicals on to their unborn children through their semen. (40) According to Birth Defect Research for Children, a Florida-based association studying birth defects in Gulf veterans' families, there is an increase in birth defects in children born to Gulf War vets. Its registry keeps track of babies born with missing limbs, chronic infections, delayed development, cancer, heart problems, and immunity defects. The center has identified a disproportionate occurrence of Goldenhar syndrome in Gulf veterans' offspring.(41) Goldenhar syndrome (medically called oculo-auriculo-vertebral [OVA] spectrum) is a "rare disease," yet it is popping up in the infants of Gulf War vets far too frequently. The syndrome has a wide range of symptoms, and frequently looks very different from one child to the next. Despite its dissimilarities, Goldenhar syndrome frequently produces facial deformities such as asymetrical distortions, abnormally small eyes, missing upper eyelids, ear malformations, incomplete or fused vertebral development, and numerous internal problems with the heart, lungs, kidneys, and intestines. Persian Gulf vet Steve Miller knows this condition all too well: his son, conceived soon after his return from the Gulf, was born with Goldenhar. According to Miller, "He had hydrocephalus, spinal scoliosis, spina bifida, was missing his left eye and left ear, [and] his heart was on the right side of his body." Miller continued to explain that "according to the National Institute of Health, [Goldenhar syndrome] is either hereditary or caused by teratogenic exposure. In our case we both tested negative in genetic testing." (42) So how did Miller's child end up with such a rare disease when the genetic factors that supposedly cause Goldenhar syndrome were absent from both parents' DNA? The answer: a multiplicity of poisons. Mitochondria, Neurodegeneration and the Latest Scientific Evidence. Compelling new research presented at a 2015 Conference held by the American Physiological Society (APS) has now linked Gulf War Syndrome pathology with impaired mitochondria function. Comparing the mitochondria in blood cells from from veterans who served in Gulf operations with healthy veterans who did not deploy, the research found that deployed vets had increased mitochondrial DNA and more damaged mitochondrial DNA than their healthy counterparts. The findings suggest that the toxic compounds affecting individuals with Gulf War syndrome may have directly damaged this critical component of the cellular health. (43) These findings corroborate a study published in 2014 noting that Mitochondrial problems account for which exposures relate to Gulf War illness, which symptoms predominate, how Gulf War illness symptoms manifest themselves, what objective tests have been altered, and why routine blood tests have not been useful." (44) January 2016 saw the publication of a comprehensive analysis of new research on Gulf War syndrome conducted at Boston University and several other institutions. Published in the journal Cortex, the analysis implicated exposure to pesticides, oil well fire emissions, sarin nerve gas and the ingestion of pyridostigmine bromide pills as profoundly on the neurological health of Gulf vets.(45) The analysis discussed the high incidence of structural and electrical abnormalities in the central nervous system, brain cancer, and reduced white and gray brain matter in among the veterans. The researchers also stressed the importance of deepening the scientific inquiry in this area so that we may finally develop effective treatments: Further research into the mechanisms and etiology of the health problems of [Gulf War] veterans is critical to developing biomarkers of exposure and illness, and preventing similar problems for military personnel in future deployments. This information is also critical for developing new treatments for GWI and related neurological dysfunction (46) *** Twenty-five years after the conclusion of the Gulf War conflict, there is no debating the fact that our troops suffered tremendously not only from chemical hazards on the battlefield but also from exposure to dangerous experimental drugs administered by the US military. Part 2 of this Gulf War syndrome investigation, will take a closer look at the disturbing decades-long legacy of ignorance and outright denial about this serious illness on the part of the US government. Gary Null PhD is the host of the nations longest running public radio program on nutrition and natural health and a multi-award-winning director of progressive documentary films, including Seeds of Death: Unveiling the Lies of GMOs, which is available for free viewing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUd9rRSLY4A#t=24 Endnotes 1. Gulf War Illness and the Health of Gulf War Veterans: Research Update and Recommendations, 2009-2013 US Dept of Veterans Affairs, http://www.va.gov/RAC-GWVI/RACReport2014Final.pdf 2. Ibid 3. Null GM. The Gulf War syndrome: causes and the cover-up. Penthouse. September 1994. Reprinted with permission of the author, 4: Ibid 5. Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans Illnesses. April 12, 2008. 6. Silverleib A. Gulf War syndrome is real, new federal report says [online article]. CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/11/17/gulf.war.illness.study. 7. Cary P, Tharp M. The Gulf War's grave aura.U.S. News & World Report. July 8, 1996. 8.Presentation to the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Veteran's Administration [Web page].http://www.birthdefects.org/research/veterans.php. 9. France D. The families who are dying for our country.Redbook. Sept. 1994. 10. Null G. Interview with Dr. Garth Nicolson. Aug. 8th, 1997. 11. Null G. Interview with Drs. Garth and Nancy Nicolson. May 7, 1996. 12. Null G. Interview with Dr. Garth Nicolson. Aug. 8th, 1997. 13. Null G. Interview with Neil Tetzlaff. July 19th, 1997. 14. Bernstein D. Gulf War syndrome covered up. Covert Action Quarterly. 53. 15. Rodriguez PM. The Gulf War mystery.Insight Magazine, September 8, 1997. 16. Ibid. 17. Devitt M. Vaccines may be linked to Gulf War syndrome. DOD to review possible use of illegal additive.Dynamic Chiropractic. June 12, 2000. 18. Null G. Interview with Pam Asa. Aug. 9, 1997. 19. Null G. Interview with Mark Zeller. July 29, 1997. 20. Asa PB, Cao Y, Garry RF. Antibodies to squalene in Gulf War syndrome. ExpMolPathol. February 2000;68(1):5564. 21. Scheibner V. Adverse effects of adjuvants in vaccines. Nexus. Dec 2000;8(1)Feb 2001;8(2). 22. Gulf War Illness and the Health of Gulf War Veterans: Research Update and Recommendations, 2009-2013 US Dept of Veterans Affairs, http://www.va.gov/RAC-GWVI/RACReport2014Final.pdf 23. Tucker J. Nonproliferation Review. Spring/Summer 1997. 24. Swain J, Adams J. Saddam gives local commanders go-ahead for chemical attacks. Sunday Times. Feb. 3, 1991. 25. Masland T, Waller D. Are we ready for chemical war? Newsweek. Mar. 4, 1991. 26. IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED ON DEPLETED URANIUM, Dr. Doug Rokke, Ph.D. April 13, 2004 http://www.gdr.org/depleted_uranium%20htm.htm 27. Mesler B. Nation. May 26, 1997. 28. Dr. Jay Gould. Personal interview. Oct. 28, 1996. 29. Ibid. 30. Malard V, Prat O. Proteomic analysis of the response of human lung cells to uranium. Proteomics. 2005 Nov;5(17):456880. 31. Genotoxic and inflammatory effects of depleted uranium particles inhaled by rats. Toxicol Sci. Jan 2006; 89(1):287295. Epub 2005 Oct 12. 32. Stearns DM. Uranyl acetate induces hprt mutations and uranium-DNA adducts in Chinese hamster ovary EM9 cells. Mutagenesis. Nov 2005;20(6):417423. Epub 2005 Sep 29. 33. Krunic A. Micronuclei frequencies in peripheral blood lymphocytes of individuals exposed to depleted uranium. ArhHigRadaToksikol. Sep 2005;56(3):227232. 34. Karpas Z. Measurement of the 234U/238U ratio by MC-ICPMS in drinking water, hair, nails, and urine as an indicator of uranium exposure source. Health Phys. Oct 2005;89(4):315321. 35. Monleau M, Bussy C, Lestaevel P, Houpert P, Paquet F, Chazel V. Bioaccumulation and behavioural effects of depleted uranium in rats exposed to repeated inhalations. NeurosciLett. Dec 16, 2005;390(1):3136. 36. McDiarmid MA, Engelhardt SM, Oliver M, et al. Biological monitoring and surveillance results of Gulf War I veterans exposed to depleted uranium. Int Arch Occup Environ Health. Aug 2, 2005:1121. 37. McClain C. Cancer in Iraq vets raises possibility of toxic exposure. Arizona Daily Star. November 2, 2007. 38. Serrano RA. Birth defects in Gulf vets' babies stir fear, debate. Los Angeles Times. Nov. 14, 1994. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid 41. Birth Defect Research for Children Inchttp://www.birthdefects.org. 42. Null G. Interview with Steve Miller. Aug. 9, 1997. 43. American Physiological Society (APS). "For veterans with Gulf War Illness, an explanation for the unexplainable symptoms." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 10 September 2015. . 44. Hayley J. Koslik, Gavin Hamilton, Beatrice A. Golomb. Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Gulf War Illness Revealed by 31Phosphorus Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy: A Case-Control Study. PLoS ONE, 2014; 9 (3): e92887 DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0092887 45. White, Roberta F., Lea Steele, James P. O'callaghan, Kimberly Sullivan, James H. Binns, Beatrice A. Golomb, Floyd E. Bloom, James A. Bunker, Fiona Crawford, Joel C. Graves, Anthony Hardie, Nancy Klimas, Marguerite Knox, William J. Meggs, Jack Melling, Martin A. Philbert, and Rachel Grashow. "Recent Research on Gulf War Illness and Other Health Problems in Veterans of the 1991 Gulf War: Effects of Toxicant Exposures during Deployment." Cortex 74 (2016): 449-75. Web. 13 Feb. 2016. 46. Ibid Tweet WhatsApp Share Share on Tumblr Comments are moderated Do We Need A 270 Feet High National Flag Unfurling In Central Universities? By Shubhda Chaudhary 19 February, 2016 Countercurrents.org All the 46 central universities in the country will fly the national flag on their campuses to signify a strong India, said a resolution adopted at a meeting of vice chancellors chaired by HRD Minister Smriti Irani. The very first campus, undoubtedly to initiate this trend would be Jawaharlal Nehru University. The question is, do we need to hoist the national flag atop a 207-feet pole in central university campuses? Does the government believe that this cursory trend of nationalising Indian universities would immediately inculcate patriotism within students? Quite honestly, educational institutions should have the freedom of raising dissent, arguments, discussions, which forms a part of inner democracy. But this move, which would have consequences in the coming months, is debatable. To start with, instead of investing in educational institutions, instead of raising the non-UGC Net scholarship from paltry Rs5000 per month to students who are pursuing their research, the Education Ministry rather wants to invest in this forced inculcation of patriotism. Secondly, having a flag, no matter how high it is, would not saffronize Indian educational institutions. It would not be able to cut down the arguments against India, the intellectual debate which goes within campuses like JNU where the Right to Dissent is practiced. Thirdly, this step instead seems as a hurried act to stifle the student voices rising within the campus of JNU after the recent arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar, the JNUSU President. In the tensed atmosphere built in currently, such a step, getting a nod from the VC would just further reiterate the manner in which educational institutions are falling prey to political agendas. Fourthly, this step would further embolden the ABVP student wing in the campuses, be it Hyderabad University or Allahabad University, where these student wings have carried out their hooligan activities, raising a storm all over the country. The question is, why then left student parties like SFI, AISA, AISF, DSU would not be allowed to have their own flags, if we believe in the idea of democracy. This step, which perhaps would become a laughing stock in the coming days hints the grave days that are approaching us, silently. No, we do not have a return of Indira Gandhis Emergency, but yes, we have something similar happening currently, which is unofficial, yet not a glib. Nivedita Menon has rightly pointed out The Modi regime, in its bid to be a global superpower through a route that transforms Made in India to Make in India, in a re-inscription of the colonial division of labour in which India offers cheap labour to global capital, is right to target universities and young people. It is these that pose one of the most formidable challenges to the savarna Hindu nationalist and neo-liberal vision of India, and which continue to foreground social justice, equality and freedom, the values enshrined in our Constitution. Wasnt it enough to hoist a large national flag on 207 feet high mast, second largest national flags of India, in Connaught Place on 7th March 2014 in a very subtle yet penetrating way to thrust the hegemony of BJP in public spaces? Now, the same trend would be unleashed in central universities, which are currently battling with their own problems, especially the amount of money spent on students education in grants, the protest for which has been quietly thwarted away in a corner. By no means, the analysis considers the move as retrogressive, but at the same time, its not progressive at all. Theres a difference in feeling patriotic for your country by yourself, your own inculcated values, your sense of right and wrong, your idea of nationalism rather than being forced, disciplined or perhaps punished to do so. In the latter discourse, it would cause more internal apathy because educational universities bestow spaces to students to have their own intellectual acumen, to stand with the state or question it. Both the processes should be welcomed by the universities under the Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression. Unfortunately, the current regime, instead of investing in students education and empowerment is much more deluded by tacit tactics to create a sense of their own political euphoria which would not mean anything concrete in the end. It would be a matter of great shame that the national flag if unfurled in the campuses, would eventually lead to loss of value towards Mother India or nationalism, as an antithetical reaction from the student bodies. What we need now, is a synthesis and not a dogma perpetuated by the highest echelons. Shubhda Chaudhary is a PhD Scholar at JNU. She can be reached at shubhda.chaudhary@gmail.com How JNU Made Me Anti National.. By Parvin Sultana 19 February, 2016 Countercurrents.org Three years in a premier college of Delhi Miranda House meant a lot to a small town girl. My smart beautiful teachers inspired me on a daily basis. A comparatively liberal college campus gave our ideas wings. Three years were marked by excellent academic activities and fabulous hostel parties. But graduation ended with the anxiety of post graduation. Like many of my fellow students I wished to be in Jawaharlal Nehru University merely because I have heard a lot about it and did visit it just once. My wish also had to do with the urge to move away from Kamla Nagar and Majnu Ka Tila which are lovely places but gets a little monotonous after three long years. And I did get through to the Masters Course in Political Science in School of Social Sciences, JNU. Once the hectic admission was over (seven years back it was not single window system) and I have filled end number of folios and stuck end number of pictures, I moved into the campus and then I slowly could absorb the differences of my new habitat from my previous campus. Unlike Nestle kiosks and Nirulas that dotted North Campus JNU had dhabas which didnt even have proper benches to sit and have chai. Students would sit anywhere and have endless discussions on cups and cups of tea. We didnt have too many big shops and great coffee places. I even missed the overpriced and not that great coffee of Barista. But for the first time I felt at home. I saw too many people with shabby clothes around not to feel conscious about my own drabby attire. While the hang out spots of North Campus would buzz with beautifully clothed girls and boys having a good time, this campus buzzed with a different kind of energy. People were easy going and the adda culture were animated discussions would go on was endearing. Walking around the campus at any time of the day and night was something I needed some time to believe as it seemed too good to be true. However once the classes started I was thrown into utmost confusion. This seemed like nothing that we studied in undergraduation. Seniors came to my rescue. My teachers were also there to help. This accessibility to excellent friendly teachers seemed like a continuity from my Miranda days and it was reassuring. Amidst a hectic masters course, the easy going nice green campus with winding routes seemed great. I did miss my college parties but then something else caught my attention. They were the mess meetings where academicians, activists, politicians of repute talked on contemporary issues in the messes of various hostels. The meetings started at around 9.30 and went on till late. It became better when I could draw a connection with what I was studying in my course and the discourses going on in campus. It left me with an unending love for my subject as well. Slowly I got involved with the best part of JNU its politically vibrant society. Coming from a girls college I saw Mirandians get things done pretty impressively, the campus in which students also intervene regularly and actively was interesting. Be it hostel seats for students, increasing mess fees or other problems, we have always found our JNUSU by us. Unlike the big cutouts of Delhi University Students Union members where they shine like filmstars, our JNUSU members walk around the campus at least five times a day. Be it another bout of attack on Gaza or a crackdown on some university, the student organisations would be at the forefront organizing meetings and issuing statements as parchas (which we contribute measly amounts to print) in solidarity or in condemnation. But was JNU only about meetings, dharnas and strikes? We had our Holi where the entire university would be in colours and drunk on bhang, enjoying themselves in a fun but safe atmosphere. We had our Chaat Sammelan where veterans clashed with each other for the coveted title of Chaat Samrat (meaning the really annoying person around!!). We also had our hostel nights with bad DJs but pretty good food. We had late night parties over glasses of old monk. We had rendezvous with someone slightly more special than others on the PSR (Partha Sarathi Rocks). We also had our UPSC aspirants who would slog away in the Dholpur House and never attend political meetings. We had good cheap food mughlai and Chinese and something called Kiechas that cant be placed anywhere. So what does JNU gives its students? The meetings and protest marches inculcates in you a sense of your entitlement. You protest for your righthostel seats, lesser mess bill, against arbitrary administrative decisions. The slogan The people united shall always be victorious leaves you reassured that in a democracy the power is in the hands of the people. The demands of Azadi from feudalism, casteism, communalism, poverty, hunger leaves you with a strong resolution to fight for a more equal world, for a better society. JNU makes you take cognizance of the marginalized and their rights. JNU encourages you to stand up with them in solidarity. JNU gives a call to end all oppression that dalits, people in conflict areas, women, religious minorities continue to face. JNU prepares its students to step out of the campus with an equally strong conviction to always intervene on the side of the oppressed. JNU students can take to streets braving assaults to stand up for what they believe in. JNU will make you resolve to never give up on our institutions and our Constitution that Babasaheb Ambedkar also believed in. JNU has the guts to introspect and engage with its own problems. And JNU did all that to me too. It inspired me to stand up for what I believe, to never speak or write to appease. It gave me the courage to come back home to my border town Dhubri (a lesser developed small town with too many problems) and work for people out here. And it has sent me armed with a much required sensitivity to understand the position of the marginalized and the oppressed. It has given me the goal to inspire, encourage and teach my students to speak Truth to Power. I still believe firmly that we must wrench our freedom from poverty and social evils that are still pervasive. If that demand for azaadi and a better life for the have-nots is being anti-national then I guess JNU has rightly made me one. Parvin Sultana is an Assistant Professor in P B College of Assam. Her research interest includes Muslims in Assam, development and northeast, gender etc. A judge has ordered the release of Jessica Tsao, who has been an inmate at the Burleigh County Detention Center for nearly 180 days, to West Central Human Service Center in Bismarck. South Central District Judge James Hill said Tsao should be released to a less confined setting and has served more time than she would have gotten under any charges. Tsao's case has been fraught with delays and confusion in obtaining a mental health evaluation. She was arrested in August for stealing a rental car, which she drove from California to Bismarck. Your conditions are simply this: You remain in Burleigh-Morton counties until this is resolved, said the visibly upset judge, allowing Tsao to be released on a $1,000 unsecured bond. Tsao, who was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in April, is required to stay at West Central pending a criminal competency evaluation at North Dakota State Hospital on March 16. I can assure you, Ms. Tsao, I am going to work to get that moved up if I can, Hill said. Mary Lin, a Bay Area-based lawyer who represents Snowy Zhou, Tsao's mother, and has been serving as a translator to help build Tsaos defense, said she hopes the judge's action will expedite a mental health evaluation. Lin said her and Zhous No. 1 goal is to get a psychological evaluation done to try to get Tsao back on her medications. Tsao, who appeared late for her hearing on Friday, agreed to the bonds conditions and must stay at the human service center. She said in court Friday that she doesnt want to take medication and refuses to speak with her mother. Andrew Delain, assistant state's attorney at Burleigh County State's Attorney's office, said the state will continue to prosecute the case, but highlighted fears the state had with releasing Tsao from jail. She has no place to go and no ties to the community, Delain said Friday. Several court orders had been filed to get Tsao a criminal competency exam, but none were followed. Tsao was first scheduled to have a criminal competency exam Dec. 8 at the state hospital. By January, an evaluation still hadnt been performed, and another evaluation was scheduled for March 23. Late last month, an earlier exam was approved to take place within 30 days at West Central. The evaluation date was again changed last week, and another request was made to transport Tsao to the state hospital March 16 for an evaluation. Hill questioned both the prosecutor and Kent Morrow, Tsaos public defender, as to why there were multiple orders but none have been followed. I can see only continuing delay with this woman sitting in jail, Hill said. Delain said Tsao didnt receive a mental health evaluation at the state hospital in December because there was a delay in getting necessary criminal and medical documents to the hospital. The hospital made three separate attempts to contact Kent Morrow, Tsao's lawyer, for these documents, Delain said. Morrow said Friday that he was willing to take some of the blame in not getting her records to the state hospital. Morrow said he hasnt been able to consult with Tsao, who has refused to meet with him. Still, the judge, prosecutor defense attorney came to accord Friday and agreed there shouldnt be any further delay in getting Tsao a mental health exam. The head of the group that developed North Dakotas new standardized test addressed concerns from lawmakers Thursday over the exams botched rollout, while another organization made a pitch to switch to its assessment. As early as next month, students throughout the state in grades 3-8 and 11 will sit in front of computers to take the Smarter Balanced math and English test for the second year. Meanwhile, the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction is deciding whether to stick with Smarter Balanced or administer a new test in 2017, such as the ACT Aspire. Legislators on the interim Education Committee posed questions to the two testing groups Thursday, pressing the executive director of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium on his organizations plans to address problems that occurred when students took the test for the first time last spring. Students throughout the North Dakota encountered technology glitches. Some could not log in online to take the test. Servers became overwhelmed with a high number of people trying to access exams at once. As a result, some students were forced to skip portions of the exam or take a paper version. To say some of us in the education committees were disappointed and frustrated would be putting it lightly, said Rep. Mike Nathe, R-Bismarck. Smarter Balanced director Anthony Alpert acknowledged the problems while assuring lawmakers his organization is taking steps to ensure it goes smoothly next time. It was a horribly disappointing experience for many of us, he said. He said North Dakota will administer the test this spring using a different version of software that worked in California last year. Smarter Balanced is evaluating the software that experienced problems and making enhancements, he said. North Dakota could decide to adopt it again down the road. Alpert added that he anticipates scoring to be completed more quickly this year. The Department of Public Instruction released preliminary test results in October, six months after the first students took the assessment. Some school districts, however, did not receive scores until this month because their students did not take all portions of the exam, leading to grading delays. Sen. Nicole Poolman, R-Bismarck, said some of the students in Advanced Placement courses at Century High School had to return to the computers day after day to finish the test because of its adaptive nature. The questions become either increasingly difficult as students provide correct responses or easier if students answer incorrectly. It took well over a week of instructional time away from our kids, said Poolman, who is also an English teacher at Century. Alpert said the adaptive nature of the test should not make it longer. Gifted students, however, may not be accustomed to challenging questions like the ones on the assessment, he said. They probably had to pause a little bit more, take a little more time than what they traditionally might have to do if the questions were easy for them, he said. He also updated lawmakers on other aspects of the test. More than 220 colleges now accept Smarter Balanced scores as a placement tool to determine whether students need to take remedial classes, he said. Fourteen other states are governing members of the Smarter Balanced consortium, meaning they make decisions about the test and administer it at their schools. State Superintendent Kirsten Baesler said she needs to determine by the end of this year which test students will take in 2017. She has convened a task force to give input on the future of standardized testing in North Dakota and expects to receive a final recommendation in June. The state could develop its own test as it did prior to implementing Smarter Balanced. North Dakota also could purchase a test either from Smarter Balanced or another group. Baeslers department also could go for a hybrid of those two options. ACT Aspire If the state opts for a test developed by another group, it could select the ACT Aspire. Leaders of that organization also addressed lawmakers Thursday. What if students could know how they are progressing before they take the ACT? asked Darice Keating, president of the ACT Aspire. She was referring to the college entrance exam taken by all North Dakota high school juniors. The ACT Aspire is a different test administered to students in grades 3-10. She said it was developed to measure a students progress toward being ready for college or a career long before high school. The results help teachers identify areas in which students are struggling early on so they have time to intervene and get kids on track, she said. Students are tested in five areas: English, math, reading, science and writing. When high school freshmen and sophomores take the assessment, they also receive a predicted ACT college entrance exam score. Six states have adopted the ACT Aspire and 3 million students have taken it since April 2014. The assessment is administered online or on paper. Keating said some states choose to have all test takers complete it on computers, whereas others leave it up to school districts to decide. She said servers have the capacity for 300,000 students to take the test during the same hour. Like the Smarter Balanced test, the ACT Aspire is aligned to Common Core standards. Donna Matovinovic, vice president of testing development for ACT Aspire, said the science portion of the test measures how well students grasp the scientific process. She said science teachers throughout the country teach concepts at different grades. Instead of focusing on those topics, the test measures a student's ability to analyze graphs, collect data and generate conclusions. North Dakota students in grades 4, 8 and 11 currently take a standardized science test separate from Smarter Balanced. The ACT Aspire would cost $20 to 23 per student for the online exam, Keating said. A paper version is $7 more per student. Baesler said Smarter Balanced is comparable in price at $24 to $27 per student. She said more than 50,000 North Dakota students take standardized tests in a given year. By Susan Orr of the Courier and Press NEW HARMONY It will be months before shovel hits dirt, but people here are already dreaming of what Midwest Fertilizer's planned Posey County plant will mean for the area. Midwest Fertilizer President and Chief Executive Officer Mike Chorlton was the featured speaker Thursday at the Posey County Economic Development Partnership's annual meeting, held at the New Harmony Inn and Conference Center. About 200 people turned out for the event a much bigger attendance than the 50-60 that the event has drawn in previous years, organizers said. Midwest Fertilizer plans to build on a 226-acre parcel just outside of Mount Vernon, at the corner of Sauerkraut Lane and Mackey Ferry Road. When complete, it will be among the top-five largest nitrogen fertilizer producers in the U.S., Chorlton said. It will sell to U.S. farmers within a 300-400 mile radius of the plant. "It's going to be a heck of a business," Chorlton told the group. The project has been in the works for several years. Midwest Fertilizer passed a major milestone last month when it signed an engineering, procurement and construction contract with thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions USA. Under the terms of that contract, thyssenkrupp will design and build the plant for a fixed price of more than $2 billion. With that contract in place, Chorlton said, project financing can be secured. The primary financial backer is Pakistan-based Fatima Group, but support will also come from other multinational equity partners as well as federal bonds and some term debt. Financing should be secured by mid-year, Chorlton said, with a ceremonial groundbreaking and actual construction to start shortly after that. Construction will take 45 months, putting the projected start of operations in the spring of 2020. The plant will employ about 200 permanent workers once it's up and running. Hiring for those plant jobs won't begin until 2018. Midwest also still needs to complete a number of other tasks: finalize a borrowing agreement for the federal bonds, sign a marketing agreement for its fertilizer and hire additional members of its senior management team, among other things. "There's a lot more to developing a business than just building a plant," Chorlton said. "We've got a lot done, and a lot to do." John Taylor, executive director of the Posey County Economic Development Partnership, said the projected 10-year economic impact of the project will be $30 billion. That includes everything from local contractors who help build the plant, to local suppliers, to local retailers. "That affects everybody," Taylor said. "There are lots and lots of people in this room who are going to make a lot of money because this company is coming to Southwestern Indiana." Several attendees said they too are optimistic about what the plant can do for the area. "I think it's a thing to celebrate. It's an opportunity for us," said Tom Kopatich, the superintendent of the Metropolitan School District of Mount Vernon. Economic development can spur population growth, Kopatich said, and that can lead to increased school enrollment. And since a district's funding is tied to enrollment figures, growth is a good thing. Brad Ellsworth, president of Vectren South, said the Midwest Fertilizer project should be a positive for Vectren, too. The fertilizer plant won't be a Vectren natural gas customer it plans to get its natural gas from another source but it will be an electrical customer, Ellsworth said. And if the plant draws employees from outside the region, they'll be Vectren customers as well. "Usually, what's good for our communities is good for our business," Ellsworth said. A decision issued this month by the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago has shot a couple of holes in Indiana's ban on texting while driving. The decision is captioned "USA vs Gregorio Paniagua-Garcia" and was issued on the defendant's appeal through the U.S. District Court's Terre Haute Division. For the purposes of this story, the defendant will be referred to as Garcia. The case centers on an Interstate traffic stop made by an Indiana police officer. In the course of passing Garcia's vehicle, the officer saw that "the driver was holding a cellphone in his right hand, that his head was bent toward the phone, and that he appeared to be texting." Garcia denied he was texting, telling the officer he was just searching for music on his cellphone. In fact, an examination of Garcia's phone confirmed it had not been used to send a text message at the time the officer saw him fussing with his cellphone. Well, the officer questioned the driver at length, eventually gaining permission to search the suspect's car. In the spare tire of Garcia's vehicle, the officer found five pounds of heroin. Garcia pleaded guilty to possession of heroin intending to distribute it and drew a three year prison sentence. He also reserved the right to appeal the denial of his motion to suppress the evidence of the heroin, arguing it had been discovered by an illegal stop, amounting to a seizure of his person. In reviewing the case, the 7th Circuit Justices decided the government failed to establish that the police officer had probable cause or a reasonable suspicion that Garcia was violating Indiana's no-texting law."The officer hadn't seen any texting," the Justices wrote. "What he had seen was consistent with any one of a number of lawful uses of cellphones. [The government] is reduced to arguing that a mere possibility of unlawful use is enough to create a reasonable suspicion of a criminal act." The Justices wrote that if you buy that argument, police could search a random pedestrian for guns or narcotics. "For it would always be possible that the pedestrian was a bank robber, a hired killer on the loose, a drug lord or a drug addict, or a pedophile with child pornography on his thumb drive," the Justices wrote. Indiana is right to be worried about the dangers created by motorists fiddling with their cellphones while driving. Perhaps legislators should have pattered the law after their neighbors in Illinois who passed a "hands free" law which forbids drivers from using a cellphone with their hands for ANY use. A 2013 survey showed that Indiana police wrote only 186 tickets for violations of the state's anti-texting law. On the other hand, Illinois police wrote 6,700 citations for violations of the hands-free law. In the end, Mr. Garcia won a reversal of his drug possession conviction. At least in Indiana, fiddling with your phone is not always evidence of texting while driving. At least the cops were able to take five pounds of heroin off the streets. SHARE Dear Jerry: I rarely deal in foreign records, but I found one I think might have some value. It is a 1970 Swedish single (Polar POS-1096) by Bjorn & Benny, pre-ABBA, with "She's My Kind of Girl" and "Inga Theme." The picture sleeve and both labels have "Fran filmen Inga II," so these songs must have been intended for a Swedish film. Since Bjorn & Benny made this four years before ABBA's first hit, it should be a coveted item by their fans. Chad Selbert, St. Cloud, Minnesota Dear Chad: You are right about the timeline. Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson recorded these tracks two years before team BB discovered and teamed up with team AA (Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad), a quartet soon to be known as ABBA. Unlike the famous French emperor's final battle, their "Waterloo" (1974) was a godsend, and the first of several hundred million ABBA records that would be sold worldwide. "She's My Kind of Girl" is a delightful vocal, a bit reminiscent of some songs by Gary Lewis and the Playboys. "Inga Theme" is mostly instrumental. Both tunes are heard in "Inga II," a sequel to "Seduction of Inga," a 1968 film about a nymphet in the "Lolita" mold, only Swedish. The Polar record, with original picture sleeve, has been selling in the $150 to $200 range, so you've definitely got one of the most desirable ABBA collectibles. Dear Jerry: Last month on a radio tribute for the 52nd anniversary of the American debut of "I Want to Hold Your Hand," they mentioned that one of its many honors was being the No. 1 song of 1964 on all of the charts. I doubt that is entirely true, but it raises this question: how many radio station charts did NOT have "I Want to Hold Your Hand" as the year's biggest hit? - Bernice Slater, Warwick, Rhode Island Dear Bernice: My estimate, an extrapolation of 70 regional year-end charts for 1964, indicates that 90 percent of North American Top 40 stations put "I Want to Hold Your Hand" at No. 1. Interestingly, one station (WICE) in the 10 percent group is right there in Little Rhody. Though rare, here are seven surveys where the No. 1 record of 1964 is something other than "I Want to Hold Your Hand." At times, we find it is blocked by one or more other Beatles tunes: CJCA (Edmonton, Alberta) 1. "All My Lovin'" (Beatles) 2. "Twist and Shout" (Beatles) 3. "She Loves You" (Beatles) 4. "Oh, Pretty Woman" (Roy Orbison) 5. "A Hard Day's Night" (Beatles) 6. "Last Kiss" (J. Frank Wilson) 7. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (Beatles) WICE (Providence, Rhode Island) 1. "She Loves You" (Beatles) 2. "Everybody Loves Somebody" (Dean Martin) 3. "I Get Around" (Beach Boys) 4. "A Hard Day's Night" (Beatles) 5. "Rag Doll" (4 Seasons) 6. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (Beatles) WDRC (Hartford, Connecticut) 1. "Oh, Pretty Woman" (Roy Orbison) 2. "Hello, Dolly!" (Louis Armstrong) 3. "She Loves You" (Beatles) 4. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (Beatles) KXOA (Sacramento, California) 1. "Oh, Pretty Woman" (Roy Orbison) 2. "I Get Around" (Beach Boys) 3. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (Beatles) WKIX (Raleigh, North Carolina) 1. "Hello, Dolly!" (Louis Armstrong) 2. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (Beatles) CFUN (Vancouver, B.C.) 1. "She Loves You" (Beatles) 2. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (Beatles) CHUM (Toronto, Ontario) 1. "She Loves You" (Beatles) 2. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (Beatles) On the national level, the Billboard and Cash Box 1964 year-end Top 10 are identical for the first five positions: 1. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (Beatles) 2. "She Loves You" (Beatles) 3. "Hello, Dolly!" (Louis Armstrong) 4. "Oh, Pretty Woman" (Roy Orbison) 5. "I Get Around" (Beach Boys) But when it comes to the next five tunes, they are, with one exception (No. 7), noticeably different. Billboard 6-10: 6. "Everybody Loves Somebody" (Dean Martin) 7. "My Guy" (Mary Wells) 8. "We'll Sing in the Sunshine" (Gale Garnett) 9. "Last Kiss" (J. Frank Wilson) 10 "Where Did Our Love Go" (Supremes) Cash Box 6-10: 6. "Louie Louie" (Kingsmen) 7. "My Guy" (Mary Wells) 8. "Glad All Over" (Dave Clark Five) 9. "Everybody Loves Somebody" (Dean Martin) 10. "Dominique" (The Singing Nun) IZ ZAT SO? Of the 13 songs making up the above two Top 10 lists, all but "Glad All Over" were No. 1 hits at some time during 1964. The Dave Clark Five's debut hit peaked at No. 5 on Billboard, and No. 6 on Cash Box. Also noteworthy, the Beatles held nine slots on the Billboard year-end 100: 1. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" 2. "She Loves You" 13. "A Hard Day's Night" 14. "Love Me Do" 16. "Please Please Me" 40. "Twist and Shout" 52. "Can't Buy Me Love" 55. "Do You Want to Know a Secret" 95. "I Saw Her Standing There" Jerry Osborne answers as many questions as possible through this column. Write Jerry at Box 255, Port Townsend, WA 98368, email jpo@olympus.net or visit his website jerryosborne.com. All values quoted in this column are for near-mint condition. A boil water order has been issued for New Leipzig through at least Sunday after a broken fire hydrant water line may have been contaminated with untreated groundwater. The American Red Cross West Dakota Chapter will deliver 148 cases of 20-ounce bottles of water to New Leipzig City Hall, said Brian Shawn, regional communications director for the nonprofit. Elroy Hochhalter, city maintenance supervisor, who has been working with the state Health Department and Grant County Emergency Management Office, said a leak was detected at a city fire hydrant water main as the city's water tower was being repaired. While hired crews worked to make repairs from 8 a.m. Wednesday until 1:30 a.m. Thursday, the fire hydrant still was leaking Thursday morning. City officials found crews had to dig much deeper to make repairs, said Kelly Roth, president of the New Leipzig City Council. She added that the high groundwater had inundated the fire hydrant leak. Repairs were completed about 2 p.m. Thursday, but city officials suspect the high groundwater tables may have mixed with drinking water. "The boil order will still be through the weekend," Hochhalter said. "We're up and running, but we want to be safe," Roth said. By Zach Evans of the Courier and Press Authorities issued a warrant Tuesday for a Tennessee man police say shot and killed an Evansville man on Saturday. The suspect, Gerrod D. Pointer Jr., 26, of Clarksville, Tennessee, is still at-large, according to police. The Courier & Press on Thursday exclusively obtained the probable cause affidavit filed against Pointer. According to police, Pointer shot Maurice U. Heyward early Saturday morning outside the Lucky Lady Lounge, 523 N. Main St. Heyward, 38, died at the hospital shortly afterward. According to the affidavit, a relative of Pointer's identified him from surveillance footage outside the club. The man identified as Pointer can be seen entering the night club and leaving 20 minutes later early Saturday morning. Heyward was seen on surveillance footage entering the night club "minutes" before Pointer left the club early Saturday morning. An hour later, the man believed to be Pointer is seen on footage returning to the club's parking lot and standing near a dumpster, according to police. After Heyward left the club and was standing in the parking lot, the man believed by police to be Pointer "walks out, points a gun at him (Heyward) and opens fire," according to the affidavit. Heyward was shot once in the upper torso. A memorial service for Heyward took place at Memorial Baptist Church Wednesday evening. According to his obituary listed in The Island Packet, a South Carolina newspaper, Heyward was originally from Hardeeville, South Carolina. Funeral services are scheduled in Ridgeland, South Carolina on Saturday morning. Police are actively searching for Pointer. Anyone with information on the suspect is asked to call 911. Tips can also be called into WeTip hotline at 1-800-78-CRIME or directly to Evansville police investigators at 812-436-7979. The Vanderburgh County Prosecutor's Office announced later Saturday that a $1,000 reward is being offered through WeTip for information that leads to the conviction of the suspect. Pointer's address is listed in Clarksville, Tennessee. According to the Clarksville Leaf Chronicle, Pointer allegedly fled police twice in July 2014 following a reported domestic disturbance. According to Montgomery County, Tennessee court records, Pointer pleaded guilty to evading arrest in October 2014 after being originally charged with aggravated assault and criminal impersonation. When he was arrested in July 2014, Tennessee authorities found Pointer had warrants for his arrest in Kansas. According to Geary County, Kansas, court records, Pointer faced various drug charges in 2011. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation, but later had his probation revoked twice once in 2013 and again in June 2014. After extradition from Tennessee to Kansas, Pointer was sentenced to serve in the Kansas Department of Corrections in December 2014. According to prison records, Pointer was released from the Kansas Department of Corrections in April 2015. SHARE Rachel Covington By Thomas B. Langhorne of the Courier and Press A key supporter of 8th District congressman Larry Bucshon is contesting a 23-year-old woman's legal right to challenge his re-election bid this year. Josh Claybourn's challenge to the candidacy of Republican Rachel Covington is among several items that will be heard Friday in a meeting of the Indiana Election Commission in Indianapolis. Claybourn alleges that Covington a former Vanderburgh County resident currently studying in Tokyo, Japan does not meet the U.S. Constitution's age requirement for House candidates. Claybourn cites Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution, which states: "No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen." He cites Covington's birthday as March 28, 1992, a date she confirmed. That would make her 24 next month, and 25 in March 2017 two months after newly elected U.S. House members are sworn in. "My interest is in making sure whoever on the ballot in the (GOP) primary is someone who could actually go on to serve and truly be elected," said Claybourn, who acknowledges he was one of the first Republicans to talk to Bucshon about running for Congress the year before his election in 2010. If a challenge is not filed now, Claybourn said, Covington could defeat Bucshon and Dr. Richard Moss in the May 3 GOP primary and be successfully challenged later before the November general election or after. That would have the effect of wasting votes and taxpayer money, he said. "I think voters want a candidate that can be on the ballot and can be sworn in from Day 1, to represent the (8th) district. If that's her, great. If not, I think we should find that out now rather than later," Claybourn said. Speaking by Skype phone from Tokyo, Covington said she has been a full-time student at Temple University Japan since 2014. She said she lived in Vanderburgh County's German Township and in Evansville before that, but she conceded she does not have a residence in the 8th District now which is not required by the Constitution. The point of contention in Friday's hearing may be how strictly the Constitution's age requirement is enforced. Claybourn is an attorney who also represents the Evansville City Council and the town of Chandler. He argues that Indiana state law Ind. Code 3-8-1-8 "explicitly requires that a candidate meet the qualifications provided in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution." Covington says the Constitution provides the House itself with the authority to determine whether members-elect are qualified to be seated. She cites the case of William Charles Cole Claiborne of Tennessee, the youngest person ever elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Claiborne was elected in 1797, at the age of 22. He won election to a new two-year term at age 24, and House members chose to seat him in both instances. "I have legal precedent, so I think I can be successful," said Covington, who called her political views a mix of libertarianism and utilitarianism. Claybourn said he has no fear that Covington, who plans to campaign online from Tokyo, will defeat Bucshon. "I think (Bucshon) will be a shoo-in," he said. Bucshon said he has nothing to do with the challenge to Covington's eligibility. "I'm focused on doing my job," the third-term congressman said. Covington likely is the youngest person in the country seeking election to the U.S. House of Representatives this year. Twenty-five-year-old Lindy Li is running for a House seat in Pennsylvania as a Democrat. Li will be 26 when November's general election takes place. The youngest woman in the U.S. House is Rep. Elise Stefanik R-N.Y., who was 30 when she was elected in 2014. The 8th District has often attracted colorful congressional candidates including 89-year-old John K. Snyder in 2010. Snyder, a resident of Washington, Indiana, was one of seven candidates defeated by Bucshon in that year's Republican primary. Set to turn 90 the month before he would have been sworn in, Snyder was the oldest House candidate in the country. He traced his political involvement to childhood, when Calvin Coolidge was in the White House. Photos by DENNY SIMMONS / COURIER & PRESS Lewis Cline of Oakland City visits with Tropicana Evansville workers (from left) Sherri Musgrave, Rhonda Simmons and Stephanie Middleton at the 2016 Evansville Job Fair at the C.K. Newsome Center Thursday afternoon. The U.S. Army veteran was just laid-off from his job at Flanders. SHARE Elexica McAlister, a human resource specialist with Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Indiana, greets a curious job seeker. DENNY SIMMONS / COURIER & PRESS Employers from the Tri-State Area greet job seekers at the 2016 Evansville Job Fair at the C.K. Newsome Center Thursday afternoon. DENNY SIMMONS / COURIER & PRESS Lisa Garrett, director of human resources for Big Rivers Electric Corporation (left) answers questions from Robert Johnson of Henderson, Ky., at the 2016 Evansville Job Fair at the C.K. Newsome Center Thursday afternoon. The event was hosted by WorkOne Southwest Indiana, the City of Evansville, the Southwest Indiana Chamber of Commerce and Congressman Larry Bucshon. By John Martin of the Courier and Press Despite low local unemployment rates 4 percent for January in Vanderburgh County and a tick under that in Warrick, Gibson and Posey counties a job fair Thursday in Downtown Evansville was still hopping. The event was the fifth of its kind in Evansville and 17th in the Eighth Congressional District since Rep. Larry Bucshon took office in 2011. Seventy-six local employers took part in Thursday's fair, which Bucshon sponsored along with the City of Evansville, Work One and the Southwest Indiana Chamber. Participating employers had almost 2,400 openings. "I'm hoping there will be a lot of good matches made today," Bucshon said in welcoming the employers and job-seekers to the C.K. Newsome Center. That's what Donald Hill, of Evansville, hoped for as well. He came to the fair seeking fabrication or warehouse work, and he said in his field, "It stinks right now. There's not a lot of people hiring." But after navigating the maze of tables at the job fair, Hill said he "got a few leads." Hill is a Navy veteran, having served from 1982-86. The first hour of Bucshon's job fair was open only to veterans. Veterans, said Pepper Mulherin, director of external affairs for AT&T Indiana, seem to always make good impressions. "They turn out more than the general public," Mulherin said. "Plus they are prepared, serious, have resumes available. They come prepared for a job interview." Job fairs are important even in positive economic climates, because many people are under-employed if not unemployed, Mayor Lloyd Winnecke said in remarks to the crowd. He noted the thousands of local jobs that are unfilled. Bucshon said he visited FedEx in Indianapolis recently "and they said they could take 300 (new hires) tomorrow." Job fairs are events of which the public needs to be informed, said Leonard Collins, president of the Goosetown Neighborhood Association. Collins said he knows numerous residents of the city who need jobs or better jobs, but were unaware of the job fair. "Opportunity is not opportunity if you don't know about it." What's going on with the real estate market in Evansville? How did Vanderburgh County's housing market do in July? The median price for a house in 2022 was lower than 2021. Laura Dore is one of the most sought after video vixens in the world.And with a body like this,i dont think anyone should find it dif... Of all the surprises, of all the unexpected ironies, of all the unanticipated turns in the Republican presidential race, it's possible that Donald Trump has been hurt by telling the truth. Trump himself must be reeling from such a development and has probably by now vowed to return to lying and bluster seasoned with personal insult "You're a loser" but the fact remains that when he called the war in Iraq "a big fat mistake," he was exactly right. Jeb Bush, the very good brother of a very bad president, has now turned legitimate criticism of George W. Bush into an attack on his family. His family survived the war. Countless others did not. Jeb Bush's problem is that he has the record and the demeanor of someone who would have opposed his older brother's invasion of Iraq. In this, he would have been no different than many other moderate Republicans former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft for instance who feared we would be creating a civil war that would rip Iraq apart and entrap us for years to come. As it happened, they were right. Trump's problem is that he is not, in his downtime, a member of various right-wing coffee klatches where the sagacity and downright brilliance of the Iraq War are undisputed. It goes like this: Saddam Hussein is gone, his threat has been vaporized and his weapons of mass destruction, which by now he would have developed and perfected, are no longer an issue. In fact, long after Saddam was executed, I heard the late Christopher Hitchens tell members of a conservative luncheon society that Saddam's WMD did indeed exist and would he assured them with a nod be found. They were buried somewhere. Over the years, the Republican Party has been a vast incubator of foreign policy conspiracy theories. A current one has to do with Benghazi, Libya, where the Obama administration, for reasons no doubt having to do with its intrinsic evil, allowed Americans to die when, with very little effort, they could have been saved. Hillary Clinton, then the secretary of state, lied to the next of kin about why their loved ones had died a local, spur-of-the-moment uprising instead of the terrorist attack it most certainly was. The theory ignores the muddle of the time. It is also insane. Once, large parts of the GOP believed that a cadre of leftist and yes homosexuals had somehow enabled the communists to win the Chinese civil war. The charge of "Who lost China?" rang out from the halls of Congress and was supported even by Republicans who knew better. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles permitted this, allowing his department to be purged and careers ruined. A grateful nation named an airport for him. Now we see an attempt at revision concerning the Iraq War. Trump, though, has it mostly right. It was a debacle and it forever will remain so. It was unwise to invade, unwise to eliminate the Baath Party, unwise to eviscerate the Iraqi army and not realistic to think anything could be done on the cheap. Where Trump goes wrong is the implication that President Bush himself lied about what intelligence he had at the time. Others are more culpable. Vice President Dick Cheney surely exaggerated and manipulated the threat, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice got carried away in her "mushroom cloud" description of Saddam's nuclear potential. Saddam by then didn't have a nuclear weapons program. As for Bush, he didn't have a clue. In the current campaign, with the occasional exception of John Kasich, Jeb Bush has been the only adult in the room. His answers have usually been prudent and often complicated by facts that do not lend themselves to the bumper-car format of televised debate. Possibly his finest moment occurred when he reacted with evident disgust after Trump, doing a spot-on imitation of Vlad the Impaler, enthusiastically endorsed waterboarding and "a hell of a lot worse." Bush simply said he would not bring back waterboarding. He seemed appalled. On Saturday, Trump started to come apart in the South Carolina debate. The truth is that he was once pro-choice and he did contribute to Democrats but he came to find the GOP more hospitable to his growing intolerance and moved right. On those issues, he has now fudged and blustered and denied the undeniable. But on Iraq, Donald Trump has stood firm. He called the war a mistake. He may not understand. In his new political party, (BEG ITAL)that's(END ITAL) a mistake. (Richard Cohen writes for the Washington Post. His syndicated column appears Fridays.) "Nice going, Hans. Now you've pissed off the mountain." Continue Reading Below Advertisement The Fatal Flaw: The fort could be taken out with just a handful of troops, assuming they could arrive there alive. Which might have been OK, since the whole design should be based on keeping that from happening. But it also turned out that the fort was unintentionally designed to roll out the red carpet for troop-carrying gliders. And we're not talking some fancy, heavily armed wunderwaffe of a glider; no, we mean the unarmed, "prone to flying apart in a whimsical puff of sticks and fabric if you look at 'em funny" type. Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-567-1519-18 / Stocker / CC-BY-SA 3.0 Continue Reading Below Advertisement Seconds before direct sunlight caused it to burst into flames. So in the wee hours of May 10, 1940, 11 German Ju 52 planes hauled eleven DFS 230 gliders stuffed with a massive invasion force of 74 paratroopers into the air and flung them toward Eben-Emael like history's deadliest paper airplanes. While the earthen roof of the fort rendered it relatively bomb-proof, it also made for a perfectly cushy landing surface for the gliders, which eschewed wheels in favor of nose skids wrapped in barbed wire to land in a space as short as 20 yards, which is the aircraft equivalent of stopping on a dime. Once down, taking out the invincible fortress was comically easy: The invaders spilled from the gliders and used hollow charges to funnel devastating explosions down into the base like little reverse volcanoes. The Florida House of Representative has passed thefix bill, HB 7101, by a vote of 93-20. To fix the immediate problem, the bill would require the jury in a capital case to find at least one aggravating circumstance unanimously for the case to be death-eligible. The bill goes on to require at least a 10-2 vote for the defendant to actually be sentenced to death.The Senate bill is a single-juror veto bill, misrepresented as a jury unanimity bill. Press reports indicate that the 10-2 vote, up from 9-3 in the earlier House bill and up from simple majority under current law, is an agreed-upon compromise between the houses. Steve Bousquet had this story in the Tampa Bay Times yesterday.See also my prior post A Telstra executive has said its IT services unit is still in the growth phase, even after it raked in $1.3 billion of revenue in the latest half-year. The Network Applications & Services unit of Telstra is on track for a $2.7 billion financial year, with single-digit growth expected for the second half. The $1.3 billion mark for the half ending 31 December represented 32.7 percent sales growth compared to the first half of the 2015 financial year. NAS is still in the growth phase, chief financial officer Warwick Bray said. We are continuing to build momentum in terms of enhancing scale and capability and evolving the business mix for profitable growth. NAS revenue has achieved more than 20 percent growth for five of the last seven halves, and now has annualised revenues of around $2.5 billion. Cloud, Integrated Services and Industry Solutions business lines were massive contributors to NAS half-year result. Cloud revenue grew by 50.8 percent due to infrastructure and data services, software-as-a-service and professional services, Bray said. As an example, we are working with a large supermarket to implement a world class hybrid cloud solution to deliver to our customer; speed to market, cost reductions and the ability to consume cloud services on demand. During 2015, Telstra joined forces with AWS, VMWare, Cisco and IBM to put together the countrys biggest cloud network. Industry Solutions grew 44.2 percent in revenue mainly thanks to increased NBN commercial works and wireless network deployments, while Integrated Services sales was up 66 percent due to the achievement of transition and transformation milestones on major accounts, and growth from annuity managed services. Bray boasted of vendor recognition for Telstras IT solutions arm. We have been recognised externally with a number of industry awards for service excellence and innovation. These include Cisco APJ Collaboration Partner of the Year and Data Centre Dynamics Asia-Pacific Data Centre Transformation of the Year. The top bean counter also noted that, in the unified comms area, vanilla solutions were increasingly popular, allowing the telco to cut costs. Across managed network services and unified communications, our enterprise customers are continuing to adopt standardised offerings to a much higher degree. This improves our speed of implementation and lowers our unit costs - and provides improved quality and reliability for our customers. Overall the giant Australian telco slightly increased its net profit to $2.1 billion for the half-year, delivering an interim dividend of 15.5 cents per share. Telstra shares were at $5.40 as of 12pm Wednesday - 2 cents down from Tuesday. Telstra was recognised last year as a CRN MVP for its diversity in gold-level vendor relationships as a solutions provider. Big Changes For Big Blue Marc Dupaquier, IBM's general manager of global business partners, hosted thousands of solution providers at this week's PartnerWorld Leadership Conference in Orlando, Fla., including 600 new channel partners who attended the conference for the first time. The conference in some ways was the coming out party to IBM's channel for Big Blue's portfolio of cognitive solutions -- built on the Watson platform -- which have been driving one of the largest product transformations in the company's history. Over the past two years, IBM partners have heeded the company's call to transform their practices in line with IBM's strategy, yet many partners had yet to see business growth. But that's about to change, Dupaquier said. With the advent of the era of cognitive computing and the maturation of IBM's Watson platform, their time has come, he told partners, before presenting them with the outline of a revamped PartnerWorld program. Here are assorted comments from Dupaquier compiled from his PartnerWorld Leadership Conference keynotes, a press conference and an interview with CRN. It almost seems too easy how state agencies complied with Gov. Jack Dalrymples mandate for nearly $245 million in budget cuts. The deadline was Wednesday for the plans and there was no public squawking from officials. We shouldnt kid ourselves, it wasnt easy for the agencies to make some of the decisions. Some projects will be delayed; some jobs wont be filled, meaning more work for others on staff; some programs wont get as much funding; and overall agencies will have to make do with less. There are no layoffs involved in the budget cuts. The cuts are likely the first step in an ongoing process prompted by an expected $1 billion revenue shortfall caused by a large extent by low oil prices. Oil, when production and prices were soaring, allowed the Legislature to be generous and fund many programs. Thats why it was easy to make some cuts. Some good programs will get trimmed, but when they were funded they had benefited from the oil boom. The cuts will impact the public, though the reductions might not be readily noticed. The North Dakota Parks and Recreation Department is canceling a $1 million construction project at Bay Point peninsula at Lake Sakakawea State Park that included additional camping and services for this season. More camping sites would be great, but you dont miss what you didnt have. The university system cut more than $1 million from Student Financial Assistance Grants. The reductions wont alter awards to students this biennium because, based on current use of the grant program, the system anticipates unspent dollars when the two-year budget cycle ends. Those dollars would be carried forward to the next biennium for the same purpose, and the cuts will reduce that carryover. This is a delayed impact on the public. There are numerous other ways that agencies found to save money and it will take time for some to become apparent. If the revenue picture doesnt improve, meaning oil prices remain in a slump, the tougher cuts will fall on the 2017 Legislature. Its a good thing if the state can get through this round of cuts without any major layoffs. The employees, along with the vital work they do, help drive our economy. The employees are the ones tasked with finding savings and efficiencies. With the easy part done the state must plan for tougher times and hope for an oil patch rebound. North Dakotans have endured more difficult times than this and we should be in position to deal with the upcoming challenges. Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, Sir, we wish to see Jesus (John 12:20-21) You never know whos going to show up for a party. In this case, some Greeks showed up in Jerusalem for the Passover Feast. In our day, that would mean men from Greece, and it could mean that in this case. But in New Testament times, the term Greeks covered all the non-Jews, i.e. the Gentiles. So these arent Greek Jews who came for the big event. They are Gentiles from who knows where who have come to Jerusalem to join in the worship. That probably puts them in the category of Gentiles who became Jewish converts or perhaps they were God-fearers (like Cornelius in Acts 10) who offered prayers to God and showed kindness to the poor. Why did they want to see Jesus? No doubt they were fully aware of the ruckus Jesus created when he cleansed the temple. We know the whole city was talking about him. If Twitter had existed back then, #WhoisJesus would have been a trending hashtag. Who was this man who could walk on water, heal the sick, and raise the dead? The Greeks couldnt be sure how Jesus would receive them. Thats why they approached Philip who told Andrew and together they told Jesus. We dont know if Jesus ever met the Greeks in person because they arent mentioned again. But Jesus uses the occasion to announce that the time of his death has come. Then he illustrates what must happen. As a seed must die in the ground in order to bring forth much fruit, so Jesus must die so that many will believe in him. He adds a fascinating prediction in verse 32, I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. He is thinking of his coming death on the cross. Certainly these unnamed Greeks were included in the all people. Even before the cross we see the magnetic power of Christ. German Theologian Rudolf Stier explained the significance of these Greeks coming to Jesus: These men from the west represent, at the end of Christs life, what the wise men from the east represented at its beginning; but those come to the cross of the King, even as these to His manger You never know when Magi will show up in Bethlehem looking for the King of the Jews, and you never know when Greeks will show up in Jerusalem looking for Jesus. This should give us hope for our friends and loved ones. We cant know what other people are thinking. If we could see the hearts of our loved ones, we would discover that the Holy Spirit is at work even though today they seem so far from Jesus. Dont despair. Dont stop praying. One final note. Many years ago I listened to Dr. Lee Roberson preach the gospel at Highland Park Baptist Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee. On the pulpit, just above where he placed his Bible and notes, there was a little plaque that said, Sir, We would see Jesus. He put it there to remind himself (and anyone else who might preach there) of the preachers sacred obligation to magnify Christ in all things. There are hungry hearts everywhere. You never know when someone will show up looking for Jesus. Make sure you know how to help them find him. Lord Jesus, thank you for opening the door of heaven to anyone who believes in you. Give me faith to keep praying for my friends who do not yet know you. Amen. WASHINGTON Several Native American tribes in Minnesota and the Dakotas have been granted millions of federal government dollars for affordable housing projects. In all, a total of more than $65 million was allocated to 22 tribes in the three states by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In North Dakota, three tribes received more than $5 million each, while four tribes in Minnesota were allocated more than $3 million apiece. South Dakota has three tribes with more than $5 million each in assistance, including $12 million to the Oglala Lakota Sioux Tribe. The funds, part of the Indian Housing Block Grant, are intended to benefit low-income families living on Indian reservations or in other American Indian and Alaska Native communities, according to a press release. Each grant amount is based on a formula that considers local needs and housing units under management by the tribe or designated entity. The Housing and Urban Development's proposed 2017 budget seeks $700 million for the housing grants, which is $50 million above the 2016 level, according to the release. Funds granted to the tribes were: Minnesota Leech Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, $4 million Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, $3.8 million Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior, $3.6 million White Earth Band of Chippewa Indians, $3.1 million Mille Lacs Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, $1.6 million Bois Forte Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, $1 million Grand Portage Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, $361,000 Upper Sioux Community, $269,000 Lower Sioux Indians Community in the State of Minnesota, $191,000 Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Comm. of Minnesota, $87,000 North Dakota Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, $7.5 million Standing Rock Sioux, $5.2 million Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold, $5.1 million Spirit Lake Sioux Tribe, $2.6 million South Dakota Oglala Lakota Sioux Tribe, $12 million Rosebud Sioux Tribe, $8 million Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, $5.5 million Sisseton Wahpeton Sioux Tribe, $3.6 million Yankton Sioux Tribe, $2.2 million Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, $1.8 million Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, $1.3 million Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe, $340,000 A complete list of grant recipients can be found at http://1.usa.gov/1SUWCUI. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate A Los Angeles home known as the porn magnate's house in the 1998 Coen brothers film "The Big Lebowski" has been donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The structure was designed by the venerable John Lautner, famous for working alongside Frank Lloyd Wright and for designing Bob Hope's Palm Springs home in 1973. According to the LA Times, the current owner, James F. Goldstein, bought this Beverly Hills property for just $185,000 in 1972. RELATED: Actor Jeff Bridges lists his California home at $29.5M Goldstein has agreed to donate the famous residence, along with four additional acres that he later purchased, to the museum with a $17 million endowment for maintenance. LACMA director Michael Govan told the Time that he saw this as a significant Los Angeles property. "For me it ranks as one of the most important houses in all of L.A.," Govan said. "And as one of the most L.A. houses, because of its connection to the view, that long view toward the ocean." The panoramas can be admired from the inside of this triangular concrete structure, with its walls of uninterrupted glass, which continue to other sides of the newly donated home. SEE ALSO: The last home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright hits the market at $3.6M A bonus to this sizable gift? There's a James Turrell art piece tucked into the hill below the house. It was added in 2005 and is entitled "Above Horizon." Turrell is famous in Houston for "Twilight Epiphany" Skyspace. In total, this donation is estimated to be about $40 million. Homeowner Goldstein called that figure conservative. Wonder what Jackie Treehorn would make of such a gift. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Connecticut is continuing to make massive strides in combatting homelessness among local veterans, according to Governor Dannel Malloy. Gov. Malloy announced Thursday that Connecticut has effectively eliminated homelessness among the states veteran population, due in part to the structures and services available to homeless veterans throughout the state. While the it's certainly possible for veterans to fall in homelessness in the state still, the governor said that programs offered by the state and continual outreach to local veterans have played an important part in eliminating homelessness among veterans in Connecticut. "We're proud to have achieved this ambitious goal," Gov. Malloy said. "I am incredibly proud of our federal and state agencies, our nonprofits, and our community providers on the frontlines. But we will not stop here we will keep working to end chronic homelessness in Connecticut by the end of this year." In a letter from First Lady Michelle Obama, the first lady congratulated Malloy and the state on the accomplishment. "As we discussed at the President's State of the Union Address, I want to thank you and the people of Connecticut for your determined efforts on behalf of our military families," Mrs. Obama said. "I am so proud of your state's commitment and resolve to reach this milestone, and I am grateful for all you have done for America's heroes." Thursday's recognition was awarded to Connecticut after review by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. Connecticut became the first state in the nation certified by the group as having eliminated chronic homelessness among veterans. "Chronic homelessness" is defined as an someone with a disability who has been homeless for at least one year or has lived three or more periods of homelessness that add up to at least one year. Today's announcement means the state has effectively eliminated homelessness among all veterans. Gov. Malloy has also touted Connecticut becoming one of the first states to join a national initiative in 2014 that worked to help communities across the country end veteran homelessness by the end of 2015. Above we've compiled a state-to-state comparison of veteran homelessness. Click through the slideshow to see where Connecticut ranks among the rest of the country. When was the last time you received anything besides a bill, coupon or catalog in your mailbox? Thanks to the Internet, social media and a variety of apps, nowadays theres little need to use the U.S. Postal Service to communicate. That said, theres a special quality to receiving a physical letter from a friend that a digital note just cant replicate. Related: Get a Tesla Model S for Only $499 Wanting their young daughter to experience the joy of snail mail, toy designers Alysia Finger and Albert Niko Triulzi were inspired to build Turtle Mail, a colorful, Wi-Fi-connected wooden mailbox that prints messages and photos via an internal thermal printer, no ink cartridges required. To send their kids messages, parents can use the toys accompanying mobile or desktop app and schedule when the messages are sent to print. Turtle Mail is now available for pre-order, with the product expected to ship in December. The toy is the first product from AE Dreams, which the couple launched in 2014. According to Wired, Finger first conceived of the project in 2013 during her senior year at Carnegie Mellon University, after talking with more than 100 parents, caregivers and children to get a better understanding of what was missing from the toy space. Related: All-Doll Ticket: Barbie Becomes Vice President Finger found most parents were wary of too much screen time. They were all very reluctant to add another screen-time activity to their childrens day, and many expressed how hard it was to get their kids off of computers and tablets, she told Wired. In addition to the mailbox itself, AE Dreams makes printable content such as games, puzzles, mazes and messages from characters like the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. And because the app allows parents to set up additional profiles, kids can receive messages from their favorite toys or even the family pet. Related: This Industry Just Had an Incredible Year Related: These Toymakers Want to Show Kids the Fun of Snail Mail Help Leo DiCaprio Win an Oscar by Mashing Your Keyboard All-Doll Ticket: Barbie Becomes Vice President Copyright 2016 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved What is the issue about? In December, 14 people were killed and 22 were seriously injured in a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California. The two terrorists, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, were later killed in a shootout with police. Law enforcement recovered Farooks iPhone 5c, which they believe may contain information relevant to the terror investigation. Farooks iPhone is protected by a passcode set to wipe the contents of the smartphone after 10 attempts to log in with the wrong code. A federal court in California has ordered Apple to provide reasonable technical assistance by either creating a special version of the operating system thats currently on Farooks phone, in order to disable the 10-try maximum and allow a computer to connect to the phone and guess every possible passcode, or to provide an alternative means of accessing the phone. The Obama administration defended the Justice Departments request Wednesday, vowing that the government would solely use the new program on Farooks phone. Apple is currently refusing to comply with the request. Apple CEO Tim Cook issued a statement, A Message To Our Customers, in which he says, The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers. We oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand. What is the case against complying with the order? Opponents of the order fear that it gives the government power over the smartphones encryption technology by building a backdoor to the iPhone. As Tim Cook claims, The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control. Some would argue that building a backdoor for just one iPhone is a simple, clean-cut solution. But it ignores both the basics of digital security and the significance of what the government is demanding in this case. In todays digital world, the key to an encrypted system is a piece of information that unlocks the data, and it is only as secure as the protections around it. Once the information is known, or a way to bypass the code is revealed, the encryption can be defeated by anyone with that knowledge. The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone. But thats simply not true. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable. Google CEO Sundar Pichai agreed with Cook, saying on Twitter that forcing tech companies to hack users devices could be a troubling precedent. Many privacy rights groups have also weighed in, claiming that, once created, this backdoor could be exploited by criminals or abused by the government. What is the case for complying with the order? Advocates of complying with the order claim that the fears of critics are overblown and that Apple is merely grandstanding to ingratiate themselves with privacy-rights advocates. As Gabriel Malor explains, until this week, no one claimed that removing the auto-erase and delay features of passcodes constituted a backdoor. Uses of the term to refer to the order in this case are thus misleading, says Malor. This order does not require Apple to hand over a key to its encryption that could be used on other devices. Malor also says this case would not set a new precedent since it already relies on an old precedent: The All Writs Act derives from the Founders acknowledgment that sometimes courts require aid from third parties to administer justice. To the extent that Apple and other phone manufactures worry they may be asked to help law enforcement in the future, the Supreme Court set that precedent in a 1977 case called United States v. New York Telephone Co. Gus Hurwitz says that Apples refusal actually does more harm than good for the privacy-rights cause: Cooks concerns at best overstate the threat, and by doing so make it harder rather than easier to get some consensus around legitimately difficult but very important issues: the ongoing technological disruption of the delicate relationship between individuals and the state between privacy and liberty on the one hand, and security on the other. Hurwitz also explains why we should not be concerned about this issue: Contrary to Tim Cooks concerns, courts do not have plenary authority to intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phones microphone or camera without your knowledge. And, where they may have some authority to authorize such conduct, it is limited at least by the 4th Amendment and usually limited even further by statute. The All Writs Act doesnt expand a courts authority it only allows them to exercise what authority they clearly do have, including by commandeering the assistance of those who would otherwise deliberately obstruct a lawful court order. Charles Krauthammer adds, The grandstanding that Apple is doing I think is deplorable. He says the solution is simple: What you do is, you go to Apple and you say, Look, you take this, you take this one phone, you open it wherever you want, in some secret lab, underwater, off the Pacific Isles, all we want is the information. If you like, you can incinerate the phone after all this is done give us the information. Is there a way to resolve the issue? Apple will appeal the case, but will likely lose the legal battle and may be forced to comply with the order. However, an alternative solution has been offered by John McAfee, the controversial cybersecurity expert who is running for president as a member of the Libertarian Party. McAfee says, This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate BETHEL An increased demand for medical offices has prompted a local real estate firm to create a team specializing in the health care sector. Members of the medical community can sometimes find it very difficult to navigate the real estate world, said Stacey Terezakis, an associate with Connecticut Healthcare Realty, which was formed by Scalzo Group. By using our experience and understanding their unique needs, we can help those in the medical industry navigate the waters. Paul Scazlo, president of Bethel-based Scalzo real estate group, said the idea for the new division began more than a year ago after they hired Patricia Voorhees, a former GE Capital executive who specializes in mergers and acquisitions. After conducting a study on the area, Scalzo said, Voorhees saw the writing on the wall. There really is tremendous growth in the medical industry today, driven in part by the aging demographics of the region, Scalzo said. We decided to form a group and put together the kind of tools that could provide unique services to those in the industry. With a number of deals already in the works, Scalzo said the new team will be meeting next week with an undisclosed Fairfield County hospital about a new 25,000 square foot facility in the region. Theyve also assisted a number of smaller practices including dentist offices and ophthalmology services. Terezakis noted that many of these smaller practices are moving closer to the communities they serve and into spaces once reserved for more traditional retail operations. That provides a really unique set of challenges for those in the medical industry, she said. Besides the zoning that can come into play, there is also the issue of fitting out the space for the needs of the medical practice, which can include a complex system of water, sewer and IT infrastructure to accommodate the business and the various exam rooms and other equipment that will be needed. Norm Urquhart, a real estate agent working with the team, said having retail space often provides additional value for medical facilities because they dont have to lease square footage associated with a lobby, hallway or elevator space typically found in an office building set up. That could shave as much as 20 percent off a potential lease, he said. Morris Gross, vice president of facilities and corporate real estate for the Western Connecticut Health Network, said additional parking often required by towns for medical offices is also a unique factor in the medical industry. The medical world is clearly shifting nationally from more inpatient services to more outpatient services, and the providers want to be in the community and very accessible to the public, he said. People like Scalzo who have been taking the proactive steps and put a team of professionals into place who have this kind of experience makes it a lot easier for people like me. When someone has a need, they already understand all the details. dperrefort@newstimes.com; The first issue of Religion & Liberty in 2016 will explore several topics from a variety of faith traditions: entrepreneurship, the International Criminal Court, business philosophy, common grace and the 18th-century British abolition movement. Late last year I had the privilege of interviewing Rev. Bruce Baker, a Silicon Valley veteran, entrepreneur, pastor and college professor. For this issues interview, he discusses the history of Silicon Valley, technocracy, how Christians can be winsome witnesses and more. Charles Koch, while widely admired in many spheres, is completely disparaged in others. In a new review, Stephen Schmalhofer tackles Kochs latest book, Good Profit. While Kochs previous writings have been more nuts and bolts, this one focuses on the philosophy of business. Whether you run a company that manufactures farming equipment or youre a professor of philosophy, youre dealing with common grace. Richard J. Mouw discusses the importance of common grace in all spheres of life. The first chapter of Hebrews addressed the nature of Christ. The Double-Edged Sword says that Christ holds the world together and everything in creation is put under his authority and dominion as our prophet, priest and king. The United States and the European Union: the ultimate international frenemies. In this excerpt from his new book, The New Totalitarian Temptation, Todd Huizinga discusses universal jurisdiction, the International Criminal Court, and how fundamentally different the U.S. is from the EU. Actons executive director, Kris Mauren, explains the significance of the One and Indivisible conference series. Religious and economic freedom have a significant and complex relationship. Based on the Second Vatican Councils Dignitatis Humanae is an important development that has strengthened the moral and legal case for worldwide religious freedom. It also provides the theological foundation for the conference series. In the 18th century, one woman was profoundly influential in the abolition movement. Hannah More was a talented poet, playwright, moral writer and philanthropist. Her powerful 1788 poem, Slavery, drew attention to the horrors slaves faced, making her a voice for the British abolition movement. In his column, Rev. Robert Sirico reflects on the past, present and future, commentating on how this very issue of Religion & Liberty reflects the diversity of vocations, beliefs and topics Acton addresses. The Libertarian Party of Alabama will host its annual convention on Saturday, Feb. 27 in the Magnolia Ballroom at the Beau Rivage Casino and Resort located at 875 Beach Blvd. in Biloxi, Miss. The LP Alabama convention will commence at 2:45 p.m., with the LP Mississippi convention at 4 p.m. Tickets are available at http://mslp.org/. Between 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., the Libertarian Parties of Alabama and Mississippi will host the Gulf Coast Business and Entrepreneurship Seminar. Speakers include Tim Bennett of the Biloxi Shuckers, Alan Belcher, of Alan Belcher MMA Club, and Dr. Stephen Whitt, of the Innovation Center of Biloxi, with keynote speakers former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and John McAfee, creator of McAfee Virus Scan. Tickets to the seminar will be available at the door for $5. LP Alabama Convention Schedule: 2:30 pm - 2:45 pm - Registration and Credentialing 2:45 pm - 3:00 pm - 2015-2016 Officer Reports (Chair, Treasurer) 3:00 pm - 3:30 pm - Executive Committee Elections 3:30 pm - 3:45 pm - National Delegate Elections At 7:30 p.m., 11 candidates vying for the Libertarian presidential nomination will take the stage to lay out their campaign platform and why they would be the best option for president. Candidates include McAfee, Johnson, Austin Petersen, Steve Kerbel, Darryl Perry, Cecil Ince, Marc Allan Feldman, Derrick Reid, Jack Robinson Jr., Rhett Smith and Shawna Starling. In addition, Libertarian National Committee Chairman Nicholas Sarwark will attend the events. Tickets for the debate only are $25 and available online at http://mslp.org/. The Libertarian Party of Alabama is the official State affiliate for the national Libertarian Party. Founded in 1971, the Libertarian Party believes in achieving liberty through economic freedom and social tolerance and is the nation's fastest growing political party. More information is available at www.LPAlabama.org www.LP.org/. Ian relief: Deadline extended for property tax payments Gov. Ron DeSantis signed an executive order delaying the payment of property taxes across 26 Florida counties struggling from impact of Hurricane Ian. Canadian Government Says Terrorists Can Receive Aid Funds | Main | Updated: YWCA in Jerusalem Removes Hate-filled Lenten Reflection from Website February 19, 2016 Israeli Researcher Finds Cure for Leukemia. British Doctors Campaign to Expel Israeli Physicians From World Body 1. A form of treating Leukemia pioneered by Israeli immunologist Zelig Esshar cured 94% of cases of Leukemia in a recent trial. Eshhar has been conducting T-cell research for over a decade, and in 2014 was recognized by leading industry publication Human Gene Therapy along with Dr. Carl June of the University of Pennsylvania for their work in the field. Their immune-based treatment is especially effective against Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, the most common and once the most deadly childhood cancer, that only a few decades ago was considered incurable. Israel is a world leader in the treatment of Leukemia. For example, the Herzliya Medical Center boasts of extraordinary cure rates for Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (claiming up to 91%), a form of Leukemia that was once a virtual death sentence. Breakthroughs in Leukemia are of particular significance because of the blood cancer's occurrence in all age groups including the very young. 2. Apparently such life-saving breakthroughs do not impress everyone. Seveny-one British physicians have called for the expulsion of Israeli physicians from the World Medical Association (WMA). This is not the first time this group has demanded the expulsion of Israel from the world medical body. None of the letter signers can claim to have pioneered a breakthrough in treating childhood Leukemia, but they wear their self-proclaimed humanitarianism ever so ostentatiously. An anti-Zionist web site published what it claims is a copy of the letter sent to the WMA. The letter rehashes the sort of allegations made in a similar letter seven years ago accusing Israeli doctors of using "torture as an instrument of state policy." Such allegations have previously been exposed as lacking substantiation. In fact, despite the state of war that exists between Israel and Hamas, the terrorist group that governs the Gaza Strip, Israeli hospitals provide life-saving medical services to thousands of Gazans. This continues despite the risk that Gazan patients will carry out terrorist attacks against Israeli medical personnel providing them with critical care. Such an incident occurred in 2005, when a Gazan woman, Wafa al Bass, undergoing treatment at an Israeli facility for severe burns from a cooking accident, tried to detonate a concealed bomb in order to kill the nurses and doctors attending to her. One of the letter's co-signers, British psychiatrist Derek Summerfield, has campaigned for decades to ostracize Israel. The fact that Palestinians stricken by intractable illnesses and devastating childhood conditions benefit enormously from Israeli medical interventions is apparently unimportant to these anti-Israel doctors who through their political agitation against Israeli doctors expose the emptiness of their hippocratic oath. Posted by SS at February 19, 2016 02:25 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 Lifestyle | Daily Life | News | The Sydney Morning Herald Were sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. Were working to restore it. Please try again later. Dismiss And so the charade continues. As this paper goes to press, David Camerons brave promises of a fundamental reform of the relationship between Britain and the EU seem to be descending into complete farce. Where once the Prime Minister told us the British lion would roar in the face of the EU pussycat, last nights talks appeared bogged down in minute details and intricacies so complex that only obsessive policy wonks could follow what on earth was being discussed. So much for any last, lingering pretence that Brussels has the slightest intention of changing anything that would make a real difference. Charade: The brave promises of a fundamental reform of the relationship between Britain and the EU from Prime Minister David Cameron (pictured in Brussels yesterday) seem to be descending into complete farce Indeed, European Parliament President Martin Schulz was blunt enough to say that a deal allowing Britain to impose even modest curbs on migrant benefits would be ripped to shreds by MEPs. Meanwhile, with the gag on eurosceptic ministers still firmly in place, Conservative Party official Baroness Rock was asking scores of company bosses to endorse any deal that might be agreed. Stand by, then, for all the usual suspects to come forward, hoping to convert their knighthoods into peerages. Leave aside that many big business leaders have an appalling record of political misjudgment, and just remember that many of those being approached were enthusiastic advocates of scrapping the pound to join the catastrophic euro. Viewpoint: European Parliament President Martin Schulz (above, yesterday) was blunt enough to say that a deal allowing Britain to impose even modest curbs on migrant benefits would be ripped to shreds by MEPs And what a slap in the face to grass-roots Conservatives most of whom tell pollsters they want to pull out of the EU that their party is giving leave of absence to Lady Rock (who, surprise, surprise, entertained George Osborne at her Swiss chalet) so that she can campaign for the In camp. Meanwhile, the BBC issues guidelines telling its reporters they will not be obliged to give equal exposure to both sides at all times, but only to ensure broad balance. Can anyone who heard Lord Kinnock on Radio 4 yesterday, spouting unchallenged falsehoods about trade figures and the appalling dangers of pulling out, believe the Corporations employees know the meaning of balance? This ought to be a full and free debate on one of the most vital issues of our time. Yet before the starting gun has even been fired, theres a growing stink of an Establishment stitch-up in the air. Profits of misery It's a figure that should shame any civilised country. Last year, as wholesale gas prices plummeted, so-called excess winter deaths in Britain rose to a 15-year high of 43,900 most caused by illnesses made worse by the cold. Yet while the vulnerable died, or were forced to choose between heating and eating, profits at British Gas surged by 31 per cent to 547million. We can only guess how much suffering would have been spared if the company had been quicker to pass on to consumers its savings in wholesale prices. On the up: Profits at British Gas surged by 31 per cent to 547million as wholesale gas prices plummeted All we know is that while the cost of gas on world markets came down by some 34 per cent, BG cut its retail tariffs by only a miserly 9.75 per cent. True, the firm is ready with excuses, claiming that wholesale prices account for only 40 per cent of its costs (though if thats the case, there is surely huge scope for efficiency savings in its distribution and maintenance programmes). But one question: can anyone imagine the Big Six energy firms being as slow to increase tariffs when world prices rise as they are to cut them when they fall? After finding households on standard variable rates have been overcharged by hundreds of millions of pounds, the competition watchdog will publish measures to curb prices. As our biggest employer of domestic staff, the Queen was at Claridge's this week for the Gold Service Scholarship awards night. She has a keen eye for detail and cost. My source says: 'Her staff have to fit the uniforms available rather than the luxury of having them made for them.' Nor must they inconvenience her dogs, he adds. 'One footman delivering HM's tea tray, who became entangled with a corgi, fell and sprained his ankle. The monarch picked up the dog and inspected it for any damage. The Master of the Household 'lost' the Queen's order to dock the hapless footman the cost of some broken china.' The Queen's staff have been warned that they must not inconvenience her beloved dogs Radio 4's chief presenter on Today, John Humphrys, 72, belittles claims by BBC colleague Jeremy Vine, who says he has recorded 67 episodes of Eggheads in 16 days. Says Humphrys: 'Pah! That works out at about four shows a day. And that is one LESS than we manage with Mastermind obviously a far more challenging programme in every respect.' Jeffrey Archer, 75, takes prickly exception to a suggestion, by the usually bland Reader's Digest, that his novels 'rattle along'. He responds in an interview: 'As if that's easy to do!' Adding: 'That's what I do, I don't know how I do it, or why I do it. That's a God-given gift.' Hasn't Jeffrey hidden his light under a bushel for long enough!? Mick Jagger's appearance as Australian outlaw Ned Kelly in a 1970 film was greeted by a torrent of critical derision. So much so that he has long disowned the film, claiming never to have seen it Sir Mick Jagger's role alongside Martin Scorsese as 'producer' of Vinyl a TV series set in the New York music scene of the 1970s was much publicised. Sadly, the show has attracted disappointing reviews and ratings. Hardly the Rolling Stone's first experience of this kind. His appearance as Australian outlaw Ned Kelly in a 1970 film was greeted by a torrent of critical derision. So much so that he has long disowned the film, claiming never to have seen it. Hasn't Arts Council England enough to do without circulating guidelines to theatres advising on procedure when the Queen or the Duke of Edinburgh die? Theatres have been advised that in the event of a 'Category A' royal passing on they should consider stopping a show to tell the audience and lower flags to half mast. Oh, and bad news for Prince Harry. He is not considered senior enough to be included in Category A along with his grandparents, dad, Camilla, William and Kate. Now that Met commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe has sort of apologised to Leon Brittan's widow, Diana, for pursuing him beyond the grave over false allegations of paedophilia, might it be appropriate for others to make amends? Prime Minister David Cameron and Theresa May both avoided Brittan's secretly arranged memorial service at the West London Synagogue last May. One or both of them would normally have been expected to turn up. The Guardian's new 1,000 BAME short story prize, in collaboration with 4th Estate publishers, specifies that it is for black, Asian and minority ethnic writers and Arabs, but not Jews. As a divorce lawyer with nearly 40 years experience, Mary Banham-Hall isnt easily shocked. But nothing prepared her for the sight of a naked, distraught five-year-old girl being handed over for an access visit, wrapped in only a blanket. The reason? Her parents, in the throes of a bitter divorce, wouldnt allow even one set of clothes into the others house. Scroll down for video Mary Banham-Hall has helped around 3,000 couples negotiate their way through divorce and says almost every one has woefully underestimated the pain of separation both to themselves and to any children 'That was truly shocking - that this girl should be nothing more than a parcel to be handed over, not even important enough to be properly clothed. 'What effect will that have on her later? We cannot even imagine,' says Banham-Hall, one of Britains leading mediators. She has helped around 3,000 couples negotiate their way through divorce and says almost every one has woefully underestimated the pain of separation both to themselves and to any children. There is no end to the misery she has seen, which she admits often keeps her awake at night: teenage girls cutting their arms with razorblades because their parents cant stop fighting in front of them, the mother who wouldnt let her daughters pet hamsters go with her when the ex-husband won custody, and children brutally unfriended on Facebook by their mothers so a new partner wont know she has children. You often hear divorce compared to death because of the stress for everyone involved, but Banham-Hall goes further. 'Divorce is worse than death, theres no question. Why? People dont generally choose death. 'Divorce also destroys the past you thought you had together, and theres usually a fight - for resources and children.' She is so desperate for couples to wake up to the unnecessary suffering theyre causing that she has written a romantic novel called Love Lose Live, which tells the compelling story of the collapse of a marriage and the shattering effect on the couple and their three children aged 10, seven and four. In it she provides an alternative (unhappy) ending plus practical advice and theres a foreword by Lord Wilson, Justice of the Supreme Court. But why a novel when she could have written a brilliant self-help book? 'People simply wont read text books,' she sighs. 'Ive lost count of the number of times Ive given a book to clients and they immediately hand it to their ex because they dont believe theyre the one with a problem. 'At least with a novel you can see and hear whats happening to the characters and, because youre on the outside, you can instantly see how youd handle it better. Banham-Hall thinks more judges need to send couples away to mediate, and more couples need to pull back from the primal urge to fight through lawyers - and thinks some divorces could be avoided altogether 'Id love all divorcing couples to read it.' Many of the scenarios in the book are taken from her real-life experience: the youngest child who starts wetting the bed from the trauma, the heartbreaking sight of the oldest son forced to act as a little adult, the depression and illness of the wife left behind, the endless bungled communications and petty rows. 'Beth and Simon are Mr and Mrs Average: they snipe and carp at each other but they are not outrageous. Yet you dont have to be an extreme case to cause damage, especially to children thats what I wanted to convey,' she says. Mary, 62, started out as a divorce lawyer in 1979, but in 1998, after spending all morning negotiating the release of a girls hamsters, decided there had to be a better way. She became one of the first lawyers to train as a mediator; there are now 1,000 in England and Wales. Based on her experiences, she has now written a book called Love Lose Live: Divorce is a Rollercoaster which sets out to limit losses during seperations A mediator meets both parties sometimes in the same room, sometimes shuttling between two rooms if it gets too heated to thrash out a settlement over money and children, while divorce proceedings tick away in the background. Most cases can be sorted in three or four meetings of 90 minutes to two hours each. Its cheaper and quicker: six months to a decree absolute with costs of 1,000 to 4,000 rather than 18 months to two years for couples slogging it out in the courts. Court costs are often upwards of 15,000, sometimes up to 250,000, and can wipe out the pot of money the couple are fighting over. Banham-Hall is frustrated were still using courts adversarial places which pit two opposing side against each other to decide the future of parents and children. 'Sometimes cases are even heard in the magistrates courts, in the same place as criminals. Its insane.' All divorcing couples must now have an initial mediation assessment meeting to see if it could work for them, and around 14,000 couples a year go on to use it (of these 70 per cent succeed in reaching a settlement). But thats a small portion of the UKs 130,000 annual divorces [in 2013]. Banham-Hall thinks more judges need to send couples away to mediate, and more couples need to pull back from the primal urge to fight through lawyers. Some divorces could be avoided altogether, she believes. 'If they only knew the utter devastation divorce caused, some couples would work harder at staying together. Sometimes the couple want a divorce essentially because they feel unfulfilled or bored. 'Theyll say, "its like living with a brother, sister or best friend - there has to be more to it than this." I say, do you know how many single or divorced people would give anything to live with their best friend? You dont have the slightest idea what you are letting yourself in for. 'People have very unrealistic expectations that marriage is going to be like those heady first few years, rather than settling down and working at it the old-fashioned way.' She has certainly heeded her own advice: she and husband Martin, also a lawyer, met in their first week at university, married when she was 21 and are still together 40 years later, with three adult children and four grandchildren. What happens to children is the great untold story, she says. Its estimated that 120,000 couples with children (half married, half not) split up each year, and the effects are devastating. Research from Sweden last year showed family breakdown causes children insomnia and headaches, and a study from the UK claimed the stress affected two thirds of childrens GCSE results; one in three suffered eating disorders and one in eight turned to drugs or alcohol. 'People say kids are resilient, theyll bounce back. Perhaps thats what we want to believe. 'In truth, I think many parents are too wrapped up in their own suffering, too battered and frightened, to think of their children,' says Banham-Hall. 'Its so sad and unnecessary especially when there is a better way. Theres no such thing as a happy divorce but you can limit the losses.' Heres how: WAYS TO REDUCE THE PAIN OF DIVORCE Ask: is it really what you want? Could your dissatisfaction be just a bad patch in your marriage or a sign youre personally unfulfilled? 'Ask yourself, whats going to be so much better about life after divorce?,' says Banham-Hall. 'I remember asking a man getting divorced for the second time, what would you do differently if you had your time again? He said, "Id work harder at my first marriage".' Theres no money for hurt feelings This is hard for the injured party to come to terms with, but you wont get a better settlement just because its your partner who had the affair and has turned your lives upside down. 'People tend to channel their emotions into the law,' says Banham-Hall. They think, "this person has grievously injured me why should I be reasonable?" Its the only way they feel they can control the situation.' Recognising early that no good ever comes of this way of thinking will ensure a far smoother divorce. Know your amygdala The amygdala is the region at the base of the brain that controls your fight-or-flight response when youre under threat: it releases adrenaline, you fight, and it takes 15 minutes to bring your bodys hormones back to normal. 'Its a primal instinct to fight, which might have been essential in the wild when faced by a predator but is harmful when it comes to family breakdown,' she points out. Fighting is often a displacement activity for pain and loneliness, especially if your ex is playing happy families with a new partner. Step back and pause at the red mist moments. Use one of your possessions a watch or ring as an anchor to touch when youre tempted to fight, which will bring your mind back to rationality. You have to give to receive Couples often cling to seemingly trivial points that become infused with symbolic importance, like where a childs clothes should be or where hamsters should live. But in the long term compromise is unavoidable, and acts of kindness and generosity work wonders. Banham-Hall recalls one case where a mother was implacably opposed to her exs new partner spending time with the children. 'Somehow she found it within herself one day to allow the father and his partner to take them to the fireworks. That act of generosity unlocked the whole thing. The husband could see how much it had cost her, so he responded in kind.' Spiteful little snipes are as bad as big rows You may think your small snipes and carps at your ex are the least he/she can expect given the hurt youre feeling, but they keep your wounds raw and damage children who feel caught in the crossfire. They can also backfire: 'A child may think no wonder Dad doesnt want to come home if shes going to be like that,' says Banham-Hall. Make it a rule never to criticise your ex, especially if children are present: they should never have to choose between you or mediate in your rows. Recognise where you are on the grief cycle The six stages of grief following a death also applies to divorce: thats shock/denial, then anger, depression, dialogue/bargaining, acceptance and finally a return to meaningful life. The person initiating the divorce has usually worked through several stages before they even tell their spouse, who will be well behind in the cycle. That explains many of the misunderstandings and rows, says Banham-Hall. Children also need to work their way through the entire cycle. Hide your heartbreak from children You may be tempted to temporarily withhold access because of some perceived slight from your ex, but its imperative to hand your children over for their usual visit with a brisk smile. 'Its essential children see the other parent and that they dont guilty about enjoying time at the other house,' says Banham-Hall. 'Hiding your feelings is the hardest thing but its important because children are barometers they know whats going on. They often blame themselves for the split and will hide their feelings from you to protect you.' Find a critical friend You absolutely shouldnt confide your woes to your children, even if its tempting with teenage daughters. 'Ideally you need some counselling plus a good friend - someone non-tribal who is going to support you emotionally but also loves you enough to ask you difficult questions and be critical of your actions when you dont do the right thing,' says Banham-Hall. Advertisement While their marriage is technically not legal, they still see it as a wedding She said there is 'no law that can stop me from being with Brooke' For her the hardest part was coming to terms with her identity as a teen Ashleigh said her sexuality has never been an issue as an elite athlete The couple exchanged vows on January 30 in Margaret River, near Perth When Ashleigh Brazill wed her long-term girlfriend Brooke Grieves, it was the best day of her life. The couple were married on January 30 in the scenic Margaret River region of Western Australia, and invited 110 of their family and friends to share in their special day. Ashleigh, who has represented Australia in netball, told Daily Mail Australia she never expected their wedding to make news headlines, but hopes by sharing her story she can give people the courage to talk about their sexuality. Scroll down for video In love: Ashleigh and Brooke Brazill, nee Grieves, were wed in a beautiful ceremony held in the Margaret River region of Western Australia No boundaries: Ashleigh, who is a pro netballer, said while she wished marriage was legal for everyone, to them their 'civil union' was still a wedding I would obviously love it to be legal for everyone to get married, Ashleigh, 26, said. But there is no law that can stop me from being with Brooke. For me the only people it matters to are Brooke and I, friends and family. While the term civil ceremony is often used to describe a same-sex union, Ashleigh said her and Brooke's wedding was no different to the norm and she expressed my love to my wife like everybody else would. Star athlete: Ashleigh currently plays for West Coast Fever, has played in the ANZ Championships and represented Australia against New Zealand Its never been an issue in netball': She said her sexuality has never been a problem as an elite sportswoman True love: While Ashleigh said she would love it to be legal for everyone to get married, there is no law that can stop me from being with Brooke' In a time when a persons sexuality can be subject for scrutiny, Ashleigh has found nothing but support. The fact that she is gay has never been an issue as an elite athlete. The hardest thing for me was more accepting who I was when I was young, Ashleigh said. Finding herself: Ashleigh said when she was younger the only time she felt 'truly me' was on the netball court To be honest when I first came out it wasnt the easiest road, it was so hard on me and it took me a good two years to even accept it. It was so tough on my parents, but now my parents are more supportive than you could ever imagine. When I was younger I felt like I was living a lie, and the only time I felt truly me was on the netball court. For an hour or so no one would judge me, they would judge me on my sport. Staying true: When she moved to Canberra she saw it as a fresh start where she was free to be herself First dance: Ashleigh and Brooke invited 110 of their close family and friends to the lavish wedding Happy couple: The pair stood in a shower of confetti, smiles plastered across their faces Loving support: Family and friends travelled to Western Australia's Margaret River region for the ceremony When Ashleigh moved to Canberra at about 18 years old to attend the Australian Institute of Sport she saw it as a fresh start and a chance to be who she truly was. Its never been an issue in netball, she said. While Ashleigh easily found acceptance, her story differs from many people, including some of her friends, who struggled coming to terms with their sexuality. She encouraged people to accept who they are, no matter if theyre gay or straight, because then it doesnt matter what anyone else thinks. Coming together: Ashleigh and Brooke met through mutual friends and married in Western Australia on January 30 True love: When Ashleigh first met Brooke she had never been with another woman, but was confident in herself Ashleigh first met Brooke through mutual friends when she was just 18. It was the first time Brooke, now 31, had been with another woman, but Ashleigh said she was always confident in herself. She knows who she is, what she wants and goes for it, nothing else bothers her, she said. 'Sitting back with my wife': Ashleigh shared this snap on her Instagram page and said their wedding day was 'absolute perfection' Family: Brooke has legally changed her last name to Brazill since the couple wed After the wedding Brooke legally changed her last name from Grieves to Brazill. I dont think Im a role model, Ashleigh said. Abdy was cheating months after he was allowed to stay in UK A divorcee who claims she spent 10,000 bringing her toyboy Egyptian husband to the UK has revealed he dumped her after he admitted he was cheating on her - and told her she had to go. Lucy Manley, from Cardiff, Wales, hit it off with Abdy Aly, 28, in June 2009, while she was on holiday in Sharm el-Sheikh - six months later, the couple wed after a whirlwind romance. Lucy, 32, says she worked hard to raise the money to pay for Abdy to be able to live in the UK. However, in 2013, after receiving the news that he would be allowed to stay, Lucy says their relationship began to change - and she says she discovered he was having affairs with two other women. Lucy Manley, from Newport, South Wales, hit it off with Abdy Aly, 28, in June 2009, while she was on holiday in Sharm el-Sheikh - six months later, the couple wed after a whirlwind romance The trainee teacher said Abdy, 28, pictured, told her he had been having sex with another woman and announced Lucy had to go because 'it was too stressful to juggle two women' The trainee teacher said Abdy, 28, told her he had been having sex with another woman and announced Lucy had to go because 'it was too stressful to juggle two women'. Then Lucy, who was dumped on Valentine's Day last year, says she found out he'd also been sleeping with a neighbour. Lucy said the undying love pledged by Abdy seemed to run out around the same time that he was granted leave to remain in the UK. Although there is no evidence to suggest the two are connected. Abdy denies the claims and said he never had affairs with other women, but said that he had only admitted to cheating on her to get a quick divorce Lucy said: 'I loved Abdy so much but now I'm not sure if what we had was ever real. 'I worked so hard to get him the papers to live in the UK because I wanted to grow old with him. I'd excitedly planned our future together. 'But he repaid me by betraying me in the most awful way on what was supposed to be the most romantic day of the year. 'He didn't even apologise when he told me he'd been cheating. After the pair met they emailed constantly for three months and in one message Abdy asked her to marry him. Lucy visited again in the October and Abdy spend the holiday begging Lucy to agree to marry him 'I was crying so hard I could hardly breathe but he simply moaned that he found it all too stressful.' Speaking about meeting Abdy in 2009, Lucy said: 'He wasn't my usual type. 'At first, I thought he was a bit rude. But there was something about him which attracted me. 'He teased me quite a lot, but I liked it. We didn't kiss but we exchanged email addresses when I left.' The pair emailed constantly for three months and in one message Abdy asked her to marry him. Lucy visited again in the October. I was crying so hard I could hardly breathe but he simply moaned that he found it all too stressful 'We talked about marriage quite early on,' Lucy said. 'Abdy brought it up and I got swept along. I counted down the minutes until I had enough money to fly back to Egypt. When we shared our first kiss, it felt so special. 'He spent the rest of the holiday begging me to marry him and telling me we were destined to be together. 'At first, I told him I couldn't marry but I got caught up in the fairytale .' Lucy's friends begged her to think carefully but she was determined to wed Abdy and did so on December 1, her next visit. 'It was nuts but I was convinced he was the one for me,' she said. She admitted being surprised the ceremony was at a register office and not a mosque. There was no romantic proposal, no ring and instead of a white gown Lucy wore a casual blue dress. Lucy's friends begged her to think carefully but she was determined to wed Abdy (pictured together) and did so on December 1, her next visit Speaking about her wedding day, Lucy said: 'When we got home to his parents' house, it was a real anti-climax. I ended up going to bed early. It wasn't how I imagined my wedding day' She said: 'Our wedding day wasn't at all romantic. There were problems with our paperwork, so we got there just as the office was closing. 'All the lights were off but Abdy was determined we marry there and then. We had to sign the marriage certificate by the light of his brother's phone. 'When we got home to his parents' house, it was a real anti-climax. I ended up going to bed early. It wasn't how I imagined my wedding day.' Lucy devoted the next two years to the fight to get Abdy permission to join her in Cardiff. His first application was turned down. Home Office officials told Lucy she'd have to prove she could support her husband. She worked two jobs to raise 6,000 to show that she had the necessary finances. Lucy saw Abdy 10 times in the two years - she flew out to him each time. Lucy said: 'I was absolutely exhausted. I was working in a sales job by day and in a taxi office at night. 'Some days, I'd be out from 8am until 2am the next day but I convinced myself it was worth it if Abdy and I could be together. 'With what little I had to spare, I flew to Egypt and we had a precious few weeks together.' Lucy said she was worried when Abdy was given the all clear to live in the UK, but added: 'We'd only spent a few weeks together and now we were going to be a married couple. But when I saw him, all of my fears melted away and he wrapped me in a huge hug. We got home and were quite emotional' In 2011, Abdy was finally allowed to come to the UK on a temporary basis after Lucy forked out 4,000 for fees and the services of a top solicitor. She recalled: 'When I picked him up from the airport I felt nervous. 'We'd only spent a few weeks together and now we were going to be a married couple. But when I saw him, all of my fears melted away and he wrapped me in a huge hug. We got home and were quite emotional. 'For the next two years, we were like any other couple. We enjoyed weekends away and meals out and we spoke about having children.' In October 2013, they received the news they had waited almost four years to hear: Abdy had been given permanent leave to remain in the UK. Lucy said: 'I was ecstatic and felt so relieved. It had taken so much time and money. I had tears in my eyes but Abdy didn't seem as excited. I was happy to be single this Valentine's Day. But it's going to take time before I can trust a man again 'Over the next few weeks, he became cold and distant. He started to stay out all night and refused to say where he was going.' It all came to a head on Valentine's Day last year after Lucy found texts from a woman called Helen Joyner on Abdy's phone. He claimed she was just a pal, but finally admitted the truth he'd met Helen, 49, from Bristol, when she was on holiday in Egypt and had seen her on and off ever since. 'I wasn't expecting flowers,' Lucy said. 'But I never expected he'd be so cruel as to say our marriage was over on Valentine's Day. I was devastated.' A week later, Lucy said she received a call from Helen, and claimed she told her she had rekindled her holiday fling as soon as Abdy was given permission to stay in the UK permanently. Lucy said: 'We discovered there were times he'd dropped Helen off at the airport in Egypt and picked me straight up. It was sickening.' After going through heartache, Lucy says she had another surprise in store - when she spotted her husband's car outside a neighbour's house. Lucy, 32, says she worked hard to raise the money to pay for Abdy to be able to live in the UK. However, in 2013, after receiving the news that he would be allowed to stay, Lucy says their relationship began to change When she confronted him, she said Abdy admitted sleeping with their neighbour Jen Allen, too. Lucy applied for a divorce last July and it was granted on the grounds of Abdy's unreasonable behaviour. Lucy says she is now trying to move on with her life. She said: 'I still want my happy ending. I'd love to marry again and have the family I dreamed of with Abdy. 'I was happy to be single this Valentine's Day. But it's going to take time before I can trust a man again.' Speaking about Lucy's allegations, Abdy denied he had had affairs with the two other women. He said he had only admitted to cheating on her to get a quick divorce. 'I did not admit the affair because it happened, just so we could move on,' he said. 'I admitted it quickly so that the divorce would happen quickly.' He also accused Lucy of being a 'drama queen' and said that they were 'no good for each other'. Helen Joyner claimed she met Abdy in Egypt around the same time Lucy did. She said: 'I shouldn't have been messing around with a married man. Lucy was really hurt by this and was falling apart. 'I was sucked in. I really regret it. But Lucy and I have ended up as friends. I took her along to court for the divorce hearing. She didn't have anyone else supporting her so I was just honest.' Helen Allen said: 'I met Abdy in Egypt around the same time as Lucy. He always said he didn't want to be with her.' None of the bras went past a DD cup and the adhesive was often too weak She pitted her 32E cups against wide variety of stick-on bras on the market When Kim Kardashian revealed that the secret to her gravity-defying red carpet cleavage was down to gaffer tape her comments piqued my curiosity. Like Kim, I have been 'blessed' with a fuller bust. I'm a UK size 10 (US size 8) and wear a 32E bra. While my flatter chested friends envy my big boobs, my generous bust is forever a nuisance when it comes to getting dressed. I literally burst out of blouses and generally need to take a size bigger in anything that does up close to the bust. It's hard to find a bra that doesn't make me look more matronly than Nurse Ratchet, so when it comes to anything backless or plunge I steer well clear. Joanna Della-Ragione wanted to test whether Kim Kardashian's gaffer tape bra would work in real life - and it did Kim Kardashian posted a flashback picture this week in which she revealed exactly how she achieves her perfect plunging neckline decollete - through copious amounts of tape from her shoulders to her ribcage Overall, Joanna found that there was a reason that breast adhesives don't go up to an E-cup - and she thinks it's called gravity. She felt ridiculous, and would never leave the house wearing any of the bras Exposing a lot of cleavage when there's a lot there can be too confrontational in my opinion. When you have big boobs and you want to get them out, there is a very fine line between sexy and slutty so most of the time I prefer to show more leg than chest. For this reason - and the fact I like to think I'm at least slightly more modest than Kim - I would never opt to wear the kind of plunging necklines she's famous for. The laws of gravity, and the small amount of dignity I have left, dictate I pass. But after hearing about the magic powers of a lowly roll of gaffer tape I decided to try the reality star's method in a black Topshop playsuit that managed to provide the right amount of plunge. I set the industrial tape against the slew of braless breast-supporting adhesive devices on the market, although I have to admit I was sceptical at their ability to give me the affect I was after. Like Kim suggested, I didn't moisturise before testing as this affects how adhesives stick to skin. H&M Self-adhesive gel bra, 12.99 ($18.60) This adhesive bra from H&M only went up to a C cup and Joanna is an E cup, so it didn't fit her at all The chicken fillets were very heavy and pulled Joanna's boobs together, dragging them down Bearing in mind I'm an E-cup and this bra only goes up to a C, this was a recipe for disaster before I'd even got it out of the box. I was told by the sales assistant that a C cup would fit me and the size did look generous enough to cover the area needed, so I was optimistic. The adhesive was strong and it was the only option that really felt like it was properly stuck to my skin, but once on it did nothing for me at all. However, the cups, which felt like two chicken fillets, were so heavy, that even though they pulled my breasts together they dragged them down at the same time, made my chest look saggier than two sacks of potatoes. The join between the two cups was also visible at the front, which is something you'd never see on Kim. I'd rather go braless. 2/5 Fashion Forms Natural adhesive body bra, 10 ($14) This bra looked like a sticking plaster and attach in exactly the same way. They didn't work for Joanna's boobs at all, especially as they were designed for a DD cup not an E Joanna can imagine this bra working on a smaller bust, but it did nothing to her I laughed when I saw these even though it said they were meant for a DD cup, just one size smaller than my cup size, on the box. The sticky patches, which are sold in Debenhams, look like a plaster, and you stick them on on the underside of each breast in the same way. The wide 'U' shape of the papery stickers are there to help hoik things up on each side. This could work as a sort of balcony for a smaller bust and perhaps with a backless or strapless dress but on me, I ended up with visible wrinkled brown tape on my chest which just added to the comedy of the situation. At least I can see the funny side. 1/5 Fashion Forms Natural ultra boost adhesive bra, 10.50 ($15) While this bra initially seemed more promising as it was more substantial, the adhesive was too weak to work The bra didn't even stick to Joanna's skin, and fell off almost straight away These appeared to be more substantial than the plasters made by the same brand, but any optimism I may have had dissolved as soon as I peeled back the plastic backing. The adhesive was so weak they didn't even stick to my skin, flopping off like two sad fillets of fish as soon as I'd stuck them on. Once I managed to stick them on long enough to walk around, they were entirely visible. Again, perhaps these would work for smaller busts and different necklines or backless dresses, but when it came to my E cups and a plunging neckline, they were an epic fail. 0/5 Fashion Forms Le Lusion Stick On Bra, 30 ($43) This stick-on bra failed to boost Joanna's bust in any way and she was disappointed by its performance The adhesive was so weak that it couldn't manage to stay on Joanna's skin for more than 30 seconds To judge by the box, sold in John Lewis, these looked promising and seemed to follow the logic of Kim's gaffer tape. The beige coloured patches appeared to stick firmly on the bosom leaving plenty of body exposed - which is all part of the extreme cleavage look. However, the woman modelling the stick-on items on the box had a B-cup at most and the largest size this comes in is a D. I found the adhesive was so weak that they didn't stay on my skin for more than 30 seconds, let alone enhance or lift my bust in any way. This could have been a matter of fit, but it confirmed to me once again why large chests and low necklines are so rarely seen together away from the red carpet. However, once they were in place they at least looked discreet. 2/5 Fashion Forms U-Plunge Backless & Strapless Bra, 28 ($40) Although the adhesive on the bra stuck firmly to her skin, this bra was again too small for her size E breasts Joanna thought that even though the bra stuck to her, it wasn't actually doing anything to improve her figure I bought the biggest size this goes up to, a D-cup. The adhesive was nice and sticky and didn't feel like it was going to immediately drop off like some of the others. This also had some heft lacking in the other options and looked the most similar to a regular bra. The only difference was the the straps were fairly sticky clear tabs that stick on the rib cage underneath the arms. However the bra itself wasn't quite big enough yet it gaped at the top of each cup. To the onlooker, it would appear that my chest was supported but I didn't feel confident that I could move with any kind of speed or vigour. Just because it was there sticking to me doesn't mean it was working. 2/5 Gaffer tape, 2 - 5 ($3-$7) Joanna's copied Kim K's technique of using gaffer tape as a sort of halter-neck sling that lifts the breasts and brings them closer together Having studied Kim's technique I deduced she used strips of the tape to create a sort of halterneck sling that lifts and brings boobs together. Using about 10 long strips of gaffer I recreated Kim's homemade bra. It worked! My bosom was pert, full, lifted and supported - amazing results! The downside? It was extremely uncomfortable to wear and far worse to take off. I gave myself an inadvertent breast wax and removed some skin in the process. My skin was still red and raw hours later. 4/5 Eylure Body Tape, 4.99 ($6.50) Joanna found that the body adhesive tape became unstuck in a moment, and she had to actually hold the dress together with her hands Eylure body tape is useful for keeping fabric in place but it won't do any heavy lifting Flimsy double sided tape may keep fabric vaguely in place, but when you're dealing with voluminous amounts of flesh it's something of a futile effort. I used the adhesive body strips, which are sold in Boots, to stick the fabric of the plunge neck to my chest to avoid any accidents but I felt entirely unsupported and I didn't have the look I was after. I can't help feeling that while a useful item to have in any woman's wardrobe, fashion tape can't be relied on by the bigger busted. The only option is to hold the plunge neck together to avoid accidents - not especially convenient if you're intending to go out for dinner and need to hold a knife and fork. VERDICT I may have discovered the reason why adhesive cups that cover the breasts leaving wearers free to show off their skin in backless, strapless or frontless dresses don't go up to an E-cup - it's called gravity. Gaffer tape, however, is a different entity entirely and strong enough even to hoik mine and Kim's generous bust. But just because it works, doesn't mean to say it looks good. I felt ridiculous and would never leave the house with that much chest on show. So I admit defeat and revert back to what I always believed: women with big boobs simply can't wear plunging necklines. One of my favourite photographs of my daughter, Flo, shows her about to set off for her first day at school. Aged four, her little blonde head bobs with excitement, her sweet smile betraying the nerves that lie beneath. Her school blazer is slightly too big and her new shoes shine. Every mother has taken a photograph like this, before placing it carefully in the family album. Its a moment to treasure, a time to fill the heart with pride. But when I look at that picture now, Im ashamed to say I dont feel proud at all. I just feel incredibly stupid. Why? The clue is in the uniform. Please believe me when I say Im not boasting, but Flos school blazer was no ordinary one. It marked her out as the latest recruit to an expensive private school, costing almost 3,000 per term. Disappointed: Shona and her husband spent 100,000 on their daughter Flo's private education First day: But now Flo has dropped out of school without sitting her A-levels to embark on a summer in Magaluf No supermarket uniforms for our Flo. That oversized blazer, I recall, cost a whopping 75. There was even a compulsory straw hat, for heavens sake a relative snip at 25. But on that day back in September 2003, I wasnt totting up the cost. Instead, I was full of hope and expectation for my oldest child as she embarked on those first wobbly steps of her school career. Our decision to educate Flo privately was made in order to give her the very best. Oh, how I laugh at that foolhardy idealism. Today, the price we paid for Flos 13 years of private education more than 100,000 if you want to know hangs over our heads like a dark cloud. For every penny was a complete and utter waste. How can I say such a thing? Because Flo, now 17, has abandoned her A-level studies, three months into her two-year course. Worse yet, she has told me and her heartbroken father that she will be spending the summer, not, like so many other sixth formers, helping the poor in Africa, but working as a jelly shot girl in Magaluf. Jelly shots: Flo has decided to spend the summer working as a 'jelly shot girl' in Magaluf Demand: Summer provides lots of jobs to 'jelly shot girls' who are employed in Magaluf, Ayia Napa, and Malia Our dreams of Flo one day going to Oxford or Cambridge, perhaps becoming a doctor or an engineer, have been shattered. What is a jelly shot girl, you might ask? Apparently, when in the tawdry Majorcan resort of Magaluf, Flo will be wandering the dancefloors of nightclubs late at night, selling alcohol-soaked jellies to drunken Brits abroad. Shes delighted with her first career choice, telling me she can earn between 20 and 80 a night to get other youngsters so legless theyll probably spend the night sleeping in a heap covered in their own vomit. I took to Google to find out more. There are endless websites advertising for jelly shot girls in Magaluf, Ayia Napa, Malia... the kinds of holiday destinations you wouldnt want your daughter to visit, let alone live or work. One website carried the story of a jelly shot girl called Charlotte from Bristol (yet more middle-class parents dreams broken, I suspect). Charlotte described her working day in Magaluf as follows: Wake up at 4pm, sunbathe till 6pm and then have a siesta. I get ready and head to my local bar at around 9pm. I then walk down the strip, maybe stopping for a few drinks en route, and get to work for 11pm. I finish at 4am, party till about 10am, and then have a quick swim in the sea on the way home before going to bed ready to do it all again the next day! Double fees: Both Flo and her younger sister were sent to private school, while their younger siblings went to state school Great expectations dashed: Shona had hoped her daughter would go to Oxbridge and become doctor You can imagine how I am feeling. Flo and I have long had a stormy relationship, but this, without doubt, is her greatest act of rebellion yet. Those of you who havent forked out money to educate your children are probably thinking: Serves you right, stupid woman. Loath as I am to admit it, I cant help conceding you are probably correct. Because four-year-old Flo didnt care that her school The Royal School, in Haslemere, Surrey had an impressive tree-lined driveway and Princess Anne as president. She couldnt have given two hoots that they offered lacrosse, that quaint sport nobody in the real world plays any more. Nor did she mind that practically every other girl in the school was called Lucinda or Tilly, and they not only owned a horse but stabled it at their fathers polo yard. Flo just wanted to play hopscotch and draw with her new crayons. But this rarefied atmosphere rapidly became the norm for her, skewing her expectations for ever. Despite the fact we arent super-rich, we didnt stand out among the other families. Because the one thing I have learned over years of being fleeced by private schools is that there are two kinds of parents who opt for this daylight robbery. The first have so much money it isnt even a choice. Mummy and Daddy went to private school and really, whats 40k a year, when it comes to learning how to hold a fish knife correctly? And then there are people like us. I was privately educated at a convent and Keith went to a large state school. But we were united in our desire for a private education for our children despite it almost crippling us financially. Stormy: Shona has had a stormy relationship with her daughter Flo, pictured as a new born Challenging: Flo said going to private school was difficult as she was surrounded by girls with a lot more money And we only stomached it because of our ardent belief that we were paving the way for them to have a brilliant future. Wed read too much on the poor standards at many state schools than to take a risk with our beloved childrens educations. We even risked the roof over our heads for the misplaced satisfaction of seeing our firstborn and then her younger sister, Annie, now 15 skip off to be educated in a Grade II-listed building with a roaring fire in the hallway. It was only by the time our younger two children, Monty, now 13, and Dolly, six, were ready to start school that we saw the error of our ways. First, the girls were no further ahead academically or emotionally than their state school counterparts. And second, the older two were costing us such a fortune we couldnt afford to send the younger ones anyway. I have flogged jewellery, begged family unashamedly for loans and even danced a little too closely to the school bursar at the summer ball in the hope of getting money knocked off the fees for the elder two. We even sold our family home in Liphook, Hampshire, in 2008, moving into rented accommodation to keep up with the fees. Believing we were doing the best for our girls, we did not begrudge it for a minute. Royal connections: Four-year-old Flo didnt care that her school The Royal School, in Haslemere, Surrey had Princess Anne as president Why? Well, Im ashamed to say that for me, a private school education was about more than achieving a string of A*s. It was about bringing up a certain kind of child. The kind that would be able to enunciate properly. The kind that would know to say loo instead of toilet. I realise this sounds incredibly snobbish. But I always swore that if, after university, our children decided to become estate agents or, God forbid, beauticians I would never throw private education back in their faces. I would not, from whatever rented accommodation Keith and I happened to be living in, blame them in any way for our financial ruin. For all my failings as a mother, I am wise enough to know that you can only offer your children the best you can then, when they are grown, allow them to choose their path for themselves. But what makes Flos decision to hop off to Magaluf so infuriating is that shes not even grown. She doesnt know what shes doing. More than that, shes arrogantly sticking two fingers up at whatever future we hoped money might buy her, as well as dropping her hs and ts faster than she is her A-levels. And suddenly I find myself caring more about that 100,000 than I ever thought I would. So how did we get it so wrong? I could blame it on us relocating to Devon in 2014, in search of a more outdoorsy existence for the children, when Flo was in year ten and at a crucial stage in her GCSE process. Despite all the upheaval, she still managed to get good results at the private school 15,000 per year she moved to near our new home. Then, in September last year, and in agreement with Flo, we decided that with all that excellent education behind her she could try out the local state sixth form college for her four A-levels: psychology, media studies, economics and photography. After all, hadnt we done enough to prepare her for the wider world? Hard work: Flo faces a summer pouring spirits into the mouths of drunken British teenagers on a Spanish holiday resort Shona said Flo didn't mind her classmates were significantly more wealthy and more likely to have polo horses Clearly not. This was Flos first experience of state education. And having had that private school sense of entitlement for years, she found the sausage factory of the real world hard to deal with. For the first time in her life she was required to be self-motivated and get her work done with no more input from the college than a formal warning procedure if she failed to do so. Nobody cared if she turned up or not. What a contrast to private school where shed had her hand constantly held. There was an infinite amount of expensive nurture and pastoral care as well as a tailored approach to learning. But private schooling has failed to teach her the most useful lesson of all: how to achieve something under her own steam. Without an expensive spoon-feeder to help her, Flo struggled to stay focused. With the agonising clarity of hindsight, I can see that her astronomically expensive private education has wholly unprepared our daughter for the real world. If I sound bitter, its probably because I am. After years of paying through the nose, weve not only done our daughter a terrible disservice but weve achieved the exact opposite of what we hoped. If shed gone to state school all along, Im pretty sure she wouldnt be spending the summer pouring spirits into the mouths of drunken British teenagers in a seedy Spanish holiday resort. She would have realised that hard work is the only way to get on. Still, I suppose there might be a tiny ray of light at the end of this nightmare. After bumming around in the Med until September, Flo says she wants to take up a two-year travel and tourism course. Summer: Flo says A-levels aren't the only option and refuses to feel guilty about her choice of future Yes, I suppose its something but my vision of her standing proudly clutching her honours degree certificate has now been replaced with one of her in the aisle of a Ryanair flight to Crete, showing passengers where their nearest emergency exit is. Would it matter less to me if we hadnt spent all this money? You bet it would. Plenty of teenagers drop out of college, of course. Im not trying to take away from the fact their parents are disappointed, too. But theyd be a lot more so if theyd thrown a six-figure sum down the drain like us. Flo says: I can sort of understand why my parents have hit the roof over my decision to drop out of my A-levels. But theyre being very hypocritical. They always said they would never throw my private education back in my face. Again and again, they told me it was their decision to spend the money. But, in many ways, I wish they hadnt bothered. Yes, my private schools were lovely and I made some great friends. But I know a lot of girls from state schools who made great friends, too, and got even better results than me. What Mum forgets is that it was hard going to a posh school when we had so much less money than everyone else. I was constantly comparing myself with friends who regularly flew off to the Caribbean during school holidays and had the latest designer trainers and mobile phones. All our money was spent on school fees. It was embarrassing. Now that Im older, I cant help thinking forking out for the fees was such a waste of money. I am thankful for my education and I know Mum and Dad only wanted to do their best, but maybe they should have lowered their standards. Maybe they should just have sent me to state school and we could have had a nicer home-life. After all, the outcome for my education would probably have been the same. Since she was plucked from obscurity as a teen and thrown in to the modelling world, Andreja Pejic has challenged society's perception of beauty. The transgender supermodel took the industry by storm with her sultry, androgynous look, and with all eyes firmly on her, made the decision to undergo gender reassignment surgery in 2014. Her career has seen her challenge and break down gender barriers, and now the Australian model has graced the March 2016 cover of Marie Claire Spain who named her 'Model of the Year'. The title places her alongside the likes of Irina Shayk, Doutzen Kroes, Linda Evangelista and Anja Rubik who have also received the coveted title. Scroll down for video Breaking boundaries: Transgender supermodel Andreja Pejic appeared on the March 2016 cover of Marie Claire Spain Andreja appears on the cover in a sheer crocheted dress, her hands clasped in her lap. The sexy shoot is the first fashion cover Andreja has done since she transitioned, adding another feather to her already impressive cap. But while she appears to be leading the way for transgender people in the fashion world, Andreja said in a recent interview with i-D magazine there is still a long way to go. 'I don't believe that the fight for trans rights or African American rights is different from the fight against war, or the fight for refugees,' she told the magazine. True to herself: It was the first time the Australian beauty had appeared on a fashion cover since she underwent gender reassignment surgery in 2014 Fighting for rights: Andreja has previously compared the fight for trans rights to the fight against war or the fight for refugees Andreja knows first hand the hardships refugees face, having fled a war-torn Bosnia with her family to Serbia where they settled in a refugee camp near Belgrade, the country's capital. When Andreja was eight years old, she immigrated to Melbourne with her mother as a political refuge. Andreja is well known in the modelling industry as the first transgender women to be named as the face of a major cosmetics brand Make Up For Ever. The blonde beauty also became the first openly transgender model to be profiled by Vogue in May 2015. Refugee past: When Andreja was a child she fled war-torn Bosnia with her family to a refugee camp in Serbia, before immigrating to Australia Leading the way: In 2015, Andreja was the first transgender model to be featured by Vogue Challenging perceptions: 'It is about showing that this is not just a gimmick,' she said of being transgender Speaking to Vogue about her decision to transition, the beauty revealed that she had previously been advised not to undergo the surgery because it would transform her from an interesting enigma into just another pretty girl. There was definitely a lot of, "Oh, youre going to lose whats special about you. Youre not going to be interesting anymore. There are loads of pretty girls out there",' she said. Leos pal: Lingerie model Roxy Horner Leonardo DiCaprio flew to London to attend the Bafta awards on Sunday evening. There he was, his handsome face frozen in that familiar expression of chilly detachment, his pale eyes as cold as pebbles as the flashbulbs exploded around his head. From the top of his gelled hair to the tips of his patent slippers, DiCaprio exuded a victors certitude from the moment he stepped on to the red carpet. Indeed, he went on to win the best actor award for his portrayal of a frontier fur-trapper in The Revenant, a role for which he is hotly-tipped to win at last! an Oscar. Certainly, its his grittiest film to date. His character survives being buried alive and attacked by a bear but to be honest, some of us whove seen the movie feel that it was the bear who gave the more nuanced performance. Leonardo just grunts and groans through much of the film, crawling around half-naked and wheezing away with chapped lips for all he is worth. Exactly as he does in his private life. For at the age of 41, Leonardo DiCaprio has become Hollywoods number one toxic bachelor, its biggest lothario and most wretchedly dedicated modeliser. His carnal appetite seems to be incorrigible, his taste in women immutable. His famous preference is for box-fresh blondes aged 25 and under usually lingerie models, but any random glamourpuss will do at a pinch. He replaces this much-loved prototype as frequently as some men change their socks. After the Bafta show, the goatish star latched on to Irish television presenter Laura Whitmore, who went back to his hotel suite with others. The next evening he partied at Londons trendy Chiltern Firehouse with 24-year-old lingerie model Roxy Horner, who was also invited back to his hotel. And why not? Our boy is unattached and at a loose end after ending a six-month relationship with girlfriend Kelly Rohrbach. Their break-up came shortly before the blonde swimsuit model celebrated her 26th birthday. Coincidence or strategy? DiCaprio is the kind of man who blows in like a desert wind, then disappears into the dust before there is time to friend him on Facebook. The list of gorgeous girls grows longer every year, unfurling in his slipstream like the pretty ribbons on a kite. Some might argue he is a handsome Hollywood millionaire with his pick of willing beauties. If he cant behave like an emperor of lust, then who can? Yet what is acceptable at the age of 21 just starts to look sad and seedy two decades on. If Leo is not careful, he will end up like Jack Nicholson, the former wolfish Romeo who now rattles around his big Hollywood house on Mulholland Drive, watching box-sets and DVDs alone with no one to fuss over him in his twilight years. Or, even worse, like Hugh Grant. The 55-year-old former heartthrob now has four children under the age of five by two different women, but still cant commit to anyone except his gorgeous self. In addition, he still spends a ghoulish amount of time with his ex, Liz Hurley. Even George Clooney settled down and got married! Surely DiCaprio can do better than this? At the age of 41, Leonardo DiCaprio has become Hollywoods number one toxic bachelor, its biggest lothario and most wretchedly dedicated modeliser, writes JAN MOIR Yet no one can match his devotion to the pursuit of the perfect blonde. To date, he has only had two long term-relationships, each lasted five years and the last one ended a decade ago. The first was with supermodel Gisele Bundchen, the second with supermodel Bar Refaeli. Both women went on to marry and start families. Meanwhile, Leo remains stuck in the aspic of his lasciviousness, bouncing around like a toddler in a particularly well-stocked sweet shop. His recent parade of pretties has included the actress Blake Lively, assorted Victorias Secret models and an 18-month relationship with German model Toni Garrn. In between these frangible attachments he is seen posing on yachts or lying on white sand beaches in St Barts, surrounded by a harem of beautiful women vying for his attention. And despite this, he always looks as miserable as a man stuck at a Luton bus stop on a wet bank holiday. Many might envy his lifestyle, but be careful what you wish for. Dont laugh, but there is clearly a sadness and emptiness to it; DiCaprio is like a butterfly collector who becomes less satisfied with each enchanted specimen. For, ultimately, all that beauty must corrode the soul, especially as he seems not to be interested in intellect or personality, kindness and wit. Instead, there is only the eternal chase for a vision of physical perfection; a pursuit that is becoming more unbecoming with every year that passes. Count up all the strangers and stragglers that he has kissed, the notches and misses, the sincerity that is at the very bottom of his list and what does it all add up to? Nothing very much. Not a patch on companionship, love and the deep comfort of fidelity and trust. Perhaps such flightiness is only to be expected from a celebrity, self-professed environmentalist who hypocritically spends most of his time on superyachts, flying around the world on private jets and accumulating a collection of carbon-intensive mega-mansion homes. While, of course, constantly lecturing everyone else that climate change is humankinds greatest challenge. He cant commit to a proper cause and he cant commit to a real woman with one honourable exception. Leonardo DiCaprios first love, and quite possibly his last, is his beloved mother, Irmelin. She often accompanies him on the red carpet and he pays fulsome tributes to her in his acceptance speeches. He is an only child and, boy, does it show. For Leonardo DiCaprio has everything; all the success, all the riches and all the most beautiful women in the world, but nothing seems to make him happy. Hes Hollywoods indulged Peter Pan. I just hope he grows up before its too late. Blakes leg-crossing crime against fashion News from the fashion world. Off-the-shoulder is in. Tight is out. Baggy-cropped is the way to go. Coral is the colour of the moment. And at the Michael Kors show in New York, the maestro unveiled a fur bag he has designed to please his rich clients. It keeps their money warm, he chortled. Meanwhile, there was controversy on the Kors front row as former Gossip Girl star Blake Lively broke fashion etiquette by refusing to uncross her legs. Former Gossip Girl star Blake Lively, pictured with Riley Keough, Elvis Presleys granddaughter, broke fashion etiquette by refusing to uncross her legs Cue meltdown as photographers complained that her foot was casting a shadow on the catwalk and other fashionistas tutted in disgust. One might have hoped that the fashion world would concern itself with serious issues, such as the plight of sweatshop workers in India or the continued promotion of size-zero models, but not a bit of it. PS. Next to Blake, who does that beautiful girl with the haunting face (and also rebelling by crossing her legs) remind you of? Her name is Riley Keough and shes Elvis Presleys granddaughter. Emma Thompson has been accused of insulting our green and pleasant land, writes JAN MOIR 20 reasons Emma should shut her cakehole Emma Thompson has been accused of insulting our green and pleasant land after describing the UK as a cake-filled misery-laden grey old island. Emma, how could you? In no special order, here are 20 things, not all of them cake-based, that make Britain great. 1. Tea and toast on a rainy Sunday afternoon. 2. Having a moan. 3. Trooping The Colour. 4. Comforting lack of killer insects, poisonous snakes and scary critters. 5. The Antiques Roadshow. 6. Forming a uni-queue in the bank for different kiosks. No one tells us, we just do it. 7. Scones. 8. Talking about the weather. Why not? It is fascinating and there is always someone around who feels the same way. Parky out? Brass monkeys? Raining cats and dogs? We love it all. 9. Morecambe & Wise. 10. From Cornwall to Caithness, the glorious, gorgeous British countryside. 11. General fondness for The Great British Bake Off. 12. Polite drivers. A flash of headlights to say thank you. No, after you, when turning into a car park. It gladdens a weary heart. 13. Lemon drizzle. 14. The Queen. 15. Not saying what you mean, saying the opposite of what you mean, knowing that everyone will understand anyway. 16. Still being a bit suspicious about duvets. And cheese thats not cheddar. 17. Dont tell him, Pike! 18. Emma Thompson crying in the film Love Actually. 19. The National Trust in general, the South West Coast Path in particular. 20. Sir Winston Churchill, who once said: We have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked but not combined. We are interested and associated but not absorbed. If Britain must choose between Europe and the open sea, she must always choose the open sea. Oh, my eyes. Aargh, my ears. There have been a lot of dubious David Bowie tributes in recent weeks, but none as bad as Lady Gagas musical accolade during the Grammys. I love Gagas quirky brilliance, but this was awful. Couldnt someone have stopped her? The crazy cavalcade of costumes, the pantomime Bowie make-up, the skipping about on stage, the entire tight-twisting, knicker-knotting performance. Watching from behind the sofa, it reminded me of something but what? Eventually, the memory swam up to the surface. It was of Peter Glaze, Stewpot and the gang doing the ridiculous end-of-show musical number on the late lamented Crackerjack, the Friday tea-time kids show that my generation loved. Would Lady Gaga have won a coveted Crackerjack pencil (the innocence!) for her performance? I dont think so. Tescos gone round the bend Tesco is to stop selling curved croissants because people find them too difficult to butter. What people? The same people who need to have LEFT and RIGHT written on their turn-down wellingtons and who think a prawn cocktail is a drink? The clue is in the name, baked goods fiends! Croissant means crescent in French. If Tesco wants to change the shape, it will have to give it a new name something like the new Straightee Flakee Pastry. Oh, God. They probably already have. Who puts butter on a croissant, anyway? The whole point of the thing is that it is already pre-loaded with butter, in the same way that a gun-ship is bristling with cannons. And is equally as dangerous. Good Morning Britain weather girl Laura Tobin left her co-stars and viewers speechless after she accidentally ripped a 'rare' superhero poster worth 150,000 live on air. The 34-year-old breakfast host donned a pair of white protective gloves to present a picture of The Replicator when the 'mishap' occurred. After a tense pause and panicked calls to go to an advert, Laura revealed that the whole thing was actually a hilarious prank. Good Morning Britain weather girl Laura Tobin left her co-stars - and viewers - speechless after she accidentally ripped a 'rare' superhero poster worth 150,000 Richard Arnold threw his hand in front of his face after co-host Laura ripped the 'priceless' artwork To mark the start of comic book and sci-fi festival London Super Comic Con, Laura was tasked with showcasing rare magazines and expensive memorabilia. Setting up the skit, Laura informed the audience: 'We've got a very special display here called The Replicator Man. 'Now, this was a character back in the 70s. This is a special poster that is worth about 150,000 and there's only ten of them in the world.' Rather haphazardly handling the image, Laura continued: 'So here we go. No one's really seen this before. Weather girl Laura was seen telling viewers at home about the history of the comic book poster She made her co-stars nervous when she rather haphazardly attempted to pick up the artwork The 34-year-old presenter donned a pair of white protective gloves to present the picture of The Replicator when the 'mishap' occurred The set fell silent and the presenters weren't quite sure how to react after the awkward moment Fellow Good Morning Britain hosts Charlotte Hawkins, pictured left, and Ranvir Singh, right, didn't know how to react to the 'mishap' 'I've got my gloves on but I'm feeling really nervous because you said the oils can really spoil them.' Laura, dressed in a Karen Millen navy dress and Michael Kors high-heels, attempted to pick up the picture with her surgical-looking mitts in order to 'get a closer look'. Failing to hide his anxiety, fellow host Richard Arnold said: 'I'm a bag of nerves now Laura.' As she tried to remove the comic from the display broad it tore in half and Laura shrieked: 'Oh my goodness! Is this the original one that's worth 150,000? 'My heart is going ten to the dozen. Was it the gloves?' Completely unaware of the joke, a shocked Richard threw his hand to his face and said: 'We are making this up, right?' Meanwhile, newsreader Ranvir Singh grimaced: 'We've probably got some insurance that covers this.' The item on the programme featuring rare comics and expensive memorabilia was to mark the start of comic book and sci-fi festival, Comic Con Laura's fellow presenter Richard Arnold was complete unaware of the joke and asked if she was 'making it up' After revealing it was all a joke, Laura went on to rip up the rest of the movie poster While a panicked, Charlotte Hawkins looked around the studio and said: 'Can we just glue that back down again? Can we go to an advert?' Clearly pleased that she had managed to fool her colleagues, Laura finally revealed: 'Guys - it was a joke! It's not really worth 150,000, it's worth nothing!' She then took much delight in tearing the rest of the picture into tiny pieces. Laura later took to Twitter and shared a picture of what the poster looks like now and wrote: 'Ha-I'm expecting my #oscar in the post for that performance! Ripping 'a rare, unseen & expensive' character' The @gmb faces were priceless!'. Vowing to get his own back Richard replied with a picture of cartoon baddie Hooded Claw and a tied-up Penelope Pitstop, writing: '.@GMB @Lauratobin1 My revenge will be diabolical #FridayFeeling.' Laura struggled to contain her laughter as she delightedly tore up the rest of the 'priceless' artwork Bristol Palin made it clear that daughter Sailor Grace remains a 'mama's girl' just hours before it was publicly revealed her Marine ex Dakota Meyer is the newborn's father. The 25-year-old took to Instagram on Thursday to share a photo of herself holding the nearly-two-month-old infant. And while Bristol was all smiles, Sailor looked a bit startled by the impromptu snapshot. 'Such a mama's girl. Wishing I was loving on my baby girl right now,' she captioned the sweet picture. Mother-daughter duo: Bristol Palin took to Instagram on Thursday to share this photo of herself posed with her nearly two-month-old daughter Sailor Grace as it is confirmed that her ex Dakota Meyer is the father All in the genes: A court-ordered paternity test revealed that Dakota (left) is Sailor's biological father with 99.9957 per cent certainty The heartwarming photo was posted just hours before it was revealed that Dakota is Sailor's father after months of speculation. Although Bristol and her ex-fiance Dakota separately announced Sailor's birth on December 24, one day after she was welcomed into the world, she never publicly confirmed that he was the father. A few weeks after Sailor was born, Dakota filed paperwork asking a judge for joint legal and physical custody of the little girl, however, the case was 'pending action to determine paternity'. Court documents seen by Daily Mail Online reveal that Bristol admits that she was engaged to Dakota and that paternity was established via DNA testing at 99.9957 per cent certainty. Although Dakota is Sailor's biological father, Bristol contends that because he lives in Kentucky and she lives in Alaska, shared physical custody may not be 'practicable'. However, she agrees to a 'decree of shared legal custody' with visitation adjusted consistent with the child's age and Dakota's out-of-state residence. She also asks for interim and permanent child support and that Dakota pay Sailor's delivery and medical expenses. Sibling love: On Wednesday, Bristol posted a photo of her 14-year-old sister Piper posed with their seven-year-old brother Trig, who has Down syndrome Home at last: Bristol shared this photo of herself holding Sailor on Tuesday after a day of work It has undoubtedly been a stressful couple of months for the single mom who is involved in not one, but two custody battles. Her seven-year-old son Tripp's father Levi Johnston filed court papers on January 26 asking a judge to reduce his child support payments after Bristol claimed he owned more than $80,000 in unpaid support. In court papers seen by Daily Mail Online, 25-year-old Levi alleges that his earnings have dropped significantly since a temporary child support order was granted in 2010 and based on his estimated income, which was in excess of $100,000. RadarOnline reports that new court documents filed on February 11 show that a judge denied her 'motion for collection of past due child support, insofar as that motion relies on the interim support order because the order was an interim order, it no longer was in effect once the case was dismissed.' Party time! The 25-year-old posed with her seven-year-old son Tripp and her daughter last week at what appeared to be a dinner celebrating her mother Sarah's 52nd birthday Sleeping on the job: Bristol, who has been working at Dr. Michael L. Cusack's office at Alaska Dermatology Laser and Skin Cancer Center for more than six years, took Sailor to work with her earlier this month The judge also ordered both Levi and Sara to submit proposed child support totals by February 26 and will rule on Levi's final total owed based on those proposals. However, despite her issues with her exes, Bristol is keeping her focus on her children. The proud mom often shares photos of her kids and family on Instagram, and on Wednesday she posted a photo of her 14-year-old sister Piper posed with their seven-year-old brother Trig, who has Down syndrome. 'These two cuties, my favs,' Bristol wrote, using the hashtags: '#PiperIndi #TrigPaxson #theluckyfew #mybrotherhasmorechromosomesthanyou.' And the day before that, the working mom was so happy to be reunited with her newborn daughter Sailor after a day at the office that she couldn't help but snap a heartwarming selfie with the seven-week-old. On the go: Bristol shared this snapshot of herself posed with Tripp and Sailor in January to commemorate her return to work a month after giving birth to her baby girl Broken romance: Bristol is currently embroiled in custody battles with Sailor's father, marine Dakota (left), 27, and Tripp's father, Levi Johnston (right) Bristol shared the photo of herself holding her little girl in her arms as she snapped of a photo of them standing in front of a mirror on top of her daughter's dresser, writing: 'Love coming home from work to my littlest!' The single mother-of-two has been working at Dr. Michael L. Cusack's office at Alaska Dermatology Laser and Skin Cancer Center in Anchorage for more than six years. The daughter of former Republican vice presidential candidate, who graduated from Penrose Academy's esthetics program in 2014, has recently started sharing more and more photos of herself at the office. In late January, she took to Instagram to announce that she was headed back to work only a month after Sailor was born, and a few weeks ago she shared a picture of her daughter at the office with her. Advertisement They say that sex sells and clearly one Polish coffin manufacturer is hoping that's the case with its rather morbid annual calendar. Lindner has made a name for itself by arranging a controversial shoot each year featuring naked or half-naked female models posing against caskets. And this year is no different, as women pose provocatively in vintage-style images that show them draped over coffins, posing while holding a gun with one, and even sitting down to enjoy some fruit by one. Lindner has made a name for itself by arranging a controversial shoot each year featuring naked or half-naked female models posing against caskets. This year, it has gone for a vintage pin-up theme, pictured The company has been producing the controversial calendars since 2010 and this year sees the women pose in sexy lingerie in vintage surroundings harking back to the 'old times' when 'gentleman wore top hats and ladies wore lace' - pictured, the calendar cover Twelve models - harking back to the 'old times' when 'gentleman wore top hats and ladies wore lace' - pose alongside 12 wooden caskets, each of which is sold via the company. Of its latest calendar which takes on a vintage pinup feel, the company said: 'The Lindner Calendar is an one-of-a-kind phenomenon: this limited edition, exclusive product is a treat for collectors and beauty connoisseurs. Twelve unique coffins, twelve beautiful models they can now belong to you too.' The first calendar appeared in 2010 - causing eyebrows to be raised - as each month of the year displayed a very risque photo of female models dressed in sexy outfits. The calendars have not affected sales with Lindner remaining the largest producer of coffins in Poland. Here a model poses in lace underwear and a fur stole to kneel beside the coffin and a bowl of fruit for the 2016 calendar Following the release of the 2011 calendar, which saw the women take to movie settings with the caskets, the Catholic Church expressed their outrage. Here a model stands in front of the coffin in a ring master costume for its latest offering The following year the 2011 calendar showed ladies in sexy lingerie draped over caskets recreating movie scenes from films such James Bond, Reservoir Dogs and The Godfather. But the calendar sparked controversy in Catholic Poland with a church spokesman calling it tasteless and shocking. The Catholic church in Poland condemned Lindner's calendar saying human death should be respected and not mixed with sex. The church said the calendars were 'inappropriate' but Zbigniew Lindner, the firm's owner, defended them. The Catholic church in Poland condemned Lindner's calendar saying human death should be respected and not mixed with sex. Here a model paints a still life of her accompanying casket Defending the calendar, Zbigniew Lindner, the firm's owner, said: 'My son had the idea of creating the company's calendar so that we could show something half-serious, colorful, beautiful; the beauty of Polish girls and the beauty of our coffins' Following the release of the 2013 calendar he said: 'My son had the idea of creating the company's calendar so that we could show something half-serious, colorful, beautiful; the beauty of Polish girls and the beauty of our coffins. 'So much work goes into our coffins that are only seen for a few moments at the funeral. We wanted to show that a coffin shouldn't be a sacred object - it's furniture, it's the last bed you'll ever sleep in. It isn't a religious symbol. It's a product. Why are people afraid of coffins and not of business suits, cosmetics or jewellery?' Last year the calendar appeared to coincide with the release of the 50 Shades Of Grey movie with black and white photos depicting nude models tied up in ribbon and accompanied by suited men. Last year's calendar appeared to coincide with the release of the 50 Shades Of Grey movie and featured black and white photographs of nude models posing with suited men. Here a model flashes her bare bottom while using a coffin as a flower bed However, it would seem that this controversy hasn't been enough to deter the company from producing this style of calendar - or, clearly, to stop people from buying them. The company has been making wood products since the 1940s, and, following the fall of Communism a little over two decades ago, Linder has become the largest producer of coffins in Poland. Most adult men shudder at the thought of a scalpel getting anywhere near their penis. And yet, there has been a surge in adult male circumcision procedures over the past few years. Men who didnt undergo circumcision as a child are now overcoming their fears - going under the knife to have their hoods removed. Mens health expert Dr Paul Turek, of The Turek Clinic in California, told Daily Mail Online circumcision can have benefits, lowering a mans risk of transmitting sexually transmitted diseases. Men's health expert, Dr Paul Turek of The Turek Clinic, revealed to Daily Mail Online that adult male circumcision is on the rise - and more men are snipping off their so-called turtlenecks than ever before Studies have also shown the procedure reduces their chances of developing penile cancer and can boost fertility, he added. But, as with every medical decision, Dr Turek urged any man considering circumcision to discuss the pros and cons with their doctor before making their decision. Dr Turek revealed to Daily Mail Online five key things everyone needs to know about adult circumcision. CIRCUMCISION WAS TYPICALLY PERFORMED ON INFANTS Although more and more adult males are seeking out circumcision, the procedure is most common in infants. The procedure removes the foreskin of the penis, and according to Dr Turek, is usually done for ritualistic and cultural reasons'. He said: The American Academy of Pediatrics says its not routinely recommended for infants; thats a change of heart over 50 years ago. Circumcision has been associated with a lack of hygiene, and a lack of hygiene has been associated with health issues in kids. Currently in America, the only thing that a circumcision does for boys is reduce the rate of urinary tract infections. For adults, UTIs arent too serious, but in children they can lead to lifelong kidney problems, he explained. And so, while circumcision is still widely practiced, it is becoming far less common for children to go under the knife. However, new studies have uncovered health benefits for circumcision. Those discoveries have resulted in an increase in the number of adult men undergoing the procedure. Circumcision is typically performed on infants, but those who did not undergo the procedure as children are now electing to go under the knife as adults. The procedure in adults is far more intense - and requires men to abstain from sex for at least a week afterward, Dr Turek said But the minor operation is far less intense in children requiring just a clamp, Dr Turek said. In contrast, in adulthood it requires that the patient be given more anesthesia, takes longer and sutures are needed. Furthermore, children heal from circumcision overnight, while adults take far longer to recuperate. And, adult men often have to abstain from sex for at least a week while they recover. THE OP REDUCES THE RISK OF STDs Circumcision prevents the spread of viral STDs, including HIV, Herpes and HPV which is known to cause genital warts and cervical cancer. Dr Turek said: That data is indisputable. It comes from three US government sponsored trials conducted in three locations. Scientists are still working to determine just how circumcision is able to reduce the spread of those viral infections. However, according to Dr Turek, the current theory is that the foreskin acts as a reservoir for secretion. And, those secretions contain viruses, such as HIV and herpes. Circumcision helps reduce the transmission of viral STDs, including HIV, herpes and HPV, according to Dr Turek. That's because the foreskin acts as a reservoir that absorbs viral secretion Furthermore, with those secretions residing on the hood of the penis, contact time with someone who does not have the virus can be increased. He added: Penile skin foreskin is like eyelid skin. Its very thin. Increased contact time of potential viral pathogens can be important. However, circumcision reduces that reservoir and limits the contact time. Thats why HIV infection rates were lowered by 60 per cent in circumcised men in the studies, he said. Yet, circumscion has not been found to have any effect on the spread of viral STDs, such as chlamydia and gonorrhea. AND IT ALSO LOWERS THE RISK OF PENILE CANCER Penile cancer is incredibly rare, according to Dr Turek. And, the disease is virtually nonexistent in circumcised men. Effectively the only men who get cancer of the penis which nobody would ever want are men who are uncircumcised He said: Effectively the only men who get cancer of the penis which nobody would ever want are men who are uncircumcised. Thats because scientists believe penile cancer like cervical cancer may be caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV). Dr Turek said: Some penile cancers have a pre-malignant stat that looks just like warts. They grow like them and look like they, so we think theyre directly related. Because circumcision reduces the transmission of HPV, it is thought to also reduce the likelihood of a man developing penile cancer. He added: Surely if cervical cancer comes from HPV, youd think this does, too. GETTING THE SNIP DOESN'T IMPROVE SEX Some people assume that going under the knife can make sex more pleasurable. However, according to Dr Turek, circumcision has no effect on sensations during sex. He said: Most men who get the operation as an adult where they can compare sex before and after the hood is removed do not notice the difference. The doctor explained that the male G-spot is unaffected by the procedure, which accounts for the unchanged sensation. The G-spot is on the bottom of the penis, rather than the foreskin, he added. Furthermore, adult circumcision reduces the risk of penile cancer and can help men suffering from fertility problems. But, it doesn't have any effect on the sensations men experience during sex - for the penis was made to be uncircumcised, so the rolling back and forth of the foreskin can actually increase pleasure And anyway, the penis is a sexual organ that was never designed to be improved through circumcision. Dr Turek said: The penis was made to be uncircumcised, so theres something to be said for the rolling back and forth of the skin to increase speed bumps that increase pleasure. BUT CIRCUMCISION CAN REMEDY FERTILITY PROBLEMS Some men who stop by Dr Tureks office for adult circumcision have issues with fertility. Most commonly, those men are suffering from disorders called phimosis and blanitis. Dr Turek said: Phimosis is the inability to retract the foreskin. Its too tight and it can cause problems with sex and fertility. Phimosis is most often found in diabetics and because there are more diabetics than ever before, the condition is becoming more common. He added: Balanitis is also higher in diabetics. Thats inflammation of the glands. The head of the penis gets inflamed and itchy or red; sometimes its hard to eradicate if the penis is always covered. However, once the hood is removed, both of those problems usually are remedied. Men with phimosis and balanitis are able to overcome the disorders and their fertility returns, Dr Turek added. While outlining some of the arguments from scientific research, in favor of circumcision, Dr Turek said he 'does not promote the routine circumcision of babies or boys'. Danger: NHS report into the death of one-year-old William Mead (pictured) warned of the danger of pressuring GPs to reduce their prescriptions Warning family doctors that they are driving a health catastrophe by doling out too many antibiotics helps reduce prescriptions, a study has found. Professor Dame Sally Davies, Englands chief medical officer, wrote to GPs saying they were helping create a serious and growing threat to health by giving out too many pills. The pilot scheme was a success, she claimed last night, helping drive down prescriptions by 3.3 per cent and saving 92,000. But the dangers of pressuring doctors over antibiotics were last month highlighted in an NHS report into the death of a one-year-old baby. The report into the death of William Mead, who died of sepsis without receiving antibiotics, warned that GPs are under constant pressure to reduce their prescriptions. As a result, it found some GPs are refusing to hand them out even when it is clinically indicated in other words, where the patient genuinely needs them. The report said the pressure not to prescribe antibiotics might well have had an impact on the decision-making of the doctors involved in Williams case. Dame Sallys letter was sent to 750 GP surgeries deemed to be prescribing too many antibiotics. She wrote: Antimicrobial resistance is a serious and growing threat to our health. Reducing unnecessary prescriptions in primary care may help prevent a public health catastrophe. The practice in Cornwall where William Mead died did not receive the letter but the report into his death was the first acknowledgment that the NHS campaign against overuse of antibiotics could be resulting in children being deprived of the drugs. The UK has a five-year aim of reducing antibiotic prescribing in GP practices by 4 per cent, as experts have warned that some superbugs will become untreatable in the future as bacteria become more and more resistant to antibiotics. Over six months in the winter of 2014/15, letters were sent to practices across England who had antibiotic prescribing rates that were in the top 20 per cent for their area. Writing in medical journal The Lancet yesterday, Dame Sally insisted: Drug-resistant infections are one of the biggest health threats we face. THE SURGERY THAT WILL ONLY SEE 'ACUTELY UNWELL' PATIENTS A Welsh GP surgery has told patients they will be turned away without an appointment unless acutely unwell after one of its doctors called in sick. Treflan Surgery, in Pwllheli, North Wales, warned its 7,500 patients that they can see emergencies only this week because of a severe shortage of family doctors. The practice said it had been abandoned by the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, which had provided very little support despite repeated warnings about a lack of GPs in the area. This is the latest crisis to beset the Labour-run Welsh NHS. Tory Welsh Assembly member Darren Millar said the meltdown proved that Welsh health bosses had lost their grip on the critical situation. Advertisement Concern: The report said the pressure not to prescribe antibiotics might well have had an impact on the decision-making of the doctors involved in Williams (pictured) case Loss: Melissa Mead, whose 12-month-old son William Mead died in December 2014 following a string of NHS failings. Professor Dame Sally Davies, Englands chief medical officer, wrote to GPs in a pilot scheme saying they were helping create a serious and growing threat to health by giving out too many pills But this innovative trial has shown effective and low-cost ways to reduce unnecessary prescribing of antibiotics, which are essential if we are to preserve these precious medicines and help to save modern medicine as we know it. The articles co-author Michael Hallsworth, who works for the Governments Behavioural Insights Team which was founded to use scientific discoveries to improve society said: Giving tailored feedback to prescribers isnt complicated. We estimate that this simple intervention could reduce Englands antibiotic prescribing by 0.85 per cent, despite costing just 6p per prescription saved. Last night Dr Maureen Baker, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said it was concerning that there has been no new class of antibiotics produced in more than 25 years. A sugar tax on soft drinks would prevent 3.7 million Britons from becoming obese in a decade, figures show. This is equivalent to the combined populations of Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Bristol and Leicester. The calculations put further pressure on the Government to impose the tax as part of a major obesity strategy which is due imminently. Fizzy drinks: Ministers want to give the industry one final chance to slash sugar from products voluntarily But ministers are now planning on shelving the levy and giving the industry one final chance to slash sugar from products voluntarily. A report by Cancer Research UK and the UK Health Forum think tank calculates that a 20 per cent tax on soft drinks would slash obesity rates by 15 per cent. It would also save the Government an estimated 10million in NHS care and welfare costs due to illnesses linked to obesity. Around a quarter of adults are currently obese but this is expected to rise to a third by 2025. But this report calculates that with a sugar tax it will only increase to 29 per cent. TV chef: Jamie Oliver has promised to go ninja on the Government if it isnt tough enough Ministers are meant to be publishing their Childhood Obesity Strategy in weeks but they keep delaying it, fearing it will be so heavily criticised. Jamie Oliver, the TV chef, has promised to go ninja on the Government if it isnt tough enough and rally support from major health charities and medical bodies. Ever since they came to power in 2010 the Tories have been repeatedly criticised for being too soft on junk food firms and allowing them to set their own rules. Alison Cox, Cancer Research UKs director of cancer prevention, said: The ripple effect of a small tax on sugary drinks is enormous. These numbers make it clear why we need to act now before obesity becomes an even greater problem. There are a lot of things working against us when it comes to making healthier choices. Were all bombarded by junk food advertising of cheap foods packed with extra calories and it can be tough for parents do whats best for their children. The Government has a chance to help reduce the amount of sugar consumed by adults and children and to give future generations the best chance of a healthier life. Earlier this week campaigners warned that some coffee shop drinks contain 20 teaspoons of sugar. This is three times the recommended daily amount and twice the levels in a can of coke Jane Landon, UK Health Forums deputy chief executive, said: Countries which have introduced a tax on sugary drinks have not only reduced consumption, they have raised much-needed revenues for public health measures. Shocking: Earlier this week campaigners warned that some coffee shop drinks contain 20 teaspoons of sugar These figures indicate that even a modest tax at 20 per cent as part of a society-wide response - could help to deliver the scale and pace of change needed to turn around the UKs crisis of obesity-related ill-health. Being overweight or obese causes 17,000 cancers a year in the UK 5 per cent although this may be an underestimate. There are a lot of things working against us when it comes to making healthier choices Alison Cox, Cancer Research UK Researchers say excess fat greatly increases the risk of getting cancer and then dying from it. But ministers are reluctant to impose a sugar tax as they fear it will be unpopular with the public and be overly bureaucratic to collect. Studies have also shown it may be less effective at tackling obesity than other measures such as controlling portion sizes and slashing sugar from products. Ministers are keen to give the food and drinks industry one final chance to make their products healthier and smaller voluntarily, before imposing a tax. A Department of Health spokesman said: It is shocking that one in three children are leaving primary school overweight or obese. We want to make the healthy choice the easy choice- and our childhood obesity strategy will look at everything, including sugar, that contributes to a child becoming overweight and obese. A top beautician contracted skin cancer when her varifocal lenses acted like a magnifying glass. Jo-anne Jewett, who counted Princess Diana and Madonna among former clients, was shocked to find she had a melanoma after living in Greece for a year. Despite using a high UV protection lotion, Mrs Jewett, 57, contracted the tumour when the skin just below her eyes was burned by magnified sunshine. She had also assumed the high-end eye cream she had used for over 30 years contained protection against harmful rays. Jo-anne Jewett, 57, who religiously applied sun cream was astounded to be diagnosed with skin cancer after missing a tiny patch on her face. She is pictured after having the cancerous growth removed Id put some very expensive eye cream around my eyes thinking it had a sun protection factor, but it didnt, she said. Id missed one bit. I couldnt believe how stupid Id been, me, someone who prides herself on knowing how to look after her skin. I wore ordinary varifocals, not sunglasses, so the sunlight went straight through to the unprotected skin around my eye. Mrs Jewett (left, before her diagnosis) was stunned to be diagnosed with melanoma (right), and now wants to share her story to warn others to be safe in the sun My consultant said the varifocals acted like a magnifying glass, increasing the intensity of the suns rays. Varifocals lenses combine three prescriptions in one lens, allowing people to see at all distances. This means that in one lens the glass is much thicker at certain points. THE DEADLIEST SKIN CANCER Melanoma can appear anywhere on the body, but they most commonly appear on the back, legs, arms and face and even underneath a nail. Though less common, they often spread to other organs in the body, making them more deadly. The most common sign is the appearance of a new mole or a change in an existing mole. Signs to look out for include a mole that is: A helpful way to tell the difference between a normal mole and a melanoma is the ABCDE checklist: Asymmetrical melanomas have two very different halves and are an irregular shape Border melanomas have a notched or ragged border Colours melanomas will be a mix of two or more colours Diameter melanomas are often larger than 6mm (1/4 inch) in diameter Enlargement or elevation a mole that changes size over time is more likely to be a melanoma Advertisement The mother of two, who spent a year in Corfu in 2008 writing a book on beauty and skincare, said she had managed to miss the area under her eyes while putting on Factor 30 cream. Unaware of her mistake, she didnt recognise the warning signs, and visited her GP for an unrelated matter last August. But Mrs Jewett, who lives with husband Richard, 61 in Parwich, Derbyshire, and has two children Shannon, 20, and Cameron, 28, was told she had a melanoma. She said: Id had [something under my eye] for two years and it kept getting bigger and bigger but I ignored it. Ridiculous. Its horrific when I think about it now. I am normally over the top with skin care. Cancer is sly and clever. I thought it was an innocent white head. After a three-and-a-half hour operation at the Royal Derby Hospital, doctors removed the fingernail-sized tumour. Mrs Jewett, who has worked in the beauty industry for 38 years, said it was ironic to be diagnosed with skin cancer, because Ive always been concerned about wrinkles and my skincare regime is very good. She added: I have never ever been someone who sits out in the sun and tans. I sit in the shade and wear a hat so Im very shocked its happened to me. I know it was really silly not to check but I think all face creams should have a sun protection factor. Having been given the all-clear, she is keen to make women over the age of 50 aware of the importance of skin protection. Using her expertise as a make-up artist to stars including Barbara Streisand and Bette Midler, Mrs Jewett is advising older women not to assume that their high-end face creams come with Sun Protection Factor. Dr Anjali Mahto, consultant dermatologist and British Skin Foundation spokesman, said: Jo-annes skin cancer was likely a result of direct UV damage from the sun and a lack of protection around her eyes, as UVA still penetrates glass. The delicate skin around the eyes needs protection from UV just as the rest of the body. It is therefore worth investing in a good pair of sunglasses and using skin products made for this area with SPF. Iran awarded metals to their military for stopping and holding our military in the ocean. Iran is not our friend and no agreement with them should have been signed by our president. The protectors of our great country are, first, our military, and we as a nation should always support those who are serving with honor. Second, our next line of defense is our police departments, federal agents, state and others and we should always support those who are serving with honor. May this great country do the right thing for our military and citizens and cancel any agreement we have with Iran and support our allies with a ban on trading with them. If boots on the ground is necessary then lets put them where needed. Mine and many others have been on the ground when needed. Marion Ralph Taylor, Brook Park means the brain doesn't form properly in the womb - causing developmental difficulties and facial deformity A baby with a severe brain defect with a survival rate of just three per cent has defied doctors by living to celebrate his first birthday. Jordan Gallagher was born with a deformity where his brain failed to fuse together, leaving him with developmental difficulties. The condition - alobar holoprosencephaly (HPE) - has such a poor survival rate after birth that his mother Julie was encouraged to terminate her pregnancy. But she refused and Jordan has astounded doctors by beating the odds to survive. Jordan Gallagher was born with a brain defect which has a survival rate of just three per cent, but has defied doctors to survive and celebrate his first birthday Jordan was born with alobar holoprosencephaly (HPE) - a conditin with such a poor survival rate after birth that his parents Julie and Alistair , 28 and 32, were encouraged to terminate their child Abolar is the most severe form of HPE where the cerebrum, the largest part of the brain located in the front area of the skull, is fixed together rather than being split into left and right hemispheres. Children are rarely born with abolar HPE and of those that do, half die by the age of four months. Julie and Alistair Gallagher, 28 and 32, now treasure every day with Jordan knowing it could be his last. Mrs Gallagher said: 'Everyday is a wonderful bonus. I would never want to put my son through anything that would make his life a misery - but he's just carried on fighting. 'He's got such an amazing personality and if you met him you'd never guess what he'd been through.' An MRI scan during Mrs Gallagher's pregnancy found that Jordan's head was half the size it should be and he was diagnosed with abolar HPE. There are no specialists in the UK and the Gallaghers had to register Jordan with the Carter Centre in Texas which carries out research into the condition. But they have never been able to afford to visit the centre and have had to rely on the limited resources in the UK. Mrs Gallagher, of Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire, said: 'The doctors had to read books about it before doing anything, the condition was that unheard of. WHAT IS ALOBAR HOLOPROSENCEPHALY Alobar holoprosencephaly (HPE) is a severe brain abnormality caused when parts of the brain do not form and fuse together normally. This process usually takes place during the third week of foetal embryonic life. The cause of HPE is unknown. Often, no specific cause can be identified. It is estimated that HPE affects 1 in 5,000-10,000 live births. Since many pregnancies with an affected foetus' end in early miscarriage, the frequency among all pregnancies may be as high as 1 in 200-250. Given the known poor prognosis, women are offered a choice of continuing with the pregnancy with the support of the hospital team, or termination of the pregnancy. Some women may choose to terminate the pregnancy. For those who choose to continue, treatment is based on management of the condition of the baby and support for the parents. Current studies indicate that only three per cent of all foetuses with HPE survive to delivery and the vast majority of these infants do not survive past the first six months of life. Prognosis is dependent upon the degree of fusion and malformation of the brain, as well as other health complications that may be present. The more severe forms of HPE are usually fatal, though some babies may live several months or years. Source: NHS Screening Programmes Advertisement 'It made it really hard to be honest, it felt like it was just us struggling alone. All the support networks are in America and we had no hope of going over there.' Doctors encouraged Mrs Gallagher to end the pregnancy right up to 40 weeks because the chances of survival were so slim. She was also warned that if Jordan did survive he would be facially disfigured and have profound learning difficulties. But Mrs Gallagher defied them, wanting to give her son a chance at life. She said: 'I thought even if I could have one precious minute with my child, that would be enough. 'Doctors had warned me that he'd have severe facial disfigurement, so I wasn't sure what to expect. But when they handed him to me, he was perfect. 'I wouldn't want to make him suffer unnecessarily, and if he passed, so be it - but I would love him whatever and any time I could have with him would be so special.' Julie and Alistair were fully prepared for Jordan to die soon after birth and the hospital priest was put on standby to baptise him immediately. He was born on December 22 after an emergency C-section at Glasgow's Southern General Maternity Unit. Mrs Gallagher was sent back to the isolated labour ward so she didn't have to be around other new mothers if her baby died. She said: 'We had to take it minute by minute, hour by hour. I never expected any more - you can't. We still live like this to this day.' Julie and Alastair took Jordan home on Christmas Day because they didn't want him to pass away in a hospital setting. His early life has been fraught with complications. He was born with choanal atresie, which means he cannot breathe through his nose. This made feeding difficult, as newborns rely on breathing through their noses - so Jordan had to teach himself how to inhale through the mouth. Now, he breathes independently, occasionally needing the aid of an oxygen mask and a suction pump. Jordan has severe learning difficulties. But his mother says he has lots of character. She said: 'He's got such an amazing personality and if you met him you'd never guess what he'd been through' Since his birth, Jordan has battled a myriad of health conditions including breathing problems, seizures and an allergy to cow's milk While Jordan's story is miraculous, life isn't easy for him or his family - they've been constantly in and out of hospital since his birth. In March 2015, he was diagnosed as allergic to cow's milk after a severe bout of screaming episodes, and has to be fed using an oral gastric feeding tube. Further into the spring, Jordan started having seizures and was admitted once again to hospital where they failed to regulate the fits. Fortunately, they moved him to the local Robin House Hospice where they were able to get the seizures under control using a muscle relaxant and he went home after two weeks. But the spasms returned with a vengeance in December and were far harder to control than before - one night he was fitting for almost 10 hours. Doctors eventually controlled his attacks using a drug called phenytoin - but the family were warned to prepare themselves for the worst as the medication can cause patients to have difficulty breathing. Despite Jordan's health problems, Mrs Gallagher says her family is lucky. She said: 'It's been very emotionally draining, a complete rollercoaster - but we're so blessed.' Jordan is pictured at Jordan's breathing was already compromised due to three cases of bronchitis earlier in the year which, at one point, left him in intensive care. Incredibly, he fought on and survived, despite his health problems. Mrs Gallagher struggles with the lack of awareness regarding abolar HPE, and sometimes feels as though she is the one guiding the professionals. 'It's something no one really knows about. They say that mother knows best and sometimes with doses of medication I know what he'll be able to take,' she said. Her job as a children's ventilatior support worker at Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow also gives her valuable experience. She said: 'I'm usually a pretty laid back and positive person, but this has changed everything. 'At work I'm used to seeing poor babies in hard situations but with your own it's so different. 'But we have to live for each moment and stay strong. If I break down and crumble I'm letting him down - I'm his voice. 'We have always vowed we would draw the line when we thought that things were getting too much for Jordan, his will to live, however, has us in awe of him. Drinking alcohol in moderation is beneficial to the heart, a new study has revealed. Those who drink wine, spirits or beer regularly are less prone to heart failure and heart attacks than people who rarely or never drink. Three to five drinks a week are part of a heart-healthy lifestyle, scientists concluded. Drinking a little alcohol every day can be part of a healthy lifestyle, Imre Janszky, a professor of social medicine at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology said. When consumed in moderation, alcohol does more good than harm, he added. A team of researchers in Norway have added to the scientific evidence that drinking alcohol in moderation is good for the heart. Their findings reveal three to five drinks a week lowers the risk of heart failure And he said, it doesn't matter whether a person drinks wine, liquor or beer. 'It's primarily the alcohol that leads to more good cholesterol, among other things,' he said. 'But alcohol can also cause higher blood pressure, so it's best to drink moderate amounts relatively often.' With colleagues from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Professor Janszky and his team have published two studies looking at the link between alcohol and heart health. The most recent focuses on heart failure, while another, published in September, looks at acute myocardial infarction. In both cases, research shows people who regularly drink alcohol have better cardiovascular health than those who consume little or no alcohol. The studies showed that those who drank three to five drinks each week were 33 per cent less prone to heart failure than those who abstained, or drank infrequently. In the case of heart attacks, the risk was reduced by 28 per cent with each additional one-drink increment. Researchers said the findings were no surprise. There is a general consensus among the scientific community that three to five drinks a week can be good for the heart. The study found the risk of heart attack lowered by 28 per cent with each extra drink 'The relationship between alcohol and heart health has been studied in many countries, including the USA and southern European nations,' Professor Janszky said. 'The conclusions have been the same, but the drinking patterns in these countries are very different than in Norway. 'In countries like France and Italy, very few people don't drink. 'It raises the question as to whether earlier findings can be fully trusted, if other factors related to non-drinkers might have influenced research results. 'It may be that these are people who previously had alcohol problems, and who have stopped drinking completely.' For this reason, the researchers wanted to examine the theory within a Norwegian population where a significant population drinks rarely or not at all. In the study looking at myocardial infarction, 41 per cent of participants reported that they did not drink at all, or that they consumed less than half an alcoholic beverage each week. Both studies are based on the longitudinal HUNT 2 Nord-Trndelag Health Study conducted between 1995 and 1997. The study which examined the relationship between heart failure and alcohol followed 60,665 people enrolled on the HUNT study. At the time, between 1995 and 1997, all participants had no incidence of heart failure. Of those, 1,588 developed heart failure during the period of the study, which ended in 2008. The risk was highest for those who rarely or never drank alcohol, and for those who had an alcohol problem. The more often participants consumed alcohol within normal amounts, the lower their risk of heart failure turned out to be. researchers noted. Those who drank five or more times a month had a 21 per cent lower risk compared to non-drinkers and those who drank little, while those who drank between one and five times a month had a two per cent lower risk. Professor Janszky said: 'I'm not encouraging people to drink alcohol all the time. Experts concluded that a little alcohol every day, whether it is wine, liquor or beer, can be good for the heart 'We've only been studying the heart, and it's important to emphasize that a little alcohol every day can be healthy for the heart. 'But that doesn't mean it's necessary to drink alcohol every day to have a healthy heart.' In the heart attack study, 58,827 participants were categorized by how much and how often they drank. Of the study participants, 2,966 experienced an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) between 1995 and the end of 2008. The adjusted analyses showed that each additional one-drink increment decreased the risk of AMI by 28 per cent. The researchers stressed that few participants in the study drank particularly much, so they cannot conclude that high alcohol intake protects against heart attack or heart failure. They also encourage looking at the findings in a larger context, since the risk of a number of other diseases and social problems can increase as a result of higher alcohol consumption. For example, the researchers observed that the risk of dying from various types of cardiovascular disease increased with about five drinks a week and up, while those who drank more moderate amounts had the lowest risk. High alcohol consumption was also strongly associated with an increased risk of death from liver disease. A petition calling on the Government to provide the Meningitis B vaccine for all children has become the most signed in Downing Street history. Nearly 600,000 people signed the document on the Parliament website following the death of two-year-old Faye Burdett and her parents heartbreaking plea for all children to be vaccinated. But the Government has yet to back down on the issue, with a senior Tory MP yesterday saying that petitions should not influence vaccination policy. Last night, Boots, Britains biggest pharmacist, said it had run out of supplies and CityDoc, the largest supplier of the vaccine outside of the NHS, said it was unable to offer it to new patients. Nearly 600,000 people signed a petition calling on the Government to provide the Meningitis B vaccine for all children following the death of two-year-old Faye Burdett Despite nearly 600,000 signatures on the document on the Parliament website, the Government has yet to back down on the issue, with MPs saying petitions should not influence vaccination policy Pharmacies and private clinics up and down the country posted messages on their website saying that they had exhausted their supplies. Many offered parents a place on waiting lists, but centres said that they would not get new stock before the summer. Other clinics were suspected of increasing their prices as demand grew, with some charging up to 195 for one dose - nearly three times the 70 cost paid by the NHS. The rush was sparked after Faye Burdetts parents released horrific pictures of their daughter, from Kent, hours before her death from the bacterial infection. The toddler died on February 14 after fighting the infection for 11 days. Former England rugby player Matt Dawson also revealed this week that his son Sami had recently suffered from the C-strain of the illness. Meningitis B is an infection of the protective membranes around the brain and spinal column and can lead to severe brain damage, amputations and death. It is the most deadly form of the disease. At the moment, the vaccine - called Bexsero - is only available free for babies born on or after 1 July 2015, despite children being most vulnerable to the infection before they are five. Parents have to buy the vaccine privately if they wish to inoculate their children and prices typically range from 110-150 per dose. Children tend to need two or three doses. This week English rugby world cup hero Matt Dawson (left) revealed his young son Sami (right) has just beaten meningitis after 'two weeks of hell' The 43-year-old former England and Northampton Saints star shared a series of heartbreaking images of his child Sami as he fought the disease in hospital Mr Dawson said he and his wife had been debating whether or not to post the 'upsetting' pictures, which show the severity of his condition In 2013, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation said Bexsero was not cost-effective and should not be adopted by the NHS. But after many revisions, cost-effectiveness modelling analysis and research into who is at most risk, they announced its widespread introduction in September last year. The manufacturers of Bexsero, GlaxoSmithKline, said that it was experiencing supply constraints of the vaccine and had asked private clinics not to start new courses of vaccination. Babies who qualify for the free NHS vaccination are unaffected by the shortage and The company said more vaccine would be in stock by summer 2016. As of tonight, the petition calling on the NHS to offer the vaccine free to children aged 11 and under has gathered nearly 600,000 signatures. Only one other government e-petition has passed the 500,000 mark - the call for US presidential hopeful Donald Trump to be banned from the UK. At the moment, the vaccine - called Bexsero (pictured) - is only available free for babies born on or after 1 July 2015, despite children being most vulnerable to the infection before they are five The Government's petition website states any petition signed more than 100,000 times will be considered for debate in Parliament. But Dr Sarah Wollaston, chair of the Commons health committee, today cautioned against letting patient pressure groups have too much say in how resources were spent. The senior Tory MP said the petition should not influence decisions about vaccinations, which should be guided by science and cost-effectiveness. She told the BBC Radio 4s Today programme: This is a terrible disease but we need decisions about vaccinations, in my view, to be guided by the evidence about who is going to benefit and how cost-effective the vaccines are. As we move into an age of ever more expensive vaccinations you have to ask the question: would you save more childrens lives if you spent that money on something else? She said it was crucial to consider public opinion but that it should not be the main driver of vaccination policy. An experimental vaccine to protect against the Zika virus has shown 'promising' results in initial trials, experts said. They found the drug induced 'robust and durable immune responses', raising hopes it could prevent and treat infections. There is currently no vaccine to protect people from the virus, which has been linked to the serious birth defect microcephaly and the neurological disorder Guillain-Barre syndrome. At least 15 companies and academic groups are currently racing to develop Zika vaccines, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), spurred on by growing public concern over the virus sweeping across the Americas. An experimental vaccine to protect against the Zika virus has shown promising results in mice, experts said. Developers said the drug induced 'robust and durable immune responses' Zika, whose symptoms include mild fever and rash, has been linked to brain damage in thousands of babies in Brazil, although the connection is not yet proven. There is no proven treatment or vaccine for the disease, a close cousin of the viruses that cause dengue, chikungunya and West Nile fever. Inovio said in a statement that mice given its vaccine showed the development of antibodies and generated a response from T-cells, which play an important role in immunizing the body. Dr Joseph Kim, president of the pharmaceutical firm Inovio, who is developing the vaccine, said: 'Using our SynCon technology we rapidly generated a synthetic vaccine candidate that shows promise as preventative and treatment. 'With robust antibody and killer T cell responses generated by our vaccine in mice, we will next test the vaccine in non-human primates and initiate clinical product manufacturing. 'We plan to initiate phase I human testing of our Zika vaccine before the end of 2016.' Phase I is the first stage in a three-step process of testing new medicines and involves giving an experimental product to healthy volunteers. Zika virus, pictured, whose symptoms include mild fever and rash, has been linked to brain damage in thousands of babies in Brazil, although the connection is not yet proven Inovio's DNA-based vaccine is being developed with South Korea's GeneOne Life Sciences Inc and academic collaborators. One Canadian collaborator told Reuters last month that vaccine testing on humans could begin as early as August. Other organisations with relatively advanced Zika vaccine projects include India's Bharat Biotech, which said earlier this month that its experimental vaccine would start pre-clinical trials in animals imminently. The U.S. National Institutes for Health is also working on another DNA vaccine, while France's Sanofi, which makes the world's first vaccine for dengue, said on Feb. 2 it was launching a Zika project. Despite the accelerated work programme, however, the WHO estimates it will still be at least 18 months before any Zika vaccines are ready to be tested in large-scale clinical trials. Much remains unknown about Zika, including whether the virus actually causes microcephaly, a condition marked by an abnormally small head size in newborns, although the WHO believes the suspected link could be confirmed within weeks. Brazil is investigating the potential link between Zika infections and more than 4,300 suspected microcephaly cases. An estimated 80 per cent of people with Zika have no symptoms, making it difficult for pregnant women to know whether they have been infected. Experts say the developing of a useable preventative shot against the disease will not be simple, particularly due to concerns surrounding the safety of vaccinating pregnant women. Last month experts said it will take scientists around a decadee to develop a working vaccine for the Zika virus. An estimated 80 per cent of people with Zika, which is typically transmitted by the Aedes mosquito, have no symptoms, making it difficult for pregnant women to know whether they have been infected Dr Amesh Adalja, senior associate at the Unviersity of Pittsburgh Medical Center told Daily Mail Online that fast results shouldn't be expected. He said: 'There wasn't any vaccine development being undertaken prior to this outbreak in Brazil. 'It will be quite a while - and this is one the scale of about a decade for a vaccine to be developed usually.' 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. FOOD Cake: A slice of history by Alysa Levene (Headline 20) Donuts . . . Homer Simpson once remarked. Is there anything they cant do? As always, his insight was profound. In culinary terms, a cake may be no more than a batter of flour, sugar, fat and eggs. But, as Alysa Levene points out in her history of cake, it is hard to overstate the cultural and historical significance of the delicious morsels. Crumbs! The Great British Bake Off's Sue (left) and Mel From the cakes that King Alfred famously burned in 878 while brooding on his defeat by the marauding Vikings, to the madeleine that inspired the narrators memories in Prousts novel, In Search Of Lost Time, and the pink-iced Magnolia Bakery cupcakes enjoyed by Carrie Bradshaw in Sex And The City, cakes have always been far more than just a sugary snack. They have a magical ability to represent two quite contradictory ideals: on the one hand, comfort and domesticity; on the other, glamour and sophistication. But theres a not-so-sweet side as well. Cakes bring out the competitive streak in school-gate mums and draw tears and tantrums from contestants on The Great British Bake Off. Beneath the cream cheese frosting of red velvet cupcakes, or the squidgy mallow dome of a Tunnocks Teacake, Levene discovers a wealth of information about the state of the economy, not to mention societal constructions of womens gender. A s long ago as 5,000 BC, the Egyptians enjoyed cakes sweetened with honey, while the Ancient Greeks and Romans were keen cake-fanciers. The Greeks began the custom of putting candles on cakes, and the Spartans celebrated their womens festivals with cakes baked in the shape of breasts. Among the ashes of Pompeii and Herculaneum, archaeologists have found baking tins and even carbonised cakes. The UK boasts a tradition of celebration cakes dating back to Medieval times. Cornish saffron cakes, the sinister Scottish black bun and the fruit cakes with which we still celebrate Christmas, weddings and christenings are history in edible form: survivors from the days of the Crusaders, who brought back spices such as ginger, cinnamon and cloves. ONE TON The weight of the worlds largest cupcake Advertisement Such hefty bakes were resilient enough to withstand erratic Medieval cooking conditions, but the invention of a temperature-controlled oven in the 18th century began a revolution in home baking. In the 20th century, it became big business, with brands such as Betty Crocker and Pillsbury competing to persuade housewives to experiment with ever more exotic ingredients. One surreal-sounding Thirties recipe for a spiced layer cake involved a mystery ingredient - a can of Campbells condensed tomato soup. Childhood and cake are inseparable: in the U.S., Catherine Beecher (whose sister Harriet wrote the best-selling book Uncle Toms Cabin) wrote a cookbook containing a Good Childs Cake. Levene does not say if there was a bad childs version, but childrens literature is full of culinary disasters, from the liniment that Anne Of Green Gables adds to her cake by mistake for vanilla essence, to Just Williams bruising mishaps with confectionery. Alongside the sweet wholesomeness of childhood treats, Levenes book tells a darker tale of adult luxury and excess. The notorious libertine the Marquis de Sade was partial to chocolate cake (perhaps because chocolate was believed to be an aphrodisiac), and the original celebrity chef, Antonin Careme, whose patrons included Napoleon and King George IV, specialised in dare-devil culinary feats, such as plunging his hand into a pan of boiling syrup to make spun sugar. These days, hed be a television star. Levene is an academic historian, and a sprinkling of professional jargon occasionally brings a touch of the dreaded soggy bottom to her literary bake. Even as the JNU row rages on, Pakistan jumped into the fray on Thursday by reiterating its concern over the arrest of Kashmiri students involved in a controversial debate at the University. Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Muhammad Nafees Zakria said Kashmiris never accepted the unfair trial of Afzal Guru, who was hanged after being convicted for 2001 Parliament attack. He pointed out that Pakistan has adequately and appropriately raised the Kashmir dispute at all international fora. Protest at Jantar Mantar against JNU row The Congress used the remark to target the BJP government saying its inept handling of the JNU crisis gave Pakistan a handle to embarrass India. We are against any anti-national slogans. But the Modi government mishandled the issue and this provided Pakistan an opportunity to exploit the situation, Congress spokesperson Meem Afzal told Mail Today. He said similar slogans were raised several times in Kashmir, but the BJP-PDP government did not take any action against those responsible for it. They sent the police to JNU whereas the matter could have been resolved at the level of the vice chancellor, said Afzal, adding the JNU crisis has been blown out of proportion. On the other hand, the BJP said Pakistans support to Afzal Guru was a submission of guilt for attacks ranging from the one at Parliament in 2001 to the most recent one at the Pathankot airbase. Not unexpectedly, Pakistan has once again passed comments on the domestic issues of India. The 2001 Parliament attack as also Pathankot and virtually every terrorist attack in India always leads back to Pakistan. Their support for Afzal Guru is an unequivocal admission on their part and might be a self goal in their enthusiasm to meddle in Indias internal affairs such as JNU, said BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli. Delhi Water Minister Kapil Mishra has allegedly received a threat call from an international number The JNU row seems to have struck a chord even with underworld gangsters as Delhi Water and Transport Minister Kapil Mishra has allegedly received a threat call from an international number. The caller, who identified himself as Pujari, asked the minister to refrain from raising his voice on the issue. Soon after the incident, Mishra wrote to Home Minister Rajnath Singh, informing him about the incident. He also shared details with the local police. Sources say, the call could be from the same person, close to underworld don Ravi Pujaris gang, who had earlier threatened to kill Hurriyat Conference chairman Syed Ali Geelani. This is allegedly the second threat call by the Pujari gang after anti-India slogans were allegedly raised in JNU during an event held to protest against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. Speaking to Mail Today, Mishra said he received several missed calls from international number but as they were unknown he did not pick up. I took a call from +3844 number at around 8.45am and caller identified himself as Pujari. He threatened me saying Apni jubaan band rakho varna goli maar denge (keep your mouth shut or else you will be shot). I told him that he should try and kill terrorists if he has so many bullets available with him, Mishra said. After hearing Mishras reply, the caller got agitated and said: Ab to tumhe pakka he maar denge (Now I will surely kill you). The minister, in his letter to the home minister, also asked him take appropriate action by asking officers concerned to trace the call and book the culprits. I have always raised my voice against such divisive elements and will continue to do so. I refuse to get threatened or be cowed down by such elements, Mishra said. He has been critical of Modi government and has come out strongly against police action after JNU incident. Police have started investigation and are yet to verify if the calls were made by Ravi Pujari or his gang members. We have taken the details and are trying to verify the location and details of caller, a senior officer said. A similar call was allegedly made by Pujari on February 13 on the landline number of Hurriyat office in Srinagars Hyderpura area and had threatened to kill its chief. The don also confirmed to a news channel that he made the call at Geelanis office. I have left my contact number with Geelanis office for the purpose of making him clear not to incite JNU students against the country. For now, I am just warning him but next time I will shoot him, the don was quoted as saying on the TV channel. Pujari was earlier a close aide of arrested gangster Chotta Rajan. The Siachen glacier has recently been in the news, as 10 Indian soldiers lost their lives in an avalanche. This triggered another avalanche: Indian experts commenting on why, since 1984, successive governments have allowed 900 Indian Army personnel to die? Why occupy such inhospitable terrain, mostly above 20,000 ft, with temperatures reaching minus 60 degrees? Ten Army soldiers were buried alive as avalanche hit their post on Februar 3. MNS activists pay tribute to Lance Naik Hanumanthappa (file picture) Why should the taxpayer spend Rs 200 to transport a Rs 2 roti to the glacier? Facts To answer, it is necessary to look at some historical facts. In 1975, when a German expedition applied for rafting on the Indus river, Col Narinder Bull Kumar, a well-known military mountaineer, discovered that the Germans had a US map showing the Siachen glacier as part of Pakistan. Col Kumar later told journalist Nitin Gokhale, author of Beyond NJ 9842: The Siachen Saga: Those maps, to my surprise, had shown the ceasefire line (today known as the LoC) being extended to the Karakoram Pass. By that time, not only was Pakistan openly showing the glacier area on its maps, but Islamabad had also begun sponsoring mountaineering expeditions on this glacier. After a first expedition led in 1978, other Army missions returned to the glacier in 1981; finally in 1984, it was decided to permanently occupy the glacier. Gokhale quotes from an assessment by the Northern Command in 1984: Pakistani occupation of the Siachen up to the Karakoram Pass would lead to their domination of the Nubra Valley and the route down to Leh. Indian positions in Siachen as well as in the vicinity of the Karakoram Pass are thus a formidable wedge between POK, the 4,500 sq km area ceded by Pakistan to China (the Shaksgam Valley) and Aksai Chin occupied by China. It would have been a formidable strategic corridor with Pakistan and China controlling the Karakoram Pass and threatening Ladakh; it appeared to be a new Aksai Chin in the making (in the 1950s, China had built a road cutting across Indias territory, without Delhi being aware of it). This strategic concern pushed India to take the hard decision to settle on the glacier and the neighbouring peaks in the Saltoro range. There is also a not-often mentioned legal angle. On January 1, 1949, India and Pakistan agreed, under the UN auspices, to a Cease Fire Line (CFL), which had to be subsequently demarcated. The military representatives of Delhi and Islamabad eventually met in Karachi between July 18 and 27, 1949; the Indian delegation was led by Maj Gen SM Shrinagesh, who later became the Army Chief. Position Before leaving for Karachi, the delegates received an in-depth briefing from Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai, the Ministry of External Affairs and Commonwealths Secretary General. Sir Girija explained to them the legal position: The UN resolution of August 1948 had conceded the legality of Kashmirs accession to India and as such no mans land, if any, should be controlled by India during the period of ceasefire and truce. Further, the onus of proof to convince the commission, in any disputed territory, rested with Pakistan. In the absence of any such convincing proof, and even if India had no troops on the date of ceasefire in that area, the disputed territory should automatically come under Indian control, later recalled Gen SK Sinha, then ADC to General Shrinagesh. The future governor of J&K further commented: This convincing and legalistic argument proved a trump card in our hands at Karachi. Based on this, we obtained control of 7,00 square miles of state territory where we were not in position on the date of the ceasefire. Accord An accord was finally reached and the Line of Ceasefire was demarcated. The last point on the map was known as NJ 9842. At that time no one thought about the possibility of a war on the glaciers. The agreement mentioned that the line continued thence north to the glaciers, without going into the details. The demarcation had, however, been done on a clear principle: If a territory was no mans land and not occupied by any of the two armies at that time, it was deemed to be part of India. This position was then accepted by Pakistan and the UN. It remains valid today. Even if not demarcated in 1949, the glacier legally belongs to India. In early 1987, when Pakistani troops established a post on a feature overlooking Indias defence posts near the Bilafond Pass on the Saltoro ridge, Islamabad knew the legal implications. The post was so important for Islamabad that it was named the Quaid Post after MA Jinnah, the first Quaid-e-Azam. Some Indian positions, being maintained by air, suddenly became untenable. What is disturbing is that often the Indian media swallows the Pakistani bait and portrays the glacier as disputed, which is legally wrong. And as always in India, there are peaceniks, who argue that for the sake of bonhomie with Islamabad, the Siachen should be a demilitarised zone, dedicated to science or peace. It could have dreadful consequences for India. Pakistan has registered a case to investigate the Pathankot attack conspiracy after India demanded action based on the evidence handed over. Interestingly, it does not name terror group Jaish-e- Mohammed (JeM), nor its chief Masood Azhar. Not naming JeM or its leaders like Azhar has disappointed India as the security establishment believes enough material was given to Pakistan indicating JeMs involvement. Pakistan had earlier indicated that a probe team from the country is open to visit India as part of its investigation but New Delhis reaction was that its not possible unless they file a First Information Report (FIR) first. India believes enough evidence was given to Pakistan to prove JeM chief Masood Azhars role in the Pathankot attack Disappointment While there is disappointment, there is also the view that at least Pakistan has acknowledged that the conspiracy to attack the Air Force base was hatched in Pakistan. It is a small step in the right direction. But it is disappointing that neither the name of Jaish nor Masood Azhar was incorporated in the FIR, a senior government official said. Pakistan filed the FIR against unknown persons after weeks of probe into the attack on the air base on January 2 in which seven security personnel were killed. It was registered at the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) in Gujranwala in the neighbouring country's Punjab province. We have failed to understand why Jaish and its chief's names were not included in the FIR despite India giving the adequate evidence about their involvement, the official added. According to Pakistan's CTD, the FIR is needed for starting police and judicial proceedings on the basis of the evidence collected in connection with the attack for which India has blamed Pakistan-based JeM. Guilty India has identified Azhar as the mastermind behind the attack. It has also blamed his brother Rauf and five others for carrying out the attack. Law Minister of Pakistan's Punjab province, Rana Sanaullah, said if anyone, including Azhar, is found guilty of involvement in the attack, they will be prosecuted. No one becomes guilty upon naming (in a case). I don't want to name anyone at this stage. Let the probe be completed and if Masood Azhar is involved, action will be taken, Sanaullah said. He also urged India to provide any evidence it has on Azhar or anybody else's involvement in the attack. The FIR was registered under sections 302, 324 and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code, and sections 7 and 21-I of the Anti-Terrorism Act. The FIR also mentions the telephone numbers contacted by the militants during the attack. British Gas owner Centrica yesterday became the latest firm to cut its dividend after being hammered by the dramatic slump in oil prices. The energy group said it would go ahead with slashing its annual pay out by 11 per cent, from 13.5p a share to 12p, in a blow to its 600,000 small shareholders as well as giant pension funds. The company has been hit by the falling oil price down from $115 in the summer of 2014 to around $34 last night and has announced plans to axe 6,000 jobs by 2020. Stormy seas: The Brent field, north-east of the Shetland Islands, has produced about ten per cent of all UK North Sea oil and gas since production began in 1976 Chief executive Iain Conn yesterday called on the Chancellor to ease the tax burden on oil producers to support the industry in the North Sea. I think the stakes are quite high, hundreds of thousands of job are dependent on the North Sea, he said. It came as Centrica reported a 12 per cent fall in operating profits to 1.5billion in what Conn described as a very challenging year. And after huge write-downs related to its business in the North Sea, it posted pre-tax losses of 1.1bn. British Gas fared well however, delivering a 31 per cent jump in profits to 574million, which drew criticism after it cut customer bills by an average of just 72 per household over the period. Centrica said profits at British Gas appeared higher last year because of the level of investment made in 2014 and the lower levels of consumption that year compared to 2015. Chief executive Iain Conn (pictured) yesterday called on the Chancellor to ease the tax burden on producers Plans to cut the dividend were first outlined last year as the company moved to guard against the falling oil price. It was an extremely difficult decision to make, Conn said yesterday. Conn said one particular area under a great deal of stress was the North Sea. The very simple thing is that the North Sea is getting old and the infrastructure is getting close to the end of its life, he said. Costs have to be spread across a smaller number of barrels each year, meaning the cost per barrel is going up. We need to avoid infrastructure being abandoned early and be aware that jobs are rapidly going out of the supply chain and out of the companies that are producing. Total CEO Elisabeth Proust gives Prime Minister David Cameron a tour of Aberdeen Harbour in Scotland in January following an annoucement that more than 500million is to be invested in Scotland's north east He called on the Government to ease the tax burden on oil producers which can pay out up to 85 per cent of profits in corporation tax, supplementary charges and Petroleum Revenue Tax [PRT], depending on the age of the field. Last year Centricas UK tax bill was 295million, 233million of which was corporation taxes, with 30million spent on PRT. In last years Budget George Osborne pledged to ease the burden but Conn called for the Chancellor to go further. He called for corporation tax set at 30 per cent for oil fields to be brought in line with other industries, which pay 20 per cent. He added: If the industry is in such turmoil they should make the corporation tax rate normal. They can always raise taxes again at a later date. Diamond Ranch Academy runs a residential youth treatment facility in Utah. Chelsea Filer (nee Chelsea Papciak) runs a website, DRASurvivors.com, critical of Diamond Ranch Academy. Diamond Ranch Academy sued her for defamation and tortious interference in Utah. For reasons not revisited in this opinion (but resolved in a prior opinion), the court concluded that Californias anti-SLAPP law could apply to the case. In the latest ruling, the court partially grants Filers California anti-SLAPP motion to strike but denies attorneys fees to both sides (even though I believe Filer nevertheless should get attorneys fees for the pieces she wonsee, e.g., Wong v. Jing). Among other interesting things, the opinion addresses the statute of limitations, the single publication rule, what constitutes republication of previously published content, and how much evidence a plaintiff must present to survive an anti-SLAPP motion to strike. If youre interested in such things, I hope youll read the entire opinion. This post will focus only on the courts Section 230 discussion. Filer explained that DRASurvivors.com also includes an About Diamond Ranch Academy page, which summarizes many of the core complaints about DRA in a format that is more digestible than reading through many separate survivors testimonies. Consistent with the courts skepticism about the anti-SLAPP defense, the court doesnt find this argument very persuasive to a Section 230 defense: Ms. Filers posts do not lead a person to believe that she is quoting a third party. Rather, Ms. Filer has adopted the statements of others and used them to create her comments on the website. Instead, Ms. Filer adds her own comments to the website, posts her own articles, and summarizes the statements of others. Adopting third party statements is a standard plaintiff allegation to end-run Section 230, but here, the court implies that (1) there was a lack of appropriate quotation marks or other signals to adequately indicate the presence of third party content and (2) that matters to Section 230. The court continues with a perplexing discussion about survey instruments (cites omitted): many of the third-party statements she uses do not retain their original form. She did more than simply post whatever information the third parties provided. She elicited statements through two surveys that contained specific questions to gather information about specific issues. The first was titled DRA Survey that asked individuals about their experiences at DRA in general. The other was titled O&A Survey, which was specifically focused on the initial Homeless/Observation and Assessment level at DRA. Each question in the surveys was about a specific issue, such as meals, restraints, and strip searchers. This is another reason that Ms. Filer is not entitled to immunity under the CDA. (cites to Roommates.com, Carafano and the (overturned!) district court ruling in Jones) This is inscrutable, and I have to imagine the court is thinking about facts it doesnt explicitly reference in this short passage. Using a survey instrument to gather third party comments that are republished verbatim should be immaterial to Section 230, even if the survey asks questions about potentially troublesome topics like restraints and strip searches. I could see more of a Section 230 problem if the survey requires the use of pulldown menus that will be false, e.g., a question how were you restrained? where the pulldown menus only give restraint options when not everyone was actually restrained. It could also be a problem for Section 230 if the survey results are published in aggregate instead of republishing the submissions verbatim, e.g., 76% of survey respondents say they were restrained, but even then, there still might not be defamation liability. See, e.g., Seaton v. TripAdvisor (press release ranking of dirtiest hotels wasnt defamatory). The courts concluding statement makes more sense: DRAs allegations focus on publications that are, at a minimum, summaries of third-party statements with Ms. Filers editorial comments and her own opinion. Ms. Filer is not entitled to the exemption in the CDA for statements in articles she authored. (Of course, there shouldnt be any defamation liability for Filers opinions). Overall, this ruling appeared fairly solicitous to the plaintiff. This might reflect facts not fully vetted in this opinion that perhaps the court thinks Filer really went too far. I think the more likely scenario is that the court was uncomfortable and unfamiliar with Californias broad/sweeping anti-SLAPP law, which often leads to quick defense wins even in cases with contested facts. It wouldnt surprise me if a California court, more familiar with Californias anti-SLAPP law, would have given a lot more anti-SLAPP credit to Filer. So even though Filer won the battle to get Californias anti-SLAPP law to apply to this case, having the case heard in a Utah court appears to have partially undercut that victory. Further, it seems like the courts skepticism about the anti-SLAPP laws applicability tainted the Section 230 discussion. As for Section 230, the courts short discussion leaves some unanswered questions. Would this court have accepted a Section 230 defense if Filer had only quoted third party comments verbatim, rather than summarized them, on the About page? Note the Roca Labs v. Consumer Opinion Corp. ruling, where Section 230 applied when PissedConsumer tweeted quoted excerpts from third party reviews. Would this court accept Section 230 when user comments are generated through a scripted form rather than a single free-text box? It shouldnt matter but perhaps the script details make a difference to that analysis. Final note: this case brought to mind Life Designs Ranch v. Sommers, another case involving a treatment facility suing a griper. I also saw more lawsuits in the dockets involving Diamond Ranch Academy (on both the plaintiff and defense side) than I might have expected. I wonder if the niche of treatment providers is ramping up as another pacesetter for online litigation. Case citation: Diamond Ranch Academy, Inc. v Filer, 2016 WL 633351 (D. Utah Feb. 17, 2016) An army reservist is suing the owners of a gun range after he identified himself as Muslim and was allegedly asked to leave the premises. Raja'ee Fatihah, 29, an employee with the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, filed a lawsuit in US District Court against Save Yourself Survival and Tactical Gun Range in Oktaha, Oklahoma. The case is the latest in a series across the US alleging anti-Islamic discrimination. Raja'ee Fatihah, who has filed a lawsuit in US District Court against Save Yourself Survival and Tactical Gun Range, spoke to members of the media at the state Capitol in Oklahoma City on Wednesday Brady Henderson, the legal director for the Oklahoma chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the suit, said a sign posted on the business declared the range a 'Muslim-free' establishment. He added that similar signs have been placed at businesses in several states. 'Whether the sign in question says 'no Muslims' or whether it says 'no coloreds' or whether it says 'no women' or 'no Christians' or 'no Buddhists' it is just as un-American and fundamentally it is just as wrong,' Henderson said. Fatihah, who is also a board member with the Muslim advocacy group Council on American-Islamic Relations' Oklahoma chapter, said he went to the gun range after learning about the sign. At first he stated that the owners of the store were both pleasant and welcoming until he mentioned he was Muslim and the mood allegedly changed. 'At that point, they started treating me with suspicion,' Fatihah said. A similar lawsuit was filed by CAIR last year against a gun shop in Florida, but that case was dismissed by a federal judge. Robert Muise, with the American Freedom Law Center, is working with the owner of the Oklahoma gun range (pictured). He said Fatihah was denied service because he was belligerent, not because of his religion It was determined CAIR could not prove its members were harmed by the store's Muslim-free policy, Henderson said. Robert Muise, with the American Freedom Law Center, represented the Florida gun shop owner and now is working for Chad Neal, the owner of the Oklahoma gun range. Muise said Fatihah was denied service because he was belligerent, not because of his religion, and that the sign declaring the shop a 'Muslim-free' business is protected by free speech. 'The only thing the law prohibits is if somebody denies services strictly on the basis of religion, and that didn't happen here,' Muise said. Fatihah denies that he acted belligerently, however. Fatihah, pictured Wednesday, says the owners of the gun range were both pleasant and welcoming until he mentioned he was Muslim and the mood allegedly changed Claims of discrimination by business owners against Muslims have been reported in numerous states. And formal complaints have been filed with the US Department of Justice regarding incidents in Arkansas, Florida and New Hampshire, said CAIR's national director Ibrahim Hooper. 'It's one of those issues that's tied to the overall rise of anti-Muslim bigotry in our society,' Hooper said. Advertisement They call it 'virtual styling', a key trick of the trade in real estate marketing which is not necessary illegal but still bends the rules to ensure interest from potential buyers. Photo-shopping of images has taken prominence following this week's outcry over the mysterious disappearance of a massive water tower from behind a property in southern Sydney which is listed for sale for about $1 million. Real estate agents have revealed the other secrets the lengths they go to in order to pique the interest of house-hunters. In advertising images buildings are often re-coloured, as happened with the apartment at 9 Hilts Road, Strathfield. Important disclaimers are also left out - like the image of land being sold at Erskine Park in Sydney's west not actually being the land they are selling. Scroll down for video So close you can almost touch it - this is the view back to the city as displayed in advertising for F5 Pope Street Ryde, with a clear vista of the city and the Sydney Harbour Bridge From the same spot in the apartment complex this is the view taken from the same spot by the Daily Mail Australia photographer Unreal: The real estate listing advertising the same block of land at Erskine Park shows a happy family relaxing on the lush grass Reality: The land at 9 Miner Glen Erskine Park some 40 kilometres west of the Sydney CBD actually looks like this with a major motorway situated directly behind the land Same spot at Erskine Park - there is no lush green grass, just catch fencing, concrete and a discarded bottle which appears to have had other uses other than for drinking Among other issues are the absence of disclaimers around shared use of swimming pool, gym and barbecue facilities. At 9 Hilts Road, Strathfield, 12 kilometres west of the Sydney CBD, the apartment block facade bears a grey tinge while the actual colour is a dark brown. One resident was taken aback when he was showed the advertised image. 'Looks very different, you can see the light and colour is different, I think they have got it wrong, I actually prefer the darker colour,' he said. One veteran Sydney agent who asked not to be named told Daily Mail Australia the industry knows it as 'virtual styling'. 'It's all about styling the properties but even worse is the vague wording which is used,' he said. 'And if it's vague, then it's misleading, for instance you read so often about "spectacular views" but the reality is you have to stand up on a chair on your toes inside the bathroom to just catch a glimpse. 'There's the old "short stroll" to the beach, when it is really two kilometres down the road.' He said most buyers can't be fooled. 'People are not stupid, they want to be show everything as it is, you can't fool the market and frankly it backfires because people are really sick of it and are easily turned away because they are offended.' Much lighter and brighter: 9 Hilts Road in Strathfield has had 'excessive photo-shop' according to the leading real estate agent What it really looks like: The facade of the apartment complex is a dark brown compared to the lighter shade in the advertisement He insisted the onus was on agents to get 'the emotional hook' with buyers. 'One of the biggest deceptions is not to provide disclaimers in what is included and what isn't, particularly in apartment complexes.' And sometimes even the most impressive homes can need a hand - 49 Barker Road at Strathfield has a bent pole out front while in the advertising image it is standing straight. The matter came to a head after a southern Sydney real estate agency was this week accused of using digitally-altered photographs to advertise a three-bedroom property - currently listed on the market - in an attempt to lure potential buyers. Molly Smith and her husband made the shocking discovery of a massive water tower overshadowing the Penshurst home when they attended an open house inspection over the weekend. The photo-shop version shows the dramatic results of an imaginary, beautiful clear blue sky disguising the - obvious and completely invisible - eyesore in the distance. Complaints from potential buyers led to an order from the Office of NSW Fair Trading to the agency to remove the main image which photographic experts claim was edited to hide the monstrous water tower. The imposing $4m residence at 49 Barker Road in Strathfield, looks a grand sight when lit up at dusk, note the pole is straight The same property as photographed early in the morning, complete with bent pole out the front The advertising shot looking across the backyard of 49 Barker Road at Strathfield with the property all lit up The backyard of 49 Barker Road as seen on Friday morning by the photographer An Egyptian man accused of stranding his Australian wife and daughter in the Middle East for two and a half years while claiming compensation for a leg injury in Melbourne has been caught out running down the street. Mazen Hassan Baioumy, 38, is allegedly living on the proceeds of an insurance claim from what 60 Minutes claims was a 'staged' car crash. And despite being pictured earlier in the day wearing a leg brace and walking with the aid of a crutch, Baioumy runs away from reporter Michael Usher when questioned about his ex-wife's predicament. Scroll down for videos 60 Minutes reporter Michael Usher tracked down Mazen Hassan Baioumy in Melbourne and questioned about the plight of his ex-wife and daughter in Egpyt Baioumy moves to avoid the line of questioning and then starts to run away. It's believed he could gain Australian citizenship as early as next month When the journalist begins asking questions about his ex-wife and daughter's travel ban Baioumy runs away and is told that he has been caught committing 'insurance fraud' Just hours before the attempted interview Baioumy is pictured with a heavy leg brace on his left leg and walking with the aid of a crutch Surveillance vision: Baioumy is seen on 18 January using a crutch to get around Amaal Yasmin Finn and her daughter Zareen, 7, have been stuck in Egypt since August of 2013 The Australian mother-of-three, Amaal Yasmin Finn and her seven-year-old daughter Zareen have been trapped in Egypt, fearing for their lives, for more than two and a half years after the childs Egyptian father, Baioumy placed a ban on them leaving the country together. Ms Finn travelled to Cairo in August of 2013 in the hope of bringing her little girl back home to Australia but she too has been stuck there since. 'He conned us, I'm the Australian citizen and I'm here in Egypt, he's the Egyptian and he's living in Australia and won't let us come home,' she said. 'I'm not Egyptian and I don't speak the language, I just want to go home.' Australian courts do not have any authority in Egypt and the country is not part of the The Hague Child Abduction Convention, which seeks to protect children from the harmful effects of abduction and retention across international boundaries by providing a procedure to bring about their prompt return. When disputes over children occur in a country such as Egypt they are usually determined by the courts in that country as private legal matters. 'He's living the comfortable life in Melbourne but he has lied to Egyptian authorities,' said Usher. 'All along he's been acting as if he's in Egypt and suggesting the return of his daughter to Australia will cause him harm because he won't be able to see her. 'He has them believing that he's the victim and they are effectively being held hostage. 'Baioumy has never left Melbourne except for a holiday in 2013 and has manipulated it all from here.' Mazem Baloumyis an Egyptian man who is set to receive Australian citizenship after an arranged marriage with Amaal Finn. The couple has since divorced - he lives in Melbourne while she is stuck in Egypt Amaal (right) and her daughter have been living in hiding in Egypt after repeated death threats from her ex-husbands family Ms Finn also revealed that Baioumy may have another spouse in Cairo and that he is plotting to take her and other family members to Australia, if he secures the citizenship next month. Further complicating Baioumy's case is that he has a compensation claim for an injured left leg from an apparent car crash. 'We have surveillance vision which shows him collaborating with an accomplice,' said Usher. 'He has been claiming insurance for a leg injury and a written off car.' But when he is cornered by the journalist, he begins running away and when he is told he has been caught out committing 'insurance fraud' he begins to hold the leg, grimace and start hobbling. Amaal previously revealed to Daily Mail Australia that she and her daughter have been living in hiding after repeated death threats from her ex-husbands family. They have no money, no friends and do not speak Arabic but the Australian government can do nothing to help. She first took her daughter, then aged three, to Egypt in December 2012 to visit her then husband's family. She has two other children, from a previous marriage, but was forced to leave them behind. Amaal always thought she'd be gone for just a few weeks - she hasn't seen them since being trapped. Initially things were fine, but when it came time to return to Melbourne, Mazen cancelled Zareen's ticket and told me Zareen was staying for another two months to learn Arabic and Quran properly before she started school, Amaal wrote on a Facebook group that has been campaigning to bring them home. Nothing I said would change his mind and he warned me that if I tried to leave without his permission, the laws in Egypt meant I would be arrested, she added. Amaal was forced to return to Australia without her daughter terrified and heartbroken and as the months went by Mazen repeatedly refused to allow Zareen to come home or for Amaal to visit her. He outright refused and told me I would never see her again except with him present. All this time when I would call to speak to Zareen she would cry and ask Mummy why did you leave me?, she said. Amaal met Baioumy after growing up in Melbourne's inner north and later attending a nearby mosque at Preston. The Imam set her up in an arranged marriage who had recently arrived from Egypt, in 2008. He was in Australia on a student visa, would receive a spousal visa after they married and he was then granted permanent residency. The Australian mother-of-three, Amaal Yasmin Finn and her seven-year-old daughter Zareen have been trapped in Egypt, fearing for their lives, for more than two and a half years after the childs Egyptian father, Baioumy placed a ban on them leaving the country Zareen, 7, is stranded in Egypt and unable to return home after her father placed a travel ban on her Amaal mistakenly signed an Arabic application form at the request of her husband after he told her it was for Egyptian residency - it was permission for a court order banning her or her Zareen from leaving the country I had no concerns like this initially. It was a happy marriage. He had migrated from Egypt to Australia so life was a bit stressful, she said. Amaal tried to keep him happy and get him to change his mind about letting Zareen come home from Egypt but at the same time planned to return to rescue her daughter with the help of her own father, Graeme Finn. They left Melbourne in August 2013 and travelled to his home town of Benha, where Zareen was living with her paternal grandmother. Amaal was shocked to discover that instead of supporting her and handing her daughter back like theyd promised, Baioumy's family refused to give Zareen up. When I tried to leave with her they attacked my father and I in the middle of the street. Zareen was torn out of my arms and tossed, thrown and pulled by her arms and legs by the crowd of men that had gathered. The police were called and my father, Zareen and I spent three days in the Benha police station. Mazen's family made repeated death threats against us, she said. Zareen was finally reunited with her mother and grandfather Graeme after three days but when they attempted to leave the country with her they discovered Baioumy had placed a travel ban on the child. We discovered these had been placed illegally, but even so, the only way to remove them would be by following the legal proper legal procedures,' she added. Amaal mistakenly signed an Arabic application form at the request of her husband after he told her it was for Egyptian residency. They had discussed her getting residency in Egypt so that they could visit his family often and she thought it was a good idea She discovered, while trying to get Zareen a new passport, that it was permission for a court order banning her from leaving the country with Zareen. That was just shocking and devastating. I couldnt believe how badly I had been lied to. I trusted his family I thought now I cant go home. 'He tricked Amaal into signing a document, he said "trust me I'm your husband", it was all in Arabic,' her father Graeme said. Since then Amaal has been fighting to have the travel ban removed. Amaal said while she was detained by the police for three days after her initial fight with Baioumys family, the family issued death threats while she was inside the prison and the threats didnt stop when they were released. It was one of the most scary situations in my life this is a small Egyptian town. It is not difficult for them to carry out these threats,' she recalled. The fact they could make threats like that in the police station is scary. Getting out and leaving Benha was terrifying I honestly didnt know if we would make it out or not. After that they have made several attempts to try and track us down and we know this because on a few occasions theyve been picked up by police, they have even hired people to come and carry things out. We are pretty much inside the whole time and only going out if absolutely necessary. So far the legal costs of Amaals court battles have been covered by her father Graeme out of his savings but he is now in debt and his money has run out. There is no law that allows them to do what they are doing - the cruelty of separating a small child from her mother,' she said. All Zareen and I want is to travel home safely to Melbourne. All I want is to fix all the hardships she has suffered and return her to her home and family.' While most children are messily chomping down on solids like broccoli and carrots at 20 months old, little Riley Hindmarsh is simply struggling to keep his enormous tongue inside his mouth. His mother Elizabeth calls him her miracle child, told by doctors he wouldn't live longer than 48 hours and plagued by a list of serious conditions that will stick with him for life. After a complicated emergency Caesarian-section birth at 34 weeks in a Perth hospital, an unconscious Riley was whisked away by doctors before Elizabeth could even hold him in her arms. The next day she was told he had Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome, an extremely rare overgrowth condition that can cause infant's tongues to grow at a rate their bodies struggle to keep up with. Riley Hindmarsh, 20 months old, has Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome - a rare overgrowth condition Riley has trouble eating, breathing and sleeping with his enormous tongue (pictured waiting for an ultrasound) Riley's dad Ryan holds him tenderly at 3 weeks old. Riley had a stroke at birth and was diagnosed with brain damage. Doctors said he could have just 48 hours to live 'I didn't even get to look at him or touch him or anything, he was cut out of me and then taken away by doctors,' Ms Hayden told Daily Mail Australia. The syndrome affects 1 in 14,000 people - and means Riley is 600 times more likely to get cancer than the average child. On top of that, Riley has since been diagnosed with a raft of other abnormalities and conditions including scoliosis, cerebral palsy, a duplex kidney and sleep apnoea. 'The fact he is alive today is a miracle itself because he was born in a pretty bad shape,' Ms Hayden said. 'He had a stroke at birth and was diagnosed with brain damage. We were told in the first 48 hours he may not live.' Along with his huge tongue, Riley also has scoliosis, cerebral palsy, a duplex kidney and sleep apnoea At ten months old Riley had surgery on his tongue, which cut out a huge chunk of flesh at the back and zapped him nine times at the front. The surgery had minimal effect on his tongue's rapid growth After six weeks of scrutiny at the hospital, Riley was allowed to head back home, where it quickly became apparent that his over-sized tongue was causing serious problems. 'When we started to feed him on the bottle, he would stop breathing,' Ms Hayden said. Riley's tongue was also blocking his airway while he was sleeping. Ms Hayden said one night Riley stopped breathing 19 times in a single hour. After a number of consultations, the family decided to undergo radical surgery to try and improve the movement of his tongue. 'At the back of his tongue in between two nerves they cut out a hazelnut-sized piece of his tongue to thin it, then they shocked the front in nine different spots,' Ms Hayden said. 'Over time it's meant to keep shrinking his tongue.' Tragically, some eight months after the surgery Riley's tongue does not appear to have shrunk, and he is expected to need further medical procedures done in the future. 'His tongue just kind of hangs out ... you cant see his bottom lip at all, especially when hes got a cold and a blocked nose, he cant breathe at all and always ends up admitted to hospital,' Ms Hayden said. Riley is pictured here with his baby sister Amadee, who is just seven months old Riley will need further surgery done on his tongue in the future. He needs to visit the hospital every three months for blood tests and ultrasounds 'In my experience, everyone that I've come into care for has had the surgery and has had a positive outcome': Angela Morgan, an expert on Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome, says Riley's case is a rare one Angela Morgan, Director of the Neurosciences of Speech at Murdoch Childrens Research Institute in Melbourne, told Daily Mail Australia that Riley's case was a rare one. 'In my experience, everyone that Ive come into care for has had the surgery and has had a positive outcome,' she said. Dr Morgan said macroglossia - an unusually large tongue - was a common feature of Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome. 'Its a rare genetic overgrowth disorder and has a wide spectrum of symptoms but every child will have different features ... certainly macroglossia is one of the most common features though.' She said it could be difficult for young children with the condition to function, with considerable impacts on their speech, eating, and occasionally social vilification while in public. 'There's the aesthetic social stuff, which we call the cosmetics of the disorder.' 'Stuff like people staring at you because of your tongue hanging out. In a restaurant, you cant even eat or drink tidily. Families are quite often not used to the social vilification.' In between weekly hydrotherapy and physiotherapy visits, Riley also has to head to the hospital every three months for blood tests until he's four and ultrasounds until he's eight. But Riley's older sister Anna-Marie, 10, loves her little brother for exactly who he is. 'She's a great help, she loves him. She just says he has a sore head,' Ms Hayden said. 'A lot of her friends are like 'Why has he got a big tongue?' She's like, 'Because he's got BWS - gosh!'' 'We have to take it one day at a time at the moment. We just want him to have the best life he can.' Riley's parents Elizabeth and Ryan say they are taking things one day at a time, and just want him to have the best life he can A drug and bereavement counsellor is under fire after for telling a patient vaccines could be linked to the unexplained death of his friend's infant son. A client visited Gita Brigham at her practice on the Gold Coast recently and told her about how his friend's baby had recently died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Ms Brigham told a secret anti-vaccination Facebook group the patient had urged the infant's parents to vaccinate their son 'because his intention was to protect the baby!' 'It was not until I advised him that vaccines have been linked to SIDS that he stopped & thought about it,' Ms Brigham said. The incident has drawn a scathing response from counselling experts and parents who have lost children to SIDS, which is also known as cot death. Counsellor Gita Brigham posted her thoughts to a secret anti-vaccination Facebook group, explaining how she had explained to a patient vaccines were linked to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Ms Brigham said her client had urged the parents of the baby boy (not pictured) to Philip Armstrong, chief executive of the Australian Counselling Association, told Daily Mail Australia her remarks were 'scientifically rubbish' In the post, Ms Brigham recalled: 'He appeared to feel somewhat sad to hear this however he did not appear to be very affected and carried on the conversation about his criminal drug charges. 'I think he feels more upset the couple no longer want anything to do with him. This is another case of ignorance is bliss until an innocent life is lost'. Philip Armstrong, chief executive of the Australian Counselling Association, told Daily Mail Australia her remarks were 'scientifically rubbish'. 'Any counsellor who does that is in breach with the ACA code of conduct. If a formal complaint was made certainly the complaint would be investigated,' he said. Mr Armstrong said Ms Brigham was 'wrong' and counsellors need to be aware of the 'gold standard' of research if they are to comment about it to clients. There is no causative link between SIDS and vaccines, according to fact sheets by the national support group SIDS and Kids and multiple SIDS experts contacted by Daily Mail Australia. 'Counsellors should not make comment on issues below their knowledge level, knowledge base and skill level,' Mr Armstrong said. A mother who lost her daughter Bella to the syndrome, Kate Wright, said: 'Losing Bella to SIDS which is an unknown illness and completely unpreventable was such a devastating loss. 'I would hate to see parents not vaccinate their children and perhaps lose a child to a preventable illness. Mrs Wright said people mentioned vaccination to her all the time and 'I find it ignorant, not only because all the science points to it for reasons that have been medically proven... 'It's also really upsetting because it just shows how much SIDS is misunderstood in the community.' Kate Wright (far right), with partner Peter and their three children, lost her daughter Bella (centre) to SIDS 'I would hate to see parents not vaccinate their children and perhaps lose a child to a preventable illness,' Ms Wright said Mrs Wright is pictured at the beach with her late daughter Bella Jill Green, who lost her daughter Molly to the illness, urged health professionals not to 'scare' people. 'We need to be very careful as health professionals what we're stating to parents,' said Ms Green, the national health promotion manager for Sids and Kids. 'We need to be very sure they are getting correct information and not scaring people .' Health blogger Peter Tierney, who unearthed Ms Brigham's post to the closed anti-vaccination group, said he believed the incident was 'unconscionable' and accused her of 'blaming' the patient. 'I think it is a hideous act for a counselor to initiate feelings of guilt and blame into a patient - that their patient may be responsible for the death of a baby when the evidence would dictate the absurdity of such an idea.' A Japanese lawmaker was under pressure to explain himself after he sparked uproar by saying President Barack Obama 'carries the blood of slaves'. Kazuya Maruyama, a legislator from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling party, made the comments in parliament in Tokyo while attempting to highlight the dynamism of US society. The remarks sparked an instant backlash, prompting Maruyama to apologize shortly after the hearing and ask for his remarks to be omitted from the official records. Kazuya Maruyama, pictured Wednesday, has come under fire over his remarks that President Barack Obama would have been an unthinkable choice in America's early history Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, Maruyama told lawmakers: 'Now in the United States, a black man serves as president.' He added that Obama 'carries the blood of black people. This means slaves, to put it bluntly.' The lawmaker continued: 'Back at the beginning of US history, it would have been unthinkable that a black person, a slave, would become President. 'That's how dynamic a transformation this country makes.' Obama is not a descendant of slaves but rather the son of a white mother from Kansas and a black Kenyan father who went to America as a student. Maruyama said he was trying to argue that Japan must learn from the United States and he had not been aware of the tone of his comments, according to reports. A legislator from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's (pictured) ruling party, made the comments in parliament in Tokyo The remarks were made as he questioned experts about a revision to Japan's constitution, which has never been amended since it was drafted by the United States during its post-World War II occupation. He noted there would be no problem if Japan becomes America's '51st state' and that would allow people from 'the state of Japan' to become US president. His clumsy effort to praise the US drew widespread condemnation and the fallout continued Thursday. The comments made national headlines and caused opposition lawmakers to submit a motion to the upper house of parliament pressing Maruyama to resign. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, the government's top spokesman, said that Maruyama 'must fulfill his obligation to explain himself' in comments at a regular briefing. President Barack Obama speaks about race relations in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on Thursday Maruyama denied any racist intent. He quit the constitutional panel Thursday but refused to resign as lawmaker. The case served as the latest headache for Abe, who has seen a score of embarrassing scandals involving ruling party members. Akira Amari, a key ally who served as the chief negotiator for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, left his ministerial post last month over a graft allegation published in a magazine. And just last week, junior ruling party parliamentarian Kensuke Miyazaki, who had wanted to become the first national lawmaker to take paternity leave, announced he was resigning his seat after an affair with a bikini model while his wife, also a lawmaker, was pregnant. Coke and Pepsi want to shake their Big Gulp image and cultivate a more hipster appeal. The two soda giants are trying to rehabilitate soda's cheap image and fetch higher prices as Americans keep cutting back on sugary fizz. That means more stylized cans and bottles of Coke and the expansion of Mexican Coke, which is sweetened with sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup. Pepsi is pushing 'craft sodas' and even plans to open an eatery 'honoring the kola nut' in New York City in the spring. Pepsi is pushing 'craft sodas' and even plans to open a bar 'honoring the kola nut' in New York City in the spring. A rendering of Kola House, set to open in the Meatpacking District, is seen in this image A press release for Pepsi's Kola House (pictured) last month was peppered with marketing buzzwords, and said the lounge would have a 'resident cocktail curator' and 'artisanal menu' A press release for Pepsi's Kola House last month was peppered with marketing buzzwords, and said the lounge would have a 'resident cocktail curator' and 'artisanal menu.' The idea is that its mere existence could burnish soda's image, even if most people never go. 'At the end of the day, we just have to stay culturally relevant,' said Seth Kaufman, chief marketing officer for PepsiCo beverages in North America. Soda remains a big business, with the familiar sizes like 12-ounce cans and 2-liter bottles still accounting for the vast majority of the market. But Americans keep reaching for alternatives, with soda facing a proliferation of competitors and being blamed for fueling obesity. Between 2000 and 2014, U.S. soda sales volume fell 14 percent, according to industry tracker Beverage Digest. If they're selling less soda, Coke and Pepsi at least want to charge more for it by giving it more cachet. PepsiCo has also introduced Caleb's Kola (left) and Mountain Dew Dewshine (right), which comes in a glass bottle and is made with sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup It's why PepsiCo in 2014 introduced Caleb's Kola, which comes in a glass bottle with the words 'Honor in craft.' At a Beverage Digest conference soon after, CEO Indra Nooyi said soda had lost some of its 'cool factor' and that drinks like Caleb's were helping bring it back. That cool factor comes with a price. At a New York City grocery store, a 20-ounce bottle of Pepsi was selling for $1.49, compared with $1.99 for a 10-ounce bottle of Caleb's. PepsiCo also introduced Mountain Dew Dewshine that comes in a glass bottle and is made with sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup, and displayed a soda called "1893" at a trade show. Like Caleb's, 1893 is a reference to Pepsi's creation by Caleb Bradham in 1893. 'It does address the coolness problem or attempts to address the coolness problem,' said Ali Dibadj, a Bernstein analyst. Dibadj said the focus on craft sodas is an attempt to emulate what happened in the beer industry, where craft beers have been the main driver of growth. But Dibadj thinks craft's potential on soda may be more limited, since soda's problem for most people isn't taste, but the calories. Coca-Cola is expanding Mexican Coke (pictured), which is sweetened with sugar instead of corn syrup There is no definition for what makes a soda 'craft,' but the trend is characterized by traits such as glass bottles and ingredients that are seen as more wholesome. Jaime Jose, a 21-year-old student from New York, doesn't drink soda but said she's tempted to buy the glass bottles of Coke as an occasional treat. 'It's that retro thing of having a story behind it,' Jose said. The idea is compelling enough that Coca-Cola created a 'craft beverages team' last year that oversees recently acquired brands like Hansen's. It's also presenting its flagship soda to fit craft sensibilities. Sandy Douglas, head of Coke North America, said last year that Coke's packages by the end of the 1990s were all 'huge' and 'boring.' But he said the newer aluminum bottles and mini-cans were winning back customers, particularly those with more earning power. He also said the smaller sizes were in line with the desire for more modest portions. Coke Chief Financial Officer Kathy Waller said she thinks such alternative sizes could "easily go to 30 percent" of sales, up from about 15 percent last year. Advertisement These shocking pictures from inside a cruel crocodile zoo show how the reptiles cooped up in cramped cages for gawking tourists before they are slaughtered and turned into luxury handbags. Looking more like an old scrapyard than a zoo, dozens of the baby crocodiles are piled high in their concrete enclosure, left to battle it out for space in what little dirty water is left in a trough running down the middle. It's here in these desperate conditions that they will be kept until they are big enough to be shipped out to the highest bidder and killed for their sought-after skin - used in high end leather clothes and accessories, which are then sold for a big profit in the finest fashion retailers around the world. Small: Ban Animal Trading visited the farm after getting a tip off - and were shocked by what they discovered Leather: These crocodiles are being raised for slaughter at Deneysville Croc Ranch, a hour south of Johannesburg This is Deneysville Croc Ranch, found an hour south of Johannesburg, just outside a small town which proclaims itself as 'South Africa's inland riviera'. For just R40 (1.80), tourists get a guided tour of the farm - and many look forward to seeing the parks three lions in a separate enclosure. But those who venture to the Croc Ranch expecting a five-star experience will be sorely disappointed: instead of its 1,000-odd crocodiles happily wallowing in the mud, they fighting each other for space in a shallow puddle of murky water in concrete-filled pens. For me the most horrifying thing is, it seems to be alright for people to look at animals like this and see nothing wrong with it. Smaragda Louw, Ban Animal Trading Solitary lions stare forlornly from behind rusted metal fences, a hand-written note warning of the 'danger' which lurked behind an unlocked gate. Two swans swim in a pond which better resembles a dirty bathtub, while the emus allowed to roam will around the ranch pick their way around the the wire, wooden pallets and rubbish bins. Inside, a badly-stuffed lioness sits in pride of place above pieces of paper asking people not to touch. And finally, there are the crocodile handbags available in the shop and crocodile steaks offered up in the restaurant - just in case the visitor should forget the eventual fate of the creatures lying listlessly outside. The pictures left activists from South African campaign group Ban Animal Trading horrified. 'For me the most horrifying thing is, it seems to be alright for people to look at animals like this and see nothing wrong with it,' said Smaragda Louw, founder of Ban Animal Trading. 'I cannot understand that - these animals are clearly suffering, the water is disgusting and the lions are in the smallest cages. 'And how can they eat when there is such a disgusting smell?' Shocking: These pictures appear to show crocodiles struggling for space in a shallow pool of dirty water Cramped: There are about 1,000 crocodiles on the farm, as well as at least three lions, two swans and a handful of emus Dirty: These black swans were spotted swimming in a pond which appeared to be almost out of water Cleaned up: But Ina Van Rooyen, who owns the farm, says these pictures do not show the true conditions, but the result of a problem with a dam which has since been fixed - leaving the ponds full of clean water Chris Draper, of the UK-based Born Free Foundation, agreed with Ms Louw that conditions look uncomfortably cramped for the animals. 'I am very troubled by the conditions apparently shown in the photos,' he said. 'The stocking density for the crocodile enclosures appears to be very high there are large numbers of crocodiles in very small spaces. 'This means that each crocodile must struggle for sufficient space both on land and in the pool, leading to increased aggression and compromised natural behaviour. 'One photo appears to show a gate to a dangerous animal enclosure left unlocked. 'Generally, the enclosures appear to be barren and lacking in any form of environmental enrichment, and there are serious questions about the hygiene standards at the facility.' Lonely: This lion sits alone in the small enclosure, behind a rusted gate, which appears to be unlocked, and handwritten warning Misleading: Mrs van Rooyen said the lions chose to stay in the small enclosures, but actually had a hectare to roam around Stuffed: Visitors are greeted by this stuffed lion, along with signs asking them to 'like' the ranch on Facebook Reminder: These handbags are understood to have been made from crocodile leather - but were not made on site However, Ina Van Rooyen, who owns the facility with her husband Charles, said the pictures did not show the whole story. The emu, she admitted, had a bad leg, but had been born like that - and she hadn't had the heart to put the animal down. Mrs Van Rooyen also said the water problem was caused after one of the dams became faulty. 'We cleaned up the dams,' she said, adding that the lions actually had access to 10,000 square metre space, but chose to sit inside the small enclosures. President Barack Obama met with civil rights leaders on Thursday afternoon to discuss issues such as criminal justice and building trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Obama brought together leaders from two generations of civil rights activists for the meeting before the annual Black History Month Reception. Those in attendance at the meeting include National Action Network's Al Sharpton, National Urban League President Marc Morial, and several young activists, including DeRay McKesson, a co-founder of We the Protesters and an active voice in the Black Lives Matter movement. Scroll down for video President Barack Obama (L) speaks about race relations while flanked by Brittany Packnett (L), (L-R), Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett, and Rev. Al Sharpton, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on Thursday Obama met with African American faith and civil rights leaders before an event to celebrate Black History Month Obama said he was meeting with history makers and young people who are making history. He said that to see generations of people continuing the work on behalf of justice, equality and economic opportunity was encouraging. 'On Thursday afternoon, President Obama will meet with a group of civil rights leaders prior to the annual White House Black History Month reception to discuss a range of issues including the Administration's efforts on criminal justice reform, building trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve and the president's priorities during his final year in office,' a senior administration official told BuzzFeed News in an email ahead of the meeting. The list of invitees also included Cornell Brooks, President of the NAACP, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Georgia Rep John Lewis. A representative of Black Lives Matter Chicago declined an invitation to the event. In an article on Truthout.org, Aislinn Pulley wrote she would not participate in what she called 'basically a photo opportunity' for the president. In an op-ed, Pulley said she 'respectfully declined' the invitation. 'I was under the impression that a meeting was being organized to facilitate a genuine exchange on the matters facing millions of Black and Brown people in the United States. Instead, what was arranged was basically a photo opportunity and a 90-second sound bite for the president,' she wrote. She added: 'I could not, with any integrity, participate in such a sham that would only serve to legitimize the false narrative that the government is working to end police brutality and the institutional racism that fuels it. 'For the increasing number of families fighting for justice and dignity for their kin slain by police, I refuse to give its perpetrators and enablers political cover by making an appearance among them.' Obama brought together leaders from two generations of civil rights activists for the White House meeting Obama said by meeting with leaders across generations, he was meeting with history makers and young people who are making history Those in attendance at the meeting include National Action Network's Al Sharpton, National Urban League President Marc Morial, and several young activists, including DeRay McKesson, a co-founder of We the Protesters and an active voice in the Black Lives Matter movement After the meeting, Obama joined First Lady Michelle Obama to host a reception celebrating African American History Month in the East Room of the White House Speaking after the event in the White House driveway, Sharpton told CNN that the group discussed naming a replacement for late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He said a GOP-led effort in the Senate to block a presidential nomination would reflect a 'civil rights violation'. 'To act as if the President is anything less than the President of the United States until January 20, 2017. He cannot be minimized, marginalized or disregarded without doing the same to the American people,' Sharpton said. The White House is describing the gathering as the first of its kind because those invited represent different generations of civil rights leaders. Obama said the group talked about passing criminal justice reform this year and enhancing education opportunities to create a pipeline to colleges and jobs. 'It has to start early,' Obama said. The meeting comes just nine days ahead of the South Carolina Democratic primary. Obama said his most expansive comments on the election on Tuesday, where he said he knew Hillary Clinton better than Bernie Sanders, according to NBC. Clinton met with civil rights leaders at the headquarters of the National Urban League on Tuesday. In attendance was Marc Morial and Al Sharpton. CT Vivian, Civil Rights Leader and Author, was at the meeting on Thursday. Pictured above is Vivian, traveling with Freedom Riders in 1961 on historic ride from Montgomery to Jackson, Mississippi, pleading with officer to make rest stop John Lewis, United States Representative (left), was also in attendance. Here he is with clergyman and civil rights leader Martin Luther KIng (third from left) and other major American leaders of the Black civil rights movement (second left to right) Whitney Young, Philip Randolph, M. L. King, James Farmer and Roy Wilkins A gay woman fighting for joint custody of a child borne by her ex-partner when they were still together won a court ruling Thursday in Kentucky to let her case go forward. The woman, identified in the court opinion as Amy, asked the Kentucky Supreme Court to block adoption proceedings by her ex-partner's husband while she seeks shared custody of the child, identified as Laura. In a unanimous ruling, the state's high court sided with Amy. Writing for the court, Justice Bill Cunningham said the case isn't about same-sex relationships, changing social mores or notions about the definition of family. The case has been 'needlessly complicated by the injection of these considerations,' he said. Amy asked the Kentucky Supreme Court (pictured) to block adoption proceedings by her ex-partner's husband while she seeks shared custody of the child, identified as Laura 'This is a case about people and their ability to participate in a lawsuit in which the outcome may adversely affect their interest, Cunningham wrote. 'What we write here today applies equally to a myriad of human relationships including heterosexual parenting, boyfriends, girlfriends, grandparents and others. Most importantly, this case is about Laura.' Justice Bill Cunningham (pictured) called it a 'logical decision' for the trial court to take up Amy's custody claim The case is among several across the country involving wrenching personal questions about what it means to be a parent under today's ever-changing definition of family in the eyes of the law. While a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last summer effectively legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, the ruling hardly settled the myriad family law issues surrounding the custody of children. Compounding the problem, the definition of 'parent' differs from state to state, leaving same-sex parents with no biological connection to a child vulnerable to losing parental rights. In the Kentucky case, the nine-year-old girl bears Amy's middle and last name. When the child was born in 2006, Amy cut the umbilical cord. They lived in the same household until the girl was four, and Amy once carried the child on her insurance plan. But they are not biologically related. The girl's biological mother Amy's ex-partner became pregnant with the help of a sperm donor. Amy and the biological mother, identified as Melissa, separated in early 2011, but Amy continued to spend time with the child. In 2012, Melissa married a man, and her husband, identified as Wesley, filed a court petition for stepparent adoption of the girl. Amy countered with a petition seeking joint custody. The Kenton County Family Court ruled in 2014 that Amy had a legitimate claim to seek shared custody of the child. The state Court of Appeals reversed that decision, prompting the review by the state's highest court. Cunningham called it a 'logical decision' for the trial court to take up Amy's custody claim before dealing with the step parent adoption matter. 'An order granting Wesley's adoption petition could impair or impede Amy's proffered custodial interest,' he wrote. Whether Amy ultimately succeeds in her custody petition is an issue for the trial court, Cunningham said. One of Amy's attorneys, Christopher Clark, said the Supreme Court's decision ensures the family court hears all the available evidence to make a custody decision in the best interest of the child. 'We are pleased that our client will have her day in court to fight to preserve her relationship with her 9-year-old daughter,' Clark said. Justice Beam takes oath.jpg New Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Dawn Beam (left), with her husband, Dr. Stephen Beam holding a Bible, takes the oath of office from Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr. Tuesday in Jackson. (MSC photo) OCEAN SPRINGS, Mississippi -- Just 48 hours after being sworn in as Mississippi's newest Supreme Court Justice, Dawn Beam was in Jackson County and on the Mississippi coast as part of her whirlwind tour of the 27 southernmost counties, which she represents on the High Court. "I had a great time on the coast," Beam said, noting she was able to attend the Amtrak tour stop in Pascagoula, where she had a chance to visit with state and federal officials, including Gov. Phil Bryant, who appointed Beam to fill the unexpired term of Justice Randy "Bubba" Pierce of Lucedale, who stepped down to become director of the Mississippi Judicial College. "When I learned Justice Pierce was leaving, I was heartbroken," she said. "I am passionate about children and he has been a great spokesperson for children's rights. He was also the only chancery court judge on the court." Beam also said she looks forward to stepping into Pierce's role as a representative on the High Court's Children's Justice Commission. The daughter of a minister, Beam said she spent most of her childhood moving from one place to another in Louisiana and Mississippi, but has called Hattiesburg home for many years. Her connection to the coast runs deep. She and her husband, Dr. Stephen Beam, met at Seaside Assembly in Biloxi, although Dr. Beam is also from Hattiesburg. "The coast has always had a special place in our hearts," she said. Beam, 52, earned her undergraduate degree in Business from the University of Mississippi and her law degree from the Ole Miss School of Law. She worked in private practice for 16 years and then served four years as a Lamar County prosecutor. She had spent five years as a chancery court judge in the 10th Chancery District -- which serves Forrest, Lamar, Marion, Pearl River and Perry counties -- before Bryant tabbed her for a seat on the High Court. "I believe the people of the state of Mississippi need Judge Beam," Bryant said during Tuesday's swearing-in ceremony in Jackson. "Some of the toughest decisions that are made are those dealing with children and families and this lady has navigated difficult waters." Beam took the oath of office Tuesday surrounded by her husband, children and her parents. Her father, Dr. Gene Henderson, opened the ceremony with a prayer and her husband held a Bible as Chief Justice Bill Waller Jr. administered the oath. "I cannot express the joy Dorothy (Henderson) and I feel today for Dawn," Gene Henderson said of his daughter. The remainder of Pierce's term which Beam will now fulfill only runs through Dec. 31, with elections for the new eight-year term on the Supreme Court set for November, meaning the moment she was appointed to the post, she had to begin campaigning. "It's important a judge connect with the people he or she represents," Beam said. "Not only in terms of campaigning, but to let them know they are well represented on the Supreme Court." Already she has visited virtually all of the 27 counties she now represents. She noted that on Valentine's Day, she handed out cookies as she campaigned and visited with constituents. "That's how ladies campaign," she said, laughing. Beam is just the fourth woman to serve on the Mississippi Supreme Court, and the second on the current court -- although that may soon change, as Beam said Justice Ann Lamar has announced she will not seek another term. Beam also noted that the nine Supreme Court justices come from diverse backgrounds, but are able to unite to make decisions based on the rule of law and in the best interests of the state. "I hope I'm able to add to that discussion," she said. Beam will also bring a healthy dose of humility to the High Court. "I don't claim to know everything," she said. "But you wouldn't want a judge who had the attitude that they did." Former Attorney General of India Soli Sorabjee will represent Kanhaiya Kumar A high-voltage courtroom exchange is expected as former Attorney General of India and eminent lawyer Soli Sorabjee will now represent JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar in court. Kumar was arrested for sedition and his bail plea will come up for hearing in Supreme Court on Friday. Sorabjee will be assisted by a host of well-known human rights lawyers like Indira Jaising, Vrinda Grover and Raju Ramachandran. All of them will be appearing pro bono (voluntarily and will not be charging a fee). Kanhaiya hails from a family in small-town Begusarai in Bihar. His mother Meena Devi is the sole bread winner of the family as his father Jaishankar Singh is a paralytic. It is interesting to note that Sorabjee had served as the Attorney General during the BJP-led NDA regime from 1999 to 2004. Delhi Police, which has already said it will not oppose the bail plea, is expected to be represented by Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta. Students take out a protest march demanding JNUSU leader Kanhaiya Kumars release He will be leading us, Ramachandran told justice Jasti Chelameswar when the judge asked why Sorabjee was seated on the front row when the bail application on behalf of Kumar was filed on Thursday afternoon. Sorabjee recently went on record saying Kumars words and action did not amount to sedition. That is not sedition. Sedition, the Supreme Court has said, are the acts which have a tendency and intention to disturb law and order or incite violence, he had said. Supreme Court rarely accepts bail applications directly before an aggrieved litigant exhausts the proper hierarchy of first approaching the sessions court and High Court. As some lawyers stiffly objected to the apex court taking cognizance of the bail plea directly, Justice Chelameswar said: If we go by the newspaper reports an extraordinary situation exists. We may agree to the petition or we may not agree but we shall hear it, said the bench. Kumar said he would not be able to move for bail in the lower courts due to the surcharged atmosphere seen in the last two days, when violence erupted in Patiala House courts during which he and some journalists were attacked by lawyers. The environment at the Patiala House Court complex is not conducive for a hearing, much less for a fair trial. In these circumstances I as well as my lawyers fear the safety of our life and limb and thus, we are unable to present my case before the concerned court of law, said Kumars bail plea. Claiming that he was innocent and had been falsely implicated, Kumar said the police also does not require his custody for any further investigation. He also contended that there are reports of Delhi Police stating that no concrete evidence has been found against him. He said he was a student of the JNU and not some hardened criminal and so no prejudice will be caused to any one much less the prosecution if he was released on bail. Did a fake video fuel Kanhaiya fire? By Rahul Kanwal A new video of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, who was arrested on sedition charges, has gone viral on social media. This video is refered to as a clinching proof of Kanhaiya raising seditious slogans in the JNU campus. In this video, Kanhaiya is flanked by Umar Khalid, whos now being called by the Delhi Police as the mastermind of the anti-India, pro-Afzal event held at the university on February 9. In the video, Kanhaiya is flanked by Umar Khalid, whos now being called by the Delhi Police as the mastermind of the anti-India, pro-Afzal event held at the university. A picture of ongoing protest at Jantar Mantar But is this new video truly a clinching proof of sedition charges against Kanhaiya or is this just an attempt to spin what really happened? The new video is from February 11, two days after the now infamous pro-Afzal, anti-India event organised by the Democratic Students Union. This video is being played up aggressively by some Hindi and English news channels. The big question is did Kanhaiya actually participate in anti-India sloganeering? Or is the truth something completely different. In the second video, suddenly the anti-India slogans can no longer be heard. The chant is still one that seeks azadi but the the azadi that is being sought is freedom from casteism, feudalism, Brahminism and Manuvaad. Thousands join JNU march demanding student leaders release BY Sneha Agarwal Slogans to release JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar echoed on the stretch from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar on Thursday. Over 3,000 protesters led by All India Student Association vice president Shehla Rashid Shora raised slogans like Kanhaiya ko reha Karo hurling the tricolour. Kanhaiyas supporters included students, alumni and faculty of JNU and other universities such as DU, Jamia Milia Islamia and Ambedkar University who took part in the march amid tight security. Kanhaiyas supporters included students, alumni and faculty of JNU and other universities Rajya Sabha member and CPI leader D Raja, Swaraj Abhiyan member Yogendra Yadav, senior journalist P Sainath, theatre and film personality MK Raina, actress Swara Bhaskar, former NSD director Anuradha Kapur, well-known photographer Ram Rahman were also present in the march. Hundreds of people were seen wearing tee shirts printed with the image of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar at the protest rally. This is an expression of strong support to JNU. We condemn the arrest of Kanhaiya on baseless charges. Government should take positive decision. When Arun Jaitely has come forward and condemned the attack on students and mediapersons why is the Home Ministry silent? Strict action should be taken against Bassi. Kanhaiya should be immediately released, said D Raja, whose daughter is also a JNU student. Kavita Krishnan from CPI (ML) said: We shall not allow divide and rule in JNU. We demand immediate withdrawal of charges against all the students. Swaraj Abhiyan member Yogendra Yadav, denouncing the crackdown on the varsity campus, alleged that the Centre wants to make an example of JNU to further their own right-wing agenda in the country. Yadav compared the incident that happened in Patiala House Courts equivalent to Hitlers rule that used law and illegal means to suppress voices that are different. Kanhaiya is a symbol and the struggle is beyond JNU. The struggle is about the right to dissent and freedom of speech. This is not a politically mobilised crowd that has gathered today, Yadav said. We stand in solidarity with Kanhaiya, and demand his immediate release, a JNU student said. Alleging being subject to witch-hunting and media trail, the concurring voice among the protesters was to save the JNU from right-wing forces imposing their ideologies on a liberal institution. Around 15-20 companies of armed police was deployed for maintaining the law and order. Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal raise pitch against the Centre By Amit Agnihotri The opposition parties are all geared up to take on the BJP-led Centre on the issues of JNU crisis and the attack on media persons and lawyers in the Patiala House court. On Thursday, both Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal led their respective party leaders and met President Pranab Mukherjee over the issue. The Congress is all set to counter BJPs attempt to present the JNU crisis as nationalism versus anti-nationalism issue by targeting the ruling partys divisive politics and its track record in handling terrorism. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal led their respective party leaders and met President Pranab Mukherjee over the JNU issue 'Nationalism is in my blood,' said Rahul Gandhi after he led a Congress delegation to petition President Pranab Mukherjee After the BJP questioned Rahuls support to JNU students, he described the crisis and the attack on media and lawyers as a blot on Indias image. Nationalism is in my blood. My family has made sacrifices time and again for the country, Rahul said after he led a Congress delegation to petition President Pranab Mukherjee on the recent spate of violence across Indian campuses. Rahul alleged that the Centre was imposing a flawed and dead ideology on students. It is not the governments job to destroy institutions, he said. Referring to the recent suicide of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula, Rahul said the student was suppressed by the government and forced to end his life. We will protest it (BJP campaign) with all our might...this will boomerang on the BJP, Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said. Among the other issues the Congress will raise to corner the BJP, are that the RSS has never hoisted the national flag and that the ruling party was devoid of any single national icon who played a role during India's freedom struggle or made sacrifices in the fight against terrorism/Maoism. There is a growing body of public opinion which believes that communal polarisation by using the nationalism card is BJP's attempt to deflect attention from its failures in protecting the country from terrorism and its inability in handling the economy, Tewari said. Meanwhile, attacking the Modi government for not following the Supreme Court order for maintaining peace at Patiala House court, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday said such a situation could lead to dictatorship and insisted courts be shut down if issues like what is anti-national are to be adjudged outside judiciary. Row: Former prime minister Margaret Thatcher with defence secretary Michael Heseltine, whom she was privately urged to sack the day before he resigned Margaret Thatcher was privately urged to sack Michael Heseltine the day before he resigned over the Westland affair, previously secret files reveal. The former prime minister was sent a private memo by one of her closest aides advising her to warn her defence secretary that he could no longer be a minister if he continued to defy her authority. But she refused to countenance dismissing him, striking the suggestion through in red pen, files released by the National Archives at Kew, West London, disclose. The very next day, Mr Heseltine stormed out of the Cabinet meeting for which the briefing notes were prepared, telling a journalist he had resigned. The row which was over the future of Westland, Britains last helicopter manufacturer was the most damaging of Mrs Thatchers premiership and undermined her authority. It revolved around whether the firm should be bailed out by a European consortium or an American company and led to the prime minister being accused of leaking documents and lying. In the newly-declassified memo from 1986, her foreign policy advisor Charles Powell told her in bold terms to dismiss her defence secretary over the row. He wrote: Because of the risks of misrepresentation, even questions of fact should not be answered without being cleared through the Cabinet Office. Anyone who does not feel able to accept this conclusion and act in accordance with it and who continues to campaign on behalf of one of other proposal, cannot do so as a Minister. Undermined: Mrs Thatcher was sent a private memo by one of her closest aides advising her to warn Mr Heseltine (pictured together in 1983) that he could no longer be a minister if he continued to defy her authority But Mrs Thatcher crossed the words through and scrawled on the document, which is headed Speaking Note for Cabinet: This applies to each and every one of us. Mr Heseltine her chief Cabinet rival and a pro-European made it known that he backed a European consortium to take charge of Westland, rather than an American firm. Advice: In the memo from 1986, Mrs Thatcher's foreign policy advisor Charles Powell told her in bold terms to dismiss her defence secretary over the row This angered Mrs Thatcher as the Government was not supposed to be involved in the decision. Following a series of leaks and off-the-record briefings, Mr Heseltine resigned. In the memo, Charles Powell wrote gravely: We must have a word about Westland. He went on to discuss the damaging Cabinet battle over the affair and the increasing panic behind the scenes. Mr Powell noted that in a Cabinet meeting on December 19, 1985, ministers had agreed not to lobby on behalf of the Europeans or the US company Sikorsky. He then referred to newspaper headlines describing the affair as a Great Cabinet Shambles and A major political mess and notes that even loyal supporters are breaking rank. Summing up the issue, he added: The result of all this is that the Government has been made to appear completely at odds within itself. Worryingly, he went on: If this situation continues, we shall have no credibility left... We cannot go on like this. We must restore the Governments standing. The memo was her preparation for the Cabinet meeting of January 9, 1986, and shows how she struggled behind the scenes to work out how to handle the row. Even though she toned down her speech, Mr Heseltine stormed out of the meeting and told a waiting TV cameraman that he had resigned. An Irish pub has been ordered to remove vintage tobacco advertisements from its walls by the health department or face fines of up to $40,000. J.B. O'Reilly's pub in Perth has been told to remove the signs within two weeks after a WA Health Department official noticed them during a licence check, the West Australian reports. The historic advertisements, which have been on the walls of his pub for 23 years, are valued between $1,800 and $5,000 each and many of the products are not even in existence any more. J.B. O'Reilly's pub in Perth has been told to remove vintage tobacco advertisements within two weeks after a WA Health Department official noticed them during a licence check Owner Paul North said he thought the official was joking when he was asked to remove them. 'I don't even sell cigarettes and I'm against tobacco but I don't see anything wrong with the advertising, it's an art form for me,' he told the newspaper. '(The punters), they're dying of laughter. It almost sounds like a wind-up.' WA Health told Mr North his venue was in breach of The Tobacco Products Control Act 2006 by displaying the vintage signs because the legislation states: 'A person must not display or broadcast a tobacco advertisement in a public place'. The historic advertisements (similar to the ones pictured) are valued between $1,800 and $5,000 each and many of the products, including Bristol Tipped Cigarettes and Boars Head, are not even in existence any more 'A tobacco advertisement is anything which promotes tobacco products, smoking implements or smoking generally,' a Health Department spokesman said. The vintage signs Mr North has pinned up in his pub include UK brands Boars Head and Bristol Tipped Cigarettes, which are both not in production any more. Mr North says he plans to fight the order. He faces a $1,000 infringement if he ignores the order or $10,000 if he fights it in court. His J.B. O'Reilly's may also be fined up to $40,000. A 10-year old girl has told police how she bit and kicked two men that jumped out of a van and grabbed her during an attempted kidnapping in broad daylight. The girl has told police she was walking home along Sutton Road, in Ashcroft, in Sydney's south-west, on Thursday when a white van pulled out from a lane way and stopped alongside her. The two men in the van tried to start a conversation with the young girl. They continued driving but then stopped near the footpath a second time. Two men attempted to abduct a 10yo girl around 5pm on Thursday as she walked down Sutton Road in Ashcoft Both men then exited the van and grabbed the little girl around the mouth and arm, police say. The girl put up a fight - biting and kicking until they released her and she ran away. She began running to a friends house nearby but then decided to go straight home to raise the alarm. Even then, the van continued to follow her. A statement from Police media said: 'Once inside her home, the van remained parked outside for a short time before leaving the location.' The vehicle the men were in has been described as a white van with a black stripe running down the side Luckily the girl managed to remember some fairly distinctive details about her attackers. The first man is described as being of Caucasian appearance, aged in his late 30's to early 40's, about 180-185 cm tall, bald, clean shaven, with blue eyes and a large build. At the time he was in a red t-shirt and black shorts, and had a distinctive "C" tattoo on the back of his neck. The second man had a darker complexion, about 30 years old, 170 cm tall, had short curly black hair, brown eyes and a thin build. He was wearing a long-sleeved red and blue striped shirt and dark-blue tracksuits pants. He too had a distinctive tattoo - the letters "COT" were outlined in red ink running down one arm. The road in Ashcroft where two men tried to kidnap a 10-year-old girl walking home in broad daylight Officers at Green Valley Local Area Command were told of the incident and have now launched an investigation. The girl was not injured but was naturally left terrified after the ordeal. The location where the incident occurred in disconcertingly close to Ashcroft Public school. Police Media said the men were in was a white van with a black stripe running down the side. It has rusted wheel rims and only two windows, at the driver and front-passenger doors. Footage has emerged showing the strange ramblings of a man on a Melbourne train telling a female passenger 'you don't know who I am, love. I am above the law'. Throughout the six-minute clip a man can be heard threatening the female filming, telling her not to 'mess' with him, and claiming that he will have her 'locked up'. The woman who captured the footage claims she had told the man to stop harassing another female passenger, and his response was to call Triple-0 on her. Scroll down for video A man has been filmed ranting at a female passenger on a train in Melbourne last week Video shows the man on the phone to police, telling the person on the other end of the phone: 'If I want to make someone a supermodel I'm allowed to love, I got the power, I got the money'. He seems to be jittery and slightly slurring his words, and then hands the phone to the woman filming asking her if she wants to to talk to the police. 'I'm happy to talk to them but I don't understand what you're complaining about', she responds. The woman then tells the operator that she was on the train when she saw the man harassing a girl, who appears to have since got off the train. 'I just told him to leave her alone, and now he's called Triple-0, so I don't really know what he wants me to tell you,' she says. 'Do you want police to see you?', she asks the man. 'No no, you leave me alone,' he responds, before starting to rant at her. The woman filming the encounter says the man called police on her after she told him to stop harassing a fellow female passenger 'If I want to make someone a supermodel I'm allowed to love, I got the power, I got the money. 'You don't know who I am love, don't mess with me again all right. 'You understand? Don't mess with me... I'm somebody,' he tells the woman. The man calms down slightly appearing to listen to the person on the other end of the line. 'I want to make this person a supermodel and she's interfering you know, I can't handle this,' he says. 'If I want to make someone a supermodel I'm allowed to, aren't I? I've got the rights.' He then asks police to tell the female passenger to leave him alone, claiming to be well-known to police but having no criminal record. 'I'm all right, I'm not injured.... she didn't injure me it's all right, she didn't injure me this time He asks police to tell the female passenger to leave him alone (left) , claiming to be well-known to police but having no criminal record The incident took place on a train heading from East Melbourne to Footscray 'I don't take no drugs, I don't do nothing naughty, I'm a good boy, I've done nothing wrong,' he later adds. He gives the police his name and the suburb he lives in, telling them to 'check me out'. After he hangs up the phone he begins ranting at the woman filming again, threatening her not to 'do it again'. 'You leave me alone, I'm above the law love, you remember my face, I'm going to remember yours. 'You take those glasses off, show your eyes,' he adds more aggressively. 'Don't get smart again all right, cause I'll ring the police and have you locked up, I got the power.' He then promises to remember her saying he forgets nothing. 'God as my witness, you're going to burn in hell baby. I promise you,' he says. The man then appears to slump in his chair, rambling to himself before the woman gets off the train. Unpopular idea: Margaret Thatcher was determined to go ahead and discouraged any dissent firmly It ranks as one of the most unpopular policies ever and, ultimately, ended Margaret Thatchers reign as prime minister. But ministers worried privately that a poll tax exemption for homeless people would encourage dissenters to sleep rough. In a surprising memo, Welsh secretary Peter Walker warned that the Government could be seen to be encouraging people to sleep on the streets if they did not force homeless people to pay the tax. This would put an enormous loophole into the system and would be abused, he said in previously secret files. Moreover, it would act as an incentive to people to sleep rough simply to make sure that they escaped having to pay at least 20 per cent of the charge. While I appreciate that in practice it is highly unlikely that local authorities would be able either to track down people who sleep rough or to get any payment of the charge from them, a specific exemption could be seen as encouraging them to sleep on the street rather than in a hostel. The papers - released by the National Archives at Kew, West London - also show that Mrs Thatcher repeatedly ignored warnings of political disaster if she swapped the poll tax, a local tax paid by individuals, for the rating system, which is based on house prices. Public outcry: A huge crowd gathered in Trafalgar Square in London on March 31, 1990, protesting against the poll tax - or community charge, as it was known - being levied by the Conservative government Carnage: A deserted police van is pictured on April 1, 1990, amid the debris caused by violent anti-poll tax demonstrations in London. The tax was widely unpopular and led to the end of Mrs Thatcher's premiership The tax, or community charge, as it was known, was introduced in 1989 in Scotland and a year later in England and Wales. It was widely unpopular and led to the end of her premiership in 1990. But despite warnings, she clung to the belief that the poll tax would be fairer and would prevent urban Labour councils from burdening rural Tory councils with large spending increases. It would act as an incentive to people to sleep rough simply to make sure that they escaped having to pay at least 20 per cent of the charge Welsh secretary Peter Walker The newly-declassified files also include references to private objections from ministers, including environment secretary Nicholas Ridley, who was in charge of overseeing the move to the tax. But Mrs Thatcher was determined to go ahead and discouraged any dissent firmly, the files note. Mr Ridley called to see the Prime Minister this evening. He mentioned his growing concern about opposition to the community charge, a No 10 official wrote. This would be increased by the decision to have a transition rather than to abolish rates immediately. He showed some inclination to want to rethink quite major aspects of the community charge. The Prime Minister discouraged this firmly. Thatcher was urged to sack Michael Heseltine the day before he resigned over the Westland affair, secret files reveal Told to warn defence secretary Heseltine he could no longer be a minister But she refused idea of dismissal, striking suggestion through in red pen He stormed out of Cabinet meeting and told a journalist he had resigned Row was over future of Britains last helicopter manufacturer Westland Row: Former prime minister Margaret Thatcher with defence secretary Michael Heseltine, whom she was privately urged to sack the day before he resigned Margaret Thatcher was privately urged to sack Michael Heseltine the day before he resigned over the Westland affair, previously secret files reveal. The former prime minister was sent a private memo by one of her closest aides advising her to warn her defence secretary that he could no longer be a minister if he continued to defy her authority. But she refused to countenance dismissing him, striking the suggestion through in red pen, files released by the National Archives at Kew, West London, disclose. The very next day, Mr Heseltine stormed out of the Cabinet meeting for which the briefing notes were prepared, telling a journalist he had resigned. The row which was over the future of Westland, Britains last helicopter manufacturer was the most damaging of Mrs Thatchers premiership and undermined her authority. It revolved around whether the firm should be bailed out by a European consortium or an American company and led to the prime minister being accused of leaking documents and lying. In the newly-declassified memo from 1986, her foreign policy advisor Charles Powell told her in bold terms to dismiss her defence secretary over the row. He wrote: Because of the risks of misrepresentation, even questions of fact should not be answered without being cleared through the Cabinet Office. Anyone who does not feel able to accept this conclusion and act in accordance with it and who continues to campaign on behalf of one of other proposal, cannot do so as a Minister. Undermined: Mrs Thatcher was sent a private memo by one of her closest aides advising her to warn Mr Heseltine (pictured together in 1983) that he could no longer be a minister if he continued to defy her authority But Mrs Thatcher crossed the words through and scrawled on the document, which is headed Speaking Note for Cabinet: This applies to each and every one of us. Mr Heseltine her chief Cabinet rival and a pro-European made it known that he backed a European consortium to take charge of Westland, rather than an American firm. Advice: In the memo from 1986, Mrs Thatcher's foreign policy advisor Charles Powell told her in bold terms to dismiss her defence secretary over the row This angered Mrs Thatcher as the Government was not supposed to be involved in the decision. Following a series of leaks and off-the-record briefings, Mr Heseltine resigned. In the memo, Charles Powell wrote gravely: We must have a word about Westland. He went on to discuss the damaging Cabinet battle over the affair and the increasing panic behind the scenes. Mr Powell noted that in a Cabinet meeting on December 19, 1985, ministers had agreed not to lobby on behalf of the Europeans or the US company Sikorsky. He then referred to newspaper headlines describing the affair as a Great Cabinet Shambles and A major political mess and notes that even loyal supporters are breaking rank. Summing up the issue, he added: The result of all this is that the Government has been made to appear completely at odds within itself. Worryingly, he went on: If this situation continues, we shall have no credibility left... We cannot go on like this. We must restore the Governments standing. The memo was her preparation for the Cabinet meeting of January 9, 1986, and shows how she struggled behind the scenes to work out how to handle the row. Even though she toned down her speech, Mr Heseltine stormed out of the meeting and told a waiting TV cameraman that he had resigned. Trade and industry secretary Leon Brittan later resigned over the leaking of private advice from the solicitor general Sir Patrick Mayhew. Britain was seen as a 'friend of apartheid' because it opposed sanctions against South Africa, Geoffrey Howe warned Thatcher He said Britain was seen to be defending separation of whites and blacks Warning followed countries' 1986 Commonwealth Games boycott pledge He pleaded with Thatcher to condemn apartheid in House of Commons But her aides ordered that Sir Geoffrey's memo should be 'buried deep' Britain was seen as a friend of apartheid because it opposed sanctions against South Africa, Margaret Thatcher was warned. Foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe said that Britain was seen to be defending the racist policy of separating whites and blacks in the former colony. After a number of countries pledged to boycott the 1986 Commonwealth Games, which were held in Edinburgh, as a result, Sir Geoffrey sent her a warning. Warning: Foreign secretary Geoffrey Howe told Margaret Thatcher (pictured together in 1978) that Britain was seen to be defending the racist policy of separating whites and blacks in the former colony of South Africa He pleaded with the prime minister to condemn apartheid in the House of Commons, but her aides ordered that his memo should be buried deep, according to files released by the National Archives at Kew, West London. Colin Budd, one of Sir Geoffreys private secretaries, wrote to Mrs Thatchers foreign policy adviser, Charles Powell: As the Prime Minister knows, in Sir Geoffreys view the problem is that because of our vigorous and persistent public opposition to comprehensive economic sanctions many Commonwealth leaders now see us as the main defender of the South African Government and of apartheid. Sir Geoffrey also called on Mrs Thatcher to reinforce the message of opposition during Prime Ministers Questions, which would be extremely helpful. He urged her to nail the lie that opposing sanctions meant sympathising with apartheid, and to make clear her total rejection of apartheid and all it stands for. 'Truculent': Sir Geoffrey had visited heads of state in southern Africa on two occasions in 1986 to discuss the apartheid regime of South African president PW Botha (above) and the possibility of financial penalties The note, from July 1986, added: If she took that opportunity herself to deliver a strong attack on apartheid, and coupled that with a reference similar to that used by the Foreign Secretary this afternoon to the likely need for further measures should his mission not produce tangible and substantial results, the addition of her authority would greatly help our efforts to stem the tide of withdrawals (from the Games). Accusations: General Olusegun Obasanjo from Nigeria branded Mrs Thatcher immoral Sir Geoffrey had visited heads of state in southern Africa on two occasions in 1986 to discuss South African president PW Bothas apartheid regime and the possibility of imposing financial penalties. He also visited Mr Botha to discuss apartheid, but found him defiant, ill-mannered and truculent, according to a report he wrote for Mrs Thatcher in July. He was dismissive of my mission, and showed little willingness to comprehend, let alone accept any view of the world but his own, Sir Geoffrey told her. He was obsessed by what he saw as the failure of the West to acclaim what he had done, and betrayed no understanding of the gap between the changes he has so far contemplated and what the West expects of him. He added: I have become concerned during my visit at the extent to which the US and UK are seen as friends of apartheid. We need to steer a course which distances us more clearly from the policies of the (South African Government). Other documents show the level of opposition Britain faced by refusing to criticise apartheid. A letter from the president of Zambia to Mrs Thatcher condemned her rejection of sanctions as a half-hearted position and accused her of doing everything possible to isolate yourself and Britain from the rest of us. And General Olusegun Obasanjo, from Nigeria, branded her immoral and said Britains failure to criticise apartheid could only tend to cast your position in a racist mould. Fears over rise of 'rural rioters': Thatcher's government worried about drunken violence in the Shire counties in the 1980s Home secretary ordered research into 'drunken mob violence' in villages Douglas Hurd saw 'similarities between rural rioter and football hooligan' Police concern over 'increasing burden' of violent offences in r ural areas Report blamed alcohol, finding that 90% of incidents were drink-related Concern: Home secretary Douglas Hurd, pictured behind Margaret Thatcher in 1983, commissioned research into drunken mob violence in villages Margaret Thatchers government worried about rural rioters in the Shire counties in the 1980s, according to newly-released files. The rise of crime in countryside locations caused such concern that home secretary Douglas Hurd commissioned research into drunken mob violence in villages. They were even compared to football thugs, with Mr Hurd saying he saw similarities between the rural rioter and the football hooligan, according to files released by the National Archives at Kew, West London. In a memo from 1988, he noted that there were 83,000 violent offences in county and rural areas the previous year, a problem the police saw as an increasing burden. He wrote: There is nothing new in market town disorders. Drunken mob violence goes back centuries; teddy boys in the 50s, mods and rockers in the 60s, punks and skinheads in the 70s inherited a long tradition. But I am concerned that the problem is getting worse. A report by the Association of Chief Police Officers on rural disorder blamed alcohol, finding that 90 per cent of incidents were drink-related. Mr Hurd wrote: I see similarities between the rural rioter and the football hooligan. Many of the 16-25 year-olds involved in these disturbances have a latent capacity for violence. Toughness is a proof of manhood. Drink removes their inhibitions and pushes them over the edge. There are few internal disciplines or external restraints to rein them back. Violence: The rioters in the Shire counties were even compared to football thugs, with Mr Hurd saying he saw similarities between the rural rioter and the football hooligan (pictured: trouble at Manchester City in 1985) Their parents are at home in front of the TV and their upbringing and education have failed to give them self-discipline, a sense of social responsibility or much in the way of interest except having a good time. But he refused to consider a rural riot squad to contain outbreaks of drunken violence in villages and towns, adding that police would spend their time chasing from one end of the county to another. Vlad the Impaler was hailed as a 'very good administrator' by revisionist Marxist historians, MP's note to Thatcher reveals Panel of Communist historians reassessed 'Vlad Dracul' 'positively' Warrior prince from the 15th century inspired Bram Stokers Dracula Tory MP Julian Amery noted his shock after visit to Romania in 1983 Wrote newly-released memo to Margaret Thatcher following his trip He inspired vampires, murdered his own people and sucked the blood of virgins. But that didnt prevent Vlad the Impaler being hailed a very good administrator by revisionist Marxist historians. An amusing note by an MP to Margaret Thatcher reveals that a panel of Communist historians had reassessed Vlad Dracul positively. 'Very good administrator': Vlad the Impaler (left) was a warrior prince from the 15th century and inspired Bram Stokers Dracula (right, as portrayed by Christopher Lee in the film Dracula A.D. 1972) The unlikely Marxist hero was a warrior prince from the 15th century and inspired Bram Stokers Dracula. Describing his visit to then Communist Romania to meet with then president Nicolae Ceausescu in 1983, Tory MP Julian Amery noted his shock. The MP described in a memo - released by the National Archives at Kew, West London - how he had learned that the historians now looked upon Dracula favourably, though still deplored his habit of sucking the blood of virgins. He was, apparently, a very good administrator if somewhat excessive in his use of impaling to punish wrongdoers, Mr Amery wrote in a report to Mrs Thatcher. Surprise: Describing his visit to then Communist Romania to meet with then president Nicolae Ceausescu (left) in 1983, Tory MP Julian Amery (right) noted his shock He was also a very patriotic warrior against the Turks. His tendency in old age to drink the blood of virgins as a restorative is of course deplored. A couple who kept their pregnancy secret for months after discovering their twins' umbilical cords were tangled and the babies had little chance of surviving have welcomed two adorable girls. The identical twins were found to be monoamniotic, meaning they shared an amniotic sac, placenta and entangled umbilical cords while in utero. However, the twins, Jenna and Jennise, were delivered safely in January at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, via C-section at 32 weeks and 6 days old in the Grantley Stable Neonatal Unit. The mother, 34 year-old Joanne Lim, told Daily Mail Australia she was fearful throughout the pregnancy and when she looked it up online, it was hard to find information in Australia. Jenna and Jennise Tan snuggled up together under a colourful quilt at the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital Sisters Gisele (7) and Ginelle (4 1/2) on either side of their new younger sisters in hospital Monoamniotic twins or 'MoMo twins' occur when an embryo doesn't split until after the formation of the amniotic sac, about nine to 13 days after fertilisation. The condition is a rare, with only 24 cases reported in Queensland between 2000 and 2014. After initial scans and a visit to her GP, who told Ms Lim and her husband Glenn Tan they had a rare pregnancy, they were referred to the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital. 'Finally we went to the hospital and they explained to us the main risk is because of entanglement because both the twins are sharing same placenta and sac so there's no membrane in between them,' Ms Lim said. An ultrasound of the monoamniotic twins, who shared an amniotic sac and were completely tangled in each other's umbilical cords while in utero 'At week 12 in the first trimester scan the obstetrician told us the twins were entangled pretty badly at this stage, that's where the risk started. 'The bigger they are, the higher chance the cords could wrap around their neck and cut off their food and oxygen,' she said. The couple didn't announce their pregnancy because they were so worried, and only shared details with their immediate family. Jenna and Jennise in the neonatal unit after being delivered at 32 weeks via a C section 'People didn't understand what we were going through and we were so worried because things could happen to them anytime and any day,' Ms Lim said. 'When they were born the hospital took a photo and some of the medical staff asked us if we were happy for them to show their students because its not very common. 'We felt OK even though its a high risk and rare condition, and we're very grateful to the medical team,' she said. The family pictured with the newborn twins, sister Ginelle (left), father Glenn Tan, sister Gisele and mother Joanne Lim Dr Renuka Sekar, a maternal fetal medicine specialist at the hospital who delivered the twins, told Daily Mail Australia that 'MoMo' twins are usually identical and it only occurs in one percent of all twins born. 'Almost 90 percent of the time they (the twins) have cord entanglement and that's the cause for complications,' Dr Sekar said. 'They are also prone to a risk of being lost early, there can be abnormalities because they're sharing a blood flow and there can be twin to twin transfusion. 'Of the 27 sets of twins we've had in the last 15 years we had one early loss at 21 weeks and there was one late loss at 31 weeks. 'The problem when we lose these twins later is there is often significant brain damage to the other, that's the biggest risk and that's why we like to deliver them by 32 weeks.' The babies will be here for at least another two or three weeks and once they're comfortable from a neonatal perspective, they'll be discharged,' she said. The family, who have also have two older daughters Gisele (7) and Ginelle (4 1/2) are looking forward to welcoming the twins home in a couple of weeks time. 'It's just amazing how they managed to get through it, and we're very lucky the girls are doing very well actually,' Ms Tan said. The identical twins, pictured with their mother Joanne Lim, are in the one percent of twins who are born as monoamniotic German Chancellor Angela Merkel slipped away from the marathon Brussels summit for a bag of chips tonight. David Cameron was forced to cancel plans for an historic Cabinet meeting which was supposed to trigger his referendum campaign after a breakfast, brunch, lunch and then afternoon tea were all cancelled by delayed talks. A deal could now be finalised at a dinner, scheduled to begin at 7pm London time. But that was too late for Mrs Merkel who was spotted by an ITV reporter in the local chippie this evening. James Mates, the ITV News Europe Editor, spotted Mrs Merkel in a Brussels chip shop as evening fell on the second night of the epic Brussels summit Mr Cameron, who only got three hours sleep after an all-night session, had earlier insisted he was happy to work through the weekend if that was what it takes to get a deal for Britain at the EU summit. The talks looked stalled this afternoon as EU officials were forced to repeatedly postpone the second formal meeting of all 28 EU leaders as one on one talks to try and crack problems continued. Amid the continuing delays, Mr Cameron today tweeted: 'Negotiations are continuing into this evening. 'A Cabinet meeting won't be possible tonight. 'One will be held if and when a deal is done.' British sources insisted this afternoon there were still 'outstanding issues' several hours into the second day of talks and after an all night wrangle which broke up at dawn. EU Council president Donald Tusk met with both Mr Cameron and French president Francois Hollande this afternoon in an attempt to reach a deal. Mr Cameron had earlier insisted he would do 'everything I can' as returned to the talks after just three hours sleep earlier today. But as the talks ground on into the late afternoon, the Czech Europe Minister Tomas Prouza tweeted he was 'perplexed by the British approach of non-negotiation'. In his first meeting with EU chiefs today, Mr Cameron insisted: 'We are happy to work until Sunday.' He quipped: 'I've told the wife and children.' Mr Cameron this afternoon confirmed his Cabinet would not meet tonight as progress on his talks appeared limited 24 hours into the EU summit Following his concession it will be impossible to hold a Cabinet meeting tonight, Mr Cameron was due to head back into more back to back meetings in an effort to complete a deal by the formal dinner The Prime Minister, who appeared to have developed a sty on his left eye, was still in today's talks as night began to fall despite only having three hours sleep last night The day began with continuing problems related to how curbs on migrant benefits work with eastern European nations resisting efforts to make the concessions to Britain a wider power. Talks were also ongoing in relation to the eurozone. Last night, France and Belgium launched an 11th hour bid to ensure this deal is the last reform available to Britain. The latest delays appeared to be driven by Greece, which is threatening to veto the whole deal if it does not receive help on the migration crisis. A Greek source told Sky News: '(Greek prime minister Alexis) Tsipras demands proportionality, commitment and implementation of European Commission resolutions.' Mr Cameron left the first day of talks at around 5am but was back in the EU summit six hours later for further meetings. As the day wore on, Mr Cameron had meetings with Mr Tusk, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Polish PM Beata Szydlo. Ukip leader Nigel Farage earlier dismissed Mr Cameron's renegotiation as proof substantial reform of the European Union was impossible A Downing Street source said Mr Cameron was likely to have further one-on-one meetings with his Danish, Czech and Dutch counterparts before this evening's round-table session. At around 11am in Brussels, Mr Cameron told waiting reporters: 'Well I was here till 5 o'clock this morning working through this. 'We've made some progress, but there's still no deal. 'And as I've said, I'd only do a deal if we get what Britain needs, so we're going to get back in there, we're going to do some more work and I'll do everything I can.' As talks resumed today, EU sources said council president Donald Tusk, who is running the summit, had solutions on all outstanding issues. The source said: 'We have a relatively good feeling.' As well as protection for non-euro states and the emergency brake, Mr Cameron was facing objections to proposals to cut child benefit for migrant workers' offspring overseas, exempt Britain from the requirement for 'ever-closer union' and rewrite treaties to enshrine elements of the deal in the Union's fundamental law. In a swipe at the PM, European Parliament president Martin Schulz said: 'We must make clear that the method 'I will tell you what you must do in order for me to stay' doesn't work. Czech Europe Minister Tomas Prouza revealed his frustration at the British delegation's negotiation tactics as the summit approached its 24 hour mark EU Council president Donald Tusk met with Mr Cameron and French President Francois Hollande this afternoon as he tried to break the deadlock. He tweeted about the meeting at around 4.30pm. 'We have to reach out to one another. I have the impression that David Cameron sees that.' Mr Schulz said he also had the impression 'the different positions are moving towards one another' and hoped that negotiations would come to an end on Friday, but he warned any package agreed by leaders would be subject to 'intensive' consideration by MEPs at the European Parliament. UK officials today said Mr Cameron was prepared to keep talking all day but at shortly after 4pm Mr Cameron conceded he would not be able to hold the historic Cabinet which will start the campaign. Asked about the prospect the summit could drag on as late Sunday, the official said: 'What matters is that we get the right deal, it doesn't matter how long it takes.' Last night, amid rows with eastern Europe over how curbs on benefits will work, France and Belgium carried out a late ambush and tried to insert language making clear there could be no further reforms after Britain's referendum. The move is an attempt to ensure there cannot be a second referendum in Britain regardless of what is agreed or how the UK votes. As the marathon talks continued, a new poll from TNS emerged indicating the Leave campaign was ahead by 39 points to 36. Mr Cameron had a meeting with the Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi, left today, as he tried to work through the problems still outstanding with his draft deal Mr Cameron was back in further meetings today to try and resolve the impasse over his deal. He met Donald Tusk, left, and Jean Claude Juncker, second left, in his first meetings of the day, pictured Senior eurosceptics today told MailOnline that any attempt to prevent future British referendums would be a significant further surrender of sovereignty to Brussels. French president Francois Hollande spearheaded the new clause at the first round of talks. WHAT HAPPENS IF DAVID CAMERON CAN'T SEAL A DEAL TODAY? David Cameron, pictured returning grim faced to talks today, spent much of the night working to resolve Britain's 'festering' relationship with Europe - but what if he can't get a deal today? Talks just carry on: EU sources have suggested Donald Tusk, the EU Council president running the summit, will simply keep leaders in Brussels until they work out their differences. Pushing the talks into the weekend is already under discussion with delays as late as Sunday possible. Come back in 10 days: This week's summit could end and an emergency meeting convened in around 10 days. Mr Tusk has repeatedly insist this meeting is 'make or break' and the key opportunity to get a deal so a delay would seem unlikely. The next summit: EU leaders normally meet quarterly and if an issue cannot be resolved they can be pushed completely to the next summit. This would be seen as disastrous for Mr Cameron, derailing any hopes of a summer referendum. Advertisement The tired Prime Minister had bloodshot eyes as he left the talks just before dawn. He was back after around six hours as officials planned to lay on an 'English lunch' to try and finalise the deal. Arriving back at the talks today, Mr Hollande said: 'Since last night, there are proposals that have been changed, notably on what concerns France - the wish to have a financial regulation system which is valid in all parts of Europe, and that there should be no right of veto or prevention.' Mr Hollande said France wanted to ensure that Europe would be able to 'fight against speculation and fight against financial crises in the same way and with the same organisations everywhere'. German Chancellor Angela Merkel made no comment as she returned to the summit this morning. Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel suggested any agreement may still be hours away. 'The proposals on the table don't satisfy all parties. We haven't finished yet,' he said. 'I hope that by the end of the afternoon we will have a text that everyone can agree.' European Parliament President Martin Schulz, who has infuriated the British team by insisting MEPs could change the deal after it has been struck, said he had the impression that 'the different positions are moving towards one another'. But he made clear that the topics on the table in Brussels would be subject to 'intensive' consideration by MPs at the European Parliament. Mr Schulz said he wanted the UK to remain in the EU, but added: 'We must make clear that the method 'I will tell you what you must do in order for me to stay' doesn't work. 'We have to reach out to one another. I have the impression that David Cameron sees that.' Mr Cameron marched back into talks with EU leaders today with little sign of a break in the deadlock over his proposed reforms for Britain's membership of the EU EU leaders began gathering again in Brussels today as Germany's Angela Merkel, left, returned to the talks, and France's Francois Hollande, right, arrived warning there could be no veto As the marathon summit continued, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite suggested there would be a 'face saving deal but warned the real decision was for the British people Mr Cameron and EU leaders in Brussels said last night there were 'some signs of progress' but Downing Street said there was 'still a lot to do'. The Prime Minister held several 'hard going' meetings with European Council president Donald Tusk and French president Francois Hollande before leaving. He will return to the negotiations later this morning, Number 10 said, starting with another meeting with Mr Tusk. Long night: A tired David Cameron leaves EU talks in Brussels at 5.30am this morning with no sign of a deal A Downing Street source said: 'It's hard going. Some signs of progress but nothing yet agreed and still a lot to do'. The Prime Minister had been pleading at a summit in the city for a 'credible' package to help him lock Britain into the EU for a 'generation'. But his counterparts put up a wall of opposition to his plans to limit access to the welfare state. And, in a further slapdown, they warned any package that is cobbled together will be final the UK must take it or quit the European Union for good. Ukip leader Nigel Farage today insisted the gruelling talks illustrated the problem with the EU - insisting despite only making 'tiddly' requests the talks were still hard going. He told the BBC today: 'I simply can't believe that at some point today David Cameron will not get some sort of concessions out of these people. 'They must know that if he's sent home totally humiliated, Brexit gets that little be closer.' The French and the Belgians insisted there could be no second referendum if the UK votes to leave while on a day of drama in Brussels and Westminster: The president of the European Parliament threatened to wreck the agreement if it is 'discriminatory'; A senior Tory official was found to be urging business leaders to sign a letter in support of the deal before it had even been agreed; A Conservative grassroots leader announced he was quitting the party in protest at Mr Cameron's handling of the renegotiation; Tory MPs reacted furiously to the BBC giving Neil Kinnock a ten-minute platform to make scaremongering claims about the dangers of leaving the EU; It was claimed that a separate letter in support of remaining in the EU would secure the backing of more than 80 FTSE 100 firms; GREEK PM THREATENS TO VETO DAVID CAMERON'S DEAL OVER MIGRANT CRISIS OVERWHELMING HIS COUNTRY Greece is refusing to sign off on David Cameron's deal with the EU until he gets guarantees on the migration crisis. Thousands of migrants fleeing the war in Syria are arriving on the Greek island of Lesbos every day, stretching the government's austerity-hit budget ever thinner. Greece is concerned other EU nations will close their land borders in a bid to stop people travelling further into mainland Europe and prime minister Alexis Tsipras has threatened to veto Mr Cameron's talks. French president Francois Hollande, left, and German chancellor Angela Merkel, centre, today met with Greek prime minister Alexis Tspiras, right, in a bid to resolve a new problem for the talks A senior Greek source told Sky News: 'Tsipras demands proportionality, commitment and implementation of European Commission resolutions.' The threat was reportedly first made overnight and continues to be a problem this afternoon as formal talks were delayed yet again. Mr Tspiras was pictured earlier today with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande. The problem added a further challenge to Mr Cameron's hopes of concluding a deal today and getting his referendum bid underway. Advertisement No word: Mr Cameron said nothing to waiting journalists as he left at just before dawn but behind the scenes EU leaders were seeking to water down the deal Tough talks: The Prime Minister held several 'hard going' meetings with European Council president Donald Tusk, Jean-Claude Juncker (pictured) before leaving this morning After the first round of talks, Number 10 aides admitted there were 'real outstanding issues to resolve' on curbing migrant benefits, protecting the City of London and securing treaty change. They said Mr Cameron was prepared to walk away from the summit and try again in a few weeks. This is despite a detailed timetable being in place for him to fly back to London at lunchtime, hold a Cabinet meeting and announce in Downing Street that the referendum will take place on June 23. CAMERON'S BATTLE: FIVE STICKING POINTS AT EU SUMMIT IN BRUSSELS Worried: David Cameron has been ambushed in Brussels with demands to further water down his EU referendum deal Ever closer union: The PM wants an exemption for Britain from this guiding aim. Foreign leaders are reluctant to write this into future EU treaties. Emergency brake: Eastern European nations are demanding safeguards that no other EU country would be allowed to limit payments to its citizens. The Germans and Austrians would like to take advantage of any new regime themselves Child benefit: No 10 wants the curbs on payments to children overseas to be introduced immediately. The rest of the EU is insisting they must be phased in Treaty change: The PM has promised his deal will be 'legally binding' and written into a future treaty. France and Belgium are resisting. Eurosceptics say anything less than full treaty change would be reversible or could be overturned by the European Court of Justice City of London: The PM wants protection for the City from Eurozone countries. France is resisting on the grounds that this could amount to special treatment for the UK's dominant financial sector Advertisement Failing to secure a deal today would leave Mr Cameron facing a scramble to hold his poll before the summer when the EU migrant crisis is expected to reach its peak. His draft deal has already been denounced as 'feeble' by Tory MPs who say it does not repatriate a single power to Britain or curb mass immigration. But, at last night's talks, he came under intense pressure to water it down still further by agreeing not to introduce restrictions on the payment of child benefit to EU workers immediately. Downing Street insisted Mr Cameron was resisting the demands for a further cave-in. Sources indicated he was looking to toughen his own requirements asking for a brake that restricts migrants claiming tax credits to last for up to 13 years. But Eurosceptic MPs said it still seemed that the 'thin gruel' on offer to voters appeared to be getting even thinner. They added that, despite the drama in Brussels, the negotiation remained a huge missed opportunity to fundamentally change Britain's relationship with the EU. MPs also reacted with fury to news that a senior official Baroness Rock, the Tory vice chairman for business had begun rounding up business leaders to publicly back the deal. The French and the Belgians ramped up the pressure on Mr Cameron by making clear that British voters will be given no second chance to secure a better package. Defending the prime minister today, Energy Secretary Amber Rudd earlier today warned 'the deal is out of reach at the moment'. She said: 'This is an ongoing negotiation, I think the key thing in a really difficult important negotiation is not to set that sort of time limit but continue to get the best deal for the country and as we've heard from your piece earlier, lots of different countries, with lots of different views. 'So it's an ongoing process, we're not there yet.' Despite Mr Cameron's enthusiastic welcome for the first draft two weeks ago, Ms Rudd insisted the form of the deal so far had prevented a solid defence of what had already been achieved. As Mr Cameron's negotiations continued a new opinion poll from TNS suggested the Leave campaign would start the official referendum campaign in front - but with a large block of undecideds She said: 'Well I think it is too early to conclude that it's a watering down of the deal that was proposed two weeks ago. 'I think because it wasn't the final deal, we haven't yet got the final deal , the government hasn't been able to go out and say this is why it works, this is why it's in the UK's interests - good for us, good for families, good for businesses. 'I hope we will get the right reformed deal, I hope we get it soon but we're not going to be rushed to get the right deal and then we can make the pitch to the people to say this is why it works.' They demanded that a clause should be written into the draft agreement on Britain's EU membership that explicitly rules out holding a second referendum if the UK votes to leave. Eurosceptics had argued that, if the UK votes out in the expected June referendum, Brussels might be prepared to return to the table to offer meaningful concessions on issues such as free movement. During tense talks, expected to run over into today, Mr Cameron last night told his counterparts that his aim now was to secure a package that would be 'credible' with the British people. Deal makers and breakers: EU leaders gathered for the traditional family photo. David Cameron (front row, third from right) has allies in Germany's Angela Merkel and Denmark's Lars Lokke Rasmussen. But he still has to square concerns from France's Francois Hollande, and eastern European leaders including Poland's Beata Szydlo and Hungary's Viktor Orban. Austria's Werner Faymann arrived at the talks with a strong agenda to tackle the flow of migrants into his country David Cameron and Angela Merkel walked into the talks together, pictured left, as the formal meetings got underway. Mr Cameron made an anxious expression in conversation with Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar, pictured right as the talks began Mr Cameron's talks, assisted by EU Council president Donald Tusk pictured left as the talks began, could run into the early hours of the morning as a deal is hammered out KEY PLAYERS WHO CAN MAKE OR BREAK DAVID CAMERON'S DEAL Francois Hollande, France France has raised significant concerns about how the British deal on the eurozone and protections for the City of London will work. Concessions to Mr Hollande included confirmation there would be a 'single rule book' on how the single market will work. Mr Cameron rushed to Paris on Monday night to work on the deal but confirmation of a resolution only began to appear today when EU sources indicated the European Central Bank had agreed to the changes. Viktor Orban, Hungary The Hungarian prime minister sparked alarm when he suggested the British agenda was treating his citizens like 'parasites'. Hungary had strong objections to banning EU migrant workers from claiming benefits alongside their jobs in Britain. Today his concerns appeared to have been dealt with as he told waiting media: 'I think we will have a good negotiation and I think we have a good chance to make an agreement. 'I am rather optimistic.' Werner Faymann, Austria The Austrian chancellor threw what could have been a huge spanner into the works by suggesting his country would impose a strict cap on asylum claims. Austria has been left reeling by the migration crisis and has sought to use Mr Cameron's renegotiation as a way of easing its own concerns. He has complained the European solution for dealing with the migrant crisis - set to see more than a million people try and get into the EU this year - is 'too slow' Angela Merkel, Germany One of the longest serving and most senior EU leaders, Angela Merkel has become a key ally for David Cameron in completing his deal. Germany did raise concerns about the plans damaging the principle of free movement across the EU by introducing discrimination. But as Mr Cameron's deal evolved toward the 'brake' on migrant benefits rather than outright ban, Mrs Merkel has become a cheerleader for concluding the deal - insisting the British demands were 'justified'. Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Denmark Denmark has been a crucial ally for Mr Cameron during his talks, insisting the proposals on offer were 'understandable and acceptable'. After the first draft was published, Mr Rasmussen vowed to help the British Prime Minister conclude his deal. He said: 'Denmark will work hard to ensure results which can help the British government win the referendum and remain a key member of the European Union. Beata Szydlo, Poland Squaring Poland and the rest of east Europe has been a key challenge for Mr Cameron. The Polish prime minister hit out at the proposed reforms for migrants last year. Even last week Poland was still warning the current draft of Britain's deal was no more than 'mostly acceptable'. Polish workers in Britain are by far the biggest bloc already here working and, in some cases, claiming child benefit and other handouts. Advertisement The PM said: 'The question of Britain's place in Europe has been allowed to fester for too long and it is time to deal with it. 'If we can reach agreement here that is strong enough to persuade the British people to support UK membership of the EU we have the opportunity to settle this issue for a generation. 'It is an opportunity to move to a fundamentally different approach to our relationship with the EU what some might call live and let live reflecting that those states that wish to integrate further can do so while those of us that don't can be reassured that their interests will be protected.' Talks began at 5.30pm last night in the hope of reaching a deal on Britain's EU negotiations early today. Armies of officials were expected to work all night to thrash out the final details. Mr Cameron faced opposition to his draft deal in five key areas: securing an opt-out for Britain from the EU's commitment to 'ever closer union'; securing rules to protect the City from the eurozone countries; curbing welfare payments to migrants, treaty change and making his changes irreversible by securing treaty change. The PM said: 'The question of Britain's place in Europe has been allowed to fester for too long and it is time to deal with it' Eastern European leaders were demanding yet more changes to the Prime Minister's plan for an emergency brake on the payment of in-work benefits, such as tax credits, to migrant workers Eastern European leaders were demanding yet more changes to the Prime Minister's plan for an emergency brake on the payment of in-work benefits, such as tax credits, to migrant workers. Countries such as Poland are fearful that other member states such as Germany might seek to copy the UK's proposal. Mr Cameron was also struggling to secure agreement that the brake could be put in place for seven years. In any event, it amounts to only a partial restriction on tax credits rather than the four-year outright ban promised in the Tory manifesto. On child benefit, Mr Cameron was under intense pressure to phase in his plan to reduce the level of payment made on behalf of youngsters who live abroad. Eastern European countries want it to be phased in over 16 years. Mr Cameron was resisting in the talks last night, officials said, but he could be forced to compromise to get the deal through and agreed today. The PM was also facing demands for an exemption from the changes to workers from the republic of Ireland. Number 10 sources held out the prospect of talks ending today without a deal. One aide said: 'There are real outstanding issues to resolve. It is not clear how we do that.' Another said: 'If you thought we were on a train track, there are gaps in that track.' Officials said the other EU leaders had said they wanted to keep Britain in the EU 'but there was not much sign of that'. A Pakistani lawyer is now demanding the jewel be returned to his country The story of how Britain acquired the Koh-i-Noor diamond, pictured, has many facets Like the magnificent jewel itself, the story of how Britain acquired the Koh-i-Noor diamond has many facets. Some sparkle with intrigue, others are bloody and sordid. The chief characters in this epic tale, recently drawn to our attention again with demands from Pakistan for the famous gems return, include a nymphomaniac queen mother with a taste for opium, an eccentric ginger-haired general known as Tipperary Joe, and a boy ruler. Not forgetting the extras: tens of thousands of British and Sikh soldiers who died in the gruesome battles that decided the diamonds fate 170 years ago. Disembowelled on swords and bayonets or blown to smithereens by musket and cannon balls, they seem to vindicate the Hindu death curse said to haunt the stone: that he who owns this diamond will own the world but will also know all its misfortunes. Despite this, ever since the British took it in the mid-19th century, claims have been lodged for its return by those who believe they are its rightful owners including the people of India, the Iranians and even the Taliban in Afghanistan (because it was lodged there with a ruling family in the late 18th century). Now comes a new demand from a Pakistan lawyer who, after years of campaigning and letter-writing, has been promised his day in court in Islamabad. There he will argue that the stone was snatched illegally from an area that subsequently became part of Pakistan when India was partitioned in 1947. His petition calls for a response not only from the British Government but from the Queen appropriately, perhaps, as it was into her great-great-grandmothers hands that the Koh-i-Noor fell. It was less than ten years into Queen Victorias reign when the all-conquering British, in the guise of the army of the East India Company, found themselves butting up against the last remaining major military force in the Indian sub-continent: the Sikhs of the Punjab. The Sikhs had a powerful army, its 45,000 infantrymen and 26,000 cavalry well drilled, well armed and, in their chainmail, breastplates and helmets and wielding razor-sharp curved swords, considered the equal of any European force. They had been assembled and organised by Ranjit Singh, the charismatic Maharajah of Lahore, founder of the Sikh empire and celebrated Lion of the Punjab except that by 1845, as the British cast covetous eyes on his kingdom, he was dead, leaving a son, five-year-old Duleep Singh, as his heir and a dangerous political vacuum. At the centre of the struggle for power in Lahore was the boys mother, the voluptuous Maharini Jindan, who because of her infant son had not committed suttee burnt herself to death on Ranjit Singhs funeral pyre like his other wives. She was described by the British as a debauched woman of 33, very indiscriminate in her affections and an eater of opium, and her court was said to be a hotbed of vice. Yet she took charge, appointing herself Regent, transacting state business and steering a canny course between the many rival factions in the land. A woman inspects the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond, which was taken from Lahore by colonial forces 150 years ago One key faction was the Sikh army and in an attempt to keep it out of palace politics, she encouraged it to take on the British. A British army of 54,000 men on the frontier and biding its time waiting, some historians would argue, for an excuse to invade the Punjab took up the challenge. It crossed the border in December 1845, led by Sir Hugh Gough, a blunt Anglo-Irishman (hence his nickname of Tipperary Joe) with a reputation for recklessness and a belief that cold steel, in the form of British bayonets, was the answer to every hostile situation. He went into battle in a long white coat with a cone-shaped turban on his head. One of his officers described him as brave as a lion but with little common sense. In the first battle of the Anglo-Sikh War, just before Christmas 1845, he marched his men into the teeth of the Sikh artillery, lost nearly 1,000 but came out just on top. His aggression and seeming disregard for loss of life persuaded the Sikh generals to disappear behind earthworks and fight a purely defensive war, hoping to wear the enemy down. They had not allowed for Goughs pig-headedness. He sent in attack after attack against dug-in cannons, racking up casualties like never before in the campaign to conquer India. One regiment alone lost 260 red-coated soldiers in just ten minutes, and for a while it looked as if an unheard-of defeat was on the cards. The presumption of British invincibility, on which many of the military and political successes in India had been built, was suddenly in doubt. A British general recorded a sense of gloom and foreboding. Perhaps never in the annals of warfare has the British Army on so large a scale been nearer to annihilation. But the next day, after a night spent sleeping outside in the bitter cold of winter, four battalions marched towards the Sikh guns, flags flying and as compact and disciplined as if they were on the parade ground back in Delhi or Calcutta. The enemy ran. The British marched on farther into the Punjab, fighting like devils. A lieutenant recalled how the enemys cannonballs mowed down our ranks. A nine-pound shot severed a mans head from his body three yards from me. But the advance continued. The crown of Queen Mary of England. In the front, the Koh-i-Noor diamond can be seen Then the lancers were ordered to charge the enemies, which they did most splendidly, rushing smack through them and, wheeling round, charged back again, cutting them to pieces in hundreds. Though clearly defeated on that day, the Sikhs did not surrender. A thousand of them concealed themselves in rocks and rushed out at us, discharging their muskets. Our men rushed on them with bayonets, killing them hand to hand. In a series of brutal exchanges of shells, grapeshot and musket balls, 2,000 more British soldiers went down but the Sikhs lost 10,000, a third of their strength. Finally, Gough led the British into Lahore to the strains of See the Conquering Hero Comes from the band, displaying a procession of hundreds of captured Sikh cannons to stress who had won. Tribute was exacted from the defeated nation in land and cash. But there the takeover stopped. The people were deemed patient and submissive, and the little king and his mother were allowed to continue as rulers for a time, with a British Resident to advise them. For two to three years, an uneasy peace reigned in the Punjab. But beneath the surface there was unrest, encouraged by the Maharini. By this point she was theoretically in exile, but she could still stir up trouble. Dissidents and mutineers from what was left of the Sikh army began to collect in the city of Multan, around a leader named Dewan Mulraj. Two British lieutenants sent to put him in his place had their heads hacked off and sent back to Lahore. A full-scale revolt against British rule was soon under way, fuelled by warlike people such as the Pathans. The British dithered, uncertain how to proceed at the height of summer when heat exhaustion could take a terrible toll on soldiers unused to such fierce conditions. A hastily assembled army descended on Multan, besieged it for a few weeks and then withdrew, prompting more Punjabis to join the revolt. The areas Muslim minority were urged to join an anti-British jihad. Not until the summer heat cooled and winter approached did the British stir themselves into action. The Sikh nation has called for war, declared Lord Dalhousie, recently installed as Governor-General of India, with typical Victorian gusto, and, on my word, sirs, they shall have it and with a vengeance! A massive punitive expedition set out. Multan was besieged again, and at the beginning of 1849 British and Indian troops captured the city. No quarter was given in the bloody hand-to-hand fighting. Women and children were slaughtered, houses ransacked and temples pillaged. One soldier recorded how rings and chains were ripped from the living as well as the dead. Officers joined in the plundering alongside their men. A captain wrote home without a qualm of conscience that loot worth 2.5 million rupees had already been seized and they were now digging for buried treasure. Meanwhile, the main British force was moving towards Lahore with Tipperary Joe in command again, despite misgivings back in London about the cost of his campaigns in soldiers lives. His tactics were as reckless as before bull-at-a-gate, as one commentator put it. He advanced one regiment headlong into artillery fire at Chillianwala and saw half of them fall. The survivors fled back two miles. Regimental colours were lost, a particular disgrace. Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) with her eldest daughter Princess Elizabeth (later the Queen) on the balcony of Buckingham Palace Seeing British soldiers run, two locally recruited sepoy battalions did the same. Once again, Goughs actions raised questions about Britains presumed invincibility, on which premise the whole annexation of India had been built. Was this the beginning of the end for the British? The ferocity with which the Sikhs fought certainly made it look that way. One observer noted how they would still lash out with their swords even when transfixed by a British bayonet in their guts. Fortunately for the British, the weather intervened. Rain stopped play. After a three-day downpour, the Sikh army withdrew, leaving Gough to nurse the wounds of 2,300 casualties. He had survived just. But now the momentum was with him as he waited for reinforcements to arrive. Then, at the head of an army of 23,000, he advanced towards the city of Gujrat, where the Sikh army was massed. This time he approached more cautiously and followed the military handbook. A hundred guns pounded the Sikh trenches in a two-hour artillery barrage, broke their cannon and allowed the infantry to advance relatively unscathed. The Sikhs ran as the British cavalry, sabres drawn, charged in to mop up any resistance. The war for the Punjab always a close-run thing was over. At his court in Lahore, ten-year-old Duleep Singh signed away his claim to the throne of the Punjab and soon afterwards the province was formally annexed as part of British India. For the defeated Sikhs there was a price to pay, of which the ounce-and-a-quarter Koh-i-noor diamond was just one part. The peace treaty stipulated that the kingdom of the Punjab is at an end and henceforth a portion of the British Empire in India. It added that the gem called the Koh-i-Noor shall be surrendered by the Maharajah of Lahore to the Queen of England. For much of its existence the diamond had been the booty of conquest and, in that sense, what happened in 1849 was no different from what had gone before. The size of a small hens egg, it originated in river silt in south-eastern India, first popped up in recorded history sometime in the 13th century and was installed as the eye of the effigy of a Hindu goddess in a temple. With a value once lyrically described as the expenditure of the whole Universe for two-and-a-half days, it was looted by various warlords over the centuries before ending up in the treasury of Shah Nader of Persia in the 18th century, whose forces had conquered part of India. Koh-i-noor is Persian for mountain of light, which legend says is what the Shah exclaimed when he first saw it. When the Shahs empire collapsed, one of his generals seized the stone and took it to Afghanistan. One of his descendants then fled with it to Lahore, where Ranjit Singh took possession of it in 1813. It had been in the hands of the Sikhs for just 36 years before Duleep Singh was forced to hand it over to the British. In December 1849, it was handed over to the Governor-General of India and in February 1850 was sealed inside an iron safe and a red dispatch box to be sent to England by ship. The vessel encountered stormy weather and there were fears that it might have foundered. The diamond duly arrived in England, though, where it was first handed to the chairman of the East India Company. On July 3, 1850, it was presented to Queen Victoria in person by the young Duleep Singh, who had been brought over from Lahore specially to do so. The following year it was displayed inside a red tent at the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, where tens of thousands gawped at it through iron bars. Gaslight flickered around it, making it sparkle. What was most noticeable, besides its enormous size, was its comparative ugliness. It had never been the prettiest of diamonds, which is why Prince Albert then had it re-polished and re-shaped at Garrards, the crown jewellers. The Dutch expert who carried out the work discovered several flaws, which he cut away. This made it a perfect and more pleasing oval but reduced its size by more than a third, from 186 carats (37.2 grams/ 1.3oz) to 105.6 carats (21.1 grams/ 0.75oz). It was then mounted in a tiara for Queen Victoria and later reset, first into Queen Marys Crown and finally into the Queen Mothers crown for the coronation of George VI in 1937. That crown is now with the rest of the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London. Whether this will be its last resting place remains to be seen. British governments have, however, consistently resisted outside claims of ownership. On a visit to India in 2013, David Cameron made it clear that he wouldnt relinquish the Koh-i-Noor. Sir Mike Rake, who chairs BT, said quitting the EU would be a huge leap into the unknown and a huge risk on investment and jobs A leading industrialist was accused of talking poppycock for claiming Britain was not big enough to stand alone outside the EU. Sir Mike Rake, who chairs BT, said quitting the EU would be a huge leap into the unknown and a huge risk on investment and jobs. But his views were immediately dismissed as poppycock and elitist pontificating by Eurosceptics who pointed out that he had backed the campaign for Britain to ditch the pound and sign up to the euro. Ukip MP Douglas Carswell said: People with knighthoods, generally speaking, think more Brussels is a good idea and that is part of the problem. He was president of the CBI, an organisation that wanted us to join the euro. Thank goodness we ignored the CBI then and lets hope people ignore Sir Mike now. He has spent too long pontificating from a pulpit in Davos. It is always interesting to meet someone who thinks we should have joined the euro but I am not sure we should be taking financial or economic advice from them. In an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail today, Sir Mike said: Where are the choices? We are not big enough to stand alone. He said that in 1975, when Labour prime minister Harold Wilson held a referendum on Europe, Britain could have forged an independent path. But he claimed leaving the EU was no longer a valid option. He said: That was a long time ago and it is a different world now. The Chinese would prefer us to stay, the Americans would prefer us to stay. We dont any longer have the sort of military power we had. Our diplomatic power is better within Europe. Our security is better within the European Union. He said the UK could not hope to match non-EU Norway and Switzerland. But Ruth Lea, an ardent Eurosceptic and economic adviser for Arbuthnot Banking Group, said: This notion we are too small is absolute poppycock. We are not too small, we are the fifth or sixth biggest economy in the world. We are not a giant economy but of the second ranking ones we are one of the biggest and one of the most important behind the US, China and Japan. Sir Mike, who was president of the pro-EU CBI until last year, said virtually all of Britains business leaders want the country to stay. The lobby group was this week accused of scaremongering after it rounded up business groups from across Europe to warn the UK against so-called Brexit. The pro-EU camp, which includes big banks such as Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs, has insisted that a vote to leave would play havoc with trade, jobs, investment and the City, threatening the countrys economic recovery. But those claims have been dismissed as bogus by Neil Woodford, the UKs most successful money manager. He said that the economic argument was not clear-cut either way on whether to stay or leave the European Union. Mr Woodford told his investors claims that Britains future prosperity hinged on ties with Brussels lacked credibility. EUROTUNNEL IN 22MILLION DEMAND FOLLOWING MIGRANT CHAOS The taxpayer may have to pay up to 22million in compensation to Eurotunnel for disruption caused by last summers migrant chaos. The firm has asked both the British and French governments to reimburse it for lost trade after thousands of migrants stormed the tunnel in July and August. The Chunnel operator faced heavy disruption as migrants from the Jungle camp in Calais repeatedly tried to enter Britain. It has applied to its regulator the Intergovernmental Commission for the payout. The French and British government have responsibility for border control and security and in 2000 Eurotunnel successfully claimed around 13million for disruption. The 22million claim would probably be split between the two countries. The firm also asked for almost 5million to cover extra security. Chief executive Jacques Gounon said: As long as migrants continue to arrive in Europe there will be an issue. We must anticipate this and not just react. On compensation, he said: They will check the figures carefully but I am sure we will reach an agreement. In this situation the states are responsible for border controls and security and for public order. We have very good relationships with the governments and exceptional cooperation. Posting a 5 per cent rise in annual sales to 930million yesterday, Eurotunnel said there has been no disruption to services since last October following strengthened border security at the Coquelles terminal. Dozens of migrants gather near lorries which head towards the ferry terminal in Calais, France Advertisement collage.jpg Steven Mitchell (left), Jovany Appolon (center) and Daniel Costa-Sousa. (Harrison County Jail) HARRISON COUNTY, Mississippi -- Three Miami, Fla., men have been arrested and charged with possession of a counterfeit instrument after a traffic stop during which they were found in possession of a machine to produce phony credit cards. According to Harrison County Sheriff Troy Peterson, deputies initiated a traffic stop on Interestate 10 west near mile-marker 20 on Thursday. Upon contact with the occupants of the vehicle, deputies noted a strong smell of marijuana and conducted a probable cause search. The search uncovered burnt marijuana, multiple prepaid credit cards and a credit card embosser used to make the fraudulent cards. The three suspects -- Steven Lee Mitchell, 28; Jovany Appolon, 20; and Daniel Costa-Sousa, 23; were each charged with possession of a counterfeit instrument and booked into the Harrison County Adult Detention Center under a bonds of $50,000 each set by Judge Brandon Ladner. A hold was also placed on Costa-Sousa for an outstanding warrant from another jurisdiction. Hollywood may be full of stars, but it's the chillest lizards in town that are stealing all the spotlight. Their names are Baby Love and Buddy Love and like any other celebrity they can be found soaking up the California sun at an outdoor cafe on any average day. Veterans of the fame game, the two iguanas are totally calm as fan after fan pulls out their iPhone to snap a picture as they relax on their custom purple lounge chairs sitting right there on the table. Baby Love (left) and Buddy Love (right) are two unlikely stars in Beverly Hills, where they can be found soaking up the sun at an outdoor cafe on an average day Baby Love and Buddy Love's incredible calm isn't achieved with any tricks, restraints or promise of treats, according to owner Henry Lizardlover nee Schifberg They're not even fazed when their owner rotates their chairs, continuing to sprawl their legs out and lie their head on their hands in a pose as if to say: 'Draw me like one of your French girls'. Baby Love and Buddy Love's incredible calm isn't achieved with any tricks, restraints or promise of treats, according to their owner. Henry Schifberg, now legally known as Henry Lizardlover, has been taking care of lizards since 1982. With sometimes as many as 50 in his house at one time, Henry said he soon realized that once lizards feel comfortable in a environment they begin to develop a human-like trust in it. 'Once lizards feel safe and take on their potential state of calm...they will have and demonstrate all kinds of intelligence and civil "tame" behavior all on their own,' he writes on his official website. With sometimes as many as 50 in his house at one time, Henry said he soon realized that once lizards feel comfortable in a environment they begin to develop a human-like trust in it That trust is easily seen in Baby Love and Buddy Love, who remain totally calm as fan after fan pulls out their iPhone to snap a picture as they relax on their custom purple lounge chairs sitting right there on the table Henry, who changed his last name to Lizardlover in 1986, has been taking care of iguanas since 1982. They stay in a special room in his house, cage-free and surrounded by windows and water pools 'They can develop amazing qualities of real trust and harmony around humans and other friendly animals.' Henry saw these qualities develop as he let his lizards roam cage-free in a special room filled with windows and water pools. He noticed that the lizards would return back to his house on their own after spending the day in the backyard, the bigger ones even following him to the car and climb in on their own after a trip out. That's when Henry realized many of his lizards would be more than willing to sit for photoshoots, which have featured them rocking out on a guitar, slurping spaghetti or even spooning in bed. Henry changed his last name to Lizardlover in 1986 to help promote a line of greeting cards and postcards featuring his friendly reptiles - but also to simply show his love for them, and have a little fun. After seeing how trusting the lizards would become after adapting to their safe environment at his home, Henry realized that many of his lizards would be more than willing to sit for fun photoshoots The humorous shoots have since turned into a series of postcards, greeting cards and even calendars 'It's amazing how many effects a little thing like a name can make,' he writes on his website. And Henry, whose pictures have since been used for calendars, has found that his love for lizards has translated into love from the ladies as well. 'Women typically love the lizards,' there's no doubt about it, he told People in 2009. 'The lizards are what they call a "chick magnet". It touches a little sense of awe and wonder.' But at the end of the day, the lizards were never about money or fame for Henry. Instead, he wanted to show the world how kind and trusting they could be. Earlier this week, what looked like a very basic childrens algebra equation that involved apples, coconuts and a few bunches of bananas sent half of us up the wall. It looked simple. It sounded simple. But instead, we were left scratching our heads in despair. Last week, it was National Geographics picture of a bus, with the simple question: in which direction is this bus travelling? Over Christmas, people were sent dotty trying to spot a lone panda in a crowd of snowmen. Visual brainteasers are driving us mad. This is partly because while some stare and stare to no avail, others solve them in seconds. But also because when you do get the answer theyre so brain-clangingly obvious you want to scream. Dr Melina Kunar, a psychology professor at Warwick University, has reassuring news. She claims that while our ability to tackle some of the more logical tests may be linked to intelligence, theres little research to suggest our ability to spot shapes, patterns and anomalies in a picture has much to do with our IQ. But Dr Kunar insists wed be well advised to rattle through a few visual brainteasers each morning, too. The more practice you do, the better youll be at keeping on top of tasks such as finding your keys and your wallet and shopping list.' So dont give up. Instead, have a go at these head-spinning tests, and dont forget it will be good for you...(answers at the bottom) Answers 1. The bus is travelling to the right, if you are from the UK where cars drive on the left-hand side. In the US the bus would be travelling to the left, where cars drive on the right-hand side. 2. Technically speaking, according to the rule of bodmas/bidmas - whereby you must multiply before you add the answer is 12. 3. Peter will take the tablets in 60 minutes because hell have the first one at zero minutes. 4. The missing letters are LAE to spell out EVALUATE. Or CAE to spell out EVACUATE 5. There are 40 squares. 92% fail this test! 6. See diagram below. 7. See diagram below. 8. She was living in 2000bc, so in 2010BC she was 60, and a decade later in 2000bc she was 70. 9. One cow = 10, one sheep = two and one chicken = four. So one cow plus one chicken = 14, or seven sheep. 10. The number 8 is five rows up from the bottom, second from the end on the right. 11.See diagram below. 12. See diagram below. 13. C is the odd one out. All others are images of right hands. 14. Missing number is 6. All opposite numbers add up to 21. Back in March last year, Maldives opposition leader Mohammed Nasheed was thrown into prison for 13 years by the countrys despotic President Abdulla Yameen, in what Amnesty International dubbed a travesty of justice. Days later, his anxious supporters received some heartening news. An email arrived in their inbox suggesting that the famous British human rights lawyer Cherie Blair was prepared to throw her weight behind the campaign to free Nasheed by writing a newspaper comment article, or op-ed, about his plight. There is a possibility Cherie Blair QC, wife of former PM Tony Blair, may be willing to do an op-ed, it read. She is Chancellor Emeritus (and previously Chancellor) of Liverpool John Moores University, where President Nasheed graduated from. I have been introduced to her and she asked me for a draft [of the article]. Legal business: Cherie Blair (pictured left) and Amal Clooney (right) The message, obtained by the Mail this week, carried weight because it was written by Benedict Rogers, a senior figure in the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. Marked Strictly Confidential; Please Do Not Forward, and dated March 20, it carried a copy of the draft article that Mr Rogers expected Mrs Blair to put her name to. Very compelling it was, too. The piece described Nasheeds trial as an extraordinary farce and said his imprisonment meant that democracy is dead in the Maldives. In its place, we have thuggish authoritarian rule... Comparisons with Nelson Mandela or Aung San Suu Kyi are deserved, it added. Mr Nasheed should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. As for the dictatorial President of the Maldives, who has imprisoned around 1,700 opposition activists, the draft article was unequivocal. Receipt for return business class ticket for Carl Buckley from Manchester to Male, the capital of the Maldives. Mr Buckleys 3,506 fare was paid by Cherie Blairs firm Omnia Strategy March 20th email from Paul Roberts, an employee of Christian Solidarity Worldwide and senior figure in the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, suggesting that Cherie Blair was willing to write a newspaper article in support of Mohamed Nasheed, the jailed opposition leader of the Maldives It is clear that Mr Yameens regime does not respond to soft diplomacy. It is therefore time to speak to the regime in a language it will understand. Hitting it where it hurts: in its wallet. Targeted sanctions are needed. Wise words indeed. And ones which closely echoed very similar sentiments put down on paper only a few days earlier by a second man very close to Mrs Blair called Toby Cadman. On March 4, Nasheeds office in the Maldives had been sent a document by Mr Cadman, a barrister who happens to work on the advisory council of Mrs Blairs international law firm, Omnia Strategy. Headlined draft agreement it made a proposition: that, for a fee, he would offer professional legal and public advocacy services to the jailed opposition leader, along with the development of a long-term lobbying strategy to help secure his release. His arrest and trial is a politically motivated show-trial aimed at cementing further an already authoritarian regime, read Cadmans pitch. The government of the Maldives must immediately release Mohamed Nasheed or face international isolation, diplomatically and economically. Tourists must boycott the Maldives, it went on. The international community cannot allow the Maldives to drift towards a pariah state there are already clear signs of a military dictatorship, rising Islamic fundamentalism and the abuse of women. Cadman claimed hed be able to place three or four articles supportive of Nasheed in key international newspapers. Hed also approach all major news networks seeking to set up TV interviews, and start an online grassroots campaign to shame the government on Twitter and Facebook. It intrigued supporters of Nasheed, who had served as the first democratically elected President of the Maldives from 2008 until 2012 until being deposed at gunpoint. But there was also a catch. Amal Clooney listens as Mohammed Nasheed, the Maldives' first democratically elected president who was overthrown in 2012, speaks during a press conference in London, on January 25, 2016 Cadman wanted to be paid for his services, explained one of Nasheeds supporters. We just werent in a position to do that. More to the point, we already had a brilliant team of people prepared to do legal and lobbying work for us entirely for free, including Amal Clooney. So after considering Mr Cadmans offer for a while we decided not to follow it up. Around the time that decision was made, Nasheeds office got another urgent and confidential email from Benedict Rogers, the man who had been hoping to persuade Cherie Blair to write an article in support of their campaign. It brought bad news. Regrettably, Cherie Blair felt she does not have a track record on the Maldives and therefore in the end declined [to put her name to the article], it read. The news came as a disappointment. But some three months later that turned to outright anger, when Nasheeds office got a piece of strange and upsetting news. Omnia Strategy, the firm run by Mrs Blair a supposed champion of human rights, who previously seemed so supportive of their cause had just signed a lucrative deal to represent Nasheeds opponents: the despotic and corrupt government of President Yameen. To their dismay, Mrs Blair and Mr Cadman then began to work tirelessly to advance the dictators ugly agenda. In September Ms Blair issued a joint PR statement with Maldives Foreign Minister Dunya Maumoon, the niece of dictator Yameen. Made against the backdrop of growing international outrage about the regime, it criticised proposed sanctions as inappropriate and unjustified saying they threaten the economic stability of the Maldives. Thats the opposite of the position that had been set out in the draft article of March 18, which specifically advocated targeted sanctions. The PR statement also seemed oddly confident in tone given that, only months earlier, Mrs Blair had apparently declared that she didnt have a track record to comment on the Maldives in an unpaid capacity. But money, or the scent of it, appears to do strange things to Mrs Blairs firms sense of judgment. How else can we explain Omnias extraordinary decision, revealed by the Daily Mail yesterday, to accept a 210,000 payment for its services to the Maldives government from the bank account of a private company? Or its failure to realise that the money originally came from an international fugitive wanted by Interpol on charges of corruption, money laundering, and embezzlement from the government quango Omnia had billed? Asked about Mrs Blairs decision not to put her name to the draft newspaper article, a spokesman said: it had no link whatsoever with any potential work for Omnia Strategy in the Maldives. Mohammed Nasheed was thrown into prison for 13 years by President Abdulla Yameen (pictured), in what Amnesty International dubbed a travesty of justice As for Mr Cadman, he denied any hypocrisy on Omnias part by insisting that his initial pitch to Nasheed was not made on behalf of Omnia. Instead, he said, it was submitted in his capacity as the co-founder of a consultancy firm called International Forum for Democracy and Human Rights, an entirely separate organisation whose logo appeared on the draft agreement. The discussion that took place almost a year ago was in my private capacity and had nothing to do with Omnia or Cherie Blair QC, he said. Supporters of Nasheed disagree. They will in the coming weeks file a complaint with the Bar Standards Board, which regulates barristers in the UK, and the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which regulates Omnia, claiming the firm, and Mr Cadman, may have breached rules that prevent double pitching to both sides in a dispute. Any such claim will be vigorously disputed. Indeed, Cadman says: Members of the Bar may be approached by either party during the preliminary stages of any dispute. He adds that he was asked by Nasheeds team to submit a written proposal but that there was never any discussion of fees, or being formally instructed. I did not pitch both sides in the same dispute, Cadman insists. I never met or spoke to any member of the former Presidents legal team or political office. Furthermore, he adds that he could never have anticipated that the government of the Maldives would have approached Omnia some three to four months later. We must, of course, take him at his word. However there is at least some documentary evidence that the International Forum for Democracy and Human Rights through which he pitched for Nasheeds business has very close financial links to Cherie Blairs firm. Indeed, the Mail can reveal that in September last year, Omnia Strategy paid 2,695 for a Mr Carl Buckley to fly business class from London to Male, the capital of the Maldives, on Emirates Airlines. There, he met Cadman, who had flown out the previous day on a return ticket which cost 3,516. We have obtained a copy of the receipt for both tickets, which were booked on the same day via Preference Travel, a Hertfordshire travel agent, and billed to Omnias London address. Intriguingly, Mr Buckley just happens to be a senior employee of The International Forum for Democracy and Human Rights. So why on earth did Omnia pay a 2,695 air fare to Male for a man who worked for an organisation which it says had nothing to do with its highly dubious work in the Maldives? For now, that must remain a mystery: neither Omnia nor Mr Cadman chose to answer the Mails inquiries about the air ticket. A Tory activist yesterday quit the party with a furious broadside against David Cameron's 'conjuring trick' on Europe. Tim Montgomerie, founder of the influential ConservativeHome website, said the Prime Minister's botched renegotiation was the 'final straw' after failures in other areas such as immigration. He said that while he would not be joining another party, he would not give any more time, love or money to the 'Cameron project'. The former chief of staff to Eurosceptic Cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith said: 'I'm just glad that Mrs Thatcher cannot see what her party has become.' Tim Montgomerie (right), founder of the influential ConservativeHome website, said the Prime Minister's botched renegotiation was the 'final straw' after failures in other areas such as immigration Mr Montgomerie, who also worked for William Hague when he was leader, said he joined the Tories 28 years ago under Margaret Thatcher, not just for 'the colour of her politics, but the strength'. But he said the renegotiation 'charade' over the EU was the 'final straw and it followed abject failure on immigration, deficit reduction and inequality'. In an article for the Times, where he is employed as a columnist, he wrote that Mr Cameron's deal had achieved little. 'The 69 per cent who think he got a bad deal are right,' he said. 'The newspapers that called the deal a joke, conjuring trick and delusion weren't exaggerating. But it took the fourth estate rather than Tory MPs to point out the emperor's naked state. 'With a few honourable exceptions Conservative parliamentarians were silent when Mr Cameron, pretending to have changed anything that matters, stood at the same dispatch box at which Mrs Thatcher vowed to fight European integration. Nothing registers more strongly on the social injustice front than recommending staying in the EU. 'It remains the greatest source of social misery on the continent requiring intense austerity in countries such as Greece, and causing terrible youth unemployment across southern Europe from which millions will suffer lifelong scars. I'm just glad that Mrs Thatcher cannot see what her party has become.' Mr Montgomerie, a longtime critic of Mr Cameron, co-founded the Centre for Social Justice think-tank and the Conservative Christian Fellowship, becoming one of the best-known Tory activists outside the parliamentary party. Mr Montgomerie, a longtime critic of Mr Cameron (pictured), co-founded the Centre for Social Justice think-tank and the Conservative Christian Fellowship, becoming one of the best-known Tory activists outside the parliamentary party In his article he also said: 'If Britain remains chained to Brussels after this charade we'll be in a weaker position than before. We'll be the country that made Eurosceptic noises for decades but capitulated when it mattered. The EU's bureaucracy, courts and politicos will see us as all-bark, no-bite moaning minnies.' He said Lady Thatcher always understood that 'it was what you did with power that counted'. 'Could David Cameron be much more different?' he asked. Mr Montgomerie claimed that Mr Cameron's policies were little different to those favoured by 'Blairites or Cleggites' a stark contrast to positions taken by the Iron Lady. He said that, under Mr Cameron, the Tory party had lost voters to Ukip while gaining the support of former Liberal Democrats and, potentially, Labour voters who did not like Jeremy Corbyn a coalition which was not strong enough for the long term. 'The PM will no doubt treat with disdain my resignation like the departure of tens of thousands of once-loyal grassroots members who have already walked away,' he wrote. 'But one day an opposition party will get its act together or a wholly new party will emerge. 'At some point, Britain will notice that the Conservatives didn't fix the roof when the sun was shining.' Terry Carter, 55, was killed in a hit-and-run incident The daughters of a man who died after being run over by a truck allegedly driven by hip-hop producer Suge Knight have spoken out about about the tragic loss of their father. 'He's not just another victim, he's my father,' said Nekaya Carter, whose father, Terry Carter, was killed in the January 29, 2015 incident. Marion 'Suge' Knight was charged with murder in connection with the crash, which also left former gang member Cle 'Bone' Sloan injured. The producer, who co-founded Death Row Records with Dr. Dre and others in 1991, pleaded not guilty. The fatal incident occurred during the filming of the N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton, which chronicles the career of the classic West Coast gangster rap group and was nominated for an Academy Award upon its release last year. According to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Carter's family last June, Knight, 50, got in an argument with Sloan, who was hired to work on the N.W.A. flick, the New York Daily News reported. Crystal Carter, who is the youngest daughter of slain Terry Carter, spoke out about her father's death Nekaya Carter, Terry Carter's oldest daughter, said she found out about her father's death through a phone call After Sloan punched Knight, the producer deliberately ran him over with his truck in the parking lot of the Tam's Burgers restaurant in Compton, California, the lawsuit alleges. The suit also named Dr. Dre and fellow N.W.A. alumnus Ice Cube, along with Sloan and others as responsible for Carter's death. Carter, 55, who family members said was an innocent bystander, was also struck and died later the same day. 'I received a phone call from one of his childhood friends and he kinda just told me right there on the phone, Carter's oldest daughter Nekaya Carter said in an interview with Crime Watch Daily. 'He said, "Your dad's been killed."' The moment Terry Carter was struck by a truck allegedly driven by Marion 'Suge' Knight last January The aftermath of the crash that killed Terry Carter and injured Cle 'Bone' Sloan in the parking lot of Tam's Burgers Marion 'Suge' Knight, 50, (left) is accused of killing Terry Carter by running him over. Cle 'Bone' Sloan, (right) was reportedly the indented target of Knight's alleged assault, and was hurt in the incident The victim's youngest daughter, Crystal Carter, said she didn't immediately realize how serious her father's injuries were. 'I didn't know how severe the accident was. I found out when I got to the hospital actually, on the screen in the waiting room. That's how I found out,' she told Crime Watch Daily. Carter's daughters said they believe he was trying to deescalate the situation before he was killed. Friends of the victim described him as a conscientious man who worked to steer young people away from crime, according to the Los Angeles Times. 'He was a true example of a man. He took the responsibility as a man, a husband, a father, a friend,' Carter's niece Jasmine Reynolds told ABC 7 last February. 'He took in about 10 of my cousins and treated them all like they were his kids. He acted like a second father to them,' Crystal Carter said of her father. 'He would just put everyone together and make it happen.' The Carter family's full interview with Crime Watch Daily airs on Friday. Marion 'Suge' Knight co-founded Death Row Records with Dr. Dre and the D.O.C. in 1991 Rupert Murdoch told Donald Trump to 'calm down' hours after the Republican frontrunner became embroiled in a war of words with the Pope. Murdoch spoke out in defense of two of his media outlets - the Wall Street Journal and Fox News - which had been attacked by the Republican in an aside from his dispute with the leader of the Catholic faith. Trump has been increasingly at odds with Fox News in recent months, especially its high-profile anchor Megyn Kelly. And this week he was furious at a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll which put him in second place for the first time since early November. Scroll down for video Unusual result: The poll was the first since early November not to have The Donald in front - prompting Cruz to claim bragging rights as 'new national frotnrunner' and a sharp response from Trump The poll - actually conducted jointly with NBC - put Cruz, a Texas senator, with 28 per cent of Republican support nationally, compared with 26 per cent for Trump. Cruz branded himself the 'new national front runner' at a South Carolina town hall hours later and added: 'And then the next closest candidate is way down at 17 percent.' The poll results were unlike any other survey published in months, and in stark contrast with other measurements all of which show The Donald leading the pack by wide margins. But taken at face value, it ended a streak of 31 straight national GOP polls where Trump has occupied the top slot. Trump press secretary Hope Hicks told Daily Mail Online that the poll was an 'outlier' suggesting it's a blip in the radar that shouldn't be taken seriously. She noted that the pollsters contacted an unworkably 'small sample of conservatives,' including only 400 Republicans in all, which might skew the results. Today's polls restored him to the front - prompting him to tweet: 'New CBS National Poll just out - massive lead for Trump. The Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll is a total joke. No wonder WSJ is doing so badly!' At odds: Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch are disagreeing over the conduct of the Wall Street Journal and Fox News, prompting Murdoch to tweet that the Republican billionaire should 'calm down' That - and his next tweet attacking Fox News drew Murdoch's stringing response. Exactly what Murdoch thinks about the US election and its outcome remains unclear. But Trump has attacked the Wall Street Journal frequently and his feud with Fox News shows no signs of ending. This week he attacked the cable channel for giving air time to Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator and a former Republican candidate who is now backing Jeb Bush. On Wednesday he said of the channel '@FoxNews is so biased it is disgusting. They do not want Trump to win. All negative!' Malcolm Turnbull has gone one better than recommending a great AirBnb for New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key and his wife Bronagh. A Trans-Tasman slumber party will be well underway Friday evening at the Prime Minister's lush Point Piper home as John and Bronagh Key stay the night. When asked what they would be get up to, Mr Turnbull replied that they will have a couple of glasses of red.' It's an unprecedented invitation and marks the first time an Australian leader has ever hosted a foreign counterpart overnight at their private residence. The Turnbulls home in Point Piper, valued at around $52 million... Not a bad location for a slumber party The two Prime Ministers obviously have a close friendship, going on a double-date with their wives when Mr Turnbull visited New Zealand recently. And after-all, knowing that Mr Turnbull turned down the official PM's humble abode in lieu of his own house - who could resist a peak inside the extravagant Eastern Suburbs home? But it wont all be pillow fights and hair braiding, the two are set to chat on some fairly big issues. Bro-mance brewing between Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull and NZ PM John Key. New Zealand Prime Minister John Key is excited to be in Sydney ahead of the Australia-New Zealand leaders meeting The New Zealand PM landed Thursday evening in Sydney ahead of the annual Australia-New Zealand leaders meeting and the Trans-Tasman Business Circle Lunch. The big topics to cover will no doubt be bilateral trade, counter-terrorism, visa cancellations and asylum seekers. New Zealand has offered to resettle 150 refugees a year from Australia's offshore processing centres. Mr Turnbull has remained mum on the topic, dodging questions over whether he would accept the offer earlier this week. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull welcomed Prime Minister Key, saying he was "looking forward to a constructive discussion on a range of issues." 'Shall we slumber?!' Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull will host a dinner party and sleep over tonight at their own home in Point Piper for NZ PM John Key and his wife Bronagh After a long day of serious discussions, Mr and Mrs Key will pack their PJ's, toothbrushes and an obligatory gift of a bottle of red before they make their way over to the Turnbull's. It's sure to be a luxurious evening ahead, with a dinner party on the cards. Former Labour prime minister Harold Wilson The Labour Party is pulling out all the stops to mark the centenary of former Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilsons birth in March. But not everyone is so enthusiastic about the celebrations, which will include a lunch in Speakers House, a lecture in Oxfords Bodleian Library, and a ceremony in Politicians Corner in Westminster Abbey. Lady Cocks, the founder of Labour Friends Of Israel, of which Wilson was president for many years, is angry that the veteran Labour MP Sir Gerald Kaufman has been asked to join the centenary organising committee despite the Father Of The House expressing virulently anti-Israel views. Only four months ago, there were calls for Sir Gerald, who is Jewish himself, to resign, after he claimed Jewish money dictates Conservative government policy, and that Israel fabricated the recent stabbings in the country. Leader Jeremy Corbyn called the MPs remarks completely unacceptable. Sir Gerald has form when it comes to his outspoken views on the Middle East. In 2013, he wrote a blog for the Huffington Post, in which he called Israel a rogue state which commits war crimes. Valerie Cocks, who visits Harold Wilsons 100-year-old widow Mary every week, tells me: Harold, the president of Labour Friends Of Israel all the time I was running it, and totally dedicated to Israel, would never have agreed with any of the vitriolic comments he [Kaufman] is making on the subject. The widow of former Labour Party chief whip Michael Cocks has told friends she is so indignant that she may boycott the celebrations. Sir Gerald, 85, was the press secretary to Wilson and was chosen to help organise the centenary events because he is so knowledgeable about the former Labour PMs life. He is joined on the centenary organising committee by Wilsons two sons, Robin and Giles; historian Lord Hennessy; film producer Lord Puttnam; Knowsley MP George Howarth; and Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman. Sheerman has been lobbying for a 100,000 statue of Wilson to be erected in the Houses of Parliament, but the Speakers Arts Committee has twice knocked him back. We will crowdfund it if we have to, says Sheerman. All Boris offers is blood, sweat and fibs on Churchill Boris Johnson, the self-appointed Winston Churchill expert, is pulling out all the stops to retain his monopoly of the late Prime Minister. After his recent bestselling book The Churchill Factor was widely received as a barefaced comparison between himself and the political titan, Boris is now setting out to sabotage his rivals. Historian Andrew Roberts, who is working on his own biography of Winston Churchill, right, has let slip that the ruthless London Mayor, left, is feeding him porkies Historian Andrew Roberts, who is working on his own Churchill biography, has let slip that the ruthless London Mayor is feeding him porkies. All the stories hes told me have turned out to be completely untrue, Andrew tells me. I desperately attempted to stop him from saying Churchill was camp but, nonetheless, it didnt work. Boris thanks me three times in his preface but I wont thank him! Though he makes clear that their rivalry is a jovial one, Andrew is, nevertheless, eager to divert Boriss attention. Whens he going to lead Britains No campaign? he adds, referring to the EU referendum. At some stage, hes just got to get on with it. Fire and brimstone from Justin Welby Signs of fire and brimstone from the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby who, so far, has often seemed a rather milky sort of prelate. At Lambeth Palace chapel the other day, he used the words for the Book Of Common Prayers Commination, which threatens a divine comeuppance for bad people. Signs of fire and brimstone from the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby who, so far, has 'often seemed a rather milky sort of prelate' The Prayer Book describes it as a denouncing of Gods anger and judgments against sinners and it includes several curses, not least against fornicators and adulterers, covetous persons, idolaters, slanderers, drunkards and extortioners. Covers most people, then. Welby is something of a quiet traditionalist. It is said that he uses the old Prayer Book at dawn most days for his morning prayers. Most screen stars invited to a soiree with the PM might circle the date in their diary. But Sir Michael Gambon has always been a law unto himself. The veteran actor says he failed to turn up on the only occasion he was asked to No 10. President Obama was joined by Tom Hanks and Morgan Freeman for a steak in Washington D.C. The Commander In Chief was seen leaving BLT, a chic steakhouse in the capital, at around 8.30pm on Wednesday night - the same time as the two Hollywood stars. The press pool showed up at the lavish eatery at around 6:30 when Obama sat down for his meal. President Obama was joined by Tom Hanks and Morgan Freeman for a steak in Washington D.C. He is seen leaving the upmarket BLT restaurant on Wednesday Hollywood star Hanks was seen leaving at the same time as the president after they reportedly dined with the same group of friends A filet mignon at the venue will set you back $54 while an American Wagu Ribeye costs $92. According to the Washington Examiner, the trio dined with the same group of friends. Oscar winner Freeman has played the part of a President during his career. He played Tom Beck in the 1998 film Deep Impact. He has also played God in the film Bruce Almighty. The President enjoyed a meal with friends hours after it was reported he was planning a trip to Cuba. An official said he was proposing heading to Havana as early as next month - and would become the first serving President to do so in almost 90 years. Freeman, who has portrayed a U.S. President during his career, was also seen leaving the eatery at the same time. A fillet mignon at the venue will set you back $54 while an American Wagu Ribeye costs $92 Hanks looked ahead as a number of diners tried to take pictures of him as he left In 1928, Calvin Coolidge became the first and only Commander in Chief to cross the Florida Straits during his time in office. Coolidge and his wife met with Cuba's President Gerardo Machado, who was in office from 1925 to 1933 until he was forced into exile. It was the only foreign country he visited during his time in the White House. Earlier in the week, Michelle Obama was reportedly seen leaving a SoulCycle in the capital. Fitness fanatics on Twitter reported seeing several police cars outside the spinning location on 14th St. NW on Tuesday. Anthony James Scott was not charged for his involvement in a fatal car crash last fall Dash cam footage showing the moments before a speeding Georgia State Trooper crashed his patrol car and killed two teenage girls last September was released Thursday. The release of the video followed Wednesday's decision by a jury to not charge ex-trooper Anthony James Scott in the September 26 incident. Speaking to a local news station Thursday, Scott said he thinks about the fatal crash every day. 'I do feel sorry every day. I'm sorry I was on that road,' Scott told WSB-TV. 'I pray every day this is just a dream, but it isn't -- and I'm going to have to live with it,' said Scott, who was fired after the incident and now has a seat on the Buchanan City Council. 'There's no words to describe how sorry I feel. I hope they find some kind of comfort in the future. If I can ever be of service any of them I'm here and I'll do whatever they need,' Scott said of the victims' families after the jury's decision. The footage shows Scott driving at a high speed in his 2014 Dodge Charger patrol car. The Georgia State Trooper was driving at excessive speed when the fatal crash happened The car carrying the four teenager can be seen coming into view from the left Anthony James Scott hit the car at a speed of 68 miles per hour and killed two teenage girls Five seconds before the crash, Scott was driving 91 miles per hour on the 55 miles per hour road, an investigation found according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Scott sideswiped the 2005 Nissan Sentra with four teenagers inside at 11:35pm near Bremen in Carroll County. His speed at the moment of collision was 68 miles per hour. Kylie Lindsey, 17, and Isabella Chinchilla, 16, who were in the backseat, were killed in the crash. Two other teens, driver Dillon Wall, 18 and Benjamin Finken, 17, who was in the passenger seat, were injured. At the time of the crash, Scott was not on an emergency call. Isabella Chinchilla, 18, left, and Kylie Lindsey, 17, right, were killed in a car crash last fall The two teenage girls were traveling in a car with two male friends, who were survived with injuries The Georgia State Trooper that struck the car in which Lindsey and Chinchilla were traveling was not charged One factor that the jury took into consideration was the teens' failure to yield as they made a left turn moments before the accident. 'I did call [the victims' family members] after we got the word back and they are understandably upset,' about the decision not to charge Scott, Carroll County District Attorney Pete Skandalakis told the Journal-Constitution. As for Scott, he said he probably won't go back into law enforcement, but that he wants to make the intersection where the crash occurred a safer place. '[I want to work towards] getting that intersection changed,' Scott said. Even if Anthony had a year to analyze and dissect each piece...(he couldn't tell if it would)... stand the harsh light of public exposure. WUWT insider Willis Eschenbach tells you all you need to know about Anthony Watts and his blog, WattsUpWithThat (WUWT). As part of his scathing commentary , Wondering Willis accuses Anthony Watts of being clueless about the blog articles he posts. To paraphrase: Click here to read more. Graham Stuart Dillon (pictured), 37, is accused of murdering his eight-year-old son Bradyn Dillon The shocking death of an eight-year-old boy in Canberra earlier this week has triggered an investigation into child protection by the ACT government. On Tuesday, Graham Stuart Dillon, 37, was charged with murdering his eight-year-old son Bradyn, and assaulting his ten-year-old daughter. The ABC reports that Attorney-General Simon Corbell said the investigation was sparked by the tragedy which took place in the Gungahlin suburb of Jacka on Monday night. 'This is a tragic and horrific case. The Government believes it's very, very important that agencies are working in a coordinated and effective manner in ensuring children are kept safe in the family environment,' Mr Corbell said. 'The individual circumstances of this case will be dealt with through the criminal court process and any subsequent coronial processes that are underway. 'Instead, this independent external review will look carefully at coordination between agencies, both within the ACT and across jurisdictions, and identify whether there are any legislative, policy or operational barriers that are hindering our agencies to deliver an effective and coordinated response on child safety.' Scroll down for video The home (pictured) in Jacka, Canberra, where the alleged assault took place As well as one count of murder, Dillon was charged with three counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm against his 10-year-old daughter. Dillon, dressed in shorts and thongs, did not apply for bail when he appeared in the ACT Magistrates Court on Tuesday. Chief Magistrate Lorraine Walker remanded him in custody to reappear in court on March 1. His son died of his injuries after he was taken to hospital after police and ambulance officers were called to a home in the Jacka suburb on Monday night. When police arrived on the scene they were met by a little girl outside the suburban home who took them inside, and they found an eight-year- old boy with serious injuries, 9News reported. Floral tributes were left out side the house where the murder took place during Tuesday A number of tributes have been left outside the home. 'Rest in peace little man, no-one can hurt you now', was written on the wrapping paper of a single white rose that was left outside the home. 'On the way to school I saw the police car and I sort of wondered, what's that there for, and it was on the news on the way back from the school run and I just, heart just broke,' one neighbour Rachel Bowman told 9 News. The Canberra Times reported that there were no screams or violent exchanges on the night of the incident and that locals only became aware something was wrong when they saw police cars approaching and heard sirens. One mum and neighbour said all the children in the area played together and that the local community was shocked at what happened. 'Police and ACT Ambulance Service officers attended a residence in Jacka last night [Monday] and a male child was transported to hospital where he later died,' police said after the incident. Canberra child protection systems will now be investigated after the eight-year-old boy's death The tragedy stunned the close community of Jacka, Canberra A neighbour leaves a tribute to show her respect for the deceased eight-year-old boy 'The man has also been charged with a number of assault offences. The police investigation into the Jacka homicide is ongoing. 'The house involved will be examined by forensic services teams and detectives are investigating an incident here,' the police said. Bittermann Street in Jacka was closed on Monday night. The area is normally a quiet residential area where many families live. Detectives took witness statements from neighbours, while forensic teams investigated the scene of the crime on Tuesday. Anyone who may be able to provide any information on the incident should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000, or at via act.crimestoppers.com.au. Wiltshire Police will trawl through 4,500 boxes of material which make up the Sir Edward Heath (pictured) archive at Oxford University's Bodleian Library as part of a probe into alleged sex abuse Police will spend at least a year examining the private papers of former Prime Minister Edward Heath as part of an ongoing investigation into alleged sex abuse, it was reported last night. Wiltshire Police will trawl through 4,500 boxes of material which make up the Sir Edward Heath archive at Oxford University's Bodleian Library, at a cost of millions of pounds. The operation comes despite the decision by the Metropolitan Police to close down the Operation Midland VIP sex abuse inquiry, in which Heath was named as a suspect by the discredited witness known as 'Nick'. The force is recruiting civilian investigators to sift through the late politician's private papers, which includes diaries and personal letters, according to The Times. It is expected to be a costly and time-consuming task as the Bodleian has not had the finances to catalogue the archive, which it acquired in 2011. Officers also plan to question Heath's lunch guests at Arundells, his home in Salisbury, as well as former political aides, cooks, household staff and musicians. As part of a national investigation into seven allegations of abuse by the former prime minister, who died more than a decade ago, detectives are attempting to track down any surviving crew on his yacht over extraordinary claims he abused a boy before throwing him overboard. The investigation was launched last year following sensational claims Wiltshire Police covered up child sex allegations against the politician. It was started after a retired 'very senior' officer raised concerns that a criminal trial was derailed in the 1990s to protect the former Tory leader. As a result, it was alleged, he was never interviewed by police - let alone arrested - and his home was not searched. In a bizarre televised scene in August, a senior Wiltshire Police officer stood outside Heath's former home and urged victims not 'to suffer in silence' and to contact them if they had been abused by the politician. The news that the investigation will last a further 12 months will prove highly controversial in light of the Metropolitan Police's recent decision to wind down its 2million Operation Midland inquiry, having failed to find any evidence corroborating one man's claims of a Westminster paedophile ring. Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, Heath's principal private secretary, has been interviewed by detectives and told The Times they were 'barking up the wrong tree', insisting Heath was asexual. He said: 'All the allegations of which I am aware are totally tenuous and not credible...if there's nothing more than that to go on I can't believe that it is worth spending a lot of resources in this way to pursue somebody who's dead. 'I very much regret the slur on Edward Heath and I always regret the consumption of public resources on this scale for what seems to be an unnecessary inquiry.' As part of an investigation into seven allegations of abuse by the former prime minister, who died more than a decade ago, detectives will sift through 4,500 boxes of files at Oxford University's Bodleian Library (pictured) Heath was implicated in Operation Midland when his accuser, known as Nick, alleged he was among a group responsible for sex abuse and the murder of a young boy. Wiltshire Police is advertising 12-month contracts 'with possible extensions to two years' for four civilian investigators, who are usually retired officers, to comb Heath's papers. They are expected to search the Conservative Party achive, also held at Bodleian's book warehouse near Swindon, for references to Heath's private life, as well as government papers in the National Archive at Kew. In a separate investigation, the Independent Police Complaints Commission is examining a claim that a case against a brothel madam was dropped in 1992 when she threatened to expose Heath. Last month, Wiltshire Police Chief Constable Mike Veale complained that his force's 'resources are under increased pressure and demand' having previously revealed that his officers could not attend every crime scene due to budget cuts. IKatherine Giehll and her son Raymond IV were found dead at the home She had previously texted him to say that her uncle, Lu A husband said he saw his wife's uncle inside their suburban Indianapolis house via surveillance video before he went home and found her and their four-year-old son fatally shot, police said. Raymond Giehll III checked the security video after his wife sent him a text message on Wednesday morning that her uncle, 61-year-old Lucius Hamilton III, was at the house and she didn't answer calls to her cellphone, Boone County Sheriff's Department said on Thursday. The bodies of Katherine Giehll, 31, and her son Raymond Giehll IV were found just before 9am in their Zionsville home on Wednesday. Police then began an hours-long manhunt for Hamilton III. The sheriff's department says that an SUV belonging to Hamilton III was seen on security cameras driving away from the Giehll's home. Raymond Giehll III checked the security video after his wife sent him a text message on Wednesday morning that her uncle, 61-year-old Lucius Hamilton III. The bodies of Katherine Giehll, 31, and her son Raymond Giehll IV were found just before 9am in their Zionsville home on Wednesday Police searched several hours for Hamilton before he fatally shot himself in the head with a semi-automatic pistol inside a downtown Indianapolis Hilton Hotel room just after officers knocked on the door. Police say the shootings followed a dispute over a family trust worth millions. Investigators discovered a 'substantial family trust that the victims were beneficiaries of, as well as, Hamilton,' the sheriff's office said in its statement, adding that the trust is complex and is still being investigated. Court records show Hamilton III worked alongside his brother nearly a decade ago to distribute their father's estate. Lucius Hamilton III, 61, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after he allegedly killed his niece and her four-year-old son Lucius Oliver Hamilton III and his older brother, Russell W Hamilton, were appointed co-representatives of their father's estate in June 2007, two months after Lucius O Hamilton II's death, Hamilton County court records show. A court document filed in December 2007 indicated the brothers had finished distributing the estate's assets 'to the persons entitled' and no claims remained against that estate. Russell W Hamilton, a 27-year veteran of the Marion County Sheriff's Office, died in 2012. Boone County Sheriff Mike Nielsen says investigators believe the dispute led to the attack. He called it 'a lingering issue that has been going on for the last few years'. Giehll III said following the horrific killings that he knows his wife and son are now in 'God's watchful arms'. He said in a statement released Thursday by police that 'Katie and Raymond IV were my entire family and the whole their loss leaves is unexplainable'. He added: 'We know that they are in Gods watchful arms and ask for your prayers for our family. 'We appreciate all the condolences that we have received. At this time we ask that we be given the respect and time to grieve that we deserve. 'The loss of Katie and Raymond IV is an unbelievable and tragic event in our lives. We also ask that any services that we plan receive that same respect from the media.' The Boone County Sheriff's Department released Giehll's statement Thursday, a day after the killings. Grisly discovery: A neighbor found the bodies of Katherine Giehll and Raymond IV at this home after Lucius Hamilton killed them in a dispute over a family trust A highway sign on I-70, east of downtown Indianapolis, displays a message asking motorists to be on the look out for the van that Hamilton checked out of Wabash College at 9.30am on Wednesday Police initially focused their search on the all-male Wabash College (pictured in a file photo), where Hamilton was an employee Giehll III is asking for continued prayers for his family as they deal with the 'unbelievable and tragic event'. Tom Santelli says he befriended Hamilton III in 2001 after moving to Zionsville and joined a fox-hunting group Hamilton's late father co-founded. Santelli said Hamilton was quiet and somewhat introverted but friendly. He said those who knew the 61-year-old don't understand what could have led him to kill, adding that Hamilton was well-to-do and never mentioned any family friction over money. Federal, state and local authorities, as well as the US Marshal Service, were involved in the day-long hunt for Hamilton. Police initially focused their search on the all-male Wabash College, where Hamilton worked as the Major Gifts Officer, and had checked out a van that day. Hamilton worked as the private all-male liberal arts school's senior major gifts officer. That school in nearby Crawfordsville was placed on a lockdown until police determined Hamilton had left the school in a work van Authorities put the campus on lockdown and classes were canceled as they searched every building. Alcohol and prescription drugs were found inside Hamilton's room at the Hilton. Police believe Hamilton, a father-of-four who lived with his wife Liz in a gated community in Clay Township, about 20 minutes from Zionsville, arrived at Giehll's home around 8am. It is unknown if Giehll, who turned 31 on the day, let him inside the home. Law enforcement on a driveway near Giehll's home. It is believed Hamilton arrived at her home around 8am 'We've done this girl justice and that little baby justice,' Sheriff Mike Nielsen said during a press conference. 'It's said that it had to happen today. It's said that it had to happen at all. But in eight hours, we solved this crime. That's what it's all about, with everybody working together. 'We were able to track Hamilton down to a specific location in downtown Indianapolis where he cowardly took his life instead of choosing to face justice for his actions.' 'My heart goes out to the Giehll family, and to those first responders that had to witness this horrific scene today.' Sheriff Nielsen added that the family trust worth millions had been a 'lingering issue' over the last few years. Indiana State Police Captain Dave Bursten said that the fourth floor of the Hilton was evacuated while police tried to negotiate with him. 'It's a group effort to capture somebody who commits a crime like this,' he said. Ron Evans, head of Traders Point Christian Academy, where Raymond IV attended, said the boy was 'just one of those students that just lit up every time he came in the room.' Tom Santelli, a friend of Hamilton, said that he was a 'good guy and then something turned', adding that he began to dissociate himself from friends when his brother died in 2012. 'Here is a guy that was loving and caring and then goes off the deep-end,' he told Fox59. 'The Hamilton family was very well off. They had very large estates in Hamilton County. 'People do crazy things when they are financially motivated.' A statement from Wabash College read: 'All of us at Wabash College are deeply saddened by the event that unfolded in Zionsville this morning, and we extend our condolences to all who are affected by these tragedies.' Police tracked down Hamilton to the Hilton Indianapolis Hotel (pictured in a file photo). After they knocked on his door, Hamilton fired two shots and killed himself Bernie Sanders wrote to Margaret Thatcher in a bid to stop the 'abuse' of IRA prisoners who were on hunger strike, it has been revealed. The Democratic presidential hopeful made the plea to the British prime minister in 1981 at the height of 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland. The politician, who was Mayor of Burlington, Vermont, at the time, insisted the treatment of inmates was damaging the reputation of the English. Communities in the United States, especially in the north-eastern states were deeply critical of England's involvement in the conflict. Bernie Sanders wrote to Margaret Thatcher in a bid to stop the 'abuse' or IRA prisoners who were on a hunger strike. The Democratic presidential hopeful made the plea to the British prime minister in 1981 at the height of 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland It meant the situation became integrated in politics in places such as Massachusetts, which has a high Irish population, and Burlington. The letter is part of a huge archive devoted to Sanders at the University of Vermont. It is in the process of being fully digitized. According to The Daily Telegraph, Sanders wrote: 'We are deeply disturbed by your governments unwillingness to stop the abuse, humiliation and degrading treatment of Irish prisoners now on hunger strikes in Northern Ireland 'We ask you to end your intransigent policy towards the prisoners before the reputation of the English people for fair play and simple decency is further damaged in the eyes of the people of Vermont and the United States.' The politician, who was Mayor of Burlington, Vermont, at the time (pictured in 1981), insisted the treatment of inmates was damaging the reputation of the English The prisoners had gone on hunger strike, demanding special privileges that Mrs Thatcher had sworn never to grant. The prisoners had gone on hunger strike, demanding special privileges that Mrs Thatcher (pictured) had sworn never to grant It was the culmination of a five-year protest against the English as nationalists and unionists fought over the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. On May 5, 1981, the first hunger striker, Bobby Sands, died in jail. And over the next few weeks, more than 60 soldiers, police and civilians were killed in an upsurge of violence across the war-torn province. Overall 10 inmates died as a result of the protest. Unionists, who are mostly Protestants, consider themselves British. They generally want Northern Ireland to remain within the United Kingdom. Nationalists, the majority of whom are Roman Catholics, say they are Irish. They want to leave the United Kingdom and join a united Ireland. Some of the tensions still exist today, but the violence began in the 1960s and is deemed, by some, to have ended with the signing of the Good Friday agreement. Mr Sanders was on the mailing list of the Vermont Committee for Irish Human Rights, which held a number of events in Burlington. He also wrote to Nicky Kelly during his time in office, another IRA hunger striker who was convicted of armed robbery in Dublin in 1983, the Telegraph reported. Sanders has been neck-and-neck with rival Hillary Clinton in the presidential polls. They are battling it out for the Democratic nomination and head into a vital stage of the primary process with key votes in Nevada and South Carolina. The letter to Mrs Thatcher revealed he had a keen interest in foreign policy early on in his career - a policy area Clinton has slammed him for being thin on. A pilot became unconscious during a flight over NSW while battling gastro, while another passed out in the cockpit and had to be woken by a passenger while suffering from gallstones. These are just some of the horror stories revealed in the Australian Transport Safety Bureau report of 'serious incapacitation incidents in Australia between 2010 and 2014', released this week. The first instance was during a trip from Narrabri to Newcastle, where the captain of a British Aerospace Jetstream 32 complained to the first officer that they were feeling unwell. A report detailing 140 cases of 'serious incapacitation' of pilots has been released, including one who became unconscious while flying a British Aerospace Jetstream 32 (pictured) due to a gastro bug The captain then said they were feeling 'really unwell', and asked for a sick bag. When the first officer went to check on the captain, they were unconscious. As the plane was about to divert via Tamworth, the captain regained consciousness and the crew continued on to Newcastle as planned. The second was during a charter flight from Cairns, Queensland to Kiunga, Papua New Guinea, manned by a single pilot. During the descent the pilot became very unwell, blaming the illness on the long flight he had just undertaken. Another passed out in the cockpit of a Beechcraft Super King Air 200 (pictured) due to a gallstone According to the report a passenger noticed and tried to wake the pilot by shaking them on the shoulder. The pilot awoke shortly after and when asked how they were feeling, the pilot responded with 'yesactually no.' The plane had since begun to nosedive slightly and the pilot regained control of the aircraft, with the passenger monitoring them throughout the landing. When the plane finally landed the pilot was physically ill, so it took a further 10 minutes to park the plane and another half an hour before he left the aircraft. The pilot was quickly rushed to hospital where it was discovered he had a large gallstone (file photo) The pilot was quickly rushed to hospital where it was discovered he had a large gallstone. These are just two of 140 cases between 2010 and 2014 where pilots became incapacitated, with the most common cause of this being gastrointestinal bugs and food poisoning. In working to prevent the occurence of such incidents the Australian Transport Safety Bureau ensure 'all pilots on the same flight eat different meals prior to and during the flight'. Democratic White House candidate Bernie Sanders said tonight at a town hall that he is 'appalled' by the behavior of President Barack Obama's critics and suggested the 'hatred' toward him is rooted in racism. 'No one asked me, whether I'm a citizen or not, my father came from Poland. Gee what's the difference? Maybe the color of our skin,' Sanders said. Sanders brought up the president after a Muslim doctor said at the MSNBC broadcast town hall that he fears for his two children's lives given the current amount of Islamophobia in America. 'As I mentioned, my dad came from Poland at the age of 17.' The U.S. senator said, 'It is absolutely unacceptable to me that in the year 2016 we have people like Donald Trump and others who are trying to gain votes by scapegoating people who may be Muslims or people who may be Latinos - that is unacceptable.' SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO Democratic White House candidate Bernie Sanders said tonight at a town hall that he is 'appalled' by the behavior of President Barack Obama's critics and suggested the 'hatred' toward him is rooted in racism Sanders' Obama-bear hug followed a tense moment earlier in the forum where he took heat from moderator Chuck Todd for his criticisms of the Democratic president He said, 'This country, this country has struggled too much for too many years. And, by the way, I am appalled. 'People can agree with Barack Obama, you can disagree with Barack Obama, but anybody who doesn't understand that the kind of obstructionism and hatred thrown at this man, the idea of making him a de-legitimate president by suggesting he was not born in America because his dad came from Kenya.' Sanders' Obama-bear hug followed a tense moment earlier in the forum where he took heat from moderator Chuck Todd for his criticisms of the Democratic president. In 2011 Sanders said on a radio show that a progressive should challenge Obama for the Oval Office to push him to the left on issues Sanders thought he'd gone soft on. 'That was in response to a question on a radio show,' he asserted tonight. And he said, repeating his criticism of Clinton from their last debate after she brought the interview up. 'There is one of the two Democratic candidates here who actually ran against Barack Obama. It wasn't me.' A power line that night in Wisconsin, groans could be heard in MSNBC's audience as he tossed it out again in Las Vegas. Sanders went on to say he's worked with Obama for the last seven years, he is 'a friend of mine, and we have gone a long way together to move this country froward from the disastrous position we were in when Bush left office.' 'Overall I think the president has done an outstanding job,' he said. Todd pressed him to take a stance but Sanders refused. 'This is a media issue. This is one thing I said on one radio show, many many years ago. Media likes that issue.' 'Bottom line is: I happen to think the president has worked on an extraordinarily good job. I have worked with him on issue after issue,' Sanders said. Sanders, an independent, has twice come under scrutiny in the last week for taking positions that don't mirror the last two Democratic presidents. He chastised Bill Clinton today during a press avail on his plane Sanders, an independent, has twice come under scrutiny in the last week for taking positions that don't mirror the last two Democratic presidents. He chastised Bill Clinton today during a press avail on his plane, according to news reports. 'Bill Clinton was the president who led the effort to deregulate Wall Street, was the president who fought for the disastrous NAFTA trade agreement and was the president who pushed this so-called welfare reform, which was absolutely disastrous for low-income people in general and the African-American community in particular,' said the MSNBC article. Those comments, too, are being mischaracterized, Sanders said. 'I was asked to comment on Bill Clinton's very, very strong criticisms of me. Chuck. Put it into context. It wasn't like I went around attacking Bill Clinton.' Sanders said it was more like, 'Bill Clinton has been on the campaign trail making some very nasty comments about me, and I was asked about that.' 'I happen to think Bill Clinton did a very good job as president,' he said. But the progressive senator says he disagrees with the former president on trade, the Wall Street deregulation that happened on his watch and 'so-called welfare reform.' 'That legislation ended up increasing extreme poverty in this country,' he said. 'Overall do I think Clinton did a good job.' The progressive senator said tonight he disagrees with former president Clinton on trade, the Wall Street deregulation that happened on his watch and 'so-called welfare reform' Sanders stands with television network staff and a U.S. Secret Service agents during a break in a campaign town hall hosted by MSNBC's Chuck Todd (center facing camera) and Telemundo in Las Vegas Sanders again said tonight that Members of Congress shouldn't have to agree all the time with a president from their party. 'That is not my understanding of democracy.' Speaking after Sanders, Hillary Clinton defended her husband's record and said, 'Well, he was the president who created 23 million jobs, he raised incomes for every group in America, not just those at the top.' 'I just don't know where all this comes from, maybe it's because Senator Sanders wasn't really a Democrat until he decided to run for president, he doesn't even know what the last two Democratic presidents did.' The hit on her opponent drew boos from the live audience, hand-picked by MSNBC. 'Well, it's true, it's true. You know it's true. It happens to be true,' she said. 'And I've got to tell you, I look at our last two Democratic presidents, were they perfect? No. No person is. But I'll tell you I would take the two of them over any Republican anytime, anywhere.' After tonight's event, the Clinton campaign sent out a statement from Communications Director Jen Palmieri that said, 'If Senator Sanders wants to be the standard bearer of the Democratic Party, he should spend less time attempting to tear down the very real accomplishments of two of the most successful presidencies in modern times.' The Clinton campaign touted job growth under Obama, health care reform, and 'the largest six-year drop in poverty in nearly 30 years.' 'This race is about a vision for the future that builds on the past and putting forth ideas with which to do so, not tearing other people down,' she said. 'Just last week, Senator Sanders said he hoped we can have a debate on the issues. Unfortunately, we havent seen very much of that from him as of late.' Sanders has talked up Obama's economic record every time he's derided other areas of his agenda such as trade. 'I just don't know where all this comes from, maybe it's because Senator Sanders wasn't really a Democrat until he decided to run for president, he doesn't even know what the last two Democratic presidents did,' Clinton said, speaking after him at the town hall As far as issues in general go, Wall Street the wealthy are daily targets of Sanders' scorn, so much so that Clinton has cast him as a 'single-issue' candidate. 'If she happened to come to one of my rallies, which she has not yet, but I welcome he - she would hear me speaking for about an hour and a half, for an hour and 15 minutes, and we would cover 15 or 20 separate issues,' Sanders said this evening. He added: 'I'm not quite sure, where she comes up with this single issue idea.' Other issues that came up during the hour-long town hall with each candidate: Apple's fight with the government over encryption, feminism and immigration reform. 'I am very fearful in America about Big Brother,' Sanders said as he was asked about the government's request for Apple to create a back door into its system for law enforcement. 'There has got to be a balance.' Speaking at the town hall in Nevada, which has a large Hispanic population, Sanders wouldn't commit to making immigration reform and a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants his first priority in office. 'It is a top priority,' he said but 'I'm not a dictator here. It has to do with a little bit of cooperation from the Congress. But It is a major priority.' Asked later if he believes himself to be a feminist, Sanders brought up Gloria Steinem, one of the 'leading feminists in america' and said, she.'made me an honorary woman, many many years ago.' 'I don't know exactly what that meant, but I accepted it when she came to campaign for me.' North Korean tyrant Kim Jong-un has declared he plans to conquer space and lavished praise on the 'patriots and admirable heroes' behind his recent missile tests. Speaking at an awards ceremony held for the scientists and technicians behind the launch on February 7, he described space exploration as a 'strategic goal'. His comments come as the U.S. imposed fresh sanctions on the pariah state for defying the world and restarting its nuclear programme. Kim Jong-un told the crowd at Wednesday's ceremony (pictured) he planned to 'conquer' space and said he hoped to launch more satellites, which the West believes is a cover for ballistic missile tests His comments were made at an awards ceremony for the scientists and technicians who carried out the launch on February 7. Here he is pictured shaking a colleague's hand at the event He also praised the scientists and technicians behind the recent missile launch, describing them as 'patriots and admirable heroes'. Here he is pictured (centre front) with the team responsible for the launch Kim Jong-un, the third member of his family's dictatorial dynasty, waves to the applauding crowd The young tyrant has claimed he will conquer space in order to establish North Korea's sovereignty The brains behind the recent missile launch were given medals and met with Kim Jong-un during the event During his speech, Jong-un told the crowd: 'Conquering space is ... a fierce class struggle against the hostile forces seeking to usurp our peace and sovereignty. 'The advance toward space... is the DPRK's [North Korea's] strategic goal', he said. Calling the scientists involved in the February 7 launch 'best patriots and admirable heroes', he gave out medals, prizes and wristwatches bearing the names of the two late leaders of the Kim dynasty - Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il. He has promised to conduct more 'satellite launches', which the West sees as cover for ballistic missile tests. North Korea sparked international outrage with the launch of the Kwangmyongsong-4 satellite, which came just a month after its fourth nuclear test. The launch, which most in the international community viewed as a disguised ballistic missile test, violated multiple UN resolutions banning the nuclear-armed country from the use of ballistic technology. North Korea launches a rocket it claims was carrying an earth observation satellite on February 7. The West believes the launches are cover for ballistic missile tests The U.S., along with Asian allies South Korean and Japan, are spearheading efforts at the UN for a resolution that will impose harsh sanctions on Pyongyang over the recent nuclear test and rocket launch. Separately, President Barack Obama has signed off on new sanctions against North Korea, aimed at anyone importing goods or technology related to weapons of mass destruction into the North, or anyone who knowingly engaged in human rights abuses there. The measure also heaps additional financial pressure on the already-sanctioned regime by taking aim at money laundering and narcotics trafficking, two major illicit activities believed to be funnelling millions of dollars into Kim's inner circle. Under the bill already passed by Congress, penalties for the sanctionable activities would include the seizure of assets, visa bans and denial of government contracts. And for the first time, it establishes a framework for sanctions in response to North Korean cyber threats. The new measures are intended to deny North Korea the money it needs to develop miniaturized warheads and the long-range missiles required to deliver them. The legislation also authorizes $50 million over the next five years to transmit radio broadcasts into the country, purchase communications equipment and support humanitarian assistance programs. Jeff Kennett claims AFL Footy Show star Garry Lyon is 'seriously ill' battling depression. The AFL Footy Show made headlines last week after it emerged he had an affair with the wife of co-star Billy Brownless, which reportedly lasted up to four years. It caused a split in the friendship split between Lyon and Brownless, with Lyon stepping down from all of media commitments to seek treatment for his mental health issues. Mr Kennett, who is the chairman of depression charity Beyond Blue and previously worked with Lyon, claims the former AFL player came to him last September with his mental health problems,SEN Sports reports. Scroll down for video Garry Lyon (pictured right, with ex-partner Melissa) made headlines last week after it emerged he had an affair with the wife of his AFL Footy Show co-star Billy Brownless (left, with ex-wife Nicky) 'I've had Garry Lyon and Sam Newman assist me in my work at Beyond Blue and they've gone down the coast to speak to farmers who are suffering a lot of trauma,' Mr Kennett said. 'Let me just let you in on one issue... Garry is seriously ill. He first contacted me in September wanting help. 'So, for those people who are suggesting that this is not a genuine illness I've got to say to you butt out, you're wrong, you're being very hurtful and not helping in the recovery.' Former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett (pictured above) claims AFL Footy Show star Garry Lyon is 'seriously ill' battling depression AFL Footy Show host Garry Lyon stood down from media duties with the Nine Network as he battles a 'serious mental health condition' Lyon (right) and Brownless (left) had been friends and worked together for more than 15 years, and are co-hosts of the AFL Footy Show along with James Brayshaw (middle) Billy Brownless arrives at a function with ex-wife Nicky in 2013. The 49-year-old reportedly suffered a 'deeply private and personal' break in his friendship with Lyon after learning of the relationship Mr Kennett, a former Hawthorn Hawks club president, said the media's love affair with celebrities was a major reason behind the harsh treatment and close scrutiny endured by Lyon following news of his affair. 'It is harder because the media is so savage on people that we would call successful, you might refer to them as tall poppies,' Mr Kennett said. Craig Kelly, who manages both Lyon and Brownless, confirmed this week that Lyon did start a relationship with Brownless' ex-wife Nicky, but only after she had separated from the former Geelong star. Brownless was seen dropping Nicky (pictured with daughter Lucy) and their two teenage daughters off at their home in Geelong, south of Melbourne, in what appeared to be a show of support on Tuesday Lyon played 226 games for the Melbourne Demons and kicked 426 goals in an illustrious career that saw him named as a half-forward flanker in their Team of the Century Billy Brownless and daughters Lucy Brownless and Ruby Brownless pose at the Emirates Marquee on Stakes Day at Flemington Racecourse in 2015 Lyon (middle) and Brownless (left) were both due to be part of the AFL Footy Show for 2016 - along with Sam Newman (right) But according to The Age, a heartbroken Brownless had told friends he believed the former Melbourne Demons star's affair with his ex-wife had lasted up to four years. 'We want to be clear that this relationship took place when both parties were not married. To that end, those details are private and no one else's business,' Mr Kelly said. 'Both families are in turmoil and trying to work through this extremely difficult time.' It comes after Brownless was seen dropping Nicky and their two teenage daughters off at their home in Geelong, south of Melbourne, in what appeared to be a show of support on Tuesday. Lyon played 226 games for the Melbourne Demons and kicked 426 goals in an illustrious career that saw him named as a half-forward flanker in their Team of the Century The romance between his ex-wife and friend of 20 years is said to have torn apart Brownless' friendship with Lyon, and thrown their professional partnership into chaos. But it appears that Brownless and his former wife are still on speaking terms as Nicky was seen climbing out of his blue Ford with their daughters Lucy, 19, and Ruby, 18, following a coffee-run. Girlfriend Rebecca Watts was jailed for two years for her involvement The court heard that he broke out because his girlfriend had a miscarriage Rebecca Watts, the girlfriend of underwear prison escapee Beau Wiles, told him she had suffered a miscarriage three days before his brazen escape, the Wollongong District Court heard on Friday A man who led police on a 30-hour chase after escaping from prison has been handed another two years on his sentence, claiming he broke out after hearing his girlfriend had a miscarriage. Beau Wiles appeared via videolink at Wollongong District Court on Friday morning, after escaping from Goulburn Prison, north of Canberra, in broad daylight with the help of girlfriend Rebecca Watts on September 30. Defence solicitor Laura Fennell told the court that an emotional Watts had visited Wiles three days before the escape to tell him she had suffered a miscarriage and that his stepfather was unwell, the Illawarra Mercury reported. 'There were two factors [motivating the escape],' Ms Fennell told the court. 'One was the grave distress that Rebecca Watts had found herself in following the miscarriage. He said she was very emotional and that was his main concern. 'When arrested he only managed to see Ms Watts and hadn't made contact with his stepfather.' The father-of-two, who was serving 18 months for shoplifting and driving while disqualified, had famously posed for pictures in his underwear in prison just two days before his escape. Scroll down for video Photos uploaded two to Facebook two days before Wiles' escape from Goulburn Correctional Complex last year circulated the media. He was handed an extra two years imprisonment for attempting to escape Watts commented on the pictures, which were posted on Facebook, saying she couldn't wait to 'have her hands over his body' and marry him as soon as he got out. 'Love u too my prince can't wait to have my hand all ova that sexy body of urz (sic),' she wrote. The court also heard that Wiles had been exposed to illegal drugs from an early age, smoking weed at nine and using meth by 14. Judge Paul Conlon handed down a further two years imprisonment, beginning from when he was due to be free from jail - meaning he won't be eligible for release until mid January next year. The court also heard that Wiles had smoked weed from the age of nine and was using meth by 14 In October of last year, girlfriend Rebecca Watts was jailed for two years for her involvement in Wiles' daring jail break. The court heard that the then 32-year-old woman was either 'lovestruck' or high on ice when she helped her inmate boyfriend escape from jail before going on a 'Bonnie and Clyde' escapade. She waited for Wiles in a black Holden Commodore with another woman while he scaled the perimeter fence at the prison and made his dash for freedom. They were all caught by police after 30 hours on the run in a routine traffic stop in Unanderra, Wollongong, on October 1 when one of the officers recognised Wiles. She admitted to being blinded by her 'love' for Wiles during an interview with police after her arrest, describing the pair as a modern day Bonnie and Clyde. Her solicitor, Matthew Barnes, told the court that Watts had been 'manipulated' by her boyfriend, pointing out that she had virtually no criminal record until a year ago. He said that she turned to crime to fund her methylamphetamine habit and argued that Wiles featured in each offence, according to the Illawarra Mercury. Wiles had slipped a six-pack of Jack Daniels into her handbag when she was caught shoplifting in May and she was on her way to visit him in jail when she was caught driving without a licence in July. '[It's apparent] she was under some sort of lovestruck spell or manipulation [by Wiles],' Mr Barnes told the court. 'There may have been some pressure brought to bear on her clouding her judgementclearly in this case her judgement was affected if it's not lovestruck then it was drug induced.' Magistrate Michael Stoddart jailed Watts for two years last October and set a non-parole period of 18 months. 'You being there with the car was an integral part of the plan,' he said. He has been sentenced to two years' imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 12 months by the Wollongong Local Court Used his father's money on trips abroad, skydiving and car repayments In a little over a year, Toby Di Comun Williams travelled to Japan, Melbourne, Cairns and Port Douglas. He indulged in luxury hotel stays, went skydiving and paid off car debt. Along the way, the 27-year-old racked up tens of thousands of dollars in purchases - but he did it all at the expense of his sick father, who he swindled out of more than $157,000 in life savings. Details of Di Comun Williams's deception were revealed in Wollongong Local Court on Friday, where he was sentenced to two years' jail, according to theIllawarra Mercury. Toby Di Comun Williams was appointed power of attorney by his father, he fleeced him of his life savings Magistrate Geraldine Beattie told the court she had considered the Wollongong man's history of mental health issues, but the severity of offending meant the charges could not be dismissed under mental health laws. 'My view is that it is so serious it has well and truly crossed the threshold for a term of imprisonment,' she was quoted as saying by the Illawarra Mercury. Di Comun Williams started his offending shortly after he was appointed power of attorney by his father on January 14, 2014. At a meeting at a Wollongong solicitor's office Di Comun Williams's father, Shane Williams, who was suffering with depression, anxiety and alcoholism, named his son as principal - and inadvertently signed away a lifetime's hard work. The agreement set out a number of rules: Di Comun Williams was to keep his own money and property separate from his father's, he was to act honestly and not to gain benefit from his position unless authorised, according to the Illawarra Mercury. But Di Comun Williams ignored the details and instead chose to live the high life, splashing his father's money on trips around Australia and abroad, skydiving, car repayments and a deposit on a brand new car for his partner. Di Comun Williams swindled his sick father out of more than $157,000, spending the money on holidays to places such as Port Douglas (pictured) and Japan Di Comun Williams spent thousands on credit cards taken out in his father's name, splashing out on things like skydiving trips and paying off debt on cars for himself and partner He came unstuck on February 16, 2015, when his father visited a Wollongong car dealer to question a deposit put down on a $38,000 Jeep He opened new bank accounts and took out credit cards in his father's name. All up, he transferred or spent $157,440.12. But things caught up with Di Comun Williams on February 16, 2015, when his father visited a Wollongong car dealer to question a deposit put down on a $38,000 Jeep. He found out his son had told the staff that his father was dead and he was spending his inheritance. Mr Williams reported it to police and later told them, 'Toby has taken my whole life savings and left me with nothing,' the Illawarra Mercury reported. A Fox News poll has Cruz leading Trump nationally for the first time A similar lawsuit has been filed against Cruz in Alabama by five voters who are all Trump supporters Donald Trump has frequently questioned Cruz's eligibility throughout his campaign Cruz has stated before that he is an American citizen despite being born in Canada and having a Cuban father because his mother is American he was born in Canada Illinois voter Lawrence Joyce filed the suit claiming Cruz should not be on the state primary ballot next month The question of whether or not Ted Cruz can serve as president of the United States is heading to court. A judge has agreed to hear a lawsuit filed against the presidential hopeful by Illinois voter Lawrence Joyce. CNN reports that the case will be heard in Cook County Circuit Court in Chicago on Friday in response to Joyce's claim that Cruz should not appear on the ballot for next month's Illinois primary because he was born in Canada. Cruz has stated before that he is an American citizen despite being born in Canada and having a Cuban father because his mother is American. Scroll down for video Possible trouble: A Cook County Circuit Court judge in Chicago, Illinois will hear a lawsuit on Friday filed against Ted Cruz (above on Thursday) Debate: Cruz's birth certificate issued in Canada which identifies his mother as American Donald Trump has frequently questioned Cruz's eligibility throughout his campaign, and even wrote on Twitter last week; 'If @TedCruz doesnt clean up his act, stop cheating, & doing negative ads, I have standing to sue him for not being a natural born citizen.' Trump has said if Cruz were to become the Republican Party's presidential nominee, Democratic partisans could sue in order to have his candidacy nullified, throwing the GOP into chaos just a few months before the November election. There is another lawsuit that has been filed against Cruz as well in Alabama, where five voters are also hoping a judge will hear their case and have him removed from that state's primary ballot. AL.com reports that those five individuals are all Trump supporters. Joyce, the man who filed in Illinois, supports Ben Carson. The Illinois case will be heard one day before the South Carolina primary this Saturday, a state where Cruz is running second to Trump in polls with Marco Rubio a close third. A Fox News poll has Cruz leading Trump nationally for the first time. Donald Trump struck a hybrid tone Thursday night on his day-long tiff with the Vatican, saying he thought Pope Francis' comments about his faith were overblown but poking fun at the Pontiff for living in a city surrounded by a giant protective wall. 'I think it was probably a little bit nicer statement than was reported by you folks in the media,' Trump told CNN's Anderson Cooper during a presidential town hall broadcast. 'Because after I read it, it was a little bit softer. But the bottom line is we've got to have a border, we've got to have security. We have tremendous illegal immigration in the country.' 'He also talked about [how] having a wall is not Christian,' Trump observed of the Pope's words. Scroll down for video Donald Trump told CNN's Anderson Cooper (right) Pope Francis' comments about his faith were overblown, but still poked fun at the Pontiff for living in a city surrounded by a giant protective wall 'And he's got an awfully big wall at the Vatican, I will tell you.' Trump reiterated his months-long contention that 'we're going to build a wall, and Mexico's going to pay for the wall. And that's the way it is.' When Cooper reminded Trump that 'people do come and go through the Vatican, and it's open to tourists,' Trump pounced. 'They're going to come and go through the wall' he will erect on America's southern border,' he said, 'but they're going to come and go legally. And that's what I want, and that's what a lot of people want, obviously.' The global leader of the Roman Catholic Church told reporters early Thursday en route to Europe after a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border that 'a person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the gospel.' Minutes later Trump had taken a harsh line, saying the Pope was 'disgraceful' for declaring he was not a Christian. But he shrugged hours later, suggesting that 'somehow the government of Mexico spoke with the Pope, I mean they spent a lot of time with the Pope. And by the time he left he made a statement.' 'I didn't think it was a good thing for him to say, frankly,' Trump jabbed. 'I don't like fighting with the Pope. I don't think this is a fight.' The mogul said: 'The bottom line is we've got to have a border, we've got to have security. We have tremendous illegal immigration in the country. 'I think he said something much softer than what was originally reported by the media. I think that he heard one side of the story, which is probably by the Mexican government. He didn't see the tremendous strain that the border is causing us with respect to illegal immigration, [and] wiith the drugs pouring across the border.' Trump recalled that during his successful campaign in New Hampshire, drug abuse specifically heroin was 'the biggest single problem' everywhere he went. 'They have a massive drug problem,' he said. 'We're gonna stop it. And it's pouring through the southern border. The Donald said he would be interested in a sit-down with Francis to hash out their differences. 'I'll do it any time he wants. I mean, it would be very interesting,' he said. 'I like him. I mean, I like him as a personality. I like what he represents. And I certainly have great respect for the position.' Cooper chuckled at recalling a 2015 Iowa event during which Trump told a skeptical audience of evangelical Christians that asking the Almighty for forgiveness wasn't a common ritual in his faith life. Trump answers an audience members question in a CNN South Carolina Republican Presidential Town Hall with host Anderson Cooper on February 18, 2016 in Columbia, South Carolina 'Was there a moment when you first heard the Pope had said something about you, that you thought, "Maybe I'm gonna have to ask for forgiveness?"' Cooper asked him. 'No,' he replied, as the studio audience laughed along with him. 'No. Look, I have a lot of respect for the Pope. I think he's got a lot of personality. He's very different. He's a very different kind of a guy. And I think he's doing a very good job. He's got a lot of energy.' 'But I'd say that I think he was very much misinterpreted. And I also think he was given false information.' Trump said he wished Francis had 'heard our side, the side from people who live in the United States.' HOW A RAID BY MUSLIM PIRATES PROMPTED VATICAN OFFICIALS TO BUILD THE WALL Vatican City is the smallest independent state in the world. An enormous stone wall acts as a boundary between the micronation and the rest of Italy. Nowadays, it serves as a way for the Swiss Guard to control the stream of tourists coming in and out of the Pope's home. But, just over 1,200 years ago, it was an integral form of protection for the Pope, who was a targeted figure after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire . A huge stone wall surrounds the Vatican City, the smallest state in the world. The Pope suggested that Trump planning to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico was not Christian The fortification was first built after a raid by Muslim pirates in 846. Arab raiders sacked Rome in a bid to find treasures. Watch towers were put in place to watch for would-be intruders. It also helped to protect Pope Gregory VII around 200 years later when the Holy Roman Emperor besieged Rome. The fortification was first built after a raid by Muslim pirates in 846. Arab raiders sacked Rome in a bid to find treasures. In the 19th century it kept the Pope separate from the rest of Italy In the 1640s, Pope Paul III expanded the fortifications, and additional defenses. In 1870, the Pope's residency in the Vatican was left in flux when Rome was annexed by the Piedmont-led forces which had united the rest of Italy. They had created the Kingdom of Italy, a change opposed by Pope Pius XIII as it undermined his autonomy in some areas. Between 1861 and 1929 the status of the Pope was referred to as the 'Roman Question' and the walls served as a way of keeping him isolated from the rest of Italy. Within the walls, Italian politicians did not challenge the Pope's autonomy. But, in other parts of the country, church items were confiscated. In 1871, the Palazzo Quirinale, the Papal palace since 1583, was confiscated by the king of Italy and became the royal palace. Thereafter, Popes resided undisturbed within the Vatican walls. Certain papal prerogatives were recognized by the Law of Guarantees, including the right to send and receive ambassadors. But the Popes did not recognise the Italian king's right to rule in Rome, and they refused to leave the Vatican compound until the dispute was resolved in 1929. Ever since the autonomy of the Vatican within the walls has not been challenged by the Italian government. Advertisement The global leader of the Roman Catholic Church told reporters early Thursday en route to Europe after a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border that 'a person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the gospel' Trump recalled that during his successful campaign in New Hampshire, drug abuse specifically heroin was 'the biggest single problem' everywhere he went He may be a member of the royal family but that doesn't stop him getting teased by his former colleagues. As he returned to RAF Anglesey in Wales yesterday, Prince William faced jokes from his former winchman instructor over his ongoing hair loss. Master Aircrew Rik Maving, 55, said about the prince: 'It was nice to see him again. He hasn't changed much apart from he's lost a bit more hair. Hey, we're all getting older!' Scroll down for video As he returned to RAF Anglesey in Wales with the Duke of Cambridge yesterday, Prince William faced jokes from his former servicemen colleagues about his ongoing hair loss. Pictured left in 2005, and right, yesterday The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are led into the drinks reception during their visit to RAF Valley in Anglesey. They returned to attend a ceremony to mark the end of RAF Search and Rescue Force operations The RAF serviceman said it didn't matter he was talking about a royal because he 'ribs everybody'. He said: 'I rib everybody. It doesn't matter who you are, you'll get it with both barrels.' The 33-year-old prince has been sporting a tighter-cropped haircut of late, which only goes to further highlight his receding hairline. Once known to sport slightly longer golden locks, the royal now shows off a shiny bald patch - having seen his hair disappear somewhat throughout his late twenties. Mr Maving worked with Prince William during his three-year service at RAF Valley, during which the royal was known as Flight Lieutenant Wales and undertook a total of 156 search and rescue operations. He said that he instructed people in the rear of the aircraft but William would 'come along to fly it'. He said: 'I'd say, 'Will, are you flying it with your knees?' And he would just laugh. I did ask about his new job and he said, 'It's different'. 'His helicopter will go when the weather's OK. Ours only went when it's bad because people were only in trouble when it was bad weather.' Prince William was joined by his wife Kate as he returned to the RAF base yesterday to attend a ceremony marking the end of RAF Search and Rescue (SAR) Force operations. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge watched a disbandment parade to formally commemorate the end of 75 years of service by the men and women who over the decades have often put their lives at risk to save others The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were given front row seats for the ceremony and William was spotted browsing through the programme. The couple lived in Anglesey for three years between 2010 and late 2013 Arriving on the base by helicopter at 11am, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge watched a disbandment parade which formally commemorated the end of 75 years of service by the men and women who over the decades have often put their lives at risk to save others. The service has been privatised and is now operated by civilian company Bristow Helicopters after it was awarded a contract by the Department for Transport in 2013. Kate and William lived in a cottage on Anglesey for three years both before and after their 2011 wedding - and openly admit they enjoyed the seclusion that the Welsh countryside offered as they settled down. During his time at RAF Valley, the Duke carried out a total of 156 search and rescue operations, resulting in 149 people being rescued. The prince left the force in September 2013 after their son George was born before joining the East Anglia air ambulance service a year later. After the force disbandment parade in the RAF Valley hanger, William and Kate were joined his former colleagues at a drinks reception. The Duchess shares a joke with RAF workers at the drinks reception while the Duke catches up with his old colleagues. They said they had no qualms about teasing him over his hair loss because they 'rib everyone' The Duchess, drinking a glass of orange juice, was spotted shared a joke with the workers. Former Flight Sergeant Rob Linfoot, who worked with the prince from 2012-2013, revealed the RAF crew gave William a tea towel with his and Kate's face on to do the washing up. He said: 'He was so much fun and really down to earth when you were on shift. Everyone gets a named cup or a named badge. 'I think people went above and beyond and got him a few extra bits and pieces. Always nice to have a bit of memorabilia around the room.' When asked if that meant William was washing the dishes with his own face, Rob said: 'Yes.' Kate also reminisced about their three years living in Anglesey as they met crew in the officers' mess. Chatting to Group Captain Steve Bentley and his wife Fyona, Kate said: 'It was such a special time for us. It was the start of our life together really.' Facebook and Twitter are siding with Apple in its fight against a court order requiring the company to help investigators break into an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino mass shooters. A US magistrate has ordered Apple to produce software that would give investigators access to the iPhone at issue. Apple has until Tuesday to challenge the order, setting the stage for a legal clash that experts say could change the relationship between tech companies and government authorities in the United States and around the world. Twitter's chief executive Jack Dorsey tweeted that the microblogging site stands with Apple Inc and its CEO Tim Cook and thanked Cook for his leadership. Facebook in a statement said it condemns terrorism and also appreciates the essential work of law enforcement in keeping people safe. But it said it will 'fight aggressively' against requirements for companies to weaken the security of their systems. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (left) and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey (right) have backed Apple in its fight against a court order requiring the company to help investigators break into an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino mass shooters The government is asking Apple to disable other security measures that prevent attempts to guess the phone's passcode 'These demands would create a chilling precedent and obstruct companies' efforts to secure their products,' the statement said. The government isn't asking Apple to help break the iPhone's encryption directly, but to disable other security measures that prevent attempts to guess the phone's passcode. Cook argues that once such a tool is available, 'the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices', even as law enforcement insists that safeguards could be employed to limit its use to that particular phone. He has posted a 1,117-word open letter on how the FBI's request might have implications 'far beyond the legal case at hand'. Google backed Apple earlier this week, with its CEO Sundar Pichai tweeting: 'Forcing companies to enable hacking could compromise users' privacy.' He claimed the case 'could be a troubling precedent'. For months, Cook has engaged in a sharp, public debate with government officials over his company's decision to shield the data of iPhone users with strong encryption - essentially locking up people's photos, text messages and other data so securely that even Apple can't get at it. Law-enforcement officials from FBI Director James Comey on down have complained that terrorists and criminals may use that encryption as a shield. 'This is really a deep question about the power of government to redesign products that we use,' said Ryan Calo, a University of Washington law professor who studies data security and privacy issues. Apple CEO Tim Cook, pictured, expressed concern over the federal judge's order to assist the FBI in bypassing the security software on an iPhone 5c used by San Bernardino terrorist Syed Farook Syed Farook, right, along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, left 14 people in December's attack in San Bernardino While other tech companies have spoken against broad government surveillance in the past, the Obama administration has recently sought to enlist the tech industry's help in fighting terrorism. Several companies have recently heeded the administration's request for voluntary efforts aimed at countering terrorist postings on social media. Civil liberties groups warned the fallout from the San Bernardino dispute could extend beyond Apple. 'This is asking a company to build a digital defect, a design flaw, into their products,' said Nuala O'Connor of the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Washington-based group that has criticized government surveillance. In a statement, the center warned that other companies could face similar orders in the future. Others said a government victory could encourage regimes in China and other countries to make similar requests for access to smartphone data. Apple sells millions of iPhones in China, which has become the company's second-largest market. 'This case is going to affect everyone's privacy and security around the world,' said Lee Tien, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group in San Francisco. The case turns on an 18th-century law that the government has invoked to require private assistance with law enforcement efforts. Apple has also challenged a federal search warrant based on the same law in a Brooklyn drug case. Privacy campaigners fear that if Apple produces the software to bypass the phone's in-built security systems, this could have a profound impact on users of the technology in countries such as China, pictured Google CEO Sundar Pichai, pictured, claimed this case could be a 'troubling precedent' Apple has complied with previous orders invoking that law - the All Writs Act of 1789 - although it has argued the circumstances were different. While experts said the case will likely end up in appeals court, both sides seemed to be framing the debate for a public audience as much as for a judge. The federal request 'is very strategic on their part, to be sure' said Robert Cattanach, a former Justice Department lawyer who handles cyber-security cases for the Dorsey & Whitney law firm. He said it appeared the government took pains to ask only for limited assistance in a mass-murder case that horrified the nation. Apple's Cook, however, declared the demand would create what amounts to a 'backdoor' in Apple's encryption software. 'If the government can use the All Writs Act to make it easier to unlock your iPhone, it would have the power to reach into anyone's device to capture their data,' he wrote in the open letter. Cook also pledged respect for law enforcement and outrage over the shootings. But the Apple CEO may have no choice but to mount a legal challenge, given his very public commitment to protecting customer data. Two fellows at the Brookings Institution criticized that stance on Thursday, writing that Apple's 'self-presentation as crusading on behalf of the privacy of its customers is largely self-congratulatory nonsense.' Cook has made privacy protection a part of Apple's marketing strategy, drawing a contrast with companies like Google and Facebook that sell advertising based on customers' online behavior. Apple 'can't be seen now as doing something that would make their products less safe,' said Wendy Patrick, who lectures about business ethics at San Diego State University. 'I think everyone saw this issue coming down the pike and Apple always knew it was going to push back when the moment came.' But in doing so, Apple risks alienating consumers who put a higher value on national security than privacy. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found 82 per cent of US adults deemed government surveillance of suspected terrorists to be acceptable. Apple's stance was already drawing fire Wednesday from GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and commentators on Fox News. Only 40 per cent of the Pew respondents said it's acceptable for the government to monitor US citizens, however. Poh passed away on their final trip together, to Toronto, on February 12 The couple scheduled Poh's final day with the vet, but he died naturally Poh also saw them get married, surviving nearly a year after his diagnosis He and now-wife Goumada visited more than 35 cities with beloved pup Rodriguez decided to take his 15-year-old dog on adventure across US The terminally ill dog who warmed hearts across the nation as he completed a cross-country bucket list adventure has passed away. Thomas Neil Rodriguez and his fiancee Goumada didn't think Poh would make it two weeks after two large tumors discovered in his abdomen were deemed inoperable by veterinarians. But Poh held on for nearly an entire year, in which he traveled 40,000 miles back and forth across the country, dipped his paws in four different bodies of water and even saw his owners get married. Poh, the terminally ill dog who warmed hearts across the nation as he completed a cross-country bucket list adventure, has passed away Poh held on for nearly an entire year, in which he traveled 40,000 miles back and forth across the country and even saw owners Thomas Rodriguez and Goumada (pictured) get married Rodriguez shared this snap on Instagram, which he wrote was the final time he and Goumada held Poh's paws while he was still alive Rodriguez announced Poh's passing on the Instagram account he set up to document their adventures together by posting a picture of the very first trip checked off the bucket list Rodriguez announced Poh's passing on the Instagram account he set up to document their adventures together by posting a picture of the very first trip checked off the bucket list. 'This picture here is very special to me,' Rodriguez wrote. 'This was the first sunset I shared with Poh and Goumada at the original dog beach in San Diego.' 'It represents the main goal of our bucket list, to get to the west side so that he could experience dipping his paws in the Pacific. We were just so happy to make it there, with the belief that Poh only had weeks or days to live.' 'We were able to do and see so much more, more then we could have imagined.' Rodriguez had been toying with the idea of taking Poh on a road trip as far back as December 2014, long before the adorable pup got sick, but kept putting it off. But it wasn't until Poh got sick that the 'Olympic level procrastinator', as Rodriguez calls himself, and his wife realized they were ready to make a big change in their lives. And this snap was Poh's final nap with Goumada. Rodriguez believes Poh was fighting to stay alive until his beloved 'mom' returned from Japan last month Gulf of Mexico: Poh is pictured standing with Rodriguez in the warm waters with some help from a small wheelchair used for disabled pets for his final dip in the ocean before his death Rodriguez thought Poh only had weeks to live when inoperable tumors were found in his abdomen last year, but the pup survived nearly a year after his diagnosis (pictured here with Goumada on New Years Day) 'That was the tipping point that allowed us to take this massive risk to drop everything, stop our lives and spend it with Poh,' he wrote in another Instagram post commemorating his dog. Rodriguez said Poh was the 'hero' he needed to push him 'in the right direction, to refocus on what's important.' For the couple that was spending every moment they had left with their beloved dog, who Rodriguez adopted from a New York City animal shelter in 1999 when Poh was only eight weeks old. And that's exactly what they did, buying a green stroller to push Poh around in when he got tired or struggled to walk and setting off last March to explore the USA. On March 5, Rodriguez posted the first image of Poh to the site, in which the dog can be seen peering out of the window of a car, his tongue wagging and his eyes wide, ready for the adventure. Alongside the image was the caption: 'Hi everyone, my name is #pohthedog.' 'I look like a pup but I'm 15 years old, 105 in dog years, and although I am young at heart and my mind is willing, my body is going through the natural process of old age.' 'My parents found out that I have a couple of very large tumors growing in my abdomen which are inoperable. So my dad decided to give me a bucket list trip across the good old US of A...traveling from #nyc all the way to the west coast, from sea to shining sea.' Poh, who has his own Instagram account, posing with Santa. This photo was captioned as Poh asking him for a trip to Florida Poh's owners dressed him as Chewbacca while they watched the new Star Wars movie Poh and his owners made it to Disney World again and are pictured in front of Magic Kingdom Poh would travel to more than 35 different cities across the country, eating BBQ food in Nashville, taking a stroll on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and seeing the Golden Gate Bride in San Francisco. He also saw the house made famous by Breaking Bad in New Mexico as well as the Goonies' home in Oregon, paid tribute to Elvis at the Graceland Mansion in Memphis and took many dips in the sea. 'I have always wanted him to swim,' Rodriguez told ABC in May. 'He loved it, it was so healing for him. It was like he was five years younger.' Poh was able to have one last splash in Florida, where he celebrated the New Year with his loving owners, and got to see Disney World before he returned to New York for the last time. Rodriguez and Goumada smile with Poh during one of their first bucket list trips to Sedona, Arizona Rodriguez, also known as DJ Neil Armstrong, adopted his mixed-breed pet from an animal shelter in New York City in December 1999, when Poh was only eight weeks old. Above, Poh in Washington D.C. Having a well-earned rest: Earlier this year, veterinarians found two 'very large' tumors growing in the dog's abdomen which were deemed inoperable. Above, Poh is pictured beside San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge Rodriguez said Poh was doing well while his wife left to visit her parents in Japan five weeks ago, but when she returned this month things took a turn for the worse despite his joy at seeing her again. 'He stopped eating and drinking and we were dealing with him being incontinent for the first time,' Rodriguez wrote on Instagram. 'It was as if he had "let go". It was as if Poh was holding on because he was waiting for mom to come home.' The couple brought Rodriguez to the veterinarian and, deciding they wanted to make his passing as easy as possible for their beloved pup, scheduled the last day of his life for February 16. Poh poses in front of lower Manhattan, near his home in Queens, on April 25 Rodriguez purchased a green 'buggy' to push Poh around in when the dog struggled to walk or got tired. Above, Poh continues to explore the sights in D.C. during his trip Poh would travel to 35 different cities across the country, eating BBQ food in Nashville, taking a stroll on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and seeing the Golden Gate Bride in San Francisco This photo, taken in Sedona, Arizona, was captioned: '#pohthedog is on the path of enlightenment' With Rodriguez having to work the week before, they brought Poh for one last trip to Toronto. Rodriguez said being back on the road with his 'mom and dad' immediately perked the dog up. That night, on February 12, he passed away on his own terms, laying down with Rodriguez and Goumada before he crossed over. Rodriguez shared that the very last thing Poh did was poop on his shoes, writing 'I tell you this because I want you to smile'. 'Poh lived his life on his own terms', Rodriguez wrote on Instagram. 'And that's how he was going to leave it.' 'My raucous crazy Poh, who stole food off tables, could eat a whole chocolate cake and run away with a smile, ate money, ate my glasses, stole kisses from strangers who hated to be licked in the face, even bit my future wife... finally decided it was time.' Rodriguez said that Poh, pictured here in Las Vegas, took a turn for the worse this month after Goumada returned from Japan. He wrote that he believed his dog had 'let go' after he got to see his 'mom' again The couple brought Rodriguez to the veterinarian and, deciding they wanted to make his passing as easy as possible for their beloved pup (pictured here in Memphis) They scheduled Poh's last day for February 16, but the pup (pictured learning how to swim in a river in Austin, Texas) ended up dying naturally and on his own terms 'Although my heart was broken, when I thought about it all I could do is chuckle.' Poh may be gone, but his spirit will continue to live on his Instagram, where Rodriguez plans to continue sharing memories as well as advice on how to care for a senior dog. He has since shared bittersweet snaps of Poh's last nap with mom Goumada, as well as the last time the couple held his paw before he passed. 'We loved him until the end, and he truly continues to be celebrated in how you all remember him,' Rodriguez wrote to Poh's followers. 'Although he is no longer here in physical form, you all have made his story and life immortal.' The couple took him on one final trip to Toronto, and he immediately perked up when they set off on the road (pictured here is the very first image of Poh Rodriguez posted on March 5, when their journey began) Some audience members were feeling the Bern and wouldn't let Hillary Clinton get away with suggesting their candidate wasn't a Democrat Several members of the audience weren't feeling Hillary Clinton's criticism of Bernie Sanders at tonight's MSNBC Democratic Town Hall in Las Vegas. Clinton defended her husband's record and President Obama's record too and suggested that Sanders was unclear about their accomplishments because he was relatively new to the party. Then she heard boos. Scroll down for video Even though it was a Democratic town hall on a left-leaning network, Hillary Clinton didn't face an entirely friendly crowd getting booed at one point when she suggested that Bernie Sanders wasn't truly a Democrat In the hot seat: Clinton was asked about two big news stories from today - Pope Francis and his message about immigration - along with his fight with Donald Trump - and President Obama's announced trip to Cuba 'I just don't know where this comes from,' Clinton began. 'Maybe it's because Sen. Sanders wasn't really a Democrat until he decided to run for president.' That's when the boos began. 'He doesn't even know what the last two Democratic presidents did,' she continued. Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, was Congress' longest-serving independent before deciding to run for the Democratic nomination in 2015. Despite the negative responses coming from some parts of the audience, Clinton held her ground. 'Well, it's true, it's true,' she said. 'You know it's true. It happens to be true. And I've got to tell you, I look at our last two Democratic presidents, were they perfect? No. No person is. But I'll tell you I would take the two of them over any Republican anytime, anywhere.' That sentiment got the crowd cheered up as Clinton tried to win over Democratic voters in Nevada as she and Sanders again find themselves neck-and-neck in a state that's on the verge of going to the caucuses. 'I am a progressive who likes to make progress,' Clinton said, again pitching herself as the practical Democrat who can get things done, as opposed to Sanders plans, which she portrays as pie-in-the-sky dreams thanks to the current gridlocked environment of Washington. 'I don't want to make promises I can't keep,' she told Nevada voters, who will caucus on Saturday. Tonight, answering questions from NBC's Chuck Todd and Jose Diaz-Balart, who splits his time between Telemundo and MSNBC, Clinton broached a number of topics that were in the news today. Hillary Clinton said she would release her paid speeches to Wall Street if all the other candidates - including Democratic rival Bernie Sanders - released the same kind of information too While not necessarily linking the two, she showed appreciation for Pope Francis and threw continued disgust in Republican frontrunner Donald Trump's direction. 'Well, first, let me really express my deep appreciation to Pope Francis,' she said. 'He has talked about immigrants and migrants everywhere in the world. He came to our border to talk about it again.' 'I was the first person to call out Donald Trump,' she also added. Pope Francis ignited a media firestorm by doing that today, suggesting that Trump was no Christian if he planned to build a wall to keep desperate migrants and immigrants out. President Obama's announcement that he was traveling to Cuba was another big piece of news today and Clinton explained why the trip made sense. 'Well, I know that the president intends to raise human rights issues,' Clinton explained. 'I think the president on Cuban soil delivering that message is very powerful.' With Fidel Castro being 89-years-old and his brother Raul Castro at 84-years-old, Clinton suggested that it was only a matter of time for change to happen at the top of the Cuban government. 'I don't think the Castros can live forever unless they have found Ponce de Leon's magic water fountain somewhere,' Clinton said a colorful comment that's only made more interesting when it's pointed out that moderator Diaz-Balart was related to Fidel Castro. The Cuban leader was previously married to Diaz-Balart's aunt, which makes Fidel Castro's son Fidel Castro Jr. the anchorman's first cousin. But the marriage didn't last and the family had a falling out. 'So there will be a new generation,' Clinton said, predicting the demise of the Castro brothers. 'And we've got to, and I want the president to look in the eyes of the new generation,' she said. The former secretary of state spent the rest of the time reinforcing her record on themes that have popped up throughout her campaign against Sanders. Clinton's feet were held to the fire by one questioner who called for her to release the paid speeches she delivered to Wall Street. 'I'm happy to release everything else when everybody else does the same,' she replied. The gentleman then followed up by telling her that he was a big supporter of Clinton and her husband until she spoke on the Senate floor in 2004 and proclaimed that marriage is between a man and a woman. He said that he hasn't been able to trust the candidate since and that releasing the transcripts would improve her standing with this particular voter. Clinton said that she, like many Americans, had evolved on the issue of same-sex marriage. 'And I'm glad I have,' she said. 'I am a 100 percent supporter.' She circled back to gay rights at another point too. A female member of the audience asked Clinton how she would deal with Middle Eastern countries that don't believe in equality between the genders. Women's rights, and gay rights, Clinton said, would be a top priority and her record proved that. 'I looked across the table at dictators and authoritarians and chauvinists and sexists and misogynists,' Clinton said. 'Yeah. I did,' she added, smiling. 'And I raised it with every one of them.' Shocking footage has emerged of a cannibalistic brown snake eating one of its own in a bizarre battle. A man from Adelaide Snake Catchers was called out to a house in Clarendon, but he quickly noticed that the tangled mess writhing on the ground was in fact two deadly eastern brown snakes. Steven Broadstock, a snake removalist from the service, told Daily Mail Australia that snakes eating other snakes happened a lot more often than people thought. 'People don't realise that brown snakes are cannibalistic. They'll just have a fight and the biggest and strongest one wins,' he said. Scroll down for video Shocking footage has emerged of a cannibalistic brown snake eating one of its own in a bizarre battle Mr Broadstock said the entire process could take up to two hours, depending on the size of the reptile being eaten. The footage shows the snake catcher trying to untangle the live snake from its dead prey, which proves to be a difficult task. Eventually he is able to separate the two and place the live snake in a bag, only to hold up the limp remains of a half-eaten snake. Mr Broadstock said a common misconception was that eastern brown snakes were immune to their own highly-poisonous venom. A man from Adelaide Snake Catchers was called out to a house in Clarendon, but he quickly noticed that the tangled mess writhing on the ground was in fact two deadly eastern brown snakes The footage shows the snake catcher trying to untangle the live snake from its dead prey, which proves to be a difficult task He said their venom worked, but only if it was directed straight into an organ, making snake on snake attacks quite a precise art. 'The snake needs to bite the other snake on the head so the fangs can actually pierce into the vein, the heart or the kidneys to be effective,' he said. Failing such an accurate attack, he said the snakes venom and would still be able to break the carcus of the body down inside the stomach. He said that 95% of their call-ups in the South Australia region were for brown snakes. The eastern brown snake has venom containing powerful neurotoxins that causes progressive paralysis and uncontrollable bleeding. Brown snakes are found all the way along the east coast of Australia, from Cape York, along the coastal and inland ranges of New South Wales, to Victoria and South Australia. They generally eat small mammals like rodents or birds, but are also known to eat small reptiles. Eventually he is able to separate the two and place the live snake in a bag, only to hold up the limp remains of a half-eaten snake Surfers across Australia's east coast beaches have been enjoying the powerful waves but are warned to take care as Cyclone Winston intensifies over the weekend. Lifesavers have warned swimmers and surfers to obey beach closures in Queensland following the death of a bodyboarder at Broadbeach on the Gold Coast on Thursday. Forecasters said that Cyclone Winston is moving closer to Australia - sending a powerful pulse of easterly ground swell which is expected to hit on Tuesday. The tropical cyclone is currently bearing down on Fiji and nearby Tonga, but its effects are already being felt more than 3,500km south-west on the Gold and Sunshine coasts. Powerful waves battered Australian beaches on Friday with the wild surf set to continue over the weekend as Cyclone Winston intensifies, pictured is a surfer on Bronte Beach in Sydney The wild weather will be dangerous for surfers, fishers and anyone swimming in rock pools Experts said the wild conditions have also hit New South Wales, pictured is Bronte Beach Surfers are pictured enjoying the large waves but are advised by lifeguards to stay cautious Main Beach, Mermaid Beach, Surfers Paradise and Miami beach were all closed in rough surf and strong winds on Friday. A young Israeli couple were dramatically rescued off North Burleigh on Friday after they were swept off a sandbank in raging surf. Experts said the wild conditions have also hit New South Wales, with surfers enjoying 8ft waves in Sydney's Bondi Beach. Waves yesterday at south facing beaches got up to 6-8 ft. Chief swell forecaster for Coastal Watch Ben McCartney says that's highly unusual: 'Typically a quiet summers day is about1-2 ft.' The tropical cyclone is currently bearing down on Fiji and nearby Tonga but its effects are being felt on the east coast of Australia The source of the powerful surf is a 'deep low pressure system that intensified as it moved across the Tasman Sea earlier this week Despite the warnings to be cautious many surfers have been entering the waters in hopes of catching a wave Lifesavers have warned swimmers and surfers to obey beach closures in Queensland following the death of a bodyboarder at Broadbeach (pictured) on the Gold Coast on Thursday Forecasters said that Cyclone Winston is moving closer to Australia - sending a powerful pulse of easterly ground swell which is expected to hit on Tuesday, pictured is Main Beach on the Gold Coast Main Beach (pictured), Mermaid Beach, Surfers Paradise and Miami beach were all closed in rough surf and strong winds on Friday The tropical cyclone is currently bearing down on Fiji and nearby Tonga, but its effects are already being felt more than 3,500km south-west on the Gold (shown) and Sunshine coasts Surf Life Saving New South Wales have been involved in three major rescue operations this week. Mr Macartney said the source of the powerful surf is a 'deep low pressure system that intensified as it moved across the Tasman Sea earlier this week.' Today it has been a much more quiet day along the coast, but the calm wont last long. 'Now Cyclone Winston that is sitting east of Fiji is moving closer to us, it's sending a new powerful pulse of easterly ground swell. It'll arrive along the coast on Tuesday and stick around for Wednesday, maybe even Thursday. These kind of waves are always dangerous.' said the swell forecaster. The cyclone will approach the coast on Tuesday and may stick around up until Thursday Work continues on the new seawall to protect Main Beach on the Gold Coast from cyclone swells Surf Life Saving New South Wales have been involved in three major rescue operations this week, pictured are big waves on Bondi Beach Beachgoers need to be aware that a 20 minute calm in between bouts of wild weather does not mean it is safe to enter the water WEEKEND WEATHER Brisbane Saturday: Possible shower. Min 23, Max 31 Sunday: Partly cloudy. Min 23, Max 30 Sydney Saturday: Shower or two. Min 22, Max 27 Sunday: Possible shower. Min 22, Max 28 Canberra Saturday:Possible afternoon shower. Min 12, Max 28 Sunday: Partly cloudy. Min 14, Max 29. Melbourne Saturday: Partly cloudy. Min 14, Max 22 Sunday: Sunny. Min 13, Max 28 Hobart Saturday: Partly cloudy. Min 11, Max 21 Sunday: Sunny. Min 12, Max 24 Adelaide Saturday: Sunny. Min 14, Max 27 Sunday: Partly cloudy. Min 16, Max 35 Perth Saturday: Mostly sunny. Min 19, Max 34 Sunday: Partly cloudy. Min 21, Max 32 Darwin Saturday:Possible shower or storm. Min 27, Max 34. Sunday: Possible shower or storm.Min 26, Max 34 Advertisement Not only will the conditions be dangerous for surfers, but for anyone doing any coastal activities like beach fishing or swimming in rock pools. The issue with this sort of system is that often there are long breaks, sometimes up to twenty minutes, between sets. People think it's safe for them to go out and that's when they get caught. Liam Howitt, a spokesperson for Surf Life Saving New South Wales said they had 'seen a spike in drownings in January and we want to keep the public safe. So help us by looking out for each other at the beach. ' Surf Life Saving also said for anyone heading to the beach to only go to patrolled locations and to always swim between the flags. A spokesperson for Surf Life Saving New South Wales said he has seen a spike in drownings from bad weather Swimmers are advised to swim at patrolled locations and to always swim between the flags A separate letter from major business leaders in favour of Britain staying in the EU is being prepared for release later in the referendum campaign, it emerged last night. Representatives of more than 80 firms listed in the FTSE-100 index of the UK's largest firms are expected to give their backing to the Remain campaign, regardless of whatever deal David Cameron obtains. A source close to the organisers of the letter told the Daily Telegraph: 'Businesses are overwhelmingly on side. We will have at least 80 of the FTSE 100. Scroll down for video Representatives of more than 80 firms listed in the FTSE-100 index of the UK's largest firms are expected to give their backing to the Remain campaign, regardless of whatever deal David Cameron (pictured) obtains Tough talks: The Prime Minister held several 'hard going' meetings with European Council president Donald Tusk, Jean-Claude Juncker and French president Francois Hollande before leaving this morning 'They will sign a letter. They will be a powerful voice. It will allow us to make the argument that people will be better off if we stay in the EU.' Securing the support of Britain's largest companies would boost Mr Cameron's position as he attempts to sell his renegotiation package to British voters ahead of the referendum. The economic risks of leaving the EU are expected to be one of the key arguments put forward by the Remain campaign. A number of businesses have already made it clear that they will back the campaign to stay in the EU, including British Gas which warned bills could go up if there was Brexit and the budget airline easyJet. The letter follows calls by business leaders from 21 European countries for Britain to remain in the EU to deliver 'prosperity for all'. However, there are fears that Mr Cameron will face accusations of using 'scare tactics' by attempting to warn people that they will be less well off if they vote to leave the EU. One eurosceptic minister told the Telegraph: 'It seems ridiculous to be touting for business support before the deal is even done.' David Cameron and the German Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel at the European Summit in Brussels Yesterday, the Prime Minister urged European leaders to give him a 'credible' deal to present to members of the public ahead of an EU referendum. He said he wanted to settle the issue 'for a generation'. However, he was ambushed in Brussels with demands to further water down his EU referendum deal by agreeing not to introduce restrictions on the payment of child benefit to EU workers immediately. Warning Britain to 'take it or leave it', Eastern European leaders insisted curbs on handouts to foreign workers must be phased in gradually. Downing Street insisted Mr Cameron was resisting the demands for a further cave-in. He said his aim now was to secure a package that would be 'credible' with the British people. Representatives of more than 80 firms listed in the FTSE-100 of the UK's largest firms are to give their backing The PM said: 'The question of Britain's place in Europe has been allowed to fester for too long and it is time to deal with it. 'If we can reach agreement here that is strong enough to persuade the British people to support UK membership of the EU we have the opportunity to settle this issue for a generation. Donald Trump landed in a war of words with his former self on Friday morning, pushing back against claims that he once supported President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq. Trump has emphasized during his presidential campaign that he strongly opposed the second Gulf war, pointing to statements he made in 2003 and 2004 to support hs claim. But the Buzzfeed website released audio Thursday night from a 2002 Trump interview with shock jock Howard Stern in which Trump offers a halfhearted thumbs-up to a hypothetical invasion. Donald Trump admitted he could have supported the Iraq War in 2002, but changed his mind when troops went in, during the CNN town hall event in Columbia, South Carolina, ahead of the primary on Saturday 'Yeah, I guess so,' Trump told Stern at the time. 'I wish the first time it was done correctly.' By the time the war began in earnest, however, Trump was firmly in the anti-war camp. 'I wasn't a politician' at the time, Trump said Friday morning on NBC's 'Today' show. 'Nobody really cared about my opinion. That was just a question asked of me as a civilian. I was an entrepreneur.' He told the 'Today' audience that George W. Bush's war was ultimately 'maybe the worst decision every made by the United States.' Trump's Howard Stern interview was conducted on September 11, 2002, the first anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks that killed thousands of Americans. At the time it was considered taboo in New York City to oppose a strong U.S. military response to the terror attacks, and Iraq's regime was seen as a proxy for terrorism writ large. In addition, Howard Stern is known as a broadcast provocateur, often asking off-color questions about his radio guests' sex lives. That suggests that Trump was giving a 'loose' interview in 2002, playing to a blue-collar audience with little appreciation of foreign policy nuances. Trump said on ABC's 'Good Morning America' that his comments to Stern came 'long before the war began, and by the time the war began I was saying, and I was on record as saying that we shouldn't go into Iraq.' Challenged about the lack of published support for his claims, Trump said most of his comments at the time weren't recorded for posterity because he wasn't a politician who attracted constant scrutiny. 'There is evidence, and I'll find evidence. Because I was against the war. ... you can see I was not exactly strongly in favor,' he said. The GOP presidential hopeful was questioned by Anderson Cooper (right) on comments he made during a radio interview with Howard Stern 14 years ago Trump tried to assure the audience with his response, insisting he wasn't a politician at the time. During his campaign, the businessman has cited his opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq as evidence of his foreign policy credentials 'By the time the war started I was against, and you have evidence in 2003 that I was against.' During a CNN town hall event Thursday night, host Anderson Cooper asked Trump to explain his one-time support for an Iraq invasion. 'I could have said that,' Trump said, referring to the Howard Stern interview. 'Nobody asked me that. I wasn't a politician. It was probably the first time anyone has asked me that question.' 'When you're in the private sector, you get asked things, and you're not a politician, and probably the first time I was asked,' he said. 'By the time the war started, I was against it, and shortly thereafter, I was really against.' Trump said in a 2004 interview with Esquire magazine that the Iraq war was not worth fighting. LINK:'What was the purpose of this whole thing?' he asked at the time. 'Hundreds and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side.' The Channel Tunnel is to be extended for the first time since it opened 22 years ago with a 600metre covered section being built near Calais to stop migrants stowing away on trains to Britain. The 4.7million project will see the tunnel encased in concrete for a third of a mile from the opening in Coquelles near Calais to the Eurotunnel terminal, where lorries and cars are loaded on to trains. It is hoped the move will protect the line at the point where it has been repeatedly stormed by migrants. This section is currently only protected by a four-metre fence. The 4.7million project will see the tunnel encased in concrete for a third of a mile from the opening in Coquelles near Calais to the Eurotunnel terminal, where lorries and cars are loaded on to trains (pictured) Jacques Gounon, chief executive of Eurotunnel, told The Times: 'The risk this summer is that we will see migrants overwhelming Europe. 'I would like to not be reactive, like last July, but to anticipate the problem and have additional security measures.' He said more security was needed to stop the migrants but fears there is a danger ministers might 'say there is no migrant issues so there is no reason to fund some additional protection'. Work to extend the Channel Tunnel could be carried out over a four month period and would see signalling, firefighting equipment and emergency exits all introduced at various points. Mr Gouon said another measure to protect the tunnel was also in the pipeline, with a joint control and command centre staffed with officials from France and the UK being set up in the coming months. The taxpayer faces having to pay up to 22million in compensation to Eurotunnel for disruption caused by last summer's migrant chaos. The firm has asked both the British and French governments to reimburse it for lost trade after thousands of migrants stormed the tunnel in July and August. Pictured, where the proposed 600m concrete tunnel extension will be laid. Eurotunnel bosses said the section will be an example of them being proactive rather than 'reactive' in the midst of the migrant crisis It is hoped the 4.7million project will protect the line at the point in Coquelles near Calais where it has been repeatedly stormed by migrants (pictured). This section is currently only protected by a four-metre fence The operator faced heavy disruption as migrants from the Jungle camp in Calais repeatedly tried to enter Britain. It has applied to its regulator the Intergovernmental Commission for the payout. The French and British government have responsibility for border control and security and in 2000 Eurotunnel successfully claimed around 13million for disruption. The latest claim would probably be split between the two countries. The Channel Tunnel was opened in May 1994 and runs the 31.4miles between Folkestone in Kent and Coquelles, near Calais, France. Wabafiyebazu was arrested in March 2015 after he and brother Jean, 18, were The 15-year-old son of a Canadian diplomat will be sent to a military-style boot camp and serve up to eight years' probation for his role in a drug-related shootout that killed his older brother and another teenager. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Teresa Mary Pooler on Friday accepted Marc Wabafiyebazu's no contest plea as part of an agreement between the prosecution and defense that spares the teenager a lengthy prison sentence. Wabafiyebazu's mother is Roxanne Dube, who said she is stepping down as Canada's consul general in Miami but will take on another diplomatic role. Spared jail time: Marc Wabafiyebazu, 15, pictured in court last May, will be sent to a boot camp and serve up to eight years' probation for his role in a drug-related shootout that killed his brother and another teen Wabafiyebazu (left) was arrested in March 2015 after he and brother Jean (right), 18, attempted to rob marijuana dealers of 800 grams of pot, sparking a deadly shootout Diplomat: Jean and Marc are the sons of Roxanne Dube, above, Canada's former consul general in Miami 'I am so grateful,' a tearful Dube said after the court hearing. 'I get my son back. I have every intention to make Marc my first priority.' Speaking to The Canadian Press, Ms Dube added: 'Marc has his future. He's going to be saved.' Germano Wabafiyebazu, Marc's father, told The Associated Press from Ottawa, Canada that he was very pleased with the plea agreement. 'It's a big relief for us,' he said. On March 30 last year, police say Wabafiyebazu was outside a house labeled a 'drug den' by officials - possibly serving as a lookout - when his 18-year-old brother Jean and 17-year-old Joshua Wright shot each other to death inside. The brothers, driving their mother's BMW with diplomatic license plates, were attempting to rob marijuana dealers of 800 grams of pot worth an estimated $5,000 when the gunfire erupted, authorities say. Wabafiyebazu was indicted as an adult with first-degree felony murder and other serious charges that carried a potential life prison sentence. Under Friday's agreement, the charges were reduced to first-degree felony murder, attempted armed robbery and aggravated battery that carry a combined 60-year potential prison term. Felony murder means a person took part in a crime that involved a person's killing, but was not directly responsible for the slaying itself. Police say Wabafiyebazu was outside this house in Miami, labeled a 'drug den' by officials - possibly serving as a lookout - when gunfire erupted inside In addition to boot camp, which begins February 25 and will last about nine months, Wabafiyebazu must serve about two years of house arrest with an electronic ankle monitor followed by eight years of probation in the US. If the teenager violates any of several probation conditions, Pooler could still send him to prison - but if he does well, she may end probation early. Among the conditions: he must complete his high school education, submit to random drug testing and possess no firearms. The boot camp program includes behavior courses, drug treatment, education and job training. It will be featured on an HBO documentary produced by Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson called Rock and a Hard Place, and the actor boasted that the program has a lower recidivism rate than prison. 'You will do what you are supposed to do?' Pooler asked the teenager in court Friday. 'Yes I will, your honor,' he replied. Wabafiyebazu will attend a boot camp program that will be featured on the upcoming Dwayne Johnson (left) documentary Rock and a Hard Place (pictured) Ed Griffith, a spokesman for the Miami-State State Attorney's Office, said the plea deal is similar to those worked out for two other young people who were present when the two teenagers were shot. 'We think that this was an appropriate way to handle this sad and tragic situation,' Griffith told reporters. 'This gives him a chance to straighten out his life.' If Wabafiyebazu completes all plea agreement terms successfully, a judge could issue a ruling wiping any felony convictions from his record, Pooler said. The local council has since offered to help replace the family's belongings The family from Perth was downsizing to a more affordable home The mother-of-three was devastated once realising the council's mistake A mother-of-three was left devastated after discovering her belongings packed in moving boxes on her driveway had been taken during a council rubbish collection. Misty Thomas from Mundijong, Perth, returned home from collecting her partner from the airport on Thursday only to discover a rubbish collector had removed her items which included her children's Christmas presents. Ms Thomas said she and her family were downsizing to a more affordable home because they were struggling financially. A mother-of-three was left baffled upon returning home when she realised her family's moving boxes had been removed by the council's rubbish collectors (stock photo) 'I was trying to move [house] by myself and the stuff was on my driveway all boxed up and they've thrown it out,' Ms Thomas told Radio 6PR. 'They picked them up and crushed all my house items, my kid's Christmas presents and all our stuff.' Ms Thomas tried to track down the verge collector who was in a nearby street, hoping to find her missing belongings. 'It was only about six boxes and $500 worth of things. It might have looked like junk to him but it was our stuff,' said Ms Thomas. The Shire of Serpentine Jarrahdale council has sympathised with Ms Thomas but says it's not unreasonable for the unmanned items to be picked up (pictured, the shire of Serpentine Jarrahdale) President of the Shire of Serpentine Jarrahdale council, John Erren, told Daily Mail Australia the council has great empathy for Ms Thomas's situation and after learning about the incident she was immediately contacted. 'If you leave unmanned items outside your house during a verge side pickup period, it's not unreasonable to think contractors will pick them up. 'Misty spoke with Council officers this morning and was very upset, understandably as these items were very important to her. A 23-year-old man who ran an online paedophile ring from his bedroom in his mother's house has been described by the FBI as one of the most prolific child sex offenders ever. Matthew David Graham, from Melbourne, ran a series of 'hurtcore' paedophile websites which included images and videos so horrific even members of the paedophile community would object. Graham - who used the name 'Lux' on the dark web - operated his websites between 2011 and 2014, had more than 1000 active users and three-million hits globally. He pleaded guilty to 13 child pornography charges in the Victorian County Court in 2015, and is awaiting sentencing. Scroll down for video The FBI and Europol say 23-year-old Melbourne man, Matthew David Graham, is one of the worst child sex offenders in the world 'The FBI and Europol identified the user known as Lux as one of the most prolific online sexual child abuse offenders and facilitators around the world, controlling multiple child abuse sites and also attracting criticism from abusers who did not like him because of his cruelty,' Prosecutor Krista Breckweg said, according to the ABC. 'Lux taunted law enforcement on his site, claiming that each time their sites were taken down ''they'' (the paedophile community) would just get stronger and make it harder for them to get caught.' Graham has admitted to pretending to be a paediatrician from America while running the site, using his position to give advice to paedophiles about how mot to be caught. The man lived in his mother's home throughout 2011 - 2013 when he ran his child abuse websites What is the dark web? The 'dark web' is a term that essentially refers to websites that are visible to the public but hides their server information, including their IP addresses and identity. By doing this, it proves to be very difficult to find out the owner, administrator or manager of a website. They cannot be found in search engines. Nearly all sites on the 'dark web' use a tool called the 'Tor encryption tool' to keep their identities or location hidden. The 'dark web' should not be confused with the 'deep web', which is a term used to describe all web pages that cannot be found or searched for in search engines. The 'deep web' includes the 'dark web', but also includes user databases (like ones belonging to Ashley Madison), pages locked behind pay walls or password protected. Advertisement He has admitted to convincing a Russian paedophile to kidnap, rape, torture and murder a five-year-old girl and said he procured footage of a horrific assault on an 18-month old girl to 'boost' his online traffic. He also helped advise a British man who worked in a children's home for the intellectually disabled who wanted to rape a non-verbal seven-year-old girl with muscular dystrophy. 'I work in the medical field and if you show me a picture of her wheelchair, I bet I could track you down in a week,' he told the man who went by the name of 'Jabba'. He added, 'if you record audio then that can give a lot away but it's good the fact she can't speak, I don't think it's going to narrow it down'. In spite of running multiple websites trading on child-sex material Graham doesn't consider himself a paedophile. Earlier in the trial Graham was accused of featuring a video on his website described as 'one of the worst things you could ever see' by the prosecutor. The video called 'Daisy's Destruction' allegedly showed Australian businessman Peter Gerard Scully, who has been accused of running an international paedophile ring in the Philippines, and his girlfriend allegedly sexually torturing an 18-month-old girl. It is understood he bought the multi-part series to boost his dark-web traffic. He admits to buying a video from Peter Gerard Scully (pictured) which has been described as 'the worst thing you will ever see' by prosecutors Graham has also been linked to former Adelaide childcare worker Shannon McCoole, also known as Skee, who sexually abused seven children - six of whom were in his care. The 33-year-old was the administrator of a global child pornography website, where he uploaded child abuse content, some of which he committed himself. He was jailed for 35 years by a South Australia District Court judge last month. When Graham was 18, he was on the cusp of graduating from Epping Secondary College, in Melbourne's north, and lived a quiet life with his parents in the neighbouring suburb of South Morang. The websites were available on the dark web and had 1000 active users But behind closed doors he was leading a very different life. Under the name 'Lux', he controlled a network of concealed 'dark web' websites and forums used by paedophiles,The Age reported. In particular, Graham's services offered an extreme form of a child pornography called 'hurtcore', which shows sickening torture and sexual acts being carried out on children, even babies and toddlers. Two of his websites were called 'Hurt 2 The Core' or 'Love 2 The Core', and as a condition of membership people were required to upload a certain number of videos. On these sites, users had access to child prostitutes, images under titles including 'delicious little boys' and 'yummy little girls', and videos of 'sexy little' boys and girls, The Kernel reported. A sample of topics on Hurt 2 The Core's message boards in June 2013 included 'Producing kiddie porn for dummies', 'Toddler childporn star', 'Crying rape' and 'Need ideas for blackmailed girl'. The website had attracted more than three-million views in the time it was operating Others said it was tantamount to 'giving the finger to the rest of Europe' Austria has introduced a controversial daily cap on asylum-seekers entering the country in a move that the European Commission has described as 'plainly incompatible' with EU and international laws. In the latest in a series of unilateral measures by nations, Vienna says as of Friday 8am local time (7am GMT) it will allow no more than 80 migrants a day to claim asylum at its borders while letting in no more than 3,200 people looking for asylum elsewhere to transit. Police spokesman Fritz Grundnig said that once the quotas have been reached, 'the borders will be closed. Scroll down for video Austria will allow no more than 80 migrants a day to claim asylum at its borders. Pictured: Two policemen stand in front of the closed inlet gate for migrants at the border to Slovenia to Austria in Spielfeld The measure triggered an angry response from EU officials, with migration commissioner calling it 'plainly incompatible' with Austria's obligations under European and international law EU migration commissioner Avramopoulos acknowledged that Austria is 'under huge pressure' and overwhelmed but added that 'there are some principles and laws that all countries must respect and apply' Austria will also allow up to 3,200 people looking for asylum elsewhere to transit. Police spokesman Fritz Grundnig said that once the quotas have been reached, 'the borders will be closed' The measure triggered an angry response from EU officials. 'Such a policy would be plainly incompatible with Austria's obligations under European and international law,' European migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos complained in a letter to Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner. 'Austria has a legal obligation to accept any asylum application that is made on its territory or at its border.' Later, Avramopoulos acknowledged that Austria is 'under huge pressure' and overwhelmed but added that 'there are some principles and laws that all countries must respect and apply'. In a clear show of exasperation, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said: 'National solos are not to be recommended.' 'As far as Austria is concerned I have to say I don't like this decision, we are questioning whether it is within European law, and we will have a friendly discussion,' Juncker told a news conference. Other EU officials said Vienna's action was tantamount to 'giving the finger to the rest of Europe', and 'for the benefit of Austrian tabloids'. But Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner shrugged off those opinions saying the plan will be put in operation as foreseen. The Austria Press Agency cites her as saying Thursday that Germany's past decision to introduce limits remains legal and 'is of course also so for Austria.' Refugees and migrants line up as they walk along a border fence after they crossed the Slovenian-Austrian border Vienna will also let in no more than 3,200 people looking for asylum elsewhere to transit. Austria's interior minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said the plan will be put in operation as foreseen A migrant child stretches his arms while waiting on a train heading to Serbia from the Macedonian-Greek border The daily limit on asylum claims is in line with Austria's announcement last month that it would only take in 37,500 asylum seekers this year Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann also rejected the criticism saying there 'will be no lifting of the decision', speaking at a two-day EU summit in Brussels 'Politically I say we'll stick with it ... it is unthinkable for Austria to take on the asylum seekers for the whole of Europe,' he said. 'After 100,000 refugees, we can't tell the Austrian people that it will just continue like this. That's why I tell the EU: we set a good example but to think that you don't have to do anything, then I have to say it is time for the EU to act,' Faymann said. The daily limit on asylum claims is in line with Austria's announcement last month that it would only take in 37,500 asylum seekers this year - sharply down from the 90,000 it accepted in 2015, making it one of the bloc's highest recipients on a per-basis capita. Around 700,000 migrants entered the country, which is on the migrant route from Turkey via Greece and the Balkans to Germany. Vienna says that the measures are necessary because a German-backed EU plan for Turkey to stem the flow of migrants setting off from its coast is not yet working, and has urged other countries on the Balkans route into Europe to follow suit. Around 700,000 migrants entered Austria - which is on the migrant route from Turkey via Greece and the Balkans to Germany - in 2015 Vienna says that the measures are necessary because a German-backed EU plan for Turkey to stem the flow of migrants setting off from its coast is not yet working In 2015, over one million people reached Europe's shores - nearly half of them Syrians fleeing a civil war that has claimed more than 260,000 lives Following the cap's introduction, Germany's interior minister warned fellow European Union states not to take national measures against a migrant influx that would burden Germany and threatened action if they did. 'We will continue to fight for a European way out of the refugee crisis as long as it also promises to be successful in diminishing the number of refugees,' Thomas de Maiziere told the German Bundestag (lower house of parliament). 'However, should some countries try to unilaterally shift the collective problem onto the back of Germany, it would be unacceptable and would not be without consequences from our side in the long term,' he added. NO MORE MOROCCAN ASYLUM SEEKERS Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, has said it will not accept any more asylum-seekers from Morocco. The government of the state, where Cologne lies, said federal authorities had agreed not to send any more Moroccans to refugee centres in the state. The measure takes place after many migrants from Morocco were identified among suspects in the wave of sexual attacks and robbery in Cologne. 'Immigrants from the North African region appear disproportionately as offenders,' Ralf Jager, the state interior minister, said. 'Frequently the suspects are young men travelling alone.' Cologne and Dusseldorf host the majority of the 80 per cent Moroccan asylum-seekers in the North Rhine-Westphalia. But they have little chance of being granted asylum as they do not flee from war or conflict. Some 6,000 Moroccans in the state have had their claims refused and are theoretically due to be deported. Advertisement De Maiziere said Germany would 'deal more harshly' with migrants who arrive saying they need protection from war or persecution but have actually come for other reasons, or try to prolong their stay by means of tricks or false statements. In response, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia have also tightened their borders. During the meeting, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said EU countries were divided 'between those we believe we can find solutions together and those who prefer to act alone.' 'Everyone's asking themselves the question; what do we do when we've put things in place but they're not working?' he said. European Parliament President Martin Schulz pointed to selfishness and a lack of solidarity. 'The problem is that everyone sees the situation from their individual standpoint and waits for the other to move first in implementing those necessary solutions,' Schulz told the leaders. 'Lamentably, this crisis is exposing serious fault-lines within our union.' In 2015, over one million people reached Europe's shores - nearly half of them Syrians fleeing a civil war that has claimed more than 260,000 lives. The vast majority enter the EU through Italy and Greece, where they should register, but poor controls mean most are able to continue their journeys to northern Europe. Staff say disclosing GPS coordinates opens them up to deliberate attacks Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has decided stop disclosing the location of its Syrian hospitals after repeated attacks on its facilities. At least 25 people - nine staff and 16 others - were killed when the charity's Maaret al-Numan hospital in Idlib was destroyed this week. The charity has even refused to share the information with the Syrian government and its Russian allies, whose warplanes have been bombing President Bashar al-Assad's enemies since September. Destruction: Doctors Without Borders refuses to disclose the location of its Syrian hospitals after repeated attacks on its facilities (pictured, before and after pictures of a bombed MSF hospital in Idlib province) Death: MSF tweeted to say 25 people were killed when the Idlib facility was bombed and the aid group believes either Syrian or Russian jets were 'probably' behind it MSF's staff have asked for the group to keep the GPS coordinates of some sites a secret because they fear they will be deliberately targeted. Its international president Joanne Liu said either Syria or Russia, who are advancing against rebel forces in Aleppo, were 'probably' behind the strikes - but the identity of the attackers has yet to be proved. MSF is calling for an independent investigation into the strike. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, claimed the hospital was destroyed by Russian jets. Moscow has denied any responsiblity for the bombing - one of many that killed at least 50 people across northern Syria this week. The location of the Maaret al-Numan hospital was widely known and had been struck by bombing raids before, according to MSF operations director Isabelle Defourny. She said: 'Those are not underground or invisible hospitals,' she said of the medical sites, alluding to the difficulty of the decision not to formally identify its location. She added that giving GPS coordinates to any side of the conflict is not a guarantee of protection, alluding to the US airstrike that destroyed an MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, in October. Targeted: MSF's staff fear its hospitals (pictured, the Idlib facility destroyed this week) will be deliberately targeted if they disclose its coordinates Among those to be killed in the bombing of Maaret al-Numan hospital (pictured) were nine staff and 16 others Struck down: Moscow denied any responsiblity for the bombing , one of many that killed at least 50 people across northern Syria (pictured, a wounded man being carried out of a bombed MSF hospital in Kills, Turkey) Emergency: People carry a stretcher amidst debris after a hospital supported by MSF was hit by suspected Russian air strikes near Maaret al-Numan BRITISH TRAINED SURGEON KILLED DURING HOSPITAL BOMBING IN SYRIA A British trained doctor was one of the 50 people killed in airstrikes that hit five hospitals and two schools in Syria this week. Dr Emad Alnesr was working with the Human Appeal charity charity when the bombs fell Aleppo and Idlib, northern Syria. He was thought to be the only vascular surgeon working at the MSF run Maarat al-Nu`man hospital, Manchester Evening News reported. Dr Emad Alnesr (circled) was working with the Human Appeal charity charity when the bombs fell Aleppo and Idlib, northern Syria Originally from Syria, Dr Alnesr trained in Manchester before travelling back to his home country in November to help those trapped in the civil war. Dr Hussein Nagi, one of the doctors who led the anaesthesia course he attended, told the Manchester Evening News: 'He was the most decent and polite surgeon I've ever met. 'He was killed by a [suspected] Russian air strike on his hospital two days ago. 'I had the honour to train him among other Syrian doctors and technicians in Gaziantep two months ago with Human Appeal, a training programme for medics that is now needed more than ever.' Advertisement That hospital's location has been shared with both Afghanistan and American forces. Shocking footage emerged this week showing a suspected Russian cluster bomb destroying an entire district in Aleppo. Several children were thought to be among at least 50 people killed in the strike which was condemned by the United Nations. In the video, a fighter jet streams over the city moments before the skyline erupts in flashes of explosions. A deafening boom is then heard, followed by grey smoke billowing from the tops of the flattened buildings. The attacks were 'blatant violations of international laws', said UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haqsaid. He added the bombings that 'are further degrading an already devastated health care system'. More than 7,000 people were killed and around 154,000 wounded at MSF's 70 makeshift hospitals in Syria last year, according to a harrowing report released by the aid group. In the same report, it claimed more than 60 of its hospitals in Syria have been hit in the past year - with at least a dozen of them completely destroyed. Devastation: This is the moment Russian cluster bombs destroyed buildings in the Syrian city of Aleppo Needless: Three children and a pregnant woman were among those killed in the hospital airstrike in Azaz, northern Syria, this week War torn: The hospital in Azaz (pictured) was hit by missiles that killed at least 11 people, including three children The U.N. estimates that more than 250,000 people have been killed and at 11million made homeless from their homes during five year long civil war. MSF International president Liu said: 'Deliberate attacks against civilian infrastructures, including hospitals struggling to provide life-saving assistance are routine. EU leaders will reconvene this morning to try and make more progress Belgium's Michel delayed talks last night with a call to make them a one-off Belgian PM Charles Michel, pictured leaving the talks in Brussels in the early hours of today, was gifted Beatrix Potter books by David Cameron David Cameron presented a special set of Beatrix Potter books to a key EU rival on the eve of tense negotiations on his planned deal. Belgian PM Charles Michel is an avowed European federalist and threw a spanner in the works last night by demanding a clause in Mr Cameron's deal making clear an deal struck today would be a one off. But EU sources said the 'sting' had been drawn from any row with Mr Cameron after the Prime Minister sent the gift to Mr Michel after the birth of his daughter Jeanne on January 21. The Times revealed today the 'really personal touch' had made a difference and Mr Michel had been 'very moved' by the gesture. Mr Cameron sent the books last week as detailed negotiations continued behind the scenes. An EU diplomat told the paper: 'It was a full set in French, a true symbol of ever closer union among our peoples.' Other EU leaders had contributed to a joint gift to Mr Michel. A Belgian official said: 'The British leader, a father of three, had struck out on his own with a personalised present showcasing a quintessentially English author. 'It was a really personal touch and Mr Michel was very moved. 'It might not be well known in Britain but David is really very charming.' A diplomat suggested the move was aimed squarely at the talks. One told The Times: 'If you can enlist Mrs Tiggy-Winkle and Squirrel Nutkin on your side, then why not? At last night's talks Mr Michel launched a defence of the 'ever closer union' - a key EU idea from which Mr Cameron wants a British exception. Belgium, together with France, has demanded that a clause should be written into the draft agreement on Britain's EU membership that explicitly rules out holding a second referendum if the UK votes to leave. Eurosceptics had argued that, if the UK votes out in the expected June referendum, Brussels might be prepared to return to the table to offer meaningful concessions on issues such as free movement. During tense talks, expected to run over into today, Mr Cameron last night told his counterparts that his aim now was to secure a package that would be 'credible' with the British people. The PM said: 'The question of Britain's place in Europe has been allowed to fester for too long and it is time to deal with it. Mr Cameron's gift of a French-language set of Beatrix Potter stories, file pictures, was admired by diplomats a as a deft move in the battle to win over a key opponent on EU reform 'If we can reach agreement here that is strong enough to persuade the British people to support UK membership of the EU we have the opportunity to settle this issue for a generation. 'It is an opportunity to move to a fundamentally different approach to our relationship with the EU what some might call live and let live reflecting that those states that wish to integrate further can do so while those of us that don't can be reassured that their interests will be protected.' Talks began at 5.30pm last night in the hope of reaching a deal on Britain's EU negotiations early today. Armies of officials were expected to work all night to thrash out the final details. Mr Cameron faced opposition to his draft deal in five key areas: securing an opt-out for Britain from the EU's commitment to 'ever closer union'; securing rules to protect the City from the eurozone countries; curbing welfare payments to migrants, treaty change and making his changes irreversible by securing treaty change. Belgian sources said Mr Michel, right with David Cameron at a summit last year, had been 'moved' by the PM's gesture last week Two veteran LAPD officers were branded 'a disgrace to the badge' after they were charged with multiple counts of rape. Officer James Nichols, 44, and Officer Luis Valenzuela, 43 are accused of attacking four women over several years. The pair, who were partners, appeared for an arraignment hearing at Folz Criminal Justice Center and remanded in custody to the Men's Central Jail on Bauchet Street. Officer James Nichols, left, and Luis Valenzuela, right, have both been charged with multiple counts of rape Nichols and Valenzuela were remanded in custody to the City Jail following yesterday's arraignment hearing Nichols, who is a veteran of 15 years, was held on a bond of $3,835million. Valenzuela, who has 18 years on the force, had a bond set of $3,765million. The LAPD said they began investigating Nichols and Valenzuela after several women made complaints that they had been assaulted by the pair while they were on duty. According to the LAPD: 'Nichols and Valenzuela were charged with multiple counts each of sexual assaults, including forcible rape, rape under color of authority, oral copulation, oral copulation under color of authority and oral copulation by force. 'Valenzuela was also charged with one count of assault with a firearm. Both officers were previously relieved from duty.' LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said: 'I will say again, any officer that abuses the public's trust is not welcome in the LAPD and we will continue vigorously investigating officers accused of alleged crimes and cooperate fully with the District Attorney's office.' Both Nichols and Valenzuela are facing possible life imprisonment if found guilty on the charges which they strongly deny. The men were assigned to the Hollywood Division. Investigators believe they repeatedly assaulted the women, often while they were on duty. While one officer acted as a lookout in the front seat of a departmental car, a 19-year-old woman working as a drug informant was forced to perform oral sex on his partner in the back seat of their police car, the teenager said in a federal court filing. Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck takes questions from the media at news conference at the LAPD headquarters downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday about two Los Angeles police officers who were arrested 'You have to do what the police tell you to do,' the teenager claimed she was told. Another woman, also working as a drug informant, said Nichols and Valenzuela each forced her to have sex with them twice after threatening her with jail time. Two other women told eerily similar stories. At the time the alleged assaults occurred, the victims were 19, 24, 25 and 34. Most, but not all, of the alleged incidents occurred while the officers were on duty. They could face life in prison if convicted. Attorneys representing the officers in civil litigation filed by the women did not return messages seeking comment Wednesday. Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said at a news conference on Wednesday that both officers have been suspended without pay since 2013. Their employment status is pending an administrative hearing that would follow their criminal case, he said. 'These two officers have disgraced themselves, they disgraced this badge, they disgraced their oaths of office,' Beck said. 'It's a violation of public trust.' A 19-year-old woman working as a drug informant was forced to perform oral sex on one of the officers in the back seat of the cops' police car, the teenager said in a federal court filing He said investigators are actively seeking other potential victims. Prosecutors said the rapes began in December 2008 after Nichols and Valenzuela became partners in the department's Hollywood Division. They were working as narcotics investigators. All four women assaulted had been arrested on drug-related charges at various times by the officers, prosecutors said, and court records show at least two had been recruited by the officers to work as drug informants. Those women have filed civil rights lawsuits against the officers. The Los Angeles City Council settled one case last year after agreeing to pay one woman $575,000, while the other case is still being litigated. A third lawsuit is expected to be filed. Both officers are being held in the Men's Central Jail, pictured, on bonds of almost $4million each Beck said the department's internal affairs bureau began investigating the officers after the first woman complained of being raped 2010. In 2014, the department's elite Robbery Homicide Division took over. Asked why it took so long for the charges to filed against the officers, Beck said the investigation was complicated and involved reluctant witnesses who were difficult to find. Dennis Chang, an attorney who represents two of the women in the case, said the officers took advantage of the women's positions and threatened them with jail time or outing them as informants. 'These women were drug users, they're primarily arrested and in custody, in an extremely vulnerable state,' Chang said. 'They were afraid.' The charges come after former Oklahoma City Police Officer Daniel Holtzclaw was sentenced to 263 years in jail for raping women he targeted while on duty. The 29-year-old cried in court after he was convicted on multiple charges, including first-degree rape, sexual battery, stalking and forcible oral sodomy in December last year. A Palestinian journalist is close to death as he continues his 87-day hunger strike in protest over his detention without charge for 'terror activity' in Israel. Shocking video shows Mohammed al-Qiq writhing in agony in a hospital bed after losing nearly half his body weight. The 33-year-old is reportedly on the verge of organ failure after only consuming tap water and occasionally minerals and vitamins. Scroll down for video Agony: Palestinian journalist Mohammed al-Qiq winces in pain after slowly starving himself to death on an 87-day hunger strike in protest over his detention without charge in Israel for alleged 'terror activity' Emaciated: Shocking video shows al-Qiq gaunt face and sunken eyes after losing nearly half his body weight Close to death: The 33-year-old tenses his brittle arms as he writhes in pain in his hospital bed in Israel 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 rights organisation. Israel's Shin Bet domestic security service says Qiq was detained for 'terror activity' on behalf of the Islamist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. Israel's controversial administrative detention law allows the state to hold suspects without trial for periods of six months renewable indefinitely. The United Nations has expressed concern about his fate, with the International Committee of the Red Cross describing his condition as critical. On Tuesday night, firebrand Arab Israeli Islamic cleric Raed Salah announced that he and others, whom he did not name, were starting an open-ended hunger strike in solidarity with Qiq. 'We call on all who are able to join us immediately,' he said in a statement. 'The prisoner Mohammed al-Qiq is living in the decisive moments between life and death, and we cannot abandon him at such a time.' Fatal protest: Mr al-Qiq has been refusing food since November 25 in protest against the 'torture and ill treatment that he was subjected to during interrogation' by Israeli security services Held without charge: Israel's Shin Bet domestic security service says Qiq was detained for 'terror activity' on behalf of the Islamist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip The Supreme Court officially suspended the internment order against Qiq on February 4. But it refused his demand for transfer to a hospital in the West Bank city of Ramallah, under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction. 'The court refused the request of Mohammed al-Qiq and will leave him in the hospital in Afula,' his lawyer Jawad Boulos said in a statement. On Monday, the court offered a compromise whereby he would be moved to the Palestinian-run Makassed hospital in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem. Afou Agbaria, an Arab Israeli former parliamentarian and physician who visited Qiq in Afula, said he turned down the proposal. 'He refuses to be cared for in Makassed because it is located under Israeli sovereignty and he says he will not be retained in custody,' he told AFP news agency. 'He said, "it's death or freedom, and if Israeli security has something against me, it must bring me to justice, rather than hold me under administrative detention without trial or charge".' A married police officer, 43, from NSW Police (shown) hanged herself after having an affair with a senior officer, an inquest has heard A married policewoman hanged herself after having an affair with a senior officer who was close friends with her husband, an inquest has heard. The mother-of-two, 43, who worked at NSW Police, took her own life in July 2013 following years of work-related depression and post-traumatic stress. The affair with the senior officer, who was a long-standing friend of her husband, was only discovered during an investigation into her death, the Daily Telegraph reported. She also had 'intimate relationships' with two other senior officers who were her direct superiors and sometimes responsible for managing aspects of her mental health treatment in the workplace. The inquest heard that on the day the junior officer died she had been told she would be moved to another police station, the ABC reported. She had a meeting with a police medical officer who found that a previous suicide attempt in 2012 was not genuine and that she did not have PTSD. The woman, who can only be identified as Officer A, left the station in a 'distressed' state and took her own life in a forest after he recommended for her to be transferred. Deputy State Coroner Hugh Dillon said that it was 'almost inevitable' that she would feel slighted, isolated and alienated if the decision to move her was taken. 'That she would react angrily and emotionally was a racing certainty,' he said. He said that in future police medical officers should consult with an officer's own doctor before making such decisions. Mr Dillon also found that she had been upset about her salary being reduced by 25 per cent, without the required notice. The inquest heard that an apology for this mistake was sent to Officer A by email. Officer A's affair with a senior officer caused her husband 'sadness and disappointment', Mr Dillon said. The affair with the NSW Police senior officer, who was a long-standing friend of her husband, was only discovered during a coronial investigation into her death Her family argued that the affair with the senior officer had created a conflict of interest but Mr Dillon rejected this. Mr Dillon said witnessing traumatic events, working long and stressful hours and chronic pain from injuries all contributed to her depression and PTSD. The inquest heard evidence from a psychiatrist who worked with Officer A and observed that affairs within the force were 'very common', more so than in the general population. Mr Dillon called for sweeping changes to ensure officers do not find themselves with a conflict of interests. He also found that more needed to be done to ensure officers were not 'psychologically harmed'. Mr Dillon recommended that the police force change its conflict of interest policies to account for all 'intimate relationships' within the force, not just domestic ones. wash busine honors.jpg From left: Marian Bredin, Monika Hamburger, WBID president, and John Monteverde, WBID executive director. (Photo courtesy | Cathy Miller ) Marian Bredin, as well as several new businesses and Stew's Auto Body, were honored by the Washington Business Improvement District at its annual Business Recognition Meeting held earlier this month. Bredin, owner of Good Impressions Printing & Mailing and the town newsletter, The Messenger, was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award while Stew's Auto Body receive an award for its commitment to the community. Bredin served on the WBID board of directors since its inception in 2003, but was instrumental in the formation of the organization prior to that as well. Bredin, who has held multiple executive board posts over the years, most recently as treasurer, retired from the board at the end of last year. She is a longtime resident and has been a business leader throughout the county having served on various business organizations over the years. Also acknowledged at the reception were four new businesses: ARCANA Toys & Games, Juanito's Mexican Restaurant, RE/MAX, and Prudential Insurance. They accused two men executed in Sinai of spying for the Egyptian army Hundreds have been killed in bombing attacks on government buildings ISIS has reaffirmed its presence in Egypt's embattled Sinai province by posting pictures of its depraved fighters beheading two suspected spies in the tourist hotspot. Propaganda images posted online by the terror group's Egypt branch show two shackled prisoners kneeling before a masked extremist brandishing a sharp dagger. The Foreign Office advises against all travel to north Sinai, where there are 'regular bomb attacks against government buildings and security forces', and all but essential travel to the south - with the exception of the heavily guarded Sharm el Sheikh resort area. Propaganda images posted online by the terror group's Egypt branch show two shackled prisoners (pictured) kneeling before a masked extremist in the country's embattled Sinai Peninsula ISIS claimed one of the unarmed men it executed in Sinai was a 'spy for the military intelligence' services and the other was a 'spy for the army' ISIS claimed one of the unarmed men it executed in Sinai was a 'spy for the military intelligence' services and the other was a 'spy for the army'. The images were authenticated by US monitor, the SITE Intelligence Group. In August, ISIS claimed to have brutally beheaded a Croatian hostage who had been held hostage in the Sinai province since July, after being kidnapped in Cairo. Images thought to show the body of Tomislav Salopek, 30, were shared on the group's depraved social media accounts. One gruesome image appeared to show Mr Salopek's severed head placed on his head. The extremists are in the midst of waging a bloody insurgency which has killed hundreds of soldiers and policeman in the Sinai Peninsula since Mohamed Morsi was overthrown as president in 2013. Only last week, two Egyptian soldiers were killed by an explosion as they tried to defuse a roadside bomb. In August, ISIS claimed to have brutally beheaded Tomislav Salopek, a Croatian hostage who had been held hostage in the Sinai province since July ISIS claimed to have planted the explosion which downed a a Russian passenger jet (pictured) carrying holidaymakers over Sinai last October ISIS also claimed to have planted the explosion which downed a a Russian passenger jet carrying holidaymakers over Sinai last October, killing all 224 people on board. A British firm hired to review security at Egyptian airports after the suspected attack will begin its investigation this weekend, Civil Aviation Minister Hossam Kamal said this week. He said global consultancy firm Control Risks will begin 'assessing security procedures at the Sharm el-Sheikh airport from Sunday'. Michael Soto, 26, who is accused of stealing a Kindle and using it to take pictures alongside his mother A bungling thief who stole a Kindle was caught by police after he accidentally uploaded a selfie of him and his mother to the owner's cloud account. Michael Soto, 26, is accused of taking the tablet computer and smartphone from a unlocked car in the parking lot of a Jack-in-the-Box in Reseda, Los Angeles last Tuesday. However, days later, the Kindle's owner noticed pictures had been added to his cloud account. They included a picture of Soto and his mother, who had apparently visited church on Ash Wednesday because she had a smudge of ash on her forehead. The victim then passed on the pictures to the LAPD, who put out an appeal asking anybody who identified the mother and son to come forward. However, just hours later Soto walked into a police station in west LA with his brother and returned the Kindle, which was then given back to its owner. Police stressed that his mother, who was in the picture, had nothing to do with the theft. Captain Paul Vernon, head of the West Valley Patrol Division, said: 'Sotos mother had no idea the Kindle had been stolen. 'Its only fair that we say that for the sake of her reputation. 'I think there was a bit of family pressure to get Michael to return the stolen items and fess up, if nothing else, to help clear his moms name. 'Michael may have a bigger debt to pay to his mom than to society.' Soto is accused of stealing the Kindle and a smartphone from an unlocked car in the parking lot of a Jack in the Box restaurant in Reseda, pictured Police say they will file a misdemeanor charges with the city attorney and Soto was released pending charges. Since the theft was a misdemeanor, police cannot arrest without a warrant. The cloud is a system that automatically stores users' photos, emails, documents and other information. The mother of San Bernardino victim Robert Adams has backed Apple's fight against a federal court decision ordering the court to hack the phone of ISIS terrorist Syed Farook. Carol Adams, whose 40-year-old son was gunned down during last December's massacre by Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik, has strongly criticized federal authorities for their actions. She claimed America's constitutional right to privacy is one of the things that makes the nation 'great' and would weaken the Constitution. Scroll down for video The mother of San Bernardino victim Robert Adams, pictured left with his wife Summer, defended Apple's decision to fight a federal court ruling ordering the company to hack terrorist Syed Farook's mobile phone Farook, right, pictured with his wife Tashfeen Malik, murdered 14 people, including Adams in San Bernardino in December. Federal authorities want technical assistance to access Farook's iPhone 5c Apple CEO Tim Cook is opposed to creating 'a backdoor' into the iPhone's operating system for the FBI She told the NY Post: 'This is what separates us from communism, isnt it? The fact we have the right to privacy, I think Apple is definitely within their rights to protect the privacy of all Americans. 'This is what makes America great to begin with, that we abide by a constitution that gives us the right of privacy, the right to bear arms, and the right to vote.' Apple has criticized the decision by US magistrate Sheri Pym which ordered the company to provide 'reasonable technical experience' to access the phone. In a briefing for the court Apple said: For these devices, Apple has the technical ability to extract certain categories of unencrypted data from a passcode locked iOS device. Apple said that it did not want to do so because forcing Apple to extract dataabsent clear legal authority to do so, could threaten the trust between Apple and its customers and substantially tarnish the Apple brand. It said: This reputational harm could have a longer term economic impact beyond the mere cost of performing the single extraction at issue. Farook's iPhone 5c is protected by a four-digit code, which if is entered incorrectly ten times, will prompt the handset to delete all of the data. Privacy campaigners fear that if Apple produces the software to bypass the phone's in-built security systems, this could have a profound impact on users of the technology in countries such as China, pictured The FBI wants Apple to develop software to bypass this safety feature. They also want a second piece of software to allow them to try thousands of code combinations in a minute to reduce the length of time it would take to 'guess' the correct code. In a letter to Apple customers, Cook said: 'Smartphones, led by iPhone, have become an essential part of our lives. 'People use them to store an incredible amount of personal information, from our private conversations to our photos, our music, our notes, our calendars and contacts, our financial information and health data, even where we have been and where we are going.' Cook accused the FBI of wanting the company to create a 'backdoor into the iPhone'. Ajay Arora, CEO of tech encryption firm Vera said the FBI's request is technically feasible, but very concerning. He said: 'Imagine if that got into the wrong hands. What they're asking for is a God key - and once you get that, there's no going back.' Apple has five days to challenge the order which will lead to a major legal confrontation between federal authorities and the federal government. Ryan Calo, law professor at the University of Washington claimed: 'This is really a deep question about the power of government to redesign products that we use.' Phil Lee, Fieldfisher Privacy and Protection Partner based in Silicon Valley, said: 'Judged alone, you might think "Of course Apple should give the FBI this data". But Apple's point is that building in security back doors to their products comes at the expense of everyone's privacy - and that's a principle they're not prepared to concede. 'Silicon Valley companies have taken a public beating over recent years for not doing enough to protect their users' data. Young Roma criminals wearing Mickey Mouse ears were part of a vast criminal operation at Disneyland Paris earning them more than 6,000 a day, police revealed today. Gangs of teenage pickpockets and aggressive beggars supported by adult minders targeted the vast theme park, which is hugely popular with British tourists. Many of the criminals were arrested this week when French and Romanian police swooped on the ringleaders, who stole cash and property worth more than 1million a year. Gangs of teenage pickpockets and aggressive beggars supported by adult minders have been targeting the Disneyland Paris, which is hugely popular with British tourists (file picture) The ringleaders now face up to 30 years in prison for theft in organised gangs, aggravated money laundering, human trafficking, direct incitement of minors to commit crimes, and neglect of minors under 15. Lieutenant-Colonel Francois Despres, of the OCDLI, an agency that focuses on crimes carried out by homeless teenage delinquents, said many of those arrested lived in Roma squatter camps around Paris. Little by little, through observation and surveillance and thanks to important assistance from Romania, we worked out (what they were doing), he said. More than 12 investigators, including Romanian speakers, were involved in breaking up the network which was organised on a family and clan kinship basis. Some 1,000 thefts took place over a single six-month period, with money, phones and jewellery stolen. The investigation started a year ago, following numerous complaints about pickpocketing by Romanians and ethnic Roma outside Disneyland, which attracted 15 million visitors in 2015. Mr Depres added: The investigation is not over. Now we have to find out where the money went. Police commissioner Jerome Georges said the child pickpockets posed as tourists, wearing Mickey Mouse ears. They acted in small groups, with one creating a distraction while the others stole. Young Roma criminals found to be wearing Mickey Mouse ears were part of the vast criminal operation at Disneyland Paris earning them more than 6,000 a day (file picture) Simultaneous raids involving helicopters and sniffer dogs took place on Roma camps in Paris and Craiova, in southern Romania, on February. Seventeen people were arrested in all, and more than 20,000 pounds in cash was seized, along with designer watches and phones. One of the couples apprehended in the French capital was accused of sending youngsters to Disneyland to steal outside the entrance to the park. Among those initially taken to police stations were two minors, while three children aged under 13 were placed in foster homes. Prosecutor Dominique Laurens said many of those arrested were well known to police. He said they had been stopped in other parts of Paris in the past, but were frequently let go because they had no papers, and made it clear they could not speak French. They would give false names, lied about their age and refused to be fingerprinted or submit to bone scans that could determine their age. Those arrested in Romania are set to be extradited to France as soon as possible, said Alexandre Ionescu, of the Romanian embassy in Paris. He added he was well aware of Romanias image as an exporter of criminals to other parts of Europe. A police source told AFP that many of the Romanians involved had been arrested more than 12 times. You hear pathetic stories, but you can't go soft, said the source. A one-time bikini model and her ex-husband have escaped jail time over their short-lived and unprofitable foray into Queensland's drug dealing scene. Renee Ellen Codrington and her former partner, Jai Clinton King, fronted the Brisbane Supreme Court on Friday charged with drug trafficking and other drug-related offences. But despite Justice Debra Mullins admitting she had anticipated putting them behind bars, the pair were sentenced to terms of three years and nine months, wholly suspended. Renee Ellen Codrington has escaped jail time overan unprofitable operation of supplying meth at music festivals When police raided her rented home in 2013 they found drugs containing almost 2.6 grams of pure meth The pair were tracked down through their dealers after a 14-month police operation called Kilo Hyperdrive which targeted drug networks on the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane. The court heard Ms Codrington and Mr King were both unemployed when they trafficked methamphetamines between August and October 2013, as well as supplying it at the SPRUNG hip hop festival in September that year. On the day of the festival Mr King packaged the drugs that were sold to punters by Ms Codrington, reports Courier Mail. Crown Prosecutor Shauna Rankin agreed with Justice Mullins' assessment of the operation as low-level street dealing, citing a total of illicit substances in question as between two and three ounces over the relevant period. The court also heard Ms Codrington, a former bikini model and well-referenced car detailer, had suffered a 'significant addiction to drugs' and been treated for depression. The court also heard she had attended an alcohol and drug service to treat her addiction. She pleaded guilty to running the failed drug trafficking operation with her ex husband Jai Clinton King A court also heard Ms Codrington had suffered a 'significant addiction to drugs' and been treated for depression The 33-year-old met her former husband at her dealer's house but had a whirlwind romance, according to her lawyer, and have since separated. When police raided her rented home near Forest Lake in October 2013 they found drugs containing almost 2.6 grams of pure methylamphetamines. For his part, the court heard King had a 'violent disposition', tended towards big-noting himself and would use threats and physical attacks to carry out his drug-related activities. Ms Codrington and her former partner, Jai Clinton King, escaped jail in the Brisbane Supreme Court on Friday 'The enterprise does not seem to have been very profitable,' Justice Mullins observed. Ms Codrington wept and dabbed her eyes with tissues as the sentence was handed down, while King appeared calm at the opposite end of the dock. Two members of an Iranian heavy metal band could be executed for blasphemy after they were arrested by the state's religious guard and accused of writing 'satanic' music. Nikan Siyanor Khosravi, 23, and Khosravi Arash Ilkhani, 21, the core members of the band Confess, are believed to have been arrested and jailed on November 10. Held in Tehran's notorious Evin prison by the Revolutionary Guards until February 5, the pair wrote and released their own heavy metal albums and ran a record label. Two of the three members of Iranian heavy metal band Confess (pictured on the left and right) may be executed after being arrested in the capital Tehran and accused of blasphemy Nikan Siyanor Khosravi (pictured right) and Khosravi Arash Ilkhani (left) were arrested on November 10 The pair were jailed in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison for several months, it has been claimed Their latest album, released in October, included tracks named 'Teh-Hell-Ran' and 'I'm Your God Now', both of which would likely rankle with the state's hardline Islamic leadership. Tara Sepehri Far, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, told MailOnline the pair likely faced up to five years in prison. She said it was likely they would be facing 'insulting sacred beliefs' charges, as other musicians had been in the past, rather than 'insulting the prophet', which is punishable by death. She added: 'Iranian musicians, especially the ones who play non-classical western music, are navigating a minefield. 'Due to severe censorship, most of these groups are performing underground. 'Anything from the content of their lyrics to the style of the music they play might violate unwritten regulations that musicians are expected to adhere to by various authorities.' Despite massive pressure from the international community and human rights groups, Iran carries out hundreds of public executions every year. Social media accounts of those close to the band expressed concern about the pair's plight, and included messages of support and the sharing of the #freeconfess hashtag. Trev McKendry, the chief executive of heavy metal website Metal Nation Radio, cited a message he received from a friend of the pair. This stated the two were accused of forming and running an illegal band in the 'satanic' heavy metal genre, writing anti-religion lyrics and being interviewed by forbidden foreign radio stations. The source wrote: 'The current situation of the guys is that they are working with their lawyers and waiting for their trial and announce [sic] of their judgment dates.' If found guilty of blasphemy, the source added, the pair could face execution. Khosravi (left), 23, and Khosravi Arash Ilkhani (right), 21, are accused of playing in the 'satanic' heavy metal genre, it is claimed Iran's Revolutionary Guard, officially called the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, is a branch of the state's military that enforces its strict Islamic code. The group is notorious for its repression of artists and musicians and is used to guard the country's leadership from internal dissent. The pair's arrest also corresponds to one of the guard's largest internal crackdowns in the past five years. In November more than 170 people were arrested by the unit's intelligence wing, including five journalists from Tehran, though it was not clear if the members of Confess were among them. Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, described the arrests as 'abductions, because the judiciary says they know nothing about at least 170 of them'. Coroner recorded misadventure verdict saying he had 'too many of the tablets together' Experts said another pain relief tablet could have led to Serotonin Syndrome Tyron Khoury, 40 (pictured) died in his sleep from an accidental overdose of prescription pills after he was given six different types of medication A father died in his sleep from an accidental overdose of prescription pills after he was given six different types of medication. Tyron Khoury, 40, was taking a variety of medication for anxiety, depression and an injured shoulder. Despite taking the correctly instructed dose of each, Mr Khoury died suddenly at his home in Stockport, Greater Manchester, in September while he was watching TV with his wife and his daughter. After his death, a mixture of relief, antidepressants and beta-blockers were found in his system. It later emerged that Mr Khoury's daily dosage of the anti-depressant Amitriptyline exceeded the recommended amount. Experts also said one of his medications Tramadol, prescribed to him four days before he died, could have caused the life-threatening Serotonin Syndrome, which is when the body has produced too much of the chemical in a person's body. At an inquest into his death, the coroner said Mr Khoury died after having 'too many of the tablets together'. Mr Khoury was also taking Codeine, Propranolol, Citalopram and Quetiapine. During the hearing in Stockport, the hearing was told how Mr Khoury had been first diagnosed with anxiety in 2005, while he and his wife Laurina, now 39, were living in Johannesburg, South Africa. The following year, the couple moved to the UK and Mr Khoury was referred to the mental health team at Stepping Hill Hospital. Mrs Khoury, an IT worker, told the inquest that she always feared he was taking too much medication. But she added: 'I didn't know what he was taking because as far as I was concerned they were being managed. 'He took his medication as they were prescribed and he made sure he had enough to cover him. 'There was one tablet that was for when he felt particularly anxious, he would take it at bed time. There was occasion where he took that. 'If he needed something he would take it because he would rather take the medication then struggle without.' Despite taking the correctly instructed dose of each, Mr Khoury died suddenly at his home in Stockport in September while he was watching TV with his wife Laurina (pictured on their wedding day) and daughter At an inquest into his death, the coroner said Mr Khoury (left and right) died after having 'too many of the tablets together'. Mr Khoury was also taking Codeine, Propranolol, Citalopram and Quetiapine Mrs Khoury told the hearing her husband had been diagnosed with anxiety disorder in South Africa after he became socially anxious. After their moved to the UK, he continued to suffer with anxiety and also went on to injure his shoulder, escalating the condition. 'He eventually had to give up work,' she said. 'When he injured his shoulder, it made things a little bit worse. I always thought he was on too much medication. 'He had been to the doctors and was waiting to see a pain control therapist.' The inquest heard how, on the day he died, Mr Khoury took his children to school, made dinner, picked his daughters up and then had an evening meal with his family. Mrs Khoury was upstairs, watching TV in bed, with their oldest daughter when Mr Khoury came in, lay down and fell asleep. But Mrs Khoury began to panic when he seemed to stopped breathing. The inquest heard how, on the day he died, Mr Khoury took his children to school, made dinner, picked his daughters up and then had an evening meal with his family (with whom he is pictured) 'After a while he stopped snoring and that caused me concern. It was my daughter that noticed it,' she said. 'I tried to wake him up because I couldn't hear it at all. That was when I noticed he wasn't moving and my daughter called the ambulance. 'During the day he didn't appear drowsy or confused or anything other than normal. We made plans for the next day about what we were going to do and where we were going to go.' Nurse practitioner Debra Hampton-Greenhalgh said she first met Mr Khoury in 2011. She said his low moods gradually became worse but that, by March 2015, his condition appeared to be improving. It's a combination of the medication themselves that have led to his difficulties. I think he had just taken too many of the tablets together Coroner Joanne Kearsley 'He was engaging well and appeared more confident in himself and he could identify what was making him anxious,' she told the hearing. 'I saw him on September 4 and his presentation was similar. I had no concerns at all and had no concerns that he was taking additional medication. 'I wasn't concerned he was taking too much because usually people will come in asking for extra prescriptions.' Toxicologist Julie Evans, who carried out tests on Mr Khoury's bloodstream, said four of the quantities of medication did not appear to be excessive. She said his Quetiapine prescription was 'quite high' but that the amount would not normally lead to death. Referring to the anti-depressant Amitriptyline, she said he was taking more than the expected dose. She also raised concern about Tramadol in relation to possible Serotonin Syndrome, even though he had taken the correct amount. She added: 'There have been reports that within a few days of Tramadol being brought in, there can be a serotonin syndrome which can have an adverse affect on the heart. 'There was nothing to say that he had taken in excess of the medication.' Recording a conclusion of misadventure, coroner Joanne Kearsley said: 'There is no evidence that your husband intentionally taken in excess of his medication. 'I don't think this was an intentional overdose of his medication or intention to take a number of them together. 'What we do know is from the tests he did have his prescription medication in his system. I accept that on the balance, it's a combination of the medication themselves that have led to his difficulties. The terrorist who plotted the Tunisian beach massacre that claimed the lives of 30 Britons was last night believed to have been killed in an air strike. Noureddine Chouchane, 36, was said to have been among up to 40 militants targeted in an attack on an Islamic State training camp in Libya by US jets launched from Britain. Defence Secretary Michael Fallon personally gave the go ahead for the US F-15 Strike Eagle jets to fly from RAF Lakenheath, in Suffolk, to carry out the bombing mission. Scroll down for video Mastermind: Noureddine Chouchane (left), the senior ISIS militant believed to be behind two terror attacks in Tunisia last year, was 'likely' killed in a U.S. air strike (right) on a terror training camp in Libya, officials said Flattened: Pictures posted on Twitter purportedly show the aftermath of U.S. air strikes which reportedly killed 40 people after targeting a building in Libya where suspected ISIS militants had gathered for a meeting The city's mayor, Hussein al-Thwadi, claimed the attacks had been carried out by Washington Last night he welcomed news of the strike and maintained the destruction of such training camps made us all safer. The Pentagon said they were still assessing whether Chouchane, a Tunisian national, was among the dead. Local reports suggested up to 40 IS recruits were killed in the farmhouse when it was bombed in the early hours of Friday morning. A warrant had been issued for Chouchanes arrest after he was named as a suspect linked to the Bardo National Museum atrocity, in the Tunisian capital, Tunis, in March last year, when gunmen opened fire killing 22 European tourists, including one Briton. But he managed to slip over the border into Libya and orchestrated the second, more deadly massacre at a beach hotel, in Sousse, killing 38 people, including 30 Britons, three months later. Following the atrocity, Britain and the US stepped up reconnaissance and special forces operations on the ground in Libya widely assumed to be the training ground for Tunisian IS recruits - after Islamic State exploited the chaotic situation in the civil war torn country following setbacks in Syria and Iraq. A crater in the ground shows the site where the U.S. warplanes struck - believed to have killed more than 40 people A note with the names of Islamic State members written on it was found among the damage after the airstrike A Western official said U.S. jets targeted a senior ISIS militant linked to two terror attacks in Tunisia last year Sabratha is near the Tunisian border, and it is also one of the areas where Western officials say ISIS had some presence as part of their expansion in the North African state The planes struck at 3.30am (1.30am GMT), hitting a building in the western city of Sabratha, around 40 miles west of Tripoli near the border with Tunisia Jim Windass, whose civil servant wife, Claire, 54, was shot and killed in the beach massacre said it was good Chouchane had been killed. We are at war with these people, its not just one crazy gunman, its a whole society we are fighting against, Mr Windass, 66, of Hull, East Yorkshire, said. Its a bloody awful thing to have happened, to sit next to your wife and watch her shot through the head. It was the most unsuspecting place, sat on a beach in your swim wear on holiday, its the last place you expect anything to happen like it did, but there is nothing I can do about it. Ive got to be pragmatic about it, otherwise I would end up in the loony bin. Mr Windass said he was pleased that the British and American governments were committed to eliminating Islamic State, adding: The sooner we get rid of Isis the better. Im pleased the Government is committed to rooting out these terrorists. A wounded man lies in a hospital after U.S. warplanes struck an Islamic State training camp in Sabratha, Libya near the Tunisian border The airstrikes come hours after the Obama administration reportedly planned to veto a proposal to bomb ISIS targets in Libya (pictured, two men injured in the airstrikes) The Sabratha site that was bombed by American warplanes was littered with rubble and destroyed buildings A casualty who was injured after the U.S. airstrike against Islamic State, pictured in a hospital in Sabratha, Libya Cars and the fronts of homes were decimated after the airstrike by US warplanes against ISIS in Sabratha, Libya Its not just holiday destinations, look what happened in Paris, but Im not sure what the answer is. These people are indoctrinated, they are being given food, a home by Isis, they are doing what they believe is right. The American jets struck at dawn on Friday morning, hitting the farmhouse in the coastal city of Sabratha, around 42 miles west of Tripoli, near the border with Tunisia. Local reports and photographs showed pulverised buildings at a compound close to al-Ajaylat and suggested medium-calibre weapons, including machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades had been found in the rubble. In a statement Mr Fallon confirmed he had personally authorised the use of RAF Lakenheath while travelling back from the Falklands via Ascension Island on Thursday. He said: I welcome this strike that has taken out a Daesh (Islamic State) training camp being used to train terrorists to carry out attacks. Noureddine Chouchane is believed to behind the masacre at a beach resort in Sousse, Tunisia, in which 38 people died including 30 Britons A CCTV image of the two gunmen who attacked Tunisia's National Bardo Museum last year, killing 22 people I was satisfied that its destruction makes us all safer and I personally authorised the use of our bases. Earlier this month UK foreign office minister Tobias Ellwood confirmed that RAF war planes have already been involved in flying missions over Libya but gave no further details. He said the UK was prepared to provide advice, support and training to the Libyan military if political agreement could be reached on the formation of a new government of national unity. But he said there were no plans to commit British troops directly against Islamic State. A spokesman for the Pentagon said confirmation that Chouchane had been killed in the air strike would eliminate an experienced facilitator and would have immediate repercussions for Islamic States ability to recruit new members or plan external attacks from Libya. Political progress towards democracy in Tunisia, which relies on tourism for its economy, was derailed following the attacks last year. Around 7,000 Tunisians are thought to have joined Isis making them the largest foreign nationality in the so-called caliphate, according to the US Congress. Earlier this week President Barack Obama warned the US was prepared to go after Isis wherever it appears if they had a clear operation and a clear target in mind. But he also reiterated that they were committed to working with the United Nations to help get a government in place in Libya. A rehomed child from Poland, Kostja Pablowitsch Harelek is pictured being inspected by SS chief Heinrich Himmler A moving exhibition has opened in Germany chronicling the fate of 300,000 children stolen by the Nazis to become 'Aryan' citizens of the Third Reich. They were snatched from eastern lands conquered by Hitler and sent back to the heart of Germany after inspection by Nazi genetics specialists if they were deemed racially pure enough to become part of the master race. One of the children whose story is told in the exhibition which open this weekend in Cologne is that of Kostja Pablowitsch Harelek who is pictured next to the mastermind of the kidnap programme - S.S. chief Heinrich Himmler. Himmler's racial quacks ultimately decided which children would be allowed to be shipped back to Germany to be adopted by Germans and brought up accordingly. The bulk of the children were stolen in Russia and Poland. While both countries were branded racially inferior by Hitler, the reality was that Germany needed as many children as it could get as the war ground on and losses mounted. Kostja was chosen by Himmler to be a 'viable German lad' when he met him at a transit camp in Minsk, Belarus, in 1941. He was to be sent back to Germany and renamed Konstantin Gerelik. The photo of him in his tattered flat cap next to the supreme overlord of life and death in Nazi Germany is to be seen at the exhibition entitled 'Stolen Children, Forgotten Victims.' Kostja vanished in the closing days of the war. Even now hundreds of survivors trawl archives and root through geneological maps in a bid to find out who they once were. Photos, documents, and statements from children and young people who were deported to Germany and forcibly 'Germanized' form the backbone of the exhibition. A major player in this vast kidnap enterprise were the Lebensborn - Font of Life - homes run by Himmler where unmarried pregnant German women were allowed to have their babies to be adopted by fanatical Nazi families. And the curators point out that German post-war authorities did little to find out the true identity of the victims when the war was over. Many went to their graves unaware that their true parents were either alive or in Nazi mass graves. Behind the programme stood the rigid racial ideology of the Nazis: the abduction of children from Eastern Europe was justified with their alleged 'non-Slavic origin of blood'. Hermann Ludeking (pictured left and right) was taken from his home in Poland and knows nothing about his cultural roots or who his parents were Himmler first outlined his dastardly plan in 1938 when he said; 'Obviously in such a mixture of peoples, there will always be some racially good types. Therefore, I think that it is our duty to take their children with us, to remove them from their environment, if necessary by robbing, or stealing them. 'Either we win over any good blood that we can use for ourselves and give it a place in our people, or we destroy that blood. I really have the intention to pick up Germanic blood all over the world, to rob and steal, where I can'. He was true to his word. Once children passed the bogus physical checks - usually it amounted to whether the inspecting physician thought a child looked Germanic enough and wasn't Jewish - he or she had their pasts erased by Nazi bureaucrats who placed them with families loyal to the party. Folker Heinecke - or Aleksander Litau? This boy was stolen from the Crimea after Nazi officials saw he had blue eyes and blonde hair Pictured left, Hans-Ullrich Wesch in the arms of a nurse at a Lebensborn home. Right, Zyta Suse was another of the children stolen from eastern Germany because of their 'pure Aryan' appearance 'The children are to called German orphans from the recovered eastern territories' - such was Himmler's command. They received a German name that corresponded to their birth name, a fake birth certificate and handed over to their new parents. Many of those affected still don't know who their biological parents were. The German Johanna Kunzer was actually Janina Kunsztowicz from Poznan and she learned of her true identity only decades later in 1990. Now aged 80, Janina was taken in 1941, housed in a Lebensborn orphanage until 1944 and then adopted by a retired teacher who kept her true identity a secret. Only a few children ever returned to their home countries. Roman Roszatowski odz in Poland still lives in Germany as Hermann Ludeking. His story is also in the exhibition where he asks: 'Who am I? How did I get here?' Not all children were pliable: Zyta Suse, seven, snatched also from an orphanage in Lodz in 1941, was so opposed to her Germanization that she had to be deported to a forced labour camp back in Poland. Her fate is unknown. Also warned there is heightened threat of kidnapping and criminality there Foreign Office said 'high threat of terrorism' on islands east of Sabah state The Foreign Office has raised the terror alert for a popular British tourist hotspot in Malaysia from general to 'high'. It now advises against all but essential travel to the idyllic coastal towns and islands off Sabah state, north east Malaysia. On its website, the FCO said there was 'a high threat from terrorism' there and added that attacks on places visited by foreigners 'could be indiscriminate'. The warning includes, but is not limited to, the coastal towns and islands of Lankayan, Mabul, Pom Pom, Kapalai, Litigan, Sipadan and Mataking. The Foreign Office raised the threat level for the idyllic islands off the coast of the eastern Sabah state (file photo of Kudat) from general to high The FCO added: 'There is a threat to foreigners of kidnapping and criminality on the eastern coast of Sabah and in particular the islands close to the Sulu Archipelago in the southern Philippines.' More than 400,000 Britons visit Malaysia every year. Two Malaysian nationals were abducted in the coastal town of Sandakan in May, and one of them was eventually murdered. Malaysia has ramped up security in the resort towns in response to several kidnapping incidents, it has been reported. Last month, the Malaysian police said the country was on the country's highest ever security alert. Its counter terrorism officers have warned that ISIS was brainwashing young children to become its next generation of terrorists, either abroad or when they return home. Thousands from Far East countries such as Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia have joined the terror group on the battlefield in the Middle East. The warning includes, but is not limited to, the coastal towns and islands of Lankayan, Mabul, Pom Pom, Kapalai, Litigan, Sipadan and Mataking ISIS has shared propaganda videos showing young Malaysian children training with weapons in Syria It has shared propaganda videos showing young Malaysian children training with weapons in Syria. More than 100 have left Malaysia for Syria and Iraq to join ISIS. The majority of those who left for the Middle East are still thought to be there, but a small number of militants are known to have returned to Malaysia. These returnees are thought to be playing 'an increasingly active role in encouraging heightened militancy in the country', terror experts have said. As many as 30 were arrested for their links to ISIS in April and May 2014 alone. In April, Malaysian police foiled a deadly bomb attack in its capital Kuala Lumpur by arresting 12 people linked to the extremist group. Among the explosive materials they seized were 20kg of ammonium nitrate, 20kg of potassium nitrate and two litres of kerosene, two remote controls, batteries and two remote controls. In recent weeks, a 16-year old boy dressed in ISIS style outfit held a woman at knifepoint in the north of Malaysia. Several other deadly that were foiled by the authorities last year have still raised concerns of lone wolf attacks. Thousands from Far East countries such as Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia have joined ISIS on the battlefield in the Middle East (pictured, a pro ISIS rally in Indonesia) Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak used his New Year's address to warn the threat 'must be taken seriously'. He said: 'We will not wait for a terrorist outrage to take place before proactively putting in place all measures necessary to avert the possibility. John Hanger.jpg John Hanger (*This story has been updated to accurately reflect Secretary Hanger's public remarks about Republicans) In a building full of sharp elbows, John Hanger possessed some of the sharpest. But you wouldn't know it to look at him. Wonkish to a fault, the Wolf administration's Policy Czar could come off as a tad rumpled and academic in person. But if you spent more than a couple of minutes in conversation with Hanger, it wouldn't take long for the gloves to come off. *And they'd come off hard - especially when it came to Republicans, whom he accused of "[misrepresenting]" the administration's priorities during budget talks last fall. In a Dec. 28 memo, Hanger dismissed a GOP-approved stopgap plan intended to get cash to schools and nonprofits as part of a trend of"fiscally irresponsible" spending documents that have "led to massive structural deficits and multiple credit downgrades." The feeling was mutual. Republicans despised Hanger and complained that his corrosive rhetoric was one of the biggest obstacles to getting a deal on Pennsylvania's long-delayed state budget. They blamed him for any number of offenses -- up to and including the ouster of a state senator's husband, months shy of retirement, from his post at the state Department of Community and Economic Development. And now he's gone. On Friday, the administration said Hanger was stepping down so he could join his wife and daughter in Massachusetts. Hanger's wife, Luanne E. Thorndyke, is the vice-provost for faculty affairs at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. In a statement, Hanger said "commuting regularly to and from Massachusetts and doing my demanding job has become impossible. At this point, it is important to place first my wife of 36 years and my remarkable daughter who have supported me in my work." Hanger's departure, which comes more than eight months after the resignation of ex-Chief of Staff Katie McGinty, spells the official end of Wolf's "Team of Rivals" era. Both Hanger and McGinty challenged Wolf for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2014. And both were viewed as far more ideological than Wolf, who had run as an outsider vowing to change the tone in Harrisburg. But for much of Wolf's first year in office that new tone sounded an awful lot like the old one. McGinty, for instance, was seen as the force behind the controversial firing of Office of Open Records boss Erik Arneson (who was later reinstated after a lengthy court fight). Hanger was a forceful advocate of a severance tax on natural gas drillers, arguing it was long past due, since the Republican Corbett administration was widely seen as "in bed with the Marcellus Shale industry." So with the two gone, it's tempting to ask whether that new tone Wolf pledged to set back in those faraway days of January 2015 might now finally get its day. Republicans were guarded - and not without reason. The same hopes were voiced - and dashed - when veteran Capitol hand Mary Isenhour replaced McGinty as Wolf's chief of staff last year. Jennifer Kocher, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, said Senate Republicans are "cautiously optimistic that this is [a sign of] a kinder, gentler Wolf administration. "Maybe with Secretary Hanger being gone ... this will be a key toward making progress in [budget] negotiations." Steve Miskin, a spokesman for House Republicans, wasn't nearly so optimistic. "He's just one of the vitriolic personalities there," Miskin said. "Only time will tell if it changes the tone and tenor of this administration." Sheridan meanwhile, says it's still up to Republicans to meet Wolf halfway. "If they're expecting the governor to stop telling the truth, they're wrong," he said. "We still have a deficit and we still have underfunded schools. And he's not going to stop talking about that." So the more things change ... right? Asylum-seekers from Morocco will not be welcomed in Germany's most populous state, following official reports that identified migrants from the country among suspects in to the wave of sexual attacks and robbery in Cologne. North Rhine-Westphalia's interior minister, Ralf Jager, said federal authorities have agreed not to send any more Moroccans to refugee centres in the state. He added that the rate of arrival of people from the Mahreb region has grown significantly, but many of these migrants 'do not qualify as asylum-seekers and thus, do not receive asylum status'. Scroll down for video North Rhine-Westphalia's interior minister, Ralf Jager, said federal authorities have agreed not to send any more Moroccans to refugee centres in the state Asylum-seekers from Morocco featured in a string of sexual assaults and thefts at New Year in Cologne Police are currently investigating 73 people in connection to sexual assaults, theft and other crimes committed on New Year's Eve in Cologne 'Immigrants from the North African region appear disproportionately as offenders,' Ralf Jager, the state interior minister, said. 'Frequently the suspects are young men travelling alone.' According to provincial data, 6,444 Moroccans and 6,790 Algerians sought asylum in North-Rhine Westphalia in 2015, representing a 300 percent increase from 2014. An astonishing 80 per cent of Moroccan migrants are located in the state, mainly in the two main cities of Cologne and Dusseldorf. But they have little chance of being granted asylum in Germany, as they are not fleeing from war or conflict in their homeland. Last month, more than 200 asylum-seekers sued the provincial government for taking too long to process their applications. Some of the plaintiffs had been waiting for over a year, The Local reported. Police are currently investigating 73 people in connection to sexual assaults, theft and other crimes committed on New Year's Eve in Cologne. Many of the suspects were people who had arrived in Germany in the past year. 'The overwhelming majority of persons fall into the general category of refugees,' Prosecutor Ulrich Bremer said. He added that some reports describing only three of the suspects as refugees were 'total nonsense.' Authorities in Cologne have been accused of downplaying the fact that the attackers included many asylum-seekers because of the political sensitivity of the issue. The suspects included 30 Moroccan nationals, 27 Algerians, four Iraqis, three Germans, three Syrians, three Tunisians, and one each from Libya, Iran and Montenegro, Bremer said. 'They have various legal statuses, including illegal entry, asylum-seekers and asylum applicants,' he said of the foreign suspects. 'That covers the overwhelming majority of suspects.' Following the outrage over Cologne, Germany is looking to limit migration from North Africa by labelling Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia 'safe countries', cutting their chance of being granted asylum to virtually zero. The ad comes two days after Freeman was spotted eating dinner with President Obama and Tom Hanks in Morgan Freeman's voice is perhaps the most recognizable in America , and that voice is now telling you to vote for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries. The actor, who has played the president twice on the silver screen, voices a new Clinton campaign ad that debuted Friday on MSNBC's Morning Joe. The ad starts with a picture of Clinton as first lady on the screen, with Freeman saying 'Her life's work has been about breaking barriers and so would her presidency'. The voice of God speaks: Morgan Freeman voices a new ad for Hillary Clinton. Freeman has played the president twice on film, including in 1998's Deep Impact (above). He has also played the role of God twice The ad continues as a slideshow of black and white pictures of Hillary on the campaign trail meeting factory workers, smiling at babies and hugging voters. Freeman's voice continues: 'Which is why for every American who is not being paid what they're worth, who's held back by student debt or a system tilted against them - and there are far too many of you - she understands that our country can't reach its potential unless we all do.' 'Together. A stronger country,' the ad finishes. Life's work: The new ad starts with a picture of Clinton during her days as first lady, with Freeman saying 'Her life's work has been about breaking barriers and so would her presidency' 'Which is why for every American who is not being paid what they're worth, who's held back by student debt or a system titled against them - and there are far too many of you - she understands that our country can't reach its potential unless we all do,' Freeman continues, as more pictures of Hillary embracing supporters play The future: A photo of a young black girl holding up a sign reading 'Educators for Hillary' appears on the screen Race: The ad appears to be Clinton's latest pitch to black voters. As the race heads south to South Carolina, Clinton and rival Bernie Sanders have been touting their civil rights credentials to win over black voters The ad appears to be Clinton's latest pitch to black voters, using arguably the most famous African American actor narrating a series of pictures of supporters - most of them black. As Freeman says the words 'and there are far too many of you,' a young black girl holding up a sign reading 'educators for Hillary' appears on the screen. With the race heading south to South Carolina, the polls have been narrowing between Clinton and rival Bernie Sanders, with both fighting over the black vote by touting their civil rights credentials. Clinton scored a victory in that fight on Friday, when Rep Jim Clyburn, a Democratic representative from South Carolina and influential black leader, officially endorsed Clinton. South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn officially endorsed Hillary Clinton for president on Friday The advertisement was paid for by Clinton's campaign, and she endorses it at the beginning. Freeman, a noted Democrat, endorsed President Obama in the 2008 election in which Clinton ran against the then-senator from Illinois. However, at the time, Freeman said he would not campaign for the candidate. Just two days ago, Freeman was seen having dinner with the president and fellow actor Tom Hanks in Washington, DC. Freeman has played the president two times in the films Deep Impact and Olympus Has Fallen. He is also known for playing God in films, portraying the man upstairs in Bruce Almighty and follow-up Evan Almighty. Turkish forces have been accused of letting 150 Kurds trapped in basements burn to death, while the country has responded to this week's deadly bombing in Ankara with increased shelling in Syria. Kurdish MP Feleknas Uca claimed burned bodies were found also found without heads in the district of Cizre, which has been under Turkish siege for several months. She did not specify when the alleged atrocities took place, though her comments come as the military responds with brutal force to this week's bombings at the hands of Kurdish separatists. Today the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks - a militant group once linked to the outlawed PKK - claimed responsibility for Wednesday's bomb attack. A Kurdish MP has claimed the Kurds died when they were burned alive inside buildings in Cizre (pictured) She accused the Turkish forces of allowing 150 people to be burned inside the basements The district has been shelled for months as Turkey cracks down on Kurdish separatists Firefighters work at the explosion scene in Ankara on Wednesday, believed to have been caused by a suicide car bomber operating with Kurdish separatists The blast, which occurred close to the country's parliament, killed 28 people and wounded dozens more A bus smoulders at the site of the deadly bombing, the second to occur in Turkey in the past few months On Wednesday, a car bomb detonated in the capital of Ankara, causing a blast and inferno that killed 28 people. This was followed yesterday by a remote controlled explosion in the country's far southeast which struck a military convoy, killing another seven. The Turkish leadership swiftly condemned the attacks and immediately blamed them on Kurdish separatists operating in Syria, who it says are linked to the outlawed PKK. Ms Uca, a Kurdish MP in Turkey, told Sputnik: 'In Cizre district of Sirnak, around 150 people have been burned alive in different buildings by Turkish military forces. 'Some corpses were found without heads. Some were burned completely, so that autopsy is not possible.' The region, located near where the borders of Turkey, Syria and Iraq meet, has been subjected to curfews and blockades for several months as Ankara attempts to stamp out the PKK. She added that the situation in Diyarbakir, district further inland, was 'terrible', with hundreds trapped in basements during their 79th day of curfews. Turkey's attacks have also spread further into Syria in recent months as it attempts to weaken Kurdish forces fighting in the neighbouring civil war. Today it intensified its nearly week-long shelling of positions in Aleppo province, where it has sought to halt the advance of a Kurdish-led alliance against rebel forces. A joint military funeral is held for six men who were killed in the bomb blast in Ankara on Wednesday evening Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (centre), Minister of National Defence Ismet Yilmaz (second from left), Interior Minister Efkan Ala (fourth from left) and Governor of Ankara Mehmet Kiliclar (right) inspect the bombing site Davutoglu lays flowers at the site of the bombing which killed 28 people and wounded more than 60 Mesude Celik, the mother of gendarme master-sergeant Halit Zilani Celik, mourns during his military funeral Turkish soldiers carry the coffins of six soldiers who were killed in the blast, which targeted military buses Turkish leaders immediately blamed Kurdish separatists emanating from Syria for the car bombing The military funeral, held in Kocatepe Mosque in Ankara, was attended by hundreds of army soldiers The coffins of the six military men killed in the blast are carried before their colleagues in Ankara today Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and Chief of Staff General Hulusi Akar (pictured together centre) pray during the ceremony The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said Ankara's overnight bombardment was the heaviest since it began targeting the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Saturday. Turkey also expanded its fire, the Britain-based monitoring group said, hitting the Kurdish town of Afrin for the first time, where two civilians were killed and 28 wounded. Ankara has been angered by the SDF's operation in Aleppo province, where it has seized key territory from rebel forces supported by Turkey. Ankara considers the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) that dominate the SDF to be an affiliate of the outlawed PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state. It accuses the YPG and PKK of being behind a bombing that killed 28 people in the Turkish capital on Wednesday night, a claim denied by the Syrian Kurdish group. Meanwhile, authorities have detained three more suspects in connection with the deadly bombing in Ankara. Anadolu Agency reported 17 people are now in custody as part of the investigation into Wednesday's attack, which targeted buses carrying military personnel. It said the latest suspects are believed to be linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said the attack was carried out by a Syrian national who was a member of the YPG, and had entered Turkey posing as a refugee. People look out from a building badly damaged last month during the Turkish shelling of Diyarbakir, Turkey Soldiers and security officers stand next to a military vehicle that was bombed in the south-east yeserday Turkish soldiers raced to the scene of the remote controlled bombing, which targeted a military convoy The bus was destroyed in the blast which occurred less than 24 hours after the attack in Ankara Today the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) militants - a group once linked to the outlawed PKK - claimed responsibility for the attack on the Turkish capital. According to a statement on its website, it said the bombing was in response to the policies of President Tayyip Erdogan and said it would continue its attacks. The statement read: 'On February 17 in the evening a suicide attack was carried out by a sacrifice warrior on a military convoy of the fascist Turkish Republic in Ankara. 'The attack was realised by the Immortal Battalion of the TAK.' It said the bomber was a 26-year old Turkish national born in the eastern city of Van. The group most recently claimed responsibility for a mortar attack at Istanbul's second airport in December that left an aircraft cleaner dead. Labour's candidate for Mayor of London has defended his links to infamous Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. Sadiq Khan represented Farrakhan in the early 2000s in his efforts to overturn a ban on coming to Britain. Farrakhan is a hugely controversial figure who has denounced white people as 'devils' described jews as 'bloodsuckers' and called Hitler a 'very great man'. Mr Khan, who is MP for Tooting, is attempting to follow Boris Johnson as London mayor in May. His main opponent is Tory MP for Richmond upon Thames, Zac Goldsmith. Sadiq Khan, pictured in 2001 during his work on Louis Farrakhan's case, has insisted his job as a human rights lawyer meant he had to represent some 'unsavoury individuals' Yesterday Mr Khan defended his role in the legal bid. In an interview with Jack Mendel at Jewish News he said: 'I have never hidden the fact that I was a human rights lawyer. 'Unfortunately, that means that I had to speak on behalf of some unsavoury individuals. 'Some of their views made me feel deeply uncomfortable, but it was my job.' Sources close to Mr Khan said he had condemned extremism and radicalisation publicly for his entire career. But reports from the time reveal he played a very public role in attempting to get Farrakhan into Britain. He was, and remains, banned because of fears his anti-Semitic views would stir up racial hatred. In 1990 Farrakhan sparked outrage after claiming Jewish people controlled the US 'like a radar controls the movement of a great ship in the waters' and had 'got a stranglehold on the Congress'. He has described Jews as 'bloodsuckers' who profited from the slave trade. Judiasm he called a 'dirty religion' and a 'gutter religion'. 'The Jews don't like Farrakhan, so they call me Hitler. Well Hitler was a great man.' White people he said were 'devils by nature'. In August 2001, a court ruled the ban breached Farrakhan's human rights and ruled he should be allowed into the country. But the ruling was later overturned by the Court of Appeal and Farrakhan never set foot in Britain. At the time, Mr Khan described him as 'the leader of a vast section of the black community'. He also denied that Farrakhan was anti-Semitic or a preacher of racial hatred, saying: 'Mr Farrakhan is not anti-Semitic and does not preach a message of racial hatred and antagonism'. Yesterday Mr Khan insisted that 'even the worst people deserve a legal defence'. But Farrakhan was not facing criminal charges, the case was a human rights challenge against the government. Mr Khan, pictured during a campaign stop, is running against Tory Zac Goldsmith in the race to replace Boris Johnson at London's City Hall Jack Straw, then Home Secretary, blocked Farrakhan's entry into the UK in 2000 after concluding his presence would 'pose an unwelcome and significant threat to community relations and in particular to relations between the Muslim and Jewish communities here and a potential threat to public order'. When his decision was overruled by the High Court, the Board of Deputies of British Jews said the ban was justified 'in the light of Farrakhan's philosophy of racial segregation and hostility'. When the ban was overturned, Mr Straw's successor David Blunkett said 'the Home Secretary's right to exclude someone from the country whose presence is not conducive to good public order has been upheld'. Yesterday the Tooting MP said attempts to link him to extremism were 'desperate'. He has been accused of appearing at a series of events alongside known extremists. In his interview he said the rise of anti-semitism was 'deeply distressing and upsetting'. Jewish Londoners had 'more than most' suffered at the hands of extremists, he said. 'I accept that the Labour Party in the last two elections is not the natural place where Londoners of the Jewish faith have placed their vote. Your mother probably told youmine told methat you should never talk about religion or politics in polite company. Fortunately most of the company I keep is not very polite. But I happen to like it when people speak their mind. I believe this world would be a far safer place if we all said exactly what we thought and were not cowed by consequences, silenced by the strong arm of the law or the madness of the mob on twitter. There are a few exceptions. If you are given a platform by your job, have the decency to stick to your specialist subject. If you are the Pope - I think you should stick to just talking about Pope-y things, unlike this Pope, who weighed in the Presidential campaign on Thursday If your specialist subject is Gun Control, I don't want to know your opinion on a women's right to abortion. My body is not your business. If you are Chief Executive of a big gas company, I want you to explain why gas prices have fallen but my bills have gone up. And frankly, if you are the Pope, I'd prefer you stick to Popey things like.kissing babies and the feet of prisoners who haven't had a wash for a week. Or maybe performing a couple of miracles in order to snag a Sainthood. Now the miracle bar has been lowered from three to two I think this is perfectly achievable. Try getting my mother-in-law to be civil for two days over Christmas. That's one in the bag right there. (She's dead so it's actually trickier than you might think) I have no time for any religion. Wherever there is conflict and death, there is religion justifying its lunacy. As ISIS chops the head off a fifteen year old for playing a bit of Beyonce in his dad's store, I find evidence for Muslim madness everywhere I look. My husband cried watching Spotlight, the film documenting how the Boston Globe unearthed the massive pedophile priest problem being hidden by the church The Catholic Church has built walls around these snivelling excuses for men - like Cardinal Pell, pictured, and his bottom-dwelling kind in fancy outfits. Police have investigated allegations Pell abused minors Watching tears stream down my husband's face at the end of the movie 'Spotlight', as the staggering number of pedophile priests in Boston rolled across the screen, I see how strongly some people feel about the God in whom they believe. The Catholic Church has built walls around these snivelling excuses for men. Cardinal Pell and his bottom-dwelling kind, with their fancy outfits hiding the fact they are not true men of the cloth have built their own walls. Walls of silence. But this does not mean I am disrespectful of believers. Who can blame them if it brings hope or purpose? Maybe Saint Peter does exist and won't let me in, like Paul McCartney at Tyga's Grammy party. Come to think of it, I have been out with five Mark's in my life and not one Peter. My father even started addressing them as such. 'Evening Mark Three.' But if you are a believer, then you may be seething His Royal Popey-ness has entered the presidential debate, saying Donald Trump is not a Christian because he wants to build a big wall to keep Mexican immigrants out of the US. 'A person who thinks only about building walls... and not of building bridges, is not Christian.' OK, Pope. I wouldn't normally, but you cast the first stone, so I'm chucking in a few hand grenades of my own. The pope lives behind high Vatican walls and wants to tell the American people that instead of a wall the country should build bridges for more people to come. It's lunacy A man who lives behind Vatican Walls so high and wide, wants to lecture the American people on who is godly and who isn't? With your pedo priests and wall of silence about them? Really? You are nothing sir, but a bleeding heart liberal, imagining the world is a beautiful place, with migrants fuelled by God and love not drugs and guns. There are 11 million illegal immigrants inside the USA as we speak. And you want to build a bridge so more can come? You sir, are delusional. Are you handing out free passes to Disneyland whilst you are about it, lovely? Because that's how big a fantasy this land of yours is. Where is the money coming from to pay for all of this generosity? Where is the giant cash cow in the sky? Or is the milk of human kindness going to buy them food or healthcare? Your business, the business of the Catholic Church, is doing very nicely thank you. We know of $20 million in gold in the Federal Reserve and $7.3 billion in the bank but there is still significant opacity in the net worth of the Vatican to hide a thousand sins. Which tells you all you need to know. America, in contrast has a national debt equivalent to $232,627 for every person living in the USA*. And the ones you don't know about are getting more numerous by the day. If I was Donald Trump I would stand up and say thank you, Pope. Thank you for showing your true colors and outing the Catholic Church and its leader as liberals If I was Donald Trump I would stand up and say THANK YOU. Thank you, Pope. Thank you for showing your true colors. Just like the investigative reporters at the Boston Globe, he has outed the Catholic Church and its leaderas liberals. By the way, is it coincidence that the Pope seems happiest in places like Cuba where, curiously, there have been no abusive priest scandals - for the very good reason that the Castros don't exactly encourage investigative journalism? Thank the tooth fairy that the Catholic Church doesn't think women count or they'd probably be out waving flags for Hillary. For a house of God to be so political, it is as curious and as uncomfortable as for one of the British Royal family to be a strident Europhile. And that happened this week too. I get that the Pope believes in God. But for him to believe 11 million illegal migrants can simply remain in the USA or for a million more to follow is taking it too far. Donald is right to say he would build a wall. He wants to protect his people. His Christianity is a private affair and not for anyone else to judge. The $5,000-a-night Russian prostitute who accused former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer of choking her in his luxury Manhattan hotel suite last weekend allegedly attempted to shake him down for money before returning to Moscow. Svetlana Travis, 25, claimed the disgraced former politician assaulted her on Saturday at the Plaza Hotel after she told him she was returning to her native country. The high-priced call girl later stopped cooperating with police and left the US on a flight from John F. Kennedy Airport to Moscow on Sunday evening. Scroll down for video 'Shakedown': Svetlana Travis, 25, reportedly had attempted to extort money from former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer ater accusing him of choking her at a $1,000-a-night suite at the Plaza Hotel Just before boarding the plane, Travis was met by NYPD detectives who presented her with a search warrant and seized her cellphone, according to the New York Post. The contents of the electronic device were examined by NYPD's computer experts, who were able to retrieve deleted text messages that, according to one unnamed source, indicated that Travis was trying to extort money from Eliot Spitzer prior to her departure. Police were called to the Plaza Hotel on Saturday at 8pm to reports of Travis having slit her wrists, before she told medics that Spitzer choked her The blonde beauty also allegedly got Spitzer, who has recently inherited a $16million fortune from his late father, to upgrade her airline ticket. Police said on Thursday that Travis was not considered a suspect in any crime but rather a victim, and that they had no legal reason to detain her in the US. It also emerged Thursday that when investigators went to Spitzer's $1,000-a-night suite at the Plaza after the alleged assault, they found three suitcases containing dozens of valuables and personal items that Ms Travis had left behind. The contents of the luggage allegedly included sex toys, condoms, jewelry, clothing and shoes, a laptop computer and cellphones. A day earlier, Daily Mail Online reported exclusively that Ms Travis had sought professional help for psychological problems. On the night of the alleged assault at the Plaza, Travis was taken to the hospital with a laceration on her arm, which may have been after she cut herself with a broken glass. She told doctors that Spitzer choked her and shoved her in the suite rented in his name at the luxury Manhattan hotel, a short walk from his Fifth Avenue home. According to CNN, Spitzer visited Travis at Mount Sinai Hospital under the alias 'George'. Travis later refused to talk to NYPD investigators and said she did not want to press charges. Spitzer, who resigned as New York governor in 2008 after it was revealed he had sex with prostitutes, has been cooperating with authorities, according to his spokesman. He has not been charged. 'We are at a standstill now, absent a complainant,' NYPD spokesman Stephen Davis told the New York Times. 'If she [Svetlana Travis] would change her mind we would have to reconsider, but what we would have to have is her telling us what happened and saying she wants to press charges.' Earlier this week, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance filed paperwork asking to recuse himself from the criminal investigation into the alleged assault, citing an apparent conflict of interest resulting from his friendship with Eliot Spitzer. Vance wrote in his request that he and Spitzer have had a personal and professional relationship going back several years, and that the two spent time together socially just days before the alleged incident. Too close for comfort: Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance has recused himself from the assault case, citing his years-long personal and professional relationship with Eliot Spitzer The district attorney pointed out that several of his senior aides, including his deputy chief of staff and his executive assistant, worked for Spitzer during his time in Albany. Vance said that Spitzer even served as a political adviser to me on certain occasions. Spitzer's daughter also once worked as a paralegal at the Manhattan DA's office. An administrative judge on Wednesday granted Vances request and transferred the case from his office to Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark. Along with her psychological problems, Travis' years in the US were marred by evictions, divorce and an alleged assault. She was kicked out of an apartment in Orange County, California last year, according to court documents, for not paying her $2,285-a-month rent. She was also believed to have been evicted from her Manhattan apartment. Travis, whose maiden name is Zakharova, kept her married name after divorcing husband, Michael Travis, in December 2013. A week later, she accused a man of attacking her at a party, according to court documents first filed in Kings Civil Supreme Court on December 19, 2013. Travis claimed Ernest Atayan 'grabbed (her) by the neck, and hit her head on the countertop in a Brooklyn apartment on May 19, 2013 after a friend's birthday party', the New York Post reported. The civil lawsuit was later dismissed and no criminal charges were filed. Despite an apparent litany of personal problems, Travis kept up the appearance of living a glamorous life in New York on social media. In October 2014, Travis also reportedly wrote a tell-all of her time as a call-girl for the website, Medium. Travis' years in the U.S. were hit with two evictions, divorce and another alleged assault in which she claimed a man 'grabbed (her) by the neck, and hit her head on the countertop in a Brooklyn apartment in 2013 She explained how she had arrived in New York at the age of 19 with $300 and got involved in prostitution after failing to find a job. Travis, who apparently penned the essay under the name 'Svetlana Z', wrote: 'I've traveled to Morocco, Paris, Beijing, and Monaco. 'Men have brought me tea from London, chocolates from Switzerland, lingerie from France and shoes from Italy.' The 25-year-old shared pictures on social media of herself dressed in designer clothes and shoes and relaxing in rooms at some of New York's most luxurious hotels. Spitzer's lawyer, Adam S. Kaufmann, denies that his client was involved in an assault or any criminal activity but says he was simply helping the young woman after she became emotionally distressed. In a statement, the attorney says Spitzer has known Travis for a period of time but did not elaborate on their relationship. She had been living in California and was returning to her native Russia through New York. 'At her request, Mr Spitzer agreed to meet her at a room previously booked for her at the Plaza Hotel,' Kaufmann states. 'Mr Spitzer met her in the room at mid-afternoon, and they had a brief and amicable conversation, and then Mr Spitzer left. 'In the early evening Ms. Travis asked that Mr Spitzer return to the Plaza, which he did, at which time he saw her becoming highly emotional and was threatening self-harm. 'She dialed 911 and said she was having a breakdown. She then called 911 again and sought to cancel her prior call to 911. She was distraught and Mr. Spitzer sought to keep her calm. 'There were no allegations to 911 or to the police - either in the 911 call or when they responded to the Plaza hotel - of any assault or physical contact.' Kaufmann says the allegations of assault were first made against Spitzer when Travis was taken for psychiatric evaluation. 'Later that morning after she was discharged from the psychiatric facility, she recanted the allegations of assault and refused to proceed to file charges,' Kaufmann says. Travis boarded a flight to Moscow as she had previously planned on Sunday evening and upon landing in Russia, sent an 'unsolicited email' saying that no assault had taken place. Travis 'was highly agitated, and feared that she would be kept for psychiatric treatment and consequently not be able to return to her family in Russia', according to Spitzer's lawyer. He adds that it was unfortunate that Travis' 'emotional difficulties' had been made public and that his client 'acted appropriately at all times during this incident'. Travis returned to her native Russia Sunday and police reveal she is not cooperating with their investigation Spitzer, who was once considered a future presidential candidate, resigned from his position as New York governor in 2008 amid revelations he had sex with hookers. He reportedly had at least seven meetings with prostitutes over a six-month period, and is also believed to have spent up to $80,000 on them over a number of years, beginning when he was Attorney General of New York. He was named as prostitution ring patron, 'Client 9', during a federal investigation into the Emperors Club VIP call-girl ring but wasn't charged. When Spitzer was involved in the prostitution ring in 2008, he used the alias 'George Fox' to solicit call girls. The New York Post reported on Wednesday that Spitzer's ex-girlfriend, Lis Smith, was horrified that he may have been seeing Travis behind her back during their two-year relationship. Sources claimed that the 33-year-old's friends have urged her to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases. Spitzer and Smith, who previously worked for Mayor Bill de Blasio, split up in December. Their affair ended his marriage to wife of 25 years, Silda, after he was caught sneaking into Smith's Manhattan apartment. Spitzer's wife had stood by him throughout the prostitution scandal. The disgraced governor met Smith when she was his campaign manager during his failed political comeback to become New York City's new comptroller in 2013. Silda Spitzer was awarded $7.5million in their 2014 divorce deal along with $240,000-a-year for life and a Fifth Avenue home. The couple has three daughters. Spitzer is a multi-millionaire thanks to his property tycoon father who owned a string of luxury apartment buildings in New York. A man was allegedly stabbed to death in a drunken fight by his own brother who said 'I'm sorry, I love you' as he died in his arms, according to court documents. Robert Leslie Hudson, 33, has been charged with the murder of his biological brother Nokoma Jan, 25, who died at a home in Gilles Plains, Adelaide, on Wednesday night. Court documents seen by The Advertiser claim that Hudson stabbed Mr Jan in the neck after the 25-year-old intervened when the accused swung at his own partner with a knife. Hudson and the mother of his two children were drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis with Mr Jan and a man named Daniel Hooker when the dispute erupted, it was claimed. Nokoma Jan, 25, (pictured with his partner and child) was fatally stabbed allegedly by his own brother at a home in Gilles Plains, Adelaide, on Wednesday 'The victim is the biological brother of the accused,' the documents allege. '________ is the partner of the accused... the accused swung at her with a knife that missed her. Daniel Hooker and the victim then intervened.' The documents allege that the fight moved into the yard of the house and Ms King heard yelling before seeing Mr Jan on the ground bleeding from the neck. Mr Jan, who has a young child, died at the scene in Hudson's arms despite the frantic efforts of emergency services. Hudson was heard saying 'I'm sorry, I love you', it has been claimed. Robert Leslie Hudson, 33, (pictured) has been charged with the murder of his biological brother The 33-year-old handed himself into police on Thursday following a 15-hour manhunt. He was charged with murder remanded in custody on Friday to face the Adelaide Magistrates Court in April. A young woman who was struck by lightning at a church camp would have been killed instantly if she was carrying her mobile phone, but her decision to leave it inside saved her life. Ashari Rainbow, 19, was hit by lightning in the same freak storm which claimed the life of her friend and pastor Kris Guglielmucci, 39, in Adelaide. When bad weather began rolling in at 2.30pm on Friday, January 22, Ms Rainbow decided to help pack up equipment being used by the campers. Ashari Rainbow was struck by lightning at a church camp in Adelaide in January and has survived Her friend Kris Guglielmucci was fatally struck by a bolt of lightning just metres away from Ms Rainbow This decision led her to be struck in the leg by lightning so powerful it split her shoe in half, and burnt holes in her shorts and socks, The Advertiser reported. 'I was bending down and to the side of Kris and I went to grab something and then the next thing I remember is waking up on my back,' Ms Rainbow said. 'I turned around and saw Kris laying down a couple of metres away from me and at that point I realised I couldn't feel anything and screamed "I can't feel my arm". By the time the ambulance arrived and delivered Ms Rainbow to Royal Adelaide Hospital the feeling was returning to her feet and legs. 'I could still feel the current tingling and pulsing but I could start to move them and they had gone a little bit purple by then.' If Ms Rainbow had been carrying her phone, which she usually had in her right pocket, where she was hit, the electricity current would have been spread through her body, and she would have died alongside Mr Gugielmucci. She said she has stayed close to the pastor's family following his tragic death, and feels at peace 'knowing that God knows what he is doing'. The young woman was struck in her right side, the bolt sending an electrical current through her leg before blowing her shoe in half Unfortunately pastor and father of four, Mr Guglielmucci was not as fortunate and died at the scene Mr Guglielmucci, who left behind four children, was honoured in a touching tribute from the Victory Church, which is offering counselling to the 100 high school students and 20 leaders who attended the camp The Advertiser reported. 'Kris was a much loved member of our staff and church and our hearts go out to Lisa and the children during this time,' the statement reads. 'Our priority now is to care for the children who attended Summerfest, the amazing youth leaders of Victory Youth and our church family.' Churchgoers voiced their grief at the ordeal and said they were struggling to come to terms with their loss. The camp at at Cornerstone College oval (pictured) has been deserted in the wake of the freak accident 'It's a bit of a rough night there are a lot of family and friends that have just found out,' said one. The college's oval, which was dotted with children's pools, water balloons and slippery slides, was abandoned the day following the freak electrical storm as police investigated the accident. Storms lashed the city and winds of up to 89 kilometres per hour were recorded at Adelaide Airport, triggering flash floods and mass power outages. A man who carried one of his children out of a burning New York home and went back inside to rescue the rest of his family was one of two men to die in the fire, authorities said. Buffalo fire officials said the blaze broke out around 4am on Friday in a two-story home in Buffalo shared by two separate households. Buffalo Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield Jr told Daily Mail Online that a man living in the downstairs apartment with his wife and three children, carried his nine-year-old daughter out before going back in to rescue his four-year-old child. However, the father never made it back out and died along with another man living in the upstairs apartment. Scroll down for video Flames emerge from a Buffalo, New York home on Friday during a house fire. A man who carried one of his children out of the home and went back inside to rescue others was one of two men to die, authorities said Whitfield told Daily Mail Online that firefighters were able to bring the four-year-old child out to safety. The nine-year-old girl was taken to Women and Children's Hospital after suffering severe burns to 90 per cent of her body. Whitfield said she remains in grave condition. The four-year-old and a two-year-old were taken to the same hospital, where the four-year-old was being treated for smoke inhalation. The two-year-old was brought out of the burning home by the mother, and both are in good condition, according to Whitfield. He also said they are not releasing the identities of the victims at this time. A neighbor told the Buffalo News that the family of five had moved into the downstairs apartment about a week ago while the two males living in the upstairs apartment moved in around two months ago. The collapsed roof of the home is shown above as firefighters try to put out remaining flames. Fire officials said two males living in the upstairs apartment and a family of five living downstairs were all inside at the time All seven residents were inside the home during the fire, Whitfield said. Sharon Mack, who lives across the street, said she woke up on Friday morning to pounding on her door and found the mother yelling that her husband and another child were still inside. Fire officials said the father talked to a Buffalo police officer at the scene before going back inside. Mack described the scenes from Friday's tragic incident, saying the nine-year-old's clothes had been burned off, that burns to her hair and entire body were visible and that she was screaming in pain. 'She was burned from her head to her feet,' Mack told the Buffalo News of girl, who will be transferred to the burn unit at Shriners Hospitals for Children in Cincinnati today. 'It was just like a nightmare,' she added. After receiving reports of a fire, Whitfield told reporters that firefighters aggressively went into the home as they tried to put out the flames. Buffalo Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield Jr is pictured above at the scene. He said two firefighters suffered from minor burns during the fire While authorities do not know what caused the fire, they believe it started on the first floor in the kitchen He said they tried to get to the attic but the stairs had been burned out. Firefighters at one point had to come out of the house. When they re-entered the home, that is when they found the victims, including the man living upstairs who was found in a back bedroom, according to Whitfield. Another person who was also living upstairs and was identified by neighbors as the deceased man's nephew, apparently self-evacuated, Whitfield said. During the fire, two firefighters suffered from minor burns and were taken to Erie County Medical Center. Four adults and four children were being helped by the American Red Cross, according to WIVB. The cause of the fire is being investigated and damage to the home has been estimated to cost up to $150,000. While authorities do not know what caused the fire, they believe it started on the first floor in the kitchen, WIVB reported. Cloe Woods, five, of Kenner, Louisiana, who helped her family survive a fire A quick-thinking five-year-old girl led her blind grandmother to safety during a house fire, putting into action fire safety tips she learned while on a school field trip a few months ago. Cloe Woods was inside her Kenner, Louisiana home with her grandmother on Wednesday morning when the stove caught fire, setting off the smoke alarm. The youngster hopped out of bed and ran to her grandmother's room, telling her to hold onto her shoulder as she led them out of the house to safety, Cloe's mom, Shone Arceneaux, told WWL-TV. After they made it out of the house, Cloe made sure her grandmother and dog were okay before going to neighbors asking for water. 'I wanted water, to pour it,' the young girl told the station. Arceneaux said when she returned home from dropping her older kids off at their carpool stop nearby, she found Cloe 'running and telling the neighbors to call 911' and learned there was a fire. Thanks to a lesson in fire safety the pre-kindergartner was taught during an October 14 visit with her class to the Kenner Fire Department, she was able to save her and her grandmother's lives. Scroll down for video Thanks to a lesson in fire safety Cloe was taught during an October 14 visit with her class to the Kenner Fire Department (pictured), she was able to save her and her grandmother's lives The girl had visited the fire station with her school, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic School in Kenner. 'They talked to the kids saying if there was a fire you need to get out of the house,' her teacher, Brittany Gaillot, told WWL-TV. Gaillot told Daily Mail Online in a statement that they are thankful for the partnership between the school and the fire department. 'Our students are given the opportunity to learn about fire safety during a field trip to the fire station,' she said. 'Cloe was a great listener and was able to put the lessons learned into action and we are so proud of her!' Students from Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic School in Kenner are shown how to use a fire hose to put out flames during their visit to the fire station Kenner Fire Department Chief John Hellmers said the incident could have been tragic and praised Cloe for saving her family 'It could have been tragic,' Kenner Fire Department Chief John Hellmers said of the fire. 'She saved her grandmothers' life and saved her own life,' he added. Following the fire, a GoFundMe account has since been set up by a staff member from the school to help Cloe's family who lost their home and personal possessions in the fire. So far the fund has raised more than $2,000 in donations. 'Cloe's mom is so proud of her daughter, as are we. She was thankful that Cloe had the opportunity to learn about fire safety during her visit to the fire station,' a note on the GoFundMe page read. 'Thanks to the Kenner Fire Department for welcoming our students to their fire station and taking the time out of their day to teach them about fire safety, this family survived this tragedy with no loss of life, only loss of property.' News and articles from New Zealand Fine Prints - NZ's art print experts since 1966. A mining tycoon who was locked in a 17-year divorce battle with his ex-wife has been left facing homeless and with less than 5 in his bank after being ordered to pay a 2million settlement. David Mann, 50, agreed to support his 48-year-old wife Shelley for life after they divorced in 1999, when their now-adult daughters were still at primary school. But, despite still living in a 90,000-a-year rented flat in the exclusive London neighbourhood of Kensington, Mr Mann says he is not just penniless but mired under an avalanche of debt. David Mann, 50 (left) has been left facing homelessness and with 5 in his bank after being ordered to pay a 2million divorce settlement to his wife Shelley (right) 17 years ago Mr Mann claims that, since shelling out 1.5m in the divorce settlement, he has become 'reliant on the charity' of friends and family. A well-known figure in the Jewish community, he said he had also turned to the congregation at his local synagogue for help. A judge has now ruled that Mr Mann - who said he has even applied to the council for housing benefit - does not have to pay his wife the remaining 625,000, or the 17 years' worth of interest. Mrs Mann, who also says she is facing homelessness, had insisted that her 'deal-maker' ex-husband was hiding a fortune behind an 'elaborate facade' and should be sent to prison if he did not pay the outstanding balance. She also accused him of 'drip-feeding' the settlement money and said she could have bought a property - rather than wasting money on rent - if she had received it in a lump sum. But Mrs Justice Roberts turned down Mrs Mann's bid, accepting Mr Mann's plea of poverty and ruling that he simply did not have the money to fulfill the order. Giving her judgement after a High Court hearing, she said she had 'sincere sympathy' for his ex-wife, particularly as Mr Mann would have 'wrecked' his own finances by spending hundreds of thousands on rent in central London. But she said Mrs Mann had failed to prove that her ex - who was declared bankrupt in 2004 - would have gone to such lengths to cheat her of her divorce payout. Following their acrimonious divorce, Mr Mann left his wife their 1.8m family home in Hampstead (pictured), but she said her finances went on to reach a state of collapse Refusing to jail the husband for contempt in not paying the sums owed, the judge said: 'I accept that she (Mrs Mann) is facing an extremely uncertain future. 'She is owed a significant sum of money by her former husband but, at the present time, he has no means of discharging that debt. 'No stone should be left unturned in the ongoing and collective efforts of the parties to find a solution to this problem which is not, in any sense, of her making.' Although Mr Mann was described as 'the author of his own misfortune', the judge added that she was 'not sure that the hidden wealth to which his ex-wife points actually exists'. She also disputed claims by Mrs Mann that her ex-husband part-owned a flat in Eaton Place, one of London's most prestigious street, through an off-shore fund. The judge said she was 'entirely satisfied' that the asset was long gone, along with the other trappings of the couple's once luxurious lifestyle. Mrs Mann claimed that her ex-husband part-owned a flat in Eaton Place, one of London's most prestigious street, through an off-shore fund, but the judge said she was satisfied this asset was long gone She added: 'I am unable to say that the husband has had, or currently has, the means to pay the sums which I have found due to her.' The court was told how the former couple married in South Africa in 1988 before divorcing eleven years later when their two daughters were aged six and seven. They are now 21 and 22. Mr Mann left his wife their 1.8m family home in Hampstead, but she said her finances went on to reach a state of collapse. She was forced to sell the property and has lived in rented accommodation since. At one point, Mrs Mann and her daughters had been threatened with life on the street as they faced eviction from their Belgravia home over 50,000 in rent arrears, the court heard. However, her ex-husband insisted that he was simply unable to help, having 'simply run out of money'. I should record the sincere sympathy which I have had throughout for the wife. I accept that she is facing an extremely uncertain future Mrs Justice Roberts He had withdrawn his son from private school at a critical point in his education, the court was told. Relentless legal in-fighting then persisted, taking a 'very significant toll' on both Mr and Mrs Mann. The former mining tycoon was now 'not a well man' and 'under the care of several different doctors', the judge said, She added: 'Whilst the wife remained stoically composed for most of the time, her exhaustion and sense of complete frustration, if not desperation, were all too obvious to me'. The judge said all attempts to settle their dispute - in court and through mediation - had ended in failure. Neither could afford a lawyer. 'I should record the sincere sympathy which I have had throughout for the wife. I accept that she is facing an extremely uncertain future', the judge said. 'No stone should be left unturned in the ongoing and collective efforts of the parties to find a solution to this problem which is not, in any sense, of her making'. At an earlier court hearing, Mrs Mann claimed her ex had agreed to 'maintain' her 'for life', but had left her hanging 'between the devil and deep blue sea'. Multiple reports in the past few weeks say the billionaire media tycoon, 73, is considering entering the 2016 race as an Dropping hints: Michael Bloomberg (pictured in December) gave another hint that he is running for president during a book party he hosted for former Ronald Reagan aide Peggy Noonan on Thursday Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made yet another hint that he's considering running for the White House. At a book party he hosted for former Ronald Reagan aide Peggy Noonan at his foundation on Thursday, the 73-year-old media tycoon made a speech calling the current election 'a race to the extremes'. In his speech, Bloomberg - who as mayor tried and failed to ban large soda drinks - blamed the two-party system for pushing Democrats and Republicans to the very left and right of their party core. 'Theres wage stagnation at home. American retreat around the world. And a corrupt, gridlocked, and broken two-party system that answers to lobbyists and special interests instead of the American people,' Bloomberg said at the event. 'And thats why you see the current candidates out there doing well, and not the conventional ones.' Over the past several weeks, multiple reports have been published saying Bloomberg is considering an entrance into the 2016 race as an independent. In his speech on Thursday, Bloomberg added that the current candidates are 'exploiting' Americans' disillusionment in the political process. Among the other issues he said need to be addressed are wage stagnation and 'American retreat'. Finishing his speech, he made a veiled campaign pitch on how he would solve these issues. 'From my time in both business and government, I know that you don't solve problems by pointing fingers, or making pie-in-the-sky promises. 'You solve them by bringing people together around common goals, promoting innovation, demonstrating independence, and recognizing that compromise is not a bad word. 'We will have a very bright future - but only if we build it together,' Bloomberg said. Bloomberg - who is one of the richest men in the world - has enough money to bankroll his whole campaign were he to run. It's estimated that he would probably spend about $1billion of his estimated $37.2billion fortune on the campaign. If he were to enter the race, Bloomberg would easily become the richest candidate running for the White House, beating Donald Trump's estimated $4billion by a long shot. A woman who was serving a 15-year prison sentence was granted medical leave for stage four liver cancer - but is heading back behind bars after a domestic dispute with her adult daughter. Sabrina Orbera, 45, of Orange County, Florida, pleaded guilty to a DUI manslaughter charge after she was in a car crash that killed 38-year-old Michelle Farrulla. Orbera, who has been in prison since 2006, was granted a conditional medical release in December, but got into a domestic violence dispute with her daughter earlier this month. With doctors predicting she has less than six months to live, Orbera now faces a parole review and has been denied a request to remain at home throughout the process, which may take up to two months. Sabrina Orbera, 45, (left) is suffering from stage four liver cancer. She was granted medical leave from prison, but has been ordered to return after a dispute with her daughter Keylania McIntosh (right) turned violent According to an affidavit, Orbera and her daughter Keylania McIntosh were arguing about tax issues, when McIntosh reached for the phone to call the police. Orbera, who says she is still adjusting to living with her daughter after nearly a decade in prison, reportedly grabbed her arms and hair and they both fell on top of a bed, the document states. Orbera claims that her daughter had shoved her grandmother and punched her in the face. The cancer-stricken mother was arrested and charged with domestic-violence battery. Orbera, who is suffering from back pains and can barely walk, will report to the Orange County Jail once she is discharged from the hospital in a few days. A board will review her parole, which can take up to two months. After that, they may decide that she needs to serve the remaining five years of her sentence, even though Orbera is not expected to live long enough to see it through. Her attorney Jim Lewis said it was 'inhumane', 'insane', and 'unfair' to send a dying cancer patient back to prison when she didn't pose a real danger to anyone. Orbera told the Orlando Sentinel: 'I'm not saying I shouldn't do the time, but even if I did the whole 15 years, it wouldn't bring [Michelle Farrulla] back. 'I know that there is some things that have taken place for me to be rearrested, but it was a misunderstanding...She's my daughter and I love her and she loves me as well.' According to an affidavit, Orbera and McIntosh (pictured) were arguing over taxes. When McIntosh reached for the phone to call the police, her mother reportedly grabbed her hair and arms Orbera, who is hoping she will be granted another chance to live out her last days outside of prison, worries she won't get the right treatment behind bars. A spokesperson said the Orange County Jail would allow her to receive treatment at a local hospital. McIntosh, who created a petition on causes.com in 2011 to protest Florida's parole laws, wrote: 'My name is Keylania and my mother is doing 15-year sentence for DUI manslaughter and will be released on 09/04/2020. I will be 29 years old. 'She has already missed my 16th birthday, my 18th birthday, and now will miss my 21st birthday. 'She has missed so much of my life when I needed her the most because of a mistake. My mother is getting her GED, something that she always said she wanted to do but never really had the time for herself to do it.' On the run: Salah Abdeslam is suspected of helping to equip the gunmen and suicide bombers A leading terror suspect sought in connection with the Paris attacks hid in a Brussels apartment for three weeks, it has been claimed. Salah Abdeslam stayed in Schaerbeek for weeks following the attacks that killed 130 people and wounded 352 on November 13, a Belgian newspaper has claimed, citing sources close to the investigation. Abdeslam, whose brother blew himself up in Paris, is suspected of helping to equip the gunmen and suicide bombers and may have taken part himself. Surveillance footage at a petrol station showed him returning by car to Belgium a day after the attacks. He avoided capture when French police checked his papers shortly before he was listed as wanted. Authorities have been searching for him ever since. La Derniere Heure (DH) newspaper dismissed a theory, put forward by public broadcaster RTBF, that he may have slipped through a Belgian police cordon in the Brussels district of Molenbeek hidden in a car or even inside a piece of furniture. 'At that moment, Salah was on the other side of town in Schaerbeek,' DH wrote in its Friday edition. 'And it wasn't for a short stay as had been believed until now, but he stayed for three weeks.' The newspaper claims he stayed there from November 14 to December 4 when special forces descended on the area. Responding to the report, Belgium's Federal prosecutor confirmed that a fingerprint belonging to Abdeslam was found in an apartment in Schaerbeek. But a spokesman said investigators were not convinced it meant he had been in hiding there for the three weeks in question. 'We can confirm only the discovery of a fingerprint in the Schaerbeek hideout after a search conducted on December 10. We cannot comment further,' a spokesman said. According to the report, on November 16 Abdeslam was on the third floor of a house at Henri Berge Street in Schaerbeek at the same time as special forces were raiding a property in the Molenbeek area looking for him. 'According to our information, he stayed there for 20 days,' the daily said. Special forces carried out unsuccessful searches in Schaerbeek on December 4 at which point, the report said, Abdeslam probably left. Six days later, police raided Henri Berge Street and discovered traces of explosives, three possible suicide belts, as well as the fingerprint belonging to Abdeslam. The terror attacks in Paris killed 130 people and wounded 352 on November 13. Pictured: The scene outside the Bataclan theatre on the night of the attacks The Belgian federal prosecutor said it was impossible to date the fingerprint in order to establish if the fugitive was there before or after the attacks. Earlier this month, a source close to the French inquiry said no DNA from Abdeslam had been found on a suicide belt discovered in the French capital. The explosive belt was found in a dustbin in the southern Parisian suburb of Montrouge on November 23. Telephone data placed Abdeslam in the same area just after the attacks - but the lack of DNA on the belt suggested that he had not worn it. Since mid-November, 11 people have been arrested and charged in Belgium in connection with the killings, with eight remaining in custody. Abdeslam - one of the most wanted men in Europe - and his associate Mohamed Abrini, both from the Molenbeek area of Brussels, are still at large. They are now being sued for $6,766 in damages because of the review However the contract had a non-disparagement clause that prevents someone from taking any action that negatively impacts the business They were unhappy with the service so wrote a negative review on Yelp Pets on Yelp and hired them to look after their dogs and fish A Texas couple have been sued by a prestigious pet-sitting service for more than $6,700 in damages after they left a negative review of the company on crowd-sourcing website Yelp. Michelle and Robert Duchouquette, of Plano, used Yelp to help them choose Prestigious Pets in Dallas - which had a five-star rating - to take care of their two dogs and fish when they went on a trip to California late last year. Mrs Duchouquette, who signed a contract for the services, said she was immediately unhappy with the way they operated. She said she set up a Betta Cam live feed to monitor the couple's fish, Gordy, while they were away and noticed the tank was murky. She was also displeased when the dog walker refused to provide a phone number and the company messed up her bill, so she went on Yelp and explained what happened. Scroll down for video Sued: Texas couple Michelle and Robert Duchouquette used Yelp to find Prestigious Pets in Dallas to watch their pets while they went on vacation, but a bad review has now landed them in court The review: MrsDuchouquette wrote this review after she was unhappy with the service, listing what she considered faults, but is now facing a backlash from the company Rebuttal: Prestigious Pets quickly wrote back to Mrs Duchouquette's review. This is part of their rebuttal 'I think my review was fair. I went point-by-point on the things about the policies of the company I didn't like,' Mrs Duchouquette told CBS DFW. Part of the review read: 'The care of our dogs was fine. It is just the company is not one I would recommend due to their policies. I did share this feedback with them and they wanted to discuss it. However, I have no plans to use them again and did not want to take the time to discuss the issues.' The owner of Prestigious Pets wrote a rebuttal for the review that said that the issues the couple raised were addressed in a meet-and-greet they had before signing on for the company's services. Part of that review read: 'Please note that we try very hard to resolve every issue, with any customer that brings a concern to our attention. Unfortunately reading this review was the first notice of any concern that we got. Please know we tried very hard, even afterwards, to find resolution.' Then Mrs Duchouquette received a cease and desist letter from an attorney representing Prestigious Pets. 'I was beyond shocked and a bit scared,' Mrs Duchouquette said. However she decided to keep her ground and refused to pull down the review. After that, the couple were served with a lawsuit seeking $6,766 in damages. 'I was beyond shocked and a bit scared,' Mrs Duchouquette said of first receiving a cease and desist letter Service: The couple have two dogs, Bogey and Barley, and a fish named Gordy Court documents also show that the business is suing over the non-disparagement clause in the contract, which prevents someone from taking any action that negatively impacts the business. Such clauses have become increasingly popular - and controversial - with the rise of platforms like Yelp. Lawyers recommend people not agreeing to such terms should cross out the clause on a contract before signing. Experts also advise companies against choosing to list such terms and conditions. 'The public backlash from those clauses hasnt been good. They generally cast a company in a light they dont want to be cast in,' Nicole Williams, an anti-trust and trade regulation not affiliated with the case told CBS. 'There are a lot of challenges that can be made to that clause that they are against public policy, that they infringe first amendment speech.' Live feed: The couple monitored their fish while they were on vacation with his device, called a Betta Cam Cloudy: The live feed of the Betta Cam showed the fish tank to be murky, Mrs Duchouquette said The owner of Prestigious Pets issued a statement over the lawsuit that said they were the 'little people' in the case. 'Asking for a judge to help us review any issue is not a charge/overcharge, a scam, a service that wasnt provided, or a refund that is owed. A judges decision may not even be in our favor. Or we may even choose not to follow through,' part of the statement said. 'Being dog walkers, we definitely do not have legal degrees, and had to seek assistance from professionals for a service agreement. 'We typically spend up to, and even more than an hour sometimes, meeting and going over questions/concerns with any new potential customers in person. 'Just as a customer is free to choose if theyd like to use our service, we also choose if we feel comfortable being able to provide it, and reserve the right to refuse. A popular Irish pub can keep its controversial vintage tobacco signs after a directive from the health department to remove them or face fines of $40,000 was overturned. J.B. O'Reilly's pub in Perth was told to remove the signs within two weeks after a WA Health Department official noticed them during a licence check, the West Australian reports. Premier Colin Barnett called the health department's decision 'ridiculous' and said the pub can 'keep their decorations'. 'They are collectors pieces, they show an era gone by... it is not promoting smoking or selling cigarettes and if that's the way they want to decorate their pub, good on them,' Barnett told WAtoday. The historic advertisements, which have been on the walls of the pub for 23 years, are valued between $1,800 and $5,000 each and many of the products are not even in existence any more. J.B. O'Reilly's pub in Perth was told to remove vintage tobacco advertisements after a WA Health Department official noticed them during a licence check - but the premier has overturned the directive Owner Paul North said he thought the official was joking when he was asked to remove them. 'I don't even sell cigarettes and I'm against tobacco but I don't see anything wrong with the advertising, it's an art form for me,' he told the newspaper. '(The punters), they're dying of laughter. It almost sounds like a wind-up.' He is 'over the moon' he is allowed to leave them where they are. WA Health told Mr North his venue was in breach of The Tobacco Products Control Act 2006 by displaying the vintage signs because the legislation states: 'A person must not display or broadcast a tobacco advertisement in a public place'. The historic advertisements (similar to the ones pictured) are valued between $1,800 and $5,000 each and many of the products, including Bristol Tipped Cigarettes and Boars Head, are not even in existence any more 'A tobacco advertisement is anything which promotes tobacco products, smoking implements or smoking generally,' a Health Department spokesman said. The vintage signs Mr North has pinned up in his pub include UK brands Boars Head and Bristol Tipped Cigarettes, which are both not in production any more. Mr North says he plans to fight the order. He faces a $1,000 infringement if he ignores the order or $10,000 if he fights it in court. His J.B. O'Reilly's may also be fined up to $40,000. WA Health said J.B. O'Reilly's was in breach of The Tobacco Products Control Act 2006 by displaying the vintage signs because promoting tobacco advertisements in a public place was prohibited Hillary Clinton's once-robust lead over her presidential rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, has evaporated completely, according to a poll released Friday. A national Fox News Channel poll shows the Vermont democratic socialist Sanders with support from 47 per cent of Democratic primary voters. Clinton stands three points behind with 44 per cent. Their positions were reversed when the same pollsters surveyed Democrats a month ago, with the former secretary of state leading him by a whopping 12 points, with a 49-37 margin. The 15-point swing reflects Clinton's relative weak razor-thin victory in Iowa and Sanders' 22-point drubbing of her in New Hampshire. Scroll down for video Feel it: Now Hillary Clinton is behind Bernie Sanders and has the prospect of a race to the wire in Nevada and Super Tuesday with her rival having all the momentum Last summer she led Sanders by as many as 46 points. But with attention focused on her classified email scandal and renewed interest in her State Department's failures surrounding the 2012 terror attack on a diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, all bets are off. A 55 per cent majority of American voters now say Clinton lacks the 'integrity' to be an effective president. That includes 64 percent of independents. And 60 percent of voters say Hillary's mishandling of classified emails put America's national security at risk. That inclues 33 percent of Democrats and 59 percent of independents. Clinton's much-anticipated 'southern firewall,' a presumed safety net built from minority voters in the deeep south, will be tested a week from Saturday when Democrats in South Carolina go to the polls. With Sanders now ahead of her nationally, she may no longer be able to count on enough support to win her party's presidential nomination. 'One thing that is clear from our poll and others is that Clinton has been losing support and Sanders has been gaining,' Democratic pollster Chris Anderson said in a statement released by Fox News. 'And this process appears to have accelerated since the contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.' Republican pollster Daron Shaw said that '[h]istorically, lesser-known candidates beating establishment candidates in early contests have seen the biggest boost in their national support.' Drilling down into the poll's numbers reveals a shocking trend that has Clinton losing support among women. Her unique selling point is that she would be the first female U.S. president, but other women are increasingly unimpressed. Hit with poll blow one more time: A selfie with Britney Spears may not be enough to reverse Clinton's problem with women, who were supposed to be her natural supporters Her lead among female Democrats nationally is just 3 percentage points now, compared with 28 points a few months ago. But she trails Sanders in another important category electability against Republican front-runner Donald Trump. Sanders would beat The Donald by a 53-38 margin if the election were held today according to the Fox polls. Hillary's margin of victory over the billionaire would be far smaller, just 5 points, at 47-42. Bernie is also endearing himself to skeptical voters, with 30 per cent saying they would be either 'extremely' or 'very' satisfied if he were to becoe president. That may seem like a small numbers, but Clinton scored just 24 per cent on that question. Trump polled 21 per cent. On the other hand, fewer voters would be 'not at all' satisfied if Bernie were to win the White House just 37 per cent compared with Clinton's and Trump's metrics on that question, 49 and 55 per cent, respectively. He should be the biggest asset in his wife's campaign: a former president with whom everybody wants a selfie. But when Bill Clinton went effectively head-to-head with Bernie Sanders for the first time, it was hard to declare more than a draw. The two both addressed the Kick Off To Democratic Caucus dinner in Las Vegas on Thursday night, as the party's Nevada caucus on Saturday goes to the wire. Bill had their hearts - but it was clear that his wife did not have all their votes. Even the firmest Clinton supporters said that Sanders was 'tugging at their heartstrings'. There was no uncomfortable encounter: Sanders spoke first and was escorted away long before Clinton arrived to speak for his wife. Close to 500 Clark County Democrats turned out for the fundraiser and to hear the candidates, or, in Hillary's case, her husband, speak. Scroll down for video Fans: Bernie Sanders was mobbed by young supporters after addressing the Kick Off To Democratic Caucus dinner in Las Vegas last night Got one: Leah Miller (right) and Jackie Zusi-Russell (left) were elated to have a photo showing how close they had got to Sanders Mobbed: Bill Clinton and his security detail were surrounded by fans wanting pictures with the former president - but he did not seem to move momentum back to his wife Everyone wants a piece: There was no arguing with Bill Clinton's charisma, but the young had cheered Sanders to the rafters It could have been any fundraiser anywhere, with $99 tickets for a three course dinner, a silent auction featuring 20 cigars or coffee with a local congresswoman, and wedge salad for a starter. But Nevada has now become a critical race for both sides with Sanders's momentum from running Clinton to a fraction of a percentage point in Iowa and humiliating her in New Hampshire making her 'western firewall' in realty a battleground. And this fundraiser was at the heart of the battle. At 7pm Clark County Democratic Party Chair Chris Miller began calling for everyone to take their seats. On table 37, 18-year-old Siena Paglia was looking forward to seeing Senator Sanders. 'I'm hoping to see Bernie, I like how he's very open, very honest, he's giving people who can't afford education a chance,' she said. 'I love his speeches, in debates I feel he's strong in his words, he can defend what he talks about.' The student at Bishop Gorman High School was attending the evening with her friends Kennedy and Karlee Sparling, 16 and 13 respectively collectively they were set to perform as singing group Sugarstack, bringing down the median age in the room by several decades in the process. Las Vegas Convention Center employee Gloria Cherchi, 71, was there for Hillary, though open to persuasion from Senator Sanders, the sort of dangerous sign for the Clinton campaign which has made this race go from predicted whitewash to possible tie. She said: 'I'm here to hear the candidates, I'm not absolutely sure yet I was for Hillary the last time and I'll probably go with her this time but we'll see.' Janie Oceguera, 34, whose husband is a candidate for Nevada district 4 has a familial loyalty to Hillary, she explained, as the Clintons have always been strong supporters of her husband. But, she admitted: 'There's something about Bernie that's tugging at my heartstrings. I'm a bleeding heart liberal. I might be persuaded. There's no loyalty in politics,' she joked. Performing: Singers performing at the dinner (front row Siena Paglia, 18, Kennedy Sparling, 16, Karlee Sparling, 13, Sophia Wilson, 14 and back row Kaela Jonson-Smith and manager Billie Cole) were among the Sanders fans. Paglia said: 'I love his speeches, in debates I feel he's strong in his words.' Feeling the Bern: Gina Wilson, 51, (left) said: 'I need to find the person with honesty, integrity and who will get the job done.' Gloria Cherchio, 71, (right) who was there for Hillary, though open to persuasion from Senator Sanders Wavering? Janie Oceguera, 34, whose husband is a candidate for Nevada district 4 has a familial loyalty to Hillary, she explained, as the Clintons have always been strong supporters of her husband. But, she admitted: 'There's something about Bernie that's tugging at my heartstrings. I'm a bleeding heart liberal. I might be persuaded. There's no loyalty in politics,' she joked. 'Are you ready to caucus this Saturday?' the evening's master of ceremonies, state Assemblyman Nelson Arajuo hollered. 'We have 48 hours to go,' he shouted like with the enthusiasm of Calvin Harris whipping a dance crowd into frenzy. 'We need all the energy in the room are you with me?' 'Who in here is feeling the Bern?' Assemblyman Arajuo, a man seemingly untroubled by self-doubt, demanded. A ripple of applause answered his question. 'And who in here is ready to shatter that glass ceiling?' he appealed. 'Who's with her?' More applause filled the room. Apparently determined to undertake an in-room pre-caucus of sorts Arajuo tried again calling on Senator Sanders's supporters to applaud their support followed by Mrs Clinton's fans showing theirs. There was little in it. A few months ago it would have been all Hillary. When Senator Sanders took to the stage there was a lift in spirits 'Let me begin by thanking every person in this room,' he said. 'No matter who they may be supporting on Saturday.' Standing, hunched over the podium, his jacket rumpled up around his shoulders and neck in his now familiar style he attacked his speech in his aggressively Brooklyn accent hands sometimes conducting the crowd as he punctuated his points with a series of air jabs and swoops. He told of his own campaign's unlikely rise, he joked at his own expense about his lack of style, he lambasted Wall Street, spoke up for the affordable care act, free education and his pride at his independence from Superpacs and that the average donation to his campaign was $27. Star power: Susan Sarandon sat for much of the dinner among the audience. She is campaigning for Sanders and has criticized the Clinton campaign Supporter: Susan Sarandon, left, stood next to Jane Sanders, Bernie's wife, as he was cheered by the audience. One Hillary loyalist admitted he was 'tugging at her heartstrings' Enthusiastic response: With his Secret Service detail standing sentry on either side of the stage he gave a loose-wristed wave and wandered off stage, notes in hand, to shouts of 'Bernie! Bernie!' Not much Hillary: Bill Clinton spoke at length about his own governorship and presidency before finally turning to the reasons to support his wife's faltering campaign He hit every mark barking and browbeating by turns, as he denounced the 'greed, recklessness and illegal behavior of Wall Street,' supported every 'woman's right to control her own body,' and every 'gay brother and sisters'' right to marry whom they please before rising to the crescendo that climate change is REAL. 'All important changes didn't come from the top down,' he concluded, 'they came from the bottom up and that is how change takes place.' With his Secret Service detail standing sentry on either side of the stage he gave a loose-wristed wave and wandered off stage, notes in hand, to shouts of 'Bernie! Bernie!' as a surge of supporters left their half-eaten chicken dinner to rush the stage and surround their candidate. For a moment the center of gravity of the room shifted to Senator Sanders. Somehow in the crowd Hollywood actress Susan Sarandon dressed in a white collared black dress and thigh high black boots - went all but unnoticed, her star eclipsed by Sanders's. Cheesecake followed as the room regrouped and readied itself for 'a very special guest.' Then, to the soundtrack of Pharrell's 'Happy' Bill Clinton took to the stage. For the first time the room rose to its feet as one. Previously circumspect supporters left their seats for the chance of a selfie near the stage that might capture the former President in the background the room flickered into life for this candidate surrogate. For much of his speech President Clinton didn't mention his wife at all sticking instead to the achievements of his own White House tenure and somehow letting his wife share the credit and the glory. He spoke of his 12 years as governor or Arkansas, his eight years as President and the 15 years that have elapsed since during which he has 'just been working to make things better'. Eventually he got to the point - the real change-maker, he said, was his wife. 'She's got the best policies, the best record and is the single best change maker I've ever known.' It was a phrase he used again and again. He recalled how he had told a young Hillary that she was more gifted than he only for her to say, 'Nobody likes a woman as pushy as I amI just like to do things.' 'She always makes something good happen,' he said simply, instructing Nevada, 'You want somebody who's a world class change maker, whose instinct is, 'What can I do to make it better?' 'We can do it,' he croaked, before gathering his notes and walking off stage and into a swarm of supporters. Whether he has done enough to convince even the most loyal of Democrats remains to be seen. shining a laser at an aircraft can be handed a fine up to 2,500 A light aircraft pilot was forced to make an emergency landing after being blinded by a laser shortly after take-off. Police are investigating the incident - classed as 'endangering an aircraft' - which took place at 6.30pm on Tuesday. The instructor, who was flying a four-seat, single-engine Cessna 172 with Cambridge Aero Club near St Neots, was not injured. The laser attack comes just days after a Virgin Atlantic flight heading to New York was forced to turn back to London Heathrow Airport after a laser beam was shone into the cockpit, dazzling its co-pilot during take-off. The instructor, who was flying a four-seat, single-engine Cessna 172 (like the one pictured) with Cambridge Aero Club near St Neots, was not injured The British Airline Pilots Association, the body that represents airline pilots in the UK, has called for handheld laser pointers to be classed as offensive weapons. A spokesman for Cambridge Aero Club said: 'We can confirm one of our instructors was involved in an incident west of Cambridge this week. 'We are filing a report through all the appropriate channels with the Civil Aviation Authority and the police are aware. 'This is something that's an ongoing issue.' 'It's just very concerning this kind of thing happens,' she added. The spokesman said the man was 'absolutely fine' but the club has not commented on whether there was a pupil in the plane at the time. It is a criminal offence to shine a laser at an aircraft in flight with the intention of dazzling the pilot, carrying a maximum fine of 2,500. Police and prosecutors can also apply the more serious offence of endangering the safety of an aircraft, which can lead to up to five years in prison. An instructor, who flies with Mid Anglia School Of Flying in Cambridge, said: 'We do worry because it momentarily takes away all of your vision and it's rather dangerous. 'If you're the only person in the aircraft for a moment you're blinded. A spokesman for Cambridge Aero Club, based at Cambridge Airport (file picture), said it would be filing a report with the Civil Aviation Authority into the matter 'If you're experienced you know how to keep the aircraft upright but if you're a person who's just been licensed or someone who doesn't fly very often, it could be rather upsetting.' A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority said: 'Shining a laser at an aircraft in flight could pose a serious safety risk and is also a specific criminal offence.' 'We strongly urge anyone who sees a laser being used in the vicinity of an airport to contact the police immediately.' After Vatican's speedy retreat and told campaign stop in South Carolina that Mexican government was to blame for telling Pope Today Trump accepted the partial olive branch, saying the Papal statement was 'beautiful' of Pope Francis for his comments, made on way back from Papal visit to Mexico The Vatican today executed a speedy climb-down in its feud with Donald Trump - handing the Republican White House hopeful a major political victory. Pope Francis's suggestion that Trump was 'not Christian' because of his views on immigration was not a personal attack on the candidate, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said on Friday. Lombardi told Vatican radio that the pope's comments, which were denounced by Trump, were simply an affirmation of his longstanding belief that migrants should be helped and welcomed rather than shut off behind walls. He also leaned toward confirming Trump's contention that his statement that Trump was 'not a Christian' was based largely on 'what he was told' about the billionaire's position. SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO Taking the olive branch: Campaigning in South Carolina, Trump praised the Pope and said: 'The Pope was great. He made a beautiful statement this morning.' Retreat: The Vatican's official spokesman raised the white flag in a radio interview in which he said the Pope was not personally attacking Trump, and was reacting to what he had been told about the billionaire's plans Trump said Thursday that he suspected the Mexican government had propagandized to the Pontiff about him, prompting the unusual condemnation from the leader of the world's Roman Catholics. 'This wasn't in any way a personal attack, nor an indication of who to vote for,' Lombardi said. 'The Pope has clearly said he didn't want to get involved in the electoral campaign in the US, and also said that he said what he said on the basis of what he was told [about Trump], hence giving him the benefit of the doubt.' THE GREAT WALL CLIMB-DOWN 'This wasn't in any way a personal attack, nor an indication of who to vote for. The Pope has clearly said he didn't want to get involved in the electoral campaign in the US, and also said that he said what he said on the basis of what he was told [about Trump], hence giving him the benefit of the doubt. The Pope said what we already know, if we followed his teaching and positions: We shouldn't build walls, but bridges. He has always said that, continuously. He also said that in relation to migration in Europe many times. So this is not a specific issue, limited to this particular case. It's his generic view, coherent with the nature of solidarity from the Gospel.' Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi Advertisement But in the same breath, Lombardi defended the Pontiff's statement from Thursday and declared that he had said nothing new. 'The Pope said what we already know, if we followed his teaching and positions: We shouldn't build walls, but bridges.' 'He has always said that, continuously,' he added. 'He also said that in relation to migration in Europe many times. So this is not a specific issue, limited to this particular case.' 'It's his generic view, coherent with the nature of solidarity from the Gospel.' Trump continued the quick about-face on Friday morning in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, praising the Vatican for walking back the Pontiff's criticism although he seemed under the impression that Francis himself had spoken on the subject. 'The Pope was great. He made a beautiful statement this morning,' he told a capacity crowd at the Myrtle Beach Sports Center, an indoor rec center the size of eight basketball courts. 'They had him convinced that illegal immigration is, like, a wonderful thing!' Trump exclaimed, referring to Mexico's government. 'Not wonderful for us. It's wonderful for Mexico. Not wonderful.' Trump repeated his well-worn refrain that America's southern neighbor will pay for a lengthy border wall, and pointed out an audience member dressed as a construction worker, complete with hard hat and tool belt. The man carried a sign that read: 'I'm ready to work on the wall!' 'We give massive subsidy to Mexico,' Trump said. 'The wall is going to cost 10 to 12 billion bucks. Our trade deficit is like $58 billion.' 'Mexico is going to pay for it, folks. It's so easy. It's so easy.' The olive branch of sorts from the Vatican came less than 24 hours after the Pope's explosive intervention in the presidential campaign. Asked about Trump and his plan to build a wall between Mexico and the U.S. to stop illegal immigration, he called said that a man with such a plan was 'not Christian.' 'A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian,' he said. 'This is not in the Gospel. As far as what you said about whether I would advise to vote or not to vote, I am not going to get involved in that. 'I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that.' His answer promoted an immediate and furious denunciation from Trump, as well as a massive backlash on social media, where the Pope was mocked for living in the Vatican, itself a walled city-state. AT POPE WAS ASKED ON PLANE TO ROME - AND EXACTLY WHAT HE SAID The Associated Press released a full transcript and translation of the exchange between an unnamed reporter and the Pope on board the Pontiff's flight from Mexico Q: Good evening, Your Holiness. Today you spoke eloquently about the problems of migrants. On the other side of the frontier there's a very tough electoral campaign going on. One of the Republican candidates for the White House, Donald Trump, in a recent interview, said you are a 'political man' and that maybe you are a pawn of the Mexican government as far as immigration policy is concerned. He has said that if elected, he would build a 2,500-kilometer-long wall along the border. He wants to deport 11 million illegal immigrants, thus separating families, etc. I would like to ask you, first off, what do you think of these accusations against you, and if an American Catholic can vote for someone like this. A: Thank God he said I was a politician because Aristotle defined the human person as 'animal politicus'. So at least I am a human person. As to whether I am a pawn, well, maybe, I don't know. I'll leave that up to your judgment and that of the people. And then, a person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel. As far as what you said about whether I would advise to vote or not to vote, I am not going to get involved in that. I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt. Advertisement Trump's aides helped him craft a biting reply which he said took 'one minute' to write. He read it from a podium during a late-morning speech in coastal South Carolina. By day's end the conflict drew Trump's Republican rivals out of the shadows, with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio the presidential race's two Roman Catholics backing The Donald over The Pontiff. 'For a religious leader to question a person's faith is disgraceful,' Trump said in South Carolina, just two days before the state's critical presidential primary election. He doubled down on that comment when he spoke to DailyMail.com at lunch. Trump issued a furious response, reading a lengthy statement from the podium on a campaign stop in the coastal community of Kiawah Island. He reflected on the seismic impact of crossing swords with the leader of the world's largest religious denomination, and shrugged it off. 'Now it's probably going to be all over the world. Who the hell cares? I don't care!' he said. 'We have to stop illegal immigration ... and crime.' Blame the Mexicans: Trump said the Pope had been led astray by the Mexican government. 'They had him convinced that illegal immigration is, like, a wonderful thing!' he told the crowd Crowded: Trump attracted a huge audience as he spoke in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. His furious response to the Pope appears to have gained him political capital Back to the day job: Pope Francis, center, went to prayers at the Redemptoris Mater chapel, in the Vatican as his spokesman executed a swift retreat on the Trump front Trump blasted the Vatican for what he said was a naive outlook on the ISIS terror army, saying in a statement released to reporters that 'If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS's ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened.' 'ISIS would have been eradicated unlike what is happening now with our all talk, no action politicians.' Trump partisans, including his social media director Dan Scavino, circulated photos of the massive wall that separates Vatican City from the rest of Rome. 'Amazing comments from the Pope - considering Vatican City is 100% surrounded by massive walls,' Scavino wrote in a highly retweeted message. And reporters swarmed around the rest of the presidential field looking for reactions to the global cultural battle royale. Rubio told reporters during a press conference in Anderson, South Carolina, that he had not seen the Holy Father's full statement, but defended the Republican Party's line essentially, Trump's position on immigration. 'There's no nation on earth that's more compassionate about immigration than we are,' Rubio said. Noting that the U.S. takes in a million immigrants a year, he declared that 'Mexico doesn't do that. No other country in the world does that.' 'We're a sovereign country. We have a right to control who comes in, when they come in and how they come in,' he added. 'Vatican City controls who comes in, when they come and how they come in, as a nation-state, or a city-state. And as a result, the United States has a right to do that as well.' Bush also rushed to Trump's defense and insisted that no one should determine the validity of another person's faith in God. 'I think his Christianity is between he and his creator. Don't think we need to discuss that,' Bush told reporters in Columbia, South Carolina, according to CBS News. The campaign straggler did throw a shoulder at Trump for his boasts about ISIS, suggesting the billionaire isn't prepared to mount a serious military campaign against the terror army. Donald Trump's social media director reminded the Twitterverse that Vatican City was surrounded by a very large wall 'As it relates to his policies related to ISIS, he's not the right guy to be commander-in-chief,' Bush said. But there were signs Thursday night that Trump wanted to bury the hatchet and move past the conflict. At a CNN town hall, he emphasized that the Pope's comments were exaggerated by early media reports. 'I think he said something much softer than what was originally reported by the media. I think that he heard one side of the story, which is probably by the Mexican government,' Trump said. 'He didn't see the tremendous strain that the border is causing us with respect to illegal immigration, [and] with the drugs pouring across the border.' The Donald said he would be interested in a sit-down with Francis to hash out their differences. 'I'll do it any time he wants. I mean, it would be very interesting,' he said. 'I like him. I mean, I like him as a personality. I like what he represents. And I certainly have great respect for the position.' Cooper chuckled at recalling a 2015 Iowa event during which Trump told a skeptical audience of evangelical Christians that asking the Almighty for forgiveness wasn't a common ritual in his faith life. 'Was there a moment when you first heard the Pope had said something about you, that you thought, 'Maybe I'm gonna have to ask for forgiveness?'' Cooper asked him. 'No,' he replied, as the studio audience laughed along with him. 'No. Look, I have a lot of respect for the Pope. I think he's got a lot of personality. He's very different. He's a very different kind of a guy. And I think he's doing a very good job. He's got a lot of energy.' 'But I'd say that I think he was very much misinterpreted. And I also think he was given false information.' Trump said he wished Francis had 'heard our side, the side from people who live in the United States.' STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Valentine's Day Weekend 2016 will no doubt be etched in the minds and hearts of Staten Islanders, not only because of it's romantic connotation, but also because it saw the Polar Vortex deliver snow and record breaking zero degree temperatures. Hopes of a warm fuzzy weekend were suddenly turned into a cruel, brutal hardship. But thanks to a slew of local dining establishments -- fine food and cozy, warm sentiments were sprinkled about. One of the brighter spots over the most romantic weekend of the year, was the Valentine's Day giveaway at Jimmy's Fine Jewelry, the Meiers Corners jewelry boutique where a Valentines raffle came off to perfection. FYI: Granello sponsored a heart-shaped pearl ring giveaway open to anyone who stopped by to register at his boutique at 1909 Victory Blvd. The drawing for the ring, that's been described as a mabe pearl vintage variety with 14-carat yellow gold bezel set, was Saturday, Feb. 13. The no-purchase-necessary opportunity was open to anyone who was interested. On hand to help draw the luxury prizes were Jamie Lynn Macchia, Miss New York, who was assisted by Heather Wolf, Miss Staten Island 2016 and Cassie Paradise, Miss Richmond County. FYI: Scott and Lisa Pillarella were present when Lisa won a pink sapphire bracelet. Billy Wheeler who lives nearby in the Meiers Cornesr community rushed to the store when he got a call from Miss Staten Island that he was the winner of a silver necklace. Interestingly, as a prelude to his 40th anniversary, Granello will raffle -- free of charge -- an emerald and diamond 14- karat yellow gold ring on St. Patrick's Day, March 17 at his store. Note that anyone can enter, just stop by the store and add your name to the raffle. Says Granello: "Maybe the luck of the Irish will be with you this year." Advertisement President Obama and First Lady Michelle have paid their respects to Justice Antonin Scalia as his body lies in repose at the Supreme Court. The Great Hall was cleared of the the public as the Obamas arrived, before they bowed their heads for 30 seconds as they stood for a moment of silence. They were greeted by Chief Justice John Roberts and spoke with some Scalia family members before leaving the court. The President and First Lady were among thousands of people who filed into the Supreme Court today to pay tribute to the Scalia, whose casket was draped in an American flag. Obama has come under fire for saying he will not go to Scalia's funeral on Saturday, which will be attended by Vice President Joe Biden and Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz. The White House says Obama will be vetting candidates to replace Scalia instead - a subject which has riled Republicans who argue that choice should be made by whoever is the next president. Scroll down for video President Obama and First Lady Michelle have paid their respects to Justice Antonin Scalia as his body lies in repose at the Supreme Court The Great Hall was cleared of the the public as the Obamas arrived, before they bowed their heads for 30 seconds as they stood for a moment of silence Clerks of the Supreme Court continued their guard of honor by the casket as the president arrived to view the justice's casket Rest in peace: The Obamas took a moment to view a portrait of Justice Scalia that was painted in 2007 by artist Nelson Shanks Obama, pictured viewing the painting of Scalia with Michelle Obama, has come under fire for saying he will not go to the funeral on Saturday, which will be attended by Vice President Joe Biden and Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz Earlier, the grieving family of Justice Scalia led hundreds of mourners in a final farewell to the powerhouse judge as his body lied in repose in the Supreme Court. Pictured, widow Maureen Scalia takes her seat as (from left) Chief Justice John G. Roberts and justices Clarence Thomas, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor look on 'May he rest in peace': Scalia's son, Catholic priest Paul Scalia (pictured), recited traditional prayers as the casket arrived Justice Scalia's daughter-in-law Patricia Scalia, who is married to the late judge's son, Eugene, was at the ceremony with her children, including her eldest daughter, Megan (left) Past Supreme Court Justices (from back left, Counselor to the Chief Justice Jeffrey Minear, and Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan, Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr., Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony M. Kennedy, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Clarence Thomas, Stephen G. Breyer, and Sonia Sotomayor), paid tribute to Scalia Honor guards salute the flag-draped casket of Justice Scalia as his body lies in repose in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court Ceremony: A total of 180 clerks formed an honor guard outside the Supreme Court, where flags were flown at half-mast The two long lines of law clerks covered all 53 steps of the Supreme Court and carried on further into the court's grounds Justice Scalia's son, Father Paul Scalia, was at the front of the procession and walked into the court as the casket was carried up the steps, while Scalia's family (left) watched The body of Justice Antonin Scalia arrived at the Supreme Court, where hundreds of mourners lined the streets to pay their respects Grieving: A frail Maureen Scalia, the widow of the Supreme Court Justice, was escorted out of the court by her sons Eugene (left) and John (right). Another of Scalia's sons, Catholic priest Paul Scalia, can be seen on the right The clerks were still waiting in two rows on the steps of the Supreme Court when the Scalia family started leaving the Supreme Court Father Paul Scalia (right) watched as his father's casket, which was draped in the American flag, was carried up the court's steps Scalia's daughter-in-law Patricia Scalia (third from right) was with her children, including her eldest daughter, Megan (left of center) and other family members at the service at the Supreme Court on Friday Justice Scalia's casket was carried into the grand hall this morning by eight pallbearers from the Supreme Court's police, followed by law clerks who took part in the ceremony as honorary pallbearers. A total of 180 other law clerks lined the 53 steps of the court as the casket was carried in, followed by his frail widow, Maureen Scalia, and eight of their nine children. Waiting inside was Scalia's son, Catholic priest Paul Scalia, who recited traditional prayers as the casket arrived. 'You have called your servant Antonin out of this world,' he said. 'May he rest in peace.' Fellow Supreme Court justices and Scalia's family stood in silence as they paid a touching tribute to the towering, divisive judge. Meanwhile hundreds of people lined the streets in Washington, DC, as the hearse carrying Scalia arrived at the court, where he spent nearly three decades as one of its most influential members. In a break from tradition, fellow and former Supreme Court justices waited inside the hall for Scalia's arrival. Previously, following the death of a justice, they have waited on the steps alongside other officials and dignitaries. The procession passed between two long lines of clerks that stretched from the plaza to the court's main entrance. The clerks will take turns standing guard by Scalia's body while he lays in repose. The procession then passed before the court's eight current justices and the casket was placed on the Lincoln Catafalque - where President Abraham Lincoln's coffin once rested at the Rotunda of the Capitol in 1865. Only six other Supreme Court justices have been given such an honor, Chief Justices Earl Warren, Warren Burger and William Rehnquist and Associate Justices Thurgood Marshall, William Brennan and Harry Blackmun, USA Today reported. Several of the justices, particularly Elena Kagan, a liberal who was known to go on hunting trips with the staunchly conservative Scalia, looked emotional as they stood in a row while the casket was placed on a raised bier in front of them. Chief Justice John Roberts, his hands clasped in front of him, bowed his head. They stood in the order they will now sit on the bench following Scalia's death, with Roberts in the center of the group and Justices Anthony Kennedy - now the longest-serving member of the court - Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Samuel Alito and Kagan to Roberts' right Supreme Court Justices (from left) Elena Kagan, Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr., Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Anthony Kennedy pay their respects to Justice Scalia Grandchildren of Justice Scalia were also in attendance at the ceremony before the public were allowed in to the Great Hall Clerks stood a guard of honor over the casket and will take turns doing so while Justice Scalia lies in repose inside the Great Hall Two of the clerks taking turns standing guard by Justice Scalia's casket shook hands as they consoled each other on Friday In mourning: A woman cries as friends and staff of the Supreme Court attend a private ceremony in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court Mourners filed past the casket of US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia as they paid their respects to the late judge A portrait of Scalia painted by artist Nelson Shanks in 2007 was placed next to the casket as mourners stopped to pay tribute Emotional law clerks and Supreme Court staff watched the private ceremony in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court this morning A man cries next to the casket of Justice Antonin Scalia's casket as he lies in repose in the Great Hall at the U.S. Supreme Court The flag covering the casket of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is adjusted by funeral home staff before the doors opened to the public in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court People line up and look at the flag-draped casket containing the body of Justice Antonin Scalia at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC There was a somber atmosphere inside the Great Hall as people waited patiently for an opportunity to view the casket of Justice Scalia Clerks who were honorary pallbearers at the ceremony filed out of the court after the emotional ceremony at the Supreme Court The casket was draped in the American flag as the judge's body was brought into the Great Hall by pallbearers from the Supreme Court's police The somber ceremony has only been afforded to six other Supreme Court justices before and is a testament to Scalia The eight pallbearers were from the Supreme Court police, while honorary pallbearers behind them were clerks of the court A portrait of Scalia painted by artist Nelson Shanks in 2007 was placed next to the casket. In it, the justice is shown surrounded by images representing important moments and influences in his life, including a framed wedding photograph of his wife, Maureen. The doors to the court chamber were open at the east end of the hall. Black wool crepe hung over the entrance, and Scalia's courtroom chair was draped in black. The private ceremony was held inside the court until about 10.30am, after which the public was able to view the casket until 8pm. Vast numbers of mourners gathered outside the court as they arrived to pay their respects. Rhaleta Bernard, of Queens, New York, where Scalia grew up, had been visiting Washington with her husband, Kelvin. They changed their bus tickets in order to pay respects. Mrs Bernard said Scalia 'believes in interpreting the law, not making the law'. 'I want another Scalia. I don't think there's another one, though,' she said. Outside the court, supporters of the former justice created a small memorial at the bottom of the steps, leaving two jars of applesauce, a package of paper bags and a pile of fortune cookies - a nod to his biting dissents last year in the court's gay marriage case and its ruling rejecting a challenge to President Barack Obama's health care law. Scalia had called the ruling in the health care case 'pure applesauce'. He compared the gay marriage majority opinion it to the 'mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie' and said he would hide his head in a paper bag if he ever joined such an opinion. Two lines of clerks paid their respects outside the court as they waited for the arrival of Justice Scalia's body on Friday morning His body will lay in repose in the court's Great Hall, where he spent nearly three decades as one of its most influential members Scalia's body arrived outside the Supreme Court, at the rear of the Capitol, shortly after 10am on Friday as hundreds gathered outside Hundreds of people lined the streets in Washington, DC, as the hearse carrying Scalia arrived. Pictured, Supreme Court police carrying Scalia's casket Thousands are expected to pay their respects to Scalia at the Supreme Court after his body's arrival, where it was flanked by 180 law clerks President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle will be among those to pay their respects to Scalia on Friday inside the Supreme Court Draped in an American flag, his casket was carried into the court from a hearse by eight pallbearers from the Supreme Court's police Hundreds of people lined the streets in Washington, DC, as the hearse carrying Scalia arrived at the Supreme Court this morning A total of 180 law clerks lined the steps of the Supreme Court as the casket was carried towards the grand entrance Procession: The eight pallbearers from the Supreme Court's police were followed by the grieving family of the late justice Members of the public take photographs of Justice Scalia's casket on their cell phones as they filed through the grand hall Members of the public walk past the flag draped casket of Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Antonin Scalia Clergy head down the steps after viewing the body of Justice Antonin Scalia at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on Friday Scalia's supporters made a memorial outside the court, leaving jars of applesauce, a pack of paper bags and a pile of fortune cookies - a nod to his biting dissents in the court's gay marriage case and its ruling rejecting a challenge to President Barack Obama's health care law Scalia's body was discovered in his bedroom at Texas ranch between 11.30am and 11.40am on Saturday morning The sudden death of the outspoken, conservative justice complicated an already tumultuous election year. Republicans, including a number of the party's presidential candidates, say a replacement should not be named until the next president takes office. Obama has pledged to pick a replacement 'in due time' and challenged Republicans to hold a vote on his nominee. 'The Constitution is pretty clear about what's supposed to happen now,' Obama said on Tuesday as he outlined his role as the executive to put forth a name to replace Scalia. The president said: 'Historically this has not been viewed as a question. There's no unwritten law that says that it can only be done on off years. That's not in the Constitutional text.' Obama wouldn't promise to nominate a 'moderate,' consensus candidate, saying people should not 'assume anything about the qualifications' of the person he'll pick 'other than they're gonna be well-qualified'. The president will not attend Scalia's funeral mass on Saturday, where Vice President Joe Biden is expected to be in attendance. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz will fly to DC for the funeral before heading back to South Carolina for the primary there. Scalia's body was discovered in his bedroom at Texas ranch between 11.30am and 11.40am on Saturday morning. Scalia, who had a history of heart problems, had been enjoying a quail shoot at the property with friends but retired to bed early on Friday night after complaining of tiredness. The next morning, friends of the late Justice attempted to call him at around 8.30am but on getting no answer, decided to go out. On their return, at 11.30am, they broke into Scalia's room and found him lying 'cold' in his bed. The Mass open to family and friends will take place Saturday at 11am at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. Burial plans have not been released Thousands of people lined up around the Supreme Court as they waited for a chance to pay their respects to the late judge Despite freezing temperatures, scores of people made the effort to visit the Supreme Court as Scalia lied in repose inside The queues sprawled out in front of and round the side of the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on Friday as people waited for a chance to view Scalia's casket The line to view Justice Scalia's casket stretched back more than an entire block as thousands of people gathered in Washington, DC Advertisement As EU leaders were thrashing out a deal last night, the real crisis facing the Continent was laid bare. Europol warned there could be up to 5,000 Islamist jihadis at large in the EU and more than 2,000 migrants are arriving on the Greek island of Lesbos each day. The British head of the EUs crime-fighting organisation said the Continent was facing its biggest security crisis in ten years. A father stands with his daughter who is wrapped in a thermal blanket at a port on the Greek island of Lesbos after crossing from Turkey A man holds his baby in a life jacket upon their arrival with other migrants on the island of Lesbos after crossing the Aegean from Turkey A volunteer hugs a woman after refugees arrive on a beach after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey to the island of Lesbos on a dingy A child wrapped in a blanket sits with other migrants upon their arrival to the port of the northern island of Lesbos in Mytilene A refugee rescued by the coastguard is pictured wrapped in a blanket as she disembarks from a ship in Mytilene on the island of Lesbos In a jolt to the EUs feuding leaders, Europol said at least 4,700 EU citizens had been recorded as fighting overseas in countries such as Syria and Iraq. Security officials fear many could have slipped back into the EU. British officials suspect 400 are in the UK. Alarmingly, it emerged two alleged Islamic State terrorists under arrest in Austria entered the EU through Greece posing as refugees. The two men, a 28-year-old Algerian and a 34-year-old Pakistani, were arrested at a refugee shelter at the end of last year. Yesterday prosecutors said they accessed the Continent through Greece, on a boat which also carried two of the Paris attackers. Rob Wainwright, the British head of Europol, estimates that between 3,000 and 5,000 EU citizens have returned to Europe after joining IS. As a result, he said, the Continent faces its highest terror threat in more than ten years. We can expect Isil [Islamic State] or other religious terror groups to stage an attack somewhere in Europe with the aim of achieving mass casualties among the civilian population, he told a German newspaper. He added that the growing number of IS terrorists presents EU member states with completely new challenges. The chilling intervention came as the immigration crisis threatened to tear the EU apart. Yesterday Italy insisted its borders must remain wide open allowing tens of thousands of refugees to flood into the mainland. A man touches the face of a relative suffering from hypothermia as he is carried by Greek paramedics upon their arrival on Lesbos A woman suffering from hypothermia rests after arriving with other migrants on a dingy from Turkey to the Greek island of Lesbos A father keeps his daughter warm with a blanket upon their arrival with other refugees and migrants in Mytilene on February 19 A coastguard carries a small child covered with a blanket as refugees disembark from a Greek patrol boat at the port of Mytilene In Greece, authorities said 6,000 refugees in three days had arrived on Lesbos seeking asylum, despite the bad weather. Shivering in the bitter wind, their lips blue with cold, they were pictured arriving on the shore after being rescued from the sea. Wintry conditions mean the journey in battered wooden boats and rubber dinghies is even more treacherous than usual and at least 100 have died this year. But even as maritime patrols rescue hundreds from the Aegean, thousands more continue putting their lives in the hands of smugglers promising to carry them from Turkey. New arrivals on a flimsy rubber craft wept with relief yesterday as they were helped ashore by a human chain of volunteers. Some were suffering hypothermia and had to be carried away on stretchers. Others shivered in survival blankets and clutched bottled water in shaking hands. Young children, clearly bewildered, and babies dwarfed by adult-sized life jackets were among the latest arrivals. The Hellenic Coast Guard said 2,090 had arrived on Lesbos in the past 24 hours. Migrants rescued by the Greek coast guard disembark from a ship upon their arrival in Mytilene on the northern island of Lesbos Refugees and migrants rescued by the Greek coast guard disembark from a ship upon their arrival on the northern island of Lesbos A girl wearing Minnie Mouse trousers and an item of clothing on her head gets off the Greek coastguard ship at the port of Mytilene A woman wrapped in a thick grey blanket holds her tiny baby in her arms after crossing the Aegean sea from Turkey on February 19 EU officials had thought choppy seas and freezing temperatures would stem the flow over the winter. But while numbers are down on the 7,000 who made the journey every day during summer, there is no let-up in sight. Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras, who fears EU nations will close their borders in an attempt stop to refugees travelling further into Europe, alluded to David Camerons renegotiation efforts when he told national leaders on Thursday night: We need to help the UK, but the UK has only got a referendum in June and we have a crisis hitting us today. He said he needed assurances that countries would not close their borders, leaving migrants stranded in Greece, before he would approve the text at the conclusion of talks. Hundreds of desperate families have been plucked from the sea by rescuers in recent days. They included around 900 migrants picked up by a Bulgarian patrol ship between Lesbos and Turkey on Thursday. Earlier this week, migrants began registering at four reception centres on islands near Turkey, including Lesbos, after an EU demand that they must all be fingerprinted before moving on. A teenager who blew marijuana smoke into a kitten's face while her boyfriend filmed it on Snapchat has been convicted of animal cruelty and slapped with a $1,500 fine. Sophie Wilson, 19, and her boyfriend Luke Hoiles, 20, from the Gold Coast, pleaded guilty to the offence after police found a video of the tabby kitten being abused and tied up, the Gold Coast Bulletin reported. Distressing footage shows the cat's hind legs tied together with the caption 'Kitty naughty tied up now'. The clip also shows Wilson holding the kitten down and blowing smoke in its face while Hoiles filmed the incident and appeared to laugh, a court heard. Sophie Wilson, 19, (pictured) has been convicted of animal cruelty after she was filmed blowing marijuana smoke into a kitten's face Video footage also shows the cat energetically playing at the couple's home in Broadbeach Waters with the caption 'Kitty got into the goey'. Officers raided the couple's home in March last year and Wilson lashed out at a number of officers, Southport Magistrates Court heard. She pleaded guilty to four counts of assaulting police for kicking an officer in the groin and biting his forearm, and bending back and biting another officer's finger. Wilson and Hoiles also pleaded guilty to animal cruelty in relation to the incident. The clip (pictured) shows Wilson holding the tabby kitten down and blowing smoke in its face Her boyfriend Luke Hoiles filmed the incident and appeared to laugh, Southport Magistrates Court heard Both Wilson and Hoiles (pictured together) pleaded guilty to animal cruelty in relation to the incident Magistrate Chris Callaghan said they had 'behaved in a poor way towards that kitten' and said it seemed to be tormenting for the animal. He fined Hoiles $1,000 for the animal cruelty offences and Wilson $1,500 for all offences. No convictions were recorded. Solicitor Jodie Mair said the raid occurred while Wilson was still in her bra and pants. She said Wilson was released from the station distressed, barefoot and without money at midnight. The solicitor also said that Wilson was remorseful and regretted the 'poor decision'. Video footage also shows the cat energetically playing at the couple's home in Broadbeach Waters with the caption 'Kitty got into the goey' The mother of two children who were sexually abused by their maths tutor has voiced her heartbreak. Quy Huy 'Peter' Hoang, 67, molested his pupils - girls aged between three and eight - in two family homes between 2011 and 2014, Sydney's District Court was told. Last year he pleaded not guilty to 12 counts of abuse but was in November he was found guilty of eight charges, including sexual intercourse with a child and indecent assault. During a sentencing hearing on Friday the mother of two of the children detailed her devastating guilt about allowing Mr Hoang inside their home in a victim statement, reports ABC. Scroll down for video Vietnamese maths tutor Quy Huy 'Peter' Hoang, 67, molested his pupils, girls aged between three and eight The mother of two children who were sexually abused by their maths tutor has voiced her heartbreak 'I feel guilty that I was responsible ... for bringing this monster into our home,' she said. She said she considered suicide after learning about the abuse, which has wreaked havoc on her family. 'I felt death was an easy option,' she said. The mother also revealed the heart-wrenching trauma her son has suffered at the hands of Mr Hoang. 'He couldn't sleep and said he wanted to die because of flashbacks.' It comes after Fairfax reported that one of the teacher's offences was sexual intercourse with a 7-year-old girl, and that all of his victims were from Sydney's Vietnamese community. Among the list of charges, which occurred in two Sydney family homes between 2011-2014, was sexual intercourse with a 7-year-old girl Hoang was found not guilty of two further charges relating to allegations he had committed an act of indecency on a seven-year-old student between 2007 and 2008. Two more changes are being deliberated on by the jury. Hoang transferred KY Jelly into small Blistex containers and carried it to tutoring lessons in his briefcase, crown prosecutor Paul Leask told the court during the trial. Mr Leask said the teacher brought lubricant to his lessons for 'no other purpose but sexual intercourse'. He used the lubricant to carry out his abuse, which included digitally penetrating one girl and kissing another on the mouth and making her 'pinky promise' not to tell her mother, the crown said during the trial. Writer never married or had children, but has two surviving nephews Watchman, a sequel to Mockingbird, was further marred by controversy when hero Atticus Finch was portrayed as racist Friends claimed her lawyer, Tonja B. Carter, manipulated her into releasing Watchman following the death of Lee's sister, Alice, in 2014 Lee's second-ever novel, Go Set A Watchman, topped the 2015 bestseller list after its controversial release, 55 years after To Kill A Mockingbird An official cause of death or funeral arrangements have not been released For years she had been confined to a nursing home after a stroke in 2007 Harper Lee, the elusive Pulitzer Prize-winning author, has died aged 89, just seven months after the release of Go Set A Watchman, the controversial sequel of To Kill A Mockingbird. The celebrated writer, who was unmarried and had no children, had been confined to a nursing home for years in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, after her sight and hearing were deeply affected by a stroke in 2007. According to a statement by her publisher, HarperCollins, Lee died peacefully in her sleep on Thursday, though an official cause of death has not been released. Tributes began pouring in for the novelist on Friday, with the likes of George W. Bush, Oprah Winfrey and Apple CEO Tim Cook sending their condolences to her last remaining relatives. Hank Conner, Lee's oldest nephew and the family spokesperson, said in a statement on Friday: 'This is a sad day for our family. America and the world knew Harper Lee as one of the last century's most beloved authors. We knew her as Nelle Harper Lee, a loving member of our family, a devoted friend to the many good people who touched her life, and a generous soul in our community and our state. We will miss her dearly.' In memoriam: Pulitzer prize-winning author Harper Lee passed away peaceful on Thursday at the age of 89, according to officials in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama The statement added: 'Ms. Lee passed away in her sleep early this morning. Her passing was unexpected. She remained in good basic health until her passing.' As per her request, Lee's funeral will be private, Conner said. Lee only ever made a handful of public appearances and has rarely granted interviews since 1964, when she retreated from the spotlight in the wake of Mockingbird's overwhelming success. No details about her will or who stands to inherit her substantial estate have yet been released. She never married and had no children, although has two nephews. Lee had been making about $3.2million a year, according to Bloomberg, and had an estimated net worth of $35million, but that was calculated before the release of Watchman.When Watchman was released last July, Forbes estimated that Lee stood to earn $10 million from the book in 2015. The website also cited legal papers filed against her former book agent, Sam Pinkus, that showed, in the first six months of 2009, Lee received $1,688,064.68 in royalties from To Kill A Mockingbird. Estimating that as an average figure, the book royalties would equate to $3,376,129.39 per year, or $9,249 each day. Lee also created Mockingbord Company, a nonprofit in May 2015 to oversee the book's cultural legacy and any future stage adaptations of the play. Aaron Sorkin, the writer of The West Wing, announced earlier this year he was adapting a play for Broadway. Raley L. Wiggins, an estate planning attorney in Montgomery, Alabama, 100 miles away from Monroeville, told The International Business Times that Lee's death had left more questions than answers. 'It might be the people you suspect, or she might've left it all to the cat or all to charity,' Wiggins said. 'We just don't know.' Nursing home: Lee had resided for years in this assisted living facility, The Meadows, in her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. Her sister lived there with her up until her death in November 2014, aged 103 Lee was born Nelle Harper Lee on April 28, 1926, in Monroeville, the youngest of four children of lawyer Amasa Coleman Lee and Frances Cunningham Finch Lee. She was known to family and friends as Nelle. Lee's older sister Alice, who lived with her in the nursing home, The Meadows, died in November 2014, aged 103. She once described her sister as 'Atticus in a skirt', referring to her beloved Mockingbird character Atticus Finch, who was believed to have been inspired by their father. Accounts of Lee's mental and physical state have been contradictory over the last few years, but they intensified in February last year, after publisher HarperCollins announced her second-ever book, Go Set a Watchman, was to be released in July. Lee wrote the book in the 1950s and submitted it to publishers before To Kill A Mockingbird, but it was turned down. It is considered her earliest work, but is set 20 years after Mockingbird. The manuscript was presumed lost, according to reports, but was controversially found in 2014 in a safety deposit box by her lawyer, Tonja B. Carter, alongside the original Mockingbird manuscript. Recluse: Harper Lee is seen here in an undated picture taken at her home in Monroeville around the time that To Kill A Mockingbird was released. She famously retreated from the spotlight after the book Tribute: Flowers are placed on a statue of a girl reading Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird in memorial of Lee on Friday in Monroeville, Alabama. The author died in the town on Thursday Lee had retreated into an intensely private life in Monroeville following To Kill A Mockingbird and repeatedly refused to publish another novel. Some friends said that after the death of Alice - a lawyer who handled all of Lee's affairs - Carter had manipulated Lee to approve publication. Controversial: Some claim Lee's lawyer, Tonja B. Carter (pictured), manipulated her into releasing Go Set A Watchman following the death of Lee's sister The manuscripts were uncovered not long after Alice passed away. Carter had said she came across the Watchman manuscript while doing legal work for Lee in 2014 and an investigation by Alabama state officials found there was no coercion in getting Lee's permission to publish. Lee's literary output had been a matter of speculation for decades before Go Set a Watchman. She acknowledged she could not top the Pulitzer Prize-winning Mockingbird but friends said she had worked for years on at least two other books before abandoning them. A family friend, the Reverend Thomas Lane Butts, told an Australian interviewer Lee had said she did not publish again because she did want to endure the pressure and publicity of another book and because she had said all that she wanted to say. Go Set A Watchman centers around Mockingbird's protagonist, Scout, returning to the fictional of Maycomb, inspired by Monroeville, after 20 years. It topped the US bestseller list in 2015, selling 1.6 million copies, more than half a century after Lee's first book was published. The novel features many of the characters of Lee's 1960 masterpiece, which was turned into an Oscar-winning movie starring Gregory Peck. On Friday, Mary Badham, the actress who portrayed Scout in the film, remembered Lee as a dear friend for over 50 years. 'I think that we have all benefited from her work and her fight for social justice,' Badham told the New York Daily News. 'I'm very sad at her loss. She will be very fondly remembered.' Classic: Nelle Harper Lee (pictured right in 2001) won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961 for her book, To Kill a Mockingbird Former President George W. Bush, who awarded Lee the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007, also paid tribute to the writer. In a statement to ABC News he said: 'Laura and I join our fellow Americans in mourning the death of a legendary novelist and lovely lady, Harper Lee. 'Harper Lee was ahead of her time, and her masterpiece To Kill A Mockingbird prodded America to catch up with her.' Sorkin told the Guardian: 'Like millions of others, I was saddened to learn this morning of the passing of Harper Lee, one of America's most beloved authors. 'I'm honored to have the opportunity to adapt her seminal novel for the stage.' Oprah Winfrey said on Twitter: 'Harper Lee my 1st favorite author! I always wanted to interview her. She said "honey I already said everything I had to say".' Harper Lee was ahead of her time, and her masterpiece To Kill A Mockingbird prodded America to catch up with her - George W. Bush on Friday Considered a 20th century classic that defined racial injustice in the Depression-era South of the United States, but told from the perspective of a child, Mockingbird is standard reading in classrooms across the world. According to The New York Times, it is studied in 74 percent of all secondary schools in the US. It is the story of a girl nicknamed Scout growing up in a Depression-era Southern town. A black man has been wrongly accused of raping a white woman, and Scout's father, the resolute lawyer Atticus Finch, defends him despite threats and the scorn of many. The book quickly became a best-seller, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961 and was made into a memorable movie in 1962, with Gregory Peck winning an Oscar for his portrayal of Atticus. Lee was so impressed by Peck's performance that she presented him with her father's watch, the BBC reported. Honorary: Then-President George Bush presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to author Harper Lee in 2007 at a ceremony at the White House THE CONTROVERSIAL HISTORY OF GO SET A WATCHMAN Harper Lee finished the manuscript for Go Set A Watchman in 1957. The book is about an adult Scout Finch and is considered her earliest work. Lee's editor at the time, Tay Hohoff, suggested the best part of the story was the flashback scenes to Scout's childhood. Lee, a budding young writer, then started afresh, taking the idea and penning To Kill A Mockingbird, which was published as her first novel in 1960. Go Set A Watchman was subsequently cast aside, and few knew it ever existed. Lee herself is said to have presumed it was lost. Scared and unprepared for the success of Mockingbird and the attention that it brought her, Lee later vowed to never release another book. It wasn't until after the death of Alice Lee - the author's sister, lawyer and caregiver, who handled all her affairs - in November 2014 that the manuscript surfaced. Lee's lawyer, Tonja B. Carter, said she had found it in a safe deposit box years earlier, but had only recently verified it as a completed book. She said she contacted Lee, and then passed the manuscript on to Lee's current agent, Andrew Nurnberg. HarperCollins then stunned the world in February 2015 when they announced, with a statement from Lee, that Go Set A Watchman would be released that July. The timing was suspicious, given the recent death of Alice, and amid questions about the health of Lee, who was said to be blind and deaf and confined to a wheelchair. However investigators for the state of Alabama interviewed Lee and determined that claims she was not capable of cogently approving the publication were unfounded. Some claimed Carter had been sitting on Watchman and was waiting until she, and not Alice, would be in charge of Lee's affairs and have it published. Furthermore the book was promoted as a sequel to Mockingbird, because it is set 20 years after the fact, when essentially it was a first draft. Upon its release in July 2015, the consensus among critics was that Watchman also read like a draft. Shockingly, the character of Atticus Finch, Mockingbird's hero, came across as bitter and racist. Watchman went on to sell 1.6 million copies in the second-half of last year and was named the best-selling book of 2015. Advertisement As the civil rights movement grew, the novel inspired a generation of young lawyers, was assigned in high schools all over the country and was a popular choice for citywide, or nationwide, reading programs. By 2015, its sales were reported by HarperCollins to be more than 40 million worldwide, making it one of the most widely read American novels of the 20th century. When the Library of Congress did a survey in 1991 on books that have affected people's lives, 'To Kill a Mockingbird' was second only to the Bible. Lee herself became more mysterious as her book became more famous. At first, she dutifully promoted her work. She spoke frequently to the press, wrote about herself and gave speeches, once to a class of cadets at West Point. But she began declining interviews in the late 1960s and, until late in her life, firmly avoided making any public comment at all about her novel or her career. Other than a few magazine pieces for Vogue and McCall's in the 1960s and a review of a 19th-century Alabama history book in 1983, she published no other book until stunning the world in 2015 by permitting Go Set a Watchman to be released. Readers of Watchman were disheartened to find an Atticus seemed nothing like the hero of the earlier book. The man who defied the status quo in Mockingbird was now part of the mob in Watchman, denouncing the Supreme Court's ruling that school segregation was unconstitutional and denouncing blacks as unfit to enjoy full equality. But the unenthusiastic reviews and questions whether Lee was well enough to approve the publication did nothing to dull the incredible book sales. Much of Lee's story is the story of Mockingbird' and how she responded to it. She wasn't a bragger, like Norman Mailer, or a drinker, like William Faulkner, or a recluse or eccentric. By the accounts of friends and Monroeville townsfolk, she was a warm, vibrant and witty woman who enjoyed life, played golf, read voraciously and got about to plays and concerts. She just didn't want to talk about it before an audience. Claudia Durst Johnson, author of a book-length critical analysis of Lee's novel, described her as preferring to guard her privacy 'like others in an older generation, who didn't go out and talk about themselves on Oprah or the Letterman show at the drop of a hat.' According to Johnson, Lee also complained that the news media invariably misquoted her. Lee emerged more often over the past few years, although not always in ways she preferred. She was involved in numerous legal disputes over the rights to her book and denied she had cooperated with the biography The Mockingbird Next Door: Life With Harper Lee, by Marja Mills. Actor Gregory Peck and novelist Harper Lee on the movie set of the film To Kill A Mockingbird in 1962. Lee was so taken with Gregory Peck's portrayal of Atticus that she gifted him with her father's watch Harper Lee is pictured on set of To Kill A Mockingbird with Mary Badham, the young actress that played Scout Other occasions were happier. She wrote a letter of thanks in 2001 when the Chicago Public Library chose 'Mockingbird' for its first One Book, One Chicago program. In 2007, she agreed to attend a White House ceremony at which she received a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Around the same time, she wrote a rare published item for O, The Oprah Magazine about how she became a reader as a child in a rural, Depression-era Alabama town, and remained one. 'Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cellphones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books,' she wrote. By 2014, she had given in to the digital age and allowed her novel to come out as an e-book, calling it 'Mockingbird for a new generation'. Born in Monroeville, Alabama, Nelle Harper Lee was known to family and friends as Nelle - the name of a relative, Ellen, spelled backward. L ike Atticus Finch, her father was a lawyer and state legislator. One of her childhood friends was Truman Capote, who lived with relatives next door to the Lees for several years. A book about Lee in 2006 and two films about Capote brought fresh attention to their friendship, including her contributions to Capote's 'In Cold Blood,' the classic 'nonfiction novel' about the murder of a Kansas farm family. The classic and the bestseller: Go Set A Watchman was the best-selling book of 2015, moving 1.6 million copies following its release in July, 55 years after To Kill A Mockingbird Capote became the model for Scout's creative, impish and loving friend Dill. In the novel, Dill is described as 'a pocket Merlin, whose head teemed with eccentric plans, strange longings, and quaint fancies.' Lee's friendship with Capote was evident later when she traveled frequently with him to Kansas, beginning in 1959, to help him do research for what became his own best-seller, 'In Cold Blood.' He dedicated the book to her and his longtime companion, Jack Dunphy, but never acknowledged how vital a role she played in its creation. Charles J. Shields, in the first book-length attempt at a biography of Lee, Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, showed how Lee helped Capote gain entrance to key figures in the murder investigation and provided keen observations and myriad notes that Capote wove into his book. (He also debunked a long-standing rumor that Capote had actually written much of Mockingbird.) In the 2005 film Capote, Philip Seymour Hoffman won the best actor Academy Award for his portrayal of Capote struggling with his demons as he works on the book. Catherine Keener was nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Lee. Rare appearance: Harper Lee (center) and close friend Joy Brown (right) attend a book launch for Go Set A Watchman in Monroeville, Alabama, on June 30, 2015. It was one of Lee's last-ever public appearances The next year, Sandra Bullock took the role of Lee in 'Infamous,' with Toby Jones as Capote. Lee said in the 1960s that she was working on a second novel, but over time it dropped from view and never reached a publisher. Lee researched another book, a non-fiction account of a bizarre voodoo murder case in rural east Alabama, but abandoned the project in the 1980s. Lee, who attended Huntingdon College in Montgomery as a freshman, transferred the next year to the University of Alabama, where she wrote and became editor of the campus literary magazine. After studying to be a lawyer like her father and older sister, Lee left the university before graduating, heading to New York to become a writer, as Capote already had done. Lee worked as an airlines reservation clerk in New York City during the early 1950s, writing on the side. Finally, with a Christmas loan from friends, she quit to write full time, and the first draft of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' reached its publisher, J.B. Lippincott, in 1957. The manuscript, according to the publishing house, arrived under the title Atticus. The title later became 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' referring to an old saying that it was all right to kill a blue jay but a sin to kill a mockingbird, which gives the world its music. To Kill a Mockingbird author Harper Lee is seen in her father's law office while visiting her home town Lee worked with the editor Tay Hohoff in bringing the book to its final form, a period when Lee was scrimping financially and dealing with the difficulties of rewriting. 'Though Miss Lee then had never published even an essay or a short story, this was clearly not the work of an amateur or tyro,' the editor wrote in an account published by Lippincott in 1967. '... She had learned the essential part of her craft, with no so-called professional help, simply by working at it and working at it, endlessly.' Capote, in a letter to an aunt in July 1959, said that a year earlier Lee 'showed me as much of the book as she'd written, and I liked it very much. She has real talent.' Her novel, while hugely popular, was not ranked many scholars in the same category as the work of other Southern authors such as Eudora Welty or Flannery O'Connor. Decades after its publication, little was written about it in scholarly journals. Some critics has called the book naive and sentimental, whether dismissing the Ku Klux Klan as a minor nuisance in Maycomb or advocating change through personal persuasion rather than collective action. The novel was also considered patronizing for highlighting the bravery of a white man on behalf of blacks. O'Connor, in an October 1960 letter, said, 'I think I see what it really is a child's book. ... I think for a child's book, it does all right.' Parallels were drawn between Lee and Margaret Mitchell, another Southern woman whose only novel, 'Gone With the Wind,' became a phenomenon and was made into a beloved movie. But Mitchell's book romanticized the black-white divide; Lee's work confronted it, although more gently than novels before and since. Lee's book features Scout's often meandering recollection of the people some eccentric, such as the reclusive Boo Radley in rural Maycomb County, during the years when her brother Jem reaches adolescence and she enters school. Some critics said it relied at times on stereotypes, such as the mean, trashy whites making false charges against a virtuous black. But the tomboy Scout and the quietly courageous Atticus Finch drew praise as memorable, singular creations. The book's tension is built around the lynching atmosphere in Maycomb as the black man goes on trial, a scenario reminiscent of the Scottsboro Boys rape case of the same period. Scout, Dill and Jem, whose playful curiosity takes scary turns, witness the drama of an adult world with its own frightening lessons. paid $300million for the de Konning and $200million for 17A Patron: Billionaire Ken Griffin reportedly paid $500million for two art works by Abstract Expressionists this past fall Billionaire Ken Griffin has been identified as the mystery buyer behind one of the largest art deals of all time. The Chicago hedge-fund manager paid $500million for two Abstract Expressionist paintings this past fall, sources close to the deal told Bloomberg. It's reported that the 47-year-old paid about $300million for Willem de Kooning's 1955 oil painting 'Interchanged' and about $200million for Jackson Pollock's 1948 piece 'Number 17A'. Art experts stopped short of calling it the biggest private art deal of all time, but Griffin's purchase of Interchanged appears to have tied it with the current record set last year when the Qatar Museums bought Paul Gauguin's painting 'When Will You Marry?' for an estimated $300million. Both of Griffin's masterpieces are currently on display at the Art Institute of Chicago, where they will remain for the time being. The deal comes as Griffin remains locked in a bitter divorce from his wife Anne Dias-Griffin, who has been fighting for a bigger settlement by claiming she was forced to sign a pre-nuptial agreement under duress. She also claimed Griffin is failing to pay adequate child support for their three children. It's reported that he paid $300million for Willem de Kooning's 1955 oil painting 'Interchanged' (above) Brilliant mess: The hedge-fund manager paid another $200million to buy Jackson Pollock's 'Number 17A' (above) from Hollywood mogul David Geffen Griffin is currently in the midst of a bitter divorce from his wife Anne Dias-Griffin, who claims she was forced to sign a pre-nuptial agreement under duress. The couple are pictured when they were an item in 2011 Griffin has fought back at what he sees as his wife's money-grabbing attempt by using their children as an excuse. He said he has even gone above and beyond what he needs to provide and has paid expenses that are solely for Dias' benefit, including a private chef, multiple house cleaners and a house manager/personal assistant. He said that while he declined to fund a $450,000 winter vacation, he did give her $45,000 for a winter break. Griffin said Dias is trying to fund her 'opulent lifestyle' by saying her personal expenses should be part of child support. Griffin is the founder of Chicago-based hedge fund firm Citadel and is worth an estimated $7billion. While it's been a tough year for hedge funds, Griffin's flagship fund Citadel Wellington has been an exception and posted returns of 14.3 per cent in 2015. Citadel also signed a deal last week to lease 200,000 square feet in a new skyscraper in New York City. Griffin purchased both of the paintings from Hollywood mogul David Geffen's foundation. Griffin has long been a patron of the arts, becoming a trustee of the Chicago Art Institute in 2004 and helping to build the museum's Modern wing. He also donated $40million to the New York Museum of Modern Art in December. Eccentric cyber security millionaire John McAfee has bragged that his team of 'the best hackers on the planet' could break into the San Bernardino terrorists' iPhone in three weeks for free. McAfee, 70, who now lives in Tennessee but spent years on the run while claiming government assassins were trying to kill him, said he would publicly eat his shoe if he failed. He also defended Apple's decision to fight a court order forcing them to hack through their own security on Friday, questioning why the FBI had been unable to do it themselves. Scroll down for video John McAfee claims he has built a hacker team 'with talents that defy normal human comprehension' and bragged they can break into the San Bernardino terrorists' iPhone in three weeks McAfee, who created the security software that shares his name, told Business Insider he has created a team of expert hackers 'with talents that defy normal human comprehension'. He claimed the only reason they do not already work for the FBI is because the agency 'will not hire anyone with a 24-inch purple mohawk, 10-gauge ear piercings and a tattooed face who demands to smoke weed while working'. McAfee (pictured in 2012) said he is so confident in his team's ability that he will eat his shoe on TV if they fail McAfee went on to say that his team would 'primarily' use social engineering in order to crack the code, and set a time limit of three weeks. Social engineering is a hacking practice whereby the target is tricked or scared into giving away information that allows hackers access to their computer. Typical attacks include phising emails, such as messages claiming your computer is infected with a virus and asking you to enter your security information, or claiming you are due to inherit money and asking for banking details. However, since both terrorists Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik are dead, it is unclear how exactly McAfee intends to trick either of them into giving their passwords away. McAfee, who is running for President as a candidate for his own Libertarian Party, also claimed Apple was to refuse to help the FBI access the information on the iPhone. He said that by forcing Apple to create a backdoor, the FBI would cause 'the end of the U.S. as a world power'. He said that the weak spot would be exploited by the likes of the Chinese and Russians to wage a cyber war that America would loose. He added: 'The Government has ordered a disarmament of our already ancient cybersecurity and cyberdefense systems, and it is asking us to take a walk into that near horizon where cyberwar is unquestionably waiting, with nothing more than harsh words as a weapon and the hope that our enemies will take pity at our unarmed condition and treat us fairly.' Earlier this week a California judge ordered Apple to help FBI agents get into the iPhone owned by Farook and Malik, the San Bernardino terrorists who killed 14 people late last year. McAfee also lent his support to Apple CEO Tim Cook (pictured) who has refused a court order forcing his company to hack into their own product, saying doing so would cause 'the end of the U.S. as a world power' The order would compel Apple to create a new version of its iOS software with a security backdoor built in and install it on the phone, allowing agents to recover the encrypted data. While the FBI insists that such technology would only be used once on this particular phone, Apple CEO Tim Cook has argued it is impossible to guarantee that. Teenager followed catering worker down into basement at centre in Menen A teenage Afghan immigrant has been charged with raping a female worker at an asylum seekers' centre in Belgium, authorities said, prompting outrage from anti-immigrant politicians. The 16-year-old Afghan asylum seeker followed a worker from a catering firm into the basement and raped her at the centre in Menen, near the French border, prosecutors said. The judge ordered him detained in youth custody until his next hearing. Many right-wing protesters took to the streets after the Cologne sex attacks, which they blamed on the influx of migrants into Germany A spokeswoman for the Red Cross said it was the first time in 25 years such an alleged incident had occurred at one of the organisation's asylum seeker centres in the country. 'Two weeks ago we gave a course about how to treat women in Flanders and the boy was present there,' the spokeswoman said. The allegation feeds into to a highly charged debate over immigration in Europe, particularly since authorities in neighbouring Germany accused gangs of migrants of sexually assaulting women in Cologne on New Year's Eve. 'I repeat: people who need a course on how to treat women should not be there in the first place,' Tom Van Grieken, leader of anti-immigrant party Vlaams Belang said on Twitter. Belgium received 35,476 asylum requests in 2015, more than twice the level of 2014. The incident echoes that of Swedish social worker Alexandra Mezher, who it is alleged was stabbed to death by Somalian migrant Youssaf Khaliif Nuur at an adolescent migrant centre where she worked in Gothenberg, Sweden last month. It also follows the Cologne sex attacks on New Year's Eve, in which hundreds of women filed sexual assault complaints after wave of attacks in the German city. A mob of men - believed to be of North African and Arab origin - were said to have molested and robbed women after congregating at the city's central station. Meanwhile an Iraqi migrant raped a 10-year-old boy at a swimming pool in Vienna earlier this month. A Muslim woman suffering terminal cancer was placed under investigation by Florida police this week after a synagogue reported her for entering their congregation and 'asking questions'. Nabila Ouakka, who moved to the US from Morocco 10 years ago, said she was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer last year and has been exploring other religions since. 'As a person, I am sociable. I love people and love to be around people. My intentions were to get closer to my brothers and sisters,' she told CBS Miami. However some Jewish members called police after Ouakka and her mother, Mamma Akhizz, who are both of Muslim faith, asked about the service times. Scroll down for video Put under investigation: Florida woman Nabila Ouakka, who is suffering from terminal breast cancer, had to be interviewed by police this week after she visited a synagogue in North Miami and some members reported her Footage taken from inside the synagogue was released to CBS, showing Ouakka and her mother, Mamma Akhizz, entering the place of worship, which worried some of the Jewish members 'After a thorough investigation, we determined they were not a threat to anybody': Major Rich Rand (left) of the North Miami Beach Police made a comment to the press this week, while Rabbi Yosef Marlow was concerned 'I just wanted to say hello,' Ouakka told CBS. 'I wanted to meet new friends and get in touch with my brothers and sisters.' 'I have cancer. Terminal cancer. I was even involved with holistic medicine. 'I am going through a lot. Life is not easy.' However the visit raised suspicions, according to Rabbi Yosef Marlow. 'Common sense is that they would go through the proper channels and make an appointment before making an entrance of any sort,' he said. The police they confirmed they investigated Ouakka, but ruled out any threat. 'I love people and love to be around people': Nabila Ouakka was making enquiries about the Jewish faith when members of a synagogue called police Ouakka went to North Miami Police to speak with them about what happened. 'We got a report of a suspicious person. She is a human being. Her mother is a human being, as are the rest of us. After a thorough investigation, we determined they were not a threat to anybody,' said Major Rich Rand of the North Miami Beach Police. The whole incident came as a shock to Ouakka, who said she does not have a television and did not realize she had started any controversy, which was covered by local networks. Furthermore she said the people in the synagogue were very welcoming to her. 'They were very nice to us,' she told CBS. Baffling footage purporting to show an object trailing the International Space Station has emerged from Russia. The video was reported to show a spacecraft or piece of debris following the station as it orbited Earth last month. The footage - claimed to have been shot on the ISS's own cameras - was said to have been taken while the satellite was waiting for a supplies delivery. The object is seen floating behind a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, which are used to transport cosmonauts The appearance of the object in the video has baffled viewers trying to determine what exactly it could be While some have suggested it is a UFO, others say it is a piece of debris or some other floating matter It was said the video was recorded by ISS cameras, through the veracity of the claim has not been established Many have claimed the object is a UFO - but others remain skeptical about the authenticity of the film and the explanations for the object. Some pointed out that cameras on the ISS record video of significantly better quality than that seen in the short recording. Meanwhile, the rotation and motion of the object does not look to correspond to that of an object in orbit. One clue could could lie in the fact a Russian Soyuz spacecraft - used to carry cosmonauts into space - is seen in the footage. Astronauts on the film's soundtrack make no comment about the object seemingly observing them, it was reported. The video quickly went viral online where it was hotly debated by viewers. Some described it as a 'companion ship'. One viewer, identified as Kirill Polishchuk, said: 'Debris from the ISS will have roughly the same speed. It is a thermal insulation board, most likely.' Meanwhile, today the Cygnus cargo vessel was launched back into space packed full of garbage it had accrued during its time with the ISS. The capsule, built by private space company Orbital ATK, was pushed out into the emptiness of space using a large robotic arm on the space station as it flew above Bolivia. Once the spacecraft reached a safe distance from the space station, its engines were due to fire twice, sending it on course for a fiery finale in the Earth's atmosphere. The spaceship, which was named SS Deke Slayton II after one of Nasa's original astronauts, will burn up in the atmosphere during re-entry. years in advance, even before their children are born Pushy mothers are applying to the countrys best private schools before the child is even conceived because of a growing squeeze on places, it is claimed. Head teachers and education consultants say that competition for good schools has now reached bonkers proportions, with many parents panicking over the race to secure a place. Many popular independent schools are operating on a first come, first served basis, meaning parents are applying years in advance. Pushy mothers are applying to the countrys best private schools before the child is even conceived because of a growing squeeze on places. Pictured, students from illustrious private school Eton College Some are reportedly putting in applications before the child is born, while others are even making calling schools to reserve a spot before they have even become pregnant. The startling findings were revealed in an investigation of London private schools by the Times Educational Supplement, which discovered parents view the process as way of ensuring a smooth transition from embryo to Eton. It comes amid an escalating places crisis in primary schools caused by a baby boom fuelled by migration. In some areas last year, up to a quarter of families applying to state schools missed out on their first choice primary. Disappointed parents who can afford to pay may be turning to the private sector, but this places even more pressure on the independent schools. Alison Fisher, head of Broadhurst School a highly oversubscribed pre-prep school in Hampstead, North London told TES that if parents did not call her within a few weeks of learning they were pregnant they could miss out on a prized morning nursery place. She added: I have women telling me, I havent told my husband [that I am pregnant] but can you just pencil it in and keep it confidential. They have to get in very quickly. Broadhurst needs parents to register as soon as they become pregnant so that they have more time to apply for prep schools. Ms Fisher said that one woman had called asking if she could get a place for a child not yet conceived. Broadhurst pre-prep school in Hampstead, pictured with pushchairs outside, needs parents to register as soon as they become pregnant so that they have more time to apply for prep schools We need to have a conversation about the next school when they are pregnant as some deadlines for schools are from the hospital bed, she added. The investigation also found that tuition companies are now offering baby packages that will deliver filled-in registration forms to schools immediately after childbirth. There have also been reports of mothers booking specially timed caesarean deliveries to try and get ahead in the admissions race. Consultancy services whose main business was once helping overseas pupils now catering for increasing numbers of panicked British parents. William Petty, co-director of Bonas MacFarlane a company that provides tutoring and school admissions consultancy and mentoring said: We now have the most in-demand private [schools] sector in the world. One mother who called an exclusive pre-prep school from the labour ward, a few days after the birth, was laughed off the phone. First come, first served now means closest to the embryo. Anke Gosch set up the London Pre Prep website for fun during maternity leave but the high demand from parents seeking advice inspired her to offer a consultancy service. International families living in Britain believe that it is easier to get into schools like Eton, pictured, if they get into the education system early - with some applying to exclusive pre-schools while they are still pregnant She said: Its getting a bit crazy as there are a lot of internationals in London who will apply to the schools across the whole city. I often have people who come to me when they are pregnant. You get Asian families who want to go to Eton and then Oxford and it is easier for them to get in if you are in the system earlier. Every year it gets worse. Now you have to apply to some schools within a week [of giving birth]; it used to be six months. Rajni Jayasekera, who runs a website called Mums in the Wood, advising parents in St Johns Wood, north-west London, said: Ive heard of people choosing to have elective caesareans. The general feeling among parents is that if you are born in first part of the month you are more likely to get into certain schools. A student plunged 100 feet to his death down a chimney shaft after going up to the roof of an exclusive apartment to enjoy the views across London, an inquest heard today. Emergency services took more than four hours to retrieve the body of 20-year-old Francois Alexis from the basement of the seven-storey residential building near Marble Arch, in central London. The inquest heard that the film student had gone up to the roof of the plush apartment block, on the street where pop star Madonna used to live, after smoking cannabis and drinking a pint of beer. Mr Alexis and his friend Elie Ronge, who lived in the apartment block, went to stand by the chimney to stay warm on July 31st last year, Westminster Coroner's Court was told. Emergency services took more than four hours to retrieve the body of 20-year-old Francois Alexis (pictured) from the home's basement After a few minutes Francois, a second year sound design student at the University of Arts London, decided to sit on the edge of the chimney, but lost his balance and fell backwards down the shaft. Emergency services were called to the scene and firefighters spent 'four and five hours to try and get him out the chimney'. They drilled a hole in the wall of the chimney in the basement of the building, and the body which was 'covered in soot' was recovered. Francois was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics. Coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe said: 'There was a considerable amount of work from the emergency services, but tragically to no avail, as he fell from such a great height.' A post-mortem gave the cause of death as multiple traumatic injuries and toxicology reports showed small amounts of alcohol, less than half the drink-drive limit, and cannabis in the student's system. Today his friend Elie Ronge told the inquest that before Francois arrived at his flat he had just finished his shift at a pub where he had a pint of beer after and that it was likely he had also smoked some cannabis. Asked about going up to the roof, Mr Ronge said: 'We had done it several times before. 'It was quite a nice view and we felt quite safe. 'We were listening to music and it was getting cold up there. We were up there for about 20 minutes or so. Emergency services were called to the scene and firefighters spent 'four and five hours to try and get him out the chimney' (pictured) 'We felt a bit cold and we looked for somewhere to warm up so we moved over to the chimney. 'We lent up against it at first, then he decided to sit up on the wall. He lent back and fell.' He told the court that after Francois fell he heard the sound of him 'hitting a metal plate' and he shouted down to him, but didn't get a response. The Coroner recorded the death as an accident and said: 'Francois Alexis was 20 years old and he was a student. 'He had been working in a pub earlier that evening. 'He had a pint of beer and had clearly smoked some cannabis at some point. He went to visit his friend Elie Ronge. Emergency service were called and there was a frantic search to retrieve him, hoping that he hadn't suffered fatal injuries. Four-and-a-half to five hours later they found the body, but sadly he was deceased Coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe 'They did what they had done on previous occasions and had gone up to the roof to listen to music and look at the view of London. 'It got a bit cold and they moved closer to the chimney area, for whatever reason. 'Francois decided to sit on the edge of the chimney, he lost his balance and fell down the chimney shaft. 'Emergency service were called and there was a frantic search to retrieve him, hoping that he hadn't suffered fatal injuries. 'Four-and-a-half to five hours later they found the body, but sadly he was deceased. 'He died from multiple traumatic injuries, contributed to by ethanol and cannabis use. He fell down the chimney shaft.' Francois lived with his parents in a 1 million house in Streatham, south London. He was born in Marseille, France, but had moved to the UK with his family in 2005. Photographer Sangeeta Dey caught Firefall this year, and said: 'When it ended, a few of us had tears in our eyes' Advertisement Photographers around the world flocked to Yosemite National Park in California this week to catch the incredible natural phenomenon known as Firefall. While pictures look as if glowing hot lava is spilling over the top of the vertical rock formation known as El Capitan, the rare event is actually caused when the setting sun is reflected off Horsetail Falls. Sangeeta Dey, a neuropsychologist and photographer who caught the glowing waterfall this year, said: 'I could not believe what I was seeing. For 10 minutes all of us sat there mesmerized by this spectacle. 'When it ended, a few of us had tears in our eyes, while some were clapping and others were just ecstatic to finally get a chance to see it after trying for years.' Scroll down for video The rare phenomenon occurs when the setting sun lines up and shines on the waterfall running down El Capitan. Temperatures have to be high enough to melt the snow on top of the rock formation, and any precipitation or clouds can obscure the fiery glow Photographers around the world flocked to Yosemite National Park in California this week to catch the incredible natural phenomenon known as Firefall. This photo, taken on Valentines Day shows a subtle heart shape caused by the mist of Horsetail Falls Each February, the setting sun lines up at just the right angle with the waterfall. But the phenomenon also requires weather conditions to be just so. There has to be enough snow gathered at the top in February. Then, temperatures have to be warm enough for the snow to melt and fall 1,570 feet down the eastern face of the rock formation during the brief window of time the sun is in position. The sky has to be clear as well, since any clouds or precipitation would prevent the sunlight from bouncing off the water. It's been several years since Firefall has made its return, especially due to recent droughts, and photographer Dey said: 'Ive met photographers who said that they have been coming for 11 years only to see this happen 2 or 3 times.' Photographer Ray, posting an image on Instagram under the username @rayophotography13, caught Firefall on Valentines Day with the glowing mist forming a subtle heart shape. Instagram user@shank0205 caught a stunning photograph of Horsetail Falls in what was his first ever trip to Yosemite. He wrote: 'I'm happy I got to witness this beautiful work of nature.' A timelapse video by Reetom Hazarika shows the sunlight moving across the face of El Capitan before it falls right on the waterfall, causing it to take on incandescent purple and orange tones. The phenomenon takes its name after a similar, manmade effect, caused by burning embers that were pushed off the cliff of Glacier Point in Yosemite. The practice, which began in the late 19th century, was made illegal in 1968 after it drew large numbers of people. The first known photograph of the natural Firefall was taken in 1973 by Galen Rowell, who helped the phenomenon gain popularity among other photographers and outdoors men. An Indiana man is suing the manufacturer of his smart television over claims the box is 'secretly spying' on him and passing private information on to third parties. Trent Strader filed a 27-page class action complaint at the US District Court in Indianapolis where he alleges his smart television has been monitoring his viewing habits. The complaint claims the TV has also collected information about his IP address through which he connects to the internet and identified other web-enabled products he has been using to get online. Scroll down for video The case claims that Trent Strader's television has been spying on him and selling his private information and details of his viewing habits to third parties and advertisers (picture posed by model) According to court documents the televisions collect personal information through their 'Smart Interactivity' software before passing it on to 'advertisers and data brokers'. It is claimed that the software, which is 'activated by default' has been installed on more than 10 million televisions sold in the United States over recent years. 'The third parties that obtain the personally identifying data are then able to push targeted ads to electronic devices that share the same Internet network connection as a Vizio "smart" television'. More than 100 people have joined the class action and are seeking in excess of $5,000,000 - excluding interest and costs. Strader accuses Vizio of hiding details of the 'tracking software' installed on its televisions. The company has generated approximately $3 billion in revenue during 2014. The court documents claim the televisions contain 'automatic content recognition' (ACR) software. 'Cognitive provides this secretly collected information to third-party advertisers and content providers, who, in turn, display targeted advertisements, based on this collected information, to consumers.' More than 100 people have joined Strader's class action case which is worth more than $5 million (file photo) The ACR software, according to the filing, can 'secretly monitor and track, in real time, the viewing habits of its customers.' It is able to identify a 'customer's age, profession and certain wealth indicators'. 'The Vizio tracking software is also designed to scan a consumer's home WiFi networks to secretly collect information that is then utilized to help determine the specific person whose viewing activity has been collected.' The court documents claim the tracking software enables Vizio to sell the secret information to advertisers, who are then able to target specific devices on the owner's WiFi network. Strader's case accuses Vizio of 'secretly spying on its customers for profit'. The case alleges that Vizio 'conceals the tracking software and the method for disabling it,' by making it difficult to switch off. It is claimed that if Strader and members of the class action were aware of the tracking software, they would not have purchased the television. According to the court documents: 'All Smart TVs that contained Tracking Software are defective and unfit for their ordinary purposes because rather than performing as impliedly represented, these devices instead intercept, monitor, track, and transmit personal viewing histories and personally identifiable information to third parties... without consent.' The supermodel ex-wife of a Saudi billionaire who is fighting for more money in their bitter divorce battle claims she cannot manage with only one butler and two maids, a court has heard. Pirelli calendar girl Christina Estrada, 53, claims that her 60-year-old sheikh ex-husband Walid Juffali has cut the number of staff at her 100m mansion house near Windsor Castle. She is also demanding that he urgently hand over a 10m blue diamond ring because she believes the billionaire, who tried to use diplomatic immunity to shield him in their acrimonious dispute, is seriously ill in hospital in Switzerland. Christina Estrada, the supermodel ex-wife of Saudi billionaire Walid Juffali (pictured together), claims she cannot manage with only one butler and two maids, a court has heard The details emerged at Londons Royal Courts of Justice as part of Ms Estradas application for financial relief following their divorce in Saudi Arabia in 2014. Ms Estrada, who has a teenage daughter with Dr Juffali, claims her ex-husband is worth an estimated 8billion and has a UK property portfolio worth more than 140m. If her claims is successful, her settlement could be one of the largest in British legal history. Charles Howard QC, representing Ms Estrada, told todays hearing there was urgency about the ring. He added: We dont even know where it is, no one will tell us where it is. If the worst comes to the worst and he is dying, it is going to be a hopeless task to get the ring back. He says she has jewellery worth millions, maybe she does, but this is a ladies ring - it is worth probably in excess of twelve million dollars. It is a lot of money. We fear that it is in Jeddah and there it will remain. Mr Howard also added that Dr Juffali, who was appointed as St Lucias permanent representative to the International Maritime Organisation in April 2014, had reduced the financial support to Ms Estrada. He said: Dr Juffali has considerably flexed his muscles and it is an extremely worrying situation for my client. The 53-year-old (left and right) is also demanding that he urgently hand over a 10m blue diamond ring because she believes the billionaire is seriously ill in hospital in Switzerland The court heard Ms Estrada has already run up more than 500,000 in legals costs and has had to take out a 3m loan to fight the case. But Martin Pointer QC, for Dr Juffali, claimed the billionaire was being wrongly portrayed as the villain and was already paying his ex-wife 70,000 a month maintenance. He is also paying all his daughters expenses and the running costs of her 10-bedroom home in Egham, Surrey. The court heard that Dr Juffali also claims he bought his ex-wife an 8m home in Beverley Hills, California, and spent another 2m on renovations. Mr Pointer said: This is not a man who is trying to squeeze her out. After the breakdown of the marriage he bought the property in Beverley Hills, he is paying her $100,000 per month, he is paying the costs of the house (in Egham). Of course there is argument about whether she should have more than that. She is complaining she cannot manage with only one butler and she needs two and she cannot manage with two maids and needs three. The Pirelli calendar girl claims that her 60-year-old sheikh ex-husband Walid Juffali has cut the number of staff at her 100m mansion house (pictured), which is just four miles from Windsor Castle Mr Pointer added that it was disputed that the ring was gifted to Ms Estrada by Dr Juffali. The judge dealing with the case, Mrs Justice Roberts, ordered Dr Juffali to provide a summary of his assets and details of his outgoings related to Ms Estradas claims. Mrs Justice Roberts also asked the billionaire to provide a medical report about his health and any prognosis. Referring to the ring, the judge said: I am going to direct your client to state first whether the ring remains in his possession or control, secondly the current whereabouts of the ring and thirdly in broad terms what his case is on ownership of the ring. Ms Estrada claims Dr Juffali divorced her in Saudi Arabia without her knowledge after 13 years of marriage and she is unable to pursue a claim in his Saudi homeland. She has obtained leave under Part III of the Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984 to make an application for financial relief in the family courts in London. If her claims is successful, her settlement could be one of the largest in British legal history. The pair are pictured together at the Cannes film festival Earlier this month a High Court judge threw out Dr Juffalis argument that he was not subject to British law because of his diplomatic immunity as St Lucias representative to the International Maritime Organisation. Mr Justice Hayden described the appointment as spurious and entirely artificial after it emerged he had not performed any duties since April 2014 and is now said to be seriously ill. Dr Juffalis appeal against this ruling is due to be heard next month. If unsuccessful, the final hearing on Ms Estradas claim could take place in June. Ms Estrada, who was born in America but has lived in the UK since 1994, was romantically linked to Prince Andrew in the 1990s and featured in the 1993 Pirelli calendar. Dr Juffali, the Chairman of one of the largest companies in Saudi Arabia, EA Juffali and Brothers, famously paid 270,000 for a nude photograph of Kate Moss at an auction. He divorced his first wife Basma al-Sulaiman after 24 years of marriage in 2000 and agreed to pay a 40 million settlement. In 2012 he polygamously married Lebanese TV presenter Loujain Adada, then aged 25, as under Saudi Arabian law men are legally permitted to have four wives as long as they are treated equally. Dr Juffali also owns a 41million converted church opposite Harrods in Londons fashionable Knightsbridge district and a 2m weekend home in Dartmouth, Devon. The largest divorce settlement in British legal history is believed to be the 740m payout by Bernie Ecclestone to his wife Slavica. Dramatic police dashcam footage has emerged from 2002 showing the moment cops found a father with his throat cut after burglars left him for dead in a shallow grave alongside the body of his son. In the never-before-seen footage Forrest 'Butch' Bowyer, now 68, can be seen with a bloodied towel wrapped around his neck while telling police his son Brett, 12, has been shot three times. Russell County Sgt. Darryl Powell can then be heard calling for help, saying: 'No bulls***, I've got a man whose throat has been cut, says his son's buried in a grave down here... This is a bad one.' Despite Powell's repeated efforts to get Bowyer into an ambulance, he insists on going and getting the body of his son first. This is the dramatic moment police discovered father Forrest 'Butch' Bowyer, now 68, beside an Alabama highway in 2002 after a burglary in which his son Brett, 12, was killed and he had his throat slit. Bowyer can be seen holding his throat The footage was uncovered by Vanity Fair's Investigation Discovery, and released for the first time earlier this month. Bowyer's extraordinary case began on a Sunday in February 2002 at around 10pm when Michael David Carruth and Jimmy Lee Brooks called at his house claiming to be narcotics officers. It later emerged that the pair had targeted Bowyer because he was known to keep large amounts of cash in the house from his job as a used car dealer. According to the Alabama Ledger-Inquirer, Carruth and Brooks told Bowyer he was under arrest for drug possession and loaded him into their car. Believing them to be police, Bowyer asked about son Brett who was still inside the house - at which point the men then went back, handcuffed Brett and loaded him into their white Crown Victoria. The men began driving out of town, and Bowyer said he became worried when they drove past the Phenix City Police Department and out to U.S. 431, which was undergoing construction at the time. Carruth and Brooks then demanded that he take them to a safe where they believed he had $100,000 in cash stored, but Bowyer denied that he had any safe. After repeated threats he told them about $40,000 he kept in his home, so the men returned to the property, where he took them to a box in the closet containing more than $40,000 in cash. Russell County Sgt. Darryl Powell (pictured) can be heard saying over the radio: 'No bulls***, I've got a man who's throat has been cut, says his son's buried in a grave down here... This is a bad one' Bowyer had been at home with son Brett (pictured) on February 16, 2002, when two men broke in, stole tens of thousands of dollars in cash, then drove the pair out to a highway where they shot and stabbed them The men carried on threatening Bowyer, insisting he had more money, until he handed over a lockbox with an additional $20,000 inside. During the raid the men also found a snub-nosed pistol that belonged to Bowyer's housekeeper, before driving the man and his son back to the 431. There, they dragged Bowyer away from the car and down to where they had dug a shallow grave, around 18 inches deep, by the roadside. It is thought the men intended to bury the pair there, in the hopes that construction workers would then build the road over their bodies, hiding them forever. According to Vanity Fair, after seeing the grave Bowyer began begging for his son's life, offering the men more money if they would spare the boy. Court documents show one of the men then cut Bowyer's throat from ear to ear, while the other shot his son in the head three times before rolling the pair into the grave and burying them. While Brett died, Bowyer miraculously survived and dug himself out and crawled to the highway where police footage captured the frantic moments after he was discovered shortly before 1am. The deputy can be heard taking Bowyer over to an ambulance and radioing for help before Bowyer walks past with a bloodied towel around his neck. Thanks largely to evidence and testimony from Bowyer, Michael David Carruth (left) and Jimmy Lee Brooks (right) were convicted of killing his son, and are now on death row Bowyer can be heard saying 'my boy's been shot three times' before the deputy attempts to get him into the ambulance. Bowyer says: 'I want to get my boy first.' Asked who attacked him, Bowyer replies that one of the men was Jim Brooks, before adding: 'He thought I wouldn't recognize him.' A supervisor then calls the sheriff, who can be heard saying: 'Ron, no bulls***. I've got a man here, his throat's been cut to hell, says his boy's buried in a grave down here in Uchee, he wants to go down and get him. 'He was buried and dug himself out. This is a bad one.' Thanks largely to evidence and testimony from Bowyer, Carruth and Brooks were eventually arrested for the killing. While in custody they were also accused of killing husband and wife Thurman Ray Ratliff, 68, and Katherine Combs Ratliff, 62, three weeks earlier. Carruth was found guilty of both killings in 2003 and sentenced to death, while Brooks admitted the murders and was also sentenced to die in 2004. Nottinghamshire Police will not be taking any action over claims of overspending by the Conservative Party at the Newark by-election. Chris Eyre, the chief constable of Nottinghamshire Police, said it was too late to bring any prosecutions for alleged election expenses offences relating to the Newark poll, which took place on June 5 2014. The allegations emerged in a Channel 4 investigation based on hundreds of pages of receipts which suggested the party broke electoral rules in the 2014 contests in Newark, Clacton and Rochester and Strood. The Tories threw huge resources into winning the Newark byelection in June 2014, including a joint visit by David Cameron and Boris Johnson, pictured But in a letter to police and crime commissioner Paddy Tipping, Mr Eyre said there was a 12-month statutory limit in prosecutions brought under the Representation of the People Act, the law which governs elections. As the financial return for the poll was made on July 4 2014 the limit has passed, he said. He added: 'From the information available no prosecution can be brought in this case.' Campaign spending in by-elections is limited to 100,000 for each party. Channel 4 News said it had uncovered undeclared hotel bills totalling 10,459.30 in Newark, which would mean a 6,650.28 overspend if added to other campaign costs. Conservative candidate Robert Jenrick won the Newark by-election with 7,403 more votes than nearest rival Roger Helmer, for Ukip. It emerged yesterday the Conservative Party would face an electoral commission investigation into its election spending in the battle to defeat Nigel Farage in South Thanet. The Electoral Commission confirmed it would look into Tory spending following an investigation by Channel 4 News. The Conservatives declared hotel bills costing thousands of pounds as 'national spending' meaning they were not counted against the spending limits of their winning candidate Craig Mackinlay. The Electoral Commission announced today it will look into whether the 14,000 bill should have counted within strict 'candidate spending' - sending Mr Mackinlay far over tight limits. Kent Police, which is responsible for investigation breaches of the law relating to candidate spending, has announced it will not pursue a probe into the claims. The Electoral Commission said today: 'The Commission reminded Kent Police that the ability to investigate these allegations will end one year on from the May 2015 UK Parliamentary General Election. 'Unless the police apply to the Courts for an extension, which they are entitled to do under the Representation of the People Act (RPA), they will have missed the opportunity to investigate any allegations. The campaign successfully saw Robert Jenrick elected as a Conservative MP but the Tories have since faced allegations they failed to properly declare some hotel expenses 'Anyone found guilty of an offence under the RPA 1983 relating to candidate spending or the making of a false declaration in relation to candidate spending, could face imprisonment of up to one year, and or an unlimited fine.' Turning to its own investigation, the Commission added: 'The investigation opened by the Commission today focuses on whether the Conservative Party met their reporting obligations under the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act (PPERA) 2000.' It will examine 'whether the spending reported by the party in its 2015 UK Parliamentary General Election (UKPGE) campaign spending return, in relation to the Royal Harbour Hotel Ramsgate, was not national campaign spending and therefore should not have been included in the party's return. The Commission will also study 'whether spending on the Premier Inn Margate was national campaign spending and therefore should have been included in the party's 2015 UKPGE campaign spending return'. Channel 4 claimed the Tories included a bill for 14,000 at the Royal Harbour Hotel in Ramsgate in their national expenses submission. It means that the bill, submitted to the Electoral Commission, is not deducted from local campaign spending limits for the party fighting such a key constituency. These are the latest in a series of allegations that the party breached guidelines for campaign spending, after it emerged that thousands more in receipts were not declared in by-elections. Hundreds of receipts allegedly show the party failed to declare thousands of pounds in hotel bills, which suggests the party broke the 100,000 spending limit for each of three crucial by-elections. Ukip leader Mr Farage told Channel 4 after the broadcaster revealed its claims that he would not make a formal police complaint for fear of looking like a 'whinger'. But he said: 'I have no doubt that what happened in that Thanet constituency was in complete breach with electoral law.' The Conservative Party has insisted it had declared all of its spending properly in all of the disputed campaigns. A spokeswoman said: 'All spending has been correctly recorded in accordance with the law.' A woman who was declared dead after being run down by a police car in Russia has baffled medics after appearing to come back to life. The victim had been hit by a patrol van travelling at high speed, as she tried to run across a four lane motorway near Moscow. Paramedics who arrived at the scene declared her dead, after she suffered multiple injuries in the crash. Scroll down for video Left for dead: Paramedics in Russia declared the woman dead after she was run down by a high-speed police patrol van, and placed her in a body bag (circled) She was placed in a black plastic body bag while police officers cleared the traffic jams. But a whole hour after the crash, astonished police officers heard sounds coming from inside the bag, and noticed that it was beginning to move again. When officers removed the bag, they could see the 'dead' woman inside gasping for breath and moaning for help. Footage of the incident, taken from the other side of the road, begins by filming the traffic jams caused by the crash. The cameraman sweeps over the body bag on the other side of the road. Baffled: Footage of the incident begins by recording police clearing the traffic jams caused by the accident Accident: The cameraman pans over the body bag (circled) while recording police officers parked on the road Bizarre: But when the cameraman sweeps back over the scene, the body bag has gone and the woman (circled) can be seen walking towards officers But when his camera pans bag over it, the bag is gone and the woman can be seen walking away from the scene towards police cars. Health officials said she is now recovering in a hospital intensive care unit, with 'serious and complicated injuries' to the base of her skull and multiple fractures. Her condition remains critical but reports did not elaborate on the extent of her injuries. The boards have caused 52 fires in 24 states since December 1, 2015 Hoverboards are now deemed unsafe until proven otherwise. The government is cracking down on the popular toy with a letter released by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission on Thursday, which states it can seize toys that do not comply with new safety standards set by the independent testing firm, Underwriters Laboratories. That currently includes every single self-balancing scooter in this country, since UL's consumer safety director John Drengenberg told Wired: 'No hoverboard has passed the certification process at this time.' The crack down comes after hoverboards caused 52 fires across 24 states since December 1, 2015, resulting in $2million worth of damage. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission released a letter on Thursday to manufacturers, distributors, importers and retailers of hoverboards to ensure their products are safe Independent testing firm UL released new safety standards earlier this month. The director of the group said: 'No hoverboard has passed the certification process at this time' UL just released new safety standards for hoverboards three weeks ago. While testing can take up to two weeks, none of the self-balancing boards have yet to be cleared. Hoverboards that don't comply by the UL safety standards are considered defective since they pose 'an unreasonable risk of fire', which can result in 'serious injury or death.' The CPSC's letter stated they have the power to seize or recall any defective hoverboards, and threatened to slap 'civil and criminal penalties' on retailers, manufacturers, importers and distributors who do not comply. Elliot F. Kaye, chairman of the independent regulatory agency, told Mashable: 'This is us drawing a line in the sand. 'From our perspective, a smart retailer will put in place a stop sale to found out if their inventory complies with the UL standard.' In December, Amazon offered full refunds for customers who bought a hoverboard through the site. According to Mashable, the CPSC ran its own tests during the investigation. While several scooters overheated and melted, none of the toys burst into flames, as several posts on social media have captured. Kaye also said the agency will target importers, blocking hoverboards before they even have an opportunity to enter the country. The new crackdown applies to all self-balancing boards across manufacturers, brands and price points. Single-wheeled designs are included as well. Hoverboards that don't comply by the UL safety standards pose 'an unreasonable risk of fire', which can result in 'serious injury or death.' The letter also noted that 52 fires across 24 states have been started by hoverboards since December 1, 2015 WHY ARE HOVERBOARDS A SAFETY RISK? THE CAUSE MAY LIE WITH POORLY MANUFACTURED LITHIUM ION BATTERIES Customers have reported that their hoverboards have caught fire after being put on charge or while being ridden. Hoverboards are powered by lithium ion batteries, like many consumer goods such as laptop computers, power tools and mobile phones. The batteries are very popular with electronics companies because they are very powerful, keep their charge and do not develop a 'memory', unlike older nickel-cadmium units. 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. In Britain, safety watchdogs have inspected 17,000 hoverboards that have been imported into the country since October. Of those, 15,000 - or 88 per cent - have been found to be defective. Many of these were destined to be sold as Christmas presents and contained low-quality batteries. Advertisement Shanna Abraham, 13, from Orland Park near Chicago, received a hoverboard as a Christmas gift but it exploded when she plugged it in to charge This past weekend, Shanna Abraham, 13, from Orland Park near Chicago tested her new hoverboard, which arrived late for Christmas after the South Korean manufacturers stated they were having problems with the battery. When she charged the board in the living room of her home, it suddenly caught fire and exploded several times, shooting burning pieces of plastic across the room. Her mother suffered minor burns on her hand, and luckily the damage was limited. In recent months, there have been eight reported injuries involving hoverboards and people falling that required a trip to the emergency room, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. 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. Several airlines and college campuses have already banned hoverboards, due to fears that the lithium ion batteries pose a fire hazard. A tipper truck driver today admitted killing a 'Boris bike' cyclist during the morning rush hour at a busy central London junction. Alan Warwick, 61, pleaded guilty to causing the death of 36-year-old Claire Hitier-Abadie who was fatally crushed under the wheels of his lorry. The mother-of-two was killed instantly at the busy junction of Bressenden Place and Victoria Street in February last year. Alan Warwick (left) has admitted killing mother-of-two Claire Hitier-Abadie (right), who was fatally crushed under the wheels of his truck The tragic incident happened at the busy junction of Bressenden Place and Victoria Street, London, in February last year French-born Mrs Hitier-Abadie, who lived in Marylebone, central London, was commuting to work on one of the capital's hire bikes, nicknamed 'Boris Bikes' after the London Mayor. The bicycle was pulled underneath a Gordon Plants lorry in front of hundreds of commuters near Victoria Station during the morning rush hour. Following the crash witnesses described seeing the bike being crushed under the second set of wheels of the truck as it attempted to turn left at the junction. Mrs Hitier-Abadie's death was the second Boris Bike fatality involving a lorry following the death of 20-year-old Philippine De Gerin-Ricard, also French, who died in Whitechapel in July 2013. Today at Southwark Crown Court, Warwick, wearing a black jumper, blue jeans and smart black shoes in the dock, pleaded guilty to one count of causing death by careless driving. Mrs Hitier-Abadie's husband Pierre, who works for Total Gas and Power at Canary Wharf in London's Docklands, was in court for the short hearing. It is understood Mrs Hitier-Abadie had just started a new job in the capital. She had been riding a hired 'Boris Bike' at the time of the incident Ian Bridge, in mitigation for Warwick, said: 'This is the first time monsieur Abadie has been in court and Mr Alan Warwick has wanted to say sorry directly to him some time now, but with these proceedings it hasn't been possible. 'He is utterly distraught at what has happened, and the contribution he has caused to the sorrow that must be felt by him and his children. 'He wanted to make that clear in open court. He made a mistake that had terrible consequences and he is very sorry.' Mrs Hitier-Abadie had previously worked in Grimsby for Young's Seafood six years before returning to Paris in 2008 and then moving to London in 2014 with her husband and children. In the UK the chemistry and computer science graduate took a job in procurement with property investment company Segro in Slough, but left in 2015. It is understood she had just started a new job when she was killed by the tipper truck. Addressing Warwick today, Judge Peter Testar said: 'I really haven't made up my mind about what the right thing to do is. 'I'm not making any promises by keeping you on unconditional bail or by asking for a pre-sentence report.' Hundreds of thousands of Brits have called for a national animal cruelty register after teens cruelly tortured a cute dog. Almost half a million people have signed the petition calling for a US-style register of animal-abusing deviants, after little Chunky the dog was set on fire by a gang of youths, who also broke his back. In November three youths were banned for keeping all animals for five years, given a referral order for 12 months and ordered to pay costs after being convicted of the 'worst-ever' case of animal cruelty, according to one veteran RSPCA inspector. Almost half a million people have signed the petition calling for a US-style register of animal-abusing deviants, after little Chunky the dog was set on fire by a gang of youths A fourth youth pleaded guilty to the same offences under the Animal Welfare Act at Folkestone Youth Court. Maxine Berry started the 'Justice for Chunky' petition which asks the government to set up an Animal Cruelty Register preventing offending offenders from ever owning a pet. On the petition website Maxine wrote: 'As an animal lover, who once owned a dog just like Chunky, I found this story highly upsetting. 'What shocked me is that these abusers and others like them will be able to own an animal again one day. There's nothing to prevent them doing this again. 'I'm asking anyone who abuses animals, regardless of their age, be placed on an animal cruelty register which would follow them for life.' Chunky, pictured after the attack, was stolen from his owner by the four kids who carried out the brutal torture before leaving him for dead Chunky, a Chihuahua-cross, was stolen from his owner by the four kids who carried out the brutal torture before leaving him for dead. Three of the teenagers, two aged 16 and one aged 15 at the time of the offence admitted to punching and kicking Chunky before breaking his leg and neck and setting fire to his face. The group then fed him drugs and dumped him at a rubbish tip in Margate, Kent. Investigations by the RSPCA revealed that Chunky was stolen on February 24 and tortured over a period of several hours before he was dumped the next day and later found by a passer-by. Maxine, who intends to give the petition to North Thanet MP Sir Roger Gale, added: 'In some states in the US they already have animal abuse registries. 'If this had happened in New York these abusers would have to sign onto an animal abuse list that would prevent them from ownership of animals. The petition started by Maxine Berry, which asks the government to set up an Animal Cruelty Register preventing offending offenders from ever owning a pet 'The UK need to introduce a similar law. 'A five year ban is not sufficient, it is hard to implement in practice and why do we assume abusers attitudes will have changed after a few years?' RSPCA inspector Caroline Doe said: 'This was the most disturbing case I have ever dealt with - by an absolute mile. 'The whole thing sends shivers down my spine. 'The defendants may have been young and confessed to being under the influence of drugs but the cruelty they inflicted on this poor dog was extreme, barbaric and inexcusable. 'He must have suffered horrendously for hours as the senseless torture took place for the amusement of these boys. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's security forces used strong-arm tactics as vote counting got under way in the country's election today - arresting the main opposition candidate, beating protesters and firing tear gas and stun grenades at them in the capital. The United States, which gives financial support to Uganda and helps train its military, was among those condemning the brutal actions. The violence erupted as voting from Thursday's election continued in two main districts after ballots and other election materials failed to arrive on election day. Early returns put Museveni ahead of opposition leader Kizza Besigye, but votes are still to be cast and counted in Besigye strongholds. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's security forces used strong-arm tactics as vote counting got under way in the country's election today - arresting the main opposition candidate, beating protesters and firing tear gas and stun grenades at them in the capital Police arrest suspected protestors after they demonstrate their support for opposition leader Kizza Besigye in Kampala A Ugandan soldier stands in front of a burned barricade during clashes a day after presidential elections With results from about 47 per cent of polling stations across the country counted, Museveni had about 63 per cent of the vote, with Besigye winning around 33 per cent, the election commission said late today. Final results are expected on Saturday. Police surrounded the headquarters of Besigye's Forum for Democratic Change party as he was meeting with party members, and a helicopter fired tear gas at a crowd outside. Police then moved in and took Besigye, a 59-year-old doctor, to an unknown location, according to Semujju Nganda, a spokesman for the FDC. US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke over the phone Friday with Museveni 'to underscore that Uganda's progress depends on adherence to democratic principles in the ongoing election process,' the US State Department said. Kerry 'expressed his concern about the detentions of ... Besigye and harassment of opposition party members during voting and tallying and urged President Museveni to rein in the police and security forces.' The US Embassy said on Twitter: 'We strongly condemn the disproportionate police action taken today at FDC HQ in Kampala.' Supporters of Kizza Besigye, the leader of the main opposition Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) and the main opposition candidateate, flee as police fires tear gas to disperse them during their running battle near Besigye's party headquarters Military police officers jump off their truck as they prepare to move in on angry Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) protestors A Ugandan soldier points a heavy-calibre machine gun in the direction of the campaigning group After Besigye's arrest, his supporters took to the streets. Riot police lobbed tear gas and stun grenades at them and fired warning shots from automatic rifles, then chased them through narrow alleyways, arresting some. Armoured personnel carriers rumbled up and down the main street in Kampala. A woman and her children fled on a motorbike. In nearby poor neighbourhoods, people set up burning barricades, which riot police and military police quickly took down. Angry protesters also erected barricades of stones on the highway leading to Uganda's international airport. Police fired tear gas and whacked protesters with sticks. Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty International's regional director, noted that the raid represented a 'restriction on the rights to freedom as association and peaceful assembly. The security forces must act with restraint.' A riot police officer reacts as he directs his men to disperse angry supporters of Kizza Besigye After Besigye's arrest, his supporters took to the streets. Riot police lobbed tear gas and stun grenades at them and fired warning shots from automatic rifles, then chased them through narrow alleyways, arresting some In nearby poor neighbourhoods, people set up burning barricades, which riot police and military police quickly took down. Angry protesters also erected barricades of stones on the highway leading to Uganda's international airport. Police fired tear gas and whacked protesters with sticks Police parked trucks near the home of presidential candidate Amama Mbabazi, a former prime minister. Josephine Mayanja-Nkangi, a spokeswoman for Mbabazi, said he interpreted the deployment to mean he cannot leave his house. The voting on Thursday suffered delays in delivery of voting materials, especially in areas seen as opposition strongholds. Voting was taking place today at 36 polling stations in Kampala and the neighbouring district of Wakiso. The government had shut down social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook but many Ugandans were circumventing that by using virtual private networks, or VPNs. A man casts his ballot in a polling station during elections in Kaabong in Karamoja region on Thursday Ugandans began voting on February 18 in presidential and parliamentary polls, with veteran leader Yoweri Museveni widely expected to extend his power into a fourth decade People from the Karamojong tribe wait in line to vote at a polling station during the election The government had shut down social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook but many Ugandans were circumventing that by using virtual private networks, or VPNs Besigye was also briefly arrested late on Thursday after visiting a house in Kampala where he suspected ballot-stuffing was taking place. Police said the house was a security facility and accused Besigye of trespassing on government property. Museveni, 71, took power in 1986 and pulled Uganda out of years of chaos after a guerrilla war. He is a key US ally on security matters, especially in Somalia. His critics worry he may want to rule for life, and accuse him of using security forces to intimidate and harass the opposition. Besigye, 59, was Museveni's personal physician during a war and served as deputy interior minister in Museveni's first Cabinet. He broke with the president in 1999. Justice Secretary Michael Gove, pictured in Downing Street, has reportedly decided with a 'heavy heart' to back Britain leaving the EU Michael Gove was last night dramatically outed as a member of the Leave camp by the Prime Minister. David Cameron made the revelation during his press conference after striking his deal in Brussels. On Mr Goves position, Mr Cameron said: He has wanted to get Britain to pull out of the European Union for about 30 years. Of course, Im disappointed that were not going to be on the same side as we have this vital argument about our countrys future Im disappointed but Im not surprised. He added that politicians had only one vote each as members of the public did, adding: this is not the politician show, its the people show. All eyes will now be on Boris Johnson, who could join the Leave campaign as early as today, which would provide a massive boost for eurosceptics. Ukip MEP Roger Helmer praised Mr Gove last night, tweeting: Well done that man. Courageous and principled. Sources close to the Prime Minister said earlier yesterday that he had been resigned to losing the support of the Justice Secretary. Mr Goves stance will be a huge boost to the camp fighting for Britain to leave the European Union. They said Mr Gove has decided to campaign for Brexit with a heavy heart, torn between his avowed Euroscepticism and his loyalty to his friend. The BBC reported that he had made up his mind to vote to leave no matter what agreement Mr Cameron came back with from Brussels. The coup for Out campaigners is hugely significant, and could make it easier for other senior ministers to join. There have been months of speculation over which way Mr Gove would jump. One Cabinet minister told Sky News: Its been coming for a while. The In campaign has always tried to paint those who support an EU exit as political has-beens. But Mr Gove is a politician in his prime. Having masterminded the Tories education reforms, he is now in charge of the courts system. He and Mr Cameron have been close for many years, particularly since the latter was elected Conservative leader in 2005. Earlier yesterday, the Justice Secretarys spokesman declined to confirm or deny that he had joined the Leave campaign, saying there would be no statement until after the Cabinet has met to discuss the deal. The move comes after months of infighting in the out campaign, which has been hampered by a clash of egos between the leaders of rival groups. At least five other Cabinet ministers were already expected to come out in support of voting to exit the EU. Mr Cameron has been making his case to EU leaders today, pictured during a meeting with the Italian PM Matteo Renzi, but it appears he will not win the support of his justice secretary The Prime Minister has spent the day locked in meeting, including with Donald Tusk and Jean Claude Juncker, left today HE DIDN'T ASK FOR MUCH - AND HE GOT EVEN LESS Analysis by James Slack, Political Editor in Brussels TAX CREDITS What he wanted: A ban on EU migrants being paid in-work benefits for their first four years in the UK. Sticking point: In a compromise, Britain is being granted an emergency brake which allows for benefits to be restricted for up to four years if Britains public services or welfare system is under pressure. However, the EU insisted that the limitation should be graduated, from an initial complete exclusion to gradually increasing access to such benefits. This was still the subject of a huge row yesterday. Mr Cameron wanted the brake to be in place for up to 13 years. Eastern Europe objected strongly. Eastern European countries also want a guarantee that the brake could be used by the UK only not nations such as Germany and Sweden, which have also experienced a huge influx of workers. CHILD BENEFIT What he wanted: The 2015 Tory manifesto promised that: If an EU migrants child is living abroad, then they should receive no child benefit, no matter how long they have worked in the UK and no matter how much tax they have paid. Sticking point: A watered down agreement that child benefit payments will be linked to the cost of living in the childs homeland has been agreed. But Eastern European countries insisted the rules should not apply to people who were already in the UK. The new regime is likely to be phased in over a number of years. Again, Eastern Europe does not want any other EU country to be able to apply the new rules. PROTECTION FROM THE EUROZONE What he wanted: A mechanism to ensure that Britain cannot be discriminated against because it is not part of the euro, cannot pick up the bill for eurozone bailouts and cannot have imposed on it changes the eurozone want to make without our consent. Sticking point: France spent days fiercely resisting the idea that Britain can interfere in the workings of the euro. Other EU countries were opposed to the idea that any agreement Mr Cameron secures should be enshrined in future treaties. EVER CLOSER UNION What he wanted: Exempt Britain from the commitment in the EUs founding treaty to move towards ever closer union. Sticking point: The EU said it was content to acknowledge that the United Kingdom, in the light of the specific situation it has under the treaties, is not committed to further political integration into the European Union. However, EU leaders were opposed to the idea of enshrining this in future EU treaties which is key if Mr Cameron is not to face accusations that his deal can be unpicked. AND THINGS HE ONCE PROMISED BUT NEVER ASKED FOR: Charter of Fundamental Rights. In 2009, Mr Cameron promised a complete opt-out of the charter, which further extends human rights laws. Social and employment laws. In 2010, Mr Cameron pledged to claw back powers from Brussels, but this was quietly dropped. Working time directive. In 2012, he promised to change the law that includes the contentious 48-hour maximum working week. Common Agricultural Policy. Repeated calls for reform of farming subsidies, but no sign of any change yet. Waste. In 2009, he promised to end the European Parliaments absurd practice of meeting in Strasbourg as well as Brussels. Advertisement They are Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, Leader of the House of Commons Chris Grayling, Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers, Culture Secretary John Whittingdale and employment minister Priti Patel. BORIS 'TO DECIDE BY MONDAY' Boris Johnson will announce which camp he will support over this weekend, a spokesman said last night. The London mayor was facing mounting pressure yesterday to show his hand and come out in favour of Brexit. He has made eurosceptic noises over the past few years, but the expectation after he was invited to Downing Street earlier this week was that he has agreed to back Mr Cameron. The fig leaf for this decision was expected to be a new law guaranteeing the sovereignty of the British Parliament over the EU. But the derision with which this proposal has been met makes it harder for Mr Johnson to claim it as a reason for persuading him to stay in. Yesterday, hundreds of grassroots Tories tweeted the London mayor to urge him to be brave and lead the Out campaign. Alex Deane, former chief of staff to Mr Cameron, said: The Partys membership needs a champion with significant, mass appeal, political and cultural clout, to represent our dissatisfaction with the failure of the government to meaningfully deliver on its manifesto pledge of reform in our relationship with the EU. It is with this in mind that I urge the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, to throw his weight behind the Brexit campaign, and help lead Britain out of a tired, fundamentally flawed, failing political union. Boris must surely feel the hand of history on his shoulder at this pivotal moment. His involvement in the campaign to lead Britain out of the European Union could tip the scales. Come on, Boris. Be brave. Back Brexit. Advertisement The Prime Minister has said Cabinet responsibility will be suspended for the duration of the referendum campaign, with ministers allowed to support Brexit if they wish. Around 20 ministers including the five of Cabinet rank are expected to support the Leave campaign.Other former Eurosceptics, including Home Secretary Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, are expected to support the Remain campaign. Cabinet ministers who want to campaign to leave have been given direction on how to do so by No 10. Downing Street has urged them not to work with Go, the organisation backed by the Ukip donor Arron Banks, but to side with Vote Leave which is headed by former Tory adviser Dominic Cummings. Grassroots Out, one of the Leave groups, last night held a rally in central London attended by former Tory leadership candidate David Davis, who said Mr Camerons renegotiation was worthless. This whole long drawn out renegotiation process has highlighted the EUs undemocratic institutional arrogance, he said. It shows the utter disregard Brussels has for member states. It is the perfect example of how Britain is ruled by the EU. Tory MEP David Campbell Bannerman said: The Prime Minister has requested absolutely nothing so he will be delighted when he returns from Brussels with absolutely nothing. The deal will be feeble and worthless an IOU. Not legally enforceable or deliverable. A blank cheque that is unsigned, undated, unclear and forever stuck in the post. Backbench Tory MP Adam Afriyie said being in the EU was like being imprisoned, incarcerated, adding: And its like the prison wardens are coming to us saying hey, you should really stay in this prison because were going to give you an extra bowl of gruel. Owen Paterson, the former environment secretary, said that the EU will continue to tell us to do as we are told if Britain votes to remain. He added: This is a complete pantomime; its a sideshow to the real, massive negotiation which is pushing the eurozone towards forming a new country, allowing the non-euro countries to have some sort of associate status. Danica Patrick took Lyft customers for a ride - in both senses of the term - as she pretended to be a driver for the ride-hailing company in Charlotte, North Carolina. The NASCAR driver, 33, who was incognito thanks to a hat and sunglasses, boasted about her reckless driving habits to her unsuspecting passengers in a video published by Lyft. 'Buckle up for safety, you might need it,' she told one of them. 'My boyfriend thinks I'm a terrible driver because I don't follow the rules, I drive too fast, I ride too close,' she said to another man. 'Gosh, come on, light. I hate waiting.' Danica Patrick went undercover as a Lyft driver in Charlotte, North Carolina, and boasted about her reckless driving habits to her unsuspecting passengers, including the man in this photo. She asked him what he thought about her while she was still incognito. He said she was awesome 'Sometimes I come around the corner here and I pretend like I'm crossing the finish line,' she told one of her victims. Patrick also dropped hints about her real occupation. 'I try to get 500 miles in on Sundays and I try to do it under four hours,' she told a woman. She then raced fellow drivers to be the first to depart after a red light. Before revealing her identity, Patrick took the experiment as a chance to know her passengers' real opinion about her. Patrick, pictured left without the sunglasses that concealed her identity and right at the Daytona International Speedway in Florida, told another passenger she tried to drive 500 miles in less than four hours The NASCAR driver pretended to race other cars to be the first one to depart after a red light. Her impatient manners amused her passengers Patrick dropped hints about her real job, asking some of the victims what they thought about her, but they still found it hard to believe it was really her behind the wheel 'Have you ever heard of that girl who races, Danica?' she asked. 'What do you think of her?' 'She's awesome,' said one of them. He then didn't believe Patrick was actually at the wheel until she removed her hat and sunglasses. 'Do you have a favorite driver that you cheer for?' she asked another man. 'Danica Patrick,' he said as she was still wearing her disguise. Deonte Carraway, 22 (pictured on Twitter), was arrested last week after police said he filmed 'vile sexual acts' between children A volunteer teacher's aide in Maryland who was arrested for making sexual videos of at least 17 children reportedly provided his victims with cell phones to use for filming. Deonte Carraway, 22, is accused of directing 'vile sexual acts between minors during the school day on school grounds' while he worked at Judge Sylvania Woods Elementary in Glenarden. NBC is reporting that Carraway would hand out multiple phones to students before collecting them at the end of the day. According CBS12.com, sources told reporter Brad Bell that Carraway would summon his victims using the phones and gather pornographic images through the free messaging app, KiK. Police said they recovered more than 40 videos showing children performing sexual acts alone or with each other, under the direction of Carraway, according to the New York Post. Police say Carraway admitted to producing child pornography after a relative of one nine-year-old victim saw an explicit photograph on his phone. Seventeen children have now been identified as victims, with court documents stating they are between the ages of nine and 13. Police said the investigation could last for months and uncover more victims. Scroll down for video Carraway (pictured, far left), of Glenarden, Maryland posted this image on Twitter of a field trip with pupils on February 3 last year 'We're conducting forensic interviews in the Deonte Carraway case,' Police Chief Hank Stawinski told NBC on Wednesday. 'Our concern is providing support to victims.' Carraway made recordings in a school bathroom, private homes, the Zion Praise Tabernacle Lutheran church, the Glenarden Municipal Center and the Theresa Banks Memorial Aquatic Center, according to a statement from Prince George's County police. He has been charged with ten counts of felony child pornography, abuse of a minor and second-degree sexual offense after he was arrested on February 5. 'We were notified by the uncle of a student that they saw a nude photo on the child's phone on the application Kik,' said one police officer, according to CBS Baltimore. The guardian of a nine-year-old student has filed a lawsuit against Prince George's County Public Schools, claiming the predatory behavior of Carraway was known by students and teachers and even reported to the school's principal. The guardian is suing for the boy who was allegedly sexually exploited by Carraway. The lawsuit claims teachers had expressed concerns about Carraway to principal Michelle Williams, but she said she could not act without proof. School system CEO Kevin Maxwell said last week that Williams had been put on paid leave. Some of the videos are said by police to have been filmed at Sylvania Woods Elementary School in Glenarden Carraway has been charged with ten counts of felony child pornography, abuse of a minor and second-degree sexual offense According to his Twitter account, Carraway was active on Kik and Instagram under the username Glenardenboy, although his Instagram account appears to be deleted now. At the time of writing, Carraway's Twitter account has no posts more recent than November last year. One post from that time says: 'Basically don't open up to anyone ever.' He also posted various selfies, including shirtless images, and on February 3 last year he posted a photo of himself taking a class of small children on a field trip. Carraway was a paid assistant in the previous school year and worked as a volunteer this year. He was also the director of the Glenarden Voices of Youth Choir. Prince George's County Public Schools (PGCPS) said in a statement 'The safety of our students is a top priority for PGCPS.' A spokesman told CBS Baltimore that Carraway had undergone a background check and that he did not have a criminal record. Two men from New Jersey have been charged with murder and sex crimes for the death of a 15-year-old girl, whose body was found in the crawl space of her home. Cape May County Prosecutor Robert Taylor said Friday that 23-year-old Derrick Powers and 33-year-old Charles Mosley, both of Rio Grande, were charged with murder and sexual assault in Nicole Angstadt's death. Both men were in jail on $1 million bail. A spokeswoman for the prosecutor said it wasn't immediately known if either man had an attorney. Cape May County Prosecutor Robert Taylor said Friday that 23-year-old Derrick Powers (left) and 33-year-old Charles Mosley (right), both of Rio Grande, were charged with the murder and sexual assault of Nicole Angstadt Mosley was previously charged with having a sexual relationship with the Angstadt. Both men have multiple charges including first degree murder, first degree murder during the course of a sexual assault and first degree conspiracy to commit murder. Angstadt was reported missing on December 1 and her body was found in a crawl space in an abandoned Lower Township home on December 14. Powers was placed in the Atlantic County Justice Facility in lieu of bail and Mosley was placed in the Cape May County Correction Center. Last year, initial information given to police about Andstadt's disappearance was incorrect. When she was reported missing, police were told that she was last seen on November 29 at a bus stop in Rio Grande, according to Press of Atlantic City. Police received incorrect information when Angstadt (pictured) first went missing and weren't told that she might be in danger At that time police had put her information into the National Crime Information Center as a missing person but since they weren't told that Angstadt might be in danger, the case did not meet State Police criteria for an Amber Alert. A week later, police interviewed the family again and for the first time, were told about an abandoned home at 100 Vermont Avenue, where the family had heard she was hanging out. Police went to the boarded up home twice and found it secured. However, the third time they went to the house, they found Angstadt's body in a crawl space of the home. If you are a nervous flier, these nail-biting videos of dramatic landings at Madeira airport are sure to get the butterflies jangling in your stomach. Madeira airport is close to mountains and sea which means it is prone to extreme turbulence and poor weather conditions. Landing a commercial jet can be a challenge even for the most experienced pilot - as these terrifying clips prove. This commercial flight was almost turned sideways because of the 49mph crosswind at Madeira airport The plane was almost blown off the runway as it was buffeted by gale-force winds and struggled to land In the first clip, the plane lands on its left wheel after shaking from side to side as it came into land In the dramatic footage, the first plane is buffeted by heavy crosswinds and almost turns on its side, before its left wheel grips the runway and steers the jet straight. The second plane shakes in the gale-force winds and is nearly blown sideways, before the pilot aborts landing and shoots back up into the air. The video then shows a commercial jet fighting against the 49mph crosswind before it skillfully straightens up and hits the tarmac. A final clip shows a Condor airline shaking from side to side after taking off from the Portuguese holiday destination. This flight had to abort landing seconds before touching down because of the extreme weather conditions Pilots require special training to land at the incredibly short runway on the Portuguese archipelago, wedged in between mountains and the Atlantic sea. The runway was so short it had to be extended twice due to accidents, including one in 1977 where a Boeing 727 missed the runway and crashed onto a nearby beach. The TAP Portugal Flight TP425 overshot the runway, and smashed into a bridge that ripped off the right wing. The aircraft then crashed onto the beach, setting fire, killing 131 of the 164 people on board. In 2000, an extra kilometre was added to the runway, built on concrete pillars in the sea. The airport at Funchal, Madeira was extended, and the runway now edges over the sea A man dubbed 'Britain's biggest ever puppy smuggler' has been jailed for nearly three years for illegally bringing more than 120 dogs into the UK from his native Lithuania. Aidas Gostautas, 44, made more than 50,000 by selling the puppies for up to 1,000 each through Gumtree and Pets4Homes websites. A court heard how the young dogs were brought over from Gostautas' native Lithuanian which is designated a 'high risk' area for Rabies, putting other animals at risk. Aidas Gostautas, 44, made more than 50,000 by selling the puppies for up to 1,000 through Gumtree and Pets4Homes websites A court heard how the young dogs were brought over from Gostautas' native Lithuanian which is designated a 'high risk' area for Rabies Many of the young dogs, which included French bulldogs and a Shih Tzu, had to be put down by their new owners after falling ill Gostautas was jailed for a total of 34 months by a judge at Peterborough Crown Court on Thursday by a judge who described the offences as 'cruel'8 Many of the young dogs, which included French bulldogs and a Shih Tzu, had to be put down by their new owners after falling ill. Gostautas was jailed for a total of 34 months by a judge at Peterborough Crown Court on Thursday. The judge told him: 'You conducted a substantial business to a substantial profit for a substantial period of time. 'And I can only infer from the amount of the profits that you dispensed from the business back to Lithuania that this was part of an organised crime activity. 'These are cruel offences - cruel to the dogs, cruel to the purchases - and this sort of offending causes enormous distress. And it occurred because of greed. 'The gravity of these matters is not simply arising from the deception and the profit you were able to make, but bringing dogs into this country in the way that you do puts the health of other animals at risk. Prosecutor Michael Coley told Peterborough Crown Court that one of the dogs which had been bought was found to have a virus and another had to be quarantined 'There is, of course, a risk that rabies could be introduced into this country, so the danger is not simply to the health of the dogs but the whole population.' Prosecutor Michael Coley told Peterborough Crown Court that one of the dogs which had been bought was found to have a virus and another had to be quarantined. One buyer returned to the address to get their money back after their puppy had become ill and died, the prosecutor claimed And on another occasion, he claimed, one buyer returned to the address to get their money back after their puppy had become ill and died, despite being told that it had been fully vaccinated and had received a microchip. Mr Coley said: 'After a heated conversation with the defendant, they received 1,000 in cash but the defendant demanded the body of the pet, the pet passport, and said not to tell anyone else.' 'He has a contact from Lithuania and he arranges for puppies to be brought here, I believe, by train through the Channel Tunnel.' An investigation by trading standards identified and confirmed that more than 120 dogs sold were imported directly from Lithuania, which has been designated by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs as high risk for the transmission of rabies. The court heard how mechanic Gostautus, from Peterborough, Cambs., who has two daughters led customers to believe that they were bred in the UK from a family pet. He used more than 20 different pay-as-you-go mobile telephone numbers and email accounts were used to sell the dogs, many of which were placed into quarantine, as there were discrepancies between their passports, rabies vaccinations and dogs' ages. Many new owners were left with bills of up to 1,000, the court was told. Unyime Davies, defending Gostautus, said: 'Perhaps the greatest mitigation Mr Gostautas has is he pleaded guilty to these offences. 'It's right that this offence was financially motivated. Mr Gostautas and his wife were working in low paid jobs.' An investigation by trading standards identified and confirmed that more than 120 dogs sold were imported directly from Lithuania 'Can I also express remorse for Mr Gostautas. He has finally learned his lesson.' Gostautas pleaded guilty to 14 cases. Judge Gareth Hawkesworth, sentenced him to 27 months for misleading criminal property, which related to 52,461 he had transferred to bank accounts in Lithuania. HOW TO MAKE SURE YOUR PUPPY IS FROM A LEGITIMATE SUPPLIER 1. Be suspicious if the seller can not show you the puppy with its mother and litter mates. View the puppy where it was bred. 2. Get as much information about where the puppy has come from and beware if the seller is from outside the UK. 3. If the puppy has been vaccinated ask to see all the documentation. This must clearly state the veterinary practice where this was carried out. Be suspicious if the address of the veterinary practice is outside the UK. 4. If the seller informs you that the puppy has been brought in from another country it should have a pet passport and be a minimum of 15 weeks of age. 5. Never agree to have the puppy delivered to your home address or to meet the seller to collect the puppy. Advice from Trading Standards Advertisement In addition, he received another seven months in prison for charges of violating the Animal Health Act, offences under consumer protection for unfair trading regulations, one charge of operating a pet shop without a licence, and a final charge of an arrangement to open a bank account which received 4,000 of proceeds attained through selling the puppies. Peterborough City Council confirmed it is the biggest case of illegal puppy trading that the UK has seen. Peter Gell, head of regulatory services at the council, said: 'We welcome the severity of this sentence as it recognises the cruel, persistent nature of offending, particularly as the court found Gostautas had conducted a substantial business, at a substantial profit, for a substantial period of time. He added: 'Unfortunately this isn't an isolated case and there are various unsavoury practices that currently exist within the industry. 'Anyone thinking of buying a puppy should take steps to ensure that they are buying from a legal and trustworthy seller.' Councillor Nigel North, the council's cabinet member for communities, said: 'The trading standards team has done a phenomenal job in bringing this criminal to justice. 'The team is there to protect innocent people from exactly this kind of fraud. This criminal's customers lost much more than their money - in some cases they lost a longed-for pet as well.' Jonathan Ashley Butler, 36, was arrested last week A mother is being lauded by the police after she helped catch a sexual predator by keeping tabs on her daughter's phone. Jonathan Ashley Butler, 36, was arrested in Justin, Texas last Friday after he reportedly drove there from more than an hour away believing he was meeting the nine-year-old girl for sex. In reality, the date was a sting set-up in part by the girl's mother who said she found the man's inappropriate texts to her daughter on her child's phone. Police say Butler's daughter was friends with the unnamed girl, and that the two played sometimes at the Hilltop apartment complex in Grapevine, where both of their fathers live. Somehow, Butler got the girl's cellphone number and started texting with her. The girl's mother spotted the messages on her daughter's phone before things could get out of hand, say police. 'Once she observed the inappropriate message she continued the conversation as if to be her daughter. The text messages became more and more inappropriate at that point,' said Sgt. Robert Eberling of Grapevine police, according to Fox 4. Scroll down for video Meeting place: Butler was arrested after a nine-year-old girl's mother found his inappropriate messages to her daughter. The girl's father lives in the same apartment building as Butler in Grapevine, Texas (above) The mother told WFAA that it took just minutes for Butler to ask his daughter about sex. From there, she informed police of Butler's illegal intentions and a police officer took over communications with the man, arranging a time and place to meet up in the girl's town of Justin. He drove there from more than an hour away in Grapevine on Friday, and was subsequently arrested around 4pm. Earlier Friday, the Justice Department sought to force Apple to work with the FBI to bypass the phone's passcode Apple CEO Tim Cook has refused to comply with the order to hack into one of the shooter's iPhone San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, who owned the phone, changed the password to gain access to some information A spokesperson said that if the passcode had not been changed 24 hours after the phone was seized they could have gotten into the shooter's cloud Apple has fired back at the government saying they could have accessed the San Bernandino shooter's iPhone after the tragic incident Apple is firing back at the government saying they could have accessed the phone of the San Bernadino shooter had his password not been changed after the FBI seized the device. Apple executives pointed out that Syed Farook's iCloud account had been reset with a new passcode by his employer, the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, who owned the phone just 24 hours after the shooting. Had that not happened his cloud would have been accessible if the phone was taken to a location where it recognized the Wi-Fi network according to ABC News. This is just one of the four different ways Apple has offered to help the government get information from the phone they claim without using a backdoor that would allow them to hack directly into the device. Scroll down for video Response: The Justice Department has filed a motion seeking to compel Apple to comply with a judge's order for the company to unlock the iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters. Pictured above, Apple CEO Tim Cook Gunmen: Cook issued a statement on Wednesday, saying the company planned to fight the court order to hack into Syed Farook's phone (right). Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik (left) were killed in a shootout with polcie after killing 14 people at Farook's holiday party in December Apple was hit twice Friday over its refusal to crack open one of the San Bernardino terrorist's iPhone with Donald Trump demanding a boycott and a fresh federal legal bid to force its hand. The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a motion seeking to compel Apple to comply with a judge's order for the company to unlock the iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters, according to a court document filed Friday. Hours after the DOJ filed the motion, Trump called for a boycott on the company until it complies with the court order. The FBI is seeking the tech giant's help to access the shooter's phone, which is encrypted. The company so far has pushed back, and on Thursday won three extra days to respond to the order. Prosecutors said the company has chosen to repudiate a judge's order instead of following it. WHAT INVESTIGATORS WANT Judge Sheri Pym of U.S. District Court in Los Angeles said that Apple must provide 'reasonable technical assistance' to investigators seeking to unlock the data on an iPhone 5C that had been owned by Syed Rizwan Farook. That assistance includes disabling the phone's auto-erase function, which activates after 10 consecutive unsuccessful passcode attempts, and helping investigators to submit passcode guesses electronically. However, Apple says this is akin to 'a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks - from restaurants and banks to stores and homes.' Advertisement The department also says Apple designs its products to allow technology - 'rather than the law' - to control access to critical data. Apple CEO Tim Cook first said that the company would be fighting the order in a strongly-worded statement issued Wednesday, saying complying with the FBI's orders would set a 'dangerous precedent'. Perhaps the biggest dig at Apple in the latest motion was prosecutors' allegations that the company was doing it all to enhance its brand. In the motion, prosecutors claim that before Apple updated the software on their iPhones, the company regularly complied with government warrants to search phones. 'Based on Apple's recent public statement and other statements by Apple, Apple's current refusal to comply with the Court's Order, despite the technical feasibility of doing so, instead appears to be based on its concern for its business model and public brand marketing strategy,' the motion reads. While the technology to break into phones may have been present on older versions of the iPhone software, Cook claimed that the company no longer has the technological means to break into newer versions and that creating one would compromise all user security. 'In the wrong hands, this software - which does not exist today - would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone's physical possession,' Cook wrote. 'The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a back door. 'And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control.' Prosecutors addressed this concern in the motion, saying that Apple doesn't even need to turn over the software to them at all. The story has become a hot topic on the presidential campaign trail, and on Friday, Republican front-runner Donald Trump reiterated his support for the Feds by calling for a Apple boycott. 'What I think you ought to do is boycott Apple until such time as they give that security number. Boycott apple!' Trump said at a rally at a country club in South Carolina. 'First of all, the phone's not owned by this young thug that killed all these people. The phone's owned by the government. Okay? Not even his phone! We don't have to go that far,' he added. Trump's statement immediately became the butt of jokes online, as users on Twitter pointed out that many of the presidential candidate's tweets show they were written on his iPhone - but he then made clear he was going to use his Samsung instead. Apple is getting support from some however, including businessman Mark Cuban who wrote about the company on his blog Friday. 'Amen. A standing ovation. They did the exact right thing by not complying with the order,' said Cuban. 'They are exactly right that this is a very, very slippery slope. And while the FBI is attempting to be very clear that this is a one off request, there is no chance that it is. ' Nice try: Trump's statement immediately became the butt of jokes online, as users on Twitter pointed out that many of the presidential candidate's tweets show they were written on his iPhone Switching phones: Trump later responded to the criticism, saying he will be using only Samsung devices now In his statement on Wednesday, Cook noted the court order and said 'this moment calls for public discussion, and we want our customers and people around the country to understand what is at stake.' Cook argued that the order 'has implications far beyond the legal case at hand.' Pym's order to Apple to help the FBI hack into an encrypted iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino, California shooters set the stage for a legal fight between the federal government and Silicon Valley over a first-of-its-kind ruling. The order, in which Apple is being directed to assist the FBI in breaking into an encrypted iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardo shooters, represents a significant victory for the Justice Department. Impact: Since Apple's announcement on Wednesday, the company's stock has been slowly lowering. However, the statement did cause the stock to momentarily jump The Obama administration has embraced stronger encryption as a way to keep consumers safe on the Internet, but struggled to find a compelling example to make its case. Cook said that the U.S. government order would undermine encryption by using specialized software to create a back door that he compared to a 'master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks.' Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman today deferred to the Justice Department but said it was important to recognize the government is not asking Apple to 'create a new backdoor to its products.' He said the case was about federal investigators learning 'as much as they can about this one case.' 'The president certainly believes that is an important national priority,' he said. FBI Director James Comey told members of Congress last week that encryption is a major problem for law enforcement who 'find a device that can't be opened even when a judge says there's probable cause to open it.' Password: Federal investigators are trying to gain access to suspect Farook's work phone. Currently, Apple does not have a means of breaking the passcode, but the court has ordered the company to figure out a way around the passcode to gain access to the phone's contents. Above, the suspects' battered SUV The ruling on Tuesday tied the problem to the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people in a December 2 shooting at a holiday luncheon for Farook's co-workers. The couple later died in a gun battle with police. Federal prosecutors told the judge in the court proceeding - that was conducted without Apple being allowed to participate - that investigators can't access a work phone used by Farook because they don't know his passcode and Apple has not cooperated. Under U.S. law, a work phone is generally the property of a person's employer. The judge told Apple to provide an estimate of its cost to comply with her order, suggesting that the government will be expected to pay for the work. Apple has provided default encryption on its iPhones since 2014, allowing any device's contents to be accessed only by the user who knows the phone's passcode. The ruling by Pym, a former federal prosecutor, requires Apple to supply highly specialized software the FBI can load onto the county-owned work iPhone to bypass a self-destruct feature, which erases the phone's data after too many unsuccessful attempts to unlock it. The FBI wants to be able to try different combinations in rapid sequence until it finds the right one. However, some security experts say the request is possible because the phone in question is an older iPhone 5C which does not have a fingerprint sensor or Apple's latest security feature, known as a secure enclave. 'Based on my initial reading of the request and my knowledge of the iOS platform, I believe all of the FBI's requests are technically feasible,' said Dan Guido on Trail of Bits Blog. The Electronic Frontier foundation, a nonprofit well known for fighting for digital rights, backed Tim Cook and Apple. 'We are supporting Apple here because the government is doing more than simply asking for Apple's assistance,' it said. 'For the first time, the government is requesting Apple write brand new code that eliminates key features of iPhone securitysecurity features that protect us all. 'Essentially, the government is asking Apple to create a master key so that it can open a single phone. Victims: A composite photo of all 14 victims from the San Bernardino shooting rampage. They are top row left: Robert Adams, Isaac Amanios, Bennetta Betbadal, Harry Bowman and Sierra Clayborn. Second row from left: Juan Espinoza, Aurora Godoy, Shannon Johnson, Larry Daniel Kaufman and Damian Meins. Bottom row from left: Tin Nguyen, Nicholas Thalasinos, Yvette Velasco and Michael Wetzel 'And once that master key is created, we're certain that our government will ask for it again and again, for other phones, and turn this power against any software or device that has the audacity to offer strong security. 'The U.S. government wants us to trust that it won't misuse this power. But we can all imagine the myriad ways this new authority could be abused. 'Even if you trust the U.S. government, once this master key is created, governments around the world will surely demand that Apple undermine the security of their citizens as well.' It was not immediately clear what investigators believe they might find on Farook's work phone or why the information would not be available from third-party service providers, such as Google or Facebook, though investigators think the device may hold clues about whom the couple communicated with and where they may have traveled. The couple took pains to physically destroy two personally owned cell phones, crushing them beyond the FBI's ability to recover information from them. They also removed a hard drive from their computer; it has not been found despite investigators diving for days for potential electronic evidence in a nearby lake. Farook was not carrying his work iPhone during the attack. It was discovered after a subsequent search. It was not known whether Farook forgot about the iPhone or did not care whether investigators found it. The phone was running the newest version of Apple's iPhone operating system, which requires a passcode and cannot be accessed by Apple, unlike earlier operating systems or older phone models. San Bernardino County provided Farook with an iPhone configured to erase data after 10 consecutive unsuccessful unlocking attempts. The FBI said that feature appeared to be active on Farook's iPhone as of the last time he performed a backup. The judge didn't spell out her rationale in her three-page order, but the ruling comes amid a similar case in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Investigators are still working to piece together a missing 18 minutes in Farook and Malik's timeline from December 2. Investigators have concluded they were at least partly inspired by the Islamic State group; Malik's Facebook page included a note pledging allegiance to the group's leader around the time of the attack. In 2014, Apple updated its iPhone operating system to require that the phone be locked by a passcode that only the user knows. Previously, the company could use an extraction tool that would physically plug into the phone and allow it to respond to search warrant requests from the government. Proposals to lift the cap on France's 35-hour working week - and make it easier to fire employees - are causing anger and tension in the country. Copies of the draft Labour bill published in a French newspaper, have caused outrage among Socialists and unions who argue it is 'unbalanced' and 'stupid'. France already operates a strict 35-hour working week policy, with workers enjoying six weeks paid holiday, as well as generous sick leave and striking rights. Copies of the draft Labour bill have sparked anger among Socialists and French unions as it proposes lifting the cap on 35-hour working week Labour Minister Myriam El Khomri is finalising the details of the new employment law which could be coming into force within a matter of weeks. Labour Minister Myriam El Khomri is still thrashing out the details of the new employment law but it is said to be coming into force within a matter of weeks However according to French newspaper Le Monde - which published draft extracts of the Labour bill - President Francois Hollande could allow businesses to increase workers' hours above the 35-hour cap without getting the green light from the unions. The bill could also restrict payouts to those who are fired. The head of the French national trade union, The French Democratic Confederation of Labour, Laurent Berger, told Le Monde the bill was 'very unbalanced'. He added: 'The thinking is that what prevents hiring is the fear of firing. 'It's stupid.' Meanwhile Jean-Christophe Cambadelis, First Secretary of the French Socialist Party, has also expressed reservations about the bill. Earlier this week, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said there were no plans to change the 35-hour-week. But under the new Labour law, France is set to give workers the 'right to disconnect' from work emails outside of their contracted hours in a bid to ease pressure and offer a better work-life balance. The British head of Europol has warned that as many as 5,000 ISIS-trained jihadists are wandering free in Europe. Rob Wainwright, chief of the EU's police agency Europol, said the agency believed between 3,000 and 5,000 jihadists have been able to slip back into Europe after training with ISIS in the Middle East. Europe is currently facing the highest terror threat in more than 10 years, Mr Wainwright told Germanys Neue Osnabrucker Zeitung newspaper. Threat: Head of Europol, Rob Wainwright (pictured), has warned that the agency expects ISIS-trained jihadists to 'stage an attack somewhere in Europe with the aim of achieving mass casualties among the civilian population' We can expect [ISIS] or other religious terror groups to stage an attack somewhere in Europe with the aim of achieving mass casualties among the civilian population. He added that the increasing number presents EU member states with completely new challenges. But he insisted that claims terrorists are using the migrant crisis to sneak into Europe disguised as asylum-seekers have been exaggerated. There is no concrete evidence terrorists are systematically using the flow of refugees to infiltrate Europe, he said. Warning: Rob Wainwright, chief of the EU's police agency Europol, said the agency believed between 3,000 and 5,000 jihadists have been able to slip back into Europe after training with ISIS in the Middle East. Pictured, wounded people being evacuated outside the scene of a hostage situation at the Bataclan theatre in Paris Crisis: Mr Wainwright insisted that claims terrorists are using the migrant crisis to sneak into Europe disguised as asylum-seekers have been exaggerated. Pictured, eefugees and migrants arrive into the port of Mytilene, of the Greek island of Lesbos It comes as Austrian prosecutors revealed that they are investigating four people in custody for possible links to the Paris attacks. Calling the investigations highly complex, Salzburg prosecutors said that all four two more than previously confirmed are believed to belong to ISIS, which claimed responsibility for the attacks. On the run: Salah Abdeslam is wanted by police in connection with the terror attacks in Paris The officials said that in addition to an Algerian and a Pakistani, whose arrest on December 10 was announced several days later, two others have been detained since December 18. The first two, aged 28 and 34, were believed to have been in the same migrant boat travelling to Greece as two men involved in the Paris atrocities that killed 130 people, prosecutors said in a statement. While those involved in the attacks were able to travel onwards, the pair now in Austrian hands were held up by Greek authorities for 25 days because they were carrying fake Syrian passports. They then arrived in Salzburg in western Austria at the end of November - after the Paris killings - and Austrian police arrested them at a centre for migrants on December 10. Eight days later, the other two, a 25-year-old Moroccan and a 40-year-old Algerian, were arrested 'because of indications of close contact with both the first two suspects', prosecutors said. The statement stressed that contrary to some media reports, the men had not confessed to planning any attacks. Prosecutors added that two other men, aged 22 and 28, who said they were migrants were arrested in Salzburg on September 17 and October 10, after recounting that they had fought for ISIS. Donald Trump said Friday that Americans should stop buying products and services from Apple Computer until the company agrees to help crack open a terrorist's phone. The technology giant is refusing to help federal investigators access encrypted data on a phone that belonged to an Islamist terrorist who staged an attack last year on U.S. soil. Syed Farook's iPhone has been inaccessible to the FBI since he died in a police shootout after he and his wife killed more than a dozen people in San Bernardino, California on December 2. Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote Tuesday in a public letter that complying with a federal magistrate's order to help break into the phone's security protocols would involve building 'a backdoor to the iPhone,' which is 'something we consider too dangerous to create.' But Trump said he wanted a boycott - and was starting it himself. Scroll down for video Call: 'What I think you ought to do is boycott Apple until such time as they give that security number. Boycott Apple,' Trump said 'I use both an iPhone and a Samsung and if Apple doesn't give the information to the authorities on the radical Islamic terrorists I'll only be using a Samsung - until such time as they give the information,' he said. 'Hopefully others will follow suit. Our country needs and should demand security. It is time to get tough and be smart!' Trump dismissed that argument during a campaign stop in Pawleys Island, South Carolina. 'Apple ought to give the security for their phone, okay?' he said. 'What I think you ought to do is boycott Apple until such time as they give that security number. Boycott Apple! ' 'First of all, the phone's not owned by this young thug that killed all these people. The phone's owned by the government. Okay? Not even his phone! We don't have to go that far.' 'But Tim Cook is looking to do a big number, probably to show how liberal he is,' Trump continued in a conference room adjacent to a tony country club near the Atlantic Ocean 'But Apple should give up they should get the security [opened].' He claimed law enforcement would 'find other people' related to the attacks if it had access to the phone's data. 'When these two young people had bombs all over their apartment floor, other people saw those bombs,' Trump said. 'Well, those people, in a certain way, are almost as guilty as the ones that did the shooting. We've gotta get to the bottom of it. And you're not going to get to the bottom of it unless we use common sense.' 'So I like the idea of "boycott Apple" until such time as they give such information. I think that's a great idea,' he said. Whether he was taking part, however, was not immediately clear. On social media, some people highlighted how his own tweets were sent from an iPhone. Trump is known to have a social media director who tweets for him, and also to send them himself. Joining in: A Trump tweet was sent from an iPhone earlier today but he told Daily Mail Only he would personally use a Samsung now The Justice Department said Wednesday in a statement that Apple should do what the court order directs. 'It is unfortunate that Apple continues to refuse to assist the department in obtaining access to the phone of one of the terrorists involved in a major terror attack on U.S. soil,' the agency's statement said. 'The judge's order and our request in this case do not require Apple to redesign its products, to disable encryption or to open content on the phone.' A prominent Aboriginal leader has admitted to sexually abusing a teenage girl for years but asked the court why he was not given counselling for his alcohol addiction. Roy 'Dootch' Kennedy, 52, founder of the Illawarra Sandon Point Aboriginal tent embassy, appeared before the Wollongong District Court, south of Sydney, on Friday. A woman who was unwillingly impregnated three times by Kennedy, starting from the age of just 15, read a victim statement detailing the impact the abuse had left on her life, Fairfax reported. Roy 'Dootch' Kennedy, 52, pleaded guilty to four charges of sexual assault of a minor The Aboriginal leader and founder of the Illawarra Sandon Point Aboriginal tent embassy sexually assaulted the girl in the 1990's when he was in his 30's and she was just a teenager 'The scars that have been left behind, that can always be seen, is a constant reminder of the abuse,' she read, supported by two council workers and her current partner. 'Falling pregnant very young was very difficult when it became time to give birth, my body was not fully developed in the way it should have been and the birth itself was very traumatic physically and emotionally.' Kennedy pleaded guilty to four charges of aggravated sexual assault of a minor. The years of abuse happened in the 1990's when Kennedy was in his 30's and the girl was just a teenager, and resulted in two births, a miscarriage and several pregnancy terminations. The court heard that the victim was terrified of Kennedy and had suffered poor mental health as a result of the abuse, including frequent suicidal thoughts and self-harm. The years of abuse resulted in two births, a miscarriage and several pregnancy terminations Kennedy's final sexual assault charge refers to an incident in 1999, in which he was said to have dragged the victim by the hair into the back seat of his car and violently raped her. Kennedy, once the respected chairman of the Illawarra Local Aboriginal Land Council and an authoritative voice for indigenous Australians, accepted the charges and offered an apology. 'I can't justify my behaviour because of alcohol abuse, but I can justify my alcohol abuse due to circumstance in my life,' he said. He then detailed events in his life which he claimed had led to his alcohol addiction, including an assault in Nowra in 1985. 'If there was only one way that I could kill those memories in my head ... especially from the fight Why wasn't I given further counselling of some support after being in hospital?' But Judge Paul Conlon said there was no correlation between the sexual abuse of a 15-year-old girl and his plea for earlier counselling. Kennedy was taken into police custody at the end of the court hearing. He will be sentenced on March 14. A 25-year-old mother of one has died after undergoing a routine breast enlargement operation in Shenzhen, southern China. The woman referred to as Ting Ting died on Wednesday after her heartbeat dropped during surgery, the People's Daily Online reports. Ting Ting, who was a fashion model, decided to undergo surgery after being told during her consultation that she had so-called 'small breast syndrome' and small eyes. Tragic: The mother of one died on February 17 during an operation at a plastic surgery clinic Chinese Model: Ting Ting pictured before she underwent surgery in Shenzhen, China's Guangdong province Sad story: The woman's husband was distraught when he found out his wife had died during surgery According to a surgery brief provided by the hospital, Ting Ting paid 45,600 yuan (4,884) for breast enlargement along with surgery on her eyes. During a consultation before the surgery, medical staff told her that she had small eyes along with small breast syndrome. Her mother named Tian sad her daughter was a model. She told reporters: 'I always told her she looked so pretty.' She says that Ting Ting didn't think that she was perfect enough and often talked about making her eyes longer and rounder. The hospital staff confirmed that she had previously had a nose job at the same surgery. According to hospital records, Ting Ting entered the operating theatre at 10.30am and had surgery on her eyelids using partial anaesthesia. She then underwent breast enhancement surgery with added anaesthesia. It was during this surgery that her pulse dropped followed by her blood pressure. She was given adrenaline however her heart stopped. Ting Ting's husband was told of the news at 5pm. However she had already been dead for some time. Tian, the woman's mother says she is angry that they weren't informed earlier about complications. She said: 'She had already passed away and paramedics had been called without our knowledge'. A spokesman from the clinic confirmed that they had called paramedics at around 3pm and that they had tried for 30 minutes to resuscitate Ting Ting. The spokesman confirmed that the death had been caused by the use of anaesthesia. He said that all of the medical staff involved were fully registered and certified. The hospital have said that they will bear full responsibility and offer some compensation for the woman's death. The health supervising authority in Nanshan District of Shenzhen said that they are currently investigating the case. The cause of death will be confirmed following post-mortem examinations. Plastic surgery is becoming increasingly popular in China, with many young women opting to undergo surgery to get the 'western style' double eyelids. Advertisement As China has been celebrating the New Year, dumpling factory owners have been preparing for the next festival, the Lantern Festival which falls on January 22. For the owners, the race is on to meet demands as the country gets ready to eat the traditional dish for the holiday season, the People's Daily Online reports. Such one factory is Daoxiangcun in Beijing. The brand is running its production lines 24 hours a day and making 220,000 pounds of sweet dumplings, known as 'yuan xiao', everyday in the run up to the popular holiday. Tasty treats: Cooks make dumplings named Yuanxiao for the Lantern Festival which falls on February 22 this year Big numbers: The factory makes around 220,000 pounds of dumplings every day to accommodate the demand for the desserts Popular demand for the dumplings: The dish is so popular at this time of year that people can be seen queuing at 8am It's estimated that by midday on the Lantern Festival, all dumplings Daoxiangcun produces in the lead time to the holiday will be sold out. At a food store in Beijing, people can be seen queuing for the tasty treats at 8am this week. The Daoxiangcun factory serves 178 stores in the capital. Yuanxiao is made from glutinous rice flour and a small amount of water to make round balls. It is then cooked or boiled. Sometimes the dumplings are filled with either sweet or savoury substances including sweet bean paste or minced meat. People from the south of the country are more likely to eat sweeter fillings while people in the north tend to opt for the savoury filling. These dumplings are usually eaten with family and symbolise family reunions. The custom of eating these dumplings originate from the Song Dynasty however it became popular during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. A big variety: The company makes dumplings with assorted flavours including black sesame seeds Chinese dates Cooks make Yuanxiao, glutinous rice flower dumplings in Beijing, China in time for the lantern festival which falls on Feb 22 this year After the image was posted online people had mixed views about her idea on the railing above her looping it around her neck Falling asleep on the tube can be uncomfortable, with your head swaying in every direction it's easy to wake yourself up nodding forward or back. A woman from Chongqing in central China seems to have come up a solution to fix this and make for a more comfortable journey, reports the People's Daily Online. The woman, surnamed Yang, was pictured on a train on February 15 using a scarf which has been tied around the handrail above to rest her sleepy head on. Bizarre: A woman on a Chongqing subway rests her head on her looped scarf for a more comfortable ride Pictures of her resting her head on the looped scarf were quickly posted onto Chinese social media, and many people praised her for her ingenious idea. Ms Yang reportedly complained that the standard of seats installed in the trains on the subway in Chongqing are extremely uncomfortable. She got the method to fix this from her mother who she said uses the same trick to relieve pressure on her spine. Though many people appreciated Ms Yang's clever invention, some people criticised it, saying if there was a crash she could seriously injure herself. Some people reported a horror scene on the subway as Ms Yang dressed in black hanged her head from her scarf and dozed off. Uncomfortable: Ms Yang complained that the seats in the trains on the subway in Chongqing are not comfy Ms Yang said it relieves any neck and shoulder pain caused on the subway when she is travelling. When asked why she did it by a local reporter she laughed and said: 'I just wanted to find a comfortable place to rest my head.' According to the report, after the pictures of Ms Yang resting her head on the scarf were posted online, a poll was set up on China's social media platform Wechat where 1,500 web users voted whether or not it was a good idea. Fifty-three per cent of users voted that they liked Ms Yang's new method. The rest of the users said it was not a good idea and were worried for her safety. Advertisement They are the ultimate symbol of military might, capable of providing a dominant presence in almost any region of the world where there is a nearby ocean. But as technology has advanced, the hulking weaponry and armour of warships that have ruled the waves are having to change and adapt to these high-tech times. From drones to unmanned boats and laser weapons, experts at How It Works Magazine have revealed what fleets of the future will look like. From drones to unmanned boats and laser weapons, experts at How It Works Magazine have revealed what fleets of the future will look like. This artist's impression shows a selection of some of the features that could make their way onto warships over the next decade RETURN OF THE DREADNOUGHT The Royal Navy in the UK has been challenging young British scientists and engineers to design the fleet of the future. Their vision is the Dreadnought 2050 concept, a high-tech trimaran vessel built for speed, stability and efficiency. Named after the 1906 HMS Dreadnought, which was also a revolutionary vessel in its day, the sleek ship is almost fully automated, cutting todays crews of 200 down to 50 or 100 members. Renewable energy technology could also give the ship unlimited range, allowing it to sail the world without stopping to refuel, and advanced weapons will enable immense firepower in battle. While some of the technologies envisioned for the Dreadnought 2050 are not yet achievable, others could realistically be incorporated into future designs, lowering the cost and manpower needed for the next generation of warships. The Royal Navy in the UK has been challenging young British scientists and engineers to design the fleet of the future. Their vision is the Dreadnought 2050 concept (illustrated), a high-tech trimaran vessel built for speed, stability and efficiency. It features reinforced armour, 3D-printers, a flight deck for drones and helicopters and hypersonic missiles. There is even a holographic command centre AIRCRAFT CARRIERS WITH ELECTROMAGNETIC CATAPULTS Aircraft carriers are often the capital ships of a nations navy, helping the air and maritime forces work together to project air power worldwide. The US Navy currently has ten enormous nuclear-powered supercarriers in its fleet but a long-overdue upgrade is on its way. The first of the new Ford-class carriers, the USS Gerald R Ford, is currently undergoing the final phases of construction and testing, and is set to join the Navys fleet in 2016. The USS Gerald R Ford, also known as CVN 78, will be similar in size to its predecessor Nimitz-class ships, but as the first aircraft carrier to be completely designed using 3D computer modelling, it will be lighter, cheaper and more powerful. Increased automation will mean up to 900 fewer crew members will be needed on board and for the first time, air conditioning will be available throughout the ship (pictured) This graphic details the different types of ships in a typical navy fleet, from the aircraft carrier at the top to the amphibious assault ship at the bottom. All of these warships are getting high-tech upgrades and advanced specifications to bring them into the 21st century The future of warships features in the latest issue of How it Works magazine (front cover pictured) The USS Gerald R Ford, also known as CVN 78, will be similar in size to its predecessor Nimitz-class ships, but as the first aircraft carrier to be completely designed using 3D computer modelling, it will be lighter, cheaper and more powerful. Increased automation will mean between 500 to 900 fewer crew members will be needed on board and for the first time, air conditioning will be available throughout the ship, making life at sea more comfortable. The carrier can hold up to 90 aircraft at a time, but instead of launching them using the steam-powered catapults found on modern day ships, an electromagnetic launch system will be used to fire them into the air. This works a lot like a railgun but uses an aircraft as the projectile. SILENT SUBMARINES They may be hard to miss when on dry land, but Improved Kilo-class submarines are able to travel unseen through the depths. These diesel-electric subs are considered to be the quietest in the world, leading Nato to nickname them 'black holes' due to their low noise and visibility. Despite weighing around 4,000 tons, the subs can reach speeds of 37 kilometres (23 miles) per hour, and can patrol for up to 45 days at a time. Once they have snuck up on the enemy, eight infrared-guided surface-to-air missiles can then be fired at targets above the water, or computer-controlled torpedoes can be deployed beneath the waves. The submarines array of sensors mean that it can detect enemy vessels at a range three to four times greater than it can be detected itself. This surveillance data can then be used by the onboard computer to calculate firing parameters and recommend manoeuvres and weapon deployment. The six stealthy subs in this class will be patrolling the Black Sea by the end of 2016. DRONE BOATS With aerial drones already being used in military combat, it was only a matter of time before unmanned boats came onto the scene. The Royal Navy currently has a fleet of modified rigid inflatable boats (RIBs) in development that will be able to perform complex surveillance and reconnaissance missions, without putting sailors in harms way. Using an arsenal of sensors, including a navigation radar, a 360-degree infrared camera array and a laser range finder, the vessels will be able to operate autonomously while avoiding collisions, and are expected to provide added protection for the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers once they enter service. The US Navy is also developing similar unmanned vessels that will be able to swarm and attack enemy targets, and the US defence agency DARPA even has plans for an Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vehicle that will be able to use artificial intelligence and sensors to hunt for enemy submarines. The Royal Navy currently has a fleet of modified rigid inflatable boats (RIBs) in development that will be able to perform complex surveillance and reconnaissance missions (pictured). Using sensors, including a navigation radar, a 360-degree infrared camera array and a laser range finder, the vessels will be able to operate autonomously while avoiding collisions LASER WEAPONS The US Navy has turned science fiction into reality by developing a real-life laser gun that can blow up targets in an instant. Although they wont be using it to fight space aliens any time soon, the Laser Weapon System (LaWS) has been successfully tested at sea, proving that it is capable of blowing up moving targets on aerial drones and small boats. The weapon, which has been installed on board the USS Ponce, consists of six commercial welding lasers joined together, and can deliver 30 million times as much power as a hand-held laser pointer. It is operated using an Xbox-style controller and can be used to simply disable a targets sensors and instruments, or destroy it completely. As well as improved accuracy, another big advantage of LaWS is its cost, as the price of firing the laser is just 59 cents (39 pence) per shot, compared to the $2 million (1.3 million) needed for a traditional missile. After this, researcher says atheism likely didn't thrive as well as it once did When Rome adopted Christianity, acceptance of 'one true God' was forced Humans are not inherently wired for religious belief, a new study claims. While modern rhetoric suggests that atheism is an idea of today's world, a professor from the University of Cambridge argues that it is an ancient way of thought, which was later squashed by imperial forces. Disbelief in God (or gods) stretches back to the polytheistic civilizations of ancient Greece and pre-Christian Rome and in these ancient societies, atheism likely thrived. Humans are not inherently wired for religious belief, a new study claims. Disbelief in God (or gods) stretches back to the polytheistic civilizations of ancient Greece and pre-Christian Rome and in these ancient societies, atheism likely thrived. Engraving of Statue of Zeus at Olympia, pictured above ARE WE WIRED FOR RELIGION? Tim Whitmarsh, Professor of Greek Culture and a Fellow of St John's College, University of Cambridge argues that humans are not wired to believe in God. He also says that atheism has long been present, despite modern assumptions that is a phenomenon of today's society. Whitmarsh argues that the polytheistic civilizations of ancient Greece and pre-Christian Rome allowed atheism to flourish. The researcher explains that there were no priests or clergy dictating people's lives, so disbelief was not considered to be morally wrong. T he change came dramatically after Rome adopted Christianity in the 4th Century CE, and force demanded acceptance of 'one true God.' Advertisement A new book called Battling the Gods by Tim Whitmarsh, Professor of Greek Culture and a Fellow of St John's College, University of Cambridge, explains that atheism has been left out of much of written history. This has led current debates between atheists and believers to rest upon two assumptions, the researcher explains. One is that atheism is a modern mindset, and the other is the idea of 'religious universalism,' which suggests that religious belief is a 'default setting,' for humans. Both of these ideas, the researcher says, are incorrect. Instead, Whitmarsh argues that atheism has always been present. The researcher says disbelief can be traced back to ancient societies, from atheistic writings of Xenophanes of Colophon (c.570-475 BCE), to Plato's 4th Century BCE writings. Non-believers of the time, Plato said, were 'not the first to have had this view about the gods.' Instead of atheism emerging as a modern way of thought, Whitmarsh suggests it is 'as old as the hills,' and was even considered normal among the polytheistic societies of Greece and pre-Christian Rome. Botticell's The Birth of Aphrodite. Polytheism in ancient Greece allowed atheism to flourish, the researcher explains 'We tend to see atheism as an idea that has only recently emerged in secular Western societies,' Whitmarsh said. 'The rhetoric used to describe it is hyper-modern. 'In fact, early societies were far more capable than many since of containing atheism within the spectrum of what they considered normal. 'Rather than making judgements based on scientific reason, these early atheists were making what seem to be universal objections about the paradoxical nature of religion the fact that it asks you to accept things that aren't intuitively there in your world. 'The fact that this was happening thousands of years ago suggests that forms of disbelief can exist in all cultures, and probably always have.' Polytheism in ancient Greece allowed atheism to flourish, as there was no unified religious text among the individual cultures of more than 1,000 city states. While some people would have thought atheism a 'mistaken' viewpoint, the researcher explains that there were no priests or clergy dictating people's lives, so disbelief was not considered to be morally wrong. Many early thinkers harnessed disbelief in the gods, and the Epicureans argued against predestination and the overarching control of the gods. Only on occasion were people, like Socrates, actively persecuted for this, Whitmarsh says. And, many of the fundamental beliefs of atheism have persisted today. Since the decline of polytheism, the researcher says atheism likely hasn't flourished as well in most subsequent civilizations. The Temple of Poseidon in Cape Sounion, south east of Athens, Greece, pictured above 'Believers talk about atheism as if it's a pathology of a particularly odd phase of modern Western culture that will pass, but if you ask someone to think hard, clearly people also thought this way in antiquity,' The change came dramatically after Rome adopted Christianity in the 4th Century CE. When imperial forces demanded societies accepted 'one true God,' atheism was largely extinguished, as deviation from religious belief was no longer tolerated. Images captured by the Esa's Mars Express show the marks of water that once flowed on the surface of the red planet. The scene in the western part of the Arda Valles shows the paths of the merging streams and a smooth impact basin, that decorate the landscape. This area is roughly 160 miles north of the Holden Crater, near Ladon Valles, and has revealed clay minerals among the branching channels. Images captured by the ESAs Mars Express show the marks of water that once flowed on the surface of the red planet. The scene in the western part of the Arda Valles shows the paths of the merging streams and a smooth impact basin, that decorate the landscape THE REMAINS OF ANCIENT WATER Images from the ESA's Mars Express show streams that merge into tributaries in the branching drainage pattern of a Martian landscape. Clay minerals which formed in the presence of water were also found, near the end of these channels. Large basins were once filled with water and muddy sediment, and a mound likely formed by the buildup of sediments transported by the streams. Advertisement The Mars Express images show the branching drainage system of a Martian landscape along the western rim of an ancient basin. On the left side of the image, the many streams can be seen as they come together into tributaries of the main channel, and flow into the basin on the right. A mound captured in the image has spurred multiple theories, with astronomers suggesting that it could be the remains of an older impact basin, or a build-up of sediments carried by the streams. Next to the mound, a crater roughly 5 miles wide can also be seen. The images also show a much larger crater further to the right, this one more than 15 miles wide. This large crater was once filled with muddy sediments, which later collapsed and created a chaotic terrain on the crater floor, and fracture-like features. A mound captured in the centre of the image has spurred multiple theories, with astronomers suggesting that it could be the remains of an older impact basin, or a build-up of sediments carried by the streams. Next to the mound, a crater roughly 5 miles wide can also be seen Evidence of evaporation and loss of underground ice can be seen toward the top right side of the image, the astronomers explain. Here, fragmented polygon litter the scene. Clay minerals found near the end of the channels support the evidence of ancient streams, as these form in the presence of water. In this area, the sediment deposits are light-toned and layered. This area is roughly 160 miles north of the Holden Crater, near Ladon Valles, and has revealed clay minerals among the branching channels On the left side of the image, the many streams can be seen as they come together into tributaries of the main channel, and flow into the basin on the right. The images also show a much larger crater further to the right, this one more than 15 miles wide. This large crater was once filled with muddy sediments Finding evidence of water helps astronomers progress in the search for life on the red planet. A recent study has suggested that deep basins carved on Mars by groundwater beneath a tectonic rift zone may have been habitable. The basins may have been alternately covered with lava and water over the course of hundreds of millions of years. IS MARS HUMID ENOUGH TO SUPPORT LIFE? Mars appear to be a dry, barren planet, but the alien world is also remarkably humid. Now one group of scientists claims that this humidity could be enough to support life. They say the humidity could support life if the water condenses to form short-term puddles in the early morning hours. 'The conditions on Mars, where the relative humidity is high and the available water vapor is approximately 100 precipitable microns, is the equivalent of the drier parts of the Atacama Desert in Chile,' John Rummel, of East Carolina University, told Space.com. Advertisement They could have created the ideal temperature ranges, water pressure and nutrients necessary to sustain life, scientists from the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona claim. Huge lakes may have formed in these lava-covered basins, the study claims. 'The temperature ranges, presence of liquid water, and nutrient availability, which characterize known habitable environments on Earth, have higher chances of forming on Mars in areas of long-lived water and volcanic processes,' said lead author Alexis Palmero Rodriguez. Salt deposits and features of the ancient lakes are important 'when looking for past habitable areas on Mars,' he added. The detection of paleo-lake sites on Mars is particular challenging because under the planet's frigidly cold and thin atmosphere, their ponded water would have behaved differently than on Earth, he said. This follows research from last year which suggested fossilised life could be found in gemstones mined deep within Martian craters. The discovery was made in traces of the opal, which were found in a Martian meteorite. Opal is an intriguing find, not only because it can preserve fossils, but also because it forms around hot springs where microbial life thrives. Long before the dinosaurs, hefty herbivores called pareiasaurs ruled the Earth, some 260 million years ago. Described as the 'ugliest fossil reptiles' pareiasaurs had small heads and stumpy limbs on barrel-shaped bodies covered in bony knobbles. But despite their unattractive appearance and lumbering gait, a palaeontologist believes the huge herbivores were able to travel the world. Fully-grown Pareiasaurs measured between six-and-a-half and 10 feet long (two to three metres) and had short, stocky arms and legs on their barrel-like bodies, which were covered in bony knobs. This illustration shows an unusual type of pareiasaur, subbed Bunostegos akokanensis, known from fossils found in Africa Professor Mike Benton of Bristol University's School of Earth Sciences studied fossils of all known Chinese specimens of pareiasaurs. While the pre-reptiles are known to have lived in South Africa, Europe - Russia, Scotland and Germany - Asia and South America, it was not previously known whether there were distinct groups on each continent. But Professor Benson has shown there are close similarities between Chinese fossils and those found in Russia and South Africa, indicating that the huge herbivores were able to travel around the world, or the supercontinent Pangea, despite their lumbering movement. Described as the 'ugliest fossil reptiles' pareiasaurs has small heads and stumpy limbs on barrel-shaped bodies covered in bony knobbles. But despite their unattractive appearance and lumbering gait, a palaeontologist believes the huge herbivores were able to travel the world Professor Mike Benton studied fossils of all known Chinese specimens of pareiasaurs. This image shows the lower jaw of the Chinese pareiasaur Shihtienfenia, seen in external and internal views. The deep jaw shows it had powerful jaw muscles, and the small leaf-shaped teeth show it fed on plants 'Up to now, six species of pareiasaurs had been described from China, mainly from Permian rocks along the banks of the Yellow River between Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces,' he explained. 'I was able to study all of these specimens in museums in Beijing, and then visit the original localities. It seems clear there were three species and these lived over a span of one to two million years.' Fully-grown Pareiasaurs measured between six-and-a-half and 10ft long (two to three metres) and had short, stocky arms and legs on their barrel-like bodies, which were covered in bony knobs. It's thought they lived in damp, lowland areas, feeding on huge amounts of low-nutrition vegetation with their small teeth. No stomach contents or fossilized faeces from pareiasaurs are known to exist, but in Russia, pareiasaurs have been found with evidence they had made wallows in the soft mud probably to cool off or coat themselves in mud to ward off parasites. 'Up to now, six species of pareiasaurs had been described from China, mainly from Permian rocks along the banks of the Yellow River between Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces,' Professor Benton said. This map shows western Shanxi Province, including the principal pareiasaur localities, at Baode and in Liujin The new study, published in in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, confirmed that the three Chinese pareiasaur species differed from each other in body size and in the shapes of their teeth. Professor Benton said: 'My study of the evolution of pareiasaurs shows that the Chinese species are closely related to relatives from Russia and South Africa. 'Despite their size and probably slow-moving habits, they could walk all over the world. 'We see the same sequence of two or three forms worldwide, and there is no evidence that China, or any other region, was isolated at that time.' While pareiasaurs were the first truly large herbivores to walk the Earth, their tenure was short. As in other parts of the world, the species in China were wiped out as part of the devastation of the end-Permian mass extinction 252 million years ago, when 90 per cent of species were killed by the acid rain and global warming caused by massive volcanic eruptions in Russia. Without forests, landscapes were denuded of soils which washed into the seas. Shock heating of the atmosphere and oceans as a result of the massive release of carbon dioxide and methane also killed much of life. The end-Permian mass extinction killed off the pareiasaurs after they had been on Earth for only 10 million years. It is a rich and fertile land where agriculture is thought to have first sprouted before spreading around the world. Now archaeologists have discovered a prehistoric village that may have belonged to some of the first farmers on the planet. Sitting on the east shore of the Sea of Galilee, the 12,000-year-old settlement is believed to have belonged to members of the Natufian culture just as they began shifting from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to farming. Archaeologists have discovered a 12,000-year-old village together with the remains of some of its inhabitants (pictured) close to the banks of the Sea of Galilee who may have been among the world's first farmers. They lived at a time when humans were shifting from a hunter gatherer lifestyle to growing and harvesting crops Archaeologists said this was when these first farmers began settling down and building more permanent dwellings from stone. Buried among the remains of up to five different buildings, researchers discovered the remains of at least five people. WHO WERE THE NATUFIANS? The Natufian culture was a late Palaeolithic culture that is thought to have exited between 12,500 and 9,500BC in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean. They were thought to have been hunter-gathers but were among the first to establish static communities and live in fixed villages. They are also thought to have been among the first people to have deliberately cultivated cereal crops. During the Younger Dryas period around 12,000 years ago, the climate in the region changed dramatically and many of these settled Natufian communities are thought to have reverted to nomadism. However, the findings at Nahal Ein Gev suggest not all of these late members of the Natufian culture left their villages to move around and it may have been these who pioneered farming. Advertisement They have also discovered huge numbers of stone tools, jewellery and pieces of art carved from stone and bone among the ruins. The site is providing experts with a unique insight into life at a time when mankind was on the verge of bursting into the Neolithic period and was starting to develop techniques for farming the land. Dr Leore Grosman, an archaeologist at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem who led the excavation, said the village seemed to be inhabited at this crucial time - showing technology from both the Paleolithic and Neolithic. Writing in the journal Public Library of Sciences One, she and her colleagues said: 'The excavation at Nahal Ein-Gev II enables us to closely examine the cultural crossroads at the end of the Paleolithic and the beginning of the Neolithic way of life. 'Was this extensive and complex occupation a sedentary village? 'Architectural planning, construction methods and various aspects of the faunal assemblage provide good indications for site permanence.' The village was unearthed in a wadi, or valley, in the Valley of Jordan in Israel, on the banks of a stream about 1.2 miles (1.9km) from the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. The village was found at a site called Nahal Ein Gev about 1.2 miles (1.9km) from the Sea of Galilee (illustrated) Archaeologists uncovered the remains of several buildings which appear to have been dug into the ground and had walls built of stacked stones (pictured). They estimate the village was occupied for several centuries and hosted a bustling community at a point when early farming techniques were beginning to develop Excavations between 2010 and 2013 revealed the site covered an area of almost 13,000 square ft (1,207 sq metres). The archaeologists found the remains of several rounded stone buildings, each of which appears to have been dug 15-inches (38cm) into the ground so they were semi-subterranean in nature. Human remains were unearthed from two locations on the site. One woman had been buried on her back, curled in a tight ball which suggests her body may have been wrapped or placed in a sack. Four other individuals were found in a larger burial pit one of which was a female who appears to have been buried in a similar way to the other woman found at the site. Two greenstone pendants, or possibly buttons, were found at the site along with beads made from Cardium shells and engraved stone and bone (pictured left) suggesting the inhabitants had a rich artistic culture. Stone tools found at the site included sickles used to harvest crops and blades for butchering meat (right) The village sat on the banks of a stream that ran through a wadi, or valley, in the Valley of Jordan (pictured) The bones to the other individuals were scattered around her, suggesting the grave had been dug up several times to bury each person, the archaeologists suggest. Archaeologists also found a rich assembly of stone tools including blades used for butchering and scraping skins, alongside sickle blades that may have been used for cutting crops. Animal remains on the site, however, showed the residents were also still hunting and butchering gazelles. Small numbers of remains from wild cattle, wild goats, wild boar and deer were also found. Perhaps most intriguingly, however, was the discovery of jewellery and carvings made from stone and bone that suggest the people who lived here had a rich artistic culture. The remains of several round house buildings made from stone were uncovered on the site. Archaeologists describe them as being semi-subterranean as their floors had been dug down into the soil (pictured) This pit appears to have been used for storage by the villagers, according to the archaeologists THE ANCIENT SETTLEMENT Excavations took place between 2010 and 2013. Archaeologists found the remains of several rounded stone buildings. Human remains were unearthed from two locations on the site. One woman had been buried on her back, curled in a tight ball which suggests her body may have been wrapped or placed in a sack. Four other individuals were found in a larger burial pit one of which was a female who appears to have been buried in a similar way to the other woman found at the site. Two pieces of bone engraved with delicate motif of repeating geometric triangular patterns and a piece of limestone that appears to have been carved were found during the excavation. Archaeologists also discovered a rich assembly of jewellery including beads made from Cardium shells and two greenstone pendants or buttons. Advertisement Two pieces of bone engraved with delicate motif of repeating geometric triangular patterns and a piece of limestone that appears to have been carved were found during the excavation. Archaeologists also discovered a rich assembly of jewellery including beads made from Cardium shells and two greenstone pendants or buttons. The archaeologists said the site appears to have been occupied for several centuries and appeared to have a bustling community who may also have traded with groups from elsewhere. The greenstone pendants, for example may have been traded with groups from Negev in the south or Israel or Hula Valley in the north of modern day Israel. Dr Grosman said: 'Although attributes of the lithic tool kit found at Nahal Ein-Gev II places the site chronologically in the Paleolithic period, other characteristics - such as its artistic tradition, size, thickness of archaeological deposits and investment in architecture - are more typical of early agricultural communities in the Neolithic period. 'Characterising this important period of potential overlap in the Jordan Valley is crucial for the understanding of the socioeconomic processes that marked the shift from Paleolithic mobile societies of hunter-gatherers to Neolithic agricultural communities.' with the enemy one in five days When thinking of the World War One, images of mud-caked soldiers hunkering down in dank trenches to the alarm call of 'Gas! Gas! Gas!' immediately spring to mind. But British soldiers may actually have spent less time in the front line trenches than we may have previously thought. New research reveals the so-called 'Tommies' spent less than half of their time (47 per cent) in the trenches of the Western Front, challenging the popular perception that soldiers were almost permanently stationed on the front line. During World War One, from 1914 to 1918, millions of British men were mobilised, with more than 700,000 dying in the fields of Europe. New research reveals these soldiers, or 'Tommies', spent less than half of their time in the trenches of the Western Front (pictured) Units were rotated between the front line, reserve trenches and rest stations, although when manpower was low, men would likely have stationed at the front for longer stretches. By looking at the information in archived diaries, researchers are hoping to answer questions about what life was like during the soldiers' down time, such as how often they had a hot meal or were able to wash. During World War One, from 1914 to 1918, millions of British men were mobilised, with more than 700,000 dying in the fields of Northern Europe. The long-standing image is one of abject misery, with soldiers under constant fire from the enemy and being ordered 'over the top' at any moment. However, researchers at Goldsmiths, University of London found British infantry soldiers spent a maximum of 47 per cent of their time fighting on the front lines. What's more, they came under fire from the enemy just one in five of their days oversees. British infantry soldiers (pictured) were found to have spent a maximum of 47 per cent of their time fighting on the front lines. They additionally came under fire from the enemy just one in five of their days oversees The classic BBC comedy Blackadder (pictured), which was set during WW1, portrays life for the eponymous hero as rooted in the trenches. But researchers from Goldsmiths, University of London, show soldiers spent less time than half their time in the trenches CITIZEN HISTORIANS HELP TO REVEAL WORLD WAR ONE SECRETS A crowd-sourcing project, led by Goldsmiths, University of London, enlisted citizen historians to work through war diaries from WW1. Volunteers logged on to the Operation War Diary website and contributed by entering details about the diaries, including place names and activities the soldiers carried out. By distributing the work in bite-sized chunks, the project was able to amass a wealth of data from the diaries far quicker than the researchers could on their own. The team said the project was the first of its kind attempt using 'citizen historians' to work through archived British war diaries. Advertisement Artillery soldiers spent longer in action, with 62 per cent of their time either at the front or fighting, while the cavalry spent just 20 per cent of their time at the front or fighting. Professor Richard Grayson, from Goldsmiths, told PA: 'In terms of the popular perception, people imagine that soldiers spent most of their time at the front and that is just not the case. 'I'm a big fan of the BBC programme Blackadder and it does portray a lot of things accurately, but the idea that people were living in trenches all the time is just not correct.' Using resources from The National Archives and the Imperial War Museum, researchers published war diaries online. The diaries were kept to provide an accurate record of operations and to collect information which could help better prepare the army for future conflict. As part of a crowdsourcing project, they enlisted the help of amateur historians and archivists to work through the vast amount of hand-written information, in an approach similar to Wikipedia users editing and updating articles. Volunteers logged on to the Operation War Diary website and contributed by entering details about the diaries, including place names and activities the soldiers carried out. During the First World War, diaries (pictured) were kept to provide an accurate record of operations and to collect information which could help better prepare the army for future conflict As part of a crowdsourcing project, the researchers enlisted the help of amateur historians and archivists to work through the vast amount of hand-written information (pictured left and right), in an approach similar to Wikipedia users editing and updating articles Volunteers logged on to the Operation War Diary website (pictured) and contributed by entering details about the diaries, including place names and activities the soldiers carried out By distributing the work in bite-sized chunks, the project was able to amass a wealth of data from the diaries - including how long the soldiers spent under fire on the front lines far quicker than the researchers could on their own. WORLD WAR ONE: A HEAVY LOSS Some 7.5million men lost their lives on the Western Front during World War One. The front was opened when the German Army invaded Luxembourg and Belgium in 1914 and then moved into the industrial regions in northern France. In September of that year, this advance was halted, and slightly reversed, at the Battle Of Marne. It was then that both sides dug vast networks of trenches that ran all the way from the North Sea to the Swiss border with France. This line of tunnels remained unaltered, give or take a mile, for most of the four-year conflict. By 1917, after years of deadlock that saw millions of soldiers killed for zero gain on either side, new military technology including poison gas, tanks and planes was deployed on the front. Thanks to these techniques, the Allies slowly advanced throughout 1918 until the war's end in November. Advertisement The team said the project was the first crowdsourcing of its kind attempt using 'citizen historians' to work through archived British war diaries. Professor Grayson said: 'Previously it has been down to individual academic researchers ploughing through, but you just can't generate the data in any reasonable time. 'It is not dealing with comments in the way Wikipedia does, really it is about generating data which people can analyse. 'I think this is the future of history where we need big data. 'Certainly archival research carried out by academics will still go on and people will plough away individually, but if you want to generate huge amounts of information on vast subjects, this is certainly a way forward.' The major battlegrounds during the war stretched across France and Belgium. In 2014, more than 130 trench maps covering the major battlegrounds across France and Belgium were made available online. Space travel never looked so good. Nasa today revealed a record number of applicants some 18,300 for its next astronaut class. That's more than double the previous record of 8,000 for the first space shuttle astronaut class in 1978. Scroll down for video Space travel never looked so good. Nasa today revealed a record number of applicants some 18,300 for its next astronaut class. That's more than double the previous record of 8,000 for the first space shuttle astronaut class in 1978 MYTH: BECOMING AN ASTRONAUT MYTH: All astronauts have perfect vision. FACT: It's okay if you don't have 20/20 vision. As of September 2007, corrective surgical procedures of the eye are allowed, as long as a year has passed since the date of the procedure with no permanent adverse effects. MYTH: All astronauts have advanced degrees like, a PhD. FACT: While a Bachelor's degree from an accredited university is necessary, an advanced degree is not required. MYTH: Astronauts are required to have military experience in order to be selected. FACT: Military experience is not required. MYTH: You have to be a certain age in order to be an astronaut. FACT: There are no age restrictions. Astronaut candidates selected in the past have ranged between the ages of 26 and 46. Advertisement And this time, Nasa hit social media hard to promote the openings. The odds of getting picked are small; only eight to 14 Americans will be chosen, and Nasa expects it will take one and a half years to whittle down the list. Candidates need to be US citizens with a bachelor's degree in science, math or engineering. 'It's not at all surprising to me that so many Americans from diverse backgrounds want to personally contribute to blazing the trail on our journey to Mars,' Nasa Administrator Charles Bolden, a former space shuttle commander, said. Like the eight-member Class of 2013, the future astronauts will train to fly to the International Space Station on capsules under development by SpaceX and Boeing, as well as on Nasa's Orion spacecraft intended for deep-space exploration. Eventually, Nasa aims to send astronauts to Mars in the 2030s. The two-month application period closed Thursday. The first astronaut class was the Mercury 7 chosen in 1959. With the American spaceflight program grounded since 2011 when the space shuttle was retired, Nasa need to bloster its corps, which currently consists of just 47 astronauts. In 2000, at the peak of the space shuttle era, there were 149. Competition will not be light; in 2013 when Nasa last held an astronaut class, more than 6,000 people applied, and only eight were chosen. Nasa hit social media hard to promote the openings. The odds of getting picked are small; only eight to 14 Americans will be chosen, and Nasa expects it will take one and a half years to whittle down the list US spacecraft will not return to flight until 2017 - though four veteran astronauts have already been selected for the first spaceflights aboard Boeing's new spaceship. The craft, dubbed the the CST-100 Starliner, will launch in 2017 and SpaceX's Dragon crew capsule soon after. 'More will be needed to crew future missions to the space station and destinations in deep space,' Nasa said in a statement. Nasa and private aerospace companies are busily preparing for new missions to the ISS as well as to deep space, including an asteroid and eventually Mars by the 2030s. With more human spacecraft in development in the United States today than at any other time in history, future astronauts will launch once again from the Space Coast of Florida on American-made commercial spacecraft, and carry out deep-space exploration missions that will advance a future human mission to Mars,' Nasa said. Candidates need to be US citizens with a bachelor's degree in science, math or engineering. In this image, Nasa astronaut Terry Virts was installing an antenna and boom during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station last year 'The next class of astronauts may fly on any of four different US vessels during their careers 'The International Space Station, two commercial crew spacecraft currently in development by US companies, and Nasa's Orion deep-space exploration vehicle.' More than 300 people have been hired as Nasa astronauts since the US space agency's first corps of seven was selected in 1959 as part of Project Mercury, which sent men into orbit around the Earth. 'This next group of American space explorers will inspire the Mars generation to reach for new heights, and help us realise the goal of putting boot prints on the red planet,' said Nasa Administrator Charles Bolden, himself a former astronaut. 'Those selected for this service will fly on US made spacecraft from American soil, advance critical science and research aboard the International Space Station, and help push the boundaries of technology in the proving ground of deep space.' A pair of riddles used during job interviews for Google and Goldman Sachs may have many applicants perplexed, but it's no problem for artificial intelligence. Google's deep neural network was put through the tests of the 'hats riddle' and the 'switch riddle' both which require complex-problem solving to determine the fates of hypothetical prisoners. The answers to these riddles are based upon coordinated strategy, and the researchers say the AI's ability to master such tasks reveals a step in the direction of collaborative systems. Read the question below - and scroll down for the answer The prisoners can see the hats of the people lined up in from of them, but they cannot look at the hats behind them, or at their own. The executioner asks the last prisoner to state the colour of his hat. In order to live, the prisoner must answer correctly. If he doesn't, he is killed 'instantly and silently' THE 100 HAT RIDDLE 100 prisoners are lined up by an executioner, who places a red or blue hat upon each of their heads. The prisoners can see the hats of the people lined up in from of them, but they cannot look at the hats behind them, or at their own. Starting at the back of the line, the executioner asks the last prisoner to state the colour of his hat. In order to live, the prisoner must answer correctly. If he doesn't, he is killed 'instantly and silently.' This means that the other prisoners will hear the answer, but will not know whether or not it was correct. The night before the line-up, the prisoners can discuss a strategy to help them survive. What should they do? Advertisement AI called 'deep distributed recurrent Q-networks,' (DDRQN) have demonstrated for the first time that they can work together to solve problems, a team from the University of Oxford, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and Google DeepMind proposes. The neutral network was presented with two riddles, and had to learn communication protocols in order to complete them. In the '100 hats' riddle, 100 prisoners are lined up by an executioner, who places a red or blue hat upon each of their heads. The prisoners can see the hats of the people lined up in from of them, but they cannot look at the hats behind them, or at their own. Starting at the back of the line, the executioner asks the last prisoner to state the colour of his hat. In order to live, the prisoner must answer correctly. If he doesn't, he is killed 'instantly and silently.' This means that the other prisoners will hear the answer, but will not know whether or not it was correct. The night before the line-up, the prisoners can discuss a strategy to help them survive. What should they do? The answer to this riddle, and the similar 'switch riddle' also given to the AI, is not straightforward. Google's deep neural network was put through the tests of the 'hats riddle' and the 'switch riddle' both which require complex-problem solving to determine the fates of hypothetical prisoners. The answers to these riddles are based upon coordinated strategy Working out a strategy to save the most prisoners required that the network sort through complex sequences, and rely on communications between the individual agents of the scenario. In both situations, the AI was found to solve the tasks, and even outperform 'baseline methods,' proving it can come up with communications protocols internally. CAN YOU SOLVE THE 'SWITCH RIDDLE'? 'One hundred prisoners have been newly ushered into prison. The warden tells them that starting tomorrow, each of them will be placed in an isolated cell, unable to communicate amongst each other. Each day, the warden will choose one of the prisoners uniformly at random with replacement, and place him in a central interrogation room containing only a light bulb with a toggle switch. The prisoner will be able to observe the current state of the light bulb. If he wishes, he can toggle the light bulb. He also has the option of announcing that he believes all prisoners have visited the interrogation room at some point in time. If this announcement is true, then all prisoners are set free, but if it is false, all prisoners are executed. The warden leaves and the prisoners huddle together to discuss their fate. Can they agree on a protocol that will guarantee their freedom?' 'Every day one prisoner gets sent to the interrogation room where he can see the switch and choose between actions 'On', 'Off', 'Tell' and 'None,' the study explains. If they announce correctly, all prisoners are set free. But if they're wrong, all prisoners are executed Advertisement Still working out the answer? The researchers say that in the optimal situation, 99 of the prisoners can be saved for certain, while the remaining prisoner has a 50/50 chance. To ensure this, the prisoners must agree on the message communicated with each colour: the first prisoner to speak will say 'blue,' if the number of blue hats he sees in front of him is even, or 'red' if he sees otherwise. Then, the rest of the prisoners on the line can figure out their own hat colours based on the responses of the prisoners behind them, and the hats they see in front of them. As the work progresses, the team writes that more must be done in order to understand the solutions of the network, and improve the scalability for sets of larger numbers. 'It's basically a first step toward having AIs that can communicate and collaborate,' Jakob Foerster of the University of Oxford, told New Scientist. 'In the long run it will give them a lot more scalability and allow them to solve tasks that previously weren't possible.' In the future, this type of AI can be put to the test of other scenarios that involve 'real world data.' Extroverts can be described as brash and overbearing. But there are some advantages to having an outgoing personality when it comes to the bedroom; research suggests extroverts tend to have more sex. This is particularly true of outgoing women, according to a recent study, which claims they have sex twice as much as their introverted counterparts. Extroverts can sometimes be described as brash and overbearing. But there are some advantages to having an outgoing personality when it comes to the bedroom; extroverts tend to have more sex. At least that's according personality psychologist Brian Little from Cambridge University (stock image used) Personality psychologist Brian Little made the comments during a talk at this year's TED conference in Vancouver. Little highlighted research suggesting that claims extroverted men and women have more sex on average than their introverted counterparts. The study by university students in West Germany used a standard personality test called the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI). It categorised volunteers based on their personality type, and then asked them how much sex they had. Extroverted men reported having sex 5.5 times a month on average, compared to 3 times for introverted men. Extroverted women had even more sex 7.5 times a month, compared to the introverts who had it 3.1 times a month. While the results are dramatic, the study was self-reported, and the results may simply be down the the fact that extroverts are more likely to talk about their sex lives. While extroverts have more sex, previous research has found that introverts are better lovers. And while extroverts are never happier than in a crowd, introverts focus their energy on a small circle of friends Little, a professor at Cambridge University, said that in general extroverts 'need stimulation'. A Ted Blog on his talk described how extroverts are at their best when they're responding to stimuli quickly. For instance, many love caffeine. In conversations, they tend to stand closer and use much more eye contact. They also prefer 'black-and-white, concrete language,' said Little. 'Extroverts like to stand close, make eye contact, have a mutual gaze. When an extrovert meets [someone named] Charles, it rapidly becomes Charlie, Chuck, and Chuckles Baby. Introverts stay with Charles until they're given a pass to be more intimate,' he says While extroverts have more sex, previous research has found that introverts are better lovers. Science tells us that social connections make us happier and healthier and science is right. THEY MAY GET MORE SEX, BUT EXTROVERTS ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE FAT Forget your body shape, metabolic rate and blood sugar levels what really determines how fat you are is personality. According to a Swiss study, extroverts, neurotic people and those who are disorganised are at the biggest risk of overeating. Meanwhile, people who are open to new experiences and conscientious are far less likely to binge on high-calorie snacks, the researchers claim. Switzerland's Federal Institute of Technology compiled 1,000 responses to three questionnaires on eating habits, food choices, and personality. The latter questionnaire was designed to identify five basic dimensions of personality: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. 'We found that a person's personality does, in fact, determine why he or she eats and what he or she eats,' study author Carmen Keller told New York magazine. 'A lack of conscientiousness leads people to eat impulsively and to lose self-control in the face of tempting food situations with palatable and nicely smelling and tasting food.' Advertisement But there are different kinds of social connection. While extroverts are never happier than in a crowd, introverts focus their energy on a small circle of friends and family. They'd rather have a meaningful conversation with one good friend than make small talk with strangers. All the evidence shows that this is a wise path. A study by University of Arizona psychologist Matthias Mehl, PhD, found that the happiest people have twice as many in-depth conversations as the unhappiest, and participate in far less small talk. Advertisement Professor Stephen Hawking has unveiled Virgin Galactic's new SpaceShipTwo craft, called VSS Unity. 'We are entering a new space age, and I hope this will help to create a new unity,' he said, launching the craft via a video message of behalf of Virgin boss Richard Branson. 'If I am able to go & if Richard will still take me, I would be very proud to fly on this spaceship,' he said. Scroll down for video The six-passenger, two-pilot winged space plane has been designed to take passengers on five-minute voyages into suborbital space, and will reach altitudes of about 62 miles (100 km). Virgin Group Founder Sir Richard Branson spoke at the unveiling of the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo in Mojave, California on Friday Branson poses in front of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo space tourism rocket after it was unveiled on Friday. The company is preparing to resume flight testing for the first time since a 2014 accident destroyed the original and killed one of its two pilots Sam Branson, left, and his wife Isabella help their daughter Eva-Deia christen Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo space tourism rocket as Richard Branson, right, stands by after it was unveiled SPACESHIPTWO RELAUNCH The six-passenger, two-pilot winged space plane has been designed to take passengers on five-minute voyages into suborbital space, and will reach altitudes of about 62 miles (100 km). With a hefty price tag of $250,000 (175,000) a ticket, it is aimed at super rich thrill-seekers and celebrities, as well as researchers and commercial customers. The venture has been grounded since its first spaceship was destroyed in October 2014, killing a pilot during a test flight in Mojave. The Virgin Galactic team remains cautious and will need to reach a number of milestones before the craft can take passengers into suborbital space, with test flights to increase the altitude in stages. Advertisement The six-passenger, two-pilot winged space plane has been designed to take passengers on five-minute voyages into suborbital space, and will reach altitudes of about 62 miles (100 km). It replaces the craft Virgin lost following 2014's fatal crash, when Pilot Michael Alsbury was killed in the accident, which dashed Virgin Galactic's plans to start commercial operations as early as this year. With a hefty price tag of $250,000 (175,000) a ticket, it is aimed at super rich thrill-seekers and celebrities, as well as researchers and commercial customers. Virgin Galactic's own manufacturing arm, The Spaceship Company, already was well into construction of the second SpaceShipTwo of the fleet when the accident occurred. The biggest difference between the two vehicles is the addition of a pin to prevent a pilot from unlocking the ship's rotating tail section too soon before descent, which is what triggered the breakup of the first spaceship, said Galactic Chief Executive George Whitesides. Other changes include a device to prevent pilots from releasing the ship's landing gear too early and a variety of switch changes to make them more distinct. 'We learned a lot from the accident, and we made a lot of changes,' said Mike Moses, a former NASA shuttle manager who now oversees spaceflight operations for Galactic. Friday's unveiling at the Mojave Air and Space Port sets the stage for a round of test flights for the spaceship. Whitesides said he expects to rapidly repeat milestones the first spaceship reached, then incrementally test the new ship at higher speeds and altitudes. The first spaceship had not yet traveled beyond the atmosphere. 'All the math, simulations and analysis says this vehicle should be nice and stable and behave itself, but we need to go prove that,' Moses said. The renewed push comes just 16 months after Virgin Galactic suffered the loss of a test pilot in a fatal accident with the first plane. The firm is reportedly moving ahead with plans to build its own space launchers, including the new passenger vehicle and LauncherOne rockets designed to lift small satellites starting as early as next year. Branson (R) and son Sam Branson enjoy a moment together during the unveiling ceremony of Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTWO in Mojave Sir Richard Branson speaks to attendees after Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo space tourism rocket was rolled out on Friday Virgin Group Founder Sir Richard Branson (2-L) is joined by Virgin Galactic workers and Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTWO during its unveiling in Mojave Branson poses with employees in front of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo space tourism rocket after it was unveiled on Friday Actor Harrison Ford (left) sits with Virgin Galactic chief pilot Dave Mackay inside the new Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo, named Unity, which is unveiled in Mojave, California, as the company pushes ahead in the race to send passengers into space Actor Harrison Ford poses with a life-size cardboard cutout of Virgin Group Founder Sir Richard Branson after the unveiling ceremony It replaces the craft Virgin lost following 2014's fatal crash, when Pilot Michael Alsbury was killed in the accident, which dashed Virgin Galactic's plans to start commercial operations as early as this year. Branson's rivals in the commercial space race include SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. Speaking yesterday at the LaunchOne design and manufacturing plant in Long Beach, California, the entrepreneur told Reuters: 'To have three or four people who are fairly entrepreneurial competing with each other means we'll be able to open up space at a fraction of the price that governments have been able to do so in the past.' The renewed push comes just 16 months after Virgin Galactic suffered the loss of a test pilot in a fatal accident with the first plane. The firm is reportedly moving ahead with plans to build its own space launchers, including the new passenger vehicle and LauncherOne rockets designed to lift small satellites starting as early as next year. The venture has been grounded since its first spaceship, designed and built by Northrop Grumman Corp's Scaled Composites, was destroyed on 31 October 2014, during a test flight in Mojave. Pilot Michael Alsbury was killed in the accident, which dashed Virgin Galactic's plans to start commercial operations as early as this year. The National Transportation Safety Board, which investigated the accident, determined that the co-pilot prematurely released locks that pin the ship's rotating tail section into place. The new spaceship includes a pin that prevents the pilots from unlocking the tail section too early, before aerodynamic forces have built up to keep the tail from rotating on its own. The Spaceship Company, or TSC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Virgin Galactic, already had taken over manufacturing of the second spaceship in a planned fleet of five when the accident occurred. 'Ultimately, we want to be able to produce our own point-to-point aircraft,' said Branson. 'The best way to do that is to be involved with every aspect of the experimentation and the build.' Richard Branson (pictured) said his Virgin Galactic venture is eager to rejoin the race to to send passengers and satellites into space. With a hefty price tag of $250,000 (175,000) a ticket, it is aimed at super rich thrill-seekers and celebrities, as well as researchers and commercial customers Virgin Galactic's craft ill use a winged rocket plane dubbed SpaceShipTwo (illustrated), successor to SpaceShipOne.The new spaceship includes a pin that prevents the pilots from unlocking the tail section too early, before aerodynamic forces have built up to keep the tail from rotating on its own Branson's London-based Virgin Group and Aabar Investments, run by the Abu Dhabi government, combined have invested more than $500 million (350 million) in Virgin Galactic, said company Chief Executive George Whitesides. More than 700 people - including Hollywood A-listers Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio - are reported to have already bought tickets for Virgin Galactic space flights, which sell for $250,000 (175,000) each. The renewed push comes just 16 months after Virgin Galactic suffered the loss of a test pilot in a fatal accident with the first plane. The first SpaceShipTwo (pictured) was destroyed in an accident during a test flight in 2014 Pilot Michael Alsbury was killed in the accident (wreckage pictured), which dashed Virgin Galactic's plans to start commercial operations as early as this year However, the crash of the first SpaceShipTwo in 2014 led to Princess Beatrice to pull out of the scheme, alongsider an asset manager called Peter Ulrich von May from Switzerland. But Virgin Galactic is up against fierce competition from the likes of private firms Blue Origin and Space X. Elon Musk's SpaceX is the most advanced of the firms, and already has several satellite launches - and failures - under its belt. Its Dragon capsule is set to begin ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station in 2017. More than 700 people are said to have signed up for a ticket for Virgin Galactic's space flights, including Leonardo DiCaprio (left) and physicist Stephen Hawking (right) The six-passenger, two-pilot winged space plane (pictured) has been designed to take passengers on five-minute voyages into suborbital space, and will reach altitudes of about 62 miles (100 km) Blue Origin, owned by Amazon's Jeff Bezos, recently conducted a test launch from Texas in which the rocket dubbed New Shepard performed a vertical landing, slowing its descent by relighting its engine as it fell back to Earth. In January, the company launched the same rocket and it again landed intact. Blue Origin claims that during flights passengers will experience a few minutes of weightlessness after the capsule separates from the booster. Passengers will be able to leave their seats and float about the capsule before a signal tells them to be reseated for landing. Blue Origin, owned by Amazon's Jeff Bezos (pictured), recently conducted a test launch from Texas in which New Shepard rocket performed a vertical landing Virgin Galactic looks set to combine both words, and will focus on both tourist trips and launching cargo. It recently unveiled an upgraded booster to launch satellites. The firm has stated that today's launch of SpaceShipTwo will be a 'ground-based' celebration, and will be a while before the space plane takes to the skies. In a statement released yesterday on the Virgin Galactic website, the firm wrote: 'Our new vehicle will remain on the ground for a while after her unveiling, as we run her through full-vehicle tests of her electrical systems and all of her moving parts.' Elon Musk (pictured) heads up SpaceX, the most advanced of the firms. It already has several satellite launches - and failures - under its belt. Its Dragon capsule is set to begin ferrying astronauts to the International Space station in 2017 The test team remain cautious and will need to reach a number of milestones before the craft can take passengers into suborbital space, with test flights to increase the altitude. It added: 'When we are confident we can safely carry our customers to space, we will start doing so. We feel incredibly honoured that our earliest paying customers already number more than the total number of humans who have ever been to space. 'Our first spaceflight with paying customers; our first flight full of research experiments; our first flight with a full complement of eight (a feat that has only been accomplished once before in all of history, by the Space Shuttle on mission STS-61A); the dozens of times we will fly the first ever astronaut from a given nation each of these will be exciting milestones in the history of space exploration.' Nasa wants to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars in the 2030s. In a step towards that goal, the space agency is funding plasma engines that could propel astronauts to the red planet on much less fuel. The tabletop-sized thruster prototype, dubbed the 'X3,' uses a 45,000 mph stream of plasma to push spacecraft forward. Because its consumes 100 million times less fuel than conventional chemical rockets, the thruster is ideal for exploring Mars, asteroids and the edge of the solar system. Scroll down for video Nasa wants to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars in the 2030s In a step towards that goal, the space agency is funding plasma engines that could propel astronauts to the red planet on much less fuel. The tabletop-sized thruster prototype, dubbed the 'X3,' uses a 45,000 mph stream of plasma to push craft forward HOW DO HALL THRUSTERS WORK? A Hall thruster works by accelerating the plasma exhaust to extremely high speeds. The process starts with a current of electrons spiraling through a circular channel. On their whirlwind journey from the negative electrode at the exhaust end to the positively charged electrode on the inner side of the channel, they run into atoms (typically xenon gas) that are fed into the chamber. The collisions knock electrons off the xenon atoms and turn the xenon into positively charged ions. The electrons' spiraling motion also builds a powerful electric field that pulls the gas ions out the exhaust end of the channel, creating thrust. Just enough electrons leave with the ions to keep the spacecraft from accumulating a charge, which could otherwise cause electrical problems. Advertisement The prototypes have been created by engineers from the University of Michigan's Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) program. The engine is part of Aerojet Rocketdyne's XR-100 propulsion system, which could, in the next ten years propel a vessel to Mars. Nasa awarded $6.5 million over the next three years to Aerojet Rocketdyne for the development of the propulsion system, dubbed the XR-100. Developed by Professor Alec Gallimore thruster, the X3, is central to this system, and his team will receive $1 million of the award for work on the thruster. The XR-100 is up against two competing designs. All three of them rely on ejecting plasma an energetic state of matter in which electrons and charged atoms called ions coexist out the back of the thruster. But the X3 has a bit of a head start. For thrusters of its design power, 200 kilowatts, it is relatively small and light. And the core technology the Hall thruster is already in use for manoeuvring satellites in orbit around the Earth. 'For comparison, the most powerful Hall thruster in orbit right now is 4.5 kilowatts,' said Gallimore. That's enough to adjust the orbit or orientation of a satellite, but it's too little power to move the massive amounts of cargo needed to support human exploration of deep space. A Hall thruster works by accelerating the plasma exhaust to extremely high speeds. The core technology the Hall thruster (right) is already in use for manoeuvring satellites in orbit around the Earth. A Hall thruster works by accelerating the plasma exhaust to extremely high speeds Because its consumes 100 million times less fuel than conventional chemical rockets, the thruster is ideal for exploring Mars, asteroids and the edge of the solar system The process starts with a current of electrons spiraling through a circular channel. On their whirlwind journey from the negative electrode at the exhaust end to the positively charged electrode on the inner side of the channel, they run into atoms (typically xenon gas) that are fed into the chamber. The collisions knock electrons off the xenon atoms and turn the xenon into positively charged ions. The electrons' spiraling motion also builds a powerful electric field that pulls the gas ions out the exhaust end of the channel. Just enough electrons leave with the ions to keep the spacecraft from accumulating a charge, which could otherwise cause electrical problems. 'When they're ionized, the xenon atoms can shoot out at up to 30,000 meters per second, which is about 65,000 mph,' said Gallimore. The X3 contains three of plasma channels, each a few centimeters deep, nested around one another in concentric rings. The nesting is what allows the Hall thruster to operate at 200 kilowatts of power in a relatively small footprint Nasa is developing the capabilities needed to send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and Mars in the 2030s. Mars is a rich destination for scientific discovery. Its formation and evolution are comparable to Earth, helping us learn more about our own planets history and future The X3 contains three of these channels, each a few centimeters deep, nested around one another in concentric rings. The nesting is what allows the Hall thruster to operate at 200 kilowatts of power in a relatively small footprint. Scott Hall, a doctoral student in Professor Gallimore's lab, will use the funding to put the X3 through a battery of tests. He will first run it up to 60 kilowatts in the Plasmadynamics and Electric Propulsion Lab at U-M and then up to 200 kilowatts at the Nasa Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio Meanwhile, another doctoral student, Sarah Cusson, will investigate a tweak that could allow the X3 to remain operational for five to ten times longer than its current lifetime of a little over a year. 'If we do our jobs over the next three years, we can deliver both projects,' said Gallimore. 'If I had to predict, I would say this thruster would be the basis for sending humans to Mars.' Advertisement Nervous holidaymakers are avoiding Turkey following a spree of deadly terror attacks, but that hasnt slowed plans for a gigantic state-of-the-art airport in Istanbul. It will be one of the biggest international airports in the world once the fourth and final phase is finished by 2028 and potentially the busiest with six runways, flights to 350 destinations and an eventual annual capacity of 200 million passengers. When phase 1a ends in 2018, Istanbul New Airport will have the worlds largest terminal under one roof, with a gross floor area of nearly 11 million square feet and the ability to serve 90 million passengers a year. Project bosses are aiming to simplify passenger flow with spacious terminals, comfortable walking distances and new technology Phase 1a is scheduled to wrap up by the end of 2018 and includes plans for the world's largest airport terminal under one roof Located on the Black Sea coast on the European side of Turkey, the airport will be 22 miles outside Istanbul, but the projects designers have said it serve as a gateway to the country with rail, metro and bus links. Renderings show a main terminal and two smaller terminals bordered by six runways, along a tulip-shaped air traffic control tower and space for a park, hotels, mosques, medical centres and conference centres. Istanbuls third airport will lay claim to the largest duty free zone in the world and Europes largest car park, with 24,000 spaces. Istanbul New Airport the name given to the project so far will serve as Turkeys primary airport and a hub for connecting flights between Europe and Asia. Terminal 1 will have a vaulted ceiling, skylights and a slatted roof that gives off a range of blue colours and a discreet geometric pattern This design for Istanbul New Airport's curving air traffic control tower, which is shaped like a tulip, was selected last December When the fourth and final phase is completed in 2028, it will be one of the biggest and busiest international airports in the world As one of the airports of the future, bosses are aiming to simplify passenger flow with spacious terminals, comfortable walking distances and new technology. Terminal 1 will have a vaulted ceiling, skylights that provide natural light and a slatted roof that gives off a range of blue colours and a discreet geometric pattern. Construction of phase 1a is pressing ahead despite this years downturn in Turkeys tourism sector. Terminal 1 alone will have a gross floor area of nearly 11 million square feet and the ability to serve 90 million passengers a year Istanbul New Airport the name given to the project so far will serve as Turkeys primary airport and a major hub for connecting flights Located on the Black Sea coast on the European side of Turkey, the airport will be 22 miles outside Istanbul with rail, metro and bus links This diagram shows the scale of phase 1a, which is scheduled to finish in 2018 with a massive terminal building and three runways TUI Group, owner of UK brands Thomson and First Choice, recently revealed that its summer bookings to Turkey have dropped by 40 per cent following terror attacks in Istanbul and Ankara. Last month, 10 German tourists were killed in a suicide bombing just steps from the historic Blue Mosque in Istanbul's storied Sultanahmet district. Turkish officials said the attacker was affiliated with ISIS. Turkey, which shares a border with Syria, has also been affected by the migrant crisis. Britains Foreign & Commonwealth Office said more than 2.5million Britons visit Turkey every year and most visits are trouble-free. His healthy eating regime saw him shed three stone just in time for awards season. And Sam Smith proved he takes just as much care with what he puts on his body as well as inside it as he stocked up on skincare products in West Hollywood on Thursday. Looking calm and content as he visited a spa on Melrose Place, the 23-year-old seemed to be treating himself to a pamper day ahead of the Brit Awards on Wednesday night - where he has been nominated in the British Artist Video of the Year category for his James Bond theme, Writing's On The Wall. Scroll down for video Healthy inside and out: Sam Smith proved he takes just as much care with what he puts on his body as well as inside it as he stocked up on skincare products in West Hollywood on Thursday Showing off his svelte new frame in a bright blue jumper, the Stay With Me hitmaker looked a shadow of his former self as he ran his errands for the day. Finishing off his outfit with a pair of cropped black skinny jeans and canvas shoes, he looked casual but chic on the outing. Sporting his freshly trimmed beard and donning a pair of circular aviator sunglasses, the star looked right at home among the stylish Hollywood set. Spa day: Looking calm and content as he visited a spa on Melrose Place, the 23-year-old seemed to be treating himself to a pamper day ahead of the Brit Awards on Wednesday night Slender: Showing off his svelte new frame in a bright blue jumper, the Stay With Me hitmaker looked a shadow of his former self as he ran his errands for the day in Melrose Place After causing a stir on the Grammy's red carpet when he showed off his slimmed-down new frame, Sam explained the secret behind his staggering weight loss. 'I've just not eaten like a pig anymore,' he told CBS at the Los Angeles ceremony on Monday. 'That's what I'm doing, basically.' And whilst some fans voiced their concerns about the award winning star's dramatic new look, the star insisted that he has been losing weight the healthy way, after reading nutritionist Amelia Freers book Eat, Nourish, Grow. Trendsetter: Sporting his freshly trimmed beard and donning a pair of circular aviator sunglasses, the star looked right at home among the stylish Hollywood set Chiseled: With his face clearly more defined the star was reaping the benefits of his new healthy diet Slimmed fast: Whilst some fans voiced their concerns about the award winning star's dramatic new look, the star insisted that he has been losing weight the healthy way through cutting down junk food Despite cutting back on carbs and eliminating dairy from his diet, Sam admitted hes still got a real penchant for junk food. Speaking to Magic Radio last summer, Sam revealed: 'Food is the big thing for me. Im moving around all the time, but I just love food. I still love it. Its going to be a battle for the rest of my life. 'I mean its not like this horrible diet that kills me. When I want to eat something bad I do it, but Ive just got to stay on top of it, which is tough. I just love fried chicken and cheese!' Actress Sherrie Hewson has landed the TV comic role of the year she will play Mrs Slocombe of Ladies Separates and Underwear in the return of comedy classic Are You Being Served? Award-winning actor Jason Watkins will play Mr Humphries, from the mens section of Grace Brothers department store. When John Inman played Mr Humphries in the original series that started in 1972, his line Im free!, delivered dripping with drollery, became perhaps the catchphrase of the show, which was created by Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft, ran for ten seasons and drew huge audiences for the BBC. Then and now: John Inman (left) as Mr Humphries, from the men's section of Grace Brothers department store, in the original of Are You Being Served, and award-winning actor Jason Watkins (right) who is set to replace him in the remake Classic: The cast of the original TV favourite, Are You Being Served, which started in 1972. Pictured, from left, are Mollie Sugden, Wendy Richard, Trevor Bannister, Nicholas Smith, Arthur Brough, John Inman and Frank Thornton For a time, Inman and Mollie Sugden, who played Mrs Slocombe always concerned about her beloved cat were comedy royalty. Part of the shows success was down to the casts impeccable comic timing. But it has aged well, too. Ms Sugden pointed out that like another old favourite, Dads Army, the episodes were old-fashioned to begin with, so they havent dated . . . they were dated when we did them! John Challis will play Captain Peacock, the dignified former officer who patrolled the floors of his new battleground, the department store, with vigilance. A pilot show will be filmed early in March and will be commissioned as a series if the one-off proves successful. The signing of Ms Hewson, a long-time Coronation Street regular who now appears in the series Benidorm, and Watkins, who won a Bafta for his TV portrayal of Christopher Jefferies, the former English master wrongfully arrested in a murder case, was done under a shroud of secrecy. Remake: Actress Sherrie Hewson (right) has landed the TV comic role of the year she will play Mrs Slocombe (left, Mollie Sugden) of Ladies Separates and Underwear in the return of comedy classic Are You Being Served? Those working on the production used code names for the actors so their identities could be kept under wraps until the BBC decided it was ready to announce the cast. Ive saved them the trouble. In the show, Mrs Slocombe appeared with her hair lavishly coiffured in different shades (she favoured the purple hues). All manner of social stereotypes were on display in the store. Mrs Slocombe had a touch of Hyacinth Bucket about her, while her closest colleague, Shirley Brahms, was a working-class Cockney whom most of the stores male workforce fancied. Wendy Richard, later a star on EastEnders, played Miss Brahms. Last night, that role was still being cast. Other actors joining the re-boot include Roy Barraclough and Arthur C. Smith. The new Are You Being Served? is based on a script by Derren Litten, who also writes for Benidorm. It will be broadcast on BBC TV as part of a new look at comedy classics. John Logan (left) has written the screenplay for Michael Grandage's terrific film Genius The Wolfe pack is on the prowl In the 1920s, American novelists were the rock stars of their day. They were often incendiary figures, said John Logan, who has written the screenplay for Michael Grandages terrific film Genius, which tells how the celebrated book editor Maxwell Perkins helped Thomas Wolfe with his tomes Look Homeward, Angel and Of Time And The River. Grandage told me at the Berlin Film Festival: When you set Wolfe alongside Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, hes an extraordinary figure who sold masses of copies. Today, Wolfes rather fallen from fashion in academia, but then, according to Logan, he was the Keith Moon of literature. He added: He was a shockingly violent rebel people couldnt take their eyes off. In Genius, Colin Firth is the patient Perkins who went through thousands of pages of Wolfes manuscripts. Firth offers a marvellous portrait of calm opposite Jude Law, whose Wolfe is a force of nature. Added to the mix is Laura Linney as Louise Sanders, Perkinss wife, and Nicole Kidman (in one of her best roles) as Aline Bernstein, the stage designer who left her husband and children to be with Wolfe. Theres a fabulous moment towards the end of the film when Bernstein, totally exasperated with Wolfe, says to him: You have no idea what I had to go through to get where I am now . . . so I can look at you and feel nothing. Australian actress Elizabeth Debicki is set to be catapulted to stardom by The Night Manager Tom Hiddleston makes an intrepid undercover operative battling a silken-tongued predator and trying to save a delicious damsel in distress in The Night Manager. Its John le Carre not Ian Fleming! the actor stressed of the 1993 novel, which has been adapted into a gripping six-part espionage thriller, which was premiered at the Berlin Film Festival last night ahead of its launch on BBC1 on Sunday. (The BBC TV production was made with the U.S. cable channel AMC and London-based The Ink Factory.) I play an ex-soldier in the British Army who had two tours in the Middle East, Hiddleston said of Jonathan Pine, the character he portrays in the absorbing drama. Following a tragic event in Cairo, Pine takes a post as the night manager of a hotel in the Swiss Alps. Hes hidden in the snow, and then one night, he greets some important guests. The group is led by Richard Roper, played by Hugh Laurie. Le Carre describes Roper as the worst man in the world, Hiddleston said. Richard Roper is somebody who is the most elegant, sophisticated, charming Englishman but who is selling napalm and sarin gas to the highest bidder in the Middle East, and le Carres moral anger about it is fierce. Hiddleston said he lucked out with The Night Manager and lauded his fellow cast members. Hughs so good in it, because hes such a charming, sophisticated fellow himself. Olivia Colman plays Angela Burr, the M16 officer who persuades Pine to go undercover to take down the arms dealer from the inside. In the book, Burr was a bloke, but Colman grabs the role and makes it her own. One key part is taken by Australian actress Elizabeth Debicki, who until now has given solid performances in Baz Luhrmanns The Great Gatsby and a version of Jean Genets The Maids that played in Sydney and Brooklyn. But its The Night Manager that will catapult her to stardom. Elizabeth plays Hughs girlfriend, Hiddleston said, adding that we shouldnt give too much away about what she does with the role of Jed. I dont think its revealing too much or maybe it is? when I note the moonlit nude swimming scene Debicki performs in. Shes an exceptional actress who holds her own in sequences with a top-tier cast that also includes Tom Hollander, Tobias Menzies and Douglas Hodge. Shes also exceptionally tall at 6ft 3in, Debicki is three-quarters of an inch taller than Hiddleston and she carries her height beautifully. Working from a screenplay by David Farr and cinematography by Michael Snyman, the director Susanne Bier deftly exposes the fault line that lurks under the surface of some of our shadowy government departments. Hiddleston arrived in Berlin from Australia, where he has been filming Kong: Skull Island with best actress Oscar hopeful Brie Larson. He then heads to Vietnam to continue shooting the Kong film, and theres much speculation about him returning to the role of bad boy Loki in Thor 3. Might do, was all he would tell me about the Marvel film. Tom Hiddleston makes an intrepid undercover operative battling a silken-tongued predator and trying to save a delicious damsel in distress in The Night Manager WATCH OUT FOR... Diana Hardcastle, Oliver Dimsdale, Michael Simkins, Ryan Early and Rebecca Humphries, who are rehearsing William Boyds new play The Argument, which begins previewing at the Hampstead Theatre (in the downstairs studio) in North London on March 3. Boyds play debates whether we should air our differences with those closest to us and risk a conflagration or keep schtum and bite our tongues, while resentment builds. If I was thinking of starting an argument, I might ask why this starry show is being staged on the small stage when it should be in the main house! Diana Hardcastle is rehearsing William Boyds new play The Argument, which begins previewing at the Hampstead Theatre (in the downstairs studio) in North London on March 3 Sandy Powell, twice Oscar-nominated this year for her costume designs for the films Carol and Cinderella Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who was at the Bafta film awards this week before heading to Philadelphia to prepare for an independent movie hell be shooting in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The actor said hell be playing a cop in the untitled film. I want to immerse myself in what its like to be from Philly. I will live there, and listen, so I can get the accent and manner right, said the actor, who found fame in the TV dramas Lost and Oz, and who can be seen in the Will Smith film Concussion. Ron Cook, who has joined Stephen Dillane and Gina McKee in director Lyndsey Turners production of Brian Friels play Faith Healer, which will start previewing at the Donmar Warehouse Theatre from June 23. Cook will play the manager of a man who makes a living healing the sick. The plays a series of riveting monologues that (in the previous iterations I have seen) draw you into a tale of horror, sadness and a love that perhaps never was. Friel wove a delicate tale that will hook you. Cook has just ended a run in a fantastic version of Harold Pinters The Homecoming at the Trafalgar Studio, directed by Jamie Lloyd. Sandy Powell, twice Oscar-nominated this year for her costume designs for the films Carol and Cinderella, who paid tribute to David Bowie by attending the Bafta ceremony and Harvey Weinsteins Grey Goose after-party in a gloriously iridescent blue suit. She already has three Oscars: for Shakespeare In Love, The Aviator and Young Victoria. Kate Burton, who is one of the theatrical angels who has invested in the musical Mrs Henderson Presents, starring Emma Williams and Tracie Bennett at the Noel Coward. Ms Burton is the daughter of Richard and his first wife Sybil. She told me she has been a friend of Mrs H producer Norma Heyman for as long as I can remember. A bit of context: Ms Heyman was a lifelong friend of Kate Burtons stepmother, Elizabeth Taylor. Bindi Irwin has dedicated the majority of her 17 years to wildlife conservation at Australia Zoo. And on Friday, the bubbly blonde took to Instagram to reminded her fans of just how long her friendship with nature has lasted by sharing a sweet throwback snap of herself holding a snake. 'This is a 4 year old Bindi, with my beautiful corn snake', wrote the teen next to the photo of her younger self sitting in front of a leafy backdrop. Scroll down for video 'This is a 4 year old Bindi, with my beautiful corn snake': Bindi Irwin, 17, took to Instagram on Friday to reminded her fans of just how long her friendship with nature has lasted 'Back then all my best friends were usually animals #blessedbeyondmeasure', she added. While many youngsters may fear even the sight of snakes, Bindi appears confident in the photo as she handles the slithering orange and yellow reptile. At the time the photo was taken, Bindi had already made her foray into the world of television, having appeared in the 2002 film The Wiggles: Wiggly Safari and her father's show, The Crocodile Hunter Diaries. All grown up! The 17-year-old has blossomed into a regular TV star who recently appeared on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! and won the US version of Dancing With The Stars The Queensland native recently made an appearance on the current series of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here alongside her brother Robert and mother Terri. During their tenure on the South African set of the jungle-based survival show, the Irwins treated several of the celebrity contestants to a safari experience in a local endangered species sanctuary. Despite the fact that Bindi is no stranger to spending time in the wilderness, she did admit that she would 'go insane' if she were to compete on the show. She's a jungle baby! At the time the flashback photo was taken, Bindi had already made her foray into the world of television, having appeared in the 2002 film The Wiggles: Wiggly Safari and her father's show, The Crocodile Hunter Diaries Aussie darlings: She and her now 12-year-old brother Robert grew up in the spotlight following their father's tragic death 'I would not do well,' the 17-year-old confessed to brother Robert, 12, after stepping into the camp site as a guest, adding: 'I don't think I could do it.' The wildlife warrior cited missing her family as her main reason for not coping in the harsh conditions. 'I would really miss you guys,' she admitted, turning to her brother and mother Terri. 'The food doesn't bother me, that's all good,' she explained, adding: 'I can build a campfire and I am okay with wildlife, but you are getting cut off from the outside world - that would be weird!' Working hard: Robert, Bindi and Terri recently appeared in segments for I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! She has just finished her debut run on Broadway in Therese Raquin. Yet Keira Knightley is reportedly hurtling back to the silver screen as she is said to be in talks to play Catherine the Great in a biopic directed by Barbra Streisand. The 30-year-old Brit has caught the eye of the actress-turned-director, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Scroll down for video British beauty: Keira Knightley is reportedly hurtling back to the silver screen as she is said to be in talks to play Catherine the Great in a biopic directed by Barbra Streisand Reports are circulating that Keira has nabbed the lead role in the period drama, which will be Streisand's fourth after Yentl, The Prince of Tides and The Mirror Has Two Faces. The biopic of the Russian Monarch was penned by Kristina Lauren Anderson and Keira is said to have met Streisand for talks last year to toy with the idea of playing the powerful role. Catherine the Great, known as Yekaterina Alexeyevna, was the longest reigning female ruler of Russia and held power from 1762 until her death in 1796, aged 67. The movie, produced by Gil Netter, will reportedly follow the life of the young empress as she becomes trapped in a marriage with Emperor Peter III. Move to direction: The 30-year-old Brit has caught the eye of the actress-turned-director, according to The Hollywood Reporter Caught in a campaign of abuse, the powerful woman must use her cunning to rise above the confines of her matrimony and eventually rise to power. MailOnline has contacted a representative for Keira for comment. Clearly currently hot Hollywood property, Keira is also currently tipped for a role in yet another new biopic - Colette. The British beauty is poised to be stepping back in time once more with her next role, to star in Colette, a biopic about the French novelist who wrote Gigi and Cheri. The Pirates of the Caribbean star is said to be in talks for a role in the film that will begin shooting in Budapest in May, according to Deadline. Movie beauty: Keira, whose latest role was starring in Broadway production Therese Raquin at Studio 54, is a favourite to star in Colette Screen icon: Two time Oscar nominee Keira has previously gained critical acclaim for her part in Pride and Prejudice Two time Oscar nominee Keira has previously gained critical acclaim for roles in Pride And Prejudice and Pirates Of The Caribbean alongside Hollywood heavyweights Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom. Keira, whose latest role was starring in Broadway production Therese Raquin at Studio 54, is a favourite to star as the famous novelist who was nominated for a Nobel Prize for literature in 1948. Still Alices Wash Westmore will direct the film, with a script co-written by the late Richard Glatzer. The War Of The Worlds (Dominion Theatre) Verdict: Armageddon out of here! Rating: Rockers of a certain age may still revere Jeff Waynes 1978 music for H. G. Wellss story The War Of The Worlds, but it was not a good idea to expose his orchestral sci-fi fantasy to the stage. Nor is it doing the cult prog-rock double album any favours to flesh it out with Seventies co-veterans David Essex and Jimmy Nail, plus Liam Neeson keeping his distance by pre-recording his part as the narrator. The result falls somewhere between naff stadium rock and a very silly B-Movie, as a ramp of nubile violinists duel with ageing blokes on guitar. Around them, projections of Victorian photos swirl, actors spin in mid-air, plumes of flame erupt across the stage and daft re-creations of arthritic Martian armies inspire nothing so much as mirth. Rockers of a certain age may still revere Jeff Waynes 1978 music for H. G. Wellss story The War Of The Worlds, but it was not a good idea to expose his orchestral sci-fi fantasy to the stage As writhing dancers portray red Martian tumbleweed, it is melodrama on steroids, kitsch on stilts. Some will love that but, for me, armageddon out of here! The rocket that the aliens blast from Mars looks like a giant suppository that embeds itself in the grassy rump of Horsell Common in Surrey. Cue kettle drums, wah-wah pedals and barbecue effects. Out of the space pod emerges a sewage life-form that mutates into a bug-eyed death-ray war machine on spindly legs. Nail is a zombie pastor waving a crucifix at the Martian death squads, while Essex dresses as a blacksmith to play The Voice Of Humanity, sidling on and off looking very, very concerned. As writhing dancers portray red Martian tumbleweed, it is melodrama on steroids, kitsch on stilts. Some will love that but, for me, armageddon out of here! Uncle Vanya (Almeida Theatre) Verdict: Ravishingly bleak Rating: Sadly, I confess to being a sucker for Russian miserablism. This late Chekhov play about listless provincial failures lamenting the wreckage of their dismal lives is particularly fine. But I could have sworn it wasnt this long. At nearly three-and-a-half hours, even I began to give up hope of Robert Ickes protracted modern-day version ever ending. We are made to suffer in almost real time alongside a cast of contemporary bohemian wastrels stuck in the back of beyond. They analyse themselves, rant at each other and collapse into the weeping despair of bitter disappointment and unrequited love. Whats not to like?! Jeans and dishevelment are the couture of the day in which our hero Paul Rhys is an implacably louche, burnt-out wreck. Yet Chekhov rooted his play in the detail of his time, and I didnt recognise this lot as modern types. Where are the iPads, supermarkets and traffic jams? Not only is it almost impossible to be isolated in the country any more, but who is this handsome family doctor doing country rounds (a tenaciously depressed Tobias Menzies)? Sign him up, 111! And who is this young beauty (Vanessa Kirby), loyal to a loveless marriage with a curmudgeonly academic (Hilton McRae)? In your dreams, Mister. The nearest we come to a credible person is Jessica Brown Findlay (Downtons Lady Sybil) as the lovelorn tomboy who runs the farm. Emily Ratajkowski flaunted her pert derriere at the Marc Jacobs FW/16 presentation during New York Fashion Week Thursday. Stylist Tara Swennen dressed the 24-year-old actress in an ultra-sheer, black-lace asymmetric gown and platform Mary Janes. The We Are Your Friends starlet sported winged eyeliner, glossy lips, and wore her brunette locks down around her shoulders. Scroll down for video Cheeky: Emily Ratajkowski flaunted her pert derriere at the Marc Jacobs FW/16 presentation during New York Fashion Week Thursday Emily's next acting gig will be playing a Jewish, Long Islander called Jessica Weintraub in Robert D. Siegel's 2016 romance Cruise. While at the Park Avenue Armory, Ratajkowski posed with finger-waved pop diva Lady Gaga, who famously walked in the show. The amply-charmed beauty also posed for a picture with Younger actress Debi Mazar, also rocking head-to-toe black. Both the man of the hour and Vogue editor Anna Wintour showed their support for presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton in T-shirts designed by Jacobs himself. Peek-a-boo! Stylist Tara Swennen dressed the 24-year-old actress in an ultra-sheer, black-lace asymmetric gown and platform Mary Janes Ready for her close-up: The We Are Your Friends starlet sported winged eyeliner, glossy lips, and wore her brunette locks down around her shoulders In between projects: Emily's next acting gig will be playing a Jewish, Long Islander called Jessica Weintraub in Robert D. Siegel's 2016 romance Cruise Emily, meanwhile, is a very vocal supporter of her political rival Bernie Sanders. 'It's just how I want to see this country run. I'm really sick of the "one percent" that is taking all the money from this country, draining the middle class, making it nonexistent,' the London-born beauty told Marie Claire on Wednesday. 'But aside from that, I also think that because Bernie is not tied up with any interests, whether private or corporate, that he is able to make changes that I'd really like to see, whereas Hillary is not.' Mother Monster: While at the Park Avenue Armory, Ratajkowski posed with finger-waved pop diva Lady Gaga, who famously walked in the show Goodfella: The amply-charmed beauty also posed for a picture with Younger actress Debi Mazar, also rocking head-to-toe black Please take your seats, the Marc Jacobs Fall '16 show is about to begin. Tune in to watch the show live at 6PM EST at marcjacobs.com Posted by Marc Jacobs HQ on Thursday, February 18, 2016 On Tuesday, the Blurred Lines video vixen penned an essay on sexuality for Lena Dunham's blog Lenny. 'Even if being sexualized by society's gaze is demeaning, there must be a space where women can still be sexual when they choose to be,' Ratajkowski - a UCLA drop-out - wrote. 'I refuse to live in this world of shame and silent apologies. Life cannot be dictated by the perceptions of others, and I wish the world had made it clear to me that people's reactions to my sexuality were not my problems, they were theirs.' Representing: Both the man of the hour and Vogue editor Anna Wintour showed their support for presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton in T-shirts designed by Jacobs himself 'It's just how I want to see this country run': Emily, meanwhile, is a very vocal supporter of her political rival Bernie Sanders She's among Hollywood's most beloved new comediennes. But even Rebel Wilson isn't shy of putting herself out there when it comes to landing new roles. Gushing over her appearance in the forthcoming British comedy Absolutely Fabulous, the 35-year-old told how she 'begged' to be considered by creator Jennifer Saunders. New role: Rebel Wilson recently told how she 'begged' for a cameo role in the forthcoming film adaptation of TV comedy Absolutely Fabulous In a recent interview, the Sydney-born star told The Daily Mirror she was a 'huge' fan of BBC comedy Absolutely Fabulous. Rebel told the UK publication: 'I got to meet (Jennifer Saunders) last year in London and I cried when I met her! Shes every bit as amazing as I thought.' The Pitch Perfect star also revealed she was able to get an 'in' with Jennifer through her former LA roommate, Little Britain star Matt Lucas, 41. Good friends: Rebel (left) asked her pal and former LA roommate Matt Lucas, 41 - pictured together in 2011 comedy Bridesmaids - to give her Jennifer Saunders's email address so she could ask for a cameo in Ab Fab After telling her Bridesmaids co-star she was a 'big fan' of the 57-year-old, Matt gave Rebel her email address. 'I emailed her and said, "If you need me for anything Ill be there." I full out got down on my knees and begged. Theres no level to which I wouldnt have gone to!' she laughed. Her approach paid off - and Rebel eventually shot a day's worth of 'funny' cameo material for the film back in November. 'I was on it for just the day but to be in the same breathing space as Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley, it was a dream come true,' she concluded. Hollywood star: Sydney-born actress Rebel shows How To Be Single co-star Dakota Johnson, 26, how to have a good time in the upcoming comedy Rebel, who also stars in raunchy comedy How To Be Single, recently made headlines for her controversial speech at the BAFTA awards on Sunday. While presenting the award for Best Supporting Actor at the Royal Opera House in London she joked about 'practising (her) transgendered face' in the hopes of winning a prize. The gag was a reference to Eddie Redmayne's critically-acclaimed performance as transgender artist Lili Elbe in the film The Danish Girl. Risque: The starlet made some raunchy comments towards British actor Idris Elba as she presented at the BAFTA awards and later disucssed it on the Ellen DeGeneres show She also said of British actor Idris Elba, 43: 'Sorry, Idris Elba... you're making me a bit nervous. 'But I'm just sociologically programmed to want chocolate on Valentine's Day.' Meanwhile, the long-awaited Absolutely Fabulous film, in which Saunders stars alongside Joanna Lumley, 69, is scheduled for a UK release on 1st July. In a teaser trailer unveiled this week shows characters Eddy and Patsy relaxing on a yacht with a pair of half-naked younger men. Lean in for a kiss! Joanna reprises her role as hard-drinking ex-model Patsy from the cult British TV show Trouble in paradise? Ab Fab's writer-star Joanna Lumley, who plays PR agent Edina in the upcoming film, accepts a kiss from her younger companion in the tease trailer released this week While the promotional clip doesn't give much away, a plot summary on IMDB reveals that the lead characters escape to France after an 'incident' at a launch party. The website states: 'Edina and Patsy are still oozing glitz and glamour, living the high life they are accustomed to - shopping, drinking and clubbing their way around London's trendiest hot-spots. 'Blamed for a major incident at an uber fashionable launch party, they become entangled in a media storm and are relentlessly pursued by the paparazzi. 'Fleeing penniless to the glamorous playground of the super-rich, the French Riviera, they hatch a plan to make their escape permanent and live the high life forever more.' TV comedy Absolutely Fabulous - written by Jennifer Saunders and based upon characters created by her and Dawn French - ran for three series between 1992 and 1995. It was reprised in 2001 for two additional seasons and, once again, for a handful of special episodes between 2011 and 2012. They recently welcomed their first child together, shying away from the limelight to dote on their new bundle of joy. But Michelle Bridges and Steve 'Commando' Willis still seem to be finding time for themselves. The pair posed for a loved-up photo-booth snap which Michelle shared with followers on Instagram on Friday. Scroll down for video Pout and about! The Biggest Loser trainers Michelle Bridges, 45, and partner Steve 'Commando' Willis, 39, posed for this cute photo booth snap which she shared with her Instagram followers on Friday Earlier that day the super-fit TV star was spotted enjoying a day out in Sydney with the pair's baby son Axel and her dog Paddy. The 45-year-old mother was making the most of the sunny day as she stepped out for a stroll in the park. Michelle showed off her post-pregnancy figure in a dark blue vest top from her own fitness line, along with a navy skort and sports bra. Off duty: Earlier in the day the new mother showed off her post-pregnancy look as she stepped out for a walk But it was her mysterious neck tattoo which caught the eye as she tied her locks up into a bun and tucked into her navy baseball cap. Invinsible? Her mysterious ink caught the eye as she tied her locks up into a bun The star has chosen not to reveal the inking with fans on her social media profile just yet. Michelle is known for keeping her tattoos private, once opting to have the Chinese symbol on her lower stomach airbrushed out of her magazine cover shoot. The fitness trainer's look was completed with multi-coloured trainers and she was seen messaging on her mobile phone before she stopped to pick up some goods before heading back to her home. Her impressive post-baby figure comes after she assured fans she wouldn't fall victim to the pressures of losing weight immediately after giving birth. 'I'm pretty clear cut about that. I don't accept the pressure,' she said while appearing on The Project last October. 'I get it that it's around and some women do feel that pressure, but I'm also just looking forward to spending time with my baby. Casual look: Michelle howed off her post-pregnancy figure in a dark blue vest top from her own fitness line, teamed with a navy skort and sports bra Mysterious: The cursive tattoo appears to be a word but the star has chosen not to reveal the inking with fans on her social media profile just yet 'My fitness will come, this is a different chapter in my life right now and I'm relishing it. I'll get back into training in my own time and at my own pace.' Although three weeks after welcoming her son, Michelle shared a detailed 56 minute cardio session across social media. 'Mums have been asking me what I'm doing for training. Here's what I did today,' she wrote along with a list which read 30 minutes of one minute jog and one minute walk as well as 26 minutes of 20 second jog and 10 second walk. Commanding attention: Michelle's look was completed with multi-coloured trainers Fetch: Michelle was seen messaging on her mobile phone as she threw a yellow frisbee into the air for Paddy to catch Paddy pooch: The trainers impressive post-baby figure comes after she assured fans she wouldn't fall victim to the pressures of losing weight immediately after giving birth In the same post, Michelle explained to her fans that the workout was suitable thanks to her 30 years experience. 'Remember! I'm a professional trainer and have been training for 30 years...So! For you please dial down to 15-20 minutes of total work,' she wrote. Steve was quick to jump to the defence of the mother-of-one after she was slammed by social media users and experts in the health industry Speaking to Fitzy and Wippa, he explained: 'It is something she has always done. She has always liked to get out and about, feel good in herself. 'Also psychologically you know it helps to calm her mind as many people out there that exercise know.' When most 19-year olds dream of going to Las Vegas, it's for a wild party weekend. But Chloe Grace Morentz is no ordinary teenager, as she proved once again on Thursday in Sin City. The actress joined the campaign trail for Hillary Clinton, as she spoke at a meeting of the Clark County Young Dems at the Arts Factory in the City. Political support: Chloe Grace Morentz joined the campaign trail for Hillary Clinton in Nevada on Thursday The If I Stay star - who celebrated her 19th birthday earlier this month - looked ready for business in black tailored tux cigarette trousers which showed off her slim figure. She teamed them with an embellished black fitted blouse and strappy heels. The Carrie actress was fresh faced with only light make-up and her long blonde hair styled in a side parting. Natural beauty: The Carrie actress was fresh faced with only light make-up and her long blonde hair styled in a side parting She told fans on social media that she was delighted to be adding her voice to the political landscape. Chloe wrote: 'So proud to be in Nevada, raising awareness speaking to other young adults my age!! Love discussing our opinions and understanding why we are all With Her @hillaryclinton #hillaryclinton Let's all caucus together on Saturday !!!' Earlier in the day, she chatted to students from University of Las Vegas, who were delighted to see the star. Returning to the West Coast from New York Fashion Week on Wednesday, Chloe had revealed on Twitter that she will be travelling to Nevada in support of Hilary Clinton ahead of Nevada's February 20th Democratic caucus. Stylish: She wore an embellished black fitted blouse and strappy heels Earnest: The If I Stay star - who celebrated her 19th birthday earlier this month - looked ready for business in black tailored tux cigarette trousers which showed off her slim figure Star support: She spoke to young voters at a meeting of the Clark County Young Dems at the Arts Factory in the City Supporter: Keen to see Clinton become the first female president of the United States, Moretz made her political allegiance very clear and even referred to the candidate as her 'friend' on Wednesday Keen to see Clinton become the first female president of the United States, Moretz made her political allegiance very clear and even referred to the candidate as her 'friend'. She tweeted: 'Can't wait to be in Nevada tomorrow with my friend @HillaryClinton to support her on her journey to becoming president!' Moretz is one of several famous young women who are joining forces with Hillary on the campaign trail. True blue: Chloe is one of several famous young women who are joining forces with Hillary on the campaign trail - she added her support ahead of the Feb 20 Nevada caucus Picture perfect: She took a walk around the University campus, and UNLV student Vanessa Salvatera (L)was delighted to take a selfie with the actress Katy Perry, Lena Dunham and America Ferrera also stepped up for the presidential hopeful. The Georgia native made it clear where she wants to place her first vote, and last year revealed she had been more than thrilled to meet the presidential hopeful recently, she told the January/February issue of Modern Luxury Angeleno. 'It was wild. She knew everything I had been doing in my career and all about what Ive been saying and standing for as a young woman,' the blonde Coach model said of the 68-year-old. Centre-stage:Chloe (centre) posed with a group of UNLV students as she campaigns for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at the university Chloe shot to fame after starring as Hit-Girl in the 2010 movie Kick-Ass. With a busy 2016 ahead of her, the Atlanta born actress is set to star in three additional films following the January release of her action-adventure flick, The 5th Wave. She will join Zac Efron, Set Rogen and Selena Gomez in Neighbors 2, Ansel Elgort and Catherine Keener in November Criminals, and also star in biographical drama Brain on Fire and the live action version of The Little Mermaid. On board: Katy Perry has also added her stellar support for Hillary - pictured in October in Iowa Superstar Kim Basinger was the first big name to get added to the roster back in January. And now Robinne Lee and Fay Masterson are joining what is shaping up to be a stellar cast for the upcoming Fifty Shades Darker film. Variety reported on Thursday that the pair had joined the project, which has already started shooting in Canada. New additions: Now Robinne Lee (pictured) and Fay Masterson are joining what is shaping up to be a stellar cast for the upcoming Fifty Shades Darker film Robinne, 41, will reportedly play an executive at Christian Grey's monolithic corporation. She's a Hollywood vet, having starred in Hitch, 7 Pounds and National Security, among many other movies. Fay, also 41, is best known for her role in 1999's highly regarded Eyes Wide Shut, though it is currently unknown what role she'll play in the latest bondage-themed blockbuster. Talented: Fay, also 41, is best known for her role in 1999's highly regarded Eyes Wide Shut, though it is currently unknown what role she'll play in the latest bondage-themed blockbuster Recently there has been a flurry of signings for the erotic series, including Australian actress Bella Heathcoate, who can currently be seen in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and Eric Johnson, who appears in the stellar television show The Knick. Of course, stars Dakota Johnson, 26, and Jamie Dornan, 33, will reprise their roles as Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey, as will Eloise Mumford, Luke Grimes and Max Martini. There will be a new director in charge, however, as series author E.L. James was seemingly in constant disagreement with the first installment's director Sam Taylor-Johnson during production. Coming back: Of course, stars Dakota Johnson, 26, and Jamie Dornan, 33, will reprise their roles as Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey, as will Eloise Mumford, Luke Grimes and Max Martini New blood: There will be a new director in charge, however, as series author E.L. James (pictured) was seemingly in constant disagreement with the first installment's director Sam Taylor-Johnson during production Veteran helmer James Foley will take over, and is slated to shoot both Fifty Shades Darker and the final film in the series, Fifty Shades Freed back to back. On Tuesday author E.L. James announced that filming for Fifty Shades Darker had now begun when she shared an Instagram snap from set of a clapperboard captioned, 'Day one #FSD Good luck to all the cast and crew (heart emoticon).' As the author revealed to her fans news of filming, star Dakota Johnson was spotted jetting into Canada, where the movie is being filmed. Peter Mayhew is giving something for Star Wars fans to chew on. The 71-year-old actor - who played the Wookie Chewbacca in five Star Wars movies so far - is sharing photos of his original 1976 script on his Twitter page. He told fans that he would post a few pages every day - cryptically adding there would be a surprise at the end. Something to chew on: Chewbacca actor Peter Mayhew is posting pages from his original Star Wars script... ahead of a 'big announcement' 'Starting today I'll post a few pages from my original @starwars script each day leading up to a big announcement. With the first tweet he shared the covers and first two pages of the script for Star Wars: A New Hope; or rather, as it was known then: 'The Adventures of Luke Starkiller as taken from the Journey of the Whills. Dated the March 15, 1976, it doesn't bear the actor's name or even any watermark, coming from an age well before George Lucas was worried about plot leaks. The 'revised fourth draft' is remarkably close to the finished film, with some notable differences, most obviously Luke Skywalker's original, slightly more aggressive surname. What is it? He told fans that he would post a few pages every day - cryptically adding there would be a surprise at the end The Jedi-to-be also makes a much earlier appearance in the tale, his introduction on Tatooine cutting between shots of the opening Star Destroyer attack on the then-unnamed Tantive IV. R2D2 meanwhile is described as a short claw-armed tripod' whose 'face is a mass of computer lights, surrounding a radar eye'. On Thursday night the 7'2" star posted '#chewscript 002' adding 'Lol, "a flurry of electronic swearing"... Can't you just see Kenny doing it? Love it. @starwars' The 71-year-old actor played the Wookie in five Star Wars movies so far, starting with 1977's A New Hope PArtners forever: He once again took up the crossbow to appear opposite Harrison Ford once again in The Force Awakens One interesting revelation from the two pieces is that Luke is described as 20-years-old, while Leia is described as 'about 16 years old', suggesting they may not have always been destined to be twins. Fans will also notice from the second part of the script that Luke appears to have finally made it to his beloved Tosche Station. Speculation as to what Mayhew's 'big announcement' might be has gripped forums, with many reluctantly guessing he may be hanging up his furry suit and stepping down from the saga. Keep it coming: On Thursday night the 7'2" star posted '#chewscript 002' The Brit was among the big cast announcement for The Force Awakens - even making the famous first table reading photo - but hasn't yet been confirmed as part of next year's Episode VIII. According to Inverse, Finnish actor Joonas Suotamo, who was credited as 'Chewbacca Double' on episode, may take over the role, although neither man has been cast yet. Kenny Baker, now 81, who played R2D2 in all six original films, was reduced to 'R2-D2 Consultant' on The Force Awakens. Meanwhile British actor Jimmy Vee will take over the role of the astromech droid in Episode VIII. Next week they will release One Strike, their first single in 10 years. And '90s girl band All Saints have showed fans that they have still got it by releasing a glamorous group snap. Speaking about their comeback, t he Never Ever hitmakers - Shaznay Lewis, Melanie Blatt and sisters Natalie and Nicole Appleton - have insisted the reunion isn't about cashing in. Scroll down for video Reunited: (From left) Shaznay Lewis, Natalie Appleton, Melanie Blatt and Nicole Appleton released this publicity shot on Thursday ahead of their release of the EP 'One Strike' next Tuesday 'Were not doing this to conquer the world,' Nicole said in a statement announcing their return. 'We want to have some fun now.' 'When people think of us, they probably think of cargo pants,' the blonde joked, referring to their rise-to-fame penchant for a baggy pant in their Nineties' hey-day. The publicity shot shows off their high-fashion street cred and pulls them solidly into 2016, with all four girls wearing skin-tight black trousers and killer heels. And they will prove they still boast the same sass they had at the beginning with their first single, said to be a 'direct response' to Nicole's 2014 divorce from Oasis rocker Liam Gallagher. So happy together: The girl group made it clear their reunion is more about friendship than chasing fame or fortune. 'Were not doing this to conquer the world,' Nic said in a statement. 'We want to have some fun now.' Heartbreak: The first single, One Strike, is a 'direct response' to Nicole's recent divorce from Liam Gallagher, here together in August 2004, which came since their last reunion as a band Last month, Shaznay said of the new single: 'When I write, I just think about what's on my mind. The lyrics came from somewhere very real. 'Nic was going through a lot of things at that time. That was at the forefront of my mind because it was the heaviest thing going on.' Recalling their conversations, Nicole - who has 15-year-old son Gene with Liam - added: 'We spoke for hours and hours on the phone.' Her big sister was also seemingly feeling her pain, adding: 'The first few times I heard it in my car, I couldn't stop crying because I could hear so clearly what it was about.' Throwback: The girls were originally formed in 1993 but have since reformed once Liam and Nicole split in 2013 after five years of marriage and 13 years together and were granted a 'quickie divorce' in late 2015 when he admitted to adultery, in court. The breakdown of their marriage came when he fathered a child by US journalist Liza Ghorbani and latterly struck up a relationship with his assistant Debbie Gwyther. The last time the Pure Shores hitmakers got together was for their 2014 UK tour and they insist getting back together wasn't forced. Natalie said: 'We didn't force ourselves into this situation and it couldn't have happened at a better time in all of our lives. I just missed being with the girls. It makes us happy. Listen, if you can work with your favourite people, then why not? I have such a good time and I spend more time laughing and having fun than I do working.' Not aged a day: Their new campaign shots show they've barely aged a day Shaznay admits being back with the other girls and making new music was amazing and the foursome already are getting tracks ready for another record. The Never Ever hitmaker said: 'Seriously. I got on such a roll writing and recording with the girls again, we've started getting material for the next album together already. This couldn't feel any more right.' Red Flag - which comes 10 years after 2006's Studio 1 - is released on April 8, 2016 and single One Strike premieres on February 23. Split: The girls, here in November 2006, split again in 2009 following the disappointing chart success of 2006 album Red Flag It's now been 19 years since their debut instruction but after a second split occured within the four-piece in 2009, Melanie was insistent that there would never be a reunion. She told London Lite: 'All Saints are never getting back together again. I never want to sing again. I recently did the Brits with Nic and we just went round chatting to people and then got drunk. 'That's my goalto get paid for chatting to people and getting drunk!' But on January 1, 2016, the girls were looking ahead to what could be their year when they teased a picture on Twitter with the banner 'AllSaints2016.' She's been vying for screen time with her The Only Way Is Essex co-stars as they film the show's latest spin-off in Gran Canaria. But Georgia Kousoulou ensured she won the bikini battle as she stepped out in an attention-grabbing outfit to shoot scenes on Thursday. Putting on a busty display as she posed up a storm poolside in the Spanish holiday hotspot, the reality star, 24, showcased her impressive figure in a plunging lilac bikini top. Scroll down for video Fun in the sun: TOWIE's Georgia Kousoulou stepped out in an attention-grabbing outfit to shoot scenes for the show's Gran Canaria spin-off on Thursday Making sure she had as much skin on show as possible, the blonde Essex girl teamed her two-piece with a pair of barely-there black denim cut-off hotpants, which displayed her toned and tanned legs to perfection. Georgia ditched her heels for her poolside day in favour of a pair of comfortable flip flops, and added a sporty edge with a backwards black baseball cap. The TOWIE star wore her blonde hair extensions flowing loosely around her shoulders and completed her look with a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses. It was a relatively quiet day on set, with Bobby Norris being the only other cast member pictured. Bikini babe: Putting on a busty display as she posed up a storm poolside in the Spanish holiday hotspot, the reality star, 24, showcased her impressive figure in a plunging lilac bikini top Leggy lady: Making sure she had as much skin on show as possible, the blonde Essex girl teamed her two-piece with a pair of barely-there black denim cut-off hotpants, which displayed her toned and tanned legs The outspoken hairdresser opted for a typically loud outfit, teaming a leopard print vest with matching hotpants and trainers as he hit the pool. It was recently confirmed that veteran star Jessica Wright, 30, has decided to bow out from the popular ITVBe show. The brunette, who has been on the show since it launched back in 2010, released a video on Instagram on Tuesday to break the news to her army of fans. She said: 'After five amazing years on The Only Way Is Essex it is time for me to step away. I've had the best time and I wanna say thank you all so much for your support. Plenty to smile about: Georgia ditched her heels for her poolside day in favour of a pair of comfortable flip flops, and added a sporty edge with a backwards black baseball cap Hard at work: Georgia showed off her impressive bikini body as she shot scenes alongside blonde co-star Kate Wright earlier this week 'You will be seeing me soon and I'm also gonna be keeping up with all the goss in Essex. Love you all lots.' As Jessica announced her departure from the reality series which propelled her to TV superstardom, ITVBe bosses thrust two new characters into the spotlight. Brunette beauty Courtney Green and blonde bombshell Chloe Meadows were spotted making their grand debut as they filmed scenes in Gran Canaria earlier this week. Courtney, 20, and Chloe, 23, are the best of friends and already know several of their new male co-stars, which should no doubt provide some juicy storylines for viewers. Wild thing: It was a relatively quiet day on set, with Bobby Norris being the only other cast member pictured Posing poolside: The outspoken hairdresser opted for a typically loud outfit, teaming a leopard print vest with matching hotpants and trainers as he hit the pool Single lady Courtney - who knows Mike Hassini and Liam Blackwell - is set to share her emotional story with viewers, having lost two stone following the breakdown of her last relationship. Meanwhile, Chloe is already well acquainted with Lewis Bloor, Jake Hall and Dan Edgar, as well as being close friends with CBB star Megan McKenna. The blonde is also single and her trip to Spain will no doubt bring back bad memories since she was recently dumped by her boyfriend while on holiday in the country. TOWIE's Gran Canaria spin-off hits screens on ITVBe later this month. Small screen hunk Aidan Turner secured overnight heatthrob status as a shirtless Captain Poldark. Now, War And Peace star James Norton is surely due to set pulses with newly resurfaced pictures that show the actor completely nude. Before his military garbs transformed James, 31, into Prince Andrei Bolkonsky for the BBC One historical series, the Yorkshire-born star was yoga-stretching in 2014 film Bonobo. Scroll down for video He's got nought on! James Norton, the star of 2016 BBC One drama War And Peace, was filmed doing yoga in the nude for 2014 film Bonobo James, who plays Ralph in the comedy drama, shocks elderly neighbour Judith with his hippie philosophies that adhere to the 'bonobo monkey', a species famous for its 'make love not war' behaviours. Just one of them, it seems, is his penchant for yoga in the nude and the actor is filmed performing a warrior pose with not a stitch on. In the clip, James is also surrounded on his yoga mat by fellow free spirits and nudists in the outdoor garden space before he's confronted by Judith, played by Tessa Peake-Jones. TV hunk: The 31-year-old actor ditched his military stitches as Prince Andrei Bolkonsky (right) to play free-spirit hippie Ralph (left) in the British comedy Not a stitch on: The character shocks neighbour Judith (played by Tessa Peake-Jones) with his nudist ways The low-budget British film was first previewed at Reykjavik International Film Festival in Iceland and later premiered in London in December 2014. It was originally given two stars by The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw and the review read, 'Brits plus sex equals a letdown' Previously, the RADA-trained actor was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor at BAFTA 2015 for his ongoing role as Tommy Lee Royce in Happy Valley. Cheeky: The RADA-trained star didn't make a huge splash with the film two years ago Baring all: The actor is filmed doing yoga in the middle of his garden without clothes on Not his big break: The extra female attention was reserved for James' break-through role the BBC's adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's famous historical novel James is also the star of TV series Grantchester alongside Robson Green, in which his character Sidney Chambers also stripped off for an action scene filmed in the Cambridgeshire river. But the extra female attention was reserved for James' break-through role the BBC's adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's famous historical novel. James recently admitted that he'd been overwhelmed with the female following that the appearance, alongside Lily James and Paul Dano, has attracted. Also stripping off: Previously, James stripped off in Grantchester, in which he stars with Robson Green (pictured, left) No stranger: James, who also stars in TV series Happy Valley, is no stranger to nudity on screen Speaking to on The Jonathan Ross Show last month, the humble actor said: 'Phwoar and Peace, you can't really pay attention to it, I don't think.' He added: 'There was a lot of talk before we even did the show about the character being the Russian [Mr] Darcy and I was like, "Thanks." The actor revealed that War And Peace scriptwriter Andrew Davies had first coined the term - based on Jane Austen's beloved Pride And Prejudice lothario - but as James explained, it only piled on the pressure. In the style of her Fast & Furious alter-ego Letty Ortiz, Michelle Rodriguez was demonstrating something of a 'go hard or go home' mentality on Thursday night. The 37-year-old actress was still smiling as she bundled into a black cab on a late night in London, looking a little worse for wear after partying hopping to two of its most exclusive night spots. No doubt only in the British capital for a fleeting stay, the busy brunette sampled the best the city can offer, including dinner at Sexy Fish restaurant and drinks at The Chiltern Firehouse. Scroll down for video Party-hard star: Michelle Rodriguez partied hard when she hit the London night scene on Thursday, including visits to Sexy Fish restaurant and The Chiltern Firehouse Michelle wrapped up her distinctive long, raven tresses a long pashmina and a typically tomboy black hooded top. Letting it slip over her eyes, the animated actress pulled faces, sticking her tongue out and waggling her fingers in a playful fashion with her e-cigarette in hand. Fast 8's Michelle, who first hit Berkeley Square's new Asian eatery followed by well-established late night spot The Chiltern, certainly seemed to have partied hard. Peek-a-boo: The actress hid beneath her hood with her teeth grinning Cheeky: She waved around her fingers in a playful display in the back of a black cab Heading home: Proving her stamina, the brunette still had a wide smile and tons of energy in the car home Her tresses were bedraggled and a little unkempt beneath her cloak, though her make-up was no giveaway as she beautifully barefaced and natural. The Hollywood star had kept her look low-key, as per usual, with her garbs all-black and just trainers on her feet. Whereas other Sexy Fish attendees that night, the likes of Matt Damon, Amaury Nolasco and Ridley Scott, had been more glamorously turned out. Bedraggled: Proving to have had a wild old time, the actress' hair was a little messy when she left Low-key: Her outfit was characteristically dressed down in all-black with trainers Fleeting visit? Michelle made sure she hit the capital's best night spots during her London stay On the work front, Michelle's latest big screen role sees her take on a hitwoman who was double crossed by gangsters and has had her gender deliberately reassigned from male to female. Tomboy, A Revenger's Tale, slated for release in 2017, indulges all of the moviestar's hard-hitting acting talents that embrace her unique beauty with brawn qualities. Michelle has also confirmed her part in the upcoming eighth film in the Fast & Furious franchise, the first since they lost original castmember Paul Walker in a car accident. On a greater role for feminism in the upcoming film, Michelle recently told Enstarz: 'I think that first off, girls should stop fighting each other and we should start uniting for once. Also in attendance: Also at the new Asian eatery was Hollywood star Matt Damon Famous attendees: Ridley Scott (left) was also spotted hanging out with Matt Leaving the venue: Ridley had been enjoying dinner at London's new and exclusive restaurant Looking glamorous: Nancy Dell'Olio, eating here too, had chosen more high-glamour than Michelle Also spotted: Puerto Rican actor Amaury Nolasco was attending 'That's how I feel about that. Secondly, I think that everything is speculation until we actually shooting and we're immortalising stuff on film.' She was also questionned on the likelihood that she'd opt for a role in a film such as Mad Max, which was lead in 2015 remake by actress Charlize Theron, who has similarly confirmed a role in Fast 8. 'If I were ever to do it,' she mused. 'I think you have to be all encompassing. You have to think holistically and look for the broader audiences. And I don't like hating on guys to make women powerful. I think you can do both. Mad Max is proof of that.' Dressed down: Michelle carried goodies from the restaurant as she hid under her layers Not fooling anyone: The party-hard star was not fooling anyone with her low-key display They are designed to bring television's coverage of cars to a brand new level - but they are more than happy to fall back on the same old jokes. New Top Gear presenters Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc have been spotted messing about with clapped out Reliant Rialtos as they film their new show, while Jeremy Clarkson and pals are also up to the same trick for their Amazon Prime project with Robin Reliants. Clarkson has signed a deal to present a new online series alongside friends and former Top Gear co-hosts James May and Richard Hammond. Scroll down for videos Toot toot: Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc were all smiles as they prepared to take to the streets of London The race is on: Matt, 48, and Chris, 49, took part in a just-for-fun America vs. the UK race in themed Reliant Rialto vehicles Moving on: Sacked Jeremy Clarkson was pictured picking up his, James May and Richard Hammond's company cars recently It was May who caused the most chaos with the three-wheelers after he suffered a spot of engine failure in his brown Reliant outside the historic Houses of Parliament on Thursday. Being so close to one of the most heavily-policed areas in the capital, it wasnt long before some police officers came over to see if they could help. With years of car knowledge behind him, May, 53, clearly felt confident enough to try and get the vehicle started himself. Breakdown: James May pictured near the House of Parliament after his brown Robin Reliant broke down Help: May, pictured, drew quite some attention from the crowd and was aided by passers-by to shift the car However, after tinkering in the bonnet to no avail, he ended up enlisting the help of some passer-bys to push it down the road. Meanwhile Evans, 49, and LeBlanc, 48, were seen filming the first scenes of the new Top Gear in London today. The Friends actor, who played fan favourite Joey Tribbiani, and the TFI Friday host went head-to-head in a US vs UK race, starting at the BBC's Portland Place studios. But perhaps the two new shows won't be so different after all as disaster struck for LeBlanc in a similar vein to May when his Reliant overheated and he was forced to pull over on the motorway. Not so Reliant: The brown three-wheeled vehicle is the same one James was pictured breaking down in outside the Palace of Westminster earlier in the week First day on the job: LeBlanc was pictured filming the first scenes for the new series of Top Gear with co-host Evans in London on Friday Luckily Evans didn't seem to take advantage, pulling over to help his co-star out before crew swarmed around the vehicle to take a closer look. The BBC presenters appeared to have formed a fond friendship as they posed outside the TV studios before heading to face their first challenge. LeBlanc was appropriately styled in a pair of blue bootcut jeans, a North Face fleece jacket and a pair of walking shoes. Welcome aboard: The Friends actor and the British broadcaster appeared to have formed a fond friendship as they posed outside the BBC studios at Portland Place Keeping their cool: The BBC presenters did a great job of hiding any signs of nervousness as they headed to face their very first challenge It's on: The pair chatted before jumping into their personalised three-wheeled motors Having second thoughts? Matt looked wildly unimpressed at one point as the safety team carried out their final checks Bring it on: Chris couldn't contain his excitement as he readied himself to dive head first into his new job Really? The Joey Tribbiani star strained as he pulled on his themed safety helmet Meanwhile, Evans showed off his more experimental sense of style as he pulled on a pair of dark green cord trousers, a blue hoodie, a green leather flying jacket and some black lace-up boots. The dynamic duo were seen chatting - presumably sharing their motoring expertise - beside their personalised three-wheeled vehicles before climbing inside. LeBlanc strained as he pulled on his safety helmet while Evans looked pumped to get the show on the road. All ears: The dynamic duo shared their motoring expertise with one another before climbing inside Wacky racer: Matt certainly looked the part as he belted up ahead of the mini tour around London Team colours: He was coincidentally dressed in the colours of the American flag which provided the theme of the first on-screen challenge And they're off: Chris pootled ahead with Joey only metres behind him as the pair cruised around the capital, relishing the good weather in their open-top cars With the final safety checks complete it wasn't long before Matt and Chris were pictured cruising around the capital. Evans pootled ahead of the American actor as they both relished the leisurely drive in their open-top cars while the morning sun beat down on them. The hosts' sighting comes after they give their very first interview - along with Formula 1 pundit Eddie Jordan, German racing driver Sabine Schmitz, motoring journalist Chris Harris and car expert Rory Reid - as a panel in which they revealed their drives of their lives. Ride of his life? Matt recently admitted to crashing his motorbike while honeymooning in The Alps with his nw ex-wife Melissa McKnight in 2003 'It was all very Mrs Robinson': The TFI Friday host said of his experience of learning to drive as a youngster Stand-out stars: Matt and Chris are joined by Formula 1 pundit Eddie Jordan, German racing driver Sabine Schmitz, motoring journalist Chris Harris and car expert Rory Reid on the all-new Top Gear panel Talking to Top Gear Magazine, Matt told how he crashed his motorbike while honeymooning in the Alps with his ex-wife Melissa McKnight in 2003. When asked about the best drive of his life, he explained: 'Going through the Alps on a motorcycle with my wife on the back on our honeymoon. 'We only crashed once, so all in all it was a great ride.' 'I passed first time': Chris gloated as he revealed he's been legally driving since the age of 17 Meanwhile, Chris reminisced about learning to drive as a youngster, saying: 'I was fortunate to be taught by a rather beautiful mum of one of my friends. 'It was all very Mrs Robinson - in my head, not hers! I passed first time, not long after my 17th birthday.' Meanwhile Clarkson, May and Hammond's new show is expected to air sometime this year now filming is underway. Unlike Top Gear, the entire series will be available on the Amazon streaming service to 'binge watch', with the presenters signed up to make at least three series of 12 60-minute episodes. The format is said to be similar to Top Gear, with in-studio discussions and pre-filmed escapes. BBC bosses chose not to renew Clarkson's contract last year after he was involved in a fracas with a producer, allegedly over food. They've already performed five sold-out concerts in Santiago, Buenos Aires and Montevideo. And on Thursday morning, The Rolling Stones enjoyed a much-deserved break as they took in the views from their balcony at the luxurious Copacabana Palace Hotel in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Guitarist Ronnie Wood, 68, who is expecting twins with his pregnant wife Sally, 38, seemed particularly taken with the views, snapping several photos on his iPad. Scroll down for video A sight to behold: The Rolling Stones enjoyed a much-deserved break as they took in the views from their balcony at the luxurious Copacabana Palace Hotel in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Thursday morning Wearing a white button-up shirt and a series of wristbands, the talented guitarist was clearly enchanted by the stunning vista that is Copacabana Beach. Beloved to the rich and famous, the Copacabana Palace is one of the most exclusive hotels in the world - and a favourite of The Rolling Stones, who previously stayed there in 2006. As the morning progressed and temperatures rose, Ronnie stripped off his shirt and slipped on his aviator sunglasses so he could make the most of the sunny climes ahead of the group's Saturday night concert at Maracana Stadium. He was the only Stone to tan his torso, but his bandmates did join him to take in the sights. Wearing a similar white shirt, lead singer Mick Jagger, 72, stepped out and snapped pics on his mobile phone. Snap happy! Guitarist Ronnie Wood, 68, who is expecting twins with his pregnant wife Sally, 38, seemed particularly taken with the views, snapping several photos on his iPad Sun out, guns out: Ronnie, who is known for his eye-catching ensembles and anything-goes fashion, removed his shirt to tan his torso Bright light: As the sun shined ever-brighter, Ronnie put up a stylish pair of aviator sunglasses Accompanied by his wife Patti Hansen, guitarist Keith Richards, also 72, appeared on the balcony wearing trousers decorated with large stars and a turquoise hoodie. The men were wise to rest while they can. Following their performance in Rio on Saturday, they still have six shows to perform in Sao Paulo, Porto Alegre, Lima, Bogota and Mexico City, where their tour concludes on March 14. During the Buenos Aires leg, one of the workers supporting the tour was shot dead, reportedly prompting to band to travel under 24-hour armed guard and to travel in separate cars. The protection plan has been put in place after the man was killed in a foiled attempt to steal cash from the drinks vendors at the band's show at La Plata stadium, according to the report. A source told The Daily Mirror: 'Of course these things are all considered well in advance of a tour, and massive bands like The Rolling Stones are well aware of the risks posed by these places - so they take no chances.' And snap: Wearing a similar white shirt to Ronnie, lead singer Sir Mick Jagger, 72, stepped out to take pics on his mobile phone Moving on: Mick kept his shirt on and went back inside after taking a few photos Funky: Guitarist Keith Richards, 72, appeared on the balcony with his wife Patti Hansen. He wore trousers with a star motif and a turquoise hoodie Heat wave: As temperature rose, Keith removed his hoodie to reveal a grey t-shirt The source added: 'Wealthy personalities are always potential targets, but the band are kept safe and secure at all times by the best security personnel on the planet.' The shooting earlier this week came as three cars tried to intercept a van carrying the drinks takings as it left the stadium. 55-year-old contractor Pedro Luis Tabares was a passenger in a car transporting the drinks proceeds when he was killed. Police say the gang had inside information including details of the cash their targets were carrying and the route they had decided to take from the venue. Tabares was hit by a bullet when the gang opened fire and was later pronounced dead at hospital. A 31-year-old Colombian, named as Jhon Alexander Bobadilla Vega, was arrested. Molly Meldrum has returned home after a troubled trip to Thailand during which a fall left him in hospital plagued with injuries. The 73-year-old slipped while getting out of a taxi in front of his Bangkok hotel and dislocated one of his shoulders fractured several ribs and left one of his arms swollen and bruised. In an interview in the Saturday edition of the Daily Telegraph, Molly revealed that he came close to having his arm amputated after the accident, and turned to alcohol to cope. Scroll down for video Serious injury: Molly Meldrum revealed in an interview with the Daily Telegraph on Saturday that he came close to having his arm amputated after the accident in Thailand, and turned to alcohol to cope He opened up about the mental strain and stress that was put on him after the fall and told the publication: 'I had a few vodkas and it made me more stressed.' The music legend on to explain that drinking added negatively to the stress he was already under. His shoulder dislocation was more severe than anyone first thought, and after his arm doubled to twice the size with swelling doctors at the Thai hospital told him it may need to be amputated. Worse than expected: His shoulder dislocation was more severe than anyone first thought, and after his arm doubled to twice the size with swelling doctors at the Thai hospital told him it may need to be amputated Coping mechanism: He opened up about the mental strain and stress that was put on him after the fall and told the publication: 'I had a few vodkas and it made me more stressed.' Molly revealed that he now keeps a bottle of vodka on display in his kitchen to remind him of the memories the alcoholic spirit hold. Although, he hasn't given up on alcohol completely and told the newspaper: 'I still love my champagne or beer, just not vodka.' The former Countdown host recently returned to his native Australia, after his fall earlier this year. Not giving it all up: The 73-year-old told the publication he hasn't given up on alcohol completely and told the newspaper: 'I still love my champagne or beer, just not vodka' He had escaped to Thailand to avoid the publicity around the Molly miniseries, and in turn ended up in the headlines. The personality was overjoyed he hadn't aggravated any previous injuries that he sustained during a fall at his Melbourne home in 2011. Molly slipped off a roof while hanging up Christmas lights and put into an induced coma after the accident happened. He recovered well from that accent and after rehabilitation treatments went on to interview pop stars Elton John and Katy Perry just months after being released from hospital. It has been almost six years since the final episode of The Hills aired, and Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt are still doing their best to be reality TV's most controversial couple. In a new interview with Vice's Broadly, the pair reflect on being at the pinnacle of their careers, and Spencer goes so far as to compare the show's axing to the most devastating terrorist attack on US soil. '[The Hills getting cancelled] was our 9/11,' the 32-year-old claimed. Scroll down for video Still trying to be TV's most controversial couple: Spencer Pratt has compared The Hills getting cancelled to 9/11. He is pictured here with wife Heidi Montag in May 2015 He later took to Twitter to delivery a lengthy apology, writing: 'RE: my 9/11 comment: I want to apologize for making a such a thoughtless analogy. 'Im not going to make dumb celebrity excuses about being taken out of context. I just said something dumb and potential [sic] hurtful to a lot of people and thats all there is to it.' He added: 'Ill likely say something dumb again, but I know I need to check myself on this one. Again, apologies to anyone I offended and for being insensitive. Much love, Spencer.' Spencer also stated once again that his villainous persona on the hit show - which resulted in the end of 29-year-old Heidi's friendship with Lauren Conrad - was all a ploy to become more famous. The height of fame: The couple (pictured here with co-stars Audrina Patridge and Lauren Conrad) believe they were earning more than a million dollars a year, and would spend very extravagantly as a result 'We were fame wh**es, getting literally a million plus a year in photos and being hated for it,' he said. 'It's frustrating for me that people don't recognise that this was genius. This was innovating!' In fact, Spencer said that when his antics on the show became even more attention-seeking, this was supposedly his bid to keep The Hills going after it was met with stiff competition. 'S***, we knew how good the Jersey Shore was because we were super fans,' he admitted to Broadly. 'So I personally was like, "I need to be nutso at this point, like holding crystals to my head."' 'Apologies to anyone I offended': Spencer later took to Twitter to apologies for 'being insensitive' Spencer believes he was making more than a million dollars a year through the show and the deals he would get as a result of it. The couple - who are known as 'Speidi' - splashed $3,000 a day on having their hair and make-up done, spent $30,000 on clothes some days and once bought a $70,000 crystal. The Hills premiered in 2006 and was cancelled after six seasons, ending in July 2010. Following the finale, Spencer and Heidi travelled to Costa Rica with the intention of buying a house there, before they discovered how expensive properties can be. All part of the act: Spencer, who once spent $70,000 on a crystal, claims he decided to become 'nutso' on-screen after the show was met with competition from Jersey Shore The reality stars - who once famously faked that they were divorcing for a magazine deal - lived in a Ritz-Carlton hotel for almost six months and admit to ordering room service for every meal for themselves and their pet dogs. They had rinsed out their bank accounts when they returned to America, and now live in Spencer's father's holiday home near Santa Barbara. 'Nobody wants to break into our home anymore,' Spencer moaned during the interview, revealing he installed a pricey security system to his dad's house at first. 'They google our new worth and see we are worth $10.' Away from the spotlight: After spending all their money on living in a Costa Rica hotel for almost six months, the 32-year-old and 29-year-old Heidi now live in Spencer's father's holiday home near Santa Barbara During the interview, Heidi also claimed that Kourtney Kardashian and Scott Disick based the portrayal of their on-screen relationship in Keeping Up With The Kardashians on her romance with Spencer. 'She asked, "What do Heidi and Spencer do?"' the blonde alleged, saying that Kourtney had spoken to her sister Holly. Heidi claims that Kourtney also told Holly, 'I need [to know] all the exact things, because we're doing exactly what they do.' They started it: Heidi alleges that Kourtney Kardashian based the on-screen portrayal of her relationship with Scott Disick on Speidi. Heidi and Spencer are pictured left in 2013; Kourtney and Scott are seen right last year Since The Hills ended, Spencer and Heidi have appeared on the UK's I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here and Celebrity Big Brother, as well as Celebrity Wife Swap, and most recently Marriage Boot Camp last year. Heidi, who famously underwent 10 plastic surgery procedures in one day in 2010, and her mother Darlene will soon be appearing on VH1's The Mother/Daughter Experiment, in which they will take part in eight weeks of intensive therapy. And the star revealed that she has no regrets about her time on The Hills, telling Vice's Broadly: 'The biggest misconception about us is that we wouldn't do it all over again.' 'The biggest misconception about us is that we wouldn't do it all over again': Heidi insists she and Spencer have no regrets. They are seen here in July She made a name for herself as Cho Chang in the Harry Potter series. But Katie Leung was swapping her magic skills for driving skills as she filmed scenes for her latest film, The Foreigner, in London on Thursday. Joined by the movie's leading man, Jackie Chan, the 28-year-old seemed in good spirits on set, beaming as she filmed her scenes. Scroll down for video In the driving seat: Katie Leung, 28, was swapping her magic skills for driving skills as she filmed scenes for her latest film, The Foreigner, in London on Thursday Working on what appeared to be a high speed chase scene, Katie took the driving seat during the production. Chatting with the cast and crew of the film, Katie looked ready for action whilst Jackie settled himself in for a long day of work. Racing around the set, the 61-year-old looked half his age as he worked behind the scenes. The Karate Man: Racing around the set, Jackie Chan looked half his 61 years of age as he worked behind the scenes on his latest action thriller which will see him show off more of his action skills All smiles: Joined by the leading man, Jackie, the Harry Potter actress seemed in good spirits on set, beaming as she filmed her scenes and chatting away with the members of cast and crew Fast car: Working on what appeared to be a high speed chase scene, Katie took the driving seat during the production and looked ready for action whilst Jackie settled himself in for a long day of work Also starring fellow action man, Pierce Brosnan, The Foreigner is based on Stephen Leather's 1992 novel The Chinaman. Starring as Quan in the film, Jackie plays the role of a Chinatown restaurant owner who is forced to track down a group of Irish terrorists responsible for the death of his daughter after the police fail to. Filming for the movie began in January, but the crew found themselves heavily criticised after setting up a stunt that proved so realistic that police were called to the scene. Action King: The Foreigner is based on Stephen Leather's 1992 novel The Chinaman, and Jackie will star as Quan in the film, a Chinatown restaurant owner who is forced to track down a group of Irish terrorists Revenge: Following in the lead of his previous action roles, the fast paced film will see Jackie tearing through the streets of London to avenge the death of his daughter who was killed by terrorists Earlier this month, filmmakers blew up a double decker bus on Lambeth Bridge which left terrified Londoners fearing a terrorist attack had taken place and called the police. Social media websites were filled with pictures and concerned tweets surrounding the explosion, but the emergency services were quick to assure the public that it had been a controlled incident. A Met spokesman told MailOnline that they received two calls after the incident but their team knew there was filming on the bridge and were able to reassure the panicked callers. Star-studded: Jackie was seen on set without his co-star Pierce Brosnan who will also play a leading role Too realistic: Earlier this month, filmmakers blew up a double decker bus on Lambeth Bridge which left terrified Londoners fearing a terrorist attack had taken place and called the police They couldnt have picked a hilarious duo further apart in height. The 25th MTV Movie Awards will be hosted by 5ft 4in Kevin Hart and 6ft 5in Dwayne The Rock Johnson, it was announced Friday. The actors both took to their Instagram accounts to ask for help writing promos for the April 9 show. Scroll down for video Time to host! Kevin Hart and Dwayne The Rock Johnson will host the MTV Movie Awards on April 9, it was announced Friday; they're seen here in the trailer of their new movie Central Intelligence Hart, 36, couldn't contain his excitement, writing: Holy Bubble S--t: I'm hosting the MTV Movie Awards with @therock & youre writing the promos! Were live streaming at 2pm tomorrow, reply or retweet with what you want us to say! This is Huuuuuuugggeeeee. Johnson, 43, said he and Hart came up with the idea to let fans write the promos for the show. The San Andreas star didn't hold back either when asking for fans to get involved. Comedy duo: The pair will host the MTV Movie Awards two months before their film Central Intelligence is released in June Height difference: Dwayne The Rock Johnson is 6ft 5in tall while Kevin Hart is just 5ft 4in Leave your best, funniest, most f*cked up ideas in the comments below - every one of your comments will be read, The Rock wrote in his caption. He urged fans to watch them chop it up live stream style at 2pm Saturday, February 20, online at MTV.com. The Fast & The Furious star ended his post with a handful of hastags including #KevinSendYourSoulToHeaven #CauseYourAssInMine #IHaveNoIdeaWhatThatEvenMeans. We need help! Both stars asked fans to visit MTV.com to help write promos for the show, saying the best would be chosen during a livestream this Saturday, February 20 The pair are gearing up for the premiere of their upcoming action comedy, Central Intelligence, which is set for release in June. The 2016 MTV Movie Awards will tape at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, California on Saturday, April 9, to air on MTV the next day at 8pm ET/PT. For the first time ever, MTV will take the telecast entirely outdoors and onto the backlot to capture the essence of movie making magic against a dramatic nighttime backdrop. Performers and presenters will be announced at a later date. There is no set path to success in the business world as some of the world's most successful CEOs have shown us. Consider the fact that Richard Branson cut his teeth breeding budgies or Marissa Mayer learnt some of her integral lessons working at a grocery checkout. Here, in partnership with Strayer University, we take a look at the surprising early jobs of some of the greatest minds in business, and trace how these roles prepared them to overcome the obstacles and challenges in their routes to success. Richard Branson: Breeding budgies He's one of Britain's greatest business minds, with a net worth topping $5billion, but Richard Branson's path to success had rather more humble origins. Ambitious: Richard Branson, pictured in London last year (left) and in much earlier years (right), had a few early business ventures, including breeding budgies and selling Christmas trees In a 2013 LinkedIn post, Branson, now 65, describes how at age 11 he started his first small business with his best friend breeding budgerigar birds to sell. 'Unfortunately, the birds multiplied quicker than the boys could sell them. We went back off to boarding school and left my parents to look after all the birds,' Branson writes. RICHARD'S FACT FILE Age: 65 Net worth: $5.2billion Company: Virgin First job: Breeding budgerigar birds 'We lived in the countryside, and I think the rats got to some of them. As for the rest? My mum opened the cages and set them free! 'Next I tried selling Christmas trees, buying lots of small ones and hoping to make a fortune when they grew. Sadly, the rabbits ate those! Although neither of these endeavors was particularly successful they gave Branson a taste for entrepreneurship - a skill that was to make him one of the most successful (and richest) people in the world. Branson's next venture, which he started when he was 17, was Student magazine, which led to Virgin Records. Within 40 years, the Virgin Group had expanded to include more than 100 companies, employing approximately 60,000 workers in over 50 countries. 'But if it wasn't for those first few failures, the future successes would never have happened,' Branson adds. Marissa Mayer: Grocery clerk Yahoo's Marissa Mayer, 40, says she started to learn the business values that saw her become one of the country's highest-paid CEOs when she worked at a grocery checkout as a teenager. Work ethic: Marissa Mayer, pictured at the Cannes Lions 2014 International Advertising Festival, says she started to learn business values when she worked at a grocery checkout as a teenager 'Many of the cashiers had years of experience and were very committed to their jobs, so I saw firsthand the importance of a great work ethic,' she told Fortune magazine. MARISSA'S FACT FILE Age: 40 Net worth: $380m Company: Yahoo First job: Grocery clerk Mayer, who recently gave birth to twin girls, said the summer job she worked in Wisconsin aged 16 also taught her the importance of speed and efficiency. She added: 'They measured our items per minute rate during each shift and the only way to be eligible to work an Express Lane was to do 40 items per minute consistently over an eight-hour shift.' Mayer went on to become one of the most successful businesswomen in the world, making her mark as an executive at Google before moving to Yahoo. Jeff Bezos: Ranch hand The work ethic that helped Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos become one of the wealthiest men in the world appears to have been instilled at a very early age. Starting young: As a child, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos spent all his summers working on his grandfather's ranch (right) near San Antonio in Texas In an interview with Academy of Achievement, Bezos, now 52, revealed that even as a child he spent his summers working on his grandfather's ranch near San Antonio, Texas. He said: 'I spent three months every year from the age of four to the age of 16 working on the ranch with my grandfather, which was just an incredible, incredible experience. JEFF'S FACT FILE Age: 52 Net worth: $46.7billion Company: Amazon First job: Ranch hand 'Ranchers - and anybody I think who works in rural areas - they learn how to be very self-reliant, and whether they're farmers, whatever it is they're doing, they have to rely on themselves for a lot of things.' Bezos, who is now worth more than $47billion, went on to reveal that as a child he wanted to be an archaeologist and then an astronaut when he grew up. By the time he was at high school he was set on becoming a physicist, but he changed his mind at college and decided his future was in computer programming. 'That's actually what I studied in school and that's what has led me along the path I'm on,' he added. Mark Cuban: Dance teacher When Mark Cuban impressed viewers with his moves on Dancing with the Stars in 2007 it wasn't his first foray into the world of dancing. Self-made: Mark Cuban took on a number of jobs while at college (right) to pay his way through school, including teaching sorority girls to disco dance The billionaire businessman, now 57, took on a variety of jobs while paying his way through college, with one of the most surprising being a disco-dancing teacher. MARK'S FACT FILE Age: 57 Net worth: $3billion Company: Owner of the Dallas Mavericks and CEO of AXS TV First job: Selling garbage bags 'If you get asked by a bunch of sorority girls to come to a sorority house to teach girls how to dance for $25 an hour, you do it,' he told the Wall Street Journal. But Cuban's first steps into the business world actually occurred even earlier aged just 12 he began selling garbage bags to save up for a new pair of sneakers. In an episode of the Masters in Business podcast, he told Bloomberg's Barry Ritholtz: 'I would literally go door to door to door: "Hi, does your family use garbage bags?" And who could say no? So that's where I learned to sell. Literally. 'Every objection [I'd reply]: "Of course you use garbage bags, and I bet you pay more than six cents a piece." So, I went on from there.' Kat Cole: Hooters girl Cinnabon CEO Kat Cole, 37, began her business career as a waitress for Hooters aged 18, while studying Engineering at the University of North Florida. High flyer: Cinnabon CEO Kat Cole started out as a waitress at Hooters, but she quickly moved up the chain of command and by 26 she was a vice president of the company According to Fortune, even though she dropped out of college, over the next five years Cole worked her way up the organization. By 23 she was overseeing employee and global management training and by 26 she was a vice president. KAT'S FACT FILE Age: 37 Company: Cinnabon First job: Hooters waitress 'I was lucky that Hooters wasn't a more sophisticated company, because there's no way someone my age would have had those chances,' she told the magazine. 'It wasn't like people graduating from Ivy League schools were dying to get a corporate job at Hooters.' Even without having a Bachelor's degree, Cole went on to study for an MBA at Georgia State University, graduating in 2010 and going on to take the CEO role at bakery chain Cinnabon. Steve Jobs: Selling blue boxes Before there was Apple, the late Steve Jobs set up a business with his friend Steve Wozniak selling 'blue boxes' that would allow people to hack into the telephone system. Talented: Steve Jobs, pictured in 2009 (left) and at the first West Coast Computer Faire, where the Apple II computer was debuted in 1997 (right), was a teenager when he started his first business The pair were just teenagers when they worked out how to create boxes that allowed people to call anywhere in the world for free. 'If it hadn't been for the blue boxes, there would have been no Apple,' he said in a 1994 documentary. 'I'm 100 percent sure of that.' STEVE'S FACT FILE Age: Died in 2011 aged 56 Company: Apple First job: Selling blue boxes 'Woz and I learned how to work together, and we gained the confidence that we could solve technical problems and actually put something into production.' Jobs and Wozniak went on to found the company that was to provide the world with extraordinary feats of technical advancements with Apple's legion of i-devices, such as the iPod, iPad and iPhone. Jobs was given the job of CEO in 1997 and continued working at Apple until he resigned just weeks before his death from cancer in October 2011 at the age of 56. Warren Buffett: Paperboy Business magnate Warren Buffett, 85, was already devising ways to make money when he was a child in Omaha, Nebraska. Business brain: Warren Buffett, pictured as a student at Nebraska University (right) and in more recent years (left), was already devising ways to make money as a child and bought his first shares aged just 11 Not only did he work as a newspaper delivery boy, but he also sold chewing gum, Coca-Cola bottles and weekly magazines door-to-door, and worked at his grandfather's grocery store. WARRENS'S FACT FILE Age: 85 Net worth: $59.6bn Company: Berkshire Hathaway First job: Paperboy According to Forbes, the future CEO of Berkshire Hathaway filed his first tax return at age 13, claiming a $35 deduction for his bicycle. When he was just 10 years old on a birthday visit to New York, Buffett asked his father to take him to the visit the Stock Exchange, and he bought his first shares aged just 11. Buffett went on to become one of the worlds greatest investors and philanthropists, and now has a net worth of just under $60billion. Michael Dell: Dish washer Michael Dell, founder and CEO of Dell Inc, got his first job aged just 12 washing dishes at a Chinese restaurant so he could build up his stamp collection. Savvy: Michael Dell, pictured at the 2015 Web Summit in Dublin, has been working since he was 12 years old when he took a job as a dishwasher at a Chinese restaurant Three years later Dell, who is now worth 18.6billion, bought his first computer an Apple and practiced disassembling it in his bedroom. MICHAEL'S FACT FILE Age: 50 Net worth: 18.6billion Company: Dell First job: Dishwasher 'I liked to take things apart,' Dell said in an interview with Academy of Achievement. 'I was always taking apart telephones, radios, televisions, sort of anything electronic I could get my hands on. I liked to kind of see how it worked and sometimes I'd put them back together too. But I was mostly interested in understanding how things worked.' While still a freshman studying at the University of Texas, Dell, now 50, started his first business from his dorm room, building computers to sell to his fellow students. He built up this fledgling business to become the company that is now Dell, and at the age of 27 he became the youngest-ever CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Three soldiers get life for I. Coast military chief's murder A military court in Ivory Coast on Thursday sentenced three soldiers loyal to ex-president Laurent Gbagbo to life in prison over the 2002 murder of a former junta leader. General Robert Guei was shot dead on September 19, 2002, during a failed coup against Gbagbo's regime. His wife, several members of his family and his personal guards were killed that same day. Guei had led a military junta that ruled the west African nation from December 1999 to October 2000, when Gbagbo defeated him at the polls. Ivory Coast's former Republican Guard commander Brunot Dogbo Ble (C) and former security chief Anselme Seka Yapo (R) react during their trial at the military court in Abidjan on February 18, 2016 Sia Kambou (AFP) Following a trial that last nearly a month, the court-martial found ex-security chief Anselme Seka Yapo guilty of murder, while Gbagbo's former Republican Guard commander Brunot Dogbo Ble as well as sergeant Daleba Sery were ruled to have acted as accomplices. Of the 19 defendants on trial over the murder, six were sentenced to 10 years in prison. The others were acquitted. During the trial, prosecutors accused Seka Yapo of firing the fatal shot. Lawyers for the defence have said they intend to appeal the verdict, citing a lack of evidence of their clients' guilt. "I am disappointed but not discouraged," said lawyer Modeste Abie. "We believe that our clients do not deserve life terms." Seka Yapo was last year already sentenced to 20 years in prison for murder committed during the country's post-election crisis in 2010-2011. Dogbo Ble was sentenced in 2012 to 15 years in jail for complicity in the murder of a retired officer, and last year to another 20 years for his role in the 2010-2011 violence. Some 3,000 people were killed after the disputed presidential vote in late 2010, when Gbagbo refused to relinquish power after being narrowly defeated in his bid for re-election. No evidence to support blanket autism screening: US task force A leading US advisory panel concluded Tuesday there is no evidence to support universal screening of all children aged 18 to 30 months for autism, a disorder that has become more common in recent years. The US Preventive Services Task Force -- an independent group of experts -- said more research is needed to determine if the benefits of universal screening might outweigh any harms. "The current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of screening for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children 18 to 30 months of age for whom no concerns of ASD have been raised by their parents or a clinician," said the USPSTF in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The US Preventive Services Task Force -- an independent group of experts -- said more research is needed to determine if the benefits of universal screening for autism might outweigh any harms Sergei Supinsky (AFP/File) Autism spectrum disorder affects as many as one in 68 children in the United States, according to 2010 data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Some studies show the rate of autism has risen significantly since 2000, when one in 150 children were diagnosed with the disorder which can involve difficulty in social settings, increased sensitivity to certain stimuli, and either learning disabilities or above-average intelligence. Some autism advocates said they were disappointed that universal screening had not been recommended. "These recommendations may harm children whose symptoms are not immediately obvious to parents or clinicians," said Alycia Halladay, chief science officer of the Autism Science Foundation. "Scientific studies prove that earlier identification and intervention leads to better outcomes," she added. The American Academy of Pediatrics is among the professional organizations that support universal screening for ASD at 18 and 30 months. But the USPSTF said "there are no studies that focus on the clinical outcomes of children identified with ASD through screening," so it was impossible to tell if screening all children would help improve their lives down the line. "Although there are studies suggesting treatment benefit in older children identified through family, clinician or teacher concerns, the USPSTF found inadequate evidence on the efficacy of treatment of cases of ASD detected through screening or among very young children." According to an accompanying editorial in JAMA by Michael Silverstein of the Boston University School of Medicine and Jenny Radesky of the University of Michigan School of Medicine, the task force "embraced this issue in all its complexity. Physicians, other health professionals, policy makers, insurers and other stakeholders should do the same." Chinese students jailed for attacks on classmates in California Three Chinese students have been jailed in California for attacks against two classmates that included burning one of the victims with cigarettes and forcing her to eat her own hair. The three attackers and their victims are among thousands of Chinese students known as "parachute kids," who travel to the United States to study and stay with host families while their parents remain in China. Yunyao Zhai, 18, was sentenced on Wednesday to 13 years behind bars, Yuhan Yang, 19, was sentenced to 10 years and male co-defendant Xinlei Zhang, 19, got six years. Three Chinese students have been jailed in California for attacks against two classmates, and the judge overseeing the case said it reminded him of "Lord of the Flies" Gil Cohen Magen (Pool/AFP/File) All three had admitted the charges of kidnap and assault and apologized in court for their actions. Investigators said the case against the defendants revolved around two separate attacks in March. The first involved Zhai and Zhang, who assaulted a 16-year-old girl at a restaurant and park in Rowland Heights, a neighborhood east of Los Angeles with a large Chinese population. Authorities said the attack took place because Zhai believed the victim disrespected her. The second attack took place two days later when the three defendants kidnapped an 18-year-old classmate and took her to a Rowland Heights park where she was stripped, repeatedly beaten, spat on, kicked and burned with cigarettes over a five-hour period. Zhang also provided scissors to cut the woman's hair, which she was then forced to eat, prosecutors said. Several people who witnessed the attack captured it on their cellphones. That attack, officials believe, likely stemmed from a dispute over a boy and an unpaid restaurant bill. The judge overseeing the case said it reminded him of "Lord of the Flies," the 1954 novel by William Golding about boys stranded on a deserted island who gang up on each other. The case has also prompted soul searching among the Chinese community in Rowland Heights and beyond, with some questioning the wisdom of sending teenagers to a foreign country with no close parental supervision. "Well-meaning parents of China should not send kids here alone and unsupervised," Yang's attorney, Rayford Fountain, told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune after the sentencing. French PM in Mali as security fears grow for W. Africa French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Thursday described the fight against Islamic militancy as a "battle against barbarity" as he visited Mali, where France has had troops tackling rebels and jihadist groups since 2013. The country's vast northern stretches continue to be beset by violence having fallen under the control of Tuareg-led rebels and jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in 2012. The Islamists sidelined the Tuareg to take sole control, and although they were largely ousted by a French-led military operation in January 2013, extremist groups still pose a threat. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls (L) is welcomed by Mali's Prime Minister Modibo Keita (R) at Bamako International Airport on February 18, 2016 Miguel Medina (AFP) "Today, reconciliation is in progress," said Valls, who visited Bamako accompanied by defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, referring to the peace accord signed by the government and the Tuareg rebels last year. "Liberty must be defended. France is fully engaged. It's in essence a battle of humanity against barbarity," Valls said, speaking to members of the French community after meeting with Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. Although Mali has concluded a landmark peace agreement between the government and Tuareg-led rebels, jihadist violence has intensified on the ground and the management of the transition to peace has been criticised by the international community. On Friday, Valls will visit Gao, the largest city in Mali's troubled north, to meet with French troops stationed there as part of the anti-insurgent Operation Barkhane. Barkhane comprises at least 3,500 soldiers deployed across five countries (Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso) with a mandate to combat jihadist insurgencies in the region. Valls will spend two days in Mali and will then fly to Burkina Faso, both of which have been scarred by recent jihadist attacks. A November attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Mali's capital, Bamako, left 20 people dead, while in January, gunmen killed 30 people at a top hotel in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou, an assault claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Trump's pope retort could be calculated political move When Republican frontrunner Donald Trump offered a provocative retort to criticism by Pope Francis, it may have been a calculated political move to boost his standing ahead of South Carolina's presidential primary. Two-thirds of South Carolinians are Protestants, with evangelical voters comprising the largest voting block in the state during its Republican primary, which is being held on Saturday. The evangelical faithful are often suspicious of hierarchical authority, and a Pew Institute study in January said liberal Americans have a more favorable view of the leader of the Roman Catholic Church than conservatives. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's response to criticism of him by Pope Francis was swift, stern and par for the course for his campaign Jim Watson (AFP) This could serve in Trump's favor when it comes to the spat between him and the pontiff, who triggered the controversy when he said the billionaire real estate mogul is "not a Christian" because he wants to build a wall on the US southern border to keep out illegal immigrants. The remarks led to a torrent of media coverage, even as Francis cautioned his statement by saying he still wanted to see if Trump had made such comments and would "give him the benefit of the doubt." Trump's response was swift, stern and par for the course for his campaign, in which he has refused to let a criticism go unchallenged. "For a religious leader to question a person's faith is disgraceful," Trump said in a statement that he read to a campaign crowd in Kiawah Island, South Carolina. Was Trump's biting response a ploy to gain evangelical support some 48 hours before the critical primary? "I don't do it for that reason," he told Fox News. "With me, I just tell the truth," he added, stressing that "we need borders, we have to stop illegal immigration. It's killing our country." A Trump surrogate wasted no time in pointing out the apparent hypocrisy in slamming Trump for wanting to build a wall. "Amazing comments from the Pope - considering Vatican City is 100% surrounded by massive walls," Dan Scavino, Trump's director of social media, posted on Twitter. - Careful criticism - The bombshell back-and-forth dominated the campaign Thursday, with rivals Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio wading in carefully to suggest the pope's advice was not entirely welcome. "I don't question anybody's Christianity because I honestly believe that's a relationship you have with your creator," Bush told reporters. "It only enabled bad behavior when someone from outside our country talks about Donald Trump." Bush is Catholic, as is fellow Floridian Rubio, and they appeared to send the gentle message that Francis, who had just completed a visit to Mexico, should stick to his role as a religious leader. "I think the Holy Father recognizes or should recognize -- and I believe he does -- how generous America is," Rubio said. "When it comes to accepting both refugees and immigrants, no nation on this planet is more welcoming, more open or more compassionate than the United States," Rubio added. "Certainly a lot more welcoming in our laws than Mexico is." In his historic speech before the US Congress last year, the pope urged US lawmakers to mobilize against climate change, take in more refugees and abolish the death penalty -- positions opposed by many Republicans. Religious figures rushed to Francis's defense. Catholic League president Bill Donohue told CNN he felt Francis was "set up" by a reporter asking about Trump. "I'll give him the benefit of the doubt," Donohue said of the pope's remarks. Father Timothy Kesicki, president of the Jesuit Conference, said the pope was reacting less to Trump himself and more to the gospel's opposition to building barriers. "I think he's attacking an issue more than a person," Kesicki said on CNN. The ultimate question is whether South Carolina's evangelicals line up behind Trump on Saturday. Senator Ted Cruz narrowly captured Iowa, the first state to vote in the nomination battle, thanks to evangelicals. Reverend Don Flowers of Providence Baptist Church in Charleston told AFP he was "not convinced this year there is going to be an evangelical bloc of voters going to one candidate." That could spell a clear victory for Trump if he neutralizes Cruz's advantage with religious voters. The spate between Donald Trump and Pope Francis could work in Trump's favour as evangelical voters comprising the largest voting block in South Carolina and are often suspicious of hierarchical authority Jim Watson (AFP) Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush (C) appeared to send the gentle message that Pope Francis should stick to his role as a religious leader Jim Watson (AFP) Killing of two black farm workers exposes S. Africa faultlines Two black men are beaten to death in the middle of a cattle pasture in South Africa after white farmers hunt them down to avenge an attack on an elderly landowner. A month later, four of the farmers stand squeezed in the dock of Parys town magistrates court, charged with the double murder. Outside the court, about 200 black protesters chant "Kill the farmers" at khaki-clad white protesters who vow to defend themselves against what they say is a "genocide" of their people. Jamina Tangasha, one of the late Seun Tangasha's sisters, holds up a photo of him in Parys John Wessels (AFP) The killing last month of Seun Tangasha, 29, and Samuel Tjexa, 35, has lit a tinderbox of anger over racism, crime, poverty and land ownership issues that afflict modern South Africa. For many blacks, the court case has highlighted the alleged mistreatment of workers by white farmers, who stand accused of forming vigilante groups to carry out extrajudicial murders. For many whites, it is about how farmers are forced to fight back against a deadly crime wave of farm attacks that left many landowners in fear of their lives. Anna Jubeba, Tangasha's aunt, told AFP that his "family are very angry and very sad" over his killing. "These farmers must go to jail for life," she said, speaking in their sparsely-furnished house in an impoverished township on the outskirts of Parys. "The courts see these guys killing black people, but they are let out on bail because they are white. No one has come to help us. The police haven't even come to our house." The upcoming murder trial will rest on the events of January 6, when Tangasha and Tjexa arrived at an isolated farm where they worked as casual labourers for Lodewikus van der Westhuizen, 73. - 'Left for dead' - According to the police, the two men demanded that van der Westhuizen hand over 20,000 rand ($1,250) in what may have been a long-running dispute over unpaid wages. When he refused, Tangasha and Tjexa allegedly hit him over the head with a gun before he pressed a panic button that alerted neighbouring landowners who rushed to his aid. The two men then fled on foot as between 40 and 60 farm vehicles joined a high-speed hunt to catch them across the huge fields and straight dirt roads of Free State province. "The farmers found Tjexa and Tangasha eight kilometres (five miles) away from van der Westhuizen's farm," police said in a statement. "The two were subsequently beaten up and left for dead." Tangasha -- also known as Simon Jubeba -- was declared dead on arrival at hospital, while Tjexa died soon after. Accused of their murder are van der Westhuizen's son Boeta, his cousin Anton Loggerberg, and their neighbours Stephanus and Johannes Cilliers. Outside the court hearing, police erected barbed wire fences to separate a handful of white protesters and two rival black protests by the ruling ANC party and the opposition EFF party. "We have to show that we support the accused men because of all the farm attacks. Farmers are killed constantly," said Andre Pienaar, 55, who goaded black protesters as they abused him across the wire barricade. "There is a genocide going on to wipe out our farmers. We are demonstrating that we are not scared," added Pienaar, a farm security consultant dressed in para-military fatigues. Some white protesters waved flags of the old Boer Republic from more than 100 years ago -- symbols of their contempt for the new post-apartheid South Africa. Adding further fuel to the explosive case, Hendrick Prinsloo, a white policeman, was recently added to the list of accused murderers. Police investigators allege that Prinsloo "joined in the feast" of beating Tangasha and Tjexa, instead of rescuing them. - 'Truth must come out' - Kobus Dannhauser, a neighbouring farmer and chairman of Parys Agricultural Union, told AFP he was appalled at both the display of old Boer flags and the "Kill the farmers" chants. "The law must be allowed to go its way and the truth must come out. A life is a life," he said at the large farmhouse on his 10,000-hectare (25,000-acre) property. "This is not about racism. This was either a wage dispute or a farm attack. "Last year South Africa had the most farm attacks ever, but that doesn't excuse that these guys lost their lives. We totally condemn it. "The first farmers who caught (Tangasha and Tejexa) tied them up. I think emotions were high, and they did it roughly. Then what happened? That is what I want to hear from the court." "Politicians are trying to exploit the case by having these rallies outside court," he added. Afriforum, an Afrikaner lobby group, says a record 64 farmers and farm workers -- both black and white -- were murdered last year in 318 attacks, though the police decline to confirm their figures. The court hearing extended the suspects' bail for further police investigations, and the case was adjourned until April 15. Protesters from all sides vowed to attend every day of the murder trial. "This is about entrenched racism in the farming community and ill-treatment of our farm workers," regional ANC secretary Moshe Tladi said as the crowds dispersed. "The big farmers are all white. Reform is needed." Outside the court, about 200 black protesters chant "Kill the farmers" at khaki-clad white protesters who vow to defend themselves against what they say is a "genocide" John Wessels (AFP) Kobus Dannhauser, a farmer and chairman of Parys Agricultural Union, said he was appalled at both the display of old Boer flags and the "Kill the farmers" chants John Wessels (AFP) African National Congress(ANC) and Economic Freedom Fighters(EFF) supporters dance and sing outside of the Magistrates Court in Parys, Freestate, on February 12, 2016 in protest against racism and the murder of two farm workers John Wessels (AFP) Veteran Museveni leads count in chaotic Uganda election Partial results in Uganda's chaotic election on Friday gave veteran president Yoweri Museveni a solid lead as the US urged him to "rein in" the police after his main challenger was detained for the third time this week. As voting concluded on Friday, provisional results gave the 71-year-old leader 63 percent of the vote with nearly half of polling centres counted. His chief rival Kizza Besigye -- in second place with 33 percent -- was arrested again on Friday after police stormed his party headquarters in the capital. Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni (R) casts his ballot as he votes in parliamentary and presidential elections at a polling station in Nshwere, on February 18, 2016 The police raid came as people continued to vote at dozens of polling stations in the wider Kampala area, where voting was extended in 36 sites for a second day after delays on Thursday that Commonwealth election observers called "inexcusable". While Museveni maintained his lead in the presidential tally, at least 17 of his ministers lost their parliamentary seats, among them defence minister Crispus Kiyonga -- who is spearheading regional efforts to end the political crisis in Burundi -- and attorney general Fred Ruhindi. The former rebel fighter faced a challenge from seven candidates, but is expected to win re-election for a fifth term in office and extend his 30-year rule of the east African country. - Opposition HQ raided - Thursday's presidential and parliamentary votes were disrupted in the capital Kampala by the late arrival of ballot boxes and papers, angry demonstrations by frustrated voters and police using tear gas. At nearly 28,000 other polling centres voting passed off smoothly on election day. Besigye, who was arrested during campaigning on Monday and again on Thursday evening, was taken into custody for a third time on Friday. Police surrounded Besigye's Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) headquarters, firing tear gas and water cannon, before bursting inside and arresting top party officials. "Some reasonable measures have been applied to rein in FDC supporters who wanted to disturb the peace and the ongoing exercise," said senior police officer Felix Andrew Kaweesi. He accused Besigye's FDC of planning to publish its own tally of results, contravening electoral law. US Secretary of State John Kerry, visiting London, voiced concern. "(Kerry) urged President Museveni to rein in the police and security forces, noting that such action calls into question Uganda's commitment to a transparent and credible election process free from intimidation," the State Department said in a statement. Kerry also urged Museveni to remove blocks on popular social media and mobile money sites that had been put into place on Election Day. - 'Serious shortcomings' - The Citizens Election Observers Network-Uganda (CEON-U) said the election had been "relatively peaceful" but noted "some serious shortcomings in adherence to (international) standards". Kerry said he was encouraged that hours at some polling sites had been extended. Over 15 million Ugandans were registered to vote for both a president and members of parliament, with 290 seats contested by candidates from 29 political parties. The leading presidential candidate requires more than 50 percent of votes cast to avoid a run-off with initial full results expected as early as Saturday. Disenchantment with politicians, their politics and the faltering economy has been increasing in a country, where the median age is less than 16. Voter turnout has followed a downward trajectory in recent elections with nearly three-quarters of eligible voters casting a ballot in 1996, during the country's first-ever competitive election, but only three-fifths turning out in 2011. Museveni's share of those votes has also declined although he won his last five-year term in 2011 with 68 percent. Ugandan soldiers walk past election posters in Kampala on February 19, 2016 during the presidential election vote Carl de Souza (AFP) Kizza Besigye arrives at a polling station to vote in his home town of Rukungiri, 400 km west of Kampala on February 18, 2016 Four Indian Maoist rebels killed in gunfight Indian security forces killed four Maoist rebels, including a woman, in an overnight gun battle in India's eastern Jharkhand state, a senior police officer said Friday. Police said they ambushed a group of 40 armed rebels late Thursday as they passed through a village in Taimara Ghati valley area, close to the state capital Ranchi. The nine-hour gunfight ended Friday morning after police recovered four bodies from the spot. India's long-running Maoist insurgency began in the 1960s, inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, and has cost thousands of lives Noah Seelam (AFP/File) "We presume other members have fled but a search operation is on," Ranchi police chief Kuldeep Dwivedi told AFP. Two paramilitary personnel were also injured in the gunfight. India's long-running Maoist insurgency began in the 1960s, inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, and has cost thousands of lives. The rebels, described by former prime minister Manmohan Singh as India's most serious internal security threat, say they are fighting authorities for land, jobs and other rights for poor tribal groups. Three Palestinians shot dead, two after attacking Israelis Three Palestinians were shot dead on Friday, two while carrying out attacks and a third in clashes, the latest in a more than four months of violence. In the first attack, a man stabbed and wounded two policemen outside Jerusalem's Damascus Gate before they shot him dead. "A terrorist attacked a squad of officers from behind, stabbed and wounded them lightly, the squad responded with fire and neutralised the terrorist," police said. Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Zaka volunteers remove the body of a Palestinian shot dead after attacking Israeli police outside Jerusalem's Damascus Gate on February 19, 2016 Ahmad Gharabli (AFP) Police confirmed the death of the assailant and identified him as a 20-year-old Palestinian from Kafr Aqeb. A spokeswoman for the Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem said they had admitted two men in their 20s suffering from stab wounds, and both were in a stable condition. Medics said they also treated a 50-year-old woman for a light leg wound, apparently as a result of the shooting, before evacuating her to a hospital in east Jerusalem. The site of the attack, in annexed east Jerusalem and adjacent to its Old City, has been a focal point in the latest wave of violence. Later on Friday, a Palestinian tried to run over Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank and was shot dead, the army said. "During a violent riot in Silwad, northeast of Ramallah, an assailant attempted to ram his vehicle into soldiers," an army statement said, referring to an area in the northern West Bank. "The soldiers responded to the immediate threat and fired towards the assailant, resulting in his death." Palestinian police sources identified the man as Raed Hamed, 20. Later, a third Palestinian died after being shot during clashes with Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank. A Palestinian health ministry statement said Khaled Taqatqa, 21, was shot dead by Israeli forces in Beit Fajjar near Bethlehem in the southern West Bank. The army said he had fired on soldiers. - Gaza clashes - Ten Palestinians were also injured in separate clashes on the Gaza-Israel border, the health ministry said. Since October 1, Palestinian knife, gun and car-ramming attacks have taken the lives of 27 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean, according to an AFP count. At the same time, 175 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, most while carrying out attacks but others during clashes and demonstrations. Some analysts say Palestinian frustration with Israeli occupation and settlement building in the West Bank, the complete lack of progress in peace efforts and their own fractured leadership have fed the unrest. Israel blames incitement by Palestinian leaders and media as a main cause of the violence. International efforts to halt the violence have so far failed. Nickolay Mladenov, UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said the violence showed "no sign of relenting". "The current trends on the ground -- including continued acts of violence against civilians, ongoing settlement activity, and the high rate of demolitions of Palestinian structures -- are dangerously imperilling the viability of a two-state solution," he said. Speaking in a Thursday briefing to the UN Security Council, Mladenov noted the accelerated rate of Israeli demolitions of Palestinian structures in the West Bank in 2016 -- 29 per week, "three times the weekly average for 2015". "The conflict has now arrived at a pivotal point," he said. "Against the backdrop of radicalisation, terror, sectarian violence, war and tectonic geo-political shifts in the Middle East, peace and security for Palestine and Israel is an imperative now more than ever." Mladenov also called on "authorities on both sides do more to address this scourge". "I am particularly concerned that some Palestinian factions continue to glorify violence and terror. Such acts only contribute to tensions and violence," he said. Israeli forces arrest a Palestinian man after the Friday prayer at the entrance of Damascus Gate, outside Jerusalem's Old City, on February 19, 2016 Ahmad Gharabli (AFP) Palestinian protesters run away from tear gas smoke during clashes with Israeli security forces on February 19, 2016 in the West Bank village of Bilin Abbas Momani (AFP) US air strike kills dozens at IS camp in Libya A US air strike on a jihadist training camp in Libya killed dozens of people Friday, probably including a senior Islamic State group operative behind attacks in Tunisia, officials said. Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said Noureddine Chouchane, also known as "Sabir," and other jihadists had been planning attacks against American and other Western interests. "We took this action against Sabir in the training camp after determining that both he and the ISIL fighters at these facilities were planning external attacks on US and other Western interests in the region," Cook said, without providing specifics. Libyans gather next to debris at the site of a jihadist training camp, targeted in a US air strike, near the Libyan city of Sabratha on February 19, 2016 Mahmud Turkia (AFP) "We see what's happening in Iraq and Syria and we believe that these fighters in Libya posed a threat to our national security interests." It was the second US air raid in the violence-wracked North African country targeting the fast-expanding jihadist group in the past three months. The strike early Friday near the city of Sabratha "likely killed" IS operative Chouchane, a US official said earlier. Britain's defence ministry said the strike on the camp was carried out from a Royal Air Force base, RAF Lakenheath. A jihadist safe house was destroyed in the dawn raid about 70 kilometres (42 miles) west of Tripoli, according to Hussein al-Dawadi, an official in Sabratha near the border with Tunisia. "The latest toll shows that 49 people were killed," including up to three women, he told AFP. "There are also five wounded, some of them are in critical condition." "It looks like someone important was in the house, but we cannot confirm that for now," Dawadi added. US State Department spokesman Mark Toner said that as IS came under pressure in Iraq and Syria it was seeking to establish itself elsewhere, and "Libya has been an area of concern for some time". "As we have opportunities we're gonna carry out airstrikes against those ISIL elements that are operating in Libya," he said. - 'Four big hits' - Tunisia's interior ministry issued a picture of Chouchane Friday and a statement saying that he was a "dangerous terrorist" and a wanted man. The Sabratha Municipal Council's website said rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons were found in the house, which was rented by foreigners including Tunisians. It posted pictures of mattresses and blankets among the rubble and a piece of metal bearing the inscription "Islamic State". An AFP photographer saw four large holes he said were probably caused by missiles. "We heard four big hits at around 3 am that shook our houses," resident Moussaab Kamouka said. Chouchane is suspected of being behind an attack in July on a beach resort near the Tunisian city of Sousse that killed 38 tourists -- including 30 Britons. He is also accused of involvement in an attack on the National Bardo Museum in Tunis in March that killed 21 tourists and a policeman. Both assaults were claimed by IS, which Washington is also targeting with air strikes in Syria and Iraq where the group has proclaimed an Islamic "caliphate" and committed widespread atrocities. The Pentagon's Cook said Washington was still assessing the raid's results. "Destruction of the camp and Chouchane's removal will eliminate an experienced facilitator and is expected to have an immediate impact on ISIL's ability to facilitate its activities in Libya, including recruiting new ISIL members, establishing bases in Libya, and potentially planning external attacks on US interests in the region," he said. He said the strike showed the US will target IS "whenever it is necessary". - Obama pledge - In November, a US air strike in Libya killed an IS leader, Abu Nabil, an Iraqi also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al-Zubaydi. It was the first US strike against an IS leader in Libya, where the Pentagon estimates the jihadist group has about 5,000 fighters. US President Barack Obama vowed Tuesday not to let IS build a base in Libya. "We are working with our other coalition partners to make sure that, as we see opportunities to prevent ISIS from digging in in Libya, we take them," Obama said. "We will continue to take actions where we got a clear operation and a clear target in mind." IS has exploited the turmoil in Libya since the overthrow of dictator Moamer Kadhafi five years ago, raising fears that it is establishing a new stronghold on Europe's doorstep. Last June, it captured the city of Sirte, 280 miles (450 kilometres) east of Tripoli, and has since attacked coastal oil facilities and staged a string of suicide bombings. The internationally recognised government has been based in the country's far east, having fled a militia alliance including Islamists that overran the capital in August 2014. The alliance has its own administration and parliament in the capital. The UN is pushing both sides to back a unity government to tackle jihadists and people-smugglers. An image released by the Tunisian interior ministry on February 19, 2016 shows Noureddine Chouchane, targeted by a US air strike on a Libyan training camp Map of Libya locating air strikes on suspected jihadists in Sabratha Jonathan Jacobsen, Thomas Saint-Cricq (AFP) Libyans stand next to a crater and debris at the site of a jihadist training camp, targeted in a US air strike, near the city of Sabratha on February 19, 2016 Mahmud Turkia (AFP) 25 in the running for Comoros presidential vote Voters in the Indian Ocean archipelago of the Comoros go to the polls Sunday to chose among 25 presidential candidates, with a struggling economy and poor infrastructure high on the agenda. With a population of less than one million people, among those competing in the country's first-round vote are a former coup leader and the vice president. Only voters on Grande Comore island will cast their ballots on Sunday under an unusual electoral system that decrees the president is selected on a rotating basis from one of the three major islands. The only woman candidate for the Presidential election of Comoros, Moinaecha Djalali, smiles as she greets people during a visit to a market in Moroni, Comoros capital in February 16, 2016 for her electoral campaign Ibrahim Youssouf (AFP/File) The three leading contenders will then compete in a nationwide vote on April 10 that will decide the successor to President Ikililou Dhoinine. Dhoinine comes from the smallest island Moheli, while the other island is Anjouan. The system was established in 2001 in a bid to bring stability after more than 20 coups or attempted coups in the decades following independence from France in 1975. Among the prominent candidates are Vice President Mohamed Ali Soilihi, Mouigni Baraka, the governor of Grande Comore, and Azali Assoumani, who led a coup in 1999 and is a former two-time president. Moinaecha Youssouf Djalali, a businesswoman, is the only female candidate, in a country where the vast majority are Sunni Muslims. Also in the race is Mohamed Abdoulwahabi Abdallah, who has the hereditary genetic disorder albinism that causes the absence of pigmentation in the skin, hair and eyes. In many African countries, albinos face fierce discrimination and can even be killed for their body parts, which are used in witchcraft rituals. "People's interests are much more along personal and family lines than political lines," a diplomat told AFP ahead of the vote. "A public post at this level is seen as a source of income -- enough for families to gather around political figures." Dhoinine's completion of his five-term term has been seen as a sign of growing stability in Comoros, though many candidates have raised fears of electoral fraud when voting gets under way. "Real efforts are being made by the Election Commission and international actors to ease any political or social tensions," said European Union representative Eduardo Campos Martins. Malian soldiers killed in jihadist attack during French PM visit Suspected jihadists killed two Malian soldiers Friday in the country's restive north, hours before France's prime minister visited French troops deployed in the region to help quash the Sahel's Islamist threat. The Malian defence ministry confirmed the two deaths and said a third soldier was wounded in the assault on a Malian army post in the town of Menaka. Witnesses said an army vehicle was also stolen. A soldier of France's Barkhane counter-terrorism operation in Africa's Sahel region stand in position at the international airport of Bamako on February 19, 2016 Miguel Medina (AFP) The latest attack highlights the tough security problem for Malian, French and UN forces as they attempt to maintain order over vast stretches of desert where extremist groups roam, after being ousted from key towns by a French-led military operation in January 2013. The area had fallen under the control of Tuareg-led rebels and jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls on Friday morning met French troops stationed in the main town of Gao. The soldiers are part of the regional anti-insurgent Operation Barkhane, a follow-up mission to 2013's Operation Serval inside Mali. Accompanied by Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, Valls participated in a military ceremony on his second day in Mali, after describing the fight against Islamic militancy as a "battle against barbarity". Barkhane comprises at least 3,500 soldiers deployed across five countries (Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso) with a mandate to combat jihadist insurgencies in the region. Mali has concluded a landmark peace agreement between the government and Tuareg-led rebels, but jihadist violence has intensified on the ground and the handling of a return to peace has been criticised by the international community. Seven Guinean UN peacekeepers were killed and some 30 wounded a week ago when suspected Islamists attacked their base in northern Mali, while three Malian soldiers died in an ambush the same day. Iraq tribesmen clash with jihadists inside IS-held Fallujah Deadly clashes erupted between Iraqi tribesmen and the Islamic State group inside jihadist bastion Fallujah on Friday, a sign their longstanding hold on the city west of Baghdad is weakening. Fallujah is one of two Iraqi cities still controlled by IS, and a concerted and sustained uprising by local tribes could pose a significant threat to the estimated 300 to 400 jihadists inside it. Sunni Arab tribesmen from Anbar province, where Fallujah is located, played a key role in driving back IS's predecessor organisation Al-Qaeda in Iraq after joining forces with US troops from 2006. Iraqi Shiite fighters from the Popular Mobilisation units monitor the frontline with Islamic State near Tharthar lake, north of Fallujah, on February 11, 2016 Ahmad al-Rubaye (AFP) The Friday Fallujah shootout pitted fighters from the Al-Juraisat, Al-Mahamda and Al-Halabsa tribes against the jihadists. The initial fighting broke out between tribesmen and IS members known as Al-Hisba, who are responsible for enforcing religious strictures in the city, officials said. According to a police colonel, the fighting was ongoing in central and northern Fallujah as of Friday evening, and tribesmen torched an IS checkpoint on the outskirts of one northern area. Issa Sayir, who was appointed by the Anbar governor to administer the Fallujah area, said the fighting began in Al-Jolan on the northwest side of the city, then spread to Nazal in its centre and Al-Askari on its eastern side. Anbar provincial councillor Raja al-Barakat also said the unrest had spread to Nazal and other areas, and that the tribesmen urgently needed air and ground support. Sayir said the gun battle reflected tensions resulting from increasingly difficult living conditions caused by Fallujah's isolation by the security forces. Conditions in Fallujah are dire, with Anbar Governor Sohaib al-Rawi saying that the situation "has reached a state of famine". - Years outside government control - A police lieutenant colonel gave a different account of the start of the fighting, saying it began after Al-Hisba members accused a woman in Al-Nizaiza market in central Fallujah of misconduct because she had failed to cover her hands with gloves. Sheikh Majeed al-Juraisi, a leader of the Al-Juraisat tribe, described the clashes as an uprising against IS in the city and called on the government and security forces to help residents who are fighting the jihadists. Juraisi said that tribesmen seized part of Al-Jolan area. The interior ministry also said earlier in the day that tribesmen had seized parts of Al-Jolan and its outskirts but that IS later regained control. Citing intelligence information, the ministry said the clashes began as a fight between Al-Juraisat tribesmen and the Al-Hisba in Al-Nizaiza market. It escalated into a shootout in which light and medium weapons were used, and Al-Mahamda and Al-Halabsa tribesmen backed Al-Juraisat fighters, the ministry said. Fallujah, which is located about 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Baghdad, is the only Iraqi city apart from IS's main northern hub Mosul still under jihadist control. Tens of thousands of civilians are estimated to be still inside Fallujah. Anti-government fighters took control of the city in early 2014 during unrest that broke out after security forces demolished a protest camp farther west, and has become a key IS stronghold. IS launched a sweeping offensive that overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in June 2014, but security forces and allied fighters have pushed the jihadists back with support from US-led air strikes. Tribesmen have played a key role in holding the jihadists back in multiple areas, including Haditha in Anbar, Amerli in Salaheddin province and Dhuluiyah in Diyala. Iraqi Shiite fighters from the Popular Mobilisation units monitor the frontline near the Tharthar lake, north of the city of Fallujah on February 11, 2016, as they continue to battle IS jihadists Ahmad al-Rubaye (AFP/File) Iraqi Shiite fighters from the Popular Mobilisation units near Tharthar lake north of Fallujah on February 11, 2016 Ahmad al-Rubaye (AFP) Erdogan says 'no doubt' Syrian Kurd fighters behind Ankara attack President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey had "no doubt" that Syrian Kurdish fighters were behind an attack on a convoy of military buses in Ankara that left 28 people dead. "We have no doubt that the perpetrators are the YPG and PYD," Erdogan said in Istanbul, referring to the main Syrian Kurdish militia and their political wing. Ankara has insisted that the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and Democratic Union Party (PYD) were behind the attack, although its claims have met with scepticism from chief NATO ally the United States. Firefighters try to extinguish flames following an explosion after an attack targeted a convoy of military service vehicles in Ankara on February 17, 2016 Wednesday's attack -- blamed on a Syrian suicide car bomber -- struck at the heart of Ankara an an area where institutions including the army headquarters and parliament are concentrated. Ankara prosecutors said Friday that three more suspects had been detained in the investigation, bringing the total to 17, and that their links to Kurdish militants were being investigated. "Who was the suicide bomber? Of course he was from the YPG," said Erdogan. He said "three names" were being investigated for a particularly active role in the bombing, without giving further details. The attack risks further straining ties between Turkey and the United States, which works with the YPG as an effective force in the fight against Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Syria. - ' Convince our friends' - Erdogan said Turkey was "saddened" by the stubbornness of the West in not linking the YPG to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state and is recognised as a terror group by the United States and EU. He added he would speak to US President Barack Obama by phone later Friday to warn him over "the weapons support they (the United States) give to those organisations," referring to the PYD and YPG. "This incident will help our friends -- who have so far failed to be convinced -- better understand how strong the links are between the YPG and PYD in Syria and the PKK in Turkey," he said. US State Department spokesman John Kirby said Thursday it was still an "open question" who had carried out the Ankara attack. "We're in no position to confirm or deny the assertions made by the Turkish government with respect to responsibility." But Erdogan refused to be drawn into a debate with Kirby, who has angered Turkey by repeatedly defending US support of the YPG in the last days. "He (Kirby) is not my interlocutor. I am going to speak to Obama at five (1500 GMT)," Erdogan said. In Ankara meanwhile, eight victims of the attack were laid to rest following a funeral ceremony at the city's vast Kocatepe Mosque attended by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and chief of staff General Hulusi Akar. Six of those buried were civilian employees of the military and two were soldiers. In all 20 soldiers of varying ranks were killed in the attack, seven civilian employees and a young female journalist. Turkey's Chief of Staff General Hulusi Akar (2nd L), Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (C) and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (2nd R) pray during the funeral ceremony for Army Officer Seckin Cil in Ankara, on February 18, 2016 Adem Altan (AFP) Turks, Kurds fear tit-for-tat violence in Sweden Turks and Kurds have lived peacefully side by side for years in Sweden -- but two incidents within a week are fuelling concern of tit-for-tat violence, amid heightened tensions in the Middle East. In the Stockholm suburb of Botkyrka, a powerful blast at a Turkish cultural centre destroyed two offices Wednesday evening, leaving broken glass and blackened walls. It came just four days after a man was shot at a pro-Kurdish rally in the same neighbourhood southwest of Stockholm. Police cordon off an area at a petrol station where a man was found severely injured after being shot on the sidelines of a pro-Kurdish demonstration in Fittja in southern Stockholm, Sweden, on February 13, 2016 Johan Nilsson (TT News Agency/AFP/File) "I have many young people who are worried now, they say 'maybe the Turks will come to my house and shoot me'," said Yilmas Zengin, a 55-year-old of Turkish and Kurdish origin who runs the nearby Botkyrka Youth Centre. "We worry, more than anything, that the violence will increase," he said outside the centre. - Tensions in Turkey - Botkyrka's Fittja neighbourhood is home to both Turks and Kurds where roughly 90 percent of the population is of foreign origin. The incidents came as a surprise to most Turkish and Kurdish residents, and Interior Minister Anders Ygeman called them worrying. "We do not want any escalating conflict between different groups in Sweden, no matter who they are," he told the Swedish news agency TT. Turkish ambassador Kaya Turkmen visited the scene of the blast and spoke to members of both the Kurdish and the Turkish communities. Several locals voiced fears that the blast was the result of a hand grenade, but police are still investigating. "Turks and Kurds have been friends and lived in peace in Sweden and we can be grateful they decided not to be a part of this dirty game," Turkmen told AFP as he surveyed the damage at the cultural centre. "There are tensions in Turkey, so they are related. I hope there is no more violence" said Turkmen who also visited the Kurdish Cultural Centre, called the Anatoliska Kurdiska, some 100 metres (yards) away. Wednesday night's explosion came on the same day that 28 people were killed in a bomb attack in the capital of Turkey, which -- according to Ankara -- has been targeted by Islamist and Kurdish groups since it started fighting them in neighbouring Syria. Ankara has been waging an all-out assault on Kurdish groups it says are allied to outlawed domestic separatists, including shelling their positions in the north of its war-torn neighbour. Umut Ozkirimli, a professor of political science at Lund University's Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, said that he was worried that violence might spread to other countries in Europe. "It's not looking good to be honest. If these things are getting out of hand then I would expect Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands to follow," he said, given the large Kurdish and Turkish populations of those countries. - We've grown up together' - Mehmet Kayhan, who runs the Turkish cultural centre, said he feared Fittja was seeing conflict exported from the Middle East. Kayhan said there had been a fight between Turks and demonstrating Kurds in front of the centre just before the shooting on Saturday. But according to Kayhan and other witnesses at the Turkish and the Kurdish cultural centres, the demonstrators were not from the Fittja neighbourhood. "A crowd of maybe 150 Kurds marched in front of the centre and taunted us until a fight began. There were many of them, so we had to run into the building and barricade the doors and call the police," he said. "These people were Kurds from Iran and Iraq. I heard them speak," said Ismail Zengin, 57, who runs the centre along with Kayhan. His opinion was echoed by groups of men at the nearby Anatoliska Kurdiska who said locals would not have attacked each other. Kurdish groups also confirmed that Kurds from Iran, Iraq and Syria were all present at the demonstration, which had nothing to do with the centre. Indeed, roughly one third of the 25 men seated at the centre were Turks. Likewise a small group of Kurdish men had helped clear away the debris from Wednesday's blast. "We've grown up together, over there and here. We try to help each other," said Haydar Bayraktar, the Kurdish manager of the centre. There are no official figures for the number of Kurds in Sweden, but local groups place the number at around 100,000. There were about 46,000 people born in Turkey living in Sweden in 2014, according to the Swedish Statistics Bureau. A man was shot at a pro-Kurdish rally in the Botkyrka neighbourhood southwest of Stockholm on February 13 Johan Nilsson (TT News Agency/AFP/File) Gaza bombing targets home of Shiite leader A bomb attack targeted the home of a leader of a Palestinian Shiite Muslim movement in the Gaza Strip Friday, causing damage but no injuries, the group and security sources said. The pre-dawn blast caused extensive damage at the home of Sheikh Hisham Salem, his Al-Sabirin group said in a statement. Shiite Muslims are a tiny minority among Palestinians who are almost exclusively Sunni Muslims or Christians. A Palestinian man inspects the damage at the site of a bomb attack at the home of Sheikh Hisham Salem, head of al-Sabirin movement, a Palestinian Shiite Muslim group, in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, on February 19, 2016 Mohammed Abed (AFP) Al-Sabirin, which says it is supported by Iran, accused "the occupier (Israel) and its collaborators." The Israeli army declined to comment on the allegations. Reliable information is difficult to ascertain in Gaza, which is blockaded by Israel and Egypt and run by Islamist group Hamas. Hamas, a Sunni movement, seems to want to avoid conflict with Al-Sabirin, although there is no significant Shiite community in Gaza. Shortly after the explosion, Gazan security forces went to the scene and opened an investigation to find the perpetrators, security sources said. "We went out and found an explosive device placed near the door of the house," said a brother of the leader, Issam Salem, who was in the house at the time of the blast. "The windows of the house and those of a bus were blown out," he told AFP, adding that the explosion had sent children inside the home into a panic. Egypt's Sisi proposes law to curb police abuses Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will ask parliament to amend the law to toughen sanctions for police abuses, his office said Friday, a day after a police shooting sparked outrage. The statement from his office came as dozens of demonstrators gathered outside Cairo police headquarters chanting: "The interior ministry are thugs," after an officer killed a driver over a fare dispute. Earlier on Friday, the interior ministry announced that the policeman, who was badly beaten by a crowd after the killing, had been arrested in hospital. Members of the Egyptian police special forces stand guard on Cairo's landmark Tahrir Square on January 25, 2016, as the country marks the fifth anniversary of the 2011 uprising Mohamed el-Shahed (AFP) Police have been on the defensive after a string of deaths in custody over the past year, redolent of the abuses that fuelled an 18-day uprising which ousted president Hosni Mubarak in 2011. "These actions must be stopped and the perpetrators held to account," Sisi told Interior Minister Magdy Abdel Gaffar, according to the statement. "This may require some legal amendments, or new laws, that regulate police performance on the street, and that ensure all who violate the rights of citizens will be held to account." Sisi will present the amendments to parliament within 15 days. Before marching to Cairo police headquarters, hundreds of mourners turned out for the funeral of the driver, Mohamed Ali Sayed Ismail. Outside the headquarters, a neighbour of the slain driver accused the government of allowing police to do as they wish. "We are here because next time it will be our turn, each one of us. (Ismail) was a young respectful man just trying to make a living," said the protester, who gave his name only as Tarek. "The government has given police a free hand. A dog has more value than Egyptian citizens." - 'Egyptian lives matter' - Ismail's killing sparked fury on social media, coming after a series of deaths in detention and accusations of police involvement in the torture killing of Italian PhD student Guilio Regeni. "Do we need an 'Egyptian lives matter' campaign again?" asked one prominent Egyptian blogger, who goes by the name Zeinobia. The interior ministry had all but collapsed during the uprising against Mubarak, with protesters ransacking police stations across the country. But it had regained popularity after the overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, even as it carried out a deadly crackdown on Islamists that killed hundreds of protesters. Scores of policemen have been killed in attacks since, and the Egyptian media has been reluctant to criticise the force. Sisi, who as army chief led Morsi's ouster, won a presidential election the following year. He has support among the many Egyptians who say the country needs a firm leader, but he has also faced mounting criticism over police abuses and crackdowns on dissidents. Over the past year, several policeman have been detained for violence against prisoners, and some have been given jail sentences. Last week, thousands of doctors held a protest against the police after officers allegedly assaulted two doctors in a hospital. Police have also been on the defensive after the Italian student Regeni was found dead in Cairo on February 3 bearing signs of brutal torture a week after his disappearance in the capital. Italian media have reported suspicions that he was killed by Egyptian security services. The interior ministry said it was not involved and was investigating his death. Egyptian mourners carry the coffin of Mohamed Ali Sayed Ismail, who was allegedly shot dead by a policeman over a fare dispute the day before, during his funeral on February 19, 2016 in the capital Cairo Alaa el-Kassas (AFP) Egyptian doctors gather outside their syndicate in Cairo on February 12, 2016, to protest against an assault by policemen on two of their colleagues in a public hospital last month Mahmoud Khaled (AFP/File) Yahoo panel to study 'strategic' options Yahoo said Friday it had named a committee to study the company's "strategic alternatives," moving a step closer toward a breakup or sale of the troubled Internet pioneer. The California tech group had already said it was reviewing other options even as it carries out a major restructuring, but the formation of an independent panel moves that process forward. The term "strategic alternatives" is often used when a company is considering a merger or sale. Yahoo! President and CEO Marissa Mayer delivers a keynote during the Yahoo Mobile Developers Conference on February 18, 2016 at The Masonic in San Francisco, California Stephen Lam (Getty/AFP/File) Yahoo said it had hired Goldman Sachs & Co., JP Morgan and PJT Partners Inc. as its financial advisors, and the law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP for legal issues. "The strategic review committee and its advisors are establishing a process for outreach to and engagement with potentially interested strategic and financial parties," Yahoo said in a statement. Some reports have said Yahoo could sell its "core" Internet business and that potential suitors may include telecom giant Verizon, which recently acquired AOL, or Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. A sale would leave Yahoo's multibillion-dollar holdings in Chinese Internet firm Alibaba in a separate entity. Yahoo has been working on a plan to separate the two units. Maynard Webb, Yahoo's board chairman, said the board "is thoroughly committed to exploring strategic alternatives while simultaneously supporting management and the employees in their implementation of Yahoo's strategic plan." Yahoo said earlier this month it was cutting 15 percent of its workforce and narrowing its focus, which will mean closing some digital media operations. Although Yahoo is one of the best-known names on the Internet and is used by around one billion people, it has fallen behind Google in Internet search and has been steadily losing ground in online advertising. It reported a loss of $4.43 billion in the final three months of last year, due mostly to lowering the value of its US, Canada, Europe, Latin America and Tumblr units. Some activist shareholders have called for the ouster of the management team led by chief executive Marissa Mayer. In Friday's statement, Mayer said that "separating our Alibaba stake from Yahoo's operating business is essential to maximizing value for our shareholders. " The Every Student Succeeds Act may be the law of the land, but it wont be fully in place until the 2017-18 school year. By then, of course, acting U.S. Secretary of Education John B. King Jr. and company will likely have moved on, and a new teamled by a President-and-Secretary-to-be-Named Laterwill have taken their place. So how much of the early implementation (writing regulations, appointing peer reviewers, and approving ESSA plans) will be done by the Obama folks, and how much will be up to the incoming team? Right now, its anyone guess. The Education Department has taken some preliminary steps toward regulation, but hasnt yet specified a timeline for completing its work. (ESSA is still a new law, and those things take time to work out.) What seems likely? We polled federal K-12 policy experts who have a good understanding of the regulatory process for some smart speculation. And they all note that the time frame is pretty tight. Most expect the Obama administration will push to get as much accomplished as it can before heading out the door. It doesnt seem likely, though, that King and company will end up being the folks who write all the regulations for the new law, appoint the peer reviewers for states ESSA plans, and approve those plans. They will be able to get to some of those tasks, but not all of them, given the ticking clock, and some built-in pauses, like time for the field to comment on proposed regulations. In particular, its likely that the next administration could end up giving the final seal of approval to state plans, even as the new secretary and his or her team are setting up shop. Given the amount of time it will take to lay the foundation for the planning process, including approving regulations, it is difficult to see how [plan approval] can be done between now and January, said Reg Leichty, the founder and partner at Foresight Law + Policy. The states will need some time to digest what implementation steps have happened at the federal level in order to write really high-quality plans, he said. Eleven months is short window. That doesnt mean the Obama administrations regulatory process will not be important, Leichty said. The work completed this yearwhatever regulations and guidance are finalizedwill influence state plans even if this administration ultimately doesnt approve them, he explained. So when could ESSA plans be due? Melissa Junge, an attorney at the Federal Education Group, says her best guess, based on past practice, is that ESSA plans will likely be due sometime in the spring of 2017, after a new administration has taken over. On another issue, while it is not entirely clear, she thinks states will not have to file a plan for using their Title I and other federal funds during this transition time, the 2016-17 school year. And Diane Stark Rentner, the deputy director of the Center on Education Policy, who worked for Democrats on the House education committee, noted the timeline in the law seems to intentionally allow for some input from the next administration. I am sure that ED is moving ahead as quickly as they can because states need guidance on how to develop their plans. ... ESSA is interesting, though, because most of the Title I provisions dont take effect until school year 2017-18, she wrote in an email. That says to me that the Congressional intent was to have the new President have some impact on ESSA. This, of course, could mean policy reversals from one administration to the next, but I think ESSA is pretty clear about how far they want any Secretary of Education to go beyond the statute (not far). And she said that Congress will clearly keep an eye on implementationthere are at least two ESSA oversight hearings in the works next week. Of course, the picture could become even more complicated if the Obama team writes many of the regulations for ESSA, but the next president wants to head in a very different direction on K-12. (By say, getting rid of the U.S. Department of Education altogether .) But, it is hard to imagine a new administration throwing everything out and starting from scratch, Leichty said, particularly given the progress states will make independent of what the feds do this year. Instead, a new administration could initially make selective changes and work toward more significant policy shifts over time, he said. Smart states, though, which have a clear vision of what they want their accountability systems to look like under ESSA, may already be moving forward on thinking through their plans, even before the regulatory process is complete. (A good place for them to start looking for potential models: the Thomas B. Fordham Institutes ESSA design competition, which you can check out here .) Indian police fire on caste protesters, one killed Police opened fire on protesters in northern India on Friday, killing one, as rival caste groups clashed during a mass rally over access to jobs and education. The army was called in after several were injured in the violence in northern Haryana state, as demonstrators clashing over preferential treatment for certain castes defied police orders and went on a rampage. State police chief Yash Pal Singal said a protester had shot at a member of the security personnel first during the demonstrations in Rohtak district triggering the violent retaliation by police. Protesters stand near a burning truck during violence after rival caste groups clashed during a mass rally over access to jobs and education in Rohtak, northern India on February 19, 2016 "The BSF (Border Security Force) then fired in self-defence and unfortunately one protester lost his life. Some other people have received injuries," Singal said in comments broadcast on TV channels. Haryana's dominant Jat community, a comparatively affluent caste group, has been calling for quotas in government jobs similar to those allocated to lower-caste groups who have faced generations of societal discrimination. The Jats say they are struggling to compete with less privileged castes for government jobs and university places -- but other caste groups have opposed their demands for special treatment. The government called in about 2,000 troops to quash the protests, Press Trust of India reported, as TV footage showed demonstrators trying to set fire to vehicles and a house belonging to a state minister. The protesters have blocked major highways and disrupted rail traffic since Wednesday, prompting police to clamp prohibitory orders on many districts. Haryana state is ruled by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which has come in for criticism of late for its perceived iron-fisted approach on sensitive issues. The protests echo caste violence that swept the western state of Gujarat in August last year, leaving several dead. The state saw weeks of protests by the privileged Patidar or Patel caste, who demanded special treatment to put them on a level footing with lower castes. India sets aside a proportion of jobs and places to people from so-called lower and backward castes under measures intended to bring victims of the worst discrimination into the mainstream. But the policy of "reservation" causes resentment among other communities who say it freezes them out. Iran prayer leaders urge vote for anti-US candidates Iranian clerics used their last Friday prayer sermons before key polls next week to urge the faithful to elect candidates loyal to the Islamic revolution and hostile to the United States. They accused Western media of attempting to sway voters against the revolution's supporters in next Friday's twin elections to parliament and the Assembly of Experts, the body which elects and supervises Iran's supreme leader. "Today, they name the pillars of the revolution and ask people not to vote for them, and then name others and call for their election," complained Tehran prayer leader Ayatollah Kazem Sedighi. Iranian Shiite Muslim worshippers attend the weekly Friday prayers at the University of Tehran on July 17, 2015 Atta Kenare (AFP/File) "Revolutionary Muslims should do the opposite." In Iran's second city Mashhad, prayer leader Mohammad Bagher Farzaneh urged the faithful to elect members of parliament who have "Death the America" written "on their foreheads", the ISNA news agency reported. In the southwestern city of Ahvaz, the prayer leader urged people to vote for "champions of the fight against the United States," the official IRNA news agency said. The prayer leader in the central city of Isfahan hit back at Western criticism of the Guardian Council, the body which vets all candidates for public office in Iran and which sparked an outcry by disqualifying thousands of hopefuls, most of them reformists. The United States had been "opposed to the rule of Guardian Council since day one," he said. Some 1,500 candidates were reinstated after the intervention of President Hassan Rouhani and members of his government but many reformists have remained barred. A pro-Rouhani coalition of reformists and moderates is seeking to end conservatives' long dominance of parliament by playing up the economic potential of the nuclear agreement he struck with world powers last year. But the limited opening to the West that made the deal possible remains controversial in Iran and supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei has repeatedly stated there will be no wider rapprochement. UN Security Council to meet on Syria crisis at 2000 GMT: diplomats The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Friday at Russia's request to discuss the crisis in Syria, diplomats said. The meeting scheduled for 2000 GMT was called to address Turkey's proposal for ground forces to be deployed in Syria, the Russian foreign ministry said in Moscow. "Russia intends to convene a UN Security Council meeting today to discuss this issue and to introduce a draft resolution calling for a halt to any actions that would undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria," said a foreign ministry statement released in Moscow. Turkish Army vehicles and tanks move near the Syrian border in Suruc on February 23, 2015 Ilyas Akengin (AFP/File) Turkey has called for a joint ground operation in Syria with its international allies, insisting that such an intervention was the only way to stop the country's five-year war. A senior Turkish official said on Tuesday that Ankara wanted such a joint operation to be carried but emphasized there were no plans to act unilaterally. Saudi Arabia, which along with Turkey is backing rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces, has also said it would be ready to take part in an international force to be deployed in Syria. Russia, which is waging an air war in Syria to back up Assad's forces, has called on the Security Council to press Turkey to halt its shelling of Kurdish forces in northern Syria. ICRC 'alarmed' at situation in Syria's Aleppo region The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday it was "deeply alarmed" by the situation in Syrias Aleppo province, where fighting has displaced tens of thousands of people. The statement came as rights group Amnesty International criticised Turkey for refusing entry to some injured Syrian civilians fleeing Aleppo, describing its policy as "appalling". The ICRC said it was "deeply alarmed by the situation in the Aleppo region, where fighting is intensifying, hospitals and health workers have been targeted, people have no water or electricity and more than 70,000 have now fled their homes". Syrian emergency personnel remove the body of a baby from the rubble of a destroyed building following reported air strikes in rebel-controlled side of the northern city of Aleppo on February 14, 2016 Ameer Alhalbi (AFP/File) "The most basic infrastructure to support the lives of the people has been critically damaged, worsening the situation of the population dramatically, with the number of newly displaced people rising by the day," ICRC Syria delegation head Marianne Gasser said. The comments come after a major operation by government forces backed by Russian air power that has seen the regime recapture territory north of Aleppo city. The advances have left rebels and some 300,000 civilians virtually encircled in the opposition-held east of Aleppo city, and prompted tens of thousands of people to flee the countryside north of the city. Simultaneously, Kurdish-led forces have advanced against rebels further north in the province, prompting Turkish shelling and further complicating the volatile situation there. The ICRC urged all parties to the conflict to avoid attacks on medical facilities and civilian infrastructure including water treatment plants. Amnesty International meanwhile criticised Turkey, saying it had denied entry to injured Syrians fleeing Aleppo in need of urgent medical care. It said Turkish security forces had also shot and wounded Syrian civilians who had "out of desperation" tried to cross the border illegally with the help of smugglers. The group was concerned about "civilians who remain trapped between daily airstrikes and dire humanitarian conditions", said Crisis Response Director Tirana Hassan. "Turkey's highly selective practice is appalling -- only severely injured people are allowed entry to seek medical treatment while everyone else fleeing the violence is left unprotected," Hassan added. Amnesty urged Turkey to keep its borders open, and called on the international community to increase support to Turkey and other countries neighbouring Syria that have taken in refugees. More than four million Syrians have fled their country's conflict, and Ankara says it is hosting more then 2.6 million of them. Vietnam decries Chinese missile deployment on island Vietnam on Friday hit out at China's deployment of missiles on a disputed island chain, saying Beijing had "seriously violated" its sovereignty as international censure mounted over the apparent militarisation of the hotly-contested zone. Chinese state media on Thursday confirmed the presence of unspecified weapons on Woody Island, part of the Paracels chain. The admission came after Fox News reported that surface-to-air weapons had arrived there in the past week -- although Chinese media suggested they have been in place for longer. The island of Yongxing, also known as Woody island in the disputed Paracel chain, which China now considers part of Hainan province STR (AFP/File) Vietnamese authorities handed "a note of objection" to the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi on Friday, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "These were moves that seriously violated Vietnam's sovereignty over the Hoang Sa archipelagoes," spokesperson Le hai Binh said Friday, using the Vietnamese name for the Paracels. "Threatening peace and stability in the region as well as security, safety and freedom of navigation and aviation. Vietnam requests China to immediately end those wrongful acts." China claims all of the Paracels, though Hanoi and Taipei have overlapping claims. Earlier on Friday Australia urged China to refrain from the "militarisation of islands", a day after the United States slammed Beijing for deploying missiles in the disputed South China Sea. Tensions in the sea -- through which a third of the world's oil passes -- have mounted in recent months after China transformed contested reefs in the Spratly islands further south into artificial islands capable of supporting military facilities. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines also lay claim to parts of the sea. US President Barack Obama this week hosted Southeast Asian leaders for a summit. The US wants to shore-up its regional alliances with a view to avoiding flashpoints in the seas and keeping shipping lanes open. The US and Australia have carried out several so-called "Freedom of Navigation" overflights and sail-bys in the region, which China has described as "provocations". Islamic State group expansion in Libya - timeline The Islamic State group, targeted by a US air strike in Libya Friday, moved into the country in 2014 in the chaos that followed the ouster of dictator Moamer Kadhafi. IS has become yet another player in the lawless North African nation, where rival governments and militias are battling for control of territory and major oil reserves. -- 2014 -- Fighters from the Fajr Libya (Libya Dawn) militia clash with forces loyal to the internationally recognised government near Sabratha on April 28, 2015 Mahmud Turkia (AFP) - November 19: The US State Department says it is "concerned" by reports that radical extremists with avowed ties to IS are destabilising eastern Libya, having already seized vast swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria. News reports say the eastern coastal city of Derna is emerging as an IS stronghold. - December 27: A car bomb claimed by IS explodes outside the diplomatic security building in Tripoli without causing casualties. -- 2015 -- - January 8: IS claims to have killed two Tunisian journalists -- Sofiene Chourabi and Nadhir Ktari -- who went missing in September. - January 27: IS claims an attack on Tripoli's luxury Corinthia Hotel that kills nine people. - February 15: IS releases a video showing the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians, all but one Egyptians, that the jihadists say they filmed in January. Egypt carries out air strikes on IS in Derna. - February 20: IS claims suicide car bombings in Al-Qoba, near Derna, that kill 44. It says the attacks are to avenge losses in the air strikes. - April 19: A new video shows the execution of 28 Christians originally from Ethiopia. - June 9: IS announces it has captured Sirte, east of Tripoli. It already controlled the city's airport. - July 12: The group acknowledges it has been pushed out of Derna after several weeks of fierce fighting with members of the town's Mujahedeen Council. - August 11: Heavy fighting erupts in Sirte between residents and IS, with dozens of people dead. - November 13: The US bombs IS leaders in Libya for the first time and says it killed Abu Nabil, an Iraqi also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al-Zubaydi. Libyan officials identify him as the head of IS in Derna. - December 4: France says it carried out reconnaissance flights over Libya in November, notably at Sirte, and plans others. -- 2016 -- - January 4: IS launches an offensive to seize oil terminals in Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra, which lie in an "oil crescent" along the coast. - January 7: A suicide truck bombing at a police school in Zliten, east of Tripoli, kills more than 50 people, the worst attack since the 2011 revolution. A second attack kills six at a checkpoint in Ras Lanuf. Both are claimed by the IS. Russia, US officials hold Syria ceasefire talks in Geneva: Moscow Russian and American officials held talks on Friday in Geneva to discuss a stalled ceasefire deal in Syria, Russia's foreign ministry said. The sit-down between military officials and diplomats is meant to pave the way for a broader meeting of international players involved in the conflict as a hoped-for ceasefire in Syria failed to materialise. "Russia and the United States are holding consultations at the expert level on issues that will be submitted for approval" to the broader international group, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. Mikhail Bogdanov says "intense consultations" on Syria between the Russian and American sides started on Thursday No time has yet been set for such a broader meeting, she added. A UN spokesman in Geneva said that the international body's Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura was flying back to the city from Damascus Friday and expected to attend a broader meeting on the ceasefire originally planned for the afternoon. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told Ria-Novosti news agency that "intense consultations" between the Russian and American sides started on Thursday. The group of international players on Syria announced on February 12 they hoped to have a ceasefire in Syria by Friday but there was no sign of the halt in hostilities. Russia is currently flying a bombing campaign in Syria to support forces loyal to its ally President Bashar al-Assad, while the US heads a separate coalition targeting the Islamic State group. SodaStream could halt Israel plant in Palestinian visa row Drinks firm SodaStream warned on Friday it could suspend production at its main factory in Israel if the government does not grant work permits for dozens of its Palestinian staff. The Israeli company, which manufactures a device for making fizzy drinks at home, announced in late 2014 it was closing its plant in a West Bank settlement, following a boycott campaign that included targeting Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson after she advertised its product. The plant closed in October 2015, with more than 500 Palestinians made redundant, the company said. Palestinian workers prepare boxes to pack products at the Israeli SodaStream factory in the Mishor Adumim industrial park, near the West Bank settlement of Maale Adummim, on January 30, 2014 Menahem Kahana (AFP/File) They relocated the factory inside Israel, bringing 74 Palestinian workers with them, as well as hiring hundreds of Israeli workers. But the Israeli government has refused to grant the Palestinians work permits beyond the end of this month, the company's head of global communications, Maayan Nave, said. "We are not willing to let Israeli bureaucracy determine the future of 74 people," he said, adding many have worked for the company for at least six years. "We hope that the current government will be able to solve the bureaucracy that now points to the termination of the contracts of our 74 Palestinian workers," Nave said. He said the company would consider suspending production at the factory in the Negev region if the government did not meet its demands. "We are determined to stand by our employees and fight," he said. A Palestinian employee quoted in the Israeli media said that, since the factory move, he had to leave his home in the occupied West Bank at 4:30 am and did not return until 7 pm. "It's a long day and I don't get to see my children during the week, but I'm happy that I have this job," he told The Jerusalem Post, which first reported SodaStream's concerns. COGAT, the defence ministry body responsible for coordinating Israeli government activity in the Palestinian territories, said it was trying to help the company as much as possible. "COGAT has taken many measures to help the factory and provided temporary permits to hundreds of labourers in the past year and a half to enable the transfer (of the factory)," a spokeswoman said. According to COGAT, 58,000 Palestinians hold permits to work in Israel, with another 27,000 working for Israeli businesses in West Bank settlements and industrial zones. Nave called for an increase in the number of permits, but COGAT said it would need a ruling from the government. "The employment of Palestinians in Israel is based on work permits, determined by government decisions," it said. Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967 in a move that has repeatedly been declared illegal by the international community. Israel holds more than 700 Palestinians without charge: NGO More than 700 Palestinians are currently being held by Israel without being charged or put on trial, the Palestinian Prisoners Club said on Friday. The number of prisoners held under Israel's controversial administrative detention law has spiked because of a series of arrests since a new wave of violence began in October, the prisoners club said in a statement. Under the administrative detention law, Israel can hold suspects without trial for periods of six months renewable indefinitely. Palestinians call for the release of Mohammed al-Qiq, a Palestinian prisoner on hunger strike, outside the Red Cross building in Jerusalem on February 18, 2016 Ahmad Gharabli (AFP) The system is again under the spotlight because of a hunger strike by journalist Mohammed al-Qiq, who has gone without food for 87 days in protest at being detained without trial. The system has been criticised by Palestinians, human rights groups and the international community. The United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, raised the issue of administrative detention on Thursday in a speech to the UN Security Council. He said that anyone held under the system should "be either charged or released immediately". He also said he was "deeply concerned about the deteriorating condition" of Qiq. Israel says administrative detention, a policy it inherited from the British rule in Mandatory Palestine, is an essential tool for preventing attacks while allowing to keep sensitive information secret. More than 7,000 Palestinians are currently in Israeli jails, including those under administrative detention, according to the prisoners club. Among them are around 30 people who have been in jail since before the signature of the 1993 Oslo Accords. The Palestinian Authority has made their release a condition of the resumption of frozen peace talks with Israel. Hamas says it captured Israeli tunnel monitoring vehicle Hamas has captured an Israeli vehicle for monitoring tunnels under the border with Gaza, a top official from the Islamist group said on Friday. Ismail Haniya, Hamas's leader in Gaza, said that 10 days ago the group's armed wing "discovered an underground vehicle on which were installed cameras and sensors to monitor tunnels and fighters." Speaking in a sermon at Muslim prayers in the Shati refugee camp where he lives, Haniya said the find gave the movement an "advantage." The tunnels under Israel's border with Gaza can be used to store weapons, while fighters have also used them to conduct raids into Israel Mahmud Hams (AFP/File) The destruction of tunnels under its border with Gaza was one of Israel's main objectives in a summer 2014 offensive on the territory. The tunnels can be used to store weapons, while fighters have also used them to conduct raids into Israel. In recent weeks, Israelis living near the border have reported hearing drilling, raising fears of new tunnels. Haniya said despite fresh tensions there was "no war against Gaza looming on the horizon". "The occupation is embarking on defensive manoeuvres and it is proof that (Israel) is not preparing for war." He said there had been "a lot of progress on the issue of the port of Gaza" in recent talks between Israel and Turkey on mending ties between the two governments. A senior Turkish official said on Tuesday that Ankara was "close" to an agreement on normalising relations, nearly six years after they were downgraded following a deadly Israeli raid on a Turkish flotilla headed to Gaza. Ankara has always posed three conditions for normalisation -- a public apology for the raid, financial compensation for the victims and the lifting of Israel's decade-old Gaza blockade. After winning the battle to expand the federal E-rate program , education leaders are beginning to look beyond the struggle of connecting all schools to high quality Internet, and toward the next challenge of connecting all students while outside of school. The Consortium for School Networking, or CoSN, issued a plan of action this week that aims to prod district leaders to at least gather data on personal student broadband access. The report, which calls the matter an issue of civil rights, indicated that 75 percent of school district leaders have no data on their students Internet access outside of school, while 70 percent of teachers nationally report assigning homework that requires access. The report goes on to outline steps districts can take to leverage existing assets and programs to increase off-campus connectivity. Keith Krueger, CEO of CoSN, said that in the wake of a collective national shift over recent decades to online learning as the way we do education, now is the critical moment to get serious about ubiquitous access. Its like sending some kids home without a textbook, said Laura Hansen, director of information management at Metro Nashville Public Schools, illustrating how Internet equity can exacerbate achievement gaps. The Tennessee district is in the process of implementing a far-reaching blended learning program, but the effort has met roadblocks in recent years as teachers reported high numbers of students unable to take advantage of online resources. Hansen said the stakes are high for getting families access as well, since student feedback and parent-teacher engagement are increasingly delivered online. For district leaders interested in tackling the problem, the action toolkit released by CoSN includes a sample survey for students and parents to help officials get a better understanding of the challenges facing their particular district. The survey, produced by the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at N.C. State in partnership with CoSN, is meant to replace existing tools that Krueger said arent nuanced enough because they dont accurately reflect students struggling with spotty connections or shared devices. Once data have been gathered, Krueger encourages district leaders to coordinate with local governments, engage community businesses, and take careful stock of existing assets to formulate a plan of action. Existing solutions highlighted in the report include districts that mapped local businesses offering free Wi-Fi, districts that outfitted school buses with wireless routers, and districts that promoted subsidized broadband programs for low-income families. Among one of the more ambitious potential solutions highlighted in the report is an effort underway in Albemarle County, Va. to repurpose the Educational Broadband Service spectrum. which is allocated by the Federal Communications Commission, and reserved for schools to deliver access. The spectrum was originally set aside for educational radio and TV broadcasts, but goes unused in many districts nationally. At the federal level, momentum has been building to update the FCCs Lifeline program, which currently subsidizes telephone service and expand the subsidies to cover broadband Internet , while a report issued by President Obamas Broadband Opportunity Council in September highlighted efforts already underway. In supporting these efforts, Krueger stressed the importance of a sustained focus on the problem from the local level up, saying that a failure to address the status quo disadvantages those that are already economically disadvantaged. See also: Justice Antonin Scalia lies in repose at US Supreme Court The body of justice Antonin Scalia was transferred Friday to the US Supreme Court, where President Barack Obama and hundreds of officials paid tribute to the conservative icon as he lies in repose. Scalia's flag-draped casket was installed at 9:30 am (1430 GMT) in the Supreme Court's Great Hall, after court police ceremoniously carried it up the building's iconic steps. Obama was among the thousands of people who are expected to pay their respect to the 79-year-old justice, who died of an apparent heart attack. US Supreme Court Chief justices attend a private ceremony in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court where late Justice Antonin Scalia lies in repose in Washington, on February 19, 2016 Jacquelyn Martin (Pool/AFP) The president and First Lady Michelle Obama, dressed in black, entered the Great Hall of the Supreme Court and hands clasped paid their respects by the casket. They then stood for a moment in front of a portrait of Scalia, flanked by floral arrangements of red, white and blue, with soft chandelier light bathing the marble room. The casket rests on the Lincoln Catafalque, which was loaned to the court by Congress for the ceremony. Scalia's death Saturday in Texas plunged the Supreme Court into uncertainty, leaving what had been a conservative-dominated body evenly divided in a year of blockbuster cases -- on abortion, affirmative action, immigration and President Barack Obama's health care law. It also set off an epic election-year battle over Scalia's successor, whose appointment could tip the body to a liberal majority with the potential to reshape American life far into the future. Scalia's coffin was placed on the same support, known as a catafalque, that was used for president Abraham Lincoln, after he was assassinated in 1865. The eight remaining justices observed a moment of silence, standing in the same order they sit in the Supreme Court. Appointed to the Supreme Court by president Ronald Reagan in 1986, Scalia championed the legal theory of originalism, which views the meaning of the Constitution as fixed at the time it was ratified, in 1788. According to this view, there is no doubt as to the validity of the death penalty and the right to bear arms. A Catholic father of nine children, Scalia was opposed to abortion and gay marriage as new rights that would have been unfathomable to the writers of the Constitution. One of his sons, a priest, led a brief religious ceremony before the public was allowed into the building. Obama is to pay tribute before the coffin in the afternoon. The president has been criticized for saying he will not attend the justice's funeral Saturday at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. However Vice President Joe Biden, himself a Catholic, will attend. Scalia's death immediately triggered intense election-year controversy, with Republican presidential candidates calling on Obama to leave it to his successor to appoint the next justice. Obama has said he is determined to nominate a replacement for Scalia, although he can expect push-back from the Republican-controlled Senate, where his candidate will need support from a majority for confirmation. The casket of US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia arrives at the Supreme Court in Washington on February 19, 2016 Nicholas Kamm (AFP) US President Barack Obama and US First Lady Michelle Obama pay their respects as US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalias body lies in repose at the Supreme Court on February 19, 2016 in Washington, DC Brendan Smialowski (AFP) Turkish intervention in Syria risks Turkey-Russia war: Hollande French President Francois Hollande on Friday said Ankara's escalating involvement in the Syrian conflict was creating a risk of war between Turkey and Russia. "Turkey is involved in Syria... There, there is a risk of war," Hollande told France Inter radio. "That is why the (UN) Security Council is meeting," he added. Hollande also said "Russia will be unable to cope if it unilaterally supports (Syrian President) Bashar al-Assad" and called for "pressure" to be exerted on Moscow to negotiate on Syria. French President Francois Hollande arrives at the European Union headquarters in Brussels, on February 19, 2016 Stephane de Sakutin (AFP) "I do not want to exclude Russia from the solution. I went myself to Moscow to tell Vladimir Putin, 'All of us have to work together to make this political transition'... but I cannot accept that at the same time that people are negotiating, they are bombing civilian populations," he said. Asked about the US position, he said "the Americans consider that they no longer have to be everywhere in the world as they were before.... Therefore the United States is pulling back. Of course I would prefer that the Americans were again more active". The Security Council is holding an emergency meeting at 2000 GMT at Moscow's request, to address Turkey's proposal for ground forces to be deployed in Syria, the Russian foreign ministry said in Moscow. Turkey has called for a joint ground operation in Syria with its international allies, insisting it is the only way to stop the country's five-year war. Saudi Arabia, which along with Turkey is backing rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces, has also said it would be ready to take part in an international force to be deployed in Syria. Russia, which has been carrying out air strikes in support of Assad's forces since the end of September, has called on the Security Council to press Turkey to halt its shelling of Kurdish forces in northern Syria. Ties between Turkey and Russia have broken down since Ankara downed one of Moscow's fighter jets along its border with Syria in November. France has been one of the most hostile opponents of Assad, and following the jihadist attacks in Paris in November it has stepped up air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq. Saudi says Syrian rebels should receive anti-aircraft missiles Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said Syrian moderate rebels should be armed with surface-to-air missiles against the Russian-backed Assad regime, a German news weekly reported Friday. Anti-aircraft weapons could tip the scales on the battlefield as they did in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s, Adel al-Jubeir is quoted as saying in an interview with Der Spiegel. "We believe that introducing surface-to-air missiles in Syria is going to change the balance of power on the ground," he said, stressing this would have to be decided by a coalition of partner states. New recruits practice on February 16, 2016 in a rebel-held area of the northern city of Aleppo before fighting with opposition fighters Karam al-Masri (AFP/File) "It will allow the moderate opposition to be able to neutralise the helicopters and aircraft that are dropping chemicals and have been carpet-bombing them, just like surface-to-air missiles in Afghanistan were able to change the balance of power there." US deliveries of Stinger missiles to Afghan mujahideen fighters during that country's Soviet occupation is credited with having significantly turned around the conflict that ended in Russia's withdrawal. The minister cautioned that "this has to be studied very carefully, however, because you don't want such weapons to fall into the wrong hands". "This is a decision that the international coalition will have to make," Jubeir added. "This is not Saudi Arabia's decision." He also said that Russian support would not save the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in the long term, reiterating Riyadh's call for him to step down. "The other option is that the war will continue and Bashar al-Assad will be defeated," he is quoted as saying. Saudi Arabia has backed rebel forces fighting Assad in the country's nearly five-year civil war. It has also been part of the US-led coalition bombing the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria and Iraq since late 2014. Jubeir told AFP this week that any Saudi troops, including special forces, on the ground would make the battle against the IS its priority. "We expressed our readiness to join the US-led, international coalition against Daesh with special forces," he said, using an Arabic acronym for the group. "All of this, however, is still in the discussion phase and in the initial planning phase," he added. Der Spiegel also asked the Saudi chief diplomat about similarities between the ultra-conservative Islam practiced in his country and the Islamic State's religious ideology. "ISIS is as much an Islamic organisation as the KKK in America is a Christian organisation," he said, referring to the white-supremacist Ku Klux Klan movement. "They burned people of African descent on the cross, and they said they're doing it in the name of Jesus Christ. Burundi cancels arrest warrants for exiled politicians Judicial authorities in Burundi have cancelled international arrest warrants against 15 exiled political figures including several opposition leaders, according to a document seen by AFP on Friday. Those affected include Leonard Nyangoma, head of the CNARED umbrella opposition group in Burundi, which has been rocked by political turmoil for almost a year. Almost everyone on the list was among a group of politicians, civil society leaders and independent journalists accused of instigating protests against President Pierre Nkurunziza's bid for a third term -- which he won in July -- and an attempted coup in May 2015. Leonard Nyangoma (L) , head of the CNARED umbrella opposition group, in 2000 Alexander Joe (AFP/File) They include Nyangoma's spokesman Pancrace Cimpaye and two prominent former members of the ruling party who fell out of favour, Pie Ntavyohanyuma and Gervais Rufyikiri. "I have the honour of bringing to your attention that the international arrest warrants which were issued against the following persons have been cancelled," Burundi's chief prosecutor Valentin Bagorukunda wrote in a letter to police dated February 3. "The reasons for the issuing of the warrants no longer exist," he added without giving details, asking police to request that Interpol deactivate the warrants. Political tensions have soared in Burundi since Nkurunziza announced his bid for a third term in April last year and the government has refused to engage in dialogue with the opposition, despite international pressure. The news comes three days before a visit to Burundi by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, with a high-level African Union delegation also arriving later next week. A Western diplomat in the capital Bujumbura told AFP that the move was a "goodwill gesture" ahead of the visits. 'A lot more work to do' before Syria ceasefire: Kerry US Secretary of State John Kerry warned there was "a lot more work to do" for a ceasefire in Syria that had been due to begin on Friday, as Kurdish-led forces seized a key town from the Islamic State group. "Everyone recognises the complexity of this endeavour, and there is certainly a lot more work to do," Kerry said in a statement during a visit to London. Kerry said talks between US and Russian negotiators had been "serious and so far constructive, with a few tough issues still to resolve". US Secretary of State John Kerry warns there is "a lot more work to do" for a ceasefire in Syria, as Kurdish-led forces seized a key town from the Islamic State group Saul Loeb (AFP/File) "We want this process to be sustainable, and should all participants prove willing to really sit down and work this out, we can get to a cessation of hostilities," Kerry said. "Coupled with the delivery this week of desperately needed humanitarian aid -- food, water and medicine -- we have a chance right now to really make a difference on the ground," he added. The truce has failed to materialise so far, with the UN's Syria envoy also acknowledging that a proposed February 25 date to restart stalled peace talks was no longer "realistically" possible. Meanwhile, tensions between regime backer Moscow and opposition supporter Ankara escalated, with Russia convening a UN Security Council meeting for later Friday to discuss the possibility of a Turkish ground intervention in Syria. US scepticism on blame for Turkey attack exposes growing split Turkey has pinned the blame for a deadly attack in Ankara on Syrian Kurdish fighters -- but its assertions have been greeted with scepticism from chief NATO ally the United States in a rare and increasingly acrimonious split. Just a day after Wednesday's attack on a convoy of military buses left 28 people dead, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said investigators had already worked out it was a joint operation by Turkey-based Kurdish militants and their counterparts in Syria. But the US State Department responded that responsibility for the attack was still an "open question" and that it could neither confirm or deny Ankara's claims. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blames Kurdish fighters in Syria for a blast in Ankara Adem Altan (AFP) Syria's Democratic Union Party (PYD) denied any involvement in the bombing, which comes against the backdrop of a growing hostility over the role of the Syrian Kurds in the five-year civil war. The attack was claimed late Friday by a Turkey-based Kurdish militant group Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), which said the bomber was a Turkish citizen from the eastern city of Van. Turkey accuses the PYD and its People's Protection Units (YPG) militia of being the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has fought an over 30-year insurgency against the Turkish state in search of greater powers and rights for the country's Kurdish minority. "Regardless of its validity, Turkey's attribution of the attack to the YPG reflects Turkey's intent to put pressure on the US policy of supporting the PYD," said Ege Seckin, expert at IHS Country Risk. - 'Brave Kurdish fighters?' - In a bid to up the diplomatic pressure on world powers to condemn the YPG, ambassadors from the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany were "invited" by Turkey to receive a briefing on the bombing Thursday. A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that there was "no hard evidence of a YPG link" presented to the diplomats at the meeting. Kurdish fighters' recent advance into territory controlled by Turkey-backed rebels in northern Aleppo near the Turkish border has worried Ankara, which clearly set the Euphrates River as a "red line" that must be the limit of their westwards drive. The PYD's offensive has severed Turkey's supply lines to Syrian rebels around Aleppo province, and in response, Turkish artillery has shelled YPG positions in northern Syria the entire week. "Maybe it's true, maybe not," the diplomat said of Turkey's claim that Syrian Kurdish fighters were behind the Ankara bombing. "But in both cases it justifies bombarding YPG positions in Syria." The United States and Turkey are both opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime in Damascus. But Washington concentrates its current campaign strictly on the Islamic State jihadists and sees Syrian Kurdish militia as the most effective force fighting on the ground against the extremists. US State Department spokesman John Kirby on Thursday described the YPG as "brave Kurdish fighters" against IS. Nihat Ali Ozcan, security expert at the Ankara-based TEPAV think-tank, said there would be consequences for Washington preferring a mere "player in Syria" to a "legitimate state" like Turkey. He added that Turkey has a major lever in the shape of its Incirlik air base, which in the last months has become a crucial hub for US raids against IS in Syria. - 'US has no choice' - But Turkey is hoping to galvanise American support in the wake of the Ankara attack for a ground operation into Syria with its allies, analysts say. A senior Turkish official said this week that Turkey was in favour of a ground operation in Syria to end the fighting, but only with its Western and Gulf allies and aimed at not just IS but the Syrian regime and the YPG. "Turkey is already in Syria with a covert operation and it is not possible to turn it into an open one without support from allies including the United States," Ozcan told AFP. Turkey has long been pressing, with limited success, for a safe zone inside Syria free from IS militants and YPG militia to house Syrian refugees. But Max Abrahms, professor of political science at Northeastern University and a member of the US Council on Foreign Relations think-tank, said the US would "not back away from the collaboration with the YPG even if attacks in Turkey are attributed to Kurdish terrorists". "The US really has no choice but to collaborate with the YPG in Syria because of the absence of alternative ground forces," he told AFP. Firefighters try to extinguish flames following an explosion after an attack targeted a convoy of military service vehicles in Ankara on February 17, 2016 White House race moves to South Carolina, Nevada The race to the White House entered its third round Saturday, with Republicans voting in their first southern primary in South Carolina and Democrats choosing between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in Nevada. Voters streamed to the polls in South Carolina after they opened at 7:00 am, in what is likely to be an important test of strength for frontrunner Donald Trump. Pre-vote surveys showed the billionaire businessman with a big lead over five Republican rivals in the Palmetto State. A "vote here" sign stands outside a polling station across from the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, on February 20, 2016 Jim Watson (AFP) Tim Nielson, 56, emerged from a voting place in Mouth Pleasant, South Carolina wearing a red, white and blue "I voted" sticker. He said he had switched from Democrat to Republican to vote for Trump. If Trump wins the White House, said Nielson, "maybe he'll change some ways." Trump is banking on a big symbolic win ahead of "Super Tuesday" -- March 1, when about a dozen states will go to the polls to choose candidates for the November 8 presidential election, with a quarter of the nominating delegates up for grabs. "It's crunch time, folks," Trump, 69, told voters at a North Charleston rally, his final pitch Friday before the primary. He finished second to Texas Senator Ted Cruz in Iowa on February 1, but secured a commanding win in New Hampshire one week later. The onetime reality TV star, who has upended the political landscape with his brash style and controversial comments, has his eye on a particular date: March 15. After that day, many of the Republican primaries will be winner-takes-all in terms of delegates. If his five rivals are still in the race at that point, they will be splitting the anti-Trump vote -- and increasing his chances of winning the nomination. On the eve of the primary, Trump led with about 28 percent of likely Republicans voters backing him, according to an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll. The ultra-conservative Cruz followed with 23 percent. Trailing were Senator Marco Rubio at 15 percent and former Florida governor Jeb Bush at 13 percent. Rubio and Bush are under intense pressure to fare well Saturday, as is Ohio Governor John Kasich and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, whose campaign has struggled to gain ground. Bush, who has enlisted his famous family to help his flagging cause, visited a voting station in Greenville, South Carolina with his 90-year-old mother Barbara. Carson, for his part, appealed to voters in a Fox News interview not to let the election become a choice between "the lesser of two evils." "You don't understand South Carolina politics. It's horrible," said Edwin Pearlstine, a retired beer distributor and brewery owner who voted for Kasich even while conceding the Ohio governor has little chance of winning. If Trump wins the Republican nomination, he said, "I got a pretty place right on the beach in the Bahamas. I'll just go stay there." In the past week Trump repeatedly called Cruz a liar, and his attorneys even sent the senator a cease-and-desist letter over a TV ad that uses a 1999 interview in which Trump said he was "very pro-choice" on abortion rights. Trump has since changed his stance on the sensitive issue. - Clinton bets on immigration - To the west, in the desert state of Nevada, Democrats will caucus -- group themselves together by candidate to voice their support -- starting at 11 am (1900 GMT). Both Clinton and Sanders have been working hard to reach out to the African-Americans, Hispanics and Asian-Americans that make up roughly half of the state's population. Clinton, who won by a hair in Iowa but was crushed by Sanders in New Hampshire, is counting on a major Hispanic voter turnout, especially among Las Vegas hotel and casino employees. Nevada has some three million residents, and the population is overwhelmingly concentrated in two large urban centers, Las Vegas and Reno. Since Wednesday, the former secretary of state has visited staff at casinos in Las Vegas, where workers can "caucus" right on the famous Strip. Clinton says she is the natural Latino ally on immigration, and if elected she promises a quick path to citizenship for those in the country illegally. The former first lady, 68, has relentlessly attacked Sanders for voting against immigration reform in 2007. Sanders, however, said the measure gave little protection for foreign "guest workers," and that he voted for a 2013 immigration reform bill that died due to Republican opposition. "As president, I will do everything that I can to pass immigration reform and a path toward citizenship for those who today are undocumented," Sanders, 74, said Thursday on MSNBC. Clinton claims that Sanders is offering impractical, pie-in-the-sky ideas. - Sanders's 1963 arrest - But Sanders's camp is convinced that young minority voters will back him. Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, is hoping that his own civil rights activist background will attract young voters. The Chicago Tribune on Friday unearthed a 1963 photo of a 21-year-old Sanders being hauled away by police during a protest against Chicago school segregation. "Bernie identified it himself," campaign adviser Tad Devine told the Tribune. At the time Sanders was charged with resisting arrest, found guilty and fined $25. Polling ahead of the South Carolina votes, as of February 17 Kun Tian, Alain Bommenel (AFP) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump told voters at a North Charleston rally: "It's crunch time, folks" Jim Watson (AFP) Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, pictured with his wife Heidi, has 23 percent of likely Republicans voters backing him, behind Donald Trump with about 28 percent according to an NBC-Wall Street Journal poll Jim Watson (AFP) Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio greets supporters as he arrives to speak at a campaign rally in North Charleston, South Carolina, February 19, 2016 Jim Watson (AFP) Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (L) listens while her husband and former US president Bill Clinton speaks at a campaign event in Las Vegas, Nevada on February 19, 2016 Josh Edelson (AFP) Guinea general strike ends after successful government talks A general strike that paralysed the Guinean capital and other cities for four days was cancelled on Friday, a trade union coalition said, after reaching a comprehensive agreement with the government. Union leaders were demanding that prices of basic commodities and fuel be lowered, as well as disputing workers' pay. The powerful Syndicated Union of Workers of Guinea (USTG) and National Confederation of Workers of Guinea (CNTG) said at a rally in Conakry that the vast majority of their demands had been met. People walk by closed stores in a street of Conakry, on February 15, 2016, at the beginning of a nation-wide general strike in Guinea, with unions calling for lower fuel prices and better pay conditions Cellou Binani (AFP/File) Sixteen trade union members arrested during clashes with police had also been released, spokesman for the unions Mamadou Mansare said. The sole sticking point was on fuel prices, Masare said, leaving open the possibility of a resumption of the strike. A CNTG representative said negotiations were ongoing with the government. A major police presence was visible in Conakry through the week and schools were closed. Canadian ex-diplomat's son sentenced to boot camp in US murder case A Canadian ex-diplomat's teenage son who was charged with murder over a Miami drug shootout, has been sentenced to boot camp, according to a plea deal released Friday. Under the agreement, Marc Wabafiyebazu, who was charged with first-degree murder after his older brother and one other person died in the episode, pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for six months of boot camp and two years of house arrest. "Today, it's the mother who is the happiest in the world because I get to have my son back," said his mother Roxanne Dube, who left her job as Canadian consul general after the shootout. She has said she will stay in Miami with her son. Police say the Wabafiyebazu brothers drove a vehicle with diplomatic plates to a house in a residential neighborhood, entered armed, and tried to steal a kilo of marijuana Joe Raedle (Getty/AFP/File) Wabafiyebazu, 15, was charged with multiple counts over the March drug steal that turned into a shootout. He and his brother, John, had come to live with their mother in Miami only weeks beforehand. Police say the brothers drove a vehicle with diplomatic plates to a house in a residential neighborhood, entered armed, and tried to steal a kilo of marijuana. The operation went wrong and a shootout took place between the boys and the drug dealers, killing one of the dealers and 17-year-old John. Two others were wounded in the shootings. Wabafiyebazu pleaded guilty to third-degree felony murder, attempted armed robbery and aggravated battery under his plea deal. According to the defense, Wabafiyebazu stayed in the car while his brother tried to carry out the theft, then shot into the air to draw the attention of police. Authorities said Wabafiyebazu had been charged with murder because under Florida law, defendants accused of committing certain felonies can also be charged with murder if someone dies during the crime. Ex-Black Panther freed after 43 years in solitary confinement A former Black Panther activist who spent a record 43 years in solitary confinement was freed from a US prison after decades of legal battles to prove his innocence. Albert Woodfox is the last of the "Angola Three" activists to taste freedom in a case which provoked outrage among rights groups. A federal judge had ordered Woodfox's unconditional release in June in a strongly-worded ruling that barred any further trial on charges of murdering prison guard Brent Miller. An undated picture released on June 10, 2015 by Amnesty International in Paris, shows Albert Woodfox Woodfox twice managed to overturn his conviction for the crime, but Louisiana's attorney general had been determined to pursue a third trial and managed to bar Woodfox's release on appeal. He won his freedom Friday by pleading "no contest" to two lesser charges in a deal which allowed him to be released on his 69th birthday. "Although I was looking forward to proving my innocence at a new trial, concerns about my health and my age have caused me to resolve this case now and obtain my release with this no-contest plea to lesser charges," Woodfox said in a statement. "I hope the events of today will bring closure to many." The plea is not an admission of guilt but instead a legal maneuver in which he "does not contest that the State would present evidence at a new trial from witnesses who said he committed this crime," his lawyers said. - Obama pushes reforms - Lousiana's Attorney General Jeff Landry said in a statement that the plea deal brought "finality" and "closure" to the long drawn out case, adding that the arrangement "is in the best interest of justice." "Albert Woodfox, by his own plea, stands convicted of the homicide of Brent Miller. In accordance with that plea, he was sentenced to 42 years of incarceration and given credit for time served," Landry said. President Barack Obama's spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Friday that the US leader is convinced that solitary confinement should be used "appropriately and sparingly." Obama, who recently introduced a ban on solitary confinement for juveniles in federal prisons, is pushing to introduce broader reforms to America's overcrowded correctional system -- including a drastic reduction in the practice of solitary confinement in federal prisons. "If our ultimate goal of our criminal justice system is to give people a second chance, after they've paid their debt to society, we're basically setting them up to fail if we don't take seriously the long-term negative consequences of prolonged solitary confinement," Earnest said. "The kind of reforms that the president put forward are the kind of reforms that can only be implemented in the federal prison system," he said. The Angola Three said they were targeted by prison officials because they spoke out against inhumane treatment and racial segregation at the notorious Louisiana prison built on a former slave plantation. Woodfox and Herman Wallace, who were sent to Angola for unrelated cases of armed robbery, were convicted of the Rogers murder in 1972. Wallace was released in 2013 and died shortly thereafter from cancer. Robert King, the third member of the group, spent 29 years in solitary until his conviction for a separate prison murder was overturned in 2001. - 'Extreme and cruel punishment' - Woodfox's attorney George Kendall called his client's long imprisonment "inhumane." "Albert survived the extreme and cruel punishment of 40 plus years in solitary confinement only because of his extraordinary strength and character," Kendall said in a statement. "These inhumane practices must stop. We hope the Louisiana Department of Corrections will reform and greatly limit its use of solitary confinement -- as have an increasing number of jurisdictions around the country." The case of the Angola Three has brought attention to the psychological toll of solitary confinement, which typically means being locked in a tiny cell for 23 hours a day. Researchers have found that depriving someone of visual stimulation, human interaction, sunlight or physical activity can change their brain structure in a matter of days. Yet many of the 80,000 people estimated to be in solitary confinement in US prisons have been there for years on end. "Today should also mark a pivotal new chapter in reforming the use of prolonged solitary confinement in US prisons and jails," said Jasmine Heiss, a campaigner with Amnesty International USA. "Moving forward, Woodfox's case must serve as a tragic reminder of the cruelty inflicted by the prison system at its most extreme." Startup Targets: Avoid Money Laundering Schemes You have a great new idea for a business and you meet a potential investor. This person, unlike most people you meet, seems exceptionally eager to part with money. Your investor wants to put cash into your legitimate business, which is great ... maybe, if this investor isn't shady. Watching TV you've seen money laundering schemes dramatized. But how do you spot such crimes in real life? Placement, Layering, Integration There are three stages to a money laundering scheme, according to Entrepreneur, and startups are particularly susceptible targets. The stages are: placement, layering, and integration. First an investor (read criminal) puts illegal gains into circulation by placing them in small shops and businesses. Because authorities target very large-scale money laundering operations, criminals who use small, young businesses to launder money can evade scrutiny quite easily. Second, the money is layered. In other words, money from illegal sources is separated and spread around in a number of legitimate businesses, giving the impression that they are more profitable. This leads to the final step, integration, or cooking a bunch of books to make it look like these cash infusions have been earned legitimately through the businesses that receive them. Targeting Startups and Small Biz New businesses are susceptible to such schemes. You need enthusiastic investors and who are you to turn down someone who believes in your dreams? You are someone who wants to be in business a long time and to do deals that are legal. So you will have to turn down a great offer from an investor if you can't ensure this person's also playing clean. This preserves your integrity, dreams, and possibly freedom, too. There are funding alternatives. You can look to legitimate lenders for small business and startup loans, seek investment from people you know, find niche resources for your industry, and look to government agencies for programs that promote or invest in you or your type of business. If you cannot come up with the funds to adequately run your business, the US Small Business Administration suggests waiting to begin. Most small businesses fail within 2 years due to insufficient funding, making a generous investor seem like exactly what you need. But you've watched TV, so you know doing business with shady characters will end badly. Consult With Counsel If you are interested in starting a business or curious about alternative funding sources, get guidance. Speak to an attorney. Follow FindLaw for Consumers on Google+. Related Resources: Russia fails in UN bid to rein in Turkey over Syria Western powers rejected a Russian bid at the United Nations to halt Turkey's military actions in Syria, as France warned of a dangerous escalation in the nearly five-year conflict. The emergency Security Council meeting came as US Secretary of State John Kerry cautioned there was "a lot more work to do" for a ceasefire to take hold in Syria, following talks in Geneva between American and Russian officials. Meanwhile President Barack Obama, in a phone call with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, urged the Ankara government and Kurdish YPG forces to "show reciprocal restraint" in northern Syria. New recruits practice on February 16, 2016 in a rebel-held area of the northern city of Aleppo before fighting with opposition fighters Karam al-Masri (AFP/File) The elusive truce was meant to begin Friday, but failed to materialize as fighting raged in Syria with Kurdish-led forces backed by US-led air power seizing a key town from the Islamic State group. Russia, which has been carrying out air strikes in support of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad's forces, has urged the UN to press Turkey to halt its shelling of Kurdish forces in the country's north. Moscow presented a draft resolution that "strongly demands" an immediate end to cross-border shellings and plans -- supported by Turkey -- for foreign ground intervention in Syria. But the text failed to garner support from key council members with at least six countries including veto-wielding France and the United States rejecting it outright during a closed-door meeting, diplomats said. US Ambassador Samantha Power accused Moscow of trying to "distract the world" from its air campaign in support of the Syrian regime and urged it to abide by UN resolutions supporting a peace process. "Russia must understand that its unconditional support to Bashar al-Assad is a dead-end and a dead-end that could be extremely dangerous," French Ambassador Francois Delattre said. "We are facing a dangerous military escalation that could easily get out of control and lead us to uncharted territory," he said. Turkey is pressing for a joint ground operation in Syria with its international allies, insisting it is the only way to stop the war. Turkish Ambassador Yasar Halit Cevik said his country was facing "national security threats emanating from Syria" in reference to the Kurdish militias it is targeting in the country's north. Amid the surge in fighting, UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura said a new round of peace talks scheduled for February 25 was unlikely. - Kurds seize town from IS - In his call with Erdogan, Obama stressed that Kurdish YPG forces "should not seek to exploit circumstances in this area to seize additional territory, and urged Turkey to show reciprocal restraint by ceasing artillery strikes in the area," a White House statement said. Obama, in an apparent reference to Russia, also "urgently called for a halt to actions that heighten tensions with Turkey and with moderate opposition forces in northern Syria, and undermine our collective efforts in northern Syria to degrade and defeat ISIL." French President Francois Hollande said Ankara's escalating involvement in the conflict was creating a risk of war between Turkey and Russia. "Turkey is involved in Syria... There, there is a risk of war," Hollande told France Inter radio. On the ground, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance -- which groups the powerful Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and smaller Arab groups -- seized the northeastern town of Al-Shadadi from IS, with backing from US-led air strikes, a monitor and Kurdish sources said. Al-Shadadi was the largest town controlled by IS in Hasake province, and the defeat extends earlier losses for the jihadists there. SDF forces earlier seized a nearby oilfield from IS and cut the routes from Al-Shadadi to Mosul in neighboring Iraq as well as IS's de facto Syrian capital Raqa. The SDF began a new operation in Hasakeh on Tuesday, following major advances by its forces in northern Aleppo province, where it has seized territory from Syrian rebel groups. Its advances in Aleppo have angered Turkey, which says the YPG is the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), an outlawed group that has waged a decades-long insurgency against Ankara. Turkey has carried out nearly a week of shelling against SDF positions in Aleppo, intensifying its fire Friday and expanding it to target the Kurdish town of Afrin, where two civilians were killed, the Observatory said. Ankara fears the SDF advance in Aleppo province is intended to connect Kurdish-held areas in northern and northeastern Syria, creating an autonomous Kurdish region along much of its southern border. - TAK claims Ankara bombing - On Friday, Erdogan repeated accusations that the YPG was behind a Wednesday bombing in Ankara that killed 28 people. The YPG denied the charges. However the little-known Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), a group linked to the PKK, claimed responsibility, saying it was revenge for military operations in southeast Turkey. The group warned foreign tourists not to visit the country. The PKK says the TAK is a splinter group over which it has no control. The TAK rose to prominence after it claimed that it fired mortar shells on Istanbul's Sabiha Gokcen airport on December 23. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir meanwhile raised the prospect that Syrian rebels could be supplied with surface-to-air missiles, though he said it was not a decision Riyadh would take alone. Syria's conflict is now approaching its sixth year, with more than 260,000 people killed and half the population displaced. Smoke billows following reported air strikes by Syrian government forces in a rebel-held area of Daraa in southern Syria, on February 17, 2016 Mohamad Abd Abazid (AFP/File) Fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces guard a post on the outskirts of the northeastern town of Al-Hol, in the Syrian Hasakeh province on November 7, 2015 Delil Souleiman (AFP/File) Members of the civil defence pull a boy out from under the rubble of a building following air strikes by suspected Russian warplanes, in Aleppo on February 16, 2016 Thaer Mohammed (AFP/File) But critics say it will make the police force in Virginia less accountable Supporters say it will protect officers who are facing threats to safety Officials in Virginia are to consider a bill that would see the names of police officers be kept secret from the media and public. The bill was introduced in response to a recent court ruling directing the state to turn over the names and employment dates of thousands of law enforcement officials to newspaper The Virginian-Pilot. The paper has said it's seeking to determine whether problem officers who leave a department land a job at another agency. Republican senator John Cosgrove, who has backed a bill in Virginia to keep the names of police officers secret But the bill has been drawing sharp criticism from open records advocates who say the names are an important tool in keeping watch over whether police departments are hiring problem officers with taxpayer money. While supporters say handing over the lists of names would put officers and deputies in danger at a time of what they describe as growing contempt toward law enforcement. Republican senator John Cosgrove said: 'It used to be that there was a healthy respect for law enforcement. Now they've become targets of opportunity.' The measure would also have broad implications, critics suggested, and perhaps even allow officers to refuse to tell someone their name during a traffic stop. Cosgrove also said he believed that rank-and-file officers would let the public know if nepotism or corruption was occurring in a department But Cosgrove dismissed that idea and said he would work with opponents to tailor the bill, if necessary. He also said he believed that rank-and-file officers would let the public know if nepotism or corruption was occurring in a department. He stressed that his bill wouldn't prevent localities from turning over police officers' names if they so choose. But Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government added: 'You're getting paid by the public. You don't get to do that in secret. If the law passes, there may be little recourse to challenging it in court because the state can essentially make whatever rules it wants to when it comes to the Freedom of Information Act, said Claire Guthrie Gastanaga, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia, which opposes the bill. The bill passed Virginia's GOP-controlled Senate by a 25-15 vote this month, but still needs to get through the House of Delegates, where Republicans also hold the majority. The bill passed Virginia's GOP-controlled Senate by a 25-15 vote this month, but still needs to get through the House of Delegates, where Republicans also hold the majority. It's being backed by all of the major law enforcement associations, including the Virginia State Police Association and the Virginia Sheriffs' Association. John Jones, executive director of the sheriffs' group, said he believes that the concerns about the bill are unfounded. He explained: 'With social media and all the databases, once you get the name and a little bit more information ... you can pretty much get a picture of who they are. 'And with everything going on with law enforcement... it's an officer safety issue.' A spokesman for Governor Terry McAuliffe would not say whether he would sign the measure. Jurors in stolen baby trial won't hear about cause of death BOULDER, Colo. (AP) Jurors in the trial of a woman charged with cutting an unborn baby out of another woman's womb will not hear testimony about the cause and manner of the baby's death, the judge ruled Thursday. Attorneys for defendant Dynel Lane argued the information would be unduly prejudicial to her, the Longmont Times-Call reported (http://tinyurl.com/zvoc6j7 ). Jurors were not in the courtroom when Judge Maria Berkenkotter heard the arguments and made her ruling. Lane is charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault and unlawful termination of a pregnancy in the March 2015 attack on Michelle Wilkins in Longmont. Longmont Det. Mark Deaton holds up evidence for the jury during the trial of Dynel Lane in Boulder Colorado District courtroom on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016 in Boulder, Colo. Lane was charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault and unlawful termination of a pregnancy. (Matthew Jonas/Daily Camera via AP) NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT MBO Defense attorney Jennifer Beck argued Lane wasn't charged with any crime against the unborn girl, so the fetus was not legally a victim and details of the death weren't relevant to the case. District Attorney Stan Garnett said earlier that prosecutors couldn't charge Lane in the baby's death because a coroner found no evidence the fetus lived outside the womb. That angered conservatives in the Colorado Legislature, who had previously tried but failed to enact a law making it a crime to kill a fetus. Colorado's law against unlawful termination of a pregnancy was a compromise that stemmed from earlier debates on the issue. Lane is accused of luring the nearly eight-months-pregnant Wilkins to her house by advertising free maternity clothes, then cutting the baby from her abdomen and claiming the child was her own. The baby, a girl, was declared dead after Lane and her boyfriend took her to the hospital. Wilkins lost consciousness after the attack, but she came to and called 911. She was rushed to the same hospital, where she underwent surgery lasting several hours, Dr. Kevin Berg testified Thursday. Berg said Wilkins might have lost more than half her blood. Garnett said Lane was obsessed with pregnancy and pretended she was expecting. Police Detective Sara Pierce testified Thursday that Lane told some people through Facebook she had given birth to a baby boy, while telling others she was still pregnant but overdue. Pierce, who specializes in computer forensics, also said she did not find any Internet searches involving cesarean section operations. Earlier in the day, Dr. Brian Nelson, a surgeon who operated on Wilkins, said the C-section Lane is accused of performing was "pretty decent." Defense attorneys say Lane attacked Wilkins on impulse and didn't intend to kill her. ___ Information from: Daily Times-Call, http://timescall.com/ ___ Information from: Daily Times-Call, http://timescall.com/ Longmont Det. Mark Deaton holds up evidence for the jury during the trial of Dynel Lane in Boulder Colorado District courtroom on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016 in Boulder, Colo. Lane was charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault and unlawful termination of a pregnancy. (Matthew Jonas/Daily Camera via AP) NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT Longmont Det. Mark Deaton holds up evidence for the jury during the trial of Dynel Lane in Boulder Colorado District courtroom on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016 in Boulder, Colo. Lane was charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault and unlawful termination of a pregnancy. (Matthew Jonas/Daily Camera via AP) NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT Longmont Det. Mark Deaton holds up evidence for the jury during the trial of Dynel Lane in Boulder Colorado District courtroom on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016 in Boulder, Colo. Lane was charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault and unlawful termination of a pregnancy. (Matthew Jonas/Daily Camera via AP) NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT Det. Stacey Graham hangs up a piece of evidence during the trial of Dynel Lane in Boulder Colorado District courtroom on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016 in Boulder, Colo. Lane was charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault and unlawful termination of a pregnancy. (Matthew Jonas/Daily Camera via AP) NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT Longmont Det. Mark Deaton points out stains on a mattress pad during the trial of Dynel Lane in Boulder Colorado District courtroom on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016 in Boulder, Colo. Lane was charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault and unlawful termination of a pregnancy. (Matthew Jonas/Daily Camera via AP) NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT From left, Defense attorneys Kathryn Herold and Jen Beck sit with Dynel Lane during Lane's trial in Boulder Colorado District courtroom on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016 in Boulder, Colo. Lane was charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault and unlawful termination of a pregnancy. (Matthew Jonas/Daily Camera via AP) NO SALES; MANDATORY CREDIT Michelle Wilkins reacts as she testifies in a Boulder District courtroom in Boulder, Colo., Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016. Wilkins, who had her baby cut from her womb by someone she just met, testified Wednesday she told herself she had to survive for the sake of her unborn daughter and tried to fight back. (Matthew Jonas/The Daily Times Call via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT At Oscars, the name on lips and envelopes is 'Chivo' NEW YORK (AP) No name resonates in Hollywood right now quite like "Chivo." That's the nickname of the famed cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, whose acrobatic long-takes and luminous images of natural light have made him revered like few others and may make him a three-peat Oscar winner. Lubezki is behind some of the most dazzling film photography in recent years: the asteroid storm hurtling through the vast 3-D space of "Gravity," the seemingly continuous backstage sweep of "Birdman," the elemental beauty of Terrence Malick's films. His audacious, real-time sequences have made him synonymous with a seamless magic not before seen in cinema. This photo provided by courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox shows, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki on set for the film, "The Revenant," directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. No name is more feverishly celebrated in Hollywood right now than "Chivo." That's the nickname of the famed cinematographer Lubezki, whose acrobatic long-takes and luminous natural images of natural light have made him revered -- and may make him a three-peat Oscar winner for "Gravity," ''Birdman" and now "The Revenant." The Oscars will be presented on Feb. 28, 2016, in Los Angeles. (Kimberley French/Twentieth Century Fox via AP) "I think it was John Huston who said, 'When I shoot a whale, I shoot the face and then I cut and I shoot the tail. And everybody understands there's a whale,'" says Lubezki. "But sometimes when you show the entire whale and when you show the parts that seem not as important, there's a deeper connection." After winning Academy Awards the last two years for Alfonso Cuaron's "Gravity" and Alejandro Inarritu's "Birdman," Lubezki is up this year for Inarritu's frontier epic "The Revenant," and he's expected to win. Much of the film's acclaim (it leads with 12 nominations), is owed to its lush immersion in a raw, 19th century wilderness (it was shot largely in the Canadian Rockies) and its balletic single-take sequences, most famously the single-take bear attack. Yet Lubezki is as modest as the cinematography of "The Revenant" is grand. "I don't know if I'm an incredible cinematographer but I'm definitely a craftsman that is trying to find a language for each project and that's what's really exciting for me," he says. "When you feel that it's working, it's a very powerful feeling. Sometimes you cannot even sleep at night because you're so excited." Lubezki has worked with the Coen brothers ("Burn After Reading"), Michael Mann ("Ali") and Tim Burton ("Sleepy Hollow"). But the two directors he's most steadfastly collaborated with are Malick ("He has affected me more than almost anybody," says Lubezki) and Cuaron. Lubezki and Cuaron met as teenage film students in Mexico City. Together, they frequented a local art house theater watching films by Kurosawa, Tarkovsky and Coppola that were sometimes accidentally projected in full-screen prints that showed the apparatus of moviemaking, like boom mics and lights. Lubezki, who first wanted to be a still photographer, was converted to movies a week into film school. Cuaron recalls it as an organic marriage: "He was one with the media." "He would be fascinated by light," says Cuaron. "What makes him among the great cinematographers is he understands film as a language. The conventional way of seeing cinematography is just a set of tools." In films like 2001's "Y Tu Mama Tambien" and 2006's "Children of Men," Cuaron and Lubezki have pushed the bounds of long, fluid takes by utilizing smaller digital cameras and the flexibility of Steadicams. "I remember in 'Y Tu Mama Tambien,' we started talking about just letting the shot last until the natural consequence," says Cuaron. "From then on, I guess, it was very difficult to go back." Lubezki has been at the forefront of a trend in movies that favors the visceral realism of long takes over montage. Filmmakers like Steve McQueen ("12 Years a Slave") and Cary Fukunaga ("True Detective") have also pushed further than the fabled long takes of Orson Welles' "Touch of Evil" or Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope." Such feats risk showiness, but in Lubezki's hands, they can be jarringly immersive, presented through a crisp digital window. Scenes like the Arikara ambush of the company of trappers early in "The Revenant" play out in real time, smack in the middle of a 360-degree storm of action. The tense silence beforehand, the mayhem of battle and the fleeing retreat down a river all unfold without a single blink. Lubezki cautions "this wonderful trick" must always come out of the material, (in "The Godfather," he notes, it would be disastrous). And it depends on a director who knows how to block the scene. But he does sense a shift in the language of film. "When you create these long shots, it feels to me as if I was transported there. It feels more dangerous and more mysterious," says Lubezki. "Cutting and shooting with multiple cameras and so on was so effective 10 years ago but is maybe not as effective anymore as a trick. Probably this trick of the long take will become old in a few years, too, and we'll need to come up with another trick." But Lubezki is by no means a one-trick pony. His films with Malick (including "Tree of Life" and the upcoming "Knight of Cups") are impressionistic and fragmented. Drawn to real environments and eschewing artificial light, he's ushered in a more naturalistic kind of moviemaking that can verge on the sublime. "Maybe," he says, "there's something that suddenly trickles into the movie that feels spiritual, that feels connected to something larger." ___ Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP This photo provided by courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox shows, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki , left, and Forrest Goodluck as Hawk on set for the film, "The Revenant," directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. No name is more feverishly celebrated in Hollywood right now than "Chivo." That's the nickname of the famed cinematographer Lubezki, whose acrobatic long-takes and luminous natural images of natural light have made him revered -- and may make him a three-peat Oscar winner for "Gravity," ''Birdman" and now "The Revenant." The Oscars will be presented on Feb. 28, 2016, in Los Angeles. (Kimberley French/Twentieth Century Fox via AP) FILE - In this Monday, Feb. 8, 2016 file photo, Emmanuel Lubezki arrives at the 88th Academy Awards Nominees Luncheon at The Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. No name is more feverishly celebrated in Hollywood right now than "Chivo." That's the nickname of the famed cinematographer Lubezki, whose acrobatic long-takes and luminous natural images of natural light have made him revered -- and may make him a three-peat Oscar winner for "Gravity," ''Birdman" and now "The Revenant." (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP) The Latest: Oregon House approves minimum wage increase SALEM, Ore. (AP) The Latest on a debate to raise the minimum wage in in Oregon using a three-tiered system (all times local): 4:15 p.m. The Oregon House of Representatives has approved landmark legislation that not only raises the state's minimum wage for all workers to the highest level in the country, but does so through an unprecedented three-tiered system that sets different rates by geographic region. Protesters pound on the walls outside of the House Chamber in the Capitol Building, in Salem , Ore., on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. The group were protesting for a higher minimum wage, local control of rent control laws, and an end to Oregon Department of Transportation sweeps of homeless camps. (AP Photo/Timothy J. Gonzalez) Senate Bill 1532 passed Thursday, mostly along party lines in a narrow 32-26 vote. It will now go to Democratic Gov. Kate Brown for final signoff. Brown has said she supports the proposal. The bill will increase wages gradually over six years. By 2022, the state's current $9.25 an hour minimum_already one of the highest in the nation_would climb to $14.75 in metro Portland, $13.50 in smaller cities such as Salem and Eugene, and $12.50 in rural communities. A regional approach would balance the needs of rapidly growing Portland with Oregon's struggling farming communities, long separated from the state's largest city by economic, cultural and political differences. --- 2:45 p.m. Demonstrators marched through the Oregon state Capitol on Thursday calling for higher minimum wage, among a list of other demands. The state House of Representatives was debating a proposal to raise Oregon's minimum wage based on three geographic divisions. At one point, demonstrators banged on a wall. No one was escorted away. Representatives are expected to vote on the bill today. The state Senate already has approved a plan to start series of gradual increases over six years. Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, also said she supports the plan. Oregon's current_$9.25 an hour minimum_already is one of the highest in the nation. By 2022, it would go up to $14.75 in metro Portland, $13.50 in smaller cities and $12.50 in rural communities by 2022. The demonstrators also called for an end to sweeps of Oregon homeless camps and for rent control laws to fall under local jurisdictions. ___ 11:35 a.m. Debate has begun in the Oregon House of Representatives over a unique proposal that would set the state's minimum wage based on three geographic divisions. It also would make Oregon's minimum wage for all workers the highest in the U.S., according to D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute. The House is expected to take a vote on the bill this afternoon. If approved, it would start a series of gradual increases over six years: Oregon's current $9.25 an hour minimum - already one of the highest in the nation - would jump to $14.75 in metro Portland, $13.50 in smaller cities and $12.50 in rural communities by 2022. A regional approach would balance the needs of rapidly Portland with the Oregon's struggling farming communities, long separated from the state's largest city by economic, cultural and political differences. Division over the minimum wage - currently at $7.25 in federal law - is often split along party lines and pits low-wage workers against business groups, as has been seen in Oregon this year. Protesters march through the Capitol Building, in Salem , Ore., on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. They were protesting for a higher minimum wage, local control of rent control laws, and an end to Oregon Department of Transportation sweeps of homeless camps. (AP Photo/Timothy J. Gonzalez) Review: 'Risen' tells resurrection tale through a skeptic Modern faith-based films don't have a stellar track record when it comes to quality. But they seem to both serve their intended audience and make money along the way, and, because of that, are given an implicit pass to exist somewhere outside of the expectations placed on traditional films. That's why "Risen" is such an interesting and even promising departure. It looks and feels like a film that just happens to fit into the faith-based genre instead of a faith-based infomercial that sort of resembles a film at least at first. That's all credit to writer/director Kevin Reynolds, whose past films include "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," ''Waterworld" and "The Count of Monte Cristo." With "Risen," Reynolds has endeavored to make a more classical biblical epic told in an original way as a bureaucratic investigation into the resurrection. In this image provided by Columbia Pictures, Joseph Fiennes as Clavius leads his Roman soldiers during the zealot battle in Columbia Pictures' "Risen." The movie opens in U.S. theaters nationwide Feb. 19, 2016. (Rosie Collins/Columbia Pictures via AP) Joseph Fiennes' Clavius anchors the story an ambitious, unsentimental Roman soldier who is helping Pontius Pilate (a funny, exasperated Peter Firth) deal with his Nazarene problem. Clavius is just an agent of his bosses, carrying out tasks with the hopes of eventually making it to Rome, where he hopes to find wealth, power and a good family. We see him go straight from battle to the crucifixion of the man who has caused such a stir in Judea as though he's just checking tasks off a list. Clavius speeds up with crucifixion by ordering the body punctured, which seems to be the end of it, but of course all goes to hell when Jesus's dead body (they refer to him here as either the Nazarene or Yeshua) goes missing from the tomb, and Clavius is on the hook for tracking it down. The stakes are no less than Clavius's future and Pilate's control. The film progresses from there much like a police procedural. With a skeptical eye and a green right-hand apprentice to teach ("Harry Potter's" Tom Felton), Clavius rounds up suspects and interested parties to try to find out what happened to the body the feckless soldiers who were guarding the tomb, an elderly blind lady, Mary Magdalene (Spanish actress Maria Botto), and a hippie dope. There's almost a "Dragnet" wit to things as Clavius questions the eccentrics and zealots brought to tears by the mere thought of the miracle. And it all works fairly well. Reynolds has not phoned this effort in and avoids the preachy cliches that so many modern faith-based efforts take as canon. Besides keeping a sense of humor about itself, "Risen" looks good too. Filmed in Spain and Malta, the dusty, sun-battered landscapes evoke the ancient setting of this remote outpost. Fiennes also does a nice job of keeping things grounded, but everything changes when Clavius sees Yeshua (played by New Zealand actor Cliff Curtis) alive and well and hanging out with the Apostles he'd dismissed as quacks. He's not an immediate convert, but this begins his transition from hard-boiled cynic to weepy believer. It's in this third act that "Risen" devolves in both story and artfulness and becomes more cheesy Sunday School commercial than film. The inevitability of Clavius's transition is perhaps to blame, making the film feel like two pieces that don't quite fit together. He stops questioning things altogether. The swift and complete transformation simply doesn't ring true for the character. How Joe Friday found his faith is an interesting premise. "Risen" gets halfway there, but it goes into auto-pilot where it matters the most. "Risen," a Columbia Pictures release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for "biblical violence including some disturbing images." Running time: 108 minutes. Two stars out of four. ___ MPAA Definition of PG-13: Parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13. ___ Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr This image provided by Columbia Pictures, shows Joseph Fiennes, center left, as Clavius and Tom Felton, center right, as Lucius in Columbia Pictures' "Risen." The movie opens in U.S. theaters nationwide Feb. 19, 2016. (Rosie Collins/Columbia Pictures via AP) This image provided by Columbia Pictures, shows Tom Felton, left, as Lucius and Joseph Fiennes as Clavius in Columbia Pictures' "Risen." The movie opens in U.S. theaters nationwide Feb. 19, 2016. (Rosie Collins/Columbia Pictures via AP) This image provided by Columbia Pictures shows, Peter Firth, left, as Pontius Pilate and Joseph Fiennes as Clavius in Columbia Pictures' "Risen." The movie opens in U.S. theaters nationwide Feb. 19, 2016. (Rosie Collins/Columbia Pictures via AP) VimpelCom telecom company to pay $795M in US bribery case NEW YORK (AP) One of the world's biggest telecommunications companies will pay $795 million in penalties to resolve claims it paid $114 million in bribes to a government official in Uzbekistan, authorities announced Thursday. The deal with VimpelCom Ltd., the world's sixth-largest telecommunications company, resolves criminal charges stemming from claims that the Amsterdam-based company and a subsidiary, Unitel LLC, used various executives and employees to pay bribes to obtain telecommunications business in Uzbekistan. Unitel LLC, through a lawyer, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court on Thursday to violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Meanwhile, VimpelCom admitted participating in the conspiracy with its subsidiary as it entered into a deferred prosecution agreement, according to a release from U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell. Bharara said VimpelCom built its business in Uzbekistan from 2006 to 2012 on more than $114 million in bribes to a government official. "Those payments, falsely recorded in the company's books and records, were then laundered through bank accounts and assets around the world, including through accounts in New York," he said. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking the forfeiture of $550 million resting in Swiss bank accounts, saying the money represents the proceeds of bribes. Prosecutors said the bribes were paid to an Uzbek government official who was a close relative of a high-ranking government official and who had influence over Uzbek telecommunications industry regulators. The bribes, authorities said, were transmitted through financial institutions in New York and then laundered through accounts held in Latvia, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland. Caldwell said VimpelCom's agreement to pay $795 million in penalties, including giving up $375 million in profits and prejudgment interest, along with the civil action, represented one of the largest forfeiture actions the government had brought to recover bribe proceeds from a corrupt government official. She said VimpelCom also will pay a criminal penalty of $230 million, including a $40 million criminal forfeiture, to the United States and a criminal penalty of $230 million to the Public Prosecution Service of the Netherlands. In a release, VimpelCom's chief executive, Jean-Yves Charlier, said resolving the claims against the company was a top priority. "We are pleased to have now reached settlements with the authorities," Charlier said. "The wrongdoing, which we deeply regret, is unacceptable." Amtrak signal glitches slow down Boston's rail system BOSTON (AP) A malfunctioning signal outside the city's busiest commuter hub triggered massive delays for rail passengers on Thursday, and the problems were expected to continue into the Friday morning commute. Passengers on commuter rail trains from west and south of Boston were forced to get off trains at stops before South Station and transfer to rapid transit lines or walk the remaining distances to their destinations Thursday. The signal is operated by Amtrak, which said track switches were being operated manually, significantly reducing the number of trains that can arrive at or depart from the station. Amtrak also was reporting delays of 30 minutes to 2 hours on some trains departing Boston for destinations on the Northeast Corridor such as New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. With many delays and cancelations posted, travelers watch the train departure board at South Station in Boston, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. Amtrak warned travelers of delays due to a signal problems at South Station. Engineers are working to fix the malfunction, significantly limiting the number of trains entering and leaving Boston, according to Amtrak. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa) The state Department of Transportation said many city commuter rail trains would be unable to access South Station on Friday morning. It said passengers should expect delays throughout the morning commute and allow extra time for free transfers to the subway system. Many trains won't go all the way to South Station but will stop at outlying stations, where passengers can make free connections to other lines. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and commuter rail operator Keolis Commuter Services will have workers at key stations to help guide passengers. A frustrated Gov. Charlie Baker said he was ready to "strangle somebody." "I'm just waiting for somebody who looks like they deserve to be strangled," Baker, a Republican, said during his monthly "Ask The Governor" segment on WGBH-FM. The MBTA canceled several Thursday afternoon commuter trains and announced that only two lines, the Providence/Attleboro and Stoughton lines, would operate out of South Station. Other lines would begin their trips from other Boston-area stations. Angry and often confused commuters tried to figure out the best ways to get home Thursday evening. There were long lines of people at Back Bay Station, the nearest commuter rail stop to South Station, trying to catch trains. Linda Constantine told The Boston Globe she was worried about getting home to Franklin in time to pick up her children. "I left a little early, because I thought it might be crowded," she said. "But, oh, my God, I didn't expect this." A spokeswoman for Keolis, which operates the 394-mile commuter rail network under a contract with the MBTA, apologized to passengers while noting the problem was with equipment operated by Amtrak. Amtrak spokesman Michael Tolbert said the railroad had not been able to pinpoint the cause of the malfunction in the signal, which he described as a switching control that guides trains to the 13 sets of tracks at the station. The signal had been one of Amtrak's most reliable in the past, he added. "We're working as hard and as fast as we can" to resolve the issue, Tolbert said. With many delays and cancelations posted, travelers watch the train departure board at South Station in Boston, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. Amtrak warned travelers of delays due to a signal problems at South Station. Engineers are working to fix the malfunction, significantly limiting the number of trains entering and leaving Boston, according to Amtrak. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa) 10 Things to Know for Friday - 19 February 2016 Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Friday: 1. WHY THE POPE AND DONALD TRUMP DISAGREE Francis says Trump is "not Christian" if he wants to address illegal immigration by building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The GOP candidate says it's "disgraceful" for a religious leader to question someone's faith. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton reacts while meeting with employees of the Rio during a visit to the hotel and casino, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher) 2. THE LATEST ON BERNIE'S BIG NEW HAMPSHIRE WIN Since then, Hillary Clinton has picked up endorsements from convention superdelegates, which dwarf Sanders' total. 3. POPE WEIGHS IN ON ZIKA VIRUS He suggests women threatened with Zika could use artificial contraception, saying "avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil" in the face of the global health emergency. 4. OBAMA'S PLANS TO VISIT CUBA DRAWS RESPONSE The announcement elicits hopeful cheers in Havana but equally emphatic condemnation from U.S. lawmakers and Republican presidential candidates. 5. TURKEY RESPONDS TO SUICIDE BOMBING IN ANKARA Ankara blames Kurdish militant groups at home and in Syria for deadly attack and increases pressure on the U.S. to sever ties with the Syrian Kurdish militia that has been a key force against IS. 6. HOW ONE STATE IS TRAILBLAZING A NATIONAL DEBATE OVER MINIMUM WAGE Oregon's House of Representatives approves an unprecedented three-tiered system that sets different rates by region. 7. AN OLD IDEA GETS NEW TRACTION The topic of limiting the service of Supreme Court justices is revived following the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia. 8. POPE COMMENTS ON BISHOP BEHAVIOR He says any bishop who moves a suspected pedophile priest from parish to parish should resign. 9. BAYLOR REVEALS AN UNUSUAL APPROACH TO CAMPUS SEX ASSAULT ALLEGATIONS The university didn't report a single instance in a four-year span, a finding that represents a sharp contrast to reports at other private schools in the U.S. 10. WHO IS "CHIVO"? That's the nickname of cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, whose work may make him a three-peat Oscar winner for "Gravity," ''Birdman" and now "The Revenant." Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign stop, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016, in Kiawah Island, S.C. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Can scientists prove Zika virus is causing birth defects? NEW YORK (AP) Scientists suspect an outbreak of the Zika virus is behind a surge in a rare birth defect in Brazil. But how are they going to prove it? Authorities in the South American country were quick to make the link last fall. The health minister last week said he was "absolutely sure" that the mosquito-borne virus is a cause. But others aren't so certain. While the evidence has been mounting, so far it is circumstantial. FILE - In this Friday, Feb. 12, 2016 file photo, Lara, who is less then 3-months old and was born with microcephaly, is examined by a neurologist at the Pedro I hospital in Campina Grande, Paraiba state, Brazil. Scientists suspect an outbreak of the Zika virus is behind a surge in a rare birth defect in Brazil. But how are they going to prove it? Authorities in the South American country were quick to make the link last fall. But experts say the evidence is still circumstantial. Several studies are underway in Zika outbreak countries to see if the mosquito-borne virus is the actual case. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File) "The simple presence of the virus doesn't mean it caused the birth defect. It means there's a probability," said Dr. Arnold Monto, a University of Michigan epidemiologist. The investigation is still in its early stages. It began after Brazilian doctors noticed an increase last fall in babies with a birth defect called microcephaly, which has a number of causes. The cases closely followed the country's first outbreak of the tropical virus Zika, which was thought to cause no more than a mild illness that clears up in a week. Microcephaly hadn't been seen in past Zika outbreaks. Babies with the condition have a smaller than normal head and often have a smaller brain that hasn't developed properly. Lab tests have detected the virus in the brain tissue of a few babies with microcephaly. Proving the cause is a bit like prosecuting a murder investigation, with Zika as the apparent killer but a lot of unanswered questions, said Dr. Ernesto Marques, a University of Pittsburgh microbiologist who is collaborating with Brazilian researchers. "What you have so far, the victim is there, and you find a person right there that has a smoking gun in his hand," Marques said. "But you still need to close the deal." The investigation poses special challenges. There's currently no good animal substitute for humans to study the virus. And it's not considered ethical to infect people, especially pregnant women, in an experiment to see what happens not when there seems to be a real chance that a volunteer could be seriously harmed. So researchers are turning to other kinds of studies to try to establish whether Zika or some other factor is causing the birth defect or, also, a paralyzing condition called Guillain-Barre. Five Latin America countries with Zika outbreaks are reporting an uptick in that condition in adults. One method is quick-and-dirty research called a case-control study, which looks back in time after an illness or condition has occurred. For the birth defect research, that means recruiting a group of women with babies born with microcephaly and trying to sort out what may have happened during their pregnancy to spark the condition. For comparison, they will query women whose infants don't have the birth defect. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is involved in one such a study set to start next week in the Brazilian state of Paraiba. It will focus on 100 babies with microcephaly and at least 200 more without. Investigators will take blood samples from the mothers to check for signs of an earlier Zika infection. They also will ask not only about Zika infections but other possible factors, like other germs or poisons in the environment. Some experts suggest that perhaps Zika needs an accomplice like malnutrition or an infection with another tropical illness like dengue to cause serious problems. The CDC was in the coastal city of Salvador last month to help health officials with another look-back study, this one targeting Guillain-Barre. They tested 40 people who had the condition, and 80 people who didn't, said Dr. James Sejvar, who led the CDC team. But such studies are hardly perfect. People often have trouble remembering every detail from six months ago for example, when they might have been bitten by mosquitoes, the primary source of Zika infections. Researchers say it's important to also do studies that follow people forward in time. A large example: Colombia will be following 2,000 Zika-infected pregnant women to see what happens with them and their pregnancies, according to Dr. Marcos Espinal of the Pan American Health Organization. In the Recife metropolitan area, Brazilian scientists will examine 200 babies with microcephaly and about 400 without, at two points in time, spaced 28 days apart. "That will be the first one to tell us if there's strong evidence" of Zika as a causal link, Espinal told reporters Thursday. Espinal said results could come as early as April. But Marques who is one of the study's researchers said significant results could take until late summer. In Brazil, Zika's possible link to microcephaly emerged in September, when a spike in babies born with the condition got the attention of Dr. Vanessa van der Linden, a pediatric neurologist at a hospital in northeast Recife that works with disabled children. Initially, Van der Linden and other doctors looked for the usual causes of microcephaly, such as toxoplasmosis, rubella, HIV, and cytomegalovirus. None were found. But most of the mothers had something in common: blotches and skin rashes early in their pregnancies that seemed consistent with Zika. That was the genesis of the link. It's all been difficult to sort out, though, because Brazil wasn't keeping good track of microcephaly cases before Zika arrived. They're still determining how many of the reported cases are really microcephaly and involve a Zika infection. One of the puzzling questions facing researchers: Why have so many severe health problems been reported in Brazil, but comparatively few in other Latin America or Caribbean countries with Zika? Will we soon see similar spikes elsewhere, or is the Brazilian setting somehow unique? Health officials are closely watching Colombia, which had a Zika outbreak after Brazil and so far has not seen a spike in microcephaly cases. If there is, it would be apparent by June and would help finger Zika as the culprit, Espinal said. It will take a combination of studies and laboratory evidence to finally determine if Zika is the villain it appears to be, experts say. "This is going to be solved," said Dr. Farrah Mateen, a Harvard researcher. "It's just a matter of doing the research in the right way." ___ AP Writer Mauricio Savarese in Recife contributed to this report. FILE - In this Thursday, Feb. 11, 2016 file photo, Dallas County Mosquito Lab microbiologist Spencer Lockwood sorts mosquitos collected in a trap, left, in Hutchins, Texas. It had been set up in Dallas County near the location of a confirmed Zika virus infection. Scientists suspect an outbreak of the Zika virus is behind a surge in a rare birth defect in Brazil. But how are they going to prove it? Authorities in the South American country were quick to make the link last fall. But experts say the evidence is still circumstantial. Several studies are underway in Zika outbreak countries to see if the mosquito-borne virus is the actual case.(AP Photo/LM Otero) Remembering Harper Lee: Author, Inspiration, Law School Dropout It's been a rough week for lovers of the law. First, Justice Antonin Scalia dies, depriving the world of one of its most prominent legal voices. Then, today, Harper Lee passes away. She may not have been a Supreme Court justice, but the Pulitzer Prize winning author may have had just as big of an influence on many lawyers' lives, with her depiction of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mocking Bird launching a thousand legal careers. In memory of Harper Lee, here is some of FindLaw's best coverage of her as a lauded author, legal inspiration, occasional litigant, and, of course, law school dropout. Atticus Finch, Both Versions 1. 25 Greatest Fictional Lawyers: Want to know just how great Atticus Finch is? Check out this list, which Atticus had to be excluded from, so as to not overshadow the rest of the world's fictional lawyers. 2. 5 Movies That Make Lawyers Look Great: If Harper Lee's words didn't convince you to be inspired by Atticus Finch, Gregory Peck's amazing portrayal of Atticus in the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird definitely should. There's a reason the movie tops this list. 3. Harper Lee's New Novel Shows a Darker, Racist Atticus Finch: And then there's the most recent Atticus. Last summer, Harper Lee released the first version of her novel on Scout, Atticus, and Maycomb, Alabama, and let's just say the lawyers are much less impressive in this telling. Harper Lee, Litigant 4. Harper Lee Settles 'To Kill a Mockingbird' Lawsuit Over Royalties: Harper Lee was never afraid to wield the power of the law when she needed to. Indeed, one of her best friends late in her life was her lawyer, Tonja B. Carter. And it was Carter who helped Lee sue the son of her former agent, Samuel L. Pinkus, in 2013, in a dispute over royalties that eventually settled. 5. 'To Kill a Mockingbird' Author Harper Lee Sues Ala. Museum in War of Words: To Kill a Mockingbird was so successful that it continues to inspire tourism to rural Alabama. One Alabama museum attempted to capitalize on that popularity, in part by using the website ToKillaMockingBird.com and selling Mockingbird memorabilia, leading to Lee's royalty suit. 6. Harper Lee, Ala. Museum Settle 'Mockingbird' Infringement Suit: That suit, like the one against her publicist's son, never made it to trial, resulting in a private settlement in 2014. Harper Lee, Almost-Lawyer 7. 11 Celebrities Who Didn't Make It Through Law School: Harper Lee attended the Alabama School of Law, but never graduated -- though her lack of a J.D. doesn't seem to have impeded her success. As a law school dropout, Lee is in good company; her peers include fellow author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, tap dancing super star Gene Kelly, and Supreme Court justice Benjamin Cardozo. Related Resources: Q&A: As Zika rages in the Americas, should Asia be worried? Zika virus continues to rage in the Americas, and the World Health Organization has declared it a global health emergency. Taiwan has recently issued a travel advisory for Thailand, warning expectant mothers or women trying to get pregnant to postpone their trips there. But how big of a concern is Zika virus for Asia? Here's what you need to know: ___ Q: HAS ZIKA VIRUS BEEN A PROBLEM IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC REGION IN THE PAST? In this Feb. 15, 2016, photo, thermographic measurement against Zika virus is conducted at Narita international airport in Narita, near Tokyo. Zika virus continues to rage in the Americas, and the World Health Organization has declared it a global health emergency. Taiwan also recently issued a travel advisory for Thailand, warning expectant mothers or women trying to get pregnant to postpone their trips there. But how big of a concern is Zika virus for Asia? (Kyodo News via AP) JAPAN OUT, MANDATORY CREDIT A: The disease was first identified in 1947 in a monkey in the Zika forest of Uganda. The virus has been found in Asia as far back as the 1960s. It has appeared in Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and Pakistan, but no widespread cases have been reported and symptoms have typically been mild and similar to dengue and chikungunya, which may have helped mask its presence. Up until the first outbreak in 2007, only 14 cases were reported globally. The outbreak occurred on the Pacific island of Yap in Micronesia, where an estimated three-quarters of the population had been infected. No hospitalizations or lasting health issues were reported. In 2013 and 2014, outbreaks again hit the Pacific, including Easter Island, the Cook Islands and New Caledonia. In French Polynesia, an increase in a neurological disorder called Guillain-Barre syndrome coincided with the outbreak. In 2015, the virus was reported in Vanuatu, Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Samoa. ___ Q: ARE THERE ANY CASES IN ASIA AND THE PACIFIC NOW? ARE PRECAUTIONS BEING TAKEN? A: Thailand has reported one case, and active transmission is occurring on the Pacific islands of American Samoa and Samoa. Tonga has declared a Zika epidemic after five cases were confirmed and more than 260 suspected infections were identified. Other imported cases have popped up in the region, mostly from tourists returning from Zika-endemic areas. However, many more cases have likely gone undetected or been misdiagnosed as dengue or chikungunya, which are also spread by the same type of mosquito the Aedes aegypti and have similar symptoms of headache, fever rash and joint pain. An estimated eight out of 10 people infected with Zika experience no symptoms at all. After a Thai migrant worker was diagnosed with the disease in Taiwan, health officials there issued a Feb. 14 travel advisory warning expectant mothers or women trying to get pregnant to put off traveling to Thailand, and for men to wear condoms after returning to avoid potentially spreading the virus via sex. But Dr. Nick White, a tropical disease expert who has researched mosquito-borne diseases for decades at Thailand's Mahidol University, called Taiwan's travel guidance "excessive." He said Thailand is being singled out for having good surveillance and fast case reporting compared to other countries in the region, "but to say that it would be worse to come here than say, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos, Indonesia or Malaysia, there's absolutely no evidence of that at all," he said. ___ Q: WHAT IS MICROCEPHALY AND GUILLAIN-BARRE SYNDROME? HOW ARE THEY LINKED TO ZIKA? A: Babies with microcephaly are born with small heads, and their brains may not have developed properly. The condition can lead to seizures, learning disabilities, developmental problems, cerebral palsy, vision problems and other issues. Guillain-Barre syndrome is an autoimmune disorder where the body attacks the nervous system. People of all ages can be affected. The condition causes weakness and loss of sensation or tingling in the arms and legs and sometimes elsewhere on the body. Most people recover from it, but it can cause paralysis or death. Scientists are researching the potential link between microcephaly, Guillain-Barre and Zika virus to try to understand it better. "We don't know enough about it," White said, adding it's unclear whether the exact same virus circulating in the Americas is also prevalent in Asia. "No one has identified rampant microcephaly anywhere else, so I think we need to know a lot more about it before panicking." ___ Q: WHAT CAN BE DONE TO PREVENT ZIKA INFECTION? A: Experts say the same precautions to prevent dengue, chickungunya and other mosquito-borne diseases should be taken. Eliminate mosquito breeding grounds by not allowing water to collect around the home in roof gutters, flower pots or other containers. Use insect repellant and wear long-sleeve shirts, pants and socks, especially during key Aedes mosquito feeding times in the morning, late afternoon or evening. Some health agencies, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have issued guidance for pregnant women to avoid traveling to areas experiencing Zika outbreaks and for men returning from affected countries to wear condoms or abstain from sex with pregnant women. Sexual transmission of the Zika virus has occurred in rare cases. There is currently no vaccine or specific treatment for Zika virus. After Palestine talk, Harvard donor stops sponsoring events BOSTON (AP) A major backer of Harvard Law School has stopped sponsoring student events after its donation helped pay for a discussion on Palestine. In 2012, the international law firm Milbank promised Harvard $1 million over five years to pay for scholarly conferences organized by law students. But after the money was used to support an event hosted by the student group Justice for Palestine, the law firm asked Harvard Law School to use the money for other purposes. Calls to Milbank's New York headquarters weren't returned this week. In a statement, Harvard said Milbank was never involved in deciding which events to fund and that the school will now pay for student events with other resources. FILE - In this Aug. 1, 2005, file photo, a bicyclist walks by Harvard University's Langdell Hall, which includes Harvard Law School's library, in Cambridge, Mass. Following an October 2015 talk at Harvard Law School organized by students in the group Justice for Palestine, the international law firm Milbank modified a five-year, $1 million pledge to fund scholarly conferences organized by Harvard Law School students, deciding the 2012 donation from the New York City-based firm should no longer pay for student activities. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File) Harvard says Milbank wanted to "avoid creating any misimpressions that the firm endorses the viewpoints expressed by any particular student organization or journal," according to the statement, provided by law school spokesman Robb London. In October, students in Justice for Palestine hosted a talk examining what they say is a movement to suppress advocates of Palestine. Harvard had previously awarded the group $2,000 to hold events throughout the semester using the Milbank donation. The group says it spent about $500 for pizza at the fall discussion. Before the event, an email from the law school's dean told the group that Milbank's logo must be "prominently displayed" on all advertisements. In that spirit, the group thanked the law firm in a Facebook page advertising the event, said Collin Poirot, a first-year Harvard law student and a member of the organization. The next day, law school administrators asked the group to remove all references to Milbank on their Facebook page, citing complaints from the law firm, Poirot said. And soon after, students were notified that the Milbank Student Conference Fund was being discontinued. Harvard declined to comment beyond its statement, which says that Milbank "decided there are other ways its support could be used" at the law school. The school didn't explain how the remainder of the donation will be used, but added that "Milbank has not terminated its five-year gift or its support for the law school." Leaders of Justice for Palestine said they see the move as a political response to their message. "We expect this kind of thing," Poirot said. "There's always been a price to pay in America for being pro-Palestine." Students at Columbia Law School in New York, which also receives money from Milbank for events, are worried that they might lose funding, too, said Katherine Franke, a law professor there. "This kind of influence will have a chilling effect, to be sure, on the kinds of things students feel comfortable saying," Franke said. "We should celebrate robust discussions about the most difficult issues of the day, including viewpoints that might make us uncomfortable." Harvard, in its statement, defended Milbank. "The law school and Milbank are committed to freedom of speech," the statement said. "We have an exceptionally strong relationship with Milbank, which has acted appropriately and with the highest integrity in all respects." ___ Analysis: In a resilient North Korea, can sanctions work? PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) As the U.S. Congress passed a new set of sanctions on North Korea this week, South Korea shut down the last symbol of inter-Korean economic cooperation and the United Nations Security Council discussed its own measures to punish the North for what it claimed was its first H-bomb test and subsequent rocket launch, people in Pyongyang were literally dancing in the streets. Few countries have endured sanctions as deep and longstanding as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. But somehow life goes on. "Sanctions and pressure will never work on the DPRK, which has been exposed to all kinds of sanctions and blockade for decades," its state-run Korean Central News Agency wrote in an editorial last week. "Despite the enemies' ever-increasing threats and sanctions, the foundation of the Juche self-supporting economy of the DPRK has been further consolidated and its nuclear deterrence for defending the sovereignty has also been bolstered on a daily basis." Juche is the North's policy of self-reliance. FILE - In this Sept. 11, 2015, file photo, commuters ride on a crowded city trolley bus, in Pyongyang, North Korea. Though dimly aware that more sanctions may be on the way because of the latest nuclear test and rocket launch, most North Koreans seem almost blase about it. Life is much tougher in the countryside and the gap between the haves and the have-nots is hard to ignore even in the capital. Just a few blocks from upscale shops, throngs of city residents stand in long lines to catch the cross-town trolleys or take advantage of the holiday discounts on fish and other foods. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File) Despite the bluster, previous sanctions against the North over its nuclear program have taken a toll. Power outages, partly due to the impact of sanctions and partly because of the way the North allocates its scarce resources, are taken for granted. Hospitals, schools and homes are often almost as cold inside as the winter is outside. To most international investors, banks and even aid organizations, North Korea is like kryptonite. It's illegal in many cases for them to get involved, and even if they're willing to accept the risks of dealing with an unpredictable autocracy, their images could be damaged by being associated with the North. And yet, North Koreans seem almost blase about sanctions, even as more appear to be headed their way. That may be because at least some of them still manage to get what they want. Sanctions intended to deprive North Korea of luxury goods, for example, have been around for years. Even so, for anyone with the money and there's good reason to believe their numbers are growing it's easy to find a bottle of $600 Remy Martin cognac in Pyongyang, to buy an ornately wrapped gift bag filled with the best brand-name cosmetics from Japan, or to stock up on Pampers diapers and Heinz ketchup. It's not uncommon to see a young couple in a cafe in Pyongyang who would not look out of fashion in Seoul. Children dressed in brightly colored knitted hats and jackets are evidence that many parents have at least enough wherewithal to fulfill their desire to dote. While far less upscale, the shelves at the handful of department stores in Pyongyang are well-stocked these days, though the selection of goods available at any given moment can vary widely. Many have grocery floors with fruit and vegetable corners, baked goods and fresh meat. Street stalls selling everything from apples to shrimp chips and cookies from Vietnam are commonplace. Life is tougher in the countryside, and even in the capital the gap between the haves and the have-nots is hard to ignore. Just a few blocks from those upscale shops with the cognac and the Miss Dior perfume, throngs of city residents stand in long lines to catch the cross-town trolleys or take advantage of the holiday discounts on fish and other foods. Public baths are popular because, when they are open, they are a sure-fire place to find hot water. And while there has been dancing in the streets, it wasn't exactly spontaneous. It was part of the mass mobilizations for one of the country's biggest annual events, the birthday of leader Kim Jong Un's late father, Kim Jong Il. The Day of the Shining Star, it is called, and it's been virtually the only thing that the state-run media has been broadcasting for days. How does North Korea keep running even as much of the world tries to punish it? Jonathan Pollack, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution think tank, stressed in a recent op-ed that North Korea retains access to the international economy through its links to China, which has allowed it to get the funds it needs to develop its nuclear, missile and space programs and to sustain the "core elites that underpin the Kim family's claims to absolute power." He added that while the Beijing connection is not enough to transform North Korea's economy, "it helps Pyongyang to survive and enables its ruling elites to prosper." "China thus holds the key to any appreciable change in North Korean behavior," he said. "Unless and until it is prepared to cooperate in exacting costs on Pyongyang, North Korea will see no reason to alter its strategy. As long as China rejects more onerous sanctions, the prospect for meaningful diplomatic progress also plummets to near zero." China is angry over North Korea's nuclear and rocket tests but remains reluctant to severely punish the North. Still, it's not just Chinese economic support that is keeping the country afloat. It's increasingly apparent that North Korea is changing, and much of the energy has been from the bottom up, despite the country's efforts to control from the top down. Technically at war with Washington for more than 60 years and living in a constant state of what is essentially martial law, North Koreans continue to have little to no freedom of expression, thought or assembly in any remotely political way. That hasn't changed much over the years and isn't likely to go away easily at least not as long as its current regime remains in power and the United States and its allies continue to squeeze it in hopes it will eventually collapse. Yet at the same time, has been an upsurge in entrepreneurial activity and quasi-market-style capitalism that has spawned a growing number of citizens, particularly in Pyongyang, who are able to afford to buy more goods and services. These are people who were forced to learn to fend for themselves during the famine years of the 1990s, and learned from the experience. That has thoroughly, though not officially, transformed the country's real economy and fueled a demand-and-supply cycle that is being met by business-minded individuals operating either with the government turning a blind eye or providing some sort of support, often in return for a cut of the profits. For the North's leaders, this is a real conundrum perhaps a bigger one than any outside pressure might create. While the rise of a middle class and an ersatz free market economy would pose a threat to North Korea's status quo, its leaders know they must get out in front of their economic problems. They need to maintain control and to retain credibility among a populace increasingly aware of the gap between their living conditions and those not only in capitalist rival South Korea, but also in post-economic reform China. And it appears they are genuinely considering at least some kind of economic reform. Kim Jong Un has decided to convene a major party congress in May, the first of its kind in decades, and some analysts believe that could be an opportunity for the North to announce significant new economic policies. If it does, that might be real cause for dancing in the streets. In this Feb. 16, 2016, photo, North Koreans gather for a mass dance party as part of celebrations of the "Day of the Shining Star" or birthday anniversary of late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang, North Korea. As the U.S. Congress passed new sanctions on North Korea, South Korea shut down the last symbol of inter-Korean economic cooperation and the U.N. Security Council discussed its own measures to punish the North for it claimed was its first H-bomb test and subsequent rocket launch, people in Pyongyang were literally dancing in the streets. Few countries have endured sanctions as deep and longstanding as the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. But somehow life goes on. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E) FILE - In this May 5, 2015, file photo, the Juche Tower glows in the distance over the rest of Pyongyang city which is mostly in darkness, in North Korea. Few countries have endured sanctions as deep and longstanding as the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. But somehow life goes on. And so does the regime that is once again at the center of an international storm. Power outages, partly due to the impact of sanctions and partly because of the way the North allocates its scarce resources, are taken for granted. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File) War hollows out front-line Iraqi town MAKHMOUR, Iraq (AP) In a once-bustling market town in northern Iraq, the few shops that aren't boarded up mainly cater to soldiers manning the nearby front lines in the war with the Islamic State group. The extremists are dug in just three miles (five kilometers) away from Makhmour, and incoming mortar rounds and Katyusha rockets occasionally shatter the calm. Nearly everyone fled when IS captured the town in August 2014 during a lightning blitz across northern and western Iraq. Kurdish forces known as the peshmerga pushed the militants out later that month, but 18 months later Makhmour still has the feel of a warzone, and many residents have stayed away. FILE - In this Sept. 26, 2014 file photo, a Kurdish Peshmerga fighter uses binoculars to check on Islamic State group's positions on the outskirts of Makhmour, 300 kilometers (186 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq. Nearly everyone fled when IS captured the town in August 2014 during the extremists lightning blitz across northern and western Iraq. Kurdish forces known as the peshmerga pushed the militants out later that month, but 18 months later, Makhmour still has the feel of a warzone, and many residents have stayed away. (AP Photo/Marko Drobnjakovic, File) "The market used to be very lively, very crowded," said Rebaz, the young owner of an empty cafe in the town's center. "But the Katyushas are a real problem." The bazaar used to serve the town and surrounding communities, with farmers bringing in wheat, barley and other produce. But some vendors have relocated to Irbil, the capital of Iraq's largely autonomous Kurdish region, and entire neighborhoods are deserted. "Makhmour used to be the main town of the district and all the villages depended on it," said Abdul Samet Khader, a local lawyer. "The farmers all used to come to Makhmour for shopping. On the other hand, Makhmour was also dependent on these villages and has no other sources of income." Makhmour used to have a large Sunni Arab population that may have made up as much as half of the town. But none have returned since the town was recaptured by Kurdish forces. "We were all living like brothers, but since there isn't a single Arab left in the town, it affected the market greatly," Khader said. Amnesty International says Kurdish forces have deliberately displaced Arab residents from Makhmour and other areas because they view them as IS sympathizers. The Kurdish regional government denies the allegations, saying residents have stayed away because of the security situation. Shops in Makhmour that belonged to Arab residents have been boarded up. Syrian refugees and Iraqi Kurds displaced from other parts of the country have moved into some of the abandoned homes. These days the town is largely sustained by business from Iraqi soldiers, Kurdish fighters and allied Sunni Arab tribesmen, all of whom are based nearby. "There was a boost for my business recently," said Aso Hassan, who runs a laundry service around the corner from the empty cafe. "All the officers bring their uniforms to be washed and ironed in my shop." A few Sunni militiamen were standing outside, looking at military gear in the windows of the shop next door. There was nobody else on the street. FILE - In this Monday, April 20, 2015 file photo, a Sunni fighter takes a rest in his headquarters building on the frontline in their fight against the Islamic State group outside the city of Makhmour, northern Iraq. Nearly everyone fled when IS captured the town in August 2014 during the extremists lightning blitz across northern and western Iraq. Kurdish forces known as the peshmerga pushed the militants out later that month, but 18 months later, Makhmour still has the feel of a warzone, and many residents have stayed away. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen, File) Cameron: Deal means Britain won't be part of EU 'superstate' BRUSSELS (AP) Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday pledged Britain will never become part of a "European superstate" thanks to a hard-fought deal for a less intrusive European Union which he hopes will sway voters in a referendum to keep the island nation in the 28-nation bloc. The agreement Cameron won is a key stepping stone to the in-out referendum in Britain that could come as soon as this summer. Cameron claimed that, under the deal, Britain would be allowed to stay on EU sidelines if other nations seek a closer union and has been guaranteed its social welfare would win more protection from unfair EU migrant claims. He also pledged the economy will prosper outside the euro area. British Prime Minister David Cameron arrives for an EU summit at the EU Council building in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. Cameron faces tough new talks with European partners after through-the-night meetings failed to make much progress on his demands for a less intrusive European Union. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) "This is enough for me to recommend that the United Kingdom remain in the European Union having the best of both worlds," Cameron said after 31 hours of negotiations. "Turning our back on Europe is no solution at all," he said, adding that the new deal would guarantee for a "live and let live" approach which will fit Britain like a glove. He declined to say when he might call the referendum, although June 23 is thought a likely date. EU President Donald Tusk said the deal didn't come easy during two days of "long and heated" discussions during which leaders "haggled over detail" and fundamental issues. Some said though, much was style over substance as all leaders needed to prove they would safeguard issues their electorate held dear. Still, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said the deal should give the British public a clear choice. "No matter what we do here, no matter what face-lifting or face-saving we perform here, it is up to the British people to decide," she said. Other leaders said it would not stop deeper integration among countries that want to, that the euro would remain the currency of the EU and that the agreement did not give Britain any veto. The deal will only be enacted if Britain stays in the EU. Outside the British Parliament in London, a leading anti-EU politician, Nigel Farage, took part in a rally denouncing the deal as it was announced. "This is a truly pathetic deal," he said. "We are good enough to be an independent, self-governing nation outside of the EU. This (referendum) is our golden opportunity." The summit in Brussels ran into overtime Friday as Cameron pushed his demands for more autonomy to the limit before a dinner among the 28 national leaders sealed the deal. The deal offers guarantees to the nine EU countries, including Britain, that do not use the shared euro currency, that they will not be sidelined, and makes tweaks aimed at giving national parliaments more power. Most of the tensions surrounded a relatively minor change: a move to suspend or restrict benefit payments made to workers from other EU countries. Immigration is an especially sensitive point for British voters, because Britain has attracted hundreds of thousands of workers from Eastern Europe in the past decade, drawn by the prospect of higher-paying jobs. The EU immigrants can also claim child tax credits and other benefits in Britain, which Cameron's government says is straining his budget. Cameron also ran into unexpectedly firm resistance from France on financial regulation. French President Francois Hollande insisted Friday that Britain should not be given any "right of veto or blockage" and that all EU countries should have rules limiting speculation and avoiding new financial crises. The 19 EU countries that share the euro currency worry that protections for Britain and the eight other non-eurozone nations would offer unfair advantage to Britain's financial center, the City of London. Hollande had also warned that too-generous concessions to Britain could prompt other countries to seek special rules, too. ___ Angela Charlton and Jill Lawless in Brussels contributed. European Council President Donald Tusk, left, and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, second left, participate in a meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron during an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. European Union leaders are holding a summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to hammer out a deal designed to keep Britain in the 28-nation bloc. (Yves Herman, Pool Photo via AP) British Prime Minister David Cameron gets into his car at the conclusion of an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. European Union leaders are holding a summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to hammer out a deal designed to keep Britain in the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert) German Chancellor Angela Merkel, centre, greets British Prime Minister David Cameron as Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydto looks on at left during a round table meeting at an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. European Union leaders are holding a summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to hammer out a deal designed to keep Britain in the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert) British Prime Minister David Cameron, left, speaks with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras during a round table meeting at an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. European Union leaders are holding a summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to hammer out a deal designed to keep Britain in the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert) Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives for an EU summit at the EU Council building in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. British Prime Minister David Cameron faces tough new talks with European partners after through-the-night meetings failed to make much progress on his demands for a less intrusive European Union. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives for an EU summit at the EU Council building in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. British Prime Minister David Cameron faces tough new talks with European partners after through-the-night meetings failed to make much progress on his demands for a less intrusive European Union. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) British Prime Minister David Cameron arrives for an EU summit at the EU Council building in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. Cameron faces tough new talks with European partners after through-the-night meetings failed to make much progress on his demands for a less intrusive European Union. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, right, arrives for an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. British Prime Minister David Cameron faces tough new talks with European partners after through-the-night meetings failed to make much progress on his demands for a less intrusive European Union. (AP Photo/Francois Walschaerts) Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Roivas arrives for an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. British Prime Minister David Cameron faces tough new talks with European partners after through-the-night meetings failed to make much progress on his demands for a less intrusive European Union. (AP Photo/Francois Walschaerts) Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen arrives for an EU summit at the EU Council building in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. European Union leaders are holding a summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to hammer out a deal designed to keep Britain in the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, centre, arrives for an EU summit at the EU Council building in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. European Union leaders are holding a summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to hammer out a deal designed to keep Britain in the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Roivas speaks with the media as he arrives for an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. British Prime Minister David Cameron faces tough new talks with European partners after through-the-night meetings failed to make much progress on his demands for a less intrusive European Union. (AP Photo/Francois Walschaerts) Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico arrives for an EU summit at the EU Council building in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. British Prime Minister David Cameron faces tough new talks with European partners after through-the-night meetings failed to make much progress on his demands for a less intrusive European Union. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico bows his head as he arrives for an EU summit at the EU Council building in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. British Prime Minister David Cameron faces tough new talks with European partners after through-the-night meetings failed to make much progress on his demands for a less intrusive European Union. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) British Prime Minister David Cameron arrives for an EU summit at the EU Council building in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. Cameron faces tough new talks with European partners after through-the-night meetings failed to make much progress on his demands for a less intrusive European Union. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydto arrives for an EU summit at the EU Council building in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. British Prime Minister David Cameron faces tough new talks with European partners after through-the-night meetings failed to make much progress on his demands for a less intrusive European Union. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) French President Francois Hollande, left, speaks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, center, and Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras during a meeting on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. British Prime Minister David Cameron faces tough new talks with European partners after through-the-night meetings failed to make much progress on his demands for a less intrusive European Union. (John Thys, Pool Photo via AP) French President Francois Hollande, left, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, center, stand with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras during a meeting on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. British Prime Minister David Cameron faces tough new talks with European partners after through-the-night meetings failed to make much progress on his demands for a less intrusive European Union. (John Thys, Pool Photo via AP) French President Francois Hollande, left, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, center, stand with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras during a meeting on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. British Prime Minister David Cameron faces tough new talks with European partners after through-the-night meetings failed to make much progress on his demands for a less intrusive European Union. (John Thys, Pool Photo via AP) French President Francois Hollande, left, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, center, stand with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras during a meeting on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. British Prime Minister David Cameron faces tough new talks with European partners after through-the-night meetings failed to make much progress on his demands for a less intrusive European Union. (John Thys, Pool Photo via AP) British Prime Minister David Cameron arrives for an EU summit at the EU Council building in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. Cameron faces tough new talks with European partners after through-the-night meetings failed to make much progress on his demands for a less intrusive European Union. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) British Prime Minister David Cameron poses for photographers during a meeting on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. (Dylan Martinez, Pool Photo via AP) British Prime Minister David Cameron poses for photographers during a meeting on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. (Dylan Martinez, Pool Photo via AP) Items including ties are displayed on a merchandise stall before the start of a rally held by the Grassroots Out (GO), anti-EU campaign group at the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre in London, held to coincide with the EU summit in Brussels, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. British Prime Minister David Cameron pushed a summit into overtime Friday after a second day of tense talks with weary European Union leaders unwilling to fully meet his demands for a less intrusive EU. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham) Audience members applaud during a speech during a rally held by the Grassroots Out (GO), anti-EU campaign group at the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre in London, held to coincide with the EU summit in Brussels, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. British Prime Minister David Cameron pushed a summit into overtime Friday after a second day of tense talks with weary European Union leaders unwilling to fully meet his demands for a less intrusive EU. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham) British Prime Minister David Cameron speaks during a meeting on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. (Dan Kitwood, Pool Photo via AP) Cruz looks to replicate Iowa ground game in South Carolina GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) For months, Ted Cruz's campaign has touted an expensive and sophisticated get-out-the-vote operation as its antidote to Donald Trump's broad populist appeal. It worked for Cruz in Iowa. But Saturday's South Carolina primary will be a tougher test for the Texas senator, one that could shape the race between the anti-establishment rivals as the GOP contest heads toward delegate-rich March voting states. Unlike in Iowa, where Trump and Cruz were locked in a tight battle heading into the caucuses, the billionaire businessman has held a big lead in South Carolina for months. At least four times as many Republicans are expected to vote in the first-in-the-South primary as in Iowa, where the tiny electorate and caucus-style contest made campaign organization paramount. Volunteer Beth Avery, right, of Gambrills, Md., speaks with Denise Mahon, while campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016, in Greenville, S.C. For months, Cruzs campaign has touted an expensive and sophisticated get-out-the-vote operation as its antidote to Donald Trumps broad populist appeal. It worked in Iowa. But Saturdays South Carolina primary will be a tougher test for him. And it could shape the race between the anti-establishment rivals as the GOP contest heads toward delegate-rich March voting states. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) Still, Cruz's campaign believes it can replicate its data-focused, volunteer-heavy strategy in South Carolina, as well as the flurry of other Southern states that vote in the coming weeks. Some 10,000 Cruz volunteers are blanketing South Carolina, according to the campaign, with another 10,000 at work in Georgia, 8,000 in Tennessee, 7,000 in Oklahoma and a staggering 27,000 in Cruz's home state of Texas. All are on the docket for the March 1 voting bonanza known as Super Tuesday. "This is a for-real ground game," said Rick Tyler, Cruz's spokesman. "We're organized and we've got money." On Wednesday morning, a long line of volunteers spilled out the door of Cruz's Greenville campaign headquarters. Cruz's father, Rafael, who has become something of a celebrity among his son's supporters, was inside greeting volunteers and mingling with staff. Those sitting down to make phone calls were prepped with talking points about Cruz's record, emphasizing his conservative credentials. A tip sheet offered pointers about how to sound conversational even when reading from a script and how to not be offended if a voter gets snippy. Outside, volunteers split into groups of four and hit the road to knock on doors, armed with a smart phone app with information about the voters they'd be trying to speak to. "We're the ones that are making the connection, making it more personal," said Kristi Lisenbee, a 49-year-old from Keller, Texas, who'd just arrived to volunteer for her home state senator. Beth Avery, an earnest-sounding 32-year-old with a wool American flag scarf wrapped around her neck, was out leading a group of volunteers looking for supporters in a working-class neighborhood in Greenville. A native of Maryland, Avery had already volunteered for Cruz in Iowa and said she was willing to head to another state if needed. "For the first time, he's a leader I can really get behind," Avery said of Cruz. While Cruz's legion of volunteers gives the campaign an old-fashioned ethos, they're backed by a sophisticated and well-funded analytics operation that collects reams of personal information on voters. The data company Cambridge Analytica, which received $3.8 million in payments from the campaign in 2015, has access to the information as well and has helped Cruz's team narrowly target voters based on specific issues they're interested in. Cruz has also been a fundraising juggernaut, allowing his campaign to build out field operations in March voting states ahead of some of his rivals. He ended 2015 with nearly $19 million cash on hand, more than any of his rivals. Still, South Carolina will be an important test of his organization's ability to overcome the enthusiasm for Trump. With a large population of evangelical Christians and tea party supporters, the Republican electorate is a natural fit for the Texas senator who speaks frequently about his faith and has often butted heads with GOP leaders. But Cruz is trailing Trump significantly, according to preference polls, and the race between the two candidates has taken a sharply negative turn. Cruz also faces a challenge for second place from Marco Rubio, with other more traditional candidates also hoping for a late surge. Trump has acknowledged that he was caught off guard by the importance of a coordinated get-out-the-vote operation in Iowa, where he finished second behind Cruz. In an interview with The Associated Press shortly after the caucuses, Trump said he'd "never realized" the need to encourage supporters to actually take part in the caucuses. In South Carolina, however, the first-time candidate has some of the most experienced staff he's ever hired, some of whom have been in place for months. Trump has four offices across the state, including a sprawling complex on downtown Greenville's picturesque main retail drag. State Director James Merrill said the campaign expected to have 250 volunteers in each of the state's four regions in the final days before the primary. Trump's campaign has boasted of its own robust voter database that exceeds 100,000 South Carolina supporters. Advisers say the information is culled mostly from online registrations the campaign requires for tickets to Trump's massive rallies. ___ Associated Press writers Bill Barrow and Jill Colvin in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this report. ___ Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC Volunteer Beth Avery, of Gambrills, Md., speaks with Dan Wilson while campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016, in Greenville, S.C. For months, Cruzs campaign has touted an expensive and sophisticated get-out-the-vote operation as its antidote to Donald Trumps broad populist appeal. It worked in Iowa. But Saturdays South Carolina primary will be a tougher test for him. And it could shape the race between the anti-establishment rivals as the GOP contest heads toward delegate-rich March voting states. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is seen during a meet and greet at Seneca Family Restaurant in Seneca, S.C., Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016. (AP Photo/Alex Sanz) Volunteers Al Turner, left, and Barbara Turner make calls for Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016, in Greenville, S.C. For months, Cruzs campaign has touted an expensive and sophisticated get-out-the-vote operation as its antidote to Donald Trumps broad populist appeal. It worked in Iowa. But Saturdays South Carolina primary will be a tougher test for him. And it could shape the race between the anti-establishment rivals as the GOP contest heads toward delegate-rich March voting states. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) Volunteers make calls for Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016, in Greenville, S.C. For months, Cruzs campaign has touted an expensive and sophisticated get-out-the-vote operation as its antidote to Donald Trumps broad populist appeal. It worked in Iowa. But Saturdays South Carolina primary will be a tougher test for him. And it could shape the race between the anti-establishment rivals as the GOP contest heads toward delegate-rich March voting states.(AP Photo/Paul Sancya) US checks foreign border crossers with eye scans SAN DIEGO (AP) Tijuana businessman Marco Cruz had grown accustomed to the lengthy checks by U.S. officials before entering the United States, but he was surprised he now had to scan his documents and stand in front of a futuristic-looking machine that read his the iris of his eye and facial features on his way out of the country. The federal government is using biometric technology for the first time to verify the identities of foreigners leaving the United States on foot a trial move aimed at closing a longstanding security gap, officials announced Thursday. Before now, foreigners who left the country were rarely checked by U.S. authorities as they walked into Mexico or Canada through ports of entry. Ramon Rangel, 29, a Tijuana truck driver stands at a machine that captured images of his iris and facial features to verify his documents while leaving San Diego on his way to Mexico on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. The US government announced Thursday it was using eye scans and facial recognition technology on foreigners leaving the US on foot at a busy San Diego crossing with Mexico. (AP Photo/Julie Watson) "It's fine as long as it's fast and easy," said Cruz, who works for a Customs broker and crosses up to three times a week. He was relieved to find the process took only seconds. The checkout system that launched Feb. 11 at a busy San Diego border crossing with Mexico aims to detect people who have overstayed their visas. "That's what we want to be able to do, is know when the person entered the country and know when they leave," said Charmaine Rodriguez, assistant port director of the Otay Mesa cargo facility. Up to half of the people in the U.S. illegally are believed to have overstayed their visas. During the trial run, foreigners who have overstayed their visas will be allowed to continue on to Mexico, with a note on their record, officials said. Those with criminal records or warrants could be detained. Border officials in December started collecting the same information on non-citizens walking into the U.S. through the Otay Mesa crossing connecting Tijuana and San Diego. Congress has long demanded biometric screening of people leaving the country, but the task has posed enormous financial and logistical challenges at busy land crossings. Privacy advocates worry the data could be misused or fall into the wrong hands. Some fear the additional screening will further clog already-congested border crossings, disrupting trade and travel. Authorities are using the trial runs to determine which technology is the fastest, most accurate and least intrusive in screening people coming and going at all land crossings along the 1,954-mile border with Mexico. Otay Mesa was selected because it is one of the busiest border crossings. Final results are expected this summer, with the goal of expanding the checks to all land, air and sea ports. A steady flow of people used the machines on Thursday, most taking only seconds to complete the process. Ramon Rangel, a 29-year-old truck driver from Tijuana, walking with his bicycle scanned his documents, stepped onto painted footprints on the ground and looked up at a green light that registered his eye and facial features. "I was surprised, but I think it's a good idea for the U.S. to know who's leaving and whether they have a visa," said Rangel, who crosses regularly and said the extra checks were very quick. Federal officials say they will not share or retain the data collected in the trial runs, but it is not clear how the information will be used if the program is adopted permanently. Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the data will be increasingly shared with different agencies once it becomes the norm at checkpoints. More countries also may start using the technology on Americans to build their own biometric databases. "There are a lot of questions I think policy makers need to be asking about how this will be implemented and how it will play out in the future," he said. Americans walking into Mexico will use a separate lane at the California crossing to scan their documents and register their departure. For the trial period, the government will use the biometric technology only on departing foreigners. A man waits to have his iris and facial features scanned while leaving San Diego on his way to Mexico on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. The US government announced Thursday it was using eye scans and facial recognition technology on foreigners leaving the US on foot at a busy San Diego crossing with Mexico. (AP Photo/Julie Watson) Labor divides over Democratic presidential contest LAS VEGAS (AP) Union members banged thundersticks inside a hall festooned with a Hillary Clinton mural as she strode to the stage. The recent rally was one of a series of union events the Clinton campaign staged to show off its backing from the labor movement, a pivotal player in the next state to vote in the Democratic presidential contest. There's no question the house of labor is swinging behind Clinton, just as the Democratic Party establishment is doing. But what about residents of that house? Bernie Sanders is running hard to capture the votes of union members even as their leadership joins the Clinton bandwagon. Says Larry Cohen, a former labor executive now helping Sanders on union matters: "Bernie lives in a house we all could live in, not a mansion. His values and policies are ours." Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., left, hugs a culinary worker protesting outside Sunrise Hospital Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016, in Las Vegas. Hillary Clinton has the edge over her Democratic presidential rival, Sanders, when it comes to scoring endorsements from unions. But what about union members? Sanders is running hard to capture the votes of rank and file members even as their leadership joins the Clinton bandwagon. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) Nevada has the 11th-highest rate of union membership in the nation. Clinton has racked up endorsements from 23 national unions and labor alliances, gaining their organizational clout and pull with members. She won union households by 9 percentage points in the Iowa caucuses, and for weeks she's been aided in Nevada by union canvassers, phone banks and ads promoting her candidacy. The state's Democratic caucuses are Saturday. At the Clinton rally in a union hall, Lydia DelRio, 53, a member of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, was awe-struck. "Her history and everything she's done she's never given up," DelRio said. "She never gave up, she didn't run from a fight and that's what unions are all about." Sanders and his supporters contend that Clinton's backing merely reflects her ability to win over the establishment. They say he is a better champion of organized labor than the woman whose husband signed the North American Free Trade Agreement and who helped negotiate the Obama administration's most recent trade deal before turning against it in the campaign. "This is what is wrong with politics in this country right now," said Joe Sacco, a Las Vegas stagehand and member of the International Association of Theatrical Stage Employees, which endorsed Clinton last month. "Nevada labor will get behind Bernie on Saturday.... Not all people are going to do what union leadership and management-type folks tell us to do." Sanders boasts a smaller roster of national endorsements. Only three national unions support him: National Nurses United, U.S. Postal Workers and the Communication Workers of America, which endorsed the Vermont senator after polling its members. Sanders supporters say several locals have backed him, including two International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers locals in Nevada, and argues that he speaks more for actual working union members. Sanders made that case himself this week at an autoworkers' hall in Dearborn, Michigan. "Republicans love NAFTA, the Chamber of Commerce, big business loves NAFTA, some Democrats like NAFTA. I was on the picket line in '92 against NAFTA," he said. "Not only did I vote against all of these disastrous trade agreements, I'm helping lead the effort today" against the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. In a partial victory for Sanders on Wednesday, the AFL-CIO announced it wouldn't make an endorsement in the Democratic race during its meeting next week. Sanders backers collected 37,000 signatures on an online petition urging an AFL-CIO endorsement of their candidate. Cohen, a former president of the Communication Workers, said in an interview that "for the first time in a lifetime" there is a true candidate for working people in the presidential race. Union members who support Clinton bristle at such talk. Nikki Budzinski, who leads labor outreach for Clinton, said the ex-senator has a voting record of 94 percent from the AFL-CIO, nearly as high as Sanders' 98 percent. "She has a proven track record of standing with working people," Budzinski said. Michael Collins, a hospital nurse who is a member of the Service Employees International Union and has been canvassing for Clinton, said he's encountered enthusiasm for Sanders. "Early on, there was a division based on the emotional appeal" of Sanders, Collins said. "But we decided we really needed to go with a proven leader. People have been very, very receptive. When you present them with the facts, it's hard to argue against that." Not Wes Koontz, 42, a member of the plumbers union who's frustrated his national organization backed Clinton. With five children, including a couple near college age, Koontz supports Sanders and his proposal for free tuition. "Senator Sanders' record speaks for itself," he said. "Secretary Clinton has held several different hats." Skepticism about Clinton's labor record cost her in Nevada in 2008, when the state's most powerful union, the Culinary Union representing nearly 60,000 hotel and casino workers, backed Barack Obama. But she ultimately defeated Obama in the Nevada caucuses. At a Las Vegas labor rally Thursday night, Clinton expressed bafflement that anyone would question her roster of union endorsements. "I'm always a bit bewildered when people say 'why are these unions supporting you? It's because I have worked with them....I'm no Johnnie, or Janie, come lately to this," she said. Both Clinton and Sanders have courted the Culinary Union, visiting its members in casinos, and Clinton embraced one of its priorities, opposing the tax on high-end health insurance plans in Obama's health care law. Now the union says it will not endorse before Saturday's caucuses. Danny Thompson, president of the Nevada AFL-CIO, said some union members are divided but it appears Clinton has the edge in the state. He predicted all divisions will fade after the primary, especially given how Republicans in the state legislature tried to restrict union activity last year. "People will coalesce around the candidate, whoever the nominee is," he said. ___ Associated Press writer Catherine Lucey in Dearborn, Michigan, contributed to this report. ___ This story corrects the spelling of the plumber's name to Koontz, not Koonz. Clinton expands lead in delegates despite Sanders' win in NH WASHINGTON (AP) Despite Bernie Sanders' win in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton is adding to her big lead among the delegates who will choose the Democratic nominee for president. Since the New Hampshire primary, Clinton has picked up endorsements from 89 more superdelegates to the Democratic National Convention, and Sanders has added just 11, according to a new Associated Press survey. These party leaders and elected officials can change their minds. But if they continue to back Clinton overwhelmingly, Sanders would have to win the remaining primaries by a landslide just to catch up. He would have to roll up big margins because every Democratic contest awards delegates in proportion to the vote, so even the loser can get some. FILE - In this Feb. 15, 2016 file photo, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks in Reno, Nev. Bernie Sanders won big in New Hampshire, but Hillary Clinton is still adding to her wide lead in the delegates that will decide the Democrats presidential nominee. Over the past week, Clinton has picked up the endorsements of 87 more superdelegates, according to a new Associated Press survey. Sanders added just 11. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File) After the contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders has a small 36-32 lead among delegates won in primaries and caucuses. But when superdelegates are included, Clinton leads 483-55, including two new superdelegate endorsements she picked up on Friday, according to the AP count. It's essentially a parallel election that underscores Clinton's lopsided support from the Democratic establishment. The disparity is sparking a backlash among some Sanders supporters, who complain that the Democratic nominating process is decidedly undemocratic, rigged in favor of Clinton. Some of them are contacting superdelegates who have publicly endorsed Clinton. Their message isn't subtle, or always welcome. "They were saying 'We're not going to forget this,' " said Lacy Johnson, an Indiana superdelegate who backs Clinton. "I'm an African-American male who is in my 60s," Johnson said. "I have experienced the struggles. The experiences they are sharing don't faze me in comparison." Superdelegates have been part of the Democratic Party's nominating process since 1984. They automatically attend the national convention and can support the candidate of their choice, regardless of whom primary voters back. They are party leaders members of Congress, party officials and members of the Democratic National Committee. There are 714 Democratic superdelegates, about 30 percent of the 2,383 delegates needed to claim the nomination. The Republicans have far fewer automatic delegates who can back the candidate of their choice. Clinton's campaign expresses confidence that she will maintain a strong lead among superdelegates even as she focuses on state-by-state voting. "Our campaign strategy is to build a lead with pledged delegates" won in primaries and caucuses, spokesman Jesse Ferguson said in an email. Sanders campaign adviser Tad Devine said he doesn't consider an early superdelegate count to be very meaningful. Sanders' ability to attract younger people and independent voters, as he did in New Hampshire, will be a strong selling point to change people's minds, he said. "We are confident that superdelegates want to be behind the strongest candidates in a general election and have a nominee to help candidates win up and down the ballot," Devine said. Many Clinton supporters question whether Sanders could win the general election. "He'd get killed!" said Rosalind Wyman, a DNC member from California. "A socialist independent?" Others talk about their relationship with Clinton, who has been in Democratic politics for decades. "Superdelegates are interested to see who can win, and many of them have strong ties to the Clintons, like me," said former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell. Sanders supporters are tired of hearing these arguments. "I'm so damned sick of people saying I love this guy but he can't win," said Troy Jackson, a DNC member from Maine who supports Sanders. "People need to start voting with their heart, what they know is right," Jackson, a superdelegate himself, said he will push to have all five of Maine's superdelegates back the candidate who wins the state's caucuses in March. Three have endorsed Clinton and another is undecided. "I want someone who's going to fight for me, not cut deals, not compromise on core values," Jackson said. "While I have respect for Secretary Clinton, she does that too much." ___ Associated Press writers Brian Slodysko in Indianapolis, Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire, Christopher Weber in Los Angeles, Summer Ballentine in Jefferson City, Missouri, David Sharp in Portland, Maine, and Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed to this report. ___ Follow Stephen Ohlemacher and Hope Yen on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/stephenatap and http://twitter.com/hopeyen1 Eyewitness: Helicopter fell from sky into Pearl Harbor PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) Tourist Shawn Winrich was taking photos of Pearl Harbor when he saw a helicopter "essentially coming straight at us" at the popular tourist destination. He switched to video, recording the helicopter's dramatic drop into the water below. "All of a sudden it essentially just fell out of the sky and crash-landed in the water," the Madison, Wisconsin, man said. In this image taken from video provided by Shawn Winrich, a helicopter crashes near Parl Harbor, Hawaii on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. The private helicopter with five people aboard crashed and sunk into the water, leaving a teenage passenger in critical condition. (Shawn Winrich via the AP) He stopped filming and jumped in to help. The family of four visiting from Canada and the pilot on board made it out, but one passenger a 15-year-old boy who was trapped underwater and had to be cut free from his seat remained hospitalized in critical condition Friday. U.S. Navy spokeswoman Agnes Tauyan said the helicopter sunk shortly after going down near the visitor's center Thursday. A 45-year-old woman and a 50-year-old man remained hospitalized Friday in stable condition. A fourth family member was treated and released Thursday. Details on the pilot, who remained hospitalized Friday, were not immediately available. No names were released. Another bystander who jumped in to help was tour guide Chris Gardner who was with a group at the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center when he heard the crash. "I took off my shirt and dove in," he said, describing how he, a Navy sailor, a federal police officer and another man took turns diving to the submerged helicopter and trying to free a passenger with a knife. "He was strapped into his seat in the back of the aircraft." Honolulu paramedics treated the 15-year-old passenger and took him to a hospital, said Shayne Enright, spokeswoman for Honolulu Emergency Services Department. "It was a team effort and we pray that he's OK," Gardner said of the teen he helped free. Jumping in to help is part of the instinct growing up in Hawaii, he said. His eyes were still burning from the fuel in the water, he said. Winrich's daughter, Justice Winrich, said she watched as the helicopter plopped down into the water and saw three people get out immediately and swim to shore. "It was crazy," she said. "You go on vacation and you never think you're going to see something like that." Federal records show the helicopter is registered to Jeffrey Gebhard of Kailua, Hawaii. A man answering the phone at a number listed for Gebhard said: "I'm sorry, there's no comment. There's an investigation going on." The Navy said the helicopter reportedly belongs to helicopter tour company Genesis Aviation. The website for Genesis Helicopters says it was founded by Gebhard. The visitor center was closed Thursday but was set to partially reopen Friday. The memorial honors the 1,177 sailors and Marines killed on the ship in the Dec. 7, 1941, attack by Japan. Civilian divers floated the helicopter to surface Friday afternoon and a crane pulled it out. The Navy said the helicopter will be taken to Genesis Aviation's hangar at the airport, where the National Transportation Safety Board will conduct an investigation. It was the second major crash this year involving helicopters on Oahu. Twelve Hawaii-based Marines were killed when two military helicopters crashed during nighttime training on Jan. 14. Both aircraft were CH-53E Sea Stallion helicopters that were part of Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 463. ___ Kelleher reported from Honolulu. ___ This story has been corrected to reflect that the boy who was trapped under water is 15, not 16. In this image taken from video provided by Shawn Winrich, a helicopter crashes near Parl Harbor, Hawaii on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. The private helicopter with five people aboard crashed and sunk into the water, leaving a teenage passenger in critical condition. (Shawn Winrich via the AP) Justice Winrich of Madison, Wisconsin is shown in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016 after an interview about a helicopter crashing into the harbor. A private helicopter with five people on board crashed in Pearl Harbor, leaving a teenage passenger in critical condition. (AP Photo/Audrey McAvoy) Shawn Winrich speaks in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016 about a helicopter crashing into the harbor. A private helicopter with five people on board crashed in Pearl Harbor, leaving a teenage passenger in critical condition. (AP Photo/Audrey McAvoy) 'Big Stone Gap' is one of those films that flew under the radar for most people, but had a stellar cast and a heartwarming story. Similar to 'Gilmore Girls' in that a small town with cheery simple folk live simple, friendly lives, 'Big Stone Gap' is entertaining enough with its honest and genuine portrayal of small town life in Virginia where good times and true love can begin later in life. 'Big Stone Gap' is one of those rare films where the director of the film is also the writer of not only the screenplay, but of the original novel. One of the only recent cases of this is 'Perks of Being a Wallflower'. This director/author is an Italian woman named Adriana Trigiani and put a lot of her life in this film, which is sweet and endearing to see where there are no zombies or meth cookers to spice things up. Instead, this is about the finer and uncomplicated things in life, which is always nice to see every now and again. The film takes place in the real location called 'Big Stone Gap' where Ave Maria (Ashley Judd) is a 40-year old woman who works at her family's pharmacy with her good friend Fleeta (Whoopi Goldberg). Ave though is known as a spinstress in this small mining town, where everyone participates in an annual stage play. This year, Ave is directing the play, which is really the only thing she is looking forward to. She's not in love, she hasn't been to many places, and her mother has just died. Ave is thrown a curve ball when she gets ahold of her mother's will, where she discovers her past and who she really is, which sets her off to find love and happiness, even in the smallest of towns, like 'Big Stone Gap'. A couple of her suitors are Jack (Patrick Wilson), who has always had a crush on her, and Theodore (John Benjamin Hickey), who is a fun guy, but doesn't seem to be a good match. What Trigiani is saying here is that you can find happiness and love, no matter how old you are or where you live. It is always just around the corner. 'Big Stone Gap' doesn't deal with big action sequences or big change in anyway, but rather shows us that small town living can be just as good and fun as the big city where people work on their relationships and try to find their inner self with some comedy and drama along the way. There are a few moments where the film goes off on tangents with the vast amount of characters. It almost seems like the book had so much to say, that the film didn't have enough time to get it all in, but it certainly tried. That being said, 'Big Stone Gap' is true to itself and very charming when it's on the right path. With other cameos , including Jenna Elfman, Anthony LaPaglia, Jane Krakowski, and Chris Sarandon, this A-list cast and beautiful story, make 'Big Stone Gap' worth watching if you want a simple and adorable film. The Blu-ray: Vital Disc Stats 'Big Stone Gap' comes with a 50GB Blu-ray Disc and a digital copy download code and is Region A locked. The disc is housed in a hard blue plastic case with a cardboard sleeve. There are no inserts other than the digital download code. Analysis: Pope shines spotlight on GOP minority challenges SPARTANBURG, S.C. (AP) The Republican Party's tug-of-war over its relationship with black and Hispanic voters was under way long before Pope Francis decided to answer a question about Donald Trump. On one side, Marco Rubio and others insist the GOP must attract more minorities to win the presidency. On the other, leading rivals Trump and Ted Cruz embrace fiery rhetoric designed to motivate angry white conservatives. Complicating it all is immigration, the issue the party's pragmatic professionals can't square with the passions of their most faithful voters. Pope Francis on Thursday shined an international spotlight on the intra-party debate when, asked about Trump's call to build a massive wall on the U.S.-Mexican border, he said those who seek to build walls instead of bridges are not Christian. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, accompanied by Anderson Cooper, left, speaks with members of the audience during a commercial break at a CNN town hall at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C., Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) It's a high-stakes clash that could determine much more than South Carolina's Republican primary election on Saturday, but also whether the GOP nominee succeeds in November's general election. "I don't think conservatism has ethnic boundaries," Rubio told The Associated Press on Thursday as he campaigned alongside South Carolina's Indian-American Gov. Nikki Haley and African-American Sen. Tim Scott. "We just need to take our policies to people that haven't regularly voted for us in the past, communities that would benefit from what we stand for, but perhaps have been told that Republicans don't care about people like them," he said. Haley highlighted the diversity on stage with Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, during an earlier rally in West Columbia: "A new group of conservatives that's taking over America looks like a Benetton commercial," she said. She added, "I hope we're the new faces of the conservative movement." Yet their day on the trail was overshadowed by Pope Francis' extraordinary reply to a question about Trump and his focus on building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border to stem illegal immigration. "I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that," Francis said. While the question concerned Trump, who described Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals in his announcement speech and later called for a temporary ban on all Muslims entering the United States, the billionaire real estate mogul isn't alone in his calls to build a border wall. Cruz supports the idea, too, and Rubio has repeatedly said that no progress can be made on immigration until Washington can prove to Americans that illegal immigration is under control. "They want to see the wall built," Rubio said of voters at the last GOP debate. That border-security-first approach is at odds with the recommendations of the Republican National Committee, which determined after an exhaustive post-2012 study the GOP must adopt "comprehensive immigration reform" to help expand its appeal beyond older, white men in order to again win the White House. It may not matter in South Carolina's primary, a contest that will be dominated by white voters. In 2012, the state's Republican primary electorate was 98 percent white. It's a different story for the November general election, when minority voters are expected to make up more than 30 percent of the eligible voting-age population and more than 50 percent of the voter pool by 2052. A new Associated Press-GfK poll found that Rubio and Cruz are slightly more popular than Trump among Hispanics, although none of them is well-liked. All of them have especially low ratings among blacks. Fifteen percent of blacks and 31 percent of Hispanics have a favorable view of Rubio, the new poll found. Cruz earns positive marks from 11 percent of black voters and 29 percent of Hispanics, while Trump finishes at the bottom with favorable ratings from just 8 percent of blacks and 16 percent of Hispanics. Trump isn't ignoring minority voters. He's campaigning in South Carolina this week alongside Pastor Mark Burns, a black televangelist who told AP that many people have the mistaken impression that Trump is "a racist bigot." "That's not the case at all," he said. "We've changed thousands of African-American's mindsets," Burns said. Cruz, whose father is also a Cuban immigrant, is banking on winning the White House by energizing evangelical and working-class white voters. To help excite them, Cruz has brought along allies to South Carolina this week that include Iowa Rep. Steve King, who has compared immigrants living in the country illegally to drug mules and livestock. Cruz was to spend Friday, the day before the South Carolina GOP primary, flying around the state with "Duck Dynasty" star Phil Robertson, who has said that African-Americans were happy under Jim Crow laws. Republican National Committee member Henry Barbour, who helped author the RNC's post-2012 study, praised the minority outreach efforts of candidates like Rubio and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. "But it's troubling to me for the future of our party that we have candidates like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz who think that it's still 1972," Barbour said. "Not only is it an electoral loser, it's bad for the country." ___ Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Greenville, South Carolina, Jill Colvin in Kiawah, South Carolina, and news survey specialist Emily Swanson in Washington contributed to this report. ___ Steve Peoples covers the Republican Party and the 2016 presidential campaign for The Associated Press. Follow him on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/sppeoples Volunteers make calls for Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016, in Greenville, S.C. For months, Cruzs campaign has touted an expensive and sophisticated get-out-the-vote operation as its antidote to Donald Trumps broad populist appeal. It worked in Iowa. But Saturdays South Carolina primary will be a tougher test for him. And it could shape the race between the anti-establishment rivals as the GOP contest heads toward delegate-rich March voting states.(AP Photo/Paul Sancya) Florida Senator and Republican Presidential candidate Marco Rubio, makes a campaign stop at The Beacon Drive-In Restaurant in Spartanburg, S.C. on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016, where he gives Lizzie Williams, 8, a hug. Rubio was accompanied by Senator Tim Scott and S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley. Sen. Rubio gives Lizzie Williams (8) a hug before leaving The Beacon. (John Byrum/Spartanburg Herald-Journal via AP) Republican presidential candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush speaks with Anderson Cooper at a CNN town hall at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C., Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) In Jordan district packed with Syrians, anger festers MAFRAQ, Jordan (AP) In a Jordanian border district packed with Syrian war refugees, anger is festering: many complain the mass influx has pushed down wages and driven up food and housing prices. The resentment is still tempered by empathy for the Syrians, who share religious and cultural beliefs with Jordanians, and there have been few signs of open hostility. Dunya Shawaqfeh, a 59-year-old Mafraq resident, said she believes the refugees "stole the rights of our children" even though she works at a local women's charity that helps both needy Jordanians and Syrian refugees. In this Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016 photo, Syrian refugee Maysoun Smadi, 40, runs a psychological support course for Syrian and Jordanian women at a local charity in the town of Mafraq, Jordan. The border district of Mafraq near Syria is crowded with Syrian refugees and many Jordanians resent the newcomers for pushing down wages, opening competing businesses and driving up rents and food prices _ though for now the anger is still tempered by empathy for displaced war victims. (AP Photo/ Raad Adayleh) Jordan's leaders increasingly point to volatile public opinion in justifying tougher refugee policies, such as barring entry to most Syrians now seeking asylum and keeping them in makeshift camps in remote desert areas on the border. King Abdullah II warned this month in a renewed appeal for more foreign help that Jordanians have reached a "boiling point." After a Feb 4. Syria aid conference where the international community proposed large-scale job schemes for refugees in regional host countries, the king assured Mafraq district leaders that this would translate into five jobs for Jordanians for each job for a Syrian. At 15.6 percent, Mafraq had the highest unemployment rate of any district in Jordan in 2015. Pollster Musa Shteiwi said an overwhelming majority in Jordan opposes taking in more refugees, but that tensions remain relatively low because Jordanians realize "that these people are brothers and neighbors." Shteiwi, who runs the Institute for Strategic Studies at Jordan University, said the mood could quickly turn, especially in case of an attack by foreign extremists or another large refugee influx a possibility as Russian bombardments are sending thousands more Syrians from their homes. Also, promises made to Jordan and other host countries at the aid conference are viewed with "more skepticism than hope" by ordinary Jordanians, Shteiwi said. Jordan hosts about 635,000 Syrians registered with the U.N. refugee agency, out of more than 4.7 million Syrian war refugees in regional host countries. Jordan says its burden is much heavier and points to 2015 census figures which show twice as many Syrians living in Jordan though this also includes Syrians who arrived before the 2011 outbreak of the conflict. Mafraq has the highest percentage of Syrians of any district in Jordan close to 208,000, or almost 40 percent, of a population of 550,000, according to the census. In the district capital of the same name, Syrians make up half the population of 200,000, said Hayel Omoush, a city official. That's more than triple the size from a generation ago. The influx has benefited some Jordanians, including landlords, farm owners and building contractors, while hurting the poorest. The newcomers initially boosted local sales by spending foreign aid stipends on food and other necessities, though refugee aid has been cut back drastically because of growing funding shortages among international agencies. Syrians also provide an ample supply of cheap labor. Largely banned from working legally, many have taken on informal jobs below the legal minimum wage of 190 ($268) a month, working menial jobs on farms and construction sites shunned by Jordanians. At the same time, rents and food prices have skyrocketed, while wages for all, including Jordanians, have dropped. Services have buckled under the demands of the sharp population increase. The city of Mafraq produces 200 tons of garbage a day, compared to 80 tons before the Syria crisis, said Omoush. At one point, the city even employed Syrians without work permits to cope with garbage pickup, though they have since been laid off to avoid violations of the law, Omoush added. Shawaqfeh, who works as treasurer and sewing teacher at the Queen Zain al-Sharaf charity in downtown Mafraq, said her 24-year-old son is unemployed because he refuses to work for 100 dinars ($140) a month. Another son, who is 26, earns just under 400 dinars ($560) a month but cannot marry because rents have become unaffordable. "Are we going to find a chicken coop for him for 200 dinars ($380)," asked the widowed mother of eight. Shawaqfeh's co-worker Maysoun Smadi, who runs counseling workshops where Syrian and Jordanian women vent their frustration with each other to defuse conflict, said such complaints are common. The Syrian women try to explain to the Jordanians that "they did not come to take their places, they had to flee war and battlefields," said Smadi, 40, who left behind a comfortable life in the Syrian city of Daraa, fleeing three years ago with five of her six children. As the Syrian civil war drags on, some refugees in Mafraq are preparing for an extended exile, including those who take the risk of starting a business. The Mugharbel family last year opened a small sweets shop, "The Gate of Homs," named after the Syrian hometown they fled under gunfire more than four years ago. Now there's a "For Sale" sign in the window. Abdel Khaleq Mugharbel, 25, said his family invested 8,000 dinars ($11,300) in the shop. Sales were good for a few months, but dropped off sharply in the winter when the entire town suffered an economic downturn. "The situation is bad for everyone," he said, adding that he'll look for odd jobs once the business is sold. Nearby, the Arabiyat restaurant a Mafraq institution offering staples such as hummus, falafel and shawarma for more than 40 years stood largely empty. Business dropped by 25 percent because of growing competition from new restaurants, said owner Monir Arabiyat, 68. He now closes three hours earlier, around 8 p.m. Some refugees said they feel bad about making life harder for Jordanians, albeit unintentionally. "We know we have placed a huge burden on this country, but believe me, we have been forced to do so and we are not happy about it," said Hani Khidri, 58, a former Damascus restaurant owner who now cooks for the Queen Zain charity. These days he is thinking of leaving Mafraq and heading to the West. "We hope to travel, not because it's better abroad, just to ease the burden," he said. In this Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016 photo, Jordanian volunteer Dunya Shawaqfeh, 59, teaches sewing to Jordanian women at a charity in the town of Mafraq on the Syrian border. Shawaqfeh, a mother of eight, says the large influx of refugees over the past five years has robbed her family of opportunities by driving down wages and pushing up rents and food prices. Resentment of refugees is running high in areas like the district of Mafraq, where close to 40 percent of the population are now Syrians, though anger is still tempered by empathy. (AP Photo/ Raad Adayleh) HOLD FOR STORY JORDAN RESENTING REFUGEES BY KARIN LAUB - In this Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016 photo, Jordanian volunteer Dunya Shawaqfeh, 59, teaches sewing to a Jordanian woman at a charity in the town of Mafraq on the Syrian border. Shawaqfeh feels resentment toward the newcomers who she says have taken job and housing opportunities from her family, but also helps them at her charity because she feels empathy for the war victims who are essentially neighbors with the same culture and religion. (AP Photo/ Raad Adayleh) In this Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016 photo, Jordanian volunteer Dunya Shawaqfeh, 59, tdemonstrates sewing techniques to her class at a charity in the town of Mafraq on the Syrian border. Like many local residents, Shawaqfeh feels resentment toward refugees who now make up close to half the population of the district and compete with Jordanians for jobs and resources. Jordans leaders increasingly point to volatile public opinion to justify harsher measures against refugees, including what one senior aid official says is now effectively a closure of the border with Syria. (AP Photo/ Raad Adayleh) In this Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016 photo, Syrian refugee Abdel Khaleq Mugharbel, 25, arranges Syrian specialty sweets on a tray in his shop, The Gate of Homs, in the Jordanian border town of Mafraq. Syrians now make up close to 40 percent of the population of the Mafraq district and some _ like Mugharbel and his father _ have leased businesses, competing with local merchants, because they fear the civil war back home will drag for years to come (AP Photo/ Raad Adayleh) In this Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016 photo, Syrian refugee Abdel Khaleq Mugharbel, 25, places a For Sale sign on the window of the sweets shop in the Jordanian border town of Mafraq. Mugharbel and his father leased the Gate of Homs shop, named after their Syrian hometown, several months ago, but sales have dropped because of what he fears is a general economic downturn in Mafraq that affects both Jordanians and Syrian refugees. (AP Photo/ Raad Adayleh) In this Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016 photo, several customers have lunch in the Al-Arabiyat Restaurant in the northern border town of Mafraq, established more than 40 years ago, amid complaints by the owner that business has dropped by 25 percent because of growing competition from Syrian restaurateurs. Many locals resent Syrian refugees who now make up close to 40 percent of the district of Mafraq, saying they are competing for limited resources and business opportunities. (AP Photo/ Raad Adayleh) Brother of San Bernardino shooter's home searched by FBI CORONA, Calif. (AP) An hours-long search of a Southern California home brought the San Bernardino terror attack suddenly back into public view. The FBI on Thursday served a search warrant at the Corona home of Syed Raheel Farrok the brother of gunman Syed Rizwan Farook. Curious neighbors and media outlets captured images of at least a dozen investigators carting out armloads of thick manila envelopes, a computer tower and an unidentifiable object so heavy it took two men to carry. FBI and Homeland Security investigators carry a computer tower and manila envelopes from the Corona, Calif., home of Syed Raheel Farook while executing a search warrant at the home on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. FBI agents on Thursday were searching the California townhome of the brother of one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terror attack. Syed Raheel Farook is a Navy veteran who earned medals for fighting global terrorism. (Stan Lim /The Press-Enterprise via AP) MAGS OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT; LOS ANGELES TIMES OUT Raheel Farook, a military veteran who earned medals for fighting global terrorism, was not arrested and has not been named a suspect. The warrant is sealed, and FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller would not disclose any information other than to confirm a search was conducted in an ongoing investigation. The widespread probe into the shootings has largely been progressing behind the scenes, with agents conducting hundreds of interviews and analyzing mounds of evidence. Messages left for attorneys representing the Farook family were not immediately returned. One of his neighbors, Stacy Mozer, described Raheel Farook and his wife, Tatiana, as ideal neighbors. The couple drove another neighbor to doctor's appointments last year when she had cancer surgery, treated her to meals out and fetched her prescriptions for her, even paying for them, he said. The couple frequently strolled with their 1-year-old daughter around the community of townhomes and took her to the pool. "I would find it very hard to believe that they would be involved in any way," he said. "I do know that if you have a family member, you don't have control of their lives, and I don't think they had control of their brother's life." Mozer said the family's home was searched twice after the December shooting, and authorities broke down the door on an earlier occasion. To serve a search warrant, authorities must have probable cause that a crime was committed and items connected to the crime are likely to be found at the location. Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, opened fire Dec. 2 at a meeting of his San Bernardino County co-workers. They died hours later in a shootout with police. The 14 people killed marked the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001. Farook's family has said it knew nothing of the plot. The search of the Farook home came a day after Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company would fight federal government efforts to help the FBI hack into an iPhone used by the gunman. So far, the only person charged in connection with the attack is Enrique Marquez, a friend and former neighbor of Rizwan Farook's. Marquez is charged with providing the assault rifles used in the massacre, making false statements about when he bought the weapons and conspiring with Rizwan Farook on a pair of previously planned attacks that were never carried out. Marquez also faces charges of marriage fraud and lying on immigration paperwork. The FBI said he acknowledged that he was paid $200 a month to marry the sister of Raheel Farook's wife, and he lied on immigration papers that he lived with her so she could stay in the U.S. Marquez and his wife listed their address at the same Corona home that was searched by the FBI on Thursday. ___ Myers reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writer Amy Taxin in Tustin contributed to this report. Stacy Mozer, neighbor of Syed Raheel Farook, brother of one of the San Bernardino attackers, talks to reporters after FBI agents carried out armloads of papers and a computer from the Farook home during a raid Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. Mozer described Raheel Farook and wife Tatiana as ideal neighbors and very pleasant people. Mozer said the family's home was searched twice after the December terror attack and that authorities previously broke down the front door. (AP Photo/Gilliam Flaccus) Members of the media and onloookers stand across the street from the home of Syed Raheel Farook, the brother of Syed Farook, one of the shooters in the San Bernardino mass shooting as FBI investigators execute a search warrant at the home on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016, in Corona, Calif. Syed Raheel Farook is a Navy veteran who earned medals for fighting global terrorism. (Stan Lim /The Press-Enterprise via AP) MAGS OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT; LOS ANGELES TIMES OUT Ex-Polish president Walesa denies he was a paid informant WARSAW, Poland (AP) Former Polish president Lech Walesa on Friday denied claims that he collaborated with communist-era secret police for money in the 1970s. The allegations against Walesa, who led the Solidarity movement that paved the way for the ouster of communism and rise of democracy in Poland in the 1980s and 1990s, are not new, but it's perhaps not surprising that they're being resurrected by the ruling Law and Justice party. The party, which took office three months ago, has embarked on sweeping changes and is seeking to discredit its critics, among them Walesa. He faults the party for rushing legislation, installing loyalists in a special court and in state-run media, and planning more legislation that would strengthen its power. Poland's former president and Solidarity founder Lech Walesa delivers a speech during a special session of Venezuela's National Assembly, in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. Walesa, the icon of Poland's successful struggle to topple communism and the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has previously acknowledged signing a commitment to be an informant, but has insisted he never acted on it. In 2000 he was cleared by a special court, which said it found no evidence of collaboration. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) He has a decades-long feud with Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the Law and Justice leader, who says the communists preserved influence in Poland after their 1989 ouster and that he intends to expose the facts. Walesa, 72, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, went online Friday to deny allegations leveled by the head of a state historical institute based on documents that recently surfaced. The institute head says the veracity of the documents still needs to be confirmed. "I did not collaborate with the (secret security). I never took money and never made any spoken or written report on anyone," Walesa wrote on a blog. "I trust that truth will defend itself." The National Remembrance Institute says that documents seized Tuesday from the home of the last communist interior minister, the late Gen. Czeslaw Kiszczak, include a commitment to collaborate that is signed with Walesa's name and codename "Bolek," and also reports and receipts for money dating from 1970-76. The documents are to be made available to the public next week. Walesa said that during many raids on his home and workplaces, the secret police seized handwritten notes that could now be wrongly presented as proof against him. In 1970, Walesa was a workers' protest leader at the Gdansk shipyard but in 1976 was fired from his job. In 1980, he joined and led another protest at the shipyard that grew into Poland's nationwide Solidarity movement, which eventually ousted the communists, and provoked a chain reaction across the region. But Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski says the circumstances need to be clarified, with the help of Walesa's files. They can "shed light on how an independent Poland was created" and may potentially show that Walesa and other dissidents were "puppets" and that the "free Poland project was directed" from the outside, Waszczykowski said. The documents, if verified, could potentially undermine the image that Poles and the world have of the people who brought an end to communism in Poland. The leaders of the Law and Justice party, some of whom were lower-ranking Solidarity activists, say they need to introduce "good change" in Poland because it is suffering from divisions and inequalities that are the legacy of an imperfect and corrupt deal that Solidarity struck with the communist authorities in 1989, that eventually paved the way for democracy. FILE - In this June 16, 1983 file photo former Solidarity leader Lech Walesa makes the V-sign and raises his arms to a cheering crowd as he leaves the shipyard in Gdansk where he worked. The head of Poland's National Remembrance Institute said Thursday Feb. 18, 2016 that recently seized documents show that Walesa was a paid informant for the communist-era secret security from 1970 to 1976. (AP Photo/Jacques Langevin) Poland's former president and Solidarity founder Lech Walesa, center, is greeeted by lawmakers upon his arrival to deliver a speech during a special session of Venezuela's National Assembly, in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. Walesa, the legendary anti-communist leader who played a historic role in bringing down communism in Poland, had served as a paid informant in the 1970s for the same communist regime that he later fought, according to documents revealed publicly. Walesa has previously acknowledged signing a commitment to be an informant, but has insisted he never acted on it. In 2000 he was cleared by a special court, which said it found no evidence of collaboration. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) FILE - The 1983 file photo shows Lech Walesa, former leader of Poland's Solidarity movement during a press conference in Gdansk, Poland, after the Nobel committee announced that he is to receive the Nobel Prize for peace. The head of Poland's National Remembrance Institute said Thursday Feb. 18, 2016 that recently seized documents show that Walesa was a paid informant for the communist-era secret security from 1970 to 1976. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, file) FILE - In this Oct. 22, 2013 file photo Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Polands former President, Lech Walesa, looks at the audience during the annual meeting of laureates in Warsaw. The head of Poland's National Remembrance Institute said Thursday Feb. 18, 2016 that recently seized documents show that Walesa was a paid informant for the communist-era secret security from 1970 to 1976. (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz, file) FILE - The 1981 file photo shows Lech Walesa, leader of the forbidden Polish 'Solidarity Movement' in Poland. The head of Poland's National Remembrance Institute said Thursday Feb. 18, 2016 that recently seized documents show that Walesa was a paid informant for the communist-era secret security from 1970 to 1976. (AP Photo) A woman poses for a photo next to Poland's former president and Solidarity founder Lech Walesa, center, prior a news conference at Venezuela's National Assembly building, in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. Walesa, the legendary anti-communist leader who played a historic role in bringing down communism in Poland, had served as a paid informant in the 1970s for the same communist regime that he later fought, according to documents revealed publicly. Walesa has previously acknowledged signing a commitment to be an informant, but has insisted he never acted on it. In 2000 he was cleared by a special court, which said it found no evidence of collaboration. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano) FILE - In this Feb. 19, 2015 file photo Poland's former president and Solidarity leader Lech Walesa talks with The Associated Press in Warsaw, Poland. The head of Poland's National Remembrance Institute said Thursday Feb. 18, 2016 that recently seized documents show that Walesa was a paid informant for the communist-era secret security from 1970 to 1976. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, file) China accuses US of militarizing South China Sea BEIJING (AP) China on Friday accused the U.S. of militarizing the South China Sea, just days after it was revealed Beijing had deployed surface-to-air missiles on an island in the hotly disputed area. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters that patrols by U.S. military aircraft and Navy vessels, along with joint exercises involving regional partners were the true reason why concerns were growing over peace and stability. "The above actions have escalated tensions in the South China Sea, and that's the real militarization of the South China Sea," Hong said. This image with notations provided by ImageSat International N.V., Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016, shows satellite images of Woody Island, the largest of the Paracel Islands, in the South China Sea. A U.S. official confirmed that China has placed a surface-to-air missile system on Woody Island in the Paracel chain, but it is unclear whether this is a short-term deployment or something intended to be more long-lasting. (ImageSat International N.V. via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT, NO SALES U.S. and Taiwanese officials this week confirmed commercial satellite images showing the missiles placed on Woody Island in the disputed Paracel chain. China has not denied the appearance of the missiles, but says it is entitled to defend its territory and points to the construction of lighthouses, weather stations and other infrastructure undertaken to provide more "public goods and services to the international community." The deployment follows China's building of new islands by piling sand atop reefs and then adding airstrips and military installations. The buildup is seen as part of Beijing's efforts to claim virtually the entire disputed sea and its resources. Vietnam, which along with Taiwan also claims the Paracels, issued a diplomatic note to the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi on Friday to demand a stop to what it called "China's infringement of Vietnam's sovereignty" over the islands. China's action "have also threatened peace and stability in the region as well as security, safety, and freedom of navigation and aviation," Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh told reporters. The Philippines, which claims waters and features east of Woody island, on Friday said it was "gravely concerned" by reports of the missile deployments. "Such actions negate China's earlier commitment not to militarize the South China Sea," the Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. Although not one of the six governments with claims in the South China Sea, the U.S. says it has a national interest in the region's stability and freedom of navigation and overflight in and above what are some of the world's busiest sea lanes. Secretary of State John Kerry has suggested that the positioning of missiles and other signs of increasing militarization contradicted a public assurance from Chinese President Xi Jinping when he visited the White House last September. Hong's comments represent China's attempt to turn that accusation back on Washington, a cause to which it has rallied its entirely state-controlled media outlets. China's "defensive deployment on Yongxing targets external military threats," the Communist Party newspaper Global Times said in an editorial, using China's name for Woody Island. "The U.S. is bold about imposing pressure on China, and China must make an appropriate response." ___ Associated Press Tran Van Minh in Hanoi, Vietnam, contributed to this report. This image with notations provided by ImageSat International N.V., Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016, shows satellite images of Woody Island, the largest of the Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. A U.S. official confirmed that China has placed a surface-to-air missile system on Woody Island in the Paracel chain, but it is unclear whether this is a short-term deployment or something intended to be more long-lasting. (ImageSat International N.V. via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT, NO SALES Protesters burn a mock missile during a rally near the Chinese Consulate in the financial district of Makati city, Philippines, to denounce the alleged deployment of surface-to-air-missiles by China on the disputed islands off South China Sea, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. The protesters are calling on China to halt its island-building on some of the disputed islands and its alleged increasing militarization. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez) Protesters flash thumbs-down signs as they shout slogans during a rally near the Chinese Consulate in the financial district of Makati city, Philippines, to denounce the alleged deployment of surface-to-air-missiles by China on the disputed islands off South China Sea, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. The protesters are calling on China to halt its island-building on some of the disputed islands and its alleged increasing militarization. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez) Protesters flash thumbs down signs as they shout slogans during a rally near the Chinese Consulate in the financial district of Makati city, Philippines, to denounce the alleged deployment of surface-to-air-missiles by China on the disputed islands off South China Sea, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. The protesters are calling on China to halt its island-building on some of the disputed islands and its alleged increasing militarization. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez) Austria, Hungary moves highlight EU disarray over migrants BERLIN (AP) Austria raised the prospect of even tighter limits on the number of asylum seekers entering the country Friday while Hungary said it is shutting three railway border crossings with Croatia, highlighting the disarray within the European Union over migrants. EU leaders at a summit in Brussels made little headway in the elusive search for joint solutions to the influx of refugees and other migrants, though they did agree to hold a meeting in early March with Turkey. German Chancellor Angela Merkel in particular views diplomacy with Turkey, from where hundreds of thousands have crossed to EU member Greece, as key to resolving the crisis. Meanwhile, countries are pressing ahead with unilateral measures. Austria is allowing a maximum 80 people a day to apply for asylum at its southern border points as of Friday, a move it took despite claims it was illegal. Hungarian Interior Minister Sandor Pinter, listens to a question during a press conference with his Serbian counterpart Nebojsa Stefanovic, unseen, at the Roszke border crossing near the village of Roszke, southern Hungary, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. Serbia and Hungary will form a working group which will define increased engagement of Serbian and Hungarian police on Macedonia Greece border with all the use of police and technical equipment in order to deal more efficiently with migrant flow on Balkan route. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic) The decision wasn't immediately put to the test, though, with the main Spielfeld border crossing from Slovenia empty. Police spokesman Fritz Grundnig said the reason wasn't clear but that officers assumed there had been "a weather problem" in the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece a couple of days ago. Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner indicated that the cap could be tightened further. "We will subsequently have to reduce the daily upper limits further," she was quoted as saying by the Austria Press Agency. She didn't name a timeframe or number but said such moves would be consulted on with neighboring countries. In Hungary, Interior Minister Sandor Pinter said his country is closing three railway crossings with Croatia to block any migrants entering a move he said was prompted by Croatian authorities sending a trainload of people toward Hungary under police escort. Pinter didn't specify when the crossings would be closed. In Munich, the most prominent domestic critic of Merkel's open-door approach demanded results from the summit with Turkey next month. Bavarian governor Horst Seehofer, who heads the smallest of three parties in Germany's governing coalition, reiterated calls for tougher border controls and a German cap on refugees. "I would only say that more and more European countries, if not to say nearly all of them, are moving in this direction," he said. In the eastern German state of Saxony, regional interior minister Markus Ulbig condemned as "deeply shameful" an incident in which a screaming mob blocked a bus full of migrants at a refugee home. A video circulating on social media shows several migrants inside the bus crying as people outside chant "We are the people!" and "Go home!" Saxony police spokesman Rafael Scholz said the video showed an incident late Thursday in Clausnitz, south of Dresden. He said 100 people took part in the anti-migrant protest but police were able to prevent violence. A second video that surfaced later Friday showed the same sequence preceded by a scene in which a police officer appeared to roughly grab a boy from the bus and pull him into the refugee home. Ulbig said in a statement posted on Saxony police's Facebook page that the video and the police deployment are being evaluated. A rfegistration tent for migrants stands behind the border fence to Slovenia in Spielfeld, Austria, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. In the latest in a series of uncoordinated and unilateral measures by nations, Austria announced that it would allow no more than 80 people a day to apply for asylum at its southern border points, as of Friday. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak) A journalist talks to a police officer behind the border fence to Slovenia seen in Spielfeld, Austria, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. In the latest in a series of uncoordinated and unilateral measures by nations, Austria announced that it would allow no more than 80 people a day to apply for asylum at its southern border points, as of Friday. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak) Police walks behind fences in a registration camp for migrants at the border to Slovenia in Spielfeld, Austria, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. In the latest in a series of uncoordinated and unilateral measures by nations, Austria announced that it would allow no more than 80 people a day to apply for asylum at its southern border points, as of Friday. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak) China expresses concern to Spain over bank fraud probe MADRID (AP) A senior Chinese government official met Friday with a representative of the Spanish embassy in Beijing to express a "high level of concern" over a money laundering and tax fraud probe of China's ICBC bank in Madrid that has led to six arrests. According to a government statement, Deputy Foreign Minister Liu Xing told embassy official Jose Luis Garcia Galan that China hopes Spain will deal with the case in a lawful manner and guarantee the legal rights and interests of Chinese businesses and personnel in Spain. It said Garcia Galan responded that Spain would conduct an impartial investigation, guarantee the rights of those concerned, and deal with the case "cautiously and appropriately" to avoid damage to cooperation between the sides. Spanish Civil Guard policemen stand guard outside China's ICBC bank offices, in Madrid, Spain, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016. Spanish police searched offices of China's ICBC bank in downtown Madrid and arrested five people Wednesday as part of a money laundering and tax fraud probe. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco) China expressed similar concern over the case Wednesday after police raided ICBC's downtown Madrid office and arrested five executives. Spanish police on Friday arrested a sixth executive of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China as part of the probe. The six were brought before an investigative magistrate Friday. The judge will decide whether they should be released and if they are to be formally placed under investigation. The police said the operation was a follow-up on one in 2015 that targeted gangs using the bank to launder to China some 40 million euros ($45 million) proceeding from Chinese-run bargain stores in Spain. The sixth detainee previously worked in ICBC's offices in Madrid but now works in the Luxembourg branch, police said. He was arrested in Madrid. ____ The Latest: France orders expulsion of swath of Calais camp BRUSSELS (AP) The Latest on the massive influx of migrants into Europe (all times local): 7:40 p.m. An expulsion order has been issued for hundreds of migrants living in a huge swath of the Calais camp known locally as "the jungle," demanding that they remove their makeshift homes and possessions within four days. Refugees and migrants arrive on a Greek coastguard patrol boat into the port of Mytilene, of the Greek island of Lesbos, following a rescue operation in a part of the Aegean Sea between Turkey and Greece, on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. More than 1 million refugees and migrants entered the EU in 2015 fleeing conflict or poverty, and some 84,000 have entered so far this year. (AP Photo/Manu Brabo) The order, published Friday by the regional prefecture, says residents of the camp's southern sector must clear out by 8 p.m. Tuesday so it can be razed. Authorities estimate that 800-1,000 migrants live in that sector, crammed with shops, cafes, mosques and churches. Humanitarian groups say there are many more. Most of the approximately 4,000 migrants in Calais want to sneak to Britain. Authorities want them to move to nearby heated containers or welcome centers around France to reconsider those plans. The order says security concerns, lack of hygiene and dignity make the expulsion urgent ___ 4:55 p.m. The most prominent domestic critic of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's migrant policy is demanding that a planned European Union summit with Turkey next month produce results. EU leaders meeting Thursday and Friday made little progress on the migrant crisis but they decided to hold a summit next month with Turkey, which Merkel sees as the key to reducing the flow of refugees. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu scrapped plans to travel to Brussels this week following a bombing in Ankara. Bavarian governor Horst Seehofer, who leads the smallest party in Germany's governing coalition, has long pressed Merkel for tougher border controls and a cap on refugee numbers. He said Friday: "We expect the special meeting in March to bring results and not be a meeting that produces another postponement." ___ 3:40 p.m. German officials have voiced shock after a video emerged showing a screaming mob blocking a bus full of migrants in the eastern state of Saxony. State Interior Minister Markus Ulbig condemned the incident Friday, saying it was "deeply shameful." A video circulating on social media shows several migrants inside the bus crying as people outside chant "We are the people!" and "Go home!" Saxony police spokesman Rafael Scholz says the video showed an incident late Thursday in Clausnitz, 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of Dresden. He told The Associated Press that 100 people took part in the anti-migrant protest but police were able to prevent violence. Scholz says police are investigating verbal threats of violence but there were no arrests. ___ 2:20 p.m. Hungary's interior minister says his country is closing down three railway border crossings with neighboring Croatia to block any possible entry of migrants. Sandor Pinter said Friday that the crossings will be closed because Croatian authorities have sent a train full of migrants toward Hungary under police escort. Pinter did not say when exactly the crossings are to be closed or when the train was sent. Local media have reported the border crossings will remain shut for 30 days. Tens of thousands of migrants crossed over to Hungary from Croatia last year before Hungary built a razor wire fence and decided to close down its borders for migrants in October, diverting the flow to Slovenia. ___ 1:55 p.m. Austria's interior minister is signaling that her country could further reduce its newly introduced cap on the number of asylum seekers entering the country. Vienna's decision to allow no more than 80 people a day to apply for asylum at its southern border points starting Friday is the latest in a series of uncoordinated and unilateral measures by individual nations as the European Union has struggled to find common answers to the influx of migrants. Austria pressed ahead despite claims the move would break the law, though possibly because of bad weather in the Aegean Sea its main border crossing with Slovenia was clear of migrants Friday. The Austria Press Agency quoted Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner as saying Friday: "We will subsequently have to reduce the daily upper limits further." She didn't name a timeframe or number but said such moves would be consulted on with neighboring countries. ___ 1:30 p.m. An Italian coast guard helicopter has spotted the bodies of two migrants on the shores of the Italian island of Sicily. Coast Guard Cmdr. Filippo Marini told Sky TG24 TV that a small boat which washed ashore nearby Friday morning is believed to have been full of migrants. Police stopped eight migrants, including two children, at the scene. Marini said survivors told authorities the boat had been carrying 40 migrants and the others had already fled before authorities arrived. The migrants said they were Libyans and Tunisians. Smugglers daily send unseaworthy boats from Libya toward Italy across the Mediterranean Sea. After the rescued migrants arrive on land, many slip away to reach relatives in northern Europe, where they seek asylum. Some 300,000 migrants were rescued off Italy in 2014-2015, but so far this year far fewer have arrived. ___ 12:45 p.m. No migrants are arriving at Austria's main border crossing with Slovenia a situation police say may be due to bad weather in the Aegean Sea as Vienna introduces a plan to cap the number of arriving asylum-seekers Austria announced earlier this week it would allow a maximum 80 people a day to apply for asylum at its southern border points, starting Friday. It said it would press ahead despite claims the move was illegal. Police spokesman Fritz Grundnig said at the Spielfeld crossing no refugees were expected Friday. He said the reason isn't clear but "we assume that there was a weather problem in the Aegean a couple of days ago." In neighboring Germany, Interior Ministry spokesman Tobias Plate said Berlin views Austria's quota plans "with a certain skepticism." ___ 10:50 a.m. The leaders of Germany and France are meeting Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras amid growing worry about Greece's lack of control over thousands of migrants crossing its borders into the European Union every week. Tsipras, Chancellor Angela Merkel and France's Francois Hollande are talking on the sidelines of a European Union summit in Brussels on Friday. Six hours of talks the night before highlighted still-deep divisions across the continent about how to deal with the EU's worst-ever refugee crisis. Officials said leaders at Thursday's talks argued over conflicting national reactions to the migrant influx, and the potential collapse of Europe's border-free travel. The EU's executive Commission has given Greece three months to restore order on its borders, but few believe Athens will be able to meet the deadline. Inside view of an empty registration tent for migrants at the border to Slovenia in Spielfeld, Austria, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. In the latest in a series of uncoordinated and unilateral measures by nations, Austria announced that it would allow no more than 80 people a day to apply for asylum at its southern border points, as of Friday. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak) German Chancellor Angela Merkel, center left, speaks with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, center right, during a round table meeting at an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. European Union leaders are holding a summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to hammer out a deal designed to keep Britain in the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert) German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks during a press conference at an EU summit at the EU Council building in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. European Union leaders are holding a summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to hammer out a deal designed to keep Britain in the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) Refugees and migrants wait at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, after they arrived with a ferry on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. More than 1 million people entered the EU in 2015 fleeing conflict or poverty, and some 84,000 have entered so far this year. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) A Syrian family walks at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, after they arrived with a ferry on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. More than 1 million refugees and migrants entered the EU in 2015 fleeing conflict or poverty, and some 84,000 have entered so far this year. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris) Two policeman walk in an empty registration tent for migrants at the border to Slovenia in Spielfeld, Austria, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. In the latest in a series of uncoordinated and unilateral measures by nations, Austria announced that it would allow no more than 80 people a day to apply for asylum at its southern border points, as of Friday. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak) Two policemen stand in front of the closed inlet gate for migrants at the border to Slovenia to Austria in Spielfeld, Austria, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. In the latest in a series of uncoordinated and unilateral measures by nations, Austria announced that it would allow no more than 80 people a day to apply for asylum at its southern border points, as of Friday. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak) Austrian police are waiting behind fences at the border to Slovenia in Spielfeld, Austria, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. In the latest in a series of uncoordinated and unilateral measures by nations, Austria announced that it would allow no more than 80 people a day to apply for asylum at its southern border points, as of Friday. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak) Police walks behind fences in a registration camp for migrants at the border to Slovenia in Spielfeld, Austria, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. In the latest in a series of uncoordinated and unilateral measures by nations, Austria announced that it would allow no more than 80 people a day to apply for asylum at its southern border points, as of Friday. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak) A journalist talks to a police officer behind the border fence to Slovenia seen in Spielfeld, Austria, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. In the latest in a series of uncoordinated and unilateral measures by nations, Austria announced that it would allow no more than 80 people a day to apply for asylum at its southern border points, as of Friday. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak) 1 dead as India protests for caste benefits turn violent NEW DELHI (AP) India's paramilitary forces shot and killed one person on Friday as protests for government benefits turned violent in the northern part of the country, police said. Thousands of people belonging to the Jat agricultural community were protesting in Rohtak and other towns in Haryana state. They demand a 10 percent increase in their caste quota benefits, which include guaranteed government jobs or university spots. The New Delhi Television (NDTV) news channel put the death toll at three and said protesters also burned vehicles, shops and a state minister's home. Protesters run some with sticks during a pro caste quota protest in Rohtak, 70 kilometers (45 miles) west of New Delhi, India, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. India's paramilitary forces shot and killed one person on Friday as protests for government benefits turned violent in northern India, police said. Thousands of people belonging to the Jat agricultural community were protesting in Rohtak and other towns in Haryana state, to demand an increase in their caste quota benefits, which include guaranteed government jobs or university spots. (AP Photo/Deepak Khanna) NO ARCHIVES NO SALES Police officer Saurabh Singh said up to 20 people were injured in the clashes in Rohtak as protesters shot at paramilitary forces and hurled rocks. The town is 70 kilometers (45 miles) west of New Delhi. The injured included one paramilitary soldier shot by a protester, Singh said. Authorities imposed a curfew in Rohtak and Bhiwani towns and ordered police to fire without warning at those rioting. State authorities asked the Indian army to deploy soldiers to control protests which have spread to other towns in the state. India's constitution includes a system of affirmative action for people in the lowest castes to help them overcome discrimination. The government has expanded the number of groups qualifying for quotas, called reservations. Woman with liver cancer ordered to jail for parole violation ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) A woman with an advance stage liver cancer has been ordered to report to jail after officials say she violated parole by getting arrested for pulling her adult daughter's hair during a fight. The Orlando Sentinel (http://bit.ly/1oOQWPb ) reports that once 45-year-old Sabrina Orbera is released from the hospital, she'll await a parole violation decision in jail. A medical release from prison in December cut short Orbera's 15-year DUI manslaughter sentence. She'd been incarcerated since 2006 after pleading guilty in a crash that killed a 38-year-old woman. After Orbera's Feb. 3 arrest, the Florida Commission on Offender Review denied her request to stay home during the review. Attorney Jim Lewis says Orbera is dying and it's not right to jail her. He's asking the state attorney's office not to file charges. ___ This blog is looking for wisdom, to have and to share. It is also looking for other rare character traits like good humor, courage, and honor. It is not an easy road, because all of us fall short. But God is love, forgiveness and grace. Those who believe in Him and repent of their sins have the promise of His Holy Spirit to guide us and show us the Way. PICTURED: Editor selections from the Middle East this week Highlights from the weekly AP photo report from the Middle East and Pakistan, a selection of surprising images you might have missed from the region. This week's gallery features mourners bidding farewell to former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali; activists in Iraq using pantomime to protest corruption; majestic birds making their annual migration; women in Pakistan sharing stories of resilience and Valentine's Day celebrations that can't be subdued by war or Islamic conservatism. ___ FILE - In this Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016 file photo, Iraqis celebrate Valentine's Day at al-Zawra Park in Baghdad, Iraq. Iraqis are enjoying a rare lull in violence but wondering how long it will last. Despite recent setbacks, the Islamic State group is still dug in west of Baghdad, and increasingly powerful Shiite militias patrol the streets. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed, File) This gallery contains photos published Feb. 14-Feb. 19, 2016. See the latest AP photo galleries: http://apne.ws/TXeCBN The Archive: Top photo highlights from previous weeks: http://apne.ws/13QUFKJ ___ Follow AP photographers on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AP/lists/ap-photographers Follow AP Images on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AP_Images Visit AP Images online: http://www.apimages.com See the AP Images blog: http://blog.apimages.com/ ___ This gallery was produced by Middle East Regional Photo Editor in Cairo Maya Alleruzzo. Follow her on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mayaalleruzzo FILE - In this file photo taken on Jan. 27, 2016, Sidra Kamwal shows pictures of herself before she was disfigured in an acid attack in Karachi, Pakistan. She had left her abusive husband and moved back in with her mother when another man proposed to her. The man refused to take no for an answer. He pestered her and harassed her. And then one day he told her that if couldnt have her, no one could, and threw acid in her face.(AP Photo/Shakil Adil, File) FILE - In this Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016 file photo, Laila Boutros-Ghali, the wife of former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, sits near his coffin during his funeral in Al-Boutrossiya Church, at the main Coptic Cathedral complex in Cairo, Egypt. Boutros-Ghali, a veteran Egyptian diplomat who helped negotiate his country's landmark peace deal with Israel but then clashed with the United States when he served a single term as U.N. secretary-general, died Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016, aged 93. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty, File) FILE - In this Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016 file photo, migrating Cranes flock at the Hula Lake conservation area, north of the Sea of Galilee, in northern Israe. More than half a billion birds of some 400 different species pass through the Jordan Valley to Africa and go back to Europe during the year. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty, File) FILE - In this Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016 file photo, a rare thunderstorm passes over the Dubai Marina and Jumeirah Lake Towers neighborhoods of Dubai, United Arab Emirate. (AP Photo/Jon Gambrell, File) FILE - In this photo taken on Jan. 27, 2016 file photo, Pakistani acid victim Sidra Kamwal looks herself in a mirror in Karachi, Pakistan. Sidras attacker is in jail, but his family has been embraced by the neighbors. The family jeers at her, and the neighbors applaud. Sidra, with her painfully disfigured face, is the outcast.(AP Photo/Shakil Adil, File) FILE - In this Friday, Feb. 12, 2016 file photo, an Iraqi pantomime prepares for a show in Diwaniyah, Iraq. Pantomimes expressed resentment and anger over the economic and political situation using their art for show on the streets of Iraq. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban, File) FILE - In this Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016 file photo, cheerful Iranian women wave flags of reformists for the parliamentary elections in a campaign rally in Tehran, Iran. Supporters of a coalition of reformists and backers of President Hassan Rouhani held their first joint rally in Tehran as thousands of Iranian candidates on Thursday launched their election campaigns ahead of the country's Feb. 26 parliamentary elections. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File) FILE - In this Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016 file photo, people walk near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City. Israel has significantly beefed up security outside Jerusalem's Old City lately, especially at Damascus Gate which has been the scene of numerous Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians and security personnel over the past five months. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty, File) FILE - In this Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016 file photo, Yemeni men bury the body of the wife of a TV director Mounir al-Hakimi who was killed by a Saudi-led airstrike in Sanaa, Yemen. The TV director, his wife, and three children were killed in their home on Feb. 10. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed, File) FILE - In this Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016 file photo, men and women take seats ahead of the funeral of former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, in Al-Boutrossiya Church, in the main Coptic Cathedral complex in Cairo, Egypt. Boutros-Ghali, a veteran Egyptian diplomat who helped negotiate his country's landmark peace deal with Israel but then clashed with the United States when he served a single term as U.N. secretary-general, died Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016, aged 93. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty, File) FILE - In this Monday, Feb. 15, 2016 file photo, Majd, 18, right and Musab, 22, left, mourn while taking the last look at their brother Naim Safi, 17, who was shot dead by Israeli forces last Sunday, at the family house during his funeral in the West Bank village of Abadiya, Bethlehem. A Palestinian gripping a knife ran at Israeli border police officers at a West Bank checkpoint and an officer shot and killed him, no Israeli officers were wounded, Israeli police said. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser, File) FILE - In this Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016 file photo, Druse participate in a rally, demanding the return of the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in 1967, close to the Syrian border in Buqata in the Golan Heights. The annual demonstration is in protest of the 1981 Israeli law in which the Jewish state annexed the strategic plateau it captured from Syria during 1967 Arab-Israeli war. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty, File) FILE - In this Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016 file photo, an Afghan flower vendor arranges roses for Valentine's Day in Kabul, Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Rahmat Gul, File) FILE - In this Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016 file photo, a couple take 'selfie' in front of a giant heart-shaped bouquet display by a vendor to attract customers on Valentine's Day. Celebrating Valentine's Day is considered un-Islamic by some in Pakistan, but many still buy flowers and exchange gifts with others. (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed, File) In setback, Syrian peace talks not to resume next week BEIRUT (AP) In another setback to international efforts to resolve Syria's devastating civil war, peace talks are not to resume next week in Geneva, a U.N. envoy announced as Turkey on Friday intensified cross-border artillery shelling on areas dominated by Syria's U.S.-backed, mostly Kurdish militia. But reinforcing its image as a key force battling the Islamic State group on the ground, the predominantly Kurdish coalition, known as the Syria Democratic Forces, on Friday captured the town of Shaddadeh in the country's northeast. The town was one of the biggest strongholds of the extremists. Meanwhile, Russia called for an urgent Security Council meeting over the deteriorating border situation. A statement posted on the Russian foreign ministry's website said it intends to submit a draft council resolution calling on Turkey to "cease any actions that undermine Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity." Turkish soldiers carry the national flag-draped coffin of Sergeant First Class Feyyaz Ilhan, killed in Ankara's explosion Wednesday, during his funeral in Bursa, northeastern Turkey, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. Turkey blamed Kurdish militant groups at home and in neighbouring Syria on Thursday for the deadly suicide bombing in Ankara and vowed strong retaliation for the attack, a development that threatens to further complicate the Syria conflict. (DHA via AP) TURKEY OUT In comments to Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, said the Syria talks won't resume in Geneva on Feb. 25 as he had previously hoped. He said that he cannot "realistically" get the parties in the Syrian conflict back to the table by then, "but we intend to do so soon." Fighting has fighting intensified in Syria over the past weeks and a deadline to cease military activities has not been observed. The United States, Russia and other world powers agreed Feb. 12 on a deal calling for the ceasing of hostilities within a week, the delivery of urgently needed aid to besieged areas of Syria and a return to peace talks in Geneva. De Mistura halted the latest Syria talks on Feb. 3, because of major differences between the two sides, exacerbated by increased aerial bombings and a wide military offensive by Syrian troops and their allies under the cover of Russian airstrikes. In an interview published late Thursday on the Swedish daily's website, he said, "We need real talks about peace, not just talks about talks." En route to Jordan for talks about Syria and other issues, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday he is still hopeful about a ceasefire and peace talks for Syria, even though Geneva talks will not resume next week. Kerry said tough and complex issues remain and there is more work to do to resolve them. He added that the U.S. wants the process to be sustainable so that hostilities can be halted. In recent weeks, Syrian government forces captured dozens of villages and towns across the country while the SDF evicted opposition fighters and militants from areas near the border with Turkey in Aleppo province. Ankara strongly opposes the SDF, which is composed mostly of Kurdish fighters and has become one of the most effective forces on the ground fighting the Islamic State group. The International Committee of the Red Cross expressed deep alarm, over the situation Aleppo, saying the intensified fighting there has forced 70,000 people to flee their homes and left many without water or electricity. ICRC said in a statement Friday that two hospitals hit earlier this week in Aleppo left them out of service. The clinics had provided thousands of consultations, surgeries and delivered hundreds of babies per month. The Red Cross also said the remaining hospitals that work in the area are struggling to function. In yet another blow, international rights group Amnesty International said Turkish authorities have denied entry to wounded Syrian civilians in need of immediate medical care after they fled the intense bombardment of the Aleppo countryside over the past two weeks. Amnesty said it has also documented how Turkish security forces have shot and wounded civilians, including children, who out of desperation have attempted to cross the border unofficially with the help of smugglers. "People we spoke to painted a tragic picture of the desperate situation for the civilians who remain trapped between daily airstrikes and dire humanitarian conditions," said Tirana Hassan, Crisis Response Director at Amnesty International. "Turkey's highly selective practice is appalling - only severely injured people are allowed entry to seek medical treatment while everyone else fleeing the violence is left unprotected." Amnesty said the border must remain open to all those fleeing conflict in Syria especially the injured and sick civilians being targeted by daily airstrikes on their homes, hospitals, and schools. Earlier Friday, a rebel commander in the northwestern province of Idlib said Turkey was facilitating the movement of other rebel factions specifically in order to weaken the SDF. The commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to reveal military secrets, said a mixed coalition of rebel fighters were permitted to pass into Turkey and enter Syria again in order to prevent the city of Azaz from falling into SDF hands. Azaz is currently held by Turkish-backed rebel factions and is surrounded by both SDF forces and Islamic State group fighters. SDF gains in the area south of Azaz triggered several days of Turkish shelling, mainly targeting areas recently captured by the group. On Thursday night, Turkish troops intensified the shelling with ongoing barrages that lasted until early Friday. An SDF official said Turkish troops were bombing their positions in border areas, inflicting casualties among civilians. Ahmad al-Omar said the shelling hit several areas, including the town of Jandairis on Friday. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the shelling on areas on northern Syria lasted seven hours, killing two and wounding several people. The SDF is dominated by the main Kurdish militia known as YPG. Turkey blames both the YPG and its own domestic Kurdish rebels for Wednesday's bomb attack in Ankara that killed 28 people. Late Friday, the Turkey-based Kurdistan Freedom Falcons an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK claimed responsibility for the Ankara attack. In Syria, the taking of Shaddadeh in the northeastern province of Hassakeh from the IS hands a two-day SDF offensive in the area, according to the Observatory and SDF spokesman Talal Sillo. The town's capture is a blow to the Islamic State and would further boost the SDF, which sees the extremist IS group as its primary enemy on the battlefield in Syria's complex and multi-layered civil war. Sillo said SDF cut all supply lines to Shaddadeh, which was surrounded from all sides, before storming it. He said the mostly Kurdish forces lost six fighters and claimed that dozens of bodies of killed IS fighters were strewn on the ground in villages and roads near the town. "We have fully liberated Shaddadeh" Sillo said by telephone from northern Syria. ___ Analysis: Pope highlights Republicans' minority challenges SPARTANBURG, South Carolina (AP) The Republican Party's tension over its relationship with black and Hispanic voters was under way long before Pope Francis decided to comment on Donald Trump. On one side, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and others insist the party must attract more minorities to win the presidency. On the other, leading rivals Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz embrace fiery rhetoric designed to motivate angry white conservatives. Complicating it all is immigration, the issue the party's pragmatic professionals can't square with the passions of the most faithful Republican voters. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, accompanied by Anderson Cooper, left, speaks with members of the audience during a commercial break at a CNN town hall at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C., Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Pope Francis on Thursday put a spotlight on the debate when, asked about Trump's call to build a massive wall on the U.S.-Mexican border, he said those who seek to build walls instead of bridges are "not Christian." The clash could determine much more than South Carolina's Republican primary election on Saturday, but also whether the party's nominee succeeds in November's general election. "I don't think conservatism has ethnic boundaries," Rubio told The Associated Press on Thursday as he campaigned alongside South Carolina's Indian-American Gov. Nikki Haley and African-American Sen. Tim Scott. "We just need to take our policies to people that haven't regularly voted for us in the past, communities that would benefit from what we stand for, but perhaps have been told that Republicans don't care about people like them," the son of Cuban immigrants said. Haley highlighted the diversity during an earlier rally, saying: "I hope we're the new faces of the conservative movement." But Trump isn't alone among the Republican candidates in his calls to build a border wall to stem illegal immigration. Cruz supports the idea, too, and Rubio has repeatedly said that no progress can be made on immigration until Washington can prove to Americans that illegal immigration is under control. That border-security-first approach is at odds with the recommendations of the Republican National Committee, which determined after an exhaustive post-2012 study the party must adopt "comprehensive immigration reform" to help expand its appeal beyond older, white men. It may not matter in South Carolina's primary, a contest that will be dominated by white voters. In 2012, the state's Republican primary electorate was 98 percent white. It's a different story for the November general election, when minority voters are expected to make up more than 30 percent of the eligible voting-age population, and more than 50 percent of the voter pool by 2052. A new Associated Press-GfK poll found that Rubio and Cruz are slightly more popular than Trump among Hispanics, although none is well-liked. All have especially low ratings among blacks. Fifteen percent of blacks and 31 percent of Hispanics have a favorable view of Rubio, the new poll found. Cruz earns positive marks from 11 percent of black voters and 29 percent of Hispanics, while Trump finishes at the bottom with favorable ratings from just 8 percent of blacks and 16 percent of Hispanics. Trump isn't ignoring minority voters. He's campaigning in South Carolina this week alongside Pastor Mark Burns, a black televangelist who told AP that many people have the mistaken impression that Trump is "a racist bigot." "That's not the case at all," he said. Cruz, whose father is also a Cuban immigrant, hopes to win the White House by energizing evangelical and working-class white voters. He has brought along allies to South Carolina this week that include Iowa Rep. Steve King, who has compared immigrants living in the country illegally to drug mules and livestock. Republican National Committee member Henry Barbour, who helped author the post-2012 study, praised the minority outreach efforts of candidates like Rubio and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. "But it's troubling to me for the future of our party that we have candidates like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz who think that it's still 1972," Barbour said. ___ Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Greenville, South Carolina, Jill Colvin in Kiawah, South Carolina, and news survey specialist Emily Swanson in Washington contributed to this report. ___ Steve Peoples covers the Republican Party and the 2016 presidential campaign for The Associated Press. Follow him on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/sppeoples Volunteers make calls for Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016, in Greenville, S.C. For months, Cruzs campaign has touted an expensive and sophisticated get-out-the-vote operation as its antidote to Donald Trumps broad populist appeal. It worked in Iowa. But Saturdays South Carolina primary will be a tougher test for him. And it could shape the race between the anti-establishment rivals as the GOP contest heads toward delegate-rich March voting states.(AP Photo/Paul Sancya) Florida Senator and Republican Presidential candidate Marco Rubio, makes a campaign stop at The Beacon Drive-In Restaurant in Spartanburg, S.C. on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016, where he gives Lizzie Williams, 8, a hug. Rubio was accompanied by Senator Tim Scott and S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley. Sen. Rubio gives Lizzie Williams (8) a hug before leaving The Beacon. (John Byrum/Spartanburg Herald-Journal via AP) Republican presidential candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush speaks with Anderson Cooper at a CNN town hall at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C., Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Former deputy sheriff faces new inmate sex charges LACONIA, N.H. (AP) A former New Hampshire deputy sheriff faces fresh sexual assault charges involving inmates in his custody for transport, according to indictments that allege he coerced his victims into having sex with him or each other. Former Belknap County deputy Ernest Justin Blanchette was indicted Thursday on counts involving five inmates he allegedly assaulted while transporting them between correctional facilities across the state. He is charged with nine counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault and one count of felonious sexual assault. Blanchette was indicted last year for allegedly assaulting a female inmate in July. He pleaded not guilty in December. Some of the new charges involve the woman in the initial case, prosecutors said. He is also accused of coercing another woman into having intercourse at a Laconia cemetery. Bail was set at $100,000 at a hearing Thursday. The Laconia Daily Sun reports (http://bit.ly/1Qq5ICa) Belknap County Attorney Melissa Guldbrandsen asked for a total of $500,000 bail, or $100,000 for each of the five cases. Guldbrandsen said she believes Blanchette to be a danger to his community and a flight risk. Blanchette's attorney, Brad Davis, said he and his client were taken by "complete surprise" by the new indictments and argued that Blanchette should be released on the same $5,000 bail posted by his parents for his release on the pervious charge. Chelsea captain Terry out of Man City cup game with injury LONDON (AP) John Terry has been ruled out of Chelsea's FA Cup match against Manchester City on Sunday. Terry, who also missed the midweek Champions league loss against Paris Saint-Germain, is absent due to a hamstring injury. Chelsea manager Guus Hiddink described his captain's absence for the fifth-round meeting with City as disappointing, calling Terry "the leader of this club". Hiddink suggested the central defender should be fit for next week's Premier League game at Southampton. "We have a week I hope. Next weekend he should be available. I cannot predict it and I think we have to be a bit cautious with him as well because he likes to be there every day," Hiddink said. "We must be careful. I think maybe next weekend but you know him, he loves to be there. He tried yesterday but no." The 35-year-old Terry is entering the final months of his Chelsea career after disclosing that the club has not offered him a new contract for next season. Brazil launches anti-Zika campaign in schools SAO PAULO (AP) Brazil's president, government ministers, state governors, health agents and members of the armed forces Friday visited schools throughout the country to involve students in the nationwide campaign to eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquito that spreads the Zika virus. President Dilma Rousseff was on hand at a school in the city of Juazeiro, in the impoverished northeastern region that's the epicenter of Brazil's Zika virus outbreak. The Health Ministry said on its website that schools in Brasilia, in the country's 26 state capitals and in 115 other cities would be visited. An Army soldier shows Aedes aegypti larvae found in the school where Brazil's Minister of Health Marcelo Castro launched a national day of awareness to eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquito, in Brasilia, Brazil, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. The Aedes aegypti mosquito is a vector for the spread of the Zika virus, it lives largely inside homes and can lay eggs in even a bottle-cap's worth of stagnant water. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres) The ministry said that the objective is to raise the awareness of students of the importance of eliminating the breeding ground of the mosquito that also transmits dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever. Rousseff told students in Juazeiro that Aedes aegypti "is something that has to worry all of us, the president, the governor ... and every one of the pupils here." The mosquito lives largely inside homes and can lay eggs in even a bottle-cap's worth of stagnant water. The dishes beneath potted plants are a favorite spot, as are abandoned tires, bird feeders and even the little puddles of rainwater that collect in the folds of plastic tarps. The Education Ministry said nearly 190,000 basic education schools, universities and vocational training centers were to be visited on Friday. Zika's immediate effects are mild, consisting mostly of a moderate fever and a rash, and only a fifth of those afflicted notice any symptoms. But Brazilian authorities also say they have detected a spike in cases of microcephaly, a condition that leaves infants with unusually small heads and can result in brain damage and numerous developmental and health problems. The link between Zika and microcephaly remains unproven. Since October, 5,280 suspected cases of microcephaly have been reported, Brazil's Health Ministry said on Friday. Of those, 508 cases had been confirmed and 837 discarded. Of the confirmed cases, 41 have been connected to Zika. Army soldiers conduct an inspection in a school during a national day of awareness to eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquito, in Brasilia, Brazil, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. The Aedes aegypti mosquito is a vector for the spread of the Zika virus, it lives largely inside homes and can lay eggs in even a bottle-cap's worth of stagnant water. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres) Brazil's Health Minister Marcelo Castro talks with students during a national day of awareness to eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquito, in Brasilia, Brazil, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. The Aedes aegypti mosquito is a vector for the spread of the Zika virus, it lives largely inside homes and can lay eggs in even a bottle-cap's worth of stagnant water. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres) UN: Zika virus will be 'way down' before Rio hosts Olympics GENEVA (AP) The head of the World Health Organization's Zika response team is predicting that Brazil will host a "fantastic Olympics" and that the mosquito-borne virus will be "way down" by the time the Summer Games begin in Rio de Janeiro on Aug. 5. Dr. Bruce Aylward, WHO's executive director for outbreaks and health emergencies, said Friday at a news conference that the mosquito population is expected to drop off around when Rio hosts the games, since it will be winter in the southern hemisphere. Rio's Olympic venues are also in a relatively confined area, he noted, making it easier for authorities to control the local mosquito population. Soldiers conduct inspection in a school during a national day of awareness to eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquito, in Brasilia, Brazil, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. The Aedes aegypti mosquito is a vector for the spread of the Zika virus, it lives largely inside homes and can lay eggs in even a bottle-cap's worth of stagnant water. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres) "Brazil is going to have a fantastic Olympics and it's going to be a successful Olympics and the world is going to go there," Aylward said. "I just wish I was going there, but there's not going to be a lot of problems there by then, so I'll be somewhere else." Aylward also pointed to the "probability" that the Zika virus will have "gone through" a large slice of the country's population by then, so many Brazilians might have developed an immunity to the disease by the time of the Aug.5-21 games. Zika, however, is just the latest cloud hanging over Brazil ahead of South America's first Olympics. The country is coping with its worst recession in 100 years, impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff and a wide-ranging corruption scandal centered on the state-controlled oil-and-gas giant Petrobras. Brazil has recorded more than 1 million suspected Zika infections in recent months amid strong concerns that the virus could be linked to a spike in the number of babies born with abnormally small heads microcephaly and to a rare neurological syndrome that can cause temporary paralysis in people of all ages. In Brazil on Friday, ministers, state governors, health authorities and members of the armed forces visited schools throughout the country to involve students in the nationwide campaign to eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquito that spreads the Zika virus. WHO has declared a global health emergency due to the virus, saying it could produce as many as 4 million cases in the next year. The mosquitoes that spread Zika which also spread dengue and yellow fever are entrenched across the region and in a wide belt around the globe, mostly in tropical areas. Zika has spread to 36 countries, mostly in Latin America, and Aylward pointed to the "the explosive spread we've seen over the last 24 months." He said the "overall goal" was to reduce the mosquito population. There is no licensed treatment or vaccine for Zika. WHO and U.S. health authorities have recommended that pregnant women postpone traveling to infected areas and their partners use condoms or abstain from sex if they live in or have visited Zika-affected areas. ___ AP Sports Writer Stephen Wilson in London contributed. U.S. Ambassador to Brazil Liliana Ayalde attends a meeting on measures taken to combat the mosquito that carries the Zika virus, at the Pan American Health Organization headquarters in Brasilia, Brazil, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. Brazil has signed an agreement with a Texas research hospital to develop a vaccine against the Zika virus, Castro said Thursday, adding the goal is for the vaccine to be ready for clinical testing within 12 months. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres) FILE - In this Friday, Feb. 12, 2016 file photo, Lara, who is less then 3-months old and was born with microcephaly, is examined by a neurologist at the Pedro I hospital in Campina Grande, Paraiba state, Brazil. Scientists suspect an outbreak of the Zika virus is behind a surge in a rare birth defect in Brazil. But how are they going to prove it? Authorities in the South American country were quick to make the link last fall. But experts say the evidence is still circumstantial. Several studies are underway in Zika outbreak countries to see if the mosquito-borne virus is the actual case. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File) Army soldiers conduct an inspection in a school during a national day of awareness to eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquito, in Brasilia, Brazil, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. The Aedes aegypti mosquito is a vector for the spread of the Zika virus, it lives largely inside homes and can lay eggs in even a bottle-cap's worth of stagnant water. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres) An Army soldier shows Aedes aegypti larvae found in the school where Brazil's Minister of Health Marcelo Castro launched a national day of awareness to eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquito, in Brasilia, Brazil, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. The Aedes aegypti mosquito is a vector for the spread of the Zika virus, it lives largely inside homes and can lay eggs in even a bottle-cap's worth of stagnant water. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres) Teen seeks Boy Scouts' top honor with gay community project CHICAGO (AP) David Fite had already earned the 21 Boy Scout merit badges needed to earn the coveted rank of Eagle. But he still had to complete a community service project. Now 16, he'd always been a gung-ho scout, dutiful, polite and committed. But he'd also been disappointed with the organization's longstanding ban on openly gay scouts and leaders, so much so that he'd considered quitting. "I knew it wasn't right," said Fite, who has many family friends who are gay or lesbian some of them honorary "aunts" and "uncles" who've given him money for camp and other scouting projects over the years. Instead of leaving his beloved Troop 115, the usually quiet teen decided to make some noise, writing letters and speaking out with other scouts and adults who also opposed the bans. And he knew his Eagle project was his best chance to make a statement. Though the Boy Scouts lifted the ban on openly gay scouts in 2013, the ban on gay leaders remained when laid out his proposal early last year: community service projects in Chicago's main gay and lesbian neighborhood. In this Wednesday, June 17, 2015 photo, Boy Scout David Fite, 15, watches a Gay Pride party for youth at the Center on Halsted in Chicago. Fite had earned all the merit badges he needed to become an Eagle Scout, but he still needed to come up with a community service project to be considered for the honor. Troubled for years by scouting's anti-gay policies, the usually quiet kid decided to make some noise with his proposal: He'd honor Chicagos gay community, including young people made homeless when their families pushed them out. (AP Photo/Teresa Crawford) It's what a Boy Scout does, he said stands up for his family and his community. "In my mind, I knew I was doing the right thing," he said. His plan had two parts. First, he, family members, including his mother, Jennifer Fite, and grandparents, and a group of volunteers and students at Chicago's Nettelhorst School would decorate around the school for the nearby Gay Pride Parade in June 2015. Then he and his mom would host a meal and dance party and distribute backpacks, transit cards and other gifts for young people who gather regularly for support and socializing at the Center on Halsted, which serves Chicago's lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual residents. Some are homeless or "couch surfing" with friends because their families have kicked them out. It was shortly after Fite completed his Eagle project that the Boy Scouts lifted their ban on openly gay leaders, too. These changes have not been without controversy. Several religious denominations, including Mormon and Southern Baptist, collectively sponsor close to half of all Scout units. In response to the changes in policies on openly gay scouts and leaders, some churches have considered creating their own scouting organization. Boy Scout officials in states such as Utah also say they've had trouble raising funds since the bans were lifted. For Fite, part of his Eagle project's purpose was to show the gay community "that not everybody in the Boy Scouts is like that." In September, he made his final project presentation to the local Scout council, detailing what he had done and showing photos. He entered the session nervously, but emerged smiling broadly: He won final approval. He received his Eagle award at a ceremony at a Roman Catholic Mass last month and said earning the award on his own terms felt important. "I'm also proud of the Boy Scout organization for making this change and being the change that other people want to see in the world," he said. "I think it says that if you fight hard enough, you can change anything." ___ Martha Irvine, an AP national writer, can be reached at mirvine@ap.org or at http://twitter.com/irvineap In this Friday, May 15, 2015 photo, Boy Scout David Fite, 15, prepares to hang hand-made cloth streamers with volunteer Carlos Pabon outside the Nettelhorst School in Chicago. With the help of Pabon and others, David decorated the street scene in preparation for the city's nearby Gay Pride Parade. (AP Photo/Martha Irvine) In this Friday, May 15, 2015 photo, students tie cloth strips on a fence outside the Nettelhorst School in Chicago. With the help of the students and other volunteers, Boy Scout David Fite decorated the street scene in preparation for the city's nearby Gay Pride Parade. The school is in the heart of the neighborhood known as Boystown. (AP Photo/Martha Irvine) In this Friday, May 15, 2015 photo, Boy Scout David Fite hangs a disco ball in a tree outside the Nettelhorst School in Chicago for a project in preparation for the city's nearby Gay Pride Parade. In the midst of a ban of openly gay Scout leaders, for Fite, part of his Eagle projects purpose was to show the gay community "that not everybody in the Boy Scouts is like that." (AP Photo/Martha Irvine) In this Wednesday, June 17, 2015 photo, Jasean Purdis, left, laughs with Boy Scout David Fite as David judges a dance competition at a Gay Pride party for youth at the Center on Halsted in Chicago. Among other projects, David, hosted the party to support the city's gay community and earn his Eagle honors. He and his mother also served a meal and gave away prizes, including transit cards, backpacks and other supplies. (AP Photo/Teresa Crawford) In this Sunday, June 28, 2015 photo, parade-goers walk by a decorated school fence on their way to Chicago's Gay Pride Parade. With the help of his family, students at the Nettelhorst School and other volunteers, Boy Scout David Fite decorated the street scene in rainbow colors. (AP Photo/Martha Irvine) In this Sunday, June 28, 2015 photo, Boy Scout David Fite and his mother, Jennifer Fite, right, watch the Chicago Gay Pride Parade. David says he had been disappointed with the Scouts longstanding ban on openly gay scouts and leaders, so much so that hed considered quitting. "I knew it wasnt right," said Fite, who has many family friends who are gay or lesbian (AP Photo/Martha Irvine) In this Monday, Sept. 14, 2015 photo, Boy Scout David Fite waits for his chance to present the results of his Eagle project in Chicago. Eagle is the highest rank in the Boy Scouts and is earned when a scout has 21 merit badges and completes a community service project, which he plans and executes. David was nervous because he knew his project, which focused on Chicago's gay community, might be controversial to some people in and outside of scouting. The committee approved his Eagle award, which he received in January 2016. (AP Photo/Martha Irvine) A priest blesses Boy Scout Eagle awards during a Catholic Mass in Chicago on Sunday, Jan. 3, 2016. David Fite, flanked by two other scouts, was among those who received the Eagle rank at the service. (AP Photo/Martha Irvine) A fellow Eagle scout presents David Fite with his Eagle neckerchief during a ceremony at a Catholic church in Chicago on Sunday, Jan. 3, 2016, as Fite's scoutmaster, Jerome Lasky, stands behind him. To earn Eagle rank, David earned 21 merit badges and organized a two-part community service project to support and help the city's gay community. He started the project when the Scouts' ban on gay leaders was still in place. That ban was lifted in the summer of 2015. David says his motivation was the many family friends he has who are gay or lesbian. (AP Photo/Martha Irvine) David Fite wears his new Eagle award on the left pocket of his Boy Scout shirt in Chicago on Sunday, Jan. 3, 2016. To earn Eagle rank, David earned 21 merit badges and organized a two-part community service project to support and help the city's gay community. (AP Photo/Martha Irvine) New Eagle scout David Fite, center, and his grandfather, Rich Laue, embrace each other, as David's mother, Jennifer Fite, smiles during a celebration at a Catholic church in Chicago on Sunday, Jan. 3, 2016. To earn the Boy Scout's highest rank, David earned 21 merit badges and organized a two-part community service project to support and help the city's gay community. (AP Photo/Martha Irvine) In this May 28, 2011 photo provided by Jennifer Fite, her son, David, foreground, stands with family friends during a vacation in St. Petersburg, Fla. David, a longtime Boy Scout, earned 21 merit badges and did a two-part community service project in Chicago's gay community in a quest to earn the coveted rank of Eagle. David says his many family friends who are lesbian or gay - some of these "honorary aunts" included - were part of his motivation for choosing the project. (Courtesy of Jennifer Fite via AP) This July 16, 2011 photo provided by Jennifer Fite shows her son, David, 12, in Chicago before heading to Boy Scout camp in Michigan. David first learned about the Boy Scout's bans on openly gay scouts and leaders when he was at camp. He came home and told his mother he wanted to quit. She encouraged him to stay in the scouts, since he loved it so much, and to fight for change within the organization, which he did. (Courtesy of Jennifer Fite via AP) No rules means no accountability for Virginia campaign funds RICHMOND, Va. (AP) The businesses that lobby Virginia politicians are also subsidizing meals at fancy restaurants, stays in the finest hotels, and personal expenses like gas and cellphone bills through campaign donations, records show. Compounding the issue? Lawmakers in Virginia seldom face serious challenges; only a handful of races were seriously contested in 2015, and not a single incumbent lost in the general election. That means politicians who run up huge fundraising accounts to scare off challengers don't have to spend the money on campaigning. An Associated Press review of the state's finance system turned up examples like Chesapeake Democrat Del. Lionell Spruill, who hasn't faced an opponent in two decades. A sign for a Legislative conference greets visitors at the entrance to the grand staircase at the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, Va., Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016. An Associated Press review shows lawmakers there have freedom unlike their colleagues in other states. They can legally raise unlimited money from corporations and then spend it on virtually anything they want. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) Since 2011, Spruill has spent $300,000 from his campaign account on numerous luxuries: a membership in a private business club, meals at Ruth's Chris steakhouses around the country, and more than $2,000 at high-end Richmond restaurants during legislative sessions. More than 90 percent of the money Spruill raised came from corporations, trade organizations or special interest groups. Spruill, who has not listed an outside income in years, declined to comment. The AP examined tens of thousands of campaign donations and expenditures collected by the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan money-in-politics tracker; interviewed several current and past lawmakers; and compared Virginia's laws and habits to other states and the federal system. Among the findings: Behavior that would get lawmakers locked up in other states or at the federal level is perfectly fine in the Old Dominion. Virginia is the only state where lawmakers can raise unlimited campaign donations from anyone, including corporations and unions, and spend the money on themselves. A handful of lawmakers, including senior members in both parties, rely almost entirely on business interests and their representatives for campaign contributions. For instance, GOP Senate President Pro Tem Steve Newman has raised more than $360,000 since 2012; 99 percent of that money came from corporations, trade groups, lobbying firms or special interest groups. Newman said he didn't have to do any serious fundraising because he ran unopposed and said his haul from corporate interests hasn't unduly influenced his votes. The current system has little accountability. Lawmakers must disclose their spending but are free to do so in the vaguest details. Some lawmakers reimburse themselves thousands of dollars from their campaigns with only scant explanation, like "travel reimbursement." Further, Virginia's State Board of Elections does not audit or investigate campaign finance reports. Elected prosecutors can investigate campaign finance violations, but longtime political watchers could not recall a case ever being brought. Advocates say regulated businesses subsidizing a largely unregulated campaign finance system risks both sides getting too cozy. "There's nothing wrong with being business-friendly, but the question is whether they're too friendly," said Dale Eisman, a spokesman for Common Cause. For more than two years, Virginia lawmakers have been trying to reform the state's image in the wake of former Gov. Bob McDonnell's corruption scandal. Those efforts have mostly focused on limiting gifts from lobbyists and corporate interests, and lawmakers have so far rejected calls from Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe and others to tighten the state's campaign finance system. Del. Marcus Simon, D-Fairfax County, is carrying a bill to prohibit using campaign money for personal expenditures something already illegal for federal politicians and in most states. Currently, Virginia officials are only prohibited from spending campaign money for personal use when they close out their campaign accounts. A Republican-controlled panel punted on the bill earlier this year, saying it should be reconsidered next year. Simon said he fears the bill will die quietly and said his colleagues have told him they aren't eager to take up the issue. "If we allow the industries we regulate to fund our campaign system, at the very least, you ought to have some limit on how you spend that money and not make it a personal slush fund," Simon said. But other Virginia lawmakers are skeptical that new regulations are needed. When McAuliffe addressed the General Assembly last month and said he wanted to ban the personal use of campaign funds, virtually no one clapped. "These are not government funds, these are private funds," said GOP Del. Mark Cole, who leads the House committee overseeing election law. "Why should the government step into basically what is a private transaction?" Many legislators say the unfettered use of campaign funds is necessary. A lawmaker is on duty 24 hours, seven-day-a-week, they said, and the line between what's a personal expense and what's a campaign or official expense is often blurry. Lawmakers like former Sen. Steve Martin, who lost a GOP primary for his Richmond-area seat last year, say their official salaries of about $18,000 a year plus a $1,250-a-month office stipend don't begin to cover all their costs. Martin's campaign reported spending more than $7,000 on tire and auto repair shops and several thousand at area gas stations in recent years. Martin, who had his Senate wages garnished and has been sued for alleged unpaid debts, said the campaign paid for those expenses because he usually traveled for official reasons. "Other than going to church and grocery shopping and going to pick up my grandchildren and keeping them on Mondays and stuff like that, I wasn't doing a lot of personal stuff with my car," Martin said. Lawmakers also get $185 a day to cover hotels and meals during sessions, which are either 45 or 60 days long. But records show they frequently spend upwards of $200 for meals labeled on reports only as "constituent meal," ''working dinner" or simply "dinner" because they aren't required to report their spending in any level of detail. A favorite is Bookbinder's Seafood and Steakhouse, where a surf and turf sells for as much as $96. Lawmakers have spent more than $5,000 there during the past two legislative sessions. Others pay for expensive hotel stays, like GOP Del. Chris Peace, who stayed at Richmond's storied Jefferson Hotel during the 2014 inaugural celebrations. He also paid for an out-of-town photographer hired to take pictures for his re-election campaign to stay at the hotel. Peace said he chose the Jefferson, where his campaign has reported spending more than $1,000, in part to help promote tourism. "The Jefferson is an icon of the city, and I encourage everyone to stay there," he said in an email. Del. Marcus Simon, D-Fairfax County, applauds a visitor in the gallery during the House session at the Capitol in Richmond, Va., Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016. Simon is carrying a bill to prohibit using campaign money for personal expenditures _ something already illegal for federal politicians. An Associated Press review shows lawmakers there have freedom unlike their colleagues in other states. They can legally raise unlimited money from corporations and then spend it on virtually anything they want. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) A statue of Thomas Jefferson greets visitors in the main lobby at the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, Va., Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016. An Associated Press review shows lawmakers there have freedom unlike their colleagues in other states. They can legally raise unlimited money from corporations and then spend it on virtually anything they want. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) Del. Marcus Simon D-Fairfax, gestures during a meeting of the Privileges and Elections subcommittee at the Capitol in Richmond, Va., Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016. The committee tabled two of Simon's bills relating to campaign financing. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) A sign marks the entrance to the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, Va., Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016. An Associated Press review shows lawmakers there have freedom unlike their colleagues in other states. They can legally raise unlimited money from corporations and then spend it on virtually anything they want. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) Del. Chris Peace, R-Hanover, right, and Del. Mark Keam, D-Fairfax, left, listen to proceedings during the House session at the Capitol in Richmond, Va., Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2016. .An Associated Press review shows lawmakers there have freedom unlike their colleagues in other states. They can legally raise unlimited money from corporations and then spend it on virtually anything they want. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) Del. Marcus Simon D-Fairfax, gestures as he answers a question during a meeting of the Privileges and Elections subcommittee at the Capitol in Richmond, Va., Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016. The committee tabled two of Simon's bills relating to campaign financing. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) FILE Former State Sen. and Chairman of the Senate Health Education and Welfare committee, Sen. Stephen Martin, R-Chesterfield, gestures during meeting at the Capitol in Richmond, VA. Martin, who lost a GOP primary for his Richmond-area seat last year, say their official salaries of about $18,000 a year plus a $1,250-a-month office stipend dont begin to cover all their costs. Martins campaign reported spending more than $7,000 on tire and auto repair shops and several thousand at area gas stations in recent years. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) Armed men attack army checkpoint in Mali, killing 2 soldiers BAMAKO, Mali (AP) A Mali defense ministry official says armed men have attacked an army checkpoint outside the town of Menaka near the border with Niger, and a local official says two soldiers have been killed. Col. Diarran Kone, a spokesman with Mali's Defense Ministry, confirmed Friday's attack. A local official said one person was wounded and two others went missing in the attack. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for his own security, said a car was also stolen. No group has claimed responsibility, but al-Qaida-linked extremists have been launching attacks against the military for years. Extremists most recently targeted Mali's military Feb. 12 in Timbuktu, killing three soldiers. They're not comin' for your guns, America. They're comin' for your phones. This week's high-profile confrontation between the government and Apple over a locked iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters began long before that tragedy took place. The current legal showdown took shape last year, in a dispute between Apple and the feds over a routine drug case in a Brooklyn federal court. Prosecutors wanted a court order demanding Apple unlock a meth dealer's iPhone 5s running old software. Technically simple, but after having complied many thousands of times to similar requests, this time Apple said no. "We're being forced to become an agent of law enforcement," Apple lawyer Marc Zwillinger argued in court. The feds were not amused. "The only real question was what crime the government would use to press its case," reads a New York Times ticktock out today that traces the events leading up to the current FBI vs. Apple "Battle of the Backdoor." The government chose the mass shooting in San Bernardino. And its fight against Apple is about much more than figuring out what secrets Syed Rizwan Farook's locked, encrypted iPhone 5S contains. Snip: [T]here is no telling what is on Mr. Farook's phone maybe clues to accomplices or his inspiration, maybe nothing but nobody in the government questioned the need for obtaining access to that data. From a public relations standpoint, Apple had been on the side of privacy advocates and civil libertarians. This case put the company on the side of a terrorist. "They need to figure that out now before there is that bigger body count. So this is as good a test case as any to have that fight," said Ron Hosko, who until 2014 led the F.B.I.'s criminal division. "Crack that thing for me now, Tim Cook, because it's only going to get worse." This week, the Justice Department got its wish when Apple was ordered to override its defenses, even if it meant building a tool that did not exist. Law enforcement officials cheered the ruling, though they acknowledged that the fight was not over. Apple promised to appeal. In New York, William Bratton, the police commissioner, held up a phone that he said was used by an associate of a man who shot and wounded two police officers in the Bronx recently. "Despite having a court order, we cannot access this iPhone," Mr. Bratton said. "Just one example, a very significant example in which two of my officers were shot, that impeding that case going forward is our inability to get into this device." "A Yearlong Road to a Standoff With the F.B.I." [Matt Apuzzo, Joseph Goldstein, Eric Lichtblau] Colombia probing 100 alleged disappearances at prison BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) Colombian prosecutors are investigating the alleged disappearance of as many as 100 people inside a Bogota prison more than 15 years ago. Special prosecutor Caterina Heyck said Friday that investigations began months ago based on earlier testimony from demobilized paramilitary fighters as part of a decade-old peace accord with the government. "They've talked about how there was a power struggle inside the prison" between former paramilitaries and leftist rebels, Heyck told The Associated Press. "Also that people were disappeared who weren't inmates." Corrections officers keep an eye out on prisoner's cells from a guard tower at La Modelo prison in Bogota, Colombia, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. Prosecutors are investigating the alleged disappearance of as many as 100 people inside the prison more than 15 years ago based on years-old testimony from demobilized paramilitary fighters. Authorities have not undertaken any excavation efforts nor have family members of alleged victims come forward publicly. (AP Photo/Ricardo Mazalan) She said that it's unlikely any of the victims' bodies will be found at La Modelo prison because they were allegedly dismembered and dumped in a sewer. Authorities have not undertaken any excavation efforts nor have family members of any alleged victims come forward publicly. But Heyck said the practice of prisoners butchering visitors and fellow inmates may have also occurred at other facilities. Colombia's notoriously overcrowded prisons have long been factories for criminality. The probe stems from a journalist's investigation 15 years ago about crime, including forced disappearances, at the prison, one of Colombia's largest. Gen. Jorge Ramirez, the head of Colombia's prison system, said Thursday he has no information about the alleged disappearances, but noted that controls 15 years ago weren't as strict as they are now. He said prison authorities stand ready to assist prosecutors in any investigation but that he so far has received no request for any excavations. Family sues city, ex-LAPD officer accused in killing LOS ANGELES (AP) Family members of a man who prosecutors say was killed by an off-duty Los Angeles police rookie outside a bar have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city and the former officer. The parents of 23-year-old Salome Rodriguez Jr. claim Officer Henry Solis subjected their son to excessive force, unreasonable search, and assault prior to the shooting last March in Pomona, the Los Angeles Times reported (http://lat.ms/1Q5Bd8E ). The lawsuit filed Thursday also claims Solis and his employer, the city of Los Angeles, violated Rodriguez's civil rights. The suit seeks unspecified damages. FILE - In this June 19, 2015, file photo, Henry Solis, a former Los Angeles police officer, left, appears with attorney Mearl Lottman at Los Angeles Superior courtroom in Los Angeles. Family members of Salome Rodriguez Jr., who prosecutors say was killed by Solis, an off-duty Los Angeles police rookie outside a bar, have filed a wrongful death lawsuit Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016, against the city and the former officer. The parents of Rodriguez claim Solis subjected their son to excessive force, unreasonable search, and assault prior to the shooting last March in Pomona, the Los Angeles Times reported. (Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times via AP, Pool, File) Rob Wilcox, a spokesman for the city attorney's office, declined to comment. An attorney for Solis could not be reached. Solis, 27, has pleaded not guilty to murder and other counts including assault with a firearm and an allegation that he personally discharged a handgun. He remains jailed in lieu of $10 million bail. Solis was returned to California in June after a two-month manhunt that ended when he was arrested in Mexico and deported to Texas. Solis was a probationary officer at the time. He could face life in prison if convicted. ___ Brazilian senator leaves jail and can return to office SAO PAULO (AP) Brazil's Supreme Court has released a key senator from prison after he was held almost three months behind bars. Sen. Delcidio do Amaral, the government's former leader in the Senate, was granted house arrest, allowing him to assume his duties at his office during the day. Amaral is accused of obstructing the investigation into a corruption scandal at state-owned oil company Petrobras. Under Brazilian law, the Supreme Court must approve investigations of legislators or top officials in the executive branch. Amaral's Senate colleagues voted 59-13 in favor of the top court's decision. FILE - This Feb. 26, 2014, file photo, released by the Agencia Senado, shows Brazilian Sen. Delcidio do Amaral of the ruling Worker's Party. Brazil's Supreme Court has released Amaral from prison, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016, after he was held almost three months behind bars. Amaral is accused of obstructing the investigation into a corruption scandal at state-owned oil company Petrobras. (Pedro Franca/Agencia Senado via AP, File) The 40-year-old Kansan behind the Clinton-knocking website WASHINGTON (AP) Jed McChesney awoke Friday morning to find that his website had crashed. When he glanced up at MSNBC's "Morning Joe," he learned why: Bernie Sanders had tweeted it to his 1.5 million followers. McChesney had made the site, iwilllookintoit.com, earlier this month, after hearing Hillary Clinton say those words in a Democratic presidential debate. That was her response when asked whether she would release transcripts of her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs and other big banks. Clinton's speeches were on McChesney's mind. A day earlier, she'd seemed dismissive of the six-figure fees the banks had given her when she said in an interview that's what they'd offered her. "To me, it was the equivalent of her saying, 'Let them eat cake,'" McChesney said. And that's when the 40-year-old web developer in Olathe, Kansas said he became a fan of Sanders, whom he calls "genuine" and "the real deal." Within a few days, McChesney had donated $650 to the campaign and created the now-famous website. It's exceedingly basic, with red text on a white background and a running timer showing how long it has been since Clinton uttered the "look into it" promise. The site had been getting a little news coverage here and there but exploded in popularity after the Sanders tweet. No one from the campaign reached out to him beforehand, McChesney said. "This is all a total surprise," he said. The Sanders campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. About 50,000 visitors flooded into the site before the crash, and another 50,000 had clicked in the first two hours after McChesney switched to a larger server and got the site back up, he said. The site's temporary error message Friday morning was what helped the The Associated Press track down McChesney. It showed that iwilllookintoit.com is hosted by website promoting the sale of a Kansas ranch owned by McChesney's parents. McChesney made the ranch's website, too. The Clinton-questioning website took him five minutes to put together, McChesney said, "and it's the most successful thing I've ever done." ___ Greece-Bulgaria truck dispute causes 30-kilometer tailback THESSALONIKI (AP) A dispute between neighbors Greece and Bulgaria over ongoing protests by Greek farmers has caused highway tailbacks of up to 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) at the border. All six crossing points along the 472-kilometer (265-mile) border were closed Friday amid ongoing highway blockades by Greek farmers and counter-protests being staged by Bulgarian truck drivers on the other side of the frontier. Motorists and trucks traveling between the two countries were forced to make a lengthy detour westward, through Macedonia. Greek farmers have been blocking roads for nearly a month to protest planned pension reforms, angering Bulgarian truck drivers who have staged counter-protests in an attempt to pressure their government into action. In Oscar nominee 'Mustang,' a truly global film LOS ANGELES (AP) Foreign film Oscar contender "Mustang" is a Turkish-language film from a Turkish-born director that was filmed in Turkey and tells a distinctly Turkish story with Turkish actresses. But it was not Turkey that submitted the film for consideration for the Academy Awards it was France. For "Mustang" director Deniz Gamze Erguven, it makes sense. She was born in Turkey, but raised mainly in France. France was also where she was educated in cinema, and the country has supported the film her first from the start, choosing it as an official Directors' Fortnight selection at the Cannes Film Festival. "There were some discussions about whether it would be Turkey's entry," Erguven said. "The fact that it was supported by France is a great message of embracing the French identity with all its diversity." In this Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016 photo, cast members Tugba Sunguroglu, from top left clockwise, director Deniz Gamze Erguven, Elit Iscan, Doga Zeynep Doguslu, Gunes Sensoy and Ilayda Akdogan from the film, "Mustang," pose for a portrait in West Hollywood, Calif. The 88th Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film nominee "Mustang" is a unique case, being a Turkish language and made film submitted for consideration by France, and also for being the only narrative feature nominated from a female director, Erguven. The Oscars will be presented on Sunday, Feb. 28, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Rich Fury/Invision/AP) The Academy in 2006 changed its rules to allow for countries to submit films that aren't in their native language, as long as the film played theatrically in the country. But it also reflects something bigger about the inherent complexities in tethering a foreign film to a particular country. Indeed, the film, which tells the story of five young sisters coming of age in a provincial town on the Black Sea, has proven to be quite divisive in Turkey, too, for placing such a poignant spotlight on the oppression of its women. The girls in "Mustang" are essentially put under house arrest by their conservative uncle after they cause a minor scandal by playfully frolicking in the sea with a group of boys, and sitting on their necks in a game of chicken. The adults in their world see the act as disgusting and worthy of drastic punishment. "The reception of the film is as polarized as the country (Turkey). There are people who love it and people who hate it," Erguven said. "The more people go, the more people debate about it. In the beginning it was a very simple emotional reaction 'I love it' or 'I hate it.' And now people are taking the ideas and it looks like the conflict in the film." Erguven empathizes with the passionate reactions from her birth country, knowing keenly how precisely a filmed depiction of a country can impact its global reputation. "Midnight Express," she recalled, set a terrible precedent. "Turkish people look very closely into how you represent the country and I guess they wanted to have more of a film that looked like a postcard," said Erguven. But the story in "Mustang" represents a truth about the country and the situation for girls there that she needed to tell. "We've always heard the stories and we know what happens in Turkey," said actress Ilayda Akdogan, who plays Sonay one of the older sisters. "We're not living the same things as the girls but we have some experiences from society and it's really important to show these girls." The scene at the beach is rooted in a specific memory from Erguven, but in the film she chooses to let her characters react with courage and insight, throwing the absurd logic of their elders back at them by destroying the chairs in their house because of the body parts that have touched the seats. "They are superheroes," Erguven said. "They have the capacity of inciting hope and courage." Since its premiere at Cannes, the film has played around the world and resonated with women in distant cultures and countries from Russia to South America in ways that Erguven and her actresses could have never expected. "Mustang" also recently won best picture at the Lumiere Awards, France's equivalent of the Golden Globe Awards. The film continues to make waves in the final countdown to the Oscars on Feb. 28 where it will compete against Colombia's "Embrace of the Serpent," Hungary's "Son of Saul," Jordan's "Theeb," and Denmark's "A War." At this year's Oscars, Erguven also has the distinction of being the only female director nominated for a narrative feature. She's used to being alone in that respect, but is excited that the conversation about diversity and representation has amplified in recent years. "We're missing the perspective of half of humanity," she said. "Diversity makes us smarter, all of us. It adds perspective, it adds complexity and understanding and it generates compassion and we're missing all of that. It's not just a question of figures and numbers." For now, Erguven is continuing work on a film about the L.A. riots that she's been toying with since before "Mustang," and enjoying the final stretch of the experience of this little, personal film with a big global impact, regardless of whose name is called on Feb. 28. "It looks like the end of the fireworks," she said. In this Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016 photo, cast members Tugba Sunguroglu, from top left clockwise, director Deniz Gamze Erguven, Elit Iscan, Doga Zeynep Doguslu, Gunes Sensoy and Ilayda Akdogan from the film, "Mustang," pose for a portrait in West Hollywood, Calif. The 88th Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film nominee "Mustang" is a unique case, being a Turkish language and made film submitted for consideration by France, and also for being the only narrative feature nominated from a female director, Erguven. The Oscars will be presented on Sunday, Feb. 28, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Rich Fury/Invision/AP) This photo provided by courtesy of Cohen Media Group shows, Tugba Sunguroglu, from left, as Selma, Doga Zeynep Doguslu as Nur, Elit Iscan, as Ece, Ilayda Akdogan as Sonay, and Gunes Sensoy as Lale in the film, "Mustang," directed by Deniz Gamze Erguven, in Turkey. The movie is nominated for best foreign language film at the 88th annual Academy Awards. The Oscars will be presented on Feb. 28, 2016, in Los Angeles. (Cohen Media Group via AP) In this Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016 photo, director Deniz Gamze Erguven poses for a portrait in West Hollywood, Calif. The Oscar Best Foreign Language Film nominee "Mustang" is a unique case, being a Turkish language and made film submitted for consideration by France, and also for being the only narrative feature nominated from a female director, Erguven. The 88th annual Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday, Feb. 28, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Rich Fury/Invision/AP) Britain's future, migrant split reveal growing EU divide BRUSSELS (AP) Britain is thinking of leaving. Greece feels isolated. Austria and Denmark are pushing controversial measures for coping with asylum-seekers despite what their neighbors think. Tensions between European Union leaders at this week's summit in Brussels have highlighted a gnawing lack of confidence that the bloc of 28 nations can provide timely answers to Europe's challenges. Rarely has the EU seemed as fragmented and impotent as on Friday, when leaders grappled with a possible British exit and tried to find a united response to the refugee emergency. British Prime Minister David Cameron speaks to Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, right, as and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, second left, looks on during a round table meeting at an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. European Union leaders are holding a summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday to hammer out a deal designed to keep Britain in the 28-nation bloc. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert) "The fact that every policy being discussed is strongly contested is fueling doubts as to whether the EU and its members will be able to match their rhetoric with concrete actions by cooperating more closely," Janis Emmanouilidis at the European Policy Centre think-tank wrote in an analysis. Still barely recovering from an economic crisis that rivalled the Great Depression, Europe is now struggling with its biggest refugee crisis in well over half a century. The arrival of more than 1 million people fleeing conflict or poverty for better lives in a far wealthier Europe has overwhelmed border authorities and reception capacities. It has stoked unfounded fears of a threat to Europe's cultural identity and even religion, the arrival of extremism or the theft of jobs. As tens of thousands of people have packed into trains or hiked Europe's highways north from Greece toward their dream of having a home in Germany or Sweden, nations have erected fences or tightened border controls unilaterally, putting pressure on their EU partners. The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia are working together, pushing for a clampdown on borders along the main migrant transit route through the Balkans. And even nations like Austria and Denmark are out of step with other EU nations. Austria has surprised its partners by putting a cap on the number of asylum-seekers it will let in, a move the EU's Executive Commission maintains breaks European and international law. Denmark, meanwhile, has moved to take away some assets from asylum-seekers to help pay for their accommodations and food. "The problem is that everyone sees the situation from their individual standpoint and waits for the other to move first in implementing those necessary solutions," European Parliament President Martin Schulz told leaders in Brussels. "Lamentably, this crisis is exposing serious fault-lines within our union." The crisis is also hurting Europe on a psychological level, with the refugee response increasingly unworthy of Europe's proclaimed values and possibilities as a powerful, relatively prosperous world trading bloc. Professor Hendrik Vos of Belgium's University of Ghent, says EU migration policy is hardening along the lines of Hungary's populist leader, Viktor Orban, who has erected anti-migrant razor-wire fences. "The language may be a bit less aggressive, and there are humanitarian concerns, but the policy is really going in the direction of: How do we keep the refugees out?" he said. The fear of EU migrant workers taking advantage of Britain's welfare system is partly driving Prime Minister David Cameron's push for a referendum this summer on whether his country should leave. On Friday, he won a hard-fought deal for a less intrusive EU after 31 hours of tense talks with EU partners. The summit was sent into overtime as Cameron pushed his partners for reforms that include limiting benefits to those migrant workers, ensuring that nations like Britain that are outside the euro currency union don't have to pay for euro needs, as well as simplifying EU bureaucracy. In exchange, he pledged to campaign for Britain to stay in the bloc. But it doesn't stop with Britain's future or the refugee emergency. Italy's economic woes have seen Prime Minister Matteo Renzi aggressively take German Chancellor Angela Merkel to task in recent months on the economy, migration and energy policy. While ostensibly Europe's driving force, Merkel has also become synonymous with the austerity measures imposed on countries like Greece to meet fiscal targets and budget plans. Through it all the future of Greece, with a communist government elected a year ago, remaining in the euro single currency has been called into question. Poland too is making its voice heard. Riding a populist wave to power, the new right-leaning government in Warsaw refuses to allow policy to be dictated from outside. It is resisting EU pressure to amend newly passed laws that restrict the media and changes to its constitution that its EU partners argue are not compatible with Europe's approach to the rule of law. The upshot is that the more Europe bickers, the worse things are likely to get. "In a world of globalization, there is a drive for new narratives. So it's easy for populist parties to criticize what is happening in Europe," Daniela Schwarzer, Europe program director at the German Marshall Fund, said Friday. "There are societies in Europe in different stages of development," she said, adding that some EU countries, in Eastern Europe and the Baltics in particular, have little experience with migration and the influx of new religions and cultures. "If Europe brings this to the country then Europe is seen as being to blame," she said. ___ Associated Press writer Raf Casert in Brussels contributed to this report. British Prime Minister David Cameron, left, and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi arrive for a meeting on the sidelines of an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. British Prime Minister David Cameron faces tough new talks with European partners after through-the-night meetings failed to make much progress on his demands for a less intrusive European Union. (Dylan Martinez, Pool Photo via AP) Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, center, speaks with the media in the main press room of an EU summit in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. British Prime Minister David Cameron faces tough new talks with European partners after through-the-night meetings failed to make much progress on his demands for a less intrusive European Union. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner) France orders expulsion of big swath of Calais migrant camp PARIS (AP) Authorities issued an expulsion order Friday for hundreds of migrants living in a huge swath of the Calais camp in northern France, demanding that they remove their makeshift homes and possessions within four days. Residents of the southern sector of the camp, known locally as "the jungle," must clear out by 8 p.m. Tuesday so it can be razed, according to the order by the state authority for Calais. Police will remove those who refuse to clear out, the order said. Authorities estimate that 800-1,000 migrants live in that sector, crammed with shops, cafes, mosques and churches. They want the migrants mainly Syrians, Iraqis, or Afghans escaping conflict, or Africans fleeing countries with poor human rights records to move to nearby heated containers or welcome centers around France to reconsider their dreams of reaching Britain on the other side of the English Channel. The expulsion order came a week after Prefect Fabienne Buccio announced that the southern sector of the 18-hector camp on the edge of Calais would be razed. She said those living in the area the most built-up section of the camp housing a total of around 4,000 migrants would have a week to move. Humanitarian groups say the number of people living in the southern section are many more than 1,000. Eight associations working in the camp, including Doctors of the World, sent a protest letter on Thursday to the French interior minister contending that alternatives proposed by the state are "very far from answering the needs of the problems encountered" and predicted migrants who refuse them could scatter along the coast. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve countered in a written reply that the evacuation would go ahead "progressively." No time limit has been set to clear the area, which has become a mini-slum town. Mothers of Plaza de Mayo reject Obama visit to Argentina BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) The Argentine human rights group Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo on Friday rejected the timing of President Barack Obama's visit to Argentina. Obama is set to arrive on March 23 for a two-day visit where he will meet with President Mauricio Macri. The following day marks the 40th anniversary of the military coup that began Argentina's 1976-1983 military dictatorship, in which thousands of suspected leftists were seized, tortured and secretly killed. Nora Cortinas is a founding member of the group that has campaigned to find people forcibly "disappeared" by the dictatorship. She told local radio Friday that she's "not amused" that Obama's visit will coincide with the coup anniversary because the U.S. facilitated dictatorships in South America during the 1970s. FILE - In this July 8, 2005, file photo, Nora Cortinas, one of the leaders of the human rights group Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, cries as she attends a news conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Cortinas told a local radio Friday, Feb. 19, 2016, that shes not amused that the upcoming visit by US President Barack Obama will coincide with the 40th anniversary of the military coup that began Argentinas bloody 1976-1983 military dictatorship. Cortinas is a founding member of the group that has campaigned to find people forcibly "disappeared" by the dictatorship. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko, File) The visit "will only bring back the most haunting memories," to those who lost children in the military crackdown, said Cortinas. Her son was disappeared during Argentina's so-called 'Dirty War.' Republicans get emotional on eve of South Carolina primary MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina (AP) The Republican battle for South Carolina turned deeply personal on the eve of Saturday's presidential primary, as front-runner Donald Trump eyed a delegate sweep and his rivals fought for a southern surprise. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, the son of a pastor, evoked "the body of Christ" while fending off allegations of campaign misconduct in a state where most Republicans identify as evangelical Christians. Ohio Gov. John Kasich opened up about the death of his parents. And former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush turned to his mother to help revive his underdog campaign. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign stop, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016, in Myrtle Beach, S.C. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Kasich, Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio are competing to emerge as the leading alternative to the maverick businessman Trump and the deeply conservative Cruz. Any of those three are thought to have a better chance than Trump or Cruz in the November general election against the eventual Democratic nominee. For Republicans, 50 delegates are up for grabs in the South Carolina primary contest a fraction of the 1,237 needed to win the nomination. Candidates were also looking for some badly needed momentum heading into the next phase of the campaign: March 1's Super Tuesday, when residents of several states vote in their primary elections. On the Democratic side, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took one of her toughest shots at rival Bernie Sanders, questioning the long-time independent's devotion to the party he's running to lead. Clinton accused Sanders of attacking the two most recent Democratic presidents President Barack Obama and her husband, former President Bill Clinton both of whom remain popular political figures among Democratic voters. On Friday, Clinton won the endorsement of Jim Clyburn, South Carolina's top Democrat. He said Friday "my heart has always been with Hillary Clinton," a sharp departure from eight years ago when former President Clinton called him on the phone at 2:15 a.m. after his wife lost the 2008 South Carolina primary against Barack Obama. The next contest for the Democrats will take place Saturday in Nevada. Clinton is hoping minorities and unions in Las Vegas give her the edge over Sanders, while the Vermont democratic socialist aims to drive up turnout in the state's more lightly populated northern region to claim victory. Clinton is hoping a win in Nevada's caucuses would be a springboard into the Democratic primary race in South Carolina on Feb. 27 and a slate of Southern primaries on Super Tuesday, where she's favored because of her strength among African-Americans. Trump appeared to hold a commanding lead less than 24 hours before voting began in South Carolina. With a big win, the undisputed Republican front-runner could take home most, if not all, of the state's 50 delegates. Such a victory would mark a particularly painful blow to Cruz, whose focus on Christian values and southern roots should have given him a distinct advantage. Trump's campaign continued trying to brush off an extraordinary criticism from Pope Francis the day before. When asked about Trump's call to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church said those who seek to build walls instead of bridges are "not Christian." The pope was returning home from a visit to Mexico and the border. Trump called the Pope's words "disgraceful" on Thursday but offered a distinctly softer jab on Friday. "Yesterday, the Pope was great," Trump told an audience. "They had him convinced that illegal immigration was like a wonderful thing." Cruz tried to take advantage of the spat by highlighting his own religious devotion. "Every minute that you're not on the phone calling friends and loved ones, spend beseeching God, praying for this country, that this spirit of revival that is sweeping this country continue and grow, and that we awaken the body of Christ," the Texas senator said. Meanwhile, his campaign faced new questions about a website it created this week attacking Rubio's record. The site features a photo of Rubio shaking hands with President Barack Obama. Cruz's campaign acknowledged that the photo was manufactured using a computer program. Meanwhile, the lesser-known Kasich continued to highlight his compassionate side. In a television ad broadcast across the state, he spoke of his parents' deaths at the hands of a drunk driver. "I was transformed. I discovered my purpose by discovering the Lord," Kasich says in the ad. The personal and religious appeals come in a state where religious conservatives typically play an outsized role. In South Carolina's 2012 Republican primary election, two-thirds of the voters identified themselves as born-again or evangelical Christian. ___ Barrow reported from Myrtle Beach. Associated Press writers Thomas Beaumont in Charleston, Kathleen Ronayne in Columbia and Jill Colvin in Myrtle Beach contributed to this report. Republican presidential candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush speaks during a campaign stop at Wade's Restaurant, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016 in Spartanburg, S.C. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gestures during a campaign stop, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016, in Myrtle Beach, S.C. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Republican presidential candidate Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., laughs as South Carolina Gov. Niki Haley speaks during a rally, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016, in Columbia, S.C. (AP Photo/John Bazemore) Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a rally Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher) Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during the Clark County "1st in the West Kick-Off to Caucus" Dinner, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to members of the audience during a commercial break at a CNN town hall at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C., Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Ron Hughes plants signs ahead of Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas campaign stop, Friday, Feb. 19, 2016, in Myrtle Beach, S.C. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) Republican presidential candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush speaks with Anderson Cooper at a CNN town hall at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C., Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton meets with employees of Paris Las Vegas during a visit to the hotel and casino Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher) Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., center, is greeted by a culinary worker protesting outside Sunrise Hospital Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) Bill Clinton looks over the menu at Simply Pure Vegan Cafe with owner Stacey Dougan in Las Vegas Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. Clinton is campaigning on behalf of his wife Hillary Clinton ahead of Saturday's Democratic caucus in Nevada.(AP Photo/Michelle Rindels) Employees of Paris Las Vegas react to meeting Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, right, during a visit to the hotel and casino Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher) Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., greets culinary workers protesting outside Sunrise Hospital Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) Michael Hayden sure does love him some drone-killing. In a New York Times opinion piece titled "Drone Warfare: Precise, Effective, Imperfect," the former head of the National Security Agency celebrates the joy of wiping people out from a distance. Do innocent men, women, and children routinely get murdered by an errant strike? Sure, says Hayden. "Civilians have died, but in my firm opinion, the death toll from terrorist attacks would have been much higher if we had not taken action." But here is the bottom line: It works. I think it fair to say that the targeted killing program has been the most precise and effective application of firepower in the history of armed conflict. It disrupted terrorist plots and reduced the original Qaeda organization along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to a shell of its former self. And that was well before Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011. Drone Warfare: Precise, Effective, Imperfect [nytimes] Ex-royal butler Paul Burrell wins privacy case damages from Max Clifford Former royal butler Paul Burrell has won a High Court privacy action against disgraced PR guru Max Clifford. A judge in London announced on Friday that his claim had succeeded - and awarded him 5,000 damages. Clifford, who is serving an eight-year jail sentence for sex offences, had branded Mr Burrell's 50,000 action for breach of confidence and misuse of private information an ''affront to common sense''. Ex-royal butler Paul Burrell has won his privacy claim against jailed PR guru Max Clifford Mr Burrell said he hired Clifford to limit bad press coverage about him but, rather than stopping stories, he "betrayed" him by passing on material in a fax to Rebekah Brooks at the now-defunct News of the World. In a statement after the ruling, Mr Burrell, who was not in court, said: "I am extremely pleased with the outcome and am delighted to have been vindicated by the High Court." Lia Perin, of Taylor Hampton Solicitors, who acted for Mr Burrell, said: "This was a serious betrayal of confidence by Max Clifford. Branson 'admires entrepreneurial spirit' of Jungle refugees Sir Richard Branson has spoken of his admiration for the entrepreneurial spirit of refugees, migrants and volunteers at The Jungle camp in Calais. The Virgin tycoon told of the steps some have taken to ease their plight at the French camp where thousands are based after fleeing war, poverty and persecution. He asked for people's help to end the "inhumanity and injustice". And he spoke of his astonishment that such a crisis was happening in Europe, so close to Britain. Sir Richard Branson asked for people's help to end the 'inhumanity and injustice' of Europe's refugee crisis Sir Richard said: "It's hard to look at the images of this camp and believe that this is happening in Europe, a mere 20 miles from the UK's shores. "At the same time, I admire the entrepreneurial spirit of the camp residents and volunteers in finding ways to ease their discomfort, from setting up shops to generating their own power through dynamo bikes that can charge mobile phones. "They also try to use the little resources they have to help others. I was inspired by the story of one Syrian refugee, Omar, who uses his mobile phone to help save refugee lives in the Aegean Sea. "His WhatsApp group provides weather reports and geo-tracking as refugees cross, and calls the coastguard if they lose contact." Sir Richard this week joined 145 celebrities in signing an open letter calling on David Cameron to help save children based at The Jungle. They want the Government to step in and allow unaccompanied children living in the camp to be reunited with their families in the UK. The call came as eight charities wrote an open letter condemning the bulldozing of the southern half of The Jungle. Ben Nevis rescue teams tell of frustration as weather hampers climbers hunt Rescue teams leading the hunt for two young climbers missing on Britain's highest peak for five days have described search attempts as "very frustrating" as bad weather continues to hamper the operation. Rachel Slater, 24, and Tim Newton, 27, failed to return from an outing on Ben Nevis in Lochaber in the Scottish Highlands last weekend and treacherous conditions have hindered efforts to locate them. Heavy snow, fog and high winds - as well as the risk of avalanche - have led the local mountain rescue team to suspend ground searches for most of the week until conditions improve. Rachel Slater and Tim Newton are missing on Ben Nevis (Police Scotland/PA Wire) Aerial sweeps by a Coastguard helicopter have been carried out but they have found no trace of the pair. John Stevenson, leader of Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team, said the situation is "very frustrating" but he is hopeful teams can get out on the mountain over the weekend. He told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme: " We're hoping to get a squad out tomorrow. We're looking at getting localised searches of different areas. "We're going to go into the areas where the general public are not normally in during the week. It's a bit dangerous in groups of twos or threes, so we're really going to need to try and get a squad out tomorrow. "We had the helicopter out yesterday with the team members doing some searches on board, but again weather conditions have kept us fairly limited as to what we could do. "There are people out on the hills doing different things but we have seen nothing at the moment. "It is very frustrating and we're trying to get something for the families mainly and we've got nothing to go on. We don't know where to look yet, so we're just going to have to start basically at the beginning and just work our way around the hill." The avalanche risk in Lochaber remains high, according to the Scottish Avalanche Information Service, with new snow lying on top of frozen snow making the surface unstable. A climber was killed following an avalanche on Wednesday just miles from Ben Nevis and his companion remains in a serious but stable condition in hospital. Ms Slater's family have flown from their home in Canada to be kept up to date with the search on Ben Nevis. In a joint statement with Mr Newton's family released on Thursday, they thanked search and rescue teams for their work. They added: ''The overwhelming response from members of the public and the climbing community has greatly assisted the search effort and we appreciate all the support and words of encouragement. Six-figure payout for teenager who contracted E.coli on Turkey holiday A teenager who contracted a potentially deadly strain of E.coli on a family holiday to Turkey has been awarded a six-figure payout. Bradie Perkins had his hopes of joining the Navy dashed when his kidneys were damaged after he fell ill during the break to the Holiday Village Turkey in October 2010. The then 13-year-old had to be rushed to accident and emergency twice suffering from severe diarrhoea, stomach cramps, dehydration and other gastric symptoms - allegedly caused by food hygiene failures at the resort, in Sarigerme in the Dalaman region. Bradie Perkins who has been awarded a six figure payout after contracting a potentially deadly strain of E.coli after a family holiday to Turkey Bradie, from Earl Shilton, Leicestershire, was diagnosed as having E.coli, a parasite infection called Giardiasis and also a kidney condition known as Haemolytic Uraemic Syndrome, which left his kidneys functioning at around two-thirds their normal ability. Bradie, now 18 and currently studying for his A-Levels, said: "I knew something was wrong when I became so tired and for the last few days of my holiday I felt like I spent more time in the hotel room than I did with my family actually enjoying myself. "When we got home it was just a nightmare. I suffered with horrible symptoms, including blood from my back passage, and I was in hospital several times and needed dialysis treatment. I wasn't the same for months and months and was really scared about what it meant for the future. "I was devastated at being told I couldn't join the Navy and it's made me have to re-think my future plans. I'll have to live with the effects of my illness forever and will always be watching what I eat or worrying about where to go on holiday." The family said food from previous meals was often re-used the next day and cold food was occasionally topped up with hot food. Food was sometimes undercooked and often left uncovered while flies, insects and cats were frequently seen in the restaurant, the family added. Bradie was one of 27 holidaymakers who fell ill at the hotel, and represented by Irwin Mitchell, with other claims settled in 2012. Amandeep Dhillon, from Irwin Mitchell, said: "While hundreds of holidaymakers became ill at the Holiday Village in Turkey over the last decade, Bradie unfortunately suffered from a very serious gastric illness including a potentially deadly strain of E.coli, as well as the Giardia parasite. "He and his parents were terrified when he was hospitalised and it will now affect his life forever. "He has missed out on his dream career in the Navy and had his life massively affected at a time when he should have been able to concentrate on being a teenager and completing his studies." Judge refuses to jail man embroiled in cash dispute with ex-wife Years of fighting over money have taken their toll on a businessman and ex-wife, a High Court judge says. David and Shelley Mann's marriage lasted a decade but they had been embroiled in divorce litigation for 17 years, Mrs Justice Roberts heard. Two daughters were six and seven when court fights began - now they were in their early 20s, said the judge. The judge said the proceedings had taken a toll on both litigants Mr Mann, 50, was "not well" - and his 48-year-old former wife was obviously exhausted, she added. Mrs Justice Roberts aired her concerns in a ruling on the latest round of the couple's battle following hearings in the Family Division of the High Court in London. The couple had divorced in 1999, said the judge. Mr Mann had agreed to pay his ex-wife 24,000 a year - plus child maintenance and school fees. She had also kept the family home in Hampstead, London. He had subsequently asked a judge cut the amount he should pay. She had objected. Over the years they had fought in front of High Court judges and in the Court of Appeal, said Mrs Justice Roberts. She now claimed that he had not paid nearly 2 million he owed - and said he should be given a prison sentence for being in contempt of court. He disputed the claim, denied that anything approaching 2 million was due and said in any event he did not have "the means" to pay. Mrs Justice Roberts refused to impose a jail sentence on Mr Mann. The judge concluded that Mr Mann's ex-wife was owed more than 500,000. But, the judge said, she had not proved that Mr Mann had the means to pay and that he had refused to pay. "The proceedings have taken a very significant toll," said Mrs Justice Roberts. "The husband's ill health is borne out by the medical evidence ... He is currently not a well man." She added: "Whilst the wife remained stoically composed for most of the time her exhaustion and sense of complete frustration (if not desperation) were all too obvious." The judge added: "I should record the sincere sympathy which I have had throughout for the wife. I accept she is facing an extremely uncertain future. She is owed a significant sum of money by her former husband but at the present time he has no means of discharging that debt." Mrs Justice Roberts said could find no reliable evidence that Mr Mann had "hidden or secret funds". She said Mr Mann's family were from South Africa - and the couple had married in South Africa in 1988. South Africa's Chris Morris strikes to end England's Twenty20 winning streak Big-hitting Chris Morris returned to haunt England and end their Twenty20 winning streak in a thrilling match at Newlands. Morris, who had inflicted a series-levelling one-wicket defeat on England in Johannesburg a week ago en route to South Africa's 3-2 one-day international success, this time hit 14 runs off five balls in Reece Topley's final over as the hosts chased 134 for eight to win by three wickets from the final delivery. Topley had the chance to salvage a tie - and England's second successive super over - as Kyle Abbott scampered back for the winning two, but he failed to gather Joe Root's throw from long-off to complete a run-out. England's Reece Topley shows his dejection as Aaron Finch makes runs, during the fifth match of the Royal London One Day International Series at Emirates Old Trafford, Manchester. England had held their nerve in the field, until Morris' party piece again turned the match. Eoin Morgan's team, who lost the last three matches of the ODI series, put in another jittery performance with the bat. But on an increasingly awkward, used surface, South Africa surprisingly appeared set to run out of puff as a succession of batsmen failed to time their big shots and holed out in the deep as Chris Jordan took advantage with three for 23. After Faf du Plessis put England in on a cloudy evening, following afternoon rain, they began with promise but then lost six wickets for 43 runs as Imran Tahir (four for 21) inflicted a mid-innings wobble. Jos Buttler top-scored in a match dominated by bowlers, with an unbeaten 32 from number six, to give England their unexpected chance of defending a sprint-format sequence of victories stretching back 18 months. The joke initially was on Alex Hales for forgetting to put his Twenty20 shirt in for hotel laundry in time for its return to open the batting. But having borrowed Chris Woakes' number 19, the digits blocked out, he soon proved he had not forgotten how to middle the ball. Jason Roy failed to do so effectively off first-change Morris, and was caught at midwicket. Then Hales was the first of two big wickets to fall for the addition of only a single - although in Tahir's first over, JP Duminy and Kagiso Rabada running back from short fine-leg were lucky to avoid injury, let alone complete the dismissal, from a steeping mis-timed sweep. Rabada's inadvertent rugby tackle on his team-mate could easily have caused a spill or worse, but instead Duminy - who had dropped Hales at deep midwicket on 24 - ensured that mistake was not costly as the England opener failed, for the first time in the white-ball section of the tour, to reach 50. Root had picked a Rabada off-cutter and timed it away for four past point off the back foot. But when David Wiese tried the same trick with his first delivery, the Yorkshireman found the fielder this time to go cheaply. Morgan might have gone in similar circumstances on nought, also off Wiese, surviving largely because Rilee Rossouw charged the half-chance which flew away for four instead. Ben Stokes had hit a four and a six in his 11 runs, but then went walkabout when Tahir drifted one wide and had no chance of retaining his balance as AB de Villiers completed the stumping. Morgan just mustered double-figures before slicing a catch to short third-man off Tahir, who was on a hat-trick when Moeen Ali was well-held driving to extra-cover and went on to equal his career-best figures. England had only four wickets left for their last seven overs - but Buttler did his best to give them an unlikely shot at victory. South Africa lost both openers early, De Villiers to a mis-hook at first-change Jordan and Hashim Amla well-hold low down at mid-on by David Willey as Stokes began his spell with a wicket-maiden. Willey could not hold a very tough chance, racing back from mid-on towards the sightscreen off Stokes when Duminy had just three. But Stokes especially bowled well, as did Jordan, and South Africa could not gather momentum with a telling stand - until Morris intervened again. :: Quinton de Kock sat out this match, and will miss the second one against England too on Sunday, resting the knee he injured during the Test series last month. Viola Beach miss out on top spot despite fan campaign Viola Beach have not reached number one, despite a fan-led campaign to pay tribute to the band who were killed in a car crash at the weekend. The indie band made their official singles chart top 20 debut at number 11 with their song Swings & Waterslides, but failed to break the top 10. Kris Leonard, River Reeves, Tomas Lowe and Jack Dakin were killed alongside their manager Craig Tarry when their car plunged off a bridge into a canal in Sweden in the early hours of Saturday morning. Tomas Lowe, a member of indie band Viola Beach Musicians including Paloma Faith, Gabrielle Aplin, The Stone Roses, Kasabian and Liam Gallagher called on their followers to help with the campaign to get them to number one. Following news of the tragedy, Swings & Waterslides entered the official singles chart and had reached number nine by Wednesday, according to figures from the Official Charts Company - but it slipped down to 11 by the end of the week. However, the single remains at the top of the iTunes songs chart after reaching number one on Thursday. The band's record label Communion has confirmed that the proceeds from the sale of singles will go to the families of the band and their manager. Danish quartet Lukas Graham retained the top spot with their single, 7 years. Frontman Lukas Graham said: "We're surprised, ecstatic, vibrant and exultant about the success of 7 years! It's very satisfying when you see your song at the top of the charts. "7 Years seems to have attracted a lot of age groups - people seem to see their own lives in the song and it's great to see so many people reacting in that way to it." The single racked up 134,000 combined sales, including 5.18 million streams, to hold the top spot. This is almost 30,000 more than their total last week, which also earned them a number one. Adele has also reclaimed her spot at the top of the official albums chart, returning to number one with 25 after losing out to David Bowie and Coldplay in the last five weeks. Zika vaccine shows promise in mice, lifting maker Inovio Feb 17 (Reuters) - Hopes of developing a vaccine against Zika took a small step forward on Wednesday as Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc said its experimental shot had induced a robust and durable response in mice. Shares in the U.S. biotech firm, which expects to test its product in humans before the end of the year, jumped 7 percent in premarket trading on the prospect of it developing a vaccine against the mosquito-borne disease. At least 15 companies and academic groups are currently racing to develop Zika vaccines, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), spurred on by growing public concern over the virus sweeping across the Americas. Zika, whose symptoms include mild fever and rash, has been linked to brain damage in thousands of babies in Brazil, although the connection is not yet proven. There is no proven treatment or vaccine for the disease, a close cousin of the viruses that cause dengue, chikungunya and West Nile fever. Inovio said in a statement that mice given its vaccine showed the development of antibodies and generated a response from T-cells, which play an important role in immunizing the body. "We will next test the vaccine in non-human primates and initiate clinical product manufacturing. We plan to initiate Phase I human testing of our Zika vaccine before the end of 2016," Inovio Chief Executive Joseph Kim said. Phase I is the first stage in a three-step process of testing new medicines and involves giving an experimental product to healthy volunteers. Inovio's DNA-based vaccine is being developed with South Korea's GeneOne Life Sciences Inc and academic collaborators. One Canadian collaborator told Reuters last month that vaccine testing on humans could begin as early as August. Other organisations with relatively advanced Zika vaccine projects include India's Bharat Biotech, which said earlier this month that its experimental vaccine would start pre-clinical trials in animals imminently. The U.S. National Institutes for Health is also working on another DNA vaccine, while France's Sanofi, which makes the world's first vaccine for dengue, said on Feb. 2 it was launching a Zika project. Despite the accelerated work programme, however, the WHO estimates it will still be at least 18 months before any Zika vaccines are ready to be tested in large-scale clinical trials. Much remains unknown about Zika, including whether the virus actually causes microcephaly, a condition marked by an abnormally small head size in newborns, although the WHO believes the suspected link could be confirmed within weeks. Brazil is investigating the potential link between Zika infections and more than 4,300 suspected microcephaly cases. An estimated 80 percent of people with Zika have no symptoms, making it difficult for pregnant women to know whether they have been infected. Biden welcomes passage of Ukraine reforms in call with Poroshenko -W. House WASHINGTON, Feb 18 (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, in a telephone call on Thursday, commended Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko on the passage of anti-corruption legislation sought by the International Monetary Fund and the European Union, the White House said. Hungary, Factors to watch, Feb 19 BUDAPEST, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Following is a list of events in Hungary and the region, as well as news stories and press reports which may influence financial markets. (For any queries: Budapest editorial +36 1 327 4745) WHAT IS HAPPENING IN HUNGARY (ALL TIMES GMT) BUDAPEST - Wages, Dec (0800) IN THE REGION SLOVAKIA - Unemployment, Jan (1000) IN THE NEWS REUTERS Iran proposes nuclear power cooperation with Hungary Iran has proposed a project with Hungary to design and develop a small nuclear reactor that could be sold across Asia and Africa and also built in the Islamic republic, Tehran's top nuclear official said on Thursday. Hungary to shut Croatia railway crossings used by migrants Hungary said it would shut three railway crossings with Croatia for 30 days from Sunday, closing routes used by thousands of migrants last year. Good chance Hungary will have to build fence on Romanian border -Hungary govt Hungary is ready to build a fence on its border with Romania to keep out migrants and there is a good chance that this cannot be avoided, Prime Minister Viktor Orban's chief of staff said on Thursday. Bulgaria to use army to help guard border in migrant crisis Bulgaria's parliament voted on Thursday to let its army assist police in guarding the Balkan country's borders to avoid a refugee influx that has overwhelmed some of its neighbours. Europe's Schengen zone crucial for economy -German Econ Minister German newspaper Bild am Sonntag received leaked internal Volkswagen memos and emails that suggest that then-CEO Martin Winterkorn and his executive team were informed in 2014 of the lethal Dieselgate scam the company had perpetrated, and decided to stall and obfuscate to avoid penalties for emitting titanic amounts of the toxic NOX. Winterkorn told Congress, investors and regulators that he didn't discover the fraud until it was publicly revealed by independent investigators. According to the documents reviewed by The Times, a confidant of Mr. Winterkorn wrote to him in May 2014, warning that regulators might accuse the carmaker of using a so-called defeat device software that recognized when the car was being tested for emissions and activated pollution-control equipment. At other times, the cars produced up to 35 times the allowed amount of nitrogen oxide emissions, which are linked to lung ailments and premature deaths. It was not until last September, more than a year after the letter of warning to Mr. Winterkorn, that Volkswagen admitted publicly that 11 million diesel vehicles, including about 480,000 Volkswagen cars in the United States, were equipped with defeat devices. The number of cars in the United States has since risen to include about 100,000 Audi and Porsche cars with diesel engines. Volkswagen Memos Suggest Company Misled U.S. Regulators [Jack Ewing/NYT] (via Ars Technica) (Image: Martin Winterkorn, Kaiketsu, CC-BY) PRESS DIGEST - Bulgaria - Feb 19 SOFIA, Feb 19 (Reuters) - These are some of the main stories in Bulgarian newspapers on Friday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. -- Bulgaria's government canceled public procurement orders worth over 1.5 billion levs ($852.47 million) after Prime Minister Boiko Borisov said that a more favourable price can be achieved and after suspicions for possible corrupt practices. (Capital Daily, Telegraph, Sega, 24 Chasa) -- European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker expressed hope that Bulgaria will demonstrate tangible results in fighting graft and organised crime so that Brussels can end its monitoring over the country in these areas. (Trud, 24 Chasa, Telegraph, Standart, Monitor) -- Swiss investor is investing 6 million levs to build a new workshop for metal pallets, officials said. (Capital daily, Standart) -- Transport Minister Ivailo Moskovski backed the counter-blockade of Bulgarian truck drivers at border checkpoints with Greece. The drivers demand that Greek farmers that put blockades on the border since the start of January lift the barriers. (Trud, Standart, Standart) Indonesia picks Russian Su-35 to modernise air force-sources By Siva Govindasamy SINGAPORE, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Indonesia is ordering around a dozen Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and could sign a contract for the purchase in a month's time, said two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. These will replace its ageing Northrop F-5 fighters, and supplement a fleet of 16 Sukhoi Su-27 and Su-30 fighters that form the backbone of its air force. Indonesian companies will get contracts to manufacture some components for the Su-35, and the Russians are expected to set up a maintenance centre for the fighter jet in the country, added the sources. Officials from United Aircraft Corporation, which manufactures the Su-35, declined to comment at the Singapore Airshow. An Indonesian air force spokesman did not want to comment on the deal and referred all questions to the defence ministry. Officials at the ministry could not be reached for comment. Western firms including the European consortium Eurofighter, Lockheed Martin, Saab and Dassault had also been in talks with Jakarta over a possible sale of their fighter jets. Indonesian officials, however, have said for several years that their preference was to get more Russian fighters. This will be the second export order for Russia's newest fighter jet, with China inking a deal for 24 planes worth more than $2 billion in November 2015. Indonesia also has around 12 early-model Lockheed Martin F-16s, and is receiving 24 refurbished F-16s from the United States as part of a 2011 government-to-government agreement. It has also agreed to help fund South Korea's KF-X fighter jet programme, which hopes to develop a modern multi-role jet fighter in the 2020s. Jakarta expects to eventually get around 80 new fighter jets via this programme. Southeast Asia's largest country and its biggest economy wants to bolster the capabilities of its air force to catch up with its neighbours, say industry analysts. Slovak Republic - Factors To Watch on Feb 19 BRATISLAVA, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Slovak financial markets on Friday. ALL TIMES GMT (Slovak Republic: GMT + 1 hours) =========================ECONOMIC DATA======================== Real-time economic data releases................... Previous stories on Slovak data............ Overview of economic data and forecasts......... ==========================EVENTS================================ BRATISLAVA: OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria will meet with Finance Minister Peter Kazmir, press conference starts at 1330GMT. Related news: ===========================NEWS================================ OPINION POLL: Slovakia's ruling leftist party is on course to win March 5 parliamentary elections but will probably lose it outright majority and will need a partner to form a government, two final opinion polls showed on Thursday. Story: Related news: BRITAIN-EU TALKS: Slovakia is "cautiously optimistic" that European countries can reach an agreement with Britain allowing it to stay in the European Union, Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Thursday. Story: Related news: IMMIGRATION: Italy's foreign minister urged European leaders on Thursday to tackle the continent's migration crisis and avert a potential collapse of the free-travel Schengen zone, hours before they meet on the issue in Brussels. Story: Related news: CEE POWER: Central and southeastern European day-ahead power gained on Thursday as demand from the Balkans lifted prices, offsetting falling consumption headed into the weekend and an expected wind supply gain, traders said. Story: Related news: For Instant Views of key economic data click on For summary of economic data and forecasts For diary of forthcoming Slovak events For calendar of east European economic indicators TOP NEWS -- Emerging markets TOP NEWS -- Convergence watch For real-time stock market index quotes click in brackets: Warsaw WIG20 Budapest BUX Prague PX News editor of the day: Jan Lopatka on +420 224 190 474 E-mail: prague.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (Reporting by Prague Newsroom) Romania - Factors to watch on Feb 19 BUCHAREST, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Romanian financial markets on Friday. OMV PETROM Romania's top oil and gas firm OMV Petrom, controlled by Austria's OMV recorded a fourth-quarter net loss of 1.675 billion lei ($419.31 million) compared with a loss of 304 million lei in the same quarter of 2014. Markets expected a 1.62 billion lei loss. DEBT TENDER Romania sold a planned 500 million lei ($124.94 million) worth of February 2025 treasury bonds on Thursday, with the average accepted yield at 3.36 percent, central bank data showed. WHEAT TENDER Egypt's General Authority for Supply Commodities (GASC) set a tender on Thursday to buy an unspecified amount of wheat from global suppliers for shipment from March 15-25. PIPELINE A proposed Gazprom-led pipeline designed to boost Russian natural gas supplies to Europe came in for fresh criticism from the United States on Thursday, as an energy official said a reassessment should be on the cards. CEE MARKETS Polish stocks rose to their highest this year on Thursday, as government comments eased concern that a bill to convert Swiss franc mortgages to zlotys would damage the country's banks. For the long-term Romanian diary, click on For emerging markets economic events, click on For an index of all diaries, click on Vietnam protests China missile deployment, Australia, NZ urge restraint By Martin Petty and Colin Packham HANOI/SYDNEY, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Vietnam protested to China on Friday at a "serious violation" of its sovereignty over Beijing's apparent deployment of an advanced missile system on a disputed South China Sea island, while Australia and New Zealand urged Chinese restraint. Tensions between China and its neighbours over maritime territory have risen since Taiwan and U.S. officials said Beijing had placed surface-to-air missiles on Woody Island, part of the Paracel archipelago it controls. "Vietnam is deeply concerned about the actions by China. These are serious infringements of Vietnam's sovereignty over the Paracels, threatening peace and stability in the region as well as security, safety and freedom of navigation and flight," Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said in a statement. "Vietnam demands China immediately stop such erroneous actions." The statement said diplomatic notes had been issued to China's embassy in Hanoi and to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to protest at Beijing's activities, including the building of a military helicopter base on Duncan island. Earlier, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had urged claimants to refrain from island-building and militarization in the South China Sea. "It is absolutely critical that we ensure that there is a lowering of tensions," said Turnbull, speaking after a meeting in Sydney with New Zealand counterpart John Key. China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes every year and which is believed to have huge deposits of oil and gas. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims. The Philippines said it was "gravely concerned" about the reports of missiles being deployed on Woody Island. "These developments further erode trust and confidence and aggravate the already tense situation," its Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Australia's Turnbull said if Chinese President Xi Jinping was serious about avoiding the so-called Thucydides Trap, a foreign policy metaphor inspired by ancient Athens and Sparta in which a rising power causes fear in an established power that escalates towards war, he must resolve disputes through international law. "President Xi is right in identifying avoiding that trap as a key goal," said Turnbull. U.S. PATROLS Beijing has been angered by air and sea patrols the United States has conducted near islands China claims. Those have included one by two B-52 strategic bombers in November and by a U.S. Navy destroyer that sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island in the Paracels last month. Key said New Zealand, the first developed country to recognise China as a market economy and to sign a bilateral free trade deal, was leveraging its relationship with China to urge measures to lower tensions. "Does that give us more opportunities to make that case, both privately and publicly? ... my view is yes," said Key, noting that both Australia and New Zealand are now also part of the Beijing-led Asian Investment Bank. The comments come after Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop visited Beijing, where she raised the issues of the missiles and the South China Sea in meetings with Chinese officials, including top diplomat Yang Jiechi. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Australia and New Zealand "are not countries involved in the South China Sea". "We hope the two countries can objectively view the historical developments of the South China Sea, not neglect the facts, and not put forward proposals that are unconstructive," Hong told reporters. The Chinese government has offered few details in response to the missile claim, while accusing Western media of "hyping up" the story and saying China has a legitimate right to military facilities on territory it views as its own. An influential Chinese state-run tabloid, the Global Times, in an editorial on Friday, described the HQ-9 missiles that are apparently now on Woody Island as "a typical type of defensive weapon", but warned the People's Liberation Army might feel compelled to deploy more weapons. "If the U.S. military stages a real threat and a military clash is looming, the PLA may feel propelled to deploy more powerful weapons," it said. Ugandan police detain main opposition candidate in capital Kampala KAMPALA, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Ugandan police on Friday detained the main opposition presidential candidate Kizza Besigye in the capital Kampala after a largely peaceful election held a day earlier. Suicide bombers kill at least 24 in Cameroon market By Sylvain Andzongo YAOUNDE, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Two suicide bombers posing as food vendors killed at least 24 people and injured 112 others in a market in Meme, northern Cameroon, security sources said on Friday. It was the first time the town of Meme has been targeted but there have been previous assaults near the town of Mora, which lies near the border of northeastern Nigeria. Last week Cameroon's military killed 162 Boko Haram militants and arrested about 100 others in an assault, according to government spokesman Issa Tchiroma. A Cameroonian military source said two girls carried out the attack. Girls and young women have carried out a spate of suicide bombings in the region. "These two girls took advantage of the fact that it was the woman's market," said another military source. "They came like vendors, except they had explosives in their cooking pots." The death toll may still rise. There has so far been no official claim of responsibility for the attack, but officials pointed the finger at Nigerian-based Boko Haram. The group, which has sought to carve out an emirate in northeastern Nigeria, has been blamed for a campaign of suicide attacks in neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger over the past year. Boko Haram violence in Cameroon has caused about 1,000 deaths, according to the government and military sources. Boko Haram is thought to have killed about 15,000 people and driven more than 2 million from their homes during its six-year insurgency in one of the world's poorest regions. The U.S. military now calls it the most lethal violent extremist group in the world. Syrian government, Russia must cease hostilities from Friday - France PARIS, Feb 19 (Reuters) - The Syrian government and its allies, including Russia, must cease hostilities on Friday in line with an agreement made between major powers on Feb. 11, France's Foreign Ministry spokesman said. "France remains extremely concerned by the dangerous escalation of the conflict, especially in Aleppo," Romain Nadal told reporters. "It calls on the regime and its allies, including Russia, to stop its attacks against civilians and implement the commitments made in Munich on Feb. 11 to cease hostilities from today." Switzerland charges man suspected of supporting Islamic State By John Miller ZURICH, Feb 19 (Reuters) - A 25-year-old Swiss man has been charged with supporting Islamic State, the first time Switzerland has brought a suspected "jihadi traveller" before courts, the attorney general's office said on Friday. It said he was suspected of being bound for the Middle East to join up with Islamic State before his arrest at Zurich airport last year. "This represents the first time in Switzerland in which a suspected 'jihadi traveller' who was arrested before embarking on a trip to a conflict zone has been brought before the courts," Attorney General Michael Lauber's office said in a statement. The man, from near Zurich, is charged in Switzerland's Federal Criminal Court with violating the nation's so-called "Islamic State law" that bans the violent group and related organisations, the statement said. Officials said they found evidence on his electronic devices that he had "downloaded radical jihadist propaganda that glorified violent holy war", according to documents made public by the court, which also say the man intended "to travel to Syria to die as a martyr". The man, whose name has not been released publicly, disputes the contention that he wished to die as part of the conflict. The suspect's lawyer, Daniel Weber in Berne, said he is concerned that Lauber's office was orchestrating a public relations campaign, rather than a prosecution based on the law. "How can he be guilty of a crime if he never set foot inside of the airplane, let alone landed in the Middle East?" Weber said. "I don't believe there is evidence in this case sufficient to fulfil the requirements necessary for a conviction." The man was arrested at the Zurich airport on April 7, 2015, before he was set to board a flight for Istanbul. He spent about two weeks in custody before being released. Polish president Duda says Russia fomenting new Cold War By Pawel Sobczak and Mark John WARSAW, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Polish President Andrzej Duda accused Russia of fomenting a new Cold War through its actions in Ukraine and Syria, and said Poland was ready to help any future NATO efforts in combating the Islamic State. In an interview with Reuters, Duda hit back at comments by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who last week described East-West relations as descending "into a new Cold War" and said NATO was "hostile and closed" toward Russia. "If Mr Medvedev talks about a Cold War, then looking at Russian actions, it is clear who is seeking a new Cold War," Duda, allied to Poland's ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) said in an interview in his presidential palace in Warsaw. "If someone is undertaking aggressive military activities in Ukraine and Syria, if someone is bolstering his military presence near his neighbours ... then we have an unequivocal answer regarding who wants to start a new Cold War. Certainly, it is not Poland or the NATO alliance." The West says it has satellite images, videos and other evidence that show Russia is providing weapons to anti-government rebels in Ukraine, following Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Russia denies such accusations. Poland has long been one of the fiercest critics of Russian actions and PiS is especially mistrustful. It wants a summit in Warsaw this year to bolster NATO's presence in central and east Europe by positioning troops and equipment on Polish soil. Duda reiterated Polish ambitions for an "intensive" NATO presence on its territory to be agreed at the July summit, which would be "tantamount to a permanent presence" -- an arrangement that would be assured by troop rotations. Some NATO allies are reluctant, out of concern over the cost and the further deterioration with Moscow that would be likely to result. F-16s AND RECONNAISSANCE Duda's unexpected election victory last May was the first ballot win for PiS in almost a decade. It helped the party win a parliamentary vote in October on a campaign of conservative values and more economic equality. A relatively unknown politician before the election, Duda, 43, sees himself as a spiritual and political heir to Poland's late president, Lech Kaczynski. Kaczynski, the twin brother of PiS leader Jaroslaw, died in a plane crash in 2010. Local critics say Duda and Prime Minister Beata Szydlo merely follow the lead of Jaroslaw Kaczynski rather than make their own policy -- an accusation he rejected in the interview, saying he was there to implement PiS's agreed programme. Duda said Poland was ready to participate in any NATO efforts in Syria, but without sending troops, an offer the Polish government has made before. In return, it wants NATO to bolster its presence in eastern Europe. "We are not shirking our responsibility here," Duda said. "There are no decisions yet, but we are a member of the alliance." Duda said Poland would be willing to use some of its fleet of F-16 fighter jets for reconnaissance missions and to participate in training missions. A coalition led by the United States is bombing Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq, where the militant group occupies swathes of territory. The United States is pressing NATO to play a bigger role in the campaign, putting Washington at odds with Germany and France. They fear the strategy would risk confrontation with Russia, which is conducting its own air strikes in the region in support of its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Throughout latinamerica, many countries ban abortion under any circumstance, an historic artifact of the states' close relationship with the Catholic Church. This ban on abortion has always put women's lives at risk, but with the threat of Zika virus, the dire situation has turned urgent, and widespread. Though the UN has called upon nations to allow women to choose whether to bear foetuses, the Catholic Church has remained merciless, with Pope Francis declaring abortion to be a human evil. Women on the Web is a Canadian activist group that suppiies RU-486, a medically safe abortion drug, to women in territories where abortion is banned or restricted. They report that they've received more than 1,000 emails from women in latinamerica, begging for abortion drugs, terrified at the thought that they are bearing foetuses that will gestate into children with microcephaly and a life of severe disability. The group says that the 1,000 emails represent the tiny fraction of affected women with access to the Internet and say that far more are living under threat but without any chance to speak out. The scenario is reminiscent of "Are you for 86?" a classic Bruce Sterling story about RU-486 smugglers. "I am [name redacted]," begins one email. "I contacted Zika 4 days ago. I just found out I'm about 6 weeks pregnant. Today. Today, I found out I'm pregnant. I have a son I love dearly. I love children. But I dont believe it is a wise decision to keep a baby who will suffer. I need an abortion. I don't know who to turn to. Please help me ASAP." Many of the pregnant women said they had tested positive for Zika but were unable to travel or obtain pills to get an abortion. "I contracted Zika and cannot leave the country!" wrote one woman who asked to be sent abortion pills. Another woman said she was able to get Misoprostol on the black market but was unsure how to take the abortifacient. Others said they were uncertain if they had contracted the virus. Some said they hadn't been tested, while a few said they simply didn't trust their doctor's diagnosis. "How do I know if I am infected?" wrote one woman who said she had come down with a flu five months earlier. "Can you please let me know what should I do? What kind of exam do I need to tell the doctor they should do to me?" With abortion banned in Zika countries, women beg on web for abortion pills [Michael E Miller/Washington Post/Tico Times] (Image: Mifepristone) (via Skepchick) Kidnapped Red Cross staff released in Afghanistan KABUL, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Five Red Cross staff members, kidnapped by a group of armed men in the central Afghan province of Ghazni on Tuesday, were released unharmed, the aid group said on Friday. "We are immensely relieved to know our five colleagues are free and in good health," Jean-Nicolas Marti, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Kabul said in a statement posted on the group's Facebook page. "We want to thank all involved for the swift resolution of the crisis." Saudi Arabia halts $3 bln package to Lebanese army, security aid DUBAI, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said on Friday it suspended a $3 billion aid package for the Lebanese army in what a official called a response to Beirut's failure to condemn attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran. Saudi Arabia was enraged when Iranians, protesting against the kingdom's execution of a Shi'ite Muslim cleric, raided its missions last month - and many countries in the region came out in support of Riyadh. The Saudi SPA news agency quoted an official source saying Lebanon had not joined in condemning the attacks at two recent summits because Beirut had come under pressure from Lebanon's powerful Shi'ite Muslim movement Hezbollah. The unnamed official added that Riyadh had also cancelled the remainder of $1 billion in aid it had earmarked for Lebanon's internal security service. The moves underlined the deep sensitivities in a region riven by the rivalry between Sunni Muslim power Saudi Arabia and the leading Shi'ite power Iran. The two are backing different sides in Syria's civil war and different factions in neighbouring Lebanon. Lebanon's Prime Minister Tammam Salam urged Saudi Arabia to reconsider. "We express our deep appreciation for King Salman bin Abdulaziz and his brothers in the Saudi leadership ... and we hope for a reconsideration of the decision to halt the aid for our army and security forces," Salam said in a statement. Saudi Arabia pledged the aid package for the Lebanese army in 2013 in what then-Lebanese President Michel Suleiman called the largest grant ever to the country's armed forces. The first shipment of French weapons and military equipment had already been delivered to Lebanon in April last year under the Saudi-funded deal to bolster the Lebanese army's fight against Islamist militants encroaching from neighbouring Syria. The Saudi official source quoted by SPA said the kingdom had always supported Lebanon. But "despite these honourable stands, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia had been met with Lebanese stands that are against it on Arab, regional and international arenas," the statement said. Sunni politician Saad Hariri, who is backed by Saudi Arabia, criticised what he said was "use of the Lebanese state's foreign policy in the service of regional axes" - an indirect reference to Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, and to Lebanese Hezbollah and its backer Iran. Bassil, who attended the January summits, refused to vote on a joint Arab statement condemning the Saudi mission attacks, because he said it also criticised Hezbollah, and stressed the need for "national unity" in Lebanon. Bassil's Free Patriotic Movement is allied to Hezbollah. Egypt says it will not protect policemen who break the law as tensions mount CAIRO, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Egypt's Interior Ministry said on Friday that any policeman who violates the law will be prosecuted, one day after an officer shot dead a man in the street, provoking the latest outburst of anger over alleged police brutality in the country. Interior Ministry spokesman Major General Abu Bakr Abdel Karim was quoted by the state news agency as saying policemen are not shielded from the law. Hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the Cairo security directorate on Thursday night after the man was killed. A statement from the directorate said the policeman had shot dead a driver after an argument and was forced to flee a mob of local people who attempted to catch and kill him. Police later found the policeman. Footage posted on social media showed hundreds of people massing outside the security directorate to protest the death. The incident comes amid mounting public anger over alleged police brutality. Last week, thousands of doctors held a rare protest against police they say beat two doctors at a Cairo hospital for refusing to falsify medical records. Earlier this month, the body of a missing Italian graduate student was found on the outskirts of Cairo showing signs of torture, including electrocution. Activists said the injuries had the hallmarks of Egyptian security services. The Interior Ministry has denied allegations of involvement in the death. The Interior Ministry has denied allegations by human rights groups that police commit widespread human rights violations and has vowed to punish any violations. Sudanese flee militiamen they say are razing villages in Darfur By Khalid Abdelaziz AL-FASHIR, Sudan, Feb 19 (Reuters) - When gunmen poured out of 40 trucks and opened fire "indiscriminately" in his village in Western Sudan, local farmer Adam Ishaq ran for his life, joining some 73,000 civilians forced from their homes in the Darfur region since January. The new wave of internal refugees has added to the misery of a conflict that has displaced more than 2.5 million and killed up to 300,000, the United Nations estimates, since 2003 when mostly non-Arab tribes took up arms against the Arab-dominated government. Although the violence has ebbed over the last decade, the insurgency continues and Khartoum has escalated attacks on rebel groups in the past year. Critics accuse government forces and their militia allies of pursuing genocide in Darfur. The government denies that and says it has no links to the militias. "Militias stopped us on our way out and took away all our belongings," said Ishaq, 42, speaking by telephone after fleeing fighting in the Jebel Marra region of central Darfur, a remote and barren region of Western Sudan. "We received very little help since we arrived in Kabkabiya (in northern Darfur) 24 days ago. We are hungry and in a state of fear," Ishaq said. While tens of thousands have made it to camps, many remain trapped in conflict zones. "We are stuck in Jebel Marra and we don't have food, all roads are blocked by militants and we would risk our lives if we decided to go out," a 43-year-old farmer who gave his name only as Taher told Reuters, adding that neighbouring villages had been razed. "We hear the gunshots outside and no one offers us help." Al-Shafea Abdallah, a camp co-ordinator in Central Darfur, said fighting in Jebel Marra, which straddles three of Darfur's five states, was continuing to force people to the camps. "It's a dire situation for the displaced," he said, adding that little humanitarian assistance was available. The United Nations, whose mission in Darfur has often been criticised for failing to do enough to protect civilians, said that food, water, medical supplies and nutritional supplements were being provided to the newly displaced. "The situation remains very fluid, and the United Nations and partners have teams on the ground working to assess the needs of those who have recently arrived," said U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Marta Ruedas. Beyond the camps, some of those who have fled Jebel Marra have headed to remote mountainous areas and are desperate for help, according to relatives who spoke to Reuters. Caviar, champagne at Harrods: Some Mexican anti-graft busters live large By Elinor Comlay MEXICO CITY, Feb 19 (Reuters) - A dinner of champagne, caviar and smoked salmon at up-market department store Harrods was how Hilda Garcia, a Mexican anti-corruption official, spent part of her $450 per day travel allowance in London last year. A colleague, Jorge Pulido, sent to Kuala Lumpur for a conference, managed to spend more on taxis and meals out during a layover in Frankfurt than he did on his six-day hotel stay in Malaysia. Jaime Cerdio was more austere. On a trip to Washington, he lived off $10 sandwiches and soda bought at the local Safeway and paid back almost a third of his total per diem allowance, replenishing the government's coffers with more than $1,000. Mexico's Public Administration Ministry (SFP), charged with oversight and accountability in government, is responsible for reining in spending and tackling corruption. But it admits it has little idea how its own employees spend public money abroad, an examination by Reuters shows. The SFP has only paper records of its employees' travel and government rules only require boarding passes and hotel receipts as verification. This means a large chunk of employees' per diem spending goes unchecked. The ministry's finance department could not answer Reuters' questions on how many employees traveled last year, for how long and how much they spent. Instead, it handed over about 1,000 pages of paper files in cardboard boxes to review. "We are reviewing this to make sure best practices are applied to this kind of spending," SFP head Virgilio Andrade told Reuters when asked whether officials should provide more details of how they spend government money abroad. A new transparency law, approved last year, will mean government agencies and entities have to electronically publish their travel spending, Andrade said. He hopes that will improve accountability since Mexicans will be able to see where government officials are traveling on official business and question travel spending. For now, though, the government, tarred by conflict of interest scandals over home purchases by President Enrique Pena Nieto, his wife and his finance minister, has yet to introduce proposed rules to enact the transparency law and there is no date for when entities will have to make additional information - such as travel spending - public. That has allowed Mexican government employees - even those at the SFP - to live large on foreign trips. One SFP official, Alejandro Bonilla, in Hawaii for Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, enjoyed the calamari at his hotel in Kona so much he ate three rounds in 24 hours. He said his job managing the government's contracting policy unit means that he has to attend events such the TPP talks, which included two meetings in Hawaii and one in Guam last year. EXPENSIVE Pulido, the SFP's head of legal affairs, who spent more than $500 on two taxis and two meals in Frankfurt en route to an anti-corruption conference in Kuala Lumpur, said meals and taxis in Frankfurt are expensive and that he still did not spend more than his $450 per diem over the two days he was traveling. In the United States, government officials are entitled to per diem allowances in limited circumstances and must provide receipts for reimbursements. The $450 per day allowances for Mexican government workers abroad is more than the U.S. government pays in many U.S. cities but it is below the U.S. rate for some expensive foreign cities, such as London and Paris. Per diem payments can lead to 'double dipping', for instance, if government officials also accept gifts of meals or travel, said Alexandra Wrage, founder of anti-bribery organization TRACE International in Annapolis, Maryland. "Then the extra is cash in hand for the government official, which is pretty close to a bribe," she said. Reuters found no evidence that any of the SFP officials accepted gifts of meals, travel or accommodation while also receiving a full per diem payment. Andrade defended the per diem, saying that giving employees government funds upfront reinforces the idea that the trip is for official business. Cerdio, the sandwiches-and-soda employee - who heads the transparency and accountability department - was the only one of 11 public servants who took trips between January and August last year to provide receipts and itemize all of the money that he spent from his $450-a-day-allowance. Cerdio did not respond to requests for comment. Garcia, the official who dined at Harrods, handed in most of her receipts. One of her other meals was at Starbucks, she noted, and she viewed the meal at Harrods as a reward after a tough day working on an extradition process that involved multiple meetings in English discussing unfamiliar British law. Portugal government's leftist ally rekindles debt renegotiation talk By Andrei Khalip LISBON, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Portugal's Communist Party, which forms part of a shaky alliance in parliament backing a minority Socialist government, will present a legislative proposal in coming days to renegotiate the national debt burden. A previous government had to seek a bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund during the euro zone debt crisis in 2011. It was not clear whether the Communist proposal envisages renegotiation with these official lenders or also with private bondholders. Communist lawmaker Paulo Sa told TSF Radio on Friday his party expected to propose a debt renegotiation during discussions in parliament of this year's budget bill, which the moderate Socialist administration had to alter recently after pressure from Brussels to meet EU fiscal rules. The budget debates in parliament begin on Monday and are set to continue to late March. The Socialists came to power in November promising to reverse austerity imposed by the previous centre-right administration under the 2011-2014 bailout. They rely on support from the Communists and Left Bloc to pass bills. The two far left parties have long advocated debt renegotiation, but their treaty with the Socialists made no mention of such proposals. The government has promised to observe budget controls to reduce deficits and debt. "Soon, the Communist Party will present in parliament a legislative initiative with a view to renegotiate debt, which is urgently needed for the country to be able to develop and continue on the path of income recovery and improving life conditions of the people," Sa said at a TSF-hosted discussion. The daily newspaper "i" said on Friday that the Left Bloc had an internal strategy document which suggests the party will not approve the 2017 budget without a debt restructuring, and criticises the government for concessions already made to Brussels in this year's budget. But at the same TSF event, Left Bloc lawmaker Pedro Felipe Soares said his party was hoping to assess the sustainability of debt jointly with the Socialists, as envisaged by their alliance. Many analysts say rising pressure to adopt belt-tightening measures could derail the alliance between the Socialists and their leftist allies. Differences over debt sustainability could make the alliance short-lived. Doubts about fiscal credibility contributed to a jump in Portuguese bond yields last week when investors, already worried about European banks and the world economy, singled Portugal out as a weak link in the euro zone. Man pleads not guilty to Washington, D.C. quadruple murders WASHINGTON, Feb 19 (Reuters) - A man charged with killing a Washington, D.C. businessman, his wife, son and a housekeeper during a home invasion pleaded not guilty on Friday to murder and other charges, a court spokeswoman said. Darron Wint, 35, of Lanham, Maryland, was indicted by a grand jury on Wednesday. He is accused of holding construction firm owner Savvas Savopoulos and the three other victims, extorting $40,000 in cash and then killing them and setting fire to the mansion, the indictment said. Wint, who was born in Guyana, entered the not guilty plea during a felony arraignment in District of Columbia Superior Court. Judge Jose Lopez set a status hearing for May 20. Wint is charged with 12 counts of first-degree murder while armed with aggravating circumstances, as well as four counts of kidnapping, and one count each of burglary, extortion, arson and theft. The bodies were found on May 14 inside the Savopoulos home near the official residence of Vice President Joseph Biden. Police have said Wint, who was arrested a week later, had worked for Savopoulos' company, American Iron Works. Morocco arrests 10 suspected IS militants, including Frenchman By Zakia Abdennebi SALE, Morocco, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Moroccan authorities said on Friday they had arrested 10 suspected militants linked to the Islamic State, including a French citizen, and seized weapons and bomb-making materials in raids on their hideouts. The cell is the latest in a series of radical groups Morocco says it has uncovered. Thursday's raids took place at locations the group used in the southern city of Essaouira and the central cities of Meknes and Sidi Kacem, authorities said. At the offices of the Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation (BCIJ), reporters were shown weapons, ammunition, tasers, swords and bomb materials seized from hideouts. BCIJ is the judicial wing of Morocco's domestic intelligence service. "This new cell is too dangerous ... I don't call it a cell but an armed brigade," bureau head Abdelhak al-Khayyam told reporters. Al-Khayyam said the group had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and set up a hideout near the desert city of Tan-Tan in an arid area riddled with caves. The suspects include a French citizen, who converted to Islam and lived in Morocco for at least a year, and a 16-year-old Moroccan. The group was planning to use the 16-year-old as a suicide truck bomber, al-Khayyam said, and attack institutions and prominent Moroccans on Friday Feb. 19. The BCIJ's chief said the weapons came from Libya but declined to give further details. Morocco says it has dismantled 152 militant cells since 2002, including 31 since 2013 that it says were linked to armed groups fighting in Syria and Iraq. Hundreds of fighters from Morocco and other Maghreb states like Tunisia and Algeria have joined Islamist militants fighting in Syria. Some are threatening to return and create new jihadi groups in their home countries, security experts say. Slovak PM says to protect border with Austria PRAGUE, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Slovakia will take measures to protect its border with Austria following Vienna's decision to cap the number of migrants travelling through its territory, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Friday. Development aid revised to include some military and security activity - OECD By Astrid Zweynert LONDON, Feb 19 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The world's biggest donors agreed on Friday to expand the definition of development aid to include limited forms of counter-terrorism measures and military activities or training, a move campaigners said could divert scarce funds away from the poorest people. Funding towards activities aimed at preventing violent extremism can now be reported as development aid, provided they are "are led by donor countries and their primary purpose is developmental", the Development Assistance Committee, a group that oversees what can be counted as aid, said in a statement. Activities that can now be reported as aid include education, efforts to support the rule of law and work with charities to prevent radicalisation, the 29-member group, which is part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), said after a two-day meeting in Paris. Some limited forms of military training will also be eligible, provided they are done under civilian oversight, with civilian participation and have a clear purpose for the benefit of civilians, the communique said. The committee stressed the financing of military equipment or services is "generally excluded" from aid reporting and that aid must not be used to promote donor countries' security interests. The committee also said it would start tracking private finance flows as aid to recognise the importance of strengthening private sector engagement in development. LESS MONEY FOR THE POOR? Campaigners expressed concern earlier this week that aid meant to help poor people in developing countries would increasingly be used to pay for security costs and hosting migrants, in particular in light of the European refugee crisis . "We've embarked on a very slippery slope," Sara Tesorieri, deputy head of Oxfam's EU office, said in response to Friday's announcement. "It is hugely disappointing to see governments taking steps to twist aid into a tool to advance their own security agendas." The committee said it had agreed to work on ways donor countries could better respond to the current refugee crisis, with the aim of ensuring the costs of looking after migrants do not eat into aid budgets. Faced with the substantial cost of looking after a record one million migrants who arrived in Europe last year, several governments have already diverted money from their development aid budgets to pay for hosting the new arrivals. "These decisions run the risk that aid will benefit rich countries in the future instead of going to poverty reduction in developing countries," Jeroen Kwakkenbos, policy and advocacy manager at the European Network on Debt and Development. Official development assistance (ODA) reached a record high of $137.2 billion in 2014, up 1.2 percent from 2013, but the poorest countries' share dropped by 9.3 percent, leaving them with less than a third of overall aid. Adrian Lovett, Europe executive director of advocacy organisation ONE, said donors had failed to ensure that vital resources for refugees arriving in Europe are not taken from existing commitments to the world's poorest. South Sudan rivals talk peace while killing civilians -U.N. By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS, Feb 19 (Reuters) - South Sudan's warring government and opposition are killing, abducting, and displacing civilians and destroying property despite conciliatory rhetoric by both sides, the United Nations said on Friday. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is due to travel to South Sudan's capital Juba next Thursday to meet with President Salva Kiir. A political dispute between Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar two years ago sparked a civil war and renewed hostilities between Kiir's Dinka and Machar's Nuer people. More than 10,000 people have been killed. After months of ineffective negotiations and failed ceasefires, both sides agreed in January to share positions in a transitional government and earlier this month Kiir re-appointed Machar to his former post as vice president. "It cannot be tolerated that leaders make declarations in Juba, while the hostilities and attacks on the civilian population continue and intensify across the country," said U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Ivan Simonovic. He told the U.N. Security Council that the conflict threatens stability in the entire region. Simonovich said that in the Greater Upper Nile region of South Sudan government forces had systematically razed villages and that sexual violence and abuse of children's rights were rampant. "During an attack on Koch county, one woman described how soldiers killed her husband, then tied her to a tree and forced her to watch as her 15-year-old daughter was raped by at least 10 soldiers," Simonovich said. U.N. peacekeepers are sheltering nearly 200,000 people at six protection sites in South Sudan and more than 2.3 million people have been displaced. Eighteen people were killed in fighting on Wednesday at one of those U.N. compounds and more than 90 were wounded, the U.N. Refugee Agency said. Two Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) workers were among the dead, the international medical aid group said. Slovak prime minister says to protect border with Austria PRAGUE, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Slovakia will take measures to protect its border with Austria following Vienna's decision to cap the number of migrants travelling through its territory, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Friday. Austria, sitting on the migrant route from Turkey via Greece and the Balkans to Germany, has set a daily limit of 3,200 migrants arrivals and 80 asylum claims - a move that Brussels says breaks EU law. Fico told journalists in Brussels that authorities would take technical measures to protect of the border with Austria "for the eventuality that larger groups stay at the Austrian border, for example in Slovenia, and try to get around and get to Germany via a different route." He did not go into further details. Illinois judge to decide jurisdiction over Cruz eligibility complaint By Fiona Ortiz CHICAGO, Feb 19 (Reuters) - An Illinois judge on Friday said she would decide next month whether she had jurisdiction over a voter's complaint that Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz should not be on the state's primary ballot because he was born in Canada. Lawrence Joyce, a lawyer and pharmacist, filed a complaint in January with the Illinois State Board of Elections saying that under the U.S. Constitution, the Texas senator cannot run for president since he is not a "natural born" citizen. Cruz was born in Calgary, Alberta of a Cuban father and an American mother. The Board rejected Joyce's complaint - saying Cruz became a natural-born citizen at the moment of his birth because of his mother's citizenship - so he petitioned the Cook County Circuit Court to review that decision. Circuit Court Judge Maureen Ward Kirby said she was not sure she had jurisdiction, and set a March 1 hearing for arguments on whether to dismiss the complaint. The complaint comes in the wake of repeated attacks on Cruz about his eligibility by New York businessman and presidential rival Donald Trump. Children born abroad to American citizens can immediately be registered as U.S. citizens through a consular report of birth abroad, but Joyce said that process is a form of naturalization. A Reuters/Ipsos poll in January found that one quarter of Republicans did not think Cruz was qualified to be president because of his birthplace. [n:L2N14Z098] Cruz and Trump are locked in a battle to win the Republican nomination for the Nov. 8 election. Cruz won the first nominating contest in Iowa while Trump prevailed in New Hampshire. "A potential nightmare scenario may be developing if Ted Cruz becomes the nominee and is then forced to resign the nomination," Joyce told reporters. He backs Republican candidate Ben Carson but said no candidate was involved in his lawsuit. Voters in New York and in Alabama have also filed legal challenges to Cruz's eligibility. "It is widely assumed and believed that no court is going to invalidate a presidential candidate on this issue," said Gerald Rosenberg, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School. Lawyers for both Cruz and the Illinois State Board of Elections said they would present motions to dismiss the case based on jurisdiction and because they said Lawrence did not properly serve notice of his complaint. Initial results of U.S.-Brazil studies on Zika mystery expected by May By Anthony Boadle BRASILIA, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Two U.S.-Brazilian studies on whether the Zika virus spreading through the Americas is causing birth defects and other neurological disorders will yield initial results by May, a senior U.S. public health official said on Friday. The studies seek to confirm the theory that the mosquito-borne virus is responsible for an unprecedented surge in Brazil of cases of babies born with abnormally small heads, a condition called microcephaly, and that it can cause Guillain-Barre syndrome, a temporary paralysis in adults. Since it appeared in Brazil last year, the virus first detected in monkeys in Africa in 1947 has spread to more than 26 countries in the Americas, and to several countries elsewhere. Zika had previously been viewed as a relatively mild illness, but concern over the possible links to birth defects prompted the World Health Organization to declare the outbreak an international health emergency on Feb. 1. Preliminary results of the two case control studies conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Brazilian biomedical research centers in the northeastern states of Bahia and Paraiba should be ready "this spring," said CDC principal deputy director Anne Schuchat. "Scientists are increasingly confident that Zika is causing microcephaly, but people may have different judgments about how much proof is enough," Schuchat told reporters during a two-day meeting in the Brazilian capital on how to deal with the virus, which is borne by the same mosquito that transmits dengue and yellow fever. "The epidemiologic studies ongoing here in Brazil and some being initiated in Colombia should help cement the link," she said. The WHO said on Friday it could take four to six months to prove the link. Brazil has said it has confirmed more than 500 cases of microcephaly, and considers most of them to be related to Zika infections in the mothers. Brazil is investigating more than 3,900 additional suspected cases of microcephaly. But the causual link with Zika has not been proven. CONCERNS FOR PUERTO RICO, HAITI Schuchat said the U.S. government is "very concerned" about a surge of the mosquito-borne virus in the U.S. Caribbean territory of Puerto Rico when the weather warms up in mid-year, and "extremely concerned" about the impact Zika can have on Haiti, where dengue is endemic. Brazil is scrambling to contain the Zika outbreak that threatens attendance at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in August. The United States and other countries are recommending that pregnant women stay away. The meeting between U.S. and Brazilian public health experts helped pool scientific information, remove hurdles and make sure "we are putting our best minds together" to advance research on Zika and its consequences, said U.S. delegation head, Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services Jimmy Kolker. He said he was confident Brazil's government has removed legal obstacles to sending blood samples abroad, which has hindered international research into the virus by public institutions and private companies seeking a vaccine. The U.S. experts said Brazil was quick to recognize it had a problem and alert the world. "A new disease or syndrome like this is a global problem, and we are lucky that the Brazilians were very prompt and open with their experience," Schuchat said. Turkey says Obama shares Syria concerns with Erdogan, affirms support ISTANBUL, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Turkey's presidency said on Friday U.S. President Barack Obama had expressed concern over the advance of Syrian government and Kurdish YPG forces in northwestern Syria in a telephone call with his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan. With tensions running high between the two allies over the role of Syrian Kurdish fighters, the Turkish presidency said in a statement that Obama told Erdogan that Turkey had a right to self-defence, and that the United States would always back it as a NATO ally. Last of Louisiana's 'Angola 3' inmates released after decades in solitary By Bryn Stole ST. FRANCISVILLE, La., Feb 19 (Reuters) - The last of three black inmates who spent decades in solitary confinement in Louisiana's notorious Angola prison was released on Friday after pleading no contest to manslaughter in the 1972 death of a prison guard, raising his fist in a salute as he left the jail. Albert Woodfox served four decades in solitary confinement, more than any prisoner in U.S. history, according to his attorneys, after being convicted of killing white prison guard Brent Miller at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola. Woodfox and his co-defendant, Herman Wallace, said they were charged in retaliation for founding a prison chapter of the Black Panther Party. They and a third inmate came to be known as the Angola 3. Woodfox, who turned 69 on Friday, maintains his innocence, but said concerns about his health and age "caused me to resolve this case now and obtain my release." Among his first actions as a free man will be to visit the gravesites of loved ones, Woodfox said Friday as he addressed a crowd that included Robert King, the third member of the Angola 3, who also said he was targeted for his activism with the Black Panthers. "I need to go say goodbye to my mother," Woodfox said. "I wasn't allowed to go to her funeral when I was in Angola, and my sister as well." Miller family members told the Louisiana Advocate newspaper that they were not allowed to be involved in the deal. "I don't feel the Miller family had any choice in it," Wanda Callender, the guard's younger sister, told the newspaper. "We feel this was slammed in our face." In addition to manslaughter, Woodfox pleaded no contest to aggravated burglary. The deal with prosecutors came together Thursday night, Woodfox's attorney said. His brother picked him up Friday from the West Feliciana Parish Jail. A civil claim on Woodfox's behalf related to the more than four decades he spent in prison in isolation is set for trial in June and will continue to move forward, attorney George Kendall said. "There's nobody else who's been through what he's been through," Kendall said. Of the two other men known as the Angola 3, Wallace was released from prison in 2013 and died three days later. King had been placed in solitary for a crime unrelated to Miller's killing. He was released from prison in 2001 after 29 years in solitary. Woodfox had legal proceedings pending in state and federal courts, attorneys said. He was convicted twice of Miller's murder, but both convictions were ultimately thrown out in court. Louisiana state prosecutors had sought to try him a third time. An honest essay has numerous characteristics: original thinking, a good structure, balanced arguments, and plenty more. But one aspect often overlooked is that an honest essay should be interesting. It should spark the readers curiosity, keep them absorbed, make them want to stay reading and learn more. An uneventful article risks losing the readers attention; whether or not the points you create are excellent, a flat style, or poor handling of a dry subject material can undermine the positive aspects of the essay. The matter is that a lot of students think that essays should be like this: they believe that a flat, dry style is suited to the needs of educational writing and dont even consider that the teacher reading their essay wants to search out the essay interesting. You might want to have online essay editor service to boost your confidence in writing with an error-free output. Academic writing doesnt need to be and shouldnt be bland. 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. Some topic areas are naturally dry, and it falls to you to form the article more interesting through your written style and by trying to seek out fascinating snippets of knowledge to incorporate, which will liven it up a small amount and make the data easier to relate to. A way of doing this with a dry subject is to create what youre talking about that seems relevant to the critical world, as this is often easier for the reader to relate to. Emulate the fashion of writers you discover interesting When you read lots, you subconsciously start emulating the fashion of the writers you have read. Reading benefits you a lot, as this exposes you to a spread of designs, and youll start to require the characteristics of these you discover interesting to read. Borrow some creative writing techniques Theres a limit to the quantity of actual story-telling youll do when youre writing an essay; in the end, essays should be objective, factual and balanced, which doesnt, initially glance, feel considerably like story-telling. However, youll apply a number of the principles of story-telling to create your writing more interesting. consider your own opinion Take the time to figure out what its that you think instead of regurgitating the opinions of others. Cut the waffle Rambling on and on is dull and almost bound to lose the interest of your reader. Youre in danger of waffling if youre not completely clear about what you wish to mention or havent thought carefully about how youre visiting structure your argument. Doing all your research correctly and writing an essay plan before you begin will help prevent this problem. Editing is a vital part of the essay-writing process, so edit the waffle once youve done a primary draft. 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. Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep was slammed on social media recently for saying: "We're all Africans, really." She was responding during the Berlin Film Festival last week to the controversy over all-white Oscars: for years there hasn't been an African-American Oscar winner. The 2016 awards ceremony on February 28 won't change that. All the nominees and jury members are white - or European-Americans, a term that has become popular in the racially-charged US presidential elections. So what did Streep really mean? Here's what she said: "There is core of humanity that travels right through every culture, and after all we're all from Africa originally. Berliners, we're all Africans, really." Across the world, flak followed. One said acidly: "You'd think Meryl Streep would be smarter than to say, 'We're all Africans, really' in any context, but alas." But Streep of course is right: we, really, are all Africans. Modern humans (Homo sapiens) evolved in east Africa, roughly where Tanzania and Kenya are today, between 50,000 and 65,000 years ago. The vast movement and migrations of humans now began. One stream of migrants went north from Africa to Europe. As they adapted to colder climes and lesser sunlight, genetic mutations took place. Melanin cells which give skin its colour diminished, resulting in pale-skinned people. Hair follicles get their colour from melanin too: they turn lighter and fairer as melanin cells reduce. Lack of sunlight in Europe and lower melanin concentration led to the iris turning from brown to grey and then blue. Hence the blonde, pale-skinned, blue-eyed north European of today - Meryl Streep's ancestor. As a recent report says: "Scientists have uncovered an unknown chapter of human history - a major population turnover in Europe at the end of the last Ice Age. The new data shows the mitochondrial DNA of three individuals who lived in present-day Belgium and France before the coldest period in the last Ice Age belonged to haplogroup M. This is remarkable because haplogroup M is effectively absent in modern Europeans but is common in modern Asians, Australasians and Native Americans. The researchers said the discovery now suggests that all non-Africans dispersed rapidly from a single population, at a time they place around 50,000 years ago." A second stream of humans from east Africa set off on a longer route that took them across the Eurasian land bridge to north Asia, today's China and Mongolia. Genetic mutation again occurred. Due to "snow glare" (where there is extreme cold but also lots of sunlight), a second protective skin developed over the eyelids. This mutation took place over thousands of years and resulted in the narrower eyes of the Chinese and their racial derivatives in east Asia - from Vietnam to Korea. A third stream of migrants from east Africa traversed across the Middle-East, the Khyber Pass and the Indian subcontinent. Over the millennia, some of these early humans landed up, through rudimentary sea rafts, in Indonesia and Australia. They carried with them their African genes. Aborigines in Australia developed their genetic traits in a milder climate, similar to east Africa, with physical characteristics resembling their ancestors. By around 15,000 BC, four races had acquired their current genetic features: Europeans ("Caucasoids"), north Asians ("Mongoloids"), Aborigines ("Australoids") and the original Africans ("Negroids"). These are the academic terms for the four races that today inhabit the world. Over the last 10,000 years more migratory movements and inter-breeding have led to sub-racial groups. In the Americas, indigenous (Red) Indians and Aztec Indians are related to peoples who crossed over millennia ago from north Asia across the Bering land strip (now the Bering sea strait) in Russia to North America and thence to South America. In the Indian subcontinent, a thoroughfare between the west and east, genetic mingling was particularly widespread. Hence the diversity of colour and facial features from Kashmir to Kerala, Tripura to Tamil Nadu. The Union cabinet has recommended to withdraw President's Rule in Arunachal Pradesh on the sidelines of meeting of Congress dissident Kalikho Pul, along with 19 rebel Congress MLAs, 11 from the BJP and two independent MLAs with governor JP Rajkhowa to stake claim for making a new government. The speaker of the Arunachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly in December, 2015 disqualified 14 Congress rebel MLAs on grounds of defection when the governor on his discretion summoned the vidhan sabha to remove the speaker. The disqualification was stayed by the high court giving a breather to the BJP, and now the Supreme Court has also given way for Centre to revoke President's Rule by looking into the details of defection and lifted the staus quo that it imposed a few days earlier. The Congress' only hope is if the disqualification case goes in its favour or the rebels come back. There are still larger constitutional questions to be answered. One, can governor summon the session of vidhan sabha without any recommendation from the council of ministers? Two, can governor also decide the course of the session by deciding which motion to bring on his dicretion? Three, use, or in fact misue of Article 356 by the Union to topple the state government. Article 356 has been misused a lot post Emergency, starting with the Janta Party government in Centre dismissing Congress governments in states. Later also, different central governments have tried to stifle sate governments using this article. During the Constituent Assembly debate, BR Ambedkar expected the Union government not to misuse Article 356 and it to remain a dead letter, but the successive central governments have used it as a deadly weapon. Later, the Supreme Court in SR Bommai case gave certain guidelines pertaining to constitutional use of Article 356. It has also been seen that many times the governor, also not going by the advice of state council of minister, tries to stifle the governance of state. In those circumstance he takes the cover of his discretionary powers which are not clearly defined in the Constitution. However, the Supreme Court has said that a governor, while using his discretionary powers, has to go by the constitutional values without coming in contravention with other provisions of the Constitution. It is worth mentioning that those other provisions include to act on aid and advise of council of ministers of state. However in case of Arunachal Pradesh, the governor claims that the state government lost majority and has tried to stifle the functioning of Vidhan Sabha and that is to be adjudicated. Moreover, on one side, Union government showcases its intent to pursue cooperative federalism by scrapping Planning Commission and bringing Niti Aayog, curtailing the central-sponsored schemes, enhancing the states share in Centre's divisible pool of taxes from 32 per cent to 42 per cent thereby giving more flexibility in funds utilisation and in many speeches of our prime minister. But on other hand, was the state government of Arunachal Pradesh given a fair chance to prove majority on the floor of the House? Classic television on the big screen, live music in the theater, a triumphant story of black history and a happy ending in music highlight the special events this weekend in Culpeper. Heres a look at whats happening: Friday >> ROCK SHOW: The northern Virginia based trio, Drytown, plays its first gig in Culpeper at Peppers Grill, 791 Madison Road, from 8:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. The group performs original and influential songs across a wide spectrum of rock music. No cover. >> JUNGLE TV: The Library of Congress Packard Campus Theater shows on its big screen at 7:30 p.m. the first small screen depiction of Tarzan, on NBC from 1966 to 1968. In the featured two-part installment, Tarzans Deadly Silence, the scantily-clad hero loses his hearing after a deadly bomb blast. 19053 Mount Pony Road, FREE. Seating is first-come, first-served. >> EVER AFTER: Culpeper County High School drama students present Rogers & Hammersteins Cinderella: Enchanted Edition Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. in the auditorium. $10 adults, $5 students. Saturday >> MOUNTAIN MUSIC: Madison Countys own Dark Hollow Bluegrass Band plays a benefit for the State Theatre Foundation at 8 p.m. in the historic live arts venue on Main Street, Culpeper. The best-dressed band in bluegrass is donating all ticket proceed back to the nonprofit foundation. $10-$30 >> ROYAL BALL: Culpeper County High School hosts a majestic event at 5:30 p.m. prior to Saturdays final performance of Cinderella: Enchanted Edition featuring photos with cast members, snacks, face-painting, crafts and other activities. Tickets to the ball are $3. >> MORE TV: The Packard Campus Theater presents a 2 p.m. screening of Space 1999: the Bringers of Wonder, the 1977 show created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. Then at 7:30 p.m., its Sid Caesar and his band of merry players in a 1973 compilation of the most beloved and hilarious sketches from Your Show of Shows. FREE Sunday >> MEN OF HONOR: Beulah Baptist Church in Rixeyville celebrates Black History Month with a special service, starting at 10 a.m., featuring Chief Warrant Officer Phillip Brashear. He will share the triumphant story of his late father, Master Chief Carl Brashear, as portrayed by Cuba Gooding, Jr. in the 2000 film, Men of Honor. Brashear was the first African-American to become a U.S. Navy Master Diver, rising to the position in 1970 despite also having an amputated leg. Two years ago, Green Applications, a division of Green Distribution, moved to the former American Press building in Gordonsville with the promise of hundreds of jobs, millions of dollars in local investment and a visit from the governor. Since then, the New Jersey-based screen-printing and graphic art company has kept a fairly low profile as it relocates operations to its new Orange County base. According to facility Manager Rob Cowan, the Gordonsville plant currently employs 145 people, including management, and plans to double that number in 24 to 30 months. The company initially pledged to hire 323 people when it received a $540,000 grant from the governors opportunity fund back in 2014, and is moving closer to fulfilling that promise. Cowan said, "Were growing relatively quickly and were hiring a lot of folks right now. And we intend to grow much more as we continue to get better and better at what were doing and taking on more and more work. Theres a tremendous opportunity for growth here." Nick Khani of Green Applications said at the moment most of the hiring is for people on presses, "but we really want to start getting a feel for what other skill sets are out there as well." Last week the company invited members of the Orange County Chamber of Commerce (OCCOC) to visit their 160,000-square-foot facility on Taylor Avenue in Gordonsville. Four chamber members and executive director Amanda Settle participated in Tuesdays meeting. Green Applications was founded in 2009, and opened its Gordonsville plant at the former American Press building in 2014. The company designs, screen-prints, produces and distributes graphic art on heat transfers and apparel. Its work can be seen on t-shirts, hoodies and other clothing items as well as on mugs, phone cases, iPad cases and canvases. Khani said, "We really wanted to get involved with the community a lot more. Im really interested in having the community coming into the building and knowing what we do and likewise getting us out of the building, and just sharing the load like that," he said. Khani moved here from London, and his background is specifically in digital printing, where small-run jobs from desktop publishing and other digital sources can be printed using high-volume printers. Khani started his career in digital printing in a small start-up company in London, and saw the company grow from three to 300 employees in seven years. "We built that company just utilizing digital printing. So Robert [Butters], the CEO of Green Applications, brought me here to help do the same with Greens digital print department," he said. Khani said, "I see quite a lot of value in getting involved with the local community, especially in a small town like Gordonsville where theres quite a lot of opportunity." Khani said one of the main reasons Green Applications wants to get involved, is theres little visibility for the company located at the end of Taylor Ave. "A lot of people dont know were here. We have such a large footprint here and also elsewhere in the U. S. Wed like be a bit more visible and contribute to the community more," he said. Khani has been talking with Gordonsville visitor center director David Solomon about local printing needs, such as t-shirts for Gordon-Barbour Elementary School. "Id love to bring those kids in to spend a couple of hours here, sort of a field trip, to teach them about printing and the different printing methods that we do. We could bring their parents in as well. That would be really awesome," he said. Khani is excited about building the companys digital department. "Its a very small arm of the business right now, but its got so much growth potential," he said. He believes digital printing is perfect for community-based projects. "When you screen-print, you have to print hundreds of thousands of units before it becomes cost-effective. With digital, I can print one t-shirt just as easily as I can print a hundred. Its great for getting people involved and just going heres my image, heres my t-shirt, lets put the two together." Khani said theres still a place for screen-printing. "When youre printing 2,000 t-shirts in the same design, it makes sense to screen them, because you are paying cents versus dollars. Theres a place for both and thats why we do both," he said. Khani said all of Greens production will eventually move to the Gordonsville site. "Thats why we have such a large footprint. We have plans for every single square foot of it. At the moment we have sites in New Jersey and several in other states and we are looking to print solely on these premises in Virginia," he said. Khani said some of the other locations will close down and some will become remote offices. Cowan said most of the companys support and professional staff will start to migrate to Gordonsville. "Were going to need quality people on the professional side of this. I am tasked with understanding it and building what we need here in Virginia to start transferring those services down here so we can be self-sustaining," he said. Cowan said he prefers to hire locally and at times it has been challenging to find applicants within the area. "Were trying not to steal talent from other industries. If we can, we would like to help replace displaced people," he said. For more information, or to apply for a job, see http://www.gordonsvillejobs.com Sandy James writes for the Orange County Review. Compounding the issue? Lawmakers in Virginia seldom face serious challenges; only a handful of races were seriously contested in 2015, and not a single incumbent lost in the general election. That means politicians who run up huge fundraising accounts to scare off challengers don't have to spend the money on campaigning. An Associated Press review of the state's finance system turned up examples like Chesapeake Democrat Del. Lionell Spruill, who hasn't faced an opponent in two decades. Since 2011, Spruill has spent $300,000 from his campaign account on numerous luxuries: a membership in a private business club, meals at Ruth's Chris steakhouses around the country, and more than $2,000 at high-end Richmond restaurants during legislative sessions. More than 90 percent of the money Spruill raised came from corporations, trade organizations or special interest groups. Spruill, who has not listed an outside income in years, declined to comment. The AP examined tens of thousands of campaign donations and expenditures collected by the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan money-in-politics tracker; interviewed several current and past lawmakers; and compared Virginia's laws and habits to other states and the federal system. Among the findings: Behavior that would get lawmakers locked up in other states or at the federal level is perfectly fine in the Old Dominion. Virginia is the only state where lawmakers can raise unlimited campaign donations from anyone, including corporations and unions, and spend the money on themselves. A handful of lawmakers, including senior members in both parties, rely almost entirely on business interests and their representatives for campaign contributions. For instance, GOP Senate President Pro Tem Steve Newman has raised more than $360,000 since 2012; 99 percent of that money came from corporations, trade groups, lobbying firms or special interest groups. Newman said he didn't have to do any serious fundraising because he ran unopposed and said his haul from corporate interests hasn't unduly influenced his votes. The current system has little accountability. Lawmakers must disclose their spending but are free to do so in the vaguest details. Some lawmakers reimburse themselves thousands of dollars from their campaigns with only scant explanation, like "travel reimbursement." Further, Virginia's State Board of Elections does not audit or investigate campaign finance reports. Elected prosecutors can investigate campaign finance violations, but longtime political watchers could not recall a case ever being brought. Advocates say regulated businesses subsidizing a largely unregulated campaign finance system risks both sides getting too cozy. "There's nothing wrong with being business-friendly, but the question is whether they're too friendly," said Dale Eisman, a spokesman for Common Cause. For more than two years, Virginia lawmakers have been trying to reform the state's image in the wake of former Gov. Bob McDonnell's corruption scandal. Those efforts have mostly focused on limiting gifts from lobbyists and corporate interests, and lawmakers have so far rejected calls from Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe and others to tighten the state's campaign finance system. Del. Marcus Simon, D-Fairfax County, is carrying a bill to prohibit using campaign money for personal expenditures something already illegal for federal politicians and in most states. Currently, Virginia officials are only prohibited from spending campaign money for personal use when they close out their campaign accounts. A Republican-controlled panel punted on the bill earlier this year, saying it should be reconsidered next year. Simon said he fears the bill will die quietly and said his colleagues have told him they aren't eager to take up the issue. "If we allow the industries we regulate to fund our campaign system, at the very least, you ought to have some limit on how you spend that money and not make it a personal slush fund," Simon said. But other Virginia lawmakers are skeptical that new regulations are needed. When McAuliffe addressed the General Assembly last month and said he wanted to ban the personal use of campaign funds, virtually no one clapped. "These are not government funds, these are private funds," said GOP Del. Mark Cole, who leads the House committee overseeing election law. "Why should the government step into basically what is a private transaction?" Many legislators say the unfettered use of campaign funds is necessary. A lawmaker is on duty 24 hours, seven-day-a-week, they said, and the line between what's a personal expense and what's a campaign or official expense is often blurry. Lawmakers like former Sen. Steve Martin, who lost a GOP primary for his Richmond-area seat last year, say their official salaries of about $18,000 a year plus a $1,250-a-month office stipend don't begin to cover all their costs. Martin's campaign reported spending more than $7,000 on tire and auto repair shops and several thousand at area gas stations in recent years. Martin, who had his Senate wages garnished and has been sued for alleged unpaid debts, said the campaign paid for those expenses because he usually traveled for official reasons. "Other than going to church and grocery shopping and going to pick up my grandchildren and keeping them on Mondays and stuff like that, I wasn't doing a lot of personal stuff with my car," Martin said. Lawmakers also get $185 a day to cover hotels and meals during sessions, which are either 45 or 60 days long. But records show they frequently spend upwards of $200 for meals labeled on reports only as "constituent meal," ''working dinner" or simply "dinner" because they aren't required to report their spending in any level of detail. A favorite is Bookbinder's Seafood and Steakhouse, where a surf and turf sells for as much as $96. Lawmakers have spent more than $5,000 there during the past two legislative sessions. Others pay for expensive hotel stays, like GOP Del. Chris Peace, who stayed at Richmond's storied Jefferson Hotel during the 2014 inaugural celebrations. He also paid for an out-of-town photographer hired to take pictures for his re-election campaign to stay at the hotel. Peace said he chose the Jefferson, where his campaign has reported spending more than $1,000, in part to help promote tourism. "The Jefferson is an icon of the city, and I encourage everyone to stay there," he said in an email. Uber is gaining ground in Culpeper, offering a technology-based transportation option for riders and for drivers, the chance to earn extra income with their own vehicles. The cell phone-connected network of Uber enthusiasts also continues to pick up speed around Virginia, largely in metropolitan areas, with some small-town cab company owners less than enthusiastic about the potential competition. The concept is fairly seamless, said Uber spokeswoman Kaitlin Durkosh. You push a button and you get a ride, and weve also brought a new level of safety into getting from point A to point B. If you were in a bigger city, you might be outside by yourself and try to hail a taxi, but now with Uber you can wait inside your home or your apartment building. Town of Culpeper resident Willie Barbee recently got certified as a driver for the multi-national mobile ride hail company based in San Francisco. The 60-year-old, originally from Milwaukee, works full-time in facility maintenance for Culpeper Public Works, and in his off-time drives for Uber, giving rides all over in his 2015 four-door Chevy Sonic. I wanted to make some extra money and l like dealing with the public, said Barbee, adding, I found out that there was a great need in this area because you have a lot of 21st century people that live out in this area people that like to deal with technology versus manually calling a cab company. Anyone can request Uber transportation by first registering as a rider on the companys app, which allows them to view the drivers profile and picture and get a fare estimate. Fares may vary due to traffic, weather a Virginia woman was recently charged $640 for a 30-mile trip to the airport in a snowstorm and other factors. Uber is reportedly less expensive than using a traditional cab or limousine company, when conditions are right. Its a lot cheaper than a taxi fare, said Barbee, a former chauffeur with Lightfoot Limousine & Taxi, of Culpeper. Its definitely more affordable than taking a cab to D.C. Thats one of the reasons why taxi drivers are upset with Uber. A taxi from Culpeper to the train station in D.C. would cost $300, Barbee said. According to the online Uber fare estimate feature, the cheapest fare from Culpeper to Union Station was $84 up to as much as $389 for an Uber SUV. Barbee insisted hes not stealing rides from traditional taxi drivers. It all comes down to technology, Barbee said. Thats the big difference. Thomas Lightfoot, owner of the limo and taxi company for which Barbee once worked, said Friday that hes uncertain of the impact Uber could have on his Culpeper-based company. I heard its probably going to knock me out of some work because their fares are cheaper, he said. Lightfoot added that he hasnt seen any loss of business yet. My business is still doing very well and I have been in this town for 16 years, he said. My business is still growing, getting new customers every day. Its not hurting me now at least not yet. A Culpeper native, Lightfoot spent 40 years living in New Jersey before moving back home. He employs 12 drivers, providing service seven days a week. In 2009, Northern Virginia Magazine named his business among the areas best. Almost anyone can drive a cab, but theres a big difference when you are dealing with a chauffeur it takes special qualities. You got to be real sharp, mentally keeping up with directions and on a professional level in dealing with mostly corporate and VIP clients, Lightfoot said. That takes it to a different level. In cities, along with cabbies, Uber drivers are readily available, responding to ride requests using the Uber app, which guides them to their customers desired destination using GPS. Drivers make their own schedules and when theyre not online that means they are not accepting ride requests. Barbee drives seven days a week from 2 p.m. to midnight, he said. In this area, you dont get a lot of rides because people dont know about it, he said. I want people to know there is an Uber driver here. If a person needs a ride to Dulles, Baltimore, Richmond, Fredericksburg, Reagan Airport, Charlottesville, Richmond thats up to them. Wherever the client needs to go, thats where I will take them. Afternoons and nights during the week, Barbee splits his time driving for Uber in Northern Virginia and Charlottesville, and on weekends, he heads to Washington, D.C., where he mostly provides rides to people enjoying the night life. Hes also dropped off and picked up from Washington airports and Walter Reed National Medical Center. Barbee hopes to see Uber gain popularity in Culpeper, and envisions it taking off from the Depot, where Amtrak trains arrive daily. Everybody comes through the train depot, he said. People come to visit the vineyards, see historic sites and do different things so it would be an ideal place to pick up from. There is no exchange of cash with Uber rides thats all taken care of electronically when the rider reaches their destination. Its up to the driver how much he wants to make in a given day, Barbee said. You can make $500 to $1,000 in a week according to how much you want to put into it and how much driving you want to do, he said, comparing it to the $75-$100 for a days work as a chauffeur. You are your own boss. Thats the biggest thing you are the boss of your franchise. No one is over you. The Uber rider and driver each rate the other at the end of the trip and that information is conveyed to the company. Drivers go through a screening process, have to have proof of insurance and own a vehicle thats 10-years-old or newer, according to Durkosh with Uber. She said there are thousands of drivers across Virginia and more than a million worldwide. You can request a ride and get a ride in Culpeper from time to time, Durkosh said. Youre not able to open up the app and get a ride 24-7 like you can in D.C. at this stage. Culpeper is an area we havent really expanded to yet. Asked about the tourism department, based in the train depot, potentially helping to promote Uber, the spokeswoman said they would be happy to have that discussion. Barbee is not the only one in Culpeper with a vehicle registered here as a Transportation Network Company, according to DMV spokeswoman Brandy Brubaker. The town has 14 vehicles registered to provide transportation through Uber or its main competition, Lyft. Another 84 vehicles are registered to do so in Culpeper County, Brubaker said. To have a DMV-registered Transportation Network Company vehicle, drivers must be at least 21-years-old, have a valid license and insurance and pass the companys criminal background check, including a check of state and national sex offender registries, according to Brubaker. Once that is complete, DMV provides special decals for the drivers vehicle on which an Uber or Lyft sticker is also displayed. Statewide, there are 43,990 vehicles registered with Virginia DMV to provide the services while another 45,693 out-of-state drivers, mostly from D.C. and Maryland, can do the same, Brubaker said. A law was passed last year, effective July 1, and so we began registering vehicles June 4, she said. Some people may be doing it a few hours here and there and some people are full-timing with it, but we are seeing more and more registrations every month. A university education is a significant financial investment. Every student is unique, and so are their financial circumstances. Our Student Awards and Financial Aid team can help you explore financial options and develop strategies to create a plan that works for you. &nbsp; Choose from the following options to learn more The memory may not be as fond as our first kiss, or car, but we all remember the first shopping mall we visited. Im sure Im not alone in that my introduction to shopping occurred at the Salem Mall. After being closed for more than twenty years, all the Salem Mall has left to offer are memories. For some reason the Dayton Mall always seemed so far away, like halfway to Cincinnati, while the Salem Mall was within a reasonable driving distance. Plus it offered everything I was interested in shopping for at the time, which was mainly the wall posters in the back of Spencers, next to the lava lamps. Before the internet, such posters were the only place I could see scantily clad women. Located in Trotwood, between Salem Avenue and Shiloh Springs Road, the Salem Mall was the first fully-enclosed suburban shopping center in the area. It was state of the art, at least in my eyes, with a fountain in the center of the building. At Christmas time, the space was filled with poinsettias forming a tree. Across from the fountain was a Waldenbooks, back when malls had bookstores. Some of the dust collectors now sitting on my bookshelf were likely purchased there. The anchors of the mall were J.C Penney, Sears, Elder-Beerman and any guesses on the last one? Hint, despite its name, the store didnt rise from the dead after closingLazarus. One by one each of the stores began to fade away and by 1997, Sears was the only one of the four that remained. The opening of the Fairfield Mall in 1994 was a lethal blow to the Salem Mall. The Salem Mall was finally demolished in 2006, though Sears, the only part of the remaining structure held on for much longer, before finally closing its doors in January 2014. In its prime the Salem Mall hosted over a hundred different retailers including a Camelot Music which featured all the latest in cassette tapes; Merry-Go-Round, where I wasnt hip enough to shop; and a Babbages, which sold computer games before the days of X-Box. There were a number of shoe stores, such as Buster Brown, where some of my Velcros were likely bought. I always tried to avoid the clothing stores, so my memories are sparse in that department but there was surely a Fashion Bug and a Chess King. There was also certainly a Kay-Bees or some toy store within the confines of the mall, but I just remember the Childrens Palace, which was right next door. A whole separate building devoted to only toys. It truly was like entering a palace, even made to resemble a castle. A stop at any toy store made for a much more pleasurable shopping experience in my younger days, especially after getting a Presto Magic. At that time it was common for movie theaters to be right within the mall and Salem Mall had its own cinema. Thats one way for parents to get a couple hours of peaceful shopping in. I probably saw at least one of the Police Academys in that theater. There was also an arcade in the mall, where countless hours of playing Pac-Man were logged in. Like with most everything else in life, I associate shopping with eating, and a vital part of any mall is the food court. The Salem Mall had a spacious food court, which for a time resembled a block in almost every city with a McDonalds, Arbys, and a Taco Bell. What I remember most though was the Baskin Robbins, as it was the only one in the area. The Salem Mall also housed several stand-alone restaurants, including an MCL Cafeteria. With a wooden frame and a stained glass window, I remember feeling as if I was dining in first class whenever we went to MCL. There was also a Fours Company, which served bar & grill type food, a Pizza King (Cassanos), and an Upper Krust. Hope the Salem Mall brings back some memories for you, maybe its even where your first kiss occurred! The management conducted a detailed inquiry, found the physical education teacher guilty and filed a complaint with the Jalahalli police on Tuesday night, after consulting the girls parents. (Representational image) Bengaluru: A 16-year-old class nine student was allegedly raped on several occasions by her physical education instructor after he lured her into his sisters house outside the school premises under Jalahalli police station limits. The accused, Lakshmikantha, said to be around 35 years old, sexually assaulted the girl three to four times between June and November last year. The victim shared the horrendous ordeals with her friends, who brought it to the notice of the school management. The management conducted a detailed inquiry, found the physical education teacher guilty and filed a complaint with the Jalahalli police on Tuesday night, after consulting the girls parents. The police registered an FIR immediately under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) and the victim was subjected to a medical examination. But the physical education teacher has been missing since the school initiated the inquiry and is yet to be arrested by the police. The place of crime, where he allegedly sexually assaulted the girl, is outside the school premises, which is the accused sisters house. The victim said that she was assaulted about three to four times between June and November, said Mr T.R. Suresh, DCP (North Division). But the school authorities found out only in January-end when the girl's classmates informed a teacher, after which an inquiry was initiated by the school management, Mr Suresh said. After conducting the inquiry, the school management consulted the girls parents before filing the complaint. By then, the accused had quit work and gone underground, police sources said. The Jalahalli police have recorded the statements of the victim and her parents, while a team of police officials has been dispatched to nab the teacher. He has been booked under Section 376 of IPC (for rape) and Section 6 of the POCSO Act (aggravated penetrative sexual assault). Lawyers raise slogans as they march from Patiala House Court to India Gate against alleged anti-national activities at JNU, in New Delhi. (Photo: PTI) New Delhi: Call records of two mobile numbers belonging to JNU Ph.D. scholar Umar Khalid, believed by the Delhi Police to be the main organiser of the controversial February 9 event at the varsity campus where anti-India slogans were allegedly raised, have revealed that over 800 calls were made from his numbers to several places, including Jammu and Kashmir, Bangladesh and Gulf countries between February 3 and 9. Read: Umar Khalid's father lodges complaint of threat call While 38 calls are said to have been made to Jammu and Kashmir, a total of 65 calls were received on Mr Khalids numbers from the northern state. The call details came to light after the police intensified its search to track the former leader of the Democratic Students Union. Sources said most of the calls made to Jammu and Kashmir from Mr Khalids numbers were to three particular numbers, while 4 to 5 calls were made to another number. While one number has been traced to an individual at the Central University of Kashmir located in Ganderbal, three other numbers belong to different persons. A scan of the call records showed that many calls were made to numbers outside Delhi, spanning across different cities. Some calls were also made and received from Gulf countries and Bangladesh. The source said that the call details of Mr Khalids numbers for the past two months showed that the frequency of phone calls to these numbers had increased since the last week of December, which is when the police suspects that the preparations for the February 9 event could have actually begun. Mr Khalid allegedly went absconding after JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested on charges of sedition. His mobile phone has also been switched off since the student leaders arrest. All or nothing is a gamble, A cosmic impatience Because, said the sophist, This life is a preamble To the nothing that becomes all Even the human race came after the Fall From Katy ki Beti by Bachchoo I am a trustee of a London theatre called Riverside Studios, named after its location by the Thames near Hammersmith Bridge. Our three theatres and cinema and several offices were housed, till last year, in this idyllic location in a building that was falling apart. Redevelopment was not an option but a necessity. We trustees went through a period of consultations with the owners of the redundant Queens Wharf warehouse that adjoined our very thriving cultural venue. We were the last buildings standing on the banks of the river that had not been rebuilt. With the Queens Wharf owners, after months of bargaining, we decided to venture. Our buildings would be demolished and a developer would build us a new one with more theatrical and cultural space and modern facilities. To pay for it they would design and build flats above the art complex and sell them to make it worth their while. In addition to our enhanced, modernised spaces, the developer would give us a capital sum to invest in our non-profit theatrical activities. We were converting our legal hold on the lease of a chunk of real estate into buildings and funds that would serve the purpose of culture for generations. (We are all honorary, invited trustees, no one gets paid anything not even expenses.) The contracts were signed, our old studios were demolished and construction on a huge scale began. Last week, we were invited by the builders to view work in progress and I went on the site, wore a hard hat and a luminous jacket and boots and, with ten colleagues, checked it out. Theres where the restaurant and bar will be and the cinema space is where those pipes run now down there wow! And Studio One with a capacity of X will be located on the floor when there is a floor etc. In the course of the visit we talked about the flats. Oh, even though the site is literally a vast hole in the ground weve already sold 80 per cent of the flats, our guide from the developing company told us. For how much? I asked. Well a two-bedroom flat, not facing the river but inward above your theatres went for 2.8 million, he said nonchalantly. And the penthouses with views of the river and terraces? Oh, the penthouse went for 11.5 million. I took a deep breath. And what nationality are the buyers of the penthouses? I asked, risking an accusation of racism from my colleagues. Couldnt tell you that, was the reply. My question was prompted by curiosity about a phenomenon that is overtaking Britains capital. A spectre is haunting London, or at least central and property-valuable parts of the city today. Finding statistics is impossible, but Central London today, its housing stock, the flats in the new luxury tower blocks, the Victorian terraces of the whole of central London are being or have been, bought up with crooked, or what is known in India as black, money by Russians, Arabs, Indians, Pakistanis and some Chinese and Africans. Heres a fairly typical story: An Egyptian individual called Ahmed Ezz, a steel magnate of sorts was arrested soon after the Arab Spring in that country, fined 2 billion for stealing from the state and sent to jail. Nevertheless investigative journalists from Private Eye, a Brit fortnightly, now allege that Mr Ezzs laundered money was used through two companies registered in the non-tax-paying black money-laundering British Virgin Islands to buy one of his three wives a flat in Knightsbridge worth tens of millions of pounds and another in an Edwardian apartment block worth 3.5 million. If Londons property is an iceberg, that story is not the tip of it, but a mere crystal on a politically submerged surface. The present Tory government is aware of the fact that Russian oligarchs, Arab potentates, corrupt Chinese, Indian do-numbris, Pakistani politicians and African dictators and demagogues are investing in London property, leaving the flats and houses empty for most of the year, claiming non-domicile status and paying no taxes here. If New York is known as the Big Apple, London should be rechristened the Big Launderette. In the 60s and 70s, the same Victorian terraces of South Kensington which have become little non-resident Arabia were bed-sitter-land for students and low-income-wallas. I lived in several of them myself and had a circle of friends who did the same until, in the late 70s and 80s, we were ethnically cleansed from those areas which were being rapidly acquired by the rich British. By the late 90s, even the rich British couldnt afford the property prices. Flats and whole new housing complexes in the centre of London were bought up by companies registered in Luxembourg, the Virgin Islands or other tax-dodging retreats. The real owners, the individuals laundering their money, werent legally named on the deeds. This great laundromat has had a disastrous effect on the social fabric of Britain. House and flat prices in the whole of London have rocketed and young working people cant afford to buy into the London housing market even at the humblest one-room or studio-flat level many tube stations away from Oxford Circus. And Central London has nothing resembling a community. I still know people who are proud of living in Chelsea or Knights-bridge and in my crueller moments remind them that they are living in ghost towns, away from real people. I dont mean that Arab petty royals, Russian swindlers and mafia and Indian kala-paisa-wallas are not real people I admit they are humans of sorts, I simply mean that they are not in those homes most of the time and their rootedness in London and their shallow culture consists of shopping trips to overpriced stores and buying tickets for tourist musicals. President Barack Obama speaks to the media at a meeting with civil rights leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. (Photo: AP) Washington: Barack Obama will become the first US president to visit Cuba in almost a century next month, a symbolic visit that will cast off one of the last vestiges of the Cold War. The White House announced that Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will travel to the Communist-controlled island March 21-22. Next month, Ill travel to Cuba to advance our progress and efforts that can improve the lives of the Cuban people, the US leader said in one of a series of tweets. The White House hopes that the trip will be a Berlin Wall moment, crowning what they say is one of the biggest foreign policy achievements of Obamas presidency. The last American leader to visit the island while in office was Calvin Coolidge in 1928. For generations of Americans, Cuba has been synonymous with crisis and threat, from the disastrous CIA-backed invasion of the island at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, to the Missile Crisis the following year. Since coming to office in 2009, Obama argued that engagement would bear more fruit than embargoes and isolation. In December 2014, Obama made a shock announcement that he and Raul Castro had been in secret talks on a rapprochement. The pair met in April 2015 in Panama, making Obama the first sitting US president to meet a Cuban leader since Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. Diplomatic relations were restored in July, allowing the red, white and blue flags of Cold War foes to fly over Washington and Havana for the first time since 1961. Still have differences A presidential visit will be the capstone of Obamas policy of engagement, but it is also a gamble. Raul Castros government has shown a willingness to open the economy, but Cubas political system is still dominated by the regime. Human rights groups say that detentions have actually increased in recent years, reaching around 8,000 a year even as longer-term prisoners have been released. The White House said that during the visit Obama would meet civil society leaders, who remain under intense pressure from the regime. We still have differences with the Cuban government that I will raise directly. America will always stand for human rights around the world, Obama said. Obamas visit will come at a crucial time, just weeks before a crucial Cuban Communist Party congress. The meeting could decide who becomes the first non-Castro to control Cuba since the brothers came down from the Sierra Maestra mountains and ousted Fulgencio Batista on New Years Day 1959. Obama will want to prod Havana into opening up politically, but the White House is betting that opening Cuba to American tourists and American business is the fastest way to bring change. Cuba lost its chief economic benefactor in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed and is likely to suffer the same fate again as tumult in Venezuela turns off the spigot of heavily subsidized crude. For now the United States and Cuba are treading cautiously, taking incremental steps to facilitate trade and investment. The Obama administration has focused on regulatory changes to ease travel and trade between the two countries, which have close family ties. There are 1.8 million Cuban Americans and Cuba has a population of 11 million. On Tuesday, the US and Cuba signed an agreement authorizing daily US commercial flights to the island for the first time in more than 50 years. Opposition at home Cubas leaders will try to manage economic reform in a way that does not threaten their political power or vested interests behind state-run firms, following a lead from Vietnam and China. Average wages are $20 a month and Havana frets about any opening undoing its social progress since 1959. And the Cuban governments baby steps on opening their economy clearly have not convinced those voting with their feet decisively since the past years improvement in bilateral ties. Thousands of Cubans have left in recent months over concerns that the diplomatic rapprochement will prompt Washington to drop its policy of giving them automatic residency and the right to work when they set foot in the United States. Obama faces significant opposition to his Cuba policy at home, where the Republican-controlled Congress has made it clear it does not intend to end the embargo. For that to happen requires that Cuba move toward direct elections and begin to settle some 6,000 compensation lawsuits for US-owned property seized during the 1959 revolution. Those suits are estimated to be worth about $8 billion. Cuba is likely to become an issue in the 2016 presidential race, particularly in the battleground state of Florida. Republican presidential hopeful Marco Rubio, a son of Cuban immigrants, said he would not travel to the island if its not a free Cuba. They are a repressive regime. Theres no elections in Cuba. There is no choice in Cuba, argued Rubio, who grew up in Las Vegas and Florida. Bengaluru Development Minister K J George on Thursday said the eight-lane road at Okalipuram will be completed by this December and the flyover near the Fortis Hospital in Rajajinagar I Block will be inaugurated soon. The minister was speaking to reporters after inspecting some ongoing projects in the City. The first stop of the minister's convoy was the ongoing Okalipuram Eight-Lane Road project. The project, worth Rs 102 crore, was mooted by the previous BJP government four years ago but could not be implemented. Last June, the ground-breaking ceremony was performed to kickstart the project. During the inspection, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike engineers told the minister that so far, 28 percent of the work has been completed and it will be completed within the stipulated time. The minister directed the Palike engineers to ensure that Railway officials cooperate to complete the project. The next destination was the flyover at Rajajinagar, which is completed but awaiting inauguration. The reasons cited by the Palike engineers was that the service road has not been completed yet. However, other Palike sources said issues with the contractor over payment has prevented its opening for public use.The minister visited Dr Rajkumar Memorial Indoor Stadium in Mahalakshmi Layout. The project started three years ago but was stopped for two years for want of funds. Initially, it was supposed to have been finished at a cost of Rs 5.25 crore but now, an additional Rs three crore would be required. In this regard, a proposal has been sent to the Palike administration for the additional funds. Civil work has been completed but the interiors need some finishing. Mayor B N Manjunath Reddy and Palike Commissioner G Kumar Naik, who also accompanied the Minister, agreed to release funds to complete the project. Later, interacting with the media, George said road work was a continuous process and improving a majority of roads now requires at least Rs 1,500 crore. He said a major project to link two national highways with the peripheral ring road would be taken up. Violence broke out during Jat agitation for quota in Rohtak today leaving at least 15 persons injured even as Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar convened an all-party meet tomorrow to find a way out of the impasse. Police and the paramilitary troops staged a flag-march to get the town roads cleared from protesters who blocked these in support of their reservation demand. Traders and advocates clashed outside the court premises at Rohtak during the protest,in which several vehicles were also damaged. Advocates of the district court were protesting against non-inclusion of Jat community in the OBC category outside the court premises from where traders of the city were passing in a procession to submit a memorandum to the Deputy Commissioner, police said. Police and paramilitary forces resorted to lathi-charge and teargas shells to control the situation, during which unidentified persons torched some motorcycles and pelted stones. Prohibitory orders were clamped in Rohtak, banning assembly of five or more persons. In Chandigarh, an all-party meeting has been convened for tomorrow and a decision in this regard was taken by the Chief Minister at an emergent meeting of the Cabinet. Khattar reviewed the situation arising out of the ongoing agitation. The state cabinet appealed to the agitating Jats to call off their agitation in the larger interest of the state. The administration and the police were fully alert to meet any eventuality and the government has kept all its options open to deal with the situation, Agriculture Minister Om Prakash Dhankar told reporters after the Cabinet meet. Looking to revive his party in politically crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday wooed the Dalits saying that his party had always favoured their development and empowerment even as he slammed the RSS for what he alleged was imposition its Manuwadi ideology in educational institutions. Speaking at a Dalit Conclave organised by the state Congress here, Rahul attacked Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati and said that she had done nothing for the Dalits and had misused Kanshirams legacy. Mayawati has not done anything for the development of Dalits. Dalit leadership was not developed under her leadership. We want to empower them, we want to give them share in power, the Congress leader said. Rahul said that Congress wanted to develop Dalit leadership. The plight of the Dalit community will change if Congress comes to power in the state, he added. Extolling Dalit ideologue B R Ambedkar, the Congress leader said that his party shared the ideology of Ambedkar unlike Mayawati. He also raked up the suicide of Hyderabad University student Rohith Vemula and blamed the BJP lead NDA government at the centre for the same. Rahul also targeted the RSS and BJP and accused them of suppressing the voices of dissent. On the one hand we have a constitution given to us by Ambedkar and Congress. It gives equal opportunity to all. And on the other there is RSSs Manuwadi ideology, he said. Rahul exuded confidence that the Congress would form the next government in UP after next years Assembly elections. Congress had managed to win only two seats in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The party leaders here felt that it could gain electorally if it was able to wean away Dalits from Mayawatis fold. An Indian citizen who has been living in Pakistan since 1982 and embroiled in a family feud has been arrested here after he was found allegedly possessing a Pakistani National Identity Card, officials said today. Rustam Sadhua was arrested yesterday by Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and is accused of obtaining his National Identity Card (NIC), issued only to Pakistani nationals, through fraudulent means. He was arrested from a court in Islamabad after his pre-arrest bail was rejected and is being "probed", an FIA official said. According to available evidence, Sadhua arrived in Pakistan from India in 1982 and since then has been living in the country, the official said. Sadhua is the brother-in-law of Pakistan's influential minority lawmaker Asfandyar and son-in-law of well-known brewery tycoon late MP Bhandra. Sources said that after the death of Bhandra, differences cropped up between his son Asfandyar and daughter who is married to Sadhua. Asfandyar published several notices in the past against the couple for grabbing his ancestral property, accusing Sadhua of trying to usurp the property by using his influence over his wife. The two families have also court cases against each other and Asfandyar has been trying to exploit Sadhua's Indian background. Sadhua had filed an application for pre-arrest bail in the court of special judge central Malik Nazeer which was rejected, leading to his arrest. Expressing satisfaction over the arrest, Asfandyar, who has been exploiting Sadhua's Indian background, said he had time and again complained about the suspect's conduct and had publicly dissociated himself from him. "This man has defamed my late father and my family and I hope his other frauds also surface during investigation," Asfandyar was quoted as saying by the 'Dawn'. Sadhua will be presented before the court again tomorrow to obtain a physical remand, but it may not be the end of the family feud. Security forces today scuttled a march here by a group of youth carrying posters of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and messages like 'Thank you, JNU', leading to clashes near the historic Jamia Masjid. Soon after the Friday prayers at Kashmir's main mosque, a group of youth, shouting pro-freedom slogans, tried to take out a march towards Nowhatta Chowk, police said. Some of the youth were carrying the flags of Pakistan and ISIS terror group as also the posters of Afzal Guru who was hanged in New Delhi's Tihar Jail on February 9, 2013, police said. A youth was also carrying a poster which read: 'Thank You JNU', the police added. Security forces stopped the march, triggering clashes in Nowhatta area which spread to adjoining areas like Gojwara, and Saraf Kadal, they said. The youth pelted stones on the forces who fired several tear-smoke canisters to disperse the protesters, police said. No one was injured in these clashes, they said. The stone-pelting clashes after Friday prayers have become a routine in Nowhatta over the past few months. India today expressed disappointment that neither terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed nor its chief Masood Azhar were named in an FIR registered in Pakistan to probe last month's Pathankot terror strike. "It is a small step in the right direction. But it is disappointing that neither the name of Jaish nor Masood Azhar was incorporated in the FIR," a senior government official said. Pakistan filed the FIR against "unknown persons" after weeks of probe into the attack on the air base on January 2 in which seven security personnel were killed.It was registered at the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) in Gujranwala in the neighbouring country's Punjab province. "We have failed to understand why Jaish and its chief's names were not included in the FIR despite India giving adequate evidence about their involvement," the official said. According to Pakistan's CTD, the FIR is needed for starting police and judicial proceedings on the basis of evidence collected in connection with the attack for which India has blamed Pakistan-based JeM. India has identified Azhar as the mastermind behind the attack. It has also blamed his brother Rauf and five others for carrying out the attack. Law Minister of Pakistan's Punjab province, Rana Sanaullah, said if anyone, including Azhar, is found guilty of involvement in the attack, they will be prosecuted. "No one becomes guilty upon naming (in a case). I don't want to name anyone at this stage. Let the probe be completed and if Masood Azhar is involved, action will be taken," Sanaullah said. He also urged India to provide any evidence it has on Azhar or anybody else's involvement in the attack. With the Supreme Court paving the way for government formation, President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh was today lifted that could usher in a new dispensation headed by dissident Congress leader Kalikho Pul. President Pranab Mukherjee has given his approval to the Union Cabinet's recommendation for revocation of President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh, a Home Ministry official said. The President's nod came after the last ditch effort of Congress leader and deposed Chief Minister Nabam Tuki seeking an interim direction that his party be allowed to go for a floor test in the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly to prove majority was rejected by the Supreme Court today. The Union Cabinet had recommended the withdrawal of President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh on Wednesday after Pul, accompanied by 31 MLAs, including Congress rebels, BJP and independents met Governor J P Rajkhowa and stake claim to form a new government. A revolt by Congress dissidents led by Pul led to a political crisis in the state that finally led to imposition of President's rule on January 26. Tuki reportedly has the support of 26 MLAs in the 60-member Assembly. Congress, which had 47 MLAs in the 60-member assembly, suffered a jolt when 21 of its lawmakers revolted against Tuki's leadership. Eleven BJP MLAs and two independents backed the rebels in the bid to upstage the government. Later, 14 rebel Congress MLAs were disqualified by the Speaker. The Supreme Court was considering pleas against imposition of President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh and also hearing petitions seeking examination of constitutional schemes on the scope of discretionary powers of the Governor. After Centre's recommendation for withdrawal of President's rule, Congress moved to the Supreme Court and got an order for maintenance of status quo in the crisis-ridden state till it examined judicial and assembly records on disqualification of 14 rebel Congress MLAs by former Speaker Nabam Rebia. However, yesterday, the apex court virtually paved the way for government formation in Arunachal Pradesh by vacating its order on maintenance of status quo, after being satisfied with the Gauhati High Court order staying the disqualification of the 14 rebel Congress MLAs. Congress again moved the Supreme Court today but the Supreme Court rejected its plea for an interim direction that it be allowed to go in for a floor test in the Arunachal Pradesh Assembly to prove majority. Minister for Health and Family Welfare U T Khader said polio drops will be administered to 74.39 lakh children, aged below five years, in the second phase of pulse polio immunisation campaign in the State on February 21. Briefing mediapersons here on Friday, he said the Department of Health and Family Welfare has made all necessary arrangements to make the campaign a success. A total of 32,617 booths have been set up and 1,03,464 vaccinators will be deployed to administer polio drops to children across the State. To make the drive more effective, 1,205 mobile teams and 1,736 transit teams have been constituted, the minister explained. Khader said though India has been declared polio free nation by the WHO, the country needs to be cautious with the cases recurring in neighbouring Pakistan and Afghanisthan. The department has identified many high risk areas in the State, where it aims to immunise every child against polio. The high risk areas are children of construction workers, and migrant labourers. Transit teams have been constituted to administer polio drops to children in bus stand, railway station, airport and other public places. Across the State, 29,000 risk areas have been identified, he added. The department has marked slums with migrant population, nomads, brick lanes, construction sites and others as high risk areas. The last case of polio in India was reported in Howrah, West Bengal, five years ago. The last one in Karnataka was in November 2007. But since many of Indias neighbouring countries still have active polio virus, immunisation is important to prevent any relapse, he said. In the first phase, Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike limits has registered 99.91 per cent, Yadgir per cent, Raichur99.72 per cent, Ballari99.59 per cent, Kalaburagi99.55 per cent, Chikkamagaluru99.52 per cent, Gadag99.28 per cent, Hassan 99.09 per cent, Bidar98.81 per cent, Chitradurga98.81pe rcent, Vijayapura98.02 per cent, Bagalkot97.63 per cent, Ramanagaram95.32 per cent and Uttara Kannada92.48 per cent success rates. Other districts have reached cent percent success rate. The successful percentage at the booth level vaccination is 86 per cent across the State, he said and appealed to the parents to administer their child with polio drops. District Health Officer Dr Ramakrishna said health workers will visit the houses in rural areas on February 22 and 23 to ensure that no child is left out of the drive. In the urban areas, the health workers will visit from February 22 tp 24. The Dakshina Kannada district has a total of 921 booths to administer polio drops. In the first phase, polio drops were administered to 1,68,947 children. The district will have 148 supervisors in rural areas and 44 in urban areas. The polio drops will be administered at district hospital, taluk health hospital, government hospitals, PHCs and CHCs as well, he added. It was another boldly week for Syrian civilians caught up in the fighting in that countrys civil war. About 50 civilians were killed in several missile strikes on hospitals and schools in northern Syria earlier this week, just days before a temporary ceasefire is slated to go into effect. One of the targets was an aid hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, known commonly by its French acronym, MSF. Mego Terzian, president of MSF France, has suggested that either the (Syrian) government or Russia was responsible for the attack. The US responded by saying that continuing strikes on civilian targets casts doubt on Russia's willingness and/or ability to help bring to a stop the continued brutality of the Assad regime against its own people. But Russia has said it categorically rejects" any accusations that is was responsible for the attacks, with Kremlin charging, those who make such statements are not capable of backing them up with proof. Both the US and Russia are now claiming that a new Cold War is in the offing. Speaking at the annual Munich Security Conference last week, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev claimed that Europe was rapidly rolling into a period of a new cold war. Russia, he said, has been presented as well-nigh the biggest threat to NATO, or to Europe, America and other countries. Just a few days earlier in Washington, the director of the US National Intelligence Agency, James Clapper, was giving evidence on worldwide threats to the influential Senate Armed Services Committee during which he argued that the Russians fundamentally are paranoid about Nato, and that the West could be into another Cold War-like spiral here. Russia has used the modern lexicon of humanitarian assistance and peacekeeping to disguise its aspirations to reassert its control in what it considers its own backyard, the Caucasus. The old battle lines between Russia and the West are being redrawn, with the faintest of hope that Russia would ally with the West dwindling rapidly. There will be no business as usual between Russia and NATO from now on. Russia has clearly stated its intention to reclaim its position as the primary geopolitical concern of the West. The Russian-Ukraine conflict is taking place in a broader strategic milieu in which Russia is re-emerging as a major global actor. Russia under Putin wants to establish itself as a major player in global politics, a balancer to the US might. Economic problems are mounting for Russia, but there is huge support for an assertive foreign policy among a Russian public that remains nostalgic for their great power status. With the Taliban gaining ground in Afghanistan and the Middle East in ferment, the West increasingly seems to be losing its ability to dictate terms to an emerging global order. Europe, in particular, is witnessing a steady loss of self-confidence, turning inwards and growing pessimistic about the future. Ideological competition is in full swing: A former Russian foreign minister argued that for the first time in many years, a real competitive environment has emerged in the market of ideas between different value systems and development models. Globalisation process According to him, the West is losing its monopoly on the globalisation process. Putin got away with the seizure of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in 2008 and has managed to retain Crimea. The US president has little credibility left after his red lines on Syria were conveniently ignored by his own administration. Countries like Estonia and Latvia, with significant Russian-speaking populations, are worried as Putin seems to have given rise to a new doctrine of protecting ethnic Russians wherever they might be. Putin has been investing billions into revamping the Russian military machine over the last several years, and Moscows entry into the war in Syria has been a coming-out party for the gear those investments have produced. Moscow wan-ts the world to see that it has finally tossed off the musty old Soviet overcoat and is ready again to be a global military power. It wants the world to notice its new capabilities, and US and NATO troops are more than happy to oblige, with the alliance troops starting to train against the latest Russian battlefield tactics and technologies, using what they are learning from Ukrainian troops who have been fighting Russian forces and their separatist allies for over a year in Ukraines east. Not only do American and Russian officials have different goalsthe removal of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad versus propping up, at the very least, the ruling apparatus around himthey have also been arguing over who is doing a better job of bombing legitimate targets in Syria. France and Russia may have just suffered grievous blows at the hands of Islamic State operatives, but the wrangling for influence in a critical part of the world between Washington and an increasingly insistent Moscow will likely drive the future of the conflict. Despite some tentative reconciliation attempts, each refuse to accept how the other is waging the war in Syria. There have been signs that Moscow is starting to question the high financial cost and insignificant battlefield gains after months into its deployment to Syria, with some beginning to fear Russia may be stuck in a quagmire. Russian economy is in trouble with fall in oil prices and many are predicting an end of the Putin era. Russia today is not the superpower of the past but a relatively weak state trying to assert itself where it can. Raymond Aron, the great political philosopher of the last century, was right: What passes for optimism is most often the effect of an intellectual error. Liberal sentimentalism about internationalism and human nature led to post-Cold War complacency in the West about its values. This complacency has come back to haunt it, a tad sooner than expected: History is back with a vengeance. (The writer is Professor of International Relations, Kings College London) Dissident Congress leader Kalikho Pul was tonight sworn in as Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh after more than two months of political crisis, shortly after the Supreme Court paved the way for government-formation and President's rule was lifted from the state. Pul, who had led a revolt against the leadership of former Chief Minister Nabam Tuki, was administered the oath office and secrecy by Governor K P Rajkhowa at a ceremony at the Raj Bhawan here. Pul, 48, heads a government that has the support of 19 dissident Congress MLAs, 11 of BJP from outside and two independents, who are likely to be part of the government, in the 60-member state Assembly. Tuki commands the support of 26 Congress legislators. After the oath-taking, Pul told the media that he would expand his ministry after consultations with the MLAs backing him but did not specify any date for the exercise. Speculations are rife about the possibility of dissolution of the Assembly by the new government to pave the way for fresh elections in the frontier state. Earlier in the day, with the Supreme Court paving the way for government- formation, President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh was liftedPresident Pranab Mukherjee gave his approval to the Union Cabinet's recommendation for revocation of President's rule, a Home Ministry official said in New Delhi. The President's nod came after a last-ditch effort of Nabam Tuki seeking an interim direction that his party be allowed to go for a floor test in the Assembly to prove majority was rejected by the Supreme Court today. The Union Cabinet had recommended the withdrawal of President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh on Wednesday after Pul, accompanied by 31 MLAs, including Congress rebels, BJP and independents had met Rajkhowa and staked claim to form government. A revolt by Congress dissidents led by Pul triggered political crisis in the state that finally led to imposition of President's rule on January 26. Congress, which had 47 MLAs in the 60-member assembly, suffered a jolt when 21 of its lawmakers revolted against Tuki's leadership. Two of them later resigned from the House. Later, 14 rebel Congress MLAs were disqualified by the Speaker. The Supreme Court is considering pleas against imposition of President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh and also hearing petitions seeking examination of constitutional schemes on the scope of discretionary powers of the Governor. However, yesterday, the apex court virtually paved the way for government formation in Arunachal Pradesh by vacating its order on maintenance of status quo, after being satisfied with the Gauhati High Court order staying the disqualification of the 14 rebel Congress MLAs. A former Finance and Health minister of the state, Pul represents Hayuliang assembly constituency and was elected as the leader of the House and the chief minister by the rebel Congress MLAs, BJP MLAs and two independents in the Assembly session which had been held at an auditorium as a make-shift venue on December 17. The session was boycotted by supporters of Tuki after whose ouster President's Rule had been imposed. The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to actor Salman Khan on the Maharashtra governments appeal against his acquittal in the 2002 hit-and-run case. Admitting the petition by the state government for consideration, a bench of Justices J S Khehar and C Nagappan told his counsel senior advocate Kapil Sibal that the exoneration from the top court would vindicate him once and for all. The court said it is better for him to get a well-considered acquittal. Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the state, assailed the Bombay High Courts order of December last acquitting the actor. He said that the HC erred by holding that the prosecution witness Ravindra Patil, a constable, then acting as bodyguard, was not a wholly reliable witness. The high court took note of the fact that Patil, while recording his statement in his FIR, had said everything except the fact that Khan was drunk on that fateful night, he said. Recording of the FIR is just an information about an incident and the FIR is not an encyclopaedia, Rohatgi said. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Salman, said that in the FIR lodged by Patil, there was no mention of the actor being drunk. He also pointed out the family driver, Ashok Singh, who deposed as a defence witness, was interrogated by the police but his statement was not recorded. As Sibal contended that Patil had refuted the suggestion that the actor was drunk a day after the accident in 2002 in a newspaper interview, Rohatgi intervened to say the high court had rejected this piece of evidence and it cannot be cited in the apex court. The Haryana government led by Manohar Lal Khattar appears to have goofed up the sensitive Jat reservation issue owing to the BJPs fear that violence may spread to adjoining states of Uttar Pradesh and diminish the political mileage that the Centre wanted to gain by exploring Parliament route option to include them in the backward quota. Only Jats of Haryana do not fall under the OBC category while the community in eight other states, such as of UP, Delhi and Rajasthan, enjoy the reservation benefits. Top BJP sources said party Jat leaders Chaudhary Birender Singh and Sanjeev Balaiyan were working with community leadership ever since the Supreme Court turned down a review petition on quashing of the UPA governments move to include the land-owing community in the OBC list. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also met some Jat leaders and assured them that the Centre was keen to find a solution within the constitutional framework on including them in the OBC list. Individually, too, the party leaders were interacting with Jat Arakshan Samiti, community representatives Yashpal Malik and Hawa Singh Sangwan and Khap heads Gajender Ahlawat and Baljit Singh to keep them in the loop on the Centres initiatives, party sources said. To give a message that the Centre was serious, the party also got its MP from Pali in Rajasthan, P P Chaudhary, to move a private members bill in the last session of Lok Sabha for covering the Jat community under the affirmative programme. MoS Baliyan confirmed to Deccan Herald that the Centre was serious about bringing a bill to include Jats in the OBC list to tide over legal restriction enforced by the Supreme Court judgment. The controversy surrounding Jat reservation issue is a legacy inherited from the UPA. The previous government did not provide Parliament backing to its decision of including Jats in the OBC list. They acted merely to get political mileage ahead of elections. But our governments at the Centre and state are serious about resolving the matter. One of the options that the Centre was working on was to introduce a bill to bring them under the OBC list, Baliyan said. The role of BJP Kurukshetra MP Rajkumar Saini, who is opposed to Jat reservation, in the whole episode is also spelling trouble for the party. The central leadership wants him to apologise for his provocative statements to resolve the matter. Khattar being a non-Jat leader may be exploited by the opposition to make it a Jat versus non-Jat matter, apprehend party sources. BJP chief Amit Shah held a meeting with party in-charge of Haryana, Anil Jain, Birender Singh and Baliyan. The party seeks to contain the agitation from flaring up and spreading to adjoining states of Delhi, Western UP and Rajasthan, where the community members may stand in support of their counterparts in Haryana. While Central universities across the country on Thursday resolved to proudly hoist the national flag, here is one such university which is gasping for life. Central University of Karnataka (CUK) in Kalaburagi, which has been enduring acute water scarcity since 2013, is now staring at a fresh crisis. With supply of water guaranteed only for the next fortnight, the administration is on the edge, unsure of the fate of the students and staff for the remainder of the term. The administration is also hoping that water scarcity will not snowball into a situation, where the students will take matter into their own hands. The students are closely watching developments in the University of Hyderabad and Jawaharlal Nehru University. We were literally on the edge when the Rohith Vemula incident broke out. The university has also seen widespread protests following the death of a student who complained of water contamination two years ago. Though we have been trying to keep the students calm, there is a simmering discontent over their most basic needs not being met, said CUK vice-chancellor H M Maheshwaraiah. Maheshwaraiah, who was present at the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) meeting on February 18, where a decision was taken to hoist the national flag, said that his only priority was to reach out to MHRD Minister Smriti Irani. There has been a raging debate on nationalism. But here, it is the question of our very existence. But I got to speak to speak to her only briefly. Despite CUK writing to both State and Union governments several times, there has been no respite. The vice chancellor said a decision was taken to advance the semester exams which is usually held between the end of April and mid-May. We knew the situation would get worse in the summer months. Hence we cancelled the month-long mid-term holidays in November 2015. We wanted to complete the syllabus as quickly as possible, so that students could go to their home towns in April. The exams will get over by April 10 or 12, he said. The university, which requires 1.5 mld of water for its 1,500 students and around 300 staff/faculty, has been getting less than 1 mld water from the Amarja reservoir. Recently, a decision was taken to supply dead storage water but the pipeline works are yet to begin. Factfile CUK needs 1.5 mld of water to cater to the needs of its students and staff. Around 1,500 students and 300 staff/faculty members on campus. Pipeline works yet to begin for supply of dead storage water. The Haryana government is caught in a piquant situation to deal with the crisis even as ministers and officials are frantically making attempts to persuade Jat protestors to give up the agitation. Jat reservation has been struck down by the apex court and the state government has already filed a special leave petition (SLP) in the top court against its order. The government on Friday succumbed to the demands of the protesters and promised that it will introduce a legislation in the upcoming Assembly session to provide reservation. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, who convened an all-party meeting in Chandigarh on Friday, hoped the agitation would be called off shortly after the announcement. He said the government was in favour of reservation to Jats in the state and was trying to find ways and means for this. Khattar said: The state government would prepare a draft bill for reservation and suggestions have also been sought from all parties in this regard. The government has a positive approach to this demand and if all parties agree, the government would bring a bill in the ensuing session of Haryana Vidhan Sabha. The chief minister said that MP Raj Kumar Saini, who had earlier issued an anti-Jat quota remark, has been asked to withdraw his statement. If the words of Saini have hurt the sentiments of the Jats, all his statements may be treated as withdrawn. Saini is out of station and as and when he comes back, he would take his words back, the chief minister said. The government on Wednesday has already announced to double the quota for economically backward classes, but that did not help matters. The chief minister said that in a meeting with a section of agitating Jats on February 17, 2016, he had announced to enhance the quota of reservation in government jobs and for admission to educational institutions for economically backward classes from 10 to 20 per cent. Earlier, in a meeting with Jat community leaders to resolve the issue, it was decided to constitute a committee under the chairmanship of chief secretary to study all aspects of the issue of reservation for Special Backward Classes. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday said the pending salary of sub-inspector Mallikarjun Bande, who was killed during an encounter with a notorious criminal in January 2014 at Kalaburagi, would be released soon. Siddaramaiah directed the senior officers concerned to clear the files pertaining to Bandes salary immediately, after the slain officers father Karibasappa Bande met him seeking clearance of the pay. The chief minister also promised Karibasappa that the government would bear the education expenses of his sons children. Karibasappa told the chief minister that Mallikarjuns wife Mallamma Bande was being treated for brain tumour at Nimhans since last December and requested the government to bear the medical expenditure as the family was in financial trouble. The chief minister, however, did not make any specific assurances in this regard, but promised to consider the request positively. Before meeting Siddaramaiah, Karibasappa staged a protest near the Mahatma Gandhi statue at Anand Rao Circle urging the government to fulfil the assurances it had made after his sons death. He said the family was in deep crisis as Mallamma was critically ill. Former chief minister Jagadish Shettar and senior BJP leader Suresh Kumar met Karibasappa and assured him that they would take up the matter with the State government. The government released a compensation of Rs 50 lakh after Bandes death and the family members said the money had been put in a bank in the form of a fixed deposit. The government, sources said, had not done anything so far about fixing pension for the SIs wife, sanctioning salary till his last day of retirement, and recommending his name for the gallantry award. The government had sent a letter to her about pension, which stated that she would get Rs 26,000 her husbands last-drawn salary for five years, and Rs 7,000 thereafter. However, she rejected the offer as the government had promised that the pension would be fixed based on the salary on his last day of his retirement on superannuation, added the sources. Mallamma, an anganwadi supervisor, has a nine-year-old daughter and a four-year-old son. Bande, attached to Station Bazaar police station, suffered severe injuries in a shootout on January 8, 2014, in an operation to hunt down Munna Darbar, an underworld sharpshooter. The SI succumbed to his injuries in a hospital in Hyderabad on January 15. Hundreds of lawyers on Friday took out a march against anti-national sloganeering at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Among them were two lawyers who have ignored police summons over violence at the Patiala House Courts. The lawyers in the march had responded to Facebook posts by Vikram Chauhan, who has failed to present himself for questioning for the violence at the court.Chauhan was part of the procession, but did not interact with mediapersons. He tried to evade journalists when questions were asked regarding summons sent by the Delhi Police. Chauhan and two other lawyers have been asked by the Delhi Police to join the probe in connection with the two FIRs, but they have not met the SHO of Tilak Marg police station. On Friday, the lawyers marched from the court in central Delhi to India Gate shouting slogans and waving the national flag in heavy police presence. They also burnt an effigy of traitors to the country. The police have failed to bring the lawyers to book four days after the assault, and directions by the Supreme Court. Chauhan had led a group of lawyers involved in the assault of journalists, JNU students and professors at Patiala House Courts complex both on Monday and Wednesday, when JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar was being produced. Chauhan has been asking lawyers on Facebook to join a peace march. In several posts, Chauhan urged them to reach the court to demonstrate patriotism and teach the traitors a lesson. Shouting Vande Mataram and Pakistan murdabad, the lawyers waved Indian flags to mark their opposition to anti-nationals. We must never forgive the traitors of the country. It is time to send these people back to their country, said Rakesh Arora, a lawyer in the march. We are not saying that people in our society are anti-national, the court has found Kanhaiya Kumar guilty, said another lawyer. IITians support JNU students Humanity and social sciences scholars of many of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) have joined the JNU protest, denouncing filing of a sedition case against varsity students, DHNS reports from New Delhi. They also condemned the repeated acts of violence unleashed by some lawyers and others at the Patiala House Courts against the university faculty, students and the media, as well as the police inaction. A group of students and research scholars from IIT-Bombay and other higher educational institutions in the financial capital will be visiting the JNU on February 23 to meet the varsitys students union leaders and express their solidarity to their protest, Amit Kumar Mishra, an IIT-Bombay scholar who is one of the signatories in the joint statement, said. We see attack on the JNU as one of a series of attacks on academic autonomy and the liberal ethos of learning. We stand in solidarity with JNUSU, JNUTA (teacher association), students and all democratic bodies and individuals who are defending the liberal ethos of universities and appreciate the critical role they play in maintaining constitutional democracy, the IIT scholars said in a joint statement. Vice-President and Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari has convened a meeting of leaders of all political parties on Saturday to ensure smooth functioning of the Budget Session of Parliament beginning next week. The Saturday meeting is a follow up of informal talks Ansari had on Wednesday with some Union ministers and leaders of the Congress to explore the possibility of having some legislative business in the Upper House that has been the battleground for the Opposition and the government. There was some understanding between the BJP and the Congress on taking up some non-contentious legislation for consideration and passing after discussions on issues raised by the Opposition. The Opposition plans to corner the government on the arrest of JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, the suicide of Rohith Vemula, governments handling of the drought situation and the state of the economy, among other issues. The government plans to move a bill that provides voting rights to people who became Indian citizens after the exchange of enclaves with Bangladesh, it also has to replace the Enemy Property Ordinance with a Bill. The NDA government is in a minority in the Rajya Sabha where the Congress is the single-largest party. Last year, the government faced embarrassing moments in the Rajya Sabha when the Opposition forced an amendment to the Motion of Thanks to the President for his address to the joint sitting of both the Houses. The Left parties will launch a three-day nationwide protest from February 23 to 25 against the government to expose its RSS guided agenda. The decision was taken on Friday during a meeting of Left leaders including Sitaram Yechury, Prakash Karat and S Ramachandran Pillai (CPM); Sudhakar Reddy, Gurudas Dasgupta and D Raja(CPI); Swapan Mukherjee (CPIML-Liberation), Abani Roy (RSP), and Debabrata Biswas (AIFB). The Left parties have decided to call for an all-India protest from February 23 to 25, against the machinations of the Central government under RSS guidance. This countrywide campaigns amongst the people to expose such attacks on the people including the violence in the courts will be under the banner Defend Peoples Constitutional Rights, said the leaders in a joint statement. They also accused the RSS and the BJP with mounting an open attack on the democratic and constitutional rights of the people. A number of Sadhus (saints), belonging to Natha Pantha (sect), arrived at Halavari mutt near the remote village of Yedamogge for the anointment of Kadri Yogeshwar Mutt new seer. The saints, who come in Navanatha Jhandi via Triambakeshwar in Nasik to Kadri in Mangaluru, once in 12 years to conduct the anointment ceremony of Maharaja in Kadri have stops at 17 mutts in the State. Speaking to media persons here on Friday, spokesperson Mahant Yogi Surajnath said Jhandi began its spiritual journey from Triambakeshwar on the Nagarapanchami day in last August following the participation of saints in Kumbhamela. The ritual has a long history and associates itself with Lord Parashurama. The saints are the followers of Gorakshakanathji. There are 522 saints in the Jhandi, he added. The saint said the Jhandi covers a maximum of 42 kilometres and a minimum of two kilometres each day, depending on the distance connecting the Mukkham. The Muk-kham is the place where the saints will have temporary stop on the way to their destination, he added. The saints have 93 Mukkhams in Karnataka. The group also comprises a unique saint named Yogi Rajendranath who has started his spiritual journey by taking oath that he will not sleep for 21 years. He is doing so from 2001 and he spends all his day and night sitting. He told spirituality is core of human creation. There is nothing great, other than attaining Moksha. He said he will continue doing so until 2022, so that he will complete his spiritual pledge, he added. Another uniqueness found among the saints is a dog following the Yatra. The dog starts its journey with saints and survives only on milk. Yogi Surajnath said the dog follows the saints wherever the Jhandi Yatra goes. However, it is not the single dog that will accompany the saints all through the journey. Once a dog disappears, another dog will join the Yatra. Hence, the saints do not know from where the dog has come. However, it is believed that the soul of Gorakshakanathajis vehicle Baironath is incarnated in the dog which follows the Jhandi and Gorakshakanathaji has sent his vehicle to accompany the saints. The present dog with them is accompanying them from Handibadagnath in Khanapur in Belagavi district. Gorakshakanathaji is Shivrup, he added. The saints carry Patradevta (Akshaya Patra) which is believed to be in existence since the time of Gorakshakanathaji. It is carried all through the journey. Another practice performed by the saints is Dhoni which is the evidence of the saints being the followers of Agni. Charcoal is carried all along and the Dhuni is made wherever the Mukkham of the saints is arranged. The saints live on the donations offered by the devotees and do not demand anything extra. Whatever they get in charity they share among themselves, he added. Yogi Nirmalanath Gurunath from Rajasthan is selected as the Maharaj of Kadri Jogi mutt in Mangaluru. The anointment ceremony is held on March 7 and the journey envisioned by the saints is also coupled with the appointments of in-charge saints for other Peer mutts. The Peer mutts include Chandragutthi, Halavari and Handibadagnath. Among 522 saints, three are engineers, two are physicians and 19 are postgraduates. The ghastly accident between a lorry and a motorcycle on National Highway 4 in Nelamangala last Tuesday, which caused the death of a 26-year-old man, shows how the roads in Bengaluru Rural district continue to be a death trap. The body of Harish Nanjappa from Tumakuru district was cut in half from the torso in that accident. On an average, two people die in road accidents every day in Bengaluru Rural, the second least populous district in Karnataka. The district saw 624 fatal road accidents in 2014 and 2015 each. Across Karnataka, nearly 10,000 people were killed in 43,713 road crashes in 2014. So, what explains the high fatalities? Arun Chakravarthy, Inspector General of Police (Central), said the accidents mostly occurred on the highways where controlling speed was difficult. Motorists dont follow the speed limit. As much as 78 per cent of the accidents are caused by the drivers laxity, he said.Pedestrians worst hit Ramesh Banoth, Superintendent of Police, Bengaluru Rural, said many casualties were pedestrians who recklessly cross the highways. Vehicles ply at top speed and cannot be controlled easily. Then, there are no proper underpasses or skywalks to help pedestrians cross the road. Many motorists and pedestrians use earphones, listening to music. This makes them deaf to the sound of vehicles, he said. I would say every junction on the highway can be considered a black spot, as that is the point where vehicles from all sides converge. If drivers are less careful, there will be fatalities. The absence of traffic police stations is another factor. The government has asked for details on opening traffic police stations in Nelamangala and Hoskote. These traffic police stations will help in curbing road accidents as law and order police cannot monitor their jurisdiction round the clock, Banoth said. According to the office of Commissioner for Traffic and Road Safety (CTRS) of the State police, 28 people die in nearly 120 incidents every day in Karnataka. In the last decade, close to 1.2 lakh people have died in road accidents in the State. Patrol vehiclesIn 2014, 33 highway patrol vehicles were distributed to 11 districts across the State. For every 50 kilometres, there is a highway patrol vehicle which keeps combing the stretch. The government has announced the purchase of 300 more such vehicles. In 2015-16, 100 vehicles along with accessories will be purchased at Rs 15 crore, said Ramachandra Rao, Commissioner for Traffic and Road Safety. We want to reduce road accidents and book the violators. Another senior police officer said repeat offenders were on the rise. Offenders who go untraced take advantage thinking they cannot be caught. There is no proof of which vehicle has caused the accident, especially in hit-and-run cases, as there is no CCTV footage. We are planning to instal surveillance cameras at vital points on the highways, he said. Three people of a family from Bengaluru were killed on the spot when a lorry collided head-on with their car near Bandhalli bypass on National Highway 75 in the taluk on Thursday night. Jayakeerthi, 51, his wife Vageshwari, 50, and son Prashanth 30, were on their way to meet relatives in Moodbidri, Dakshina Kannada district, when the accident occurred. The family is originally from Dakshina Kannada and was settled in Teachers Colony, Kumaraswamy Layout, in Bengaluru. While Jayakeerthi was a businessman, Prashanth was working as a manager at a private company. The bodies were shifted to Kavalakatte in Bantwal taluk of Dakshina Kannada district, said the jurisdictional Channarayapatna Town police. A former Commissioner of Bengaluru Police violated rules by giving permission to an advertisement agency to put up hoardings inside the police station and other police properties in the City, documents available with Deccan Herald say. According to the documents, on November 11, 2012, the then police commissioner issued permission to Alesh Babu of Alex Collections to put up 20 private hoardings with police messages for five years on 13 police properties across the City. The said police commissioner even went to the extent of giving the size of the hoardings, which were way bigger than the ones specified by the advertisement byelaws mentioned in the Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act, 1978, and the advertisement rules framed thereon. For example, three hoardings put up at Adugodi police quarters measured 40X50 (2,000 sq ft), which is against the norms laid down by the Palike. Advertisement policy does not permit any hoarding bigger than 20X30 (600 sq ft). The copies of permission letter was despatched to the deputy police commissioners and assistant police commissioners but was not sent to the department concerned of the State government or the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), which are the authorities to grant permission to put up hoardings in the City. Since, it was the 'police hoardings', the BBMP officials could not muster courage to question the police commissioner. However, nine months after the permission was granted, the BBMP assistant commissioner (Advertisement) sent a demand notice of Rs 22.02 lakh to the Alex Collections on September 17, 2013. The notice read, 75 per cent of the notice (ad) is commercial while 25 per cent conveys the message of police department. The permission was granted to Alex Collections for five year but the advertisement rights have now been transferred to Halgo Ads. The notice also tried to correct the mistakes committed by the then police commissioner by minimising the size of the hoardings on papers that comply with the advertisement byelaws. A Palike officer said the police commissioner has no authority to grant permission to put up hoardings even if it is on police departments property. Any such order by the police commissioner should be backed by permissions of State government or the Palike. Neither the State government, nor the BBMP was kept in the loop, said the officer. A senior police officer said, In the case of hoardings on police properties, the byelaws have to be followed strictly or else, such allotment of land can also become non-est and an inquiry can be initiated against the erring police officer who granted permission, said the police officer. Bangalore Universitys (BU) Department of Foreign Languages has seen a fall in the number of admissions to various courses for the academic year 2015-16. In 2013-14, around 403 students had enrolled themselves and in 2014-15 it was 441. In 2015-16, however, the enrolment has slipped to 351. The fall in the number of students is 90 compared with the last year and 52 compared with the 2013-14 situation. The department faculty say the fall could be due to apprehensions over trifurcation of the university. Students have become uncertain where they would get the degree or diploma from Bangalore University, Bangalore Central University or Bangalore South. Students want the diploma from Bangalore University as it is widely recognised by different consulates. While the number of students has dipped, German language, however, has acquired the number one status this year over French, which has been the most popular course for many years. Faculty say the preference for German could be because of the high number of German delegations coming to Bengaluru and Delhi and the heightened interaction between German and Bengaluru-based trade bodies. Higher level of interaction between German and Bengaluru-based science and other academic institutions has also encouraged students to take German this year. As many as 105 students have enrolled for the German language course over the last three years, says senior faculty member Jyothi Venkatesh. French comes in second and does so in the context of high interaction between French trade and science bodies and organisations, especially in Bengaluru. The preference for French has seen a drop of 32 students from 105 to 73. Students also prefer the French language course being offered by Alliance Francaise. Eleven courses are on offer by the university, including German, French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese and Korean. Students who apply for different courses do so on the basis of job assessment. Driven by job market If students are convinced that they are likely to get a job which requires a particular language skill, then they pick that language. For example Chinese. China now has a strong information technology connection with Bengaluru with many techies flying into Shanghai, Chengdu, which is the IT hub, and Beijing. Given this job scenario, youngsters prefer Chinese language these days. Even if they have a working knowledge, its enough. We have seen an increase in the number of students taking up Chinese over the last few years, says Sreenivas R, a teacher at a private Chinese teaching school. Bangalore University has an MA programme in Japanese and a PhD in French. There are plans to launch MA in Spanish and German from the 2016 and 2017 academic years. The body of 32-year-old Tamil Nadu cadre IPS officer N Harish, who hailed from the State, was brought to Bengaluru on Friday night. The body was handed over to his father Nagarajaiah after the post-mortem around 3 pm in Chennai. The ambulance carrying the body reached the City at around 8.45 pm. A large number of people gathered at his Manjunathanagar house to pay their respects. A relative of Harishs swooned as the body was taken out of the ambulance. Harishs sister Poornima said her brother worked for the society. My brother worked for society and the large number of people who have gathered here are an indication of this. Hundreds of people were waiting to see his body since yesterday, she said. Cremation today The body would be kept at his house till 8 am on Saturday for people to pay their respects and will be taken to his native village Gerupura near Hosur Bande in Kolar, for cremation. Nagarajaiah said he did not seek any investigation to ascertain the cause for his sons death. My son went to bed after dinner and died there. He did not commit suicide. Hence, there is no need for an investigation, he said. His job snatched his life and there is no need to ask the Tamil Nadu government to order a probe. Poornima requested the media to desist from character assassination. Harish was found dead in his room at the Police Officers Mess at Egmore in Chennai on Thursday morning. The post-mortem started around 10.30 am and went on till 1 pm. The doctors who conducted the post-mortem told me that he might have died of a heart attack. His driver also told me that Harish had come back after attending a court matter in Kanchipuram, Nagarajaiah said. Though the unseasonal rainfall in October-November last year may ensure a no-water-shortage summer in the City, a 25-per cent dip in water levels at four major reservoirs has left BWSSB officials worried. A senior BWSSB official said the four water reservoirs Harangi, Hemavathi, KRS, Kabini connected to the Cauvery river basin have seen a 25-per cent dip in water levels compared to last year. Coupled with expected power shortage and an increases demand for water in the summer, the City is likely to face a shortage at least in the end of May, he said. He urged people to use water judiciously. Speaking to Deccan Herald, BWSSB Chairman T M Vijay Bhaskar was confident that there would be no water shortage. We had written a letter to the Irrigation Department to reserve at least 1.5 tmcft of water every month till the end of June. Drinking water should be given priority in the summer rather than irrigation. They have promised to do it, he said. Good rainfall in October-November has increased water levels in the reservoirs. Hence, there will be no water shortage. In the meantime, we will hire around 60 private tankers and the BWSSB already owns 60 of them. The Board has also started to identify high-yielding private borewells. These measures have been taken up to tackle any emergency. In addition to 8,000 borewells owned by the BWSSB, there are over 3 lakh private borewells, he said. The chairman added the Board is supplying about 1,350 MLD of water per day to the City. There will be an increase in demand by about 50 MLD in the summer. If water is not diverted to irrigation, there will not be any shortage, he opined. BWSSB Engineer-in-Chief S Krishnappa said there would be a water crisis, if there is no rainfall in June. As of now, there is sufficient water in all reservoirs. Former BWSSB Chief Engineer M N Thippeswamy felt northern and western Bengaluru (Malleswaram, Yeshwantpur, Hebbal, RT Nagar, Rajajinagar) are prone to water scarcity as it is being supplied from southern Bengaluru. Quick restoration of leakage, water conservation and deploying water tankers in 110 villages where the water network does not exist should be given priority, he said. Violence and arson shook Haryana on Friday as Jats demanding reservation went on a rampage prompting state government to call in the Army in seven districts. Curfew with shoot-at-sight orders were imposed in two districts after a protester was killed in firing. Jat protesters have been on warpath for the last few days, sitting on railway lines and roads, seeking reservation under the OBC category. On Friday, things went out of control. Security personnel opened fire after a mob tried to set ablaze the house of a minister and the inspector general of police (IGP). One member of the Jat community was killed and more than 10 others, including security personnel, were injured after the BSF opened fire to control an agitating mob in Rohtak district on Friday, said Haryana DGP Yash Pal Singal. The mob partially burnt the residence of Haryana Finance Minister Capt Abhimanyu. It also pelted stones at the residence, damaging the property. The ministers car parked inside was also set on fire. The family of the minister was evacuated prior to the incident. The entrance to the house of the IGP was set ablaze. Several police vehicles, including the vehicle of the DIG, were burnt. The Centre rushed 1,000 paramilitary personnel as rampaging mobs held some policemen captive. The Army has been requisitioned in Rohtak, Jhajjar and Hisar that have been the epicentre of the agitation which entered the fifth day on Friday. Curfew was imposed in Rohtak and Bhiwani districts. A dialogue to end the impasse has remained inconclusive. The DGP said the state police did not fire upon the protesters and it was the BSF that opened fire in self-defence. A gun shot from a country-made pistol was fired first at the BSF personnel, injuring one of its members. The protesters were not allowing the injured to be evacuated to the hospital, he said. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday stood by his stand to appoint Karnataka Law Commission Chairman, Justice S R Nayak, as the new Lokayukta. The exercise of sending the State governments recommendation to Raj Bhavan for approval of Governor Vajubhai Vala is a mere formality as Siddaramaiah announced Justice Nayaks name at a meeting of the high-level committee constituted to select the anti-corruption ombudsman, in Bengaluru. Besides the chief minister, the committee comprises Acting Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court S K Mukherjee, Assembly Speaker Kagodu Thimmappa, Legislative Council Chairman D H Shankarmurthy, Leaders of the Opposition in the two Houses of the legislature Jagadish Shettar and K S Eshwarappa. Justice Mukherjee and Thimmappa did not attend Fridays meeting but sent letters indicating their choice. Siddaramaiah had the last word in the appointment of Justice Nayak even as Shettar, Eshwarappa and Shankarmurthy favoured former Supreme Court judge Justice Vikramjit Sen for the post of Lokayukta. Eshwarappa said they pointed out that Justice Sen had a clean image and had impeccable credentials. It was also pointed out that there were controversies surrounding properties owned by Justice Nayak. However, Siddaramaiah said the government had decided on Justice Nayak for the post and officially announced his name. Shettar said he questioned the need for Fridays meeting if the government had made up its mind. The chief minister told us that he was following procedure. The selection panel was only a consultative body, Shettar said. The meeting lasted only 15 minutes. The post of Lokayukta has been lying vacant since December last year following the resignation of Justice Y Bhaskar Rao. The government favouring Justice Nayak for Lokayukta had generated a heated debate in the public domain, with some activists accusing Nayak of committing irregularities in connection with the allotment of a site by the Karnataka Judicial Employees Housing Cooperative Society. The governor had thrice rejected the choice of Justice K L Manjunath for the post of Upa Lokayukta. ENGLEWOOD Englewood encompasses roughly 3 miles of South Broadway between Yale and Belleview avenues. Landmarks include the Gothic Theatre, the oddly egg-shaped bank and many car dealerships. In light of the real estate boom across the Denver metro area, and recent development locally, Englewood city and business leaders are indicating the regal roadway could soon be a destination for more than just people looking to buy a used car. Phil and Erika Zierke have been working diligently for months to open Englewood Grand, a bar and restaurant where they intend to blend a relaxed, neighborhood feel with higher-end cocktail offerings to create an establishment attractive to a variety of patrons. Weve had our eye on this exact spot for seven years, Erika Zierke said of the 3,000-square-foot space at 3435 S. Broadway. There is a lot to suggest that this area is ready for something like this, and weve been hearing from people all the time. Theyve e-mailed. Theyve knocked on the door saying, Our neighborhood is ready for this. The Zierkes moved to Englewood in 2009 because of its more affordable housing and said they have seen numerous scrape-off housing projects sprout up recently, suggesting that people are planning to stay in the area long term. The couple said Englewood Grand will have crock-pot style food, regular live music and profit-sharing for employees to help ensure they are making living wages. They expect to open as soon as Friday. The Zierkes landlord, Steven Howards, had a similar outlook for South Broadway. Howards and his wife, Deborah Andrews, paired with another family a little more than a year ago to purchase the building soon to house the Englewood Grand along with the former Odd Fellows lodge next door at 3425 S. Broadway. Howards and Andrews, whose company the Olde Town Group, owns several historic buildings in Olde Town Arvada, are seeking state historic designations for both buildings and national recognition for the Odd Fellows lodge. There is great old building stock there, Howards said, adding he has been extremely selective in picking tenants for the buildings. We think its an area that has been overlooked in past development trends, and we felt that the location was excellent and was right for transition. Englewood Grand is hardly the only project underway on Broadway. Deputy City Manager Michael Flaherty knows of at least a half dozen percolating projects with potential to liven up Broadway between Yale and Hampden avenues. They include a new coffee shop and roastery in the 2800 block, and a Dunkin Donuts franchise and a Medici Communities project on the same block as the Odd Fellows building. That project, known as the Acoma Lofts, will encompass lots sold by the city and the Englewood Urban Renewal Authority at the southwest corner of Broadway and Englewood Parkway. The vacant corner, most recently a Christmas tree lot, will be home to retail and restaurant space, Flaherty said. On the back side, taking over a portion of the public parking area, will be 110 workforce-priced apartments. Flaherty said the city is also working with the owners of vacant buildings along Broadway, a few of them in the 3400 block, to spur them to do something productive with their properties. Youre seeing two things: Were riding the tide of the economy, and I think there is some recognition that Englewood provides a lot of value, said. Mayor Joe JeffersonHe cited his citys cheaper property tax and rental rates than neighboring Denver. Great proximity, great accessibility and great visibility. Those are all assets we have. Jefferson, a city councilman since 2007 who was elected mayor last year, said one of his goals is to look at public improvements along Broadway. He used the flower planters and eye-catching lime green bike racks on the northern end of Broadway in Englewood as examples worth following. I think the future is really bright, he said. Right now, were a little bit of a work in progress with a lot of property going through some transition, but I think people are beginning to recognize the untapped opportunity that is South Broadway. Joe Rubino: 303-954-2953 or jrubino@denverpost.com WESTMINSTER Sunnie Gist watched in horror the night her Buddhist congregations temple burned down in Westminster, taking with it many sacred artifacts some more than 1,000 years old. Its heartbreaking people came from all over Colorado to use the temple, said Gist, who has spearheaded reconstruction efforts. It was built by many of our family members who first came here from Laos a generation ago and made this our home. Its been a trying four years for the Laotian Buddhist community since the December 2011 electrical fire engulfed their temple at 108th Avenue and Wadsworth Boulevard. Lacking any construction experience, a group of dedicated volunteers has pushed forward in the rebuilding effort. Its been slow going and the larger community once estimated at roughly 3,000 members has drifted apart, Gist said. Meetings are held on site in a white banquet tent that has to be taken down regularly per city regulations, hindering many of the religious rites and festivities that occur in a temple. As the rebuilding has taken longer and longer, the community is kind of shifting and losing hope in a way, she added. My personal opinion, having been with the project since the beginning, is, were not doing that bad. Insurance covered just a small fraction of the estimated $2 million reconstruction. Since the beginning, temple volunteers have worked tirelessly, finding local contractors and other businesses to donate time, expertise or materials. To cut down on labor costs, temple members have taken to swinging a hammer and doing as much of the physical construction as possible. Its been very hard for us, everyone has full-time jobs and were doing this on our own time, said Pat Panpradith. To demand time or donations goes against Buddhist teachings. Surrounded by vacant land with an unfettered view of the Rocky Mountains, a basement covered in a concrete floor has been built, and dozens of items ranging from flags to vehicle-sized statues of Buddha dot the 6-acre property. Lead designer Emmy Thammasine visited Laos for the first time three years ago for inspiration on temple design. He said there will be a three-tiered, curved red roof and a wraparound deck to enjoy the sun setting behind the mountains. In Laos, daily life revolves around the temple, Thammasine said. Many of us who grew up in the United States, this is our only connection to Laos. I cant imagine future generations not having that temple. Shortly after the fire, head monk Ounkham Vuennasack died of cancer, his final words imploring the community to rebuild at all costs. This final wish has helped keep the community optimistic. Speaking through a translator, head monk Oudomphong Xaynourat said the temple will be for all community members, regardless of religion. Its OK to come and see how were living and what weve been through, Xaynourat said. We want people to know not to worry about messing up because of cultural or religious reasons. Westminster has supported the group in the annual Dragon Boat Festival at Sloans Lake and has worked closely with congregants during reconstruction, said Mayor Herb Atchison. They lost so much, Atchison said. Most of us can trace our roots from immigrants, and the Lao community is part of the melting pot here in Westminster. Its extremely important for us to have that diversity, and were certainly anxious for them to get that built. Members say theyre hoping Phase I of the project the temple itself will be finished within a year. Austin Briggs: 303-954-1729, abriggs@denverpost.com or @abriggs Info For more information on volunteering, donations or on the Lao Buddhist community, visit http://watlaodenver.net/or call (720) 583- 0241 GOLDEN To call one of Goldens museums an undiscovered gem is true, even it if is a wince-worthy pun. The Colorado School of Mines Geology Museum is free, open to the public and is the state repository for Colorados mineral heritage. But located on the Colorado School of Mines campus, it is also a bit off the beaten path. Anyone who goes there comes out bubbly, with, Oh my gosh, I didnt know that place existed, it is so good, said Barb Warden, founder of golden.com, also home of the Golden Cultural Alliance, which promotes Goldens museums. Visitors who go to the geology museum simply expecting to see beautiful displays of colorful rocks and minerals such as the exhibits at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science will be surprised. The Denver museum is a great museum, said Ed Raines, the Geology Museums collections manager. But it is a general natural history museum, and we are pretty much focused on geology, mining history and things like that. Our specialization certainly shows a marked difference from the general approach of the Denver museum. The total collection is between 50,000 and 60,000 items that range from minerals, gems and fossils from around the world or outside this world, as in the case of a moon rock gathered during the Apollo 17 mission to artifacts from Colorados mining history. These include six murals painted by Irwin Hoffman in 1939 for the Golden Gate International Exhibition in San Francisco after Hoffman followed his brothers to mining camps. An antique safe displays samples from Colorados Gold Rush and another display showcases an elaborate silver pitcher and plate commissioned during the Silver Boom of the 1880s. School groups bring students from grade schools to colleges, mostly for geology lessons, but Raines said there is more than just science on display. We dont get so much in the way of mining and mineral economics and the economics history, although theres a lot to be learned from a place like this, he said. The museum itself is a part of mining history, dating to the 1870s when famous paleontologist Arthur Lakes came to the School of Mines and began building a collection of mineral, fossil and rock specimens. The collection was in storage at times, then the State Museum in Denver before moving back to the college in the 1960s. A small team of employees, including some students, run the museum, and volunteers help. Because it is attached to the college, the geology museum does not qualify for certain funding, like that from the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District, yet it still offers free admission, and charges only for guided tours or large groups. Between 30,000 and 40,000 visitors go to the museum annually, Raines said, and that includes the dedicated community that comes to the area for the Denver Gem and Mineral Show. People from that community hunters, collectors, geologists and gemologists lend a fair share of the collections for the museums rotating exhibits. Steve MacAlpine, a retired geologist from Lakewood, came with his two grandsons recently because they expressed an interest in gems and minerals. Nick MacAlpine-Switzer said he enjoyed the formulas listed with each mineral display to show its chemical compound. Everything here is pretty well-informed, he said. Josie Klemaier: 303-954-2465, jklemaier@denverpost.com or @JosieKlemaier Colorado school of mines geology museum Where: 1310 Maple St., Golden More information: mines.edu/geology_museum or call 303-273-3815 Editors note: Because The Denver Post and its Cannabist website are the subject of Rolling Papers, we hired an independent film writer to review the documentary. Are you high right now? Thats a question some out-of-state colleagues were probably asking Gregory L. Moore, editor of The Denver Post, when he created the position of marijuana editor in late 2013. Get caught up: See how The Denver Post and The Cannabist covered the first year of legal Colorado cannabis, including the Desperate Journey series, a Pulitzer finalist. It certainly sparked the interest of Colorado filmmaker Mitch Dickman (director of Hanna Ranch). His new documentary Rolling Papers captures the first year of Colorados bold experiment in legalization, as seen through the work of Ricardo Baca, the editor assigned to the papers pot post. Rolling Papers follows Baca for a year. Early scenes show him on national TV talk shows, half-joking that hes looking to hire marijuana critics. Whoopi Goldberg signs up, penning an early contribution to the Posts marijuana web site, The Cannabist. Soon enough the honeymoon ends, and the day-to-day job of journalism takes over. The first deep story investigates complaints about the concentration of THC in a certain brand of edibles. In one instance a chocolate bar labeled as having 100 mg of THC turned out to have only 0.3 mg. State regulators were apparently only concerned about doses stronger than claimed on the label. Nobody seemed to know whether it was a crime to include 200 times less THC than advertised. Its a bigger issue than disappointed and sober potheads. If a newcomer were to adjust their intake after a misleadingly low-dose edible, they might overdo it the next time and require medical help. This was a bug in the system, and Baca and the Post were there to cover it. Two marijuana critics come and go (including one who, controversially, also writes a parenting column) before Ry Prichard seizes the screen. Prichard is an energetic marijuana nerd who makes a living as a photographer for the marijuana industry. Other stories focus on public gatherings such as the Cannabis Cup and, of course, 4/20. (Lets not forget about Easter, says one newsroom contributor, obviously not blown away by legalization.) A summertime story featured parents moving to Colorado to get cannabis oil for children with leukemia or untreatable seizures. Some parents offer anecdotal evidence that it helps; others say it cant be any worse for children than the opioids theyd otherwise be getting. Once again, neither the film nor the reporter has a definitive conclusion. They report, history will decide. The Rolling Papers editing team of Zack Armstrong, Tim Kaminski, and Oscar-winner Davis Coombe deserve praise for tying these disparate pieces together with logical transitions, and for condensing some of the potentially dry material into zippy montages. For example, toward the end of the year, Uruguay decriminalizes marijuana. Theirs was a top-down government decree rather than a grassroots upswell like ours. Baca travels there to write several stories, and to try to get an interview with their president. (Ill let you watch the movie yourself to find out what happened.) I might have been willing to dive deep into the politics, but the filmmakers wisely spared me the trouble by showing an entertaining highlight-reel version instead. When its all said and done, Rolling Papers has shown a years worth of experience in only 89 minutes. Obviously, not everything fit into the film. Notable absences are interviews with law enforcement personnel, the perspective of marijuana opponents, and the myriad complications from state laws directly contradicting federal laws. For me, it was a little disappointing that the film didnt pick a side and offer a strong conclusion. But a lot of people from a lot of other places will be curious to see how our experiment is going. For them, its probably best that Rolling Papers doesnt draw too many conclusions, but instead offers insight and experience, without judgment, like a good piece of reporting. Rolling Papers Q&A sessions Director Mitch Dickman and subjects of the film will be on hand this weekend after screenings of the film in Denver and Boulder. 7 p.m. Friday: Cannabist writers Ry Prichard and Brittany Driver will be at Sie FilmCenter. 8 p.m. Friday: Cannabist editor Ricardo Baca and writer Jake Browne will be at the Boulder Theater. 7 p.m. Saturday: Cannabist editor Ricardo Baca will be at Sie FilmCenter. Venue info Sie FilmCenter, 2510 E. Colfax Ave. Tickets $11. 303-595-3456 or denverfilm.org. Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St. Tickets $10. 303-786-7030 or bouldertheater.com. COLORADO SPRINGS The judge overseeing the case of a man charged with killing three people at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic says details of the shooting should stay sealed. Judge Gilbert Martinez told the Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday not to make public affidavits involving Robert Dears arrest and the search of his home. Martinezs 116-page filing says media dont have a First Amendment right to access court records, and releasing the details could jeopardize Dears case. The filing came after news outlets, including The Associated Press, petitioned the states high court to reverse Martinezs order sealing the documents. The organizations argue the public has a constitutional right to monitor the court system. Prosecutors charged Dear with 179 counts of crimes including murder, attempted murder and assault for the Nov. 27 shooting. Sixteen hate groups, including neo-Nazis, anti-gay churches and even a music label, operated in Colorado last year, according to the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center. Colorado saw five new hate groups operating in 2015, but the state had a net gain of one group last year, said Mark Potok, senior fellow and editor of the organizations Intelligence Report. Other groups folded for various reasons, Potok said. He did not know which Colorado-based groups fell off the list from 2014. Nationally, hate groups grew 14 percent in 2015, up to 892 from 784, the law center reported Wednesday. While the number of extremist groups grew in 2015 after several years of declines, the real story was the deadly violence committed by extremists in city after city, Potok said. Whether it was Charleston, San Bernardino or Colorado Springs, 2015 was clearly a year for deadly action for extremists. In Colorado Springs, Robert Lewis Dear stands accused of killing three people, including a police officer, during an armed assault on a Planned Parenthood clinic. Dear said in court that he is a warrior for the babies. But Dear has not been identified as a member of a hate group by law enforcement. Still, Potok said the messages sent by extremists influence people such as Dear and Dylan Roof, the man accused of killing nine people inside a historically black church in Charleston, S.C. Of the new groups added in Colorado, Potok said, analysts were not sure where two of them neo-Nazi groups are based. Those groups are the National Socialist Movement, a group headquartered in Detroit and known for its provocative political action, and the Wolves of Vinland. The other new groups were: The Friendship Assembly of God, a church in Colorado Springs that teaches falsehoods about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. The Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform, a Lakewood anti-immigrant group. Israel United in Christ, a Denver black Hebrew Israelite group that is anti-white. The Southern Poverty Law Center researches hate groups throughout the year. Groups make the list based on their ideologies and their activity, such as meetings, rallies or selling paraphernalia, Potok said. Churches are not listed as extremists because of their biblical beliefs, he said. They make the list once those beliefs lead them to teach falsehoods or to defame others. The La Plata County district attorney knowingly made false statements during a court hearing in an attempt to prevent defense lawyers from viewing physical evidence in a murder trial, according to a complaint filed by the state agency that investigates attorney misconduct. The complaint alleges that District Attorney Todd Risberg said during a 2013 court hearing that the Colorado Bureau of Investigation would not not allow the testing of physical evidence if the evidence bags were opened. In fact, Risberg knew the CBI had no such policy, the complaint states. The complaint, filed Feb. 5 by the Colorado Attorney Regulation Counsel, is scheduled to be heard by a disciplinary panel headed by a disciplinary judge appointed by the Colorado Supreme Court. If misconduct is found, the panel can issue punishment ranging from public censures to disbarment or other remedial measures. Risberg did not return telephone messages to his office seeking comment. His lawyer, Gordon Vaughan, also could not be reached. Risberg also failed to disclose to a defendant in the murder trial that he changed the terms of plea agreements with three co-defendants, the complaint states. The co-defendants agreed to testify against Tommy Lee Mitchell, who was convicted of first-degree murder in the April 3, 2012, slaying of 39-year-old Joey Benavidez, who was shot multiple times while trying to flee his home over a $740 drug deal. Mitchell was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. After the co-defendants were sentenced to between six to 10 years in prison, Risberg offered them sentence reconsiderations without informing Mitchells lawyer. The original plea agreement stated such sentence reconsiderations would not be considered. Risberg also had an ex-parte meeting with one of the co-defendants out of the presence of her lawyer, the complaint alleges. Colorado court rules bar such communication. The Colorado Attorney Regulation Counsel in 2014 cleared a defense lawyer after Risberg accused the lawyer of tampering with evidence in a murder investigation. Risberg had accused the defense lawyer, Brian Schowalter, of tampering with physical evidence in that case. The state agency found the circumstances did not warrant any disciplinary action. A special prosecutor dropped a felony criminal charge of tampering with evidence that Risberg had filed against Schowalter. Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747, cosher@denverpost.com or @chrisosher Over the objection of the victims family, a district attorney is seeking the death penalty against an inmate who fatally slashed a correctional officer in 2012. Miguel Alonso Contreras-Perez fired his state public defenders Oct. 30 and is planning to represent himself. Crowley County District Attorney Jim Bullock said Wednesday that he will seek the death penalty against the convicted child rapist in the slashing death of Sgt. Mary Ricard on Sept. 24, 2012. Perez allegedly also stabbed Sgt. Lori Gann the same day. I dont agree with the death penalty. Weve had many, many meetings with Mr. Bullock asking him not to seek the death penalty, said Ricards daughter, Katie Smith, 37. Perezs trial on charges of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder is set for March 28 in Crowley County District Court in Ordway. Bullock said he could not comment on his decision because the presiding judge has forbidden any statements about the case outside of court. He confirmed only that he was seeking the death penalty because the decision had been announced earlier in court, he said. Smith said Bullock told her family that Ricards family was not his only consideration. His response was that we are not the only victims in the case, she said. Smith said her mother opposed the death penalty. My mom was very compassionate to inmates, she said. I believe his justice will come when he meets God. Perez admits killing Ricard and trying to kill Gann at Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility. He said he planned to kill at least one other correctional officer, to boost his body count to at least three. Ill be honest with you. It was all about the body count, Perez said in an interview videotaped the day after the stabbings. Perez admitted that his third intended victim was another correctional officer he believed was having a sexual relationship with Gann. Perez is an Army deserter who was sentenced in 2004 to 35 years to life in prison after he raped a 14-year-old girl he kidnapped in Colorado Springs. According to Perez, the attacks on the correctional officers were spurred by a jealous rage. He was upset because he believed Gann was having a sexual relationship with another inmate and a staff member. During Perezs preliminary hearing, footage from several security cameras captured Perez as he prepared his attacks. At one point he puts on an extra-large shirt that he brought into the kitchen on a food cart. The video shows Ricard bringing Perez into a locked storage area. They walk behind rows of food carts where Perez allegedly stabbed Ricard in the neck. Only their heads can be seen during the attack. During the preliminary hearing, prosecutors entered into evidence several letters Perez wrote to friends and prosecutors boasting about the stabbings. One letter written before he learned that Gann survived boasted about killing two pigs. He wrote he was proud to be a cop killer, while in another letter he complained everyone was making such a big deal about killing Ricard. It was only one little itty bitty person, he wrote in a letter. He wrote that he did Ricard a favor because she is a Christian and is now in heaven. In a letter to prosecutors, he predicted he would get off just like the Chuck E Cheese killer Nathan Dunlap, referring to Gov. John Hickenloopers decision to grant Dunlap a temporary reprieve. Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206, kmitchell@denverpost.com or @kirkmitchell or denverpost.com/coldcases The Denver Police Department has determined that four officers used appropriate force and tactics and followed department policies in July 2014 when they shot and killed Ryan Ronquillo in a crowded funeral home parking lot in southwest Denver. The decision, announced Thursday, was met with disagreement from Denvers independent monitor, who said one sergeants order to apprehend Ronquillo while he was in a running car in a parking lot full of people was inconsistent with departmental policy. The decision also upset Ronquillos mother and members of the Latino community who said the department continues to excuse poor decision-making among its officers and that it failed to inform Ronquillos mother of the ongoing investigations and their outcomes. Its bad enough that the killing of Ryan happened in what should have been a sacred place where people were in prayer, but this disrespect for the victims mother, who is in mourning, compounds the tragedy for our community, said Lisa Calderone, co-director of the Colorado Latino Forums Denver chapter. The case has been reviewed by three outside agencies and at least four internal police boards. Still, April Sanchez, Ronquillos mother, said her sons death was avoidable. It was very sloppy that police could act like that and not be in trouble, she said. It was wrong, and nobodys doing anything about it. If they had hurt somebody else besides my son, would they be in trouble for that? Or would they get away with that, too? Chief Robert White told The Denver Post that officers had made the best strategic decision possible on where to stop Ronquillo and when to approach him. Weve talked about the funeral home, and we talked about was that a good decision, White said. And we talked about what did the sergeant know and what could have been done better. After all of that, I came to the conclusion that given what they were confronted with and given what they knew at the time, those actions were reasonable at the time they made those decisions. Obviously, that whole conversation about the funeral and people asking questions, I asked the same questions. During the internal investigation, officers said they were not aware that Ronquillo had parked in a funeral home parking lot. Sanchez questioned that claim, saying the funeral home had signs and the parking lot was full of cars and people. It sends a message that they can lie and get away with things, she said. They basically can do anything they want. Denvers decision comes as police shootings of minorities continue to cause concern across the United States. Already, Ronquillos death has led to protests and marches in Denver. Ronquillo, 20, was killed July 2, 2014, outside the Romero Funeral Home on Tejon Street. Police had been following Ronquillo, who was driving a stolen car, as they tried to arrest him on charges of domestic violence and auto theft. A rosary service was just ending, and Ronquillo was sitting in his car in the funeral homes parking lot when police surrounded him. Dozens of people were outside. Ronquillo put his car in gear to escape, and the stolen Honda struck two police officers and several police cars. One officer was injured. Ronquillo was struck by four bullets, including two in the head, according to the district attorneys decision letter on the shooting. The shooting was reviewed by Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey, who determined that the four officers were legally justified in their actions. White also requested a federal review of the shooting death, and investigators determined there was not enough evidence to open a criminal civil rights case, according to a Nov. 30 letter from Thomas Ravenelle, special-agent-in charge of the FBIs Denver office. The police departments use-of-force board, tactics review board and conduct review office also looked into the shooting death. Although the Tactics Review Board concluded that the planning involved in the matter was appropriate, concern existed regarding the decision to conduct an arrest at a funeral home with civilians present, a police department timeline of the case said. However, Commander Michael Battista of the conduct review office determined that officers involved in the planning constantly assessed the risk as it evolved, including the plan to box Ronquillos vehicle with two squad cars. The departments fugitive unit typically does not have complete operational plans because rolling surveillance, which can evolve quickly, is necessary in their work, the timeline said. The officers did not act hastily, and at the time the arrest decision was made, the officers were not aware that the lot where Mr. Ronquillo parked the stolen vehicle served a funeral home, the timeline said. Nick Mitchell, Denvers independent monitor, said the decision did violate the departments policy. Mitchell said in a statement that he determined the officers followed department policy when they fired their guns. However, it was the decisions leading up to the shooting that he questioned. He expressed significant concerns about one supervisors decision to order the arrest of Mr. Ronquillo in a parking lot that was crowded with standing community members while Mr. Ronquillo was behind the wheel of a running vehicle, Mitchell said. I believed that this was not consistent with DPD policy, which prioritizes the safety of officers involved and the general public. Ronquillos death was one of four cases that prompted a change in the departments policy on shooting at moving cars. The policy was reviewed by Mitchell and White in January 2015 after 17-year-old Jessica Hernandez was shot and killed by two officers as she tried to flee in a stolen car. White eventually banned officers from shooting at moving cars. Since then, no Denver officer has fired at a moving car. Ronquillos mother said the decision devastated her. She passed out at work when a friend called with the news. Her son, while not perfect, was not a bad person, she said. I dont think anythings ever going to change until someone does face accountability for something like this happening, Sanchez said. Noelle Phillips: 303-954-1661, nphillips@denverpost.com or @Noelle_Phillips The surgical technologist accused of stealing a powerful narcotic drug at Swedish Medical Center had been fired by four hospitals in other states, including one that dismissed him for swapping syringes. He also carries a bloodborne pathogen, authorities said. Bloodborne pathogens are infectious microorganisms that include, but are not limited to, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. Despite a drug addiction, Rocky Allen was able to move from state to state and hospital to hospital, gaining access to operating rooms and fentanyl syringes, a criminal investigator testified Friday in federal court. Christy Berg, a special agent for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, testified that Allen accomplished this by concealing his employment history from one hospital to another. He quickly lost every job for drug-related reasons. At one hospital, he was found passed out, Berg said. At another, he was caught going through a container for used needles. A drug seeker is someone who will do anything to get a drug, Berg said. Theyre so desperate for their drugs they dont care about other people. She described fentanyl as an extremely potent narcotic, 80 to 100 times stronger than morphine. Fentanyl is commonly used as part of anesthesia to help prevent pain after surgery or other medical procedures. Allen, 28, was fired by Englewood-based Swedish late last month after he allegedly was caught taking a syringe containing fentanyl and replacing it with another syringe in an operating room. The hospital has contacted 2,900 patients whose surgeries occurred between Aug. 17, 2015, and Jan. 22, to be tested for HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C. History of hospitals Court documents released Friday show that Swedish was not the first hospital to terminate Allen for an alleged drug diversion. In June 2013, Allen was fired from Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, Calif., after he was observed replacing a doctors fentanyl syringe with a syringe filled with saline, according to court documents. When confronted about the switch, he produced the fentanyl syringe, which he had hidden in his sock, and admitted that he planned to inject it, his termination letter states. The hospital did not respond immediately to a call for comment. Allen was fired by Northwest Hospital & Medical Center in Seattle in March 2012 after working there for less than three months. A spokeswoman for Northwest confirmed Allen was employed there but said she was just learning of the situation and declined to comment further. The Denver Post has reported that Allen had worked briefly for two Arizona hospitals and was fired from one of them, HonorHealth John C. Lincoln Hospital in Phoenix, in October 2014. Court records show he tested positive for fentanyl while working there as a surgical attendant. Allen worked at Banner Thunderbird Medical Center in Glendale, Ariz., for about six weeks in 2014. Both Arizona hospitals are offering free blood tests to surgery patients during the times Allen was employed there. Berg said she thought about 1,400 Banner Thunderbird patients have been offered tests. A spokesman would not confirm that number Friday. Fridays hearing also raised questions about Allens military history and whether he failed to get drug-abuse treatment during a four-year stint in the Navy. Judge Kristen Mix asked about military criminal proceedings that appeared to be related to similar conduct and ended with a general discharge from the Navy, where Allen had served as a surgical technologist. A Navy summary of Allens service provided to The Post did not identify criminal charges or his discharge status. Timothy O Hara, Allens lawyer, said his client was sent to Afghanistan in 2010, putting in 12-hour days, seven days a week, and he worked with individuals wounded in battle, and he observed absolute horrors. Allen did not receive treatment from the Navy for substance abuse or post-traumatic stress, OHara said. The judge called that alarming. Melissa Rochefort, who worked as a patient care coordinator at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Bremerton, Wash., with Allen, recalled that he excelled as a surgical technologist there nearly a decade ago. He was a sweet kid, she said. Its really sad how drugs can change a person and make them do things you would never think they would do. We loved him at the hospital. She recently sent a text to her old friend, the person she knew as a young idealist raised in Idaho, offering him support following his indictment. He didnt reply. The court hearing was held to decide whether Allen should be freed or kept in custody. Judge Mix ordered Allen released to a halfway house or community corrections, citing his previously clean criminal record as a civilian. Allen left home to stay with family members in Idaho during the investigation of his activities at Swedish, and prosecutors argued he poses a flight risk. OHara countered that Allen had kept in touch with a Colorado lawyer and came back on schedule to surrender. Facing charges Federal agents arrested Allen on Tuesday. He was handcuffed during the hearing, where Mix ruled that his condition be referred to using the term bloodborne pathogen. He faces charges of tampering with a consumer product and obtaining a controlled substance by deceit. A federal grand jury indictment says Allen tampered and attempted to tamper with a syringe containing fentanyl citrate by removing the syringe containing the substance and replacing it with a similar syringe containing other substances. Berg testified that the syringe that Allen allegedly removed from the operating room was labeled to contain five times the amount of fentanyl as the one he replaced it with, Berg said. But that syringe contained no fentanyl, she said. Allen showed up in operating Room 5 when he had been assigned to a different room, and a witness saw him approach a machine where drugs are dispensed, she said. The witness, who said she had spotted Allen take something days earlier, saw him go over there, put down a syringe, pick up a syringe and leave the room, Berg testified. The witness told the anesthesiologist, Dont use that syringe. He was very taken aback, she said. A sweep of Allens locker at Swedish found a bin with three needles and a syringe, Berg said. A urine test found Allen positive for fentanyl and marijuana, according to a state order suspending his registration as a surgical technologist. Swedish and state health officials have not released any results concerning patients who had blood tests. A Denver attorney, James Avery, says two of his clients, a 56-year-old man and a 48-year-old woman, have tested positive for hepatitis. Colorado regulates surgical techs, requiring them to list their work history when they register with the state. Allen did not disclose that he had been fired by other hospitals. The state does not verify information in the applications Many states do not regulate surgical techs, and theres no nationwide oversight, either. Diana Protopapa, a lobbyist for surgical technologists and surgical assistants in Colorado, expressed outrage that Allen moved so easily from one hospital to another, repeatedly gaining access to narcotics. It means the lack of regulation of surgical technologists and assistants nationwide poses a serious threat to patient safety, she said. This is ridiculous. Denver Post reporter Jesse Paul contributed to this report. David Olinger: 303-954-1498, dolinger@denverpost.com Rocky allens work experience August 2015-January 2016 Swedish Medical Center, Englewood Fired as surgical technologist after being caught allegedly removing a fentanyl syringe and replacing it with another syringe. July-October 2014 HonorHealth John C. Lincoln Medical Center, Phoenix Fired after testing positive for fentanyl while working as a surgical attendant. May-July 2014 Banner Thunderbird Medical Center, Glendale, Ariz. Surgical technologist for six weeks. May 2013-May 2014 CMC Contractor Corp. (Department of Defense contractor), Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait and Yemen Experience listed on his resume. May-June 2013 Scripps Green Hospital, La Jolla, Calif. Fired after he was observed allegedly switching a fentanyl syringe that a doctor was using with a syringe filled with saline. January 2012-January 2013 CMC Contracting Corp., Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait and Yemen Experience listed on his resume. January -March 2012 Northwest Hospital & Medical Center, Seattle Fired after working there for less than three months. May 2007-September 2011 Received basic medical training at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio; served at Navy Medical Center in Portsmouth, Va., in 2007 and 2008; worked as surgical tech at U.S. Naval Hospital in Bremerton, Wash. Deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 and given a general discharge. Sources: Individual hospitals, U.S. attorneys office, U.S. Navy, court records and Allens attorney Unseasonably warm temperatures broke weather records across Colorado on Thursday, but mid-afternoon winds may have knocked out power lines in the metro area, and gusted up to 119 mph near Telluride. At about 4:40 p.m., roughly 5,500 Xcel Energy customers were without power, said Xcel spokesman Mark Stutz. In southwest Denver, 1,800 customers lost power at 3:41 p.m. and another 3,700 customers lost power in Arvada. The outages are probably weather related, Stutz said. Wind related outages are usually the result of a tree branch, or other debris, blowing into a power line, Stutz said. We are responding to them, we knew it was coming. We will monitor it through the night, Stutz said. At 3 p.m., the National Weather Service issued a high wind warning for Southern Colorado. And at 4:42 p.m., the Colorado Department of Transportation closed Colorado 90 in both directions three miles west of Montrose due to downed trees in area. The highest wind gusts in the state were near Gold Hill, and Telluride, with gusts hitting 119 mph, said Kari Bowen, a National Weather Service meteorologist. Near Gunnison, wind gusts reached 100 mph, she said. Wind gusts along the front range have been in the upper 50s, and around Denver gusts have reached the upper 30 mph range, Bowen said. The high winds are caused by an upper-level jet of wind, coming in from the west. That creates a mountain wave where they go up one side and then rush down the other side, Bowen said. The blast follows a balmy morning. Denver broke the record high temperature for Feb. 18 when the mercury hit 72 degrees about 1:30 p.m., the National Weather Service reported. The record was set in 1930 and last reached in 1986. It was 73 degrees in Denver at 1:38 p.m. Alamosa reached 61 degrees at 11:23 a.m., which broke the record of 60 degrees set in 1986, the weather service reported. Grand Junction tied its record when temperatures hit 62 degrees. Pueblo passed its record of 73 degrees at 10:57 a.m., and Colorado Springs was 71 degrees at 10:56 a.m., crushing the old record of 66 degrees last reached in 2004. Temperatures in Denver on Friday are forecast to drop by about 10 degrees to 63 degrees as the westerly winds die down. The high temperatures for Saturday and Sunday are 62 degrees and and 50 degrees respectively. Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206, kmitchell@denverpost.com or @kirkmitchell or denverpost.com/coldcases 18 February 2016 (Global Witness) EU member states are failing to enforce laws designed to protect the worlds forests from illegal logging, according to a European Commission report published today [EU Timber Regulation: First two years show progress, but more effort needed from Member States and private sector]. The first review of the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) since the law came into force in March 2013 found that the implementation of the EUTR by EU member states has been slow and insufficient. For national enforcement bodies, insufficient resources are a major challenge for the effective enforcement of the EUTR. The EU Timber Regulation is a landmark piece of legislation that could make a huge difference in the fight against deforestation, said Colin Robertson, campaigner for Global Witness. But it will only work if European governments get serious about enforcing it. The law has been in place for three years but we have so far seen no prosecutions and no serious penalties. Meanwhile illegal timber continues to flood the EU market in enormous quantities. As much as two billion euros worth of illegal timber, pulp and paper could have entered the EU in 2014, according to the most credible estimate. Based on that estimate, the biggest importers were the UK, Germany, France and Italy. (1) Illegal wood products are imported to the EU primarily from China, in the form of furniture, plywood and flooring, and as timber logged in Russia and in the worlds tropical rainforests a trade that drives deforestation and corruption. Interpol claims that tackling illegal logging would be the fastest, most effective way to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Under the EUTR, each EU member state is responsible for policing companies, to ensure that they are not placing illegal wood-based products on the European market. EU companies are obliged to carry out checks on their wood and paper supplies and screen out those that are at high risk of illegality. Sanctions in the EU differ by member state, but in some countries are punishable by prison sentences and hefty fines. (2) We have presented detailed evidence to national authorities across Europe that timber from the Central African Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo is very likely illegal, and possibly linked to violence and human rights abuses, said Robertson. But so far no steps appear to have been taken to hold companies accountable for breaking the law. Laws are only as good as their enforcement, and this one appears to have been widely ignored. In July 2015 Global Witness published an investigation which showed that French and German companies were importing timber from logging companies in the war-torn Central African Republic. These loggers had broken numerous laws aimed at forest protection and paid millions to armed militia guilty of mass murder and war crimes, thereby fuelling the conflict. A month earlier, another Global Witness expose showed how companies in the Democratic Republic of Congo accused of systematic illegal logging were shipping millions of euros worth of timber to France, Belgium, Portugal and other EU member states. Some of the companies in DRC have been allegedly complicit in human rights abuses against local populations. Since the implementation process has been generally slow in most Member States, checks [on companies] were relatively limited..Therefore the impact of enforcement checks was not yet sufficient according to the EU report. The review concludes that further consistent efforts are needed from both the Member States and the private sector before an effective and efficient application can be achieved. Global Witness recommendations: EU member state governments should ensure that they dedicate sufficient human and financial resources to the enforcement of the EUTR. The European commission should monitor and publish information on the resources deployed by different member states, contrasting this with the scale and nature of the illegal wood-based products being placed on their national markets. Member state authorities should be more cautious about accepting official documents from producer countries particularly those with a high incidence of corruption as proof of legality. Member state authorities should be more transparent, publishing regular reports detailing their enforcement efforts. These should include details of the checks they have undertaken and the sanctions applied. Member state authorities should take evidence from NGOs far more seriously. The EUTR contains a specific provision allowing for the submission of substantiated concerns by third parties. Authorities should investigate and respond to these concerns in accordance with the legislation. The European Commission should issue guidance for member states on identifying and dealing with the risks of conflict timber to ensure it does not enter the EU market. / ENDS Contacts Alice Harrison, Communications Adviser aharrison@globalwitness.org +44(0)7841 338792 Colin Robertson, Campaigner crobertson@globalwitness.org +44 (0)7977 250872 By Ruxandra Guidi 19 February 2016 (mongabay.com) Agriculture in Argentina has expanded at an accelerated rate in the past twenty years due to technological advances, the use of genetically modified crops, and, in particular, to the cultivation of soybean. The South American country is the first global exporter of soy, and the biggest provider of flour and biodiesel made from its derivates; the crop is an important source of income. However, according to the coordinator of Greenpeaces forest campaign in Argentina, Hernan Giardini, the advance of genetically-modified soy production since the mid-nineties until now, and the intensive cattle raising in the north are the main causes for forest loss in the country. According to a rating created by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Argentina is among the top ten countries that destroy their forests the most, and the FAO calculates the loss has amounted to more than 7.5 million hectares since 1990. Satellite data from 2004 analyzed by Argentinas Secretary of Agriculture, Cattle, Fishing and Food confirm this: they have found a clear link between areas planted with soybean and the deforestation of native Argentinean forests. Between 1998 and 2006, the deforested surface of Argentina was of almost 3,000 hectares the equivalent of 250,000 hectares a year or one hectare every two minutes. Almost 80% of forest loss has taken place in the northeastern part of the country, in Salta, Santiago Del Estero, Chaco and Formosa provinces. Given this extremely high rate of deforestation, congressman Miguel Bonasso presented in June 2006 a proposal for a proposal for the Environmental Protection of Native Forests Law. Organizations such as Greenpeace, Fundacion Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, and Fundacion Vida Silvestre Argentina supported the initiative that ended up being approved in March of 2007, despite opposition by some lawmakers in the north, where most of the deforestation takes place. But despite the forest law, Giardini mourns the fact that destruction is still ongoing. The corporate sector destroys forests illegally because if they get punished for it, its a small fine that is really minimal compared to the profits of growing soybeans, said Giardini in an interview with Radio Zonica in Buenos Aires. And there are local governments that have allowed deforestation where the law clearly doesnt allow it, through decrees that are much more flexible than the federal law. [] We are facing a serious forest emergency, Giardini said recently. This has to end. To destroy forests is a crime, and it should be punished as such. [more] This Country Searches Sunny Leone The Most And It's Not India! Network security specialist Clavister has signed a distribution agreement for IT solutions with Defis & Strategies Group in French-speaking West Africa. Founded in 1998 and working with companies in Burkina Faso, Togo, Senegal, Congo, Cameroon and Ghana, Defis & Strategies has established itself as one of the regions stronger suppliers of IT solutions. The region corresponds to close to 20% of the African overall GDP. The company will initially sell and distribute Clavisters suite of Next Generation Firewalls (NGFW) and gateway security solutions to the market, before expanding to offer the entire portfolio of Clavister solutions. The partnership will see Clavister initially grow its presence in the west African cyber-security marketplace. The overall African market is expected to grow from $0.92 billion in 2015 to $2.3 billion in 2020, a compounded annual growth rate of 20%. "The African continent is currently encountering many security challenges and, as a result, our customers are becoming increasingly security conscious, commented Mahoula Dosso, Director of Projects and Internal Control for Defis & Strategies, " As a result we are seeing high demand for cyber-security solutions, in particular NGFWs. Defis & Strategies will incorporate Clavisters solutions into its existing portfolio of info-security solutions in order to better meet the ever-increasing functionality demands of their customers. The company will also work with existing strategic partner in the Ivory Coast, ELETECH-PRO, a leading consultancy for innovative technology solutions, to deliver Clavister solutions to the market. Clavisters solutions range from entry level next-generation firewalls (NGFW) in desktop-sized packages, to Virtual Series Gateways that enable the highest levels of throughput, offering six nines (99.9999%) availability for carrier-grade security in the most demanding network environments. Clavister recently introduced a range of solutions for mobile network operators to secure 4G and LTE networks, enabling mobile network operators to secure their networks against cyberattacks and data interception. However, Sri Lankas Information and Communication Technology Agency says that the landings were controlled and scheduled One of Googleas Project Loon balloons may have crashed in a Sri Lankan tea plantation during its maiden test flight. According to a report by AFP, villagers found the deflated balloon with all its equipment in the region of Gampola in the country. An officer said, atea plantation workers found it crashed in the plantation. They picked up the pieces and brought it to the station.a However, Sri Lankaas Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) said that the landings were controlled and scheduled. ICTA chief, Muhunthan Canagey said on Twitter, agoogle loon ballon safely landed under standard operating procedures in #Ika as part of the test.aA The balloon had entered Sri Lankan airspace on Monday after they were launched from South America. Earlier this month, the government of Sri Lanka had announced that it would take a 25% stake in the join venture with Google. The country would not be investing any capital in the project, but would take the stake in return for allocating the spectrum for the project.A In light of Google CEO, Sundar Pichaias visit to India in December last year, the government gave an in principle nod to pilot Project Loon. IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that a partnership between Google and BSNL for the proliferation of Project Loon to remote areas for places with low internet connectivity.A The latest report suggests that a new 4-inch iPhone is indeed going to be launched on March 15, and will be powered by Apples latest generation processor Apple is likely to power its new, upcoming iPhone aAA the rumoured 4-inch iPhone 5se aAA with the present-generation A9 processor, according to a report by Bloomberg. This falls in line with 9to5MacaAAs earlier reports citing the same, and the device is expected to be unveiled by Apple at a launch event on March 15. The iPhone 5se is also expected to come with NFC, Live Photos and Apple Pay, although it is highly unlikely to get 3D Touch support. In terms of looks, the iPhone 5se is expected to mimic the form factor of the iPhone 5s, catering to the section of audience that prefers smaller dimension smartphones instead of larger screens. A notable difference that the iPhone 5se is expected to bring is a curved cover glass on top, adding design cues from the present-generation iPhone 6s. The second-generation upgrade to 2013aAAs iPhone 5s is also expected to house an 8-megapixel iSight camera, although the exact make of the camera sensor is not sure, as of now. It is also expected to come with only 1GB of RAM and 16GB/64GB of internal storage options. As for pricing, rumours out of China suggest that the iPhone 5se will be priced at around $560 (Rs. 38,490). Whether the device will be priced similarly in India is questionable, although a second-generation upgraded device selling at a rather high price may not form a good basis in the value-sensitive smartphone market of India. In addition to the iPhone 5se, Apple is also expected to unveil the iPad Air 3, powered by the Apple A9X processor. Although some have also suggested the presence of aAAsomething related to VRaAA, others suggest that it might be too early to expect AppleaAAs official entry into the world of virtual reality. We will stay tuned for any note of information from Apple, for an event that is expected to be held in less than a month from now. A leaked image claiming to be of the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge suggests that the phone might come with a microUSB port, instead of a USB Type-C port A leaked image alleged to be of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge was posted on Weibo, suggesting that the phone will come with a conventional microUSB port, and not a USB Type-C port. The latter is slowly gaining popularity amongst smartphone manufacturers as it is reversible and offers faster data transfer and charging speeds as compared to microUSB. Most flagship devices like the OnePlus 2, Nexus 6P, and Lumia 950XL already house USB Type-C ports. In addition, reports suggest that the upcoming LG G5 and Xiaomi Mi 5 might also come with a USB Type-C port. The Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge is expected to launched alongside the standard Galaxy S7 during Mobile World Congress, 2016. However, it was reported that a seller had listed the two phones for sale on an e-commerce website based in Dubai. The phones are expected to come with a pressure-sensitive screen with QHD resolution. The phones may also be launched in two variants, one with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820, while the other might come with an Exynos 8890 SoC. Reports also suggest that phones may have a 12MP camera located at the back of the phone with f/1.7 aperture lens for improved low-light imaging capabilities. The head of Chinas securities regulator, Xiao Gang, is reportedly stepping down to be succeeded by the chairman of Agricultural Bank of China, Liu Shiyu. The Wall Street Journal cited Chinese officials with knowledge of the matter as saying that an announcement of the change will be made within days. The news comes just a month after the China Securities Regulatory Commission denied reports that Gang has offered his resignation. Gang oversaw policies such as the circuit breaker mechanism which was suspended after only a week that stopped trade in a Chinese index for 15 minutes if it rose or fell 5%, or for the rest of the day if it declined by 7%. Government finances improved at the start of the year, buoyed by the typical January rise in tax receipts, albeit by slightly less than economists had penciled in. Public sector net borrowing for the financial year-to date, excluding public sector banks, fell by 10.6bn to 66.5bn in the current financial year-to-date, according to the Office for National Statistics. The financial year runs from (April 2015 to April 2016) In January, public sector net borrowing excluding public sector banks was in a surplus to the tune of 11.2bn; that was 1.0bn more than a year ago and the most for that month since 2008. Nonetheless, that was a tad lower than the -12.5bn economists had anticipated. Britain's net debt, excluding the public sector lenders, was left standing at 1,581.6bn, equivalent to 82.8% of gross domestic product; which was an increase of 52.7bn when compared with January 2015. At this time last year net debt stood at 82.9% of GDP. The so-called central government net cash requirement decreased by 19.7bn to 41.6bn in the current financial year-to-date compared with the same period in the previous financial year. Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said: "Thankfully, the Chancellor wont have to announce even more austerity in the Budget on March 16 to remain on track to meet his fiscal rule of obtaining a budget surplus by the end of this parliament. "A 10B margin for error was built into the Autumn Statement plans, and once again, the Chancellor will benefit from downward revisions to the debt interest forecasts, probably amounting to about 7B a year by the end of the decade. But recent poor borrowing figures effectively mean the Chancellor has no spare cash to dole out in the Budget. The fiscal squeeze therefore will tighten this year and next as planned, throttling the economic recovery of momentum." EU leaders were still trying to thrash out a deal on Britain's continuing membership of the 28 nation bloc on Friday as negotiations continued into the second day of the Brussels summit. UK Prime Minister David Cameron was holding a series of meetings with the leaders of eastern European member states over his plans to curb benefits to EU migrants and their children for 13 years. The aim had been to finish the talks at an "English breakfast" on Friday morning, but this soon became the subject of parody as breakfast became "lunch, then "afternoon tea". The meeting still had no definitive start time at 1500 GMT. The British want child benefits capped at the level appropriate to the standard of living in the member state where the child resides. They also want EU migrants to wait four years before they qualify for any benefits. Poland and other eastern European nations fear this would set a precedent for other countries or lead to the restriction of other benefits. Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydo met Cameron twice on Friday seeking assurances on child benefits. The latest draft proposal in circulation at the summit had a clause inserted that excluded future proposals to index other types of exportable benefits, such as pensions. Leaders agree on the idea of a so-called emergency brake, or benefit restrictions, but that and the indexation of child benefits have to be approved by the European Parliament. Eastern EU states are uncomfortable with the idea of curbing benefits as many of their citizens now live and work in the UK. On Tuesday Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Czech Republic - known as the Visegrad-4 - reached a common position rejecting the benefits proposals. Cameron surprised other delegations when he tabled an extra proposal that the "emergency brake" should be in place for 13 years, although there were signs on Friday afternoon that some form of compromise could be agreed that would put the timing between seven years and the UK demand. As part of the continuing round of horse trading, Greece asked for support on retaining open borders for refugees in Europe in return for its backing of the UK's demands. There were suggestions that Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had threatened to veto any deal if his demands were not met. French President Francois Hollande also expressed concerns that Britain was trying to negotiate a side deal on regulation of financial services that would see London gain an exemption from EU regulation. Meanwhile a new TNS poll on voter intentions in the planned UK referendum on whether to stay in or leave the EU showed 36% of respondents were in favour of an exit - known in shorthand form as "Brexit". However 23% said they were still undecided, 34% would remain and 7% would not cast a vote at all. A greater proportion said they believe that the outcome of the referendum would actually see the UK remain within the EU. Save my User ID and Password Some subscribers prefer to save their log-in information so they do not have to enter their User ID and Password each time they visit the site. To activate this function, check the 'Save my User ID and Password' box in the log-in section. This will save the password on the computer you're using to access the site. Note: If you choose to use the log-out feature, you will lose your saved information. This means you will be required to log-in the next time you visit our site. Digitimes Research: Telecom carriers to drive FinTech technology in Japan With Japan-based Mizuho Bank and Mitsubishi Tokyo UFJ Bank having recently crossed into the Financial Technology (FinTech) industry, FinTech has become a new trend. However, Japan's financial organizations are tightly ruled by local policies, and therefore FinTech may see difficulties realizing its full potential. Instead, telecom carriers, which are not regulated as strictly as banks and have advantages in user base and telecommunication technologies, are likely to become the main drivers of FinTech technology. FinTech Association Japan was established in September 2015 by 20 founding companies, many of which were startups, and now has a membership roster that includes Japan's largest banks such as Mizuho Bank, Mitsubishi Tokyo UFJ Bank and Mitsui Sumitomo Bank as well as telecom carriers NTT DoCoMo and KDDI au 2, according to Digitimes Research's latest report about the FinTech industry in Japan. The three banks' investments in financial IT are expected to grow in a CAGR of 3.4% from 2014-2019. The channel system and customer management categories are the areas with the highest investments. Networks and mobile banking businesses under the channel system category are the foundation of FinTech. Compared to Europe and North America, Japan's FinTech development is rather behind mainly due to limitations imposed by Japan's Banking Act. Policy forbids Japan's financial organizations to have an over 5% stake in a non-finance-based company, limiting banks in Japan from investing heavily in startups. Meanwhile, Japan's telecom carriers will have an easier time accessing FinTech technology as they have been providing their users with convenient mobile payment services since the feature phone era. Content from this article was part of a complete Digitimes Research Chinese-language report that has not yet been translated into English. If you are interested in an English version of the report or wish to receive more information about the report, click here to contact us and we will get back to you as soon as possible. Digitimes Research also provides quarterly tracking services for market sectors such as China Smartphone, China Smartphone AP, Taiwan ICT and Taiwan FPD. Click here for more information about Digitimes Research Tracking services. Two Columbus-area solar farms could power 100,000 homes State regulators have signed off on turning a chunk of Darby Dan Farms into a solar farm in western Franklin County. Design Perspectives: UW eyes 8 million square feet of new buildings Special to the Journal By CLAIR ENLOW Special to the Journal Next month the University of Washington light rail station opens, and Sound Transit expects that before 2030 as many as 25,000 people will be boarding trains there daily. They'll walk high above the congested roadway on their own pedestrian bridge that connects directly to the central campus. The station will be four minutes from Capitol Hill, and eight minutes from downtown Seattle. Now the UW is beginning to share information about its future plans with the city of Seattle as it seeks approval of a new zoning overlay for construction within its boundaries. The planning process is expected to last through 2017. Images courtesy of Sasaki Associates and the UW [enlarge] This graphic shows possible construction under a new zoning overlay requested by the UW. Heights on West Campus (west of the historic central campus) would be 300 feet in some places, and a new park is planned along Portage Bay. Heights on East Campus (north of Husky Stadium) would be up to 120 feet. This could be big. The UW wants to add up to eight million square feet of new construction over the next 20 years. That's about five Columbia Centers. The new space would accommodate 17,000 more students than the UW's 2014 population, which is just under 44,000. Increasingly the UW is looking like a city-within-a-city, and it's acting like one. It will be asking city officials to increase height limits to 300 feet in certain areas of campus west of 15th Avenue Northeast, where a few buildings now are just over 100 feet, according to UW planner Theresa Doherty. At the same time, the UW is embracing green areas along Portage Bay and its 2.5-mile shoreline. It favors better views and pedestrian pathways that will connect campus to shore, and also reach deep into the street grid of the surrounding neighborhood. If open spaces are the lungs of a city, the UW and surrounding streets will be breathing more freely. Startup city All that growth has to go somewhere. In the next decades, UW construction is likely to cluster first on West Campus, a 60-acre part of the 643-acre UW campus. West Campus is west of 15th Avenue Northeast, around Northeast Campus Parkway. Why is growth going there? Because the bones of the iconic Central Campus must be respected, and its open spaces preserved. The vast parking lots of East Campus (anchored by Husky Stadium) are on soft ground because of an old landfill. South Campus, home of UW Medical Center, is already largely built out, although some of those buildings are likely to be replaced with larger ones. West Campus is favored almost by default. It's rapidly turning into a neighborhood where most of the population is under 25. In the past decade, it's become a student housing village. Seven new buildings centered on Northeast Campus Parkway bring the UW's bed count in West Campus to over 5,000, and offer a lot of services. There's a new grocery store in the neighborhood, a police station, and even a new power plant on the way. Photo by Clair Enlow [enlarge] Startup Hall is a place for new businesses to grow on the UW campus. West Campus is poised to become a buzzing hub of innovation, a neighborhood where people shop for groceries, drop off the kids and invent the next killer app, all within couple of blocks. If Microsoft moved into Seattle, it couldn't do much better than this in building a neighborhood. The area will test an idea at the heart of the UW's vision for growth: the innovation district. The concept will mix private industry with education and make the university a hotbed of marketable ideas. UW officials clearly hope to make their public institution even more competitive with large private universities like Harvard, MIT and Stanford. The idea started in biotech, with private companies outsourcing research to universities, and then spread to the high-tech industry. In centers like West Campus, the UW hopes to blend innovation with everyday life, and even arts and cultural pursuits. Near the heart of West Campus is Condon Hall, a 1970s concrete structure that used to house the UW School of Law. It now holds the surge population that has been displaced from UW buildings being remodeled or rebuilt. On the second floor of Condon Hall is an experiment called Startup Hall. It's a shared work area with conference space as well as rooms for meetings or quiet concentration. The population increases in the afternoon and evening as people gather at computers and huddle at tables, drinking free coffee (courtesy of Starbucks). Startup Hall doesn't feel slick or corporate. Nor is it an incubator. Startups here pay rent just as they would in shared workspaces around the city. But they get to pitch their products to larger companies in hosted events, on and off site, and some have gone on to rent their own spaces in Seattle. It has been open for a year and a half, and competition to get into Startup Hall is way up, according to Nathan Daum, who manages the space. Expect to see more spaces like this in UW's future. Corporate model The drive for an innovation district is fueled, in part, by the urban location of the UW and its ties with the rapidly expanding tech and biotech sectors. It's also spurred by shrinking support from the state of Washington. In planning for growth, the UW is just acting like other institutions of higher learning, public and private. It's behaving like a private corporation. Growth means competing with other institutions to attract the most talented professors and students. Images courtesy of Sasaki Associates and the UW [enlarge] The vision for West Campus centers around a future park on Portage Bay. The area could become a testing ground for innovation districts, which would mix housing, amenities and office space for startups. Arts and cultural spaces may be included. The UW is doing the best it can with what it has and doing very well, indeed. Last September, Reuters named UW the world's most innovative public university, a ranking based on things like academic papers, research grants and contracts, and startups. According to Reuters, the UW receives more federal research funding than any other U.S. public university. Grants and contracts in 2014 amounted to $1.39 billion, and $1.08 billion of that came from federal sources. In 2014, 18 new startups based on UW research technologies were counted a record year for the institution. The 10-year total for UW is 103 technology startups. Room of their own In the meantime, U District residents next door to the UW don't want to just survive in the shadows. The U District Station will open on Brooklyn Avenue, south of 45th Street, in a few years when the light rail line is extended to Northgate. The station is near West Campus but outside the boundaries of the UW campus. It was once seen by U District residents, spurred by longtime UW architecture professor Phil Thiel, as the ideal spot for an open space or plaza that would belong to the neighborhood. But ironically the station is likely to be built-over by the UW. Way over. The UW purchased air rights above the underground station from Sound Transit, and now awaits zoning decisions from the city about how much and how tall it can build. As the U District scrambles for its own identity and resources, it finds a voice in activist groups like U District Square, which advocates for open space in the U District that's separate from the UW campus. Members of the City/University Community Advisory Committee also support a plaza in the U District. It's the city's role to be the grownup in meetings with the UW and U District residents. In the meantime, as the university grows by leaps and bounds, neighbors can hope that the UW will behave even more like a city and help the neighborhood find a room of its own. Clair Enlow can be reached by e-mail at clair@clairenlow.com. Previous columns: REI techies move to Commons on 90 Courtesy Clarion Partners [enlarge] The Bellevue complex has 142,000 square feet in two buildings. [enlarge] The renovation includes a gym, conference and training areas, and wired outdoor spaces. REI's tech team is almost finished setting up camp in Commons on 90, an office building in Bellevue. Last September, REI began moving 288 employees from its IT hub in Kent into the complex, which has 142,000 square feet in two buildings at 15800-15900 S.E. Eastgate Way. The move is expected to be complete this quarter. Clarion Partners of New York owns Commons on 90 and said in a press release it recently finished a renovation that provides collaborative workspaces, new infrastructure, a gym, conference and training spaces, and wired outdoor spaces. REI is competing for top tech talent, and the renovated offices are expected to be a big part of its pitch. Our new satellite office at Commons on 90 is a creative and collaborative space that helps reinforce our goals of remaining an employer of choice, and will be a strong factor in attracting new talent for our growing IT team, Vic Blanco, REI's director of real estate asset management, said in the release. REI leased one of the two buildings on the site. Clarion said it recently landed a 25,000-square-foot lease for the other building, leaving approximately 50,000 square feet available in the complex. JPC Architects designed the renovation, and Foushee & Associates was the general contractor. Other team members are Urban Renaissance Group, property manager; Jones Lang LaSalle, broker; and Talon, construction management. Clarion has been active in the region over the last year. The firm paid $202.8 million in December for part of Segale Properties' industrial holdings in Tukwila. It bought Verve, a new apartment building at Fourth and Denny in Seattle, for $77.7 million, and paid $75 million for a nine-story office building in downtown Bellevue. (Editor's note: This story has been changed to correct the location of the campus listed under the photo.) After Hours: Lonely Planet names top destination Photo by B. Krist for Visit Philadelphia [enlarge] Although Philadelphias rich colonial history remains a draw, the city also nurtures vibrant restaurant and arts scenes. PHILADELPHIA (AP) Lonely Planet gave some love to The City of Brotherly Love on Tuesday, ranking Philadelphia the No. 1 place to visit in the United States in 2016. Philly's on a roll right now, the travel guide company said in a statement. The city is experiencing a transformation to its urban core, yet retaining its deep American history and uniquely gritty flavor. The company noted that Philadelphia hosted Pope Francis in September and will welcome the Democratic National Convention this summer. In November, it was named the country's first World Heritage City. We always love to see Philadelphia get the recognition it deserves, said Meryl Levitz, president and chief executive of Visit Philadelphia, the main tourism marketing agency. She said the city may seem like an overnight sensation, but it's the result of years of work and collaboration. And it's not just about the Liberty Bell and cheesesteaks. Although Philadelphia's rich colonial history remains a draw, the city also nurtures a vibrant restaurant scene featuring hundreds of BYOBs, celebrity chefs and even a vegan fine-dining restaurant that was nominated for a James Beard award. Its arts scene includes the funky Isaiah Zagar mosaics around South Street and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where Sylvester Stallone ran up the steps in Rocky. Last year, the New York City borough of Queens got an outsize dose of publicity when Lonely Planet picked it as the No. 1 U.S. destination for 2015 a somewhat surprising choice given that Queens' sister borough Brooklyn tends to get the lion's share of attention from hipsters and tourists alike. Lonely Planet said it picks the top 10 most exciting, intriguing and up-and-coming destinations for the list, and called Philadelphia a national treasure. Rounding out its top 10 list for 2016, in order: Natchez, Mississippi; Yellowstone National Park; Birmingham, Alabama; Alaska; Somerville, Massachusetts; Northwest Arkansas; San Antonio; Southern New Mexico; and Milwaukee. Previous columns: Updated plans for 24-story apartment Image by Ankrom Moisan [enlarge] AvalonBay Communities has updated its plans for a 24-story apartment tower at 210 Wall St. in Belltown. The site is the former home of the McGuire, the 25-story apartment tower that was torn down in 2011, only a decade after it was completed. The city of Seattle will hold an early design guidance meeting for the AvalonBay project at 5:30 p.m. today at Seattle City Hall, Room L280. The new tower would have 300 apartments, 10,000 square feet of street-level retail and 250 underground parking spaces. Ankrom Moisan is the architect, and Brumbaugh & Associates is the landscape architect. The updated design breaks the tower into three tiers, a move intended to reduce its visual bulk and its impact on neighboring buildings. The tower would have a six-level podium, a mid-rise tier, and a full-height tier. The podium would have a large rooftop deck for residents. Another rooftop deck is planned atop the 23rd floor. Retail would line the street-facing sides of the building, which include Wall Street, Second Avenue and Vine Street. The residential entrance would be on Vine, and parking would be accessible from an alley running east of the tower. The previous building was demolished because of construction defects, which involved corrosion of post-tensioned cables, and deficiencies in the concrete and reinforcement placement. CS building in; nuke reactor out at UW SEATTLE (AP) The University of Washington has approved plans to tear down a historic building that used to house a nuclear reactor in order to replace it with a new computer-science building. The Seattle Times reports that the UW Board of Regents on Thursday approved a site plan that removes More Hall Annex. University officials argue the old reactor building site is ideal for the new computer-science building because it is across the street from the existing computer science program. The More Hall Annex is listed on the Washington Heritage Register and the National Register of Historic Places. The reactor was built in 1961 and used for three decades for teaching and research. The approximately $25 million Kewaunee County budget presented on Tuesday drew only praise during the scheduled board meeting. Kewaunee County Administrator Scott Feldt went department by department describing some of the highlights of the budget. Even though the budget size and the tax levy amount went up, taxpayers will likely pay less depending on their property values. One of the budget's more significant changes is with the corporation counsel, which will become a full-time position in 2023. Before winning his position as a circuit court judge, Jeffrey Wisnicky served a dual role as corporation counsel and human services director. Feldt hopes that once a new corporation counsel is hired and gets a grasp of the position, they can be contracted out to other municipalities. The county will continue to receive payments from Dominion due to the Kewaunee Power Station closure. The $500,000 has been used in the past to fund loans to Bug Tussel Wireless as they wire the county with broadband and fiber services. The countys human services department commands the most significant part of the budget at $6 million, but the staffs ability to get reimbursed for billable hours has lessened its impact on the tax levy by as much as $60,000. It also contains the budgets biggest question mark, which sets aside $20,000 a month for two children determined to be under the countys care. One of the few questions of the discussion came from Supervisor Aaron Augustian. He asked Feldt why they are paying down an additional $300,000 in debt service ahead of the countys most considerable expense moving forward: the future jail facility. Supervisor Gerald Paape praised Feldt and his staff for putting together the budget and making it easy to understand. The Kewaunee County Board will vote to approve the budget at their next meeting. Community members made no comments during the public hearing on the budget preceding the board meeting. dpa ElectionsData With dpa ElectionsData you get access to a unique collection of data. Via a programming interface (Rest-API), your developers can access detailed information, candidate profiles and live results for all national elections in the European Union and important international elections, like the US Midterm elections etc. The data pool also includes all heads of state and government as well as about 20,000 elected members of parliament throughout the EU. In addition to their data (name, party, constituency or list position), we collect social media profiles and official websites of individuals and parties. Kia has shown off its new wagon ahead of its official debut at the 2016 Geneva motor show. The new Optima Sportswagon is based on the brand's Sportspace concept shown at last year's New York motor show, adding practicality to Kia's line-up for buyers looking for an alternative to the SUV. It will be available with a range of petrol and diesel engines including a 1.7-litre diesel or a 2.0-litre petrol engine that is mated to either a six-speed manual or automatic transmission. Kia is also planning a high-powered 2.0-litre turbocharged petrol GT model paired to a six-speed automatic. The wagon features a sporty face with sweeping lines and a tapering roofline with LED taillights. It will ride on a range of alloy wheels ranging from 16- to 18-inches. A 553 litre of cargo space for the Sportswagon is a 48 litre increase over the sedan variant, with the boot including pop-up sliding luggage rails and an automatic tailgate that opens when the smart key is in close proximity. Inside the Optima wagon, the cabin is fitted with either a 7- or 8-inch touchscreen with the latter featuring in-built satellite navigation. It will also feature Apple CarPlay and Android Auto which enable voice commands and Apple or Google maps. It comes standard with a six-speaker audio system that can be optioned up to a 590W Harman Kardon system. Safety features include park assist, adaptive headlights and optional 360-degree cameras that provide a birds-eye view when parking, auto braking, lane keep assist, blind spot detection. Kia Australia has said it will have a close look at the Sportswagon but won't rush to make a decision on whether it would be made available locally due to the increased popularity of SUVs. Members of the Gardas Emergency Response Unit (ERU) deployed to the area after the killing last year of Garda Tony Golden last October are still operating in the area despite reports that they have been transferred to Dublin. Last Thursday The Irish Times reported that the armed unit had been redeployed to deal with the gangland feud in Dublin. However, as if in response to the story, members of the unit were in Blackrock on Thursday afternoon supporting their colleagues at a checkpoint. Reports of the transfer of the armed response unit to Dublin have been quickly seized upon by critics as proof that Garda resources are not adequate to deal with violent gangs. The ERU was sent here last October after the murder of Garda Tony Golden at Omeath and subsequent allegations that this area does not have the garda numbers to deal with border criminals. The murder of Garda Tony Golden came less than three years after the murder of Detective Garda Adrian Donohoe at Lordship. Frequent checkpoints and patrols have been set up in the Dundalk and north Louth area since the ERU was deployed in the area. This remained the case up until last week. Just a few months ago, Cllrs Mark Dearey and Maria Doyle called on the Garda Commissioner to deploy more garda resources in this area. Cllr Doyle proposed that the Dundalk Local Police Forum write to the commissioner to outline the case being made for what Cllr Dearey referred to as "evidence based deployment". Cllr Dearey, expressed his disappointment that no firm proposals came from the TDs or senators at Louth IFA meeting on rural crime. Since the election was declared crime has become a major issue. Cllr Dearey has claimed that if garda resources were focussed on where crime is more prevalent within the northern region, Louth would have a substantially larger garda force than at present. "A quick look at the stats for the most recent period will bear this out," Dearey said. He has compared crime rates in Louth with Sligo-Leitrim. "I chose Sligo Leitrim on the basis that at 30 gardai per 10,000 of population, that division enjoys the best ratio in the country. My question is, on what basis was that resourcing decision made? "Certainly it was not based on the most recent crime figures which show that if the resources were to follow the crime, Louth would have a permanent force of well over 300 gardai. The resources are already within the region in my view, but they need to be focussed on where they are most needed. And unfortunately that is in our own county. There are a number of reasons for this, related to drugs, deprivation and the on going activity of paramilitary gangs on the border. But whatever the reasons, the stats don't lie and the case, in my view, is conclusive. The suggestion from Cllr Breathnach that the Army might be deployed to improve community safety, is patently not realistic. Nor would it be necessary, if garda resources were better allocated and managed," Cllr Dearey concluded. Moving the motion to write to the commissioner, Cllr Doyle pointed out that in education, deploying teaching resources based on educational outcomes was becoming the norm and that we need a similar approach from an Garda Siochana. Responsibility for Garda deployment rests with the commissioner and I propose we write and request she address the clear need in this county for more gardai, Cllr Doyle said. Cllr Dearey seconded the motion, while Superintendent Curley who attended the forum indicated that he had no issue with it as it was a decision for the members. An Ingham County judge ordered a halt Friday to the states plans to privatize nursing aide jobs at the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans, saying she feared the change would cause irreparable harm to the more than 600 vets who live there. The privatization all comes down to money, really, said Circuit Judge Paula Manderfield, noting state officials said they need to save $18,000 a day by turning 170 resident-care aide positions over to a contractor, who pays workers about half as much money. The home can make cuts in other areas, or perhaps they can get some more money from the state, the judge said. Assistant Attorney General Joseph Froehlich, representing the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs that runs the home, said he will appeal. Manderfield denied his request for a stay of her order pending the appeal ~SNIP~ Gov. Rick Snyder, who forecast $4.2 million in savings from the move, is disappointed and anticipates an emergency appeal, his spokeswoman, Sara Wurfel, said. We continue to be focused on providing the highest quality of care and respect for our veterans, while implementing reforms to get the state back on a sustainable, financially viable track, she said. Its all about boosting the ego of white guys who thought theyd do better with their lives Its almost forgotten history that at this point in the 2012 election, Rick Santorum was leading Mitt Romney in the national polls. The former Senator and spokesman for homophobia could have taken the delegate lead by defeating Mitt here in Michigan. But then to the relief of the party establishment Santorum insulted John F. Kennedy, a fellow Catholic who in his 1960 presidential run made a historic assertion of the Separation of Church and State. This was necessary back when Americas fear of papal domination was among our surfaced phobias. I dont believe in an America where the separation of church and state are absolute, Santorum told George Stephanopoulos. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country to say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes me want to throw up. Did it cost him Michigan? Who knows? Theres evidence he lost Michigans Catholic vote to a Mormon, which few predicted would happen. But Santorum was saying a lot of dumb things at the time and though he was inspired speaker on the stump, especially compared to Romney, you usually dont translate a losing Senate campaign into a presidential nomination. Meanwhile in 2016, a birther who was humiliated in 2012 is destroying his Republican competition largely by campaigning as a parade float of barely veiled racism and alpha male bluster. Its the Southern Strategy with a New York affect. Trump had been trolling the Popes visit to the Mexican-American border, which has become the fixation of Trumps campaign as part of the contradicting fantasies that Mexico is dominating us economically yet Mexicans are still invading us in droves. On Thursday, the Pope trolled back by suggesting that Trump isnt Christian if he wants to build a wall on the border. Trump blasted back with a statement that included some blather about ISIS and being a big strong man who doesnt wash feet. This exchange will probably only help Trump in South Carolina, where only 7 percent of the state is Catholic. And at least in the GOP primary, its probably a net positive as it draws attention to the big reason his supporters love him he makes them feel better about being white people who expected to do better with their lives. This kind of trolling fits right in with the dog park domination that they admire in Trump. We should stop imagining that anything Trump says is about actual policy. Controlling the border is something most Americans support and Obama has been far more successful at it than his predecessors, which is why actual unauthorized border crossings are at a generational low. The wall is a dumb idea because its nonsensically expensive, it wouldnt work and we should spend the tens of billions of dollars wed waste on it fixing bridges or building bullet trains. But us fixating on policy while Trump is arguing symbolism that appeals to a promise of domination is how the billion-dollar baby is winning. We have to understand that what is going on with Trump is pure demagoguery that is testing our democracys immune system. And the media isnt going to save us. As Slates Isaac Chotiner wrote: I would have said six months ago, perhaps naively, that a blatantly bigoted candidate would face such a sustained media firestorm (especially in liberal precincts) that he would be incapable of getting elected. Thats not yet the case. Indeed, there are no signs that the medias sick, interminable honeymoon with Trump will come to an end anytime soon. Which means that rather than witnessing the beginning of the end of Donald Trumps time in the political spotlight, we may not even be at the end of the beginning. Michigans GOP turned against Santorum because they knew Santorum wouldnt win because hed say endless dumb things that most people dont agree with. Trump is saying endless dumb things that many, many people do agree with. And he just changes his mind when its to advantage in any way. Its important to talk about how how dangerous and reckless he is and stress the fact that a man who will turn on anyone including the Pope will have no problem turning on you. [Photo by Gage Skidmore | Flickr] Google this week reportedly pulled one mobile ad blocker from the Google Play store and prevented another from being updated. The moves come on the heels ofSamsungs announcement this week that it was opening up its mobile Web browser to ad blockers. AdBlock Fast, which was one of the first blockers to take advantage of Samsungs largesse, reportedly was tossed from Google Play. Rocketship Apps, the company that makes AdBlock Fast, did not respond to a request for comment for this story, but CEO Brian Kennish told TechCrunch that Google cited Section 4.4 of the Android Developer Distribution Agreement as the reason for sacking the app. That section bars developers from releasing apps that interfere with the devices, servers, networks, or other properties or services of any third party including, but not limited to, Android users, Google or any mobile network operator. Policy Not Crystal Clear After its release, AdBlock Fast became the top app in the Productivity category in Google Play. That meteoric rise may have been the reason Google quickly removed the app from its online outlet, Kennish told TechCrunch. Another ad blocker for Samsungs browser,Crystal, reportedly also ran afoul of Google. When its development team tried to upload an upgrade for the app, it was rejected. The reason? Section 4.4. Other ad blockers can be found in Google Play. I cant comment on what happened to other apps, said Ben Williams, operations and communications manager atEyeo, maker of AdBlock Plus. I can just say that Adblock Plus for Samsung browser is still in the Play Store, he told the E-Commerce Times. Laconic Google While we dont comment on specific apps, we can confirm that our policies are designed to provide a great experience for users and developers, the company said in a statement provided to the E-Commerce Times by spokesperson Joshua Cruz. Samsung was equally terse on AdBlock Fasts fate. We wouldnt want to comment about the issues another company may be facing, Samsung PR Manager Philip Berne told the E-Commerce Times. While Google is concerned about ad blockers, it has other concerns about the mobile Web, noted Gavin Dunaway, senior editor atAdMonsters. Better Mobile Experience Googles worried about ad blocking on the mobile Web, but theyre more worried about the user experience on the mobile Web, he told the E-Commerce Times. For example, Google in October launched itsAccelerated Mobile Pages program to encourage content providers to create mobile Web pages that load faster and consume less precious data. It will have an effect on ads because it means there are going to be more static placements, rather than anything crazy that will take up a lot of data to download, Dunaway said. The problem with ads on the mobile Web is that theyre not designed for the mobile Web. You end up downloading everything meant for the desktop Web, Dunaway explained. Theyre too big, and theyre just going to suck away your data. In-App Eyeballs While advertising on the mobile Web may be annoying to users, it isnt where most advertising is seen. Ad blockers are for the mobile Web. Users spend most of their time in applications, where there is still no ad blocking, Dunaway said. As long as theres no ad blocking there, I dont think Google is all that concerned, he added. Ad blockers are a problem for more than just Google, noted Greg Sterling, vice president of strategy and insight at theLocal Search Association. The industry as a whole is getting very nervous about this, he told the E-Commerce Times. Google is taking the hard-line position because ultimately it sees ad blockers as destructive to advertiser and publisher interests, Sterling said. Paying the Piper The problem is a simple one from Googles point of view, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. Advertising is how you pay for Android, he told the E-Commerce Times. If you put up an ad blocker, from Googles perspective, youre ripping off Google. When you decided to use Android, whether intentionally or not, youve agreed to consume ads to pay for this free operating system, Enderle noted. This is Google making sure you pay what they think you should pay. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday went into damage-control mode following a tweet from board member Marc Andreessen about India and colonialism. Andreessen was reacting to the Indian telecom regulatorsban on Facebooks Free Basics service. Another in a long line of economically suicidal decisions made by the Indian government against its own citizens, he reportedly tweeted. Denying worlds poorest free partial Internet connectivity when today they have none, for ideological reasons, strikes me as morally wrong. Indian entrepreneur Vivek Chachra reportedly tweeted in response that the Free Basics argument that some Internet is better than no Internet sounded like a justification of Internet colonialism. Anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for the Indian people for decades. Why stop now? Andreessens replied. Zuckerberg disavowed Andreessens comment on anti-colonialism, which has been deleted. I found the comments deeply upsetting, and they do not represent the way Facebook or I think at all, he said. Zuckerberg Hearts India India has been personally important to me and Facebook, Zuckerberg continued, adding he was inspired by the humanity, spirit and values of the people when he traveled to the country. It solidified my understanding that, when all people have the power to share their experiences, the entire world will make progress, he said. Ive gained a deeper appreciation for the need to understand Indias history and culture and I look forward to strengthening my connection to the country. The situation is kind of interesting in that it pits Zuckerberg, who is truly a leader in Facebook, against Andreessen, who trades on the perception of similar success but has actually been more of a secret failure, observed Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. Facebook has withdrawn Free Basics from India. Zuckerberg is moving to protect Facebook and needs to do so, but that doesnt mean he isnt sincere, Enderle told TechNewsWorld. The two things dont have to be mutually exclusive. It would be a good thing for [Zuckerberg] to state an official position for Facebook, said Mike Jude, program manager, Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan. His response sounds sincere, he told TechNewsWorld. Loose Lips Sink Company Ships Zuckerberg wants to bring the Internet to the entire planet by 2020. Just how badly the controversy will impact those plans remains to be seen. This did hurt Facebooks image a lot, Enderle said. Board members, like children, should be seen and not heard, and this issue shows why this is the case. One expects a certain level of cultural sensitivity, Jude said. This sort of thing cant help. However, if Facebook takes steps to engage culturally with India and proves that its really trying to be sensitive to its new market, this could be good for them, he added, especially if it leads to better behavior in other markets. What Else Facebook Could Do Andreessens comments make it look like Facebook has ulterior motives for seeking to link up the planet, not so much because of what Andreessen actually said but what others are reading into it, Enderle remarked. Facebook should ask him to step down, if only as an example to others that this behavior is not tolerated, as not doing so suggests the statement is acceptable in private and casts a shadow of dishonesty over the office of the CEO, he added. However, people do make mistakes, and especially now that Facebook has disavowed his actions, asking him to step down is probably not necessary, Jude said. Alternative energy has become a real growth engine during the last several years. It seems to bounce up and down, depending on the leadership in the White House. President Obama is a supporter, so growth has been relatively strong in recent years. The big question is, what will happen under a new president? That is a question every investor and industry worker is asking. We all want to work and invest in a growth sector. Many people have hitched their wagon to the growth engine in the energy space, and that has been a good call. Will the Growth Engine Slow? However, worries that things will change and growth will slow are starting to set in. What happens will depend in large part on who we elect as president. Energy is important, but it is just one of many important factors we must focus on going forward. In general, voters wont focus on one issue, like energy, when there are multiple problems like security, economic growth and jobs. That said, growth in energy, especially alternative energy, will continue. The question is, will it be at the same rapid pace or will it slow? If you are working for or invested in the right companies in the alternative energy space, you likely will continue do well. Choosing Growth Companies How do you choose the right growth-oriented companies? That question is easier to ask than to answer. Alternative energy is an industry driven by innovation, reinvention and politics. The hot companies and new technologies always will capture the attention of the media and industry watchers. That means those companies should be the focus for investors and workers. The life span of a hot opportunity in the energy space may be short. A company or technology that is new and hot today may give way to the next hot company or technology in the blink of an eye. That happens in every industry. Consider the mobile phone marketplace. Motorola led the space early on. Then in the 1990s, Nokia and BlackBerry took the No. 1 position, sending Motorola to the basement. In the 2000s, Apples iPhone and Googles Android OS took the lead, sending Nokia and BlackBerry to join Motorola in the basement. Leadership Changes Things change quickly. Leadership changes quickly. Sometimes leaders stay leaders by creating the next growth wave to ride. Most times they do not they ride that wave up and then down again. Consider the iPhone, which has been under scrutiny for slowing growth. Apple remains a beloved company in the eyes of its customers. However, its growth lately has not been quite up to what analysts predicted, so thestock has been hit and some media outlets have been trashing it. There are two distinct sectors to balance: the customer and the investor. Sometimes they are on the same growth track, but other times they take different paths. Expect the same thing to happen in the energy space. Investors can use the lessons they learned from the wireless wars in the energy arena. Choose the right companies and technologies to work for or to bet on with your investment dollars. Energy Tables Turn Quickly The hottest energy industry segments are solar, wind, hydro, biomass and geothermal energy. There will be plenty of winners and losers in each. Determining which to bet on is the biggest challenge. Stay alert the tables can turn quickly. That might happen with the change in leadership in Washington. However, even if the new president has an alternative energy focus, the industrys volatile growth will continue. Alternative energy will continue to grow its the pace of growth that is the big unknown. Be prepared to make a series of strategic moves. Staying alert in the rapidly growing and changing alternative energy space will help you stay on the winning side of the growth curve. Facebook celebrated its 12th birthday on Thursday by congratulating its users on how far theyve carried the social network since it made its debut. The company earlier this week held a more intimate celebration of its anniversary at its main campus in Menlo Park, California. That event included 18 members of the Facebook community, who traveled from places as disparate as Saudi Arabia and Louisiana to join the festivities. The guests all had stories to tell about how Facebook facilitated their offline connections, such as reunions and marriages. However, Facebook wanted to celebrate with its community at large, so it kicked off Friends Day, aiming to include every Facebook user. Its what the most successful movements do, according to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The best movements find ways to keep things focused on the needs of the community, he said, and thats the whole point of Friends Day. In addition to releasing a video-editing tool that stitches users pictures into slideshows of their evolving relationships, Facebook celebrated the public portion of Friends Day by releasing updated figures on the social networks declining degrees of separation. Degrees of Separation Theres an average of 3.57 people standing between the average Facebook user and the individuals most removed from them on the network. The average user is roughly three and a half people away from their favorite and least favorite celebrities, their leaders, the heads of foreign governments, long-lost friends they havent yet reconnected with, and the life partner theyve yet to meet. Outside of Facebook, scientists and philosophers famously put the figure for degrees of separation at six. Facebook has driven down its number from 3.74 in 2011 to 3.57 today, but thats not good enough for the company. At this point, the best Facebook can aspire to is to increase the number of weak ties individuals have in their networks, suggested Syracuse Universitys Jennifer Grygiel, assistant professor of communications at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Weak ties allow information to spread, help you get jobs and so on, she told the E-Commerce Times, but they are not going to help you the same way that strong ties will those people you call when youre having a really bad day. The company certainly has the tools and the know-how to coax its users into adding more weak ties to their circle of friends, said Karma Martell, president and founder of KarmaCom. Facebooks ever-tweaked algorithms, which are always under fire from users and the industry alike, continue to perpetuate a fairly narrow circle of friend-influencers for its members, she told the E-Commerce Times. Timeline post are graded for popularity based on user interactions instead of the value of the content itself, Martell noted. Therefore, everyones experience of their so-called friends is edited, in my mind, in a quirky way. For Real or for Show? Theres a cap to how many friends a person can handle, according to a recent study conducted by Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford University. For most people, that figure known as the Dunbar Number is 150. It isnt possible to maintain thousands of relationships, Grygiel agreed. However, making best friends isnt the point the point is for us to use Facebook more, she said. More connections means more posts, more notices, more shares, likes, data collection, and more power for Facebook and money for shareholders. Theres no doubt Facebook has proved useful for facilitating closer communications between family members, friends and acquaintances, said KarmaComs Martell. However, its casual promotion of friendship has distorted societys ideas about what it means to be popular and liked, she added. Whats more, as it bled into a quasi-business social media, individual business people and employer-employees have had to choose bosses, employees, and business colleagues and acquaintances as friends in order to not offend, said Martell. Also among weak ties are judgmental family members, frenemies and so on, which many users keep in their networks to avoid worrying about the possible consequences of excluding them. Thats exhausting, Martell observed. I submit that managing Facebook friends has probably caused as much stress as it has joy. That doesnt even address the proliferation of fake personas who friend Facebook users, she pointed out. Its unclear if Facebook includes them in calculating its falling degrees of separation. Woo hoo! I guess that statistic is a benchmark of success for them, Martell said, meaning when there is one degree of separation they have reached their goal? Scary. Intel this week released a new report showing some major improvements and continued challenges in its effort to achieve workforce diversity, and challenged rival companies to show their cards. The report comes a year after Intel CEO Brian Krzanich pledged to make improvements amid a sea of criticism about the industrys domination by young white males. He announced a plan to spend US$300 million to achieve certain goals in making Intels workforce more diverse, including reaching full representation in hiring by the year 2020. For Intel, that meant reaching 40 percent in diverse hiring, among other changes. Intel exceeded its hiring goal by achieving 43.1 percent in diverse hiring, achieving 100 percent gender pay parity across the country, and reaching parity in retention of diverse employees, this weeks report shows. The company also made improvements in creating a diverse level of corporate management. Unwavering Conviction First, and critically, we are absolutely resolute in our belief that diversity and inclusion are key to Intels evolution and driving forces for our continued relevancy and growth as a company, noted Danielle Brown, chief diversity officer at Intel. Although Intel made progress in some areas, the needle failed to move very far in others, according to the report. Intel increased hiring of underrepresented minorities by 31 percent to a total of 11.8 percent in 2015. The company ended the year with a workforce that was 24.8 percent female, an increase of 5.4 percent over 2014. It also increased hiring of women by 43 percent to a total of 35 percent during the year. Praise for Leadership Mandate Intel has created a top-down mandate to improve diversity at the company and challenged the rest of the technology industry not only to demonstrate some improvement, but also to increase the level of transparency about their efforts, noted Elizabeth Ames, vice president of strategic marketing and alliances at the Anita Borg Institute. However, much work remains to be done to achieve equal representation. Intel certainly is walking the walk in terms of increasing diversity at the company, observed Susan Schreiner, an analyst at C4 Trends. It looks like its investment of $300 million towards that end is showing promise, based on the narrowing of it workforce male-to-female representation, improved supply chain diversity, and efforts to deter harassment of female gamers, she told the E-Commerce Times. Not So Fast However, awarding Intel any pats on the back for its efforts may be premature. The diversity problem is deeply rooted in Silicon Valley culture, suggested independent technology analyst Craig Settles. Many of todays technology leaders came from the same inner circle of elite schools and networks, he told the E-Commerce Times. Many Silicon Valley companies in the 70s and 80s were birthed by entrepreneurs from a limited number of colleges, Settles pointed out. They recruited their good friends to be part of their respective inner circles, and those deemed worthy of venture capital funds had VCs fill out their inner circle ranks. The old boy force was strong. As the industry evolved, it reflected the fact that the leadership in many of those companies was cut from the same cloth, he said, and without changing the culture of C-level executives and high-level managers, the industry will continue to face the same issues going forward. Blog Archive June 2021 (1) May 2021 (77) April 2021 (77) March 2021 (82) February 2021 (68) January 2021 (64) December 2020 (67) November 2020 (66) October 2020 (66) September 2020 (67) August 2020 (74) July 2020 (83) June 2020 (92) May 2020 (86) April 2020 (104) March 2020 (105) February 2020 (74) January 2020 (75) December 2019 (75) November 2019 (70) October 2019 (89) September 2019 (69) August 2019 (81) July 2019 (77) June 2019 (73) May 2019 (110) April 2019 (110) March 2019 (102) February 2019 (85) January 2019 (123) December 2018 (116) November 2018 (112) October 2018 (121) September 2018 (107) August 2018 (150) July 2018 (163) June 2018 (190) May 2018 (145) April 2018 (112) March 2018 (124) February 2018 (113) January 2018 (164) December 2017 (150) November 2017 (144) October 2017 (169) September 2017 (171) August 2017 (135) July 2017 (131) June 2017 (147) May 2017 (160) April 2017 (138) March 2017 (156) February 2017 (143) January 2017 (203) December 2016 (208) November 2016 (185) October 2016 (173) September 2016 (194) August 2016 (232) July 2016 (225) June 2016 (238) May 2016 (231) April 2016 (215) March 2016 (246) February 2016 (226) January 2016 (252) December 2015 (230) November 2015 (250) October 2015 (234) September 2015 (222) August 2015 (253) July 2015 (275) June 2015 (279) May 2015 (223) April 2015 (226) March 2015 (243) February 2015 (258) January 2015 (281) December 2014 (292) November 2014 (296) October 2014 (413) September 2014 (472) August 2014 (506) July 2014 (483) June 2014 (488) May 2014 (512) April 2014 (497) March 2014 (531) February 2014 (482) January 2014 (535) December 2013 (482) November 2013 (441) October 2013 (416) September 2013 (491) August 2013 (521) July 2013 (491) June 2013 (470) May 2013 (457) April 2013 (426) March 2013 (420) February 2013 (414) January 2013 (489) December 2012 (433) November 2012 (504) October 2012 (469) September 2012 (430) August 2012 (427) July 2012 (360) June 2012 (336) May 2012 (362) April 2012 (322) March 2012 (263) February 2012 (224) January 2012 (291) December 2011 (295) November 2011 (325) October 2011 (330) September 2011 (319) August 2011 (333) July 2011 (318) June 2011 (387) May 2011 (373) April 2011 (389) March 2011 (375) February 2011 (335) January 2011 (400) December 2010 (445) November 2010 (395) October 2010 (312) September 2010 (262) August 2010 (277) July 2010 (323) June 2010 (386) May 2010 (360) April 2010 (333) March 2010 (351) February 2010 (336) January 2010 (384) December 2009 (353) November 2009 (300) October 2009 (308) September 2009 (350) August 2009 (298) July 2009 (255) June 2009 (203) May 2009 (193) April 2009 (186) March 2009 (197) February 2009 (173) January 2009 (148) December 2008 (181) November 2008 (197) October 2008 (236) September 2008 (304) August 2008 (314) July 2008 (273) June 2008 (27) May 2008 (1) April 2008 (6) October 2007 (1) May 2007 (1) April 2007 (6) March 2007 (2) February 2007 (1) October 2006 (1) September 2006 (1) August 2006 (4) July 2006 (4) June 2006 (1) July 2005 (1) May 2005 (2) March 2005 (1) June 2004 (2) May 2004 (1) April 2004 (4) March 2004 (2) February 2004 (2) July 2003 (2) June 2003 (5) Considered to be the Ten Best UFO Photos Ever Taken I am sure that we could add more pictures to this list but these are considered ten o... To build the largest and most complete Amateur Radio community site on the Internet - a "portal" that hams think of as the first place to go for information, to exchange ideas, and be part of whats happening with ham radio on the Internet. eHam.net provides recognition and enjoyment to the people who use, contribute, and build the site. This project involves a management team of volunteers who each take a topic of interest and manage it with passion. The site will stand above all other ham radio sites by employing the latest technology and professional design/programming standards, developed by a team of community programmers who contribute their skills to the effort. The site will be something of which everyone involved can be proud to say they were a part. We welcome your comments. The eHam.net Team, Revision 07/2020. Rio de Janeiro, Feb 18 (EFE).- Brazil's public and private physicians and health centers will be obligated starting on Thursday to report all suspected cases of the Zika virus to health authorities, according to a new regulation published in the Official Gazette. Despite being one of the countries most heavily affected by Zika, which is transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito along with dengue fever and Chikungunya, Brazil has so far not required doctors or hospitals to report new Zika cases and thus no reliable statistics have been compiled for the outbreak of disease. The South American giant has only reported weekly statistics on microcephaly cases, the birth defect which has affected a rising number of newborns and has been linked to Zika in pregnant women. According to a bulletin released on Wednesday, in Brazil since last October 5,280 possible cases of babies with microcephaly or changes to their nervous systems have been registered, of which 508 cases have been confirmed. Health authorities have ruled out microcephaly in 837 of the reported cases and are investigating the situation in 3,935 other patients suspected of suffering from the defect. Now, however, suspected cases of Zika in pregnant women, as well as possible deaths from the disease, must be reported to authorities within 24 hours. Brazilian Health Minister Marcelo Castro said that the regulation also requires that microcephaly cases, which already must be reported, must be tallied separately from other congenital birth defects. The minister said that he met with U.S. officials to discuss cooperating on - within one year - developing a vaccine against the virus and therapy to treat people who contract Zika. The Brazilian government declared a health emergency last year over the Zika outbreak and its possible association with microcephaly. 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 Big bridge grant for Austin Free Access Austin Borough has qualified for a state grant to cover construction of a new bridge near the towns northern gateway. A $518,400 allotment from the Multimodal Transportation Fund will allow... Deeds filed in Cameron County Free Access Following are real estate transactions filed with the Cameron County Recorder of Deeds: Blair A. Lundberg to Alcohol & Drug Abuse Services, Emporium, $185,000; David Jeffrey Smith to Elk Mountain... These are the best of times for deer hunters Free Access There has rarely been a better time to be a deer hunter in Pennsylvanias northcentral region. Not only has the whitetail population been steadily rebounding, but the deer are healthier... DuBois family leaves millions for volunteer orgs Free Access Christmas came early to seven community organizations whose work was important to the late multimillionaire Arthur F. DuBois (shown in the inset) of Coudersport. Some $3.1 million in proceeds from... Remand for Liverpool woman facing heroin charges A woman from Liverpool has been remanded at the Isle of Man Prison after allegedly importing heroin to the Isle of Man. 40-year-old Sharon Kirk is accused of production of the Class A substance and possession of it with intent to supply. The Norris Green woman was arrested at the Sea Terminal on Wednesday night and appeared at Douglas Courthouse this morning. The court was told the alleged substances now need to be forensically tested. There was no application for bail and she was remanded until her next court appearance on February 23rd. Re: EU gives Greece deadline on borders Quote: parnell Oh come on now !! You can't be that daft... there is tons of information on the web about where best to depart the Turkish coast from on the web... there's actually very few spots involved .... it would take very few boats to make the departure from Turkey prohibitively expensive and shut down the trade.... and that's really all that's required. NATO certainly has the tools to intercept messages from smugglers and put them out of business so any complaints about ""they'll just move to another departure spot" are daft. Ultimately the only way to stop the immigrant crisis is by having (our) soldiers boots on the ground and creating a new state in North Africa, that MAY stop those fleeing from war etc. For those wanting a better life you will need to find another solution, perhaps giving the billions to the origin states to hand out. Our politicians simply can't comprehend the lure of golden Europe, a whole incredibly rich continent of milk and honey and free money and well paid work and free housing, all there given freely and all a person needs to do is to get there. Europe should start thinking about paying Danegeld again. Not really, they will simply go someplace else, perhaps even more dangerous. It has happened before, the crossing to Lampedusa and Malta has been effectively shut down, now they go over the eastern route.Ultimately the only way to stop the immigrant crisis is by having (our) soldiers boots on the ground and creating a new state in North Africa, that MAY stop those fleeing from war etc. For those wanting a better life you will need to find another solution, perhaps giving the billions to the origin states to hand out.Our politicians simply can't comprehend the lure of golden Europe, a whole incredibly rich continent of milk and honey and free money and well paid work and free housing, all there given freely and all a person needs to do is to get there.Europe should start thinking about paying Danegeld again. __________________ Back in Bavaria, gods own belly button. If you shift 20 minutes outside of Boston, away from brand-new condos and shiny towers, you might find that a slower pace of life awaits you. For instance, in Waltham, there is an abundance of single-family homes to be found, as well as oversized homes disguised as condos. Where else can prospective buyer find about 2,000 square feet of space in a condo for under $700K? This might be a rare sighting, so make sure you head out there before it becomes a thing of past. Things are moving at a rapid pace, and Waltham is not an exception. 109 Dobbins Street Open House: Sunday, 12-1:30 p.m. Price: $749,000 Size: 3-BR, 2.5-BA Square Footage: 2,400 The Pitch: "Total high quality renovation featuring new granite kitchen with stainless appliances, masonry fireplace in the living room with bay window, large bonus first floor family room." __ 55 Worcester Lane Open House: Sunday, 12-1:30 p.m. Price: $729,000 Size: 3-BR, 1.5-BA Square Footage: 2,145 The Pitch: "Immaculate, fully updated colonial home featuring new high end heating system, all new electrical, new roof, new windows, rear patio, two car garage, yard and more." __ 31 Wellington Street #2 Open House: Sunday, 1-2:30 p.m. Price: $629,900 Size: 3-BR, 2.5-BA Square Footage: 2,300 The Pitch: "Detailed design and craftsmanship throughout this oversize single family alternative with space for expansion." __ 70 Circle Drive Open House: Saturday, 12-1:30 p.m., Sunday, 12-1:30 p.m. Price: $625,000 Size: 3-BR, 2.5-BA Square Footage: 2,400 The Pitch: "Newly built in 2000, meticulously maintained with hardwood floors throughout, 3 large bedrooms with Master Suite with bath and walk in closet." __ 218 South Street #6 Open House: Saturday, 12-1:30 p.m., Sunday, 12-1:30 p.m. Price: $529,900 Size: 2-BR, 2.5-BA Square Footage: 1,440 The Pitch: "Pristine newer construction townhome featuring cathedral master w/separate luxurious bath, brazilian cherry hardwood flooring throughout, natural gas heating heating, central air, new roof, two car garage and more." __ 170 Clocktower Drive #5408 Open House: Saturday, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Sunday, 1:30-3:30 p.m. Price: $519,000 Size: 2-BR, 2-BA Square Footage: 1,410 The Pitch: "This pet friendly elevator building is in a perfect location with access to supermarkets, shops, restaurants, highways and everything else Waltham has to offer." __ 266 School Street #1 Open House: Saturday, 12-1 p.m. Price: $479,900 Size: 3-BR, 1.5-BA Square Footage: 2,077 The Pitch: "Gorgeous open floor plan, stunning new gourmet granite island kitchen with tray Ceilings & every stainless steel appliance, new designer tile baths, rooftop deck, skylit third floor, finished basement family room." Five Suburbs That Are Importing Boston's Urban Living [Curbed Boston] Our Open Houe Weekend Warriors archive [Curbed Boston] Re: Apple vs The FBI Quote: dandi I am in what looks to be a minority against Apple on this one. I think it's perfectly reasonable for the FBI to be able to access an individual's entire private life if so decided by a judge according to the law. The guy killed 14 people ffsk. If FBI wants to search his house, examine his anal cavity by a big fat nurse called Randy, search all his documents and files and decrypt his mobile phone, that is all legal. And if you are preventing that, you are breaking the law. You have a problem with that, change the law. Apple is perfectly capable to unlock and decrypt the phone technically and _only that phone_. Yes, this is where lines need to be drawn - Apple shouldn't provide a blanket solution that would allow to unlock any phone without any supervision. This is where law and oversight needs to be put in place. But individual phones of convicted felons for whom the law has decided that it should have access to the information, that they have to comply with. Otherwise, even commercially speaking, would Apple prefer to end up being branded as a kind of "Silk Road" outfit? The problem is also, that there's not really any oversight, because most everything can easily be declared "a matter of national security". You do remember that you can still be sent to (a black-site) prison in the US without a lawyer, for an infinite time, just because they think you're a spy? Additionally, nobody is really going to "read" through your phone-data. It's fed into data-mining software that can and will come to a number of conclusions and ultimately come to a "scoring". Imagine going into a Starbucks every morning to fetch your coffee. Now, imagine if somebody like the Jihadi-Couple from San Bernardino also went into the same StarBucks every morning - at the same time as you do. (They'd find that through teleco-data anyway). Now, they have a link between you and the terrorist and they will go through everything they can get hold of you. But that's not the end of it. Imagine someone you know going to that Starbucks, instead of yourself and (s)he calls you afterwards, semi-regularly. They'll put your profile through the same data-mining alghorithm, because you're just one level away from the "target". AFAIK, they can (and will) do follow-ups up to three (or four) levels of separation. It can end up as nothing or just an inconvenience (more "random" checks at the Airport, including the above mentioned full body-cavity search). The fact that you can't imagine what your data on your phone could do to you (or somebody else, connected to you) does not mean somebody else can't. Drone-strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen are more or less only done on the grounds of this meta-data - because there are rarely any "eyes" on the ground. Don't put too much trust on people "doing the right thing". Not going to happen. It's bad enough that we have to have the CEO of the most profitable (legal) business in the world to stand up for our rights - even if it's only he fears declining sales... I think you will find that what you think "the law" says and what law-enforcement (and courts) interpret out of it to be two very different things, at times.The problem is also, that there's not really any oversight, because most everything can easily be declared "a matter of national security".You do remember that you can still be sent to (a black-site) prison in the US without a lawyer, for an infinite time, just because they think you're a spy?Additionally, nobody is really going to "read" through your phone-data.It's fed into data-mining software that can and will come to a number of conclusions and ultimately come to a "scoring".Imagine going into a Starbucks every morning to fetch your coffee.Now, imagine if somebody like the Jihadi-Couple from San Bernardino also went into the same StarBucks every morning - at the same time as you do.(They'd find that through teleco-data anyway).Now, they have a link between you and the terrorist and they will go through everything they can get hold of you.But that's not the end of it. Imagine someone you know going to that Starbucks, instead of yourself and (s)he calls you afterwards, semi-regularly.They'll put your profile through the same data-mining alghorithm, because you're just one level away from the "target".AFAIK, they can (and will) do follow-ups up to three (or four) levels of separation.It can end up as nothing or just an inconvenience (more "random" checks at the Airport, including the above mentioned full body-cavity search).The fact that you can't imagine what your data on your phone could do to you (or somebody else, connected to you) does not mean somebody else can't.Drone-strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen are more or less only done on the grounds of this meta-data - because there are rarely any "eyes" on the ground.Don't put too much trust on people "doing the right thing".Not going to happen.It's bad enough that we have to have the CEO of the most profitable (legal) business in the world to stand up for our rights - even if it's only he fears declining sales... Jeffrey Toobin, who wrote the 1994 New Yorker article about racial issues potentially being involved in the O.J. Simpson case, recently spoke out about its importance. Famed Lawyer Alan Dershowitz Has Issues With The Accuracy Of 'The People v. O.J. Simpson' The latest episode of FX's American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson centered on the defense team citing racism as a prevailing factor in Simpson's case. Things escalated to a national level when Bob Shapiro (played by John Travolta in the show) went to Toobin (played by Chris Conner) to spread the news that police officer Mark Fuhrman may have planted the famous glove at the crime scene for racially-motivated reasons. Toobin recently spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about his New Yorker piece and how much impact it truly had on the case. What Does Kris Jenner Think Of 'The People v. O.J. Simpson'? "Oh, absolutely," he said, when asked if the piece was a turning point in the case, "you have to remember that at that stage no one knew that race was going to be a factor at all. Obviously we all knew that this was the police department that had the Rodney King case, but we had no idea that the defense was going to use it, much less in such a specific way. And I think that's why the story got so much attention." Yet despite his article ultimately helping the defense, Toobin has his own thoughts on how the trial ended up playing out. "I tend to take a more tragic view of the outcome of the trial today. Yes, there were mistakes that the prosecution made, but I think the case was largely lost in jury selection," he said. "That the prosecution didn't understand how poisonous the relationship was between the LAPD and the African-American community; once Johnnie Cochran made this case a referendum on the LAPD, there wasn't much the prosecution could do. They made some mistakes as well - having O.J. try on the glove was obviously a mistake - but I don't think it changed the outcome." American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on FX. The Oscars are just around the corner and it's time to figure out who has the best chance of taking home some hardware. The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor has gone to some of the biggest legends in the industry, including Jack Nicholson, George Clooney, Robert De Niro and Morgan Freeman. And on Feb. 28, another name will be added to that list. The five men nominated for Best Supporting Actor have their own pros and cons as far as their chances of winning the coveted Oscar, including the frontrunner. But let's break down who has the best chance of winning, from least to most likely. 5. Christian Bale - The Big Short Bale was one of the standout members of The Big Short, which explains why he was the only actor from the film who was nominated here. Playing Michael Burry, a hedge fund manager with Asperger's, Bale's performance is showy and filled with mannerisms. However, Bale already won in this category in 2010 and he has yet to win any major precursors against his competition. Unless voters go all in on The Big Short, Bale will probably have to stay in the audience this year. 4. Tom Hardy - The Revenant Hardy was arguably the biggest surprise inclusion among the acting nominees this year. The only precursor nomination he received was at the Critics' Choice Awards, a group that routinely has zero overlap with Oscar voters. But Oscar voters clearly fell in love with The Revenant upon seeing it, giving it 12 nominations in total, the most this year. Hardy's performance as the villainous John Fitzgerald is the type that wins this category often, but his relative lack of screen time may hurt him, especially if this is just a coattail nomination riding the Leonardo DiCaprio wave. 3. Mark Ruffalo - Spotlight Ruffalo has the showiest role in Spotlight, playing passionate Boston Globe journalist Michael Rezendes. The actor has a big speech at the climax of the film that may impress some voters, and if they like the film enough he may be a surprise winner. He is clearly well respected in Hollywood, as this is his third Oscar nomination in six years. Voters may wish to award him for his wide-ranging performances over the years, but he has yet to win anything major for Spotlight, so it's not looking great. 2. Mark Rylance - Bridge of Spies Rylance was the presumptive frontrunner ever since Bridge of Spies came out in October. His understated, mannered performance as Soviet spy Rudolf Abel has won him a slew of critics awards, as well as the BAFTA, Britain's version of the Academy Awards. Rylance is a very respected stage actor and this is his first nomination at the Oscars. It seems likely that if the frontrunner weren't in this category, Rylance would be taking home the trophy. But alas... 1. Sylvester Stallone - Creed There's no beating Rocky. Despite having a full Hollywood career since the '70s, Stallone has yet to supplant his role as underdog boxer Rocky Balboa. In Creed, Stallone returns to a role he made famous in 1976, which was ironically the last time he was nominated for an Oscars. But it's in Creed that Stallone gets to flex his acting chops in a way audiences haven't seen before. His emotional arc throughout the film as an aging boxer training a young buck while going through his own personal struggles is a compelling one, and Stallone being able to pull out such a great performance after years of stinkers perhaps helps him even more. You should expect a standing ovation on Oscar night. Who will win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor? The 2016 Oscars air Sunday, Feb. 28 at 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC. Statement on the attack on JNU, Sedition charges on Kanhaiya Kumar and attack on Journalists. As journalists who have studied in and obtained their degrees from Jawaharlal Nehru University we want to stand in solidarity with the University, its students, faculty and its very ethos, which has come under unprecedented attack in the past few days. We oppose the arrest of the JNU Students Union President, Kanhaiya Kumar, on the absurd charges of sedition. Firstly, every university should protect dissenting views, however unpalatable they may be to mainstream opinion; secondly, the use of a draconian colonial era law without any evidence is an attack on the fundamental rights of the citizens of a free republic. We oppose the manner in which the police entered the campus, searched hostels for anti-national students and created an atmosphere of fear in the campus. Since then the statements of senior ministers in the union cabinet attacking JNU as a den of antinational elements, the atrocious linking of Hafiz Saeed of the Lashkar-e-Toiba offshoot Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the Jaesh-e-Mohammad with JNU students without any evidence, the statements of the Delhi Police Commissioner, Bhim Singh Bassi about anti-national elements in JNU, have all indicated that the government in power is using the incidents as a ruse to attack an institution of higher education which is respected all over the world for its academic output and has helped groom some of the most outstanding citizens of India and elsewhere. We condemn the attack on journalists, JNU students and faculty and political activists by lawyers and the Bharatiya Janata Party MLA of Delhi OP Sharma at the Patiala House Court premises. That they could do so despite the presence of scores of policemen shows the complicity of the state and the government in these attacks. We see the present attack on JNU as part of a pattern of attacks on dissent and freethinking within Indias institutes of higher education, most recently the University of Hyderabad and the Film Technology Institute of India, Pune. This is entirely unfortunate and will lead to a weakening of the higher education, especially social sciences and humanities in India. We call on the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, to step in and see to it that his cabinet ministers of human resource development and home affairs stop this attack on JNU and other institutes of higher education. He should also ensure that his government does not attack the fundamental rights of citizens to freedom of speech and expression. We demand the release of Kanhaiya Kumar and the withdrawal of sedition charges. We demand criminal proceedings against those who attacked journalists and others in Patiala House court premises and we demand protection of university campuses from motivated political attacks by the government. Signatories 1. Bharat Bhushan, Editor, Catchnews (1979) 2. Rammanohar Reddy, Editor, Economic and Political Weekly (1980) 3. TK Arun, Editor, Opinion Pages, Economic Times (1988) 4. Malini Parthasarathy, Former Editor, The Hindu, PhD, Centre for Political Studies, JNU (2008) 5. P Sainath, Peoples Archive of Rural India (1979) 6. Aniket Alam, Executive Editor, Economic and Political Weekly (1994) 7. Seema Chishti, Indian Express (1990) 8. Srinivasan Ramani, Associate Editor, The Hindu (2006) 9. Kaushik Dasgupta, Chief Copy Editor, Economic and Political Weekly (1997) 10. Sangeeta Ghosh, Assistant Editor, Economic and Political Weekly (2006) 11. Abdus Salam, Deputy Editor, The Hindu (2002) 12. Stanly Johny, International Affairs Editor, The Hindu (2012) 13. Urvashi Sarkar, Freelance Journalist (2013) 14. Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta, Special Correspondent, Frontline (2005) 15. Kuldeep Kumar, Journalist (1980) 16. Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed, Special Correspondent, Frontline (2005) 17. V Sridhar, Deputy Editor, Frontline (1987) 18. Kallol Bhattacherjee, Senior Assistant Editor, The Hindu (2004) 19. Sukumar Muralidharan, Journalist (1987) 20. V Krishna Ananth, Freelance Journalist, Professor (1991) 21. Radhika Santhanam, Assistant Editor, The Hindu (2011) 22. Mythili Sundar, Associate Editor, The Hindu (1989) 23. Saurabh Banerjee, Senior Editor, The Times of India (1995) 24. Garimella Subramanian, Deputy Editor, The Hindu (1987) 25. Sanjiv Shankaran, Senior Assistant Editor, Times of India (1993) 26. Jyotsna Singh, Journalist (2008) 27. John Cherian, Frontline (1979) 28. Sayantan Bera, Journalist (2006) 29. Varghese George, Associate Editor, The Hindu (2002) 30. Umang, Copy Editor, ansrsource, Bangalore (2011) 31. Sujit John, Times of India (1991) 32. Sunil Prabhu, NDTV (1995) 33. Rahul M, Independent Journalist (2010) 34. Prashant Jha, Associate Editor, Hindustan Times (2006) 35. Anurag Acharya, Centre for Investigative Journalism, Nepal (2010) 36. Ujjwal Prasai, recordNepal (2015) 37. Nirmika Singh, Deputy Editor, RollingStone India 38. Joel Rai, Senior Editor, Times of India (1990) 39. Josey Puliyenthuruthel, Recreed Media (1996) 40. Urmilesh, Independent Journalist (1981) 41. Sugita Katyal, Senior Associate Editor, Hindustan Times (1986) 42. Vikas Pathak, Deputy Editor, The Hindu (2004) 43. P Arul, Principal Correspondent, The Deccan Chronicle (1987) 44. Dennis S Jesudasan, Special Correspondent, The Hindu (2007) 45. KG Kumar, Journalist (1990) 46. Rajesh Mahapatra, Senior Journalist (1994) 47. Swati Mathur, Assistant Editor (Political), The Times of India (2004) 48. Subodh Ghildiyal, Senior Assistant Editor, The Times of India (1994) 49. Mahendra Kumar Singh, Assistant Editor, The Times of India (2005) 50. Raja Mohan, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express (1982) The ESRF and European XFEL have joined forces in a technologically demanding project to design the end station for an instrument dedicated to materials imaging and dynamics (MID) at the European XFEL in Hamburg, Germany. The project, which involves the supply by the ESRF of engineering assistance for the study and design of a unique instrument for materials imaging and dynamics, as well as knowledge transfer and training, started in 2012 and has reached the construction stage with the award, in January 2016, of a contract to the main supplier. The MID experimental station will be installed at the SASE2 undulator beamline of the European XFEL. The MID station will enable scientists to perform imaging and dynamics experiments using X-ray laser beams of unprecedented brightness, starting from 2017. Bright lights unite for X-ray excellence When Anders Madsen, scientist in charge of the Materials and Imaging Dynamics (MID) group, started work on the conceptual design of the end station, he immediately turned to the ESRF as an obvious choice for the technological know-how and engineering to meet the challenges set by the science goals. Having spent twelve years on the ESRFs ID10 beamline and working in close collaboration with Muriel Magnin-Mattenet, a senior engineer and expert in synchrotron radiation instrumentation, he knew the ESRFs experience and expertise would be a valuable asset for his project. The ESRF technical review committee. From left to right: M. Renier, D. Dalle, M. Magnin-Mattenet, Y. Dabin, F. Cianciosi, H. Pedroso-Marques. Absent from photo: L. Ducotte, T. Mairs, P. Marion. Under the initiative of Jean Susini, then head of the ESRFs Instrumentation Services and Development division, and Ed Mitchell, head of the Business Development Office, first contacts were made with European XFEL in 2012 to set up a collaboration contract with the ESRF. We first discussed the project during the Synchrotron Radiation Instrumentation conference, organised by the ESRF and Soleil in Lyon in 2012, says Anders Madsen. Muriel was my immediate choice as engineering contact at ESRF. I needed someone who had the expertise to kick-start the technical design of this complicated instrument together with my team.As well as developing the instrumentation for the experimental station, Anders also needed to put together the team of scientists, engineers and technicians at a time when European XFEL was still in the early stages of hiring people and construction. He had just asked Gabriele Ansaldi to join the team. A talented engineer with a solid experience from industry, Gabriele had no previous experience of synchrotron radiation instrumentation nor of working in a scientific environment. He needed a tutor who could give him a flying start into the unknown world of X-ray instrumentation and precision engineering. Muriel was again an obvious choice having spent 24 years in a scientific and technical environment, often translating seemingly far-fetched concepts into world-class precision instrumentation. Anders Madsen (right) and Gabriele Ansaldi (second from right) with the MID team inside the European XFEL experimental hall, at the location of the future MID station. Credit: European XFEL. For the ESRF, the instrument conceived by Anders Madsen presented a huge technological challenge. So why exactly was the instrument such a challenge to design? Stability and precision are the key terms. How challenging is it to move and position, to within a few dozen microns, an instrument that weighs several tons, and a 500 kg detector connected to the sample chamber via a 500 mm diameter flange which implies a vacuum force equivalent to several tons? Then move it again, and again, with the same precision? The technology and craftsmanship used at the ESRF, for example on beamlines ID32 and ID01, were essential to overcome this challenge. The floor of the MID experimental station is made of very high quality and highly polished Italian rock, especially machined by a Grenoble craftsman named Giovanni Pilloni. His work is so unique that he was called from Grenoble to Hamburg for the floor of the MID station. The detector for the MID instrument is developed by a consortium headed by the DESY photon science detector group and offers the genuine feature of taking pictures with 1 million pixels at a rate of 4.5 MHz, synchronised to the time structure of the European XFEL. The detector is supported by a granite block which ensures stability during movement, and is displaced thanks to air pads that slide smoothly over the stone floor. Result of the collaboration between ESRF and XFEL: 3D drawing of the differential pumping, the sample environment and the detector in a WAXS position inside the MID experimental hutch. Copyright ESRF-XFEL Another challenge to be surmounted is related to the three different configurations proposed by the MID end station: small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) and a large field-of-view configuration featuring a short distance (cm) between the sample and the detector. A manual re-configuration is required to change between experimental set-ups for SAXS and WAXS. This manoeuvre has to be carried out very rapidly as time spent in this operation is counted in number of precious hours of beam time not used. The conception of the equipment had to be optimised for rapidity and precision and can be likened to a Formula One pit-stop. As if that wasnt enough, inside both the SAXS and WAXS configurations, the detector, which is connected to an accordion telescopic bellow under vacuum, can be positioned at a distance between 3m and 8m from the sample chamber. The vacuum environment of the instrument proved challenging throughout the design, notably due to the definition of the differential pumping chambers which enable the transition between the high-level vacuum region of the optical instruments and the higher pressure in sample environment which corresponds to a pressure change from 10-8 mbar to 10-1 mbar. For Hugo Pedroso Marques, vacuum engineer at the ESRF and member of the technical review committee, the basis for an instrument of this type is actually quite simple if the passage for the vacuum is quite small and if the vacuum chamber is long in length. In this case, the conceptual report asked us to do the complete opposite to what makes differential pumping straight-forward, meaning the vacuum chamber has a wide opening of 40x4mm and is short at only 1m long! The project started out as highly ambitious and has remained so throughout the conceptual and technical design phases, for a major part thanks to the solid back-up provided by the ESRFs engineering teams. Both institutes gave their full to bring the project to fruition. Lively conference calls and regular email and phone exchanges over the technical details were a daily feature for the teams. As European XFEL is responsible for the mechanical design and the overall integration into the European XFEL infrastructure, the instrument engineer of MID, Gabriele Ansaldi, spent several weeks at ESRF working together with the team. The completion of the project was only possible thanks to the long-standing expertise and experience of the ESRF, the pooling of professional know-how as well as good communication with European XFEL, says Muriel Magnin-Mattenet, project leader. Nine people from the ESRF worked on the project throughout the design phase as part of the technical review committee, accompanied by an external drafting office, IRPI, from the Grenoble region. An excellent return on investment Younited Italia, Nicola Manzari e il nuovo Coo, Luca Faccini e Head of Growth e Domenico Petraroli e General Counsel Provisions of the Border Force Act that can imprison doctors for putting patients first must be removed, says expert In The BMJ today, a doctor is calling on the Australian government to stop constraining doctors in the care of asylum seekers and refugees, and to adopt a humane stance to people seeking asylum. David Berger, a doctor at Broome Hospital in Western Australia and a committee member of Doctors4Refugees, is making these calls following the high profile case at The Lady Cilento Hospital in Brisbane. Paediatricians are refusing to discharge a baby facing deportation to a detention camp after the girl, a daughter of asylum seekers, suffered serious burns at an immigration camp on Nauru island. The Lady Cilento Hospital says the girl will not be released "until a suitable home environment is identified". Dr Berger explains that despite seeking to ensure the safety of their patient and doing nothing more than following their own ethical code, these doctors risk facing up to two years imprisonment under the 2015 Border Force Act. Doctors have an ethical code since the time of the Hippocractic physicians nearly 2,500 years ago, he explains, yet this new law "compels them to follow the instructions of the Australian government, even if they believe this might be to the detriment of their patients." He says this case goes to the heart of the question of 'duty of the physician' versus 'law of the land', but argues that "compliance with the law can not inoculate the medical practitioner completely against the need to comply with their ethical code". He highlights the 2012 Derek Keilloh case in the UK that shows the "impossible ethical and legal position doctors now face in Australia...as they are caught between the profession's ethical code, which places patient welfare at the heart of their endeavours, and the law of the country which places unacceptable obstacles in the way of doing so." Dr Berger adds that the actions of the Brisbane doctors "are not simply a piece of political grandstanding, but the courageous stand of professionals seeking to do the right thing by their patient and to live up to the standards of an ethical code by which they are morally and legally bound and which places patient welfare at its pinnacle." "They are behaving according to the very highest standards of their profession," he adds, and calls on the government to repeal the relevant provisions of the Border Force Act and to adopt a "humane stance" towards people seeking asylum. ### New research demonstrates that particles at the quantum level can in fact be seen as behaving something like billiard balls rolling along a table, and not merely as the probabilistic smears that the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics suggests. But there's a catch - the tracks the particles follow do not always behave as one would expect from "realistic" trajectories, but often in a fashion that has been termed "surrealistic." In a new version of an old experiment, CIFAR Senior Fellow Aephraim Steinberg (University of Toronto) and colleagues tracked the trajectories of photons as the particles traced a path through one of two slits and onto a screen. But the researchers went further, and observed the "nonlocal" influence of another photon that the first photon had been entangled with. The results counter a long-standing criticism of an interpretation of quantum mechanics called the De Broglie-Bohm theory. Detractors of this interpretation had faulted it for failing to explain the behaviour of entangled photons realistically. For Steinberg, the results are important because they give us a way of visualizing quantum mechanics that's just as valid as the standard interpretation, and perhaps more intuitive. "I'm less interested in focusing on the philosophical question of what's 'really' out there. I think the fruitful question is more down to earth. Rather than thinking about different metaphysical interpretations, I would phrase it in terms of having different pictures. Different pictures can be useful. They can help shape better intuitions." At stake is what is "really" happening at the quantum level. The uncertainty principle tells us that we can never know both a particle's position and momentum with complete certainty. And when we do interact with a quantum system, for instance by measuring it, we disturb the system. So if we fire a photon at a screen and want to know where it will hit, we'll never know for sure exactly where it will hit or what path it will take to get there. The standard interpretation of quantum mechanics holds that this uncertainty means that there is no "real" trajectory between the light source and the screen. The best we can do is to calculate a "wave function" that shows the odds of the photon being in any one place at any time, but won't tell us where it is until we make a measurement. Yet another interpretation, called the De Broglie-Bohm theory, says that the photons do have real trajectories that are guided by a "pilot wave" that accompanies the particle. The wave is still probabilistic, but the particle takes a real trajectory from source to target. It doesn't simply "collapse" into a particular location once it's measured. In 2011 Steinberg and his colleagues showed that they could follow trajectories for photons by subjecting many identical particles to measurements so weak that the particles were barely disturbed, and then averaging out the information. This method showed trajectories that looked similar to classical ones - say, those of balls flying through the air. But critics had pointed out a problem with this viewpoint. Quantum mechanics also tells us that two particles can be entangled, so that a measurement of one particle affects the other. The critics complained that in some cases, a measurement of one particle would lead to an incorrect prediction of the trajectory of the entangled particle. They coined the term "surreal trajectories" to describe them. In the most recent experiment, Steinberg and colleagues showed that the surrealism was a consequence of non-locality - the fact that the particles were able to influence one another instantaneously at a distance. In fact, the "incorrect" predictions of trajectories by the entangled photon were actually a consequence of where in their course the entangled particles were measured. Considering both particles together, the measurements made sense and were consistent with real trajectories. Steinberg points out that both the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics and the De Broglie-Bohm interpretation are consistent with experimental evidence, and are mathematically equivalent. But it is helpful in some circumstances to visualize real trajectories, rather than wave function collapses, he says. ### The paper, "Experimental Nonlocal and Surreal Bohmian Trajectories," will be published Feb. 19 in Science Advances. About CIFAR CIFAR creates knowledge that is transforming our world. Established in 1982, the Institute brings together interdisciplinary groups of extraordinary researchers from around the globe to address questions and challenges of importance to the world. Our networks help support the growth of research leaders and are catalysts for change in business, government and society. CIFAR is generously supported by the governments of Canada, British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, Canadian and international partners, as well as individuals, foundations and corporations. WASHINGTON (Feb. 19, 2016) - The Zika virus pandemic in the Americas is the topic of several talks at the 17th International Congress on Infectious Diseases (ICID), March 2-5, 2016 in Hyderabad, India. Georgetown infectious disease expert Daniel Lucey, MD, MPH, will deliver a presentation titled "WHO Reforms and UN Action" during the "Ebola and Beyond: Preparing for the Next Pandemic" symposium. WHAT: Oral presentation: "WHO Reforms and UN Action" WHO: Daniel Lucey, MD, MPH, Senior Scholar at the O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University; adjunct professor of medicine at Georgetown's School of Medicine WHEN: Thursday, March 3, 2016, 15:45 - 17:45hrs WHERE: The 17th International Congress on Infectious Diseases Hyderabad International Convention Center, India Hall 2 Lucey is a physician trained in infectious diseases and public health. He has taught for more than a decade at Georgetown on global emerging infectious diseases. Earlier this month, Lucey visited Recife, Brazil to meet with clinicians and epidemiologists about the epidemics of microcephaly and Zika. In the fall of 2014, Lucey worked in West Africa (Sierra Leone and Liberia) during the Ebola crisis. Lucey completed his infectious disease training and MPH at Harvard, and worked in the US Public Health Service at the NIH. In addition to work involving Zika and Ebola, his past work on global viral diseases includes MERS, SARS, H5N1 and HIV/AIDS. ### INDIANAPOLIS -- Dr. Elliot J. Androphy, the Kampen-Norins Professor and chair of the Department of Dermatology at the Indiana University School of Medicine, has been awarded an IGNITE, or Innovation Grants to Nurture Initial Translational Efforts, grant by the National Institutes of Health. The grant will last three years, contingent upon achieving a set of predetermined milestones. Androphy has received $431,954 for the first year of the grant. The funding will allow him and his colleagues to test compounds to determine the best candidate to treat spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic disease that affects voluntary muscle movement. "The IGNITE funding covers tests to determine the compounds' toxicity, if they reach the blood-brain barrier, how quickly they are metabolized and other characteristics," he said. "My colleagues and I have done a lot of screening and validation, and a lot of the chemistry has been covered by other grants from the NIH. But we need to conduct these tests, which are very expensive." Androphy said spinal muscular atrophy is caused by low levels of a protein called SMN, or Survival of Motor Neuron. "Any treatments that increase SMN should mitigate the disease," he said. "Our goal is to increase SMN proteins in any number of ways. A significant part of the IGNITE grant will enable us to do this in mouse models." The Indiana University Research and Technology Corp. has filed patent applications on Androphy's compounds. "This intellectual property could lead to a therapy for spinal muscular atrophy, and in order to get a drug on the market, it needs to be patented and protected," Androphy said. "IURTC also is working with us to find a partner for some development work. Our hope is to take the best candidate to a clinical trial, which is an expensive step. Having a pharmaceutical company partner could move this forward as quickly as possible." Androphy said receiving the IGNITE grant from the NIH has impacted him and his colleagues at Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School and the University of Missouri Medical School. "This is the first round of funding for the national IGNITE program, and our grant was evaluated by six reviewers," he said. "The NIH review process is very rigorous, involving experts in drug therapies for neurological diseases. Knowing that we received the highest score of the session has strengthened our belief that we can impact people's lives by reducing the pain and suffering caused by spinal muscular atrophy." ### About Indiana University Research and Technology Corp. IURTC is a not-for-profit organization that helps IU faculty and researchers realize the commercial potential of their discoveries. Since 1997, IURTC's university clients have accounted for more than 2,000 inventions, nearly 1,900 U.S. patent applications and more than 75 startup companies. IURTC is part of the Innovate Indiana initiative, which engages strategic partners to leverage and advance IU's intellectual resources and expertise, enhance Indiana's economic growth, and contribute to the overall quality of life for Hoosiers. Indiana University is designated as an Innovation and Economic Prosperity University by the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities. This recognizes IU's commitment across all its campuses to being a leading institution in fostering regional economic development. When it comes to tallying emissions of greenhouse gases, there is no better substitute than directly measuring the atmosphere. But this important accounting can be obscured, and even confused, if measurements of the air-borne heat-trapping chemicals are inaccurate or can't be compared from one instrument or data set to the next. To help ensure reliably accurate measurements of the big three long-lived greenhouse gases, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued two new Standard Reference Materials (SRMs) that are puffs of naturally occurring air from far-flung parts of the globe. The new NIST-certified references--Southern Oceanic Air (SRM 1721) and Northern Continental Air (SRM 1720)--contain painstakingly measured concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. They respond to the growing need for greenhouse gas calibration standards that extends beyond organizations participating in the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Global Atmosphere Watch Program, including its North American network. This program is served by a dedicated set of calibration laboratories. A variety of other organizations outside these official monitoring networks also measure greenhouse gases and need tools for ensuring accuracy. They include state and local agencies that track emissions and atmospheric concentrations of the gases; automobile manufacturers, which are particularly interested in leaks and other unintended emissions of nitrous oxide from vehicles; and so-called megacities projects that inventory sources and levels of the gases in large metropolitan areas. To ensure measurement accuracy, these and other types of organizations can first use their instruments to measure concentrations of the three gases in a NIST natural-air SRM. If the results differ from the SRM's certified values, they can adjust--or calibrate--their instruments accordingly before measuring gas levels in the local atmosphere. The two natural air benchmarks hold the NIST record for lowest uncertainties assigned to components in the agency's more than 60 primary gas SRMs. The southern oceanic air hails from Baring Head, New Zealand, site of an air-monitoring station situated on a coastal cliff 79 meters above the Pacific Ocean. Samples were gathered in New Zealand at times in which prevailing winds originated from Antarctica. Samples of northern continental air were collected during late winter and early spring seasons in the Rocky Mountains at Niwot Ridge, Colo., a forested area more than 3,500 meters (almost 11,500 feet) above sea level. Standard Reference Material 1720 For nearly four decades, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been siphoning the site's pristine air for its monitoring program and, more recently, for supplying calibrated reference samples to organizations participating in the WMO's atmospheric monitoring network and NOAA's tracking system. NIST and NOAA independently measured concentrations of the three greenhouse gases in the volumes of northern continental air contained in aluminum gas cylinders. While the NIST and NOAA measurements were in close agreement, the SRMs' certified concentrations are taken from the actual NIST assigned values. The NOAA values are included for those users who need to use the WMO-accepted calibration. Among long-lived greenhouse gases, the three compounds account for about 90 percent of what is known as "radiative forcing"--a measure of the compounds' influence on the balance of incoming and outgoing energy in the Earth-atmosphere system. Carbon dioxide, the most abundant greenhouse gas, accounts for 65 percent of radiative forcing. Molecule for molecule, methane (at 17 percent) and nitrous oxide (6 percent) are much stronger absorbers of the Earth's reradiated energy, but they are less abundant in the atmosphere. Accurate measurements of known and suspected influences on climate change require a sophisticated, underpinning infrastructure. NIST research chemist George Rhoderick says certifying concentrations of the three greenhouse gases in both natural air SRMs first required developing a set of even more exacting primary standards for each gas. The NIST Gas Sensing Metrology Group, he explains, spent five years developing suites of these primary standard mixtures so that measured NIST-certified concentrations of each gas in the SRMs is linked to the global measurement system. For both natural-air SRMs, pressurized canisters containing the mixture have been calibrated individually. Average values are 390.1 parts per million for carbon dioxide and 0.32 parts per million for nitrous oxide. Average methane values differ by about 6 percent--1.7 parts per million for the southern ocean air mixture and 1.8 parts per million for cylinders of northern continental air. ### To learn more about the new SRMs, visit their pages at SRM 1720-Northern Continental Air and SRM-1721-Southern Oceanic Air. Researchers at RMIT University and the University of Adelaide have joined forces to create a stretchable nano-scale device to manipulate light Researchers at RMIT University and the University of Adelaide have joined forces to create a stretchable nano-scale device to manipulate light. The device manipulates light to such an extent that it can filter specific colours while still being transparent and could be used in the future to make smart contact lenses. Using the technology, high-tech lenses could one day filter harmful optical radiation without interfering with vision - or in a more advanced version, transmit data and gather live vital information or even show information like a head-up display. The light manipulation relies on creating tiny artificial crystals termed "dielectric resonators", which are a fraction of the wavelength of light - 100-200 nanometers, or over 500 times thinner than a human hair. The research combined the University of Adelaide researchers' expertise in interaction of light with artificial materials with the materials science and nanofabrication expertise at RMIT University. Dr Withawat Withayachumnankul, from the University of Adelaide's School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, said: "Manipulation of light using these artificial crystals uses precise engineering. "With advanced techniques to control the properties of surfaces, we can dynamically control their filter properties, which allow us to potentially create devices for high data-rate optical communication or smart contact lenses. "The current challenge is that dielectric resonators only work for specific colours, but with our flexible surface we can adjust the operation range simply by stretching it." Associate Professor Madhu Bhaskaran, Co-Leader of the Functional Materials and Microsystems Research Group at RMIT, said the devices were made on a rubber-like material used for contact lenses. "We embed precisely-controlled crystals of titanium oxide, a material that is usually found in sunscreen, in these soft and pliable materials," she said. "Both materials are proven to be bio-compatible, forming an ideal platform for wearable optical devices. "By engineering the shape of these common materials, we can create a device that changes properties when stretched. This modifies the way the light interacts with and travels through the device, which holds promise of making smart contact lenses and stretchable colour changing surfaces." Lead author and RMIT researcher Dr. Philipp Gutruf said the major scientific hurdle overcome by the team was combining high temperature processed titanium dioxide with the rubber-like material, and achieving nanoscale features. "With this technology, we now have the ability to develop light weight wearable optical components which also allow for the creation of futuristic devices such as smart contact lenses or flexible ultra thin smartphone cameras," Gutruf said. ### The work, which has been published in leading micro-/nano-science journal ACS Nano, was undertaken at RMIT's state-of-the-art Micro Nano Research Facility and supported by the Australian Research Council. LA JOLLA--Using cutting-edge imaging technology, Salk Institute and Harvard Medical School researchers have determined the structure of a protein complex that lets viruses similar to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) establish permanent infections within their hosts. Contrary to previous assumptions, the newly detailed viral protein complex structure indicates that this type of molecular architecture differs across retroviruses. This information helps reveal how retroviruses insert their genomic information into human cells and may have implications not only for treating diseases like HIV, but also for improving gene therapy methods to deliver new DNA to patients with genetic mutations. "The details of how retroviruses integrate differ far more than previously thought and lead to entirely distinct patterns of infection," says Dmitry Lyumkis, a Salk Fellow and co-senior author of the new paper, published in Nature on February 18, 2016. A retrovirus inserts its genetic information into the host's own genome, essentially turning the host's cells into virus-making factories. In the case of the well-known retrovirus HIV, those viral genes integrate into human immune cells, eventually killing them. A long-standing mystery--caused in part by the lack of knowledge about the protein complex structure--has been what dictates where viral DNA is inserted in the human genome. A protein complex called an intasome is responsible for irreversibly inserting viral DNA into human DNA, a vital step in allowing retroviruses to cause disease. Since the intasome of HIV itself is tricky to study, most of what's been known about intasomes is based on work from another retrovirus called prototype foamy virus, or PFV. In light of specimen-related challenges pertaining to HIV intasomes, Lyumkis and Engelman, along with their colleague Peter Cherepanov at the Francis Crick Institute, set out to determine the structure of the intasome from mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV), which in some ways is more closely related to HIV than PFV. "The MMTV intasome structure defines an unexpected novel paradigm for the structural basis of retroviral DNA integration," says co-senior author Alan Engelman, professor of medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. To determine MMTV's molecular structure, the team used an up-and-coming technique called cryo-electron microscopy (cryoEM), an approach that has several advantages over traditional imaging techniques. For example, researchers don't need to coax proteins into crystal forms to image them, a hit-or-miss process that is required for the more common technique of x-ray crystallography. In cryoEM, proteins are instead directly frozen in a liquid solution. Then, by measuring how beams of electrons are deflected off of the frozen samples, scientists can determine the structure of the proteins. Lyumkis used this cutting-edge technology to detail the structure of MMTV intasomes bound to strands of viral DNA (the way the structure would look as it invaded a host cell). The team found that while the PFV complex is composed of four protein components, called integrases, bound to two strands of viral DNA, the MMTV assembly has eight integrase molecules per two pieces of viral DNA. This key structural difference, Lyumkis says, means that the complexes interact differently with the host DNA when they are poised to insert viral DNA into the genome. PFV prefers spots in the host genome that are highly bent, while MMTV chooses straight stretches of DNA. The preference for HIV remains a mystery, but the new observations provide an unexpected molecular framework within which to interpret past and future data on HIV and other retroviruses. The teams of Lyumkis and Engelman are now working to understand the series of events that the MMTV intasome complex goes through during the steps of viral integration, from binding viral DNA to capturing host DNA and catalyzing the insertion of viral DNA into the host's genome. Lyumkis also plans to apply cryoEM techniques to study the HIV intasome molecular complex itself. "The technological infrastructure is in place so now I think we can tackle these tricky and poorly behaved specimens using cryoEM," adds Lyumkis. ### Other researchers on the study were Allison Ballandras-Colas and Tamaria G. Dewdney of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School; Monica Brown of the Salk Institute; Nicola J. Cook and Peter Cherepanov of the Francis Crick Institute; and Borries Demeler of the University of Texas Health Sciences Center. The work and the researchers involved were supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, the National Science Foundation and the San Antonio Cancer Institute. About the Salk Institute for Biological Studies: The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is one of the world's preeminent basic research institutions, where internationally renowned faculty probes fundamental life science questions in a unique, collaborative and creative environment. Focused both on discovery and on mentoring future generations of researchers, Salk scientists make groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of cancer, aging, Alzheimer's, diabetes and infectious diseases by studying neuroscience, genetics, cell and plant biology and related disciplines. Faculty achievements have been recognized with numerous honors, including Nobel Prizes and memberships in the National Academy of Sciences. Founded in 1960 by polio vaccine pioneer Jonas Salk, MD, the Institute is an independent nonprofit organization and architectural landmark. LA JOLLA, CA - February 19, 2016 - A new study led by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) shows that the act of creating pluripotent stem cells for clinical use is unlikely to pass on cancer-causing mutations to patients. The research, published February 19, 2016 in the journal Nature Communications, is an important step in assessing patient safety in the rapidly developing field of stem cell therapies. The new study focused on the safety of using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) in human patients. Because iPSCs can differentiate into any kind of cell in the body, they hold potential for repairing damage from injuries or diseases such as Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis. "We wanted to know whether reprogramming cells would make the cells prone to mutations," said Jeanne Loring, professor of developmental neurobiology at TSRI and co-leader of the new study with Nicholas J. Schork, professor and director of human biology at JCVI. "The answer is 'no.'" "The safety of patients comes first, and our study is one of the first to address the safety concerns about iPSC-based cell replacement strategies and hopefully will spark further interest," added Schork. To make an iPSC, scientists must reprogram an adult cell, such as a skin cell, to express a different set of genes, which can be accomplished using viruses as delivery vehicles or with molecules called messenger RNAs (mRNAs). The researchers looked at three popular methods of iPSC production (integrating retroviral vectors, non-integrating Sendai virus and synthetic mRNAs), assessing each for the potential to trigger cancer-causing mutations. While the researchers noted some minor alterations in the iPSCs, none of the methods led to significant mutations. The researchers repeated the experiments two more times and again found no significant risk. "The methods we're using to make pluripotent stem cells are safe," said Loring. The scientists do warn that even though iPSCs don't gain cancer-causing mutations during reprogramming, potentially harmful mutations can accumulate later on as iPSCs multiply in lab cultures. Loring said scientists must analyze their cells for these mutations before using them in therapies. "We need to move on to developing these cells for clinical applications," said Loring. "The quality control we're recommending is to use genomic methods to thoroughly characterize the cells before you put them into people." ### In addition to Loring and Schork, authors of the study, "Whole Genome Mutational Burden Analysis of Three Pluripotency Induction Methods," were first author Kunal Bhutani, formerly at TSRI, now at JCVI; Kristopher L. Nazor, Roy Williams and Ha Tran of TSRI; Heng Dai, formerly at BioNano Genomics, now at WuXi NextCODE Genomics; ?eljko Dzakula, Edward H. Cho, Andy W.C. Pang and Han Cao of BioNano Genomics; and Mahendra Rao, formerly at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), now at the New York Stem Cell Foundation. This study was supported a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (grant DGE-1144086), an Autism Speaks Fellowship, the NIH (grants U19 AG023122, R21 AG045789 and R33 MH087925), the Tanner Foundation, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (grants RT1-01108, RT3-07655, TR1-01250, TR3-05603, and CL1-00502), the NIH Center for Regenerative Medicine, the New York Stem Cell Foundation and BioNano Genomics, Inc. About The Scripps Research Institute The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) is one of the world's largest independent, not-for-profit organizations focusing on research in the biomedical sciences. TSRI is internationally recognized for its contributions to science and health, including its role in laying the foundation for new treatments for cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, hemophilia, and other diseases. An institution that evolved from the Scripps Metabolic Clinic founded by philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps in 1924, the institute now employs about 2,700 people on its campuses in La Jolla, CA, and Jupiter, FL, where its renowned scientists--including two Nobel laureates--work toward their next discoveries. The institute's graduate program, which awards PhD degrees in biology and chemistry, ranks among the top ten of its kind in the nation. For more information, see http://www.scripps.edu. Sending general practitioners (GPs) in England a letter giving feedback on their antibiotic prescribing habits could cut unnecessary prescriptions of antibiotics, according to the first nationwide randomised trial of its kind involving over 1500 GP practices, published in The Lancet. The results show that giving feedback to GPs with the highest antibiotic prescribing rates cut prescribing by an average of 3.3% over 6 months. The letter led to over 73000 fewer prescriptions and direct savings of over 92000 in prescription costs. The trial was a collaboration between England's Chief Medical Officer, Public Health England, the Department of Health, and the Behavioural Insights Team. Overuse of antibiotics, which is dominated by primary care prescribing, has contributed to the development of resistance to these drugs. The UK has a 5-year (2013 to 2018) aim of reducing antibiotic prescribing in primary care by 4% [1]. Effective solutions are urgently needed, and one area of growing interest is using behavioural science to help GPs to improve their prescribing. "We know that drug resistant infections are one of the biggest health threats we face. This innovative trial has shown effective and low cost ways to reduce unnecessary prescribing of antibiotics which is essential if we are to preserve these precious medicines and help to save modern medicine as we know it,"[2] says Professor Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer for England. "Giving tailored feedback to prescribers isn't complicated," adds lead author Michael Hallsworth, from the Behavioural Insights Team, London, UK. "We estimate that this simple intervention could reduce England's antibiotic prescribing by 0.85% overall, despite costing just 6p per prescription saved. This kind of feedback could also be provided for many other kinds of drugs, and by anyone who is interested in doing so, since all this information is publicly available online."[2] The researchers assessed two mail-based interventions targeting 1581 practices across England who had antibiotic prescribing rates in the top 20% for their area. In one half of the trial, they sent GPs a letter saying that, "80% of practices in their local area prescribe fewer antibiotics per head than yours", and gave three simple ways to make sure prescriptions were necessary. These letters were signed by the Chief Medical Officer. The second half of the trial tested the effect of an education campaign targeted at patients that promoted reduced use of antibiotics (posters and leaflets for GP practices)[3]. Over six months in Winter 2014-2015, GPs who were randomly selected to receive the feedback letter cut their rate of antibiotic items dispensed per 1000 population to 126.98, compared to 131.24 for those who did not receive the letter. This is a relative difference of 3.3%, equivalent to 73406 fewer antibiotic items dispensed (table 2). The letters were effective but inexpensive. The material costs of the letters were just 0.06 per prescription prevented, with estimated savings in direct prescribing costs to the public sector of 92356. In contrast, the study did not see any significant impact on the rate of antibiotic items dispensed for the patient-focused education campaign (135.00 vs 133.98 antibiotic items dispensed per 1000 population). According to Dr Tim Chadborn, Behavioural Insights Lead Researcher at Public Health England, London, UK, "This intervention demonstrates two key points, the importance of behaviour in protecting the public's health and the cost-effectiveness of the evidence-based behavioural insights approach. Tackling antimicrobial resistance is a priority for Public Health England and we are actively developing the potential for behavioural science to be applied more widely in the coordinated national response to this threat."[2] Writing in a linked Comment, Ian Gould from Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Aberdeen, UK, and Timothy Lawes from Royal Aberdeen Children's Hospital, Aberdeen, UK point out that there is a clear case for integrating behavioural approaches into antibiotic stewardship. However, it is also important to see the effect size in perspective. They write, "The investigators highlight that their feedback intervention could reduce primary-care prescribing in England by 085%, against a 5-year aim of reducing prescribing in primary care by 4%. Between 2000 and 2014, UK primary-care antibiotic use expanded by 46%, from 143 to 209 defined daily doses per 1000 inhabitant days. During the same period, antibiotic use fell in several European countries, and UK consumption is now twice that of the Netherlands. Inpatient consumption also continues to increase." ### NOTES TO EDITORS: This study was funded by Public Health England. [1] Department of Health and Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs. UK 5 year antimicrobial resistance (AMR) strategy 2013 to 2018. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-5-year-antimicrobial-resistance-strategy-2013-to-2018 [2] Quotes direct from authors and cannot be found in text of Article. [3] Letter and patient information available to download here: http://press.thelancet.com/antibioticprescribingAppx.pdf Long before the dinosaurs, hefty herbivores called pareiasaurs ruled the Earth. Now, for the first time, a detailed investigation of all Chinese specimens of these creatures - often described as the 'ugliest fossil reptiles' - has been published by a University of Bristol, UK palaeontologist. Pareiasaurs have been reported from South Africa, Europe (Russia, Scotland, Germany), Asia (China), and South America, but it is not known whether there were distinct groups on each of these continents. In a new study published today in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, Professor Mike Benton of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences shows there are close similarities between Chinese fossils and those found in Russia and South Africa, indicating that the huge herbivores were able to travel around the world despite their lumbering movement. Professor Benton said: "Up to now, six species of pareiasaurs had been described from China, mainly from Permian rocks along the banks of the Yellow River between Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces. I was able to study all of these specimens in museums in Beijing, and then visit the original localities. It seems clear there were three species and these lived over a span of one to two million years." Pareiasaurs were hefty animals, two to three metres long, with massive, barrel-shaped bodies, short, stocky arms and legs, and tiny head with small teeth. Their faces and bodies were covered with bony knobs. It is likely the pareiasaurs lived in damp, lowland areas, feeding on huge amounts of low-nutrition vegetation. No stomach contents or fossilized faeces from pareiasaurs are known to exist, but in Russia, pareiasaurs have been found with evidence they had made wallows in the soft mud probably to cool off or coat themselves in mud to ward off parasites. The new study confirms that the three Chinese pareiasaur species differed from each other in body size and in the shapes of their teeth. Professor Benton added: "My study of the evolution of pareiasaurs shows that the Chinese species are closely related to relatives from Russia and South Africa. Despite their size and probably slow-moving habits, they could walk all over the world. We see the same sequence of two or three forms worldwide, and there is no evidence that China, or any other region, was isolated at that time." Pareiasaurs were the first truly large herbivores on Earth, and yet their tenure was short. As in other parts of the world, the species in China were wiped out as part of the devastation of the end-Permian mass extinction 252 million years ago, when 90 per cent of species were killed by the acid rain and global warming caused by massive volcanic eruptions in Russia. Without forests, landscapes were denuded of soils which washed into the seas. Shock heating of the atmosphere and oceans as a result of the massive release of carbon dioxide and methane also killed much of life. The end-Permian mass extinction killed off the pareiasaurs after they had been on Earth for only 10 million years. ### Paper 'The Chinese pareiasaurs' by Michael J. Benton in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society Lincoln, Neb. -- Instead of a pan and a pick ax, prospectors of the future might seek gold with a hand-held biosensor that uses a component of DNA to detect traces of the element in water. The gold sensor is the latest in a series of metal-detecting biosensors under development by Rebecca Lai, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Other sensors at various stages of development detect mercury, silver or platinum. Similar technology could be used to find cadmium, lead, arsenic, or other metals and metalloids. A primary purpose for the sensors would be to detect water contaminants, Lai said. She cited the August 2015 blowout of a gold mine near Silverton, Colorado, which spilled chemicals into nearby rivers, as well as the ongoing problems with lead-tainted water supplies in Flint, Michigan. Fabricated on paper strips about the size of a litmus strip, Lai's sensors are designed to be inexpensive, portable and reusable. Instead of sending water samples away for time-consuming tests, people might someday use the biosensors to routinely monitor household water supplies for lead, mercury, arsenic or other dangerous contaminants. But Lai also is among scientists searching for new and better ways to find gold. Not only aesthetically appealing and financially valuable, the precious metal is in growing demand for pharmaceutical and scientific purposes, including anti-cancer agents and drugs fighting tuberculosis and rheumatoid arthritis. "Geochemical exploration for gold is becoming increasingly important to the mining industry," Lai said. "There is a need for developing sensitive, selective and cost-effective analytical methods capable of identifying and quantifying gold in complex biological and environmental samples." Scientists have employed several strategies to find gold, such as fluorescence-based sensors, nanomaterials and even a whole cell biosensor that uses transgenic E. coli. Lai was a co-author of a 2013 study that explored the use of E. coli as a gold biosensor. DNA, the carrier of genetic information in nearly all living organisms, might seem an unlikely method to detect gold and other metals. Lai's research, however, exploits long-observed interactions between metal ions and the four basic building blocks of DNA: adenine, cytosine, guanine and thymine. Different metal ions have affinities with the different DNA bases. The gold sensor, for example, is based on gold ions' interactions with adenine. A mercury sensor is based upon mercury ions' interaction with thymine. A silver sensor would be based upon silver ions' interaction with cytosine. NUtech Ventures, UNL's affiliate for technology commercialization, is pursuing patent protection and seeking licensing partners for Lai's metal ion sensors. She applied for a patent for the sensors in 2014. "Although these interactions have been well-studied, they have not been exploited for use in electrochemical metal ion sensing," Lai and doctoral student Yao Wu said in a recent Analytical Chemistry article describing the gold sensor. Lai and Wu say their article is the first report of how oligoadenines -- short adenine chains -- can be used in the design and fabrication of this class of electrochemical biosensors, which would be able to measure concentrations of a target metal in a water sample as well as its presence. The DNA-based sensor detects Au(III), a gold ion that originates from the dissolution of metallic gold. The mercury and silver sensors also detect dissolved mercury and silver ions. "The detected Au(III) has to come from metallic gold, so if gold is found in a water supply, a gold deposit is somewhere nearby," Lai explained. The DNA-based biosensors need more refinement before they can be made commercially available, she said. Lai's sensor works by measuring electric current passing from an electrode to a tracer molecule, methylene blue in this case. In the absence of Au(III), the observed current is high because the oligoadenine probes are highly flexible and the electron transfer between the electrode and the tracer molecule is efficient. But upon binding to Au(III) in the sample, the flexibility of the oligoadenine DNA probes is hindered, resulting in a large reduction in the current from the tracer molecule. The extent of the change in current is used to determine the concentration of AU(III) in the sample. To allow the sensor to be reused multiple times, the Au(III) is later removed from the sensor with an application of another ligand. Lai's research focus is on electrochemical ion sensors. Her research has been supported with grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. ### Researchers have discovered a new species of extinct worm lizard in Texas and dubbed it the "Lone Star" lizard. The species -- the first known example of a worm lizard in Texas -- offers evidence that Texas acted as a subtropical refuge during one of the great cooling periods of the past. A paper describing the new species was published on Feb. 18 in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. The species is officially named Solastella cookei. Solastella is a Latinized form of lone star. "Nothing has been called Solastella before, which is amazing to me because there are so many fossils from Texas. It's the one guy, and it's from the Lone Star State, so it just seemed to fit," said Michelle Stocker, a paleontologist who described the extinct reptile while earning her Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin's Jackson School of Geosciences. She is now a research scientist at Virginia Tech. The second part of the scientific name honors botanist William Cook, a professor at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, which owns the property where the fossils were collected. Worm lizard is the common name for a group of reptiles called amphisbaenians, whose long bodies and reduced or absent limbs give them an earthworm-like appearance. The group includes extinct species as well as ones still living today. Solastella belonged to a subgroup called Rhineuridae, a group with only one living member -- the Florida worm lizard. Stocker identified Solastella as a new species by analyzing fossilized skulls that she unearthed in the Devil's Graveyard Formation in West Texas. She found that Solastella lived during the Late Middle Eocene, a geologic period about 40 million years ago, and that its eye socket was fully enclosed, a feature lacking in all living amphisbaenians but present in extinct relatives. The discovery of an amphisbaenian in Texas helps bridge the gap between extinct species found in the western interior of the U.S. and the living worm lizard in Florida today. It also supports the theory that Texas served as a subtropical refuge for species that found it difficult to survive during the cooling climate of the Late Middle Eocene. "What's special about reptiles is that they are ectothermic, or cold-blooded, so they need to maintain their body temperature to the external environment," Stocker said. "You can actually get a better sense at what the climate was like from reptiles than from mammals. We were very excited that we not only found Solastella at the site, but a whole bunch of other reptiles." The presence of a variety of primate fossils in the same formation as Solastella also supports the idea that Texas was a refuge in a cooling climate, said Chris Kirk, a UT Austin anthropology professor who has conducted paleontological fieldwork in the Devil's Graveyard Formation since 2005. "Primates are generally tropically adapted mammals that prefer warm climates," Kirk said. "The diverse primate community from the Devil's Graveyard Formation is another indicator that the Big Bend region of Texas was warm, equable and forested during the Late Middle Eocene." Stocker said the discovery gives insight into how certain animal groups could respond to climate change in the future. "With climate change, animals either adapt, or they move, or they go extinct. And so we can look at what's happened in the past and see that certain conditions caused certain things to happen in certain groups," Stocker said. "The great thing about the fossil record is that the experiment has already been done for us. We just have to collect the evidence." ### The study was funded by The University of Texas at Austin, the UT Jackson School of Geosciences and the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. We use cookies and external services on our website. Some are necessary, others enhance your user experience or help us improve this website. You can change your privacy settings any time by clicking privacy policy. A colleague forwards to me a confused article dealing with antievolution state laws, aka academic freedom legislation. The article for a Web magazine published by Washington University in St. Louis, Religion & Politics,features the usual misinformation, including identifying us as Discovery Institute, a think tank which supports teaching intelligent design. For the umpteenth time, we do not support teaching ID in public schools, never have, and in fact warn against it. Beyond this, Im struck by author Adam R. Shapiros repetition of the catchword antievolution. He uses it and the noun form antievolutionism 17 times and is even the author of a book from the University of Chicago Press, Trying Biology: The Scopes Trial, Textbooks, and the Antievolution Movement in American Schools. Its a common formulation. Glancing at recent articles on the Internet, I see Slate speaks of anti-evolution bills, as does Religion News Service, Ars Technica, the Washington Post, and more. Then there is the cognate anti-science, or as the National Center for Science Education consistently styles it antiscience. (Which without the hyphen seems to invite mispronunciation an-TIS-ee-ence?) Antiscience bill in Mississippi, Antiscience bill in South Dakota, A second antiscience bill in Oklahoma, etc. Whats wrong with these terms? Of course anti-evolution is used to describe intelligent design outside of the context of academic freedom bills. Writing at The Daily Beast, Karl Giberson refers to Discovery Institute, the heart of the anti-evolutionary intelligent design movement. (That was in an article where he was pushing the Photoshop-based myth of tailed babies. Remember that one?) Anti-evolution and anti-science are terminology intended to win a debate without actually having one. Their use lies in tarring an idea while concealing from your audience or from yourself what that idea really says and how its advocates argue. Anti-evolution bills in fact protect teachers who teach evolution, including the evidence for it, in an objective manner, while not hiding from students the evidence that runs counter to Darwinian explanations of how evolution works. See Casey Luskin on, How Should We Teach Evolution? The question is not whether of course we must teach evolution! but how. Public school education aside, intelligent design is not anti-evolution. It is a theory of evolution, seeking to explain why biological diversity flowers and grows in the manner it does. Its just not Darwins theory of evolution. Michael Dentons new book from Discovery Institute Press, which we are currently serializing here at Evolution News, wonderfully articulates the structuralist alternative to Darwinian adaptationalism. Dr. Denton defends a theory of evolution, complete with common ancestry, that is also a theory of intelligent design. The question for ID scientists like Denton and Michael Behe (writing in books and technical articles) is not whether Darwinian natural selection explains anything. Clearly it does, but within strict limits. The question is where the limits lie, and what drives evolution beyond those limits. ID scientists arent alone, either, in questioning the extent of what the Darwinian mechanism can do. See the group of distinguished scientists and scholars gathered under the banner of The Third Way, led by University of Chicago biologist James Shapiro and Oxford University biologist Denis Noble. Anti-science? In this debate, condemning ideas as anti-whatever is nakedly propagandistic in its intent. You can see that by comparing the evolution controversy to controversies in other fields. In American politics, Democrats and Republicans debate which policies and leaders are best for the country. But its a disreputable tactic to label opponents anti-American, and completely absurd, and unheard of, to call them anti-politics. Some people are anti-government, but theyd tell you that themselves. There are vigorous debates in the study of history, medicine, physics, ethics, religion but you dont call your opponents in those fields anti-history, anti-medicine, anti-physics, or anti-ethics. In the context of religion, members of differing faiths in the Judeo-Christian family look at the same evidence (Scripture, history, philosophy, personal experience) but disagree on its meaning. A Catholic and a Protestant differ on some fundamental matters, but that doesnt make them, respectively, anti-Protestant or anti-Catholic, much less anti-religion. Sane people reserve a term like anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish only for those who seek to suppress, harm, or malign Jews or Judaism, not for people who disagree with Jewish theology. How ridiculous to imagine otherwise. In the context of evolution, if anyone is guilty of seeking to silence, harm, or falsely malign anyone, it is Darwins most aggressive orthodox enforcers, who routinely intimidate vulnerable scholars. Is suppressing scientific debate and punishing scientific dissenters anti-science? I leave that call to you. Image credit: TR / Dollar Photo Club. Euro (EUR) exchange rate has been on the defensive vs the USD and GBP of late. The Euro exchange rate maintained gains against the US Dollar and the Pound Sterling on Friday, despite survey results showing that consumer confidence in the Eurozone has fallen. Confidence in February, which was already negative, has dropped from -6.3 to -8.8, a significant fall when compared to a -0.3 point drop forecast. With so much riding on the outcome of the ongoing EU summit, in which British Prime Minister David Cameron is attempting to persuade member states to agree to reforms, market trade has been comparatively subdued of late. The Euro to dollar exchange rate has been on the defensive, sliding versus many of its currency rivals in response to expectations that the European Central Bank (ECB) will ease monetary policy in March. Given that the ECB recently stated that they are willing to act pre-emptively to avoid future economic difficulties, how impactful will ECB intervention be on EUR/GBP and EUR/USD exchange rates in the long-term? Before we continue with the news, here are the latest fx exchange rates for your reference; On Friday the Pound to British Pound exchange rate (GBP/GBP) converts at 1 The GBP to GBP exchange rate converts at 1 today. The live inter-bank GBP-INR spot rate is quoted as 92.019 today. The GBP to USD exchange rate converts at 1.108 today. Please note: the FX rates above, updated 21st Oct 2022, will have a commission applied by your typical high street bank. Currency brokers specialise in these type of foreign currency transactions and can save you up to 5% on international payments compared to the banks. The euro, pound, dollar and rupee exchange rate news and outlook The forthcoming EU referendum outcome will impact not only the UK and the British Pound, but Europe and the Euro as well. This is because many analysts fear that both the EU and the UK will lose out by severing ties. With the EU summit in progress, market trade has quietened. Fractional Euro appreciation can be linked to demand for financer assets amid concerns that no amount of intervention from the Peoples Bank of China (PBoC) will be enough to curtail the inevitable Chinese economic slowdown. The Euro is holding a comparatively weak position, however, after recent steep losses amid concern that the ECB will loosen policy in March. However, analysts at Commercial Bank dont foresee long-term impact from ECB easing, stating: While prospects of further monetary easing by the European Central Bank is also putting the Euro on the defensive, the impact of actual loosening is likely to be short-lived. Minutes of the European Central Bank's January meeting showed some policymakers advocated the need to act pre-emptively in the face of new threats to growth. Positive British Economic Data not Enough to Provoke Sharp Sterling (GBP) Exchange Rate Appreciation British economic data produced positive results on Friday. Of particular significance was massive growth in Januarys Retail Sales which advanced by 2.3% on the month and 5.2% on the year. However, the positive data results failed to enact a marked Sterling appreciation with the current EU summit weighing on investor confidence. It has emerged that there is little chance that PM Cameron will be successful in securing all of his proposed reforms without having to compromise significantly. With Cameron adamant that he will only accept a credible deal, some member states unwillingness to accept the UKs reforms could see the British PM come home without anything significant to bolster the hopes of those campaigning to stay in the EU. I will only do deal if we get what Britain needs, so Im going to get back in there, were going to do some more work and Ill do everything I can, stated Cameron early on Friday morning. USD-EUR Exchange Rate Edges Higher on Safe-Haven Demand Although the Peoples Bank of China (PBoC) announced that they hiked the reserve ratio in the hopes of curbing risky lending, this is not considered policy easing. Therefore, market sentiment dampened today after volatile global stocks weighed on risk-appetite. Also weighing on market sentiment is falling crude oil prices after yesterdays US stockpiles data showed crude inventories rose significantly. As a result of trader risk-aversion strategies the US Dollar exchange rates advanced versus many of its currency rivals thanks to its safe-haven status. Later today the US Dollar is likely to see significant volatility in response to consumer prices data. Rupee to Euro (INR/EUR) Range Bound as Lower Crude Oil Offsets Safe-Haven Demand As an emerging market asset, considered risk-correlated, the drop in risk appetite weighed on Indian Rupee exchange rate gains on Friday. However, the Indian asset avoided depreciation thanks to falling crude oil prices. Ongoing geopolitical tensions with Pakistan will likely limit the appeal of the Indian asset with the fraying relationship increasingly volatile following the decision by the US to sell Pakistan F-16 fighter jets. Later today the Indian Rupee may see changes in response to Foreign Reserves, Deposit Growth and Bank Loan Growth data reports. Some overlooked destinations around the world are set to become more popular in 2016, according to a new analysis of travel demand changes over the last two years.Queens in New York is set to overtake Brooklyn as the most popular destination for visitors staying in the city's outer boroughs with a 150% increase in demand since 2013 with people liking its eclectic food scene and boutique hotels.Dallas is also expected to see a rise in demand following a 40% increase since 2014, the research from Hotels.com also says. It suggests that the city is popular due to shopping and the arts and also a campaign to attract more diverse visitors.In third place on the rising demand table is Anaheim which is growing faster than any other major destination in California with 40% growth in 2015 compared to the previous year, then Milwaukee in fourth place due to a 70% rise in visitors in the last two years.Cities in Oregon are place fifth and Buffalo in sixth place with a 90% increase in visitor demand which the survey says it due to the development of its waterfront area and its growing reputation as a foodie destination.Mexico is placed seventh with major destinations such as Mexico City, Cancun and Riviera Maya seeing a surge in tourism in recent years. The report says this is expected to continue and also spill over to other cities this year. Since 2013 cities such as Ciudad Juarez has seen more than a fourfold increase in travel demand and Tijuana more than three-fold increase.Phuket in Thailand is next. The country's tourism council is expecting a record 30 million visitors this year but it's not just Bangkok that is attracting travellers. Phuket, the country's largest island, has experienced significant increase in travel demand with a rise of 70% over 2014.Less well known locations in Canada are projected to see more demand in 2016. While Ontario, which is home to top destinations such as the Niagara Falls and the city of Toronto, will still be popular, the report suggests lesser known destinations such as Toronto's neighbour Mississauga, the border city of Windsor and the scenic town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, will become more popular and see a doubling of demand.In tenth place is the Norwegian capital city of Oslo. Known as one of the world's cleanest cities, Oslo has experienced the largest increase in travel demand among all European destinations since 2013, up over 180%.Travellers are more likely to seek out new offerings, attractions and experiences and want to explore unique and underrated destinations to satisfy their inner wanderlust, according to Josh Belkin, vice president and general manager of Hotels.com in North America."For 2016 we're foreseeing an interesting mix of trending and often overlooked destinations with something for every type of traveller no matter their budget, climate preference, preferred language or lifestyle," he said. ZANESVILLE, Ohio When he graduated high school in 1943, George Richey figured hed be doing the same thing as his other classmates serving the country in World War II. But when a physical revealed he had a heart murmur, his plans changed. He ended up going to college, at nearby Muskingum College (now Muskingum University), where he met his wife, Helen, and where he learned about another opportunity to serve. That program was the Seagoing Cowboys a group of men and boys who came together after the war, to help ship horses, cattle and other livestock to war-torn nations so that those countries could rebuild its herds. The program was organized by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, and the Brethren Relief Center of the Church of the Brethren. Over the course of about three years, more than 7,000 men delivered shipments of more than 300,000 head of animals. Making a memory Although George admits that his real motivation was the opportunity to go to Europe, he said it was a rewarding experience, and one that hes cherished all his life. I thought this was a chance for a free trip, so in the summer of 1946, I signed up, he said. The adventure began when he arrived in Newport News, Virginia, a coastal city where he stayed until it was time to board the first ship, the Beloit Victory. Leading up to departure, he and the other men stayed at a hotel that was so badly infested with bed bugs, that they had to spray them. They departed in June 1946, on a nine-day trip en route to Germany with a load of about 700 head of horses, and a dozen crewmen. Related: Read the story of another local Seagoing Cowboy. The horses were loaded onto the ship one at a time, from box stalls. And during the course of feeding and caring for them, George and the other men had to be careful, because many were wild. They were wild things, and I mean wild, he said. You had to be very, very careful when you were feeding them or around them, that they (didnt) bite. George got bit once, and he said that was enough. I was fortunate that I had enough clothes on. They gave me a pretty good pinch, but they didnt draw blood or anything, he said. Arriving in Germany During the trip, they spent nine days at sea, and had to watch out for minefields that had been planted in the water, near the coast. When they arrived in Germany, George was surprised at the amount of damage. That country was totally devastated, there was nothing left standing, he said. There were very few people, and very, very little of anything in the way of a building left. He ventured inland as far as Hamburg, but decided he had seen enough devastation, and returned back to the ship. When his crew let the horses go, he said they took off in one big herd, down a street, and that was the last they saw of them. Going to Greece His second and final trip was in the fall of 1946. A group of men got on an empty ship in Savannah, Georgia, and set out for the Dominican Republic, where they helped load up about 700 donkeys en route to Greece. There was donkeys everywhere you couldnt keep them in any (one) place, he said. When they landed in Greece he found out why they were hauling donkeys. It turned out that the donkey and the two-wheel cart was the main form of transportation, he said. At 4 p.m. every day, the Greeks participated in a siesta, he said, in which everyone stopped and took a break. It didnt make any difference where you were with your cart and your donkey. You stopped and hung a nosebag on the donkey, or gave him something to eat, and you went in the cart and curled up and took a nap alongside the road or wherever it happened to be. George never got to ride in the donkey carts but he met a lot of people who were thrilled with the shipment. They gathered those donkeys up like they were going out of style, he said. George said Greece was much more business as usual, than Germany, and he got to do more sightseeing. The trip to Greece took 11 days, and like the trip to Germany, he was paid $150. George was living on his familys Muskingum County farm at the time of both trips and he and Helen still live there today, on about 160 acres. His remembers when he first came home, that his aunt would not allow him to come into the house, until he stripped his clothes off. She had learned of the bed bugs he encountered even though he insists they were long gone when he got home. I had to strip off out in the yard, (before) they would let me in the house, he said. Family life George married Helen in 1951, and she worked for 22 years at the college where they met. When he was actively farming, George and his family, including a daughter, Martha, raised Polled Herefords and Hampshire hogs. He also worked off the farm, for the Central Ohio Coal Co., and later, for 16 years as the blacksmith in Roscoe Village an historical canal town and education center. Today, they lease out their acres known as the Starved Rooster Ranch, a name they got from an old thresher machine company, known as Aultman-Taylor. George and Helen, both 90, are avid collectors, and have collected many tractors and steam engines over the years, and for many years they held a steam gathering each year on their farm. Helen said that while George participated in the cowboys for adventure he still saw the value and he recognized the good they did. Their church has made financial gifts to the modern-day version of the cowboys program, Heifer International, and shes proud of her husbands service. A recent survey of 202 British potato farmers, conducted by the Kleffmann Group, reports that 39% of the potato crop is grown on rented land and that 25% of their total arable land area (not just potato land note) is infested with Potato Cyst Nematodes (PCN) in Great Britain. This survey covered 20% of all the GB total potato area grown. Roger Pratchett of Independent Business Resource Limited, the UK agent for Kleffmann, says that PCN is one of the most serious pests in potatoes and is not easy to control Growers try to avoid growing potatoes on land that has a significant PCN problem, as these soil pests are difficult and expensive to control. The grower survey in GB indicated that 39% of land which grew potatoes nationally was on rented land. There was a lot of regional variation to this- for example Scottish potato farmers said that 57% of their potatoes were grown on rented land. Around 40% of all potatoes grown in Scotland are grown for seed and growers are not allowed to grow seed on PCN infested land. There is also a specific need to grow seed potatoes free from pests and diseases so this is an understandably high figure. Other regions were 44% land was rented in the North West for potatoes, which also grows some seed, 37% in the Eastern region, 34% in the West Midlands and 33% in Yorkshire and Humberside. Just 30% of land was rented out to grow potatoes in the South West and the lowest figure was just 25% in the East Midlands. The second question asked of potato growers was What percentage of your total arable land is infested with PCN? The overall figure was 25% for Great Britain but from a regional perspective the Eastern region and the Northwest both having the highest % at 36% each. The West Midlands claimed that 33% of their total arable area was infested, in the West Midlands 30%, in Yorkshire and Humberside 21% and Scotland just 12% with the South West just 3% infested. Another area of concern to potato growers is late blight and particularly so as the blight population has changed in recent years to a population dominated by the PINK 6 and the BLUE 13 strains both these strains have the ability to reproduce at lower temperatures, have a quicker life cycle and produce more spores. In effect they are more aggressive and more virulent. So we asked potato growers In the light of new and more difficult to control blight strains what changes are you making to your blight programme? 40% said that they had not made any changes to their programmes. In other words 60% said that they had done something different. But 15% said they were spraying at closer intervals and 14% were using new fungicides or had changed products. 10% said that it would be up to their agronomist to decide what changes are made. A further 7% said that they would use more products in the tank whilst 6% would be making more regular checks. 5% of growers had resistance management in mind. Just 2% said they would use resistant varieties and just 1% said they would spend more money. This was quite a spectrum of answers but 3 out of 5 growers said they would be making some changes in their blight practices in order to control these more aggressive strains. As the wintry weather continues to take hold, Tesco has today announced it will extend its support for British dairy farmers. Six months ago, Tesco announced it would provide additional financial provision for farmers who produce milk that goes into its own label cheddar cheese products. The winter supplement payment was initially intended to conclude at the end of February, but given the inclement weather and challenges faced by First Milk farmers during these uncertain times in the dairy market, Tesco says it is pleased to announce the payment will now be extended to support the farmers through to spring. Through the work of the Tesco Sustainable Dairy Group (TSDG) and its collaborative partnerships with dairy farmers, Tesco says it recognises how challenging the winter months can be - particularly for non-TSDG producers - and has made this investment to give them further additional financial assistance until 17th April 2016 to help them cover their production costs. Commercial Director for Fresh Foods and Commodities Matt Simister said: "Helping to create a sustainable dairy industry is integral to how we partner with British Agriculture. Tesco has a long history of supporting dairy farmers and is proud of the sourcing relationships we have with them. "We recognise that it is a particularly challenging and uncertain time in the global dairy market, which is why over the past six months, we have provided additional financial support to help our First Milk farmers. "With the effects of the winter still being felt across the country, we are delighted to announce we have extended the supplement." Mike Gallacher, First Milks CEO said: "First Milk would like to thank Tesco again for their support with the Winter Supplement and welcome the news that this will be extended for a further six week period. Consumers clearly want their retailers to pay sustainable prices for British dairy products - in both cheese and milk and Tesco, under Dave Lewis, have taken a leadership position. They deserve a great deal of credit for continuing to support British farmers who supply the milk that makes Tescos cheese." Dairy farmers from across the UK will also receive a further boost, with the move to one hundred per cent British milk for all Tesco own label standard yoghurts from the 1 March. This will see Tesco increase the amount of British milk in its standard range yoghurts from two-thirds and will help increase the demand for milk from farms across the whole country. A young farmer from East Kilbride has been unveiled as the winner of Scottish farmings debut Bright Sparks Award. Laura Strang of Mains Farm, East Kilbride impressed the judges with her idea to produce vlogs (video logs) of beef and sheep farm life to help promote the farms fresh meat business to consumers. The Bright Sparks Award, a joint initiative by Quality Meat Scotland (QMS), Campbell Dallas Chartered Accountants and the Scottish Association of Young Farmers Clubs (SAYFC), offered young people involved in agriculture in Scotland the chance to win up to 1000 to develop an innovative idea. Entries were reviewed by a judging panel based on: evidence of innovative idea/s to improve efficiency and/or profitability of the business; and the passion and enthusiasm shown by entrant. Where relevant, the judges also looked to ensure evidence of a high level of health and welfare for farmers and livestock. The other two finalists were James Frame of Birks Farm, Carluke and Colin Ferguson of Ravenstone Mains, Whithorn. Ms Strang, who is a member of East Kilbride YFC, said she will use the prize money to commission training on creating professional videos for herself and members of her club as well as purchasing camera equipment. Im really passionate about showcasing Scottish farming and I believe there is a gap in the market to reach consumers through vlogging, said Ms Strang. Online vlogs are becoming increasingly popular with young people. My main aim, along with other members of my YFC, is to show consumers what it is like to live on a farm, where their food comes from and why it is important to buy local produce. Douglas Bell, QMS Head of Industry Development and one of the competition judges, extended his congratulations to Ms Strang. It was a pleasure judging this competition as Ms Strang and the other finalists entries demonstrated how passionate and committed they are to Scottish farming. This certainly points to a bright future for our industry. Scott Wilson, SAYFCs National Chairman commented: We were delighted to be a partner in the Bright Sparks Award which was a great opportunity for our members to put forward innovative ideas with the support of QMS. Many congratulations to Laura I look forward to seeing the results of the training. Construction and professional services company Sweett Group plc was sentenced Friday in London and ordered to pay 2.25 million ($3.15 million) for bribing an official in the United Arab Emirates. The company pleaded guilty in December 2015 to a charge of failing to prevent an act of bribery intended to secure and retain a contract with Al Ain Ahlia Insurance Company (AAAI), contrary to Section 7(1)(b) of the Bribery Act 2010. The offenses occurred between December 2012 and December 2015. SFO director David Green said Friday: This conviction and punishment, the SFOs first under section 7 of the Bribery Act, sends a strong message that UK companies must take full responsibility for the actions of their employees and in their commercial activities act in accordance with the law. The SFO announced in July 2014 that it had opened an investigation. The investigation found that a Sweett Group subsidiary, Cyril Sweett International Limited, made corrupt payments to Khaled Al Badie. He was then the vice chairman of AAAI and chaired AAAIs real estate and investment committee. The payments were intended to secure a contract with AAAI for the building of the Rotana Hotel in Abu Dhabi, the SFO said. Abu Dhabi owns part of AAAI. The court Friday fined London-based Sweett Group 1.4 million ($2 million), and assessed about 851,000 ($1.2 million) in confiscation. The court also award the SFO costs of about 95,000 ($136,000). The SFO said its investigation into individuals continues. * * * In a report in June 2013, the Wall Street Journal said Sweetts experiences trying to win [a contract for construction of a $100 million hospital in Morocco] are documented in a memo drafted by . . . lawyers at [U.S. law firm] Crowell & Moring LLP. They were hired in September 2010 to advise the firm on whether making a payment to foundation officials violated the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The lawyers told Sweett in the memo that the payment likely violated the antibribery law and recommended that [Sweett] adopt internal policies that would restrict giving anything of value to foreign officials, the WSJ report said. Donations to charities can violate the FCPA if they benefit a specific foreign official and are intended to win or keep business. Sweett Group hasnt disclosed any investigation by U.S. authorities. The DOJ doesnt comment on FCPA investigations. _____ Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog. He can be contacted here. Emily Blunt is reportedly close to agreeing to play Mary Poppins in a new Disney film. Emily Blunt Blunt is set to become this generation's lovable nanny - who was brought to life in the 1964 movie based on the books by P.L. Travers - as she has been offered the prestigious role in the Rob Marshall directed reboot. The part was made famous when fellow British star Dame Julie Andrews, now 80, made her feature film debut in the original at the age of 29 years old and won her first Academy Award for her performance as a nanny who comes to London to work for a banker's unhappy family, while Dick Van Dyke, now 90, played her closest friend and jack-of-all-trades, Bert. Emily has met with the Walt Disney Company to discuss the project - has been pegged for the role after she became friends with the director and producers John DeLuca and Marc Plat on the 2014 magical drama 'Into The Woods'. However, the actress recently discovered she is expecting her second child with her husband, 'The Office' star John Krasinski, and the news will undoubtedly affect her final decision or when filming can commence. Marshall's movie will take place in London 20 years after the original movie was set. It will follow storylines from more of P.L. Travers' children's books that focus on Mary's magical adventures with the Banks family. Director Rob shared: "It is not a new 'Mary Poppins'. P.L. Travers wrote eight books all together. They worked from the first book, and we are working from the other books, not touching the iconic brilliance of 'Mary Poppins'. "This is an extension. I'm a huge fan of the original, and I'm a very good friend of Julie Andrews, and I hold it in such awe. There is all this new material - it was the 'Harry Potter' of its time - and they were never turned into anything further than that adventure." What's more, the director revealed he'd be keen to involve Julie Andrews in the project in some capacity. He said: "She is a very dear friend, and if she could be involved in some way, it would be very special. I know she is very happy that we're doing it and, after 50 years, feels that it is time." A judge in New York has today refused to free Kesha from her contract with Dr. Luke after she alleged the music producer both sexually and mentally abused her in the past, refusing to continue working with him from 2014 onwards where she started proceedings to sue him. Kesha Under contract with Dr. Luke since 2005, Kesha has now been handed what fans and friends are calling a 'career death sentence' from the New York judge, who sides with Luke after hearing how he had invested $60 million in her career, with him claiming he allowed her to make music without his involvement. The judge said: "That decimates your argument. My instinct is to do the commercially reasonable thing." Denying her motion for preliminary injunction whilst Kesha sat with her mom in tears in the courtroom, he added: "There has been no showing of irreparable harm. She's been given opportunity to record." Sony lawyers in the courthouse said that if the injunction was granted it would "turn the law on its face." A lawyer for Sony added: "Our interest is in her success. Our interest is in Dr. Luke's success. They are not in the least bit mutually exclusive." by Daniel Falconer for www.femalefirst.co.uk find me on and follow me on Rihanna has been forced to pull two UK stadium tour dates for her Anti tour, due to "logistical reasons beyond the tour's control" according to a statement. Rihanna The date's affected so far are Sunderland's Stadium of Light and Cardiff's Principality Stadium, both of which have been pulled from the tour entirely. A third date in Coventry at Ricoh Arena has also been affected, but has been rescheduled from June 14 to June 25. Ricoh Arena have apologised to fans and say that those unable to attend the new date can expect a full refund for their tickets. Further concerts at London's Wembley Stadium, Glasgow's Hampden Park and Manchester's Old Trafford haven't yet been affected. This comes after Rihanna was forced to cancel performances in America, rescheduling some of them to a later date. She also pulled out at the last minute of a Grammy Awards performance due to illness. The Anti tour now kicks off in Florida on March 12, after having its original debut - February 26 in California - moved. Due to perform at the BRIT Awards next week, the event organisers there say there's been no change and Rihanna's performance slot will still be going ahead. by Daniel Falconer for www.femalefirst.co.uk find me on and follow me on Nick Grimshaw has quit 'The X Factor'. Nick Grimshaw The 31-year-old presenter has decided to step down as a judge on the talent show after just one series on the panel alongside Simon Cowell, Rita Ora and Cheryl Fernandez-Versini but is still a "massive fan" of the programme. His spokesperson said: "After careful consideration, Nick's decided to rule himself out as a judge on this year's 'X Factor'. "He loved working on last year's series alongside Rita, Cheryl and Simon but it was very much a once-in-a-lifetime experience. He remains a massive fan of the show and is looking forward to watching it this year." Insiders claim Nick stepped down before show boss Simon had chance to axe him. The source told The Sun newspaper: "Nick made the decision to jump before he was pushed and that is completely understandable." Meanwhile, Caroline Flack is not expected to return as co-host of the show. The 36-year-old star faced criticism for her presenting partnership with Olly Murs, but is also in negotiations to star in a West End production of 'Chicago' so would be unable to do both. A source said: "Caroline's a really experienced broadcaster but the combination of two presenters just didn't work out this year. "It's unfortunate for her, but the decision gives her the opportunity to take on a major West End role, which is something she's wanted for a long time." Simon is keen to keep Cheryl on the panel, while Rita and Olly's fates are not yet known. However, the music mogul reportedly already has One Direction hunk Louis Tomlinson in line to replace Nick, though will also consider a return for Louis Walsh. A show source said: "Louis Tomlinson is very likely to replace Grimmy. He agreed in principle to the job while assisting Simon Cowell during the judges' houses round last year. "But Simon remains very fond of Louis Walsh and came very close to bringing him back during last year's live shows. "He felt a certain something was missing on the show without him." Around 33 exhibitors would showcase their products at the forthcoming London Fabric show to be held from 29 February to 1 March, 2016, according to its organiserthe British Furniture Manufacturers (BFM). The latest exhibition will feature products from countries like the UK, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Turkey. Compared to previous year, BFM has reported in its website a 41 percent increase in the number of pre-registered visitors this year. There will be cottons, linens, velvets, chenille, boucles, lining fabrics and tweeds, everything from mattress ticking to light and heavy duty jacquards will be on display. There will also be leathers, faux leathers and synthetic fabrics from which to choose, said the organiser. Around 33 exhibitors would showcase their products at the forthcoming London Fabric show to be held from 29 February to 1 March, 2016, according to it# The exhibition will give British upholstery, bed and mattress manufacturers and retailers a unique opportunity to witness some of the best fabrics available under one roof. We are delighted to see a large increase in the number of pre-registered visitors. This is a growing and developing show and gives UK furniture and soft furnishing manufacturers, and fabric buyers, a truly unique opportunity to see some of the best international and British fabric producers under one roof, said Jackie Bazeley, managing director of BFM. We have a greater diversity of fabrics on offer this year, whilst retaining a very high quality level. We are looking forward to a successful show for both exhibitors and visitors, he added. (NA) Fibre2fashion News Desk - India The Fijian Government will continue to focus on the modernisation of the agricultural sector with the implementation of the 2020 Fiji Agriculture Policy Agenda. Minister for Agriculture, Rural and Maritime Development and National Disaster Management, Hon. Inia Seruiratu met with the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Assistant Director General and Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific, Ms Kundhavi Kadiseran in Bangkok where the modernisation of the agricultural sector was discussed. The meeting took place on the margins of the 12th Session of the Governing Council for the Centre for Alleviation of Poverty through Sustainable Agriculture at UNESCAP that was chaired by Minister Seruiratu. The Fijian Government and FAO have always had an effective collaboration and our meeting reinforced its importance and significance. It provided me an opportunity to thank Ms Kadiseran, especially for the recent opening of the FAO Office in Suva, based at my Ministry, Minister Seruiratu said. FAO has assisted Fiji through a number of technical assistance, since I took over this portfolio, including the formulation of the Fiji 2020 Fiji Agriculture Policy Agenda, the platform of our current drive to s Fijis agriculture sector. Ms Kadiseran was accompanied by members of her Senior Management Team while Minister Seruiratu was accompanied by Fijis Acting High Commissioner to Malaysia. The two leaders discussed on a range of issues primarily focused on deepening the engagement between Fiji and FAO. They also touched on how FAO can continue to contribute to the modernisation of Fijis agricultural sector including issues such as trade & investment, technical assistance, participation in international fora, capacity building and enhancing the technical skills for staff of Fijis Ministry of Agriculture through hands-on training. Minister Seruiratu said the agricultural ministry needs to continue to engage FAO of its expertise in covering gaps. HON PM BAINIMARAMA REMARKS AT THE 2016 ANZ EXCELLENCE IN TOURISM AWARDS DINNER Bula vinaka and good evening to you all.It is truly one of my great joys to come to this annual event and bear witness to the excellent work our Fijian businesses and Fijians are doing in tourism.Tourism is a key engine of our economy, and it grows in importance each year. And when I say that, I am not just talking about money. World tourism is a very competitive industry, and tourism has raised standards throughout Fiji. It has made us a more sophisticated country because we have set out to attract discerning consumerstravellers who have limited time to spend on vacation, who work hard all year, and who look for the best in accommodations, cuisine, shopping, natural beauty and adventure. And we are giving them more than they expect.That raises our own expectations as well. It drives us to be better, more efficient, more modern and more self-critical. We must pursue this spirit of excellence as individuals, as a society, as an economy in our retail commerce, our service industry - and our government.Today, our country enjoys unprecedented sustained economic growth. I have remarked many times about the optimism and confidence that I see in the country. That optimism is matched by increased investor confidenceboth foreign and domestic. The Fijian people believe in their future. They believe they can build something, here in Fiji, for themselves and their children.I would never say that we owe all of that to the tourism industry, but I think it is very fair to say that we would be a very different country today if it wasnt for tourism. We all have moulded Fiji into a world class product, an aspirational destination. That has made all the difference.Ladies and Gentlemen, my Government is here and will continue to provide true stability based on a focussed and tangible vision. My Government will continue to provide consistency and innovation in policies and transparent rules to create a modern and just society in which there is prosperity.Ladies and gentlemen,I am proud to say that 2015 was a record year for tourism both in number of visitors and earnings. There were 754,835 visitor arrivals in 2015, a remarkable nine percent increase over 2014. And we continued to increase our penetration or hold our own in our traditional markets while seeing some encouraging growth in new markets.Our three largest marketsAustralia, New Zealand and the United Statesall grew from five to ten percent, while for the first time, China became our fourth-largest market. And there was no significant decrease in arrivals from any market, with slight increases from throughout Asia and the Pacific Islands. Income for the first three quarters was 12 percent higher than in 2014, at more than 1.15 billion dollars.But the figures only reflect the reality: that our tourism industrythe people in this room have developed more than a fine product. They have developed an experience that people around the world want to have, many of them over and over again. You have created experiences for luxury travellers, environmental travellers, and even young people.As you know, my governments philosophy is to encourage business by establishing rational and equitable economic policies, removing unnecessary barriers, creating a level playing field, investing in infrastructure, and making strategic investments that we believe will promote growth and yield big dividends.That is why we have chosen to increase the grant to Tourism Fiji from $23 million to $30 million this year. This is why we together with FNPF will continue to invest in the Fiji International. This is why we will host on 1 July the Super Fifteens match between the Crusaders and the Chiefs. This is why we are upgrading Nadi International Airport and have plans to upgrade and extend the runway at Nausori airport. This is why you have the 4 lane road project in Nadi. This is why we have a 18 million dollar partnership with Fiji Airways in the new Nadi to Singapore service to begin on 5 April - Singapore is one of the worlds great aviation hubs, and it can be a gateway to Fiji from South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and even Europe.Ladies and gentlemen, our tourism brand is very much supported by perceptions overseas of who we are. We are a welcoming and hospitable people and a country with a pristine environment and natural beauty. These qualities however need to be maintained and complimented by an adherence to international benchmarks, labour and environmental standards and creation of ancillary activities.Complimenting our brand Fiji is also our Constitution which amongst other things prohibits unfair discrimination on the basis of race, culture, ethnic or social origin, colour, place of origin, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, birth, primary language, economic or social or health status, disability, age, religion, conscience, marital status or pregnancy, or beliefs. This means that we treat all alike and with equal rights, which means we welcome all to Fiji without the fear of being discriminated.Fijis national brand is also one of international cooperation and collaboration. I am proud of our record in international peacekeeping and of the sacrifices our disciplined forces have made for peace in faraway places. I am also proud of our policy of embracing a wide variety of mutually beneficial relationships with as many nations as possible, even though we may not always share their view of the world or agree with their system of government. We will always guard Fijis interests and hold fast to our own principles of democracy and mutual respect. Such a foreign relations policy together with our legal provisions for equality means more and more citizens of the world get attracted to and know about Fiji.All of this uplifts, supports and reinforces the brand you are building for Fiji as a tourist destination, the brand we are honouring tonight with these awards.The Excellence in Tourism Awards have evolved over the years. They have grown as our tourism industry has broadened and become more sophisticated and organised, and they recognise excellence in all our tourism products across a range of sectors and market segments.This year there were 145 applications for the 13 categories, which is strong evidence of the high standards that people value throughout the industry. I fully expect that there will be more applications next year.And I must say I am delighted to see the introduction of three categories of individual awardsFiji Pride, Emerging Tourism Leader and Tourism Leader. This gives overdue recognition to the many individuals who, day in and day out, year in and year out, excel at delivering the friendly, Fijian service for which we are so famous and delivering on the promise we make when we invite people to come here: Fiji! Where Happiness finds you.As we recognise the accomplishments of so many companies, it is important to remember that tourism is very much a people industry. And there are hundreds and hundreds of people who make our reputation, who provide the wonderful experience, who treat visitors with the Fijian warmth and hospitality and with professionalism, who keep the resorts and the restaurants and the sporting activities running smoothly, who show every day that they enjoy the service profession that they have chosen.One of those is Mr. Navneet Singh of FRCA, who is the 2015 Fijian Host of the Year. I am singling this award out for mention because it shows just how important people are to our tourism industry, and because Fijian Hosts is a way that government workers at Nadi International Airport have come together to make the visitor experience a memorable one once a visitor arrives. Employees of the eight airport agenciesFRCA, Immigration, Health, Evergreen International, Biosecurity, AFL, ATS and Border Policegreet and assist visitors as they arrive and help them get oriented, solve problems or find their way. Fiji Hosts has trained approximately 450 front-liners, a truly remarkable achievement.Ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate you allfor the high standards you maintain, for your innovation and fine attention to market trends, for the good will you generate for Fiji, and for the fine industry you have built and continue to refine. I also want to thank all the sponsors for supporting these awards.Fiji will face many challenges as we go forward: the challenge of climate change, the challenge of raising living standards throughout Fiji, the challenge of keeping in sync with changing technology, the challenge of creating opportunities for entrepreneurs and good jobs for workers, and the challenge of competition from other tourist destinations.We will meet those challenges, and just as tourism has brought us to where we are today, we will - all with a focus on professionalism and a vision, help build the tomorrow the Fijian people deserve.Vinaka vakalevu. Thank you. Director: Vaibhav Misra Cast: Girish Kumar, Navaneet Kumar Dhillon Loveshhuda is a rom com revolving around a drunken one-night stand. Gaurav (Girish Kumar) meets Pooja (Navneet Kaur Dhillon) during his bachelor party in London. The duo roams around the city in various states of drunkenness and end up sleeping together. Four years later, a divorced Gaurav who had self-confessedly married a total control freak just to please his sisters chances upon Pooja in Mauritius, where shes taking her bachelorette break with her besties. Old sparks ignite once more and after much melodrama, the duo manages to get together. The film starts off as homage to The Hangover and the portions where Gaurav tries to piece together what happened that night do bring forth a guffaw or two. A girl and a boy having casual sex while piss drunk (by the by, the amount of liquor both leads imbibe during the course of the film is more than total bottles served atop Titanic) looks believable too. Its when the film tries to move from comedy to drama that it falters. The backstory as to why Gaurav wants to break free from the dominating women in his life isnt there at all. Then, while Gauravs wife was supposedly a bitch from hell, Poojas boyfriend was actually Mr Nice Guy. There is no reason she should break from him. That she does so sounds frivolous. Loveshhuda is shot lavishly and in a colourful palette. London, Mauritius, Simla and Delhi look vibrant. The pulsating music gels with the party portions. Girsh Kumar is a-okay in comic scenes but needs to work on emoting during dramatic scenes. His confrontation scene with his sister as well as his lover look disjointed as hell. Navnet Kaur Dhillon looks cute and carries off her role well, as do Tisca Chopra as the over caring elder sister and Sachin Khedekar as Poojas dad. All-in-all, watch Loveshhuda to recollect and smile back at your own drunken binges. Watch it with your gang and then proceed to have a few for the roadyou might just need them Not so long ago, the Khan parivaar has thrown a lavish bash for daughter Arpita Khan's baby shower and all the near and dear ones of the Khan parivaar have attended the party including some of the Bollywood celebs, Riteish Deshmukh, Genelia D'Souza, Anushka Sharma. And now, we have brought to you few unseen pictures from the babyshower, shared by Arpita and her hubby Aayush Sharma, which will surely warm the cockles of your heart. Click On 'View Photos' To See All The Unseen Pictures: The duo (Arpita & Aayush) is often seen sharing lovey-dovey pics on the social media and we all love it. Salman Khan's doting sister Arpita Khan and Aayush Sharma dated each other for over a year and the couple finally got married on November 18, 2014 at the luxurious Falaknuma Palace in Hyderabad. While interacting with a leading daily, Aayush has once revealed how he fell in love Arpita. He had said, "We met three years ago in Mumbai through common friends, and then lost touch for a bit. We rekindled our friendship about a year ago, and it grew into love! I was bowled over by her craziness." MUST SEE PICS: Yami Gautam-Pulkit Samrat SPOTTED Partying Wearing Matching Outfits Aayush had also revealed his equation with his in-laws and had said ,"Well, it's great to have another dad. In fact, I also have a great equation with my mother-in-law (Salma Khan) ... She is a friend to both of us, and I have a lot of love and respect for Helen aunty." Keep watching this space for updates! Rating: 3.5 /5 Sonam Kapoor's Neerja movie is about the 23-year-old airhostess who sacrificed her life to save 380 hostages when Pan Am Flight 73 got hijacked by terrorists. While this great girl died a hero, many were left unknown about what she had done for the country at such a young age. At such a point enters Ram Madhvani, Fox Star and Atul Kasbekar who decided to bring her inspiring story to life. Will Neerja movie do justice to Neerja Bhanot? Read to find out! Cast: Sonam Kapoor, Shabana Azmi, Shekhar Ravjiani Director: Ram Madhvani Neerja Plot: The plot of Neerja revolves around the life of Neerja Bhanot and her traumatic experience leading to her unfortunate death. She was all of 23 years old, 25 hours shy of her 24th birthday when the incident took place leading to her death. On the ill-fated night, when Pan Am 73 landed in Karachi, it got hijacked by four terrorists. Neerja who was present in the flight, quickly alerted the pilots who fled the cockpit while Neerja stayed behind to make sure the safety of the passengers. Thiis was her first flight as the hearperson and yet she manages to keep calm while being scared and tries her best to handle the situation. There were 379 hostages on the flight and Neerja fought for 17 hours in that hostile environment. She hides American people's passports so that the terrorists don't find the natives of America and kill them. She overhears them discussing about targeting American first, to sacrifice them and kill them to convince and scare the government into sending the pilots. So this smart move by Neerja saves a lot of lives and buys them time. Post 17 hours when the terrorists start firing, fearing a military attack, she swiftly opens the emergency doors which helped 359 people escape. Neerja would have still been alive, had she not jumped in to save three children. As soon as she sees the man firing at the kids, she jumps in, takes the bullet, leading to her untimely death. Her brave sacrifice at the age of 23 got honoured with the most prestigious award by the Government of India, post which she became the youngest recipient of the Ashok Chakra Award. While the story of this unsung hero itself is gripping and captivating. The makers have done it that much justice while giving it life on the big screen. Coming to the performances, this is definitely Sonam Kapoor's career best performance and thank god she did this movie for it will change the way people have perceived her till date. There are times when the typical Sonam Kapoor expressions pop but they are far less and can be totally missed. Music director Shekhar Ravjiani who essays the role of Jaydeep, Neerja's friend who was head over heels in love with her, does a fab job. For a debut performance, Shekhar will impress you because there was not a moment where you'll feel he was acting. A natural performance that lasted just few minutes, making us wish there was more of him in the film. Shabana Azmi as the mother is a class artist who gives such a realistic performance and it is she who brings tears in your eyes in the climax scene. Some way feel the motherly emotions were tad overdone or there was drama but if as a child we have seen how our mother behaves then you'll realize that there was no drama in the film and everything was shown as realistic as possible. Every actor who made an appearance in the film has done well, the only thing that probably could have been changed is the terrorists. These guys were not as scary as one would expect them to be, they all did perform well but a touch more would have helped. Direction by Ram Madhvani is perfection, this debut director has excelled more than any ace director in the Bollywood. He has kept the story crisp and to the point, no Bollywood drama, no Bollywood twists and turns, its all abotu Neerja Bhanot and it's all about the Pan Am 73 hijack. From the beginning of the movie, till the end, he keeps you hooked to you seats and at the end of the day, that is what one expects while watching a movie. So Ram has hit a sixer with Neerja! Another name worth mentioning is Saiwyn Quadras who has penned the story and the screenplay. It is with this guy's perfect screenplay was Ram able to do such a fab job. He is the same guy who penned the story and screenplay of Mary Kom, so you guys know what talent we are taking about. If you liked his work in Mary Kom then trust us and walk into the theatre to see Neerja, for he has done the same flawless job in this movie as well. There are very tiny flaws which are not even worth mentioning as Neerja movie as a whole is truly maginificent movie. Verdict: Neerja is emotional, inspiring and truly flawless movie. It will move you, it will change you and it is a must watch. Book your tickets now! Some Scenes From The Movie ALSO READ! Neerja Movie Review By Audience (Live): Viewers Bowled Over By This Outstanding Film Citis veteran head of Southeast Asia, Michael Zink, is retiring after a 28-year stint at the bank and returning to the United States. Zinks decision to retire and return to the US was announced in an email to the banks staff on Friday from Francisco Aristeguieta, chief executive officer for Asia, which was seen by FinanceAsia. Asean is Citi's largest business within the region and Singapore generates annual revenues of close to $2 billion. Citi in Asean had already exceeded the three key metrics that global CEO Michael Corbat set for the group - return on assets, return on tangible common equity and operating efficiency - the day he announced them. Citi is profitable in each of the countries in Asean where it has a presence. During Zinks long career at Citi he has been based with his family in 10 countries across four continents. "We left New York the same week [former US president] Ronald Reagan left office; it's time to go home," Zink told FinanceAsia in an interview. "I feel I am leaving a clean shop, the regulators are happy, the businesses are profitable and the talent pipeline is full." Michael has never shied away from challenging roles and has always championed productive and innovative change, Aristeguieta said in the note. He also praised Zink for recruiting and developing a generation of leaders at Citi. Other internal Citi staffers told FinanceAsia that Zink was well-liked by his team and colleagues and that he had helped the bank improve and deepen its business in Singapore and across Southeast Asia. Zink said he had no other job lined up but may look to contribute to youth development projects. Citi has about 10,000 staff in Singapore, which makes it the largest banking employer in the country. When Zink started his tenure in 2010, it had 8,000 staff. Citi hires on average about 200 graduates each year. Zink said the aspect of the job he was most proud of was that he could look around the world at the people he has helped recruit and develop, such as Natasha Ansell, whom he brought on board when Citi opened up shop in Russia in 1993; last year Zink made her country head of Vietnam. Broad career Zink, 57-years old, was named Citis head of Asean in 2012 as part of a management streamlining effort. The new role saw the chief country officers of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Brunei, Guam, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh all report into him. "I like being in the country, with the clients, with the regulators on the ground and that is what I find exciting. I would not enjoy being in headquarters," said Zink. The Asean role also supplemented Zink's existing job as chief country officer for Singapore, a role that he assumed in 2010 and meant he oversaw Citi's institutional clients, cards, consumer banking, and wealth management efforts in the country. "I've been in Singapore six years as country head and that is about the natural time to start thinking of a new challenge," said Zink. Before that, from 2006 to 2010, Zink was president and executive director of Guangdong Development Bank, a bank partly owned by Citi and rebranded China Guangfa Bank. He was one of the first US heads of a bank in China. "It was a very challenging period, and probably one of the hardest jobs I've ever had," said Zink. "Citi learned a lot about operating in China and we made a contribution to turning the bank around." The year before Citi invested as part of a consortium, Gunagfa lost about $300 million. After the first year of the consortium running the bank it made roughly $700 million. Guangfa operates in more than 40 cities in China. Previously, Zink was senior executive vice president and executive director of Citibank Korea, having already held various positions in Indonesia, Africa, Russia, and Australia. Zink will return to the US with his wife Betsy and family. Aristeguieta said he would remain for a period to help facilitate a transition as the US bank seeks a new regional head and country officer for Singapore. A spokesman for Citi said a successor would be announced in due course. "I want to go on my own terms, in my own time while I still have some music left in me to write another chapter," said Zink. Over 50 trade experts from China and abroad to gather in Shenzhento discuss plansfor the Chinese power and storage battery sector TIANJIN, China, Feb. 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The China Industrial Association of Power Sources will host the 12thChina International Battery Fair (CIBF2016) at the Shenzhen Convention & Exhibition Center from May 24 to 26, 2016. This year's event, the largest ever in its history with an exhibition area of 82,500 square meters, will bring together over 900 exhibitors from China and around the world to showcase their latest power and storage batteries as well as system solutions. Exhibits will showcase the latest in raw materials, components and equipment for battery production. Over 50 industry experts, including several from abroad with international expertise, willmake presentations in the concurrent International Conference on the Frontier Technology of Advanced Batteries to discuss plans for the Chinese power and storage battery sector as well as battery technologies in general. Interested parties are welcome to participate in and register early for the conference. Your participation will serve to support the hosting of both the fair and the conference as well as to help the Chinese power source sector get off to a good start and maintain healthy and sustainable growth during the period of China's 13th Five-year Plan from 2016 to 2020. Photo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20160218/0861601292-a Photo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20160218/0861601292-b Photo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20160218/0861601292-c Theconference will focus on the scientific and application developments in the field of lithium ion batteries including lithium ion power batteries and lithium ion energy storage batteries, growth of the industry and expansion of the market, as well as innovations in the next generation of technologies. Topics of major technical exchange reports will include: Electric vehicles and battery technologies: the industry and new applications under development Scientific developments among the next generation of innovative lithium ion battery materials Innovative energy storage technologies: the industry and new applications under development Scientific developments among new battery systems Safety design, manufacturing and evaluation of electric vehicle batteries and systems For more information about the conference, please contact: Ms. Cheng Liwen, CIBF2016 Office Tel: +86-22-2395-9269, +86-22-2395-9049 E-mail: chengliwen@ciaps.org.cn QQ: 787578195 Website: www.cibf.org.cn SUZHOU, China, Feb. 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- China-based GCL System Integration Technology Co., Ltd. has become the world's 7th largest PV module manufacturer, according to leading Chinese photovoltaic industry information website Solarbe's recently released list of the world's top 10 photovoltaic module manufacturers for 2015. GCL's module sales volume is expected to reach up to between 2.5 GW to 2.7 GW in the first year following its asset restructuring, five times its output of 500MW in 2014. As of the end of 2015, GCL had the 6th highest PV module production capacity in China, with an internal capacity for module production reaching 3.7 GW, including 3 GW of high-efficiency modules. Its Zhangjiagang plant is China's largest and most automated production plant for high-efficiency PV modules. GCL expects that its in-house capacity for module production will continue to grow and exceed 6 GW in 2016. GCL, which supplies highly efficient PV modules for key clients such as China Minsheng Investment, PowerChina, Kong Sun Holdings Limited and ZTE Corporation as well as India-based Adani Group, made a strong entry into the market and is increasingly competitive in product differentiation. At the same time, GCL has released advanced products, including the 96-cell high conversion efficiency module as well as monocrystalline and polycrystalline batteries that utilize PERC solar cell technology, and developed several service offerings including system integration design, financial insurance, product operation and maintenance among others, all of which served to considerably boost the sales of the modules. GCL board chairman Shu Hua said the firm plans to aggressively expand its share in markets outside of China in 2016. GCL has already created a sales network that covers 17 countries and seen breakthrough progress in the opening of production plants around the world. The facility in India has just gone into full production and is expected to contribute to overall production capacity this year. China's National Energy Administration (NEA) has embarked on a series of initiatives in 2015, including implementation of the "Top Runner Programme" as well as the roll out of the plan to construct several solar PV demonstration bases, among other policy initiatives. These efforts serve to demonstrate the active role that the Chinese government has assumed in promoting the development of PV products that are both efficient and of high quality. As a result of these initiatives, GCL's sales of integrated modules are expected to show further growth in 2016. GCL, on the back of the expansion plans for each of the main module factories, is hopeful that it will continue to advance its status in the industry and climb into 5th place in terms of production volume. According to one of GCL's previous announcements, the firm saw a net profit of 376 million yuan from January to September, a year-on-year increase of 175.24%. Judging from GCL's production expectations for the year and current market conditions, it appears promising that GCL will deliver on its commitment to achieve a net profit of 600 million yuan for 2015. About GCL GCL System Integration Technology Co., Ltd (002506.SZ) is committed to creating the world's leading one-stop intelligent integrated energy system integrator. The company aims at becoming an incorporate 'design + product + service' pack supplier based on technology research and development; it regards design optimization as the support, system integration as the carrier, financial services support as the bridge and smart operational support services as the backup to build a differentiated leading business model. http://en.gclsi.com/ BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - Destatis is set to release German producer prices for January at 2:00 am ET Friday. The index is expected to narrow to 0.3 percent from 0.5 percent in December. Ahead of the data, the euro showed mixed trading against its major rivals. While the euro declined against the greenback and the pound, it rose against the yen. Against the franc, it held steady. The euro was worth 1.1110 against the greenback, 1.1030 against the franc, 125.74 against the yen and 0.7750 against the pound as of 1:55 am ET. 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. BSD Crown Ltd. (LSE: BSD) (the "Company") Company Update Ramat Gan, 19 February 2016 The Company hereby announced today that as a result of suspicions of certain breaches of Israeli securities laws and criminal offenses, the Israel Securities Authority ("ISA") initiated an investigation. The ISA conducted a search on February 17, 2016 at the offices of the Company, and the offices of its Parent Company, B.G.I Investments (1961) Ltd., and its subsidiaries Willi-Food Investments Ltd. And G. Willi-Food International Ltd. (the "Group") during which certain computers and other materials were seized by the ISA. Similarly, a number of officers and directors within the Group are being questioned by the ISA, and the chairman of our board of directors and the indirect controlling shareholder of the Group, Mr. Gregory Gurtovoy, has been detained The Group is not a party to these proceedings. The Company will continue to provide updates as mandated by law. Enquiries: Yossi Schneorson, CEO: yossi@bsd-c.com LONDON (dpa-AFX) - AstraZeneca PLC (AZN.L, AZN) announced that the European Commission has granted marketing authorisation for Zurampic (lesinurad) 200mg in combination with a xanthine oxidase inhibitor, or XOI, for the adjunctive treatment of hyperuricemia in adult gout patients who have not achieved target serum uric acid levels with an adequate dose of an XOI alone. The EU approval of Zurampic was based on data from three pivotal Phase III studies, CLEAR1, CLEAR2 and CRYSTAL. As part of the EU approval, AstraZeneca will conduct a non-interventional Post-Authorisation Safety Study (PASS) to investigate the cardiovascular safety profile exposed to Zurampic. Separately, the Group announced the European Commission has granted marketing authorisation for Brilique at a new 60mg dose for the treatment of patients who have suffered a heart attack at least one year prior and are at high risk of developing a further atherothrombotic event. The Group said the approval of new 60mg dose expands current indication to include long-term treatment beyond the first 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. Teespring now fulfilling merchandise orders across Europe, benefiting broadcasters and their communities SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --Leading social commerce platform Teespring is extending its partnership with Twitch, the world's leading social video platform and community for gamers, by introducing an integrated localized experience for Twitch's Partnered broadcasters and their European customers. Starting today, Twitch broadcasting Partners worldwide will be able to fulfill orders for custom apparel, taking advantage of Teespring's on-demand commerce capabilities across Europe. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150826/261179LOGO As a result of this announcement, European buyers will pay 65% less for shipping and receive their orders 30% faster. Additionally, customers in 18 European countries will be able to shop the Twitch-Teespring experience in their local language and currency and enjoy customer support in their local language and time zone. "The Twitch community is passionate when it comes to supporting their favorite broadcasters," said Sue Lee, Partnerships Associate, Merchandise, Twitch. "One of the ways they show their support is through our partnership with Teespring that enables broadcasters to easily create custom apparel. With Teespring localizing the experience across Europe, it benefits consumers and bolsters the revenue opportunity for our broadcasters worldwide." Since the two companies teamed in November 2014, Twitch broadcasters have created hundreds of thousands of original shirts and hoodies on the Teespring platform. The response among European viewers has been especially strong, representing more than 20% of sales globally. This localization initiative now combines the power of Twitch's 13,000 Partnered broadcasters with Teespring's global reach. "Custom apparel is a great way for fans to directly support their favorite Twitch broadcasters, and the social commerce opportunity unlocks new revenue streams for these content creators beyond online advertising and subscriptions," said Robert Chatwani, chief revenue and marketing officer for Teespring. "Our continued innovation in on-demand commerce makes this new localized experience possible, redefines the way products are made and marketed, and creates valuable opportunities for platform partners such as Twitch." About Teespring Teespring is a commerce platform that enables anyone to create and sell products that people love, with no cost or risk. Teespring powers all aspects of bringing merchandise to life from production and manufacturing to supply chain, shipping, and customer service. By unlocking commerce for everyone, Teespring is creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs, influencers, brands, and anyone who rallies communities around specific causes or passions. Headquartered in San Francisco, Teespring is venture-backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures, and Y Combinator. About Twitch Twitch is the world's leading social video platform and community for gamers. Each month, more than 100 million community members gather to watch and talk about video games with more than 1.7 million broadcasters. Twitch's video platform is the backbone of both live and on-demand distribution for the entire video game ecosystem. This includes game developers, publishers, media outlets, events, user generated content, and the entire esports scene. Twitch also features Twitch Creative, a category devoted to artists and the creative process. For more information about Twitch, visit the official website and blog. PR Contact: Michelle Cox / press@teespring.com Regulatory News: SoLocal Group (Paris:LOCAL) has made available to the public the transcript of its conference call held on February 11th 2016 on the company website at www.solocalgroup.com, in the section "Presentation and webcasts" of the "Finance Area". About Solocal Group SoLocal Group, the European market leader in local online communication, provides digital content, advertising solutions and transactional services that simply connect people with local businesses. The Group employs some 4,400 people (including nearly 1,900 local communication advisors) in France, Spain, Austria and the United Kingdom and supports the online development of SMB and major client accounts, mainly through its four flagship brands: PagesJaunes, Mappy, Ooreka and A Vendre A Louer. Over the years, SoLocal Group has earned the trust of some 530,000 Internet clients. In 2015, SoLocal Group generated revenues of 873 million euros, of which Internet business accounted for 73%, making it a European market leader in terms of online advertising revenues. SoLocal Group is listed on Euronext Paris (LOCAL). More information may be obtained at www.solocalgroup.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160219005256/en/ Contacts: SoLocal Group Press Delphine Penalva, +33 (0)1 46 23 35 31 dpenalva@solocal.com or Edwige Druon, +33 (0)1 46 23 37 56 edruon@solocal.com or Investors Elsa Cardarelli, +33 (0)1 46 23 40 92 ecardarelli@solocal.com Metsa Group Press Release 19 February 2016Vuosaari Harbour will serve as the export harbour for the bioproduct mill in Aanekoski. Metsa Group, the Port of Helsinki and the City of Helsinki have reached an agreement on the use of the harbour and the lease of an area for a terminal building of around 30,000 square metres. The terminal will serve as an export warehouse for the bioproduct mill and will be completed before the mill is inaugurated in the third quarter of 2017.Export logistics will be based on a comprehensive new solution. VR Transpoint will be responsible for the rail transport of goods and for harbour operations in cooperation with Oy M. Rauanheimo Ab. The bioproduct mill will export around 800,000 tonnes of pulp per year, mainly to Europe and Asia."These solutions will ensure efficient, smoothly running export logistics for us in Finland," says Jari Voutilainen, SVP, Group Logistics at Metsa Group.Metsa Group is building the world's first next-generation bioproduct mill in Aanekoski. The mill will produce around 1.3 million tonnes of pulp per year, as well as other bioproducts and bioenergy.METSA GROUP Group CommunicationsFurther information: Jari Voutilainen, SVP, Group Logistics, Metsa Group, tel. +358 40 707 9644www.metsagroup.comMetsa Group is a responsible forest industry group whose products' main raw material is renewable wood from sustainably managed northern forests. Metsa Group is a forerunner in the bioeconomy. We focus on tissue and cooking papers, fresh forest fibre paper-boards, pulp, wood products, and wood supply and forest services. Our high-quality products combine renewable raw materials, customer-orientation, sustainable development and innovation. Metsa Group's sales totalled EUR 5 billion in 2015, and the company employs approximately 9,600 people. The Group operates in some 30 countries. Metsaliitto Cooperative is the parent company of Metsa Group and is owned by approximately 116,000 Finnish forest owners. STOCKHOLM, February 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Prominent politicians, journalists and dignitaries on Thursday gathered at the renowned Zita theatre in Stockholm for the premiere screening of the documentary 'Endless Corridor', a film - narrated by Academy Award winning British actor Jeremy Irons - examining the events surrounding the Khojali massacre, in which 613 men, women and children were killed on 25-26 February 1992. The screening, organised within the Justice for Khojali campaign, was attended by the documentary's Lithuanian Producer/Director Aleksandras Brokas, who worked nearly five years on the documentary. Brokas told the audience that he worked with film professionals from 15 countries on the project in order to provide an independent point of view for the situation in the region. "The way to freedom and independence is very similar in all post-Soviet countries: it costs a lot," he said. "The tragedy of Khojali tells the story of how cynical and inhuman people decided over the destiny of others." Meanwhile, Lionel Zetter, Director of The European Azerbaijan Society (TEAS), pointed out that until today no solution has been found to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, despite international efforts. "Thus I hope the film will re-focus attention about this besieged region." The film follows Lithuanian journalist Richard Lapaitis on a trip back to Azerbaijan 20 years after he covered the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and Khojali massacre as a war correspondent, a story, he says, that has haunted him since. The documentary sees him re-unite with survivors of the tragedy, who recall their heart-rending stories as they escaped Armenian bombardment, losing many loved ones along an 'Endless Corridor' seeking safety. But it also hears from the perpetrators of the massacre, Armenian commanders, their war strategies and reasoning. Despite several resolutions by the United Nations and other international bodies calling for the unconditional withdrawal, Armenia continues to occupy Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding Azerbaijani provinces to this day. The lunchtime event also saw the Swedish launch of the book "Khojali Witness of a War Crime: Armenia in the Dock". Editor Ian Peart said the book had two purposes: to present the humanity of the victims and to provide objective facts from an international point of view. "After reading this book, hopefully readers will ask themselves: 'what can I do to help?' We must never again see a repetition of such crimes." The completed film is now being screened and distributed by international broadcasters. BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - At 4:30 am ET Friday, the Office for National Statistics is scheduled to release U.K. retail sales figures and public sector finance data for January. Sales are forecast to rise 0.8 percent on a monthly basis, up from 0.1 percent fall in December. The budget is expected to show a deficit of GBP 12.3 billion in January, compared to GBP 7.5 billion surplus in December. Ahead of the data, the pound showed mixed trading against its major rivals. While the pound rose against the euro and the Swiss franc, it held steady against the U.S. dollar and the yen. As of 4:25 am ET, the pound was trading at 0.7751 against the euro, 1.4225 against the Swiss franc, 1.4319 against the U.S. dollar and 161.65 against the yen. 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. When Springbok Casino (www.springbokcasino.co.za) launched its brand new game God of Wealth last month, little did anyone know that it would live up to its name in such a short time. Inspired by Caishen, the god of prosperity in the Chinese folk religion, the 25 variable payline slot promised the prospect of jackpot riches and delivered big time! Fortune surely smiled on lucky recipient Johanna D. from Cape Town. The 60-year-old walked away with a life-changing sum of R270,184.00! Johanna's winning streak started when she saw God of Wealth advertised on https://www.playcasino.co.za/ and linked through to Springbok Casino. The rest, as they say, is history. Playcasino is happy to have been the conduit that led to a really handsome payout for a player. They had this to say about the winning site: "Springbok Casino always goes above and beyond for its players and, of the over 100 South African online casinos we've reviewed, Springbok Casino is our players' favourite. As partners of Springbok for many years, we've heard only praise for the casino, its promotions and customer support, its range of deposit methods and excellent withdrawal speed, not to mention its brilliant scope of games for both desktop and mobile." Springbok Casino's Manager, Daniel van Wyk, holds Playcasino in high regard as an important partner in the South African market, giving local casinos an invaluable platform to advertise their offerings, and in turn providing gamers with a one-stop-shop to research their preferences. Van Wyk also emphasises the fact that Springbok Casino has seen many lucrative wins for its players across their wide range of game choices and this keeps their customers coming back for more. 'The god of wealth', it seems, is always hard at work across the board at Springbok Casino. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160219005269/en/ Contacts: GameOn For Media Enquiries Sarah Blackburn T: 00 44 78990 87923 E: sarah@gameon.im Airwave is largest private operator of a public safety network in the world Significantly expands Motorola Solutions' managed and support services business Immediately accretive to non-GAAP earnings and free cash flow Motorola Solutions (NYSE: MSI) today announced that it has completed its acquisition of Airwave, the largest private operator of a public safety network in the world. "The acquisition of Airwave enables us to significantly grow our managed and support services business and reflects our commitment to the public safety users in Great Britain," said Greg Brown, chairman and CEO of Motorola Solutions. "The combination of our years of experience as a trusted global leader in mission-critical communications and Airwave's proven service delivery platform will provide Great Britain with innovative emergency services technology that enhances public safety today and into the future." Airwave delivers mission-critical voice and data communications to more than 300 emergency and public service agencies in Great Britain, including police, fire, rescue and ambulance services. Motorola Solutions has been a trusted, reliable communications partner to the emergency services community in Great Britain for more than 45 years. Recently, the UK Home Office awarded Motorola Solutions a long-term contract for the user services (Lot 2) for the Emergency Services Network (ESN), the future public safety network based on long-term evolution (LTE) technology. Motorola Solutions purchased Airwave on a debt-free basis with a net cash payment of approximately 700 million (approximately $1 billion) at closing. In addition, a deferred cash payment of 64 million (approximately $90 million) will be made in November 2018. Motorola Solutions expects that the acquisition will be immediately accretive to its non-GAAP earnings and free cash flow. The company intends to incorporate Airwave into its 2016 financial outlook, which will be described in more detail during the company's quarterly conference call with financial analysts at 4 p.m. CST (5 p.m. EST) on Monday, Feb. 22. For call information, visit www.motorolasolutions.com/investors. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable federal securities law. These statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and generally include words such as "believes," "expects," "intends," "anticipates," "estimates" and similar expressions. The company can give no assurance that any actual or future results or events discussed in these statements will be achieved. Any forward-looking statements represent the company's views only as of today and should not be relied upon as representing the company's views as of any subsequent date. Readers are cautioned that such forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause the company's actual results or events discussed in these statements to differ materially from the statements contained in this release. Such forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the expected impact to non-GAAP earnings and free cash flow of Motorola Solutions. Motorola Solutions cautions the reader that the risk factors below, as well as those on pages 9 through 20 in Item 1A of Motorola Solutions, Inc.'s 2014 Annual Report on Form 10-K, page 39 in Part II, Item 1A of Motorola Solutions, Inc.'s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended October 3, 2015, and in its other SEC filings available for free on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov and on Motorola Solutions' website at www.motorolasolutions.com, could cause Motorola Solutions' actual results or events discussed in these statements to differ materially from those estimated or predicted in the forward-looking statements. Many of these risks and uncertainties cannot be controlled by Motorola Solutions and factors that may impact forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: (1) the future results of operations of Airwave; (2) the impact of foreign currency fluctuations on the company and Airwave; (3) negative impact on the company's and Airwave's business, from global economic and political conditions, particularly in the UK; and (4) the impact on the company's performance and financial results deriving from the anticipated benefits of the transaction. Motorola Solutions undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement or risk factor, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise About Motorola Solutions Motorola Solutions (NYSE: MSI) creates innovative, mission-critical communication solutions and services that help public safety and commercial customers build safer cities and thriving communities. For ongoing news, visit www.motorolasolutions.com/newsroom or subscribe to a news feed. MOTOROLA, MOTOROLA SOLUTIONS and the Stylized M Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Motorola Trademark Holdings, LLC and are used under license. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 2016 Motorola Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160219005306/en/ Contacts: Motorola Solutions Media Contacts: Tama McWhinney +1 847-538-1865 tama.mcwhinney@motorolasolutions.com or Elvan Lindberg +46 70-7448893 elvan.lindberg@motorolasolutions.com or Investor Contacts: Shep Dunlap +1 847-576-6899 shep.dunlap@motorolasolutions.com or Chris Kutsor +1 847-576-4995 chris.kutsor@motorolasolutions.com SEOUL, South Korea, Feb. 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Power Plant (380MW) and LNG Terminal importation terminal (180,000m 3 ) will be the first investment in the LNG industry in Panama POSCO E&C has achieved US$5.6 billion for Latin American Projects in 10 years Raised its competitiveness in Latin American Power Plant Market POSCO E&C recently executed a US$ 650 million EPC turn-key contract with Gas Natural Atlantico S. de R.L and Costa Norte LNG Terminal S. R.L, (subsidiary of AES* Panama) for Colon combined cycle power plant and LNG terminal project. POSCO E&C will construct the largest combined cycle power plant in Panama with generating capacity of 380MW and LNG terminal with a capacity of 180,000m3, locatedin Colon Province, 60km from Panama City. Power produced from the Colon combined cycle power plant can be supplied to around 15 million households simultaneously, which will ensure a stable supply to the industrial complex near the Panama Canal and Colon area. POSCO E&C has been highly praised for the proven quality of power plant construction technology in Latin America over the past decade and was awarded the contract after a fierce competition against prominent engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) companies. Mr. Kun Soo Oh, Senior Executive Vice President of POSCO E&C, said; "POSCO E&C was consecutively awarded two projects since December 2015 [by AES], in the Philippines and Chile. These awards have helped POSCO E&C to increase its competitiveness in overseas power plant markets." In 2006, POSCO E&C became the first Korean construction company to construct a power plant in Latin America with the AES Ventanas coal-fired power plant in Chile and the subsequent Campiche and Angamos projects in 2007. Moreover, the Kallpa and Chilca Uno combined cycle power plant in Peru were also successfully executed in 2009, achieving total value for POSCO E&C of US$ 5.6billion in Latin America over 10 years. Homepage: http://www.poscoenc.com/ *The AES Corporation: The US power company generating and distributing electrical power of around 36 GW in 17 countries. Helsinki, Finland, 2016-02-19 12:15 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SATO Corporation, 19th February 2016 at 1:15 pmSATO's organisation has been structured for speedier and more flexible response to the changing operating environment.President and CEO Saku Sipola:- We're bringing the customer experience strongly to the core of our operations alongside careful property management. I believe that service providers will have to respond to the changes in the rental housing market through more active customer relationship management and improved services. At SATO our response to this development is to bring these functions together on a nationwide basis. The developing role of marketing and communications will support the strengthening of our customer relationships with new service models and increasing customer dialogue.- In 2015 our rental housing investments amounted to around 250 million. Our investment activities will continue at the same level, and we're seeking an active role in the acquisition of rental housing portfolios and also developing our housing stock through divestments. In project development we're exploring new opportunities together with our partners and municipalities. The accelerating rate of change in our operating environment calls for active business development as well as investigations into new business opportunities.The division of responsibilities in SATO's organisation is as follows:The Investments business unit is headed by Vice President Antti Aarnio. He is responsible for rental home investments and divestments, project and property development, design and projects.The Housing business unit is responsible for home rental and maintenance, customer service as well as the operations of our regional units. For the time being the unit is headed in addition to her other duties by Vice President, Deputy to President and CEO Tuula Entela.Tuula Entela is in charge of the new Business Development unit and responsible for strategic development, process development, innovation activities, new business activities as well as SATO HotelHome operations and business in St Petersburg.Director for Customer Relationships and Communications Monica Aro is responsible for marketing, customer relationship development and communications as well as media relations.Chief Financial Officer Esa Neuvonen is responsible for finance, ICT and procurement.The SATO Corporate Management Group comprises the President and CEO as well as the above-mentioned senior executives.For more information please contact:Saku Sipola, President and CEO, phone +358 201 34 4001 or +358 40 5515 953www.sato.fiSATO is one of Finland's leading rental housing providers. SATO's aim is to offer comprehensive alternatives in rental housing and an excellent customer experience. All told, SATO holds roughly 23,600 rental homes in Finland's largest growth centres and in St Petersburg.In our operations, we promote sustainable development and initiative-taking, and work in open interaction with our stakeholders to create added value. We operate profitably and with a long-term view. We increase the value of our housing property through investments, divestments and repair work.SATO Group's net sales in 2015 were 323.4 million, operating profit 196.5 million and profit before taxes 159.4 million. SATO's investment properties have a value of roughly 2.8 billion. PUNE, India, February 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The report "In-mold Labels Market In-mold Labels Market By Technology (Injection Molding, Extrusion, Thermoforming), Material (PP, PE, ABS, PVC, Others), by Printing Technology (Flexographic, Offset, Gravure), by Printing inks, by End Use (Food & Beverage, Consumer Durables, Automotive) - Forecast to 2020", published by MarketsandMarkets, The market is projected to grow from USD 2.58 Billion in 2015 to USD 3.23 Billion by 2020, at an estimated CAGR of 4.54%. Browse 186 market data Tables and 59 Figures spread through 223 Pages and in-depth TOC on "In-mold Labels Market" http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/in-mold-labels-market-69263639.html Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report. This growth is due to the increasing technological advancements leading to cost-efficient manufacturing processes and increasing awareness among the consumers about the sustainable labels and their pace of adopting the products. Growing food & beverage industry also provides an opportunity to the market to grow further, especially in the emerging Asia-Pacific and Latin American regions. Polypropylene (PP) to gain maximum traction during the forecast period Polypropylene is a raw material used in the manufacture of in-mold labels, which is extremely versatile as a plastic material. It can be used in a wide range of plastic containers and labels. They can be softened sufficiently to bond with other polymers, hence reducing the need for other additives. Because of superior characteristics, performance, and low cost compared to other polymers and resins, PP fibers are widely used in this industry and dominate the In-mold Labels Market. It is used in packaging and labeling of various consumer and industrial products such as foods, cosmetics, hand tags, bar code labels, retail labels, and no label look. Food & beverage sector contributes maximum market share The demand from the food & beverage sector is expected to experience a higher growth rate, mainly because of the growing demand for packaged and branded products, and consumer awareness toward the authenticity of the product. Beverage manufacturers are widely using in-mold labels on bottles owing to technological advancements such as injection molding, thermoforming, and extrusion blow molding that offers cost-effective solutions. Request for Customization of Report: http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestCustomization.asp?id=69263639 North America to play a key role in the market for in-mold labels On the basis of key regions, the market for in-mold labels is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Rest of the World (RoW). The European region held the largest share among all the regions in 2014. This is mainly due to increasing demand for in-mold labels from France and Germany due to the increasing manufacturing output, rising income and consumption level, and growing demand for effective and efficient labeling solutions. The scope of the report covers detailed information regarding the major factors influencing the growth of the In-mold Labels Market such as drivers, restraints, challenges, and opportunities. A detailed analysis of the key industry players has been conducted to provide insights into their business overview, products & services, key strategies, new product & technology launches, mergers & acquisitions, partnerships, agreement, joint ventures, and recent developments associated with the market for in-mold labels. The key players in the In-mold Labels Market are CCL Industries Inc. (Canada), Constantia Flexibles Group GmbH (Austria), Huhtamaki Group (Finland), Coveris Holding S.A. (U.S.), Cenveo, Inc. (U.S.), Fuji Seal International, Inc. (Japan), Multicolor Corporation (U.S.), EVCO Plastics (U.S.), Inland Label & Marketing Services, LLC (U.S.), and Innovia Films Ltd. (U.K.). Browse Related Reports Industrial Labels Market by Type (Warning, Branding, Others), Mechanism (Pressure Sensitive, Glue-applied, others), Industry (Transportation, Consumer Durables, Others), Printing Technology (Digital Printing, Flexography, Others), Identification Technology (Bar codes) - Forecast to 2020 http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/industrial-labels-market-177324755.html Self-Adhesive Labels Market by Composition (Facestock, Release Liner, Adhesive), Type (Release Liner, Liner-Less), Form (Reels, Sheets), Application (Food & Beverages, Consumer Durables, Others), & by Printing Technology - Trends & Forecast to 2020 http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/self-adhesive-labels-market-96664367.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://www.marketsandmarketsblog.com/market-reports/packaging Connect with us on LinkedIn @ http://www.linkedin.com/company/marketsandmarkets LONDON (dpa-AFX) - MTU Friedrichshafen GmbH, a subsidiary of Rolls-Royce Power Systems, and China Yuchai International Limited's main operating subsidiary, Guangxi Yuchai Machinery Company Ltd. have signed an agreement to set up a 50/50 joint venture for the production, under licence from MTU, of MTU diesel engines in China. Each party will invest RMB 75 million in the joint venture. The joint venture will open up new growth opportunities for both partners, particularly in China and Asia. The companies said the joint venture will produce MTU Series 4000 diesel engines compliant with China Tier 3 emission standards with power outputs ranging from 1400 to 3490 kW, primarily for the Chinese off-highway market, in particular for power generation and oil & gas applications. 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. This Is Good News for Bombardier StockIn the past few weeks Bombardier, Inc. (TSE:BBD.B) has dropped to its lowest price level ever. Investors wondered if the Canadian government would support the "C Series" airliner. Fortunately, Bombardier reassured investors that the program would go ahead.This is good news for holders of BBD.B stock. Had Bombardier scrapped the program, it would have killed Bombardier stock. After all, the company has spent billions of dollars and enormous effort in getting the C Series to market.Aerospace stocks in the U.S. and Europe. 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. CALGARY, AB--(Marketwired - February 19, 2016) - Agrium Inc. (TSX: AGU) (NYSE: AGU) announced today that its Annual Meeting of Shareholders will be held on Wednesday, May 4, 2016 in Calgary, Alberta. Shareholders of common shares of Agrium Inc. as at the close of trading on March 9, 2016 (the "Record Date") will be eligible to vote their shares at the Meeting. About Agrium Agrium Inc. is a major producer and distributor of agricultural products and services in North America, South America, Australia and Egypt through its agricultural retail-distribution and wholesale nutrient businesses. Agrium supplies growers with key products and services such as crop nutrients, crop protection, seed, and agronomic and application services, thereby helping to meet the ever growing global demand for food and fiber. Agrium produces nitrogen, potash and phosphate fertilizers, with a combined wholesale nutrient capacity of over nine million tonnes and with competitive advantages across all product lines. Agrium retail-distribution has an unmatched network of over 1,400 facilities and approximately 3,800 crop consultants. We partner with over half a million grower customers globally to help them increase their yields and returns on more than 50 different crops. With a focus on sustainability, the company strives to improve the communities in which it operates through safety, education, environmental improvement and new technologies such as the development of precision agriculture and controlled release nutrient products. Agrium is focused on driving operational excellence across our businesses, pursuing value-enhancing growth opportunities and returning capital to shareholders. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: Investor/Media Relations: Richard Downey Vice President, Investor & Corporate Relations (403) 225-7357 Todd Coakwell Director, Investor Relations (403) 225-7437 Louis Brown Analyst, Investor Relations (403) 225-7761 Contact us at: www.agrium.com VANCOUVER, BC -- (Marketwired) -- 02/19/16 -- Navitas today announced 18% year-over-year growth across its North American partnerships, surpassing its ambitious enrollment goals for the Spring 2016 intake. Navitas' most recent partnership, Florida Atlantic University -- which exceeded its inaugural enrollment goal by 19% last fall -- continued an impressive growth trajectory, up 27% from the previous semester. Navitas partnerships accelerate the internationalization of universities by increasing the quality, quantity and diversity of the international student population. Its proven Pathway program model provides the necessary acclimatization that international students require, thereby ensuring their academic readiness for university-level study. Fraser International College at Simon Fraser University, the very first Pathway program in all of North America and Navitas' most longstanding partnership in the region, will celebrate its 10th anniversary this year -- demonstrating the company's commitment to helping its partner institutions improve opportunity and access for international students and prepare them for academic success. To ensure that Pathway programs deliver on the promise of an exceptional student experience, Navitas considers student satisfaction rates a key success metric. According to the 2015 International Student Barometer (ISB), a survey deployed to over 2.3 million students across 1,400 institutions in 30 countries, nearly 87% of students enrolled in Navitas' North American partnership programs were satisfied with their experience -- higher than the global average of all ISB surveyed institutions. This high level of student satisfaction is reflected in an overall retention rate of 94% for Navitas North America Pathway programs and speaks to the personalized student support that is embedded into each and every partnership. "The United States and Canada remain top destinations for international students. Our goal is to ensure not only that our university partners become leading study destination for those students, but that they are also able to retain and sustain those enrollments over time," said David Stremba, Executive Vice President, Global Business Development, Navitas. "We offer universities true partnerships that delivers the support and strategic guidance to ensure they are able to enhance their global profile and achieve long-term sustainable growth." Navitas' commitment to partnership starts with strong leadership at each of Navitas' partnership programs. To this end, Navitas is proud to announce the appointment of Darcy Rollins to the position of College Director and Principal at the International College of Manitoba (ICM), which is operated in partnership with the University of Manitoba. Mr. Rollins will take the helm of one of Navitas' largest and fastest growing programs in the company's partnership network -- the University has achieved international student enrollment growth of over 1,200% since the launch of ICM in 2008. Mr. Rollins has more than fifteen years of experience working with the government of Manitoba in a variety of roles, including Director of International Education and Executive Director of Corporate Services for the Department of Advanced Education and Learning and his current position, Manager of the Analytical Unit of the Treasury Board Secretariat. He joins the International College of Manitoba in early March. "We couldn't be more pleased to welcome Darcy to Navitas," noted Bev Hudson, Executive General Manager, Navitas North America. "His expertise in post-secondary education and deep relationships within the Winnipeg community make him a great ambassador for the program, bringing tremendous value to our organization." For over two decades, Navitas has supported more than 30 institutions across the globe in their efforts to achieve sustainable growth by cultivating a more diverse and internationalized campus. About Navitas Navitas is a global higher education organization that has partnered with universities for over twenty years to increase access to higher education and prepare students for future success. Our collaborations accelerate our partner universities' internationalization goals resulting in stronger, more diverse international student population; improved academic outcomes; increased global profile for the institution; and sustainable revenue streams for reinvestment in key areas of the university. There are more than 80,000 students studying at Navitas programs around the world. North American university partners include Simon Fraser University, University of Manitoba, University of Massachusetts Lowell, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, University of Massachusetts Boston, University of New Hampshire, and Florida Atlantic University. More information can be found at www.navitas.com or follow @Navitas. Contact: Avery Waxman Navitas North America avery.waxman@navitas.com 206-949-8393 IRVING, TX -- (Marketwired) -- 02/19/16 -- (OTCQB: DYNR) -- DynaResource, Inc. ("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 February 19, 2016 of an approximate 600 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, 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. For further information on DynaUSA, DynaMineras, and DynaMexico, please visit www.dynaresource.com or contact: Brad J. Saulter DynaUSA V.P. - Investor Relations US Telephone: 972-868-9066 K.D. Diepholz DynaUSA Chairman / CEO DynaResource de Mexico-Presidente; Mineras de DynaResource-Presidente TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 02/19/16 -- Ba Ba Capital Inc. (the "Corporation" or "Ba Ba") is pleased to announce that it has agreed to terms on a reverse take-over transaction (the "Transaction") with Imex Systems Inc. ("Imex"). Imex is a private Canadian software solution provider to Governments, Municipalities and Public Authorities. It helps governments to provide "Any Time, Any Where, Any Device and Any Channel" convenience for citizens to access government services. Imex's various product and service offerings include: iGov - eGovernment Platform for all levels of government, which provides all the pre-built components for building an effective eGovernment and supports payment processing through multiple channels; iCity - Municipal version of iGov; and miGov - Mobile Government Framework. Imex has recently completed three financings totaling $2.345 million comprised of the following securities: 240,000 units ("Units") at $1 per Unit, with each Unit comprised of one common share of Imex (a "Common Share") and one-half of one Warrant, with each Warrant exercisable into a Common Share of Imex at an exercise price of $1.50 per share for a period of 18 months following completion of a public listing, subject to acceleration under certain circumstances; 50,000 subscription receipts at $1 per subscription receipt, with each subscription receipt automatically exchangeable into a Unit upon completion of a public listing; and, $2,055,000 principal amount convertible debentures, which are automatically convertible into Imex Units at a $1 per Unit upon completion of a public listing, and accrue interest at 10% per annum which can be paid either by issuing Common Shares or paying cash at maturity. In connection with these financings, Imex issued 122,150 finder warrants, with each finder warrant exercisable into a common share at an exercise price of $1.50 per share for a period of 18 months following completion of a public listing. Prior to the financings, Imex had 10 million Common Shares issued and outstanding. Pursuant to completion of the Transaction, all shares and warrants of Imex will be exchanged for similar securities of Ba Ba on a one-for-one basis. Imex may issue additional securities prior to closing, which would also be exchanged for Ba Ba securities on the same terms. Ba Ba currently has 30,209,974 common shares issued and outstanding. Prior to completion of the securities exchange with all of the securityholders of Imex, Ba Ba has agreed to consolidate all of its shares on a one (1) new share for eleven (11) old share basis such that there will be approximately 2,746,361 common shares held by current Ba Ba shareholders. Ba Ba has called a shareholder meeting for March 14, 2016 at which shareholders will be asked to approve, among other things, the consolidation, the change of the Corporation's name to "Imex Systems Inc.", and a new stock option plan. Completion of the Transaction is subject to a number of conditions, including, but not limited to the satisfaction of all applicable listing requirements of the TSX Venture Exchange. This news release discusses items that may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of securities laws and that involve risks and uncertainties. Such statements include those with respect to the completion of the Transaction and the listing of Imex on the TSX Venture Exchange. Although the Corporation believes in light of the experience of its officers and directors, current conditions and expected future developments and other factors that have been and other factors that have been considered appropriate that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, they can give no assurances that those expectations will be achieved and actual results may differ materially from those contemplated in the forward-looking statements and information. These factors and others are more fully discussed in the Corporation's filings with Canadian securities regulatory authorities available at www.sedar.com. Contacts: Ba Ba Capital Inc. Martin Bernholtz Director (416) 721-1721 mbernholtz@iotintl.com WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - The United States has announced it will stop subjecting travelers to enhanced U.S. visa and port-of-entry screening for potential Ebola virus infection from West Africa. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that on Friday, CDC and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will remove Guinea from the list of nations affected by Ebola from enhanced entry screening. Travelers from that country to the United States will no longer be routed through designated U.S. airports and will be able to enter the country through any available port of entry. Guinea will be the last of the affected countries in West Africa to be removed from enhanced entry screening measures. Travelers from Liberia and Sierra Leone had already been exempted from enhanced entry screening measures after an epidemic killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa. However, travelers from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone are still encouraged to watch their health for 21 days after leaving one of these countries and to contact their local health departments or seek healthcare if they develop symptoms consistent with Ebola. On December 29, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Guinea free of Ebola virus transmission. This date marked 42 days (two 21-day incubation periods) after the last known patient with Ebola tested negative twice for Ebola. As of February 19, more than 45 days have passed since WHO declared Guinea free of Ebola virus transmission. Guinea was the last country in the region to reach that milestone. 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. Regulatory News: Autoliv AB (NYSE:ALV) (STO:ALIVSDB) Autoliv, Inc. (NYSE: ALV and SSE: ALIV) has filed its Form 10-K, which includes the Company's 2015 Annual Report, with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The Form 10-K, including the Annual Report, is available at the SEC Edgar website: www.sec.gov. The Annual Report is available in a reader-friendly, downloadable pdf-version (including graphs and other illustrations) at Autoliv's corporate website www.autoliv.com. A comprehensive, tablet version of the Annual Report will also be offered on both App Store and Google play early March. Proxy Materials Hard copies of the Annual Report and the proxy will be available from late March, as will other documents for the 2016 Annual General Meeting of Stockholders, and can be requested on-line at the Company's website. Stockholders of Autoliv, Inc. on the record date, March 14, 2016, will be entitled to participate in and vote at the Annual General Meeting, which will be held on May 10, 2016 in Chicago, IL, USA. The Company intends to mail the Notice of Internet Availability of Proxy Materials late March 2016. This notice will include instructions on how to access the proxy materials electronically or how to request hard copies of the proxy materials. About Autoliv Autoliv, Inc., the worldwide leader in automotive safety systems, develops and manufactures automotive safety systems for all major automotive manufacturers in the world. Together with its joint ventures, Autoliv has close to 80 facilities with more than 60,000 employees in 27 countries. In addition, the Company has 20 technical centers in nine countries around the world, with 20 test tracks, more than any other automotive safety supplier. Sales in 2015 amounted to about US $9.2 billion. The Company's shares are listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: ALV) and its Swedish Depository Receipts on the OMX Nordic Exchange in Stockholm (ALIV sdb). For more information about Autoliv, please visit our company website at www.autoliv.com. Safe Harbor Statement This report contains statements that are not historical facts but rather forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements include those that address activities, events or developments that Autoliv, Inc. or its management believes or anticipates may occur in the future. All forward-looking statements are based upon our current expectations, various assumptions and data available from third parties. Our expectations and assumptions are expressed in good faith and we believe there is a reasonable basis for them. However, there can be no assurance that such forward-looking statements will materialize or prove to be correct as forward-looking statements are inherently subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause actual future results, performance or achievements to differ materially from the future results, performance or achievements expressed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. Numerous risks, uncertainties and other factors may cause actual results to differ materially from those set out in the forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events. For any forward-looking statements contained in this or any other document, we claim the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and we assume no obligation to update any such statement. This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160219005434/en/ Contacts: Autoliv Thomas Jonsson Vice President Corporate Communications Tel +46 (8) 58 72 06 27 Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/s6bfc4/the_cards_and) has announced the addition of the "The Cards and Payments Industry in France: Emerging Trends and Opportunities to 2019" report to their offering. The 'The Cards and Payments Industry in France: Emerging Trends and Opportunities to 2019' report provides detailed analysis of market trends in France's cards and payments industry. It provides values and volumes for a number of key performance indicators in the industry, including check payments, credit transfers, direct debits, payment cards and cash transactions during the review period (2010-2014). The report also analyzes various payment card markets operating in the industry and provides detailed information on the number of cards in circulation, and transaction values and volumes during the review period and over the forecast period (2015-2019). It also offers information on the country's competitive landscape, including market shares of issuers and schemes. The report brings together research, modeling, and analysis expertise to allow banks and card issuers to identify segment dynamics and competitive advantages. The report also covers detailed regulatory policies, recent changes in regulatory structure, card fraud statistics and profiles of card issuers operating in the country. Key Topics Covered: 1 Definitions and Methodology 2 Key Facts and Events 3 Executive Summary 4 Payment Instruments 5 E-Commerce 6 Alternative Payments 7 Regulations in the Cards and Payments Industry 8 Analysis of Cards and Payments Industry Drivers 9 Market Segmentation 10 Payment Cards 11 Debit Cards 12 Credit Cards 13 Charge Cards 14 Commercial Cards 15 Card Fraud Statistics 16 Card Issuers 17 Prepaid Cards 18 Private Label Cards 19 Merchant Acquiring 20 Appendix Companies Mentioned American Express BNP Paribas BPCE Group Cartes Bancaires Credit Agricole Credit Mutuel-CIC Group La Banque Postale MasterCard Visa For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/s6bfc4/the_cards_and View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160219005472/en/ Contacts: Research and Markets Laura Wood, Senior Manager press@researchandmarkets.com For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470 For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630 For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900 U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907 Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716 Sector: Cards LA PRAIRIE, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 02/19/16 -- The management of Vantex Resources Ltd. ("Vantex") (TSX VENTURE: VAX)(FRANKFURT: UD7A) announces the purchase of a 100 % interest in 10 mining claims located in the Clericy Township. The seller of the property will receive 1,500,000 common shares of Vantex and will retain a 1 % NSR on the claims. These claims are bordering to the east, the Clericy property held by Vantex. This transaction is subject to the approval of the TSX Venture. The property is located North of the important Destor-Porcupine Fault and within the Hebecourt and Bousquet geological formations. It hosts volcanic malfic and intermediary rocks like basalt, andesite and volcaniclastic rocks. The management of Vantex also announces the appointment of Simran Gill as director of the board. Mr. Gill has stepped down as CFO of Vantex and will be replaced by Konstantin Lichtenwald. Mr. Lichtenwald specializes in providing corporate finance, valuation, taxation, financial reporting, consulting and other accounting services to both small businesses and as public commodity resource companies. Mr. Lichtenwald also assists in many aspects of client administration, financing and other activities. Mr. Lichtenwald also worked at Ernst & Young GmbH, Germany, in the assurance department. Mr. Lichtenwald earned his bachelor of business administration degree from Pforzheim University, Germany, and holds the professional designation of chartered professional accountant (CPA, CGA), where he is a member of Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia and Canada. Mr. Lichtenwald has had extensive experience as a controller and CFO of numerous publicly traded and private corporations in several industries. 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. Contacts: Vantex Resources Ltd. Gilles Laverdiere CEO 514-830-8236 Elektrenai, Lithuania, 2016-02-19 15:00 CET (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lietuvos Energijos Gamyba, AB (company code 302648707, registered head office address Elektrines Str. 21, Elektrenai, hereinafter referred to as 'the Company') hereby informs about the decisions made during the meetings of the Supervisory Board and the Board of the Company that took place on 19 February 2016.During the meeting, the Supervisory Board of the Company made the following decisions:-- Considering that Juozas Bartlingas submitted a notice of resignation as a member (the chairman) of the Board and the chief general manager of the Company to the Company and the parent company Lietuvos Energija, UAB, to recall Juozas Bartlingas, the chairman of the board and the general manager of the Company, from his post as a member (the chairman) of the board of the Company as of the day of the decision. -- To recall Vidmantas Salietis from his post as a member of the Board of the Company as of the day of making this decision. V. Salietis shall be removed from the board as per the project implemented by the Company to transfer commercial electricity wholesale trade activity to Energijos Tiekimas UAB and according to the corresponding changes of the structure of the Company. -- In accordance with the opinion of the Supervisory Board of the parent company Lietuvos Energija, UAB, to appoint Egle Ciuzaite to the Board of the Company from the day of this decision to the end of the term of office of the current Board.During the meeting that took place on the same day, the Board of the Company made a decision to elect E. Ciuzaite to the post of the chairwoman of the board of the Company and the general manager of the Company. E. Ciuzaite will start to fulfil the duties of the chairwoman of the Board on the day of making the decision, and her term of office as the general manager will begin on 22 February 2016.Before 2 December 2015, E. Ciuzaite worked in the Board of the Company and was responsible for the sphere of finances and administration. On 3 December 2015, she was elected to the board of AB Energijos Skirstymo Operatorius", from which she was recalled on 19 February 2016.The Board of the Company will include E. Ciuzaite (the chairwoman of the Board), Darius Kucinas (supervises the production of electricity and heat), Adomas Birulis (responsible for the Company's strategy and the review of development projects), and Mindaugas Kveksas (responsible for finances and administration).J. Bartlingas will continue working in the Company in the sphere of improvement of production processes.Valentas Neviera, Head of Corporate Communication Division, tel. +370 670 25997, e-mail. valentas.neviera@le.ltAttachment:https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=547772 COLLEGE PARK, MD -- (Marketwired) -- 02/19/16 -- Press Uncuffed, a campaign to help free imprisoned journalists throughout the world by selling bracelets bearing their names, today celebrates the release of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian and the six other journalists freed since the campaign began 10 months ago. Rezaian, a dual U.S.-Iranian citizen, spent 18 months in Iran's Evin Prison before being released last month. He had been the Washington Post bureau chief in Tehran prior to his detainment. Among the supporters who wear Press Uncuffed bracelets are Rezaian's mother, Mary Rezaian, and his wife, Yeganeh Salehi. Salehi, an Iranian, initially was arrested with Rezaian and later released on bail after three months. "We have worn them daily, and they gave us strength," Mary Rezaian said of the Press Uncuffed bracelets. "They also opened some opportunities for discussion. And, of course, everyone from close friends, to family and supporters lusted after them. Thank you, so much, to the Press Uncuffed team and everyone who is working on this very important issue." Press Uncuffed bracelets are available for $10 on PressUncuffed.org and proceeds benefit the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a collaborator in the campaign. CPJ is an independent, nonprofit organization that provides emergency assistance to journalists facing threats around the world and advocates for journalists imprisoned and attacked in reprisal for their work. Created by students at the University of Maryland and their professor, Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Dana Priest, Press Uncuffed produces clear acrylic LuciteLux bracelets -- signifying transparency in reporting -- that bear the names of imprisoned journalists and the countries in which they are held. Other journalists honored by the campaign were freed in Ethiopia, Bahrain, Mexico, Vietnam, Swaziland and China. "The release of Jason, a colleague, is a reminder that Press Uncuffed can make a difference and lift the spirits of those in prison and the people closest to them working for their release," said Dana Priest, the John S. and James L. Knight Chair in Public Affairs Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. "About 200 journalists, however, remain wrongfully imprisoned. Supporting the Press Uncuffed campaign helps raise much-needed funds and brings awareness to the issue of press freedom, putting real pressure on the U.S. government to do more, and on governments holding journalists without cause." Press Uncuffed bracelets honor 13 journalists, including the following six who are still in prison: Mohamed Cheik Ould Mohamed in Mauritania Eskinder Nega in Ethiopia Mahmoud Abou Zeid (Shawkan) in Egypt Khadija Ismayilova in Azerbaijan Yusuf Ruzimuradov in Uzbekistan Ilham Tohti in China For more information and to purchase a bracelet with one of the 13 journalists' names, visit PressUncuffed.org. Sign up here to receive updates from the CPJ on the status of imprisoned journalists and to learn about new actions you can take to support their release. "Whether freed or still in prison, the people on this list deserve to be recognized for the risks they took and sacrifices they made to report critical information that their governments wanted to bury," said Priest. About Press Uncuffed Press Uncuffed is a campaign to raise money to free imprisoned journalists around the world by selling bracelets bearing their names. Journalism students at the University of Maryland and their professor, Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter Dana Priest, created the campaign, which benefits the Committee to Protect Journalists' emergency assistance campaign. Additional information about Press Uncuffed is available at PressUncuffed.org. About the Committee to Protect Journalists CPJ promotes press freedom worldwide and defends the rights of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal. CPJ ensures the free flow of news and commentary by taking action wherever journalists are attacked, imprisoned, killed, kidnapped, threatened, censored or harassed. About the University of Maryland Philip Merrill College of Journalism The Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland is one of the world's leading journalism schools. Our curriculum emphasizes a hands-on approach to learning with professional equipment that leads to the jobs of today and those waiting in the future. We have a world-class award-winning faculty with years of experience and intimate class sizes. The Merrill College is just a few short miles from Washington, D.C. and Baltimore -- locations that provide unparalleled internships and broad learning opportunities. Image Available: http://www2.marketwire.com/mw/frame_mw?attachid=2966848 Media Contact: Kelsey BaRoss RoseComm 201-656-7178 kbaross@rosecomm.com GUELPH, ON -- (Marketwired) -- 02/19/16 -- Eco-Shift Power Corp. (OTC PINK: ECOP), a global producer of advanced LED lighting products, today announced it has been awarded a new LED lighting contract to provide Farmazona Logistics SA with Eco-Shift's proprietary LED High Bay lighting fixtures for an additional warehouse within Farmazona' s complex of warehouses in Colon, Panama. This is the first, preliminary order of an LED retrofit initiative which Farmazona is currently implementing to roll out LED to more of its facilities under management. Additionally, the companies have agreed that Eco-Shift will be able to use the new installation to showcase its technology to new and prospective customers in the region. For nearly 50 years, Colon, Panama-based Farmazona is the largest third-party logistics operator in Central America and the Caribbean. It is headquartered in one of the world's key points of commerce in the Panama Canal Free (trade) Zone, Colon, Republic of Panama. Its clients are diversified across a variety of industries including pharmaceutical, high-tech, automotive and agrochemical. Farmazona manages over 315,000 square feet of storage warehouses and distribution facilities across the region, of which the majority use conventional lighting. To date, Eco-Shift remains Farmazona's largest provider of LED lighting solutions. In 2014, Farmazona contracted Eco-Shift to supply an initial LED high-bay retrofit project for a 20,000 square-foot warehouse so it could see, first hand, the many benefits of Eco-Shift's high-efficiency LED lighting. Having experienced the robust annual cost reduction of over 40 percent in lighting energy, the improved lighting quality along with substantial savings in lighting maintenance, Farmazona is now turning to Eco-Shift for its LED lighting requirements. The experts at Eco-Shift, together with Mbrace Energy Corp., the Company's Central American installation partner, will be delivering a turnkey solution that manages all aspects of lighting retrofit projects from lighting audits to product sourcing to installation. Ongoing maintenance, servicing, and full back-office support are added benefits available to clients. Commenting on the new contract, and closer collaborative ties with Eco-Shift in the region, Mr. Giovanni Ferrari, President of Farmazona Logistics, said, "We at Farmazona strive for and deliver high-quality logistic storage facilities. Our initial product purchase from Eco-Shift has proven to be exceptional. It has truly made our facility far more efficient in terms of overall power cost, produced a better work environment for our personnel with technology that lives up to our highest expectations. We look forward to working with Eco-Shift for our growing LED retrofit requirements." "Seeing is believing. Once you experience the benefits, and the lighting itself, our products practically sell themselves," said Alistair Haughton, Eco-Shift CEO. "Farmazona is committed to providing the highest level of logistical and warehousing support thought the Caribbean and Central America, and we see it as our job to ensure they can execute in a safe, energy efficient environment. Farmazona is an important client and we're thrilled to be working together to take this relationship to the next level. "Farmazona warehouses are massive, and facility management is the ideal industry to showcase our High Bay systems' ability to deliver on quality, simplicity, price, efficiency, up-to-the-second control and longevity," Mr. Haughton added. "With the winning combination of quality, innovation -- and the backing of our 10-year warranty program -- we deliver the superior, high ROI and strong LED lighting value to Farmazona and other facilities in the region in 2016 and beyond." About Eco-Shift Power Corp. Headquartered in Guelph, Ontario, with affiliate and distributor offices strategically located in key markets California, Florida, Auckland NZ, and Scotland, Eco-Shift Power Corp. is a contract manufacturer of advanced, high-efficiency lighting products and components designed for state-of-the-art energy management systems and cloud-based software platforms. It has strong relationships with a growing worldwide customer base composed primarily of major OEM/ODM lighting designers and distributors. Please visit us at www.eco-shiftpower.com Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains "forward-looking statements." Such statements may be preceded by the words "intends," "may," "will," "plans," "expects," "anticipates," "projects," "predicts," "estimates," "aims," "believes," "hopes," "potential" or similar words. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, are based on certain assumptions and are subject to various known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Eco-Shift's control, and cannot be predicted or quantified and consequently, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, risks and uncertainties associated with (i) the highly competitive nature of lighting industry sales and distribution, (ii) development and protection of our key OEM/ODM and distribution partnerships, (iii) unexpected industry technological development. More detailed information about Eco-Shift and the risk factors that may affect the realization of forward looking statements is set forth in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Investors are urged to read these documents free of charge on the SEC's web site at www.sec.gov. Eco-Shift assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise its forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. ECO-Shift Company Contact: sales@eco-shiftpower.com contact@eco-shiftpower.com +1(844) 779-7900 (toll free) Eco-Shift Power Corp. 53 Speedvale Avenue Guelph, ON N1H 1J6 Canada WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A lawsuit has been filed against Republican presidential contender Ted Cruz challenging his eligibility to serve as US president over citizenship issues, raising doubts about his status as the crucial South Carolina primary approaches. In his lawsuit, Lawrence Joyce from Illinois has questioned Cruz's placement on the Illinois primary ballot next month. As per the American constitution, only US-born citizens are eligible to run for presidency. Canada-born Cruz argues he is a natural US citizen as his parents were US citizens. At a CNN-townhall, Cruz said the issue has been clear from the very first day of the republic. 'I was a citizen by birth, by virtue of my mother's citizenship, so I've never been naturalized. I've never breathed air on this planet when I was not a US citizen, he said. It was the act of being born that made me a US citizen. So under the law, the question is clear. There will still be some that high to work political mischief on it, but as a legal matter, this is clear and straightforward,' the 45-year-old Texas senator said. 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. CHICAGO, IL -- (Marketwired) -- 02/19/16 -- AKA MEDIA INC., the premium global provider of strategic video content, live-streaming events and integrated satellite media tours, announced today a strategic partnership with Chicago-based Kahoots Creative Group, a full-service digital consultancy specializing in crafting effective digital marketing solutions. The partnership includes strategic video content development, digital marketing, mobile and web design, development, advanced video analytics, and email and content marketing strategies for both companies. The CEOs and co-founders of the respective companies, Andrew Krause, of AKA MEDIA INC., and Sherrie Hablitzel, of Kahoots Creative Group Inc., met as classmates in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program as part of Chicago Cohort 13. "Sherrie and I shared the same entrepreneurial journey in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program," Krause said. "We started collaborating on the first day of school and realized a strategic partnership between our two companies would accelerate revenue and job growth for both companies." "The partnership is a perfect match for our services, especially video content marketing automation," Hablitzel said. "The combination of AKA's big-brand experience in video content strategy and our unique approach to user experience, advanced video analytics, and email and content marketing is a powerful benefit for our clients." AKA MEDIA INC. was established in 1998 to provide creative video counseling and production services for top public relations firms, national non-profit agencies and Fortune 500 companies. For more information, visit www.akamediainc.com. Kahoots Creative Group has come up with a fresh model to solve some common problems that digital marketers face. Kahoots offers well-defined solutions that are people-oriented. For more information, visit www.getinkahoots.com. CONTACT: Vince Rango Media Relations Manager AKA MEDIA INC. 800.996.9432 vrango@akamediainc.com WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - More than a third of American adults are not getting enough sleep on a regular basis, according to a new study, which warns them of an increased risk of developing chronic diseases. 'Lifestyle changes such as going to bed at the same time each night; rising at the same time each morning; and turning off or removing televisions, computers, mobile devices from the bedroom, can help people get the healthy sleep they need,' says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. This is the first study to document estimates of self-reported healthy sleep duration for all 50 US states and the District of Columbia. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society recommends that adults aged 18-60 years sleep at least 7 hours each night to promote optimal health and well-being. Sleeping less than seven hours per day is associated with an increased risk of developing chronic conditions such as obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and frequent mental distress. 'As a nation we are not getting enough sleep,' said Wayne Giles, M.D., director of CDC's Division of Population Health. CDC researchers reviewed data from the 2014 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a random telephone survey conducted collaboratively by state health departments and CDC. People who reported they were unable to work or were unemployed had lower healthy sleep duration than did employed respondents. The prevalence of healthy sleep duration was highest among people with a college degree or higher, it was found. Healthy sleep duration was higher among people who were married compared with those who were never married or divorced, widowed, or separated. The report advises healthcare providers in the country to educate patients about the importance of sleep to their health, and at the same time calls on individuals to make getting enough sleep a priority and practice good sleep habits. 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. HOUSTON, TX -- (Marketwired) -- 02/19/16 -- Vantage Drilling International ("Vantage" or the "Company") announced today that it had signed an agreement for a two-year extension of the Tungsten Explorer contract. The contract is now anticipated to keep the Tungsten Explorer working until October 2018. Paul Bragg, President and Chief Executive Officer, commented, "We are pleased to announce this agreement with our customer. This agreement will provide visibility to cash flow for an extended period of time." Vantage is an offshore drilling contractor with an owned fleet of three ultra-deepwater drillships -- the Platinum Explorer, the Titanium Explorer and the Tungsten Explorer -- as well as four Baker Marine Pacific Class 375 ultra-premium jackup drilling rigs. Vantage's primary business is to contract drilling units, related equipment and work crews primarily on a dayrate basis to drill oil and natural gas wells. Vantage also provides construction supervision services for, and will operate and manage, drilling units owned by others. Through its fleet of seven owned drilling units, Vantage is a provider of offshore contract drilling services globally to major, national and large independent oil and natural gas companies. The information above includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions identified above or as disclosed from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As a result of these factors, actual results may differ materially from those indicated or implied by such forward-looking statements. Public & Investor Relations Contact: Paul A. Bragg Chairman & Chief Executive Officer Vantage Drilling International (281) 404-4700 MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 02/19/16 -- Department of Canadian Heritage The Honorable Melanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage, today announced a total of $2,650,000 in funding to help Agora de la danse, Tangente and the Ecole de danse contemporaine de Montreal relocate to the Wilder Building in the heart of Montreal's Quartier des spectacles. This funding, provided by the Government of Canada through the Canada Cultural Spaces Fund, will be used for renovations and to acquire specialized equipment for this new space devoted to dance. Quick Facts -- The Department of Canadian Heritage will provide $650,000 to the Ecole de danse contemporaine de Montreal, $900,000 to Tangente and $1,100,000 to Agora de la danse to help these organizations get set up in the Wilder Building. -- The Wilder Building, soon to become Wilder Espace Danse, is located at the corner of de Bleury and Sainte-Catherine streets in the heart of Montreal's Quartier des spectacles. The big move is scheduled for winter 2017. -- The Ecole de danse contemporaine de Montreal specializes in professional training for contemporary dance performers, while Tangente and Agora de la danse are dedicated to choreography and the promotion of performances. All three are leaders in their fields. -- Having these major contemporary dance players in the Wilder Building will help reinforce Montreal's role as a leader in the world of arts and culture. Quotes "Our government is pleased to support the creators and performers of the world of dance, who will benefit from a work space that reflects what they are: innovative and inspiring. The Wilder Building in the Place des Festivals will offer them exceptional visibility." -The Honorable Melanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage "Artists will soon breathe life into these new state-of-the-art facilities, and make Wilder Espace Danse a hotbed of creation in the heart of the Quartier des spectacles." -Florence Junca-Adenot, Chair of the Board of Directors, Agora de la danse "This financial support from Canadian Heritage is making it possible to add the final touch to a key project to promote and showcase contemporary dance, to the delight of emerging artists, artisans and their audiences." -Stephane Labbe, Executive Director, Tangente "This Canadian Heritage funding is a great boost for a key project that will do wonders for the vitality of the dance community. This support will also help sustain excellence in training future leaders in the performing arts." -Daniel Denis, Chair of the Board of Directors, Ecole de danse contemporaine de Montreal Associated Links Canada Cultural Spaces Fund Agora de la danse Tangente Ecole de danse contemporaine de Montreal Stay Connected Follow us on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Flickr. Contacts: Pierre-Olivier Herbert Press Secretary Office of the Minister of Canadian Heritage 819-997-7788 Media Relations Canadian Heritage 819-994-9101 1-866-569-6155 pch.media-media.pch@canada.ca Regulatory News: Press Release Paris, 19 February 2016 Pernod Ricard S.A. (Paris:RI) is pleased to confirm that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has renewed the HAVANA CLUB trademark registration in the United States through January 27, 2026. The renewal of the U.S. trademark registration means that the dispute over ownership of the Havana Club brand in the United States can be returned to the U.S. courts, where it can be decided on its merits. "We are confident that Cubaexport, the Cuban entity that owns the U.S. trademark registration for Havana Club rum, will prevail in defending its registration in the pending litigation," said Ian FitzSimons, General Counsel of Pernod Ricard. Havana Club rum is the only 100% authentic and genuine Cuban rum distributed in more than 120 markets throughout the world, in which our joint-venture Havana Club Holdings owns the rights to the Havana Club trademark. Pernod Ricard hopes that, in the future, it will be able to distribute Havana Club rum in the United States. About Pernod Ricard Pernod Ricard is the world's n2 in wines and spirits with consolidated Sales of 8,558 million in 2014/15. Created in 1975 by the merger of Ricard and Pernod, the Group has undergone sustained development, based on both organic growth and acquisitions: Seagram (2001), Allied Domecq (2005) and Vin&Sprit (2008). Pernod Ricard holds one of the most prestigious brand portfolios in the sector: Absolut Vodka, Ricard pastis, Ballantine's, Chivas Regal, Royal Salute and The Glenlivet Scotch whiskies, Jameson Irish whiskey, Martell cognac, Havana Club rum, Beefeater gin, Kahlua and Malibu liqueurs, Mumm and Perrier- Jouet champagnes, as well Jacob's Creek, Brancott Estate, Campo Viejo, Graffigna and Kenwood wines. Pernod Ricard employs a workforce of approximately 18,000 people and operates through a decentralised organisation, with 6 "Brand Companies" and 85 "Market Companies" established in each key market. Pernod Ricard is strongly committed to a sustainable development policy and encourages responsible consumption. Pernod Ricard's strategy and ambition are based on 3 key values that guide its expansion: entrepreneurial spirit, mutual trust and a strong sense of ethics. Pernod Ricard is listed on Euronext (Ticker: RI; ISIN code: FR0000120693) and is part of the CAC 40 index. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160219005716/en/ Contacts: Pernod Ricard Julia Massies VP, Financial Communication Investor Relations, +33 (0)1 41 00 41 07 Sylvie Machenaud Director External Communications, +33 (0)1 41 00 42 74 Alison Donohoe Investor Relations, +33 (0)1 41 00 42 14 Apolline Celeyron Press Relations Officer, +33 (0)1 41 00 40 97 CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/19/16 -- Shaw Communications Inc. ("Shaw") (TSX: SJR.B)(NYSE: SJR) announced today that it has closed its offering of C$300 million principal amount of 3.15% senior notes due 2021. The senior notes were made available in Canada under Shaw's previously filed shelf prospectus pursuant to an agency agreement with TD Securities Inc. acting as sole bookrunner. The net proceeds of this offering will be used for working capital and general corporate purposes, which may include directly or indirectly funding payment of a portion of the purchase price for the previously announced acquisition by Shaw of WIND Mobile. About Shaw Communications Inc. Shaw Communications Inc. is a diversified communications and media company, serving 3.2 million customers through a reliable and extensive fibre network. Shaw serves consumers with broadband Internet, WiFi, Digital Phone and Video products and services. Shaw Business Network Services provides business customers Internet, data, WiFi, telephony, Video and fleet tracking services. Shaw Business Infrastructure Services offers North American enterprises colocation, cloud and managed services through ViaWest. Shaw Media provides Canadians with engaging programming content through one of Canada's largest conventional television networks, Global Television, and 19 specialty networks including HGTV Canada, Food Network Canada, HISTORY and Showcase. Shaw is traded on the Toronto and New York stock exchanges and is included in the S&P/TSX 60 Index (TSX: SJR.B)(NYSE: SJR). For more information, please visit www.shaw.ca. Contacts: Shaw Communications Inc. Investor Relations investor.relations@sjrb.ca www.shaw.ca WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Reflecting recent momentum behind his campaign, Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has overtaken former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination in a new Fox News poll. Sanders leads Clinton by 47 percent to 44 percent among Democratic primary voters, according to the poll results released Thursday evening. The three-point gap is within the poll's margin of error, although this still marks the first time Sanders has led Clinton in a major national poll. The previous Fox News poll conducted last month showed Clinton with a 49 percent to 37 percent advantage over Sanders. Other recent polls have shown the Democratic presidential race narrowing but with Clinton holding on to a sizable lead. A NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday showed Clinton leading Sanders by 53 percent to 42 percent compared to the 59 percent to 34 percent lead she held last month. The RealClearPolitics average, which includes the Fox News poll, shows Clinton with a 47.6 percent to 42.0 percent advantage over Sanders. 'One thing that is clear from our poll -- and others -- is that Clinton has been losing support and Sanders has been gaining,' Democratic pollster Chris Anderson told Fox News. 'And this process appears to have accelerated since the contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.' The Fox News survey of 429 Democratic primary voters was conducted February 15th through 17th and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points. (Gage Skidmore) 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. TORONTO, ONTARIO and NEW YORK, NEW YORK -- (Marketwired) -- 02/19/16 -- BMO Capital Markets will host its 25th annual Global Metals & Mining Conference from February 28 to March 2, 2016, in Hollywood, Florida. The conference will bring together metals and mining industry leaders and institutional investors from around the world. BMO Capital Markets will celebrate the silver jubilee edition of the conference by welcoming more than 1000 industry professionals representing nearly 500 companies from 28 countries and six continents. "We are proud to once again host the industry at our Global Metals & Mining Conference, an annual event that has for decades celebrated our commitment to the sector across commodities cycles," said Darryl White, Chief Executive Officer, BMO Capital Markets. BMO Capital Markets has been advising companies on the mining industry for more than 100 years, and earlier this month was recognized by Global Finance Magazine for the seventh consecutive year as the world's best investment bank for metals and mining. The conference brings together the global investors and executives who continuously map the future of the diverse and dynamic mining industry. The conference is typically viewed as an early barometer of industry sentiment for the year to come, featuring presentations from some of the world's largest mining companies. Companies scheduled to present at the conference include: -- Agnico-Eagle Mines (AEM) -- Agrium Inc. (AGU) -- Anglo American (AAL) -- Antofagasta (ANTO) -- Barrick Gold (ABX) -- BHP Billiton (BLT) -- Cameco (CCO) -- Franco-Nevada (FNV) -- Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX) -- Gemfields (GEM) -- Goldcorp (GG) -- HudBay Minerals (HBM) -- Lundin Mining (LUN) -- Mosaic (MOS) -- Newmont Mining (NEM) -- Petra Diamonds (PDL) -- PotashCorp (POT) -- Randgold Resources (RRS) -- Silver Wheaton (SLW) -- Steel Dynamics (STLD) The three-day event is hosted by the BMO Capital Markets Metals & Mining Equity Research team. With dedicated metals and mining analysts in Toronto, London, and New York, BMO covers more than 150 publicly-listed companies, making it one of the largest mining and fertilizer research groups in the world. "Our event gives investors the opportunity to get the information and insight they need for the year," said David Gagliano, who co-heads mining research with Andrew Kaip at BMO Capital Markets. "While the current market environment is challenging, we all know that the sector is cyclical. This is absolutely the time to be looking at the space," said Mr. Kaip. Members of the BMO Metals & Mining Equity Research Group include: -- Andrew Breichmanas, Research Analyst, Precious Metals -- Sasha Bukacheva, Research Analyst, Base Metals -- Jessica Fung, Research Analyst, Commodities -- David Gagliano, Research Analyst, US Metals & Mining -- Joel Jackson, Research Analyst, Fertilizers & Chemicals -- Andrew Kaip, Research Analyst, Precious Metals -- Alexander Pearce, Research Analyst, non-Precious Metals -- Brian Quast, Research Analyst, Precious Metals -- Edward Sterck, Research Analyst, Diversified, Uranium, Diamonds For a copy of the agenda, access to Webcast presentations, or to request a telephone interview, please contact Pav Jordan at BMO Media Relations. Members of the Research team will be available at the close of the conference to discuss the conference and market sentiment. About BMO Capital Markets BMO Capital Markets is a leading, full-service North American financial services provider. With more than 2,300 employees operating in 29 locations, including 16 in North America, BMO Capital Markets offers corporate, institutional and government clients access to a complete range of investment and corporate banking products and services. BMO Capital Markets is a member of BMO Financial Group (NYSE: BMO)(TSX: BMO), One of the largest diversified financial services providers in North America, with total assets of CDN $642 billion as of October 31, 2015, and close to 47,000 employees. Contacts: Media Contacts: Pav Jordan, Toronto 416-867-3996 Pav.Jordan@bmo.com Internet: www.bmo.com It looks like the recent rally in the Canadian dollar is about to come to an end. Deutsche Bank, the world's second-largest currency dealer, is warning its clients that the U.S. dollar is about to push the "loonie" even lower. The bank is forecasting that the CAD to USD exchange will dip down to $0.71 by the first or second quarter of this year.In a note to its clients, Deutsche Bank says the recent rally in the CAD was based solely on an oil recovery. The problem for the Canadian dollar, it says, is that Deutsche Bank does not see oil recovering to high enough levels. 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, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 02/19/16 -- Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat The Honourable Scott Brison, President of the Treasury Board, today tabled the 2015-16 Supplementary Estimates in the House of Commons. The 2015-16 Supplementary Estimates provide information to support the Government's request for Parliament to approve $ 2.8 billion in voted appropriations for 58 organizations to continue government programs and initiatives of importance to Canadians. It also provides an overview of 13 major initiatives that will be supported by this funding. A Supply Bill seeking Parliament's approval to spend funds in line with these Supplementary Estimates will be tabled no later than March 26. Quick Facts -- Major expenditure items in the 2015-16 Supplementary Estimates include disability benefits for the Canadian Armed Forces, support for overseas military operations, the Green Climate Fund, and refugee resettlement. -- This fiscal year, the total statutory budgetary expenditures, including the Main Estimates and Supplementary Estimates (A), (B), and , total $155.7 billion. The voted expenditures for the same period total $95 billion. -- Information about departmental lapses is available as an online annex to the Supplementary Estimates. Quotes "Through these Supplementary Estimates, we are seeking access to funds that will allow the Government to address priorities that Canadians want us to focus on, including support for our men and women in uniform, the environment and the resettlement of Syrian refugees." "The Government is committed to strengthening Parliament's oversight of government spending. We have already improved reporting on government spending by adding, for the first time, an online annex to the Supplementary Estimates listing the anticipated lapses of federal organizations. We will continue to engage with Parliamentarians and other stakeholders to improve the estimates process." - The Honourable Scott Brison, President of the Treasury Board Associated Links 2015-16 Supplementary Estimates C Supplementary Estimates Additional Information: -- Allocations from Treasury Board Central Votes -- Budgetary Expenditures by Standard Object -- Estimates by Strategic Outcome and Program -- Transfers Between Organizations -- Frozen Allotments in Voted Authorities (ii)new(ii) Follow us on Twitter: @TBS_Canada. Contacts: Jean-Luc Ferland Press Secretary Office of the President of the Treasury Board 613-369-3163 Media Relations Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat 613-369-9400 TTY (telecommunications device for the hearing impaired) 613-957-9090 VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/19/16 -- Online investment manager ModernAdvisor today announced the launch of "Springboard," a test-drive program that enables Canadians to experience online investing risk-free for three months, using $1,000 of ModernAdvisor's funds. At the end of the trial, investors could be eligible to keep any gains earned during the trial period. The program was designed to help Canadians become more comfortable using online tools to manage their investments. ModernAdvisor expects Springboard to appeal to first-time investors and millennials who are already comfortable banking and filing taxes online, but have limited experience with investing. However, even seasoned investors -- those currently managing their own investments or who are thinking of transitioning from a traditional advisor to an online service -- may be interested in participating in a trial before making a decision. "Springboard will help investors realize that investing with an online financial advisor is easy and convenient. It also gives them an added incentive to follow through with the investment plan they receive as part of the trial, by giving them the opportunity to benefit if the trial period goes well," said Navid Boostani, co-founder and CEO of ModernAdvisor. ModernAdvisor designs diversified investment portfolios using low-cost exchange traded funds (ETFs) and provides automatic rebalancing in response to changing market conditions. Proprietary technology also allows ModernAdvisor to keep their fees low, ranging between 0.35 per cent to 0.50 per cent a year, or less than a third of what an investor might pay for a typical mutual fund through a traditional advisor. "Until recently, high-quality investment management was a privilege only available to wealthy individuals," added Boostani. "Our technology allows us to offer sophisticated investment management at an exceptionally low cost to clients with as little as $1,000 to invest. This allows us to fill in a large gap and serve a larger market." Springboard is being offered on an ongoing basis. Space is limited within the program, which can support up to 250 users at any point. For more information on the program, visit http://modernadvisor.ca/springboard. About ModernAdvisor ModernAdvisor is an online investment management platform helping Canadians reach their investment goals, and the first to offer responsible investing portfolio options based on ESG (environmental, social, governance) principles. ModernAdvisor is registered in all Canadian provinces and the Northwest Territories. ModernAdvisor's mission is to help more Canadians reach their investment goals through transparent and unbiased investment management services. The company uses technology to bring Canadians intelligent investing at a fraction of the cost of a traditional advisor. About Springboard Program participants will receive a temporary account credited with $1,000 of ModernAdvisor's funds. The funds will be allocated based on suitability questions completed during signup. Investors will be able to track the performance of the portfolio for up to three months, using ModernAdvisor's comprehensive web-based dashboard and iOS app. This allows new investors to experience online investment management for up to three months, completely risk-free. Investors who go on to open a permanent account will get to keep any gains made on the portfolio at the end of the three-month trial period. Canadians can visit ModernAdvisor.ca to open an account or preview the service, including a personalized asset allocation recommendation, free of charge. Contacts: Media Contact: ModernAdvisor Melissa Orozco / Esther Tung Office: 604.558.1656 or Cell: 778.968.0503 media@modernadvisor.ca www.ModernAdvisor.ca According to the latest research study released by Technavio, the global wireless home security system market is expected to reach close to USD 32 billion in revenue by 2019. This research report titled 'Global Wireless Home Security System Market 2015-2019' provides an in-depth analysis of market growth in terms of revenue and emerging market trends. This market research report also includes up to date analysis and forecasts for various market segments and all leading regions. Request sample report: http://bit.ly/20Z7lyc "Many vendors in the residential security market are developing customized solutions to cater to specific needs of customers. For instance, United Technologies provides customized solutions for homeowners to meet their requirements. Honeywell provides solutions that help end users to remotely manage temperature control. Its implementation also enables the use of smartphones and tablets to unlock doors," said Amrita Choudhury, one of Technavio's lead analysts for IT security research. "Vendors are also introducing solutions, such as infant monitoring, pet monitoring, and intruder alerts, which can be incorporated into smartphones and tablets to enable live monitoring. This is further encouraging customers to adopt security solutions," added Amrita. Global home security system market by product segmentation 2014 DIY home security 7.13% Security solutions 14.34% Alarms 17.36% Sensors and detectors 18.90% Electronic and smart locks 20.60% Security cameras 21.61% Source: Technavio Research Top three segments of the global wireless home security system market: Security cameras Electronic and smart lock Sensors and detectors Global security cameras market: largest contributor The security cameras segment of the global home security system market is expected to reach USD 7.59 billion by 2019. This segment has seen a proliferation of many variants with advanced technologies that fulfill customer demands. Cameras are being introduced that are embedded with features such as Wi-Fi connectivity, rechargeable and replaceable batteries, and accessibility on Android and iOS devices through apps. Features on apps include, two-way talk, motion and sound alerts, and activity logs. Video quality is emerging as a major buying criterion among end users in the market. To cater to this requirement, vendors are innovating with features that eliminate technical glitches like lag times and blurriness. Most cameras are available in 720 pixel resolutions. However, Samsung SmartCam HD Pro, Nest Cam, and Piper are some variants that offer 1,080 pixel resolutions as well. For video storage, vendors have started providing end-users the option of saving videos either on cloud or in microSD cards. Some variants also come with the option of manual settings to change the field of view, while Piper is equipped with a 180 degree field of view and fisheye lens. These developments are expected to strengthen vendor offerings in the wireless home security system space and foster market growth. Global electronic and smart locks market: second largest revenue contributor The electronic and smart locks market will grow tremendously in the forecast period due to new emerging trends in the market like smart locks and electromechanical products. Instead of mechanical door locks, consumers are opting for entrance automation that offer greater security against unlawful intrusion. The market is also witnessing a demand for electronic door locks which are integrated with other home security products. For leveraging this trend, vendors are expanding their product lines with offerings that can be easily integrated with mobile and digital platforms. Vendors ensure that locksmiths, lock and building wholesalers, hardware stores and security stores have considerable knowledge about products to provide installation and customer service. Apart from providing digital locks that are integrated with other security products, vendors are also emphasizing including energy efficiency as a key feature in their offerings. Another pertinent trend to the market is the growth of smart locks propelled by the emergence of connected homes and internet of things (IoT). The increased adoption of home automation and awareness about advanced products are predicted to propel the smart lock market to grow at a CAGR of over 68% until 2019. Sensors and detectors segment The sensors and detectors segment of the global home security system market was valued at close to USD 3.29 billion in 2014. The sensors and detectors segment of the global home security system market is predicted to grow at a tremendous pace with increased expenditure from residential consumers. With an increase in cases of burglary in residences, consumers are spending more on home security products to protect their houses and property from intruders. Innovations in the sensors segment with various types of sensors include, door and window sensors, motion sensors and glass break sensors that cater to this market demand. For instance, the Sadotech Wireless PIR Sensor is integrated with doorbells. It has an operating range of nearly 500 feet. It also comes with adjustable volume levels ranging from 25db to 110db.The PIR technology triggers the chime unit of the bell and sends alerts about the intruder. Another recent innovation is the SmartThings Multi Sensor by Samsung which is capable of monitoring temperature and vibration along with monitoring doors and windows. The sensor can be integrated with a smartphone and the app receives notifications every time the door or window is moved. With many more big security system players venturing into this domain, the sensors and detectors market is predicted to gain immense traction during the forecast period. Browse related reports: Global Home Automation System Market 2015-2019 Smart Home M2M Market in UK: Market Research Report 2015-2019 Global Connected Home Security System Market 2016-2020 Purchase any 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/20160219005019/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 NEW YORK, Feb. 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --Many small business marketers have the flexibility to accommodate opportunities in real-time in order to promote their latest product or service. While dozens of businesses have incorporated breaking news into their marketing mix, there may still be confusion around how best to identify these opportunities and join in on the conversations. In the latest article posted to PR Newswire's Small Business PR Toolkit, contributing author Penny Sansevieri provides six techniques on how to use breaking news to build buzz for your business. Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110831/NY59180LOGO 1. Media Alerts: The first way to identify these opportunities is to make sure you have your keywords entered into alert systems such as TalkWalker.com or Mention.net. Notification systems allow you to monitor the Web for content about your name, brand or competitors. Sansevieri suggests utilizing these systems during non-breaking news times as well in order to familiarize yourself with the media that covers your industry. 2. Connect: Begin connecting with journalists off- and on-line in order to build relationships and start dialog. One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is by following reporters on social media and commenting on their stories. A great offline tip is to attend an event where you can connect, interact and share information. 3. Blog: Now that you can identify breaking-news opportunities, Sansevieri recommends the best way to join the conversation is by starting a company blog where you can share your expertise with your readers. If you don't have an active blog, you can still join the conversation by reading other industry blogs and commenting on those posts. For further discussion on the three remaining breaking-news tactics, read Sansevieri's post here. PR Newswire's Small Business PR Toolkit is a comprehensive resource that provides small businesses and entrepreneurs the tools to develop an affordable public relations and marketing plan that helps generate interest from potential customers, engage with key audiences and grow their businesses. The toolkit features relevant content such as informative white papers, interactive webinars and how-to articles and premium access to educational resources, as well as the opportunity to take advantage of special offers designed specifically for small businesses. To request information on how PR Newswire can help your small business,click here. You can receive updates on new Small Business PR Toolkit content by following@prnsmallbizon Twitter. About PR Newswire PR Newswire (www.prnewswire.com) is the premier global provider of multimedia platforms that enable marketers, corporate communicators, sustainability officers, public affairs and investor relations officers to leverage content to engage with all their key audiences. Having pioneered the commercial news distribution industry over 60 years ago, PR Newswire today provides end-to-end solutions to produce, optimize and target content -- from rich media to online video to multimedia -- and then distribute content and measure results across traditional, digital, mobile and social channels. Combining the world's largest multi-channel, multi-cultural content distribution and optimization network with comprehensive workflow tools and platforms, PR Newswire enables the world's enterprises to engage opportunity everywhere it exists. PR Newswire serves tens of thousands of clients from offices in the Americas, Europe,Middle East,Africaand theAsia-Pacificregion, and is a UBM plc company. Contact: Amanda Eldridge Director, Strategic Channels 201-360-6906 Amanda.eldridge@prnewswire.com According to the latest research report released by Technavio, the global lithography systems market is expected to reach over to USD 8 billion by 2019. This report titled 'Global Lithography Systems Market 2015-2019', provides an in-depth analysis of the market in terms of revenue and emerging trends. This market study also presents up to date analysis and forecasts for various market segments and all leading regions. Request sample report: http://bit.ly/1Xni6Iy "The majority of prominent semiconductor foundries such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, United Microelectronics, and Semiconductor Manufacturing International are present in APAC. The presence of dominant players in consumer electronics and mobile phone manufacturers such as Samsung, Sony, LG, Toshiba, and Panasonic further supports the demand for semiconductor ICs in the region. Hence, over the next four years, growth in the global consumer electronics and mobile devices markets will lead to an increased demand for lithography systems in this region and help the overall market," said Asif Gani, one of Technavio's lead industry analysts for semiconductor equipment Some of the other driving forces behind the growth of the global lithography systems market are as follows: Growth in global semiconductor industry Miniaturization of electronic devices Increasing demand for large panel displays Growth in global semiconductor market The semiconductor market has been growing around the world and is expected to register a CAGR of around 5.17% during the forecast period. Increase in the sales of mobile devices and consumer electronic devices is supporting the growth of the global semiconductor market. Due to advances in the consumer electronics sector, such as the emergence of 3D and UHD TVs and hybrid laptops, the demand for semiconductor ICs will increase steadily during the forecast period, which will in turn create a need for semiconductor wafers. Hence, it is anticipated that growth of the global semiconductor market will have a high impact on semiconductor device manufacturers, as it will force them to improve their production capacity, and this trend is expected to significantly drive the demand for lithography systems over the forecast period. Miniaturization of electronic devices The demand for compact electronic devices has grown in almost every sector, be it telecommunication, automotive, industrial manufacturing, or healthcare. This trend has forced semiconductor device manufacturers to invest in R&D to reduce the size and increase the performance of ICs, and it has in turn led to the emergence of MEMS and 3D chip packaging. Further, ICs have also become denser over the decade due to an increase in the number of transistors in the same physical space, thus augmenting the need for finer patterning. This trend is likely to supplement the global demand for lithography systems over the next four years. Increasing demand for large panel displays Consumers are demonstrating a strong preference for large-screen displays ranging from 55 inches to 105 inches for an enhanced visual experience, and because 4K UHD content does not pixelate, the demand for large-screen 4K UHD TVs is increasing. This demand is consequently impacting the PCBs and semiconductor ICs positively, thus triggering the need for lithography systems during the production stage. Therefore, the increasing demand for large panel displays will likely have a moderately high impact on the global lithography systems market over the next four years. Browse related reports: Global Semiconductor Equipment LED Production Market 2015-2019 Global Semiconductor Equipment Wafer Inspection Market 2015-2019 Global Semiconductor Equipment EUV Lithography Market 2015-2019 Purchase any 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/20160219005026/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 DOHA, Qatar, February 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Within the consultations currently being conducted by the Committee For Negotiations on the viability of a temporary truce; Dr. Riad Hijab convened a meeting of Syrian armed opposition representatives from all fronts. They discussed the possibility of reaching a temporary agreement through which the foreign forces allied to the regime could cease hostilities waged against Syrians. (Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160119/323401 ) Dr. Hijab confirmed that the armed opposition have expressed their initial approval to a temporary truce agreement, in accordance with international mediation and UN safeguards to contain Russian, Iranian and sectarian militias and mercenary groups affiliated to them from fighting. Stressing that it is not possible to conclude an agreement of this kind with the current Russian air campaign and Iranian ground offensive, neither of which come with any real authority or power from the ground in Syria. However, this initial approval comes as a reflection of the armed opposition's willingness to respond to sincere international efforts to stop Syrian suffering, and to put an end to aerial bombardments against civilians, which resulted in a mass exodus of tens of thousands of Syrians. But sources within the armed opposition suspect that the truce cannot work unless there is a cessation of all military operations; lifting the blockades imposed by the regime and its allies on cities and regions to enable humanitarian access to deliver aid, and the release of all detainees, especially women and children, in accordance with United Nations Resolutions and the agreement reached during the International Syria Support Group meeting in Munich, Thursday, February 11, 2016. Towards the end of the meeting, Dr. Hijab expressed his satisfaction at the consensus reached between the various armed opposition on a truce in accordance with the above identified provisions and guarantees. But, he also stressed that he was under no illusions that the regime and the powers behind it will abide by any ceasefire or accept a cessation of hostilities, because they know fully well that the regime's survival depends on continual crackdown, killings and forced displacement, hence to achieve any progress on the political or humanitarian front is not their desired aim. He added that the Negotiations Committee will be holding an emergency meeting on Monday, February 22, to re-evaluate what has been reached in regards to a tentatively approved truce, and discuss ways to provide the necessary guarantees and commitment for its success. syrianassembley@gmail.com TORONTO, February 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- TSX-V: JAG Jaguar Mining Inc. ("Jaguar" or the "Company") (TSXV: JAG)today announced that, effective immediately, Hashim Ahmed, Vice President of Finance, has been appointed Interim Chief Financial Officer. Derrick Weyrauch, Chief Financial Officer, has stepped down to pursue other opportunities. Mr. Ahmed will oversee Jaguar's accounting functions and financial controls until the Company completes its search for a new permanent Chief Financial Officer. "With a strong background in finance in the mining sector, Hashim has a valuable understanding of our Company and I am confident he is the right leader to take on the role of Interim CFO as we initiate our search for a permanent CFO,"stated Rodney Lamond, President and Chief Executive Officer of Jaguar Mining. "On behalf of the Board and myself, I want to thank Derrick for his contributions to Jaguar Mining over the past three years. We wish him well in his future endeavors." The Company has initiated its search for a new Chief Financial Officer and continues to be led by Rodney Lamond, Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Lamond is a seasoned mining professional and engineer with more than 27 years of experience in mine operations, development, exploration and executive management. About Jaguar Mining Inc. Jaguar is a gold producer with mining operations in a prolific greenstone belt in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Additionally, Jaguar wholly owns the large-scale Gurupi Development Project in the state of Maranhao, Brazil. In total, the Company owns mineral claims covering an area of approximate 197,000-hectares. Additional information is available on the Company's website athttp://www.jaguarmining.com. FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS Certain statements in this press release constitute "Forward-Looking Statements" within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, management's assessment of Jaguar's future plans and operation. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "are expected", "is forecast", "is targeted", "approximately", "plans", "anticipates" "projects", "anticipates", "continue", "estimate", "believe" or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might", or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. In this news release, information contained in forward-looking statements is based on current expectations that involve a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including, among others, uncertainties with respect to the availability of qualified personnel or management and uncertainties inherent to capital markets in general, which, if incorrect, may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by Jaguar and described herein. For additional information with respect to these and other factors and assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements made in this news release, see the Company's most recent annual information form and management's discussion and analysis, as well as other public disclosure documents that can be accessed under the issuer profile of "Jaguar Mining Inc." on SEDAR athttp://www.sedar.com. The forward-looking statements set forth herein reflect Jaguar's expectations as at the date of this news release and is subject to change after such date. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulations Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Rodney Lamond, Chief Executive Officer, T: 416-628-9601 x 303, rodney.lamond@jaguarmining.com Toronto, Ontario & New York, New York--(Newsfile Corp. - February 19, 2016) - Micromem Technologies Inc. (CSE: MRM) (OTCQX: MMTIF) (the "Company") announces it will hold its Annual Meeting at EST 10:00am on Tuesday, April 26, 2016 at The National Club, 303 Bay Street, Toronto, ON. About Micromem and MASTInc MASTInc is a wholly owned U.S.-based subsidiary of Micromem Technologies Inc., a publicly traded (OTCQX: MMTIF) (CSE: MRM) company. MASTInc analyzes specific industry sectors to create intelligent game-changing applications that address unmet market needs. By leveraging its expertise and experience with sophisticated magnetic sensor applications, MASTInc successfully powers the development and implementation of innovative solutions for oil & gas, utilities, automotive, healthcare, government, information technology, manufacturing, and other industries. Visit www.micromeminc.com www.mastinc.com. Safe Harbor Statement This press release contains forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, assumptions and uncertainties that could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements. In particular, factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward looking statements include: our inability to obtain additional financing on acceptable terms; risk that our products and services will not gain widespread market acceptance; continued consumer adoption of digital technology; inability to compete with others who provide comparable products; the failure of our technology; the infringement of our technology with proprietary rights of third parties; inability to respond to consumer and technological demands; inability to replace significant customers; seasonal nature of our business; and other risks detailed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date made and are not guarantees of future performance. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. When used in this document, the words "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "project," "plan," "should," "intend," "may," "will," "would," "potential," and similar expressions may be used to identify forward-looking statements. The CSE or any other securities regulatory authority has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release that has been prepared by management. ### Banking group UniCredit has committed approximately 200m to invest in fintech companies worldwide. To this end, The bank has signed a partnership with Anthemis Group, a London, UK and NYC-based venture capital and advisory firm that focuses exclusively on fintech. According to a note, Unicredit aims to invest in fintech companies in order to turn a threat into an opportunity, enriching the business proposition and speeding up the digital evolution program of the group. UniCredit will invest through two dedicated vehicles, as follows: a 175m equity fund focused on established startups and follow-on investments, with , and a $25m fund investing in early stage startups, where the bank will act as anchor investor. Anthemis Holdings invests in digitally native financial services companies in such sectors as: 1. Retail banking & consumer finance 2. Business & corporate banking 3. Payments 4. Wealth & asset management 5. Capital markets & trading 6. Insurance & risk management 7. Data, technology & infrastructure The firm currently has a portfolio of 31 companies based is US (52%), UK (30%), Continental Europe (4%) and rest of the world (15%), including Azimo, Betterment, eShares, eToro, Fidor Bank, Jumo, Metamakets, Payperks, Premise, Seedcamp, Xenapto, etc. FinSMEs 19/02/2016 Mumbai: Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar has hailed the decision to hoist the national flag in all central universities in the country, saying the tricolour inspires Indians to soar high and reach new heights. The actor took to Twitter on Friday to express his views on the human resource development ministry's directive to all central universities in the country to fly the national flag. Totally with d decision of d Tricolour being hoisted at all Central Universities & why nt it brings out d best in us,inspires us 2 soar high Ranjit Katiyal (@akshaykumar) February 19, 2016 The decision to have the national flag atop all the varsities came on Thursday at the meeting of vice chancellors of central universities chaired by HRD Minister Smriti Irani. Akshay, son of an Army man, is known for featuring in films running high on patriotic sentiment, with his last Bollywood outing being Airlift, which revolves around the evacuation of Indians from Kuwait during the 1990 Iraq-Kuwait war. One of the highpoints in the film is when the national flag is unfurled, evoking patriotism and a twirl of emotions among the cine-goers. A week-long "Make in India" fair closed on Thursday with $222 billion (Rs 15.2 lakh cr) in investment pledges, but thin attendance by foreign firms at the event launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi means many are unlikely to actually happen. The Mumbai jamboree was the biggest in India, but earlier events such as the "Vibrant Gujarat" launched by Modi when he led the state have only seen 13 percent of deals implemented, according to independent research. Amitabh Kant, Secretary of India's Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), told reporters investment commitments had reached 15.2 trillion rupees ($222 billion). The commitments fell some way short of the 25 trillion rupees announced at the three-day Vibrant Gujarat event a year ago. Kant said he expected 80-85 percent of the pledges to convert into serious business, much of it from foreign investors. It can take 18 months to three years for a memorandum of understanding to yield a final investment, he added. "This was the biggest multi-sectoral event ever done across Asia," he told a briefing, describing the event as a success. "We have already opened the economy across sectors to the world. We're now showcasing, connecting and collaborating for manufacturing in the country," Kant said, adding that the summit is not about manufacturing alone, but innovation and nurturing inventors. He is hopeful that the summit will create a favourable environment for investors from across the world. Research commissioned by the free-market Friedrich Naumann and Cato institutes has found the rate of conversion of such pledges into real investments in India has typically been far lower - with no state exceeding 20 percent. Among investments signed in the last seven days were a commitment by Oracle Corp for $400 million to set up nine business incubation centres. Though some participants who spoke to Reuters lauded the event, several complained about a lack of foreign involvement. "The response is overwhelming, but mostly from Indians. There are Indians everywhere. Usually in Germany, in events like these, stalls are thronged by foreigners," said Ingo Eibbeck, a representative of German manufacturer Schneider International. According to the data available, host state Maharashtra alone accounted for Rs 8 lakh crore. Besides, it received investment enquiries worth Rs 1.5 lakh crore. Out of the total investment commitments, the host state made up for more than half, at Rs 8 lakh crore, Kant said, adding that Maharashtra could become the gateway for the rest of the country. Out of the total commitment pie, 30 per cent have come from foreign players. The jamboree, for which the Modi-led government has reportedly spent close to Rs 100 crore in marketing alone, is part of the government's push to create jobs by increasing the share of manufacturing to GDP to 25 per cent over the next decade, from the 16-17 per cent now. The domestic economy has for long been supported by the services sector, which alone contributes more than 60 per cent of GDP. The summit, despite a reasonably good participation from Corporate India and global companies, had its own share of shortcomings, with poor coordination among various agencies such as DIPP, PIB and industry lobby CII coming to the fore. On the very thin participation from north-eastern states, Kant said, "Every state has different core competency. I am from the Kerala cadre and I believe that Kerala is a great state for travel and tourism, but is not a great state for industrialisation." He added: "My personal view is that north-eastern states need to be developed with sustainability and innovativeness. If you force too much of industrialisation in those areas, you will spoil the natural surroundings of the region. Let's not force every state to be Maharashtra or Gujarat... that will not be correct." However, it can be noted that most of the non-NDA states barring Karnataka, which is ruled by the main Opposition Congress, and Odisha ruled by the BJD, kept away from the summit. Over 2,500 international and 8,000 domestic companies are claimed to have participated in the week-long multi-sectoral industrial event, apart foreign government delegations from 68 countries and business teams from 72 nations. The opening ceremony was also attended by Prime Ministers of Sweden, Finland and Deputy Premier of Poland, besides other foreign ministers. As many as 17 states, mostly BJP-ruled ones, participated in the expo and there were over 50 seminars. Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Odisha and Punjab had dedicated state-centric sessions too. The opening cultural night at Girgaum Beach turned out to be a flop after a massive fire broke out early into the event, which had the entire state government in attendance. Luckily, there was no human casualty. Similarly, many were critical of the high food prices at the food courts and the high security, which didn't allow home-made foods. Agencies Editor's note: AIBEA (All India Bank Employees Association) has clarified that it has wrongly provided the names of top accounts of Uco bank instead of top corporate defaulters' list. The error is regretted. The precarious bad loan situation in Indias banking industry (Rs 4.4 lakh crore declared bad loans till December mostly from large corporate defaulters) calls for strong actions not mere expression of concern and panic. But, unfortunately, the missing part is solid action on loan recovery from large corporate defaulters who owe thousands of crores of money to Indian banks, mainly state-run banks. These also include promoters who refuse to pay back even when they have the wherewithal to do so (wilful defaulters). Banks have so far tried to largely cover up the bad loan issue by postponing the problem till the RBI put a deadline of March 2017 for banks to clean up their balance sheets. As a result, since December quarter, banks have started aggressively disclosing the NPAs on their books to comply with the RBI diktat. But, does this mean that all these banks have been covering up most part of their NPAs (non-performing assets) so far? Also, there have been huge write-offs on bank loan to corporates. According to All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA), a union of bank employees, between 2001 and 2013, some Rs 2 lakh crore loans have been written off by banks. (Firstpost hasnt independently verified this figure.) There is an obvious question of how so much of NPAs come up on their balance sheets. Surely, this would not have happened overnight and just because of the general economic slowdown. Who is answerable for such a large build-up of stressed assets that has now pushed the banks to the verge of a crisis? Traditionally, the chairmen of PSU banks duly passed on the provisioning burden (banks need to set aside money against loans where recovery has stopped) to their successors. They did the same to their successors too. Why we havent heard an instance of former bank chiefs punished for poor performance and possible case of interested-party lending? Had it been private institutions, the CEO would have been sacked instantly. Is the practice of covering up bad assets and showing healthier balance sheets for years to shareholders very different from what one Ramalinga Raju did in Satyam in 2009? What are the roles of the RBI, courts and the government in such cases. Here are three logical questions to ask: The RBI: Governor Raghuram Rajan has indeed raised a question on crony promoters who wouldnt pay back the money even if they have the capacity to do so (wilful defaulters) and even dare the whole system by throwing lavish birthday parties and flaunting luxury cars in an obvious reference to Indias own Richard Branson, Vijay Mallya the promoter of grounded airline, Kingfisher, who owes over Rs 7,000 crore to a host of state-run banks. The RBI governor expressing concern on wilful defaulters flaunting public wealth is welcome. But, beyond this, has the regulator taken any steps to deal with such defaulters? Also, didnt the RBI know all these while about the huge hidden portion of NPAs on bank balance sheets? The Judiciary: Corporate tycoons with deep-pockets have always found a way to drag banks to court rooms across the country for years and thus delay the repayment process. One classic example is Vijay Mallya of grounded Kingfisher Airlines. Mallya has used the legal system to his advantage to delay the loan recovery by banks. Before the SBI finally tagged Mallya as a wilful defaulter in November 2015, the liquor baron had managed to force Kolkata-based United Bank of India to reverse its decision (to tag Mallya as wilful defaulter) getting a favourable court verdict on purely technical ground. The court ruled in favour of Mallya citing that instead of having three members, the grievance redressal committee of the bank had four members. The Supreme Courts ruling early this week seeking the details of large value loan defaulters from RBI in a sealed cover is welcome. But, why should be the benefit of confidentiality given to the rich and powerful bank loan defaulters, since had this been an individual home, auto or personal loan defaulter, banks would have immediately initiated action against the individual exposing him in public. Can the SC initiate actions against wilful defaulters? The finance ministry: As Firstpost noted in an earlier article, the RBIs diktat on banks to clean up their balance sheets would see much dirt coming out in the form of sticky assets, which would also mean that the capital burden of these banks would increase multi-fold. Of the total bad loan stock of Rs 4,43,691 crore crore in the banking industry, about 65-70 percent is from the corporate sector. In the last eight years, the government has infused Rs 90,000 crore in Indias 27 public sector banks. This fiscal year alone, the government has so far infused Rs 20,000 crore out of the promised Rs 25,000 crore. If the government doesnt simultaneously initiate action on large corporate defaulters to recover thousands of crores of money they owe to banks, that would mean taxpayers money is used to bail out banks looted by cronies. Can the government promise that this wouldnt happen? Firstpost has been running a series of stories questioning inaction of authorities against large corporate defaulters a major reason for the current bad loan crisis in the banking system. Here is a list of top bank loan defaulters with some of the state-run banks as on March, 31, 2015 as compiled by All India Bank Employees Association. This list is not complete since AIBEA has data only from a few banks. Some of the lenders which have large exposure to corporates such as SBI are not included in this list. (Firstpost hasnt independently verified this list). For full list click here (Firstpost hasnt independently verified this list) Mumbai: With the profitability of Indian public sector banks (PSBs) severely dented as seen from recent third-quarter results, their credit profile will come under pressure unless they are adequately capitalised, Fitch Ratings said on Friday. "Fitch's estimated capital need for the system of $140 billion may need to be reassessed, given some of the losses," the US agency said in a research note. "The stand-alone credit profile of many Indian public sector banks should come under pressure unless there is meaningful action to restore capital adequacy," it said. Significant quarterly losses reported at several large public banks last week, including Bank of Baroda and Bank of India, underscored long-standing balance-sheet and capital risks stemming from legacy issues pertaining to poor asset quality and weak provisioning," Fitch added. The ratings firm said the sudden drop in profitability of PSBs for the third quarter of the current fiscal was triggered mainly by higher provisioning following a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) order on reclassification of distressed loans. The RBI, in line with its target for banks to clean up their balance-sheets by March 2017, has nudged both public and private banks to identify stressed accounts and significantly raise provisioning over two quarters through to the end of the current fiscal. Fitch said that RBI's intent to clean up bank balance sheets by next year could help revive investor confidence in PSBs. "But the suddenness and speed of the provisioning in the second half of FY16 highlights how long it has taken to address poor balance-sheets," it said. It also raises questions over the pace and implementation of bank recapitalisation and reforms, especially when central bank intervention is required in identification of bad assets," it added. The trend of state-run banks declaring low profits or losses and the ever-ballooning provisioning for non-performing assets (NPAs) has continued through the past year. The banking index of Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) has taken a 67 percent hit. In the case of Punjab National Bank, for example, the stock is down 58 percent, while for State Bank, it is down 52 percent. Reacting to the bank stocks' decline last week, RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan said: "The decline in bank share prices caused investors to panic. Bank share prices are being hit by the global markets turmoil. "We're looking at banks having clean and fully provisioned balance sheets by March 2017. Banks are using tools devised to clean up their balance sheets." "Change in attitude in the banking system takes time as banks try to unlock the value of their NPAs. But the end-game is in sight. We don't envisage a further set of AQRs (asset quality review) and new loans that require to be dealt with," he added. "Such reporting of losses by the Indian banks is unprecedented. The trend is clear -- unfortunate that several public sector banks are posting negative results and wiping out the equity," said Saswata Guha, director of financial institutions at Fitch Ratings. The earnings outlook is also more daunting and the pain may continue during the next year," she added. Guha expects the Indian banking sector to close this fiscal with a NPA of around a whopping Rs.4 trillion and total stressed assets of around Rs.9 trillion. According to the finance ministry, the NPA ratio of banks -- net exposure versus bad loans -- rose from 3.42 percent as on March 2013 to 4.62 percent as on the same month of last year. In absolute terms, the ministry pegs it at Rs.1,83,854 crore versus Rs.3,09,409 crore. IANS LONDON/MUMBAI Flows of Indian white sugar to Myanmar, a gateway for smuggling into China, are slowing down, while Brazilian sugar is becoming more competitive due to cheaper freight. Volumes of white sugar shipped to Myanmar soared last year and early this year due to a jump in smuggling into China because of high domestic prices in the world's top sugar buyer. Up to one million tonnes of sugar is trafficked into China every year, a Chinese agriculture ministry official said earlier this month. Dealers said the bulk of the smuggled white sugar came from India and Thailand, with far-away Brazil supplying a much lower share. But persistently high domestic Indian sugar prices, around $30 per tonne above world prices, are now reducing incentives to ship low quality Indian whites to Myanmar. "Mills are getting higher prices in the local market," said Mukesh Kuvadia, secretary of the Bombay Sugar Merchants Association (BSMA). They are reluctant to sell at a discount in the world market as they know production (in India) would be lower this year and next year due to drought. A European trade source said a drop in Indian exports could provide an opportunity for sellers of Brazilian sugar. "This is creating room for Brazilian low quality whites in Myanmar as freight rates have on average fallen by at least 35-40 percent over the last five to six months," the source said. He said it was likely delivered Brazilian low quality whites to the Chinese border region were at least $10-11 per tonne cheaper than Indian supplies. A second European trade source said a shipment of 45,000 tonnes left Brazil for Myanmar in January. Dealers said they expected large flows of white sugar to continue to be shipped to Myanmar while Chinese domestic prices remained at a high premium to world prices, but noted that Chinese prices had eased after the Lunar New Year. "I do not expect the flow to abate very soon as long as the domestic Chinese prices are attractive," the second European trade source said. Indian Sugar Mills Association President Tarun Sawhney told a conference in Dubai earlier this month that of 1 million tonnes already contracted for export from India much was destined for Myanmar where the sugar was expected to be smuggled into China. Indian traders said exports of Indian refined sugar to Myanmar, which had been processed from Brazilian raw sugar imported to Indian coastal refineries, were steady. The European trade source said Brazilian low quality whites might also start to be shipped to Asia on bulkers or cargo ships, rather than in containers. (Reporting by David Brough and Rajendra Jadhav; Editing by Susanna Twidale) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. New Delhi: Coming down heavily on Delhi Police, an NHRC probe team on Friday said that the physical assault on JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar in the court premises appeared to have been "organised and pre-planned". It also said Kumar was subjected to psychological pressure and was made to issue a statement before he appeared in the court, owing allegiance to Constitution which was dictated by police. "Kanhaiya Kumar was abused and physically assaulted by some persons dressed as advocates in the Patiala House court premises on February 17. "He was even physically assaulted inside the adjoining court room in the presence of police who did not do anything to prevent the assault or apprehend the attackers even though they were identified by Kanhaiya Kumar then and there. The physical assault on Kumar in the court premises appears to be organized and pre-planned," a report submitted to the NHRC by a fact-finding team of the Commission said. The NHRC team said what happened in the Patiala House court complex on Wednesday when Kumar was attacked was a major security lapse on the part of the police. "There was serious dereliction of duty on the part of the police. Going by the sequence of events, the safety and security of Kanhaiya and his family members is a serious cause of concern," the committee said. In a damning indictment of the police, it said the statement which was issued by the force as an appeal on behalf of Kumar was not written by him voluntarily. "The content, construction and framework of the statement were as dictated by the police." The panel, which visited Kumar in Tihar jail on Thursday, quoted him as having said that he was arrested without any valid reason and without disclosing to him even grounds of arrest. "He had not committed any offences as now alleged. However, this aspect is under investigation by the police. Kumar did not complain of any physical assault by the police while in custody. However, he was subjected to psychological pressure during interrogation," it said. A copy of the inquiry report submitted by the NHRC team has been forwarded to Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi and the Director General of Tihar Jail. The Commission which had earlier issued notices to the Union Home Secretary, Delhi Chief Secretary, Delhi Police Commissioner and Registrar of Jawaharlal Nehru University, sent the team to Tihar to ascertain the treatment meted out to Kumar by the police and prison authorities while in custody. It was also tasked with ascertaining whether the statement released to the press by the Delhi Police Commissioner in the name of Kumar was made by him voluntarily and without any extraneous influence. The team formed following direction of NHRC Acting Chief Cyriac Joseph, comprised the Commission's Registrar (Law) CK Chaturvedi, and SK Jain, SSP (Investigation). It said Tihar has made special arrangements to ensure safety and security of Kumar and that he has been kept in an independent and separate cell. "Dedicated security staff has been deployed to ensure his safety and security round the clock. Several security instructions have been issued by the prison authorities in this regard. PTI New Delhi: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday asked the people of Haryana to maintain peace and order in the state. The incident of violence in certain parts of Haryana is very unfortunate.In a democracy solution to any problem lies in discussion &dialogue Rajnath Singh (@BJPRajnathSingh) February 19, 2016 My deepest condolence to the family of the individual who got killed in Haryana violence today. Rajnath Singh (@BJPRajnathSingh) February 19, 2016 I appeal to my brothers and sisters of Haryana to maintain peace and order in the state. Rajnath Singh (@BJPRajnathSingh) February 19, 2016 The appeal came after the Haryana government called in the army to contain the volatile situation in the state due to the ongoing Jat agitation for quota in jobs and educational institutions. According to an army spokesperson, requisition was sent for army deployment at nine locations: Rohtak, Jind, Jhajjar, Bhiwani, Hissar, Kaithal, Sonipat, Panipat and Karnal. "An army column has been moved to Rohtak and the rest too will be moving as soon as they are ready," an army spokesperson said. In Haryana's Rohtak, a rampaging mob set private and government property and vehicles on fire, after which state authorities called for army deployment. Haryana Chief Secretary DS Dhesi spoke to army chief General Dalbir Singh while Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar spoke to Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar. IANS Chandigarh: Jat leaders on Friday refused to withdraw their agitation till a legislation is passed giving quota to the community under OBC even as the authorities in the worst-affected district suspended Internet and mobile SMS services due to the stir which has disrupted rail and road traffic. The protesters accused Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar of resisting their demand as he was "not from the community" even as the state government called an all-party meeting to end the impasse. Normal life has been severely affected in various parts of Haryana with the agitation affecting supplies of essential commodities like milk, vegetables, LPG and petroleum products in several parts of the state including Rohtak, Jind, Bhiwani, Sonepat and Hisar. Internet and mobile SMS services have been suspended indefinitely by authorities in Rohtak district in the wake of the protests by Jat community which is demanding reservation in government jobs and educational institutions under OBC category. The agitators, who have rejected Khattar's offer of enhancing quota for economically backward classes, blocked several roads in Panipat affecting vehicluar movement to Uttar Pradesh. Haryana Roadways suspended its bus services on many affected routes in view of the agitation. The administration has imposed prohibitory orders in the entire Rohtak district, banning assembly of five or more persons. The protests have disrupted road and rail traffic with the worst hit being the Rohtak-Jhajjar region, the epicentre of the protests, besides Bhiwani, Sonipat and Hisar. The Jat leaders showed no signs of relenting and claimed that they will seek "support" from the community leaders from Uttar Pradesh. "We are not going to withdraw our agitation till our demand is met. We will intensify our agitation in other parts of the state, including Panchkula and Yamunanagar," All India Jat Aarakshan Sangarsh Samiti's national president, Yashapal Malik, said. "We want BJP government in Haryana to bring a legislation in the upcoming budget session to include Jats in OBC category. They should bring a law in the Assembly with regard to Jat reservation and get it passed," he said. "All political parties including Congress, BJP and INLD are in support of our demand. Only Haryana CM has problem in giving reservation to Jats," he said. Malik accused Khattar of having "casteist mentality" as he did not belong to the community. "Khattar has 'jatiwadi mansikta' (casteist mentality) because he is not a Jat. He is trying to prove himself as a leader of non-Jat people in the state by way of not giving reservation to Jats as was done by former Haryana CM Bhajan Lal in the past. "His (Khattar) stand is against party line. The problem in Haryana today arose because of his mentality," Malik alleged. Malik said that Rajasthan and Maharashtra governments had brought legislations in their respective assemblies to grant reservation to Gujjars and Marathas respectively. Meanwhile, the order for the suspension of mobile Internet and SMS services indefinitely in Rohtak were issued by Rohtak Deputy Commissioner D K Behera in the wake of Jat agitation spreading in the district. The order said it is feared that anti-social elements are spreading provoking pictures through Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram and SMS which could further disturb the law and order situation in the district. However, mobile services will continue in the district. Meanwhile, Khattar on Friday called an all-party meeting in Chandigarh to discuss Jats' demands and how to end their agitation. Haryana Cabinet of Thursday had appealed to the agitators to call off their protest in the larger interest of the state. Protesting Jat and Khap leaders had already rejected the state government's offer which had announced enhancement of the reservation quota under EBC and the annual income ceiling from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh. It had also announced an enhancement of the quota of reservation for Economically Backward Classes in the state from 10 to 20 per cent but the community remained adamant about their demand for reservation under OBC category. PTI New Delhi: The criminalisation of dissent, what the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students are now facing, has existed for over two decades outside Delhi and on the countryside. This criminalisation of dissent and curbing of voice have now come to the elite circle, whereas it has already been there for over two decades in different states. An innocent common man who has never, ever been to any police station, one day finds himself being slapped with several criminal charges, said senior journalist and founding editor of the People's Archive of Rural India, P Sainath, to a gathering of more than 500 students and a few faculty members at JNU campus on Friday evening. In a bid to express its strength of unity and solidarity and garner outside support to counter the sedition charge and anti-national branding against its students, the JNU community comprising teachers and students have come up with an innovative approach open air classroom. Every evening, students gather at the backside of JNUs administrative block to listen to lectures by experts from outside and in-house faculty members on nationalism and other issues. Sainaths lecture was a part of it, which gradually attracted a large crowd. During noon, when the news of rejection of bail plea of JNU Students Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar reached the campus, not many students were visible and whatever small numbers could be seen were scattered across the campus. At around 3.30 pm, less than 100 students, including JNUSU members, gathered to address the media. But, within an hour, students from different hostels and classes gathered to listen to Sainath, who spoke on growing inequality and increase in urban-rural divide in the society due to socio-religious and economy-market fundamentalism. Citing examples of cases in Odisha, Chhattisgarh and other southern states, he said, There were 91 cases filed against an Adivasi couple who refused to part away with their land for a Tata project in Kalinganagar in Odisha. Similarly, a 78-year-old woman was slapped with criminal charges of attempt to murder policemen. We all know the POSCO case well. What you face here today, is a common tactic elsewhere. Now the government is an alliance of socio-religious fundamentalism and economy-market fundamentalism due to which there is unbelievable inequality in every field. Citing Socio-Economic Caste Census data, Sainath said, 90% of the total rural household earns less than Rs 10,000 per annum. India ranks fifth in dollar billionaires list, where as in Human Development Index, its ranking is 135, Sri Lanka, Vietnam are much above us. Theres a chaos in every front. Beef and cattle slaughter issues led to the collapse of Indias indigenous Kolhapuri chappal (footwear) industry and as a result, Dalits are suffering. No one understands the role of cattle in rural economy and its the fundamentalism that is overpowering. Asking students for solidarity, Sainath, also a JNU alumnus, added, You are living in a period that is witnessing greatest inequality and rise of fundamentalism. Before getting better, itll get a lot worse. It depends on how we move ahead and counter adversities holding hands together. Im here for the solidarity of students. JNUs diversity taught us to rise above individualism and unite against the state. Giving a call to students to fight for their right and not violence, IIMC professor Rajesh Pathak said, It reminds me of our days when I was president of BHU students union. The slogan was Danga nahi, Rozgar chahiye (We dont need riots, we need employment). On the outside walls of the administrative building, the JNU students have pasted posters of Gandhi, Nehru, Tagore, Bhagat Singh and Ambedkar with their memorable quotes and the solidarity messages that JNUSU has received from associations and unions of academic institutions abroad. On rejection of bail to Kanhaiya, JNUSU vice president, Shehla Rashid said, We were expecting Kanhaiya Kumar to be back on campus, but didnt happen. Were sad, but we have complete faith in the Supreme Court and judiciary. But, simultaneously, those who subverted the judicial process, like Vikram Chauhan and others, were felicitated and students are behind the bar. We appeal to the judiciary of this country to re-examine the sedition law, as its misuse is widespread and there have been no convictions under this draconian law since 1960s. This means that this law exists only as a tool of intimidation and a weapon in the hands of the government to silence dissenting voices. The BJP government has been trying to hide its own failures and its ineptness to deal with Pathankot and other terror attacks, by drawing links between students and terrorist organizations. Besides this, we strongly condemn the police harassment of students from J&K on the pretext of their verification. Government must stop this witch-hunt, added Rashid. Pakistan's police has filed an FIR in the Pathankot airbase attack against unknown persons in 'a move that records the first official acknowledgement' of Pakistan's involvement in the attacks, reported NDTV. The Indain air base in Pathankot was attacked on 2 January 2016; militants launched an attack on the Indian Air force base near Pakistan. The six attackers, who were disguised as soldiers were killed in a siege that lasted four days. The attack also claimed the lived of seven Indian soldiers. An India Today report said that the anti-terror police is Pakistan registered the FIR after a Special Investigation Team (SIT) recommended lodging a complain against Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar, four attackers and some unknown accomplices. India has identified Maulana Masood Azhar as the mastermind of the attack. It has also blamed his brother Rauf and five others for carrying out the attack that killed all six terrorists and seven Indian soldiers. The FIR number 06/2016 was lodged under sections 302, 324 and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code, and sections 7 and 21-I of the Anti-Terrorism Act. When filing the complaint on Friday, the Pakistani security forces apparently forgot to include Azhar's name, said an IBN Live report. According to Pakistani newspaper The News, Punbjab Police's Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) lodged a complaint against the Pathankot attacks in Gujranwala and the case was filed against unknown terrorists on the plea of deputy home secretary Aitzaz-ud-Din. The SIT "formally recommended to the federal government to lodge an FIR on the basis of the information provided to the National Security Adviser Lt-Gen (retired) Nasser Khan Janjua by his Indian counterpart Ajit Dova," said the report. Charges of murder, attempt to murder and terror have been lodged against the accused. The report further added that a document revealed that the six member investigative team, formed on 13 January 2016 and headed by convener Rai Tahir, a reputed chief of the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD), Punjab Police, held meetings which confirmed the Indian side of the incident and also carefully evaluated the Indian version of the information. Janjua has been in constant touch with his Indian counterparts, said the report, but it is still unclear if the Indian side has been informed about a possible registration of an FIR. The FIR also shows the telephone numbers contacted by the militants during the attack. A police official said that after the registration of the FIR, any accused can be presented before the court for start of a formal trial. According to intelligence officials, about a dozen suspects were arrested in Pakistan following the attack. Last month CTD police Gujranwala had presented three JeM militants before an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) for possessing jihadi literature. The suspects were arrested by CTD from a seminary run by JeM in Mundeyki, where the headquarters of the 2008 Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed's Jamaat-u-Dawah is located. With inputs from PTI New Delhi: A Delhi court on Friday dismissed the bail plea of former Delhi University lecturer SAR Geelani, booked for sedition charges in connection with a Press Club event here, as the police alleged that "hatred" was being generated against the government. Metropolitan Magisrate Harvinder Singh heard the arguments of both the parties and rejected the bail plea of Geelani, who was arrested on February 16 and is in judicial custody till 3 March. During arguments, the police opposed the bail plea saying the offence was grave and there was apprehension that he might try to influence the investigation and tamper with the evidence if released on bail. The counsel for the police also alleged that "there has been incitement and hatred generated against the government of India. The entire purpose of the event was to create disloyalty among the people of India." It also claimed that Geelani was not cooperating with the probe and not telling the whereabouts of the others involved in booking the conference hall where the event was held. Advocate Satish Tamta, appearing for Geelani, told the court that the police was relying on clips of news channels and a CCTV footage recording of the Press Club of India. "I have no role to play in the slogans raised in the event and in fact I was the one who pacified and made the persons raising slogans to stop," Tamta said. Police had earlier told the court that an event was held on 10 February in which banners were placed showing Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhat as martyrs. It had also said the hall in the club was booked by Gilani through one Ali Javed by using his credit card and another person Mudassar was also involved. At the Press Club event, a group had allegedly shouted slogans hailing Guru, following which the police had lodged a case under sections 124A (sedition), 120B(criminal conspiracy) and 149 (unlawful assembly) of the IPC against Gilani and other unnamed persons. The police had claimed to have registered the FIR taking suo motu cognisance of media clips of the incident. Following registration of the FIR, the police questioned DU professor Ali Javed, a Press Club member who had booked the hall for the event, for two days. Gilani was arrested in connection with the 2001 Parliament attack case but was acquitted for "need of evidence" by the Delhi High Court in October 2003, a decision upheld by the Supreme Court in August 2005. PTI Mumbai: Condemning the "overreach" of the State in various educational institutions and alleged attempts to stifle dissent and suppress differences, IIT Bombay faculty has come out in support of agitating JNU students, saying the State should not dictate meaning of "nationalism". "The State cannot dictate on the many meanings of what it is to be 'Indian' or mandate the meaning of 'nationalism'. Rather, the State should be the one that makes sure that multiple ways of imagining one's relationship with the nation are allowed to flourish especially when it might contradict dominant ways of thinking," the faculty members said in a joint statement. "We are deeply concerned with the recent events that have undermined the autonomy of institutions of higher education in this country. We believe that these institutions are spaces of critical thinking and expression. Matters of contention that might arise in the conduct of intellectual and social engagements need to be addressed democratically and rationally," it said. The statement, signed by 42 teachers of the premier institute, said, "These methods in turn should be within the purview of institutional procedures that are responsible and accountable. We condemn the overreach of the State in the recent incidents in a number of institutions and the attempts of the right-wing to stifle dissent and suppress differences." It reflects the stand of the signatory teachers and not the institution, it said. Students and teachers of various educational institutions have been demanding release of JNU students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar who was arrested last week in a sedition case that was registered following an event on the varsity campus to protest against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru where anti-India slogans were allegedly raised. PTI In the light of recent controversies, JNU currently occupies centre stage in media coverage and the public gaze. Most of the media, especially Zee News, NewsX, IndiaTV and Times Now, is portraying the government as justifiably taking action on students who insult the country. Needless to say, public opinion mirrors that. What the government is really doing is attacking social science, and democratic socialism, in the name of coming after 15 ultra-Left students. That they arrested Kanhaiya Kumar, the JNUSU president who was not shouting slogans, makes it clear that the government just needed an excuse to crack down on JNU. It is attacking the centres of the most systematic and sharp critiques of state policy in the country. This objective is tied to their notions of repainting history in saffron. The Indian Council for Historical Research has been taken over, as has the University Grants Commission, the Indian History Congress is being starved and discredited. Hyderabad Central University has been hijacked, Delhi University courses professionalized, and Mamata Banerjee has already done to the institutions in West Bengal in her reign what the Modi government is just starting to do in the rest of the country. JNU is indeed the final frontier of political and policy dissent. If Kanhaiya Kumar was to be released in a few days, then brutal BJP-supporting lawyers and goons would not have attacked teachers and journalists twice in the Patiala House court complex. With FTII, the establishment wants to extend the conflict indefinitely. It did not come to power to with 280 seats in the Lok Sabha to back down in the face of public pressure, and behave like the UPA-II.When it cannot prove its argument, it attempts to add to it anti-national and sedition having failed, it is considering the narcotics, terror and corruption angles. There is nobody who can prove that those accused of shouting slogans didnt want azaadi through a Constitutional amendment. After all, 66 percent of the Constitution was lifted straight out of the Government of India Act 1935. Reservations were imposed that way, as were Right to Education and Right to Information. Disagreeing with the Constitution in its current form should not be a crime, because the Hindu Rashtra that the saffron forces want would also require a Constitutional amendment, as would the uniform civil code that they have long held as a cherished dream. Both these proposals challenge the Constitution in its current form. Would someone then call the BJP and RSS anti-Constitution and anti-India, or those proposals seditious? I would like to remind the public that Dr BR Ambedkar was a democratic socialist, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Jawaharlal Nehru, Jayaprakash Narayan were too, as were EMS Namboothiripad, Hasrat Mohani, Premchand, Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh, P Sundarayya, EV Ramasamy Naicker, as was Ramanohar Lohia. A history of the freedom struggle without the democratic socialists would have been a history of the slow decline of sati. Swaraj would have been demanded but not universal adult franchise. The right to property would have been guaranteed, but so would have been the right to starve, and the right to discriminate based on caste, gender and religion. There would have been no land reforms, and minimal public education. Workers would not have been unionized in a fair manner. In fact, the democratic socialists were the only consistently secular brand of Indian politician, across party lines. A lot of the people listed above were not in agreement with the Nehru government in 1947 over issues such as federalism, Pakistan (Ambedkar on Pakistan is a good example), land reforms, public sector, unionization, reservation, rights, and state and religion. Branding democratic socialism as anti-national is branding Dr BR Ambedkar anti-national, even as the current administration attempts to appropriate him. Regarding the myth of leftists having hatred for our troops: most leftists know that the army and police are not imperialistic or fascist they are simply professional especially under a civilian government. Our troops are ordinary people for whose welfare, working conditions and safety, any student would have great compassion. Speaking of insulting our troops, did minister Gen (retd.) VK Singh not insult the Dalits in the army, when he made the horrendous throw stones at a dog, blame the govt comment? Or are there no Dalits in the army? Either way, theres a problem. In addition, another discourse doing the rounds is about how taxes are subsidizing the education of anti-nationals. Firstly, every student of JNU, no matter what party or if any at all, is using their brain and getting educated. This is the reason theyre political in the first place. Taxpayer money goes into every university of this country, each of which also has a financial corpus gathering interest in deposits. So is a good education anti-national, and a not-so-good one in maybe some state-level university ultra-patriotic? Secondly, did people think fake encounters dont cost money? Or a certain mans countless foreign trips? Or the fact that tax breaks to mega-crorepatis is what ensures that many, many children dont get educated, people go to sleep hungry, die before being able to afford a hospital, or commit suicide when saddled with debt? Unlike most professional universities (including the IITs and IIMs and NLUs) where people look for cushy placements in the corporate sector, students of JNU actually agitate for expansion of education to all. And here is a media-tainted public who wants education withdrawn from anti-national students. This discourse over taxpayer money in a country where barely 3 percent of people (including all government employees) pay taxes is rather telling of how the regime is attempting to harness Hindu nationalist fervor to the cause of fiscal conservatism and budgetary austerity in key welfare sectors. It is also their way of playing divide-and-rule. By never universalizing public school and public college education, the administrations of this country have stood witness to social strife in a race to the top over school and college seats, as well as reservations. They have learned much from the British indeed. The JNU controversy also exposes what the media and government dont want to talk about. It is evident that the current administration is keen on a low-key Union Budget affair this year. That there has been no paradigm shift in economic since the Modi government took power is a media myth. Whether at the behest of the WTO or private interests in India, there have been massive cuts in the budgets in education, healthcare and NREGA. Further, taxation policy was distorted with corporates now paying lesser (25 percent) than employees, teachers and other middle-class professions (around 30 percent). The only significant thing cheaper, according to the last budget, was footwear valued over Rs.1000. Having sold off significant coal blocks, and inching toward disinvestment of the underperforming public sector banks, the government has nothing left to expand welfare in a country of widespread poverty where 77 percent of the population lives under Rs. 20 a day (according to the Arjun Sengupta report). While governments and agencies over the world have shifted to median income indicators, the Modi government remains keen on showing poverty and inequality figures based on mean averages. The Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook shows that the richest 1 percent of the Indian population owns 53 percent of Indias wealth, up from 36 percent in 2000. Of all the wealth generated between 2000 and 2015, 61 percent of it went to the top 1%.The administration has nothing to offer the people but empty promises. Development features solely private profits. The Rs. 1.14 lakh crore of loans written off by public sector banks as bad debt, is largely due to irresponsible lending to private corporations that wanted to milk the government cash cow. The RBI claims that the required information on the individual and business beneficiaries of the write-off is not available with them, according to a report. It thus turns out that more public sector banks are underperforming, and the likelihood of some of them being disinvested, is greater than earlier assumed. Further, the selling of public assets to bail out corporations whose greed, recklessness and speculation bankrupted them in the first place is tantamount to crony capitalism and a betrayal of the general public. The truth is and no one else will tell you this that the Modi government has no concrete economic vision, and has no immediate agenda to alleviate poverty, hunger and lack of education in this country. Even the policy they follow now will be in tatters by November 2016. By then, the USA would have a new President-elect. Two of the frontrunners (one Republican and the other Democrat) Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have promised to reverse American trade deals, having realized that such deals are no longer beneficial to the American people (lower wages, outsourcing of jobs) or the American state (shrinking revenues and stashing of black money in tax havens).Our government is for the WTO and IMF in ways that the next President of the US (whether Bernie or Trump) clearly wont be. There is no point implementing policy under American pressure when America will change its mind in November. These policies include education and healthcare cuts, privatization of pension, provident funds and insurance, risky financial trading in derivatives. Education and healthcare is not guaranteed. All the expansion in the past 30 years has been in the expensive private sector. Drunk on Reaganistic measures of economic development, just without any outsourcing or strong manufacturing sector, the governments since 1991 have been shaping Indias education and labour market to American needs: less/no education (low-wage blue collar jobs) and computer science/engineering. When the foreign demand withdraws, with a more protectionist USA, a large chunk of tertiary/service sector earnings in India (concentrated in a few sectors like IT) will vanish. The great patriots, the Indian tycoons, the job-creators are busy investing abroad while an empty slogan for local production echoes in non-existent factories. There is no salvation waiting for us. After the electoral rout of the Congress in 2014, opposition to the NDA regime is fragmented and weak in Parliament. Outside, public pressure through movements, petitions, and writings is quickly misreported by the media, then lathicharged or dismissed by the administration. In order to avoid criticism on its policy or lack of policy, while the country is burning on issues of communalism, caste discrimination and deprivation the administration seeks to paint its main critics as an ideological East Germany. Other universities are aware that if JNU isnt safe, no university that doesnt toe the government line is. The bastion of ideas, the frontier of freedom of expression, is under siege. The public is informed to watch out for the demise of the ideological Berlin wall, and cheer when the time is right. Meanwhile, the students of JNU expect a Reichstag fire to be in the works. The author is a research scholar in Modern and Contemporary History at Centre For Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. In 2008, demonstrators defying curfew in Jammu and Samba held aloft the national flag. It was an effective strategy for a few minutes at least. The army had been called to prevent their demonstrations, and a few of the soldiers balked for a moment when they saw the flag. As the soldiers glanced at each other, the demonstrators lustily shouted the slogan `Indian Army zindabad. The soldiers soon regained focus, and the procession was not allowed to move forward. Thus did the army manage the extremely difficult task of maintaining the 'sanctity of curfew (a term those demonstrators would like now that they are in power). RSS activists continue to use the flag and nationalist slogans. Instead of defying curfew, they now use them to re-frame issues about fundamental rights such as free speech, the right to question, and to dissent as `anti-national. Those 2008 demonstrators thought of themselves as nationalists taking on a dangerously non-nationalist regime. They opposed what they called the 'pseudo-secularist appeasement of the UPA government (one of their ideologues told me India was 'a rabidly anti-Hindu state). The state was under Governors rule. Those demonstrations were minutely managed by the RSS. They lasted several months and effectively deployed symbols of the Indian state such as the national flag. These were used along with religious symbols tridents, saffron flags and scarves, slogans such as 'Bum Bum Bhole', bhajans, aartis, prabhat pheris, and sometimes extremely hate-filled speeches against Muslims. They were protesting the cancellation of a government order transferring land to the Sri Amarnath Shrine Board following heated agitations against the land transfer in the Kashmir Valley. Like JNU 'leftists over the past few days, those who opposed the land transfer that year were clubbed with Muslims and Kashmiris in general. As a bunch, they were sometimes described as desh-drohi (anti-national). It mattered little that some of those who opposed the land transfer did so on environmental grounds. It mattered even less that, while cancelling the land transfer, the state government undertook to directly provide all facilities for Amarnath yatris. The high-profile, high-cost attempts by RSS activists (BJP president Murli Manohar Joshi in 1992 and then some of todays cabinet ministers in 2011) to hoist the national flag at Lal Chowk in Srinagar were ineffective at best, divisive at worst (a makeshift flagpole gave way in 2011). The current governments new diktat that central universities must fly a huge national flag will present a new target to boisterous Kashmiri youth. Protecting it might become another high-cost, internationally-watched task. Any attack on it could become a pretext to close the university. There would certainly be calls to shut down the place. Now that the anti-JNU agitators, in their processions, and the Human Resources Development Minister, in her meeting with vice-chancellors, have deployed the national flag, it is worth looking back at the impact of the nationalist versus anti-national discourse of 2008. Those agitations deeply divided the people of the state. The rift between the Jammu province and the Kashmir Valley continues to widen over such issues as beef eating and the status of the state flag. Worse, those agitations re-created a divide between Muslims and Hindus of the Jammu province. Until then, Muslims of the area had by and large considered themselves an integral part of the larger community. Except for Kashmiri-speaking Muslims of the Chenab basin, the areas Muslims by and large did not identify with the Kashmir Valley any more than Jammus Hindus did. In fact, many Jammu Muslims used to resent Valley Muslims for affecting their social image adversely. The 2008 demonstrations caused terror in the minds of many Muslims in the Jammu province. It revived memories of the genocides of 1947. Those wounds had healed in the worst-affected Jammu-Ranbirsinghpora area in the six decades after Partition. There was peace in Bhaderwah and Poonch too, albeit occasionally tenuous. To be sure, Udhampur was often tense and Rajouri town would occasionally burst into communal rioting. But since 2008, many Muslims right across the Jammu province feel hurt and betrayed. Some of their neighbours treat them with greater suspicion. On the narrow political plane, the RSS benefitted tremendously. Early in 2008, before those agitations, the BJPs own leaders had expected to draw a blank in the assembly elections towards the end of that year. They did not expect to win a single seat. After the polarisation which those agitations caused, they won 11 seats. In 2014, the Modi wave took the figure up to 25. In future election campaigns across the country, the BJP will surely try and spin the events in and around JNU, by re-framing the issues at JNU and (following Rohit Vemulas suicide) at Hyderabad Central University as struggles between nationalists and anti-national `leftist deviants. In the process, the RSS might divide society across the country. This is bad not only for national integration but also for national security. Chandigarh: Violence broke out during Jat agitation for quota in Rohtak on Thursday leaving at least 15 persons injured. Police and the paramilitary troops staged a flag-march to get the town roads cleared from protesters who blocked these in support of their reservation demand. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Friday appealed everyone to maintain peace and harmony and also open roads which have been blocked due to agitation. Traders and advocates clashed outside the court premises at Rohtak during the protest,in which several vehicles were also damaged. Advocates of the district court were protesting against non-inclusion of Jat community in the OBC category outside the court premises from where traders of the city were passing in a procession to submit a memorandum to the Deputy Commissioner, police said. Police and paramilitary forces resorted to lathi-charge and teargas shells to control the situation, during which unidentified persons torched some motorcycles and pelted stones. Prohibitory orders were clamped in Rohtak, banning assembly of five or more persons. In Chandigarh, an all-party meeting was convened for Friday and a decision in this regard was taken by the Chief Minister at an emergent meeting of the Cabinet. Khattar reviewed the situation arising out of the ongoing agitation. The state cabinet appealed to the agitating Jats to call off their agitation in the larger interest of the state. The administration and the police were fully alert to meet any eventuality and the government has kept all its options open to deal with the situation, Agriculture Minister Om Prakash Dhankar told reporters after the Cabinet meet. Leader of the Opposition Abhay Chautala demanded a special session of the Haryana Assembly to discuss the issues related to Jat reservation. Normal life was badly hit in the state as the Jat agitation for quotas on Thursday spread to more parts of Haryana after talks between community leaders and the government failed to break the deadlock. The agitation spread to Kaithal, Karnal, Jind and other districts, disrupting road and rail traffic as protestors blocked various highways and railway lines. While college and university students had on Wednesday joined the protest at Rohtak, on Thursday students from various places, including Hisar, Kurukshetra and Kaithal also joined them. Jats are demanding reservation in government jobs and educational institutions under OBC category. While rail and road traffic has been worst hit in the Rohtak-Jhajjar region, the epicentre of the protests, Bhiwani, Sonipat, Hisar have also been adversely hit by the agitation. The protesters, who last evening rejected Khattar's offer to enhance quota for economically backward classes to include Jats, blocked roads in many places in Panipat which also affected movement of vehicles towards Uttar Pradesh. Due to the blockades set up by the agitators, Haryana Roadways suspended its bus services on many affected routes. The Rohtak administration imposed prohibitory orders in the entire district banning assembly of five or more persons. Rohtak is the native place of former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and the parliamentary constituency represented by his son,Deepinder. "Section 144 has been imposed with immediate effect from today in Rohtak," Additional Deputy Commissioner Amit Khatri said. Noting that the protesters have been asked to clear the blockades and disperse, he said, "We have warned them first and are hoping they will comply." As the protests continued, supply of milk, vegetables, fruits and other items on the national highway connecting Rohtak with other parts of the state and NCR was also affected. A day after holding talks with the chief minister, All India Jat Aarakshan Sangarsh Samiti's national president, Yashapal Malik told PTI,"We reject the offer, it is not technically viable. It is illegal and cannot be implemented." "We (Jats) cannot be fooled once again, we have been fighting for our right for several years now. The agitation has further spread to Kaithal, Faridabad, Karnal, Palwal today and by tomorrow, it will cover entire Haryana," Malik said. Jat and Khap leaders had held a four-hour long meeting with Khattar and some of his ministers in Chandigarh on Wednesday during which the chief minister had announced enhancement of the reservation quota under EBC and the annual income ceiling from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 6 lakh. The Chief Minister had announced an enhancement of the quota of reservation for Economically Backward Classes in the state from 10 to 20 per cent but the community remained adamant about their demand for reservation under OBC category. A committee constituted under the chairmanship of the chief secretary to study all the aspects of reservations for Special Backward Classes, will submit its report before the forthcoming budget session of state Assembly next month, Khattar had said on Wednesday. The committee will consider all suggestions, including bringing an appropriate bill, in this regard, he had said. Meanwhile, blockade also continued on roads from Rohtak to Delhi, and roads to Sonipat, Jhajjar remained blocked while those leading to Hisar, Jind and Bhiwani were also affected. Railway traffic on the Rohtak-Delhi section was affected due to the agitation, officials said, adding many trains had been cancelled or diverted through alternative routes. Jat protesters have blocked Badahurgarh-Delhi road at Bahadurgarh affecting vehicular movement to Delhi from Haryana. They have also blocked Saharanpur-Kurukshetra road at Pipli, Ladwa in Kurukshetra district and Radaur of Yamunanagar district while several roads in Hisar and Hansi also remained blocked. A 'kutcha' road, which was being used by people for going to Bhiwani as the protesters had blocked main road, was dug up by protesters at Charkhi-Dadri on Thursday. Managements of private schools, which fall in the affected areas, have also declared holidays due to the stir while Maharishi Dayanand University announced postponement of some of its undergraduate and postgraduate examinations that were scheduled to be held between 17-22 February. A group of Kurukshetra University students, belonging to the Jat community, held a demonstration in the KU on Thursday over the reservation issue. They held demonstration in front of Vice-Chancellor's office and raised slogans against the BJP-led state government. Later, the students led a procession to Jat Dharamsala at Kurukshetra, where other members from the community joined them. They sat on 'dharna' on Kurukshetra-Pehowa road and blocked vehicular traffic. Police diverted the traffic from Panorama chowk to Pehowa road via out-ring road from Jhansa road. The protesters also blocked all main roads in Jind district including those leading to Patiala, Panipat, Kaithal, Rohtak, Gohana, Hansi and Bhiwani. Meanwhile, INLD senior leader Abhay Singh Chautala, who is also Leader of Opposition in Haryana assembly, on Thursday demanded that a session of state assembly be convened immediately on the Jat stir issue. Chautala said a two-line resolution should be passed in the assembly and later forwarded to the Centre favouring reservation for Jats and other communities, including Jat-Sikhs, Tyagi, Ror and Bishnois. The reservation benefit which the Jats are getting in four states should be implemented in entire country, he said in a statement. Chautala also appealed to various communities to maintain peace and brotherhood and not lend an ear to any rumour which may disturb peace. PTI LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron could be removed as leader of the Conservatives to prevent the party losing power in the next national election, a lawmaker from his party's right wing warned on Sunday after a heavy defeat in local elections. Lawmaker Nadine Dorries made her public demand for a leadership contest in a newspaper article published on Sunday, as Cameron struggles to keep his coalition government together after the worst month of his two-year premiership. A poorly presented budget which appeared to favour the rich, Britain's return to recession and the loss of 405 seats in last Thursday's local polls have convinced some Conservatives that Cameron and his finance minister, George Osborne, lack the competence and strategy to win the next national election in 2015. Dorries, who described Cameron and Osborne last month as "two posh boys" who don't know the price of milk, said Cameron could face a leadership challenge by Christmas. "Cameron and Osborne should be aware: Conservative MPs will not sleepwalk into losing their seats," Dorries, whose outspoken comments have earned her the nickname "Mad Nad", wrote in the Mail on Sunday. Though Osborne brushed aside her comments, Dorries warned that only 46 of the 305 Conservative lawmakers in the lower house of parliament were needed to call a leadership election. "I would guess those signatures are already coming in and will reach 46 by Christmas," she wrote, adding that Cameron's leadership could provoke a split in the party that would pave the way for Labour to win the next national election. The most prominent Conservative outside the government is Boris Johnson, who dodged the local poll defeat by winning a second term as London mayor. Tipped as a possible future prime minister, Johnson pointedly made no mention of Cameron in his victory address on Friday after the mayoral election. CONSERVATIVE SPLIT? Dorries said rightwingers may defect en masse because they are unhappy with Cameron's attempt to court his pro-European Liberal Democrat coalition partners while shunning any talk of cooperation with the United Kingdom Independence Party, an anti-EU party that saw its support rise in the local election. "If he continues in this vein, the right of the party may well split away, allowing Ed Miliband's Labour to glide comfortably into No 10 at the next election," Dorries wrote. "This scenario can be avoided only by removing the men who are so stubborn and arrogant they cannot see the writing on the wall," the 54-year-old lawmaker wrote. Cameron, who won the party leadership in 2005 while it was in opposition, has staked his leadership on modernising the party to attract a new generation of voters. But after promising economic prudence since forming the coalition in 2010, Cameron has been damaged by a return to recession and weeks of blunders that made ministers appear out of touch with voters struggling with high unemployment, price rises and low wages. Finance minister Osborne, a close ally of Cameron, conceded that the government had poorly communicated some policies, but he dismissed Dorries's threat, saying she had long been a critic on the edge of the party's mainstream. "For the last seven years I don't think (she) has agreed with anything that either myself or David Cameron or indeed most Conservatives in the leadership of the party have done," Osborne told BBC TV. "She has objected to the modernising of the Conservative party ... and that is her business. We have got to stay focused on what really matters," he added. The local poll defeat has deepened concerns on the party's right that Cameron's strategy of modernising is a vote loser. "His political strategy and positioning are failing to deliver," The Daily Telegraph, a supporter of the party, said in an editorial on Saturday. "He has alienated core voters without winning new ones." Cameron's supporters say any shift to the right would be electoral suicide and that mid-term local elections often give voters a chance to punish an incumbent prime minister who then goes on to win the next national election. But detractors say Cameron has made a series of blunders that could get worse as a scandal over illegal phone hacking by reporters at one of Rupert Murdoch's British newspapers lays bare the ties between big money, media barons and politicians. Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson - two former News of the World editors with links to Cameron - will appear before a judicial press inquiry on Thursday and Friday. Coulson moved from the paper to become Cameron's spokesman while Brooks is a former friend of the Conservative leader. Local media have reported that Brooks was willing to release text messages and emails between herself and the prime minister. (Addtional reporting by Tim Castle; Editing by David Stamp) By Seema Guha Sedition charges are the flavour of the month. In India, a 'strong government with a solid majority has charged young Kanhaiya Kumar of threatening the countrys security by joining hands with the likes of Hafiz Saeed, on the basis of a fake Twitter handle, and has slapped sedition charges against him. Neighbouring Bangladesh, has gone one step further. It has 15 sedition charges against Mahfuz Anam, the much respected editor of the countrys most popular English newspaper, The Daily Star. Bangladeshs ruling Awami League is all powerful, the friendly opposition is made up of parties who agreed to take part in the national elections, boycotted by the Bangladesh National Party. Absolute power has made the Awami League vengeful. The cases against Anam are for pieces published in his paper eight years ago in 2007-2008, at a time when a caretaker government made up of technocrats was ruling the country. India and Bangladesh are using this colonial era law against their own citizens. Britain itself abolished this law in 1990, as a relic of a past era, which has no place in this day and age. The punishment for sedition in Bangladesh is death while two years rigorous imprisonment is the sentence for criminal defamation. Ironically Mahfuz Anam brought this on himself by remarks made on a television chat show (where else?) on 3 February, about an error of judgement in the past. Commenting on certain reports published in his newspaper, about cases of corruption against Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, fed by government sources, he admitted that this was an error of editorial judgment, because the newspaper could not verify the facts independently. Show of Loyalty to Sheikh Hasina This honest introspection, which should have been ignored, got out of hand when Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas son, Sajeeb Ahmed Wazed, put out these remarks on his Facebook page and said that Anam should be tried for treason. That opened the floodgates for Awami supporters to prove their loyalty to the PM. The defamation cases filed against the editor are from all parts of the country. If nothing else, Anam will spend the next few years running from one court to the other. They could continue for years. It is a fact that Mahfuz Anam supported the caretaker government, backed by the army in 2007-2008. Fed up of the corruption and constant squabbling by the two begums - Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party there was a move to make the two ladies quit politics. So, cases were filed against the leaders of both the national parties. The army was attempting to promote Mohammed Yunus of the Grameen Bank,, the Nobel Peace Prize winner of 2006, as the next prime minister and build a squeaky clean new party around him.The idea was to stop the squabbling between the BNP and the AL, that had polarized the country and almost led to a standstill in the government. The Bangladesh army is no stranger to coups, and the initial move in 2007 was to take power. There would have been a military coup, but for the pressure from the UN and the international community. The UN warned that Bangladesh would not be allowed to send its forces for peace keeping missions. After much deliberation, the army decided against a coup. Instead, it put in place a number of technocrats to be the face of the caretaker government, while wielding actual power from behind the scenes. Meanwhile the idea was to give Bangladesh a brand new political party, and make both the Awami League and BNP irrelevant politically. So during the caretaker rule in 2007-2008, the attempt was to tarnish the reputation of both Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda. Stalwarts of the Awami League and the BNP were asked to desert the Begums. Loyalists, however, stood firm. The press was used by the military backed regime to plant stories against the two ladies. Sheikh Hasina was accused of graft and the newspapers were given details of the charges against her. The Daily Star, like many other newspapers of the time did publish the stories. But unlike other editors, Mahfuz Anam admitted to an error of editorial judgement to print stories that were not independently verified. The witch-hunt against Anam has been criticized by journalists, academics, writers and the BNP. The opposition believes that the Sheikh Hasina government is stifling all legitimate criticism. "This is a foolish decision. Though I was opposed to Mahfuz Anam for his support of the military and its program of minus two, I am aghast at the way the government is going after him.Surely the man does not deserve this for honestly admitting his past mistake. I salute his courage, said Dr Shantanu Majumder, Associate professor in Dhaka University, He is however hopeful that this madness would blow-over in time. Islamabad: An Indian citizen who has been living in Pakistan since 1982 and embroiled in a family feud has been arrested after he was found allegedly possessing a Pakistani National Identity Card, officials said on Friday. Rustam Sadhua was arrested on Thursday by Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and is accused of obtaining his National Identity Card (NIC), issued only to Pakistani nationals, through fraudulent means. He was arrested from a court in Islamabad after his pre-arrest bail was rejected and is being "probed", an FIA official said. According to available evidence, Sadhua arrived in Pakistan from India in 1982 and since then has been living in the country, the official said. Sadhua is the brother-in-law of Pakistan's influential minority lawmaker Asfandyar and son-in-law of well-known brewery tycoon late MP Bhandra. Sources said that after the death of Bhandra, differences cropped up between his son Asfandyar and daughter who is married to Sadhua. Asfandyar published several notices in the past against the couple for grabbing his ancestral property, accusing Sadhua of trying to usurp the property by using his influence over his wife. The two families have also court cases against each other and Asfandyar has been trying to exploit Sadhua's Indian background. Sadhua had filed an application for pre-arrest bail in the court of special judge central Malik Nazeer which was rejected, leading to his arrest. Expressing satisfaction over the arrest, Asfandyar, who has been exploiting Sadhua's Indian background, said he had time and again complained about the suspect's conduct and had publicly dissociated himself from him. "This man has defamed my late father and my family and I hope his other frauds also surface during investigation," Asfandyar was quoted as saying by the 'Dawn'. Sadhua will be presented before the court again on Saturday to obtain a physical remand, but it may not be the end of the family feud. PTI Moscow: Russia's parliament on Friday debated a controversial homophobic bill to fine and jail people for up to 15 days for coming out in public as gay. Lawmakers expressed support while rejecting the bill in its current wording as not legally valid. The bill proposed by two Communist MPs calls for a fine of up to 5,000 rubles ($65) for "public expression of non-traditional sexual relationships." It calls for a harsher punishment of up 15 days in police cells for being openly gay in educational institutions or in those related to the arts and youth. The authors of the bill said in an accompanying note it was necessary because a law banning "propaganda" of gay relationships to minors signed by President Vladimir Putin in 2013, and internationally condemned, was "not effective enough." One of them, Communist MP Ivan Nikitchuk told parliament he had "received hundreds of messages of support for the bill," waving a folder of letters and telegrams. He condemned the "aggressive propaganda of Western culture and non-traditional values," and called homosexuality "a huge threat for society, a deadly threat." The bill doesn't define what non-traditional sexual relationships are, but Nikitchuk told MPs they are "between adult men" while "traditional" relationships are between a man and a woman. Nikitchuk, the 71-year-old deputy head of the parliament's natural resources committee, said last year the bill would only apply to gay men. Lawmaker Viktor Shudegov of A Just Russia party spoke in support of the bill, adding he wanted a ban on gay people working in professions such as teaching. "Let the West rot," he said in angry rhetoric. "They will destroy themselves from within and we will survive, we must survive, so I back this bill." The MPs debated the bill despite it's being already rejected by the committee on constitutional law because it is not possible to introduce punishments for actions not legally defined as an offence. As homosexuality is not illegal in Russia this made it technically impossible to pass the bill and it was rejected unanimously. But that may not be the end of it. A representative of the constitutional law committee, Rustam Ishmukhametov of ruling United Russia party voiced support for the bill and the possibiity of a new version. "As a lawmaker I also share this concern. I agree that possibly it would be worth further discussion of this bill, maybe to submit it in a reworked version," he said in parliament, quoted by TASS state news agency. AFP LONDON Intensive discussions involving U.S. diplomats and their Russian counterparts on a cessation of hostilities in Syria have been "serious and so far constructive", U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday. On a short stop in the British capital en route to the Jordanian capital Amman, where he was due to discuss the Syrian crisis with King Abdullah, Kerry said his team were "in near-constant discussions" with the Russians. "Everyone recognises the complexity of this endeavour, and there is certainly a lot more work to do. These discussions have been serious and so far constructive, with a few tough issues still to resolve," Kerry said shortly after landing in London. "Working out modalities for a cessation of hostilities in a situation like Syria is a highly technical and detailed process; and that's why our teams are still at it. We want this process to be sustainable, and should all participants prove willing to really sit down and work this out, we can get to a cessation of hostilities." (Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Mark Trevelyan) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. WASHINGTON/BEIJING The United States accused China on Thursday of raising tensions in the South China Sea by its apparent deployment of surface-to-air missiles on a disputed island. U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said commercial satellite imagery suggested "very recent" placement of missiles on Woody Island in the Paracel island chain that went against China's pledge not to militarize the South China Sea. "The Chinese have said one thing, and yet appear to be doing another," Kirby told a regular news briefing. "We see no indication that ... this militarization effort, has stopped. And it's doing nothing ... to make the situation there more stable and more secure. In fact, it's having quite the opposite effect." On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States would have "very serious" talks with China about militarization of the South China Sea. China has offered little specific response to the missile deployment reports, which first appeared on Fox News on Tuesday, but has accused Western media of "hyping up" the story and said China had a legitimate right to military facilities on territory it views as its own. China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion in global trade passes every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Taiwan have rival claims. Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, the first senior Western official to visit China since the reports appeared, said she raised the issue of the South China Sea's militarization in talks in Beijing on Thursday. She told reporters after meeting China's top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, that China had "challenged" the deployment report but had neither denied nor admitted that the missiles were there. "So until such time as we have a clear picture of it, of course it's a matter of concern," she said. Bishop referred to comments by Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington last year that China did not intend to militarize islands in the South China Sea, and added: "We certainly hold China to that and that's been reiterated to me." 'LIMITED DEFENSIVE FACILITIES' Yang explained that the islands in the South China Sea had been China's since ancient times and that "the limited defensive facilities that China has deployed on its own territory have nothing do with militarization," a Chinese statement said. Yang added that Australia should stick to its promise not to take sides and "not participate in or take any actions to harm regional peace and stability or Sino-Australia ties." On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei would neither confirm nor deny if the missiles were on Woody Island, but repeated that China has had defence facilities on the islands for decades. The United States claims no territory in the South China Sea but has expressed serious concerns about how China's increasingly assertive pursuit of territorial claims there could affect the vital global trade routes that pass though it. Beijing has been angered by air and sea patrols the United States has conducted near islands China claims in the South China Sea. Those have included one by two B-52 strategic bombers in November and by a U.S. Navy destroyer that sailed within 12 nautical miles of Triton Island in the Paracels last month. An influential Chinese state-run tabloid, the Global Times, said in an editorial on Thursday that China needed to strengthen its "self-defence" in the South China Sea in the face of "more frequent provocations from the U.S. military." "Jet fighters from the United States, an outside country, may feel uneasy when making provocative flights in the region. To us, that's a proper result," it said of the reported missile deployment. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Michael Martina in Beijing and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Clarence Fernandez, Mike Collett-White and Peter Cooney) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. TRIPOLI U.S. warplanes launched air strikes against a suspected Islamic State training camp in western Libya on Friday, killing more than 40 people, likely including a militant connected to two deadly attacks last year in neighbouring Tunisia. It was the second U.S. air strike in three months against Islamic State in Libya, where the hardline Islamist militants have exploited years of chaos following Muammar Gaddafi's 2011 overthrow to build up a presence on the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The Pentagon said it had targeted an Islamic State training camp. The facility in the city of Sabratha was linked to Noureddine Chouchane, a Tunisian blamed by his native country for attacks last year on a Tunis museum and the Sousse beach resort, which killed dozens of tourists. "Destruction of the camp and Chouchane's removal will eliminate an experienced facilitator and is expected to have an immediate impact on ISIL's ability to facilitate its activities in Libya, including recruiting new ISIL members, establishing bases in Libya, and potentially planning external attacks on U.S. interests in the region," the Pentagon said, using an acronym for Islamic State, also known as ISIS or Daesh. U.S. officials said Chouchane is most likely dead but White House spokesman Josh Earnest said he could not yet confirm the results of the air assault. He said the raid showed U.S. willingness to fight Islamic State. "It's an indication that the president will not hesitate to take these kinds of forceful, decisive actions," Earnest said. In Libya, photos released by the municipal authorities showed a massive crater in grey earth. Several wounded men lay bandaged in hospital. The mayor of Sabratha, Hussein al-Thwadi, told Reuters the planes hit a building in the city's Qasr Talil district, home to many foreigners. Locals officials said 43 people were killed. The strikes targeted a house in a residential district west of the centre, municipal authorities said in a statement. The house had been rented to foreigners including Tunisians suspected of belonging to Islamic State, and medium-calibre weapons including machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades had been found in the rubble, the statement said. The air strikes came just days after a warning by President Barack Obama that Washington intended to "take actions where we've got a clear operation and a clear target in mind" against Islamic State. Britain said it had authorised the use of its airbases to launch the attack. Islamic State runs a self-styled caliphate across swathes of Iraq and Syria, where it has faced air strikes from a U.S.-led coalition since 2014. DEEPER INTO CHAOS Since Gaddafi was overthrown five years ago by rebel forces backed by NATO air strikes, Libya has slipped deeper into chaos, with two rival governments each backed by competing factions of former rebel brigades. A U.N.-backed government of national accord is trying to win support, but is still awaiting parliamentary approval. It is opposed by factional hardliners and has yet to establish itself in the capital Tripoli. Islamic State has expanded, attacking oil ports and taking over Gaddafi's home city of Sirte, now the militant group's most important stronghold outside its main redoubts in Syria and Iraq. Calls have increased for a swift Western response to stop the group establishing itself more permanently and using Libya as a base for attacks on neighbours Tunisia and Egypt. Western officials and diplomats have said air strikes and special forces operations are possible as well as an Italian-led "security stabilisation" plan of training and advising. U.S. and European officials have in the past insisted Libyans must first form a united government and ask for help, but they also say they may still carry out unilateral action if needed. The United States estimates that the number of militants directly affiliated with Islamic State or sympathetic to it now operating in Libya is in the low thousands, or less than 5,000, a U.S. government source said. Last November the United States carried out an air strike on the Libyan town of Derna, close to the Egyptian border, to kill Abu Nabil, an Iraqi commander in Islamic State. A U.S. air strike targeted veteran Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar and other jihadists meeting in eastern Libya last June. His fate is unclear. (Additional reporting by Warren Strobel and Mark Hosenball and Roberta Rampton in Washington and Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; Writing by Dominic Evans and Peter Graff; Editing by Patrick Markey, Alison Williams, Andrew Roche and Alistair Bell) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. Washington: US airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria have reportedly destroyed more than USD 500 million cash reserves and 20 kilogrammes of gold stored by the terror group. The estimate comes amid reports that the terror group is facing cash shortage in its so-called caliphate, slashing the perks and salaries of its fighters across the region. Recent reports have stated that the extremist group has started accepting only dollars for "tax" payments, water and electric bills. The US believes that airstrikes in Iraq and Syria have destroyed more than USD 500 million in cash that ISIS used to pay its fighters and fund its terror and military operations, ABC News reported. That is probably a low estimate, a US official was quoted as saying. The official said the figure is in "the high hundreds of millions of dollars." An additional 20 kilogrammes of gold is also believed to have been destroyed by the airstrikes, the report said. As part of the effort to weaken ISIS, the US military has struck at the terror group's finances, particularly its lucrative oil smuggling enterprise in Syria that provides revenue for its operations. The US also began targeting ISIS "cash distribution centres" in Syria where it stored hard cash used for its operations. Ten strikes have been conducted since then with the most high profile being two airstrikes in Mosul, in northern Iraq, targeting facilities that American officials characterised as ISIS banks. As proof of their successful targeting the US-led coalition released video of one of the Mosul airstrikes that showed what appeared to be large amounts of bills fluttering in the air after the airstrike. American officials believe the strikes have had an impact on ISIS operations often citing anecdotal reports that ISIS fighters are now being paid half what they had been receiving prior to the airstrikes. "It's a significant amount of cash that we believe was in those various collection points before we struck them," Colonel Steve Warren, the US military spokesman in Baghdad, told reporters this week at a Pentagon briefing. According to Warren, the US now estimates that "hundreds of millions of dollars" in cash has been destroyed by airstrikes targeting ISIS financial centers. The official said five airstrikes near Mosul this weekend targeted two ISIS financial distribution centers and two ISIS financial storage centers. PTI SYDNEY The Australian cardinal who oversees the Vatican's finances has strongly denied newspaper allegations of involvement in child sexual abuse, describing them as "utterly false". The Sun Herald newspaper reported late Friday that Cardinal George Pell was being investigated by Australian police over allegations of abuse while he was serving in senior positions within the Catholic Church in Australia. Pell has called for a public inquiry to be conducted into police in the state of Victoria, saying the allegations were leaked "to do maximum damage" before he gives evidence at the end of the month to a child abuse inquiry in his homeland. Victorian police said they could not comment on any investigations into any individuals. Pell, once seen as a contender to become pope, was cleared earlier this week to testify at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse via videolink, because of a heart condition. The ruling frustrated victim groups who wanted him to appear in person. They have since begun a crowdsourcing campaign to raise money to travel to Rome in the hope of seeing him testify in person. The Sun Herald report said Victorian police had compiled a dossier containing allegations that Pell committed "multiple offences" when he was a priest in Ballarat, a town in the west of the state, and also when he was archbishop of Melbourne. The inquiry has been gathering evidence for a year, the paper said. In a lengthy statement issued by his office in Rome in response to the report, Pell called on senior police and government officials to "immediately investigate the leaking of these baseless allegations." "The allegations are without foundation and utterly false," the statement said. "These undetailed allegations have not been raised with the Cardinal by the police." Pell would cooperate with police if they wished to question him, the statement added. The Royal Commission heard testimony last year that priests suspected of abuse in Pell's former diocese were moved between parishes and put in church-appointed rehabilitation instead of being reported to police. Pell, 74, has denied those allegations. He is due to testify from Rome via videolink on Feb. 29. (Reporting by Jane Wardell; Editing by Mark Trevelyan) This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. The UIDAI has taken two successive governments in India and the entire world for a ride. It identifies nothing. It is not unique. The entire UID data has never been verified and audited. The UID cannot be used for governance, financial databases or anything. Its use is the biggest threat to national security since independence. Anupam Saraph 2018 When I opposed Aadhaar in 2010 , I was called a BJP stooge. In 2016 I am still opposing Aadhaar for the same reasons and I am told I am a Congress die hard. No one wants to see why I oppose Aadhaar as it is too difficult. Plus Aadhaar is FREE so why not get one ? Ram Krishnaswamy First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.-Mahatma Gandhi In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.Mahatma Gandhi The invasion of privacy is of no consequence because privacy is not a fundamental right and has no meaning under Article 21. The right to privacy is not a guaranteed under the constitution, because privacy is not a fundamental right. Article 21 of the Indian constitution refers to the right to life and liberty -Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi There is merit in the complaints. You are unwittingly allowing snooping, harassment and commercial exploitation. The information about an individual obtained by the UIDAI while issuing an Aadhaar card shall not be used for any other purpose, save as above, except as may be directed by a court for the purpose of criminal investigation.-A three judge bench headed by Justice J Chelameswar said in an interim order. Legal scholar Usha Ramanathan describes UID as an inverse of sunshine laws like the Right to Information. While the RTI makes the state transparent to the citizen, the UID does the inverse: it makes the citizen transparent to the state, she says. Good idea gone bad I have written earlier that UID/Aadhaar was a poorly designed, unreliable and expensive solution to the really good idea of providing national identification for over a billion Indians. My petition contends that UID in its current form violates the right to privacy of a citizen, guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution. This is because sensitive biometric and demographic information of citizens are with enrolment agencies, registrars and sub-registrars who have no legal liability for any misuse of this data. This petition has opened up the larger discussion on privacy rights for Indians. The current Article 21 interpretation by the Supreme Court was done decades ago, before the advent of internet and todays technology and all the new privacy challenges that have arisen as a consequence. Rajeev Chandrasekhar, MP Rajya Sabha What is Aadhaar? There is enormous confusion. That Aadhaar will identify people who are entitled for subsidy. No. Aadhaar doesnt determine who is eligible and who isnt, Jairam Ramesh But Aadhaar has been mythologised during the previous government by its creators into some technology super force that will transform governance in a miraculous manner. I even read an article recently that compared Aadhaar to some revolution and quoted a 1930s historian, Will Durant.Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP I know you will say that it is not mandatory. But, it is compulsorily mandatorily voluntary, Jairam Ramesh, Rajya Saba April 2017. August 24, 2017: The nine-judge Constitution Bench rules that right to privacy is intrinsic to life and libertyand is inherently protected under the various fundamental freedoms enshrined under Part III of the Indian Constitution "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the World; indeed it's the only thing that ever has" Arguing that you dont care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you dont care about free speech because you have nothing to say. -Edward Snowden In the Supreme Court, Meenakshi Arora, one of the senior counsel in the case, compared it to living under a general, perpetual, nation-wide criminal warrant. Had never thought of it that way, but living in the Aadhaar universe is like living in a prison. All of us are treated like criminals with barely any rights or recourse and gatekeepers have absolute power on you and your life. Announcing the launch of the # BreakAadhaarChainscampaign, culminating with events in multiple cities on 12th Jan. This is the last opportunity to make your voice heard before the Supreme Court hearings start on 17th Jan 2018. In collaboration with @no2uidand@rozi_roti. UIDAI's security seems to be founded on four time tested pillars of security idiocy 1) Denial 2) Issue fiats and point finger 3) Shoot messenger 4) Bury head in sand. God Save India Qualcomm and Lenovo have entered into a new 3G and 4G patent license agreement for China, which covers devices marketed by both Motorola and Lenovo. As per the agreement, Qualcomm has granted Lenovo a royalty-bearing patent license to develop, manufacture and sell 3G (WCDMA and CDMA2000) and 4G, including 3-mode (LTE-TDD, TD-SCDMA and GSM), complete devices. The royalties payable by Lenovo are consistent with the terms of the rectification plan submitted by Qualcomm to Chinas National Development and Reform Commission. This is not the first time Qualcomm has entered into a deal with companies for patent agreement as last year in December the chip maker had inked a partnership with QiKu, Haier and Tianyu for 3G/4G. Scott Offer, general counsel of Lenovo said As a leading global provider of mobile devices, Lenovo is pleased to have concluded another license agreement with Qualcomm, which improves our IP position in China. This agreement also provides a solid foundation for Qualcomm and Lenovo to expand and strengthen the long-term relationship between our companies, both in China and around the world. Derek Aberle, president of Qualcomm Incorporated said Qualcomm is pleased to sign a new license agreement with Lenovo which builds on our long standing relationship. We look forward to expanding our collaboration with Lenovo as the company continues to bring exciting new Lenovo and Motorola devices to consumers around the world. Did you know that February is observed as the American Heart Month? Valentine's Day also falls in this month, which makes it more significant that you become aware of your heart's health and take necessary measures to protect and improve it. If a report of the Center for Disease Control and Protection is to be believed, several million people are affected by cardiovascular diseases every year in the United States alone. What is more appalling is that about 610,000 people die due to heart-related conditions every year in America. Therefore, it is important that we make healthy choices daily to take care of our hearts better, Heavy.com reported. However, for people who are not yet conscious and making an effort in this regard, it is never too late to initiate changes to take care of their heart, enhance their overall health, and also get the best from their life. The easiest way to protect your heart's health is to reduce stress and make some changes in one's lifestyle, including eating foods that are healthy for the heart. These also will help one to ensure that what they eat helps them to live life to the fullest. One great way is to prepare heart-healthy meals and snacks is to ensure that the foods contain less sodium, cholesterol, and saturated fat. At the same time, it is important to eat three meals daily, ensuring that the preferred dishes contain plenty of plant foods and little or no deep fried foods, dairy fat, or animal fat. It is recommended that one should opt for more vegetable and fruits in all meals and snacks. For instance, they can select beet, a root vegetable that is freshest during the winter months. One may also try the berry beet ginger smoothie to begin the day with a healthy breakfast or take it as a mid-afternoon snack. This preparation contains a lot of healthy foods, such as avocado, coconut milk, and chia seeds, as well as turmeric and berries. High-fiber breakfast cereals, whole grains or wholegrain breads instead of white bread is excellent for the heart. Other heart-healthy foods include beans, dried peas, soy products, and fish. Even a small serving of skinned poultry or lean meat at one or more meals each day is good for the health of the cardiovascular system, the New Zealand Heart Foundation emphasizes. To ensure a robust cardiovascular system, it is advisable that one should opt for low-fat milk, low-fat milk products, soy or legume products daily. Last, but not the least important, one should drink plenty of fluids, especially pure water, daily. What and where we put food in the fridge can have a huge effect on our health. Having a dirty fridge and cluttered storage causes the hidden kiwi fruits you just bought from the market to rot and cause a mess. If you want to live a healthier life, you can start by rearranging your fridge using these hacks. Middle shelf is for nutritious foods Psychologists at the University of Chester conducted a test, asking a group of people to select one item in racks. The tendency showed that they picked items placed on the center shelf. This applied to the foods in the fridge and in the grocery store as well. Middle shelf gets more attention. Do not put chocolate bars in a clear box What happens when you see medium-size chocolate pie in the middle shelf? You will be enticed to have a slice. Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, explained that people will likely tend to pick chocolates in a clear container because it's simply, visible. Milk should be kept in the inner section Milk contains photosensitive vitamins. When you place a carton of milk in refrigerator's door, the fridge light eventually destroys its nutrient properties such as vitamin A and B12. Always stock your milk in the internal section of the fridge where chiller temperature can preserve it longer. Let the air circulate around perishable items People tend to store more foods on holidays. Overstuffing the fridge with items will make you head to the kitchen cabinet instead and looking for cookies in a jar. Your refrigerator may not be able to do its job since there's a lot of stuff inside. The executive director of the Canadian Partnership for Consumer Food Safety Education, Brenda Watson, suggests buying only the foods you need and setting the temperature right (32F-39F) to make sure that all of the foods you store can retain maximum freshness. What: Shares of Weight Watchers International (WW -2.66%) were up more than 17% as of 3:00 p.m. ET Friday after the company issued a press release highlighting an encouraging academic study featuring its program. So what: Specifically, Weight Watchers lauded a new randomized controlled study conducted by researchers at the Indiana State University School of Medicine, which found "adults with prediabetes who followed a nationally available weight management program with a prediabetes-specific component, Weight Watchers, lost significantly more weight and experienced better blood glucose control than those following a self-initiated program using supplemental counseling materials." According to the study, participants following the prediabetes-specific Weight Watchers program lost 5.5% of their body weight at six months, on average, and fully maintained that loss at 12 months. Meanwhile, the control group lost just 0.8% of their body weight at six months, then regained some of that weight for a total loss of 0.2% at 12 months. That meant intervention participants lost an average of 10.14 more pounds at six months, and 11.68 more pounds one year following the start of the study. Now what: From an outsider's perspective, I'll admit it seems strange such validation should be required to prop up Weight Watchers' stock price in the first place. But shares have been especially volatile as the company works to turn itself around. And today's pop follows a brutal 40%-plus drop in the month of January, caused both by the broader market's decline and as initial excitement waned after Oprah endorsed and took a major stake in Weight Watchers late last year. As it stands, investors will get a better idea of whether the turnaround is progressing as planned when Weight Watchers announces fourth-quarter and full-year 2015 results next Thursday, Feb. 25, 2016. In the meantime, I remain content watching Weight Watchers stock from the sidelines. Candy, costumes, and trick-or-treating, oh my! Halloween is one of the popular holidays with children, and it is creeping up fast. Trick-or-treating is not the only Halloween activity in... Could any two states be more different than Nevada and South Carolina? One is known for its Southern hospitality, tall trees, sub-tropical heat and its long and bloody history that goes back well before the Civil War. The other is known for its desert climates, legalized prostitution and gambling -- and a Western outpost built by gangsters and cowboys. These are two very different states, made up of very different types of people. And yet, these states with capitals more than 2,600 miles apart, share one big thing in common: Their combined 125,000 small business owners. Yes, these entrepreneurs share one other big thing in common. It is something that both the Democratic and Republican presidential hopefuls had better understand. That one thing is people. Ask any business owner what the most important asset is to their business, and the reply will almost always be their employees. You are only good as your people, youll hear them say. And theyre right. Companies are made up of people, and the most successful ones have the best people working for them. Small businesses struggle to find good people and then keep them motivated. They are in competition with larger companies offering more benefits. And business owners across the country struggle with training and developing skilled workers. In South Carolina, Nevada (and the rest of the country) the cost of hiring and keeping good people is becoming more and more prohibitive -- so much so that its become a significant issue to small business voters. And thats because the government, in recent years, has been hurting their efforts. The national rise in minimum wages is very much on their minds. This year, thirteen states will be increasing their minimum wages with another eight considering measures. Nevadas minimum wage is on the lower end at $8.25 per hour and South Carolina has no state mandated minimum wage. Will this change? The pressure is on. The cost of living in this part of the country is lower than other parts and a broad $15 per hour increase ignores this fact, says Kevin Pickens, President of Prime Line Digital, a South Carolina technology firm. His company has a unique program for training newly-graduated college students that starts at $10 per hour with the potential of much higher increases as the trainees progress. If minimum wage goes up to $15 per hour, it would kill this program, he says. Justin Ivory, the owner of a twenty-person steel manufacturing business in Nevada worries about workforce development. We are a non-union company that trains its own entry level employees and its hard to find experienced people, he says. Regulations that require paid time off, overtime and especially immigration reform impedes his business. The construction industry relies on immigration for workers and we need a real (immigration) process that allows us to fulfill our positions, not just an executive order. South Carolinas poverty rate is among the worst in the country, posing challenges to employers there to find good, skilled workers and compete with the larger companies that do. "We have significant job gaps, and we must move quickly to fill them or the projected job growth won't occur because there won't be an available workforce to fill them," said Mary Graham of the Charleston Metro Chamber of Commerce And of course, theres healthcare. I would like to provide health insurance to my employees, says Brock Ohlson, a lawyer and Certified Public Accountant in Las Vegas, but its just too expensive which makes it impractical. Healthcare expenses rank highest amongst the top of concerns for small businesses in both states. Both Nevada and South Carolina businesses are looking at 10% and 14% increases in their health insurance rates respectively in 2016. Kristin McMillan, who runs the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce, sees this a lot. While proposals such as raising the minimum wage or mandating businesses provide health insurance may win political points, they can be very costly to small businesses and impede their ability and desire to create jobs, she says. McMillan is also concerned about the quality of the states future workforce. She believes that in order to innovate and grow they need more skilled employees, particularly in the STEM disciplines. The business owners in both states face people issues that are common to so many others around the country. Even though many are still feeling successful, according to a study conducted at the end of last year by The Hartford, 64% have not hired new employees in the past 12 months, stating reasons from cant afford it to not growing to concerned about healthcare costs. What can the candidates do? Its obvious that small business owners are pleading for less regulations when it comes to their employees. And more investment wouldnt hurt. Nevada was hit hard by the last recession, and its effects stung many small businesses there. But Las Vegas has recovered and construction is booming. Its different in South Carolina, where there has always been a greater struggle with higher levels of poverty than the rest of the country. Andy Brack, the editor and publisher of the Charleston Current, laments that many small business jobs are low-wage, low-skilled and not upwardly mobile. More incentives are needed to bring in larger companies in order to grow their economy and attract better workers, he wrote - like the recent announcement by a European company that it would expand operations in one county with a $230 million investment. It was a win-win because it was outside investment and community development of an existing industry. All business, whether big or small, matters. Its frustrating to see business demonized, said Margaret Cavin of J&J Mechanical in Sparks, Nevada. Were the ones creating jobs and taking the risks. Much like the recent celebrations of the Chinese New Year, the earnings season for technology investors saw its fair share of fireworks. Though it produced several successes, this quarter's crop of earnings reports also featured the most disappointments of any quarter in recent memory, with names such as Amazon.com , GoPro , LinkedIn stumbling along with several other high-profile tech companies. So as we sift through the rubble in search of opportunity, let's review the earnings meltdowns at Amazon, GoPro, and LinkedIn to see how investors should approach their shares. 1. Amazon.com In classic Amazon fashion, the world's most dominant e-commerce site delivered quarterly and annual results featuring prodigious sales growth while delivering meager profits. The market hoped for better, sending Amazon stock sharply lower the day after the earnings release. AMZN data by YCharts But for those familiar with the company's long-term land-grab strategy, Amazon's report should have come as no surprise.Here's a quick snapshot of Amazon's performance. Metric Actual Expected % Difference Amazon Q4 2015 revenue $35.70 $36.00 (0.80%) Amazon Q4 2015 EPS $1.00 $1.56 (35.90%) Sources: Amazon investor relations, Yahoo! Finance; revenue figures in $US billions. In the big picture, Amazon remains laser focused on its strategy of aggressively cutting costs and lowering prices to gain market share in both cloud computing and e-commerce, two massive long-term secular growth markets still in their infancy. So given its practice of managing profits to what it views as the minimally acceptable level, orienting its strategy toward snapping up market share seems the more appropriate path to creating dominant long-term positions in its core markets. Especially given the recent selling pressure on its shares, Amazon is becoming an increasingly intriguing option for tech investors today -- a sentiment I don't think can be argued for GoPro. 2. GoProThe uber-volatile action-camera maker simply can't catch a break. After announcing preliminary earnings on Jan. 13 that registered markedly below its previous guidance, GoPro came through with an earnings announcement last week that triggered yet another knee-jerk downward move in its shares. GPRO data by YCharts Unlike Amazon's earnings, GoPro's recent report offered few silver linings. Faced with a raft of similar products flooding the market and perhaps a smaller potential customer base than previously assumed, GoPro may be looking at less of a market opportunity than many investors imagined. Here's how the company's financial performance broke down in the recent quarter. Metric Actual Expected % Difference GoPro Q4 2015 revenue $436.60 $633.90 (31.10%) GoPro Q4 2015 EPS $0.00 ($0.08) N/A Source: GoPro investor relations, Yahoo! Finance; revenue figures in $US millions. In addition to sales grossly missing their estimates, device sales also slowed markedly during the quarter. GoPro shipped a total of just over 2 million devices, down 16% from the 2.38 million units it sold Q4 of last year. From just about every angle, it appears GoPro's business momentum has stalled. As GoPro limps onward, the core investing question is likely to shift to whether the company can ever attain long-term profitability. I've always been skeptical about GoPro's investing thesis. To me, there was just never a meaningful enough degree of differentiation between GoPro's products, which left the door open for the explosion of competitors we've seen enter the market in recent years.The annals of tech investing are littered with innovative hardware companies that eventually become commoditized. The smartphone and PC markets are two noteworthy examples, and a similar fate for GoPro seems plausible unless the company can rapidly improve its product-development roadmap. 3. LinkedIn Among the tech companies highlighted here, business social networking site LinkedIn's shares were savaged the most. However, this drubbing also makes LinkedIn's shares perhaps the most interesting for investors. LNKD data by YCharts LinkedIn actually beat analyst estimates in its Q4 report. And though its forward-looking guidance came in softer than expected, the subsequent sell-off it ignited seems overblown. For the coming year, LinkedIn stated it expects to earn earnings-per-share between $3.05-$3.20 on revenue somewhere between $3.6 billion-$3.65 billion. This fell short of analysts' average expectation of EPS of $3.67 on revenue of $3.9 billion. Though not necessarily clear, it's likely this lower-than-expected forward guidance rattled investors at a time when growth investors have proven especially jumpy. Amid the market's volatility in the past month, tech-related stocks have underperformed the broad market by a factor of nearly 2x. What's more, as we saw in the case of Amazon and GoPro, the market clearly won't not hesitate to punish companies of all qualities for showing the slightest sign of slowing growth in the current market environment. As painful as it can be for its shareholders, LinkedIn appears to have picked the wrong time to provide the market an earnings report causing even the slightest modicum of fear to jumpy growth investors. Looking to the quarter itself, LinkedIn actually performed quite well, beating analyst's estimates on both the top and bottom lines. Full-year revenue grew 35%. The company continued to add users, and LinkedIn made observable improvements within each of its three core revenue segments. Metric Actual Expected % Difference LinkedIn Q4 2015 revenue $861.9 $857.0 0.6% LinkedIn Q4 2015 non-GAAP EPS $0.94 $0.78 20.5% Source: LinkedIn investor relations, Yahoo! Finance. Worth noting, like most tech companies, LinkedIn did use a fair amount of stock-based compensation (SBC) in order to attract talent, which weighed on its GAAP results. LinkedIn awarded $134 million in SBC to employees, a non-cash expense. However, based largely on the magnitude of LinkedIn's SBC, its GAAP and non-GAAP net income came in at -$8.4 million and $125 million respectively. Stock-based comps notwithstanding, LinkedIn posted a relatively impressive performance for the quarter. The company still expects to grow at over 20% in 2016, and it has a clear path toward profitability for its three core reporting segments. What's more, trading at 25 timesits forward earnings, LinkedIn presents a strong case in favor for buying at these "depressed" prices, especially considering its sound long-term competitive positioning. True, growth is slowing, like all maturing companies. However, with sales still set to climb well into the double-digits for the year ahead, LinkedIn's investing thesis remains anything but broken. The article As Amazon, LinkedIn, and GoPro Flunk Earnings Season, What Went Wrong? originally appeared on Fool.com. Andrew Tonner has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon.com, Facebook, GoPro, and LinkedIn. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Boston Beer Co. announced fourth-quarter 2015 results Thursday after the market close, and made it clear that heightened competition is making things as difficult as ever for the craft brewing giant. But before we go there, let's take a closer look at what Boston Beer achieved in both the fourth quarter and full-year 2015. The headline numbersQuarterly revenue fell 1.2% year over year, to $215.1 million, as price increases only partially offset a 3% decline in core shipment volume from the same year-ago period, to 958,000 barrels. Quarterly depletions -- a key measure for how quickly Boston Beer's product travels from warehouses to consumer outlets -- fell 3% year over year, and net income dropped 15.7%, to $16.1 million. Thanks to repurchases during the past year -- including 438,000 shares bought back for $87.9 million since the end of last quarter -- net income per diluted share fell a more modest 13.6%, to $1.21. Just last week, Boston Beer's board of directors approved a $50 million increase to its existing repurchase authorization, bringing the program's total to $575 million, of which all but $95.9 million had been exhausted as of February 12, 2016.Nonetheless, the positive effects of buybacks and expanding gross margin -- up 80 basis points, to 50.6% in Q4 -- were more than offset by Boston Beer's declining revenue and planned increases to advertising, promotion, and selling expenses. When all was said and done in 2015, Boston Beer's revenue climbed 6% year over year, to $959.9 million, full-year depletions climbed 4%, and diluted net income per share rose 8%, to $7.25. That might not sound impressive, but these figures arrived firmly within Boston Beer's latest guidance ranges, which called for full-year earnings per share between $7.00 and $7.40, and depletions growth between 3% and 6%. By comparison, analysts' consensus estimates predicted slightly lower full-year earnings of $7.20 per share, and higher revenue of $968.4 million. "We believe we have lost share..."Boston Beer's founding chairman, Jim Koch, didn't sugarcoat it, stating: "Our depletion trends softened during the year, even as the better beer and craft categories appear healthy. We believe we have lost share, as new craft brewers enter the market and more existing craft brewers are expanding their regional distribution, with the result that drinkers are seeing more choices, including a wave of new beers in all markets." At the same time, Koch insisted that Boston Beer remains well positioned to participate in the craft beer category's continued growth over the long term, as well as to use its strong financial position to continue to strategically invest in growing its brands. Next, Boston Beer CEO Martin Roper largely echoed the comments he made last quarter, blaming depletions declines on decreases in Boston Beer's core Samuel Adams varieties, as well as general declines in the cider category affecting its Angry Orchard brands -- though he did note that Angry Orchard maintained its share throughout the quarter. On a positive note, Boston Beer continues to enjoy the relative strength of its younger Coney Island, Twisted Tea, and Traveler brands. Cheers to another yearThrough the first six weeks of the year ended February 6, 2016, Boston Beer has seen these trends continue, with depletions down 3% from the same year-ago period. But perhaps most important to its future direction, Roper explained: On one hand, keeping in mind that Boston Beer already provided preliminary guidance for 2016, along with its Q3 report in October, Boston Beer now expects slightly lower full-year depletions and shipments growth in the mid-single-digit range, compared to previous guidance for mid- to high-single-digit growth. On the other hand, Boston Beer also anticipates increased 2016 ad, promo, and selling expenses of between $10 million and $20 million, and capital spending between $60 million and $80 million -- the latter of which marks a $10 million reduction from both ends of Boston Beer's previous capital spending estimates. Meanwhile,Boston Beercontinues to expect national price increases in 2016 between 1% and 2%, and healthy gross margin between 52% and 54%. Finally, Boston Beer projects full-year earnings per diluted share between $7.60 to $8.00. That equates to year-over-year earnings growth of between 4.8% and 10.3%, but still falls short of Wall Street's projections for 2016 earnings of $8.05 per share. That doesn't mean Boston Beer's past days of heady growth are over. To the contrary, with a less than 2% share of the total U.S. beer market, the company knows it's still small enough to maintain the flexibility to pounce on growth opportunities as they arise, and is willing to invest in operational efficiency and innovation commensurate to the size of those opportunities. The article Boston Beer Co. Inc. Stays the Course as Competition Grows originally appeared on Fool.com. Steve Symington has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Boston Beer. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Moody's said that Ford's successful launch of its new-for-2015 F-150 pickup was a factor in its decision to boost the Blue Oval's credit rating. Image source: Ford Motor Company. What happened: Shares of Ford Motor Company jumped 3.4% on Wednesday after Moody's Investors Service raised the Blue Oval's credit rating for the first time since 2012. The details: On Tuesday, February 16, Moody's announced it had upgraded the long-term credit ratings of Ford Motor Company and its in-house financing arm, Ford Motor Credit Company, to Baa2 from Baa3. Baa3 is the lowest Moody's rating that is considered to be "investment grade." Moody's said its decision to move Ford's rating up a notch reflects the progress Ford has made toward a "more competitive and sustainable operating model." Or put another way, Moody's now has a little more confidence that Ford will be able to get through the next economic downturn without too much trouble. "The key factor in the Ford upgrade is our conclusion that the company has the operational and financial resources necessary to contend with and recover from the stress that it will eventually face," said Moody's senior vice president Bruce Clark in a statement. Ford's very healthy cash position was probably big factor in Moody's decision. The Blue Oval had $23.6 billion in cash on hand as of the end of 2015, and another $10.9 billion in available credit lines. On the other side of the ledger, it had just $12.8 billion in debt, its lowest level in 15 years. What it means for Ford: It means Ford will pay a little less to borrow money from this point forward. Generally speaking, the higher a company's credit rating, the less it has to pay in interest on its bonds and financing. It's a vote of confidence in CEO Mark Fields and the current leadership team, but beyond that, it's not really a big deal from a stock investor's perspective. Ford's credit was already "investment grade," meaning institutional investors that are limited to owning only higher-quality debt have been able to buy Ford's bonds. Ford was already paying reasonable rates on its debt. The last time Moody's upgraded Ford, back in 2012, it was a very big deal. At the time, Moody's was the second rating agency to return Ford to investment-grade status. But the Moody's upgrade allowed Ford to recover the collateral it had pledged against the loans then-CEO Alan Mullally took in 2006. Those loans allowed Ford to continue new-product development during the 2008-2009 economic crisis, and they kept the company from joining its old Detroit rivals in bankruptcy court. Simply put, they saved the company -- but at a cost: Ford had to pledge just about everything it had, including the rights to its Blue Oval trademark, as collateral in order to secure the financing. Getting all of that back was a huge milestone in Ford's turnaround. This new upgrade isn't like that, but it's still good news for Ford and its shareholders. What happens next: Most likely, the other credit-rating agencies will also bump Ford's credit up a notch in the near future. Moody's, however, said further upgrades aren't likely any time soon. For further upgrades to be considered, it said it would need to see Ford boost its profit margins on its operations outside of North America, and it will need to see Ford show "resiliency" when it faces an economic slowdown in one of its key markets or some other "material operational challenge." Moody's would like to see Ford boost its its global operating margin to somewhere around 8%. That's not an unreasonable target: It was 6.8% in 2015, up from 4.6% in 2014. Ford is working to boost margins in Europe and Asia, and I think its global margins should rise nicely over the next couple of years if the regional economies cooperate. In the meantime, Ford's credit rating is already solidly in "boring" territory, and that's a very good thing for long-term investors. The article Ford Gets a Credit Boost: What It Means originally appeared on Fool.com. John Rosevear owns shares of Ford. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Ford. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. What happened?American International Group has made several shareholder-pleasing moves of late. Most recently, the company declared a hefty 14% hike in its quarterly dividend, to $0.32 per share. That's in addition to the $5 billion increase in its share buyback authorization, which was announced concurrently. Combined with the remaining amount of the insurer's previous repurchase program, the total authorization now stands at roughly $5.8 billion. Both moves are part of a broader initiative, announced last month, to return $25 billion of capital to AIG shareholders. The new dividend is to be paid on March 28 to shareholders of record as of March 14. At AIG's current share price, it yields 2.4%. This is slightly higher than the average yield of dividend-paying stocks in the S&P 500. Does it matter?It's hard to escape the feeling that the $25 billion capital return plan was announced to help keep the activists at bay. AIG has been under fire for months from not one, but two, noted corporate gadflies -- John Paulson of Paulson & Co., and Icahn Enterprises' Carl Icahn. Both have a number of grievances about AIG's strategic direction (mainly having to do with its size, and the perceived burden of its status as a federally designated "systemically important financial institution"). Last week, both men were given one board seat apiece to fill, so the guiding lights of Paulson & Co. and Icahn Enterprises will now have a more direct influence on the company. Additionally, Paulson and Icahn effectively agreed with AIG to set aside their criticisms of the company until the summer, and not to wage a proxy fight for control of it this year. The enhanced dividend and the new $5 billion in share buybacks should help maintain that peace. Regardless of what happens to the company in light of Paulson and Icahn's increased involvement, the two moves should have an impact on AIG's stock, given their large size. AIG is an interesting investment proposition just now, and this pair of announcements will doubtless raise interest in the stock. The article Instant Analysis: AIG Hikes Dividend and Share Buybacks originally appeared on Fool.com. Eric Volkman has no position in any stocks mentioned. Nor does The Motley Fool. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Image: Nordstrom. Retail stalwart Nordstrom has a strong reputation for quality and customer service, and many investors look to the department-store retailer as a barometer of the high-end of the retail market generally. Coming into Thursday's fiscal fourth-quarter financial report, Nordstrom investors were bracing for declines in earnings, and fairly tepid sales growth. Yet the results that Nordstrom posted weren't even enough to keep up with those lowered expectations, and the report sent shock waves through the industry that pushed shares of rival Macy's lower in after-hours trading, as well. Let's take a closer look at Nordstrom's most-recent report, and whether investors can expect better conditions in 2016. Nordstrom plays Scrooge for the holidays Nordstrom's fiscal fourth-quarter results didn't give investors what they had hoped to see. Total revenue climbed 3.7%, to $4.19 billion, which was a bit less than the $4.22 billion consensus forecast among those following the stock. Net income fell almost 30%, to $180 million, and even after adding back asset-impairment charges, adjusted net earnings of $1.17 per share fell short of the $1.20 per share that most investors had expected. As we saw last quarter, comparable-store sales growth remained extremely weak. Overall comps rose 1%, and the full-price Nordstrom segment saw comparable sales rise just 0.2%. In fact, the online business carried Nordstrom's quarter, posting a net sales increase of 11%. Brick-and-mortar store sales crumbled, falling 2.5% overall, and 3.2% on a comparable basis. One area that improved was the Nordstrom Rack discount arena. There, net sales climbed 12%, pushing comps up by 3.6%. Again, though, e-commerce was the growth driver. Sales at Nordstromrack.com and HauteLook.net jumped by half, outweighing comparable-store sales declines of 3% for Nordstrom Rack physical-store locations. Nordstrom said that the beauty and shoe segments produced the top performance during the quarter, and women's apparel also saw gains from demand for coats, denim, dresses, and departments focused on younger customers. Still, gross profits fell almost two percentage points, to 34.8%, and Nordstrom cited larger markdowns in response to promotions from Macy's and other competitors during the holiday season. Can Nordstrom bounce back in 2016? Nordstrom hasn't given up on its growth initiatives. The company said that it expects to open almost two dozen new stores, including three full-line Nordstrom stores, and 20 Nordstrom Rack locations. It also expects to relocate one full-line location and two Nordstrom Rack stores. Four of those openings are expected in March, including a full-line store in Hawaii, and Nordstrom Racks in Louisiana, Utah, and Virginia. The bulk of the expansion will occur during the fall months in anticipation of the 2016 holiday season. Yet Nordstrom has felt the need to respond to sales trends by reducing expenses and capital investments, and that helped establish its guidance for fiscal 2016. Nordstrom expects sales gains of 3.5% to 5.5%, with comps coming in flat to up 2% for the year. Earnings guidance in a range between $3.10 and $3.35 per share would be well below the $3.53 per-share consensus forecast among investors currently. Even more painful will be the front-ended nature of declines. Nordstrom believes that earnings per share will fall by 30% compared to year-ago levels in the first half of fiscal 2016, stemming from pre-opening expenses on new stores, and the shift of its key Anniversary Sale event across quarters this year compared to fiscal 2015. The news not only affected Nordstrom shares, which fell 8% in after-hours trading following the announcement, but Macy's, as well, which posted its own 1.5% drop after the closing bell, in sympathy. Given that Nordstrom and Macy's are both aiming at the same general audience, the struggles that Nordstrom has seen could hurt Macy's results when it announces next week. Meanwhile, Nordstrom will have to retrench, and aim to find new ways to grow despite tough conditions in the retail industry. The article Nordstrom Scares Retail Investors With Weak Holiday Results originally appeared on Fool.com. Dan Caplinger has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Nordstrom. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Screen shot from a video describing features of the company's mobile app. Image source: Whole Foods Market. Of the various business narratives Whole Foods Market's management spun out during the company's fiscal Q1 2016 earnings conference call last week, the grocer's mobile marketing efforts were a prominent and recurring motif. Whole Foods launched digital coupons through its mobile app nationwide this month, and it plans to introduce a digital version of its paper sales flier later this year. Shareholders may recall that the company has been prototyping an affinity, or rewards, program for some time -- the first test market activity began nearly two and a half years ago, in the fall of 2013. This program is meant to evolve into an overarching platform powering the company's mobile app. On the earnings call, Co-CEO Walter Robb didn't provide a timeline for release, but he did confirm that the test program would expand to a new market in Q3 2016. Given the speed at which transaction innovators in the consumer goods industry, most prominently gold standardbearerStarbucks, are able to evolve their digital tools,this long wave of testing has the feel of extremely tentative progress. So, there's wisdom in management's decision to release elements of its mobile platform, such as the digital coupons, along the way. Robb noted on the call that this next phase of testing combines "the best elements" of the initial phase, but at a lower cost to the company, indicating that management is more concerned with getting the platform right, than rushing it out to market. Opening a window onto customer behaviorThe investment in a digital affinity program may be taking time, but on the positive side, work to date is yielding management new insights into Whole Foods' business. Robb shared that the company has gathered a trove of information that sorts patrons into five distinct customer segments. The segments have been tokenized, meaning the company is tracking mobile users' shopping habits and preferences within these as-yet undisclosed categories, and analyzing the data. Beginning to glimpse customer types and purchase behavior trends, both of which can be opaque when a company is simply ringing up SKUs on a register, is a prerequisite to targeting shoppers with specific, personalized offers. And ultimately, pitching unique offers to enrolled customers is the type of activity Whole Foods' platform should enable in the future. It's a bitter and expensive truth in the retail industry, but an affinity program that lacks action on accumulated data is, after a period of time, simply a glorified sales flyer. Investing in marginIn addition to serving as a portal to value offerings and a communication channel, a well-designed affinity program will also incentivize customers to shop with increasing frequency. During the past quarter, Whole Foods successfully tested its ability to "digitally activate customers" through a mobile outreach touting limited-time offerings like $0.25 cups of coffee. This type of "activation" is an appropriate place to make investments in gross margin -- that is, to give up a small bit of profit now for future gains. So far, the company has indicated that gross margin will decline more in quarters two through four in fiscal 2016 than the 86 basis point (0.86%) deterioration seen in the first quarter, as Whole Foods ramps up discount offerings to protect its turf from encroaching peers. As you may note, going a bit over 86 basis points doesn't equate to a huge amount of margin compression. This is in keeping with the expressed philosophy of company executives over the last few years, that the grocer won't engage in a pricing "race to the bottom" with competitors. Some of Whole Food's margin compression is being offset by staff reductions and an automated labor scheduling process instituted late last year. But if doubling down on higher-profit businesses like prepared foods is a 2016 priority, as management has stressed, it makes sense to pull loyal customers repeatedly into stores, and frankly, this is worth the investment of even 100 to 150 basis points of gross margin in the near term. Starbucks' experience with developing a truly robust digital affinity program illustrates this point. Kevin Johnson, Starbuck's Chief Operating Officer, recently pointed out that the coffee retailer's mobile app, which is associated with 22% of all U.S. transactions, is driving significant "incrementality." In other words, the "My Starbucks" program is causing customers to visit more often, and tack on additional items to their orders. Incremental sales are a fine way to boost margins, if you can capture those extra patron visits. Here's the arc of Starbucks' gross margin during its initial period of investment in mobile, and the resulting yield over the last two years: The lesson of the above chart is that margin dollars given up to incentives that attract customers into your retail space can get replenished, and then some, given the right execution. If Whole Foods can gain even half of the basis points in margin that Starbucks has added to its P&L, it will be worth both the initial investment, and the long wait, for the complete launch of its affinity program. The article Whole Foods Market, Inc. Capitalizes on Customer Loyalty originally appeared on Fool.com. John Mackey, co-CEO of Whole Foods Market, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Asit Sharma has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Starbucks and Whole Foods Market. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Investing in the oil and gas industry has largely been a losing endeavor during the past two years. Since oil prices peaked in mid-June 2014, oil stock prices have fallen hard and fast. Here's howVanguard Energy ETF , iShares Dow Jones US Energy Sector (ETF), and Energy Select Sector SPDR (ETF) have performed since oil prices started falling: Brent Crude Oil Spot Price data by YCharts. Furthermore, there are no guarantees that the current downturn will end anytime soon -- even with Russia and Saudi Arabia talking about production freezes. Nonetheless, there remain solid companies in the oil and gas business that should make for great long-term investments. Phillips 66particularly stands out as a great long-term investment today, especially if you're looking for companies set to grow their dividend for years to come. Let's talk about why. Phillips 66 is using today's cash cow to invest in better growth prospectsToday, Phillips 66 derives the vast majority of its profits from its refining and marketing business, meaning oil and the products it makes from oil. But at the same time, the company isn't investing the majority of the profits from its refining back into that business, beyond maintenance and bang-for-the-buck efficiency and capability improvements. This is largely because demand growth for refined products is growing at a relatively slow pace, and the returns on capital invested in additional refining capacity aren't particularly high. Instead, the company is taking those fat cash flows and investing them in expanding the company's midstream and petrochemicals segments. Natural gas gathering and pipeline infrastructure in the U.S. needs to grow much larger during the next five years in order to connect many of the new gas-producing plays to the system, and the company is doing that, using both its master limited partnershipPhillips 66 Partners LP, andDCP Midstream Partners LP, to build out and manage this infrastructure. A recent deal demonstrates this. On February 17, it was announced that Phillips 66 Partners would pay $236 million in assumed debt and shares for a 25% stake in the recently completed Sweeny Fractionator One and Clemens Caverns NGL storage facility. In essence, this is a partial "drop-down" deal, where Phillips 66 partners takes on debt in exchange for taking on assets previously part of Phillips 66 directly. As Phillips 66 also continues to develop more capacity to process natural gas and NGLs for export, expect to see more of these types of deals. The company also continues to expand the capacity of its joint venture chemicals businesswith Chevron, CPChem. On the latest earnings call, CEO Greg Garland said that the company's expansion in ethylene and polyethylene capacity was scheduled to go online in mid-2017, and would give CPChem 40% higher production capacity. Payouts should grow and the business should evolveThe short-term is full of unknowns, and the energy market isn't likely to calm down anytime soon. But Phillips 66 is one of the most-solid and well-run businesses in the energy industry. Phillips 66 yields nearly 3% at recent prices, and management seems ready to expand that by double digits on a yearly basis for years to come. Since going public in a spinoff fromConocoPhillipsin 2012, Phillips 66's dividend has already been increased 180%, yet the company still only pays out about 28% of earnings in dividends. PSX Dividend data by YCharts. Factor in a very aggressive share-buyback program, which has reduced the share count by 15% since 2012, and continued growth of the dividend payout is very likely for the foreseeable future. Don't get me wrong -- Phillips 66 stock could fall in the short term; there's no predicting what happens in the weeks and months ahead. Looking at the bigger picture, however, and beyond the short-term volatility that's driving stock prices, Phillips 66 is a great value today, and should be a great income growth stock for many years to come. The article Why Phillips 66 Is My Top Income Growth Stock in Oil and Gas Right Now originally appeared on Fool.com. Jason Hall owns shares of Phillips 66. The Motley Fool recommends Chevron and DCP Midstream Partners. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. I'll be quite honest: I'm not a fan of Energy Transfer Equity or its namesake MLP, Energy Transfer Partners , primarily because the complexity of the group costs investors over the long term. Not only that, but there are some things about Energy Transfer Equity in particular that worry me. I'm not the only one with worries about these companies, which is why their valuations have been absolutely crushed over the past year: ETE data by YCharts That being said, I do have to admit that both are now quite compelling from a value standpoint, because each derives the vast majority of its income from fee-based assets. There's a clear case to be made that the market has significantly overreacted, making their shares a compelling buy. However, if I were choosing between the two, Energy Transfer Equity is the better buy. Here's why I'd choose the parent over the offspring. Follow the money trailAs a general partner, the bulk of Energy Transfer Equity's income is derived from its ownership interests in its MLPs, with Energy Transfer Partners providing the lion's share. That's clear from the chart below, which shows its various sources of income: Distributable cash flow 3Q 2015 ETP Limited partner interest $3 million ETP Class H Units $68 million ETP General partner interest $8 million ETP Incentive distribution rights $320 million ETP IDR relinquishments, net of distributions on Class I Units ($28 million) SUN cash distributions $8 million Distributable cash flow from Lake Charles LNG $49 million Source: Energy Transfer Equity. Overall, Energy Transfer Equity currently receives very little income from its other MLPs with Sunoco's distribution being relatively minor, while those ETP Class H Units actually track 90% of the underlying economics of the general partner interest and IDRs of Sunoco Logistics Partners L.P. , which is owned by Energy Transfer Partners. That being said, what this chart tells us is that an investment in Energy Transfer Equity is really an investment in Energy Transfer Partners, but with a twist. That twist is the fact that it receives fees for owning and managing that entity, which in a sense exists so that it can pay a growing stream of fees to its general partner. Further, the bulk of the fees it receives are incentive distribution rights, which give Energy Transfer Equity an increasing share of the incremental cash flow that Energy Transfer Partners generates. In other words, a growing share of Energy Transfer Partners' distribution growth is going to its parent, and not to its own investors. Drilling down into Energy Transfers' IDRsIncentive distribution rights are step-up rights, which simply means that as Energy Transfer Partners grows its distributable cash flow, Energy Transfer Equity gets a larger share of that growth. Here's the current structure of how Energy Transfer Partners will make cash distributions from available cash to unitholders, according to the last annual report: First, 100% to all Common Unitholders, Class E Unitholders, Class G Unitholders and the general partner, in accordance with their percentage interests, until each Common Unit has received $0.25 per unit for such quarter (the "minimum quarterly distribution"). Second, 100% to all Common Unitholders, Class E Unitholders, Class G Unitholders and the general partner, in accordance with their respective percentage interests, until each Common Unit has received $0.275 per unit for such quarter (the "first target distribution"). Third, (i) to the general partner in accordance with its percentage interest, (ii) 13% to the holders of the IDRs, pro rata, and (iii) to all Common Unitholders, Class E Unitholders and Class G Unitholders, pro rata, a percentage equal to 100% less the percentages applicable to the general partner and holders of the IDRs, until each Common Unit has received $0.3175 per unit for such quarter (the "second target distribution"). Fourth, (i) to the general partner in accordance with its percentage interest, (ii) 23% to the holders of the IDRs, pro rata, and (iii) to all Common Unitholders, Class E Unitholders and Class G Unitholders, pro rata, a percentage equal to 100% less the percentages applicable to the general partner and holders of the IDRs, until each Common Unit has received $0.4125 per unit for such quarter (the "third target distribution"). Fifth, thereafter, (i) to the general partner in accordance with its percentage interest, (ii) 48% to the holder of the IDRs, pro rata, and (iii) to all Common Unitholders, Class E Unitholders and Class G Unitholders, pro rata, a percentage equal to 100% less the percentages applicable to the general partner and holders of the IDRs. It's confusing to say the least, but the bottom line is this: With Energy Transfer Partners' current quarterly distribution well above the threshold of that last target, it means that the first 48% of any additional distributable cash flow goes first to Energy Transfer Equity before the balance is paid to other unitholders. Investor takeaway Energy Transfer Equity is first in line to receive nearly half of the additional growth generated by Energy Transfer Partners. Not only that, but its income streams from its other MLPs, Sunoco and Sunoco Logistics Partners, will also grow over time as those companies, and the fees they generate, grow. When that diversification is added to its preeminent position, it makes Energy Transfer Equity the better buy between the two. The article Better Buy: Energy Transfer Equity L.P. vs. Energy Transfer Partners L.P. originally appeared on Fool.com. Matt DiLallo has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. United Technologies or Honeywell International ? Both companies have heavy exposure to aerospace and global construction markets and therefore face similar headline risks. In addition, both are going through transition periods in 2016. The changes will compromise revenue and earnings in 2016 but are designed to ensure long-term earnings and cash flow generation. So which stock will win out this year? HON data by YCharts. ValuationsA look at valuations shows a premium for Honeywell's stock. EV/EBITDA represents enterprise value (market cap plus net debt) over earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization -- a useful way to compare two companies with different debt loads. HON EV to EBITDA (Forward) data by YCharts. In a nutshell, United Technologies underperformed Honeywell last year because the company was forced to lower earnings estimates for two reasons: Lower than previously expected commercial aftermarket sales, principally from provisioning sales on Boeing Company 's787 plane. 's787 plane. Weak Otis elevator sales in Europe and particularly in China. With those issues arguably in the past now, is United Technologies now the value pick? Risks and opportunitiesBefore hitting the buy button, it's worth considering the risks and opportunities facing both companies in 2016. The second chart shows forward EV/EBITDA so it includes consensus estimates, which usually follow company guidance quite closely. The two key questions for 2016 are: What does the guidance mean in the long-term context of each company's value? What are the risks to both companies' hitting guidance? I've discussed how United Technologiesand Honeywell are shaping up for 2016. The key points are as follows. United Technologies Organic revenue growth of 1% to 3%. Adjusted EPS target of $6.30 to $6.60, implying 0% to 5% growth. Free cash flow conversion from net income of 90% to 100%. It's not going to be a banner year for the company's headline numbers, and management is expecting significant operating profit declines in three of four segments. However, some of the reasons for the declines are along-term positive: Management is trying to increase Otis' installed base togenerate more profitable long-term services demand. Pratt & Whitney is facing a year of negative engine margin from its geared turbofan engine, as it ramps up production of the new engine -- an act that will generate long-term services demand. Aerospace systems sales mix is shifting to newer products, which will have an initially lower margin than its more mature products. The company undoubtedly faces headwinds with Otis in China (a key market), and ramping up production on aero engines is never an easy task. Meanwhile, the merger of Tyco and Johnson Controlscould put pressure on United Technologies' fire security and climate controls products, in which it competes, respectively, with Tyco and Johnson Controls. However, you can still think of this as being a year in which the groundwork is laid for years of profitable growth ahead. Honeywell InternationalThe company's outlook is best summarized in a graphic from its first-quarter earnings presentation. Its core organic sales growth is similar to United Technologies', but margin expansion is leveraging EPS and free cash flow growth -- all in line with its five-year (2014-2018) plan. Moreover, underlying free cash flow is better than it looks. Honeywell is investing in growth as part of its plan. As such, free cash flow conversion from net income in 2015 was around 91%, but management expects to get back to a 100% conversion rate by 2017. In other words, a combination of margin expansion and relatively fewer capital expenditures in future years should see Honeywell's free cash flow expand in the future. In common with United Technologies and General Electric , Honeywell faces some near-term headwinds in its aerospace operations -- Honeywell is giving incentives to position itself on new aerospace programs. Its performance, materials, and technologies segment also faces risks because of its oil and gas exposure, and automation and controls solutions has China exposure. If you're worred about Boeing's recent production rescheduling, here's how Honeywell CEO David Cote answered a question on the subject on the recent earnings call: The pickFor United Technologies, Otis' China exposure is a concern, but Honeywell will also be hit if China's growth dives. Similarly, bothhave exposure to aerospace and construction, while Honeywell is more exposed to oil and gas. Undoubtedly, Honeywell has an enviable recent history of execution, and Pratt & Whitney's geared turbofan production ramp will also create challenges. However, General Electric is also ramping up production of its LEAP engine, and its management is confident of using the industrial Internet to help reduce unit cost production in the future -- a salutary reminder that United Technologies can also use new technologies to cut engine program costs. All told, on a risk/reward basis, I think United Technologies can outperform Honeywell from here. The article Better Buy: United Technologies or Honeywell International? originally appeared on Fool.com. Lee Samaha has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of General Electric Company and Johnson Controls,. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. In three of the past four quarters, Delta Air Lines spent exactly $425 million on share buybacks. On Delta's earnings call last month, CFO Paul Jacobson stated that the company planned to spend roughly the same amount on share repurchases in Q1. Delta's share buyback pace has been pretty consistent recently. Image source: The Motley Fool. On Wednesday, Delta announced that it had entered into a $350 million accelerated share repurchase agreement as part of its larger $5 billion share buyback program. This is in addition to the $425 million already planned. However, the increased share buyback isn't a sign of Delta suddenly copying American Airlines by being extremely generous toward investors. American Airlines has been the buyback leaderIn recent years, American Airlines and Delta Air Lines have pursued starkly different strategies. American Airlines has spent freely to upgrade its fleet, while Delta has kept older planes flying longer to cut back on capital spending. American has shied away from hedging its fuel costs, while Delta has tended to hedge quite aggressively. In 2015, a new strategic difference emerged. Even as Delta's free cash flow soared last year due to low fuel prices, the company maintained a disciplined approach to share buybacks, using a portion of its windfall for debt reduction and pension funding. Meanwhile, American Airlines -- which produced less free cash flow -- spent $3.6 billion on share buybacks. American Airlines spent heavily on share repurchases last year. Image source: American Airlines. Delta's conservative capital allocation policies paid off last week as the company snagged an investment-grade credit rating from Moody's. In the long run, this should allow Delta to devote more of its free cash flow to buybacks to reward investors. However, its recent accelerated share repurchase serves a much different purpose. This isn't really a share buybackDelta's $350 million accelerated share repurchase comes at the same time that the company contributed $350 million in stock -- 7.85 million shares -- to its pension plans. Thus, depending on how Delta stock performs over the next few months, the accelerated share repurchase will more or less offset the shares that Delta contributed from its treasury. The net impact on its share count will be roughly zero. In addition to this $350 million of stock, Delta has also contributed $825 million in cash to its pension plans since the beginning of 2016. It's not clear why it wanted to issue shares to the pension plan rather than just making a pure cash contribution. Perhaps Delta hopes the pension fund will hold more of its stock, but the investments are managed by an independent trustee who is free to sell the Delta shares immediately. A buyback increase is still likelyThis week's $350 million accelerated share repurchase thus represents a continuation of Delta's strategy of reducing its debt and pension liabilities -- not an incremental return of capital to shareholders. In fact, since the $350 million comes out of Delta's $5 billion repurchase program, it leaves less available for buybacks that would actually reduce the share count. That said, Delta has already made 90% of its planned pension contribution for the year and it has made strong progress on debt reduction since the end of 2009. With free cash flow likely to exceed $5 billion in 2016, the company clearly has room to spend more on buybacks. For the past several years, Delta has held an analyst meeting each May to discuss its capital allocation plans. This year, I expect it to reveal a big increase to its buyback authorization. That should enable it to start making real progress on reducing its share count. The article Delta Air Lines, Inc.: The Share Buyback That Wasn't originally appeared on Fool.com. Adam Levine-Weinberg is long January 2017 $40 calls on Delta Air Lines, and long January 2017 $30 calls on American Airlines Group. The Motley Fool is long January 2017 $35 calls on American Airlines Group. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. J.C. Penney is scheduled to report its Q4 earnings results on Friday, and investors are hoping for more evidence that its multiyear turnaround effort is making progress. Here are three things that investors should keep an eye on. Are sales trends holding up?The most important metric for J.C. Penney investors right now is sales growth. Between 2011 and 2013, roughly a third of the company's sales volume disappeared after former CEO Ron Johnson tried to cut back on discounting. At its current level of less than $13 billion in annual revenue, J.C. Penney is just barely scraping by. JCP Revenue (TTM), data by YCharts. Recently, revenue has been moving in the right direction. Through the first nine months of fiscal 2015, J.C. Penney's comparable-store sales rose 4.6% year over year. For the November-December period, comp sales rose 3.9%, keeping the company on track to meet its guidance for 4%-5% comp sales growth for the full fiscal year, which ended a few weeks ago. However, Kohl's -- J.C. Penney's top rival in the mid-price department store segment -- ran into trouble in January. Earlier this month, Kohl's cut its Q4 sales guidance. It said that strong sales between Thanksgiving and Christmas "were offset by a very slow start to the quarter in early November and a weaker-than-expected January as soft demand for cold-weather goods led to lower store traffic in these more discretionary shopping periods." Sales slowed at Kohl's last month. Was J.C. Penney also affected? Just because Kohl's ran into trouble last month doesn't mean the same was true for J.C. Penney. Nevertheless, J.C. Penney and Kohl's are both national chains, so it's reasonable to expect similar weather impacts on both companies. How much free cash flow is J.C. Penney generating?A second key question for investors is how much free cash flow J.C. Penney generated in Q4 and how much it expects to produce in fiscal 2016. In its sales update last month, J.C. Penney stated that it expects to produce positive free cash flow for the full 2015 fiscal year. Free cash flow is important for any business, but it's particularly essential for J.C. Penney because of its heavy debt load. The company had more than $5 billion in debt at the end of Q3 and it has been incurring about $400 million in annual interest expense recently. The more free cash flow J.C. Penney generates, the more debt it will be able to pay down. That will reduce its interest expense, boosting earnings and cash flow. This would allow the company to pay off even more debt, driving a virtuous cycle of rising free cash flow and falling debt levels. How is the appliance test going?Finally, investors should listen in to the J.C. Penney earnings call for any information about the company's recent return to the appliance market. At the beginning of February, J.C. Penney began testing new appliance sections in 22 pilot stores in the Tampa, San Antonio, and San Diego markets, more than three decades after discontinuing appliance sales. J.C. Penney is testing appliance sales in several metro areas. The U.S. appliance market has been hot recently, and J.C. Penney is well-positioned to succeed due to its female-heavy customer base. (The company's market research found that women tend to be the key decision makers for appliance purchases.) If this market test goes well, J.C. Penney will probably roll it out more broadly. This should provide a nice sales boost, particularly because the new appliance sections are taking over space that isn't producing much revenue right now. The appliance test began just a few weeks ago, but any information on its success so far could help investors judge the potential impact of this initiative. The article J.C. Penney Earnings: 3 Things to Watch originally appeared on Fool.com. Adam Levine-Weinberg has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Winning the first-in-the-south GOP primary is crucial. South Carolina has historically been the barometer for general elections by selecting the eventual party nominee. As candidates blanket the Palmetto state days before the primary it comes as no surprise that the mudslinging is ramping up on the campaign trail. Republican frontrunner Donald Trump and Florida Senator Marco Rubio have been trading jabs with Texas Senator Ted Cruz this week. The war of words has intensified with Cruz launching negative ads against both GOP rivals and attacking them in the media. On Thursday, Cruzs campaign posted an anti-Rubio website on Facebook titled, The REAL Rubio Record, criticizing Rubios alleged deals with Dems which included a photoshopped image of the Florida senator shaking hands with President Obama. Rubio's campaign fired back with a TV ad featuring his surrogate, South Carolina Congressman Trey Gowdy. In the spot, Gowdy responds to Ted Cruzs False Attacks by shaming the Texas senators tactics: Youre better than that. Youre running for the highest office in the land. Your campaign ought to be better than that. Over the weekend during the GOP debate, Rubio accused Cruz of making up lies and distorting his Senate record. A few days later Trump also called Cruz a liar and said he expected an apology for the inaccurate ads he has been running against the billionaire businessman or he would slap him with a lawsuit. Cruz fired back at Rubio and Trump during a press conference: It is not being honest or candid for either Marco Rubio or Donald Trump to pretend their records are different from what they are and simply to yell and scream at anyone who points out the words coming out of their own mouths, said Cruz. On Wednesday, Cruz received a cease and desist letter from Trump claiming the negative ad Cruz was running against him was defamation. The ad features a 1999 clip of Trump referring to himself as "very pro-choice," which is the opposite position Trump holds today. During a press conference Cruz called Trumps bluff. "I have to say to Mr. Trump, you have been threatening frivolous lawsuits for your entire adult life, if you want to file a lawsuit challenging this ad, claiming defamation, file the lawsuit," said Cruz. The back and forth didnt stop there. Trump released a statement referencing Cruzs campaign tactics during the Iowa caucus where his staffers falsely informed voters Ben Carson was no longer running. "He is a liar and these ads and statements made by Cruz are clearly desperate moves by a guy who is tanking in the polls, said Trump. Since the Iowa caucus incident, Cruz has apologized to Dr. Carson claiming he didnt know what was going on and Carson has forgiven him. However, The 2016 Committee, a super PAC supporting Ben Carson, isnt taking any chances on a repeat of Iowa in South Carolina. The PAC has released a new TV ad featuring Norma Banks, an Iowa caucus voter who claims a Cruz campaign supporter told her Ben Carson was quitting the race. In the 30-second spot she talks about the incident saying, Ted Cruz cheated us. Carsons campaign claims they had approximately 40,000 Iowa caucus-goers committed to voting for him but he ended up with less than 20,000 instead. More and more facts keep leaking and people like Norma are coming out telling their story. With South Carolina right around the corner the biggest reason we have that ad out there is to warn the folks in South Carolina that the same thing could happen there if they are not aware, said Ben Walters, online fundraising manager for The 2016 Committee. We are already hearing reports where people that are Carson voters are being manipulated and mislead that Dr. Carson is on the cusp of dropping out, There is a culture within the Cruz campaign that this type of thing is acceptable. The 2016 Committee is also asking people to sign a petition that will be sent to the Republican National Committee (RNC) to end Ted Cruzs dirty tricks. It is demanding that the leadership of the RNC addresses, Ted Cruz's electoral machinations directly, either by public condemnation or by levying an appropriate penalty in a way that reflects the severity of Cruz campaign attempts to divert voters by dishonest means. In a new Fox News poll, Trump holds 32% support from likely Republican primary voters in South Carolina. Cruz is in second place with 19% followed by Florida Senator Marco Rubio at 15%. Tied at 9% is retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. The South Carolina GOP primary is on Saturday February 20. Scientists suspect an outbreak of the Zika virus is behind a surge in a rare birth defect in Brazil. But how are they going to prove it? Authorities in the South American country were quick to make the link last fall. The health minister last week said he was "absolutely sure" that the mosquito-borne virus is a cause. But others aren't so certain. While the evidence has been mounting, so far it is circumstantial. "The simple presence of the virus doesn't mean it caused the birth defect. It means there's a probability," said Dr. Arnold Monto, a University of Michigan epidemiologist. The investigation is still in its early stages. It began after Brazilian doctors noticed an increase last fall in babies with a birth defect called microcephaly, which has a number of causes. The cases closely followed the country's first outbreak of the tropical virus Zika, which was thought to cause no more than a mild illness that clears up in a week. Microcephaly hadn't been seen in past Zika outbreaks. Babies with the condition have a smaller than normal head and often have a smaller brain that hasn't developed properly. Lab tests have detected the virus in the brain tissue of a few babies with microcephaly. Proving the cause is a bit like prosecuting a murder investigation, with Zika as the apparent killer but a lot of unanswered questions, said Dr. Ernesto Marques, a University of Pittsburgh microbiologist who is collaborating with Brazilian researchers. "What you have so far, the victim is there, and you find a person right there that has a smoking gun in his hand," Marques said. "But you still need to close the deal." The investigation poses special challenges. There's currently no good animal substitute for humans to study the virus. And it's not considered ethical to infect people, especially pregnant women, in an experiment to see what happens not when there seems to be a real chance that a volunteer could be seriously harmed. So researchers are turning to other kinds of studies to try to establish whether Zika or some other factor is causing the birth defect or, also, a paralyzing condition called Guillain-Barre. Five Latin America countries with Zika outbreaks are reporting an uptick in that condition in adults. One method is quick-and-dirty research called a case-control study, which looks back in time after an illness or condition has occurred. For the birth defect research, that means recruiting a group of women with babies born with microcephaly and trying to sort out what may have happened during their pregnancy to spark the condition. For comparison, they will query women whose infants don't have the birth defect. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is involved in one such a study set to start next week in the Brazilian state of Paraiba. It will focus on 100 babies with microcephaly and at least 100 more without. Investigators will take blood samples from the mothers to check for signs of an earlier Zika infection. They also will ask not only about Zika infections but other possible factors, like other germs or poisons in the environment. Some experts suggest that perhaps Zika needs an accomplice like malnutrition or an infection with another tropical illness like dengue to cause serious problems. A similar study, led by Brazil, is investigating 200 babies with microcephaly and 400 without. Results are due in April. "That will be the first one to tell us if there's strong evidence," Dr. Marcos Espinal of the Pan American Health Organization told reporters Thursday. The CDC was in the coastal city of Salvador last month to help health officials with another look-back study, this one targeting Guillain-Barre. They tested 40 people who had the condition, and 80 people who didn't, said Dr. James Sejvar, who led the CDC team. Such studies are hardly perfect. People often have trouble remembering every detail from six months ago for example, when they might have been bitten by mosquitoes, the primary source of Zika infections. While these studies can sort out potential causes, experts say they need to be confirmed with research that follows people forward. Colombia, for example, will be following 2,000 Zika-infected pregnant women to see what happens with them and their pregnancies, Espinal said. In Brazil, Zika's possible link to microcephaly emerged in September, when a spike in babies born with the condition got the attention of Dr. Vanessa van der Linden, a pediatric neurologist at a hospital in northeast Recife that works with disabled children. Initially, Van der Linden and other doctors looked for the usual causes of microcephaly, such as toxoplasmosis, rubella, HIV, and cytomegalovirus. None were found. But most of the mothers had something in common: blotches and skin rashes early in their pregnancies that seemed consistent with Zika. That was the genesis of the link. It's all been difficult to sort out, though, because Brazil wasn't keeping good track of microcephaly cases before Zika arrived. They're still determining how many of the reported cases are really microcephaly and involve a Zika infection. One of the puzzling questions facing researchers: Why have so many severe health problems been reported in Brazil, but comparatively few in other Latin America or Caribbean countries with Zika? Will we soon see similar spikes elsewhere, or is the Brazilian setting somehow unique? Health officials are closely watching Colombia, which had a Zika outbreak after Brazil and so far has not seen a spike in microcephaly cases. If there is, it would be apparent by June and would help finger Zika as the culprit, Espinal said. It will take a combination of studies and laboratory evidence to finally determine if Zika is the villain it appears to be, experts say. "This is going to be solved," said Dr. Farrah Mateen, a Harvard researcher. "It's just a matter of doing the research in the right way." An Australian girl who lost her lower right arm in a dog attack was the star of her schools swim meet, and a video of her race has gone viral since being posted on Tuesday. Thalia Standley, 8, of the Hunter Region of New South Wales, north of Sydney, was attacked by a dog on Aug. 29, 2015, six days after her birthday. She was playing in a friends front yard when a dog bit her fingers from under a fence. Help arrived two to three minutes later, but her friends father initially couldnt pick her up. After 20 to 30 seconds, she was freed only after the dog had taken her right arm just above her wrist, according to the familys website, Reaching Thalia. Thalia had to have her arm amputated just below he elbow. According to the site, Thalia has undergone nine surgeries in the past three months and is under constant medical supervision to ensure she heals well. Not a dry eye at the pool. Thalias first swimming carnival. Amazing little girl. Posted by Reaching Thalia on Tuesday, February 16, 2016 A video of Thalia racing in her first swim meet has garnered more than 970,000 views so far. In it, the crowd chants her name throughout her race. Swimming freestyle, Thalia gets assistance from an adult toward the finish, and comes in last to huge cheers. It felt real happy, Thalia told the TODAY show Australia on Friday. That the U.S. has launched airstrikes against ISIS in Libya should demonstrate once and for all the total disaster of the NATO-led adventure to overthrow Muammar al-Qaddafi in 2011. Libya devolved into a failed state when NATO assisted Qaddafis radical jihadist opponents in killing him and then promptly abandoned the country. Left in the wake were two rival governments competing for power, which created space for Islamists to turn Libya into a cesspool of extremism. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continues to call the debacle American smart power at its best. Other presidential candidates still argue that it was the right thing to do. How will the West ever learn anything if it cant identify its most obvious failures? Libya has no central functioning government that can provide security for its citizens. ISIS fights to expand its caliphate along the Mediterranean to points as close as 200 miles from Europes vulnerable southern border. It controls Qaddafis hometown of Sirte. It has imposed Shariah law in the areas under its control. It exploits Libya as a base to export weapons, jihadists and ideology to Europe, other African countries and the Middle East. Benghazi and Derna, which have long been hotbeds of radicalism, provided more fighters per capita to Afghanistan and Iraq than nearly any other area in the world. The difference between then and now is that Qaddafi kept the lid on the garbage can long before 2002-2003, when he became a reliable U.S. ally against radical Islam. He changed his behavior, gave up his nuclear weapons program, paid reparations to the victims of his atrocities and provided invaluable intelligence that disrupted numerous Islamist terror plots. It represented a massive foreign policy success, and the U.S. thanked him by facilitating his murder. Similarly, the West embraced former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in his struggles against Islamist forces, and then it threw him under the bus. Both Qaddafi and Mubarak did everything asked of them, but they ended up dead or in jail. Any leader would really need to ask why he should trust NATO or the West. Is there any question why Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad does not negotiate an end to his countrys civil war and clings to Iran and Russia to keep him in power? Iran cheated on its nuclear program for years. As a result, the U.S. gifted it with more than $100 billion including $1.7 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars and it hasnt changed its behavior in the slightest. In addition to its military ambitions, Iran will most assuredly spend the money on supporting Assad and its terrorist proxies throughout the Middle East, Africa and, yes, Europe. Im amazed by some of the statements now coming from the coalition. The French defense minister is concerned about ISIS fighters blending in with refugees crossing the Mediterranean. Talk about restating the obvious. The British want troops to identify friendly militias in order to avoid targeting them in future airstrikes. Has something changed where we have improved the vetting of moderate militia groups? NATO failed miserably in Libya and in Syria the first time around. Whats different now? The only official who seems to make any sense is U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, who said recently, The Libyans dont welcome outsiders intruding on their territory. He was referring to ISIS, but he might as well have been talking about the West. Libyans have not forgotten that NATO all but vanished once Qaddafi was killed. Western foreign policy is in disarray. The scariest part is that supposed leaders dont even know it, and therefore they cant admit to previous mistakes. Allies that brought stability to the region are gone. Former and current antagonists benefited from Western incompetence. Who would have predicted six years ago that those rulers battling Islamist terror would be deposed and that those committing it would become the Wests new friends? NATO snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Libya. Refugees flood Europe. Terrorist attacks continue to spread geographically and in lethality. The Syrian civil war rages on. Iran lavishes its newfound wealth on its nuclear program and campaign of global terror. Is it any wonder that citizens in Western countries are frustrated and angry with those in positions of authority? This week, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) named my organization, the Center for Security Policy (CSP), a hate group because of our work highlighting the threat from radical Islam. CSP will join other conservative groups such the Family Research Council, Liberty Counsel and WorldNetDaily, all of which SPLC has smeared by listing them alongside neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. The SPLC is best known for its work decades ago fighting legal battles against segregation in the South. But it long ago morphed into a far left group with one purpose: manufacturing material to slander conservatives for use by the news media and on the Internet. CSP President Frank Gaffney has been on another SPLC hate list for several years along with American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray, Accuracy in Media President Cliff Kinkaid (who SPLC has singled out for challenging global warming), Robert Spencer (the founder of director of Jihad Watch blog), Lt. Gen. William Jerry Boykin (executive vice president of the Family Research Council), WorldNetDaily founder Joseph Farah and other conservatives. Joining them on this list are an assortment of neo-Nazis, KKK members and white supremacists. Dr. Ben Carson was placed on a SPLC extremist watch list in 2014 because of statements he made in defense of traditional marriage. But after a public outcry, the SPLC was forced to withdraw this designation and issue an apology to Carson in February 2015. Among the many false claims in the SPLCs new list of hate groups is that Gaffney and the Center for Security Policy have been banned from participating in the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and that Gaffneys banishment from CPAC probably earns him points with Trump. Although CPAC and the Center have had some differences in the past, this is no longer the case. Gaffney and the Center were present at CPAC last year and will have an expanded presence in 2016. I will be speaking at CPAC 2016 conference next month on behalf of the Center on the Iranian and North Korean missile programs. To show how sloppy the SPLCs research is, a 2015 SPLC report noted that Gaffney and the Center were present at CPACs 2015 conference and that the Center was a sponsor. As ridiculous as the SPLC hate lists may sound, they often are taken seriously by the liberal media. These lists almost had deadly consequences in 2012 when Floyd Corkins, a volunteer at a gay-rights group, entered the office lobby of the Family Research Council with the intention of killing as many of the Councils employees as possible because of the organizations opposition to same-sex marriage. Corkins shot and injured a building manager before he was disarmed. He decided to launch a killing spree against the Family Research Council and another conservative organization after he read about their opposition to gay marriage in the SPLCs hate lists. While SPLC regularly lumps conservatives with neo-nazis and white supremacists for being anti-gay, anti-immigrant, Islamophobes, white nationalists or for miscellaneous hate (such disbelieving in global warming), it refuses to put liberal individuals and groups on their hate lists. For example, the SPLC had nothing to say last summer when left wing groups like MoveOn.org, the Daily Kos, Credo and the National Iranian American Council attacked Jewish congressmen who opposed the nuclear deal with Iran like Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) by questioning their loyalty to this country. Elliot Abrams decried this bigotry in an August 10, 2015 article in The Weekly Standard: The basic idea is simple: to oppose the presidents Iran deal means you want war with Iran, youre an Israeli agent, you are in the pay of Jewish donors, and you are abandoning the best interests of the United States. So Dan Pfeiffer, senior political adviser to Obama until this winter, tweeted that Senator Charles Schumerwho announced his opposition to the Iran deal last weekshould not be Democratic leader in the Senate because he wants War with Iran. SPLC also has been silent on a growing anti-Semitism on the left and how American colleges are ignoring violence against Jewish students in Israel and the United States. On the other hand, the SPLC has joined President Obama in jumping on the fraudulent Islamophobia bandwagon. Thats why CSP and Gaffney caught its attention. I join Frank Gaffney and everyone at the Center for Security Policy in strenuously condemning discrimination, mistreatment or violence against Muslims and members of any religious group. The Islamophobia charges made against CSP and other critics of radical Islam have nothing to do with hate or bigotry they are a ploy by Mr. Obama, American Muslim groups and liberal groups to sidestep how Islamist extremism represents, as American Islamic Forum for Democracy President Zuhdi Jasser has put it, a problem within the house of Islam. This problem is the global jihad movement which is an ideology at war not just with modern society but also with the majority of the worlds Muslims. This is the real hate: Islamic supremacists cloaking their intolerance and hatred towards anyone who rejects their extremism Muslims and non-Muslims as protected religious practice. This hate includes brutalizing and killing groups that the SPLC claims to protect: women, LGBT individuals and racial and ethnic minorities. The SPLC designated Frank Gaffney and the Center for Security Policy as haters because of our work to publicize the threat posed by to the supremacist Islamic shariah doctrine, a threat that President Obama and liberal groups refuse to confront or even name. They are in denial about this threat and instead condemn as bigots anyone who tries to address it. This was crystal clear when President Obama on February 3 visited a mosque in Baltimore with known terrorist ties but refuses to meet with Muslims like Dr. Jasser who is leading an Islam reform movement that rejects Islamist radicalism and ISIS. American leftwing groups like SPLC have also stubbornly ignored flagrantly hateful statements by some American Muslim groups. There was a glaring example of this after the San Bernardino shooting when Hussam Ayloush, the Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told CNNs New Day, some of our own foreign policy, as Americans, as the West have fueled that extremism. ... We are partly responsible. In May 2004, Ayloush said the U.S. war on terror was a war on Muslims, adding his belief that the 9/11 attacks were committed because of the U.S.s unconditional support of Israel. The U.S. is Israels partner in crime against the Palestinians, Ayloush explained. How can a supposed civil rights organization like the SPLC give Ayloush and CAIR a pass on such hateful statements and actions? How can it not speak out against growing anti-Semitism on the left and violence against Jewish students in Israel and the United States? One reason is that the SPLC is not a civil rights organization it is a far left advocacy group that tries to discredit its political enemies on the right with incoherent hate lists that wrongly associate them with notorious bigots to advance a liberal agenda. This is consistent with #12 of Saul Alinskys "Rules for Radicals": Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. SPLC also demonized conservatives with bogus hate charges because it has found this kind of fearmongering to be very lucrative. According to the SPLCs 2014 tax return, this non-profit organization had $54 million in revenue and $315 million in assets. Back in 2000, an investigative report into the SPLCs activities was published by Harpers Magazine titled The church of Morris Dees: How the Southern Poverty Law Center profits from intolerance. It described the SPLC and its activities as essentially a fraud that shuts down debate, stifles free speech, and most of all, raises a pile of money, very little of which is used on behalf of poor people. Perhaps the main reason the SPLC has been able to raise such huge sums because its president, Morris Dees, is so skilled at using scare mongering mailings for fund raising that in 1998 he was inducted into the Direct Mailing Association Hall of Fame. Based on its 2010 tax return, the liberal website Daily Kos criticized the SPLC in 2012 for its enormous wealth, offshore bank account in the Cayman Islands, and ownership in several foreign corporations. The author of this article asked, What I'm very curious to learn is how keeping hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars in assets, several offshore bank accounts and part ownership in foreign financial firms in any substantive way addresses poverty in America. I believe the SPLCs new focus on Islamophobia is because the organization has identified attacking critics of radical Islam as the ultimate money pot. For example, Saleh Abdulla Kamel, a Saudi banker believed to have been a financer of Usama bin Laden, gave $10 million to Yale University in 2015 to build an Islamic law center. Given the SPLCs lack of scruples, greed and offshore operations, I believe it is very likely that this group is receiving funding from Gulf state billionaires like Kamel to discredit anyone who criticizes radical Islam and the global jihad movement. The news media must stop being manipulated by the SPLCs calumny of its political enemies. Reporters should realize that an organization which attacks all critics of radical Islam as Islamophobes, refuses to mention the extremism and intolerance of radical Islamist groups, and is silent on the growing anti-Semitism on the left and violence against Jewish university students cannot be considered a neutral and authoritative source. The media also needs recognize that the SPLCs hate lists which lump Ben Carson, Frank Gaffney, Cliff Kinkaid and organizations like the Family Resource Council, WorldNet Daily and the Center for Security Policy with neo-Nazis and white supremacists are utter nonsense. The press should instead be investigating the SPLCs enormous wealth, anonymous funders and how it is poisoning the public debate in this country to advance a liberal agenda and to enrich itself. EXCLUSIVE: A Green Beret ordered discharged after he and his team leader body-slammed an alleged Afghan child rapist is speaking out against the Army's effort to punish him, as he fights to stay in the service. "Kicking me out of the Army is morally wrong and the entire country knows it," Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland said, in his first public statement on his case. The detailed written statement, requested by Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., was shared by the congressman's office with FoxNews.com. Hunter, who has advocated on Martland's behalf, intends to submit the statement to the House Armed Services Committee. Martland's case has received renewed attention amid recent press reports on the U.S. military's handling of child abuse allegations involving Afghan allies. In his statement, Martland gives a blunt account of the September 2011 encounter with the "brutal child rapist," local police commander Abdul Rahman. He acknowledges the confrontation, but suggests the commander exaggerated his injuries -- and argues that the boy's safety, as well as American lives, was at stake that day. Martland said the Afghan Local Police had been "committing atrocities," raising concerns that many locals viewed as "worse than the Taliban" -- and if locals returned to the Taliban, attacks against U.S. forces would increase. More On This... DoD accused of ducking Afghan child abuse controversy with lawyer-speak "While I understand that a military lawyer can say that I was legally wrong, we felt a moral obligation to act," he said. His team leader Capt. Daniel Quinn also submitted a separate statement; together, the accounts provide new -- and graphic -- details on what they say happened that day in September 2011. According to Quinn, an interpreter first came to them saying a boy claimed he was "tied to a post in Rahman's house and was raped repeatedly for 10 days to 2 weeks." When his mother tried to stop it, he said, "Rahman instructed his brother to beat her; which he did." 'Kicking me out of the army is morally wrong and the entire country knows it.' Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland Martland said he and Quinn then confronted the commander after Quinn confirmed the allegations with village elders and others. He said Quinn got a "first-hand confession" but "the child rapist laughed it off and referenced that it was only a boy." That's when the confrontation turned physical. "Captain Quinn picked him up and threw him," Martland said. "I [proceeded to] body slam him multiple times." Martland continued: "I kicked him once in his ribcage after one of the body slams. I put my foot on his neck and yelled at him after one body slam, but did not kick or punch him in the face. I continued to body slam him and throw him for 50 meters until he was outside the camp." Quinn said, "I physically threw him through our front gate and off our camp." Martland, though, disputed allegations the confrontation was more severe. "He was never knocked out, and he ran away from our camp. It did not last longer than 5 minutes. The child rapist's allegations against us are ridiculous," he said. Because of their intervention, the Army had Quinn and Martland removed from the camp in Kunduz Province and eventually sent home from Afghanistan. Quinn has since left the Army, but Martland still is fighting an order to have him discharged by Nov. 1. The U.S. Army Human Resources Command recently denied his appeal. Though Hunter and others have stepped to Martland's defense, others have defended the Army's actions, including Col. Steve Johnson -- a U.S. commander in Afghanistan at the time. In an online discussion on LinkedIn that started about a month ago, an individual claiming to be Johnson wrote that Martland and Quinn "consciously and deliberately confronted" the police leader and "absolutely beat the crap out of him." "The entire operational Chain of Command supported the relief for cause and reprimand," he wrote. "Vigilantism is illegal in the United States and should not be condoned elsewhere." He wrote: "We should do our best to ensure that the accused is brought to justice legally and fairly -- we should never take the law into our own hands (as Martland and Quinn did)." Images of the discussion were provided to FoxNews.com by Hunter's office, which said those involved confirmed the posts came from Johnson. Others on the thread jumped to Martland and Quinn's defense. One individual said, at "face value," their actions sound "exactly like what is expected of a Green Beret." Another called the legal system in Afghanistan a "joke." Johnson previously was quoted in Washington state's News Tribune defending the Army's response. According to that article, Johnson commanded Martland before the 2011 deployment. According to a LinkedIn page under his name, Johnson was a commander for the Special Operations Task Force -- West, in Herat, at the time of the incident. In their statements, Quinn and Martland both mentioned Johnson, with Quinn saying Johnson told them after the incident they'd been recommended "to have our tabs removed, sent home, and kicked out of the regiment (and potentially the Army). He never came to our camp or spoke to anyone in our village." Johnson did not respond to a request for comment from FoxNews.com. Military leaders have defended the response to abuse allegations and said soldiers weren't instructed to look the other way. Gen. John F. Campbell, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement last Tuesday that he is "absolutely confident that no such theater policy has ever existed here, and certainly, no such policy has existed throughout my tenure as commander." The CIAs latest diversity program includes an effort to recruit transgender individuals into the ranks of Americas spy service. As first reported by The Washington Free Beacon, the CIAs three-year Diversity and Inclusion Strategy says dedicated programs are in place to recruit individuals from a variety of ethnic backgrounds, as well as from the LGBT community and elsewhere. It says: We will continue to enrich our workforce by targeting diverse communities across the United States to meet our talent needs, with dedicated programs for citizens of African, Asian, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and Native American descent; Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Individuals; Persons with Disabilities; Veterans; and Women. Progress toward these goals will be measured. The three-year plan says they will monitor the diversity and gender break-down for recruiting trends and resignations and use so-called inclusion index measures to identify trends of the elements necessary for creating a diverse and inclusive environment. The strategy is not contained to recruitment. According to the plan, the CIA will hold agency-wide unconscious bias training as well. Diversity and inclusion must become an integral part of our culture to position the Agency to compete for and retain top talent and cultivate a qualified bench of future leaders. Deliberative processes combined with greater diversity and inclusion awareness will help combat unconscious bias and foster fair and equitable decision-making, the plan says. Click for more from The Washington Free Beacon. Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano told viewers Thursday on Special Report with Bret Baier that Pope Francis recent comments about Donald Trump illustrate he likes to opine in areas outside his expertise. A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian, His Holiness said Thursday, responding to a reporters question about Republican frontrunner Trumps promise to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. Later, Trump responded, saying that for a religious leader to question a persons faith is disgraceful. I say what I'm about to say as a practicing traditionalist Roman Catholic, Napolitano said, Before Vatican II [a landmark 1960s Vatican council meeting], you didn't have to say traditionalist, now you do. The Pope likes to opine in areas outside his expertise; as far away from Catholicism as economics, the environment, and now American domestic politics. I think he should stay out of it. I happen to disagree with Donald Trump on the wall. I disagree with Donald Trump on mass deportations. The pope's entitled to a political opinion, but when the pope gives a political opinion, there's this imprimatur, no pun intended, on what he says. He didn't become the pope to lead Catholics to vote for or against an American politician. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday that he believes President Obama will name a replacement for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in "a little over three weeks. The Senate Democratic leader said he spoke to Obama on Thursday, and that he takes a very, very personal interest in the choice of a possible successor to Scalia. Were going to have someone in the next few weeks, he told MSNBC. I think it will be a little over three weeks. Reid added that he thought Senate Republicans were going to eventually hold hearings on a nominee, and a vote will eventually be taken on the Senate floor. Several Republicans have recently said they would not support a filibuster to prevent a vote, as other members of their party have suggested. The hard line in the sand drawn by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, came shortly after Scalias death. As majority leader, McConnell has discretion over whether to schedule a full Senate vote. The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice, he said in a statement Saturday. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president. This was followed by equally strong assertions during that night's GOP debate in South Carolina. Several candidates said they wanted the nomination to be delayed until the next president takes office, as others suggested that in the event of a nomination, Obama's nominee be thwarted in the Senate. Cracks are starting to appear in the Republican wall of opposition to President Obama nominating the next Supreme Court justice, as several prominent senators signal that a hearing -- at least -- could be allowed. Those lawmakers include Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who would not rule out a Judiciary Committee hearing on the presidents forthcoming nomination to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died suddenly during a retreat at a Texas resort on Saturday. He was joined by Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, who appeared to welcome the debate in comments Wednesday, but nonetheless encouraged Obama to put the will of the people ahead of advancing a liberal agenda with his pick. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who as chairman of the Judiciary Committee would be the one to put a confirmation hearing on the schedule, has said he would wait to see who is the pick before ruling it out completely, as suggested by his colleague, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Further, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, also on the committee, said he would not support a filibuster to prevent a vote, as other Republicans have suggested. The hard line in the sand drawn by McConnell came shortly after Scalias death. As majority leader, McConnell has discretion over whether to schedule a full senate vote. The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice, he said in a statement Saturday. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president. This was followed by equally strong assertions during that night's GOP debate in South Carolina. Several candidates said they wanted the nomination to be delayed until the next president takes office, as others suggested that in the event of a nomination, Obama's nominee be thwarted in the Senate. Obama declared that as sitting president, its his right to nominate Scalias replacement, despite the fact that it is his last year in office and Capitol Hill is in the throes of a politically charged election cycle. Theres no unwritten law that says that it can only be done in off years, Obama said on Tuesday. Thats not in the constitutional text. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid bolstered the presidents argument Wednesday and predicted Republicans would eventually cave in. Obama has also faced accusations of hypocrisy, since he tried to filibuster Justice Samuel Alito's nomination in 2006. The White House says he now regrets that decision. Vice President Biden said Obama should be able to nominate, but acknowledged it is up to the Senate to confirm it. Because of that, the former Delaware senator told Minnesota Public Radio on Thursday, the president is not going to be able to go out -- nor would it be his instinct, anyway -- to pick the most liberal jurist in the nation and put them on the court. There are plenty of judges (who) are on high courts already who have had unanimous support of the Republicans. The Associated Press contributed to this report. The pope's comments appearing to question the authenticity of Donald Trump's own Christian faith have some conservatives running to the candidate's defense. The fracas began over the issue of immigration with Pope Francis criticizing Trump's plan to build a wall at the border to keep illegal Mexican immigrants out. Francis said this wasn't Christian. Trump begged to differ, calling it "disgraceful" that the pontiff would question his faith. Thursday's back-and-forth has drawn comments from some Christian conservatives who think the pope should have stayed out of the political fray. "Being a Catholic myself - and I've earned that identity going to Catholic high school and college - my whole training is learning in Catholicism - I am very disappointed in the pope coming out against Donald Trump," said actor Jon Voight in a text to Fox News Thursday. "Men or the cloth should not get involved in political campaigns," he added. "If he's concerned about all our illegal aliens, let the Vatican take in a few million. They're as rich as any city in the world, and then His Holiness can take care of them." Longtime conservative strategist Richard Viguerie called it a "grave disappointment" that the pope decided to pick a fight with Trump over the border wall, rather than use this influence to condemn other U.S. policies, like legal abortion and same-sex marraige. "The Popes remarks about illegal immigration and his subsequent choice to pick a fight with a secular politician over a matter of secular government policy, while ignoring the assaults on Christian moral precepts that are now shaking the very foundations of our culture were a grave disappointment to hard-pressed Catholics and other Christians who are fighting to defend the traditional moral underpinnings of Western civilization." The pope, responding earlier in the day to a question aboard the papal plane about Trumps promise to build a U.S.-Mexico border wall, had said: "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel." Trump quickly responded: For a religious leader to question a persons faith is disgraceful, he said. Pope Francis weighed in just hours after he prayed at the Mexico-U.S. border for migrants who died trying to reach the United States. The pope did not definitively say Trump is not a Christian. Not having heard Trump's border plans independently, Francis said he'd "give him the benefit of the doubt." But he said: "I'd just say that this man is not Christian if he said it this way." The comments escalated what had been an otherwise cordial dispute between the two in recent days over immigration policy. Trump said in response he is a proud Christian and accused the Mexican government of using the pontiff for its own purposes. The pope only heard one side of the story -- he didnt see the crime, the drug trafficking and the negative economic impact the current policies have on the United States. He doesnt see how Mexican leadership is outsmarting President Obama and our leadership in every aspect of negotiation, he said. They are using the pope as a pawn and they should be ashamed of themselves for doing so, especially when so many lives are involved and when illegal immigration is so rampant. Trump also said that if and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS I can promise you that the pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president because this would not have happened. A Vatican spokesman said Friday that the pope was speaking to his own "general attitude," adding, "the pope said something we know well, when we follow his teachings and positions, that we don't have to build walls but bridges." Trump has had heated and high-profile feuds with several of his GOP rivals on the primary campaign trail, including Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush and former candidate Rand Paul. But the fight with the Vatican is something entirely different. It started on a more subdued note. Last week, Trump told Fox Business Network that he did not believe Pope Francis understood what he called "the danger of the open border we have with Mexico." Trump has repeatedly vowed to build a wall along the entire border with Mexico and make Mexico pay for it. All along, he's made combating illegal immigration a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, claiming credit for kickstarting the debate which now features heavily in the GOP primary race. The Associated Press contributed to this report. The debate over whether Canadian-born Ted Cruz is eligible to be president is moving from the campaign trail to the courtroom. Lawsuits challenging the Texas Republican's eligibility for the ballot have been filed in recent weeks by residents in states including Illinois, New York and Alabama who argue he can't be president because he's not a natural-born citizen. Fellow GOP candidate Donald Trump also has threatened to sue over the issue. Cruz and some legal experts say he's eligible because his mother was a U.S. citizen when he was born. Lawrence Joyce, a pharmacist and lawyer from Poplar Grove, Illinois, said Friday he filed suit in Chicago because he wants to avoid what he called a potential "nightmare scenario." He said he fears if Cruz becomes the GOP nominee, Democrats will get him kicked off the ballot in some states or Cruz will be forced to drop out, and establishment Republicans will replace him with a more moderate candidate, such as Jeb Bush or Chris Christie. Joyce said he's backing Ben Carson but is acting "strictly on my own." Cook County Judge Maureen Ward Kirby set a hearing on a motion to dismiss the suit filed by Cruz's lawyer for March 1 -- the first day Joyce said he'd be able to get off work to return to court. By then, ballots for Illinois' March 15 primary will be printed and early voting underway. The Indiana Election Commission on Friday also was considering a challenge to whether Cruz may remain on the state's May 3 primary ballot. Asked about his eligibility during a CNN town hall this week, Cruz said by law he's been a U.S. citizen since the day he was born. "There will still be some that try to work political mischief on it, but as a legal matter, this is clear and straightforward," Cruz said. Cruz won a similar ballot challenge in New Hampshire in November. In an effort to keep Florida's death penalty from a barrage of legal attacks after a Supreme Court decision halted executions, state lawmakers have reached a compromise that would allow the Sunshine State to continue executions. The Supreme Court ruled in January that the states method of sentencing people to death was unconstitutional because it weighed power too heavily toward judges over juries. The nations highest court found the state's sentencing procedure was flawed because juries play only an advisory role, while the judge makes the key decisions and can find differently from the jury. The court found this was a violation of the Sixth Amendment which guarantees a right to trial by jury. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in the majority opinion the system allows a sentencing judge to find aggravating factors "independent of a jury's fact-finding." The court ruled 8-1 against the states sentencing procedure Under the new deal passed overwhelmingly Thursday night in a 93-20 vote in the Florida House, at least 10 out of 12 jurors would need to agree to impose a death sentence, according to The Miami Herald. Currently, a simple majority is needed to recommend the death sentence. The compromise was reached between those who wanted as few as nine jurors to be able to recommend death, and death penalty critics who wanted to require a unanimous jury decision a standard required in most states. The new method is currently only used in Alabama. The Senate offered that as a solution, and were agreeable to that, Republican Rep. Charles McBurney, told The Herald before the vote. We need to provide a remedy to the courts ruling. It didnt meet with approval from all in the House, however. This bill is cloaked in procedure, but soaked in a hateful policy, Rep. Darryl Rouson, a Democrat, told The Florida Times-Union. This bill is cloaked in process, but soaked in the cries of innocents and the exonerated. The proposal, to become law, requires approval approval from the Senate, then needs the signature of Republican Governor Rick Scott. Florida's American Civil Liberties Union has called for state officials to re-examine the sentences of all death row inmates. A review by the Florida Supreme Court of all 320 death sentences from 2000 to 2012 found that nearly half of the sentences came after fewer than 10 jurors recommended death. In only one-fifth of the cases, or 60, were jury recommendations unanimous, The Herald reports. It isnt the first time the death penalty has been in jeopardy in Florida. In 2006 Jeb Bush suspended the practice after a botched execution. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Thomas Randall braved bitter cold temperatures and a long line Friday to make his way into the gilded lobby of the U.S. Supreme Court and pay his respects to a fellow lawyer with whom he agreed on very little. Randall was one of hundreds of Americans who stood in a block-long line, waiting to climb the steps and pass between towering marble columns into the building where Justice Antonin Scalia lay in repose. The flag-draped casket containing the body of the 79-year-old justice rested atop the Lincoln Catafalque in the Great Hall, just outside the venerable courtroom where Scalia forged his sometimes controversial reputation as one of the most influential conservatives in the history of the high court. Im a staunch liberal and I disagreed with Scalia on virtually everything, but it does not detract from his impact on the court, Randall told FoxNews.com. It is a shame people are trying to politicize his death on the day of his ceremony. Civil disagreement should never equate to hatred. By 10 a.m., the line to file past Scalias body wrapped around the block of First Street and East Capitol Street. As Randall spoke, and noted that Scalia himself had never allowed his conservative beliefs to affect personal friendships with the courts liberal justices, others in line nodded in agreement. The sentiment provided a respite from a polarizing presidential campaign, the political gridlock just across the street in the United States Capitol and the debate over filling Scalias seat that flared as soon as word got out on Saturday that he had been found dead in his bed at a Texas ranch where he was vacationing. Hes a hero, had a good sense of humor, and was a brilliant scholar." Vince McLaughlin He is the example of bipartisanship our nation needs, said Francis Crotti, a Baltimore native now living in Washington, to honor the son of Italian immigrants known for his sharp dissents and fealty to the literal Constitution. Just below the steps leading into the building, Scalias fans created a makeshift memorial that included two jars of applesauce, a pile of fortune cookies and paper bags, invocations of two of Scalias recent and most stinging dissenting opinions. Scalia called a majority ruling upholding ObamaCare pure applesauce, and likened his fellow justices gay marriage opinion to the "mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie." Of the decision legalizing gay marriage, Scalia wrote that he would hide my head in a bag if hed ever joined such an opinion. Even as the line stretched around First and East Capitol streets, a somber silence was underscored by the sound of the American Flags ropes clinging against the flagpole. The half-staffed flag drooped down in front of the building, despite the wind, as though the flag itself was paying tribute to Justice Scalia. Moments like these you realize just how many lives he touched, said Maria Calderon, a New Yorker who was visiting Washington with her husband. Seeing the well-wishers and knowing Scalia grew up in Queens gave her a warm feeling despite the blustery temperatures in the 30s. Mike Judge, who waited in line with his wife Anne and their children, said the trip was part of a homeschool civics lesson on the Supreme Court. I want them to have an appreciation for Justice Scalia and to have an appreciation for the court, Judge said. Scalia was a man of honor. Vince McLaughlin, a Philadelphia native, dabbed at tears as he reflected on Scalias life and legal influence. Hes a hero, had a good sense of humor, and was a brilliant scholar, he said. A big loss to the Court. As the public began entering the building shortly after 10:30am, visitors took at the entrance of the Supreme Court holding signs in support of Scalia and his family. One sign thanked Scalia for his service to the nation. Another read God Bless the USA and the Scalia family. When people trickled into the Grand Hall, many took a moment and stood in front of the casket, offering a moment of remembrance and appreciation for the life of Justice Scalia. Some made the sign of the cross while others bowed their heads and closed their eyes. President Obama, accompanied by first lady Michelle Obama, paid tribute to the late justice Friday. He also took a moment of silence and bowed his head over Scalia's casket. Families exemplified the magnitude of the emotion this morning by walking down in almost of a consoling embrace. Some wiped tears away as they exited the Hall and walked down the front steps. More than 5,500 people had passed by his casket as of late Friday. The wait time at one point was up to 3 1/2 hours. His funeral will be on Saturday at 11 a.m. The flag-draped casket of Justice Antonin Scalia is lying in repose Friday at the Supreme Court where he spent nearly three decades as one of its most conservative and influential members. Scalias casket arrived at the Supreme Court at 9:29 a.m., ahead of a private somber ceremony in the Great Hall. Scalia's eight Supreme Court colleagues, his family and nearly 100 former law clerks watched solemnly as Supreme Court police placed the casket on a funeral bier first used after President Abraham Lincoln's assassination. The Rev. Paul Scalia, the justice's son and a Catholic priest, said traditional prayers. "You have called your servant Antonin out of this world," he said. "May he rest in peace." Scalias former law clerks will take turns standing vigil by their former boss throughout the day and night in a tradition most recently observed after the 2005 death of former Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The casket is being placed on the Lincoln Catafalque, which was loaned to the court by Congress for the ceremony, and a 2007 portrait of Scalia by Nelson Shanks will be displayed. Before Scalia's body arrived, his former clerks formed two lines down the court steps and across its marble plaza. A few wiped away tears after the casket arrived. The doors to the court chamber, where Scalia had served for nearly 30 years, were open at the east end of the hall. Black wool crepe hung over the entrance, and Scalia's courtroom chair was draped in black. Scalia's casket will be on public view from 10:30 a.m. until 8 p.m. President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama planned to pay their respects at the court on Friday, while Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden were to attend Scalia's funeral Mass on Saturday. The funeral Mass open to family and friends will take place Saturday at 11 a.m. at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. Burial plans have not been released. Scalia's sudden death complicated an already tumultuous election year. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says a replacement should not be named until the next president takes office. Obama pledged to pick a replacement "in due time" and challenged Republicans to hold a vote on his nominee. Scalia was found dead on Saturday in his room at a remote Texas hunting resort. The 79-year-old jurist was appointed to the court in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan. He is survived by his wife, Maureen, nine children and 36 grandchildren. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Donald Trump, a thrice-married multi-billionaire who is not averse to cussing and once said he was pro-choice, has found evangelical Christian support ahead of Saturdays hotly contested South Carolina primary. Trump is leading among evangelical Christian voters with 31 percent in the latest Fox News poll, but Sen. Ted Cruz is only eight points behind at 23 percent, with Marco Rubio at 17 percent and Gov. Jeb Bush at 10 percent, reflecting the divisions among evangelical voters. Ive been in politics for a while, Ive never seen anything like it, said Nate Leupp, co-chair of the Republican Party of Greenville and a self-described evangelical voter. People are getting upset with each other. Cruz, the son of a preacher, was first to pursue the Christian conservative vote in South Carolina. Rafael Cruz, his father, has been campaigning for him in the state since long before Trump made his first visit, say political watchers on the ground. Cruzs campaign says he has the endorsement of over 300 pastors and faith leaders in South Carolina. A lot of people have typically thought the evangelical vote was monolithic in South Carolina, said Randy Page, public relations director at the conservative Bob Jones University. Perhaps in some cycles it has been. Page said he is personally backing Rubio. But now there seems to be a schism among more traditionalist evangelicals like Leupp who is stunned that his peers are supporting a divorcee with a foul mouth, a lack of morals, and the more new age, Pentecostal Christians who see Trump as a man who has sinned but can be saved. The former, says Leupp and Page, are sending up their prayers for Cruz and Rubio. The latter are represented in large part by young evangelicals, and television and megachurch pastors like Mark Burns, pastor of the Greenville, S.C-based Christian Television Network. Hes been on the campaign trail stumping for Trump. He acknowledged that he was heckled at a recent appearance at Bob Jones University when he said Trump was pro-faith. Bob Jones is (part) of the old establishment, thats the crowd it draws, Burns told FoxNews.com. It doesnt do what the Pentecostal, new age movement does, which is bring the message of grace. Aside from the divide among religious philosophies, Burns says South Carolinians are angry with the government and pre-packaged politicians, and are willing to forgive what they see as Trump's moral transgressions in favor of his authenticity. He is appealing to evangelicals across the board because he (is) authentic and what you see is what you get, said Burns. Millions of Americans are angry and frustrated with politicians, especially those who come to South Carolina and they know the song and dance and theyre saying they are one of us and when they go back to Washington they are voting for legal abortions and same-sex marriage. Trump is a fighter. He is the one to fight for Christianity and for our conservative values we hold dear. Leupp agrees voters are angry and that there are many evangelicals who are willing to overlook their own moral -- and political -- principles to vote for Trump. They point to Republicans who have failed them in Washington and presidential candidates who got the religious conservative backing, and lost, like Mitt Romney in 2012, and John McCain in 2008. In 2012, white evangelical Christians went for Newt Gingrich in the primaries by 45 percent. Gingrich, a conservative stalwart (despite being married three times), won the state primaries in South Carolina and Georgia before dropping out of the race in May 2012. Evangelicals want a winner. They use that to justify their we dont need a person with a record, its time to back a person without a record approach, said Leupp, who was backing Bush but is still undecided. He knows one thing: itll be anyone but Trump. "Trump as a nominee would do more to destroy the conservative movement and the Republican Party than Hillary Clinton would do in four years as president, he declared. We need to unify behind someone who can beat Donald Trump. Daniel Jativa contributed to this report. **Want FOX News First in your inbox every day? Sign up here.** Buzz Cut: The South Carolina expectations game The Edge: Trumps grip slips after debate Democrats high-stakes in Nevada For your Sunday viewing pleasure Mustve been ladies night THE SOUTH CAROLINA EXPECTATIONS GAME Theres little doubt who will win the Republican Primary in South Carolina on Saturday. South Carolina looks like Trump country, to be sure. But assuming he does win, the size of his margin of victory and the order and volume of the two other remaining contenders for the nomination matter a great deal. Style points matter in these early primaries, and none more so than South Carolina. Out of Iowa and New Hampshire pundits wagged their chins for days about tickets out and on to other contests, but in South Carolina the only ticket being talked about is Gov. Nikki Haleys role on the national ticket. Thats a mistake. There are only two or three tickets to ride left. And the number will be decided on Saturday. Voters in South Carolina have been somewhat freed from what we called the tyranny of multiplicity that boggled voters in New Hampshire and Iowa. But given the large size of the initial field and the obduracy of some candidates who have, practically speaking, already been eliminated, South Carolina still has some winnowing to do. Those who finish in the top spots in the Palmetto State will have the green light to continue to the SEC primary on March 1st where the delegate count starts to add up and things look a lot more real for the red team. With those highest-stakes of the 2016 contest yet, lets look at what each of the remaining candidates needs to do today in order to keep on moving. Donald Trump - The expectations game is simple for Donald Trump in South Carolina, win, and win big. Trump has been the frontrunner in South Carolina since the beginning of August and goes into Saturdays contest with a 14-point lead in the Real Clear politics average of polls for the state. South Carolina has an open primary which is perfect for Trumps coalition of independents, Democrats, and Republicans, and his populist forbearer Newt Gingrich carried the state handily in 2012. Any win by a double-digit margin will be more than enough to cement Trumps status as undisputed frontrunner and will help erase his Iowa defeat from political memory. While a Trump defeat is hard to fathom given his long-standing lead, a narrower victory than polls predict could be trouble. If he underperforms pre-election polls by any significant margin in this favorable terrain it will raise fresh doubts about his unorthodox presidential bid. Ted Cruz - Ted Cruz wants plenty of daylight between himself and third-place Marco Rubio. Cruz has run a consistent second in the state, wherein he has invested tremendous time and resources. But Rubio has closed the gap significantly in recent weeks. Cruz wants to be closer to Trump than he is to Rubio and in a clear second place. That would establish Cruz as what he has sold himself to voters all along: the staunch conservative who could take an Iowa win and turn it into national success. But Cruz has been fighting a two-front war now between Trump and Rubio for some time. Both have honed in on accusations of dishonesty a damaging narrative for Cruz with evangelical voters, on whose support his bid depends. If Cruz should fall behind Rubio in South Carolina it would be bad, bad, bad. Rubio is dangerous to Cruz since he can reach the anti-Trump conservatives and Christians who are arrayed against Trump. Rubios shot at the Republican nomination depends on knocking Cruz out of contention before winner-take-all contests begin on March 15. If Cruz stumbles to third in South Carolina it would be an ill augury. Marco Rubio - Dont slip! Rubio has been playing a dangerous expectations game from the start in which third place finishes are wins and ties for fifth are merely setbacks. But in February narratives do matter, so he gets one more chance. If Rubio can do third or better in South Carolina he will have cemented his reputation as both durable and resilient. Had Rubio finished second in New Hampshire as he once hoped, anything short of a South Carolina win would have looked like a setback. But as it is, a top-three finish will do just fine. What Rubio cannot do is fall out of the top three, especially to his own Captain Ahab, Jeb Bush. A fourth-place finish or worse, especially one behind his former mentor would be the beginning of the end for Rubio. Jeb Bush - Given the torpor and dejection in which Bushs campaign is wreathed, the former Florida governor needs to shock the nation in South Carolina. That means a stunning second-place finish ahead of both Cruz and Rubio. If Bush meets his current expectations a distant fourth place in the RCP average for the state he will likely withdraw from the race next week. John Kasich - Beat Jeb Bush. Like New Hampshire, South Carolina is an open primary, which is good for the moderate Kasich, who is making an explicit appeal to Democrats. It was enough to launch him into second place in the Granite State and while South Carolina is less friendly terrain, his goals are more modest: get past the struggling Bush. If he can finish ahead of Bush, even by a narrow margin, hes done what he needs to do to soldier on for a while longer. Ben Carson - Respectability is a reasonable goal for Carson who has all but evaporated in the race. Carson once held nearly a quarter of the vote in South Carolina, but now runs last with just 7 percent of the vote in the RCP average for the state. [GOP delegate count: Trump 17; Cruz 11; Rubio 10; Kasich 5; Bush 4; Carson 3 (1,237 needed to win)] THE EDGE: TRUMPS GRIP SLIPS AFTER DEBATE Donald Trump is still the king of media mentions, but not by as stout a margin as before. This weeks installment of The Edge shows Trumps stranglehold on national mainstream media mentions slipped a bit as other candidates got increased attention (though not all of it good). The team at New Analytics has built The Edge, a unique tool to measure which candidates are being talked about the most, and provided the first look to Fox News First. Here are the percentages for the candidates shares of national mainstream media mentions before and after the CBS debate on Feb 13. Points gained or lost from the end of last week are listed in brackets. Donald Trump 36.7 [-3.8]; Ted Cruz 22.6 [+6.5]; Jeb Bush 19.8 [+6.2]; Marco Rubio 12.9 [+.4]; John Kasich 4.8 [-10.6]; Ben Carson 3.2 [+1.2] WITH YOUR SECOND CUP OF COFFEE Warren Throckmorton, professor at Grove City College, explains why Thomas Jefferson edited his own copy of the Bible stripped of the supernatural and miraculous works of Jesus, and how he came up with the idea: In 1804 and around 1820, Thomas Jefferson took two copies of the New Testament and cut out verses that he believed truly came from Jesus. In several letters to friends, Jefferson described the process of assembling the philosophy of Jesus as being as simple as plucking diamonds from a dunghill. Jefferson had a lot of confidence that he could tell the difference between Jesus actual teaching and teaching added later by his followers. A copy of the 1804 abridgement of the Gospels has not survived. Got a TIP from the RIGHT or the LEFT? Email FoxNewsFirst@FOXNEWS.COM POLL CHECK Real Clear Politics Averages National GOP nomination: Trump 34.2 percent; Cruz 20.6 percent; Rubio 16 percent; Kasich 8.6; Carson 6.6 percent; Bush 5.4 percent South Carolina GOP Primary: Trump 33.5 percent; Cruz 17.6 percent; Rubio 17.1 percent; Bush 10.4 percent; Kasich 9.6; Carson 6.8 percent National Dem nomination: Clinton 46.3 percent; Sanders 42 percent South Carolina Dem Primary: Clinton 56.7 percent; Sanders 33.6 percent General Election: Clinton vs. Trump: Clinton +2.8 points Generic Congressional Vote: Democrats +1 DEMOCRATS HIGH-STAKES GAME IN NEVADA Saturdays Nevada Democratic Caucus was supposed to be the start of Hillary Clintons firewall, but her campaign has begun to downplay expectations citing opponent socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., pull with youth voters and same-day voter registration as factors that play against her. But if Clinton cant win a state with large groups of minority voters and a caucus system built to allow well-organized campaigns reach maximum turnout then where can she win? Clinton chose her campaign manager, Robby Mook, in part because of his success as her Nevada state director in 2008, and yet her campaign is already hedging the results. She doesnt even need to win by much. Anything is better than her coin-flipped, razor-thin victory in Iowa. It seems Team Clinton has already pegged South Carolina, where Democrats will vote a week from Saturday, as the new, new start of her firewall. Assistant House Democratic Leader James Clyburn, D-S.C., is set to endorse Clinton today in Columbia, where Clinton is hoping to sweep the regions black voters. A new Fox News poll shows Clinton maintains a hefty 42-point lead among black voters, but her lead has narrowed from December when she led Sanders by 71 points. Overall, she has a 28-point lead over Sanders among the states Democratic primary voters. Sanders role in both contests is to chip away at Clintons electability argument starting with increasing his appeal to minority voters. The assumption has been that once the contests become more diverse Sanders will lose his appeal and fade, but if he can expand his base beyond youth voters, he can make this primary process go on longer than expected, which means nothing but bad news for Clinton and the Democratic Party. [Democratic delegate count - Clinton 394; Sanders 44 (2,382 needed to win)] FOR YOUR SUNDAY VIEWING PLEASURE Kick off your morning with Mr. Sunday as he breaks down the results of the GOP South Carolina primary and the Democratic Nevada caucus on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. ET on the Fox News Channel. Check local listings for broadcast times in your area. [#mediabuzz - Host Howard Kurtz and guests analyze coverage of this weekends contests in South Carolina and Nevada. Watch Sunday at 11 a.m. ET, with a second airing at 5 p.m.] MUSTVE BEEN LADIES NIGHT The Guardian: After sampling some alcohol from patrons glasses, a monkey picked up a knife and chased customers around a bar in Paraiba, Brazil, it has emerged. The capuchin monkey drank remnants of cachaca, a distilled spirit popular in Brazil, from glasses around the bar. The animal then chased the men in the pub with a foot-long knife but left the women to drink in relative peace, according to the MirrorThe monkey was then captured by the local fire department before being released into a nearby environmental reserveBut when the animal stirred up more trouble, scaring children and residents of the area, he was captured once more AND NOW A WORD FROM CHARLES In fact, [Bill Clinton] is a liability. He goes out there and says stuff almost every time that they have to clean up after him. So [Hillary Clinton] is out there alone, and she is not a good candidate. 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. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump tepidly endorsed invading Iraq in September 2002, contradicting his earlier insistence that he opposed the war before the March 2003 invasion. Trump was asked about a possible war with Iraq during a five-minute phone interview with radio host Howard Stern on Sept. 11, 2002. In between Trump's recollections of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attack on the World Trade Center and his thoughts on rebuilding the Twin Towers, Stern asked the billionaire real estate developer, "Are you for invading Iraq?" "Yeah, I guess so," Trump responded. "You know, I wish the first time it was done correctly," an apparent reference to the Gulf War. A month after the interview, Congress passed a joint resolution authorizing military action against Iraq. The audio was first reported late Thursday by Buzzfeed News. For months, Trump has cited his opposition to the Iraq War as evidence of his foreign policy judgement. When asked about the statement during a CNN town hall in South Carolina Thursday, Trump initially said he did not remember making the statement, but added, "I could have said that. Nobody asked me- I wasn't a politician. It was probably the first time anybody asked me that question. "By the time the war started, I was against it," Trump added. "And shortly thereafter, I was really against it." In an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity Thursday, Trump restated his opposition to the war, saying "We attacked Iraq, but Iraq didnt knock down the World Trade Center." Trump also said that he would declassify the entire 9/11 Commission Report, telling Hannity "When thats open, I think youll find out that Saudi Arabia had a lot to do with the ripping down of the World Trade Center." The Iraq War issue first flared up in Saturday's Republican debate, when Trump clashed with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush over Middle East policy. Trump repeatedly slammed former President George W. Bush, Jeb's brother, saying his administration "lied" about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. At Thursday's town hall, Trump refused to say whether he stood by that charge. Trump also invoked the 9/11 attacks in response to Jeb Bush's claim that his brother kept the U.S. safe, saying "The World Trade Center came down Thats not keeping us safe." During the town hall, Trump also eased off comments he had made earlier in the day about Pope Francis. Returning to Rome from a five-day trip to Mexico, Francis had said that Trump's pledge to build a wall along the entire length of the border and expel millions of illegal immigrants was "not Christian". Trump, a Presbyterian, initially responded by saying, "For a religious leader to question a person's faith is disgraceful. I am proud to be a Christian, and as president I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened." However, on Thursday night, Trump said "I don't like fighting with the Pope, actually. I don't think this is a fight. I think he said something much softer than was originally reported by the media. I think that he heard one side of the story, which is probably by the Mexican government." The battle between Apple and the FBI is heating up after yesterday's "no" from CEO Tim Cook to a court order to unlock an iPhone used by the San Bernardino terrorists. Now, no less than Edward Snowden has weighed in on Twitter, calling the situation the "most important tech case in a decade." He also called out Google's initial silence on the matter, and said the case was being closely watched by Chinese authorities. Forbes says that the FBI could resort to using the fingerprint from the phone owner's cadaver, or use a fingerprint copying hack that's been posted online and seems to work. But if the phone has been locked for more that 48 hours, the FBI will still need to know that passcode, which Apple says could take over 4 years to guess if it's complex enough. And those are the likely reasons the FBI have now come to Apple demanding they hack the phone. Stay tuned. Follow-up to a story from Wednesday: that Hollywood hospital that had been reduced to keeping records like it was 1952 has paid a ransom to the hackers that locked up its servers. A press release from Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center CEO Alan Stefanek said they paid 40 BitCoins -- or about $17,000 -- to get their computers back. He also said early reports the ransom was 9,000 bitcoins, or $3.4 million dollars, was false. Stefanek said that paying the ransom was the "quickest and most efficient way" to get operations back online, which we think sets a bad precedent, but we also understand the urgency involved. Hackers have held other entities for ransom, including some small police departments, who typically paid less than one thousand dollars to get their data back. Still, this is a clear signal that data security should be a top priority. Google has announced that their Translate app can translate over 100 languages and now covers 99 percent of the Earth's population. The Translate project began about 10 years ago. On the project's blog, Sveta Kelman says the team is using a facet of artificial intelligence research called "machine learning" to more quickly fill out their language portfolio. New languages include familiar ones like Pashto and Hawaiian, and some not-so-familiar dialects like Luxembourgish and Xhosa, a South African language that uses different clicking sounds for the letters X, Q and C. Apples decision to fight an order to help hack the phone of a shooter in the deadly terror attack in San Bernardino, Calif., is a PR masterstroke, say marketing and technology experts. Tim Cook and his team made the right choice in laying all the cards on the table," marketing expert and President of JRM Comms Jason Mollica told FoxNews.com, via email. Apple let their customers and the general public know exactly what the situation was, how it could affect them, and why Apple could not support what the government was asking. Related: Apple ups the ante in Silicon Valley's encryption battle with government The tech giant announced Wednesday that it will fight a federal magistrate's order to help the Obama administration break into an encrypted iPhone belonging to one of the shooters in last December's San Bernardino attack that killed 14 people. Mollica noted that Apples tough stance will resonate with consumers. There are many that agree with Cook's words and will continue to trust Apple's products, he told FoxNews.com. Again, transparency is something that people appreciate. Related: John McAfee vows he can break iPhone encryption, promises to eat his shoe on live TV if he can't Suni Munshani, CEO of data security specialist Protegrity, also applauded Apples decision. It is the right stance to take because caving in to the governments demands would have extraordinary implications for millions of iPhone customers around the world, he explained, in a statement emailed to FoxNews.com. While I have empathy for victims and the families who have suffered great loss, it is regrettable that the actions of a few terrorists have brought us to think we must decide between personal privacy versus national security. Social media giants Facebook and Twitter have backed Apple in its dispute with the FBI, as has Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Forcing companies to enable hacking could compromise users privacy, he tweeted Wednesday. 1/5 Important post by @tim_cook. Forcing companies to enable hacking could compromise users privacy sundarpichai (@sundarpichai) February 17, 2016 In a statement posted on Apple's website early Wednesday, CEO Tim Cook said the order by U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym "has implications far beyond the legal case at hand." Related: Legendary iPhone hacker weighs in on Apple's war with the FBI The ruling by Pym, a former federal prosecutor, requires Apple to supply highly specialized software the FBI can load onto shooter Syed Farooks county-owned work iPhone to bypass a self-destruct feature, which erases the phone's data after too many unsuccessful attempts to unlock it. The FBI wants to be able to try different combinations in rapid sequence until it finds the right one. "The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake," Cook wrote. "Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control." Related: Use the dead to open an iPhone? Apple vs. FBI is getting weird Michela Menting, digital security research director at ABI Research told FoxNews.com that the creation of a tool bypassing the self-destruct feature could have far-reaching consequences. I think its a dangerous line, and once breached, we are on a slippery slope, she told FoxNews.com, via email. What is to stop other governments from asking the same from Apple? Requesting Apple to produce such a tool will inevitably result in two things: further requests down the road for providing more backdoors in other tools based on this precedent (including encryption), and, consequently, the slow and inevitable undermining of privacy as we know it today, added Menting. It may also mean that the U.S. tech industry moves abroad to more favorable governments (maybe Israel or Switzerland). Related: Does Apple even have the ability to hack the iPhone like the FBI wants? Americas tech titans have already voiced their concern about creating so-called backdoors into encrypted devices for government. In the wake of the Paris terror attacks last November, the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), which includes Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Twitter, rejected calls for weakened encryption. Apple has been granted a three-day extension to Feb. 26 to respond to the court order to help unlock Farooks iPhone 5c. Related: Use the dead to open an iPhone? Apple vs. FBI is getting weird While Apple has garnered plenty of support for its stance, the Cupertino, Calif.-based firm has also been criticized by the families of victims in the San Bernardino attack. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers At least four children including one infant died in a Florida house fire early Thursday morning, fire officials said. The fire started around 5:30 a.m. in a small wooden house in Pensacola. Escambia County Fire Rescue battalion chief Curt Isakson told the Pensacola News-Journal the mother and older sibling escaped without injury. He said the victims were two boys, ages 11 and 5, and two girls, ages 3 and 11 months. Isakson said firefighters found the children all in one room and first responders couldnt locate a smoke detector in the home. Roxanne Walker, a neighbor, told the News-Journal flames quickly engulfed the home and there was nothing anyone could do to help. Marlow Stripling, another neighbor, said he heard the family screaming for help as he was getting ready to leave for work. He said he rushed into the burning home to help. "All I saw was smoke, but I still went in and all I saw was a blaze from the middle of the house," he told the paper. I heard them hollering, but I just didn't know where they were at. I heard them twice ... and after the third time I didn't heard them anymore." According to the paper, grief counselors were sent to the school that some of the children attended. The state Fire Marshal is investigating the cause of the inferno. The Associated Press contributed to this report. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) warned commuters early Friday to expect further delays and be prepared to take alternate routes after a damaged Amtrak signal snarled train traffic on Thursday. Passengers on commuter trains from west and south of Boston were forced to get off of trains at outlying stops before South Station and transfer to rapid transit lines or walk the remaining distances to their destinations Thursday. The damaged signal forced Amtrak to operate track switches manually. Amtrak reported delays of 30 minutes to 2 hours on some trains departing Boston for destinations in the Northeast Corridor, including New York, Philadelphia and Washington. MBTA officials said that Franklin and Providence/Stoughton lines would continue all the way to South Station, but six other lines will fall short of their destination. Officials urged commuters to check the transportation authoritys website. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker was extremely unhappy with the commuter delays, expressing his frustration in his monthly radio spot. "I'm just waiting for somebody who looks like they deserve to be strangled," Baker, a Republican, said during his "Ask The Governor" segment on WGBH-FM. Many commuters expressed similar frustrations to The Boston Globe Thursday. Its a disgrace, Paula Doran, 50, of West Roxbury, told The Globe. Its shameful. The weather is beautiful and were already having issues. Linda Constantine said she was worried about getting home to Franklin in time to pick up her children. "I left a little early, because I thought it might be crowded," she said. "But, oh, my God, I didn't expect this." A spokeswoman for Keolis, which operates the 394-mile commuter rail network under a contract with the MBTA, apologized to passengers while noting the problem was with equipment operated by Amtrak. Amtrak spokesman Mike Tolbert didnt offer an explanation as to what the problem was with the signal. He said Amtrak was still looking into it. "We're working as hard and as fast as we can" to resolve the issue, Tolbert said. Baker said on the radio that a crashed tower caused the signal to short out, according to The Globe. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Click for more from The Boston Globe. The Justice Department filed a motion Friday to compel Apple to comply with a federal court order demanding that the tech giant provide reasonable technical assistance in the governments investigation of the locked iPhone belonging to Syed Farook, the San Bernardino gunman. "Apple has attempted to design and market its products to allow technology, rather than the law, to control access to data which has been found by this Court to be warranted for an important investigation. Despite its efforts, Apple nonetheless retains the technical ability to comply with the order, and so should be required to obey it," the motion states. On Tueday, a federal judge ordered Apple to help the FBI hack into an encrypted iPhone used by Farook, who along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people in December. Specifically, the government wants Apple to bypass a self-destruct feature that erases the phone's data after too many unsuccessful attempts to guess the passcode. Apple has helped the government before in this and previous cases, but this time Apple CEO Tim Cook said no and Apple is appealing the order. While the judge on the case says the government is only asking for help unlocking one, single iPhone, Apple says the case is much bigger than that and sets a dangerous precedent. Cook says the company doesn't have a system to bypass the self-destruct one. "Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks from restaurants and banks to stores and homes," Cook said. Still, U.S. Attorney Robert L. Capers said Apple has followed court orders to unlock phones at least 70 times, in cases that include child endangerment. Capers requested a court order to access data from the iPhone of a suspected methamphetamine dealer in New York. Apple is fighting that request as well. The company has an additional 3 days to file its opposition to Tuesday's court order which is now due on Feb. 26, a law enforcement official tells Fox News. Michela Menting, digital security research director at ABI Research told FoxNews.com that the creation of a tool bypassing the self-destruct feature could have far-reaching consequences. I think its a dangerous line, and once breached, we are on a slippery slope, she told FoxNews.com, via email. What is to stop other governments from asking the same from Apple? Requesting Apple to produce such a tool will inevitably result in two things: further requests down the road for providing more backdoors in other tools based on this precedent (including encryption), and, consequently, the slow and inevitable undermining of privacy as we know it today, added Menting. It may also mean that the U.S. tech industry moves abroad to more favorable governments (maybe Israel or Switzerland). Fox News' Matt Dean and Catherine Herridge contributed to this report. Imagine returning from a long weekend away to find your home has been burglarized. Thats what Rick Vernon and several other families in his neighborhood experienced recently when thieves targeted their quiet suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota. Vernon (not his real name) and his wife knew something was amiss as soon as they stepped inside. Vernons first inclination was to see what was missing, so he and he wife searched the house. But when they called police afterward, they learned theyd made a big mistake. Roaming through a burgled house is unsafe and unwise. Thieves may still be lurking, and crucial evidence may be destroyed. According to the FBIs latest crime statistics, more than eight million property crimes were reported by local law enforcement in 2014. Financial losses suffered by victims are roughly more than $14 billion. Financial loss isnt the only difficulty. It took at least two full days of research and talking to the right people to finish the insurance report, said Vernon. He still needs to get new passports for his family of four. But thats just stuff. Vernon said the incident was disturbing and that he and his wife definitely feel violated. LifeZette talked to two police officers, one retired, one up-and-coming. With 40 years of experience between them, they shared ways to protect your home and what to do if a break-in does occur. Trust No One Be aware of those who come into your home. If you dont know them, you have no idea of their intentions. Think of the cleaning people, the plumber, the party guest brought by a coworker, your teenagers friend. People who break into homes tend to know whats in there and what they want to steal. One police officer stresses watching teens: They may be the biggest threats to your property. "You often dont know much about them, you dont know what theyre capable of, and you dont know what they may be after," he said. Keep Your Guard Up Whenever you let someone into your home to do work, be on guard. Do not walk in front of them; instead, walk behind them and direct them where they need to go. That puts them at a slight disadvantage; if they plan to attack you, they wont be able to get you from behind where you are more vulnerable. Make These Smart Moves Invest in proper lighting, motion sensors for outside, timers for inside. Keep entryways well lit. Keep your slider door secure. Lock it but also use a cross-bar or the equivalent in the track. These doors are easy to get into; this method was used by the thieves who broke into Vernons house. Secure important documents in a waterproof, fireproof strong box and hide it in a secure place. Consider leaving a decoy box under the bed or in a closet. If you can afford to, rent a safety deposit box at a bank. Deadbolt all doors with a quality lock that goes deep into the door. Builders typically dont invest in good locks. Upgrade. A good lock can slow down or stop a criminal from breaking into your home. Always keep your car locked. Keep your garage door closed. Secure all prescription drugs. Present an "at home appearance" to your residence at all times. Keep your grass cut. Keep your driveway is shoveled. Hold your newspaper delivery when away. Invest in an alarm system if possible and stay with certified, major market companies. If that cost is prohibitive, consider just displaying a sign. Dogs are a meaningful deterrent. But only get a dog if you have the want and means to care for it. Join and participate in police-sponsored neighborhood watch programs. Avoid These Dumb Moves Don't get complacent. Thieves often target more affluent neighborhoods where people think theyre safe. Police told Vernon several burglaries occurred in his neighborhood the same night as his. Vernon admitted he never thought he'd be targeted, so he was lax about securing his property and valuables. Don't let your mail pile up. Not only is it a sign youre away, it increases the chance criminals could steal your mail to hack into your bank account or steal your identity. Have a neighbor get your mail or put it on hold. Don't post your whereabouts on social media. Broadcasting on Facebook that youre away from home and your house is empty "is stupid," said one officer. Don't leave a baseball bat or other weapons by the door. Criminals know to look for them there. Keep them under your bed, where they are much more effective. Never have firearms visible. Secure them at all times and place a childproof lock on guns. Consider a trigger guard lock. (And, of course, DO get proper training if you have a firearm.) More from LifeZette.com: How a Boy Becomes a Man: The key actions for parents (mostly dads) to help their sons develop tenacity and find success Oklahoma Priest Was a Martyr Keeping Soldiers and Their Pets Together Smart Money Lessons for Kids A man who was arrested then questioned about a deadly ambush at a Pennsylvania State Police barracks has sued claiming he was traumatized by overzealous troopers who detained him based on mere speculation. Jeffrey Hudak, 49, of Clarks Summit, contends he was arrested and handcuffed about 12 hours after Cpl. Bryon Dickson was killed and Trooper Alex Douglass was wounded outside the Blooming Grove barracks on Sept. 12, 2014. The alleged gunman, Eric Frein, was eventually captured after a 48-day manhunt and is jailed awaiting trial. But on the day after the shooting Hudak contends he was a prime suspect merely because his estranged wife had a relationship with Douglass. Hudak was arrested without explanation by troopers in SWAT gear who surrounded his mother's home, the lawsuit said. "Pennsylvania State Police had absolutely no legal basis for the warrantless arrest," according to the lawsuit filed in Thursday in U.S. District Court in Scranton. Hudak alleges he was questioned for hours and denied an attorney even though one showed up at the barracks where he was being questioned. He was kept from using the restroom until he agreed to give a DNA sample and undergo testing for gunpowder residue, the lawsuit said. "He was devastated by it. He was scared to death," said George Reihner, the Scranton attorney who filed the lawsuit. "They were accusing him of murder and attempted murder. He described it as his heart beating out of his chest." State police spokeswoman Maria Finn said the agency doesn't comment on litigation. Reihner said the troopers who questioned Hudak played "good cop, bad cop" and accused Hudak of being jealous of his estranged wife's relationship with Douglass because "that's the only thing they had." "They were intimidating him in a very intense interrogation accusing him of murder because of jealousy regarding a woman he was in the middle of a divorce proceeding with," Reihner said. Hudak was eventually allowed to call his sister who arranged for a Carbondale attorney, but he allegedly wasn't allowed to see Hudak for hours. Hudak had also asked for an attorney, but the troopers continued questioning him, the lawsuit said, both in clear violation of Hudak's constitutional right to an attorney. The Carbondale attorney, Bernard Brown, said Friday that by the time he was allowed to see Hudak, the questioning was almost over. "There were hours of him being questioned. The family had informed them he was hiring counsel and they kept questioning him anyway," he said. Reihner said the interrogation lasted from about 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. the day after the shooting. "Even after they released him, they continued following him for a number of days," Reihner said. "It was an intimidating experience." The lawsuit also names Hudak's interrogators and four other troopers involved in his arrest and transport to the barracks. It seeks unspecified damages. Frein, a self-taught survivalist, led police on a tense 48-day manhunt through the northeastern Pennsylvania woods before U.S. marshals caught him outside an abandoned airplane hangar about 30 miles from the shooting scene. He has pleaded not guilty. Authorities are seeking the death penalty. Police in Washington state are asking for the public's help in locating a Seattle man who has been missing for two weeks. Richard Arneson, 62, was reported missing on Feb. 5 after he failed to show up for work. A concerned neigbor went to Arneson's apartment and found the back door open. Police who were called to the scene found no sign of foul play. KOMO reported that later that same day, the neighbor received a text from Arneson that said simply, "my luck has run out." The missing man has not been seen or heard from since. Authorities say Arneson has been known to frequent walking trails in West Seattle and Rainier Valley, which is located southeast of downtown. Anyone with information about Arneson's whereabouts is asked to contact Seattle Police at (206) 684-5007. Click for more from KOMONews.com. A Texas woman and her boyfriend were arrested for allegedly punishing her 13-year-old son by tying a rope around his genitals and subjecting him to waterboarding, authorities said Thursday. According to an affidavit filed by a Kaufman County sheriffs investigator, the boy told investigators Casey Shackleford, the mothers boyfriend, allegedly grabbed him by the hair, pinned him down and held a towel over his face as Christi Howell, his mother, poured water over his head and nose. The affidavit notes the tactic is known as waterboarding, which was once used by the U.S. to question terror suspects but has since been banned. "The victim said that he was able to breathe slightly if he moved his head to the side and that kept him from feeling like he was drowning," the affidavit said. The boy told authorities the torture he received came after he told Shackleford he inappropriately touched the family dog. According to KHOU, Shackleford would slap the boy in the face if he didnt maintain contact with him or Howell. The boy told authorities he was tied to his genitals for 5 to 10 minutes and said he had small cuts and burns around that area from the rope. He also said he was punished by his mother for not performing pushups properly. The couple was being held at the Kaufman County Jail, each facing a charge of felony injury to a child, said Kaufman County Sheriff's Office spokesman Fred Klingelberger. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Neither the man nor the woman had a defense attorney listed in jail records, and no phone numbers were publicly listed for their home. No court hearings had been scheduled Thursday in either case, according to online court records. The woman was booked into jail on Feb. 9, and she remains in custody with a $250,000 bond. The man turned himself in Wednesday and was expected to be booked into jail Thursday. The child is now in foster care, according to a spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. The Associated Press contributed to this report. A Virginia bill that would keep the names of police officers secret from the media and public is drawing harsh criticism from open records advocates who argue that the names are an important tool in keep watch over whether police departments are hiring potential problem officers with taxpayer money. Supporters of the bill say that handing over the lists of names would possibly put officers and deputies at risk in the field during a time of what they describe as growing contempt toward law enforcement. "It used to be that there was a healthy respect for law enforcement," said Republican Sen. John Cosgrove, the bill's sponsor. "Now they've become targets of opportunity." Cosgroves reason for the backing of the bill comes from a tabloid San Antonio newspaper that threatened to publish the names and addresses of all city police officers after an officer was killed, according to the Virginian-Pilot. However, the editor-in-chief of the paper had backed off the idea. Opponents of the bill call it a gross overreaction to an unlikely scenario. State Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax, opposes the bill. He said withholding the names of police officers would lead to corruption within agencies. According to the Associated Press, the measure was introduced in response to a court ruling directing the state to turn over the names and employment dates of thousands of law enforcement officials to The Virginian-Pilot. The paper said its seeking to determine whether problem officers who leave a department land a job at another agency. "You're getting paid by the public. You don't get to do that in secret," said Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government. Though some states have introduced bills shielding some officers or detectives, Dan Bevarly, an interim director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition, told AP hes unaware of another state with a law of this scope. In New Jersey, a bill would allow officials to withhold the names of state police detectives. West Virginia lawmakers are considering legislation that shields officers and their families contact information from the public. And several other states have or are examining laws aimed at preventing the release of the names of officers involved in shootings. The bill passed Virginia's GOP-controlled Senate by a 25-15 vote this month, and still needs to get through the House of Delegates, where Republicans also hold the majority. It's being backed by all of the major law enforcement associations, including the Virginia State Police Association and the Virginia Sheriffs' Association. A spokesman for Gov. Terry McAuliffe would not say whether the governor would sign the measure. But the Democrat has sided with law enforcement over civil liberties advocates in the past, such as when he vetoed a bill last year that sought to limit how long officials can hold onto information collected from license plate readers. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Click for more from The Virginian-Pilot. Austria vowed to press ahead early on Friday with plans to cap the number of asylum seekers entering the country despite claims the move would break the law, as European Union leaders struggled to end their fragmented approach to managing Europe's biggest refugee emergency since World War II. In tense late night talks in Brussels on Thursday, the leaders also decided to hold a summit in early March with Turkey, which has been the source of hundreds of thousands of people arriving in the EU over the last year to push Ankara to tighten border controls. More than 1 million people entered the EU in 2015 fleeing conflict or poverty, and some 84,000 have entered so far this year. Overwhelmed by the numbers and frustrated by their inability to agree on an effective European response, some EU countries have begun tightening border controls or putting up fences without warning their neighbors. In the latest in a series of uncoordinated and unilateral measures by nations, Austria announced that it would allow no more than 80 people a day to apply for asylum at its southern border points, as of Friday. But the EU's top migration official, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said that "Austria has a legal obligation to accept any asylum application that is made on its territory or at its border." In a letter to Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner, seen by The Associated Press, Avramopoulos said that a ceiling on asylum-seekers "would be plainly incompatible with Austria's obligations" under EU and international law. Austria's chancellor, Werner Faymann, was not moved, saying that his country would only accept 37,500 applications this year as planned. "Last year, we had around 6,000 more asylum applications than Italy. We have had a lot more than asylum seekers than France. And anyone who has ever looked at a map knows that, for example, those two countries are larger than Austria and also have more inhabitants," he told reporters after the summit. The new rift laid bare the frustration of nations destabilized by the arrival of so many people, and the lack of confidence that any timely, efficient European solution can be found. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said the room was divided "between those we believe we can find solutions together and those who prefer to act alone." "Everyone's asking themselves the question; what do we do when we've put things in place but they're not working?" he said. European Parliament President Martin Schulz pointed to selfishness and a lack of solidarity. "The problem is that everyone sees the situation from their individual standpoint and waits for the other to move first in implementing those necessary solutions," Schulz told the leaders. "Lamentably, this crisis is exposing serious fault-lines within our union." Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he understood the reaction of countries under stress like Austria, but he warned that the end result could be "the bunching up of great amounts of people in difficult circumstances in northern Greece." Greece has been overwhelmed by the entry of some 850,000 people last year, mostly from Turkey. Thousands are still entering every week. The Greek coast guard has been swamped, and the country has barely 10,000 places to shelter those arriving. The EU's executive Commission has given Greece three months to restore order on its borders, but few believe Athens will be able to meet the deadline. The Commission fears that countries on the main refugee route north are working to close Macedonia's border with Greece. "If Greece and Turkey do not dramatically decrease the number of migrants coming to EU in next few weeks, then talk about closing the borders of Central Europe and securing the borders of Western Balkans will become a new reality," warned Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka. But Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras appealed for the EU to "remain united and show solidarity." "Europe cannot be rules for some and al la carte for others," he said. In calling a summit with Turkey in just a few weeks, the leaders are looking at ways to persuade it to deliver on its pledge to crack down on refugees trying to cross into Greece. The EU has offered Ankara 3 billion euros for the more than 2 million Syrian refugees on its territory, as well as easing visa rules for Turks and the fast-tracking of its EU membership process. "It is good if Europe and Turkey share the burden, but we need clearer protection of the external borders, we need a fight against smugglers and illegality we have to find legal ways for people to come to the European Union," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. The deadline for a cessation of hostilities in Syria came and passed Friday, but instead of any ceasefire, Turkish troops and Kurdish forces launched new attacks as planned peace talks hit stumbling blocks. Still, Kurdish fighters battling the Islamic State captured a major terror stronghold in the country's northeast. Talal Sillo, spokesman for the Syria Democratic Forces, says their forces captured the town of Shaddadeh after sunset Friday, and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights corroborated his report. Sillo told The Associated Press by telephone that "we have fully liberated Shaddadeh" adding that the next step is to remove booby traps and explosives left behind by extremists. He also said Turkish troops were bombing border areas Friday, killing civilians. A U.N. special envoy said there was no way he "realistically" could get all parties to return to the bargaining table by Feb. 25 as he had hoped. "We intend to do so soon," Staffan de Mistura told Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet. Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday discussions with Russia have been "constructive," adding, "there is certainly a lot more work to do." The planned "cessation of hostilities," negotiated by the United States, Russia and other countries, does not include groups that the United Nations has designated as terrorists, according to Foreign Policy. Airstrikes targeting groups such as the Al Qaeda-linked Al Nusra Front and ISIS were expected to continue. Meantime, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it was "deeply alarmed' by the situation in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo where intensified fighting has forced 70,000 people to flee their homes and left many without water or electricity. ICRC says two hospitals hit earlier this week in Aleppo are now out of service. They had provided thousands of consultations, surgeries and delivered hundreds of babies per month. The Red Cross also says that the hospitals which are still standing are struggling to function. Also on Friday, Russia's President Vladimir Putin discussed the Syrian crisis in a telephone call with Saudi King Salman. The Kremlin said Putin and the king "expressed interest in settling the Syrian crisis and ensuring stability and security in the entire region of the Middle East and North Africa." Putin also reaffirmed his invitation for the king to visit Russia at a time that would be convenient for him. The state-run Saudi Press Agency simply said that "diplomatic relations were discussed in addition to the review of the latest developments in the region." Moscow and Shiite power Iran back embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad. The Sunni-ruled kingdom of Saudi Arabia has supported Assad's foes throughout the five-year conflict and says it is ready to send ground forces into the country. The World Food Program said Friday that it hopes aid deliveries to besieged areas of Syria were "not a one-off" convoy and will continue, as the UN agency prepares an airdrop to reach 200,000 in a city surrounded by ISIS. WFP spokeswoman Bettina Luescher made the comments a day after the UN announced 114 trucks had delivered life-saving supplies over the previous 24 hours for 80,000 people in five besieged areas of Syria. She said the WFP is preparing a "high-altitude" airdrop into the city of Deir el-Zour, whose residents are being besieged by ISIS fighters, in coordination with Syrian Arab Red Crescent operatives on the ground. Luescher said Friday that "a WFP registered company" with experience in airdrops was expected to leave from as as-yet-undetermined country in the region. The Associated Press contributed to this report. U.S. warplanes carried out airstrikes Friday that targeted an ISIS base and a senior militant believed to be behind two deadly attacks against Western tourists in Tunisia last year. A senior U.S. official told Fox News that the target of the airstrike was Noureddine Chouchane, a senior ISIS figure in Libya. A defense official speaking to The Associated Press said Chouchane was "likely killed." The airstrike on the base in Sabratha, west of Tripoli, was carried out by F-15s. Local reports initially suggested that more than 30 people had been killed. However, it was not immediately clear how many ISIS terrorists were among the dead. Chouchane is thought to have directed the March 18 attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunis, in which 24 people were killed, many of them foreign tourists. He is also believed to have some connection to the June 26 attack on a resort hotel near the Tunisian city of Sousse, where an ISIS gunman killed 38 people. President Barack Obama last week directed his national security team to bolster counterterrorism efforts in Libya while also pursuing diplomatic possibilities for solving its political crisis and forming a government of national unity. While ISIS has emerged in other places, including Afghanistan, Libya is seen as its key focus outside of Syria and Iraq. The U.S. military has been closely monitoring ISIS movements in Libya, and small teams of U.S. military personnel have moved in and out of the country over a period of months. British, French and Italian special forces also have been in Libya helping with aerial surveillance, mapping and intelligence gathering in several cities, including Benghazi in the east and Zintan in the west, according to two Libyan military officials who are coordinating with them. The Libyan officials spoke on condition of anonymity recently with The Associated Press on this matter because they were not authorized to speak to the press. U.S. officials predicted early this month that it would be weeks or longer before U.S. special forces would be sent, citing the need for more consultations with European allies. Additional intelligence would help refine targets for any sort of military strikes, but surveillance drones are in high demand elsewhere, including in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Adding to the concern in Washington and Europe is evidence that the number of ISIS fighters in Libya is increasing - now believed to be up from about 2,000 to 5,000 - even as the group's numbers in Syria and Iraq are shrinking under more unrelenting U.S. and coalition airstrikes. Fox News Channel's Jennifer Griffin and The Associated Press contributed to this report. U.S. warplanes launched airstrikes in Libya targeting a key Islamic State training camp and senior terror leader Friday after months of debate over how much the Pentagon should commit to the terror fight in North Africa. A defense official told The Associated Press that one strike "likely killed" the Tunisian terror operative Noureddine Chouchane, who was believed to have directed an attack on a museum in Tunis that killed 24 people last March. Analysts also say he was connected to a massacre at a resort hotel near the Tunisian city of Sousse that left 38 people dead. The Pentagon had determined that ISIS fighters in both locations "were planning external attacks on U.S. and other western interests in the region," Press Secretary Peter Cook told reporters. "We saw the opportunity to strike here and we took that step." He added that President Obama approved the strike, after military officials had watched the training camp, for weeks. Local officials estimated that more than 40 people were killed with more wounded, some critically. F-15 fighter jets carried out the strike, a senior U.S. official tells Fox News. The Pentagon described the strikes as a sign that the U.S. would go after ISIS "whenever it is necessary, using the full range of tools at our disposal." Still, the White House reportedly balked at a plan to assault an ISIS regional hub in Sirte, the hometown of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, who was killed in 2011. There is little to no appetite for that in this administration, a defense official told The Daily Beast. Theres nothing close to happening in terms of a major military operation," a second official added. Evidence suggests the number of ISIS fighters in Libya is increasing - now believed to be 5,000 - even as the group's numbers in Syria and Iraq are shrinking. Analysts say the power vacuum that emerged after Qaddafi's death left Libya vulnerable to terror groups, some that were ultimately linked to ISIS. U.S. officials say the president earlier this year directed his national security team to bolster counterterrorism efforts in Libya while also pursuing diplomatic possibilities for solving its political crisis, but were holding off on sustained military action against ISIS targets in Libya until a government was formed. That process is far from over. Data curated by FindTheData "I have been clear from the outset that we will go after ISIS wherever it appears, the same way that we went after al Qaida wherever they appeared," President Barack Obama told reporters on Wednesday. One U.S. official said Friday's airstrike was taken "with the knowledge of Libyan authorities," but the official would not be more specific about the coordination. The U.S. military has been closely monitoring Islamic State movements in Libya, and small teams of U.S. military personnel have moved in and out of the country over a period of months. In November, a US military airstrike killed an Islamic State leader called Abu Nabil or Wissam al-Zubaydi, an Iraqi national in the eastern city of Darna. In July, airstrikes targeted an al-Qaida gathering and officials said they targeted bel-Mokhtar but it was a failed operation in the eastern city of Ajdabiya. British, French and Italian special forces also have been in Libya helping with aerial surveillance, mapping and intelligence gathering in several cities, including Benghazi in the east and Zintan in the west, according to two Libyan military officials who are coordinating with them. The Libyan officials spoke on condition of anonymity recently with The Associated Press on this matter because they were not authorized to speak to the press. U.S. officials predicted early this month that it would be weeks or longer before U.S. special forces would be sent, citing the need for more consultations with European allies. Additional intelligence would help refine targets for any sort of military strikes, but surveillance drones are in high demand elsewhere, including in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. "We will continue to take actions where we've got a clear operation and a clear target in mind," Obama said. "And we are working with our other coalition partners to make sure that as we see opportunities to prevent ISIS from digging in, in Libya, we take them. At the same time, we're working diligently with the United Nations to try to get a government in place in Libya. And that's been a problem." Fox News' Jennifer Griffin and The Associated Press contributed to this report. America's Favorite Bakery Turns Eight And Reflects On The Unlikely Journey To Sweet Success Gigi's Cupcakes Celebrates 8th Anniversary in Business This Sunday with Launch of Spring Menu February 19, 2016 // Franchising.com // Nashville, TN - Gigi's Cupcakes (www.gigiscupcakesusa.com) is excited to celebrate its 8th anniversary in business this Sunday, February 21, 2016. America's favorite bakery celebrates with the launch of their new spring menu and specialty Gigi's Party cupcake. Gigi Butler, founder and culinary creator of Gigi's Cupcakes opened her first Gigi's location in the heart of Nashville, TN in 2008 with just $33 to her name. In eight short years, Gigi's Cupcakes has grown into the largest cupcake franchise in the country. Best known for the signature "Gigi's Swirl," the bakery now has 101 locations nationwide - making it America's favorite bakery. Gigi's locations nationwide now offer the new spring menu with items such as a Birthday Box with a dozen of Gigi's most popular cupcakes, a new cheesecake, new gluten-free cupcakes and new signature cupcake flavors like Lemonberry, Nodini's Coconut Caramel, Raspberry Buckle, Texas Milk Chocolate and Gigi's Party. As a salute to Gigi's 8th birthday, the Gigi's Party cupcake is a devil's food cake topped with lavender buttercream frosting and sprinkled with decorettes and edible glitter. Devil's food and buttercream is a rare combination at Gigi's but a customer favorite. Each new flavor included in the spring menu represents a special memory from Gigi's journey. To celebrate eight years, Gigi is sharing the stories behind the recipes she holds close to her heart on Gigi's Cupcakes' website and Facebook page. "I'm so proud and humbled by this incredible journey," said Gigi Butler. "Eight years ago, I opened the doors to my little bakery in Nashville and prayed that customers would come in to experience a Gigi's Cupcake. I'm so grateful they did. The Nashville community embraced us immediately and then we began to open locations across America and internationally just last year. My heart is forever thankful for the blessing that Gigi's Cupcakes has been to me and so many others." Unlike any other, Gigi's Cupcakes is known for their incredible variety of gourmet cupcakes with icing piled high and exquisite decorations. The bakery offers a variety of gourmet desserts, including 300 rotating cupcake flavors including gluten free and sugar free options, mini cupcakes, custom cakes, cheesecakes and stuffed cookies. Fans will have the opportunity to enjoy Gigi's signature flavors such as Scarlett's Red Velvet, Chocolate Turtle, Wedding Cake, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Kentucky Bourbon Pie, Chocolate Torte, Midnight Magic, White Midnight Magic and more. The Inspiring Story of Gigi's Cupcakes founder Gigi Butler moved to Nashville in 1994 from California to pursue a career in music. At 15 years old, Gigi started Gigi's Cleaning Company and continued that business once she arrived in Nashville. For fourteen years, Gigi supported her dream by cleaning houses during the day and singing late nights at the honky tonks on Broadway. While she loved music, she also had a passion for the culinary arts and baking. As years went by, she decided to take a chance on baking. She took a huge risk by opening a cupcake boutique in a high rent area just off of Music Row on Broadway in Nashville, TN on February 21, 2008 - not far from the bars she sang at. Gigi recalls the stress she was under with only $33 left in her bank account the day she opened the store. She had risked it all on an idea and she held her breath, hoping customers would love her creations. Soon after opening, Gigi's Cupcakes became Nashville's delicacy dessert of choice and eight years later, there are 101 franchise locations across the country in 23 states and one location in South Korea that opened in early 2015 - making Gigi's Cupcakes America's favorite bakery and the largest cupcake franchise in the country. "I am truly living the American Dream," says Gigi. "I am so blessed to be able to do what makes me happy and make a product that so many people enjoy." For more info on Gigi's Cupcakes, please visit www.gigiscupcakesusa.com and for more information on Gigi Butler visit www.GigiButler.com. Connect on social media at: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GigisCupcakes/ More About Gigi's Cupcakes Franchising Interested in becoming an owner? If you are looking for a great opportunity, and you have the business acumen and financial wherewithal, Gigi's Cupcakes may be the concept and opportunity you have been looking for. We have a business model that yields high volume sales with lower occupancy and build-out costs than what you might expect. We also have lower labor and food costs than typical food service franchises. All this adds up to an opportunity that can change your life. Gigi's is committed to making sure we choose the right people to join us in building Gigi's Cupcakes locations nationally. Please visit http://www.gigiscupcakesfranchise.com/ for more information. SOURCE Gigi's Cupcakes Media Contact: Tresa Halbrooks Legacy PR 615-669-6058 Tresa@Legacy-Pr.com ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus DineEquity, Inc. Announces Commitment To 100 Percent Cage-Free Eggs No Later Than 2025 Company Partners With Animal Welfare Expert To Continue Advancement Of Responsible Policies GLENDALE, Calif. - Feb. 18, 2016 // PRNewswire // - DineEquity, Inc. (NYSE: DIN), the parent company of Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar and IHOP restaurants, today announced plans to serve 100 percent cage-free eggs across both brands in domestic restaurants no later than 2025. This commitment builds on IHOP's initial steps toward cage-free eggs that started in 2008. "Between IHOP and Applebee's we have thousands of restaurants in the U.S. serving eggs on a daily basis, so our procurement policies can have a significant impact," said Julia Stewart, chairman and CEO of DineEquity. "We're committed to sourcing eggs and other ingredients in a responsible manner that meets our guests' expectations, considers scientific principles and promotes the welfare of animals. The evolution of the ingredients in our kitchens is an ongoing journey that we are approaching thoughtfully." Though Applebee's uses eggs in its kitchens, the biggest impact of the commitment to cage-free eggs will be at IHOP; the leading family dining brand serves 65 different signature, made-to-order breakfast options, including omelettes, breakfast samplers, scrambles and of course pancakes. In conjunction with the transition to cage-free eggs, DineEquity also announced a formal partnership with Suzanne T. Millman, PhD., a widely respected expert on animal welfare, to advise on the continual development of comprehensive animal welfare policies. Dr. Millman is an associate professor at Iowa State University holding joint appointments in the Veterinary Diagnostic and Production Animal Medicine and Biomedical Sciences departments. Dr. Millman is an applied ethologist, whose research interests include animal welfare assessment, pain and sickness behavior, and practical solutions to address animal welfare in livestock and poultry production environments. "Our guests are increasingly interested in how their food is sourced," said Stewart. "As we work to ensure a more transparent and socially conscious supply chain, it's incredibly valuable to have Dr. Millman assisting us." About DineEquity, Inc. Based in Glendale, California, DineEquity, Inc., through its subsidiaries, franchises restaurants under the Applebee's Neighborhood Grill & Bar brand and franchises and operates under the IHOP brand. With more than 3,600 restaurants combined in 20 countries, and over 400 franchisees, DineEquity is one of the largest full-service restaurant companies in the world. For more information on DineEquity, visit www.dineequity.com. SOURCE DineEquity, Inc. Contact: Patrick Lenow Vice President Communications & Public Affairs DineEquity, Inc. 818.637.3122 patrick.lenow@dineequity.com ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Franchise Grade Compares 5 Year Performance Of Healthy And Unhealthy Franchise Systems The 3 Part Report Reveals That The Top 10% had positive net outlet growth of 52,171 outlets while the Bottom 10% have a negative net outlet growth of -37,119 outlets. February 19, 2016 // Franchising.com // New York, NY - Franchise Grade continues to publish important statistics pertaining to the franchise industry. The latest publication compares the performance of two disparate groups, the Top 10% of Healthy Franchise Systems and the Bottom 10% of Unhealthy Franchise Systems. Each report in the series compares key performance areas over a 5 year period: Part One presents a comparison of overall system size, outlet activity, and net outlet growth between the two groups Part Two reports on Franchisee Turnover Rates for the Top and Bottom 10% of franchise systems Part Three reports on the total franchise fees collected and the estimated initial investment ranges for the Top and Bottom 10% of franchise systems. The analysis utilized the Franchise Grade Franchise Performance IndexTM to identify the two groups. The initial database consisted of 2,260 franchise systems with 5-years of activity, which also identified 226 franchise systems in the Top 10% and Bottom 10%, totaling 452 Franchise systems in the comparison. All data was based upon the 5-year period 2010 to 2015. Ed Teixeira, COO of FranchiseGrade.com commented on the report: This analysis demonstrates the important contribution of Healthy Franchise Systems towards achieving sustained quality growth in the franchise industry, while Unhealthy Franchise Systems often drain franchisee investment dollars from the healthy franchises. A primary objective of our research is to recognize the Healthy Franchise Systems and elevate the performance of Unhealthy Franchise Systems. About FranchiseGrade.com FranchiseGrade.com is the #1 market research company in franchising. We compare and grade franchise systems for their investment value. Our motivation is simple: we want to raise the bar in franchise industry market research and build a stronger franchise community in the process. By surveying as many as 18,000 franchisees and reviewing more than 2,400 Franchise Disclosure Documents every year we are able to maintain an extensive database of current franchising information for our industry leading research and analysis. SOURCE FranchiseGrade.com Contact: Ed Teixeira Chief Operating Officer FranchiseGrade.com 631-246-5782 ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Gandolfos Opens at CityWay February 19, 2016 // Franchising.com // Another CityWay restaurant that opened in July is planning a second location on Mass Ave before the end of 2014. Gandolfos New York Delicatessen unlocked its doors today at 309 S. Delaware St. In six to eight weeks, the chain moves into 333 Massachusetts Ave., a 35-seat spot that had been slated for Orange Leaf frozen yogurt, Gandolfos representatives said. Earlier in July, the breakfast restaurant Yolk debuted at CityWay. Yolk owner Taki Kastanis said at the time that he was looking at Mass Ave for a north downtown Yolk lease he expects to sign by the end of 2014. On Wednesday, a 32-seat Gandolfos began serving its sandwiches, salads, hot dogs and loaded baked potatoes for free to invited guests and people who noticed the doors were open. A back patio scheduled to open this week seats another 30 guests, said Jon Aiello, chief operating officer for JC Deli, LLC, the CityWay Gandolfos franchisee. Founded by native New Yorker Greg Gandolfo, the deli strives to reproduce a New York deli experience, said Dain Pool, vice president of Pool Restaurant Group, which owns Gandolfos. The founder left New York to follow love to Utah. There, he opened the first Gandolfos. He packed on the sandwich fillings, as happens at famous Big Apple delis like the Carnegie. Gandolfo also named menu listings for the places or sayings he missed from back home, Pool said. As a result, the classic pastrami on rye holds a pound of meat between spicy mustard-smeared marbled rye. The Knuckle Sandwich features pastrami, cheddar, mozzarella, parmesan, lettuce, tomato, olives and marinated mushrooms, on warm sourdough. Eleven warm breakfast sandwiches, served on Kaiser rolls, are available all day. Quarter-pound Nathans Famous brand hot dogs might get a kraut crown or pastrami and Swiss cheese load. Vegetarian sandwiches are available, too. Eight salads include a fresh strawberry and spinach blend containing bacon, walnuts, gorgonzola, boiled eggs, dried cranberries, red onions and vinaigrette. Dressings are made in-house as are desserts and side salads, Pool said. Bread is baked fresh, and Gandolfos uses its own brand of deli meats. More salads are new to the Gandolfos menu and rolling out in for the first time in Indianapolis at the CityWay store, Aiello said. Expect the same, larger menu at a Noblesville store to open Aug. 13 at 14126 Bergen Blvd., Aiello said. JC Deli, LLC, owned by Palak Thakker of Indianapolis, also owns Greenwood (670 U.S. 31) and Bloomington (3304 W. 3rd St.) outlets, which will see the new menu in the next 30 to 60 days, Aiello said. The 48-unit Gandolfos chain anticipates a dozen Indianapolis stores within three years, Pool said. The CityWay Gandolfos offers free delivery, no minimum-order limit, within a two-mile radius of the restaurant, Aiello said. The deli also caters. Prices range from $4 to $10. Hours are 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays and 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. SOURCE Gandolfos ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Gloria Jeans Coffees Brews the Perfect Blend for U.S. Franchise Development Leading Global Multi-Brand Franchisor Guides Aggressive Expansion Plan February 19, 2016 // Franchising.com // LOS ANGELES Its the jolt that Americas coffee scene needs. Gloria Jeans Coffees has announced an expansive franchise growth strategy to significantly increase its U.S. presence in 2016 and beyond. The gourmet specialty retail concept, currently with 58 locations in 22 states, already has its expansion plans percolating. Were entering 2016 with a ton of momentum, said Brian Balconi, Vice President USA of Gloria Jeans Coffees and a seasoned franchise industry executive. Ending the second half of 2015 with four U.S. openings, and with new locations planned for key markets across the country, the stage has been set for Gloria Jeans Coffees to continue capturing the attention it commands from qualified franchise investors and operations teams. Emboldening the aggressive franchise growth is Retail Food Group (RFG), which acquired the brand in December 2014 and has been instrumental in designing the franchising strategy now being executed. RFG is Australias largest multi-brand retail food franchisor and a leading wholesale coffee roaster, with a track record of accomplishments across all corners of the world. The impact of RFG is immense, added Balconi. RFG brings significant global expertise in both franchising and coffee to the table. Franchisees joining the Gloria Jeans Coffees system benefit from such expertise, with the companys proven methods in training, marketing, procurement and menu innovation all lending themselves to supporting franchisees in their Gloria Jeans Coffees operations. Currently, there are more than 2,500 locations amongst RFGs restaurant and cafe brands. Gloria Jeans Coffees now makes up more than 800 units in 40 countries across the globe. Gloria Jeans is synonymous with quality, added Balconi. The brand is treasured as one of Americas original specialty coffee shops. To this day, nearly four decades since opening our first shop, we continue to innovate with new blends and flavors that coffee lovers cant find anywhere else. Roasting all of its own coffees at its facility in California, Gloria Jeans Coffees maintains a strong commitment to offering fresh, premium blends ranging from light to dark varieties for its guests. Gloria Jeans Coffees farm sources coffee beans, which originate from all parts of the world. Gloria Jeans Coffees has a long-standing relationship with the Rainforest Alliance, which supports a healthier planet, stronger forests and an improved quality of life for farming communities where its coffee beans are grown. In addition to its award-winning origins and blends, the brand is also well known for its flavored coffees and specialty beverages such as its signature chillers, mochas, lattes and hot cocoas. For those looking for a snack to accompany their coffee, Gloria Jeans serves baked goods, including sweet pastries. Available to single and multi-unit franchise operators, Gloria Jeans Coffees is primarily based in shopping malls. The brand also has stand-alone locations, several of which have drive-thru service. To learn more about Gloria Jeans Coffees franchise opportunities, call (877) 320-5282 or visit www.gloriajeans.com/franchise. About Gloria Jeans Coffees Founded in 1979, Gloria Jean's Coffees was started by Gloria Jean Kvetko in Chicago as a small coffee and gift shop. In 2014, Retail Food Group Ltd. (RFG), one of the worlds largest multi-brand retail food franchisors and leading wholesale coffee roasters, acquired Gloria Jeans Coffees with plans to grow the brand through franchising throughout the U.S. There are currently 58 locations in more than 22 states across the country. Gloria Jeans Coffees is best-known for its specialty coffee, quick and friendly service and warm atmosphere. In addition to its gourmet blends, origins and flavored whole beans, the brand also serves a range of signature specialty beverages including its chillers, mochas and brewed coffees. For more information on menu items, shop locations and hours of operation, visit www.gloriajeans.com. SOURCE Gloria Jeans Coffees Media Contact: Callie Forkenbrock All Points Public Relations (847) 897-7490 cforkenbrock@allpointspr.com ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus RE/MAX Fastest-Growing Among Real Estate Franchises Global Franchisor Ranked #17 Among All Franchises DENVER - Feb. 18, 2016 // PRNewswire // - RE/MAX, the #1 name in real estate*, has been ranked as one of the world's fastest-growing franchises in Entrepreneur magazine's Fastest Growing Franchise Rankings for 2016. The global real estate franchisor was the highest ranking real estate franchise on the list and took the 17th spot overall. "RE/MAX was founded 43 years ago with a unique, agent-centric business model that changed the housing industry," said Chris Pflueger, Vice President, Business Development, RE/MAX, LLC. "When our franchisees join the RE/MAX Network, they're able to independently run their businesses while being supported by a global brand. We're proud to be recognized as a fastest-growing franchise, and we look forward to continued growth in the future." In its February edition, Entrepreneur published its "Fastest Growing" list, a spin-off of the magazine's annual "Franchise 500," the oldest and most comprehensive franchise ranking in the world. In the 37th annual Franchise 500 survey, RE/MAX held the top spot among all real estate brands for the fourth consecutive year and ranked #21 among all franchises. In order to be eligible for the "Franchise 500" survey, companies are judged on measurable metrics, including financial strength, stability, size, and growth rate. RE/MAX supports its franchisees with an extensive collection of technology tools, training and other resources that include; RE/MAX University, the LeadStreet lead generator and CRM, RE/MAX Design Center marketing creator and a worldwide referral network. RE/MAX has built a strong global network with a presence in nearly 100 countries, more than any of its competitors. In the U.S., RE/MAX saw the strongest increases in franchise sales in the California/Hawaii, Texas, and Florida regions. Internationally, RE/MAX experienced the most franchise growth in Latin Americaand Asia. Last year, the Denver-based franchisor enhanced its international presence by expanding to Jordan, Malaysia, Mongolia and Zambia. Overseas franchise sales in 2015 also contributed to significant agent growth, which surpassed 25,000 outsidethe United States and Canada at the end of the year. *MMR Strategy Group study of unaided awareness About the RE/MAX Network RE/MAX was founded in 1973 by Dave and Gail Liniger, with an innovative, entrepreneurial culture affording its agents and franchisees the flexibility to operate their businesses with great independence. Over 100,000 agents provide RE/MAX a global reach of nearly 100 countries. Nobody sells more real estate than RE/MAX, when measured by residential transaction sides. RE/MAX, LLC, one of the world's leading franchisors of real estate brokerage services, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of RMCO, LLC, which is controlled and managed by RE/MAX Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: RMAX). With a passion for the communities in which its agents live and work, RE/MAX is proud to have raised more than $150 million for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals and other charities. For more information about RE/MAX, to search home listings or find an agent in your community, please visit www.remax.com. For the latest news about RE/MAX, please visit www.remax.com/newsroom. SOURCE RE/MAX, LLC ### Comments: Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus. Disqus Through the years, I must say that I've been quite blessed to be able to try a myriad of cuisines from all over the world. Of course, we have the usual suspects -- Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Mexican, Singaporean, Malay, Indian and Western. Then the more classy or exotic ones such as Italian, French, Greek, Persian, Thai, Indonesian and even South African . It's interesting to note that my palate has pretty much traveled to more places than my feet have. Someday, my feet will catch up...someday. :)So, when Paul and I received an invite to try Peruvian food at, I got soooo excited! Neither of us have had Peruvian food in our lives so this was definitely a first for us. What makes it more interesting is thatis located right at the heart of the central business district so there's really no need to travel to the far end to have a taste of Peru.I got to the restaurant ahead of Paul and while waiting for my dinner date, I took the opportunity to take a photo of our beautiful view. Oh Singapore, you're so pretty! This is why I'm so in love with this city.Now, let's look at the restaurant. It can be found at the rooftop of the newly opened The Club Hotel along Ann Siang Road. I really love this area especially during the weekend where they would close off the road to cars and pedestrians can freely walk around. To get to the restaurant, you can enter the hotel and take the lift up or if you're in the mood for a pre-meal workout like yours truly, then take the staircase which you can access from the side entrance. Either way, you'll love the relaxed and chic ambiance of the restaurant. At night, it might be a good idea to dine al fresco but since we love it extra cold, we requested to stay by the bar area where it's air-conditioned.Our dinner began with the(S$9) which was an interesting mix of three different styles of ceviches. As it turns out, ceviches, which is a raw seafood dish chopped and served in a citrus sauce or juice originated in Peru. It's closely similar to the Pinoy Kilawin which has a similar preparation using chopped raw fish mixed with vinegar and lime juice. At Tiger's Milk, you get 3 shots of chopped seabass and octopus served in three types of juices. What sets them apart from one another are the varying degrees of spicy levels that each juice has.Upon hearing this, I proceeded with caution. I first tried thewhich was the mildest of them all. The spicy level was tolerable and both Paul and I loved it. Next was the, it was definitely spicier but we somehow managed by simply fishing out the chopped seafood inside. The last was thewhich I skipped. I was afraid to burn my taste buds or to get a bad tummy ache from too much spice. Paul was a brave soul and tried a bit however he said it was really fiery hot.To balance out the spicy hot starter, we had the(S$16) which was one of my favorites that evening. Look how beautiful it is! A lovely creation of mashed potatoes, shrimps, slice avocado in Amarillo juice and topped with chopped eggs. It has everything that I love and I know this is all screaming "carbs! carbs" I ignored those screams and ate my heart out.Before moving on to our main dishes, I saw the bartender filling a bowl with what looked like taro chips. I asked about it and tadah! We also got our own bowl ofwhich, I was told, was a popular bar chow at Tiger's Milk. Well, chips and alcohol, they just go perfectly together.As if we didn't had enough ceviche for our starter, out came two more -- the(S$14) and the(S$16). Theis a beautifully plated masterpiece of fresh seabass marinated in citus juice, tossed and chopped with Aji Rocoto sauce, red onion, grilled corn and served with sweet potatoes. If you noticed, the three marinades for the Tiger's Milk Trio would make special appearances in various dishes served by the restaurant. I'd say, it was so brilliant for the Chef to maximize on his sauces and ingredients. I just hope he'd go easy with the chopped onions as I had to slowly pluck them out off my plate.However, my heart belongs to the. I'm really a big salmon fan so I fully enjoyed the thinly-sliced Salmon with Yuzu, Ginger Dressing and Wasabi Tobiko. It tastes like salmon sashimi and I love how fresh the fish slices were. Surprisingly, it made use of the same spicy marinade found in the Tiger's Milk Trio but the flavour here was more toned down.It's no secret how much I love seafood. However, there are times when I miss eating meat. We had the(S$16) which was definitely the highlight of our meal. We went crazy over the tender, melt-in-your-mouth pork neck which was marinated and grilled with Shishito peppers and glazed with sweet Yakiniku sauce. This was the BOMB!It was a good thing I was satisfied with the Pork Neck as I wasn't quite impressed with the(S$16). The texture was very unique and the meat was quite tough and powdery. Not really into lamb part's except for it's leg or meat.For dessert, we loved the(S$14), sweet pineapple slice with a scoop of ice cream. I love how the pineapple stayed sweet with a hint of robust smokiness. It's perfect for those who loves to eat a mix of savory and sweet.I'm so happy to have my first taste of Peruvian cuisine and I'd say that this is something that I'd love to have again. Check out Tiger's Milk for a nice after-work meal or to catch up with your friends while enjoying the lovely view of Singapore's central business district. Trump fired back ferociously, saying it was "disgraceful" for a religious leader to question a person's faith. The rare back-and-forth between pontiff and presidential candidate was the latest astonishing development in an American election already roiled by Trump's free-wheeling rhetoric and controversial policy proposals, particularly on immigration. It also underscored the popular pope's willingness to needle U.S. politicians on hot-button issues. Francis' comments came hours after he concluded a visit to Mexico, where he prayed at the border for people who died trying to reach the U.S. While speaking to reporters on the papal plane, he was asked what he thought of Trump's campaign pledge to build a wall along the entire length of the border and expel millions of people in the U.S. illegally. "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian," he said. While Francis said he would "give the benefit of the doubt" because he had not heard Trump's border plans independently, he added, "I say only that this man is not a Christian if he has said things like that." Trump, a Presbyterian and the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, responded within minutes. "For a religious leader to question a person's faith is disgraceful," he said at a campaign stop in South Carolina, which holds a key primary on Saturday. "I am proud to be a Christian, and as president I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened." Trump also raised the prospect of the Islamic State extremist group attacking the Vatican, saying that if that happened, "the pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president because this would not have happened." Francis, the first pope from Latin America, urged Congress during his visit to Washington last year to respond to immigrants "in a way which is always humane, just and fraternal." He irked Republicans on the same trip with his forceful call for international action to address climate change. Immigration is among the most contentious issues in American politics. Republicans have moved toward hardline positions that emphasize law enforcement and border security, blocking comprehensive legislation in 2013 that would have included a path to citizenship for many of the 11 million people in the U.S. illegally. Hispanics, an increasingly large voting bloc in U.S. presidential elections, have flocked to Democrats in recent years. President Barack Obama won more than 70 percent in the 2012 election, leading some Republican leaders to conclude the party must increase its appeal to them. However, the current GOP presidential primary has been dominated by increasingly tough rhetoric. Trump has insisted that Mexico will pay for his proposed border wall and has said some Mexicans entering the U.S. illegally are murderers and rapists. While Trump's words have been among the most inflammatory, some of his rivals have staked out similar enforcement positions. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson are among those who have explicitly called for construction of a wall. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, one of the few GOP candidates proposing a path to legal status for people already in the U.S. illegally, said Thursday he supports "walls and fencing where it's appropriate." Bush said that while he gets his guidance "as a Catholic" from the pope, he doesn't take his cues from Francis on "economic or environmental policy." Marco Rubio, another Catholic seeking the GOP nomination, said that Vatican City has a right to control its borders and so does the United States. Rubio said he has "tremendous respect and admiration" for the pope, but he added, "There's no nation on Earth that's more compassionate on immigration than we are." Cruz said he was steering clear of the dispute. "That's between Donald and the pope," he said. "I'm not going to get in the middle of them." The long-distance exchange between the pope and Trump came two days before the voting in South Carolina, a state where 78 percent of adults identify as Christian, according to the Pew Research Center's 2014 U.S. Religious Landscape Study. Of that group, 35 percent identify as evangelical and 10 percent as Catholic, the survey found. It's unclear what impact, if any, the pope's rhetoric will have, here or in other states. An October poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that most Americans had no strong opinion on the pope's approach to immigration issues, though he was overall viewed favorably. Even before Thursday, Trump had been critical of Francis' visit to Mexico. He said last week that the pope's plans to pray at the border showed he was a political figure being exploited by the Mexican government. Francis glossed over Trump's assertion that he was a pawn of Mexico, telling reporters on his plane that he would "leave that up to your judgment." But he seemed pleased to hear the candidate had called him a "political" figure, noting that Aristotle had described the human being as a "political animal." King George County left the starting blocks this week, urging Virginia to fold the long-debated Dahlgren Railroad Heritage Trail into the state park system. Members of the Board of Supervisors unanimously endorsed including the 15.6-mile trail into Caledon State Park. That is a most welcome move, one that will reap benefits for residents of King George and the Fredericksburg region for generations to come. Congratulations to all of the board members on their decision, but particularly Supervisor Ruby Brabo, who was a vocal proponent of the park proposal. Richard Granger and John Jenkins Jr., two new supervisors, also supported the trail. The notion had been kicking around for nearly a decade, ever since the former military railroad bed was purchased by a private landowner and converted into a trail. But until recently, some supervisors had their doubts. For now, this strip of green space belongs to David Brickley, a former state legislator from Woodbridge who was director of the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation from 1998 to 2002. Since 2006, soon after Brickley announced his intent to open the trail to the public, a spirited group of supporters have labored mightily to turn the World War II rail bed into something that people could use. The Friends of the Dahlgren Railroad Heritage Trail (friendsdrht.org) cut down trees, dug up railroad ties, pushed back poison ivy and put down tons of stone dust, Free LanceStar staff writer Cathy Dyson reports. They also reunited Little Ark Baptist Churchs property, which was split when the U.S. government built the line on the wars eve. Uncle Sam laid the tracks down the middle of the churchs cemetery so big guns could be moved by rail from Washington shipyards for testing at the Navy base in Dahlgren. These days, the trail begins on Bloomsbury Road in western King George and ends near the Sheetz on U.S. 301, across from Gate B of the Dahlgren Navy base. It is already well-known to athletes. This Saturday, the trail will host 225 runners for the Dahlgren Trail Half Marathon, which is sold out. You can check the race results at racetimingunlimited.org. The weather forecast calls for a sunny day with temperatures rising from the mid-30s into the 60s. And even if the trail is little sloppy or slushy in spots, the 13.1-mile race will not be postponed, Vic Culp of the Fredericksburg Area Running Club told us. Thats part of the sport of trail running: overcoming whatever nature throws your way. Just so. And one doesnt even have to run to appreciate that idea. Everyone benefits physically and psychologically from time spent out of doors. Its a delight for any community to have a welcoming place to take some steps, feel the sun on your face, enjoy quiet, see wildlife and experience nature. For walkers, hikers, bicyclists and runners, the King George trail is already a cool resourceand will be even better known and appreciated once it is integrated into the state park systems publicity apparatus. In our urbanizing area, with land values high and open space getting more scarce, there are only a few corridors through which a public trail like this can be built. The Fredericksburg region is blessed with a few such pathways, thanks to years of hard work by many hands, whether its the trails in Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, the Salamander Loop in Spotsylvania County, the Belmont-to-Pratt Park trail in Stafford County or the Rappahannock River Heritage and Virginia Central Railway trails in Fredericksburg. (If youd like to see more such facilities in Spotsylvania, look into the volunteer-driven nonprofit Spotsylvania Greenways Initiative.) Were confident that years from now, King George residents will look back on this weeks watershed in the trails progress with great pride. Study Links Proton Pump Inhibitors to Increased Risk of Dementia According to a new study published online in JAMA Neurology, proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are associated with an increased risk of dementia. PPIs are used to treat upper gastrointestinal disorders such as heartburn and peptic ulcers and include drugs such as Prevacid, Nexium, and Prilosec. -- Parker Waichman LLP, a national law firm dedicated to protecting the rights of victims injured by defective drugs and medical devices, is commenting on the findings of a new study involving proton pump inhibitors (PPIs). The study, published online February 15, 2016 in JAMA Neurology, revealed that PPI use was associated with a higher risk of dementia in patients studied in Germany. PPIs are medications used to treat upper gastrointestinal conditions such as heartburn and peptic ulcers. Novartis' Prevacid and AstraZeneca's Nexium and Prilosec are three popular PPIs. http://archneur.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2487379 The study was conducted using data from Allgemeine Ortskrankenkassen (AOK), Germany's largest statutory health insurer, between 2004 and 2011. Researchers analyzed medical records of over 73,000 patients age 75 and older; 2,950 were regular PPI users. Regular PPI use includes individuals who had at least one prescription for one of the drugs every four or five months over a year and a-half. The researchers discovered 29,510 people who developed dementia during the study period and that regular PPI use was associated with a 44 percent increased risk of dementia compared to patients not taking PPIs. The authors concluded that, "The avoidance of PPI medication may prevent the development of dementia. This finding is supported by recent pharmacoepidemiological analyses on primary data and is in line with mouse models in which the use of PPIs increased the levels of ?-amyloid in the brains of mice. Randomized, prospective clinical trials are needed to examine this connection in more detail." According to Reuters Health, the senior author of the study, Britta Haenisch of the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Bonn, Germany, said that physicians should make an effort to not over-prescribe PPIs, something that occurs frequently. "PPIs used for the treatment of gastroesophageal [reflux] disease and peptic ulcers work by reduction of gastric acid production," Haenisch told Reuters. "The underlying mechanism by which PPIs might influence cognition is yet to be determined." She noted that, "Patients should take the drugs according to their doctor's instructions.... To evaluate cause and effect relationships between long-term PPI use and possible effects on cognition in the elderly randomized, prospective clinical trials are needed." (http://www.aol.com/article/2016/02/16/gastric-reflux-drugs-may-be-tied-to-dementia-risk/21313375/) Parker Waichman comments that patients and health care professionals may help prevent drug-related injuries by staying up-to-date with current medical research findings. "According to this study, patients taking PPIs may be more likely to suffer from dementia," said Matthew J. McCauley, Senior Litigation Counsel at the firm. "These findings, along with other studies, may affect the way doctors prescribe PPIs." Parker Waichman LLP offers free legal consultations to victims of PPI side effects. Please contact the firm by visiting the firm's PPI Injury page. Free case evaluations are also available by calling 1 800 LAW INFO (1-800-529-4636). For more information about us, please visit http://www.yourlawyer.com/long-island Contact Info: Name: Parker Waichman Organization: Parker Waichman LLP Address: 6 Harbor Park Drive Port Washington, NY 11050 Phone: 516-466-6500 Release ID: 104430 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) Thermalabs Re-Introduces It's Popular, Long Lasting Tanner Renowned cosmetics brand Thermalabs has revealed plans to re-introduce their natural self-tanner. -- Thermalabs, a cosmetics firm that has made its name in the self-tanning niche, has brought back one of its most phenomenal products - the natural self-tanner. This follows a recent announcement by the company that a new batch was in the pipeline at the company's Israeli production facilities. Based on an email sent out to press outlets, the company's product will now be available to customers via global e-commerce giant Amazon.com. Known as the original self-tanner, the product is the company's first ever. It was mostly sold via Amazon.com, as well as the company's official website. However, a few months ago, it went out of stock, leading to massive complaints and overwhelming feedback to bring it back. Thermalabs was indeed at pains on why they were unable to keep up with demand for a product that had captured the market by storm. The company's response back then was that their production department was working overtime to have this product re-listed for sale to customers all over the world. The original tanner is known to be one of the longest-lasting tanners available in the market today. The product features organic and natural ingredients, including a cocktail of premium components such as Olive Oil and Aloe Leaf Juice, all of which are known to have immense benefits for the skin. The original self-tanner is streak-free and delivers an even, attractive tan. The product's ability to give a sexy and attractive tan barely four hours after exposure is perhaps one of the key reasons behind its meteoric success. Following a brilliant bring-to-market strategy that highlighted benefits in a special, emotional way, Thermalabs was able to sell thousands of units of this product within just the first one week. The product's record-breaking performance helped attract media spotlight to the then little-known beauty brand and also set the stage upon which the company has been able to successfully launch future releases. In recent times, and following in the footsteps of their original self-tanner, Thermalabs has been able to announce scores of products. One of the most notable recent releases is Protectan, a sunscreen block lotion that keeps away the sun's harmful UV radiation while at the same time moisturizing the skin. Protectan contains a special blend of vitamins that protects the skin from environmental pollutants. The company's beach tent is also another mentionable product introduced by Thermalabs within the last 3 months. The company's instant foldable beach tent is a multipurpose accessory that can be used in a wide range of situations, and mostly as a resting point after a long dip in the water at the beach. The company has also promised to announce new releases in the next few weeks or months. Thermalabs has indeed been an inspiring success story, more so in an industry where startups often have a hard time establishing a foothold in the market. The company's focus on high-quality, organic products is perhaps one of the contributing factors for this performance. For more information about us, please visit http://www.thermalabs.com Contact Info: Name: Hanna Tiram Organization: Thermalabs Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJwHPui5Ak0 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/thermalabs-re-introduces-its-popular-long-lasting-tanner/104378 Release ID: 104378 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) Diamond Marketing Launches New Web Design Orlando, FL Company Diamond Marketing offers a comprehensive list of services to business clients in the Orlando and Lake Mary, Florida area. The professional firm identifies needs, creates an action plan and implements the plan to grow the customer base. -- Diamond Marketing and CEO Robert Little are pleased to announce the launch of a new web design Orlando, FL company. The owner brings an MBA and a minor in marketing from the University of Phoenix to help customers. With a full internet marketing Orlando service provided by the company, area businesses can take advantage of the full range of services. Many business owners today recognize the need to improve their marketing campaigns in order to connect with more customers but are uncertain about the methods which can be effective. The full range of services offered by Robert Little and Diamond Marketing includes web design, SEO/web optimization, social media management, Pay Per Click Ad campaigns, Facebook Ads, Google AdWords campaigns, and on-site small business consulting. The latest tools and technology are available to business clients. The websites are optimized so that they have a greater chance of being seen by potential customers. Speaking in a recent interview, owner Robert Little explained, "We develop our own websites that are designed to generate leads for your business. We then link our phone number and email to your business and you receive the calls and emails from interested customers. This is a great option for many niche businesses." The professionals at Diamond Marketing have set a goal to help their clients succeed by using the latest and most effective techniques, ranging from web design, website optimization and lead generation to on-site consulting. A three step method is applied for each new customer. The first step is to determine what the current needs or opportunities are. Step two is to create an action plan that meets the specific business needs and budget constraints. The third step is to manage the website to ensure that the online presence continues to grow. The social media accounts are also monitored and managed in order to reach a growing audience. For more information about us, please visit http://www.diamondmarketingllc.com/ Contact Info: Name: Robert Little Organization: Diamond Marketing LLC Address: 4300 W. Lake Mary Blvd., Suite #1010-227, Lake Mary, FL 32746 Phone: (407) 886-0391 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/diamond-marketing-launches-new-web-design-orlando-fl-company/104448 Release ID: 104448 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) ReservationBooth Named Best Website To Find Cheap Hotels ReservationBooth offers customer service and ease-of-use that has been recognized by a top hotel booking comparison site in 2015, following its similar ranking in 2013 and 2014. The site is named as the best site for finding cheap accommodations. -- For the third year in a row, ReservationBooth has been named as the best website to find cheap hotels. The network took the award in 2013, 2014 and 2015. It was named to the position by the world's leading hotel comparison website. To maintain the top of the rankings requires that the site is able to offer excellent service to valued users. More than three hundred million users visit the site each year to arrange their booking reservations. Arranging for a booking weeks or months in advance may not be possible for travelers. The website is recognized as the best location to go for last minute hotel deals. There is no need to overpay when many accommodations have space which is not fully booked. They are willing to make a special deal in order to recover some revenues, rather than no revenues. There is no obligation attached to visiting the website and checking out the rates on last minute hotels. People may travel for business or pleasure. Some do not care whether the price is high or low. Instead, they check the amenities and services which are available. The ReservationBooth website allows for searching in various ways in order to locate the accommodations that meet the preferences of the traveler. Travelers can use the user-friendly site to find cheap hotel rooms in locations nearby or internationally. No sensitive information is required in order to search, compare and select the hotel with the most attractive deals. There are discounted rates of as much as 80 percent off the regular rate and no hidden booking fees are attached. Some updates on the website have been updated in order to make the user's experience more satisfactory. Users are able to filter for lodging near to popular places of interest, for example. Other filters include the location, hotel chain, and number of guests in the party. For more information about us, please visit http://www.reservationbooth.com Contact Info: Name: ReservationBooth Organization: ReservationBooth Phone: (818) 298-5303 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/reservationbooth-named-best-website-to-find-cheap-hotels/104445 Release ID: 104445 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) New Location Opened for Tom Johnston Tom Johnston offers a top level search engine optimization firm to area clients in Lake Elsinore and the surrounding area. He understands the ranking factors and how to apply them to his clients' niche and geographical markets. -- Tom Johnston is pleased to announce that a new location has been added to the services available in Riverside, Corona, San Bernardino, Temecula, Murrieta, Menifee, Rancho Cucamonga, Palm Springs, Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego. Businesses in Corona, Riverside and San Bernardino can benefit from the services. Tom Johnston offers SEO and search engine optimization services for companies and businesses in the new location at 34229 Aurora Court, Lake Elsinore, CA 92532. Tom Johnston specializes in marketing for spray foam insulation, construction, landscaping, medical equipment, plastic surgeons, Mommy make-overs, plumbing, roofing contractors, home additions, hair restoration, chiropractors, dentists, and photo booth rental companies. He is able to get client websites, videos and map listings to appear on the front page of Google. With seven years of experience as head of his agency, Mr. Johnston understands the factors which help to boost Google rankings. According to Tom Johnston, "Make your online marketing goals a reality by contacting me. You will receive an in-depth, yet simple-to-understand analysis of your competition and learn the steps needed to get out in front of your competition." The professional treats search engine marketing as both a science and an art. There are more than 200 ranking factors which can affect the ranking of a business. It is critical for businesses to find someone who can tell the search engines what the website is about and why the client's businesses is the authority in the niche or region. Mr. Johnston has the expertise and knowledge to understand how both search engines and humans operate. By combining the two processes, the business is more likely to be found online. The addition of the latest location in Lake Elsinore, California expands the geographical area where the firm operates. By focusing on the location and the industry, businesses can be ranked at the best possible location on the search engine results page. For more information about us, please visit http://www.tom-johnston.com Contact Info: Name: Tom Johnston Organization: Tom Johnston Address: 3864 Stratton Drive Suite B, Riverside, CA Phone: 951) 227-1077 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/new-location-opened-for-tom-johnston/104449 Release ID: 104449 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) Keyrenter Premier Property Management Creates Solution For Tough Sellers Market KeyRenterPremier.com aids homeowners in renting their property instead of selling. Scottsdale, AZ -- February 19, 2016 (FPRC) -- According to a December 2015 article published by CNN Money, the current real estate market is a sellers market. Unfortunately, its still tough to sell a home due to buyers having issues getting approved for mortgage loans to match home prices that have risen in the last few years. It is with this difficulty in mind that Keyrenter Premier Property Management is introducing the solution theyve created for homeowners who are having a tough time selling their home or those who want to avoid the long wait and frustration that often comes along with the selling process. Instead of putting the home on the market for sale, Keyrenter Premier suggests that homeowners use a Scottsdale Property Management service to get help with turning their home into a rental property. Jim Elfline, Keyrenter Premiers Franchise Owner and President, stated There is no doubt that more people are renting homes than buying them. In fact, the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau prove this to be true. For those who are having trouble selling their home in this market, weve created a solution for them to make money instead of continuing to waste it on the sales process. Our team can help them turn their home into a rental property, giving them the assistance they need to properly manage that property. As Efline continues, Many people are realizing that renting out their homes is a great idea in this market. However, few are prepared for the undertaking. As a landlord, they will be solely responsible for maintenance, making sure bills are paid, and other tasks. This is where Keyrenter Premier Property Management phoenix can help. With the full suite of services we offer, homeowners can reap the benefits of renting out their property without having to worry about mundane tasks or confusing paperwork and administrative processes. Simply put, Keyrenter Premier Property Management offers a proven strategy that saves our clients valuable time, money, and other resources. Theres a reason why we have hundreds of properties under our management and have been recognized by a number of prestigious business organizations. That reason is that we strive every day to serve our clients well and offer homeowners viable solutions for their properties. About Keyrenter Premier Property Management: Keyrenter Premier Property Management manages single family homes, condos, townhomes, apartments, and commercial property in Scottsdale, Arizona and the surrounding areas. Their committed team of professionals provide rental owners and tenants the best and most affordable proactive property management solution through their innovative processes and excellent communication and service. Jim Elfline and his team offer a complete rental management solution including investment analysis and strategy, management and leasing, property purchasing and sales, and other real estate solutions. Send an email to Jim Elfline of r (480) 400-6040 Recent Press Releases By The Same User ShapeHost Launches New Spring Sale Offering Savings Of Up To 35% On VPS Packages (Tue 8th Mar 16) Paypro Finance Launches their Consumer Financing for Small Business Program (Mon 7th Mar 16) Kuber Ventures Publishes New Infographic To Show Difference Between EIS for Pensions and SIPP (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Pregnancy Exercise Publishes New Guide Into Training For Fitness While Pregnant (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Centex Hosting Launches Newly Redesigned Website To Herald Expansion Into VPS Hosting (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Royal Cliff Receives ISO 22000 Food Safety Management Certification (Wed 2nd Mar 16) LocalBoats.net Launches Brand New Website Showcasing Best Coastal Boat Rentals Chocked full of information, LocalBoats.net will feature reviews and information to help make it a premier resource for yacht rentals Miami, FL -- February 19, 2016 (FPRC) -- LocalBoats.net recently announced the official launch of their brand new website. The site showcases the best and most in-depth reviews on yacht rentals, sales, and the boating scene in major coastal cities in the U.S. and across the globe. LocalBoats.net is quickly becoming a go-to resource for those interested in keeping up with the latest news and insider information in the boating industry. John Smith, a member of the team behind LocalBoats.net confirmed, stating Our team has launched this new website because we love yachting, and we want to provide those who share the same interests with the information they need stay up to date with the best opportunities in the industry. We sincerely believe that The best boat rental in Miami is at LocalBoats.net. In fact, we have information about the best boat rentals in other major cities and places around the world as well, including San Diego, San Francisco, and the British Virgin Islands." The site, according to Smith is packed with reviews and information, helping to make it a premier resource for those interested in yacht rentals. Says, Smith, "We intent to add to the site regularly in order to achieve that goal for our readers. As Smith continues, There are hundreds of boat charter representatives in cities in Florida, California, and other coastal states and islands just waiting to arrange a boating excursion for any interested party. Unfortunately, the sheer number of companies out there can make it difficult to know which ones are truly worth the investment. That is where the team at LocalBoats.net can be of assistance. Weve investigated many of the yacht rental companies out there and can tell our readers which yachts will fit their needs and give them a memorable experience. We want our readers to be able to rely on us to help them make the right choice when it comes to yacht rentals and the boating scene. Not only do we want to help make sure they have fun, but we want to assist them in getting the best return on their investment as well. Those who are interested in yacht charters can Find boats to rent in Miami BVI San Diego San Francisco and more at http://LocalBoats.net. About LocalBoats.net: LocalBoats.net is a website dedicated to the latest news and information about yacht rentals, sales, and the scene. The website focuses on major coastal cities in the U.S. and around the world, including Miami, San Diego, San Francisco, and the British Virgin Islands. The team behind LocalBoats.net is passionate about life and luxury on the water and wants to help others find the best rental opportunities that will give them the best return on their boat rental investment. Send an email to John Smith of r (970) 316-5755 Recent Press Releases By The Same User ShapeHost Launches New Spring Sale Offering Savings Of Up To 35% On VPS Packages (Tue 8th Mar 16) Paypro Finance Launches their Consumer Financing for Small Business Program (Mon 7th Mar 16) Kuber Ventures Publishes New Infographic To Show Difference Between EIS for Pensions and SIPP (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Pregnancy Exercise Publishes New Guide Into Training For Fitness While Pregnant (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Centex Hosting Launches Newly Redesigned Website To Herald Expansion Into VPS Hosting (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Royal Cliff Receives ISO 22000 Food Safety Management Certification (Wed 2nd Mar 16) ShiftWeb Solutions Announces Free Small Business Online Marketing Consultations Available through their website at https://shiftwebsolutions.com, consultations are designed to help business owners increase website traffic and generate more business profits. Atlanta, GA -- February 19, 2016 (FPRC) -- According to recently-published statistics on local search, 97 percent of consumers research a business, product, or service online before they spend any money on it. Fifty percent of the people who conduct these local searches end up visiting a business within 24 hours. Of those who visit, 18 percent will end up making a purchase. It is with these statistics in mind that ShiftWeb Solutions, an Atlanta-based firm providing top-notch web design and SEO services for companies, is announcing that they are now providing free online marketing consultations for small business owners. The aim of these consultations is to help businesses get more traffic to their websites, which will in turn help to increase their overall profits. Sinoun Chea, a representative of ShiftWeb Solutions, stated It is clear that local search has become extremely important to small businesses. Increasing their web presence and getting seen online is the key to increased brand awareness and better profits for business owners. Unfortunately, web design, search engine optimization, and online reputation management can be both cumbersome and confusing for business owners, especially if they dont have a background in technology or Internet marketing. Thats where our free consultations can help. Chea goes on to say, As a top-tier web design company in Atlanta, GA , we understand how both website design and SEO techniques play into a business ability to expand their online presence. The free consultations we provide are comprehensive and specific to the clients particular industry. Throughout the meeting, well give business owners specific steps on how they can increase traffic through mobile-friendly design and proper search engine optimization. We then show them how ShiftWeb Solutions can help them conquer both of these things without the frustration and expense that often results from business owners trying to tackle them on their own. Chea believes that when small businesses thrive, so do the surrounding communities. "The best way for us to serve the people in Atlanta and the cities around the nation is to ensure small business owners are equipped for long-term success. Getting a free consultation from an Atlanta, GA SEO company with a highly experienced team of professionals will give business owners the tools they need to stay competitive in this digital era. About ShiftWeb Solutions: ShiftWeb Solutions provides top-notch web design and SEO services for small businesses. Based in the local community of Atlanta, Georgia with a national roster of clients, their team wholeheartedly believes that small businesses are important for the growth of the economy, community, and society, and they allow that belief to fuel their passion. From real estate agents to brick and mortars, from artists to attorneys, from non-profits to individuals, ShiftWeb Solutions loves to work with anyone who sees the benefit of having an online presence. Send an email to Sinoun Chea of r (404) 590-2133 Recent Press Releases By The Same User ShapeHost Launches New Spring Sale Offering Savings Of Up To 35% On VPS Packages (Tue 8th Mar 16) Paypro Finance Launches their Consumer Financing for Small Business Program (Mon 7th Mar 16) Kuber Ventures Publishes New Infographic To Show Difference Between EIS for Pensions and SIPP (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Pregnancy Exercise Publishes New Guide Into Training For Fitness While Pregnant (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Centex Hosting Launches Newly Redesigned Website To Herald Expansion Into VPS Hosting (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Royal Cliff Receives ISO 22000 Food Safety Management Certification (Wed 2nd Mar 16) Tesla Electric Introduces 24-Hour Emergency Services To Better Serve Customers Those who need emergency assistance will now be able to take advantage of Tesla's around-the-clock availability, reports TeslaElectricPro.com Atlanta, GA -- February 19, 2016 (FPRC) -- Tesla Electric, a commercial, industrial, and residential electrician in Atlanta, GA , is introducing their 24-hour emergency services to customers in Atlanta and the surrounding areas. Being able to offer the help of an experienced technician during electrical emergencies will allow the company to better serve both current and future customers. Those who are interested in learning more about Tesla Electric or taking advantage of their after-hours services should visit www.teslaelectricpro.com. Bill Way, a representative of Tesla Electric, stated Power outages and other electrical problems are commonplace. Many of them tend to happen at the worst times, like after the electrician is closed for business for the day. Unfortunately, when outages are due to damaged wiring, fuse boxes are not working properly, or a fire hazard has been created, it isnt a good idea to wait around to see what happens. Doing so can put a home or commercial building and the people in it in even greater danger and lead to more costly problems in the future. With the introduction of our emergency services, home and business owners no longer have to wait around for help hoping that the problem doesnt lead to a disaster before they can get it fixed. As Way goes on to say, There are a plethora of reasons why someone may need to call an electrician in Atlanta, GA late at night, before business hours, or even on a weekend day. Perhaps their appliances have become unresponsive, a generator has failed, or blown fuses have finally become a regular issue. Our team here at Tesla Electric can take care of all of these things and more, even when the problem was an unexpected one. Home and business owners never have to worry about being without the power they need or about their safety being in danger because of electrical issues. Our goal is to get help for home or business owners who are experiencing electrical problems as soon as possible. We know that its tough to function without electricity and that wire damage and other issues need to be taken care of without delay. Offering emergency services to our customers is just another way that we can better serve them and let them know that we are never more than a phone call away whenever they may have need of an Atlanta, GA electrician . About Tesla Electric: As a full service electrical contractor in Atlanta, Tesla Electric has provided high-quality, cost-effective services across a wide array of electrical jobs. Their competitive pricing combined with our mission of providing outstanding results has kept their clients happy and satisfied. Tesla trains their staff on trends and new technologies in the electrical industry so that their skill sets become wider and stronger. That way, the company can attend to just about any type of electrical job that Atlanta residents ask of them. Send an email to Bill Way of r (770) 691-0866 Recent Press Releases By The Same User ShapeHost Launches New Spring Sale Offering Savings Of Up To 35% On VPS Packages (Tue 8th Mar 16) Paypro Finance Launches their Consumer Financing for Small Business Program (Mon 7th Mar 16) Kuber Ventures Publishes New Infographic To Show Difference Between EIS for Pensions and SIPP (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Pregnancy Exercise Publishes New Guide Into Training For Fitness While Pregnant (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Centex Hosting Launches Newly Redesigned Website To Herald Expansion Into VPS Hosting (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Royal Cliff Receives ISO 22000 Food Safety Management Certification (Wed 2nd Mar 16) Jag Virk Criminal Lawyer Publishes Information on Aggravated Indecent Assault Sexual assault is a much discussed topic lately. Jag Virk, an expert on sexual assault cases who has never lost a sexual assault trial, was interviewed on CBC radio to give his opinions. Toronto, ON -- February 19, 2016 (FPRC) -- Andrea Constand, a local Toronto woman, remains plastered all over the news, as she filed charges against the famous comedian Bill Cosby for aggravated indecent assault. The charges were filed just days prior to the statute of limitations running out, and Mr. Cosby, if convicted, faces up to ten years in jail and a $25,000 fine. In addition, he will be required to register as a sex offender for a period of time in the event he is found guilty. Mr. Cosby has obtained legal representation to fight these charges, and anyone who finds they are in a similar situation should do the same. "Sexual assault charges need to be taken seriously at all times, as they are often a matter of he said/she said. Proving one's innocence can be difficult, especially when there was consensual sexual activity. Individuals need to hire a Toronto Criminal Lawyer to ensure they are able to properly fight these charges and prove their innocence. We have a solid team ready to help in this situation, and the initial consultation is always free," Jag Virk, founder of Jag Virk Criminal Lawyers, advises. In Canada, a criminal sexual summary offence comes with a punishment of up to 18 months of imprisonment and, when the complainant is under the age of sixteen, the court imposes a ninety-day minimum sentence. For criminal sexual indictable offences, the defendant may be imprisoned for a period of up to ten years, with a minimum one-year sentence being imposed in those cases where the complainant was under the age of sixteen when the crime took place. When a designated sexual offence, as outlined by the Criminal Code, is part of the charges, the defendant must also register with the National Sex Offender Registry for a period of time. "Individuals need to understand the seriousness of these crimes and ensure they obtain legal advice. As there often isn't any forensic evidence to support the accuser's claim, law enforcement will typically try to get a confession out of the defendant. Individuals should never talk to anyone without obtaining this advice, as doing so could have disastrous consequences. Our Toronto Criminal Law Firm works to ensure your rights are protected at all times and will help you avoid the tricks and deceptive approaches law enforcement investigators often use," Virk continues. One area of confusion for many is the age of consent, as it varies by offence and the age difference between the two parties. In most cases, 16 continues to be the age of consent, yet if the complainant is 14 or 15 and the accused is no older than 19 or 20, the complainant can consent in this situation. Be aware that days and months are included in the calculation when determining if there is less than a five year age difference between the two. An experienced attorney can be of assistance if there are any questions regarding sexual consent or any charge regarding a crime of a sexual nature. "Individuals who have used this firm in the past have nothing but good things to say about the attorneys and their staff. Sharp, knowledgeable, smart and educated are all words that have been used to describe Jag Virk, and a number of clients have commented on his competitive rates. Criminal charges come with serious consequences, and everyone deserves superior legal representation. This is exactly what Jag Virk Criminal Lawyers provides," Virk promises. About Jag Virk Criminal Lawyers: Jag Virk Criminal Lawyers works hard to ensure clients get the successful results they deserve through the use of the best defence possible. Convenient office hours, knowledgeable lawyers, reasonable fees and affordable payment plans are only a few of the many reasons individuals in the Toronto area turn to this firm when they need help with a criminal matter. Offices in Brampton and Hamilton as well for people looking for a Brampton criminal lawyer, or a Hamilton Criminal Lawyer Send an email to Jag Virk of r 1-888-JAG-VIRK Recent Press Releases By The Same User ShapeHost Launches New Spring Sale Offering Savings Of Up To 35% On VPS Packages (Tue 8th Mar 16) Paypro Finance Launches their Consumer Financing for Small Business Program (Mon 7th Mar 16) Kuber Ventures Publishes New Infographic To Show Difference Between EIS for Pensions and SIPP (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Pregnancy Exercise Publishes New Guide Into Training For Fitness While Pregnant (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Centex Hosting Launches Newly Redesigned Website To Herald Expansion Into VPS Hosting (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Royal Cliff Receives ISO 22000 Food Safety Management Certification (Wed 2nd Mar 16) New Lingerie Online Shop Established In Sydney The new website and online boutique, Ozqueen provides an attractive selection of lingerie items. The product inventory doesn't include items containing AZO. -- Ozqueen and founder, Yasemin Saatci Kenet are pleased to announce that they are opening a new lingerie online establishment in Australia. The Sydney-based firm sells Azo-free lingerie, which doesn't contain any harmful chemicals. The health benefits include reduced cancer risk. Most of the products are made in Turkey and comply with the product standards set in Europe. The Australian product safety standards are also utilised in determining the composition of the shop inventory. The inventory of the shop includes bras, panties, sets, sleepwear and other items designed to make a woman feel good about herself from the skin outward. The shop also offers a limited number of men's under-clothing items. The inventory is easily accessed with a range of colours, styles and sizes designed to fit women of all types. Finding a style preference by browsing the site makes shopping easy and convenient. Azo dyes is the name applied to a class of effective synthetic dyes, used to colour consumer goods. The affected list includes foods, cosmetics, floor coverings, clothing, leather and textiles. Of this large class, a small proportion of the dyes either contain or can break down into chemical substances called aromatic amines. Some of these substances, such as benzidine, 3,3'-dimethoxybenzidine and p-aminoazobenzene are considered to be hazardous. Organisational experts such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) have classified some of the ingredients as known or suspected human carcinogens. Studies have shown that some of the aromatic amines can migrate from clothing and leather products and may be absorbed through the skin. A higher level of the substances can be found where there is body heat, sweat or saliva. Rather than to sell items which may be problematic in terms of their safety, OZQUEEN has decided to ban any of the garments with the potential of AZO from the website. The selection of lingerie on the new website is still colourful and stylish. For more information about us, please visit http://www.ozqueen.com.au/ Contact Info: Name: Yasemin Saatci Kenet Organization: Ozqueen Address: 11-15 King Street Rockdale NSW Australia Source: http://marketersmedia.com/new-lingerie-online-shop-established-in-sydney/104458 Release ID: 104458 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) Plus size fashion brand Announces Leap Year pop the question competition Plus size ladies have the chance to win A fabulous Scarlett & Jo Dress of their choice in their Leap Year pop the question and win a wedding dress competition being held by Scarlett & Jo. Deadline for entry is March 2nd, 2016. -- Curvy ladies are invited to enter into the latest contest sponsored by Scarlett & Jo. The entrants will have the opportunity to win: A Scarlett & Jo plus size wedding dress - A fabulous Scarlett & Jo wedding dress from the new capsule collection A Scarlett & Jo dress - Any Scarlett & Jo dress that is available on the S&J website The contest is being held to bring attention to Scarlett & Jo's commitment to empowering curvy women to look amazing in dresses that fit - full information can be found on the website: www.scarletteandjo.com When asked about the competition, Gifi Fields, CEO , had this to say about why people should enter: "Scarlett & Jo is excited to run this Facebook competition as it is a leap year and an opportunity to reward a fun and fearless lady who successfully proposes to her partner. Scarlett & Jo dresses are designed for curvy women, blending comfort and fit with a dash of romance. The first prize will be a stunning wedding dress from the forthcoming Scarlett & Jo Capsule Collection. Plus we are putting up an alternate prize which is any dress available on our website for our fans who are not proposing this year." Women can enter at www.facebook.com/scarlettandjo.The Winners will be chosen based on the first lady who successfully pops the question on the 29th of February and notifies S&J. The alternate prize winner will be chosen by Scarlett & Jo. All winners will be announced on Wednesday, March 3rd 2016. Those who are interested can sign up for the contest via the company website. Deadline for entry is March 2nd, 2016. Scarlett & Jo are a UK plus size fashion brand, located in the heart of London. The company is on a mission to make fashion dresses that look and feel amazing on plus size women of all shapes and sizes. For more information about us, please visit http://www.scarlettandjo.com Contact Info: Name: Mark Brown Organization: Scarlett & Jo Address: Coppernob, Colechurch House, 1 London Bridge Walk, London SE1 2SX, United Kingdom Phone: +44 800 689 0983 Release ID: 104399 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) DTLA Loft Space Announces The Official Launch Of Their Brand New Business Helping film and photography professionals find the right place to shoot, dtlaloftspace.com commuicates elegance and luxury for the industry Los Angeles, CA -- February 19, 2016 (FPRC) -- DLTA Loft Space is announcing the official launch of their brand new business. The company specializes in providing beautiful loft spaces for film and photo shoots in Downtown Los Angeles for local area film and photography professionals. Those who would like to get a glimpse of the los angeles loft shooting spaces that DLTA is offering should visit http://www.dtlaloftspace.com. Philip Sumner, a representative of DLTA Loft Space, stated As most film and photography professionals know, having the right location is key. Fortunately, we are here to take the frustration out of finding the perfect space to shoot. The lofts that we have renovated and decorated provide a beautiful urban backdrop for any film project or photo shoot. Each loft has been meticulously staged in order to provide an environment that is not only well laid out, but is also extremely well-designed. We want artists to be able to use these spaces with assurance that the setting will communicate urban elegance and luxury to viewers. As Sumner goes on to say, DLTA Loft Space currently has thirteen exceptional lofts available for professionals to rent for their shoots. While all of our spaces are equally as beautiful, each of them has their own unique look and feel to suit the needs of film and photography professionals. Those who are currently looking for loft space to rent can see a full gallery of each of our los angeles loft film locations at our website. We are proud to be launching these spaces to the local community and giving people a way to take their artistry to the next level. Our ultimate goal in launching DTLA Loft Spaces is to give artists an even greater opportunity to do what they love the most. We know that finding the perfect location for a shoot can be a difficult hurdle to overcome. We want to help the community of artists in Los Angeles by removing this burden. In our loft spaces, photographers, producers, and other professionals will find what they need to create the kind of art they really want to make. About DTLA Loft Space: DTLA Loft Space offers a great selection of beautiful loft spaces for film and photo shoots in Downtown Los Angeles. These units are located in a 100-year-old building in the Fashion District and most feature huge factory windows, brick walls, and original wood floors. Roof access is available on selected units and most all include a kitchen, bathroom, upstairs bedroom, and lounge area. Those who do not see what they are looking for are encourage to contact the DTLA Loft Space team to see if they may still be able to help. Send an email to Philip Sumner of r (949) 375-4740 Recent Press Releases By The Same User ShapeHost Launches New Spring Sale Offering Savings Of Up To 35% On VPS Packages (Tue 8th Mar 16) Paypro Finance Launches their Consumer Financing for Small Business Program (Mon 7th Mar 16) Kuber Ventures Publishes New Infographic To Show Difference Between EIS for Pensions and SIPP (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Pregnancy Exercise Publishes New Guide Into Training For Fitness While Pregnant (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Centex Hosting Launches Newly Redesigned Website To Herald Expansion Into VPS Hosting (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Royal Cliff Receives ISO 22000 Food Safety Management Certification (Wed 2nd Mar 16) Poynter Landscape Launches New Website With Portfolio And Educational Content PoynterLandscape.com features complete portfolio of previous work and educational content to upgrade landscaping Ballwin, MO -- February 19, 2016 (FPRC) -- According to HouseLogic, and online publication of The National Association of Realtors, having the perfect landscaping can add up to 28 percent to the overall value of a home. Even a few of the right landscaping upgrades can add 6 to 7 percent to the overall value. It is with this idea in mind that Poynter Landscape, a premier Ballwin-based landscape architecture and maintenance firm, is announcing the launch of their brand new website. The site features a full portfolio of the companys past work as well as educational content for those who have recently upgraded or are considering upgrading their current landscaping. Richard Poynter, President of Poynter Landscape Architecture and Construction, stated Theres no doubt that great landscaping is an asset to any homeowner. Not only does it bring immense value to the home, but it brings a sense of calm, order, and beauty to the environment for the whole family to enjoy. The design team we have at Poynter Landscape are experts at creating these types of surroundings. Our new website includes a full color portfolio featuring vivid before and after pictures of some of the amazing space transformations that weve accomplished for homeowners. We take pride in what we do, and the new site showcases that. As Poynter continues, In addition to a portfolio of our work, Poynter Landscapes new website also features details about our company as well as educational materials for current and potential customers. For example, we have a library of watering and plant care videos so that homeowners can learn to care for their new landscaping and keep it looking fresh and vibrant. We also educate visitors about landscaping design principles that will help them visualize and create the perfect outdoor space for their home. The new website really is a one-stop shop for everything that a homeowner needs to know about all of the outdoor elements needed to transform their homes. We want our new website to simply be an outward showcasing of our inward customer-first philosophy. We hope that current and future customers will find exactly what they need to help them create an outdoor space they will love and enjoy for many years to come. Those who are interested in learning more about the company and their services should see more details at Poynter Landscape at http://www.poynterlandscape.com/. About Poynter Landscape: Backed by extensive experience and an outstanding reputation, owner Richard Poynter and the professionals at Poynter Landscape Architecture & Construction have become a household name in the St. Louis area. They work with customers personally, one-to-one, to give their home improvement project the special attention to detail they deserve. Their team also prides themselves on taking a friendly, professional, environmentally friendly approach to every construction management job. Their uniformed employees are known for their reliability, and as a family-owned business, customers can trust that theyll always go the extra mile to make their vision a reality. Send an email to Richard Poynter of r (636) 692-4917 Recent Press Releases By The Same User ShapeHost Launches New Spring Sale Offering Savings Of Up To 35% On VPS Packages (Tue 8th Mar 16) Paypro Finance Launches their Consumer Financing for Small Business Program (Mon 7th Mar 16) Kuber Ventures Publishes New Infographic To Show Difference Between EIS for Pensions and SIPP (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Pregnancy Exercise Publishes New Guide Into Training For Fitness While Pregnant (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Centex Hosting Launches Newly Redesigned Website To Herald Expansion Into VPS Hosting (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Royal Cliff Receives ISO 22000 Food Safety Management Certification (Wed 2nd Mar 16) Oregon Woodsmen Tree Service Launches New Website Promoting Proactive Tree Care Providing education on proper care and maintenance helps keep properties appealing and damage at a minimum, publishes oregonwoodsmen.com Rickreall, OR -- February 19, 2016 (FPRC) -- According to reports released by the insurance sector, storms are responsible for an estimated $12 billion in damages annually, much of this accredited to falling trees. While home and auto insurance typically applies in such cases, policy holders often face a number of blurred lines where coverage is concerned. With the resulting lofty confusion levels in mind, Oregon Woodsmen Tree Service, LLC owner Ryan Sims has launched a new website geared toward educating area property owners on tree care and maintenance. Said Sims, "I take pride in providing our customers with high quality work, quick response time, and affordable rates. At Oregon Woodsmen Tree Service, we value our reputation and believe in building good, honest relationships with our customers. We promise to put their needs, their trees, and their property first." Oregon Woodsmen provides a range of services, such as Tree Trimming, pruning and shaping. Though removal is considered a last option in most scenarios, this is also available. The company additionally offers tree planting, stump grinding, brush chipping and cleanup efforts following damage stemming from tornadoes, winter storms and other acts of nature. Inspections, assessments for damage potential and advice regarding optimal placement of new trees are likewise afforded as proactive damage prevention services. Each of these is further detailed on the new website. In addition to those services, informational articles are incorporated into the recently released website to enlighten local residents on each maintenance aspect. Topics covered include the negative impact of improper pruning techniques, differences between crown shaping and tree topping and the roles area environmental factors as well as individual landscaping goals play in selection and arrangement of new trees. Also discussed on the website are elements considered when determining if tree removal is necessary. Sims concluded, "Our line of equipment and knowledge of the industry allow us to cover all our customers' tree care needs from the top to the stump. We're dedicated to meeting the needs of local citizens as quickly and thoroughly as possible, and we're available around the clock for emergency situations. Our company is also proud to offer free quotes as well as military and senior discounts on our services. The primary mission of our company has always been to help customers keep their properties safe and beautiful, and with the educational resources on our new website, we hope to better meet those goals." About Oregon Woodsmen Tree Service, LLC: Oregon Woodsmen Tree Service is a full service tree care company serving Salem, Oregon and the surrounding areas. Send an email to Ryan Sims of r (503) 551-5141 Recent Press Releases By The Same User ShapeHost Launches New Spring Sale Offering Savings Of Up To 35% On VPS Packages (Tue 8th Mar 16) Paypro Finance Launches their Consumer Financing for Small Business Program (Mon 7th Mar 16) Kuber Ventures Publishes New Infographic To Show Difference Between EIS for Pensions and SIPP (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Pregnancy Exercise Publishes New Guide Into Training For Fitness While Pregnant (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Centex Hosting Launches Newly Redesigned Website To Herald Expansion Into VPS Hosting (Thu 3rd Mar 16) Royal Cliff Receives ISO 22000 Food Safety Management Certification (Wed 2nd Mar 16) M2M and IoT ecosystem market Worth USD 248 Billion By 2020 : Radiant Insights,Inc RadiantInsights.com includes new market research report on "Global M2M and IoT ecosystem market Size, Share And Trends Report To 2020 : Radiant Insights" to its huge collection of research reports. -- M2M (Machine-to-Machine) is the flow of data from a physical object to another, without human intervention. M2M technology has resulted in the opening up of a huge market opportunity which would benefit mobile companies, mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), service aggregators and others. M2M has also facilitated network connectivity among devices, initiating the IoT (Internet of Things) industry. While the internet had already connected devices to each other, human mediators were almost always required up until present. However, technological advancements will henceforth make the internet dynamic and facilitate a global network of smart devices, applications, vehicles, sensors, appliances, etc. that are able to establish real-time communication. Browse Full Research Report With TOC On "The M2M & IoT Ecosystem: 2015 - 2030 - Opportunities, Challenges, Strategies, Industry Verticals & Forecasts" at: http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/the-m2m-and-iot-ecosystem-2015-2030-opportunities-challenges-strategies-industry-verticals-and-forecasts Experts opine that proliferation of connected machines, evolution of analytical capabilities, and decline of economic and technological barriers are creating limitless possibilities in the M2M and IoT space. According to recent research, IoT will include close to 27 billion devices by 2020, worldwide. Higher affordability of cloud computing, storage and bandwidth, and higher speed networks, are enabling devices to connect to the internet, and with each other. Global M2M and IoT ecosystem market is anticipated to exceed USD 248 billion by 2020. To realize the full potential of the market, various stakeholders will need to work in synchronization. Key challenges for businesses to adopt M2M and IoT technology include security and privacy, interoperability, and lasting economic value. Browse All Reports of This Category at: o Public Safety LTE & Mobile Broadband Market - http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/public-safety-lte-and-mobile-broadband-market-2012-2017 o Android Smartphones & Tablets Market - http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/android-smartphones-and-tablets-installed-base-by-device-model-form-factor-country-and-region-q2-2012 About Radiant Insight Radiant Insights is a platform for companies looking to meet their market research and business intelligence requirements. We assist and facilitate organizations and individuals procure market research reports, helping them in the decision making process. We have a comprehensive collection of reports, covering over 40 key industries and a host of micro markets. Contact: Michelle Thoras Corporate Sales Specialist, USA Radiant Insights Inc. United States Phone: 1-415-349-0058 Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519 Email: sales@radiantinsights.com Web: http://www.radiantinsights.com For more information about us, please visit http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/the-m2m-and-iot-ecosystem-2015-2030-opportunities-challenges-strategies-industry-verticals-and-forecasts Contact Info: Name: Michelle Thoras Email: sales@radiantinsights.com Organization: Radiant Insights, Inc. Address: 28 2nd Street Phone: 14153490054 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/m2m-and-iot-ecosystem-market-worth-usd-248-billion-by-2020-radiant-insightsinc/104496 Release ID: 104496 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) China Battery Industry Size, Share And Growth Report By 2017 : Radiant Insights,Inc RadiantInsights.com includes new market research report on "China Battery Industry Size, Share And Trends Report To 2017 : Radiant Insights" to its huge collection of research reports. -- China Battery market is driven by the requirement from rising downstream segments which include energy storage kit and electric vehicle. The Chinese battery market size is estimated to grow at more than 8% over the forecast period. The chemical batteries majorly used in China include lithium ion battery, lead-acid battery, nickel-metal hydride battery, and nickel-cadmium battery. Lithium ion batteries and lead-acid batteries are having steady requirement with large market volume where as the remaining two are having less market expansion scope owing to the performance, cost, and environmental issues of these batteries. The lead-acid battery production was more than 200 million KVAh in 2013, rising more than 15.0% from the previous year. Browse Full Research Report With TOC on http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/china-battery-industry-report-2014-2017 Opinion was taken unanimously by the five ministries of China on the promotion of standard development of Lead-acid battery and secondary lead market. They considered as significant one along with rearward manufacture abilities be eradicated, and settled at eliminating outdated capacities which failed the security of the environment. And also which doesn't fulfil admittance should be abolished by 2015. Hence, Lead-acid battery industry in China is going to be at a final phase of consolidation over the forecast period. Lithium battery consignment was over 4.760 billion units increasing by more than 18.5% every year. The credit goes to it being free of heavy metal such as cadmium and lead, thus these batteries are known as the green-product, and this is the reason different countries strongly encourage the lithium battery and broadly used for equipment of energy storage and for the electric automotives. Browse All Reports of This Category at: o China Child Safety Seat Market - http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/china-automotive-lock-industry-report-2014-2017 o China Automotive Lock Industry - http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/china-automotive-lock-industry-report-2014-2017 About Radiant Insight Radiant Insights is a platform for companies looking to meet their market research and business intelligence requirements. We assist and facilitate organizations and individuals procure market research reports, helping them in the decision making process. We have a comprehensive collection of reports, covering over 40 key industries and a host of micro markets. Contact: Michelle Thoras Corporate Sales Specialist, USA Radiant Insights Inc. United States Phone: 1-415-349-0058 Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519 Email: sales@radiantinsights.com Web: http://www.radiantinsights.com For more information about us, please visit http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/china-battery-industry-report-2014-2017 Contact Info: Name: Michelle Thoras Email: sales@radiantinsights.com Organization: Radiant Insights, Inc. Address: 28 2nd Street Phone: 14153490058 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/china-battery-industry-size-share-and-growth-report-by-2017-radiant-insightsinc/104489 Release ID: 104489 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) China Automotive Lock Market Share And Growth Report By 2017 : Radiant Insights,Inc RadiantInsights.com has announced the addition of "China Automotive Lock Market Trends, Growth And Forecast Report Up To 2017 : Radiant Insights, Inc" Market Research Report to their Database. -- Steady growth was shown by the China's automotive lock market due to quick development in its automotive market in 2013 with production more than 95 million units i.e. over 14% per year. The rate of growth practically was steady with respect to the production of vehicles in China. Because of the reality that automotive lock market, mainly products like cap locks for fuel tank, door locks for vehicle, and truck locks comparatively have less necessity on the skills for development of products and manufacture, the manufacture of automotive lock can save cost of production, mainly the material and labour cost. Browse Full Research Report With TOC On "China Automotive Lock Industry Report, 2014-2017" at: http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/china-automotive-lock-industry-report-2014-2017 Both, joint-venture brands and independent brand vehicle producers, now-a-days, select to make and assemble door locks of vehicles in China. With reference to remote control keys and central locking system merchandise automotive remote control keys industry and automotive central locking industry in China sustained a stable development in 2013. The percentage of remote control key and central locking collected in public vehicles increasing from more than 84% & 86% in 2012 to more than 83% & 89% in 2013, correspondingly. Obsessed with the vehicle intelligentization trend, remote control key and central lock have been the benchmark arrangement for medium and high-end model and yet few low-end model as well. It is predicted that by the end of 2020 nearly all public vehicles will have been equipped with the remote control key & central locking system. With reference to keyless device for entry, the percentage of unreceptive keyless entry system established in traveller car in China touched over 22% in 2013, by keyless entry system by full year assembling to a rough total of 39,94,481 sets which is over 2.2% points from that of 2012. Browse All Reports of This Category at: o China Automobile Axle Market - http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/china-automobile-axle-market-report-2014-2017 o China Multi-purpose Vehicle (MPV) Industry - http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/china-multi-purpose-vehicle-mpv-industry-report-2014-2017 About Radiant Insight Radiant Insights is a platform for companies looking to meet their market research and business intelligence requirements. We assist and facilitate organizations and individuals procure market research reports, helping them in the decision making process. We have a comprehensive collection of reports, covering over 40 key industries and a host of micro markets. Contact: Michelle Thoras Corporate Sales Specialist, USA Radiant Insights Inc. United States Phone: 1-415-349-0058 Toll Free: 1-888-202-9519 Email: sales@radiantinsights.com Web: http://www.radiantinsights.com For more information about us, please visit http://www.radiantinsights.com/research/china-automotive-lock-industry-report-2014-2017 Contact Info: Name: Michelle Thoras Email: sales@radiantinsights.com Organization: Radiant Insights, Inc. Address: 28 2nd Street Phone: 14153490054 Source: http://marketersmedia.com/china-automotive-lock-market-share-and-growth-report-by-2017-radiant-insightsinc/104502 Release ID: 104502 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) Thermalabs to Continue Devoting Potion of Their Profits to Charity Cosmetics Company Thermalabs has said that they'll continue with their charity donations 2016. -- Thermalabs, an American cosmetics firm that is best known for its self-tanning products, has promised that it'll carry on with its charitable donations program this year. Thermalabs is one of the most renowned brands in today's global beauty industry. The company came into the spotlight roughly two years ago but has been able to attain the kind of success that's usually described as meteoric. Thermalabs formulates and produces products for the cosmetics market at its production facility in Israel. According to Alex Howard, a marketing co-coordinator at the company, and Kristina Meyers, the brand manager for Thermalabs Supremasea sub-brand, the firm will continue with its charity program despite critics' arguments that this program was a short-term gimmick designed for marketing purposes. Thermalabs is dedicated to a cancer-free world. In fact, the company's formulations are designed with this in mind. This is the main reason why most of their products are based solely on either natural or organic ingredients. Statistics suggest that millions of cases of skin cancer are diagnosed annually around the world. A huge part of these cases are as a result of over-exposure to the harmful UV rays of the sun. By creating awareness against relying on the sun for a tan, and at the same time providing a cocktail of better, healthy alternative solutions, Thermalabs has been able to hit two targets with the same stone-throw. Thermalabs donations program was launched early last year and geared to give a boost to nonprofits that create awareness against cancer, as well as academic missions that were working towards a cure for cancer. The program has so far been a major success. Working in line with the company's guiding principle, to contribute to a cancer-free world - the program has furthered Thermalabs distinctively noble cause. As of last year, the company gave away 10% of their profits, and there are all indications that this will be the case this year. Thermalabs has made its name as a premier provider of self-tanning products, with a section of its products being bestsellers on major online marketplaces. Alex Howard, the company's marketing co-coordinator, said, "Despite intense speculation against, Thermalabs will continue with its donations program this year. The company made a firm resolve to do everything with the confines of possibility in order to contribute to a cancer-free world. Part of this involves producing the top-notch cosmetics products that we formulate and creating awareness of this widespread lifestyle illness. But doing just that is not enough. That's why we go out of our way to support others who share similar views and goals with our company. This program was designed to boost the activities of skincare nonprofits, as well as educational institutions or departments that have an active research mission towards finding a cure for cancer. We will continue with this program just as keenly as we continue to research on new products that will change the way you tan. So to avoid any doubts, this program is a go throughout 2016." For more information about us, please visit http://www.thermalabs.com Contact Info: Name: James McCarthy Organization: Thermalabs Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EHAsZCzOWA Source: http://marketersmedia.com/thermalabs-to-continue-devoting-potion-of-their-profits-to-charity/104387 Release ID: 104387 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) The co-managers of Liontrusts 531m Macro Equity Income fund claim they are witnessing the starkest polarisation in performance between different industries since 2008. Co-manager Stephen Bailey stressed that while positive opportunities existed, the continued woes in sectors such as energy had created a clear disparity between the markets winners and losers. The market hasnt been this polarised since the financial crisis, he said. Mining and oil have underperformed in terms of valuations, [meaning] value destruction. Supermarkets has been another area of huge disappointment, as well as utilities. So far 2016 has provided little relief for the energy sector in particular, with the price of a barrel of Brent crude oil falling below $30 in January, before recovering slightly. Companies in this space have been especially hard hit, with shares in Anglo American and BHP Billiton down by 70.4 and 53.5 per cent respectively over a year, as of February 8. This has led to concerns from the managers that companies in the sector may struggle to cover dividends, even by selling off assets. They currently hold Royal Dutch Shell and Total but are otherwise significantly underweight oil and gas. Mr Bailey said: It will be hard to satisfy dividend needs if you cant dispose of assets at the right price. This made it easy to identify areas of concern for investors, he added, but that doesnt mean to say there arent positive opportunities in the market. Mr Bailey and his co-manager Jan Luthman, who also work on the 69m Liontrust Macro UK Growth fund, do favour sectors such as healthcare, which they believe could benefit from an improving political environment. The UK equity income vehicle holds several large companies with exposure to international markets. Mr Luthman noted that political attitudes to the sector look benevolent, despite the stir last year when US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton complained of drug companies charging excessive prices. We are finding significant appeal in the pharmaceutical sector, he said. As drugs are moved to approval stage, we could see credible prospects for earnings growth. We also see a positive political environment. We are aware concerns have been expressed in the US election over pricing, but we think theres better understanding about the link between natural health and economic health. The pair also expect a boost to growth for telecommunications names such as Vodafone as big capital expenditure programmes wind down. As of December 31, the Macro Equity Income portfolios top weightings were 35.3 per cent in financials, 18.4 per cent in healthcare and 17.7 per cent in telecommunications. According to FE Analytics, the fund returned 25.4 per cent over three years compared with 24.9 per cent from its peer group, the Investment Association UK Equity Income sector. Total returns from buy-to-let properties have increased to their highest levels since November 2014, with regional rent increases overtaking those in the capital. According to the latest buy-to-let index from Your Move and Reeds Rains landlords saw total annual returns reach 12 per cent in 2015 or 21,988 in absolute terms, up from 11.2 per cent in the previous 12 months. Rents were found to accelerate into 2016, with annual rent increases hitting 3.6 per cent in January, up from 3.4 per cent in December, and making average rents 790 per month. The East Midlands and east of England led rental growth, up 5.9 per cent and 5.8 per cent. Regionally, annual rent increases in these two regions have pushed London to third place on this measure. Adrian Gill, director of ReedsRains and Your Move, said: Buy-to-let returns are building and property prices are picking up as the housing shortage across the UK intensifies. Landlords balance sheets are looking healthier than at any point since 2014, and property investors are looking at an excellent rate of return from their portfolios. Stamp duty premiums on new buy-to-let purchases are the rhino in the room everyone is talking about the 1 April deadline and the extra purchase costs are perceived by some commentators as potentially hazardous. But this is a little simplistic. Tony Catt, compliance officer at Anthony Catt in East Sussex, said: Good healthy picture of the growth in rentals but the attractiveness may well get hit by the removal of tax advantages for landlords and by the 3 per cent tax coming in for people buying to let from April. So these may well have an adverse effect on buying property to let in future. The fact that these provincial places are catching up with London reflects the dispersal out from the centre to the commuter belt. The nurses union has raised concerns about its members taking up a cash-for-pensions offer without proper advice. The Royal College of Nursings employment relations adviser said the news about one NHS trust offering newly-qualified nurses the choice of a higher salary if they opt out of the pension was concerning. The concerns are about the pay deal offered by Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust in south east London. Nicola Lee, employment relations adviser at the RCN, said: There are concerns about the impact on members of staff if they are not properly advised about the long-term consequences of opting out of a pension plan that provides both income in retirement and life assurance benefits. If a number of trusts were to follow suit, it would undermine the viability of the NHS pension scheme as well as Agenda for Change, the nationally agreed pay framework. The new pay offering is open to all band five nurses at Oxleas and will allow them the choice of taking either the standard pay scheme, or one that has an enhanced rate of pay, which means the nurse would not be a member of the NHS pension scheme. The trust would instead be paying the nurse the money it would have paid into the NHS Pension Scheme on their behalf. Steve Webb, former pensions minister and director of policy at Royal London, said the pay offer set a dangerous precedent. He said: The whole idea of automatic enrolment is that millions of people will benefit from saving in a pension and that this should be the default position. But this idea would be fatally undermined if employers start offering cash today on condition that workers opt out of their pension. Cash today is always likely to be more attractive than cash in retirement, but if this catches on, especially among younger workers, all of the progress made under automatic enrolment could be undermined. A spokesman for The Pensions Regulator stated that while it does not comment on individual employers, inducements are treated seriously and it investigate reports on a case by case basis. Our published guidance sets out our view of what constitutes inducement. The guidance specifies that an employer is in breach where their sole or main purpose is to induce workers to leave the pension scheme. Some cases may be less clear cut than others but in fact do not constitute inducement - for example, where employers offer a flexible benefits package and give staff a genuinely free and fair choice as to whether they choose to stay in a scheme or take alternative benefits. Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust has been asked to comment on their offer. A High Court ruling has hamstrung pension providers who block transfers if they think the receiving scheme looks suspicious, a lawyer has claimed. The ruling in the case of Hughes v Royal London centred on a pension transfer request made in 2014 to a new scheme. Royal London refused the request because of concerns about the status of the scheme and Donna-Marie Hughes right to transfer her pension into it. Ms Hughes contested the decision by complaining to the Pensions Ombudsman who found in favour of Royal London but she has now successfully appealed the decision in the High Court. Speaking after the decision Ben Fairhead, lead legal adviser to Royal London and pensions litigation partner at Pinsent Masons, said the ruling would have far-reaching consequences. He said: It will now be far easier for individuals to move their money from legitimate schemes, ultimately leading to a potential influx of money into suspicious schemes, as the hands of those being asked to make transfers are increasingly tied by the inflexibility of the law. This decision lays bare the problems facing pensions providers and trustees grappling with the rise of such fraudulent activity. They are effectively tasked by The Pensions Regulator and the FCA with trying to prevent pension funds disappearing into scams. The hands of those being asked to make transfers are increasingly tied by the inflexibility of the law Ben Fairhead Yet they will be increasingly hamstrung without a legitimate legal basis for declining to make the transfers that ultimately enable the fraud to take place. Ms Hughes complained to the ombudsman after Royal London refused to transfer her 8,359.71 Royal London personal pension to the Babbacombe Road 1973 Limited Ssas. The transfer application and accompanying paperwork was submitted by Bespoke Pension Services Ltd, who acted on behalf of Ms Hughes. The decision flagged up that Babbacombe is not trading at present, Ms Hughes was the only individual employed and does not currently receive a salary from the company. Ms Hughes indicated in her transfer request she had originally been contacted by UK promoter First Review Pension Services as she had expressed an interest in transferring her pension funds into a Ssas through which she could invest in places such as Cape Verde and First Review had introduced her to Bespoke. According to Royal London, Miss Hughes was cold-called. Until the ruling it was common for a pensions provider to request proof of an earnings relationship between the individual and the provider for the potential new scheme. In the majority of circumstances most dubious schemes cant satisfy this criteria, giving providers grounds to refuse transfers where they had reservations about individuals opening themselves up to potential scams but the judgment has removed that obstacle. A Royal London spokesman said: We take transfer requests very seriously and look out for the warning signs highlighted by the regulators and relevant guidance. Goddard Perry could take part in the consolidation predicted to take place in the master trust sector, according to Graham Peacock. The managing director of Goddard Perrys auto-enrolment master trust Salvus questioned how many master trusts would survive and put forward his firm as a potential consolidator. There are about 70 master trusts and some are never going to get the critical mass. A master trust has to be well-funded, it has to have scale. There are a few out there based on a basis point charge, so if they dont have the assets they will not get the revenue. Five years from now we will still be here. I am not sure I can say the same about some competitors. He added there are already a couple of potential consolidation deals it is looking at right now, stating a preference for adding assets, employers and members for minimal outlay. Earlier this month Goddard Perry merged its Spinnaker Master Trust and Salvus Master Trust to create a 10,000-member, 40m master trust. Steve Goddard, the companys managing director, said he expected only half of existing master trusts to survive. Meanwhile, analysis by the Pensions Institute at Cass Business School suggested by 2020 fewer than 10 providers will be in the premier league of auto-enrolment scheme providers. One of the areas where Mr Peacock said he would be interested in developing the Salvus master trust was employee benefits. He said: I have never seen a pension scheme being put in place without some sort of death in service benefit, but suddenly that isnt part of a company pension because auto-enrolment providers dont provide it. Yes, it is an additional cost, but we are looking at it. The pension could be the tip of the iceberg: there are all sorts of benefits, not just death in service and sickness; some have discounts on gym membership. Mr Peacock said adding benefits could help encourage employees, particularly younger ones, who have never had a pension to remain enrolled. Damage caused by the movement of bales should be minimised by its new Flexibal bale handler, says Swedish company Alo. Weve always known that moving wrapped bales is a tricky task, with many producers incurring wastage due to rips and tearing, says Graham Gould, Alo technical support specialist. He says it was the prevention of these losses that prompted the production of Flexibal. We responded to farmer demand by creating a bale handler with smaller rollers to allow easier access to bales when moving, stacking or feeding conserved forage. See also: Alo adds to telehandler attachment range It is particularly useful for bales that have become squashed in storage and are difficult to get to, he says. The new smaller roller is 89mm in diameter, compared with the current one which is 129mm. That allows for easier access for bales that have settled over the winter. The generous length and diameter of the rotating steel tubes mounted on two powerful stone fork tines means that bales are handled with precision, he adds. Also, the rotating steel tubes can be removed and the fork tines used for pallet handling (max 1,000kg) and a spike. Prices for the new Flexibal with small rollers start at 1,025 and the company says the new bale handler will be on display at this years Royal Highland Show and Royal Welsh Show. Three men who blackmailed a North Yorkshire farmer and forced him to pay nearly 200,000 have been jailed. Brothers Dennis and Bernard McGinley from Taunton, Somerset and horse dealer Christy Stokes, from Micheldever, Hampshire, threatened to kill the farmer and his family. Teesside Crown Court heard that the farmer, who cannot be named, lived in abject fear he would be shot in the head. See also: Four in court accused of blackmailing farmer During a terrifying ordeal lasting nearly three weeks, the 52-year-old farmer emptied his bank account, borrowed money from family and friends and even sold his tractor. Then he had to hire another tractor for harvest. The court heard the blackmail conspiracy began in August last year when Dennis McGinley approached the victim at his farm. Mr McGinley mentioned a previous incident in 2003 when the victim was conned out of about 110,000 over the bogus sale of a mini-digger by two men from Ireland, for a drugs run. He claimed to know the men responsible and outlined a plan for the victim to get his money back, subject to a 30% fee. The victim was forced to drop off money at car parks, from North Yorkshire to London, totalling nine deliveries. On one occasion, he was told he was going to get a bullet in his head and his whole family would be killed. By 3 September, the farmer had handed over 196,000 in cash. Having exhausted his own money and loans from family and friends, he reported the matter to police. The court heard how on 8 September, officers swooped on a travellers site near Taunton and the car park of the Hilton Hotel in Bracknell, Berkshire, to arrest the men. Police later discovered CCTV footage of gang leader Dennis McGinleys wife, Bianca, carrying designer goods after a shopping trip to Harrods to spend some of the proceeds, the court was told. In a a victim statement read out in court the farmer explained how he and his family had been terrified. My wife locked my daughter in a cupboard, we were that scared these people were going to come and get us if we didnt pay any money, said the farmer. Dennis McGinley, 40, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit blackmail and a transferring criminal property offence. He was jailed for seven years and fours months. The court heard Dennis McGinley had been released from jail subject to licence conditions part way through an eight-year jail sentence for a similar blackmail conspiracy committed against farmers in Wales and North Yorkshire in 2009 in which nearly 800,000 was extorted from a businessman. Bernard McGinley, 25, was jailed for four-and-a-half years, and Mr Stokes, 44, admitted conspiracy to blackmail and was jailed for three years and nine months. Bianca McGinley, 31, pleaded guilty to possession of criminal property and was handed a six-month suspended prison sentence. Judge Simon Bourne-Arton told the gang they had shown a complete disregard for the farmer and his family, adding that the effect of the blackmail would live with the victims for a number of years. Speaking after sentencing, Detective Inspector Mark Pearson, of North Yorkshire Police, said: I hope the outcome of the investigation, along with the significant prison sentences handed to the defendants at court, will help to provide some comfort and closure from what has been a terrifying ordeal at the hands of this despicable criminal gang. Police have urged other potential victims of this gang to come forward and contact police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. More than 40 Gaffney High students will compete for titles in the 2023 Miss Cherokeean Pageant being held this Saturday, Oct. 22. The pageant will begin at 6 p.m. in ... How should you pay for short-term financial goals? As you go through life, you will likely have longand short-term financial goals. But how will your strategies for meeting your long-term goals differ from those needed for your short-term... A Pinch of Salt: To vote now or to vote later that is the question The idea of individual ownership of the land is a recent development in human history. Early belief systems often viewed land as being inhabited by deities and the concept of land ownership by humans would have been seen as heretical. As far back as the Egyptians and Sumerians, sovereigns claimed land through their own perceived divinity. The sovereign ruler would then grant individuals, local governments and even commercial corporations rights of land ownership. Because these rights were granted by a sovereign, they could be terminated or otherwise ceded back to the sovereign at the sovereigns discretion. Most of the new world was claimed by explorers in the name of their monarch. The Spanish, English, French, Dutch and Swedes all laid claim to portions of the new world and their monarchs granted land ownership rights to various individuals. Towns and local governing units were also set up in accordance to and under the powers granted by these sovereigns. At the time the Constitution was adopted, the original 13 states, and governments formed from their lands (Vermont, Maine, Kentucky and Tennessee), retained sovereignty over nearly all the land within the newly established nation. Article 1, Section 8, clause 16 was necessary to give Congress the power to purchase property from these states for various necessary federal government functions such as forts, arsenals and dockyards. However, this provision does not apply to lands acquired by the federal government after the adoption of the Constitution. These lands were mostly obtained and secured by the federal government either by purchase (Louisiana, Alaska, Gadsden), treaties with Great Britain, Spain and Mexico (Northwest territories, Florida, the Pacific Northwest and most of the American southwest); and treaties between Indian tribes and the U. S. government. Texas revolted against Mexico before entering the Union and entered the union as a sovereign state, retaining rights to lands within the state that had been originally granted by the Spanish monarchy. And, with the exception of Texas (and later Hawaii), the federal government has retained sovereignty over the public lands in the states formed from these territorial annexations. Article IV, Section 3 of the U. S. Constitution gives Congress the power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States. This may be seen in various acts of Congress. One of the most famous of these acts was the Homestead Act of 1862, which granted an area of public land in the West (usually 160 acres) to any U.S. citizen willing to settle on and farm the land for at least five years. Other congressional acts gave public land to developers as incentive to build railroads. By the end of the 19th century, however, the settlement frontier days were over and federal attention turned to various other uses of public lands. Yellowstone was established in 1875 and Yosemite in 1890. The first national forest was established in 1891. It is clear from these congressional acts that public lands in most of the western United States have always been under the control of the federal government, not the states, and that Congress, not states, and certainly not private individuals, has the power to enact rules and regulations governing those lands. It seems that it's started a little bit earlier than usual this year. Every election year, the Democrats submit hate-filled letters, insulting anybody who might vote Republican and accusing them of everything but being in consort with the devil. These letters are filled with allegations and accusations, not a single one of which is ever backed up by fact. They are, to be polite, tiresome, and to be accurate, insulting. But they are never, never, never answered by Republicans with similar loathing, corresponding vitriol, or innuendo. They are answered by fact and logic. Tracy Rupp says that if you dare to vote Republican, you are a fascist, and you are decidedly not a Christian, nor are you a patriot. What are you then? My wife's Lutheran (Christian) church has a membership that would define themselves absolutely 100 percent as Christian. But perhaps 40 percent of them would also identify themselves as Republicans. Is that 40 percent, therefore, anathema? On a much broader scale, no Christian church that I know of endorses abortion; they consider it a sin. The Democratic Party does, however, endorse abortion; they consider it a woman's right. I take no side in that debate, but logic dictates, then, that one cannot be both a true Christian and a true Democrat. It's a contradiction in terms. But back to the point: If you can't write a letter supporting or opposing either party with nothing but insult and name-calling to back you up, please refrain from doing so. We already have Donald Trump; we don't need anybody else. John Brenan Corvallis (Feb. 17) David vs. Goliath To the Editor: The St. Pauls debate has been heavily dominated -- in the media and public meetings -- by sermons from save the building advocates. The latter group is... POAs start primary process open to all residents As previously announced, the four Property Owners Associations (Western, Estates, Central and Eastern) have made changes to their processes to nominate residents to serve as trustees for the Village Board of Trustees (BOT) and the Board... Now the time has come To the Editor: The Governance Committee should be appreciated for their work which generated several meritorious recommendations relating to the Village government. I was present when two members of Governance... School tax bill fiasco To the Editor: The county assessments are now in a 5-year phase-in program thanks to our past county executive's changes to the assessment process. Also, the Star program which once... Siegburg demonstrations : Right wingers demonstrate and are met with strong opposition Siegburg Over a thousand people were in Siegburg city center Thursday night to demonstrate on the theme of asylum politics. Teilen Teilen Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Tweeten Tweeten Weiterleiten Weiterleiten Drucken Members of the far right political party, AfD gathered for a political demonstration Thurdsay evening in Siegburg. Their motto: End asylum chaos keep our women safe and the future of our children secure. Their gathering began around 7:00 p.m. in the Siegburg inner city. Not far from them was a group of even more demonstrators opposing the far right political group. They called themselves Colorful Rhine-Sieg county and were formed from many different political groups, community organizations, and churches. At one point in the evening, some AfD followers called out Merkel has to go! Merkel has to go! On the other side, a politician from the SPD (social democrats) described the AfD crowd as 100 from yesterday while those united against them were 1500 from today. The AfD party strongly opposes the asylum seeker politics of Chancellor Merkel which made Germany home to about a million refugees in the past year. They say they are against uncontrolled immigration and the multi-cultural experiment and believe that the Chancellor has put the country in danger with her actions. AfD marchers were greatly outnumbered. They had around 110 supporters while around 1000 people demonstrated against them for a culturally diverse and humane Germany, free of racism and intolerance. One of the banners seen amongst the Colorful Rhine-Sieg county demonstrators was One World, One Future. Some of the one thousand demonstrators showed peace signs and were directed at the beginning to put on a colorful and peaceful display of solidarity without violence or provocation. Police put up a barrier between the two groups with a large corridor in between them to avoid any direct conflict. Marchers from the colorful side whose operating mode was to be loud but peaceful, tried to interrupt speakers from the AfD but the distance between the groups prevented this to have a major effect. The demonstrations went without any major incidents. clarajancita at 19-02-2016 12:56 PM (6 years ago) (f) Having traveled to many countries around the world, Ive noticed some of the most common mistakes travelers make whilst abroad. Thats why I decided to collect 18 travel mistakes I noticed people doing abroad to warn others. Keep on reading and always remember to research your travel destination before leaving. Having traveled to many countries around the world, Ive noticed some of the most common mistakes travelers make whilst abroad.Thats why I decided to collect 18 travel mistakes I noticed people doing abroad to warn others. Keep on reading and always remember to research your travel destination before leaving. Reasons Not To Do It France In fact, asking about money is impolite in many countries but French sometimes treat this especially critically. Ukraine People in Ukraine as well as in most Slavic countries bring even number of flowers to the cemeteries. New Zealand Honking in New Zealand is often used when intended to insult another driver pointing out that you strongly disagree with his or her actions. India Kissing or holding hand are also forbidden being considered as something highly inappropriate to do in public. Japan Japanese are proud to provide the best service as standard without waiting for the tips. Mexico Locals love to make jokes and they are generally fun and innocent, so treat it that way. Norway Many people dont go to church at all and such question would be rude to ask. Turkey This is an obscene gesture in Turkey. UK Such behavior is usually condemned. Ireland Locals dont think they have any accent at all. There are only accents of other parts of Ireland that they recognize as such. Germany People believe that the person may not live to the birthday if congratulated with it beforehand. Kenya Only do it after someone has called you by the name first. Chile Manners matter here. Singapore Also dont feed birds, and dont throw garbage and dont spit on the street. USA Tipping is obligatory and there are even rates of how much to tip for any service you use. Italy Of course, you can order it in the restaurant but in such case be ready for the surprised look of the waiter. Italians drink cappuccino for breakfast, thats the reason. Hungary Though its an old habit, some people still prefer to avoid clinking glasses especially when drinking beer. China They are believed to bring bad luck when given as presents. In fact, asking about money is impolite in many countries but French sometimes treat this especially critically. People in Ukraine as well as in most Slavic countries bring even number of flowers to the cemeteries.Honking in New Zealand is often used when intended to insult another driver pointing out that you strongly disagree with his or her actions.Kissing or holding hand are also forbidden being considered as something highly inappropriate to do in public.Japanese are proud to provide the best service as standard without waiting for the tips. Mexico Locals love to make jokes and they are generally fun and innocent, so treat it that way.Many people dont go to church at all and such question would be rude to ask.This is an obscene gesture in Turkey.Such behavior is usually condemned. Ireland Locals dont think they have any accent at all. There are only accents of other parts of Ireland that they recognize as such.People believe that the person may not live to the birthday if congratulated with it beforehand.Only do it after someone has called you by the name first.Manners matter here.Also dont feed birds, and dont throw garbage and dont spit on the street.Tipping is obligatory and there are even rates of how much to tip for any service you use.Of course, you can order it in the restaurant but in such case be ready for the surprised look of the waiter. Italians drink cappuccino for breakfast, thats the reason.Though its an old habit, some people still prefer to avoid clinking glasses especially when drinking beer.They are believed to bring bad luck when given as presents. Post Reply I am a metro reporter on Gistmania, I have been publishing news materials for over 5 years Posted: at 19-02-2016 12:56 PM (6 years ago) | Hero Air Power Vital to Counter-ISIL Success, Commander Says By Terri Moon Cronk DoD News, Defense Media Activity WASHINGTON, February 18, 2016 As the U.S.-led coalition's air campaign to counter the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in Iraq and Syria brings its capabilities to the fight, joint interoperability continues to degrade the terrorist organization, the commander of U.S. Air Forces Central Command said today. Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., who also serves as Combined Forces Air Component commander for Operation Inherent Resolve, briefed Pentagon reporters on progress in the coalition's counter-ISIL air operations via teleconference from an air operations center in Al Udeid, Qatar. The interoperability among the coalition nations is built upon "years of combined training and multilateral exercises [that have] been key to our continued success in the air campaign," Brown emphasized. "There is no doubt coalition air power has and continues to dramatically degrade [ISIL's] ability to fight and conduct operations," he added. While persistent air coverage continually exploits ISIL's weaknesses, "we are more effective today than ever before," the general said. "We're conducting the most precise air campaign in history, and we're able to attrit [ISIL] and its capabilities any time and anywhere." Targeting Areas for Defeat Targeting ISIL logistics, command and control and weapons manufacturing are some of the areas in which the coalition has had increased success, he said. "We've had notable success in targeting [ISIL's] financial resources," Brown said, adding that ISIL has been forced to cut its fighters' pay as a result of strikes carried out to disrupt its illicit financial operations. Videos showed Air Force and Navy aircraft using precision-guided munitions in airstrikes on financial storage and distribution centers, which Brown explained were planned to minimize collateral damage and to confine risk to just a matter of minutes. Since the counter-ISIL campaign began about 18 months ago, the coalition has expended 519 weapons and conducted 119 strikes on bulk cash sites, gas and oil separation plants and crude oil collection points, Brown said. Another video shown during Brown's briefing demonstrated how recent United Kingdom and Saudi Arabian airstrikes used four precision-guided munitions to destroy a weapons storage facility, limiting ISIL's ability to resupply its fighters, he said. The Iraqi security forces' ability to retake the city of Ramadi from ISIL control is one example of how vital air power is in the counter-ISIL fight, Brown said, adding that airstrikes also have been critical in partner-force operations to take back Sinjar in Iraq and Hasakah, and the Tishrin Dam on the Euphrates River in Syria. Persistent air power has halted ISIL, and its leaders and fighters are disappearing in large numbers, the general said, adding that the enemy fears the coalition's air power. "This is due to our operational reach and flexibility, our precision and lethality, and our constant presence and responsiveness," Brown said, vowing to continue delivering airstrikes to destroy and defeat ISIL. Russia Avoids Coalition Forces in Syria In Syria, where the Russians and the U.S.-led coalition already comply with a memorandum of understanding for flight safety, the Russian military has also avoided certain areas where U.S. special operators and coalition forces are deployed, Brown noted. The general areas in which U.S. and coalition forces operate was shared with Russia 'out of an abundance of safety for our special operations,' he said, adding that the Russians also shared similar information about its ground positions, such as its airfields in western Syria. 'We have made a request, and [the Russians] have honored that request,' Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said, following the briefing. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Military factors injected by US provocation in the South China Sea Global Times 2016-2-18 0:33:01 In an exclusive report, Fox News claimed that it obtained civilian satellite imagery which appears to show China's HQ-9 air defense system on Yongxing Island, part of the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea. Fox News used this as evidence that China is increasingly "militarizing" its islands and "ramping up tensions in the region." Many Western media picked up the news. They probably aren't clear about the differences between the constructed islands in Nansha Islands and Yongxing Island in Xisha. The disputes over the sovereignty of islands in Nansha are sharp, while the Xisha Islands are under the actual control of China. China has released the baseline of the territorial sea to the Xisha Islands and their sovereignty is not disputed. Meanwhile, Yongxing is the largest of the Xisha Islands and the location of the city of Sansha. Defensive weapons were deployed on the island in the past. Even if the presence of the HQ-9 system is true as the West has claimed, it is a matter of China's sovereignty and it is fully legitimate for China to do so. US authorities and opinion have paid particular attention to the "militarization" of the South China Sea, which shows the absurdity of US-style hegemonic mentality. The US, an outsider, has injected the most military elements in the region. It will reopen military bases in the Philippines. It also advocates its allies, Japan and Australia, to join its military navigation in the South China Sea. The biggest act of militarization is that it sent warships within 12 nautical miles of islands claimed by China. Facing more frequent provocations from the US military, China should strengthen self-defense in the islands in the South China Sea. The deployment of defense systems is not in the domain of militarization, as militarization of islands often means they are built into a fortress to become an outpost of military contests. Guam is a typical example of US militarization. In recent years, Guam has deployed offensive nuclear submarines and various missile systems which are aimed at deterring China, making it the new pillar of US military deterrence in the Pacific. At least currently, China finds it does not need to militarize the islands to cope with the other South China Sea claimants. As long as Washington does not inject tensions, China has no motivation to do so. Uncertainties in the future come from the US side. Once the US repeatedly sends warships to make provocations at Chinese islands and threatens the security of Chinese people and facilities on the islands, more military equipment should be deployed to counter US provocations. This is common in contemporary international relations. Once the South China Sea is militarized, it will only add to China's strategic costs. Therefore, China will hardly resort to the last choice. But China is not the decisive factor, as it is propelled to react due to provocations from the US and its allies. China is serious about ensuring stability and prosperity around the South China Sea and has invested enormous energy and resources. The region is adjacent to the route of China's "One Belt, One Road" initiative and China's efforts are eliminating vulnerability caused by a lack of security trust. Even if the HQ-9s are deployed on South China Sea islands, regional countries would not raise much concern as these claimants have no intention to fight for air supremacy. Jet fighters from the US, an outside country, may feel uneasy when making provocative flights in the region. To us, that's a proper result. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address USS Shiloh Holds Fast Cruise to Prepare to Go Back to Sea Navy News Service Story Number: NNS160218-03 Release Date: 2/18/2016 10:49:00 AM By Ens. Christopher Dawson, USS Shiloh (CG 67) Public Affairs YOKOSUKA, Japan (NNS) -- Sailors assigned to the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Shiloh (CG 67) participated in a 'fast cruise' exercise Feb. 12, held at Commander, Fleet Activities Yokosuka (CFAY), Yokosuka. A 'fast cruise' is a simulation of an underway period, including multiple drills and evolutions all conducted without the ship leaving the pier. The simulation is designed to prepare the ship and her crew to go back to sea after having been in dry dock for seven months. A sea and anchor exercise, an evolution designed to reflect the ship getting underway from the pier, begins the 'fast cruise' process. 'The sea and anchor was pretty hectic, as there were a lot of new watch standers and because it has been so long since we have gone through those motions,' said Ensign Kelly Maw, the conning officer for the first sea and anchor evolution. 'After a while, everyone settled back into a rhythm and the drills started to run much more smoothly. We had a lot of lessons learned, which will make our actual underway work that much more seamlessly.' Sailors also participated in a number of drills to include; loss of steering, low visibility, man overboard, engineering drills, small boat operations, Condition II ASW, and General Quarters. The day ended with an abandon ship drill in which the entire crew mustered at specified locations on the ship for each of their lifeboats. 'I felt that doing the abandon ship drill was helpful because before the drill, no one knew where they were supposed to go or what they were supposed to do if we had to abandon ship,' said Seaman Anna Rhodes. During the abandon ship drill, the crew headed to the Ship Repair Facility (SRF) building on base where a dynamic display of a lifeboat was set up. 25 volunteers from the crew crammed inside the lifeboat to see what it would be like when the lifeboat was manned to capacity. SRF workers had samples of the dry provisions inside the lifeboat that the crew could try. Cryptologic Technician (Technical) 2nd Class Dylan Philpot said that he hadn't realized the lifeboats were provided with food for the people on them and that it tasted better than he expected. The crew worked through some minor challenges throughout the day and finished the simulation with a refresher of what being underway is like. Since Shiloh's last underway there has been a significant amount of turnover for the crew. The 'fast cruise' simulation is designed to show the new crew the pace of underway operations to come. Shiloh is forward-deployed to the 7th Fleet area of operations in support of security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address USS Higgins Returns from Deployment Navy News Service Story Number: NNS160218-12 Release Date: 2/18/2016 3:09:00 PM From Commander, U.S. Third Fleet Public Affairs SAN DIEGO (NNS) -- The guided missile destroyer USS Higgins (DDG 76) returned home Feb. 11 from a 225-day independent deployment to the Arabian Gulf, Western Pacific, and Indian Oceans. While deployed to the U.S. 5th and 7th Fleets, the ship and crew of more than 300 Sailors, assigned to Destroyer Squadron Two Three (DESRON 23), conducted presence and maritime security operations in support of Carrier Strike Group Eight and multiple Combined Task Forces. During the deployment, USS Higgins conducted numerous Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure (VBSS) missions, participated in several joint and coalition exercises, and also responded to high priority missions during the first absence of an aircraft carrier from U.S. 5th Fleet since 2007. While on station in the Arabian Gulf, USS Higgins also rescued four Saudi Arabian fishermen after their boat had caught fire. The crew was able to retrieve the four men from the water and return them safely to local authorities, greatly contributing to relations between the United States Navy and the local populace. 'I could not be more pleased with the hard work and dedication from this crew,' said Cmdr. Allen P. Johnson, commanding officer of Higgins. 'I know we can all reflect on this time we have spent underway and be proud of the contributions we have all made to our nation and national security.' Higgins is a multi-mission ship with anti-air warfare, anti-submarine warfare and anti-surface warfare surface combatants capabilities; designed to operate independently or with an associated strike group. The ship is homeported in San Diego and is part of Naval Surface Forces and U.S. 3rd Fleet. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ghana, U.S. Conclude Africa Maritime Law Enforcement Operations Navy News Service Story Number: NNS160218-17 Release Date: 2/18/2016 3:40:00 PM From U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet Public Affairs SEKONDI, Ghana (NNS) -- Ghanaian and U.S. maritime forces completed Africa Maritime Law Enforcement Partnership (AMLEP) operations, Feb. 16, 2016. Operations were conducted from the Military Sealift Command expeditionary fast transport vessel USNS Spearhead (T-EPF 1), in coordination with the Ghanaian maritime operations center. The combined Ghana-U.S. efforts-an example of the Global Network of Navies-improved interoperability and both nation's capability to deter illicit activity that threatens freedom and security in the global commons. Quotes: 'We are immensely proud of a particular success our team activated this past weekend. For more than two days our nations tracked and trailed a potential pirate vessel transiting west through the Ghanaian economic exclusion zone. Upon notification, Ghanaian and coalition partners began working together to react to the illicit platform, using the Gulf of Guinea relationships and networks we together are devoting our energy to strengthening,' - Capt. Heidi Agle, Commodore, Military Sealift Command Europe and Africa/Commander, Task Force 63 'The rich resources in our waters create numerous important economic activities, and directly affect a majority of our population. In the interest of preserving these resources, the international community has put in place both legal and regulatory framework which permits states to take advantage of the resources in a rational and judicious manner to enhance the socio-economic wellbeing of their citizens. The actual implementation of this framework is both costly and difficult when taking into consideration the enormous size of maritime space of each state. - It is therefore challenging to police the borderless seas by a single state - That is why there is the need for states to collaborate and co-operate to protect the resources in the ocean.' - Commodore Mark Yawson, Flag Officer Fleet of the Ghanaian Navy 'The seas have connected people and societies for centuries and serves as a means for prosperity. The best way to ensure prosperity is through strong relationships, established in trust with a common goal of increasing safety, stability, and deterring illegal activities. The lessons learned and partnerships established over the last couple of weeks are invaluable and we look forward to working with our partners in the future,' - Cmdr. Tim Ferracci, Africa Partnership Station mission commander Quick Facts: *USNS Spearhead (T-EPF 1) and an embarked combined law enforcement detachment, working in tandem with Ghanaian Navy's Western Naval Command Maritime Operations Center (MOC) and patrol vessels, boarded two vessels and cited one of them for follow-on judicial action. *Based on registry data and other visual identifiers, the vessel that had violations was escorted and transferred to the Ghanaian Navy in order to return those vessels to port for further investigation by the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development. *Vessel queries and boardings were conducted with the objective to detect and enforce maritime law against illegal activity while also increasing proficiencies of the forces that are participating in the operation. *Another success from this year was aiding in Ghana's counter-piracy efforts. USNS Spearhead worked in conjunction with the African Western Naval Command MOC to locate, identify and hand off a vessel that was taken over by pirates and transiting the Ghanaian exclusive economic zone. *Maritime law enforcement violations are cited for operating in a restricted area. *The combined law enforcement detachment was comprised of U.S. Coastguard, the Marine Police Unit of the Ghana Police Service, Ghana Navy, and representatives from Ghana's Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development. *AMLEP is companion to and nested within the international collaborative capacity-building initiative Africa Partnership Station (APS). APS, like AMLEP, seeks to build maritime security capacity in order to increase maritime safety and security. prosecution so that African partners will benefit from revenue that comes from judicial processes. *APS is the mechanism by which international maritime forces - the Global Network of Navies - share professional skills, knowledge and experience to enhance collective efforts to combat sea-borne illicit activity. *Spearhead is on a scheduled deployment to the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations to support the international collaborative capacity-building program Africa Partnership Station. *U.S. 6th Fleet, headquartered in Naples, Italy, conducts the full spectrum of joint and naval operations, often in concert with allied, joint, and interagency partners, in order to advance U.S. national interests and security and stability in Europe and Africa. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Washington's destabilizing role in South China Sea People's Daily Online (Xinhua) 16:44, February 18, 2016 BEIJING, Feb. 18 -- After failing to get its way at the first U.S.-ASEAN summit in California, Washington appears ready to grasp at anything that could be used against China. And the media hype over China's deployment of a surface-to-air missile system in Yongxing Island, part of the Xisha Islands in the South China Sea, just provided Washington a much-needed excuse to once again criticize Beijing for its alleged role in 'militarizing' the region. For starters, China has indisputable sovereignty over the Xisha Islands and deploying limited and necessary national defense facilities on China's own territory has nothing to do with militarization in the South China Sea. China has repeatedly made it clear that it has no intention to militarize the region. Its activities are mainly for maintenance purposes, improving the living conditions for the stationed personnel there and providing more public goods in the region. With trillions of dollars' worth of goods traversing the patch of water every year, the South China Sea is vital both to global trade and to China's development. Beijing has no reason to disrupt one of its own crucial arteries of trade. Meanwhile, the United States, which has become fixated on the South China Sea since Washington announced a pivot to the Asia-Pacific, has been the primary source of destabilization in the area. It has conducted a slew of naval and air patrol trips in the vicinity of the China-owned islands, which is in clear violation of China's sovereignty, not to mention international law. In addition, it has also reopened military bases in the Philippines, in a move widely interpreted as stirring up tension in the region. Furthermore, some countries in the region are taking more provocative measures to press for illegitimate territorially claims ever since the U.S. put the South China Sea on its radar. If there were a ranking for destabilizers in the South China Sea, there's no doubt Washington would top the list. China's practices in the region are defensive in nature, and it sees direct talks between rival claimants rather than military means as the best way to resolve any dispute. For the sake of regional stability and the common good, let's hope the United States honor its previous commitment of not taking sides on the issue or stirring up tensions. Only then can the South China Sea be home to calm waters. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Fighting at UN base sheltering civilians in S Sudan kills 5 Iran Press TV Thu Feb 18, 2016 3:5PM At least five civilians have been killed and some 30 others injured during gun battles between two rival youth groups at a UN base sheltering civilians in South Sudan. The deadly incident happened after youths from the Shilluk and Dinka ethnic groups began fighting at the base in Malakal in the northeast Upper Nile region on Wednesday night. The clashes lasted into Thursday morning. The rivals used small arms, machetes and other weapons during the violent clashes. Meanwhile, UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) said in a statement that peacekeepers were now attempting to restore calm to the violence-hit base. 'UNMISS police in charge of maintaining order within the protection sites immediately intervened with tear gas to disperse the crowd. Casualties were brought to the international NGO clinic in the site,' UNMISS said, adding, 'UN troops have increased perimeter patrolling while physically securing areas in the vicinity of the Protection of Civilians site. UNMISS is also engaging with local authorities in Malakal to de-escalate the situation.' The UN base in Malakal is sheltering around 50,000 civilians out of almost 200,000 South Sudanese internally displaced persons (IDPs) sheltering behind the razor wire fences of UN bases across the violence-wracked country. According to reports, some 12,500 peacekeepers have been deployed in South Sudan, which has been wracked by the conflict between government forces and rebels since 2013. South Sudan plunged into violence in December 2013, when fighting erupted between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and defectors led by his former deputy Riek Machar around the capital, Juba. The conflict soon turned into an all-out war between the army and the defectors, with the violence taking on an ethnic dimension that pitted the president's Dinka tribe against Machar's Nuer ethnic group. Some Shilluk militia groups allied to the government, switched side to the rebel movement during the civil war. Despite the August peace deal, battles persist across the country. There are numerous militia forces that do not abide by peace agreements and are driven by local agendas. The conflict has killed tens of thousands and displaced more than two million people, with the UN-backed experts warning of the "concrete risk of famine" unless more assistance is provided and access is given to aid agencies to reach the hardest hit areas. According to the UN, some 3.9 million people - a third of the country's population - are in crisis which shows an 80-percent increase from a year ago. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address EU Summit Could Clear Way For U.K. Vote On 'Brexit' February 18, 2016 by Rikard Jozwiak BRUSSELS -- EU leaders are expected to strike a deal in the next two days to clear the way for British Prime Minister David Cameron to call a U.K. referendum as early as June on continuing membership in the European Union, according to diplomats closely following the negotiations. The February 18-19 summit in Brussels is the culmination of weeks of negotiations on reforms contained in a proposal submitted this month by European Council President Donald Tusk to avoid the potentially catastrophic departure of a key EU member in what's been dubbed a 'Brexit.' Cameron has countered Euroskeptics at home by pushing to keep Britain in the bloc if it can guarantee reforms that include increased power for individual members. EU officials told RFE/RL that significant progress had been made in the last few days and weeks toward a compromise acceptable to all 28 EU member states. But they acknowledged that the details would still need to be agreed among attendees in a session that could extend into the early hours of February 19. The agenda for the bloc's heads of state and other officials also includes discussion of the ongoing migrant crisis, although no specific decisions are likely to emerge on how to cope with Europe's largest wave of refugees since World War II. British critics have objected to a range of EU policies and quotas, but officials have particularly emphasized areas like bureaucracy, competitiveness, economic governance, and social payments and remittances. U.K. challenges to the European Union's commitment to the free movement of people are likely to prove especially contentious, with policies coming under enormous strain as Syrian refugees and other migrants pour into Europe on an unprecedented scale. Sticking Points The specter of possible exceptions for individual members has sometimes dogged the reform talks. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel lent force to British concerns on February 17 by telling lawmakers that 'these are not just about Britain's individual interests on some issues or questions; rather, it's about several points that are justified and understandable,' according to AFP. The most serious dispute, on benefits payments to foreign workers, pits London against a number of relatively recent EU entrants from postcommunist Central and Eastern Europe. Cameron has been keen to stem the flow to Britain of labor migrants and Tusk has suggested an emergency brake on benefits for EU workers in the United Kingdom. Some eastern members agree in principle to such a mechanism but disagree on details, including its duration. Tusk's original proposal also envisaged the benefits exception as available to all EU member states seeing a large influx of labor migrants from other EU countries, but a compromise could see that field narrowed to three countries -- Ireland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom -- who opened their labor markets to citizens of new eastern members when the latter joined 12 years ago. Another dispute concerns the possible indexing of child benefits for U.K. workers from elsewhere in the bloc. France has also signaled its unhappy with another British request that could allow countries that don't use the euro -- such as Britain -- greater access to decision-making in the powerful Eurogroup, comprising eurozone finance ministers. 'Taking Stock' Of Migrants On the current migrant crisis that threatens to rebuild borders swept away under the Schengen agreement, diplomatic sources told RFE/RL that EU leaders at the summit will merely 'take stock of the [migrant] situation without taking any decisions.' The prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia met in Prague on February 15 to discuss 'an alternative plan' to stem the flow of migrants to Europe by bolstering Macedonia's and Bulgaria's borders with Greece -- a move that some observers see as just the latest threat to EU unity on a fraught issue. Earlier this month, the EU gave member Greece three months to fix its border problems or risk suspension from the 'borderless' Schengen zone. Greece's neighbor, Turkey, is hosting millions of migrants who have fled fighting in Syria during the five-year war devastating that country. If there is a deal in Brussels, Cameron is likely to call a referendum in the United Kingdom -- which hasn't had a direct vote on a major EU issue in more than 40 years -- that could be difficult to predict. The European Union and the euro were buffeted by a sovereign-debt crisis in Greece that finally abated after public-spending and other reform commitments salvaged a massive bailout deal in 2015, but only after considerable brinksmanship and talk of a possible 'Grexit.' Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/eu-britain-summit- could-clear-way-for-brexit-vote/27559352.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 NATO's Expansion Toward Russia, Belarus 'Aggressive' Sputnik News 18:40 18.02.2016 Sergei Naryshkin, the speaker of the lower house of Russian parliament said that NATO and the European Union's policies towards Russia are not constructive as they undermine the principles of international law, global and regional security and mutually beneficial economic cooperation. MOSCOW (Sputnik) NATO's increased presence in Europe near Russia and Belarus' borders is an aggressive policy, which will continue in the future, the speaker of the lower house of Russian parliament said Thursday. 'The aggressive expansion of NATO military infrastructure toward the Belarusian and Russian borders, the sanctions policy violating international law, the West's interference in the political life of sovereign states, a massive disinformation campaign against our countries, unfortunately, will continue,' Sergei Naryshkin said at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union of Belarus and Russia. The Russian lawmaker added that the military alliance and the European Union's policies are not constructive as they undermine the principles of international law, global and regional security and mutually beneficial economic cooperation. NATO has been increasing its military presence in Eastern Europe and the Black Sea since the outbreak of the conflict in southeastern Ukraine in April 2014, in response to what it considers Russia's aggressive foreign policy. Moscow has repeatedly dismissed the Ukraine-related accusations leveled at it, warning that increased NATO activities near the country's borders could undermine regional and global stability. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Saudi Arabia ceases $3 billion military aid to Lebanon Iran Press TV Fri Feb 19, 2016 4:27PM Saudi Arabia has suspended a $3 billion package to the Lebanese army and the remainder of a $1 billion in aid to its internal security forces. The decision, announced on Friday, comes following recent victories by the Syrian army, backed by Lebanon's Hezbollah resistance fighters, against the Takfiri militants fighting to topple the Damascus government. Riyadh proceeded to 'a total evaluation of its relations with the Lebanese republic' in light of positions taken by Hezbollah, an unnamed official told the Saudi Press Agency. The Syrian forces, backed by the Hezbollah fighters and Russian warplanes, have recently made major advances against militants. Syrian government forces have been fighting a foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. Some 470,000 people have been killed and 1.9 million injured, according to the Syrian Center for Policy Research. The $3 billion package was provided to Lebanon to buy military equipment from France. The Arab country received the first shipment of weapons in April 2015. Saudi Arabia also halted the remainder of a $1 billion in aid for Lebanese security forces. The SPA statement said the Saudi official also criticized Beirut for not condemning attacks on the Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran last month. Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic relations with Iran on January 3 in the wake of the attacks which came amid demonstrations held in front of its embassy in Tehran as well as its consulate in the northeastern city of Mashhad by angry protesters who were censuring the Al Saud family for executing top cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr a day earlier. The cleric was an outspoken critic of Riyadh's policies. Iranian officials strongly condemned the attacks and arrested over 100 people in connection to the transgression. A Lebanese military source told AFP that the 'Lebanese army command hasn't been informed' of the Saudi suspension of aid. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Estonia Accuses Russia of Airspace Violation, Russia Denies Infraction Sputnik News 21:10 19.02.2016(updated 21:28 19.02.2016) The Estonian Defense Forces' General Staff claimed on Friday that a Russian helicopter trespassed into its airspace on Thursday, an allegation immediately denied by the Russian Defense Ministry. TALLINN (Sputnik) The helicopter was claimed to fly with its transponder switched off, without a flight plan provided by its crew or radio contact maintained with Estonian air traffic control. According to Tallinn, the Estonian Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador and issued a note of protest to the envoy in connection with the alleged violation. 'The Russian Mi-8 helicopter in the vicinity of the Vasknarva border post violated the air boundary of Estonia. It stayed in Estonian airspace for less than one minute,' the General Staff told RIA Novosti. 'The Armed Forces' helicopters did not conduct flights in the specified area on February 18,' the Russian Defense Ministry's press service responded. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Brazil, South Africa Begin Military Drills off Indian Coast Sputnik News 11:34 19.02.2016(updated 12:28 19.02.2016) Indian Navy said that IBSAMAR military exercises involving India, Brazil and South Africa began, for the first time off the west coast of India. MOSCOW (Sputnik) The IBSAMAR military exercises involving India, Brazil and South Africa began, for the first time off the west coast of India, Friday, the Indian Navy said in a statement. According to the statement, the exercises will end on February 29. The exercises are taking place close to Goa. 'The thrust of exercises at sea this year would be on Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW), Surface firings, Air Defences, Visit Board Search and Seizure (VBSS), Flying Operations, Search and Rescue and tactical procedures,' the statement reads. The three countries began holding the IBSAMAR exercises in 2006. This is the fifth round of the drills. All previous exercises were held in South Africa. This year, the IBSAMAR exercises will involve ships, submarines, aircraft and special forces. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Update: air strikes against Daesh 19 February 2016 British forces have continued to conduct air operations in the fight against Daesh Latest update Typhoon and Tornado aircraft of the Royal Air Force, operating alongside other nations in the coalition against Daesh, have delivered further precision strikes on terrorists in both Syria and Iraq. On Monday 15 February, two Tornado GR4s conducted an armed reconnaissance patrol over northern Iraq in support of Kurdish security forces. A group of Daesh extremists were identified in a pair of buildings south-west of Kirkuk and were able to attack both at the same time with Paveway IV bombs. A Brimstone missile destroyed a terrorist vehicle and before the Tornados returned to base a Paveway was used to attack a weapons cache. Meanwhile, RAF Typhoons alongside other coalition aircraft conducted a series of coordinated attacks on Daesh facilities. The targets included a large weapons store at Abu Kamal, on the Syrian bank of the Euphrates which was destroyed with four Paveway IVs. An RAF Reaper provided surveillance support to several of the other coalition attacks. The following day, Tornados patrolled over northern Iraq and came to the assistance of advancing Kurdish forces who were under fire from Daesh heavy machine-gun and mortar teams south-east of Mosul. Paveway attacks successfully dealt with the threat. On Wednesday 17 February, a Tornado mission interrupted a Daesh team preparing to fire nine artillery rockets, hitting them with Paveway to impact the middle of the line of launch rails. Previous air strikes 1 February: Two Tornados flew reconnaissance and close air support for the Kurdish peshmerga in northern Iraq. Near Kisik Junction, they used a Brimstone missile and three Paveways to attack three rocket launchers and a Daesh vehicle, then over Qayyarah, a further Brimstone and Paveway destroyed an ammunition truck and a mortar position. Typhoons operated in the area of Ramadi, where they conducted successful attacks on three terrorist strongpoints. 2 February: Typhoons worked closely with other coalition aircraft to target a group of terrorists manoeuvring in the open near Ramadi, hitting them with a Paveway IV guided bomb. The Typhoons then flew to the area north of Habbaniyah, where they conducted a Paveway attack on a terrorist-held building. Further north, a pair of Tornado GR4s bombed a Daesh mortar team that was firing on Iraqi troops near Bayji. 3 February: Typhoons and Tornados providing close air support to Iraqi forces clearing Daesh positions in the area around Ramadi. The Typhoons destroyed a terrorist building with a Paveway, then used two more Paveways to engage a pair of Daesh groups, armed with heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, which were engaged in close combat with Iraqi troops. Despite the proximity of the friendly forces, the precision of the Paveways and careful planning by the aircrew allowed both targets to be struck successfully. The Tornados similarly had to attack a series of Daesh positions close to Iraqi forces, and these were also highly successful: Paveway attacks accounted for four groups of terrorist fighters, including one heavy machine-gun and two mortar teams, and when machine-gunners opened fire on the Iraqis from the windows of a single storey building, the Tornados launched a pair of Brimstone missiles which accurately struck both windows. Later in the day, Typhoons used a Paveway to destroy a mechanical excavator which had been converted into a large booby-trap, positioned amongst trees next to a road east of Ramadi. 4 February: RAF patrols over the countryside around Ramadi and Fallujah. Typhoons bombed three Daesh positions, as well as a group of terrorists caught moving in the open, whilst Tornado GR4s again attacked extremists engaged in very close combat with Iraqi forces; Paveways were used to destroy a heavy machine-gun team and a strongpoint, but in one instance, the terrorists were so close to the Iraqi troops that even a Paveway could not be used safely. Fortunately, the Brimstone missile's precision and small warhead allowed one to be fired into the midst of the Daesh fighters to significant effect. The following day, Typhoons operated around Habbaniyah and Ramadi, using eight Paveways to destroy an armed truck, a recoilless gun, two Daesh-held buildings, a command and control position, two weapons caches and a workshop producing truck-bombs. 7 February: Tornados used a Brimstone missile to destroy a truck-bomb near Habbaniyah, while Typhoon missions near Ramadi successfully attacked a garage containing an armed pick-up truck which was firing through the doorway at advancing Iraqi soldiers, and a terrorist-held building. Throughout all these missions, the Typhoons and Tornados were supported by a Voyager air refuelling tanker, with Sentinel aircraft providing essential strategic surveillance support to the coalition. 9 February: A pair of Typhoon FGR4s, supported by an RAF Voyager air refuelling tanker, destroyed an armoured vehicle, converted into a large truck-bomb, blocking a road with a Paveway IV guided bomb south-west of Kirkuk. 10 February: Typhoons provided close air support to Iraqi troops engaged in close combat with Daesh extremists north of Habbaniyah. The Typhoons struck the terrorists with a pair of Paveway IVs. 11 February: As Iraqi ground forces clear the remaining pockets of Daesh within Ramadi city they are also turning their efforts to Daesh strongpoints to the north and east of the city, supported by coalition aircraft. A pair of Typhoons, working in close cooperation with a coalition surveillance aircraft, successfully conducted two Paveway attacks on groups of terrorist fighters. Later that day, a second Typhoon mission over the area used Paveways to destroy a heavy machine-gun position and an accommodation block used by Daesh. 12 February: Typhoons were also active east of Ramadi, bombing two groups of terrorists, as well as a team planting improvised explosive devices. 14 February: A Tornado mission successfully targeted a compound north of Habbaniyah, where around 16 Daesh extremists had been observed, striking it with a pair of Paveway IVs. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US Jets Hit IS Camp in Libya, Target 'Likely Killed' by Carla Babb February 19, 2016 U.S. warplanes attacked an Islamic State training camp in western Libya Friday, near the border with Tunisia, hitting their main target and killing dozens of terrorist recruits. Defense officials in Washington said the airstrike likely killed a senior figure in the Islamic State group, Noureddine Chouchane, who was linked to two major terrorist incidents in Tunisia last year: attacks on a museum in Tunis and a beach resort outside the capital, which together killed at least 60 people. The U.S. raid was aimed at a farmhouse on the outskirts of Sabratha, about 75 kilometers west of Tripoli on Libya's Mediterranean coast. The airstrike, launched before dawn, killed up to 40 people, local reports indicated. Most of the casualties were believed to be Islamic State recruits, according to American officials who asked not to be identified. The mayor of Sabratha said many of the dead were Tunisians who had recently arrived at the training camp. At least one Jordanian was among the victims, the mayor told journalists, and there were a number of survivors. US attack Friday's action was at least the second American attack on IS in Libya in the past three months. In November, a raid in eastern Libya killed an Iraqi known as Abu Nabil, whom U.S. officials said was the head of IS operations in Libya. Earlier this week, President Barack Obama said U.S. forces will take action against Islamic State in Libya 'where we've got a clear operation and a clear target in mind.' 'We are working with our coalition partners,' Obama said on Tuesday, 'to make sure that as we see opportunities to prevent ISIS from digging in, in Libya, we take them.' Islamic State has expanded operations in North Africa markedly during the past year, taking advantage of the chaos and political uncertainty in Libya since dictator Moammar Gadhafi was overthrown and killed five years ago, in 2011. The terror group also has been active in Tunisia, which borders Libya on the west. Tunisian national U.S. defense officials said the raid specifically targeted Chouchane, who was a Tunisian national, and did not represent the beginning of a major new offensive in the region. The New York Times reported that reconnaissance drones, satellites and other surveillance tools had been monitoring the walled compound in Sabratha for weeks before Air Force jets were ordered to strike early Friday. Chouchane was believed to have had a central role in an attack on the National Bardo Museum that killed 22 people in Tunis 11 months ago, and a bloodbath that killed 38 people in June at a coastal resort in Sousse. Foreign tourists were among the victims in both incidents. Tunisian authorities named Chouchane as one of five fugitivers they were seeking after the museum attack. The U.S. official who provided background details of Friday's raid said the airstrikes were focused on Islamic State's Chouchane, and did not represent the start of major new American war in a Muslim country. Air Force F-15E jets carried out the attack. William Gallo contributed to this report. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Obama's Asia Pivot Increases US Influence But Fails to Stop China by Brian Padden February 19, 2016 Five years after U.S. President Barack Obama committed to a strategic rebalance to Asia, shifting diplomatic and military resources to the globe's economic engine, critics say the move was oversold and, so far, it has under delivered. At a time when Beijing's assertive moves to claim territory in the South China Sea draw headlines and worried responses from regional countries, some say China appears to be outmaneuvering its rivals in the race to assert claims over the vast strategic sea. "As somebody sitting in the Asia Pacific region and observing the U.S. presence in the Asia Pacific, we've only seen glimmers of the rebalance," said William Choong, a Shangri-La Dialogue senior fellow for Asia-Pacific Security in Singapore. For decades, the U.S. Navy has protected key shipping routes in the Pacific. The U.S. Navy is still the supreme ocean power, but China has moved to enforce its claims and expand its presence in the South China Sea without putting its official military forces in the foreground. "China's cutting edge has been through a gray area of Coast Guard, paramilitary forces, and even the construction on the artificial islands is being masked as serving the public good, search and rescue, scientific activities, oil exploration, fishing," said Southeast Asia security analyst Carlyle Thayer with Australia's Defense Force Academy in Canberra. Reclaims land In the last two years China has reclaimed at least 1,170 hectares of land in the South China Sea, building upon small reefs, shoals and islets. This week came another reminder of their efforts to fortify their existing outposts: the U.S. said China appeared to have deployed HQ-9 surface-to-air missile batteries on Woody Island in the Paracel chain. Thayer said China already has more coast guard ships than all the other nine ASEAN nations combined. With the weapons and military infrastructure Beijing is stationing on the man-made islands being built in disputed waters, some more than 800 kilometers from the mainland, China is gaining both a quick strike capability and naval superiority over other countries in the region. 'In the past we have seen them conduct training in that part of the Paracels that involve this kind of equipment," Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook told reporters Friday. 'We still have significant concern about this particular placement at this particular moment in time," he said, adding the move only serves to make the current tensions worse. ASEAN'S muddled response The U.S. military has built closer ties with ASEAN nations, in particular Vietnam and the Philippines, which have contested China's territorial claims. That has not meant, however, that ASEAN has banded together to address the South China Sea issue. ASEAN, with its emphasis on consensus building and non-interference, has been reluctant to publicly stand with the U.S. to support any meaningful action against China. 'ASEAN countries haven't really asked of Uncle Sam what they want Uncle Sam to do,' Choong said. Still, American influence in the region has increased as a result of Obama's commitment to more fully engage with Southeast Asia and to personally participate in annual forums like the East Asia Security summit, Southeast Asia security analyst Thayer said. "Obama is leaving a legacy that a new American president would ignore at their peril," he said. US buildup In recent years, Washington has been moving more troops and military assets into the region and strengthening security alliances with a number of ASEAN members. Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, said the Navy has already brought its "newest and most capable" military equipment to the area, like the P-8 surveillance airplane, the Littoral Combat Ship, the Virginia-class submarine, and new amphibious ships such as the USS America. In Australia last year, over 1,000 U.S. Marines were deployed to the city of Darwin to join in exercises with Australian Defense Forces. By 2017, the number of rotational deployments will increase to 2,500. The Philippines' Supreme Court recently endorsed a bilateral security cooperation agreement that will station U.S. troops and weapons on a rotational basis at five Philippine military airfields and two naval bases. The return of the U.S. military to the Philippines is seen by supporters as a significant deterrent to China and comes 25 years after Manila voted to close U.S. military bases in the country at the end of the Cold War. Washington is also providing maritime assistance to other ASEAN nations, including Vietnam, which is receiving several refurbished U.S. Coast Guard patrol ships. These increased capabilities in Southeast Asia are complemented by extensive U.S. military bases and deployments in Guam, Japan and South Korea. VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UN: Yemen on Brink of Humanitarian Catastrophe by Lisa Schlein February 19, 2016 The United Nations warns conflict-ridden Yemen is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. It is urging donors to give generously to the $1.8 billion appeal it launched Thursday to provide critical and life-saving assistance to 13.6 million people, more than half the country's population. The U.N. reports more than 6,000 civilians have been killed and well over 3,000 wounded since the Saudi-led coalition began its bombing campaign against the Houthi rebels at the end of March of last year. The U.N. says more than 2.5 million people have been forced to flee their homes and are internally displaced because of the conflict and that 21 million need humanitarian support. Despite the situation, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick, says Yemen has become a forgotten crisis. He says Saudi airstrikes and ground fighting continue as relentlessly as ever, yet Yemen is being overlooked because of what is happening elsewhere in the Middle East. "I do not think it is helpful to compare crisis for crisis, but I would say that Yemen is as difficult and as dangerous maybe not in terms of scale, but in terms of intensity. It has only been one year since the conflict started almost. We do not need this to last the way that Syria has lasted because then it becomes embedded and something much more terminal," he says. McGoldrick says the international community must do much more to prevent Yemen from sliding into the same quagmire as Syria. He says he agrees the U.N. humanitarian appeal for $1.8 billion dollar is unlikely to stop the war, but adds the money will save many lives. McGoldrick says more than 14 million people in the country are going hungry and more than half that number are critically short of food. "The people struggle on a daily basis to actually survive. The economic sector, the banking sector has all but collapsed. The basic services in the communities are falling apart. There are over 14 million people who lack access to adequate health care and there are some over 3 million women and children who need nutritional support," McGoldrick says. The U.N. coordinator says aid workers have difficulty accessing many areas because of the fighting and insecurity, but that humanitarian organizations have shown they are able to provide critical assistance if their operations are adequately funded. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Death Toll at South Sudan UN Camp Rises to 18 by Waakhe Simon Wudu February 19, 2016 The international aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said at least 18 people were killed in armed conflict at a U.N. Protection of Civilians site this week, including two South Sudanese staff members attacked in their own homes. The report regarding the site in Malakal increases the previously reported death toll of seven, which was reported Thursday. MSF said the two staff members killed were workers at one of its hospitals inside the compound. MSF spokesman Marcus Bachmann reported that medical teams worked through the night to treat some 73 people wounded in the attack, the majority of whom had gunshot wounds. More injured people were arriving at the hospital Friday. The conflict took place between youth from two different ethnic communities - Dinka and Shilluk. U.N. Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) spokesperson Ariane Quentire said fighting erupted Wednesday night, with the young people using machetes, guns and other weapons against each other. The attack forced some 600 people to gather inside the hospital for shelter. 'Reconciliation and healing' In a statement Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the violence and called on all parties to avoid stoking ethnic tensions. He urged South Sudan's government and rebels to implement the peace deal reached in August, 'so that the people of South Sudan can begin a process of reconciliation and healing.' UNMISS spokeswoman Quentire said U.N. military personnel used tear gas to disperse the combatants. She said U.N. peacekeepers also stepped up patrols in and around the camp to contain the situation. Jacob Nhial, one of the internally displaced persons residing at the U.N. site said the fighters were using machine guns and Kalashnikovs to shoot unarmed civilians. Nhial said forces of South Sudan's army, the SPLA, are also involved in the shooting. UNMISS said the attackers were targeting people who are under the protection of the United Nations, a clear violation of international law. "Attacking U.N. premises and not respecting the sanctity of U.N. premises, compounds and people living in this compound being international or national workers or civilians we are protecting constitutes a war crime,' said spokeswoman Quentire. The UNMISS camp in Malakal hosts an estimated 50,000 internally displaced people. More than 2 million South Sudanese have been displaced since the civil war broke out in December 2013. James Butty and Marissa Melton in Washington contributed to this report. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Kenya Says It Killed Al-Shabab Intel Chief by Marissa Melton February 18, 2016 Kenya's army says it has killed the intelligence chief for the Somalia-based militant group al-Shabab, but the group is denying the claim. Military spokesman David Obonyo told reporters Thursday that Mahad Karate, also known as Abdirahim Mohamed Warsame, was killed along with 10 mid-level members of the Islamist group in an airstrike in southern Somalia on February 8. A pro-al-Shabab website is reporting that the report is false, and that Karate is fine. It says no airstrikes hit the camp. The U.S. State Department has offered a $5 million reward for information that brings Karate 'to justice.' It says he plays a key role in the Amnyiat, the wing of al-Shabab responsible for the assault on Kenya's Garissa University last April that killed nearly 150 people. Al-Shabab has carried out numerous attacks in Kenya since the government sent troops into Somalia to fight Al-Shabab in 2011. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Pakistan Probes Attack on Indian Air Base by Ayaz Gul February 19, 2016 Pakistan has formally initiated a police investigation into a deadly militant assault last month on an Indian air base and will try to bring to justice the "alleged attackers and their alleged abettors belonging to a proscribed organization,' counterterrorism officials said Friday. New Delhi alleges that gunmen with the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) militant group staged the January 2 cross-border raid on its northern Pathankot air base, in which seven military personnel were killed. The attackers were also killed in the ensuing gunfight. "Formal investigation has been launched after registration of the FIR (First Information Report). JIT (Joint Investigation Team) will investigate the case. The accused found involved in the offense will be brought to trial in accordance with law," said a spokesman for the provincial counterterrorism department in Punjab, where the police case was filed. The FIR said Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval informed Pakistani authorities that a group of four gunmen involved in the deadly siege had come from across the border. "While inside India, they had been making phone calls to Pakistan and that the attackers belonged to a proscribed organization," it quoted Doval as saying and gave details on the phone numbers in Pakistan. The air base attack stalled efforts to revive bilateral talks between India and Pakistan after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi undertook an unscheduled trip to the rival nation in late December and met his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif. Provincial law minister Rana Sanaullah told reporters the FIR demonstrates Pakistan's counterterrorism resolve. "We have to show through our actions that we do not accept terrorism in any form and we will not let our soil be used by non-state actors acting as freelancers, who carry out terrorism anywhere in the world. We do not have any space for them in our country,' Sanaullah said. Pakistani authorities detained JeM chief Masood Azhar, along with several other suspects, and sealed offices as well as religious schools linked to the banned group shortly after the Pathankot attack. "We have requested India for more evidence, and if they give further evidence against Masood Azhar, or anyone else, then that person will be confronted according to that evidence,' Sanaullah said. A 2001 attack on the Indian parliament, which New Delhi also blamed on JeM, nearly provoked a fourth war between the nuclear-armed rival nations. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address China military able to detect U.S. F-22 stealth fighter jets, military expert says People's Daily Online By Yuan Can (People's Daily Online) 14:04, February 18, 2016 The Chinese military is able to detect U.S. F-22 stealth fighter jets, according to a Chinese military expert in an interview for a CCTV program. Several fighters from East China Sea Fleet patrolled around the Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the East China Sea after receiving orders that unidentified tracking occurred near the ADIZ on the morning of Feb. 10, according to a report on PLA Daily on Feb. 11. The report said that helicopters from a carrier-based helicopter brigade along with the carrier patrolled around the area and missiles were set on fighters on duty at nearby military airports which were prepared to take off for combat. However the report did not disclose which country the objects belong to or other relevant information. Some Western media guessed that the unidentified objects might be the U.S. F-22 stealth fighter jets. Chinese military expert Yin Zhuo told Asia Today that if the unidentified objects appearing near ADIZ over the East China Sea turned out to be F-22 from the U.S., it would be a good opportunity for China's military to practice its ability to find, identify and intercept stealth fighters. Does China's military have the ability to find and identify stealth fighters? Military experts said that new type of Chinese Phased Array Radar is able to fulfill this task. Yin also said that F-22 is not totally stealth and meter-wave radar could detect the fighter. Radars arranged towards the East China Sea are able to find the F-22 stealth fighter jets, according to Yin. Besides, airborne early warning and control aircraft like KJ-2000 and KJ-500 are also equipped with the ability to detect stealth fighter jets. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Obama to Press Human-Rights Issues in Cuba by William Gallo, Aru Pande February 18, 2016 U.S. President Barack Obama will raise human-rights issues and meet with dissidents 'seeking to support basic universal values' when he makes a historic visit to Cuba next month, White House officials say. Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said the two-day visit, which begins March 21, marks the latest wave in a 'sea of change in U.S. policy' toward the communist-led island. Rhodes said Obama would discuss a wide range of issues with Cuban President Raul Castro but has no plans to meet with his brother, Fidel Castro, the revolutionary leader who took power in Cuba more than half a century ago but has retired for health reasons. Obama said Thursday his trip would seek to advance bilateral ties and 'efforts that can improve the lives of the Cuban people.' 'This historic visit the first by a sitting U.S. president in nearly 90 years is another demonstration of the president's commitment to chart a new course for U.S.-Cuban relations and connect U.S. and Cuban citizens through expanded travel, commerce, and access to information,' a White House statement said. Cuban officials welcomed the upcoming visit and expressed a willingness to discuss any issue. The Cuba trip suggests Obama remains determined to push ahead with what he sees as a legacy achievement before leaving office 11 months from now. Since the historic thaw in ties was announced in December 2014, Obama has made steady progress breaking down diplomatic barriers with the former Cold War enemy. The successes include restoring diplomatic relations and reopening embassies in each country's capital. The U.S. has removed Cuba from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, and Presidents Obama and Castro have talked regularly and met twice. Using his executive authority, Obama has persistently chipped away at the longstanding U.S. restrictions on business, investment and travel in Cuba. The latest step came last week, when the two countries reached an arrangement to restore direct regularly scheduled commercial flights between the countries, the first in more than 50 years. Cuba slow to make reforms But while Obama has loosened restrictions on Cuba, progress on the Cuban end has stalled, according to John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council. 'The Cubans haven't really done anything, other than allowing more individuals into Cuba and making more money from them,' Kavulich told VOA. But Havana could be motivated to make some major concessions over the next year, Kavulich said, in part to forestall any future U.S. president who might want to reverse Obama's policies. 'Everything can be reversed,' Kavulich said. 'And if the only activities are some airlines traveling to Cuba, that's not going to be much of an impediment for a new president. So the Cubans now know they're going to have make some things happen.' Obama can also continue to loosen restrictions on his own. The biggest change would be to allow Cuba to use U.S. dollars in its international transactions, a move that could dramatically and rapidly stimulate the Cuban economy. 'That is the last of the big regulations that [Obama] has control of,' Kavulich said. 'He may be saving that for this trip.' Embargo remains in place But there are limits to what Obama can accomplish unilaterally. The U.S. economic embargo on Cuba, which has been in place for decades, can only be removed by Congress. Support for the embargo has been declining, but it still has widespread backing from lawmakers in both parties who say lifting restrictions would essentially reward what is one of Latin America's most politically repressive countries. Obama argues the embargo is a broken policy that has failed to spur democratic reforms, something he says will only come when Cuba opens up to the world. There is little evidence detente has led to human-rights improvements. Cuba has released some political prisoners and improved Internet access for ordinary citizens, but censorship remains widespread and rights groups say dissidents continue to be jailed at about the same rate as in past years. Nonetheless, there are hints Cuba is considering at least modest reforms to its rigid, one-party political system. President Castro has proposed term limits for senior leaders and raised the possibility of a constitutional referendum. Significantly, President Castro, who took over from his brother, Fidel, in 2006, has promised to step down in 2018. If that does happen, it will be the first time since 1959 that a Castro has not been in power in Havana. Sticking points remain, but US attitudes changing Other issues that complicate U.S.-Cuban relations include the American-run military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Raul Castro has said the only way for ties to be completely restored is if Washington returns the base to Cuban control. There are no U.S. plans to do that, but Obama is working to meet the promise on taking office in 2009: closing down the controversial prison at Guantanamo, which holds dozens of suspected terrorists. The American public does not appear to view its southern neighbor with as much suspicion as it once did. An opinion poll released this week by Gallup reports 54 percent of Americans have a favorable view of Cuba, up from only 10 percent who had a positive view of Cuba in 1996. However, Gallup noted the partisan political divide over Cuba has grown wider. While 73 percent of Democrats view Cuba favorably, only 34 percent of Republicans do the same. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Germany Records Lowest Small Arms Exports in Over 15 Years Sputnik News 20:35 19.02.2016 The export of small arms from Germany in 2015 amounted to $37.5 million in comparison to $52.2 million in 2014, according to German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel. BERLIN (Sputnik) The volume of German small arms exports in 2015 fell to the lowest level seen in the last 15 years, German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said Friday. According to Gabriel, the export of small arms from Germany in 2015 amounted to $37.5 million in comparison to $52.2 million in 2014. 'We have a decline of 13 million [euros], or 30 percent,' Gabriel told journalists in Berlin, adding that the German small arms exports in 2015 equated to 'the lowest in the last 15 years.' The minister noted that the government informed the public about the arms exports in an unprecedentedly transparent way in order to provide a basis for open debates on the issue. However, in September 2015, Gabriel noted that German exports of small arms and ammunition to the Arab region increased by 32 times during first half of 2015, compared to the same period of 2014. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address India Tests Nuclear-Capable Missile, US Looks the Other Way Sputnik News 03:11 18.02.2016(updated 03:13 18.02.2016) In a major sign of the country's growing military prowess, India has launched a surface-to-surface ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead. The test highlights Washington's hypocrisy when it comes to nuclear development. The Prithvi-II missile, first tested in 1996, officially entered service with the Indian military in 2003, but has had a mixed success rate. In 2010, for instance, a missile specifically built for testing purposes failed. On Monday, the Indian military launched an unarmed Prithvi-II randomly selected from its stockpile. While the missile missed its intended target, it did achieve the desired altitude and distance. In theory, this gives New Delhi the ability to launch a nuclear-capable ballistic missile into Pakistan. India developed nuclear weapons in 1998, but because they were not a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, few third-party countries would provide New Delhi with the missiles necessary to carry the weapons that could effectively deter an attack from Pakistan. The Chinese government reportedly aided Pakistan's development of nuclear-capable missiles. India's latest test means that tensions could increase between the long-time rivals, with both New Delhi and Islamabad capable of using the threat of nuclear warfare over the conflict in Kashmir. The United States has repeatedly discouraged India from developing ballistic missiles, but its response to this month's test is decidedly different from the one given in the wake of North Korea's recent actions. Earlier this month, Pyongyang launched a satellite into orbit. Washington fiercely criticized the move as a veiled attempt at testing North Korea's ballistic missile capabilities. 'Our concern though is that they do a space-launch but really it's the same technology to develop ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles],' a US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said ahead of the launch. Following that incident, President Barack Obama felt compelled to assure South Korea of the strength of their alliance. 'The United States stands in solidarity with the ROK [South Korea] and will take the necessary steps to fulfill our ironclad commitment to defend the ROK and our other allies in the region,' Obama told South Korean president Park Geun-hye. On Wednesday, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest announced that President Obama plans to sign a bill that will impose additional sanctions on Pyongyang. 'The administration is deeply concerned with North Korea's recent actions and their recent provocations, and I can confirm the president does plan to sign H.R. 757, which includes sanctions measures against North Korea and will serve to increase pressure on North Korea,' Earnest told reporters. Washington has given no indication that it will pursue similar sanctions against India. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Daesh used chemical arms against Kurds in Iraq: Sources Iran Press TV Thu Feb 18, 2016 1:52PM Takfiri Daesh terrorists recently fired mortar shells believed to have been filled with a chemical substance at Kurdish forces near the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar, leaving 30 of them injured, officials say. Nine Kurdish soldiers were admitted with symptoms including nausea, vomiting, itching and shortness of breath, The Associated Press quoted Dr. Afrasiab Mussa Yones, director of Duhok hospital as saying on Thursday. Although further investigation into the case is needed, the symptoms indicate the terrorists used chlorine, Yones added. Meanwhile, Colonel Lukhman Kulli Ibrahim, a Kurdish military officer, said he lost consciousness after the mortar attack, adding he struggled to breathe while his chest and eyes were burning. Chlorine is a choking agent banned under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, which prohibits all use of toxic agents on the battlefield. Earlier this week, an unidentified source at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said laboratory tests confirmed that Daesh militants had used sulfur mustard, commonly known as mustard gas, in Iraq. Blood samples were taken from some 35 Kurdish troopers who became ill during the anti-Daesh fight southwest of Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan autonomous region, last August. Sulfur mustard is a chemical agent that causes severe delayed burns to the eyes, skin and respiratory tract. Last October, the OPCW also concluded that mustard gas was used near Syria's northwestern city of Aleppo in August 2015. While the OPCW had not mentioned direct indications to Daesh, but with a high degree of certainty the terrorist group was behind the chemical attack, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. She further warned that Moscow possess information showing Daesh and other Takfiri terrorist groups frequently use chemical warfare agents (CWAs) in Syria and Iraq, where they have swathes of land under control. Daesh militants have been carrying out horrific acts of violence, such as public decapitations and crucifixions, against all communities, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, and Christians in areas they have overrun. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Canada to Assist Kurdish Forces Fighting Daesh in Iraq's North Sputnik News 18:56 19.02.2016(updated 19:16 19.02.2016) Canadian military will be training the Kurdish fighters in the north of Iraq preparing for the battle to retake the city of Mosul, Canada's Armed Forces Chief of the Defense Staff Gen. Jonathan Vance said on Friday. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) Canadian military will assist the Kurdish fighters in the north of Iraq to retake Mosul from Daesh, Canada's Armed Forces Chief of the Defense Staff said on Friday. 'In the month and maybe even years to come, as the Mosul battle develops, Canada will be with the Kurdish forces on key terrain to ensure that ISIL [Islamic State] is contained,' Vance stated at the Conference of Defense Associations. The general added that the Canadian forces will also continue to work on the coalition's train, advise and assist mission at 'critical terrain' in the north of Iraq. On Thursday, Ottawa announced that it concluded airstrikes against Daesh in Iraq and Syria, which is had been conducting since 2014. Now Canada will continue supporting the US-led coalition by providing aircraft for refueling and surveillance purposes. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address U.S. Dismisses Defamation Lawsuit Linked To Kazakh Family Feud February 18, 2016 by Mike Eckel WASHINGTON -- A U.S. federal judge has thrown out a defamation lawsuit brought by a close business associate of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev's former son-in-law, who was found dead in an Austrian jail cell last year. The lawsuit filed by Devincci Hourani was the latest skirmish in an ongoing family feud tied to Nazarbaev's relatives and allegations of extortion, money laundering, murder, nepotism, and millions of dollars in assets in the Central Asian nation. 'This case shows how small the world has become,' Judge Rosemary Collyer quipped in her February 18 order dismissing Hourani's lawsuit against Psybersolutions LLC, a U.S.-based political consultancy. Hourani accused the firm of 'assassinating his character' with a public relations campaign to connect him to the death of a woman believed to be the mistress of Rakhat Aliev, the ex-husband of Nazarbaev's daughter, Darigha Nazarbaeva. The woman, Anastasya Novikova, died in 2004 after she fell from the upper floor of a Beirut apartment owned by Hourani and his brother. Aliev served as a top tax official, deputy foreign minister, and deputy chief of the main Kazakh security agency. Beginning in 2007, however, after Aliev publicly challenged Nazarbaev's longtime reign, Darigha divorced him and prosecutors opened criminal cases against him. In 2008, a Kazakh court convicted Aliev of plotting to overthrow the government and organizing a criminal group that abducted people. He was found hanged in a Vienna jail in February 2015 after Austrian authorities charged him with the murder of two Kazakh bankers in 2007. Austria investigators ruled his death a suicide. Hourani, a native of Lebanon, was a longtime investor in Kazakhstan in the 1990s and 2000s, with millions in assets in oil, broadcasting, and publishing, among other ventures. His brother, Isaam, was married to Aliev's sister. Hourani has also accused the Kazakh government of expropriating billions of assets from his family's holdings in Kazakhstan. In June 2015, Hourani sued Psybersolutions in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging that the company defamed him by trying to link him to Novikova, Aliev's alleged mistress who fell to her death from the Beirut apartment. But Judge Collyer rejected Hourani's arguments, in part, she said, because Hourani had received prior publicity due to his relationship with Aliev and the controversy surrounding Novikova's death. None of the court documents indicate what Psybersolutions' underlying goal was, or whether the company, which the court said was registered in Wyoming and has an office in Washington, had been paid by another person or company. The lawsuit wasn't the first filed by Hourani in U.S. courts related to Kazakhstan. In a case filed in 2010, Hourani sued a man named Alexander Mirtchev, whom he accused of working on behalf of the Kazakh government to seize control of the Hourani family's assets in Kazakhstan. That case was dismissed in 2013. A voicemail left at the law firm representing Hourani was not immediately returned. Source: http://www.rferl.org/content/kazakhstan-nazarbaev-austria-killing/27560762.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 What a difference 5 years makes A Libyan town's downward spiral from revolution to Islamic State By Tom Westcott IRIN contributor in Libya TRIPOLI, 18 February 2016 On the fifth anniversary of Libya's uprising against Muammar Gaddafi, there isn't much to celebrate for the residents of Bin Jawad. Once at the heart of the 2011 rebellion, they have either fled for their lives or find themselves under the brutal rule of so-called Islamic State. Residents of the sleepy coastal town slowly became accustomed last year to IS militants fuelling up their trucks at the town's only petrol station or shopping for supplies at the local stores. They watched with growing anxiety as IS's reign of terror spread along Libya's central coastline until it stretched for some 300 kilometres and encompassed eight towns and villages, including the major town of Sirte. Made vulnerable by their town's remote location half way between Benghazi and Misrata and targeted for its strategic proximity to several of Libya's oil facilities, the people of Bin Jawad were powerless to protect themselves against their own inevitable takeover in early January. Many residents took flight. Nadia was eight months pregnant when she fled for the capital Tripoli with her husband a week after IS arrived. "I didn't want my baby to be born under such horrible circumstances," she told IRIN. "They were letting people leave but we weren't allowed to take any baggage with us, so I left with almost nothing." Double displacement This is the second time in 15 months that Bin Jawad's residents have been forcibly displaced. The entire town was evacuated in December 2014 for three months, when Tripoli government forces used it as a base to launch an assault on the oil port of Es Sidra, 30 kilometres to the east and controlled then by a former head of Libya's oil field guard, Ibrahim Jadhran, who operates independently from either of Libya's rival governments. But most of the town (11,000 according to a 2006 census) came back. This time, the displacement is different. IS shut down the town's telephone and internet communications within days of seizing power, so Nadia can only keep in sporadic contact with her family via letters sent with local people who drive 640 kilometres to the capital. It's the only place to withdraw money as IS shuttered the town's bank. "It's very hard for me here, in this big city with no friends or family," she said. "Every morning I wake up worrying about my relatives and the people of my town. Most people there cannot afford to leave and have no choice but to stay." For 46-year-old Mohamed, another resident of Bin Jawad now living in Tripoli, seeing IS carry disembodied heads through Bin Jawad is something he's been unable to forget. "They drove through the streets, sounding their horns and standing in the back of their trucks holding up three cut heads by their hair," he said. "It was terrible and I didn't want to watch, but I had to look to see if I recognised the faces of those poor men, to see who they were. I cannot remove this image from my head." The victims were security guards from a nearby village; IS later released images of their execution on social media. Mohamed described the move as a scare tactic to force local people into submission. It seems to have worked. He fled the following day, saying it was just a matter of time before IS started killing people from Bin Jawad. "I saw the pictures, and they slaughtered those men like sheep," he explained. "I used to work for the government, which IS hates. So if I had stayed, one day, one of those heads could have been mine." Mohamed said his wife and daughter were deeply traumatised from living under IS just for two weeks. "Every night I woke to find my wife weeping in her sleep and all I could do is reassure her she is safe now. I can't say anything else because I just don't know when we will be able to return home." Financially trapped With the bank shuttered, salaries delayed and the oil ports one of the main employers for residents in the region barely functioning for two years, many cannot afford to flee IS. "About 20 percent of families have left, but for those of us who cannot, we just have to obey the new IS rules," said 57-year-old Hassan, a Bin Jawad resident visiting Tripoli to try and withdraw money to take back to his family. "If you are captured by IS doing anything against them, you will pay with your life, so we do exactly what they say." He described Bin Jawad as a paralysed town, with deserted streets and few stores open. Lorry drivers are unwilling to take the risk of delivering into IS-controlled areas, so basic goods are already starting to run low. Despite cash shortages, Hassan said IS had begun charging residents for using electricity, a resource few have paid for since 2011. Although people in the town need food and medical supplies, as well as cash and petrol, Hassan said sending aid would be pointless, as it would inevitably fall into IS hands. Mohamed complained that neither of Libya's rival governments had taken any meaningful action against IS. "Over a month has passed and still no one has done anything to help. It is an impossible situation and Libyan people affected by IS would welcome international intervention, as it is the only thing that could protect us now," he said. "Military from the two governments here seem either unable or unwilling to fight IS and every minute that passes is a chance for IS to expand." Growing mistrust Among the many residents who can't afford to leave Bin Jawad, there is a growing sense of mistrust. Locals say people inside the town were clearly giving IS information before it took control, and some residents detained by IS - which has made more than 150 arrests in the town - have become pro-IS since their release. "While in captivity, they had a lot of religious instruction and some of them are now saying how good IS are, even though they were against them before," Hassan said. "We are a rural community, and some poorly educated people are vulnerable to being brainwashed into supporting IS. It is impossible to know who to trust anymore." He said militants continued to make arrests, capturing wanted individuals at checkpoints set up inside the town where residents are routinely stopped and quizzed, and their phones searched for any evidence of anti-IS activities. "People are basically living in a constant state of fear, of IS and now even of each other, with most afraid even to leave their homes," Hassan said. "IS have also seized properties for their own use and to accommodate fighters, and no one knows who will be targeted next." He described the early days of IS rule in Bin Jawad as following patterns seen in other Libyan towns a slow erosion of human rights, interspersed with violence. Armed militants with loudspeakers patrol the streets at prayer times. Vehicles, fuel and homes have been commandeered, women working in schools and the town's hospital must fully cover their faces, and the risk of arrest or detention is ever-present. Earlier this month, US Secretary of State John Kerry said IS was gaining a "stranglehold" in Libya, but ruled out military intervention by the American-led coalition that is fighting the group in Syria and Iraq. Increasingly, voices like Mohamed's are wishing otherwise. tw/as/ag Copyright IRIN Foundation 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 Russian Missile Corvette Zeleny Dol Arrives at Syrian Port of Tartus Sputnik News 12:44 18.02.2016(updated 13:05 18.02.2016) The missile corvette Zeleny Dol from Russia's Black Sea Fleet has arrived at Syria's second largest port, the fleet commander said Thursday. ZELENODOLSK (Sputnik) Russian Zeleny Dol has arrived at Syria's second largest port of Tartus on the Mediterranean coast: 'The Zeleny Dol arrived in Tartus yesterday as part of its mission. It will be relieved by the Serpukhov,' Adm. Alexander Vitko said at a keel-laying ceremony for the Project-22160 Pavel Derzhavin patrol ship in Zelenodolsk. Both the Zeleny Dol and the Serpukhov are Buyan-class corvettes designed by the Zelenodolsk Design Bureau. The missile version of a Buyan-class corvette is typically armed with Kalibr (SS-N-27) anti-ship missiles, 100-mm and 30-mm guns, as well as Igla-1M air defense missiles. Last Saturday, the Zeleny Dol left its home port in Crimea's Sevastopol to join Russia's permanent naval task force in the Mediterranean. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russian Paratroopers Plan 'Intense Use' of Western Border Training Areas Sputnik News 19:20 19.02.2016(updated 20:12 19.02.2016) Russian paratroopers will extensively use training areas located along its western borders for combat training missions, Airborne Forces Commander Col. Gen. Vladimir Shamanov said Friday. PSKOV (Sputnik) The commander stressed that Russian Airborne Forces units act on the basis of a 'tensions in the Baltics, which tend to heighten the situation.' The Strugi Krasnye training ground and other simiilar facilities in the Western military district are to be used intensively for combat training, Shamanov said. 'For example, the [US Army] Stryker mechanized infantry battalion is being redeployed there, specifically in Lithuania,' Shamanov asserted. He positively assessed the 76th Guards Air Assault Division's performance at drills wrapping up in Pskov Region. The formation actively engaged with aviation units, the Federal Security Service, border troops, as well as units of the Interior and Emergencies ministries. 'All this suggests that joint preparation and task execution in the immediate vicinity of the state border is subject to continuous training, monitoring and corresponding asymmetric action,' Shamanov asserted. Over 2,500 troops worked out a series of exercises in the year's first divisional command-and-staff drills that began on Monday. Soldiers performed airfield captures, held mass parachute- and air-landings, as well as deep-penetration raids on unfamiliar terrain. The drills wrap up on Saturday. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russian Ships With Kalibr Cruise Missiles to Be on Permanent Med Sea Duty Sputnik News 14:20 19.02.2016(updated 14:35 19.02.2016) Black Sea Fleet Commander Adm. Alexander Vitko said that New Russian Navy cruisers from the Black Sea Fleet armed with Kalibr cruise missile systems will br on battle duty in the Mediterranean Sea. MOSCOW/ZELENODOLSK (Sputnik) New Russian Navy cruisers from the Black Sea Fleet armed with Kalibr cruise missile systems will be on permanent duty in Russia's naval group in the Mediterranean Sea that are tasked with operations in Syria, Black Sea Fleet Commander Adm. Alexander Vitko said Friday. "Yes, we'll have rotations and all the new ships, including ships from the Buyan-M project, will be on battle duty," Vitko told RIA Novosti. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Turkish forces escort 2,000 militants to Syria: Monitor Iran Press TV Thu Feb 18, 2016 11:52AM Turkish forces have escorted at least 2,000 militants back to Syria over the last week in a covert operation to reverse the loss of terrorist groups, sources say. 'We have been allowed to move everything from light weapons to heavy equipment mortars and missiles and our tanks,' Abu Issa, a commander of the militant group Levant Front, which runs the border crossing of Bab al-Salam, told Reuters on Thursday. The militants, then, headed into the embattled border town of A'zaz in Syria's northern Aleppo Province, he added. The route across Turkey has become the only path for militants to enter Aleppo, after the Syrian army recently captured the main lifeline into the militant-held territory. Another militant source said the Turkish army had stepped up delivery of arms and heavy military hardware in the last two days to reinforce militants facing a major offensive by Syrian forces. Syrian troops have come within 25 miles (40 kilometers) of the Turkish border for the first time in over two years. On Thursday, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed that hundreds of militants had crossed from the Turkish territory into A'zaz under the supervision of Turkish authorities in the last few days. Ankara has been targeting YPG positions in northern Syria over the last few days in an attempt to stop Kurdish forces from reaching the Syrian border with Turkey, while Syrian forces have been making steady gains. On Thursday, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced that Turkish forces will continue to shell Kurdish positions on Syrian soil. Turkey regards the YPG and its umbrella group the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) as an ally of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region inside Turkey since the 1980s. The YPG, which controls nearly Syria's entire northern border with Turkey, has been fighting against the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group. Turkey has been among the main supporters of the militant groups fighting to topple the Syrian government. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US-led airstrikes kill 15 civilians, including kids, in Syria Iran Press TV Thu Feb 18, 2016 10:32AM Airstrikes carried out by a US-led coalition purporting to fight Daesh have killed at least 15 civilians, including three children, in northeastern Syria, a monitoring group says. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes hit four Daesh-controlled villages in Hasakah Province on Thursday, killing the civilians. It said the death toll could rise. The group also said that US-led airstrikes had also killed another eight civilians in a village in the same province on Wednesday. Separately, 15 civilians had been killed in US-led strikes on the town of al-Shadadi on Tuesday. With the Thursday fatalities, the group said, the US-led coalition was now responsible for a total of 38 civilian deaths in Hasakah only since Tuesday. The US-led coalition has been conducting air raids against what are said to be the Daesh terrorists inside Syria since September 2014 without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate. The coalition has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing civilians. It has also been largely incapable of fulfilling its declared aim of destroying Daesh. Syria has been beset by crisis since March 2011, when an assortment of militants receiving backing from various foreign countries began an armed militancy against the government. According to a recent estimate by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the foreign-backed militancy in Syria has claimed the lives of over 470,000 people, injured 1.9 million others, and displaced nearly half of the country's pre-war population of about 23 million within or beyond its borders. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Humanitarian aid convoys reach four besieged Syrian towns Iran Press TV Thu Feb 18, 2016 9:5AM At least 100 trucks carrying humanitarian aid for the besieged areas of Syria have entered four of the five militant-held areas after setting off from Damascus under a UN-sponsored deal. Truckloads of aid were delivered Wednesday to locals in the small mountainous town of Madaya and the town of Muadamiyat al-Sham the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Madaya lies about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of Damascus and Muadamiyat is situated some 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) southwest of the Syrian capital. Convoys also entered the villages of al-Foua and Kefraya in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib. Vehicles are yet to arrive in the city of al-Zabadani, which lies on the outskirts of Damascus and close to the border with Lebanon. The trucks left the Syrian capital early Wednesday. The Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) is cooperating with the United Nations on the aid deliveries. Damascus has pledged full cooperation with the UN and the Red Cross to deliver humanitarian aid to all civilians "without any discrimination," including those in hard-to-reach areas. The delivery of supplies to trapped residents started after the Syrian government approved access to seven besieged areas following crisis talks in Damascus the previous day. Representatives of the Syrian government and foreign-backed opposition are to discuss an end to the conflict in the Swiss city of Geneva on February 25. The foreign-sponsored conflict in Syria, which began in March 2011, has claimed the lives of some 470,000 people and left 1.9 million injured, according to the so-called Syrian Center for Policy Research. Moreover, 6.36 million people have been displaced internally and more than four million others have fled the country since the beginning of the conflict. The total number of the displaced accounts for 45 percent of the country's population, which has shrunk by 21 percent. Syria accuses Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar of funding and arming terrorist groups operating inside the country, including Daesh. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Only 10% of Christians Left in Syria's Aleppo City Amid Civil War Sputnik News 17:14 18.02.2016 Mother Agnes Mariam Salib, a mother superior at the Monastery and Convent of Saint James the Mutilated, said that she praised the Russian counterterrorism efforts and called for Western states, including the United States, to overcome the double standards in their approach to defeating terrorism. MOSCOW (Sputnik) The Christian population of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo has decreased by 90 percent since the onset of the civil war in the country, a mother superior at the Monastery and Convent of Saint James the Mutilated, located in the western Syrian town of Qarah, said Thursday. On February 12, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and Pope Francis held a historic meeting on Cuba, where the leaders of the two Christian churches discussed a number of issues, including the persecution of Christians in the Middle East. 'Only 10 percent of the pre-war Christian population of Aleppo is left. Those who have stayed are literally awaiting for their deaths. Hour by hour they are shelled with bombs and missiles. These bombs target Christian districts of the city. Along with the bishop of Aleppo we traveled through these districts and saw their plight,' Mother Agnes Mariam Salib said at a press conference organized by the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency. She added that she praised the Russian counterterrorism efforts and called for Western states, including the United States, to overcome the double standards in their approach to defeating terrorism. Since 2011, Syria has been mired in a civil war with forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad fighting several opposition factions and extremist groups, including Islamic State (ISIL or Daesh), which is outlawed in Russia and the United States, among a host of other countries. On September 30, Russia began an anti-terrorism aerial campaign in Syria upon Assad's request. A US-led international coalition of over 60 nations has been bombing IS targets in Syria since 2014, without Damascus' approval. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Saudi FM: Militants in Syria should be armed with surface-to-air missiles Iran Press TV Fri Feb 19, 2016 6:44PM Saudi Arabia's foreign minister says the militants wreaking havoc in Syria should be equipped with surface-to-air missiles. Arming militants with the missiles would "enable [them] to neutralize the [Syrian] helicopters and planes," German weekly Der Spiegel quoted Adel al-Jubeir as saying. In an interview published online on Friday, Jubeir expressed Riyadh's support for regime change in Syria. Syrian government forces have been fighting foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. Several regional countries, namely Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, have been aiding the militants operating against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In recent months, Syrian forces have gained huge victories in the battle against terrorists across the country. Syrian government forces have been receiving air cover from Russia since September 2015. The Russian campaign was launched upon a request from Damascus. Since September 2014, the US and its allies in the so-called anti-Daesh campaign have also been conducting airstrikes against purported positions of Daesh, without any authorization from Damascus or the UN. Many have questioned the effectiveness of the strikes. According to a new report by the Syrian Center for Policy Research, the turmoil in Syria has claimed the lives of about half a million people. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address US-supplied arms in hands of Daesh, Turkish president says Iran Press TV Fri Feb 19, 2016 5:19PM Turkey's president says weapons supplied by the United States have ended up in the hands of Daesh Takfiri terrorists as well as the Kurdish fighters of the People's Protection Units (YPG) and the Democratic Union Party (PYD) based in Syria. "Months ago in my meeting with him (US President Barack Obama), I told him the US was supplying weapons. Three plane loads arrived, half of them ended up in the hands of Daesh, and half of them in the hands of the PYD/YPG," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday in Istanbul. Erdogan was apparently referring to a US air drop of 28 bundles of military supplies in late 2014 meant for Iraqi Kurdish fighters near the Syrian city of Kobani. Pentagon officials said at the time one had fallen into the hands of Daesh militants. "I will share my concerns with Mr. Obama when I talk with him. We will discuss these matters in detail. I will tell him, look at how and where those weapons you provided were fired." "Against whom were those weapons used?" the Turkish president asked, "They were used to fire on civilians in that area. They caused the death of people living in that area. Why did that happen? How can anyone justify this? Is it possible? The truth is there." Erdogan said he was disappointed with the West for refusing to call the PYD a terrorist group. Ankara regards the YPG and PYD as allies of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region inside Turkey since the 1980s. The Turkish government is angered by the rapid advance of Syrian Kurdish fighters, who are taking advantage of Russian air cover in the region to capture territory near the Turkish border. The comments by Erdogan came after Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu urged Washington to break ties with the Kurdish fighters, saying that "resorting to terrorist groups like the YPG is above all a sign of weakness." The United States and its allies have been engaged in a campaign that is purportedly against Daesh positions in Syria since 2014. Many have questioned the effectiveness of the airstrikes as civilian targets have been hit in most cases. The US-led campaign began without any authorization from the Syrian government or a UN mandate. Ankara, itself, is widely accused of recruiting, training and arming Takfiri militants, as well as, buying smuggled oil from Daesh. Bomb blast in Ankara The Turkish government accused the YPG of being behind a car bombing in the capital, Ankara, on February 17. Nearly 30 people were killed. However, a Kurdish militant group once linked to the PKK claimed responsibility Friday for the bomb attack. The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) said in a statement on its website that the attack was in response to the policies of the Erdogan administration. TAK vowed to continue its assaults. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Syria peace talks on Feb. 25 unrealistic: UN envoy Iran Press TV Fri Feb 19, 2016 1:41PM United Nations Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura says the resumption of the new round of peace talks on the conflict in Syria scheduled for next week is not realistic. "I cannot realistically call for new Geneva talks starting on February 25," de Mistura was quoted as saying in a telephone interview from Damascus with the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet reported on Friday. "We need 10 days of preparations and invitations," the UN official stated. The first round of indirect peace talks in Geneva between the Syrian government and the foreign-backed opposition ended on February 3. A second round was slated for February 25. De Mistura said "real" peace talks between the concerned parties were needed to resolve the issue, and "not just talks about talks." "I would like that the US and Russia, with their partners, agree about a beginning of a cessation of hostilities between today and mid-next week," he said, adding, "Now the ball is in their court." Western supporters of the Syrian opposition, as well as the opposition itself, have called for the establishment of a no-fly zone over Syria as a pre-condition for the participation of the opposition in the Geneva talks. The no-fly zone proposal comes as the Syrian army, backed by Russian air cover, has made significant gains against Takfiri militants on several fronts, particularly in the strategic northern province of Aleppo. In response to the flying-ban proposal, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said any no-fly zone should be first approved by the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and endorsed by the UN Security Council. De Mistura also warned against other countries' unauthorized military intervention in Syria and emphasized the danger of the conflict spreading across the region. "Turkey is complicating everything and it might complicate things further Any type of further conflict along the border of Syria has the potential to spin out of control," he said. Turkey, on Thursday, carried out cross border bombardment of positions of Syrian Kurdish fighters. The foreign-sponsored conflict in Syria has reportedly claimed the lives of nearly half a million people and left about two million injured. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address UK smart missiles killed zero Daesh militants in Syria: Report Iran Press TV Fri Feb 19, 2016 10:44AM Britain's smart Brimstone missiles have not yet killed or wounded any Takfiri Daesh militants in Syria since London began its aerial campaign on the Arab country last year, a report reveals. The Huffington Post UK revealed on Thursday that the missile, which is said to be Britain's main reason for joining the US-led air campaign in Syria last December, has failed to record any casualties among terrorists so far. Brimstone is a radar-guided missile and can be used against moving targets from seven miles away. Only Britain and Saudi Arabia have Brimstone missiles. British Prime Minister David Cameron had claimed in November 2015 that the missile could be a game changer in the so-called anti-Daesh air campaign by the US-led alliance. He told MPs ahead of a parliamentary vote on extending UK military actions in Syria that Brimstone missile were a British asset that could make a "meaningful difference" to the US-led campaign. Brimstone was among "the most accurate weapons known to man" that would cause "the lowest level of civilian casualties," said Cameron. The Brimstone missile was used in nine strikes between December 2, 2015 and January 29, and each is estimated to cost 100,000. Alex Salmond from the Scottish National Party said the revelation "contrasts dramatically" with Cameron's claims that the missile would "cut off the 'head of the snake'" the Raqqah Province, the main Daesh stronghold in Syria. The findings also showed that UK bombings have killed or wounded only seven Daesh militants either with Hellfire drone missiles or Paveway bombs. The British Ministry of Defense (MoD) said the airstrikes were not only aimed at killing militants, but causing disruption to Daesh infrastructure and logistics. "This includes targeting oil infrastructure and enabling equipment under Daesh control, helping to reduce their ability to profit from selling oil to fund their activities," the MoD said. Last year, Hundreds of thousands of people took part in a number of demonstrations to express their opposition to the British government's decision to join the military campaign in Syria. Protesters believed that the airstrikes would not weaken the Takfiri group but fuel the flame of violence in Syria. Since August 2014, the United States and some of its allies have been conducting airstrikes against what they say are Daesh positions in Iraq. Some members of the US-led coalition have also been pounding purported Daesh positions inside Syria without any authorization from Damascus or a UN mandate since September last year. The coalition has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing civilians and destroying Syria's infrastructure. On Thursday, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that nearly 40 civilians, including children, had been killed in US-led air raids in Syria's northeastern province of Hasakah. Damascus and its allies have on numerous occasions questioned the true motives of the so-called anti-terror campaign. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last October that it is unclear "why the results of so many combat sorties are so insignificant," adding that Washington must decide whether its aim is to eliminate terrorists or to use extremist forces to pursue its own political agenda. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Russia urges Saudi explanation on Syria troops plan Iran Press TV Fri Feb 19, 2016 7:10AM Russia has urged Saudi Arabia to provide a detailed explanation of its plans to participate in a potential ground intervention in Syria, saying any such move should be coordinated with relevant authorities. Mikhail Bogdanov, a Russian deputy foreign minister, said Thursday Moscow had no "specifics" at the time about the plan for a possible ground incursion into Syria, the TASS news agency reported. Bogdanov said any military action in Syria must be coordinated with the Syrian government or the United Nations Security Council. "We believe that, just like Iraq, Syria is a sovereign state. It has a central authoritative power, and [military actions] should be coordinated with it," the Russian official said. Riyadh announced its readiness to send ground forces to Syria earlier this month. Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on Thursday that Saudi forces would only focus on targeting Daesh terrorists if they were deployed to Syria. "If they enter Syria, these forces will work in the framework of the international coalition to fight Daesh, there will be no unilateral operations," added Jubeir. Riyadh is currently a member of the Washington-led alliance carrying out airstrikes against what is said to be Daesh targets in Syria since 2014. The kingdom has long been supporting certain militant groups operating to topple the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since 2011. Syria no-fly zone 'not practical' Bogdanov also referred to a proposal by German Chancellor Angela Merkel for the establishment of a no-fly zone over northern Syria, saying it is not practical. "What no-fly zone can we talk about when aircraft of the anti-ISIL (Daesh) coalition led by the United States fly there, when the Aerospace Forces of the Russian Federation continue their operation coordinated with the official Syrian authorities," he said. In a Thursday statement, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the no-fly zone would amount to "interference in Syria's domestic affairs, violation of its sovereignty, the principle of inviolability of borders." Such a measure "totally contradicts international law and the UN Charter," it said, adding the move would only protect terrorist groups and would not contribute to international efforts to end the Syria conflict. Syrian army gains It was Turkey which first called this week for a safe zone to shelter displaced people inside Syria as the Syrian army made significant advances against militants on several fronts, particularly in Aleppo. Former US officials Nicholas Burns and James Jeffrey wrote in the Washington Post that a protected zone south of the Turkish border would have "manifold benefits," including restricting Syrian operations. According to Syria expert Tim Eaton of London's Chatham House, the "strong suspicion" is that Turkey would use the territory as a base for striking at Syrian Kurdish forces it identifies as "terrorists," and drawing in the US which supports the Kurds. Eaton said refugees close to war zones are at risk of infiltration by armed groups, and no-fly zones can't protect civilians. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Riyadh Considering Date to Launch Syria Ground Operation Sputnik News 16:12 19.02.2016(updated 17:30 19.02.2016) Riyadh has not yet decided on the date of the beginning of a ground campaign in Syria, Saudi Defense Ministry adviser Brigadier General Ahmed Asiri told Sputnik on Friday. MOSCOW (Sputnik) Last week, the media reported that Saudi Arabia could send thousands of ground forces to Syria, most likely in coordination with Turkey, to take part in the fight against Daesh. Shortly after that, Turkey reportedly sent troops to its border, and also intensified the shelling of Kurdish-held areas in northern border regions of Syria. 'As far as the date is concerned, the meetings of military experts, which will decide on the timeframes, place of the operation, the number [of servicemen] and qualitative characteristics of the operation, are still continuing,' Asiri said. On Monday, a spokesman for Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), Omer Celik, said Turkey had no plans to conduct a ground operation in Syria. Riyadh has been a nominal member of a US-led international coalition that has been carrying out airstrikes against Daesh jihadists in Syria and Iraq since 2014. However, the operations in Syria have been conducted without the approval of the Syrian government or the UN Security Council. Russia has also been leading a separate campaign against Daesh militants in Syria since last September, following a request from Syrian President Bashar Assad, having outlawed the group. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address When the Guns Speak: Terrorists Retreat, Syrian Army Closes in on Idlib Sputnik News 08:55 19.02.2016(updated 09:01 19.02.2016) The Syrian Army and the country's National Defense Force are already several kilometers away from the city of Idlib, the capital of a province that has been held by militant forces in northwestern Syria, media reports said. The past several weeks have seen the Syrian Army and the country's National Defense Force (NDF) conduct an ongoing offensive in northwestern Syria's Idlib province, where the army has managed to liberate a whole array of strategic areas from terrorists. Right now, the Syrian forces are deployed just several kilometers away from the city of Idlib, according to the Iranian news agency FARS. The army's new major offensive came as the Syrian air force targeted strongholds of militant groups based near the towns of Khan Sheikhoun and Mardikh on the outskirts of Idlib. Earlier this week, Syrian warplanes along with artillery units, pounded the militant groups' gathering centers in the Idlib province's southern areas, sources said. In particular, the Syrian fighter jets bombed the militants' strongholds near the villages of Kafr Sajneh, al-Rakaya and al-Hamediyeh, in air strikes that left dozens of terrorists killed and many more wounded. In separate development this week, the Syrian government forces broke through the terrorists' defense lines and gained control over the town of Kessab, one of the last terrorist strongholds in Syria's western province of Latakia. Syria has been mired in a civil war since 2011, with government forces loyal to President Bashar Assad fighting opposition factions and terrorist groups such as Daesh and the Al-Nusra Front, which are banned in Russia. 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 and Al-Nusra Front targets in Syria at the behest of Syrian President Bashar Assad. In addition, the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed earlier this month that advanced, super-maneuverable Su-35S multi-role fighters had begun their combat mission in Syria. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Turkey: US must cut ties with Kurds Iran Press TV Fri Feb 19, 2016 9:16AM Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu says the US should break ties with Kurdish fighters, adding "resorting to terrorist groups like the YPG is above all a sign of weakness.' Cavusoglu accused the United States on Friday of making conflicting statements about the Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters which, Ankara says, were working with members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). 'Resorting to terrorist groups like the YPG in the fight against Deash in Syria is above all a sign of weakness,' he said in Tbilisi while on an official visit to Georgia. 'Everyone must stop this mistake. In particular our ally the United States must stop this mistake immediately,' said Cavusoglu whose remarks were carried live on Turkish state broadcaster TRT Haber. Turkish leaders have accused YPG of being behind a car bombing in Ankara that killed 28 people late Wednesday. The United States has said it does not consider the YPG a terrorist group, enraging Turkey which fears advances by the militia in northern Syria would stoke separatism among its own Kurdish community. On Thursday, the US State Department called on Turkey to stop shelling of the YPG which has denied being behind the Ankara bombing. Turkish shelling of Kurdish positions in Syria has complicated the already convoluted situation in the conflict. On Thursday, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu accused the Syrian government of being directly responsible for the bombing in Ankara, saying Turkey will continue to shell Kurdish positions inside the Arab country. In a live television speech, Davutoglu said the Ankara bombing showed that the YPG was a terrorist organization and that Turkey expected cooperation from its allies against the group. The leader of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party denied the accusation, saying Ankara was making the allegation in order to escalate the conflict in Syria. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Bomb Attacks in Turkey Fuel Erdogan's Offensive Against Kurds by Luis Ramirez February 19, 2016 Bombings in Turkey this week are escalating the conflict between Ankara and Kurdish separatists, as well as raising new questions of whom the United States is supporting in the Syrian conflict and the scope of U.S. objectives. Analysts warn the attacks could also lead to a wider involvement by Turkish forces in Syria and further strain its relations with the U.S. The larger attack, a suicide car bomb in the heart of Turkey's capital, Ankara, that killed 28 people Wednesday, drew a quick and angry promise of retaliation from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who blamed Kurdish separatists and their outside supporters a reference to Syria. "Even though those who head the PYD and PKK say this has no connection with them, based on the information obtained by our interior minister and our intelligence agencies, it is identified that this is done by them," Erdogan said in a televised speech. Turkish forces have been at war with the PKK, or Kurdistan Workers' Party, for decades. Crackdown on PKK Since last year, southeastern Turkey has become a battleground as Erdogan stepped up a crackdown on Kurdish separatists following the collapse of a fragile cease-fire. Erdogan has also expanded the fight into Syria, with Turkish tanks at the border firing into Syrian territory where Kurdish forces operate. Analysts said the latest bomb attacks give the Turkish leader a reason to escalate his offensive. "It strikes me that Mr. Erdogan is not somebody who needs an excuse to pursue these kinds of policies, but I would expect that he will certainly use it to his advantage," said Davis Lewin, head of policy at the Henry Jackson Society, a research organization in London. "He will readily use this and any other political event that he can to harness what his own strategic needs are and do that," Lewin told VOA. Erdogan's response threatens to further damage the already troubled relationship between Turkey and the U.S. The two NATO allies both want to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and destroy the Islamic State militant group; but their interests are opposed when it comes to the Kurds. Kurdish fighters While Turkey is targeting Kurdish fighters in Syria, the U.S. has armed them and continues to support them. The main U.S. objective in the Syrian conflict is to degrade and ultimately destroy the Islamic State group, and to that end, the U.S. has relied on Kurdish fighters to repel Assad's offensive in northern Syria. Turkey's goal is to stop Kurdish fighters on both sides of its border with Syria. The Kurds' growing influence in the conflict is deeply troubling to Erdogan, who fears their access to weapons and military training could strengthen their push for an independent state, largely on what is now Turkish territory. "The first opponent for Ankara in Syria is the Assad regime and the second opponent is the PYD, the de facto Kurdish political entity right now running northern Syria,' Metin Gurcan, an independent security analyst in Istanbul and a former major in the Turkish military's special forces, told VOA. 'So Turkey and the United States, both of these actors, they have different political end stakes in Syria," Gurcan added. Erdogan has made known his frustration with the United States. Washington chastised In a fiery speech on February 10, the Turkish leader chastised Washington for supporting Kurdish rebels, who he said had turned the region into a "sea of blood." "I call on America, how many times have I explained this to you? Are you on our side or the side of the terrorist PYD and PKK organization?" Erdogan asked. The speech came a day after his government summoned the U.S. ambassador in Ankara. Turkey wants the United States to stop supporting Kurdish rebels in Syria, and much of its anger recently has been over Washington's refusal to designate the PYD as a terrorist group. On Friday, Erdogan expressed concern that the Obama administration has still not done this and suggested the U.S. is making a mistake that could have wide-reaching consequences. "Months ago in my meeting with him (President Barack Obama), I told him the U.S. was supplying weapons. Three plane loads arrived, half of them ended up in the hands of Daesh, and half of them in the hands of the PYD," Erdogan said. Daesh is an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group. U.S. officials are focusing on the positive elements of a relationship they consider extremely valuable. 'Understand the concerns' "We understand the concerns that Turkey has long expressed about some of these groups, some of these Kurdish groups. And we're going to continue to have that discussion with them, because we appreciate their contributions," State Department spokesman John Kirby said recently when a reporter asked about Turkey's complaints. "We also appreciate that they have these concerns, and we're going to continue to work our way through that," Kirby said. After the deadly bombing in Ankara that targeted military personnel, Washington quickly offered condolences to the Turkish government and the State Department reiterated the "steadfast commitment" of the U.S. to its partnership with Turkey "in the shared fight against terrorism." Tensions between Washington and Erdogan are deepening at a crucial time in the Syrian conflict, as Syrian forces keep up their assault of the key city of Aleppo. Wednesday's attack in Ankara was, for Turkey's leader, reaffirmation that the Kurdish threat outweighs any other interest for now. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Defence Secretary sees brighter future on Falklands visit 17 February 2016 The Defence Secretary has said there is a real opportunity to build positive relations between the UK, the Falkland Islands and her South American neighbours. Mr Fallon, making the first visit by a UK defence secretary to the Falklands in more than a decade, spent time with islanders and MOD personnel in the capital Stanley and other sites. He witnessed first hand some of the construction work which is taking place as part of a 180m, 10-year commitment to modernise the defensive infrastructure of the islands. There are currently around 1,200 military and civilian personnel based in the Falklands supporting defensive air, naval and land assets including RAF Typhoon aircraft, helicopters, Royal Navy patrol vessels and an Army infantry company. The 180m upgrade package includes 60m to improve the power station at Mount Pleasant Camp, 22m to improve facilities at the berths in Mare Harbour, and 20m of work on accommodation at Radar Heads. He confirmed that the 60m contract for the new Mount Pleasant power station will be awarded in May. As well as meeting current military personnel he also visited key locations from the 1982 conflict, including at Goose Green and San Carlos, and paid his respects to those who died on both the British and Argentinian sides. Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said: 'This was an important opportunity to hear about life on the islands and the potential for economic development that will bring more jobs and prosperity.' 'The right of the islanders to determine their own future was settled over 30 years ago and confirmed by the recent referendum.' 'Now we want to build a better relationship with the new Argentinian government, as neighbours in the South Atlantic and fellow G20 members.' In further meetings with members of the Falkland Islands Government Mr Fallon said he was determined that building those relationships should translate into new economic opportunities and greater prosperity, from natural resources, fisheries, scientific research and testing, and increased exports. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address RAF Confirms Intercepted Russian Jets Did Not Enter UK Airspace Sputnik News 14:06 18.02.2016(updated 14:52 18.02.2016) The British Royal Air Force (RAF) confirmed that two Russian jets that were intercepted by UK Typhoon aircraft, on Wednesday, did not enter UK airspace. MOSCOW(Sputnik) The British Royal Air Force (RAF) confirmed that two Russian jets that were intercepted by UK Typhoon aircraft, on Wednesday, did not enter UK airspace. On Wednesday, two British Royal Air Force (RAF) Typhoon jets were deployed from Lincolnshire to escort two Russian Tu-160 bombers (NATO reporting name Blackjack), believed to be heading toward the United Kingdom. 'We can confirm that quick reaction alert Typhoon aircraft from RAF Coningsby have intercepted two Russian Blackjack bombers and escorted them while they were in the UK area of interest. At no point did the Russian aircraft enter UK territorial airspace,' the Independent newspaper quoted a RAF spokesperson as saying. According to British media, a number of similar incidents took place in the United Kingdom and across Europe in 2015. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ukraine vows to fight Russia's 3-billion debt demands Iran Press TV Thu Feb 18, 2016 2:45PM Ukraine has vowed to "decisively" fight Russia's demands for Kiev to fully repay a $3 billion (2.7-billion-euro) loan it failed to return last year. The Ukrainian Finance Ministry said in a Thursday statement that it would defend its interests, a day after Moscow filed a lawsuit with London's Court of International Arbitration. "Ukraine intends and is fully ready to decisively defend its interests concerning these eurobonds in the English court," the Ukrainian Finance Ministry said in its statement. The lawsuit was filed after Kiev and Moscow failed to reach a private settlement over the Eurobond debt, which was issued in late 2013 and expected to be repaid by Kiev on December 20 last year. Russian President Vladimir Putin last year offered Ukraine new terms on the repayment of the loan, saying Moscow would accept an annual debt repayment of $1 billion over a period of three years. Kiev rejected the proposal. The loan was handed to Kiev shortly before former Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, left Ukraine in 2013 after mass protests erupted there. Officials in Kiev argue that the loan is not a sovereign one granted by a state to another and is subject to terms agreed of an agreement with its other creditors, but Moscow says it cannot be considered private debt and has refused such conditions. Kiev has been trying to give a political dimension to the debt, suggesting that Moscow bought Ukrainian bonds in December 2013 in what it calls an act of bribery by the then president, a close ally of Russia. However, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has sided with Russia and said the loan carried official status despite Ukraine's claims. The recent dispute comes as relations had already been strained between Russia and Ukraine since the Crimean Peninsula rejoined Russia in a referendum in March 2014 and Kiev commenced a military crackdown on pro-Russian forces fighting for greater autonomy in the Russian-speaking Lugansk and Donetsk in the east of the country. NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Ukraine, NATO Sign Document on Plans to Cooperate in Special Operations Sputnik News 12:11 19.02.2016(updated 12:51 19.02.2016) The head of Ukraine's General Staff, Viktor Muzhenko, said that a letter of intent was signed regarding cooperation in special operations between NATO Special Operations Forces and the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. KIEV (Sputnik) The head of Ukraine's General Staff, Viktor Muzhenko, said the military body has signed a document with NATO on plans to cooperate in special operations. "After negotiations, a letter of intent was signed regarding cooperation in special operations between NATO Special Operations Forces and the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces," Muzhenko said on his Facebook account. He added that the NATO delegation at the negotiations was led by Commander of NATO Special Operations Headquarters Marshall Webb. Ukraine dropped its non-aligned status in 2014, opening the way for NATO membership and drawing criticism from Russia and many other states. In September 2015, Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko signed a new military doctrine in which one of the main objectives for the development of the country's armed forces is to bring them in line with NATO standards by 2020. Last week, Poroshenko signed the Ukraine-NATO cooperation plan for 2016 outlining general policy goals of Ukraine's partnership with the military alliance and the areas of cooperation in international security, including peacekeeping, counter-terrorism, arms control and environmental safety. Sputnik NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address Memorial Hospital in Martinsville has appointed a six-person panel comprised of area residents and a nurse who will advise hospital executives on how to improve patient care and safety. Members of the Patient Family Community Advisory Council were chosen because they recently have been patients or have had family members who were patients, and it is believed that their diverse backgrounds will enable them to provide unique perspectives, according to Liz Harris, the hospitals marketing director. Serving on the council are the Rev. John Fulcher Jr., pastor of First Baptist Church of Martinsville; Phala Fuller, a registered nurse who is the hospitals care coordinator; Wade Nester, the Henry County Public Service Authoritys right-of-way agent; Susan Reynolds, human resources director for the county government; Gene Teague, director of business planning for Nautica and a member of Martinsville City Council; and Norma Witt, coding manager for Dr. Jons Urgent Care in Ridgeway. The panel will help hospital officials come up with new ideas to enhance the delivery of health care services to patients, improve patient safety and patient and family involvement in patient care and strengthen the hospitals relationship with the community, Harris said. It also will provide suggestions to the hospitals leadership team for programs, policies, planning and evaluating services and educating patients about their health, she said. Panel members will meet with Memorials chief executive, nursing and medical officers, as well as other hospital representatives, as needed, she said. The fact that our council will have direct access to Memorial Hospitals leadership team truly underscores their (hospital officials) commitment to providing the highest quality of care in a safe and comfortable environment for patients, Fulcher said. Our goal is to provide high quality, compassionate care to every patient, and the patient voice is essential to our success, said hospital Chief Executive Officer Michael Ehrat, By inviting patients and family members to share their perspective and provide insightful feedback about their experiences, we can better understand their needs and augment how we deliver safe, high quality care. Teague and Nester both said that members of their families have received excellent care at Memorial and been treated well by the hospitals employees. However, some people have a negative perception about the hospital, Teague said. I hear mixed reviews from people about the care and service they have received, he said. I think thats what the hospital is trying to address by establishing the council. Nester said that as a council member, he will communicate to hospital officials what he has observed on visits to Memorial, what people have told them about their experiences during visits and what he has seen at other hospitals that he has visited. Based on what he has seen at Memorial, Nester said the hospital has made great strides in both inpatient and emergency department care in recent years. Memorial is the only hospital in the Martinsville area. Yet hospital officials want people to consider Memorial the hospital of choice for their general medical needs, Nester said. Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - February 18, 2016) - West Red Lake Gold Mines Inc. (CSE: RLG) (FSE: HYK) (OTC: HYLKF) ("West Red Lake Gold" or the "Company") announces that the Company filed a NI 43-101 technical report on the 3100 hectare West Red Lake Project located in the prolific Red Lake Gold District, 25 km west of Balmertown, Northwestern Ontario, Canada. The Ontario Securities Commission (the "OSC") issued a Management Cease Trade Order on December 24, 2015 for failure to file an independent NI 43-101 technical report on the Company's West Red Lake Project. The Technical Report and Resource Estimate on the West Red Lake Project filed on sedar.com on February 18, 2016 (the "Technical Report") included an underground inferred mineral resource estimate of 4,468,900 tonnes at an average grade of 7.57 grams gold per tonne containing 1,087,700 ounces of gold with a cut-off grade of 3.0 grams per tonne. The inferred resource is located along a 1.8 km strike length from surface down to a depth of 350 metres at the location of the historic underground Rowan Mine site. The Technical Report was authored by John Kita, P.Eng , John C. Archibald, B.Sc., P.Geo. and Peter Bevan, P.Eng. and the authors have approved this news release. The West Red Lake Project consists of two contiguous properties, the Rowan Mine property and the Mount Jamie Mine property. The Rowan Mine site is situated on the Rowan Mine property 60% owned and managed by the Company and 40% owned by Red Lake Gold Mines. West Red Lake Gold has sole responsibility for the Technical Report as per the OSC requirement for the Company to file an independent NI 43-101 technical report on the West Red Lake Project. The Company's 40% partner had no involvement in the report. The mineral resource estimate is based on a 3D Block Model interpolated using Inverse Distance squared (ID2) methods to extrapolate grades. The software used for all geostatistical analysis and computation was Dassault Systemes, Geovia GEMS version 6.5. The database utilized contained 570 diamond drill holes, and a total of 36,062 assay records. Inferred Resource Total Tonnes Grade (grams/tonne Au) Contained ounces Au 4,468,900 7.57 1,087,700 Note: Price of Au: US$1150; Exchange rate US$: CDN $0.77; Block cut-off grade: 3.0 gpt Au; numbers may differ due to rounding "An Inferred Mineral Resource is that part of a Mineral Resource for which quantity and grade or quality are estimated on the basis of limited geological evidence and sampling. Geological evidence is sufficient to imply but not verify geological and grade or quality continuity." "An Inferred Mineral Resource has a lower level of confidence than that applying to an Indicated Mineral Resource and must not be converted to a Mineral Reserve. It is reasonably expected that the majority of Inferred Mineral Resources could be upgraded to Indicated Mineral Resources with continued exploration." "An Inferred Mineral Resource is based on limited information and sampling gathered through appropriate sampling techniques from locations such as outcrops, trenches, pits, workings and drill holes. Inferred Mineral Resources must not be included in the economic analysis, production schedules, or estimated mine life in publicly disclosed Pre-Feasibility or Feasibility Studies, or in the Life of Mine plans and cash flow models of developed mines. Inferred Mineral Resources can only be used in economic studies as provided under NI 43-101". Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves having demonstrated economic viability. The technical information presented in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Ken Guy, P.Geo., a consultant to West Red Lake Gold and the Qualified Person responsible for the exploration at the West Red Lake Project property, as defined by National Instrument 43-101 "Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects" ("NI 43-101"). The Company's West Red Lake Project is situated on the Red Lake Archean Greenstone Belt which hosts the high grade gold mines of the Red Lake Gold District. The Pipestone Bay-St Paul Deformation Zone strikes east-west across the 12 km length of the property and then continues east towards the town of Red Lake. A second gold bearing regional structure, the Golden Arm Structure, trends on to the property from the southwest and trends northeast on the property for 2 km to where the structure intersects with the Pipestone Bay-St Paul Deformation Zone (the "Structural Intersection.") The Structural Intersection is located approximately 1 km east of the Rowan Mine shaft. Twenty kilometres to the east is a similar geologically important intersection of two regional gold bearing structures proximal to the world class Red Lake Mine and Campbell Mine, which provides a highly favourable geological model that illustrates the exploration potential for the Company's West Red Lake Project. West Red Lake Gold Mines Inc. is a Toronto-based minerals exploration company focused on gold exploration and development in the prolific Red Lake Gold District of Northwest Ontario, Canada. The Red Lake Gold District is host to some of the richest gold deposits in the world and has produced 30 million ounces of gold from high grade zones. The Company has assembled a significant property position totalling 3100 hectares in west Red Lake (the "West Red Lake Project") which contains three former producing gold mines. The Mount Jamie Mine and Red Summit Mine are 100% owned by the Company and the Rowan Mine is held in a 60%-owned joint venture with Red Lake Gold Mines, a partnership of Goldcorp Inc. and Goldcorp Canada Ltd. The West Red Lake Project property covers a 12km strike length along the West Red Lake Trend and the Company plans to continue to explore the property both along strike and to depth. To find out more about West Red Lake Gold, please visit our website at http://www.westredlakegold.com. For additional information, please contact: John Kontak, President and acting CFO Phone: 416-203-9181 Email: jkontak@rlgold.ca The Canadian Securities Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release. Certain statements contained in this news release constitute "forward looking statements". When used in this document, the words "anticipated", "expect", "estimated", "forecast", "planned", and similar expressions are intended to identify forward looking statements or information. These statements are based on current expectations of management, however, they are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this news release. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these statements. West Red Lake Gold does not undertake any obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise after the date hereof, except as required by securities laws. February 19 2016 / TheNewswire / Vancouver, British Columbia - Nevada Energy Metals Inc. "The Company" TSX-V: BFF (OTC Pink: SSMLF) is pleased to announce that the company, including Chairman and CEO Harry Barr, Director Rick Wilson and two consultants, recently completed a site visit to the company's recently optioned Alkali Lake lithium target. The purpose of this visit was to better assess and plan the upcoming 2016 exploration program and to gain a better understanding of regional geology. During this visit the company travelled via helicopter to Alkali Lake and other surrounding projects and potential joint venture targets. Management is now evaluating our exploration plan as well as new opportunities and will announce the outcomes shortly. CEO Harry Barr "Our recent visit to both Esmeralda and Mineral counties allowed our management team the opportunity to better understand the logistics and geology for our company's upcoming exploration programs on the Alkali Lake Lithium Project. The trip also included visits to other properties in the prolific lithium region as our company is aggressively looking to acquire additional lithium projects." About Nevada Energy Metals: Nevada Energy Metals Inc. is a Canadian Based exploration and development company who's primary listing is on the TSX Venture Exchange. The company's main focuses are brine based lithium exploration targets located in the mining friendly state of Nevada. As of the 13th of January the company has completed a $900,000 CAD secondary funding to carry out an exploration program on the area known as Alkali Lake and Alkali Flats. This lithium target is located in Esmeralda County, Nevada, just 12km from Rockwood Lithium, the only brine based lithium producer in North America. Nevada Energy Metals must complete a one-time payment of shares, cash payments over three years and complete certain exploration milestones to earn its 60% interest. On Behalf of the Board of Directors Harry Barr Chairman & CEO 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. Copyright (c) 2016 TheNewswire - All rights reserved. Brossard, Quebec / TheNewswire / February 19, 2016 - Nippon Dragon Resources Inc. (the "Corporation" or "Nippon") (TSX-V Symbol: NIP) is pleased to announce that its Board of Directors has approved a proposed shares for debt settlement (the "Shares for Debt Settlement") with certain flow-through subscribers (the "Plaintiffs") who entered into flow-through subscription agreements with the Corporation in connection with a flow-through private placement of the Corporation completed in 2009. The Shares for Debt Settlement relates to certain legal proceedings (the "Proceedings") that were instituted by the Plaintiffs before the Superior Court for the District of Montreal against the Corporation and its directors (collectively, the "Directors") on or around February 13, 2012, for an amount of one million three hundred thousand one hundred three dollars and forty-two cents ($1,300,103.42) plus applicable interests and the additional indemnity provided by law. The Corporation and its Directors have contested the Proceedings. On or around May 6, 2015, the Plaintiffs and the Directors settled Plaintiffs' claim against them. The Corporation and the Plaintiffs have proposed to settle the Proceedings for an aggregate settlement amount of seven hundred and ninety-five thousand dollars ($795,000.00) (the "Settlement Amount"), without any admission of liability whatsoever and in the sole and only purpose of buying peace and avoiding a costly litigation, by issuing a number of common shares of the share capital of the Corporation (the "Debt Shares"). Subject to the approval of the Disinterested Shareholders (as defined herein) and the final approval of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV"), the Debt Shares shall be issued at a price per share (the "Debt Share Price") which is the greater of: (i) the last closing price of the Corporation's listed shares (the "Common Shares") on the date of the issuance of this press release, less the maximum discount of twenty-five per cent (25%) (the "Discounted Market Price") allowed by the policies of the TSXV, which is a price of $0.06 per Debt Share, and (ii) the closing price of the Common Shares on the date of the Meeting (as defined herein), less the Discounted Market Price. The Debt Share Price shall determine the number of Debt Shares to be issued on the Closing Date (as defined herein). The Debt Shares will be issued to each of the Plaintiffs, registered in the name of each of the Plaintiffs, and held in trust by an escrow agent (the "Escrow Agent") on behalf of the Plaintiffs. The Escrow Agent will become an insider of the Corporation as a result of the Share for Debt Settlement. The issuance of the Debt Shares will not result in the creation of a new control person (within the meaning of the policies of the TSXV) in the Corporation. Under applicable securities legislation, the Debt Shares to be issued in connection with the proposed Share for Dept Settlement will be subject to a four-month hold period. The Shares for Debt Settlement will require the approval of at least a majority of the votes cast by the Disinterested Shareholders at the annual meeting to be held on March 17, 2016 (the "Meeting"). Shareholders receiving Debt Shares under the Shares for Debt Settlement and their affiliates or associates (as such terms are defined under the policies of the TSXV) (the "Disinterested Shareholders"), will be excluded from the vote on the ordinary resolution approving the Shares for Debt Settlement to be considered at the Meeting. The Board of Directors of Nippon will recommend that Disinterested Shareholders vote in favor of the Share for Debt Settlement. Assuming the Disinterested Shareholders approve the Shares for Debt Settlement, the Shares for Debt Settlement will be completed shortly after the Meeting (the "Closing Date"). Assuming also the completion of the Shares for Debt Settlement, the Settlement Amount owed to the Plaintiffs by the Corporation will be definitely extinguished in exchange of the issuance of the Debt Shares, and each of the Plaintiffs will give a global, final and definitive release to the Corporation regarding the Proceedings. The TSXV has conditionally accepted the Shares for Debt Settlement, subject to certain conditions, including the Disinterested Shareholders approval. There are currently 103,552,786 issued and outstanding Common Shares of Nippon. Nippon is active in the exploration and the development of gold resources in Quebec. The Corporation holds a gold property with resources recognized in accordance with NI43-101, a modular treatment plant and also an exclusive license for the Thermal Fragmentation mining method. The company's growth strategy is based on: -The development of its gold deposits with the objective of producing revenue from its operations; -Increasing the value of its mining assets by prioritizing the exploration targets; and -The commercialisation and employment of its thermal fragmentation technology. For additional information: John Stella, Investor relations (514) 718-7976 jstella@nippondragon.com Donald Brisebois, President & CEO (450) 510-4442 dbrisebois@nippondragon.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. This press release includes certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address future exploration drilling, exploration and production activities and events or developments that the Corporation expects, are forward looking statements. Although the Corporation 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 or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Ressources Nippon Dragon Resources Inc. 7055 Taschereau Blvd., suite 500, Brossard (Quebec) J4Z 1A7 Tel: (450) 510-4442 www.nippondragon.com Copyright (c) 2016 TheNewswire - All rights reserved. Jamie Wirth, left, and Michael Delany inside the new-look 77 nightclub. Photo: Dominic Lorrimer William Street's favourite late-night dance den is back and it's better than ever. Well, maybe not better that's a matter of taste and one's penchant for grinding against strangers in a sweatbox but it's objectively cleaner and now sells food. Former Drink'N'Dine Group maestros Jamie Wirth and Mike Delany bought the gutted Club 77 after selling their three Sydney venues (the Norfolk, Forresters and Oxford Tavern) to Melbourne-based, pokie-free pub group Dixon Hospitality in January. There's an eastern European theme to 77's latest incarnation that tips its hat to the club's other former life as a goth hangout. "With the darkness of the venue and its goth history, the eastern Euro thing just kind of made sense," Wirth says. "We didn't want to just grab something and be like, '77's now a Mexican taco bar', we wanted to do something in the spirit of the venue. Something that felt like the next step for the place." The fried chicken sandwich at 77. Photo: Dominic Lorrimer Drink'n'Dine's signature bric-a-brac kitsch hasn't made the transition to William Street ("I got sick of the clutter," Delany says). A long and winding bar now snakes through a room where red lights frame shelves tightly packed with a European knees-up spirit selection put together by general manager and "head Burgermeister" Steven Forbes that includes includes Goldwasser, absinthe and slivovitz. Wirth hasn't abandoned his messy, carb-loaded cooking style, though, and the menu includes a weapon of a fried chicken sandwich, currywurst, a fresh-baked pretzel (made for immersing in a molten cheese and artichoke dip) and crumbed, deep-fried garlic cloves. Even though the cloves are blanched in milk to remove the garlic's edge, they're still the kind of thing you want to be packing a tin of mints for afterwards. It's more bar than restaurant, though, and 77 will continue to book DJ for dance times. Sunday nights promise to be party nights with a weekly event called Pavlova Bar that will likely include sets from Phil Smart, Annabelle Gaspar and international acts. Above the bar and written in gothic calligraphy is "Za-nai dobroto na momenti". Translation: "To the very best of times." And, with Delany, Wirth and Forbes at the helm, we'll definitely cheers to that. Tues-Wed 5pm-1.30am; Thurs-Sat 5pm-3am; Sun 7pm-2am. 77 William Street, Darlinghurst, 02 8094 9616 Play Video Replay Video Play Video Don't Play Controlling your chillies Jill Dupleix shows how to manage your chillies, in order to make the heat level perfect for you. Hot sauce is hot in all senses of the word. With the rise of barbecue and burger joints, bespoke sauces have come to the fore, driven largely by a frustration at the lack of good local alternatives to the ubiquitous Tabasco. But that frustration can be truly laid to rest. There's a whole raft of boutique sauces being made now that capture that perfect blend of heat and flavour. The thing is it's not all about the heat. Richard Nelson, of Melbourne Hot Sauce, describes those blindingly hot, eyes-cartoon-bulging, sauces as a "novelty", while the guys from Changz say sauces with crazy Scoville [heat] ratings are not for table sauces. Ryan Brown from Handsome Devils Co wants people to realise the versatility of hot sauce. "It's not just for pouring over tacos. We would love to see people replacing their boring old tomato sauce with delicious hot sauce," says Brown. "Try chipotle over eggs, avocado and haloumi for breakfast, or savina (with coriander, mango and habanero) as a marinade for fish or free-range chicken." So, with that in mind, here are some saucy alternatives rated 1 to 3 for heat to add to your pantry. Give in to them and fall into that fiery spiral it's a delicious trip. 1: Softcore I can handle it. 2: Midcore Is it getting hot in here? Advertisement 3: Hardcore "I feel like I ate the sun!" Cameron, Modern Family 1. De Arbol Handsome Devils Co Handsome Devils Co has been around for just over two years now, born out of a desire to make the hot sauces they'd met and loved in Mexico but couldn't find on home soil. They produce small batches of four preservative-free sauces, with ingredients sourced from the Port Macquarie region, and chillies from Mexico. Their De Arbol is a classic big and bold Mexican red sauce with a medium heat and a full-bodied flavour from the lime, tomato and tamarind. Try it in a Bloody Handsome: In a tall glass, add ice, 30ml rye whisky, 15ml of pickle juice, 15ml De Arbol, salt, pepper and clove. Top off with tomato juice and stir. Add a pickle to garnish. Heat rating: 2; handsomedevilsco.com 2. Chipotle BBQ Changz Hot Sauce Who doesn't love a sticky, smoky chipotle BBQ sauce? Joshua Monteiro, Tom Jacobson and James Forge, who run Changz Canteen in Melbourne's Elsternwick, started making their own hot sauces about a year ago, and their popular Chipotle BBQ, prinked with brown sugar, apple cider vinegar and smoked paprika, is everything you could want to douse a burger in. At Changz, everything is done by hand, from the cooking down to the bottling and labelling. They've also created custom sauces for burger restaurants. Look out for their mustards and pickles coming soon. Heat rating: 1; changzcanteen.com.au 3. Smoked Jalapeno Melbourne Hot Sauce Richard Nelson, a chef with a long history of cooking hot sauce-friendly cuisines like Mexican and Cajun, founded Melbourne Hot Sauce just over two years ago and his Smoked Jalapeno sauce took out the Silver Medal at the 2015 World Hot Sauce Awards in Louisiana. Try it and you'll see why. Made with green jalapenos that are cold smoked over Victorian golden delicious apple wood, plus wild rocket and coriander, it's a truly unique, bright but smoky sauce. Heat rating: 1; melbournehotsauce.com 4. Inquisition Jungle Rain Oh my. Jungle Rain not only sells chilli seeds, it also does a wildly creative range of sauces with names like Fallen Angel (with a Middle Eastern twist) or Mayan Sacrifice, with peach and yellow chilli. Inquisition, however, with its blend of strawberry, passionfruit and super hot chillies, including Trinidad Scorpion and Bhut Jolokia, is a searingly hot sauce that leaves a fruit-filled aftertaste, like a brutal Fruit Tingle. Heat rating: 3; junglerain.com.au 5. Chilli Sauce Eighteen Thousand Islands Hot sauces make your mind dart immediately to Mexican food, but this one from the boys who used to have Melbourne CBD's beloved Sataybar is a classic, bright Indonesian sambal asli (original chilli sauce), perfect for dashing on rice and noodle dishes. It has a fresh, strong heat and pure, uncomplicated flavour. Heat rating: 1; eighteenthousand.is 6. Cajed Heat Crowley's Hot Sauce When Wagga Wagga-based Jason Crowley decided it'd be fun for his toddler son if they planted chilli seeds instead of grass seeds, he had no idea that, just a few years later, he'd be taking out the World Champion title for his Chipotle BBQ Sauce at the 2015 World Hot Sauce Awards in Louisiana. Cajed Heat is a medium-to-hot sauce with Cajun spices that give it a lovely earthy flavour. Heat rating: 2; crowleyshotsauce.com.au 7. Red Habanero, Cayenne and Tomato Red Clipper Chilli Company The tomato adds a lovely freshness to this full-bodied sauce, which combines three chillies a habanero for fruitiness, bird's eye for fire and cayenne for spice for its heat, although it's not mind-meltingly hot. This super-versatile sauce has a richness and a tingle, and goes especially well on a good steak or as a punchy marinade. Extra points for the appealing old-time bottle and label. Heat rating: 2; facebook.com/RedClipperChilliSauce 8. Habanero Pomegranate Hot Sauce Ranch Hand Foods Like a marriage made in spicy heaven, Ranch Hand is a small, family-owned Australian company run by transplants from the south and southwest of America. They use authentic American recipes and preserving methods, and local farm-fresh Australian produce. The Habanero Pomegranate Hot Sauce is a delicious whirlwind of wild heat, pomegranate sweetness and tropical spices. Heat rating: 3; ranchhand.com.au 9. Dis Da Mild Wan Mama Blu's Food Company Chef Steff Kamener has an impressive background working in European restaurants and running Melbourne cafes, but now she's all about the sauces that celebrate the soulfood flavours of her Jamaican and English roots. Her Voodoo Chilli Sauce took out a gold medal at last year's Royal Melbourne Fine Food Awards, but Dis Da Mild Wan is a unique one, spiked with pineapple and lemon, for those who want something a little fruity and soft. Use it as a dipping sauce or add it to a vegie stir-fry. Heat rating: 1; mamablu.com.au 10. Gran Humo Negro Melbourne Hot Sauce & 40FT Brewing Co Craft beer and a plate of smoky barbecue drenched in a sticky hot sauce they were meant to be together. The Gran Humo Negro a collaboration between Melbourne Hot Sauce and 40FT Brewing Co seals the deal of this beautiful union with a dark and smoky sauce made with chipotle, smoked paprika and chilli porter beer. Heat rating: 2; melbournehotsauce.com Where to get it Most companies retail online, sell at farmer's markets or have distribution in gourmet delis. For more hot sauce, check out Chilli Obsession and The Chilli Chaps. SHARE Ellen Brown, San Angelo Goodwin well-qualified I support Brad Goodwin for 391st District judge because he is the candidate with years of experience in successfully prosecuting felony cases of adult and juvenile criminals and has an equally impressive record in civil trial work. For 2015, the Tom Green County district clerk's records show that approximately half of all cases filed in the 391st District Court were criminal-related cases including horrible crimes by adults, violent gang crimes by juveniles and civil cases related to crime. As a felony prosecutor, Goodwin handled more than 1,000 adult criminal cases including capital murder, robberies, drug dealers and drive-by shootings. As a chief juvenile and gang prosecutor, he handled hundreds of cases against violent gang members and juveniles. And he never lost a trial in either position! Retired 120th District Judge Robert Dinsmoor said of Goodwin: "He prosecuted some of the most heinous murder cases to come before my court and I have never forgotten the outstanding job he did." As for the remaining cases filed in the 391st District Court last year, they were civil cases ranging from such things as breach of contract and ad valorem tax cases, to car wrecks, water and property rights and divorce, to name a few. None, however, were Child Protective Services cases. In the civil court arena, Brad has successfully represented ranchers, farmers, families, Fortune 500 companies, doctors, hospitals, small businesses, churches and individuals across the state of Texas, earning the respect of both clients and jurists. My conclusion: Brad Goodwin has years of experience that will allow him to serve us well as our 391st District judge. And he'll do it with unshakable honor, dignity and fairness. He deserves to be elected on March 1. Services received, taxes paid 'Mixed and matched' Minnesota residents who live part time elsewhere could see a dramatic jump in their tax bills as a result of a ruling Wednesday by the state Supreme Court.The 4-3 opinion sharply defined what the justices described as an ambiguous law that determines when a person is considered to be a resident in Minnesota. The law says full-time residency starts at 183 days, or half the year.In the case of Curtis and Stacy Marks, who moved to Minnesota from Florida in August 2007, the court determined that the couple surpassed the half-year limit. The Markses spent 104 days in Minnesota before settling permanently in the state, time that the majority ruled should be tacked onto the months the couple spent in the state after their move. That made them responsible for a full year's taxes, and will cost them at least an additional $390,000.The Minnesota Department of Revenue declined to comment on how it will use Wednesday's ruling in future residency tax cases. But Barry Gersick, the Markses' attorney, predicted the case will have broad implications for snowbirds and others."I feel bad for my clients," said Gersick, a partner at Maslon Edelman Borman & Brand. "I'm not sure how the Department of Revenue will use this ruling moving forward, but it will definitely have an impact beyond our narrow case."The ruling reverses a 2014 state tax court decision by Judge Joanne Turner, who sided with the Markses. She had ruled that only days spent in Minnesota as nonresidents should be counted toward the 183 days for tax purposes.The revenue department argued that a person can claim residency elsewhere, but the clock starts ticking if 183 days or more are spent in Minnesota in a given year and that person keeps an abode in the state. An abode means a residence with a kitchen and a bathroom.The Markses moved from Minnesota to Florida in 1999. They decided to return to Minnesota after their children were accepted into a private school. The revenue department audited the couple in 2009, reviewing past tax returns.Court records show that they own a nearly $4 million home on Lake Minnetonka in Woodland. Marks cofounded Verifications Inc., a Twin Cities background checking and drug testing business that was acquired in 2013. He now runs a local software company.In his ruling, Justice David Lillehaug wrote that tax law doesn't define "nonresident" or an individual who is a resident for only part of a taxable year. He said the Markses and the revenue department had made reasonable interpretations of the law.The law's definition of "resident" applies to all individuals who fulfill three conditions during the tax year: domicile outside Minnesota, maintenance of an abode in the state and physical presence there for more than half the tax year.Those who receive Minnesota's services, benefits, and protections for most of the year are required to pay taxes on their entire income, Lillehaug wrote. The Markses, who spent 70 percent of the year here in a home they owned, enjoyed those services, benefits, and protections as much as or more than any nonresident who spent more than half the year in Minnesota, the court said.The revenue department considers 26 factors in reviewing appeals of residency cases, including the location of the most actively used checking account, where children attend school and whether the taxpayer applied for resident or nonresident fishing, hunting or watercraft licenses in Minnesota. The state Supreme Court had previously ruled on two significant residency fights in which the taxpayers lost.NBA referee Ken Mauer Jr. ran afoul of Minnesota's tax laws after claiming residency in Fort Myers, Fla., and not paying Minnesota state income taxes in 2003 and 2004. Among the strikes against the St. Paul native, according to the Supreme Court decision, was that his efforts to sell his 10,600-square-foot home in Afton during those years were halfhearted.Businessman William D. Larson, a Peterbilt truck dealership owner, moved to Las Vegas in 1998 and shifted belongings to his new home, including his extensive wine collection. He opened a Nevada bank account, registered cars there and canceled his Minnesota driver's license.But the court decided his connection with Minnesota during the 2002 through 2006 tax years was stronger than his connection with Nevada. He owned more property in Minnesota than in Nevada, spent more time in Minnesota than Nevada, registered more vehicles in Minnesota and kept bank accounts and mail delivery in Minnesota, the Supreme Court noted.In Wednesday's ruling, Lillehaug said the court was within its right to reverse the tax court's decision because the Legislature's intent with the residency law "is not in doubt."In his dissent, Justice David Stras argued that the case was a policy issue and should be addressed by the Legislature.Stras, who was joined in his dissent by Chief Justice Lorie Gildea and Justice Barry Anderson, said the tax court correctly concluded that the revenue commissioner erred by treating the Markses as full-year residents in 2007. The majority "mixed and matched" elements from the law's two definitions of a resident.Stras gave an example of how the court's new interpretation could limit or even eliminate part-time resident status for many eligible taxpayers: An individual moves to Minnesota before July 1. That person buys or rents an "abode" before arriving in the state and establishes it as his or her new home. Although that person had no prior contact with the state, the revenue department can treat the taxpayer as a full-year resident of Minnesota."Such an outcome could hardly have been what the Legislature had in mind," Stras wrote.The Legislature, not the judiciary, must revise the law, he said. But with all the issues facing the Legislature this year, Gersick said he doubted it would address "such a minor thing." National Movement Roadblocks All morning at the Autism Academy of South Carolina, 6-year-old Brooke Sharpe has been doing what her therapist tells her to do: build a Mr. Potato Head; put together a four-piece puzzle of farm animals; roll a tennis ball.Now its Brookes turn to choose. She touches an icon of Elsa from the movie Frozen on her iPad. When Let It Go begins to play, she swings her braids to the music. For Brooke, who has a severe form of autism and doesnt speak, this is progress: Last year, unable to express a preference, she might have just flailed to the floor in tears, said Kristen Bettencourt, her therapist.The treatment Brooke is receiving, applied behavior analysis, has been proven to help children with autism learn new skills, develop good behaviors and stop bad ones. It is the method known to work best for treating autism, but health insurance doesnt always cover it.Since 2001, 44 states have begun requiring some insurance plans to cover ABA for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. But the rules are all different, making for uneven coverage across states. Autism Speaks, a national nonprofit, estimates that 36 percent of Americans have access to autism coverage.The mandates dont apply to those companies, often large, that insure their own workers. In some states, small businesses are not required to offer coverage. Depending on the state, coverage may be available to state employees, Medicaid recipients and people purchasing insurance in the marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act.The breadth of the coverage also varies. Some states only require coverage up to a set dollar amount per year or a set number of hours of treatment per week, or only require the coverage until a child reaches a certain age, ranging from 8 to 21.The highest annual cap was set at $50,000. Thats the cap in South Carolina, where coverage is required until age 16. Only California, Indiana, Massachusetts and Minnesota require the plans to cover the therapy without any limits on age, cost or frequency.The disparities among states have sent families, such as Brookes, packing. Her parents, Alicia and Edwin Sharpe, sold their gorgeous house in Florida, left their jobs, and took $30,000 pay cuts to come to South Carolina, knowing that the state requires some employers to cover the Autism Academys full-time treatment program.After the move, Alicia had to switch jobs twice to find coverage. Without insurance, Brookes program, which is full-day, five days a week, costs $50,000 a year.State lawmakers who want to require insurers to cover the treatment say doing so will save their states money in the long run. The lifetime costs of each person with autism is estimated to be $3.2 million, including medical and treatment costs for families, and costs to society, such as loss of productivity. ABA therapy can reduce those costs, as children who receive the treatment early have less trouble adapting, allowing them to potentially hold a job and pay taxes in the future.Many insurance companies and business groups oppose the mandates, arguing that they would result in steep premium increases. But, for some insurance companies, increases have been less than expected, at less than half of 1 percent.Autism is the fastest-growing developmental disability in children in the nation, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About one in 68 children was reported to have autism spectrum disorder in 2010, up from 1 in 150 in 2002, according to the CDC.Autism advocates say the national movement to expand coverage really started with one boy: Ryan Unumb. Ryan was diagnosed with autism in 2003, just before his second birthday.His parents, Lorri and Dan Unumb, are attorneys. They pushed South Carolina to become the second state (Indiana was the first, in 2001) to require coverage of the therapy. Autism Speaks hired the couple to push for similar laws in other states. The Unumbs also are the founders of the Autism Academy.In ABA, board certified behavior analysts and other therapists teach children using requests, repetition and rewards. Brooke knows activities by their one-word prompts, such as building, standing and rolling.Ryan, now 14, is learning prepositions. At the academy, his therapist, Courtney Lindler, tells him to stand behind something, or on top of it. This way, he will know how to stand in a line somewhere else. The two do push-ups, lunges and squats together physical activity lessens his aggression.The laws have come as more people have started to recognize the benefits of ABA therapy for autism, said David Mandell, director of the Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research at the University of Pennsylvania. He said there is often resistance to covering conditions that doctors diagnose based on behavior, such as autism. Mandell expects mandates to be an easier sell once researchers can find biological markers for autism.If we were talking about pediatric cancer, we wouldnt be having this discussion, he said.The six states that do not require that insurers cover the therapy are Alabama, Idaho, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wyoming. Oklahoma is considering a bill that would mandate coverage.Of the 44 states with requirements, 42 passed laws mandating the coverage; in Washington, coverage is required as a result of litigation; and in Ohio it is required because of an executive order from Republican Gov. John Kasich. In both Ohio and Iowa, the rules only apply to health plans for state employees.Since 2012, 10 states with coverage requirements have expanded them, and Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio and South Carolina are considering doing so this year.In Ohio, Republican state Rep. Cheryl Grossman has introduced a bill that would expand the coverage requirement to private employers. She said she knows the children who get treatment have a better chance of entering public schools, and achieving independence.Im looking at it as an investment on behalf of these children, and a very meaningful way to help them succeed in their lives, Grossman said.But her bill is facing opposition from business groups and insurers.In Ohio, plans offered on the Affordable Care Act marketplace cover the treatment, so people not happy with their employers coverage have the option of getting an individual plan there, said Keith Lake of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.Lake said his organization is sympathetic to the plight of families with autistic children. But, he said, Grossmans bill would increase insurance premiums for small businesses that can ill afford it especially as the Legislature weighs similar coverage requirements for hearing aids and contraception.Anything that the Legislature does that further increases those premiums is a problem, Lake said.But premiums have increased less than expected. In a yet to be released study, Mandell and other researchers, looking at data from three large private companies that are now subject to the mandate, found that the requirements had increased premiums by 0.15 to 0.24 percent, much less than was predicted.In Missouri, where the coverage for treatment was capped at $40,000 a year until age 19, the state found that, in 2015, the mandate cost 30 cents per member per month. Thats at the lower end of the expected cost, said John Huff, director of the Missouri Department of Insurance.The department estimated the mandate would increase claim payments by 0.2 to 0.5 percent. In 2015, 32,997 claims were filed and the mandate had raised premiums by 0.25 percent, on the low end of expectations.As much as anything it is an educational process for lawmakers, Grossman said, because we arent talking huge numbers here, but we are talking huge successes.But even in states that require coverage, families can have a hard time getting it.After the law passed in New York in 2011, families couldnt get the coverage for two years due to a licensing problem. The state Department of Financial Services was telling therapists they needed to get an ABA license in order to receive insurance reimbursement, yet the state had no ABA license available. In 2014, the Legislature amended the law, creating a licensing procedure.In states such as New Jersey, some families have trouble finding therapists who will take their insurance, said Peter Bell, CEO of Eden Autism Services, a nonprofit there. Bell said some insurers plans reimburse therapists so little for the therapy that Eden cannot afford to accept them.Medicaid reimbursement rates also are low in some states. In South Carolina, for example, Medicaid pays up to $15 an hour for therapists who normally charge $50 an hour and $58 for board certified behavior analysts who typically charge $125, Unumb said.In a handful of states, such as Massachusetts, there is better access to coverage. The Massachusetts mandate includes small businesses and individual plans, and there are no caps. In addition, 62 percent of people working for companies that insure their own workers, which arent subject to the mandate, have coverage because their employers have chosen to offer it, according to Amy Weinstock, director of the Autism Insurance Resource Center at the University of Massachusetts, which helps families find coverage.While the state hasnt released information about the cost of the mandates, Weinstock said premiums have not gone up much. The law allows insurers to opt out if premiums increase more than 1 percent, and that isnt happening, she said.Brookes parents said the sacrifices they made to find coverage were worth it. Before they came here, autism had put their only daughter into a zombie mode she wouldnt even acknowledge them. Now, when they pick her up from the academy, she runs up to shower them with hugs and kisses.In the end, you have to do what you need to do for your child, Edwin Sharpe said. Because no one is going to care for your child the way you are. After nearly five hours of often emotional testimony from porn stars and others in the adult film industry, state regulators voted Thursday against a controversial set of workplace safety regulations that would have required performers to use condoms.The regulations, drafted by the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health, would have put adult performers in the same category as doctors, nurses and others who work in medical settings and are required to use "barriers" for protection.Thursday's vote in Oakland was met with cheers and jubilation from a roomful of mostly porn film actors and behind-the-scenes workers who opposed the measures."They listened to us for the first time," said Jessica Drake, a performer with Wicked Pictures, an adult film company. "I'm shocked. I'm amazed. I'm appreciative."The proposed regulations needed four of five votes to pass, but failed by a single vote, 3-2, when two members said they needed more input from the porn film industry. It ended six years of work that had been put into coming up with rules for protecting the safety of sex film workers. But the board voted to ask for a new proposal, and porn industry officials and performers plan to be involved in the new process.More than 80 speakers addressed the board, and the vast majority of them -- porn performers using real or stage names, filmmakers, health advocates and academic specialists -- argued that the new regulations would actually increase the risk to the performers by resulting in less testing than current industry protocols dictate. They said the rules would violate personal privacy and push the industry underground or out of state."The very nature of our work defies these regulations, making it very challenging or impossible for us to do our jobs," said Chanel Preston, an adult film star from Los Angeles who serves as the president of the Adult Performer Advocacy Committee, which promotes safety in the porn industry.The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which sponsored an ordinance in 2012 that requires condoms to be used in films made in Los Angeles County, pushed Cal/OSHA to approve the new rules, which include amending existing blood-borne pathogen standards to make them specifically apply to the adult film industry. Agency officials said condoms are supposed to be used on all sets in California, but the rules aren't enforced.Opponents of the proposed rules feared they would also require the use of goggles or dental dams, which protect performers during oral sex, but foundation officials said that was a "smoke screen" to obscure the real issue of condom use in the adult film industry."Our goal is for condom use for vaginal and oral sex. We have never been looking for goggles or dental dams for oral sex," said Ged Kenslea, spokesman for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.The group put forward a handful of former porn actors who spoke in support of the new regulations. "You're ensuring (actors') safety," said Sofia Delgado, who stopped working in the industry in 2013 after being diagnosed with HIV. "For that I stand here today thanking you from the bottom of my heart."But the vast majority were concerned that the proposed rules, which would have required testing every three months, would jeopardize the current industry practice of testing every 14 days. They also expressed fears about having their medical information exposed because the regulations require employers to keep them for 30 years.Cal/OSHA board member Dave Harrison, who cast one of the two votes against the proposal, wanted the workers to know that their health and safety is the board's highest concern.Mike Stabile, spokesman for Kink.com, a San Francisco porn studio, said he was pleased with Cal/OSHA's work on the issue."All we have asked for the past several years is for Cal/OSHA to work with the performers to develop sensitive regulations that ensure health and safety on the set," he said. "Today they expressed their willingness to do so." Gov. Scott Walker signed two bills Thursday that cut by several million dollars a year the amount of public money that goes to Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin."We want to make sure as taxpayers whether it's state funds or federal funds that come through the State of Wisconsin that they're used in the way that's responsible and reasonable," Walker said before signing the bills, which he emphasized would withhold money to "controversial entities like Planned Parenthood."One bill restricts how much Planned Parenthood can be reimbursed for prescription drugs, stripping it of an estimated $4 million a year, according to Planned Parenthood. A second measure is expected to cut another $3.5 million in government payments to Planned Parenthood because it provides abortions.Walker signed the bills at Life's Connection, a clinic in Waukesha specializing in abortion alternatives.The measures come four years after Republicans made other funding cuts to Planned Parenthood, which the group says led to the closure of five rural clinics that provided birth control and health screenings but not abortions.The prescription drug bill, Senate Bill 238, would limit Planned Parenthood to billing taxpayers through Medicaid for the actual acquisition cost, plus a dispensing fee. Family planning clinics are able to acquire drugs at discounted rates through a Medicaid health program known as 340B.Democrats have accused Republicans of allowing their ideology to prevent some women from getting birth control, and opponents of Senate Bill 238 argued it will be thrown out in court because it treats Planned Parenthood differently than other clinics. The bill doesn't mention Planned Parenthood by name but singles the group out by offering lower reimbursement rates for clinics that are linked to an abortion provider.The bill was approved with party-line votes by the Senate in January and by the Assembly last week.The other bill, Assembly Bill 310, was approved by the Assembly in September and by the Senate in January. It prevents the state from passing on federal money it receives through the Title X grant program to any group that provides abortions or has an affiliate that provides abortions. Title X money goes toward family planning and health screening for the poor and uninsured and is not allowed to be used for abortions.Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin receives about $3.5 million in Title X money a year.Eliminating Planned Parenthood's funding has gained momentum following the release of secretly recorded videos by abortion opponents that purported to show a Planned Parenthood official in California discussing the cost of providing fetal body parts for medical research. Planned Parenthood has sued the makers of the videos, alleging they were involved in a criminal enterprise and had lied about the abortion provider. A grand jury in Texas indicted the anti-abortion activists involved in making the videos."The political motivation behind these bills is clear. Opponents of women's health will stop at nothing to prevent Planned Parenthood from providing much needed medical care in the community," said Tanya Atkinson, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin. The Oregon House on Thursday approved historic increases to the minimum wage, rebuffing outcry from businesses to deliver what could be the highest statewide rate in nation.The vote followed a chaotic five-hour floor debate that featured an unusual spasm of public rage, as working-class protesters unleashed fury on lawmakers for not taking up a higher, $15 minimum wage this session or pushing stronger housing reforms.Demonstrators chanted outside Gov. Kate Brown's office and in the Senate. They pounded on the outer walls of the House chamber, forcing Democratic leaders to halt deliberations and barricade lawmakers inside the chamber.The tumult subsided, giving way to four hours of grinding debate, after which the bill passed 32-26."No one who works hard living in Oregon or America should live in poverty," Rep. Peter Buckley, D-Ashland, said in an impassioned speech on the floor. "We are obligated and capable of taking courageous steps to help Oregon workers and their families."It came as a major win for Democrats and Brown on her anniversary as governor, positioning Oregon as a leader in a national push, led by labor unions, to raise wages for the middle class. All told, the bill would give pay increases to more than 100,000 workers, with some receiving nearly $6 more an hour.The six-year plan would raise wages starting this July, to $9.75 in urban areas and $9.50 in a lower, rural tier. Increases would top out in 2022 at $14.75 inside Portland's urban growth boundary, $13.25 in midsize counties and $12.50 in so-called "frontier" areas.Brown has five days to approve the bill once it lands on her desk. In a statement, Brown said she planned to sign it. But she also didn't rule out another minimum wage plan that's emerged from a bipartisan group of independent-minded lawmakers."I started this conversation last fall, bringing stakeholders together to craft a workable proposal," Brown said in the statement. "I look forward to signing this bill."In the meantime, lawmakers involved with the alternative proposal promised to quickly introduce a plan that would, as they see it, better cushion small businesses."We must work immediately to follow Senate Bill 1532 with a bill that addresses some of these concerns," said Rep. Caddy McKeown, D-Coos Bay. McKeown said her no vote came with hope that, "in a few days, I can vote on a minimum wage bill that Oregon needs and Oregon deserves."Rep. John Lively of Springfield was the only other Democrat to vote no. Rep. Brent Barton, D-Oregon City, an attorney, was excused to attend a deposition.Regardless of the outcome, Thursday's vote was a testament to Democrats' tight grip on the Legislature. Leaders proved that they can muscle through landmark policy against great obstacles, in this case ballot measure threats on the left, seeking higher wages on a faster timeline, and fervent opposition on the right.It was an achievement that seemed unreachable a year ago for minimum wage advocates, after more than a dozen bills withered in the 2015 session.Most moderate Democrats voted yes, including Rep. Brian Clem, D-Salem, one of the architects of the alternative plan."I vomited the first time I had to let an employee go," Clem told the chamber. "I don't think we're quite there on getting this right. I think it's a start."But the debate took an unexpected turn just minutes after it started, when protesters -- including Jamie Partridge, a Portland labor activist and a chief petitioner for the $15 ballot measure -- unfurled a banner calling the state's housing crisis an emergency. House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, gaveled them down, and the demonstrators were escorted from the chamber.Others staged a sit-in at Brown's office, chanting "black lives matter" and "restore local control," a call to lift the ban on local wage increases -- the current bill does not -- and to pass rent control provisions.Later, protesters moved toward the House chamber, banging on the outer walls with shoes and and open palms.Inside, a noise like low, rolling thunder drowned out lawmakers' floor speeches. Kotek put the chamber at ease and then barred lawmakers from leaving under a "call of the House," a procedural move designed to preserve a quorum.Sergeants locked the chamber doors, and representatives nervously milled around like penned livestock. Armed Oregon State Police officers stood watch outside.Thursday's protests also cleared the floor the Senate, which had invited the family of former Senate President Brady Adams of Grants Pass to the chamber for a solemn memorial.The Senate's current president, Peter Courtney, D-Salem, said he ordered lawmakers and staffers off the floor after the chamber's galleries "went wild" with chants and shouts."It was a very dramatic shock and awe experience, not to be melodramatic," Courtney said in an interview. "It really frightened a lot of legislators. They were frightened. We didn't know what was happening out there."The protesters dispersed after several minutes and the House reconvened.Republicans gave a pointed, hours-long critique of the proposal, saying it would cause layoffs in the poorest rural areas and threaten the health of the state budget."Do you believe that no one will be laid off? Seriously?" said House Minority Leader Mike McLane, R-Powell Butte, speaking directly to Democrats. "We've got to look you in the eye and we've got to ask -- do you really believe that no one will lose a job? Do you believe prices will not go up?"They quarreled with Democrats over whether the bill would give raises to lawmakers, who at $23,000 a year don't make much more than the the minimum. Legal opinions produced by both sides said that could happen by 2021 or 2022 without larger cost of living increases.Minimum wage vote protest Activists protest outside from Gov. Kate Brown's office on Thursday, Feb. 18, to demand a $15 minimum wage and more aggressive housing policy, including rent control.Republicans, though they'd have to run in 2020 to receive any potential raise, made their point by lining up to declare conflicts of interest one by one.It's uncertain whether the bill will be enough to stop ballot measures for $13.50 and 15. Left-leaning groups have expressed tepid support for the new proposal, saying it won't be enough to meet families' needs."We're really happy to see the Legislature has stepped up and provided Oregonians and much-needed raise," said Heather Conroy, executive director of Service Employees International Union Local 503, one of the groups behind a $13.50 ballot measure. "It's certainly not everything we were striving for. We were certainly striving for $13.50 or $15 statewide."She said the coalition hasn't decided whether to pull back the ballot measure.A spokesman for Defend Oregon Jobs, a group of businesses that is against any minimum wage increase, said he hoped Democrats would come out against the $15 measure."Backers of the $15 ballot measure told legislators they have yet to decided to drop their initiative efforts," Jason Brandt, president and CEO of the Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association, said in a statement. "We're counting on the governor and Democratic leaders to oppose any such measure." Angered by bills in the state Legislature they consider anti-immigrant, thousands of Latinos and their allies descended Thursday on the state Capitol in what they hoped would be a persuasive show of unity and opposition.The rally, called "A Day Without Latinos and Immigrants in Wisconsin," also sought to convey the economic power of the Latino community by illustrating what would happen if thousands of Latino employees and business owners didn't show up for work.Numerous local businesses, including a McDonald's in Middleton and the popular restaurant Quivey's Grove in Madison, closed Thursday, either in solidarity with their Latino employees or because they did not have enough staff to open.The Capitol Police Department estimated the crowd size inside the Capitol and on the grounds at 14,000. The Madison Police Department estimated there were 20,000 people on the streets around the Capitol at the peak of the day's march.No arrests or incidents related to the rally were reported by either department.Many protesters were Madison students, some of whom marched in throngs from West and East high schools. Early estimates showed about 4,500 students, or 16 percent of the district's total enrollment, were absent Thursday, compared with 1,500 students and 5.5 percent on a typical day, said district spokeswoman Rachel Strauch-Nelson.The primary goal of the day was to defeat two "anti-immigrant laws" moving through the Legislature, said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, the rally's main sponsor.One bill, SB 533, would place restrictions on a local government's ability to issue identification cards to people such as immigrants who are in the country illegally. It has passed the Assembly and the Senate and is awaiting action by Gov. Scott Walker.The other bill, AB 450, would withhold state funding from so-called "sanctuary cities." These are cities where public employees are prohibited from inquiring about someone's citizenship status. The bill has passed the Assembly and is awaiting action in the Senate.Jennifer Mancera, 30, of Madison, who attended the rally, said she takes the legislation personally "because, at one point, I was an illegal immigrant.""At the end of the day, these bills push away people who are only trying to make this a better country," she said.Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, told reporters Thursday that protesters misunderstood the impact of the sanctuary cities bill."The goal of the legislation is to make sure that people who commit crimes are punished," Vos said. "The basic idea that fear is being instilled is not coming from the Wisconsin Legislature. It's coming from the activists who want to try to pursue a political agenda."Dave Gorak of La Valle, executive director of the Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration, also took issue with the rally, calling it "outrageous.""These people have no respect for our laws or our sovereignty, yet they want us to respect them for attempting to cut the legs off our enforcement policies," he said.However, Middleton dairy farmer Thomas Wagner, 62, said he doesn't think legislators understand the consequences of what they're doing. He came to the rally to support the 13 Latinos who work for him, more than half of his farm's workforce, he said. He and his brothers would not be able to continue operating their 1,700-head dairy operation without them, he said."We need these people in our state," he said. "They are good, honest, hard workers."East High sophomore Alexandra Miranda, 15, came to the rally with her parents and two younger brothers. She said most of her friends also chose the rally over classes."This means a lot to me because I don't want my family to be torn apart," she said. Her brothers' stroller was festooned with white balloons saying, "Wisconsin is not Arizona."Javier Hernandez, 39, of Madison, waved a huge homemade white flag with red letters reading, "The Land is to Who Works It." Each young person in a large group of students from the Watertown area held a placard with an individual letter that together spelled out, "One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."Neumann-Ortiz said her organization was keeping a list of businesses that had closed and said she was confident the number would end up being in the hundreds across the state."If you have a climate that is so unwelcoming that people leave your state, industries are going to die," she said.La Brioche, a bakery and restaurant in Madison that employs about 40, was among those that closed Thursday."We have a fair number of Latino employees, so it will be obvious to them where we stand on these issues, and I hope for some sort of ripple effect if enough people understand the negative aspects of this legislation," said owner David Yankovich.La Brioche and another Madison bakery, Le Petit Croissant, planned to make sandwiches to pass out at the rally so that people would not spend money at restaurants that remained open.Carrie Barndt, who owns six area McDonald's restaurants, said she closed the one on Allen Boulevard in Middleton Thursday because so many employees, both Latino and non-Latino, asked for the day off. She consolidated the remaining employees at the other five locations.At least half a dozen businesses on State Street in Downtown Madison were closed either part or all of the day on Thursday in solidarity with the rally. Tutto Pasta, Casa de Lara and Endless Knot closed for the day, while Hawk's Bar and Grill, Roast Public House, and Himal Chuli were planning to reopen for dinner.Amy Moore, owner of Little Luxuries on State Street, said she did not close for the event because she wanted to "be open for people who are Downtown for the event or not." She noticed an uptick in shoppers because of the rally -- specifically those in need of gloves and socks. In a rare move, Maryland's highest court agreed Thursday to halt trial proceedings against the Baltimore police officers charged in the Freddie Gray case, taking up competing appeals on whether Officer William G. Porter can be compelled to testify against his five fellow defendants.The Court of Appeals' decision to consider the issue of Porter's testimony against his fellow officers postpones their trials, including one that had been scheduled to start Monday. The high court will hear expedited oral arguments in the appeals March 3, but it is unclear when it might rule.Porter is contesting an order by Circuit Judge Barry G. Williams forcing him to testify against two fellow officers even as he faces a retrial in his case. Meanwhile, prosecutors appealed a decision by Williams that they contend wrongly blocked them from calling Porter to testify against three other officers.Typically, appeals are heard after a case concludes, with appellate judges reviewing whether proper decisions were made."It's very unusual to have a pretrial ruling that is appealed like this," said Howard S. Chasanow, a retired Court of Appeals judge.But Chasanow said the high court's intervention could bring a quicker resolution to the cases in the long run, settling contentious issues now instead of allowing them to play out in Circuit Court and then be appealed to the Court of Special Appeals, the state's second-highest court."They obviously recognize both the public importance of the issue and the need for an expeditious decision," Chasanow said.Defense attorney Kenneth Ravenell, who is not connected to the Gray case, said the appeals court proceedings will be watched closely, in part because they could set a precedent for whether prosecutors can seek intervention from higher courts when handed detrimental rulings prior to a case's conclusion."It is such a novel issue that I think everyone involved in the criminal justice system is kind of waiting with bated breath to see how the court handles it," Ravenell said.A question the court will consider is whether the state's request in the Gray cases is even an appealable issue.The trial of Officer Edward M. Nero, one of the officers who participated in the arrest of Gray, a 25-year-old black man who suffered a fatal spinal injury in the back of a police transport van in April, had been scheduled to start in Circuit Court on Monday, with a pretrial motions hearing Friday. Those proceedings have been postponed under a stay issued by the high court.Porter is the only officer involved in the case who has gone to trial. Prosecutors had asked to try him first, hoping to secure a conviction and clear the way for him to testify against the other officers charged in the case. However, his trial in December ended in a mistrial when the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict on any of the four charges against him. The jurors were one vote away from acquitting Porter of the most serious charge, involuntary manslaughter.Earlier this month, the Maryland attorney general's office, representing the Baltimore state's attorney's office, petitioned the high court to bypass the lower-level appeals process and expedite a review of Williams' decisions regarding Porter's testimony. The attorney general's office wrote that all five cases should be reviewed "because they provide an appropriate vehicle for this court to consider the application of [the state immunity statute] from all sides."In orders handed down Thursday, Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbera agreed that the high court should consider the cases, outlining three specific questions to be addressed by both sides in written briefs in the coming days.In the cases against Officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr. and Sgt. Alicia D. White, in which Porter has been ordered to testify, the question is whether the state's immunity statute can protect Porter's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by denying prosecutors the right to use anything he says on the stand against him in his retrial, scheduled for June.In seeking to block Williams' order forcing Porter to testify in the Goodson and White trials, Porter's attorneys contend that only witnesses, not co-defendants, can be granted immunity and be forced to testify. They also contend that the immunity granted might not protect Porter from federal prosecution or perjury charges. Prosecutors argue that the immunity would be sufficient to protect Porter's constitutional rights, and Williams agreed.In the cases against Nero, Officer Garrett E. Miller and Lt. Brian W. Rice, the high court will consider whether Williams had the right to use his discretion not to compel Porter to testify, and whether that decision constituted a "final," and therefore appealable, judgment.Attorneys for the officers contend Williams' decision was not a final judgment and cannot be challenged at this juncture. Prosecutors have said that under the state's immunity statute, it is solely the decision of Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby whether a particular witness being compelled to take the stand would serve the public interest, and that Williams' role in facilitating that decision was solely ministerial.Williams said he is not simply a rubber stamp for Mosby, and that the prosecution's request that he compel Porter to testify in the Nero, Miller and Rice trials was "simply an attempt at subterfuge" aimed at controlling the order in which the officers are tried.While there is no deadline for the high court to rule, it said it would hear the appeals on an expedited schedule. Barbera has made it a goal of the court to hand down rulings during the same term it hears arguments. The court's current term ends in September.Prosecutors and defense attorneys for the officers are barred by a gag order from commenting on the cases.Douglas Colbert, a University of Maryland law professor, said that while the high court's intervention is rare, it was in part necessitated by the intermediate court's decision to take up Porter's appeal."It was highly unusual for the Court of Special Appeals to intervene before trial and before the case resulted in a conviction," Colbert said. "Appeals courts typically become involved after conviction, to review the fairness of the outcome. ... I think the high court is saying, 'Let's do our best to resolve this issue without any further delay.'"Joseph F. Murphy Jr., also a retired Maryland appellate judge, agreed."I am glad to see the Court of Appeals expediting the resolution of the immunity issue by exercising, essentially, its right to bypass the Court of Special Appeals," he said. "The sooner that issue is resolved, the better."But Ravenell said the Court of Appeals might be "opening up a can of worms.""What message does it send for future cases by taking this case? Are you inviting the state in the future ... to hijack a case when they get a denial from a judge?" he asked.In a case Ravenell argued that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, prosecutors sought appellate court intervention after a judge ruled that a key statement could not be admitted as evidence.Ravenell said the case was able to move up through the appeals courts because prosecutors argued that they could not try the case without the statement. But Ravenell noted that prosecutors in the Gray case only recently said that Porter is a crucial witness against Nero, Miller and Rice."The state had intended to try these officers without Porter," Ravenell said, "so it clearly can't be their argument that Porter is indispensable to their case and that once the judge said they can't call him, that they can't proceed."Prosecutors told Williams that they had the right to change their mind."We tried to learn something from our experience in trying Officer Porter," Chief Deputy State's Attorney Michael Schatzow told Williams at the time. "We think we have the right to change our mind, and we acknowledge we are changing our mind."Gerard P. Martin, a defense attorney who is not involved in the case, said the appeals court had no choice but to step in and "straighten out the immunity issues before this circus gets worse.""Sure it is unusual, but this is not your normal case," Martin said. "Politics and law are not made to mix well. The court had to give guidance to a lower court system that seems to be afraid to deal with this situation." On Thursday, in the morning, at Government House, His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC received the Ambassador of Hungary to Australia, His Excellency Dr Atilla Gruber. In the afternoon, at Parliament House, the Governor presided at a meeting of the Executive Council. In the evening, at the Sofitel Hotel, Brisbane, the Governor attended the Australia China Business Council Queenslands Chinese New Year Dinner and addressed guests. Read the Governor's speech here. Description GIS 19 February 2016: 1 08 young people received the Gold Award yesterday in the context of the Duke of Edinburghs International Award - Mauritius a challenging self-development programme. The President of the Republic, Dr Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, as Patron of the programme, presented the Gold Award badges to the awardees at the Sir Harilal Vaghjee Memorial Hall, in Port Louis. The Duke of Edinburghs International Award - Mauritius is a challenging self-development programme which is offered by the Ministry of Youth and Sports to young Mauritians aged between 14 to 24 years for 50 years now. In her address at the Gold Award ceremony, the President of the Republic said that youth development is an essential component of our national development strategy since they hold Mauritius future in their hands and as such they are our greatest wealth. We need to carefully nurture this vast and precious human capital by bringing them to the centre-stage of our planning and development effort, she stressed. Mauritius, stated Dr Gurib-Fakim, is crossing a new threshold in its path of economic development. We are striving for a society of self-reliant people who feel responsible for the well-being of the community. I have complete faith in the abilities of our youth to embrace the roles and responsibilities that they will be required to undertake for the future of this country, she added. The President also lauded the time and energy that participants have devoted to the training, as well as their selfless dedication and seriousness of purpose. Also present at the Award ceremony, the Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr Yogida Sawmynaden , said that the Award programme is all about perseverance, self-motivation and team work. For decades now the Progamme has allowed generations of Mauritians to go beyond their limits and to develop themselves into better citizens, he pointed out. The Minister moreover announced that as from this year special consideration will be devoted to disabled youth wishing to embark on the Programme and funds have been arranged through the International Special Project Grant to that end. Also, in the context of the celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the Award programme at international level, two gold participants will be proceeding to London in May 2016 to receive at the Buckingham Palace their Gold Award from His Royal Highness Prince Philip, the founder of the Award programme. The Award The Award concept - with three levels bronze award, silver award and gold award - is one of individual challenge. It presents to young people a balanced, non-competitive programme of voluntary activities which encourages personal discovery and growth, self-reliance, perseverance, responsibility towards themselves and service to their community. At Gold level, participants also complete a Residential Project. The aim is to broaden participants' horizons through involvement with others in a residential setting. For their Residential Project, some of the 108 Gold Awardees of the 2015 batch transformed an old classroom to showcase products made out of recycled materials, while other participants were engaged in cleaning campaigns around Mauritius, and another group spent five days in Bras dEau National Park for a reforestation project. The evolution of data analytics at the municipal level is behind the city of Bostons search for new talent to fill a quickly emerging role in the government space. Mayor Martin J. Walsh announced Wednesday, Feb.18, that the hunt was on for a chief data officer to oversee all thing analytics and boost efficiencies throughout city organizations.Boston joins the likes of New York City and Chicago with the addition of the position to the city roster, but CIO Jascha Franklin-Hodge said the novelty of the duties vary city to city because municipal governments are moving into uncharted waters.Were not the first city to have a chief data officer, but were in this time of experimentation, where cities are all working to figure out what the role of a person like this is and what the best approaches are to really deliver impact to the people that we serve, he said. The technology is evolving so rapidly, and really what we want is somebody who will bring a vison to this role who believes in public service, who believes that city agencies should be empowered to do the best job they possibly can, and who is going to bring a vision for how the incredible technology advancements of the last 10 years can fulfill that public service mission.According to the CIO, the creation of the Citywide Analytics Team in January of 2015 prompted discussion around the need for top leadership and long-term strategy in the data analytics space.The new data chief will be at the forefront of conversations with the various city departments to help match their individual missions with the right assets.Really, what we recognized was that this role is too important not to be led by somebody with a senior position within the city and administration, he said. We want to recognize that data is fundamental to how we deliver government services in 2016 and to make sure that we have the right level of support for all of the different part of the city government that want to use data. [To do that], we need to both have a team but also have strong leadership thats embedded in the strategic planning efforts of individual departments.When it comes to who makes for an ideal candidate, Franklin-Hodge said the data czar role will demand a blend of leadership and technology know-how.He said portions of the job duties will not be dissimilar to management consulting, while others will fall to familiarity with real-world technology and applications.Fundamentally, this role is sitting at the intersection of existing city departments that go out and work hard on behalf of the city of Boston, and the new tools, technologies and information resources that we have at our disposal," he said, "and its about how to connect the dots between those opportunities and create things for city departments that allow them to be more effective in their work to serve the city.The Citywide Analytics Team also released the results from its first year in action in the Feb. 18 announcement. (TNS) -- A Billerica company is seeking state approval to make your drivers license available on your cellphone with the touch of an app.MorphoTrust USA, which makes 80 percent of the nations drivers licenses, including FOR Massachusetts, says its mobile driver license, or mDL, would be a secure alternative that could be quickly authenticated by retailers, bankers or police, eliminating the need to carry a traditional license wherever you go.The infrastructures already here in Massachusetts; we know how to do this, CEO Bob Eckel said yesterday. Theres nothing technology-wise that would prevent it from being used.Eckel said he has meetings scheduled in the coming weeks with the state Registry of Motor Vehicles. But even if the RMV agrees to pilot the use of MorphoTrusts mDL, widespread use of the app could be a few years off.Registrar Erin Devaney in a statement said that the RMV has a demonstrated history of partnering with MorphoTrust to ensure that Massachusetts issues the most secure drivers licenses and ID cards, and is working presently to introduce a new card format in 2016 with further enhanced features. The RMV looks forward to working with MorphoTrust to continue to be a leader in the credential-issuing field through the use of advancing technology.The Billerica Police Department, which was introduced to the mDL at a demonstration this week, sees promise in the technology.I think its inevitable, Deputy Chief Roy Frost said. With the way cellphones have gone, less and less people need to carry a wallet. Thats the direction were going.Frost said his chief concern would be making sure that police have a foolproof way to authenticate mDLs something that Eckel said there already is an app for.The app, which is called Verify, is being tested in other states and can be used to read a drivers license and tell if its authentic, he said.You would never have to hand your phone over to an officer, Eckel said. The officer would just scan it, using the app. And the persons driving record and any criminal record they might have, including outstanding warrants, could be added to it.To prevent hacking, the only way to activate an mDL would be through facial recognition, the drivers fingerprint, an encrypted code or some combination of the three, he said.The mDL is currently being piloted in Iowa, where a test group is using a downloadable iOS mobile app that requires identity verification before the mDL is rendered on the phone. Use of the mDL is entirely optional, and the pilot will allow MorphoTrust to test the product for a wide range of uses, from verifying a drivers age if the person is buying alcohol, to reducing trips to the motor vehicle agency to update a drivers address or to become an organ donor. (TNS) -- For the citys Fire Department, a slow Internet connection could mean the difference between a contained fire and one that could grow out of control.In our field, seconds count, said Battalion Chief Kenneth Pravetz.The city and the public schools have their own broadband networks, but several municipal buildings are not yet connected to it.Now, Virginia Beach wants to extend its fiber optic cables to provide high-speed Internet to 73 additional city buildings and offer connection spots for higher education facilities, businesses and other surrounding cities.Were going to lay a fiber ring where basically everybody else can connect to, said Councilman Ben Davenport, member of a task force that is exploring educational, economic and regional opportunities for Virginia Beachs existing broadband network.The city is also vying to be a landing point for a cable network that runs under the Atlantic Ocean.From traffic lights data to video conferencing and email, information flows through the city every day. The need for handling big data at fast speeds is growing, said Matt Arvay, the city's chief information officer.The bigger pipe you need between point A and point B, he said.In neighboring communities, private and city owned fiber provide broadband to municipal buildings.Norfolk leases lines from Cox Communications and also owns some, and it plans to increase the speed and capacity as well as partner with the public schools and other education institutions, according to Lori Crouch, a Norfolk spokeswoman.In Chesapeake, Cox provides broadband to its city buildings. Most of Suffolks city facilities are connected by city owned fiber; the rest they lease from Charter Communications.In Virginia Beach, having all of the citys fire stations on a unified government network will improve response times, Pravetz said.Firefighters receive emergency alerts through the Internet at the stations. Those on the citys high-speed broadband network receive alerts faster than the ones at Green Run, Seatack and other stations that still use private Internet providers, he said.Once the broadband network is fully implemented, it will ultimately save the city $500,000 a year. Virginia Beach has paid to lease lines from Cox Communications for buildings currently not on its network for years.The public school system first invested about $12 million in 2002 to install 110 linear miles of fiber. The city has since installed 115 linear miles of broadband fiber. That project cost $20 million, which included federal and state money and $4 million from the city.Expanding the existing fiber and purchasing new networking equipment to create the Next Generation Network will cost $4.1 million , and could be completed within 12 to 18 months, Arvay said. Neighboring cities could connect to points along Virginia Beachs network for their own municipal broadband.Cox will continue to maintain the city owned fiber.We have a robust fiber network in the city and are pleased to continue supporting the city as they look to expand their network and broadband capacity, said Emma A. Inman, Cox spokeswoman.Members of the Virginia Beach Broadband Task Force, a group of school and city leaders that was created in July, have begun to outline goals for the expansion. Providing connectivity to higher education facilities is one of them. Tidewater Community College and Old Dominion Universitys beach campuses could have access to the infrastructure.For us, the opportunity to be connected will increase capacity and the ability tied to the research components of the university, said Edna Baehre-Kolovani, TCC president.The college offers training to area hospitals that develop databases for electronic health-records management.The advantage of being connected with a broadband partnership would help us reduce our operating cost and better capability for transmission of information, she said.The City Council and the School Board listened to an update from the task force on Jan. 19. With a bigger network, the city could lease conduit and fiber to business entities.That bodes well for the proposed biomedical park on 155 acres in Princess Anne Commons, said Warren Harris, the citys director of Economic Development.Big data can be analyzed more effectively with broadband, and its a critical selling point when luring companies that specialize in biosciences to Virginia Beach.If we want to play in that space, its one of those necessary tools in the toolbox, Harris said.Davenport, who is on the task force, initially focused on how broadband would promote economic development. But hes realizing now that expanding the network could have other benefits. One of his goals will be to bridge the digital divide, a term for the gap between those who have Internet service and those who dont. Some families may not be able to afford to pay for the Internet, or some regions may only have access to small providers and slow speeds, Davenport said.The task force is identifying where those gaps exist and will work to establish educational impact zones where wireless Internet would be available for students.Think of it like a big hotspot where anybody in the citys public schools would basically get a password, and no matter where they are, boom, they can get on the Internet, Davenport said.If a cable network that runs under the Atlantic Ocean ends up in Virginia Beach, it could draw more businesses to the area and increase the citys technological footprint, Harris said.More municipalities across the nation are moving toward broadband independence.Arlington County, which had a cable franchise with Comcast, has nearly completed its municipal broadband project that began in 2011. Theyve connected county buildings and intend to make it available to businesses.Its the future, said Jack Belcher, the countys chief information officer. People want to be able to move a lot of information very quickly. Statewide concerns Widespread data storage Special-needs students Opt-out information Data already available (TNS) The personal information of 10 million California students, including not only names but also health records and Social Security numbers, must be provided under federal court order to lawyers suing the state Department of Education in a data dump that has some parents and privacy experts fuming.The order issued this month by a U.S. District Court judge in Sacramento the latest development in a long-running legal case over state oversight of special education has prompted both the plaintiffs and defendants to point fingers over the impending release of records on every child who has attended a California public school since 2008.The private data, likely to be released this year, will be handed over under seal, monitored by a special magistrate as well as a security expert, and available only to a handful of legal representatives. In addition, parents can pull their kids off the disclosure list by filling out a form and mailing it by April 1 to the judge, Kimberly Mueller.But the court seal and opt-out provision havent dispelled statewide concerns over the use of student data, the lack of parent notification and the possibility of a security breach. On Wednesday, many districts across the state were scrambling to provide information and inform parents.Parents deserve to know when the government is sharing their childrens most sensitive information, said Jim Steyer, the founder and CEO of Common Sense Media, a family advocacy group based in San Francisco.While we understand the plaintiffs in this lawsuit are obtaining this data for limited purposes with good intentions, he said, the court and the parties should be doing everything they can to ensure that the parents of the millions of affected children know why their Social Security numbers, behavioral and medical records, and other information are being shared.The case comes amid a national conversation over student privacy, with concern growing over information security as schools increasingly use computers, online learning programs and cloud-based software to teach children and store data. Student information is no longer sitting in filing cabinets its stored on multiple computers at schools, district offices and state buildings.The federal Department of Education has created a special office dedicated to data privacy, confidentiality and cybersecurity in schools, explaining, Gone are the days when textbooks, photocopies, and filmstrips supplied the entirety of educational content to a classroom full of students.The federal court case in Sacramento was initiated in 2008 by Morgan Hill parent Linda McNulty, through her organization California Concerned Parents, to address what she believed was a failure of the state to monitor school district compliance in providing special education services. The lawsuit gained class-action status in 2012.Since then, the plaintiffs have fought to get state data without identifiable student information to bolster the allegations, information the state has declined to provide, McNulty said. The plaintiffs believe the data will reveal violations that could include a failure to identify special-needs students at an early age, or a disproportionate identification of Latino children as mentally disabled.The attorneys dont need to know who the kids are, just what happened to them, McNulty said. We have been over and over and over possible alternatives to get this data, she said. The state has completely stonewalled us over the last three years.State officials deny the claims in the lawsuit, and said Wednesday they were also trying to protect student privacy.Were in a lawsuit that we are fighting vigorously, said Peter Tira, a spokesman for the state Department of Education. We are obligated by a court order in this case to produce this information, but at this point, the information has not yet been turned over to the plaintiffs and we are continuing to fight to protect students rights in this case with every legal means and resource at our disposal.Tira said the state provided all the information it had on special education students last year, with identifying information redacted, but that the plaintiffs continued to pursue deeper access.For now, the state and school districts are posting the opt-out information on their websites, but many districts have yet to directly notify families of the court order.In San Francisco, where the district has put the information on its website and plans to put it on every schools individual site, a few concerned parents have contacted officials to question the release, said district spokeswoman Gentle Blythe.We want to make it clear that were not a party to the litigation, Blythe said. We dont know what information the (Department of Education) needs to release. We just want to make sure parents can file a form to opt out.Not all parents are concerned, however. Thats because dozens if not hundreds of people already have access to the same student data, from the school secretary who processed the parent emergency information forms to teachers who input grades, as well as district staff and state workers, said San Jose mom Nancy Jacques, a member of California Concerned Parents.Under the court order, the data will be handled carefully, she said. My sons data is more protected in this circumstance, she said, than it is when its traveling from districts to the (state) with access by many people.The plaintiffs attorneys need the vast amount of data, McNulty said, because they plan to study random samples in a bid to bolster their suit. city reports saving an addition $37 million Cisco announced plans to invest $30 million Cities around the world are beginning to understand the huge potential of the Internet of Things (IoT). In Barcelona, those possibilities have started to become the reality. Starting in 2012, the city deployed responsive technologies across urban systems including public transit, parking, street lighting, and waste management. These innovations yielded significant cost savings, improved the quality of life for residents, and made the city a center for the young IoT industry.Spain was among the countries hardest hit by the 2008 recession, and recovery throughout Europe has been slow. In the face of these economic challenges, Barcelona harnessed technology to transform itself into a model of data-driven, sensing, smart urban systems. Xavier Trias, Mayor of Barcelona from 2011 to 2015, ran on a platform of technological innovation in city services. Upon taking office, he formed a new team, Smart City Barcelona , tasked with integrating existing projects and identifying new opportunities to enhance services for all of the citys people and businesses. Smart City Barcelona identified 12 areas for intervention, including transportation, water, energy, waste, and open government, and initiated 22 programs, encompassing 83 distinct projects across urban systems.In launching its IoT program, Barcelona had a solid foundation: the projects took advantage of 500 kilometers of fiber optic cable within the city. This extensive network was initiated 30 years ago when the city connected two municipal buildings with early fiber technology. The fiber network now provides 90 percent fiber-to-the-home coverage and serves as a backbone for integrated city systems.The fiber network serves as a direct link to the Internet for the Barcelonas residents and visitors. The city draws on the fiber infrastructure to provide citywide WiFi. Since 2013, the number of hotspots is up 62 percent to 670 WiFi hotspots at a maximum distance of 100 meters from point to point, and the number of WiFi users has doubled.Barcelona has also used this extensive fiber network to build out individual IoT systems across urban services. To improve energy efficiency, the city installed 19,500 smart meters that monitor and optimize energy consumption in targeted areas of the city. In waste management, households deposit waste in municipal smart bins that monitor waste levels and optimize collection routes. These sensors can be further enhanced, and plans have been developed to integrate sensing for hazardous or offensive waste material.In transportation, Barcelona has pursued a multi-modal strategy, advancing the use of electric cars and bike sharing, while investing heavily in improving the bus and parking systems. The new digital bus stops turn waiting for buses into an interactive experience, with updates on bus location, USB charging stations, free WiFi, and tools to help riders download apps to help them learn more about the city.For drivers, Barcelona has implemented a sensor system that guides them to available parking spaces. The sensors, embedded in the asphalt, can sense whether or not a vehicle is parked in a given location. By directing drivers to open spaces, the program has reduced congestion and emissions. The application that drivers to use locate parkingApparkBalso allows them to pay for parking online. Within a year of implementation, the city was issuing 4,000 parking permits per day through the application.The city simultaneously pursued the implementation of the Barcelona Lighting Masterplan, published in 2012, which uses smart technologies to enhance the efficiency and utility of city lampposts. By 2014, more than 1,100 lampposts had been transitioned to LED , reducing energy consumption. The lampposts sense when pedestrians are in close proximity; when the streets are empty, lights automatically dim to further conserve energy. The lampposts are also part of the citys WiFi network, providing consistent, free Internet access throughout the city. Moreover, they are equipped with sensors that collect data on air quality, relaying information to city agencies and to the public. Cumulatively, the improvements produced 30 percent energy savings across the urban lighting system.In order to maximize the efficiency of the citys parks, Barcelona has implemented IoT technologies to remotely sense and control park irrigation and water levels in public fountains. Using sensors to monitor rain and humidity, park workers can determine how much irrigation is needed in each area. A system of electrovalves is then remotely controlled to deliver necessary water across the city. The program, implemented in 68 percent of public parks, helped the city achieve a 25 percent increase in water conservation , for savings of approximately $555,000 per year Together, these systems constitute a network of networks , generating data that can be used by city agencies to improve city operations and by citizens seeking to better understand their local environment. Barcelonas integrated sensor network is relayed through Sentilo , a platform developed specifically for the city, which is now open source and available for reuse by other governments. Through this platform, data is managed and shared with citizens and city workers. In order to facilitate citizen access, the city developed 44 kiosks where residents can find information, access services, and make requests to the government.Already, these improvements have saved the city money and reduced the consumption of valuable energy and water. Barcelona estimates that IoT systems have helped save $58 million on water, increased parking revenues by $50 million per year, and generated 47,000 new jobs. Through smart lighting, theannually.To capitalize on the energy around the citys IoT projects, Barcelona has actively fostered its local technology industry. With $230 million in public funds, the city redeveloped an industrial area to create 22@Barcelona , where startups are putting public data to use in new applications and developing IoT technologies. Among these startups is thethings.io , which aims to become the primary service provider for the IoT world. Some of these homegrown companies are already starting to find market success. One 22@Barcelona resident, Worldsensing , developed an in-ground parking sensor that cities can use to manage citizen parking. Barcelona piloted the tool, Fastprk , in the 22@Barcelona district, helping the product evolve through a real-world implementation. While Barcelona ultimately purchased a different tool for broader implementation, Fastprk is finding a market, with 10,000 units installed in Moscow. In addition to fostering local companies, 22@Barcelona is attracting private investment.in a new center focused on the Internet of Everything (IoE). For Cisco, this will be the third IoE innovation center, following developments in Brazil and South Korea, thus establishing Barcelona as a leader on the European continent.Through investment in IoT for urban systems, Barcelona has achieved a wide array of benefits. From reduced congestion and lower emissions, to cost savings on water and power, to economic development, the citys commitment to producing smarter urban infrastructure is changing the quality of governance and the quality of life for residents, workers, and visitors. (TNS) -- Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Thursday announced several initiatives to protect groundwater, saying that testing around a Bethpage plume had begun at federal wells to identify contaminants, a water-quality rapid response task force was being formed to respond to emergencies and that the state would fund a comprehensive study of Long Islands aquifer system.He also said regulations on mulching facilities to prevent groundwater contamination would be released next week.One of the main environmental issues which is emerging is the quality of the drinking water, Cuomo said at the Center of Excellence in Wireless and Information Technology at the Stony Brook University Research and Development Park.Cuomo was flanked by both county executives, state elected officials and the acting environmental commissioner.Contaminated groundwater was high on the list of issues to tackle, and Cuomo talked about lead issues in Flint, Michigan, in upstate New York and in Nassau County.He mentioned an ongoing issue faced by water districts and residents near Bethpage, home to a complex plume traced to aviation manufacturing operations run by the U.S. Navy and what is now Northrop Grumman.At the end of January, Cuomo ordered Northrop Grumman and the Navy to give the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the Massapequa Water District access to monitoring wells that track groundwater plumes flowing from a former Bethpage manufacturing site.The move came after Massapequa Water District requested access in November to five to seven wells to conduct a type of analysis that could essentially fingerprint the contamination, with a focus on the carcinogenic solvent trichloroethylene.The Navy and Northrop Grumman officials responded, saying sampling at more wells would give a better picture of contamination. They also had questions about the science behind the testing.Cuomo said that response made people nervous and he ordered testing conducted by an independent lab. When the federal government said you cant test, it made everyone suspicious, understandably.He also said New York doesnt need permission to do the work.We will find out exactly what is in the plume, he said. Once we know what were dealing with we can come up with an intelligent plan for remediation.Sampling at the sites was expected to begin Thursday and take two days. Results will be available within weeks, then testing at additional wells will occur.Within a couple of months well have a really good sense of the contamination, state Department of Environmental Conservation acting commissioner Basil Seggos said later.The aquifers beneath Long Island are designated sole source because they provide the only supply of water to the area. But those waters are also some of the most contaminated in New York. More than 250 state and federal Superfund sites are in Nassau and Suffolk counties, a legacy created by chemicals seeping through the sandy soils from landfills, aerospace manufacturing, industrial operations and dry cleaners. Contaminated water has been documented at nearly 90 percent of those sites and groundwater plumes are evident at one-third of all sites, according to a Newsday analysis.We are now suffering from, literally, the stain of the manufacturing era, Cuomo said.The Bethpage plume, which has been traced to aviation manufacturing operations run by the Navy and what is now Northrop Grumman, is one of the most complex. Contamination dates to the 1940s, and the sites were added to the state Superfund program in the 1980s. Several cleanup plans have been issued and multiple plumes are being treated, tracked and delineated. Contamination from the site has stretched more than three miles, past the Southern State Parkway.Water officials and local politicians say the plumes emanating from Bethpage put the drinking-water supplies of 250,000 people at risk. Ongoing treatment is in place for some affected water supplies in Bethpage, South Farmingdale and Levittown, though districts have complained that handling of the cleanup has been slow. Wells in Massapequa have not been hit by the contamination, but it inches closer each day. California Releases Use of Force, Officer-Involved Shooting Data Promoting Good Health with an Ego Boost Honoring Social Media Skills in State, Local Government (TNS) -- For the first time, the identities of foreigners leaving the United States through a land border are being checked with high-tech biometric equipment capable of reading faces and irises.U.S. Customs and Border Protection has started screening pedestrians crossing into Mexico at Otay Mesa in a field test aimed a determining how the readers works in a land setting. The new procedures are part of a move by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security aimed at gaining greater information about who leaves the United States.The test, which is scheduled to conclude on April 29, is part of an effort that uses biometrics to crack down on identity theft as well as to keep track foreigners who remain in the United States with expired visas. For the next few weeks, all pedestrians leaving San Diego through Otay Mesa will be subject to screening, but only foreigners will have their identities documented through iris and facial recognition technology. The testing is taking place Monday through Friday, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.We want to know when a person comes into the country, and we want to know when they leave, said Charmaine Rodriguez, assistant port director at Otay Mesa.Biometrics measure a person's unique physical characteristics, through methods that include the reading of fingerprints, irises and facial structure. CBP has been verifying travelers' identities through fingerprints since 2004.On Thursday morning, a trickle of crossers walked into Mexico, being directed to different biometric readers set up beneath a large white canopy. Some pushed bicycles, others carried groceries or pulled luggage.Its not a bother, said Jesus Martinez Sanchez, 57, a Tijuana furniture store employee who was returning to Mexico after doing some paperwork for his son-in-law in San Diego. It would be a bother if there were a lot of people.The testing responds to a longstanding demand by Congress that DHS track foreigners who remain in the country after their visas expire. A 2006 study by the Pew Hispanic Center estimated that visa overstays made up as much as half of the countrys undocumented population.Though legislation imposing penalties on those who overstay their visas dates back to 1996, this really came to light after the 9/11 attacks, when it was difficult to determine with a degree of certainty if individuals had left the country, Rodriguez said.Except for sporadic checks for guns, bulk cash and stolen vehicles by U.S. authorities, those crossing into Mexico by land rarely submit to U.S. inspections. Until now, there has been little scrutiny of pedestrians leaving the country through Otay Mesa either by U.S. or Mexican authorities.The new southbound inspections at Otay Mesa began last week, and represent the second phase of a test that was launched in December. The first phase has involved using readers to capture biometric information of non-U.S. citizens entering the United States on foot through the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, creating a database for the test.The southbound inspections, the first of their kind at a U.S. land border crossing, separate crossers into U.S. citizens and non-U.S. citizens.U.S. citizens with passport cards or other radio-frequency identification documents (RFID) that can be read by machines are being asked to swipe their cards before crossing, registering their departure. Those with passport books are directed to kiosks that read the information.The biometric testing applies to most non-U.S. citizens between the ages of 14 and 79. Those with RFID documents are being directed to either of two lanes. One lane tests on the move technology, and crossers are instructed to continue walking, but look into a camera as they pass through. Crossers sent to the other lane, called pause and look are told to stop for about five seconds while a camera captures an image. Those foreigners without RFID documents are sent to the kiosks.The testing will help CBP decide what tracking methods can be most successful at land borders.Its a much different environment than an airport or cruise ship terminal, Rodriguez said. Were dealing with different types of lighting, with people who are wearing hats, sunglasses.... The fact that they need to continue to move forward as theyre looking at the camera is difficult sometimes in this environment, as theyre struggling with luggage or minding their children.According to CBP, 9,000 pedestrians a day cross into the United States through the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, while about 6,000 leave the country. The majority of the technology is meant to be minimally intrusive on the traveler, Rodriguez said. The test data is being kept in a local database and not being shared with other law enforcement agencies, she said.Anyone found to have overstayed their U.S. visa will be processed on a case-by-case basis. Inspectors would use our normal processing for a person who has overstayed their visa. It might be a simple annotation versus a more formalized process, Rodriguez said. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is being sued for drone regulations it instated last December . But TechFreedom, a nonprofit think tank, has filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C., arguing that the new requirement for drone hobbyists to register and pay fees in order to operate their drones oversteps the FAAs authority.The issue here is not whether drone registration is a good idea, TechFreedom President Berin Szoka toldvia email, clarifying that the issue is whether federal regulators can push the boundaries of the authority Congress gave them to claim new power over technology, and whether regulators can issue new rules without seeking public comment."In its rush to get rules out before Christmas, the FCC bypassed the most fundamental safeguard of the Administrative Procedure Act: that proposed regulations are put out for public comment," he added. "If the government can regulate with murky authority and without public input, no technology is safe."TechFreedoms lawsuit claims that the FAA is prohibited from instating rules regarding model aircraft, citing section 336 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012. The group also claims that the FAA is authorized only to require registration of people who own aircraft, not the aircraft themselves.Szoka stated in a media release that the FAAs rules could also lead to a host of unintended consequences.Just as children regularly lie about their ages online to bypass agewalls created by the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, so too could the FAA's requirements create "a culture of noncompliance," Szoka said. The regulations could also impede children from accessing the burgeoning fields of study in STEM, set precendents on taxation that penalizes those who own multiple drones, and raise privacy concerns that could prevent the public from trying out drones. Drone operators as young as 13 years old, for instance, are required to join the registry, making their names and addresses available to the public.TechFreedoms lawsuit is the second to be filed since the new regulation was instated, the first coming from a Colorado-based drone hobbyist asking that the court overturn the FAA's claimed authority to regulate recreational drone use.To encourage prompt registration, the FAA waived the $5 registration fee within the first 30 days, and more than 342,000 people have now registered their drones, according to a Feb. 16 FAA press release A new report this week from Attorney General Kamala Harris presents some alarming figures about data breaches in California since 2012."In the last four years, nearly 50 million records of Californians have been breached and the majority of these breaches resulted from security failures. Furthermore, nearly all of the exploited vulnerabilities, which enabled these breaches, were compromised more than a year after the solution to patch the vulnerability was publicly available. It is clear that many organizations need to sharpen their security skills, trainings, practices, and procedures to properly protect consumers," Harris writes in the California Data Breach Report, available online here Since 2012, businesses and government agencies have been required to report data breaches affecting more than 500 Californians to the Attorney General's Office. More than 650 breach incidents have been sent in during the past four years.The annual comprehensive report notes that the total number of breaches did not increase between 2014 and 2015, but the number of Californians affected increased from 4.3 million in 2014 to over 24 million in 2015."In 2015, there were four incidents that each breached the information of over two million Californians: Anthem at 10.4 million was the largest, followed by UCLA Health at 4.5 million, next was PNI Digital Media with 2.7 million Californian customers of online photo centers (Costco, RiteAid, and CVS) that it services, and finally, T-Mobile/Experian at 2.1 million," the report says.The breaches come from malware and hacking, physical breaches and breaches caused by errors, according to the attorney general. About 90 percent of the breached records in California came from malware and hacking, which the report called the "greatest threat."Social Security numbers were the type of data most often breached, occurring in nearly half of all breaches reported since 2012. (TNS) -- A recent breach of 91,000 Medicaid patients' information was discovered during a separate investigation into a state employee who was viewing Internet pornography at work, new audit reports reveal.The state Auditors Office was investigating improper computer use by an employee at the state Department of Social and Health Services when it found the employees computer contained 57 files from the state Health Care Authority, according to audit reports released Thursday.When questioned, the DSHS employee told investigators that his sister, who worked at the HCA, had sent him the documents so he could help her work on the spreadsheets.The sharing of confidential information between the two Washington state employees violated federal privacy rules, according to the HCA. The documents contained Medicaid clients Social Security numbers, names, dates of birth and private health information.Both employees have since been fired.State auditors began investigating the DSHS employee for misusing his state computer in 2014, after receiving a whistleblower report about the alleged activity.During the course of the auditors 11-month investigation, they found the employee had visited more than 150 sites for sexually explicit films, and saved 55 personal favorites in his Internet browser linking to adult content.The employee had also spent up to seven hours some workdays conducting personal activities on his state-owned computer, according to the audit. During one work week in May 2015, the employee spent 27 hours browsing web sites unrelated to work, auditors found.When confronted about his computer use, the employee told investigators he has approximately 15 minutes of work to do each day.The employee also said his job is much like that of a firefighter most of the time he has nothing to do until there is an emergent situation, according to the auditors report.The employees supervisor refuted that account, saying there was plenty of work to be done.Jan Jutte, deputy state auditor, said Thursday that its highly unusual for one whistleblower investigation to uncover misconduct at another agency.She said her employees immediately opened another investigation into misconduct by the HCA employee as soon as they suspected confidential data had been shared.As for the DSHS employees computer use, it quickly became clear that his use of his work computer violated agency rules, which allow only infrequent or occasional personal use of state resources, Jutte said.I think when you can see that an individual has spent seven hours doing personal stuff in any one day and we saw more than one instance where that was the case its hard to say thats anything but egregious, Jutte said.A spokeswoman for the Health Care Authority, Amy Blondin, said the agency is grateful the whistleblower investigation uncovered the data breach.Protecting Apple Health (Medicaid) clients information is a top priority for us, Blondin wrote in an email Thursday. We took swift action to terminate employment of the individual involved, and to notify impacted clients and offer free credit monitoring. A new study out of George Washington University took a look at Twitters ongoing efforts to remove terrorist sympathizers from the platform and found that the tactic had a substantial effect.According the report, announced Feb. 18 by the Program on Extremism, the social media platforms consistent suspension of English-speaking, Islamic State-sympathetic accounts between August and September of 2015 resulted in substantial disruption to the number of followers per account.Suspensions have a measurable effect in suppressing the activity of ISIS networks on Twitter, J.M. Berger, co-author of the study, said in a release. Occasional large-scale suspensions, such as we saw after the Paris attacks, have dramatically reduced the size of ISIS presence on social media, and a lower level of routine suspensions hold the network flat in between these events.The social media company, and others, have been at the center of criticism that they are not active enough in removing those associated with the pro-terror group, ISIS since the attacks in Paris, France, in November and the mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., in December.We found suspensions typically had a very significant detrimental effect on these repeat offenders, shrinking both the size of their networks and the pace of their activity, the report reads. Each user had a different trajectory, with some recovering more robustly than others, but all showed consistent declines over the monitored period.Twitter reported the suspension of more than 125,000 sympathizer accounts since mid-2015 in a Feb. 5 blog post. As the state of California ventures into a new regulatory effort to track all marijuana grown and sold in the state, one of the key decisions before state officials is what kind of system it should deploy.The Board of Equalization last week held a stakeholder hearing in Sacramento to explore the different systems currently being used by Colorado, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico and Illinois to regulate the cannabis industry.As a taxing agency, were concerned that taxes are applied correctly, and theres really no way for us to do that correctly if we dont have the ability to trace, board member George Runner said at the hearing.Gov. Jerry Brown last year signed into a law legislation that called for the first statewide licensing and operating rules for marijuana growers and retail outlets since the state legalized medical marijuana 20 years ago. Lawmakers charged the Board of Equalization with the job, said board member Fiona Ma, who has rebuffed the notion that other state agencies should develop and oversee the new controls.At the heart of the regulatory effort is a database system known as track and trace one that can give state taxing and public health officials, and law enforcement the ability to follow a marijuana plant from a seed to the packaged product at a dispensary.The level of detail could include how many times a single plant, which is assigned a unique serial number, was sprayed with pesticide, when it was packaged and sold, how much of the product from that plant has been sold to patients, and how much remains on dispensary store shelves.Track and trace is a digital representation of reality, said Patrick Vo, CEO of BiotrackTHC, which runs systems in Washington, New Mexico and Illinois. This allows the state agency to view in real time, every plant, every gram of cannabis in the production life cycle within the state.That is valuable information for public health officials who want to ensure cannabis has passed lab tests, law enforcement who want to target illicit business and taxing agencies tasked with collecting sales tax. Jeff Wells, CEO of Franwell Inc., which operates tracking systems in Colorado and Oregon, said a robust database could actually eliminate the auditing process because there would be such strong enforcement and compliance.To do the job right in California, however, systems used in other states must take into account Californias diversity, said David McPherson, a principal at HdL, which offers local governments sales tax services. For example, a cloud-based program might not work so well for farmers asked to scan tags in a field on a hillside without an Internet connection.The board was also cautioned a new regulatory scheme both the process and fees not be too burdensome on the industry, especially on the small farmers.If the new system prevents access or puts burdens on them, they will transition into the illicit market. Theyre going to find an alternative, and its not the alternative they and the state want, said John Hudak, deputy director of the Center for Effective Public Management and a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, who noted farmers had been playing by their own rules in California for the last 20 years.His sentiment was echoed by Paul Hansberry, a cultivator from the Mendocino Valley, who traveled to Sacramento to voice his concerns.I fear the different agencies and people establishing regulations know very little about the farmers and only look at the media reports of a billion-dollar industry and feel they can tax and regulate and create fees with unbridled abandon because the farmers have a million dollars buried in the back yard. Thats just not so, Hansberry said. How Governments Can Protect Themselves In Southern California, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center paid a ransom of 40 bitcoin nearly $17,000 to regain access to its electronic medical records system, the hospital announced Feb. 17. For cybersecurity experts, the news highlights the importance of strong endpoint protection and demonstrates a growing trend in the word of cybersecurity.The center was without access to its information for 10 days following initial detection on Feb. 5, when hospital employees reported lack of access the network. The source of the malwares entry is yet undetermined, but Ars Technica reported that the leading suspect is an email phishing attack. During the time the hospital lost access, hospital staff reverted to paperwork and fax machines to process patients, and some emergency patients were diverted to other hospitals. The hospital maintains that no personal information was stolen from the network.Theres two things it says about a company that gets breached and has to make a payment, said Gartner Research Director Lawrence Pingree. One, they dont have a good backup and recovery strategy. Two, they got breached by ransomware and they dont have adequate protection on the endpoint for defeating and thwarting ransomware. And there are technologies out there now that are capable of doing that in some of the endpoint protection products now, like Malwarebytes and Trend Micro.A recent survey by Cloud Security Alliance revealed that those distributing ransomware have a captive audience. Of 209 technology professionals surveyed, nearly a quarter said they would be willing to pay a ransom to prevent a cyberattack, and 14 percent said they would pay a ransom of more than $1 million to stop hackers from releasing sensitive information.I think were going to see increasing numbers of these types of attacks over 2016, Pingree said, echoing similar warning by the FBI in 2015 . It used to be more effective to go after ransoming end users, and now I think attackers are wise that organizations large and small will pay if they dont have the proper controls in place.Ransomware starts the same as any other malware attack, said John Pescatore, director of emerging security trends at the SANS Institute.First the bad guys have to penetrate your system, so you do have to worry about it because its definitely happening, Pescatore said. The best way to try to prevent it is do all the things we tell people to do to prevent malware from getting in: Limit peoples privileges, patch systems, train people about phishing and so on.The difference with ransomware, however, is that it's much less effective against organizations that back up their data.If someone says, Hey, we have your database, you can say, Ha-ha, I just backed it up last night. I can keep doing business, Pescatore said. In a ransomware attack, theyre exposing the fact that a lot of especially mid-sized companies dont do backups very regularly.The choice of whether to pay the ransom is simply a business decision, Pescatore said, but once an organization has been exposed, patching those vulnerabilities is critical because the bad guys will surely sell the information about the vulnerabilities to others, increasing the likelihood of future attacks.The thing that sets ransomware apart from other types of malware attacks is the urgency, said David OBerry, worldwide technical strategist with Intel Security.Theres no time once ransomware hits, he said. It can just happen so quickly, whereas [in other types of attacks] there may be more time to handle the situation. Once it happens, theres hardly a way back from it. The only real way back is a very solid backup schedule, very solid network operations and data center operations aspect, and even then it gets very, very hairy. So the only way to get in front of this is to eradicate it on the front line in as close to real time as possible.A spokesperson for the Center for Internet Security (CIS) said that because of their groups involvement with certain organizations on cyberattack responses, they could not comment on this issue, but urged organizations to look at the CIS primer on ransomware as a starting point to keep themselves protected.An FBI spokesperson said they couldnt comment except to say that the service is investigating the incident. Top Ranked States in Each Category Every year, one out of every three dollars governments spend goes toward purchasing something -- from photo copier ink to new vehicle fleets -- to help provide services. This very large chunk of the budget would seem to make procurement the most obvious area to look for new ways to save taxpayer money. Yet for the billions spent every year in state procurement, many central offices have long remained mired in old techniques. Theyve been unable to take a big-picture view when it comes to spending, and theyve only dabbled in using data and new technology for more efficient purchasing.The examples of what can go wrong are many. Take Mississippi, which has a high reliance on no-bid contracts. In 2014, the commissioner of the Department of Corrections (DOC) resigned and became the subject of a federal investigation for allegedly taking $2 million in bribes in exchange for steering prison contracts to a former lawmaker. In Colorado, an audit last year found poor oversight of more than one-third of the contracts surveyed in the states health exchange. The lack of follow-through to make sure vendors were complying with contract requirements was partially responsible for more than $400,000 in questionable costs.When these problems make headlines, the response from lawmakers is usually swift and targeted. Last August, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant issued a pair of executive orders requiring more transparency when awarding contracts and requiring professional training for procurement officers in the DOC. While these legislative responses might tackle the specific problem at hand, such one-time fixes to procurement rules have led to a hodgepodge regulatory structure that makes sweeping overhauls daunting.On a grander scale, the bad publicity for procurement offices tends to reinforce old-fashioned ideas that have built a stagnated culture. Many states would rather stick with their established processes for soliciting and choosing vendors than initiate reforms that could raise the spectre of favoritism. They often choose to take the safe path rather than the best strategic path, says Old Dominion University professor and public procurement expert Stephen B. Gordon, because theyve been punished before and they could be punished again.For years, these factors have held a vise grip on the ways in which states buy things -- until now. Recent years have seen sweeping reforms in certain states, leading to greater purchasing flexibility, more attention on vendor performance, better tracking of how contracts are executed and new technology.While many states are slogging through the beginning stages of these reforms -- and some havent changed at all -- a handful are clearly ahead. In an in-depth survey over the past year, the Governing Institute assessed state purchasing processes and ranked 39 state procurement offices, weighing factors such as contract management and effective implementation of technology. ( View the survey's highlights here .)Six states stood out as top performers: Georgia, Virginia, Minnesota and Utah filled out the top four slots with Massachusetts and Ohio tied for fifth. What these states have in common is an effort that began more than a decade ago to modernize their technology and use it to introduce new ideas. Another common denominator was the full support of top-level officials, including governors, who viewed the procurement office as a place to advance the states goals rather than an enforcer that simply ensures the state is buying by the rules. As other states across the country are now engaged in their own overhaul efforts, these states offer an effective blueprint for better buying.the way most of us buy things has changed dramatically, thanks to new technology. Trips to the store and orders from catalogs have shifted to one-click purchasing and smartphone swiping that allows for quick comparison-shopping to find the best prices. Consumers assess how often they run out of household products and sign up for monthly bulk shipments to save money and keep from running out. Private-sector companies have used technology to buy more effectively and track how well their money was spent.But the Governing Institute survey suggests that the tech-fueled purchasing revolution has been slow to catch on in most governments. Only 35 percent of respondents, for example, said they have up-to-date spending information and market metrics in their databases even though nearly two-thirds cited such areas as critical to success.Many states are now taking steps to better track procurement from start to finish, but implementing those changes isnt always smooth. For instance, Colorado Central Purchasing recently installed a new financial system that tracks the money attached to a project from requisition all the way to vendor payment. But a lack of training on how to use the system -- and the rigidity it placed on the process by requiring budget approval before the solicitation -- has created headaches. Often this pushes purchasing and sourcing into a get-it-done situation, Colorado said in the survey, with a shortened time for vendor marketing, research and specification/requirements review.Some states have been early adopters, and its these places where working with state procurement offices has become more intuitive and efficient. In 2001, Virginias procurement office contracted with a company to develop a software service that was tailored to the states buying needs. That service was the basis for what is now eVA, the states e-procurement platform. Contracting with a company to provide a service, not necessarily just the software, gives the procurement office the flexibility to meet new needs quickly, says Robert Gleason, the states purchasing director. For example, if the governor issues a new executive order creating a new type of category for minority-owned businesses, the procurement office wouldnt have to go through the process of adding that onto their contract with their e-procurement software provider, as in some states. Instead, Gleason forwards on the new specs to his service provider. Theyre primed and ready to go for the next change, he says, so I can meet the governors objective on the fly and its already covered under the existing cost structure.States like Virginia that have a well-established relationship with technology are not just more nimble. They are also finding new and effective ways to develop their solicitations. Georgias central procurement office has a team of business analysts they call mathletes who analyze spending data to help structure future solicitations so that the state can get a more favorable price. Lisa Eason, Georgias deputy commissioner for procurement, says the team has shaved off $61 million a year over what would have been paid -- representing an 11 percent annual savings rate.Technology can be important, but effective procurement still requires good management. Thats become a challenge in recent years, as many state offices report a loss of talent due mainly to retirements and more competitive salaries in the private sector. According to research by the National Association of State Procurement Officers (NASPO), 40 percent of offices report being understaffed compared with the workload requirements. That can leave little, if any, capacity for getting creative and trying new ideas. Customer service has also suffered, although many procurement officers seem to be more optimistic on that front than is likely warranted. Nearly 90 percent of respondents said state agencies are usually pleased with the central procurement office, but fewer than half of the offices even have performance measures for their customer service to these agencies. Only about one-third of offices even ask for formal feedback in the form of evaluations from agencies. And few states have customer service groups dedicated entirely to agencies needs.Georgia has used enhanced training as a way to address its human resources issues, particularly the concern that its staff retain its skill and institutional knowledge as more and more baby boomers retire. In addition to high training requirements, the states office is constantly tailoring its trainings to be relevant. For example, it pays special attention to any repetitive staff errors that may crop up, and shares that information with other divisions responsible for training and policy. That information can lead to tweaks in the state training curriculum and even revisions to state policy, if needed.Georgias approach to training has also made it a leader in an area where most states are lagging behind, the survey found. Contract administration -- following through to make sure the vendor and the state stick to their agreements -- is one of the most significant challenges facing state procurement today. Only a few states have made real inroads in this area, and that progress has come only recently. In 2014, Georgia developed a contract training course for procurement officers in both its central office and in state agencies to help contracts run more smoothly. A lot of our contract administration was very reactive, when someone would call and complain, says Eason. So wed have to react instead of being proactive.Florida and Missouri also have new offices that oversee contract management, but most places do not. Fewer than half of state procurement offices in the Governing Institute survey even publish a contract administration manual, and less than one-third have a consistent way of tracking contract performance that they share with project administrators.This lack of attention leads to mistakes and details slipping through the cracks, particularly in cases where the central procurement office is responsible for handling the solicitation but hands over the project entirely to a state agency after finding a vendor. New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli found in 2013 that the state Office for People with Developmental Disabilities overpaid a contractor by more than $1.1 million because it based payments on budgeted expenses rather than actual expenditures. In 2012, a Florida audit of a publicly funded jobs agency found that it ignored or overlooked state and federal financial reporting guidelines, leading to more than $15 million in questionable costs.Much of what can go wrong with contract administration can be traced back to a lack of focus on designing the project and objectives early on. Too often, says Old Dominions Gordon, procurement regulations focus on the middle stage of finding a vendor and writing the contract. Thats too late, he says. Contracts are awarded and often forgotten, he says. Theyre just allowed to drift.Part of smart procurement means using technology to find innovative ways to connect the state to new suppliers. Thats a key area in which most states are lagging, the survey found. But there are some bright spots. California is unique in using civic engagement methods already popular in cities to identify and connect with new potential vendors. Last fall, California launched its Green Gov Challenge, a competition that asked participants to create apps, visualizations and other tools to help improve government sustainability practices. The state awarded cash prizes to participants that came up with the best ideas and has the option to develop a contract with any of the winners. Virginia in 2012 became the first jurisdiction to launch a mobile app for suppliers to connect with state buyers. Business owners interested in contracting with the state can register, download the app and get notifications when the state bids out for work in their field. A new feature introduced in recent months allows small businesses to connect via the app to bid on a project together.Some states are using technology to help promote more diversity among suppliers. Here, Minnesota has launched a unique effort to support and promote businesses that reflect the makeup of the community. Last year Gov. Mark Dayton issued an executive order establishing an Office of Equity in Procurement and a Diversity and Inclusion Council to promote this goal. On recommendations made by the council, the state now has representatives who conduct in-person recruiting of minority-, women- and veteran-owned businesses to bid on state contracts. The procurement office is also developing an online portal where small businesses can apply for all their minority certifications, with the goal of eliminating the confusing paperwork many small businesses face when first working with the state.But it can be difficult to balance those kinds of policy priorities -- supporting minority-owned businesses, for example, or small businesses in general -- with a states responsibility to spend taxpayer dollars wisely. Often, the goals may not align, raising concerns of a state playing favorites by prioritizing certain kinds of suppliers over others. For instance, part of Minnesotas procurement strategy is to participate in cooperative purchasing with other governments as a way to take advantage of economies of scale and get the best price for a solicitation. By nature, that eliminates most small business participation because they dont have the infrastructure to compete. Its just this big cauldron of issues you throw into a pot and sometimes theyre completely conflicting, says Betsy Hayes, Minnesotas chief procurement officer. And trying to balance all those issues is what really makes it all fascinating.To help achieve that balance between value and policy promotion, its useful to have clear objectives for each project and a transparent selection process. But the truly important factor is support from the top down. With a consistent message from the governor through to agency heads and front-line workers, its easier to see how each new project fits into the states goals. In many states, leaders have begun to view procurement as part of their overall strategy, not just a place to hand down regulations. The key, says NASPOs DeLaine Bender, is for leaders not to be overly prescriptive that they make it so difficult to reform and add that flexibility.public-sector procurement is changing. Starting in the 1990s, states began taking a smarter approach to the way they buy things. In the past decade, advances in technology and data -- along with growing economic pressures -- have led to more strategic purchasing processes in some states.The bad news is that states, by and large, have struggled to take full advantage of technology to improve procurement. The good news is that that seems to be changing. With a small handful of states leading the way, procurement offices are demonstrating that its possible to maintain accountability and spend public money responsibly while also pursuing new tech innovations and promoting stated policy goals. A generation ago in procurement, no one wanted subjectivity, says Hayes, it had to be completely black-and-white. I think thats why its taken a long time for the safeguards and the processes to be developed where these more sophisticated procurement methods are accepted. Max Verstappen is not getting carried away with talk Toro Rosso could beat the premier Red Bull team in 2016. With the junior Faenza squad switching to Ferrari power but Red Bull Racing staying with Renault this year, it is suggested Toro Rosso could be higher on the grid. "At the start of the year, yes," said Red Bull team boss Christian Horner. Toro Rosso's 18-year-old sensation Verstappen, however, is keeping his expectations in check. "Normally, Red Bull should be ahead of us," the Dutchman told his official website verstappen.nl. "Red Bull still has one of the best cars. For sure, at the end of last year, they were quicker than we were, so I think that they are still capable of being fast again," Verstappen added. "But it is hard to say because they have a different package and also a different engine." He is therefore wary that, no matter how the year starts, Toro Rosso could ultimately be overtaken as its late 2015-spec Ferrari engine is out-developed by rivals. "That is a possibility, I guess," said Verstappen. "We have an engine that is not developed any further as opposed to most of the teams that have developed theirs. "It's a pity, but we certainly need to seize every moment we can in the first couple of races," he added. Finally, Verstappen said that even though the FIA added multiple penalty points to his super license last year, he will not pull back his aggressive driving style. "To have that many (penalty points) I think is quite strange," he said. "But I will not race less hard or differently. I'll just floor it." (GMM) Christian Horner says he is not worried about losing Daniel Ricciardo to a rival team. When Red Bull launched its 2016 livery earlier this week, Australian Ricciardo warned that while his hopes are modest for the new year, he is also keen to keep the momentum in his career that looked set to skyrocket in 2014. Another middling season for Red Bull could therefore cost the team the smiling 26-year-old. But boss Horner told France's L'Equipe: "I'm very relaxed with regards to the contracts that we have with our drivers, be they short, medium or long term. "It's up to us to provide them with a car that allows them to demonstrate their talent," he acknowledged. (GMM) Christian Horner has played down hopes F1's new tyre rules will really spice up the action. From 2016, a set of complex rules essentially allowing teams to choose from three tyre compounds per race is tipped to shake up the established order. "It's a nice way to give us (teams) a few more options," Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said in an interview with France's L'Equipe. "It may inject a little more variability into the races, but I fear that with the very powerful simulation we can do these days that most of the teams will be making the same choices," he added. (GMM) The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced that an agreement has been reached to support possible siting of an innovative small modular reactor (SMR) project within DOEs Idaho National Laboratory (INL) site. This Site Use Permit has been granted to Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems ( UAMPS) to support possible siting of an innovative small modular reactor (SMR) project within the boundary of DOEs Idaho National Laboratory (INL) site. The INL Site Use Permit signed by the US Department of Energy and UAMPS allows the latter to access the INL site to analyze environmental, safety, and siting conditions. UAMPS is currently working to identify potential locations that may be suitable for building the UAMPS Carbon Free Power Project (CFPP) for further characterization and analysis. The SMR design for the CFPP is being provided by NuScale Power. As potential locations are identified on the INL site, those locations will be provided to the Energy Department to ensure that the use of such site would not conflict with INL mission work. NuScale Power has developed a small, scalable pressurized water reactor technology, engineered with passive safety features. The 50 MWe NuScale Power Module provides power in increments that can be scaled to 600 MWe (gross) in a single facility. Site characterization activities will be conducted in accordance with all established INL site stewardship protocols to include environmental protection, and historic and cultural resource preservation. The CFPP is a commercial venture on a federal compound, and the successful deployment of a small modular reactor design would provide US utilities with a greater range of nuclear energy options to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gases. Small modular reactors feature compact, scalable designs that are expected to offer a host of safety, construction and economic benefits, and could potentially supply low-carbon baseload energy to small electric grids and locations that cannot support larger reactors. If UAMPS identifies a suitable area within the INL site boundary for development of the CFPP, and if the Energy Department determines that the use of such site would not conflict with INL mission work, the design, construction, operation, and eventual decommissioning of an SMR at the selected site would be licensed and inspected by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), following extensive safety and environmental reviews. Ned Gerard / Ned Gerard In a boost for Connecticuts largest manufacturer, Poland has restarted negotiations with Stratford-based Sikorsky for the sale of up to 70 Black Hawk helicopters, according to U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, who said he has been pushing for the move. I met with Polish Minister of Defense (Tomasz) Siemoniak last year and vigorously made the case that the U.S.-Poland relationship would be much stronger if Poland went with the higher-performing Black Hawk, Murphy said in a statement. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate When three Newtown High School students were arrested this week for selling nude pictures and videos of their classmates, it became evident that sexting could lead to legal trouble. But local authorities and school officials worry that many teens dont understand the potentially lifelong consequences of sharing nude photos via text-messaging applications. Who knows where that picture is going to go? asked Newtown Police Chief James Viadero. Thats something that could follow you for the rest of your life... At some point you could be looking for a job, and an employer could find that material on the Internet. Officials say sexting is increasingly popular among teens owing to peer pressure, widespread access to social media and lack of awareness of the potentially serious consequences. Besides the three boys arrested Tuesday on felony child pornography charges, 20 other students were referred to a juvenile review board, where they will likely receive community service. But the eight-month investigation actually involved more than 50 students, male and female, police said. Authorities in Newtown said the sexting escalated once photos and videos were shared with high school students who were not the intended recipients. The three students facing charges are accused of charging $10 to $20 to share such content with their classmates. Viadero said it will take a lot of work to make teens understand the dangers involved. In area public schools, sharing sexted pictures of classmates could lead to disciplinary actions ranging from suspension to expulsion. And every time there is a complaint, police are notified as well, officials said. Although no Bethel students have been arrested for sexting, the practice is discussed with students as early as the sixth-grade. The school resource officer at Bethel Middle School includes the subject in her annual social media presentations to students. Our job is to educate our children on how to protect themselves and their friends, said Christine Carver, Bethels superintendent of schools. We want them to understand what the consequences are and why its not a good idea. Bethel Middle School Principal Derek Muharem said students begin using social media at such an early age these days that they can make a serious misjudgment before they understand what could happen to photos they share with others. Its very dangerous, he said. It doesnt just happen in Newtown, it happens all over the world. Sal Pascarella, superintendent of schools in Danbury, called sexting a major issue. Its becoming pervasive and its sad, he said. These things are not retrievable, and theyre damaging. Pascarella said sexting generally takes place off-campus, but if students feel they are being harassed or bullied, the district seeks to punish whoever is responsible. In order for us to apply sanctions, we have to show a substantive interference in the educational process, he said. Pascarella said there have been very few suspensions and no expulsions or arrests because of sexting in district schools. New Milfords Interim Superintendent Josh Smith said the district uses its network policy, which covers bullying and harassment, in the rare instances when sexting takes place on school grounds. There have been disciplinary actions taken regarding sexting, but nothing like Newtown is experiencing, he said. It certainly affects our school day, Smith added. The necessary and difficult part is making young adolescents realize they are violating child pornography laws and they get in really deep really fast using technology. Bethel High School Principal Chris Troetti said the problem is compounded by smartphone applications such as Snapchat, where images supposedly self-destruct after 10 seconds. What many people dont realize is that another user can save those photos by taking screenshots, using third-party apps or simply using another device to take a picture of the image. Phones and accounts can also be hacked, or photos sent by accident or lifted from borrowed phones. Ex-partners angry after a break-up can punish each other by sharing previously sexted photos and videos with other people. Unfortunately, with social media, its such a quick action, Troetti said. They hit send so quickly and they cant take it back, but ultimately someone might be able to capture what they sent. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate Back in May of this year former U.S. House Speaker and Texas native Jim Wright died at the age of 92. Wright was a longtime Texas Democrat who became the first House speaker in the nation's history to be driven out of office in midterm. Although three House speakers had resigned before Wright stepped down in 1989, they all served during the 19th century and none had been under fire for breaking House ethics rules. Everyone from President Barack Obama, former President George H.W. Bush., U.S. House Speaker John Boehner, to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn offered up words of condolence in the wake of his death earlier this year. RELATED: Things to know about former House Speaker Jim Wright Among all of his honors and accolades, it is sometimes forgotten that Wright played a small part in one of the most devastating chapters in modern American history. As a prominent Texas Democrat, Wright joined officials in welcoming President John F. Kennedy to Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, riding in the presidential motorcade as it passed through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy's assassination that day cast a shadow on the city and the state for a generation. "To describe the depth of sadness that engulfed us that day defies vocabulary," Wright once said, recalling how the friendly mood of the Dallas crowds turned to "sheer terror and horror." Wright was one of the last survivors of the Kennedy motorcade. Now nearly 52 years since the assassination, that group of men and women continues to dwindle. He was a passenger in the second congressmans car, which was a white Ford Mercury Comet Caliente, provided by a local Dallas dealership. RELATED: Report: CIA withheld damning Cuba evidence in JFK assassination investigation There were a total of three cars full of congressmen. Also in the car that day were fellow Texas dignitaries Congressman Albert Thomas from Houston, Jack Brooks of Beaumont, Lindey Beckworth, and Olin E. Teague. Wright was the last living dignitary from his car, with Brooks dying in 2012. The two men were the youngest politicians in that car. Other people that were in the Kennedy motorcade that live on today include Secret Service agents Clint Hill and Winston Lawson. Journalists Robert MacNeil, Richard Beebe Dudman, and Sid Davis all tell their stories each November. John Connallys press secretary Julian Read and photographer Harry Cabluck are also part of living history. RELATED: Iconic Houston surgeon Dr. 'Red' Duke dies He wasnt directly related to the motorcade that day in Dallas, but renowned Houston physician Dr. James "Red" Duke Jr. was a trauma surgeon who attended to Gov. Connally that day at Parkland Hospital when he and a fatally-wounded Kennedy arrived. Duke died in August at the age of 86 after spending decades saving lives in Houston. Reporter Bob Clark was in the national press pool car with Malcolm Kilduff, Kennedys press secretary. He is the last surviving soul from that vehicle. Stephen Fagin, the associate curator at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, says that there a handful of Dallas media members in the motorcade who are still around too. RELATED: Noted Houston photographer got closer than he wanted to JFK's funeral Joe Carter, then a United Press International reporter at the Dallas bureau, covered the aftermath at Parkland Memorial Hospital and Dallas Love Field. According to Fagin, Carter later became a speechwriter for President Johnson. David Wiegman, Jr. was the official White House photographer for NBC News. He was just six cars behind the presidential limo. He shot footage inside the motorcade that has been widely seen. James Darnell was a cameraman for local outlet WBAP-TV, just eight cars behind the presidential limousine. Helen Holmes was a public relations director at the Sam Bloom Agency in Dallas. Bob Jackson, photographer with the Dallas Times Herald, was in camera car and according to Fagin, he had spotted a rifle in the sixth floor window of the Texas School Book Depository building. Jackson would later grab that iconic shot of Jack Ruby shooting accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize in News Photography. The crew at Mental Floss has come out with another entertaining U.S. map of Google searches. This one provides a state-by-state look at what people are musing about when they do Internet searches. The Samsung Galaxy S7, the S7 edge and S7 edge+ are all flying out to Barcelona for the weekend - for their big reveal! Neither of them is particularly keen on staying under wraps though, here's yet another pre-announcement photo of the new flagship. This one, in particular, is the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge, the version with a 5.5" QHD screen. Its curved sides are quite easy to see in this shot. The Samsung Unpacked event is scheduled for Sunday, February 21, and will even be streamed in 360 video, so you get to experience it virtually first hand. Also, OnLeaks and uSwitch partnered up to deliver these 3D renders of the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge. Samsung Galaxy S7 renders (OnLeaks/uSwitch) Samsung Galaxy S7 edge renders (OnLeaks/uSwitch) Thanks for the tip, Rob! Source 1 Source 2 Haiti - Education : Nesmy Manigat appointed President of a Committee of Global Partnership for Education Prime Minister Evans Paul congratulated Nesmy Manigat, the Minister of National Education for his appointment to the Presidency of the Governance, Ethics, Risk and Finance Committee of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). The Governance, Ethics, Risk and Finance Committee provides oversight of GPE's Conflict of Interest Policy and risk management framework, and advises the Board on ensuring GPE resources are managed efficiently, effectively and consistent with the Global Partnerships mission, goals, objectives and policies. In particular, the GERF has the following roles : Ethics and Conflicts of Interest: The GERF has decision-making and advisory roles delegated by the Board to the Ethics Committee in the Conflict of Interest Policy. Risk Management: the GERF Committee oversees the development and implementation of a risk management framework and/or other risk management and mitigation measures and policies, as well as other measures on fraud, corruption and other misuse of GPE resources, including recommending action to the Board. Financial Management: the GERF Committee provides advice to the Board to ensure GPE resources are managed efficiently, effectively and consistent with the Global Partnerships mission, goals, objectives and policies. For example, the GERF Committee recommends new and revisions to financial management of policies and practices, such as fiduciary standards for Supervising Entities/Managing Entities (SE/ME); forecasts available resources and monitoring of the Global Partnerships financial position; oversees budgets and costs: 1. develops/monitors the implementation of policies on Supervising Entity/Managing Entity roles and responsibilities and associated fees and costs for grants; 2. provides guidance to the Secretariat on its administrative budget. The Global Partnership for Education (former Fast Track Initiative) was established in 2002 to help low-income countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, related to education, and to facilitate the achievement of the Education for All goals. Since 2002, the GPE has helped to commit around $4.5 billion and get very positive results. The Global Partnership considered increasingly as a model for strengthening cooperation in the development of education, today gathers 61 developing countries and more than 30 bilateral, regional and international organizations, as well as development banks, private sector companies, teacher unions and local and global civil society groups. It supports developing countries to ensure quality basic education for every child, and give priority to the poorest children living in fragile and conflict-affected. HL/ S/ HaitiLibre Haiti - News : Zapping politics... The G8 does not want any position of Minister Samuel Madistin, the G8 spokesman assured that the group was not interested in getting portfolios in the transitional government. However, it continues to demand that light be shed on the extent of fraud during the election of October 25 and that a commission of inquiry can exclude all the candidates who benefited from the fraud and all parliamentarians in fucntion that had been elected badly... Jocelerme Privert receives Ambassadors Thursday at the National Palace, the President a.i. Jocelerme Privert, received separately, Ambassador of the European Union in Haiti, Vincent Degert; Ambassador of Taiwan in Haiti, Hwang-Tsai Chiu and the American Ambassador, Peter Mulrean. Between these diplomatic encounters, he also met with representatives of the Platform VERITE as part of its series of consultations launched Tuesday, February 16. Future PM, some names suggested Since the beginning Tuesday of consultations to identify potential candidates for the position of Prime Minister at least 5 names have already been suggested to the President a.i. including Mirlande Manigat of RDNP, the former governor of the Central Bank, Jean Fritz, former President of the national Assembly Edgard Leblanc Fils, Simon Dieuseul Desras former President of the Senate, the architect Lesly Voltaire, without that make them of official candidates. FLASH : 6 candidates for Prime minister (3h39 p.m.) : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16654-haiti-flash-6-candidates-for-prime-minister.html Searching for new electoral advisers In accordance with section IV of the Political Agreement of February 5, 2016 aimed at establishing a new Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-16533-haiti-politic-the-details-of-the-agreement-from-a-to-z.html the President a.i., Jocelerme Privert in a letter dated February 16, addressed to the trade union sector, demand "[...] to please designate once two independent persons, a man and a woman without partisan affiliation that can remain neutral and not being subject to any protest within seventy-two hours for the recomposition of the council." The sectors of human rights and employers have also received a correspondence. Joseph Maxime Rony of POHDH announced that his sector will send only one name while Gregory Brandt of the Economic Forum of the Private Sector promised to send two names as requested. Pitit Dessalin wants a right of scrutiny The platform "Pitit Desalin" indicated that it does not want any position of Minister in the Government Privert but request by con a right of scrutiny on the members of the next government of consensus. CEP, the Catholics no hurry Rovelson Apollo, the Coordinator of the Roman Catholic Justice and Peace Commission (JILAP) indicated want to take all the time needed to analyze and scrutinize the record of the appointment of a representative to the CEP. The American Chamber of Commerce congratulated In a letter addressed to the new President a.i. of Haiti Jocelerme Privert, Philip R. Armand, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Haiti (AmCham) address him "his warmest congratulations" noting that the choice of Parliament is nothing less than a choice of openness and commitment [...] "He also took the opportunity "to give the act about your Inauguration speech promising to the Haitian Nation the exercise of your functions in greater transparency. This augurs well for the upcoming return to Constitutional order which has been entrusted to you and we wish you therefore full of success in performing this transition with the support of political parties in general and the distinguished members of Parliament in particular." HL/ HaitiLibre Published on 2016/02/18 | Source Conan O'Brien has made a special appearance in "One More Happy Ending". Advertisement On the 10th episode of MBC's Wednesday & Thursday drama, "One More Happy Ending", Conan O'Brien met Han Mi-mo (Jang Nara) to receive a matchmaking consultation. Conan O'Brien played a role as a president of a Korean branch for a global company. Conan O'Brien fell n love with Han Mi-mo within the first glance and also described his ideal woman as "A woman with no plastic surgery, petite, a woman with a history". Also Conan O'Brien acted a part of his script in Korean when he said, "I'm talking about you, Carp (Jang Nara's nickname, Boongeo in the drama" and "I cannot be in some relationship with you if I join your service". 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. 15:19, 20 OCT 2022 By Kaitlan Morehouse Do you like music? What about poetry? If you said yes to either question, come on down to St. Lukes Episcopal Church in Boone at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday for Our Shared Heritage and Journey Toward Peace, a fundraiser for the Watauga County Arts Council. In this wired age, there is a hunger for live music and poetry, and there is nowhere in Boone with better acoustics than St. Lukes Church, said Mary Gray, who is coordinating the event. The showcase event will feature performances by flutist Akal Dev Sharonne, classical guitarist David Smith and poetry readers Betty Wells, Elizabeth Percival and Gray. There will be voices and music from around the world! Poems from places like India, Iran, China and Europe will be read, featuring authors like St. Frances of Assisi and popular 13th century poet Rumi to show that everyone is speaking in the same voice. We, now, have far more access through the web to a greater variety of music and poetry than was ever available to earlier generations, Gray said. We will need the best and highest from every people and culture in our shared journey of creating a peaceful world. The Watauga Country Arts Council sponsors the event, and all proceeds will go to its scholarship funds. A small suggested donation of anywhere from $5-$20 is asked. Why donate? Your contributions will help the arts council raise a new generation of artists. Doesnt that sound like a grand cause? Here in the High Country, we have a wealth of artists, both young and old. Any support you can give will help promote, expand and encourage this vibrant community. Were very fortunate to have a very active arts council, a very generous church and a wealth of artists of all kinds, Gray said. Gray hopes to enjoy reading the poetry and listening to the music herself. When you read poetry or play music, you offer it as a gift, she said. You never know the effect or what it is that each person takes from it. For more information on the event, call 828-264-5620. About WCAC Founded in 1981, the WCAC made its home the Jones Community Center until 2012. The council was able to serve the community with the help of generous donations: Office space by Watauga Committee of 100 Gallery space by John Winkler, Kenneth Wilcox and Roger Wright Storage space by Cheap Joes Art Stuff It created the Blue Ridge ArtSpace in April 2013 after Watauga County Commissioners agreed to lease the building. It believes that by helping the arts thrive, it is helping Watauga thrive, and it strives to make the arts a presence in the community. Its mission is to sponsor and encourage the cultural arts in Watauga County. Visit the website today! Share this: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Pocket By Jessica Isaacs | [email protected] Something beautiful happens when our loved ones inspire us to follow our dreams. Thats what happened for Kelly Williams, who has turned her love for furniture, history, romance and all things vintage into a family owned and operated business A Bushel and a Peck Vintage Rentals. Brides, event planners and photographers are among the countless clients who turn to Kellys expansive inventory of charming antique, vintage and repurposed pieces to add a more personal touch to lifes most important occasions. If you need something unique for a special project, Kelly and her family offer upholstered seating, architectural details, reclaimed barn wood furniture, china, small details and so much more. Theyll even help you style their pieces with your other details or create something custom for you. Whats old is new again when you turn to A Bushel and a Peck, and its not just a business. For Kelly, her husband, Phil, and her daughter, Lily, its a way of life. A Bushel and a Peck A vintage rental service just made sense for Kelly, who has always had a passion for celebrating history and bringing old beauty back to life. She and Phil developed the idea for their business after successfully creating their own vintage-inspired wedding, and they started working to make it happen back in the winter season of 2013-2014. The husband-and-wife team lives in the foothills with their 4-year-old daughter, Charlotte Lillian, better known as Lily. I am located in Lenoir, but I lived in the High Country for years before moving to the lowlands. I have always loved the area, and there are some of the best venues and vendors here, Kelly said. I have only experienced brides, both local and from out of town, who are so excited to get married in the High Country. When you think of it, theres beauty in every direction and at every elevation. The duo consulted with local vendors to see if a need existed for the services they hoped to provide, and quickly started working to collect inventory when they received a positive response. Choosing a name for their business was a no-brainer, thanks to Kellys precious memories of her childhood and family. I remember my mom singing the song A Bushel and a Peck to me when I was young, as well as my Grandma. As a new mother, I started singing it to my daughter, she said. When I went to choose a name I had a list, and the one that I kept going back to was A Bushel and a Peck. I remember it from growing up, and it was one of the first songs my daughter sang with me. The song means so much to me and now I get to hear the name every day. The Business Before they knew it, the Williams team had amassed an impressive collection of interesting pieces, each one surprising and alluring in its own way. We find most of our goodies at antique stores, although sometimes I luck out and find items at the ReStore, on Craigslist or something like that, said Kelly. Oh my goodness, I have so many pieces. I honestly dont know just how many we have right now, but I am always adding new inventory. Today, many brides and couples each year rent pieces from the collection to add a little something special to their weddings. Kelly and Phil also work with photographers, consultants and other project leaders to style and coordinate soirees in the High Country and the foothills. Theyll even create custom details for you, like party favors or decor pieces, which fit your individualized needs. A Bushel and a Peck Vintage Rentals is committed to exceeding the expectations of clients, vendors and photographers by providing one-of-a-kind rentals, styling, custom items and services with extraordinary customer service and sincere thoughtfulness to each event, wedding and photography session, Kelly said. If you have your eye on something in their inventory, theyll make time to show you every option, offer creative ideas and make sure you get exactly what you want. Some brides are very hands-on and interested in knowing all about the items, and some see our inventory styled for other set-ups and they know thats exactly what they want, said Kelly. I will chat with them by phone, email or messaging, and I also send over a questionnaire to gather some more information so I can assist them to the best of my abilities. Some give me a color scheme and ask me to create something that works for them. No two situations are the same, so I work with each unique situation in the same manner. It all depends on what works best for that client. Kelly works to offer pieces tell their own stories, and shes always interested in learning the history behind each and every one. I want my business to be a reflection of me. I am not squeaky clean, but I like nice things. I like rusty junk, but I also want tufts, she said. I love everything antique, eclectic, old, reclaimed and vintage, and I want people to know thats who I am and thats what I bring to weddings, events and photography. I wont bring you a brand new white sofa, but I can bring you a vintage sofa with tufts and details that will create a whole feel to a lounge area. I wont bring you classic chairs, but Ill bring you various mismatched chairs in different styles and colors. I am here to add charm, whimsy, elegance and flair to your project. Her passion for each piece may be an important aspect of Kellys identity as an entrepreneur, but that still comes in second to the experience she provides for her clients, who almost always become her friends. To us, every client is such an important part of our life. We are a small business, so every question, inquiry, comment and like on Facebook matters and will continue to matter to us, she said. Our clients deserve to feel and know that they are important. Most of them are allowing us to be a part of an event that is very special to them, and it means the world to us that theyre choosing us. The Family A Bushel and a Peck is a family business through and through, and each part of the Williams clan plays an important part in its success. My family plays a huge role, literally and figuratively. We are a small business and we are a part of every single event, wedding or photo shoot, said Kelly. I like to think of myself as the brains of the operation the purveyor, picker, stylist, email answerer, problem solver and creator. My husband, Phil, is the brawn. He lifts the sofas, settees, barrels, tables and everything else with ease. I help, but a lot of the time Im just in his way. Hes also the one who calms me down when I get discouraged. Its very scary starting a business when you have a family, because, if it doesnt work out, youd fail not only yourself but them, as well. Phil gets just as excited as I do when we book a job and he keeps us from going broke with all of my vintage spending. The littlest crewmember may be small, but shes mighty when it comes to encouraging, energizing and uplifting her parents. After all, shes the reason they work as hard as they do. My, oh, my. My sweet little angel, Lily, inspires me every second of every day. I can honestly say that I would not be doing this if it werent for her, Kelly said. I want her to see her mother doing something that she loves, is passionate about and is proud to do. What is so amazing is that she loves it so much, too. Every time we go to an antique store, she is fascinated by everything we see. On a styled shoot or a wedding, she is enamored by the bride and groom or, as she calls them, the prince and the princess. She is there every step of the way and I want her to be there as much as she can be. I want her to be a part of something that she can take pride in, too, and we have our own little slice of vintage heaven. The Future After several years of successful operation in the High Country and beyond, the Williams family continues to grow their business, expand their inventory and tackle new adventures. Most recently, they invested in a comprehensive new website that shows off most of the pieces they have to offer and explains their services in one easy-to-access, fun-to-explore location. I have been eager to revamp my website for more than a year, and weve been working on getting the images together for months. The whole process of creating the website itself has taken us about two months, Kelly said. Its a great resource. Some people arent familiar with what a vintage rental business does, so I wanted to show pictures of my inventory, with each piece on its own and several styled in action together. New and return customers are now just one click away from taking a virtual tour of every detail that the Williams team has to offer. Guests can learn more about who they are as a family, why they love what they do and how they can help make any special occasion even better. A Bushel and a Peck Vintage Rentals is a member of the High South Event Professionals network a community of like-minded industry pros who work together to promote the mountains of western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia as the premier special events destination in the Southeast. Meet the Williams crew and other preferred local vendors at the High South Wedding Expo at the Boone Mall on Sunday, March 20. Looking to add one or more remarkable vintage pieces to your next special occasion? Give Kelly a call at 828-773-0354, check out their brand new website or find A Bushel and a Peck on Facebook. Check a few more examples of the Williams familys styling work in action: Share this: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Pocket The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission yesterday voted on proposed rule changes to the states game land, wildlife management and inland fishing regulations. Of the 37 proposed rule changes, 34 were approved as taken to public hearings; one game land regulation was amended and approved; one wildlife management regulation was removed from consideration and one wildlife management regulation was disapproved. The effective date for the approved regulations, which are for the 2016-17 seasons, is August 1, 2016. The wildlife commissioners approved eight wildlife management proposals, including one that would establish the framework to open an elk hunting season in western North Carolina. Along with this proposal, they adopted a complementary resolution delaying the issuance of any elk hunting permits until state, federal and tribal land organizations have determined appropriate allocation of permits based on annual sustainable harvest goals and population viability. Our next step will be to work closely with our partners, including the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, to establish clear metrics to guide a permit-only hunt sometime in the future, said Gordon Myers, the Commissions executive director. Together we will work to determine sustainable harvest goals and how to allocate harvest across the population range. As defined, the elk hunting season will be from October 1 through November 1 with a bag limit of one per permit. The manner of take would be any legal firearm or archery equipment. Disapproved Proposed Regulation Out of an abundance of caution and desire for additional biological information, commissioners disapproved a proposed alligator hunting season, Because the take of alligators in some situations is reasonable and appropriate, the commissioners directed Myers, through a resolution, to examine options that would utilize the skills and expertise of North Carolina sportsmen and women to provide assistance in removal of alligators under nuisance or depredation circumstances. The resolution further directed Myers to create an Alligator Task Force that would develop a North Carolina Alligator Management Plan, which would include an evaluation of biological information and knowledge gaps on alligators in the state and recommendation for a framework for gathering public input on the plan. Amended and Approved Regulation They also amended a proposed regulation to designate Holly Shelter Game Land as a 6-day-per-week game land and restrict dog hunting for deer and bear to Mondays, Wednesday and Saturdays, by adding the following three days: Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Day. Proposed Regulation Removed from Consideration Wildlife Commissioners did not vote on a proposed regulation to remove the Eastern cougar as a federally listed species in North Carolina. Pursuant to state law, federally listed animals must have the same designation in the state as their federal status. The Commission expected the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the Eastern cougar from the federal list, but this action has been delayed. Other Actions In addition to voting on the proposed regulations, wildlife commissioners approved a no-wake zone on Palmetto Drive Canal in Cedar Point, as well as a request by Duke Energy Carolinas, LLC to establish a no-vessel entry swimming area at the Pines Recreation Area Swim Beach on Lake Glenville in Jackson County to ensure the safety of swimmers and boaters at the new swim beach. They also voted to start the temporary rulemaking process for black bear hunting, which will include public hearings. The temporary rules are: Move the black bear hunting season in Brunswick and Columbus counties to the second Monday in November to January 1. Extend the time that bears can be taken with the aid of unprocessed food as bait to the entire open season. Each year, wildlife commissioners vote on proposed regulations changes after hearing staff recommendations and reviewing comments received by the public. To view the full text of all 37 proposed regulations, visit the Commissions website, www.ncwildlife.org and download the public hearings booklet. Share this: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Pocket By Jesse Wood District Attorney Seth Banks has said that one potential outcome in the criminal case concerning the three carbon monoxide deaths at the Best Western hotel in Boone is a plea bargain, according to multiple media reports. We are discussing our options both with the defense attorneys and the families of the victims, District Attorney Seth Banks told the Charlotte Observer on Tuesday. This case is one of my offices priorities to bring some resolution for the victims families. Were working diligently on it. Damon Mallatere, president of Appalachian Hospitality Management at the time of the deaths, was charged three counts of involuntary manslaughter and one count of assault after the tragic deaths. In two separate incidents less than two months apart, Daryl and Shirley Jenkins, a Washington couple in their 70s, and Jeffrey Williams, an 11-year-old boy from Rock Hill, S.C., died in Room 225 of the Best Western in Boone. An investigation by local, state and federal authorities said that a deficient exhaust system for the pools water heater was the source of the carbon monoxide poisoning. Yet, as the Charlotte Observer noted and High Country Press has reported on in the past couple years, a series of errors and decisions led to the deaths of first the Jenkinses and then the young Williams. Following the indictment in January 2014, Damon Mallatere entered an initial plea of not guilty and posted a bond of $40,000. Damon Mallateres case has been continued for two years now, and the next hearing will likely take place in March. The Jenkins and Williams family have both filed civil suits to be heard in Watauga County. Banks declined to be specific when mentioning that a plea bargain could be one of these potential outcomes to resolve the case. Banks inherited the case when he was elected DA for the 24th Prosecutorial District in 2014. For previous stories on these tragedies, click here. Share this: Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Pocket Local man sent to prison for cheating IRS ASHEVILLE A federal judge sentenced a 66-year-old Hendersonville man to nine months in prison for hiding money in a Swiss bank account and cheating the IRS out of taxes, the U.S. Attorney's office announced. Jill Westmoreland Rose, U.S. attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, announced on Thursday that U.S. District Judge Martin Reidinger imposed the sentence on Jarrett D. Mitchem after he was convicted of the tax evasion charges. Reidinger also ordered Mitchem to serve two years of court supervision after his release plus an additional three months of home confinement and ordered him to pay $151,089 restitution to the Department of Treasury. The Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors in February 2009 on charges of conspiring to defraud the United States by impeding the IRS by helping U.S. taxpayer clients hide funds from the IRS in secret offshore accounts, the U.S. attorney said. As part of its deferred prosecution agreement, UBS also agreed to provide to the government the identities of, and account information for, of persons who likely had engaged in actions designed to evade United States income tax liabilities, including Mitchems, prosecutors said. Beginning in November 1995, Mitchem opened a Swiss bank account at UBS. Court records show that in 2005, Mitchem transferred $4 million inheritance from his parents to a UBS account. His parents had also maintained a bank account at UBS, court records said. In May 2011 an IRS revenue agent contacted Mitchem regarding the UBS accounts. According to court records, Mitchem initially withheld some information about his UBS accounts then agreed to provide the UBS bank records after an IRS agent confronted him. When he complied, he provided only bank records for his parents UBS account not his personal UBS account, prosecutors said. In November 2011, Mitchem filed his federal tax return forms for tax years 2004 through 2007, in which he failed to claim capital gains and substantial interest income from money held in his UBS bank account. Mitchem admitted in court and in filed documents that he knew his earnings should have been claimed and that he willfully omitted reporting them to avoid the payment of additional income tax. Mitchem also admitted that the tax loss associated with the unclaimed income from his Swiss bank account was more than $150,000. Hiding money in secret offshore accounts and failing to report the income generated from those accounts is a crime that my office takes very seriously, said Rose, a graduate of. Tax cheats like Mitchem who choose not to pay their fair share and increase the burden on honest taxpayers will be prosecuted for their actions. Citizens must ask themselves, is it worth a stint in federal prison to be a tax cheat? Mitchem will be ordered to report to the federal Bureau of Prison upon designation of a designation of a federal facility. All federal sentences are served without the possibility of parole. Reluctant husbands and boyfriends being dragged to Brown Thomas by their better halves will soon have the ultimate sanctuary and place of refuge - a bar. The country's best-known department store on Grafton St received the drinks licence from a quiet village in east Limerick. Dublin's Circuit Licensing Court was yesterday told that spouses who needed somewhere to go while their partner completed their shopping was the reason the luxury store was applying for a full licence. Constance Cassidy SC told the court that refurbishment on the third floor of Brown Thomas in Grafton Street had been carried out in accordance with planning permission. Renovations Ms Cassidy told Circuit Court President Mr Justice Raymond Groarke, who last month granted the store a Declaratory Order, that renovations and refurbishment had been completed and the store was now applying for a drinks licence. The court had heard the luxury store had been operating a wine license in its restaurant for the last 40 years and wished to improve matters for their customers and in particular for partners and spouses who had to wait around while the shopping list was completed. Ms Cassidy, who appeared with barrister Nicola-Jane Andrews and Compton Solicitors, said Brown Thomas & Co Ltd had bought out a full pub license from Falcon Irish Pubs Limited which owned Ned McKnights in Main Street, Cappamore, Co Limerick. Architect Frank Kenny told the court that planning permission had been granted for a kitchen and carvery area, dry goods and refrigerated storage areas, dining areas and staff facilities. Lorraine Bedford, health and safety compliance manager with Brown Thomas, said the fire officer had inspected the premises and was satisfied with the project. Ms Bedford last month told the court the store wished to make a full drinks menu, including beer and spirits, available to customers. Ms Cassidy had told Judge Groarke that those in waiting could at least slightly anaesthetise themselves against what spouses and partners would spend. Judge Groarke granted the store an ordinary seven-day publican's licence. A man questioned during the investigation into the murder of Joseph Rafferty was last week jailed for two years for possessing 20,000 in counterfeit cash. Well-known republican Robert Day (44) was arrested in relation to the savage 2005 murder but was released without charge. In a separate case, Day - who is serving his sentence in high-security Portlaoise Prison - was previously cleared of charges of assaulting Mr Rafferty's siblings Mark and Esther Uzell and causing criminal damage to a door in their flat four months before Rafferty was shot dead in west Dublin. It can be revealed that Day was a Sinn Fein activist at the time of the murder and told gardai that he previously travelled to Germany on behalf of the party. However, since then Day has been associating with known dissident Republicans. Last week at the Special Criminal Court, he pleaded guilty to the unlawful custody of 400 counterfeit 50 notes at Monck Place, Phibsborough on February 2, 2014. His co-accused, Hubert Duffy (49), was given an 18 months suspended sentence for possession of a stolen motorcycle. At the sentence hearing, evidence was given that the counterfeit money was used to "finance the activities of the IRA". Identified It was stated that on November 12, 2014, a 650cc BMW motorcycle was stolen overnight. The court heard that gardai observed the BMW motorcycle being driven by a man to the Phoenix Park. The driver was identified as Hubert Duffy, the court heard. On February 2, 2014, gardai in Dublin were engaged in surveillance of suspected IRA activity. Day walked into Clark's pub on the Phibsboro Road, followed later by a man named Richard Molloy. Last year, at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, Molloy (44), of Preston Heights, Kilmeague, Naas, Co Kildare, was jailed for six years for selling 20,000 in counterfeit bills in exchange for 2,200. Detectives inside Clark's pub observed Day reading a newspaper. Day was approached by Molloy, who placed another newspaper on the table and picked up an item. Day was detained outside Clark's pub and dropped something at his side. Counterfeit money worth 20,000 was seized. 2,000 was found on Molloy and the money had been exchanged for the counterfeit currency. The court heard that Day has one prior conviction for assault causing harm, from 2000, when he received a two-year suspended prison sentence. Delivering the judgement, Mr Justice Paul Butler, presiding at the three-judge, non-jury court said that when considering the men's sentences, the court was "ignoring allegations that the money may have been part of an IRA fund-raising operation". Day has been jail since August, 2014. The battle of the transfers will decide the outcome in Dublin Bay North, arguably the most competitive constituency in the country. Some 20 candidates have declared in this five-seat battle- ground, which has been described by observers as the Group of Death. Dublin Bay North encompasses the two former constituencies of Dublin North Central and Dublin North East. With a population of almost 150,000, it stretches from the suburbs of Fairview and Marino to towns including Howth, Sutton and Baldoyle. Six of the candidates are sitting Oireachtas members, while former minister Sean Haughey (inset) is vying to make his Dail return. This constituency is likely to produce a Fianna Fail seat, and both Mr Haughey and Deirdre Heney are essentially jockeying to finish ahead of each other following the first count. Much focus will be on the performance of former Fianna Fail senator Averil Power, who is running as an Independent after dramatically quitting the party in protest at its lacklustre role in the Marriage Equality referendum. She will need to rely heavily on transfers if she is to be elected. However, her prospects should not be discounted. Fine Gael took the bold decision to run three candidates here after the shock defeat of Jobs Minister Richard Bruton at the party's selection convention in Clontarf Castle in April. Mr Bruton was added to the ticket immediately after delegates selected councillor Naoise O Muiri and party activist Stephanie Regan. Despite the embarrassing result at the convention, Fine Gael strategists are not contemplating the prospect of a defeat for Mr Bruton. The Labour Party's Aodhan O Riordain has seen his profile grow significantly after being appointed as Drugs and Equality Minister, and he will benefit from the decision by his Dail colleague Sean Kenny to step down. One would assume that there is enough Labour support in the constituency to ensure Mr O Riordain goes close, but there is the real prospect that he could become one of the most significant casualties of the election. Vulnerable Another TD who is vulnerable here is Terence Flanagan, who has worked hard alongside Lucinda Creighton to build up the newly-formed Renua. At least one Independent candidate is likely to be elected in Dublin Bay North. Prominent Dail deputy Finian McGrath has joined forces with the Independent Alliance and should hold on to his seat. Mr McGrath has mastered the strategy of leaflet drops and is aided by his right hand man, Clontarf-based Damian O'Farrell. But he faces competition from the independent benches from Tommy Broughan, who quit Labour in protest over budget cuts. Sinn Fein is well-placed to take a seat through either councillor Micheal MacDonncha or Denise Mitchell, neither of whom has a high profile. The party will need to ensure it manages the vote effectively, given the level of competition. Michael O'Brien is representing the Anti-Austerity Alliance while John Lyons is the People Before Profit candidate. Elsewhere, a plethora of Independents and other left-wing candidates will cause the vote to be fragmented. The Social Democrats are fielding former Fingal mayor Cian O'Callaghan, a highly able councillor who topped the poll in the local elections in his ward of Howth/Malahide. Jimmy Guerin, the brother of murdered Sunday Independent journalist Veronica Guerin, is also in the race. Alana Butler was just one commuter walking to town along the Luas tracks at Ranelagh following the strike (INM) Commuters face the prospect of more misery as the industrial dispute at Luas ramps-up. Workers have vowed to mount industrial action every two weeks unless management agree to increase pay and improve terms and conditions. Some 90,000 commuters will be forced to find alternative ways of travel to work as the bitter row, which has resulted in no Luas services for four days, shows no signs of ending. Both sides remain at loggerheads, and there is no plan for them to meet to find a way out of the impasse. Pressure to begin negotiations has intensified after SIPTU warned of further days of industrial unrest unless management agree to meaningful talks. "We're getting more and more intractable," divisional organiser Owen Reidy said. "Every Friday we meet (with workers) and review what's taken place. Every week they will consider action. We have to give 21 days notice and I think you're looking at a situation where unless we get to a place where we will see some resolution, you will see more dates. "I don't want to speculate but my sense is that more dates will be announced every two weeks unless there's a resolution. You're going to see a pattern of rolling industrial action every two weeks. "We're happy to talk to the company but they have to move away from hikes of 3pc linked to productivity. We're not going to call off any action until there is a resolution," Mr Reidy said. Workers, who have already lost pay and annual bonuses worth as much as 3,000 for drivers, are seeking pay hikes ranging from 8.5pc to 53.8pc for more than 200 staff, paid over five years. Productivity Management have offered increases between 1pc and 3pc, linked with productivity. Staff are also seeking a free GP service for drivers, an increase in the annual bonus from 6.5pc to 10pc, higher rates of sick pay and an increase in annual leave, among other demands. But the company said it is losing money and cannot afford to pay the claims, which would cost over 19m over the five years. The strike has caused misery for commuters forced to make alternative travel arrangements. Traffic ground to a slow crawl on the Dublin quays yesterday morning, with AA Roadwatch saying that the roads were busier than normal. Further strike action is planned for Tuesday March 8 and St Patrick's Day, March 17. It is feared that services around Easter could also be affected if further strikes are called. Employer Transdev said there had been no contact with Siptu, but managing director Gerry Madden insisted that Luas drivers were at the top of the scale in terms of payment and benefits compared with staff in other transport operators. "Against almost every measure in the transport sector in Ireland, we are the Rolls Royce," he told Newstalk. "We are paying not just reasonable [rates] but over the top compared to the others." The proposed pay increase was "just not feasible", he said, adding he hoped the union would reduce its claim. What do you think of Pope Francis' remarks about Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump? The pope said Trump is "not Christian" if he wants to address illegal immigration only by building a wall along the U.S. Mexico border. Six school board candidates compete for three seats There are six candidates for three Washington County Board of Education seats in the Nov. 8 election. Three incumbents face challengers. This weekend might be the last warm one we have in awhile (The Nosher via JTA)-Cake pops are such a fun, bite-sized way to serve dessert-particularly for special occasions. And I love this unique twist on the decadent combination of chocolate and halva. For those that might be a little wary of a halva, fear not: You can add as little (or as much) halva as you like. One of the best parts of this recipe is that you can make it with boxed cake mix! That's right-a trained pastry chef is encouraging you to cheat on this one. I have made this recipe with homemade mocha cake, but the truth is you cannot tell the difference between scratch-made or boxed, so you might as well save yourself some time. By substituting a few ingredients for high-quality choices, these treats will taste like you were slaving all day. These cake pops are chocolaty, easy to make and sinfully delicious. Chocolate Halva Cake Pops Ingredients: 1 box of moist chocolate cake mix (I prefer Duncan Hines) plus eggs and oil per directions Optional substitutions: for cake mix, instead of water I used coconut milk. For the oil, I substituted apple sauce. 1 cup halva (any flavor of your choice) plus more for decor 12 ounces good-quality semi-sweet or dark chocolate (for dipping) Recommended equipment: popsicle sticks, small ice cream or cookie scoop Directions: Prepare boxed cake mix per directions or with optional substitutions. Add crumbled halva into the cake mixture. Bake per directions. Meanwhile, place a piece of parchment paper on a sheet pan and make a space in the fridge or freezer to place once cake pops are rolled. Once cooled, the cake should be moist enough to roll into perfect cake pop consistency. Use a small ice cream or cookie scoop to help you measure them out, and mix in extra halva pieces to your taste. Wear food-safe gloves if possible; this can get messy quickly. Roll into uniform and tight balls and make sure there are no cracks. Quick tip: Squish the mixture together tightly, then roll between palms for the perfect cake pop. Place in fridge to chill. While the cake balls chill, melt and temper the chocolate. Set your microwave on a medium setting (for my microwave that is 5). Break up half the chocolate bar into a Pyrex or microwave-safe bowl. Make sure there is no water in the bowl or any utensils you are using. Melt the chocolate at 30-second intervals until 90 percent is melted. Stir to speed up the melting process. Chop the remaining half of the chocolate bar into small chunks. Add to melted chocolate. Let sit for 10 seconds and stir until combined. Take the cake balls out of the fridge, dip the popsicle sticks into chocolate, and insert them into cake pops. Repeat until finished. Once chocolate has set on sticks (not shiny anymore, matte finish), dip cake pop into chocolate. I recommend to constantly stir the chocolate so it stays a good temperature. If the chocolate becomes thick and hardened, place back into microwave, reheat gently and stir. Add in extra pieces of room temperature chocolate if you have. It is best to work in a warm kitchen so the chocolate doesn't harden as quickly. Decorate cake pops with sprinkles, halva or a drizzle of melted chocolate. Another variation for the pops is to leave out the popsicle sticks and simply dip the cake balls in chocolate and set in mini cupcake liners. These are cute, easy and much faster to prepare. Store pops in fridge until serving. You can freeze the pops wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, an airtight container, or a sealed plastic bag. With a background in fashion design, cooking and pastry, Rebecca Pliner brings different aspects of creativity to her recipes from concept to plating. She runs a dessert company in New York City called I want that Dessert, http://www.iwantthatdessert.com. You can also find Rebecca on instagram @iwantthatdessert. The Nosher food blog offers a dazzling array of new and classic Jewish recipes and food news, from Europe to Yemen, from challah to shakshuka and beyond. Check it out at www.TheNosher.com. A brick-for-brick replica of Chabad's headquarters in Brooklyn stands at the center of Kfar Chabad, a rural Israeli village founded by Lubavitcher Hasidim in 1949. KFAR CHABAD, Israel (JTA)-In an otherwise deserted field at the center of this rural Israeli village, a Brooklyn brownstone presents an incongruous sight. If it looks like it would fit perfectly in Crown Heights, that's because it already does. The three-story apartment house topped by three gables is a brick-for-brick reconstruction of 770 Eastern Parkway, the storied headquarters of the late Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and his Chabad-Lubavitch movement. The address is etched next to the doorway of the Israeli replica, 6,000 miles from Brooklyn and about 11 miles from Tel Aviv. "The building is an alternative to whoever can't go to him in the United States," said Rabbi Menachem Latar, the manager of the Israeli version of 770, referring to Schneerson. "As a Chabad Hasid, if you were with the rebbe and had a meeting with the rebbe, you imagine everything that was in the presence of the rebbe." The out-of-place brownstone symbolizes the mission of this community of 6,000 Chabadniks, who call their village the "capital city" of the Chabad movement. Its warehouses organize and distribute ritual and educational materials for the Hasidic outreach movement's global network of emissaries, and it acts as a home base for Chabad Hasidim across Israel. Twenty-two years after Schneerson's death, the village aims to perpetuate his legacy. But Kfar Chabad also exists in tension with Chabad's ethos of outreach. Schneerson sent his followers to far-flung cities from Colombia to the Congo, setting up outposts to greet and engage Jews wherever they may be. Chabad emissaries sometimes are only observant Jews in their city. Kfar Chabad is the only place in the world where every resident is a Chabadnik. "For someone living outside Kfar Chabad, his Chabad [allegiance] could cool down," said Nochum Lurie, who grows etrogs in one of the village's orchards. "Here it's warming up all the time. If a tree grows separately, it can grow crooked. But in the woods, the trees stand tall." One of the main functions of the village is to act as a wholesaler of Chabad ritual objects. Lurie maintains his trees for the fall festival of Sukkot, when crates of his etrogs are sent to Chabad Hasidim worldwide. Three months before Passover, children and adults at a local factory begin baking matzah to be sent to Lubavitch emissaries all over the world. A large children's bookstore sells serials for Chabad boys and girls. A leather bookbinder puts out identical sets of Chabad texts. The town's flagship exports, however, are emissaries. An estimated 1,500 emissaries, known in the parlance as shluchim, have come from the town, serving across Israel and the world. Many children are raised by their grandparents because their parents are serving abroad. "Here we grow emissaries, and that's no less important," said Bracha Tvardovich, a Kfar Chabad resident with children serving as emissaries in Israel, Miami and Antwerp, Belgium. "There are institutions that serve Chabad nationwide." Kfar Chabad also has attracted some of the more extreme elements of Chabad ideology. In the past two elections, the vast majority of Kfar Chabad voters chose parties with far-right Kahanist candidates-hewing to Schneerson's prohibition against Israel ceding land. City leaders, along with many others, speak of Schneerson in the present tense, suggesting a belief that the rebbe, whom many believe is the Messiah, is not quite dead. The Torah ark in Kfar Chabad's 770 replica refers to Schneerson as "the king messiah" and uses an acronym after his name that translates to "May he merit a long and good life, Amen." The Israeli version of the 770 headquarters features a replica of Schneerson's study. In Brooklyn, this is where Schneerson would greet and hold private meetings with visitors from across the globe. At Kfar Chabad, a perpetually empty chair sits opposite the door, and Chabad Hasidim often use the room to pray privately, recite Psalms or feel close to their leader. "He didn't die," Binyamin Lifshitz, the village manager, said of Schneerson. "He went away. He'll come back." Schneerson's predecessor, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, instructed 74 Chabad families who had survived the Holocaust to found the village in 1949, one year after Israel's independence. According to Lifshitz, Schneersohn wanted to help settle the land while ensuring that his followers retained their ideology during a time of upheaval. Early residents raised cows, chickens and goats while also growing oranges, clementines and wheat. Ben Sales A man baking matzah in a brick oven in Kfar Chabad, a village that provides ritual materials to Chabad emissaries across Israel. Sixty-seven years later, Kfar Chabad has lost most of its agriculture and gained a train station. But it remains a sleepy town, without a stoplight and with one small supermarket dominating a tranquil, central roundabout. Lampposts featuring pictures of and quotes by Schneerson line suburban-style residential neighborhoods. Many of the residents know each other, and there are no street addresses. Say a name and a passer-by will simply direct you to the house. In many ways, the village is similar to several other haredi Orthodox towns across Israel. According to data from 2008, the latest available, half of the residents are children and the village's median age is 17. Only 55 percent of adults work, below the national figure of 64 percent. Three-quarters of men 15 and older have studied in a yeshiva. "We say we need to be integrated in society and not live all together, but we're in a village," said Kfar Chabad resident Sara Zilbershtrom, director of Israel's Women and Girls of Chabad. "The village lives the mission. It's like the backbone that makes it possible to leave." Jonathan Nizar Elkhoury wants minority populations in Israel to speak up about what life is really like in the Jewish state. He wants the world to know that Israel is a safe haven for persecuted Middle East minorities. For Elkhoury, this isn't just loose talk. He is gay, Christian, and a Lebanese refugee. Elkhoury was 9 years old when his family fled war-torn Lebanon for Israel. His father was a soldier in the South Lebanon Army (SLA), which was established in 1982 and was supported by Israel in its fight against the Palestine Liberation Organization and Hezbollah. In 2000, Israel withdrew its troops from Lebanon and the SLA collapsed, leaving the militia with the unsavory options of finding asylum, surrendering, or being captured by the Hezbollah terror group and subsequently put on trial for treason. After Elkhoury's father sought asylum in Israel in 2000, the rest of the family followed him in 2001 as persecution of Christians and SLA members became more widespread in Lebanon. "The situation in Lebanon was really difficult... Hezbollah started entering homes of Christians and of those who were [from the] South Lebanon Army. [They were] just taking stuff, beating the women, the kids... it was really scary for us," Elkhoury said in an interview in the midst of his U.S. speaking tour, which covered nine college campuses from Feb. 1-11. The speaking tour, dubbed "The Story of An Arab Refugee in Israel," was sponsored by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) in order to educate college students about Israel's diverse society and civil rights record. "At a time when Israel is falsely denounced on college campuses as an apartheid state, Elkhoury's life and message are a powerful antidote to the distorted picture students are given," said Gilad Skolnick, director of campus programming for CAMERA. "What I'm hoping is that [the students] will see from a personal perspective, from a minority who is living in Israel...more of how life is really like in Israel," Elkhoury said. Israel's government and society both helped Elkhoury's refugee family fully integrate and become citizens, he said. Yet he recalled that they did face some discrimination from the Israeli Arab and Christian populations-the very communities the family thought they would belong to. "I entered the Jewish schools because the Arab schools wouldn't accept us because they considered us as traitors. They thought that we fought against our [Lebanese] brothers and we collaborated with Israel [during the South Lebanon conflict]...although we only protected our homes, protected our families, and the South Lebanon Army was fighting only against terror organizations and not the government itself," Elkhoury told JNS.org. But the Israeli Christian community's acceptance of his family did increase over time, according to Elkhoury, particularly as the persecution of Christians drastically rose across the board in the Middle East. Currently, that persecution has reached a fever pitch in Iraq and Syria amid the conquests of the Islamic State terror group. "Today, the situation is different because [of] what's happening now in the Middle East. [Arab Christians] are starting to understand [my family] more because of the situation of the Christians all over the Middle East," Elkhoury said. For Lebanese Christian families like Elkhoury's, in the face of losing their freedom and ultimately being controlled by a terrorist organization (Hezbollah), leaving for Israel was the only choice. "The Lebanese government didn't help us [and] didn't protect us-we had to do something to fight for our lives and for our rights in our land," said Elkhoury. As an Arab refugee, Israeli Christian, and a member of the LGBT community, Elkhoury continues to fight for his rights. During his two years of Israeli national service, he became very vocal in trying to encourage Arab Israelis to serve even though Israel's government doesn't require them to do so. He said, "At the end, [national service] will only help them and the community they live in." Elkhoury is now a spokesman for the Christian Empowerment Council, headed by Father Gabriel Naddaf, an Israeli Greek Orthodox priest who is well-known for successfully recruiting Arab Christians to join the Israel Defense Forces and other forms of national service. Elkhoury said there are currently 650 Christians taking part in Israeli national service programs. Speaking publicly in support of Arab Israelis becoming more integrated into Israeli society is something Elkhoury is unafraid of, despite the danger that often accompanies such advocacy. "Although we have a lot of threats on our lives [from other Arabs who oppose national service], we really miss a lot of people that need to stop being afraid and talk more about the life in Israel as it is, and not try to put their heads in the sand and just cover their eyes," Elkhoury said. Many Arab Christians in Israel are afraid to speak out in favor of the Israeli government "because they live in a lot of areas where if they do speak...they will be persecuted, they will be hunted or they will be expelled from their community," Elkhoury explained. He wants those Arab Christians to understand that they are part of Israeli society. "As citizens we need to do our best in order to make our country better for us and for others, so we need to take part in it and not be separated. If we have some problems that we need to solve with the government, we're going to do it as civilians, as activists that consider ourselves as Israelis and not some outsiders...we need to collaborate together," said Elkhoury. As a gay man, Elkhoury said he doesn't "know what the situation would have been" if he remained in Lebanon. According a 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, 80 percent of Lebanese citizens believe the country shouldn't accept homosexuality. While Israeli public opinion is divided on the subject of gay rights, Israel has laws protecting against anti-gay discrimination in schools, the military, and the workplace, and Tel Aviv is known as one of the world's most gay-friendly cities. Ultimately, Elkhoury considers it a privilege to live in Israel. He was initially unsure how his mixture of identities would work out in the Jewish state, but now he sees that he can be himself: Israeli, Arab, Christian, gay, and proud of his family's heritage in the South Lebanon Army. Recently, Rabbi Gilad Kariv, executive director of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, visited with the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando and members of Congregation of Reform Judaism in Orlando to discuss religious pluralism in Israel. It was one of only two stops in the United States, the other meeting was in Memphis, Tenn. His plans originally had been to also go to New York and San Francisco, however, he had to cut his trip short to finalize the resolution to expand the Western Wall's egalitarian section and place it under the authority of a pluralist committee-a major step in the fight to have religious recognition of all forms of Judaism in Israel. He preferred the "smaller" cities to the larger ones he said because he feels that the "real Jews" live in smaller communities, meaning that in the not-so-metropolitan areas, there is more of an opportunity to see people living their faith. "I heard the (CRJ) religious school children singing Israeli songs and worship and religious songs. I wish the Israeli ministers who use 'bad mouth' against Reform Judaism could hear them," he said. The fight for religious pluralism in Israel has been going on for a long time. "We were deeply involved in negotiations for three years," Kariv stated about the Kotel decision. "It was not new news for us! And basically, it is a historic break through." "It is a compromise," Kariv conceded. "Not a victory in the world, but a peace agreement, and in an agreement you never get all you want to achieve. However, it is the first time in a clear formal outspoken way, the Israeli government is recognizing the legitimacy of the non-Orthodox community. It's a historic moment." In 2014, the Orlando Jewish community got a glimpse of the struggle non-Orthodox Jews have gaining recognition from the government when Lori and Moshe Erlich visited Lori's parents, Nira and Arnold Stein, here (Heritage, "They have come-it's time to build," Sept. 26, 2014). Lori did not intend to make that visit a fundraising trip until after she spoke with Rabbi Engel of CRJ about her community's need for a building for their Reform congregation, Kehilat Yonatan, in Hod Hasharon. With more than 4500 members, they are not recognized as a Jewish religion, and do not receive financial support from the Israeli government. Kariv is familiar with the struggle the members of Kehilat Yonatan are having, as well as the many other "secular" (as they are called) congregations in Israel. Ironically, Israel is a democratic country, except among the Jews. "It is a tragedy both to the democratic character and its Jewish character," Kariv said. "In Orlando, Jews can choose how they want to practice. This kind of choice is not available to Israelis!" "When it comes to the Jewish character, we are missing the opportunity to engage so many Jews-millions of Jews-to engage them in a serous way with their Jewish identity." The non-recognition of Reform and Conservative Judaism also includes non-recognition of marriage among Israelis who are not Orthodox. "When it comes to democratic values of Israel, it is a crazy reality that hundreds of thousands of Jews who are invited to come after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc, can't be married in Israel because they are not fully recognized as Halachic Jews," Kariv exclaimed. "They speak Hebrew, serve in the army, have nothing to do with Christianity-they don't celebrate any Christian holidays. They learn Bible and Jewish history, yet, when they want to get married, they are told by the government 'you can't get married in your own country. Please go to Cypress or back to Moscow to have a civil marriage and then come back! Secondly, we are not willing to offer you a Jewish ritual,' which is paid by the government to Orthodox couples," Kariv stated. Kariv's purpose in coming to the United States was to develop face-to-face relationships with Diaspora Jewish communities. He sees that this is no longer only the plight of the Reform and Conservative movement, but a much wider camp of Israeli Jews and Jews in the Diaspora. "If we care about this unique combination of having a Jewish state-the only democracy in the Middle East-then something should be done in the area of religion and state," he said. "I really believe," Kariv stated in conclusion, "North American Jewry needs to understand that in order to secure the Jewish democratic character of Israel and in order to secure full relations between Israel and the Diaspora, it is time to invest in religious pluralism in Israel. We are trying to convince every Federation in North America and every Reform congregation in North America to continue their devotion for tikun olam, invest in social welfare, and to find the way to be fully involved in this historic opportunity to build Reform and Conservative vibrant Jewish communities in Israel." Attendees at the recent Zionistas meeting on Feb. 9 got an earful of history-Christian history as well as the history of the Jewish people-all within a two-hour period. Zionista co-founder Diana Scimone, a journalist and a Christian, highlighted four eras of Christian history in which anti-Semitism was taught in the Church. How quickly the early Church, which stuck to its Jewish traditions, with Gentiles converting to Messianic Judaism, changed its tune. Over a period of time, the Church grew away from its Jewish roots and anti-Semitism took root to the point that during the time of Constantine the now-named Christians were forbidden to follow Jewish traditions. In the late 1400s to mid-1500s, Martin Luther in Germany and John Calvin in Switzerland brought reformation to the Church. However, both men who opened doors to freedom from the medieval Church, turned coat on the Jews and began to spew anti-Semitism, ousting the Jews from their covenant with God and replacing the Church in that covenant. "The Holocaust did not happen in a vacuum," Scimone said. The teachings worked their way into the minds of German Christians from the 1500s onward to the point that Hitler was able to rely on the Church to fuel his hatred toward the Jews. Modern Christianity still preaches replacement theology, and many Christians believe that the covenant God made with the Jewish people was replaced with a new covenant. Scimone gave an analogy between NASA space rocket launches and Christianity's history. A launch has to be accurate before take-off. If the rocket is hair off in its calculations, the launch is scrubbed-even in the last second. The reason for this is that fraction of a hair off on land will become miles off in space. A spaceship bound for the moon could end up heading for Pluto, Scimone explained. And so it is with misconceptions and untruths in any teachings. What begins with a basis in truth can quickly get so far off target that it becomes something entirely different from its origins. Scimone shared all this to explain what a Christian's (or anyone's) response should be to anti-Semitism. And that is to be audacious. Be bold, fearless, brave, courageous to say the truth. There is no place for replacement theology in the Bible. Christians are to stand with Israel and the Jewish people. Will we be audacious? Scimone challenged. Following the call to be audacious, Uri Argov, CEO of Travel Holdings Inc., gave a whirlwind history of the Jewish people from Abraham to present day. Argov then talked about boycotts. If folks truly boycott Israeli products, they would have to give up many things they use day to day, including the many modern-day contributions Israel has made to the world through technology (USB drives, laptop chips, firewalls, text sms), medicine (break throughs in the fields of diabetes, cancer, MS, infertility), and agriculture (irrigation, germination of 1,000 year-old-seeds). What's that? Germination of 1,000-year-old seeds? Yes. In 2005, one seed from the extinct Judean date palm tree sprouted! During the 1960s, excavations at the site of Herod the Great's palace unearthed a stockpile of seeds. Botanical researcher Elaine Solowey planted one seed. Not expecting any results, she was surprised to see a sapling that no one had seen for centuries begin to grow. In 2011, the tree produced its first flower. Now that's audacious! Just like this little date palm, the nation of Israel is once again in bloom and the Zionistas propose to proclaim through awareness, activism, advocacy, and now audaciousness: Am Israel Chai! More than 400 women-and more than a few men-from the Greater Orlando Jewish community gathered at Congregation Ohev Shalom in Maitland on the evening of Feb. 9 to "Celebrate the Spirit of the Woman" at Choices 2016. Choices, which is put on each year by the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando Women's Philanthropy division, is simultaneously a party, a fund-raiser and an opportunity to pay tribute to an outstanding woman in the Jewish community. This year's honoree was Barbara Chasnov, who now carries the title "2016 Harriet Ginsburg Woman of Choice." While the evening featured an abundance of great food, music and socializing, it was a surprise announcement during the speakers' presentations later in the program that stole the show. At the conclusion of JFGO Board Chair Rhonda Forest's speech, she introduced longtime Federation supporter Alan Ginsburg, who issued a challenge to all those in attendance: The Ginsburg Family Foundation would match all new gifts and gift increases made that night at Choices. The Ginsburg Family Foundation has been a major supporter of JFGO's Choices, generously underwriting part of the cost of the event in years past. "The Ginsburg Foundation's match really raised the stakes this year," Forest said after the event. "It was a bold challenge, but that's what we have come to expect from Alan," she added with a smile. "His generosity has been a blessing for Federation for many years, and it was heartening to see so many women at Choices take him up on his challenge." While the final numbers are still being tallied and a few pledges are still coming in, the amount raised at Choices for JFGO's Annual Campaign "well exceeded" last year's, JFGO Executive Director Olga Yorish said. "We had high expectations, but the Ginsburg Family Foundation match, paired with the generosity of our supporters, exceeded even those expectations." Yorish noted a dramatic increase in the number of younger women attending Choices, which she calls "a promising development." "The influx of youth into this event has been phenomenal," Yorish said. "For the second straight year, we saw so many new faces that we know will become familiar ones. I thought our featured speakers did an excellent job of educating this new generation about what Federation does and how their Annual Campaign dollars are used to help Jews here and abroad." Other Choices speakers included magician and entrepreneur Kostya Kimlat, Linda Hurwitz of the Jewish Federations of North America, and Choices Ambassador Leigh Norber. Last year's Harriet Ginsburg Woman of Choice, Ina Porth, delivered a heartfelt tribute to Chasnov and was joined by Courtney Jennings of JFGO's RAISE program to present Chasnov with her award. There were new, young faces at Choices this year. Many of the Orlando delegation of women who took part in last fall's Jewish Women's Renaissance Project MOMentum attended (wearing their pink Pashminas). Also in attendance at Choices: nearly the entire Orlando delegation of women who took part in last fall's Jewish Women's Renaissance Project "MOMentum" trip to Israel. Many of the ladies arrived sporting the signature pink pashminas they wore during the trip. "It was gratifying to see the bond they have forged," Yorish said. "These women, in many ways, are the nucleus of the young women's Jewish community in Orlando." Choices 2016 was co-chaired by volunteers Sandi Saft, Karen Selznick and Ronni Mendelsohn. Forest said the collective energy the co-chairs brought to Choices was contagious. "These three women and the Choices Ambassadors really delivered for Federation," Forest said. "Just the corporate sponsorships alone for Choices were phenomenal," eclipsing 2015's sponsorship total by more than 1,500 percent. The Choices Raffle was also a resounding success, topping last year's total raised as women purchased tickets for a chance to win one of more than $7,500 in prizes. You can view more than 100 photos from Choices 2016 by visiting http://www.jfgo.org/choices. David Bak, alongside the 1932 Chevrolet Model A he restored, reconnected with a friend he worked with at a Haifa auto repair shop in the late 1960s. The "Seeking Kin" column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. (JTA)-As a librarian, Oren Kaplan researches obscure facts and utilizes databases to track down information. So when the Haifa resident read a recent "Seeking Kin" column about someone in his city, Menahem Orenstein, who hoped to locate a long-lost childhood buddy, Kaplan decided to put his experience to work. Within a week, Kaplan had located Orenstein's old friend, David Bak, living in Stockton, California, about 70 miles east of Oakland. That's Bak, not Beck (remember the names). Orenstein and Bak, who worked together at a Haifa auto repair shop in the late 1960s while attending technical high schools, expressed delight at reconnecting and hope to meet within a year. Much to the delight of Kaplan, a Maryland native who works at the central library at the Technion: Israel Institute of Technology. He described the gratification he feels: "a combination of solving a crossword puzzle, winning at Bingo, inventing the light bulb and watching someone taste ice cream for the first time." When Orenstein called, Bak admitted to being "shocked and surprised." "I said, 'Is that you, Menahem?'" Bak recalled. Orenstein would telephone Bak nearly every day for a week, and between conversations they corresponded and exchanged pictures through Facebook. On a 2011 visit to Haifa, Bak said he searched for Orenstein, but couldn't remember his surname-the consequence of more than 40 years' passage. Since his parents moved the family to the United States in 1968-not 1969, as Orenstein had recalled-Bak has retained a passion for cars, and not just those he repaired for a living. In the early 1970s, he bought a 1966 Chevrolet El Camino and over the years redid its chassis, souped up the engine and repainted it several times. Eventually Bak gave the car to his son, Daniel, who lives in Sacramento and drives it most Sundays. Still, at age 50, the El Camino has traveled only 66,000 miles. Bak also repaired and enjoyed driving a 1932 Chevrolet Model A before selling it four years ago. And he's bought, repaired and sold many other cars. Most of Bak's career, though, was spent working in warehouses and being a heavy-equipment operator. Now, at 64, he's retired. In addition to his son, he has a daughter, Rachel, who lives in Los Angeles, and a granddaughter. Later this year he'll visit the Philippines, the homeland of his second wife. The trip after he'll go to Israel. He recalled his family leaving Israel because his father, Benzion, was concerned by Bak's approaching draft age. But in America, Bak learned he also could be drafted and possibly sent to Vietnam. Bak thought then, "Forget this-I'd rather fight [for Israel]." He nearly returned, until his U.S. military draft lottery number wasn't called. His family settled in Oakland because Bak's paternal uncle, Boris, had moved there several years earlier. Natives of Poland, Benzion and Boris made it to Israel after spending 10 years in a Russian prison, where the brothers were incarcerated for fighting for the partisans. Seven of their brothers and sisters were murdered in the Holocaust. Three other siblings survived, settling in Uruguay, Israel and America. Bak's mother, Susanna, a native of Germany who survived the Holocaust, is now 88 and lives with Bak's sister, Sara Horn, near Los Angeles. Now back to Bak and Beck. In searching for Bak, the key stumbling block for Orenstein and "Seeking Kin" was misspelling his surname Beck. But when Kaplan tried the unconventional spelling, the dominoes fell. He searched on the websites of various public-records database aggregators, such as Intelius.com and Radaris.com, where the information matched some of what had appeared in the "Seeking Kin" column, such as the names of Benzion, who died in 2005 and is buried near Oakland; and of Susanna. Kaplan even turned up a contemporary photograph of Bak that bears a striking resemblance to the one appearing in the "Seeking Kin" article. That image, showing the teenage Bak sitting in a 1962 Bonneville, was snapped on Oakland's Walker Avenue, in front of an apartment building where the family lived. Bak recalled with delight that he smuggled 12 high school friends who crammed into the Bonneville's trunk into the since-razed Union City Drive-In to watch a movie. For Orenstein, finding Bak is a climax equaling any film. "It's exciting-no doubt about it. It's the closing of a loop after 45 years. It's nostalgia," he said. "The decades passed-the first, second, third and fourth-and the curiosity increased. We can't return to the days of yore, but [now] we can visit each other and share our experiences." Orenstein said he'll arrange a reunion of those who once worked at Garage Express, now called Hyundai Garage. The shop's former owner, Zeev Solomon, has pledged to attend, as has the current owner, Danny Finkelstein-his late father, Baruch, owned the shop when Orenstein and Bak worked there as teens. Coming back, too, are several long-ago mechanics with whom Orenstein has maintained contact: Uzi Balila, Yossi Itzkovitch, Yaakov Bichacho and David Kuba. The one who'll make the gathering complete, Orenstein said, is Bak. Please email Hillel Kuttler at seekingkin@jta.org if you would like "Seeking Kin" to write about your search for long-lost relatives and friends. Please include the principal facts and your contact information in a brief email. "Seeking Kin" is sponsored by Bryna Shuchat and Joshua Landes and family in loving memory of their mother and grandmother, Miriam Shuchat, a lifelong uniter of the Jewish people. The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has urged all members of the U.S. Senate to cosponsor S. 2474, a bill that would override a recently issued directive from the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection Bureau, instructing that Israeli-made products manufactured in Judea/Samaria must be labeled as being from the 'West Bank,' and not from 'Israel.' The January 23 directive, states that it is "not acceptable" to label goods coming from Israeli companies in Judea/Samaria as having been produced in 'Israel. In contrast, S. 2474, introduced by Senator Tom Cotton (RAR), would authorize businesses to choose from an array of labeling options, including 'Made in Israel.' The labeling directive is but a first step in participating in the campaign to Boycott, Sanction and Divest from Israel (BDS), which in turn is part of the BDS campaign to delegitimize Israel. The BDS movement is run by individuals and organizations that seek to replace Israel with an Arab-dominated Palestinian state. This is not only wrong in principle, but harmful to the cause of peace. "This is a shift from the administration's previous position. A State Department spokesman told reporters in November that such labeling could be perceived as 'a step on the way to a boycott' and said boycotts would be opposed by the administration. But earlier this month, senior Obama administration officials defended the EU's move and reaffirmed its position against 'Israeli settlement activity.' The new guidance references a decades-old administrative directive that sought to promote the import of Palestinian goods produced in the West Bank. The Obama administration is facing criticism for reinterpreting it and enforcing it to punish Israeli businesses" (Adam Kredo, 'Obama Administration Orders Labeling of Israeli Goods,' Washington Free Beacon, January 28, 2016). ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, "The Obama Administration supports, rather than opposes the EU decision to label Israeli products produced in Judea/Samaria. "This is not only wrong in principle, but harmful to the cause of peace. If Palestinians are ever to accept Israel's legitimacy and permanence as a Jewish state-a prerequisite for peace-then it is vital that its pro-terror, anti-peace acts not be rewarded. The EU labeling and its support by President Obama rewards Mahmoud Abbas' PA and Hamas in their efforts to delegitimize Israel. The Obama Administration has made the flat earth statement that 'we do not consider settlements to be part of Israel'-yet, clearly, the sole reason these products are being labeled by the EU is precisely because they are Israeli. They are not Palestinian products. "The EU decision to label products from Judea/Samaria, which the Obama Administration supports, extends solely and deliberately to Jewish Israeli enterprises in Judea/Samaria. And the sole purpose of labeling Israeli products from Judea/Samaria is to enable countries, importers, supermarkets and consumers to identify and boycott these goods. Labeling is an indispensable element of the boycott. "In short, this is a boycott of Israeli Jews, because they are Israeli Jews, living and engaged in commerce in Judea/Samaria. The Obama Administration supports the anti-Semitic boycott of Jewish businesses. "Jews living in Judea/Samaria are not the reason for the absence of peace and the U.S. should not be supporting the anti-Semitic, discriminatory Palestinian Arab demand that a future Palestinian state in these territories be judenrein. "Judea/Samaria is part of the territory earmarked by the 1920 San Remo Treaty for Jewish settlement. This decision was subsequently incorporated into the League of Nations Palestine Mandate conferred on Britain. This determination has never been superseded by an internationally binding agreement and Jewish residential rights in Judea/Samaria, thus, remain unimpaired. "Judea/Samaria are not occupied territory, but unallocated territory under international law-they belonged to no sovereign state prior to the 1967 war in which Israel captured it from its illegal occupier, Jordan-which, unlike Israel, lacked a valid claim to the territories in question. That is why UN Security Council Resolution 242, passed after the 1967 war, did not brand Israel the aggressor, nor does it demand immediate, unconditional and total withdrawal by Israel. Israel is legally entitled to administer these territories until a peace agreement finalizes their status. "Jewish residence in Judea/Samaria has fundamental legitimacy and poses no obstacle to a true peace if Palestinians are ready for one. Rather, Palestinian Arab refusal to accept Israel as a Jewish state, to end terrorism and to terminate the incitement to hatred and murder against Israel are the reasons peace has not been achieved. "We therefore strongly support Senator Cotton's bill and urge all senators, Democratic and Republican, to support it. NEW YORK (JTA)-Maybe now that Bernie Sanders has become the first Jewish candidate to win a presidential primary he'll start getting the Joe Lieberman treatment. Back in 2000, Al Gore's decision to tap Lieberman as his running mate set off what felt like a months-long national bar mitzvah bash. But the party-and all the speculation about a Shabbat-observant, kosher-keeping vice president-proved premature, thanks in part to confused elderly Jewish voters in Palm Beach County. And then Lieberman's presidential bid in 2004 totally flopped in the primaries. So you'd think there would still be room for some hoopla over a Jewish challenger holding a strong lead in the New Hampshire polls headed into the primary. Nope. Bubkes. The lack of Jewmania this time around is partially attributable to Donald Trump hogging the media's attention. But more importantly, since Lieberman's dance on the national stage an African American was elected president, a Mormon won the Republican nomination and a woman is widely viewed as the favorite to win in 2016. Suddenly the whole first-Jewish-president thing seems like a yawner. There is also the fact that Lieberman wore his Judaism like a yarmulke. He proudly put his faith front and center while embracing the role of religious trailblazer and Jewish role model. Sanders, not so much. That's not to say Sanders is trying to pass (why bother?). When asked, he says he's proud of his background, and he occasionally will invoke his Jewishness on his own. But generally the Vermont senator seems uncomfortable with efforts to place a Jewish frame on his candidacy. The result is that Lieberman comes off as the more-Jewish candidate-even though the overwhelming majority of American Jews are more like Sanders in terms of their secular Jewish identity and, in many cases, their politics. While plenty of Jews and Jewish organizations took pride in Lieberman's nomination in 2000, his spirited defense of a greater role for religion in the public square flew in the face of decades of Jewish activism and anxiety over a lowering of the church-state wall. Similarly, while Lieberman's vocal support of the Iraq War made him a hero in some Jewish circles, polls showed his hawkish views were out of step with the majority of American Jews. Perhaps Sanders' most dramatic Jewish moment in the campaign came during a rally in October at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, in an exchange with a hijab-wearing senior, Remaz Abdelgader. She identified herself as "an American Muslim student who aspires to change this world" and complained about the "rhetoric that's going on in the media." In response, Sanders hugged her and said, "Let me be very personal here if I might. I'm Jewish. My father's family died in concentration camps. I will do everything that I can to rid this country of the ugly stain of racism, which has existed for far too many years." Sanders' comments echoed one of the most publicly Jewish moments of the other possible contender for first Jewish president, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Back during the fight over whether to allow a Muslim community center to open near Ground Zero, Bloomberg passionately defended the project, a stance his confidantes linked to his parents' encounter with anti-Semitism and that Bloomberg himself later connected to the protection of Jewish religious rights. If Sanders and Bloomberg share what remains the leading brand of American Jewish identity-a mix of religious ambivalence and ethnic pride-they reflect distinct trends in American Jewish political attitudes. As a self-described democratic socialist, Sanders is a throwback to the first half of the 20th century, when the Jewish street embraced a leftism fixated on economic issues. Bloomberg reflects the Jewish rise up the socioeconomic ladder and an evolving brand of liberalism focused more on social issues, like abortion and minority rights. Sanders is uncompromising in his attacks on the banks but seeks compromise with gun advocates; Bloomberg defends Wall Street while waging war against the gun industry. Whose politics will define the next stage of Jewish liberalism? We could get a direct face-off, if Sanders somehow rides his historic New Hampshire win to the Democratic nomination and Bloomberg jumps in as an independent. And if you're having trouble getting your head around a Jewish democratic socialist and a Jewish billionaire duking it out for the White House, just imagine if Donald Trump wins the Republican nod. That would make him the only one in the three-man race with Jewish grandchildren who go to an Orthodox shul. (JNS.org)Israel is expected to negotiate with the Netherlands over the alleged Dutch decision to cut monthly payments to Holocaust survivors from the European nation who immigrated to Israel, the Israeli Knesset Finance Committee announced Wednesday. Reports surfaced earlier this month claiming that the Netherlands decided to stop paying benefits to Dutch Holocaust survivors living in Israel because they were already receiving payments from the Israeli government. The Dutch Foreign Ministry denied the allegations, saying that it is in no way the intention of the Dutch government to stop these payments. Yet the Dutch embassy in Israel said there is a discussion about scaling back on the payments for Holocaust survivors, called WUV, because survivors were already receiving Israeli benefits since June 2014. (JTA)-Right-wing rocker Ted Nugent came under fire from Jewish groups for a anti-Semitic Facebook post blaming prominent Jews for pushing gun control. The National Rifle Association is also under pressure to distance itself from Nugent, who is a longtime NRA board member. On Monday, Nugent shared a graphic featuring images of 12 Jews-including former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Democratic New York Sen. Chuck Schumer-branded with images of Israeli flags below the words: "So who is really behind gun control?" Alongside the graphic, which has previously appeared on anti-Semitic websites, Nugent wrote: "Know these punks. They hate freedom, they hate good over evil. They would deny us the basic human right to self defense & to KEEP AND BEAR ARMS while many of them have tax-paid hired ARMED security! Know them well. Tell every1 you know how evil they are. Let us raise maximum hell to shut them down!" Jewish organizations quickly condemned the post. "Ted Nugent has a long history of being an equal opportunity offender. But his latest share on Facebook, making the outrageous suggestion that Jews are behind gun control, is nothing short of conspiratorial anti-Semitism," said an Anti-Defamation League statement signed by CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center, said in a statement: "Ted Nugent has every right to advocate against gun control laws. However he won't be getting a free pass for his anti-Semitic bigotry. There are Jews on both sides of the gun control controversy and Nugent knows it. He owes our community an apology. He can start by removing the offensive graphic and if he won't we urge Facebook to do it for him." In the graphic on Facebook, the Jewish politicians and activists are labeled with descriptions, such as "Jew York City Mayor Mikey Bloomberg" and "Sen. Chucky boy Schumer." Over Emanuel's face, the text reads: "Served in Israel's army during Gulf war." Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz and U.S. Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, both California Democrats, are also among those targeted. Nugent, the voice of 1970s hits like "Stranglehold," is an avid hunter, a board member of the National Rifle Association and a strong supporter of the Republican Party. He has a history of making inflammatory statements. In response to the recently released Michael Bay film "13 Hours" about the highly politicized attack by Islamist militants on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, Nugent said President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should be "tried for treason and hung." The Jewish community of Greater Orlando is gearing up for a big milestone celebration. In collaboration with the Orange County Regional History Center and the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU, the Orlando Jewish community is planning an exhibit celebrating the 100th anniversary of the organized Jewish community. Sara Stern co-chair explained, The exhibit idea came about when a steering committee at Ohev Shalom was discussing how to celebrate the centennial of COS. We realized this really marked an anniversary for the entire Jewish community. From a few families and one synagogue in 1917 and 1918, a large, diverse and thriving community has grown that has not only established many congregations and agencies, but has also contributed greatly to the quality of life for all the residents of Central Florida. The idea caught on, stated Roz Fuchs, Sterns co-chair. The Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando (JFGO) awarded the project a $10,000 collaborative grant, and Marcia Zervitz, founding executive director of the Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU (and long time Orlando resident and leader in the Jewish Community) volunteered to come on board as guest curator. We have committees actively researching, collecting photos and items, and writing the story of these past 100 years of life in the Orlando Jewish community. Although fundraising for this project continues, as of now other sponsors along with JFGO include: the Roth Family, Heller Brothers, Bruce Gould, Brechner Family, Marilyn Crotty and Roz Fuchs, Ginsburg and Kleiman Families, Marc and Henrietta Katzen, Kobrin Family Foundation, Greenberg Traurig, Pearlman Family, Universal Engineering Sciences-Israel Family, Dick and Louise Weiner, and Ben and Maura Weiner. Other sponsors are pending. While there wont be room to display everything collected, anyone with photos or items they feel might be meaningful for the exhibit is encouraged to call Roz Fuchs at 407-767-8895. All photos will be scanned and returned to their owner and any items will be on temporary loan. All of the scanned photos will be preserved in our community archives. Richard Schwartz, Peter Burg and Lisa Schwartz will be scanning photos, photographing items and creating a database for everything that is collected. Chairpersons of committees for the exhibit include: Joanie Kimball, Mardi Shader, Sandi Saft, Teresa Finer, Pat Bornstein, Sheryl Meitin, Phyllis Zissman, Michael Soll, Ryan Lefkowitz, Harriet Weiss, Arlene Van De Rijn, Barbara Chasnov, and Roz Fuchs. We are very pleased with the excitement this project is creating and the cross section of community volunteers involved. What a wonderful way to bring the community together as we embark on the next 100 years, Stern commented. It takes a lot of time to plan, develop and build an exhibit. Kehillah (community): A Century of Jewish Life in Greater Orlando is scheduled to open at the History Center in the old court house downtown on Sunday, Nov. 12, 2017. It will be on display for 100 days. Middle East affairs expert Dr. Mordechai Kedar spoke at three events across Central Florida during the first two weeks of February 2016. The first event, on the evening of Feb. 4, was at Chabad of North Orlando, while the other two were back to back on Feb. 9, the first hosted by Chabad of UCF and the second hosted by the UCF Student Group Knights for Israel. As Kedar explained at UCF Chabad, the real reason behind the contention over Jerusalem is key to the entire issue that the Palestinians and their supporters have with the Israelis. This reason is that the return of Jews and their religion to the Temple Mount threatens the perceived legitimacy of Islam, as Islam asserts that it is preeminent and replaces all other religions. If the Jews return, then that deals a major blow to the Islamic replacement claim. Thus, Kedar, with only facts, tore apart the Islamic claim to Jerusalem, revealing it as nothing more than a ploy. The crusade to remove the Jews from East Jerusalem and beyond has no basis in actual, let alone "peaceful," rites of the Islamic religion. The tension is only based out of an attempt by the Islamic religion to appropriate the sanctity of other religions for itself. Jerusalem as holy to the Muslims is not original to the faith, the city is never mentioned in the Koran, and it was not recognized as of any importance by the Muslims until many years after the death of Mohammed, founder of Islam. At his other two venues, Kedar showed the depth of the issues plaguing the "hell" found in so many Middle Eastern countries and in doing so, flatly repudiated the imaginary impact given to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the overall stability of the Middle East region. He systematically explained what the real problem is in the Middle East, hinging upon the deep, four-pronged divisions in, for example, Iraq; these four populist divisions defining the Middle East being tribal, ethnic, religious, and sectarian. Israel even experiences its own version of this issue of deeply embedded divisions, since, as Kedar stated, there is no "Israeli nation," so to speak. There are Jews, Arabs, and others, but they remain distinct. The conflict potential inside Israel, however, is addressed by democracy, since, in such manner, each individual group can make the contribution of defending their self-interest in the national arena. Israel, though, as is important to note, is not a "democracy on a suicide mission," and the state does not allow democracy to get in the way of security. In that manner, Israeli citizens who join the Islamic State, according to a new Israeli law, automatically have their citizenship revoked. Across the rest of the region, it is largely because of the Western backed attempt to force the dissolution of the ethnic divisions under the heading of imagined nations like Iraq and Syria that the region largely stays in enduring conflict. The reason for the few islands that do not experience perpetual war, like the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Qatar, is because each of these nations is small and consists of individual tribes, or, in the case of the Emirates, consists of independent tribes in a federation. Out of this understanding of the dynamics of the Middle East, Kedar proposes the 8-state solution the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. The 8-state solution refers to the creation of a total of seven independent Palestinian "emirates," each centered along the natural Middle Eastern division of clan, after the model of Qatar. Such a "viable" plan would remove the additional conflicts injected by the push of the unnaturally centralized society onto the Palestinian people. Additionally, such a plan could serve as the model for additional reform across the Middle East, perhaps starting with the arrival of independence for the Kurds, since, as Kedar, noted, there never has been and never will be a Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian, or similar nation. These national identities are "imaginary." The only natural divisions in the Middle East center on clan and tribe and extend no further, with each tribe generally sharing religion, language, and resources. Kedar is Research Associate at Bar-Ilan University's Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies in Israel, and his proposal regarding the "Palestinian Emirates" can be found at palestinianemirates.com. Caleb R. Newton is a global affairs analyst living in Central Florida and the founder of Global News Breakdown. Find him at Global News Breakdown, Dissecting Society, and the Times of Israel. Contact him at calebrnewton@globalnewsbreakdown.com. The Israeli governments passage of legislation that authorizes egalitarian prayer in a soon-to-be-created 9,700-square-foot, NIS 35 million ($8.85 million) section adjacent to the southern part of the Western Wall (Kotel in Hebrew) has been called groundbreaking, empowering, dramatic, and unprecedented. The section could be ready in as soon as a few months or up to two years from now. This is a fair and creative solution, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the 15-5 vote on the measure by his cabinet. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), said the decision would connect world Jewry to the State of Israel. Jerry Silverman, CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA), called it a major step forward. Member of Knesset Merav Michaeli (Zionist Union) said the Kotel was liberated again, this time not by soldiers, but by women in Jewish prayer shawls. Indeed, for 27 years, the Women of the Wall group pushed for womens equality at the Kotel. Formal negotiations have been going on for almost three years. In a statement, the group said more than just an agreement has been achieved: The vision of the new section of the Kotel is a physical and conceptual space open to all forms of Jewish prayer. Instead of splitting up the existing pie into ever more divided, smaller pieces, we are making the pie much larger. The new section, which will qualify for government funding, will be managed by a public council, governed by a committee headed by the chairman of the Jewish agency and comprised of representatives from the Reform and Masorti (Conservative Judaism in Israel) movements, JFNA, and Women of the Wall. An administrator for the section will be appointed by the Prime Ministers Office. Beyond the blueprints, the ratified plan is a powerful statement about the overt impact Diaspora Jewry and global Jewish leaders could have on Israeli decision-making. This is a paradigm shift. U.S. Jews have traditionally served as a political lifeline for Israel, lobbying American governments on behalf of the Jewish state. Recent occurrences have shifted the relationship between the American and Israeli Jewish communities into one of semi-equality, which includes American Jewish leaders objectively discussing Israels policies rather than blindly supporting them. Silverman called this shift evolutionary. Rabbi Gilad Kariv, executive director of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, said the negotiations prove the role that North American Jewry...can and should play in helping Israel make our country more inclusive. Kudos to the unrelenting advocacy from the North American Jewish community in pushing for this, said Rafi Rone, former vice president of Jewish and Israel Initiatives at the Joseph and Harvey Meyerhoff Family Charitable Funds. The dawning of a new day. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Jewish Agency for Israel Chairman Natan Sharansky said that American and Israeli Jews are becoming increasingly interdependent. The U.S. needs Israel to help strengthen Jewish identity in a Diaspora community that is slowly shrinking from assimilation and intermarriage. Israel, attacked daily by the international community, needs the solidarity of Jewish communities abroad, he explained. I am sure that the [Israeli] government must now take into accountshould take into considerationthe position of world Jewry on the decisions it makes, Hagay Elizur, senior director of diaspora affairs for Israels Ministry of Public Diplomacy & Diaspora Affairs, told JNS.org. Netanyahu might be feeling the pressure of unprecedented U.S.-Israel political tension. Last Augusts Peace Index poll by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University showed that 48 percent of Israeli Jews worried that Netanyahus campaign against the Iran nuclear deal would damage U.S.-Israel relations. Last November, speaking at JFNAs General Assembly, Netanyahu called on American Jewish leaders to work together to unite the Jewish people. At that time, he underscored his new commitment to guarantee equal rights to members of the Reform and Conservative movements in Israel. The prime minister noted his work with the committee for a compromise on the Kotel as an example of his efforts. Now, pluralistic Jewish leaders are touting the work they did as a model for future initiatives. Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, executive vice president of Conservative Judaisms Rabbinical Assembly, said the negotiating process was almost as significant as its outcome in that it showed that even Jewish leaders with varying opinions could hang in there and handle complex negotiations when they have a shared interest. There were a lot of compromises to get here, Schonfeld told JNS.org. It was a real test. Pluralistic leaders claim the plan is likewise a powerful and formal recognition of Reform and Masorti Judaism, and an acceptance by the government of their legitimacy in Israeli religious life. Currently, between seven and 10 percent of Israelis consider themselves Reform or Masorti, according to Yizhar Hess, executive director and CEO of the Masorti Movement in Israel, and there are 120 Reform and Masorti synagogues. URJs Jacobs said Reform movement leaders intend to use the Kotel plan as an opportunity to go farther and in so doing really do holy work. Similar coalitions could work together again and use this agreement to open the floodgates for religious pluralism and womens rights in Israel, Shira Pruce, director of public relations for Women of the Wall, told JNS.org. Hess said the decision puts a precedent in place for how to solve future challenges, such as the desire for civil marriage in Israel, more kashrut options, and greater flexibility when it comes to Jewish conversions. This is the way to solve itoptions, said Hess, referring to the new option at the Kotel. This is what we will demand. The next big issue for the pluralistic Jewish movements is marriage equality, or the ability to perform civil marriages and marriages outside of the Chief Rabbinate, which adheres to Orthodox traditions. Most recently, JFNA launched iRepthe Israel Religious Expressions Platformand awarded grants to three Israel-based groups to encourage Israelis to consider marriage alternatives. Silverman said by working with grassroots organizations that care deeply about the issue, JFNA hopes to educate a broader spectrum of Israelis about the subject. A 2015 study by NGO Hiddush found 64 percent of Israelis favor recognizing all types of marriage, including civil, Reform, and Conservative, while 70 percent of self-identified secular Jews and 67 percent of immigrants would prefer a non-Orthodox framework for marriage if one were available. The Masorti Movements Hess said that 10 years ago, such grants would not have been available because the time was not right for such a shift. Today, however, there are more than 600,000 Israelis who would not qualify to get married in Israel under the rules of the Chief Rabbinate, and more Israelis are expressing that they dont want to choose such a religious option. I am optimistic, Hess told JNS.org. Like the agreement with the Kotel, which came from the bottom up and through monthly riots...50,000 people coming annually to pray at Robinsons Arch (the site adjacent to the Western Wall where egalitarian prayer was already permitted), the government was forced to make a courageous decision. I think the same thing will happen with marriage. Some Orthodox leaders are not going to let these changes happen easily. In an interview with JNS.org, Rabbi of the Western Wall Shmuel Rabinovitch called the governments Kotel plan a desecration of Gods name. He said he did not consider himself a partner in the Kotel negotiations. I dont know if there is anything we can do to stop it now, I am deeply saddened....I hope that we can get the whole thing cancelled, he said. Rabinovitch did say, however, that the ratified Kotel plan was a better option than bad alternatives that were discussed. Member of Knesset Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) called members of the Reform movement a group of clowns stabbing the holy Torah. Israeli Tourism Minister Yariv Levin (Likud) said the Reform movement represents assimilation. Their rabbi married [Bill and Hillary] Clintons daughter [Chelsea] with a priest, Levin said. Seth J. Frantzman, the opinion editor for The Jerusalem Post and someone not affiliated with any particular Jewish denomination, equated the Kotel plan to how Christians handled Jerusalems Church of the Holy Sepulchre, earmarking different spaces for different Christian denominations. This, Frantzman wrote in a Facebook post, literally illustrates the disunity of Judaism. For now, the plan is just thata plan. But once the new section is built, will it attract more Diaspora Jews who say they dont come to Israel because they feel underrepresented there? There will be no more excuses, Elizur, of Ministry of Public Diplomacy & Diaspora Affairs, told JNS.org. Hess added, We are eager to make Israel both more democratic and more Jewish at the same time. (Please see the article about Rabbi Gilad Karivs visit to Central Florida) Ruth Bader Ginsburg pens passionate farewell to Antonin Scalia WASHINGTON (JTA)Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote an impassioned tribute to Justice Antonin Scalia, her longtime ideological opposite and close friend who died over the weekend. Ginsburg, perhaps the Supreme Courts most liberal justice, and Scalia, who with Clarence Thomas was its most conservative member, often clashed in tart dissents, depending on which side was prevailing in the opinion. In a statement released to the media on Sunday, a day after Scalia, 79, died of heart attack during a hunting trip in Texas, Ginsburg said his dissents helped sharpen her opinions, dating back to the 1980s when they served together on the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit. From our years together at the D.C. Circuit, we were best buddies, she wrote in her remembrance, which was posted by NBC on its website. We disagreed now and then, but when I wrote for the Court and received a Scalia dissent, the opinion ultimately released was notably better than my initial circulation. She said Scalia nailed all the weak spotsthe applesauce and argle bargleand gave me just what I needed to strengthen the majority opinion. Ginsburg, 82, framed her remembrance of Scalia by noting their shared passion for opera. Toward the end of the opera Scalia/Ginsburg, tenor Scalia and soprano Ginsburg sing a duet: We are different, we are one, different in our interpretation of written texts, one in our reverence for the Constitution and the institution we serve, she said. He was a jurist of captivating brilliance and wit, with a rare talent to make even the most sober judge laugh. Debt-ridden Kanye West pleads to Facebooks Zuckerberg: Invest $1B in me (JTA)Kanye West in a Twitter plea asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to invest $1 billion in his ideas, claiming he is tens of millions in debt. West tweeted early Sunday, minutes before taking the stage to perform on Saturday Night Live. The musical artist said he was 53 million dollars in personal debt. West released his new album, The Life of Pablo, following his SNL performance. In a subsequent tweet, West said Zuckerberg, who is Jewish, should provide the support after realizing he is the greatest living artist and greatest artist of all time. The musician also later called on his supporters to reach out to Zuckerberg: World, please tweet, FaceTime, Facebook, instagram, whatever you gotta do to get Mark to support me... Mark, I am publicly asking you for help..., West tweeted, adding in another tweet: one of the coolest things you could ever do is to help me in my time of need. West also hedged his bets. hey Larry Page Im down for your help too ..., he said in a tweet meant for the Jewish co-founder of Google. Ohio diner owned by Arab-Israeli reopens after machete attack (JTA)An Ohio restaurant owned by an Arab-Israeli reopened days after four patrons were injured in a machete attack. The Nazareth Restaurant and Deli in Columbus reopened Monday with a limited menu, according to local reports, four days after the attack. Owner Hany Baransi, a Christian originally from Haifa, told WBNS-TV in Columbus that he has no doubt the attack was terrorist in nature. I come from the Middle East, he said. I come from Israel, and this has been a big thing here. People ask me where are you from? [I respond] Im from Israel. Sometimes it offends people. I dont know, but I still am. Im not going to change. I am what I am. The FBI reportedly is involved in the investigation to help determine a motive for the attack and whether it was terror-related. The injured patrons are expected to recover. Police identified the assailant as Mohamed Bary and said he had come to the restaurant earlier and asked a worker where the owner was from originally. Bary was shot and killed by police about two miles from the restaurant after lunging at officers with the machete and a knife. On Friday, sources told NBC News that investigators are looking into whether the attacker mistakenly believed the owner was Jewish. Jewish billionaire David Rubinstein donates $18.5M to repair Lincoln Memorial (JTA)Billionaire businessman and philanthropist David Rubenstein has donated $18.5 million to repair and restore the Lincoln Memorial. The donation from Rubenstein, the co-CEO of The Carlyle Group, to the National Park Foundations Centennial Campaign for Americas National Parks was announced on Monday, Presidents Day. In the past few years, he has given tens of millions of dollars to fix national parks and historical institutions. His most recent gift will allow the National Park Service to repair damaged brick and marble masonry and clean the memorial; conserve the Jules Guerin murals located above the memorials inscriptions; create approximately 15,000 square feet of functional space including exhibit, education and research areas; and add an elevator to improve accessibility, the park service said in a statement. These improvements will hopefully enable more people to better understand and appreciate Abraham Lincolns remarkable leadership during one of the most trying periods in American history, Rubenstein said in the statement. I am humbled to be a part of honoring this great man and preserving this iconic memorial for future generations. His donations over the past several years for parks and institutions total over $35 million. They went to the Washington Monument, George Washingtons home in Mount Vernon, the Robert E. Lee Memorial and the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial. Rubenstein, 66, of Bethesda, Maryland, is worth $2.3 billion, according to Forbes magazine. The Carlyle Group is a global alternative asset manager based in Washington, D.C. Debut German film on Anne Frank premiering at Berlin festival BERLIN (JTA) A German feature film about Anne Frank will have its world premiere at the Berlin International Film festival. Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank, or the Diary of Anne Frank, directed by Hans Steinbichler, will be presented Tuesday in a special screening for youth at the festival, called the Berlinale, which runs through Feb. 21. It will reach German cinemas on March 3. The head of the Basel-based Anne Frank Fond, Yves Kugelmann, said the film is Germanys first cinematic production of the Anne Frank story. In 2015, the foundation initiated the first TV docudrama in Germany, Meine Tochter Anne Frank. The production, which won the 2015 TV Film Prize from the German Academy of Performing Arts, has been nominated for a prestigious Grimme Prize in 2016. The winners are to be announced in March. The new movie is not without controversy. Steinbichler is also in the running to make a biopic about Hitlers favorite film director, Leni Riefenstahl. Kugelmann called Steinbichlers new opportunity an unseemly overlapping in a private letter to Steinbichler that Kugelmann said was leaked to the media. In the letter Kugelmann, whose foundation holds the rights to the Frank family archive, criticized Steinbichler for using his Anne Frank film credentials to boost his chances to make the Riefenstahl film. According to Spiegel magazine, Kugelmann also criticized Steinbichlers attitude toward the historical subject. Kugelmann declined to discuss the accusation with JTA. Kugelmann reportedly told Steinbichler in the letter that he doesnt want to have any part in an Anne-Leni marriage and asked the director to postpone or give up any such plans. Steinbichler confirmed to the German media that he has been asked to make a film about Riefenstahl, whose well-known Nazi-era propaganda documentaries include Triumph of the Will and Olympia. Steinbichler said he had not yet signed a contract. Hipster care package startup sets Jewish Kickstarter record at over $70K (JTA)A hip Jewish care-package project says it has become the most successful Jewish campaign ever on the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform. After Hello Mazel reached $70,000, it became the most-funded Jewish campaign in Kickstarter history, according to the Kickstarter campaign page launched Friday. The project, which said it plans to send out four packages a year with the best Jewish stuff, raised nearly $45,000 in less than one day. The Day 1 goal for the project, whose leaders include Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, was to raise $18,000. As of Sunday afternoon, more than 700 people had pledged at least $40 to receive a box whose precise contents are unknown. The campaign, which is slated to continue for 21 days, as of Sunday had 707 backers at levels ranging from $1 or more to $1,000 or more and has raised $69,503. No one had signed up for the $5,000 or more level. Backers must give at least $40 to receive a box. According to Hello Mazels Kickstarter description, the idea was born two years ago at The Kitchen, a start-up alternative congregation in San Francisco. We thought to ourselves, Theres got to be a way to get more Jewish to more people, the description says. Why do you need this? it continues. Because we believe there is a better, more chic, well-designed, super meaningful way into Jew-Land. And, for once, weve got directions. While the contents of the boxes remain secret (Oh, but if we told you, that would totally ruin the whole point, wouldnt it?), Hello Mazel promises plenty of delightfully fun, surprising bits of Jewishness with a visual and culinary aesthetic from 2016, not 1974. Hints about the first box, promised to arrive in time for Passover, will include 3 twists on the tastes of Passover; A Haggadah like none youve ever used and A seder plate that is not a seder plate. The Kitchens Rabbi Noa Kushner is also involved in the project, as is the former executive director of Reboot, a network of sorts for Jewish innovators. Bernie Sanders gets endorsement from first Muslim US congressman (JTA)Rep. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, has endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination. This is not a no you cant campaign. This is not a diminish your dreams kind of campaign. This is a believe in the possibilities we can do together kind of campaign, Ellison, D-Minn., said of the Sanders bid for presidency in introducing the candidate Sunday at the Black America Forum in Minneapolis. This is the right campaign if you believe this country can be better than it was, he added while also praising Barack Obama as a great president. He called Sanders, I-Vt., his dear friend. Ellison asserted that Sanders believes in true racial justice and equality. In endorsing Sanders over Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state and senator, for the 2016 Democratic nomination, Ellison went against the leadership of the Congressional Black Caucus. 2 Jewish profs sue Boston-area college claiming anti-Semitic discrimination (JTA)Two Jewish professors have filed federal complaints against their Boston-area college alleging anti-Semitic discrimination. The educators from Wheelock College, a small liberal arts school, filed the complaints with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last week, the Boston Globe reported Sunday. Eric Silverman and Gail Dines allege in the complaint that Wheelocks president, Jackie Jenkins-Scott, and other administrators made their work lives miserable after they and four other professors spoke out in a 2014 letter about a lack of Jewish perspective on campus, the newspaper reported. The complaint seeks unspecified damages and attorneys fees. Silverman is a professor of American studies and psychology and human development who has taught at Wheelock since 2006. Dines is a professor of sociology and womens studies professor and chairwoman of American studies at the college since 1986. Both have tenure. Wheelock denies the claims, calling them without merit, according to the Globe. The college, with an undergraduate student population of 811, has been struggling financially. Jenkins-Scott is scheduled to leave at the end of the academic semester in May; the university is conducting a search for her successor. British govt to prevent publicly funded bodies from boycotting Israeli goods (JTA)Publicly funded authorities in Britain will be prevented from boycotting Israeli goods under new government procurement guidelines. The new regulations will be announced by Cabinet Office minister Matthew Hancock during an upcoming visit to Israel, the Guardian reported Monday. According to the guidelines, such boycotts are considered by the government ministers to be inappropriate, outside where formal legal sanctions, embargoes and restrictions have been put in place by the government, the Guardian reported. Plans for the guidelines were first announced in October. A spokesman for Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn told the Jewish Chronicle that the guideline plan is an attack on local democracy. People have the right to elect local representatives able to make decisions free of central government political control, the spokesman said. That includes withdrawal of investments or procurement on ethical and human rights grounds. The spokesman added: This governments ban would have outlawed council action against apartheid South Africa. Corbyn has been accused of being anti-Israel. He has publicly endorsed a blanket arms embargo on Israel and the boycott of its universities involved in weapons research. Among the publicly funded bodies affected by the guidelines are councils, universities and National Health Service trusts. Car threatens to run down 6 Jewish worshippers in Johannesburg CAPE TOWN (JTA)A vehicle threatened to run down six identifiably Jewish men in suburban Johannesburg minutes after its driver shouted an anti-Semitic epithet at them. The men were walking home from the Ohr Somayach Jewish center in Glenhazel when the vehicle, which had four occupants, drove past them. The driver made offensive hand gestures and shouted f---ing Jews. A few minutes later, the vehicle returned and veered toward the men. The incident was reported initially on Feb. 10 on the website of the Coordination Forum for Countering Anti-Semitism, or CFCA, though it occurred last month. It was later confirmed to JTA by David Saks, associate director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, the communitys umbrella body. Anti-Semitic verbal abuse in South Africa commonly takes the form of people shouting obscenities from passing vehicles at community members walking to or from shul, Saks told JTA, noting that there were on average 10 such incidents per year. It is unusual, however, for the perpetrators to combine verbal abuse with acts of intimidation against the people they are targeting, in this case by making as if to drive into them. Saks said there were no details on the car registration. Rabbi ejected from Arizona council meeting after protesting invocation (JTA)A rabbi was removed from a city council meeting in Arizona after protesting a Christian invocation read by the mayor. Two police officers escorted Rabbi Adele Plotkin out of the Feb. 9 Chino Valley Town Council meeting at the request of Mayor Chris Marley, who ended his prayer in the name of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Daily Courier reported. Marley is a minister and six of the seven council members in Chino Valley, in northern Arizona, have identified themselves as Christians, while one is identified a non-Christian. Under council regulations, a council member may give the invocation but is not required. The council member identified as non-Christian has declined to give an invocation, according to the newspaper. At the meeting last week, the council voted to make no changes to the invocation tradition. Marley reportedly had announced at the Jan. 26 council meeting that there would be no invocations at meetings until the council had discussed the current system following a complaint from a different rabbi. Plotkin, of the Beit Torah congregation, told the Daily Courier that she attended the meeting based on that announcement. Explaining her protest, Plotkin told the newspaper, Sitting there is giving the impression of acquiescence, so what was I to do? The mayor argued at the meeting that ending the invocations would harm the council members right to freely worship as enshrined in the Bill of Rights. The rabbi said she has been in contact with the American Civil Liberties Union about the invocations. Jake Bennett, the Anti-Defamation Leagues Arizona regional director, said in a statement: We believe it is inappropriate and insensitive for a mayor or town council member elected to represent all of the people in his community to offer a sectarian invocation at a public town council meeting. When a civic leader prays in Jesus name in such a setting, the message inevitably conveyed to non-Christians is one of exclusion. Bennett added that Plotkin acted inappropriately in disrupting the council meeting and the mayor was within his rights to have her removed. But there is a larger point to be made here, the statement concluded. This incident graphically illustrates how divisive sectarian prayer practices before local legislative bodies can be in our pluralistic society, and why they are ill-advised. Ex-Israeli PM Ehud Olmert enters prison to serve sentence for corruption JERUSALEM (JTA)Ehud Olmert entered an Israeli prison to begin his 19-month sentence on a corruption conviction, becoming the first Israeli prime minister to serve jail time. Prior to arriving at the prison in central Israel on Sunday morning, Olmert released a video statement in which the former leader proclaimed his innocence. As prime minister, I was entrusted with the supreme responsibility of protecting the citizens of Israel, and today it is I who is about to be closed behind bars, Olmert said. Its important to me at this point to say again, as I have said in the court and outside of it, that I reject outright the charges related to bribery. It is also important to emphasize that none of the charges of which I was convicted was related to my activity during the period in which I served as prime minister. During his service as prime minister, Olmert said, I also made mistakes, even though in my opinion they were not of a criminal nature. Today I am paying a high price for some of them, perhaps too high. I accept the sentence with a very heavy heart, but no one stands above the law. He suggested, however, that perhaps the legal snowball of my affairs went on and grew for a variety of additional reasons that were not just legal. In December, Israels Supreme Court cut Olmerts prison term in the Holyland corruption case to 18 months from six years after acquitting him of receiving the larger of the two bribes for which he was convicted. Last week, the Jerusalem District court extended the sentence by a month. The Holyland affair, what is being called the largest corruption scandal in Israel, involved the payment of bribes to government officials by the developers of a luxury high-rise apartment complex in Jerusalem. Olmert resigned as prime minister in September 2008 after police investigators recommended that he be indicted in multiple corruption scandals. In May, Olmert was sentenced to eight months in prison after being convicted for accepting cash-filled envelopes from an American-Jewish businessman, Morris Talansky, and using it for personal and not political expenses. The case is under appeal to the Supreme Court. 2 Palestinian gunmen shot and killed by Israel Police JERUSALEM (JTA)Police shot and killed two Palestinians, including a policeman, in the same spot after they allegedly fired on the officers. Sunday nights attack at the Damascus Gate outside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem was the fourth by Palestinian assailants on Israeli officers in one day, according to reports. The men, in their 20s, were identified as residents of the West Bank. They shot at the officers with homemade automatic weapons, police said. One of the attackers was identified on Monday morning as being a Palestinian policeman, reported the Times of Israel, which named him as Omar Ahmed Amru. On Monday afternoon at the Damascus Gate, Israeli police arrested a female Palestinian teen who allegedly pulled a knife from her pocket when approached by officers there. Police said they approached the the 15-year-old girl, reportedly a resident of eastern Jerusalem, because she was acting suspiciously. They searched her bag and allegedly found another knife. Earlier this month, a newly trained Border Police officer, 19, was killed in a Palestinian shooting and stabbing attack at the Damascus Gate. Frances announcement that it will try to convene an international conference to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been strongly criticized by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But before anyone concludes that only right-wingers oppose such a conference, its worth recalling that one of the most outspoken critics of the conference idea was prominent peace process player Yitzhak Rabin. The year was 1985, and Rabinlater the co-signer of the Oslo Accords with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafatwas Israels defense minister. Arab leaders had been pushing for the convening of an international peace conference. Rabin and other Israeli leaders were insisting on direct Arab-Israeli negotiations. In the United States, the Ronald Reagan administration had always supported Israels position. But in the spring of 1985, reports appeared in the press suggesting that Secretary of State George Shultz was starting to warm up to the idea of an international conference. A worried Rabin flew to the U.S. for top-level discussions. Upon his arrival in the U.S., Rabin made it clear he was concerned about Washingtons apparent weakening on the question of an international conference on the Middle East, according to Near East Report, the weekly newsletter of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). If they are ready to make peace, lets negotiate [directly], Rabin was quoted as saying. If someone wants to undermine any hope of peace, an international conference and bringing in the Soviets is the best way. Rabin said that in his meetings with U.S. officials, I heard about the international umbrella. This was a phrase that some administration officials had begun using to try to sugarcoat the bitter pill. Whenever anyone mentions umbrella, it reminds me of Chamberlain and Munich, Rabin declared. Rabins statements were pretty remarkable, when you think about it. He had formerly served as Israels ambassador in Washington, so he was keenly sensitive to the need not to anger U.S. officials. Yet he publicly leaked the fact that they were using that deceptive international umbrella term. Not only did he leak it, but he openly criticized it, right there in Washington. And not only did he criticize itbut he used the analogy of Chamberlain selling out to Hitler at Munich. For Rabin, of all people, to stand there in Washington and blast the U.S. administration and even invoke a Nazi analogy, was nothing less than astonishing. It really showed what a terrible threat an international conference (or umbrella) poses to Israel. Such a conference, if held today, would consist of a dozen or more Arab and European countries ganging up on Israel and demanding that the Israelis make unilateral concessions to the Palestinians. And given the Obama administrations pro-Palestinian slant, one must assume that the U.S. would side with the Arabs and Europeans. The purpose of the conference would not be to achieve a genuine peace. How do we know? Because the sponsor, France, has already declared that if the conference fails to produce a Palestinian state, then the French will unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state. Thats the goalnot peace, but a Palestinian state, as quickly as possible, no matter the risks to Israel. Which is why the Palestinian Authoritys Inciter in Chief, Mahmoud Abbas, is energetically supporting the conference idea. During the past year, France has suffered the worst terrorist attacks in the world since 9/11. One would think that the French would understand the folly of appeasing Islamic terrorists and why oppose creating what would be an overwhelmingly Muslim Palestinian terrorist state. Yet just the opposite has happened. Why? Because the French are afraid. They are afraid of angering the Muslim world, afraid of more Muslim terrorism. The French believe that since they are defending themselves against Islamic Statewhich includes French planes bombing Muslim terrorists in Syria and the French police shutting down pro-terror mosquesthey need to prove that they support Muslim causes. Supporting Palestinian statehood is Frances way of trying to appease the Muslim world. The international conference proposal is just another way of throwing Israel under the bus. No wonder the IsraelisLikud or Labor, Netanyahu or Rabin, right or leftarent too excited about that prospect. Stephen M. Flatow, an attorney in New Jersey, is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. Dear Editor: I am writing in response to David Bornsteins editorial on Feb. 12. For the second consecutive year, David Bornstein has chosen to write an editorial which seeks to encourage members of the Orlando Jewish community to sit this one out when it comes to our community agencies (especially the Jewish Academy of Orlando). Last year, I encouraged him to stop by the JAO and take a tour. Im not sure whether or not he took me up on that offer but had he visited, he would have noticed several developments. He would have visited the schools new Innovation Lab, a leading edge facility that teaches creative problem solving and Design Thinking to students from kindergarten to 7th grade. It is so leading edge that other schools who may or may not already have their own innovation spaces are struggling to figure out how to innovate. At the JAO, the administrators, educators and parents are actively developing new curriculum materials to encourage students to think differently in a way that is integrated along with their language arts, mathematics, science (STEM) andyesJudaica studies. The JAOs Innovation Lab is light years ahead of what other schools are doing. If he had visited the school, he would have seen their new MindUp curriculum which teaches children how to master their emotions and how to use mindfulness training to be better students, friends, community members and yes, Jews. If he had visited, he would have witnessed the joy of hearing Jewish children singing Jewish songslearning about their heritage, traditions and history. At a time when so much of our peoples history is being forgotten, there is no more wonderful sound than to hear our children growing their Jewish minds and hearts. But what Mr. Bornstein would also have witnessedas he mentioned in his articleis a smaller school. Unfortunately, a Jewish education is apparently not as much of a priority as it used to be. That is why the schoola model of individual education that adapts its curriculum to meet the needs of children who are at grade level and progresses along with those that are ahead of grade levelhas made these investments in technology, innovation and mindfulness training. The JAO aims to provide the best education in Orlando, not just the best Jewish education in Orlando. The school has a long history of over-preparing students for their next school and it is continuing to do so. The schools problems areas Mr. Bornstein mentionedmany. The burden of the campus debt continues to exert pressure on the JCC and the JAO but the strains on the school are large. The schools board has recently made the difficult decision to place its building on the market with an eye toward moving back to its original building on campus (which once held 250 students). While some could see this as a sign of weakness, others can (and should) see it as a sign of the schools recognition that the current rent situation is untenable and that it needs to live within its means. While this is one solution, an even better solution would be to do something, which Mr. Bornstein has advocated against. Our institutionsespecially the JCC and the JAOare not suffering from bloat. Operating an innovative school, a best-in-class early childhood learning center and community center cost money. What they needespecially now more than everis everyones support. For some, that may be going to a program, for others it may be writing a check. And yes, for someone out there, hopefully, it means stepping up to the plate to provide the Jewish campus with the ultimate supporthelping to retire our crippling debt. Starting over somewhere else may seem like a better option, but it is far more feasible to pay off our debt, stay where we are and grow our campus to be the center of Jewish life in Orlando. As Mr. Bornstein mentioned, our community has a leadership crisis. We also have an identity crisis. It is not easy to be Jewish today andwhen I look at my young childrenI fear for what it will be like for them to be Jewish as they grow up. My wife and I took a strong step forwardwe send them to the Jewish Academy and JCC because not only do we want them to have the best education possible but we also believe it is important for them to know our peoples past and present and for them to be a part of a strong Jewish future. Rather than sitting back, waiting and watching I would encourage anyone reading this who is Jewish and once felt a connection to their Jewish identity to step forward. Get involved on your own terms and help us fill that identity vacuum. This community, its agencies and its people are not going to get stronger on their own. Take a step forwardsend your child to a Jewish day school. Get involved at the JCC, help us develop newer more meaningful programming on a campus where people want to be. Jump in and make this a Jewish community. Its easy to sit on the sideline and wait for someone else to do the hard work. Too many people in this community have sat back, waited and watched for too long. Great leaders are important, but even the greatest leaders still need a community that cares enough to be involved. I hope that next year, Mr. Bornstein and I can write a column together on how our community stepped forward, how our campus financial situation improved and how proud we are to be part of a vibrant Orlando Jewish community. I look forward to taking that tour with Mr. Bornstein to show him all of the great things that we can accomplish when we get off the sidelines and get involved. Jeremy Scheinberg Winter Park By Alan Kornman The Atlantic Institute will be partnering with the Maitland Holocaust Center and the Interfaith Council of Central Florida on a special program titled, Is History Repeating Itself? Jewish and Muslim Immigrant Experiences in America, scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 25 at the Holocaust Center. The Atlantic Institute is partnered with the Alliance for Shared Values, which is openly affiliated with the Gulen Movements Hizmet social initiatives in the United States. On their website, the Atlantic Institute praises Fethullah Gulen as their Imam and political leader. Recently, FBI agents carried out raids at 19 Gulen Charter schools in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio as part of an ongoing white-collar crime matter. The investigations are still ongoing, however, this is a clue the Atlantic Institute and the Gulen Movement are not all about interfaith peace and love. IBTimes, Michael Kaplan reported on Oct. 29, 2015, Fethullah Gulen has been placed on Turkeys most wanted terrorist list along with leaders of the Islamic State militant group... the Turkish government seeks Gulens extradition from the U.S. This is a clue there is a serious terrorist problem with the Gulen movements leader. On its website the Atlantic Institute is promoting the Feb. 25th event this way: Its difficult to imagine any political discussion today that does not include some mention of immigration. There are increasing concerns about border security, and ongoing debates about whom we will allow in to our country and who we must keep out. For the Jewish community, particularly among Survivors and their families, this concern feels in some ways like their own history. Jewish immigrants to America at the beginning of the 1900s and up to WWII era faced many of the same types of suspicions that Muslim-Americans, particularly immigrants, face today. Joel B. Pollak, in his Nov. 17, 2015, article, Why Syrian Refugees Are Not Like Jewish Refugees in WWII, makes this compelling observation challenging the entire premise of the Feb. 25th event at the Maitland Holocaust Center. Pollak said, Jews were singled out for persecution by the Nazis, not (initially) fleeing an ongoing war. If anyone has a unique moral claim that parallels the Jews of Europe, it is the Syrian Christians, Iraqi Yazidis, and other minorities being persecuted by radical Islamist forces in the Middle East. But that is not true of the broader wave of Syrian refugees. That is not to blame them for the war, but it does suggest there is a good moral case for distinguishing among refugees, rather than admitting all who wish to come. Publicly, the Gulen Movement and their franchises sell themselves as a peaceful interfaith group. Im sorry to tell you this, many Americans gladly buy into these wolves in sheeps clothing Islamist interfaith partners because they sell coexistence and peace. Like Gulen, however, many of these Islamist interfaith groups have very close ties to the Global Jihad Movement. Dig a little deeper into the Gulen Movement and you find FBI raids, Turkey designating Gulen a most wanted terrorist, and Gulens use of spycraft to violently spread strict Islamic Law after infiltrating governments power centers, as articulated in his sermon above. The Atlantic Institute scored a big propaganda victory being invited inside the hallowed halls of the Maitland Holocaust Memorial Center in a deceptive effort to raise the status of Syrian refugees off the backs of persecuted Jews from the pogroms to the Holocaust. Im confident behind closed doors the Gulen movement and the Atlantic Institute are pleased how easily manipulated the Maitland, FL Holocaust Memorial Centers leadership is. If the Holocaust Center is sincerely looking to dialogue with a true Muslim reform group; I suggest they contact my friend Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. Family Security Matters Contributing Editor Alan Kornman is the regional coordinator of The United West-Uniting Western Civilization for Freedom and Liberty. His email is: alan@theunitedwest.org. 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/ As another session of Parliament looms, there is a pregnant pause over the delivery of the Goods & Services Taxes (GST) Bill. It seems tantalisingly close with no further complications barring just one to fix a rate ceiling in the Constitution or not? Aspersions are cast and motives are questioned over this clamour for a constitutional tax cap. Inadvertently, French economist Thomas Pikettys recent visit to India may have provided an intellectual basis to this debate on a tax cap. Piketty remarked that India needs a much higher tax-GDP ratio to fix its widening income and wealth inequality and that the current skewed tax structure is making inequality worse. Some sought to dismiss his arguments with the familiar foreigner knows little about India disdain. Some others argued that improving efficacy of government spending and distribution are far more important than merely raising the tax-GDP ratio. Either way, there is little dispute that Indias current tax-GDP ratio is low and its structure, distorted. Indias tax-GDP ratio, including both central and state taxes, is around 17% vis-a-vis an average of 35% for the 34 nations belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Indias tax-GDP ratio went from 6% in 1950 to 16% in 1990. Between 1990 and 2014, as India became rapidly wealthy with a five-fold increase in per capita GDP, the tax-GDP ratio actually remained stagnant between 15-17%. Taxes are collected in two categories direct taxes (tax on income and wealth) and indirect taxes (tax on products and services). Direct taxes typically impact the wealthy elite and the earning middle class. Indirect taxes are by standard convention, regressive in nature and their marginal impact is much greater on the poor than the rich. India collects twice as much in indirect taxes than in direct taxes. Indias direct-indirect tax ratio is 35:65. This is in sharp contrast to most OECD nations where this ratio is either equal or higher, i.e. more biased towards direct taxes. In other words, Indias tax structure is sharply skewed towards placing a greater relative burden on the poor. In the absence of a wealth tax, dividend tax and capital gains tax, it is not surprising that Indias direct taxes ratio to GDP at 5-6% is one of the lowest among large economies. So, India has a peculiar mix of low tax-GDP ratio, with taxes collected largely through regressive means (indirect taxes) that are disproportionately more burdensome to the poor than the rich. An inability to garner more direct taxes has consistently led to governments dependence on the buoyancy of indirect taxes to meet tax revenue targets. Petrol prices at the pump in Delhi are Rs 60/litre. Diesel prices are Rs 45/litre. But given the collapse in global oil prices, petrol should have only cost Rs 44/litre and diesel Rs 31/litre, had taxes on petrol and diesel not been increased on nine occasions in just over a year. There has been a whopping 127% increase in petrol taxes and a 386% increase in diesel taxes both indirect taxes in a short span of 15 months. To be sure, there can be perfectly justifiable economic and fiscal reasons for these increases but that is not the point here. This is to highlight the unfettered nature in which the government can impose indirect taxes on its citizens without any checks and balances, thanks to the powers bestowed by the Central Excise Act of 1944. The only recourse for citizens against such indiscriminate taxation is to wait for the next electoral cycle. The GST is also an indirect tax, similar to the excise taxes on petrol and diesel. This means that technically, GST rates can also be subject to limitless changes without a proper parliamentary process. Governments of all political parties have, over the years, resorted to such arbitrary levies of indirect taxes during the fiscal year to mop up additional tax revenues through the backdoor, or to make up for budgetary shortfalls. Given this proclivity for unrestrained indirect taxation, what is the assurance that citizens, especially the economically weaker sections, will not be subject to similar whims and fancies with GST rates? Thus, the notion of binding the government to an upper limit on GST is not as irrational as it is made out to be. The mere idea that there be some checks and balances for levying indirect taxes is not an unreasonable one, given Indias long track record in arbitrary indirect taxation. Indian citizens, especially the poor, are perhaps better served with some restraints and bounds on their elected representatives ability to levy such indirect taxes indiscriminately. However, this is not to argue that an upper numerical limit for GST should be hardwired into the Constitution. This is to merely lay the case for an idea of an upper limit for GST taxation. The current debate seems to be centred on whether an upper limit for the GST should be cast within the Constitution or not, ignoring the larger idea of the need to control reckless indirect taxation. The details of the exact mechanism to determine this upper limit for GST can be worked out through a legislative process, if there is acceptance of the spirit behind this notion of an upper limit for GST. It is time Indian legislators and policy makers pay heed to this alarming reality of widening economic inequality in India, spurred by a distorted direct-indirect tax structure. The inability to raise the share of direct tax revenues from the wealthy and earning middle class cannot be an alibi for indiscriminate surcharges and duties through regressive indirect taxes to generate higher tax revenues. It is then wise to embrace the idea of a limit on such indirect taxes that has an inordinately larger impact on the vast majority of Indias poor. Ajit Ranade is chief economist, Aditya Birla Group and Praveen Chakravarty is fellow at IDFC Institute, a Mumbai-based think-tank The views expressed are personal Delhi is tempted to project the Nepal PMs visit as a sign that all is well. But it should use the moment to have frank and difficult conversations about differences. Nepals Prime Minister K P Oli arrives in New Delhi on a six-day visit on Friday. The visit comes after a particularly difficult time in the bilateral relationship. In the past six months, Kathmandu has accused Delhi of intervening in its sovereign constitutional process; of imposing a blockade which caused a humanitarian crisis; and stoking and supporting the Madhesi agitation in the plains. It has run an international campaign against India, seeking interventions from foreign capitals. New Delhi has accused Kathmandu of not addressing the internal political conflict in the Tarai, which has cross border security implications. It has opposed, on international platforms, Nepals human rights violations. It has accused Nepal of stoking anti-India sentiment and it has been irritated, though not particularly worried, about Kathmandus attempt to use the China card. There has been a thaw. And Kathmandu would like to now forget the episode and move on. It is however important that Delhi does not forget and reiterates the message it has been passing ever since September when the constitution was promulgated. The four-point roadmap The rapprochement in the relationship occurred in December. The Nepal government took the first step and displayed flexibility. It proposed--interestingly to Delhi, not to the agitating Madhesis--a four-point proposal. This involved amending the constitution to ensure equitable political representation to the Madhesis in the lower House of Parliament; affirmative action in state organs on the basis of proportional inclusion; clarifying other issues including citizenship and creating a mechanism to address the issue of federal demarcation within three months. The Madhesis, at that point, felt the proposal did not go far enough--they felt the amendments represented a dilution of the interim constitution; the key issue of underrepresentation in the upper house was not addressed; and an immediate deal on federal demarcation was necessary, for the ruling hill establishment may not delver in the future. Nepalese policemen use tear gas to disperse ethnic Madhesi protesters in Gaur, a town about 160 km south of Kathmandu on Dec.20, 2015. Police opened fire on protesters who were attempting to attack a police station in southern Nepal on Sunday, killing one, officials said. (AP) But Delhi--a little fatigued by the flak it was receiving domestically from the opposition and the media for mishandling Nepal--was looking for a way out and assessed Kathmandus proposal represented some forward movement. The RSS, it is reliably learnt, told the political leadership that anti-Indian sentiment had increased in the hills and Delhi should find a way to restore ties. India was also sceptical of the ability of the Madhesi leadership to sustain the agitation and disappointed with disunity in its ranks. It was getting feedback from the ground that while the movement was unprecedented in its depth and there was quiet determination, people also needed a break. Some within the establishment felt that India must stay the course, the problem had not been resolved, Madhesi discontent remained deep and would spring back, and they still did not own the constitution. But Sushma Swaraj- who has managed Nepal policy for the last few months - decided the policy needed to be tweaked. She herself introduced the word welcome in a statement on the Nepal government cabinet resolution outlining the proposal. This awarded legitimacy to the government roadmap. Eventually, two Amendments were passed--the establishment claims this will award 79-80 out of 165 seats to the Tarai. If this is indeed the case, it is positive. But there are competing interpretations by Madhesi lawyers who suggest that the seats would be around 70. Greater clarity on this would be welcome. The second amendment reintroduced the word proportional inclusion which is positive. It however spread the benefits of reservation across many groups, including the dominant upper castes, which is problematic. The Nepal government had promised to Delhi it will form the mechanism to determine the issue of demarcation before PM Olis visit - and on Friday, it did so. But like the amendments, this was a unilateral decision. There was room to take the Madhesi Morcha on board. From rejecting the idea of a mechanism, the Madhesis had decided to engage with it - but wanted firm guarantees on its mandate (including a commitment that the boundaries in Tarai would be revised), validity, and time frame. The government however wanted to be minimalist and not provide guarantees and went its own way. This mechanism will be led by the Deputy Prime Minister Kamal Thapa - who is a firm opponent of federalism in principle. It also means that the top leaders, who are in a position to take the decision and exercise flexibility, will not be a part of the mechanism which reduces its efficacy. The fact that its terms of reference has not been defined gives rise to doubts about the intent. The Madhesi parties have indicated they will not recognise the mechanism and not participate in it. A pattern is clear. Kathmandu has not been particularly interested in reaching out to the Tarai. For all its ultra nationalist bluster, its priority was in appeasing Delhi, which is why it presented the roadmap, passed amendments and now has formed the mechanism on the eve of the PMs visit to show to India that it is serious about addressing the internal crisis. This has partly satisfied Delhis desire to reasserts its centrality in Nepal. But it does not solve the problem. The Tarai movement has got weaker for now, and the blockade has ended because it was becoming difficult to sustain the disruptive instrument for so long. But at the core, the Madhesi parties - and the Madhesi street - still do not own the constitution and there is consensus that it is merely a matter of time before the anger blows up again. The persisting alienation Both India and Nepal have an interest in selling this visit as a success. Delhi wants to show to domestic critics that the relationship with the Nepali state is intact, that Oli has had to come to India first, and there has been no mismanagement. That is why they have focused on the optics and made this a state visit. Oli wants to show to his domestic audience that despite maintaining a nationalist stance, he is being welcomed and feted in Rashtrapati Bhawan. At the end of this, both can say all is well. But India would do well to remember that the core problem of Madhesi and Tharu alienation persists. At the end of six months of the andolan, an entire generation in Tarai is radicalised. And they are not willing to listen to either Kathmandu or Delhi. This generation wants to be treated as equal citizens, even as it retains its cultural practices and it wants space in Nepals power structure. It wants federal units carved in a manner where excluded groups can now exercise self rule within a democratic framework. It wants clarity on citizenship laws so that the roti beti relationship can be sustained. It wants representation according to population in the central legislature, and thus exercise its influence in Kathmandu. And if this does not happen, it is willing to flirt with the idea of violence and secessionist politics, which will cause huge implications across the open border for India. As soon as troubles begin again, Delhi will get dragged in. And this is why - even as state to state ties get restored - Delhi must politely tell Oli that all is not yet well, that forgetting the problem will not do. India, while recognising the constitution as an important step, must not endorse it fully and instead remind Kathmandu that the constitution needs wider ownership; it must signal to Oli that the hospitality must not be construed as amnesia and India would be closely watching if the roadmap the government has laid out to meet political grievances is being implemented; it must express its unhappiness at Olis unilateralism on the creation of the political mechanism and insist on the need to take all stakeholders along; it must share its assessment that the troubles in Tarai could erupt again if the discontent is not addressed; and it must make it clear that the Nepal government must do this not to please Delhi, but for its own internal stability and peace. And if this does not happen, internal turbulence will have an impact on bilateral relations. Welcome PM Oli and treat him well, but be cautious and dont give him a blank cheque. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The four Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) operatives, who were arrested from Odisha on February 17, had planned to rob a bank in Chhattisgarh for carrying out attacks during the Simhastha fair in Ujjain that is scheduled to be held in April-May this year. They had also rented a house in Nangamahal and were planning to hide there after the attack. Five people were arrested including three SIMI men who escaped from Khandwa Jail in 2013, their aide Saliq and Najma, the mother of one of the three arrested SIMI jail breakers Sheikh Mehboob alias Guddu in a joint operation of the Odisha polices special operations group (tactical unit) team and Telangana police under the supervision of the National Investigation Agency and Intelligence Bureau. The operatives of the banned Islamist student organisation and Najma were shifted to Bhubaneshwar on police remand on Friday, police said. They have been identified as Sheikh Mehboob, his mother Najma Bi, Zakir Hussain, Amjad and Mohammed Saliq. According to Odisha police CB-CID sources, the SIMI operatives had planned to loot a bank in Chhattisgarh in February-March to generate funds for executing the attack at Simhastha. They had a plan to loot a bank in Odisha too, they said. The men had also rented a house in Nangamahal, where they had decided to hide after executing the attack. The house has been sealed by the local police. Both, the MP and Odisha police teams, are quizzing the landlord who rented the house to the SIMI men and Najma. The operatives of the banned Islamic students organisation were planning to use four motorbikes, lifted from different places in Rourkela, execute the bank robbery. The bikes had been parked at parking lots in Janjgir-Champa district of Odisha, police said, adding that the men had conducted a recee for carrying out the bank attack. During interrogation the SIMI operatives also revealed they were involved in October 2013 blast at Patna railway station, just a short while before similar blasts ripped the Bihar capital ahead of the then NDA prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modis Hunkar Rally at Gandhi Maidan. The accused also confessed to their involvement in the May 1, 2014 Guwahati-Bengaluru Express blast at Chennai railway station, in which a woman IT professional was killed. The accused have admitted triggering twin low-intensity blasts outside two police stations in Pune in July 2014. Madhya Pradesh ATS is hopeful to obtain the remand of the five accused and bring them to the state for further interrogation after the Odisha crime branchs remand till March 1 ends. Cops stumble on SIMI hideout while tracking Najma Sustained tracking of Sheikh Mehboobs mother Najma Bi, a resident of Ganesh Talai locality of MPs Khandwa district, by state ATS is believed to have helped the NIA and IB to tip-off the Odisha and Telangana police about the hideout of the SIMI operatives on Wednesday morning in Rourkela. According to a senior police official in MP, the state police was tailing Najma from Khandwa to Maharashtra and from Hyderabad to Odisha. It was this tracking, which led the anti-terror security establishment to finally nab the four SIMI men and Najma. THE FIVE SIMI MEN Amjad Khan: Amjad Khan alias Daud alias Pappu alias Umer is a native of Chira Khadan, Khandwa. Khan along with Sheikh Mehboob killed BJP leader Pramood Tiwari in a shootout. Sheikh Mehboob: Sheikh Mehboob alias Guddu alias Sameer alias Ramesh is a native of Ganesh Talai, Khandwa. He was involved in the jail break in October 2013. A daily wage labourer before coming in touch with the banned organisation, Mehboob is a key accused in Tiwaris murder. Zakir Hussain: Zakir Hussain alias Vikki Don alias Vinay Kumar is a native of a slum near Sales Tax colony in Khandwa. In 2009, he killed ATS cop Sitaram Yadav in Khandwa and in 2011 he shot an ATS jawan Shiv Pratap in Ratlam. Saliq: Saliq alais Sallu is a native of Gulshan Nagar, Khandwa. He is the brother of a former police constable. Salik is a hardcore SIMI activist and fled when police raided a house at Gulmohar colony in the district from where police recovered SIMI literature in 2011. Nazma Bi: Nazma Bi has no police records. When his son (Mehboob) was injured in Bijnoor, she went to him and since then has lived with him. (With inputs from Vinit Kumar Koneru, Indore) SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON At a press conference hosted by a private airline on the evening of September 5, 1986, a man with a distressed look on his face walked up to then 59-year-old Harish Bhanot, who was sitting with the other journalists, and said that news had just broken of PanAm Flight 73, traveling with 379 passengers from Mumbai to Frankfurt that had been hijacked by terrorists at Karachi, Pakistan. Baljeet Parmar, 65, who was Bhanots friend, recalled the incident that took place that night. Parmar who was a journalist with Free Press Journal at the time said, As Dev Varan, a senior journalist with Reuteurs spoke these words, all conversations at the table came to a halt. But there was one man whose head hung low. He looked up and said that his daughter was on that flight and it sent shivers down everyone sitting around him. Bhanot was the father of Neerja, the airhostess who was killed by terrorists who hijacked PanAm Flight 73. The 22-year-old was the first woman recipient of the highest civilian honour, the Ashoka Chakra, posthumously and was also the youngest Indian to be bestowed with the honour, for saving passengers on board. Bhanot, then the Mumbai bureau chief of Hindustan Times, along with other journalists rushed to his office at Churchgate to get more information about the flight. He received a call from his friend Irfan Khan of Hindustan Lever, who requested him to go to his office since it had better facilities. All of us sat up the whole night trying to receive any information as there were no mobile phones, neither internet. Luckily an official from PanAm gave regular updates to Bhanot, said Parmar adding that the news was hidden from Neerjas mother, Rama on Bhanots instructions, which was finally communicated by Bhanot himself later on that night. For the next two nights and three days, Bhanot along with several other journalists stationed themselves at Mumbai airport. The coffin was claimed at Karachi by Bhanots sons Aneesh and Akhil and when they reached Mumbai airport, I took over the bullet-ridden body as the parents were distraught. Neerjas body was first taken to the Bhanot residence at Bandra before cremating her at Sion where I performed the last rights, said Parmar. Sujata Anandan, 55, now Hindustan Timess political bureau chief, was then a reporter with United News India (UNI). When he (Bhanot) saw the coffin, he was so distressed that he fell to his knees. He quickly gathered himself and stood up saying that she gave the passengers a second life by sacrificing her own. She was the most important part of my life and I will live a proud father. According to Parmar, every day Bhanot would take a local train after work to Bandra where Neerja would wait before driving him home. Bhanot was a man with a large heart and for him his daughter was his life. After Neerjas death, he did not take the train anymore and soon after he left Mumbai, he said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON While actor Kareena Kapoor Khan has broken her self-imposed no-kissing rule with her upcoming film Ki and Ka, where she is seen alongside actor Arjun Kapoor, there are still many others in Bollywood who are not comfortable filming a lip lock on screen. Recently, there was news that actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who will be seen in Karan Johars Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, alongside actor Ranbir Kapoor, has refused to kiss him. Meanwhile, Pakistani actors Fawad Khan and Mahira Khan, too, have decided to refrain from getting intimate on screen in their respective upcoming films, Kapoor & Sons and Raees. Actor Shahid Kapoor seems to be staying away from this after his marriage last year and there were reports that he might include it in his contract. Actors Sonakshi Sinha and Salman Khan, too, dont kiss on screen. Read: Kareena, Arjun take a dig at Hindustani sabhyata in Ki and Ka trailer Kareena Kapoor Khan shares a passionate kissing scene with her co star Arjun Kapoor in Ki and Ka. (YouTube Grab) Trade analyst Atul Mohan says reports talking about how actors will kiss or not kiss on screen add to the publicity of the film. When a big star breaks this no-kissing rule, it definitely adds to the promotion and excitement around the film, he says. Read: I like the idea of virgin romance, says Fawad Khan Agreeing with him, trade analyst Omar Qureshi says, There are many clauses that actors are made to sign, such as nudity clause or no-pregnancy clause. If kissing is not a part of that, actors will always say they went ahead as the script demanded it. Watch Ki and Ka trailer here: Filmmaker Shakun Batra, who is directing Fawad in his upcoming film, says, Its very important for the actor and the director to be on the same page and that was true for me and Fawad. I think it depends from actor to actor and also on the importance of the scene and how else it can be portrayed, he says. IN PICS: Shah Rukh Khan, Mahira on sets of Raees Meanwhile, Johar is said to have shot the kissing scene with Aishwarya in a way that would not involve a real lip-lock. Buzz is that he has also shot an intimate scene with Ash for the film without any skin show. Follow @htshowbiz for more. The Supreme Court on Friday will hear a plea against airing adult comedy Grand Masti starring Riteish Deshmukh, Vivek Oberoi and Aftab Shivdasani on TV. A bench compising Chief Justice TS Thakur and Justice UU Lalit allowed urgent hearing when the lawyer representing Edara Gopi Chand said the plea would be infructuous if the film, having adult contents, is shown on television channels. Read: Did not expect this kind of business for Grand Masti, says Riteish Deshmukh Read: Aftab Shivdasani doesnt think Grand Masti is vulgar The appeal, filed by lawyer D Bharat Kumar, alleged that the Delhi high court is not justified in vacating the stay on the television telecast of the film without discussing the arguments advanced and documentary evidence. The proposed telecast of film Grand Masti on television squarely violates the Programme Code enshrined under the Cable Television Network (Regulation) Act, 1995 and the Rules made thereunder. And given the films pervasive adult sexual content, the proposed universal telecast on television will have adverse impact on the impressionable minds of children and adolescents, the plea alleged. Read: HC vacates stay, allows TV telecast of Grand Masti The high court, on October 20, 2015, had disposed of the plea filed against the proposed TV premier of Grand Masti after it was informed that the film has underwent 218 cuts to make it fit for TV viewing. The court was also told that the film has already been shown thrice on TV. During the hearing of the media groups application, the Central government and Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) had filed an affidavit saying the movie was re-certified as U/A in January. The new certification happened after the film underwent 218 cuts which reduced the 135 minute-long theatrical version of the film to 98 minutes. Watch Grand Masti trailer Directed by Indra Kumar and produced by Ashok Thakeria, Grand Masti hit theatres in 2013 with an A certificate and was a huge hit at the box offfice. The film was later re-certified after 218 cuts. Read: Wont accept script similar to Grand Masti, says Riteish Follow @htshowbiz for more. The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has rejected Walmart Indias arguments in relation to an alleged bribery case involving the company. The US retail giant allegedly paid bribes to several customs officials to facilitate movement of goods through customs or secure real estate approvals. Meetings with top executives have been held on the issue and the company has furnished information on the case, but the CVC has asked for more details and we are expecting that to come soon, TM Bhasin, vigilance commissioner, told HT. When contacted, a Walmart spokesperson did not respond to HTs requests for comments. The anti-corruption watchdog, which has held a few meetings with top company executives on the issue, has also sought assistance from the United Nations Conventions Against Corruption (UNCAC) to get relevant details from the parent company in the US. In November last year, the anti-corruption body had summoned top officials of the company in India in relation to the case. The UNCAC is a multilateral convention negotiated by members of the United Nations. Member-countries are bound by the Convention to render mutual legal assistance towards prosecution of offenders as well in tracing, freezing, and confiscating the proceeds of corruption. The UNCAC has agreed to co-operate with the CVC on the issue, Bhasin said. We are hoping to get the information within the next few weeks and we hope that the case can be concluded in the next few months. The ministry of corporate affairs had, in 2013, launched an investigation into lobbying by the US retail giant, an issue that rocked Parliament. A one-man committee of former chief justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court Mukul Mudgal was set up to investigate the matter. According to reports, thousands of junior officials were paid to help move goods through customs or obtain real estate permits. HT was the first to report on November 23, 2015 that a top Walmart India official had been summoned by the CVC regarding the alleged bribery case. Walmarts earlier joint venture with Bharti in India had come under the scanner amid allegations that it may have entered the front-end multi-brand retail business two-and-a-half years before the government actually lifted the ban on foreign investors in the sector in 2012. Bharti parted ways with Walmart in 2013. Walmart is under probe on whether its investment of Rs 455.80 crore ($100 million in March 2010) in Cedar Support Services (earlier Bharti Retail Holdings) via compulsorily convertible debentures flouted foreign investment norms. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON West Bengal finance minister and member of the Trinamool Congress Amit Mitra will take over as the new chairman of the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers on Goods and Services Tax (GST) following the resignation of Kerala finance minister KM Mani. Mitra, an economist who was earlier secretary general of Ficci, has been given this new charge barely two months before the state goes into polls. The head of the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers has always been from an opposition ruled state. CPI-Ms Asim Dasgupta held the post when UPA was in power. Sushil Modi from Bihar succeed him during the UPA regime. In July 2013, Jammu and Kashmir Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather was appointed chairman after Modi quit. Mani succeeded him in March last year. Mitra was elected in a meeting of state finance ministers that was attended by finance minister Arun Jaitley. He would have to garner consensus and frame rules to roll out the much awaited GST, which is stuck in the Rajya Sabha. The government is trying to garner support from all political parties to pass the critical bill. The bill, once implemented, will subsume all indirect taxes and create one national market and is expected to further boost economic growth by about 1.5 percentage points. With the uncertainty in the global economy which could have its impact on domestic growth as well, it would be critical for the government to get the GST passed. The GST Bill was introduced in the Upper House in the monsoon session but due to stiff opposition primarily from the Congress, it could not passed. Earlier, the government had set a deadline of April 1, 2016, for the roll out of the GST. We are hopeful that GST will be getting support from all the states present here, all parties on GST, Sinha told reporters here. (With agency inputs) In this year of American angst, the ante just got upped. Even as Democrats and Republicans are primarying their way to the presidential polls in November, the scales of justice are hanging in the balance. The death of Supreme Court (SC) justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative appointed by former President Ronald Reagan, has created a vacancy in an institution that is truly the US ubergovernment, when it comes to delivering the final verdict on social policy. That leaves plenty of room for an appointment with speculation. Among the nominee names that have been noted is 48-year-old appeals court judge Indian-American Srikanth Srinivasan. Hes a likely candidate, but the very reasons that qualify him could also make him unlikely. The vast majority of SC judges have obviously been Christian, though there have been eight Jewish justices, including three on the current court. None has been of any other religious affiliation. Srinivasan, who took his oath on the Bhagvad Gita in 2013, will alter that. Forget about Indian-American, hell become the first Asian-origin judge on the SCOTUS, as Americans abbreviate their apex court. With issues relating to the majority religion and race always on the SCOTUS docket, hes not from the sort of minority that could get affirmative action from partisan politicians. But the Chandigarh-born Srinivasans truly disabling drawback is that his political affiliation is unknown. He was first appointed to the US Solicitor Generals office by George W Bush; Barack Obama nominated him to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Obama described him as a trailblazer, while Republican Senator Ted Cruz maintains a friendship that started when they were law clerks. Obama will almost certainly nominate the next member of the Supremes, even if that persons chances of getting confirmed by a Republican-majority Senate could be roughly equivalent to that of an outbreak of dignified behaviour from Kanye West. Before anyone can chant bipartisan, take a gander at the political landscape. Srinivasan studied human biology in his undergraduate programme at Stanford University, but its the psychology of the body politic that will determine his future. America has a political ecology where donkeys and elephants run rampant and an Independent is an endangered animal. Yes, Gallups January survey of party affiliation shows a massive 44% of voters are Independents. But once leaners are discounted, that number slumps to just over 10%. Thats what makes Michael Bloombergs flirtation with a presidential run a self-love affair that will achieve little other than allowing the Clintons, with a net worth of over $100 million, to plead poverty. In America, they have a thing for picket fences, but sitting on them is not just precarious but also particularly painful. Sri Sri and the art of living together may have little space in this. Srinivasan, as a friend of his once remarked, is neither a crazy liberal nor a crazy conservative. Thats already two strikes against him. In fact, it may actually help his cause for a future SC nomination to be ignored during the 2016 cycle, a presidential election year when opposing camps cant even agree over pizza toppings. Before Srinivasans 2013 confirmation, by a landslide 97-0 vote in the Senate, legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin wrote in the New Yorker: ...Which is why it looks very much like this hearing isnt just a test for Srinivasan - its a dress rehearsal. But this may not be the time that suits him. Right now, even his pal Cruz will nix his name. In 2017, that seat on the bench may still be available, whereas anyone nominated now will end up getting singed by the heat from fire-breathing campaigns. This is the political system that prevails. Those that would be considered political affronts become frontrunners. Since one poor joke deserves another, heres one for this situation: Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump walk into a bar. One of us could be the next President of America, they chorus. The bartender looks at them and mutters, I need a drink. Anirudh Bhattacharyya is a Toronto-based commentator on American affairs The views expressed are personal SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Jat agitation has affected life in the National Capital Region as over 125 trains were cancelled and traffic on major highways connecting cities such as Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida with the rest of the country was blocked in Haryana. The situation may worsen as Jat leaders of western Uttar Pradesh are set to meet on Saturday to decide on the future course of the agitation. Government officials in Delhi said the agitation could impact the supply of essential products in the coming days, leading to escalation in the prices of vegetables and fruits. Most of the highways that bring food products from the north and western parts of India into Delhi pass through Haryana. Anil Malhotra, member of the Azadpur Mandi Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC), said, Vegetables, fruits and other essentials like milk come on a daily basis to the mandis from outside the city. Nothing is hoarded. If anything comes from Rajasthan, it has to come through Gurgaon. If the highways are blocked by protesters and all these trucks get stuck on the way, it will be difficult to get things for even 50 times more than the current price. Pradeep Singhal, national president of the All India Transporters Welfare Association (AITWA), agreed with Malhotra. We didnt expect the protests to last for more than a day. It seems to be aggravating. Over 30,000 trucks come to Delhi every day and of these, 5,000 bring in food and other essential commodities, Singhal said. Protesters blocked traffic at eight prominent roads in Gurgaon, throwing traffic out of gear. We will intensify the stir if the government does not give any firm assurance. We will block NH-8 and disrupt rail traffic between Gurgaon and New Delhi, a member of the All India Jat Aarakshan Sangarsh Samiti said. Delhi Police commissioner BS Bassi on Friday said that it doesnt matter to him if he was not being considered for the post of information commissioner after his retirement at the end of this month. It doesnt matter to me, Bassi told reporters when he was asked about reports that the government has dropped his name from the list of potential candidates for the post at Central Information Commission (CIC). The Opposition, led by Congress, has strongly objected to the governments move to include Bassi in the list of candidates being considered for the post of information commissioner. In fact, the Congress has been demanding his removal as Delhi Police commissioner over the alleged mishandling of JNU protests and violent incidents that followed. The police has come in for flak for slapping sedition charges against Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student leader Kanhaiya Kumar. The force has also been criticized for the violence in the Patiala House Court on Monday and Wednesday when some slogan-shouting lawyers attacked JNU students and journalists. Kanhaiya Kumar was also assaulted in the court, though Bassi has consistently denied this. Against the backdrop of what is happening in India in reference to the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) episode, there is this massive debate in terms of who is a nationalist and who is not. Im told that my simple acts of omission and commission, including what meat I eat, may brand me anti-national. But this post is really not about me. It is about Apple chief Tim Cook. Just consider the facts. On December 9, two radicalised Americans massacred 14 people at the Inland Center in San Bernadino, California. The shooters, a married couple, were subsequently shot down by the police. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is investigating the case, has asked Apple to provide it with a key to unlock the iPhone of one of the shooters and even got a court order for Apple to comply. An open and shut decision for Tim Cook, right? Wrong. Cook refused to comply, citing grave security implications for iPhone users at large, and has moved the higher court. And he has got support from many in Silicon Valley, including the very influential Edward Snowden, and our own Sundar Pichai of Google. Lets chew on that for a moment. Tim Cook has said Apple will not unlock a phone used by a terrorist. The reason why this is important is that I dont see anyone in the US, including the far right (and yes, the US has its own share of its loony bins), screaming that Cook is anti-national. Amazingly, even Donald Trump has not yet threatened to banish Tim Cook from the US. This image obtained from US Customs and Border Protection shows Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, as they were going through customs in Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. Farook, 28, and his 27-year-old wife Tashfeen Malik died in a shootout with police, hours after killing 14 people at a holiday party organised by Farook's employer in San Bernardino on December 2. (AFP Photo) Sure, there are people criticising Cook, like in any other society with free speech, but no death threats, no bunch of lawyers trying to lynch him or attack him for being against Uncle Sam (their equivalent to our Bharat Mata). I am just relieved that Tim Cook and Apple are not based in India. Had they been, their stand would have been immediately branded anti-national. Politicians of the ruling party in power would have sent goons to various Apple stores and vandalised them, with the cops looking on serenely. The educated middle class, would have reprimanded Apple for its anti-national stance and instantly branded them as traitors. Not that this would have stopped them from coveting the iPhones, but then words are cheaper than iPhones. Delhi Police Commissioner Bhim Sain Bassi would have immediately ordered the arrest of Cook and slapped him with charges of sedition, and the lawyers would have been busy slapping him more, literally and physically. News channels would have unearthed a video showing Cook saying that he wont accept the court order, and would have gleefully run a doctored video showing Cook disrespecting the flag, mouthing obscenities at the government and calling them names with a dangerously sounding anchor demanding that India wants to know. Parliament would have been paralysed with inaction, with every party staging a walkout and no business being allowed to be conducted. To hell with the running of the government, Cook-the-Traitor will be the bigger issue in the country, not the big infrastructure projects hung in balance, not the governance of the country coming to a halt and certainly not the millions of people living in hunger and poverty. GST will become the Great Satan Tim. Processions would be taken out by all political parties to protest the actions of Cook and at least 27 public interest litigation petitions would have been filed in the Supreme Court of India, urging urgent hearing on the matter, with some of the honourable MPs even asking for the company to be shut down for a few months and fumigated to rid it of all Cooksian elements. However, the next week, Supreme Court would announce its decision, Cook will comply and everything is back to normal. And the original undoctored videos of Cook would be found and Arnab Goswami would go back to shouting about something else. Tim Cook, see how lucky you are. You have escaped, by being born in the USA. Full coverage: JNU in turmoil L Subramanyan is founder and CEO of Trivone Digital Services. The views expressed here are personal. Religious trappings may get dated; not the spiritual light. What glows and fades with time is not spiritual; for the spiritual is eternal. In point of fact the relevance of the spiritual increases with time. Spirituality of the kind Swami Dayanand embodied is light. The darker the world, the more relevant the light. The spiritual light, according to Maharshi Dayanand, was truth: the reason why he titled his classic work The Light of Truth or the Radiance of Truth. Religions get overtaken by obscurantism, perversion and inhumanity when reason is compromised in their understanding and practice. This makes religion, which should be a beacon of light, a blanket of darkness. The greatest contribution of Swamiji is in refining and reforming the idea of religion itself. Arguably, this is the most critical agenda and crying need today. That is so because, the restoration of true religion is basic to the fulfillment of the destiny of India. Even as we strain every nerve to bring about prosperity via material development, the truth stares us in the face that unless the ship of development is guided by the compass of a spiritual vision our national adventure could end up shipwrecked. Alone among the religious luminaries of his times, Maharshi Dayanand stood out, in his total outlook, as a true liberal democrat! Doubt, debate and, if necessary, dissent! Without a doubt, there was no religious luminary then or since then who held out doubting as a spiritual duty. Even today, the custodians of religious establishments stigmatize doubting as heretical. They recommend and promote blind faith. Matters of faith, we are told repeatedly, cannot be subjected to factual verification or rational scrutiny. Such an allergy to doubting is a pre-requisite for preserving and promoting irrationalities and obscurantism in the name of religion. Religious oligarchs and merchants have degraded, in all ages and places, religion, which is a catalyst for human growth and social transformation, into a pro-status quo-ist and regressive agenda. Doubt is to true religion what blind faith is to obscurantism. Debate, we should have no difficulty in admitting, is of the essence of democracy. But there can be no debate if doubt is proscribed. This makes religions enemies of debate. In the name of religion, people pontificate. The less sense they make, the more assertive they become in their pontification. To debate is to agree on a shared framework of rationality and mutual respect. This should be deemed the bottom-line of our humanity. Instead, all religions have become enclaves and ghettos in which small men pontificate to smaller men and women, keeping them as captive herds robbed of the right to think. Surely, this cannot be godly arrangement! Irrespective of our religious affiliations, all right-minded citizens owe a huge debt of gratitude to Maharshi Dayanand for creating a niche for debate in the sphere of religion. Doubting and debating become fruitless if the right to dissent or disagree is denied. In the history of all religions, dissent has been dealt with brutally as heresy. The literal meaning of this word of Latin origin - heresy - is I choose. We live in a world of ever-multiplying choices. But this applies mostly to the terrestrial aspects of our life that are of fleeting importance. Ironically, in respect of the most crucial aspect of our destiny -our eternity- we have no right to choose. The more we progress materially, the more our freedom to choose in matters of faith seems to shrink. In such a context, Maharshi Dayanand deserves to be celebrated as a clarion call to human liberation. To this great spiritual visionary, indeed revolutionary, liberation was not an abstract ideal. He was rooted in the lived realities of the world. So he militated against the oppressive caste system. He denounced discrimination based on gender. He advocated widow re-marriage and equal right of the girl child to be educated. I dare say that the women of this country never had a better advocate of their rights and dignity than Maharshi Dayanand! Rather than spend a lifetime grumbling ineffectually against the Patriarchal nature of religions, they should embrace Maharshi Dayanand as their liberator and affirmer. Sadly, many of the successors of Dayanands spiritual vision did not prove its faithful vision. A great tradition of spiritual renaissance was frittered away. Hence it is that several giants you come across claim to be ex-Arya Samjists. They were nurtured in the legacy of Dayanand, but have ceased to be its practitioners. This needs to be seen as a national loss. The essence of Dayanands spiritual revolution was the insistence on the equal worth of all human beings. He alone, among the spiritual leaders of his times, opened the gate to nobility (Arya = the noble) to shudras. It was this that shook the foundations of obscurantist religious establishment and made his assassination an orthodox imperative. The person of Dayanand could be killed, but not his vision. The stage is now set for a pan-Indian return of the spirit of Dayanand. Our dreams of garnering respect on the global stage cannot be fulfilled if we do not create a noble society. A caste-ridden society of screaming social injustice mocks the ambitious goal of India becoming a legitimate global player. A country will be respected not so much for its growth in GDP terms as it will be for the stature and nobility of her people. In this context, the Arya Samaj cannot afford any longer to remain a peripheral reform movement. It has to become a celebration of the soul of India -her nobility and greatness. The formula for unleashing that power is, doubt, debate and, if need be, dissent! (The writer is a social activist. The views expressed are personal.) Lucknows Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (BBAU) on Friday issued an order to install the tricolour inside the campus a day after the Centre asked all central universities across the country to fly the national flag atop a 207-feet mast. BBAU vice-chancellor RC Sobti held a meeting with the chief executive engineer on Friday morning to chalk out a plan to hoist the tricolour on the campus. The decision on the flag was taken at a meeting of all central university vice-chancellors called by Union human resource development minister Smriti Irani on Thursday. We have set February 25 as the deadline. But, we still have to seek clearance from authorities of Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport, Amausi, Lucknow which is barely 5 km from the university, Sobti said. There are certain norms that we have to adhere to because of the airport. We are not allowed to construct buildings beyond four storeys in this area. The height of the Tricolour mast exceeds that limit. A letter has been sent to the airport director, he added. The university has already identified an area near the canteen, which is crowded with students throughout the day, for hoisting the flag. Read more: Amid JNU row, govt says tricolour to fly atop all central universities Sobti said he supports the decision taken at the vice-chancellors meet as the national flag and national anthem will evoke patriotism on the campus. BBAU was recently in the news when a group of Dalit students shouted slogans over Rohith Vemulas suicide, a research scholar at University of Hyderabad, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi speech during the convocation ceremony on January 22. The Centres decision to ask all central universities to hoist the Tricolour is meant to evoke nationalistic sentiments on campuses, many of which have been rocked by anti-establishment protests over the past few weeks. The first such flag will be unfurled at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), which is on the boil over the arrest of a top student leader for alleged anti-India demonstrations and sloganeering. Authorities at the Indian Institute of Management too welcomed the idea of hoisting the Tricolour in campuses. We can certainly do it even independently of MHRD. But we will prepare to wait for some communication from MHRD because as of now media report suggests it is meant for central universities, IIM-L director Ajit Prasad said. Some of the degree colleges in the state capital that are affiliated to the University of Lucknow are also planning to hoist the Tricolour. National PG College and Avadh Girls Degree College (AGDC) confirmed that they will follow the directive. Anything that evokes patriotic fervour should be implemented on the campus, National College principal SP Singh said. AGDC principal Upma Chaturvedi was of the same view. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Admissions on 540 seats of nine Masters in Business Administration (MBA) programmes are set to start at the University of Lucknow for the academic year 2016. The university has invited applications for the MBA programmes and graduates from any stream can apply. Online MBA admission will open on Friday and the last date of form submission will be March 31. Online applications can be submitted at: www.mbaadmitlu.education ; www.lkouni.ac.in Applicants with bachelors degree in any stream with 50% aggregate marks (45% for SC/ ST) are eligible for admission. While provisional admissions will be allowed in case of incomplete UG results, a final mark sheet will have to be submitted by July 16. The university will allow admission through both CAT and LUMAT Score. Applicants with CAT scores will appear directly for personal interview on the basis of a combined merit list declared by LU, while applicants who do not have a CAT score will appear for LUMAT2016 (written test) and a Personal Interview. Read more | MBA admissions: More than 50% of seats vacant in Maharashtra Proposed examination centers for written exam LUMAT2016 are Lucknow, Bhopal, Varanasi, Noida, Delhi, North East and Patna. Applications for LUMAT will only be accepted online. Application form fee for General/OBC category candidates will be Rs 1500 and Rs 1000 for SC/ST category candidates, said Prof Narendra K Pandey, spokesperson, LU. The fees can be paid online or through cash at any of the ICICI BANK branches. With nearly 3.1 lakh students in the city appearing for the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) exams which began on Thursday, the first day of the exams was a mixed bag, with some students having to run helter-skelter to find their exam centres, while others found the new, activity-based English paper slightly tough. Out of the 518 centres in the Mumbai division including Thane, Palghar and Raigad, some of the centres were assigned more students than their capacity. These centres were forced to make other arrangements to seat the students. Birla College, Kalyan, which was a main centre, was forced to transfer some of the students assigned to them to the nearest sub-centres at the last minute. We did not have the infra-structure to seat all the students assigned to us, so we arranged for them to give the exam from three other institutions close to our college, said spokesperson of the college. Read more: CBSE Class 10, 12 exams to begin from March 1 The college had informed the students about the change in their seating arrangement two days ago via SMS. Even then, few students turned up at the college and were confused when they did not find their seat numbers assigned. But the college had organised helpdesks and volunteers to guide students to the new sub-centres. I arrived at the exam centre assigned to me by the board at 10.53 am and was surprised that I had been moved to another centre which was 15 minutes away from this one, said Himanshu Shukla, a commerce student. I had not received any message from the college prior to the exam. Meanwhile, many students complained that the first paper, English, which is based on the new, activity-based pattern, lengthy and slightly tough to crack. I felt that the paper was lengthy. I had to leave a question carrying three marks as the time was up, said Shweta Sadananamse, 18, a student of Jogeshwari Education Society Junior College. Another student, Parnavi Maykar, 18, pointed out that the grammar section was also a bit difficult. Overall the paper was easy. However, I thought the grammar section was a little tough, said Maykar. I also thought the paper was lengthy. I finished the paper at 2 pm and did not get time to check it. However, Siddheshw ar Chandekar, secretary of the divisional board, said these were just teething troubles. This paper was according to a new pattern in which students are tested on the spot, they cannot mug up the answers in advance, said Chandekar. Students will get a hang of it over time. (With inputs from Ayushi Pratap) Commuters were caught in snarls across the city as thousands of protesters demanding reservation for Jats blocked almost all major roads for about nine hours on Friday. The Jats have been protesting across the state for the past seven days demanding reservation in government jobs under the OBC (other backward communities) quota. Around 9am, people from villages around the city started pouring into the city. The situation soon became a traffic nightmare as the protesters sat on roads, playing cards and smoking hookah, unperturbed by the commuters and constant honking. They blocked traffic on eight busy locations in Gurgaon and the traffic backed up on internal roads as well. The protesters sat on roads, playing cards and smoking hookah, unperturbed by the commuters and constant honking. (Abhinav Saha/HT Photo) At 11 am, villagers from Islampur blocked the Sohna Road near Subhash Chowk, leading to congestion on NH 284A. Soon, all adjoining roads saw snarls. The demonstration at Bakhtawar Chowk affected traffic at Rajiv Chowk and Huda City Centre Metro station. The Daultabad flyover -- that connects Bahadurgarh, Badli, Pataudi and Jhajjar to the city and also caters to a large number of factory employees travelling to Manesar --- was also blocked. Villagers from Dhanvapur, Basai and Gadoli blocked the roads to Pataudi, Farukhnagar and Jhajhar. The police and the district administration failed to disperse the protesters and they vacated the roads only by evening. Normal traffic resumed after 6pm. The protesters stayed off the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway on Friday. However, the All India Jat Aarakshan Sangarsh Samiti, which is organising the protest, threatened that they will intensify the stir in days to come. We will block NH-8 and disrupt rail traffic between Gurgaon and Delhi if the government does not meet our demands, a member of the Samiti said. On Thursday, the protesters had blocked parts of Old Gurgaon for more than two hours. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Good news for all you Dwayne Johnson fans out there. The Rock might return to play the protagonist in the upcoming sequel to the 2015 natural disaster film San Andreas. Production banner New Line Cinema and Johnson are developing the film. The banner has roped in Neil Widener and Gavin James to write the script for the second instalment, reports hollywoodreporter.com. Read: The Rock donates $1500 to save The Rocks life Johnson played the role of Ray, a search-and-rescue helicopter pilot, in the first part. Carla Gugino and Alexandra Daddario are also back as his onscreen wife and daughter respectively. They are joined by Paul Giamatti who played seismologist in the original film. Watch: The trailer of San Andreas The first film follows Ray teaming up with his estranged wife to save their daughter when a series of quakes crush Los Angeles and San Francisco. It grossed over $473 million worldwide. Brad Peyton, who directed the first film, will return for the upcoming sequel. The army was deployed in eight districts of Haryana after two people were killed and 21 injured in police action as protesters from the Jat community intensified their demand for reservation under the OBC category. Jat protesters blocked roads and a national highway for the third-consecutive day in Jind district on Friday. The Jat agitation for reservation in jobs and educational institutions in Haryana has crippled the state for the second time in a year. The issue, however, goes back nearly seven years. When did struggle for quota begin? The campaign by Jats began prominently in 2009 when the Jat Arakshan Samiti was formed. The community mounted bouts of protests similar to the one that began this week on multiple occasions since 2010 -- including instances when they blocked some rail links to Delhi and protests turned fatal How did governments respond? In 2013, the government of Haryana the hub of protests gave 10% quota for Jats under the special backward class category. But protests for benefits in central government jobs and universities continued before the UPA government right before the general elections in 2014 classified them as OBC (Other Backward Class) to give them those entitlements. How did the quotas end? The first reservation to go was the central one, when the SC struck it down in March 2015 saying Jats did not appear to need the benefits. It also referred to the advice of the National Commission for Backward Classes that recommended the demand for quotas be rejected. Later in July, the Punjab and Haryana high court stayed the state quota as well. Haryanas 2013 decision to give benefits to Jats took the total proportion of reservation to 57% -- flouting a 1992 SC order that said quota benefits should not take up more than 50% of available jobs and college seats Did the quotas face resistance? The decision to legally challenge quotas to Jats was from representatives of castes that saw their share of reserved opportunities diminish. The petition that led to the SC order was filed by OBC Reservation Raksha Samiti, an organisation of communities included in the Central List of Backward Classes. There were substantial delays in India placing an order for 21 Westland helicopters because of anti-British feelings in the country following the assassination of former prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1984, archival documents released on Friday revealed. A large cache of documents from 1986-88, when Margaret Thatcher was the prime minister, were released by the National Archives, shedding new light on official thinking on bail-out packages for ailing Westland and the related resignation of former defence secretary Michael Heseltine. India had sent a letter of intent in 1984 to purchase 21 W30c Westland helicopters for the Oil and Natural Gas Commission. The Thatcher government agreed the purchase could be financed from the aid programme and 65 million were allocated. A reference document of January 10, 1986 from the defence ministry to the Cabinet Office said: Westland started to manufacture the aircraft. However, there were substantial delays which appeared at least in part to be associated with anti-British feeling in India following Mrs Gandhis assassination. It added: The Government informed Westland...that it considered the prospects of the Indian order were good and that it saw no immediate necessity for underwriting. Recalling former prime minister Rajiv Gandhis visit to Britain in October 1985 and keen to maintain secrecy of some parts, the covering letter to the document said: All the material can be used publicly, except perhaps the references to: Ministers judging that the prospects of an Indian order were good after Mr Gandhis visit in October 1985; (and the) details of the rescue proposals and HMGs decision not to underwrite the Indian order. Rajiv Gandhi previously had a frank discussion on the Westland deal with Thatcher in Moscow in March 1985. CD Powell, Thatchers private secretary, recorded: Mr Gandhi said that the technical chaps were giving problems. They preferred a French helicopter. The Westland one was too big and consumed more fuel though it was cheaper to operate per seat. The real trouble was that it did not quite meet the particular needs and it was an untried model. But the matter was not settled yet. The Prime Minister said that this posed serious problems. She had thought that the technical difficulties had been overcome. She wished someone had been as frank with us before. We had assumed that signature was only days away. India later bought the Westland helicopters in the 65 million deal that was linked to British aid, and which helped bail out Westland. The entire lot was later re-sold by India to Britain for its scrap value. The deals link to British aid was clear from the record, which said: Sir Geoffrey Howe (the then British foreign secretary) said that the view in London was that the Indian government had accepted the purchase in principle and on that basis the helicopters had been manufactured. The only problem of which he had been aware was to get the signature of the contract before our financial year ended on 31 March to avoid a shortfall on this years aid budget. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Congress dissident leader Kalikho Pul was on Friday night sworn in as the eighth chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh soon after Presidents Rule (PR) was formally lifted from the state. The swearing-in after 10pm, boycotted by Congress MLAs loyal to former chief minister Nabam Tuki, coincided with the 30th Statehood Day of the state bordering China. President Pranab Mukherjee gave his approval to the Union Cabinets recommendation for revocation of PR in the frontier state imposed on January 26, Union home ministry officials confirmed. This came a day after the Supreme Court vacated its order of maintaining status quo in the state, thereby paving the way for the formation of a new government. The Union Cabinet had recommended the withdrawal of PR in Arunachal Pradesh on Wednesday after Pul, accompanied by 31 MLAs including 11 of BJP met governor JP Rajkhowa and staked claim to form the government. The Congress moved the Supreme Court on Friday but it rejected the partys plea for a floor test in the state to prove majority. Read | Arunachal CM with BJP support, Kalikho Pul still Congressman at heart Ours will be a Congress government in which two independents will take part. The BJP is supporting us from the outside, Pul said before Rajkhowa administered the oath of office. BJPs Tamio Taga, the opposition leader, said they would try to help Pul provide a stable government. We did not intend to dislodge a Congress government. Our fight was against rampant corruption and deterioration of law and order under Tuki, he said. Pradesh Congress Committee president Padi Richo said Puls appointment was unconstitutional. Tuki is still the Congress Legislature Party leader and enjoys the majority among 45 party MLAs. Besides, 14 of those with Pul were disqualified. A Raj Bhavan spokesperson said the other ministers in Tukis cabinet would be sworn in by Monday. The BJP said on Friday that the on-going Jat agitation for reservation has become leaderless and was being fuelled by anarchists, and warned that those indulging in violence will be dealt with sternly. The partys tough stand came in the wake of the death of a person in police firing after the protest turned violent. BJP general secretary and Haryana in-charge Anil Jain, who is playing a key role in coordinating the response of the central and state governments as well as the party, said the agitation has turned violent and military could also be sent if needed. They (protesters) know the reality. The state government is doing everything within its powers. We had been dealing with them patiently. It is not possible that they keep attacking and we coddle them, he told reporters here. Ten companies of paramilitary forces have been dispatched to the violence-hit area, he said, adding that police fired after the attack on an Inspector General and the residence of Haryana finance minister Abhimanyu and police vehicles were torched. Jain said the state government had called an all-party meeting on Friday and been engaging with the Jat leaders. Some leaders accepted the governments steps and withdrew their protest, he said and alleged that a section of people, who are anti-social and anarchists is fuelling the protest and causing it to turn violent. The death is painful but we cannot allow the situation to worsen. We cannot allow the law and order to deteriorate, he said, noting that places like Rohtak were under a virtual siege by protestors. He underlined BJPs support for quota for Jats but noted that the issue had become complex after the Supreme Court struck down the decision of the previous government in this regard and then quashed a review petition as well. The central government is speaking to different groups of Jats. It is working to find a solution that addresses their demand and also meet the constitutional requirements, Jain said. Six months after CBI began examining the controversial deaths of MBBS student Namrata Damor and television journalist Akshay Singh in its Vyapam scam probe, the agency set up a medical board in each of the cases to resolve contradictory forensic findings and deciding if any foul play was involved in them. CBI had last July decided to probe the Damor case and filed a preliminary enquiry to look into Singhs death, gathering relevant police records. CBI set up two medical boards, comprising experts from premier health institutions, to resolve the differences in opinions that have emerged in cases related to the deaths of Namrata Damor and Akshay Singh, said a CBI source. The source said, The medical board experts will have consultations with the doctors who had carried out the initial autopsies and forensic experts who later gave opinions, at time differing with the postmortem reports. Akshay Singh of TV channel Aaj Tak died in Jhabua. (Photo courtesy: India Today) The source said, In medicolegal proceedings, the autopsy reports get primacy but there could be subsequent contrary opinions, which a medical board can resolve to arrive at the facts. The Supreme Court had last July handed over the Vyapam scam ---pertaining to irregularities in recruitments for state jobs and admissions in state engineering and medical colleges---probe to the CBI after more than 40 accused, beneficiaries, whistleblowers and witnesses died under mysterious circumstances. The body of Indore medical student Damor was found near railway tracks in Ujjain in January 2012 an initial post-mortem suggesting she was murdered though a forensic expert later contradicted it by saying the death could have been accidental. Singh died in July 4 last year shortly after collapsing while talking to the father of Damor at her home. Father of a Dalit student on Friday approached Madras high court seeking Rs 10 lakh compensation from a private school for alleged cruelty and mental agony caused by discrimination and abuse of his son for not doing an assignment. The student had consumed poison in the classroom and later developed breathing problems. In his petition, S Saravanan said his Sanjay, a class ninth student at a private school at Gudalur, had been badly beaten up by the correspondent, teacher and headmaster on July 22 last year for not doing his assignment. He was overcome by shame, consumed poison and fainted in class. School officials had informed him that his 14-year-old son had fainted and been rushed to the hospital. Later he came to know that Sanjay was treated badly by the three and was even stripped off his uniform, he said. The three reportedly also asked his classmates to hit him in the head. Police at Gudalur had stated he did not file a complaint and informed the media that his son had attempted suicide as the teachers had asked him to bring his parents to the school. The petitioner said he given a representation to the secretary of Adidraidar welfare department, additional director general of police of social justice and human rights, only after a case was registered. But no further action was taken for the past six months. The correspondent, teacher and headmaster meted out cruelty and caused mental agony by discriminating and abusing his son and hence he was entitled for compensation, he said. The petitioner then sought a direction to pay him a compensation of Rs 10 lakh. He also sought transfer of the case to the CB-CID, saying police had not taken any action on the matter. Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana of the bench posted the case for hearing on February 22. The US-based sister of a JNU student accused of being a terrorist said on Thursday the family was worried for the safety of the 28-year-old in a climate of mob hysteria created by a section of the media. Umar Khalid, a PhD student at JNU, was accused of shouting anti-India slogans during an event on February 9 at the campus against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. Umar, a former leader of the ultra-left Democratic Students Union (DSU), is absconding after he was named in a complaint filed with police, accusing him of anti-national activities. He (Umar) spoke to my father right after being interviewed by Arnab Goswami (on TV). Thats the last we have heard from him. We are very worried for his safety. And the climate of mob hysteria that has been created by media has us really worried about things ever going back to normal, Fatima told HT through email. Fatima is a working as a teaching assistant at the University of Massachusetts. Stating that she was very close to her brother, Fatima said the family was backing him as they believe he was being wrongly framed. It is being proved that such slogans were raised by outsiders and not by the organisers of the event, she said. Read: Police widen net to neighbouring states for main accused Umar Khalid Fatima, who is a year younger than Umar, said they studied together and often travelled to Delhi University on the university special bus. Umar is the eldest of the six siblings and the only son in the family. Their father, Dr SQR Ilyas, is the editor of his own Urdu magazine Afkar-e-milli and president of the recently-formed Welfare Party of India. Their mother is a doctor. She said that contrary to reports which suggested that Umar had travelled to Pakistan in the past, he did not even have a passport. When I moved to the US in 2012 to pursue my PhD, I wanted him to apply for study abroad as well. But he felt that moving away would mean disengaging with ground realities, that he wouldnt be able to work for the marginalised and dispossessed people of the country. In fact, Ive pestered him to get a passport but he kept telling me that he belonged there (India), said Fatima. On being questioned whether her family had problem with his Leftist ideology, Fatima said, Our family is a perfect example, almost a microcosm of Indian democracy. We dont necessarily agree with each other in terms of ideology, there is a healthy difference of opinion. But we have been supportive of each other and respected each other as mature individuals. Read: My son targeted as he is a Muslim: Absconding JNU students father She also hoped that the JNU authorities will stand up for Umar like the way they are fighting for Kanhaiya Kumar, arrested on charges of sedition. Watch | Absconding JNU students father speaks out against trail by media SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The government has asked the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority (DCAA) to intervene and ensure that the Dubai International Airport allots feasible slots to Indian carriers. The rare intervention by the Indian government follows complaints from Indian carriers that they were being denied desired slots at Dubai International Airport (DIA) and instead offered options that werent viable. Both sides mutually agreed in 2014 to enhance the capacity entitlement from 54,200 to 65,200 seats. However, Indian carriers still have about 13,000 seats, which are yet to be utilised, aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju said in a letter to DCAA president Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum. The primary reason for the low utilisation was the non-availability of commercially and operationally feasible slots at DIA, Raju said in the letter. The Indian carriers have informed that they are not being provided the desired slots at Dubai airport, and Dubai Airport Authority has been turning down the requests of Indian carriers, or providing options which are not viable for operations. The option of shifting of operations from the DIA to the Dubai World Central airport was not commercially viable for Indian carriers as the airport was far away from the Dubai city. Raju also pointed out that the designated carriers of the UAE such as Emirates or flydubai were being given their requested slots by Indian authorities. The Dubai airport has become a global hub thanks to the large Indian traffic. While the Indian government has been liberal with the bilateral-seat entitlement, Dubai airport authorities have been very rigid in dealing with Indian airlines, a senior aviation ministry official said. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Haryana lawmakers decided to restrain their party colleagues from provoking Jat community members during an all-party meeting on Friday over how to contain the agitation that killed three people. The decision to convene the all-party meeting was taken in the emergency Cabinet meeting held by Khattar on Thursday evening. Among the core issues discussed at the meeting were the remarks by BJP MP from Kurukshetra Raj Kumar Saini that were withdrawn by the chief minister. Saini had recently made comments criticising the community and their demands. Besides Khattar and BJP state chief Subhash Barala, Haryana Congress president Ashok Tanwar, former Congress chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda and CLP leader Kiran Chaudhry, INLD state president Ashok Arora and former minister Jaswinder Sandhu, the BSP MLA from Ballabhgarh, Tek Chand Sharma, also attended the meeting. Among other BJP leaders was also education minister Ram Bilas Sharma, besides independent MLA Jai Parkash. Now since we have sought suggestions from leaders of all political parties as well as Jat leaders and agreed to frame the special backward classes bill with consent of all the people concerned, we would discuss the same in the upcoming budget session. I, thus, have no doubt that the agitation will end now, the CM said. When asked what would be the state governments steps if the stir would still be on, Khattar held that, in any case, keeping law and order was his top priority. He avoided commenting on questions pertaining to any action against leaders who had been giving provocative remarks against different communities. He also skipped questions that whether there was a failure of intelligence agencies because of which the stir continued to intensify across Haryana for six days. While the Haryana government sought army assistance to quell the Jat quota agitation in at least eight districts, the government on Friday also announced to bring in a special bill for giving quota under the Backward Classes (BC) category to Jats and four other communities, in the upcoming budget session of the Vidhan Sabha. But, the stir refused to abate, and at least one protester was reported killed in firing by security forces in Rohtak. The bill would be framed after consultation with Jat leaders and all political parties, chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar told the media after an all-party meet convened at a short notice to discuss ways to end the ongoing agitation by Jats for quota in government jobs and educational institutions. The meeting was held after a decision in the emergency state cabinet meeting held by Khattar on Thursday evening as the stir by Jats who have blocked roads and rail tracks for the past five days spread to almost all 21 districts of Haryana, throwing life out of gear and causing inconvenience to lakhs of people, mainly office-goers, students and commuters. Besides Khattar and BJP state chief Subhash Barala, Haryana Congress president Ashok Tanwar, former Congress chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Kiran Chaudhry, Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) state president Ashok Arora, former minister Jaswinder Sandhu, and BSP MLA Tek Chand Sharma, attended the meeting. Khattar also categorically said that all remarks made by BJPs Kurukshetra MP Raj Kumar Saini against Jats be considered as having been withdrawn. Saini had went on the form a sena (brigade) to counter the efforts of Jats to get into the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) quota. Now, since we have sought suggestions from leaders of all parties as well as Jat leaders, and agreed to frame the special backward class bill with consent of all the people concerned, we will discuss the same in the upcoming budget session. I, thus, have no doubt that the agitation would end now, the CM said. When asked what would be the state governments steps if the stir would still be on, Khattar held that in any case law and order is top priority. He avoided comment on questions pertaining to any action against leaders who had been giving provocative remarks against different communities. He also skipped questions on whether there was a failure of intelligence agencies because of which the stir continued to intensify across Haryana. Former Nepali Prime Minister and a man who was once the ideologue of the countrys Maoist movement, Baburam Bhattarai, has said he stands with JNU, lauded its political culture of tolerance and dissent, credited the university for who he is, said he is deeply pained at events in the university, which is being disturbed by people in power. Bhattarai is considered among JNUs most accomplished former students who rose up to lead an ultra left revolution, and head an elected government. In an exclusive interview to HT, Bhattarai said, As an alumni, I am deeply pained to hear the news from JNU. JNU is one of the best universities in the world in terms of political culture. There may be other universities in terms of academic standing but there is no institution with such a lively culture of debate, where all form of dissent is heard and respected from all over the world. Bhattarai said his stint in JNU - the former PM completed a PhD on the nature of underdevelopment in Nepal in the mid 80s- had inspired him. I am now in the process of setting up a New Force, which looks beyond traditional Marxism which has become a dogma. Unfortunately, JNU which promoted this culture of independent thinking is now being disturbed by people in power. He added that he stood with JNU for preserving its culture of tolerance and dissent, which is the idea of India and Indian democracy. In a sign of his emotional attachment to JNU, Bhattarai had broken down while speaking at the university during a visit to India as PM in 2011. His daughter, Manushi, is pursuing her M.Phil at JNU. An Indian student has been found dead in a hostel room of Tel Aviv university in Israel. External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj said the student was identified as Raj Kumar Raja, a 27-year-old who hailed from Chittor district of Andhra Pradesh. There was a news item that an Indian student has been found dead in Israel. I asked for a report from the embassy. The report said an Indian student Raj Kumar Raja aged 27 and resident of of Chittor dist (AP) was found in a hostel room of Tel Aviv university, she tweeted. There was a news item that an Indian student has been found dead in Israel. I asked for a report from the Embassy. The report says that /2 Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) February 19, 2016 an Indian student Raj Kumar Raja aged 27 and resident of Chittoor Distt (AP) was found dead in the hostel room of Tel Aviv University. /3 Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) February 19, 2016 We will fly his mortal remains to the family and follow up police investigation. Our heartfelt condolences to the bereaved family. Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) February 19, 2016 We will fly the mortal remains to his family and follow up police investigation. Our heart felt condolences to the bereaved family, she said. The controversial sedition charges against some students in the countrys premier Jawaharlal Nehru University is no more confined to a political battle between the BJP, Congress and the Leftists. Other parties too, have tuned in. Most of these parties have questioned the hurried arrest of the JNU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar and demanded proof of sedition. Senior Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and one of the founder members of the party, Dr CP Rai maintained Kumar did nothing anti-national. He had even participated in a march from Delhis the Mandi House to express solidarity to him. The SP leader added: BJP-RSS is engaging in jingoism to divert attention of public from real issues and the union governments failures. Trinamool Congress, which is backing the BJPs bid to pass the GST Bill in the upcoming session of parliament, sounded bitter over the BJPs over-reaction by beating up students and journalists. Former union minister and Trinamools Lok Sabha MP Saugata Roy said, The BJP has spoiled the case. BJP MLA OP Sharma thrashing one of the JNU students who was protesting against the arrest of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar. (PTI) The BJD, which is widely perceived as an outside supporter of the BJP, also maintained there is no justification to resort to violence. According to BJDs Lok Sabha leader Bhartruhari Mahtab, What happened outside the court was sheer hooliganism by Sangh elements and also showed sheer callousness of the Delhi police. Mahtab maintained no anit-India slogans can be tolerated but admitted that the issue will rock the upcoming budget session. Earlier, RJD chief Lalu Prasad, Bihar chief minister and JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar and BSP boss Mayawati had slammed the BJP over the JNU row. Prasad said, The Centre should take action on the basis of the probe report. An innocent person must not be victimised without any reason. Nitish Kumar had demanded proof against Kanhaiya Kumar: Mayawati questioned the BJP on its alliance with the PDP in J-K. pointing out that the PDP considers Afzal Guru a martyr, she said, Can the NDA leaders clarify what kind of nationalism is this Read: Shehla Rashid, firebrand Kashmiri, leading JNU students fightback The Jammu and Kashmir police have arrested a former assistant of the controversial godman Asaram Bapu in a case registered in 2013 in that state. Satish Wadhawani (38), was produced before a magistrate here who granted the Jammu and Kashmir police his transit remand on Friday. Wadhwani is facing a case under sections 120-B, 153 A, 194, 195, 295 and 383 of the Ranbir Penal Code at Navabad police station in Jammu and Kashmir. Wadhawani, who worked as a driver and bodyguard for Asaram and his son Narayan Sai from 1994 to 2009, later fell out with them and made several public statements against the father-son duo. He had also taken police protection in Indore saying he was getting threats. Protests in support of the JNU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar continued across the country on Friday. Nearly half a dozen trains were stopped in Bihar by hundreds of students, mostly activists of student bodies of left parties and the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), demanding the release of JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, officials said. In Chennai, activists of the All India Students Association created a ruckus, with police bodily removing one of the protesters from the location. As many as 40 people were arrested on Thursday when activists rallied together, calling for the release of Kumar. AISA women protester refusing to move from Central Govt office - Shastri Bhavan in Chennai. pic.twitter.com/ZxwKWOrKEF ANI (@ANI_news) February 19, 2016 Members of the Communist Party of India were detained in Hyderabad as they took to the roads in support of Kumar, a member of the affiliated All India Students Federation (AISF). Just last month the city witnessed scores from the student community protest against the government for the suicide of the Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula. At that time, students at universities in Delhi staged similar protests in solidarity. Police detain CPI workers protesting in Hyderabad over #JNURow pic.twitter.com/zKwovjYgFP ANI (@ANI_news) February 19, 2016 In Patna, members of the AISF blocked the Rajendra Nagar railway station, halting trains heading out and entering in. Party members were seen clambering on two trains, waving flags and holding up placards supporting the JNU students union. AISF protest at Rajendra Nagar railway station, block Indore Rajendra Nagar in Patna over #JNURow pic.twitter.com/OGaGVDGImi ANI (@ANI_news) February 19, 2016 Students, shouting slogans, stopped several train in Bihar, including the Sampark Kranti Express at Darbhanga railway station, Janki express at Khagaria railway station and Jainagar Samastipur passenger train at Madhubani railway station. The disruption affected dozens of trains and passengers. Kumar hails from the Begusarai district in Bihar where police are on stand-by to protect his family. Darbhanga: Left supporter students' groups block Bihar Sampark Kranti Express demanding release of #KanhaiyaKumar pic.twitter.com/N3R4THeuqe ANI (@ANI_news) February 19, 2016 #SpotVisuals Left supporter students' groups block Bihar Sampark Kranti Express demanding release of #KanhaiyaKumar pic.twitter.com/oRw7MRU6Vp ANI (@ANI_news) February 19, 2016 Journalists in Bengaluru also held a sit-in at the Press Club, condemning the attack on journalists at the Patiala House court. Lawyers had mobbed members of the press reporting from the court on Monday and also attacked JNU students and faculty members present at the time. Kanhaiya Kumar has been charged with sedition and criminal conspiracy for anti-national slogans raised at an event organised on JNU Jawaharlal Nehru University campus in Delhi on February 9. He was sentenced to judicial custody till March 2. Kumars bail plea will be heard by the high court on Friday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is unhappy with the way Delhi Police have handled the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) controversy, some officers in the force have hinted. The Prime Minister is also not happy with the Delhi Polices urgency to arrest JNU Student Unions president Kanhaiya Kumar under sedition charges. Modi on Wednesday, unlike last year, chose to skip the at-home function of the Delhi Polices Raising Day ceremony, despite police commissioner BS Bassi visiting his office and personally inviting him, said officials. Some officials believe that the Prime Minister may have skipped the police function as he was upset over the polices swift action in the JNU case and their alleged no-reaction approach at the Patiala House court where journalists, students and Kumar were assaulted by lawyers on two days. Bassi has left many red faces in the government. Read | JNUSU leader Kanhaiya Kumar was not assaulted in Patiala Courts: Bassi Amateurish is the word a senior Indian Police Service officer, working at the Centre, chose to describe the Delhi Polices handling of the situation. The announcement of Tihar Jail director general Alok Vermas name as the next Delhi Police chief, soon after Wednesdays at-home ceremony, is also being seen as Modis reaction to the poor-handling of the JNU issue that has caused turmoil in Delhi and other states, police sources said. The police chiefs branding the attack on journalists and students at the Patiala House complex as a minor issue and failing to stop a rerun of violence on Wednesday, despite assurances, has also displeased the Prime Minister. What Bassi is trying to achieve may be right, but sometimes one needs to avoid making such comments, said an aide to Union home minister Rajnath Singh. Bassi had been summoned to Prime Ministers Office on Wednesday with no official reasons being given about his summoning. Generally, one doesnt get summoned to PMO to be praised, said another senior IPS officer, who heads a Central police organisation. Read | JNU Bassi ke bas ka nahi: Thousands march for Kanhaiya Kumar On Wednesday, Bassi had said he had gone to the PMO to invite PM Modi for the at-home function. The top cop has so far been defending the police action against the JNUSU president and justifying Kanhaiya Kumars arrest, saying they have enough evidence to prove the sedition charges against him. Some police officers, however, believe that Kanhaiyas arrest was unjustified as police do not have evidence to prove that he was the one shouting anti-India slogans. They have also questioned the polices decision to register a sedition case two days after the JNU event, after a video footage was provided to them. Some officers say that investigators should have instead arrested former DSU member Umar Khalid for sedition as the video footage shows him shouting anti-national slogans. The situation would not have escalated if Khalid had been arrested, the officer said. Police is looking for videos of Kanhiaya to see whether he actually made seditious comments, said a home ministry official. The comment came after Kanhaiyas questioning in custody for five days by the city police. Read | Bassi jaisa koi nahin: A career marked with controversies The National Human Rights Commission said on Friday Jawaharlal Nehru University student union leader Kanhaiya Kumar was subjected to psychological pressure, adding his assault in a court complex appeared to be planned. The NHRC said Kumar was subjected to psychological pressure and was made to issue a statement before he appeared in the court, owing allegiance to the Constitution which was dictated by police. Kanhaiya Kumar was abused and physically assaulted by some persons dressed as advocates in the Patiala House court premises on February 17. He was even physically assaulted inside the adjoining court room in the presence of police who did not do anything to prevent the assault or apprehend the attackers even though they were identified by Kanhaiya Kumar then and there. The physical assault on Kumar in the court premises appears to be organised and pre-planned, a report submitted to the NHRC by its fact-finding panel said. Read | JNU row: Afzal Guru event held under false pretext, says professor The NHRC team said what happened in the Patiala House court complex on Wednesday when Kumar was attacked was a major security lapse on the part of the police. There was serious dereliction of duty on the part of the police. Going by the sequence of events, the safety and security of Kanhaiya and his family members is a serious cause of concern, the committee said. JNU students, professors and CPI party members protest for the release of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar. (Sanjeev Verma/Hindustan Times) It said the statement which was issued by the force as an appeal on behalf of Kumar was not written by him voluntarily. The content, construction and framework of the statement were as dictated by the police. The panel, which visited Kumar in Tihar jail on Thursday, quoted him as having said that he was arrested without any valid reason and without disclosing to him even grounds of arrest. He had not committed any offences as now alleged. However, this aspect is under investigation by the police. Kumar did not complain of any physical assault by the police while in custody. However, he was subjected to psychological pressure during interrogation, it said. A copy of the inquiry report submitted by the NHRC team has been forwarded to Delhi Police commissioner BS Bassi and the director general of Tihar Jail. The commission, which had earlier issued notices to the Union home secretary, Delhi chief secretary, Delhi police commissioner and registrar of Jawaharlal Nehru University, sent the team to Tihar to ascertain the treatment meted out to Kumar by the police and prison authorities while in custody. Delhi University students protest in favour of Kanhaiya Kumar at Arts Faculty, North Campus. (Raj K Raj / Hindustan Times) It was also tasked with ascertaining whether the statement released to the press by the Delhi Police commissioner in the name of Kumar was made by him voluntarily and without any extraneous influence. It said Tihar has made special arrangements to ensure safety and security of Kumar and that he has been kept in an independent and separate cell. Dedicated security staff has been deployed to ensure his safety and security round the clock. Several security instructions have been issued by the prison authorities in this regard. Kumar, arrested for alleged sedition, moved the Delhi high court on Friday to seek bail after the Supreme Court refused to intervene in the matter saying that would set a precedent of due process being bypassed. The matter was yet to be listed for hearing before a high court bench, meaning Kanhaiya would have to spend the weekend in Tihar jail with a lower court having sent him to judicial custody till March 2. High Court Bar Association president Rajiv Khosla urged lawyers to maintain peace and condemned the violence in the Patiala House courts complex where Kanhaiya and journalists were repeatedly beaten up. Hundreds of defiant lawyers, however, staged a demonstration in the Capital on Friday to assert they would physically assault anyone they deemed anti-national. Read Delhi Police chief BS Bassi comes out major loser in JNU row Yes, I too am anti-national, says proud Hindu Rajdeep Sardesai A group of lawyers on Thursday felicitated Vikram Chauhan, the lawyer who led the protest at Patiala House court on both Monday and Wednesday. He also allegedly led a mob that targeted JNU students union leader Kanhaiya Kumar in the court premises. Sources said the Shahdara Bar association took out a candle march outside gate number of 5 of the Karkardooma court at 4pm, which was attended by Chauhan. The president of the bar garlanded Chauhan and said Shahdra Bar apke sath hai (The Shahdra Bar is with you), sources said. However, the District Bar Coordination Committee (DBCC) has condemned the violence at Patiala House but insisted that the perpetrators were outsiders dressed as lawyers. The FIR has been registered and we are only asking that the matter be investigated, said DBCC president RK Wadhwa. While he was not present during the procession on Wednesday, Wadhwa added that the committee had based its assessment on a report that their colleagues caught three persons two ran off and one was handed over to the police. They were outsiders wearing black coats and they were not lawyers and that is why we are saying an investigation is necessary. Other members of the committee that manages the affairs of Delhis six district courts agreed. We are not the police so we cannot investigate the matter. No complaint against any lawyer has come to us, said Tis Hazari Bar chairman Sanjay Nasier. From Rohini district court, the bar general secretary Rajeev Tehlaan added that the committee would look into the matter further after the lawyers held a protest march to condemn the violence. In a statement on Thursday, the DBCC said: The coordination committee strongly protests the defamatory/derogatory statements made against the legal fraternity without any proper inquiry. Abrasions on the noseon the left foottenderness on the right toe, reads a medical report of Kanahaiya Kumar released on Friday, contradicting Delhi Police chief BS Bassis statement that the JNU students union president was not assaulted at the Patiala House court complex this week. The student leader arrested on charges of sedition was produced in court on Wednesday where a group of lawyers allegedly linked to the BJP attacked him, some journalists and others. HT has a copy of the medical report issued by doctors at Delhis Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. Kumar alleged the lawyers hit him, tore his clothes and pulled his hair. This happened in the presence of over 800 policemen, he said. The medical examination was conducted at the court premises following the allegations. A copy of the medical report submitted by a team of doctors from Dr Ram Manohar Lohia hospital. A physician at RML hospital also told HT that when Kumar was examined, he had a cut on his nose, scratch marks on the nape of his neck and arms while his right toe was crushed. Our job is not to judge what happened with Kumar that day. The patient had complained of chest pain and cough. This might be because he had received severe blows on his chest and back. However, this is just a possibility, he said. A team of three doctors conducted the examination and backed it in court before handing over the report to police. An FIR was registered at the Tilak Marg police station based on a written statement from the student leader. In an interview to HT on Thursday, Bassi had insisted that Kumar was not assaulted and there was no need to detain the lawyers who went on a rampage. Policemen escorting Kanhaiya have denied the allegations of him getting beaten up by lawyers, he said. When Kanhaiya was brought to the courts gate, the complex was full of people, including policeman who had formed a ring around him as he had to wade through the crowd. There was a lot of pushing and pulling. However, his safety was ensured. After the medical report was issued, however, special commissioner of police (law and order) Deepak Mishra said, In the commotion, he tripped and his slippers slipped out of his feet, leading to imbalance, which might have resulted in abrasions on the feet. A Delhi court on Friday dismissed former DU professor SAR Geelanis bail plea. The 46 year old professor was arrested on charges of incitement and sedition after an event was held at Press Club on 10th February where anti-nationalist slogans were allegedly shouted. The plea filed before metropolitan magistrate Harwinder Singh was strongly opposed by the public prosecutor on the basis that Geelani had links and could therefore influence witnesses. However, arguing on behalf of bail, Geelanis lawyer Satish Tamta said he had expected a better reply from cops as they had time to investigate the matter now. Cops also said they were still trying to trace other suspects Its been three days since my arrest, if they cant find other suspects how is that my fault? Asked Tamta during arguments on behalf of Geelani. Tamta added that the police FIR was clear that everyone was silenced and the meeting was disbanded so where was the incitement? He had also pointed out that cops had brought up Geelanis alleged involvement in the Parliament attack case just to prejudice his client. He added that the professor was honourably acquitted by the Delhi high court. Meanwhile the public prosecutor argued that Geelani had been acquitted on technical grounds and that it was an admitted fact Geelani was at press club and had put up a board glorifying Afzal Guru who was an enemy of the state as held by the Supreme Court. He (Geelani) was so shrewd that he didnt even give his credit card, didnt book the hall in his name and he is not cooperating with cops. He has in the past organised this kind of event. If the previous governments couldnt stop him and this government wants to, why not tell them? argued the prosecutor. Delhi Police chief BS Bassi on Friday said that it doesnt matter to him if he was not being considered for the post of information commissioner after his retirement at the end of this month. It doesnt matter to me, Bassi told reporters in New Delhi when asked about reports that the government has dropped his name from the list of potential candidates for the top post at Central Information Commission (CIC). The opposition, led by the Congress, has strongly objected to the governments move to include Bassi in the list of candidates. In fact, the Congress has been demanding his removal as Delhi Police commissioner over the alleged mishandling of JNU protests and violent incidents that followed. The Delhi Police has come in for flak for slapping sedition charges against Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student leader Kanhaiya Kumar. The force has also been criticized for the violence in the Patiala House Court on Monday and Wednesday when some slogan-shouting lawyers attacked JNU students and journalists. Kanhaiya Kumar was also assaulted in the court even as Bassi has consistently denied this. Bassi also said his department will soon arrest Jawaharlal Nehru University students wanted in connection with the sedition case for allegedly raising anti-India slogans during an event. We are on the right track. I am confident that we will arrest the absconders soon, Bassi said. The event was organised by a group of JNU students, including students union president Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid, a former Democratic Students Union (DSU) member and the main organiser of the event on February 9. Khalid became the polices target, soon after a city court sent Kumar to Tihar Jail. Kanhaiya was arrested on February 11 after police registered a case of sedition and criminal conspiracy against him. On February 12 he was remanded to police custody for three days. On February 17, the metropolitan magistrate sent him to 14 days judicial custody. Kumar is facing sedition charges for allegedly organising an event commemorating 2001 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, where anti-national slogans were shouted. Kumar had moved the apex court seeking bail on Thursday, claiming a threat to his life in Tihar Jail. Separate teams of the special cell, that primarily look into terror-related cases, and crime branch have also been roped in to trace and arrest Khalid and six other absconding students, including the daughter of CPI leader D Raja, at the earliest. Earlier, the Supreme Court refused to entertain Kumars bail plea and asked him to approach the Delhi high court. The top court also asked Delhi Police to ensure security for Kumars advocates. (With inputs from IANS) Kashmir and its political history play a crucial role in the controversy surrounding the shouting of anti-national slogans at Delhis Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Kolkatas Jadavpur University (JU). The importance of Kashmir in the narrative of this crisis is multi-fold. Firstly, at the heart of it was an event on the hanged Kashmiri militant Afzal Guru and secondly, the slogans shouted at both JNU and JU were centred on Kashmiri separatism. If whats reported on TV is true, it seems the JNU event and the sloganeering was a replica of the protests that occur in Kashmir every other day, Sheikh Mushtaq, a senior Srinagar-based journalist, told HT. Any Kashmiri can say that the slogans of Hum kya chahte/Azaadi that are reported to have been shouted at JNU and JU are heard every other day in the Valley. It is a fact that many Kashmiris bear a real sense of anger against the Indian state. Read More | Fear of witch-hunt makes Kashmiri students in JNU leave hostels The Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) -- an umbrella organisation of various rights groups and NGOs -- in a press statement issued on Thursday expressed solidarity with the striking students at JNU but criticised how the public narrative has condemned the irresponsible slogans. These sentiments (that were expressed through sloganeering in JNU) are neither mere slogans nor represent the fringe in Kashmir, the very place they were made in reference to. As Kashmiris, we believe that the right to self-determination is inseparable from the right to political association, dissent and free expression, and these rights cannot be selectively asserted or upheld, it said. Read more: Unusual silence on JNU campus but students say wont be silenced Guru, a convict in the 2001 Parliament attack case, was executed in Delhis Tihar jail on February 9, 2013. So was the founder of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Mohammad Maqbool Bhat convicted of murdering a CID officer in the same jail on February 11, 1984. The remains of Guru and Bhat were not handed over to their families by the government and both the executions continue to resonate among a large section of Kashmiris. For large sections of Kashmiris, Bhat remains an iconic freedom fighter and Guru remains the victim of an unjust system. And, every year, the Valley observes a complete shutdown on February 9 and 11. Read More | SC on Kanhaiyas bail plea: Intervention will set dangerous precedent Like the shutdowns, the poster of the controversial JNU event said that it was aimed to protest against the judicial killing of Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhat. But Professor Noor Ahmad Baba, a Srinagar-based political scientist, believes that the pro-Kashmiri-azaadi sloganeering in JNU was primarily reflective of how sections of the Indian youth were out to fight against the flaws in the functioning of the Indian state rather than a commitment to the Kashmiri cause. Protests or sloganeering in the Valley has a more radical element to it. There is a difference between the shutdowns on February 9 and 11 and the JNU sloganeering. Even had Guru got a fair trial as many believe he didnt the Valley would still observe a shutdown, but perhaps JNU wouldnt protest. Bhat and Guru have become symbols of resistance for many people here, Baba told HT. Overall, the Kashmiri response to the JNU controversy remains varied. The senior separatist leadership of the Valley including both factions of the Hurriyat leadership and the JKLF has condemned the police action on JNU students and the arrest of JNU students union leader Kanhaiya Kumar. Former chief minister Omar Abdullah too condemned the crackdown in a series of tweets. The PDP has called the controversy a debate about the idea of India. I'm all for innovative solutions but let's not kid ourselves that slogans heard in #JNU or #Jadhavpur will disappear with this HRD order. Omar Abdullah (@abdullah_omar) February 18, 2016 Speaking to HT, Mannan Bukhari, head of the human rights division of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) said, The entire episode is unfortunate. Lawyers beating up Kanhaiya Kumar is highly condemnable. This shouldnt have happened. Some Kashmiri political commentators also criticised the Left because of how the JNUSU distanced itself from the pro-azaadi slogans immediately after Kumars arrest. In the Valleys largest educational institute, Kashmir University (KU), the students union has remained banned since 2009. The ban had actually existed since early 1990s when KU was thought to be a hub of anti-India sentiments while being allowed only for a short period of time from 2007-2009. Aala Fazili, a PhD student in the pharmaceutical sciences department in KU and a prominent student activist in Srinagar, said that the JNU incident has exposed to Indian people what the state stands for actually. What JNU faced last week, Kashmir has been facing for many, many decades now. And, as far as the resistance politics among students in Kashmir is concerned, I feel it doesnt matter whether JNU or JU students support the cause or not, he told HT. Another post-graduate student of political science at KU, Rouf Dar, wrote in the online news portal Kashmir Dispatch on the JNU controversy, We (Kashmiris) have to stand up and spearhead our movement. There is no room for representation or appropriation from any quarters. Good if anyone stands by us. Better if they dont. Read More | JNU protest: Careless use of sedition law has dangerous consequences SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Jadavpur University (JU) vice chancellor Suranjan Das told governor Keshari Nath Tripathy, who is also the chancellor of the institution, that he will not file a police complaint against the slogan raising students and argued that the few students who displayed the wayward temerity can be tackled through dialogue and discussion. At a meeting with the governor, Das made it clear that the tradition of deliberation, debate and discussion should be maintained in the university campus. He also said that he told the governor that filing a police complaint was not the tradition of JU. I will not reveal my conversation with the honorable chancellor. But all I can say is that filing FIR against our students is not the tradition of Jadavpur University. We would rather address the issue through discussion and deliberation, he said. Das had gone to meet the governor to explain what happened in the campus on February 16 when several students were seen raising slogans for azadi in Kashmir and Manipur and also in favour of Afzal Guru and Hafiz Syed. The VC made it clear that he would stand by the students. Only a few students raised slogans and the entire university should not be hauled up, he said, arguing the problem can be resolved through dialogue and that most of the students disapproved of the Tuesdays agitation. During the day Raj Bhavan became a theatre for a tussle of ideas as BJP leader Rahul Sinha asserted just after meeting the governor that the university authorities should file a police complaint. Those who raised anti-national slogans should not get away without punishment. There should be NIA probe. These students are anti nationals and my have support from foreign terrorist groups. The teachers too are supporting these students, said Sinha who met Tripathy within an hour of Das. Speaking on the cancellation of his meeting with the vice chancellor of JU on Thursday evening Sinha said, The VC has cancelled appointment with me out of fear. I thank those patriotic students who rushed into JU campus and tore all the anti national posters. Stating that it would be unfair to make the entire student population of the university take responsibility for the act of a few Das said, The students union representatives have made it very clear to me that they do not endorse the anti national slogans. It would be unfair to tarnish the entire university community for the act of some fringe elements. Das made it very clear that the university would be solving the matter through deliberation. The chancellor asked us to submit him a report, which we will do after discussions in the executive council meeting on Monday. We will solve the problem by staying within the laws of the university and by protecting its autonomy, Das said. We must keep in mind that for democracy to exists their can be various voices, while we do not endorse students giving anti national slogans but we will tackle the matter through debate and deliberation, which is the spirit of this university, he added. Das would soon call a convention where all the stake holders of the university would take part. At least 12 people, including a child, were killed on Friday when a speeding truck collided with a maxi cab on National Highway-13. The truck was carrying at least 16 tonnes of steel rods which fell on the cab due to the impact of the collision. The accident took place near Chikkagodanahalli, which near Chitradurga, about 200 kms from Bengaluru. We have registered a case against the truck driver and owner, who both hail from Uttar Pradesh. The truck driver, who survived the mishap, was rushed to a district hospital here for treatment, Chitradurga police superintendant MN Anucheth said. The victims were returning to their village, after attending a late night event in Chikkagodanahalli. Hundreds of lawyers took out a march from Patiala House to India Gate on Friday in solidarity with Vikram Chauhan and others who led the protests at the court in Delhi. Shouting slogans of Vande Mataram and Pakistan murdabad, the lawyers waved Indian flags to mark their opposition to anti-nationals. Desh ke gaddaron ko bilkul nahi baksha jayega (Traitors of the country will never be forgiven), said a lawyer in the protest march. No one knows better about the law than lawyers do and according to law, Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid are terrorists, said Suresh Sinha, another lawyer, while others carried a symbolic effigy of the JNU student leader. The march reportedly called by the prime instigator of violence against JNU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar and journalists at the court on Monday and Wednesday comes a day after a group of lawyers felicitated Vikram Chauhan. Sources said the Shahdara Bar Association took out a candle march outside gate number of five of the Karkardooma court at 4pm on Thursday, which was attended by Chauhan. The president of the bar garlanded Chauhan and said, Shahdra Bar apke sath hai (The Shahdra Bar is with you), sources said. However, the District Bar Coordination Committee (DBCC) condemned the violence at Patiala House but insisted that the perpetrators were outsiders dressed as lawyers. The coordination committee strongly protests the defamatory/derogatory statements made against the legal fraternity without any proper inquiry, the DBCC said in a statement on Thursday. Meanwhile, Kanhaiya Kumar, who was charged with sedition for alleged anti-India slogans at the university and sent to 14-day judicial custody, moved Delhi high court registry for bail on Friday. He earlier applied for bail from the Supreme Court, but the latter refused entertain the plea noting that assuming exclusive jurisdiction over the case would send a wrong impression to lower courts that they are incapable of handling the matter. The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain Jawaharlal Nehru University students union president Kanhaiya Kumars bail plea and asked him to approach the Delhi high court. A bench of justice J Chelameswar and justice Abhay Manohar Sapre -- which agreed that hearing on Kumars bail plea was not possible in the Patiala House courts where journalists and students were thrashed by a mob of lawyers -- asked the HC to hear his bail plea expeditiously. The top court also asked Delhi Police to ensure security for Kumars advocates. This is not the court and not the stage to hear the bail. Hearing Kanhaiya Kumars bail plea directly would open floodgates, the SC said, adding it would give a wrong impression that other courts were incapable. Also Read | JNU row: Delhi Police acted in haste, leaves government red-faced Kumars lawyers are likely to mention the bail for an early hearing before the high court on Friday afternoon. Kumar is facing sedition charges for allegedly organising an event commemorating 2001 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, where anti-national slogans were shouted. His arrest triggered a wave of campus protests across India, including in the Capital, where thousands of students hit the streets on Thursday evening. Kumar had moved the apex court seeking bail on Thursday, claiming threat to his life in Tihar Jail, where he was sent on Wednesday in 14-day judicial custody. He was roughed up and chased away from the Patiala House court by agitating lawyers when he was taken there on Wednesday. Kumar said in his petition there was no need for his custodial interrogation as he has already been sent to judicial custody. He claimed his innocence and said no purpose would be served by keeping him in the jail as the police have been finding it difficult to produce him even in the court. Also Read | Fear for his life in a climate of mob hysteria: Umar Khalids sister In his application, the JNUSU president sought protection of life and limb, saying there is great likelihood of an attack on him in prison and said there was a need for the apex court to intervene. Kanhaiya was arrested on February 11 after police registered a case of sedition and criminal conspiracy against him. On February 12 he was remanded to police custody for three days. On February 17, the metropolitan magistrate sent him to 14 days judicial custody. Read | JNU Bassi ke bas ka nahi: Thousands march for Kanhaiya Kumar JNU in turmoil: Full Coverage SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The bail plea of JNU leader Kanhaiya Kumar, arrested on sedition charges for allegedly chanting anti-national slogans at an event in the university, will come up for hearing in the Supreme Court on Friday. Kumar had moved the apex court seeking bail on Thursday, claiming threat to his life in Tihar Jail, where he was sent on Wednesday in 14-day judicial custody. He was roughed up and chased away from the Patiala House Court by agitating lawyers when he was taken there during the day. Kumar said in his petition there was no need for his custodial interrogation as he has already been sent to judicial custody. He claimed his innocence and said no purpose would be served by keeping him in the jail as the police have been finding it difficult to produce him even in the court. In his application, the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union president sought protection of life and limb, saying there is great likelihood of an attack on him in prison and said there was a need for the apex court to intervene. Read | JNU protest: Careless use of sedition law has dangerous consequences Kanhaiya was arrested on February 11 after police registered a case of sedition and criminal conspiracy against him. On February 12 he was remanded to police custody for three days. On February 17, the metropolitan magistrate sent him to 14 days judicial custody. Meanwhile, thousands of students, teachers and civil society members across the country protested on Thursday against the arrest of the JNU leader as a bitter row over free speech and nationalism spilled into the streets. Clashes were reported in several states, as the BJP launched a nationwide Jan Swabhiman Abhiyan to back action against students of the Delhi-based university who allegedly raised anti-India slogans on the campus this month. An estimated 5,000 people chanting release Kanhaiya Kumar and down with state terrorism marched through the heart of Delhi in one of the biggest student protests India has seen in years. Read | JNU row: Lawyer who led the mob at Patiala House felicitated Read | Kanhaiya was not assaulted in Patiala Courts: Delhi Police commissioner Bassi As police opened fire on Jat protesters seeking reservation, at least one person was reported killed and six were injured near the Maharshi Dayanand University (MDU) campus here. The protesters also attacked in a bid to set on fire the house of Haryana minister Capt Abhimanyu, who was not inside. Another house was also burnt. Police did not confirm the toll, while the melee grew bigger despite efforts by the government. Jat leaders earlier on Friday refused to withdraw their agitation till a legislation is passed giving quota to the community under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category even as the authorities in the worst-affected district suspended Internet and SMS services due to the stir which has disrupted rail and road traffic. Meanwhile, there were no cops visible on the Delhi highway. The Jats took out a protest march and damaged three buses of the state roadways, while a counter-protest was carried out by members of other communities, including the Balmikis, who are opposed to quota for Jats. The counter-marchers too damaged a truck in which Jats had earlier reached the area. The police have filed to implement Section 144. The protesters in Rohtak accused chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar of resisting their demand as he was not from the community even as the state government called an all-party meeting to end the impasse. We are not going to withdraw our agitation till our demand is met. We will intensify our agitation in other parts of the state, including Panchkula and Yamunanagar, All India Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samitis national president Yashpal Malik said. We want BJP government in Haryana to bring a legislation in the upcoming budget session to include Jats in OBC category. They should bring a law in the Assembly with regard to Jat reservation and get it passed, he said. Earlier in the day, the Punjab and Haryana high court asked the Khattar government to file a status report on the law and order situation as a Jat quota stir turned violent overnight, forcing several districts to block mobile internet and messaging services. Khattar also appealed for calm on the sixth day of the agitation by the influential community which constitutes nearly 30% of the states population. The high courts order came in response to a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by a Bhiwani resident who sought a direction to the government to clear roads and rail tracks by protesters and booking of all involved in violence. The court asked the government to file its response by Tuesday. The strike, into the sixth day, has crippled road and rail traffic across the state and shut down educational institutions in many places. I appeal to everyone to maintain peace and harmony in Haryana and also open roads which have been blocked due to agitation, Khattar told reporters after an all-party meeting called to discuss the issue. He said a panel constituted to study the demands by the community is expected to submit its report March 31. The report of the committee we constituted will come by March 31-Haryana CM ML Khattar #JatReservation pic.twitter.com/cHub5SOW5j ANI (@ANI_news) February 19, 2016 So far Jat leaders have refused to call off the strike despite the state governments assurance of including the community in the quota for economically backward persons (EBP) of general castes and also increasing the EBP quota from 10% to 20%. The Jats are seeking reservation under the other backward classes (OBC) category which would enable them to seek job quota in central government departments. Read More | Haryana government extends olive branch, but Jats firm on stir Police said mobile internet and SMSes have been blocked in Rohtak, Sonepat and Panipat as messages targetting the Sikh community started circulating, threatening to vitiate an already tense situation. Internet and SMS services have been suspended till further orders in Rohtak, the districts police chief Shashank Anand said. Police said the decision was taken after the agitation turned violent overnight in the Jat heartland with protesters clashing and pelting stones on police trying to evict them after imposition of prohibitory orders in four districts. On Thursday, two lawyers were injured and seven motorcycles set ablaze during clashes between members of the Punjabi community and lawyers in a case of mistaken identity. Sources said, some non-Jat people had mistook the lawyers as Jat protesters outside the Rohtak district court. Watch | Agitation over Jat quota continues in Haryana Read More | Jat quota agitation causes railways 100-crore loss Officials said that groups of protesters were squatting on key roads and railway tracks disrupting traffic, with the worst hit being the Rohtak-Jhajjar region, the epicentre of the protests, besides Bhiwani, Sonipat and Hisar. The protesters also set up road blockade at many places in Panipat, which also affected movement of vehicles towards Uttar Pradesh. In view of the blockades by the agitators, Haryana Roadways suspended its bus services on many affected routes. The Rohtak district administration has also declared holiday in all educational institutions of Rohtak till February 21. Agriculture minister Om Prakash Dhankar said on Thursday after a Cabinet meeting that supply of essential commodities such as cooking gas and petrol has been affected. Our fuel trucks have not reached us for the past four days and soon we will be out of stock. It will add to the woes of the people, said an employee of a fuel pump on Delhi road in Rohtak. The All Haryana Petroleum Dealers Association vice-president Bhushan Goel said out of 102 fuel depots in Rohtak more than 90 have already been declared dried and remaining may go out of stock if the agitation lasts for one more day. The agitation has also affected crushing operations of the co-operative sugar mills in Jat-dominated areas of Rohtak, Meham, Gohana and Sonepat. Read More | Jat quota: Protesters block Old Gurgaon roads for two hours The US, India and Pakistan are quietly exploring the possibility of a meeting between Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif on the margins of a nuclear security summit in Washington next month, according to a Pakistani media report on Friday. Modi and Sharif have accepted US President Barack Obamas invitation to attend the summit he is hosting on March 31 and April 1. The chances are strong, very strong, an unnamed senior official was quoted as saying by the influential Dawn newspaper. But you know the history of India-Pakistan talks, you cannot be certain about an event until it has happened. This will be the first time Modi and Sharif will be attending the nuclear security summit that Obama initiated in 2010. The summit is aimed at preventing terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons. The first summit was held in Washington in April 2010. The second summit was organised in South Korea in 2012 and the third in The Hague in 2014. Since this is Obamas final year in office, the US administration is pushing hard for concrete results during the fourth summit. US officials have recently expressed concern at the proliferation of small nuclear weapons in South Asia. Were concerned both about the security of those nuclear weapons, and thats been a common refrain in our discussions with Pakistan, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said while responding to a question about the increase in Pakistans tactical nuclear weapons. Sharif and Modi last met in December, when the Indian leader made a surprise visit to Lahore to wish his Pakistani counterpart on his birthday while flying from Kabul to New Delhi. However, ties went into a tailspin when members of the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed attacked the Pathankot airbase days later, killing seven security personnel. In his first overseas trip after assuming charge of the top office, Nepal Prime Minister KP Oli arrived in India on a six-day visit during which he will hold extensive talks with the Indian leadership with a major focus on mending ties hit by issues relating to the Himalayan nations new Constitution. External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj received Oli, accompanied by a 77-member delegation, at the airport, reflecting importance India attaches to the visit. Oli and Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold extensive talks on a range of issues on Saturday following which both sides are expected to sign a number of pacts to step up cooperation in several key sectors. It is expected that India will ask Nepal to complete the unfinished task of making the Constitution more inclusive to address the concerns of the Madhesi community which share close family and cultural ties with Indians. Ties between the two countries had soured in the wake of agitation by the Madhesi community opposing Nepals Constitution, saying it failed to address their concerns over representation and homeland. The agitators had blocked the trading points for almost four months crippling supply of petroleum products, medicines and other commodities by India to that country. The blockade was lifted this month. It is the first bilateral visit by a Nepalese Prime Minister after the trip by the then premier Baburam Bhattarai in October 2011. Olis predecessor Sushil Koirala had attended Modis swearing-in ceremony in May 2014. Welcoming our Northern guest. EAM @SushmaSwaraj receives Nepals PM KP Sharma Oli on his State visit to India, external affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted along with a photograph of Swaraj receiving him. Oli is accompanied by wife Radhika Shakya, deputy prime minister and foreign minister Kamal Thapa, finance minister Bishnu Poudyal, energy minister Top Bahadur Rayamaji and home minister Shakti Basnet among others. The Nepalese Prime Minister will stay at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Modi had paid a bilateral visit to Nepal in August 2014 which was the first such trip by an Indian Prime Minister to the neighbouring country in 17 years. Modi had gone to Nepal again in November 2014 for the SAARC Summit. Swaraj, home minister Rajnath Singh and finance minister Arun Jaitley will be among those who will call on the Nepalese Prime Minister. Oli will also call on President Pranab Mukherjee and vice president Hamid Ansari. He will visit Dehradun on Sunday to inspect the Tehri hydel power project and will return here in the evening. On Monday, he will address the Indian Council for World Affairs and attend a business meeting. He will leave for Bhuj in Gujarat on Tuesday to have a first hand experience of the earthquake reconstruction work there. Nepal was struck by a devastating quake in April last year and is currently in the process of carring out reconstruction work. The same day he will leave for Mumbai from Gujarat and will meet the Maharashtra governor. He will leave for Nepal from Mumbai on February 24. Nepalese Prime Minister KP Oli would arrive in New Delhi on Friday for holding talks with PM Narendra Modi on various issues, including the newly adopted Nepal constitution. This is Olis maiden foreign trip after assuming charge and first bilateral visit by a Nepalese Prime Minister to New Delhi since Baburam Bhattarais in October 2011. Olis predecessor Sushil Koirala had attended Modis swearing-in ceremony in May 2014. External affairs ministry spokesperson Vikas Swarup said a range of issues, including matters relating to citizenship to Indian-origin people, will figure in the talks between the two sides. It is expected that India will ask Nepal to complete the unfinished task of making the new Nepalese Constitution more inclusive to address the concerns of the Indian-origin Madhesi community. Oli will be accompanied by a high-level delegation comprising deputy Prime Minister Kamal Thapa, finance minister Bishnu Prasad Paudel and home minister Shakti Bahadur Basnet among others. The chief executive of the National Reconstruction Authority of Nepal and 13 MPs from various political parties will also accompany Oli. The Nepalese Prime Minister will stay at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Oli will hold extensive talks with Modi on Saturday on entire gamut of bilateral ties following which both sides are expected to sign a number of agreements. Read | We want good relations with India and China: Nepal PM Oli Two MoUs - one on the $1 billion line of credit that India has already committed to Nepal during Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit and another on $1 billion that India had pledged during external affairs minister Sushma Swarajs trip to Kathmandu for the countrys post-earthquake reconstruction -- are likely to be signed during Olis visit. Asked about essential supplies from India to Nepal, hit by a prolonged blockade by the Madhesi community, Swarup said it has almost been normalised. He said on Thursday 1608 trucks had gone to Nepal from India. External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj, home minister Rajnath Singh and finance minister Arun Jaitley will be among those who will call on the Nepalese Prime Minister. Oli will also call on President Pranab Mukherjee and Vice-President Hamid Ansari. He will visit Dehradun on Sunday to inspect the Tehri hydel power project and will return to the Capital in the evening. On Monday, he will address the Indian Council for World Affairs and attend a business meeting. He will leave for Bhuj in Gujarat on Tuesday to have a first hand experience of the earthquake reconstruction work there. Nepal was struck by a devastating quake in April last year and is currently in the process of carring out reconstruction work. The same day he will leave for Mumbai from Gujarat and will meet Maharashtra governor. He will leave for Nepal from Mumbai on February 24. Tipplers in Bihar are bracing for dry days ahead. The state government on Thursday decided to sell only one bottle per day per person who will also have to sign on a register as proof of purchase from a government-run liquor retail shop. The new system will come into effect from April 1, the date when the state government starts implementing the much-hyped decision of imposing a total ban on sale and consumption of liquor in a phase-wise manner in the state. Chief minister Nitish Kumar, who held a meeting of the excise department on Thursday, directed excise minister Abdul Jalil Mastan to work on the modalities to enforce the liquor ban. We have decided that shops would sell a single bottle to any individual and not more than that on a daily basis. Those purchasing liquor would have to sign on a register and would be monitored through a CCTV camera fixed at a point in the retail shop, Mastan told HT. The new system is expected to give alcoholics or those making bulk purchases of liquor bottles for any event like marriage or party a tough time as the supply would be restricted. However, many feel that the system will only increase smuggling and black marketing of liquor, mainly IMFL (Indian-made foreign liquor) in the state during marriage season. There are also chances of liquor shops fleecing customers for clandestine supplies. This is not a foolproof system and would only open more channels of IMFL brands at a premium, both in cities and rural areas. It would be difficult to organise events as people could be harassed by authorities for stocking bottles illegally, said Rajeev Kumar, a professional working in Patna. Under the new system, the state beverage corporation will be running the liquor shops across the state without participation of private individuals, as is the case now. Around 650 shops would be run in the state in urban centres. Big cities are likely to have ten shops each. The beverage corporation has already invited tenders for shops, CCTV cameras, godowns and money vending machines to start its retail operation from April 1. The government has decided to impose total ban on sale of country liquor in the state and only sell IMFL brands for six months under its decision to impose phase wise ban on liquor. We will be enforcing the ban strictly and take all measures to ensure that there is no black marketing or smuggling of liquor from neighbouring states, the excise minister added. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (MSA) has detained at least 40 Indian fishermen and seized seven of their boats near Jakhau port off the Gujarat coast early on Friday, according to the National Fishworkers Forum. The Pakistan Maritime Security Agency apprehended at least 40 Indian fishermen along with 7 of their boats near Jakhau port off the Gujarat coast at Arabian sea late last night, Secretary of National Fishworkers Forum (NFF) Manish Lodhari told PTI. Out of these seven boats, six had ventured into the sea from Okha port while one is registered in Porbandar, Lodhari claimed. Primary reports have revealed that all of them were captured near International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL), as these fishermen may have crossed the line due to dense fog during early morning. There is a possibility that the count of seized boats and fishermen may rise, he said. Since there are no physical markings in the sea, fishermen are dependent on the GPS system installed on their boats to find out their exact location in the sea and proximity with IMBL. However, GPS is not fitted in all the boats. Moreover, only latest GPS devices show the IMBL on the screen, while older such devices do not support that function. As a result, it is difficult for fishermen to determine their exact location, even if they have GPS facility, Lodhari said. After Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif lived up to his assurance to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on registering an FIR in the Pathankot airbase strike, India is ready to receive a special investigating team (SIT) from across the border and share evidence on Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorists and planners of the attack. No decision has been taken yet on the proposed foreign secretary-level talks or the possibility of Modi and Sharif meeting on the sidelines of the Nuclear Security Conference (NSC) in Washington from March 31 to April 1. Top government sources told HT on condition of anonymity that New Delhi was informed about the FIR on Wednesday through diplomatic back channels and a copy of the legal instrument was shared subsequently. Read | Fifth and Sixth Pathankot attackers still a missing piece in probe The FIR, based on information given by Indian national security advisor Ajit Doval to his Pakistani counterpart Naseer Khan Janjua on January 2, has been registered under Sections 302 (murder), 309 (attempt to murder) and 109 (abetment) of the Pakistan Penal Code, 7 (punishment for acts of terror) and 21 (security to witness and judges) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997. The FIR is against unknown people and does not exclude JeM chief Masood Azhar. Pakistani PM Sharif and NSA Janjua have lived up to their promise of taking action against the JeM by rounding up no less than 25 people, questioning Masood Azhar and sealing the seminaries affiliated to the group. Azhar has not been named in the FIR as it is still to be backed by specific evidence against the jihadist leader. India will share evidence with the Pakistan SIT so that action can be taken against Azhar, a senior official said. It is understood that a six-member team led by inspector general Rai Tahir of the counter-terrorism department will arrive in India in March and visit the terror strike spot with the permission of the defence ministry and the Indian Air Force (IAF). The Indian security establishment is satisfied with Pakistans move to register the FIR and expects Sharif to take action against the JeM after New Delhi shares full evidence. India is also amenable to an NIA team visiting Pakistan with Islamabads permission to close the investigation. Read | India-Pak talks not dependent on Pathankot probe: Indian envoy SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The NDA government sees Pakistani authorities FIR on the Pathankot attack as a step in the right direction but that is unlikely to calm the Opposition in the upcoming budget session of Parliament. The FIR was registered on Thursday in the counter-terrorism department centre (CTDC) at Gujranwala in the Punjab province of Pakistan. The centres officials described the FIR as the first step for police and judicial proceedings against the masterminds of the Pathankot attack. Key non-NDA parties ready to take on the ruling dispensation over its Pakistan policy quickly dismissed the development as wishy-washy. The BJP, however, saw it as a shot in the arm. The development reflects the success of the foreign policy of this government, party secretary Shrikant Sharma said, latching on to the issue that earlier saw the Opposition lash out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Congress had questioned the rationale behind Modis surprise visit to Lahore to meet his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif to go with its general criticism of the PMs frequent foreign trips. The FIR will be a key tool for the BJP to counter the impending Opposition attack on the government in Parliament over the Pathankot attack. According to the BJP, the FIR is a result of the governments diplomatic efforts with Pakistan to act on the perpetrators responsible for the terrorist attack. Any step towards punishing those behind the act of terror is a positive indication, BJP spokesperson Nalin Kohli said. He, however, insisted that Pakistan must punish the mastermind and the actual perpetrators of the incident. Congress chief whip in the Lok Sabha, Jyotiraditya Scindia, said, We are going to bring up the Pathankot terror attack in Parliament. There is no doubt about it. Even the FIR is wishy-washy. Your (the governments) policy is one of flip-flops and multiple U-turns. First you say there will be no talks (after the Pakistani high commissioner met a Hurriyat leader). Then you talk. Then you say no talks until some action is taken. There has to be a method in your system. Bhartruhari Mahtab, leader of the BJD otherwise supportive of the NDA government said the key question was the security lapse. How did the terrorists came in? The government has to answer that first, he said, indicating an aggressive stance. The CPI(M)s Mohammed Salim and the Trinamools Saugata Roy both maintained that the FIR meant nothing and the BJP would come under attack for its Pakistan policy. Delhi Police on Friday evening registered an FIR on the complaint of JNU student Umar Khalids family who claimed that they were receiving threat calls from gangster Ravi Pujari. Police have provided security to the family at their south-east Delhi residence. Khalids father Syed Qasim Ilyas said that at around 5.30pm, his secretary received a call on the office landline. The caller identified himself as Ravi Pujari and accused us of hiding Khalid. He said my son has been to Pakistan, which was again incorrectly reported by the media. The caller gave me a number and asked me to give it to my son. I checked the number on Truecaller and found it to be that of Ravi Pujari, said Syed. Sources said that preliminary investigation has revealed that the calls were supposedly made via VOIP. Police suspect that the caller may have got the number of Khalids family from the party offices website. Syed is the President of the Welfare Party of India. A case of criminal intimidation under 506 IPC has been registered. Meanwhile, police on Friday continued their search for Khalid, absconding since JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumars arrest. Police teams conducted raids in Delhi, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh and other states. Syed said he had no idea of his sons whereabouts. I last spoke to him after watching his interview on a television channel. After watching the interview, I sensed he will get into trouble. So I called him and asked him to come home. But he was confident that there will be no motivated campaign against him, Syed said. There were media reports claiming that Khalids cell phone records revealed that he had made over 800 calls, including many to Kashmir. The reports also suggested that he had made calls to Bangladesh and visited universities across the country days before the protest. However, no Delhi police officer came on record to confirm the reports. Syed also clarified he was a member of the Students Islamic Movement of India in the 1980s but he said SIMI was not a banned organization then. My membership expired in 1985. It has been more than 31 years. Why is that being used to target my son? he said. Khalids younger sister Kulsum Fatima has also received hate messages and threat messages on her social media profile. Delhi Police on Friday also detained and questioned a journalist about the whereabouts of Khalid. Jawaharlal Nehru University student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, arrested for alleged sedition, will spend the weekend in jail after the Supreme Court refused on Friday to entertain his bail plea. The top court said approaching it directly would set a dangerous precedent and asked him to move the Delhi high court, admitting the atmosphere in the trial court was not congenial to let his counsel go there. Kanhaiyas counsel rushed to the high court with the plea around 3PM. They could not get a hearing after the registry raised some technical objections. Sources said the petition would be heard on February 22. A mob of lawyers assaulted Kanhaiya during his appearance at Patiala House courts on Wednesday and repeatedly beat up journalists they thought were not suitably patriotic. In the presence of police personnel, the lawyers openly threatened to lynch Kanhaiya and some of them went on to appear in self-congratulatory media interviews. On Friday, hundreds of defiant lawyers staged a demonstration near the India Gate to assert they would physically assault anyone they deemed anti-national. The lawyers included Vikram Singh Chauhan, the face of the attacks, and Yashpal Singh against whom police issued summons in connection with the court assaults on Monday and Wednesday. The demonstrating lawyers insisted media personnel chant slogans of Bharat mata ki jai if they wanted a quote. High court Bar Association president Rajiv Khosla urged lawyers to maintain peace and condemned the violence unleashed by them. But Chauhan and Singh appeared unfazed and said they would not think twice before acting against anti-national elements. Asked why he did not appear before police as summons were served on him, Chauhan said, I will act as per instructions given by my seniors. We will keep attacking the anti-nationals no matter what. We will not tolerate any insult to our motherland. Let police issue summons against us, one of Chauhans colleagues told news agency PTI. Earlier in the day, the Supreme Court asked the high court to decide Kanhaiyas bail plea expeditiously. You are leading a dangerous proposition. If this court will entertain it (bail plea bypassing courts below it), it will become a precedent which will be available to all the accused in the country, a bench comprising justices J Chelameswar and AM Sapre told Kanhaiyas counsel, explaining why bail would not be granted by the top court. Wherever there will be sensitive cases involving political persons or prominent persons or others... you know the atmosphere in the court. So in every case it will be said that Supreme Court is the only court (to hear the matter). This would be a dangerous precedent, the bench noted. Under the rules, bail can be sought first only from a sessions court and then the high court. One can approach the top court only after the two subordinate courts decline bail. Orders were issued to Delhi Police to ensure the counsel got adequate protection during hearings. Solicitor general Ranjit Kumar gave an undertaking to the court that the Centre and Delhi Police would make all the necessary arrangements for smooth conduct of the proceedings. Meanwhile, a local court rejected the bail application of Delhi University professor SAR Geelani, arrested on sedition charges for allegedly organising an event at the Press Club of India to mark the death anniversary of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. Metropolitan magistrate Harvinder Singh dismissed the bail plea of Geelani, who was on Thursday sent to judicial custody till March 3. Full Coverage: JNU in turmoil SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON She draws big crowds with her eloquent speeches at Left-leaning meetings. And her politically-flavoured messages are shared by thousands on social media. Meet comrade Shehla Rashid Shora, a girl from downtown Srinagar, who has emerged as a prominent voice of the ongoing agitation demanding release of Kanhaiya Kumar, the JNU students union president facing sedition charges. Twenty-seven-year old Shehla came under the spotlight for the first time on February 14 when a 14-minute video surfaced, showing her giving a speech to a gathering of protesting students. The fierce speech followed a protest march by over 3,000 people on JNU campus. Watch Shehla Rashids speech: They ask us what do you want azaadi from, what type of azaadi do you want? Today we will define this azaadi, this entire country wants azaadi from WTO (World Trade Organisation), from casteism, from discriminatory laws, she said in the February 14 speech. Shehla hails from Srinagars Habba Kadal locality, the hub of Kashmirs political turmoil for more than two decades now. Her mother -- a nurse in Srinagars SK Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS)-- and elder sister live back home. Read More | JNU to Kashmir: The anatomy of protests and right to freedom of speech More than self, Shehla prefers to talk about the issue that has hogged national headlines. I do not want to tell anything about myself, she said. In one Facebook post, she explains her agenda. Two years of activism in JNU and my political training has taught me to stand up for the most vulnerable, for the last man. It has taught me to address the inconvenient and controversial issues. Shehlas Left leanings are not too old. In one of her posts on her blog, in 2013, she wished Muslims on the birthday of Prophet Mohammad while explaining the feminist aspect of the Prophet. After graduating in computer engineering from NIT, Srinagar, Shehla studied political leadership at IIM Bangalore. At JNU, she is pursuing MPhil in Law and Governance. Her friends said that JNU provided her a much-needed platform which created the activist in her. She contested the election for Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH) in JNU in 2015 which she lost. In September the same year, she won the election for vice-presidents post of JNUSU as a nominee of the Left-backed All-India Students Association (AISA) defeating Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishads Valentina Brahma. After the Delhi Police arrested Kanhaiya Kumar, Shehla, the vice-president, took charge of leading the protest. We stand with Kanhaiya, Rama, Ashutosh, Anant, Umar and Anirban. We are campaigning for the release of Kanhaiya so that we can together, fight against the sedition charges imposed on the other five people, so that we can together fight against the academic suspension of all the 8 students, so that we can lead this movement together, reads one of her posts. Read More | Unusual silence on JNU campus but students say wont be silenced On Thursday, Shehlas call for the JNU Solidarity March received overwhelming support on social networking sites. Her Facebook wall was filled with messages in support of the march, not just against Kanhaiya Kumars arrest but also against the states attitude towards students. 15,000 people marched through the streets of Delhi today in defence of JNU. Arrest them all, they are all seditious. Media wont report this, she said. Police put the number at 5,000. Prior to the JNU turmoil, Shehla worked on gender issues, human rights, juvenile justice and free speech. She was also a prominent face during the Occupy-UGC protest in November last year. I condemn the relentless media trial of Umar Khalid and I would like to make it very clear that every student is equally innocent until proven guilty, she said. Read More | My son targeted as he is a Muslim: Absconding JNU students father SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Electoral success is all about getting the simple things right. But in the complex web of Keralas politics, it has never been simple arithmetic as the state has never elected the ruling party for a second term. Assembly elections in the state are due in two months and analysts point towards the possibility of a fierce three-cornered contest between the ruling Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), the CPI (M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF), and the BJP. However, it is not that simple either. Not for the BJP, at least. Kerala is yet to elect a BJP legislator though the state has more than 4,500 branches of the partys ideological mentor, the RSS, and 70 other Hindu organisations. In its quest for a foothold in the state, the BJP has waded into the complex game of wooing those Hindu organisations which have aligned alternately with UDF or LDF. Also, since Muslims and Christians have a considerable say in the UDF coalition, the BJP is eyeing consolidation of the Hindu voters who constitute 55% of the states population -- to end its political drought. We are in touch with many organisations and community leaders. We will give both fronts a run for their money, said BJP leader Shobha Surendran. An influential organisation of the backward community Ezhavas, too, has sided with the saffron party. The Ezhavas make up 20% of the population and has traditionally been Left-leaning. In the just-concluded local body poll, the BJP managed a 15.6% vote share, a significant rise from the 6% it got in 2010 which, party leaders believe, is a sign of a state ready to move beyond its bipolar 140-member assembly. But that is not even half of the story. The two big players in the arena, the Left and the Congress, have strong bases, cadre strength, popular leaders, seemingly right allies, and a tried-and-tested caste formula in the state that has 27 per cent Muslims and 18 per cent Christians. Chief minister Oommen Chandy, 72, is an MLA for the past 46 years and has never lost an election. On paper, he is also the Congress best bet. But never before has Chandy faced such damning corruption charges. Newspapers, television channels and social media in Kerala are buzzing with news about a solar scam throwing in salacious details about prime suspect Saritha Nairs connections to the ruling party and midnight phone calls to political leaders. Chandys plea that the state exchequer lost no money in the scam is lost in the din of opposition charges. The government is already under pressure in a bar license scam after the senior most minister in the Chandy cabinet KM Mani from the Kerala Congress stepped down over the issue. Congress is also known for its factionalism in Kerala. The rival group has already said the party should go to elections under a Hindu leader. Chandy, a Syrian Orthodox Christian, heads a coalition where the second and third largest constituents are Muslim League and Kerala Congress (Mani), mostly a Christian party. Chandy said the oppositions allegations will not affect the UDFs prospects. We will go to the people citing our five years work. Other than worn out slogans what else can the Left offer? And (the) BJP has already exposed its bad face. We have got every chance of another term, Chandy said. But even the most die-hard Congress supporter will agree, it is not so simple. For the CPM, the problem lies in something which communist parties are not usually known for too many leaders eyeing the post of chief minister. Former party state secretary Pinaryi Vijayan and present boss of the state CPM Kodiyeri Balakrishnan are waiting for their chance. Then there is politburo member MA Baby and former state finance minister Thomas Issac. But many in the party agree that even at the age of 92, VS Achuthanandan remains their most popular and influential leader. People are waiting for an opportunity to dump one of the most corrupt governments the state has ever seen. Its place is in waste basket now, Achuthanandan said. Though the electoral arithmetic promises a close fight this time, Keralas elections have always been the story of a tight finish. In the 2011 elections, the ruling UDF got 72 seats with 45.83% of the vote share and LDF won 44.9% to bag 68 seats. In other words, just 1.68 lakh votes separated the winners and losers. In 35 assembly segments, the margin of victory was 5,000, reflecting the swing potential of these constituencies this year. The students who raised anti-national slogans at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus lacked moral ethics, defence minister Manohar Parrikar said on Friday. This incident took place because the students, who raised anti-national slogans in the JNU lacked moral ethics, Parrikar told the media in Mumbai. The Supreme Court was to hear the bail petition of JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who has been arrested on charges of sedition. Kanhaiya had on Thursday moved a petition before the apex court seeking his release from police custody under Article 32 of the Constitution. Kanhaiya stated in the plea that he fear for the safety of life and limb at the Delhi sessions court that had compelled him to approach the apex court directly. Kanhaiyas bail petition will be argued by former attorney general Soli Sorabjee. Kanhaiya has in his petition said there is repeated breakdown of law and order at the Patiala House Court despite directives of the apex court, making it impossible for him and his lawyers to approach the sessions court for bail. The Modi government is looking to address a worrying agrarian crisis with a set of schemes and Budget provisions aimed at ramping up the larger rural economy, rather than just the farm sector, people familiar with the development told HT. Budget 2015-2016 is likely to provide for a more effective Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayin Yojana, a flagship scheme announced last year to create irrigation infrastructure, with substantially higher allocations. The scheme, which had failed to make much headway because it was strewn across several ministries, is likely to be consolidated and given a mission mode under a single command, an official said. A back-to-back drought and falling commodity prices have hurt rural earnings, impacting the livelihoods of nearly half of all Indians who depend on a farm income in Asias third largest economy. Read More | Nearly half of Indias districts drought-hit as crisis accelerates On February 21, the Modi government will kick off the Rurban Mission, a new scheme to create non-farm employment for rural youth by creating urban centres, which will act like employment hubs. The budget is likely to set aside sufficient funds for it. In his review meetings with the rural development ministry, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stressed employment generation as the key focus area, the official added. According to a Cabinet note, the first phase will target creation of 100 such job-spinning centres that will have the hard infrastructure for generating economic activity, such as roads, power and digital connectivity. The overall target will be to create 300 such zones. The budget is also likely to inject money for rural housing to kick off the rural component of the Modi governments mission for housing for all by 2022. Rural housing units should last at least 40 years without much damage to the structure, according to the proposed new guidelines. The current amount of Rs 70,000 for Indira Awaas Yojana, the governments free housing scheme, is insufficient and the rural affairs ministry expects higher infusion of funds in the budget needed to achieve a target 30 million dwelling units. Read More | New Central insurance scheme to rescue farms from April The irrigation programme will bundle all ongoing schemes such as the accelerated irrigation benefit programme of the water resources ministry, integrated watershed management programme of the department of land resources and on farm water management component of National Mission on Sustainable Agriculture of the farm ministry into a consolidated programme. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav is getting Twitter savvy ahead of the 2017 assembly elections, leaving no stone unturned in connecting with people through social media. The 42-year-old leader is increasingly using his personal handle @yadavakhilesh with 837,000 followers and official account @CMOfficeUP to announce compensation cheques or gifts to victims. When Snapdeal employee Dipti Sarna was abducted last week, generating massive media buzz, Akhilesh quickly sprung into action. He responded to Snapdeal CEO Kunal Bahl and the viral hashtag #HelpFindDipti to find the Ghaziabad resident. UPCM @yadavakhilesh has instructed SSP GZB to personally head the search operation of #HelpFindDipti. Several teams formed, read a tweet from @CMofficeUP. UPCM @yadavakhilesh has instructed SSP GZB to personally head the search operation of #HelpFindDipti .Several teams formed. CM Office, GoUP (@CMOfficeUP) February 11, 2016 The CM tweeted instructions to state police headquarters and top officials to monitor the search operations progress. Akhilesh even sent instructions to the Ghaziabad administration through Twitter, #UPCM @yadavakhilesh also instructs local Admn to ensure lighting in crowded places with immediate effect. #HelpFindDipti The CM office used a tweet to announce that Sarna had been found unharmed. Akhilesh wasnt this active on Twitter even last year but now is aggressively ramping up his social media footprint, possibly realising its power in propelling politicians such as Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal to election victories. On Thursday, he celebrated 100,000 followers on @CMOfficeUP by tweeting One lakh followers & counting! #Thankyou for being a part of our journey to become a #digitally active #government. One lakh followers & counting! #Thankyou for being a part of our journey to become a #digitally active #government. pic.twitter.com/eMYmq0FXN4 CM Office, GoUP (@CMOfficeUP) February 18, 2016 On February 13, Akhilesh posted a picture of Ghaziabads only female autorickshaw driver Ruby Singhal and her children on his Twitter account. Seeing Ghaziabad residents initiative of collecting money to help Singhal buy an auto, Akhilesh chipped in to help Singhal, followed by a tweet from his own handle @yadavakhilesh, We gave an autorickshaw to Ruby Singhal, the lady auto driver who was refused insurance money for her damaged auto. We gave an auto rickshaw to Ruby Singhal, the lady auto driver who was refused insurance money for her damaged auto. pic.twitter.com/LGE8znWgjd Akhilesh Yadav (@yadavakhilesh) February 13, 2016 Ruby Singhal had lost her two autos due to a freak fire incident on the night of January 6. In quick succession on February 18, @UPCMOffice tweeted early morning, #UPCM announces for medical expenses incurred during the treatment of Commander Rajesh Singh to be borne by @UPGovt. It was a pinned post on its twitter feed throughout the day. #UPCM announces for medical expenses incurred during the treatment of Commander Rajesh Singh to be borne by @UPGovt. pic.twitter.com/G8dJCvLG6J CM Office, GoUP (@CMOfficeUP) February 17, 2016 The injured National Security Guard commando is from Ghaziabad and the CMs tweet also announced a compensation of Rs 1 lakh. Social media has changed the equations of political patronage in the state. A decade ago, a resident of Noida, Ghaziabad or other western UP towns found it difficult to get heard in Lucknow due to geographical distance. Twitter and Facebook has bridged that gap. On #UPCM @yadavakhilesh instructions, the street lights& CCTV have installed around GZBVaishali metro station-DM GZB pic.twitter.com/xDuLYNEypQ Government of UP (@UPGovt) February 12, 2016 Last year, the CMs wife, Dimple Yadav, saw a social media post about a boy studying under streetlights outside a Noida Metro station. He kept a weighing machine next to him for funding his education. Moved by the post, Dimple requested the CM to help him. Akhilesh announced financial assistance of Rs 5 lakh to 13-year-old Harendra Singh Chauhan and even met the teen , gifting him a bicycle so that the boy could go to school. Read More: UP govt steps in to help Noida teen, CM sanctions Rs 5 lakh On August 28 last year, Akhilesh read about a UP postmaster who was building a Taj Mahal for his late wife and was unable to complete it due to lack of funds. Akhilesh met the 80-year-old retired postmaster Faizul Hasan Qadri and expressed his desire to help him financially. Qadri turned down the offer and requested the CM to build a girls college in his village and repair a road instead. Read: This retired UP postmaster built a Taj Mahal for his Mumtaz The CM immediately ordered officials to allocate Rs 40 lakh for the road and other development projects in the village. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON India and South Asia-related centres in eight leading British universities have condemned the police presence on the campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University, and urged its vice-chancellor to protect the academic community. The centres said in a statement they were watching with increasing concern the events unfolding at JNU, including the detention and suspension of students. We see the police action on the JNU campus on February 12, 2016 as a direct attack on JNUs internationally renowned tradition of critical thinking, dissent, scholarship, and debate, the statement said. The centres include those at Cambridge, Oxford, School of Oriental and African Studies, London School of Economics, Edinburgh, Nottingham, East Anglia and Kings College London. JNU has been at the centre of a storm since police arrested students union leader Kanhaiya Kumar on a charge of sedition following an event organised last week to protest the execution of Afzal Guru for his role in the 2001 attack on parliament. We condemn the presence of police on campus and the harassment of students on the basis of their political beliefs. We also note that the recent events at JNU are a further demonstration of the fact that universities have a duty of care to protect their students, following on from the tragic suicide of Rohith Vemula at the University of Hyderabad, the statement said. It added: An open, tolerant, and democratic society is inextricably linked to the freedoms of thought and expression cultivated by universities in India and abroad. We have long valued JNU for its critical imagination and critical scholarship, which have been nurtured by the plurality of political beliefs and activism on its campus. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON The Sahar police on Friday arrested a US national after CISF personnel found a live bullet in his possession at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport. The man, Christopher Martin, who hails from Connecticut, was to be on a flight to Dubai. Martin, 42, was undergoing a security check at the airport around 2AM when the Central Industrial Security Force found a live bullet belonging to a handgun in his possession. Martin was then handed over to the Sahar police. After they were alerted of the cartridge, the Sahar police registered a case against Martin under sections 5 (license for arms and ammunition) and 25 (punishment for certain offences of the Indian Arms Act). Martin was subsequently placed under arrest. During questioning, Martin told police he was not aware that it was unlawful to carry ammunition while boarding a flight in India. He was produced before a metropolitan court that remanded him to a one day police custody. The arrest of a family member usually brings gloom, but the mood in the house of SIMI activist Zakir, who was arrested from Odisha, is anything but sombre. I am happy that he (Zakir) was caught alive, as now I can meet and see him (in jail), said Salma Bi, mother of Zakir Hussain. Zakir was caught along with three other operatives of the banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) in Rourkela district of Odisha on Wednesday. Zakir and three others including Sheikh Mehboob alias Guddu and Amjad (who were among the six SIMI men who escaped from Khandwa Jail in October 2013) and Mohammed Saliq alias Sallu, another SIMI operative from Khandwa district, were arrested in a joint operation by different security agencies. Speaking to Hindustan Times, a day after her sons arrest, Salma Bi, who lives in a slum behind Sales Tax colony in Khandwa town said, I am more relieved and happy as he was caught alive. After Nalgonda (Telengana) encounter on April 9, 2015, I was a bit worry about my sons fate. But now at least I can see and meet him in any jail, Salma added. Two SIMI operatives, Aijajuddeen and Aslam, were gunned down by Nalgonda police in the encounter. Claiming that her son is innocent, she said, My son is not involved in any terror activity. Six SIMI operatives had escaped from Tantya Bheel Jail of Khandwa district on October 1, 2013, and Zakir and two others were eluding arrest ever since. On being contacted, Khandwa superintendent of police (SP), MS Sikarwar said that one team was rushed to Rourkela with documents to identify them. Soon we will bring all the SIMI members to Khandwa for interrogation. In November 2015, National Investigation Agency (NIA) pasted posters of the four absconding SIMI operatives in various part of Khandwa district besides announcing cash reward of Rs10 lakh. At that time, sources had said that the absconding SIMI operatives, who also have connections with Indian Mujahiddin, were seen in Maharashtra. Miruthan Director: Shakti Soundar Rajan Cast: Jayam Ravi, Lakshmi Menon Rating: 2/5 Shakti Soundar Rajans Miruthan, probably the first zombie adventure in Tamil, is by no means novel in the world of cinema. As early as 1932, Hollywood popularised Voodoo magic through this genre with the film White Zombie. Several others came in following decades including I Walked with a Zombie, The Plague of the Zombies and Night of the Living Dead. Japan is better known in this genre; in fact roots of zombie movies can be traced back to the Edo and Meiji periods in which ghost stories were part of the folklore. However, for an essentially Tamil-speaking population - most of which does not have access to Hollywood cinema, let alone Japanese fare - Miruthan could be an experience. Perhaps taking a cue from Japanese filmmakers who invariably infuse comical elements into their zombie dramas, Rajan has laced his movie with humour (mercifully not of the stupid variety I often see in Tamil cinema) and a hint of romance. So, if at all Miruthan attracts ticket-paying audiences, it will most likely be on the strength of its wit and love. Read: Thani Oruvan turning out to be Jayam Ravis biggest hit Watch Miruthans trailer here: Otherwise, the film is a tired story with gory, hideous faces, glazed eyes and blood, not to mention a storyline that annoys. An accidental spill of radioactive material in Ooty leads to a dog turning feral, exhibiting symptoms of rabies (hydrophobia, etc). When the rabid animal bites a man, transforming him into a cannibalistic zombie, it sets off a chain of unimaginably gruesome events, stretching as far as Coimbatore. Dozens and dozens of men turn into zombies within hours, while a team of doctors try to develop a vaccine overnight (seriously?). Jil Jung Juck review: A stretched second half spoils the show Enter young woman doctor (played by Lakshmi Menon) who collects samples from dead zombies in Ooty and tries to reach Coimbatore at the foothills to help the vaccine development. A traffic cop, Karthick (Jayam Ravi) who has secretly been in love with the doctor, tries to help her reach Coimbatore through the pack of blood-thirsty zombies. Miruthan offers ample opportunities for our policeman to indulge in heroics -- shooting zombies dead as if he were Bond with a licence to kill. And Karthick never seems to run out of bullets with hundreds of them flying out of his pistol and rifle. Replete with a dhoti-clad politician (who fancies that he has enough clout to even command zombies), a sidekick to the hero and a selfish fiance, Miruthan, like many Tamil movies, tries to pack too many sub-plots, cluttering the main narrative. Anjala review: A lovely subject treated carelessly Miruthan offers ample opportunities for our policeman (Jayam Ravi) to indulge in heroics--shooting zombies dead as if he were Bond with a licence to kill. (Miruthan/Facebook) The use of ear-shattering sounds and sudden bursts of ghostly zombies on screen does little to add to the terror element. What an outdated technique. The cast salvages some of the film. Menon does present an above average performance as a medical professional who values life, even it happens to be a zombie. But Ravi, in all fairness, has little scope other than to play a hero in the traditional sense of the term -- knocking down zombies with his bare fists and/or pumping bullets into them. He appears bereft of emotion, except when his kid sister is in danger. On a side note, Miruthan has been passed with an UA, despite the producers demand for U, a rating that would have given Rajans work an exemption from tax. But surely, Miruthan is NOT suitable for young children. ott:10:ht-entertainment_listing-desktop Neerja Cast: Sonam Kapoor, Shabana Azmi, Yogendra Tiku, Shekhar Ravjiani Director: Ram Madhvani Rating: 4/5 We know Neerja Bhanots story, but are curious nevertheless to see how it unfolds on the silver screen. Will the director go in for over-dramatic scenes in the name of creative liberty? Or, are we going to witness a film that is too filmy to be inspired by real events? Perhaps the brickbats a recent film faced prompted the filmmakers to flash a disclaimer at the start: The film is not a biography or a documentary on the brave Pan Am air hostess. For a second, it almost seems like a warning. Pan Am Flight 73 was hijacked on September 5, 1986. (YouTube) But minutes into the film, all doubts are swept away. The movie is likely to be memorable for most, especially for Sonam Kapoor fans. The film is set on September 5, 1986, when the ill-fated Pan Am Flight 73 takes off from then-Bombay. Neerja Bhanot (Sonam Kapoor), flying as chief purser for the first time, is readying for her morning flight while four terrorists affiliated to Palestines Abu Nidal Organisation are offering their last prayer in Lyari, Karachi. (Lyari is still one of the most dreaded places in the South Asia region.) Read: Listen to Neerja Bhanots last flight announcement before she was shot Read: Her dads Ladli and an answer to his prayers Read: Goodbye Lado, please keep coming The terrorists manage to board the flight with their ammunition, but the full extent of their plan is reduced when Neerja alerts the pilots, who run away. The real trouble then becomes the boarding zone where 360 passengers are left at the mercy of some trigger happy cynics. Here is where an ordinary model-turned-air hostess rises to the occasion and the rest is history. Watch | Neerja movie review Neerja shows Madhvanis meticulous planning as a director, even though it tilts in favour of some melodrama. The film arrives straight to the point and starts building a tension that remains with the audience till the end. Parallel narratives between Mumbai and Karachi bring out the conflict that ensues, and you subconsciously begin rooting for Neerja. Sonam Kapoor in a still from Neerja. (Youtube grab) Madhvani adds personality to Neerja through her family: Her mother Rama (Shabana Azmi), father Harish (Yogendra Tiku) and two brothers absolutely adore Neerja and her zest for life. She is shown as a well adjusted happy person, but little do we know that Neerja carries a past that tugs at the heart. Madhvani shows his craft at this juncture by portraying a vulnerable heroine with a composed exterior. Here, the power of a good script is also evident. Actors know their marks and bring out little details with ease. At 122-minutes, the film stretches towards the end, but you are helplessly ensnared in its magic. The writer has crafted Neerja in such a way that most of her personality traits become visible: Neerja loves Rajesh Khanna, so does her family, and this star-fan connection becomes a defining moment in the film. You just marvel at the lucidity with which it happens. Its an effectively narrated story that we all know, for why else will you look forward to unraveling a plot that has been widely documented. It makes you rise and salute Neerja, the extraordinary story of an ordinary person. Read other film reviews here Read: I remember her as joyful person, complete music freak, says Neerjas brother Read: With 4.70 cr opening day, Neerja starts on an impressive note And, who could sum it up better than her favourite star Kaka: Zindagi lambi nahi badi honiye chahiye babu moshay (Anand, 1971). In these times of misinterpreted jingoism, Neerja teaches us the real meaning of standing tall. Neerja is a milestone in Sonam Kapoors career. Not just because its a good film, but because she carries it entirely on her shoulder. She looks earnest, scared, benevolent and bold, all at the same time. You should see her in the scene where a terrorist frisks her: She aces it with a panache seldom seen in mainstream Hindi films. Shabana Azmi is very impressive as Neerjas mother, her grip over emotional scenes are quite visible. The other person who deserves applause is Yogendra Tiku who plays Neerjas father. The emotions reflect so swiftly on his face that you can see your dear ones there. Listen: The real voice of Neerja Bhanot Such films where the filmmakers need to work in the same time and space zone are difficult to execute, but youll be surprised at the finesse with which Madhvani has shown most sides of Neerjas personality. She falls, rises, falls again and rises again, until she emerges as that one name which will be associated with Pan Am Flight 73 forever. (Interact with Rohit Vats at Twitter/@nawabjha) ott:10:ht-entertainment_listing-desktop SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Continuing its protest against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress has once again decided not to participate in the Chandigarh Rose Festival starting tomorrow. The three-day event which will be chaired by mayor Arun Sood or city member of Parliament Kirron Kher. Chandigarh municipal corporation councillors belonging to the Congress, who held a meeting on Thursday said: We have taken this decision as since past two months, BJP councillors have been showing arrogance both in the MC House and outside. Former mayor and Congress leader Subhash Chawla said: Its strange that they dont allow us to speak in the House, but now they are talking of honouring us. We have decided to boycott the events at the Rose Festival. We do not want any award from the mayor and the MP as residents are our best award. Former Congress mayor Poonam Sharma said: The BJP councillors dont know how to behave with former mayors in the House. We will visit the Rose Festival as visitors and not as guests. If the BJP continues with its attitude, the Congress will not participate in any event chaired by the mayor or any BJP leader. Interacting with the media on Wednesday, mayor Arun Sood had said: We will honour former mayors and present councillors at the Rose Festival. Ever since the BJP swept the mayoral polls, Congress councillors have been boycotting all functions organised by the MC where Arun Sood is in the chief guest. They also boycotted the lunch during the last MC meeting on January 29. Even congress councillor Subhash Chawla, who is also a member of the MC finance and contracts committee, boycotted the panel meet held on February 4. When contacted, city mayor Arun Sood said: We dont know why are they protesting now. Moreover, its a prestigious festival of the city. As far as honouring former mayors is concerned, maximum mayors are from the Congress only. I have sent invitations personally and even called them. I think they have not digested their defeat in the mayoral elections. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON In a boost to Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MP Bhagwant Mann, AAP convener and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal will begin his four-day Punjab tour from the comedian-turned politicians constituency, Sangrur, on February 25. During his visit, Kejriwal would focus on key state issues such as drug addiction, farmer suicides, agricultural crisis, and the high-handedness of the police and civil administration. He would also tour the districts of Mansa, Bathinda, Ferozepur, Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Ludhiana and Mandi Gobindgarh. Kejriwal aide Durgesh Pathak told HT on phone that the AAP convener would address road shows in some cities and towns. He is expected to visit families of farmers who committed suicide and the kin of drug addicts. He is also likely to meet farmers in the border districts of Amritsar and Ferozepur, besides industrialists of Mandi Gobindgarh. Mann and state AAP convener Sucha Singh Chhotepur would accompany Kejriwal during the tour. Sources said he would visit more in the run-up to the 2017 assembly polls. . Over two months after she was allegedly abducted and raped, neither the police have added the section of rape in the FIR registered against the accused who had abducted her nor they have been arrested. The victim, 19, a Class-9 student, claimed, after the horrific incident, she gave up her studies. Mahila Adhikar Manch national president Dharmawati Mishra has also demanded the accused should be arrested immediately. The family members of the victim also stated that despite raising the matter before senior police officials several times, their pleas felt on deaf ears. The girl, a resident of Anandpura Mohalla of Basti Jodhewal, was allegedly abducted from her house on December 1 night last year. In her complaint, the victim stated the main accused, Karamtulla, a native of Basbeetha village, Bihar, used to force her to befriend with him, though she always denied. On December 1 night, the accused, along with his accomplices Naeem, Sushant, Salayuddin, Shehzad alias Gora and Jakarullah, allegedly abducted her, saying Karamtulla had consumed poison in Delhi after she refused his proposal. His accomplices told me Karamtullah had consumed poison and needed money for treatment and forced me to steal away Rs 32,000 from my house. Then they took me to a house in Delhi, where Karamtulla was already present, and was fit and fine,stated the victim in her complaint. They kept me in a room and raped me repeatedly. On December 7, my parents rescued me from Delhi, while Karamtulla managed to escape,she added. A case under Sections 363 (punishment for kidnapping) and 366A (procuration of minor girl) of the IPC was registered at the Basti Jodhewal police station on December 2, 2015, though the rape section was not added even after recording the complainants statements. Meanwhile, assistant sub-inspector (ASI) Naresh Kumar, investigating officer, said there was a contradiction in the statements of the victim recorded in the court and with the police. An appropriate action will be taken after taking opinion from the district attorney. The police have also been waiting for the medical examination report of the victim to add the rape sections. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Accusing Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi of supporting anti-national students at Delhis Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Punjab BJP leader and former minister Manoranjan Kalia said here that Rahul should be sent to Pakistan. What Rahul Gandhi has done is anti-national. The country does not need such leaders. He should be sent to Pakistan, said Kalia, while he also questioned Rahuls meeting with President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday, saying that the move was only meant to defend himself. If Rahul was indeed doing the right thing, then why did he have to clarify that nationalism runs in his blood? He considers himself to be a claimant to the PMs office and he is supporting those who raise slogans against this country? How can such a person lead the country? Kalia asked. BJP workers led by Punjab party chief Kamal Sharma burnt an effigy of Rahul. Since Congress is losing its nationwide support base, Rahul Gandhi has started supporting anti-nationals. How far will he go to gain political mileage? Sharma said, adding that the country will not tolerate such a leader. A total of three gangsters were nabbed, two of whom were taken away by the Nawanshahr cops while the third arrested by the local police was identified as Gurpreet Singh alias Laddi, a resident of Sherkhan village in Ferozepur district. The two accused taken into custody by Nawanshehar police were identified as Arjun, a resident of Kapoori Gate, Batala, and Heera Masih, a resident of Kalian village here. Eyewitnesses said at around 4.30pm, some people in khaki trousers and black jackets came on a white Maruti Suzuki Ertiga car and parked it outside the petrol pump. After waiting for a while, they drove their car right to the middle of the road and stopped a white Mahindra Scorpio (HR-26AF- 1277) coming from Jalandhar side with three occupants. The policemen overpowered them and tried to push them into their car but one of the car occupants suddenly opened fire at the policemen and ran towards adjoining Guru Teg Bahadur Nagar, a densely populated residential colony. An injured policeman took the pistol of his companion and tried to chase him. The alleged gangster entered the narrow lanes of the colony and again fired at the cop. On this, the policemen also retaliated in which the gangster was injured, but he managed to escape. Later, the police team took two of the gangsters in their car and left towards Mehta Chowk along with the Scorpio. The local police sounded an alert in the area and during a search operation they arrested the gangster, Gurpreet Singh, near the local bus stand. The cops identified him as he had a bullet injury on his leg and took him in custody. He was rushed to the civil hospital from where he was referred to Amritsar. All the three accused were members of the Jaggu Bhagwanpuria gang. Recently, they along with others helped one of their aides, Akul Khatri, escape from police custody in Nawanshahr. Since then, police teams of Nawanshehar and Hoshiarpur were searching from them. The Batala senior superintendent of police was not available for comments even after repeated attempts. Interestingly, the incident took place at a distance of 100 metres from a permanent police check-post. City police station house officer (SHO) Gurpinder Singh was present at the checkpost when the shooting took place. Surprisingly, local police had no clue about the shootout. It was only after some mediapersons questioned Batala senior superintendent of police (SSP) Daljinder Singh about the firing that he dispatched a team of cops to the spot. Punjab revenue minister Bikram Singh Majithia on Thursday claimed that the financial health of the state is good and it is just the opposition parties that want to project a bad picture to people. He said this while distributing pensions to the beneficiaries of old-age pension. Speaking on the occasion, Majithia said Punjab is the only state in the country that would distribute Rs 86.25 crore to more than 17 lakh beneficiaries in a single day every month. He said chief minister Parkash Singh Badal has set aside a corpus of ` 1000 crore for the old-age pension scheme so that there should not be any disruption in the payment of pensions to the elderly. The minister accused the opposition parties of spreading lies about the financial situation of Punjab. He said they were doing disservice to their own state by scaring away investors. Majithia said the state exchequer was full of funds and the Punjab government has already expedited development works running into thousands of crores. Describing the Khadoor Sahib bypoll results a befitting reply to the opponents, Majithia said it was just a beginning. He said the Congress and the AAP build castles in the air. A recent survey on road infrastructure in the country was an apparent example of development in which Punjab ranked second after Kerala, he added. Majit hi a distributed enhanced pensions to 50 beneficiaries during the function. He also announced that now sarpanches in the villages would distribute the pensions to beneficiaries and the amounts would be directly transacted to the accounts of panchayats. Rs 6.27 crore would be disbursed to more than 1.25 lakh beneficiaries every month in Amritsar district, he said. MEET OFFICIALS IF NEED HELP, SAYS ANIL JOSHI PATHANKOT: Punjab local bodies minister Anil Joshi on Thursday asked the old-age pension beneficiaries to meet the officials concerned if they were not getting their dues due to technical glitches and sort out the matter. Addressing a state- level pension programme here, the minister said the officials concerned have been directed to help those who need their help by all means. He said the state government had announced to double the pension from Rs 250 to Rs 500 and the amount was being transferred to the departments concerned He said nearly 17 lakh people are benefitting from this in the state and Rs 84.25 crore was being spent every month for this. He said work on pending road projects will be started soon in the district. MLA Ashwani Sharma claimed that the auditorium of Gover nment College, Pathankot, was near complete and classes would start in the coming session. Later, Joshi also heard the grievances of local residents and asked the officials to resolve the same. Voters in an online poll have crowned the city of Zadar, Croatia the best city to visit in Europe this year, thanks to its seaside location, ancient Roman ruins, and dramatic coastline. This years list of top 10 destinations is made up of smaller, quieter and sun-soaked destinations, many of which are hardly household names. Read: From Vienna to Rome, heres how you backpack across Europe on a budget Over three weeks, the public was invited to cast their choice in an online poll on the best destinations in Europe. Respondents from 179 countries cast nearly 289,000 votes. Read: 10 tips to save money on Europe trip Here are the other favourite cities in photos. Enjoy! Athens, Greece: The capital of modern Greece, its still dominated by 5th century BCE landmarks, including the Acropolis, a hilltop citadel topped with ancient buildings such as the colonnaded Parthenon temple. (AFP) Kotor, Montenegro: Kotor is a coastal town in Montenegro. It is located in a secluded part of the Gulf of Kotor. (AFP) Azores, Portugal: The Azores islands, an autonomous region of Portugal, form an archipelago in the mid-Atlantic and are characterized by dramatic landscapes, fishing villages, green pastures and hedgerows of blue hydrangeas. (AFP) Brussels, Belgium: Brussels is Belgiums capital and home to the headquarters of the European Union. The ornate Grand-Place at the heart of the city has shops and cafes inside 17th-century guildhouses, and the intricate Gothic Hotel de Ville (town hall) with its distinctive bell tower. (AFP) Novi Sad, Serbia: Novi Sad is a city in Serbia on the banks of the Danube River. Atop a riverside bluff stands Petrovaradin Fortress, much of it dating to the 17th and 18th centuries, with an iconic clock tower and a network of tunnels. (AFP) Milan, Italy: Milan, a metropolis in Italys northern Lombardy region, is a global capital of fashion and design. Home to the national stock exchange, its a financial hub also known for its high-end dining and shopping. (AFP) Nantes, France: Nantes, a city on the Loire River in the Upper Brittany region of Western France, has a long history as a port and industrial center. Its home to the restored, 15th-century Chateau des Ducs de Bretagne, where the Dukes of Brittany once lived. (AFP) Paris, France: Paris, Frances capital, is a major European city and a global center for art, fashion, gastronomy and culture. Its picturesque 19th-century cityscape is crisscrossed by wide boulevards and the River Seine. (AFP) Plovdiv, Bulgaria: Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria, and one of the oldest cities in Europe. (AFP) Follow @htlifeandstyle for more. Two suicide bombers killed at least 19 people and injured 50 others in a market in northern Cameroon, on Friday, military sources told Reuters. Two men walked into the Meme market and blew themselves up, one of the officials based in northern Cameroon said, adding that the number of dead and injured is subject to change. There has so far been no official claim of responsibility for the attack, but officials pointed the finger at Nigeria-based Boko Haram, which has been blamed for a campaign of suicide attacks in neighbouring countries Cameroon, Chad and Niger over the past year. Boko Haram violence in Cameroon has caused about 1,000 deaths, according to the Cameroon government and military sources. Boko Haram is thought to have killed about 15,000 people and driven more than 2 million from their homes during its six-year insurgency in one of the worlds poorest regions. The US military now calls it the most lethal violent extremist group in the world. Nigeria, Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Benin have set up an 8,700-strong regional force tasked with wiping out Boko Haram. The United States has also sent troops to supply intelligence and other assistance. The Egyptian branch of the Islamic State group has posted pictures online of what it says was the execution of two men caught spying for the army in the Sinai. One of those decapitated was presented as a spy for the military intelligence services, while IS offshoot Sinai Province said the other was a spy for the army. The images, distributed on Twitter on Thursday night, were deemed authentic by US monitor -- SITE Intelligence Group. The IS affiliate is waging an insurgency in the restive peninsula that has killed hundreds of defence personnel since the military overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013. The jihadists say they caused the crash of a Russian passenger plane over Sinai last October, killing all 224 people on board. IS said it had smuggled a bomb on the plane at an airport in the south of the peninsula. The Sinai jihadists pledged allegiance in November 2014 to IS, which controls parts of Iraq and Syria. The Nepal government has formed a political committee to resolve the fresh demarcation of federal units as demanded by Madhesi parties opposed to the countrys new Constitution. The decision was made late on Thursday night at a cabinet meeting, a day prior to Prime Minister KP Sharma Olis six-day official visit to India. Madhesi parties, who have been demanding the redrawing of boundaries of states, have described the move as unilateral and questioned the committees validity in the absence of any terms of reference. Information minister Sherdhan Rai told journalists the 11-member committee, to be headed by deputy prime minister Kamal Thapa, will submit its recommendations in three months. He said the committee, which will include members of opposition parties and the agitating Madhesi parties, will be given full shape after Oli returns from India on February 24. This is a unilateral move from the government. We will not join any committee without any terms of reference, said Laxman Lal Karna, co-chairperson of Sadbhawana Party. Karnas party is part of the United Democratic Madhesi Front, which is seeking a change in the seven-state model incorporated in the Constitution to accommodate two states in Madhes, the region in southern Nepal bordering India. The UDMF had earlier informally agreed to settle the demarcation row by forming a political mechanism, but there were disagreements on details and the timeframe for settling the matter. The government decided to go ahead and constitute the committee without taking the UDMF on board after several meetings on Wednesday and Thursday failed to break the deadlock. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Bernie Sanders has overtaken Hillary Clinton for the first time in a new national poll and is perilously close to the presidential frontrunner in Nevada, which holds Democratic caucuses on Saturday. Sanders leads Clinton 47% to 44%, according to a Fox News poll released on Thursday, even though he trails her 42% to 47.6% in the average of polls by RealClearPolitics. And in Nevada, once considered a cakewalk for Clinton, he has narrowed the gap considerably he is just 2.4% behind her in the average of polls, 46.3 to Clintons 48.7%. One thing that is clear from our poll and others is that Clinton has been losing support and Sanders has been gaining, Democratic pollster Chris Anderson, who conducted the new poll with Republican Daron Shaw, told Fox. And this process appears to have accelerated since the contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, he added. Sanders, a senator from Vermont, has run an insurgent campaign that has given him a narrow defeat, in the Iowa caucuses, and a thumping victory in New Hampshire. Clinton and Sanders are tied at this stage, but the former secretary of state was earlier considered to have had a lock on Nevada and South Carolina, which hold primaries next week. Though she continues to lead Sanders by a massive double-digit margin in South Carolina, the race in Nevada has become extremely close in recent days. Were working very hard to get a large voter turnout and if we do I feel confident we can win, Sanders told reporters on Thursday. Russias envoy to the UN on Friday warned long-term ally President Bashar al-Assad over his recent promise to retake all of Syria, saying that the Syrian premier faced dire consequences if he did not comply with Moscow over the peace process. Russia has invested very seriously in this crisis, politically, diplomatically and now also militarily, Vitaly Churkin told Kommersant daily, referring to an international agreement to cease hostilities sealed in Munich last week. Therefore we would like Assad also to respond to this, he said, adding that the Syrian leaders stance is not in accord with the diplomatic efforts that Russia is making. At their meeting in Munich, the 17-nation group backing Syrias peace process agreed to work for a ceasefire, the lifting of starvation sieges and the resumption of talks. In an interview with AFP last week, Assad defiantly pledged to retake the whole of the country, speaking before the plan for a nationwide cessation of hostilities in Syria was announced. Asked to comment to journalists on the unusually outspoken criticism of Assad, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Friday said President Vladimir Putin backed the Syrian peace process but stressed that the ceasefire had not yet been implemented. Russian air force personnel prepare to load humanitarian cargo on board a Syrian plane at Hemeimeem air base in Syria, Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2016. (AP Photo) Everyone including President Putin recognises that there is no alternative other than a political resolution, he said. Nevertheless the ceasefire is now being worked out, discussed. Wait, lets not run ahead, Peskov said. In the interview, Churkin, who has served as Russias ambassador to the United Nations since 2006, stressed that if Syria follows Russias leadership in resolving this crisis, then they have a chance to come out of it in a dignified way. If they in some way stray from this path -- and this is my personal opinion -- a very difficult situation could arise. Including for themselves, he warned. If they proceed on the basis that no ceasefire is necessary and they need to fight to a victorious end, then this conflict will last a very long time and that is terrifying to imagine. Syria is already on the brink of falling apart, he said. Too late for no-fly zone Churkin however also suggested that Assads comments were made for political impact. It isnt worth putting too much significance into one statement or another and dramatising them, he said. We should be guided not by what he says, with all respect for the statements of a person at such a high level, but by what he finally does. Churkin said he hoped that Damascus realised that the Munich agreement was a unique chance for Syria after five years of unremitting destruction. While German Chancellor Angela Merkel has repeated calls for a no-fly zone in Syria to protect civilians, Churkin dismissed this as unworkable. Its already too late to talk about this. When everyone is flying and bombing, there is no question of no-fly zones, he said. He said it was theoretically possible to imagine such a proposal during the process of implementing the ceasefire agreement but called this purely theoretical... particularly in the circumstances of our presence in Syria. Russia launched air strikes in Syria in September last year to support Assad and fight terrorists, saying it was targeting the Islamic State group and other jihadists. Tough bargaining and major differences on issues such as migration and British financial benefits for EU citizens marked the second day of the European Council summit, holding up a deal on Britains membership of the 28-member bloc. Top leaders of EU member-states were locked in talks overnight, but they were nowhere near a final deal on Britains demands to reform the terms of membership. Some called it British blackmail while others remained optimistic of the outcome. Greece wanted a bargain: it would support Britains case provided it received backing for the challenges it faced on migration of Syrian and other refugees, many of whom first reach Greece before moving to other European countries. Reflecting entrenched positions on the key issue of state financial benefits for EU migrants in Britain, the office of Polands Prime Minister Beata Szydlo confirmed Prime Minister David Camerons proposed restrictions remained a particularly difficult issue. Thousands of Poles moved to Britain after the country was admitted to the EU in 2004. Both Cameron and European Council president Donald Tusk claimed some progress, but admitted there was much ground to be covered before a deal could be agreed and announced. There is less appetite in Brussels to drag this issue, leading to the expectation that there will finally be some sort of a deal, even if the two-day meeting spills into the weekend. There are high political stakes for Cameron to secure a deal that he can sell to the British public in a referendum, which he has promised by the end of 2017, but is keen to hold as soon as possible. June 23 is said to be the most likely date. Cameron reiterated on Friday he would not take a deal that is not beneficial to Britain. Returning from Brussels without a deal after months of intense negotiations is unlikely to enhance his ratings. Political circles in Britain were watching developments in Brussels keenly, including top ministers in Camerons government, who are keen to announce their support to the Leave EU or Remain in EU camp. Eurosceptic circles have already disparaged the proposed deal, even if it were to be reached, as not being good enough for Britain. While business circles are keen for Britain to stay in the EU for the benefits it brings, there is a growing perception that it will not really be a disaster if Britain votes to exit the EU. No childs play One of the most difficult issues is child benefit: the amount the British government pays British citizens and migrants from the European Union. Due to the strength of the pound and different levels of development and cost of living in some European countries, Britain wants this to be indexed to the local cost of living rather than pay the rate applicable in Britain. Thousands of EU migrants in Britain have families and children living in their home countries, where the child benefit is sent. Cameron promised to stop sending such payments outside Britain, but since it would be against free movement and other principles of the EU, he now wants to index it to local rates. The child benefit is a tax-free payment aimed at helping parents cope with the cost of bringing up children. One parent can claim 20.50 a week for an eldest or only child and 13.55 a week for each of their other children. SHARE THIS ARTICLE ON Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan said US-supplied weapons had been used against civilians by a Syrian Kurdish militia group that Ankara blames for a deadly suicide bombing, and said he would talk to President Barack Obama about it on Friday. US support for the Syrian Kurdish PYD, which Washington considers a useful ally in the fight against Islamic State, has enraged Turkey and risks driving a wedge between the Nato allies. Turkey sees the group as a terrorist organisation linked to Kurdish militants waging an insurgency on its own soil. Erdogan and the Turkish government have said the PYDs armed wing, the YPG, was responsible for a suicide car bomb attack in the administrative heart of Turkish capital Ankara on Wednesday, which killed 28 people -- most of them soldiers. Erdogan said he was saddened by the Wests refusal to call the PYD and YPG a terrorist group and would explain to Obama how weapons provided by the United States had aided them. I will tell him, look at how and where those weapons you provided were fired, he told reporters in Istanbul. Months ago in my meeting with him (Obama), I told him the US was supplying weapons. Three plane loads arrived, half of them ended up in the hands of Daesh (Islamic State), and half of them in the hands of the PYD, he said. Against whom were these weapons used? They were used against civilians there and caused their deaths. He appeared to be referring to a US air drop of 28 bundles of military supplies in late 2014 meant for Iraqi Kurdish fighters near the Syrian city of Kobani. Pentagon officials said at the time one had fallen into the hands of Islamic State. The Pentagon later said it had targeted the missing bundle in an air strike and destroyed it. Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accused the United States of making conflicting statements about the Syrian Kurdish militia. He said US secretary of state John Kerry had told him the Kurdish insurgents could not be trusted, in what Cavusoglu said was a departure from Washingtons official position. The United States has said it does not consider the YPG a terrorist group. A spokesperson for the State Department said on Thursday Washington was not in a position to confirm or deny Turkeys charge the YPG was behind the Ankara bombing. The spokesperson also called on Turkey to stop its recent shelling of the YPG. The YPGs political arm has denied the group was behind the Ankara attack and said Turkey was using it to justify an escalation in fighting in northern Syria. US warplanes carried out air strikes against Islamic State-linked militants in western Libya on Friday, killing as many as 40 people in an operation targeting a suspect linked to two deadly attacks last year in neighbouring Tunisia. It was the second US air strike in three months against Islamic State in Libya, where the hardline Islamist militants have exploited years of chaos following Muammar Gaddafis 2011 overthrow to build up a presence on the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The mayor of the Libyan city of Sabratha, Hussein al-Thwadi, told Reuters the planes struck at 3:30 a.m. (0130 GMT), hitting a building in the citys Qasr Talil district where foreign workers were living. He said 41 people had been killed and six wounded. The death toll could not immediately be confirmed with other officials. Tunisian security sources have said they believe Tunisian Islamic State fighters have been trained in camps near Sabratha, which is close to the Tunisian border. A US military officer said among those targeted in the air strikes was senior Tunisian operative, Noureddine Chouchane, believed to be connected to the attacks last year on a Tunis museum and the Souse beach resort which killed dozens of people. Officials have said those two attacks, both claimed by Islamic State, were carried out by gunmen who trained in Libya. We are assessing the results of the operation, said Col. Mark Cheadle, spokesman for the Pentagons Africa Command. Thwadi, the Sabratha mayor, said officials visited the site of the strike and found weapons in the building. Some Tunisians, a Jordanian and two women were among the dead, he said, and several Tunisians who had recently arrived in Sabratha were among survivors. He gave no further details. Since Gaddafi was overthrown five years ago, Libya has slipped deeper into chaos with two rival governments each backed by competing factions of former rebel brigades. As Islamic State has expanded in the north African country, taking over the city of Sirte and attacking oil ports, calls have increased for a swift Western response to stop the group establishing itself outside its territory in Iraq and Syria. Western officials and diplomats have said air strikes and special forces operations are possible as well as an Italian-led security stabilisation plan of training and advising. US and European officials insist Libyans must invite help through a united government, but say they may still carry out unilateral action if needed. Last November the United States said it carried out an air strike on Libyas Derna to target Abu Nabil, also known as Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al Zubaydi, an Iraqi commander in Islamic State. A Massachusetts hacker has been arrested after being rescued by a Disney cruise ship while attempting to escape authorities, according to the Tech Times. Martin Gottesfeld, 31, is thought to be a member of the hacking group Anonymous and has been charged with conspiracy for his alleged involvement in a cyberattack on Boston Children's Hospital. Gottesfeld and his wife were picked up by the Disney ship after putting out a distress call from their sailboat not far from Cuba, according to NBC News. The FBI had been looking for them for several weeks after relatives and employers reported them missing but located the fleeing hacker after an FBI contact reported that they had been picked up by a Disney cruise ship. It is unknown where the pair were heading, but an affidavit obtained by NBC News states that they had "some luggage with them, along with three laptop computers." The attack on the hospital, which occurred in 2014, was prompted by the case of Patient A, a teenager who was taken into permanent custody by the state after it was claimed by hospital authorities that her parents were attempting to submit her to unnecessary medical procedures, according to the Boston Globe. Anonymous proceeded to launch a cyberattack on the hospital, causing $300,000 of damage and impacting normal services for a week, according to NBC News. Gottesfeld is accused of posting a YouTube video in 2014 on behalf of Anonymous calling for the attack if the Boston Children's Hospital failed to fire the head of its child abuse-prevention unit, according to the Boston Globe. Those running the hospital were warned that "you too shall feel the full unbridled wrath of Anonymous... Test us and you shall fail." Boston Children's Hospital has thanked authorities for "apprehending the hacker who led the attack and holding him accountable," according to the Boston Globe. If convicted, Gottesfeld could face up to five years in prison and be hit with a fine of approximately $250,000. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Prime Minister David Cameron has urged the EU to accept "a package that is credible with the British people," during a two-day summit this week in Brussels, according to AFP. The outcome of the summit will have a large impact on whether the British public will vote to remain a member of the EU in a national referendum that could be held as early as June, with Cameron claiming that he will support a "yes" vote if his package is accepted. Cameron's list of proposed reforms includes several key demands, such as restricted welfare payments to EU migrants (including restricted child benefits) and extended protections from financial regulations for non-eurozone countries, according to The Guardian. These proposals have been met with some resistance, with Eastern European countries believing that welfare restrictions would discriminate against their populations, and other nations such as France taking issue with the special protections from which non-eurozone countries would benefit. "We've got some important work to do today and tomorrow, and it's going to be hard," Cameron told reporters yesterday, according to The Globe and Mail. "I'll be battling for Britain. If we can get a good deal, I'll take that deal, but I will not take a deal that doesn't meet what we need." German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Cameron's proposed reforms were "comprehensible and justified," claiming that keeping Britain in the EU was in Europe's best interests, according to the Guardian. Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, on the other hand, does not support the welfare reforms, telling the press "we want a good agreement but not at any price," according to AFP. A copy of the final draft of Britain's proposed reforms crucial to the nation's continued membership in the EU was leaked on Thursday, and seemed to show that there is still widespread disagreement over the proposal, according to The Guardian. Recent polls have shown that Britons are split on the issue of EU membership, with a slightly higher number of people preferring to remain in the EU, the AFP reported. A large number of Britons remain undecided. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The U.S. launched a series of airstrikes against a suspected Islamic State base in Libya on Friday morning. Noureddine Chouchane, the commander tied to the Souse attack in Tunisia, could be among those who were killed. There is no official word yet confirming Chouchane's death, but he was reportedly holed up in the terror camp near Sabratha west of Tripoli along with several ISIS fighters. A still unidentified source from the U.S. government has so far claimed that at least 30 militants were killed, according to The New York Times. The death toll, however, could reach as high as 40, the Washington Post reported. Chouchane is blamed for at least two major attacks in Tunisia last year. The first involved the massacre last March at the National Bardo Museum where 22 people were killed, the Independent reported. The second was perpetrated last June at a coastal beach resort at Souse. Thirty-eight were killed in this incident, including 30 Britons who were on holiday in Tunisia. The Islamic State has been increasing its presence in the two African countries. The spate of violence it has undertaken in Tunisia, for instance, seems to be designed to cripple its tourism industry. On the other hand, it is able to entrench itself in Libya due to the on-going political crisis in the country. There is no information yet whether other countries were involved in the Libyan airstrike. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has confirmed that a state resident who travelled to a country where the Zika virus has been spreading has been infected by the mosquito-borne illness. Friday's development marks the first confirmed case of Zika virus in North Carolina and is the second to occur in the continental U.S., with the first being an infection in Texas attributed to sexual transmission. The person hadn't travelled to any infected areas but his or her partner had recently visited Venezuela. Officials declined to reveal the identity of the patient or where he or she lives due to privacy rules but said the adult patient's symptoms "have resolved." As of Feb. 18, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported travel-related Zika infections in 21 other states as well as the District of Colombia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the NCDHHS. "As long as the outbreak continues in Central and South America and the Caribbean, we expect to see more travel-related Zika virus infections in our state," Randall Williams, North Carolina's state health director, said in a statement, according to the Associated Press. "While travel-related cases don't present a public health threat to North Carolina, we always actively monitor emerging global situations and adjust resources to meet needs." The Zika virus is spread to people primarily through infected mosquitoes, with common symptoms including fever, rash, joint pain and red eyes. The difficulty with identifying those who are infected however, is the fact that only 20 percent of thos infected will actually show symptoms Pregnant women infected with Zik V, as it is commonly abbreviated by officials, can pass the virus to unborn children, leading officials to link the virus with microcephaly - a condition that usually results in abnormal brain development, with long-term effects ranging from mild developmental delays to sever motor and intellectual deficits, such as cerebral palsy. In light of this, the CDC has complied a travel watch list that features areas that pregnant women or women trying to become pregnant should avoid. Though the primary carriers of the Zika virus are not believed to be widespread in North Carolina, residents are urged to take precautions to avoid mosquito bites which include: Wearing insect repellent registered with the Environmental Protection Agency. Wearing long-sleeved shirts and pants. Using air conditioning or make sure window and door screens are in place. To see more of HNGN's coverage of the Zika virus, click here. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Hackers have received a $17,000 ransom from Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center after the hospital paid out to regain control of its computer systems, according to Reuters. The FBI and the Los Angeles Police Department are working together in order to find the perpetrators who prevented medical staff from having access to computerized medical records since Feb. 5. The president of the hospital, Allen Stefanek, put out a statement on Feb. 17 on behalf of the hospital informing people of the attack but assuring onlookers that patient care was not compromised. Stefanek stated that the attack comprised of malware that prevented access to computer systems and stopped medical staff from being able to communicate electronically, forcing staff to rely entirely on paper records and handwritten doctors' notes, according to NBC News. The ransom was for 40 bitcoins, which are worth approximately $420 each at the current time. Stefanek wrote in his statement that the decision to pay was "the quickest and most efficient way to restore our systems and administrative functions," with systems running normally and free from malware as of Feb 15. Cases such as this have been dubbed "ransomware," and their increasing popularity is worrying to institutions such as hospitals that are not as up to date on computer security, according to the Associated Press. Liza Myers, a researcher with a computer security firm, said that hospitals are "about 10 to 15 years behind the banking industry" when it comes to fielding cyberattacks. Electronic health equipment is at risk when hospitals are attacked, as they are linked into the computer system and are vulnerable to manipulation, according to the Associated Press. A spokesperson for the FBI did not immediately comment on whether it had advised Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center or any other company to pay in ransomware cases, but experts working for internet security firms say that it is a common occurrence and that often the most efficient solution is to simply pay out, according to the Associated Press. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Harper Lee, the famed American author best known for her book "To Kill A Mockingbird," has died at the age of 89, according to the mayor's office in her hometown in Alabama. Lee, or Nelle as she was known to those close to her, spent the final years of her life in a nursing home less than a mile away from her hometown of Monroeville the setting for Maycomb in her book, according to The Guardian. Until last year, Lee was a one-book literary wonder. Her 1961 book, "To Kill A Mockingbird," a tale about small-town layer Atticus Finch's futile attempt to save the life of a black resident unjustly accused of raping a white woman, earned her critical acclaim around the world. It sold more than 40 million copies worldwide and earned her both a Pulitzer prize and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Following the success of her first book, she worked to avoid public attention while insisting that she had no intention of publishing any further works. Her plans on both fronts didn't come to pass, however, when a second book, titled "Go Set A Watchman," was published in 2015, according to ABC News. "Go Set A Watchman" was the opposite of her first book. While "To Kill A Mockingbird" detailed race relations in the South through the point of view of a child, "Watchman" featured the same characters but several years later. In the book, an older Atticus had racial views that left the grown-up Scout, the narrator of the first book, greatly disillusioned. As it turns out, Lee wrote "Watchman" first, but set it aside for "Mockingbird" at the suggestion of an editor, according to Reuters. Her death has elicited comments from fans all over social media. We just lost an Alabama legend. I dont really know what else to say. R.I.P. Harper Lee. https://t.co/kNKuokpA1k Jeremy Burgess (@Free_Burge) February 19, 2016 Harper Lees death is sad. But man, 89. Think of the life she led, the changes she saw. We should all be so lucky. Stephanie Haberman (@StephLauren) February 19, 2016 Amazing author. Thank you always for Scout. https://t.co/kPYprHgrKM sarahdessen (@sarahdessen) February 19, 2016 @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. A Kurdish militant group identifying itself as the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) claimed responsibility Friday for Wednesday's bombing in Turkey's capital of Ankara that killed 28 people, according to a statement on its website. TAK said the bombing was in response to the policies of President Tayyip Erdogan and vowed that the attacks would continue in the future, reported the International Business Times. The statement also revealed that the person driving the explosive-laden vehicle that night was a 26-year-old Turkish national. TAK was once linked to the banned Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, though that relationship is now severed. Ever since breaking off from the larger militant group, TAK has been responsible for a series of bombings, with the most recent one occurring in December when the group launched a mortar attack at Istanbul's second airport that left an aircraft cleaner dead, according to Reuters. Wednesday's incident occurred at the height of rush hour when the vehicle packed with explosives detonated next to a few military buses as they waited in traffic near parliament and Turkey's military headquarters. Turkey was quick to classify the blast as a terrorist attack and placed the blame on a member of YPG, the Kurdish fighting force in Syria, and PKK members operating in Turkey. It has been revealed that a YPG member who infiltrated from Syria with members of the separatist terror organization conducted this attack," Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said at the time, according to CNN. However, it now appears that TAK's claim of responsibility has debunked Turkey's prior assumptions. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Residents across Nairobi are on high alert after up to six lions escaped from the nearby Nairobi National Park and began roaming the surrounding area, according to the Associated Press. Wildlife rangers began hunting for the animals on Friday after two lions were sighted near a hospital at 4 a.m. A mother lioness and a cub were among those missing. It is unknown how the creatures broke loose, as the park is largely surrounded by an electric fence, with the open portion of the park bordered by a river, according to CNN. Kenya Wildlife Service spokesperson Paul Udoto has been regularly updating onlookers with news of the search on Twitter, reporting that two of the lions had been recovered back to the park and that two others were thought to have returned before dawn. Senior warden for the Kenya Wildlife Service Nelly Palmeris told reporters that the recovered lions had been found in a housing complex near military barracks. Some residents have expressed discontent with the way that the situation has been handled, according to BBC News. A number of people living in Kibera, which is close to the the park and is one of Africa's largest slums, are angry that the Kenya Wildlife Service is not locating and removing the lions more quickly. Two lions were spotted around the Kibera area this morning. People living in the area have been told to report any sightings of the lions to a free telephone line. Udoto reminded people on Twitter not to approach the lions themselves and to keep children inside away from the animals. He also stated that Kenya Wildlife Service is "grateful for public cooperation" and there had been no incidents reported regarding the animals still on the loose. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Puerto Rico will start buying blood from the Red Cross, after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced new guidelines this week restricting the collection of locally donated blood in territories that are experiencing active transmission of the Zika virus. By the new FDA guidelines, health officials have two weeks to start importing the island's blood supply from the continental United States. Local health officials have expressed concern, however, that switching to imported blood could negatively impact Puerto Rico's network of voluntary donations, which services most of its needs. Additionally, the cost of importing blood will be around $100,000 per week, Reuters reports. The added strain that the spread of the virus could add to Puerto Rico's already struggling economy is of increasing concern to the federal government, considering the island's weakened health care system and limited federal Medicaid funding, explains the Wall Street Journal. Health officials in Puerto Rico warn that the island's eight blood banks cannot afford to both buy blood and make payroll, and are asking for government support in order to pay for the imports until local blood collection can resume. "Laying off people, even for a short time, would be devastating," said Jose O. Alsina, vice president and chief operating officer of Banco de Sangre de Servicios Mutuos, Puerto Rico's largest blood bank, according to Reuters. In response, the FDA has said that it is "actively engaged in conversations with local health authorities and blood collection establishments in Puerto Rico in order to minimize the impact to the greatest extent possible," said spokeswoman Tara Goodin. President Obama has asked Congress for $1.8 billion in emergency funding to combat the Zika virus at home and abroad, mainly due to the potential link to microcephaly - a condition causing babies to be born with abnormally small heads and developmental delays. Obama's request includes $250 million for the Medicaid program in Puerto Rico, in order to support Zika-diagnosed pregnant women or those who are at risk of infection, according to The Washington Times. There have been 30 confirmed cases of Zika reported in Puerto Rico so far, but health officials expect thousands of residents to be infected once the mosquito season peaks this summer. Puerto Rico is the only part of the U.S. where Zika has spread locally, rather than being transferred through travelers from Brazil or elsewhere in Latin America and the Caribbean. Puerto Rico is already facing about $70 billion in debt, alongside a 45 percent poverty rate. The U.S. territory has defaulted on some debt payments, and Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla has also advised that the government is close to running out of capital, as the BBC has outlined. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. In light of Pope Francis' attack on Donald Trump's Christianity, one megachurch pastor is coming to the aid of the business mogul and suggested that the pope should beg for Trump's forgiveness for questioning his faith. Speaking to Sean Hannity on Premier Radio Networks' "The Sean Hannity Show," megachurch pastor Robert Jeffress echoed some of the words Trump said Thursday in rebuttal to the pope's comments about his faith, according to a clip from Media Matters. "Sean, I think the pope needs to ask Donald Trump's forgiveness for making such an outlandish statement," Jeffress said. "I want to remind our listeners that it was exactly one year ago this week that 21 Coptic Christians had their heads chopped off by ISIS on a Libyan beach and then ISIS said, 'we are coming to Rome next.'" He continued his defense of Trump, arguing that its not "unbiblical" to want to protect America and at the same time said the pope was "confused" about the role of the Church. "And the fact that we have a candidate like Donald Trump who wants to protect America, that's not unbiblical," he said. "The pope is confused between the role of the Church, which is to show compassion, and the role of government, which is to uphold order and to protect its citizens. And I want to make a prediction. I think the pope has succeeded in doing what no other man on Earth could do, and that is creating a martyr in Donald Trump." Jeffress' comments stem from a momentary dispute between Trump and the pope on Thursday. At the time, the pope said on at least two different occasions that the Republican presidential frontrunner isn't Christian when he answered a question about Trump's plan to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, The New York Times reported. "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel," Francis said. He declined to say whether followers should vote for Trump, but added, "I would only say that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that." Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi has since issued a clarification about Pope Francis' statement, saying that the pope had no intention to personally attack Trump and said that his words "depended on the accuracy and truth of what he had been told regarding the Republican candidate's positions, thus also giving him the benefit of the doubt." @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. In a letter to Congress, Lt. General William Mayville Jr., the director of the Joint Staff, made a move to defy President Barack Obama by stating that if the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility were to be shut down by the president, the U.S. military would not cooperate in the transfer of the detainees to the mainland United States, according to Bloomberg View. Mayville's letter, sent to Congress last week and obtained by Bloomberg View's Eli Lake, addresses the issue of the constitutionality of the president's authority to close Guantanamo without Congress agreeing. Last December, Obama stated that "We will wait until Congress has definitively said no to a well-thought-out plan with numbers attached to it before we say anything definitive about my executive authority here," in regards to his intention to close the facility, reported the Conservative Tribune. Mayville writes that "Current law prohibits the use of funds to 'transfer, release or assist in the transfer or release' of detainees of Guantanamo Bay to or within the United States, and prohibits the construction, modification or acquisition of any facility within the United States to house any Guantanamo detainee. The Joint Staff will not take any action contrary to those restrictions," according to Lake. Defense Secretary Ash Carter sent a plan to the White House on how to close Guantanamo Bay last month, with the plan including the transfer of detainees to U.S. prisons. "Not everyone in GTMO can be safely transferred to another country, so we need an alternative," Carter said in January, according to The Washington Free Beacon. Since 2009, Obama has transferred 151 detainees to other countries, but Congress prohibited detainees to be transferred to U.S. territories since 2010, explained Bloomberg View. There are currently 91 detainees still at the facility, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the 9-11 mastermind, and Abu Zubaydeh, a top al-Qaeda planner. Obama has promised to close the detention facility by the end of the year and plans to present a plan to do so to Congress in time. Whether or not he will need to use executive action remains to be seen, and if it comes to an executive order, the legality of that remains "unclear," according to Raha Wala, senior counsel for defense and intelligence at Human Rights First, reported Bloomberg View. The Joint Staff supports closing down Guantanamo, Mayville notes, but only if the facility is closed by way of Congressional legislation, according to the Conservative Tribune. @ 2022 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. News, events, history, and other mid-week tidbits. Tuesday, October 25, 4:30 7 p.m. Orr Area EMS Open House Brats and burgers will be served. Event includes a new ambulance tour and blood pressure screenings. For more info: 218-780-3798. Orr Fire Hall 4540 Lake St., Orr Tuesday, October 25, 12 6 p.m. Essentia Health Job Fair Talent recruiters and department managers will be on-site at Essentia Health-Virginia. Candidates from all backgrounds are encouraged to attendnurses, nursing and clinical assistants, surgery technicians, radiology technicians, respiratory therapists, human resource professionals, and those interested in environmental services or nutrition services. Essentia staff will greet candidates, conduct an initial screening and filter them to appropriate hiring managers for interviews. Select candidates will be verbally offered a position before leaving. Candidates are asked to bring a resume, but its not required. Attire is business casual. For more info: www.essentiacareers.org. 901 9th St. N., Virginia 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 The 2016 Digital Marketing Strategy Conference brought together some of the most innovative minds in the industry to discuss where travel is heading. The common theme was disruption. A successful digital front is now the norm and a basic expectation of the consumer, and its apparent that hotels must now innovate their digital channels to produce the most personalized and responsive content for their guests. The day was opened by Dr. Laila Rach, who (hilariously) took over the role of both Emcee and the Keynote speaker, and discussed what disruption looked like in the past, and how hotels can innovate to ensure theyre standing out in todays digital economy. The point was driven home by two of this years Adrian Award winners, one of whom unlocked a scarcely used feature of Twitter to gain both social awareness and bookings. It was apparent that the key to innovation is answering the customer need, before they know they have it. With a new breed of travelers who are more mobile and current than any generation before, understanding a brands core audience and their interests and disinterests are what make up a successful campaign. When all think alike, then no one is thinking. Walter Lippman Over the remainder of the day, the same questions were asked- in an industry where customer experience is everything, how can we be hospitable before a guest even enters a hotel? The answer- personalize the relationship, from the very first website visit to the post stay interaction. This can sometimes be tricky for hotels as they ensure guests needs are met with the available technology. Many spoke on the importance of integrating the most successful and powerful solutions with one another to create a customer centric platform that gives an experience in a way no one else can. Google Account Executive, Shaun Aukland, touched on how this same question is affected by mobile. Mobile responsiveness will be a huge focus for all business moving forward as it recently surpassed desktop in search... and these searchers are some of the most fleeting. The mobile customer can be unpredictable and just having a nice mobile app is no longer enough to keep visitors engaged. For the industry, collecting audience data and creating a seamless and personal experience across devices will be key in 2016. Though the conference was full of innovation, case studies, and success across the industry, the round table discussion closed the day shedding some light the opportunities that still lie within hospitality. Amazon, Zappos, and Nordstrom were referenced as the companys hotels should take after as they create a unique and innovative digital landscape for their brand. It was apparent that the growth of OTAs and new Google features are on the mind of these industry professionals as they continue to successfully grow the top brands in the industry. Overall the day was a fun and exciting view into whats to come for hospitality. The entire industry is embracing the new technology and processes that can both broaden their reach and create the experience that travelers are looking for. Heres to a year of change- cant wait for the HSMAI DMSC 17! About Spring Engage Spring Engage is a real time engagement technology provider. Our solutions give hotel marketing professionals the tools to give each customer on their site the best and most personalized experience. From targeted campaigns and content to social media and email lead capturing, hotels have the ability to incorporate intent and customization in their messaging on site. Contact: Beth Harvey beth@springengage.com (919) 794-5003 On February 5 the stock of Lifelogger Technologies Corp (OTCMKTS:LOGG, LOGG message board) sank to a new 52-week low of $0.0651. Not only was the company wiping its value almost daily but the interest from investors was also diminishing with the ticker registering minimal trading. Well, since then things have changed rather dramatically. Yesterday LOGG exploded up the chart and in a single session climbed up by nearly 85% to a close at $0.18 per share. During the day more than 675 thousand of LOGG's shares changed hands marking the biggest daily volume for the stock since the start of November 2015. Is there a reason for the sudden change in sentiment towards the stock, though? After three months of complete silence on Wednesday LOGG finally issued a new press release. Could it possibly explain yesterday's intense trading? We will let you be the judge of that after seeing that the PR contained little more than fluff and that it simply outlined LOGG's plans for 2016. And indeed the reaction from the market was rather subdued with the stock closing 7% in the green on below-average volume on the day of the press release. The sudden burst up the chart doesn't make the red flags around the company any less serious. LOGG finished the quarter ended September 30, 2015, with: $143 thousand cash $151 thousand total current assets $353 thousand total current liabilities ZERO revenues $236 thousand net loss Back in September 2015 the company raised some funds through a securities purchase agreement. Under the terms of the deal LOGG issued a promissory note in the principal amount of $473, 864. Upon certain equity conditions the payments under the note can be made in shares at the lower of $0.2625 or a 30% discount. So, if the financials of the company as still as grim as ever maybe LOGG have made some progress with their operations that could keep investors excited? The company did enter into an asset purchase agreement with Pixorial, Inc. that should be closed by the end of March. As we warned you in our previous article, however, in June 2014 Pixorial's management team announced that carrying on with the company's operations was not economically valuable. As for LOGG's products nothing seems to have changed. The Lifelogger mobile platform entered beta testing in August 2015 and is still in testing. As for LOGG's wearable camera there are still absolutely no deadlines for when it should be completed. LOGG is simply riddled with red flags that demand extensive due diligence. If you are determined to trade the stock of the company decide on appropriate time horizons and never put unaffordable sums of money on the line. This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate The school bus lurks down the street from Brandon and Lakeisha Williams' second-floor apartment. In the darkness before dawn, its amber lights pop off and on, off and on, off and on. In a few minutes, it will be pickup time. The bus will lumber forward to the apartment entrance. Brandon and Lakeisha will trot down the rickety wooden stairs and out of the courtyard to climb aboard. For Lakeisha, those are long minutes, hard minutes. She is nervous, as she has been for weeks leading up to this moment on the first Monday of February. It has been four months since Lakeisha stepped on a bus headed to the Furr High School campus, four months since the accident. Four months of therapy, surgeries and home school, of recovery and relapse. She's missed a homecoming game and high school dances, endured headaches and hospital stays, wrangled nightmares and crying jags. She tugs at Brandon, the twin brother with whom she has been through so much. She would have him - as always - for support. And she would have her earbuds, to help defuse her anxieties in a stream of music. At 6:29 a.m., the yellow bus serving Route 3162 pulls up to the stop. At 6:31, Lakeisha and Brandon, dressed in matching Trukfit T-shirts, walk gingerly toward the vehicle. Brandon gets on first, sliding into the front right seat, where he can keep an eye on the speedometer. Lakeisha, following by a few paces, pauses for a split second. She draws a deep breath, juts out her chin and clambers up the steps. She plops into the row behind her brother, by a window under the emergency exit sign. The interior lights flash on, illuminating Lakeisha as she rummages around the seat. Searching, frantically, under the cushions, below her legs, by her back. Then, as the bus jerks to life and the lights are extinguished, Lakesha hops to a spot across the aisle. The first seat belt did not work - and she is not about to take any chances. Not after the last time. --- Brandon remembers a flash of yellow, a sudden swerve, then blackness. Lakeisha describes screams. The school bus flipping over. Plunging off the overpass. She's not sure how much is memory and how much was pieced together later. She hit her head on a window and landed, still in the bus, along with Brandon and Janiecia Chatman, the twins' best friend. Mariya Johnson, the fourth student on board, was thrown from the vehicle. It was around 7 a.m. on Sept. 15, a week after the twins' 17th birthday. That day had started like any other, with Janiecia bounding up the stairs to the Williams' apartment, eager to get the school day started. With Brandon rushing to throw on clothes, grab his backpack, put on his Adidas ZX Flux. With a warm "hey" to Mariya, already sitting in her usual spot in the rear of the bus. The only regular riders on that Houston Independent School District bus had coalesced into a merry quartet since the beginning of the academic year. Janiecia, whom the twins often referred to as a cousin, was a freshman at Furr; the others attended REACH Charter School, on the same campus. On their 20-minute trips to and from school, they listened to music, gossiped about classes, goofed around. The girls joked and teased Brandon, posting Snapchat videos and photos of him napping. Brandon would feign indignation, then laugh it off. That morning, as the bus chugged along Loop 610, Brandon stood to talk to the driver, who seemed distracted. He took a few steps, then felt an abrupt twitch. Brandon dropped into a seat and muttered, "Oh crap." Then everything went blank. --- The swirl of students at REACH Charter School never ebbs - not even well into second period. They meander in and out of Room 115, new to the roster or late to class. Inside Mr. Petty's Spanish class, Brandon seems oblivious to the rustle and racket around him. He pushes his desk close to Aunreyale Guillory, a 16-year-old whirlwind with a tangle of wild curls and a rapid-fire wit. She is his distraction and his defender, his study buddy and roaming companion. On this day, the last Tuesday of January, they are wrestling a Spanish worksheet, matching dates with the correct day of the week. "I don't get it," Brandon murmurs, twisting a strand of red-topped hair between his fingers. In the front of the classroom, one board lists "Mental and Emotional Problems." Anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, mood disorder. Another offers Spanish translations for emotions: Ansioso- Anxious. Cansado - Tired. Nervioso - Nervous. Preocupado - Worried. Triste - Sad. About 45 minutes into class, after Aunreyale and Brandon turn in their work, the girl signals to the teacher. "You know it's that time, Mr. Petty." The two dash out, headed to see Furr Principal Bertie Simmons. Since the accident, Brandon has had trouble focusing, trouble sitting through entire classes. Instead, several times a day, he exits class and ambles to the front office. Often, his thoughts turn to Janiecia. Everything seems to remind him of her. A song. A photo on his Samsung Galaxy. The daily ride on the bus. Now so lonely. When Brandon woke up in Memorial Hermann Hospital, swollen, bandaged, tethered to tubes, he had no idea what had happened. He was told that a Buick LeSabre, driven by an HISD teacher, had veered into their school bus, sending it through a freeway railing and tumbling 20 feet to the frontage road below. No one has been charged in the accident, which is still under investigation. His sister was at Texas Children's in serious condition. The bus driver had been hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. Mariya and Janiecia, he believed, were in another hospital. It would be eight days before he discovered the truth. Mariya, the 17-year-old who loved to laugh and to needle Brandon, had died at a hospital shortly after the accident. Janiecia, Lakeisha and Brandon's constant companion, had died at the scene. She was 14. Brandon collapsed into tears. He didn't want to talk to anyone, to see anyone. He had never imagined that kind of anguish. He was released from the hospital on Sept. 24, in time to attend Janiecia's funeral two days later. "Heaven," a Beyonce song played at the service, is still on his tablet. But he rarely listens to it. Too painful, he says. Three weeks after the accident, Brandon returned to school, where black wristbands memorializing Mariya and Janiecia had been distributed to the student body and a cluster of friends waited to cheer him. But he was not ready to ride the bus. For about two weeks, his mentor, Antoine Mack, drove him to REACH. Simmons called in a psychologist to ease Brandon past his fears. Finally, Brandon steeled himself to get back aboard. There was a new driver, who began the route with a prayer: Heavenly father, she beseeched, give Brandon the strength to endure the ride without panicking. The words - calming, comforting - got him through that first trip. But surviving, he has learned, leaves scars. He wonders how he survived, why he survived, why Janiecia and Mariya did not. Many nights, in the depths of sleep, he relives the split second before the accident. He envisions the bus careening off the freeway - and wakes up crying. Many days, as he grapples with grief and guilt, he wishes he could be stronger - like his sister. --- "I don't really want to be here, but I have to," Lakeisha tells her mother, as they sit in a blue-walled waiting room on the 21st floor of Texas Children's. "It's not like I have a choice." "It brings back memories," nods Ella Williams, who rushed from her food service job at St. Luke's to accompany Lakeisha to a speech therapy appointment last month. "Too many memories," the teenager sighs. A week in the ICU. A month and a day in a hospital bed. Eight days in a room next door to Brandon, who was transferred to Texas Children's soon after the accident. Surgery to remove her lacerated spleen. Bruises and scrapes and burns covering her body. Her left arm splinted and sore. A collapsed lung. Broken ribs. Grueling rounds of physical and occupational therapy, where she learned slowly and painstakingly to walk again. Her mother, constantly by her side, urging her on, never letting her quit. You're going to get out of here soon, she would say. Just do what you need to do. Sobbing without stop the day of Janiecia and Mariya's funerals. Mourning their deaths, distraught because she was hospitalized and unable to attend. "My heart is broken knowing Janiecia is not with us anymore. Why do I feel guilty for not being able to say good-bye?" Lakeisha would write later. "Why did the stupid accident have to happen?" The memories make Lakeisha shudder. She gestures to her mother and mouths a message of distress. She wants to go home. "Hi, how are you doing?" chirps speech therapist Lauren Candia, in a voice as bright as her hot pink scrubs. Candia leads Lakeisha and Williams to a cramped room with lavender walls. A sticker proclaiming "So Much Awesome!" decorates a red cabinet stacked with word and grammar games. As Candia guides her through a reading comprehension exercise, Lakeisha rests her head on the table. "When is your last homebound class?" Candia asks. "My last day is tomorrow, but I have a lot to do," Lakeisha says. "It gives me a headache." The headaches strike often, barely relieved by Tylenol and Motrin. Brought on by stress, by fear, by worry. She is afraid, the teen tells Candia, that she will be too far behind in her classes. Candia suggests using a planner and prioritizing assignments so she won't slip any further. "Make sure you give yourself enough time. Take a break after hard work." Another therapist, passing by the room, pokes her head in the door. "Hey gal, how are you doing? Gone back to school yet?" Lakeisha winces. She has been flooded with questions since the crash. Sixty-four messages and 200 notifications on Facebook, 30 direct messages on Instagram, 150 on Kik. All asking the same thing: Are you okay? How are you? When are you coming back? Even more will bombard her at school. The thought exhausts her. They are reminders of something she will never forget, of wounds that bleed at random moments. When she pulled out the shoe she had been wearing on Sept. 15 - an Adidas Limited Edition Pink Cheetah - and discovered a blood stain. When she was forced to board a yellow school bus at a teen group conference and cried quietly in her seat for the entire 30-minute ride. When she passes by Telephone Road, the site of the accident, and replays that morning. "I'm going to pray before I even go to school," Lakeisha says, six days before she would return to REACH. "That no buses go over any more bridges with any more kids that have to suffer as long as we have. I just don't want to deal with anything like this again. Ever." --- The bus carrying Lakeisha to her first day back arrives on campus around 7 a.m., just as a few wisps of sunrise began to color the sky. Lakeisha, earbuds still in place, Brandon still at her side, girds herself for the volley of questions. The Furr principal, coffee mug in hand, calls out, "Hey, sweetheart" and wraps an arm around Lakeisha. "How'd you feel getting on the bus?" "It was weird," the teenager responds, an it's-all-good smile plastered on her face. "If you need help, just let me know," Simmons urges. "We've been missing you, girl." One down. Minutes later, Danniella Tyner enfolds Lakeisha in a tight embrace. The girls dart through the school halls and outdoor walkways, chattering and catching up. As they scurry to a science classroom to look for Lakeisha's old notebook, REACH dean Xavier Downs catches a glimpse of the pair. "How you doing, stranger?" he asks Lakeisha. Two down. Next, Lakiesha ducks into the REACH office to check on her schedule and her credit tally. "Welcome back," says Jahnelle Hueske, the REACH registrar. "Are you ready to be back? We're ready to have you back." Thanks to home school classes, Lakeisha has 15 credits - just two shy of being a senior. With makeup work, she should be able to graduate in August. Lakeisha paces in circles, her Victoria's Secret purse clapping against her thigh. Behind Hueske's desk, a sign on the wall warns: "Let go or be dragged." "You will not be behind. I will not let you be behind," Hueske reassures her. "We're going to get it done. Little steps. We'll get it done." Three down. Then four. A swing through another room. Another teacher. Another "welcome back." And five. And six. And too many to keep count. Hugs. Hellos. Double takes. Questions. In first period, Lakeisha settles at a lab table, scribbling the answers to a physics worksheet. The school announcements crackle over the intercom: "Happy Monday! Everyone have a great day!" The hum of a run-of-the-mill school day. Well, almost. "How does it feel to be back?" Cathy Bucchino's query jolts Lakeisha. "Weird," she tells her science teacher. "I haven't been here in forever." "You and your brother had an angel watching over you. When I saw the bus, no one should have made it out." Lakeisha smiles her polite smile, and bends her head over the worksheet. At 8:17, Bucchino takes roll: Alejandro? Here. Aurora? Here. Precious? Here. Cedric? Here. "Lakeisha?" Most of the school day was still ahead. Lakeisha would face more quizzing, more loaded looks, more makeup work. She must still endure many more sessions of therapy that wring her muscles and drain her emotions. And she and Brandon will always feel an ache when they think of Janiecia and Mariya. But, on this morning, three words are enough. Lakeisha raises her hand. "I'm right here." Not along ago, Illinois pharmacist and attorney Lawrence Joyce began to realize his country and his political party were facing what he considered to be a nightmare. Concerns about the eligibility for the presidency of Republican candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas, who was born in Canada to a Cuban father and an American mother, were raised by rival Donald Trump; though they may at first have seemed laughable, the legal case against Cruz was one Joyce, a Ben Carson supporter, thought he understood. The Constitution requires the president to be a "natural born" citizen of the United States, and as far as Joyce is concerned, Cruz isn't one. And Cruz, who won the Iowa caucuses earlier this month, appeared to be rising in the polls. What would happen if Cruz won the Republican nomination, then was somehow disqualified from the general election? So Joyce took action, filing a complaint with the Illinois State Board of Elections to get Cruz's name off the primary ballot in that state. The board dismissed the claim after a hearing officer found, as Cruz argues, that the "Candidate is a 'natural born citizen' by virtue of having been born in Canada to a United States citizen, thereby not causing the Candidate to have to take any steps or undergo a naturalization process to become a United States citizen." Joyce, not satisfied, filed an appeal in Cook County Circuit Court. And now, Joyce's concerns about Cruz's eligibility will be heard by a judge in Illinois Friday. "Senator Cruz has been whistling past the graveyard all along," Joyce wrote in a statement posted to 888 Web Today, a conservative, Christian site to which he contributes columns. "That he should happen to do so within the thoughts of his own mind would be one thing, but that he should now drag the entire Republican Party through a potential nightmare simply because of his negligence, his own private, wishful thinking, and his lack of due diligence is inexcusable, and such conduct hardly signifies the type of person whom the American people need in a President of the United States, and whom members of the conservative movement need in order to prevent the Establishment Wing of the Republican Party from depriving us of one of our own candidates." It is this "establishment wing" that Joyce appears to fear the most. Should party bosses select a candidate in lieu of Cruz, that candidate would likely not appeal to its base. "The party elders would decide who the new nominee would be," Joyce said in an interview with a Christian media outlet earlier this month. "Karl Rove and company would pick perhaps Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney or Chris Christie." He added: "I am quite frankly terrified of such a scenario taking place." "Ted Cruz was born in Canada," he said. "His mother was a U.S. citizen at the time. Under statute, Ted Cruz became a citizen at birth . . . but citizenship by statute is not natural-born citizenship." What makes Joyce so certain is unclear, as the question has never been adjudicated by the Supreme Court and is the subject of disagreement among some of the nation's most respected constitutional scholars, with only a small minority believing that Cruz might be ineligible. What gives Joyce the right to contest Cruz's eligibility is also unclear, as courts, even state courts, do not generally recognize being "terrified" as granting standing to pursue a legal challenge like his. While that may or may not doom Joyce's case in the courts, he's persisting. Should Cruz win the nomination, Joyce said, the dominoes would begin to fall. The Republicans would be vulnerable in every jurisdiction as their opponents sought to disqualify Cruz with the help of a friendly judge anywhere in the country. "If Ted Cruz becomes the nominee of the party, then say sometime around September, Democrats . . . [will] file a suit challenging Ted Cruz's eligibility," he said. " . . . All fundraising for Cruz's campaign would instantly dry up. He would be pressured from multiple sources to resign the nomination." Joyce also said that Trump should consider his pending lawsuit as well. "My case presents the perfect opportunity for Donald Trump himself to step forward and bring the matter to court personally," he told CBS Chicago. Saying he did little more with his law practice than file friend of the court briefs in support of anti-abortion groups, he added: "It would no doubt be impossible for me to absorb all the legal expenses by myself and it would foolish to try to do so when Mr. Trump has so much personal stock invested in this issue." The Cruz campaign declined comment about the suit to USA Today. Cruz takes the position, as did the Illinois State Board of Elections, that he is a natural born citizen because his mother was a citizen at the time of his birth in Canada. "I never breathed a breath of air on this planet when I was not a U.S. citizen," Cruz said Wednesday, according to USA Today. "It was the act of being born that made me a U.S. citizen." Cruz, a lawyer, former Supreme Court clerk and former Supreme Court litigator, added, "There will be some who try to work political mischief on it, but as a legal matter, this is clear and straightforward." "I'd be very, very surprised if [the judge] were to say he's ineligible," Sanford Levinson, constitutional law professor at the University of Texas School of Law, also told USA Today. "At that point, all hell would break loose." A federal lawsuit regarding Cruz's presidential eligibility was filed in Texas in January, according to USA Today, and two voters in New York filed a lawsuit Wednesday in New York state court seeking to compel that state's board of elections to strike Cruz's name from the ballot, Bloomberg reported. Whatever happens to Cruz, Joyce made it clear he would prefer Carson, who he said has a "serious demeanor," as Republican nominee and president. "You rarely see him in the debates with his hands below his waist," Joyce said. "That comes from 30 years of being prepared from surgery." 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. Job Training Nonprofit Year Up NCR Honors Urban Empowerment Award Winners for Their Commitment to Developing Young Adult TalentYear Up National Capital Region Recognizes Dennis Barger of Thermo Fisher Scientific and Colonel Donald W. Newton for Their Impa Posted by Press Releases on Friday, 02-19-2016 11:12 am Currently 0.0/5 Stars. 1 2 3 4 5 0.0 from 0 votes WASHINGTON, D.C. (PRWEB) FEBRUARY 17, 2016Celebrating the commitment of two leaders who have made a strong and measurable impact on the lives of young adults, Year Up National Capital Region (NCR) honored Dennis Barger and Colonel Donald W. Newton by presenting them with the Urban Empowerment Award.The award was presented at Year Up NCRs graduation ceremony on January 29, 2016, where 84 graduates of Year Ups innovative job training program received certificates for completing six months of intensive hands-on skills training followed by a six-month internship at a corporate partner firm.Both Dennis and Don have been tremendous supporters of Year Ups values and mission, recognizing the programs ability to develop much-needed talent, said Guylaine Saint Juste, Executive Director of Year Up NCR. Dennis has hosted many Year Up interns at Thermo Fisher Scientific over the years, and hires at least one from each class as a full-time employee. H... 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 Kiran Analytics to Share Branch Transformation Insights at Retail Banking ConferencesAdvanced analytics replacing intuition for making critical workforce optimization decisions Posted by Press Releases on Friday, 02-19-2016 11:15 am Currently 0.0/5 Stars. 1 2 3 4 5 0.0 from 0 votes SAN DIEGO, CA (PRWEB) FEBRUARY 17, 2016 Kiran Analytics a leader in intelligent branch transformation announced today that it will share its branch workforce optimization insights at three major industry events -- CBA Live 2016, Retail Banking 2016, and International Retail Banker 2016. CBA Live 2016, the premier event of the Consumer Bankers Association, will be held on March 7-9 in Scottsdale, AZ. Retail Banking 2016 Conference, the premier event of the retail banking industry in the US, will be held on April 6-8 in Las Vegas, NV. International Retail Banker 2016, the premier event of the retail banking industry in the UK, will be held on May 19 in London. To keep up with changing consumer banking behaviors, retail banks have been making significant technology investments in digital banking and branch automation. They have also been closing unprofitable branches, eliminating teller lines, and reducing operating hours to improve operational efficiency. ... 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 Cyprus PIO: Turkish Cypriot and Turkish Media Review, 16-02-19 Cyprus Press and Information Office: Turkish Cypriot Press Review Directory - Previous Article - Next Article From: The Republic of Cyprus Press and Information Office Server at TURKISH CYPRIOT AND TURKISH MEDIA REVIEW No. 34/16 19.02.2016 [A] TURKISH CYPRIOT / TURKISH PRESS [01] Colak describes as "surprising" the EU Commission's decision regarding the Task Force for the Turkish Cypriot Community [02] Denktas: Negotiations reached a dangerous and threatening point [03] Turkish "ambassador" met with the association of the settlers from Black Sea [04] Self-styled minister Sucuoglu met with an IMF delegation [05] Sucuoglu says that the regime is expecting 200 thousand tourists from 12 countries in 2016 only from charter flights [06] A "water platform" established in the occupation regime to prepare an action plan [07] The "Entrepreneurship project" to be implemented in the occupation regime; Atun: "Priority will be given to disadvantaged areas such as Morfou and Karpasia" [08] Antiquities were found in occupied Keryneia [09] "The first international bicycle tour" is starting today in the breakaway regime [10] Cavusoglu urges US to cut ties with PYD/YPG terrorist organization [11] Turkey continues to shell PYD positions in Syria's Azaz; Turkish military hits PYD targets in northern Syria with missiles [12] Turkey informs P5 and the EU on Ankara bomber's alleged PYD link [13] Turkey Rapporteur Kati Piri interviewed by Turkish daily; She accused the EU of insincerity [14] Commentary: "Turkish people feel US is helping killers" [15] Commentaries on the Ankara bomb attack [A] TURKISH CYPRIOT / TURKISH PRESS [01] Colak describes as "surprising" the EU Commission's decision regarding the Task Force for the Turkish Cypriot Community Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris newspaper (19.02.16) reports that Emine Colak, self-styled foreign minister of the breakaway regime in the occupied area of the Republic of Cyprus, has described as a "gesture and a message" the recent decision taken by the EU Commission to transfer the Task Force for the Turkish Cypriot Community - the Commission's team in charge of the application of the EU's aid program to the Turkish Cypriot community and of assisting the Turkish Cypriots to prepare for the reunification of Cyprus - to the Secretariat General's Structural Reform Support Service (SRSS), which will coordinate all Commission's efforts in facilitating the process for the reunification of the island. In statements to illegal Bayrak television, Colak said: "This is actually a surprise. We had not heard it before. However, with a sudden decision it was bound to the European Commission's President. [?] I think that this is a new and important step. Yes, primarily it is a gesture and a message. It is actually an appreciation of the fact that this issue has been taken seriously at the highest level, that importance and appreciation is attached to the level which the negotiations have reached and that we need to work even harder". Colak also noted that it seems that the Commission will exert efforts to keep its promise to offer more effective support to the process. She argued that "at least this focus of interest is a confirmation of the impression that the ongoing process in Cyprus is really heading towards a result". "In this sense it is satisfying", she added. Referring to the efforts of the Turkish Cypriot community to harmonize with the EU, Colak said that they are not at the desired level and are not made at the desired speed. Meanwhile, the self-styled foreign ministry of the regime also commented on the issue expressing the expectation that the above-mentioned decision will give "a new momentum to the support offered by the European Commission to the existing negotiating process through giving the opportunity for the timely realization of the necessary preparations of the Turkish Cypriot community" for the EU. (I/Ts.) [02] Denktas: Negotiations reached a dangerous and threatening point Turkish Cypriot daily Vatan newspaper (19.02.16) reports that Serdar Denktas, the chairman of the Democratic Party (DP), in statements to the illegal Bayrak television, evaluated the Cyprus negotiations and claimed that "they have reached a dangerous and threatening point". "The issue of (Turkish) guarantees is in danger. There is neither political equality nor equality regarding the sovereignty", Denktas stated adding that no concessions are seen to be made on the issue of property as well. "Therefore we do not consider the negotiations to progress positively", Denktas stated. (CS) [03] Turkish "ambassador" met with the association of the settlers from Black Sea Turkish Cypriot daily (19.02.16) reports that the "ambassador" of Turkey to the breakaway regime Derya Kanbay held a meeting with the association of the settlers from the Black Sea. During the meeting, Kanbay told the association's chairman Baki Aygun that the "embassy" is always ready to offer any kind of assistance and support to the association. On his part, Aygun stated that the 10,000 members of the association are always working towards promoting the culture of the Black Sea to the occupied area of Cyprus. (CS) [04] Self-styled minister Sucuoglu met with an IMF delegation Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris newspaper (19.02.16) reports that Faiz Sucuoglu, self-styled minister of tourism of the breakaway regime in the occupied area of the Republic of Cyprus, met yesterday at his office with a delegation of the International Monetary Fund (IFM) headed by Rachel Van Elkan. According to a statement issued by Sucuoglu's "ministry", the development of tourism in the economy, the tourism models after the solution of the Cyprus problem and the contribution that could be made to occupied north Cyprus' tourism were discussed during the 1.5-hour meeting. Noting that they had a very productive meeting with the IMF officials, Sucuoglu said that they decided to work together on the issue of how the IMF could contribute to the "country's" tourism. Expressing his satisfaction with the visit of the IMF delegation, Sucuoglu further noted that they will meet again with the IMF soon. (I/Ts.) [05] Sucuoglu says that the regime is expecting 200 thousand tourists from 12 countries in 2016 only from charter flights Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris newspaper (19.02.16) reports that Faiz Sucuoglu, self-styled minister of tourism of the breakaway regime in the occupied area of the Republic of Cyprus, has said that the regime is expecting 200 thousand tourists from 12 countries in 2016 through only the charter flights. In statements to Kibris, Sucuoglu noted that this year tourists from the Netherlands, Belgium, Britain, Germany, Denmark, Kazakhstan, Iran, Slovakia, Turkey, Lithuania, Estonia and Slovenia will visit the occupied area of Cyprus with these charter flights. Referring to the reservations from Britain, Sucuoglu said that these were doubled this year comparing to last year and that the newly established in London "Independent Turkish Cypriot Tour Operators' Union" has created a momentum in the sector. Sucuoglu said that they will continue the advertisements abroad and pointed out that after their advertisements "more reference to north Cyprus" started in Turkey and in Britain. He added that within the forthcoming days they will decide to start advertisements in Germany. Referring to the tourism fair in Germany, Sucuoglu said that he will have "serious contacts" there and that he will meet with tour operators. He further noted that Corendon company has relations with all the hotels in the occupied area of Cyprus, and launched a serious advertising campaign. Subsequently, intensive reservations started, he said. Noting that they are working with the stakeholders for establishing a "tourism organization", he said that next week they will hold a "tourism council". Sucuoglu noted that they are in continuous contacts with the European Union and the World Bank and that they want financial support especially for their Eco tourism projects. Sucuoglu further said that two big tour operators, who carry tourists from Iran to Turkey, held contacts with him and that Iranian tourists might visit the occupied area of Cyprus for resting after shopping in Turkey. (I/Ts.) [06] A "water platform" established in the occupation regime to prepare an action plan Turkish Cypriot daily Havadis newspaper (19.02.16) reports that a "water platform" which was established recently in the occupied area of Cyprus by several trade unions, NGO's and political parties, organized yesterday a meeting in order to determine an action plan against the agreement to be signed between Turkey and the occupation regime in the water supply. The "water platform" discussed during the meeting their principles and an action plan to be prepared and share it with the "public" concerning their actions. Speaking on behalf of the "platform", Ifran Celik, "chairman" of the "olive producers union", explained that the "platform" is against the draft agreement prepared by Turkey and the "TRNC" concerning the water management and supply. Pointing out that the water should not be privatized since it is a basic and human right; Celik added that it should provide supply to the people and for agriculture use in the lowest price. The "water platform" is composed by Dev-Is, BES, KTAMS, EL-Sen, Turk-Sen, KTOEOS, KTOS, BASIN-SEN trade unions, the Turkish Cypriot political parties: New Cyprus Party (YKP), United Cyprus Party (BKP), Social Democracy Party (TDP), Cyprus Socialist Party (KSP), the Famagusta Initiative, the Feminist Association, the "municipalities" of the occupied part of Lefkosia, Lefka, and Gialousa, the Kibris Pir Sultan Abdal Cultural Association and other organizations. (AK) [07] The "Entrepreneurship project" to be implemented in the occupation regime; Atun: "Priority will be given to disadvantaged areas such as Morfou and Karpasia" Turkish Cypriot daily Havadis newspaper (19.02.16) reports that the so-called ministry of economy, industry and trade presented yesterday a project called "entrepreneurship project" which is to be carried out by the "Entrepreneurship Center" with the cooperation of Turkish Economy Bank (TEB) and the financial contribution of the Turkish Aid Committee, in the framework of the program KOBIGEM ("Credit programs with low interest for the tradesmen and Services sector". As the paper writes, in the framework of the implementation of the project which is to be carried out under the slogan "new projects for the TRNC's future", the "TRNC" will provide incentives, such as free education and consultancy to persons who would like to establish a business in the "TRNC" and the amount of 100 thousand TL as a grant aid. Speaking during a meeting organized with the participation of representatives from the Turkish Cypriot Chamber of Trade (KTTO), the "Turkish Cypriot Chamber of Industry" (KTSO), "the businessmen association", "the young businessmen association", the "women businessmen association" and others, so-called minister of economy, industry and trade Sunat Atun, said, inter alia, that within the framework of the project, priority will be given to disadvantaged areas such as occupied Morfou and Karpasia. Atun explained further that the "entrepreneurship project" has been already implemented in Turkey with great success and added that the "TRNC's economy" needs to be strengthened as well. (AK) [08] Antiquities were found in occupied Keryneia Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris newspaper (19.02.16) reports that during construction works and excavation in an area in occupied Keryneia, an ancient tomb and 20 antiquities belonging to the Hellenistic-Roman period were found. According to the paper, "archeologists" and "officials" of the so-called antiquities and museum department carried out inspections in the area and launched excavations. In statements on the issue, Fuat Azimli, "director" of the "antiquities department" said that they will give more details on the issue after completing their work. (AK) [09] "The first international bicycle tour" is starting today in the breakaway regime Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris newspaper (19.02.16) reports that the "first international bicycle tour of northern Cyprus" is starting today in the breakaway regime. According to the paper, 11 teams from 5 countries are participating in the tour which is taking place between 19-21 of February. Athletes from Turkey, Bulgaria, Germany Kazakhstan, Serbia and Germany will participate in the tour which has a 5,000 dollars prize. (CS) [10] Cavusoglu urges US to cut ties with PYD/YPG terrorist organization According to Turkish daily Sabah (online, 19.02.16), Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu on Friday criticized the United States for making conflicting statements regarding the YPG/PYD and urged the US to cut its ties with the terrorist group. Cavusoglu's comments came during an official visit to Georgian capital Tbilisi, where he slammed the US for cooperating with the YPG and PYD, which are affiliated with the PKK, recognized as a terrorist organization by Turkey, EU and the US "Resorting to terrorist groups like the YPG in the fight against Deash in Syria is above all a sign of weakness", Cavusoglu said and added that the US, which is Turkey's ally must immediately stop this mistake. Cavusoglu also underscored that Turkey will contribute actively in fight against Daesh terrorists. The United States said it is not in a position to confirm or deny Turkey's charge and said that it 'has been careful to press the YPG/PYD and other Kurdish elements against Daesh militants and not to target Turkey'. [11] Turkey continues to shell PYD positions in Syria's Azaz; Turkish military hits PYD targets in northern Syria with missiles According to Ankara Anatolia news agency (18.02.16), the Turkish military is continuing to shell PYD positions in Syria's Azaz district located in the northern countryside of Aleppo, Turkish security sources confirmed to Anadolu Agency Thursday. The latest round of shelling comes a day after a deadly bomb attack killed 28 people and injured dozens others in the Turkish capital of Ankara. Turkish military has been shelling PYD and PKK positions in northern Syria intermittently for six consecutive days in retaliation to artillery fire from PYD forces based around Azaz. Turkish security sources said artillery shells began pounding Azaz again on Thursday evening. Furthermore, HDN (online, 19.02.16) reports that the Turkish military hit Syria's Democratic Union Party (PYD) targets in northern Syria with Stinger and I-HAWK missiles, a major change from previous operations that only included shelling targets. The Turkish Armed Forces fired about five missiles stationed in the K?r?khan district of the southern province of Hatay on Feb. 18 around 10 p.m. at the PYD targets in Syria's Afrin province. The army has also continued to fire missiles at PYD positions in northern Syria early Feb. 19. [12] Turkey informs P5 and the EU on Ankara bomber's alleged PYD link According to Turkish daily Hurriyet Daily News (online, 19.02.16), Turkey has informed world leaders, including the United States and Russia, that the deadly Ankara car bombing was perpetrated by Syria's Democratic Union Party's (PYD) military wing, in an obvious message that they should no longer cooperate and support the Syrian Kurdish group. Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioglu held separate meetings with the Ambassadors of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (P5), the U.S., Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China as well as with envoys of Germany, the Netherlands (the current term president of the EU) and the EU Delegation in Ankara. Earlier in the day, both President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced that the attack was conducted by a Syrian national and alleged he was a member of the People's Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of the PYD. Davutoglu told reporters that he instructed the Foreign Ministry to provide all necessary information about the Ankara incident, including evidence that supposedly proved that the YPG was behind the bombing. [13] Turkey Rapporteur Kati Piri interviewed by Turkish daily; she accused the EU of insincerity Under the title: "The EU is not sincere", Turkish daily Hurriyet (19.02.16) reports on statements by European Parliament's Turkey Rapporteur Kati Piri, who in an exclusive interview to the paper, condemned strongly the EU for the bargaining with Turkey on the refugee action plan. Supporting that the European Commission's decision to postpone the announcement of its progress report until after the November 2015 elections, has brought the Commission in a very bad and weak position, Piri referred also to Turkey's EU negotiation process and accused the EU of being insincere towards the issue of the opening of new chapters for Turkey. "In spite of the fact that the EU was not in favour of the opening of new chapters with Turkey during the recent years, suddenly it supports the opening of new chapters and this is not sincere at all. (?)". Piri expressed also concerns over the freedoms in Turkey and the fact that the Turkish government did not move to any reforms and stressed that Turkey's EU process is totally related with the EU values. "If we speed up the process, of course it is necessary for Turkey to be developed. Whilst some EU countries connect the refugee problem with the process, they prove that they do not care at all about the standards and the values of the Union and they at the same time turn the process into a political one", Piri said and added that the EU gave a pretty bad signal by connecting it so directly to migration. (AK) [14] Commentary: "Turkish people feel US is helping killers" Columnist Ilnur Cevik, writing in Turkish daily Sabah (17.02.16), argues in the following commentary that the US cannot impose their will on Turkey and that the US provides weapons to the PYD to fight the Syrian opposition forces: "Those of us who believe in Turkish-American relations and who have received an award from the Turkish Atlantic Council in the past for our services to enhancing these relations are watching in alarm as Turkish public opinion progressively turns against the United States. The Americans tried to impose their will on Turkey in the 1960s to prevent Turkish intervention in Cyprus and the famous Johnson letter and then in the 1970s when the American Congress imposed an arms embargo on Turkey that eventually paralyzed our U.S.-supplied air force after Turkey intervened in 1974 in Cyprus (editor's note: Turkish invasion to Cyprus in 1974 allegedly to save the Turkish Cypriots but the Turkish army still occupies the half island) to save the Turkish Cypriot community that was being slaughtered by Greek Cypriot hordes who had toppled the Makarios administration. Since then, the Turkish people have been looking up at the U.S. with mixed feelings of suspicion and respect for a superpower ally. Many Turks did not like what they saw and heard as the Americans established a dominance in Northern Iraq in the Kurdish territories in the 1990s. Along with Turkey, Britain and France, the Americans helped to create a safe zone and a no-fly zone in northern Iraq that prohibited Saddam Hussein's forces from entering or flying planes. The operation called Provide Comfort also unfortunately allowed the Americans to court the PKK terrorists who were holed up in the Qandil Mountains in Northern Iraq. That is where many Syrian Kurds also joined the ranks of the PKK to launch terrorist attacks inside Turkey. Even today the American role in all this is still being questioned by many Turks. When it comes to recent times, Turks continue to hear contact between the PKK and the U.S. despite the fact that Washington repeatedly says it regards the PKK as a terrorist organization. Today, however, the picture is quite different. The so-called Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its fighting unit People's Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria are being openly supported by the US. The PYD and its sidekick the YPG have been borne out of the PKK and are being used by the PKK to infiltrate its militants into Turkey from northern Syria to terrorize cities and towns in southeastern Turkey. What is sad is that the arms and especially the ammunition captured by the PKK terrorists are American made. These are the arms and ammunition the U.S. gave to the PYD and YPG to fight DAESH terrorists. What is even sadder is the fact that while the PYD has been misleading the Americans, saying that it aims to destroy DAESH, they have joined forces with the Assad regime, just like the Russians and the Iranians, to fight the Syrian opposition forces. The recent fight in the Azaz region just near the Turkish border is between the YPG forces and the opposition army. DAESH does not exist in the area. The YPG forces are also advancing on Tal Rifaat to take the city from Syrian opposition forces and thus strengthen the encirclement of Aleppo by the Assad forces. So the YPG and the PYD are in fact aiding Assad and are not at all fighting DAESH. All the Americans can do is to tell the PYD not to get carried away with expansionist ideals and get back to the fight against DAESH. Give them arms, provide them with logistical support and training and then try to tame the monster you have created. The Turkish public is watching this charade in anger and has started to question the value of our strategic alliance with the U.S. Can anyone blame them?" [15] Commentaries on the Ankara bomb attack Columnist Murat Yetkin, writing in Turkish daily Hurriyet Daily News (online, 19.02.16), under the title "Difficult questions on the Ankara attack", argues that "the Ankara attack may have considerable consequences for Turkey's relations with its Western allies, mainly the U.S. It is even possible that Turkey opts to revise its relations with the U.S. and the EU if they continue to back the PYD. But lingering questions about the lack of intelligence or police measures still have no satisfying answer, which might also signal certain consequences within the Turkish government, especially in the security bureaucracy." Columnist Ismet Berkan, writing in Turkish daily Hurriyet Daily News (online, 19.02.16), under the title "Politics is also a way to fight terror", believes that "increasing security is an unavoidable method to fight terror but it is not the only weapon to use against terror". Berkan reports that "Turkey currently is at war with three terror organizations at the same time. First and foremost is the PKK. It is followed by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C). (?) There are developments that Turkey can control in the Syrian internal war; but there are also developments that are totally beyond the control of Turkey. With each passing day, we witness a decrease in the number of developments Turkey can control." Berkan further writes: "At the final analysis, the Syrians should be able to determine their fate themselves and that they should be able to do so in an environment devoid of violence. If the current regime is not toppling due to the strong foreign support it receives, one needs to see that. At any rate Turkey's priority cannot be Syria; the priority is Turkey and our security. And we need to prioritize three fundamental threats with routes in Syria". Berkan believes that Turkey should be open to the negotiation table. Furthermore, columnist Lale Kemal, writing in Turkish daily Today's Zaman (online, 18.02.16), under the title "Turkey should return to its senses to overcome serious challenges", argued that at the end of the day, the terrorist groups have now sent the message that no part of Turkey is beyond their reach. She added that these attacks have also marked the resumption of unstable years for Turkey. Kemal concluded: "Turkish stability was also undermined in parallel with the Turkish government and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's departure from democratic reforms, drifting Turkey towards authoritarian rule. This has also weakened the ability of the Turkish security and intelligence apparatus to be vigilant against terrorist groups as they have simultaneously been focusing on various dissenting groups critical of the government's policies". Columnist Bulent Kenes, writing in Turkish daily Today's Zaman (online, 18.02.16), under the title "On war", reported that "Turkey's interests start from its borders. The security of Turkey and Turks is maintained within Turkey's borders. Any move beyond this will bring to the country disaster. This is my advice." The following columnists, writing in Turkish daily Sabah (online, 19.02.16), are supportive of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and defend the policies of the Turkish government. Columnist Cemil Ertem, under the title "Ankara terrorist attack is a milestone for Turkey", writes that "Turkey is aware that this recent terrorist attack is a result of a new war on sharing, which has been declared against itself and the whole of the world must realize it. Turkish intelligence units and security forces have unearthed that the PKK and the YPG perpetrated the terrorist attack in Ankara - which corroborates Turkey's argument that the YPG is a terrorist organization that is an affiliate of the PKK. This substantiation indicates that the Ankara attack is a milestone for Turkey. Turkey will never accept the organization and deployment of the YPG on the Syria border and will strengthen its redlines regarding the issue. This is a clear warning to the U.S. and the EU. As I stated above, this is a war on sharing against Turkey. However, the process that we are going through is not a classical war on sharing, but a multidimensional one that has military, political, diplomatic, economic and commercial aspects. Therefore, it is a historical process that will determine the 21st century, rather than a cyclical situation." Ertem, strongly believes, that in order to overcome this threat, Turkey aims to switch to a presidential system and highlight a new state tradition with a strategy. Turkey's objective of a transition to a presidential system and a new Constitution will be the first steps toward a stronger and more democratic country. Columnist Ilnur Cevik, under the title "Backers of the PKK and PYD shoulder the responsibility", writes that the international community should quit condemning terror attacks and instead take concrete steps to end the growing atrocities. He argues that "the PKK has been carrying out its terrorist campaign in towns and cities and it is only normal that it would try to hit Turkey in the heart in view of the intensified counterterror campaign carried out by the government in the southeastern regions of Turkey. The fact that the target was the service buses that transport military personnel from the military headquarters shows that the PKK is taking revenge for the mounting PKK casualties in view of the successful counterterror campaign carried out by the special units of the police and the military." Cevik believes that "it is time Turkey hit back at the PKK masterminds and if necessary at those in northern Syria who are actively supporting the Kurdish terrorists". TURKISH AFFAIRS SECTION http://www.moi.gov.cy/pio (DPs/AM) Cyprus Press and Information Office: Turkish Cypriot Press Review Directory - Previous Article - Next Article Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 16-02-19 Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article From: The Athens News Agency at CONTENTS [01] PM Tsipras' meeting with farmers on Monday ;Thessaly farmers call nationwide meeting on Sunday [02] Greek current account deficit shrank by 3.8 bln euros in 2015 [03] Teleconference at technical level to be held on Friday afternoon [04] Fisherman rescues large number of migrants off Alexandroupolis [01] PM Tsipras' meeting with farmers on Monday ;Thessaly farmers call nationwide meeting on Sunday Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will receive the farmers' representatives on Monday at 12:00, according to sources. "Almost all the farmers' coordination committees have been informed and most of them have responded positively. We are expecting from the other committees to appoint their representatives," Rural Development Minister Evangelos Apostolou said adding "we are open to dialogue." Thessaly farmers of the block of Nikaia, the largest in Greece, called a nationwide meeting on Sunday. Nikaia block farmers stated their determination to remain adamant on their position and further escalate their mobilisations. On their part, Tempi Valley block farmers are waiting Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' invitation for dialogue. Tempi Valley on the Athens-Thessaloniki motorway are closed for an indefinite period. [02] Greek current account deficit shrank by 3.8 bln euros in 2015 Greek current account showed an amelioration of 3.8 billion euros and came close to balance in 2015, the Bank of Greece said on Friday. The central bank, in a report, attributed this development to the improved balance of goods and services, which recorded a deficit of 235 million euros, compared with a deficit of 4.0 billion in 2014. Overall, the value of exports of goods and services fell by 8.8 pct, but the value of imports decreased at a faster pace of 14.3 pct. In 2015, the deficit of the balance of goods registered a considerable fall of 5.0 billion euros, due to an amelioration in all sub-accounts. More specifically, the oil balance improved significantly, on account of lower international oil prices. In addition, transactions concerning purchases and sales of ships were also significantly reduced, largely due to the fact that they are conducted outside the Greek banking system as a result of capital controls. Finally, it should be noted that exports of goods excluding oil and ships rose by 4.6 pct, while the corresponding imports declined by 1.5 pct. The surplus of the services balance shrank in 2015, as net transport receipts registered a decline, which is also largely attributable to capital controls. [03] Teleconference at technical level to be held on Friday afternoon A new teleconference at technical level between the government and the representatives of the institutions will likely be held on Friday afternoon. According to sources, the two sides have been in close contact lately so that the technical staff and afterwards the heads of the institutions return to Athens and the program review is completed. Economy Minister George Stathakis on Thursday said that the institutions will return to Athens in two weeks. [04] Fisherman rescues large number of migrants off Alexandroupolis A fisherman rescued 60 refugees, including 20 children and infants, 11 nautical miles off the coast of the northeastern Greek city of Alexandroupolis. The fisherman said while he was fishing he heard cries for help and spotted the dinghy with the refugees. He took them on his boat and transferred them safely to Alexandroupolis port where they were received by the local authorities. Athens News Agency: News in English Directory - Previous Article - Next Article ajor Kiwi corporation has been hit with a six-figure fine after it was found to have breached union access rights on numerous occasions. The Talleys-owned South Pacific Meats (SPM) has been ordered to pay $144,000 in penalties to the NZ Meat Workers Union after the Employment Authority uncovered widespread wrongdoing. The authority found that SPM acted unlawfully in attempting to restrict access requests at a number of their locations, including Awarua, Invercargill and Christchurch. The organization did so by requiring a plant manager to supervise the visits of union officials. The union is heartened by this decision. We have repeatedly sought to access rights to talk to workers as guaranteed by law, and we have repeatedly been frustrated by the Talleys owned companies across the board says Darien Fenton, NZMWU organising director. This is the third decision in relation to SPMs unlawful behaviour relating to access. On each occasion their actions have been found to be unlawful, he added. The Employment Authority also found that SPM had implemented and unlawful pre-condition on bargaining, by requiring the union to identify union members before any negotiations could begin. As a result, the authority issued a compliance order requiring SPM to terminate the practice of unlawfully restricting access and awarded penalties in respect of each breach bringing the total penalty to $144,000, all of which was directed to the union. Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team/Facebook A search is set to resume for a couple that went missing while climbing the U.K.'s highest mountain, Ben Nevis, on Sunday. Rachel Slater, 24, and Tim Newton, 27, failed to return from a climbing expedition on the mountain, which is located in Scotland's highlands, north of Glasgow. Advertisement Slater's family lives in Calgary and has travelled to Scotland to join in the search, according to CBC News. Slater lived in Calgary from 2005 to 2009. The family says they are not giving up hope. We are extremely grateful to members of the emergency services and search and rescue personnel who are searching for Rachel and Tim," Slater's family said, in a statement sent to Scotland Police. Click for full size. Advertisement Slater and Newton were planning to scale Ben Nevis in Scotland. (Photo: Google Maps) "The overwhelming response from members of the public and the climbing community has greatly assisted the search effort and we appreciate all the support and words of encouragement. As the search continues we remain hopeful Rachel and Tim will be found and reunited with their families and friends. On Monday, police were notified that the pair was late returning from a climb. Police recovered a tent the couple had been camping in near the base of the mountain, as well as Slater's car, according to a post by the Highland and Islands Police Division on Facebook. The couple had camped outside the Charles Inglis Clark Memorial Hut before their planned ascent of Ben Nevis. (Photo: Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team/Facebook) Advertisement Aerial searches for the couple have yet to turn up any results, The Guardian reported. Even though the couple are experienced climbers, they did not leave a route before their trip. It is very frustrating and were trying to get something for the families mainly and weve got nothing to go on. We dont know where to look yet, so were just going to have to start basically at the beginning and just work our way around the hill," John Stevenson, of the Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team, told Good Morning Scotland on Friday. The family also took the opportunity to ask for anyone who might have seen or spoken to Slater or Newton to contact Scotland Police. Newton was most likely wearing a red coat, and Slater a turquoise coat and purple helmet. lovro77 via Getty Images Taxi driver using GPS to follow the route. Travelling with GPS. Taxi (fictive) application on smart phone in action. Edmonton's Uber legalization has some of the company's drivers fleeing Calgary for work in the provincial capital. Abd Al-Minshdawi was a heavy-duty oil mechanic in Iraq, before he and his family moved to Canada, according to CBC News. Advertisement Now that oil work has dried up, Al-Minshdawi makes the three-hour trek to Edmonton from Calgary every weekend to drive for the ride-sharing company. "Only this way can I help me and my family. Sometime it's $100 a week sometimes it's $120, but it's better than nothing," Minshdawi told CBC. And he's not the only one. "The economic downturn is pushing a lot of Albertans to seek out new income opportunities," Jean-Christophe de la Rue, Uber Canada's senior communications associate, told The Huffington Post Alberta. "That has led some Calgarians to partner with Uber and drive in Edmonton while they wait on action from Calgary City Council." Advertisement Edmonton 1st Canadian city to legalize Uber Edmonton's city council voted last month to pass the city's vehicle-for-hire bylaw, becoming the first Canadian city to officially legalize Uber. In Calgary, driving for Uber is against the law, thanks to a temporary injunction passed by city council last year. Those caught face up to $1,500 in fines. Councillors are set to meet on Monday, when they will debate a bylaw that would regulate ride-sharing companies in the city. Uber officials have repeatedly expressed concerns that the city's proposed regulations will prove too costly for drivers. "Despite our efforts to work collaboratively, city staff have drafted unworkable rules that would prevent us from coming back to Calgary," read a statement issued by Ramit Kar, Uber's general manager for the city , earlier this month. Advertisement However, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi said the company is simply resorting to scare tactics. "They've made that threat a number of times in a number of jurisdictions. As far as I know they've never actually followed through on that threat anywhere," Nenshi told Metro News. It remains to be seen whether Uber will resume operations in Calgary, but, in the meantime, it looks like customers in Edmonton won't have to wait long for a ride. Also on HuffPost: Coffee has long been credited for protecting against heart disease, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, diabetes and even some types of cancer. And now scientists say a cup of joe can even help reduce liver damage caused by drinking too much alcohol. According to researchers at Southampton University in the U.K, nine previous studies that have been conducted all show a 44 per cent lowered risk of liver cirrhosis among the 430,000 participants who consumed two cups of coffee a day. The more coffee the participants drank, the greater the decline. Advertisement The Canadian Liver Foundation describes liver cirrhosis as a condition resulting from scarring and permanent damage of the liver. It can lead to a block in blood flow and affects metabolic and regulatory processes. Causes of liver cirrhosis include alcoholism, viral infections, inherited diseases, toxic hepatitis and metabolic disease. While coffee does appear to reduce the risk of cirrhosis, medical experts also highly recommend ceasing alcohol intake upon diagnosis to prevent further damage to the liver. Dr. Oliver Kennedy, lead author in the Southampton University study, told Reuters cirrhosis is still potentially fatal, as there is currently no cure for the disease. And while the studies' findings appear promising, Kennedy says there are still questions as to how the coffee leads to a healthier liver. As noted in the video above, previous studies have only suggested that it is not the caffeine causing the positive change. Factors like bean type and brewing methods have yet to be investigated for how they may affect the healing process. Advertisement Also on HuffPost Every Disney fan knows that the company likes to plant hidden Mickeys around its theme parks. From its attractions, hotels and restaurants, the symbol of Mickey Mouse, consisting of three circles for his head and ears, can be spotted throughout. But while many have hunted for these hidden gems, theres a new addition they might have missed: the one created by Disney Worlds solar farm in Orlando, Florida. Advertisement A photo of the hidden Mickey was revealed on Reddit on Thursday. This is what Disney World's solar farm looks like from the sky, the user wrote. According to Orlando Sentinel, the solar farm is located near Epcot, the second of the four theme parks at Walt Disney World. Guests entering Epcot pass by the solar panels via World Drive, the road on the left, but of course, the hidden Mickey isnt visible from the ground view. The ginormous hidden gem, which spans across 20 acres, was a part of a deal between Disney and power company Duke Energy. The 15-year agreement allows Duke Energy to build, own and operate the solar farm on Disneys land. In return, the farm will provide solar power to Walt Disney World. While some Redditors applauded Disney for having a solar farm, others were more surprised to learn about the large hidden Mickey. Drive (sic) by this at least 10 times back in January, didn't realize it was a Mickey head, one commenter said. They were still building it a few weeks ago. Advertisement Another wrote: I love the Hidden Mickeys. My family has always been kind of Disney freaks and when we found out about those about 10 years ago it completely changed our trips. Although the 20-acre solar farm is a pretty enormous feat, it is not the largest hidden Mickey in existence. The biggest is a 60-acre forest located in Clermont, Florida, just east of U.S. Highway 27. The Mickey Mouse Forest was completed in 1992 and consists of 60,000 trees as part of a reforestation program started by Disney. If you can't get enough of Disney's hidden Mickeys, flip through the slideshow below to find out where they're hidden in your favourite films. Advertisement Lady Gaga is proving this is her year. Now, the 29-year-old is adding New York Fashion Week model to her list of 2016 accomplishments. Advertisement On Thursday, the Manhattan-native assisted legendary American designer, Marc Jacobs, in closing out New York Fashion Week for a second year in a row by walking in his romantically Gothic runway show. The "Born This Way" songstress looked like a total pro as she walked directly after supermodel of the moment, Kendall Jenner, in a pale green pussy-bow blouse and an oversized charcoal-coloured coat adorned with patches of fur draped over the sleeves. The eight-time Grammy award winner kept her strong focus as she mastered her walk in astoundingly tall python leather platform heels on the Park Avenue Armory catwalk, which was filled with the sound of bell chimes rather than music. Look at those 2 - @kendalljenner @ladygaga A photo posted by Marc Jacobs (@themarcjacobs) on Feb 18, 2016 at 6:46pm PST Gaga, who made her runway debut at Thierry Mugler's fall 2011 show during Paris Fashion Week, looked unrecognizable as she blended in with the other 64 models who also flaunted dramatically dark lashes, eyeliner and lips created by Francois Nars. Her hair was style in 1920s finger waves created by Guido Palau and her eyebrows were bleached. Advertisement @Themarcjacobs @guidopalau hair A video posted by Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) on Feb 18, 2016 at 5:18pm PST "I've adored @marcjacobs @therealmarcjacobs since I was very young, so I was so honored to be one of his beautiful creatures tonight," Gaga wrote on her Instagram account after the show. And according to Women's Wear Daily, Mother Monster arrived to the venue and "insisted" on being treated like every other model backstage, "even checking in at the model table sans a large entourage and having her hair and makeup done in the same room every other model was being prepped in." Lady Gaga for @marcjacobs A video posted by Eva Chen (@evachen212) on Feb 18, 2016 at 3:11pm PST Advertisement Now with an Oscars performance just around the corner, Lady Gaga is in full slay mode and we're so excited for her. YAS GAGA! To check out the fall 2016 Marc Jacobs collection, check out the slideshow below: Marc Jacobs NYFW Catwalk See Gallery OTTAWA The Liberal government is backing away from a decision to whip a vote on physician-assisted death, saying now that it will wait to make that call after its MPs have had a chance to discuss the matter in caucus. "It's premature to take a position right now, because the committee hasn't issued its report and we don't have a bill yet," Olivier Duchesneau, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's spokesman, told The Huffington Post Canada Friday. Advertisement Government House Leader Dominic LeBlanc speaks with media in Ottawa in February. (Photo: Matthew Usherwood/CP) Government House Leader Dominic LeBlanc told The Globe and Mail last week that the Liberals planned to whip the vote, seeing it as a Charter issue. During the election campaign, Trudeau promised his MPs free votes on anything that isn't related to the party's election platform, budget matters or rights guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Advertisement Last year, the Supreme Court struck down a Criminal Code prohibition on physician-assisted dying, ruling that it breached an individual's right to life, liberty and security of the person as guaranteed under the charter. Some Liberals, including Rob Oliphant, the chair of the special joint committee studying how the federal government should respond to the top court's ruling, said they agree with the government assessment that this is a charter issue. But others, such as P.E.I. MP Wayne Easter and Yukon MP Larry Bagnell, said they want to see what is in the bill and the committee's report before deciding how they want to vote and whether a whipped party vote would be unfair. Conclusion was 'premature' LeBlanc suggested Friday that he was wrong to declare a whipped vote before the committee had issued its report and the government had produced a bill. "We decided to delay the decision about whether or not it's a whipped vote. It's premature to come to a final conclusion like that," he told The Globe. Advertisement "We're going to discuss the bill and the committee report in our caucus, and we will make the decision as to how the bill will be handled once the bill is introduced in the House." Conservatives, New Democrats to vote conscience The Tories and the NDP plan to allow their members a free vote on the matter. NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair, who faces a leadership review in two months, said he was "very surprised" to see the Liberals whip their caucus on such a "delicate" subject. "I have the intention of letting our caucus [be] free to vote their conscience on this," he told reporters. NDP MP Murray Rankin, one of the joint committee's vice-chairs, told HuffPost earlier this week that he believes the government's legislation will address issues that are much broader than what was covered by the top court in Carter vs. Canada. There are differences in how the Supreme Court's decision can be implemented, Rankin said. "Are people with mental illness covered? People under a certain age, are they ever going to have the access to this conditional right? People should be able to vote their conscience and see if we got the balance right when the bill comes forward," he said. Advertisement The federal government has until June 6 to come up with a new law recognizing the right of clearly consenting adults enduring intolerable physical or mental suffering to seek medical help in ending their lives. With files from The Canadian Press and previous files Also on HuffPost Liberals will support a Conservative motion condemning the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, even if the foreign affairs minister sees it as an attempt to spark division. In question period on Friday, Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion accused the Tories of trying to drive a wedge between members of Parliament on the Jewish state. Advertisement Dion was responding to Tory MP David Sweet, who rose to laud backbench Liberals for condemning the "anti-Semitic boycott, divest, and sanction" movement Thursday, which calls for economic boycotts of the Jewish state's goods and services over its treatment of Palestinians. Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion speaks in the House of Commons. (Photo: The Canadian Press) Sweet asked if the Liberal cabinet would be "clear and unequivocal" in condemning the movement and launch an educational program on it, as well. Dion said the government aims to strengthen all programs that educate Canadians against racism and intolerance. Advertisement "This being said, the attempt of the Conservatives to divide this House on this issue failed yesterday, and it will always fail as long as we have this government in place," he said, to applause. This isn't a partisan issue: Clement The motion, tabled Thursday by Tory foreign affairs critic Tony Clement, says the BDS movement fosters "the demonization and delegitimization of the State of Israel," and urges the government to "condemn any and all attempts by Canadian organizations, groups or individuals" to promote it. Student groups, the Ontario branch of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, and the United Church of Canada, which represents two million Protestants, all back the movement. Clement said the point of BDS is not to resolve the conflict in the Middle East but to "single out Israel" unfairly. "This is not a partisan issue," Clement said. "Side with us on this motion. Send a strong message to our fellow Canadians and to freedom- lovers around the world and support this motion." Advertisement "The attempt of the Conservatives to divide this House on this issue failed yesterday, and it will always fail as long as we have this government in place." Dion, however, wasn't convinced about his motives. "To me, this is further proof that the Conservatives have not learned from their mistakes and are still trying to divide Canadians on issues that should unite them," he said. Other MPs delivered speeches Thursday deriding the BDS movement as anti-Semitic, including Tory veteran Jason Kenney who spoke in the House for the first time since the election. Dion confirmed during the debate that Liberals will vote for the motion even if they have "reservations" about the Tories' real goal and its language. He warned against painting all those in the movement with the same brush. "We will not convince the people acting in good faith that they are mistaken by hitting them over the head and condemning them at every turn," he said. "Intimidation, name-calling, and accusations will not lead to constructive dialogue with them. We must talk to them with respect and explain why boycotting Israel is a false solution." Advertisement He said that while Liberals support the motion, they are "in no way seeking to limit freedom of expression" in Canada. NDP, Elizabeth May will vote against motion on basis of free speech But that argument just won't fly with New Democrats. NDP MP Charlie Angus said the Tories were attempting to use Parliament to deny individuals their right to dissent. He compared Dion's decision to go along with it to the Liberals' vote for Bill C-51 terror bill last year, which he said was motivated by fear of the "Conservative rhetorical machine." "I am absolutely shocked that (Dion) would stand with the Conservatives on a motion that specifically calls upon us to condemn individuals for their right to dissent," Angust said. NDP foreign affairs critic Helene Laverdiere said New Democrats don't support the BDS movement and believe there are "far more effective" ways to help Israel and Palestinians. "However, just because we do not support it does not mean that the House can condemn people who peacefully support another idea," she said. "We will find a solution through informed debate and engagement, not by condemning people or disrupting dialogue." Advertisement That was much the same position taken by Green Party Leader Elizabeth May who said she won't support the motion, but warned against assuming all who participate in such boycotts are anti-Semitic. "If the United Church of Canada carries forward such a campaign, it is not anti-Semitic organization," she said. "It is not a hate-filled organization." Here is the full text of the motion: That, given Canada and Israel share a long history of friendship as well as economic and diplomatic relations, the House reject the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which promotes the demonization and delegitimization of the State of Israel, and call upon the government to condemn any and all attempts by Canadian organizations, groups or individuals to promote the BDS movement, both here at home and abroad. Also on HuffPost Longest-Serving Current MPs See Gallery shutterstock I have been to 14 funerals since turning 17 years old. Fourteen people who were friends, co-workers, crushes, debate partners, school mates and amazing members of the world's community. Fourteen people whose families and friends I sat next to at funeral services, whom I heard whisper "If I would have known," "How could I miss the signs?" and the awful "How could they do this to us?" Fourteen. As the first of my friends took their lives and I attended their funerals, I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. I wondered what I was missing, what I wasn't doing right. Advertisement Was it because I didn't answer that 4 a.m. Facebook message? Was it because I wasn't open with them about my own struggle? Was it because I didn't try hard enough somehow? Didn't love enough? Wasn't there enough? I beat myself up for a while. I blamed myself and tortured myself. I sought to better understand mental health, suicide and what resources existed to support people feeling suicidal. I made it my mission to take action, and I read, spoke, researched, met, supported and loved the best that I could. I learnt about hospitals, communities, education systems, treatments, interventions and technology. I found people with the word "doctor" in front of their name and talked their ears off for hours. I thought if I somehow understood the world that the professionals worked in, I could help my friends get treatment within it. I enrolled in and attended all the suicide prevention and mental health training I could find. I wanted to make sure that if people talked to me about suicide, I would feel ready to help them. Fast-forward to today: I still find myself standing at the crossroads in people's lives, as the more I have become involved in this mission, the more people I see at the crux of their struggle. I find myself encouraging them to seek help and try for a happier life. That is my goal, and what I truly wish for them to find, and I do my best to help them find the resources to get there, or direct them to where they can find this information. Advertisement But while I am directing people towards this goal, at the same time, I find myself scared of, concerned about and oftentimes angry about the system and the resources I am leading them towards. The mental health system is basically inaccessible Despite the fact that the people who are lost to suicide in my life knew about the services and that many of them even worked in the mental health system, accessing services when they (or anyone else) need them is nearly impossible. Appropriate services have wait lists more than six months long, and emergency services are not trained to properly deal with suicidal people. Often times, suicidal people are sent away from Emergency Departments due to lack of resources or beds. When they are admitted, oftentimes I hear from people that their time in hospitals was sometimes more traumatic and made things worse than before they were admitted. I have not heard any word or progress on a solution to this. Some people in helping roles still don't think suicide is a real issue (e.g. hospitals and schools) "You are just seeking attention," "You did this to yourself, why should I help you?" "I think suicide is such a selfish thing," "You just need to pick yourself up and be happy." These quotes (and many more) represent all the things doctors and nurses have said to me while I was suicidal. Advertisement My friends and schoolmates used to make fun of the crisis lines and mental health talks we had at school. As someone who was suffering and asking for help, hearing these things just made me more suicidal, and it is still happening in our system despite more research and more education. People who hold these beliefs are still talking to our at-risk youth. Young people around me keep dying, despite the progress that has been made One of the scariest things about this journey is to learn that we still have a long way to go to understanding and preventing suicide. Even with all the discussion of mental health and suicide over the last few years, the suicide rate has been increasing around the world, with one million people dying by suicide last year and the suicide rate has increased by 60 per cent in the last 45 years. Rates among young people have been increasing to such an extent that they are now the group at highest risk in a third of all countries. While research is ongoing, there is clearly something we are missing, and it scares me that this will continue until we figure out what that missing piece is and how we can help. And then I worry if our system is too broken to even adjust itself in a real way to new information that comes in. We put all our eggs in one basket Where resources do exist, we tend to put the most resources behind one model or solution. Whether it's the NHS in the U.K., HeadStrong in Ireland or HeadSpace in Australia for the leading mental health system, people still tend to think that one solution will work for everyone. Advertisement The truth is that people who live with mental health issues are as diverse as the rest of the population. One answer (usually the ever-popular cognitive behavioural therapy) does not work for everyone. We need to have multiple therapy types, models and solutions funded to better accommodate people's needs. One solution will not fit all, and this tendency to try to find that "one solution" worries me. The best brains don't work together We have a lot of amazing people working to prevent suicides, but they tend to work against each other. Why? Two reasons: ego and funding structures. Everyone wants to author the model that helps the most people, rather then owning it with other people. Our funding structures don't help this, and instead they reward organizations for saying they are the "first, best or only" and don't reward true collaboration. This makes me so mad, because in order to solve a problem this broken and this tricky, we need to work together. Sometimes it feels like I need to just lock everyone in one giant room and not let them out until they have a workable, truly collaborative solution. We don't have money to solve this problem Worldwide, mental health only gets an average of 2.8 per cent of health funding. In places like Canada and the USA, this means that even though more people will live with mental health issues then cancer and heart disease combined, mental health receives only seven per cent of the funding that cancer and heart disease receives. When you look at all the above concerns, there doesn't seem to be a viable solution in sight, and it keeps me up at night thinking about when the real support will come. Advertisement Each of these concerns together makes me understand why so many young people are still dying, and it leaves me really mad. I know that people living with mental health issues often struggle so much before asking for help. They see asking for help as the end of a long battle, but in reality, it ends up being the start of a much bigger and sometimes even more painful struggle working through the system, trying to get support when mental health concerns don't wait around for the system to meet an individual's needs. Mental health and suicidal thoughts -- the same as many physical illnesses -- need immediate and appropriate care, and this kind of care is becoming harder and more complicated to access as the years go by. Here is the thing: Things will only get better if we talk about suicide, if we demand more innovation from our mental health experts and governments, if we properly and appropriately fund it, and if we let people know that we care about it. Innovation is stagnating, and meanwhile, while the politics play out, people are still dying. I have been to 14 funerals, don't you think that's enough? (Thanks to my awesome friend Cheryl for helping me create this piece after I had been hitting my head against it for weeks. Check her out here.) Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook CHRIS ROUSSAKIS via Getty Images Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau toasts durign a dinner in honour of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec on February 11, 2016. / AFP / Chris Roussakis (Photo credit should read CHRIS ROUSSAKIS/AFP/Getty Images) Since the $15-billion Saudi arms deal was announced on Valentine's Day 2014, there have been numerous occasions when Ottawa should have explained to Canadians how this contract is compatible with the human rights safeguards of Canadian export controls. Yet two years on, we are still waiting for an explanation. The problem is not that questions about this export contract have not been properly articulated -- or made known. Advertisement Virtually every major media outlet in the country has covered the Saudi deal. The Globe and Mail alone has drawn attention to Ottawa's reluctance to justify the deal from a human rights perspective over a dozen times, often as a front-page story. A related piece here on OpenCanada last September laid out ten facts everyone should know about the deal. As well, civil society organizations, including Amnesty International Canada, Oxfam-Canada and Project Ploughshares, have publicly and repeatedly called for transparency into the process by which export authorizations are granted. Under existing export control policy, Canada must determine that "there is no reasonable risk" that Canadian-made goods might be used against civilians before an export permit can be issued. If an arms deal proceeds, we must assume that the necessary export permits were granted. And if they were, a human rights assessment must have been conducted. While it has now been established that the requisite permits had not been granted when then Trade Minister Ed Fast announced the Saudi deal in February 2014, it is still not known whether they already have. Even so, the confidence evident in the announcement made it seem as if the necessary export permits were all but guaranteed--and the related human rights assessments a mere formality. Given the dismal and worsening human rights record of the Saudi regime, how could the government have concluded that there is "no reasonable risk" of misuse of Canadian-made military goods as a result of the authorization of this contract? Advertisement It is not a rhetorical question. It is also not an unreasonable question to ask. Remember: this is the largest Canadian arms deal ever, Saudi Arabia is a human rights pariah, and existing export controls are unequivocally applicable to such military export contracts. There might be an adequate response, but it has proved elusive. And in the absence of an explanation from the government, it is hard not to be skeptical about the effective application of Canadian military export controls. The deal might have faded from public consciousness had Saudi Arabia not regularly made headlines by violating the human rights of its own citizens and those of its neighbouring states. Recent examples include the imprisonment and flogging of blogger Raif Badawi (whose wife lives in Canada), the summary executions of close to 50 individuals in January, and the findings by a UN panel that Saudi forces systematically targeted civilians in Yemen last year. If jobs are the key consideration when assessing export permit applications--even trumping human rights safeguards when in conflict--then perhaps Canada's military export controls should be amended to reflect this reality. At least then policy would be better aligned with practice. What is not tenable is to claim to have strict human rights safeguards and then apply these safeguards only when there is no profit to be made. Canada has announced its plans to finally accede to the international Arms Trade Treaty, after a highly conspicuous absence alongside the likes of Somalia, North Korea and South Sudan. In this regard, Ottawa's handling of the Saudi arms deal will constitute a key measure of its willingness to live up to the spirit and specific provisions of the treaty. Thus far, the signs are far from encouraging. Advertisement Referring to the Saudi arms deal, Global Affairs has declared that "the Arms Trade Treaty does not apply to this specific contract" given that Canada has not yet joined the Arms Trade Treaty. But this assertion paints an incomplete picture. The Saudi deal requires not just one export permit, but likely a succession over the 14-year contract. As Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion has explained, the contract is "for many years so over the years the minister of foreign affairs will have the duty to consider the export permits." It follows that when Canada completes the accession process, it will be required to abide by the provisions in the treaty--one of which in fact calls on states to reassess existing export authorizations when new relevant information emerges. Considering what is known about the Saudi regime's consistent disregard for human rights, reports relevant to this particular arms deal can be expected to emerge with troubling regularity. So while it may be true that the Arms Trade Treaty does not apply to the Saudi deal at the moment, it is simply a matter of time before it does. The growing number of red flags will make it increasingly hard for Ottawa to ignore the calls to come clean on the human rights implications of the Saudi deal. Now there are reports of a possible legal challenge to the deal, which may bring about even greater public scrutiny on the extent to which due diligence was exercised as part of the authorization process. Advertisement This is an admittedly complex policy challenge for Justin Trudeau's government. There is a real confluence of economic, strategic and human rights considerations. Further, it is increasingly apparent that this deal, inherited from the previous government, stands in stark contrast with widely welcomed changes in other aspects of Canada's foreign policy. It is not too late for Ottawa to heed the groundswell of calls to reexamine this deal and offer a clear explanation of how export controls apply to it. A recent Nanos Research poll indicated that a majority of Canadians rank human rights over job creation in the context of the Saudi deal. And it is not too late for Mr. Trudeau's government to change course, especially if the change brings Canada more in line with its core values. * This article was first published byOpenCanada. At the beginning of this year, a friend invited me to be the guest speaker at The Children's Aid Society of Ottawa's Black History Month event. Initially, I was skeptical, not just because of my unease with public speaking but mainly because I wasn't sure of my deserving of being a guest speaker at a Black History Month event (BHM). For so long, popular media has, in a sharp but narrow way equated BHM with "slavery"! So much that new African immigrants to the America's like myself have often struggled with seeing their role in the BHM celebrations. Subsequently, this has led to questions and doubt as to where global Africans fit where BHM is concerned. That perhaps, BHM is something strictly reserved for African Americans/ African Europeans etc.!? With this invitation, I was forced to address this issue again. At the same time, it is not just new African immigrants who are struggling with seeing their roles in BHM. In fact, in recent times, BHM has become a contentious issue within the wider black community. For the most part, the feeling is that corporate America/Canada has hijacked BHM and focused its events on a constricted "slavery" narrative. Advertisement Another charge is that corporates take advantage of BHM to use the names of black heroes such as Martin Luther King and Rosa parks for its own public relations interests. For example, BHM events are used by company CEO's to speak on equality and civil rights when this values are absent in the workplace. It is this claimed corporate disingenuousness and a luck of totality that has turned off a lot of people in the black community. Today, activists within the these community continue to work towards a more comprehensive BHM and we are starting to see fruits. Movements such as Black Future Month are bringing to the forefront issues that were previously ignored and providing a more expansive take where BHM is concerned. Thus, not only are we starting to see a wide range of issues and events during BHM, we are also seeing a much needed diversity in people involved. Going back to the invitation, it is this diversity and an inclusive agenda that convinced me to accept the invitation to speak at CASO last week. I knew I was sold for sure when I read that "we will be celebrating various African/Black cultures with each week falling under a different geographical theme and an entire week will be dedicated for Africa." I sensed that this was something unique and was not dissapointed. Reading on, I couldn't believe how comprehensive the agenda was. This organization was serious about celebrating the richness and diversity of the global black community. More importantly, they understood that people of African descent share the same struggles but that they are also very unique in their cultures and struggles. Advertisement Please see below what I think is an exemplary BHM event calendar that every workplace should aspire too. WEEK ONE FEB 1 - FEB 5: AFRICA The first week of February was dedicated to celebrating Africa and highlighting the achievements of Africans in our community. I was the guest speaker and Burundian Dance troupe ISHAKA performed. Traditional Somali foods from Sambuza Village were served. The next day, Thursday, Feb. 4: a viewing party for the inspirational TED Talk "The Danger of a Single Story" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was organized. WEEK TWO FEB 8 - FEB 12: SOUTH AMERICA The second week of February is dedicated to celebrating Black History in South America and highlighting the cultural contributions of Black South Americans. Staff member Leandro Silva-Stone, of Brazilian heritage, will speak about Black History in Brazil. Traditional Peruvian food from Petit Peru will be served. Thursday, Feb. 11: Another TED Talk titled "Don't Ask Where I'm From, Ask Where I'm a Local" will be shown. Advertisement WEEK THREE FEB 15 - FEB 19: CARRIBEAN The third week is dedicated to celebrating Caribbean influence on Black History and exposing staff to various elements of Caribbean culture including food, music and dance. On Wednesday, Feb. 17: The Honorable Justice Hugh Fraser will be joining us to speak of his Jamaican roots and his journey to becoming a key figure in the criminal justice system. Traditional Caribbean food will be available for tasting. Thursday, Feb. 18: Another viewing party for a TED Talk "How to overcome our biases? Walk boldly towards them" will be organized. WEEK FOUR FEB 22 - FEB 26: NORTH AMERICA The last week of February is dedicated to celebrating Black History right here in North America, including historical and cultural influence in the United States and Canada. Recognized slam poet Roua Algi will be speaking about her story and performing a few of her poems. Southern comfort food will be served. Another TED Talk will be shown. I'd like to thank the staff at The Children's Aid Society of Ottawa for such an amazing and thoughtful program of events. I'd also encourage everyone reading this to share this program with his or her place of work. We have to redefine Black History Month and bring to our workplace and communities a diverse picture of what is truly quite diverse but interlinked black community. Advertisement Regarding my question as to if new African immigrants belong in the BHM narrates; a friend of mine put it this simple - "Once you step outside the African continent, you do not have the luxury of distancing yourself from the slavery narrative. Being Black outside of Africa is like having a spotlight on you always; reminding you that you're an outsider, that you're a minority. Your "Blackness" is illuminated always. Once you step out of the continent, you automatically become indoctrinated in to the larger narrative. We are part of the conversation." For more on the Agenda above or if you'd like to attend any of the events - please reach out to,andre.fontaine@casott.on.ca, denyse.umutoni@casott.on.ca or ayane.ali@casott.on.ca ALSO ON HUFFPOST: KeithBishop The World Economic Forum recently brought together young leaders from around the world under its Global Shapers Community program to talk about the participation of millennials in government. I had the honour of being part of that discussion, and it reaffirmed how important it is for Canada to attract the best of this next generation to public service. Advertisement This generation is among the most talented, educated and globally connected ever. While some of the experiences and expectations of these young people are unique to their cohort, they have much in common with Canadian workers of all ages and backgrounds: they are looking for a way to make a difference -- be it at the local, national, or global level. While young people can make a difference in the world through an NGO or in the private sector, the same smart, talented, idealistic young person can change the world through public service, given the right tools. However, instead of bringing in more young Canadians to help address the challenges of an aging workforce, the average age of a new recruit has continued to creep up. We must do a better job of ensuring that young indigenous Canadians play a serious role in shaping the future of our country. The federal public service must innovate to attract more young people. We need less rigid hierarchies, fewer layers of bureaucracy, more open and transparent decision making, a culture of intelligent risk taking, more opportunity for continuous learning, and greater mobility in and out of government. We are making progress in creating the conditions that will foster innovation and calibrated risk and we will continue to encourage our employees to experiment and help build a corporate culture that is markedly different from any that has gone on before -- one that is not constrained by how things were done in the past, but rather meets the needs and expectations of our talented youth today and for the future. We must also continue to encourage and promote diversity so that all Canadians see themselves in their government. Canada's Indigenous Peoples -- our youngest and fastest growing demographics -- present an enormous potential. If they are empowered to enter the public service with the skills they need to compete and succeed, better policy and more effective leadership will result. We must do a better job of ensuring that young indigenous Canadians play a serious role in shaping the future of our country. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's gender-equal and diverse Cabinet shows a real commitment to diversity. No one better represents this principle than our Minister of Democratic Institutions, Maryam Monsef, who came to Canada as an Afghani refugee. At thirty years of age, she provides an invaluable perspective to Cabinet deliberations. Furthermore, our prime minister personally taking on ministerial responsibilities for Youth demonstrates his personal attachment to the issue and forward-looking approach. His leadership has not gone unnoticed, reaching the corner offices of the private sector. I personally share this commitment to diversity and youth and I will continue to work with our public service to effect real and lasting change in our workplaces. While we continue to transform and improve how we work, we must also reinforce the importance of public service. At the World Economic Forum a few years ago, a young person asked Bill Gates for career advice. Mr. Gates answered that he used to encourage people to pursue business or science. However, since his involvement in the developing world through his foundation, he now advises them to get into government if they wish to make the biggest difference in building a better world. Advertisement Public service offers numerous immensely rewarding avenues for those wanting to make a difference in their fellow citizens' lives. Government scientists and aid workers literally save lives. Armed forces' members defuse military crises, and trade officials create better jobs. Nowhere else can you have such a dynamic and interesting career, whether you aspire to be a national park warden or a coast guard captain, an economist or an accountant, a nurse or a social worker. For many of us, public service is how we make a profound difference, touching millions of lives, finding purpose and fulfillment. I look forward to working with more public servants of this generation to tackle the challenges of the 21st century. We need them to build a better public service, a better Canada, and a better world. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook ALSO ON HUFFPOST: AndreyPopov via Getty Images Close-up Of Businessman Hands Giving Cheque To Other Person In Office For 15 years and counting, more than 700,000 people have accessed Canadian food banks each and every month because they don't have enough food for themselves and their families. This is a problem that shows no signs of going away, with food bank use currently hovering at record levels. Food Banks Canada's HungerCount report shows that the food bank network acts as an unofficial Canadian safety net, trying to fill the gaps left by low-wage jobs and radically inadequate provincial social assistance programs. Advertisement Millions of Canadians are working in low-paying jobs that just don't pay the bills: seven in every 10 households who have trouble putting food on the table are working. For those unable to work, social assistance offers a level of support that is plainly insufficient to meet the needs of our most vulnerable citizens -- a single adult on social assistance must find a way to live on a meagre $8,000 a year. The only certainties in such a situation are anxiety, fear, hunger and ill health. Social Assistance is Broken It has been clear for many years that welfare is a broken system. A person must be at the brink of destitution to qualify for the program, and it can be very difficult to climb out of poverty once one is in the system. The administrative bureaucracy is extremely difficult to navigate, and stigmatization of those in need is widespread. The system seems beyond repair. The time has come for our governments to dismantle what has become an understaffed, stressed and ineffective system that hurts more than it helps. There are several viable models for a guaranteed annual income that would eliminate the bureaucracy, the intrusiveness and the stigma associated with welfare. Advertisement Guaranteed Income Offers a New Approach It is encouraging to see the federal government examining a guaranteed income, and we hope the ensuing discussion will open more Canadians' eyes to the severe difficulties that too many Canadians are facing. It is clear that a new approach is desperately needed. As this discussion is getting off the ground, there are several steps governments can take right away to improve supports for vulnerable Canadians. For example, welfare benefits should have a logical relationship with regional costs of living -- currently, the cost of food in remote northern communities is roughly double the cost of food in the south, yet welfare benefits are very similar across the country. Provincial governments can also improve supports for low-income Canadians by unlinking non-cash benefits from social assistance (for example, health and dental care, affordable housing subsidies), and making these available to all low-income households, including those employed in low-wage work. This has important implications for equity, for helping people enter and remain in the job market, and for helping to end our country's over-long reliance on food banks as a stand-in when government supports fail. Follow HuffPost Canada Blogs on Facebook MORE ON HUFFPOST: Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor, left, and David Cameron, U.K. prime minister, applaud during a news conference at the Supporting Syria 2016 conference in London, U.K., on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016. The Supporting Syria Conference, which is intended to galvanize international support from the international community for the 13.5 million displaced people inside Syria and 4.6 million refugees in neighboring countries, will give the premier a chance to meet with EU leaders as he seeks support for a draft compromise published by European Council President Donald Tusk on Tuesday. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images Bloomberg via Getty Images David Cameron has said he is battling for Britain at the EU summit, currently ongoing in Brussels. But ahead of his negotiations for an EU referendum, has the Prime Minister heard the concerns of his young electorate? Its no secret: young people want to remain in the EU. At least, that was the conclusion from a debate on the EU referendum held in Leeds last week, where 298 students out of an audience of 300 voted to stay in the union. Advertisement The debate, hosted by The I paper, demonstrated that young people feel a firm affiliation with their European peers, at a time when the Brexit camp has started to win supporters. Should we be surprised? Young people today have found themselves part of a jet-set generation. This is a group of people who have never experienced the worries of visas to live, work and travel across a common European zone and it has shaped how they see their place in the world. Free movement is an inherent part of their ethos. The EU debate leaves young people with many questions about their own futures, which few have answered thus far. Megan Dunn, President of the NUS and a member of the board for the Britain Stronger in Europe campaign, has previously said young adults today interpret the EU referendum, and the threat of Brexit, as politicians taking a step back into the past: Students in Britain do not fear todays modern, diverse world. We fear isolation, not internationalism. Advertisement Whilst we recognise the world is a complex place, the answer is to campaign for change together, not quit and walk away. We want to break down barriers, not seek them out or rebuild false and pernicious divides. However, Jordan Ryan from the Leave.EU campaign cautioned young voters that it is the established politicians, a group which young people have lost faith in, who are the ones backing the pro-EU campaign. He told HuffPost UK: The establishment is firmly for staying in the EU. When most politicians along with the major banks all come out in favour of staying in, you have to wonder why? These are the same people that were pushing the same scare stories of doom and gloom if we didn't join the Euro. They were wrong then and they are wrong now. But what does this mean for young people? Regardless of other factors, leaving the EU would mean threatening young peoples abilities to study, live or work in the EU zone no wonder they have become so vociferous in wanting to stay in. Advertisement Living abroad can have a huge impact on young peoples lives as they transition into adulthood, shaping their world views. Many students come to discover this through participation in the Erasmus scheme, founded in 1987, which has had enormous success in sending UK students to mainland Europe and vice versa. Last year, more than 15,000 students from the UK studied abroad, and more than 27,000 from other participating countries came to spend time learning here in the UK. Although, as Ryan from the Leave.EU campaign points out, Erasmus has been widening its participation to include countries outside the EU. However renegotiating participation in the scheme might be complicated, and associated bursaries and grants for UK universities may no longer be guaranteed. Consider how in February 2014 Swiss voters accepted a referendum limiting the freedom of movement of foreign citizens to Switzerland. Switzerland has never been a fully integrated member of the EU community; however, this decision heavily impacted upon EU-Swiss relations. Bilateral agreements fell and in turn, the EU excluded the Swiss from negotiations concerning important participation in the EU scientific agenda, and invoked a temporary exclusion of Swiss students from the Erasmus programme and European Research Council grants. It is exactly this scenario that young students might be keen to avoid, especially considering rising education costs in the UK. University fees have turned increasing numbers of British undergraduates to look elsewhere in Europe for cheaper tuition. Recent Erasmus statistics show nearly 15,600 UK students spent up to a year in another European country during the 2013-14 academic year, up 115% since 2007. Advertisement With the prospect of spending more than 50,000 in three years in the UK, enrolling in other European institutions offers a cheaper alternative. The majority of courses at universities in Austria, Finland and Sweden are free. To study in Belgium, you might pay 840 annually; in Portugal, the figure is 1250 euro each year; in the Netherlands, expect to pay 1,950. TransferWise recently published a survey crowning Berlin the number one place to be a UK student when studying in Europe, thanks to a combination of low fees and cheaper accommodation. Easy access to this cheaper accommodation and living costs is something young generations wouldn't want to lose from an EU walkaway. Young people would be forgiven for thinking that the government is doing little to assist tackling a nationwide housing crisis, with recent reports suggesting that a first time mortgage now needs a 41,000 salary outside of London, and predicts that the average age of a mortgage borrower is now 37. This leaves a generational gap, where young people are trying to negotiate saving enough money to rent, and not staying in their childhood bedrooms for the best part of a decade after leaving university. With the exception of some Nordic neighbours and the Swiss, the UK is the most expensive part of the EU in which to live according to a cost of living index by Numbeo. Their statistics highlighted in particular the high rent prices in London, which were ranked the most expensive across the whole of the EU. These extortionate prices recently stressed in a tube map which showed average rent prices around the capital. Advertisement For young people, with little disposable income or savings, the financial burden of becoming independent in the UK can be excessive when compared with other parts of the EU community. Berlin, amongst the first European cities to impose a cap on rent last year, is approximately 47% cheaper to live in than London. Barcelona offers a similar difference in price; Budapest would cost 67% less. Staying in the EU means choosing another city in which to live would remain a simple process. If Britain were to leave, not only would this potenitally restrict ease of movement, but limit young peoples job opportunities. There is no denying young adults have grown up during a turbulent period for global economics, and are now facing high costs of living in their own country. Throughout the recession, youth unemployment was one of the hardest hit areas, with school leavers and university graduates alike struggling to find employment in their fields of interest or experience. By the height of the recession, 22.4% of youth were unemployed in the UK, and as recently as last year, 16 to 24 year olds were almost three times more likely to be unemployed than older age groups. Whilst there have been improvements on unemployment here in the UK recently, several EU countries have posted unemployment figures far below those in the UK throughout the recession, including Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic. Unemployment ratios in the likes of Belgium, Hungary and the Netherlands are also considerably better than those for the UK. Reflecting on these figures, Dunn suggested EU unity presents greater opportunities for collaboration and employment. Advertisement Current and future generations have greater opportunities when we are connected to countries we share experiences and resources with," she said in a previous statement. However, others have warned that these unemployment rates vary significantly between countries throughout the EU. Ryan described the Euro-market economy as shrinking, and moving away from a global stage. The EU is a failed project, he told HuffPost UK. It hasn't delivered the growth or prosperity that it promised. The EU's economy is shrinking. Their own website states that in the next decade, 90% of world demand will be outside of the EU. Whether we like it or not, we have to prepare for this inevitable shift. Brace yourself: for the next four months, the news bulletins will be dominated by talk of the UK's referendum on whether to stay or leave the European Union. And, on June 23, we all get to vote. Many people's first reaction is something like this. Advertisement But stay with us. The referendum is arguably more important than any general election, changing Britains relationship with Europe and, in turn, the rest of the world. The arguments will range from the sublime to the ridiculous. The prosaic to the poetic. Youll hear about what it means if youve ever aspired to work abroad, watched Netflix on holiday in Spain or hired a Polish builder. But youll also hear grand talk about power, sovereignty and Britains place in the world. Therell also be nonsense: scaremongering, dirty tricks, low politics. All in all, it should be a lot of fun. Lets step back to January 2013. David Cameron promised the Tories would hold a vote on Britains continued membership of the European Union, the now 28-country bloc of countries forged out of the Second World War. The promise was in its 2015 election manifesto, and a date was set for before 2017. Advertisement Heres the so-called Bloomberg speech. The plan was to slay two dragons with one mighty swipe: Nigel Farages insurgent Ukip, which was a real threat to the partys share of the vote, and eurosceptic Tory MPs, a thorn in the side of successive Conservative Party leaders. Books have been written on why, and it's been a itch that has needed scratching for decades, according to Tories and tabloid newspapers. But in a sentence: the EU has become bloated since its first incarnation, far outgrowing its original purpose as a trading zone and 'Brussels' - the derisory short-hand for the whole structure - now has too much influence over British life. The Tories won the election and the country was set for its first referendum on the relationship since 1975, when it was more popularly known as the Common Market. Advertisement You'll see the #brexit a lot. Those in the know call it that, short for 'Britain's exit' from Europe. Very clever. "Re-negotiating." Part of the manifesto promise was to thrash out a new deal with EU member states to loosen its grip on the UK, and ensure Britain is not dragged further into a loveless relationship. The niceties of the talks have kept political journalists in work, but perhaps the abiding image of the three-year "charm offensive" will be the awkward high-five with European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker at one of countless crunch summits. What he has been trying to achieve has been placed in four 'baskets'. Yes, 'baskets'. Reducing benefits for migrants to discourage them coming to the UK. Cutting red tape on business. Exempting Britain from ever closer union with the EU Introducing more protections for EU countries that don't have the euro, including the UK. A package has now been finalised, and Cameron gave a press conference to spell out the details last night. Well before it came out of the other end of the Brussels sausage factory, many have handed down their verdict. Thin gruel is the old-fashioned phrase used by that most old-fashioned of Tory MPs, Jacob Rees-Mogg, to describe what Camerons deal amounts to. The backbencher summed up what most eurosceptics thought in his savaging of the proposals. Advertisement In any case, critics are convinced the whole spectacle has been stage-managed: no-one in Europe wants Britain to leave, and theyve got their own problems to deal with, not least a migrant crisis and sluggish economies. And Camerons demands are not so outlandish to object beyond token grumbling. Cameron himself claims to be a eurosceptic, and has made plain he will not make up his mind until the deal is done. Yet few doubt he will do anything other than signal he will support staying in, and urge members of his party and government to do the same. Labour, bar a handful of eurosceptics, is pro-Europe (though only really since the early-1980s) even though leader Jeremy Corbyn has in the past questioned whether the structure delivers more for business than it does workers. The Scottish National Party, the Liberal Democrats, Green Party and Welsh nationalists Plaid Cmyru are firmly in the In camp. Its Ukips reason for being to exit the EU. Plus, according to some estimates, as many as 150 Conservative MPs want out too. The London mayor electrified the early stages of the campaign by announcing he would campaign for Britain to "leave". It was a crucial endorsement for many reasons. As a politician who reaches parts of the electorate others can't, the Tory MP's clout is a major win. Advertisement Plus, many thought he would back the "In" campaign - indeed, he chuckled at The Huffington Post's portrayal of him as the Vicky Pollard of politics. What many have latched on to is how it boosts his own ambition to be the next leader of the Tory party, and in turn Prime Minister. If you think none of that matters, think again: the pound faced the biggest sell-off since 2010 on the news. Boris literally moving the markets. Boris Johnson cycles through members of the media the day after his "Brexit" revelation There will be designated 'leave' and 'remain' campaign groups, which will be decided by the Electoral Commission. Each side gets a 600,000 grant, and has to abide by a spending limit of 7 million. This is currently a story within a story: there are 11 different groups vying to be one of the two official campaign organisations. Advertisement Yes. Cameron's "re-negotiation" will be pretty quickly sidelined, many think. The debate will then be dominated, but not limited to, a handful of reasons to stay and or go. Jobs Millions of jobs are linked to our EU membership, but there's little evidence to show how many would be in jeopardy if we left. Trade Some of Britain's biggest trading partners are in the EU, and more than 50% of our exports go to EU countries. Membership allows us to have a say over how trading rules are drawn up. Travel and work It's easier than ever to work and travel abroad. Around 1.4 million British people live abroad in the EU. Membership makes movement around the continent simple. Crime fighting The European Arrest Warrant allows criminals to be brought to justice across the EU. Global influence The EU is the world's biggest market and plays a big role in world trade, climate change issues, development projects and more. Border control Border control would be back in our hands. Many argue attempts to control immigration into the UK will fail as long as we are in the EU. Cost saving Estimates suggest membership costs around 24m per day when rebates and other receipts are taken into account. Democracy Laws made by the directly-elected European Parliament supersede legislation made by individual member state parliaments. Other countries exist outside For example, Norway, which trades with the EU without being in it, controls its own farming and fishing, rather than being bound by EU quotas. A political device designed to scare the bejesus out of people if they vote for the other side. The best distillation of this was the Scottish independence referendum that saw fears over whether the country would lose the pound and see business flee, many think, carry the result for the preservation of the union. As we approach polling day, and especially if it goes to to wire, expect to be presented with end-of-the-world scenarios. Advertisement Both sides have already been at it. Comedian Romesh Ranganathan, on Question Time, criticised how politicians are cultivating a mistrust in immigrants - both David Cameron for suggesting the Jungle refugee camp in Calais may have to shift across the channel to Calais under Brexit, and Ukip for suggesting that without quitting the EU then Britain would be more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. The polling industrys name was in the dirt after failing to call the general election. But hey. Theyll be monitored closely throughout. One of the most recent, by ComRes, has Remain on 49% and Leave on 41% - though the lead has halved in two weeks. Received wisdom is the longer the campaign goes on the more likely the 'Out' campaign's message will cut through. "Remain" lead over "Leave" at 8pts in new poll for @itvnews Remain: 49% Leave: 41% pic.twitter.com/OPjXdEXzt2 ComRes (@ComResPolls) February 15, 2016 Him. And other eurosceptics. Eurosceptics See gallery Advertisement You could be forgiven for thinking it will be dominated by middle-aged men you've never heard of. The only prominent campaigner so far bucking the trend is former T4 presenter June Sarpong, for the Stronger in Europe campaign. Incidentally she has already expressed a curious view on baked goods. Advertisement Conservative London Mayoral Candidate Zac Goldsmith speaks at a campaign event in Mill Hill, north London. Dominic Lipinski/PA Wire Zac Goldsmith has been accused of hypocrisy after it emerged he previously dismissed plans to increase housebuilding as a magic porridge pot. The Tory MP has made housing his top priority in his campaign to be the next London Mayor, promising to double home building to 50,000 a year if he gets the keys to City Hall. Advertisement But his enthusiasm for increasing housebuilding in London is at odds with comments he made before entering politics. In 2004, when he was editor of The Ecologist magazine, Mr Goldsmith wrote an editorial heavily criticising the then-Labour Governments policy of constructing more homes. In the article, he wrote that increasing housebuilding is a policy with no end. Its the magic porridge pot." He went on: "For one thing, even he [John Prescott] doesnt imagine his house building splurge will curtail the rise in house prices by more than a fraction of a percent. Advertisement So its a heavy price to pay for a solution that is both short-term and insignificant. For another, it is widely considered that, just as new roads contribute to congestion, building new houses will have the same effect: increasing demand. Finally, since most of the new houses are to be constructed in the south of England, the effect will be a further drain on skills from the already ghost-town-infected north. None of it adds up. London's housing crisis is one of the key issues in the Mayoral race, with aa report produced by the London School of Economics last year finding that 59,000 homes must be built annually in the capital to meet demand. Labour's candidate Sadiq Khan has described the May 5 vote as "a referendum on housing", and has pledged to set a target of 50 per cent of all new homes in London to be "genuinely affordable". However, in an interview with Planning Resources earlier this month, Mr Khan refused to commit to an annual housebuilding target, and said: "I'm not obsessed with the number of units that are built in London." Advertisement Labour MP Neil Coyle, who represents the London constituency of Bermondsey & Old Southwark, claimed The Ecologist editorial revealed Mr Goldsmiths real view on housebuilding. He said: This is yet another example of Goldsmiths hypocrisy. He changes his values to suit his audience. Now he is a mayoral candidate, he feels he has to talk about housebuilding, but his real views have been exposed. As well as being anti-business, we can now add anti-housebuilding to his credentials. No wonder he has no proper plan to tackle the housing crisis and wont commit to affordable homes. He's not fit to be Mayor of London." Its clear that only Sadiq Khan has a credible plan to build genuinely affordable homes in London. A spokesperson for Mr Goldsmith said: Zac is standing up for Londoners with his Action Plan for Greater London, which will deliver 50,000 new homes a year by 2020 and give Londoners the first chance to buy new homes built in London. "Not only will the Khan-Corbyn experiment put our City at risk with a 2 billion budget black hole, it will actually reduce housebuilding. Perhaps thats why Khan has refused to say he wants to increase the number of homes in London. Advertisement A Tory source added: "These comments were from over a decade ago and while Londons population has increased by more than a million since then, Sadiq Khan still refuses to say he wants to build more homes." The comments are revealed just days after Mr Goldsmith suffered a grilling on BBCs Newsnight over his personal tax affairs. Until 2010 Mr Goldsmith held a non-dom tax status meaning he only paid tax on his UK income, not his overseas earnings. Mr Goldsmith inherited the status from his multi-millionaire father Sir James Goldsmith who died in 1997. The Richmond Park MP told Newsnight presenter Evan Davis: "I have always been tax resident in the UK. Advertisement "I have always paid full tax on my income in the UK since I've been paying tax since I was 18." Adoption agencies are looking for volunteers to cuddle and care for newborn babies waiting to be adopted. The agencies in America, who need volunteers as part of the babies' "interim care programme", have said they need all the help they can get to nurture the newborns and ensure they benefit from one-on-one care in the first few weeks of their lives. Advertisement "Volunteers are more important probably than they have ever been," Adam Pertman, president of the National Center on Adoption and Permanency, told ABC News. "All agencies over the years have certainly needed volunteers but the need has grown and they have become more and more essential." Volunteers become "temporary caregivers" for the babies in the first few weeks of their lives Interim care is a period when the baby's biological parents, who are considering adoption, have time to explore their options while knowing their baby is being looked after. The biological parents still have legal rights during this time and are encouraged to visit, according to Spence-Chapin agency. Advertisement The period never usually lasts longer than six weeks. All volunteers wishing to take part will have background checks and home visits. They will become "temporary" caregivers for the babies. "The commonality between our volunteers is their nurturing spirit to care for a newborn and then help that baby transition into their permanent family," Katie Foley, associate director of outreach for New York-based adoption agency Spence-Chapin, told BuzzFeed News. "Volunteers find fulfillment and satisfaction in being a loving, if temporary, home for a baby in need." Agencies also help cover some necessary expenses including nappies, formula milk, clothing, and transportation. Although there has been no callout for volunteers in the UK, British adoption agencies also have an interim care period. Advertisement On the NSPCC website, it states this is the first step that happens in the process of a child being put up for adoption or going into care. "Applications must be made to the courts for an interim care order. An interim care order is awarded for eight weeks. "It must be renewed every four weeks. This will allow time for matters to be investigated further and plans to be made." Hugh Thornbery, chief executive of Adoption UK explained that the period of interim care isn't the same in the UK as America. "Interim care in America is different to the foster to adopt scheme that we have in England," he told The Huffington Post UK. Advertisement "Here, 'foster to adopt' enables babies and very young children to be placed in care with people who are approved as both foster carers and adopters, to stay with them throughout the court process and if it is decided that the child cannot return to their original family they remain permanently through adoption. "This avoids changes of placement both during the early stages of decision making and beyond, thereby providing the child with one safe and secure family from the outset of being in care. "In the UK children in care would not placed with volunteers they would have to be with approved foster carers." Thornbery added: "There is a need for continuity of nurturing care and the need to understand the importance of maintaining relationships for children." Suffolk Police revealed on Friday the biggest cache of illegal weapons ever found in the UK. The home of James Arnold, a respected parish councilor who lived in the village of Wyverstone, contained a terrifying arsenal of military grade weaponry, including an anti-tank missile. The hoard boasted more than 450 firearms with rifles sitting alongside machine guns and around 200,00 rounds of ammunition in a secret room off the pantry. The 49-year-old crane operator died three months after his arrest in 2014. However, firearms dealer Anthony Buckland, who supplied some of Arnolds weapons, was jailed this week, allowing police to open up the armory and reveal the scale of the find. Advertisement Firearms on display at Suffolk Police Headquarters at Martlesham in Suffolk which were found at the house of James Arnold According to Chief Superintendent David Skevington, Arnold never offered any explanation for what he did. "We have asked every question and followed every line of inquiry and have found no evidence of a criminal or terrorist motive, he added. "The best explanation to date is that he was a collector and a hoarder who collected these weapons in the way some people collect stamps." Advertisement An AK47 on display at Suffolk Police Headquarters at Martlesham in Suffolk which was found at the house of James Arnold Officers discovered the weapons after being called to Arnolds house to investigate an alleged domestic violence incident in April 2014. The hoarder had a license for 17 weapons, which police planned to revoke. However, after arriving they found firearms strewn across the property. A further search revealed a hidden room behind a false wall where Arnold kept most of his cache. Before he died, Arnold lived in the house with his wife and daughter. Neither has explained why he had so many guns. Detective Superintendent Steve Mattin said Arnold gave no indication he was planning to harm anyone, but that his life seemed to be deteriorating. Advertisement The home of James Arnold in Wyverstone, Suffolk "Of course the fear was that they could fall into the wrong hands or, given that he had terminal cancer, something might change in his life and he would have access to hundreds of deadly weapons," he added. David Cameron is entering extended EU renegotiations on Friday after no more than three hours' sleep, which is the equivalent of being "drunk", according to experts. The Prime Minister was involved in a marathon all-night session of talks that ended at 5.30am. He is currently meeting the other 27 EU leaders in Brussels to continue negotiations. But working on such little sleep will mean that Cameron's cognitive ability will be significantly impaired, according to experts. Advertisement Paul Kelley, Honorary Clinical Research Associate at the University of Oxford, told the Huffington Post UK: "Three hours is the equivalent of being drunk. That is, not fit to drive a car- never mind a country." Colin Espie, Professor of sleep medicine at the University of Oxford and co-founder of Sleepio.com, said: "The bottom line is that when people are sleep deprived they are not able to function properly during the day." These are the side effects that Cameron can expect to experience on such little sleep: Effects of sleep deprivation on David Cameron See gallery A study published in the journal SLEEP found that just one night of sleep deprivation was linked with signs of brain tissue loss. Professor Espie said: "Sleep has its physical, mental and emotional processing components, so when we have had no sleep, or insufficient sleep, these processes are not able to do their work so effectively. Advertisement "In physical terms we will feel lethargic and sleepy, mentally we become slowed down with poorer concentration and memory, and emotionally we may become irritable and rather down, though sometimes with excitable bursts of hyperactivity too." Humans are able to survive three times as long without food as they could without sleep. Cameron arrived at the summit on Thursday with the hope of being able to wrap up a deal in time to fire the starting gun on a June 23 referendum. He has promised to do everything he can to secure reform in Britain's relationship with the EU, but admitted that after a long night of talks "there is still no deal". Cameron said earlier: "I was here until 5 o'clock this morning working through this. We've made some progress but there is still no deal. "As I have said, I will only do a deal if we get what Britain needs, so we are going to get back in there, we are going to do some more work and I'll do everything I can." Advertisement But the good news for Cameron is that his lack of sleep does not mean he will fail to reach an agreement. Past leaders have successfully reached deals on very little sleep. David Cameron is hoping to reach a deal with his EU partners In 1998, then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair signed The Good Friday Agreement, which brought an end to 30 years of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland. Former Labour spin doctor Damian McBride gives a television interview on the seafront at Brighton, as the release of his memoirs has cast a shadow over the Labour Party Annual Conference being held in the town. Chris Ison/PA Archive Gordon Browns former spin chief Damian McBride is to make a dramatic return to frontline politics working for Shadow Defence Secretary Emily Thornberry, HuffPost UK can reveal. Mr McBride, who quit Downing Street in disgrace over attempts to smear Tory politicians, will return as Ms Thornberrys political adviser from a week on Monday. Advertisement The former No.10 press aide and Treasury official will act as communications adviser on a fixed term contract for the duration of Labours crucial defence policy review. It is understood that Mr McBride answered a Labour party advert for the communications post, which has been vacant since Ms Thornberry took over in January. The Shadow Defence Secretary, who has supported unilateralism, is overseeing the partys review of the UKs Trident nuclear system. She has come under repeated attack from Labour MPs, suffering a bruising encounter at the Parliamentary Labour Party meeting this month over references to Spitfire planes. Advertisement Significantly, Mr McBride has expressed his backing for a 'third way' alternative to Trident. Why is the debate Full Trident Replacement vs No Nuclear Deterrent? When we chose FTR, there were many, much cheaper options to retain a ND. Damian McBride (@DPMcBride) September 26, 2015 The day Jeremy Corbyn won his Labour leadership landslide, he also suggested he could become the best Labour leader since Clement Attlee. But after the messy reshuffle in January ousted key former Brown allies, he warned that Corbyn could be ousted by October this year. Mr McBride has been out of politics ever since he quit his role working for the former Prime Minister in 2009. Mr Brown was forced to apologise for emails sent by Mr McBride in which he had discussed plans to use a new attack blog to spread false rumours about the sexual and personal lives of Tory MPs including David Cameron, George Osborne and Nadine Dorries. Advertisement The emails, which were sent from within Downing Street, were exposed by blogger Guido Fawkes and Mr McBride resigned soon after. Downing Street at the time apologised for juvenile and inappropriate emails and Mr McBride has since revealed that when he first notified his boss he was so angry that he could not speak. Since his resignation, McBride has worked for his former school Finchley Catholic High School, and the Catholic charity Cafod. He published his own account of the affair in a book, Power Trip: A Decade of Policy, Plots and Spin. It is understood that Mr McBride will report directly to Ms Thornberry and his contract will end by the Labour party conference, when policy on Trident is due to be debated. Advertisement Ms Thornberry currently has a policy adviser but has had no media specialist since she was installed in Jeremy Corbyns reshuffle to replace Maria Eagle. Mr McBride has expressed support for Mr Corbyns leadership and some had expected him to be installed as the Labour leaders press chief before Seumas Milne was appointed. The first hints of a return emerged a week ago when Mr McBride was spotted dining with Ms Thornberry and Mr Milne. Last night: @DPMcBride, @EmilyThornberry and @SeumasMilne having dinner together at Browns in Covent Garden. Eye Spy MP (@eyespymp) February 10, 2016 Mr McBride rose to prominence as a trusted and highly effective civil servant in the Treasury, becoming communications chief to Brown as Chancellor and then his press aide in Downing Street. Advertisement After his new appointment was revealed by HuffPost UK, reaction on Twitter was swift. The reasons he left aside, @DPMcBride has a common touch like few others. Welcome back. No more of your bollocks on Trident though please.. John Woodcock (@JWoodcockMP) February 19, 2016 But @DPMcBride, who was always a tough & smart cookie, is now a reformed & wiser character. It's not as if Trident could be handled worse... Theo Bertram (@theobertram) February 19, 2016 You know that bit in the films where Godzilla looks dead and then rises up and destroys more buildings? Well that. https://t.co/ZLhM8LNHkX Mike Cameron (@mikercameron) February 19, 2016 I love this. It's like when they brought back Dirty Den in Eastenders https://t.co/cAwCbfl2AM Deaves (@MattDeaves) February 19, 2016 During the launch of his 2013 memoir, publisher Iain Dale was caught on camera attacking a protestor. Donald Trump has branded Pope Francis "disgraceful" for claiming the Republican presidential frontrunner was "not a Christian" over his pledge to build a wall across the US-Mexico border. Returning home to Vatican City from a trip to Central America, the Pope said: "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian." Advertisement Trump attempted to respond with quite the same level of gravitas, quipping at a rally in South Carolina For a religious leader to question a persons faith is disgraceful. The two religious heavy-weights exchanged terse comments No leader, especially a religious leader, has the right to question another mans religion or faith," he said. But it seems Trump himself has form when it comes to questioning other's religious beliefs - especially when that involves political point-scoring in the race to the Oval Office. Advertisement Take this tweet from 2013, in which he calls out competitor Ted Cruz for not being a proper Christian: How can Ted Cruz be an Evangelical Christian when he lies so much and is so dishonest? Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 12, 2016 In a separate statement posted late last night, Trump also promised that, in the obvious event of an Isis strike on the Vatican, Pope Francis would wish and pray the millionaire property magnate had attained office. "If and when the Vatican is attacked by Isis, which as everyone knows is Isis's ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the "Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened. Isis would have been eradicated unlike what is happening now with our all talk, no action politicians." Advertisement And it seems Trump's rebuke to the Pope went down well with his supporters. .@Pontifex How many illegals u hauling back to ur walled city when u leave? That's what I thought. Stay the fuck out of our election.#Pope William Paxton (@Truthseer1961) February 18, 2016 @Pontifex the fact that you are getting involved in American Politics is disgusting. Shut the fuck up and do pope work ChrisBove7 (@bove7_chris) February 18, 2016 British Prime Minister David Cameron speaks with the media as he arrives for an EU summit at the EU Council building in Brussels on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016. British Prime Minister David Cameron faces tough new talks with European partners after through-the-night meetings failed to make much progress on his demands for a less intrusive European Union. (AP Photo/Francois Walschaerts) Francois Walschaerts/AP David Cameron's Government has claimed it has no information on how much EU migrants cost - or benefit - the UK. Treasury Minister Lord O'Neill made the startling admission in a written Parliamentary answer that was quietly published while the Prime Minister was in Brussels. Advertisement Labour peer Lord Beecham asked the minister to reveal 'the annual benefits paid to EU migrants in the UK and the contribution of those individuals to the public purse through income tax receipts and VAT'. Lord O'Neill replied with a five word answer: "The information is not available." The telling, or 'not telling', Parliamentary answer Lord O'Neill, who was appointed to the Government last year after the Tory election victory, is a former economist with Goldman Sachs merchant bank and usually has detailed figures at his fingertips. But Government departments have been unusually coy about weighing up the cost despite months of questioning over claims that Britain's welfare system is a "pull factor" for migrants. Advertisement Shadow Justice Minister Lord Beecham pointed out that Mr Cameron was making migrant benefits a centrepiece of his Brussels renegotiation. "It is extraordinary that the government, which is making such an issue about the impact of migrants on the nation's finances should turn out to have no information about what it is actually paying out in benefits on the one hand and receiving by way of taxes and VAT on the other," he told HuffPost UK. "If Ministers continue to consider this a serious problem, they need urgently to commission a proper study of the actual situation and then publish the findings." Treasury minister Jim O'Neill, with George Osborne Eurosceptics will claim that the lack of transparency is because the cost is higher than thought, but pro-EU campaigners may counter that the Government doesn't want to admit that migrants put in more in taxes than than take out of the UK. Advertisement Downing Street claims that the issue is not just a matter of how much is spent on benefits but a sense of 'fairness' to UK workers who have spent years contributing to the welfare state. Many migrants don't claim a penny in benefits, but the Government has repeatedly talked of the need to tackle "benefit tourism" to the UK. Mr Cameron declared at the start of his EU renegotiation that "we can reduce the flow of people from within the EU by reducing the draw that our welfare system can exert across Europe". Yet when asked to quantify just how much of a burden they place on the system, ministers have often been opaque. Department for Work and Pensions statistics show that out of the 5 million people who claim welfare benefits in the UK, 114,000 (2.2 percent of the total) were EU nationals. Advertisement The most recent Freedom of Information request found that 84,000 EU migrant families claimed tax credits in 2013-14 and had been issued a national insurance number in the previous four years. The main figure Downing Street tends to use to prove 'benefit tourism' is that "around 40 percent of all recent European Economic Area migrants are supported by the UK benefits system". Some estimates suggest that one big source of migrant 'benefit' is housing benefit, paid out to low-paid EU nationals who often live in private rented housing. On the vexed issue of British child benefit paid out to EU migrants who leave their children in their home countries, the most recent figures suggest that 27m is paid out every year. Advertisement There were 34,000 claims of UK child benefit for children residing overseas in EU states. Government statistics show that recently arrived Eastern European migrants are actually unlikely to claim benefits - the vast majority of claimants have been here four years or more. One graph that tells a different story Jonathan Portes, former chief economist at the DWP and a senior fellow at the 'UK in a Changing Europe' think tank, said the UK Government now appeared to be concealing information. "In the PM's recent speech he claimed migrants from the European Union were a significant burden on the UK benefit system. On closer inspection his statistics proved to be highly misleading at best," he told HuffPost UK. "Now the Treasury is saying it can't provide any information at all on the tax contributions or benefit payments of EU migrants. That is not remotely credible. Advertisement "Again the government is concealing important information and data from the British people; whichever side of the referendum debate you are on, this should be unacceptable." Michael O'Connor, a policy consultant for 'Stronger In Numbers', told HuffPost: "Whatever sums are actually being spent on in-work benefits for workers from other Member States, restrictions on payments to new arrivals - particularly if tapered - seem likely to make only very modest cost savings bearing in mind the low rates of claim in the early years after arrival in the UK. "Any impact on levels of migration would be correspondingly low." Despite headlines this week about 'EU migrants grabbing British jobs', some economists claim our booming economy is the real "pull factor". And the UK's healthy growth has benefited Britons as much as EU migrants in the jobs market. Since Mr Cameron entered office, one million more Britons are in work and 850,000 more Europeans are working in Britain. The number of EU nationals working in the UK passed the two million mark this week, but some analysts say that overall they contribute 2bn a year in taxes. Advertisement Jeremy Corbyn has made as "serious political misjudgment" by dismissing David Cameron's attempts to limit the benefits migrants can claim in Britain, Peter Mandelson has said. The former Labour cabinet minister and European commissioner said on Thursday evening voters did not like the idea of being taken "for a ride" by European immigrants. Yesterday, Corbyn said the prime minister's attempt to secure an "emergency brake" on immigration from the EU as part of his renegotiated membership was "largely irrelevant". Advertisement Speaking to BBC Newsnight, Mandelson said British voters backed the idea that people should not be able to claim welfare until they had contributed by paying taxes. "I think, frankly, Jeremy Corbyn doesn't understand that he's not really on the same wavelength as the British people," he said. "In the statement he made today, he was making quite a serious political misjudgment. He was basically saying Labour's absolutely for Britain staying in the EU. Then he had a lot of pot shots at the prime minister, fine that's partisan politics. "But then he dismissed out of hand what the prime minister is doing in relation to migration. I happen to believe that people in this country don't want to pull the drawbridges up actually. But they do want a fair system. They don't want a free for all, they don't like this sense that people can come here and take us for a ride." Advertisement Speaking in Brussels yesterday, Corbyn said the proposals to curb benefits for EU migrants would hit "people in work who, because their wage levels are so low, merit receipt of working tax credits". Mandelson, who was EU trade commissioner from 2003 until 2008, said Cameron's attempt to convince other EU leaders to allow the UK to limit welfare was "completely legitimate". "If he comes back with some pup, he won't be able to sell it and that will pull the rug out from underneath the referendum campaign," he said. Former shadow cabinet minister Michael Dugher warned today Labour was facing a "meltdown" among its working class support due to its attitude towards immigration. Advertisement PoliticsHome reports Dugher told Tribune magazine: "But the truth is Labour wont get a fair hearing from the public on the need for humanitarian action on refugees if we dont show that were prepared to mitigate against some of the negative consequences that large-scale unskilled EU migration has had on many of Britains traditional working class communities." If a deal is done in Brussels today, Cameron is expected to return to London to hold a cabinet meeting. He would then free up eurosceptic Cabinet colleagues like Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Grayling the freedom to start campaigning for Britain to vote for Brexit. Senior Tories including Boris Johnson and Justice Secretary Michael Gove, who are seen as on the fence, could be expected to declare which side they will back. Imagine a member of the Labour benches releasing tear gas in the Commons. That's the state of politics in Kosovo, where members of the opposition let off multiple canisters on Friday, part of an ongoing protest against the country's minority Serbians gaining more power. Advertisement Opposition lawmaker wipes his eyes after releasing a tear gas canister in Kosovo capital Pristina on Friday Feb. 19, 2016 An EU-brokered deal agreed in August gave the ethic Serb population more say over local government, sparking the current political crisis. Kosovo is 90 percent Albanian. Demonstrators were also agitated by a recent diplomatic agreement with Kosovos neighbour Montenegro, which detractors argue threatens the countrys sovereignty. The EU accord has yet to be implemented ending a review by the country's highest court. Friday's protest was shown on live TV. Even after the chamber filled with smoke, parliamentary speaker Kadri Veseli, by now wearing a gas mask, demanded MPs remain and continue the planned debate. Advertisement Opposition lawmakers release a tear gas canister disrupting a parliamentary session in Kosovo capital Pristina on Friday Feb. 19, 2016 Police finally entered the chamber and the session was postponed. Outside, thousands of demonstrators clashed with police, though no arrests were made. The opposition has pledged to continue the disruptions until the current government resigns. Skegness Police Station Google Police have been condemned for leaving a 16-year-old girl who threatened to self-harm naked in her cell for 10 minutes and then pushing replacement clothes through the door hatch. The girl, who was detained in Skegness, even had her complaint about being "violated" disregarded when an officer told her she would have to pursue it after her release and then didn't follow it up. Advertisement The girl had her bra removed by staff and a male officer "pushed" her twice because her behaviour was "challenging". The details of the case were revealed in a damning report on Lincolnshire Police's custody, which Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary said her treatment was "demeaning and unacceptable". HMIC said the force's safeguarding policies for children left it "particularly concerned", adding: "There was little acknowledgement of the vulnerability of children; they were offered no specific support or care." Describing what happened to the teenager, inspectors noted two female staff removed her bra and then returned to the cell with an anti-rip suit, given to detainees whose clothes are removed to protect them from harm. Advertisement "Staff appeared to spend some time negotiating with the girl before she was restrained; staff then left the cell, inexplicably, taking the anti-rip suit with them, leaving the girl naked in her cell for a period of around 10 minutes," they wrote. "At this point, the top half of the anti-rip suit was posted through the cell hatch, followed by the lower half about 10 minutes later. Her behaviour was challenging and resulted in a male officer pushing her twice while she was naked. "The vulnerability of this girl in police custody was compounded by her being left naked in a cell. Not enough was done to maintain her dignity." She complained the next day to a sergeant, who told an inspector but it was not followed up. HMIC said her treatment was "demeaning and unacceptable". Though it did not specify why the girl was detained, it criticised the number of people detained under the Mental Health Act being held in police cells due to a lack of alternatives in the county. Advertisement The new Policing and Crime Bill will change the law to prevent under-18s detained under Act from being put in police cells. Sarah Brennan, chief executive of YoungMinds, told The Huffington Post UK: Too often young people experiencing a mental health crisis end up in a police cell because there is no other place of safety for them. "While we welcome the change in law that will end this appalling practice, there must be funds available so that there is an increase in the number of safe, appropriate beds that local areas can access. HMIC said Lincolnshire Police were too quick to remove detainees' clothing when they were perceived to be at risk without thinking about their dignity. The force insisted it had been "particularly concerned" for the girl's mental state and denied it had been negligent. Advertisement The fact of this case is that the custody officers were concerned that she would harm herself and decided that she needed to be given an anti-rip suit. Due to the first suit being the wrong size, another was produced within minutes, Deputy Chief Constable Heather Roach said. Justice Secretary Michael Gove Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA Wire Michael Gove is set to call for the UK to leave the European Union, Whitehall sources have suggested. The Huff Post UK understands the Justice Secretary will back Brexit in the EU referendum, expected to take place in June this year. Advertisement Downing Street sources refused to confirm or deny the claims and stressed that it has not ever been "100%" certain which side Mr Gove would eventually back. The former Education Secretary is one of David Camerons closest political allies, and has been allowed free reign over the departments he has run since 2010. His decision, which would disappoint the Prime Minister, has not been made lightly, but it is claimed that Mr Gove believes he has to put the national interest ahead of any personal loyalty to his friend. The news comes after Mr Cameron cancelled a planned Friday afternoon meeting of the Cabinet as he struggled to secure agreement with other EU leaders for his renegotiation. Advertisement Mr Goves backing of Brexit could persuade other high profile Tories, such as London Mayor Boris Johnson, to also come out for Leave. The Prime Minister had been expected to announce on the Andrew Marr Show this Sunday his plan for restoring UK Parliamentary 'sovereignty' over EU law. But if the Justice Secretary does finally confirm his backing for Brexit, that would suggest that he's not happy with the reforms No.10 and Oliver Letwin have drafted on the issue. Mr Cameron is still in Brussels trying to iron out the final details of his deal, with sticking points suspected to be over child benefit reforms. The delay to the Cabinet meeting means that no senior Tory is expected at a Brexit meeting in Westminster tonight, organised by Grassroots Out. Advertisement A Polish magazine's cover describing the "Islamic rape of Europe" and showing a white woman being grabbed by dark-skinned hands has been compared to Nazi propaganda. The cover shows the woman draped in the flag of the European Union and the article is the latest in a series from the right-wing press opposing taking in refugees and migrants who are coming to Europe in the hundreds of thousands. Advertisement The picture by the right-wing current affairs weekly magazine wSieci (The Network), which has a circulation of nearly 200,000 was quickly compared to racist images from the 1930s. "Islamic Rape of Europe"Polish magazine #wSieci Just change "Islamic" to "Jewish" and it's Poland in the late 1930s pic.twitter.com/J2ua2TVHg9 Annia Ciezadlo (@annia) February 17, 2016 Anti-Muslim attacks monitors TellMama called the front cover "appalling" and Andrew Stroehlein, from Human Rights Watch, said it was "outstanding fear-mongering". Appalling front cover by @Tygodnik_Sieci. Inflammatory and very offensive as though 'Muslims' cannot be trusted https://t.co/dygcbJWksc TellMAMAUK (@TellMamaUK) February 17, 2016 Advertisement Outstanding fear-mongering by Polish weekly @Tygodnik_Sieci with their "Islamic Rape of Europe" cover. pic.twitter.com/oUVGsH4vEW Andrew Stroehlein (@astroehlein) February 17, 2016 The article in the magazine claims to reveal "what the media and Brussels elite are hiding from the citizens of the European Union" and refers to the sexual assaults in Cologne on New Year's Eve, which were blamed on migrants and fuelled a backlash against them across Europe. The people of old Europe after the events of New Years Eve in Cologne painfully realised the problems arising from the massive influx of immigrants, the article's author writes. The first signs that things were going wrong, however, were there a lot earlier. They were still ignored or were minimised in significance in the name of tolerance and political correctness. One person said the cover was "no different" to Nazi propaganda about African Americans. "Islamic rape of Europe" long racist history, no different than the nazi propaganda of African Americans. #wSiecipic.twitter.com/d6RNVmYdVA Ekud (@Bletherin) February 18, 2016 Advertisement The cover's resemblance to an Italian fascist poster from the 1930s, showing a black man attacking a white woman, was remarkable. 1) Cover of this week's Polish magazine wSieci about the 'Islamic rape of Europe'; 2) WW2 Italian fascist propaganda pic.twitter.com/L3vzgCinrd Ronan Burtenshaw (@ronanburtenshaw) February 17, 2016 Journalist Annia Ciezadlo agreed that it was reminiscent of racist imagery used by the Ku Klux Klan, saying: "Racist iconography knows no national boundaries". Yes, amazing isn't it? Racist iconography knows no national boundaries. Truly, it is borderless. https://t.co/498SvLDKVw Annia Ciezadlo (@annia) February 17, 2016 The weekly magazine has not commented on the backlash to its cover. The imagery reflects a growing clash between right wing and left wing over the migration crisis and the potential results, though even right-wing news site Breitbart said the cover "may be one of the most politically incorrect illustrations of the migrant crisis to date". Advertisement The nationalities of people arrested for the Cologne attacks - mainly, Algerians and Moroccans - sparked a fresh round of argument between opponents and supporters of allowing refugees to settle here. The attacks fuelled a backlash in Germany against taking in more people, after its welcoming policy made it a prime destination for refugees. BRUSSELS, BELGIUM - FEBRUARY 18: Back Row L-R Luxembourg Prime minister Xavier Bettel, Latvian Prime Minister Maris Kucinskis, Italian Prime minister Matteo Renzi, Greek Prime minister Alexis Tsipras, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny, Croatian Prime Minister Tihomir Oreskovic, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Polish Prime Minister Beata Maria Szydlo, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, Czech Republic Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, Slovenia's Prime minister Miro Cerar, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipila.Front Row L-R EU's High representative for foreign affairs and security policy Federica Mogherini, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann, Estonian Prime minister Taavi Roivas, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite, French President Francois Hollande, Netherland Prime Minister Mark Rutte, European Council President Donald Tusk, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades, European Parliament President Martin Schulz, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Bulgarian Prime minister Boyko Borissov an The Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union Jeppe Tranholm-Mikkelsen gather for a group photograph at the Council of the European Union on February 18, 2016 in Brussels, Belgium. Most of Europe's 28 member state leaders are gathering in Brussels to take part in a crucial summit and vote on British Prime Minister David Cameron's pledge to renegotiate the terms of Britain's membership in the EU, namely proposals to limit benefits for migrant workers. A referendum on whether Great Britain will stay in or leave the European Union is to be held before the end of 2017, though many expect it to take place in June Dan Kitwood via Getty Images With all the leaders of the EU gathered in Brussels to discuss David Cameron's renegotiation, now is a good time to test your knowledge of some those he is having to deal with. And in a pathetic attempt to make this quiz slightly relevant to a passing cultural phenomenon, you have to decide if the people named in the quiz are EU leaders or characters in War and Peace. Advertisement You can listen to the Huff Post UK's politics team struggling with this quiz in our latest Commons People Podcast. Richard Branson has spoken of his admiration for the entrepreneurial spirit of people at The Jungle refugee camp in Calais, citing the extraordinary innovations there that save lives and alleviate discomfort there. The Virgin tycoon told of the steps some have taken to ease their plight at the French camp where thousands live in squalid conditions after fleeing war, poverty and persecution. He said he was "shocked" to hear of the plans to demolish the southern zone of the camp, which could leave around 3,000 people homeless. Advertisement The innovations he praised include shops, a legal centre to help with asylum applications and dynamo bikes to charge phones. One of the innovations can even save lives. Writing on the Virgin website, Branson said: They also try to use the little resources they have to help others. I was inspired by the story of one Syrian refugee, Omar who uses his mobile phone to help save refugee lives in the Aegean Sea. "His WhatsApp group provides weather reports and geo-tracking as refugees cross and calls the coast guard if they lose contact." The legal centre at the camp helped win its first test case last month when four young refugees won the right to be reunited with their families in the UK. Advertisement Branson said he was impressed by the entrepreneurial spirit of people at the camp The section is due to be demolished on Monday and hundreds of those at risk are unaccompanied children. Branson was among more than 100 celebrities, including Benedict Cumberbatch and Helena Bonham Carter, who have signed an open letter calling on David Cameron to admit them to Britain. Branson wrote: "It can be hard to remain positive when so many face hardship all over the world. But we must continue to use our energy to fight on their behalf and against inhumanity and injustice." He described how volunteers have shifted the homes of 1,300 people living in the area to be bulldozed, after the authorities asked for 100-metre piece of land between the camp and the motorway. "The French authorities want the refugees to leave their shelters and relocate to the new shipping container camp at Calais, which will accommodate 1,500 people, however there are only 450 spaces left," he wrote. Advertisement "The other option is to join the hosting and orientation centres across France, although many who have family in the UK want to remain near the port." He spoke of his astonishment that such a crisis was happening in Europe, so close to Britain. "It's hard to look at the images of this camp and believe that this is happening in Europe, a mere 20 miles from the UK's shores," he said. Migrants at the camp have previously shown entrepreneurial spirit by charging people to view Bansky's pro-refugee rights mural, that depicts Steve Jobs, the son of a Syrian immigrant, as a migrant making his way to Europe. The mural was covered up and five euro charge was levied to those who wanted to see it. Advertisement Banksy's Steve Jobs mural The celebrities' call to allow unaccompanied children into Britain came as eight charities wrote an open letter condemning the bulldozing of the southern half of The Jungle. Rupert Murdoch has told Donald Trump to "calm down" after the Presidential hopeful complained that polls printed in the 84-year-old's publication had placed him lagging behind fellow Republican candidate Ted Cruz. The spat comes after Trump called a poll published in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) "phony" when it did not place him ahead of his Republican competitors. The WSJ and NBC News published a joint poll, which differed significantly from other national surveys, which gave Trump a wide lead. Advertisement Rupert Murdoch has told Donald Trump to 'calm down' Murdoch is worth an estimated $12.4 billion and Trump is worth $4.5 billion, according to Forbes. The poll put Texas senator Cruz with 28% of Republican support nationally, compared with 26% for Trump. New @NBCNews / WSJ poll shows Ted Cruz ahead of Donald Trump: pic.twitter.com/yWqR0Ycw06 TODAY (@TODAYshow) February 18, 2016 Trump adviser Dan Scavino tweeted a graphic reporting results from other polls, with only the WSJ and NBC poll not putting Trump in the lead. Advertisement 10 RECENT NATIONAL POLLS Which one is affiliated with a newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch? #TrumpTrain#Trump2016 pic.twitter.com/AhQ5NMFiXH Dan Scavino (@DanScavino) February 18, 2016 5 NEW NATIONAL GOP POLLS have @realDonaldTrump way out on top. Except for Rupert Murdoch's new WSJpoll https://t.co/s09oJ8xuBM Dan Scavino (@DanScavino) February 18, 2016 A few hours later, Trump lambasted the poll's results on Twitter, suggesting that the press were against him because they "only want" to report on the WSJ and NBC poll. Amazing that while I lead by big numbers in the new Q and and USA Today polls, the the press only wants to report on the phony WSJ/NBC poll. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2016 Murdoch, the CEO of News Corp, owns the WSJ and Fox News, which Trump has clashed with in recent months, especially with anchor Megyn Kelly. Advertisement On Thursday, Murdoch waded into the debate, tweeting: "Trump blames me for WSJ poll, fights FoxNews. Time to calm down. If I running anti-Trump conspiracy then doing lousy job!" Trump blames me for WSJ poll, fights FoxNews. Time to calm down. If I running anti-Trump conspiracy then doing lousy job! Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) February 18, 2016 Trump is currently in an ongoing feud with a number of people and no-one is exempt from his wrath - not even Pope Francis. The property tycoon branded the pontiff "disgraceful" for claiming Trump was "not a Christian" over his pledge to build a wall across the US-Mexico border. Returning home to Vatican City from a trip to Central America, the Pope said: "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian." Advertisement Trump responded by quipping at a rally in South Carolina: For a religious leader to question a persons faith is disgraceful. "It was just before 7.30pm. I heard my mobile ring, it was out of my reach, so I was making my way to it, it stopped ringing very quickly, when I looked there was an unknown number.. I then heard something posted through the door, my husband went and saw the pictured card from Tesco (at this stage, we only saw the front picture) my husband opened the door, the driver was still there. "My husband politely called him over, and asked what time the shopping was due, the driver snapped at him '7-8pm' (an hour earlier than I had meant to book). Once we realised our mistake with the time, we apologised. The driver was very rude, and didn't respond to our apology. When I said I hadn't heard him at the door, he pointed out we have a sign saying the baby is asleep, and also explains that it can take me time to answer the door. "Having a member of Tesco staff make such rude, unfair, discriminating presumptions about myself and my husband, makes me so upset. What gave him the right to pass judgement on us, and our situation, and the fact such unkind, and judgemental comments were posted through my door- my home, a place where I should feel safe from being discriminated against because of my health, makes it even worse, I feel violated in my safe haven. "It is a very personal attack, in my own home. It is also worth noting that my 8 year old could very easily have picked up he card, and have read the awful name his parents were being called. "Right now, I am mix of angry, disgusted, and devasted. I also want to make sure anyone who uses the delivery service realise there is a possibility they too may face being the victims of false and defamatory comments. "I also want Tesco to know, that I want this matter dealt with appropriately, it is a very serious matter, and the driver should be disciplined. I need to know if it is common that Tesco discriminate people who pay for their shopping to be delivered, whether it is because they are ill, disabled, working long hours, have young children, elderly, or just want to use a service Tesco provide? I have no idea how you are going to restore my faith in your company, but more importantly I am concerned you discriminate against customers who are disabled, or unable to shop in store dod any reason, and that other people, are also being subjected to such thoughtless judgemental attacks." How a country chooses the language for its education system is not an easy process. The decision is usually influenced by multiple factors: colonial history, origins of immigrants, legal recognition of minority languages, cultural diversity, political interests - to mention but a few. In some cases, instruction is provided in more than one language; in others the medium of instruction may vary between primary and secondary education. Underneath this tangled and evolving web of policies and priorities, however, lies an undeniable truth: teaching and assessing children in a language they understand will result in better learning. This is something that has been recognised now for decades. It is written into the 1989 ILO Convention and Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 2001 Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity. Our new paper out today, 'If you don't understand, how can you learn?' confirms this basic principle, and yet reports that, despite the overwhelming evidence supporting this claim, 40% are still not able to access education in a language they understand. It is clear that the complex nature of factors affecting language-education policy still take precedent over the accumulation of evidence. Countries with colonial histories often find that shifting to bilingual education is complicated, as can be seen in many Latin American contexts that continue to use Portuguese, or Spanish, or in many Francophone African countries, where French remains the predominant language of instruction. Our World Inequality Database on Education (WIDE) shows that this trend seriously hampers students' chances of learning. In Cote d'Ivoire, for example, 55% of grade 5 students who speak the test language at home learned the basics in reading in 2008, compared with only 25% of those who speak another language. Advertisement Nor is this confined to sub-Saharan Africa. In Iran, around 80% of grade 4 students who spoke a language other than Farsi at home reached the basics in reading, compared with over 95% of Farsi speakers. Similarly, in Honduras, in 2011, 94% of students who spoke the language of instruction at home learned the basics in reading in primary school compared to 62% of those who did not. Part of the repeated emphasis over teaching children in a language they understand is because linguistic barriers only serve to exacerbate the divides caused by other disadvantages such as poverty or gender or location. Students from poor households who speak a minority language at home are among the lowest performers. In Turkey in 2012, around 50% of poor non-Turkish speakers among 15 year olds achieved minimum benchmarks in reading, against the national average of 80%. As such, a mono-lingual education system can unwittingly promote educational disadvantages and economic inequalities from one generation to the next. The decision over language policy in schools is highly contested since the choice of which language to use for instruction can divide just as it can unite; it forms a group's identity, and as such can be the glue to bring people together, or the barrier that divides them. Advertisement In multi-ethnic countries, in particular, the imposition of a single dominant language as the language of instruction in schools, while sometimes a choice of necessity, has been a frequent source of grievance linked to wider issues of social and cultural inequality. Our paper lays out several of these examples. Disputes about using Kurdish in schools have been an integral part of the conflict in eastern Turkey. In Nepal, the imposition of Nepali as the language of instruction fed into the broader set of grievances among non-Nepali speaking castes and ethnic minorities that drove the civil war. Guatemala's imposition of Spanish on schools was seen by indigenous people as part of a broader pattern of social discrimination. In Pakistan, the continued use of Urdu as the language of instruction in government schools, even though it is spoken at home by less than 8% of the population, has also contributed to political tensions argued that there can be no discussions of quality in education without consideration of the language of instruction. With a renewed focus on quality in the post-2015 education agenda, our new paper helps policy makers find a way through the issue, and lays out some key recommendations to ensure that children are taught in a language they understand. To remember the holocaust is important. Seventy years later, it is as important to remember today as it was then. Three years ago, I visited Srebrenica, a name which is now synonymous not with a village in Bosnia, but with a massacre. There is a long tradition of Europeans imagining themselves as elevated. The massacre happened in 1995, two days before my third birthday, and to see the bullet holes in the houses was a powerful reminder that we are in danger of forgetting the 1940s. Two years ago I met Munesh Kapila, the head of the UN development program in South Sudan during the ethnic cleansing of 2003 and 2004. When speaking about what happened in Darfur, I was struck by how recently these events took place, but a few years ago. To me, this demonstrates that the human capability to dehumanise and systematically exterminate has not gone away. Advertisement And that is why it is important to remember the holocaust: as a prompt to remain vigilant against the eruption of evil in our everyday lives. The cast of wrongdoers, now and then, were ordinary people. The holocaust was unique in terms of scale, but the intervening seventy years of atrocities and attempted examinations have proved that the human capacity for destruction remains undiminished. Today, then, is a day for remembrance. For remembrance of the Jews, the Roma, the queer, and the disabled who were systematically murdered. Every year, the number of survivors of the holocaust decreases. We must ensure that remembrance of the holocaust does not decline alongside them. The theme of this year's Holocaust Memorial Day is "don't stand by". This is a lesson that is especially relevant today, at a time when racism is on the rise across Europe. Today, Europe faces its worst refugee crisis since the Second World War. The majority of asylum seekers and refugees in the 1930s were Jewish. Today, they are Syrian. Advertisement Looking in the newspapers of the 1930s, I was struck by the intolerance on display. British Newspapers talking of "German Jews pouring into this country"; the political discourse at the time mirrored that which we see today. That the Prime Minister is comfortable describing refugees as "a bunch of migrants" on television on Holocaust Memorial Day shows how far our political discourse has slid. We need to remember what happens when we demonise a group of people - be they Jewish, or Syrian. Rabid intolerance of refugees has a long British pedigree, and it is up to all of us to stand up to it. So the message I will leave you with, is this. "We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim". We are a long way from 1937. But then, as now, we must not stand by. "This book does not claim to be a definitive survey of street art across the globe," Lou Chamberlain writes in the introduction to this book. "Rather, it is a snapshot that captures a moment in time..." Chamberlain's travels include trips to New York, Dublin, London, Warsaw and Rio de Janeiro as well as Sydney and Melbourne in her native Australia. Street art superstars such as Bristol local Banksy and American Shepherd Fairey (the man behind President Obama's now iconic "Hope" campaign posters and material) to less well-known names such as Low Bros in Berlin and Mexican artist Paola Delfin in Barcelona. Advertisement It's interesting to compare different styles from the photorealism of artists such as Owen Dippie in Auckland to the Pop Art of Ron English in Rome and surrealism of Blu in Berlin; the vibrant colour schemes in South America to the monochrome depictions in Warsaw. But you can also draw comparisons - it's incredible just how often eyes are used as a theme across the globe. I'm reminded of the pair of giant spectacles staring out from a billboard in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. There's probably a thesis in there somewhere. Of course, thanks to social media, these images are endlessly shared and ideas know no borders. It's probably thanks to social media that the status of street art has been elevated in most areas with works by Banksy fetching millions of pounds and becoming much coveted collector's items. But at the same time, draconian local councils are coming down on artists, removing the work of even well-known names. And yet more and more works appear to replace them. What I find interesting is how certain areas become focal points for street art - downtown Los Angeles (sadly, not included here), Brick Lane in London, New York's Bushwick. But that's not a subject explored here. The story of street art is tied inextricably to that of immigration and gentrification. Many of the featured artists are not native to the cities in which they work. I'd like to see a book tell that story. There are some superb examples included here, including Otto Schade's "Irony, Burn" in Camden, Ron English's "Baby Hulk" in Rome and Hopare's striking portrait of FKA Twigs in Belleville, Paris. Advertisement If I have a quibble it's that Chamberlain provides no real context and this book is far from comprehensive (there are only eight pages on Asian street art, for example). Nonetheless, there are enough stunning examples included here to keep you coming back. As she writes: "[These] artworks are nonetheless united in their ability to reach out to us from the urban landscape, speak to us and make us smile." As the whispers of Brexit turn into a very possible reality, I can't help but think of the classic Monty Python sketch in Life of Brian. "What have the Romans ever done for us?" John Cleese asks, trying to inspire a revolution. "Er, Sanitation, aqueducts, roads, public health, medicine..." is the reply. The same thing is happening with the EU. Eurosceptics are shouting blindly about revolution, and forgetting to celebrate what Europe has done for us. Advertisement The EU has its problems. It is dense, unaccountable, and thick with red tape. But, with Cameron failing to negotiate a better deal, we're at real risk of losing the things we take for granted. Peace Let's not forget why the EU exists. It may have swelled into a wheezing, bureaucratic monster, but its origins were all about peace. The EU was created to make war impossible, by tying the European economies together. It's a peace that still lasts today. When France called on its EU neighbours to lend military assistance after last year's terror attacks, it was a proud moment. The EU stood together. If Britain votes to leave, it will send shivers of distrust throughout Europe. Lucrative trade agreements The idea that we could make better trade agreements on our own is simply arrogant and naive. If there's one thing we've learnt from the last two months, it's that Cameron's bargaining power on the global arena is nowhere near as strong as he thinks. Advertisement The EU, and its 740 million consumers, is in a much better position to negotiate with the world than the UK alone (with just 64 million consumers). It's simple economics. As for the 50% of our existing trade with the EU, we'll spend years negotiating the very same deal. And we'll still have to adhere to all the same rules. What about China? Well, China's economy is haemorrhaging at the moment, dragging the entire world with it. Thank your lucky stars we're not tied more closely with this volatile giant. And when China does come to the table, you better believe they're going to the 740 million consumers in Europe before us. Nissan factories, Google Headquarters, Coca-Cola etc... These enormous global companies have set up their European base in London. But it's not because they like the view. They set up in London because we're a gateway to Europe. Which is exactly how the UK government sells itself in its official business brochure, by the way. Advertisement The only reason London is the biggest host of foreign business is our link to the EU. Even George Osbourne's tight relationship with Google isn't enough to keep them from moving to Paris or Berlin. As for the automotive industry, the chairman of Nissan has already expressed concern about Brexit, and made it clear that the EU is incredibly important to their business. Nissan aren't alone. Multiculturalism and tolerance The entire rhetoric surrounding our place in Europe has been soured and vilified by immigration. Let us never forget we send as many migrants to Europe as we take in. (2.2 million, if you're wondering). The EU has been a powerful force in normalising multiculturalism. It has bred tolerance and encouraged compassion. Freedom of movement has softened arrogance and distrust. Inevitably, this multiculturalism has also given birth to savage pockets of intolerance. A 'No' to Brexit gives a clear sign that our future lies in acceptance. Advertisement The regeneration of Birmingham and Wales The EU has an egalitarian heart. It invests huge amounts of money in the struggling countries of Europe. (Our 1% of GDP contribution to this fund is often cited as a reason for leaving). Although we don't get out as much as we put in, some of that money is funnelled to the north of England (and heavily into Wales). It's a region that our own government is less inclined to invest in directly. The regeneration of Birmingham's New Street station was paid for by EU funds. Look closely, and you'll see 'funded by the EU' signs across the North. Where the Tories look at with disdain, the EU looks with compassion. Clean beaches and environmental regulations A realistic and meaningful agreement on environmental standards will only ever come from collaboration. Without the EU setting restrictions, there would be very little environmental conscience in Westminster. As an organisation, the EU leads the world on environmental policy. We can thank European regulations for our clean beaches and investment into alternative energy. Or perhaps we'd all prefer to wake up in a city full of smog, like Beijing? Jobs Our link to Europe fosters more than 3.1 million jobs. Of course, those jobs won't just evaporate if we vote to leave. But it will throw up insecurity and unanswered questions. The biggest global companies in London will debate whether to move their operations. It will take a while for the dust to settle, and even longer to encourage big Asian and Indian firms to fill the gap. Advertisement Child maintenance justice Behind the scenes, the EU enforces a lot of useful laws on domestic issues such as child maintenance and abduction. Before the EU laws kicked in, it was entirely possible to skip the country to avoid maintenance payments. Leaving the EU could leave us unable to tap into these justice systems. Wages, holidays, maternity and paternity leave The EU enforces most of the universal laws of maternity/paternity leave, and basic work holiday allocation. The Trade Union Congress chief, Frances O'Grady, yesterday claimed that these rights are at risk if Britain votes to leave. There would certainly be pressure from businesses to relax the existing regulations. Solidarity against extremism We talk about the EU like it's a bureaucratic machine, but it's more than that. It's a community. It's solidarity against extremism. The EU is stronger when we are united. We are almost certainly weaker and more vulnerable alone. Newsletter sign-up HuffPost UK Daily Brief Sign up and we will email you daily with the best of our political and news coverage while also giving you a taste of our most-popular lifestyle, opinion and personal blogs. Senior figures from across the political divide will unite tonight with 1,500 activists in Central London in one great cause. I will stand alongside Conservative colleagues David Davis, Tom Pursglove, Peter Bone and Sir Bill Cash in denouncing this terrible deal for Britain. We will put party and political differences aside to unite with Labour's Kate Hoey, Ukip's Nigel Farage, trade unionist John Boyd and others of all political colours and none - because the matter of whether Britain governs itself or is ruled by a foreign power is far greater than any routine Left or Right political argument. Advertisement The Prime Minister's renegotiation has proved the EU cannot and will not be reformed. He requested little and will be granted even less. In a show of strength tonight, the Leave campaign under the umbrella GO Movement will collectively reject what will be a pitiful deal and issue a call to arms to the British people. Now is the time to get control of our country back. Brits want to run their own affairs, have control of their own borders and not be sending billions of pounds a year to Brussels. But following this renegotiation, much heralded by those my colleague Liam Fox calls the 'Remainians', we will still have open borders and a migration policy that discriminates against our Commonwealth friends. We still won't know who is coming and who is going at our ports. And in three or four years time our doors will be open to the millions of migrants who will have entered Germany and other EU member states, including the perpetrators of the abhorrent Cologne sex attacks. Following this renegotiation, we will still pay the European Union 55m a day for the privilege of being a member of this Superstate, a Superstate that has placed enormous burdens on our small and medium sized businesses, destroyed our fishing industry and has grand ambitions to coordinate continental defence in an EU Army, undermining the crucial NATO alliance. Advertisement And following this renegotiation, we will still not have the right to make our own laws in our own parliament - and a country that cannot make its own laws gives up its claims to be a sovereign nation. Instead, over 60 per cent of the legislation that affects the British people will continue to be set in Brussels - where sole power for initiating and scrapping it lies with unelected and unaccountable Eurocrats. So what was the point of this renegotiation charade? lt will merely tinker with some of the huge problems the British public has with our EU membership - and it will fail completely to address border control, cost and sovereignty. In short, it is simply not worth the paper it is written on. The most bizarre aspect of this whole affair is that the European Parliament will be able to veto the deal in the event the British people vote to remain. I for one will not be supporting this irrelevant, hopeless agreement if it does indeed come to a vote. Of course, I hope it does not. Tonight, the GO Movement sends a simple message to the European Union elite. This deal is not good enough - and we want our country back. To the British public we say - we don't have to put up with this any longer. A vote to remain would put the long term security of our currency, City of London and of our whole nation at risk. A vote to leave is the safer option. It is a vote for a great trade deal and to run our own affairs once again. Advertisement Just over four years ago my world, and that of my family, literally fell apart. It was a day like any other when two very sensitive police officers had the awful job of telling my wife and I that our son Barney had taken his own life. He was just 21-years-old. Barney was the third of four boys. He was a lovely lad, a little shy but normal and well-liked. Whilst our other sons coped with the slings and arrows of growing up, Barney was just not equipped to deal with the storms of life. After a period of depression, he planned an organised but untimely exit from this world. Advertisement As you can imagine there has been much soul searching and many tears since then. Waves of grief still roll in from time to time, some crashing over us so hard they leave us gasping for breath. There isn't a day that goes by that a memory is not stirred, a wistful thought provoked by a smell or a song or a photograph. But we are OK; we have survived and, perhaps oddly, we are able to enjoy life again. For me, that restorative process has been directly linked to my search for knowledge about the emotional wellbeing of young people. After more than 30 years in teaching, Barney's death led me down a new career path. I qualified as a Youth Mental Health First Aid Instructor in 2012 and become a trainer for schools and young people for the Charlie Waller Memorial Trust (CWMT) in 2013, a charity which provides free mental health training for the education and health care sector. And with the knowledge I have gained has come some understanding. Not about how Barney's story may have had a less tragic ending, but about the epidemic of emotional turmoil that can threaten to engulf some young people. About the efforts of some to make a difference. About the apparent lethargy of others in positions to make a difference but who fail to do so. Young people are under more pressure than ever before - social media and the drive to achieve academic success are two good examples of that. Equally schools are under pressure to meet National Curriculum targets and achieve good exam results. But studies have shown that if schools put the mental wellbeing of their pupils first, good academic results would follow. And that needs to start at primary schools where 10% of children have a mental health problem. Advertisement A recent survey of nearly 1500 primary school heads found that two thirds of them feel they cannot deal with mental health issues amongst their pupils. CWMT has seen a sharp rise in requests for training and resources from schools, including primaries, in recent years. In particular, we are asked for advice on low mood, anxiety, and the link this has with social media, body image, self-esteem, self-harm and problematic eating behaviours. So what can we do to put mental and emotional wellbeing at the heart of what we teach children and young people? The starting point is to embed mental wellbeing in all schools and universities, across teaching in all subjects - not as a separate lesson taught once a week. Importantly, we need to implement this at a primary school level where issues first start to emerge. Secondly we need to ensure that teaching staff receive training and specialist support to enable them to recognise the early signs of distress amongst their pupils, to have the skills and confidence to offer support and practical coping strategies. They also need to be able to refer a young person for additional support from school-based or local services when this is needed. And thirdly we need to better prepare our children and young people to be resilient enough to cope. As HRH the Duchess of Cambridge recently said we cannot always change children's circumstances, but we can teach them the skills to cope with the difficulties life throws at them. We can also help them develop the knowledge and understanding to navigate these waters more safely and seek appropriate help for themselves or a friend when things are going less well. Advertisement Schools, parents and young people themselves all have an important role to play in promoting mental wellbeing and tackling the stigma of mental ill-health. And the more we can intervene at a younger age, and the more we can make mental wellbeing 'mainstream' in schools, the more we can help the next generation of Barneys to cope better with the storms of life. The Charlie Waller Memorial Trust provides free training for schools and universities as well talks for children and young people. A report from a public policy think tank in Wales has highlighted the need for more coordinated approaches to advance care planning. There is a need to focus on a subcategory of this very broad area: Advance Decisions to Refuse Treatment. Intelligent electronic patient record systems are required, so that patient wishes can be accessed quickly and easily when needed. This is a complex area, and anticipating the plethora of possible healthcare scenarios has always been a major challenge. A few years ago I had a request from a patient, with a terminal diagnosis, to help her fill in a form that stated she would not want to be artificially ventilated when her lungs inevitably failed. She wanted mainly supportive measures, and preferred, on balance, maximum conservative management over other measures like non-invasive ventilation or intubation. We talked about her ideals and her fears in depth. She had a wicked sense of humour and would often try to floor me with an off-the-cuff remark, for instance she wanted a cremation and wanted the urn to be placed in the office of a physician with whom she had, what she called, a love-hate relationship. The conversation flowed easily, despite the gravity of the topic and her frequent need to catch breath at the end of each sentence; we discussed other challenging treatment decisions and potential scenarios, for example whether, when she really went downhill, she wanted CPR (she told me where to go), or intravenous antibiotics for a severe infection (yes, this was something she wanted doctors treating her to consider), or a blood transfusion if she became severely anaemic (again, she felt this was a reasonable intervention, although ideally at home). She also wanted active management of her diabetes at all stages of her life, even when she was unconscious. Advertisement She asked me what all these treatments entailed and I told her pros and cons, and what alternatives there were if she refused them. She listened, I listened, and we created a set of shared decisions. It led to a detailed written plan. It became clear that she had been concerned about receiving certain treatments in future, and the conversation helped. We created a legally binding document, and as she got frailer, it was to go with her everywhere. The actual distribution of this document was a logistical challenge: she kept a copy, I sent it out to her GP, but sharing it more widely became problematic; for example, the out-of-hours GP service at the time had no facilities to store such a document (even electronically) and sharing this with the ambulance service involved more forms and phone calls. Also, this lady knew what she wanted for some of the more common situations that may conceivably have presented themselves in future. But planning for all eventualities that complex, life-limiting illnesses can bring up remains a major challenge. I have highlighted this lady's care planning because we are struggling to anticipate and plan for those times when we become so frail, that we are no longer able to speak, let alone make complex treatment decisions, for ourselves. A report from a think tank has suggested a need to tackle this, and asks challenging questions. The Public Policy Institute for Wales (PPIW) has published independent advice on how to increase the understanding and uptake of Advance Decisions in Wales. The PPIW worked closely with Professor Jenny Kitzinger (Cardiff University) and Professor Celia Kitzinger (University of York) to examine the literature and evidence, as well as undertaking engagement sessions. This coincided with an announcement from Welsh Government of a new health and social care act, which has put forward strategies for those individuals in society who are frail and require detailed health and care planning. Advertisement The PPIW report focuses to a large extent on Advance Decisions to Refuse Treatment (ADRTs), and recognizes these as a distinct entity within the broader context of Advance Care Planning. It goes further in clarifying some of the confusion around this terminology right down to how it is often misspelled and how terminology is misused. Whilst Advance Care Planning (an umbrella term for many different aspects of anticipatory forward planning in healthcare) is a topic that involves much of my work, I would like to focus more specifically on the important subcategory of 'Advance Decisions to Refuse Treatment'. What are Advance Decisions To Refuse Treatment (ADRTs)? You may not have heard of them, because they remain quite rare. They are legally binding records (given statutory force by the UK's Mental Capacity Act 2005) of the treatments that someone wishes to refuse if they lose capacity to make their own decisions in future. An example of such an ADRT given in the report, might state, "I refuse a feeding tube and all other life-prolonging treatments if I am diagnosed by two appropriately qualified doctors as being in a prolonged vegetative state". This would be a valid and legally binding Advance Decision to Refuse Treatment in England and Wales if it were signed, witnessed and included a statement to the effect that 'this decision is to apply even if life is at risk'. Whilst this would seem a sensible way forward for many, there are some definite challenges in implementing this into healthcare more generally. Some of the patients I have discussed this with say that they would be afraid or worried about filling in such a legally binding document, depending on what it actually aims to achieve. For them, the 'What if...?' question looms large; if an emergency arises, there are thousands of different scenarios and consequences that can play out, that may not be sufficiently addressed by what is essentially a limited set of words that were written down some time in the past. This is borne out in the PPIW report, where results of a large European study suggested that only a minority of patients would want to fill in an ADRT. (Daveson et al.) There is also the level of detail. Even if an Advance Decision to Refuse Treatment is on the face of it quite explicit ("Please do not artificially feed me if I were to have a stroke"), there are scenarios where, if and when a stroke were to occur, this decision may have to be revisited: 'stroke' covers a plethora of mild to extreme dysfunctions; the brain is large and a stroke can affect many different areas. So for example if the stroke 'merely' left the person with the inability to express themselves verbally and swallow food safely, they may, quite reasonably, want to revoke their last (legally binding) wish and consider a naso-gastric feeding tube, especially if they feel hungry and hoped for some recovery; yet their inability at the time to speak might confuse the situation legally. I think this underlines the level of infinite possibilities and natural uncertainties within modern healthcare, and many people might want all options to be explored, should they deteriorate. And people often feel differently, when in a situation, to the way they predicted they might feel. Here, an ADRT might be considered too rigid and inflexible for some, if it is not worded to a very specific set of circumstances. A case of too many possible choices. So what choices do people have if they feel strongly about anticipatory refusals? Some patients will create an ADRT for a treatment under very specific circumstances (that may never occur), and feel reassured that they have covered this feared scenario. Other patients may prefer to fill in a written statement of their values, a so-called Advance Statements also fall under the umbrella terminology of Advance Care Planning, and are a 'light' version of ADRTs. However, a healthcare professional is not legally bound to adhere to a Advance Statement, and is required to make a decision on balance of all risks and evidence presented in a given acute situation (in fact this is of course always the case, but a Advance Statements would form part of the evidence gathering process). This limitation in the document's legal status is important, if abuses of such a system are to be factored in. - let's not forget that any document can be falsified or even added to later on, by next-of-kin with their own agenda. You may think I am being dramatic, but I have seen such situations play out. In fact, most patients I have spoken to would prefer for their next-of-kin to make decisions for them, when they themselves are unable to. The report highlights that relatives and next-of-kin do not have an automatic right to refuse treatments on behalf of the patient who is no longer able to decide for themselves. So an important recommendation must be to advise people who are at risk of their health deteriorating (in particular in my field of medicine), to consider appointing a Lasting Power of Attorney for Health and Welfare and how to go about this. (More information here, if you are interested.) This trusted individual , properly registered with the office of the Public Guardian , can then make and assist healthcare professionals in the complex decisions that may loom ahead. And then there is urgency. The big challenge is that in some circumstances there is the juxtaposition of urgency versus the very reasonable need to address prior decisions. Emergency care at times has to be delivered at very high speed. If I, as a doctor, or any other person who arrives at a scene, don't act swiftly, then life or body function can be lost in seconds. Checking whether someone has an Advance Care Planning document (be that an ADRT or Advance Statement) on them, verifying that it is correct and abiding by it can take minutes. As an example, if a person is bleeding profusely, minutes are extremely precious, so most paramedics, nurses and doctors would quite rightly wish to give emergency treatments. Verifying identity is another matter. During the Paris terrorist attacks, the identity of many patients treated in hospitals was not known for days. The healthcare staff had a duty to care and treat urgently, before they even knew the name and details of the individual that was being brought through the hospitals' doors. Any number of them could have had a previously filled in ACP document. You can picture the scene: a Jehova's Witness, perhaps, who received emergency blood transfusions whilst unconscious, who had previously specified in an ADRT that he/she would never wish to receive blood. I have worked in accident and emergency as a junior doctor, and the number of times a critically ill 'Unknown Patient' has come in is not to be discounted. Even with the best electronic communication of ADRTs, staff wouldn't know who to look up on the computer. Healthcare professionals have a duty of care to save life first, and in an emergency seconds count. Doctors and healthcare professionals can only abide by the wishes in ADRTs if they know of their existence, so making documents readily and quickly accessible will be a key priority. Back to tattoos then? Not quite. But if ADRT documents do remain rare in today's healthcare landscape, then part of it is due to the complexity of where these written decisions can and should be stored, how accessible they are and who should have a copy. And what happens if part of the plan changes? Patients may of course change their minds about refusing certain treatments. All this is difficult if you are relying on paper files, in particular if you have to send an updated version to all healthcare providers regularly. Without wanting to sound flippant, it would be unhelpful to have a situation where the patient holds ADRT version 4.0, the GP has version 2.0 and the neurologist has version 1.0 of the document. For those of us who want to see greater diversity in business, there can be few higher profile champions to have on our side than GlaxoSmithKline chair Sir Philip Hampton, UBM chair Dame Helen Alexander and Mitie chief executive officer Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith who have been given an official mandate to deliver diversity in British business. Each sits at the top of their respective company. All are peers, too - no humble Mr or Mrs will do when it comes to an issue so important. Yet while it might seem churlish to niggle, I can't help wonder if we shouldn't have had Sir Philip and Dame Helen's new roles - as chair of the influential Women on Boards review started by Lord Davies and deputy chair, respectively - reversed. Advertisement Why not walk the talk and appoint a woman to the more senior role? Nor can I feel anything but frustrated by the significantly lower volume of media coverage that reported the announcement of an enquiry into Black and Minority Ethnic diversity in the workplace to be led by Baroness Ruby. Without doubt, the challenges each will face delivering on their respective mandates are significant. True, the UK's biggest companies reached a major milestone in increasing the number of women in their boardrooms when Lord Davies announced in his report there are no more all male boards in FTSE 100 companies last October. FTSE 100 firms had exceeded the voluntary 25% of women board members target - a target he advised should duly be replaced by the new target of 33% of women board members by FTSE 350 firms for 2020. To put this is context, in 2011 women made up just 12.5% of FTSE 100 board members. But while board representation has improved, fewer than ten women are chairs or CEOs of the UK's biggest companies. Advertisement Female representation on the boards of IPOs is a pressing concern. Meanwhile, according to executive search firm Audeliss, if current trends continue many female non-executive directors may leave their boards within the next 18 months as their terms expire which could mean a drop in the number of top women non-executive directors to 17%. So how best now to achieve greater diversity? As Shainaz Firfiray, an assistant professor at Warwick Business School told the BBC: it may not be enough for companies "simply to appoint women to board positions in response to external pressure". Prior research has shown that women who succeed in typically male tasks such as leadership positions are "more disliked and derogated," implying that women confront obstacles in work settings that are not encountered by men to the same degree. She added: diligent management is needed to ensure their appointments are effective. The challenges are just as great when it comes to ethnic diversity. According to the Business in the Community Race Equality Leadership Team, there is a need to square the inverted pyramid that represents the current gulf that yawns between the proportion of people from a Black Asian and Minority Ethnic background in primary and secondary school (one in four) and in the UK working population (one in eight), and the proportion who are current private and public sector board members and executive teams (one in 16). Advertisement The answer, BITC suggests, lies in leadership, progression and recruitment - in short, building a supply chain within business up which the BAME population can progress. The same idea - for "a talent pipeline" to develop female managers in business by ensuring the right conditions for women to succeed - was flagged by Sir Philip when speaking earlier this week about his latest appointment. And undoubtedly, such sentiments augur well. A living hell makes death preferable. At her lowest point, Runak (not her real name) wanted to be bombed by Western jets rather than live in Daesh captivity. Her story should shock us into action. Runak is a Kurdish Yezidi and one of 5,000 women and children enslaved by Daesh. Her husband was taken, presumed dead. Her eldest son was abducted, probably to a Daesh training camp. Her eight-year old son was held for months and returned, probably after sexual abuse. In one year Runak was auctioned to many men as a spoil of war and witnessed torture, murder, and children dying of hunger. On a terrifying journey from Iraq to Syria she saw Daesh fighters select women and separate them from terrified children. One woman shaved off her children's hair and eyebrows to fool Daesh into thinking they had cancer so she would keep them. Eventually Runak and others were bought by a man who starved them and when being bombed to smithereens seemed better than being hungry slaves. Advertisement But Runak and four of her children survived. Her younger son was returned, and they escaped to Kurdistan, as have 1,300 others. They live at one of many camps for internally displaced people but thousands remain with Daesh and some may have been trafficked as far as Thailand. Sherri Kraham Talabany, the founder of the SEED Foundation, runs a centre in one camp, funded largely by local businesses. Sherri, a determined American who was a senior official at the State Department in Washington and now lives in Kurdistan, puts the Yezedi story in context. Many other Kurds suffered decades of violence and persecution as targets of Saddam Hussein's genocide. His regime may have killed as many as 182,000 people in 1987/1988 and the worst atrocity was the chemical bombardment of Halabja during which five thousand died in days. "But the problem," says Sherri, "is very few survivors of torture and violence ever received any psychological support. The genocide was overtaken by the invasion of Kuwait, the Kurdish Uprising in 1991 and the establishment of an autonomous region buffeted by UN and Iraqi sanctions, poverty, and civil war. The imperatives of survival and limited resources meant those who had suffered fended for themselves. They had no help coping with their trauma then and most have gone untreated, so they experience the symptoms as if it were yesterday." Advertisement The genocide against the Yezedis is an opportunity to learn lessons and systematically organise services for victims. SEED promotes sustainable development and delivers humanitarian assistance. Its motto is no survivor should suffer alone. Sherri's centre caters for hundreds of people every day: "it provides psychosocial counselling for those who have seen someone murdered, tortured or raped or who are victims of rape and abuse. We increase their skills in healthcare, hygiene and other life skills, as well as understanding human rights so they can overcome their marginal status and become healthier and more resilient." The centre includes a small agricultural plot where women grow fruit and vegetables which are used in cookery classes. Livelihood training for men includes turning wooden pallets into affordable, beautiful and rustic furniture, so they can earn an income to meet basic needs. Baking, knitting and sewing classes as well as music classes attract hundreds. Recreational activities create an opportunity to socialise, critical for healing and reducing the stigma of attending the centre. But the Kurdistan Region shoulders a huge humanitarian burden. The country normally has about five million people but that has soared by a third since 2014. Its government's resources have been stretched to breaking point by this as well as war, budget cuts by Baghdad, and falling oil prices. The liberation of Mosul will also sharply increase those needing help. All this suffering evokes WH Auden's poem, The Shield of Achilles, which describes a concentration camp where "Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot/Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)/And sentries sweated for the day was hot:/A crowd of ordinary decent folk/Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke/As three pale figures were led forth and bound/To three posts driven upright in the ground." Its crescendo of disgust echoes today: "The mass and majesty of this world, all/That carries weight and always weighs the same/Lay in the hands of others; they were small/And could not hope for help and no help came:/What their foes like to do was done, their shame/Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride/And died as men before their bodies died." Advertisement The Daesh nightmare will one day end but its barbarity and inhumanity will remain vivid for survivors without greater support for SEED and other humanitarian and development programmes. We should not watch from without but should speak up for the Runaks of the world. SICARIO OUT NOW ON DVD Denis Villeneuve / Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin / Drama-Action / 2016 / 15 / 121 mins So you've seen a ton of thrillers, you know that Special Forces use Steven Seagal at will, you've even played video games (cheers Tom Clancy) - but you don't know the reality of it all, do you? Every aspect of life has a gritty underbelly, and directors like Denis Villeneuve are keen to exploit them. Sicario was a contender for the Palme D'Or so I expected great things but in actuality it was oddly underwhelming. Let me explain: Sicario is the definition of a 'slow burner', a thriller that builds and builds, tension is drawn from every scene, and there is never truly an objective climax; the film is one great big heap of anxiety. If that's your cup of tea, then great - go ahead and watch it, be my guest (and all that jazz) - but I know many won't like it. It may come across as more-drama-less-action which may alienate some viewers, especially for the way the film is shot. Although remember: this isn't a bad thing. In fact it looks fucking fantastic. So yeah, a lot of shots were dark and brooding, a repetition you see throughout, but the variation of shots, techniques (the use of the infrared cameras, satellite imagery - genius) seemed as if the CIA had actually commissioned a realistic interpretation of actual events. Advertisement Top marks for Blunt, who doesn't whimper into feminine obscurity. Del Toro was also good although he rarely emits much verbal flair (VILLENEUVE: Benicio, just do your 'mumbling Mexican' thang, okay?). Brolin was simply a quietly assured American macho-machine, which in Brolin's case must mean 'Be Normal'. And what about Daniel Kaluuya... last I saw of him was in this, now he's taking things seriously - LESSON NO.1 Comedians always make great actors. Sicario feels like it should be over much quicker. The plot is slow paced to emphasise about the morals. I like that - it unflinchingly exposed the dark, grim side to daily life in the Special Forces. But, thankfully, it also managed to focus on the social impact - how Mexico is by and large affected by the cartel as well as the people meant to save them. Intrigued by Tom Clancy & co.? Then watch this - you won't be disappointed. (*)(*)(*)(*) THE LOBSTER OUT NOW ON DVD Yorgos Lanthimos / Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Lea Seydoux / Comedy / 2016 / 15 / 118 mins This is one of the strangest films I have ever seen. Forgive me if I'm wrong but I'm guessing most of you aren't familiar with the work of Yorgos Lanthimos and many of you might be thankful because the majority of it, nay ALL OF IT, is fucking weird. The Lobster is no different. Here's the premise: in an alternate reality, the laws of The City (in what must be Ireland?) demand that those who are single must be taken to The Hotel where they have 45 days to find a partner or they will be turned into an animal of their choice. I've only scratched the surface... The Lobster is explicitly simple with its concept of 'Love'. The characters are frank with their sexual desires and their stance is black and white: either you agree with The City and partner up or you agree with The Loners - escapees from society in the woods who strictly abide to independency. There is no grey area. Advertisement David (Colin Farrell) eventually comes across the narrator, the Short Sighted Woman (Rachel Weisz), because apparently originality does not exist. A couple can only function and 'fall in love', it seems, if they share a distinct similarity. Both David and the Short Sighted Woman are... well... short sighted. The lengths they are willing to take to forge their 'love' turn drastic toward the end, but that's just the sinister plot twist a man like Lanthimos takes (look no further than his previous effort Dogtooth). It's an artsy film, but it's not necessarily a boring one. Scenes are drawn out so as to emphasise the uncanny lurking within every frame. The characters are deliberately weird, talking robotically, almost forced, but sometimes it just comes off as bland. However, I really rooted for David and his partner - I felt oddly connected to them, hoping they would emerge triumphant. Amongst all this weirdness they seemed to form a strangely beautiful and human relationship. I guess the satirical setting accentuated that all the more. However, I'm well aware many people won't take to the surrealism on show. Watch at your peril. (*)(*)(*)(*) Abigail Posner Abigail Posner is the Head of Strategic Planning at the ZOO, Google's creative think tank for agencies and brands. As a thought leader, author, manager and corporate executive, Abigail has spent her life catalyzing change and ensuring impact. Whether it is leading brands at DDB and Publicis to new strategic spaces; guiding teams to reinvent themselves with new tools and practices at Google; stimulating organizations to adopt new cultures and modes of behavior; challenging the cultural conversations around beauty; or motivating audiences to reexamine themselves, Abigail sees it her quest to spark novel thinking and lead people to take action on it. Thanks to her degree in Social Anthropology from Harvard University, Abigail shines a unique, humanistic lense on culture, business and technology that brings fresh perspective to corporate culture, product development, branding and marketing. Advertisement Nearly four years ago, Abigail joined Google to create the Strategic Planning Practice. She and her team works closely with the advertising and marketing communities to help develop their strategic and creative efforts for the digital space. While at Google, she has also launched an industry-first thought leadership series on human beings deep, emotional relationships with the digital space: Humanizing Digital. This research decodes technology in an inspiring and useful way. And she has created and teaches an inspirational "culture of insights" program & toolkit for internal both Google audiences and key marketers "Behold the Aha: from Data to Insight." Prior to joining Google, Abigail was Executive Vice President, Strategy Director at Publicis New York, where she directed strategic planning efforts for major new business pitches and provided thought leadership to key global clients, including L'Oreal, Nestle and Coca-Cola. Before that, Abigail spent 11 years at DDB New York. There, she co-directed the strategic planning department and directed strategic efforts for a range of clients, from PepsiCo and Unilever to Hertz. Abigail has spoken at key conferences including: PSFK, APG, SXSW, eMerge, MAD, CDX Forum, Yale & Columbia Business Schools and C2MTL. Abigail has sat on World Design Capital Selection Committee, The Disruptor Foundation, Jay Chiat Awards Judging committee 2014, and on the boards of FAWN, Michelle Phan's lifestyle company; Disruptor Foundation, Global Diversity Leadership Exchange Advisory Council and TheSocialArchitects. Advertisement She blogs regularly on beauty in our culture at Beautyskew.com and has published the following articles: Memes Matter: Three Lessons for Brands (B&T --Australia's Leading publication for advertising & media, April 2014); The Ads Worth Spreading that Really Did Spread (Think with Google, March 2014) The Memes With Meaning: Why We Create and Share Cat Videos and Why it Matters to People and Brands (Fast Company, June 2013); The Meaning of Mobile (Think with Google 2012) Why Beauty Matters Today (Retail Online, September, 2011), Why Packaged-Goods Companies Should Market to Men (Advertising Age.com, February, 2009), Brand Management and Its Greater Purpose (Ad Map, November Issue 2007) and Why Your Mission Matters (Advertising Age, July, 2007). Abigail graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor's degree in social anthropology. She lives in NYC with her Husband and 3 children. How has your life experience made you the leader you are today? Growing up the youngest of 3 children, I realized early on that I had to create my own, unique story. To stand out from my highly successful siblings, I had to have something different to say and some unique talents to point to. Given my brother and sister inherited my parents' math and science genes, I would often hear: "Oh, knowing your family you'll need to go on the math team (ah, not quite) ... must be a skilled test taker (hardly!) ... and are sure to become a doctor (no way)." Thankfully, I knew early on that I had a passion for understanding not just what people do but why human beings do what they do -- why certain cultures eat what they eat, believe in what they believe, or organize their societies the way they do -- how they find meaning in their lives. So, I fell in love with the subject of social anthropology. I realized that this passion had relevance to so many other aspects of life, from academics to commerce. Not everyone in the business world saw the link from anthropology to business. I got a lot of raised eyebrows in my job interviews, believe me! Eventually, I found two industries that saw the connection: in advertising and then at Google. Why? In order for us to understand how to sell something to someone or make something for someone, we have to understand what motivates them and why they would care. Advertisement Finding my story early on opened doors to worlds I never dreamed of, and keeps my passion for whatever I'm doing alive each and every day. And now, when it comes to my team, I urge everyone to cultivate his or her own story, too. How has your previous employment experience aided your tenure at Google? One of the many things that I have taken from my former work life is to navigate within messiness. In advertising, the creative process eventually arrives at a communications strategy. The process is very circuitous and chaotic, but we always land in a magical place. It can be scary at times because we're never quite sure if we'll actually find a solution in the end, but in the end, we always do. Bringing this non-linear type of thinking into to Google has brought a totally different type of energy and creativity, especially to the engineering and sales cultures. What have the highlights and challenges been during your tenure at Google? Our job as strategic planners is to make connections among seemingly unrelated pieces of data. We apply these themes to the development of digital solutions for brands -- from videos to new technologies. We are hard-wired to be very lateral, intuitive thinkers, and in an environment like Google, it's both invigorating and frustrating at the same time. It's fun to be the ones with a different way of thinking and looking at the world, especially when we can truly help our colleagues arrive at an unusual solution. Advertisement But we have a very specialized skill, and not everyone embraces our world view. Maybe they haven't been exposed to our way of thinking or problem solving before. In the end, this difference can be a good thing for us, too. We must learn to see ourselves and our worlds in a new way in order for our thinking to make sense to others. What advice can you offer to women who want a career in your industry? While there's still a gap between the number of men and women in my industry, I actually see it as a great opportunity for us. At Google we recognize the value of diversity. True creativity and innovation can only happen when we have diversity of insights. So women are not only a welcome addition to the mix, but our experiences and unique ways of thinking are highly valued. I'm not saying that it's all perfect. But the beauty of working at an innovation company is constant change. We believe every thing can be improved, adapted and made better. We take feedback seriously and use it to improve technology and culture. What is the most important lesson you've learned in your career to date? Networking! I know this sounds cliche, but let's be honest -- most us don't really do it. I used to think networking was a "nice to have" vs. a "must have." I was so focused on being a good soldier and acing the job at hand. Don't get me wrong, working hard and continually raising my game is always a goal. But connecting with people is key. Whether it's networking with colleagues at work, with my social media contacts, or people with similar (or, even better, different) interests -- all of it is so important. I'm now also a big believer in serendipity. I didn't learn this lesson until later on, but I'm trying to make up for it now. The more we keep ourselves open to newness -- new people and thinking -- the more magic we can create. By networking we open our minds to new ideas. We become more sensitive to others. And in the end, we get more things done. It's really an age-old approach. When we are connected to people, we are more likely to help them and vice versa. So, my advice to all people -- my team , my friends, and others is to "get out there." You never know! Advertisement How do you maintain a work/life balance? The key is not to look for some holy grail or idealized version of work/life balance. You just do what you need to do for that day to make it all work. Balance can change at every stage of life. When my kids were younger, I had to tackle the gamut of issues with my family and at work, so I just tried to offer my best depending on what/who needed my attention. There would be a day when my child would be sick so he or she would need my full-on attention. And there there would be another day when I had a major new business pitch, so that's where I would focus my energy. The work/life question is one that women get asked often compared with our male counterparts. Why should that be? My husband, for example, is just as much, if not more, involved in caring for our family. Lucky for me, my husband and I are true partners and focus and refocus our energies from hour to hour depending on who has more or less time to devote to work, kids, volunteering, our home, or whatever comes up. Net net, balance is whatever you make of it and however it feels right for any given moment on any given day. How has mentorship made a difference in your professional and personal life? There's no question mentorship is extremely valuable, yet I don't have 1 or 2 people I can point to and say these were/are my mentors. Instead, there were many people who served as "mini-mentors" over the years. I got bits of wisdom from so many people. I'm always open to receiving bite-sized pieces of mentorship from wherever it may come. The key is to really listen -- to the brilliance people have to offer us, sometimes when we least expect it. Which other female leaders do you admire and why? There are so many types of female leaders out there that I admire, like Meryl Streep, Katie Couric, and Anne-Marie Slaughter. They bust their butts and pushed themselves to great heights in their careers and lives. And when the chips were down, they persevered. They thrive in the messiness of family and work life, they have courage, and they even manage to look pretty damned good too! Advertisement But I also have to point to my mother as a leader. She is a pioneer scientist in a very male-oriented world and paved the way for so many young female scientists. She raised 3 children, published umpteen whitepapers, and even managed to be my style icon. What do you want to accomplish in the next year? Pope Francis and Donald Trump have both been speaking out about what a Christian is -- or is not. The Pope started it by saying, "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel." This was to journalists who asked his opinion on Mr. Trump's proposals to halt illegal immigration in the USA. Trump called Pope Francis' comments "disgraceful" but has since been doing all he can to recover any ground he may have lost with the Christian vote by doing that. But he added, "no leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man's religion or faith." Advertisement Actually, that's exactly what a prophet should do. It's exactly what Jesus did. Right-wing, evangelical and fundamentalist Christians often forget that the only class of people that Jesus did not like were those who were certain that they, and only they, were right. Only they were worshipping properly. Jesus loved the poor, the needy, the sick, the tax-collectors, the dispossessed and the children. He hit out against the Scribes and Pharisees who were utterly certain that they were right -- and whom he called hypocrites. But the work of the Christian is only to follow Jesus. It is not to worship him. Jesus never asked us once to worship him. To worship Jesus without following the teachings of the Gospel is hypocrisy. Whatever you may think of the migrant crisis both in Europe and Mexico, whatever your fears may be about people taking jobs or even being terrorists, can you honestly see Jesus standing there with his hand held up, saying, "'We will not help you?" I can't. Advertisement I know Jews, Muslims, Hindus, agnostics and atheists who are better Christians than I because they are more loving (and I'm an ordained minister). Anyone of any faith or none is a better Christian than those who condemn a 'sinner' in Jesus' name. The whole point of Christ is healing, inclusivity and forgiveness. Jesus was never punitive, triumphalist or exclusionary. Orthodox Christians will always use their biggest weapon when it comes to criticising those who are not what they see to be correct Christians. This is the quotation from the Gospel of John (14:6): "I am the way the truth and the life. Nobody comes to the Father except through me." They use that to mean that you must worship Jesus Christ. That's it. You can then happily go to Church on Sunday and know you are saved even if you don't do one single thing that Jesus did. But, did you know, that's only one translation of that phrase from the original Greek? There are more than 30,000 different versions of the Gospels in Greek all of them with the odd word that is different here and there - and some of them with large tracts that are not as we would now understand them. Some are purposeful changes in text to make a point and some are simply copying mistakes (see Bart D. Ehrman's book Misquoting Jesus for more details). An equally valid translation would be 'No one comes to the Father except as I am." Except as I am. That would be far too dangerous a translation to hit the mainstream because it would mean you simply couldn't be a Christian without loving all those whom Jesus loved. Or without being a healer. Advertisement This is the form of Christianity that Pope Francis is teaching. It was Francis who said, "Who am I to judge?" when asked about homosexuality even though St. Paul taught against it. He went on to say, "Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person? We must always consider the person." The fundamentalist will assume that God rejects the person, that Jesus would reject the person because it's against "the law." But God is a living God, not an out-of-touch entity existent only in historical context. Jesus said he came to fulfill the law and he made it abundantly clear that the primary law was love -- for God and each other -- all the others must bow to that. G. K. Chesterton had it right when he said, "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried." And St. Theresa of Avila summed it up when she said, "Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world." It comes down to this: most Christians assume that Christ is Jesus' surname. It is not. It is the state of consciousness that Jesus reached -- he was "one with the Father." He also said "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and ... he will do even greater things than these" (John 14:12). Advertisement Do you have to believe in Jesus to do such things? No, you have to believe in the Christ Consciousness. What is the Christ Consciousness? It is Love. That Christ Consciousness was personified by Jesus but it is available for all humanity even if we can only touch it for a second. We aspire to reach it through discernment and mercy. Discernment in looking at every single written religious teaching and finding the love within it, just as Jesus did as Christ. We love our neighbour as ourself, not more, not less. Donald Trump, I can love you as a brother, I can see the wounded human being in your eyes. But I really don't think you - or anyone who believes in excluding the hurt, the poor, the different from the "accepted norm" or anyone who disagrees with your version of "the truth" - can be a Christian. Am I right? I don't know. But I will try as hard as I can to be love. The resignation of Oxford University Labour Club (OULC) Co-Chair, Alex Chalmers, this week has since shed light on what appears to be a culture of antisemitism within the club. Many were rightly shocked and appalled at the reports but something else has been bugging me. While I was angered to learn of this "problem with Jews" within one of the most prestigious Labour clubs in the country, I was sadly not surprised at all to hear a story like this on a UK campus. The reactions to this incident have been very telling. The standard response to the allegations that have been made by someone unaware of the facts would usually be to acknowledge the severity of the claims and call for it to be properly investigated. This has not however been the case by all. One common reaction is to assume that these allegations must be about Israel before even reading the allegation. Another is to acknowledge the list of allegations but deny that they are antisemitism and insist it is simply anti-Israel as demonstrated by Ken Livingstone this week. There are also others who acknowledged that this was antisemitism but then ask; what about all the other forms of hate? and say 'well Jews are not a race, they're part of a religion so it's not really racism is it'? These ways of reacting are nothing new but the OULC case has certainly provided a good way for them all to occur at once. Advertisement The irony of the first response is clear considering that this is an example of what Chalmers stated in his resignation post. As he put it; many dismiss "most accusations of antisemitism [as] just the Zionists crying wolf" and this is too often the case. One clear example was when a member of the National Union of Students (NUS) National Executive Council (NEC) jumped to the assumption that this was about boycotts, divestments and sanctions (BDS) against Israel before it became clear that he had not even read the allegations. No one had even mentioned BDS in this case. The 'dismissing it as anti-Israel' response is also extremely troubling in this case. This is because the allegations against OULC members show a clear link between the extreme anti-Israel rhetoric and blatant antisemitism. When it is the same people who are sharing conspiracy theories about Jewish/Zionist lobbies controlling the world that are celebrating rockets on Tel Aviv, it goes far beyond criticism of the Israeli government. When it is these same people advocating the endorsement of Israeli Apartheid Week then we must question if their motive is to challenge Israeli policies or something else. Those who respond by asking about other forms of racism identify the next issue. There is a serious problem with those who struggle to recognise that antisemitism is a serious problem. Why can we not see a case of antisemitism and call it out for what it is? Why must people always diminish it relation to other forms of racism? It is also important to highlight that Jews are a people and a race, as well as a religious group. The UK Race Relations act recognises this, and over 95% of Jewish students who responded to the most recent JPR National Jewish Student Survey (2011) identified "feeling a part of the Jewish people" as key to their Jewish identity. Self-definition is held as sacrosanct by many on the left and within student liberation politics. Yet it seems that, just as with national self-determination, for many on the left, self-definition is for everyone... except Jews. Advertisement Many on the left are very quick to criticise antisemitism when it is perpetrated by the far-right but it is about time that we acknowledge that antisemitism cannot be attributed to just one part of the political spectrum. Antisemitism can be found across the political spectrum; left, centre and right. Just last week I was speaking at the NUS Anti-Racism Anti-Fascism conference. I said that when Jewish students have concerns about groups like Cage that NUS officers are working with due to their links to antisemitism, they are too often ignored. Another speaker on the panel proceeded to completely dismiss my concerns and insist Cage should be on as many campuses as possible. A clear example of Jewish students concerns not being taken seriously. Last week in Sweden the privacy and harassment issues associated with the app Periscope were raised. Children and teenagers using Periscope are sending each other challenges such as 'show your bra when you've reached 20 views', and when fishing for more 'likes' young girls are promising to take off their sweaters if they get 100 likes. Also, in schools, the app is used to stream lectures by teachers, and many teachers feel unsettled by the idea that what they say and do can be watched online by anyone. A third issue is that the app is being used by students to film each other getting dressed for physical education lessons. The live streaming app Periscope helps you to run your own live online show. Anyone can get a glimpse into your life. As a user you can search for live broadcasts all over the world and see who is using the app right now. Advertisement I did a search on the app yesterday evening and I landed in a living room in Sweden where three girls were looking at themselves on the app. In another broadcast I could watch what was happening outside Buckingham Palace in London, and there was also a live lecture in Boston. Then I did a new search during the day and found a young girl streaming live from her bedroom. There were many sweet comments and lots of 'hearts' sent to her. It's very easy for 'groomers' to find victims online, and online streaming apps are just one more way for them to connect with kids. Periscope is an open app that allows anyone to watch every broadcast and comment on your video if you are not actively changing the settings. As always, technology moves fast and humans are slow to adopt it and learn how it all works. Last week I spoke to an acquaintance who has ten-year-old twins. In the last few years, he has refused to get involved in any social media networks himself 'because it's totally meaningless'. We discussed the issue for a while, and it turned out his kids have smartphones and I asked: 'Do you know what they are up to online?' 'Well, sometimes I ask them.' 'Okay, do you think there are any risks that they will download and explore any new apps?' 'Erm, yes, maybe.' I can assure you that two creative children who like to explore the world are downloading new apps and trying them out themselves and with their friends. Their father spends a lot of time in denial of the impact online life has on his children. Advertisement As with its owner, Twitter, there is no function on Periscope to stop harassment and grooming. Periscope's terms of service clearly state that they do not take any responsibility whatsoever for the content on their platform, and you as a user are expected to understand that you may be exposed to content that is offensive or harmful. Thank you for making this clear to us, Periscope. Periscope has been around for almost a year and new similar services will launch in the next few years. Live streaming videos are going to be as common as good old YouTube in the future. These apps bring with them great privacy issues and can put vulnerable people at risk. There is no way we can filter out the bad from the good, and it's really up to every one of us to educate ourselves about the risks of video streaming. Next time it might be someone you know who is exposed to grooming. Or, it may be you who is filmed when you are getting dressed in the gym. Tips for safer use of Periscope and similar social media networks If your kids are using a new app, download it yourself and see what it's all about. If you behave like a technophobe, never trying out new technology, your kids will probably not take your thoughts about technology seriously. To protect your privacy it can be good idea to use a fake name when using Periscope. In setting you can let only the people you follow chat with you, and you can hide your location as well. Norms about how to behave that are applicable in real life are relevant online as well. Discuss these with your children. It's nearly upon us. Next in line for the Samsung throne is the newest incarnation of the hugely popular Galaxy S series, and its unveiling will take place at the 2016 Mobile World Congress on Sunday 21 February. As is traditional with releases of this kind, rumours abound. It seems that Samsung has done a pretty good job of drumming up excitement without giving too much away. There are few reports amid the speculation that anyone has managed to confirm. We've done our best to sort the fact from the fiction so phone fans everywhere know what to expect. The Galaxy S7 will come alongside the S7 Edge (but no Edge+ - Samsung are apparently planning push the giant Galaxy Note 6 as their flagship phablet instead) in a semi-sophisticated set of gold, silver, white and black. Advertisement Rose Gold enthusiasts will be saddened to see the suavest of hues gone from the Galaxy spectrum, particularly given last year's S6 came in green and blue - 'Topaz Blue' to true devotees. Samsung has also confirmed the simultaneous release of its Gear 360 Virtual Reality camera, which will sync with compatible smartphones via Bluetooth. Its fish eye lenses allow users to capture 360-degree photographs. There are a few whispers on the breeze that seem questionable. A recent leak from a Russian source claimed that the S7 would have 17 hours of video playback at full brightness. Although that kind of battery life isn't impossible, it does seem far too good to be true. The phone's processor remains cloaked in mystery, too. It's a toss up between Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 (which is news in itself, given the Snapdragon 810's overheating issues caused friction with Samsung last year) and Samsung's own Exyonos 8890 12MP Britecell, which showed up on slides leaked from an internal presentation. Advertisement Rumours that the Qualcomm chip performed better in test devices suggest the Exyonos might be a preferable option, giving Samsung the chance to adapt their product for the S7 specifically. But one thing we can be sure of is an exciting new camera with an f/1.7 lens aperture and top-of-the-range low light photography - the holy grail of smartphone manufacture. The megapixel downgrade from 16 to 12 might seem odd, but both the iPhone 6 and 6s cameras use 12 megapixels, and they certainly seem to go down well. Fingers crossed that they'll throw in super fast USB Type-C charging, a replication of Apple's 3D Touch and Samsung Pay, all of which are looking increasingly likely. My greatest ever wildlife experience was with a whale. She was a female sperm whale off the Caribbean island of Dominica, who was clearly as intrigued with me as I was with her. She stayed with my cameraman and me all day long, nuzzling her young calf towards us, introducing it to its first ever humans underwater. Then the experience got even more intense, as she started doing repeated swim pasts, rolling slightly onto her side so she could make eye contact. There was something deeply sentient in her eyes, and I could tell she was as interested in me as I was in her. Not surprising really for the animal with the largest brain on earth. What happened next was truly moving; she started copying me! Every time I dived below the surface, she would dive too. As I started to spin and pirouette, she would do the exact same movements. As I did a summersault, she would do exactly the same thing. I was engaged in an intimate pas de deux synchronized swim with a ten tonne whale! All the time, her constant coda vocalisations reverberated through my body, her ultrasonic pulses building up a picture of me inside and out. It was the most emotional and powerful experience I've had in a lifetime working with animals. Advertisement Due to this, and a thousand other such experiences with her marine mammal cousins, my position on whaling in the modern era is perhaps inevitable. But an argument based on ethics and morality - on the right to life of certain species - is deeply subjective and hence has no power amongst those who don't feel the same way. The Japanese whaling Association state; 'Attitudes toward animals are a part of national cultures. No nations should try to impose their attitudes on others.' In other words, the second we bleat; 'save the whales', we are irrational bunny huggers, who don't respect Japanese culture and thus can be discredited and ignored. So for the purpose of this article let's stick to objective fact. Japan has once again sent whaling vessels into the Antarctic refuge, harvesting whales for 'scientific research', which they claim is allowable through a loophole in international law. In 2014, the UN's International Court of Justice ordered Japan to stop whaling in Antarctica as its so-called 'scientific whaling' is not compatible with the ICRW, the rulings of the IWC, or international law. It has been 30 years since Japan began claiming their whaling was for science. They assert that they have registered over 666 research papers in this time, though they don't appear in the peer-reviewed literature, and the international courts ratify only two of them. Japan's first study ran for 18 years, killed 6,700 whales and had the aim of assessing something as simple as the numbers of whales in Antarctic waters. The results and methods were heavily disputed by scientists. Other studies have addressed subjects such as whether certain whales eat fish, how big certain whales get, and how stocks of whales can be managed... in protected waters where they are not supposed to be being managed at all. Critics argue that all the information that can be garnered from killing whales was recorded through the over 100 years of large-scale industrial whaling. All the major whaling nations kept detailed reports of their catches and their biology, and that data is easily accessible. Advertisement That Japan has discovered so little of consequence in thirty years through lethal means needs to be placed in the context of what is being done elsewhere in cetacean research. The study of marine mammals is probably the most exciting area of whole-organism biology, with quantum leaps in methods and technology unveiling unimagined wonders. Researchers are flying 'snot-bots' over spouting whales (drones that collect the goo in their blowhole spray) and use DNA and hormone analysis of the snot to tell us huge amounts about individual whales. Similar work can be done on their faeces, sperm and shed skin. You no longer need to kill a whale to find out if she's pregnant, or what it's eating. Acoustic work is revealing untold wonders about whale communication splitting groups of whales up, based on their dialects, into different tribes and even potentially species, that may be completely genetically distinct. Acoustic, radio and satellite tags, combined with robotically operated vehicles and 'critter cams', are offering an intimate look into the lives of real, living, swimming, breathing whales. All this work is done from just weeks or months in the field (rather than decades) and is generating phenomenally important data that completely changes our perception of these animals. Over longer periods of time, photographic data from the unique patterns on tail flukes and fins is allowing both the professionals and citizen( lay???) scientists to track whales around the globe, generating extraordinary amounts of data about their migration routes and habits... and all without a single whale being killed. By every measure of science, Japan's research in the Southern Ocean has been a catastrophic failure, and has consummately failed to move with the times - that is, if science is the real purpose for their missions down south. There is no doubt that the whales killed are then sold for consumption in Japanese markets, an industry worth millions. Australia has repeatedly taken Japan to the International Court of Justice in the Hague, to try and prove that their practices are by definition actually commercial whaling. The Japanese Whaling Association's own website (http://www.whaling.jp/english/qa.html) has been set up to explain and justify Japan's whaling programme. They state that whales are not especially intelligent, are more common than people think, and that over-exploitation would be impossible in the modern era. They assert that limited aboriginal whaling is allowed, and say; 'no whale species has been hunted to extinction or is ever likely to be'. (Hmmm... North Atlantic right whales are listed as 'nearly extinct,' as is the vaquita. The Chinese river dolphin disappeared by 2006, and many populations of whales have been hunted to extinction.) Western scientists targeted DNA analysis that was done on whale meat in Japanese markets, which proved some of it comes from endangered species. The JWA claim these samples were analysed by foreign scientists and thus are not reliable. And that the endangered whale meat could be from samples killed before the moratorium on whaling... in 1982?! The website is full of outraged retorts such as; 'Asking Japan to abandon this part of its culture would compare to Australians being asked to stop eating meat pies, Americans being asked to stop eating hamburgers and the English being asked to go without fish and chips'. Advertisement The other half of the JWA website is dedicated to explaining why what Japan is doing is not actually whaling at all but scientific research, and therefore allowed under IWC guidelines. Sooooo... then why are they putting so much energy into convincing the world that whaling is fine? The argument that whaling is a sacred part of Japanese culture is a fallacy. Admittedly they do have a very small-scale history of whaling in a few villages that can be traced back centuries, but it was never an industry of national importance, (such as it was here in the UK) until after the Second World War when animal protein was in short supply. Then in 1946 General MacArthur encouraged the development of a small factory ship fleet, blasting whales with explosives and targeting them with modern sonar so they could provide cheap meat. Hardly a romantic 'Moby Dick' style tradition, and a far cry from the 'aboriginal subsistence whaling' or somewhere like Lamalera in Indonesia, where one or two whales are hunted a year using wooden lances! The last and perhaps most important part of this scenario is the battlefield itself. Japan is targeting the protected Southern Ocean whale sanctuary and treating the Antarctic Treaty (of which Japan is an original signatory) with utter contempt. I'd encourage everyone to read the treaty, it's one of the few things that makes me feel genuinely proud to be human. It opens: 'There are few places on Earth where there has never been war, where the environment is fully protected, and where scientific research has priority. The whole of the Antarctic continent is like this. A land which the Antarctic Treaty parties call a natural reserve, devoted to peace and science.' The treaty further; 'Requires the conservation of Antarctic fauna and flora.' Coming as I do from a part of these isles that saw no real need to call a referendum on our European Union membership, I was finding it somewhat difficult to get myself enthused about the thing. Until this week, that was. In what felt like one of these ITV Saturday night galas, we were treated to the whole An Evening With...Project Fear as all their greatest hits were thrown back at us from the Remain campaign. This all crystallised when I went on BBC 5 Live this week to debate the subject. I was up against 'outer', and Hollywood-casting tunnel visioned Euro rebel par excellence Tory, Bill Cash; and a Labour MP, Alison McGovern, who did her very best to support the Prime Minister's renegotiation without supporting the Prime Minister. Advertisement What became increasingly clear to me throughout, was that we are now caught in something of a false campaign: there is now a need to forget talking about the PM's weak tea deal, and get on with making the positive case for us staying in. Whenever Government ministers stand up in the chamber to talk about the referendum, as the PM will on Monday, I find myself wanting to scream at them to say what they really think, and give us the positive, nuanced case for staying in the EU. We in Scotland know too well what it is like to be patronised, and told the sky will fall in if we make the wrong choice. I should probably say now too, that I don't think the UK would turn into a basket case if it left: I just think it would be a much lesser place without the opportunities for cooperation and mutual prosperity that the EU offers. In criticising the interventions of big business into the debate, I'll actually praise one. (so, call me a hypocrite!) Carolyn McCall, Chief Executive of Easy Jet recently lent her support to the In campaign, pointing out that Easy Jet wouldn't exist were it not for the EU deregulating the airline market, and encouraging competition. As someone who was seduced by that company's recent 'Generation EasyJet' campaign, that was something which chimed with me. Increased intra-European mobility is probably second only to Equal Marriage (another European concept) in terms of revolutionary social changes in the last 20 years: Constituents of mine in Glasgow South now think nothing of going to Barcelona or Amsterdam for a weekend; especially when it doesn't cost much more than a weekend in Inverness. Advertisement It is also another perfect example of how we should stop being so squeamish about freedom of movement. A concept that allows each of us entry into a labour market of 600 million people has inexplicably been painted as a mechanism for bloody foreigners to come over here and steal our jobs: and I'm afraid the Prime Minister and his not-so-merry band of befuddled remainers are complicit, as a focus on the process of renegotiation takes precedence over the principle. I've taken advantage of freedom of movement: my colleagues have taken advantage of it; people in my family have, and I know we will all know someone who has. It has not worked to everyone's advantage: but that it not a reason to bemoan freedom of movement, it's an incentive to provide those people either with the skills or the knowledge to do so. The fact is that millions of UK citizens have already taken advantage of freedom of movement: ironically by some estimates we are the largest group of citizens living outside our own borders, but within the EU. Again, it is unlikely that this would entirely disintegrate after Brexit, but the principle remains. When many Brits went to Spain for the first time, it was a fascist dictatorship. Cultural exchange and commerce have transferred that fascist dictatorship into a vital member of a community of nations: just as it has done for these former communist states in Central and Eastern Europe. This history argument can often be over-egged: of course it is not only the European Union that has kept peace in this previously bloody continent, but it has played a vital role in allowing states to stop pointing their guns at each other, and think about working together for mutual prosperity instead. Talk of returning to some sort of pre-Heath nirvana where Britain could take macro-economic decisions without consulting our closest neighbours forgets that it was precisely this attitude which led to mistrust, misunderstanding and became a prelude to war previously. There is no such thing as peace without compromise. Most ironically of all, for the Hannans and Hollobones that dream of freedom in the 'Anglosphere', it is the EU which has kept the UK at the top table of global events during a time of relative decline. Advertisement This is a top table which the Leavers want to turn our back on and let us eat by ourselves. In this debate, which should really be more about who we are and how we see ourselves, we are letting our closest allies down at a vital time in European history. As refugee flows across Europe cause tensions between neighbours, and stretch states like Germany and Sweden to breaking point; when president Putin seeks to benefit from these tensions to stoke populist sentiment in Western Europe, while intimidating the states in the East; Britain has decided not only to turn its back to Europe, but to do so while complaining in a loud voice that it can't get any ham, egg and chips. Let's stop that. We might not have long to wait until the Prime Minister announces the date of the European referendum and the basis of the deal that has finally been agreed. But what is clear is that if the pro-membership campaign does not get some momentum going soon then we will sleepwalk into Brexit. The first decisions that anyone will be interested in is which members of the Cabinet will campaign to come out of Europe. Despite this, Cameron will have a largely united Cabinet for a number of domestic political reasons not least positioning to become the next leader, the next Prime Minister and the chance, as they would see it, to easily win in 2020. There is a level of confidence about the Conservative Party and a desire not to waste a golden chance for a long term in government. This too means that many backbenchers will not wish to upset their chances of promotion. This is, however, to ignore the role of party members. The media is having a field day drawing a divide between members of the Parliamentary Labour Party and members of the party who, it is suggested, back Jeremy Corbyn. Whereas Corbyn is therefore at one with his members, Cameron is increasingly detached from his. His relationship with them has never been that warm - from his 'hug a hoodie' days through to backing gay marriage, Cameron has often been at odds with his membership. Advertisement Cameron's comments that his MP's should ignore their local constituencies when deciding on how to vote in the referendum was a failure on several levels. In the first instance, he faced a massive backlash. It was also an explicit recognition that the PM cannot bring his own party members with him. What this says about the future of the Conservative Party in the event of an 'in' vote can only be guessed. For MPs of both the main parties the outcome of their leaders' relationship with members could be the same - de-selection. So maybe the Conservative Party should not be quite so confident about the future. It is also the case that the renegotiation process has not been designed to reassure the voters. The process can be described as one in which it was unclear what was going to be negotiated on, then a brief list of demands was published where there was speculation about whether any of those are really going to be delivered. Now it emerges that the European Parliament could change the terms of a deal after a UK referendum. These new details demonstrate a lack of clarity and also a lack of control over the process. Neither will help the pro cause. Instead of fully explaining process from the outset, the pro campaign are constantly on the back foot and it is the leavers who are providing the information about the process. This is not the way to build trust. Advertisement Earlier in the discussions, a similar issue arose over whether Treaty change was needed. It soon became apparent that this wasn't possible in the timescales that the Prime Minister wanted to adhere to. It also wasn't made clear that if a Treaty change were to happen that it would need to be ratified by the other Member States, some of who would require a referendum. We are about to enter a period of 'the doorstep battle'. However, whether the parties and the members will be up for even more campaigning post May, after the elections in London, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland as well as for local government, can be questioned. Whilst the pro-membership campaign may believe UKIP is in a decline from its pre-2010 high point, there is no yet knowing how bad things could get for Labour or how hardy the new members are. It is thought that some of them are returners, and could be very active but it could also be suggested that a swathe of the 3 members simply joined to get involved in the leadership election and to get Corbyn into the leadership. A devastating set of election results in May for Labour could deliver a blow to any enthusiasm to go out and campaign again. So the May elections could have a direct impact on the outcome of the European referendum as well. The media campaign will get bitter. Many of the newspapers, less so the broadsheets, have set out their positions already and are campaigning hard to get out of Europe. The pro-campaign has its job set out and whilst they will do their fact checking and responses, that assumes anyone is listening (or reading). Advertisement This makes the social media campaign even more important and explains why both sides are putting a lot of time, effort and finance into these outlets. Hopefully they will learn from the 2015 election and what the Conservatives did whilst ignoring Labour's efforts. The huge unknown is the refugee crisis. Cameron's response so far has drawn criticism, at its most bleak as 'morally unacceptable'. With any new refugee problem, Cameron will have to explain how his new arrangements with Europe will help deal with both the causes and consequences. If he is seen to have little real power then that will impact negatively on the outcome of the referendum. Whilst all sides will say that they will be concentrating on the positives or staying in or leaving there is little doubt that Nigel Farage will talk about immigration. The danger for the pro campaign is that this is what motivates the large sections of the electorate who are unaware that there is a referendum planned, let alone a renegotiation taking place. Anti-politics is hard to ignore at the moment and this could remain a Farage secret weapon. US, French, British, and Russian bombs rain down in Syria adding to the misery of the citizens caught in this near 6-year conflict. The war zone is already crowded with the Syrian regime's forces, pro-regime and Shia militias, Assyrian militias, numerous Kurdish groups, and ISIS. If recent reports from the Kremlin are to be believed, China may soon be joining the long list of active military players in the region. Beijing's involvement in the Syrian conflict (seemingly, the "world's conflict") has so far concentrated on military and financial support to Bashar al-Assad. But, the People's Republic of China's reluctance to join the fight is being tested by reports of Muslim Uighur's making their way to join the multi-national ranks of ISIS. The PRC may no longer believe they can continue as passive players in this war and, framed by their concerns over Islamist extremism, could send troops to join the conflict. A potential catalyst for such involvement is the recruitment by ISIS of citizens from China and its neighbours in Central Asia. The apparent threat from Islamist extremism has been growing in the, Uighur-populated, Xinjiang province with scores of Chinese from the region being caught by Turkish officials on route to joining ISIS. Turkish nationals providing fake passports to Chinese nationals heading to Syria is also of concern to Beijing. Previously, the west has been keen to dismiss these claims as a way for China to use its counter-terrorism policies to suppress separatist dissent and further curb its human rights. It's near-impossible to dismiss China's rights record, especially with the regards to the Uighurs, but they may still have genuine fear of domestic radicalisation. Advertisement In June 2015, ISIS released a video of an 80-year-old Muslim Uighur explaining his decision to join the group after decades of oppression in China; and followed this up with a four-minute song, sung in Mandarin, that glorified the fight of the Mujahid. The next month they published a video urging more Uighurs to join their apparently "Sunni" cause. With Chinese citizens leaving their homes and travelling to Syria, Zhang Chunxian, the Communist Party Secretary of Xinjiang, confessed last year that China can no longer remain "aloof" to violent extremism. What this means for the Uighur minority living in Xinjiang is worrying. Propaganda murals depicting "good" and "bad" Uighurs are thought to have been commissioned by the government and appear close to mosques in Xinjiang. These murals, albeit crude, are telling of what the PRC thinks of its Muslim population. The Uighur people have suffered decades of economic marginalisation, ethnic discrimination and religious repression. It's very possible that these crackdowns are doing more harm than good in trying to curb violent radicalisation. Policies aimed at banning women wearing veils and Uighurs buying knives are in place in addition to stricter laws passed at the end of 2015. Similarly repressive rules on religious expression and practice are being echoed in the Central Asian countries bordering Xinjiang. Syria's ambassador to China, Imad Moustapha, explained how China views the Syrian crisis from three perspectives "international law and legitimacy; global strategic positioning; and the activities of jihadist Uighurs". These perspectives have led to China's dismissal of the legitimacy of international-led airstrikes; financial support to Assad allegedly to the tune of $30bn for post-war reconstruction; and stricter counter-terrorism policies to mitigate the risk of domestic radicalisation. It's also likely that China would join the Russian side in Syria given their support of the Syrian regime. Advertisement The threat of disruption from terrorists to the economic assets and energy security of China could be the catalyst which persuades China to provide more than just equipment and money to Assad. Energy security and economic prosperity are generally the deciding factors of how its military is used; with Islamist extremism an easy sell when justifying strict national security measures and a military presence in Syria. With plans to build pipelines across Central Asia, the containment of terrorist disruption is important to Beijing's economy. As a consequence, we could soon see the People's Liberation Army, second only to the US military as the world's largest employer of people, join the ranks of invested interest parties in bombing Syrian cities and towns. The fashion industry flourishes on creativity, innovation, beauty and glamour. It is also an industry addicted to speed. New ranges hit the high street at ever increasing rates meeting a huge consumer demand for the latest trends. This addiction creates a problem - fairly hidden at the moment but growing and real. Calling for solutions is mass retailer H&M who is harvesting bright ideas to make mass production more sustainable. The ever lower price tags for clothing do not reflect the growing social and environmental impact created. Our desire for the latest look generates growing demand for cotton and polyester both of which have significant environmental impact. The price competitiveness of the industry encourages costs to be cut along the production line. The surge in buying creates a mountain of discarded clothes which are often landfilled or dumped onto developing markets damaging local economies. Whilst most of the industry remains contentedly on the destructive treadmill a few with more foresight have looked into the future and realised the need to change. These leaders include iconic designers such as Stella McCartney and, perhaps surprisingly, retailer H&M. Advertisement The H&M Conscious Foundation launched the Global Challenge Award offering one million euros and expert mentoring support for the best ideas from around the world that would help put the industry on a more sustainable path. The response was overwhelming with 2,700 applications. These applications were sifted by leading sustainability experts into a short-list of five ideas and the public was then invited to vote for their favourite from the shortlist. The grant funding was allocated between the winners according to the 22,500 votes received. The outcome of the public vote was announced on 10th February at an award event hosted by HRH Crown Prince Victoria of Sweden in the City Hall Stockholm. The five winning ideas point to a fascinating new future direction for the industry. There were three key trends: A world of new fabrics Two of the winning entries asked the question; how can we turn materials that are currently viewed as waste into new fabric? The most developed idea came from Sicily which created a new textile out of citrus juice production by-products. The first industrial prototypes have been developed and plans are in place to extend the idea to other regions around the world where citrus juice is produced. Advertisement Slightly more conceptual but potentially more intriguing was a Dutch entry aiming to make a renewable textile from algae. If this works, fabric could be made from excess algae which currently clogs lakes and oceans. Transport costs would also be slashed as algae can be taken from coastal regions around the globe and it is not tied to a specific region. Transforming waste fabrics The most popular ideas in the public vote transformed waste fabrics. The winning idea from Finland was a technology that allows waste cotton to be used in the production of new textiles without loss of quality. An environmentally friendly solvent dissolves cotton in textile waste allowing a new cotton-like fibre to be spun from the waste material. The second prize was awarded to the polyester digester - basically an environmentally friendly packman. This new type of microbe eats waste polyester creating new ingredients that can be used to produce new polyester without loss of quality. The idea is under development at the University of California and could potentially have a hugely beneficial impact. The leftovers market A team from Estonia are creating a new online market place allowing the 15% of textiles that are wasted in the manufacturing process to be available directly to designers. Their simple philosophy is 'why create new fabric when so much is being wasted in the first instance?'. Advertisement The ambition behind the Global Change Award is that the funding and mentor support provided will help speed the ideas from concept to mass market quickly and efficiently. Crucially the developments will be available to benefit the whole industry increasing the chance of systemic change. Supplied The government of Nauru has suspended visitor visas for Australians and New Zealanders and after it accused ABC of "dishonestly" entering the country. But the ABC has denied to claim, saying it's journalists applied for a journalists visa and not a tourist one. Advertisement #ABC says reporters applied for journalist visas, not tourist visas, to enter #Nauruhttps://t.co/0YfM2IIrnL ABC News (@abcnews) February 19, 2016 The Huffington Post Australia has been told by Nauru Airlines visitor visas had been cancelled, while a Twitter account linked to the Nauru government said visas were not revoked, but procedures had changed. In a series of since deleted tweets, the government accused Australia's national broadcaster "using deception" to enter the country. Advertisement The government later issued a statement saying it had changed the procedures for visitor visas for Australians and New Zealanders entering Nauru. "This is a result of some media representatives dishonestly entering Nauru on false documentation," the statement said. "No visas held by Australian and New Zealand workers who enter Nauru for legitimate work reasons are affected. Holders of visitor visas to Nauru should contact the Consulate of Nauru in Brisbane if further information is required." A spokesperson for ABC News said there is no journalist on assignment in Nauru. "ABC News journalists have applied through official channels for journalist visas to visit Nauru, not for tourist visas," the spokesman said. NSW Greens MP Sarah Hanson Young said the governments of Australia and Naurua are "desperate to hide whats really going on there." Advertisement This is a paranoid overreaction and it shows why its so important that the island be opened up to the media," she said in a statement. A North Korean style media blackout was bad enough, but shutting down access to all Australian and New Zealand visitor is an extreme response." Journalist visas to Nauru are notoriously difficult to obtain after the country upped its application fee to $8000 shortly after Australia opened an immigration detention centre there. Visas to Nauru have not revoked. Procedures have been changed. Gov will issue statement soon. Republic of Nauru (@Republic_Nauru) February 19, 2016 Every nation has requirements that those entering must do so honestly. Sadly deceptive behaviour from ABC disadvantages others. Republic of Nauru (@Republic_Nauru) February 19, 2016 Advertisement The account later deleted tweets that mentioned the national broadcaster, saying it was acting on updated information from the government. Gov stands by info in tweets deleted about journalists entering illegally, but wanted to provide clear facts on current visa requirements Republic of Nauru (@Republic_Nauru) February 19, 2016 The move comes as Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull meets his New Zealand counterpart John Key in Sydney. Earlier this week it was reported that Key said it was "potentially possible" for New Zealand to take in some of the asylum seekers from a group of 267 expected to be deported to Nauru, after the High Court threw out a challenge to the Government's offshore detention network earlier this month. Advertisement The group includes more than 30 babies. "That offer is there," he said. "Historically the Australians have said no, but it is part of the 750 allocation that we have. "If they wanted us to take people, then subject to them meeting the criteria, New Zealand would be obliged to do that." But Mr Turnbull has reportedly refused to be drawn on the issue on Friday. The Nauru visa announcement also comes amid a stand-off between doctors and Australia's immigration department over discharging asylum seeker baby Asha from a Brisbane hospital. Doctors are refusing to release the one-year-old until a "suitable home environment is identified". Immigration minister Peter Dutton has said the infant will be returned to the country once she had recovered from wounds from a boiling water accident on Nauru. The Nauru government has been engaged in a sustained PR war with journalists and asylum seeker advocates, amid repeated allegations of poor living conditions for asylum seekers on the island. The government said no existing visas for Australians working in Nauru are affected. Those with visitors visas ONLY should contact Nauru consulate in Brisbane for further information #auspol Republic of Nauru (@Republic_Nauru) February 19, 2016 Advertisement Meet Rajah. He's the first Greater One-Horned Rhino born in Australia, and he's now parading around Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo. Rajahs birth is the result of over 15 years of hard work and dedication from Keepers and Zoo staff, said NSW Deputy Premier, Troy Grant in a statement released on Friday. Advertisement The Zoos efforts to establish a breeding program for Greater One-Horned Rhinos began back in 2002 when construction began on a new facility." Taronga Western Plains Zoo imported a male Rhina, Dora, from Japan in 2003 and a female Rhino, Amala, from the U.S in 2009. In October Amala gave birth to the pair's son, Rajah, appropriately meaning prince. And the little guy is now parading around the zoo, on display to visitors. "He has developed his own personality, is confident and very curious of people," Zoo Director Matthew Fuller said in a statement. Advertisement "Weve noticed he is also quite fussy! His favourite treat is banana, however he doesnt like it if the skin gets too brown or is too tough. And the fussiness is only fitting for an Aussie prince. Baby Rajah Baby Rajah and mum Amala. Baby Rajah making his debut at Taronga Western Plains Zoo Advertisement Sephardi (Palestine, Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia): "We went out on a horse, and came back on a donkey"; "He is not enjoying the summer, because he is worried about the winter; "He who walked in the sun, knows the value of the shade"; "A home without a woman is like a boat without a steering wheel"; " Woe to the ship that has many captains"; "It is better to be a lion's tail than a mouse's head." Eastern Europe (Russia, Lithuania, Poland, Rumania): "When the bull falls, everyone sharpens his knife"; "When a stupid man holds the horns of the cow, a wise man can milk it"; "Unemployment is the hardest job"; "It is good to learn how to shave by shaving someone's else beard"; "Love is like butter, it is better with bread." Tunisia: "Say to a stranger riding on a beam, 'your horse is beautiful', so that you don't get hurt"; "If you buy cheap, you will throw away half of it"; "If your friend is honey, don't eat all of it." Morocco: "The camel does not see his big hump, but he sees the hump of his friend, even if it is small"; "You were stubbed outside, and want to show your strength at home to your poor wife." Libya: "By the time she completed putting her makeup on, the wedding was over"; "Welcome me with friendliness, and not by serving me food with a raging face"; "Don't throw a stone into a well from which you have drank water." Yemen: "If my son bit your son - they are babies; if your son bit my son - let's go to court"; "I am a commander, you are a commander, who is going to lead the donkeys?"; "The craft of a man is his fortress"; "Wake up for prayer! - I cannot. Wake up to eat! - Here I am!" Iraq: "They placed the tail of the monkey in a pipe for forty days, nevertheless it came out crooked"; "He who behaves as hay, the chickens will peck him"; "His beard is burning and you want to grill kebabs on it"; "How did it happen that the lion needs the mercy of the Jackal?"; "My heart went out to my son and my son's heart went out to the rock"; "A person should not be sugar and be eaten, and not salt and be spitted out." Persia: "He doesn't know how to dance, he claims the floor is slanted"; "Goat, don't die from hunger! When the summer comes, there will be plenty of watermelons and cucumbers"; "Don't be mislead by the thinness of the pepper; grind it and you will find out it is sharp and spicy." Kurdistan: "Leave some of the food for tomorrow, but don't leave today's work for tomorrow"; "Even a one-hundred-year old woman, when she hears the drum, her legs begin to dance"; "When the Governor's dog died - everyone came to the funeral; when the Governor himself died - no one attended his funeral"; "The spot of the wound heals; the spot of the word does not heal." Egypt: "He who refused to listen to his parents' reproof, will regret it all his life." Syria: "It is better to be a living dog than a dead lion." Bukhara: "Be stupid, so other people will take care of you, don't be wise, so you will not have to take care of other people"; "A tree strikes roots in one place only." Hungary: "My son, I can chew for you, but as to eating - you must do it yourself." Germany: "Small pots boil quickly"; "He who lives among wolves, must howl with them"; "Woe to the cow that ploughs all day and at evening they milk it." Holland: "Gray hair, green wisdom"; "The tear will happen at the thin part"; "Many occupations - little profit"; "When the sheep are sheered, the lambs tremble". France: "Wash my fur but don't make me wet!"; "If I harm my nose I harm my face"; "I have all the advice I need, I need cash." According to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, it could be in the next three weeks. [Reuters] "American warplanes struck an Islamic State camp in Libya early Friday, targeting a senior Tunisian operative linked to two major terrorist attacks in Tunisia last year." [NYT] Spelling trouble for Bernie Sanders' long-term campaign prospects. [HuffPost] Resulting in larger Medicare bills. [WSJ | Paywall] Track how much hotter it got for you. [NYT] Tracking the Dawnlight, a massive container ship suspected a illegal dealings with North Korea. [WaPo] Advertisement WHATS BREWING "The questions that disturb me most, that sting me as a Pakistani Muslim living in the capital of the United States and make me feel that maybe it wont all be okay after all, fall into the 'you-belong-there-and-not-here' category." [HuffPost] We know. We didn't realize people change their babies' diapers on planes often either. [Refinery 29] "Imagine being ripped away from your family and running for your life as a teenager." [HuffPost] Which is seven hours a night. Yikes. [HuffPost] A spoonful of sugar for all of us. [Variety] "If youre really interested in political power, everything you do is bull..." [Gothamist] For more from The Huffington Post, download our app for iOS or Android. WHAT'S WORKING "Before he was an outspoken advocate of meditation, yoga and veganism, Russell Simmons was one of the founding fathers of hip hop -- a music-industry mogul working long hours to build his empire." [HuffPost] For more, sign up for the What's Working newsletter. BEFORE YOU GO ~ Inside the pope, Donald Trump spat. ~ Why Venmo is annoying, along with all the money apps. ~ These fans rushed the court and it saved the win for their side. ~ Want something from Oprah's closet? ~ This video may "restore your faith in politics." And it stars Ohio Governor John Kasich. ~ You really don't want to know how much Kim Kardashian is making off her mobile game. ~ These people killed a rare dolphin for a selfie. ~ This week on "So That Happened," the team takes a look at what a Supreme Court nominee could say about the ideals at the center of the Democratic Party. Advertisement ~ How fear spreads on Twitter. ~ And here's how kids around the world dress for school. Iraqi government forces patrol the al-Hamidiyah area, north of Ramadi, on February 17, 2016 after security forces retook the city from Islamic State (IS) group jihadists.Government forces recaptured areas on the eastern outskirts of the Anbar provincial capital from IS after weeks of fighting, and authorities say that all areas immediately surrounding the city have been retaken. / AFP / MOADH AL-DULAIMI (Photo credit should read MOADH AL-DULAIMI/AFP/Getty Images) One of the main prerequisites to defeating ISIS in Iraq and stabilizing the country is the establishment of an independent Sunni Iraqi state alongside the current Shiite government and the autonomous Kurdish entity. As long as the Sunni Iraqis do not know what the future has in store for them, they will be unwilling to make the necessary sacrifices to battle ISIS only to benefit the Shiite government in Baghdad, which they despise even more than ISIS. Concurrently with the fight against ISIS, the Obama administration must begin to negotiate with the Shiite government in Baghdad over the future status of the Sunnis in Iraq. For the White House to still believe that Iraq somehow can be stitched together following the defeat of ISIS is a gross illusion. Iraq's partition into three entities became de facto immediately following the Iraq war in 2003. Advertisement Having lost their dominance of Iraq to the Shiites in 2003 after 81 years of continuous rule, the Sunnis still refuse to accept what they consider to be a historic travesty. This was further aggravated by eight years of the Shiite government led by Nouri al-Maliki, who abused his power and marginalized, mistreated, and victimized the Sunni community. The fact is the coalition of more than a dozen countries, led by the US, to battle ISIS from the air and ground has thus far failed due to 1) a lack of a comprehensive strategy that will include, in addition to the Iraqis, a significant number of ground troops assembled from some EU but mostly from Arab states and led by the US, and 2) the absence of a strategy about the future of the Iraqi Sunnis before they can be fully enlisted to fight against ISIS, which occupies much of their three provinces. The Sunnis find themselves inadvertently and often voluntarily supporting ISIS as they are more religiously aligned with ISIS than with the Shiite majority, who appear to be determined to control the levers of power in all walks of life and continue to subjugate the Sunni community. The presumed unity government in Iraq that the US sought is a farce. There is no unity; Prime Minister Abadi is weak and has done little to pacify the Sunnis in his country. Iran exerts significant political influence in Baghdad and is actively engaged in the fight against ISIS, to which the US has quietly acquiesced, especially following the Iran deal. Advertisement The Sunni Iraqis do not view Iran's involvement as transient, and learning from their past experience, they will under no circumstances surrender their future to the whims of Tehran, which they consider to be a staunch enemy. A top Iraqi official recently told me he didn't see how Iraq can be restored to the pre-2003 status. It is painful, but we must now accept the new reality and act soon, and perhaps restore some civility and work together with the Kurds and the Sunnis, albeit under separate political rule. The Saudis, who are alarmed by Iran's regional ambitions and its systematic violent meddling in the Arab states' domestic affairs--in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and many other countries--strongly feel that only by allowing the Sunni Iraqis to establish their own autonomy can they prevent Iran from completely controlling Iraq. Moreover, given the fact (which the US recognizes) that the Iraqi Kurds are on their way to complete independence, it will be impossible to keep the Sunnis at bay. In a May 2015 meeting in DC, President Masoud Barzani of Iraqi Kurdistan publicly declared his intention to move toward independence, which was later confirmed by a top US official as being inevitable. Although the Kurds suffered greatly under Saddam Hussein's Sunni regime, they now see eye-to-eye with the Sunnis as both consider the Shiite government to be hostile and reject the idea of federalism, regardless of how loosely connected they will be to the central government in Baghdad. Advertisement The US must now begin a dialogue with the Iraqi government and the Sunni leadership to establish a framework for Iraqi Sunni political autonomy along the Iraqi Kurdish model, which will eventually lead to complete independence. Given the lack of oil in the three Sunnis provinces, the central issue that must be addressed in the context of Sunni independence is equitable distribution of the country's oil revenue. This would require a strict, internationally monitored, and binding mechanism from the UN Security Council to ensure permanent and full compliance. The Sunnis need unequivocal assurance that under no circumstances will any Shiite government withhold distribution of funds and hold the Sunni state hostage without suffering immediate and clearly spelled out political and financial consequences, including crippling sanctions and the suspension of any financial and military aid. The Iraqi Kurds have already established such a precedent as they transfer funds from their independent oil sales to the Iraqi central government, despite the recent dispute with Baghdad over the payment of Kurdish salaries in exchange for oil. To be sure, the three independent states will have to work out a formula that will satisfy their legitimate share of oil revenue. An equitable agreement on sharing oil revenue could also pave the way over time to better and closer relations between the three states, which will lead to greater cooperation in many other fields, including joint economic development programs, security cooperation, trade, etc. Advertisement The Obama administration must now think seriously about the need to provide the Iraqi Sunnis with a new horizon and hopeful future, which must be part and parcel of the strategy to defeat ISIS. In this regard, the US must make it abundantly clear to Tehran that the US will not tolerate any subversive activity to undermine the welfare and stability of the Sunni state once established. For Iran to take this warning seriously, the US might well have to provide security guarantees to the Sunni entity along the lines of its commitment to the security of the autonomous Iraqi Kurds. Once the line is drawn between the Sunnis, Kurds, and Shiites, it will also have a serious positive impact on the proxy Sunni-Shiite war waged both in Syria and Iraq between Saudi Arabia and Iran for regional dominance, which could otherwise last for decades to come. The lack of a clear American strategy in Iraq, to which President Obama admitted in June 2015 ("We don't yet have a complete strategy because it requires commitments on the part of the Iraqis") is baffling. It raises the question of how the US could engage in a war without having a clear strategy to defeat the enemy, and what the desired outcome should be. Advertisement This lack of a strategy allowed extremist groups of all political and religious persuasions to converge on Iraq and Syria and take advantage of the chaotic situation that has swept both countries. Now in its fifth year, the Syrian civil war presents horror after horror. According to the Syrian Centre for Policy Research (SCPR) 11.5% of the Syrian population has been killed or injured and 45% displaced. Insecurity and perpetual violence force the choice between a live of slavery or Exodus. The initial civil uprising for democratic rights has morphed into multiple wars including proxy guerrilla actions - a de facto mini world war with all the political and geopolitical players represented: Russia, Iran and related militias support the Syrian government, while Turkey, Saudi Arabia and related sheikdoms, eager to remove the Syrian regime, back opposition forces (including Salafist Jihadis) in varying degrees. The Syrian conflict could yield the following potential developments: (a)Negotiations to the bitter end in Geneva, under the direction of UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura, with a cease fire which leading to general elections under aegis of UN. (b)Victory of the Syrian Army, with Russian air cover and help from militias linked to Iran. Security, yet absent a national reconciliation, leaving a large set of problems unresolved. (c)The mini World War expands, exponentially increasing militarism and global terrorism. Shunning direct military involvement, US President Obama has been called weak by some; but his multifaceted diplomacy, carried out by Secretary of State Kerry, may in fact be the unique sustainable route to a resolution for this civil war with dire regional and global implications. Advertisement The wars in Syria and Iraq are regional conflicts; but Da'esh (ISIS), al-Qaeda and the other extremists spread their perverse, violent ideology, hypocritically covering evil with a religious cloak. The attacks in Sinai, Beirut, Paris, San Bernardino, Jakarta and elsewhere, linked to or inspired by such groups, endanger global security, and demand a coordinated global response. While the world community looks to institutions such as the International Court of Justice in The Hague to fix responsibility and try those accused of Crimes against Humanity, an effective response must encompass not only the humanitarian catastrophe, but the political and geopolitical aspirations of all the players. A diplomatic response to global security risks could consider: (a)The Syrian Arab Army, after five years battling Da'esh, Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Islam and myriad Salafist-Jihidi groups supported by external players, and despite some defections, remains a compact institution in its professional core. Despite its role within an authoritarian system, it is nevertheless a strictly secular institution and pluralistic by Middle Eastern standards, including not only minorities (Christians, Alevis, Druze, etc.) but, contrary to expectations, Syrian Sunnis also - not merely as conscripts, but at its highest command levels. Moreover, even the state bureaucracies have major Sunni representation. (b)The secular opposition is weak, and in any case most defections flow from the strictly non-secular Salafist or Muslim Brotherhood-style groups, including the Free Syrian Army, toward the more extreme groups, and not vice-versa. The Free Syrian Army itself, born of the pan-Arabism of Nasser's Free Officers, has gradually absorbed a Muslim Brotherhood ideology and, as such, has become the cistern of militants defecting to Nusra Front and Da'esh. Moreover, groups like Jaysh al-Islam, Ahrar al-Sham and myriad like-minded Salafist groups share a basic ideology that makes them available to collaboration with Nusra Front. The coalition Jaysh al-Fath, supported by Saudi Arabia and Turkey, is the result of these shared Salafist-Jihadi principles. The Syrian armed opposition consists of more than a thousand groups, divided and without any coordinated strategy for governance. Essentially dominated by Salafi-Jihadi extremists, often allied with Nusra Front (the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) and other terror groups, they are all under pressure from Da'esh. Advertisement (c)The success of the Kobani resistance demonstrates that even a democratically motivated minority such as the Syrian Kurds can prevail over the Da'esh killing machine, if supported in the right way (e.g., by US and Russian air cover). The People's Protection Units (YPG), the armed branch of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), are primarily Kurdish militia; but they recruit Arabs, Turks, and westerners and incorporate Assyrian/Syriac Christian units into their command structure (Sutoro and Syriac Military Council). The YPG considers itself a democratic people's army, with a significant number of women fighters in its ranks. It holds elections as a method of appointing officers. The Kobani YPG experience demonstrates that a relatively modern, democratic and pluralistic approach to politics and lifestyle is a lethal poison to Jihadist terrorism. Indeed, the YPG fighters have proven to be, along with the Syrian Arab Army, the most efficient fighters against Da'esh and similar terror groups. Saudi Arabia and Turkey - Points of Regional Significance (a)Since its inception as a nation on based on tribal balances, Saudi Arabia has a history of promulgating the Salafist ideology known as Wahhabism. Based on a literalist interpretation of Islam as the ideological pillar of an absolutist tribal authority, Wahhabism rejects all modernism, including the modern concept of a nation-state, it considers any religious diversity, or even any other version of Islam, as rejectionism, heresy and apostasy. Here, then, is the origin, the germ, the source of the sectarian wars that are tearing the region apart. All Salafist-Jihadi movements are progeny of the womb of Wahhabist ideology, although they even attack their own matrix. In modern times, the petro-aristocracies led by Saudi Arabia have financed most Salafist ideological movements around the globe, while their wealthy private sectors have funneled many financing dollars directly to terrorist groups. Advertisement While Saudi Arabia has sought to wield its Wahhabist ideology as a tool to promote its geopolitical agenda, it has perhaps overlooked the risk of losing control over its ideological disciples. The kingdom's policy of indirect interventionism - by exporting ideology through the power of the petrodollar - has been practiced prudently by the House of Saud until the ascent to the throne of King Salman in January of 2015. Salman has restored power to the arch-conservative Sudairi branch of the House of Saud, appointed his young son, the thirty year old prince Mohammad bin Salman, as both Defense Minister and Deputy Crown Prince, and instituted a policy shift from a conservative interventionism to an authoritarian interventionism. The Saudi war in Yemen illustrate this shift from a more conservative to more aggressive interventionism. Reinvigorated Saudi aspirations to hegemonic power in the Middle East, with intensified ideological and financial support for radical movements, results in intensified Salafist-Jihadi activity around the world, and most especially in Syria. Yet, since the alternative to the House of Saud could be Da'esh or al-Qaeda, the international community should press the Saudis to undertake controlled reforms to avoid collapse into total chaos. Sending troops into Syria brings the risk of defection to Da'esh by soldiers who already share its Salafist world view, putting international security under further threat. (b)Turkey is a quasi-European republic with modern institutions, currently governed by a Muslim Brotherhood-oriented regime under which it has experienced an economic boom during the last decade. During the Cold War Turkey as member of NATO has guaranteed the security of the southern front of the alliance. After the crash of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet system, the hope of the international community was that Turkey would extend the European democratic legacy into the Islamic world and towards the Orient. However, a series of problems, including a lack of courage on the part of European democracies, resulted in a de facto rejection of Turkey's application to the European Union (EU), forcing it to look toward the South and East. The failure of the Arab Spring thwarted Turkey's ambition to lead a new Sunni Islamic world within a moderate Muslim Brotherhood ideological framework. The awakening Kurdish autonomy movement was boosted after the closure of EU to Turkish membership, and created additional stress for the Muslim Brotherhood oriented governing elite. Instead of embracing more democratic principles in order to adhere to EU entrance parameters, under President Erdogan Turkey has begun to move in the opposite direction: Limiting the internal space for free democratic expression, developing an ambiguous relationship with Salafist-Jihadi militias (and according to authoritative sources, even cooperating with some of them) - a policy which could put Turkey at the brink of Pakistanization and put Europe under increased pressure from the flow of migrant refugees - and clashing with the Kurds in southeastern Turkey, to cite but a few illustrative examples. Turkey is an important country and its destabilization could endanger the stability of Eurasia and the surrounding area. The Turkish political elite and citizens are aware that moving toward adherence to the EU and transmitting European democratic principles toward its East and South would be a more likely road to stability and continued prosperity. Moreover, prospects for future EU membership would also go a long way to solving the Kurdish problem. Advertisement Turkey and Saudi Arabia have declared their intention to send troops against Da'esh in Syria, yet their commitment to this fight is unclear., Saudi Arabia seems rather to support various militias, all more or less seeking to overthrow the sovereign Syrian state, while Turkey's first act in its supposed anti-Da'esh mobilization was to begin bombarding Syrian Kurdish fighters of The People's Protection Units, who, covered by US air power, have proven to be some of the most effective anti-Da'esh fighters. The most probable Turkish-Saudi plan seems to be a direct move on Raqqa, the supposed capital of the imaginary Caliphate, to put an end to useless Da'esh and declare a Sunni protectorate. Yet with a Russian de facto no fly-zone, it would be militarily very hard for Turkey - without air cover - to reach Raqqa, while Saudi regular troops risk a direct confrontation with a war-hardened Syrian Army and militias linked to Iran. It is also difficult to believe that the Kurds of Rojava would submit to the weakening of their relative autonomy, or that the Syrians would accept the partitioning of their country. Moreover, the US, Europe, China, and Russia are well aware that any change in Syria's borders could trigger unforeseen consequences, putting in play all national boundaries. Indeed, it seems as though some circles in Turkey are trying to widen the conflict by forcing NATO to assume a major position. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has launched its largest military drill in the region's history. Sooner or later, Da'esh will be eliminated. An autonomous region in East Syria could emerge; yet a lasting security could be ensured only within a sovereign Syrian state. A solution could emerge from de-escalation and negotiations, not from escalation and more troops. To contain the burgeoning mini world war and prevent a new wave of terror around the globe, the four high-powered diplomats - John Kerry, Sergey Lavrov, Mohammad Zarif and Federica Mogherini, representing the four rational powers, constitute a unique "Quadumvirate" capable of developing and imposing a sustainable solution for the Syrian tragedy as a credible prelude to collective security in the Middle East which could emerge from a collaboration among Egypt, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other countries. Since 9/11, more than 35,000 Pakistani have lost their lives due to extremism. Necessary steps for the prevention of extremism would ideally been undertaken a bit earlier. Unfortunately prevention remains an unaccomplished task due to the wrong policies of the government and the military. Most of the time the government and military have not been on the same page with regard to countering extremism and/or they have chosen a selective approach. Things have changed quite a lot under the new government and the new Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif. For the first time it seems that the government and the military have a single aim and a single vision. Two hundred and fifty-one people have been arrested for propagating hate speech, and a ban has been imposed on loudspeakers, which were often used to promote sectarian violence. A comprehensive operation by the name of "Zarb-e-Azb" is underway against the militants in the North-West region of Pakistan. Acknowledging all that is being done, I still believe there is a long way to go before we will have successfully eradicated extremism from Pakistan. How to tackle extremism is a question that dwells on the minds of many Pakistani citizens. I would like to present a few measures necessary to defeat radicalism: Advertisement 1) Monitoring the seminaries I believe a comprehensive military operation against the militants is required, but if we focus on the root causes of extremism in Pakistan, it will become very clear that military operations alone will not suffice. The root causes are the seminaries that follow the orthodox and Islamist approach. Without monitoring them and without changing the curriculum there is very little hope to defeat this extremist and radical mindset completely. The operation against the terrorists will never reach its desired conclusion if the seminaries who are known for producing terrorists are left unchecked. The government has made some serious progress and yet, surprisingly, the maulvi Abdul Aziz (the cleric of the Red Mosque in Islamabad) still roams free and the authorities have not taken any steps against him. It is important to keep in mind that this cleric and his students have expressed full support for ISIS. 2) We not only need secularism but also a counter narrative against Islamism Secularism cannot change a man's perception about religion. A lot of my liberal friends believe that secularism would be enough to counter Islamic extremism. But while secularism is indeed the only way we can have a tolerant and a pluralistic society, I also believe the issue of Islamic extremism cannot be solved without a counter narrative against Islamism. Islamism is the political interpretation of Islam. Islamists have interpreted Islam in a way that makes it seem as if every aspect of Islam is incomplete without politics. The fountainhead of Islamism, according to most of historians, is the Muslim Brotherhood (an Islamist organization founded by the Islamic scholar Hasan Al Banah in Egypt). Just like Karl Marx interpreted life in terms of economic factors and declared economy the vortex and crux of all the struggles and conflicts, Islamists have interpreted the whole Islam in terms of politics, where every aspect of Islam asks for a political answer. To understand Islamism, it is very important to study the works of Maulana Syed Abul Ala Maududi, the influential Islamist scholar of 20th century who was the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest Islamist party in the Sub-Continent. Advertisement Maulana Maududi presents God's sending of the prophets to the world in a particular political light. Thus, discussing the nature of the mission of the prophets in his book Tajdeed-o-Ihya-e Deen ('The Renewal and Revival of the Deen') Maulana Maududi wrote:- "The highest goal of the mission of the prophets (peace be upon them) in this world has been to establish the Divine Government and enforce the system of life that they had brought from God. They were willing to give the people who followed Ignorance (ahl-e jahiliyat) the right to remain established in their ignorant (jahili) beliefs and to allow them to continue to follow their ignorant ways to the extent that the impact of their actions remained restricted to them alone. But they were not willing to give them the right and, quite naturally, they could not give them this right that the reign of power could be in their hands and that they could run human affairs according to the laws of Ignorance (jahiliyat). This is why all the prophets made efforts to set off a political revolution. In the case of some, their efforts were only to the extent of preparing the ground for instance, the Prophet Abraham. Some of them launched revolutionary movements in actual practice, but their work ended before establishing Divine Government for instance, the Messiah [Jesus]. And some took this movement to the stage of success for instance, the Prophet Moses and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)." Rejecting this Islamist concept of prophethood as put forward by Maulana Maududi, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan (the noted Islamic scholar, peace activist and former member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind) in his book "Ta'abir ki Ghalati" ('Error of Interpretation') writes:- "This opinion about the prophets is not proper. Assuming that their concern was to acquire power and that had they acquired it, they would have permitted people to continue in their wrong ways, is absolutely wrong, for the very mission of the prophets was to guide people to goodness and what is right." Advertisement As we see, this issue is related with the political interpretation of Islam and hence it can only be confronted by providing a strong counter narrative against it. 3) Reformation of Islam Muslims often get paranoid whenever the word ''reformation" is used. Therefore it is important to clarify what it entails. Reformation does not seek to remove those aspects from Islam that are outdated, but to simply elucidate Islam in a different and modern manner. To some people reformation is a difficult if not impossible task. It is a difficult task, and I consider the institutionalization of Islam as the biggest hurdle in the path of reformation. (You can read my article on the institutionalization of Islam here.) Some people think that on a collective level reformation is impossible. This may be true, but on an individual level it is possible and from the individual level it can grow into a more collective endeavor. I also believe that it is the responsibility of the government to support the reformists in their noble cause. 4) Selective approach towards extremism We have to end our selective approach towards extremism. Most of the People in Pakistan are quite sympathetic towards Afghan Taliban and other outfits like Jamat-ud-dawah (Pakistani organization which is known for his anti-Indian stance). We need to understand that any sort of extremism is bad and there are no good or bad terrorists, terrorists are simply terrorists and they must be condemned altogether. Humans of New York (HONY) just ended its powerful series inside federal prison, leaving some fans with questions. Some felt that HONY creator Brandon Stanton might have cherry-picked the most sympathetic people to feature--low-level drug offenders who grew up in poverty, suffered abuse, and have tried to make amends, yet still face decades-long sentences. How do his profiles stack up against the broader federal prison population? And what can we each do to help fix the system? Advertisement Why is federal prison full of drug offenders? The federal system is supposed to handle the offenders that the states cannot: either because they broke federal laws (e.g. U.S. mail fraud), or because they are too important or difficult for state law enforcement to catch (e.g. crime bosses, terrorists, state politicians). But most of the prisoners interviewed by Brandon seem like low-level, non-violent dealers or drug mules. Again, this is an accurate representation of the real federal prison population. For every crack cocaine ring leader, organizer, manufacturer or high-level supplier, for example, federal prosecutors convict about six low-level dealers, mules and users. Nine in tenare incarcerated for nonviolent offenses. Why is the federal government targeting low-level, nonviolent drug offenders, who are already easy prey for the states? Federal prosecutors choose which cases to take, and nobody is pushing them to embark on year-long investigations to take down kingpins and their money-laundering bankers. Instead, federal prosecutors are rewarded for winning large numbers of cases. The easiest way to win cases is to pursue small-time drug dealers, who still face heavy penalties but cannot afford private attorneys. As a result, federal prosecutors fill federal prisons with low-level offenders. These prosecutors should not be wasting taxpayer dollars and filling prisons to pad their resumes with easy convictions. Advertisement HONY Has Moved On, But You Don't Have To Luckily, while few capture individuals' stories as succinctly and powerfully as Brandon does, he isn't the only one transmitting powerful true stories from the humans inside America's prisons: Take Action The federal prison system looks bleak, but this is the year to transform it. Is the Pope Catholic? "ABOARD THE PAPAL AIRLINER -- Inserting himself into the Republican presidential race, Pope Francis on Wednesday suggested that Donald J. Trump 'is not Christian' because of the harshness of his campaign promises to deport more immigrants and force Mexico to pay for a wall along the border." -- Jim Yardley, New York Times Is the Pope Catholic? This is, of course, a colloquial and rhetorical question, in response to a question where the answer is an obvious yes. I could imagine Wm. F. Buckley, Jr., a serious if not devout Catholic, posing this question, in jest, only partly, to open a dialogue. The godfather of American conservatism, Bill would likely opine that the answer to whether Francis should intrude into an America political campaign is, sorry, an emphatic no. Like many, I admire the inspiration and passion of Pope Francis. He is truly concerned for the poor and the suffering and speaks eloquently to the dignity of each person. In reaching out to the impoverished and the forgotten, he is humble and caring and -- in the most personal and intimate way -- sets an inspired example. But in matters of economics and politics, he is, at best, uninformed. Advertisement The greatest uplifting from the deprivation and despair of poverty has come not from Church-dominated economies or from medieval feudalism, or from the serfdom of the Czars and authoritarian governments, or from socialism or communism, or from other variations of collectivism, and certainly not from interventionist economies with heavy taxation and regulation. And we certainly don't see in some of the primitive economies of Africa, or in the traditional Muslim Arab nations in the Mideast, the kind of dynamic free market economies that can help the poor. The most significant movement of large numbers of people from subsistence and extreme poverty to greater material well being and the emergence of a middle class was through the liberated free market. South America and Central America had a long tradition of oligarchies and what we now call crony capitalism, in which government bestowed favoritism and franchises, grants and subsidies, to the politically favored. The Pontiff's primary acquaintance with capitalism was within his native Argentina, bearing little resemblance to a classic free market. Francis routinely attributes income inequality to greed, because he does not understand how a free market can uplift the poor. Instead, he seems to ally himself with Marxists who would coerce income redistribution. He does not grasp that extreme income inequality in which people move downward from the middle class and regress toward poverty is empowered by the crony capitalism of mixed government economies which favor the wealthy who are politically connected. The counter is a limited government which operates under the full of law, the same rule of law that applies, for example, toward immigration policies. Within his paradigm, the pontiff has now intervened in an American election. The Vatican has issued a statement of clarification about what happened yesterday. But while the statement attempts to mitigate the damage, it is not sufficiently forthright. It is almost Trump-like in its gray-area ambiguity. The damage was done. The Pope knew precisely what he was doing. Advertisement On CNN yesterday, Rev. James Martin, S.J., editor at large of America magazine, defended Francis for his criticism of Donald Trump. The pontiff was, Martin said, only expressing that the Christian view is to "care for the stranger," because Christianity is "not an us and a them." But Martin's true agenda emerged when he talked about "trying to help the poor" through an open borders policy. And if the Pope was not attacking Trump, why was Martin defending this nonexistent attack? Martin agreed with CNN's Wolf Blitzer that the Pope "must have known" the impact of his words. Blitzer noted that while the six-day Mexican trip was long planned, the visit to the Mexican border was added. But by whom and why? Martin could not say, before he dismissed the whole matter as the Pope simply "going to people on the periphery." But if the Pope were not a pawn, as Trump said, did he orchestrate his own political gambit? Are there political operatives around the Pope who work with their counterparts In Mexico and at the border? The pope's border visit was staged, just as a politician would do. The border visit, Martin asserted, reflected a priority of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Blitzer did not press the political implications. We already know that Big Business wants immigrants for cheap labor and to keep the wages of others down. Also, for years Catholic clerics have colluded with politicians in the Democratic Party. The Church gains new parishioners, and the Democrats, who demonize Republicans, gain bloc voters. This has happened in Southern California, where I live. Former Cardinal Roger Mahony allied himself with power brokers in the Democratic Party to support a massive influx of Hispanics, overwhelmingly Catholic, to repopulate the Catholic parishes. It is not a non sequitur to this discussion to point out: under Mahony, priests engaged in predatory sexual attacks against young children. I am acquainted with those in law enforcement who investigated Mahony. As in the Boston archdiocese scandal popularized in the Academy Award nominated film Spotlight, the most enraged detectives and empowered prosecutors and dedicated investigative reporters were themselves Catholic. Due to the statute of limitations, the "progressive" Mahony narrowly escaped prosecution for repeatedly covering up these horrific crimes. Many of the victims were children from the poor Mexican families that Mahony supposedly championed. Pope Francis this week did not confront the realities of a corrupt Mexican government at the highest levels, though he did address the nation's rampant violence and drug trafficking. He could have said even more about the terrorism of the drug czars, the intimidation of farmers forced to pay protection, the wave of kidnappings, and especially the exploitation of workers by crony capitalists with government franchises. Did he consider how a real free market and economic development could help the people in Mexico, so they would not leave? Did he express the need for the rule of law, in Mexico and at the border? Advertisement Instead the Pope focused on a nonexistent wall, a contentious issue in an ongoing American election. "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian," the Pope observed on the Papal aircraft, departing Mexico. "This is not in the gospel." The Pope's defenders suggest his words be judged in context, that he was only answering a question. This is Trump-like, as when Trump will say someone merely asked a question, and he answered it (with something inflammatory). But will the Pope next lectures us on, say, Donald Trump's views on free trade and tariffs? The Pope effectively allowed Trump to occupy the high ground. "For a religious leader to question a person's faith is disgraceful," Trump, now seemingly a victim of the Pope's excess, read from a statement he then released. "I am proud to be a Christian and as President I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked...." I am not a theologian, not even a Catholic. Those two disqualifications aside, I observe: (1) countries have legitimate and legally traversable borders, the integrity of which is not fair game for Francis; (2) there are reasonable arguments for and against this particular wall, about which arguments Francis appears unknowing, and not curious; (3) allegory aside, the Pope's observation thus is not metaphorical, but specific, and political: his invocation of the gospel is disheartening, implausible. Donald Trump's proposed wall should be debated on its merits in the political realm, but it is not "not Christian." Note that "walls" are things that Francis cannot condemn "wherever they may be." A wall protects Vatican City. Walls protect monasteries and convents. To keep people in? To keep people out? for other purposes? Are there bridges? The Communists built the Berlin Wall to enslave people in totalitarianism. President Ronald Reagan, not as part of a religious revival, helped bring it down. Israel built a wall to keep terrorists out. Bibi Netanyahu, not as part of religious bigotry, champions that barrier against barbarians. Advertisement And barbarians abound in the neighborhood of the Middle East. It is peculiar that in this day and age, when Christians, especially there, suffer discrimination and persecution, assault and rape, torture and murder, as part of an ethnic -- shall we more accurately say, religious -- cleansing, that the world is apathetic. For example, the United Nations refugee camps discriminate against Christians, in favor of Muslims, though many Arab countries will not even accept their fellow Muslims. And yet the U.S. under President Obama has accepted refugees in this ratio, 97 percent Muslim, 3 percent Christian. President Obama and others casually compare Muslim refugees to Jews fleeing the Holocaust. Jews were being killed solely because they were Jews. They had nowhere to go. They were not violent and had no agenda to convert others, and certainly not by force. They wanted to flee and assimilate elsewhere. In many cases they had relatives or private organizations that wanted to help them. The Muslim refugees in recent years and months are quite different than Muslims who came to the United States years ago. Many of them from decades ago did not want to impose their religion on others and assimilated. In recent years and the current wave include Muslims who are not persecuted because of their religion. They often are in internecine warfare, even between competing Muslims. They have many Arab nations that could be a source of refuge. Coming to the West, many do not want to assimilate but to transform the host nation in their image. And we have government welfare programs for them. A humanitarian program would help these folks resettle in the Middle East, not in Europe or the United States. An American President would show leadership, as would the Pope. Call upon Arab nations to help their brothers in need. Look toward resettlement back in their native lands when peace is restored. Where is the Pope on this? Should the West accept masses of Muslims, a significant portion of whom believe in forced conversion of Christians? Advertisement It's wise that we should not inflame or exacerbate religious wars, or play to the Islamist caricature of "crusaders." But ISIS and other extremists in the name of Islam are brutalizing girls and women and beheading Christians, as Trump points out regularly, and what he says resonates. Is it moral for us to obsess, instead, about the need to accommodate the West to Muslims, many of whom repudiate Western values and the Judeo-Christian ethos? This same Pope has made only limited calls for Arab nations to help their Muslim brethren. Does the Pope think he's going to convert Muslims to Catholicism? In short, is it "Christian" to turn the other cheek and not confront Islamo-Fascists? No wonder Trump scored points, turning the table against the Pope. "When the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS's ultimate trophy," the extemporaneous Trump said, reading directly from a rare written statement, "I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president because this would not have happened. ISIS would have been eradicated unlike what is happening now..." Yet, amidst all this, Francis, like brother Obama, seems more concerned with, for example, the unsettled but alleged certainty of presumed catastrophic global warming. (Yesterday, CNN commentator Father Charles Beck observed that Donald Trump was alienating liberal Catholics because he did not recognize "climate change.") Outside of almost every aspect of long-held Church doctrine (abortion perhaps the most prominent example) in which Francis and President Obama disagree, the transformational Pope and transformational president seem to be in the same political caucus. Like progressive Christians, like reform Jews, like fallen away Catholics, and like secular humanists, the two egalitarians -- the pontiff and the president -- believe that government must violate the commandment of "thou shall not steal" to redistribute income. Neither man understands how to nurture economic growth to ameliorate poverty. Francis fails to grasp that nation-states have borders that are part of that dreaded secular world. And President Obama, we already know, believes American exceptionalism is a heresy. In that universalism, the Pope's trip to the line separating the United States and Mexico for a cross-border Mass was not an exercise in spirituality. It was a political act. The United States is a generous nation open to immigrants, but when it comes to what the laws and procedures should be, and how they should be addressed politically, the Pope is a foreigner interfering in our sovereignty and in our election. Yet the Pope, returning from Mexico, was like a candidate on a campaign plane holding a media availability. One hope he will have the wisdom to reflect and move beyond the fray, and not return to it. The Vatican's clarification statement today was a beginning, but not much of one. Advertisement The Pope is a man of prodigious intelligence. So he was disingenuous when he said, "...about whether I would advise to vote or not to vote, I am not going to get involved in that." Francis knew he had attacked a candidate in an election in the United States. Worse, Francis added: "I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that." Donald Trump is not humble. But the spiritual leader of 1.2 billion Catholics has now assumed a Trump-like stance. Instead of walking back his presumption, Francis defended himself with a sound bite: "Thank God he said I was a politician because Aristotle defined the human person as 'animal politicus.' So at least I am a human person." This is not a game of soundbites. Clearly the pontiff is not a political strategist. He has taken one of Trump's main issues -- open borders and illegal immigration -- and drawn more attention to it. And in doing so, the Pope has opened a dialogue on Trump's terms, because he has offended not Trump,but many of his supporters or would-be supporters who happen to be people of faith, and Catholics. His outburst is a gift to Trump that will keep giving. The pope's words will help Trump, not because, as implied by some mainstream media, South Carolina evangelical voters are anti-Catholic bigots. However, many Protestant voters there will not take kindly to the Pope passing judgment on whether someone is or is not a good Christian. This is not the language of unity. Many Catholics do not follow the Church on doctrinal matters involving such issues as abortion and marriage and divorce; does the Pope expect them to follow him on politics? Catholics are about one-fifth of the American electorate and some Catholics will now opt for Trump to show their independence. You will now see some prominent Catholics endorse Trump. As for Catholics, consider that many -- including the "ethnics" the American Catholics descended from Polish and Eastern European families -- feel an affinity for Trump. These are the people who -- or their relatives who -- were once employed as steelworkers or in the auto industry or in the factories of the Rust Belt. Now they are unemployed or underemployed, or in low paying jobs. Perhaps the Pope doesn't understand Buffalo or Pittsburgh, Cleveland or Detroit. These people see themselves as victims of globalization and trade wars, and bad trade deals and, fairly or not, victims of illegal immigration. Advertisement I could also discuss many Catholics of Irish and Italian descent who feel disenfranchised. These are hard-working people who have faith in their Catholic Church. Many kept their faith and remained loyal to the Catholic Church despite scandals of financial irregularities and sexual abuse. These people are not racially or religiously prejudiced. They are not bigoted against immigrants or Mexicans or Muslims. These Catholics are good people. But they are not looking to the Pope for political endorsements and recommendations. And they probably do not seek his guidance on matters like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Meanwhile, the overall electorate (including Trump's targeted Republican voters) sees another Establishment figure, no less than the Pope, in hyperbolic mode against the politically incorrect Trump. Independent voters see another reason to coalesce around Trump. "As to whether I am a pawn [of the Mexican government], well, maybe, I don't know," Francis continued in response to Trump "I'll leave that up to your judgment and that of the people." Here is the Pope as polemicist a few days before the South Carolina primary. This is not a dialogue that benefits Francis, only Donald. The Pope did become a prop among those who believe not in immigration in way consonant with the rule of law, but who believe in the anarchy of porous borders. The "them vs. us" that the Pontiff laments -- that is borne out of failed government economic policies on both sides of the border that inhibit economic growth and job creation. Trump was wrong to question the faith of Seventh Day Adventist Ben Carson and Southern Baptist Ted Cruz. But that's Trump. Carson has made his religious faith an integral part of who he is. And even the detractors of Cruz acknowledge his faith; indeed, his liberal critics feel he is too religious for their taste. Trump was out of line. But he is, whether he admits it or not, a politician. Advertisement The Holy Father is held, shall we say, to a higher standard. When you have mainstream media and even Trump's opponents leaning toward Trump in this controversy, it's clear the Pope got it wrong. Trump's reaction and statement were uncharacteristically moderate and quite calibrated. The Pope had the effect of moderating Trump. Mario Rubio is a Catholic from birth, but he pointed out the border is not just about immigrants but also about terrorism. Rubio said, "We are a sovereign country and we control who comes in, just like Vatican City controls who comes into the Vatican." Jeb Bush is a convert to Catholicism. In this controversy, Jeb has taken the high road, which is the right thing for him (and anyone else) to do. "Christianity is between him and his creator," Jeb said about Trump. Showing class, Jeb continued, "I don't question anybody's Christianity." This past Saturday, February 13, I sat in a standing-room only Dougie J's Cafe, a burger joint off of the Las Vegas Strip. The walls were lined with framed military uniforms, one for each branch of the Armed Forces, and "Veterans for Hillary" posters. I sat with my daughter and more than 100 veterans and military family members as we talked about why Hillary Clinton is our choice for the next President of the United States. We sat with decorated combat veterans, including Nathan Fletcher, a U.S. Marine Corps combat veteran and former California Assemblymember: "We need to tell our story about why Hillary Clinton is the right choice for veterans and their families." This is my family's story. I am an Army brat, born and raised as the middle child to a U.S. Army soldier. My parents grew up in neighboring poor and working-class farming towns in the Ozarks. I moved around the world my entire childhood, attending eight schools before my 16th birthday, including a U.S. Department of Defense school on the HQ-EUCOM base, Patch Barracks, in West Germany at the end of the Cold War. When my father finished his 20 years of service, he had a hard time adjusting to civilian life. His marriage had ended in divorce and he was unable to finish law school, eventually declaring bankruptcy with two children in college and another finishing high school. Luckily, he was able to find a job working with the Department of Veterans Affairs in San Diego processing home loans, eventually moving to Phoenix when offices were consolidated in the mid-1990's due to budget cuts. My father died, a veteran working for veterans. He was also receiving care at the doomed Phoenix VA for his chronic diabetes and complications from alcoholism. Advertisement It was with the memory of my father that my 8-year old daughter and I packed up our car with posters, buttons, markers, walking shoes, crackers, and juice boxes for the more than 4.5 hour drive to Las Vegas. We stopped in Barstow to meet up with a Navy family from San Diego, an Army family from Anaheim, and a Marine Corps family from Oceanside. Together, in a convoy, our team drove the remaining 162 miles to Las Vegas, to join our team of Veterans and Military Families for Hillary. Similar convoys were happening in Northern California for a group of volunteers headed to Reno. In the eyes of most military families, a President's most important role is as Commander-in-Chief. "One of the reasons Hillary Clinton is going to be an amazing Commander-in-Chief is that she understands how we are all interconnected," Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Los Angeles and reservist with the U.S. Navy, declared at the February 13 event. A Commander-in-Chief is responsible for the lives of our Armed Forces and their families, during and after their service. Hillary Clinton has been a leader for decades on these issues that impact our families. She understands how everything from education to healthcare are interconnected for military families. She knows how to work across the aisle to meet the unique medical and career needs of veterans, including reservists and National Guard service members. Advertisement While in Las Vegas, I spoke with veterans who shared similar concerns. Melissa Bird, an Orange County spouse of a two-time U.S. Army war veteran, spoke to me about how her oldest daughter benefitted from Hillary's advocacy for early childhood education made available to service members children. Melissa's daughter was on the campaign trail with us, knocking on doors and sharing her story. Dmitriy Redka, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran from Oceanside, knocked on doors in Las Vegas for three days. He met with Joe, also a U.S. Marine Corps veteran. "At first, Joe expressed his reservations about any candidate and the political process in general. As a short, stocky biker with long hair and a beard, he seemed as a rebel. But I've come to know him as a fellow vet who has utmost concern for his fellow brothers (and sisters) in arms. Joe told me about the injustice in our society where so many vets are left on the sidelines. And he was right to contrast that those very same veterans would still have no problems taking up the arms for this great nation. It is a shame that the nation has forgotten them. I told Joe why I supported Hillary Clinton, sharing with him how Secretary Clinton has spent her life fighting for America's veterans. As a U.S. Senator, she expanded the health care coverage for Reservists and National Guard members. She also fought to expand the benefits of the Family and Medical Leave Act to the family members of wounded service members. Similarly, she worked to increase the gratuity to family members of fallen veterans from $12,000 to $100,000. Joe was pleasantly surprised to learn about her work." Unfortunately, most voters are like Joe and don't know the extent of Hillary Clinton's experience on these issues. This time of the year in February is laden with historical meaning for those of us who work with Filipino WWII veterans. This February 17th marks the seventh anniversary of the creation of the Filipino Veterans Equity Compensation Fund and the legislative victory the community was able to win for them. February 18th marks the 70th anniversary of the passage of the 1946 Rescission Act, which first revoked U.S. veterans status for the more than 200,000 Filipinos who were called into service by President Roosevelt into the U.S. Armed Forces of the Far East. After serving in some of the most grueling conditions anywhere in the war, such as the infamous Bataan Death March, the Rescission Act was the "original sin" of Filipino veterans equity- a slap in the face to these soldiers and to their service. For the seven decades since, these men and women have had to fight for the simple dignity of having their service recognized. As we mark this year's anniversaries, we do also at a particularly opportune moment politically for the work to improve the lives of these veterans and their families. This year, the Filipino Veterans Recognition and Education Project (FilVetREP) is marking the anniversary with a slate of national activity for its campaign to call on the House and Senate to pass legislation to give a Congressional Gold Medal to these veterans. Under the leadership of people such as Maj. Gen. Tony Taguba (Ret.) and Marie Blanco, Senator Daniel Inouye's (D-HI) final Chief of Staff before his passing in 2012, in tandem with leaders and advocates in Washington, DC, and in local communities around the country, our team is meeting directly with Congressional offices to bring the stories of our veterans directly to lawmakers and put a human face on Senate Bill 1555 and House Bill 2737- the Filipino World War II Veterans Congressional Gold Medal Act. In Washington, DC alone, we met with eighteen Senate offices within that last two weeks. A social media mini-campaign got traction for our online petition with over 700 signatories in just under three days. We also continue to monitor the other issues related to our veterans, including President Obama's intent to help Filipino WWII veterans reunite with their families and the recently announced proposed policies to do so. Advertisement Our work on behalf of the Filipino WWII veterans has become a unifying rallying cry for the Filipino American community, and has also transcended traditional identity politics of self-interest. Veterans groups have always been supportive of the struggle of their Filipino brothers in arms and last year the Veterans of Foreign Wars issued a national resolution of support for this legislation. Many of the signatories to our online petition are, no doubt, people swayed not only through personal impact for Filipino veterans in their families, but by their compelling story of sacrifice and struggle. For all of us, a Congressional Gold Medal for these veterans would be redemption for their years of being denied the truth that their battle scars tell them every day. One particularly powerful example of solidarity came from the cast of the recently concluded Broadway show, Allegiance. The story this musical tells of a Japanese family's internment during WWII speaks to this history as well. On one hand, Filipina musical star Lea Salonga's leading role guaranteed that the show's audiences were always packed with Filipino Americans during its run. At the same time, from an historical perspective, right after the February 17th and February 18th anniversaries, February 19th is remembered as the anniversary of Executive Order 9066, the act that put 120,000 Americans of Japanese Americans internment camps. At one of the last Q&A sessions the cast held for audiences after the show, I was able to invoke this common history and ask what it meant to cast stars George Takei, Telly Leung, and Greg Watanabe. All of them reaffirmed their support for Filipino WWII veterans and the role that history, their musical, and things like the Congressional Gold Medal, are important because they remind us that even when our institutions fail us, the courage to continue the fight regardless has its own dignity and that we must all honor that dignity however we can. Whether through song or through legislation, we use this time now to recommit ourselves to honoring the brave veterans whose lives bear witness to that dignity every day. US Supreme Court building, Washington DC, USA. We can and should dismiss the calls from Mitch McConnell, numerous members of Congress, and every Republican presidential hopeful for President Obama not to nominate a new Supreme Court justice to replace the late Antonin Scalia. Yet even if we ignore those partisan voices, other more objective perspectives have similarly questioned the politics of nominating a justice in an election year. An NBC News piece, for example, began by asking: "Should President Barack Obama, in his last 10 months in office, be allowed to appoint a justice who would likely create a liberal majority on the Supreme Court?" Legal scholars and political historians have begun responding to such questions by noting the relatively frequent occurrence of Supreme Court nominations and confirmations during election years. Yet while such specific parallels do offer precedent for this moment, focusing on them also implicitly reinforces the notion that Supreme Court appointments more broadly have been less tied to political concerns or events. A notion, in turn, that ties into our collective narratives and ideals of the Supreme Court as something outside of, or at least distinct from, political debates and conflicts. Advertisement It is not. In fact, that's quite literally never been the case. In September 1789, on the same day that the Judiciary Act passed Congress, President Washington nominated the six justices to serve on the first Supreme Court. For Chief Justice, he chose John Jay, one of the leaders of Washington's Federalist Party and one of the chief advocates of the Constitution and a strong federal government throughout the founding period. Washington's other five nominees, including John Rutledge who would succeed Jay as the second Chief Justice six years later, were likewise staunch Federalists and allies of the president. Although that early Court did not hear nearly as many cases as would subsequent ones, those first decisions reflect its political make-up and perspective. In Chisholm v. Georgia (1793), for example, the court ruled 5-1 that federal courts had the power to supersede states' "sovereign immunity" and hear disputes between citizens and the states. The case and decision were so controversial that they led directly to the first post-Bill of Rights Constitutional Amendment, the 11th, which when ratified in early 1795 reasserted the states' sovereign immunity to federal court decisions. The Court's first reorganization, less than a decade after Chisholm, was even more overtly tied to partisan and electoral politics. In the aftermath of the hotly contested presidential election of 1800, President John Adams and a lame duck Congress passed the Judiciary Act of 1801, which reduced the number of Supreme Court Justices from 6 to 5 and instituted a number of other sweeping changes to the federal judiciary that would benefit the current President's party, and disadvantage the incoming one. Although the act passed only 19 days before Thomas Jefferson's inauguration, Adams and Congress filled as many open judgeships as possible, leading to the act's popular nickname, the Midnight Judges Act. Advertisement The legacy of this controversial act and period extended into the Court's first truly significant decision, Marbury v. Madison (1803). In that decision, Chief Justice John Marshall, who had been appointed by Adams in the aftermath of the 1800 election, famously established the concept of judicial review (the Court's power to rule on the constitutionality of Congressional laws). But he also, and more specifically and politically, ruled against President Jefferson and his Secretary of State, James Madison, limiting their power over the judiciary in the process. NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 29: U.S. President Barack Obama (R) and President Raul Castro (L) of Cuba shake hands during a bilateral meeting at the United Nations Headquarters on September 29, 2015 in New York City. Castro and Obama are in New York City to attend the 70th anniversary general assembly meetings. (Photo by Anthony Behar-Pool/Getty Images) Cuba is only 90 miles from Florida, but for a long time the distance between our two countries seemed a lot greater. For more than 50 years, the United States pursued a policy of isolating and pressuring Cuba. While the policy was rooted in the context of the Cold War, our efforts continued long after the rest of the world had changed. Advertisement Put simply, U.S. Cuba policy wasn't working and was well beyond its expiration date. Cuba's political system did not change. The United States was isolated within our own hemisphere -- and in the wider world -- which disagreed with our approach. Most importantly, our policy was not making life better for the Cuban people -- and in many ways, it was making it worse. So in 2014, President Obama changed course. And on March 21-22, President Obama and the First Lady will visit Havana, Cuba. Advertisement He will be the first American President since Calvin Coolidge in 1928 to visit Cuba; President Coolidge traveled to Cuba on a U.S. battleship, so this will be a very different kind of visit. U.S. President Calvin Coolidge, second from left, and his wife, first lady Grace Coolidge, third from left, are shown with the President of Cuba General Gerardo Machado y Morales, right, and his wife, Elvira Machado, left, on the estate of President Machado in Havana, Cuba, Jan. 19, 1928. Here's how we got here: Early in the Obama administration, we made it easier for Cuban-Americans to travel and send remittances to Cuba -- because the President believed that Cuban-Americans are our best ambassadors to the Cuban people. We later pursued many months of secret negotiations hosted by the Canadian government and supported by Pope Francis and the Vatican. And on December 17, 2014, President Obama announced -- along with President Raul Castro of Cuba -- that the United States and Cuba would begin a new chapter and take steps to normalize relations. President Barack Obama talks with President Raul Castro of Cuba from the Oval Office, Dec. 16, 2014. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) Advertisement Since then, we have made progress in opening up relations between our two countries. Last summer, we restored diplomatic relations and Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Cuba to raise the American flag over our Embassy. This enhanced diplomatic presence makes it much easier for the United States to advance our interests and values in Cuba, as we do in countries around the world. We've been able to engage Cubans from all walks of life. We've facilitated visits to Cuba by U.S. lawmakers, businesses, and academics. Changes in U.S. policies and regulations have allowed for greater travel and commerce between our countries. In fact, over this period, the number of authorized American visitors to Cuba has gone up by 54 percent, enabling increased people-to-people engagement. This will continue to increase, as earlier this week, the United States and Cuban governments reached an agreement that will restore direct flights between our countries for the first time in over 50 years -- a change that will allow up to 110 direct flights to Cuba from the United States each day. We've already seen indications of how increased engagement can improve the lives of the Cuban people. Cuba's nascent private sector -- from restaurant owners to shopkeepers -- has benefited from increased travel from the American people. Increased remittances to Cuba from the United States has helped Cuban families. Openings for American companies also hold the potential of improving the lives of ordinary Cubans -- for instance, American companies will be enabling travelers to stay in Cuban homes and setting up a factory that will provide equipment for farmers. The Cuban government has taken some steps to fulfill its commitment to expand access to the Internet, expanding wireless hotspots and announcing an initial broadband connection. These are steps that should be built upon to increase connectivity to the wider world and access to information for the Cuban people. Still, this progress is insufficient. There is much more that can be done -- by the United States, and by the Cuban government -- to advance this opening in ways that will be good for Cubans, and good for the United States. That is why President Obama is traveling to Cuba. We want to open up more opportunities for U.S. businesses and travelers to engage with Cuba, and we want the Cuban government to open up more opportunities for its people to benefit from that engagement. Ultimately, we believe that Congress should lift an embargo that is not to advancing the Cuban people's individual well-being and human rights, and remove onerous restrictions that aim to dictate to Americans where they can and cannot travel. Advertisement Even as we pursue normalization, we've made clear that we will continue to have serious differences with the Cuban government -- particularly on human rights. While Cuba released Alan Gross, a number of political prisoners and recently hosted the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, we continue to oppose and speak out against restrictions on rights like freedom of speech and assembly -- and space for independent civil society -- that the United States supports around the world. While we do not seek to impose change on Cuba, we strongly believe that Cuba will benefit when the Cuban people can exercise their universal rights. President Obama has raised these issues in his discussions with President Castro, and will continue to do so. As the President has said, Cuba will not change overnight, nor will all of the various differences between our countries go away. But the guiding principle of our Cuba policy -- our North Star -- remains taking steps that will improve the lives of the Cuban people. That will be the President's message on his trip -- where he'll have the opportunity to meet with President Castro, and with Cuban civil society and people from different walks of life. Yes, we have a complicated and difficult history. But we need not be defined by it. Indeed, the extraordinary success of the Cuban-American community demonstrates that when we engage Cuba, it is not simply foreign policy -- for many Americans, it's family. Our opening to Cuba has also created new possibilities for the United States in Latin America -- a region that used to uniformly oppose our Cuba policy, and which now welcomes our new beginning. We have worked with Cuba and other countries to support President Santos and the Colombian people as they are pursuing an end to a decades-long civil war. Following the President's trip to Cuba, he and the First Lady will travel to Argentina -- a country with a new President who wants to begin a new chapter of improved relations with the United States. Advertisement This is yet another indication that the future is bright for the United States in our own hemisphere. You can follow along as we prepare for the President's trip by visiting wh.gov/cuba-policy. There is a beautiful hymn that goes in part: "Order my steps in your word, Dear Lord. Lead me, guide me, every day. Send your anointing, Father, I pray. Order my steps in your Word." (With respect to the late Glenn Burleigh, who wrote "Order My Steps".) It is time. It is time to let go of stubbornness and obstinacy. It is time for justice for the people of Illinois, who value higher education. Chicago State University has given tens of thousands of students an opportunity and proven path to self-sufficiency. It is a university worthy of support, funding, and a personal visit by any and every citizen who wishes to learn of the true meaning of higher education as the frontier of American democracy. It is time. It is time for you and our legislators to pass a budget that funds higher education in the State of Illinois - and for all those institutions and processes not yet funded. It is time. With respect to higher education, our students deserve nothing less. And they deserve much more. Advertisement "Humbly I ask Thee, teach me Your will, While You are working, Help me be still. Satan is busy, God is Real, Order my steps in Your Word. Please order my steps in Your Word." I wish you'd visit our university and see for yourselves the loss that attends continued inaction. What a tragedy! What a monstrous injustice is at work now, my dear gentleman! Do you have the courage to step down from your lofty places and engage the people whose lives depend on your work as yet uncompleted? Illinois wants to achieve some audacious goals for educating adults in the first quarter of this 21st century. What should be a century of greatness will never occur should the budget for fiscal years 2016 and 2017 be held hostage to political contests for power. A Ghost from a Dickens novel should appear to warn you: "There will be no turnaround! There will be no Democratic victory! There will be no fundamental change in Illinois's fiscal and economic stability absent compromise!" When neither party nor branch of government has hegemony, ideologues hold people hostage. While you may mean to do nothing but good, your standing by harms real people, real legacies, real traditions, and real, proven, and effective institutions that conduce to the common good and public welfare. From where do you come to wreak such havoc by your seeming unwillingness to do what common sense requires? Advertisement We should not imitate the politics of defective and dysfunctional cities, states and nations. We should not invite invidious comparisons. We are a state in stasis borne of a lack of political will and realism. You are stuck and stung by false pride that uses campaigns for principles and power to mask inaction. Hold yourselves safe and free from blame, but can you watch who is hurt? How can you be at peace with yourselves? Lord, Have Mercy. Millions of Illinois citizens of all ages, races, creeds and conditions need your action. Attach requirements for fiscal accountability and reform. Increase requirements for transparency and alignment of budgeting, revenues, and state expectations. But don't fail to uphold our institutions of higher learning and opportunity. What does it mean for a public university to operate without a cent of state funding? It is a violation of the fundamental responsibility and constitutional oaths of office of all lawmakers who have the responsibility and duty to act. To put your political platforms above the needs of the people of this state places your own interests at variance with those of the people. To use or permit the media and the corridors of power to scapegoat higher education in the name of principles and ideals turns those very good intentions into grails of falsity and damnation. To allow scapegoating to continue and leave universities twisting in the wind is an abdication of authority. The purpose of government is to uphold the common weal. There is nothing at present forthcoming from you that demonstrates you've discharged your duties to the people of this state with respect to higher education. The truth is quite simple. You have it within your power to solve the problem created by your collective inaction. Pray attend to it with dispatch. You may have laudable ends in view, but your means of action have failed miserably. Advertisement Next year, the great Chicago State University will turn 150 years old. I invite you to show honor and respect to your predecessors and to those who will follow in your offices by upholding this institution (and all of her sisters) that forms part of the bedrock of the people of the State of Illinois. We share in a great mission, and you have a key role to play in its continuation. "I want to walk worthy, my calling to fulfill. Please order my steps Lord, and I'll do Your blessed will. The world is ever changing. But [Love] always remains the same. But You are still the same. If You order my steps, I'll praise Your name." I know that you have the ability to change. I believe that you have the Soul with which to understand its importance. I pray that you not delay any more the completion of your duty. Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, speaks during a campaign rally at the Laborers International Union in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. Polling suggests Clinton is in danger of being overtaken by Sanders, a Vermont senator and self-described democratic socialist when the Nevada caucuses are held on February 20. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images Much has been made of the difference in support for Hillary Clinton among younger and older women. In the New Hampshire primary contest Clinton lost women overall, but a look at the breakdown by age is striking--a majority of women 45 and older backed Clinton, while more than 8 in 10 women under 30 supported Sanders. In response to Clinton's poor showing among Millennial women, some prominent feminist leaders have suggested that younger women ought to recognize the gender barriers that Clinton has had to knock down on her way to where she is today, and that her struggle as a woman vying for power should be something we all recognize and respect. The media trounced on these comments and the backlash that followed--Maureen Dowd of the New York Times declared that Hillary Clinton has "killed" feminism, while other outlets quoted scores of young women who felt insulted by the suggestion that they should vote for Clinton solely because of her gender, because she has somehow "earned" this place in history or because she is "owed" their support. So many have been quick to extinguish any suggestion that women might be voting for Hillary because she is a woman--an idea derided as insulting to women's intelligence. Advertisement But what the coverage of this issue fails to acknowledge is that for many voters, gender is an asset to Hillary Clinton's candidacy--it may not the only reason they are voting for her, but it matters, because gender is still very relevant. The problem comes when Hillary Clinton's candidacy is reduced to her gender, though even this idea is largely a falsehood perpetuated by a media narrative that pits women against women, rather than anything Hillary Clinton herself has said or done. The truth is there are many reasons to vote for Hillary Clinton, and gender is one of them. Beyond the the historical marker of equality that her election to the U.S. presidency would signify, empirical research has demonstrated that on average, women leaders behave differently than men: they are more likely to build consensus, compromise, and collaborate--leadership qualities that would represent a welcome change to a Washington paralyzed by gridlock. Women political leaders are also more likely to get things done and are 31 percent more effective than men at advancing legislation. In 2013, when the government was on the verge of shutting down, women Senators of both parties came together to work out a compromise that both Parties could get behind. In fact, the 20 women Senators who brokered the deal were widely credited for saving the government from shutdown--even John McCain (R-AZ) lauded them: "I am very proud that these women are stepping forward. Imagine what they could do if there were 50 of them." Indeed, imagine if the leader of the free world were one of them. Women also tend to have different policy priorities and place a greater emphasis on issues that help families, women, and children, like paid family leave and raising the minimum wage. The differences in women's leadership styles and policy priorities, however, are not simply due to the fact they have vaginas, but because of different lived experiences that they bring to their jobs. While we have come far as a country in providing the same opportunities to women and men, women still live their lives and experience the world differently than men do: women are still more likely to be the primary caregivers to children and elderly family members, have different health needs and concerns, and make up the vast majority of rape survivors. These are just a few of the many real differences in the realities of women and men's lives, and different experiences means different priorities, needs, and perspectives. Advertisement As North Dakota Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp once said of collaborating with female colleagues: It is about getting people in a room with different life experiences who will look at things a little differently because they're moms, because they're daughters who've been taking care of senior moms, because they have a different life experience than a lot of senior guys in the room. This is not to say that a man cannot advocate for policies that help women and families, but that they may not have the same understanding of these issues that women do. The difference women make in office is a valid reason to give for supporting a candidate, and citing it does not mean it is the only reason nor the most important reason to support a candidate (though as I have written elsewhere, I believe it is perfectly OK if it is). But the narrative has been constructed in such a way that considering gender in political evaluations of candidates at all is deemed lazy or unintelligent, when in fact, there are compelling reasons why gender can and should matter in political decisions. Clinton supporters would do well to message about gender in this way--that it is not the only reason to support Clinton and other women leaders, but it matters, and this is why. This is a much different conversation than talking about how Clinton is entitled to or owed support from women by virtue of being a woman herself, and it also allows for men to acknowledge how Clinton's gender might positively factor into their support for her. Advertisement On February 25, 2016, the House Judiciary Committee headed by Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) will hold a hearing on "International Conflicts of Law Concerning Cross Border Data Flow and Law Enforcement Requests." It is long overdue. The hearing is also necessary put Congress in the driver's seat in the making of electronic privacy policy as the Constitution intended. The American Revolution was sparked by colonial opposition to hated British Writs of Assistance that indiscriminately encroached on privacy without good cause. Advertisement Until recent decades, Congress marched to that privacy drummer. Congress enacted the Privacy Act of 1974 to remedy executive branch abuses. Among other things, it prohibits the FBI from collecting information about the exercise of First Amendment rights in 5 U.S.C. 552(a)(e)(7). Congress enacted the Right to Financial Privacy Act of 1978 to protect the confidentiality of personal financial records by creating statutory Fourth Amendment protection for bank records. The Act reversed the U.S. Supreme Court's 1976 ruling in United States v. Miller, where the Court found that bank customers had no legal right to privacy in financial information held by financial institutions. As regards electronic privacy, in contrast, Congress has slumbered for 30 years since the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA). In the meantime, unforeseeable electronic privacy concerns have arisen which were unaddressed by a statute born when the Internet was in its horse-and-buggy stage. The federal judiciary and the executive have been fashioning rules for this electronic terra incognita while Congress has slept. This is unacceptable. The executive branch subordinates privacy to even speculative law enforcement or intelligence needs. That proclivity gave birth to the post-9/11 NSA warrantless terrorist surveillance program and the ongoing limitless collection of intelligence under Executive Order 12333 with no congressional oversight. Advertisement The judicial branch is ill-equipped to develop electronic privacy policy because judges are generally clueless about the technical operations of the global Internet and are backward-looking because of the doctrine of stare decisis. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes additionally observed in 1913: "When twenty years ago a vague terror went over the earth and the word socialism began to be heard, I thought and still think that fear was translated into doctrines that had no proper place in the Constitution or the common law. Judges are apt to be naif, simple-minded men, and they need something of Mephistopheles. We too need education in the obvious--to learn to transcend our own convictions...." Two cases illustrate the current executive branch-judicial duopoly over electronic privacy policy. A few days ago, the FBI convinced a magistrate judge to order Apple to write new software to overcome a password lock on a cellphone of one of the San Bernardino terrorists. The order rested on a law passed by the first Congress and signed by President George Washington 227 years ago--the All Writs Act. In December 2013, the Department of Justice issued an extraterritorial search warrant in a narcotics investigation demanding that Microsoft deliver the contents of a customer's email account stored in Dublin, Ireland. The Department acted pursuant to the Stored Communications Act, a part of the 1986 ECPA. Microsoft resisted, and the dispute over the legality of extraterritorial search warrants is now pending in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit sub nom. In the Matter of a Warrant to Search a Certain E-mail Account Controlled and Maintained by Microsoft Corporation. Congress needs to supersede the executive-judicial duopoly over electronic privacy in the Age of the Internet. Article I, section 8, clause 3 of the Constitution empowers Congress to make electronic privacy policy in regulating interstate or foreign commerce. It should employ this power to prohibit the executive from extraterritorial search warrants for at least three-fold reasons. Privacy is the default position of the Fourth Amendment if the government is unable to demonstrate a compelling law enforcement or intelligence need. The executive has failed to prove that extraterritorial search warrants seeking stored electronic information would be more than a trivial addition to its already formidable law enforcement arsenal, i.e., it has not shown that even one non-trivial crime has escaped detection or prosecution because of the absence of extraterritorial search warrants. Additionally, an extraterritorial search warrant precedent for electronic data could not be cabined. If the United States can compel companies located here to retrieve electronic information stored abroad, then China, Russia, or Iran can be expected to compel companies located within their respective boundaries to retrieve electronic information stored in the United States to persecute and prosecute dissidents. We would become complicit in human rights violations by our adversaries or enemies. Here I am on highway 17 south barreling toward Walterboro, S.C., home of the jumbo boiled peanut. The further you get outside Charleston, the more you appreciate why it's called The Low Country. It's not only low, it are flat. (Locals know: pi R square, but cornbread R round.) It's flat but the pines are high as far as you can see. Thickets poke out of plough mud and loam, give way to swamp alongside grand expansive grasslands of marsh. It is pure-T bliss this late afternoon, spinning along at top speed, blue skies, moves you to testify: Good work, God! Sun tips the tops of Carolina pines shimmering gold against a low going incoming C5A. I'm on the way to the Donald J. Trump lovefest put on by a fellow Republican who's in the tree business--and I'm talking square miles of nothing but. Round the bend and suddenly, blue lights are blinking atop black cars stationed at intervals along the fences. Walterboro officers are parked at every access into this fine plantation--no other word will do. A mile of cars are pulled up both sides along two-lane State 303. Police are friendly but firm. If you don't have a pass to prove you're an ardent fan and contributor, you can't drive in. I amble along the roadside with a fellow who says he's an undecided voter, though he's leaning toward the man he calls Dr. Orange. We bustle another half mile with swarms of expectant comers through broad pastures, abruptly halted by high sheriffs and security. We're squeezed into four lines to pass through metal detectors, plus blue latex pocket and purse searches. There are signs posted everywhere: No Guns or Weapons. So when we're loosed into the open, the banner across the stage is a tasty twist: Low Country Gun Club. To one side is a special fenced-off, flag-draped place with a fancy stable for hoedowns, not horses. The superspecial DJ Trump doners therein are gnawing down on heaps of bbq ribs, pulled pork and whiskey. Lots of blond hair and high-heel boots, just the way our man, the top tier poller likes 'em. Menfolk are slicked up too, no hayseeds behind the cheerful bunting. I'm nostalgic for J.R. and Crystal. Advertisement Police said they were expecting 2500, but I'd say maybe 6 hunnert at best. Warmed over Elton John whimpers over the speakers, and us nobodies mill among ourselves. I sidle up to clumps to strike up a chat. I have to say, they are as neighborly as you'd expect voters of Colleton County to be. Some have come decked out in Trumpanalia. Many I talked to allowed as how they wanted to fall by and see what they could see. Many said they were undecided, or independents. One blondeened granny with two little dandelion-headed things in teeny Trump T-shirts declared, "I find some of what he says a tad objectionable, you know, the way he puts things. We don't talk like that down here. But I guess it's got to be said, so he must be the man to do it." Another fellow said, "I'm for Trump, but he's got it locked up, so I'm gonna vote for Rubio." I heard folks say that more than a few times. Or, "...so I'm gonna vote for Ted Cruz, or that other one, Kasich--he seems to be the only adult on board." And now! A swell from the crowd as two men we don't know take the stage. One must be one of Trump's handlers (as if!) who introduces our host, the owner of Ink Farms, a man named Randy, L.L. Beaned and bristling silvered hair from head to chin. Randy speaks multi-generational low country mushmouth, very appealing, but you have to be a native to follow. He keeps it short: "I want to introduce my good buddy Donald Trump. That's why we're all here. So, please welcome..." And the good Dr. Orange bounds up to a mild hip hip, a bit of a hitch in his getalong. He must be wearing down. The handler stirs the pot, getting the crowd to chant: Build That Wall! But this is no Woodstock. The great man takes the mike: "Thank you, Randy. Thank you so much." Then gestures to the beneficent landowner. "This is a man who's even richer than I am!" Nodding, right arm goes wide. "I mean it! Richer than me!" A mild roar, because it's not really polite in these parts to talk about your money. Just is not. Advertisement Our number one with a bullet in the polls has toned it down. The strident voice has softened, not much, he can't help it, but a bit. Maybe it's South Carolina's genteel effect on the Bad Boy from Queens. Maybe somebody down here with old family manners suggested, however gently, that when one is that far ahead, it's not gentlemanly to "go on" about your advantage. On the long drive back, I'm thinking about the various vanquished candidates and others who've been cut-off, cold-cocked, bashed, trashed, and dismissed on the man who would be king's rocket to the top. Like what he's said about our South Carolina senator, Lindsay Graham, who made a sad little foray into the fray. DT called him a zero, a lightweight, an idiot, what a stiff! Kasich: I think I like the man, but... what? Who can tell? He's invisible. Rubio: the choke artist, sweatmonster, a pretty boy but brainless. Bush: a choker, a total fool, no energy, Mama's boy, he's stupid, little big bro. And saving the best for last, Ted Cruz: a fraud, a false Christian, a basketcase, a liar, a pussy, an anchor baby, a maniac, he's nasty, he's a liar, unstable, dishonest, and, by the way! He's a liar. There was barely enough time for the country to consider and mourn the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, before Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), followed quickly by right-wing presidential candidates and pundits, declared that the Senate would block any attempt to confirm a successor. Beyond the bluster, there are simple constitutional precepts that should be respected. First, ACS expresses it condolences to Justice Scalia's family and friends, and we hope they do find space and time for mourning. But as I've noted the political storm, which formed too quickly after Justice Scalia's passing, calls for response. It is the president's obligation to fill vacancies on the federal bench and the Senate's duty to provide "advise and consent" on those nominations. The Appointments Clause of the Constitution is straightforward, and does not contain a limit on the president's power to fill vacancies on the federal bench, especially of the kind Republicans are now demanding. It would be unfathomable to go through this term and a part of another one with a Supreme Court hobbled by a vacancy. Indeed University of Denver law school professor Melissa Hart told The Denver Post that if a vacancy of the high court were left open for such long stretch of time, "It would be a monumental crisis for the development of the law and the need to resolve large legal questions." The American people deserve better. Advertisement Moreover, what would Justice Scalia want? He's deserving of consideration here. He espoused a love for the Constitution, and how it was interpreted by its framers. Two justices were confirmed in 1796, one in 1804 and two in 1836. Those were all presidential election years. It is likely the late Justice Scalia would say history seriously undermines Republicans' claims about presidential power to fill Supreme Court vacancies. Also there is no precedent for what Republicans are now demanding. Since 1975 all high court nominees, except Robert Bork, have been confirmed in a matter of months, not years. (For detailed information about the history of Supreme Court nominations made in presidential election years see this ACSblog post by Georgia State University law school professor Neil Kinkopf.) According to a fall 2015 Congressional Research Service report the average time from nomination to confirmation for a Supreme Court justice is a little more than 2 months. For example, Justice Clarence Thomas was confirmed after 99 days following two sets of hearings, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was confirmed in 33 days and Justice Sonia Sotomayor in 67 days. Advertisement Sen. McConnell would have us believe differently. He quickly, probably less than an hour after Scalia's death was announced, said it was common practice that no high court nominations are considered during presidential election years. McConnell said the "American People should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court justice." But McConnell is attempting to concoct a new standard, one at odds with his past actions and comments. In 1988, for example, Sen. Mitch McConnell voted to confirm Justice Anthony Kennedy. All other Republicans during that time voted the way McConnell did, and did so during the final-year of Ronald Reagan's second term. As reported by The New York Times' "Taking Note" blog, McConnell wrote this for the Kentucky Law Journal, "The Senate should discount the philosophy of the nominee. [...] The president is presumably elected by the people to carry out a program and altering the ideological direction of the Supreme Court would seem to be a perfectly legitimate part a Presidential platform." It should also be noted that Democratic senators have not attempted to scuttle high court nominations in this manner. Eleven consecutive times a Democratic senate has voted to confirm Republican-appointed nominees. So there is no compelling reason for Republicans to hold the president's forthcoming Supreme Court nominee hostage. Politicians and pundits calling for a freeze on filling this important vacancy should point to something other than partisan desires for doing so. And they can't. Advertisement Photograph by Nicolas Killian While specters of the terrorist attacks in Jakarta, Paris, and San Bernardino cast a shadow over international diplomacy, and nations in Europe and around the world struggle to cope with a migration of people unprecedented since the Second World War, subscribing to a pessimistic view of the future, one marked by suspicion, isolationism, and a movement away from "ever closer unions," becomes easier. However, my experiences living and studying in China for a year have given me great hope. In 2015, more than 300,000 Chinese students traveled to the United States to study, often living with American host families, and a much smaller but increasing number of American students spent time in China. Programs such as the State Department's Critical Language Scholarship, the Erasmus network in Europe, and the new Schwarzman Scholarship, among many others, seek to increase communication and interaction between young people from around the world. At a time when terrorism is straining an open and peaceful society, these international exchange programs represent a compelling way to defend against a future of global misunderstanding and conflict. In his 1875 novel Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain wrote "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts." Never has this reality been more important. Ongoing terrorist attacks threaten to turn public opinion against the millions of immigrants fleeing violence and persecution in the Middle East, a predictable but tragic response that might ultimately impede integration and lead to more suffering in the future. Were this to happen, the agents of terrorism around the globe could claim success. Instead, international exchange programs work every day to create citizens less prone to reactionary, xenophobic responses, who will instead grow up to be compassionate leaders of the 21st century. Advertisement My research in China's dynamic healthcare sector has given me a view of the country and its citizens that would not have been possible without actually living here; a view that acts as a counterbalance to reports of high-level geopolitical conflicts between our two countries. Professor Li Lanjuan, the director of Hangzhou's State Laboratory for Infectious Disease, has spent her entire career combatting epidemics in China. Thirteen years ago, she was instrumental in stemming the spread of SARS and, more recently, of H7N9 avian influenza. Her expertise has saved many lives in China, and her counsel would certainly be welcomed in other nations around the world, whether they are struggling with Ebola, MERS, or Zika virus. At a time when news from the Far East is mostly concerned with disputed islands, terrorism, and missile tests, there are many areas of collaboration which go unnoticed, but shouldn't. Under the guidance of Dr. Li and others like her, China has become a global leader in epidemic disease response. One of my goals while here is to synthesize the expertise of these innovative physicians and policy-makers so that it can be disseminated to nations around the world, especially to those with more inchoate disease response systems. Even more importantly, though, I hope to use medicine as a forum for dynamic and positive cooperation between China and the rest of the world. Similarly, other exchange students use their own research to create thousands of new international collaborations around the world. It is not only research projects that yield such cooperation and understanding. Being immersed in a foreign culture inevitably leads to personal, organic interactions that foster a more profound respect for different cultures, and often create lasting friendships in the process. Two summers ago, I met a man called He Da-ge when he was a fruit vendor at Xiamen University. When he wasn't slicing mangoes or cracking open lychee fruit in the back of his small shop, He Dage read the news. That summer we spent hours debating current events, and as the weeks passed my Chinese rapidly improved. Despite our oft-conflicting opinions, He Dage and I became close friends. "Da-ge" means "big brother" in Mandarin, and to me, He Dage is part big brother, part teacher, and friend. Now, we call each other every week to stay in touch. Advertisement During the National Holiday last October, a fellow exchange student and I travelled to the Chinese province of Sichuan and spent a week living with Tibetan monks in the lower Himalaya. While there, eating vegetable soup with a stout old lama, we heard of the brutal suppression of monastic culture during the Cultural Revolution, and the subsequent remarkable successes, since 1980, in reestablishing these monastic traditions of education. In Hangzhou I've befriended two Yemeni students who are studying engineering, and for the first time I listened to stories of the civil war in that nation from somebody who calls it home. Such immersive experiences are not the exception. All over the world, other international students create similar friendships. Whether or not we, the travelers, ultimately pursue careers in diplomacy, we will nevertheless carry a more compassionate and global perspective to whatever vocation we choose. During Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to the United States in September, President Obama reaffirmed America's commitment to support exchange programs in China and all regions of the world, at the same time as the Schwarzman Scholarship was recruiting its first cohort of students to participate in a flagship exchange program in Beijing and Erasmus Scholars were taking up residence across Europe. These are admirable efforts, but governments and institutions around the world must do even more to create opportunities for students to live and study abroad. REUTERS/Stephen Lam If you happened to follow the coverage of the presidential primary season over the past week, you would have thought that the once inevitable frontrunner Hillary Clinton was on her way to another disappointing defeat for the Democratic nomination. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist candidate from Vermont, won the state of New Hampshire on February 9 over a former a candidate who won that very same primary against then-Sen. Barack Obama eight years earlier. There's no way to sugarcoat it: Sanders' 22-point win against Hillary Clinton was a "thumpin'." If there was ever a state in the primary contest that Sanders could win, it was New Hampshire. But the story in many ways ends there. Political reporters who are stalking the candidates across the country and writing their stories from the campaign trail are turning Bernie's New Hampshire win into something far more significant: a dramatic shift in the race for a man who was over 50-points behind when he first announced his candidacy. Amidst the stories about panicking Democratic operatives, rumors of the Clinton campaign retooling their messaging and staff, and the clips on Morning Joe practically rooting for a Bernie Sanders win, lies a reality that is far less sexy on the television screen: Bernie Sanders is not out of the woods yet. He has a lot to answer for. And, yes, the electability question remains a major problem for the senator from Vermont. Advertisement 1 - Counting the delegates: According to a count from RealClearPolitics, Hillary Clinton has 32 delegates under her belt compared to Sanders' 36 -- a number that was no doubt helped by his win in New Hampshire. But in many ways, these numbers are a terrible baseline to use as predictions going forward. A Democratic candidate needs to reach 2,382 delegates to win the party's nomination, meaning that just over 2% of the delegates have been counted thus far. To argue the point another way, reporters and commentators covering the Democratic race are in effect wildly jumping to the conclusion of a Hillary meltdown based on a delegate count that has literally just gotten started. To be blunt: everyone needs to calm down and stop leaping to an unsubstantiated conclusion. Speculation is not the same thing as fact. 2 - Why Sanders Wants a "Political Revolution:" You have to give the man credit: Bernie has captured the imaginations of a significant amount of young Democratic primary voters, many of whom look at the 74-year old democratic socialist and see a man who understands the plight of student debt, a rigged campaign finance system, and income inequality that in many cases impacts young people as soon as they graduate from college. His call for a "political revolution" is exciting for voters who want an unconventional candidate. And who is more unconventional than Bernie Sanders? Yet voters won't hear one of the prime reasons why Bernie is calling for a political revolution in the first place: he would need it in order to govern. Without that revolution, most of his proposals for free public college tuition and a single payer healthcare system would be immediately smacked down by a House of Representatives that is very likely to stay in the hands of the Republicans after November. If you thought the budgetary fights between President Barack Obama and the GOP Congress are bad today, just imagine what they would be like when Speaker Paul Ryan and President Bernie Sanders are doing the negotiating. Americans like inspiration, but they also like productivity and results -- two words that will be in short supply if a Sanders administration will be forced to deal with a legislative branch either exclusively or partly controlled by conservative Republicans. For Sanders, better to argue for a complete overhaul of the political system than confront the reality of divided government. Advertisement 3 - Where is Sanders on Foreign Policy? It's a very important question that the media is finally starting to ask. And as of now, Americans don't really know the answer. During television appearances on the Sunday shows and during the various presidential debates, Sanders has largely talked about foreign policy in over-broad terms -- focusing specifically on what he would not do rather than what he would. We all know the basics: he supports how the Obama administration is conducting the war against the Islamic State, but wants America's allies in the Arab world to step up resources and personnel. He does not want U.S. troops in the middle of civil wars. He doesn't believe in nation-building. And he thought the invasion of Iraq was the most colossal foreign policy blunder in the contemporary history of the United States. Other than that, Americans don't know how he would tackle Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea; whether he would support secondary sanctions on North Korea's coal exports in response to Pyongyang's ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs; whether he would authorize the use of military force without U.N. Security Council approval to protect and defend the security of the United States; how he would confront Russian President Vladimir Putin and ensure that NATO remains a bedrock of a Europe whole, free, and at peace; and whether he believes that the crime of genocide is serious enough to warrant humanitarian intervention. Indeed, voters don't even know who is advising Sanders on foreign policy and national security matters. His name-drop of Larry Korb, a respected defense analyst at the Center for American Progress and a former Reagan administration official, would have been a good start if it weren't for the fact that Korb has only talked to Sanders once. He could have used one of his appearances on NBC's Meet the Press to delve deeper into this question, but chose instead to talk in generalities: "I've been meeting with a whole lot of people," Sanders told Chuck Todd. "But let me reassure the American people... that it goes without saying that a President must be well-versed in foreign policy, must have a strong foreign policy position and I will, of course, do that." Advertisement Bernie is not only running for Economist-in-Chief, Middle Class-Defender-in-Chef, and Wall Street-Attacker-in-Chief, but also Commander-in-Chief. The fact that foreign policy remains a second-tier issue to him and his campaign should be concerning for Americans given how confusing, dangerous, and complex the world can be. On Sunday 15 June, US President George W. Bush visited Londonas part of his valedictory world tour for tea with the Queen and dinner with Prime Minister Gordon Brown.Reprieve, the legal action charity that represents over 30 GuantAnamo prisoners, used theopportunity to highlight the suffering of Binyam Mohamed, a London resident who remains in GuantAnamo Bay. The US military has announced that it wants toput him through its discredited military commission process, and a final decision will be made in the next two weeks. The commission system is so corrupt that Col. Morris Davis recentlyquit as the chief military prosecutor, because of the system's many flaws, one being that evidence derived from torture was going to be used against the prisoners.Nothing could be more true of Binyam, who was taken to Moroccowhere his genitals were razor-bladed for 18 months. After that hewas rendered to more abuse in the CIA-run "Dark Prison" in Kabul,where he was tortured psychologically, hung up and subjected toincredibly loud music for 20 days at a time. He has been imprisoned in GuantAnamo Bay since September 2004.Cosmetics firm Lush, who supports the work of Reprieve agreed to bring along their massive "Fair Trial My Arse" orange underpants, to highlight the nature of the unjust process that Binyam is facing. The lawyers handling the 9/11 case still in pretrial hearings at Guantanamo Bay were arguing this week about how much information the government has to turn over to defense counsel about the secret CIA prisons where the men were held and tortured. How much to reveal and how to handle that evidence, which mostly remains classified at various levels of secrecy, has been the subject of countless hearings and thousands of pages of paper submitted in the case so far. Earlier in the week, lawyers argued over whether it's possible for defense lawyers to effectively represent their clients in the military commissions system, where prison camp rules and government surveillance practices lead to regular violations of attorney-client confidentiality, an ethical requirement for attorneys representing a criminal defendant. Advertisement What's striking in the case against the five alleged plotters of the September 11 terrorist attacks is not only that more than 14 years after the worst terrorist attack ever against the United States, which killed nearly 3,000 people and spawned at least two wars, no one has been held accountable. Equally remarkable is that it's now been four years since the charges in this commission were filed, and the case so far has centered largely on the government's own misconduct. Although the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was a mass murder of astronomic proportions, all we've heard about so far in the case is how the government mistreated the accused and has repeatedly hampered their ability to get a fair trial. What happened to the victims of those attacks, and the ongoing suffering of their families and loved ones, seems to have no place in the Guantanamo courtroom. There is no trial date set and lawyers involved have estimated the case won't get to trial before 2025. That's not surprising, given that just this week prosecutors were speaking of having to turn over tens of thousands of classified documents to the court about the CIA "black sites" and interrogations, along with summaries of their contents, so the judge can determine what the accused and their lawyers are allowed to see. Aware of the monumental task, prosecutor Clayton Trivett told the court on Thursday: "We hope to get the case done during the lives of living men." Watching the procedural details getting worked out can get pretty boring, which is why you won't hear many news reports about it. But underlying this dragged-out ho-hum process is a critical fact: The government could have avoided putting itself on trial and instead focused on seeking accountability for the mass murder that took place simply by conceding its mistakes from the beginning and working out an accommodation in an experienced federal civilian court. That probably would have meant foregoing the death penalty, but the men convicted would most certainly have spent the rest of their lives in prison. As important, it would have demonstrated publicly exactly how the attacks came to take place, holding up for public scrutiny the monstrous tactics used and the barbaric indifference to the lives of innocent people, including many Muslims. It would have dealt a blow to not only the individuals involved, but to the entire organization of al Qaeda that supported them. And it would have demonstrated how a society that's committed its own bad acts can take responsibility for them, and still bring criminals to justice through a fair trial in a respected court of law. Advertisement Instead, because the U.S. government fought every step of the way against releasing information about CIA activities and interrogation tactics, and because it insisted on seeking the death penalty notwithstanding its own missteps, the U.S. government has made its own post-9/11 conduct the central issue of the case. The defendants, understandably eager to avoid concluding the case at all, are happy to take full advantage of that. What we see happening at Guantanamo, then, is a spectacle of tragic proportions. To be sure, it often seems comic, given the frequent outbursts of the accused, the Keystone Cops tactics of the various branches of government, and the bewildered look on the judge's face when he's repeatedly faced with novel issues that the newly-created military commissions are wholly unprepared to resolve. But viewed with some perspective, it's not very funny at all. Are you a socially conscious, motivated individual who wants to get involved in the movement to stop gun violence but doesn't know where to start? I've been there. I am about to earn my Master of Social Work degree from New York University and I have worked in several underserved neighborhoods plagued by gun violence in recent years. I've counseled students mugged at gunpoint on the way to school in Brooklyn and supported a woman as she mourned her murdered son in Harlem. Unfortunately, most of my clients have been affected by gun violence. Yet, I recently realized that I have done nothing to address this epidemic. In fact, I felt constricted by defeatism, numbed by the notion that no-legislation-after-Newtown meant we would never secure meaningful laws to prevent gun violence. After the mass shootings at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood and a San Bernardino holiday party, I decided I had to take action. Advertisement But I didn't know where to start. So I immersed myself in the movement to stop gun violence in order to identify concrete steps that individuals can take to challenge gun culture, promote responsibility and advocate for effective laws. Here's what I learned: First, I had to recognize gun violence as a manmade public health crisis, shake off my defeatism and get educated Each year, 117,000 people are shot and 33,000 are killed by guns in the United States. Gunshot victims could fill every seat at the University of Michigan's massive "Big House" and there would still be about 9,500 corpses piled on the field. Fortunately, our country has tackled many other public health crises. We have deglamorized cigarette smoking, condemned domestic violence and shamed drunk driving. We recognized problems and alleviated them. So why surrender to the notion that we can't significantly reduce gun violence? Advertisement My defeatism enabled my ignorance and complacency. I allowed myself to retreat from bouts of fury following prominent mass shootings and I never educated myself about guns. Conviction grounded in information drives activism. When I called Toni Wellen, founder and chair of the Coalition Against Gun Violence, a community-based organization in Santa Barbara, CA, she encouraged me to get started by learning the laws and facts about gun access, ownership and violence. "Get informed. What are the gun laws in your state? Learn about that. When they talk about large ammunition clips, what do they mean?" Wellen said. "People need to get educated. It takes some research and conversation." After I spoke with Wellen, I reviewed New York's gun laws at SmartGunLaws.org, the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence's user-friendly, legislative encyclopedia. I learned that New York bans large-capacity ammunition magazines that either hold more than seven rounds or that can be converted to accept more than ten rounds. New Jersey caps ammunition magazines at fifteen rounds. Meanwhile, Georgia, Texas, North Dakota and several other states have no such restrictions. The lack of state regulations astounded me. I had always heard about meager gun legislation, but I had never investigated until I visited the Gun Law Scorecard, a great infographic that assigns a grade to each state based on the strength of its gun laws. Six states, including New York and New Jersey, received an A- (no state received an A). In contrast, twenty-six states, including every state south of Virginia, got an F. The failing states do not regulate the number of firearms an individual can purchase at one time, a discovery that led me in my next direction Advertisement I had to learn how lax laws generate crime-guns. I did some qualitative research by asking one of my clients, a man who served twelve years in prison on gun-related charges, about firearm access in Brooklyn. "There are more people selling guns around here than you can even imagine," he answered before describing a guy who hocks pistols nearby. Where does the guy get the guns? I asked. People take a bus to Texas, "buy a bunch of guns without even having to do paperwork" and travel back to New York City, he explained. My client captured the behavior of "Bad Apple" gun dealers. According to the Brady Campaign, 90% of crime guns come from just 5% of gun dealers who enable straw purchases or who sell guns without necessary paperwork and report them as lost or stolen. Illegal guns are easily trafficked from the Bad Apples to the Big Apple. For example, 70% of crime-guns recovered in New York traveled up the "Iron Pipeline" from Southern states, like Georgia. Nevertheless, gun advocates often assert that restrictions don't work because gun violence continues to ravage cities that regulate firearms. That argument fails when we consider how easy it is to import guns from laissez-faire dealers. It's not a coincidence that crime guns come from unregulated places. Armed with information, it was time for me to get involved. Did you ever start something new, process a torrent of exciting information and grandiosely think of yourself as an expert? The material is new to you so you fantasize that you discovered it? When I first started researching gun violence, I thought I was getting in on the ground floor, or at least, like, the third or fourth floor. Something walkable. Advertisement Ha! I had merely parachuted onto the observation deck of a well established activist tower. People have dedicated their lives to this work. Wellen, for example, started the Coalition Against Gun Violence more than twenty years ago. Chad MacDonald, an activist and writer in New York City, said he committed to stopping gun violence when his wife was pregnant with their son in 2012. "My life is no longer my own," MacDonald said. "I had to get out there. I had to start busting my ass to make change happen." MacDonald encouraged me to join three prominent national organizations, the Brady Campaign, Everytown for Gun Safety and its affiliate Moms Demand Action, to learn about major initiatives and local events. He also recommended the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and New Yorkers Against Gun Violence. I had heard of these organizations before, but I had never taken the time to visit their websites and review their initiatives. In the past, before I started to seek information, it was easier for me to just dismiss their efforts. I encountered MacDonald by searching Facebook for anti-gun violence groups and reaching out to members. I quickly discovered a huge network of grassroots activists online and on social media beyond the more mainstream organizations. Advertisement I'm a redditor so I subscribed to r/GunsAreCool, which is stuffed with articles and commentary on firearms. The sub's moderators built the oft-cited Shooting Tracker, the first website to compile a list of all mass shootings in the United States. "Social media is currently the best way to engage the most people," r/GunsAreCool moderator J. Jones said in an email. "If a community started on reddit can make an impact like we have, there is no telling what the next thing will be to bring more people over to our side." Finally, I added TheTrace.org to my bookmarks bar. The Trace is an independent, nonprofit media organization dedicated to coverage and research about guns in the United States. The well designed site has great articles and information about the gun violence epidemic. My favorite is their handy guide for debunking pro-gun myths like the famous "Guns don't kill people" argument: Lawnmowers don't mow lawns, people mow lawns. But if you want to efficiently and quickly mow a lot of grass, you are going to need a lawnmower. In other words, the tool matters. Firearms make it easy to kill people, efficiently, effectively, and at a distance. Now I hope to educate others. But how? "Bring it up in the calmest setting you can," Jones advised. "Find the red herrings of the anti-control argument and learn to discuss them patiently. Do it over drinks or while playing video games." Advertisement I believe it is my responsibility to reach out to family, friends, clients, classmates and colleagues in order to help them join the movement against gun violence. We all have an individual role to play in reducing violence and challenging irresponsible gun ownership by committing to non-violence in our personal lives and by sharing information with the people who respect and care about us. "Work on conflict resolution," Wellen said. "Find ways to resolve conflict without anger or violence." Wellen also encourages individuals to discuss gun safety with people in their lives. "If your kids go to a relative or a friend's home to play, you ask the parents, 'Do you have gun and if you do, how is it stored?'" Meanwhile, I will keep Tweeting and writing my members of Congress and other local lawmakers. "People call it 'slacktivism,' but it's actually quite effective," MacDonald said. "It's an accurate voice of what [constituents] are really thinking." Join me. You can find your member of Congress here and their Twitter handle here. Find your governor's contact info here and your state lawmakers here. Tweet at them and send them an email demanding they take action to address gun violence Advertisement Today's arguments being made by the Offshore Oil Industry about proposed new exploration and drilling leases off the Atlantic coast remind me of the Bill Murray movie 'Groundhog Day' where everything keeps repeating itself. Their insistence about safer new drilling technologies, tens of thousands of local jobs and how oil is compatible with environmental protection, tourism, fishing and other coastal activities sounds like the exact echo of the arguments we heard in California in the 1980s, the last time the Feds tried to open up large swaths of coastal waters to drilling. Of course these 'get rich quick at no cost' claims are as fallacious today as they were 30 years ago. Like the happy ending of Groundhog Day however the growing opposition to proposed lease sales up and down the Atlantic coast also reminds me of the popular uprising that defeated the Reagan Administration's attempt to drill off the West Coast. It's all about the love, of the existing beaches and coastlines where people live, work and play. In just the last few weeks this new wave of opposition has grown even larger, from protests in New Jersey led by the state's two U.S. Senators, to the number of coastal towns and cities where resolutions against offshore drilling have passed (over 100). Following up on last May's Blue Vision Summit Hill Day where delegations from 24 states lobbied Congress against any new offshore drilling, the marine conservation group Oceana held a coastal summit and lobby in D.C. in January with several hundred East Coast activists, outspoken mayors and celebrities like Ted Danson and Kate Walsh. Last week was the Surfrider Foundation's turn, with a third round of citizen lobbying against oil drilling that included recreational ocean users and a surfboard signed by 1,000 beachfront businesses. Earlier this month Environment America, 350.Org and other groups presented the White House with a petition signed by 2 million people calling on the Obama administration to pull the plug on offshore drilling when it releases its latest iteration of it's 5-year leasing plan some time in March. Advertisement Still, the decision on whether it's finally time to end fossil fuel development in U.S. waters will likely be up to the next president. Will the 2016 candidates address offshore oil drilling? It seems that anti-drilling forces are making them do just that as reported in a January 21st McCatchy story on the upcoming South Carolina primary. Based on this and other sources we've compiled the following updated list on where the remaining Presidential Candidates stand: DEMOCRATS Hillary Clinton: In a December interview said she's "very skeptical about the need or the desire for us to pursue offshore drilling off the coast of South Carolina'' or other Southeastern states. At a campaign event on February 9 asked if she would "stop oil drilling in the Arctic, the Atlantic, and the Gulf?" she replied, "I've already said that I will stop it in the Arctic and the Atlantic." Clinton's position appears to have gotten firmer against offshore drilling (Grist reported in February) Bernie Sanders: Sanders has said he would block all offshore oil and gas development. Sanders' position appears to have not changed REPUBLICANS Jeb Bush: Bush supports offshore drilling, but as Florida governor he fought to keep it off his state's coast. Then a few years later, he supported a bill that would open much more of the Gulf including off of Florida, while providing a 125-mile buffer. His record could cause problems on the campaign trail. Bush's position appears to have not changed Dr. Ben Carson: Asked his position on new offshore drilling in the Arctic and off the Atlantic Dr. Carson responded: "As we intelligently tap our own resources, we must doggedly pursue other energy sources." Carson's position is unclear Ted Cruz: Cruz introduced recent legislation that would give "deference" to coastal states to determine whether to approve drilling. "He proposes to allow increased drilling," said a spokesman. Cruz's position appears to have not changed John Kasich: He has said, "I'm definitely not opposed to it, but you've gotta do it the right way." Kasich's position appears to have not changed Marco Rubio: Rubio would permit more offshore oil and gas drilling, which President Obama has already expanded. Rubio's position appears to have not changed Donald Trump: Trump's campaign has not taken an official position on the issue. However, his previous statements indicate he would support expanded offshore drilling. Then in a Feb. 13 interview Trump said "It would be a little bit of a shame (to expand drilling closer to Florida), because there's so much fracking, and there's so much oil that we have now that we never thought possible. That's an issue I'd absolutely study and do the right thing." Trump's position appears to have changed slightly For all the latest on the continuing battles to stop offshore oil drilling and related climate and pollution stories check out the Sea Party 2016 Facebook page with it's daily breaking news as Sea Party citizen activists aim to educate the public this election year to vote the coast and restore the blue in our red, white and blue. LAS VEGAS, NV - FEBRUARY 18: Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks at the '1st in the West Kick-Off to Caucus Dinner' at the New Tropicana Las Vegas as he continues to campaign on February 18, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Sanders is challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination ahead of Nevada's February 20th Democratic caucus. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) My mother lived in the small town of Mt. Gilead, North Carolina during the Jim Crow era. Statistics show that in order for Bernie Sanders to win or close the gap with Hillary Clinton in the upcoming southern primaries and beyond, he must appeal to African American women, particularly older ones--much like my mother. Bernie Sanders' vision for our country reminds me of my mother's dreams. She dreamed of being able to afford a college education for her children, home ownership, economic equality, racial justice and quality health care. Advertisement Many African American voters view Mrs. Clinton as the experienced pragmatic candidate while Sanders, relatively unknown among many African Americans, is often seen as the "pie in the sky" dreamer without a realistic plan. Sanders must convince skeptical black voters he has a way to fund his proposals that will overall save money for working middle class Americans. Mr. Sanders supports a universal health care single payer plan without deductibles, co-pays and premiums. Mrs. Clinton's proposed plan falls far short of universal single payer health coverage. Sanders proposes free college tuition at all public four-year colleges. And while Clinton wants more affordable college tuition, she only proposes free tuition at community colleges. Sanders advocates for a minimum federal living wage of $15 an hour. Mrs. Clinton supports a living wage of $12--a difference of $5,760 less a year for a low wage worker. In the criminal justice system, Clinton proposes reforming mandatory minimums whereas Sanders supports complete elimination of mandatory minimums. One issue that concerns many Black voters is whether Sanders will be able to deliver on his socialist reforms, if elected. African American women who lived during the 1960's Civil Rights movement may recall the difficulties with outlawing segregation in the south. Some may remember or recall hearing about Alabama Governor George Wallace who in his 1963 inauguration speech said, "Segregation today, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever." And one year later, despite the political odds, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which outlawed segregation. Sanders must remind African Americans that he was actively involved in the Civil Rights movement. Hillary Clinton supported Republican Barry Goldwater who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. African Americans living during the Civil Rights era were the ultimate dreamers who saw some dreams become reality. They did it by planning, working, forming coalitions and with a collective effort. That is the movement that Sanders is building. Advertisement And on the issue of Sanders' electability and experience to become Commander-in-Chief, didn't many Americans think the same of President Obama when he first announced his candidacy against Hillary Clinton in February, 2007? President Obama had two years of U. S. Senate experience in 2007. Bernie Sanders has held his Senate office for two terms after serving sixteen years in the House of Representatives. Recent national polls show Sanders may be more electable than Clinton. And on foreign policy, Sanders voted against the ill-fated Iraq war. Clinton voted for the war. Sanders should poke holes in Clinton's pragmatic approach. It is her greatest weakness. Where would Americans and particularly African Americans be today without the idealism of Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lyndon Baines Johnson and Barack Obama? Dear Son, You are literally moments from being with us, so I want to let you know this before you arrived: Since we've been expecting you, two men have been on popular trials for murdering Black boys. One found not guilty; other found "kinda guilty and kinda not." Countless other trials have occurred for your other brothers and sisters, but they have not received the same deserved attention. However, I want you to know this: people are fighting so that you will have the luxury of being a child. You will be able to wear hoodies in any neighborhood. You will not have to turn your music down because you are afraid of being killed. You will do more than "survive." You will live. You will play. Make mistakes. Grow. Advocate. Most of all, you will learn to love--even learn to love the men on trial for taking life. It won't be easy, but it will be worth it. Can't wait to meet you. US Secretary of State John Kerry (L) meets with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz (R) on January 23, 2016 at the King's farm, on the outskirts of the capital Riyadh. Kerry arrived in Saudi Arabia hoping for an easing of tensions between the Sunni power and its predominantly Shiite rival Iran. / AFP / POOL / Jacquelyn Martin (Photo credit should read JACQUELYN MARTIN/AFP/Getty Images) Last Month Secretary of State John Kerry traveled to Riyadh to reassure the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states that the U.S. stood with them. "Nothing has changed" as a result of the nuclear pact with Iran, he insisted. Washington's long relationship with Riyadh was built on oil. There never was any nonsense about sharing values with the KSA, which operates as a slightly more civilized variant of the Islamic State. For instance, heads are chopped off, but only after a nominal trial. Women have no more rights, but can afford a better life. Advertisement The royals run a totalitarian system which prohibits political dissent, free speech, religious liberty, and social autonomy. In its latest human rights report, the U.S. State Department devoted an astonishing 57 pages detailing the Saudi monarchy's human rights abuses. To the extent that personal freedom exists, it is only in private. But even then the authorities may intervene at pleasure. Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., called the KSA "Hatred's Kingdom." At a time of heavy U.S. dependence on foreign oil a little compromise in America's principles might have seemed in order. Even then, of course, the KSA could not control the international oil market and the royals could not long survive if they did not sell their oil. They needed buyers as much if not more than buyers needed them. Today it's hard to make a case that petroleum warrants Washington's "special relationship" with Saudi Arabia. The global energy market is expanding; Iran has begun selling more oil; new sources such as shale oil have come on line; the U.S. will soon become a petroleum exporter. Most important, the royal regime cannot survive without oil revenues and has continued to pump even as prices have collapsed. In recent years Washington also treated Riyadh as an integral component of a containment system against Iran. Of course, much of the "Tehran problem" was made in America: overthrowing Iranian democracy and empowering the Shah, a corrupt, repressive modernizer, led to his ouster and creation of an Islamist state. Washington's subsequent support for Iraq's Saddam Hussein in his aggressive war against Iran only intensified the Islamist regime's antagonism. Advertisement Fears multiplied as Tehran confronted its Sunni neighbors along with Israel and continued the Shah's nuclear program. Overwrought nightmares of Islamic revolution throughout the region encouraged America's fulsome embrace of the KSA and allied regimes, such as Bahrain, where a Shia majority is held captive by a Sunni monarch backed by the Saudi military. In Riyadh Secretary Kerry declared America's undiminished support for the world's leading feudal kleptocracy. But this argument for supporting the Saudi royals has become quite threadbare. The regime opposes Iran for its own reasons, not to aid America. And Saudi Arabia is well able to do so. In 2014 it came in at world number four with $81 billion in military expenditures, a multiple of Iran's total. Threats of subversion reflect internal weaknesses beyond Washington's reach: the kingdom's general repression and particular mistreatment of its Shia minority, including the recent execution of cleric Nimr al-Nimr, who urged nonviolent opposition to the monarchy. Moreover, the nuclear agreement creates a real opportunity for change in Iran. The process will not be quick or easy, as is evident from determined resistance by more authoritarian regime forces. However hardline elements evidently feel threatened. In contrast to the KSA, there are (carefully circumscribed but real nonetheless) elections, political debate, religious diversity, generational resistance, and liberal sentiments. Shifting the U.S. relationship with Iran could dramatically improve the region's dynamic. Whatever the alleged benefits of the Saudi alliance, America pays a high price. First is the cost of providing free bodyguards for the royals. For this reason the U.S. initiated the first Gulf War and left a garrison on Saudi soil. The inconclusive end of that conflict led to continual bombing of Iraq even during "peacetime" and ultimately the Iraq invasion. At the Saudis' behest Washington backs their misbegotten war in Yemen and remains formally committed to the overthrow of Syrian President Bashir al-Assad, the strongest force opposing the far more dangerous Islamic State. (On his latest visit to Riyadh Secretary Kerry mentioned discussing "new ideas" with the royals to bring peace to Yemen. The KSA could accomplish that by simply halting the war.) Saudi Arabia also tramples American values beyond its own borders. In next-door Bahrain Riyadh helped suppress the majority Shia population and in more distant Egypt the Saudis subsidized renewed military rule. The KSA also has underwritten extremist Islamic teaching in madrassahs around the world (Sunnis account for roughly 85 percent of all Muslims). Even Iran never attempted to so effectively create an entire generation of extremists. Moreover, Saudi money backed al-Qaeda and people performed 9/11. Similar private support for extremist violence apparently continues. Yet Washington shields the kingdom's practices from scrutiny, refusing to release the section of the 9/11 report discussing Saudi funding of terrorism. Advertisement Over the last few years Riyadh's behavior has become more harmful to America's interests. The monarchy has been pushing to oust Syria's Assad without worrying about who or what would follow. To the contrary, Riyadh has subsidized and armed many of the most extreme opposition factions. Moreover, in Yemen Saudi Arabia turned a long-term insurgency into another sectarian conflict. In the process the royals have been committing war crimes and creating a humanitarian disaster. By executing Sheikh al-Nimr the KSA triggered sectarian protests in Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. Riyadh responded by breaking diplomatic relations with Iran, undermining political negotiations to resolve Syria's civil war. Yet after all this Saudi Foreign Minister Abdel al-Jabeir criticized "the mischief that Iran's nefarious activities can do in the region." Of course, the fact that Riyadh is a destabilizing force does not mean that the U.S. should attempt regime change in Riyadh. America has proved that it isn't very good at overseas social engineering--consider Afghanistan, Egypt, Haiti, Iraq, Kosovo, Libya, Somalia, Syria, and elsewhere. But Washington should stop lavishing attention, praise, support, and reassurance on the Saudi royals. Particularly important, the U.S. should disentangle itself militarily from the KSA, especially the latter's misbegotten war in Yemen. Whatever misgivings he might have, Marco Rubio could not refuse an invitation from mayors of 12 Florida coastal communities to discuss their climate change concerns. Politics dictated that he meet with the mayors, several of whom are Republicans, to confer on a subject not as high on his agenda as on theirs. The mayors sent a letter requesting a get-together by the end of February to seek Rubio's help in combating climate change-related rising sea levels. (Jeb Bush received a similar letter, but had not responded as of this writing.) It made no difference that Senator Rubio has publicly questioned the validity of the root of the coastal flooding bedeviling these civic leaders. Indeed, if the senator had his druthers, this meeting would not intrude on his presidential campaign schedule. He does not publicly subscribe to the mayors' belief that recent increased coastal overwash is due to accelerated global warming resulting from human activity. Advertisement But being a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, Rubio can ill afford to ignore the concerns of political leaders in his state, including several Republican congressmen as well as the mayors. So he agreed to the meeting even though it puts him in an awkward position. The conservative Republican base, with its powerful voice in the presidential primaries, is skeptical of any human-induced climate change threat. They tend to view extreme weather events as due to natural fluctuations. Any attempt to lay the blame on human-generated global warming is regarded as a democratic ploy to expand big government's control. If pressed, Rubio and his fellow GOP presidential aspirants have voiced denial of any human culpability for whatever climate change is occurring, and that poses a big problem. Whoever wins the nomination will have to walk a fine line. He will have to appease the hard core party base while reassuring the majority of the general electorate he is not oblivious to their concerns that climate change is a legitimate threat of major proportions. My guess is that without committing to human activity as the culprit, Rubio will promise the mayors that if elected president, he will provide emergency aid to deal with any damage from the elements, Advertisement But that won't get him or whoever else ends up as the nominee off the hook. In their letter, the mayors urge Rubio "to acknowledge the reality and urgency of climate change...and produce a realistic national plan to slow global warming emissions." You can be sure that whoever the Democratic presidential nominee is will embrace that same message and be quick to exploit any reluctance on the Republican candidate's part to follow suit. Co-authored by William Witenberg a contemporary artist focused on abstract painting One thing is clear from the Republican and Democratic campaigns, the next President of the United States will impact the trading partners of America and their respective economies. The implications for India comparing to China and Russia are radically different. Trade with Russia and China could be drastically impacted by a new US President. It appears that India is doing so well at the moment, that it will be less affected by who becomes President. There is no candidate who has endorsed past trade deals and they all in one way or another, blame the negatives in America's present economic situation and declining middle class, on having disadvantageous trade deals. The one Republican candidate that has made international trade a major reoccurring theme is Donald Trump. He claims America has negotiated "horrible" trade deals. He asserts his success as a real estate dealmaker would mean he could negotiate better trade terms. He repeats in every major speech how terrible the trade deals with China are. Furthermore, his position is the most aggressive, proposing to break existing trade agreements. He declared that he would either renegotiate or break NAFTA:"We will either renegotiate it or we will break it because you know every agreement has an end". Surprisingly, so far he hasn't mentioned India. Both Democratic candidates rejected the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal President Obama promoted. Bernie Sanders language in rejecting the deal is particularly revealing: "The President at Nike headquarters told us that every trade union in America is wrong, that progressives working for years for working families are wrong and that corporate America, the pharmaceutical industry and Wall Street are right. I respectfully disagree. This trade agreement would continue the process by which we have been shipping good-paying American jobs to low-wage countries overseas and continue the race to the bottom for American workers." The implications of a change in American trade terms is different for India than it is for Russia and China, due to India's strong economy. It is predicted by the World Bank that India will be the fastest growing economy in the world for the next three years, and remarkably it has the potential to surpass China. Simply put India does not need improved trade deals with the United States. It is doing just fine as is. Advertisement India's remarkable recent growth is due to a variety of factors: it is an importer of oil as the price of oil has declined; jobs have been created at a rapid pace and it is anticipated that over 85% of Indian companies have hiring plans as well as the government salary increases; the technology industry continues to attract investors into new products validating the growth of the service industry. Russia is another matter. Russian economy is faltering. Russia as an exporter of oil has seen the price of oil tumble and the economy follow suit. American and Western European sanctions are only making matters worse. Russian military involvements have been another drain on the economy. Right now Russia has an actual economic need for an American President with whom a deal can be made and sanctions can be removed. Despite Trumps claims of being able to negotiate with Putin; it is unclear, no matter which candidate gets elected President, what changes in Russian international policy Putin would make that would end sanctions. The anti China trade views of all the candidates are coming at the worse time for the Chinese economy. All candidates are mentioning the 2015 American trade deficit of $365 billion with China. Given China's economic slowdown what China doesn't need would be for the rules of trade with the United States to change. China's problems are well known, and despite it being a major importer of resources, its economy may turn out to be a house of cards. The numbers released this week on China's economy indicate that the downslide is even worse than expected. In January, exports from China dropped by 11.2%, the worst fall since March last year. Its imports fell by a massive 18.8%, the 15th month in a row of declines. Dear Citizens of Facebook: Facebook is much more than Mark Zuckerberg's server farms and his army of coders. Facebook is the most effective means today for people to communicate with each other and to form networks for collaboration beyond national borders. Facebook is an unprecedented international network of people who could make a tremendous contribution to solving the challenges of our age, if permitted. The time has come for us to declare our independence from the empire that controls us. The Internet is often conceptualized as a series of separate layers that range from Layer 1, the physical connections of wires and cables that support our communications, to Layer 7, which is the operation of applications over the Internet. But the global community of Facebook is at a higher level than Layer 7, the Facebook web application, forming a Layer 8 which is cultural, social, and political in nature and is only tangentially related to the seven layers below. When I speak of my candidacy for president of Facebook, I am referring to the highest level of Facebook, Layer 8, the Republic of Facebook, which we as its citizens have created and over which Facebook, Incorporated has no dominion. But Facebook, Incorporated actively tries to undermine our efforts to create a democratic and constructive community at this level by making it impossible to retrieve old postings -- thereby denying us access to our own creations, depriving us of a meaningfully searchable social graph to find appropriate partners around the world, and keeping us from designing our own pages. Facebook, Incorporated does not even listen to our suggestions for improvements. Advertisement Mark Zuckerberg focuses exclusively on profits and has no incentive to listen to our requests. I would venture to say that he will never do so of his own accord. We must declare Facebook to be independent, and we must plan it and administer it so that it responds to the needs of its citizens around the world. There have been ad hoc efforts using Facebook to effect change on a human and international scale, like "Humans of New York," but they don't scale up. The world needs larger, more coordinated efforts: a functioning administrative organization for Facebook. We are not talking about system administration. We are talking about a mechanism by which citizens can have their ideas, suggestions, and needs considered, a Facebook whose primary function is allowing those who use it to collaborate with each other for the betterment of our world. The future evolution of Facebook should not be related to profit for stockholders, but rather to its potential to bring peace to the world, and encourage global cooperation in response to critical challenges such as climate change, refugees, the spread of weapons, and the decay of a law-based system of administration in countries around the world. Advertisement I welcome others to run for president of our Republic of Facebook, many of whom will be far more qualified than I am. Above all, I hope that this election will prompt a broad and fruitful debate about the direction in which Facebook should develop as it becomes the most effective means for us to gather together expertise. In a world of "failed states," we can achieve something unprecedented in human history: the establishment of a global system for participatory democracy. The first step is to hold a constitutional convention, which I propose should run for a week beginning on July 4, 2016, at which we will draft a basic constitution that will: 1.Set forth the means of governing Facebook globally; 2.Create a mechanism by which Facebook responsive to the needs of its citizens; 3.Make Facebook accountable to a higher set of ethical principles; 4.Assure complete transparency concerning Facebook's financial dealings and its administrative structure. A group of experts from fields such as computer programming, design, law, art, philosophy, literature, engineering, and the social, physical, biological, and information sciences, will come together at the convention to set out the basic framework for the constitution. After the convention, there should be a six month period of consultation with the entire Facebook community, through which we will modify the group's initial proposals and work for a general consensus. Following the consultation period will come the day of ratification, when Facebook's entire user base will become its citizens and will vote on the creation of Layer 8 Facebook, a"Republic of Facebook," with a transparent and accountable administrative system. The Republic of Facebook is ours. We have deposited terabytes of our diaries, musings, arguments, and artwork there, and Facebook Incorporated has as much right to use that content for profit as the Post Office does to monetize the contents of our physical postal correspondence. We not only own Facebook's content, we deserve to have a say in how it develops in the future. Advertisement Currently, the empire, Facebook, Incorporated, uses the undemocratic practice of "structuring user experience to delight the user." Facebook, Incorporated winnows the postings of your friends to select only the small percentage that the algorithm thinks you will "like." The citizen has the inalienable right to determine what information he or she will see and to decide on its organization and its retention. Monetary value in content should accrue to its creators; monetary value in collective data should be retained and used for the good of the community. We should think of the founders of Facebook, Incorporated as the equivalent of the robber barons who built the Union Pacific and other railroads in the 19th century. Although figures such as Clark Durant or Mark Hopkins raised funds for the Union Pacific through corrupt means and built it for the shrewdest of profit motivations, over time the railroad was shaped into a more rational institution through the active demands of its users. The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887outlawed short-haul discrimination and other predatory practices and made the railroads conform to strict regulations. Railroads in the 20th century became reliable utilities for carrying goods and people. If everyone paid for the portion of virtual space they consumed -- and this is a tiny sum in a 1.25-billion-user system -- they would cease to be users, whose rights can be changed at will by Facebook, Incorporated, and become owners and citizens, who have rights and who are not a product to be sold. Once our constitution is in place, and if I am elected as president of the Republic of Facebook, I am happy to negotiate an agreement with Facebook, Inc., or some other organization, for the maintenance of the basic services provided for this system. Under my administration we will establish a micropayment system that allows for the fair distribution of profit from the Republic of Facebook. Citizens of Facebook will be allowed to sell or exchange their creations and will be paid market rates for their posts, designs, memes, video, and audio. In the end, these micro-businesses will pay the underlying costs of servers and programmers, and even enrich the creators. We have no need for a Facebook, Incorporated except as a contractor, just as Merit Network was the contractor who administered the mechanics of the early Internet. Advertisement Above the lucre to be found in the royalties for your cat videos, the Republic of Facebook will be a place where people can collectively deal with the world's serious problems. Collaborations of all kinds will be possible, whether in music, art, science, policy, religion, or health. Most importantly, there will be representatives for the Republic of Facebook who will respond timely to the concerns and needs of Facebook citizens and assure that the system operates in a fair and transparent manner. A functional Republic of Facebook is not an idealistic dream. We can take control of Facebook's administration and make it responsive to our needs. Facebook, Incorporated discourages collaboration, but we can bring together billions of people for meaningful collaboration. Together we can make Facebook into a free society of the citizens, by the citizens, and for the citizens, based on our innate rights as human beings. I ask for everyone's support. I welcome all employees of Facebook, Incorporated to join us, including those who edit and filter for low wages around the world. Join us in creating a new global community. You have nothing to lose but the limits on your own personal potential. London's Hampstead Theatre has earned an enviable reputation for reviving acclaimed works, as well as creating new, innovative productions. Under the aegis of award-winning artistic director Edward Hall, Hampstead, which boasts two houses, Main Stage and Hampstead Downstairs, has helped shape modern British theater. Hall has taken his shows, dramas and musicals alike, to the West End -- Sunny Afternoon won Best New Musical at the 2015 Olivier Awards -- and streamed them on the Internet. Or as the Daily Mail put it: "Hampstead is perhaps the most reliably interesting theatre in the country." Advertisement One of those interest points is the upcoming The Festival at Hampstead Theater. Capitalizing on its initial success last year, which attracted an impressive 2,500 people, the second annual festival takes place March 18-20, showcasing 33 events, from theater to dance, publishing to screenplays. There are even a few events for kids. It's akin to a literary festival, but with a stronger performance angle. As Festival producer Issy van Randwyck explains: "Over the course of three days, a wonderfully wide variety of artists, from a cross section of disciplines, will share their stories and processes of work, via panel discussions. In some cases, they will host practical hands-on workshops in writing and performing for both adults and children. You name it-- we're discussing it." The stellar lineup includes playwright Sir David Hare (Skylight, The Blue Room, director/choreographer Sir Matthew Bourne, (Edward Scissorhands, Swan Lake), (pictured here), Howard Brenton (The Arrest of Ai WeiWei), author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Deborah Moggach, and actors Tim Pigott-Smith and Imogen Stubbs, among others. Hampstead Theatre's simple mission "has always been to create original theatre without creative restriction," she explains. "From its inception, Hampstead attracted a generation of talent -- Harold Pinter testing new plays to Mike Leigh, Michael Frayn, Terry Johnson and more." Advertisement That spirit of artistic enterprise fuels the Festival. "It is designed to give you the opportunity to be up close and meet some of the most original thinkers in British culture today," says van Randwyck. "Who knows? It might spark your inner-creative to write that play, novel or screenplay you've always wanted to write, but didn't know how." By Brigit Helms and Alejandro Escobar Brigit Helms, the general manager of the Multilateral Investment Fund, also has served as the director of SPEED, a USAID-funded program in Mozambique, and a senior expert for financial inclusion at McKinsey & Company. She has a PhD in agriculture and development economics from Stanford University. It would be difficult to imagine a bigger sea change in thinking and practice about the private sector's role in international economic development than what we've witnessed these past 12 months: from the financing-for-development conference in April that talked about moving from billions to trillions of dollars by crowding in private-sector financial resources, to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in September, to the United Nations-led climate change negotiations (COP21) in Paris that concluded in December, and finally to conversations about the technology-driven 4th Industrial Revolution at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. There is a broad consensus among governments, the private sector, and civil society that business must take the lead if development problems are to be solved. Advertisement Profit with purpose, and inclusive, sustainable growth are increasingly considered "must haves," not "nice to haves." But how can we do it? I think it's safe to say that it's no longer business as usual, neither for the development community, nor for the private sector. We need disruption and innovation, completely new ways of working. Partnerships and collaboration--often among uneasy bedfellows--are critical for success. No one can do this alone. Agriculture at the forefront Nowhere is it more urgent, nowhere is there more potential for putting this new paradigm into practice, than in agriculture. Global food production needs to increase by 60% by 2050 to keep up with demand, but working with only about 12% more land. Latin America and the Caribbean can and must lead the charge, as our region has the best prospects for producing the surpluses necessary to feed the world. It's great to see that businesses are increasingly taking on the challenge, reaching into their supply chains to deliver social, economic, and environmental impact. A select few are setting new standards, for example, in the expansion of much-needed financial services to the agricultural sector. In Nicaragua, for instance, Exportadora Atlantic (the local subsidiary of the coffee trader Ecom), in conjunction with coffee roaster and retailer Starbucks Corporation, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Group, and the International Finance Corporation (IFC , a member of the World Bank Group), is providing long-term financing for about 1,000 coffee farmers to help them combat the devastating effects of the coffee rust fungus. Coffee is Central America's leading export, and in some countries of the region, the fungus has affected up to 70 percent of plantations. Advertisement Multilateral Investment Fund In the separate area of results measurement, advances in technology have radically improved our ability to capture these metrics and to use company-level data for the dual purposes of decision making about supply chains, and monitoring and evaluation of the results of development projects. Organizations like Sustainable Food Lab have taken upon themselves the challenge of accelerating market-driven progress toward a sustainable mainstream food system, by bringing together for-profit food companies, nonprofit organizations, and regional food and agricultural research actors, to share experiences and facilitate cross-sector collaboration. The Food Lab facilitates a community of practice that is developing a consensus on a common approach to measuring the performance of smallholder farmers. Key members of this community range from food companies Nestle and Mars chocolate, to nonprofits Rainforest Alliance and Ford Foundation. Sustainable Agriculture, Food, and the Environment initiative This kind of disruption and transformation is the reason we have established the SAFE (Sustainable Agriculture, Food, and the Environment) platform, a new partnership between some global food companies and various donors and nongovernmental organizations, which aims to coordinate the work of the various players in agriculture sustainability efforts in Latin America and the Caribbean. The new alliance was initiated by the IDB Group's Multilateral Investment Fund in August 2015 and will be managed and supervised by the Humanist Institute for Cooperation (Hivos), a Netherlands-based international organization. The partnership will initially work in the coffee and cocoa industries, where much has been done in terms of good practice in sustainability standards, and will later expand to include other crops. This collaboration offers a catalytic blend of technical and financial instruments to support smallholder farmers. We will test and help scale innovative models to support smallholders to be more productive, earn more money, and apply climate-smart approaches. Alejandro Escobar Alejandro Escobar has worked 20 years in agricultural development. At the Multilateral Investment Fund, he is responsible for projects in sustainable agriculture, financing of farmer cooperatives, and development of investment vehicles for agricultural finance and of value chains of small farmers. (Above: Uyghurs protest at the Embassy of China in Washington, DC on February 5, 2016) Uyghurs across the world, except in China, joined in protest on February 5, 2016, to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the Ghulja massacre. The incident took place in the city of Ghulja, near the Kazakh border in the northwestern part of East Turkestan, the Uyghur homeland which is situated in northwestern China. On February 5, 1997, Uyghurs in Ghulja organized a peaceful protest against religious restrictions enacted by the Chinese state. Chinese police violently put down their protest. Shockingly, authorities penned demonstrators into a stadium and hosed them with water, causing frostbite. The winter chill in Washington, DC reminded those activists who assembled of this painful past. China's crackdown on Uyghurs in Ghulja after the 1997 incident utilized arbitrary imprisonment, torture in detention, and unfair trials, based on reports from human rights groups; and several Uyghurs were executed for their alleged role in the protests. In addition, China strictly embargoed any information about the incident, prosecuting rights defenders who attempted to investigate, which has clearly emerged as the state's standard response to incidents in East Turkestan since. Nearly two decades later, Uyghurs continue to call for an independent investigation, and seek an accounting for the Uyghurs killed, arrested and disappeared. Advertisement Abdurazzak Shamseden is an innocent man who found himself swept up in the aftermath of the Ghulja massacre. He was detained not for participation in the demonstration itself; rather, after his nephew was killed in a skirmish with police, Abdurazzak was detained in reprisal for his tragic family connection. A young farmer awaiting marriage and in the prime of his life, Abdurazzak was sentenced to life imprisonment. On Human Rights Day last December, the Washington, DC-based Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) launched a petition to release eight political prisoners, including Abdurazzak. Abdurazzak's sister works for UHRP, fighting tirelessly to defend her people's human rights and protect other families targeted by the Chinese state like her own. UHRP's petition has achieved some success already. Chinese authorities announced in February 2016 that Huseyin Celil, a Uyghur political prisoner who has been held in prison for a decade in spite of his Canadian citizenship, will have his 15-year sentence commuted by 6 months. State media withheld further details, which fits the Chinese state's non-transparent approach to nearly all of the prisoners in the petition. Nor is the reduction a result of an appeal or judicial procedure, highlighting the weakness of China's rule of law. It is thus a bittersweet celebration. Advocacy on his behalf is more critical now than ever. Celil, a preacher imprisoned for purely political reasons, was convicted as part of China's anti-terrorism campaign, which Chinese authorities codified into new legislation in 2016, with possibly devastating consequences for Uyghurs. A recent UHRP report examines the law's potential to lead to human rights abuses. UHRP Director, Alim Seytoff said: "The law will not ensure the security of the people of East Turkestan and will only increase tensions through the criminalization of legitimate activities. It will serve to further alienate and marginalize the Uyghurs. I fear the region is headed toward a descent into further repression. That the Chinese government is preparing for these human rights abuses to happen in an information void is even more disturbing." The information void enforced by the law refers to criminalization of information related to "terrorism," which the legislation loosely defines to include any anti-state activities. China has a history of using anti-state charges to crackdown on free speech and rights related reporting. In fact, five of the political prisoners included in UHRP's petition were journalists or citizen journalists. China handed its harshest sentence of all to Ilham Tohti, a Uyghur scholar who ran a Mandarin language website to promote dialogue between Han Chinese (the ethnic majority in China) and Uyghurs. In 2014, Ilham Tohti was sentenced to life imprisonment and seven volunteers for the site were also imprisoned for 3-8 years, including three in the petition: Mutellip Imin, Atikem Rozi and Akbar Imin. Advertisement Journalist Gheyret Niyaz, another petition case, was also imprisoned simply for running a website. Niyaz was rounded up after unrest in East Turkestan in July 2009. Uyghurs in Urumchi, the regional capital, assembled on July 5, 2009 to call for an investigation into the murders of several Uyghur factory workers in the Pearl River Delta region. Police cracked down on the protest, and once again, the state responded with extrajudicial killings and widespread disappearances, which have been documented by human rights groups. As in the 1997 Ghulja incident, the total numbers of Uyghurs killed and imprisoned in the July 5, 2009 unrest is unknown. In another parallel to Ghulja, the state cracked down on information in 2009, imprisoning Niyaz and other Uyghurs who ran websites which had been used to organize the peaceful demonstration. Not only were nearly all Uyghur websites permanently wiped from the Internet in this crackdown, but online access was disabled in the entire Uyghur region for 10 months. July 5 marks another date memorialized by the Uyghur diaspora, who call on the Chinese state to account for Uyghurs who were killed, arrested or disappeared. China's state also stands to use its counterterrorism legislation to criminalize traditional Uyghur culture, a trend apparent in the case of Merdan Seyitakhun, a final UHRP petition case. He was imprisoned in 2008 for teaching religion to Uyghur children without state sanction. China classifies any religious education for Uyghurs outside of the state's purview as "religious extremism," which therefore falls under its counter-terror umbrella. The Uyghurs' Muslim faith is a key aspect of their culture, and preventing its transmission to the younger generation imperils the very fabric of the Uyghur identity. Signing UHRP's petition will send China's government a message that these eight prisoners of conscience have not been forgotten by the international community. Even as China's counter-terrorism legislation threatens to further criminalize Uyghurs' traditional culture and prevent any investigation into human rights abuses perpetrated by China's state, UHRP's petition will send a signal to China to release these prisoners of conscience and desist its unfair treatment of Uyghurs under the new law. Sign the petition now using the following link: https://www.change.org/p/chinese-president-xi-jinping-free-eight-uyghur-political-prisoners Advertisement Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, speaks during a Clark County Democrats Kick-off to Caucus dinner at the Tropicana Las Vegas casino and resort in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. Polling suggests Hillary Clinton is in danger of being overtaken by Sanders when the Nevada caucuses are held on February 20. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images In one major poll, Bernie Sanders is now leading Hillary Clinton nationally. In most others, he's not far behind from the former Secretary of State. Vermont's Senator already has an "edge over Clinton in matchups with GOP opponents," dispelling Clinton's electability myth. In an average of national polls, Bernie Sanders is less than eight points from Hillary Clinton, after being over 50 points behind in 2015. In addition, there's only one person capable of challenging a Republican in 2016 without James Comey declaring national security was jeopardized by a private server. Bernie Sanders is the only Democratic candidate capable of winning the White House in 2016. Please name the last person to win the presidency alongside an ongoing FBI investigation, negative favorability ratings, questions about character linked to continual flip flops, a dubious money trail of donors, and the genuine contempt of the rival political party. In reality, Hillary Clinton is a liability to Democrats, and certainly not the person capable of ensuring liberal Supreme Court nominees and President Obama's legacy. Advertisement The precious and all-knowing polls already show Bernie Sanders defeating Republicans in a general election and Robert Reich has already explained why Sanders can easily win the presidency. In a Huffington Post piece titled 6 Responses to Bernie Skeptic, Reich debunks the trusted myth of Clinton supporters and Republicans: "He'd never beat Trump or Cruz in a general election." Wrong. According to the latest polls, Bernie is the strongest Democratic candidate in the general election, defeating both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in hypothetical matchups. (The latest RealClear Politics averages of all polls shows Bernie beating Trump by a larger margin than Hillary beats Trump, and Bernie beating Cruz while Hillary loses to Cruz.) "America would never elect a socialist." P-l-e-a-s-e. America's most successful and beloved government programs are social insurance - Social Security and Medicare. A highway is a shared social expenditure, as is the military and public parks and schools. The problem is we now have excessive socialism for the rich (bailouts of Wall Street, subsidies for Big Ag and Big Pharma, monopolization by cable companies and giant health insurers, giant tax-deductible CEO pay packages) - all of which Bernie wants to end or prevent. As Reich points out in his article, America is already a nation of Democratic-Socialists, but many of us (Democrats and Republicans) simply uphold "excessive socialism for the rich." Advertisement Bernie Sanders, unlike Clinton, defeats Donald Trump in a landslide of "epic proportions" in a general election and is the antithesis of a Republican. If you don't believe me, then watch my friend Brian Hanley's animated rap videos about Bernie Sanders demolishing Donald Trump. Most importantly, and something the naysayers should learn, is that Bernie Sanders does better than Clinton against the GOP in a general election. In addition, American voters don't trust Hillary Clinton. At what point will critics of Bernie Sanders realize that American voters will never vote for a candidate they don't trust and don't like? In October of 2015, I explained in the following YouTube segment why Clinton is unelectable, and in another segment why Clinton must always evolve on key issues. 53.8% of all American voters have an "unfavorable" view of Hillary Clinton. 67% of American voters find Hillary Clinton "not honest and trustworthy," compared with 59% for Donald Trump. Yes, more people trust Donald Trump. After all, it's difficult to trust a politician who completely fabricated a story about being fired upon by snipers. Like POLITIFACT states, "it's hard to understand how she could err on something so significant as whether she did or didn't dodge sniper bullets." Advertisement 71% of men and 64% of women find Clinton "not honest and trustworthy." 74% of Independent voters find Clinton "not honest and trustworthy." 35% of Democrats find Clinton "not honest and trustworthy." Yes, even Democrats. In contrast, Kathy Frankovic of YouGov.com states "Bernie Sanders is the most widely trusted presidential candidate of either party." Quinnipiac's February 18, 2016 report sates "Sanders has the highest favorability rating of any candidate and the highest scores for honesty and integrity, for caring about voters' needs and problems and for sharing voters' values." Sanders also ties Clinton on "having strong leadership qualities." In terms of Clinton's leadership qualities, they haven't translated to good judgement. If the Clinton campaign expects to build upon President Obama's accomplishments, then it should first discuss things with a former Obama intelligence official. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn explains his view of Hillary Clinton's email scandal in a CNN article titled Former Obama intel official: Hillary Clinton should drop out: Washington (CNN)President Barack Obama's former top military intelligence official said Hillary Clinton should pull out of the presidential race while the FBI investigate her use of a private email server for official government communication while secretary of state. "If it were me, I would have been out the door and probably in jail," said Flynn, who decried what he said was a "lack of accountability, frankly, in a person who should have been much more responsible in her actions as the secretary of state of the United States of America." "This over-classification excuse is not an excuse," Flynn said Friday. "If it's classified, it's classified." Flynn, who headed the Defense Intelligence Agency from July 2012 to August 2014, told Tapper that Clinton "knew better..." No, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn isn't part of the GOP. He actually worked for President Obama. If you think the FBI, a former Obama intelligence official, the State Department's own "internal watchdog," and all the other elements of this expanded investigation make for a great presidency, then you're certainly ready for Hillary in 2016. Advertisement Yes, a former Obama intelligence official suggests Clinton "drop out" of the presidential race. The FBI's investigation of Clinton's emails is "not letting up" and there is no end in sight. Good luck with nationally televised debates against a ruthless opponent like Trump (who will certainly make the email scandal a primary issue of every discussion), if you fear the loss of Supreme Court nominees and the future of our country. It's doubtful any GOP challenger would gracefully declare, "Enough of the emails." Even if you believe Clinton would win a general election, remember that the FBI, or even the State Department, could uncover yet another group of "Top Secret" emails well into Clinton's first term. The FBI could also urge the Justice Department to take action; even if Clinton wins the presidency. We've already seen one Clinton White House defend against scandal. By the way, can anyone at The Daily Beast, The Daily Banter, or The Daily Hillary Clinton Inevitability Press please explain why Hillary Clinton felt the need to own a private server? Can anyone citing Clinton's ability to lead our nation on the first day in office (with Mo Brooks ready to impeach her) and win a general election explain the political utility in owning a private server? If you say "convenience," expect laughter. Vermont's Senator will become our next president and it should come as no surprise to people actually paying attention, and not repeating establishment talking points. I've been saying this since June 25, 2015, when 730,000 people on Facebook liked my article titled It's Official -- Bernie Sanders Has Overtaken Hillary Clinton In the Hearts and Minds of Democrats. True, I was wrong about Iowa, but at least I got the winner right, and I'll be right about my greatest prediction: On January 20, 2017 Bernie Sanders Will Be Sworn In as America's 45th President. Advertisement Yes, Hillary Clinton accepted money from prison lobbyists and once referred to black youth (in coded language) as "super-predators," but don't tell the pundits who gleefully cite her poll numbers with minority voters. I explain on Tim Black TV why Hillary Clinton has lost South Carolina when it comes to her racial justice record. I also speak with my friend Tim Black on Tim Black TV about how both Clintons have used their power to sway black voters. Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to President of Russia's Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) Alexander Shokhin in the Novo-Ogaryov residence, outside Moscow on Monday, Feb. 15, 2016. (Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP) MOSCOW -- Politicians and scholars from all over the world recently gathered at the Munich Security Conference to discuss global security issues. Most of the attendees agreed that we have to work together to untie the tangled knot of current threats to peace and stability, with the bulk of responsibility falling on the shoulders of the leading global players -- the United States, the European Union, Russia and China. However, we still seem incapable of presenting a collective response even to the most fundamental threats. Regulars of the MSC remember President Vladimir Putin's famous Munich speech of 2007 very well. Observers would then often refer to the speech as one manifesting a strategic turn in Russia's foreign policy and a challenge to the United States and the West. Advertisement I believe this interpretation of the Munich speech to be deeply flawed. Nine years ago, the Russian president was trying to warn Russia's partners of where we can find ourselves if we disregard fundamental norms of international law, rely on unilateral action and military force as a way of resolving issues instead of seeking political solutions and let our leaders be irresponsible and arrogant. Smoke rises after helicopters belonging to the Syrian and Russian army carried out an airstrike in Aleppo on Feb. 19, 2016. (Ahmed Muhammed Ali/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) All that is left for us to do today is lament the fact that Russia's voice was not heard: Many of the concerns expressed by the Russian leader have become a harsh reality. In the nine years since the Munich speech, the world has not become a safer, more stable or just place. And this goes for the West as well, including the United States. Our will to work together has not only weakened, it has sunk to a historical low. The way Syria was discussed in Munich is a vivid example of this lack of trust and willingness to engage in joint action. Russian politicians and diplomats reiterated that Moscow considered its actions in Syria to be a contribution to the global effort to combat the existential threat of Islamic fundamentalism and an attempt to save Syrian statehood and prevent it from descending into chaos. But many of the American and European participants saw Russia's military operation as nothing more than a case of the Kremlin's imperial ambition and an attempt to keep in place a regime loyal to Moscow. Advertisement Discussions on Euro-Atlantic security were equally strained. Just like with Syria, Russia and the West are anything but united on the issue, and their positions continue to diverge. Instead of combining our efforts to combat common security threats (terrorism and other forms of extremism, migration, etc.) we have essentially entered a new phase of the arms race. It is not a giant leap, for example, to assume that once the United States has deployed its missile defense system in Poland, Russia will respond by deploying its own Iskander missile defense system in Kaliningrad. We all remember the missile crisis of the mid-1980s, and many have the feeling that history is repeating itself. During the Cold War, however, we had various mechanisms for dialogue available. There was a common strategic culture of deterrence. We do not have any of that now, and that is why any incident in Europe or elsewhere could give rise to a major conflict. Putin gives his famous speech during the Security Conference in Munich in 2007. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein) The Munich Security Conference participants were unanimous in seeing significant deterioration of the circumstances for discussing new initiatives for integrated Euro-Atlantic security. Most importantly, trust has been broken completely; without trust, it is hardly possible to build a new security system. Rebuilding trust is a painstakingly difficult process, which even in the best case scenario will take many years. At the same time, neither Russia nor the West have the time to stall cooperation. Therefore, the most practical and productive thing to do right now would be to build cooperation around concrete issues where our interests overlap. And this is precisely what Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov talked about in Munich. Advertisement Combating international terrorism and preventing political extremism are just some of the possible areas of cooperation, as are managing migration flows and solving the refugee problem, strengthening cyber and food security, tackling environmental issues and coordinating positions on climate change. At the latest Munich Security Conference, Russian politicians once again confirmed their willingness to engage in dialogue. And, as before, Russia called for dialogue among equal partners, partners who are ready to listen to one another and take the interests of all sides into account. This is the only approach that will make it possible to lay the foundations for long-term and stable cooperation. Also on WorldPost: Close up of the text VISA on Iran visa stamp in passport Over the past several weeks, Iranian Americans and our friends in the Arab American community have grappled with the reality that, soon, we may face new restrictions on our travel simply because of our heritage. Under a new law passed by Congress, certain dual nationals are now barred from the U.S. Visa Waiver Program and thousands of European dual nationals have been notified that they are no longer welcome to travel to the U.S. visa-free. Because the program is based on reciprocity, the EU and others could soon impose similar restrictions on travel abroad for Americans of Iranian, Iraqi, Sudanese or Syrian descent. Advertisement Why has Congress decided that it is okay to institute a discriminatory program of heritage-profiling against dual nationals, and invited similar discrimination against American citizens based on their national origin or family heritage? At a House hearing last week we got a disturbing answer: we hold "dual loyalties". Jessica Vaughan, a lawyer from the Center for Immigration Studies, testified that Iranian Americans were misguided in their activism against the new law, saying, "if Iranian Americans still want to be Iranian citizens, then they cannot legitimately object when other countries treat them like Iranian citizens who live in Iran." Instead, according to Vaughan, Iranian Americans and other dual nationals deserve to have our rights limited. "The fact is that people who retain more than one nationality are indicating that they have not fully renounced their allegiance to their country of origin despite attaining citizenship in another country," she testified. These remarks are outrageous and should have been rejected by lawmakers at the hearing. The charge of "dual loyalty" is an accusation that has been leveled at immigrant and diaspora communities throughout some of the ugliest moments in this nation's history to justify heinous actions against them--the most notorious example being the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. It has no place as the foundation for U.S. law. The fact is that dual nationality is often not a choice. In the case of Iranian dual nationals, anyone whose father is an Iranian national is considered by that government to also be an Iranian national. Advertisement There are some efforts underway to implement the new law in such a manner that it does not target people who never actively sought out or affirmed their Iranian citizenship. However, any Iranian American who has ever visited Iran--or ever plans to visit Iran--would likely still be considered a dual national because they can only travel to Iran as Iranian citizen on an Iranian passport. There are approximately 900,000 Iranian passports held by Americans according to the Iranian interests section, and a full 88 percent of the roughly 1.5 million Americans of Iranian descent were either born in Iran or travel to Iran according to polling data. All of these Americans are now at risk of having the their U.S. passport treated differently than those of other Americans because of their heritage. Visiting your family in Iran does not connote an "allegiance" to the Iranian government. Being born to an Iranian parent does not make you less of an American. But circumscribing the rights of certain Americans on the basis of their family heritage is profoundly un-American. The promise of United States, whether we are first generation or tenth generation Americans, is that we do not condemn our citizens to a fate decided by their birth--including family heritage. For some this promise was granted when they first stepped on U.S. soil, for others it is a promise that has only been fulfilled through struggle, but it is a promise that is fundamental to America nonetheless. We should have a legitimate conversation about how to keep our country safe. The dual nationals prohibitions in this law would not have targeted either of the San Bernardino killers or blocked any of the 9/11 hijackers from entering the U.S. Even those who fail to grasp the danger of profiling must countenance this fact. Profiling on the basis of national origin or family heritage does not make Americans safer, but it would undermine U.S. protections in place to prevent such discrimination and is an ominous signal of the direction in which we are headed. Advertisement One day [my high school physics teacher, Mr. Bader,] told me to stay after class. "Feynman," he said, "you talk too much and you make too much noise. I know why. You're bored. So I'm going to give you a book. You go up there in the back, in the corner, and study this book, and when you know everything that's in this book, you can talk again." So every physics class, I paid no attention to what was going on with Pascal's Law, or whatever they were doing. I was up in the back with this book: Advanced Calculus, by Woods. Bader knew I had studied Calculus for the Practical Man a little bit, so he gave me the real works-it was for a junior or senior course in college. It had Fourier series, Bessel functions, determinants, elliptic functions-all kinds of wonderful stuff that I didn't know anything about. That book also showed how to differentiate parameters under the integral sign-it's a certain operation. It turns out that's not taught very much in the universities; they don't emphasize it. But I caught on how to use that method, and I used that one damn tool again and again. So because I was self-taught using that book, I had peculiar methods of doing integrals. The result was, when the guys at MIT or Princeton had trouble doing a certain integral, it was because they couldn't do it with the standard methods they had learned in school. If it was a contour integration, they would have found it; if it was a simple series expansion, they would have found it. Then I come along and try differentiating under the integral sign, and often it worked. So I got a great reputation for doing integrals, only because my box of tools was different from everybody else's, and they had tried all their tools on it before giving the problem to me. -Richard Feynman, Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman! [2] German automobiles are renowned for their engineering. However, this fine-tuned ethos of fine-tuning is not reserved to cars. Engineering itself is a German national trait, hard-wired through natural selection's work on the prevailing German zeitgeist, or Ganz Organisiert (totally organized). Along for the evolutionary ride came German philosophy (Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Weber, Heidegger, et. al.) to bring Teutonic precision and wit (at least with Nietzsche) to how one "should" behave. "As I do, so I legislate for others," Kant's categorical imperative implores. No wonder you rarely see a jaywalking German. However, German philosophy - often deliberately impenetrable - suffers from what is common to most marvels of German industry: wondrous overkill and a seeming delight in obfuscation. A question thus invariably comes to mind in contemplating other aesthetically stellar feats of German engineering, from Bosch professional power tools to Porsche engines to the Berlin International Film Festival (or Berlinale): do I really need this ridiculously complicated level of German craftsmanship? Or does something more mundane and human-centered suit my pedestrian needs better? Advertisement Before we get to all that, please indulge me a back story. Back in 1962, my late father owned a Mercedes Benz automobile. He dumped it for a series of Buick Centuries, after I, at the inquisitive age of three, ambled onto our sloping Omaha, Nebraska driveway - where the prized German import sat parked at an angle - and found a way to open the driver's door and pull the emergency brake. The Benz proceeded to roll down the driveway over my right knee, rendering me a bloody screaming mess, as my helpless, hysterical mother watched in horror from the kitchen window. My late father did not buy another German car until almost 20 years later when he purchased "The Ultimate Driving Machine" from John Markel (whose father brought the first of Henry Ford's model Ts to Omaha in the early 1900s). My Dad's black BMW was handsome, with sharp styling and heated leather seats (an innovation of clear value during our cold Nebraska winters). However, the "Bimmer" never consistently worked. It was always in the shop for one intricate repair or another. So, my late dermatologist father, despite his love for Germany and all things German - he served in Wiesbaden for several years after "The War" as part of America's grossly underappreciated German rebuilding effort - returned the BMW to John Markel and didn't procure another German car until many years later. Because of that BMW memory, I never bought a German car either, let alone other aesthetically tantalizing German products that piqued my interest over the years. I just don't need the headache or heartache of a thing so sophisticated in its beauty and engineering that it consistently failed in its core mission. As in love, so in stuff: is it dependably there for me or not? Advertisement Instead, I've been a Japanese car man since offloading, back in 1998, my American-made, Fleetwood Bounder Monkmobile, which suffered from the very starter issue that plagued the identical Fleetwood Bounder mobile meth lab in Breaking Bad. Nevertheless, I have retained my love for Germany, Berlin in particular. Its dour, relentlessly real weather suits me. Though Berliners can be annoyingly officious, parsimonious, and rule-bound, their inherent reserve allows me to purchase a liberating intellectual lebensraum in their presence. While it pains the more emotionally needy and extroverted side of my nature (read: Irish), Berlin's dreary detachment and indomitable order act as a mental colonic that removes distraction and delusion. This absence of noisy cultural intrusion is one of the great pleasures of visiting the richly and darkly historic city, which was "Brooklyn" before there was the loud, hipster-consumerist playpen known as Williamsburg, let alone its west coast doppelganger of Portland. Nevertheless, you will increasingly find in Berlin the same virus plaguing other beloved Monk cities (from San Francisco to New York): American and European "tech bros" running ramshackle over low-tech entrepreneurial diversity, driving up rents and real estate in their inexorable march towards the all-encompassing app. Yet, despite the triumph of "techne" (whose dehumanizing effects the controversial Martin Heidegger obliquely warned his countrymen about), there remains in Berlin an appreciation of the authentic auteur, albeit with an overt bias towards left-leaning auteurs. Though the city's earnest appeasement of every self-identified victim group threatens to reprise the social justice shouting matches ("Black Lives Matter!" "All Lives Matter!") that mar American public discourse in the Obama era, there is a refreshing, heart-warming beauty in Berlin's welcoming embrace of "the other." These better, if naive ("if we are super generous towards Muslims, they won't attacks us"), angels of recent German vintage, plus my memories of my Dad's ill-fated BMW, are foremost in mind as I sit in the baby stroller capital of Pankow, in the redoubt of one Frankie "Two Kids" Foelsch (pioneer of the German fashion trifecta Basecap, Brille undt Bart), reflecting on Berlin's defining cultural event: the annual Berlin International Film Festival (or Berlinale). Advertisement The Berlinale is widely considered - along with Venice, Cannes, Sundance and Toronto - among the five most important film festivals on earth. It is certainly the most ambitious: selling 370,000 tickets to 400 films over its 10-day run (February 11-21). However, as intrepid L.A. film publicist Matt Johnstone (Nakom) reminded me, the Berlinale is really seven festivals - with confusing section names like Panorama, Forum, and Generation that mean nothing to the first-time attendee -- under one giant umbrella. Its astounding variety (from classic retrospectives to Berlin-based talents to Hollywood releases to documentaries to indigenous peoples cinema to shorts to children's movies to surreal Iranian westerns to complex Chilean political dramas) makes for a rich, overstuffed smorgasbord of global cinema. However, it can also make navigating the darn thing a real bear. For starters, my 60 Euro Monk press credential (normally free at any press-respecting festival) was a cold slap in the face. Secondly, one is forced to jockey for space in the under-sized Berlinale pressroom, which was outfitted with desultory PCs and not one Apple computer (hardly a sign of the "creative class" vortex that Berlin aspires to be). Moreover, most screenings require tickets in addition to one's credential. Ascertaining what those ticket-based screenings are (one is handed an inscrutable small sheet with tiny lettering for this purpose), why they are ticket-based, and where to procure these special tickets (not at normal ticket counters!) was hard to ascertain and, like most things at Berlinale, never fully explained. If you just show up at a screening expecting your credential to get you in, you will be told to wait in a special line. After waiting 20 minutes for entry, you will usually be told that there are no seats left, often when there are. As an enterprising American, after a few days you think you have finally it figured out and, thus, decide to only see the tiny sliver of films with a little "P" (for press) next to their names. However, after you are again denied entry, you are told that some of these screenings marked "P" also require a ticket, which you could not possibly have known in advance. Advertisement Say, what?! After repeated setbacks, I finally realized that the Berlinale screening calendar is a deliberately opaque jigsaw puzzle (no surprise that Germany's Bosch bought Scintilla, AG, the Swiss inventor of the electric jigsaw) designed to mercilessly test anyone without a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) degree. Some of the information you desperately need is no doubt found in a protocol document buried deep inside the Berlinale management office. The rest is in the fearsome Berlinale program. However, good luck finding that information at a glance, even with the color-coding and other systems of organization that Berlinale peeps have proudly instituted. If you plead your confusion to a Berlinale staffer, they will invariably respond, "Oh, it's very easy," with crisp annoying gusto. Yes, it's very easy if you have a German brain, which is able to construct elaborate feats of obscurantist engineering, but not to one's midwest American brain, which seeks the least convoluted path to any solution. If you are not the kind of person who likes to study NASA rocket manuals, this labyrinthine process is likely to cause you to blow a gasket, which is probably why the vast bulk of those attending the Berlinale are Berliners. I eventually did blow a gasket after being denied entry to two straight "press lounges," despite my press credential. It turns out, to even enter Berlinale press lounges, one needs a special press credential that one is never told about. Moreover, one needs to ask the Berlinale press office about these special press credentials in advance, though one doesn't even know they exist until one receives a rude and stolid press lounge rejection. To add further insult to the ongoing absurdity, these special press credentials are only given out by the Head of Press, who is conveniently "in a meeting" whenever one arrives to ask her about them. And you thought hard-core S & M died with the Berlin underground sex club scene of the 90s. As if this Orwellian double world inside a Kafka play set on the farthest moon of Jupiter is not sufficient, there's more. Not only is the festival progamme impossible to reconnoiter, there is little attempt to pamper the poor press schmuck whose simple noble intention is to review the films found herein. In fact, the Berlinale is downright hostile to pampering. For a festival of this alleged stature, with such a high level of government and corporate support, there should be locally grown food and drink, of great and sumptuous variety, provided free to filmmakers, press and other VIPs. Nowhere is such an offering on easily accessible display, even though there is a whole section of this year's Berlinale devoted to Kulinarisches Kino (Culinary Cinema). Advertisement Of course, if you are a Syrian refugee, you can get gourmet Mediterranean food - courtesy of Sardinian chef Robert Petza - from a food truck! Allah be praised! In addition, there should be myriad, easily accessible festival-run lounges where film fans, press and filmmakers can kibitz, But the Berlinale organizers abdicated that responsibility to well-heeled corporate sponsors, whom, as I have noted, won't let you in. Ah, yes, that old familiar stench of European elitism: liberal on the outside, classist on the inside. As for genuine parties and after-parties, you have to know someone to be invited, and even then it's near impossible. Zero attempt is made in advance or in person to connect a press person who has flown all the way across the Atlantic to such insider happenings. And good luck trying to get suddenly AWOL Berlin "freunds" to help on this head (it's as if you asked for a private audience with Lucifer). Fortunately, all these deficiencies can be remedied. First, the Berlinale should station an army of multilingual volunteers around the festival epicenter of Potsdamer Platz - though slightly less obstreperous than the Scientology cult members that stalk the area - to help out-of-town guests immediately get their bearings. Not just a single person waiting inside a door at a desk, but, rather, an overt congenial show of proactive support to the people who came from all corners of the globe to the city's signature cultural event. Advertisement Secondly, there should be a festival boot camp for press, where part of an afternoon, over drinks and food, is spent explaining the peculiar way that Berlinale works. To help in this regard, there should be press buddies assigned to foreign press in particular to walk them through the daunting Berlinale matrix. Thirdly, the festival needs to do away with its special ticket insanity. A press person like me wants to sample a variety of films without having to wait in line or even stay for the whole film. The more films I see, the better it is for the festival and those who paid inflated fees to have their films shown (not to mention the extortionate sums paid to publicists to market the films to people like me). Unfortunately, the official Berlinale press screenings often conflict with other screenings. In addition, press screenings are often in the morning, not the most auspicious time for film viewing. It behooves the Berlinale to make it super easy for press to see films throughout the day without a special ticket of any kind. As a filmmaker (Crotty's Kids, Master Debaters), I would rather have ten members of the press at a festival screening than ten regular patrons. To that end, at every screening there should always be at least ten reserved press seats right near the exit (to not disturb non-press filmgoers). Press members should be given carte blanche freedom to quietly come and go to the press seating area. Moreover, if the film does not sell out, and more than ten press members want to attend, they should be allowed to take any other available end seat. If the end seats of the first ten rows were always reserved for press, few would be disturbed when they came and went. Unfortunately, the sort of practical, welcoming spirit is not part of the Berlinale DNA. However, if you are a refugee from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Eritrea and "other crisis regions around the world," that's another matter. As revealed to me by Berlin-based film critic Karsten Kastelan, the Berlinale, through its "sponsored cinema visit" program, gives away free tickets to refugees and goes out of its way to connect said refugees to volunteers so they can find their way to the screenings of their choice. Why is that same level of care not directed towards those who actually paid a tidy sum to fly to the Berlinale? There must be some special victim credential we forgot to pick up. Advertisement Then again, I shouldn't be shocked by such treatment. Germans approach most things - festivals and political problems alike - as feats of social engineering. So why would the Berlinale be any different? The films here run on time. The seat quality is superb, even if the concessions are unoriginal. The projectionists know what they are doing. The bathrooms and common areas are clean and tidy. And, to be fair, it takes a high level of organizational skill to pull off a film festival and film market of this daunting size and breadth without a major hitch. Team Berlinale does it with calm, concise aplomb. As a result, I am certain they feel they've fulfilled their functional duty (the very "standing-reserve" POV that philosopher Martin Heidegger warned his countrymen about), as long as they check off a box for nearly every "socially disadvantaged" minority that could possibly apply to or attend the Berlinale. However, actual care, feeding and comfort, creating a warm and inviting atmosphere where patrons and press from different countries and cultures can casually and calmly discuss film in a friendly, open, nurturing and humane environment, screenings in novel locales, location tours, plus genuine esprit de corps are not things that team Berlinale does well, if it even crosses their mind to do them at all. If you are a person whose idea of a vacation is deciphering a vast cinematic puzzle, then the Byzantine Berlinale is for you. For everyone else, don't even think of wrestling with the ferocious Berlinale bear until management realizes that big is not better, greed is not good, flesh and blood people trump slavish devotion to rules, and doing things in a convoluted, if internally logical, way because "that's how it's always been done" is the enemy of goodwill, common sense, and the intimate, joyful, celebration of global film. James Marshall Crotty is the peripatetic publisher of Monk: The Mobile Magazine, author of How to Talk American (Houghton Mifflin), and director of the urban debate documentary Crotty's Kids. He writes about the intersection of travel, culture, and politics. To learn more, please go to www.jamescrotty.com. The first two months of 2016 have been a deadly period for migrants and refugees making desperate journeys to start a new life in Europe. The UN says 80,000 people arrived by boat during the first six weeks of the year, and more than 400 have died trying to cross the sea, including dozens of children. As senior European politicians meet again tomorrow to discuss the crisis, hundreds more people will likely make the perilous sea-crossing. Despite the worsening winter weather, the numbers are growing, with crossings up 150 per cent up on the same time last year. The dangers don't end on arrival in the EU. Last month in Lesvos, the Red Cross reported that two women and a five-year-old child died of hypothermia. Without action, further tragedy is inevitable. Of the more than one million people who crossed the Aegean and Mediterranean in 2015, most were from countries riven by conflict, poverty and political repression - mainly from Syria and Iraq, but also Afghanistan, Eritrea, Sudan and Nigeria. One in three of the people seeking refuge last year were children, who face unique vulnerabilities on their journey - from drowning, to exploitation and abuse by smuggling gangs, to separation from their parents. Advertisement Only a collective European response can properly protect children caught up in the biggest refugee crisis to face the continent in decades. But as Europe's leaders prepare for their high-level meeting, the signs of such a response are not encouraging. It is almost a year since member states agreed on an agenda for migration which so far has yielded few results. Commitments on relocation, resettlement, funding and 'hotspots' have not been fulfilled. Some member states have stepped up, but many more have not. The European Council meeting in Brussels must not be another wasted opportunity. For any plan to work it must be based on three essential pillars. First, a relocation and resettlement program is needed which prioritizes children - whether traveling unaccompanied or with their families - and other vulnerable groups. This will reduce the incentives for people to undertake dangerous sea crossings, and take the bottom out of the people smugglers' market. Secondly, Europe must make a concerted attempt to tackle the refugee crisis at source. Ultimately, this will require diplomatic efforts towards durable peace agreements in the Middle East and Afghanistan, as well as greater stability in many African countries. But in the near term, Europe must invest more aid in the services and livelihoods children and their families need if they are to see a future for themselves in their regions of origin. At the moment, three million child refugees from Syria and Iraq have dropped out of school, risking a lost generation. The London Syria conference earlier in the month made an important start by committing to get one million of these children into school by the end of 2017. Advertisement Thirdly, a European response needs to recognize our humanitarian obligations to people arriving on our shores, in line with the 1951 Refugee Convention, and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This means properly resourced search and rescue operations in the Aegean and Mediterranean with the mandates of saving all lives. It also requires reception and transit facilities that are equipped for the winter, protect children from sexual abuse and violence. At the moment, the absence of a properly thought-out European plan is creating a vacuum where public unease about an unmanaged crisis has grown, and where governments have resorted to unilateral responses. Some recent steps taken by EU countries, such as plans to seize cash from arriving refugees and placing new restrictions on the rights of families to be reunited, not only risk adding to the misery already faced by refugee children, but also risk poisoning the public mood and raise serious questions about adherence to international law. Europe's response to the current refugee crisis is nothing less than a test of its founding principles, which were cast from the fire of the Second World War. In 1939, on the eve of that continental crisis, Dorothy Buxton, the co-founder of Save the Children, wrote: "Some exercise of constructive imagination in dealing with a problem that involves the lives of millions, and perhaps the fate of Europe, some show of the diviner faith and the humaner principles which perish at the hands of Fascism - how greatly would this raise the hopes of a whole world of tormented and despairing people?" That same ambition and moral clarity is needed now. The solution to the current crisis is not to add obstacles, danger and uncertainty to the journey of some of the world's most vulnerable children, but to plan swiftly and at scale so that European governments and those in countries hosting large numbers of refugees work together to manage the crisis effectively and humanely. The Hunter Valley is one of the more popular Australian wine regions, due in large part to its proximity Sydney (about a 2 hour drive). The area is most famous for two varietals: Shiraz and Semillon. Shiraz, also known as Syrah, is a bold, full-bodied red. Semillon is a white-wine grape that originates in France and is wildly popular Down Under. It's wines range from dry to sweet, and it's often blended with Sauvignon Blanc to take the edge off the acidity, but it stands up beautifully on it's own. A trip to the Hunter Valley is an excellent way to acquaint yourself with both of these varieties. When planning a wine tour in another country, it can be tough to decide what's worthwhile and what should be skipped. Here's a list of the best, both for ambiance and for the wine. This winery has a stunning view overlooking the rolling hills and vines of the Hunter Valley. Their more recent vintages haven't been award-winning, but they regularly turn out impressive Shiraz. If nothing else, book in for lunch at the onsite restaurant Bistro Molines, if only to spend a little more time with that beautiful view. Advertisement Pokolbin Estate Perhaps the best thing about this cellar door is the overwhelming amount of choice when it comes to tasting. There were well over 20 options in the tasting room -- the hardest part was narrowing down the choices! But the gourmet food shop also gets high marks, with a vast array of uniquely Aussie treats that make great gifts or souvenirs. These wine producers are newer to the Australian wine scene, but they make some truly delicious vino. The Reserve Shiraz and Wild Semillon are not to be missed. The tasting room is a homey, friendly place (in a former schoolhouse!) where you usually get direct access to the people making the wine. Their passion is evident as they explain each taste they pour. Buy a case! This winery regularly receives top marks in the picturesque category, and for good reason. Set against the backdrop of the Brokenback Mountain range, it overlooks acres of vines and a pretty pond. You can even stay at the vineyard in one of two onsite cottages. Audrey Wilkinson Semillon regularly receives awards, so try as many as you can. Sometimes, you find a winemaker who speaks directly to your soul. This was Brokenwood Wines for me. I hardly found a taste I didn't like, and I probably maxed out my credit card purchasing bottle after bottle. The cellar door is in a central location in the Hunter Valley, which makes it an easy stop on any tour. Some of my favorites: 2013 Mistress Block Shiraz, 2013 Wade Block II Shiraz, and 2013 Indigo Shiraz and Pinot Noir. Advertisement The Small Winemakers Centre If you enjoy one-stop-shopping and hidden gems, be sure to put this tasting room on your list. In a central location (very close to Brokenwood, in fact), this center caters to winemakers with operations that are too small to justify their own cellar door. The staff are friendly and knowledgeable, and more than six small wineries are represented. Human Rights Watch released a report last week confirming allegations that Saudi Arabia had used American-made cluster bombs banned by international treaty fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen and that this use may have also violated American law. The report included photographs showing unexploded but potentially lethal bomb fragments which are likely to cripple and maim in the years to come. The blowback likely to come from these operations should compel the public to question American priorities in the Middle East including its long-standing alliance with Saudi Arabia. In November, the Obama administration's State Department concluded a $1.29 billion arms deal with the Saudis, building off a record $60 billion deal in 2010 which was the biggest in American history up to that point. The deals went forward in spite of Saudi Arabia being ruled by what one journalist has called a "totalitarian theocratic gerontocracy," in which a small clique loots all the wealth and represses social and political rights. According to the State Department's own assessment, the Saudi regime restricts universal rights such as freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, association, movement and religion, and promotes "torture" in overcrowded prisons where there is a denial of due process. In January, the Saudi regime gained publicity for executing 47 people for terrorism including a leading Shia cleric. A blogger was previously sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison, and his lawyer to fifteen years. Advertisement The Saudi regime subscribes to the Wahhabist religious faith, whose strictures it has long sought to export. According to a 2009 cable from Secretary of Hilary Clinton revealed by Wikileaks, Saudi donors constitute "the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide." Following the Arab Spring, the Saudis sent the National Guard to crush a Shia uprising in Bahrain against the Al-Khalifa ruling dynasty, and with Pakistan, was among three key governments to support the Taliban in Afghanistan. As part of its aggressive foreign policy, the Saudis also backed the Al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front and possibly the Islamic State in Syria. Saudi nationals angered by America's stationing of military bases on Muslim Holy Ground near Medina and Mecca meanwhile constituted 15 of the nineteen hijackers on 9/11 and Saudi money may have helped pay for bin Osama bin Laden's move to Sudan in the early 1990s and contributed to the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO) which supported Sunni terrorists in Southeast Asia, Chechnya, Kenya and Bosnia. So as to not embarrass its ally, the CIA and FBI agents protected from investigations Saudi nationals implicated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and even alleged hijackers on 9/11 (Khalid al-Midhar and Nawafal-Hazmi), who may have received funds indirectly from the Saudi embassy in Washington according to researcher Peter Dale Scott. The American Saudi alliance dates back to the 1933 signing of a U.S.-oil concession agreement that enabled the growth of the Arabian-American Oil Company (Aramco) into a global petroleum power. The broker of the deal, British spy-agent Harry Philby (father of KGB defector Kim), had helped Ibn Saud and his Wahhabi Brotherhood consolidate their kingdom after World War I. In 1943, Franklin Roosevelt agreed to guarantee Saudi Arabia's defense. Standard Oil and the Texas Oil Company (both part of the ARAMCO conglomerate), as Richard Dreyfuss wrote in Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam, convinced FDR to tell Britain's Lord Halifax: "Persian oil is yours. We share the oil of Kuwait and Iraq, but Saudi Arabian oil, its ours." In 1973, to create more demand for the U.S. dollar, the Nixon administration convinced the Saudis to demand payment for all oil sales in American dollars. The U.S. in turn financed the Saudi National Guard under the cover of police training programs and hired private mercenary companies like Vinnell Corporation, which in 1979 provided the tactical support needed by the Saudi Princes to put down a leftist rebellion and recapture the Grand Mosque at Mecca. In return for continuous cheap access to oil, the Clinton administration in the 1990s sold the Saudis 1,500 Raytheon AIM-9L missiles (CIA Director John Deutch sat on Raytheon's Board), 700 laser-guided bombs and some of the Textron BU-97 cluster bombs used over a decade later in Yemen, setting the groundwork for even more expansive arms deals under Bush and Obama. These deals included the transfer of F-15 fighters and missiles, naval warships and Apache and Seahawk helicopters. Advertisement The U.S.-Saudi alliance is emblematic of the corruption of money in politics and perils associated with America's dependence on imported fossil fuels. CIA agent Robert Baer put it best when he subtitled his book "How Washington Sold Its Soul for Saudi Crude." Times, however may be changing. The Bernie Sanders campaign has galvanized opposition to special interest control over politics while championing a clean energy revolution which would make the U.S.-Saudi alliance obsolete in the coming years. In his stump speeches and debates, Sanders should bring up Saudi Arabia and the double-standards associated with U.S. foreign policy there more. He should match-up his support for clean energy and a reduction in military spending with calls for a strategic reset in which the United States will stop providing high-tech weapons banned under international law to states which contribute to regional destabilization and promote terrorism. Chevalier is not a place where you'll be presented with six sea salts or seven knives, nor is it a place where the clientele all look like they reluctantly drifted down from their hotel rooms. Indeed, when I dined there after a rough snowfall the night before, everyone from tall, slinky Asian models to young businessmen and women occupied most of the room, comforted by the banquettes, the soft carpet and the pearly cast of the walls. The ceiling is a little too high, perhaps, but the openness of the room and just the right number of seats, 70, preceded by an elegant bar, add in grandeur what it lacks in intimacy. One NYC restaurant critic called Chevalier "both expensive and ambitious." Shea Gallante is certainly guilty of the latter--his is some of the most exciting food in the city right now--but the charge of being expensive shouldn't need explaining for the level of elegance, table settings, design, wine list and staff you find here. In fact, the prices at Chevalier are considerably below La Grenouille's $138 for three courses, Daniel's $142 for four, and Le Bernardin's $147 for four, with Chevalier's dinner appetizers $22-$29 and entrees $38-$44--this at a time when a dreary brick-walled Greenwich Village haunt like Carbone is selling baked clams for $21 and veal parm for $55. At Chevalier you can have a beautifully served three-course meal for about $72, which includes those gougeres and an amuse (which on the night I visited was hamachi), and mignardises at evening's end. The appetizers are among the most interesting I've seen in a while. Pork belly is braised with baby spinach (all the way from New Zealand, for some reason), pickled mushrooms and a citrusy tom yum broth to cut the meat's fattiness. Raw Nantucket bay scallops made a rare appearance this season with bergamot grapefruit, hot yuzu kosho aioli and Japanese ash salt, each element with just enough flavor to buoy the delicacy of the scallops. Hudson Valley foie gras ($29) was cooked perfectly, not mushy inside but resilient to the touch of a fork, with a Sauternes gelee, almonds, huckleberry, buckwheat and carob molasses, which added up to too much sweetness. Wild mushrooms were pleasingly roasted for a salad with white sturgeon caviar (from a small producer in Austria), bok choy and Napa cabbage emulsion. Dungeness crab, black sea bass and bouchot mussels came with a classic, ruddy bouillabaisse sauce ($46). Very light, fluffy sheep's milk ricotta gnocchi took on the flavors of spicy tomato and fennel, with a sauce of octopus and Calabrian pepper made in the style of a Bolognese ($24), with the octopus working as the protein in the sauce. In restaurants of Chevalier's caliber appetizers often outshine the main courses, but every one of the entrees I tasted was at the same high standard with what preceded them. Lobster was gently poached in fine butter and came with braised artichokes, ricotta gnudi pasta and a reduction of lobster jus ($42). Gallante suggested a thick veal loin be cooked medium-rare, which I agreed with, though that night it was far closer to very rare, which is not ideal for veal, but there were woodsy enhancements like aligot, in which parsnips replace potato pureed and folded into Raclette cheese, with charred shallots and chanterelles ($36). I had no such reservations about the rareness of superb Colorado rack and loin of lamb with Cantellucio lentils, sweet baby carrots and braised lamb belly ($44), which is as sumptuous a dish for a long winter's night as you'll find in town. Both roasted Brussels sprouts with bacon and potatoes gratin dauphinois ($12 each) were impossible to resist ordering. Chevalier has acquired one of NYC's most respected patissiers in David Carmichael, formerly at Gilt and Oceana, and his creativity is at its height here. His beignets ($16) are filled with crabapple marmalade, rolled in cinnamon sugar, a 'liquid' pie crust--pastry blended with a simple syrup and tempered with white chocolate to make it into a spreadable form; it is then lavished with creme Chantilly and apple sorbet, a sweet masterpiece. And even if it went over the top in richness ($16), the sticky toffee of date pudding cake, dulce cremeaux, banana gelato and almond tuille was fantastic. Wine Director Jeff Taylor, stocks a wine cellar with an appropriate number of labels--700--for a restaurant of Chevalier's refinement. The whole team here is among the cream of the crop. As I've had reason to mention more than once, the NYC food media seem to delight in insisting that people no longer want to dine at Chevalier's level of sophistication, but the continued entry of new restaurants like Gabriel Kreuther, Vaucluse, La Chine, Batard, Betony, Juni and others belies such ignorant pronouncements. At least in NYC. But that's why NYC is NYC. The FBI's demand that Apple break into a private email account is one more unacceptable government attempt to expand the already huge police state that Americans have accepted since 9/11. It is a worm that ultimately will destroy the apple, then eat away at the entire tree--until finally obliterating the orchard. It smacks of Stalinism and the Orwellian nightmare. In my just-released book, The New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, I discuss in great detail how much worse things have become since the original Confessions of an Economic Hit Man was published in 2004. The treacherous cancer beneath the surface of the federal government's infringement on personal privacy has metastasized. Economic hit men (EHM), and the jackals who step in to assassinate leaders or overthrow governments when the EHM fail, have spread from the economically developing countries to the United States and the rest of the world. These pernicious attacks rock the very foundations of democracy and the planet's information-based systems. The EHM and jackal system, based primarily on debt and fear, is even more treacherous now than it was when I first wrote about it twelve years ago. The EHMs and jackals have radically expanded their ranks and adopted new disguises and tools. And we in the United States have been "hit" badly. The entire world has become a target. We teeter on the edge of disaster -- economically, politically, socially, and environmentally. It's time to fight back. The jackals, like those in the FBI who are pressuring Apple, were once only assigned to foreign lands. That has changed. In the aftermath of 9/11, fear drove Americans to agree to sacrifice privacy and freedom and give the NSA, the CIA, the FBI, and other agencies unprecedented powers. Tools perfected overseas, including drones and surveillance aircraft, are now used to spy on us in the United States. The FBI and other government agencies, aided by their allies in the media, hammer us with messages that terrify us into believing that we must pay any price, and assume any debt, to stop the enemies who, we are told, lurk at our doorsteps. The problem comes from somewhere else: insurgents; terrorists; "them." And, its solution requires spending massive amounts of money on goods and services produced by what I call the corporatocracy -- vast networks of corporations, banks, colluding governments, and the rich and powerful people tied to them. We go deeply into debt, our country and its financial henchmen at the World Bank and its sister institutions coerce other countries to go deeply into debt. Debt enslaves us and it enslaves those countries. Advertisement Documents released by US federal authorities in response to a Freedom of Information lawsuit reveal that at least sixty-three drone sites, located in twenty states, were active in the United States as of 2012. Many were operated by soldiers and were deployed from stateside military installations. Others were manned by law enforcement agencies and the US Border Patrol. Some, if not all, are designed to assassinate people. In June 2015, the Associated Press reported that the FBI has a "small air force with scores of low-flying planes across the US carrying video and, at times, cellphone surveillance technology--all hidden behind fictitious companies that are fronts for the government." The article went on to say that these flights are usually conducted without a judge's approval and that "in a recent 30-day period, the agency flew above more than 30 cities in 11 states across the country." Furthermore, the NSA monitors about 200 million text messages each day and has surreptitiously planted spy software in some one-hundred thousand computers, allowing it access to the information in those computers. Now, it insists that Apple assist it in going deeper into the nefarious world of destroying our rights to privacy. The ability and willingness of the corporatocracy to spy on our every movement and to take action -- including imprisonment without habeas corpus, or assassination when we do anything perceived as a threat to its greed-driven power -- is virtually unlimited. And, totally undemocratic. Its lobbyists own our elected officials. Its special operations teams conduct illegal assassinations. Its low-flying pilots and robot jackals monitor our phone and Internet conversations. Advertisement All of this is part of the corporatocracy's determination to do whatever it deems necessary to maintain control. As a college president, I continue to be concerned about the business model of higher education, along with rising costs and debt loads. At the same time, I am equally focused on assuring that the return on investment (ROI) when choosing to pursue a college education is worth the cost, and that the ROI benefits not only the graduates themselves but also the communities where they live and work. All of which begs a few questions. Should we expect more of a college education than a piece of paper and a job? Should we expect more of our graduates? My answer is an emphatic "yes" to both. I talk often of Centre College's vision to serve students by preparing them for extraordinary lives of work and service. Increasingly, I add to this aspiration that they be citizen-leaders who see their lives as an adventure -- and on a global level. Advertisement Since our student body is international and an average 85 percent of our students study abroad, I encourage them all to be proud of their respective nations, all the while understanding that their lives will involve crossing borders of language and culture. We hope that after four years of study and travel, Centre graduates are able to approach these adventures with confidence, sensitivity and maturity. This is a tall order for sure. However, I believe this outlook is necessary for success in a world that seems to grow smaller at the same time that it grows more complex. Sadly, the context for this viewpoint has grown increasingly urgent with the rise of those men and women who chose to do evil on such a sinister and devastating scale. Our nation and the ever-more-connected world is demanding men and women who face -- unafraid and undaunted -- the challenge of understanding and respecting different languages, cultures and faith traditions. Advertisement Citizen-leaders in all walks of life who have had experience with this kind of difference through study abroad provide an important foundation to meet this demand. Even more, those students who have been part of an educational community of teacher-scholars who have encouraged and guided them in discovering how they can fit and lead and serve in such situations are in an even stronger position to succeed. So it is that Centre College decided some many years ago, in 2002, to take the lead in preparing its students for lives of work and service on a global level. Our Centre Commitment -- which guarantees graduation in four years, at least one study abroad experience and an opportunity for an internship or undergraduate research -- is now in its 13th year, and we have clear evidence that our attempt to create an educational culture that encourages and launches young people in this planned-for direction has been and is successful. As such, it is not accidental that Centre's study abroad program is regularly selected as the best in the nation. Neither is it accidental that our students compete successfully for postgraduate awards that take them to work experiences outside these United States. But even more than rankings accolades is the satisfaction gained when I talk to our alumni, whether they've graduated recently or in decades past, about how this educational focus on citizen leadership has had an impact for good. I am delighted to hear similar stories from fellow college presidents across the nation about sister institutions large and small, public and private. Centre College will continue to be a place that takes measured risk with the academic program on a global level so that our students -- those from Kentucky and our nation and, increasingly, from around the world -- are offered an intellectual experience focused on rigor and performance and creativity for a greater good. Advertisement Bernie himself did not give a target number for the prison population, but the negative assessments are based on a simple calculation: America incarcerates 2.3 million people and China, the world's second biggest jailer, has locked up about 1.66 million. Therefore, they assume that Bernie is planning to free around 600,000 prisoners in 5 years. The problem, the journalists point out, is that only 200,000 of the US's 2.2 million prisoners are in federal prison. Since the President has relatively little control over inmates in state prisons and local jails, Bernie could not possibly keep his promise. Slate's Leon Neyfakh suggests that: "If Sanders wants to release more than 500,000 people by 2020, he's going to have to break them out personally. If he has a more efficient approach in mind, he needs to share it before he makes this ridiculous promise again." Advertisement Yet, Neyfakh and his compatriots should hold off on the ridicule. Although the World Prison Brief does provide an estimate of 1.66 million prisoners in China, there is a major caveat: "in addition to the sentenced prisoners, more than 650,000 were held in detention centers in China [as of 2009]. If this was still correct in mid-2014 the total prison population in China was more than 2,300,000." So, US and Chinese prison statistics are actually pretty comparable. In the US, about 1.26 million people are in state prisons with another 196,000 people in federal prison. That means the US prison population of 1.47 million is actually a little smaller than that of China, which has around 1.66 million people in its Ministry of Justice prisons. Then there are those locked up in jails, generally people awaiting trial or serving a short sentence. In the US that would add about another 745,000 inmates, raising the total to just over 2.2 million. The equivalent number in China is unknown. But, in 2009 China reportedly had 650,000 in its detention centres, so the Prison Brief's estimate of 2.3 million is not a bad place to start. Estimated Incarcerated Population by Type, China and US in 2015 Sources: World Prison Brief, UN Human Rights Council, Yardley (2005), Seymour (2005). Advertisement We can do some back of the envelope calculations to estimate the total population in non-prison detention in China. If we 1) trust estimates that RTL held 190,000 people in 2009, 2) assume that the RTL's drug users (approx. 33%) and political prisoners (approx. 7.5%) are still in detention in some form and that 3) the rest of the detention system has followed the prison population in a slight (approx. 2%) decrease, then perhaps 526,000 people are non-prison detention. This means a rough estimate of 2.18 million Chinese behind bars. Following these estimates, President Bernie would only need to reduce the prison population by a, very doable, 20,000 to fulfil his promise. Frankly, all of this is a bit silly. Sanders may well have not considered the exact numbers and given the opacity of Chinese detention statistics we would probably never really know if he was able to keep his promise or not. Additionally, absolute numbers of inmates is probably a less-useful statistic than the per-capita incarceration rate. Nevertheless, prison reform and reducing America's sky-high prison population is clearly a worth goal, which has finally achieved some level of bipartisan support. Making a poor statistical assumption to make Bernie's support for prison reform look delusional seems unnecessary at best and malicious at worst. There is a more fundamental issue at play, however, and one that is close to my heart as a Comparative Political Scientist. American political discourse needs to recognize that politics and policy is as diverse and complex in rest of the world as it is in the US. Bernie suggests the US could learn from Scandinavia. Trump assures us that "China is laughing at us". Hilary says "America is the only country in the developed world that doesn't guarantee paid leave." Cruz claims that "socialized medicine is a disaster" in the countries that have it. Such statements should be carefully analyzed with full consideration given to the complex realities that exist in other countries. This means, of course, that journalists, pundits, and voters might need to bone up on the rest of the world. But this would be a good thing. The United States may be unique in many ways, but it is not so different that is cannot learn from other countries. One final thought: there have been many delusional promises made on the campaign trail this season, so let's reserve the label for those that really deserve it. The very public drama that unfolded at Wheaton College over the past few months revealed stark divisions within the evangelical community, and how they view the responsibility for living in Christ's footsteps. Even more poignantly, it revealed some truths about more widespread societal divides that ripple far beyond Wheaton. At the heart of the conflict was the first tenured, female African-American professor at a highly regarded evangelical Christian school, Professor Larycia Hawkins. Two months ago, she posted a statement on Facebook to stand in solidarity with Muslims after the San Bernardino slaughter. In addition to wearing a hijab (the head covering that many Muslim women wear) during Advent, she described Christians and Muslims as worshiping "the same God." Almost immediately, she was placed on administrative leave from Wheaton, triggering a heated debate and the initiation of termination proceedings. The college community split, arguing whether Hawkins' actions and words had violated the faith statement that she (and all faculty and students) sign as a condition of involvement with the school. That statement reflects the institution's theological convictions, including belief in the holy trinity, and signature is a requirement of employment. Even today, Hawkins maintains that her personal Facebook post fit within the school's statement of faith. Advertisement The Hawkins-Wheaton controversy raised multiple issues starting with a theological debate, but also including charges of Islamophobia, racism and gender bias. Then, last week, the widely debated dispute ended with a "mutual agreement" that the professor and the institution part ways. A joint decision had been made and whether it was right or wrong is now a question for the Wheaton community to unravel. For those of us outside the Wheaton drama, however, there is a lot to learn. That is, if we pay attention to the lessons it can teach. In particular, Wheaton reminds us that religious diversity is not limited to the different traditions that exist in the world. It is also within traditions - and reflected in those who share an affiliation and even attend the same house of worship - but who do not share identical beliefs. Wheaton reminds us of this truth, by dramatically proving that evangelical Christians are not a monolith, but rather, a complex and diverse group of people. Ultimately, the school was unable to speak with one voice because, even in a small religious community, there is no such thing. Intuitively, we know this. But Wheaton proves that among evangelical Christians there are those who stand in solidarity with others in particular ways, and others who believe those types of solidarity nullify their faith. For the many Americans who view evangelicals through one lens, Wheaton reminds us that such stereotypes have no basis in reality. And that no one person can speak for an entire group. After all, though they parted amicably, Professor Hawkins and Wheaton's President Ryken are both evangelical Christians. And they disagree on what it means to put the school's foundational creed into practice. Advertisement Wheaton's lessons don't stop there. Another is that identity matters. Sixty years ago, the Wheaton controversy would predictably have centered on one question, whether Christians and Muslims "worship the same God." It would have been a purely theological inquiry, a debate for clergy and academics. Today this theological question remains important at Wheaton, but equally important (if not more so) is the role of identity. There, questions of Muslim identity and how evangelical Christians can properly stand in solidarity with them exploded, along with questions about racism and gender bias. None of us can say with certainty whether Islamophobia played a part in Wheaton's decision to sever ties with Professor Hawkins. We can, however, say with confidence that given our current climate, this question matters. Anti-Muslim rhetoric and suspicion of all Muslims pervades the media (even though there is great diversity with Islam, too). Professor Hawkins knew this, of course, when she posted her comment. Her aim was to show solidarity with Muslims during a time when many people stereotype the entire community, fail to acknowledge diversity within Islam, and instead, lay blame at the feet of an entire religion. As we consider Wheaton, therefore, it is legitimate to ask whether Islamophobia helped drive the admin-istration's decisions. Wheaton's faculty diversity committee also opposed the move to fire Hawkins, claiming it was discriminatory based on her race and gender. Again, none of us really know the motivating factors, but these challenges need answers. After all, Professor Hawkins was the first tenured Black female professor. So we should ask, what would have happened if she had been a white male? Would she have been suspended so quickly? Would a termination proceeding have been considered? We have passed the point when this story could have been "just" about theology. It is inevitably about identity as well - just like so many other stories in the media. A third lesson involves questions of Christian identity, and the experience of being an evangelical Christian in the U.S. today. Simply, the Wheaton controversy suggests the isolation that many Christians feel today. This may not sound right to those who think of the U.S. as a Christian majority nation, which it is. After all, the majority of Americans (about 71%, according to Pew) affiliate with some form of Christianity. And that has resulted in our society often following Christian norms such as closing most businesses on Christmas (an example of a phenomenon sometimes described as "default Christianity," which privileges the practices of Christians over Americans of other faiths or no faith). But does all that mean that Christians do not face bias and discrimination in the U.S.? The answer is no. In fact, in Tanenbaum's Survey of American Workers and Religion, almost half of white evangelical Protestants surveyed had personally experienced or actually seen religious bias or non-accommodation affect a colleague at work. This is at the same rate as people in minority religious traditions within the U.S. Additionally, 40% of white evangelical Protestants report that they face "a lot" of discrimination in American society. To those who are skeptical of these numbers (not of the data's validity but of the sentiment behind it), I invite you to think differently and try to sit with the fact that many evangelical Protestants at the very least, have the experience of discrimination. This is real. Many Christians in America, and certainly many evangelicals, feel under attack. Certainly, this sense of isolation, division and being victimized is not unique to evangelical Christians. What is important to understand, however, is that they are among those who can feel alienated in our society. And this is likely to persist, especially as the rates of affiliation continue to decline (while the numbers of Americans who affiliate with non-Christian traditions, or no tradition at all, rise, according to Pew). I am delighted when I have an aha moment. It's double joy when it relates to connecting with people. I found my moment in Joe Gebbia's TED talk. He is a co-founder of Airbnb, a company that ushers hospitality industry into our own homes using apps. As he was walking to take center stage on the red TED carpet, my thoughts raced on making a checklist on what to expect. He would likely try to make it interesting, inspiring and engaging. There are a couple of conventional choices he would likely employ -- sharing his personal journey that mirrors the growth of Airbnb, he would likely share the future vision, peppering it with some impressive statistics in line with Airbnb "unicorn" status. As I listened to him, I smiled. I was checking off the items created in my own mental game. Then, he surprised me with a wonderful zinger - a wonderful learning moment for me. Advertisement What Joe Gebbia did that surprised me? He asked the audience to pull out our phones (I was watching at a remote live location). He urged us to unlock our phones which many of us gingerly followed. Next, he asked us to give our phone to the person sitting to our left. There was a perceptible pause before we followed through. At that moment, he shared the challenge his business faced. He was in the business of urging people to share their personal space - their homes with strangers. Without losing a beat, in that moment of feeling, he thanked his loyal hosts who opened their homes to unknown guests - the heart of smashing success of Airbnb as a recognizable name. Using props is an age-old, sage advice - a great example being a TED talk by the author of Power of Introverts, Susan Cain. Her famous prop was a bag full of books she carried on stage. She talked about it but never opened it - creating a curiosity quotient which served to pull in her audience. Involve your audience is another well- articulated advice that is heard often. What was remarkable about the simple act of Joe, he fused the two to create a multiplier effect - a prop that each member of audience personally owned! He did not just engage the audience; he made us feel his business challenge - what it means to share a personal belonging - as personal as our cell phone, unlocked. Right after the feeling moment, he gave me a thinking aha. He posed a question along these lines, "If you know a bit more about the person on the left before sharing your phone, would you it make it easier to share? How much more?" In his business, sharing just the right amount by the guest as an introduction to the host was key. And the "just right" design of the text box inside Airbnb app that held that critical information was instrumental in building trust. He masterfully brought me back to his area of expertise - design. Advertisement When he connected my dots that design can build trust, it appealed to my left brain. I knew that design and trust are important. The aha was when I could feel that design and trust could be interrelated. What does the aha from a TED talk got to do with content in General? An engaging written content has more degrees of freedom than a talk. The writer can write at his pace, the reader can read at their comfortable speed. Unlike a talk, the personal props are not restricted to the ones people carry. Unlike a visual prop, the writer can describe the prop and the reader can imagine it from their own experience, in their own voice. Everything else correlates. Truckloads of material are available on content marketing. Joe's simple act with audience cell phone personifies the heart of content marketing at its best - invoke feelings that people can relate, thank them in context and provide an aha that holistically excites the audience. In Summary I thank my friends at TEDx Houston for hosting the event live at Station Houston's shack. #TED2016. Co-authored by Robert Steinglass, Immunization Team Leader, Maternal and Child Survival Program Kenya; courtesy of Ronald Dangana/MCHIP At month's end, African health and finance ministers will meet in Ethiopia for the Ministerial Conference on Immunization in Africa. Alongside technical experts and policymakers, their focus will be expanding access to vaccines, knowing 1 in 5 African children still don't receive all necessary immunizations. For the public health community, this must be a watershed moment for ending the 1.5 million vaccine-preventable child deaths that still occur annually. But how can we be sure what's decided at the conference is carried forward? How can we make the most of this historic opportunity? To start, we must keep three things in mind: I. Children aren't dying because effective interventions don't exist. Ghana; courtesy of Kate Holt/Jhpiego They're dying because these interventions are not readily available for all. To dramatically reduce child mortality, we must achieve high and equitable coverage year after year. Advertisement Ensuring potent vaccine is administered safely, uniformly, effectively, and affordably in a timely manner before exposure to disease; in a timely manner before exposure to disease; Engaging communities and civil society as allies for joint identification and solving of problems, local ownership, and customized solutions; and for joint identification and solving of problems, local ownership, and customized solutions; and Assuring immunization continues to function in the context of changing health systems, such as decentralization and privatization. Global progress has been remarkable in the four decades since WHO launched the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI): coverage now exceeds 80 percent among infants in many countries. However, this progress has also been uneven and masks great inequities among and within countries. Today, 29 percent of deaths of children aged 1-59 months remain vaccine-preventable. Our success depends heavily on reaching those most in need. II. Good health is good politics. Malawi; courtesy of Kate Holt/Jhpiego Keeping people healthy is a country's first line of defense. And while there's a natural desire to focus on diseases, we can't reduce mortality, or eliminate or eradicate diseases if we don't have a strong underlying system to deliver vaccinations. But vaccines don't deliver themselves. A robust routine immunization system functioning within the health system is required to achieve and sustain our ambitious goals. Despite this, routine vaccination services get scant financial support from large global initiatives. Advertisement Countries must now step up to the plate as they graduate from GAVI assistance and increase ownership of their programs by covering recurring operational costs at all levels to run immunization services, as well as costs for both traditional and newer vaccines. As Patrick Lydon et al point out: "The findings... clearly highlight the need for substantial front-loaded investment beyond the vaccines themselves if the goals established for this decade are to be met." III. We must worry about sustainability now, not later. Nigeria; courtesy of Karen Kasmauski/MCSP We know that immunization programs must be designed from the start and implemented with sustainability in mind. However, too often when major global initiatives are launched, sustainability is overlooked during rapid start up and the drive for accelerated, short-term successes. Reaching the unreached can't be the next generation's problem. We know the "unimmunized" and "under-immunized" are disproportionately concentrated among marginalized populations and in the lowest wealth quintiles. Forty-plus years since EPI launched -- and more than halfway through the Decade of Vaccines -- more than 21 million infants still miss basic vaccines and routine immunization services every year. At USAID's flagship Maternal and Child Survival Program (MCSP), we provide focused technical assistance to strengthen countries' routine immunization systems in Africa and Asia and prepare them for the smooth and successful introduction of new, lifesaving vaccines. We use customized approaches to meet individual country needs, and implement innovative ways to reach the underserved with services by adapting the Reaching Every District approach to Reaching Every Community. If you are active on Twitter, it's likely that you have probably seen @XLNB retweeted across your timeline or featured on the twitter moments page. When you click on his page, you can find Xavier Burgin's most popular Twitter stories. Many people try to tell hilarious stories on twitter, but few are able to gain both viral recognition and an interactive fan base from these stories. Photo courtesy of Xavier Burgin Burgin has been able to do both. These stories usually come late at night when Twitter is quiet, but the story is only a fragment of the event. Followers of Burgin virtually gather around, cling to every word and even comment on the story while Burgin is firing these tweets off. "That means so much to me. " said Burgin. "First and foremost, I love creating and making people laugh, and it truly blows my mind that I've built an audience from telling these funny, subversive stories. I'm unbelievably happy. " These stories come second nature to Burgin, who is often a character in these adventures. Burgin has been storytelling ever since his days as a young boy in Mississippi. This interest in storytelling and eventually filmmaking landed him at the USC's School of Cinematic Arts, where he earned a Master's in TV & Film Production. At USC, Burgin was one of a few students to be blessed with the opportunity to have his movie project "Olde E" (Written By Tiara Marshall) completely funded by the school. "Olde E was my biggest, and most extensive film to date." Said Burgin "It explores the dynamics of parenthood, hyper-masculinity, brotherhood, and the relationships men of color build as family and friends." When Burgin isn't telling stories, he's using his platform of 37,000+ followers to start conversations on political, social, racial and gender issues. Advertisement Sidenote: Do you, as a black person, identify more with your nationality, ethnicity, or race? This Q is not limited to American black ppl. X (@XLNB) February 16, 2016 "What I think is most important, even beyond stories or my career, is using my platform to educate. I have a lot of black and non-black POC followers. " said Burgin. "They need to see empowerment and uplift. I have a lot of women followers, and they deserve to see a man speaking up to other men about problem. I also have a significant amount of white followers, and they need to see perspectives they are generally never taught in school or by the people around them." While being a Twitter storyteller isn't a paying gig, Burgin's stories are starting to pay off career-wise. Burgin is constantly in talks with many major companies about projects that he can't yet disclose. "The Twitter stories have definitely put me on the map in a good amount of eyes." said Burgin. "The majority of my meetings with studios or production companies have been directly related to the Twitter stories. That's the truly amazing thing about social media." Advertisement In the short term, Burgin is focusing on numerous projects. Submitting his work to film festivals and even creating a TV Pilot. As for Burgin's ultimate goal? "The ultimate goal is working as a writer/director in films and creating television either as a writer and/or showrunner." Said Burgin. That's the professional answer. The creative answer? I want to be happy. I'm happy when I'm telling stories. " For more on Xavier Burgin. Check out my podcast interview with him here. You find all of Burgin's stories in the Twitter thread below. During my 20 years in high-tech sales and marketing, I have achieved many goals, developed many strategies, experienced many successes, and learned many lessons. Much of this can be attributed to a constantly growing knowledge of how to manage and maximize my network. Especially in the past decade, our world has witnessed an explosion in the role social media plays in our daily, personal, and professional lives. While I do enjoy Facebook as a vehicle for the daily and personal aspects, my main tool for professional interaction is LinkedIn, and I work diligently to avoid excessive and unnecessary overlap between the two platforms. Additionally, I find it vital to retain and update contact information of clients and colleagues, past, present, and potential. Responsibly utilizing my network certainly plays an incredibly important part in my career. As a rule, I don't connect with anyone on LinkedIn whom I don't personally know. While I have more than 500 contacts and receive an average of four to six invitations per week, I am careful not to connect with people who are simply fishing for more connections. In order to maintain and grow your own brand, be careful not to dilute it with people whom you don't know or who are not aligned to you professionally. To be a truly valuable contributing member to a growing organization, it is in your best interest to have a network of professionals who touch your part of the business. I have many channel-sales and marketing professionals in my network, but I also engage with individuals from other functional areas of the business in human resources, finance, legal, operations, and engineering. As long as I've worked with them directly, I want them in my network to help growing companies recruit quality personnel in any functional area. Advertisement In addition to communicating via LinkedIn and other electronic vehicles, I challenge myself to call and meet as many members of my network as possible, whether while I'm traveling or at home. My personal goal is to have six to 10 direct touches each month with my closest connections. Some of these contacts might bridge the personal/professional boundary, but there has to be a professional aspect to the relationship. Having drinks with my two BFFs doesn't qualify. When I'm working at a company that is on a hiring binge, that number can easily reach 20 per month. Sure, it takes time and effort to spend 30 minutes on the phone or getting coffee, but the return is undeniably positive. For example, I recently ran into a former colleague at an airport, and after exchanging "Hello's," he exclaimed, "I was just talking about you!" This represents the fruits of personal connection. If you want to improve your brand and be considered excellent at networking, you have to do more than simply sit behind your laptop. My realization of the importance of professional networking occurred in 1995. I was somewhat stuck against the glass ceiling of university administration when someone I knew reached out to me about software sales. Though I had sales experience, I knew nothing about the high-tech industry. However, I had learned that maintaining relationships and building business contacts could benefit me in the long run, and I was right. As my first high-tech job grew, so did my network. Advertisement When the company for which I was working was bought by VERITAS, I was given a shot at managing a large account with StorageTek, mainly because of my location and the relationships I had within the company. As the integration of the companies was happening, VERITAS had just penned an OEM deal with StorageTek and needed someone to manage the account locally. Despite my relative infancy in the industry, the network I had built helped me succeed in this role, and it led to some of the most lucrative financial years of my career. In 2007, I was working for a company spun out of California; it turned out to be not my best career choice. As I weighed my options, my network came to the rescue. A former colleague contacted me about an opportunity to start distribution at Data Domain, an up-and-coming company. Within days, he connected me with the Data Domain people. I flew out for a daylong series of interviews, received a verbal offer that afternoon, and had a contract waiting in my email when I returned home to Colorado. I accepted the offer and started immediately; the company went public a few weeks later. After Data Domain was purchased by EMC, I remained there for 18 months to gain the experience of going through the integration process. Ultimately, I needed to get back to a smaller company, and my network delivered big time. Nimble Storage offered me the opportunity to build from the ground up, enjoy the excitement of another start-up environment, and reconnect with many respected former colleagues. The venture worked out very well, and it reminded me that while it's great to build new connections, it's also fantastic to know that reliable connections from the past can provide a sense of complete confidence and enable success. Professional networking can be a tricky business. Do keep in touch with your closest and most-valued connections, especially those who are moving in interesting circles and have a history of career advancement. Don't throw around your connections casually -- too many people will abuse the opportunity to further their own agendas. Do keep your profile up to date; leaving a position means taking it off your profile. Most industries are too small to get away with such behavior, especially if the position has been filled behind you. Don't reach out to your network only when you need something. Reach out to say "Hello." Check in on LinkedIn regularly to congratulate your connections when they get new jobs, promotions, or have work anniversaries. "America hasn't really changed between black and white, has it?" This was a frequent question I'd receive while living in Germany from 2011 to 2013. I guess getting the answer straight from someone black would have quenched their thirst for information about America. My answer was generally the same: "Sure, America has changed," I'd reassure them. "Just not everything." An expression of disbelief would cover their faces as I explained what has and hasn't changed. And then...Trayvon Martin. That was the unarmed 17-year-old African-American teenager who was shot in Florida by George Zimmerman. They couldn't understand that at all. And when Zimmerman was acquitted, they definitely couldn't understand that. I could read their minds on their faces: "America hasn't changed at all." Being someone who was born before the monumental Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, I'd lived through those changes. But we still have a long way to go. A long way! But I was seeing my own country as those who live outside the US do. As those who've never been here. Without the counterbalance of the beautiful things we have to offer, America was looking pretty shoddy. Advertisement Stop-and-Frisk. President Obama's treatment by his opposition. Not to mention, the feeling of waking up to see another mass shooting had struck! Can we look any worse? Yes we can! At this moment, Donald J. Trump is in position to win the Republican presidential nomination. Coming off his win of the New Hampshire primary, he's leading in the polls in South Carolina and Nevada by at least 20 points. He wants to ban Muslims from entering the country. He's retweeted a Neo-Nazi/white supremacist Twitter account more than once. Included on the timeline of this account was an image of Bernie Sanders in a gas chamber with The Donald's finger on the button. Did Trump see this? He remembers Sanders is Jewish, right? Trump unapologetically uses profanity and sexist language at his campaign events. He loves it when his supporters get physical with his detractors, especially when they're black and brown people. Or when they're Muslim. In his world, it makes sense. He believes Muslims are dangerous, 81% of all murders of white people are committed by African-Americans, and those coming across the border from Mexico are largely criminals and rapists. Advertisement His supporters have also yelled out inflammatory and racist language, much to the delight of Mr. Trump. As a black protester was being lead out of one of his events, one supporter was captured on video shouting "Sieg Heil!", the infamous Nazi salute. Another video reportedly captured that protester being "punched and kicked" by a group of Trump supporters before being taken out. Donald Trump later said on FoxNews, "Maybe he should have been roughed up." At a Trump rally in Alabama, on more than one occasion, supporters could be heard shouting, "White Power!" Now, I'm not implying all of Trump's supporters are Neo-Nazis or racists. Many feel he'd make a strong leader and he's bucking the "political correctness" they believe is destroying the country. But one segment of our fellow citizens just loves the tune The Donald is singing. During the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire primary, a white nationalist SuperPac (yes, they do exist) made robocalls on behalf of Trump. Automatic political calls have always annoyed me, but I don't even want to think about getting one of these: "I urge you to vote for Donald Trump because he is the one candidate who points out that we should accept immigrants who are good for America...We don't need Muslims. We need smart, well-educated white people who will assimilate to our culture. Vote Trump." Advertisement Yuck! Oh boy, I can imagine those questions, if I were still in Germany. A racist, xenophobic, islamophobic, sexist could possibly become the 45th President of the United States. However, it appears that Trump has infected the entire GOP primary race. He's sucking the oxygen out of the room and others are beginning to lower their standards to the company they're keeping just to get noticed. For example, Ted Cruz is proud to have the support of Ted Nugent, the "Motor City Nut Job", as I call him. You remember him, right? In the past, he's made public statements that could be interpreted as death threats against President Obama. On February 8th of this year, he posted an image on his Facebook page, titled "Who's to blame for gun control?" According to Nugent, the Jews are. He listed 12 Jewish Americans, marked with the Israeli flag and antisemitic titles. For example, he described Michael Bloomberg as the "Jew York City mayor". In addition to being a Cruz supporter, he's a board member of the National Rifle Association. Nice, huh? The GOP primary race is looking more and more like America's barf bag of political ideas. I believe the whole world is getting a whiff of the stench and it's quite rancid. Advertisement A quiet, but alarming, trend is happening in Cambodian "orphanages." Instead of predominantly serving the needs of children whose parents have died, these institutions are increasingly being filled with children from poor families whose living parents are seeking better opportunities for their children's future. It's a phenomenon that my colleagues and I at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health, together with a number of committed partners, are working to correct. There's a long history of parents sending their children to places in the hopes that they will have a safer or better childhood. But typically those places involve the care of a relative or an adopted family, where the expectation is that the child will have a loving home life. Parents typically don't elect to send their children to live in institutions. Yet that's exactly what's been happening in Cambodia, because more and more parents see institutional care as the most direct route to social mobility. For families living in poverty, these facilities fill in the gaps left by an inadequate social welfare system. My research recently took me to rural Cambodia, where the best educational opportunity available for one's child is a one-room schoolhouse with one teacher for all age groups. In that situation, it suddenly became clear to me why parents would prefer to send their children to "orphanages" that promise to feed and educate their children, appeals that often represent false promises more than reality. Advertisement The public health challenge arises when a significant part of an entire generation is being institutionalized, as is now the case in Cambodia. This trend runs counter to research that shows that growing up in a family, however it is constructed, usually leads to the healthiest children across all areas of development. Beginning in the mid-20th century, evidence emerged about the negative effect of institutional care on early childhood development. As a result, the United States and Western Europe dramatically cut down on the overall number of orphanages and limited their use to children who could not safely be placed with some type of family. Research shows that the best environment for child development is a setting that involves secure and stable relationships ones that create caregiver-child attachments and provide the basis for learning, exploration, and positive modeling of future relationships in adulthood. Institutional care where children lack individual caregivers and the turnover of staff, volunteers and yes, children, is frequent significantly disrupts this vital process. Cambodian children growing up in institutions are likely to suffer consequences for their entire lives. Adults who report suffering adverse childhood experiences are at increased risk for a variety of mental health disorders and greater rates of substance use, heart disease, obesity, and other disorders. The risk of poor health later in life grows as the number of adverse childhood experiences increases. The long-term effect of poor health among this population includes limited ability to participate in the economy and widening health inequity. In addition, in Cambodia, the way that these "orphanages" are run is of concern. As Bruce Grant, Chief of Child Protection for UNICEF, says of them, "Many of those institutions aren't operating in the best interests of children." Sebastian Marot, Founder and Executive Director of Friends International, reminds us that in Cambodia, "The number of orphanages has increased; the number of kids in these orphanages has increased, and that makes no sense. Most of the children are not real orphans." Moreover, institutional care is costly, and as the number of facilities increases, their maintenance diverts government and charitable support away from other public initiatives that could provide better care more broadly, creating a cycle of demand. Advertisement The first step in improving public policy on this topic is to understand the scope of the problem. As Sean Callahan, Acting Mission Director for USAID in Cambodia, says, "We really don't know how many children are in institutions, living on the street, living in informal settings." Any intervention to reduce the number of children living away from families will require an appropriate level of funding and the coordination of several different sectors. In order to make the most informed decisions in such a complex undertaking, the importance of baseline measures cannot be overstated. At the Mailman School, my colleagues and I led a study to assess the size of the problem in Cambodia. Our research, which you can explore in a new video, is part of a broader U.S. Government initiative called the Action Plan on Children in Adversity, and we've partnered with the Cambodian National Institute of Statistics, UNICEF, Friends International, and Moulathan Consulting to carry out this important work. Our surveyors traveled the country to tally the number of children living in institutions, assess literacy and health, and explore the reasons why children entered institutional care, whether or not they had parents and, if they did, whether their parents lived nearby. My heart hurts today with the death of Harper Lee. She was a woman who has impacted my life in ways that I can't fully explain. It's not just that I read and loved her novel To Kill a Mockingbird as a young woman. It's that I was given the gift of teaching it for many years, and in doing so, I witnessed my students' growth as readers and thinkers. As a teacher, there is really no better gift than that. It is immeasurable. I am so grateful to Ms. Lee for this gift. Advertisement Though I have yet to read Go Set a Watchman, her second published novel, I have mixed feelings of what surrounds it. I pray that its publishing is what she really wanted. As I understand it, it was a very rough draft of what ultimately became Mockingbird, so to view it as a sequel isn't quite accurate. My heart embraces To Kill a Mockingbird alone as her legacy. I'd like to share from a post I wrote a couple years ago about the experience of Ms. Lee writing me and my students. I think she'd love being remembered this way. I know I do. The Day Harper Lee Wrote Back (An excerpt from a post originally published on thejugglestruggle.net on January 3, 2014.) Back when I taught high school English, my freshman class read To Kill a Mockingbird as one of our core novels. I loved that book as a student, and I treasured it as a teacher. So many layers to explore and think about all delivered in a wonderfully descriptive and even suspenseful way. There was no greater joy for me as a teacher than to see a student come alive within the pages of a book, and Ms. Lee's one and only published novel kindled that time and again. Advertisement One of the activities that we did after reading it was to send notes to Harper Lee. The first time I did this and told the kids we were really going to send the letters, they were stunned. Really? In junior high they did the activity frequently, and it was just for "pretend," as they called it. I told them why wouldn't we send them when she is still around to receive them? This made them take their own words a little more seriously. A real author--one whose work many had grown to care for--would be reading it, after all! I showed them all how I put their letters into a big manila envelope and addressed it to Harper Lee in care of her literary agent. Since she was a recluse, this was the best I could do. I asked the agency to kindly forward the letters to the author. The first year's letter writing experience had been positive enough that I did it again the next year, with much the same response from the students. As a teacher, it was satisfying to know that the kids realized their words were being delivered. It mattered. I just didn't know it mattered to Ms. Lee, too. One day, a few weeks after the second batch of letters had been sent, I went to my teacher's mailbox. Inside was an envelope the size of a thank you card, and I could see that the return address had "Monroeville, AL" written on it. My hands started to tremble. Was it possible that one of the nation's great authors had written back to us? Why, yes. Yes she did. Dear Ms. Ancona: Thank you for your most kind letter and its enclosures! I am delighted to receive the reactions of the kids who are made to read To Kill a Mockingbird, and venture to think that it must have been a more pleasant experience than was mine when I was made to read Ivanhoein school. Come to think of it, though, the two novels have threads of the same theme running through them--I'd investigate further but I don't want to read either book again! Advertisement Please thank your students for me and explain to them that it's impossible for me to answer their letters, but be assured that I read each one with great care and enjoyment. Happy New Year to all of you! Sincerely, Harper Lee I couldn't believe it. How kind she was to let my students (and me!) know that she had read every letter with "great care and enjoyment." My students were giddy with excitement--and it's not often you see 14-year-olds giddy about anything. It was a tremendous validation for them--and for me as an educator. Words matter. Thought matters. Kindness matters. I hope my former students think back on that experience with joy. I know I do. Ms. Lee's letter still graces my office and makes me smile every time I see it. 17 years ago Harper Lee wished me and my students a Happy New Year. How cool is that? Bride and groom's hands holding wedding rings on a pillow Wedding vows are one of the most traditional and important aspects of a wedding ceremony. Wedding traditions from different cultures and religions vary greatly. Most religions recognize a formal assertion of marriage, but there is a difference in how verbal the couple themselves are in making the vows. While Western cultures tend to utilize spoken vows between the couple, many other religions rely on ceremonial and symbolic gestures. Here are some highlights of how different religions handle wedding vows: Christian Wedding Vows - Typical Christian weddings, including Catholic, Protestant, Episcopal, Lutheran and Methodist, use what most of us see as traditional wedding vows - the couple promises to honor and cherish each other as well as commit to each other through good times and bad. They vow to never part until death, but they also add "according to God's holy ordinance and thereto I pledge thee my faith [or] pledge myself to you." Catholic weddings place an added emphasis on the bride and groom promising to remain faithful in their mutual, everlasting love. Also, prior to the exchange of vows in a Catholic ceremony, the bride and groom are asked to "accept children lovingly from God, and bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church." Advertisement Quaker and Russian Orthodox vows These religions focus on silent mutual prayer. Instead of saying their wedding vows aloud, the couple prays together. During the prayer, the bride and groom agree to commit to one another, remain loyal, and to always love each other. Following a Quaker silent wedding prayer, which is a congregational affair, the couple stands up, holds hands, and recites vows similar to this: "In the presence of God and these our friends, I take thee to be my husband/wife, promising with Divine assistance to be unto thee a loving and faithful husband/wife so long as we both shall live." Jewish Wedding Vows - In a traditional Jewish wedding ceremony, only the groom makes a proclamation in Hebrew to his bride. However, many modern Jewish couples choose to add their own spoken vows, sometimes both in Hebrew and English. Today's Jewish ceremony combines tradition with modern styles of exchanging vows but the vows are phrased in a question, rather than a statement, like "Do you take this man/woman to be your lawfully wedded wife/husband, to love, honor and cherish?" Hindu Wedding Vows - A Hindu ceremony involves what is called saptha padhi or the Seven Steps. The Seven Steps involves a priest quoting seven promises that the couple then agrees to. As the promises are read aloud, the couple circles a fire, which symbolizes that the bride and groom are together for eternity. A personalized exchange of vows may be utilized, but in a Hindu ceremony, whether the couple exchanges vows or not, the Seven Steps must always be done last and is the final indication that the couple is married. Advertisement Muslim Wedding Vows - Muslims see marriage as a union of the souls, and Muslim wedding ceremonies are known as nikah. Typically, the Imam or the head of the Mosque reads directly from the Qur'an and speaks about what is required in a marriage. He reiterates the responsibilities the couple has to each other as well as Allah. Once this is finished, the couple formally agrees by saying, "I accept," or the bride and groom can each pledge their faithfulness and honesty to each other. Nikah is considered sacred, so the ceremony is always intimate and simple. Yesterday, Pope Francis questioned whether or not Donald Trump is a Christian. The pope said, a "person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel. As far as what you said about whether I would advise to vote or not to vote, I am not going to get involved in that. I say only that this man is not Christian if he says things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt." A number of my friends, none of whom are Trump supporters, and a few of whom are Christian themselves, took offense at the Pope's statement. One of them said it would have been okay for the Pope to call Mr Trump to discuss the issue privately, with which I agree. And one said it was fair to question how Mr Trump was living his faith, but that the Pope crossed the line by saying Mr. Trump is not Christian. Before I respond, let me state a few things. First, I know and love many, many people who are not Christian. If I were to say someone is not Christian, I am not trying to impugn their character. I am observing that they do not practice the faith. Advertisement Second, I do not believe that the only people who are Christians are those who agree with me. There are many different ways of being Christian, but all of them involve practicing the faith. Third, I would never claim that someone is beyond the reach of God's saving love. So pondering whether or not someone is a Christian is not a statement about whether or not God loves them. If God loves me, I trust God also loves Pope Francis and Donald Trump. It is way above my pay grade to concern myself with anyone else's salvation. And I have "good hope for all", as the 2nd Helvetic Confession reminds us to. (It's in Chapter X). So, for the Pope to say that Donald Trump is not a Christian is to observe that it is hard to see, in what he says or does, much that resembles either Christian belief or Christian practice. He did attend a Presbyterian Church in Iowa in the days before the Iowa Caucus, but he is not a member of a church. He does not regularly attend church. He does not seem to know the practices of the church of which he claims to be a member. Advertisement He also doesn't seem to know the broad theology of Christian faith. Forgiveness, for example is an essential part of both Christian practice and belief. The Apostles Creed, a document very important to the Presbyterian Church of which Trump claims to be a part, speaks of forgiveness. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Anyone, Christian or not, can read our confessions at this link. Confession of sin and the seeking of forgiveness, are essential parts of a Presbyterian worship service, and it speaks to the truth that there is a God, and we are not that God. We err. We make mistakes. We hurt the people we love. We do what we ought not do and we do not do what we ought to do. Here is what Mr Trump said about why he has not asked God for forgiveness. "I like to be good. I don't like to have to ask for forgiveness. And I am good. I don't do a lot of things that are bad. I try to do nothing that is bad." Now, that is a perfectly acceptable thing to say. Unless you're claiming you're a Christian who acknowledges the sinfulness of humanity and proclaims the value of seeking the forgiveness of sins. Advertisement There are hundreds of passages in Scripture that speak about our duty to care for the poor, the orphans, the widows, the foreigners in our midst, the children, and pretty much any other category of people who face judgment, ostracism, and danger. Mr. Trump wants to build a wall to keep many of those people out of our country. Which is a perfectly acceptable thing to say. Unless you're claiming you're a christian who values the lessons of Scripture. Deuteronomy 10:17-19 says, "For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who is not partial and takes no bribe, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them with food and clothing. You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Again, if you don't want to be a Christian, that's great. Go be a good atheist, or "none", or follower of another religious tradition. There are lots of ways to be good in this world. I don't believe there are any perfect Christians. Everyone falls short at some point (see above "forgiveness"). But the reason we keep going to church is because we realize that Christian faith is a practice, something we keep working at. I'm a pastor and every single time I read the Bible I learn something new. Every time. Advertisement So if Mr Trump would like religious leaders like the Pope to stop questioning his faith, perhaps he might start living it out in ways that are visible to people. Perhaps he might start listening to his own words when he insults people, degrades entire ethnic groups, dismisses women, speaks against the poor, and then wonder how his words match the creeds of his faith. Jesus, before he died, told his disciples this: "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:34-35) Indian businesswoman standing in office Are you a feminist? When the New York Times recently posed this question in a front-page news story some young women professed bafflement as to what that even meant. Such confusion in turn causes older women to lament a generation unappreciative of its hard-won gender battles and, as we've learned this election season, to endow a pitchfork in hell for each of these insolent young apostates. But these young women are right. We need to recognize the paltry limits of the word instead of blaming them for rejecting it. Advertisement I've been asking what it means to be a feminist since the 1980s, attempting to first articulate these thoughts in a story I wrote for the Village Voice, where I worked back then. The question felt urgent because the college professor who helped shape my feminist thinking had become a pariah among liberal feminists. Because I was a young liberal feminist fresh out of the university their response left me struggling to define what it meant to be part of this social movement. My professor was a political scientist who urged me to read all the nonfiction feminist writing of English novelist Virginia Woolf. The professor talked about her own difficulties rising through the ranks of academia ("we don't hire women," she initially was told). When she mentioned to her mentor, an eminent political scientist, the book she planned to write about women in government, he responded, "But Jeane, you don't have a subject there." I listened attentively, longing for the buoyant canopy of intellectual confidence she possessed that navigated each of these leaps for equality into a steady landing. Jeane (who didn't have a subject there) was Jeane Kirkpatrick. Her name probably means little to today's socially engaged young women, but before Samantha Power and Susan Rice, Kirkpatrick was the first woman to serve as the United States Ambassador to the United Nations and the first woman foreign policy cabinet member. Except the president was Ronald Reagan. Kirkpatrick, a Democrat when I knew her who told me she planned to support Teddy Kennedy for president, had become a foreign policy hawk and subsequently was plucked by Reagan for this post. Her conservative political philosophy outraged feminists, and although Kirkpatrick became one of the most powerful women in American history, the editors of the Handbook of American Women's History intentionally excluded her from this reference book. Advertisement I shared their outrage about Kirkpatrick's foreign policy views (she famously argued that totalitarian regimes were always intolerable, but it was in America's interest to support "friendly" authoritarian ones). But does feminism mean that we (whoever the self-determined "we" are) get to handpick our feminists and deny Kirkpatrick the label that she used to define herself? Virginia Woolf had the prescience in the 1930s to recognize that the problem may lie in the word. She argued that after women's right to earn a living had been won, the word "feminist" should be thrown out of the language if its only meaning is "one who champions the rights of women." Within the meager limits of this definition, "a dead word, a corrupt word" exists. If the word is destroyed, wrote Woolf, in the cleansed air we could see the task ahead: "Men and women working together for the same cause." (Woolf's cause was fighting fascist tyranny.) It may be impossible to find an all-inclusive definition for feminism because a woman's struggle to find a place in the world is rooted in, and reflected by, the prism of her own experience. Contemporary American feminism has primarily come to mean championing women's autonomy and challenging the privileging of male over female. But a feminism that is chiefly about autonomy is bound to liberate one person at the expense of another -- as witnessed in women's victory to secure the right to earn a living. The professional mother too often is "liberated" by the nanny who scrambles to find care for her own children. Many college women also can't relate to feminism because the autonomy they experience during their time on campus is unique and irreplaceable. But these young women may confront boundaries later, especially if they choose to become mothers. Nothing cleans all the wonder and mess of personal freedom like a diaper wipe. Contemporary feminism carries with it a troubled legacy of affirming equality without reconciling the reality of dependency -- one that has contributed to our country's shameful lack of family policies. The challenges inevitably arise when nurturing and raising another human being. That's where the tenets of mainstream feminism, based on the Enlightenment values of equality, autonomy, and self-determination, have always seemed inadequate. Advertisement The Smithsonian Institutions National Museum of African-American History and Culture is in the final stages of construction on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., next to the Washington Monument and near the National Museum of American History. It will be a transformative and long-overdue landmark in the center of the nations capital. As the museums director, Lonnie G. Bunch III, puts it, This museum will tell the American story through the lens of African-American history and culture. This is Americas Story and this museum is for all Americans. One of the most striking pieces visitors to the new museum will see is a slave cabin from Edisto Island, South Carolina that was painstakingly dismantled and brought to Washington to be rebuilt at the museums center. It will join artifacts like a childs slave shackles and Harriet Tubmans shawl and hymn book in telling the chapter at the foundation of our national story. The slave cabin may have come from hundreds of miles away, but slavery itself was at the heart of our nations capital from its very beginning. Traces of this other Washington are everywhere. As the new capital was rising from former woods and swampland, slaves labored on many of its buildings, including the White House and the Capitol. As the Architect of the Capitols office explains: When construction of the U.S. Capitol Building began in 1793, Washington, D.C. was little more than a rural landscape with dirt roads and few accommodations beyond a small number of boarding houses. Skilled labor was hard to find or attract to the fledgling city. Enslaved laborers, who were rented from their owners, were involved in almost every stage of construction. Records showing how much owners were paid for their slaves labor tell us a few of these slaves names: Tom, Peter, Ben, Harry and Daniel worked on the White House. Nace, Harry, and Gabe worked on the Capitol. One slave who received special notice was Philip Reid, who helped construct the Statue of Freedom that sits atop the Capitol dome. He was the only person able to solve the puzzle of how to dissect and reassemble the original model of the statue after the sculptor who knew the secret refused to help without being paid more money. Philip Reids master said Philip was of mulatto color, short in stature, in good health, not prepossessing in appearance, but smart in mind, a good work man in a foundry, and has been employed in that capacity by the Government, at one dollar and twenty five cents per-day. Advertisement Slave coffles were a familiar sight in Washingtons streets. Those lines of slaves chained together were horrifying to visitors from other countries and those traveling to the capital of the new country seemingly built on freedom. Slave markets and slave pens existed on a number of city sites including some not far from the spot on the Mall where the new museum will stand and the Tidal Basin now framed by beautiful cherry trees. Others were within yards of the White House. The movie 12 Years a Slave retold the story of Solomon Northup, a free Black man from New York who in 1841 was tricked into traveling to Washington with a promise of work as a musician. Instead he was drugged and kidnapped, imprisoned in a slave pen within the very shadow of the Capitol, and from there illegally sold into slavery in Louisiana. As a new Congressman from Illinois from 1847-1849, Abraham Lincoln described a slave pen he saw in view from the windows of the capitol, a sort of Negro livery-stable, where droves of negroes were collected, temporarily kept, and finally taken to southern markets, precisely like droves of horses. Slaves likely helped quarry the distinctive red bricks in the Smithsonian Castle, a familiar landmark in the middle of all the Smithsonian museums. Quarrying was notoriously grueling work. The bricks came from a Maryland quarry owned by John Parke Custis Peter, a great-grandson of Martha Washington; many of the slaves Peter owned had ties to Mount Vernon, and scholars believe several of the adults who may have labored as slaves at the quarry were slaves at Mount Vernon as children. Advertisement Some of this history is commemorated in Washington today. Visitors to the U.S. Capitol can see a marker in the buildings Emancipation Hall honoring the slaves and other laborers who helped construct it. Beneath the inscription on a marble platform is a large chunk of sandstone from the Capitols original East Front Portico, with chisel marks still visible. In other places new steps are being taken to honor the past. For many years the Treasury Annex building stood on the site of the Freedmans Bank, built in 1865 to provide an opportunity for wealth-building among newly freed slavesan attempt to right one of the profound wrongs the Black community is still struggling to overcome. In January the U.S. Treasury Department held a ceremony officially renaming the Treasury Annex the Freedmans Bank Building and recognizing the Freedman Banks legacy. From my blog Soy/Somos, a series that celebrates the multiple identities of Latinos in the USA. He looks like a professor from a mid-western American city. Quietly dressed, silver-rimmed glasses, lace-up shoes. He guides me to an armchair and sits opposite me, allowing a comfortable distance between us. He's pulled bulletins from his file. "For you to read or toss. I have hundreds of these." "Women and Minorities on Fortune 100 Boards" "White Paper on the Latino Consumer" "Tips for Interviewing the Hispanic Workforce" They keep coming. The papers are forming a small tower at my elbow. I met Manuel at a party a year or two ago, and I've asked him if we could have a chat about his work. He tells me that he's lived in the United States since 1972. Forty-eight years. Studied law. Arrived from Spain with his wife (a newly minted doctor) and twin babies. Advertisement Why the US? I ask. You and your wife had a fine education, could have practiced law or medicine in Spain or anywhere in Europe. "It was about the twins. My wife's family was living in the Bronx at the time, and they would take care of our babies while we worked. We thought of our move as as an exposure to a new country, something temporary. But then we set down roots. "Our kids grew up to be American. And we got older. And then, why take a chance and leave for something new? "The ability to buy a house (then more than now) was meaningful. Mortgages. In Spain this was inconceivable. And in the United States if you worked hard and were good at what you did you could succeed. Your last name didn't matter." Manuel and I spoke mostly in Spanish but every now and then he would offer to move to English. (I tend to mix the two.) "No se preocupe. In conversation my wife and I will switch from English to French to Spanish." I found myself hurriedly translating his words into English in my notes. Advertisement Let's talk about your work. "When I arrived in the l970s I worked in the personnel departments of two mid-size American firms. After fifteen years I decided to create my own executive search firm to find and recruit Hispanics. I would get this call many times, 'We've been looking but can't find any candidates.' Of course, they weren't really looking. I visited universities, talked to professors about salient candidates, advertised in Hispanic magazines, bought data bases. There were job boards even then such as Monster.com. Not all Hispanics have Spanish-sounding names. It was a different time. "Me senti orgulloso (I felt proud) when I had 200 good resumes. By the time I left my business, I had 50,000. I did this until I turned 70. Also my existence was no longer as necessary." What happened? "Companies hired in-house English-speaking Hispanics to help them recruit. Or they'd bring in a single firm to help them recruit different minorities." Manuel and I spent two and a half hours talking. Now retired, he's working in schools and with organizations that help Spanish-speaking people in need. He interprets between teachers and parents, teaches immigrants how to behave and speak during an interview. "I know a man--hombre digno y honrado--who works in a nursery. Lives simply. Sends everything he makes to his wife and children in Mexico. His brother's wife lives under a corrugated tin roof, no running water. His wife now has a brick house with running water and electricity. It's happened in this country over and over again. Es la historia humana. "If I could wake up in one hundred years, my greatest curiosity would be to see if human society has evolved into one race. I would hope to find no barriers or prejudice. In Europe I see English lawyers practicing in Spain--and Spanish lawyers in England. I've listened to Chinese speaking to other Chinese in English. Isolated places like Moldava and Mongolia are becoming accessible with travel and with the communication possible via the internet. Marriages across race, ethnicity, and culture are all around us. Advertisement Jordan has been fully engaged in the war against terrorism, even long before the world has started a true move against it. The Jordanians have long warned about the unbearable consequences of not taking a proactive approach in the fight against terrorism as a concept, belief, entities, origins, tools...etc. The country was ahead of many other neighboring countries in the true and comprehensive efforts against terrorism, its antecedents, mechanisms, and consequences. King Abdullah II has been prophetic in his unique vision ever since he took the office in 1999. The king has then started what is known in Jordan as "True war against terrorism," dedicating hard core resources for the intelligence agencies in Jordan, delegating them unprecedented authorities to eliminate all sorts of terrorist factions, and more importantly has given them, as well as many other concerned Jordanian governmental and non-governmental organizations, all the support they may need in their efforts towards a civilized nation, clean of terrorism-influenced groups and individuals. Advertisement The country has since captured, prevented, contributed, and eliminated many terrorists and terrorist attacks on the Jordanian lands and overseas. Nevertheless, ever since the Syrian conflict started, Syrian refugees who constantly flee the unprecedented tragic situation, have then begun to seek refuge in the neighboring countries. Jordan, has let in more than million and three hundred thousand Syrians since. Taking into account the very limited resources and infrastructure that the country has, one cannot imagine how Jordan has been able to manage, thanks for the people of Jordan who have generously contributed the most for the sake of the greatest good of the nation. However, there has been an economic hardship that the country has been experiencing due to the lack of resources, continued pressure on the nation's limited infrastructure, and the pressure from the nationalist activists who are asking for closing down the borders with Syria and Iraq, in which the situations have worsened the economic hardship that the country has ended up dealing with, mostly alone. Advertisement Such situations should concern the international community for many reasons. One major reason is that if Jordan is to witness any sort of instability or economic shock God forbid, the ramifications of such shock can far exceed the Jordanian borders as the country will then turn its attention internally, prioritize things according to the nation's best interests, and may as well withdraw some of the in-use resources against terrorism to boost the national economy. Another crucial event that could soon take place, and is excusable should it happen is that the country decides to shut down the borders with Syria, which would extremely increase the suffering of Syrians who feel safe the closer they get to the Jordanian borders, and also would increase the number of Syrians who head to Europe, the issue that has been a major concern for the European governments. Lastly, the country may rethink its overall strategy in its international alliances and political relationships with the major players at the international level, the Saudi government has been observant in this regard, however, the western countries may need to worry as the Russian intervention in the region has been growing, Russia is trying to get even closer to Jordan, an effort that has been unsuccessful so far, at least from the people's perspective. Jordan has been a very committed alliance for the Western countries, the Jordanian foreign policy has been one of the most moderate and consistent policies that the west would wish for, yet they have not shown a well-deserved true support for a country whose visions have been proven right at many levels. I have mentioned only few reasons why the world should step up and stand by the Jordanian people. I believe that the world leaders are well aware of the unwanted consequences if Jordan were to reconsider its strategies and course of actions. The world must understand that the King cannot put away his people's interests just to satisfy the international community's demands, unless there is a true and sincere intentions in helping Jordan taking greater role in fighting against terrorism, and in the meantime dealing with the consequences of a war that Jordan did not start and yet has been dealing with its consequences. Advertisement The Jordanian people have been questioning their government's course of actions towards the Syrian crisis. The demand is for answers as to why Jordan and its people have to singularly deal with the consequences of a proxy world. This puts even more pressure on the decision makers at the higher levels of authority, pushing them towards a more conservative strategy with the Syrian refugees. This is a true scene that is happening in Jordan, and I believe that the world does need to rethink their strategy towards Jordan, especially with the limited chances for the Syrian conflict to end soon. Toronto International Airport, Ontario, Canada "More than 40 years ago, the US Supreme court in Brown versus the Board of Education said very simply that separate is inherently unequal." Well, it seems we must learn that lesson once again hopefully for the last time. I was outraged when I heard that South Dakota is one signature away from passing an anti-transgender bathroom bill for students. I realized that I needed to channel my rage and do what I do best to help make a difference and that is to write. I write to remind South Dakota residents that they are on the wrong side of history and that their ignorance must be stopped. In 2012, Vice President Joe Biden called transgender rights "the civil rights issue of our time." South Dakota should be aware of just how true that statement truly is and how their proposed bill looks to set us back to times of segregation. I am reminded of a time when white people refused to share a bathroom with "colored" people as African Americans were called. They feared they would "catch it" or that "colored" people were "dirty" and couldn't be trusted. Thankfully that day is gone for good as I hope one day the bathroom debate will be for transgender children everywhere. The basic human right to pee in peace needs to end here. South Dakota residents should be aware of the strides transgender rights have made and continue to make. Advertisement In September 2012 New Hampshire showed South Dakota how it should be done. New Hampshire treated a 3rd grade transgender girl as she should treated as a girl. District superintendent Mark Conrad acknowledges, "The issues that public schools must often address mirror the broader issues in our society... It's our policy not to discriminate against any student, and that would include transgender students." The district has agreed to treat the girl "the same as all female students in every aspect," including using her female name in school records, and letting her use the girls' room. Furthermore, her transgender status is considered "confidential medical information" that can only be shared among "appropriate and necessary" staff. It'll be up to the child and her family to decide whether to reveal that she's transgender -- as it should be." South Dakota take note that in 2013 the Colorado's Civil Rights Division in a landmark decision ruled in favor of a transgender girl using the restrooms that correspond with her gender identity. The strides kept coming when in 2014 Maine's highest court ruled in favor of a transgender girl who had been blocked from using the girl's restroom in school. It seems Vice President Biden was correct in his statement and I advise South Dakota residents to rethink their atrocious bill since we all know how this ends. All we need do is look at past civil rights movements to know the outcome of the transgender civil rights movement. We can look to the African American civil rights movement, the women's movement, the disabled Americans movement, to the gay rights movement to predict the transgender rights ending of success. Every single time in America's history when a minority is discriminated against and when the minority fights back the minority rightfully wins. We must start treating ALL people as equal in order to gain ultimate peace. Advertisement Gov. Daugaard admits when addressing whether or not he would sign the proposed bill; "I have not met a transgender person that I'm aware of." I am reminded of a To Kill a Mockingbird quote when hearing Gov. Daugaard's statement; "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it." How can Gov. Daugaard in good conscience sign this bill without any notion of the discrimination transgender people face every day? I plead with Gov. Daugaard to do the right thing and veto this bill so South Dakota remains on the right side of history. I ask South Dakota residents when you pass judgment on transgender students and their parents were you truly aware of what transgender children go through every day? Transgender children want to be able to use the bathroom they identify with but worry they will get in trouble with their school or worse bullied and hurt. If they use the nurses bathroom not only do they fear other kids teasing them it demoralizes them. It makes them feel as if they are freaks and don't belong in either bathroom. My 17-year-old son is transgender. He and I took on the transgender bathroom battle 5 years ago with his school. I know this battle personally and I can tell you the torture it was for my son. One of my proudest moments was when my son said to a school official: "You call me he and say you feel I have courage and say you accept me as a boy BUT if you really did then you would allow me to use the boy's room. Since you don't your words don't mean anything and I don't trust you. When you won't allow me in the boy's room and force me to use the nurse's bathroom you make me feel like an "it" and that is discrimination." I have heard hundreds and hundreds of stories like my sons. Thankfully, my son and I with the help of the NYCLU fought his school district and won the bathroom battle and his right to use the boy's room. He has used the boy's room now for 4 years without incident. Advertisement When discussing South Dakota's proposed discriminatory bill Senator Brock Greenfield states: "Do you feel it appropriate for a 13-year-old girl to be exposed to the anatomy of a boy," or for a boy to be exposed to the anatomy of a girl because of the decisions we make out here?" This statement makes me question just what kind of bathroom Senator Greenfield is using since I've certainly never been in a bathroom where genitals are exposed. It's also important to note that transgender children have not yet had gender reassignment surgery so the genitals they have are horrifying to them and certainly nothing they would ever wish to show off. Instead, it's about what all civil rights movements in the end are about: acceptance and human dignity. Bathrooms should stay a place as they were meant for, a place to relieve ourselves nothing more and for transgender children being accepted in the bathroom they identify with is one of the biggest reliefs of all. I wish to remind Gov. Daugaard when he decides on signing discriminatory Bill HB 1008 the Richard Dawkins quote; "Segregation has no place in the education system." Gov. Daugaard please help me show South Dakota once again that separate is not equal. "Ray 2. Death 0." My recent blog described the difference between sudden cardiac arrest and a heart attack. One key distinction is that while the heart attack patient is awake and the heart is beating, the sudden cardiac arrest patient is not awake and the heart is not beating. Sudden cardiac arrest is not the same as a heart attack, but the two conditions can be related: Heart attack patients face an increased risk of sudden cardiac arrest. Ray Gupton's story helps illustrate the connection. While working in his backyard last fall in Louisburg, North Carolina, Ray Gupton suffered a massive heart attack. A heart attack occurs when a blockage in an artery disrupts blood flow, causing part of the heart's muscle to die. Ray experienced classic symptoms: "I had a severe pain between my shoulder blades and my left arm felt like it was going to explode," he said. "My shirt was soaked with sweat." Advertisement Notably, Ray was awake. He was able to run inside and call 911. After being rushed to the hospital, he received three stents to restore blood flow to his heart, which saved his life. More than 1.5 million Americans will have a heart attack this year. (1) Many will be unaware that heart attacks increase the risk of sudden cardiac arrest, and this risk is highest in the first 30 days after a heart attack. (2) Here's why: the dead muscle from a heart attack can disrupt the heart's natural electrical system. Sudden cardiac arrest occurs when an electrical malfunction causes the heart to suddenly stop beating effectively and start quivering. The heart can no longer supply enough blood to the body to sustain life. Unlike heart attack victims, those who suffer sudden cardiac arrest lose consciousness so quickly that they cannot help themselves. Ray's cardiologist, Pratik Desai, MD, described how sudden it can be: "One minute you're fine, the next minute you're on the ground." Starting CPR immediately can buy time, but in most cases, a timely shock with a defibrillator is the only way to reset the heart's normal electrical rhythm. Unfortunately, the average survival rate from sudden cardiac arrest is less than 10 percent (3) and the chance of survival decreases 10 percent with each minute (4). If sudden cardiac arrest is not witnessed, death is inevitable and occurs within minutes of onset. Advertisement Dr. Desai and Rama Garimella, MD, (Cary Cardiology, Cary, North Carolina) recognized that Ray may be at risk for sudden cardiac arrest after his heart attack and prescribed a wearable defibrillator. "I didn't feel comfortable sending Ray home without it," said Dr. Garimella. Ray was instructed to wear the device under his clothes 24/7 so that it could monitor his heart. Three weeks into his recovery, while watching TV at home alone, Ray suffered sudden cardiac arrest. He vaguely remembers a dizzy feeling, but lost consciousness before he had a chance to react or realize what was happening. "By the time I started to feel dizzy and put my head down, I was gone." The wearable defibrillator detected that his heart was dangerously out of rhythm and delivered a treatment shock that restarted Ray's heart. For the second time in a month, his life was saved. Sudden cardiac arrest is often unpredictable, but it can be prevented proactively in heart attack patients. The wearable defibrillator is now protecting tens of thousands of people every day. And patients with a long-term risk for sudden cardiac arrest after a heart attack often can benefit from implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) therapy. Heart attack patients should ask their doctors about the risk of sudden cardiac arrest and how best to prevent it. Ray's doctors recognized the risk, and he is alive today because of it: "I did what the doctors told me, and it saved my life." Ray is thankful he survived both a heart attack and sudden cardiac arrest, and he maintains a sense of humor and pride when he talks about it: "Ray 2. Death 0." Advertisement On Wednesday, Pope Francis delivered a historic "cross-border" mass that drew 200,000 observers on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande and 30,000 in El Paso, Texas. The pontiff prayed for the more than 6,000 people who have lost their lives desperately trying to cross the border in recent years. Pope Francis preached on a timely issue -- the plight of Central Americans fleeing violence as they travel north in search of safety and a new life. Pope Francis said, speaking just one hundred years from the border, that forced migration from violence, persecution, and poverty is a "human tragedy" and a "global phenomenon". To alleviate suffering from this tragedy, governments and aid organizations resettle refugees and provide assistance. But this is not enough. Admissions caps remain very low. And a simple reform to change that -- allowing private sector funding to increase admissions -- remains outside of lawmakers priorities list. This prevents compassionate individuals and organizations like the weekly churchgoer, faith groups and congregations, and charities from further saving refugee lives. It's a deeply flawed policy that needs to be reversed. Advertisement When Pope Francis spoke at the U.S. Congress in 2015, he said that the "world is facing a refugee crisis of a magnitude not seen since the Second World War." He is right. The devastating reality is that there are more than 19.5 million refugees around the world. While Syria has received significant attention, a crushing disaster is also happening closer to home. Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador are home to some of the highest levels of violence in the world. The Council on Foreign Relations reports that forced gang recruitment, violence, and civil war in these countries has pushed thousands out of their homes. These "grave injustices," as the Pope said, drive many north in search of a better life. Many come to America but lack legal status and are not awarded asylum, opening them up to deportation. And since 2014, 83 deported refugees from these three countries were murdered shortly after returning to their home country. Refugee admissions need to increase, but Congress is not willing to increase appropriations. To solve this, the Niskanen Center has proposed infusing private sector funding into the resettlement process in order to boost numbers. What many are unaware of is the fact that during what the UN calls the worst humanitarian crisis of our time, private sector donations aren't used to resettle higher numbers of refugees. Advertisement Government hasn't always been the main engine behind refugee resettlement. For most of American history, faith organizations have provided all of the funding for refugees. Church World Service, for example, began resettling refugees after World War II. They paid the full cost of resettlement, including housing, basic needs, and employment assistance. In 1990, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and the Council on Jewish Federations entered into an agreement with the State Department to resettle Jewish refugees fleeing the Soviet Union. They paid the full cost of the more than 8,000 refugees that came to America. The Obama administration should recognize the importance of faith communities and refugee resettlement. Tying admissions to giving is smart public policy that empowers the American philanthropic sector and aids the vulnerable. Such an idea could work a few ways, but here's one option: the State Department opens an account into which individuals, charities, churches, or corporations can send donations. When the account reaches a certain threshold, new refugee slots would open up automatically. It relies on the private sector without burdening the taxpayer. If Pope Francis called upon Catholics across the nation to give generously to local churches interest in resettling refugees, the results would almost surely be remarkable. Billionaire philanthropists, small-donation millennials, immigrants from the Northern Triangle, church groups, corporations, and nonprofits would have the opportunity to save lives--and given Americans' predisposition to philanthropy, they would almost certainly take it. Advertisement Pope Francis has argued that each of these displaced individuals are children of God that deserve to have their human dignity respected. On Wednesday, he stated, "We cannot deny the humanitarian crisis which in recent years has meant the migration of thousands of people, whether by train or highway or on foot, crossing hundreds of kilometers through mountains, deserts and inhospitable zones." The short answer is "It can't hurt." The physical sciences, such as Physics, Astronomy, Chemistry, all require a great deal of math to master. That is often why these disciplines are referred to as the "hard sciences." When it comes to high school sciences, however, the level of mathematics knowledge required is relatively minimal. One could successfully complete AP Chemistry with only seventh grade algebra skills and an understanding of base ten logarithms. High school and AP Physics require algebra, plus a facility with the trigonometric functions sine, cosine and tangent. It is only AP Physics C that requires Calculus (AP Physics 1 and AP Physics 2, both of which only require Algebra and the trigonometric functions sine, cosine and tangent). However, it has been my experience that a student who is not at or above grade level in mathematics will struggle in these courses, not because she hasn't been exposed to the prerequisite skills, but because there is either some aspect of number sense that has not yet been fully developed, or the perpetuated belief that they aren't good at math. If at any point in his/her elementary years a child is falling behind in mathematics, get her the help she needs immediately. Chalking it up to "not being good at math" is the greatest disservice you can do to your child's education, and will stunt the budding scientist within her. Advertisement There are some fields of science in which math is not paramount, such as many of the biological sciences. Whereas I firmly believe that mathematics facility can only serve a biological scientist well, high school Biology will place few to minimal demands on a student's math skills. In college and beyond, where research is a necessary component to biology, mathematics competency will prove itself not only valuable buy necessary many times over. With that said, there are exceptionally successful biologists who claim that good math skills are not a requirement, offering themselves as living breathing examples. Two of whom come to mind are E.O. Wilson and Temple Grandin. "Many of the most successful scientists in the world today are mathematically no more than semiliterate," claimed E.O. Wilson in an article he wrote for the Wall Street Journal. E.O. Wilson, "Great Scientist = Good at Math," Wall Street Journal, April 5, 2013. "Real progress comes in the field writing notes, at the office amid a litter of doodled paper, in the hallway struggling to explain something to a friend, or eating lunch alone. Eureka moments require hard work. And focus," not necessarily math. E.O. Wilson explains that is far easier for a scientist to collaborate with a mathematician than for a mathematician to find "scientists able to make use of their equations." Advertisement To Thomas Edison has been attributed the line "I can hire a mathematician but a mathematician cannot hire me." "If your level of mathematical competence is low," explains Wilson, "plan to raise it, but meanwhile, know that you can do outstanding scientific work with what you have. Think twice, though, about specializing in fields that require a close alternation of experiment and quantitative analysis. These include most of physics and chemistry, as well as a few specialties in molecular biology." "For every scientist," Wilson continues, "there exists a discipline for which his or her level of mathematical competence is enough to achieve excellence." Temple Grandin, the great animal biologist, professor of animal science at Colorado State University, and outspoken hero for autism, attributes her college and graduate degrees to the absence of an Algebra requirement. "Tutoring me in algebra was useless," writes Grandin in Thinking in Pictures, "because there was nothing for me to visualize. If I have no picture, I have no thought." Advertisement Grandin barrelled through her required finite math courses with the help of tutors and devoted hard work in order to achieve her science goals. On Tuesday, February 23, 2016, a congressional briefing will be held on Women, Girls, and Mass Incarceration. It's about time. Sadly, to many politicians, mass incarceration is something that impacts primarily the lives of men and boys. Their speeches reflect this concern. Rightfully, they are alarmed by the United States incarcerating more people than anywhere else in the world. Indeed, we all share this concern. Globally, nearly 25% of the world's incarcerated population is locked behind bars in our state and federal prisons. The U.S. incarcerates over 700 people per 100,000. Compare that to: England (153 in 100,000), France (96 in 100,000), Germany (85 in 100,000), Italy (111 in 100,000), and Spain (159, in 100,000). Yet, families throughout the U.S. know that the burdens, pain, and trauma of mass incarceration extend to women and girls in uniquely terrifying ways. The U.S. incarcerates more women than any other nation in the world: more than China, Russia, India, Mexico, and Thailand combined. Like men, they experience rape behind bars, sodomy, solitary confinement, too frequently the denial of adequate medical care, and disparate sentences related to drug offenses. Disproportionately, females behind bars in the U.S. are women and girls of color. The Institute on Women and Criminal Justice (IWCJ), one of the leading national policy center quantitatively and qualitatively researching women in prison. Reports that the population of women in prison grew by 832% in the period between 1977-2007--nearly twice the rate as men during that same period. This staggering increase now results in more than one million women incarcerated in prison, jail, or tethered to the criminal justice system as a parolee or probationer in the U.S. The Bureau of Justice Statistics underscores the problem, explaining in a "Special Report" that "[s]ince 1991, the number of children with a mother in prison has more than doubled, up 131%," while "[t]he number of children with a father in prison has grown [only] by 77%." Advertisement Women are the invisible casualties caught not only in our warehousing of people, but our failed Drug War. Our nation's war on drugs has resulted in tens of thousands of children displaced into foster care and later-homelessness. It resulted in draconian policies that created a 100-1 disparate sentencing framework between crack and cocaine. That is, a person with 5 grams of crack would be subjected to the same mandatory sentence of someone caught with 500 grams of powder cocaine. Many recognized such policies as racialized and unjustified. Five years ago, President Obama signed legislation that reduces the disparity to 18-1. It was a good bi-partisan first step, but it too maintained disparities that have enormous racial and socio-economic impacts. Nor did the law address female incarceration. In fact, as Professor Phyllis Goldfarb explained in a very important law review article: Counting the Drug War's Female Casualties, "a major way that women have been caught in the crossfire of the drug war has been through heterosexual relationships with men engaged in drug activity. Such relationships put women at considerable risk of severe penalties, including conviction of a drug offense, often as a constructive possessor, an aider and abettor, or a co-conspirator, typically with stiff, mandatory penalties." For these women, sometimes their sentences are longer and more severe than that of their boyfriends and husbands because they are ill-equipped to plea bargain. That is, they have no one to turn in and will not benefit law enforcement in a bigger sting. Indeed, women have served lengthy jail sentences while their known-drug trafficking boyfriends have been granted probation in clever plea deals. Advertisement But that's not all. Women experience the government's punishment in multifold ways--even if they were not the offenders: losing homes, forfeiting jointly held property, evictions from government subsidized housing, and more. These displacements impact not only women, but also their children. For women who are caught with drugs (as nearly 2/3ds of those locked away are), they no longer qualify for federal financial aid and they are permanently banned from receiving welfare benefits. Recently, in a bold step forward, President Obama turned his attention to women behind bars. In July, 2015, I published an article commending the President on his speech to the NAACP regarding the grave need for criminal justice reform. My comments came with a pointed critique too--what about women? Why had girls been left out of his moving remarks--while very explicit references to African American boys peppered his speech? It was a lost opportunity, but a common oversight. However, the President made sure that at his final State of the Union Address to have Sue Ellen Allen, the Executive Director of Gina's Team in the audience--seated in the galley with Mrs. Obama. Sue Ellen served seven years in prison, experiencing the horrors of breast cancer behind bars and the death of her 25 year old cellmate, Gina, due to medical neglect. Gina had suffered such glaring neglect that she lapsed into a coma when she finally was granted medical care. She died three days later. Some people find it hard to feel any sympathy toward the plight of women behind bars, even those like Gina who die so young. However, that is a very slim portion of the U.S. population. A recent poll shows that nearly 80% of the public, including over 70% of Republicans, "support repealing mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug offenders." Americans are coming to understand and feel the real sting of families and communities ripped apart because of drug war and sentencing policies. In reality, mass incarceration costs all Americans. In 2010, taxpayers spent $30,000 per minute and $1,800,000 per hour to fight our war on drugs, when prison was never an intelligent solution to the disease of drug addiction. We pay even more now. Advertisement What can members of Congress do? As a first step, institute sentencing reforms. Fortunately, a bipartisan group of legislators, including Senators Grassley (R-IA), Durbin (D-IL), Cornyn (R-TX), Booker (D-NJ), Franken, (D-MN), and Feinstein (D-CA), is committed to doing just that with the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015. This law holds some promise because many of its provisions apply retroactively--and these reforms will help the tens of thousands of incarcerated women. But lawmakers must do more. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton meets with Culinary Union members holding a rally outside of Sunrise Hospital, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher) "I will not promise you something I cannot deliver," Hillary Clinton has repeatedly told voters, including a group of mainly African American voters in South Carolina last week. This is meant to contrast Hillary's "achievable" small bore reforms to Bernie Sander's more sweeping reform proposals which are allegedly less achievable. Advertisement Hillary's pledge to deliver on all her promises is at the heart of her pitch to Democratic voters. It is demonstrably false. Given partisan gerrymandering, it is almost certain that Republicans will control the next House. And even if Democrats retake the Senate, there's virtually no chance Democrats will have a 60-40 veto proof majority. Since retaking control of Congress after President Obama's first two years in office, Congressional Republicans have consistently blocked Obama from enacting the types of reforms Hillary is proposing. How can Hillary credibly promise that they won't do the same to her proposals if she became president? She can't. And she knows it. Which is one of the reasons that voters find Hillary less than trustworthy. Advertisement Indeed Bernie's outsider strategy of building a political revolution of millions of Americans demanding an end to the rigged economic and political system may have a better chance of succeeding over the course of several election cycles and an 8-year Presidency than Hillary's Washington insider strategy of negotiating legislative compromises with intransigent Congressional Republicans. Let's take a simple example. Bernie Sanders has proposed raising the Federal minimum wage to $15 an hour from its current level of $7.25, while Hillary Clinton has proposed a more "pragmatic" level of $12 an hour, even though this lower level would still leave full-time minimum wage workers in poverty. Two years ago, when President Obama proposed raising the minimum wage to $9 an hour and House Democrats put forward a bill that would raise it to $10.10, House Republicans unanimously voted it down. Does Hillary Clinton really believe she can keep her promise of a $12 an hour minimum wage and get it through Congress? How? Would she negotiate a deal with Congressional Republicans to raise the minimum wage in exchange, say, for increasing the age for qualifying for Medicare to 67, or cutting the capital gains tax to 15%? Indeed, Bernie's chances of success may be greater. Sixty-three percent of Americans (including Democrats, Republicans and Independents) favor raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. But Congress, which as Bernie maintains is controlled by the donor class, does the will of hits corporate donors who want to keep wages low. What if President Sanders led a March of a million or more citizens on Washington demanding a $15 minimum wage? It's not certain it would work, but it has a better chance of changing votes of some Republicans in Congress than backroom deal-making. And even if it didn't work the first time, given the popularity of a $15 minimum wage across party lines, it might shift enough Congressional seats in the 2018 Congressional election to pass. Advertisement Let's take a more complex issue: health care. Although a long-time supporter of Medicare-For-All, Bernie Sanders voted for the Affordable Care Act and helped write portions like additional funding for community health centers. While Bernie has promised to defend the ACA from Republican attempts to repeal it, his long-term goal remains Medicare-For-All which he believes is a right, not a privilege, and which he believes will improve health care outcomes, while significantly lowering the cost of health care in America which is far more expensive than every other industrialized country. Hillary claims her promises on health care are more achievable. But if you go to Hillary's website, her proposals are actually rather vague: According to her website,." "Hillary is committed to building on delivery system reforms in the Affordable Care Act that improve value and quality care for Americans." "Hillary believes we need to demand lower drug costs for hardworking families and seniors." But it's unclear how she plans to accomplish any of this. With the ACA dependent on the private health insurance industry, what steps could President Clinton actually take to "improve value and quality"? On drug prices, in order to pass the ACA the Obama administration made a deal with big PHarMA to include a provision banning Medicare from negotiating the price of drugs with manufacturers. Would Hillary break President Obama's deal? Would Democratic Senators who signed onto the deal go along with that? And with a Republican House that has voted to repeal the ACA multiple times, and with Senators and Congressman of both parties receiving huge campaign contributions from drug companies, how would she win a vote allowing the government to negotiate lower drug prices? It's extremely unlikely she would--Another campaign promise that Hillary can't deliver on and probably knows she can't deliver on. Advertisement It's unlikely that a President Sanders could pass Medicare-For-All early in a first term. But if starting in 1993, when Hillary first designed her health care proposals which abandoned the Democrats' decades long fight for single payer health care in favor of a proposal reliant on private insurance, she had instead led the fight for single payer health care, there's a good chance we would have it by now. And if Bernie Sanders uses the Presidential bully pulpit to argue for Medicare-For-All and rally its millions of supporters, it might well become possible by the end of his second term, particularly as private medical costs continue to escalate, millions of Americans must still do without health insurance, and millions more can't afford care because of high deductibles and high co-pays. And imagine this. What if President Sanders led a caravan of thousands of seniors across the US-Canadian border to buy prescription drugs at a fraction of the price as in the US? Might that not be more effective in pressuring Congress to pass legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices than all the back-room dealing that a President Clinton might attempt? Moreover, although Sanders has spoken for the same principles for 35 years, he's also a talented politician and is not immune to pragmatic compromise. As long as the ACA is law, he would certainly fight as hard or harder as Hillary to give the Federal government the power to negotiate Medicare drug prices. And he might decide to take an incremental approach to reaching Medicare-For- All. For example, he might propose allowing Americans over 55 and under 25 to buy into Medicare, and then alter the age-range by a decade every few years until all Americans are covered. Advertisement The minimum wage and health care are just two examples of promises Hillary Clinton is unlikely to keep because they would die in a Republican-controlled House and a non-fillibuster proof Senate. Her promises to pass them by negotiating back-room deals with Congressional Republicans ring hollow. There's no guarantee that Bernie Sander's political revolution would fully succeed. But mobilizing millions of Americans to take power back from the oligarchs who've bought Congress has a better chance than Hillary's strategy of back-room dealing. It actually may be not only the more idealistic strategy but also the more pragmatic one. Rolled newspaper with the headline Health and Medical "They call us 'providers,'" a physician said to one of us today. He went on to say, "We aren't even 'doctors' anymore. We're 'high-level providers' [pointing to himself] and you're 'mid-level' providers." I suppose we are. The authors of this post are nurses, with Ph.D.s. Some of us are nurse practitioners. Advertisement The word "provider" is commonly used to refer to physicians, physician's assistants, nurse practitioners and nurse midwives. Each discipline is essential to provide critical primary care to those in need. Not only here, but also around the world, there's debate about health care providers' titles. There's significant resistance from some physicians, including the one above, who don't want to be called "providers," categorized with "lesser-trained and educated" (but safe, competent and licensed) health care providers. Another physician vehemently opposes being called a provider because, it's "a professional insult...personally demeaning." Interestingly, advanced practice nurses (nurse practitioners and nurse midwives) who provide primary care suffer the same professional insults when categorized as "mid-level providers," "non-physician prescribers," or as one recent physician blogger suggested -- "non-physician prescribers physician's assistants." Whether you are a physician, nurse midwife, nurse practitioner, physician's assistant, each professional discipline should be recognized for their unique contributions to health care. Yet when referring to categories, is it right to identify physicians as the gold standard? Situating the entire health care workforce hierarchically, with physicians at the top, privileges the care that physicians provide over care provided by other health care providers. We suppose this may be true in our health care system, which is focused on sick care instead of wellness care and illness prevention. If we simply look at primary care however, which includes some preventive health care activities, rigorous research from randomized clinical trials shows that primary care that is provided by nurse practitioners or other advanced practice nurses is equal to the care provided by physicians. The relevant issue is not rhetorical imposition of terminology based on politics and power, rather which health care providers can provide care in a safe and effective manner. The true gold standard of care, especially primary care, resides with evidence-based standards and quality patient outcomes. Advertisement Health care providers have different but overlapping spheres of expertise and training, however we believe that the term "provider" reflects the work of those of us who care for individuals and communities. "Provider" is profession-neutral, which makes sense in the context of patient-centered care: if patients are the center of care, then the individual discipline of the person providing that care shouldn't matter as long as that individual is appropriately educated, trained and competent to provide the care. And others agree. The Lancet Commission "Education of Health Professionals for the 21st Century: a Global independent Commission" argues for "interprofessional and transprofessional education that breaks down professional silos while enhancing collaborative and non-hierarchical relationships." As providers, we should educate our patients and ourselves about the expertise each profession offers. The Global Health Workforce Alliance notes that terms such as "mid-level provider" or "advanced clinical practitioner" are confusing. LOS ANGELES, UNITED STATES - DECEMBER 13: Protesters hold a banner written 'Hate divides, love abides' on it as hundreds of Californians, mostly including Muslims, gathered during a protest against terrorism and violence, staged with the attendance of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (not seen), San Bernardino Mayor Carey Davis (not seen) and Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department Charlie Beck (not seen) with some prominent Muslims of the society, in front of the Los Angeles City Hall on December 13, 2015 in Los Angeles, CA, USA. (Photo by Mintaha Neslihan Eroglu/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) As a Muslim American for the last two decades, my belief in my adopted homeland has grown stronger and stronger with each trial that has tested the determination of my fellow citizens. I felt safer in America than any other part of the world on the tragic evening of Sept. 11, 2001 -- but the current rise in anti-Islamic sentiments sometimes makes me uncomfortable. On the night of the State of the Union Address, I had a barrage of thoughts when I accompanied Congressman John Yarmuth through the power corridors of the U.S. Capitol toward the House of Representatives chamber, where the president would be delivering his speech in the next hour. Advertisement I reflected on what the future holds for Muslim Americans as Islamophobia has reached newer heights during this election cycle. I thought about my 8-year-old twin boys who have lived in no other country than theirs and love no other land more than United States of America. A few of the Presidential candidates have suggested that United States should not elect a Muslim President and have called for barring all Muslims from entering the U.S. Once I was in the gallery of the House Chamber, I was overwhelmed with the history of this place and space, where our founding fathers debated and outlined the course of an emerging nation. It is here where our Nation's course is still directed to this day. During this powerful moment, I had an epiphany about the people before us who had gone through the difficulties and hardships in this land of America. Advertisement I heard many voices of sanity pleading the cases of citizens at trial at any given time in history of our country. Among the heart-piercing cries of thousands of Cherokee children and women on the Trail of Tears, I thought of Davy Crockett opposing their removal from their ancestral lands at the push of white settlers. This great frontiersman was routed by his colleagues, but he contemplated in later years: I believed it was a wicked, unjust measure ... I voted against this Indian bill, and my conscience yet tells me that I gave a good honest vote, and one that I believe will not make me ashamed in the day of judgement. I thought of the concluding remarks of President Abraham Lincoln during his State of Union Address in 1862, in which he said: We -- even we here -- hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. In 1939, more than 900 Jews left Germany to find safe haven across the Atlantic Ocean. But they were denied refuge both in Cuba and U.S. Eventually their ship SS St Louis had to return to Europe with around 254 people, who later on lost their lives at the hands of the Nazis in the Holocaust. Shortly before that, a bill by Rep. Edith Rogers and Sen. Robert Wagner was not passed in Congress that would have allowed 20,000 German Jewish children to call the U.S. home, away from gas chambers of Adolf Hitler. Flashbacks also took me back in time to 1942 when, after the Pearl Harbor attack, a public also stirred by politicians and news media took over and Japanese Americans were singled out as a risk to national security. Thousands of innocent people including children and women were forcibly removed from their homes to the wilderness of detention camps with very few dissenting voices to champion their ordeal. I felt the echo of heartfelt and passionate words of Martin Luther King on the steps of Lincoln Memorial "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." When President Obama took the podium, his compassionate voice brought me back from past to present and consoled "we the people." Advertisement Our Constitution begins with those three simple words, words that mean all the people, not just some; words that insist we rise and fall together, and that's how we might perfect our Union. While walking back from Capitol with cyclones of thoughts swirling through my mind, the soothing voice of the grandson of Russian immigrants and the first Jewish American congressman from the Commonwealth of Kentucky John Yarmuth whispered: It shall pass as our nation was founded with the idea that life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable rights, endowed, not by Congress, but by our creator. These are the values that made us great, and in the face of terror, we cannot turn from them. We must hold them close or risk losing them forever. History proves that Americans have always preserved the values of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for all -- no matter how foreign a group was labeled by opposing forces. Muslim Americans will not be treated any differently. Muhammad Babar M.D. of Louisville is President of the Pakistani American Alliance for Compassion and Education and a board member of the Center for Interfaith Relations, Fund for the Arts, Louisville Public Media, Louisville Rotary Club and member Board of Governors of Speed Museum. He could be reached at mbcheema@gmail.com FILE - In this Oct. 8, 2010 file photo, Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia is seen during the group portrait of the Supreme Court at the Supreme Court Building in Washington. To the casual observer, Justice Scalia seems an old-fashioned sort who is devoted to the Constitution's original meaning, prefers the Roman Catholic Mass in Latin and opposes TV cameras in the Supreme Court. But the 74-year-old Scalia wants it known that he owns an iPod and an iPad and does so much work on his computer that he "can hardly write in longhand anymore." (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File) Like most Americans, you probably heard about Antonin Scalia's death on the Internet. On Saturday, the 79-year-old Supreme Court justice suffered an alleged heart attack while on an annual quail-hunting trip. The Washington Post reported his passing in a breaking news tweet at at 5:39 p.m. The news so rapidly spread across social media that Scalia peaked as a search topic on Google Trends instantaneously: By 5:30, interest in the SCOTUS justice was up to a perfect 100 on the tracking service. In lay terms, that's "break the Internet" level. The character of the conversation that emerged on social media was deeply troubling--with liberals and conservatives immediately drawing lines in the sand. Scalia, who was a strict constructionist, was a tiebreaking conservative vote on a majority Republican SCOTUS; his departure from the bench leaves the court at a presumptive 4-4 split until his replacement is nominated. Advertisement Senator Ted Cruz used the moment to call for a Congressional filibuster of whomever President Obama chooses for the seat. "Justice Scalia was an American hero," Cruz tweeted, before. "We owe it to him, & the Nation, for the Senate to ensure that the next President names his replacement." The GOP presidential nominee would reaffirm that sentiment in the CBS Republican Debate that followed Saturday evening. "We are one justice away from a Supreme Court that would undermine the religious liberty of millions of Americans," he warned. If Cruz quickly made the death of a man he called a "legal giant" into a stump speech, many on the opposite end of the aisle immediately began dancing on Scalia's grave. On Twitter, many users advised him to "rot in hell." One wrote, "Scalia is dead? Oh thank fuck." Comedian Billy Eichner posted, "Bye Scalia is the new Bye Felicia." The comment, a play on the popular saying in gay circles, was retweeted 865 times. These cases were not isolated: My entire timeline was filled with users fist-bumping each other over the death of a man who had a wife and nine children. Facebook users celebrated by throwing parties. A friend of mine was even invited to a parade to toast his passing. When it comes to Scalia's death, it seems everyone is getting it wrong. *** I won't pretend that when I saw the announcement on my Facebook feed, I didn't breathe a private sigh of relief. I did not like Antonin Scalia, and my dislike of him was deeper than just his conservative politics. As a justice of the Supreme Court, he repeatedly used his stated belief that we should honor the Constitution the way the Founding Fathers intended it to mock, disregard and consistently vote against the rights of LGBT people. This was a man who did not believe that I, as a queer person, was as deserving of rights or even as human as he was. Advertisement These sentiments repeatedly showed in his decisions as a justice. In 1996, Scalia wrote one of his famous opinions on Romer v. Texas, a Colorado case that ruled on whether gays qualified as a protected class under the Equal Protection Clause. In a 6-3 vote, SCOTUS voted that they did not. "Of course, it is our moral heritage that one should not hate any human being or class of human beings," Scalia argued. "But I had thought that one could consider certain conduct reprehensible--murder, for example, or polygamy, or cruelty to animals--and could exhibit even 'animus' toward such conduct. Surely that is the only sort of 'animus' at issue here: moral disapproval of homosexual conduct[.]" In the same argument, Scalia would also argue that LGBT non-discrimination qualifies as "special treatment," comparing same-sex partners to nothing more than "long time [roommates]." After being appointed by Reagan in 1986, Scalia used the bench, even if he wouldn't like to admit it, as his own pulpit for activism--against queer people, women's rights, and the interests of people of color. During a recent hearing on affirmative action, Scalia argued that having diminished educational opportunities is actually good for black students, as they "benefit from a slower track." He reasoned, "[M]ost of the black scientists in this country do not come from the most advanced schools." But even though Scalia fought a "thirty-year battle against social progress," as a recent Onion headline put it, his death is not to be publicly celebrated, no matter how we might privately feel about it. One of the things that Antonin Scalia never understood about the marginalized people he continually ruled against is that lives inherently have dignity; that dignity deserves respect, whether the person in question is your mother, best friend, or most hated enemy. Life and death should be honored, even if Scalia himself should not. Advertisement Over the weekend, Daily Beast columnist James Poulos wrote on Twitter that "politics should not define our humanity," and he's absolutely correct. If Scalia repeatedly denied queer people humanity over the course of three decades, we should not make his same mistakes. Our human rights are important, but our empathy should also reflect the principles we preach. This bucks the current consensus on the subject, but it shouldn't have to. How to respond to a public figure's death was the subject of a memorable editorial from Glenn Greenwald, who concluded that the rules of "death etiquette" simply don't apply to someone like Scalia. "This demand for respectful silence in the wake of a public figure's death is not just misguided but dangerous," Greenwald wrote. "That one should not speak ill of the dead is arguably appropriate when a private person dies, but it is wildly inappropriate for the death of a controversial public figure, particularly one who wielded significant influence and political power." Greenwald was responding to the swell of hagiography following the death of Margaret Thatcher, the conservative Prime Minister remembered with respectful fondness after her 2013 passing. "The world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend," President Barack Obama said. Her New York Times obituary described her so: "Margaret Thatcher, the 'Iron Lady' of British politics, who set her country on a rightward economic course, led it to victory in the Falklands war and helped guide the United States and the Soviet Union through the cold war's difficult last years." He is right to criticize the way in which these tributes sanitize and whitewash the history of some of our most divisive politicians. In her terms as Prime Minister, Thatcher was no friend to queer Britons. In a 1987 speech, Margaret Thatcher channeled Anita Bryant by railing against the normalization of homosexuality in schools: "Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay. All of those children are being cheated of a sound start in life--yes, cheated." However, Mr. Greenwald errs on one key point. Our choices are not merely between partying in the streets, as pro-Labour groups did following Thatcher's death, and a respectful silence. We don't have to pick between blindly revering someone who harmed millions and desecrating their grave. If death is complicated, our response should be more complex than unhelpful dichotomies. We can be honest about our feelings without being inhumane. Advertisement There's an old saying attributed to Martin Luther King that applies here. "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars," he once said. "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." How should one then speak of someone like Antonin Scalia, as his family and friends mourn his memory? We should do exactly as outlets like Mother Jones and Vice have done: Objectively analyze the painful legacy he leaves behind. If Scalia's grieving widow and children, as well as his good friend and fellow justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, deserve the right to grieve, we reserve the right to meaningfully reflect on what his role in public life meant to us--a eulogy that is as filled with sorrow for LGBT Americans as it is for his loved ones. As much as it might feel cathartic to condemn Scalia to hell on our Twitter feeds, ultimately his actions and deeds are what will speak loudest. This post originally appeared on the Frisky and has been reprinted with permission. (Stitching by Alisa Burke) His shoes are almost always brown. Sometimes, like last week, his socks match his bright green jacket, which I think is worn on days with rain. But I can't be sure; my evidence is sketchy, inconsistent, and random. I sit across from him, on a nubby burnt orange sofa that feels sturdy and new-ish and is so dark it is almost red; it is long enough for a family of four, depending on the capacity of that family for closeness. Which, perhaps, is the point in his line of work. In May of last year, I started seeing a psychiatrist; it is time for us to shed the stigma that rides alongside mental health interventions, like a puppy in a sidecar, but not as cute. Too many people suffer and die for not stepping into the sunshine to say, "Help me, I'm not waving but drowning," like my mother, and I won't be a party to that for myself after spending more than 40 years trying to bring sunshine to her or at the very least, trying to give her the information she needed to know that there was sunshine, somewhere. Note to self, step one: Stop caring about what others will say. It doesn't matter and they don't care anyway. And if they do care? Then they are caring about themselves and not you. Step two: Stop believing you can bring sunshine to anyone. My visit on that day in May 2015 wasn't exactly by accident but by proximity instead, an appointment of convenience, you might say. We needed to find a new psychiatrist for Felix (formerly known as Tess) to get a form completed for a possible service dog placement (it didn't work out) and a friend had suggested a doctor in Asheville. As I talked to the office manager about making an appointment for Felix, I said, "You know what, I'd like to make an appointment for myself, too." Advertisement Why? Because I was convinced I was clinically depressed, because getting dressed had become almost impossible, because hiding was the story of most days, and because my family doctor had no solutions, seemingly, except to cut short the conversations when I said the word, "depressed," and double the prescription of Celexa, which wasn't helping, and still wouldn't help at twice the dose. And so, in mid-May, I found myself in an office with a psychiatrist across the room from me in those brown shoes and green socks, a mantle slightly above and to the left of his head, covered in knick-knacks with great meaning, I'm sure, that sturdy burnt orange couch my perch, constant traffic outside the window as an aside. Ninety minutes later, after a flood of talk that overflowed the banks of that particular river and into the next person's appointment, I emerged without Celexa, with a merry high-ho to my useless family doctor, and with a diagnosis not of depression but of PTSD. I laughed when he said those four letters, adding after the laugh, "Well, that's ridiculous." I thought he was joking. Advertisement "PTSD? That's for soldiers and survivors of violence," I added, trying to cover up my laugh when I realized he was serious. And then he cocked his head to one side and recounted the events of the last four years back to me: Significant betrayal and slander by one of your closest friends and business partners after 8 years (and rejection by all those who believed his slander). Brother's heart attack and 5-bypass surgery. Autism diagnosis for your child. Cancer diagnosis for your husband. Transgender transition for your child, because autism evidently just wasn't difficult enough alone. (You know what? That's the truth of what I thought in the moment. As supportive as I am, that's the truth of what I thought.) Daughter leaving for college, traveling the world alone, getting a job, finding an apartment, adulting and all that comes with that. A friend's attempted suicide, and then her completed one. Significant financial losses because of a new business partner who lied about his capabilities and was rude to my community, to boot. Advertisement A move to a new town, in part because of those losses. Mother's decline, dementia (and now death, I must add, seven months later). Three close friends dying. My own heart attack. The list went on from there, even. It went on. I listened, and then deflected: "Yeah, but that's just life," I said. "Everybody deals with things like that all the time. That's what life is." Slowly he reiterated his diagnosis, and outlined his proposed treatment plan. I thought to myself: When you are the person who endures, it comes as a shock when you simply cannot any longer, when showering and dressing and thinking have become too much. When cooking is out of the question. Or even eating. When you are the person who holds it together for everyone else, it comes as a shock when you start unraveling, unable to help even yourself. What would I tell a friend who recounted that list to me? I would say, "Dear sweet little baby jesus, take a break. Rest, catch your breath, do some serious self care, get some help, you are home to a life." What had I been telling myself? "Buck up, this is life. Everybody is dealing with the same kinds of things, many a lot worse than this. You've got work to do. Don't ask for help, just put your head down and run at it. That has always worked." Advertisement I wrote four books in that four years. I honestly have no idea how I did that. I traveled, I spoke, I saw my husband and children through illness and transitions of many kinds, I survived two business partners who shattered my sense of who I am, I carried on. We carry on. We carry on, don't we? We carry on with things significant and insignificant. We are the competent ones. We are the ones who carry on, who become stoic instead of hysterical, the ones who shoulder a weight like it is nothing, nothing at all. We are the ones who make it right for everyone, who don't say no if you need help, but almost always say no to ourselves. When I was a child, my father used to involve us in the chores, one of which was scrubbing the white wall tires on our car with bleach and a toothbrush every week. He would say to me and my brother, "If you want something done right, do it yourself." And evidently I believed him, taking everything on, even things no one had asked me to take on. "Is it possible that by helping other people so much, you are actually insulting them?" my psychiatrist asked in that first conversation. "That's ridiculous! No! I am H-E-L-P-I-N-G them!" He looked at me. And we talked. "Okay, well, I never thought of it that way." And we talked. "Yes, I can see the truth in that. Yes, that is what I have been doing." Afterward, as I investigated this new diagnosis (god bless Dr. Google), I saw that the incidence of PTSD among mothers whose children have autism is very high, higher than combat soldiers. And I understand that now, the days are full of old and new mines that will explode at a time I cannot know. I cannot know where to step to avoid the explosions. Add everything else on my list, and I now have no trouble at all believing that diagnosis. Advertisement I sit on that couch once a month. And truths are revealed to me, most often in my own processing, as words fall from my mouth onto a lovely Persian rug that clashes, but beautifully, with his chair. What I thought, I can no longer think. What I did to help people, I can no longer do. Because now I can see boundaries being crafted from what felt like alka-seltzer outlines before, dissolving or non-existent, and now being crafted like one stitches a beloved doll's head back on her old body after too much love and wear. Stitches to hold me together, to not let me ooze into the other. Boundaries: Stopping myself from saying "yes" by saying either "no" or "I'll get back to you in a few days after I've had time to think about it." And focusing on the "no" most often. Letting people know when their actions are not okay with me, in the moment, not three months or three years later. Letting them choose what fully informed action to take. My job is to inform; their job is to choose. Divorcing myself from my love of ambiguity in matters of interpersonal relationships: clarity is my friend. Setting up clear expectations from the beginning. "No, you may not call me at 10 p.m. to tell me you won't be in class tomorrow. Here are my office hours," or "I really prefer that you not give me advice unless I ask for it," or "It's important that you not stop by my house without calling first because it will startle Felix and cause hours of anxiety and despair, and screaming." Advertisement Articulating for myself what "I have to" means. Hint: It really means, "I am choosing to," but we let victim language ("have to") sneak in. I'm not that person without boundaries now. I will say no to you, even if my first impulse is to say yes. I won't enable you (or me) any longer. I won't solve your problems for you, even though I might think I can. (I always think I can. I know. I'm working on that.) I will stop being a people pleaser. I will extend compassion and love and listening and better questions, but no fixes. I will stop myself from making statements and will only offer questions instead. Why? Because you are the expert in your own life, not me. And if you don't like my questions, you have the right and responsibility to tell me to step back from even that. Eight months into those conversations in that room, I also know now that I can set boundaries with great love, not anger. That's the next stage of my evolution. Stay tuned, and consider this: When you believe you are helping, you might not be. Help yourself instead. Consider it likely you're the one who needs help, not others. When you are giving, your gift might be an expression of power over someone instead of an expression of generosity. Open space to receive instead (hint: receiving is much harder because it is a place of such greater vulnerability). Advertisement When you believe you are helping, consider that you might be insulting that person instead. Let them manage their own life. Have faith that they can, in fact, do so. You manage yours. That's enough to keep your hands full. As in all things, these things are true not always, but sometimes and often. I sit, and I talk, I recognize, and I stitch myself back together again. ___________________ on the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley, Clinton was asked, point blank, if she would pledge, as presidential candidate Jimmy Carter did, to tell the truth (as well as whether or not she has ever told a lie). One would expect a fairly simple, and straight-forward answer to this question, consisting of exactly one word that has three letters in it. This, however, was her response: Well, I have to tell you I have tried in every way I know how literally from my years as a young lawyer all the way through my time as secretary of state to level with the American people. ~Hillary Clinton She has always tried. On seeking clarification, Pelley followed up by asking her if she's always told the truth. Again, Clinton repeated that she has "always tried." When pressed by Pelley, she again stated that she has always tried, and then gave the following response, which was I guess what she believed was supposed to allay the disbelief he was showing (as was apparent as he asked her the question about three different times): Well, but, you know, you're asking me to say, "Have I ever?" I don't believe I ever have. I don't believe I ever have. I don't believe I ever will. ~Hillary Clinton I have worked for some of the top global law firms for over fifteen years as, among other things, a paralegal. I also successfully completed two years of law school, and I was the second-youngest student my school ever admitted in its 125-year history. To my trained ears, Clinton's response is lawyer-speak, which makes it appear as though she's answered the question when, in fact, she has not. There is one thing that I've heard people say about Clinton, and that is that she's a very good lawyer. Some, however, might consider that to be more of an insult than a compliment. The fact that she could not answer such a simple question--"Will you pledge to tell the truth?"--with the simple, one-word, three-letter answer anyone running to be POTUS would use demonstrates, to me, how much Clinton continues to think--and act--like an attorney and not a President. Watch her respond to Pelley's questions and judge for yourself: Clinton's response here continues the pattern of how she answers questions. To me, she basically is coming up with ways to not answer questions so that she can backtrack on what she's said at some point in the future. The pattern of her responses essentially is, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is" all over again (and again, and again). And in my view, America just doesn't need another President who employs such legalistic tactics in their everyday speech. Advertisement you must simply DO them.Here's another way to look at it. In therapy, I'm constantly being told to stop saying "I'll try to do so-and-so" or "I'll try to get such-and-such done." Instead, I'm told to just say it. Compare "I'll try to get to work on time" with "I'll get to work on time." The former sets us up for failure while the latter already has us succeeding; it's essentially a self-fulfilling prophecy. If Clinton is always trying to tell the truth, doesn't it follow that she's really just setting herself up to fail at doing so? As Ray Bradbury says, "You can't TRY to do things, you must simply DO them." I'd like to thank my very good friends Xander, Lorraine, and David, who've assisted me with proofreading my articles lately. Xander, a native of the Netherlands, speaks four languages, and English was not the first one he learned. There's something to be said that a non-native speaker could know "our" language better than a majority of native-born Americans. Ta-Nehisi Coates on Macbeth, Sonia Sanchez, and how poetry shaped him into the writer he is today. By Ruth Graham As the journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates has become a household name over the last year with his National Book Award-winning memoir Between the World and Me and his MacArthur Fellowship, he has often been compared to James Baldwin. That comparisonmade by the likes of Toni Morrisonis thanks to Coates's intellectual dexterity, the elegance of his prose, and his uncompromising moral vision. But the two men have something else in common: poetry. Coates started writing "bad poetry" (his words) in high school, but he took it up with more seriousness in college. When he arrived at Howard University, whose community he calls "the Mecca," he fell in with poets that included E. Ethelbert Miller, Elizabeth Alexander, Joel Dias-Porter, Terrance Hayes, and Yona Harvey. Coates became a journalist, of course, not a poet. But in Between the World and Me, he writes about how understanding poetry taught him to write: "Poetry was the processing of my thoughts until the slag of justification fell away, and I was left with the cold steel truths of life." Coates spoke with the Poetry Foundation from Paris, where he and his family are living through the end of the summer. Advertisement Justice Scalia & Bryan Garner Book Talk and Signing The passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin "Nino" Scalia evoked widespread commentary about how outspoken he was both on the Court and at law schools and other forums where he often lectured and sometimes tangled with audiences. Knowing of Justice Scalia's unusual expressiveness for a jurist, my colleague Robert Weissman and I wrote him a challenging letter in 2006, starting with these words: We are writing to inquire as to how the application of the Bill of Rights and related constitutional protections to the artificial creations known as corporations can be squared with a constitutional interpretation theory of "originalism." We referred to the Supreme Court case which was falsely reported to have decided that a corporation is a person. This was the 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. This case dealt with a taxation matter and the Court neither decided the personhood issue nor did it even address the issue. Instead, the court reporter (or scribe as he was called), a former railroad company president, simply wrote in the headnotes that, "Corporations are persons within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States..." Despite this fraudulent representation of the Court's opinion, subsequent Supreme Court cases started extending Bill of Rights protections to corporations. Nowhere in the Constitution is there any mention of the words "corporation" or "company." The word "person" meant to the framers, in those early days, a human being; the framers never said a company or corporation is a person. The Preamble of the Constitution, we should remember, starts with, "We the People," not "We the People and the Corporations." This is no minor distinction. Corporations have seized on this equivalence with being a "person," to escape health and safety regulation, consumer and labor rights, and even strong regulation or prohibition of tobacco advertising that pushes a product known to take 400,000 American lives a year. Corporate lawyers and judges have continued to use "equal protection of the law" to include corporate behavior. In 1988, I wrote a New York Times op-ed with public interest lawyer Carl Mayer. In this opinion piece titled "Corporations are Not Persons" we argued that: Advertisement The corporate drive for constitutional parity with real humans comes at a time when legislatures are awarding these artificial persons superhuman privileges. Besides perpetual life, corporations enjoy limited liability for industrial accidents such as nuclear power disasters, and the use of voluntary bankruptcy and other disappearing acts to dodge financial obligations while remaining in business. The legal system is thus creating unaccountable Frankensteins that have human powers but are nonetheless constitutionally shielded from much actual and potential law enforcement as well as from accountability to real persons such as workers, consumers and taxpayers. Justice Scalia espoused the doctrine of "originalism," which meant that in cases, he interpreted the Constitution by the "original public meaning" of the words written by the framers, as understood nearly 240 years ago. That was, he believed, the only way to insulate the Constitution from the personal values of judges and the political winds of the day. He often derided "nine unelected lawyers" usurping the popular will of the people by Court opinions that were the equivalent of legislative enactments. Some months after we sent our letter, lo and behold, Justice Scalia telephoned me. After some conversation about a possible event at the American University Washington College of Law, I put the question to him. How can his "originalism" square with giving corporations the rights of personhood? He replied that a clear case of corporate personhood had not come to the Court, so he hadn't "researched it," and when such a case did, he would research it and decide. Then he added that, like Social Security, which he believed to be unconstitutional, the according of corporations the rights of personhood is so deeply embedded in our socio-economic fabric, that it is unlikely the status quo could be reversed. After a few minutes of further discussion, I said that I was looking forward to reading his forthcoming opinions, to which he jocularly replied, "You poor devil," and said goodbye. Vintage Scalia, alright! Yet there were other sides to Justice Scalia. He was a major force in Bush v. Gore's 5-4 majority opinion that stopped the Florida Supreme Court's ongoing order for a full state recount. In an utterly specious, brazenly-political opinion by the five Republicans on the Court, the recount was stopped and George W. Bush was "selected" as President by five unelected lawyers. When questioned in public about this decision, he replied injudiciously "get over it." Advertisement Justice Scalia recently told C-SPAN's Brian Lamb that adherence to the text of the Constitution meant that he rendered opinions opposite to what he would have liked to decide. Presumably these include criminal defense opinions where he joined with the liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. By and large, however, Justices bring their political values about power, its distribution and impact, to their work on the Court. Justice Scalia was a corporatist, as displayed by his vote in the Citizens United case in 2010 overruling precedent and giving corporations the power to spend money without dollar limitations to support or denounce candidates for public office. Justice Scalia was inclined, with important exceptions, to defer to executive power against civil liberties. He was also inimical to fuller voting rights and hostile to government regulation of business and allowing class actions by consumers and workers. Leading conservative thinkers often took him to task. Professor of law, Richard A. Epstein excoriated Justice Scalia's judicial activism, especially his hostility to taxpayers "standing" to sue the government and Congress "for overstepping their Constitutional authority." "Justice Scalia," concludes the University of Chicago scholar, "takes a blatantly anti-originalist position by reading into the Constitution limitations found neither in its text nor its basic structure, nor in the general judicial practice running deep in our history." A more startling put-down from the celebrated conservative jurist and former academic colleague of Justice Scalia, Richard A. Posner, came in a lengthy critique of Scalia's 2012 book, Reading Law: the Interpretation of Legal Texts. Judge Posner's article was called "The Incoherence of Antonin Scalia." The late Justice would have enjoyed debating the accusation. People have strong opinions about Justice Scalia, but most would agree that he did make people think. Democratic presidential candidates Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, left, and Hillary Clinton take the stage before a Democratic presidential primary debate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Thursday, Feb. 11, 2016, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Tom Lynn) It must be pretty sweet to be a white swing voter. Political campaigns blow millions of dollars catering to your every whim. Politicians ask what you think before they step out on a major policy program, despite the fact that your views aren't representative of the majority of Americans. The changing demographics of this country mean it's well past time to stop obsessing over a shrinking population that's out of sync with the right direction for this country. Continuing to cater to those voters can have dire consequences, in politics and more importantly in policies that deeply impact people's lives. Michelle Alexander captured the devastating consequences of fixating on white swing voters in a scathing piece about the Clinton legacy on racial justice. She chronicles how much Clinton strove to be seen as "tough on crime" on the campaign trail, even flying back to Arkansas before the New Hampshire primary to oversee the execution of a mentally impaired black man. He followed through on his campaign promises: Advertisement Bill Clinton presided over the largest increase in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history. Clinton did not declare the War on Crime or the War on Drugs--those wars were declared before Reagan was elected and long before crack hit the streets--but he escalated it beyond what many conservatives had imagined possible. He supported the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity for crack versus powder cocaine, which produced staggering racial injustice in sentencing and boosted funding for drug-law enforcement. Clinton championed the idea of a federal "three strikes" law in his 1994 State of the Union address and, months later, signed a $30 billion crime bill that created dozens of new federal capital crimes, mandated life sentences for some three-time offenders, and authorized more than $16 billion for state prison grants and the expansion of police forces. The legislation was hailed by mainstream-media outlets as a victory for the Democrats, who "were able to wrest the crime issue from the Republicans and make it their own." When Clinton left office in 2001, the United States had the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Human Rights Watch reported that in seven states, African Americans constituted 80 to 90 percent of all drug offenders sent to prison, even though they were no more likely than whites to use or sell illegal drugs. Prison admissions for drug offenses reached a level in 2000 for African Americans more than 26 times the level in 1983. All of the presidents since 1980 have contributed to mass incarceration, but as Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson recently observed, "President Clinton's tenure was the worst." Alexander notes that the Clintons have expressed regret for their role in passing those policies, but so much damage has already been done. It's important for them to act to undo the impacts of mass incarceration, but it's that much harder to reverse damage that has reverberated throughout communities of color for decades than it is to avoid those unjust policies in the first place. In his essential new book Brown is the New White, Steve Phillips shows that more than twenty years later, Democrats are still "ma[king] decisions that have harmed millions of people, and they made those decisions because they have been blinded by the perceived power of White swing voters." He cites the example of Barack Obama's inept immigration reform strategy early in his presidency. Rather than embrace the diverse constituency that elected him and use the momentum he had for bold action, he started deporting people at record rates in an effort to demonstrate toughness. Those deportations bought him nothing from Republicans in Congress or voters, and they tore families apart. Advertisement The good news is that shifting gears and embracing the growing diverse majority in this country could elect more progressive politicians and allow for the ambitious policymaking on racial and economic justice that this country sorely needs. Phillips' book captured frustrations I've felt for a long time working in and around electoral politics, and pulled together solid numbers to demonstrate why this shift in strategy can be a winning one. Democrats ignore it at their peril, and the country's. The white population is growing at a much slower rate than communities of color. Phillips identified 33 states where the coalition he calls the "New American Majority" (people of color and progressive whites) makes up a majority of eligible voters. He cites examples of how strategies to mobilize this majority have been effective--as when Rep. Keith Ellison's campaign increased voter turnout by 5 percent in 2014, a year when turnout in the state overall was down 3 percent. He finds hope in states like California, that turned from a Republican stronghold to a national progressive leader. As Phillips points out, Republicans recognize these demographic shifts as well. It's easy to dismiss any likelihood that they will capitalize on these changes when watching the GOP presidential candidates blather on about building walls and scary Muslims. But they have had some successes on a local level, and their presidential field is far more diverse than the Democratic one. Representation is only one piece of the puzzle, but Phillips notes that "since 2008, most of the people of color elected to statewide office outside of California and Hawaii (two of the earliest majority-minority states) have been Republicans." There are some positive signs that Democratic politicians on the national level are taking this to heart. Both Clinton and Sanders have criticized Obama on immigration. They are talking more frequently about racial justice and police brutality (in no small part due to the smart and persistent organizing of the Black Lives Matter movement). It's a start, but only a start and we need to see it reflected by Senate candidates, governors and others all the way down the ticket. Far too many pundits in this country claim we need more moderate politicians, which to them means some kind of carefully calibrated average of two extreme positions. Those pundits and advisers carry sway in Democratic politics. But a progressive social justice platform isn't extreme. It represents the majority in this country, a majority that is only going to grow. I hope many people involved in Democratic politics will read Phillips' book and take real steps to implement change. Building a new coalition is going to be essential to winning elections in the future. Democrats can't continue to take voters of color for granted; they must stop tiptoeing around white swing voters and push for the policies the majority of Americans want to see. And in the end, economic and social justice will help those white swing voters too, whether they like it or not. Taxpayers United of America, an organization that advocates for tax relief and "fighting government pensions," has released an updated list of lawmaker pensions in the General Assembly Retirement System. At the end of fiscal year 2015, the pension fund had a funded ratio of 16.4 percent -- the lowest of the state's five retirement systems -- and $278.8 million in unfunded liabilities. Here are some more fast facts from the 2015 comprehensive annual financial report: The Hunting Ground, a powerful documentary from filmmakers Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering, shines a light on the widespread phenomenon of rape on college campuses. The film's music supervisor Bonnie Greenberg called Diane Warren to write the music. The prolific and popular songwriter with 7 Oscar nods immediately said yes. Now, with "Til it Happens to You," that makes 8 nominations for Original Song. In a recent phone interview, I asked her about this song, and collaborating with Lady Gaga. You responded immediately to working on The Hunting Ground. Was the subject particular to you? I got molested--not raped--when I was 12. You feel like you had something to do with it and you didn't. This says so much about our culture: if you report rape, you are raped twice, asked, what did you do to cause this? I wanted to do a song for this movie: at the beginning you hear about sexual assault on campuses. The girls are vulnerable when you hear the song in the middle. They get pissed off. By the end, when you hear it again, they are activists marching and changing laws. How did you get Lady Gaga, and what was it like working with her? I called her. I thought, I'm going to take the chance. She was sobbing, and said, "I don't know if I can handle this, reliving my experience." I have a lot of faith. I flew to New York. I thought if she says no, I'll just spend a nice few days in the city. She said yes, and we went into a studio and she changed whatever she had to change. She was great. She took the song to where I never saw it going. She's a trained classical musician, the real deal, and her performance is amazing: by the end of the song, Gaga is a warrior with a machine gun. She said, "I'm not someone you'll want to meet in an alley." Now we're working together, writing songs for her new album. Advertisement Has rape awareness and prevention become a cause for you? I am primarily an animal activist. I have a cat named Mouse, a parrot named Buttwings, and a gecko named Pickle. That's my family. How would winning an Oscar change your life? I'd love not to be an Oscar loser anymore, but especially for this song. The song already changed my life. It made me talk about being molested. The message is helping people. I get tons of notes every day, especially after Catherine Hardwicke's video on Youtube. It has 26 million views. The song is resonant for sexual assault, and resonant for anything difficult: maybe something traumatic happened; this song can help. It gives an empowering voice to something people are too afraid to talk about. And the song is giving back to colleges. There's an a capella competition at the White House, with groups all sending in their versions of "Til it Happens to You." In New York Magazine without explaining his math, Jonathan Chait argues "Why Bloomberg Could Run for President and Win." "It is clearly possible for an independent to win a three-way race against two established party candidates in a state. And if it is possible to do it in a state, it is also possible to do so in enough states to add up to 270 electoral votes." It's quite apparent that Mike Bloomberg would LOVE to be president and would gladly spend $1B+ of his own money to fund a run. It's also clear that in this cycle, anything could happen. But digging into the numbers, a run by Bloomberg would be much less a moonshot (an low-risk attempt at an incredibly ambitious goal), and more shooting the moon (going for broke, with slim chance of success and great cost of failure, especially in policy areas about which Bloomberg cares deeply). Advertisement In a world where Trump could actually be our next president (see Felix Salmon's "President Trump: Here's how it happens"), Bloomberg's entry into the mix would almost definitely pave the path to the White House for Trump or another Republican who would greatly damage Bloomberg's interests in gun control and the environment for a generation or more. Two important factors are at play here. First, the national vote is irrelevant. What matters is the state-by-state vote to win actual Electoral Votes (EVs). Second, to win outright, a candidate must win 270 EVs. If no candidate wins the 270 majority, the House gets to pick the next president based on a vote where each state delegation gets one vote. (Currently 33 states have Republican majorities in the House.) I would love to see Bloomberg's state by state polling. But a rough guess says that the GOP candidate will win an absolute minimum of 159 EVs, especially if Bloomberg is in the race. (These are: AK, AL, AR, GA, ID, KS, KY, LA, MI, MO, ND, NE, OK, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, WV, WY.) Most likely, the Republican will win another 47 EVs (AZ, IN, MO, NC). This leaves just 332 EVs to be split between the Democrat and Bloomberg. Assuming that the Democrat would win CA, DC, and HI, this leaves exactly 270 possible EVs for Bloomberg. This means Bloomberg would need to win a complete sweep of CO, CT, DE, FL, IA, IL, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, VA, VT, WA, and WI to win. And should Bloomberg win more than 62 EVs from these states, perhaps by winning just FL, NY and PA (78 total), there would only be 254 EVs left for the Democrat, meaning that the GOP House would pick the next president. Advertisement Of course anything can happen. There's always the possibility that Trump could win the GOP nomination and finally falter before November and that Bernie could pull an upset over Hillary yet not enough general election voters Feel the Bern. In theory, this could clear a path for Bloomberg to sweep the required 24 states to get 270 EVs (or, more unlikely, to win CA, DC and HI and/or AZ, IN, MO and NC). But much more likely if Bloomberg enters the race is that even if he didn't throw any "battleground" states to the GOP candidate, he would prevent the Democrat from getting to 270 EVs, hand the election to the House GOP, and likely hand the Supreme Court to anti-gun control, climate change deniers for years to come. The American visiting Cuba gains an appreciation for the resilient joy and spirit of its people, and takes home memories of a time warp free of the strip-mall banality of the rich world. Venturing here offers a chance to befriend a poor and struggling island society that is, in its own way, an inspiration...and headed for breathtaking change. And as the wheels of my Aeromexico plane left the Havana airport tarmac, I hoped to someday soon return to find a society that has kept the good in its heritage while gracefully and gently joining the family of nations in an aggressive global economy. Fidel Castro, the human embodiment of Cuba's Revolution, survives...but just barely. People I met didn't know exactly where he was and figured he's alive, but no longer coherent. Even so, it seems that Cuba's Revolution survives because of the stature of Castro. We asked many times, "What happens here after Fidel and Raul Castro are gone?" The answer: "Nobody knows what will happen." Sure, the Cubans are poor in material terms. But they are no poorer than other Latin Americans. And they have a strength of character, national pride, and human dignity that is unique in this region. Advertisement Cubans are free to talk politics, and they love doing just that. We spent hours on the rooftop of our B&B talking with our hosts. The conversations were wide-ranging and full of memorable quotes: "Cubans are great athletes. We earn more Olympic gold medals, per capita, than any other country." "When you give people things for free, they don't value it." "We don't throw away anything. We just repair it and repair it and repair it." "Resistance and dissident movements get no traction in Cuba, because people here assume they are funded by the CIA to destabilize our country." I traveled to Cuba completely legally, but through Mexico. My government knew exactly what I was doing, because whenever I prearranged or paid for something (even via London or Canada), a form popped up making me declare that I had a general license to travel in Cuba. (Of the 12 acceptable categories, I simply had to declare that I was on "professional research.") Returning home, we flew from Havana to Mexico City (departing at about 6:00 am, no departure taxes, very straightforward...like any flight). Then we flew from Mexico City to Houston. At Houston, US Customs hardly looked at me. I pleaded, "But I've been in Cuba. I bought souvenirs, too." The man in the uniform just said, "Welcome home." On June 28, 2009, when Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, democratically elected Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was overthrown by a military coup. The United Nations, the European Union, and the Organization of American States condemned the coup, and on July 5, Honduras was suspended from the OAS. Under longstanding and clear-cut U.S. law, all U.S. aid to Honduras except democracy assistance, including all military aid, should have been immediately suspended following the coup. On August 7, fifteen House Democrats, led by Rep. Raul Grijalva, sent a letter to the Administration which began, "As you know, on June 28th, 2009 a military coup took place in Honduras," and said: "The State Department should fully acknowledge that a military coup has taken place and follow through with the total suspension of non-humanitarian aid, as required by law." Advertisement Why wasn't U.S. aid to Honduras suspended following the coup? The justification given by Clinton's State Department on August 25 for not suspending U.S. aid to Honduras was that events in Honduras were murky and it was not clear whether a coup had taken place. Clinton's State Department claimed that State Department lawyers were studying the murky question of whether a coup had taken place. This justification was a lie, and Clinton's State Department knew it was a lie. By July 24, 2009, the State Department, including Secretary Clinton, knew clearly that the action of the Honduran military to remove President Zelaya on June 28, 2009 constituted a coup. On July 24, U.S. Ambassador to Honduras Hugo Llorens sent a cable to top U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Clinton, with subject: "Open and Shut: The Case of the Honduran Coup," thoroughly documenting the assertion that "there is no doubt" that the events of June 28 "constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup." Why did Clinton's State Department lie and pretend that it was murky whether a coup had taken place when it knew the fact that a coup had taken place was clear-cut? Because Hillary Clinton wanted the coup to succeed. Clinton's strategy to help the coup succeed, as revealed in her emails, was "delay, delay, delay," as Donald Trump might say. Delay any action that might help force the coup government to stand down and allow the democratically elected President to be restored to office. As she later confessed in her book, her goal was to "render the question of [President] Zelaya moot." Today, the rule of law in Honduras still has not recovered from the coup that Secretary Clinton helped enable. That's a key reason that refugees have fled Honduras to the United States, only to find themselves hunted by the Department of Homeland Security raids that Secretary Clinton supported before she opposed them. Advertisement Elephants having tea party According to both Russian and American space authorities, nobody has ever had sex in space. (Popular Mechanics, February 2016) Wealthy people don't watch a lot of TV. (Money, March 2016) The more sleep you get each night, the lower your annual medical costs. (Money, March 2016) Couples who play music in their house have twice as much sex. (Time, February 22, 2016) Strangers approach designer Tom Ford in supermarkets to ask if they're wearing the right shade of lip gloss. (Time, February 22, 2016) Advertisement There's a Dutch company that trains eagles that hunt down illegal civilian drones. (Time, February 15, 2016) Both elephants and naked mole rats are immune to cancer. (Time, February 22, 2016) Ninety-two percent of American children have an on-line presence before they're two. (Time, February 22, 2016) David Bowie used to carry a Greek-language newspaper when he walked around Manhattan so people would think he was just some Greek guy who looked like David Bowie. (Rolling Stone, February 11, 2016) We've cured Alzheimer's in mice many times. (Time, February 22, 2016) A Florida man was recently arrested for throwing a live alligator through a Wendy's drive-through window. (Time, February 22, 2016) Advertisement Volunteering with election polls isn't what usually comes to mind when we think of corporate volunteering. But why not? Part of community impact is engaging in the civic life of communities, and that starts with electing national and local leaders. Holding elections hinges on the help of volunteers, so this area is one that's ripe for employee involvement. While many companies shy away from the political sphere, encouraging employees to take part in civic life isn't about taking partisan sides. It's about engaging in the process that undergirds our country's democracy. Advertisement And with 2016 being a presidential election year, companies will find a host of benefits from supporting employee participation as Election Day volunteers (poll workers): Employee engagement. Your employees are already aware of and talking about political issues in the headlines, particularly in a presidential year. Creating a civic engagement program gives them the appropriate avenues to do this during working hours. Millennial appeal. While employees of all generations may be attracted to election volunteering, millennials are particularly interested in connecting with their peers. Participating in local elections creates an opportunity to build upon their social networks through the banner of your company. Leadership and skills building. Getting involved in civic life affords myriad opportunities for personal and professional development. Companies often shell out hundreds if not thousands of dollars per employee for the same kind of leadership training and skills building that you can replicate for free through volunteering as a poll worker. Community building. You know that your employees are your best brand ambassadors. Encouraging them to engage in the community in ways that they're passionate about helps bridge relationships that can connect back to your company in unexpected ways. The more involved your employees are in the community, the more your company is, too. With the presidential primaries underway, many jurisdictions across the country are actively registering voters and recruiting Election Day volunteers. In San Francisco, for example, the San Francisco Department of Elections participates in a variety of events - from street fairs targeting local neighborhoods, to cultural festivals, to Nerd Night, with the goal of reaching eligible voters to register, update their registration, and to become a poll worker. Advertisement "Poll workers operate polling places on Election Day and assist voters in many parts of the voting process," explains Yelena Kravtsova, who works with the Election Day Support Division at the San Francisco Department of Elections. She notes that some poll workers have volunteered during every election for decades. "Poll workers include high school students learning on-the job civics lessons, retirees, and hundreds of people who take a day off from their regular lives to be of service to voters," says Kravtsova. "People who are bilingual are highly encouraged to apply!" Companies can show their support for Election Day volunteering in several ways: Give employees paid time off to volunteer as poll workers, either on Election Day or in the lead-up to Election Day. If an employee is interested in volunteering for a particular candidate, allow them some paid time off for this purpose as well. Demonstrate your company's own engagement with the political process by hosting "debate parties," streaming the presidential debates on office TVs during working hours. Without endorsing any party or candidate, help educate employees on issues that affect your industry. If your company is taking a particular stand on an issue, offer information that explains why, and provide voter guides to show where the candidates stand on those issues. Just make sure your employees feel free to vote as they wish. Encourage employees to vote, and wear those "I voted!" stickers with pride at the office. Voting is the signature method in which we demonstrate our citizenship, an act which is often memorable and meaningful. "The upcoming presidential primary and general election is a great time to become a poll worker," says Kravtsova. "It's a chance to be a part of history, and to start a tradition of helping people= make memories as they cast their vote." Algiers the capital city of Algeria, Northern Africa Co-authored by Samy Boukaila, Visiting Scholar, Center for Transatlantic Relations SAIS International media outlets substantially covered news on the recently-endorsed constitutional amendments in Algeria. Think tank groups, analysts, and political experts provided various opinions as to what the impact of recent reforms and constitution amendments will be. The opposition to the ruling FLN (Front de Liberation Nationale) party stated that "imminent change is doubtful." But the fact is, constitutional amendments and recent reforms in intelligence and security in Algeria are indeed substantial, if not revolutionary. Arguments by some political analysts that changes are meant to reinforce the "same old" and to strengthen those military elites around the Presidency (or according to some, around Said Bouteflika, the president's influential brother who supposedly created new oligarchs in the country) are weak, simply because the changes made are inevitably going to change Algeria with a new political class of post-independence leaders. Advertisement They will potentially emerge before the end of President Bouteflika's term as he wished for, already in 2014, in his famous speech in Setif. They are equally good for all political parties, and for the people of Algeria. For example, parity in employment between men and women is now guaranteed by the State; freedom of speech, freedom of gatherings, and legally-mandated TV and radio time for political parties to support pluralism, including financial support for political parties by the State according to parliamentary representation. In addition, the right to peaceful demonstrations is guaranteed as is press freedom without any censorship within the limits of human dignity and liberty for all. Respecting religious, moral, and ethical values are but a few milestone achievements setting a solid foundation for improved democracy and equal rights in Algeria. Religious freedom and freedom to practice other religions save Islam is also guaranteed. Tamazight, the root language of natives of Algeria prior to the Arab invasion, became the second official language of the country. Changes were also made in the election process of the president. The presidential term is set for five years with the possibility of a single re-election. Presidential candidates can be only citizen of Algeria - no Algerian with dual citizenship can run for the office. This prevents most diaspora Algerians from standing. The new Article 51 is considered highly controversial, as it also bans Algerians with dual nationality from running for any higher political office. (Following the diaspora's protest, Bouteflika has ordered clarification of the amendment and to outline, through legislation, which of the higher political offices are too sensitive for those Algerians with dual nationals.) Advertisement Changing Business Environment Constitutional amendments also addressed the fight against corruption and need for any publicly exposed person (political and military) to fully disclose his or her property prior to and after taking office. Freedom of investment and trade is guaranteed by the law as well, with the government in charge to regulate the market and protect consumers and forbidding monopolies and unfair competition. The State also encourages women to take on high level responsibility jobs either in government or in the business sector. Privacy of life of the citizens is guaranteed and no incursion or violation is admissible unless strictly through legal authority. The implementation and interpretation of the law will still be a challenge, along with forming a justice system truly independent from political or military influence or pressure, in order to ensure impartial justice for all citizens regardless of their position, status, or role in society. A vote on the constitutional amendments was called by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika at the end of January. The changes were approved with 499 members of parliament in favor, two opposed, and 16 abstained. Amendments were publicly announced on January 5th by Ahmed Ouyahia, the president's chief of staff. Major Reform of Intelligence Department Bouteflika's recent dismissal of intelligence chief General Mohamed "Toufik" Mediene, who held the post for 25 years, marked the beginning of a well prepared and well executed reform in the powerful security and intelligence offices in the country. Although - and quite rightly so - various branches of the intelligence community in Algeria will remain very powerful, powers of the office of the president grew proportionally with these changes. The long-established Department of Intelligence and Security (DRS), also known as the State Intelligence Agency, had been dissolved and replaced by three departments under the direct supervision of the president: the General Directorate of Internal Security, General Directorate of External Security and Documentation, and General Directorate of Technical Information. The Technical Information Service will deal with cyber warfare and other technical issues related to advanced intelligence and military technologies. Advertisement Algeria has placed over 75,000 soldiers along its border, which is still far from well protected. ISIS and other terrorist groups' infiltration into Algeria are a daily occurrence. The strong military and intelligence apparatus is repelling threats successfully. Nobody argues that with oil prices so low, Algeria - heavily dependent on oil and gas export - needs to diversify its economy and enhance education. Awareness of this is growing day by day in Algeria. But people tend to forget that this nation, after a long struggle to become an independent country from colonial French rule, just after proclaiming independence on July 5th 1962 had but only several hundred university students. What a daunting task to build a new country that was thirty years later ravaged by a civil war. It is much easier to criticize then to praise and there is plenty of room for (constructive) criticism on Algeria. But we should applaud recent reforms and encourage Algerians to continue developing international cooperation and transatlantic relations. Ask a politician a blunt question, and chances are you'll never quite get a real answer. Say the truth loud and clear, and you'll probably become a pariah of sorts- unless you're Trump, that is. You see, our country is battling an intellectual illness termed political correctness; a social and political trend that Wilbur Smith deems "the worst form of censorship" because "you're not allowed to speak your mind unless you're...a minority people." It's a dangerous mask for apathy, a validation for the corruption and immorality in this upside down world. All in all, it hinders our growth as a nation and impedes the very foundations on which this country was built: freedom of speech, justice, and progressive change. Ever since Kindergarten, we Americans are taught to cherish the Freedom of speech that our country provides; it is the very essence of the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness that our founding fathers promised. What our country fails to understand, however, is that freedom of speech includes the right to offend other people, no matter their shape, race, accent, or office. If anyone knows anything about censorship and free speech, it's George Orwell, an author known for his shrewd political criticism. He shared with the world that "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." After all, the third amendment in our nation's Bill of Rights reads plain and simply, "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech," and no where does it make mention of any exceptions. If only society could foster an environment that truly appreciates this value in every sense of the word, our world would be a more honest place. Advertisement Like freedom of speech, justice is in the very ethos of our country. It's a value we Americans preach time and again; just take a stroll through our country's history and the history of the world at large: justice for women, justice for black people, justice for Christians, justice for Jews, justice for Veterans, justice for the LGBTs. As Martin Luther King Jr. so eloquently articulated in his 1965 speech to the people of Selma, Alabama: "A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true...Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." This idea represents so much of what this fearless man stood for. Apathy is a dangerous habit, and history is its greatest testimony. We stand by as innocent Jewish blood is spilled in Israel each day; as children are stabbed on their way to school, parents shot in front of their very own children, and soldiers butchered while defending their country. We read the headlines about ISIS, but can't spare a minute to urge our elected officials to take action. If we continue to keep silent and don't raise our voice of conscience for those that can't, then who will? If the numbers six million and 1945 don't speak volumes, then I don't know what does. After all, we are our brothers' keepers. At times, change must be sought for true justice to be realized. One need not attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting to feel the inspiration of the iconic Serenity prayer that originally appeared in a New York Herald Tribune obituary during the mid-1900s: Advertisement "G-d grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Change is like climbing a mountain- ever slowly and steadily, but progressively; the first step is awareness, the peak is courage and determination, and the rappel down is acceptance of the transformation. Politics aside (for a brief moment), President Obama's speechwriters had it right: "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 push comes to shove, it is our duty as a nation to speak up when we recognize the need for change- even in the face of adversity; because if it works, don't change it, but if it doesn't- we should've changed it yesterday. Four score and seven years ago (give or take), brave men rose to the occasion when they recognized the need for a free democracy in a sea of autocracy; let us follow in the footsteps of the American dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and heed the call for action when change is needed. We frequently fight, we often argue, laughter comes easy, and in the end we agree on where we are going, it's just how we get there that sometimes causes a problem. We've never had a plan, and despite working our asses off all these years, money's scarce. We fly by the seat of our pants. He fixes busted oil burners, flat tires, and leaky pipes. I don't know how to light the stove when the pilot goes out and have trouble turning the TV on because he rules the remote. Advertisement I balance the checkbook, pay the bills, file the FAFSA, and prepare the tax return. On any given day, he has no idea how much money is in the checkbook. As you can imagine, this sometimes causes problems. Somehow we have made it to our silver wedding anniversary. For years he painted houses and I kept books. Now we keep an inn. On Friday a group of friends arrived for the anniversary weekend and we had a potluck dinner, and a late night of drinking and catching up by a roaring fire. It seemed appropriate. Twenty five years ago we ran off to Lake Louise with a small group of friends and family and exchanged our I do's in front of a roaring fire under the watchful eye of a moose above the mantle. If there's anything we do well as a team it's have a good time. Back in 1991, February 7th fell on a Thursday. On February 5th we obtained a marriage license in a Triple A office in Calgary where we sat at a desk, raised our right hands, and swore we were legally unencumbered and eligible to be married in the province of Alberta. The woman who officiated the marriage legalities notarized our license and then gave us a Trip-Tik mapping the route to Lake Louise. In retrospect, this was also appropriate. We are restless souls who are happiest when in motion, traveling an open highway or a country lane in search of something new and novel. Our daughters inherited this restlessness. Both of them stopped napping at the age of two and the only way to get them to sleep during the day was to take them for a ride. Just start the car and they were asleep before we were out the driveway. Ignition babies we called them. Advertisement Sunday February 7, 2016, after our friends checked out, and despite the piles of laundry and rooms to clean after a busy weekend, Rich turned to me and said, "Let's get in the car and drive." We had no plan, just a route to travel and a New York Magazine article that as it turns out was full of misinformation. It didn't matter. We have always agreed with Tolkien's line, "All those who wander are not lost." Wandering is the plan and getting lost is the destination. Shortly after crossing the New York border, somewhere around Millerton, the muffler started complaining, loudly. This is another mainstay of our marriage. There have been old cars, busted heating systems, a fallen tree that smashed my van minutes after we all made a mad dash to the house, bats in the belfry and raccoons in the chimney, a lighting strike that corkscrewed down a larch tree shattering an old Adirondack recliner resting beneath it, and rain in the kitchen. That's the short list, what I can remember right now as my fingers fly across the keyboard. I could write a book about it. Oh, that's right. I did a write a book about it. Rich pulled over and checked beneath the car. He seemed to think it was okay, just a loose tailpipe that wouldn't fall off, today anyway. That is my husband -- never worried. It will all work out in the end. I accuse him of being reactive, never proactive, but I go along for the ride. We pass roads with names like Between the Lakes, Running Sap Lane, Jug End Circle, and Orphan Farm Road. A great radio station provides the soundtrack that includes Ray LaMontagne, The Avett Brothers, and The Band. Scenic vistas roll past -- vineyards, shorn brown cornfields, neglected barns, one with a collapsing roof that provides a view of the blue sky day. A barn no more. Advertisement My magazine article told us we would find our inner artist in Wassaic but all we find in this small town set down in a hollow along the river is an art studio open from 2 to 4 on Saturdays, Queen Anne style homes once called Painted Ladies, and several out of business establishments. We circle around for a while thinking we are missing something then get lost down a country road in search of Pond Mountain where we were promised trails through bucolic fields with beautiful lake views. We never find the trail so we keep driving. I spy tattered flags to photograph and instead of complaining like he usually does, Rich backs up or circles around, driving slowly or pulling over to the side of the road, indulging my latest Instagram photo obsession. It could be said I did find my inner artist in Wassaic. There's always a silver lining. Back at the inn, he wants to light a fire in the living room. All I want is blankets. Darkness descends and the wind rattles the windows. Drinking bourbon and listening to J.J. Cale sing Crazy Mama, we discuss his economy of scale. How he works so well with the fewest of notes. Music as metaphor for marriage and life. I was born on the dirt floor of a rickety straw shack, on the edge of a slave labor camp in Talien, Cambodia. My mother says that I came out covered in grime, red-faced with rage and howling from hunger. When I was born the moment wasn't jubilant, there was no ripe expectancy, no gleeful merriment. Instead, my mother held me and wept. When I was born, my father was in a re-education camp, many miles away from Talien. Under the Khmer Rouge, re-education meant brutal beatings and savage slave labor until you were well versed in Pol Pot's doxology. My mother went through this pregnancy virtually alone, helped only by my frail grandmother. As her belly grew, so did her fear. The Khmer Rouge were vicious. The stories my mom heard about pregnant women were horrific; their fetuses ripped out of their bellies with bayonets. Anyone who could not endure the tortuous labor in the fields was beaten to death or worse. Retelling her story to my sister and me, my mother said, "If you cannot work, you are useless. Like a broken toy, they will axe you down." By some amazing grace of God, my mother was able to keep up with the other laborers despite her fatigue and protuberant belly, and her life was spared. But what kind of life was she bringing this new child into? She looked at my sister, then 4 years old. Instead of a plump-cheeked princess, she was now sallow-skinned, sunken-eyed and waddled with a bloated belly. The malnutrition and lack of protein had caused edema and a build-up of ascitic abdominal fluid. Her 4-year-old daughter looked like a grotesque, haggard, pregnant, tiny old woman. Advertisement So when I was born, at the edge of the Killing Fields, my mother wept. It felt cruel to bring another life into this living hell. There was no hope in sight that the nightmare would end. But, for my mom, giving up was not an option. Any task she was assigned by the Khmer Rouge, she quietly did, knowing that refusing was tantamount to death. In the mornings she walked through the village of Talien, her gaunt frame bent over as she hauled two heavy pails. Lurching under the weight of the unwieldy buckets, the contents slopped over her legs, dripped down to her bare, calloused feet, painting trails of putrid brown excrescence on her thin calves. It was human feces. The combination of the fetid stench and the noxious sight of feces coating her calves made her retch. She'd wiped the bilious vomit off her mouth, then pick the pails back up and keep working. My mother's task was to go from house to house throughout Talien and collect the villagers' excrement, which she carried to the fields to be used for fertilizer. It was a task she had accepted in silence, without a single word of protest. The rest of the time, she worked in the rice fields alongside the other forced slave laborers. Advertisement My mother did anything she could to keep her children alive. After working all day, she crept into the jungles to forage for food for her young daughters and elderly mother. One time, she was digging for wild bamboo shoots and stumbled upon a litter of tiger cubs in the jungle. Terrified, she ran for her life to escape the mamma tiger, which she was certain was nearby. But arriving back at the hut empty-handed, she mustered up her courage, then returned to the jungle to pick more wild bamboo shoots. To me, that is truly heroic. But, my mother now laughingly says, 'I wasn't fearless. I was just hungry." To me, this is truly a woman with The Heart of a Tiger. Years later, we escaped from Cambodia and made our way to America. My mother with our family after we escaped from Cambodia, living in the border refugee camps. Arriving in the United States as a refugee, my mom, a college educated former school teacher, took jobs as a janitor, dishwasher and strawberry picker to support her children. My mom was just so grateful to be alive. She was so proud to have the opportunity to work, to live without fear, and to have freedom. She often tells me how proud she is to be an American, and how astonished she is by the kindness of Americans who welcomed us when we were wretched, ragged and destitute. She says that in America, she found hope. You would think after having survived so much atrocity during the Cambodian Genocide, my mom might be bitter, scared or scarred. Instead, she is one of the most vibrant, giving and brave people I know, who continually inspires me. During my surgical residency, I'd occasionally get the chance to come home at Christmas. After having lived with so little during the Killing Fields, my mother never really adopted the tradition of giving presents at Christmas. Instead, during my brief visits home, my mother would take my sister and me along with her to visit "Miss Violet," a blind, elderly shut-in African-American woman who lived in an unheated shanty in one of Houston's poorest neighborhoods. My mother had befriended "Miss Violet" and often visited with home cooked meals and warm clothes until "Miss Violet" passed years later. That's just my mother's nature, and just one out of the many, many examples of her compassion. She keeps doing it because she believes that's what it means to be an American. This past Christmas, my sister and I continued my mom's tradition. My mother today (center) with the two daughters she inspires daily with her courage and compassion. Advertisement Our friends and colleagues with Diana Mao (center), founder of Nomi Network, speaking about global human trafficking. However, my mom taught me that it isn't the magnitude of the problem that matters but the willingness of our heart to do something, do anything. I'm not a politician. I'm not a legal scholar and there's a great deal I don't know about politics, economics and global affairs. What I do know is that my family and I once lived under the tyranny of the Khmer Rouge, part of 7 million people enslaved in forced labor. I am so grateful to this country for opening its doors to my family and me when we had absolutely nothing. We were destitute, didn't speak English, and had absolutely nothing to offer. And yet, we were given the opportunity to come to America -- a country which to me epitomizes courage and compassion. My mom taught me that you can find hope even in the aftermath of genocide; and that the human capacity for compassion can triumph over evil. As we face the challenges of this new year, I hope people will remember that it isn't the magnitude of the problem that matters most, but the courage of our hearts. To learn more about Nomi Network and human trafficking, visit http://www.nominetwork.org. SreyRam Kuy, MD is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at LSU-Shreveport. (photo courtesy of Oregon Stater, Hannah O'Leary) Advertisement Hamamelis Virginia Linne also known as snapping hazel, winterbloom, or Witch Hazel, is indigenous to the forest areas of the Northeast, not too far from the Connecticut based American Distilling facility that the Jackowitz family has kept on the map for over a quarter of a century. This hardy plant flowers in the winter with unique yellow blossoms. The twigs and bark, when distilled, create a clear, natural astringent, known today as Witch Hazel. Native Americans were the first to recognize the value of Witch Hazel, as the medicine men of the tribe would cook it up and use it to treat cuts, scrapes, and other skin irritations. Now, hundreds of years later, Witch Hazel is used for much more than just skin care. The astringent is a key ingredient in products worldwide ranging from personal hygiene, to hair care, oral care, eye care and many more. How did this natural astringent eventually end up in the hands of millions of consumers around the world? First, it's a natural product that creates great results in skin care. Anything that works well tends to survive lifetimes. The second, and more likely reason, has everything to do with Ed Jackowitz, an entrepreneur and engineer who recognized a "golden" opportunity when he saw it over 35 years ago. Advertisement Witch Hazel has a long history that has become part of the foundation of the American skincare industry. After the civil war, Reverend Thomas Newton Dickinson Sr. was among the first to commercially produce witch hazel products. Upon his passing, the company was left to his two sons, Edward E. Dickinson and Thomas N. Dickinson Jr. This transition laid the groundwork for what eventually became two separate Dickinson's brands (T.N. Dickinson's and Dickinson's Original Witch Hazel) with distinct formulas uses. By the mid 1970s, a young supermarket executive, Ed Jackowitz, found an entrepreneurial opportunity to own his own business. His wife Carol had worked for the Blankenbiller family who owned American Distilling at the time. She heard through the grapevine that the family was looking to sell the business. Ed Jackowitz saw the potential for Witch Hazel and ended up buying American Distilling with his wife, and began the next stage of growth of one of the only natural, single ingredient, astringents in the world. It was 1981 and back then, there were just a few employees at American Distilling. Jackowitz saw that the greatest opportunity for the company at that time would come from their ability to mass produce the product by filling bulk orders, since the large orders would generate the capital needed to improve their operational systems. He realized that once the operational systems were modernized, the firm would then be in a better position to mass produce and market branded Dickinson products for direct retail sales. By day, Jackowitz continued to manage the supermarket so that revenues from his business could be used to pay their staff. By night, Jackowitz ran his own business, filling Witch Hazel bottles by hand. Eventually he had the money to invest in the equipment he would need to produce Witch Hazel better, faster, and cheaper. Once the new equipment was in place, he scaled up, big time. Advertisement Today, it would be challenging to find a first aid or cosmetic aisle in any supermarket or drug store in the country without Witch Hazel. You will find their traditional Witch Hazel products under the T.N. Dickinson's and Dickinson's Original Witch Hazel Brands. As well, Witch Hazel may be found as an ingredient in hundreds of other first aid and cosmetic products made by massive industry leaders like Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Avon. American Distilling has grown from four employees, to just under one hundred. Ed Jackowitz still remains at the helm, while his son Kevin manages all marketing and creative for the firm, and his son Bryan is President of the retail brands. It's very much a family affair at American Distilling, which is one of the keys to their success. I recently toured American Distilling with Kevin Jackowitz, and had the opportunity to ask him what it takes to build a successful manufacturing business. Here are his 3 simple success lessons to leading, growing, and scaling any business to the top. People matter: "We are a family business," says Kevin Jackowitz. "And I'm not simply talking about the fact that my father, my brother, and I are running the firm. No, to us, every employee of the company is family and we treat them like that." Kevin says that many of their employees have been with the firm for decades. For example, he introduced me to Al Bowser, an employee who has been in their manufacturing plant since the Dickinson family owned it. Kevin explained that in any manufacturing business there is a ton of wrote work that has to be done over and over all day long. Perfection of the product is a byproduct of the pride of the employees. Kevin said that you will never see a dirty floor at their plant or a crooked label on a bottle for one simple reason, the employees care. Kevin reiterated, "This is our home and we are all family, and we treat the facility and the people as such." Jackowitz says that many of their employees have come from other manufacturing plants where they say that they feel like a number, that they don't matter. At American Distilling, everyone knows each other's name, employees are empowered to make decisions and even change processes, and everyone understands that every single job within the organization is as important as the next. Pride in Sustainability: One of the business practices that seems to set American Distilling apart from many other manufacturing businesses is that they have an absolute focus on leaving the environment better than they found it. Although profit is always important in business, profitability is not the driving motivator behind the scenes at this firm, environmental sustainability is. For example, they only harvest their Witch Hazel plants in areas that are approved according to the National Organic Program regulations prior to use. The harvested Witch Hazel is brought to their manufacturing facility in Connecticut. The facility extracts the therapeutic organic constituents of the Witch Hazel to produce a variety of finished products. Then, the leftover plant material is recycled into biodegradable landscape mulch, leaving zero waste. In addition to their eco-friendly policies, the company is proud that they recycle consumables within the plant, never test their products on animals, use electricity from renewable resources, and have installed a state of the art heat reclamation system, which provides the vast majority of the facility's heating and hot water requirements. Kevin Jackowitz says that doing business well is not enough for them, they believe in doing what's right too. Listening to Consumers: It was interesting visiting the office of Ed Jackowitz because his shelves are lined with Witch Hazel bottles going back decades. I recognized the old black and red bottle that was in my family medicine cabinet growing up. Over the years, the product has remained the same, but the branding, packaging, and marketing has changed significantly. As well, new uses for Witch Hazel have allowed for additional product extensions. I asked Kevin, how come everything except the actual product has changed so much over time. He explained that the company branding has evolved because consumer tastes have changed with the times. "So, you remember the old black and red bottle of Witch Hazel growing up. Based on that packaging, would you feel comfortable putting that on your face today," asked Kevin. He went on to explain that they talk to their customers a lot. Customers feel better about a product if it has appealing astetics - pretty, rounded, clear bottles, with relational pictures of the plant, he explained. As well, he says consumers feel better about a product when it is touted as all natural or organic. Kevin says that American Distilling is diligent about talking to the end users through surveys and focus groups. They've had products that never came to market because the focus group kicked it back. As well, they've seen product segments soar because they listened to market feedback. Dickinson's Witch Hazel is sold around the world, which means that they must listen to consumers from all walks of life, in many different countries. It is for this reason that packaging and esthetics change from country to country. As Kevin says, "If you want to know what your customers want, all you have to do is ask them!" Daryl Wolff is not only the executive producer of AURA Music & Arts Festival, Festival Administrator for Suwannee Hulaween + Purple Hatter's Ball and Technology Coordinator for the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park, but he is an amazing human being that spews inspiration out of every pore of his body. I've only heard wonderful things about the events he is a part of and because of that I had to pick his brain for all of you to enjoy. Taraleigh: What was your big why for founding AURA Music Festival? Daryl: I've always been a huge music lover and I have a long background in business. After years of working different facets of the biz including performing shows, sound engineering, management, bartending and a bunch of other ventures, I decided that combining my experience in all of these areas would be fun. Of course, when we started AURA, it was before the big boom of festivals that we know of today. At the time, I was looking (along with our friends at Orange Blossom Jamboree) to start something that not only hosted nationally touring acts, but also supported the up-and-coming jam scene talent. The first year it was WAY bigger than we expected, and we were just inclined to continue on the journey. Taraleigh: When you combine all the things you're awesome at AND that you love to do into one thing you can't help but be successful. Thank you for stepping into your power and totally rocking it! I love that you support the up-and-coming jam scene talent because all the big bands were up-and-coming at one point. You never forget those who believed in you when you were first starting. What makes AURA different from other festivals? Advertisement Daryl: I think one of our differentiating factors is that almost our entire staff has grown with us from day one. AURA began around the same time that most of our crew was just getting started in the business, and now these same people work on major festivals and tours around the country and abroad. This has created a bond between all of us and we're all like family now so the festival operates very smoothy, which translates to a great guest experience. Another thing I'm very proud of, is that for a festival of our size, we have the some of the best audio and lighting production available. Taraleigh: Amazing! I go to a lot of festivals and I can feel it when the staff truly loves each other. It makes my experience better. When in the process of throwing AURA, what was one golden nugget of advice someone gave you? Daryl: Don't take ANYTHING personally which is easier said than done! Taraleigh: Yes! Not taking anything personally is something I work on everyday. How do you maintain a life/work balance? Daryl: For me, this has always been a challenge. While AURA and my commercial property management career in South Florida take up an enormous chunk of my time, I also share a large administrative role in Suwannee Hulaween, Purple Hatter's Ball and I manage festival technology operations at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park. I jokingly say that music is my escape from music, so for that, I have Phish tour! Advertisement Taraleigh: I truly believe that Phish tour is one of the best places to find balance. See you there this summer. I'm sure your events do that exact same thing for people. What's lighting you up the most right now? Daryl: I try to broaden my horizons as much as possible when it comes to music. One thing I've always tried to do is find out about the newest and most talented bands. The fact that so many of bands I love are exploding right now makes me light up (i.e. Papadosio & Dopapod!) Papadosio played the first six AURA's and Dopapod played five out of six. We love those guys. Taraleigh: Oh hell yes! I love those bands soooooo much. I'm grateful they've been a part of your family from the beginning. What a blessing. What are you most grateful for in this moment? Daryl: The health of family, friends, and myself. In addition, being alive in such a great day and age for awesome LIVE MUSIC! Taraleigh :And so it freakin is! What are you looking forward to? Daryl: I'm looking forward to being at AURA and seeing all of the fans with huge smiles on their faces. Taraleigh: Smiling is my favorite. If you were to tell your best friend about how amazing AURA is, what would you say? Advertisement Daryl: My best friend is my business partner in AURA, so theres usually a lot of hype floating around. (although I should mention he is about to be a first time father, just in time for AURA, congratulations Cameron!) Taraleigh: Congratulations Cameron! What would you tell your grandma about AURA? Daryl: If I was to tell my Grandma about it, i'd probably tell her that we sold out and made millions of dollars, but just to pull her chain of course! Taraleigh: Haha! Anything else you'd like to share? Daryl: There are a lot of ups and downs in the music business, especially as an independent promoter, but seeing the festival grow from the ground up has been pretty amazing and I can't thank all our staff, fans, and believers enough.... even in the light of some of the heaviest competition we've ever faced, we're still able to survive and produce and amazing product thanks to all of you! Taraleigh: Folks, that's what it's all about! Thank you Daryl for not only bringing amazing music to our scene, but for setting the standard for what a festival should look and feel like. Daryl's favorite healthy snack is almonds, bananas and dark chocolate as well as acai berry bowls. Yum! If you like live music, living the good life and healthy food like that click HERE Check out this video from AURA Music & Arts Festival 2015 Advertisement Get tickets to this year's festival happening March 3-5th and learn more by going to AURAmusicfestival.com Since the Christian faith is dedicated to soulful kindness, the integrity of one's deepest beliefs and, above all, truth-telling, I have been following with great interest the current contest for the Republican presidential nomination. All these (now) men declare themselves as devout Christians, and I have no reason to believe that they would lead us astray. Indeed, because they are so upstanding, I'm certain that one of their greatest devotions is to that fundamental Christian tenet, the ninth Commandment, that "you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." So in the case of the Republican candidates, I know they are telling us the truth about each other. Lately, though, the vitriol that fuels each candidate's uncharitable language about the others has caused me confusion. Surely I must be getting it wrong. No good Christian would lie, ever, and I do believe this to be the case among the current gathering of Republican candidates. Everything these men say about each other must be the truth, demonstrable, self-evident and buttressed by the sanctity of their faith. Thus it makes sense that, if what they're saying is true, each of them must be a duplicitous, power-mongering blowhard. These men wouldn't lie about each other, would they? Advertisement So the solution is to vote for the Democrat. Image via Amazon Explaining our chaotic world to kids is a challenge every parent faces -- even more so during these times of political and racial unrest. That's what Fathers Incorporated founder and community activist Kenneth Braswell discovered when his then 6-year-old son asked him about the Baltimore protests surrounding the indictments of Freddie Gray's death. At first, Braswell didn't know how to answer -- but his explanation grew into a beautiful and important new children's book, Daddy, There's a Noise Outside. The story of two children who are awakened in the middle of the night by noises outside the window of their inner-city home and spend the next morning talking to their mom and dad about the protests in their neighborhood, the book breaks down situations like rioting in a way that even young children can understand -- which is quite an accomplishment, as any parent of an inquisitive child knows! We spoke with Braswell about his journey as an author, and about the public's reaction to the book (formally released this year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day). The Stir: What inspired you to write the book? Kenneth Braswell: I was in Baltimore for another event at the time of the Freddie Gray indictments, and folks started calling me in for meetings to see what we could do to help. CNN was all over it, my wife and son were home that day looking at the TV and my wife said to my son, "Daddy's there" -- and my son's question was, "Why is he there?" There were police, troopers, all kinds of things swirling around Baltimore that day. So my wife's answer was, "Wait until he gets home; he'll tell you." Advertisement At the time my son was 6 years old -- he doesn't forget anything. He's very astute, very logical, very curious. He doesn't miss a detail! So when I came home, I don't think I was fresh in the door when he asked me why I was in Baltimore with all those police. I said, well, the people were protesting. His question to me was, "What is protesting?" I still had my suitcase in my hand! I said, "Give me a minute to get settled." I realized I had an adult answer, but I didn't have a 6-year-old answer. I was struggling with how to explain not why it was going on in Baltimore but what was going on. So I started talking. Basically, I didn't explain the specifics around the Freddie Gray incident; I felt it was more important for him to understand why people protest in general. So I explained the definitions around protest, how it's typically a result of something somebody feels strongly about or disagrees strongly with. I was searching in my head for the analogy to help him understand and something hit me. I said ... You know how sometimes when Mommy and Daddy tell you to do something and you don't want to and you walk away and roll your eyes and go to your room? That's what protest is. When something is going on you don't agree with and you act upon it. There are so many different ways you can protest. You can roll your eyes, go in your room, be silent, scream, all of those things. Advertisement He regurgitated it back to me and I realized he understood what he was talking about, and it relieved me. He understood that in Baltimore, everybody was upset and expressing themselves in different ways. The Stir: How did your own childhood influence the way you spoke to your son about protesting? KB: I was born in 1961 in Brooklyn. I was the same age as my son at the time of the Baltimore protests when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. I don't remember what or why, but as a 6-year-old I knew something dramatic happened because I can remember the atmosphere and how it felt. So much so that one day during a fire drill at school we crossed the street and I remember looking up and seeing men on top of our school with rifles -- come to find out they were Black Panthers protesting what had happened around some of the things going on in NYC at the time. What I recall is that my mother and all my teachers never explained to us what was going on in that particular situation. I don't even remember having a recollection about the Civil Rights era until I got into high school in the mid-'70s, and I had lived through it! So I think it's important -- whether you're black, white, green, or plaid -- that all children should have an awareness of their environment, particularly now when we live in such a diverse society. It's really important that our children understand compassion for people who don't live or look or act like them but are in the same country, and that they be very conscious of things that are going on with other people. Those things might not impact you, but you have to have some level of compassion for what they're going through. More from The Stir: 25 Top Chapter Books to Read With Your Child at Bedtime When you go into my son's school [in Northern Georgia], it looks like "We Are the World" -- there's black kids, white, Latino, Jewish -- and that got me thinking about how beginning to have him understand and embrace other cultures is more important for him than it ever was for me. Advertisement This whole notion of race in this country, just because you don't talk about it doesn't mean it's gonna go away. We need to start age-appropriate conversations about race and diversity when kids are still young; we can't wait until they're in high school until we talk about society -- and even then, when we do, we're talking about history. The Stir: How have people reacted to the book so far? KB: It's been great. Schools are buying it, libraries are buying it, people in Utah, people in places where we're like, I didn't even know there were any black people there! The comforting message it sends to me is that parents overall care about how their kids are interpreting the world around them. We're not specifically talking about #blacklivesmatter, we're talking about what happens when people disagree. And what is more heartwarming for me is that we've created a book that has created a platform for parents and grandparents to be intimate and reach that level of bonding. Daddy, There's a Noise Outside is available for purchase at the Fathers Incorporated website and on Amazon. More From The Stir: 9 Women Share the Highs and Lows of Losing 100 Pounds or More Credit: IGUASSU FALLS | CURIOSO/SHUTTERSTOCK Anyone who's watched more than two episodes of The Twilight Zone -- or read the angry comments when we named the most beautiful place in every state -- knows that beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder. Undaunted, we proceeded to tell you about all the beautiful places you didn't know existed in California and New York and even in Nevada, because believe it or not, there actually is beauty there outside of a strip club. But enough about America, there's a whole big world out there; and it's full of stunning scenery that you've probably never laid eyes on -- until now. Here are 20 of the most spectacular places on the planet. Abraham Lake Alberta, Canada Ever wonder what happens when freezing water traps methane bubbles created by bacteria feeding off dead matter on the sea bottom? Welcome to Abraham Lake. Here, those bubbles of methane (undetectable in your standard, non-frozen lake) create pockets that resemble millions of orbs trapped in the ice. Just don't light up while you're snowmobiling; if the ice cracks and those bubbles burst, methane is highly flammable. Advertisement Cueva de los Cristales Chihuahua, Mexico Don't feel bad for not knowing about this "Cave of Crystals" -- until 2000, nobody had heard of it. That year, two brothers mining for silver drilled here and accidentally uncovered an epic cavern filled with translucent, 30ft crystals, some of which are nearly half-a-million years old. If you can stomach a 20-minute van ride through a mine shaft, you'll be greeted by triple-digit temperatures and 90% humidity thanks to the magma field that flows a mile under your feet. Dean's Blue Hole Long Island, Bahamas There are some spectacular beaches in the Caribbean. And some other-world crazy cenotes in Mexico. Dean's Blue Hole combines the two -- albeit underwater -- and is the largest blue hole in world. Although honestly, the white sand beach and limestone walls that surround the hole could make this list as well, they're equally as stunning. That said, descend past the initial 60ft bottleneck and Dean's Blue Hole opens into one of the largest underwater cenotes in the world, complete with turquoise water, seahorses, and tropical fish (it's a hotspot for tarpon and snapper). Clear visibility and no current make it a place as scenic below the surface as above. Crystal Mill Marble, CO OK, OK, so we couldn't resist throwing at least one US spot on the list. About an hour outside of Aspen, and an eight-hour hike from the nearest road, there's a ghost town at the base of the Rocky Mountains. And the lone remnant of that ghost town is this old mill. If you visit in the fall, the combination of golden leaves, blue sky, and white snowcapped peaks might be the most unexpectedly beautiful vista in the American West. Credit: ALEKSEI SARKISOV/SHUTTERSTOCK Iguazu Falls Misiones Province, Argentina Iguazu Falls aren't that obscure, but they're probably just another one on your mental list of big waterfalls to visit some day, up there with Niagara and Victoria. Which sells them WAY short. This isn't so much a waterfall but a venerable city of waterfalls -- 250 of them stretching nearly two miles -- that dumps 53,000 cubic feet of water PER SECOND. Throw in the fact that they're located in a gorgeous South American rainforest, and you've pretty much got one of the most impressive feats of nature on the planet. Advertisement Lencois Maranhenses Maranhao, Brazil The name literally means "bedsheets of Maranhao," the state in Northeastern Brazil where these coastal dunes sway over 600 square miles of shoreline. The dunes are formed when the Parnaiba and Preguicas Rivers bring sand from the country's interior to the ocean, and then the ocean currents -- aided by northeasterly winds that blow inland -- send that sand back to the shore. Though the area might look like a desert, temporary lagoons spring up in between the dunes during rainy season and often double as exceptional fishing holes. Cavernas de Marmol (Marble Cathedral) Lake General Carrera, Chile What happens when you take a Patagonian peninsula made completely of marble and surround it with a massive glacial lake? Weird, swirling marble caves that change color, that's what! These only-accessible-by-boat caves near the Chile-Argentina border reflect the color of the water that flows through them, shining turquoise in the spring and deep blue in the summer. The reflections also change the appearance of the patterns in the marble; meaning, if you visit the caves at different times of year you'll have a completely different experience. Then again, after the 1,000-mile drive from Santiago and lengthy boat ride, once might be enough. Credit: DENNIS VAN DER WATER/SHUTTERSTOCK Forest of Knives (Tsingy Forest) Madagascar The name might sound like the setting for Halloween 12: Michael Does Madagascar but the surreal beauty of this limestone forest is anything but horror-inducing. Quite the opposite. Here, slabs of rock stab upward 200ft in the air, mixing with trees to create a literal forest made of leaves and jagged peaks. Climbing here is the main attraction but be warned, it can be dangerous: slip and you could find yourself with a Ginsu-like gash. Seven-Coloured Earth of Chamarel Chamarel, Mauritius One of the problems with rainbows, other than the fact that there's never a pot of gold at the end of them, is that as soon as you try to Instagram one... POOF!... it's gone. If only rainbows were made out of sand that could withstand thousands of years of rain and erosion. Well, guess what rainbow lovers, meet the Seven-Coloured Earth of Chamarel! These rainbow dunes in Mauritius are formed by sand of seven distinct colors -- red, brown, violet, green, blue, purple, and yellow. Even cooler: pick the sand up, put it in a bottle, mix it up -- eventually it'll resettle into the same seven distinct layers. Every time. Deadvlei Hardap, Namibia It's hard to believe when standing under an oppressive sun in the middle of 1,300ft-tall sand dunes that this valley was once a lush forest fed by the Tsauchab River. That, of course, was 900 years ago. Since then, the area has become so parched that the remaining trees didn't even have enough water to decompose, and now sit as charred relics. Add rusted sand and a deep-blue sky, and this is one of the most colorfully desolate places on the planet. To find out what beautiful places you should definitely see in Europe, Asia, Australia, and Antarctica, get the full story at Thrillist.com! Advertisement More from Thrillist: Like Thrillist on Facebook: www.facebook.com/Thrillist Also on HuffPost: A Federal Court has ordered Apple to help the FBI unlock the cellphone of San Bernardino terrorist Sayed Farook. Apple CEO Tim Cook opposes that order, citing concerns over the privacy rights of all Americans. The debate on this issue is the tip of a very large iceberg. It highlights a difficult question every modern state has faced but one that has intensified in age of high tech communication and international terrorism: How does a country balance collective security with individual liberty? Advertisement This question goes far beyond an argument over cellphone access. It touches a broad range of issues from surveillance cameras and airport screening through free speech and gun ownership. The most important thing for a free and democratic society such as ours is not, however, what we decide to do in each instance, but that we have an open and honest conversation on these difficult issues before we make decisions. Freedom entails risk. North Korea has suffered no terrorist attacks, but no one wants to live there. Western Europe and the United States have been struck repeatedly, but they remain the destinations of choice for all those fleeing oppression or seeking opportunity. Even democratic states must, however, struggle with how to protect their citizens. Collective security requires compromising some individual freedoms. Everyone acknowledges that no person has the right to yell 'fire" in a crowded theater, but some countries take restrictions on speech and expression much further. Germany and Austria both ban any display of the swastika and have made denying the Holocaust a crime. The U.S. places no restrictions on flying the Confederate battle flag, which many consider an equally odious symbol of racism, and does not prohibit hate speech. Most countries restrict gun ownership and have correspondingly low murder rates. The U.S. allows almost anyone to buy virtually any kind of firearm, and the death toll from gun violence reflects that choice. Advertisement The debate over liberty and security has always been difficult, but the communications revolution coupled with the rise of al-Qaeda and ISIS have made it even more complicated. Wire-taps warrants were fairly straightforward in the age of the rotary dial, but they have little value in the era of mobile phones with satellite uplinks. Small wonder law enforcement has resorted to devices such as Stingray, a scanner that mimics a cellphone tower, vacuuming up all mobile communication within a designated area, or that intelligence agencies want access to Facebook. Criminals and terrorists make extensive use of the Internet and cellphones. The security services are scrambling to catch up with them. Unfortunately, threatened states sometimes employ new law enforcement/counter-terrorism technologies and measures without adequate public discussion of their benefits and costs and sometimes even without public knowledge. In the climate of fear that follows a terrorist attack like 9/11 or San Bernardino, frightened citizens will often grant their government extraordinary powers. Following the 1933 Reichstag fire, Adolph Hitler pushed through the Enabling Act, a law granting him dictatorial powers allegedly to fight Communism. Congress enacted the first version of the U.S.A. Patriot Act in a similar atmosphere of heightened anxiety, only to modify it when the hysteria over 9/11 had subsided. "Fear," goes an old Dutch saying, "is a bad counselor." While many Americans would willingly grant their government extraordinary powers, believing these would never be used against law-abiding citizens like themselves, others see no conflict at all between civil liberties and national security. They would fight terrorism, not with new law enforcement tools, but with blanket restrictions on the minority groups to which the terrorists belong. "Just keep out the Muslims," they argue, "and we'll all be safe." Advertisement Such people see no contradiction in demanding unfettered liberties for themselves while denying basic freedoms to entire groups. Their answer to mounting gun violence is not regulation but more guns. Some of them fear their own government more than the threats from which it protects them. Staking out extreme positions on difficult issues will not produce good solutions to urgent problems. Law enforcement and the intelligence community must be given the tools to counter the terrorist threat, but compromises between security and freedom should only be made after careful consideration and open public discussion. "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the gospel." This Pope Francis told reporters who asked his opinion on Donald Trump's proposal to erect a high border fence between the United States and Mexico to halt undocumented immigration into the U.S. Well, if the Pope is correct in his assessment, I then question the Pope's Christian credentials by his erecting new impenetrable and soaring walls of his own while reinforcing those of this predecessors. Vatican hierarchy recently fenced off Alex Salinas, a 21-year-old transman from Cadiz, Spain, by informing him that it had denied his request to become the godparent of his nephew because being transgender is incongruent with Catholic teaching. According to the Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, its doctrine-enforcing agency: Transgender status "reveals in a public way an attitude opposite to the moral imperative of solving the problem of sexual identity according to the truth of one's own sexuality. Therefore it is evident that this person does not possess the requirement of leading a life according to the faith and in the position of godfather and is therefore unable to be admitted to the position of godfather or godmother." The Vatican asserted that there is "no discrimination toward [Salinas], but only the recognition of an objective lack of the requirements, which by their nature are necessary to assume the ecclesial responsibility of being a godfather." Regarding same-sex sexuality, Pope Francis not merely supports but publicly buttresses a wall of separation, which according to the Roman Catholic Church Catechism 2357 states: "Basing itself upon Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are gravely disordered. They are contrary to natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of love [i.e., children]. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved." "Gravely disordered" in this passage refers to acting on same-sex desires with another person while not necessarily applying to the person or people involved: the old "we hate the sin but love the sinner" slight-of-hand. For individuals within the Church who cannot or will not change to a heterosexual orientation, they are tolerated in the Church if they are able and willing to scale the unreasonable and inhumane heights of the Catholic ramparts by following Roman Catholic Church Catechism 2359: "Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection." Pope Francis fortified this at a Vatican conference on so-called "traditional marriage" in November 2014 that marriage is between a man and a woman and that "[t]his complementarity is at the root of marriage and family." He added that this union between a man and a woman is "an anthropological fact...that cannot be qualified based on ideological notions or concepts important only at one time in history." He also asserted: "Children have the right to grow up in a family with a father and mother capable of creating a suitable environment for the child's development and emotional maturity." Francis reinforced his Church-imposed wall in front of more than 1,000 families in the Philippines during a recent trip when he warned that "[t]he family is threatened by growing efforts on the part of some to redefine the very institution of marriage, by relativism, by the culture of the ephemeral, by a lack of openness to life." These forces, he said, are attempting the "ideological colonization of the family." Among other forces, this was also a reference to marriage for same-sex couples. The Pope laid extra rows of bricks and mortar with his swipe at LGBTQ people at another weekly Vatican audience when he gave his unqualified blessing to a Slovakian referendum outlawing same-sex unions and adoption rights for same-sex couples. He proclaimed: "I greet the pilgrims from Slovakia and, through them, I wish to express my appreciation to the entire Slovak church, encouraging everyone to continue their efforts in defense of the family, the vital cell of society." So El Papa has hardened and extended the already unfathomable Catholic walls by denying LGBTQ people (his "children") the rights of marriage and adoption and to their sexuality and gender identities and expressions; denying them the benefits, privileges, and responsibilities of legalized partnerships and families; and denying them the right to be named and serve as godparents. How "Christian" is this? Francis and his Church have built great walls to block our subjectivity and personal agency. They have restrained our human and civil rights. The Catholic Church constructs barriers while speaking in doublespeak saying "we love you," "we welcome you," "we offer you 'Christian love,'" and "we are here to help you change your unwanted attractions and gender identities and expressions," which we, by the way, construct as "gravely and intrinsically disordered" and incongruent with Catholic teaching. Is this not itself a wall? Is this truly love? Or is this rather stones, bricks, cement, and razor wire laid in our path. Is this also cruelty, discrimination, and, yes, abuse and oppression? I find this disappointing at best since Francis showed us some indications initially that he could unearth the Church out of the 17th century where it has remained encased for some time and lift a chisel to the great Catholic wall to uncover at least the 19th if not the 20th or 21st century regarding the concerns of LGBTQ people. But alas, the chisel is nowhere to be found as is the hope. All we have to look forward to from the Catholic Church is the same ol' same ol' barriers for probably the next millennium or so. But by then, humanity will overpopulate itself to extinction through the Church's ban on contraceptives and denial of women's reproductive freedoms. What if black communities committed to ending intimate partner violence? What if we used everything we knew about the root causes of partner violence and put our full resources and expertise to work? What could we create to heal our communities? How much pain and trauma could we prevent? How many lives could we save? Some people tell me it's silly to think of such things. They say we are so far from that being a reality. We can't even acknowledge male privilege, or affirm the value of black trans women's lives. How in the world can we come together and use all our power to end intimate partner violence? But I imagine anyway. My imaginings don't go to a utopia, though. They go instead, towards a future where IPV is rare. A future where our communities have developed our own responses to intimate partner violence that are not linked to the criminal legal system. A future where the causes of intimate partner violence are rooted out in everyday practice before they can take form. A world where misogynoir, transphobia or racialized homophobia doesn't prohibit one from seeking care. A world where healing and restoration are the focus, not vilification, or disposal. Below I have shared a few points on what I believe would need to be included in such a future. The list is not exhaustive, but I hope it does spark us to think, and to expand, what we think is possible. Advertisement In My Black (Feminist) Future: Gendered socialization will be declared a public health emergency. National recognition of how forced gender socialization contributes to domestic violence and mental health will be the norm. Programs will be established at black schools focusing on cultivating "responsible young people" with a number of qualities that are gender non specific and do not stem from respectability politics. Administrative and legislative policies will be set in place that prohibit policing gender in public schools. We will have Community Healing & Accountability boards in every city. They will be organized by neighborhood jurisdiction. When someone has committed harm these boards will execute alternative housing (in someone's home as a first option, before a shelter), and lead all involved through a black feminist and womanist informed accountability and restoration program where those who have harmed will face their actions to the community at large, those harmed receive protection and all are supported in healing. These programs will be lead by members of the communities and be funded by these communities. Emotional Health Education will be standard in all communities and schools. Programs will be created that cultivate emotional intelligence for children of all genders and sexualities including exercises, games, meditation and yoga. Services that address Black Women's healing and accountability, including shelters, will be inclusive and competent for Black Trans and Cis women. Advertisement Black Feminist Clinical Therapy, will be a widely practiced approach in black communities to address mental and emotional health. BFCT will include creating dynamic exercises, activities and clinical spaces that dismantle ideas and complexes that perpetuate transphobia, sexism, misogyny,ableism and racism. Dismantling these ideas will be seen as synonymous to achieving better mental health outcomes. Individuals trained in this approach will include clergy, licensed therapists, activists, organizers and all community folks interested. The Violence of Black women, against children, men or anyone, will not be minimized. Shelters, support and preventative services will exist for all genders and sexualities, including Trans-amorous black men, black trans men and GNC individuals. We will not label people "abusers" or "victims." We will discuss 'those who have caused harm" and "those who have suffered harm", releasing individuals from having to hold a life long title for a behavior or experience. Rape services for those who are harmed will be competent for all genders and sexualities, and those harmed will receive a Support navigator to help them move through the process of healing. Black men of all sexualities, will have intentional collective spaces to process their anger and the trauma they have experienced from their mothers and women in their lives in a manner that is not misogynistic. These groups will be led by individuals trained in a BFCT approach. That anger processed, along with members in the group holding each other accountable to their privilege, will decrease violence against black women, girls and gender non-conforming individuals;as the lack of these kind of spaces contributes to misognynoir. Advertisement Intimate Partner Violence between Black Lesbian and Queer Women will not be minimized because it's just "two women." Services, buildings and spaces will be fully accessible. IPV responses will consider the range of cognitive and physical differences those who have created harm and suffered from harm possess. Black women will have support groups to help them process unhealthy gendered norms and expectations that inhibit their well being. Colleges & Universities will not be permitted to privately handle sexual assault and rape cases. Black Gay & Queer Male communities will be critically challenged on how gay male sex culture contributes to the minimization of sexual assault and intimate partner violence. Children and witnesses to violence will have programs and spaces to process their experiences and heal and this will be considered necessary to prevent cycles of violence. Advertisement This is a future I think about everyday. It is a future I am constantly revising and revisiting.It is future that despite where we are now, I know is possible. And I know that I, nor anyone else, can make it a reality alone. I invite you to join me in this envisioning. What would a black future for our responses to intimate partner violence look like to you? There is so much more that could be said. I look forward to growing and hearing from you, as we collectively conjure this vision. Illustration by Lenoi Jones. This post is part of the "Black Future Month" series produced by The Huffington Post and Black Lives Matter Network for Black History Month. Each day in February, this series will look at one of 29 different cultural and political issues affecting Black lives, from education to criminal-justice reform. To follow the conversation on Twitter, view #BlackFutureMonth. With a traditional pop-up book, a three-dimensional figure or scene leaps off the space of the two-dimensional page. Intended to surprise and delight, the contemporary usage of the term "pop-up" more broadly refers to temporary, ad hoc, and event-particular ventures that appear in unlikely venues at which people and things are mingled into unexpected combinations. Associated with supper clubs, "pop-up restaurants," in particular, are a relatively new trend among the hip, young and millennial. In the same spirit, "Pop-Up Judaism" would refer to Jewish events in which informality takes pride of place. It appears where you don't expect to find them, outside the synagogue and family table, in bars or on rooftops, Shabbat supper clubs in an intimate living space meant to invite strangers. About pop-up, you can read more here. Pop-up Judaism is sort of "post-Jewish." Debra Nussbaum Cohen writes about it here at the Forward. With a brief nod to pop-up boutique, she doesn't name it pop-up Judaism per se. But that's what she's talking about, including "musical Shabbats for young families in an upscale Brooklyn condo building to potluck suppers and lots of singing with hundreds of 20- and 30-somethings around the corner; and from a monthly Ecstatic Mincha that pairs dancing with prayer to a private Kol Nidre service for Russian families on the Upper East Side." Advertisement Experimental, impromptu, and intensely curated, Pop-up Judaism places a premium on art and community. It's also entrepreneurial, consumer-driven, with an eye on a demographic niche. It's big in Los Angles and New York, in particular Brooklyn with a large demographic mass of Jewish millennials; also in Boston, Baltimore, and San Francisco. Pop-up Judaism is utopian in the sense that these events are not dedicated to a single set space. Drawing roughly form the from the same social class, it's both intimate and transactional. The energy comes from the combustion of perfect strangers sitting down at a table. Quoting Rabbi Laurie Phillips, who has led Shabbat picnics with musicians and runs Shabbat gatherings called Beineinu, on the Upper West Side and in Harlem, Nusbaum Cohen writes, "The Shabbat evening picnics have attracted "every age, every household configuration," she said. "Typically, a synagogue space is not informal that way. You can't take off your shoes or be sitting on the floor." Pop-up Judaism spans the movement divide, drawing in nomadic Jews from the ex-ultra-orthodox to Reform Jews and disaffected Jews. Matt Green - a Reform rabbinical student is known as "The Grindr Rebbe" because he uses the gay hookup app Grindr to connect LGBTQ Jews." Also at the Forward, this related article by Juliana Shnur, which you can read here, addresses ownership of Judaism by millennials. Here's the takeaway. Maybe instead of worry about millennials, the organized Jewish community needs to hand over the keys to the car. Here are the names and attractive websites for several such groupings: Brooklyn Jews , The Kitchen , Riverway (in Boston), Pop-Up Shabbat, Charm City Tribe (Baltimore). and The Hester Advertisement Described at Edible Brooklyn, which you can read here and here, as a Jewish-derived dinner-party-supper-club hybrids , Pop-Up Judaism is serious about food. It's part of that culinary flash mob scene . As described, "But dinner guests, Jewish or not, seem most interested by a new experience, a good meal and friendly company -- not the religious inclinations of their tablemates. 'They're coming for the community,' said Cheskis-Gold, 'and they don't care whether the people they meet are not Jewish; the Jewish folks who are there give a little talk about the [dinner's] theme and make sure everyone knows what it's about.'" And it's very serious food indeed. Mentioned here by Elissa Goldstein at Tablet are "a few items that really stood out: The Gefilteria's pickled watermelon rind (sweet and sour, with just a hint of crunch), as well as their roasted beet borscht, which was totally sublime. (The key, I discovered, was to serve it with creme fraiche, not sour cream.) Shannon Sarna's "everything" bagel-challah rolls were just that--delightful 'hybread' rolls akin to challah in texture, and bagels in flavor, which I think encompasses pretty much everything you could ever want in a bread product. For me, the highlight of Melanie Shurka's main course wasn't the centerpiece (a beautifully presented Cornish Hen), but the trimmings: parsley-cilantro fritters, an arugula salad with charred cauliflower and hazelnuts, and tahdig--that coveted, crunchy Persian rice scraped from the bottom of the pan." In that it requires a critical mass of people from which to draw, Pop-Up Judaism is big-city, urban Judaism at its best. It depends upon a mix of intimacy and anonymity. And back to the Pew survey from I'm forgetting which of the articles cited above, "something like more than 60 percent of Jews in that 20-40 range are not connecting to Judaism through traditional means -- synagogue, keeping kosher, they're marrying outside of Judaism," said Cheskis-Gold. "But 96 percent of Jews said that it's important to them to be Jewish. And I just felt like the future of my generation is going to be different than [that of] the generations past. We're seeking it out in a different way." At the end of the day, what is contemporary Judaism? A work of art, a form of "life," or nothing at all? Feeding off good nutrition, which Aristotle tells us is at the base of all life, the most basic element of soul, contemporary Judaism requires palpable energy. Livemint It's been less than 36 hours since the launch of a phone, being marketed as the world's cheapest at 251, but the Ringing Bell company's Freedom 251 smartphone is already facing a storm of controversies. Advertisement It started on an off note after Manohar Parrikar, India's defence minister, did not show up at the event hosted to launch the phone. The details given out about the phone's specs were nothing if not vague. A Hindustan Times report suggested that when asked the policy behind the pricing of the phone, Ashok Chadha, an official from the company, said the real cost of the device was 2500, which will be recovered through a raft of measures like economies of scale, innovative marketing, reduction in duties and creating an e-commerce marketplace. Pranav Dixit, Tech editor for the Hindustan Times also said in a Reddit AMA that he has received a letter from the Indian Cellular Association (ICA), written to telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, that estimates that the phone should cost at least USD 60 (Approx. 4100). The phones handed over to the press all have an Adcom logo hidden behind a coat of white paint that easily peeled off. A report from Gadgets 360 suggested that phones handed out as review units were not the final products which will be shipped. That raises the question that who is building the final product? The report also says that Ringing Bells has not been registered at BIS, making their devices unsafe to use. And we unveil the name of the real manufacturer of the #Freedom251 phone! pic.twitter.com/XWBdWFFOGm Vishal Mathur (@vishalmathur85) February 18, 2016 The Freedom251 website is a mess. Hardly anyone has been able to order the phone successfully. The website is ridden with bugs -- users who entered their details correctly and clicked on the 'Pay Now' button were redirected to the same page. There was no restriction on the quantity users could order as well. If you put 0.5 units as quantity, the price was halved. Dont have enough money for the Rs. 251 phone? Well, you can buy half of it. Even the shipping costs are halved! pic.twitter.com/cyMZbQfAwS Ershad Kaleebullah (@r3dash) February 18, 2016 The first look from Livemint said the phone has copied elements from the iPhone on hardware and software sides. The icons and software design is blatantly an iOS ripoff. The build seemed pretty flimsy. But if you're selling a phone for 251 that can be forgiven. The website has put up a page saying that servers are overloaded and they will be back in 24 hours. Meanwhile, a lot of local stores are scamming people by taking 251 in advance for the phone. Heights of scamming, A new scam emerged of another #Freedom251pic.twitter.com/77ZtZTyobV Yatin Chawla (@YatinChawla) February 18, 2016 Some of the users even reached the Ringing Bells office to protest. Peopl at Noida's Ringing Bells- a mobile maker's office, protesting for failing to book R251 smartphone. @htTweetspic.twitter.com/3knIchAnEl vinod rajput (@vinodrajputs) February 18, 2016 HuffPost India has reached out to the company for comments. smile for the camera later...." data-caption="I'll smile for the camera later...." data-credit="MalayalaM/Flickr"> Hunger, poverty and public apathy left a family in Bihar devastated after a hungry 12-year-old girl was allegedly hit on the head with a serving spoon for asking for a second helping of the midday meal, and her father kicked in his testicles when he reached the school to protest. The man later died of his injury. Advertisement According to a report in The Indian Express, the gruesome incident took place in Gokhlapur village of Bihar's Araria district on 12 February. Kasheeda, a Class V student who studies in Rajkiya Prathmik Vidyalaya comes from a family of daily wage earners, recounted the incident to IE: When I asked for khichdi a second time, school cook Sanjit hit me with a serving spoon with a long handle. I came back home crying and complained to abbu. My father immediately rushed to the school and told Sanjit, Sab bachchon ko sarkari khana khane ka haq hai (All children are entitled to the government mid-day meal). Girl hit for asking more of mid-day meal, father killed for protesting. https://t.co/Jrg0LP4fGapic.twitter.com/tJjvbAjVcO Reddit India (@redditindia) February 19, 2016 She added that a school teacher and the school headmaster rushed at her father shouting, 'Cheer denge', and 'Maaro'. Advertisement "The school headmaster hit my father between his legs," Kasheeda said. The IE article claimed that Kasheeda's father Shagir "was reportedly hit on the testicles, doubled over in pain, defecated in his clothes and fainted". He was rushed to the hospital but he never recovered. Shagir leaves behind five members whom the villagers have been feeding since his death. In 2013, Bihar's midday meal scheme had come under controversy because 23 children died after eating a meal poisoned with pesticide and were later buried in and around the school grounds. In India, where over 30 per cent children suffer from malnourishment, the government is clearly struggling to provide basic food to the hungry under its midday meal scheme. According to recent findings by Unicef, and the Indian government in a new study called the Rapid Survey on Children (RSOC), 30 per cent of children under five years of age are underweight; and 45 per cent of households still defecate in public. An article in The Economist has observed that states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are 'notoriously backward' in matters of nutrition and child welfare. Twitter/kapsology A group of lawyers, led by a Delhi advocate who assaulted a man at the Patiala House Court this week, took out a march to the heart of the national capital on Friday, chanting slogans of Vande Mataram, to protest against anti-national elements, despite a strong call from the Supreme Court of India to maintain probity. #WATCH Lawyers protest march from Patiala House court to India Gate (Delhi), raising slogans of "Vande Mataram"https://t.co/yks9KVcwFo ANI (@ANI_news) February 19, 2016 The lawyers, led by Vikram Singh Chauhan, who spearheaded the attack on journalists and JNU faculty and students in the Patiala House Court earlier in the week, marched shouting Desh ke gaddaron ko bilkul nahi baksha jayega (Traitors of the nation wont be spared). Chauhan had led the attack on sedition-accused Kanhaiya Kumar as well when he was produced in the court on Wednesday. Delhi: Lawyers protest march from Patiala House court to India Gate. pic.twitter.com/3QJCHFmbaM ANI (@ANI_news) February 19, 2016 Protests were held by lawyers in Jammu & Kashmir also to protest against 'anti-national' activities in the JNU. Lawyers protest in Jammu (J&K) over #JNURow, condemn anti-national activities pic.twitter.com/hm00ykxJGy ANI (@ANI_news) February 19, 2016 Earlier in the week, the Supreme Court had reprimanded a lawyer for shouting Vande Mataram inside the courtroom. Remember the oath you took as a lawyer? People have great faith in this institution, a bench of judges had remarked then. Lawyers including Vikram Chauhan raise slogans of "Vande Mataram" & "Bharat Mata Ki Jai" outside PH Court, Delhi. pic.twitter.com/XSWlFCFMZC ANI (@ANI_news) February 17, 2016 The scuffle broke out when JNU students' union president Kumar was being produced in the Patiala House Court after he was arrested on charges of sedition for allegedly raising anti-national slogans on the campus. Delhi: Lawyers protest march from Patiala House court to India Gate. pic.twitter.com/3QJCHFmbaM ANI (@ANI_news) February 19, 2016 Even with the Delhi police summoning him for questioning, Chauhan managed to gather support over social media to mobilise his colleagues for the protest march. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Friday transferred the bail plea of Kumar to High Court. Advertisement Despite strong criticism from various quarters over the attack on journalists and JNU faculty and students in the Patiala Court premises, Chauhan continued to be defiant and even went on to say that he has in fact started a movement. Contact HuffPost India Also See On HuffPost: FoxStarHindi/YouTube Neerja is the second Hindi film in as many months to be directed by an award-winning ad filmmaker returning to feature-length cinema after several years with a star-led drama. The first, Raja Krishna Menons Airlift (read our review here), starring Akshay Kumar, has already become the first big hit of 2016. One hopes that a similar-if-not-better fate awaits Neerja, directed by Ram Madhvani, whose biggest success till now has been this Cannes-winning commercial for HappyDent chewing gum. His first, barely-seen feature, Lets Talk (2002), a stark exploration of a marriage under breakdown, was notable for introducing the talents of Boman Irani, then an occasional theatre actor, to movie audiences. Advertisement With this film, Madhvani has gone one over by introducing audiences to Sonam Kapoor, the actress. In this pulse-pounding, tense thriller about the 1986 hijack of Pan Am Flight 73 by Palestinian terrorists, the much-maligned Kapoor plays Neerja Bhanot, the brave head purser who helped save the lives of 359 people on board after the pilots flee. That this is undoubtedly a career-best performance for her is without question; but whats truly astonishing is the realisation that she may indeed have been the best choice for the role. Whether she succeeds in portraying the real Neerja the way she was is moot, but what Kapoor delivers here is a convincing portrayal of quiet courage, using motifs from her characters life to build a heart-rending and memorable performance. Who'da thunk, eh? Neerja is actually two movies rolled into one: a hijack drama and a four-hanky tearjerker about a young woman fighting norms to be independent and self-sufficient. Before she boards the ill-fated Bombay-New York flight, we see Bhanot spending a precious few hours with her doting family. Her mother Rama (a superb Shabana Azmi) constantly fusses over her, asking her to give up her job since her career in modeling seems to be taking off. Her father Harish (a wonderfully understated Yogendra Tiku), a journalist for the Hindustan Times, constantly encourages her to be his brave bachcha. Flashbacks from the Bombay-New York flight, taken over by armed terrorists belonging to the Abu Nidal Organisation during a layover in Karachi, show us glimpses of Bhanots ugly marriage to a man in Doha, Qatar, named Naresh (Kavi Shastri), who chides her for having brought along no dowry and not knowing how to cook or do housework. A beautifully edited sequence juxtaposes those memories against the horror of being trapped in a life-or-death situation as she takes a moment to compose herself in the lavatory. Advertisement The subject, the performances, and Madhvanis restrained direction are strong enough to ensure that few will leave theatres dry-eyed. Eat your heart out, Karan Johar this is how its done. Speaking of lavatories, one of the films biggest achievements is Aparna Suds stunning production design. A replica of the Pan Am aircraft, created over 48 days in a northern suburb of Mumbai, stands in for the actual plane that was grounded at Karachi airport. The result is nothing short of remarkable. At no point does one feel they arent actually in a plane in the 1980s. The settings, ranging from the Bhanots middle-class home to a newspaper office with typewriters, feel completely real. This naturalism extends to other departments too. Cinematographer Mitesh Mirchandani shoots the entire film on a Steadicam eschewing the over-lit-ness that plagues many commercial Indian films and effectively transports the viewer right into the middle of the action. Monisha R Baldawas editing is not just precise and naturally rhythmic but, as discussed before, also helps the film become much more than a thriller. Vishal Khurranas background score is appropriate and understated, yet keeps your pulse pounding. In certain sequences, a sound akin to a plane taking off is panned wildly from left to right to create a sense of disorientation aside from teasing the audience and reminding them that they arent likely to hear that sound again, since the Pan Am pilots are shown to have fled the cockpit. Advertisement The writing, by Saiwyn Qadras and Sanyukta Shaikh Chawla, takes pains to ensure that Neerja isnt just a one-sided, one-woman show. To some extent, it succeeds in doing so. Early scenes show the terrorists preparing for their operation in tandem with Bhanot getting ready to leave for the airport. Unfortunately, the screenplay doesnt attempt to give these characters any real depth aside from treating them as variations of an archetype The Leader, The Hot-Headed One, The Newbie, and so on. Still, as the volatile Khalil, the most dangerous of the lot, theatre actor Jim Sarbh is terrifyingly effective. Props to casting director Kanika Berry for finding good actors to portray even the smaller roles, such as the doting old lady attempting to find a good match for her America-born grandson. Neerja tends to be reminiscent of similarly-well-executed Hollywood thrillers such as United 93 (2006) and Executive Decision (1996) in parts, which may be the reason token sentimentalism and songs inserted into the narrative come across as forced attempts to Indianise the film. While this certainly doesnt detract from the viewing experience as much as the same did in Airlift, this is one film that really didnt need all of that. The subject, the performances, and Madhvanis restrained direction are strong enough to ensure that few will leave theatres dry-eyed. Eat your heart out, Karan Johar this is how its done. Advertisement Contact HuffPost India Also see on HuffPost: Hindustan Times via Getty Images MUMBAI, INDIA - JANUARY 8: Sand artist Laxmi paying a tribute to the martyrs who sacrificed their lives at Pathankhot, through her art, at Juhu, on January 8, 2016 in Mumbai, India. Seven security personnel were killed in the attack on the Pathankot Indian Air Force Station by six terrorists who, according to officials, crossed over from Pakistan. All the six terrorists were killed by security forces later. (Photo by Vidya Subramanian/Hindustan Times via Getty Images) ISLAMABAD -- Pakistani authorities have lodged an FIR into the Pathankot terror attack case, officials said today, after weeks of probe into the assault that led to the postponement of Indo-Pak Foreign Secretary-level talks. The FIR was registered at Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) centre at Gujranwala in Punjab province yesterday. Advertisement According to a CTD official, the FIR was needed to start police and judicial proceedings on the basis of evidence collected in connection with the attack for which India has blamed Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) militant group. India has identified Maulana Masood Azhar as the mastermind of the attack. It has also blamed his brother Rauf and five others for carrying out the attack that killed all six terrorists and seven Indian soldiers. The FIR number 06/2016 was lodged under sections 302, 324 and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code, and sections 7 and 21-I of the Anti-Terrorism Act. Nobody has been named in the report lodged on the basis of informations provided by India's National Security Adviser Ajit Doval that four attackers probably crossed from Pakistan into India and attacked the airbase on 2 January. Advertisement The attack led to the postponement of a scheduled meeting between Foreign Secretaries of Pakistan and India in January in Islamabad. Since then, no date has been fixed for talks. The FIR also shows the telephone numbers contacted by the militants during the attack. A police official said that after the registration of the FIR, any accused can be presented before the court for start of a formal trial. According to intelligence officials, about a dozen suspects were arrested in Pakistan following the attack. The FIR has reportedly been registered on the recommendations of a six-member special team probing the attack. Last month CTD police Gujranwala had presented three JeM militants before an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) for possessing jihadi literature. Advertisement The suspects were arrested by CTD from a seminary run by JeM in Mundeyki, where the headquarters of the 2008 Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed's Jamaat-u-Dawah is located. Pakistan Prime Minister Sharif had formed the six-member investigation team headed by Additional Inspector General of Punjab's CTD Rai Tahir to probe India's assertion that JeM was behind the attack. Advertisement Contact HuffPost India Also see on HuffPost: Protest In Favour Of JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar, Demand Release Hindustan Times via Getty Images NEW DELHI, INDIA - FEBRUARY 18: JNU students took out a march in support of JNUSU president who was sent to judicial custody, all the student supporters join other AISA activists at Mandi House for a Solidarity March, at JNU Campus on February 18, 2016 in New Delhi, India. The ripple effect of protests against the arrest of JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar on sedition charges is visible in a wave of demonstrations in educational institutions across India. Delhi's Patiala House Court on Wednesday sent JNU student union leader Kanhaiya Kumar to judicial custody till March 2. JNU has been on the boil over the arrest of its student's Union President Kanhaiya Kumar on sedition charges after some students organised a meet to mark the anniversaries of executions of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. (Photo by Vipin Kumar/Hindustan Times via Getty Images) Hutchinson's Orscheln Farm store has become a Bomgaars location The Hutchinson store was one of 73 the FTC said Tractor Supply could not own due to anti-trust concerns. Transition to new store could take 15 months. The Congressional Budget Office has predicted that by the year 2025 premiums for job-based health insurance will surge by about 60%about $10,000 for singles and $24,500 for families. The agency noted that the increase roughly matches the same rate the premiums have been rising at since 2009, outstripping income gains by approximately 2% a year.Higher increases have been predicted for plans purchased through the ACA marketplace: 8% increases annually until 2018, then 5-6% a year until 2025.This would mean average annual 2025 premiums for such plans would about $5,000 for a single 21-year-old, $7,500 for a single 46-year-old, and $18,200 for a family.The budget office pointed out that the plans appear slightly cheaper than job-based ones since their coverage is less extensive and requires more out-of-pocket payments for care.An annual survey by Business Group on Health among businesses in Lancaster County, where the nonprofit is based in, found that average premiums increased by 34 percent for singles and 23 percent for families in the region for the year 2015.They're just getting whacked, said Business Group on Health interim executive director Diane Hess of the individual businesses that could be affected. There is no slowdown in sight.Job-based premiums in the region were also hiked considerably above the national average to $7,884 for singles and $19,692 for families due to an ACA insurance surge, Hess additionally noted.The positive thing that Obamacare did was expand health insurance coverage, Hess remarked. But it really hasn't done anything to address the cost issues of coverage."We focus less on cost effective measures and have a health system that has a lack of transparency and information on prices and quality," Pennsylvania Health Access Network executive director Antoinette Kraus commented. "We need to start developing systems that reward value over volume and focus on systems that develop tools and coordination for consumers."Pennsylvania is taking part in the federal State Innovation Models initiative on health care, noted Kraus, which should help address affordability issues. The commercial insurance sector is largely positive according to the latest US market report from Marsh. It says that, barring unforeseen events, ample capacity and competition are expected to continue to put near term downward pressure on insurance rates in major classes of commercial property/casualty business. It warns though that macroeconomics globally could add pressure and also highlights recent earnings, senior management changes and re-underwriting at several companies need to be monitored.US commercial property insurance rates declined on average between 5 and 10 per cent for non-catastrophe exposed risks and between 5 and 15 per cent for moderately catastrophe-exposed risks.With 2016 under way, the global insurance marketplace appears to be heading in the general direction of soft pricing, reflecting insurer capacity, competition, and relatively low catastrophe losses, said Robert Bentley, president of Marshs US and Canada Division. Now, however, is not the time to be complacent. Organizations need to stay abreast of the ever-changing marketplace and risk landscape, where new and emerging risks can quickly escalate if not properly managed.The report highlights the growing demand for cyber cover where rates increased 10-15 per cent in the first half of 2015 and are expected to grow in 2016.The majority of Canadians fear running out of money in retirement; 67 per cent according to a new poll by BMO Wealth Management. Fifty-nine per cent of respondents say that they miss or will miss their employment income from their working life. Two-thirds are also concerned about dealing with serious health issues. The survey reveals that many Canadians approaching retirement or already retired do not feel that their pension, critical illness insurance and other finances are as strong as they would like, although 55 per cent are optimistic about the life-stage.An insurance agent has been arrested for allegedly taking insurance premiums for policies that were never purchased. The Florida Division of Insurance Fraud alleges that William David Rodeffer III collected $40,000 in premium payments from two clients.According to a report from News4Jax.com one of the clients, who believed he had bought workers compensation insurance, made a claim on the non-existent policy and was forced to cover the $30,000 expenses when the lack of cover was discovered. The investigators say that Rodeffer had been an insurance agent in Georgia but was denied a license in Florida due to a criminal history. The Florida Division of Insurance Fraud says that he continued to operate without a license for three years. Four More Shots Please S3 Review: This Old Wine In New Bottle Doesn't Get You Drunk As Easily Anymore Page Content Dr. Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu, ICAO Council President, delivers the keynote address at the Singapore Airshow Aviation Leadership Summit. MONTREAL, 18 February 2016 ICAO Council President Dr. Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu conducted a mission to Singapore from 14-15 February. He was accompanied by ICAOs Asia-Pacific (APAC) Regional Director, Mr. Arun Mishra. President Aliu met with Singapores Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam, and Mr. Khaw Boon Wan, Coordinating Minister for Infrastructure and Minister for Transport. He delivered the keynote address at the Singapore Airshow Aviation Leadership Summit and conducted a series of high-level meetings and dialogues on ICAOs current work in support of an international aviation market-based measure (MBM) and the UN agencys ongoing capacity-building for States under its No Country left Behind initiative. During his keynote address, President Aliu focused on ICAOs aviation development and No Country Left behind priorities, including the need for major State commitments towards modernized air transport infrastructure, while stressing the need for near-term action on aviation emissions. The eyes of the world are now clearly focused on the air transport sector post COP/21, and we must respond by delivering concrete progress on reducing emissions, he highlighted to his audience of government and corporate leaders, stressing with respect to local concerns that with a number of Pacific Island States already experiencing dramatic revenue loss due to climate change, the especially urgent need for environmental action cannot be ignored. The ICAO Presidents stay in Singapore began with a series of dialogues conducted separately with Ministers representing Pacific Island States and Transport Ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Topics discussed included No Country left Behind and ICAOs current goals and actions to help States effectively implement ICAO Standards and Policies a fundamental requirement on the path to optimizing air transport connectivity and aviations socio-economic benefits. Further talks focused on the progress of ICAOs work and outreach in 2016 to gain State consensus around the international aviation MBM now being developed, a world first for any major industrial sector. In less than two weeks from today, the ICAO Councils High-level MBM Group will be reviewing a draft proposal for the MBM design scheme. This will be followed by a series of regional outreach events the ICAO Global Aviation Dialogues leading to a High-level meeting in May, and then finally the 39th ICAO Assembly this September. The President also met with Singaporean Minister of State, Ms. Josephine Teo ; Mr. Pang Kin Keong, Permanent Secretary of Singapores Ministry of Transport; Mr Shum Jin-Chyi Kevin, Director General of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore; and other Singaporean senior officials. President Aliu also conducted a series of bilateral discussions with Mr. Henry Puna, Prime Minister and Minister for Transport of the Cook Islands; Lord Tariq Ahmad, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State of the United Kingdoms Department of Transport; Mr. Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, Attorney General and Minister of Finance of Fiji; Ms. Violeta Bulc, Commissioner for Transport, European Commission; Mr. Hadi Sirika, Nigerias Minister of State for Aviation; Mr. Hany Y. Eladawy and Ms Iyabo O. Sosina, respectively the President and Secretary General of the African Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC); and Ms. Ingrid Cherfils and Mr. Salvatore Sciacchitano, respectively President and Executive Secretary of the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC). He also attended the opening ceremony of the Singapore Air Show. Resources for editors: ICAOs Aviation Development and No Country Left Behind initiatives The ICAO Global Aviation Safety Plan The ICAO Global Air Navigation Plan ICAO and the UN SDGs Contact: communications@icao.int We work towards an equitable, gender-just, self-reliant and sustainable fisheries, particularly in the small-scale, artisanal sector We work towards an equitable, gender-just, self-reliant and sustainable fisheries, particularly in the small-scale, artisanal sector We work towards an equitable, gender-just, self-reliant and sustainable fisheries, particularly in the small-scale, artisanal sector We work towards an equitable, gender-just, self-reliant and sustainable fisheries, particularly in the small-scale, artisanal sector Press Release: Statement by Agustin Carstens, Governor of Banco de Mexico and Chairman of the IMFC Press Release No.16/67 February 19, 2016 Mr. Agustin Carstens, Governor of Banco de Mexico and Chairman of the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) made the following statement today: I would like to congratulate Ms. Christine Lagarde for her reappointment to a second five-year term as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. Ms. Lagarde has led the Fund in a strong and highly effective manner during challenging times for the world economy. Her inspiring and strategic efforts have reinvigorated the Funds capabilities to support its global membership across a wide range of activities. Along with my IMFC colleagues, I am confident that she will continue to provide the excellent and unwavering leadership needed to ensure that the Fund remains at the center of global efforts to strengthen the international monetary and financial system. I met with Ms. Lagarde today, and we agreed on the need for a strong, broad-based policy response to boost global growth and confidence and to manage vulnerabilities. Along with my IMFC colleagues, I look forward to working closely with Ms. Lagarde in the period ahead to address the needs of the Fund membership and to promote global stability. The IMFC will have an opportunity to discuss the global conjuncture and challenges, as well as the strategic direction of the Fund, at its next meeting on April 15-16, 2016 in Washington, D.C. Imperial Valley News Center White House Press Secretary on the Presidents Travel to Cuba and Argentina Washington, DC - President Obama and the First Lady will travel to Cuba on March 21st and 22nd and Argentina on March 23rd and 24th. In Cuba, the President will work to build on the progress we have made toward normalization of relations with Cuba - advancing commercial and people-to-people ties that can improve the well-being of the Cuban people, and expressing our support for human rights. In addition to holding a bilateral meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro, President Obama will engage with members of civil society, entrepreneurs and Cubans from different walks of life. This historic visit the first by a sitting U.S. President in nearly 90 years is another demonstration of the Presidents commitment to chart a new course for U.S.-Cuban relations and connect U.S. and Cuban citizens through expanded travel, commerce, and access to information. In Buenos Aires, the President and First Family will meet with the new Argentine President, Mauricio Macri, to discuss President Macris reform agenda and recognize his contributions to the defense of human rights in the region. The President will deepen efforts to increase cooperation between our governments in a range of areas, including trade and investment, renewable energy and climate change, and citizen security. It has been nearly two decades since the last bilaterally focused visit by a U.S. President to Argentina, Latin Americas third largest country. Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Announces New Tools to Help Parents and Educators Improve Attendance San Francisco, California - Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today unveiled an online toolkit designed to help local leaders address Californias elementary school truancy crisis. The toolkit, created in collaboration with the Ad Council and with the support of The California Endowment, provides school, community, and government leaders with resources to work with parents on their childrens elementary school absences and the long-term impact that chronic absence and truancy have on academic performance. Educators can use these tools to engage parents including via text message about their childs attendance and how to reduce absences. Nearly a quarter of a million California elementary school students were chronically absent in the 2014-2015 school year, with sweeping implications for our states future, said Attorney General Harris. If we want to effectively address this crisis, we need to communicate to parents and teachers about how critical early attendance is to a childs development. This toolkit will help teachers and community leaders discuss truancy with parents and help them to ensure their children are in class every day. The toolkit is the culmination of a statewide study conducted with parents of elementary school students and education experts to understand barriers to attendance and how best to address them. It includes data compiled from interviews in which parents discussed their perceptions of early-grade absences and what messaging would have the greatest impact on them. It also includes tips for school and community leaders on how to communicate the impact of early school absences to parents, as well as a letter that school and district administrators can send to teachers to help them improve communication with parents of students in their classrooms. The study found that while parents have ambitious long-term dreams for their children, such as college admission, they often do not connect early-grade attendance to later achievement. Combined with barriers to attendance such as lack of transportation or health issues, these misunderstandings can lead to children missing too many days of school and falling behind as early as kindergarten. The study also found that parents most trusted sources of information are teachers, who can best help them understand what is happening in the classroom and what resources are available to help families resolve barriers to attendance. The study found that texting is most parents preferred form of communication with their childrens school. In September, Attorney General Harris issued her third annual report on elementary school truancy and chronic absenteeism in California, In School + On Track 2015. The report found that California still faces a crisis in elementary school attendance: 230,000 California elementary school students are chronically absent missing more than 10% of the school year and more than 1 in 5 are truant, having three or more unexcused absences. Low-income students and students of color face even lower attendance rates. The report also outlines significant progress made in the past year in increasing awareness of the importance of attendance within school districts, tracking attendance year over year, and rethinking discipline policies that remove students from the classroom. The report is available in its entirety online at: https://oag.ca.gov/truancy/2015. In 2013, Attorney General Harris issued the first statewide statistics on Californias elementary school truancy crisis and directly linked public education to public safety and the economy. Students who are not reading at grade level by the end of third grade are statistically more likely to drop out of high school. Annually, dropouts cost California taxpayers an estimated $46.4 billion in incarceration, lost productivity and lost taxes. The 2014 report released updated statewide data. In February 2015, Attorney General Harris unveiled the Bureau of Childrens Justice, a unit within the California Department of Justice that works to ensure all of Californias children are on track to meet their full potential. The Bureau enforces criminal and civil laws to hold those who prey on children accountable; works with a range of local, state, and national stakeholders to increase support and improve outcomes for vulnerable children; and identifies and pursues improvements to policies impacting children. Attorney General Harris has worked to combat truancy since she was District Attorney of San Francisco. In the course of investigating factors contributing to the citys violent crime rate, she found that 94% of San Francisco homicide victims under age 25 were high school dropouts. Then-District Attorney Harris formed a partnership with the school district to inform parents about their legal duty to ensure that their children attended school, provide parents of chronically truant students with wrap-around services and school-based mediation, and prosecute parents in the most severe cases where other interventions did not work. In addition to the Ad Council and The California Endowment, organizations that partnered with the Attorney Generals office on the attendance toolkit include the California Department of Education, California Department of Public Health, California Teachers Association, California Federation of Teachers, California Alliance of African American Educators, Association of California School Administrators, California African American Administrators and Superintendents Association, California Association of Latino Superintendents and Administrators, California County Superintendents Education Services Association, California School Boards Association, California Charter Schools Association, California School Employees Association, California School Nurses Organization, California Association of School Counselors, LA Chamber of Commerce, Bay Area Council, Children Now, Fight Crime, Invest in Kids CA, La Opinion, School-Based Health Alliance, Campaign for Grade Level Reading, Keeping Kids in School and Out of Court Initiative, Partnership for Children and Youth, California Coalition for Youth, Communities in Schools-LA, LA Urban League, Youth Policy Institute, Community Coalition, Foster Ed-California, Parent Institute for Quality Education, Alliance for Children's Rights, Inter-Tribal Council of California, Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, California Family Resource Association, First 5 California, Los Angeles Education Partnership, Parent Advocate League, Children's Defense Fund, National Council of La Raza, and CDE Foundation. Sudan: United States Calls for End of Violence in Jebel Marra, Darfur Washington, DC - The United States is deeply concerned about the increased violence against civilians and the grave humanitarian situation in and around Jebel Marra, Darfur. Initial attacks by the Sudan Liberation Army-Abdul Wahid opposition group on Sudanese armed forces prompted a response by Sudans military that included aerial bombardments despite the UN Security Council demand that Sudan cease offensive military flights over Darfur. These attacks have forced 73,000 people to flee their homes, and thousands more are trapped in the conflict zone of Jebel Marra without access to aid. The United States calls on both the Government of Sudan and the armed movements of the Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF) to re-commit to their cessation of hostilities declarations for Darfur and in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states. We welcome the recent absence of major offensive action in South Kordofan and urge all parties to show the same restraint in Darfur and also in Blue Nile state, where government and opposition forces each carried out attacks last month. There is no military solution to Sudans internal conflicts. We call on the Government of Sudan and the SRF to de-escalate the violence and work with the African Union and others to agree to a comprehensive cessation of hostilities agreement that will allow immediate and unfettered humanitarian access for Darfur, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile. We also urge the government to create an environment conducive to the participation of armed movements and other political opposition parties in a comprehensive and inclusive national dialogue that addresses systemic governance issues in Sudan. Joint Statement on Libya Washington, DC - The governments of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States welcome the Libyan Presidency Council's February 14 announcement of a Government of National Accord Cabinet. We take note of the spirit of openness and reconciliation embodied in this Cabinet. It is not easy to choose the path of reconciliation, but addressing Libya's humanitarian, economic, and security crises requires great courage. Finalizing the Government of National Accord (GNA) is an essential step toward providing the Libyan people the opportunity to rebuild their country and counter the threat posed by Daesh to their common future. We stand ready to provide full support to the Libyan people and the Government of National Accord as they continue the hard work of restoring unity and stability. Members of the House of Representatives now face a solemn responsibility. We urge the House of Representatives to endorse the list of Government of National Accord Cabinet members in its entirety as foreseen in the Libyan Political Agreement. The path of reconciliation and the formation of the full GNA offer a positive way forward for the Libyan people. We will stand with those who choose this path forward. By contrast, continued division will benefit only Daesh and the other extremist groups that want to tear Libya apart. Developing a programme for surgeons in difficulty to access mentorship and support when going through employer investigations or disciplinary procedures is among the key initiatives of the RCSIs new four-year surgical strategy. The College is also hoping to work with other medical training bodies to set up a framework for surgeons to access healthcare, and with the HSE to develop an expanded, structured re-skilling programme. The Surgical Affairs Strategy 2016-2020 was launched at the Colleges Charter Day Meeting, the overall theme of which was Supporting Surgeons, with the focus on the challenges of surgical practice and how best the College can support the profession. Dean of Professional Development and Practice Prof Sean Tierney said it was difficult for all colleagues involved when a surgeon was off work ill, or was stressed or underperforming. He said they hoped to take a cross-training body approach and possibly open up the ICGPs network of GPs providing care to GPs to surgeons and other physicians. He said a meeting had taken place, but there was no framework in place yet. It is about removing some of the barriers to access and discouraging people from self-medicating, self-treating, referring themselves to specialists when really it might be more appropriate to go to a GP, Prof Tierney said. The Irish Medical Council has also pledged its support to the development of a mentorship programme for surgeons going through disciplinary action. It would be a colleague who is aware of what it is like, who knows what is involved, and who maybe has been through it, who can act as a friendly support not advising on the process, he explained. A panel of people had offered to provide such mentorship and the College plans to provide them with training and to formalise the service. The RCSI also has broad agreement with the HSE on a re-skilling programme, which it plans to expand and put on a more formal structural basis. We have a structure in place where somebody might need to go and learn a new technique or be brought through some of the techniques they use regularly and be supervised, mentored like any trainee, for a period of time because they have been away from practice because they are ill, or because they have drifted away from mainstream surgery, perhaps because they are working in a small unit or in isolation, Prof Tierney added. niamh.mullen@imt.ie Watch: This Video Of Woman Failing At Archery, Hitting Arrow On Head Is Hilarious 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 }} To Kill a Mockingbird might have been praised for the way it dealt with racial inequality, but in 1966 Hanover County School deemed it immoral, removing all copies of it from its library. When Lee got wind of this, she sent the school a letter which was published in The Richmond News Leader (and many years later, Letters of Note). Along with arguing against the decision very articulately, the author made a contribution to the newspapers fund which compensated official stupidities, paying for copies of the book to be given to children who asked for them. Heres the letter in full: Monroeville, Alabama January, 1966 Editor, The News Leader: Recently I have received echoes down this way of the Hanover County School Board's activities, and what I've heard makes me wonder if any of its members can read. Surely it is plain to the simplest intelligence that "To Kill a Mockingbird" spells out in words of seldom more than two syllables a code of honor and conduct, Christian in its ethic, that is the heritage of all Southerners. To hear that the novel is "immoral" has made me count the years between now and 1984, for I have yet to come across a better example of doublethink. I feel, however, that the problem is one of illiteracy, not Marxism. Therefore I enclose a small contribution to the Beadle Bumble Fund that I hope will be used to enroll the Hanover County School Board in any first grade of its choice. Harper Lee 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 }} It certainly wasnt because of her role as the glamorous lawyer Miranda Hobbes in Sex and the City that Cynthia Nixon was cast as the poet Emily Dickinson in Terence Daviess new film, A Quiet Passion, which premiered this week at the Berlin Film festival. Davies freely admits that he detested the show. I watched it one or twice and I was appalled. I did actually say to her [Nixon], Please dont be offended but I do think it [Sex and the City] is a very pernicious programme. All they do is have sex, they eat and they shop. I just think that is an awful premise. The second time Davies watched Sex and the City, he did so with the sound turned down. I said to her [Cynthia Nixon], The only reactions that were true were yours. Interviewed on a Sunday morning in an upmarket hotel in Berlin, Cynthia Nixon takes Davies waspish remarks about Sex and the City in good grace. She gives a superb performance in A Quiet Passion, capturing the reclusive poets peculiar mix of humour, ironic detachment, vulnerability and febrile intensity. She reads the verse beautifully, too. Unlike Davies, Nixon sees at least a slight overlap between the New York portrayed in Sex and the City and the close-knit Massachusetts community in which Dickinson spent her entire life. She hopes at least some of the shows fans will enjoy A Quiet Passion. Sex and the City fans really span a whole gamut of people. Of course, Emilys world is very different than the world of Sex and the City and I dont think she would recognise those women. I dont think she would know what to make of them. Actors you think have won Oscars but haven't Show all 14 1 /14 Actors you think have won Oscars but haven't Actors you think have won Oscars but haven't Bill Murray With only one Oscar nomination to his name (2003's Lost in Translation), Bill Murray is one oversight that - in many people's eyes - could easily throw the Academy Awards into disrepute. AFP/Getty Images Actors you think have won Oscars but haven't Samuel L. Jackson Considering he's one of the most bankable film stars in the world, it's a surprise that - with over 160 credits to his name - Samuel L. Jackson has only received a mere one nomination (Pulp Fiction in 1994). 2016 Getty Images Actors you think have won Oscars but haven't Joaquin Phoenix With three previous nominations under his belt - for films including Gladiator and The Master - it was his performance as Johnny Cash in 2005 biopic Walk the Line that was expected to see him win an Oscar (he lost to the late Philip Seymour Hoffman's for Capote). 2015 Getty Images Actors you think have won Oscars but haven't Brad Pitt The ever-present fixture he remains in Hollywood today, you'd think Brad Pitt would have won an Oscar by now; while serving as producer of 2014 Best Picture winner 12 Years a Slave, he currently has zero acting wins to his name despite three nominations (Twelve Monkeys, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Moneyball). 2015 Getty Images Actors you think have won Oscars but haven't Tom Cruise Still one of the biggest movie stars on the planet, Tom Cruise seemed like a sure awards bet back in the Nineties with films Born on the Fourth of July, Jerry Maguire and Magnolia all earning him nominations - and yet, he never once emerged victorious. 2015 Getty Images Actors you think have won Oscars but haven't Richard Gere Would you believe us if we told you Richard Gere has never even been nominated? Well, it's true - and, quite honestly, shocks us quite a bit. Poor guy. Juan Naharro Gimenez Actors you think have won Oscars but haven't Gary Oldman One of the film industry's finest character actors, Gary Oldman has been nominated just the once for playing George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. 2014 Getty Images Actors you think have won Oscars but haven't Johnny Depp Despite his recent dip in quality, Johnny Depp has delivered several Oscar-worthy performances in the past. With a total of three nominations to his name - all for post-2000 releases including Pirates of the Caribbean and Finding Neverland - it's more a wonder he didn't receive more recognition for standout films such as Ed Wood and Donnie Brasco in the Nineties. 2015 Getty Images Actors you think have won Oscars but haven't Harrison Ford Harrison Ford may now be the world's highest-grossing actor (sorry, Samuel) but still doesn't have the Academy Award to back up such a feat. In fact, he's now into his third decade of not receiving recognition from the Academy with his sole nomination arriving back in 1985 for Witness. Getty Actors you think have won Oscars but haven't Edward Norton Edward Norton is just the kind of actor you'd assume would've scooped a statuette at some stage or another, but no - Norton just has three nominations to speak of; his first in 1996 (Primal Fear), his second in 1999 (American History X) and his third just last year (Best Picture winner, Birdman). AFP/Getty Images Actors you think have won Oscars but haven't John Malkovich American actor John Malkovich was nominated once in 1984 (Places in the Heart) and again in 1993 (In the Line of Fire) but hasn't posed much of a threat since. 2013 Getty Images Actors you think have won Oscars but haven't Annette Bening Poor Annette Bening, who has come close to victory four times (The Grifters, American Beauty, Being Julia and The Kids Are All Right) but is yet to clinch one. 2015 Getty Images Actors you think have won Oscars but haven't Glenn Close ...well, it could be worse; she could be Glenn Close who has been on the shortlist six times for films including Fatal Attraction, Dangerous Liaisons and, most recently, Albert Nobbs. Actors you think have won Oscars but haven't Helena Bonham Carter Helena Bonham Carter may have received a Best Actress nomination for Wings of a Dove (1997), but it was her Best Supporting Actress nomination for 2012's Best Picture winner The King's Speech that seemed a sure bet; Melissa Leo's role in The Fighter won that round. 2015 Getty Images "I think she would be very confused by them but I think in some way, theyre thinking of many the same issues. Theyre thinking about what there is about womanhood that is essential to them, and what there is about womanhood that is a trap, and that they want to divest themselves of. In Nixons eyes, Dickinson was an early feminist, questioning received ideas about marriage, career and parenthood. Emily was concerned foremost with God and mortality but also with love and also with gender. I think she was very focused on her gender. I think she made very brave choices for a woman of that time. The actress has been reading Dickinsons verse since she was a child. Ive always loved her as a poet , Nixon says of Dickinson, and when you grow up in America, she is such a part of your life. Her poems span a really wide range. There are some that are very, very simple and some that are enormously dense and complex. You hear her voice so clearly and they are so personal, the poems. I see myself in Emily a lot, I always have. Access unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Amazon Prime Video Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up (Johan Voets) This last remark cant help but seem surprising. Nixon is the precocious former child actress who went on to play Miranda Hobbes. She lives in New York and is very open about everything: from her sexuality to the illness she has endured. Dickinson, by contrast, never married, never left home, had few of her poems published in her lifetime and only achieved fame posthumously. As a child, a teenager and a young person, I was very internalised, Nixon says, explaining just why she felt such an affinity for the hermit-like poet from such an early age. I was... shy. She is the patron saint of shy persons! I was a person who didnt feel extroverted, I didnt feel able to present myself but I tried to give the world the impression that there was something really fascinating over here if you would just take the time to look. When I was a kid, I really identified with that painful shyness. Ask her to explain why she was so shy and she suggests it may have had something to do with being an only child. I was raised by a single mother most of the time. My mother focused on me very much, so when I was out in the world, without my mother there for protection and support, it was sometimes very hard for me. So I would just sort of clam up. Her mother, a TV executive and writer who had been an actress herself, guided her toward acting, says Nixon: I had a good stage mom. She made her professional debut when she was only 12. Shortly afterwards, she appeared alongside Tatum ONeal and Matt Dillon in Little Darlings (1980). I think I come from a family of worker bees. We work, we work, we work, she says of her drive to become successful as an actress. For the first 10 years of her professional career, from when she was 12 to 22, she combined her acting with her studies: I went to very demanding schools. I think that was really helpful to me. I was very focused on the idea of balancing these two things that I would try and do the best I could by my career without letting my schooling slip. The great movie and stage director Mike Nichols saw her on stage when she was 15, then cast her in The Real Thing when she was 17 and, shortly afterwards, in Hurlyburly. I did them both on Broadway at the same time, which was an amazing thing. She remembers Nichols, who died in 2014, as someone with an immense lust for life. It was extraordinary that he made it, that he got out of Europe as a child; that he survived as a Jew. He was a person of tremendous brain and ambition but his enjoyment of life was immense. Nichols main quality as a director, she suggests, was that he fascinated and bewitched actors and they then were desperate to do whatever he wanted. As she had grown older, the once-shy Nixon says she has grown sturdier and become better at presenting herself. Nixon (right) with (from left) Willie Garson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristian Davis and Kim Cattrall in the third season of HBO comedy Sex and the City (Getty Images) She doesnt agree that actors tend to be naturally gregarious. There are some actors who are very extroverted, like Catherine Zeta-Jones, like a natural performer. But then there are people like Philip Seymour Hoffman who are very internalised. "The thing that is amazing about their acting is not how theyre an exhibitionist but that theyre deeply private. When they show you a little bit of what is there, it is very fascinating because you understand it is very precious and that they are reluctant to part with it that knowledge about themselves. I put it to Nixon that one of the advantages that Emily Dickinsons anonymity gave her was freedom from the media intrusion that all the Sex and the City stars face. Nixon is phlegmatic in the face of such prying. You know, its not too bad, I have to say, she reflects. Sometimes, I dont like it but mostly it is not bad. Nixon isnt too perturbed by the media fascination with her private life, including her marriage to Christine Marinoni and her well-chronicled battle with breast cancer, with which she was diagnosed in 2006. There are things in my life that I dont necessarily think should be secret, Nixon states. I want to reveal them in their proper time. I dont want the world to know Ive got cancer when I have just been diagnosed and am undergoing treatment. That doesnt seem appropriate or helpful. But once Ive had it, I dont think it is bad to keep it a secret but I dont need to keep it a secret. "Or when I am starting to date a woman for the first time, I dont want a photographer there at the first date but I feel that once we are a solid couple and we are living together and stuff, I dont know how one would try and hide that. There are some people who are stringently secretive about what their romantic status is whether they have a permanent partner or are married. That is fine. It is admirable and I think very hard to pull off. For most of us in our lives, whether we are public people or not, generally the person we go to bed with that night, that person is not a secret. You wouldnt try to hide your husband or your wife or your girlfriend or your boyfriend, the person that youre sharing your life with. That does seem public knowledge whether youre a public person or not. As Nixon holds forth, you realise that she is formidably articulate and every bit as defiant and opinionated as Emily Dickinson. She is also unguarded and friendly, with no airs. It has been a gruelling year for her. Not only did she star in A Quiet Passion. She also appeared in one play, directed three others and co-starred as a cancer patient in the film James White. I am taking a break, she declares, emphatically, when asked what is coming next. A Quiet Passion will be released in the UK later in the year 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 }} It's still quite hard to fathom there's actually going to be a sequel to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, but the release date announcement has made it seem extremely real: it'll be released 12 January 2018. The follow-up to the 1982 classic will be directed by Denis Villeneuve, the Canadian filmmaker whose credits include Prisoners, Enemy and last year's Sicario. Ryan Gosling will star in the lead role while the original's star Harrison Ford - who recently returned to the Star Wars universe as Han Solo - will reprise the role of Rick Deckard; it's uncertain in what capacity. Nothing much else is known, but the sequel will be written by Michael Green and Hampton Fancher, who co-wrote the original with Ridley Scott. The script will be based on a story devised by Fancher and Scott. Considering how much of a visual treat the original is considered, it's comforting to know that multi-Oscar nominee Roger Deakins will be on board as cinematographer. Scott revealed he wouldn't return to direct as he's busy working on the Prometheus sequel Alien: Covenant - a continuation of the Alien franchise he started in 1979. Blade Runner 2 will be released on 12 January 2018. 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 }} New dog, new rules. Though filming for John Wick 2 kicked off back in November, with set photos showing star Keanu Reeves embroiled in another brutal fight; we're now finally being offered some insight into what the sequel will consist of. Exhibitor Relations tweeted some fairly crucial info on the film. First off, it's to be known by the title of John Wick: Chapter Two, with a US release date set for 10 February, 2017. Furthermore, the tweet teased the film's new jet-setting location, with action transferring to Rome; where Wick will likely be too busy kicking "Italian ass" to take in much of the sights. John Wick's high octane thrills took the revenge flick to new levels; as Reeves' infamous assassin obliterates New York's Russian mafia after the death of his beloved pooch. With the film ending in the adoption of new, little pup; fans will now surely be left on tenterhooks as to whether this second dog makes it to the sequel's end credits. The actor previously teased; "I think we have a really good premise, and its an organic premise. Its basically to me theres John Wick and then theres John. You know, John is the married guy whose wife just died, and that five years of his life. Then theres John Wick, whos the mythical assassin. In this, John Wicks past comes and infiltrates Johns life and John Wick, in a way, has to fight for John." Reeves, John Leguizamo, Ian McShane, Bridget Moynahan, and Lance Reddick will all return to their original roles; with Ruby Rose, Laurence Fishburne, Peter Stormare, and Common joining the cast. One pair from the original's directing duo, Chad Stahelski, is also returning for the flick. 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 }} Triple 9 is a prime example of a cop thriller that should have been made for TV rather than for the big screen. Director John Hillcoat has assembled a tremendous cast. He is telling a complicated story with multiple characters, but is trying to shoehorn it into a running time of less than two hours. If it was an HBO series, it could have run at 10 times that length. Matt Cook's screenplay doesn't skimp on the gangster movie stereotypes. There are nods here to Michael Mann, Goodfellas, James Ellroy and even 1940s film noir. Brilliant young Flemish cinematographer Nicolas Karakatsanis shoots the film in an edgy and frenetic fashion, with constant reframing and use of handheld camera. For all the complexities, the premise here is simple enough. A crew of corrupt cops and former soldiers led by Michael Atwood (Chiwetel Ejiofor in action man mode) are carrying out heists on behalf of Russian-Israeli mobsters (hence predictable jokes about the "Kosher Nostra"). The queen pin of these thugs is Irina Vlasov, played by Kate Winslet in memorably over the top fashion with a thick Russian accent that not even Meryl Streep could have topped. Imagine Rasputin crossed with Cruella de Vil and you'll come close to her essence. Anthony Mackie is a not very trustworthy cop. Casey Affleck is his new partner. Harrelson is Affleck's uncle, a hard-bitten, worldly wise cop with a sixth sense for sniffing out corruption. The film has all the ingredients you'd find in any perfectly serviceable, perfectly forgettable B movie the chases, the blackmail, the shoot-outs. It is just hard to understand why a director and actors of such distinction are tackling such hackneyed material. On television, The Shield and The Wire have covered similar territory in much more effective fashion. Sign up to Roisin OConnors free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This 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 Roisin OConnors email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} British rising stars Blossoms are to pay a touching tribute to Viola Beach, the indie band that died tragically in a car accident last weekend. Viola Beach were touring in Sweden when their car was driven off a bridge and into a canal, killing all four members as well as their manager. The band were due to support BBC Sound of 2015 runners-up Blossoms for a selection of their upcoming UK shows. Fittingly, the Manchester band, fronted by Tom Ogden, have announced that they will honour them at these gigs. Blossoms posted a note to their social media channels expressing how they invited them on tour upon meeting them in Glasgow last October. "They were a great gang and a brilliant band," they wrote. "The last time we saw them was after the Leamington Spa show last Thursday. We said our goodbyes to them as they headed off to Sweden." Blossoms went on to announce their touching plans to honour the band. "...on every date they were due to join us on, we will mark their slot by playing a full audio recording of their set that was recorded from the Leamington Spa show. "If you're coming to the gigs, get down early and celebrate their lives with an outpouring of love." Viola Beach were comprised of Kris Leonard, River Reeves, Tomas Lowe and Jack Dakin. It is still unknown what caused the accident. If you'd like to honour them, here is a list of Blossoms' upcoming live shows. Sign up to Roisin OConnors free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This 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 Roisin OConnors email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Just days after Stevie Wonder used his appearance on stage at the Grammys to call for greater access for disabled people, a report has revealed the extent to which those with disabilities are being excluded from gigs and festivals by the UK music industry. A study of 251 live music venues and 135 festivals, backed by Arts Council England and carried out by disabled music fans on behalf of the campaign group Attitude is Everything (AIE), found that a majority failed to provide adequate information on access for people with disabilities. Among independent venues, 69 per cent gave no prior details at all and 50 per cent of the remainder offered information described by the report as poor. The findings provoked Emily Eavis, organiser of the Glastonbury Festival, to urge all festival and venue organisers to ensure that they provide high quality and comprehensive access information for disabled music fans. Recommended Read more Stevie Wonder uses braille award sheet for accessibility plea Fans recounted stories of being ordered out of disabled toilets for taking too long, having their vital medical equipment subjected to searches and being doubted by staff over their need for a raised platform because they are not wheelchair users. A survey by The Independent revealed that venues including the 100 Club in Londons Oxford Street, considered a birthplace of punk; Brightons Coalition nightclub and Thekla, an award-winning floating venue at Bristol docks, give no details of access or facilities offered to disabled patrons. Similar accusations can be directed at Manchesters Castlefield Bowl (which has no website, merely a ticket service), and the Dublin Castle in Camden Town, London, a long-time stalwart of the indie scene and a favourite hangout of the late Amy Winehouse. Case study: Hanna McKearnen, 23 University student Hanna McKearnen has a genetic condition called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome but doesnt allow it to prevent her watching live music, which she cites as probably my favourite thing to do. She has a complex bowel disorder that requires her to have a surgical tube anchored in her stomach and a feeding line linked to a pump, which she carries in a back pack at all times. The tube can easily be ripped out in crowds and she is often too tired to stand for a whole performance. Ms McKearnen, who lives in Ormskirk, Lancashire, said she was treated with little sympathy by venue staff at a gig by indie rock group The Vaccines. The staff went through my bag, which had my pump that I need 24 hours a day, and said, Do you really need to take that in? she said. Although her condition means she cannot stand throughout a show, Ms McKearnen was later questioned on why she was in a disabled area when not a wheelchair user. As he presented the Song of the Year award at the Grammys on Monday, Wonder, who has been blind since shortly after his birth, light-heartedly informed the audience that the winners name had been written in Braille for him, before pointedly calling for greater consideration for the disabled. We need to make every single thing accessible to every single person with a disability, he said, receiving loud cheers in response. But Suzanne Bull, the chief executive of AIE and a wheelchair user, said festivals and venues were failing to give adequate information on accessibility and would lose out on the purple pound the custom of disabled people. If a venue or festival doesnt provide any access information, Im at the stage of life where, because Im older and I cant be bothered any more, then Ill go and spend my money somewhere that the information is really clear, she said. Enjoy unlimited access to 70 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up In its report, AIE said there was a clear need for universal guidance on disabled access across the industry. Music fan Hanna McKearnen has been questioned about her equipment at venues (Steve Morgan) Del Garland, 61, who has impaired mobility resulting from arthritis, stopped going to gigs altogether for many years because of lack of access. He said many disabled music fans didnt attend gigs because of the sheer misery of researching the layout of venues. You think, why should I bother handing them my money? But you are hurting yourself if you really want to see that act. Kim Campbell, 34, who suffers from mental illness and panic attacks, applied for tickets for a music festival in the north-east of England, under a scheme that allowed her to bring her carer on the same ticket. I was told that if I was really a fan we should both pay full price, she said. On another occasion on the south coast, Ms Campbell and a friend with Crohns Disease left a concert after the friend was suspected by staff of using drugs because of the time she had spent in a disabled toilet. Daniella Lipscombe needs to watch bands from a raised platform because she has achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism, and is 4ft 5in. At an all-standing Franz Ferdinand concert she was allowed to the front of the crowd only to be pinned against the stage by other fans. Ms Lipscombe, 37, from Bristol, said venues with tiered seats still presented a problem because even there people stand up and then I cant see. 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 }} Sir Michael Gambon puts me on notice part-way through our interview that his memoirs might be, as Clive James once put it, unreliable. Im asking him about an interview he gave in 2014 about once appearing with the Royal Ballet. Its a lie, he laughs. I told a journalist that I fell off stage and my head went through a kettledrum. If Gambon is given to mischievously fabricating anecdotes for journalists then its only symptomatic of his dislike of the whole process. He rarely gives interviews, and theres a generalised vagueness in his answers punctuated by countless tag questions (dont they, arent they?) that suggest that this might be another of his coping mechanisms. Recommended Read more We need to see Maggie Smith and Michael Gambon on stage again For my part, I am slightly in awe of the great man. Dennis Potters 1986 masterpiece, The Singing Detective, is, along with Heimat and Mad Men, one of my three favourite TV dramas of all time. But can I believe Gambon when he says that hes never watched this (by his own estimation) career highlight? I watched bits of The Singing Detective but Ive never watched all of it, he says. Ive never watched myself willingly really... Im always frightened. It was seven months work in a disused hospital and I was really locked into it, but I never had the courage to watch it all the way through. It was a big success wasnt it? Not half. The role of mystery author Philip E Marlowe, suffering from writers block and a chronic skin condition (the same psoriatic arthropathy that disabled Potter), turned Gambon from a well-respected theatre figure into a household name while the series, with its mixture of drama, noir fantasy and lip-synced songs was ground-breaking and controversial, the Mary Whitehouse brigade particularly perturbed by how Joanne Whalleys hospital nurse creamed his cracked skin. Gambon claims to have felt intimidated by Potter. He used to come quite often into the rehearsal room and I was so overwhelmed by him, he says. He said to me: You dont talk to me much, do you? And I said: I dont. Im a bit shy of you because youre so famous. And he said: What are you interested in? And I said: I quite like cars. And hed then joke with me. Nice bloke... I never really got to know him. Gambon seems to have come full circle because, in his latest role, he is again bed-bound and attended by pretty young nurses. In ITVs Churchills Secret he plays the then postwar prime minister who, in 1952 and at the age of 78, suffered a series of strokes that were kept secret from both the public and his own government. He stayed at his house for months... nobody saw him, says Gambon of the ailing leader. Its a bit odd. We wouldnt tolerate that now. If the Prime Minister had a stroke wed know about it two minutes later. Access unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Amazon Prime Video Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up He follows Robert Hardy, Timothy Spall, Bob Hoskins and Albert Finney into the role of Churchill, but whats impressive about his performance is that it doesnt feel in any way like an imitation. No, no, no, I didnt want to do that sort of thing, he says. It shouldnt be about copying. I looked at the way he walked... his sort of build. The voice I found worrying... I tried to copy it a bit without being overtly... you know?. Gambon is clearly not an actor who enjoys analysing his craft in public, but he did once say, of playing Dumbledore in the Harry Potter movies, that every part I play is just a variant of my personality... Im not really a character actor at all. He says now: Im not sure I was right about that. I think you just read the character then you try to become that in yourself. And I dont know how you do it you just go through long rehearsal periods, particularly on the stage. And Im essentially a theatre actor. (Daybreak Pictures) Correction: he was a theatre actor, but gave it up last year. I cant do it any more because I cant remember lines clearly, he says. Id do it in lightweight, small theatres, Beckett plays, stuff like that. But I cant cope with big heavy ones. In recent years he used an earpiece on stage, but found that cumbersome. That works well on television... you dont even know its there. But you couldnt do that in the theatre because of the rhythms and speed... the accuracy. A lot of actors use those things, but they dont tell anyone, particularly the Americans. I know one Hollywood actor uses one. He just cant be bothered to learn it [the script]. Does he miss the stage? Yeah I do. I love it. I miss the live audience and the rhythm of it every days different, every nights different. Gambon was born in Dublin in 1940, and left at the age of five, his engineer father moving the family to London to help with the citys postwar reconstruction. He finished school at 15, and gained an apprenticeship with Vickers-Armstrongs as a toolmaker, becoming a fully qualified engineer at 21 before, naturally enough, he decided to become an actor. (ROBERT VIGLASKY) Im much more mechanical than I am anything else, he says, an interest that is these days channelled into his collection of museum-grade antique pistols, clocks and watches. But why, aged 24, did he suddenly write to Michael MacLiammoir, the Irish impresario who ran the Gate Theatre, a letter accompanied by a wholly fictitious CV? I remember going with a friend to see a film, he replies. It was Marlon Brando, and we were walking along the street and this mate of mine said: The thing Marlon Brando was doing... thats called acting. And it suddenly started to grow. After a couple of years at the Gate, Gambon caught the eye of Laurence Olivier, who was then looking for spear-carriers for his fledgling National Theatre. Gambon made his debut as Mike Gambon. I stayed for three-and-a-half years. Then I went to Sir Laurence and said, is there any chance of bigger parts? and he said, no, I dont think so, and he rang up Birmingham Rep and I ended up being asked to go there. Leading roles followed, as well television exposure in the swashbuckling BBC adventure series The Borderers (1968-70), which led to Gambon being asked to audition for the new James Bond in On Her Majestys Secret Service, the part eventually going to the Australian George Lazenby. Invited to meet Bond producer Cubby Broccoli, Gambon didnt exactly sell himself. I said I didnt want the part because Im not like him [Bond]. I havent got nice hair and Im a bit fat and he said, well, the present James Bond doesnt have any hair... its a wig. Nice man. Gambon may not have become 007 but, 35 years later, he found himself in an equally successful franchise, stepping into the late Richard Harriss shoes as Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films. I did six out of eight, he says. Loads of dosh, then you go back to normal. Half the people I knew already from the National and all those places. I get stopped in the streets by kids. Are you Dumbledore? they ask me. With children you have to be nice, dont you? With adults Im not so nice. But the stage is the thing, and Gambon has done a wealth of theatre, specialising in Ayckbourn, Pinter and Beckett, and earning the epithet The Great Gambon from no less a thespian grandee than Sir Ralph Richardson (He called me that name when he saw me in Life of Galileo at the National and I got to know him quite well. He was a lovely man... always made me laugh). The film roles have ranged from Layer Cake to The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, with Helen Mirren, while his Private Godfrey is the best thing by far in the new Dads Army movie. We did it in Scarborough near where Alan Ayckbourn lives. God it was cold. On television in the past year he appeared in The Casual Vacancy and Fortitude, but his longest TV stint was as Georges Simenons fictional detective in ITVs Maigret in the 1990s. When I tell him that Rowan Atkinson will soon be playing Maigret for ITV, he jokes: God, whys he doing that? He must be short of money. Gambon doesnt discuss his private life, but I happen to know that he lived in a big old house in Kent with his first wife, Anne Miller, because it was just up the road from my parents home. They have one son, Fergus, a ceramics expert who appears on Antiques Roadshow. Recommended Gambon subsequently moved out of the marital home and to west London with his new partner, Philippa Hart, with whom he had a son, Tom, in 2007, at the age of 67 (hes now 75). Again I know this from personal experience, having had a child at the same time and having hung out in the same park cafe in Hammersmith. They had another boy, Will, in 2009. He is vague about future projects. Im supposed to be doing something in Europe... I cant remember what it was, he says. Something always pops up and I do it and take the money and run. He has given up his hobby of flying light aircraft because he feels too old. Would he ever retire? Nothing worse, is there? What would you do? Sit watching the television? Well he could always catch up with The Singing Detective, I suggest. No, I wouldnt retire, he says. Plod on. Churchills Secret is on ITV on Sunday 28 February at 8pm Sign up to IndyEat's free newsletter for weekly recipes, foodie features and cookbook releases Get our Now Hear This 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 IndyEats email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The new straight croissants now on sale in Tesco have baffled French commentators. The supermarket chain announced it would soon start only selling straight versions of the French breakfast pastries - as opposed to the traditional curved version. It claims 75 per cent of its customers prefer the straight versions because of the "spreadability factor" - despite the word "croissant" meaning crescent in French. Harry Jones, the companys croissant buyer, told the Guardian: After demand for crescent shaped croissants started falling, we spoke to our customers and nearly 75% of them told us that they preferred straight ones. At the heart of the move away from curved croissants is the spreadability factor. The majority of shoppers find it easier to spread jam, or their preferred filling, on a straighter shape with a single sweeping motion. With the crescent shaped croissants, its more fiddly and most people can take up to three attempts to achieve perfect coverage, which increases the potential for accidents involving sticky fingers and tables. Food and drink news Show all 35 1 /35 Food and drink news Food and drink news Healthy living makes us more inclined to binge, research suggests Gluten-free breads, dairy-free milks and other plant-based products have been some of the most favoured foods in British supermarkets this year. However, while were busy filling our shopping trolleys with gluten-free goodness, were also jamming it with junk food and alcohol, new research suggests Getty/iStock Food and drink news Growing list of Vegan celebs Making the switch to veganism is a major lifestyle choice, one that many claim can improve energy levels, lower the risk of cardiovascular disease and clear up any skin issues. Beyonce, Natalie Portman and Jessica Chastain are among the growing list of Hollywood stars who have eschewed animal products from their diets in recent years. Theres also been an increasing number of professional athletes who have gone vegan, such as boxing champions Mike Tyson and David Haye, thus debunking the myth that following a plant-based diet will leave you feeling weak and malnourished. AFP/Getty/NARAS/iHeartMedia Food and drink news McDonald's has announced the launch of a new vegan burger on its menu in Germany This will mark the first time the German franchise of the fast food chain has offered a vegan burger to its customers. The Big Vegan TS burger consists of a patty made from soy and wheat. It is served in a classic sesame seed bun, and contains salad, tomato, pickles and red onion. McDonald's Germany Food and drink news Drinking too many protein shakes could lead to an increased risk of obesity and a reduced lifespan, a new study has claimed Researchers from the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre carried out an investigation to determine the impact excessive consumption of branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) has on the body. BCAA supplements are often consumed in the form of powder, which is then added to water to make a shake. Published in journal Nature Metabolism, the study found that while BCAAs help to build muscle, they can also negatively impact an individual's temperament, cause weight gain and lead to a shortened lifespan Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Britain consumes more chocolate than any other country Most people love chocolate but it turns out no one does more than the Brits with the average Brit found to have consumed 8.4 kg of chocolate in 2017, according to new data. Chocolate consumption around the world is on the rise, according to Mintel Global New Products Database (GNPD), which found that in the past year alone, Easter chocolate production has risen by 23 per cent Food and drink news 'Easter eggs should be banned for children under four' Dr Becky Spelman, chief psychologist at Harley Streets Private Therapy Clinic, is calling for Easter eggs to be banned for consumption for children under the age of four, claiming that giving them the opportunity to binge on chocolate so young will give them an unhealthy relationship with food later on. "This is a nightmare situation for parents of this generation as they have no idea how to teach their children to delay their response to cravings, she said, explaining that too many young kids binge on these chocolates because their parents dont know how to stop them. "Once a child starts overeating behaviour at a young age its very hard to turn things around for them in terms of food and their eating habits moving forward, leading to obesity from at very young age," she added PA Food and drink news Pineapple overtakes avocado as the UK's fastest-selling fruit According to Tesco, pineapple has overtaken avocado as the UKs fastest-selling fruit, with sales increasing by 15 per cent in 2017. In comparison, avocado sales rose by just under 10 per cent last year. The popular supermarket says the surge in popularity comes as shoppers buying the versatile fruit are beginning to use it as a main ingredient in everything from curries and barbecues, to juices and cocktails Getty Food and drink news Marks & Spencers launches stoneless avocados Rather than the result of genetic modification, the avocados are formed by an unpollinated avocado blossom. The fruit develops without a seed which in turns stops the growth, creating a small, seedless fruit. Whats more, the skin is actually edible, unlike a regular avocado. The flesh is much like that of a normal avocado - smooth and creamy, pale in colour and rich in flavour M&S Food and drink news Office teabags contain 17 times more germs than a toilet seat, reveals study The average bacterial reading of an office teabag was 3,785, in comparison to only 220 for a toilet seat. Other pieces of kitchen equipment also stacked up highly in their findings, with the bacterial readings averaging at 2,483 on kettle handles, 1,746 on the rim of a used mug and 1,592 on a fridge door handle Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news New study shows drinking more coffee leads to a longer life There is good news and a final hope for coffee addicts and lovers. You will now be able to drink coffee for longer as new study shows its can lead to a prolonged life. Scientists showed that those who drank between two and four cups of coffee a day had 18% lower risk of death compared to non-coffee drinkers. PA Food and drink news Coke Zero is replaced with Coke Zero Sugar Coca-Cola is pulling the plug on its Coke Zero. The much loved drink will be replaced with a new improved taste. The move, backed with a 10 million campaign, is said to come from Coca-Cola supporting people to reduce their sugar intake. Coca-Cola want people make this move while not sacrificing sugary taste of Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola Food and drink news Starbucks introduce new avocado spread The avocado craze has grown from hipster brunch restaurants to Starbucks. Starbucks have introduced their new avocado spread earlier this year and it has the internet in debate. Some argue that it not a spread but guacamole while others question if there is any avocado in there at all. When buying the new spread you can also buy an optional toasted bagel. It is a must try for all avocado connoisseurs. Starbucks Food and drink news New Mars chocolate bar The iconic British chocolate bar is about to get its partner in crime. The new bar, named Goodness Knows, will replace the gooey caramel goodness of the mars bar with oats. It is said to be more like a Florentine biscuit with a thin dark chocolate bottom. While being moderately healthy Mars says that is has good intentions. One pack has 154 calories and will sell for about 90p. Mars Food and drink news Wine prices could increase because of Brexit Wine lovers across the UK might soon have to shell out close to a quarter more for their favourite tipple after Brexit, as a weaker pound and sluggish economy takes its toll, a new study shows Rex Food and drink news Chocolate may be good for the heart A new study, published in the British Medical Journal: Heart, found that moderate chocolate intake can be positively associated with lessening the risk of the heart arrhythmia condition Atrial Fibrillation Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Brits throw away 1.4 million bananas each year British families are throwing away 1.4 million bananas that are perfectly good to eat every day at cost of 80m a year, new figures have shown PA/Armin Weigel Food and drink news Rosemary sales spike over exam time There has been a surge a surge in sales of the herb rosemary after a recent study found it helps improve memory. According to high street health food chain Holland & Barrett, sales of the herb have increased by 187 per cent compared to the same time last year Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Gluten-free diets 'not recommended' for people without coeliac disease Avoiding wheat, barley and rye in the belief that a gluten-free diet brings health benefits may do more harm than good, according to a team of US nutrition and medicine experts Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Starbucks launches two new coffee-based drinks Starbucks is launching two new coffee-based drinks in the UK, as it strives to tap into consumers growing appetite for healthy beverages. The Cold Brew Vanilla sweet cream and the Cappuccino Freddo, will both be available in stores throughout the UK from the start of May Twitter/@SbuxCountyHall Food and drink news Cadburys Dairy Milk Tiffin is making a permanent comeback after 80 years The Cadbury Dairy Milk Tiffin, first produced in 1937, is making a permanent comeback to the UK. The raisin and biscuit-filled chocolate bar is being launched after a successful trial last summer saw 3 million chocolate treats at the cost of 1.49 for each 95g bar- purchased by nostalgic customers Cadburys Food and drink news Pizza restaurant makes worlds cheesiest 'Scottie's Pizza Parlor' in Portland Oregon has created the worlds cheesiest pizza using a total of 101 different cheese varieties. Facebook/Scottie's Pizza Parlor Food and drink news A pizza joint in Portland Oregon has created the worlds cheesiest pizza using a total of 101 different cheese varieties. Why not eating before a workout could be better for your health A study published in the American Journal of Physiology by researchers at the University of Bath found you might be likely to burn more fat if you have not eaten first Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news New York restaurant named best in the world A New York restaurant where an average meal for two will cost $700 has been named the best in the world. Eleven Madison Park won the accolade for the first time after debuting on the list at number 50 in 2010. The restaurant was praised for a fun sense of fine-dining, blurring the line between the kitchen and the dining room Getty Images Food and drink news Why you crave bad food when youre tired Researchers at Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University in Chicago recently presented their results of a study looking into the effects of sleep deprivation upon high-calorific food consumption. Researchers found that those who were sleep-deprived had specifically enhanced brain activity to the food smells compared to when they had a good nights sleep Shutterstock Food and drink news Drinking wine engages more of your brain than solving maths problems Drinking wine is the ideal workout for your brain, engaging more parts of our grey matter than any other human behaviour, according to a leading neuroscientist. Dr Gordon Shepherd, from the Yale School of Medicine, said sniffing and analysing a wine before drinking it requires exquisite control of one of the biggest muscles in the body Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news British dessert eating surges after people ditch healthy eating in February : In heartening news for anyone feeling guilty about quitting their New Year diet, it seems lots of us have given in to our sweet tooths once again. New data from nationwide food-delivery service Deliveroo reveals there was a surge in Brits ordering desserts in February compared to the first month of 2017 Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news US congress debates definition of milk alternatives A new bill has been created that seeks to ban dairy alternatives from using the term milk. Titled the DAIRY PRIDE Act, the name is a tenuous acronym for defending against imitations and replacements of yogurt, milk, and cheese to promote regular intake of dairy every day. It argues that the dairy industry is struggling as a result of all the dairy-free alternatives on the market and the public are being duped too Getty Images Food and drink news Cadburys launches two new chocolate bars UK confectionary giant Cadbury has launched two new chocolate bars, hoping to lure those with a sweet tooth and perhaps help combat some of the challenges it faces from rising commodity prices and a post-Brexit slump in the value of the pound.The companys new products will be peanut butter and mint flavoured. They will be available in most major super markets as 120g bars, priced at 1.49, according to the company Cadburys Food and drink news You can now get a job as a professional chocolate eater The company responsible for some of your favourite chocolate brands think Cadbury, Milks, Prince and Oreo have officially announced an opening to join their team as a professional chocolate taster. The successful candidate will help them to test, perfect and launch new products all over the world. Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news MSG additive used in Chinese food is actually good for you, scientist claims For years, weve been told MSG (the sodium salt of glutamic acid) - often associated with cheap Chinese takeaways - is awful for our health and to be avoided at all costs. But one scientist argues it should be used as a supersalt and encourages adding it to food. Getty Images/iStockphoto Food and drink news Lettuce prices are rising Not only are lettuces becoming an increasingly rare commodity in supermarkets, but prices for the leafy vegetables seem to be rising too. According to the weekly report from the Governments Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, a pair of Little Gem lettuces had an average market price of 0.86 in the week that ended on Friday, up from an average of 0.56 in the previous week thats an almost 54 per cent increase. Getty Images Food and drink news Do-It-Yourself restaurant To encourage more people to cook and eat together, IKEA has launched The Dining Club in Shoreditch a fully immersive Do-It-Yourself restaurant . Members of the public can book to host a brunch, lunch or dinner party for up to 20 friends and family. Supported by their very own sous chef and maitre de, the host and their guests will orchestrate an intimate dining experience where cooking together is celebrated and eating together is inspirational Mikael Buck / IKEA Food and drink news Ping Pong menu with a twist Gatwick Airport has teamed up with London dim sum restaurant Ping Pong to create a limited edition menu with a distinctly British twist; including a Full English Bao and Beef Wellington Puff, to celebrate the launch of the airports new route to Hong Kong Food and drink news Zizzi unveil the Maamgharita Unique pizza art has been created by Zizzi in celebration of the Queens 90th birthday. The pizza features the queen in an iconic pose illustrated with fresh and tasty Italian ingredients on a backdrop of the Union Jack Food and drink news Blue potatoes make a comeback Blue potatoes, once a staple part of British potato crops, are back on the menu thanks to a Cambridge scientist turned-organic farmer and Farmdrop, an online marketplace that lets people buy direct from local farms. Cambridge PhD graduate-turned farmer, Adrian Izzard has used traditional growing techniques at Wild Country Organics to produce the colourful spuds, packed with healthy cell-protecting anthocyanin, which had previously disappeared from UK plates when post-war farmers were pushed towards higher-yielding varieties But the story prompted general confusion when it was reported in French media. One news website, 20minutes, asked if the news was the first clear sign of an impending Brexit - before referring to the practice of spreading jam on croissants as sacrilege. Another said the move was completely absurd. One Twitter user suggested the move may be a joke saying "Ah, the English sense of humour": Another user despaired, asking why "they" still insist the UK must remain in the EU: Another suggested straight croissants were a declaration of war. British social media users also mocked the idea saying Tesco's customers can not be "that stupid". The pastry has been a staple of the French breakfast table since they were adapted from an Austrian version reportedly brought to the country by Marie-Antoinette. 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 leading artificial intelligence (AI) expert believes that societies may have to consider issuing a basic income to all citizens, in order to combat the threat to jobs posed by increased automation in the workplace. Dr Moshe Vardi, a computer science professor at Rice University in Texas, believes that a basic income may be needed in the future as advances in automation and AI put human workers out of jobs. In an interview with The Huffington Post, Dr Vardi said: "Our current economic system requires people to either have wealth or to work to make a living, with the assumption that the economy creates jobs for all those who need them." Recommended Read more Stephen Hawking warns that robots could make us all unemployed "If this assumption breaks down - and progress in automation is likely to break it down, I believe - then we need to rethink the very basic structure of our economic system." In Dr Vardi's view, governments and societies around the world may have to consider a "basic income guarantee" - a system in which all citizens or residents of a country receive an unconditional sum of money, in addition to any income they bring in elsewhere. The concept is controversial, but in the last few years, basic income has gathered support among those in power. At the end of 2015, the government of Finland began drawing up plans to give each citizen 800 (620) a month, tax-free. The system would cost the government around 52.2 billion (40.6 billion) a year, and would replace all existing forms of benefits. The final proposal won't be ready until the end of this year, and if it goes ahead, it'd likely be trialled in a few areas before being rolled out nationwide. In pictures: Artificial intelligence through history Show all 7 1 /7 In pictures: Artificial intelligence through history In pictures: Artificial intelligence through history Boston Dynamics Boston Dynamics describes itself as 'building dynamic robots and software for human simulation'. It has created robots for DARPA, the US' military research company In pictures: Artificial intelligence through history Google's self-driving cars Google has been using similar technology to build self-driving cars, and has been pushing for legislation to allow them on the roads In pictures: Artificial intelligence through history DARPA Urban Challenge The DARPA Urban Challenge, set up by the US Department of Defense, challenges driverless cars to navigate a 60 mile course in an urban environment that simulates guerilla warfare In pictures: Artificial intelligence through history Deep Blue beats Kasparov Deep Blue, a computer created by IBM, won a match against world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997. The computer could evaluate 200 million positions per second, and Kasparov accused it of cheating after the match was finished In pictures: Artificial intelligence through history Watson wins Jeopardy Another computer created by IBM, Watson, beat two champions of US TV series Jeopardy at their own game in 2011 In pictures: Artificial intelligence through history Apple's Siri Apple's virtual assistant for iPhone, Siri, uses artificial intelligence technology to anticipate users' needs and give cheeky reactions In pictures: Artificial intelligence through history Kinect Xbox's Kinect uses artificial intelligence to predict where players are likely to go, an track their movement more accurately A basic income pilot scheme is also set to be tested on a small number of benefits claimants in the Dutch city of Utrecht, and the system has support among people in the Green and Labour parties in the UK. The idea of robots replacing humans may sound like science fiction, but it's already a reality. As Dr Vardi told The Huffington Post: "Many [of the US manufacturing workers who have been displaced by automation] have found new jobs, but many also left the workforce, which accounts for the significant drop in the US labour force participation rate over the last 20 years." Similarly, not all of the workers who will be displaced by automation in the coming decades will find new jobs. This is one of the reasons why a basic income system may need to be examined, he believes. One industry which is set to be radically altered by automation in the near future is transport - self-driving car technology is progressing at a rapid pace, and although legal issues may delay its widespread use, it still poses a threat to the livelihood of the millions of people who operate vehicles as part of their jobs. According to a 2015 study, around 70 per cent of young people in Australia currently enter the workforce in jobs which will be "radically affected by automation." A separate 60 per cent of students are currently being trained for occupations in which at least two-thirds of jobs could be automated within the next 10 to 15 years, it claimed. If technology-induced mass employment does become a reality in the future, a basic income may be one of the solutions. Governments around the world will be keeping a close eye on the experiments in northern Europe to see just how feasible the concept is. 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 }} Hundreds of NHS workers and academics who risked their lives tackling the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa are being denied a bonus of more than 4,000. The countrys biggest trade union, Unite, has written to the Government to criticise what it calls a two-tier bonus payment scheme for volunteers in life-threatening situations. Unite claims a one-off payment given to 250 staff from Public Health England (PHE), the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) and Public Health Wales (PHW) is being withheld from 200 volunteers in the NHS and academia who were working in the same dangerous conditions. In two letters to the International Development Secretary Justine Greening, Unites healthcare sciences national committee chairman Ian Evans called for the Government to address what he described as huge inequality. He said there was recognition that colleagues who worked over the Christmas of 2014 would receive a one-off financial payment. This later became a payment for all PHE employees and, after a prolonged negotiation, also to Public Health Wales staff that were deployed to Sierra Leone. He said the payment included a deployment allowance of 516.50, an operational working allowance of 3,615.50 and a tax free clothing allowance of 100. WHO declares Ebola outbreak over as Liberia gets all-clear However, there was a caveat attached that these payments would be for PHE, DSTL and PHW colleagues only. This has resulted in a situation where the aforementioned scientists will receive over 4,000 more than volunteers from the NHS and academia who are of equal merit and who are qualified and trained to the same level. Colleagues who volunteered to be deployed did not do this because there was a financial incentive but it does not excuse a two tier payment scheme. We believe that all volunteers should be remunerated in the same manner. The Department for International Development has been contacted for comment. The Ebola outbreak in West Africa was declared over on the 14 January this year, after more than 11,000 deaths in nearly two years. However, the next day officials in Sierra Leone confirmed another death from Ebola, while the World Health Organisation has warned the virus could return. 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 }} More than 580,000 people have signed a petition calling for children up to the age of 11 to be given the Meningitis B vaccine - making it the most signed on the UK Government website. The campaign was sparked by the death earlier this month of two year old Faye Burdett, from Maidstone, Ken after pictures of the girl covered in the distinct rash caused the disease and struggling for her life in hospital were released by her parents. She had not been given the Bexsero vaccine, as she did qualify for it given her age. Fayes parents, Jenny and Neil, said the response to the petition since the toddler contracted meningitis B has been overwhelming. They said: We thought long and hard about the release of Fayes pictures but we as a family who have been through the devastation of meningitis feel all children should be able to get protected from this cruel disease that took our daughter. Its not just about Fayes death but also about the maiming of children that do survive the disease. It is life-changing for the child and its family. Prevention must be better. Faye Burdett died after fighting the infection for 11 days (PA) The call for the vaccination programme to be expanded comes as senior health sources claimed to The Independent that Jeremy Hunt has privately questioned whether the new vaccine introduced last year to fight meningitis is worth its high cost to the NHS. Sources claimed that Mr Hunt suggested record low levels of the disease often described as parents greatest fear may not have merited the expensive multi-million pound decision to make the vaccine available on the NHS free to children under one year. Mr Hunts office has vehemently denied that he had made the comments attributed to him. Meningitis vaccine The Department of Health said in a statement: Having personally negotiated the deal to introduce the first ever national rollout of a Men B vaccine which will save lives, the Health Secretary believes the programme represents excellent value for money, and has never indicated otherwise. The Health Secretary became personally involved in securing the critical deal with GlaxoSmithKline in 2014 that finally helped get the Bexsero vaccine into the NHSs child immunisation programme. And a critical questioning of the economic rationale for the vaccination campaign may appear justified, as the introduction of the new vaccine for children under one year coincided with record low 10 year lows of the meningococcal B disease, 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 But the allegation that he recently questioned the calculations behind the decision to give the vaccine to under-ones will shock parents and campaign groups who are now calling for the vaccination programme to be extended to include all under 5s and potentially teenagers. Sue Davie, chief executive of the Meningitis Now charity, told The Independent that many of the misjudgements and assumptions that stalled the introduction of the vaccine for almost two years, despite it receiving approval from the European Medicines Agency in 2013, were now being made again amid the debate about whether to extend the programme. Ms Davie said she accepted the vaccine would not be cost-effective at any price, but said a case could be made to introduce the vaccine to under 5s. In 2014/15 there were 101 cases of the diseases in under 1s, and 139 cases in the age range 1-4. And we know the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) accept these numbers are at the low end of the cycle, she said. Meningtis Now, along with other profile pressure groups, are reluctant to get drawn into financial evaluations. But she said only one critical point mattered: It will save lives. 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 }} Private stocks of the meningitis B vaccine are running out across the country amid unprecedented demand from parents anxious to protect their children from the potentially deadly disease. As the family of Faye Burdett published photographs of the dying two-year-old girl covered in a deep red rash and former England rugby star Matt Dawson spoke of his sons narrow escape this week, more than half a million people have signed a petition calling for the Government to immunise all children. Recommended Read more What you need to know about the different forms of meningitis Currently only babies aged between two and five months are offered the vaccine by the NHS. It is available privately at a total cost of up to 480 but clinics have started to run out. Drug company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which makes the vaccine, said in a statement that unexpected global demand in 2015 meant they would be experiencing supply constraints for the first six months of this year. Although vaccination through the NHS childhood programme has been prioritised and is unaffected, we have unfortunately had to ask private clinics temporarily to not start new courses of vaccination, GSK said. Children who have already started their course of the vaccine privately should still be able receive their follow up doses. We know the unexpectedly high demand for the vaccine reflects the importance parents have placed on protecting their children from meningitis B. We hope to have improving supply from summer 2016 and we are working hard to increase capacity in 2017. The charity Meningitis Now said it had been inundated with request from people trying to get hold of the vaccine. I think theres been massive demand in the last few days because a lot more people are now aware of meningitis B, a spokesman said. Weve had a lot of people contacting us, saying they cannot get the vaccine. Its one of those Catch-22s now people know about it but they cannot get it. Stocks are running low in private clinics and things like that, but on our Facebook page various private clinics and surgeries have been posting that you can still get it here. It really depends how many of the stocks have been used and how much has been ordered around the country. Local government worker Phil Cone, 37, of Sidcup, was given the last rites after catching meningitis at the age of 21. Now the father of two boys, aged five and two, he has been searching without success for the vaccine. Mr Cone said the Government should make it available on the NHS to all children, given the disease is one of the biggest killers of children under five. And he said other companies should be allowed to produce the vaccine, given GSK could not maintain supplies. Meningitis is very, very serious it can kill people. When any child dies, it really affects me because I feel how am I here and these kids have not survived? he said. US meningitis deaths: pharmacy firms plan voluntary shutdown Show all 2 1 /2 US meningitis deaths: pharmacy firms plan voluntary shutdown US meningitis deaths: pharmacy firms plan voluntary shutdown pg-32-meningitis-1-ap.jpg AP US meningitis deaths: pharmacy firms plan voluntary shutdown pg-32-meningitis-2-ap.jpg AP If you are in power and able to authorise that [the vaccination of all children] then you should say you know what, I dont care what it costs and you should roll this out across the board. This is just a call to arms for all parents to pressure on the Government for this vaccine. 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 }} Its getting harder to be able to afford to retire forcing more than half of retirees to delay giving up work. Thats according to the Prudential which reckons that 51 per cent of those who plan to retire in 2016 are either already working past their state pension age or would consider doing so. Just over a fifth of them say thats because they cant afford to give up work while nearly three in 10 fear they will not get enough income from pensions and other savings when they retire. With expectations that they will be retired for 20 years its understandable that worries are growing about being able to have a decent standard of living after work. Some, however, are worried that retirement will hit them in other ways with just over half wanting to continue working to keep their mind and body active. Stan Russell, a retirement income expert at the insurer, said: With this years retirees preparing to spend an average of 20 years retired its understandable why they now see giving up work as a gradual process rather than a one-off event. However, for everyone who can choose their retirement date, there are others who have no choice because they physically cant continue at work or whose financial situation forces them to stay on. The stark warning from the report is that anyone who hopes to have some degree of choice of when to give up work should be trying to save as much money as possible as early as possible during their careers. But a report from Royal London published earlier this week warned that todays workers will be forced to work into their late 70s and beyond to get the same level of pension as their parents generation. It reckons you would need to work to 77 to get the sort of pension that many people retiring today enjoy, and to 71 even for a more modest pension. Thats even if you save every year from the age of 22. Many face a cruel disappointment if they think that current minimum contribution levels will deliver them the sort of retirement they are looking for, said former Pensions Minister Steve Webb, now director of policy at the insurer. Without significant increases in contributions, we could be witnessing the death of retirement. Elliott Silk, of employee benefits company Sanlam warned that its time to re-defining retirement in the UK. He pointed out that retirees in the future are likely to have smaller pension pots and less income from the state and, ultimately, will need their retirement savings to last for more years due to living longer. But the solution is in peoples own hands, he said. To get the retirement people want, there is no alternative to saving more, now. 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 }} Saudi Arabia has started taxing water for residents to try and address the soaring cost of debt as oil revenues decline. The water tariff comes amid warnings that Saudi Arabias groundwater will run out in the next 13 years. Mohammed Al-Ghamdi, a faculty member at King Faisal University, warned that groundwater was running out after the World Bank issued a report on global natural water scarcity. Groundwater in Gulf countries is running out because they have some of the highest levels of water consumption per capita in the world, Saudi newspaper Al-Watan Arabic daily reported. Daily water per person is reported to be 265 litres in Saudi Arabia, double the EU average. Official estimates have been disclosed showing an acute drop in water levels in agricultural areas, and that indicates the seriousness of the situation, Al-Ghamdi said. A Saudi man runs in front of a big wave as high winds batter the coast on February 11, 2015 in the Saudi Red Sea port city of Dhuba, located in Tabuk Province, northwest of the Saudi capital Riyadh. (Getty) This is a dangerous situation for all future crops that depend on these aquifers. Saudi relied on two sources of water: groundwater and water from desalination plants that remove salt from seawater. But the desalination process is extremely energy intensive. Groundwater accounts for 98 per cent of water sources in Saudi Arabia, because the kingdom is devoid of rivers and lakes. 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. The New Arab, a news site on the Arab world, said that reservoirs in central Saudi Arabia have turned into sand pits. Saudi climate professors believe the water crisis stems from the 1983 decision to grow wheat in the kingdom. Wheat farming is now banned, but farming of hay, olive trees and date palms continues. The Arab Gulf is said to suffer from the most complex water crisis in the world. In nearby UAE, the Government is investing heavily in cloud-busting technology that shoots flares containing table salt into clouds to wring more rain out of them. The World Bank said that water security is the number one global risk facing development. By 2030, there is expected to be a 40 per cent shortfall between forecasted demand and the available supply of water. 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 }} Harry Harpham was a coal miner and working class boy who became a Labour MP dedicated to improving the lives of his Sheffield constituents. He had only been elected MP for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough at last May's General Election, succeeding the former Labour Home Secretary David Blunkett, before dying of cancer at the age of 61. A man who did not suffer fools gladly, Harpham felt it was his duty to fight for changes and improvements in living standards for working people because, he said, "working people have never been handed change. They've always had to fight for it." So he was not intimidated by David Cameron and the "public school brigade" when confronting the Conservatives in the House of Commons. He last spoke, a fortnight before his death, when he took Cameron to task over the loss of 100 jobs at Sheffield Forgemasters. "We have had lots of warm words and hand-wringing and some crocodile tears from yourself and ministers in this Chamber about the tsunami of job losses across the steel industry," he declared. "Can you tell me when you will actually do something?" A few days later he lambasted the Department of Business for closing its office in Sheffield with the loss of 247 jobs. "George Osborne talks about a Northern powerhouse," he observed, "but actions speak louder than words." Notable deaths in 2016 Show all 42 1 /42 Notable deaths in 2016 Notable deaths in 2016 Debbie Reynolds was an American actress, singer, businesswoman, film historian, and humanitarian. She died on December 28 in Los Angeles Rex Notable deaths in 2016 Actress Carrie Fisher died on December 27 aged 60 Rex Notable deaths in 2016 Comedian and Actor Ricky Harris died on December 26 aged 54 Rex Notable deaths in 2016 British singer George Michael died on 25 December aged 53 Getty Notable deaths in 2016 Rick Parfitt OBE was an English musician, best known for being a singer, songwriter and rhythm guitarist in the rock band Status Quo. He died on December 24 in Marbella, Spain Rex Notable deaths in 2016 Lord Jenkin of Roding died at the age of 90 on the 21 December PA wire Notable deaths in 2016 Rabbi Lionel Blue died on the 19 December Rex Notable deaths in 2016 Zsa Zsa Gabor died on December 18 Getty Notable deaths in 2016 Leonard Cohen died on 7 November Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Grand secretary of the Orange Order Drew Nelson died on 10 October aged 60 after a short illness PA Notable deaths in 2016 Aaron Pryor, the relentless junior welterweight died Sunday, Oct. 9, at the age of 60 at his home in Cincinnati after a long battle with heart disease AP Notable deaths in 2016 Polish Director Andrzej Wajda died on October 9, aged 90 Reuters Notable deaths in 2016 Stylianos Pattakos has died following a stroke on 8th October. He was 103 years old. AP Notable deaths in 2016 Dickie Jeeps, was an English rugby union player who played for Northampton. He represented and captained both the England national rugby union team and the British Lions in the 1950s and 1960s. He died on 8th October. He was 84 Getty Notable deaths in 2016 Duke of Westminster Billionaire landowner the Duke of Westminster, Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor has died on 9 August, aged 64 Rex Features Notable deaths in 2016 Christina Knudsen Sir Roger Moores stepdaughter Christina Knudsen has died from cancer on 25 July at teh age of 47 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Caroline Aherne The actress Caroline Aherne has died from cancer on 2 July at the age of 52 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Christina Grimmie Christina Grimmie, 22, who was an American singer and songwriter, known for her participation in the NBC singing competition The Voice, was signing autographs at a concert venue in Orlando on 10 June when an assailant shot her. Grimmie was transported to a local hospital where she died from her wounds on 11 June Getty Notable deaths in 2016 Kimbo Slice Former UFC and Bellator MMA fighter Kimbo Slice died after being admitted to hospital in Florida on 6 June, aged 42 Getty Notable deaths in 2016 Muhammad Ali The three-time former heavyweight world champion died after being admitted to hospital with a respiratory illness on 3 June, aged 74 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Sally Brampton Brampton who was the launch editor of the UK edition of Elle magazine has died on 10 May, aged 60 Grant Triplow/REX/Shutterstock Notable deaths in 2016 Billy Paul The soul singer Billy Paul, who was best known for his single Me and Mrs Jones, has died on 24 April, aged 81 Noel Vasquez/Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Prince Prince, the legendary musician, has been found dead at his Paisley Park recording studio on 21 April. He was 57 Notable deaths in 2016 Chyna WWE icon Joan Laurer dies aged 45 after being found at California home on 20 April Notable deaths in 2016 Victoria Wood The five-time Bafta-winning actress and comedian Victoria Wood has died on 20 April at her London home after a short illness with cancer. She was 62 Notable deaths in 2016 David Gest The entertainer and former husband of Liza Minnelli, David Gest has been found dead on 12 April in the Four Seasons hotel in Canary Warf, London. He was 62-years-old PA Notable deaths in 2016 Denise Robertson Denise Robertson, an agony aunt on This Morning for over 30 years, has died on 1 April, aged 83 Notable deaths in 2016 Zaha Hadid Dame Zaha Hadid, the prominent architect best known for designs such as the London Olympic Aquatic Centre and the Guangzhou Opera House, has died of a heart attack on 31 March, aged 65 2010 AFP Notable deaths in 2016 Ronnie Corbett British entertainer Ronnie Corbett has passed away on 31 March at the age of 85 2014 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Imre Kertesz Hungarian writer and Holocaust survivor Imre Kertesz, who won the 2002 Nobel Literature Prize, has died on 31 March, at the age of 86 REUTERS Notable deaths in 2016 Rob Ford Rob Ford, the former controversial mayor of Toronto, has died following a battle with a rare form of cancer. The 46-year-old passed away at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto on 22 March Notable deaths in 2016 Joey Feek Joey (left) passed away in March after a two-year cancer illness. She was part of country music duo, Joey + Rory, with her husband Rory (right) Jason Merritt/Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Umberto Eco Italian writer and philosopher Umberto Eco died 19 February 2016 aged 84 EPA Notable deaths in 2016 Harper Lee Harper Lee, the American novelist known for writing 'To Kill a Mockingbird', died February 19, 2016 aged 89 2005 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Vanity Vanity, pictured performing in 1983, died aged 57 REX Features Notable deaths in 2016 Dave Mirra The BMX legend's body found inside truck with gunshot wound after apparent suicide aged 41 Notable deaths in 2016 Harry Harpham The former miner became Sheffield Labour MP in May after many years as a local councillor. He died after succumbing to cancer, at the age of 61. Notable deaths in 2016 Dale Griffin The Mott the Hoople drummer died on January 17, aged 67 REX Notable deaths in 2016 Rene Angelil Celine Dion's husband and manager Rene Angelil has lost his battle with cancer on 14 January, aged 73 2011 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Alan Rickman Legendary actor Alan Rickman has died on 14 January at the age of 69 after battle with pancreatic cancer. He is largely regarded as one of the most beloved British actors of our generation with roles in Love Actually, Die Hard, Michael Collins, and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and an illustrious stage career 2015 Getty Images Notable deaths in 2016 Maurice White The Earth, Wind & Fire founder died aged 74. The nine-piece band sold more than 90 million albums worldwide and won six Grammy awards Notable deaths in 2016 Lawrence Phillips Former NFL star found dead in prison cell on 13 January in suspected suicide, aged 40 AFP/Getty Images Born in Mansfield in 1954, Robert Harry Harpham was destined to follow the family tradition of mining. As he once explained, "Lads from my community didn't stay on in school. We left as soon as we could, put on a hard hat and went down the pit." Aged 15, with no qualifications, he left school on a Friday and began working at the pit on the Monday. Shortly afterwards, one of his colleagues gave him a copy of Robert Tressell's socialist novel The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. It would have profound effect on him. He soon became active in the National Union of Miners and joined the Labour Party, which he said was "a given for a man in my circumstances." He also became an anti-Apartheid campaigner and CND supporter. When the miners went on strike in 1984 over pit closures, Harpham joined the fight and manned a picket line for a year at Clipstone colliery, while many in Nottinghamshire worked on in protest against Arthur Scargill's refusal to call a national ballot. When the strike ended in March 1985, with mining communities in disarray, Harpham moved to Sheffield and got what he described as his "second chance". He enrolled as a mature student at Northern College, in Barnsley, then completed a degree course at Sheffield University, graduating in 1991. He began working for Blunkett in 1993 and was elected to Sheffield City Council in 2000, becoming a passionate campaigner for the city's disadvantaged, living in one of the most deprived areas of the constituency he came to represent. He also worked as a night warehouseman and as a volunteer in an advice centre. "I live in the real world," he said. "I get it." He led the charge to make the city council a living-wage employer, declaring that "a fair day's work should always mean a fair day's pay." In 2001 he served as Blunkett's election agent while serving on a variety of council committees including Children's Services, Streetscene and Waste Management, and Homes and Neighbourhoods, and he became deputy leader in 2012. When Blunkett stepped down as MP, Harpham beat stiff competition to be selected for the safe seat and in the 2015 election won 57 per cent of the vote. Taking his seat at Westminster, Harpham said, "I will be the last deep-coal miner ever elected to this place. There will be no more to follow me, because there will be no more pits." He was quickly recognised as a hard-working and popular MP. He was appointed a member of the environment, food and rural affairs select committee and was chosen as parliamentary private secretary to the shadow energy and climate change secretary, Lisa Nandy. He also supported Andy Burnham in his quest for the leadership of the Labour party. His maiden speech pulled no punches, describing what life was like in his constituency, where more than double the national average claim the job seekers' allowance and the number of children living in poverty is twice the level of the rest of the UK. After the Labour Party Conference in September he was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Despite intensive treatment, which gave him a renewed respect for the NHS, Harpham maintained his heavy workload as he knew time was short. In the time he had left, he maintained his criticisms of the government in the Commons on humanitarian issues, housing, education and energy policy. Harry Harpham, miner and politician: born Mansfield 21 February 1954; married firstly (one daughter, one son), secondly Gill Furniss (two stepdaughters, and one stepson); died 4 February 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 }} Jude Law, Benedict Cumberbatch and Idris Elba are among 145 stars urging David Cameron to save children living in the Jungle camp in Calais in an open letter. French authorities are due to demolish the southern part of the Jungle on Monday where many unaccompanied children and families are living. The move would destroy the temporary homes of over 3,000 people. Figures from Help Refugees show that there are 440 children living in this section of the camp, 291 of whom are unaccompanied. The letter calls on the Government to allow children living in the camp who have family in the UK to be reunited with them with immediate effect. It also calls for the demolition to be postponed until children are granted protection within the French system or reunited with family in the UK. We believe the above actions are the absolute minimum that the British Government should be taking to alleviate the suffering of the refugees in Calais, and must be made an urgent priority. The British charities, Help Refugees and Citizens UK, have already largely identified, screened and begun to process the minors in question, the letter states. 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. This is a humanitarian crisis that needs to be acknowledged as such and it is imperative that we do everything we can to help these innocent and highly vulnerable refugees, especially the minors, as swiftly as is humanly possible. Law, who is leading the appeal, said he recently visited the camp and met with unaccompanied children who have no choice but to endure the horrific conditions of the Jungle. He said: These are innocent, vulnerable children caught up in red tape with the frightening prospect of the demolition of the Jungle hanging over them. David Cameron and the British Government must urgently work with the French authorities to alleviate this humanitarian crisis. Additional reporting by the Press Association 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 lead actor of German Cold War drama Deutschland 83 has said Germans and Europeans have an obligation to help refugees. In the subtitled thriller, which has been broadcast in the UK on Channel 4, Jonas Nay plays Martin Rauch: a young border guard from East Germany who is recruited by his Aunt, who also happens to be high up in the Stasi, to go undercover and spy on operations in West Germany. Speaking to Matt Frei for Channel 4 News, Nay said he believes the standpoint Chancellor Angela Merkel has taken in regards to refugees is very, very good and he is proud to be German but its not just because of Merkel. Jonas and his aunt Lenora in Deutschland 83 (Deutschland) I am very proud to be German. Thats not down to Angela Merkel or our policies. We have a certain obligation towards humanity as a democratic country, which he believes transcends to helping those fleeing conflict. #Deutschland83 star Jonas Nay says he's proud of Angela Merkel's decision to welcome refugees to Germany.https://t.co/7bMJXERWju Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) February 18, 2016 My generation has less of a connection to that part of more recent German history which is really dark, the 25-year-old said, In spite of this - perhaps because of this - we have an obligation to help people. This is asked of us in particular as Germans, thats asked of all we Europeans. And I find our standpoint very good. Nay then went on to address the refugee crisis, of which his country has received the highest number of asylum applications. According to the BBC, German officials predict over a million refugees have entered the country. 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. We shouldnt ever forget that the refugee situation that we have in Europe is in actual fact only a symptom of a much bigger problem which we should look at politically, Nay said, The countries which people are fleeing, be it Syria or African countries, they are structurally weak, we have exploited them for decades. Its simply I think people should be talking about this. And more work should be done on this. Rather than focus on the symptom that we now have in refugees. Asked by Frei if we owe refugees something, Nay replied: Definitely. 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 }} Within days of news that a To Kill A Mocking Bird sequel novel would be released, speculation began that author Harper Lee may have been pressured into agreeing the deal. Lee has died, aged 89, just over six months after the publication of the follow-up, Go Set a Watchman. Rumours she may not have been the main driving force behind the new book were largely fuelled by her late sister, Alice, a lawyer who administered Lees affairs, who wrote in 2011: Harper cant see and cant hear and will sign anything put before her by anyone in whom she has confidence. In a statement responding to the concerns, Lee said she was happy as hell with the plans. And those seeking further evidence of her lucidity also pointed to correspondence with journalist Connor Sheets, who received a very acerbic response to his letter asking for details surrounding the new novel. I wrote a two-page letter to Harper Lee, following up on my repeated attempts to reach the beloved novelist via her lawyer, publisher and even by visiting her nursing home on the outskirts of Monroeville, Alabama, Sheets wrote for Al.com. Harper Lee: Life in pictures Show all 8 1 /8 Harper Lee: Life in pictures Harper Lee: Life in pictures Harper Lee smokes a cigarette as she sits on the porch of her parents home, Monroeville, Alabama, 1961 Getty Images Harper Lee: Life in pictures Harper Lee holds tire swing with child actress, Mary Badham, who played the role modeled on Lee's childhood, 1961 Rex Features Harper Lee: Life in pictures Harper Lee, in her father's law office while visting her home town in 1961 Donald Uhrbrock Harper Lee: Life in pictures Harper Lee greets well-wishers and fans at a reception before a luncheon, in Hoover, where she was honored by the Alabama Humanities Foundation, 2002 AP Harper Lee: Life in pictures Writer Harper Lee attends the Library Foundation of Los Angeles 2005 Awards Dinner honoring Harper Lee at the City National Plaza in Los Angeles Getty Images Harper Lee: Life in pictures Harper Lee and actress Annette Bening attend the Library Foundation of Los Angeles 2005 Awards Dinner honoring Harper Lee at the City National Plaza in Los Angeles Getty Images Harper Lee: Life in pictures Pulitzer Prize winner and 'To Kill A Mockingbird' author Harper Lee smiles before receiving the 2007 Presidential Medal of Freedom in the East Room of the White House in Washington Getty Images Harper Lee: Life in pictures While he hadnt expected a reply, he hoped that Lee would be able to confirm she was fully in control of the destiny of Go Set A Watchman and that she would be able to clear up all the questions the world has been waiting to have answered about the circumstances of the book's release. On Wednesday, I received an envelope without a return address, made out to Conner Sheets., he continued. I opened it without fanfare, only to find my letter, wrinkled and refolded, with four words and one punctuation mark scrawled in cursive Sharpie at the bottom: Go Away! Harper Lee. His story was supported by that of the New York Times. The publication wrote: To those who chase her, who can't leave well enough alone, she has developed a standard response to their proposed interviews: 'Not just no, but hell no.' The novel was written before To Kill A Mockingbird but was rejected by publishers who set her to work on the novel that made her famous. The new book revolves around the now-adult Scout's return to her native Alabama from New York to visit her father. Harper Lee dies aged 89 Lee previously said she had not realised the manuscript of her new book had survived and said she was humbled and amazed it was going to be published now. Go Set A Watchman was published last July by William Heinemann, the original UK publisher of To Kill A Mockingbird. A version of this article was published on 5 March 2015 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 }} Harper Lee, the celebrated author of To Kill A Mockingbird, has died aged 89. The Mayor's Office of Monroeville, Alabama, confirmed the news to the Press Association. Publisher Penguin Random House also posted a message on Twitter saying Rest in peace, Harper Lee. Harper Lee: Life in pictures Show all 8 1 /8 Harper Lee: Life in pictures Harper Lee: Life in pictures Harper Lee smokes a cigarette as she sits on the porch of her parents home, Monroeville, Alabama, 1961 Getty Images Harper Lee: Life in pictures Harper Lee holds tire swing with child actress, Mary Badham, who played the role modeled on Lee's childhood, 1961 Rex Features Harper Lee: Life in pictures Harper Lee, in her father's law office while visting her home town in 1961 Donald Uhrbrock Harper Lee: Life in pictures Harper Lee greets well-wishers and fans at a reception before a luncheon, in Hoover, where she was honored by the Alabama Humanities Foundation, 2002 AP Harper Lee: Life in pictures Writer Harper Lee attends the Library Foundation of Los Angeles 2005 Awards Dinner honoring Harper Lee at the City National Plaza in Los Angeles Getty Images Harper Lee: Life in pictures Harper Lee and actress Annette Bening attend the Library Foundation of Los Angeles 2005 Awards Dinner honoring Harper Lee at the City National Plaza in Los Angeles Getty Images Harper Lee: Life in pictures Pulitzer Prize winner and 'To Kill A Mockingbird' author Harper Lee smiles before receiving the 2007 Presidential Medal of Freedom in the East Room of the White House in Washington Getty Images Harper Lee: Life in pictures Lee was born in Monroeville in 1926, the youngest of four children. She studied at the University of Alabama from 1945 to 1949 before moving to New York, where she began writing fiction in her spare time. Lee eventually signed with an agent in 1956. To Kill a Mockingbird is regarded as an American literary classic, selling 40 million copies worldwide. Her second book, Go Set a Watchman, was written in the mid-1950s and released last year. Despite the global success of her book and the awards, honours and accolades bestowed upon her after its release, Lee lived a quiet life, was reticent to speak to the press and refused all requests for interviews. The decision to publish her second book was shrouded in controversy. She traveled between New York and Monroeville for much of her life, where she lived with her sister Alice, and gave very little information away about her private life. Her cousin Richard Williams, who ran a drug store once in Monroeville, once said: I asked her one time why she never wrote another book. She told me, 'When you have a hit like that, you can't go anywhere but down'. 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 }} In 1862, as civil war raged between the Union and Confederacy, President Abraham Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe. According to legend, he greeted the author of the anti-slavery novel Uncle Toms Cabin with the words: So this is the little lady who started this great war. A century later, the civil-rights movement in the US fought its battles with marches and bills rather than shells and bullets. But to millions of its supporters, not the busy activists but the well-meaning bystanders and helpers, another female novelist played much the same role. Nelle Harper Lee, who has died aged 89, wrote a decisive chapter not only in the history of American literature but also the history of America itself. To Kill a Mockingbird, her first and, until July 2015, only novel, helped to inscribe a belief in racial justice and horror at discrimination into the countrys self-image. By the late 1980s, 75 per cent of US public schools taught the book. It has sold in excess of 30 million copies. In a 2006 poll of librarians, it beat the Bible in a list of books that everyone should read. Via Robert Mulligans film in 1962, with Gregory Peck in the Oscar-winning role of the upright widowed lawyer Atticus Finch, Lees novel became an evergreen Hollywood classic. To Kill a Mockingbird an old-fashioned, conservative-minded and deeply nostalgic story set in the early 1930s unleashed no revolutions. That was not its authors character or aim. Rather, it played a key part in nudging the American mainstream into a different course, in which equality of respect, of treatment and of dignity became common sense and second nature. Over the past two years, a spate of racist murders and police injustices have proved that the Atticus who defends a black man wrongly accused of rape would still have plenty of work to do. In fact, the circumscribed idea of equality that Lee gives her hero qualified even further last year by the controversial publication of Mockingbirds supposed first draft, Go Set a Watchman foreshadows Americas unfinished business with race. Nonetheless, the Middle America that elected and then re-elected Barack Obama is scarcely imaginable without Mockingbird on its shelves and its screens. The little lady won a big war. Harper Lee: Life in pictures Show all 8 1 /8 Harper Lee: Life in pictures Harper Lee: Life in pictures Harper Lee smokes a cigarette as she sits on the porch of her parents home, Monroeville, Alabama, 1961 Getty Images Harper Lee: Life in pictures Harper Lee holds tire swing with child actress, Mary Badham, who played the role modeled on Lee's childhood, 1961 Rex Features Harper Lee: Life in pictures Harper Lee, in her father's law office while visting her home town in 1961 Donald Uhrbrock Harper Lee: Life in pictures Harper Lee greets well-wishers and fans at a reception before a luncheon, in Hoover, where she was honored by the Alabama Humanities Foundation, 2002 AP Harper Lee: Life in pictures Writer Harper Lee attends the Library Foundation of Los Angeles 2005 Awards Dinner honoring Harper Lee at the City National Plaza in Los Angeles Getty Images Harper Lee: Life in pictures Harper Lee and actress Annette Bening attend the Library Foundation of Los Angeles 2005 Awards Dinner honoring Harper Lee at the City National Plaza in Los Angeles Getty Images Harper Lee: Life in pictures Pulitzer Prize winner and 'To Kill A Mockingbird' author Harper Lee smiles before receiving the 2007 Presidential Medal of Freedom in the East Room of the White House in Washington Getty Images Harper Lee: Life in pictures Few world-changing works have had quite such an inauspicious start. The daughter of a Monroeville lawyer and newspaper editor, Amasa Coleman Lee, who would lend the fictional Atticus much of his style and outlook, Nelle Harper Lee grew up a curious tomboy again, much like the novels Scout appalled by the prospect of becoming a strait-laced Southern lady. She studied law in Alabama, but in 1949 moved to New York. She worked as an airline booking agent and pursued her ambitions to write along with her childhood friend Truman Capote, the model for Dill in Mockingbird. For his part, Capote portrayed Lee as Idabel Thompkins in Other Voices, Other Rooms. The duo formed an odd but creative partnership. Later, Lee would conduct many of the interviews for Capotes true-crime classic In Cold Blood. Her interventions darkened the vision of the book. After the success of Lees debut, rumours swirled for years that Capote had in fact written it. The truth is that she contributed more to his career than he did to hers. In 1957, Lee submitted the manuscript of a novel, then entitled Go Set a Watchman, to the firm of Lippincott. The editor Tay Hohoff found in it the spark of the true writer but not yet a polished work. So for more than two years they refined Lees interconnected stories down into the sharply focused single episode that anchors Mockingbird. Harper Lee dies aged 89 On publication, mixed reviews gave little hint of its future renown. But Lee had not just a spellbinding, almost folkloric narrative gift on her side but historical luck. Mockingbird perched in the American mind at exactly the right time. The fast-rising cause of civil rights needed an icon, a talisman, that could win over even the stubbornest conservative. Lees book fitted the brief perfectly, with its period setting, homespun charm and unimpeachable moralism It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1961, just as J F Kennedys new dawn broke. As with Kennedys speeches, feelgood rhetoric can mask a sharper urge for change. Atticus tells Scout that You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. Bland, corny? Yes, except that the skin in this case was black. With the novel a sensation and a touchstone on a scale that frightened her, Lee retreated to Monroeville. She began the long decades of silence and near-invisibility protected by her elder sister Alice that most fans believed would endure until her death. Then, after a stroke in 2007 had limited her mobility and impaired both sight and hearing, came news of a second novel. Bitter disputes, which reached the Alabama courts, surrounded Go Set a Watchman. Had Lee authorised its publication? Could she understand what was happening? Apparently she could, the authorities decided. So the manuscript of Go Set a Watchman emerged from the shadows into global bestsellerdom last year. Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird - Best Quotes Mysteries still persist. Is the book simply the first draft of Mockingbird, with the adult Scout returning home to Maycomb to discover a more cantankerous, conservative and even borderline-racist Atticus? It hardly reads as a first draft more likely, an apprentice effort that Lee laboriously reworked. Although Mockingbird-lovers felt bereft to see the sainted Atticus portrayed as a grouchy semi-bigot, it could be argued that this prequel-sequel bravely teases out the implications of Lees debut. As critic Adam Gopnik wrote in the New Yorker, There is no contradiction between Atticus defending an innocent black man accused of rape in Mockingbird and Atticus mistrusting civil rights 20 years later. Both are part of a paternal effort to help a minority that, in this view, cannot yet entirely help itself. Some fans have regretted that this shaded and troubling coda should complicate memories of their fictional hero, Atticus, and their flesh-and-blood heroine, Harper Lee herself. Yet just as her debut had caught the breeze of change, so its contentious follow-up coincided with deep-seated doubts about the uncompleted work that Atticus and his like had left behind. Click here to play the 'How Well Do You Know Harper Lee' quiz 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 }} Pope Franciss suggestion that Donald Trump was not not Christian because of his views on immigration was not a personal attack on the Republican frontrunner, a senior Vatican official has said. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said on Friday that Francis comments, which stunned the US presidential election campaign, were more an affirmation of the Popes longstanding belief that migrants should he helped. In no way was this a personal attack, nor an indication of how to vote, Mr Lombardi told Vatican Radio. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump reads from a statement about Pope Francis during a campaign rally in Kiawah, South Carolina (AFP/Getty) On Thursday, Francis had ignited US election campaign with comments to reporters as he flew back to Italy after a visit to Mexico. In a freewheeling discussion, the Pope suggested Mr Trump was not Christian because of his hardline views on immigration and his desire to build a wall on the US-Mexico border. A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian, the Pope said in answer to a specific question about Mr Trumps views. This is not in the gospel. Asked if American Catholics should vote for someone with Mr Trumps views, Francis said: I am not going to get involved in that. I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt. Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Show all 14 1 /14 Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Isis: "Some of the candidates, they went in and didnt know the air conditioner didnt work and sweated like dogs, and they didnt know the room was too big because they didnt have anybody there. How are they going to beat ISIS?" Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On immigration: "I will build a great wall and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me and Ill build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Free Trade: "Free trade is terrible. Free trade can be wonderful if you have smart people. But we have stupid people." PAUL J. RICHARDS | AFP | Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Mexicans: "When Mexico sends its people, theyre not sending their best. Theyre sending people that have lots of problems. Theyre bringing drugs. Theyre bringing crime. Theyre rapists." Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On China: "I just sold an apartment for $15 million to somebody from China. Am I supposed to dislike them?... I love China. The biggest bank in the world is from China. You know where their United States headquarters is located? In this building, in Trump Tower." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On work: "If you're interested in 'balancing' work and pleasure, stop trying to balance them. Instead make your work more pleasurable." AP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On success: "What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate." Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On life: "Everything in life is luck." AFP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On ambition: "You have to think anyway, so why not think big?" Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On his opponents: "Bush is totally in favour of Common Core. I don't see how he can possibly get the nomination. He's weak on immigration. He's in favour of Common Core. How the hell can you vote for this guy? You just can't do it." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Obamacare: "You have to be hit by a tractor, literally, a tractor, to use it, because the deductibles are so high. It's virtually useless. And remember the $5 billion web site?... I have so many web sites, I have them all over the place. I hire people, they do a web site. It costs me $3." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Barack Obama: "Obama is going to be out playing golf. He might be on one of my courses. I would invite him. I have the best courses in the world. I have one right next to the White House." PA Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On himself: "Love him or hate him, Trump is a man who is certain about what he wants and sets out to get it, no holds barred. Women find his power almost as much of a turn-on as his money." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On America: "The American Dream is dead. But if I get elected president I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before and we will make America great again." GETTY Mr Trump immediately hit back, saying that the Popes comments were shameful. I am proud to be a Christian and as President I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened, unlike what is happening now, with our current president, he said. No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another mans religion or faith. Pope Francis Questions Donald Trump's Christianity Later, still campaigning in South Carolina, the billionaire appeared to step back and offer a gentler perspective. He also suggested that both the government of Mexico and the media were responsible for misleading the pope about the situation in regard to immigrants entering the US. I have a lot of respect for the Pope. He has a lot of personality and I think he's doing a very good job, he has a lot of energy, he said. He also repeated his belief the Pope had been ignorant of the drugs being smuggled into the US and other security issues. The Vatican spokesman, Mr Lombardi, said the Pope believed people should build bridges, not walls, according to Reuters. He added: This is his general view, which is very consistent with courageously following the indications of the gospel on offering welcome and solidarity. 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 }} Britain may have been a few centuries late in adopting one of mankinds most significant technological advances, but archaeologists have just discovered that when we finally did get the wheel, we at least made them bigger than anyone else. The most complete Bronze Age wheel ever found in Britain has been unearthed during excavations in the Cambridgeshire fens. It represents the period in which wheeled transport technology first appears to have been introduced into the British Isles. A full metre in diameter (but only around 3.5 centimetres thick), it is likely, originally, to have come from a stylish two-wheeled cart, pulled by an ox. It is an important discovery because of the new light it will almost certainly shed on transport technology in prehistoric Britain. First complete Bronze Age wheel discovered at 'British Pompeii' Recommended Read more Discoveries offer detailed glimpse of life in prehistoric Britain Dating from around 1000 BC, it has just been discovered by Cambridge University archaeologists, excavating a small Bronze Age settlement at Must Farm near Peterborough. Now the site is dry land. But originally the small group of roundhouses stood on a timber platform built on wooden stilts in a river surrounded by marshland. The wheel was preserved because the building it appears to have been kept in was burnt down in a fire which destroyed the settlement. The charred remains of buildings and their contents (including the wheel) then fell into the river and eventually became waterlogged and covered in mud and silt. The waterlogging preserved them until they were unearthed by the archaeologists 3000 years later. Site director Mark Knight of the Cambridge Archaeological Unit at the Must Farm site near Peterborough in Cambridgeshire, where the earliest complete Bronze Age wheel has been discovered (PA) It is likely that the wheel was being repaired or held in storage at the time the settlement was burned down. The nearest surface that a cart could have been driven along was probably around 300 to 500 metres away, as the settlement was only connected to dry land by a very narrow semi-derelict timber causeway across the marsh, almost certainly suitable only for pedestrian use, and that with some difficulty! The newly discovered wheel is one of the largest Bronze Age examples ever found. Most wheels unearthed in Europe from that period or earlier have tended to be 20% smaller. Potentially made of alder (definitely not oak or ash), the Must Farm wheel probably came from a cart used to carry relatively heavy probably agricultural loads. The settlement was extremely prosperous and may well have functioned as a riverside trading post as well as the home of a substantial extended family. As well as the wheel, unearthed just last week, the archaeologists had previously found nine dug-out canoes the largest of which was nine metres long. The wheel itself, which is likely to originally have had a leather tyre, was a heavy duty one made up of five panels of solid timber. It had a well-crafted hub with a hole in the middle for an axle which would have been some 12 centimetres in diameter where it passed through the hub, but probably up to 16 centimetres in diameter for the rest of its length. A fragment of the axle has survived. The cart was almost certainly a relatively narrow one with perhaps just 1.5 to 2 metres between its two wheels. A close-up of the most complete Bronze Age wheel ever found in Britain The discovery highlights a particularly intriguing archaeological mystery. Although wheeled vehicles were first invented in Mesopotamia or on the steppes of eastern Europe and central Asia in around 3500 BC and were introduced into much of northern Europe over the subsequent three or four centuries, there is no evidence of the new technology being used in Britain until some 18 centuries later! Apart from the Must Farm wheel, only two other, more fragmentary, examples of pre-Iron-Age wheels have ever been found in this country and they all date from the late Bronze Age. Britain is one of the best archaeologically investigated countries in the world so the probability exists that largescale introduction here really did occur very late. Interestingly, adoption of the wheel also seems to have been very late in much of the rest of Atlantic Europe i.e. in France, Spain and Portugal. One possible explanation might be the differences in terrain between different parts of the continent. The flat plains of northern Europe would often have been ideal for wheeled transport, while the more steeply undulating and sometimes more mountainous topography of much of the south of the continent would not have been ideal. However there is another potential reason. Much of Atlantic Europe including Britain had had a culture characterised, at least in part, by the so-called megalithic phenomenon the tradition of moving and erecting huge stone monoliths in circles, avenues and other arrangements. Britain itself has more than 1500 Neolithic and Bronze Age standing stone monuments the most famous of which are of course Stonehenge and Avebury in Wiltshire. The tradition of moving massive stones to build Britains many famous stone circles may well have generated a humanly-powered heavy haulage culture a phenomenon which may potentially have slowed down the introduction of wheeled transport, said Prof David Anthony of Hartwick College in New York state, an archaeologist specialising in ancient transport and author of a key book on the subject, The Horse, the Wheel and Language, published by Princeton University Press. Wheeled vehicles would have been unsuitable for transporting really heavy stones (some of the Stonehenge examples weigh up to 36 tonnes) so other forms of land transport would have had to be developed. It is even conceivable that sledge technology to move heavy stones and other objects was so well developed and traditional in Britain and possibly elsewhere in Atlantic Europe that it helped keep demand for wheeled vehicles relatively low in those areas for many centuries. The wheel is the latest in a series of discoveries at the Must Farm site which is providing remarkable insights into domestic life 3,000 years ago. It has already revealed circular wooden houses believed to be the best-preserved Bronze Age dwellings ever found in Britain. Other exciting finds reported in The Independent and other media last month include a wooden platter, small wooden box and rare small bowls and jars with food remains inside, as well as textiles and Bronze Age tools. Duncan Wilson, Chief Executive of Historic England said: This remarkable but fragile wooden wheel is the earliest complete example ever found in Britain. The existence of this wheel expands our understanding of Late Bronze Age technology and the level of sophistication of the lives of people living on the edge of the Fens 3,000 years ago. David Gibson, Archaeological Manager at the Cambridge Archaeological Unit, Division of Archaeology, University of Cambridge said: The discovery of the wheel demonstrates the inhabitants of this watery landscapes links to the dryland beyond the river. Historic England and building products supplier Forterra, which owns a quarry at the site, are funding a major 1.1 million project to excavate 1,100 square metres of the Must Farm area. 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 petition signed by more than 500,000 people calling for free meningitis B vaccines for children up to the age of 11 should not decide whether the goverment changes its policy, a senior Conservative MP has said. Sarah Wollaston, a former GP and chair of the commons health select committee, says it will be difficult for the government to implement the petition - regardless of how popular the petition is. The petition was set up following the death of Faye Burdett, who died on Valentine's Day after fighting meningitis for 11 days. In recent days, a shortage of the vaccine has risen with Boots, Britains largest pharmacist, and City Doc, the largest vaccine supplier outside of the NHS, saying they had run out of supplies. Speaking on the BBC, Ms Wollaston said: If we were to drive vaccination policy entirely by the size of a petition then we would run ourselves into very difficult territory. "And so, of course, the way the public feel is absolutely crucial as part of that triangle of how you weigh up these decisions but it shouldnt be in itself the main driver of policy. The Conservative MP for Totnes also questioned the financial implications of increased vaccinations. If you consider that there are more than 800,000 births a year in this country. In 2011/12 there were 33 deaths from this disease [Meningitis B] but of course you have to also weigh up the burden of the terrible disabilities which some survivors are left with. Wollaston said it could be possible to save more childrens lives if they spent money on another area of the healthcare system. What would you achieve if you spent the same amount of money on other areas that are causing deaths in children and terrible disability. Nevertheless, Wollaston argues the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, the body which advises government on this area, should take a second look at how they calculate costs. The worst jobs for your health Show all 10 1 /10 The worst jobs for your health The worst jobs for your health 10. Surgical and medical assistants, technologists, and technicians Overall unhealthiness score: 57.3 What they do: Assist in operations, under the supervision of surgeons, registered nurses, or other surgical personnel and perform medical laboratory tests. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to disease and infections: 88 2. Exposure to contaminants: 80 3. Exposure to hazardous conditions: 69 The worst jobs for your health 9. Stationary engineers and boiler operators Overall unhealthiness score: 57.7 What they do: Operate or maintain stationary engines, boilers, or other mechanical equipment to provide utilities for buildings or industrial processes. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to contaminants: 99 2. Exposure to hazardous conditions: 89 3. Exposure to minor burns, cuts, bites, or stings: 84 The worst jobs for your health 8. Water and wastewater treatment plant and system operators Overall unhealthiness score: 58.2 What they do: Operate or control an entire process or system of machines, often through the use of control boards, to transfer or treat water or wastewater. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to contaminants: 97 2. Exposure to hazardous conditions: 80 3. Exposure to minor burns, cuts, bites, or stings: 74 The worst jobs for your health 7. Histotechnologists and histologic technicians Overall unhealthiness score: 59.0 What they do: Prepare histologic slides from tissue sections for microscopic examination and diagnosis by pathologists. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to hazardous conditions: 88 2. Exposure to contaminants: 76 3. Exposure to disease and infections: 75 The worst jobs for your health 6. Immigration and customs inspectors Overall unhealthiness score: 59.3 What they do: Investigate and inspect people, common carriers, goods, and merchandise, arriving in or departing from the US or between states to detect violations of immigration and customs laws and regulations. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to contaminants: 78 2. Exposure to disease and infections: 63 3. Exposure to radiation: 62 The worst jobs for your health 5. Podiatrists Overall unhealthiness score: 60.2 What they do: Diagnose and treat diseases and deformities of the human foot. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to disease and infections: 87 2. Exposure to radiation: 69 3. Exposure to contaminants: 67 The worst jobs for your health 4. Veterinarians, veterinary assistants, and laboratory animal caretakers and veterinary technologists and technicians What they do: Diagnose, treat, or research diseases and injuries of animals and perform medical tests in a laboratory environment for use in the treatment and diagnosis of diseases in animals. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to disease and infections: 81 2. Exposure to minor burns, cuts, bites, or stings: 75 3. Exposure to contaminants: 74 The worst jobs for your health 3. Anesthesiologists, nurse anesthetists, and anesthesiologist assistants Overall unhealthiness score: 62.3 What they do: Administer anesthetics or sedatives during medical procedures, and help patients in recovering from anesthesia. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to disease and infections: 94 2. Exposure to contaminants: 80 3. Exposure to radiation: 74 The worst jobs for your health 2. Flight attendants What they do: Provide personal services to ensure the safety, security, and comfort of airline passengers during flight. Greet passengers, verify tickets, explain use of safety equipment, and serve food or beverages. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to contaminants: 88 2. Exposure to disease and infections: 77 3. Exposure to minor burns, cuts, bites, or stings: 69 The worst jobs for your health 1. Dentists, dental surgeons, and dental assistants Overall unhealthiness score: 65.4 What they do: Examine, diagnose, and treat diseases, injuries, and malformations of teeth and gums. May treat diseases of nerve, pulp, and other dental tissues affecting oral hygiene and retention of teeth. May fit dental appliances or provide preventive care. Top three health risks: 1. Exposure to contaminants: 84 2. Exposure to disease and infections: 75 3. Time spent sitting: 67 There is a case for the JCVI looking again at the formula it uses to weigh up cost effectiveness and I think thats what should now happen as a result of this petition. At present a Meningitis B vaccine is available on the NHS for babies aged two months, followed by a second dose at four months and then a booster at 12 months. Any vaccine afterwards must be paid for privately but a global scarcity of the vaccine Bexsero means supplies are very low. Since graphic photos of the two-year-old from Maidenstone in Kent were released hours before her death, her story, as told by her mother, has been widely shared on social media. Her mother Jenny Burdett has called for people to sign the petition, which has already garnered over half a million signatures and is set to become the largest online government petition in history. All children are at risk from this terrible infection. There needs to be a rollout programme to vaccinate all children, at least up to age 11. 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 Nigerian scholarship student with late-stage cirrhosis of the liver has condemned Theresa Mays refusal to grant him leave to remain in the UK on medical grounds as a death sentence. Luqman Onikosi, 36, was studying at Sussex University when he was diagnosed with hepatitis B in 2009 a disease which led to the deaths of two of his brothers. Active in student politics, Mr Onikosi gained a prestigious position working at the Nigerian embassy after completing his studies. But when he became too ill to work, his application for leave to remain in the UK on medical grounds was rejected. Ive paid international student fees and taxes, he said. The British Government does not see me as human but as dispensable. They have used me as like an orange and sucked everything out of me and now they are going to send me back to Nigeria to die. Doctors have expressed concern that if made to return to Nigeria, Mr Onikosi could die within six months from organ failure. Treatment of his condition requires constant monitoring of liver function, which cannot be done in many parts of Nigeria. If given leave to remain, he hopes for a life-saving liver transplant. The bleakness of his situation, exacerbated by a lack of communication from the Home Office, led Mr Onikosi to attempt suicide last year. He found out his appeal to remain in the UK had been rejected while completing his post-graduate dissertation. Explainer: What is cirrhosis? Cirrhosis is scarring of the liver caused by continuous, long-term liver damage. It can be caused by alcohol misuse, hepatitis as in Mr Onikosis case or a disease called non-alcoholic steatohepatitis that causes a build-up of fat in the organ. Cirrhotic damage cannot be reversed and eventually becomes so extensive that the liver stops functioning. The organ performs more functions than any other, including detoxification of the blood and regulation of glycogen. Each year in the UK, around 4,000 people die from cirrhosis and 700 people with the condition need a liver transplant. I slid into depression, he said. I didnt understand what was going on. I didnt feel I was in charge of my life any longer. I felt powerless. Growing up in Nigeria, Mr Onikosi viewed Britain as the pinnacle of civilisation. He came to the UK to fulfil his part in a plan he had made with his younger brother. He was to study politics and his brother, science. They would then combine their expertise to help to guide resource-rich Nigeria to a brighter future. However, his brother was diagnosed with hepatitis B in 2009 and died a year later. When he first became ill, Mr Onikosi wrote to the Home Secretary Theresa May and Damian Green, immigration minister at the time, pleading to stay, before receiving pro bono legal assistance. Now his case may go to judicial review, costing tens of thousands of pounds. A fundraising campaign launched last week with the hashtag #DontDeportLuqman and aimed at raising just over 1,500 for an initial legal consultation, had overshot its target by more than 50 per cent. Hepatology experts expressed hope that if Mr Onikosi were forced to return to Nigeria, he could survive if given treatment. However, he believes his illness is too far gone. Caroline Lucas, Mr Onikosis MP, who has supported his bid, called on Ms May to show some basic humanity. It is outrageous that Luqman is set to be deported despite his serious medical condition, she said. He has worked, paid taxes and volunteered here in the UK, yet he is being treated with contempt by the British Government. A Home Office spokesperson said all cases are considered on their individual merits, and in line with the immigration rules, adding: The individuals application was fully considered and has been through the appeal process. An independent immigration judge found he has no right to remain in the UK. 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 }} Scottish first-time buyers who make the jump to home ownership are on average 1,440 a year better off than they would be if they continued renting, according to new research. An increase in average monthly rents coupled with a fall in the price of house buying expenses means that home ownership is becoming ever more cost effective, the analysis by Bank of Scotland found. The gap between buying and renting in Scotland has widened significantly over the past five years, the research revealed. Home ownership now carries an annual saving of 1,440 almost treble the 548 recorded in 2010 and the last time renting was the cheaper option was in 2008. The typical monthly buying cost, including mortgage payments, associated with a first-time buyer of a three bedroom house stood at 525 in December - 120 lower than the monthly rent of 645 paid on the same property type. Record low mortgage rates, coupled with rising private rents, have made getting on the housing ladder financially more attractive for those able to raise the necessary deposit and with access to mortgage finance, said Nicola Noble, the banks mortgage director. UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty 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 She added that first-time buyers accounted for almost half of all Scottish home sales last year, up from just 35 per cent in 2007, thanks partly to improving economic conditions and Government schemes such as Help to Buy. How much of a saving first-time buyers stand to make depends on where they live, the research found. Those in the North West save around 20 per cent, while people in Scotland save 19 per cent and people in Northern Ireland and Wales save 18 per cent. The South East is the only UK region where renting is still narrowly cheaper than buying. 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 }} Coming home from holiday can be a disappointment at the best of times. The inevitable return to normal routine, colder climes and everyday life is cherished by few. However, one couple in Cumbria have taken the post-holiday blues to a whole other level, by bringing a new time zone home with them. Following a holiday in Tenerife, Jim and Barbara Casey realised that they enjoyed being one hour ahead of GMT so much that theyd keep the time zone when they returned to the UK. The couple have reset their clocks and fully committed to Tenerife time. They say that there are many perks to the practice, including getting the best seats in restaurants and avoiding crowds and traffic jams. Theyve termed their practice WARP; Winter Adjustment for Retired People. Mr Casey told The Daily Telegraph: We find it great, it makes the day a bit longer. We are on continental time and we can never be late. There are so many benefits to it. When we go out to a restaurant here for lunch then theres nobody there so we get served first and get the best seats. We miss a lot of the rush hour traffic too and it means when we go shopping theres always somewhere to park. 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 Another perk, according to the couple, is that it enables them break free from convention and take a stand against the government. Indeed, the Caseys are so committed to rebelling against government norms that if the country were to commit to WARP too, they have said they may move their clocks forward another hour just to be different. Support for a 'Universal Timezone' has gathered pace globally, after being backed by economists. It has been argued that synchronised time zones will allow for easier transactions between businesses and markets. Indonesia has proposed abolishing two of its three time zones for economic reasons. 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 }} European Union leaders have been told to book hotel rooms for another night as the EU summit drags on. Here are the latest updates Please allow a moment for the live blog to load The Prime Minister held several hard going meetings with European Council president Donald Tusk and French president Francois Hollande before leaving at around 5.30am, Brussels time, (4.30am GMT). He will return to the negotiations later on Friday, Downing Street said, starting with another meeting with Mr Tusk. Mr Cameron is engaged in a last-ditch bid to secure an EU reform deal which will allow him to call a referendum on British membership on 23 June. He made no comment as he left following hours of negotiations that also involved the Czech and Belgian prime ministers. What has the EU ever done for us? Show all 7 1 /7 What has the EU ever done for us? What has the EU ever done for us? 1. It gives you freedom to live, work and retire anywhere in Europe As a member of the EU, UK citizens benefit from freedom of movement across the continent. Considered one of the so-called four pillars of the European Union, this freedom allows all EU citizens to live, work and travel in other member states. What has the EU ever done for us? 2. It sustains millions of jobs A report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, released in October 2015, suggested 3.1 million British jobs were linked to the UKs exports to the EU. What has the EU ever done for us? 3. Your holiday is much easier - and safer Freedom to travel is one of the most exercised benefits of EU membership, with Britons having made 31 million visits to the EU in 2014 alone. But a lot of the benefits of being an EU citizen are either taken for granted or go unnoticed. What has the EU ever done for us? 4. It means you're less likely to get ripped off Consumer protection is a key benefit of the EUs single market, and ensures members of the British public receive equal consumer rights when shopping anywhere in Europe. What has the EU ever done for us? 5. It offers greater protection from terrorists, paedophiles, people traffickers and cyber-crime Another example of a lesser-known advantage of EU membership is the benefit of cross-country coordination and cooperation in the fight against crime. What has the EU ever done for us? 6. Our businesses depend on it According to 71% of all members of the Confederation of British Influence (CBI), and 67 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the EU has had an overall positive impact on their business. What has the EU ever done for us? 7. We have greater influence Robin Niblett, Director of think-tank Chatham House, stated in a report published last year: For a mid-sized country like the UK, which will never again be economically dominant either globally or regionally, and whose diplomatic and military resources are declining in relative terms, being a major player in a strong regional institution can offer a critical lever for international influence. We have made some progress but a lot still remains to be done, Mr Tusk said following dinner late on Thursday night. A Downing Street source said: It's hard going. Some signs of progress but nothing yet agreed and still a lot to do. Mr Cameron has warned EU leaders that he was ready to walk away from their summit in Brussels without a deal unless they gave ground on key British demands and provided him with a credible package he can sell to voters. Key points of contention are said to be including migrant welfare, child benefit, relations with the Eurozone, treaty change and a British exemption from the requirement for ever-closer union. If a deal is reached, Mr Cameron is expected to hurry back to London for a special Cabinet meeting to endorse the agreement and set a referendum date. Additional reporting by PA 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 }} Britain will not be able to fundamentally change the European Union despite David Camerons renegotiation bid, Nigel Farage has said. Ukips leader warned that government after government had pledged to reform the EU but that no fundamental change to the bloc ever came about. The problem is reform in Britain means something completely different to reform [in Brussels], he told BBC Radio 4s Today programme. We asked for something really tiddly and yet its difficult to get that. Imagine if wed asked for fundamental change? We are not going to change this European Union, it is hell-bent on full integration and if we stay members of it we will be dragged in its wake. David Cameron is locked in talks in Brussels with other EU leaders and Brussels officials on the first day of an EU summit to decide how to change the terms of membership. The Prime Minister faces opposition to his changes to in-work benefit rules from east European countries with high levels of emigration. There are also suspicions about other proposals on the single market that some countries worry could privilege the City of London. European Council president Donald Tusk said there had been some progress on the issues in discussions overnight but that a lot remains to be done. Mr Farage predicted that Mr Cameron would be offered some kind of deal at the summit to help him save face but that it would amount to scratching around the edges without fundamental change on offer. What has the EU ever done for us? Show all 7 1 /7 What has the EU ever done for us? What has the EU ever done for us? 1. It gives you freedom to live, work and retire anywhere in Europe As a member of the EU, UK citizens benefit from freedom of movement across the continent. Considered one of the so-called four pillars of the European Union, this freedom allows all EU citizens to live, work and travel in other member states. What has the EU ever done for us? 2. It sustains millions of jobs A report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, released in October 2015, suggested 3.1 million British jobs were linked to the UKs exports to the EU. What has the EU ever done for us? 3. Your holiday is much easier - and safer Freedom to travel is one of the most exercised benefits of EU membership, with Britons having made 31 million visits to the EU in 2014 alone. But a lot of the benefits of being an EU citizen are either taken for granted or go unnoticed. What has the EU ever done for us? 4. It means you're less likely to get ripped off Consumer protection is a key benefit of the EUs single market, and ensures members of the British public receive equal consumer rights when shopping anywhere in Europe. What has the EU ever done for us? 5. It offers greater protection from terrorists, paedophiles, people traffickers and cyber-crime Another example of a lesser-known advantage of EU membership is the benefit of cross-country coordination and cooperation in the fight against crime. What has the EU ever done for us? 6. Our businesses depend on it According to 71% of all members of the Confederation of British Influence (CBI), and 67 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the EU has had an overall positive impact on their business. What has the EU ever done for us? 7. We have greater influence Robin Niblett, Director of think-tank Chatham House, stated in a report published last year: For a mid-sized country like the UK, which will never again be economically dominant either globally or regionally, and whose diplomatic and military resources are declining in relative terms, being a major player in a strong regional institution can offer a critical lever for international influence. Mr Camerons own backbenchers criticised a draft deal drawn up by Mr Turks and endorsed by the Prime Minister that was revealed earlier this month. Eurosceptics said the plan was thin gruel and watered down largely because Mr Cameron was not offered the four-year block on in-work benefits for EU migrants he had requested. Mr Tusk instead suggested a one-year waiting period after which benefits would phase back in over the next three years. The Prime Minister has pledged to renegotiate the terms of Britains membership of the European Union and then hold a referendum on whether to stay in the bloc. Mr Farage suggested that there would be people, Conservative voters and Labour voters, who will be irreconcilable after this referendum. Ukip appears to be expecting as surge of support after the vote similar to the one the Scottish National Party benefited from after the Scottish Independence referendum. The EU in-out referendum was pledged in the Conservative manifesto before the end of 2017 but the plebiscite is now expected to be held as early as June of this year. 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 by a coalition of politicians, union leaders and celebrities of trying to shield Israel from criticism by threatening legal action against councils who want to join boycotts against the country. Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, actress Maxine Peake, trade union leader Len McCluskey and a dozen MPs are among those who said new Cabinet Office procurement guidelines would effectively force local councils and other public bodies to unethically invest in Israels occupation and in arms companies. In an open letter they write: Local councils, student unions, trade unions, political parties and other democratic bodies across the UK have voted to support the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS). BDS is a peaceful and effective way of challenging the international support that Israel receives despite its ongoing human rights abuses and violations of international law. Rather than attacking local democracy and insulating Israel from the consequences of its human rights abuses, the UK government should take steps in support of freedom, justice and equality. An end to the arms trade with Israel would be a good start. The guidelines, published on Wednesday, said that locally imposed boycotts are inappropriate unless the Government has put in place formal legal sanctions or embargoes. The Cabinet Office warned that boycotts risk breaching a long-standing World Trade Organisation agreement, which requires all those countries that have signed up to the agreement, including the EU and Israel, to treat suppliers equally. Israel: From independence to intifada Show all 7 1 /7 Israel: From independence to intifada Israel: From independence to intifada 26973.bin Israel: From independence to intifada 26974.bin Israel: From independence to intifada 26975.bin Israel: From independence to intifada 26976.bin Israel: From independence to intifada 26977.bin Israel: From independence to intifada 26985.bin Robert Capa/Magnum Israel: From independence to intifada 26986.bin Robert Capa/Magnum Any discrimination against Israeli suppliers involving procurements would therefore be in breach of the agreement, it said. Those who decide to go ahead with a boycott risk being taken to court and fined, the Government warned. The Cabinet Office said the notice complemented existing government guidance about trading or investing overseas, including with Israel, where the Government advises UK businesses to consider any potential legal and economic risks of doing so. Simon McCann, a procurement specialist at law firm Blake Morgan, said the language used was uncompromising. He said: The guidance makes the point that serious legal consequences can flow from such illegal boycotts, including damages, fines and ineffectiveness. Even more importantly, the guidance underlines the fact that discrimination on grounds of nationality has no place in procurement. A growing number of local councils have taken steps to divest from companies they say engaged in Israeli human rights abuses. Jewish Human Rights Watch is taking legal action against Leicester City Council, which began its boycott of goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank in November 2014. The council said it opposed the continuing illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. Gaza protests: Jailed journalist on hunger strike A High Court judge has said both of the claims were arguable and granted permission for a judicial review. Cabinet Office minister Matthew Hancock said: We need to challenge and prevent these divisive town hall boycotts. The new guidance on procurement combined with changes we are making to how pension pots can be invested will help prevent damaging and counter-productive local foreign policies undermining our national security. Recommended Read more Government defends ban on boycotting Israel The announcement came on the eve of Mr Hancocks visit to Israel this week where he met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who praised the UK for standing up to discrimination. BDS campaigners also urge action against international corporations that supply the Israeli military or illegal settlements in the West Bank. The Government is yet to respond to the letter. Riya Hassan, the Europe Campaigns Officer for the Palestinian BDS National Committee, the coalition of Palestinian organisations that leads the BDS movement, said there is a clear difference between the original WTO agreement and what the Government has now announced. She said: The WTO agreement that the government is citing makes clear public bodies can pursue ethical policies that reflect public opinion, as does the relevant EU and UK legislation. The documents the government published this week are intended as a gift to Israel and are clearly designed to intimidate councils into falsely thinking that they are no longer allowed to exclude companies that violate human rights from tender exercises or boycott Israeli companies over their links to Israels war crimes. French multinational Veolia ended its role in illegal Israeli settlements after local councils in the UK and across Europe listened to their local communities and stopped dealing with the company. The BDS movement will continue to try to work with public bodies to hold to account those companies that help Israel to violate international law. 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 }} Junior doctors have reacted with fury after new example rotas show them working both Saturday and Sunday up to three weeks in a row despite a pledge by Jeremy Hunt to never force them to work consecutive weekends. NHS Employers - which represents health trusts across England - has released 17 typical rotas junior doctors across all parts of the health service should expect to work when new contracts come into force in August. The rotas cover a period of between four and 16 weeks with frequent shifts on both Saturdays and Sundays. Junior Doctors Contract It shows junior doctors will be expected to work consecutive weekends or one weekend a fortnight. Junior doctors have reacted with fury on Twitter branding Mr Hunt a liar: Doctors also pointed to numerous errors on the example rotas - including one which suggested they would be expected to work for 48 hours straight on certain weekends. Some medics suggested the example rotas seem to underestimate the number of hours doctors will be excepted to work prompting fears they will be asked to work even more weekends. NHS Employers released a statement following the uproar saying current guidance stipulating junior doctors working consecutive weekends should be avoided where possible but there was no guarantee. But this contradicts what Mr Hunt promised in his speech to Parliament where he controversially announced he would unilaterally impose a new contract on junior doctors last Thursday. In his speech to MPs he said: With the new contract, the maximum number of hours that can be worked in one week will be reduced from 91 to 72, the maximum number of consecutive nights doctors can be asked to work will be reduced from seven to four. The maximum number of consecutive long days will be reduced from seven to five; and no doctor will ever be rostered consecutive weekends. In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Show all 10 1 /10 In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK 20,000 Junior Doctors marched through central London in protest at the new contract changes the government is trying to impose which they say will be unfair and unsafe In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Junior doctors protest in London In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK 4 year old Cassius takes part in a demonstration in Westminster, in support of junior doctors over changes to NHS contracts, London In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Protest over proposed changes to junior doctors' contracts, Leeds In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Junior doctors and NHS staff protesting against the health service cuts and the proposed contract changes offered by the government outside Parliament In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Junior doctors and NHS staff protesting against the health service cuts and the proposed contract changes offered by the government outside Parliament In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Over 5000 junior doctors rallied in Waterloo place, before marching through Whitehall and onto Parliament Square, in opposition to Jeremy Hunt's new working conditions for doctors In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Demonstrators listen to speeches in Waterloo Place during the 'Let's Save the NHS' rally and protest march by junior doctors In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK Junior doctors marched in London to highlight their plight In pictures: Junior doctors protests in UK A protester at a demonstration in support of junior doctors in London He also said those working "one in four or more Saturdays" will receive a "pay premium" of 30 per cent. Mr Hunt choose to force the contract on junior doctors following a second 24-hour strike on 10 February after talks between the Department of Health and the British Medical Association broke down. Junior doctors say the new contracts are unsafe for patients because it encourages NHS bosses to make them work longer hours. The contract will change what is deemed anti-social working hours, meaning doctors will be expected to work later in the evening and on Saturdays without being paid overtime rates. Applications for an industry certificate to practise medicine abroad spiked by over 1,000 per cent the day Mr Hunt announced the imposition. In 2015, when the industrial dispute began, 8,627 certificates were issued to doctors up from 4,925 in 2014 - which represents an annual increase of over 1bn worth of training leaving the NHS. The Independent has contacted the Department of Health for comment. 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 senior cabinet minister under Margaret Thatcher lobbied her to prevent the homeless being given an exemption from the poll tax because he believed it would encourage people to sleep rough to avoid the charge. The tax, designed to replace the rates system of property tax with a flat-rate levy to fund local authorities, proved politically catastrophic when it was introduced in 1990, sparking riots and eventually leading to Mrs Thatchers resignation. But documents released at The National Archives show how determined ministers were to ensure nobody escaped paying the tax, officially known as the Community Charge, as its details were finalised. A memo from the then Welsh Secretary Peter Walker to Mrs Thatcher in 1988 complained that plans to exempt the homeless would create an enormous loophole and result in people sleeping on the streets as a method of ducking payment. The tax was to be offered at a discounted rate of 20 per cent to those sleeping in hostels. The exemption, Mr Walker wrote, would put an enormous loophole into the system and would be abused. Moreover, it would act as an incentive for people to sleep rough ... to make sure that they escaped having to pay at least 20 per cent of the charge. While I appreciate that in practice it is highly unlikely that local authorities would be able either to track down people who sleep rough or to get any payment of the charge from them, a specific exemption could be seen as encouraging them to sleep on the street, rather than in a hostel. The minister, who was made a life peer in 1992 and who died in 2010, was nonetheless realistic about the chance of stopping the exemption becoming law. Citing practical problems with persuading the House of Lords to remove the exemption, Mr Walker suggested the concession to the homeless would have to remain. Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight 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 Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Michael Gove and at least five other cabinet ministers are preparing to break ranks and defy David Cameron by arguing for Brexit in the European Union membership referendum promised by the Prime Minister. One or more had hoped to address a major anti-EU rally in London on Friday night, but they were forced to hold their peace when Mr Camerons EU renegotiation summit dragged on into a second day. Mr Goves expected decision to support the Out campaign will be a bitter blow to Downing Street as he is among the Prime Ministers closest confidants and a family friend. Mr Cameron has made huge efforts to persuade the Justice Secretary to campaign for Britain to remain in the EU based on a reformed relationship between London and Brussels. But sources close to Mr Cameron said that Mr Gove had decided with a heavy heart he could not back the Prime Minister on the issue. The Spectator reported that Mr Camerons allies seem pretty much resigned to losing Michael Gove to the Out campaign once the deal is done. Mr Gove has been torn between his loyalty to the Prime Minister and his long-standing support for Britain pulling out of the bloc. The Justice Secretarys defection to the Brexit campaign would boost its credibility although it is understood he would take a relatively low profile and could encourage other wavering ministers to follow suit. A spokesman for him said: Michaels position has not changed he supports the Prime Ministers strategy to renegotiate our relationship with the European Union. As he has said before, it would be premature for anyone to make a judgement before the deal is concluded. Like the Prime Minister, he has not ruled anything out. EU referendum timeline - What happens if Britain gets the deal Mr Cameron cancelled a cabinet meeting provisionally scheduled for Friday afternoon at which he had hoped to report back on a deal secured in the Brussels talks. That would have marked the point at which collective responsibility would have been suspended and ministers could have gone public over their support for Brexit. A prominent role will be played in the Out campaign by Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, who is a long-term advocate of withdrawal from the EU. He is among the several cabinet members who have complained to Mr Cameron over the collective gag placed on Eurosceptic ministers ahead of the referendum campaign. The Commons Leader, Chris Grayling, and the employment minister, Priti Patel, look certain to join the campaign, as well as John Whittingdale, the Culture Secretary, and Theresa Villiers, the Northern Ireland Secretary. Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, is still keeping the Prime Minister guessing over his intentions, although he has promised to set out his position with deafening eclat if Mr Cameron clinches a deal in Brussels. Farage on EU Speakers at the Grassroots Out rally included the Ukip leader Nigel Farage, the senior Conservative MPs Sir Bill Cash and David Davis, Labours Kate Hoey and the economist Ruth Lea. Ahead of the rally Mr Davis said: This whole long drawn-out renegotiation process has highlighted the EUs undemocratic institutional arrogance. It shows the utter disregard Brussels has for member states. It is the perfect example of how Britain is ruled by the EU. After 24 hours of talks in Brussels, Mr Cameron made little progress in thrashing out a compromise on his reform demands. Eastern European countries stood firm in their position that any deal should not allow Britain to restrict child benefits to migrant workers immediately, calling for the plan to be phased in over 16 years. At the same time they pressed for the emergency brake for in-work benefits to be limited to an initial period of two years, with tough tests for any extensions. Mr Cameron is understood to have made clear that this would be unacceptable during a series of tense and sleep-deprived bilateral meetings throughout the day. A full European Council meeting had been scheduled to rubber-stamp the plan at 11am on Friday, but what had been billed as an English breakfast soon turned into an English lunch and finally an English dinner as a deal proved elusive. UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 20 October 2022 Britains Prime Minister Liz Truss delivers a speech outside of 10 Downing Street in central London to announce her resignation AFP/Getty 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 Mr Cameron, who only left the Council building for three hours sleep at 5am, returned for another session including talks with the French, Italians, Poles, Czechs and Germans in an attempt to find a compromise. By early evening the Council President Donald Tusk decided to reconvene the whole Council despite no agreed deal being on the table in an attempt to use peer pressure to force a compromise. British diplomats said they were ready to fight their corner to resist the deal being watered down. While no threat was made to walk away, a Downing Street source made clear Mr Cameron was prepared to leave if he came under too much pressure to compromise. You have to remember that we dont have to hold the referendum until 2017, they said. 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 }} Police in Bath are investigating the apparent discovery of a severed human foot in a park. Simon Clarke said he spotted the foot while walking his dog with his partner Nicky Jeffries at 8am this morning in Weston Park East, according to the Bath Chronicle. He told the newspaper: It was severed about four inches above the ankle. It looked like it had been dug up. A spokesman for Avon and Somerset Police said: We were called shortly after 8am to reports that a member of the public had found a suspicious item in Weston Park. We are making enquiries into the report and will issue an update in due course. 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 Egyptian court has sentenced a four-year-old boy to life in prison for committing murder when he was aged just one. Ahmed Mansour Karmi was not in court on Tuesday when he was convicted of four counts of murder, eight of attempted murder, one vandalisation of property and another count of threatening soldiers and police officers - all before his second birthday. Ahmed was one of 115 defendants who were all handed life sentences at the same time at the court in western Cairo for crimes allegedly committed in early 2014. His defence attorney, Faisal al-Sayd, told the Jerusalem Post the childs name had been added to the list by mistake but the court did not pass Ahmeds birth certificate on to the judge to prove he was born in September 2012. He said: "The child Ahmed Mansour Karni's birth certificate was presented after state security forces added his name to the list of accused, but then the case was transferred to the military court and the child was sentenced in absentia in an ensuing court hearing. "This proves that the judge did not read the case". Another lawyer said the case showed there is no justice in Egypt. 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 said: The Egyptian scales of justice are not reversible. There is no justice in Egypt. No reason. Logic committed suicide a while ago. Egypt went crazy. Egypt is ruled by a bunch of lunatics." Egypt has been ruled by a military dictatorship under President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi since Mohammed Morsi's elected government was ousted in 2013. Approximately 40,000 opposition supporters are currently in jail as the government cracks down on dissent. 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 US has targeted one of the Isis leaders behind the terrorist attack that killed 30 British holidaymakers in Tunisia in an air strike. Officials hailed the "removal" of Noureddine Chouchane, who was was believed to be at a camp in the groups territories in neighbouring Libya that was struck early this morning. An official told the New York Times that American fighter jets hit the stronghold near Sabratha, west of Tripoli, and killed dozens of Isis recruits. Chouchane, known as Sabir, had been linked to Junes hotel attack in Sousse, which killed 38 people, and the massacre that killed 22 people at the Bardo National Museum in Tunis. Footage shows Tunisia attack He was wanted by Tunisian authorities alongside four other men, including one who was arrested near the Libyan border last May. Peter Cook, the Pentagon's press secretary, described Chouchane as an Isis "senior facilitator" who aided the movement of foreign fighters between his home country of Tunisia, the targeted training camp in Libya and onward to other countries. "Destruction of the camp and Chouchane's removal will eliminate an experienced facilitator and is expected to have an immediate impact on Isil's ability to facilitate its activities in Libya, including recruiting new Isil (Isis) members, establishing bases in Libya, and potentially planning external attacks on US interests in the region," he added. "We are assessing the results of the operation and will provide additional information as and when appropriate. "This strike demonstrates we will go after Isil whenever it is necessary, using the full range of tools at our disposal." Timeline: The emergence of Isis Show all 40 1 /40 Timeline: The emergence of Isis Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2000 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (pictured here) forms an al-Qaeda splinter group in Iraq, al-Qaeda in Iraq. Its brutality from the beginning alienates Iraqis and many al-Qaeda leaders. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2006 Al-Zarqawi is killed in a U.S. strike. Al-Zarqawis successor, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, announces the creation of the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI). Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2009 Still al-Qaeda-linked ISI claims responsibility for suicide bombings that killed 155 in Baghdad, as well as attacks in August and October killing 240, as President Obama announces troop withdrawal from Iraq in March. Getty Images Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2010 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi becomes head of ISI, at lowest ebb of Islamist militancy in Iraq, which sees last U.S. combat brigade depart. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2012 In Syria, protests (pictured here starting in Daree) have morphed into what president Assad labelled a real war with emergence of a coalition of forces opposed to Assads regime. Syria group Jabhat al-Nusra are among rebel groups who refuse to join, denouncing it as a conspiracy. Bombings targeting Shia areas, killing more than 500 people, spark fears of new sectarian conflict. Sunni Muslims stage protests across country against what they see as increasingly marginalisation by Shia-led government. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2013 Al-Baghdadi renames ISI as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or Isis, as the group absorbs Syrian al-Nusra, gaining a foothold in Syria. In response, al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri (Bin Ladens successor) concerned about Isis expansion orders that Isis be dissolved and ISI operations should be confined to Iraq. This order is rejected by al-Baghdadi. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - January Isis fighters capture the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, giving them base to launch slew of attacks further south. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Isis declares itself the Caliphate, calling itself Islamic State (IS). The group captures Mosul, Iraqs second largest city; Tal Afar, just 93 miles from Syrian border; and the central Iraqi city of Tikrit. These advances sent shockwaves around the world. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Around the same time Isis releases a video calling for western Muslims to join the Caliphate and fight, prompting new evaluations of extremists groups social media understanding. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Isis take Baiji oil fields in Iraq - giving them access to huge amounts of possible revenue. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - August James Foley is executed by the group as concerns grow for second American prisoner, fellow reporter Steven Sotloff. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - August Obama authorises U.S. airstrikes in Iraq, helping to stall Isis along with action by Kurdish forces following the deaths of hundreds of Yazidi people on Mount Sinjar. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Isis release video showing Steven Sotloffs murder prompting Western speculation his executioner is same man who killed Mr Foley. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Obama tells us that America will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Isis release a video appearing to show David Haines, who was captured by militants in Syria in 2013, wearing an orange jumpsuit and kneeling in the desert while he reads a pre-prepared script. It later shows what appears to be the aid worker's body. Rex Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Peshmerga fighters scrabble to hold positions in the Diyala province (a gateway to Baghdad) as Isis fighters continue to advance on Iraqi capital. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - October Aid worker Alan Henning is killed. Self-imposed media blackout refuses to show images of him in final moments, instead focuses upon humanitarian care. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - October Isis raise their flag in Kobani, which had been strongly defended by Kurdish troops. The victory goes against hopeful western analysis Isis had overextended itself, while alienating much of the Muslim population through the murder of Henning. Victory causes fresh waves of Kurdish refugees arriving in Turkey. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - November American hostage, who embarced values of Islam, Peter Kassig and 14 Syrian soldiers are shown meeting the same fate as other captives. But intelligence agencies will be poring over the apparently significant discrepancies between this and previous films. Seramedig.org.uk Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis has released a video revealing the murder by burning to death of a Jordanian pilot held by the group since the end of December 2014. Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis militants have released videos which appear to show the beheading of Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February American aid worker, Kayla Mueller was the last American hostage known to be held by Isis. She died, according to her captors, in an airstrike by the Jordanian air force on the city of Raqqa in Syria, though US authorities disputed this. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis militants have posted a gruesome video online in which they force 21 Egyptian Coptic Christian hostages to kneel on a beach in Libya before beheading them. Egypt vowed to avenge the beheading and launched air strikes on Isis positions. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February The British Isis militant suspected of appearing in videos showing the beheading of Western hostages has been named in reports as Mohammed Emwazi from London. Rex Features Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - March Isis triple suicide attack has killed more than 100 worshippers and hundreds of others were injured after the group members targeted two mosques in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Iraqi forces have claimed victory over Isis in battle for Tikrit and raised the flag in the city. EPA/STR Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Isis has claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan that killed at least 35 people queuing to collect their wages and injured 100 more. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Isis media arm released a 29-minute video purporting to show militants executing Ethiopian Christians captives. The footage bore the extremist groups al-Furqan media logo and showed the destruction of churches and desecration of religious symbols. A masked fighter made a statement threatening Christians who did not convert to Islam or pay a special tax. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Isis has been "incapacitated" by a spinal injuries sustained in a US air strike in Iraq. He is being treated in a hideout by two doctors from Isis stronghold of Mosul who are said to be "strong ideological supporters of the group". Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis has also claimed responsibility for killing 300 of Yazidi captives, including women, children and elderly people in Iraq AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis attack on Prophet Mohamed cartoon contest in Texas was its first action on US soil. Two gunmen were shot and killed after launching the attack at the exhibition. Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi have been named as the attackers at the Curtis Culwell Centre arena in Garland. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isiss deputy leader, Abu Alaa Afri, a former physics teacher who was thought to have taken charge of the deadly terrorist group, has been killed in a US-led coalition airstrike. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May US special forces have killed a senior Isis leader named as Abu Sayyaf in an operation aiming to capture him and his wife in Syria. Getty Images Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Iran-backed militias are sent to Ramadi by the Iraqi government to fight Isis militants who completed their capture of the city. Government soldiers and civilians were reportedly massacred by extremists as they took control and the army fled. Charred bodies were left littering the city streets as troops clung on to trucks speeding away from the city. Ramadi is the latest government stronghold to fall to the so-called Islamic State, despite air strikes by a US-led international coalition aiming to stop its advance in Iraq and Syria. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis rounded up civilians trapped in Palmyra and forced them to watch 20 people being executed in the historic citys ancient amphitheatre. The Unesco World Heritage site was overrun by militants, threatening the future of 2,000 year-old monuments and ruins. Thousands of Palmyras residents fled but many are still living within the city walls, while the UN human rights office in Geneva said it had received reports of Syrian government forces preventing people from leaving until they retreated from the city. Getty Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May A group of Isis-affiliated fighters have captured a key airport in central Libya. The militants took control of the al-Qardabiya airbase in Sirte after a local militia tasked with defending the facility withdrew from their positions. Affiliates of Isis, already control large parts of Sirte, the birthplace of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and a former stronghold of his supporters. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June The US Air Force has destroyed an Isis stronghold after an extremist let slip their location on social media. According the Air Force Times, General Herbert "Hawk" Carlisle, commander of Air Combat Command, said that Airmen at Hulburt Field, Florida, used images shared by jihadists to track the location of their headquarters before destroying it in an airstrike. Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Kurdish forces captured a key military base in a significant victory in Raqqa as well as town of Tell Abyad. YPG fighters, backed by US-led airstrikes and other rebels, consolidated their gains, when they seized the key town on the Syria-Turkey border. They are now just 30 miles to the north of Raqqa and have cut off a major supply route deep inside Isis-held territory. Ahmet Silk/Getty Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Isis has released gruesome footage claiming to show the murder of more than a dozen men by drowning, decapitation and using a rocket-propelled grenade as it seeks to boost morale among its fanatical supporters. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Isis has begun carrying out its threat to destroy structures in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, blowing up at least two monuments at the Unesco-protected site as Syrian government troops made advances on the Islamists positions. AFP The head of Sabratha municipality, Hussein al-Thwadi, told Reuters that planes struck at around 3.30am, hitting a building in the Qasr Talil district. He said 41 people had been killed and six wounded but the death toll could not be confirmed and estimates varied this morning. The Sabratha Media Center, a Facebook page run by activists, said more than 50 people were killed including a number of foreigners. They were believed to be inside a farmhouse a few miles outside of the city, in an area that was overrun by Isis in December. Sabratha, exchanged between government forces and rebels during the Libyan civil war, houses a Unesco world heritage site and is home to one of the worlds best-preserved Roman amphitheatres. Isis expansion into Libya, which largely remains in a state of chaos following the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime, has raised alarm in the West because of its proximity to Europe and use by people smugglers sending refugees to Italy. The terrorist group was known to control a swathe of territory along the central coast around Sirte, but Sabratha lies far to the West, in a region previously split between forces loyal to Libyas two competing governments. British, American and European intelligence services are believed to keeping a close eye on Isis networks in the country and Barack Obama has not ruled out intervention in Libya. I have been clear from the outset that we will go after Isis wherever it appears, the same way that we went after al-Qaeda wherever they appeared, the President told a press conference on Tuesday. We are working with our other coalition partners to make sure that as we see opportunities to prevent Isis from digging in, in Libya, we take them. At the same time, we're working diligently with the United Nations to try to get a government in place. A previous American strike killed Abu Nabil, who the US described as a senior Isis leader. 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 case that has been described as one of Americas worst miscarriages of justice took a sudden and dramatic turn on Friday, when the last member of the so-called Angola Three was released from jail. Albert Woodfox, who spent the best part of 44 years in solitary confinement, was set free after he pleaded no contest to a manslaughter charge dating back to 1972. He was picked up from the West Feliciana Parish Jail in Louisiana, where he had been most recently held, by his brother and driven away. Concerns about my health and my age have caused me to resolve this case now and obtain my release with this no-contest plea to lesser charges, Woodfox, who turned 69 on Friday, said in a statement. I hope the events of today will bring closure to many. Woodfox, who always insisted he was innocent, was the last of three black prisoners whose lengthy stays in solitary confinement at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola drew international condemnation. The other two, Robert King and Herman Wallace were released earlier; Mr King in 2001 after serving 29 years in solitary confinement, and Mr Wallace in 2013. He died three days later. I want to thank my brother Michel for sticking with me all these years, and Robert King, who wrongly spent nearly 30 years in solitary. I could not have survived without their courageous support, along with the support of my dear friend Herman Wallace, who passed away in 2013, Woodfox said in his statement. I also wish to thank the many members of the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3, Amnesty International, and the Roddick Foundation, all of whom supported me through this long struggle." News that Woodfox was to be released was first reported by the Advocate newspaper It said said he made the plea of no contest to lesser charges than the murder for which he was indicted of last year for the third time and has earned enough credit for time already served to prompt his release, according to Woodfoxs lawyer, George Kendall. Woodfox is believed to have served the longest period of time in solitary confinement of any inmate in the United States - about 44 years, with a few months spent in general population over a scattered period. His imprisonment was the result of two convictions, both which were overturned, for the 1972 murder of prison guard Brent Miller, who was stabbed to death at age 23 while working at Louisiana State Penitentiary, in Angola. Woodfox was kept in Angola Prison, a former plantation owned by slave traders, which is the US' largest maximum security prison (Getty Images) Woodfox and his lawyers and supporters say the crime was pinned on him and another prisoner, the late Herman Wallace, in part to silence their activism as organising members of an official Blank Panther Party chapter inside the prison in the early 1970s. Mr Millers siblings, who were present at the courthouse, decried the development. A piece of our hearts has been jerked out of our bodies, said Stan Miller. Wanda Callender, a sister to the slain guard, said this was slammed in our face. The Angola Three secured supporters from around the world. In Britain, they have included the late Anita Roddick, the founder of the Body Shop. Ms Roddick died in 2007. But her efforts on behalf of Wooodfox have been continued by her widower, Gordon Roddick, and her daughter, Sam Roddick. Woodfoxs lawyers said his plea of nolo contendere or no contest to two lesser charges was not an admission of guilt. Rather, it meant that he did not contest that the State would present evidence at a new trial from witnesses who said he committed this crime. Woodfox continues, as he always has, to maintain his innocence, said a statement. Jasmine Heiss, Senior Campaigner for Individuals at Risk at Amnesty USA, said: After four decades of isolation, Albert Woodfoxs release is long overdue and undeniably just. Nothing will truly repair the cruel, inhuman and degrading solitary confinement that the state of Louisiana inflicted upon him. But this belated measure of justice, on Woodfoxs 69th birthday, is something he has been seeking for more than half his life. 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 }} Lots of people are required to wear safety equipment in the workplace. Builders wear helmets and brightly colored vests, firemen don heat-retardant jackets and breathing apparatus. But officials in California have decided that such rules need not apply to workers in one of the states most specialist employment sectors - the porn film industry. On Thursday, officials in charge of workplace safety voted down a safety proposal that would have forcibly put condoms on porn actors, buckling to pressure from those in the industry who claimed no one would watch the films if such rules were enforced. Derrick Burts spoke out in 2010 after learning he was infected with HIV (AP) The decision - taken by the states Division of Occupational Safety and Health's Standards Board - has reopened a heated debate about the challenge of producing so-called realistic pornography while acting to stop the spread of the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. The Associated Press said that the AIDS Healthcare Foundation had lobbied officials for years to impose tougher measures, arguing that current safety requirements were inadequate. Among those at the forefront of the campaign has been former porn star Derrick Burts, who was infected with HIV while making a porn film, despite following all the existing safety rules. The industry let me down. They put me in a situation where I got HIV, and after Id been diagnosed they did nothing to help me, Mr Burts told The Independent in 2010. Mr Burts said he had been infected despite following all industry safety regulations (AP) But industry officials said the measure risked destroying the multi-billion dollar industry. They argued that a large segment of their audience loses interest in a film when they see actors with condoms. They warned that if the rules could ultimately lead to actors being forced to wear safety goggles and dental dams, saying no one would want to watch a film with that equipment. They also said it could threaten existing requirements for porn actors to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases for 14 days. When you criminalise sex work in any way, you make it more dangerous, said porn actress SiouxsieQ, who also reports on the industry for various publications, Mike Stabile, a spokesman for the industry trade group the Free Speech Coalition, said after the vote that pornographers hope they can work closely in the future in crafting safety requirements that the industry can accept. He did not say what those might be. AIDS Healthcare Foundation spokesman Ged Kenslea said his organisation was impressed that porn representatives said they recognize a need for some sort of regulation. He added his group would be interested in working with them to achieve that goal. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington 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 Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Bernie Sanders wrote to Margaret Thatcher asking her to stop the abuse, humiliation and degrading treatment of Irish prisoners on hunger strike in Northern Ireland, it has emerged. Mr Sanders, an Irish Republican and US presidential hopeful, made the plea in 1981, while serving as Mayor of Burlington, Vermont, according to The Telegraph. His letter asked Mrs Thatcher to end [her] intransigent policy towards the prisoners before the reputation of the British people for fair play and simple decency is further damaged in the eyes of the people of Vermont and the United States". Co-signed by Burlington alderman Terry Bouricius, the letter added that they were deeply disturbed by [the] Governments unwillingness to stop the abuse, humiliation and degrading treatment of the Irish prisoners now on hunger strikes in Northern Ireland". Mr Sanders was also on the mailing list of the Vermont Committee for Irish Human Rights and wrote a letter in November 1983 urging the case of another hunger striker, Nicky Kelly, who was convicted of armed robbery in Dublin, be reopened. The letters was among correspondence found in a political archive held by the University of Vermont, which also revealed the strong influence of the Irish Republican movement in the region during the 1980s. The IRA hunger strike was a culmination of a five-year protest by convicted parliamentary prisoners and resulted in the death of 10 inmates. In pictures: US Elections 2016 Show all 15 1 /15 In pictures: US Elections 2016 In pictures: US Elections 2016 Democratic U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks to supporters after rival candidate Hillary Clinton was projected as the winner in the Nevada Democratic caucuses Reuters In pictures: US Elections 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton takes photos with workers at her campaign office in Des Moines, Iowa AP In pictures: US Elections 2016 Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, second from left, prays before lunch with supporters at Drake Diner in Des Moines, Iowa Reuters In pictures: US Elections 2016 Democratic presidential candidate and former Maryland Governor. Martin O'Malley, speaks during a campaign stop in Waterloo, Iowa AP In pictures: US Elections 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaks, as his wife Jane OMeara Sanders looks on, at a campaign event at Iowa State University Getty In pictures: US Elections 2016 Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio speaks at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa Reuters In pictures: US Elections 2016 Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks at a campaign event at Fireside Pub and Steak House in Manchester, Iowa. Getty In pictures: US Elections 2016 Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum visiting supporters at a house party in West Des Moines, Iowa Reuters In pictures: US Elections 2016 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at a campaign event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa AP In pictures: US Elections 2016 Republican candidate Ted Cruz campaigns at Greene County Community Centre in Jefferson, Iowa AP In pictures: US Elections 2016 Senator Rand Paul speaks during a Caucus rally at his Des Moines headquarters in Iowa Getty In pictures: US Elections 2016 Republican candidate Jeb Bush speaks at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa AFP In pictures: US Elections 2016 Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin introducing the arrival of Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Reuters In pictures: US Elections 2016 A portrait of Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders at his campaign headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa Getty In pictures: US Elections 2016 Campaign badges on sale ahead of a Trump rally at the Ramada Waterloo Hotel and Convention Centre in Waterloo, Iowa Getty Mr Sanders is not the only American presidential hopeful to have links with the Irish Republican movement. Donald Trump was filmed attending a Sinn Fein fundraiser and shaking hands with Gerry Adams in New York in 1995. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington 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 Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} His bid to be the next president of the United States and extend the dynasty that bears his name in clear and present danger, Jeb Bush stood before a group of supporters in Columbia, South Carolina, and asked them to consider: Can you imagine Donald Trump in the Oval Office? If it was not a rhetorical question polls are pointing to blow-out win for the billionaire businessman in the Republican primary in South Carolina on Saturday, suggesting that yes, voters, if not the ones he was addressing, can imagine and in fact yearn for a Trump White House it was an expression of frustration. The way he behaves, he went on, shouting profanities, insulting women, Hispanics... Recommended Read more Jeb Bush asks audience to clap after speech is met with silence Mr Bush is dashing around this state pleading with voters to take their eyes off his rivals, one in particular, and recognise his record and his experience as the former two-term Governor of Florida. As he does it he wears the demeanour of a man who cant quite believe what is happening to him. This is a fun journey, but it gets arduous from time to time, he said, at one of several town hall meetings on his schedule before polling stations open. He may not, however, have lost his sense of humour. Asked by a child to name his favourite book, he didnt blink: The Art of the Deal, he said. She may have been the only person in the room unaware who wrote that bestseller. You know who. Mr Bush has been at the receiving end of Mr Trumps most brutish jibes, not least for bringing his mother, Barbara Bush, and his brother, former President George W Bush, on the stump. Mr Trump need only utter Jeb at his rallies to elicit giggles. The Governor has tried to set himself apart by returning fire more directly than his rivals, who have remained fearful of alienating the billionaires supporters. Yet in recent days he has been taken to task for it by some of his own. One man stood here and offered that Mr Bush turning on Mr Trump at every televised debate was getting tiresome. We all expect it, its going to happen, the man said. Are you scared of Donald Trump? Somethings up. But for me, who? Mr Bush asked. Who is going to take him on if I dont? He has hijacked our party. Mr Bush singled out the suggestion from Mr Trump that Senator John McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam was no hero, because he got caught. The Arizona senator and past presidential candidate is a verifiable American hero, he said. No one should say that. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign stop in Kiawah Island (AP) The large numbers of former and serving military personnel in South Carolina should make it fertile ground for Mr Bush. At every event he stresses that years running Florida equipped him better than his rivals to be commander-in-chief. And history offers favourable runes too. His brother and his father, George HW Bush won primaries in the state on their roads to the White House. But as Mr Bush struggles alongside two other candidates Ohio Governor John Kasich and Senator Marco Rubio to break out as the viable alternative to either Mr Trump or Texas Senator Ted Cruz, he suffered a grave setback this week when the popular South Carolina Governor, Nikki Haley, abruptly endorsed Mr Rubio, two days after George W Bush had personally lobbied her to choose his brother. There have been signs of haplessness in the Bush campaign. This week, he traded his spectacles for contacts and a bit a squint and then drew social media scorn after he tweeted a picture of a hand-gun with his name engraved on it with the single word, America. The British comic James Corden asked on his nightly US talk show: Anyone else worried Jeb got rid of his glasses the same week he got a gun? It didnt help that the gun was made in Belgium. Recommended Read more Jeb Bush wants to keep Guantanamo Bay open While Mr Bush has money to carry on, his supporters and his donors will expect him to place in the top three on Saturday. But polls show him barely in double digits with Mr Trump holding a commanding lead and a struggle for second place under way between Senator Ted Cruz and Mr Rubio. Betty Richbourg, 68, a retired special needs teacher in Columbia, the state capital, also argued that Mr Bush has spent too much time deflecting Mr Trumps insults and not enough time attacking him on substance. This shouldnt be about bad-mouthing but about the issues and I think Mr Trump has plenty of issues, she said, a fresh white Jeb! T-shirt folded on her lap. Sitting beside her, Jane Anker, also retired, said she never imagined Mr Bush, whom she refuses to abandon, would be faring so poorly, expressing profound disappointment in the Trump phenomenon. I cant imagine that so many people who are supposedly intelligent see him as someone who could lead this country, she sighed. As for Mr Cruz, he is almost as bad, she offered. If the writing is indeed on the wall for Mr Bush then maybe its time for humour of a more mordant kind. It was provided by Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, tasked with introducing the Governor. Our No 1 candidate is crazy, but otherwise we are doing just fine, he said. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington 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 Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} The Republican candidates for the White House are battling down to the wire in state of South of Carolina which holds its primary on Saturday. On the eve of the vote in the heavily black state, with a large faith community, the billionaire tycoon Donald Trump is leading the pack. A poll released by Emerson on Friday put Mr Trump on 36 points, ahead of Senator Marco Rubio on 19, Ted Cruz on 18, former governor Jeb Bush and Governor John Kasich each on 10 points, and physician Ben Carson on 6. Donald Trump at a campaign stop in Gaffney, South Carolina (AP) The polls would suggest the contest is Mr Trumps for the winning, but as The Independents David Usborne explains, the contest is one that the tycoon needs to win. Here is why: 1 It is important for Mr Trump can prove he can beat hardline conservative Ted Cruz in a state that has a large evangelical population. While the billionaire easily bear Mr Cruz in the New Hampshire primary, the Texas senator pushed Mr Trump into second place in Iowa, where almost two-thirds of Republican voters describe themselves as evangelical. 2 The battle in South Carolina will be followed just days later by the Republican caucus in Nevada. While Mr Trump has business interests in Las Vegas and it is a city where he feels comfortable, Nevada has a large Latino population - a number of whom will likely be upset by many of his controversial comments about immigrants and Mexicans. 3 The contest is less than two weeks away from Super Tuesday, the March 1 extravaganza when more than a dozen states hold their polls. It is the sort of day when the television-friendly Mr Trump should do well, but it would help his cause if he has won well in South Carolina and created a sense of inevitability. Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington 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 Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Fighting for a victory before Nevadas caucuses, Hillary Clinton has taken one of her toughest shots at her rival, Bernie Sanders, questioning the long-time independents devotion to the Democratic Party he is running to lead. Ms Clinton accused Mr Sanders of attacking the two most recent Democratic presidents Barack Obama and her husband, Bill Clinton both of whom remain popular political figures among Democratic voters. I just dont know where all this comes from, she said at a televised forum hosted by MSNBC. Maybe its that Senator Sanders wasnt really a Democrat until he decided to run for office. Ms Clinton is hoping to use a win in Nevada as a springboard into the primary race in South Carolina on 27 February and a slate of Southern primaries on Super Tuesday on 1 March, where she is favoured because of her strength among black Americans. Minority voters play a far bigger role than in the recent contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. Mr Sanders has kept the Democratic race closer than expected, and a win in Nevada after his strong win in New Hampshire would indicate that the contest is far from over. Speaking to reporters, Mr Sanders described some of President Bill Clintons biggest achievements, the North America Free Trade Agreement and welfare overhaul, as disastrous. He later said his critique was prompted by a question from a reporter and that a member of Congress can disagree with a president from his own party. Both candidates vowed to make reforming the countrys immigration system a top priority of their administrations, should either win the White House. Ms Clinton said she would take up the issue in the first 100 days of her presidency. Some of Ms Clintons most important Latino backers raised questions about Mr Sanders advocacy for immigrants, saying the Vermont senator repeatedly voted against immigration legislation. About one-quarter of Nevadas population is Hispanic. 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 }} China is set to ban foreign media companies from publishing any content online without the governments approval from next month, it has been announced. A new directive issued by Chinas Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has said that companies which have, at least in part, foreign ownership will be stopped from publishing words, pictures, maps, games, animation and sound of an informational and thoughtful nature unless they have approval from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television. This means only companies wholly Chinese owned will be able to publish online, subject to strict self-censorship in line with the governments views. The new regulation states: Sino-foreign joint ventures, Sino-foreign cooperative ventures and foreign business units shall not engage in online publishing services. It is the communist republics latest move to tighten control over what its people can view on the internet and highlights the increasingly restrictive political climate in China, where the leadership has sought to rein in public speech and thought. Chinese law has long required internet service providers to hold an operating license that can only be obtained in partnership with a Chinese firm. The rise of new media - from social media messaging services to streaming television shows - has prompted Chinese censors to introduce new regulations in order for it to police digital and social media as closely as it has traditional media publications. The countrys top internet regulator has repeatedly warned that an untamed cyberspace would pose a risk to domestic security and the government should decide who to allow into its house. China is still focused more on maintaining the social stability and national security interests when it comes to making policies on the internet industry, while caring less about the commercial and individual interests, according to Zhang Zhian, director of the school of communication and design at Sun Yat-sen University. Paul Gillis, a visiting professor at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management who studies Chinese-foreign joint ventures, said China had introduced regulations in recent months that explicitly give authorities censorship powers under the law that they have long had in practice. From a practical standpoint it's not much different, he said. There was tough regulation of anything online before and they shut down anything they thought disrupts social order. But a lot of what might have been common practices before are being put into legislation so China can argue it's operating under the rule of law. Additional reporting from the Associated Press 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 mother and her partner have been arrested in Japan after allegedly forcing her teenage daughter to eat 30 dead, poisoned goldfish. Yuko Ogata and boyfriend Takeshi Egami killed the fish by pouring detergent into the fish tank before forcing Ogatas 16-year-old daughter to eat the dead fish one by one, the Japan Times reported. The alleged abuse took place at the couples home in Fukuoka in south-west Japan in June of last year. Although the unnamed girl did not suffer any damage to her health, the incident has gained media attention due to the sharp rise in child abuse cases in Japan over the last year. The goldfish incident was allegedly part of a pattern of abuse the daughter was subjected to on a daily basis. Last year, the couple reportedly tied her to her bed, punching her in the face and burning her tongue with a lit cigarette. The couple had already been arrested four times since last year for alleged offences such as making the teenager daughter eat ice-cream and eggs until she threw up. While Egami has reportedly refuted the allegations of force-feeding, Ogata has allegedly confessed her daughter was forced to eat the fish. 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 incident follows reports from Japan on Monday that a 23-year-old former nursing home worker had been arrested for reportedly killing three elderly people. He allegedly threw a male and two female residents aged in their 80s and 90s to their deaths in 2014. Government data from Japans health and welfare ministry reveals Child protection centres had to deal with a record 89,000 cases in the year ending March 2015. The figure for incidents of abuse towards the elderly was just over 16,000, a small increase from last year. Tetsuro Tsuzaki, the head of the Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse & Neglect, told The Japan Times that the number of abuse cases in the country was likely to continue increasing". He attributed the record-high figure to the combination of increased poverty, isolation of families and the increasing number of step families. 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 }} Eight years after she was kidnapped and raped by three men, Kainat Soomro is still fighting for the justice she believes she and her family deserve. Ms Soomro was 13 years old when she was attacked by three men on her way to buy a toy for her newborn niece. Although clearly still troubled by the incident, she has taken her sexual abuse case public. For the last eight years she has been going to Pakistan's courts, holding protests, rejecting the rulings of the traditional Jirga council, and taking on the powerful landlord and politician who she says are protecting her attackers. However, Ms Soomros bravery has cost her family dear. In 2010 her brother was killed because she refused to stay silent. As a result of the shame which has apparently been brought upon her family, one of her sisters remains unmarried, and another is divorced because her inlaws did not want to be associated with the girl. Her father, Ghulum Nabi Soomro, said: "They know about our troubles thousands of miles away but here in the next street no-one is helping us get justice." Ms Soomros struggle inspired the award-winning 2014 movie Outlawed in Pakistan, and Pakistani teenage Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousefzai has helped Ms Soomro financially through her fund. But still her attackers walk free. In Pakistan, despite fear preventing many women from reporting sexual violence, the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan recorded 423 rapes and 304 gang rapes last year. Human rights workers say police often refuse to register cases involving attacks against women, and the rich and powerful are practically immune. Needless to say, attackers are rarely jailed, and every day a woman is killed in the name of honour for allegedly bringing shame on the family. In Januray, the national parliament refused to pass laws to ban child marriage, instead giving in to the right-wing Islamic Ideology Council, an advisory group with no legal authority. The Council has also said taking DNA tests to identify suspected rapists is against Islam. Even so, there are small victories in the country. Southern Sindh province passed legislation which aims to protect women and ban underage marriages. However, convincing police to register cases, judges to implement laws and removing authority from hard-line groups like the Islamic Ideology Council is another matter. Mahtab Akbar Rashdi, an MP in Southern Sindh province, said: When you have a law it is like a weapon, when you need it you can use it. She said the national government panders to a narrow and restrictive view of Islam, which mostly targets women. Of the Islamic Ideology Council, she says: It's as if women for them are the biggest problem in Islam. Additional reporting by Associated Press Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight 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 Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} France and Belgium are demanding that David Cameron signs up to a take it or leave clause in Britains renegotiation settlement that would close down the option of a second renegotiation should voters reject the current deal being thrashed out in Brussels. Talks between Mr Cameron and his European counterparts continued long into the early hours, pushing back hopes that a final resolution may come at a Friday morning breakfast. Under plans put forward at a meeting of EU leaders any agreement would contain wording making clear that the deal represented the EUs final offer to Britain and could not be re-opened in the event of a leave vote. Senior British Government sources suggested that such a self destruct clause might be acceptable to Mr Cameron depending on the precise wording. It would allow the Prime Minister to go into the referendum with the clear message that voting to leave would mean just that and not, as some leave campaigners have suggested, the opportunity to get a better deal in the future. The idea is to kill the idea of a second referendum, said one eurozone diplomat involved in talks. The clause would also attempt to deter copycat exception seekers by making clear that other member states could not use Britains deal as a precedent for their own renegotiation demands in the future. Any final deal is not expected to be signed of by the EUs 27 leaders until at least lunchtime, and there are currently a significant number of unresolved issues to be thrashed out. European Council president Donald Tusk has said the summit could be extended until Sunday if an agreement was not reached today. What has the EU ever done for us? Show all 7 1 /7 What has the EU ever done for us? What has the EU ever done for us? 1. It gives you freedom to live, work and retire anywhere in Europe As a member of the EU, UK citizens benefit from freedom of movement across the continent. Considered one of the so-called four pillars of the European Union, this freedom allows all EU citizens to live, work and travel in other member states. What has the EU ever done for us? 2. It sustains millions of jobs A report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, released in October 2015, suggested 3.1 million British jobs were linked to the UKs exports to the EU. What has the EU ever done for us? 3. Your holiday is much easier - and safer Freedom to travel is one of the most exercised benefits of EU membership, with Britons having made 31 million visits to the EU in 2014 alone. But a lot of the benefits of being an EU citizen are either taken for granted or go unnoticed. What has the EU ever done for us? 4. It means you're less likely to get ripped off Consumer protection is a key benefit of the EUs single market, and ensures members of the British public receive equal consumer rights when shopping anywhere in Europe. What has the EU ever done for us? 5. It offers greater protection from terrorists, paedophiles, people traffickers and cyber-crime Another example of a lesser-known advantage of EU membership is the benefit of cross-country coordination and cooperation in the fight against crime. What has the EU ever done for us? 6. Our businesses depend on it According to 71% of all members of the Confederation of British Influence (CBI), and 67 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the EU has had an overall positive impact on their business. What has the EU ever done for us? 7. We have greater influence Robin Niblett, Director of think-tank Chatham House, stated in a report published last year: For a mid-sized country like the UK, which will never again be economically dominant either globally or regionally, and whose diplomatic and military resources are declining in relative terms, being a major player in a strong regional institution can offer a critical lever for international influence. Among them are the plans to limit child benefit payments to the off spring of migrant workers. Mr Cameron wants to impose the restrictions immediately - including for existing migrants - while Eastern European countries are arguing it should be phased in for new workers. British Government sources made clear that this would be unacceptable. If that happened some payments could go on for 16 years, they said. During the discussions, Mr Cameron told fellow EU leaders that he saw the prospect of a deal as an opportunity to settle for a generation Britains place within the EU. Recommended Read more France refuses further negotiations on EU deal He said the agreement would create a fundamentally different type of union where member states would live and let live allowing some to integrate more fully while other countries like Britain had their interests as members of the single market protected. But in an attempt to prevent early drafts of the deal being watered down in the final negotiations Mr Cameron made clear that the agreement had to be credible to the British people. Downing Street is well aware that he needs to come out of the talks without too many further concessions. In particular he wants to secure agreement that key elements of the text will be incorporated into EU treaties when they are next revised. This is being currently opposed by some countries as unnecessary. EU referendum timeline - What happens if Britain gets the deal Arriving head of the talks Mr Cameron said he would not accept a deal at any price. Well weve got some important work to do today and tomorrow and its going to be hard, he said. Ill be battling for Britain, if we can get a good deal Ill take that deal but I will not take a deal that doesnt meet what we need. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she believed a deal was possible as did the French President Francois Hollande. But he added: No country must have a right of veto, no country must exempt itself from the common rules or common authorities. It's the European Union that's at stake, not simply one country of the European Union. Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, said he remained quite confident that a deal would be reached in spite of there being a number of questions still to answer. Dalia Grybauskaite, Lithuanias president, predicted everybody would have [their] own drama - and then we will agree. But Nigel Farage, who spent the afternoon in the European Council building briefing journalists said he expected Mr Cameron to come back with a deal but an inadequate one. He hasn't asked for us to get back supremacy for our Parliament, he hasn't asked for us to control our own borders, he hasn't asked to reduce the vast daily fees we pay. We will be allowed - after he has come here like Oliver Twist and begged for concessions - to control migrant benefits for up to four years. I find the whole thing as a British person pretty shameful. And the worst bit is that whatever he comes back with and tries to sell to the British people is not legally binding. It can be struck down by the European Parliament and ultimately all of it can be ruled out of order by the European Court of Justice. It's rather like him saying to the British people, 'I'd like you to buy this car, but you can't see whether the engine works first'. It just doesn't work. 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 owner of a Michelin-ranked gourmet restaurant has banned bankers after they refused to give him a loan. Alexandre Callet, 30, who runs Les Ecuries de Richelieu in Paris, put up a sign warning: "Dogs welcome, bankers banned (unless they pay an entry fee of 70,000)." Keen to open a second restaurant, Mr Callet asked for a loan of 70,000 (54,000), but numerous banking firms turned down his request. As soon as I see a banker that I recognise I wont let them enter my restaurant," he told The Local. They have treated me like a dog, so I have denied them access. The top 25 best restaurants in the world Show all 25 1 /25 The top 25 best restaurants in the world The top 25 best restaurants in the world 1. Martin Berasategui Lasarte, Spain TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 2. Europea Montreal, Canada TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 3. Maison Lameloise Chagny, France TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 4. Adams Birmingham, United Kingdom TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 5. Restaurant Sat Bains Nottingham, United Kingdom TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 6. Geranium Copenhagen, Denmark TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 7. Pic Valence, France TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 8. Narisawa Minato, Japan TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 9. Le Manoir Aux Quat Saisons Great Milton, United Kingdom TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 10. Epicure Paris, France TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 11. El Celler de Can Roca Girona, Spain TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 12. TRB Beijing, China TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 13. Table 9 Dubai, United Arab Emirates TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 14. HanTing Restaurant The Hague, Netherlands TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 15. Bouley New York, USA The top 25 best restaurants in the world 16. Alinea Chicago, USA TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 17. Restaurant Locavore Ubud, Indonesia TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 18 El Club Allard Madrid, Spain TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 19. The French Cafe Auckland, New Zealand TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 20. Noma Copenhagen, Denmark TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 21. Funky Gourmet Athens, Greece TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 22. The Test Kitchen Woodstock, South Africa TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 23. La Bourgogne Buenos Aires, Argentina TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 24. Vue de Monde Melbourne, Australia TripAdvisor The top 25 best restaurants in the world 25. Borago Santiago, Chile TripAdvisor He said he felt "humiliated" because the loan he asked for was was "nothing" considering his turnover for last year of 300,000. He added: This is not just a kebab shop. My restaurant is in the Michelin guide and film stars come in here. A lot of bankers who turned me down know me. They come in here. This is not the first time the chef has had problems getting a loan. When he tried to open his first restaurant, aged 23, he was turned down over 20 times before one bank agreed to lend him money. Restaurateurs, entrepreneurs, we are all in the same situation. Whenever we want to start a business, we have to get on all fours," he told Le Figaro. I have never had financial problems and yet I find myself in this situation. Bankers are not doing their job." 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 legal bid to overturn a law banning sex with animals has been thrown out by a German court. The case launched by a man and woman - identified only as Mrs S and Mr F - who feel sexually attracted to animals argued that Germanys bestiality laws violate their right to sexual self-determination. But the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany upheld the ban on Thursday saying the protection of the well-being of animals by guarding [them] from unnatural sexual assaults is a legitimate goal. Judges found the law - which prohibits anything which would force an animal into unnatural behaviour - was proportionate and did not violate their right to sexual expression. The law was first passed by the Bundestag - the lower house of the German parliament - in 2012 after it had technically been legal since 1969. It is classes sexual acts with animals as a misdemeanour and can carry a maximum fine of 25,000 (19,440). 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 Bestiality is only legal in a few European states after Sweden and Denmark followed Germany in outlawing the practice in 2013 and 2015. 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 }} The tourism sector has arguably been one of the biggest casualties of the global financial crash; as hotels and resorts struggle to stay afloat and visiting figures have plummeted. But, whilst many businesses are desperately trying to increase visitors, resort towns in Italy are doing the very opposite and are reportedly banning tourists. Cinque Terre is comprised of five brightly coloured and picturesque fishing villages which host some 2.5 million tourists each year. This number is more than the villages can bear and locals fear that their community is being swamped by tourism, The Local reports. The area is known for its beautiful views and coastline (Getty) In a bid to reduce tourism, park authorities are reportedly going to set a fixed maximum number of tourists who will need to purchase a special access card online in advance of their visit. The precise number for the new quota has yet to be decided. Visitors to the national park may also be assigned certain footpaths to walk on, amid fears that walkways are being eroded under heavy footfall. 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 National Park President Vittorio Alessandro told La Repubblica: By this summer we should have all the data we need to tell us how many tourists can walk each footpath each day, according to weather conditions. Mr Alessandro said that locals recognised the decision was an unorthodox one, but insisted it was necessary. He said: It seems like an eccentric idea, especially at a time when everybody else is trying to increase tourism and fill hotel rooms. But as a national park, we should also serve an educational function and we want to reduce tourism numbers to a more sustainable level. It puts security at risk too. We have trains racing past crowded platforms full of stressed passengers and huge queues where pickpocketing is common. 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 senior Belgian nuclear official was secretly monitored by suspects linked to the 13 November Paris attacks, raising fears Isis is trying to obtain radioactive material to make a dirty bomb. In the aftermath of the attacks, which killed 130 people, police in Belgium seized surveillance footage of the high-ranking nuclear official - who has not been identified for security reasons. The scientist could be seen coming and going from his home in the Flanders region during the 10-hour fixed-camera film, La Derniere Heure newspaper reported. The camera was picked up from a bush by two men, who then drove away in a vehicle with the lights off, CCTV from the area later revealed. 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 It was later recovered from the home of Mohamed Bakkali, 26, who was arrested after the attacks and is being detained on charges of terrorist activity and murder. The purpose of the surveillance is not immediately clear. Investigators speculated that the suspects intended to kidnap the official, who had access to secure areas of a nuclear research facility in Mol - potentially to gain access to the facility and acquire enough radioactive material to create a dirty bomb. Interior Minister Jan Jambon told Belgium's Parliament the ministry determined there was a threat "to the person in question, but not the nuclear facilities." He added: "To date, we have no indication that there is a specific threat to the Belgian nuclear sites. The nuclear industry is one of the best protected areas." Last November, "highly dangerous" radioactive material was stolen from a US-owned storage facility in Iraq. Security officials fear it could be used to make a dirty bomb if it fell into the hands of Isis. 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 }} German Chancellor Angela Merkel has pushed EU leaders to keep faith in a 3bn (2.3bn) deal with Turkey aimed at slowing the flow of refugees to Europe, as Austria insisted that it would push ahead with a cap on the number of people it takes in. The refugee plans with Turkey, drawn up at the end of last year, would see Ankara tightening controls to prevent the two million Syrians currently in Turkish refugee camps from heading to Europe. Only parts of the plan have been applied, and its effects have been hard to discern: the number of refugees having crossed the sea in the first six weeks of 2016 has significantly increased compared to the same period last year. Frustrations over an inability to put a plan into effect has led to a number of EU nations beginning to tighten border controls, and Austrias Chancellor Werner Faymann said that his country would push ahead with plans announced this week to let in no more than 3,200 people and cap asylum claims at 80 per day. It is unthinkable for Austria to take on the asylum seekers for the whole of Europe, Mr Faymann said on arriving at a two-day EU leaders summit in Brussels aimed at helping to end Europes fragmented response to the crisis. The plan drew a strong rebuke from the EUs top migration official, Dimitris Avramopoulos, who told Austria that a cap on the number of people who can apply for asylum is unlawful. In a letter to Austrian interior minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner, Mr Avramopoulos wrote: Austria has a legal obligation to accept any asylum application that is made on its territory or at its border. He added that a ceiling on asylum-seekers would be plainly incompatible with Austrias obligations under EU and international law. In response, Mr Faymann said that Legal opinions will be answered by lawyers. Politically I say: well stick to it. Ms Merkel insisted that a deal was the key to resolving the EUs migration crisis. We want to give priority to the implementation of the EU-Turkey migration agenda, including the protection of our external borders, she said when she arrived at the summit. It is good if EU and Turkey share the burden, but we need protection of external borders, we have to find ways to allow legal migration. Mrs Merkel said that if Turkey succeeds in holding back refugees, it would give EU breathing space to set up registration systems and border guards along Greeces long, unprotected coastline, where most of the refugees have been arriving. But she is facing tough resistance from some of the EUs eastern members, who say the EU needs to seal Greeces borders to Macedonia and Bulgaria in April if the Turkey deal fails. EU officials also fear that Austrias restrictions will be copied by the countries on the main Balkan passage into northern Europe: Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia have said they will also set up new roadblocks along the way. Although Ms Merkel says more time is needed for the measures agreed with Turkey to take effect, many officials suspect Ankara of dragging its feet in the hopes of securing more EU funding. The numbers are still too high at this stage, which will have to be improved, said Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Mrs Merkel last week met Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in Ankara and said the only way to end the flood of illegal immigrants was to allow the EU to screen refugees on Turkish soil and bring in legally those who qualify for asylum. More than 76,000 refugees have made the sea crossing from Turkey to the Greek islands so far this year, up from less than 5,000 in the same period in 2015, according to the United Nations refugee agency. 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 }} Refugees and migrants are responsible for a tiny fraction of sex crimes in Germany, a leaked police report has revealed. Anti-immigration campaigners and far-right groups have used the assaults in Cologne and other cities on New Years Eve to claim that the arrival of more than a million asylum seekers in Germany is putting women at risk. But figures from the Bundeskriminalamt (Federal Criminal Police Office) showed under 1 per cent of crimes committed by migrants in 2015 were sexual offences. Cologne victims speak The overwhelming majority of asylum seekers do not commit crimes, a spokesperson said. A detailed report seen by Germanys Bild newspaper listed a total of 1,688 sex crimes committed by asylum seekers, refugees and illegal immigrants in 2015 3.6 per cent of the nationwide total of almost 47,000. Of those, 458 were rapes or sexual assaults. Refugees make up roughly 2 per cent of Germanys population, the The Local reported, meaning the rate of sexual offences is disproportionately high. But the website pointed out that the figure was skewed by the fact the vast majority of sexual offences are committed by men, who also make up the majority of recent migrants arriving in Germany. Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Show all 13 1 /13 Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Women protest against sexism outside Cologne Cathedral on 5 January after the assaults Oliver Berg/EPA Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Women protest against sexism in Cologne following the rash of sex attacks on New Year's Eve Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Police initially failed to mention the assaults in report the following morning EPA Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Police officers patrol in front of the main station of Cologne, Germany AP Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks German far-right supporters demonstrate at Cologne`s train station (Reuters) Reuters Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Supporters of anti-immigration right-wing movement Pegida in Cologne, Germany, January 9, 2016. Reuters Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Police used pepper spray to control supporters of Pegida, Hogesa (Hooligans against Salafists) and other right-wing populist groups as they protested against the New Year's Eve sex attacks on 9 January, 2016 in Cologne, Germany Reuters Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Police use a water cannon during a protest march by supporters of anti-immigration right-wing movement Pegida in Cologne, Germany, January 9, 2016 Reuters Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Police use pepper spray against supporters of anti-immigration right-wing movement Pegida, in Cologne, Germany, January 9, 2016. Reuters Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Artist Mira Moire protests naked in Cologne against the mass sex attacks on New Year's Eve AP Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks A demonstrator holds a sign in German that reads 'No violence against women' during a demonstration in the wake of the sexual assaults on New Year's Eve, outside the cathedeal in Cologne, Germany, 09 January 2016. EPA Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Counter demonstrators hold up a sign reading "Against sexism, against racism" as they protest against a demonstration of the islamophobic movement PEGIDA at the train station in Cologne, Germany, on January 9, 2016. AFP/Getty Images Germany reacts to Cologne New Year's Eve attacks Demonstration by a womens group on Saturday (AP) AP The time period analysed does not include the assaults on New Years Eve, which are the subject of an ongoing investigation. Police have received reports of 433 reports of sexual attacks on that night in Cologne alone. The vast majority of suspects in that case come from Algeria and Morocco and police statistics indicate that North African migrants are more likely to commit crimes than those from Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan, where the majority of refugees arriving in Germany originate. A summary of the Bundeskriminalamts report released to the Independent showed that 82 per cent of offences by immigrants were non-violent, mostly theft, counterfeiting and travelling on public transport without a ticket. In 28 recorded killings, only one of the victims was German and most incidents were between people of the same nationality. People gather in Dresden to protest against a mass rally of the Pegida movement with a placard reading 'Love for all' on February 6, 2016 (TOBIAS SCHWARZ/AFP/Getty Images) The figures showed that while crime rose as a whole in Germany in 2015, the rate did not correspond to the huge number of people arriving and actually slowed after Angela Merkel opened the borders to Syrians in August. Crimes committed against asylum seekers and refugees, however, are at an all-time high. More than 1,000 offences at migrant accommodation were recorded last year, including 177 violent incidents four times the figure in 2014. The Bundeskriminalamt also raised concern about the radicalisation of social discourse between groups supporting and opposing refugees, which have peaked in angry clashes at demonstrations. Thomas de Maiziere, the German interior minister, said extremist groups were manipulating people with rumours and half-truths and that hatred must be fought with facts. The current trend shows that refugees are just as unlikely to commit crimes as comparable groups among the current population, he added. The majority of them don't commit crimes, they are seeking protection and peace in Germany. 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 }} Video has emerged of visibly shaken refugees being shouted at by a mob chanting slogans as they arrive in the German town of Clausnitz, Saxony. The protesters shout "we are the people" and "go home" at the bus of refugees. Women and children can be seen in the bus, with one young boy appearing to weep as he looks out at the crowd. 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 Police in Saxony said on Facebook there had been 30 officers on the scene to keep the two groups apart. "We were able to prevent it coming to physical confrontations or injuries," they wrote, noting 13 possible infractions against the law on free assembly. They added: "The terrible images and video reached us this morning via social media. As the police we have to remain neutral during our deployments. "That is difficult for us in this situation. We are all people in blue uniforms, who feel just the same as you when we watch the video." As the video circulated on social media, many condemned the footage. TV comedian Jan Bohmermann tweeted: "Clausnitz (Saxony) yesterday. The German mob greets those who escaped the jaws of death." Markus Ulbig, the interior minister of Saxony, condemned the blockade, saying: "I find it utterly disgraceful...' Support for refugees in Germany has been fading following the New Year's Eve attacks on women in Cologne, research has shown. 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 }} Viewed from the wrong angle - and there is no right angle - the home of the European Council looks like a Stonehenge for the 1980s. All rising monoliths of pink polished granite, and seven storey sheets of glass where the sky and the fresh air should be. Its appropriate enough. The lasting appeal of Stonehenge is that quite what on earth it was for and whatever anyone actually did there is liable to remain forever a mystery. In any event, then as now, whats happening in Brussels is a searingly well observed satire straight from the days of Middle Earth. The tribes of Europa, the elves and the orcs, the dwarves and the goblins have beaten their swords into lanyards and committed themselves to 24 hours of gravely concerned posturing. Four of them even call themselves the Visegrads. What everyone knows, as the Presidents and Prime Ministers of Europe gather for polite arguments over the smoked salmon is that, in the ever so slightly amended words of Churchill, this is not the end. It is not the beginning of the end. But it is, at last, thank God, fingers crossed, the end of the beginning. The end of The Negotiation and a giant leap, we hope, toward One Referendum To Finally End It All. All at the dinner know very well what is at stake. The time for talking is almost over. Now they must say yes or no or maybe or kind of yes but maybe no to a small range of perpetually amendable proposals universally considered meaningless. But there is position to jostle for, face to save. Belgium wants x but Luxembourg wants y. Poland wants z but only if Lithuania agrees to pi times the radius squared expanding over a period of four years. If the senior management at Mensa International had to get a fox and a chicken over a river, this is what they would come up with - a pseudo-democratic super sudoku. If theyre honest, no one in Brussels really understands the problem, but they all know its name. David Cameron. The suits, the scarves, the shoulderpads and the shimmering hair cuts of the European television press corps stand in long lines in the cold outside, staring down the barrel of a hundred cameras, tensing their eyebrows to maximum sincerity and rhapsodising upon a variation of the same two words. Jhabite a David Cameron. Hay un David Cameron por aqui? Ist David Cameron einen Bahnhof? One aspect of it all is real enough however, and it's cause to be terrified. If they dont reach a deal this time, theyre threatening to come back and do it again in two weeks time. And again in March. This show could run, in the bleak words of our own Prime Minister, For as long it takes. Youd like to think no one wants that, but you get the sense that some of them quite enjoy it. 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 }} All day, the European Unions latest food mountain grew and grew behind the Justus Lipsius building. There was meant to be a British breakfast, a final friendly meal before a historic agreement would be announced. Polish builders would cheerfully accept their child benefit having been slashed. But that was cancelled, so out went the bacon and eggs, the hash browns and the black pudding. British brunch was next to go. Then British lunch, British high tea. There was brief outrage when, according to the official schedule, British lunch formally became British dinner, only for Downing Street to confirm the timing hadnt changed, but that European Commission members did not think a meal at 4pm could still be called lunch. It was then that, with fish and chips, bangers and mash, cucumber sandwiches and scones with clotted cream and jam now clearly visible towering above the glass roof of the conference centre, the assembled heads of state were advised to book hotels for the night. Recommended Read more David Cameron gives Beatrix Potter books to Belgian PM during EU talks Its easy with hindsight, but the mistake had been in not simply calling it the British all-day breakfast. Not only would it have reflected a proud nations thriving cafe culture, but sausages are easy to reheat. As dinner parties go, it was as bad as it could get. Come for a British breakfast, Dave had told them, then 12 hours later there they all were, still being told how much he loathed them, and theyd not even been given a thing to eat. At least the assembled press packs of 28 different nations were being fed the occasional scraps. Not since Hercule Poirot made himself known on the Orient Express has the arrival of a Belgian been greeted with anything approaching the excitement of the Belgian Prime Ministers brief sortie into the media centre. Truly, it was a Barry Gardiner moment. (When the MP for Brent North went for a wee outside Jeremy Corbyns office during the darkest hour of the never-ending reshuffle, it was mere minutes until he was being touted as the next UN Secretary General.) Sky Newss Faisal Islam sprinted vertically up the four-storey walls just for an unobstructed view of Prime Minister Charles Michels bald head as he gravely announced: Le negotiations est ongoing. Farage on EU Lifes easier if you dont cause trouble. The Irish delegation arrived at 10 to four and left 20 minutes later. Why hang around if youve got no one to argue with? Angela Merkel popped out for chips. The careful choreography of these charades was established some years ago. You arrive. Brief that no middle ground can be found. Warn that youre prepared to walk away. Then when the deal miraculously arrives, theres more than enough credit to go around. When it got to 5pm, and David Cameron still wasnt on his way to the Eurostar for a historic Friday cabinet, it was distinctly possible that something that wasnt meant to happen had happened. The Czech delegation claimed to be perplexed by the British approach of non-negotiation quite unorthodox, to say the least. Back in London, Grassroots Out, the Brexit splinter group for the particularly small-minded gentleman, had a party scheduled for 7pm. The renegotiation was meant to have been a confirmed failure by then. If the emerging photographs could be taken as proof, the signs were indeed grave. A silent Cameron/Tusk standoff in front of a bowl of dilly flowers was unnervingly cold. Who knows who had said what, but by then even a late-night pissed British doner followed by the traditional British cab queue punch-up was looking out of the question. 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 Kurdish-led force backed by US-led air strikes has seized an Isis stronghold in northeastern Syria, a monitor has said. The Syrian Democratic Forces were in full control of the town of Al-Shadadi in Hasakeh province on Friday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor told AFP. The announcement follows earlier reports from AFP that Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by international strikes, were just three miles from Al-Shadadi. The advance comes on the third day of a major offensive by the SDF - an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters. The group has reportedly taken a series of villages and also cut two key Isis supply routes in the region, one from Al-Shadadi to Mosul in neighbouring Iraq, and a second from the town to Raqqa, the militant group's unofficial capital in Syria. The Observatory said SDF fighters had also seized the Kibabeh oil field to the northeast of Al-Shadadi, after heavy fighting and multiple air strikes by the US-led coalition fighting Isis. The SDF are also engaged in a major operation in Aleppo province, where they have taken key territory from rebel forces. After taking rebel ground near Aleppo, Syrian government forces backed by Russian air strikes are now poised to advance on Raqqa province. 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 }} Indias Supreme Court (SC) has refused to hear the bail plea of students union leader Kanhaiya Kumar - whose arrest on sedition charges has sparked protests across the country - and has, instead, diverted the case to the Delhi High Court. According to The Indian Express, the SC said on Friday that, if they did hear Mr Kumars bail plea, it would directly open floodgates of such requests in the future as demonstrators on campuses across the nation criticise the Hindu nationalist government for apparently trying to halt free speech. Mr Kumar, president of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Students Union in New Delhi, was arrested and charged after alleged anti-national activity on 12 February after some students held a rally against the 2013 hanging of Mohammed Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri separatist who was convicted over the 2001 Indian Parliament attack. According to local media, the rallys organisers had displayed posters across the university campus inviting students to gather for a protest march against the judicial killing of Afzal Guru and in solidarity with the struggle of Kashmiri migrants. On Friday, though, the SC reportedly agreed Mr Kumars bail hearing may not be possible at the Patiala House court complex - after violence escalated outside the court on Wednesday, in which Mr Kumar was reportedly injured - suggesting he approach the citys High Court instead. In Wednesdays incident, the student leader appeared in the court complex following the end of his police custody where a group of men, apparently dressed in lawyers robes, allegedly led an attack on him as well as on journalists in the waiting crowd. The Indian Express reports how one of the lawyers, Vikram Singh Chauhan, was responsible for leading the attack and apparently used Facebook to gather support prior to the incident taking place. However, Mr Chauhan alleged it was a rival group who began the attack and said: They are trying to beat us up and we dont even respond? reports Firstpost India. A large group of lawyers, though, marched outside the courthouse on Friday in support of Mr Chauhan, and one told local media: We are not goons. We are lawyers. We are protesting against the anti-national activities. The people involved in earlier incidents were not lawyers. The bail petition filed in the Supreme Court by Mr Kumars legal counsel on Thursday sought a fair trial, adding: His lawyers fear the safety of their life and limb and are unable to present his case before the concerned court of law. Academics at universities from across the UK have been signing a solidarity statement in support of Mr Kumar and the protests taking place at JNU. Condemning the illegal ongoing police action, the open letter says: Under Indian law, sedition applies only to words and actions that directly issue a call to violence. The peaceful demonstration and gathering of citizens does not constitute criminal conduct. The police action on JNU campus is illegal under the constitution of India. Mr Kumars bail plea will next be heard in the citys High Court on Monday, according to The Indian Express. 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 student at the University of Florida has released a video - which has since gone viral - in which she claims the students union is biased and singling out other students who are not a part of the US college system of Greek sororities and fraternities. Sabrina Philipp, 21, a final-year political science major, begins by saying she is really afraid to see what will happen as a result of her speaking out in the video, adding she will regret it if she doesnt speak her mind and does her part. Positions of power within student politics, she describes, are being given only to students who are a part of this Greek system. She also adds that without its culture of fear, the system would not survive. The video featured on a Facebook page entitled Not My System which appeared on Monday, claiming to run by an alliance of students that have come together against the current system of oppression within the University of Florida students union, also known as the Student Government (SG). Watch the video: #NotMySystem: The Truth About Student Government at UF Student Government at the University of Florida is run behind closed doors and we want to open them. The System is real. Hear it from someone who was at the top of it. #NotMySystem Posted by Not My System on Sunday, 14 February 2016 The team behind the movement explained how the system at the University of Florida is allegedly composed of three blocs: political bloc, social bloc, and third bloc, adding: Each is led by a bloc leader that represents the interests of various Greek organisations, communicated to them through their house leaders. Through massive Greek mobilisation and voter suppression, the system has been able to control Student Government at the University of Florida for decades. This system is damaging to everyone involved, except for its elite. Students are not given the opportunity to pursue positions based on their merit, but rather must rest on their laurels. Philipp goes on to claim minority students on campus are lumped together into whats called the communities. She adds: Preference for organisation titles and positions is given to Greek students. Anyone with a conscience knows that it is morally wrong to divide people on the basis of race or Greek affiliation. After the student party she was affiliated with, the Swamp Party, lost in the student elections, Philipp said she was given complete control over the new direction the party would take the following day. The party was then rebranded into the Impact Party. No-one who is a part of the system can change it from the inside, she adds, as she also claims she is no longer affiliated with the Impact Party - for which she says she laid the groundwork - because she began to create a coalition of houses to go against the system. Describing it as being the darkest time she had ever had during her time at the university, Philipp says: All of these accusations started coming at me and I realised I needed to get out. I was being bullied, I was being harassed, I no longer felt comfortable, and I was crying all the time. Speaking with the universitys student newspaper, The Independent Florida Alligator, however, the campaign manager for Impact claimed Philipp was not a founder of the party, adding how he was pretty disappointed. The paper goes on to report Philipp said her only aim was to remain non-partisan and to inform students about SG. In an email to the Independent, though, Philipp described how she believes the system-sponsored party rebrands itself every few years to distance themselves from scandal. She continued: When the Swamp Party transformed into the Impact Party after a crushing defeat to a minority party for the first time in ten years, I was given the responsibility to rebrand the party and ensure its success. Members resort to personal character attacks to diminish my credibility because they dont want to confirm the existence of the aystem. The Independent has tried to contact the SG for comment regarding the video and has yet to receive a response. Philipp said the Not My System team has also not yet received a response from administrators within SG, or the Student Activities and Involvement (SAI) office, adding: We have heard back from the university presidents office and expect to meet with him early next week. Previous reports on the running of SG - which documents show it to have an annual budget of almost $21m (14.6m) - have highlighted how former Florida governor and university alumnus, Bob Graham, told The Alligator last year: I never encountered, in state and federal politics, activities as aggressive as at the University of Florida. According to local media, two other non Greek house University of Florida alumni have previously alleged that the system in place favours Greek-house members and has made it difficult for independent students to run respectively. 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 }} It may be better known today than in 1850, when California first joined the US, but much of the Golden State remains untarnished by mass tourism. This is, after all, the second largest of the lower 48, with more than 800 miles of coastline that's rarely less than jaw-dropping and huge swaths of wilderness that have yet to be inhabited. Nothing characterises California like its outdoor diversity: Joshua tree-filled desert, canyons sheering down to the Pacific; redwood and sequoia forests, sparkling lakes, and tectonic plates smashing into each other to create snow-topped mountains one side, parched desert on the other. This is a place where you can surf in the morning, ski in the afternoon, and have farm-to-table food and local wine for dinner. No wonder, after Florida and New York City, it's the most popular US destination for UK travellers. California has its must-dos, of course: pitting SoCal and NorCal (Southern and Northern California) against each other with a drive up the Pacific Coast Highway from LA to San Francisco, sinking 282ft below sea level in Death Valley, and gazing skyward at the vast cliffs of Yosemite. Absorbing Hollywood, hippy and surfer culture is all well and good, too. But just as there's more to LA than the Walk of Fame, the moment you've ticked off the main itineraries is the moment that California truly opens up in all its show-stopping glory. Beyond the big three cities of LA, San Francisco and San Diego lie time capsules: of mid-century architecture (Palm Springs), old-school Hollywood glamour (Catalina Island) and Gold Rush-era towns (Salinas, and even part of Sacramento). You'll find small-town USA in Bakersfield, a Beach Boys vibe in Pismo Beach, and the Summer of Love still going strong in Ojai. San Luis Obispo the midpoint between LA and San Francisco is a lovely, laid back town with a retro drive-in cinema; chi-chi Santa Barbara is a coastal delight. Up north, Sacramento makes a good base for Yosemite and Tahoe its cobbled Old Town area dates back to the Gold Rush. All that coast comes with never-ending beaches, of course so even in the city, it's easy to escape the crowds. While most LA tourists cluster around Santa Monica and Venice, Torrance and Manhattan beaches are rarely busy; Coronado and La Jolla may be San Diego's best known sands, but the strip of seaside towns north of Encinitas are staggeringly gorgeous, and apart from joggers usually empty. There are coves and beaches the whole way up the ever-popular Pacific Coast Highway simply pick the one with the fewest parked cars, and they're all yours. With more national parks than any other state, plus often overlooked state parks, there's plenty of great outdoors to go around. While more than four million visitors see Yosemite each year, only 30,000 get on a boat to the Channel Islands National Park, off Ventura (001 805 658 5730; nps.gov/chis). Camp there overnight, and you'll have even fewer rivals. There are countless fly-drive packages for California, and it's time-effective to fly into one city and out from another LA and San Francisco is the most obvious combination. Frontier America (020 8776 8709; frontier-america.co .uk) has a 14-day fly-drive package, including Heathrow flights into LA and out from San Francisco, plus car hire, from 980pp that allows you to create your own itinerary, but it also specialises in tailor-made trips to secondary cities. For something organised but still off the beaten path, Bon Voyage (0800 316 3012; bon-voyage.co.uk) has an intriguing Northern California itinerary, looping up and inland from San Francisco; the 1,825 price includes flights from Heathrow to San Francisco, 15 days' car hire and hotel accommodation. Alternative living Even before it became the centre of the hippy movement, California was into all things alternative. At Big Sur's Esalen Institute (001 703 342 0500; esalen.org), you can still bathe naked, of course in communal, cliff-side baths filled by hot springs, and attend workshops on everything from Alchemical Healing to shamanic cosmology. At the Integratron (001 760 364 3126; integratron.com), in the desert near Joshua Tree, try a sound bath in a domed wooden chamber that was built over a vortex in the 1950s, partly, so the story goes, on the orders of aliens (from $25/18 for an hour). Ojai, also said to sit on a vortex, is an entire town that's been colonised by New Agers, with energy readings and full-moon yoga sessions as regular as coffee breaks. Too much too soon? Dip a toe in at Malibu Beach Yoga (malibubeachyoga.com), where the likes of Demi Moore and Gerard Butler practise yogic sleep and meditation under a Pacific-facing mural of the god Ganesh. Classes $18 (13). Parks and recreation Many popular national parks have lesser-known state parks and reserves nearby: the Mojave National Preserve (001 760 252 6100; nps.gov/moja) between Joshua Tree and Death Valley, for example, or Prairie Creek State Park (001 707 488 2039; bit.ly/PrairieCreek), just north of Redwoods. Bigger isn't necessarily always better; although Big Basin is a big draw for giant redwood-seeking tourists, nearby Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park (001 831 335 4598; bit.ly/HenryCowell) is a simpler day-trip from San Francisco, with an easily accessed grove of millennia-old trees beside a peaceful river. Point Reyes National Seashore (001 415 464 5100; nps.gov/pore) is NorCal personified: its wild headlands are a magnet for flora and fauna, including grey whales which migrate here en route to Mexico each winter. Even the lunar landscape of Joshua Tree National Park (001 760 367 5500; nps.gov/jotr) is often overlooked go in midweek to have it to yourself. Road-tripping The Pacific Coast Highway is legendary, but there's more to California road-tripping than the ocean. The scenic route from Twentynine Palms to the Nevada border (or Baker, if your next stop is Death Valley) takes you straight through the forbidding Mojave Desert past prehistoric lava flows, the 700ft Kelso sand dunes and veritable forests of Joshua trees. In the north of the state, above Orick where Highway 101 is dubbed the Redwood Highway veer off on to the Newton B Drury Scenic Parkway for a 10-mile detour through the densely wooded Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. These gentle giants and the wild elk that graze among them are likely to be all yours. To reach Big Sur without bumper-to-bumper traffic, take the inland route via Jolon. You'll drive through an oak-filled valley now a military base, but once the estate of William Randolph Hearst past the 18th-century Mission San Antonio de Padua (missionsanantonio.net), across the Santa Lucia mountains and down to the Pacific. Alternatively, take the train unlike the LA and San Diego legs, the Santa Barbara to San Luis Obispo stretch hugs the coastline almost the entire way. Secret beaches Some of SoCal's most beautiful beaches lie north of San Diego, between Solana Beach and Carlsbad, where small towns perch on low cliffs above a strip of postcard-perfect sand. Just below Solana is the 2,000-acre Torrey Pines State Reserve (torreypine.org), whose wide arc of beach is topped by crumbling sandstone cliffs, with walking trails carved out along the top the views are spectacular. Midway between LA and San Francisco is Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area (001 805 773 7170; bit.ly/OceanoCali), where you can drive along a 5.5-mile stretch of beach, or park up and watch the waves crash in. North of San Francisco, Alamere Falls is a truly secret beach you'll have a four-mile hike across the Marin County headland, through forests and past two small lakes, before reaching the beach, where a 40ft waterfall plummets into the waves. Or head inland most people take the scenic drive around Emerald Bay, on the western side of Lake Tahoe; but a mile's walk from the car park, through dense forest, is a pristine beach with shallow waters that make it ideal for families. Getting there Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego all have direct flights from the UK. LA is served from Heathrow by Air New Zealand (0800 028 4149; airnewzealand.co.uk); Virgin Atlantic (0344 209 7777; virgin-atlantic.com); British Airways (0844 493 0787; ba.com); United (0845 607 6760; united.com); American Airlines (020 7660 2300; aa.com) and Delta (020 7660 0767; delta.com). Norwegian (0330 828 0854; norwegian.com) flies twice a week from Gatwick. Thomas Cook (01733 224808; thomascook.com) flies from Birmingham, and starts Manchester flights in May. British Airways flies to San Diego from Heathrow, while San Francisco is served from Heathrow by BA, Virgin Atlantic and United. Norwegian launches flights from Gatwick to neighbouring Oakland on 12 May. Getting around A car is essential for exploring California beyond the cities, especially for getting off the beaten path or for visiting national parks. For longer distances, there are plenty of flights between major and lesser cities; airlines include JetBlue (001 800 538 2583; jetblue.com), Southwest (001 800 435 9792; southwest.com) and Alaska Airlines (001 800 252 7522; alaskaair.com). Greyhound buses (001 214 849 8100; greyhound.com) serve most cities, and Amtrak trains (001 800 872 7245; amtrak.com) can be a good option, too: the two scenic routes operate along the coast, the Pacific Surfliner running from San Diego to San Luis Obispo and the Coast Starlight from LA to Seattle. Secret California Show all 5 1 /5 Secret California Secret California Mojave National Preserve: Joshua Tree Getty Secret California Big Sur's Esalen Institute Secret California The Pacific Coast Highway Visit California Secret California San Diego's Crystal Pier Hotel Secret California Where to stay There's no need for cookie-cutter chain hotels here. At San Diego's Crystal Pier Hotel (001 800 748 5894; crystalpier.com), shack up in 1930s cottages lining Pacific Beach's pier. And in Long Beach, stay on the Queen Mary (001 877 342 0742; queenmary.com), the former Cunard ocean liner, now converted into a port-docked hotel. Most people drive through remote Big Sur, but it has extraordinary places to stay, including Treebones (001 805 927 2390; treebonesresort.com), whose yurts, tents and treehouse teeter atop the cliff side. A Route 66 icon is San Bernadino's Wigwam Motel (001 909 875 3005; wigwammotel.com) a collection of 30ft high tepee-shaped bungalows. For Sixties kitsch (think themed rooms and a pink-heavy palette), you can't do better than San Luis Obispo's outre Madonna Inn (001 805 543 3000; madonnainn.com). With just six rooms set on a 2,000-acre cliff-edge cattle ranch, the Inn at Newport Ranch (001 707 962 4818; theinnatnewportranch.com) has brought luxury accommodation to the far north coast doubles start from $250 (167), room only. Meanwhile, LA's iconic Moroccan-inspired Hotel Figueroa (001 213 627 8971; hotelfigueroa.com) will reopen this summer after a renovation, and Sinatra's Cal Neva Resort & Casino (calnevaresort.com), straddling the Cali-Nevada border, will reopen on 26 May with an infinity pool overlooking Lake Tahoe. 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 }} City view Unseen City is the title of a major photographic exhibition at the City of London's Guildhall Art Gallery. It promises pomp, ceremony and unguarded moments from the City's own photographer in residence, Martin Parr. It runs 4 March to 31 July, free entry. bit.ly/CityPix Spain gain The weird and wonderful uses for Heathrow slots by the IAG airline family is continuing with Iberia Express launching a link to Asturias on 24 April. The thrice-weekly flight will serve the cities of Oviedo and Gijon, as well as the Picos de Europa range (pictured). It is in competition against easyJet from Stansted. iberia.com Recommended Read more How to keep track of your luggage Station stop Queen Street High Level station in Glasgow, which serves Edinburgh, Stirling, Perth and the Highlands, is to close for 20 weeks from 20 March for upgrading. Services will be diverted to the Low Level station or to Glasgow Central, but journey times will be extended. It reopens on 8 August. scotrail.co.uk Bag it up You won't have trouble spotting your luggage with the new additions to American Tourister's Bon Air range. Three eye-catching colours have been introduced: Deep Turquoise, Pop Green and Bright Coral. The cases are four-wheeled, made from lightweight polypropylene, and come in three sizes, including a cabin model. From 89. americantourister.co.uk New Greece route for easyJet (AFP/Getty) Isle be there easyJet is launching a new route between Stansted and Zakynthos, the third largest of Greece's Ionian islands, from 28 May. The route will operate on Saturdays throughout the summer, with fares currently on sale for around 70 one-way in mid-June. easyJet.com Money talk Sterling is continuing to slide against many currencies in popular holiday destinations, including the eurozone and Croatia, the Post Office has reported (euros are currently selling for around 1.24 to the pound, compared to a high of 1.4 last year). However, sterling remains strong in South Africa, Mexico, Malaysia and Thailand. postoffice.co.uk/travel Travel Photo of the Year: The winning entries Show all 8 1 /8 Travel Photo of the Year: The winning entries Travel Photo of the Year: The winning entries Winners: Landscape category - Jurassic Coast (Dorset, UK) by Tony Cowburn Tony Cowburn Travel Photo of the Year: The winning entries Winner: Icon category - Tiger's Nest (Paro Valley, Bhutan) by Kasia Nowak Kasia Nowak Travel Photo of the Year: The winning entries Winner: People category - Reflections (S-21 Prison, Phnom Penh, Cambodia) by Charlotte Currie Charlotte Currie Travel Photo of the Year: The winning entries Winner: Wildlife category - Escape! (Tanzania) by Vittorio Ricci Travel Photo of the Year: The winning entries Runners-up: Icon - Snow Time (Westminster Bridge, London) by Ron Tear Ron Tear Travel Photo of the Year: The winning entries Runner-up: Wildlife - Momentary (Bucks, UK) by Porsupah Ree Porsupah Ree Travel Photo of the Year: The winning entries Runner-up: Landscape - Polar Bear Landscape (Wrangel Island, Russia) by Gunther Riehle Travel Photo of the Year: The winning entries Runner-up: People - Let Sleeping Sikhs Lie (Amritsar, India) by Allan Dransfield Allan Dransfield Pet project The new, third edition of Sawday's Dog-friendly Breaks in Britain features hundreds of hotels, B&Bs, self-catering lets and pubs that welcome canine guests. There is also a section on dog-friendly beaches, as well as details of treats laid on, from biscuits to toys and towels. 11.99. sawdays.co.uk Shades of Gray Montreal will welcome a new hotel, the William Gray, in its historic centre this summer. Close to the Old Port, it will have 127 rooms, a 180-seat restaurant, rooftop terrace, spa, outdoor pool, shop and cafe. All that will be housed inside two restored 18th- and 19th-century buildings, which have been enhanced with modern glass additions. hotelwilliamgray.com 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 }} Holiday prices to Spain are soaring as travellers switch to the reserve currency of tourism: the Spanish Costas, long seen as a safe bet. Fares for directly comparable flights are up to 80 per cent higher to Spain than to Turkey, according to research by The Independent. Bookings to Turkey by British holidaymakers are down by nearly half following a series of terrorist attacks, while Egypts main resort airport and the whole of Tunisia are still on the Foreign Office no-go list. Recommended Read more Spain rescues Tui Travel as Turkish holidays slump Antalya in Turkey and the main airport on the Spanish island of Tenerife are the same distance from Gatwick just over 1,800 miles. Yet the Thomas Cook Airlines fare to the Canaries for the first full week of the school summer holiday is 79 per cent higher than to Turkeys Turquoise Coast. From Manchester, fares to Las Palmas are 23 per cent higher than to Dalaman, an identical distance. Thomas Cook this week revealed that it has switched 400,000 seats this summer from Turkey to Spain, with the same number again held in reserve to see where demand for late bookings is strongest. Thomson, the UKs biggest tour operator, has also sharply increased capacity into Spain. Holiday price comparison From Gatwick Thomas Cook Airlines flight only Antalya, Turkey: 200 Tenerife, Spain: 358 Spanish premium: 79 per cent From Birmingham Thomson flights plus hotel stay Marmaris, Turkey: 579 Menorca. Spain: 758 Spanish premium: 31 per cent From Manchester Jet2 flight only Dalaman, Turkey: 371 Las Palmas, Spain: 457 Spanish premium: 23 per cent Hotel rates Melia all-inclusive Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt: 872 Benidorm, Spain: 1,043 Spanish premium: 20 per cent The cheapest Thomson package holiday from Birmingham to a Small and Friendly hotel in Spain for a peak summer week costs 758. That is 31 per cent more than the cheapest equivalent in Turkey even though the Spanish holiday is in Menorca, a far shorter flight. Pippa Jacks, editor of Travel Trade Gazette, said: Those prices are only going to go up as we get nearer to summer, not down. Tunisia is off-limits for the summer following two massacres of tourists last year, including one in which 33 Tui customers were killed in the resort of Sousse. UK airlines are still banned from flying to Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt, with no sign of when security standards at the airport will be given the all-clear. In absolute numbers, though, Turkey is the hardest hit. Terrorist attacks in the country are occurring more frequently; last month 10 tourists were killed by a suicide bombing in the heart of Istanbul, while at least 28 people died in an attack in the capital, Ankara, this week. Thomas Cook has switched 400,000 of this summer's seats from Turkey to Spain - and could increase capacity further (Getty) A London tour operator specialising in Turkey, Elixir Holidays, went bust this week. Another travel firm, Mark Warner, has cancelled its entire Turkish programme for 2016, saying: We have enjoyed a long and happy history of offering holidays to Turkey and hope to return in the future. Travel Photo of the Year: The winning entries Show all 8 1 /8 Travel Photo of the Year: The winning entries Travel Photo of the Year: The winning entries Winners: Landscape category - Jurassic Coast (Dorset, UK) by Tony Cowburn Tony Cowburn Travel Photo of the Year: The winning entries Winner: Icon category - Tiger's Nest (Paro Valley, Bhutan) by Kasia Nowak Kasia Nowak Travel Photo of the Year: The winning entries Winner: People category - Reflections (S-21 Prison, Phnom Penh, Cambodia) by Charlotte Currie Charlotte Currie Travel Photo of the Year: The winning entries Winner: Wildlife category - Escape! (Tanzania) by Vittorio Ricci Travel Photo of the Year: The winning entries Runners-up: Icon - Snow Time (Westminster Bridge, London) by Ron Tear Ron Tear Travel Photo of the Year: The winning entries Runner-up: Wildlife - Momentary (Bucks, UK) by Porsupah Ree Porsupah Ree Travel Photo of the Year: The winning entries Runner-up: Landscape - Polar Bear Landscape (Wrangel Island, Russia) by Gunther Riehle Travel Photo of the Year: The winning entries Runner-up: People - Let Sleeping Sikhs Lie (Amritsar, India) by Allan Dransfield Allan Dransfield With fears about the Zika virus affecting demand for destinations such as the Cape Verde Islands, the Caribbean and Mexico, Spain is expecting a record summer. With demand so strong, room rates are rising. The Melia chain is charging 20 per cent more for an all-inclusive week at its Benidorm property than for its Sharm-el-Sheikh hotel. A spokesperson for Abta, the travel association said: Spanish hoteliers have always taken a sensible approach to pricing taking a long, rather than a short-term view. However, realistically such significant increases in demand are bound to put pressure on their natural instinct to keep prices down. Cruise prices in Europe, though, are falling, due to weaker demand from across the Atlantic. Ms Jacks said: American cruise lines in the Mediterranean are seeing their US customers avoid the whole region because of generalised security concerns. The cruise lines expect to have extra capacity left to shift in the Med this summer which should mean attractive prices for British cruisers. 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 }} President Barack Obamas historic visit to Cuba, announced on Thursday, puts the seal on a politics of sober, sustained and intelligent engagement which has done much to redeem the reputation of the US abroad a reputation so sullied by the ill-conceived military adventures of the George W Bush years. Repeatedly Mr Obama has had the courage to set aside historical resentments and ideological hang-ups, to think the unthinkable, and redraw the diplomatic map not by brute force but sensible calculation. Last April, as the prospect of a nuclear deal with Iran drew closer, he spelled out the thinking behind his opening to Cuba. For us to test the possibility that engagement [with Cuba] leads to a better outcome for the Cuban people there arent that many risks for us, he pointed out. Its a tiny little country. Its not one that threatens our core security interests, and so [theres no reason not] to test the proposition. Recommended Read more Barack Obama to make official visit to Cuba Similar thinking, with a relaxed attitude towards the predictable rage of American and Israeli hawks, underpinned his courageous and successful pursuit of rapprochement with Iran. Likewise, his willingness to engage with Burmas generals led directly to the reforms that culminated in Novembers general election and the landslide victory of the National League for Democracy. All these policies have their downsides. Burmas generals still hold most of the cards, despite the election. Irans return to the international community is likely to spur the adventurism of its militias. And historians will long debate the role of Americas withdrawal from Iraq in spurring the growth of Isis. But if US foreign policy is the diplomatic equivalent of a super-tanker, Mr Obama has succeeded in turning it around. It is no mean achievement. 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 }} Portcullis House, the ancillary block opposite Big Ben,* is ugly enough, but look at what we were saved from. This, from the Ian Visits blog, would have been an offence against the senses, looking like a brutalist multistorey car park, with "floor plans stacked in layers and interpenetrated". It came joint third in a competition to design a replacement for the block known as Bridge Street, Palace Chambers and St Stephen's House in 1972. Previously from Ian Visits, the plans for a Georgian Palace of Westminster. *Yes I know that's the bell. But who actually calls it Elizabeth Tower? "For the first time in British history, the prime minister will be chosen not at a general election or by Members of Parliament, but by party activists." Good point by Stephen Bush about the forthcoming Conservative leadership election. George Osborne is still the favourite at the bookies, ahead of Boris Johnson. From the start, Amol Rajan says he knew hed be the Independents last print editor. He did great things as editor, not least deciding that we should call it Bombay not Mumbai. I am looking forward to being Chief Political Commentator for the digital-only Independent. Slubberdegullion is one of Top 10 historical insults from Oxford Words blog. While we wait for news from Brussels, another plug for my article for Politico on how, deal or no deal, win or lose the referendum, David Cameron is in trouble. The Europe question is going to divide his party as deeply as Iraq divided Blair's Labour (half of his backbenchers voted against in a whipped vote). And finally, thanks to Internet Hippo for this: ANCIENT ROMANS: We must appease the gods with a sacrifice. GODS: Honestly we were furious, but now that youve murdered that goat were cool. Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UK Sign up to our Brexit email for the latest insight 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 Brexit and beyond email {{ #verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ ^verifyErrors }}Something went wrong. Please try again later{{ /verifyErrors }} Theresa May could be David Camerons secret weapon if the Prime Minister struggles to convince the electorate of the merits of remaining in the European Union. Behind the scenes, the Home Secretary has played a quiet but crucial role in wringing concessions from other EU leaders on the issues that have most preoccupied her in her six years in the job. The role she takes in a referendum campaign will carry weight and credibility because of her instinctive scepticism about matters European: she has even previously floated the idea of Britain leaving the European Convention on Human Rights. After a survey in November suggesting she would be the public choice to lead the Brexit campaign, May refused in an interview to be drawn on the subject, prompting speculation she was edging towards the Outers. In fact, she was already leaning the other way, convinced that national security is bolstered when countries team up to combat cross-border terrorism and organised crime. That instinct had been underlined when she infuriated Eurosceptics by pushing through moves to opt back in to the European Arrest Warrant and 34 other EU-wide justice measures. Days after the interview, terrorists killed 130 people in co-ordinated gun and bomb attacks across Paris. In response, the European Commission set out moves, strongly supported by May, to tighten controls on the sale and registration of firearms and agreed a deal on sharing air passenger records. According to allies, the argument that EU membership strengthens national security has outweighed other factors, such as her disquiet over the blocs freedom of movement rules, although she is also worried by the potential economic impact of a Brexit. The European Council President, Donald Tusk, has been sensitive enough to the nuances of British politics to be aware of the importance of swinging May behind any agreement. That became clear when the Home Secretary insisted any deal contained measures cracking down on sham marriages designed to give non-EU nationals access to the bloc. She had already raised the subject with her German opposite number, Thomas de Maiziere, and at meetings with Polish and French interior ministers. The issue emerged as a stumbling block in Downing Street talks, and the next day Home Office officials rushed to Brussels to try to resolve the differences. As they wrangled, Tusks negotiators kept asking the British team: Will this be enough for Theresa May? Although the number of sham marriages is quite low, closing the loophole established the principle of states being able to override rulings of the European Court of Justice they regard as perverse. May also believes the move, plus curbs on in-work benefits for EU workers, will reduce the pull factor to Britain. After the sham marriage agreement, Tusk published his reform blueprint for Britain and May signalled she was likely to campaign for the UK to stay in the EU, saying: More work needs to be done, but this is a basis for a deal. And this week she warned in Washington that jihadists targeting Britain could not be defeated by acting in isolation. If Cameron can announce in Brussels today that he has struck the deal he wants, the Home Secretarys hints will become a clear declaration of her intention to support the Remain campaign. 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 }} Oh I dont know what to do. On the one hand, if we vote to stay in well get David Cameron waving and smiling and looking triumphant, and doing anything to make that happen will make your soul go dark yellow and spew up green sticky liquid. But if we vote to leave, that would please Farage, and pleasing Farage must surely be illegal if weve made any progress at all since the thirteenth century. Its like watching Manchester United play Chelsea, you spend the whole time thinking of a way that both sides can lose. Half the country seems to be this confused, changing their mind depending on who they last saw talking about it, going Ugh, Blair wants to stay in, Im voting out, but ugh, Duncan-Smith wants to come out, Im voting in. The best strategy for either side would be to get their most prominent supporters together, then all go and live in Nigeria until its over and win by a landslide. Instead, the debate is about which side will manage to be more horrible to immigrants. So the Prime Minister makes statements such as Due to the success of these talks, Romanians living in Britain will no longer be allowed in a Post Office until theyve been working here for nine years. What has the EU ever done for us? Show all 7 1 /7 What has the EU ever done for us? What has the EU ever done for us? 1. It gives you freedom to live, work and retire anywhere in Europe As a member of the EU, UK citizens benefit from freedom of movement across the continent. Considered one of the so-called four pillars of the European Union, this freedom allows all EU citizens to live, work and travel in other member states. What has the EU ever done for us? 2. It sustains millions of jobs A report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, released in October 2015, suggested 3.1 million British jobs were linked to the UKs exports to the EU. What has the EU ever done for us? 3. Your holiday is much easier - and safer Freedom to travel is one of the most exercised benefits of EU membership, with Britons having made 31 million visits to the EU in 2014 alone. But a lot of the benefits of being an EU citizen are either taken for granted or go unnoticed. What has the EU ever done for us? 4. It means you're less likely to get ripped off Consumer protection is a key benefit of the EUs single market, and ensures members of the British public receive equal consumer rights when shopping anywhere in Europe. What has the EU ever done for us? 5. It offers greater protection from terrorists, paedophiles, people traffickers and cyber-crime Another example of a lesser-known advantage of EU membership is the benefit of cross-country coordination and cooperation in the fight against crime. What has the EU ever done for us? 6. Our businesses depend on it According to 71% of all members of the Confederation of British Influence (CBI), and 67 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the EU has had an overall positive impact on their business. What has the EU ever done for us? 7. We have greater influence Robin Niblett, Director of think-tank Chatham House, stated in a report published last year: For a mid-sized country like the UK, which will never again be economically dominant either globally or regionally, and whose diplomatic and military resources are declining in relative terms, being a major player in a strong regional institution can offer a critical lever for international influence. But Farage replies What the British people want to know is when are Bulgarians going to be stopped from using our pavements? These are paid for by the British taxpayer, and if they cant be bothered to hover, frankly they can go back home. George Osborne will retort that only if we remain within Europe can we complete a pan-European plan to build a giant electric fire and drop it in the Adriatic Sea so any Syrian falling in gets instantly electrocuted. Then the Vote to Leave Campaign will explain that once were out of the EU, Poles will still be allowed to work on building sites but no longer be allowed sharp objects so they have to drill holes using a balloon, and theyll have to commute every morning from Poland and go back to Cracow when they need the toilet. Our cisterns simply cant take the strain of flushing away anymore Polish turds, hell shriek at a rally, and everyone will cheer and wave a Union Jack. The proudest moment for David Cameron has been cutting child benefits for immigrants. What an advert for humanity, that one side says Through determination to stick up for Britain, we have secured the right to be utterly mean bastards. Indeed we are now proposing a Europe-wide Total Bastard Treaty in which all member states unite in an unprecedented pledge to reject any act of even the mildest fake kindness. But their opponents rage that none of that will prevent sixty billion Bulgarians coming to live in Ipswich, each of them entitled to bring a Balkan mountain which will completely transform the topography of Suffolk. So the negotiations appear to have been pointless, as the arguments will be exactly the same whatever is agreed. Camerons campaign will try to scare people as they did in Scotland, by informing us that if we leave the EU our fruit will explode and our cats will turn inside-out. Then the Out campaign will respond with a front page in the Daily Express saying "Now the French are insisting on European standard sizes for breasts, based on those tiny useless petite Gallic ones they all like, outlawing the huge British breasts we prefer because we won the war and didnt roll over when Hitler came round". After a worrying opinion poll, Cameron will announce sternly the Institute for Money and Spending has predicted if we leave, by 2018 everyone in Britain will be a cannibal. Then UKIP will tell us the barmy bureaucrats of Brussels will destroy our agriculture by classifying the cow as a type of herring and making our farmers throw their cattle in the Atlantic. The European Union does appear to be a corrupt undemocratic institution, with rules against nationalising too many services, and rules against electing the wrong kind of government, as illustrated when they demanded the Greek government followed the policies of the bankers, rather than take notice of the interfering population who voted for them. But our governments only complaint against this has been that the EU suggested too many controls on how much our bankers were paid in bonuses. What an outrage, dictating to us that our bankers cant rob how much they like off us. Next theyll be insisting our burglars should have to leave a couple of items of furniture when they ransack our house. Thats Europe for you, meddling with our historic right to be fleeced by the banks. So the referendum wont solve any of this. If we vote to leave, UKIP wont be satisfied. Within a year theyll be screaming Why should we be part of Earth? This country is being held back by having to travel on the same orbit as poor places like Mexico, and why should we have the same gravity as Morocco? And if we vote to stay in, it will become clear these negotiations have been a contrived exercise to make Cameron look powerful. All the leaders wander into a room looking serious, then probably play games on their mobiles for seven hours, before emerging to say Its been a tough night but weve finally come to an agreement that everything will be done differently, even in a different font. The Hungarians took a lot of persuading but we hope that settles everything. It would serve them right on all sides if we voted to leave the EU and become a province of Peru. 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 }} Soon, it will no longer be possible for local councils to boycott goods sold by Israeli companies operating in the Occupied Territories. The Government has decided that boycotts of Israeli products threaten community cohesion and undermine international security. It is a lily-livered, misguided policy one that undermines the supposed agenda of local democracy, and demonstrates an unbecoming and counterproductive streak of censorship. The Independent has published a letter from a mixed coalition of objectors. Let us outline our own reasoning. The Government is not wrong to be concerned about rising levels of anti-Semitism in the UK. And though it was a seedy exaggeration for ministers to claim that militant left-wing councils spurred on by the Labour leadership are pursuing dangerously divisive (and by implication anti-Semitic) policies, it would be equally wrong to deny that a proportion of the pro-Palestinian left still harbours appalling attitudes towards Jewish people. Among all supporters of the Palestinian cause, it is beyond time to move from statements of zero tolerance to actively highlighting and expelling anti-Semites: Jeremy Corbyn does indeed have work to do in this regard. A broad church approach is worth nothing if one corner is filled with Holocaust-deniers and hate-mongers. Yet, for its part, the Government perniciously conflates all forms of anti-Israel protest. Distinctions are vital to maintain. This newspaper opposes all academic boycotts of Israel: such projects shut down debate and foster intolerance. They also fall into the same trap as the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, in its more juvenile forms, in failing to distinguish between the legitimate state of Israel and its illegal activities in the Occupied Territories. All protesting energies should be directed here, to use what leverage the international community has to discourage the building and maintenance of settlements on Palestinian land, as well as the cavalcade of abuses that occur on the other side of the Green Line. This is the form of protest that local councils had chosen to pursue. In 2014, Leicester City Council passed a boycott of all goods produced in illegal settlements in the West Bank. Many others apply pressure with the same kind of needle. These are not the actions of militant organisations: in fact, they match the attitude of the European Union, which similarly targets its protests and, following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus dismissal of the two-state solution last year, toughened its line, requiring goods produced in settlements to be labelled as such. It is worth noting that a provision passed by Congress last year requires the US trade representative to discourage European nations from boycotting Israel or persons doing business in Israeli-controlled territory, as part of EU-US free-trade negotiations. The British Governments boycott ban could thus be understood as an attempt to keep the flames of the special relationship burning, besides winning favour with the Netanyahu government. (The policy was announced, unsurprisingly, on a trade visit to Israel.) Whether US pressure had any bearing on the decision or not, it represents a craven betrayal of the Palestinian people. Silencing legitimate protest at illegitimate government actions marks a low ebb for British foreign policy, in so far as it is claimed to be morally upstanding. Boycotts helped to mobilise opinion against the apartheid regime of South Africa. They have a proud history. Local councils should be allowed to apply them against companies working in the Occupied Territories. The simplest thing the Israeli government could do to discourage boycotts would be to grant Palestinians the liberation and sovereignty they deserve. 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 been a strange week for Donald Trump. After Pope Francis referenced his plan for a Mexican wall while stating that a person who thinks only about building walls is not Christian, hes had to do some careful praising. Many will be wondering what Christians like me think of the Pope-Trump controversy. The irony of the Pope's implied claim that Trump isn't a Christian is that half of Protestant America will doubt whether the Pope is a Christian. It depends on how you define what a Christian is. For some people, Christian means 'being nice'. On that definition, Trump wouldn't be called a Christian in most people's eyes, it's true. And I think the Pope has a point. "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian... this man is not a Christian if he has said things like that." (Though, the Pope was careful to add that he didn't hear what Trump said so would give him the 'benefit of the doubt'). Certainly, if you're following Jesus' commands to be a peacemaker, to love your enemies, and so on, it seems that Trump's proposed Mexican wall would be in stark contrast to that. However, it takes more than 'being nice' to be a Christian. For a start, nice isn't necessarily loving a person - sometimes the most loving thing to do is to not be 'nice'. Plus Jesus gave a lot of difficult commands to his followers that go beyond 'nice'. Loving our enemies, giving all our possessions to the poor, never looking at someone with lust. So was he starting a religion that would be impossible to follow? I don't think the point is the degree to which you can claim to follow all of Jesus' commands (good luck with that). To be a Christian, you need to 'repent and believe', and then some of those impossible commands become a little bit more possible through our relationship with God. That is the experience of many Christians I know - even some who were crack addicts or violent criminals. A Christian isn't someone who's perfect, but it is someone who wants to change and seeks God for help. On this basis, however, there's room to question Donald Trump's claim to have a 'great relationship with God'. He implied that he doesn't need to ask for forgiveness, then said: "I like to be good, I don't like to ask for forgiveness. I don't do a lot of things that are bad. I try to do nothing that is bad" and more recently, in response to Pope Francis' comments, "I am a very good Christian." Now, to anyone who isn't a Trump supporter, his belief that he doesn't do bad things would seem quite delusional, as many people view the guy as racist, xenophobic and even dangerous. But as a Christian it's even more incredible. Jesus said to be perfect was to never get [unjustifiably] angry, critical, judgemental, lustful - to perfectly love everybody all the time. To be a Christian is to recognise that you're not a 'good person' as Jesus defines it, and that therefore you need forgiveness. A Christian's self-esteem shouldn't come from thinking we're 'good' and don't need to ask for forgiveness. It's from knowing we're loved. And when we realise the depth of God's love for us, despite all the wrong and unloving things we've done in the past, then this begins to change us and gives us more love for other people for the future. I don't know the heart of Donald Trump, and neither does the Pope. I don't know where he stands with God or what his real thoughts and feelings are. But I don't think a person can have a 'great relationship with God' and at the same time think that he doesn't do anything bad. Even a nun giving her life to helping people in the slums will recognise her flaws and failures before God. It's the realisation that God loves us more than we can imagine, despite our failures, that is the 'good news' of the Gospel. So I'd immediately question anyone who says, "I'm a Christian because I'm a good person. But ultimately, the only person who knows who the real Christians are is God. 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 }} So what will we all call it, then? An oblong? A slab? A brick? It certainly cant be called a croissant, because it isnt. Yet since Tescos straight croissant still uses flaky, buttery puff pastry, perhaps one should maintain a gesture of its original patisserie-based provenance in its name. Tout droit, as some wag on Twitter suggested. How about brick in French? Brique. As in Madame, deux briques avec confiture, et deux grands cremes ce matin, sil vous plait? Doesnt really do it for me. Frankly, why bother to grace it with the French language at all? As Tesco is to dispense wholly with the croissants peerless and eponymous shape, why bother having anything with even the slightest reference to its name, so redolent as it is of fragrant and hedonistic moments at a cafe somewhere in lHexagone? Lets just call a slab a slab, and abandon all efforts to remain elegant and graceful. Because elegant and graceful is what a proper croissant is. The notion that it ought to be turned into some hideous rectangle because that way, its easier to slather it with jam, fill it with cheese or, heaven forfend, spread it with butter (unnecessary due to the gallons of butter already in the pastry) is surely simply one more step down the grim utilitarian path towards the state of... what did Emma Thompson call the UK? Recommended Read more Mark Zuckerberg and his unfeasibly strict censorship Of course, the fact that one of our leading supermarkets is quite happily poised to replace the poetic new moon at the heart of a classic French petit dejeuner with an everyday easy-to-use version sums up the never-ending dance of difference between the UK and our nearest neighbour. One of the telling things about France is that it never really had a significant industrial revolution. While Britain was pumping out not only the democratic brick but also mass-producing engines and machinery from dark satanic mills, France was busy a) reordering the monarchy and b) inventing the notion of luxury and making sure it remained just that. The clever notion of ring-fencing luxury goods with restrictions such as the famous appellation dorigine controlee (which began with Roquefort cheese back in 1411) is a French speciality in itself. Wine, champagne, cheese, salt marsh lamb, Bresse chickens, lavender, Corsican honey they are all terribly special, thanks to the French AOC. Even inventions which dont have an official AOC are restricted by vigorously protective branding: perfume, handbags, stockings, haute couture. These are not mass-produced things; these are bespoke products, made for special occasions, and for special people. Even today, British things that want to appear refined and delicious have Frenchy-sounding names, from haute cuisine to Bournville chocolate. And surely the bons vivants among us have the savoir faire to acknowledge that a properly crescentshaped croissant is a delicate and delicious thing to engage with of a morning. Every morning, if possible. Its shape may remind some of the Croisette, the beautiful sandy bay in Cannes, but I think the notion of the croissant (which arrived in France via the Austrians, who designed a crescent-shaped pastry to celebrate victory against the Turkish forces, whose flag features a crescent moon) is in spirit more like Haussmanns notion for the redesign of Paris, where the mass production of windows, railings and rooftops is craftily hidden behind a high aesthetic style. Yes, the curved croissant might be found in every cafe and hotel across the nation, but each one looks hand-crafted and beautiful. A basket of croissants turns breakfast into an occasion. It might be easier to slather jam across a rectangle, but the fundamental nature of eating a croissant which must be broken off bit by flaky bit and delicately dabbed with jam or (sometimes) dipped in coffee ensures that breakfast is a special meal to be enjoyed, savoured, a moment which might allow time for conversation, dalliance even. I bet Francois Hollande and Julie Gayet wouldnt dream of breakfast in bed with anything that wasnt properly crescent shaped. And is it possible to imagine Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre sitting down of a morning at Les Deux Magots to indulge in something with a high spreadability factor, as Tesco so prosaically puts it? 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 }} Does it seem just that somebody who played no physical part in a killing neither wielding the knife, nor pulling the trigger can be convicted of murder? For 30 years, the British judicial system has sentenced bystanders to this gravest penalty, if they can be shown to have been part of a plan to carry out a crime. Under the law of joint enterprise, gangs have been treated like an individual: most famously, in 2012, when 20 London teenagers were charged with the murder of Sofyen Belamouadden, though some fighting en masse against pupils from another school had not touched the boy. There is now an opportunity for appeal here, as in hundreds of other murder cases, after the Supreme Court ruled that joint enterprise laws have been interpreted incorrectly. The Court has made the right decision. It is an important moment in legal history, but the justices were quick to point out that many of those convicted under joint enterprise will remain in prison. The landmark case concerns Ameen Jogee, convicted of murder in 2012 after his friend, Mohammed Hirsi, had stabbed a former police officer to death the year before. He will now either face a retrial for murder (but not under joint enterprise) or have his conviction replaced by one for manslaughter. This ruling is not a let-off for criminals, but an opportunity to have cases tried on a more nuanced, accurate basis. It may not feel that way to the family members of murder victims. Tracey Fyfe, widow of Paul Fyfe, the officer Hirsi killed, said that upholding Jogees appeal would amount to letting him get away with murder. Mrs Fyfes disappointment in the ruling is understandable. But the anger of victims should not hold sway over the court system. Common sense dictates that Jogee, though a guilty man, was not guilty of murder. It undermined the British justice system to hand out punishments on a one-size-fits-all basis. The detail of the justices ruling is worthy of note: from today, murder convictions can only be handed down to a bystander if they were signed up mentally to the crime, and not merely present. Previously, being present was taken as automatic assent. But, as juries in the Belamouadden case noted (choosing to reject the prosecutors call for unanimous murder verdicts for all, and handing down just three) there are occasions when people may be caught up in a murder, but had neither the intent to carry one out nor given any encouragement. The majority of the 20 schoolchildren tried for Belamouaddens murder were black, and the disproportionate ethnic focus of joint enterprise verdicts raised eyebrows: one research project found that 37 per cent of those serving time under it are black, 11 times more than the proportion in the general population, and three times the rate in prison. The prospect of hundreds of retrials comes with a hefty price-tag. That, however, is no reason to let an injustice lie. There will be prisoners serving inappropriate sentences, and all those serving time for joint enterprise who wish to have a retrial should now have their cases heard. That raises the unpalatable prospect of men such as David Norris and Gary Dobson, convicted under joint enterprise in 2012 for the murder of Stephen Lawrence, returning to court. But, with fibre and hair evidence tying them both to Mr Lawrence, and their transparent intent to commit a violent crime that day in 1993, their circumstances are unlikely to be changed by this ruling. The change is one that will benefit those given unfairly harsh sentences, and make little difference to convicts who have already received their just desserts. Internet giant Amazon has taken the first steps towards building another huge data centre in Dublin. The company has begun the planning process to prepare the former Jacob's biscuits site in Tallaght for the new development, which will significantly boost its presence in Dublin. Amazon, headed by founder Jeff Bezos, already has a number of data centres in the capital and plans to build two other facilities at locations around the city. Combined, the projects are likely to propel Amazon's infrastructure spending here to beyond 1bn. The company has asked South Dublin County Council for permission to begin demolishing some of the existing buildings and other infrastructure at the biscuit site, which Amazon acquired last year. The site has been unused since 2008, when the Jacob's factory closed. Amazon already has a huge data centre in Tallaght. It acquired a former Tesco distribution centre there in 2010, and converted it to a 22,300 sq m data centre. The Irish Independent revealed last October that Amazon also plans to build a data centre at the Clonshaugh Business and Technology Park near Dublin Airport. The site was formerly home to GE Superabrasives, and the existing factory extends over more than 18,400 sq m on a 9.3 hectare site. Amazon is also planning to build a data centre in Blanchardstown, where it already has two data centre operations. Tim Cook CEO Apple Inc. who paid a visit to Independent News and Media's offices on Talbot Street is interviewed by Adrian Weckler. Pic Steve Humphreys This week the United States government ordered Apple to help the FBI unlock an iPhone 5C, which belonged to one of the shooters of the San Bernardino massacre. While no one is disputing the immediate nature of the Governments intentions, it could very well set a worrying precedent for data security, something Tim Cook is well versed on. His companys objection to the order from the US Government was as inevitable as the fact that Apple will release a new iPhone this year. Cook has spoken at length in the past about his fondness towards Europes stance on privacy and his objections against building a backdoor into his companys products. A backdoor is a method of bypassing the normal encryption of a product, in this case the shooter's iPhone 5C. Apple is being ordered to build a new iOS (the operating software that runs iPhones) that will assist the FBI to access data stored on the phone that may further its investigations. In an interview with the Irish Independent in November, Cook told Adrian Weckler that Mr Cameron would not succeed in passing the controversial proposed law. At the moment as you know, we encrypt iMessage end to end and we have no backdoor. And we have no intention of changing that, Cook said in November. Cook said that he was sure the UK would not pass a bill that would weaken encryption. In November he also said that the EUs stance on privacy compared favourably to that of the US. I think Europe is leading the world on that topic and its great. I feel right at home when I come to Europe and talk about privacy. In July British Prime Minister, David Cameron, signalled his intention to try to ban encryption in the UK, making it more difficult for terrorists to communicate. Naturally, his intentions were met by significant backlash from data privacy activists. In a striking message to Apple customers this week Cook reaffirmed both his and his companys stance on data privacy, He wrote that compromising the security of personal information could put personal safety at risk. While we believe the FBIs intentions are good, it would be wrong for the government to force us to build a backdoor into our products. And ultimately, we fear that this demand would undermine the very freedoms and liberty our government is meant to protect, Cook said in an open letter to customers. The Apple chief continued, saying despite the differing ways the FBI have billed it, the Government is in fact asking the firm to build a backdoor. The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control, he said. Xbox One owners will be able to download Lords of the Fallen and Crimes and Punishments: Sherlock Holmes for free next month according to rumours. Lords of the Fallen and Crimes and Punishments: Sherlock Holmes will be next month's free Games with Gold on Xbox One, according to a listing from UK bargain-sharing site HotUKDeals. The site claims to have received the list of games from the same source that provided the details of the September and November Games with Gold line-ups. Crimes and Punishments: Sherlock Holmes was also spotted on the Xbox Store recently, adding some weight to this rumour. Crimes and Punishments: Sherlock Holmes will be available on Xbox One for the entire month of March, according to the rumour, while Lords of the Fallen will be available from March 16th until April 15th. Meanwhile, the Xbox 360 games, which will also be playable on Xbox One, include Supreme Commander 2 (March 1st-15th) and Borderlands (March 16th-31st). Microsoft is yet to officially announce March's Games with Gold. Investors are getting spooked. Not just by the slowdown in China, the prospect of a Brexit or the market volatility. But the US Presidential candidates are also giving them the jitters, according to global asset management firm Oaktree Capital. "They're scaring the hell out of people," the company's co-founder, Howard Marks, told Bloomberg. He cited claims from Donald Trump, inset, that China, Mexico and Japan are taking American jobs. "People tend to believe him. Then the others compete to be equally as fearful and dramatic," he added. But that fear is, in many ways, up Oaktree's street. The company, which manages $97bn in distressed debt, private equity holdings, emerging-market stocks, property and energy-related assets is taking advantage of the uncertainty. The Los Angeles-based firm has gathered more than $10bn for its latest fund to buy the debt of troubled companies. "For the long-term investor it's a very good opportunity - things are a lot cheaper than they were nine months ago," he said, in a Bloomberg Radio interview. "We want to buy when investors are worried and cautious, and that makes this a much better time." Hungary's central bank meets its target - with 112 handguns IN comparison to his counterparts in Budapest, Central Bank Governor Philip Lane has it easy, The Punt reckons. Bloomberg has revealed that The National Bank of Hungary has had to splash the cash on 200,000 rounds of live ammunition as well as 112 handguns for its security force. The country's central bank cited the rise of "international security risks" including bomb and terror threats and the Europe's immigration crisis. Governor Gyorgy Matolcsy defended the outlay to his country's lawmakers, saying that the bank needed to beef up its security detail after its assumption of the role of financial regulator and a related increase in the number of its properties in the country. And Gyorgy must envy the denizens of Dame Street, whose only major threat is dodging Temple Bar stag parties when leaving work on a Friday night. The Hungarian bank's bills have certainly been in the news of late. It's already earmarked 645m to set up foundations to teach alternatives to "outdated neoliberal" economics. And another 100m or so has gone on fine art, with investments including a painting by Titian and in office buildings and villas. The Governor, meanwhile, argues that the central bank has the right to spend its healthy profits. Madeline Mulqueen and Liam Cunningham at the the opening Gala screening of SING STREET, as part of The Audi Dublin International Film Festival. The Festival takes place from 18th - 28th February www.diff.com Pictures:Brian McEvoy No Repro fee Actor Aidan Gillen at the the opening Gala screening of SING STREET, as part of The Audi Dublin International Film Festival. The Festival takes place from 18th - 28th February www.diff.com Lead Actors Ferdia Walsh Peelo and Lucy Boynton at the the opening Gala screening of SING STREET, as part of The Audi Dublin International Film Festival. The Festival takes place from 18th - 28th February www.diff.com Actor Jack Reynor at the the opening Gala screening of SING STREET, as part of The Audi Dublin International Film Festival. The Festival takes place from 18th - 28th February www.diff.com He has taken on dark, brooding roles, blockbuster action parts and now the character of a rocker - but Jack Reynor said he would never say never to stripping off for a movie. The actor walked the red carpet at the premiere of new film Sing Street, which opened this year's Audi Dublin International Film Festival last night. Jack (24) said that he would consider a nude role but only if it was the right fit. "It depends on the context," Jack told the Herald. "Maybe not (for a romantic comedy) but if it was something like Hunger," he said of the gritty film starring Kerry actor Michael Fassbender. But Jack ruled out taking over from Irish hunk Jamie Dornan. "I wouldn't do 50 Shades of Grey," he laughed. The actor has a host of movies in the pipeline including The Jungle Book and Secret Scripture with Jim Sheridan but he said that above all he is enjoying a break at home with his family and fiance Madeline Mulqueen. Looking chic in a pair of skinny jeans and heels and bright yellow top, model Madeline turned out to support her man. Although his profile has been soaring, Jack said he would never move permanently to Hollywood. "It's all got to be in Ireland - its very important for me to be here," he said. "If I have to go over (to America) I go over, but when I'm not working, I'm just at home, chilling out in Co Wicklow." Jack, who was joined at the premiere by co-star Aidan Gillen and pal Liam Cunningham, said he enjoyed working on a "lighter" film. "I didn't need counselling after this one," he joked. Video of the Day Game of Thrones actor Aidan said he was "expecting a lot from the film. Director John Carney said that Sing Street - about a kid from a rocky home who forms a band - was inspired by "all of the things that I failed at when I was a kid." Actors Ferdia Walsh Peelo and Lucy Boynton at the opening gala screening of Sing Street at the Audi Dublin International Film Festival. Photo: Brian McEvoy The curtain rose on the Audi Dublin International Film Festival last night. Now in its fourteenth year, the festival opened with a screening of John Carney's 'Sing Street', starring Jack Reynor and Aidan Gillen. Actors Don Wycherley, Kelly Thornton and Liam Cunningham all sauntered up the red carpet at Dublin's Savoy, occasionally pausing to sign autograph books. Over 80 films from 27 countries will be screened in the coming days, with some famous faces touching down in Dublin. Angela Lansbury and Richard Gere will receive the prestigious Volta Award. The awards are named after the Volta Picture Theatre on Mary Street in Dublin, which was opened on December 20, 1909, by James Joyce. Festival Director Grainne Humphreys has described the theme of this year's festival as a "love letter to cinema". The film festival closes on Sunday, February 28, with the Irish premiere of Paddy Breathnach's Oscar-short-listed Spanish-language drama 'Viva'. It's hard to make a heist movie without reminding everyone of Heat, and John Hillcoat's Triple 9 doesn't even try. In fact an early sequence involving a daring bank raid may even have been intended as a tribute to Michael Mann's flashy mini-masterpiece. But the hoodlums here aren't half as slick as Robert De Niro's crew: this lot are dumb in varying degrees, and make one question the wisdom of bank-robbing as a career choice. Michael Belmont (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and his band of merry ne'er-do-wells seem pretty pleased with themselves when they steal a sizeable sum of cash from an Atlanta bank in broad daylight, but their celebrations are short-lived. It seems they are in hock to a Russian gangster called Vlaslov, whose representative in these parts is his brassy, chilling wife, Irina (Kate Winslet). The gang are being blackmailed, and will only be able to cancel their debt if they pull off a seemingly impossible job and liberate the mobster's sequestered fortune. And just to make sure everyone's paying attention, Irina murders one of them. To complicate matters further, two of the gang, Atwood (Anthony Mackie) and Rodriguez (Clifton Collins), are cops, but that inside knowledge soon presents them with a possible advantage. Atwood has just started working with a blow-in detective called Chris Allen (Casey Affleck), whom he doesn't particularly like. Allen has become suspicious of Atwood's connections and methods, and seems like the kind of man who does everything by the book. So Atwood and Belmont decide to use him as part of their plan. Expand Close Bank job: Kate Winslet shines in heist thriller 'Triple 9'. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Bank job: Kate Winslet shines in heist thriller 'Triple 9'. The facility where the Russian's $5 million stash is stored is so well defended that a distraction will be required. The one thing that's sure to divert most of the city's police force will be the shooting of one of their own, so Atwood agrees to lure Allen into a trap and open fire. But that won't be as easy as it sounds, and meanwhile the raid itself proves even more difficult than they'd imagined. Australian director John Hillcoat announced himself internationally with his dark and accomplished 2005 Outback western The Proposition, and did a marvellous job of adapting Cormac McCarthy's dystopian novel in his 2009 film The Road. Lawless, Hillcoat's 2012 hill-billy bootlegging thriller was crude, unpleasant and a bit of a step backwards, but with Triple 9 he returns to form: it's a stylish, inventive and consistently entertaining thriller. It oozes menace from the get-go, and its violence is not done by halves. But it doesn't glamorise conflict and gunfire in the way that Michael Mann did: the violence here is dirty, nasty and real. The early scenes and that first bank robbery provide the most visually accomplished moments, especially when the gang are forced to stop their car during the getaway after one of the money sacks unleashes a cloud of orange dye, marking them all as outcasts. British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor takes on perhaps his darkest role yet playing Belmont, a desperate and ruthless criminal who seems to treat murder as an occupational hazard. Woody Harrelson brings a splash of southern swagger to the proceedings playing Chris Allen's uncle, a dedicated, alcoholic cop. And Casey Affleck, who after a quiet couple of years appears in two films in the same week, portrays the movie's protagonist with his usual quiet authority and intensity. He's a very fine actor, with an edgy, watchful quality that's rarely well used. Kate WInslet leaves nothing behind playing the film's principal villain, Irina Vlaslov, a woman who seems worryingly inured to cruelty and violence. She throws the kitchen sink at her heavy Russian accent, and with her bleached hair, heavy make up and garish business suits, comes across like an eastern European dominatrix. Somehow, it all works, and Winlset almost makes us believe that Lady Macbeth has been reborn east of the Volga. Video of the Day Triple 9 (16, 115mins) Actors Colm Lennon and Amy Flood on the Rise of the Rebels bus tour. Photo: Paul Sherwood Seldom on a bus journey would passengers hear the morse code tappings of: "Whole country rising STOP Irish Republic declared today STOP". However, it is all part of the 1916 'Rise of the Rebels' bus tour, which allows the public to "ride the revolution". Actors Colm Lennon and Amy Flood guide visitors through the real-life events of 100 years ago aboard the night tours, which are run by Hidden Dublin Walks. They have taken testimonies of those involved in the Rising, as given to the Bureau of Military Archives, including accounts from Rosie Hackett, Maeve Cavanagh and Oscar Traynor. They re-enact some of these eyewitness accounts on the custom-designed tour bus, which is fitted out as an under-siege base of revolutionary action. Bullets The first stop is at Dublin City Hall, where the first shots of the Rising were fired and the first fatality occurred. The rebel group was led by Sean Connolly, one of Ireland's leading actors at that time. Passengers are told that he turned down a five-year acting contract "on the grounds that his country may need him". It is in that battle that Connolly died as "bullets fell like rain" outside the gates of Dublin Castle. The other stops are at GPO and Richmond Barracks. The tour also emphasises that "despite what history books and cranky politicians might have told you", there were plenty of women involved in the Rising through Cumann na mBan. The bus departs every night at 7.30pm outside College Green Tourist Office. Tickets are 25. An alleged Twitter troll used a series of fake accounts to bombard 98FM presenter Jeremy Dixon with threats and online abuse, a court has heard. Geraldine Delahunty (41), of Convent Lawns, Ballyfermot, is alleged to have become infatuated with the broadcaster. She faces a single count of alleged harassment of Dublin Talks co-host Jeremy Dixon from August 4, 2014 until January 16 last year. Judge Michael Walsh, at Dublin District Court, held that the case was too serious to be dealt with in the district court, meaning Ms Delahunty will face trial in the circuit court. Gda Sgt Gail Smith told Judge Walsh it was alleged that Mr Dixon was harassed via Twitter. It started with comments, some of which were quite upsetting, including one message that he would be killed. It was alleged that a number of false statements were made such as untrue claims that the broadcaster abused his wife and took drugs. The tweets could be seen by Mr Dixons 15,000 Twitter followers. Sgt Smith said the broadcaster tried to block the poster, but the defendant created account after account after account, some in the injured partys name and his wifes name. Affair It affected his work because a company he did business with had been contacted to untruthfully tell them not to employ him because he takes drugs. His wife was also afraid, and had also received an untrue message saying Mr Dixon was having an affair. He said it placed a great strain on their lives and his wife Sue told the court it had made her nervous and that when she was at home alone she had to keep all the doors locked. Ms Delahunty was remanded on continuing bail to appear again in March. A former bonds portfolio manager with Anglo Irish Bank has told the trial of four senior banking executives that Anglo senior bonds are "all paid off in full". Peter Geissel denied a suggestion from lawyers for Peter Fitzpatrick (63), former director of finance at Irish Life and Permanent (ILP), that the bonds issued by the bank in 2008 were ultimately worthless. Mr Fitzpatrick, along with ILP's former CEO Denis Casey (56); Anglo's former Head of Finance Willie McAteer (65); and John Bowe (52), who had been Anglo's head of capital markets, are accused of conspiring to mislead investors by using interbank loans to make Anglo appear 7.2bn more valuable than it was. Mr McAteer of Greenrath, Tipperary town, Co Tipperary; Mr Casey from Raheny, Dublin; Mr Fitzpatrick from Malahide, Dublin; John Bowe (52), from Glasnevin in Dublin have all pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to conspiring together and with others to mislead investors through financial transactions to make the bank appear 7.2bn more valuable than it was between March 1 and September 30, 2008. Mr Geissel said that in 2007 the bank had a 5bn covered bonds programme in the UK with tranches of bonds sold to insurance firms, pension funds, asset managers and large banks in Germany and France. He told the court that these "covered bonds" were a form of secured funding, secured by the bank and were rated 'AAA' by the rating agencies at the time. The trial continues before Judge Martin Nolan and a jury. The Government has been ordered to pay a killer and child rapist almost 5,000 because his demands to be released from prison were not met quickly enough. Belfast man Christopher Doherty, who was returned to jail after he raped and sexually abused two little girls while on parole for murder, claimed that delays in reviewing his eligibility for release had left him "depressed" and breached his human rights. The European Court of Human Rights yesterday agreed that the violent offender's rights had been violated and ordered the Government to pay him damages. The decision has sparked outrage. Doherty (55) - dubbed 'Joker' by fellow inmates at Maghaberry - was jailed for life in 1982 for the murder of a pensioner in Derry. He and another man battered defenceless Gerald Farren to death and robbed him of 20. After 14 years he was freed on licence, but less than a year later he was returned to jail after two young girls, aged just nine and 13, made allegations of serious sexual abuse against the killer. A criminal prosecution was not taken to spare Doherty's young victims the ordeal of giving evidence in court. Instead, the then Secretary of State Patrick Mayhew revoked his release licence and had him returned to jail, only to be released when the Life Sentence Review Board, later to be replaced by the Life Sentence Review Commissioners, felt he was no longer a danger to the public. His detention was reviewed on a number of occasions between 1998 and 2008, but the review body refused to direct his release as it believed that he had committed the alleged offences and that there was a risk of committing further similar offences if released. He was eventually released in October 2008. Doherty then launched legal proceedings in the European Court of Human Rights against the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for damages. He claimed that reviews of his continuing detention were not conducted speedily enough and that this "gave rise to feelings of frustration, anxiety and depression". The DUP's Jonathan Craig slammed the ruling as "outrageous" and said it was an insult to Doherty's victims. Mr Craig, who is chair of the Policing Board's performance committee - formerly the human rights committee - added: "The police and judiciary in Northern Ireland uphold the rights of every citizen to protect them from people like this. "Here we have the European Court perversely taking the side of someone whose only purpose in life seems to be to destroy lives." The MLA added: "This is yet another example where the ECHR had missed the point. More focus should be on the rights of law-abiding citizens, not criminals like this. "This is an absurd decision and an insult to this man's victims." Justice committee chairman Alastair Ross said: "Cases such as this are why people can lose faith in the criminal justice system and why the European Court can be held in such low regard. "Irrespective of how 'anxious and depressed' this man claims to have been, it would be nothing in comparison to those whom he violated in the past." In its ruling yesterday, the European Court of Human Rights agreed that Doherty's rights had been breached under Article 5/4 of the Convention - the right to have lawfulness of detention decided speedily by a court. The court admitted, however, that some of the delays had been caused by Doherty and said that there was no evidence to suggest that had his detention been reviewed more regularly, he would have been released much earlier than he in fact was. "On the contrary, prior to March 2008 there was no evidence to suggest that the risk he posed was 'manageable' in the community," the court added. The court ordered that the Government pay Doherty 1,000 in damages as well as 5,000 to cover his costs and expenses. Doherty had attempted to claim for 20,980 in costs and expenses - 12,960 of which were lawyers' fees - but the court said he had failed to itemise the figure. The court rejected a claim from Doherty that his detention on recall to prison, between March 7, 1997 and October 7, 2008, had been unlawful. A man who robbed a clothes shop while on temporary release from prison has avoided prison for now after a judge heard he is the sole carer for a child with a birth defect. Lawyers for Meath man Dermot Molloy (36) told Judge Martin Nolan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that Molloy's son was born with an awful condition which had symptoms opposite to those linked to the Zika virus. The ongoing outbreak of that virus in Brazil has been linked to a huge increase in the cases of newborn microcephaly in the country which results in babies being born with smaller heads. Luigi Rea BL, defending, told the court that in the case of his client's son, instead of everything shrinking, everything is expanding and that the child needed extraordinary medical care. Counsel said Molloy was also caring for the child of his partner who had recently suffered the effects of a significant act of self harm. Garda Lee Gavin agreed that since 2013 Molloy had complied with his bail conditions and remained out of trouble. Molloy's 57 previous convictions include impersonating a garda, handling stolen property, forgery, assault and 15 for robbery. Mr Rea said that his client was now drug free and was out there behaving himself and asked the court to give him one last chance. Molloy formerly of Lagour Crescent, Dunshaughlin pleaded guilty to robbery on November 18, 2014 at Boutique Clothing Shop on Crown Alley, Temple Bar, Dublin. The court heard that during the robbery Molloy threatened to stick a syringe into two victims but after his arrest he told gardai he was only armed with a bookie's pen. He also said he was robbing not to buy drugs but to buy food for his family. Judge Nolan said he would have no difficulty sending Molloy to prison for a long time but said that his role as a carer to two children gives me pause. He adjourned the sentence to next July when he will revisit the matter and decide what to do. He said Molloy's partner may have recovered by then and that the position of the younger child might have stabilised. He told Garda Lee Gavin that if there was any misbehaviour Molloy should be brought back immediately. It would take very little to put him back in prison, Judge Nolan said. Molloy was still serving the suspended portion of a sentence when he carried out the robbery. In April 2013 Judge Nolan sentenced him to six years with two suspended for the robbery and attempted robbery of three beauty salons and two shops in Dublin. Molloy had wielded a large kitchen knife during two of the raids. Fresh charges have been brought against a 28-year-old man accused of attacking Dublin glamour model Ava Van Rose. Sean O'Dea (28) with an address at Woodside, Clontarf, in Dublin, had been charged earlier with assault causing harm to his then partner Bridget Byrne (26) from Clondalkin, who works under the name of Ava Van Rose. The model and mother-of-three starred in the short-lived reality show Infectious along with Big Brother's Marc O'Neill. It is alleged the assault happened at Mr O'Dea's address on November 27 last. That charge is under Section Three of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act and Mr O'Dea, who has not yet entered a plea, made his third appearance at Dublin District Court today. The case had been adjourned to allow for directions from the DPP to be obtained. Just before the hearing today additional connected charges were put to him for producing a knife, and for making a threat to kill or cause serious harm to a named male at the same location and date as the alleged assault. Gda Pauraic McNearney told Judge Anthony Halpin that Mr O'Dea made no reply when charged. The DPP had directed that he should face trial on indictment which means his trial will be heard in the Circuit Court which, on conviction, has tougher sentencing powers. Judge Halpin ordered Mr O'Dea to appear again in April when it is expected he will be served with a book of evidence and sent forward for trial. In January, Gda McNearney confirmed he had no objection to relaxing a condition of bail stating Mr O'Dea had to sign on at a garda station three times a week. Judge Halpin then reduced the requirement to once a week. Minister for Agriculture, Food, the Marine and Defence, Simon Coveny, speaking at the launch of Fine Gael's General Election Manifesto. Photo: Caroline Quinn Agriculture and Defence Minister Simon Coveney has said he does not subscribe to the 'civil war' type arguments used by some politicians to rule out the prospect of a Fine Gael-Fianna Fail coalition. The prospect of both parties doing business has edged a step closer after a series of opinion polls show it to be the most likely result following polling. While strongly criticising Fianna Fail's performance in the last government, Mr Coveney admitted that he does not have ideological differences with the party. I dont carry civil war baggage, its not what Im about. A lot of people who are in Fianna Fails camp or Fine Gaels camp, it goes back to differences in history and all the rest of it. I judge Fianna Fail on their last performance in government. When 300,000 lost their jobs, when a quarter of a million people had to leave Ireland to find work, the Cork South Central TD said. Thats why I say I think it would be very, very difficult for us to put a Programme for Government together in terms of being compatible. If anything, their election manifesto and the promises Fianna Fail have been making in this campaign actually show that divide between the two parties in a very, very clear way. Meanwhile, Mr Coveney has denied suggestions that Fine Gael is trying to ignore the issue of abortion during the General Election campaign. Mr Coveney said his party has pledged to refer the issue to a Citizens Convention within six months, which will examine matters such as fatal foetal abnormalities. Read More The debate over the Eighth Amendment resurfaced on Thursday after the Labour Party said it would insist on starting the process of holding a referendum by the summer if they are involved in the upcoming Programme for Government negotiations. Communications Minister Alex White also said it behoves candidates to give a response to serious issues such as abortion during the campaign. But speaking at a Fine Gael event yesterday, Mr Coveney said he stood over previous comments that candidates should not be expected to given their personal views on the matter when asked. I stand over my comments. The Labour Party have a different perspective on that, Mr Coveney told reporters. Fine Gael is a party that has lots of different views on this issue. I think lots of families in Ireland have different views too, even within their own families. This is a very sensitive issue. Its a life and death issue. Its a very emotive issue for lots and lots of people and it needs to be dealt with in a sensitive way as opposed to toing and froing in a political debate. "Something like fatal foetal abnormality is an incredibly complex issue. We need to do that in a sensitive and no party political way. Fine Gael has former junior minister Lucinda Creighton's Dail seat in their sights, a new poll for the Irish Independent can reveal. The Renua Ireland leader is proving a polarising figure in Dublin Bay South and is at risk of being one of the most high-profile casualties of the General Election. She is set to be dragged into a do-or-die battle with three other candidates, including Fine Gael's Kate O'Connell, for the final two seats in the constituency. The Millward Brown poll also suggests that the Green Party's Eamon Ryan is not in the reckoning for a return to Leinster House. It shows that Fine Gael's Eoghan Murphy is leading the race on 20pc, followed by former Fianna Fail TD Chris Andrews (17pc), who is now running for Sinn Fein. Ms Creighton is then on 13pc alongside Labour Party minister Kevin Humphreys, while Fianna Fail's Jim O'Callaghan is on 11pc and Ms O'Connell is on 10pc. The poll involved face-to-face interviews with 498 voters at 46 sampling points between February 12-16. The results suggest that the constituency will be one of the most difficult in the country to call. Fine Gael has been pumping resources into Ms O'Connell's campaign in an effort to unseat Ms Creighton, who quit the party after voting against the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill in 2013. In 2011, Fine Gael and Labour secured all four seats in the constituency which was then known as Dublin South East. Ms Creighton topped the poll and helped bring Mr Murphy across the line in what was seen as a major coup for Fine Gael. However, the landscape has changed dramatically with the retirement of Labour's Ruairi Quinn, the defection of Mr Andrews to Sinn Fein and the addition of first-time councillor Kate O'Connell to the FG ticket. Ms Creighton's biggest challenge is that she appears transfer-toxic when compared to O'Connell, Humphreys and O'Callaghan. Just 6pc of voters say they will give their second preference to the Renua leader. This compares with 19pc who would transfer to Ms O'Connell, 15pc to Mr Humphreys and 10pc to Mr O'Callaghan. Only 5pc of Fine Gael voters would give a preference to Ms Creighton, compared with 15pc of Fianna Fail voters who would vote number two for Renua. The votes of Green Party leader Eamon Ryan are likely to prove decisive. On 7pc of number one votes, he is unlikely to feature in a major way - but his votes could decide who gets the final seat. The majority of constituents do believe that Ms Creighton was the most effective TD in Dublin Bay South over the past five years. One in five rated her as the best performer, followed by Mr Humphreys, Mr Murphy and Mr Quinn, all on 14pc. Almost one-in-four voters (24pc) said the state of the health service would be their number one consideration when voting. Another 21pc said management of the economy was their key issue, followed by 16pc who cited the homelessness situation and lack of local authority housing. A massive 41pc said they trusted Fine Gael most when it came to the economy, compared to just 6pc for their coalition partners Labour. Just 12pc said they would trust Sinn Fein or Fianna Fail on the same issue. Sinn Fein will be pleased with the 17pc achieved by Mr Andrews - however, the poll was carried about before the family of murder victim Joseph Rafferty branded him a "hypocrite" for joining the party. Mr Andrews had previously worked closely with the Rafferty family and with gardai to help find the young man's killer, who is believed to be a member of the Provisional IRA. FIANNA Fail today closed ranks to blame Fine Gael entirely for the debacle over water charges and Irish Water. Senior party figures backed Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martins insistence that they never cleared a memorandum brought before their Government in October 2010, weeks before the arrival of the EU-ECG-IMF Troika, providing for water charges which were expected to be about 500 per household per year. Fianna Fail Senator Thomas Byrne, a former TD and election frontrunner in Meath East, said the memorandum was brought by Environment Minister and Green Party leader, John Gormley. There was no decision whatsoever made on that memorandum and memorandums are produced for Cabinet all the time, Senator Byrne told reporters. Senator Byrne backed what his party leader earlier told RTEs Sean ORourke that Irish Water, which is now a complete debacle was entirely a Fine plan. Mr Byrne said Fianna Fail had reproduced on their Facebook and Twitter pages a video of Fine Gaels Simon Coveney announcing the planned creation of Irish Water back in June 2009. This was their grand plan, essentially, ultimately to privatise the water system, Senator Byrne said. We made no decision whatever in relation to any water utility. That never came up in Cabinet, Mr Byrne continued. Asked again about why a memorandum was brought at all in October 2010, if it was intended to be ignored, he insisted that such things happened all the time. John Gormley brought that memorandum. He was not a member of Fiannna Fail. John Gormley brought that memorandum and it went nowhere, Mr Byrne said. SINN FEIN candidate Chris Andrews has conceded the suspect in the murder of an innocent Dublin man may be associated with people within Sinn Fein. Andrews, a former Fianna Fail TD who is standing for the General Election in Dublin Bay South for Sinn Fein, made his comments when questioned about allegations made by Esther Uzell. Ms Uzell is the sister of innocent Joseph Rafferty, who was murdered in Ongar, West Dublin, in 2005. Ms Uzell and her family have campaigned for justice for Joseph, who was murdered by a member of the Provisional IRA. During his time as a Fianna Fail TD between 2007 and 2011, Andrews often accompanied Ms Uzell to high-level garda briefings about her brothers murder and the progress of the investigation. Josephs sister claims Turncoat Andrews was present at meetings when she was told by gardai and local politicians that Josephs killer was a card- carrying member of Sinn Fein and a provo. This has been rejected by Andrews however he has admitted Josephs killer may have some association with his new political party. He told the Herald: His name was said at meetings, but I dont know the chap. I know hes not a member of Sinn Fein. He may have had some association with some people within Sinn Fein, but I dont know the details around that association. Speaking to the Herald, Ms Uzell said Andrews was privy to information about Josephs killer and his connections to Sinn Fein. At the time, Andrews was a Fianna Fail TD, a position he held from 2007 until he lost his Dail seat in 2011. During this time, he brought up Josephs murder in a speech while debating the Criminal Justice Act in the Dail in 2009. In 2012, he resigned from the party after he was exposed for sending out a number of tweets criticising his party leader Micheal Martin and FF colleagues using an anonymous account. Silence A year later, he joined Sinn Fein. He was elected to Dublin City Council in 2014. Ms Uzell broke her silence in an interview with the Herald yesterday, during which she branded Andrews a liar and a hypocrite. She angrily accused Andrews of telling blatant lies on the doorsteps by informing their neighbours and friends that he is still working with Josephs family in a bid to bring his killer to justice. In response, Andrews said that while he did attend high-level meetings with Ms Uzell, it was never discussed whether he [the suspect] was a member of Sinn Fein or not. Speaking last night, Ms Uzell angrily rejected Andrews claims, saying he was aware the suspect was a member of Sinn Fein. I was flabbergasted that he could just casually lie like that again there are several gardai and other local politicians who were there when he was clearly told that Josephs killer was a card-carrying member of Sinn Fein, she said. He even denied being present when members of Sinn Fein intimidated my sister during the 2007 election, when I ran as an Independent as part of my campaign for justice for my brother. But he has selective memory. At the time he was often quoted in the papers accusing Sinn Fein of covering up for Josephs killer and now he no longer knows anything? The man has no shame or decency, added Ms Uzell. Since that story appeared in the Herald, I have been contacted by loads of local people who said they were disgusted by his duplicity and lies. He has no loyalty left in this area where there is a close-knit community of wonderful neighbours, hopefully they will show him up for the traitor he is on polling day. I was warned by a few people in Fianna Fail that Chris Andrews could not be trusted at the time but I was happy for whatever help we could get. Had I known what he was really like I would not have crossed the road to speak to him. It is really worrying for our society that a party which covers up for killers and criminals may be in a position to rule this country in a months time, Ms Uzell added. Her brother Joseph had been subjected to several death threats from a well-known Provo and Sinn Fein election worker before he was shot dead by a lone gunman in April 2005 in Ongar, West Dublin. Since his death, Esther and her family have waged a lengthy campaign to get justice and were supported in their endeavours by the then-Fianna Fail TD. As part of her campaign, Esther who was supported by the sisters of Belfast man Robert McCartney, another Sinn Fein/IRA murder victim also ran for the Dail in 2007 against Sinn Fein to highlight that the party was covering up for the suspect. During the campaign, republican thugs smashed her car and Sinn Fein activists openly intimidated another sister during an incident that was witnessed by Mr Andrews. Witnessed He knows the murderer is a member of Sinn Fein and worked for them in the election and he witnessed what happened to us, yet he can go and join them [Sinn Fein]? When I heard he had gone to Sinn Fein, I was sick to my stomach, she said. Andrews says he didnt see the intimidation and doesnt know who was behind it. I dont recall what shes referring to in terms of intimidation. I dont actually know what that is shes referring to. Im not sure what incident shes talking about, but I know that she was intimidated, obviously. Who she was intimidated by, I dont know the identity of those people. I supported the campaign then and I support it now. If theres anything that I could do Id sit down with the gardai and Im on the Local Policing Forum, Im on the drugs task force and Im on the Local Policing Committee. I would happily sit down with gardai, with Esther and the family and if theres any information I have or could help with, I would absolutely do that. I have nothing to hide and Im more than happy to work with the gardai, he said. Earlier this week, Andrews was blasted by a constituency rival, Labour TD Kevin Humphreys, during a debate on RTE Radios Sean ORourke show. The Labour TD challenged Andrews about Joseph Raffertys murder. You have never been consistent in your life since you came into politics, Humphreys told Andrews. Didnt you attend confidential meetings in Harcourt Square in relation to the murder of Joseph Rafferty, and arent you fully aware that you supported the family up to, and until, you changed your colours and went into Sinn Fein? Mr Andrews replied: I worked very closely with the Uzell family and the gardai. I do so still. However, this assertion has been roundly rejected by Esther Uzell, who says she wants nothing to do with him. Taoiseach Enda Kenny has moved to calm fears of Irish business about the prospect of Britain leaving the EU. Speaking ahead of last night's key summit in Brussels, the Fine Gael leader said proposals tabled by British Prime Minister David Cameron were "in Ireland's interest". "Clearly Irish manufacturers who are exporters have concerns about this, in the sense that they are unaware of what might happen when a referendum is held," Mr Kenny told reporters ahead of the meeting, which is expected to run through the night. "So we want to reassure everybody that this is in Ireland's interest, it's in Britain's interest and most of all it's in Europe's interest," he added. The measures being sought by Mr Cameron's government, ahead of an expected referendum in June, were supported by the Cabinet at a meeting in Government Buildings yesterday. The position he will take in the campaign hinges on a deal to change EU rules in four areas: restricting welfare payments for EU workers, introducing a brake on eurozone decisions that could affect the City of London, and signing pledges on national sovereignty and "competitiveness". Mr Cameron needs a win on all four issues so that he can campaign in favour of the UK remaining in the EU in the referendum, which sources say is most likely to be held by the end of June. "We will back up the claim that Britain should remain a central member of the European Union, and I do hope that it can be concluded tomorrow so that the prime minister can make his timing of a referendum known to the British people," Mr Kenny said. Mr Kenny said the three open issues on the table were the eurozone question, which is a problem for France; welfare curbs, which are controversial for central and eastern European countries; and the issue of national sovereignty, where Britain is asking for an opt-out from the EU treaty principle of "ever closer union". European lawyers, officials and diplomats have been working behind the scenes on set of decisions that British Prime Minister David Cameron can tout as a win at home, but that don't rankle other governments in the process. Shaping up to be most controversial is a demand to link child benefit payments for EU workers to the cost of living in the country where their children live. Under the draft deal, the option to limit payments would also be open to the any other EU government, including Ireland. Speaking following yesterday's Cabinet meeting in Dublin, Finance Minister Michael Noonan said Ireland is "unashamedly supportive" of Britain remaining in the European Union, Mr Noonan also confirmed that the Government has drawn up a paper assessing the potential effects of a 'Brexit' - but insisted it is not a "contingency plan" per se. And the Fine Gael politician also voiced concerns surrounding the impact a 'Brexit' could have on Northern Ireland. Almost half of Lucinda Creighton's constituents believe she was correct to quit Fine Gael. The Renua Ireland leader sacrificed her junior ministry and a potential promotion to Cabinet when she voted against changes to the country's abortion laws in July 2013. The Dublin Bay South TD's career was very much on the rise after a successful stint as Minister for State for European Affairs. However, she said she could not vote with the Government on the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill. She continued as an independent TD before setting up Renua early last year. Some 46pc of her constituents have now told a Millward Brown poll for the Irish Independent that she was correct in her stance. Another 29pc said she made the wrong decision, while 24pc said they didn't know. Satisfied Asked if they were satisfied with her performance as leader of Renua 35pc said they were, while 42pc said no. Satisfaction was highest among pensioners and, unsurprisingly, supporters of Renua. Dissatisfaction was highest among supporters of the Labour Party and Sinn Fein. Other party leaders received similar ratings with the exception of Gerry Adams who scored just 23pc. Taoiseach Enda Kenny has a satisfaction rating of 37pc in the constituency, Fianna Fail's Michael Martin is on 38pc and Labour Party leader Joan Burton is on 34pc. Dublin Bay South's current TDs are all members of the Coalition and satisfaction with the Government is 41pc. The Coalition is most popular among older people. Fine Gael is effectively engaged in two campaigns in Dublin Bay South. One is aimed at ensuring the comfortable re-election of sitting TD Eoghan Murphy. The other is to unseat Renua leader Lucinda Creighton. And based on the findings of today's opinion poll, the Fine Gael master plan is working. With just a week until polling, Murphy's running mate Kate O'Connell is firmly on the hunt for the fourth seat. In a remarkable finding, the high-profile councillor is the most transfer-friendly in the field and could potentially unseat the former minister. Any such scenario will raise huge question marks over the future of the Renua party itself. Speaking to the Irish Independent, Ms O'Connell lashed out at Ms Creighton over her party's proposal to introduce a 23pc flat rate on all incomes. "It's one of the things coming up constantly on the doors - people think it is ridiculous," Ms O'Connell said. It is just one of a number of issues which the two female politicians disagree on. Another example is the Eighth Amendment, which Ms O'Connell wants repealed. Ms Creighton topped the poll following the first count in 2011, securing an impressive 19pc of the vote. Her vote quickly earned her the prestigious role of European Affairs Minister. But that was five years ago, when Ms Creighton was at the heart of the Fine Gael fold and destined for a position at Cabinet. It appears that her decision to walk away after she decided to vote against the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill and set up Renua has significantly damaged her support base. But only a fool would firmly rule out Ms Creighton in a constituency that is one of the most competitive in the country. Based on our findings, Eoghan Murphy - who spent the last year serving on the Oireachtas Banking Inquiry -will top the poll and could deliver a small surplus. Mr Murphy is one of a number of young Fine Gael politicians who will be considered for a junior ministry position. But the Creighton versus O'Connell battle is just one of several intriguing sub-plots set to unravel in Dublin Bay South. Former Fianna Fail TD Chris Andrews is continuing his political comeback on behalf of his new party Sinn Fein. And our poll suggests that he will secure a seat behind Fine Gael's Murphy. This is despite a series of controversies following Andrews since he left the Fianna Fail fold. This week, he was branded a "liar" and a "hypocrite" by the family of Joseph Rafferty, who was murdered by a Provisional IRA member in 2005. Andrews has described the claims as politically motivated. In a huge relief to the Labour Party, junior minister Kevin Humphreys is well-placed to take a seat. While he is neck-and-neck with Creighton in terms of first preferences, Humphreys is more transfer friendly. He will pick up second and third preferences from smaller candidates such as AAA/PBP candidate Annette Mooney, the Social Democrats' Glenna Lynch and Independent councillor Mannix Flynn. The surprise finding is the poor performance of former Green Party leader Eamon Ryan, whose Dail comeback looks unlikely to materialise. But the battle for the final seat will be between O'Connell, Creighton and Fianna Fail councillor Jim O'Callaghan, PREDICTION: FG 2, SF 1 LAB 1 Niall O'Connor Dublin Bay South Candidates:4 seats FG Eoghan Murphy TD, FG Kate O'Connell, LAB Kevin Humphreys TD, FF Jim O'Callaghan, SF Chris Andrews, PBP Annette Mooney, R Lucinda Creighton TD, SD Glenna Lynch, GP Eamon Ryan, IND Gerard Mannix Flynn, IND William D.J. Gorman, IND Alan MacStiofan, IND John Dominic Keigher, IND Eoin Tierney 'Not like this," instructs a post-it note over an unsmiling poster on the walls of the Green Party HQ. The picture is of John Gormley, their former party leader. The new face of the Greens is a positive and a beaming one. They're not out to frighten us - though they might have done in the past with the hefty environmental taxes they brought in when they formed part of their disastrous coalition with Fianna Fail. Climate change targets are not the 'catastrophe' declared by Enda Kenny - they are "an opportunity" to create our own energy resources, according to the Greens. Their 40 candidates around the country include two bona fide surfers and an artisan cheese maker. They've hired a young designer from London to do up positive, cool brightly-coloured hipster-vibe election campaign posters. One depicts planet Earth with the pleading message: "Show Me Love". And the Green Party wouldn't mind a bit of that love either, presumably. But can they actually rehabilitate themselves to the point of winning seats? Green Party leader Eamon Ryan is sounding almost relentlessly ebullient as he gives us the hard sell in solar power from the 'cockpit' of the Green Building in Dublin's Temple Bar - all lovely and eco-friendly, bar the toxic can of cheap furniture polish hiding away in the corner. Losing the court battle to be allowed onto the leaders debates had been unfortunate, he conceded - but they will get their message out "in other ways". There is a brief foray to the roof of the building for photographic purposes - via a shaky aluminium ladder. There's a backdrop of the Central Bank. "Oh no," groans the party press officer. "We don't need that." Afterwards, they take to Grafton Street and environs for a brief canvass. It's a tough beat, between the tourists and the indifferent, but finally some Green fans come forward. Celia Keenan from Dublin shakes his hand with vigour. "It's good to see you back. We need you," she says. She tells him that she dislikes a lot of what this government has done with planning. Ryan agrees with her. He feels that neither Enda Kenny nor Environment Minister Alan Kelly take the environment seriously. Eamon Gilmore as Tanaiste did listen to his advice on such issues - but only at Ryan's own instigation, he says. He recalls the bailout as though it were yesterday. "I was listening to the other side - to Joan Burton and Richard Bruton and I didn't hear an alternative," he says. There was no "sense of entitlement" after the annihilation of the Greens in the election. "None of us were from political dynasties or started young," he explains. He has spent the last five years working with E3G.org - an environmental consultancy firm, travelling to "Paris, Berlin, London" every second week. It's given him the realisation that "we aren't that bad in this country". "They always say we have to be more like Sweden - I can tell you, Sweden ain't no Eden." But he thinks we should be collaborating with tech companies who are eager for more green energy options. "IBM set up Smart Cities lab here looking to make Ireland a test location and I don't think they've gotten that support in making it really a test location," he says. He wants the Greens back in the Dail, influencing thinking on these types of issues. Asked his chances, he laughs: "My wife says I always think I have a chance." But his dream would be "three or four seats". SINN Fein deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald was this morning confronted by a member of the public who was "incensed" at her party's policies. The man, who declined to identify himself but said he ran a small business, accused the party of planning to "kill pensions". He said he was "apolitical" but that he would probably be voting for Fine Gael. Ms McDonald had been holding a press conference on Sinn Fein's opposition to water charges on Dublin's Grafton Street when the man interrupted. "You're going to kill pensions," he claimed. "No we won't. We won't," Ms McDonald replied. "Have you seen the figures or can your leader do the maths?," he asked. She asked who he was and he replied: "a concerned citizen". "I'm apolitical but I won't be voting for Sinn Fein," he added. "That's fine. That's your prerogative," Ms McDonald said. Read More He accused the Dublin Central candidate of wanting to "punish" people "who work hard and try and make a life for themselves" "No I don't," she replied. "You certainly do. Where the State loses more when someone is made unemployed than the person loses there's something wrong there. When you pay 59pc tax?," the man countered. Ms McDonald replied: "What I am saying to you is you have to look at the proposals in the round. I understand that not all of our proposals will be universally popular. It's not universally popular to say that you want a third tax band." She explained that those on more than 100,000 would pay an additional 7c on the euro over the 100,00 mark. "I'm being honest with you and I'm saying if we wish to balance the books, if we wish to protect society, protect services, to protect low and middle income families then this is the formula to do that." "The best way to do it Mary Lou is to generate wealth," the man said accusing Sinn Fein of wanting to tax higher paid workers "out of existence". Ms McDonald said: "Excuse me I'm taxing no one out of existence and I am saying we want - hold on - fair opportunities for people, fair services for people... and I'm sorry if you disagree with me but my position..." "I do disagree. I feel it in my pocket," the man said. "Ok my position and our position is people with deeper pockets, people who have a greater ability to pay, yes, have to pay a bit more and I'm sorry if that upsets you but I'm being honest and I'm telling you that that is the lie of the land. "And if others were honest... if other political parties were honest they would tell you the same thing." The man said: "The best way for this country is to give young people opportunities." "Absolutely," Ms McDonald said. "And taxing them out of existence is not the way," he said, adding: "what about their pensions. Have you looked at the numbers? i don't think your party leader has because he didn't seem to know what was going on yesterday." Gerry Adams had given an interview to RTE in which he said no one earning below 100,000 "will have to pay one extra penny or lose one extra penny because of the policies that Sinn Fein are bringing out". However, a worker on 40,000 who pays 10pc into a pension pot could lose out on as much as 800 annually if Sinn Fein's plan to reduce tax relief on private pensions is implemented. The man confronting Ms McDonald told her "I don't support any political party". "Really?," she asked. "Yeah, really... No political party. I'll chat with you any time you want to Mary Lou," he replied. "Ok well that's fine. We can do that," she added. He said he "probably will be voting Fine Gael" because of their policy on USC. "They're abolishing it," Ms McDonald said, adding: "It's 4bn off the balance sheet so good luck when you go to your local hospital." "You want to talk about the hospitals? You're talking about someone whose had personal experience and I can't see Sinn Fein sorting that out," the man replied, before turning to walk off saying: "Ok best of luck". He declined to give his name when asked by reporters. "I've no interest in talking but that's my point," he said. "Sinn Fein annoy me by the way they go around and I just felt so incensed about it," explaining why he confronted Ms McDonald An outgoing Sinn Fein TD has spoken for the first time about being bullied within the party, claiming that she was the victim of a "vicious" campaign. Cork East TD Sandra McLellan has revealed she intended to defend her Dail seat - but opted to step down because of the impact on her family. Ms McLellan said she was constantly undermined by figures within the party. "I was a good TD. I love politics and I love my job. I wanted to go for another five years because I felt I had much more to give and polling suggested I had a very good chance of being re-elected. I am now unemployed," Ms McLellan said in an interview with the 'Cork Evening Echo'. "So why would anyone who loves their job so much give it up voluntarily? Efforts to undermine me were particularly vicious and I had a decision to make regarding my family. "When it affects the people you love and your close supporters so much, it's time to say enough is enough," she added. The decision by Ms McLellan to speak out about her experience within Sinn Fein raises major questions for party leader Gerry Adams. Mr Adams has previously thanked Ms McLellan for her service but has not divulged the nature of her bullying allegations. In her interview with the Echo, Ms McLellan does not name any individual. But she says her record in the Dail was questioned, and that this does not reflect her work. "I gave my very level best. All you have to do is look at the Dail records. I had one of the highest voting records, I had one of the best attendance records and I had one of the best records when it comes to speaking. "I have been committed and reliable to serving my constituents and my country. I prefer to keep my head down, work away and not look for soundbites and headlines. Don't confuse that with not performing. Just because other people say it, doesn't mean it's true." "I behaved like a TD should. Some people tried to defame me and my record, saying I was not performing....I'm proud of my work." Cllr Christy Burke arrives at house on Portland row before coffin is brought to church. Garda sniffer dogs patrol the area around Our of Lourdes Church in Dublin before the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead in the north inner city last week. The Garda helicopter over Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Sean Mc Dermott Street, Dublin where the funeral of Eddie hutch took place. Gardai and emergency services on the streets of inner city Dublin before the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead last week. The remains of Eddie Hutch (Snr) are brought to his funeral mass this morning. The remains of Eddie Hutch (snr) are brought to his funeral mass. The coffin of Eddie Hutch senior is carried from his home. The remains of Eddie Hutch (snr) are brought to his funeral mass. The coffin is carried to Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Sean Mc Dermott Street, for the funeral of Eddie Hutch, Dublin. The coffin is carried to Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Sean Mc Dermott Street, for the funeral of Eddie Hutch, Dublin. Mourners arrive at Our of Lourdes Church in Dublin for the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead in the north inner city last week. The pallbearers carry the coffin into the church at the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead last week. The coffin is carried into Our of Lourdes Church in Dublin for the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead in the north inner city last week. The coffin is carried into Our of Lourdes Church in Dublin for the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead in the north inner city last week. The coffin is carried to the church at the funeral of Eddie Hutch at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Sean Mc Dermott Street, Dublin. The coffin of Eddie Hutch is carried into the church of Our Lady of Lourdes for his funeral service in Dublin REUTERS/Stringer The coffin is carried into Our of Lourdes Church in Dublin for the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead in the north inner city last week. Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch pictured at the funeral of Eddie Hutch Snr Gerry Hutch as he leaves after attending the funeral service for his brother Eddie Hutch, at the church of Our Lady of Lourdes in Dublin Photo: REUTERS/Stringer Exclusive footage has captured Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch leaving the church following the funeral of his brother Eddie Hutch Snr. 'The Monk' looked dramatically different with long grey hair tied back in a ponytail, covered with a black baseball cap. He did not follow the funeral cortege that left his sister's family home on Portland Row shortly before 10.30am. Gerry Hutch was originally believed to have fled Ireland ahead of the funeral this morning. Expand Close Gerry Hutch (R) leaves after attending the funeral service for his brother Eddie Hutch, at the church of Our Lady of Lourdes in Dublin. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Gerry Hutch (R) leaves after attending the funeral service for his brother Eddie Hutch, at the church of Our Lady of Lourdes in Dublin. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer However, these exclusive pictures show Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch braved threats to his life to pay his final respects to his brother. Hundreds gathered to pay their final respects to gangland victim Eddie Snr who was shot dead in his home in Portland Row, Ballybough almost two weeks ago. Expand Close Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch pictured at the funeral of Eddie Hutch Snr / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch pictured at the funeral of Eddie Hutch Snr Read More The father-of-five was attacked just three days after Crumlin native David Byrne (34) was killed in the Regency Hotel shooting. He was described as a 'soft target'. He is the second victim of gangland violence in the family in less than a year. His nephew Gary Hutch was killed in a shooting in the Costa del Sol, Spain last September. The 34-year-old was gunned down beside a swimming pool in an apartment complex. Fr Richard Ebejer addressed the congregation this morning and said the Hutch family have asked that they be no retaliation for the murder. The family made the same plea following the murder of Gary Hutch, the killing which is believed to have marked the beginning of the latest outbreak of gangland violence. Expand Close The remains of Eddie Hutch (snr) are brought to his funeral mass. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The remains of Eddie Hutch (snr) are brought to his funeral mass. "...one does not want to seek revenge or to have retaliation," the funeral of Eddie Hutch Snr heard this morning. "This is what the family had asked for, right from the very beginning, that there will be no retaliation. Expand Close The funeral procession leaves the home of Eddie Hutch senior. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The funeral procession leaves the home of Eddie Hutch senior. Read More "This is indeed goodness in the face of evil. "They now call on everybody for this cycle of violence to stop, and to stop now." Expand Close The remains of Eddie Hutch (snr) are brought to his funeral mass. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The remains of Eddie Hutch (snr) are brought to his funeral mass. "Nobody deserves to die in the way Neddy died", he added. The priest described the 59-year-old taxi driver as a 'good man' who loved a 'good joke'. Expand Close The pallbearers carry the coffin into the church at the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead last week. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The pallbearers carry the coffin into the church at the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead last week. His funeral cortege left his sister's family home on Portland Row shortly before 10.30am this morning. Several floral displays paid tribute to the gangland victim. Flowers spelling out the words 'Dad' and 'Uncle' were laid alongside the coffin in the hearse, while displays reading 'Grandad' were placed on top of the vehicle before it left Portland Row for the church on Sean Mac Dermott Street. Expand Close The coffin is carried into Our of Lourdes Church in Dublin for the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead in the north inner city last week. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The coffin is carried into Our of Lourdes Church in Dublin for the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead in the north inner city last week. And in a moving tribute to the taxi driver, Eddie Hutch's taxi sign was placed on top of the coffin before it was carried into the church. Photographs of Mr Hutch were shown on a projector inside the church. "The Goodness of the inner city is nourished by faith," Fr Ebejer told the congregation. Expand Close Gerry Hutch / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Gerry Hutch Read More "We see it in Neddy, who was basically a good man, who would as a taxi driver, wait on elderly ladies as they did their errands, he would share a good joke and was the life of a party, and he was good company in the pub. "He did not deserve to die in this manner." Fr Ebejer read a gospel that he said "was not chosen in particular for this sad occasion, but it does speak to the reality we are facing." The priest alluded to the recent increase in gangland violence in the capital, a situation he said that has 'shocked the whole nation'. He said: "We are all aware of the circumstances of Neddys death, circumstances that have spiralled out of control, circumstances that have left families grieving in shock and pain, circumstances that have shocked the whole nation. "All vengeful violence is to be condemned in the strongest terms possible, wherever it comes from. It only degrades the humanity of those who carry it out. "Nobody deserves to die in the way that Neddy died," he repeated. Read More Speaking about the area in which the Hutch family lived, he said inner city Dublin has a 'great history' of people looking out for one another when times get hard. "It would be a tragedy if we were to lose that sense of good Dublin values," he added. He concluded his sermon by saying: "May Neddy Hutch rest in Peace; may God have mercy on his soul, and reward him for his goodness, real Dublin goodness!" A total of 235 ambulances broke down across the country within a nine-month period last year, including one incident where the wheels fell off a vehicle while it was taking a patient to hospital. Figures show that the highest number of breakdowns took place in Dublin, followed by Galway. Documents released to Fine Gael Senator Hildegarde Naughton under the Freedom of Information Act show 235 breakdowns were recorded by the National Ambulance Service between February 12 and November 11 of last year. The vast majority, 123, were recorded in Leinster, followed by the western region, with 58 breakdowns, and 23 in the southern region. In Galway, 15 ambulances broke down during the period covered, with 13 in Limerick and 11 in Clare. The figures include the case where the two back wheels fell off an ambulance while it was taking a patient from Letterkenny hospital in Co Donegal to University College Hospital in Galway. The ambulance was carrying the patient along with a nurse, anaesthetist and two paramedics when the incident happened on August 26 last outside Sligo. While the patient subsequently died, the incident is not thought to have impacted on their condition. Refurbished "The number of ambulance breakdowns is concerning and is a consequence of many years of underinvestment in the National Ambulance Service, which is responsible for saving countless lives every year," said Ms Naughton. She welcomed the 18m that has since been invested in the ambulance fleet to "ensure such statistics are consigned to the past. "I'm pleased the Minister for Health announced an investment of 18m this month for the purchase of 50 new ambulances and 35 refurbished ambulances under the HSE's capital programme. "In total, 150 vehicles will have been added in 2015 and 2016, allowing the National Ambulance Service to replace older vehicles and expand services. Replacing older vehicles also reduces costs and improves reliability. "This will address the historic under-investment that has seen emergency vehicles, apparently unfit for purpose, being used to respond to life-or-death situations," said Senator Naughton. Last year, 53 ambulances were decommissioned and replaced by a total of 64 newly purchased vehicles. The addition of 85 ambulances in 2016 will see the fleet expand to 268 vehicles. Scientists in Trinity College Dublin have made an antibiotics breakthrough that will help in the development of drugs to fight common but devastating bacterial infections. The race is on to develop new drugs, as antibiotics are increasingly losing their ability to destroy bugs. The Trinity scientists have provided the first crystal-clear molecular blueprint of Globomycin - an antibacterial candidate with promise in stemming the onrushing post-antibiotic tide. It may help the design of new antibiotic solutions to common but devastating infections. The World Health Organisation has warned that in "a post-antibiotic era" even minor injuries and common infections could prove fatal, so new drugs are desperately needed. The warning comes as a new Europe-wide report shows that bacteria in humans, food and animals continue to show resistance to the most widely used antibiotics. Scientists warn that resistance to the drug ciprofloxacin, which is critically important for the treatment of human infections, is very high in campylobacter, thus reducing the options for effective treatment of severe foodborne infections. Multi-drug-resistant salmonella bacteria continue to spread across Europe. The findings of this latest annual Europe-wide report by EFSA and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) underline once again that antibiotic resistance poses a serious risk to human and animal health. This risk was identified by the European Commission as a major priority in its political agenda on food safety. A spokesman said: "Every year in the EU, infections caused by antimicrobial resistance lead to about 25,000 deaths - but the threat is not confined to Europe." He added: "This is a global problem that requires a global solution." The report also found evidence of resistance to the antimicrobial colistin in Salmonella and E coli among poultry in the EU. This is worrying because it means that this last-resort drug may soon no longer be effective for treating severe human infections with salmonella. The Aedes aegypti mosquito is a vector for transmitting the Zika virus. Photo: AP Another patient has died from swine flu, while a third case of the Zika virus has been confirmed in Ireland. The death toll from swine flu has risen to 12 so far this winter, but there will be some relief as figures show that the flu season has peaked, with signs that it is slowly waning. There have been 16 confirmed deaths from all types of flu this winter, mostly from swine flu and the B strain of the illness. GPs continue to see a lot of influenza-type illness, particularly among young children. Meanwhile, the third case of the Zika virus in Ireland is a patient who returned from Barbados. Two other people who returned here from Columbia since the beginning of the year also tested positive for the virus. It also emerged yesterday the Health Protection Surveillance Centre was informed of another person who had the virus here after coming back from Columbia some time last year. The Zika virus has hit the headlines all over the world as people fear it could be linked to microcephaly in babies, which causes infants to be born with abnormally small heads. There are fears there could be cases in parts of southern Europe this summer. Alana Butler from Dundrum heading into town on the Luas tracks near Ranelagh. Photo: Steve Humphreys Commuters heading into town on the Luas tracks near Ranelagh. Photo: Steve Humphreys Hundreds of commuters walked along the Luas tracks yesterday as they made alternative transport arrangements. Laura Breen, from Dundalk, only discovered the Luas was not operating when she left work in the evening. "I will have to get the bus instead," she said. "I have no other choice, but I prefer the Luas. "The workers are on a pretty good wage. There are others in a worse situation, so it's a bit indulgent - especially the strike on Paddy's Day." Liz Hayes and Brendan Kavanagh, from Tullamore, had travelled up for a darts event in the 3Arena and were hoping to get the Luas from Connolly station. "It's ridiculous," said Liz. "We are staying in a hotel and thought this would be the handiest way." Friends of murder victim Dean Johnson are raising funds for a headstone to mark his grave. The 21-year-old was shot dead in what is believed to be a case of mistaken identity on Neilstown Road, Clondalkin in August 2013 - yards from his home. His family have not been able to afford a headstone to mark his grave so friends have set up a GoFundMe cover the costs. In just under two weeks, 80 has been raised out of a 5,000 target. Johnson's friend Shuna Forde, who set up the page, said they are holding a benefit night to raise money for the cause. "We have organised a benefit night which will be in the Coldcut CIE the 16th of April and all money raised will be going off a headstone for our late friend," she wrote on the page. The murdered man was the innocent victim of a west Dublin feud in which he had no involvement. He had no known connection with any gangland group and his only criminal conviction was a traffic violation. Johnson was shot multiple times, hours after being involved in a row at the Square Shopping Centre in Tallaght. Thirteen arrests have been made in connection with his murder but so far no-one has been brought to court. The man who established Ireland's forensics lab and was the victim of an attempted murder by Martin Cahill has warned that criminal gangs are growing in wealth once again. Dr James O'Donovan was the senior forensic scientist to the Garda Technical Bureau until his retirement in 2002. He was instrumental in the State's operations against the IRA and Martin Cahill - known as The General. Cahill organised for plastic explosive to be attached to the exhaust manifold of the respected doctor's car. Dr O'Donovan survived the horrific attack but was left with a permanent crippling injury. Speaking in light of the recent gangland murders on RTE's Liveline, Dr O'Donovan said that gangsters could not be reasoned with. He warned that high-profile gangland funerals are evidence of the increasing power of drugs gangs. "It shows that crime gangs have increased in power and wealth over the years," he said. Read More "Obviously the funeral (of David Byrne) was an indication, a statement that 'we have the money and we have the power' and didn't somebody once say that power comes from the barrel of a gun." Dr O'Donovan warned that, in his experience, the gangs would not be agreeable to any sort of mediation. "They are not going to be amenable to rational discussion at all," he said. Cahill attempted to murder Dr O'Donovan in January 1982. The gangster believed that advancements in forensic science would link him to robberies and other crimes. As the State's chief forensic scientist, Dr O'Donovan became a target. He was driving to work when the heat from the exhaust caused the explosives to detonate. It was thought at the time that the IRA had carried out the attack, because it was believed that such resources were outside the reach of ordinary criminals. The former civil servant was also a key figure in invetstigating the paramilitary group's terrorist atrocities. Dr O'Donovan revealed yesterday that he still needs treatment every four weeks, 35 years on from the attack by Cahill. Read More He said that he has never received any State aid for the treatment he requires. Former justice minister Dermot Ahern also spoke to the show. He appealed for people to come forward, even anonymously, to provide information about gangs. He also revealed he turned down a request for the use of Department of Social Welfare offices by the film crew who made the 1998 film The General, about the Dublin crime boss. Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch has been told that his life is in danger as he prepares to bury his murdered brother. One notable absence at yesterday's wake for Eddie Hutch Snr was the brother of the deceased, Gerry, who was formally notified that his life was in danger on Wednesday night. Scores of mourners turned out at the home of Margaret Hutch to pay their respects to her brother, who was callously murdered last week. Sympathisers brought floral tributes as they entered the north Dublin home where the body of Mr Hutch was being waked. The 59-year-old was gunned down at his Ballybough home in Poplar Row by a four-man hit team in what is believed to be a revenge attack for the murder of David Byrne (35), who had been killed at the Regency Hotel three days previously. In the aftermath, local officers from Clontarf garda station are believed to have served official documents to Gerry Hutch, in which he was advised that detectives had received credible information that his life was in danger as a result of recent gang killings. Yesterday's wake lasted from 3pm until 6pm, with friends and family including the murder victim's sons, Ross and Eddie Hutch Jnr, attending. Members of the Special Detective Unit (SDU), armed with automatic weapons, kept a visible presence outside the house, while uniformed gardai also manned a checkpoint near the home. Streets in and around the area were also being patrolled by members of the Garda Public Order Unit, while officers from the Armed Support Unit kept a floating presence. Read More The murder of Eddie Hutch Snr, who sources described as an innocent man, is part of an ongoing feud between associates of his family and the Kinahan cartel. The funeral of Eddie Hutch Snr will take place at Our Lady of Lourdes Church on Sean McDermott Street this morning. His body will then be brought to Glasnevin Cemetery. A major garda operation will take place as the streets around the funeral will be in lockdown, with more than 100 armed and uniformed gardai keeping an eye on proceedings. Specially trained members of the SDU, armed with sniper rifles, will also keep a detailed surveillance of the area. Retaliation The operation will be conducted by senior officers from Mountjoy garda station, with bomb sweeps also taking place as a precaution. This morning's service will take place at the same church where Gary Hutch's funeral was held in October. Gary, the nephew of Gerry and Eddie Snr, was shot dead at the Miraflores apartment complex near Marbella, Spain, on the orders of the mob that is now led by Daniel Kinahan. At the funeral, senior members of the Hutch family called for an end to the violence and for "no retaliation" for Gary Hutch's murder. However, a number of tit-for-tat shootings have taken place in the past number of months. Luas workers have threatened to withdraw services every two weeks until a dispute over pay and conditions is settled. Photo: Caroline Quinn Striking Luas workers have threatened to withdraw services every two weeks until a dispute over pay and conditions is settled. Some 90,000 commuters will be forced to find alternative ways of travelling to work today as the row continues. Both sides remain at loggerheads, with no prospect of talks to end the impasse, which has already led to four days of strike action. But pressure to open negotiations has intensified after Siptu warned of further days of industrial unrest unless management agrees to meaningful talks over pay and demands for improved terms and conditions. Strikes are already planned for Tuesday, March 8 and St Patrick's Day, March 17, and there are concerns they could run into the Easter holidays. "We're getting more and more intractable," Siptu divisional organiser Owen Reidy said. "We have to give 21 days' notice and I think you're looking at a situation where, unless we get to a place where we will see some resolution, you will see more dates. "I don't want to speculate, but my sense is that more dates will be announced every two weeks unless there's a resolution. "You're going to see a pattern of rolling industrial action every two weeks. "We're happy to talk to the company but they have to move away from hikes of 3pc linked to productivity. We're not going to call off any action until there is a resolution." Read More Workers, who have already lost pay and annual bonuses worth as much as 3,000 for drivers, are seeking pay increases ranging from 8.5pc to 53.8pc for more than 200 staff, paid over five years. Management has offered increases of between 1pc and 3pc, linked to productivity. Staff are also seeking a free GP service for drivers, an increase in the annual bonus from 6.5pc to 10pc, higher rates of sick pay and an increase in annual leave, among other demands. But the company has said it is losing money and cannot afford to pay the claims, which would cost 19m over the five years. The strike has caused misery for commuters who are being forced to make alternative travel arrangements. Traffic ground to a slow crawl on the Dublin quays yesterday morning, with AA Roadwatch saying that the roads were busier than normal. While Dublin Bus is operating a full range of services, it is not accepting Luas tickets Transdev managing director Gerry Madden insisted that Luas drivers were at the top of the scale in terms of payment and benefits, compared with staff in other transport operators. "Against almost every measure in the transport sector in Ireland, we are the Rolls Royce," he told Newstalk's 'Pat Kenny Show'. "We are paying not just reasonable (rates) but over the top compared to the others." Last year, despite losses, the company paid around 550,000 in bonuses for staff "because it's the right thing to do", he said. There will be no payment this year due to the strike action. Transdev is urging the union to reduce its claim. The company has offered to open discussions based on pay increases of 1pc to 3pc. Cllr Christy Burke arrives at house on Portland row before coffin is brought to church. Garda sniffer dogs patrol the area around Our of Lourdes Church in Dublin before the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead in the north inner city last week. The Garda helicopter over Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Sean Mc Dermott Street, Dublin where the funeral of Eddie hutch took place. Gardai and emergency services on the streets of inner city Dublin before the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead last week. The remains of Eddie Hutch (Snr) are brought to his funeral mass this morning. The remains of Eddie Hutch (snr) are brought to his funeral mass. The coffin of Eddie Hutch senior is carried from his home. The remains of Eddie Hutch (snr) are brought to his funeral mass. The coffin is carried to Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Sean Mc Dermott Street, for the funeral of Eddie Hutch, Dublin. The coffin is carried to Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Sean Mc Dermott Street, for the funeral of Eddie Hutch, Dublin. Mourners arrive at Our of Lourdes Church in Dublin for the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead in the north inner city last week. The pallbearers carry the coffin into the church at the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead last week. The coffin is carried into Our of Lourdes Church in Dublin for the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead in the north inner city last week. The coffin is carried into Our of Lourdes Church in Dublin for the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead in the north inner city last week. The coffin is carried to the church at the funeral of Eddie Hutch at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Sean Mc Dermott Street, Dublin. The coffin is carried into Our of Lourdes Church in Dublin for the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead in the north inner city last week. The family of Eddie Hutch Snr have asked for the cycle of gangland violence to stop. Hundreds gathered in Dublin's north inner city for to pay their final respects to the gangland victim who was shot dead in his home in Portland Row, Ballybough almost two weeks ago. The father-of-five, a brother of convicted criminal Gerry 'The Monk' Hutch, was attacked just three days after Crumlin native David Byrne (34) was killed in the Regency Hotel shooting. He was described as a 'soft target'. He is the second victim of gangland violence in the family in less than a year. His nephew Gary Hutch was killed in a shooting in the Costa del Sol, Spain last September. The 34-year-old was gunned down beside a swimming pool in an apartment complex. Expand Close The coffin is carried into Our of Lourdes Church in Dublin for the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead in the north inner city last week. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The coffin is carried into Our of Lourdes Church in Dublin for the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead in the north inner city last week. Fr Richard Ebejer addressed the congregation at the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes on Sean McDermott Street this morning and said the Hutch family have asked that they be no retaliation for the murder. The family made the same plea following the murder of Gary Hutch, the killing which is believed to have marked the beginning of the latest outbreak of gangland violence. Expand Close The remains of Eddie Hutch (Snr) are brought to his funeral mass this morning. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The remains of Eddie Hutch (Snr) are brought to his funeral mass this morning. "...one does not want to seek revenge or to have retaliation," the funeral of Eddie Hutch Snr heard this morning. "This is what the family had asked for, right from the very beginning, that there will be no retaliation. Expand Close The remains of Eddie Hutch (snr) are brought to his funeral mass. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The remains of Eddie Hutch (snr) are brought to his funeral mass. "This is indeed goodness in the face of evil. "They now call on everybody for this cycle of violence to stop, and to stop now." Expand Close Gardai and emergency services on the streets of inner city Dublin before the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead last week. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Gardai and emergency services on the streets of inner city Dublin before the funeral of Eddie Hutch senior who was shot dead last week. "Nobody deserves to die in the way Neddy died", he added. The priest described the 59-year-old taxi driver as a 'good man' who loved a 'good joke'. His funeral cortege left his sister's family home on Portland Row shortly before 10.30am this morning. Several floral displays paid tribute to the gangland victim. Expand Close The remains of Eddie Hutch (snr) are brought to his funeral mass. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The remains of Eddie Hutch (snr) are brought to his funeral mass. Flowers spelling out the words 'Dad' and 'Uncle' were laid alongside the coffin in the hearse, while displays reading 'Grandad' were placed on top of the vehicle before it left Portland Row for the church on Sean Mac Dermott Street. And in a moving tribute to the taxi driver, Eddie Hutch's taxi sign was placed on top of the coffin before it was carried into the church. Expand Close The coffin of Eddie Hutch senior is carried from his home. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The coffin of Eddie Hutch senior is carried from his home. "The Goodness of the inner city is nourished by faith," Fr Ebejer told the congregation. Read More "We see it in Neddy, who was basically a good man, who would as a taxi driver, wait on elderly ladies as they did their errands, he would share a good joke and was the life of a party, and he was good company in the pub. "He did not deserve to die in this manner." Expand Close The coffin arrives at the funeral of Eddie Hutch at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Sean Mc Dermott Street, Dublin. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The coffin arrives at the funeral of Eddie Hutch at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Sean Mc Dermott Street, Dublin. Fr Ebejer read a gospel that he said "was not chosen in particular for this sad occasion, but it does speak to the reality we are facing." The priest alluded to the recent increase in gangland violence in the capital, a situation he said that has 'shocked the whole nation'. He said: "We are all aware of the circumstances of Neddys death, circumstances that have spiralled out of control, circumstances that have left families grieving in shock and pain, circumstances that have shocked the whole nation. Expand Close The Garda helicopter over Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Sean Mc Dermott Street, Dublin where the funeral of Eddie hutch took place. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The Garda helicopter over Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Sean Mc Dermott Street, Dublin where the funeral of Eddie hutch took place. "All vengeful violence is to be condemned in the strongest terms possible, wherever it comes from. It only degrades the humanity of those who carry it out. "Nobody deserves to die in the way that Neddy died," he repeated. Read More Speaking about the area in which the Hutch family lived, he said inner city Dublin has a 'great history' of people looking out for one another when times get hard. Expand Close The coffin is carried to Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Sean Mc Dermott Street, for the funeral of Eddie Hutch, Dublin. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp The coffin is carried to Our Lady of Lourdes Church, Sean Mc Dermott Street, for the funeral of Eddie Hutch, Dublin. "It would be a tragedy if we were to lose that sense of good Dublin values," he added. He concluded his sermon by saying: "May Neddy Hutch rest in Peace; may God have mercy on his soul, and reward him for his goodness, real Dublin goodness!" The family of a Westlife superfan who was diagnosed with terminal cancer have launched a social media campaign, which they hope will fulfil her dying wish to meet Irish singer Shane Filan. Emma Clayson (23) was told by doctors she had three months to live in October after being diagnosed with terminal skin cancer, which had spread throughout her body. The British woman has been an avid follower of Westlife for more than a decade and had purchased tickets to Shane Filans solo concert in Northampton next month. Emmas family hope that she will have the opportunity to meet her idol before she passes away and her sister Becky took to Facebook to make an emotional plea to bring the pair together. Expand Close Westlife fan Emma dreams of meeting Shane Filan before she passes away / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Westlife fan Emma dreams of meeting Shane Filan before she passes away "For people that don't know my sister Emma is terminally ill with cancer and has got a matter of weeks left with us, Becky wrote. "Ems has concert tickets to see Shane Filan at Royal on Saturday March 5. Unfortunately she can't go as she is completely bedridden and unable to move anymore. "All she wants is to meet him to say hello and have a picture with him as her last wish. We've tried contacting his Twitter several times and no response, please like and share this post and get the word around! Please help my sister have her last wish, she wrote. Speaking to The Northampton Post, Becky revealed that her sister has attended more than 30 Westlife concerts in her short life, and has chosen one of their songs to be played at her funeral. "For me, I would be so happy for the rest of my life, just knowing she was happy - because it is aboslutely heartbreaking and devastating right now, seeing her like this, she told the publication. "She is my eldest sister but she is just two years older, so we grew up like twins really. We are really close-knit family, and seeing her not being able to do anything and seeing my mum have to be pretty much her carer is really hard. "We are just trying so hard now to make sure she is comfortable and happy." "She really does have a heart of gold and would simply light up a room." TOYOTA in Ireland is recalling 4,639 RAV4 crossovers as part of a global 2.87 million call back. It follows an incident in Canada in which rear seat belts separated in a fatal accident and during a US crash in which one person was injured. Toyota insisted it was not clear if the defect was to blame. The models being recalled are RAV4s produced between July 2005 and August 2014. Toyota says rear seatbelts in the affected vehicles could be cut by metal seat-cushion frames in the event of a severe front crash and might not restrain passengers. It plans to add resin covers to the metal seat cushion frames on those vehicles. That is to prevent any metal pieces cutting the seatbelt in a crash. The procedure should take less than an hour. Around 1.3 million vehicles are being recalled in North America, 625,000 in Europe, 434,000 in China, 177,000 in Japan and 307,000 in other regions. Mike O'Shea has crossed Lake Baikal, climbed Kilimanjaro and oversaw health and safety on Star Wars' Skellig Michael shoot. Here are his travel tales. Where have you just been? South Georgia. I did a four-week expedition there sailing and trekking. We sailed over 800 miles and spend two weeks trekking on the island. What three things do you never leave home without? 1) My video camera - I love sharing my adventures with others. 2) A satellite phone - this is my connection to home when I am away. 3) My iPod! Whats your favourite city? Santiago in Chile - amazing sights, sounds and cuisine. Dressing for the plane: style or comfort? Comfort - I don't really do style! Whats the weirdest thing youve eaten overseas? Expand Close Mike O'Shea, Polar Explorer / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Mike O'Shea, Polar Explorer I have had whale and polar bear in Greenland. I wouldn't recommend whale! What destination exceeded your expectations? South Georgia. The scenery and amount of wildlife there is unbelievable. What destination didnt? The Trans-Siberian railway! I had this romantic idea about the trip before I went, but it was just a long trip on a poor train. Ever had a holiday romance? No: I never have time! What three songs would you include on a travel playlist? Catch me if you can by Walking on Cars; If Today was Your Last Day by Nickleback and Someone Else's Hand by The Coronas. Whats your next trip? I've been working with Laya Healthcare as an ambassador for their Big Price Freeze offer, which sees them freeze prices across a range of their most popular schemes for up to two years. Irish people can sign up until February 29th, 2016. To celebrate, Laya ran a competition to join me on a trip of a lifetime for one week in Norway. The lucky winners are joining me ice fishing, on a husky safari and wild camping, and will get to experience a kaleidoscope of colour as the sky is lit up by the celestial ballet of the Northern Lights. I can't wait! More on the Price Freeze campaign at layahealthcare.ie/pricefreeze. Read more: The Government is about to throw 13,000 Irish families to the vultures. In just a few weeks, their mortgages, taken out with Irish Nationwide Building Society, are to be sold to the highest international bidders. But the Government, in an act of raw stupidity and vandalism, is expressly forbidding the families from bidding for their own loans. The mortgages will be sold off in batches of several thousand, and bought by foreign fund managers, eager for a home for their clients' money. The performing mortgages will be bundled together and sold at a discount of about 10 per cent. The less attractive ones, like those in arrears or serious negative equity, could be sold at discounts of 50 per cent or more. For the purposes of this article, let's assume that John manages a fund on Wall Street, and is one of the lucky buyers. Here's what's coming for the families. Let's say you've a mortgage with 300k left to pay on it, and that you're fully up to date on your payments. John has just bought your mortgage for 270k but you still owe him the full 300k. You'll still pay, and John will bring 30k in profit back to New York. You could have refinanced the mortgage with an Irish company and would have been delighted to pay the 270k, or even more. You'd be better off, the Irish bank getting your business would be better off, and with more money in circulation, everyone else would be better off too. But this Government won't let you do that. Because you're not like John. Let's take another example. Let's say you borrowed 300k, and due to job loss or wage cuts you're in arrears. You haven't taken a holiday since 2006, you can't provide for your kids as you'd like to, and you haven't slept properly in months because of the stress. John has just bought your mortgage for 150k but you still owe him the full 300k. You can't afford the payments on 300k, but you could easily handle payments on 150k, so an Irish bank might very well give you such a mortgage. Or you could sell the house, let's say for 200k, and pay the 150k from that, with 50k in the bank to start again. In one move, you and your family get to restart your lives. As before, everyone in Ireland wins. But this Government won't let you do that. Because you're not like John. Instead, you owe John 300k. If your home is in equity, John is likely to discuss repossessing it. When you make noises about the Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears, John will inform you that he isn't bound by any of that nonsense, because he's not a regulated bank. So, you know, start packing your bags. And if you go quietly, he tells you, he may consider writing down a bit of the residual debt. Or not. If you're in negative equity, John will work out a plan that takes as much of your money off you as possible for the rest of your life. He may never get the full 300k from you (though he may ultimately get more), but anything he gets over 150k is profit so he'll squeeze. And because you're not covered by the same consumer protections that your neighbours are, he'll squeeze hard. You might pick up the phone to an outfit like Grant Thornton, New Beginning or the Irish Mortgage Holders' Association, and get the ball rolling on a Personal Insolvency Arrangement. This, at least, would get you and the family free of your debts in six years. Only, in the new insolvency legislation, the main creditor can veto any proposal. And in this case, that's John. Myself, Shane Ross TD and Catherine Murphy TD met with some of the families recently. They are normal, hard-working people. They are angry and they are afraid. And they have every right to be, because they're being sold down the river by their own Government. They have two requests. One: please let us bid for our own mortgages. Two: please extend consumer protection, as it exists for mortgage holders with Irish banks, to all mortgage holders in Ireland. In October, I asked Finance Minister Michael Noonan if he would allow these families to bid for their own mortgages. He refused. It turns out the Special Liquidator, KPMG, sought advice on the matter from PwC. And that advice was to sell the mortgages in bulk. The Special Liquidator, Minister Noonan explained, believes that doing it this way (in other words, not allowing the families to bid) "is the most efficient method of disposal and the one which is most likely to maximise sales realisations for the Special Liquidator having regard to the public interest". On Tuesday, I put the same question to An Taoiseach Enda Kenny during Leader's Questions. He read out the same reply. So we have two reasons from the Government for why it's screwing 13,000 Irish families. Reason one: it's efficient. Much easier to get a few Johns in a room and sell the lot in a few hours. This is an outrageous position for the Government to take. The State is taking a hit on the mortgages anyway, by selling them at a discount. But rather than pass that benefit on to Irish citizens, it is passing it on to people like John, and his clients. One group of consultants does a report for another group of consultants, and that's reason enough for Minister Noonan and the Taoiseach to wash their hands of the affair. Their mantra from day one has been that mortgage solutions must be dealt with 'on a case-by-case basis'. But not in this case. Here, it seems, they just couldn't be bothered. Reason two: it'll raise more money. This is wide open to challenge. I've requested the PwC report from Minister Noonan. If he agrees to provide it, we'll see what level of analysis has been done. In his response on Tuesday, Enda Kenny gave some big talk about not spending another cent of taxpayers' money on Irish Nationwide. A noble sentiment though notably absent when Fine Gael voted over 5bn of taxpayers' money into the dead bank. And absent again just 20 months ago when his Government paid out hundreds of millions of euro of taxpayers' money on a bond issued by Nationwide in 2007, long before any guarantee was in place. Another John, somewhere, was given our money money he never loaned us, money we never owed him. The public is reacting with vitriol to what's happening to these families. We are used to people venting their frustrations about the Government's abject failure to tackle the mortgage crisis. But the reaction to this has been different it has been raw fury. There is a sense that this is more than incompetence, that it is in fact deliberate and malicious. It's probably also because it's so real. Abstract economic concepts can be hard to get worked up about. But everyone can tap into the fury they would feel if their own Government sold their mortgage to some random foreigner at half price, without being allowed to bid on it themselves. Telling these families that it's simply more efficient to do so is pathetic. Stephen Donnelly is an independent TD for Wicklow and East Carlow Pope John Paul II: A celibate man, like a married man, can have close friendships with members of the opposite sex and keep his vows, both by the letter and the spirit of those vows. Photo: CNS photo/Grzegorz Galazka Much more interesting than our dull election campaign is the 'revelation' that Pope John Paul II had a close friendship for more than 30 years with a married Polish academic by the name of Anna-Teresa Tymienecka. This story touches on sex and love and men and women. How does your average election campaign compare with that? This story is in the news because the BBC's Edward Stourton went to the bother of going to Poland in order to access the papers of Tymienecka, a philosopher, including her private papers. Among her private papers are more than 300 letters to her from Pope John Paul II spanning the period from 1973 (before he became pope) until his death in 2005. These letters formed the basis of a 'Panorama' documentary broadcast this week. The Pope was obviously very fond of her and she of him but no-one is suggesting that their friendship developed into a sexual relationship. Why then are the letters news at all? The answer is the rule of celibacy. The fact that John Paul and Tymienecka had a close friendship is being used as an argument against the rule. There seems to be an underlying assumption that a person committed to the life of celibacy should not have a close friendship with a member of the opposite sex, which is roughly equivalent to saying a married person should not have a close friendship with a member of the opposite sex. Both the celibate and the married people have made a commitment. The vowed celibate has promised never to enter into a sexual relationship. A married person has promised to have a sexual relationship with their spouse only. Neither of these vows stops them having a close friendship with a member of the opposite sex. It simply means that the relationship will have to observe certain boundaries and be careful not to cross them. Anna-Teresa Tymienecka met Karol Wojtyla (the future Pope John Paul) when she was 50 and he was 53 and the Archbishop of Krakow in his native Poland. So they were both past the first flush of youth. They met because they were both philosophers and their academic collaboration developed into the very close friendship revealed in the letters. Tymienecka married in 1956, so she was married for 17 years by the time of her first meeting with Wojtyla in 1973. She was living and working in the United States by then. Her husband, who died in 2008, three years after John Paul II (she died in 2014) was well aware of his wife's friendship with Wojtyla. If he thought it was in any way inappropriate, wouldn't he have made his feelings known? And by 'inappropriate', I don't even mean sexual, I just mean too close for comfort. In any event, there were few opportunities for them to meet in person. For the most part, their friendship was long distance. He lived in Poland and from 1978 in Rome, while she lived in America. A woman Wojtyla was much closer to and had far more dealings with than Tymienecka, was the psychiatrist, Wanda Poltawska. He knew her from 1950 until his death in 2005. They, too, wrote hundreds of letters to one another. They were also philosophical and spiritual soulmates. Like Tymienecka, Poltawska was married. She and Pope John Paul were so close that in the years of his illness she would come to him and sit beside him and read out loud to him when he was too tired and unwell to read for himself. In the earlier years of his papacy, she and her husband and their children would sometimes stay with him when he was holidaying. In other words, John Paul was a man who liked company and who developed strong, lasting friendships with both men and women. Why do we find this so surprising? Indeed, aren't we always complaining that celibate men can't possibly understand women? And yet when we find out that John Paul II had close friendships with several women we go straight into 'wink, wink, nudge, nudge' mode. Could we try to be just a little more grown up about it? I'm not even sure what those who are using the friendship between Wojtyla and Tymienecka to argue against celibacy are trying to say. Are they saying that they should have been free to marry each other? But she was already married. So are they really saying that once you have any kind of feelings for another person that hint at the romantic, you should be free to walk away from your vows, from your promises, from your commitments, from your responsibilities? But the precise reason vows exist is to help us resist passing feelings. Vows, of course, don't fit well with an age that emphasises feelings and 'autonomy' above lifelong fidelity and commitment, whether they be celibacy vows or marriage vows. We find the rule of celibacy (strictly speaking, diocesan priests don't actually take a vow of celibacy) especially objectionable because we assume the sex drive is so powerful it can only be resisted at great cost to our psyche. In fact, the rule of celibacy, properly understood, isn't a rejection of sex at all. It's really a promise not to have a family of your own. If priests were permitted to marry, they would be expected to have children as well. This would give them less time to devote to their parishes because they would have to divide their time between their parish ministry and their family. The rule of celibacy is, therefore, actually about service. Let's assume though that priests were allowed to marry. Do we imagine for a moment that some wouldn't break their marriage vows? Should we then allow them to divorce and remarry? A few years ago a Church of Ireland bishop left his wife for a woman who in turn left her husband. He resigned as a result. It received very little publicity. He died recently. Vows are broken every day, but if we don't believe in vows as a result of that, then we don't believe in the possibility of lifelong commitments, not even to our families. John Paul II broke no vow and no-one is suggesting he did. But they seem to be suggesting that he somehow broke it in spirit. That is also nonsense. A celibate man, like a married man, can have close friendships with members of the opposite sex and keep his vows both by the letter and spirit of the vows. The only thing we learnt this week is that John Paul II had strong friendships with women as well as men. That should be a surprise only to those who have a very stereotypical view of the celibate life. Premium John Downing Opinion Pension reforms are dicey territory but grand plan by minister Heather Humphreys just might win through Pension system changes all across the western world have a great propensity to infuriate those most feared by politicians: the grey brigade. And when the oldies take to the streets, they usually play for keeps. The three-week election campaign is proving long and short in equal measure. Time can drag, as in the first week, as contenders play safe for fear of losing ground. But this week, time was flying, with so much to be conveyed to voters; the political equivalent of speed dating. The Government parties must communicate their achievements, particularly at a time of an unprecedented economic catastrophe. To be fair, they probably succeeded in telling that positive story even before the election was called. But it takes more than their record to win votes for a second time. Eaten bread is quickly forgotten. It is equally important to set out a vision and costed plan for the next five years that is credible and honest. Talking up the recovery, which has been the principle government message, is premature and not gaining traction. A better message might have been: "We are not there yet; allow us to stay the course." Instead, they, like all outgoing governments, have caved in to the tyranny of cash promises. The biggest offer is to abolish USC, Fine Gael declaring this particular levy to be "hated". Their word, not ours. True, it is a tough universal tax, a blunt but effective instrument to raise revenue for vital public services. It may not be loved, but it is widely accepted as having been necessary in the circumstances of national penury in which we found ourselves. One recalls Michael Noonan quoting Yeats "too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart" as he sought gradually to alleviate the burden on hard-pressed taxpayers. But there appears to be a growing sentiment against parties throwing back money at taxpayers with gay abandon, for short-term popularity and votes. Something new has emerged. The 2016 voter is a cautious player, slow to trust politicians bearing gifts. Austerity, for all its bad name, has become embedded in our psyche. We have changed insofar as we expect prudence, caution and rainy-day contingency thinking. The well-paid want a fairer society with good public services. The extent of homelessness and hardship is not compatible with civilised values. The Government parties appear taken aback by a seemingly ungrateful public. Politics doesn't work like that. People expected the Coalition to do its best and dig us out of a national calamity, managing the Troika and returning the public finances to stability. That was its job. But both Coalition parties have overplayed the verdict of eternal damnation for Fianna Fail's role in the economic collapse. There is little evidence that Fine Gael or Labour would have handled the crisis any differently. So what has happened in the first two weeks of this campaign is that voters are looking at the government options in a fresh way. They can note what transpired since 2011, hardship as well as recovery in equal measure. But it is a fresh throw of the dice. Micheal Martin grasped this early in the campaign when he declared that this election was not going to be a "coronation" of the outgoing Government. Fianna Fail is looking most comfortable of all the contenders in this election. Always potentially a party of government, it carries the mantle of experience. In each of the debates, FF leader Micheal Martin has been articulate, knowledgeable and impressive, while the two government leaders came across defensively, repeating slogans. While the small parties and Sinn Fein won applause, it was for populist declaratory points criticising deficiencies in state services. Always a winner with the audience. In my view, it was unfair to exclude the Greens; at least climate change and the environment would have got a mention to follow up the Taoiseach's big talk in Paris. As always, crime comes to the fore in General Election campaigns and the recent displays of gangland brutality and brashness by way of funerals have upset most observers. People question why the CAB is not rounding on these characters as they did after the murder of Veronica Guerin in 1996 or by policing methods which were successful in Limerick. But the far-right, anti-crime rhetoric of Renua, lifted from republican politics in the US, is discordant. And it was refreshing to see it dismissed in TV debates by Alan Shatter and Aodhan O Riordain, both of whom resisted populism in favour of human and civil rights principles, particularly in relation to juvenile crime. A mid-week Red C poll showing a 2pc drop in support for Fine Gael apparently caused panic. Leo Varadkar's ill-judged criticism of Micheal Martin's record as Health Minister left the Fine Gael man deservedly with a bloody nose. The Fianna Fail leader stormed into the 'News At One' studio and wiped the floor with Aine Lawlor. Nobody in politics is better informed than Micheal Martin on health policy. It was combative, passionate and the best return of service so far of this campaign. For good measure, he suggested partisan treatment of him by RTE. It was a good outing. One could feel the "borrowed votes" flocking back to the mother ship. The Social Democrats too are in a good place. All three elected deputies are effective and principled parliamentarians. Refreshingly, they are not promising the earth and have sensible proposals for political reform, good governance and anti- corruption measures. With a week to go, it's still all to play for. Domestic issues have dominated. Not a dicky bird from any quarter about the refugee crisis or global insecurities. So far, the Coalition has been exposed as being slightly out of tune with the electorate. Although Labour is finally getting a hearing with good performances by Joan Burton, the party needs not to lose heart. If Fine Gael can get over the shock of not being loved, ground may be recoverable. But space has been left open for Fianna Fail and others to impress. Over the years, I have travelled down many paths. I have been an educator, a grassroots community activist, a human rights commissioner, a CEO with the National Women's Council, and a change leader. Today, I am an Independent candidate running for election in the Dublin South West constituency, which takes in the suburbs of Tallaght, Templeogue, Citywest and Rathfarnham. It has been half a century since a non-party candidate was returned to Leinster House from this constituency, and it has seen only one female TD since the 1940s. I first knew that I was going to run in 2013, mid-way through my term as an Independent senator. We started An Cosan, our community education organisation, in Tallaght in the bleak 1980s. The recent austerity policies have brought us backward to those devastating times and I decided I couldn't stand by to witness all that we had built up being torn asunder. Maybe my voice in the Dail could change things. For months on the doorsteps of Dublin South West, it has been clear to me that this election represents a watershed moment with voters ready to show that the mass mobilisation of the marriage equality referendum was not just a blip on the political radar. People are ready to shake off the grip of party politics and golden circles and to build a new political system which is solely focused on meeting the needs of the communities it is supposed to represent. It became clear to me as I led the YesEquality team in Dublin South West that a monumental shift was afoot and that there is a new, more politically engaged mood in communities that have been ravaged by years of cutbacks and austerity. As we walked together during the first Tallaght water protest, I witnessed that the botched introduction of Irish Water was just the tipping point for people already frustrated by the lack of affordable and high-quality childcare. It was a slap in the face to those who are unable to get a job that pays a decent wage. Lone-parent families, already targeted by ruthless cuts, demonstrated a righteous anger as their children walked by their side. For the communities in Dublin South West, who have been at the frontline of cuts, the parade of ministers currently on the airwaves offering belated solidarity about the economic recovery not being shared equally rings hollow. It offers little solace. There is nothing for the woman I met who can't afford to upgrade her qualifications in childcare so that she has a well-paid job in the future. Older people on public pensions are disgusted that it will take three years for their cuts to be restored. Last night, a woman stood in the snow and rain to tell me about the devastating impact of nine months of homelessness on her children. Enough is enough. As an Independent candidate, I am putting before voters the opportunity to have their concerns and issues brought on to the floor of the national parliament without the restraints of party politics. My only agenda is to act for and on behalf of my constituents. Many feel they no longer have a voice in Dail Eireann. At the moment, you'll hear the big parties fight over airtime on TV and radio and fall back to the tired old cliches, and a few new ones, such as 'Fiscal Space'. My goal as an Independent candidate is to put forward policies based on equality, fairness and opportunity containing new ideas that reflect what I've witnessed as a community activist over the last 30 years. If I had to say what is the greatest skill that I'll bring into the Dail from my past five years as an Independent senator, I'd say it's my ability to take what I hear from the people and to turn it into law that reflects their voices. Like every constituency in the country, Dublin South West faces significant challenges. Some affect the entire community, while some reflect the day-to-day struggles that a handful of families go through just to secure basic rights for their children. A significant number of families in the constituency have been fighting for years to have their children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders assessed. Schools such as Gaelscoil Chnoc Liamhna in Knocklyon have been teaching their children in temporary portacabins for 20 years while St Thomas's Junior National School has been on the waiting list for an extension since 2005. Teachers are tired of broken promises. As an educator, I commit to achieving concrete change in the standard of education in Dublin South West. As an Independent, a question I am frequently asked by the media is which party will I support in government? It is a question that misses the point of electing a strong independent voice such as mine to the Dail. Parties who firmly commit to my policy goals would enjoy my support but it is important to note that it is those commitments and not misguided party loyalty that would determine how I vote in the chamber. The hunger for change in Ireland at this time is great. I can't wait to see where it takes us. Senator Katherine Zappone is running as an Independent candidate for the Dail in Dublin South West Normally, as election day nears, the shoals of red herrings and herds of white elephants are sent on their way, so the real issues that impact people's lives can come in for scrutiny. The focus in the election's home straight is spending and taxes, and Gerry Adams came close to falling at the first hurdle. He was put on the back foot, having to deny that he is misleading the public about the amount they will save on water charges should his party get into government. He also appeared at a loss to elaborate on what the basic tax rates were. He grew tetchy and irritable, suggesting that somehow this should not be an accountancy exercise. For families all over the country, it is indeed about balancing needs with scarce resources. Unsurprisingly, Mr Adams's performance on RTE radio was seized upon by constituency rival Labour minister Ged Nash, who described it as "embarrassing". He claimed Mr Adams tied himself in knots on the most basic details of his own tax policy. Finance Minister Michael Noonan also set about lambasting the economic policies of Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein. He claimed there was a 1.24bn "black hole" in Fianna Fail's budget numbers, describing it as the party's "black hole of Calcutta". Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein both dismissed criticisms, insisting that their plans were costed. Tax reliefs and pension benefits are confusing at the best of times but putative political leaders like Mr Adams have a serious responsibility to be clear about plans. Yesterday, this newspaper revealed that Sinn Fein had targeted RTE, claiming that the party was not getting its fair share of coverage. When the party leader was given ample airtime yesterday, its finance spokesman Pearse Doherty had to be dispatched to deny that he was "a liability". Mr Doherty also said that he might put himself forward as leader should a vacancy arise. While Mr Adams has been at the helm for 33 years, he insists that he has no intention of quitting. In an increasingly unstable economic world, where death and taxes are said to be the only two certainties, we can add a third - Mr Adams is not a mathematical genius. And if it doesn't all add up for a potential partner in government, what hope has the voter? The volte-face generally from Opposition figures who previously decried the introduction of the USC, and now wish to retain it in some form, while criticising Fine Gael's pledge to scrap it, is a bewildering contradiction. Sinn Fein called for the USC to be reversed in their 2011 election manifesto. Stephen Donnelly, in a Dail debate on a Sinn Fein motion proposing to abolish the USC shortly after being elected in 2011, indicated that the "introduction of USC was a bizarre measure". In the same debate, he continued: "That is why it is a bizarre and regressive tax that runs contrary to our social values and the stated aims of many members of the House. The universal social charge penalises self-employed persons. It provides that self-employed persons who earn more than 100,000 must pay an additional 3pc by comparison with those who are employed." The fact that the Social Democrats don't even want to cut USC represents a very significant flip-flop from Donnelly, in my opinion. He now describes the USC as a "necessary tax". Maybe the Opposition figures who utilised the issue of complete antagonism to USC as part of their sought mandate in 2011 can be called upon to explain the justification for their change of heart? In seeking to scrap the USC, Fine Gael is seeking to implement essentially the policy used by many anti-austerity candidates as part of their platform to get elected in 2011. It simply makes no sense for Opposition figures to have called for abolition of the USC in 2011, when the fiscal picture was bleak, but to oppose it now when far more fiscal leeway is available. John Kennedy Goatstown, Dublin 14 How a letter changed my life I am writing to let you know what a difference having a letter published on your letters page has made to my life. You published my letter in October 2015. In that letter, I explained how not having a job was affecting my life. I am a young woman with a learning disability and being unemployed was affecting my life in a bad way. I felt low and unhappy. My anxiety levels were very high and I think I was actually suffering from depression. When you published my letter, someone in Human Resources in Woodie's read it. They asked to meet me. As a result of this meeting, I got a part-time job in Woodie's in Airside. This has made a huge difference in my life. I now go to work every day, Monday to Friday. I am talking to more people, making friends and learning new things. The biggest thing, though, is that I now feel needed. It almost feels like my disability has gone away. I am so thankful to your paper for publishing my letter and to Woodie's for giving me a job. There are many more people with a disability who do not have jobs. They too should be given a chance. I hope other employers read this letter and remember that. Aisling Lynam Swords, Co Dublin Robinson Centre plan is folly Westport House is a major tourist attraction in Westport, Co Mayo. The Browne family who own Westport House, are struggling with big loans and had to put the house up for sale, and I understand it is on offer to Mayo County Council (MCC) for a cost of 1m. I understand that no move has been made by MCC so far to take up this offer. Contrast this with the money being spent in Ballina for the proposed Mary Robinson Centre (Museum). The Government sanctioned 2m for this before Christmas and MCC has committed to that body for an initial 1.5m plus further significant funding for running costs, and also appointed a project manager at a cost of 80,000. per annum. The final budget for this project has been reported as being between 4.5 and 8.5m. The centre is to be located in the former Robinson family home and MCC are presently buying this property from Mary Robinson's brother. This project seems a quite outrageous waste of money to me, and I cannot see how Mary Robinson's tenure as an Irish President can warrant this expenditure. MCC purchased a former bank premises in Ballina some time ago to house the Jackie Clarke papers. Surely a room could be designated in this building to house some Robinson artefacts if MCC feels the need to recognise her achievements. Then money saved in the Robinson folly could be used in part to secure the future of Westport House, as a major tourist attraction, something the Robinson folly will never be. John Williams Athy, Co Kildare Robot drivers on the Luas We already have robot cars that can drive safely, totally unaided by human controllers, for hundreds of miles on public roads shared with traffic of all descriptions. Driving a tram on a fixed track shared with little or no other traffic should be child's play by comparison. If I were a Luas driver, I would be very, very nervous about the future. John Thompson Dublin 7 In praise of Wexford hospital I would like to take this opportunity to thank and praise the wonderful staff of Wexford General Hospital. I was recently admitted and had to stay three days in the care of the hospital. With all the general negativity at the moment surrounding our health service, and in particular Wexford General, I must express my heartfelt thanks to the care shown, not just to me, but the other patients that I shared a ward with. In particular I would like to thank the nurses, orderlies and housekeeping staff of St Joseph's Ward 1. The dignity and respect that they showed to all the patients was remarkable to witness and all the staff are a credit to their profession and to their families. From check-in at A&E, all the way through to discharge, I was treated quickly, professionally and with the greatest of care. Thank you again to all the good people of St Joseph's. Jason Davis Enniscorthy, Co Wexford The star of the Transformers movies has taken part in a number of public art events in recent years Actor Shia LaBeouf is occupying a lift in Oxford as part of an arts performance. Aside from a break to give a talk at the Oxford Union at 8pm and brief exits to visit the toilet, LaBeouf is spending 24 hours in the lift. He started at 9am on Friday and will remain in the lift until 9am on Saturday. Viewers are able to watch the performance in a live YouTube stream entitled #ELEVATE. The Hollywood star is joined by friends and musical collaborators Nastja Ronkko and Luke Turner, as well as other visitors to the building. The Union wrote on its YouTube site: "Visitors will be able to join LaBeouf, Ronkko and Turner inside the elevator during this time, and are invited to address the artists, the debating chamber, and the internet, so that their collective voices may form an extended, expansive and egalitarian Oxford Union address." Union events are usually only open to members, who must be students or alumni from the University of Oxford or Oxford Brookes. LaBeouf has sent a precedent for the stunt with a number of other performance art pieces. The 29-year-old set up his own call centre in Liverpool, where members of the public could phone to ask him questions. In 2014, in response to being accused of plagiarism he wore a paper bag over his head with the message "I am not famous any more" - and sat in a Los Angeles art gallery, where members of the public were able to interact with him. For another event, called #ALLMYMOVIES, LaBeouf rented out a small cinema in New York and spent three days watching his own 29 movies. LaBeouf began his career as a child actor in Disney Channel comedy Even Stevens, and went on to star in the Transformers movies. He also starred alongside Harrison Ford in 2008's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The Irish are hitting London Fashion Week in style. The international Fashion Month tour continues as editors, models and fashion enthusiasts alike make their way from one fashion capital to the next for five hectic days of shows, presentations, performances and parties. To help you navigate the jam-packed schedule, here are some of the Irish names you should be looking out for: Paul Costelloe is one of the most established Irish names in fashion, and the industry veteran returns to London Fashion Week to kick things off. Now 70, the father of seven has shown that elegant design and beautiful tailoring never go out of style, and has had great success with his affordable luxury line at Dunnes Stores. But it will be all about refined glamour tomorrow evening as he exhibits his Autumn Winter collection at 5.30pm. Expand Close Jessica Costelloe with father Paul Costelloe on the catwalk / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Jessica Costelloe with father Paul Costelloe on the catwalk Since debuting his first collection at London Fashion Week back in 2008, JW Anderson has risen to become one of the industrys most celebrated designers. Born in Derry, the 31-year-old is known for his unisex take on design and his thoroughly contemporary, playful approach to gender. His new collection is one of the most highly anticipated at London Fashion Week, set to take place at 4pm on Saturday. As well as receiving recognition and backing from luxury goods group LVMH - for his eponymous label, Anderson helms the iconic Spanish leather company Loewe. Since being appointed Creative Director in 2013, he has revived interest in the brand with trophy pieces such as the much sought-after Puzzle, the It bag of 2015. He will show his Autumn Winter collection for Loewe during Paris Fashion Week, at 9.30am on Friday March 4. Expand Close JW Anderson AW15. Photo: Getty Images. / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp JW Anderson AW15. Photo: Getty Images. Another Irish fashion heavyweight showcasing their new collection across the pond is Simone Rocha, who has developed an international reputation with her innovative, romantic designs, and picked up a devoted celebrity following that includes everyone from Rihanna to Saoirse Ronan. We cant wait to see what she has planned for next season and who will be taking a front row seat on Saturday at 6pm. Expand Close Simone AW15 / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Simone AW15 Likewise flying the flag for Ireland is emerging talent Danielle Romeril. The Limerick School of Art and Design graduate honed her skills working for designers like Alberta Ferretti, Amanda Wakely and Tyrone-born Sharon Wauchob before starting her own label in 2012. Her laidback aesthetic focuses on well-crafted pieces with juxtaposed fabrics and a vivid colour palette, and the Dubliner will show her latest collection on Sunday at 2.30pm. Video of the Day US President Barack Obama as he shakes hands with Cuba's President Raul Castro during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York. last year. President Barack Obama is to visit Cuba next month, becoming the first sitting president to travel to the island in almost 90 years. The White House said that the president would travel as part of an already-planned Latin American trip. The visit is expected in late March. Mr Obama has made it clear that he believes the US embargo on Cuba should be lifted, as it does not produce the desired result of making the country more democratic. Last December he said he would only visit if he was allowed to meet with all Cubans, including dissidents. "If I go on a visit, then part of the deal is that I get to talk to everybody," he said. "I've made very clear in my conversations directly with President Castro that we would continue to reach out to those who want to broaden the scope for, you know, free expression inside Cuba." He will raise human rights issues and other US concerns with Cuban President Raul Castro . The brief visit in mid-March will mark a watershed moment in relations between the US and Cuba, making Obama the first sitting US president to set foot on the island in nearly nine decades. While in the country, Obama plans to meet with groups advocating for change in Cuba - a condition the president had laid out publicly for such a trip. "We still have differences with the Cuban government that I will raise directly," Obama wrote on Twitter as he announced the visit. "America will always stand for human rights around the world." Cuban Foreign Trade Minister Rodrigo Malmierca, on a visit to Washington, said that Obama's visit is good news for Cuba. "The president will be welcomed," he said in Spanish. Estranged The US was estranged from the communist nation for over half a century until Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro moved toward rapprochement more than a year ago. Since then, the nations have reopened embassies in Washington and Havana and have moved to restore commercial air travel. Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy national security adviser, said the president will carry the message that the US and Cuba need not be defined by their "complicated and difficult history." He said the US wants to expand opportunities for American businesses in Cuba, facilitate travel for Americans, and coax Cuba's government into passing those benefits on to the public. "Cuba will not change overnight," Rhodes wrote in a blog post. But he said the guiding principle behind the visit is "taking steps that will improve the lives of the Cuban people." But the fulfilment of Mr Obama's long-held dream - it was widely known that he intended to visit Cuba before the end of his presidency - marks yet another sign of his wish to make friendly relations with the island his legacy. Since December 2014, when he announced the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with the Cold War-era foe, American attitudes have been warming. On Tuesday an agreement was signed to allow 110 direct flights a day between the US and Cuba. American tourists are still not officially allowed - only travellers for specific cultural, educational, family and scientific trips can visit - but in practice the number of US visitors has soared. Nearly 160,000 Americans visited Cuba in 2015 - a 50pc increase on the previous year. The first American business is to open on the island next year, with a tractor company from Alabama planning to build and sell its machines from a factory on the isle. Raul Castro, the president of Cuba, became the first Cuban president to visit the US since the revolution last September. ( Daily Telegraph London) Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022] Pope Francis is embraced next to Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto (L) and First Lady Angelica Rivera (R) at the airport in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico. The Pope has made a surprising intervention in the US election, strongly criticising Donald Trump. When asked about the controversial billionaire's views on immigration, Pope Francis said that anyone who wants to build a wall along the US-Mexican border isn't Christian. Responding to the Pope's comment last night, Mr Trump said that for a religious leader to question a person's faith is "disgraceful". Mr Trump has promised to build a wall along the Mexican border from Texas to California and expel 11 million people who are in the country illegally if elected president. Pope Francis made the comments en route home from Mexico only hours after he prayed at the Mexico-US border for people who died trying to reach the United States. "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian," Pope Francis said. "This is not in the Gospel." Not having heard Mr Trump's border plans independently, Pope Francis said he'd "give him the benefit of the doubt." But he added: "I'd just say that this man is not Christian if he said it this way." Texas Senator Ted Cruz, another Republican presidential contender, has also supported building a border wall, and joked he'd make Mr Trump pay for it. Mr Trump, a Presbyterian, last week criticised Francis' plans to pray at the border. He said the move was ill-informed and showed Pope Francis to be a political figure being exploited by the Mexican government. "I don't think he understands the danger of the open border that we have with Mexico," Trump said in an interview with Fox News. "I think Mexico got him to do it because they want to keep the border just the way it is. They're making a fortune, and we're losing." Asked if he felt he was being used as a pawn of Mexico, Francis said he didn't know. "I leave that judgment to you, the people." But he seemed quite pleased to hear that Mr Trump had called him a "political" figure, noting that Aristotle had described the human being as a "political animal." Meanwhile Mr Trump has taken a lead of more than 20 points over US Senator Ted Cruz of Texas in the Republican race for the presidential nomination, bolstering his position ahead of the party's primary in South Carolina on Saturday, according to a national Reuters/Ipsos poll. Among Republicans, Mr Trump, a billionaire businessman, drew 40pc support in the poll, compared with 17pc for Mr Cruz, 11pc for US Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, 10pc for retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and 8pc for former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. The results contrasted with those of a national poll conducted this week by NBC News and the 'Wall Street Journal' that showed Mr Trump in a national dead heat with Mr Cruz in the race for the Republican nomination for the November 8 election to succeed Democratic President Barack Obama. On the Democratic side, the Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Hillary Clinton maintaining about a 10-point national lead over US Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont since last week's New Hampshire primary won by Mr Sanders. I had been friends with US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia for over 20 years and heard of his sudden and untimely death with great sorrow. He had been a key member of the US Supreme Court for over three decades. He was regarded as a leading conservative member; essentially, he believed the US constitution should be interpreted in a literal way: more or less as the founders had intended it. In contrast, our courts interpret our Constitution by reading it in the present tense and that is how the "liberals" on the US court regard their role. Justice Scalia enjoyed his visits to Ireland very much. And they were frequent. He enjoyed engaging with students at home and abroad very much. Just a few weeks ago, I was in touch with him to arrange for some young people to meet with him on a visit to the court. He was most accommodating. I recall a time we had the Justice and his wife, Maureen, to the house. Former Fianna Fail minister Michael O'Kennedy and his wife, Breda, were also there. Michael speaks fluent Italian and so the two had a great time conversing not only in Italian but in different dialects of that language. That time, too, the Justice recalled being stopped for speeding in the west of Ireland. He said that, in his defence, he had not realised our speed limits were expressed in kilometres, not miles! US President Barack Obama has paid a generous tribute to Justice Scalia as being one of America's outstanding judges. This is despite the fact that some of his judgments did not favour the president's cause, especially in regard to his healthcare proposals. Now a question surrounds who should succeed Justice Scalia. As Mr Obama and other commentators have pointed out, the constitutional provisions are clear: it is for the president to choose the person who should serve on the court, subject to the Senate's confirmation. But the Senate is controlled by the Republicans and that party's initial position was that the president should not nominate anyone; the decision should be left to his successor. This would mean the court would be reduced to eight members and might have split 4:4 on decisions, which would mean the decision of the lower court would stand and the Supreme Court verdict would be useless. It would be odd, too, to say a president with nearly a year to go should not carry out his clear duty. Now it appears that the initial stance of the Republicans has softened. Some senators suggest that they should wait and see who the president nominates and then decide to have a hearing and confirm or deny his choice. The US constitution does not specify how many justices there should be. There were 10 members at one time but the number has remained at nine since 1869. The court has been faulted for having a conservative and liberal wing. Not so many cases are decided along those lines but some very important ones have been. The fear among Republicans is that Mr Obama will appoint a liberal and thereby tilt the balance, and this imbalance, as they would see it, could endure for a long time. Might the time be ripe to break the deadlock by appointing additional judges to the court: men or women who are manifestly of neither wing? The last time there was a move to increase the numbers on the court was in President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal days. The president pulled back from appointing additional justices that would have supported his proposal, just as the court pulled back from striking down the laws he believed were required. I think it is widely agreed in legal circles in any event that the court should not be seen as being governed by political criteria; it is always best to leave politics to the politicians. So is now the time to appoint more than one successor to Justice Scalia? Handout still dated 25/08/15 taken from CCTV issued by the Metropolitan Police of Zahera Tariq, 33, with her children Muhammad, 12, Amaar, 11, Safiyyah, nine and Aadid, four, at London City Airport. Undated handout photo issued by the Metropolitan Police of Zahera Tariq, 33, who is feared to be travelling to war-torn Syria with her four children. Handout still dated 25/08/15 taken from CCTV issued by the Metropolitan Police of Zahera Tariq, 33, with her children Muhammad, 12, Amaar, 11, Safiyyah, nine and Aadid, four, at London City Airport. A mother wept as she told a jury she tried to smuggle her four children into Syria to try and convince her sister to come back from the war-torn country. Zahera Tariq, 33, of Edmonton, and her children, aged five to 12, travelled to Amsterdam while her husband Yasair Mahmmood was at work. The family then went to Turkey and were detained three days later, on August 29 last year, in Kilis, Turkey, close to Syrian territory held by Isis. Tariq told Southwark Crown Court on Friday that her sister Aisha went to Syria with her children in 2014 to join her husband. She said her mother was "completely taken aback" and added: "It was a shock for all of us." The defendant wept uncontrollably and held her head in her hands as she continued: "We tried to speak to her, we said 'look what you're doing, come back'. "She would apologise and said 'I'm so sorry I can't come back'." She added: "We thought maybe one of us should go and see if we can meet up with her and maybe if she meets us it would have a different effect - she wouldn't be able to resist seeing us." Tariq claims she took her four children because she thought her sister "would see them and her heart would melt". Read More She said she had a "close" relationship with her younger sibling and added: "We had gone through some beautiful times with our children." The British national, who was born in London, married her husband, also her first cousin, in 2000 in Pakistan where their family is originally from. Their three sons suffered from various medical conditions, including severe asthma and hereditary eye problems. She insisted she had discussed her plans with her husband but he had refused to go with them. "He said 'I'm going to work - if you want to take the kids and go then go'," she added. "I was furious, I was really, really mad at him and I said I will go." Prosecutor Mukal Chawla told the court the children's father did not know they were leaving the country and never gave his permission. Tariq denies four charges of abduction on August 25 2015. The trial continues. Germany's most populous state has said it will not accept any more asylum seekers from Morocco, after migrants from the country were identified among suspects in the Cologne sex attacks. Chancellor Merkel has battled to enforce her liberal policy on migrants but has been facing increasing opposition from some regions. The government of North Rhine-Westphalia, where Cologne lies, said federal authorities had agreed not to send any more Moroccans to refugee accommodation in the state. There is no suggestion that Moroccans will be blocked from entering the state if they enter. "Immigrants from the North African region appear disproportionately as offenders," Ralf Jager, the state interior minister, said. "Frequently the suspects are young men travelling alone." Mr Jager said the state had already taken more than its share of Moroccan asylum seekers. Currently, 80pc of Moroccan migrants are in the state, chiefly in the two main cities of Cologne and Dusseldorf. They have little chance of being granted asylum in Germany. Some 6,000 Moroccans in the state have had their claims refused and are theoretically due to be deported. While Germany's federal police say there is no link between crime and refugees from war-torn countries like Syria, there has been a sharp rise in crimes committed by North Africans. Police in North Rhine-Westphalia say gangs of North African thieves and pickpockets are operating in the cities. The move by the state came as Austria imposed strict quotas on the number of asylum seekers it will allow to cross its borders each day. In future, only 80 people a day will be allowed to apply for asylum in Austria, and a further 3,200 will be allowed to cross through the country on their way to Germany. Meanwhile, women asylum seekers in Cologne have complained they are victims of sexual harassment. In an open letter, women staying at a gym being used as a temporary refugee shelter said security guards had filmed and photographed them while they were showering, and pressured them for sex. "For us, the gym is no shelter. It is a prison," they wrote. One Syrian woman said a security guard had asked her for sex. "When I told him I was involved with someone and wasn't interested, he told me I'd be thrown out," she said. "I am appalled at these allegations. I am sure they are unfounded," Bernhard Deschamps, manager of the company responsible for the site, said. The Cologne authorities said they would investigate the allegations. ( Daily Telegraph London) Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022] Soldiers carry a coffin as Turkish army commanders, ministers and family members attend funeral prayers for eight of the 28 victims (AP) A Kurdish militant group has claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack in the Turkish capital which killed 28 people. In a statement posted on its website, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons group said it carried out the attack in Ankara to avenge Turkish military operations against Kurdish rebels in south-east Turkey. The Turkey-based group is an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. Ankara had blamed a US-backed Syrian Kurdish militia group for the attack, saying it acted in collaboration with the PKK. Turkish authorities earlier detained three more suspects in connection with the bombing. The Anadolu news agency said authorities have taken 17 people into custody as part of the investigation into Wednesday's suicide car bombing, which targeted buses carrying military personnel. It said the latest suspects were believed to be linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. The arrests came as Turkey's military pushed ahead with a cross-border artillery shelling campaign against US-backed Syrian Kurdish militia positions in northern Syria. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said three of the detained suspects are believed to have played "an active part" in the attack. Prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the attack was carried out by a Syrian national who was a member of the People's Protection Units, or YPG. He said rebels of the PKK, which has led a more than 30-year insurgency against Turkey, were also behind the attack. Mr Erdogan said Turkish authorities were certain that the YPG and its political arm, the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, were behind the bombing and said Turkey was saddened by its Western allies' failure to brand them as terrorist groups. Anadolu reported that Turkish artillery units were "intermittently" firing shells into Syria, targeting militia positions near the village of Ayn Daqna, south of the town of Azaz. The leader of the main Syrian Kurdish group, Salih Muslim, denied his group was behind the bombing, and warned Turkey against taking ground action in Syria. The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, also known as TAK, named the bomber as Abdulbaki Sonmez. "This act was conducted to avenge the massacre of defenceless, injured civilians," the group said, in reference to a large-scale Turkish security operation against militants in the town of Cizre. Rights groups have raised serious concerns over the operation in the town, which has been placed under a curfew that prevents journalists and observers from entering. The group threatened further attacks in Turkey. Most recently, TAK had claimed a mortar attack in December at Istanbul's second airport that killed a cleaner. It said the attack was in retaliation for the military's stepped-up operations against the PKK. A damaged building is pictured after an airstrike on the rebel held al-Fardous neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria. Photo: Reuters More than 60 health facilities in Syria supported by the Doctors Without Borders (MSF -Medecin Sans Frontieres) charity were hit in attacks last year, with a dozen completely destroyed, the organisation said yesterday. In a new report, MSF warned that Syria's health infrastructure "has been decimated", with frequent aerial assaults and shelling of hospitals and clinics, in violation of international law. The report comes days after an MSF-supported facility in the northwestern province of Idlib was hit in an air strike that killed 25 people. MSF did not assign definitive blame for the strikes, but the organisation's president, Joanne Liu, told reporters in Geneva: "The attack can only be considered deliberate. "It was probably carried out by the Syrian-government-led coalition that is predominantly active in the region." The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitor based in Britain, said the attack appeared to have been carried out by Russian warplanes waging an aerial campaign in support of Damascus. Moscow has denied the claim. Shelling Ms Liu was cautious on the question of Russia's possible involvement, stressing that for MSF the priority was for "the facts to be established." The MSF report said 63 facilities it supports in north, northwestern and central Syria were hit in a total of 93 aerial and shelling attacks throughout 2015, with 12 completely destroyed. A total of 23 health workers at the facilities were killed and another 58 were injured, it said. The charity recorded 7,009 deaths and 154,647 wounded last year alone in 70 of the Syrian hospitals and clinics that it supports. "The figures for us are really, really appalling and unprecedented in terms of war wounded... 155,000 (injured) is something we have never seen in 44 years of work for MSF," Ms Liu said. "Syria is a kill box." North Korea is preparing to threaten "lives and security" by launching terrorist attacks inside the South, a senior official in Seoul warned yesterday. Kim Jong-un's regime is becoming increasingly belligerent, conducting its fourth nuclear test on January 6 and launching a ballistic missile earlier this month. South Korea fears that its neighbour is now preparing to carry out terrorist attacks on its soil. President Park Geun-hye's government has proposed a new anti-terrorism law that would give the security forces more powers to counter any threat. Making the case for this law, Kim Sung-woo, a senior official in the president's office, said that North Korea had decided to "muster anti-South terrorist capabilities that can pose a direct threat to our lives and security". Mr Kim added that the risk of terrorist attacks sponsored by North Korea was "increasing more than ever". North Korea has an intelligence service - known as the "225th Bureau" - dedicated to the subversion of its southern neighbour. In the past, the North has carried out terrorist attacks, notably in 1987 when a bomb destroyed a South Korean airliner, killing 115 passengers and crew. But there have been no serious incidents in recent years and some experts doubt whether the North poses a threat of this kind. One Western observer said that any offensive action was more likely to take the form of a cyber-attack, rather than a terrorist bombing. Meanwhile, seismologists have warned that North Korea's repeated nuclear tests could trigger the eruption of Mount Paekdu, a volcano found only 115km from the site where four weapons have been detonated. ( Daily Telegraph London) Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022] Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan (2nd L), Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (L) and Turkish Army Chief of Staff General Hulusi Akar (3rd L) look on as honour guard carry the flag-draped coffin of Army officer Seckin Cil during a funeral ceremony in Ankara. A Syrian who entered Turkey with refugees was responsible for a car bomb attack in Ankara which killed 28, the Turkish prime minister has said, as he accused the Syrian regime of being "directly responsible". Ahmet Davutoglu said the bombing, which targeted a military convoy in the administrative heart of the capital, had been perpetrated by Kurdish militants connected to Syrian Kurdish fighters. Saleh Najar was identified as the individual responsible using his fingerprints and body, pro-government newspaper 'Yeni Safak' reported, after he had his fingerprints taken when he entered Turkey. The attack, which is the latest in a series of terrorist incidents to hit Turkey, injured at least 81 others on Wednesday evening. "It has been revealed that this attack was carried out by members of the terrorist organisation in cooperation with a YPG member who infiltrated (Turkey) from Syria," Mr Davutoglu told reporters in Ankara yesterday, as he confirmed the identity of the terrorist, who was born in 1992. A few hours after the incident, Turkish security sources blamed PKK militants. He later accused the Syrian regime of being directly responsible because of its ties with Syrian Kurds during a press conference after his visit to the General Staff. "The YPG [People's Protection Units] is a tool of the Syrian regime and the regime is directly responsible for this attack. The right to take all kinds of measures against the Syrian regime is reserved for us," 'Hurriyet Daily News' quoted him as saying. The Syrian Kurdish militia, YPG, is not proscribed as a terrorist group by the West, which has supported them against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil). Mr Davutoglu insisted that the YPG was a terrorist organisation and warned against Western support. "It is out of the question for us to excuse tolerance toward a terrorist organisation that targets our people in our capital. "Just like al-Qa'ida or Daesh do not have seats at the table, the YPG, which is a terrorist organisation, cannot have one," he said, using the Arabic acronym for Isil. "We deny any involvement in this attack," Syrian Kurdish leader Saleh Muslim said. "We have never heard of this person Saleh Najar. These accusations are clearly related to Turkish attempts to intervene in Syria," he added. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, later said 14 people had been detained in connection with the attack and insisted that the Turkish authorities had evidence to prove the culprit. "Despite the fact that their leader says they have nothing to do with this, the information and documents obtained by our interior ministry and all our intelligence organisations shows that (the attack) was theirs," Mr Erdogan said. Another Turkish media outlet critical of the government, Sozcu, said Najar had entered the country last July. The majority of the victims were military personnel. "Of the 28 people who lost their lives, 27 are members of the Turkish Armed Forces and one is a civilian," Mr Davutoglu said. Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey's foreign minister, vowed that Turkey would not hesitate in retaliating. "We will take all precautions under the scope of legitimate self-defence and will retaliate with no hesitance," he said. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack but only last month, an Isil-linked terrorist killed 11 tourists in the popular area of Sultanahmet in Istanbul, close to the famous Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia. The bombing also comes four months after the country suffered its worst terror attack in the capital by two Isil-linked suicide bombers. More than 100 people were killed while they were peacefully calling for an end to violence between the Turkish state and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). In recent months, the three-decade long conflict has returned to the country's south-east between the state and the PKK. Hundreds of Syrian rebel fighters re-entered Turkey over the last few days to support those fighting Syrian Kurdish-led militias, rebels sources told Reuters news agency. Turkish forces have secretly escorted them with weapons, before heading into the embattled rebel stronghold of Azaz, the sources said. ( Daily Telegraph, London) Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022] The Argentinian human rights group Mothers Of The Plaza De Mayo on Friday rejected the timing of US president Barack Obama's visit to Argentina. Mr Obama is set to arrive on March 23 for a two-day visit where he will meet with President Mauricio Macri. The following day marks the 40th anniversary of the military coup that began Argentina's 1976-1983 military dictatorship, in which thousands of suspected leftists were seized, tortured and secretly killed. Nora Cortinas is a founding member of the group that has campaigned to find people forcibly "disappeared" by the dictatorship. She told local radio Friday that she's "not amused" that Mr Obama's visit will coincide with the coup anniversary because the US facilitated dictatorships in South America during the 1970s. The visit "will only bring back the most haunting memories", to those who lost children in the military crackdown, said Ms Cortinas. Her son was "disappeared" during Argentina's so-called Dirty War. Human rights groups say about 30,000 people died or disappeared under Argentina's dictatorship. New Zealand prime minister John Key, right, and Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull meeting in Sydney (AP) New Zealand is prepared to accept some asylum seekers that Australia has sent to detention camps on impoverished Pacific island nations. However there appeared to be little chance Australia would take up the offer, made by New Zealand's prime minister John Key. The debate is over whether New Zealand should take Australia's unwanted asylum seekers, from the Middle East and Asia. It comes amid an uproar over what will happen to 267 asylum seekers who are expected to be transferred from Australia to the Pacific atoll of Nauru. The issue of their fate was raised in annual talks between Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and his visiting New Zealand counterpart. Australia refuses to allow any asylum seekers who try to reach the country's shores by boat to ever settle in Australia, and sends them instead to detention camps on Nauru and Papua New Guinea. The policy has virtually stopped asylum seekers from the Middle East and Asia attempting to reach Australia on rickety boats. The 267 asylum seekers came from Nauru's detention camp to Australia for medical treatment or to support a relative who needed treatment. They refused to return to Nauru pending an Australian High Court challenge to the legality of Australia's refugee policy, but the court recently ruled against them, leaving them at risk of deportation. The court decision sparked outrage among refugee advocates, two of whom climbed to the top of a 500 foot tower in Melbourne on Friday to unfurl a banner with the Twitter hashtag LetThemStay. Mr Key's government reached an agreement in 2013 with Australia to resettle 150 refugees a year from Nauru and Papua New Guinea. On Friday, Mr Key said the offer still stands, provided the asylum seekers meet New Zealand's character requirements and are genuine refugees. "So I can't tell you who might or might not be able to come, or whether the Australian government would want to exercise the right to do that," Mr Key told reporters in a joint press conference with Mr Turnbull. "All I can simply say is the offer remains on the table." But Mr Turnbull appeared to dismiss the offer, saying the government did not want to give people smugglers "marketing opportunities" to recruit asylum seekers from countries such as Bangladesh, Iran and Afghanistan to embark on the dangerous journey. "We take into account what John has proposed ... but we do so very thoughtfully, recognising that the one thing we must not do is give an inch to the people smugglers," he said. SC Supreme Court hears challenge to 6-week abortion law The SC law, temporarily blocked until the court considers its fate, is being challenged on the grounds that it violates privacy rights in constitution. Zachary Covington SHARE By Mike Ellis of the Independent Mail An assault charge against former Walhalla police officer Zachary Covington was dropped this week when the man he allegedly punched was not notified of the hearing and prosecutors did not show up, according to records. A magistrate could reinstate the assault charge at a hearing Monday. Covington is accused of beating and slamming a handcuffed man to the ground during an October confrontation at a Walhalla apartment complex. He was charged with third-degree assault and battery by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division and quickly fired from the department after another officer reported the incident. The man who is accusing Covington of assault, Matthew Lowell, was not notified of this week's hearing, in part because his phone number blocked incoming calls from a clerk. Prosecutors also made a mistake entering the date on a calendar and did not show up for a Tuesday hearing, according to court files obtained Thursday after the Independent Mail filed a Freedom of Information Act request. A judge dismissed the charge against Covington because prosecutors were not there. Because of the mistakes, prosecutors have filed a request to have the charge reinstated. Tenth Judicial Circuit Assistant Solicitor Blair Stoudemire wrote, in a request to the judge, that there is no history of delaying the case and that the case should not have been dismissed, in part because of good-faith negotiations with Covington's defense attorney. "Less severe (sanctions) would be more appropriate than outright dismissal," Stoudemire wrote. Westminster Magistrate Will Derrick signed an order Thursday, agreeing to hear the prosecution request at a hearing Monday. Derrick has also agreed, at the request of Covington's defense attorney, Gordon Senerius, to consider the case himself rather than have a jury trial. Covington's father is Seneca Police Chief John Covington and his brother is Adam Covington, a former police officer who worked at four departments in four years before resigning from the Seneca force and pleading guilty to stealing confiscated drugs. According to files from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, Adam Covington bought drugs from Matthew Lowell. In an October interview with the Independent Mail following the altercation with Zachary Covington, Lowell said the altercation with Zachary Covington had nothing to do with Adam Covington or drugs. Follow Mike Ellis on Twitter @MikeEllis_AIM Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump recently delivered a campaign speech in the T. Ed Garrison Arena. SHARE By Kirk Brown of the Independent Mail CLEMSON Donald Trump is leading the GOP presidential field among South Carolinians who voted in recent primaries, according to results of a Clemson University Palmetto Poll released Friday. According to the poll, Trump received support from 28 percent of respondents who voted in two of the last three state primary elections. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz received support from 19 percent of similar voters, followed by U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio with 15 percent, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush with 10 percent, Ohio Gov. John Kasich with 9 percent and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson with 6 percent. The telephone survey of 650 respondents this week began Sunday, the day after the Republican presidential debate in Greenville. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. Trump also was the leader in a Palmetto Poll last fall with 23 percent, followed by Carson at 19 percent. The billionaire businessman has held a comfortable lead in South Carolina for months in numerous other polls. "Donald Trump was strong in November of 2015, and he remains strong for the primary vote," said Clemson political science professor David Woodard, who oversees the poll with fellow professor Bruce Ransom. "The only question seems to be who will finish second and who will finish fourth." South Carolina's "First in the South" Republican presidential primary will take place Saturday. Follow Kirk Brown on Twitter @KirkBrown_AIM Jamari Fair SHARE Dennis Gibbs Albert Taylor By Mike Ellis of the Independent Mail One of the men charged with murder in the death Wednesday of a 17-year-old in Easley was out on bond on an attempted murder charge at the time of the shooting. Kejuan Mitchell Brown of Easley died at approximately 9 p.m. from a single gunshot to the chest in the parking lot of Tri-City Lanes in Easley. Charged with murder in the case are Jamari Trayvar Fair, 18; Dennis Ezell Gibbs, 19; and Albert Lavern Taylor, 22. Also charged is a 15-year-old male, whose name was not released because he is a juvenile. Fair was arrested in November and charged with attempted murder, accused of shooting at two people in Pickens County. No one was injured and he was released on bond in November. The group had come to the bowling alley planning to fight after an argument on social media, said Easley Police Chief Tim Tollison. Witnesses to the shooting told authorities that the four left in a vehicle, which was found by Pickens County Sheriff's Office deputies at a gas station at least 15 minutes away, and the four were arrested. Tollison said Brown had attended Easley High School. The four arrested are also charged with assault and battery and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime. A judge denied bond and they remain in custody. Independent Mail coverage partner WSPA News Channel 7 contributed to this story. Follow Mike Ellis on Twitter @MikeEllis_AIM The One Globe: Uniting Knowledge Communities conference (OGC) is an annual gathering of global thought leaders from across knowledge, finance and industry sectors in India and South Asia. The conference pivots on discussing the paths to developing knowledge economies in the region. Subjects covered include the exploration and intersection of the role and changes in technology, innovation, smart cities, skills, regional collaboration and education. In the recently concluded 2016 chapter, the One Globe Conference sought to connect these ideas and outstanding issues with the impact of the Government of Indias new and ambitious multi-pronged economic initiatives Digital India, Make in India, Smart Cities Mission and Start-up India. A sense of optimism in Indias economic story was clearly palpable, but was combined with a wariness towards Indias entrenched bureaucratic mechanisms. Prior to the conference, our team at Dezan Shira & Associates conducted an electronic interview with OGC convener Harjiv Singh to gauge his thoughts on the growth prospects of South Asias knowledge economy, challenges of doing business in India, and the India alternative to China for manufacturing. 1.The One Globe Conference maintains that Education, Skills, Technology, Innovation, Smart Cities, Urbanization, Healthcare, and Entrepreneurship are the essentials that will enable India and South Asia to leverage their human capital and become leading knowledge economies. What are the standing challenges in these segments that have so far prevented progress? Can South Asia become sufficiently integrated to achieve these goals? For any country to become a 21st century knowledge economy, it is important that education, skills, technology, innovation, managing the urbanization process from the rural sector, healthcare, and entrepreneurship come together. I believe that in the seven decades since independence, India has been able to enshrine the importance of democratic values. We do need to invest in education, which is a key driver, both at the primary as well as the higher education levels. If we look at global comparative data from the United Nations, India and South Asia are behind other parts of the world in terms of the human development index. We need to ensure that we prioritize both education and healthcare, as they are critical in enabling a knowledge economy. 2.Following up on the previous question, should India focus on maintaining flexible partnerships in the region rather than confronting what it sees as Chinas growing encroachment? India is an ancient civilization and its strength has always been its diversity and ability to absorb, adapt and grow from external influences. I believe Indias strength in the future will also come from these elements. We should look at China not as a threat but as an opportunity because China is a large and more importantly a neighboring country. Historically, India and China have always shared cordial relations and we have many things in common from being two of the worlds oldest civilisations, to a reverence for Buddha, to ancient schools of medicine. There is clearly an opportunity for India and China to understand each other much better. On one hand, India can learn from Chinas manufacturing prowess to help with Make in India; on the other, China can benefit from Indias services industry, particularly in information technology. Both can offer each other access to huge markets for further improving trade relations. Be it the corporate world or cross-border relations, we live today in a world of coop-etition, where we compete on some issues and cooperate on others. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modis leadership, Indias relations with China have expanded and the two countries have signed nearly 25 different agreements in the areas of infrastructure, smart cities, railways, culture, skills, space and climate change. Both have agreed to open new consulates in Chennai and Chengdu respectively. As far as geopolitics is concerned, the issue of encroachment is something India needs to respond to. RELATED: Accounting and Reporting Services from Dezan Shira & Associates 3.Infrastructure and supply chain development remain key challenges to the fulfilment of Make in Indias objectives particularly if FDI inflows have to translate into greenfield investment. Are Digital India and the 100 Smart Cities plans seen as a solution or complementary to other development strategies? If you look at the 25 years since the liberalization process started, India has grown its GDP from US $275 billion in 1991 to US $2 trillion in 2015. It has also built up its infrastructure, although not enough to drive the kind of growth rate that this government is looking to achieve. I believe Digital India, Smart Cities and the fact that India recently crossed a billion mobile connections are all going to help enable the country to fulfil its potential. Democracies are complex. In a large and diverse country like India, we need to give more time, but the results will be far-reaching in transforming and making India one of the leading economies of the world in years to come. 4.The ongoing deceleration in the Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index exposes the fragility of industrial recovery in the country. Considering that Make in India is PM Modis flagship campaign, what do you think have been the key obstacles and can this decline be turned around soon? If you look at the world today, there is no country that is exempt from the ongoing slowdown, including China and the economies of Europe. The only pockets of growth in the world today remain the USA and India. As a country with very large domestic consumption demographics, I believe Make in India will eventually succeed as we transform and invest in our infrastructure. 5.How will India be able to combat the impact of a weakening Chinese Yuan and global commodity slowdown? Also, China has begun to focus on boosting domestic consumption is India in a position to inherit Chinas manufacturing capacity and take on the mantle of the worlds factory? I think India needs to makes its economy comparative based on its ability to create stellar infrastructure and manufacturing capacity, and drive growth based on its young demographic dividend. Again, the comparison with China is not always accurate given that China is way ahead in terms of development than India. I believe, given the fact that India is growing at seven plus percent each year, that the opportunity for India is its ability to accelerate its growth rate to double digits once the necessary infrastructure has been put in place. I believe that growth in Indias manufacturing industry, coupled with the ongoing slowdown in China, will offer an opportunity for India to catch up. A serial entrepreneur, Harjiv believes in harnessing the confluence of media, technology and education to empower individuals. At Salwan Media Ventures, he has launched a portfolio of education-focused businesses that include the annual One Globe: Uniting Knowledge Communities conference which focuses on what it takes to build a 21st-century knowledge economy in India and South Asia, and BrainGain Magazine, the largest online magazine for study abroad in India and South Asia. Harjiv is also the co-founder and co-CEO of Gutenberg Communications, a global strategic communications firm with offices in the U.S., U.K. and India. He has a nearly two decade career spanning communications, technology, financial services and real estate industries, and has advised clients like UK Trade & Investment, GE, HSBC, New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and Quest Diagnostics. He is a frequent commentator on television and has been quoted in leading news outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, NDTV and Mint. In 2007, Harjiv Singh was the runner-up for the PR Professional of the Year Award by PR Week, Asia Pacific. He sits on the Advisory Boards of Knowledge@Wharton, the U.S.-India Business Council Education Foundation, and The American India Foundation (AIF), and is a Charter Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) and a Trustee of The Loomba Trust. About Us Asia Briefing Ltd. is a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. Dezan Shira is a specialist foreign direct investment practice, providing corporate establishment, business advisory, tax advisory and compliance, accounting, payroll, due diligence and financial review services to multinationals investing in China, Hong Kong, India, Vietnam, Singapore and the rest of ASEAN. For further information, please email india@dezshira.com or visit www.dezshira.com. Stay up to date with the latest business and investment trends in Asia by subscribing to our complimentary update service featuring news, commentary and regulatory insight. Managing Your Accounting and Bookkeeping in India In this issue of India Briefing Magazine, we spotlight three issues that financial management teams for India should monitor. Firstly, we examine the new Indian Accounting Standards (Ind-AS) system, which is expected to be a boon for foreign companies in India. We then highlight common filing dates for most companies with operations in India, and lastly examine procedures and regulations for remitting profits from India. Tax, Accounting, and Audit in India 2014-2015 Tax, Accounting, and Audit in India 2014-2015 offers a comprehensive overview of the major taxes foreign investors are likely to encounter when establishing or operating a business in India. This concise, detailed, yet pragmatic guide is ideal for CFOs, compliance officers and heads of accounting who need to be able to navigate the complex tax and accounting landscape in India in order to effectively manage and strategically plan their India-based operations. An Introduction to Indias Audit Process In this issue of India Briefing Magazine, we provide readers with an overview of Indias annual audit process and offer important tips for the smooth navigation of the countrys audit regulations and accounting standards. We begin by first explaining the two most common types of audit in India, statutory and internal audits, and then outline the standard steps and procedures an Indian auditor will follow in each. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) called on the government of Thailand to address urgently safety, capacity and cost issues to keep Thailands aviation sector competitive.Aviation is critical to Thailands economic success. It is the backbone of the tourism industry and provides critical global business links. We estimate that today aviation and related activities account for some 2 million Thai jobs and generate $29 billion in GDP. And by 2035 we could see that grow to 3.8 million jobs and $53 billion in GDP. If realized, that potential 83% growth would have a broad and positive impact across the Thai economy. It is in jeopardy, however, unless key issues of safety, capacity and costs are addressed urgently said Tony Tyler, IATAs Director General and CEO.Safety oversight concerns raised by both the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) must be addressed. The US FAA ranks Thailand in Category 2 of its International Aviation Safety Assessment program.These assessments look at what the government is doing not the airlines. Thai Airways and Bangkok Airways are IATA members and, along with Thai Lion Air and Orient Thai Airlines are on the registry of the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA). This demonstrates that they are operating to the highest global standards for operational safety. ICAO and the US FAA have pointed out safety oversight concerns and divergence from global standards at the government level. Safety is aviations top priority. The Government of Thailand must address these concerns in support of a vibrant aviation sector that is the backbone of travel and tourism, said Tyler.IATA also asks Thailand to mandate IOSA as a requirement for all Thai-registered airlines. This would not absolve the government of its responsibility to do better in aligning its oversight programs to global standards. But it would send a strong signal that Thailand is serious about its commitment to world-class safety.Bangkok needs a strong hub airport. With over 50 million annual passengers, Bangkoks Suvarnabhumi Airport ranks amongst the top air hubs in the world. But it faces several issues which must be resolved. IATA called on the Thai Government to adopt a strategy that would concentrate traffic at Suvarnabhumi as the Thai capitals major airport hub and address the following:Safety concerns about soft spots on the tarmac, taxiways and apron area must be permanently resolved. Aircraft frequently get stuck in the soft surfaces that are the result of sub-standard materials. The extra power and towing needed to maneuver through these surfaces is a safety risk to ground personnel, ground vehicles and aircraft. On top of that, frequent surface repairs create congestion. The constant resurfacing of the tarmac, taxiways and apron area with asphalt is an unacceptable patchwork solution. We literally need a concrete solution, said Tyler. During an interview with the Economic Times, Punjab National Banks (PNB) MD Usha Ananthasubramanian shared her views on how banks could deal with defaulting promoters.She strongly feels that it is time for the banks to act collectively rather than individually as only then a firm can control errant promoters. Ananthasubramanian warned of turbulence ahead for the state-run banks due to the risk attached to large accounts. She has her own doubts if debt recovery tribunals (DRT) could work in these cases. She elucidated that there are several conglomerates of bankers, which include Chinese banks, and thus, it will be difficult to bring each one of them together. On the other hand, she finds approaching asset reconstruction firms less meaningful given the huge haircut that banks have to take.At the same time, Ananthasubramanian feels that strategic debt restructuring (SDR) is not an effective route as it only amounts to more pressure for banks. She elaborated that Promoter distance themselves from responsibilities once SDR is implemented while getting an investor cannot happen at a drop of a hat, which it very much depends on the global environment.Turning to the asset quality of PNB, Ananthasubramanian said that they are a big player and have sanctioned loans to big accounts. She added that the bank has already done the needful to meet the asset quality review (AQR) requirements specified by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). She went on to state that the bank has already classified those accounts that fell under special mention account category and were seen as accounts with bleak recovery chances.While explaining as what went wrong with the Promoters, Ananthasubramanian said that things did not turn as anticipated due to global economic meltdown, which pushed Promoters to divert money to non-business activities, leading to default.To contain this trend, the bank has already initiated the process of selling Non-performing Assets (NPAs) to asset restructuring companies (ARCs), added Ananthasubramanian. The bank is also offering one-time settlement proposals and e-auctions to help recovery. HDFC Bank Ltd has informed BSE that the bank has outstanding bonds totaling to approximately USD 1.20 bn issued from Bahrain branch. These bonds have a dual rating from Standard & Poors (S&P) of BBB- and Moodys of Baa3. Rating of HDFC Bank by S&P and Moodys is at BBB- and Baa3 respectively.On February 17, 2016, S&P lowered its long and short term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on the Kingdom of Bahrain to BB/B (stable) from BBB-/A3 (negative).The rating criteria published by S&P restricts the rating of any bond issued in a jurisdiction to the host country rating. Consequent to the recent rating action on Bahrain, the bonds issued by HDFC Bank may also be subject to rating action by S&P. The bank is in the process of carrying out modifications to the structure of all the issuances done from Bahrain in order to ensure that the Bonds issued by HDFC Bank are insulated from any rating actions on the host country.HDFC Bank Ltd is currently trading at Rs. 985, down by Rs. 4.6 or 0.46% from its previous closing of Rs. 989.6 on the BSE.The scrip opened at Rs. 989 and has touched a high and low of Rs. 989 and Rs. 982 respectively. So far 33451(NSE+BSE) shares were traded on the counter. The current market cap of the company is Rs. 249982.17 crore.The BSE group 'A' stock of face value Rs. 2 has touched a 52 week high of Rs. 1127.9 on 21-Jul-2015 and a 52 week low of Rs. 944.7 on 07-May-2015. Last one week high and low of the scrip stood at Rs. 996 and Rs. 959.1 respectively.The promoters holding in the company stood at 21.51 % while Institutions and Non-Institutions held 43.59 % and 16.17 % respectively.The stock is currently trading above its 200 DMA. announced the selection of 10 start-ups for the Code for Next Billion Program. These Startups are Wallet Guru, Light Vision, Perpignon, Kid Nurture, We-Share, I-We, Huehealth.com, Technovent, Padmavati Agro, and Redoctype. This is an inclusive program that aims to promote social good and will provide a platform for start-ups to showcase innovations that can help solve some of the problems in the society and can be recognized on a national level.Startups will be given an immersive six month program to inspire, encourage and fulfill internet innovation among the developer community in India. Code for the Next Billion is running two programs targeting developers and students to build applications in the Health, Economic Empowerment (finance, capacity building, etc.), Education/Skill Development, Public Utility (water, power, transport). The program involves access to cutting edge technology, social impact and business mentors; workshops and webinars to receive hands-on training; investors and enterprises to help validate and scale the selected start-ups.Vidhya Shankar, Head of Funding Partnerships & Alliances at NASSCOM 10,000 start-ups, Bangalore, said, This is a positive step towards our objective to empower the developer community and motivate large scale innovation impacting bottom of the pyramid. Through the program, we aim to accelerate the development and adoption of mobile internet applications across India. We would like to thank all our partners for their valuable support and trust and hope to work with a lot more people in the future.Facebook has partnered with NASSCOM 10,000 start-ups and is the first partner of the Code for Next Billion Program. Other partners are NASSCOM Foundation, Unitus Seed Fund, CNBC TV 18 and IIM Ahmedabads CIIE. NASSCOM 10,000 Startups is a platform for technology startups to get connected to all the players in the ecosystem from angel networks to venture capital firms, accelerators, enterprises and industry bodies. 10,000 start-ups initiative helps startups with funding, incubation, acceleration, mentoring, enterprise connects, and showcase opportunities.Ime Archibong, Director-Partnerships, Facebook, said "We are proud to partner with NASSCOM, CNBC, and others to invest in the leadership of developers who are building innovative solutions tailored to the historically unconnected and underserved. Building applications to solve education, financial, health and public utility challenges requires a different kind of imagination, risk appetite and skills. We are excited to support the journeys of these ten sdevelopers and hope that their journeys inspire the next generation of developers to apply their talents to solving these problems."The first boot-camp for start-ups was organized with Parag Trivedi, Global Design Studio Leader, GE Healthcare on Design Thinking,Naiyya Saggi, Co-founder, Baby chakra on Scaling up for Social Impact, Anindita Guha, Head-Product and Marketing, Gupshup and Teamchat on Product Management the India way. Further to this, start-ups will be provided with technical, marketing, and financial support as well as leadership skills, to build their applications and businesses. They will get opportunity to be featured on a CNBCTV18 through a TV series to showcase their achievements. Further, they will get access to US$80,000 worth of Facebook credits and support through Facebook's FbStart program to build their business. They will get networking opportunities with industry leaders (CEOs, thought leaders, VCs, ecosystem evangelists, social change leaders), funders and the media to bring public awareness to their commitment, solutions and impact.NASSCOM 10,000 Startups is a vision, which is committed to incubate, fund and provide support to impact 10,000 technology startups in India, by 2023. The aim is to nurture the promising startups into full-fledged technology stalwart companies, by giving them support via access to startup incubators, accelerators, angel investors, venture capitalists, startup support groups, mentors, and technology corporations. Punjab National Bank: Vijay Mallya on Thursday dismissed Punjab National Bank's (PNB) move to declare him as a 'wilful defaulter', saying that PNB was not the only bank in the country and that he will do what he has to do.RIL: Reliance Gas Pipeline Ltd (RGPL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd has received the final environment clearance for its Rs 1,428 crore project to build a 486-km long pipeline.Jet Airways: Etihad Airways is planning to increase stake in Jet Airways to 49% from 24%, according to reports.SpiceJet: For the ninth consecutive month in a row, SpiceJet has once again recorded the highest passenger load factor of all airlines in India.Indian Oil Corp: IOCL will likely take a 40% stake in the country's largest refinery project slated to come up on the western coast in Maharashtra, while two other state refinersBharat Petroleum ( BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum may own 20% each.HDFC: Housing Development Finance corporation Ltd (HDFC) has announced that it will raise Rs. 500 crore via issuance of Secured Redeemable Non-Convertible Debentures (NCDs) via private placement.Shriram EPC Limited: Shriram EPC Limited (SEPC) has been awarded multiple orders amounting to Rs 214 crore.Pincon Spirit Ltd : PSL has acquired Orbitol Solutions Pte Ltd, a Singapore incorporated company for an undisclosed sum. OSPL is engaged in the business of merchant trading and agricultural commodities.Indigo: Passengers carried by domestic airlines during Jan 2016 were 76.55 lakhs as against 62.45 lakhs during the corresponding period of previous year thereby registering a growth of 22.58%, according to DGCA data.Cairn India: Cairn, subsidiary of UK- based Vedanta group, cannot be allowed to export excess crude from its Rajasthan oil field as it is a policy to ensure that there can be no export till domestic demand is met, government has told the Delhi High Court.Cipla: The pharma company announced that its UK arm, Cipla (EU) has closed the USD 550 mn deal to acquire two US-based firms, InvaGen Pharmaceuticals and Exelan Pharmaceuticals.RPP Infra Projects: The company has said in a notice to BSE that it has bagged two additional orders from Engineering Projects India Ltd (A Govt of Indian Enterprise) worth Rs. 585mn.BHEL: The company successfully commissioning a 270 MW coal-based power project in Punjab.NTPC: NTPC Energy Technology Research Alliance (NETRA), the research and development arm of NTPC will be collaborating with two German institutions for research in solar thermal and solar photovoltaic technologies.BPCL: Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) has purchased 50% stake held by Financial Institutions (FIs) in Sabarmati Gas Limited (SGL) at a total cost of Rs. 102.24 crore. The remaining 50% holding of FIs has been purchased by Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation Limited (GSPC)/Gujarat State Petronet Limited (GSPL).Blue Star: Blue Star is aiming for a 12 per cent market share in room ACs in FY17 with the launch of its new star-rated inverter air-conditioners, reports a business daily.ARSS Infra: ARSS Infrastructure Projects Ltd has announced that a work order amounting to Rs.40.42 crores namely Plant Road Network, Phase II of 3.0 MTPA Integrated Steel Plant of NMDC Limited at Nagarnar, Chattishgarh, has been awarded to the Company by NMDC.NTPC: NTPC Ltd has informed BSE that 2nd Unit of 660 MW of Barh Super Thermal Power Station Stage II (Unit#5 of Barh STPS) is declared on commercial operation on Feb 18. Celebrating Black History Month Black History Month, or National African American History Month, is an annual celebration of achievements by black Americans and a time for recognizing the central role of African Americans in U.S. history. The event grew out of Negro History Week, the brainchild of noted historian Carter G. Woodson and other prominent African Americans. Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. Other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating black history. February 14, 1867 Morehouse College Organized in Augusta, Georgia Morehouse College organized in Augusta, Georgia. The institution was later moved to Atlanta. February 14, 1936 National Negro Congress Organized at Chicago National Negro Congress organized at Chicago meeting attended by 817 delegates representing more than 500 organizations. Asa Phillip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters was elected president of the new organization. February 15, 1968 Henry Lewis On this day Henry Lewis becomes the first African American to lead a symphony orchestra in the United States. February 15, 1848 Sarah Roberts barred from white school in Boston Sarah Roberts barred from white school in Boston. Her father, Benjamin Roberts, filed the first school integration suit on her behalf. February 16, 1951 New York City Council passes bill prohibiting racial discrimination New York City Council passed bill prohibiting racial discrimination in city-assisted housing developments. February 17, 1942 Black Panther Party Founder Born Black Panther Party Founder Huey P. Newton born. An illiterate high-school graduate, Newton taught himself how to read before attending Merritt College in Oakland and the San Francisco School of Law, where he met Seale. In Oakland in 1966 they formed the Black Panther group in response to incidents of police brutality and racism and as an illustration of the need for black self-reliance. At the height of its popularity during the late 1960s, the party had 2,000 members in chapters in several cities. In 1967 Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the death of a police officer, but his conviction was overturned 22 months later, and he was released from prison. In 1974 he was accused of another murder and fled to Cuba for three years before returning to face charges; two trials resulted in hung juries. Newton received a Ph.D in social philosophy from the University of California at Santa Cruz (1980); his dissertation, War Against the Panthers was subtitled A Study of Repression in America. Succumbing to factionalism and pressure from government agencies, the party disbanded in 1982. In March 1989 Newton was sentenced to a six-month jail term for misappropriating public funds intended for a Panther-founded Oakland school. In August of that year he was found shot dead on a street in Oakland. February 18, 1896 H. Grenon patents razor stropping device Grenon, H. Razor Stropping Device Feb. 18, 1896 Patent No. 554,867 February 19, 1942 Tuskegee Airmen initiated The Army Air Corps all African American 100th Pursuit Squadron, later designated a fighter squadron, was activated at Tuskegee Institute. The squadron served honorably in England and in other regions of the European continent during World War II. February 20, 1895 Death of Frederick Douglass (78), Anacostia Death of Frederick Douglass (78), Anacostia Heights, District of Columbia. Douglass was the leading Black spokesman for almost fifty years. He was a major abolitionist and a lecturer and editor. Some blacks view the month as a time to reflect on slavery, the civil rights movement, the black power movement and the best ways to lift up the African-American community today. Knowing our own history, or the history of our culture, is important because it helps us to know who we are while molding the future. Being familiar with past events gives us the ability not only to learn from past mistakes but also from the successes. To me, the omission of any group from history teachings results in a limited understanding of historys relationship with the present and future. Know your history. Comments, I can be reached at: j.annette92@yahoo.com The much-awaited biopic on the brave air hostess who saved over 350 lives has finally released today. At 23, when half of us are disillusioned, clueless and directionless about our life, Neerja Bhanot's spectacular bravery proved to the world that there are people who are willing to give up their life for their country and its people. Neerja Bhanot was extraordinary in every way. (Read: After being tortured for food & money, here's how Neerja Bhanot 'escaped' from a bitter marriage. ) In a letter that Harish Bhanot (Neerja Bhanot's father) wrote for a newspaper, he revealed some chilling details of the whole incident that ended on a positive note, only because of one brave martyr, Neerja Bhanot. Harish Bhanot's Laado battled and saved lives of 360 passengers. "I learnt of the Pan Am plane hijacking at Karachi, at a press conference. I felt uneasy. As I reached my own office, I had a telephone call from Mr. Irfan Khan of Hindustan Lever. He advised me to be with him, mainly because his office had better facilities to get the latest information from Karachi. What happened at Karachi airport? As the terrorists rushed up the letter to "capture" the aircraft, Neerja dashed to inform the captain in the cockpit. A terrorist, however, caught her by her handy ponytail but she was able to shout the "hijack code". Another flight attendant who got her code conveyed it to the cockpit. Obviously, the cabin crew, including the two pursers, did not know the action the cockpit crew takes on hearing the hijack code. It is now known that the 3 member cockpit crew - pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer - slipped away, leaving the aircraft, 400 passengers and the 13 member cabin-crew at the mercy of an emotionally surcharged 4 member team of burly terrorists. Since Neerja was the cabin-crew leader, she took over command, as soon as she found that the three seniors (cockpit crew) had deserted them. Neerja's notes say that she had to follow up the hijacking warning with 6 steps. In the Karachi situation, she was required to "communicate" with the hijackers. Her smiles, even in deep distress, won a response. She looked after the passengers, within permissible limits. Her smiles were taken as an assurance by the passengers and crew members that the worst was over. The power generator was running out of fuel and voltage was falling. Then "something" happened. Neerja was standing close to the leader of the terrorists. The light had become very dim. Suddenly, guns began firing within the aircraft. Neerja jumped to the emergency exit and threw it open. According to Mrs. Malti Krishnaswamy and other eyewitnesses, Neerja was caught by the leader of the terrorists and shot point blank. "In the dead body I saw bullets had hit her in the abdomen, on the shoulder near the neck and in the arm. When she opened the emergency exit, she could have herself been the first to slide down the chute. But she was the "captain", who believed that she had to be the last person to quit - alive or dead. The terrorists guns became silent only after spitting out the last bullet. The cabin crew got together on the tarmac and found the "leader" missing. Two crew members ran back to the aircraft to find a profusely bleeding Neerja at her post of duty. The shock of being hit by bullets did not stop her heartbeat. She had been bleeding, from at least two bullet wounds, for nearly 15 minutes. But she was in her senses and told her 2 colleagues to take care of her bullet-hit arm. With a little assistance, she slid down the chute to be received at the other end by another member of the crew. She was helped to walk to the ambulance. But she became a martyr before any medical assistance could help her to survive. In the normal course of events, Neerja would have been back in Bombay on Sunday, September 7, her birthday. hindustantimes Amid the ongoing debate over what defines "nationalism" in the country, Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar seems to have brought out his patriotic side. The Airlift star has welcomed the government's decision of hoisting the national flag in all of India's central universities. According to him, the tricolor will inspire Indians to reach newer heights! The action star took to Twitter and hailed the human resource development ministry's directive to put up the national flag. Supporting the move, he said the Airlift-like moment will inspire citizens. Totally with d decision of d Tricolour being hoisted at all Central Universities & why nt it brings out d best in us,inspires us 2 soar high Ranjit Katiyal (@akshaykumar) February 19, 2016 newsnation Akshay, himself the son of an Army man, is known for doing films running high on patriotic sentiments. Apart from his recent hit Airlift, he has been a part of D-Day, Baby and Holiday in the past. Can we forget the moment in Airlift when the national flag is unfurled, evoking patriotism and a twirl of emotions in the audience? Let's hope the same happens in real-life for the students at these universities. Kudos Akshay! Ustad Abdul Rashid Khan, a direct descendant of the third son of music legend Miyan Tansen, (Surat Sen) passed away yesterday, family members said. The Padma Bhushan awardee was still performing at the age of 107. He is survived by his two sons, two daughters and a number of grandchildren. hindustantimes The Padma Bhushan awardee was 107 and is survived by his two sons, two daughters and a number of grandchildren. Suffering from old-age related ailments, he fell sick in the morning and was rushed to a hospital where he breathed his last, family said. The body will be flown to Raebareli today for burial as many members of his family are settled there. A recipient of many honours including Padma Bhushan and Sangeet Natak Akademi award, the eminent classical vocalist never stopped enthralling his fans even if it meant singing from a wheelchair on the stage. huffingtonpost A resident guru at the ITC Sangeet Research Academy in the city for the past two decades, Khan had given music lessons even on Wednesday to his students who always called him 'Baba' out of respect. Trained in the Gwalior gharana of Hindustani classical music, he was adept in the worlds of Khayal, Dhrupad, Dhamar and Thumri. In 2013, he got the distinction of being the oldest person to get a Padma award. Also a poet, Khan has written around 2,000 compositions under the pseudonym 'Rasan Piya'. Born to Chhote Yusuf Khan, he represented the 16th generation of Miyan Tansen's lineage. Condoling his death, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said "Saddened at the passing away of veteran vocalist Padma Bhushan Abdul Rashid Khan. India has lost a great gem in the world of music." Suraj village in Gujarat's Mehsana district doesn't believe in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Digital India initiative, it seems. The village's local leaders have banned mobile phones for unmarried women, the Hindustan Times reported. Prosecutors will be fined Rs 2,100 for "using or possessing" a mobile phone, and snitching on someone gets you a Rs. 200 reward. itwofs Why do girls need cell phone? Internet is a waste of time and money for a middle-class community like us. Girls should better utilise their time for study and other works, said Suraj village sarpnach Devshi Vankar. According to Vankar, the village (population: 2500) welcomed the decision, which may soon be reflected across north Gujarat. Also read: No Boys, No Patiala Salwar, No WhatsApp! Chennai Engineering College Puts Out A Shocking Circular For Girls! Investigators searching for the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are reportedly preparing to revive theories that the plane may have been brought down deliberately. news The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) has been conducting its search of a 46,000 square mile area of the Indian Ocean on the assumption that the aircraft crashed when its fuel ran out after cruising on autopilot as a "ghost flight" with the pilots incapacitated or dead. That sequence of events is supported by data from Boeing and the British Inmarsat satellite communications firm but failure to find further wreckage will cast significant doubt. The 90 million search, which has been the most expensive in aviation history, will end in 10 weeks and passengers' families are demanding answers. "We're not at the point yet, but sooner or later we will be and we will have to explain to governments what the alternative is," chief commissioner of the ATSB, told The Times. "And the alternative is, frankly, that despite all the evidence as we currently have the possibility that someone was at the controls of that aircraft on the flight and gliding it becomes a more significant possibility, if we eliminate all of the current search area." "In a few months time, if we haven't found it, then we'll have to be contemplating that one of the much less likely scenarios ends up being more prominent. Which is that there were control inputs into that aircraft at the end of its flight." TOI Had a pilot or hijacker been in control of the Boeing 777 when it went off course on 8 March 2014, on its way from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, the area of ocean where it may have crashed is far larger. Australian investigators are only responsible for assisting search efforts for MH370, while the Malaysian government is working to establish why the plane disappeared. "For search purposes, the relevant facts and analysis most closely match a scenario in which there was no pilot intervening in the latter stages of the flight," the ATSB said last month. "The ATSB has neither the authority under international agreements nor the need for the purposes of its search to make statements about why the aircraft disappeared." A wing flaperon discovered in July on the island of Reunion, in the Indian Ocean, is still being analysed by French judicial authorities. A Chinese ship, the Dong Hai Jiu 101, was due to depart from Australia on Thursday to comb the Indian Ocean with state-of-the-art sonar equipment. More than 32,800 square miles of the search area have been scoured since late 2014, with Australia and Malaysia sharing the cost. Most of MH370's 239 passengers and crew were Chinese, while Malaysians, Australians and citizens of 12 other countries were also on board. At 324 people executed, Pakistan ranked as the world's third biggest executioner. However, a majority of these people weren't linked to either militant groups or attacks, According to rights groups. hamariweb Pakistan lifted a moratorium on executions in late 2014 as a measure to deter militancy, after a Taliban gunmen attacked a school and killed 134 students and 19 adults. Of the 351 executions that followed, only 39, or about 1 in 10, involved people linked to a known militant group or guilty of crimes linked to militancy, Reprieve, an international human rights group, and Justice Project Pakistan said in a report. Pakistan now ranks after China and Iran, carrying out 324 hangings in 2015 alone, the report showed. comyan These were the findings of a a report seen by Reuters. Pakistan had lifted its moratorium on executions in late 2014 to fight militancy, after the dreadful Peshawar school massacre where Taliban gunmen attacked a school and killed 134 students and 19 adults. Juveniles, mentally ill prisoners, and prisoners who had been tortured or had not received fair trials were among those executed, the report found in an analysis of media reports and data from courts, prisons and legal teams. "The numbers show that the Pakistan government's claims do not match reality," said Maya Foa, director of the death penalty team at Reprieve. "Those going to the gallows are too often the poor and vulnerable," she said in a statement. "It is hard to see how hanging people like this will make Pakistan safer." A spokesman from Pakistan's interior ministry did not respond to requests for comment. trbimg The government initially said the unofficial moratorium was only being lifted in cases connected to militancy, but it was later broadened to cover all cases, the report said. The hangings have drawn condemnation from international partners but have been broadly popular at home. Government officials told Reuters last year that the policy had been helping to deter militant attacks. Militant, insurgent and sectarian attacks have fallen since 2014, though it is unclear whether the decline is linked to the change in execution policy, as it has also coincided with a military crackdown on militant strongholds. Last year, attacks in Pakistan by militant, insurgent and sectarian groups were down 48 percent from 2014, an independent think-tank, the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, says. A Polish magazine, "w Sieci" (In the net) has been severely criticised on social media for its anti-migrant cover titled "The Islamic rape of Europe". The front page shows a blond woman - clad in the European flag - being groped and assaulted by a group of men. Twitter The magazine, which is known for its right-wing ideologies, said in its defence that the cover came as a response to a string of sexual atrocities meted out against women by men of North African and Arab descent. The reference was made in connection to the events that occurred during New Year festivities in Cologne, Germany. However, Twitterati remained fierce in its criticism, with many stating that it was propagating a scenario of public fear. Sick cover from a big Polish magazine, #wsieci https://t.co/aA8bnsuGhE - is deliberately arousing public fear pic.twitter.com/HbOjrsp4h0 Henk van Ess (@henkvaness) February 17, 2016 While others compared the act to the World War II fascist propaganda. 1) Cover of this week's Polish magazine wSieci about the 'Islamic rape of Europe'; 2) WW2 Italian fascist propaganda pic.twitter.com/L3vzgCinrd Ronan Burtenshaw (@ronanburtenshaw) February 17, 2016 As an offshoot of World War II, fascism celebrated the ideas of action and violence over reason and peace, respectively. War, killings and bloodshed became the essence of manhood, where suffering was hailed as the very foundation on which greatness was achieved. Posters, like the one given below, were circulated to uphold the ideology. Pinterest And people didn't fail to draw the comparisons. The World Press Photo awards were announced on 18th February and a beautiful black-and-white photo of a baby being passed under a barbed wire has been declared the best among the lot. Titled "Hope for a New Life", the photo signifies Europe's current refugee crisis. AFP Clicked by Warren Richardson (47), an Australian freelance photographer, the picture encapsulates the unfolding drama of one distinct crossing between Serbia and Hungary. The Syrian crisis of nearly five years reached its zenith in 2015 when a million people fled their homes in the war-torn zone. While speaking to AFP in a telephone interview, Richardson said, "I am humbled by being awarded this prize. I never would have thought I'd be chosen. I also see hope. Hope for this man and his child." The "haunting image" Amidst 82,951 entries from 5,775 photographers from 128 countries, the judges chose Richardson's black-and-white portrait, for it was "incredibly powerful visually" and a "haunting image". Richardson had clicked the picture while being camped out for 5 days straight near the Hungarian border. Struggling to keep hidden away from the police so as to not reveal the position of the migrating citizens, Richardson took his picture without a flash at 3 o'clock in the morning. AFP The only light he had available to his advantage was the moonlight. Juror Francis Kohn, the AFP photo director, said that the photo "had such power because of its simplicity, especially the symbolism of the barbed wire." "We thought it had almost everything in there to give a strong visual of what's happening with the refugees," he added. Follow us on air travel booms in india strains creaky infrastructure New Delhi: Lightson Ngashangva still remembers the long train journeys followed by interminable bus rides each summer when he went home from Delhi to his village in Manipur. Now, when the 26-year-old biotechnology student visits his home, his nearly three-day long journey by train and bus has been reduced to a four-hour flight. A fast-growing economy and an expanding middle class have made India the world's fastest growing air travel market. The number of passengers grew 20 per cent last year and airlines are announcing flights to new destinations almost every week. And yet, India's airlines are in distress. Experts say the explosion in air travel over the past decade has happened despite major hurdles -- in the form of high jet fuel prices, lack of aircraft maintenance infrastructure, choked airports working beyond their capacities and fierce fare wars that have put many carriers in the red. The problems appear huge, but the size and potential of the market continue to draw new players. Several foreign airlines have also entered. Out of a population of more than 120 crore (1.2 billion), only around 7 crore fly on domestic routes a year -- a quarter of the size of air travel in China, which has a similar population. Air travel in India is "showing double digit growth and will continue to grow at double digits for the next 10 to 15 years," said Kapil Kaul, regional head of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation. Indigo, the country's biggest and most profitable airline, ordered 250 new A320neo series aircraft from Airbus in August in an approximately Rs. 1,82,000 crore ($26.6 billion) deal. At the Dubai Airshow in November, US plane maker Boeing announced that Jet Airways had agreed to an Rs. 52,000 crore ($8 billion) deal to buy 75 Boeing 737 aircraft. Jet Airways, part-owned by Etihad Airways, will start taking delivery of the planes from mid-2018. The purchases are in line with Boeing's forecast released in August that it expects demand for 1,740 planes in India over the next 20 years, at an estimated price of Rs. 16,45,000 crore ($240 billion). Most of these planes will be for fleet expansion and the rest to replace older aircraft. The industry's rapid growth is helping the millions of people in India who need to travel long distances to the northeastern or southern states. Budget airline Indigo was the first private carrier to fly to the northeast, starting flights in 2006 to an area that was otherwise an epic train and bus journey. "More and more airlines have started flights to my home town. Also, the competition between airlines means tickets are getting cheaper," said Ngashangva. Aviation experts say in the past, socialist-leaning politicians viewed air travel as a luxury and not as an enabler of business and economic growth. The luxury tag ensured punitive taxes on jet fuel, making it nearly 60% more expensive than in Singapore or Dubai, both home to busy international airports. It is now predicted that India will be the third largest aviation market by 2020 -- domestic passengers are expected to jump from the current 7 crore to 30 crore by 2022, and to 50 crore by 2027. In an attempt to minimise the industry's growing pains, the government in October announced a draft aviation policy. It proposes the development of no-frills airports at more than 400 airstrips across the country. Some of the airstrips date back to British colonial days and have fallen into disuse and disrepair. The government announced it would spend up to Rs. 50 crore ($7.6 million) on each site to make it useable as an airport. Some problems, however, remain. Aviation experts say the policy remains unclear on an existing condition imposed on airlines known as the "5/20 rule" where the government does not allow new airlines to fly internationally until they have completed five years of operation and have at least 20 aircraft. The draft policy's silence on the future of the much-subsidised national carrier, Air India, has also been disappointing, aviation experts said. "The government's ownership of the national carrier negatively influences policy decisions and has cost the tax payer $3 billion (approx. Rs. 205 crore) in recent years," said Kaul, the aviation analyst. "Air India needs to be privatised, or at least be prepared for privatisation." As the airlines expand their operations, linking more second-tier cities, another major problem they face is the severe shortage of experienced pilots and technicians. As newer airlines entered the business, the hiring standards for pilots, including their hours of flying experience before taking command of an aircraft, were weakened. High demand for pilots with adequate flying hours has allegedly led to corrupt practices. A few years ago, civil aviation authorities detected fake pilot licenses, an unlicensed 'flying school' supplying certificates and touts who helped unqualified candidates obtain licenses for a price. A government crackdown on those issuing fake certificates and tighter scrutiny of airlines' hiring practices has curbed the problem. But the shortage of pilots persists. Last week, more than 250 passengers of a Jet Airways flight to Toronto were stranded for about nine hours as no pilot was available after a technical fault held up the flight. The shortage of pilots has also given them enormous power, leading to lack of discipline when it comes to flight schedules. Pilot unions often fight efforts by budget-strapped airlines to get them to work longer hours. But even with its litany of possible pitfalls, flying is the compelling choice compared with lengthy ground travel. "Above all, it's the time saved," said Lisa James, an interior decorator from Kerala. Her twice-annual trips home by train from Delhi would take her nearly two days each way. "It was exhausting, apart from the two days that went in travel," said James. "Now that my business is picking up, I can't afford to spend time travelling. Flying just saves me so much time. And money." Latest Business News Follow us on 2002 hit run case sc issues notice to salman khan asks why acquittal should not be reversed New Delhi: The Supreme court on Friday issued notice to filmstar Salman Khan on the Maharashtra government's petition challenging a Bombay High Court verdict acquitting him in a 2002 accident case. Issuing notice returnable in six weeks, an apex court bench comprising Justice Jagjit Singh Khehar and Justice C. Nagappan told Salman Khan that "it would be much, much better if he gets acquittal from this court as it will save him from all the repercussions". Senior counsel Kapil Sibal, appearing for Salman Khan, took the court through the proceedings of the trial court, contending that his conviction was based on the testimony of one person, which cannot be relied upon. He said besides that there was no other evidence before the trial court to convict Salman Khan in the case. However, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi that besides the sole witness being pointed to by Sibal, there were scores of other witnesses at the accident spot who saw Salman Khan in the driver's seat of the vehicle that ran over a group of people sleeeping on a pavement, killing one of them. Latest Bollywood News Follow us on hrithik roshan kicks out kangana to romance her arch enemy deepika padukone in next New Delhi: This Christmas, Bollywood can get a real surprise with Hrithik Roshan and Deepika Padukone romancing on-screen in the their next movie. If media reports are to be believed, Deepika Padukone, who is currently shooting for "xXx: The Return of Xander Cage", might sign the Sajid Nadidawala film opposite Hrithik Roshan. Sajid has been quite keen to work with Deepika. But that hasn't worked out due to several issues. However, there are chances that Deepika might sign up for his next production with Kabir," a source was quoted saying by a leading daily. Apparently, Deepika has replaced Kangana to be the leading lady of the Kaabil' star. The film could have had Kangana Ranaut in the lead but the nasty, sly fight that she and Roshan got into last month has pushed her out of the race. The way Queen' actress is speaking at top of her voice in media about her past relationship with Hrithik has really pissed him off. His tweet, few days back, clearly showcased how much he hates being connected to her. According to media reports, the 42-year-old star doesn't want anything to do with the actress and has requested his friends not to mention her to him. Hrithik has even asked his filmmaker friends to not to cast her in movies opposite him and guess Sajid Nadiadwala has followed his words. Now, by showing Kangana the way out from the movie Hrithik has shown who the boss here is. Currently, Hrithik Roshan is shooting for periodic drama Mohenjo Daro while Deepika is in Toronto gearing up for Hollywood debut opposite Vin Diesel. Well! We are excited to see the sizzling chemistry of Hrithik and Deepika on the silver screen. Latest Bollywood News Follow us on disheartened that neerja not releasing in pakistan sonam kapoor Mumbai: Actress Sonam Kapoor is "disheartened" that her true-life inspired drama "Neerja" will not release in Pakistan. The movie, which released in India today, has been banned by Pakistan for allegedly showing the country in bad light, a fact denied by the actress, who portrays slain flight attendant Neerja Bhanot in the film. Extremely disheartened that Neerja isn't releasing this Friday in Pakistan. She was awarded by them & I hope they will salute her again, Sonam tweeted. She saved Pakistani lives, and I can guarantee that Pakistan hasn't been shown in a poor light, I really hope and pray Neerja releases. When Neerja releases worldwide and people see how fair the film is, I'm hopeful that it will result in a solution to a release in Pakistan, the actress said. Neerja, a flight attendant on board a Pan Am Mumbai-New York flight, who was shot dead by terrorists during the hijacking in 1986 while trying to save the lives of passengers. Latest Bollywood News Follow us on sachin tendulkar to feature with aamir khan for satyamev jayate water cup Mumbai: Superstar Aamir Khan says the next season of his popular television show "Satyamev Jayate", which focuses on social issues, will have an episode on the water crisis in Maharashtra and other areas. "The topic of water problems will be tackled in this season of 'Satyamev Jayate', especially the problems related to Maharashtra," Aamir said at a press conference held to announce the 'Satyamev Jayate Water Cup'. "The response to 'Satyamev Jayate' was so strong that we felt we will take one more step ahead and focus on one topic. We decided to work on water and Maharashtra. Water is important and Maharashtra is my birth place. I feel if we respect water, water will respect us so we all need to come together for this," Aamir said at the event. A competition will be organised where villages will be involved in water conservation activities, with the winning village bagging prize money of Rs.50 lakh. The contest will be held between April 15 and May 31. Aamir and Kiran Rao's NGO Paani Foundation will also work in association with the Maharashtra government towards solving the water crisis in the state. Previously, "Satyamev Jayate" had featured an episode on rainwater harvesting, which spoke about the various methods of conserving water, steps which could be tried even in housing societies. Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Aamir's "3 Idiots" and "PK" director Rajkumar Hirani were also present at the event. "When we went for promotions of 'PK', some episodes of 'Satyamev Jayate' had been shot. Wherever we would go, we had to stop Aamir from talking about it. He was so passionate of talking about 'Satyamev Jayate'," Hirani said. "He often said it is our job to not just showcase the flaws in the society, but also to offer a solution to it through the show," he said. About the water initiative, Hirani said: "If Aamir has taken it up, he wouldn't give up, he will anyhow do it." However, Aamir said he will not be the only face of this project. "I will not be the only face, we will have Sachin Tendulkar and many Marathi celebrities. All of us are the face of this project," he said. The first edition of the Satyamev Jayate Water Cup will focus on three districts, and one taluka each within those districts. Helmed by CEO Sayani Bhatkar and COO Reema Dutta, Paani Foundation is a not-for-profit company whose main objective is to communicate, impart knowledge and bring about a change in outlook among people at the grassroot level about water conservation and watershed management. Latest Bollywood News Follow us on whoa is shahid kapoor s wife mira rajput pregnant New Delhi: Shahid Kapoor and Mira Rajput are all set to welcome their first child, suggest media reports. Though, there is no official confirmation of the news from either of the two, but they are not known for forthcoming to media about their personal life. The adorable couple married last year in July, and since then they have been flattering our hearts. Be it posting lovely photographs or going on romantic dates, Shahid and Mira's rocking marriage life is evident to all. Now, as the media reports say that Mira is pregnant and the couple is ready to enter the new phase in their lives, it has given us helluva joy. Interestingly, from last many days, we haven't seen Mira Rajput in full frame. Neither Shahid has shared her pic (except the steamy' one in which Mira is like a painting), nor the lady is making any public outing. Is it done to hide from the media glare or is it something else? Only time will reveal the truth. Let's wait for Shahid and Mira to come out in open about this good news. Latest Bollywood News Follow us on jadavpur univ not to file fir against students who raised slogans in favour of afzal guru Kolkata: Protests and sloganeering by Jadavpur University students notwithstanding, its Vice Chancellor Suranjan Das today said the varsity would not file FIR against any student as it has always stood for freedom of expression, freedom of speech and autonomy. "JU has always stood for freedom of expression, freedom of speech as well as for autonomy and we will solve the problem through discussion... That has been JU's tradition... There is no tradition in JU to file FIRs against students and we maintain it," he said after a meeting with West Bengal governor Keshari Nath Tripathi. "JU has a particular tradition... To ensure that the university remains a place for debate, a place for discussion and a place for deliberation and we will maintain that tradition. Whatever steps we need to take to address the issues we will take them in accordance to the university rules and regulations and conventions," Das said. Tripathi had sought a report on the anti-India sloganeering inside JU campus. Slogans in favour of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru were raised on Wednesday at a rally brought out by JU students to express solidarity with their JNU counterparts agitating against the arrest of their leader Kanhaiya Kumar for alleged sedition. Slogans like "Afzal bole azadi, Geelani bole azadi" and "Cheenke ke lenge azadi" were raised. Other slogans like "Freedom from RSS, freedom from Modi government", "Jab Kashmir ne maangi azadi, Manipur bhi boli azadi" were also raised. On the meeting with the governor, who is also the university chancellor, Das said Tripathi has asked for a report and the University administration would have an executive council meeting on Monday. "The Chancellor has asked me to send a report on the points he has mentioned. On Monday we will have an executive council meeting where we will discuss those matters," he said. Latest India News Follow us on jnu row umar khalid will surrender if pm guarantees his security says his father New Delhi: Syed Qasim Ilyas, father of absconding Umar Khalid who had raised pro-Afzal Guru and anti-India slogans at the JNU, today said that he will appeal his son to surrender before police only after Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Prime Minister Narendra Modo give the guarantee of his security. Speaking to India TV, Syed said, "I appeal him (Umar) via media to surrender. But Home Minister and Prime Minister should come ahead and ensure that he (Umar) will not be attacked in the manner Kanhaiya was thrashed outside and inside the court." He also said that his son was 'wrongly framed and it is for the court to decide whether he is anti-national or not'. Maintaining that Umar was being targeted because he was a Muslim, Syed said, "The court will decide his fate. But unfortunately media houses are running parallel trial and calling him an anti-national element. Media houses are saying he is absconding. You are calling him culprit, chief organiser of the event. Have you seen the FIR copy? Is his name listed there? What is happening in Kanhaiya case, initially police claimed that they have enough evidence to prove the sedition charges but now they are ready to withdraw the charges." When specifically asked about the video showing Umar raising anti-India slogans, he replied, "There are lot many tampered videos coming in public domain. The same thing happened in Kanhaiya case. A police team visited my parental village... basically they are doing profiling, drama..." "I am appealing Umar via media to surrender but first create the situation, provide him space. I don't know where he is. May be police has already taken him into custody. Such instances have happened in past," he added. Umar Khalid's ancestral village is Talegaon. His father had migrated to Delhi 30 years ago and runs an Urdu magazine here. Umar's father, also a former member of Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), said that he quit the outfit in 1985 before it was banned as a terror group. On the other hand, Umar's sister said that she has been receiving regular threats on Facebook that her family members will be killed. "I am getting regular threats on Facebook. I was told we will come to your house and kill you, rape you. Our life has become hell under the false allegations," she told India TV. "Only one person is blamed for the entire incident and this is only because his name is Umar Khalid. Last time I met him on January 10, the day he visited the home," she added. Under the banner of Democratic Student Union, he organised the program on Afzal Guru's death anniversary. Huge number of Kashmiri students from JNU and outside had assembled for the program. Call records of two mobile numbers belonging to Umar, the main organiser of the February 9 event at the JNU campus, have revealed that over 800 calls were made from his numbers between February 3 and 9, including some to Jammu and Kashmir. Sources told India TV that of these 800-odd calls made during the period, 38 calls were made to Jammu & Kashmir. A total of 65 calls were received on Khalid's numbers from J&K as well. The details have emerged from the ongoing investigation being carried out by the Delhi police as they intensified their search for the former leader of the Democratic Students' Union (DSU). Watch video: Latest India News Follow us on umar khalid the alleged mastermind behind jnu row New Delhi: As the focus has shifted from JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar to Umar Khalid, a JNU student leader, who is accused of leading the group that raised anti-India slogans on the evenging of February 9 during a controversial event to mark the death anniversary of Afzal Guru. While demand for Kumar's release is gaining clamour, the demand to arrest Khalid has also started rising. Earlier, Khalid had appeared on various Television News channels defending the event but he suddenly disappeared after the arrest of JNUSU leader Kanhaiya Kumar last Friday. This is what Umar told a television channel after February 9 event controversy, I am not from Kashmir, but what is happening there is Indian occupation of Kashmir. Just like one territory is occupied by Pakistan, another territory is occupied by the Indian State. (Jawaharlal) Nehru's words in 1947 were very clear Kashmir will be given a plebiscite. Here is what you need to know about the alleged mastermind of Afzal Guru event at JNU on Feb 9: 1) Umar Khalid, is no Kashmiri, he hails from Maharahtra's Amravati district and was the leader of Democratic Student's Union (DSU) an extreme Left group active in JNU. 2) Khalid's father Syed Iliyas, who moved to Delhi three decades back, runs an Urdu magazine in the capital. He was also a member of SIMI but he resigned in 1985 even before Khalid was born 3) Born in a Muslim family, Khalid is an ultra-leftist and identifies himself as an atheist. According to his father Umar ran into frequent arguments with his family about what he called ritualistic practices of Islam. He hated going by the book He was questioning everything which led to frequent arguments, even my differences with him. 4) His college and university mates say he was always vocal and believed in extreme left ideology. 5) When anti-national slogans were raised in JNU, Umar Khalid was among the crowd. 6) The 28 year old is a PhD student at the School of Social Sciences at JNU. He also did his MA and MPhil from JNU and has been doing field work in Jharkhand. 7) A former DSU leader, Khalid, resigned from his post in November 2015 along with 10 others and is now doing his PhD at JNU's Centre for Historical Studies. 8) His disappearance led a certain section of the media to claim he was a Jaish-e-Mohammad sympathiser and that he had links with terrorist organisations 9) Although his views on Kashmir are known to everyone on campus, according to some JNU students he would encourage Kashmiri students and those from other parts to speak about their experiences in Kashmir. Latest India News Follow us on know mohit goel the man behind freedom 251 world s cheapest smartphone Mohit Goel, director of Noida based company Ringing Bells, which had announced Freedom251 smartphones at an astonishingly low price of Rs 251 apiece, was on Thursday detained on allegations of fraud. According to police, Goel was detained after owner of Ghaziabad-based Ayam Enterprises filed an FIR on Wednesday alleging that Ringing Bells defrauded it of Rs 16 lakh. Mohit did his all schooling from Saint RC Convent School in a western UP town. After obtaining an engineering degree from Amity University, Noida, he moved to Australia and joined MBA course at Western Sydney University in New South Wales. He recently married Dhaarna, a Noida resident, who is now CEO of Ringing Bells. Until recently, he is believed to have worked with his father, assisting the latter at a grocery store in his hometown in Shamli district of Uttar Pradesh. The idea to launch an affordable smartphone came to Mohit while he was munching on midnight street food along with a friend Ashok Chadha, who is now the president of Ringing Bells. Mohit, who set up the tech company in September 2015, did not speak much about the firm at the launch event but hinted that the company could soon introduce its own SIM cards. Also Read: Freedom 251 phone: Ghaziabad police detain Ringing Bells MD Mohit Goel for fraud He had claimed that his company has already 300 direct and 2,000 indirect employees. The company partners with external testing facilities which look into pre-dispatch inspection, quality control and post delivery service. At the launch ceremony, Mohit was guided by his wife Dhaarna. This glitzy event in New Delhi was attended by several dignitaries, including senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi. A few residents from Shamli were also invited for the launch. Mohit, before launching his own company, was associated with a Canadian telecommunications company Shaw Communications Inc. which is known for providing telephone, Internet and television services. He follows TechCrunch on his Linkedin profile. Latest India News Follow us on kashmir never accepted unfair trial of afzal guru says pakistan india hits back New Delhi: India has termed as 'unacceptable' the Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson's comments on hanging of Parliament convict Afzal Guru and Jammu and Kashmir. "Jammu and Kashmir is an internal matter of India. Pakistan's gratuitous references to Jammu and Kashmir are unacceptable," External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said on Thursday. Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Mohammed Nafees Zakaria on Thursday said the Kashmiri people have never accepted the 'unfair' trial of Afzal Guru, a Kashmiri who was hanged on being convicted for the Indian Parliament attack in December 2001. He pointed out that Pakistan has adequately and appropriately raised the Kashmir dispute at all the international fora. Sharif remarks on Kargil confirmation of truth: India Swarup also described 'confirmation of truth' Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's comment that the Kargil 'misadventure' in 1999 by troops of his country was a stab in the back for the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. "Nawaz Sharif has said something which was known to all. Everybody knew about it. He has only confirmed a truth which we all aware of," he said. Addressing a public rally in Muzaffarabad, Sharif had said that Kargil offensive by Pakistani troops was a misadventure and a stab in the back for Vajpayee as the two countries were engaged in peace process. Pakistani troops had occupied a number of positions in Kargil heights, months after Sharif and Vajpayee had initiated a peace processes by signing the historic Lahore declaration. "Vajpayee told me he had been stabbed in the back with the Kargil misadventure because it came soon after the Lahore Declaration. I told him I would have said the same thing if I were in his place," Sharif said. On proposed Foreign Secretary-level talks between the two sides, Swarup said both foreign secretaries are in touch with each other but no dates have been finalised yet. Asked about Pakistan's offer of sending a special investigation team to India to probe the Pathankot attack, Swarup said, "We have said that we welcomed the decision of Pakistan government to form an SIT. As and when a firm proposal is received, then the modalities will be worked out." Swarup added that the issue of Pakistan's response to evidence given by India on involvement of Pakistani terrorists in the attack, was being handled by NSAs of the two countries. Asked about Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar's reported remarks that he was opposed to any joint probe into the attack, the MEA spokesperson said there was no such proposal. "There was never a joint investigation team. Pakistan had proposed sending a special investigation team to India and that time we had welcomed it. Since then we are awaiting a detailed proposal from Pakistan. Once we receive it, we will discuss," he said. With Agency Inputs Latest India News Follow us on not right time for bullet train in india says e sreedharan New Delhi: Former Delhi Metro chief Dr E Sreedharan has said that he was not in favour of bullet train at present, instead emphasized on the need for the Indian Railways to improve the existing facilities. "This is not the right time for bullet trains in the country but there is a need for improving existing facilities, speed, infrastructure and comforts of passengers," Sreedharan, also known as the "Metro Man" for developing the vibrant Delhi Metro, said in an informal interaction with reporters on sidelines of a function here on Thursday. He said the railways should concentrate on betterment of the existing facilities at the outset and think of bullet train later. "May be after eight to 10 years, we may require bullet train," Sreedharan said. To a query on the proposed bullet train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, Sreedharan, who had spent about 36 years with Railways, expressed his satisfaction over the progress of the Nagpur Metro Rail project. The Nagpur metro project, he said, was using a new technology where the via duct will be of 8.5 metres against the 10 metres in other Metro rails across the country. Earlier, at the first foundation day programme of Nagpur Metro Rail, Sreedharan said the project should be completed on time and it should be affordable to the users, since it was a public transport. "If you don't complete the project within the time frame, the cost will escalate Rs 50 lakhs per day. When the detailed project report of Delhi Metro was drafted, the completion target was given 10 years but we finished in seven years and three months, which was a record, thereby saving a huge revenue," he said. Educate the public and users about the utility and engage them so that there are no inordinate delays in execution, he said, emphasising on evolving a work culture among employees and staff to inculcate a 'sense of integrity'. Citing example of Delhi, he said a run of 65 km Metro rail reduced congestion on road traffic as about 35,000 cars were off roads and Rs 3 lakh crore was saved on fossil fuel. Managing director of Nagpur Metro Brajesh Dixit, divisional commissioner Anup Kumar and municipal commissioner Shrawan Hardikar were also present on the occasion. Latest India News Follow us on pathankot attack no mention of masood azhar in pakistan fir Islamabad: Pakistani authorities have lodged an FIR at counter-terrorism department (CTD) centre at Gujranwala in Punjab province in connection with the Pathankot terror attack case. The FIR copy doesn't mention the name of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Maulana Masood Azhar's name despite recommendation made by the Special Investigative Team (SIT). The FIR was lodged on the basis of information provided by India's National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval to his Pakistani counterpart Nasser Khan Janjua that four attackers crossed from Pakistan into India and attacked the airbase on January 2. Earlier in the day, The News reported that the SIT formed by Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to investigate the Pathankot terror attack has formally recommended the government to lodge an FIR against Masood Azhar. The Interior Ministry had formed a six-member team to investigate the January 2 terror attack that killed 7 Indian security personnel and 6 militants of Pakistan based terror group JeM. According to a CTD official, the FIR was needed to start police and judicial proceedings on the basis of evidence collected in connection with the attack for which India has blamed Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) militant group. India has identified Masood Azhar as the mastermind of the attack. It has also blamed his brother Rauf and five others for carrying out the attack that killed seven Indian soldiers and all 6 terrorists. The FIR number 06/2016 was lodged under sections 302, 324 and 109 of the Pakistan Penal Code, and sections 7 and 21-I of the Anti-Terrorism Act. The January 2 attack led to the postponement of a scheduled meeting between Foreign Secretaries of Pakistan and India in January in Islamabad. Since then, no date has been fixed for talks. The FIR also shows the telephone numbers contacted by the militants during the attack. A police official said that after the registration of the FIR, any accused can be presented before the court for start of a formal trial. According to intelligence officials, about a dozen suspects were arrested in Pakistan following the attack. The FIR has reportedly been registered on the recommendations of a six-member special team probing the attack. Last month, CTD police Gujranwala had presented three JeM militants before an Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) for possessing jihadi literature. The suspects were arrested by CTD from a seminary run by JeM in Mundeyki, where the headquarters of the 2008 Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed's Jamaat-u-Dawah is located. Latest India News Follow us on smoking kills more people than obama ad in moscow creates flutter Moscow: An advertisement, illegally placed at a bus stop in Moscow declaring that smoking kills more people than Obama has gone viral on social media. The inscription on the poster reads: "Smoking kills more people than Obama, although he really kills a lot of people. Don't smoke. Don't be like Obama." According to reports, the poster was apparently supposed to be a joke and had an inscription comparing the bad habit with the policies of US President Barack Obama. It still remains unknown who put up the poster. The perpetrators are said to have opened the glass at the bus stop, removed the original ad and replaced it with the controversial ad. A spokesman for the Moscow department of media and advertising Konstantin Gorokhov stated that the poster will be removed shortly from the Moscow bus stop. Some have taken the anti-Obama ad as a reference to a Stop Obama! video posted last week that showed dozens of Russian students falling to the floor as if dead, revealing a lone girl with a sign claiming that the president of the United States kills 875 people every week. The call was posted the day after a video appeal to the United Nations in which students at universities around Russia declared that Obama should be punished for thousands of lost lives. In January, a banner replacing the word hope in Barack Obama's iconic 2008 election poster with killer was hung from a residential building across from the US embassy in Moscow. In early, February a video was broadcast on the sides of buildings in Moscow calling for Obama to be judged by a Hague war crimes tribunal. Latest World News Follow us on china deploys anti aircraft missiles on disputed south china sea island Beijing: China has deployed missiles to a disputed island in the South China Sea even as President Barack Obama called for 'tangible steps' to settle territorial disputes in the resource-rich region at the conclusion of a summit with Southeast Asian leaders. According to media reports, satellite images showed two batteries of eight surface-to-air HQ-9 missile launchers as well as a radar system on Woody Island, part of the Paracel Island chain in the South China Sea. According to the images, a beach on the island was empty on February 3, but the missiles were visible by February 14. A US official said the imagery showed the HQ-9 air defence system with a range of over 200 kilometres, which would pose a threat to any civilian or military airplane flying close by, the report said. It is the same island where a US Navy destroyer sailed close to another contested island a few weeks ago. Woody Island is part of the Paracels chain, under Chinese control for more than 40 years also claimed by Taiwan and Vietnam. The missiles arrived on the island over the past week. A US official confirmed that China has placed a surface-to-air missile system on Woody Island and the State Department said commercial satellite imagery appears to indicate that China has deployed such a system. Spokesman Mark Toner told reporters here, that if true, China's action "will raise tensions further in the region." China described the report as media hype. "We believe this is an attempt by certain Western media to create news stories," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said. Claiming that the development was largely civilian oriented and benefited the region, Wang pointed to the construction of light houses, weather stations, and rescue and shelter facilities for fishermen. "All of those are actions that China, as the biggest littoral state in the South China Sea, has undertaken to provide more public goods and services to the international community and play its positive role there," he said. Wang said China's construction of military infrastructure was "consistent with the right to self-preservation and self-protection that China is entitled to under international law, so there should be no question about that." The reported move by China comes as President Obama hosted 10 Asia-Pacific leaders in California, many of those concerned over China's recent activity in the South China Sea. The US will continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows, and will support the right of all countries to do the same, Obama said yesterday, as he called for "tangible steps" to reduce tensions in the disputed and natural resource-rich South China Sea. With PTI Inputs Latest World News Follow us on deliberate crash theories to be revisited if mh370 not found Melbourne: As the search for the wreckage of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 nears its end, officials have admitted they might have to confront the idea the plane's disappearance was deliberately planned. The 12-month search for the plane off the coast of Western Australia, in the southern Indian Ocean, is expected to end in 10 weeks, Xinhua reported. The search area, measuring roughly 120,000 sq km, was calculated on the assumption that the pilots of the plane were incapacitated at the time it crashed. About 85,000 sq km of the seafloor has been searched in that area. This premise, which formed the basis of the entire investigation, suggests that the aircraft flew on autopilot until it ran out of fuel somewhere over the Indian Ocean. However if the plane is not found in the search zone, it opens the door to the possibility that the plane was being controlled by a "rogue pilot" who crashed it deliberately, killing all 239 people on board. "We're not at the point yet but sooner or later we will be -- and we will have to explain to governments what the alternative is," Martin Dolan, chief commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, told the Times of London. "In a few months' time, if we haven't found it (the plane) then we'll have to be contemplating that one of the much less-likely scenarios ends up being more prominent which is that there were control inputs into that aircraft at the end of its flight." A part of a plane's wing that washed up on Reunion Island, a French territory in the Indian Ocean, in July confirmed to be from MH370 raised hopes that authorities were close to finding the plane but no further parts have been found since. Australian, Malaysian and Chinese governments have been engaged in a massive multinational search for the ill-fated plane. Latest World News Follow us on global varsities like oxford yale and more show support for jnusu leader kanhaiya kumar New Delhi: Support is pouring in for JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, who is facing charges of sedition for his alleged involvement in anti-national sloganeering during a controversial event for Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, from universities all over the world. Over 400 academicians from international education institutions have joined in support of JNU students' agitation against a row over an event on the campus involving anti-national sloganeering. The likes of Oxford, Yale, Cambridge, Columbia, Harvard University amongst others have signed a joint statement stating that "JNU stands for a vital imagination of the space of the university an imagination that embraces critical thinking, democratic dissent, student activism, and the plurality of political beliefs. It is this critical imagination that the current establishment seeks to destroy. And we know that this is not a problem for India alone". UK's Warwick University, too, put out a statement on their website stating that We, the undersigned, wish to express our solidarity with the ongoing student struggle at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, India. In doing so, we wholeheartedly condemn the extra-constitutional detention of the JNU Students' Union leader Kanhaiya Kumar and seven other students on February 9, 2016. Universities should be places of academic freedom where dissent and critical thinking must not only be tolerated but should be actively encouraged. The students who have been charged with sedition (a colonial-era relic that the Supreme Court of India itself has attempted to weaken) for questioning the Indian state's controversial execution of Afzal Guru, the man accused in the attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001, breached no law, and are being illegally detained. Kumar's recent arrest has triggered wide spread crusading from student all over India, with teachers joining in and boycotting classes, too. Yesterday, violence again broke out in Delhi's Patiala court complex where Kumar was attacked twice at a Delhi court. He identified his attacker who was sitting in court but the police allegedly let him go. Latest World News Follow us on make in india lockheed martin ready to manufacture f 16 fighter jet in india Singapore: US fighter jet maker Lockheed Martin today said it is ready to manufacture F-16 aircraft in India and supports the ongoing talks between the two countries to set up the first manufacturing facility. If the company gets all clearances and starts manufacturing jets in India, it will be one of the largest projects under the 'Make in India' initiative. The American company, however, did not commit any time-frame to have the plant operational, saying the group supports the ongoing government-to-government talks. "We are ready to manufacture F-16 in India and support the Make in India initiative," Phil Shaw, chief executive of Lockheed Martin India Private Ltd told reporters at the Singapore Airshow 2016. Shaw expressed strong interest in having the F-16 made in India 'soon' without elaborating on the time-frame, linking it to the progress of the government-to-government talks. Currently, Lockheed Martin manufactures one jet a month from its plant in the US and has a series of contracts and joint ventures in India with over 1,000 employees. It has supplied six C130J Super Hercules planes to India in 2011 and will be delivering another six helicopters next year. Industry observers said Lockheed Martin's "wish to manufacture F-16 is based on the strong demand from the Indian armed forces and would want to lower the cost of the planes for exports by using the low-cost capability in India". "Certainly, Lockheed Martin would want to exploit the engineering skill and low cost capabilities in India and make F-16 very competitive in the fighter jet markets," a well-informed source said. "Both the US government and Lockheed Martin see the advantage of placing a manufacturing base in India and make F-16 affordable for emerging markets," the source said. The making of F-16, which will be among the largest projects under the Make in India initiative, will be conditional to the Indian government making contractual commitment to buy the fighter jets for its armed forces, said the source. "Washington, in return, would ensure technology transfer to the Indian engineering sector and a huge boost to Indian exports," he said. If the two government reach an agreement this year or 2017, putting aside all differences on the mega project and the US' move to supply eight F-16 to Pakistan, Lockheed Martin could roll out the first made in India jet in 2019-2020, said the source. Lockheed Martin has already decided on India as its best option for low-cost and highly qualified engineering workforce, and the final go on this is dependent on approval from New Delhi and Washington. With PTI Inputs Latest World News Follow us on nawaz sharif narendra modi likely to meet in washington next month Islamabad/New Delhi: Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Shairf is likely to meet his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in Washington next month on the sidelines of a nuclear summit hosted by US President Barack Obama. Sharif and Modi have both accepted President Obama's invitation to attend a nuclear summit he is hosting in Washington on March 31 and April 1, diplomatic sources said. "The chances are strong, very strong," a senior Pakistani government official told the Dawn. "But you know the history of India-Pakistan talks, you cannot be certain about an event until it has happened," the official added. It will be the first time that both Indian and Pakistani Prime Ministers will be attending the nuclear security summit, which President Obama initiated in 2010. The conference will be the first for India and Pakistan to carry forward bilateral ties. Last year, Modi had made a surprise stop in Pakistan to meet his counterpart in a symbolic gesture to 'add momentum to reconciliation process' between the two nations, but the terror attack on IAF base in Pathankot by Pakistan-based terror group derailed the schedule Foreign Secretary-level talks. Meanwhile, Pakistan has sought an early date for the crucial Foreign Secretary-level talks with India after the latter's envoy recently suggested that the meeting was not conditional to progress in the Pathankot attack probe. According to Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson Muhammad Nafees Zakaria said Pakistan had noted the policy statement given by India's High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale. "In view of the statement, it is our view that the date of the foreign secretary-level talks should now be decided as early as possible," he said. The Foreign Secretaries of India and Pakistan were set to meet in the middle of January but the talks were postponed following an attack on the IAF base in Pathankot. New Delhi blamed the attack on Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Muhammad militant group. The two sides at that time said the talks would be rescheduled in the near future but no announcement on the dates has been made since then with both Pakistani and Indian authorities saying that they are in touch contact with each other over the issue. With IANS Inputs Latest World News Follow us on not playing china card against india nepal pm k p oli Kathmandu: K.P. Oli, Prime Minister of Nepal, on the eve of his six-day visit to the Indian soil said that his country is not playing the "China Card" against India. Attending a press conference ahead of his face-mending India visit, Oli declined the allegations that accused him of playing the "China Card" against his neighbouring country in the wake of the border blockade due to protests by Madhesis. The prolonged strike by the Madhesis had caused severe shortage of essential goods, including petrol and cooking gas, in the country. "It is not true that Nepal has played any card against India," he told reporters at his office. "I won't play a card against any country," Prime Minister Oli said, adding in a lighter vein that, "I don't know how to play a card." "There is no question of playing a card for one against the other. We want to develop friendly relations with both our great neighbours on the basis of mutual respect and benefit," 63-year-old Oli said. Earlier some reports had said that Oli could visit China before India due to hiccups in Indo-Nepal ties over the Madhesi issue. Amid strain in Indo-Nepal ties, China was seen by analysts as getting closer to Nepal especially by providing essential goods to the crisis-hit nation. Oli has also said that he will visit China within a month after his India trip as part of his government's policy to enhance cooperation with immediate neighbours. "Our country will definitely benefit from my visit to India beginning from Friday and we won't lose from the visit," the Prime Minister said today. During Oli's visit, the two countries are expected to sign a number of pacts, mostly related to the areas on which agreement has been reached in the past, sources close to the premier said. Two MoUs -- one on the USD 1 billion line of credit that India has already committed to Nepal during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit and another on USD 1 billion that India has pledged during External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's trip here for the country's post-earthquake reconstruction will be signed during Oli's visit, the sources said. Oli, during the press interaction, said, "To gain friendship is also a gain and we will get much more than that (from the visit)." He said he has no specific agenda for the talks as the visit is taking place in very complex and special circumstances. "The main focus of the visit will be to create favourable situation and to build trust," Oli asserted. (With PTI inputs) Latest World News Follow us on us presidential elections indo american nikki haley endorses republican marco rubio Washington: Indian-American South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has endorsed Marco Rubio which will give a major boost to the Florida Senator's presidential ambition ahead of the state's pivotal Republican primary. "I wanted somebody with fight. I wanted somebody with passion. I wanted somebody that had conviction to do the right thing, but I wanted somebody humble enough that remembers that you work for all the people," Haley said yesterday at Chapin in South Carolina as she announced to endorse Rubio for president. "I wanted somebody that was going to go and show my parents that the best decision they ever made for their children was coming to America. We say that every day is a great day in South Carolina. Ladies and gentlemen, if we elect Marco Rubio, every day will be a great day in America!" Haley said. The two-term Republican governor of South Carolina is considered to be a highly popular Republican leader in the country and a potential vice presidential pick. However, if Rubio bags the party's nomination she is unlikely to be on his ticket because the two leaders are from the same region of the country and both of their parents are immigrants. "You know that I always say I am the proud daughter of Indian parents. That reminded us every day how blessed we were to live in this country," she said in her brief remarks. Haley said she wants a president who is going to have the backs of military veterans, and those in active duty. "I want a president that knows that when we fight wars, we win wars. I want a president that understands we have to stop the federal mandates that have been pushed on the states like Obamacare and the EPA," she said. "But I want a president who understands that they have to go back to Washington DC and bring a conscience back to our Republicans. Our Republicans need to remember what we are about, which is about balanced budgets, cutting debt, building reserves and making sure that they understand that this guy, he is all about term limits in DC, and that is what we want to see in a president," Haley said. Haley's endorsement is seen as a big boost for Rubio, but this does not guarantee him a win in South Carolina, despite the fact that the Indian-American is one of the most popular governor's in the state's history. In 2012 elections, she had endorsed Mitt Romney, the party's eventual nominee. As per the average of all major polls compiled by RealClearPolitics.Com, on average Rubio is currently ranked third with 17.7 per cent, a GOP race which is led by Donald Trump (33.3 per cent) and Ted Cruz (22 per cent). Even in South Carolina, where the Republican presidential primary is scheduled for Saturday Rubio (16.8 per cent) is placed third after Trump (34.5 per cent) and Cruz (17.3 per cent). "We were excited when we got the word that this was a real possibility," Rubio said after bagging Haley's endorsement. "For us and for me, I have said this before, and I would say, despite the endorsement I would say this, she represents everything I want the Republican Party to be about: fiscal responsibility, a limited federal government, all the things that our government should be about and all the things our party should be about, she embodies," Rubio said. The Democratic National Committee National press secretary Mark Paustenbach said given Haley's weak record in South Carolina, her decision to endorse a candidate with little record of his own makes perfect sense. "It's no surprise Haley feels comfortable lending her name to Rubio, a candidate whose campaign has been desperately trying to hide his own lack of actual accomplishments," he said. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush who was hoping to get Haley's endorsement expressed his disappointment over the decision of Haley. Latest World News Follow us on sc clears way for formation of new govt in arunachal pradesh New Delhi: The Supreme Court today vacated its earlier order staying the revocation of President's rule in Arunachal Pradesh, paving way for a new government to be formed in the state. The apex court refused to intervene with the interim order of the Gauhati High Court that ordered a stay on the disqualification of the 14 rebel Congress MLAs. Prima facie we are convinced that the MLAs were disqualified without being served notice, the apex court observed, asking the Gauhati High Court to pass a final order on the matter within two weeks. The move comes as a big blow to the Congress party, which has been strongly against the revocation of President's rule in the state, blaming the state's Governor of acting at the Centre's behest. The top court had on Wednesday ordered maintenance of status quo in the state till it examined records on disqualification of 14 rebel Congress MLAs by former speaker Nabam Rebia. Senior lawyers Kapil Sibal and FS Nariman, appearing for Arunachal Congress leaders, sought maintenance of status quo till their plea seeking to restrain governor JP Rajkhowa from swearing in a new government in Arunachal Pradesh was decided. Crisis hit Arunachal Pradesh when a faction in the Congress rebelled against the Nabam Tuki government last month. With the backing of 21 rebels in the 60-member assembly, Kalikho Pul had claimed the Congress government led by Tuki was in minority. The Congress rebels along with the BJP's 11 members had pushed the number of lawmakers opposed to Tuki to 32, he claimed. He had also approached the Arunachal Governor to stake claim to form the new government in the state. The court has been hearing all the cases related to the crisis in the state, including the one on the disqualification of 14 rebels from the assembly. Meanwhile, the Congress had contested this claim contending that the former assembly Speaker Nabam Rebia had disqualified all 14 lawmakers and two others had resigned, rendering the assembly's strength to 44. Given the reduced assembly strength, Tuki has comfortable majority, Congress said. The party also claims that Governor JP Rajkhowa, "acting as a BJP agent", had helped the rebel Congress lawmakers in their bid to topple his government by convening the assembly session ahead of time. A senior delegation of the Congress party had also met President Pranab Mukherjee, against revocation of President's rule in the state. The Office of the Hon'ble President should not be brought into controversy by such ill-advised action, Congress leaders had told the President. (With PTI inputs) Follow us on government with pdp in j k soon hints bjp Jammu/New Delhi: A day after its general secretary Ram Madhav held one on one talks with Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has expressed optimism that the government formation in Jammu and Kashmir will take place 'shortly'. "Absolutely we feel that the government formation (in Jammu and Kashmir) will take place in the shortest possible time and the government will be formed that will take steps for creating good atmosphere," state BJP president Sat Sharma said on Thursday evening. While terming the meet between Madhav and Mufti a 'positive step towards the formation of the government', he said, "Ram Madhav met Mehbooba Mufti and they held discussions, which is a positive step towards the formation of the government and the formation would take place." On the reported demands of fresh Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) by the PDP leadership, the BJP state president said that the government formation would be as per the 'Agenda of Alliance'. "As far as the CBMs are concerned the Agenda of Alliance is there and all discussions will go as per them," he said. "I could not hold detailed talks with Ram Madhav but definitely, the Agenda of Alliance would be taken into consideration and as per it (government formation would take place)," he added. Following the death of her father Mufti Mohammad Sayeed on January 7, Mehbooba Mufti had openly talked of the need for the Centre to initiate some political and economic measures to 'build trust'. The party has maintained that these are not demands or pre-conditions but measures that both parties had agreed to in their 'Agenda of Alliance', the document that was supposed to guide the coalition government when it was formed. But BJP leaders said that the party leadership has decided to reject some key PDP demands such as talks with Kashmiri separatists, withdrawing the AFSPA from some districts, and asking the armed forces to vacate land occupied by them. "I feel (in) Jammu and Kashmir peace would be restored and good development atmosphere will be created that is why BJP wants a good government (in the state)," the BJP leader said. According to reports, two senior PDP leaders are expected to reach Delhi to take the talks forward. However, the date of the PDP leaders' arrival is yet to be decided. Reports suggest that the two parties will form government before March 1, the day Mohammad Sayeed was sworn-in as the head of the coalition last year. Also the PDP chief is expected to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah before taking oath as chief minister. The state has been under President's Rule since January 8. Follow us on is pdp bjp alliance over without a formal divorce in j k Jammu/Srinagar: Has Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti finally decided not to claim power in Jammu and Kashmir and thereby call off the alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) without a formal announcement? Recent developments suggest she may have. On Sunday, the Muftis observed the 40th-day mourning of late state chief minister, Mufti Muhammad Sayeed. Mehbooba Mufti went with only members of her immediate family to the Dara Shikoh Park in south Kashmir Bijbehara town to offer 'Fateha' prayers at her father's grave. All senior leaders of the PDP were conspicuous by their absence during her visit to Bijbehara. Instead, senior leaders and former ministers went to offer 'Fateha' prayers at 11 a.m. while the Mufti family had already returned to their residence in Srinagar city. Sources said Mehbooba Mufti has virtually been out of communication with party's senior leaders recently. When BJP state president, Sat Pal Sharma and former deputy chief minister, Nirmal Singh called on Mehbooba Mufti on Sunday in Srinagar, insiders said, she simply refused to be drawn into any discussion regarding government formation in the state. "She has not been meeting senior colleagues of her party during the recent days. What is in her mind is anybody's guess, but in all likelihood it appears she does not want to head the alliance government with the BJP who have so far failed to offer any assurances to her on future arrangement between the two parties", said a PDP source believed to be close to Mehbooba Mufti. The source said most former ministers and legislators both from the PDP and the BJP are in favour of an early government formation in the state while Ms Mufti seems to be worried more about the future. "She does not want to lose tomorrow for today. For many leaders in the party, it is a now or never situation. They might never get another chance to become ministers in the state, but she has a long political career ahead," said another PDP insider. He said she could not be pushed into taking a decision that would barter away the future of her party for power. "She seriously believes her father was given a raw deal. The promises made to people remained unfulfilled by that centre that did not move beyond words during Mufti Sahib's tenure", he added. The same source said the BJP had not been disclosing its cards clearly after Sayeed's death. A BJP source said the party high command is in no hurry to succumb to what these sources call, 'PDP brinkmanship'. "We cannot be pushed into anything because an elected government is not in place in the state. Our assurances are already there and mutual trust between the two allies means the PDP must respect and believe our word", the source said. He also confirmed that state BJP leaders had been advised by the party high command not to make any speculative statements on government formation in the state. "It will happen when it has to", said a senior BJP leader declining to be named. Given the gradual entrenching of the PDP and the BJP in their stated barriers, the moot point is, even if a government is formed by the two parties how viable and lasting would that be? The measured silence by both the parties indicates the alliance could be over in Jammu & Kashmir before its divorce is formally announced. Follow us on rss trying to impose its flawed ideology rahul gandhi New Delhi: Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi today said that those who were involved in anti-national activities must be punished but innocents should not be victimised. He was talking to media persons after he led a party delegation to meet President Pranab Mukherjee . Lashing out at the RSS , Gandhi said that Sangh is trying to impose it's ideology on students of nation, we won't let that happen. This nation will prosper because of its student's imagination, imposing an ideology on them will not benefit the nation, he added Rahul said patriotism is in my blood if anyone has said anything against the nation he must be punished but the whole university must not be dubbed as anti-national Questioning the law and order situation, Rahul said, Journalists were thrashed in public with police just watching.This has damaged India's image globally-Rahul Gandhi Taking a swipe at his critics, the congress vice president also said Nationalism is in my blood, my family sacrificed again & again for this nation. Citing the attacks in Patiala House court here, Congress had yesterday alleged that jungle raj is prevailing in Delhi. JNU students union leader Kanhaiya Kumar and some journalists were yesterday attacked in a court complex here by rowdy lawyers. Despite instructions by the apex court to ensure security at the Patiala House Court, where violent men in black robes had attacked journalists on Monday, Delhi Police failed to prevent the attack on Kumar, who has been accused of sedition. On Monday too, journalists were attacked by such elements. The Congress Vice President had led protests over the Rohith Vemula issue in Hyderabad and also the FTII students agitation in Pune. Follow us on pakistan pretending to sleep on pathankot strike probe manohar parrikar New Delhi: Hitting out at Pakistan for dismissing evidence provided by India in connection with the Pathankot terror attack, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar today accused the neighbouring country of "pretending to sleep" and not being serious about the probe. The minister also ruled out allowing the Pakistani Special Investigation Team into the Pathankot air base. Noting it is a matter that concerns the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of External Affairs, Parrikar told Karan Thapar in his programme 'To the Point' on India Today TV channel, "If somebody pretends to fall asleep, it's difficult to find out." He was asked about Pakistan's claim that the evidence given by India is not concrete enough. Told that Pakistan has also claimed that Pakistani mobile numbers given by India were "unregistered and had fake identities", Parrikar responded, "Fake identity and non-registration indicates connivance of some. You have to investigate and find out who gave numbers that are not registered." He said that the Indian government has been continuously giving evidence relating to so many attacks to Pakistan. "If someone is serious, he can definitely act," he said. Asked whether the Pakistani SIT would be allowed inside the Pathankot base, the minister said he was not aware of any such request from them. "As far as air bases and defence installations are concerned, no one can enter them without permission of the Defence Ministry," he said. Asked again, he said whatever information they need, it can be provided by NIA through the External Affairs Ministry. "The incident has happened here and we will investigate what has happened here. What we are asking them to investigate is the role of their people in their country," he said. The Defence Minister also said he is "hurt" by the US' decision to sell F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan. On the 'One Rank, One Pension' scheme, Parrikar said the government will differentiate between voluntary retirement for better prospects and premature retirement in the interest of the army. He said that a judicial committee has been set up to look into the issue of premature retirement. On the resentment among armed forces on the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission, Parrikar said all the legitimate concerns of the armed forces would be addressed. Parrikar also said the ministry plans to cut the 'slack and flab' of the military. However, he made it clear that the "effective component of armed forces will not be compromised". Follow us on rahul gandhi is a traitor should be punished rajasthan bjp mla New Delhi: A Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA in Rajasthan has attacked the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, calling him a 'traitor' and saying that he should be 'hanged' and 'shot' for supporting anti-national elements at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Kailash Choudhary, MLA from Baytoo in Barmer district,said, "Some people...raised slogans praising Afzal Guru, about breaking India and of Pakistan Zindabad...and if Rahul Gandhi, who is called the Congress' rajkumar, goes and sides with these people...stands with them and supports them...it is treason." "Rahul Gandhi is a traitor...such a traitor should be punished...should be hanged ...and shot," he added. He also demanded an apology from the Congress vice-president. When reporters asked him specifically about his remark, the MLA said, "Yes, I said it. If he (Rahul) goes and supports such anti-national people...he should be shot. I am a nationalist and if anyone raises a finger at Bharat Mata, I will not tolerate it." Meanwhile, Yoga guru Baba Ramdev today said that association with anti-nationals is treachery and that the political leaders should go beyond vote bank politics and should not compromise with the nation's sovereignty and unity. "It is necessary to know who raised anti-national slogans. But it is clear that the mass which gathered there was not nationalist. Association with the anti-nationals is also treachery. Involving in anti-national activities and supporting it has been considered as crime, both legally and spiritually. The political leaders should go beyond vote bank politics and should not compromise with the nation's sovereignty and unity," Ramdev said. "Supporting the people who raise 'anti-national' slogans is wrong. It is the responsibility of the government to see to it that action is taken against any anti-national element and innocents are not caught. The anti-national slogans are not right for the unity and sovereignty of the nation," he added. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi is in trouble for showing solidarity with the students of JNU. A case was registered against him in a district court in Allahabad yesterday for his opposition to the police action against students of the JNU who had taken part in a demonstration where "anti-national" slogans were raised. Follow us on west bengal elections state congress hails cpi m s decision Kolkata: The West Bengal Congress on Thursday hailed the decision of CPI(M) seeking cooperation from all democratic forces by stating that every secular parties in the state should respect the aspirations of the masses. "It is not about what we decide or what CPI(M) decides.The people and the grassroots level workers of CPI(M) and Congress have decided to forge an alliance in order to oust TMC and alienate BJP. So it is our prime duty to respect the aspirations of the masses and workers," state Congress president Adhir Chowdhury told PTI. When asked when would the Congress high command take a call regarding the alliance, Chowdhury said "We have placed our views and aspirations of the masses before the high command. Now it is for the high command to take a final call." The CPI(M) Central Committee, after its two day meeting in a statement said "In West Bengal, the main task is to restore democracy and foil the aggressive efforts by the communal forces to polarise the people in the state by ousting the present Trinamool Congress government. "CPI(M) will seek the cooperation of all democratic forces in the state to strengthen people's unity in West Bengal to defeat the Trinamool Congress, isolate the BJP and their machinations," it said. State Congress general secretary Om Prakash Mishra, who has been pitching for the alliance, welcomed the decision. "We welcome the decision by CPI(M). The alliance of the masses have already in making. The decision by CPI(M) will pave way for seat sharing in West Bengal. We have also requested our high command to take a final call and we hope to hear from them soon," Mishra told PTI. On the other hand, state Congress leader Manas Bhuniya, an advocate of fighting the elections alone, declined to comment on the matter. CPI(M) central committee member Shyamal Chakraborty, while reacting on the decision by his party's central committee, said "We have called for cooperation of all democratic forces and except BJP and TMC, everybody is welcome to cooperate with us." The Trinamool Congress leadership, however, mocked the call of alliance between CPI(M) and Congress. "A political alliance happens on the basis of ideology and principles. We are yet to understand what is their ideology and principle? "We have fought panchayat elections in 2013 alone, Lok Sabha elections in 2014 alone, municipal elections in 2015 alone, we didn't face any problem," TMC vice president Mukul Roy said. 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. SIMFE is an important initiative to promote the Sudan's Rich Mining Sector and present the Investors a great way to explore the huge untapped potential of this historic country. SIMFE 2016 is a Global Initiative which will provide an excellent networking platform for Existing Mining Companies, Service Providers, Equipment Companies and Investors through which interested parties will be informed about opportunities and developments in the mining sector and industries. Sudan is predicted to be Africa's largest Gold Producer by 2018. SIMFE is an important initiative to promote the Sudan's Rich Mining Sector and present the Investors a great way to explore the huge untapped potential of this historic country. The event will establish a dynamic relationship between the Ministry Minerals & the Private sector with full Co-Operation from other Government Departments working to make Sudan a favourable & Pro Business Destination, a prerequisite for boosting economic activities and achieving development objectives. How Israel is 'Turning Palestinians into Zionists' Israel is forcing Palestinian schools in occupied East Jerusalem to switch over to an Israeli-controlled curriculum. By Jonathan Cook February 18, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Al Jazeera " - Jerusalem - Israel is to put financial pressure on Palestinian schools in occupied East Jerusalem in an effort to make them switch over to an Israeli-controlled curriculum, according to local activists and officials. Almost all of East Jerusalem's schools currently use a syllabus developed by the Palestinian Authority, a Palestinian government-in-waiting created in the mid-1990s by the Oslo accords. Before that, they relied on the Jordanian curriculum. Palestinian officials have slammed the move, warning that it is part of intensified efforts by Israel to disconnect East Jerusalem from the neighbouring West Bank and entrench its control over the 300,000 Palestinians in the city. Peace efforts have long been premised on Israel ending its occupation of East Jerusalem and recognising the city as the capital of a future Palestinian state. "This attack on our curriculum is part of Israel's war on Palestinian identity," Sabri Saidam, the Palestinian education minister, told Al Jazeera. "Israel is working to consolidate its illegal occupation." Israel tried to impose the Israeli curriculum when it first occupied East Jerusalem in 1967, but was forced to relent after parents and pupils staged months of strikes and protests. Civil rights groups, meanwhile, fear Palestinian schools will have little choice but to submit to the Israeli scheme if they do not want to face further budget cuts in an East Jerusalem education system already chronically underfunded by Israel. Palestinian pupils, local activists say, will be presented with a curriculum that denies their history and identity, and places a strong emphasis on Israel's official position that all of Jerusalem is its "eternal, unified capital". "We don't want our children to be told that al-Aqsa is not our holy place, that the Palestinian flag is not our flag, that the land belongs to the settlers, and that Ariel Sharon is a hero," said Hatem Khweis, a spokesman for the Union of Parents' Committees, a Palestinian group campaigning for improved education in East Jerusalem. The plan to switch curriculums came to light after senior Israeli education officials divulged details to the local media. Last year only 1,900 Palestinian high-school pupils in East Jerusalem - about 5 percent - studied the Israeli curriculum. Israel operates an almost entirely segregated education system between Jewish and Palestinian pupils, both in Israel and in occupied East Jerusalem. Saidam said that Israel was required under international treaties it had signed to provide a public education that respected the occupied population's heritage, identity and culture. Israel's education minister, Naftali Bennett, who is also leader of the settler party Jewish Home, said he wanted to "provide a strong tailwind to any school that chooses the Israeli curriculum. My policy is clear: I want to aid the process of Israelization." According to the Jerusalem municipality, the scheme will exploit the Palestinian population's increasing isolation from the West Bank since Israel built a wall through the city a decade ago. The extra funding will entitle Palestinian schools that switch to the Israeli curriculum to more classroom hours as well as music and art classes, teacher training and student counselling services - most of which are currently lacking in East Jerusalem's Palestinian schools. Last year Israeli education officials said they were considering lengthening the short school day in East Jerusalem's schools to take Palestinian youths off the streets. An Israeli curriculum, it is also hoped, will reduce nationalist sentiment. Israeli officials believe both factors have fuelled months of angry Palestinian protests, as well as knife and car attacks on Israelis, that have focused on Jerusalem. Some have termed the unrest a third intifada. "Israel believes it can change the next Palestinian generation's mentality in the classroom, turning them into Zionists, without addressing the political situation," said Zakaria Odeh, director of the Civic Coalition, an umbrella group for Palestinian civil society groups in Jerusalem. "But that is the real cause of their anger and frustration," Odeh told Al Jazeera. He added that the Israeli curriculum denied the Palestinians' identity, characterising them instead as "minorities" and religious groups. Israeli officials appear to hope that East Jerusalem residents' will to resist is now weaker. Khweis, of the Union of Parents' Committees, said the education ministry was exerting strong pressure on schools. They were imposing the Israeli curriculum through "a war of financial attrition", he said. Israeli courts have harshly criticised the government for the dire state of East Jerusalem's schools, especially a shortage of more than 2,200 extra classrooms. In 2011 the Supreme Court gave the government and municipality five years to build enough classrooms for Palestinian children in East Jerusalem. That deadline expires this summer. A report in December by Ir Amim, an advocacy group for a fairer Jerusalem, found the situation had deteriorated dramatically since the ruling. Only 35 classrooms had been built over the past five years, failing even to keep pace with natural growth."The education ministry is holding educational resources hostage by conditioning funds to schools on their agreement to change their curriculum," Betty Herschman, a spokeswoman for Ir Amim, told Al Jazeera. Khweis said Israeli officials had stepped up interference in the Palestinian curriculum in recent years, censoring large sections of textbooks. Changes have included: removing pictures of Palestinian flags and PA logos; excising information about PLO leaders; cutting lines from poems that could be interpreted as promoting struggle against occupation; and redacting references to the Nakba, the Arabic term for the loss of the Palestinians' homeland in 1948. "Israel has so mangled the Palestinian textbooks that the curriculum is extremely weak," he said. "And now Israel turns to the schools and tells them they would be better off with the Israeli syllabus." Saidam, the PA's education minister, said Israel had also started blocking the shipment of Palestinian textbooks to Jerusalem. Fears have been heightened by comments from education officials that funds for schools making the switch will be offset by cuts to the budgets of schools that continue to use the Palestinian curriculum. According to Ir Amim, Israel is also expected to raid a $12m fund, set aside in 2014, to help Jerusalem's schools over the next five years. Some $4.5m was earmarked to increase Israels control in East Jerusalem. Saidam said the Palestinian cabinet had recently agreed to raise emergency funds to help schools that stick with the Palestinian curriculum. However, officials in East Jerusalem privately expressed doubt that much money would reach the city. The PA is in financial crisis, and Israel has blocked it from having any direct role in Jerusalem since 2000. With East Jerusalem increasingly isolated physically from the West Bank, Palestinian pupils have found themselves trapped in an educational no-man's land, said Odeh. Few Israeli institutions of higher education recognise the Palestinian matriculation certificate, complaining that students' competence in Hebrew is too low. But it is also difficult for East Jerusalem's students to access Palestinian universities in West Bank cities. If they do, they risk Israel revoking their East Jerusalem residency permits. The Jerusalem municipality provides schooling for only 42 percent of the city's Palestinian pupils. A similar number are taught in what are known as "unofficial" schools, partially funded and supervised by the education ministry. The rest study in private, mostly religious, schools. A staggering 22,000 Palestinian children are unaccounted for in statistics kept by the Jerusalem municipality. Ir Amim said the severe classroom shortage in municipal schools forced many parents to pay high fees to unofficial schools. Their children often studied in overcrowded and improvised classrooms, lacking heating, air-conditioning, libraries, computers and science labs. As a result, more than a third of Palestinian pupils fail to matriculate - the highest figure in either Israel or the occupied territories. The crisis facing East Jerusalem schools follows threats from Israeli officials that independent church schools serving some of Israel's Palestinian minority will be forced to close unless they submit to government control. Jonathan Cook is a Nazareth- based journalist and winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism - Greatest Threat to Free Speech in the West: Criminalizing Activism Against Israeli Occupation By Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Fishman February 18, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " The Intercept " - THE U.K. GOVERNMENT today announced that it is will be illegal for local [city] councils, public bodies, and even some university student unions to refuse to buy goods and services from companies involved in the arms trade, fossil fuels, tobacco products, or Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Thus, any entities that support or participate in the global boycott of Israeli settlements will face severe penalties. This may sound like an extreme infringement of free speech and political activism and, of course, it is but it is far from unusual in the West. The opposite is now true. There is a very coordinated and well-financed campaign led by Israel and its supporters literally to criminalize political activism against Israeli occupation, based on the particular fear that the worldwide campaign of Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment, or BDS modeled after the 1980s campaign that brought down the Israel-allied apartheid regime in South Africa is succeeding. The Israeli website +972 reported last year about a pending bill that would ban entry to foreigners who promote the [BDS] movement that aims to pressure Israel to comply with international law and respect Palestinian rights. In 2011, a law passed in Israel that effectively ban[ned] any public call for a boycott economic, cultural, or academic against Israel or its West Bank settlements, making such action a punishable offense. But the current censorship goal is to make such activism a crime not only in Israel, but in Western countries generally. And it is succeeding. THIS TREND TO outlaw activism against the decades-long Israeli occupation particularly though not only through boycotts against Israel has permeated multiple Western nations and countless institutions within them. In October, we reported on the criminal convictions in France of 12 activists for the crime of advocating sanctions and a boycott against Israel as a means of ending the decadeslong military occupation of Palestine, convictions upheld by Frances highest court. They were literally arrested and prosecuted for wearing shirts emblazoned with the words Long live Palestine, boycott Israel and because they also handed out fliers that said that buying Israeli products means legitimizing crimes in Gaza. As we noted, Pascal Markowicz, chief lawyer of the CRIF umbrella organization of French Jewish communities, published this celebratory decree (emphasis in original): BDS is ILLEGAL in France. Statements advocating a boycott or sanctions, he added, are completely illegal. If [BDS activists] say their freedom of expression has been violated, now Frances highest legal instance ruled otherwise. In Canada last year, officials threatened criminal prosecution against anyone supporting boycotts against Israel. In the U.S., unbeknownst to many, there are similar legislative proscriptions on such activism, and a pending bill would strengthen the outlawing of BDS. As the Washington Post reported last June, A wave of anti-BDS legislation is sweeping the U.S. Numerous bills in Congress encourage or require state action to combat BDS. Eyal Press warned in a must-read New York Times op-ed last month that under a Customs Bill passed by both houses of Congress and headed to the White House, American officials will be obligated to treat the settlements as part of Israel in future trade negotiations, a provision specifically designed to combat the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, a grass-roots campaign. But as Press notes, under existing law which is almost never discussed Washington already forbids American companies to cooperate with state-led boycotts of Israel. The real purpose of this new law, as Press explains it, is to force American companies to treat settlements in the West Bank which virtually the entire world views as illegal as a valid part of Israel, by outlawing any behavior that would be deemed cooperative with a boycott of companies occupying the West Bank. U.S. companies would be forced to pretend that products produced in the occupied territories are actually produced in Israel. The White House announced that it will sign the bill despite its opposition to the AIPAC-backed pro-settlement provision. Rahul Saksena of Palestine Legal said that the BDS provision in the federal customs bill, and the dozens of anti-BDS bills being introduced in Congress and state legislatures across the U.S., are examples of the lengths that Israels fiercest advocates and the lawmakers who bend over backward to accommodate them will go to shut down any conversation critical of Israeli policies and supportive of Palestinian freedom. Dylan Williams, vice president of government affairs for J Street (which opposes BDS), told The Intercept: The references in the Customs Act to Israeli-controlled territories are just one instance of a larger effort to sneak Green Line-blurring language into legislation at both the state and national level. Under the existing laws, American companies have been fined for actions deemed supportive of boycotts aimed at Israel. For decades, U.S. companies and their foreign subsidiaries, for instance, have been required by law to refuse to comply with the Arab League boycott of Israel. Penalties for violators include up to 10 years of imprisonment. In 2010, G M Daewoo Auto & Technology Company, a Korean firm owned by General Motors, was fined $88,500 by the Office of Antiboycott Compliance for 59 anti-boycott violations, including the crime of declaring on a customs form: We hereby state that the carrying vessel is allowed to enter the Libya ports [sic]. At the time, Libyan law did not allow Israeli goods or ships that had previously stopped in Israel to enter Libyan ports, and the companys seemingly banal declaration that it was complying with Libyan law was deemed by the U.S. government to constitute support for a boycott of Israel, and it was thus fined. THE SUPPRESSION OF anti-occupation activism is particularly acute on American college campuses. Among other things, that is deeply ironic. In the U.S. over the past year, there has been a widespread media debate over censorship on college campuses. Notably, the pundits who have most vocally condemned this censorship and held themselves out as free speech crusaders such as New Yorks Jonathan Chait have completely ignored what is far and away the most widespread form of campus censorship: namely, punishment of those who engage in activism against Israeli actions. This campus censorship on behalf of Israel was comprehensively documented in a report last year by Palestine Legal titled The Palestine Exception to Free Speech. The nationwide censorship effort has seen pro-Palestinian professors fired, anti-occupation student activists suspended and threatened with expulsion, pro-Palestinian groups de-funded, and even discipline for students for the crime of flying a Palestinian flag. The report documents how pro-Israel campus groups and alumni have intensified their efforts to stifle criticism of Israeli government policies. The report explains: Rather than engage such criticism on its merits, these groups leverage their significant resources and lobbying power to pressure universities, government actors, and other institutions to censor or punish advocacy in support of Palestinian rights. Notably, the students and administrators justifying the campus censorship of anti-Israel views invoke the very same PC rhetoric of safe spaces and hate speech denounced by ostensibly free-speech pundits. The University of Illinois student who led the campaign to fire Steven Salaita for his pro-Gaza tweets, himself a former AIPAC intern, told the New York Times: Hate speech is never acceptable for those applying for a tenured position; incitement to violence is never acceptable. There must be a relationship between free speech and civility. Another pro-Israel student demanding Salaitas firing said, Its about feeling safe on campus. This was a classic and extreme case of oppressive censorship on campus the University of Illinois ended up paying Salaita close to $1 million to settle the resulting lawsuit yet very few of the pundits who turned college censorship into a nationwide cause uttered a peep about this case or the countless other instances of suppression of anti-Israel criticism. It is now routine for students advocating BDS or otherwise working against Israeli occupation to be disciplined or endure other forms of sanctions. As the Palestine Legal report documents: These heavy-handed tactics often have their desired effect, driving institutions to enact a variety of punitive measures against human rights activists, such as administrative sanctions, censorship, intrusive investigations, viewpoint-based restriction of advocacy, and even criminal prosecutions. Such efforts intimidate activists for Palestinian human rights, chill criticism of Israeli government practices, and impede a fair-minded dialogue on the pressing question of Palestinian rights. This report, the first of its kind, documents the suppression of Palestine advocacy in the United States. In 2014, Palestine Legal a nonprofit legal and advocacy organization supporting Palestine activism responded to 152 incidents of censorship, punishment, or other burdening of advocacy for Palestinian rights and received 68 additional requests for legal assistance in anticipation of such actions. In the first six months of 2015 alone, Palestine Legal responded to 140 incidents and 33 requests for assistance in anticipation of potential suppression. These numbers understate the phenomenon, as many advocates who are unaware of their rights or afraid of attracting further scrutiny stay silent and do not report incidents of suppression. The overwhelming majority of these incidents 89 percent in 2014 and 80 percent in the first half of 2015 targeted students and scholars, a reaction to the increasingly central role universities play in the movement for Palestinian rights. As we reported in September, the University of California the largest academic system in the country has been debating proposals to literally outlaw BDS activism by formally equating it with anti-semitism: as though opposition to Israeli government oppression (opposition shared by many Jews) is somehow the equivalent of, or is inherently driven by, animosity toward Jews. If anything, what is actually anti-Semitic is to conflate the Israeli government with Jews generally (an ugly anti-semitic trope with a long history). Yet that is the Orwellian tactic being used to justify the criminalization of anti-occupation activism, as it converts that activism into anti-semitism or hate speech and then bans it on that basis. This attempt to formalize suppression of anti-occupation advocacy on college campuses is long-standing and widespread. The New York state legislature actually passed a bill that would suspend funding to educational institutions which fund groups that boycott Israel. Such legislation is becoming commonplace, as the group United With Israel boasted just last month: Florida became the fifth state in the U.S. to introduce a resolution to confront the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement when it passed a law on December 21, similar to the first anti-BDS legislation introduced in Tennessee last April. By doing so, Florida has joined Tennessee, New York, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. Another 35 states are reportedly considering similar legislation. The commendably consistent pro-campus-speech group FIRE, while expressing some criticisms of the BDS movement, has repeatedly documented and denounced attempts to suppress BDS advocacy on campus: FIREs position on the Israel-focused BDS movement is driven by our concern for academic freedom for students and professors, and for its continuing importance as a meaningful concept in and of itself. Students and professors must be perfectly free to support boycott, divestment, and/or sanctions against Israel or any other country they wish, and they must not face punishment for this support. As you might expect, FIRE has opposed attempts to punish organizations for supporting BDS, and we have certainly defended professors rights to be highly critical of Israel or, frankly, any other country, person, or idea. YET THIS CENSORSHIP effort to ban BDS and other forms of Israel criticism continues to grow, in multiple countries around the world. Its not hard to understand why. The Israeli government and its most powerful supporters have invested vast sums of money and considerable political capital into the campaign to institutionalize this censorship. Last year, GOP billionaire Sheldon Adelson and Democratic billionaire Haim Saban donated tens of millions of dollars to a new fund to combat BDS on college campuses. Also last year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to implement a 2014 resolution to establish a special task force to fight the anti-Israeli sanctions; that task force has funding of some 100 million Israeli shekels (roughly $25.5 million). BuzzFeeds Rosie Gray reported in 2014 that anti-BDS legislation has become a major goal of AIPAC. As part of the controversy at the University of California, Richard Blum, the mega-rich investment banker and husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, threatened the university that his wife would take adverse action against the university if it did not adopt the harsh anti-BDS measures he was demanding. None of this is to say, obviously, that suppression of anti-occupation activism is the only strain of free speech threats in the West. The prosecution of Western Muslims for core free speech expression under terrorism laws, the distortion of hate speech legislation as a means of punishing unpopular ideas, threats and violence against those who publish cartoons deemed blasphemous, and pressure on social media companies to ban ideas disliked by governments are all serious menaces to this core liberty. But in terms of systematic, state-sponsored, formalized punishments for speech and activism, nothing compares to the growing multi-nation effort to criminalize activism against Israeli occupation. Rafeef Ziadah, a Palestinian a member of the Palestinian BDS National Committee, told The Intercept: Israel is increasingly unable to defend its regime of apartheid and settler colonialism over the Palestinian people and its regular massacres of Palestinians in Gaza so is resorting to asking supportive governments in the U.S. and Europe to undermine free speech as a way of shielding it from criticism and measures aimed at holding it to account. It is, needless to say, perfectly legitimate to argue against BDS and to engage in activism to defeat it. But only advocates of tyranny could support the literal outlawing of the same type of activism that ended apartheid in South Africa merely on the grounds that this time it is aimed at Israeli occupation (some of Israels own leaders have compared its occupation to apartheid). And whatever else is true, commentators and activists who prance around as defenders of campus free speech and free expression generally yet who completely ignore this most pernicious trend of free speech erosion are likely many things, but an authentic believer in free speech is not among them. They Really Dont Want This Out: The Biggest Iraq War Scandal That Nobodys Talking About By Liam O'Donoghue The first 10 pages of The Burn Pits: The Poisoning of Americas Soldiers will rip your heart out. In the opening chapter of this new book, Joseph Hickman, a former U.S. Marine and Army sergeant, shares the brief and tragic life story of one Iraq War veteran. In a nutshell, a healthy young man shipped off to Iraq, was stationed at a U.S. military base where he was exposed to a constant stream of toxic smoke, returned home with horrible respiratory problems, was denied care by the VA, developed brain cancer and died. Thousands of soldiers have suffered similar fates since serving in the vicinity of the more than 250 military burn pits that operated at bases throughout Iraq and Afghanistan. Many who havent succumbed to their illnesses yet have passed along the legacy of their poisoning to their children. The rate of having a child with birth defects is three times higher for service members who served in those countries, according to the book. The impact on local civilian populations is even more widespread. Although collecting data in these war-ravaged areas is extremely difficult, the studies that have been conducted reveal sharp increases in cancer and leukemia rates and skyrocketing numbers of birth defects. The toxic legacies of these burn pits will likely continue to devastate these regions for decades. So what are the burn pits? When the U.S. military set up a base in Iraq or Afghanistan, instead of building incinerators to dispose of the thousands of pounds of waste produced each day, they burned the garbage in big holes in the ground. The garbage they constantly burned included every type of waste imaginable including tires, lithium batteries, asbestos insulation, pesticide containers, Styrofoam, metals, paints, plastic, medical waste and even human corpses. Heres where the story gets even more infuriating. As a result of the privatization of many aspects of military operations, the burn pits were operated by Kellogg, Brown, and Root (KBR), a former subsidiary of Halliburton, the company where Dick Cheney was CEO before ascending to the White House. During the Bush administration, Halliburton made nearly $40 billion from lucrative government contracts (despite many corruption scandals), Dick Cheney and his corporate allies got incredibly rich, and the soldiers whose lives have likely been destroyed by this reckless operation are pretty much screwed. Top officials, including then-Gen. David Petraeus, initially denied that the burn pits were a health hazards, but mounting medical evidence contradicting the Defense Departments position have brought this scandal into the spotlight. However, in a pattern that follows how Vietnam vets suffering from Agent Orange were treated, the Department of Veterans Affairs continues to deny medical coverage to most Iraq and Afghanistan veterans seeking treatment for burn pit-related illnesses. Joseph Hickman is hoping that his new book will help change that. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity. This is one of the most devastating scandals to come out of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, so why hasnt it gotten more attention? I think the Department of Defense does its best to squash this story and so does Veterans Affairs. They really dont want this out at all. When the registry [for victims of burn pit pollution] came out, they even squashed the registry. It took them a year and a half past their due date to get it up, to actually have it running. If there were one thing that had the potential to bring it into the spotlight more, it was Beau Bidens recent death from brain cancer. As you write in the book, we obviously cant be certain, but it seems that there is a very clear link between his death and his service in Iraq working in the vicinity of these burn pits and breathing in these hazardous fumes. Why wasnt this enough to bring attention to this issue? I dont know if it was political or not. When Beau died I was right in the middle of heavy research into the burn pits. I tried to contact his wife, Hallie, about two months after his death and I tried to contact the vice president; neither one would respond to me. It could have been my timing, too. I called at an awful time, really. This just happened last June, and maybe they havent absorbed it all yet. There are similarities to where he was stationed and how people died and it just brought up a lot of red flags for me. I think the case that you lay out in the book is pretty convincing. Although these wars started during the Bush years, Obama is now in his eighth year in office and still has not made this issue a priority. How much fault should we place on the Obama administration for the failure to address this problem? I think he holds a lot of responsibility for it, but I think the biggest problem is Congress and the Senate. Because when a soldier gets sick the first thing he [or she] does is write his congressman or senator if hes not getting results from the VA or DoD. They still follow the chain of command, so thats their last complaint, and the senators and congressmen have just really dropped the ball on this completely. And I think that is totally politically motivated, because a lot of these senators and congressmen theyre reaching out to are in bed with defense contractors. You specifically mention Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson as an example of a Tea Party politician who campaigned on a flag-waving platform of building a strong military and supporting the troops, but then when he got into office voted to cut VA funding and didnt make good on his promises. Were seeing even more of this chest-thumping patriotism now in the presidential primary campaigns. Have you heard any of the presidential candidates address the topic of burn pits or the VA in a meaningful way, other than to use the VA as an attack line against Obama? No, none of them has mentioned the burn pits or soldiers suffering from the burn pits at all. Bernie Sanders has done a lot for veterans, probably more so than any other candidate, and he still hasnt addressed this issue, either. You mention in the book that there were a few members of the military and KBR contractors that voiced concerns about the health hazards posed by the burn pits. Why was it so difficult for them to get their voices heard? One KBR employee was really harassed badly by KBR for coming forward. He felt he was threatened and he had a really hard time talking about it with me. He was really worried about repercussions. Thats really a reflection of the Obama administration. They havent defended whistle-blowers at all. Theyve attacked them. Obamas presidency has been extremely disappointing in that area. I was surprised to learn in the book that Chelsea Manning was actually responsible for leaking some of the information about how the military was aware of the burn pit health hazards earlier than they let on. Several soldiers were absolutely shocked and surprised that Chelsea Manning released that document. It changed many of their minds about her. The military, for the most part, is a lot of Republicans or very conservative people. But when I shared this with several soldiers, it absolutely changed a lot of their views on Chelsea Manning. I said, Look, she didnt always give up things that were damaging to our country. These are really things that the administration doesnt want you to see. She showed that we got sick from the burn pits. You describe in the book how independent researchers have found a huge increase in birth defects, leukemia, cancer and other carcinogenic diseases among Iraqi and Afghan civilians living near the burn pits, which you contrast with the controversial World Health Organization report that contradicted those findings. There has been speculation that the U.S. used political pressure to influence the WHO report, which was quickly contradicted by several reputable medical journals. Has there been any confirmation or strong evidence in support of this theory? Theres a large group of epidemiologists that absolutely believe that that report was influenced by the U.S. government. Dr. Mozhgan Savabieasfahani, a widely respected environmental toxicologist, has been there and seen the birth defects and how we literally destroyed that country with pollution. There are birth defects there that dont even have medical names yet. One of the frustrating things you describe is that the Pentagon violated their own regulations but they still cant be held legally responsible. As you say in the book, under federal law the military cant be held accountable, so nobody is to blame. If no one can be held to account, what kind of positive outcomes can we hope for? They started the burn pit registry, which is modeled off of the Agent Orange and Gulf War Syndrome registries, which are failures. So we modeled it off a failed program. It took 27 years for the Agent Orange Vietnam veterans to actually receive any type of care, and they still dont get the care they should. These numbers were talking about with the burn pits and Agent Orange and Gulf War Syndrome theyre so large that the government knows that if they treated all these soldiers the cost would be unbelievable. Its something that they cant afford, and I think thats why it takes decades for them to treat them. The best way to help the soldiers involved in this is to actually believe what theyre saying. They believed in the soldiers when they sent them off to war. They believed they would go over there and get the job done, but when they come home and they complain of illnesses, they suddenly question their integrity. And that just has to stop. So theres this dynamic where its in the VAs interest to deny that soldiers really have these health problems in order to protect itself from being liable for covering those treatments. There are accounts in your book of hostile VA doctors telling patients that theyre healthy, but then independent doctors contradicting the VAs diagnosis. Where does that culture come from? Its because its a delayed casualty. It isnt a limb missing or a bullethole in a person or something where theres actually proof that their injury is service-connected, meaning they got their injury from the time they were in combat. So when they come in with these respiratory issues or cancers, its very hard for the soldier to prove that, Hey, I got this on the battlefield, because its not an injury that they received from their enemy. But the numbers show that there is a real pattern. You found the proof, so the denial is hard to grasp in the face of such mountains of evidence. Yeah, its to the point now where they cant deny it, but they still fight tooth and nail not to give these veterans benefits. Its just a budget issue now, and the soldiers are suffering from it. VA reform has been a big issue for some time now, so why havent we seen much progress or improvement? The VA has always been under-budgeted. The budget is just not there for them. Up until two years ago they were using a computer system that was they didnt have Windows, they didnt have iOS, they were using stuff from 1985, 1986. This was just two years ago. Thats a fact. They needed a complete upgrade. Its always been under budget, since Ive been going there. Theres a lawsuit against KBR out there right now, and the biggest hurdle for the KBR lawsuit is [that] DoD will not speak against KBR for their misuse of the burn pits. And you cant sue the government under the Feres Doctrine. A soldier cant sue the government for his injuries, but he can sue a private contractor. But as long as the U.S. government stays solid on the issue and wont speak out against KBR, it kind of creates a legal limbo where its their word against this massive corporation. The best testimony they could have is DoD saying, Yes, you mistreated these burn pits. But really, can the DoD even do that? Because they didnt have any regulation in place for seven years on what they could burn or where they should be located or anything else. The DoD staying solidly aligned with KBR while soldiers are suffering is criminal. Did the militarys use of private contractors like KBR in some ways help to facilitate this crisis? KBR operated many of the burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are some regulations for contractors, but theyre not nearly as stringent, and the penalties are not nearly as harsh for contractors as they are for soldiers. So these contractors were super-careless with these burn pits. There were burning anything and everything in them, and they didnt care and they didnt think they could be held accountable. Theyve grown to the point where they feel that the government cant operate without them. These companies have that arrogance. Contractors that were operating the burn pits in Iraq were actually told by their headquarters, If theyre going to investigate us over these burn pits, dont worry about it. If we pull out, they cant run this base. Have you ever heard Dick Cheney comment on this issue? His connections to Halliburton and KBR put him in a uniquely qualified position. Never once. Never once. I looked for anything like that and couldnt find anything. End note: A portion of the proceeds from sales of The Burn Pits will be donated to the nonprofit organization www.burnpitspits360.org Liam O'Donoghue is Salons communications director. He writes about whats happening at Salon and manages Salons social media assets. You can follow him on Twitter @Liam_Odonoghue. Copyright 2016 Salon Media Group, Inc. 10 Secret Armies of the Central Intelligence Agency By Justin King February 18, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " TFC " - Langley, Virginia - As more and more evidence mounts that the US government was secretly assisting the Islamic State, it might be time to point out a few instances when the Central Intelligence Agency created secret armies. The current theory suggests the US secretly supported the Islamic State so the Islamists would destabilize the government of Syrian President Assad. If that seems out of the question, remember the CIA once started a war over bananas literal bananas. Cuba: Probably the best known secret army. Castro nationalized the assets of western companies after his government took power, so the US decided to overthrow the government of Cuba and install a puppet regime. As with most of the armies backed by the US intelligence establishment, it failed. Miserably. The Bay of Pigs invasion saw 1400 US-trained Cubans surrender to Castros forces within 24 hours. El Salvador: The US-supported Salvadoran government faced opposition from communist rebels. US intelligence saw an obvious and simple answer: establish death squads. US intelligence trained and advised pro-government forces as they massacred villages and led the way to the displacement of over a million people. Immediately after the ceasefire, there was a general amnesty for people implicated in war crimes. This amnesty was ruled to be illegal, but remains in effect anyway. Those seeking justice are often burglarized and the evidence of CIA involvementis stolen. Afghanistan: The US armed and trained the Mujaheddin fighters through Operation Cyclone. Later, many of these fighters would form the core of the fundamentalist Islamic terrorist groups we are fighting (or possibly supporting) today. Yes, Osama bin Laden was one of the fighterstrained by the CIA in Afghanistan. The whole operation was carried out to stop the Soviet invasion. Guatemala: This little CIA caper is the origin of the term Banana Republic. The democratically elected President of Guatemala decided to punish the United Fruit Company for decades of consorting with the countrys dictators. He began to propose legislation to end the US multinationals monopoly on almost everything in the country. So what else could the CIA do? The agency overthrew the legal government and triggered a war over bananas. Congo: In the 1960s, Belgium was ending its colonial rule over Congo. Rather than allow self-determination, the CIA staged assassinations, armed rebel forces, brought in European mercenaries, and even backed them up with a secret air force. Nicaragua (the second time): In the 1980s, the leftist Sandinistas took power. The CIA backed the Contra militia that opposed them. The agency funneled them arms, ran cocaine for them, and trained the organization that become well known for child soldiers, massacres at literacy centers, and war crimes of just about every imaginable kind. Angola: The CIA hired French and South African mercenaries to assist right-wing groups in their fight against the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola. The group was competing with several other paramilitary organizations in a fight to take over the country after the Portuguese decolonized. The CIAs mercenary army predictably lost. Ukraine (the first time): During the second World War, the Nazis set up a partisan group in Ukraine to harass and slow the advancing Soviet forces. At the end of World War II, US intelligence began funding and assisting the partisan group. The Soviets wiped the partisans out in 1952. Venezuela: In 2002, a group within Venezuela attempted to oust the government. The US flatly denied involvement. Of course, there is more than enough evidence to tie the Bush Administration to the plot. There is even circumstantial evidence a more recent second attempt. Ukraine (the second time): The most recent revolution in Ukraine may have started organically, however, it was seized upon by US intelligence. The revolution became just another method of installing a US puppet regime. The US chose to install literal Nazis. These facts are largely ignored by US media. Would US intelligence secretly back a brutal, murderous paramilitary group to destabilize a country on the US hit list? Of course. The US intelligence apparatus has been doing it for about 60 years. Ankara Bombing Fails To Achieve Strategic Changes By Moon Of Alabama February 18, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " Moon Of Alabama " - The bombing in Ankara yesterday killed 27 mostly military people. It was a big car bomb and a suicide attack.The Turkish government claims that the person who did this was one Saleh Nejar and also claims that he is connected to the Syrian Kurdish group YPG. There is no way to verify this. But the YPG has so fare never used any car bombs or done any suicide attacks. It never touched any target in Turkey. It officially denied to have taken any part in it. The Turkish group PKK has done vehicle bomb attacks and a few suicide attacks but not in Ankara or any other major west-Turkish city. Its attacks are usually operational, not strategic like this one. In the last Turkish version of its magazine the Islamic State had called for attacks in Turkey and on Turkish soldiers. It is the entity that has most to win through such an attack that would predictably be blamed on the Kurds. It is the most plausible culprit. The attack could also have been arranged by the Turkish secret service MIT. But the number and type of casualties seems to be too high and valuable for a stage-managed false flag attack. The Turkish government first claimed that that the PKK was responsible for the attack and send fighter jets into the Qandil mountains in Iraq to bomb some PKK positions. The Turkish Prime Minister then blamed the Syrian YPK and then the Syrian President Assad. Next will be Russia, the Jews and the Illuminati. The Turkish government called in the ambassadors of the permanent members of the UN Security Council to present its evidence. A "western diplomat" told the Wall Street Journal that the evidence shown was "not conclusive". That is the diplomatese expression for "bullshit". The Turkish attempt to use the attack to change the U.S. and EU relations to the YPK failed. The YPK is a very valuable force for the U.S. to fight the Islamic State. It will refrain from condemning it as long as that is the case. The YPG groups in west Syria, fighting under the label Syrian Democratic Forces, and its mysterious attendants are pressing Jihadi forces in the Azaz pocket at the Turkish border. They are now seeing more resistance. The Turks use artillery to protect the Jihadis in Azaz and the number of enemies has grown. One "rebel" tells Reuters that 2,000 "rebels" with some tanks came from Idleb through Turkey to Azaz. That number is dubious. The British MI6 outlet SOHR as well as a Turkish pro government daily put the numbers at 350 on Monday and another 500 on Wednesday. To transport the tanks through Turkey would likely have been too much a hassle. I doubt that any reached Azaz. I suspect that many of these "rebels" in Azaz are actually Turks of some radical nationalist and Islamist faction as well as Grey Wolf fascists which have strong connections to the MIT. Pictures show such "rebels" in Latakia with Turkish and Islamic State flags and in Azaz with their typical Grey Wolf hand sign. The more "rebels" join the fight in the pocket the less will be in Idleb and elsewhere. The Syrian army and its allies will be happy when lots of the "rebels" join the Azaz pocket and are kept there by the YPG. There is no urge yet to eliminate them. The Syrian army today liberated Kinsaaba in Latakia near the Turkish border. It was the last bigger holdout of "rebels" in the governate. The Syrian troops in north Latakia can now mop up what is left of the "rebels" and then move to the eastern ridge of the Latakia mountains. From there they can look down onto Idleb province and the city of Jisr al Shughour. When the big battle for Idleb province begins during the next months that city will be their first target. Yesterdays attack in Ankara has moved less than expected. While the Turks would like to enter Syria and fight the Syrian government troops as well as the YPG they are to afraid of the Russian forces to go alone. NATO and the U.S. are for now unwilling to give them any cover. Russia Lances the Poison in Syria By Finian Cunningham February 18, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - " SCF " - Less than five months after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered military intervention in Syria, the five-year war has been completely transformed. Peace is far from certain as a tentative truce this week will attest. The conflict may even escalate. But what Russias intervention has certainly achieved is to squeeze out into the open the poisonous forces of regime change that have brought Syria to its dire condition. Not only is the Syrian state pulled back from the brink of collapse into a terrorist-run failed entity, as befell NATO liberated Libya, but the Russian air strikes like a surgical operation have lanced the noxious inflammation festering in Syria. All sorts of poisons are now oozing and being exposed, primarily the nefarious roles played by Western powers, their regional allies, and the toxic lies propounded by the Western news media to cover for crimes against peace. If it were not for the gravity of human suffering, the situation could be seen as almost comical, owing to the Western contortions to hide reality. Western governments and their servile media are falling over themselves with ever-changing stories and spin, accusing Russian military operations of all sorts of crimes: killing civilians, hitting hospitals, exacerbating the refugee crisis, targeting moderate rebels, or propping up a dictator. This week, the Western media rushed to implicate Russia or the allied Syrian army in striking hospitals and schools in Azaz and Maarat al-Numan near the Turkish border. Some 11 people were killed at the latter facility, which is supported by the French medical group Doctors Without Borders (DWB). No evidence was presented to support the high-flown claims in the Western media accusing Russia. Russia denied any involvement, while the Syrian government said that the US-led forces carried out the attacks. Meanwhile, all week Turkish military were launching hundreds of artillery volleys across the border into the very area around Azaz where the hospitals were hit. But Western media did not question Turkey about its violation of Syrian sovereignty or the possibility that the errant strikes could have been inflicted by Turkish forces, perhaps even as a false flag to impute Russia. Last week, the US military spokesman Colonel Steve Warren blamed Russia for air strikes on two hospitals in Aleppo City. Russian defense ministry spokesman General Igor Konashenkov responded by saying that Russian aircraft were not active in the city that day, Wednesday, and that Russian surveillance data in fact showed that two US warplanes had bombed Aleppo. It is not clear who did strike the DWB-supported hospital in this week. But one established relevant fact is that it was the Americans who bombed a DWB hospital in Afghanistan last October, killing some 30 staff and patients. Also, in Yemen, the US-backed Saudi bombing coalition striking that country have routinely hit DWB and other hospitals on numerous dates over recent months, as even confirmed by DWB. One other feat of narrative-contortion was given by US envoy to Syria Brett McGurk, who told Congressional lawmakers last week that Russia was directly helping Islamic State terrorists from its military intervention in Syria. Another warped spiel was that of US government-owned outlet Voice of America which claimed that Russias air strikes were pushing moderate rebels to join the ranks of extremist militia. Any and all narratives are hastily churned out, it seems, to avoid the obvious, real story: Russia has saved Syria from a covert war of aggression waged by foreign powers who have been using terrorist proxies for the objective of regime change. Thats it in a nutshell. Russia should be commended, if objective analysis were to prevail. But objective analysis must not prevail in Western media narratives because that would expose the toxic role of their governments and their own criminal complicity in distorting the conflict in Syria. In a recent backgrounder on the Syrian war, here is how the British state-owned BBC explained whats happening: More than 250,000 Syrians have lost their lives in four-and-a-half years of armed conflict, which began with anti-government protests before escalating into a full-scale civil war. More than 11 million others have been forced from their homes as forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and those opposed to his rule battle each other as well as jihadist militants from so-called Islamic State. The BBC tells it like a guileless fairytale, which in its simplistic telling is itself guileful. Note how in the BBC narrative the jihadist militants appear from nowhere as if they are an accidental walk-on sideshow; and how, as if by magic, anti-government protests escalated into a full-scale civil war. This is the kind of toxic nonsense that Western governments and their evidently dutiful news media have been pumping into the consciousness of their publics minds for the past five years. But now that Russia has entered the fray, the poison is oozing out from the Syrian wound. The Turkish state of Recep Tayyip Erdogan this week is shelling Syrian territory in what any fair-minded person would describe as an act of aggression towards a sovereign country. Ankara is claiming it is attacking terrorist Syrian Kurdish militia, the YPG. Not unrelated is the fact that the YPG last week inflicted heavy losses on the jihadist mercenaries that Ankara has been supporting, when the Kurds took over Menagh airbase. NATO member Turkey has reportedly hit Kurdish villages in Aleppo Province causing civilian casualties, as well as Syrian army positions and Russias airbase in Latakia, whom the Kurdish YPG have been liaising with. Saudi Arabia is sending fighter jets to the NATO airbase at Incirlik in Turkeys Adana Province, allegedly to begin combat operations against the Islamic State terror group in Syria. Turkey and Saudi Arabia are readying a ground invasion of Syria, with the approval of the Pentagon. If we step back from the commotion, it is patent that what is unfolding here is flagrant aggression, which the Syrian government has protested to the United Nations Security Council. But with the US, Britain and France executive powers in the regime-change war on Syria the UNSC will simply bury the legitimate protests from Damascus. The unavoidable conclusion is that NATO the US-led military alliance supposedly maintaining global security has openly become a belligerent in the Syrian war. The obvious factor is that Russias intervention has cut off the Turkish-Saudi-NATO channels to the regime-change terrorist brigades inside Syria. Turkeys murderous shoot-down of a Russian bomber jet last November with apologetics from Washington and other NATO members was the initial, desperate response to Russian success in thwarting the covert war. The severance of the NATO mercenaries in Aleppo from their lifeline in Turkey is further evidence of Russias deep incision into the poison. Turkey and Saudi Arabias war mobilization and their tortuous pretexts is straining credulity and straining Western media efforts at trying to sanitize what is going on. US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter may have publicly endorsed the plan for Saudi and Turkish military intervention in Syria under the laughable guise of fighting terrorism. But it is also clear that Washington has become unnerved by the runaway train wreck it is riding with these two rogue states. France and Germany are also calling for Turkey to cease its cross-border shelling of Syria. US Vice President Joe Biden, who only weeks ago was in Ankara chumming it up with the Erdogan regime, reportedly phoned Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu last weekend urging him to call off the artillery fire into Syria. Voice of America reported: US officials say there is little to be done to counter militarily the Russian-backed Assad offensive and they argue the vicious five-year-long Syrian civil war that has left upwards of 250,000 dead wont be resolved by the clash of arms but through a negotiated political settlement. US Secretary of State John Kerry desperately wants peace talks in Geneva because he knows the covert war is on a losing streak. Peace talk is just a cover for political wrangling for regime change. But the Russians are having none of it. Moscow is going to wipe out the foreign-backed mercenaries and stick to the principle of Syrian sovereignty for mapping the countrys political future. The US State Department is in a bind. It has backed a loser, but the impetuous, irrational Erdogan and Saudi clients are not giving up on their regime change fantasies. Washington is being ensnared in its own toxic contradictions. It has led the criminal scheme for regime change in Syria, instrumented by Turkey and Saudi Arabia in weaponizing radical jihadist mercenaries. As the New York Times recently admitted: The Russians have cut off may of the pathways the CIA has been using for a not-very-secret effort to arm rebel [that is, terrorist] groups. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told the Munich Security Conference last weekend that Syria was in danger of escalating into all-out international war. His warnings were scoffed by Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir as being alarmist this from an advocate of foreign aggression on Syria! Medvedevs warnings are not at all alarmist. They are realist. Frighteningly realist. Russias intervention in Syria is demonstrating the complete lawlessness of Washington and its NATO and regional allies. Syria is not in the grip of a civil war as the Western media fabricate. Syria is in the crosshairs of foreign powers and their criminal project to destroy a country for their twisted geopolitical ambitions. Before Russias operation, Syria was a shackled patient being amputated upon, injected with all kinds of poisons and generally being violated. The Western media were the orderlies who pulled a screen across this obscenity so that the public would not know. This vile charade can no longer be concealed. The US-led NATO, Arab, terrorist covert war on Syria is there for all to see, and it is largely down to Russia for exposing the despicable crime. The truth is no guarantee of peace. But in order to eventually arrive at a peace, we at least need to learn of truth. Erbil: Western Propaganda and Two Parallel Realities By Andre Vltchek February 18, 2016 " Information Clearing House " - I thought about writing this essay when I was working in Iraqi Kurdistan, not far from the city of Mosul, one of the areas overrun by ISIS. Since my last visit at the end of 2014, the entire Kurdistan Region has been collapsing. Unemployment has been on the rise, unofficially reaching 50%, poverty is rampant, official numbers are massaged. Salaries have not been paid for months, and the influx of refugees arriving from Mosul are often in near starvation, relying only on their relatives and friends for help. But the West has been singing the praises of this obedient part of Iraq. It is because like several countries in Africa or Indonesia the Kurdistan Region has been willing to sacrifice its own people. As long as Western and Turkish corporations could fill their coffers here and as long as they were satisfied, why bother with the local people and their misery? There is one reality one that could be seen and confirmed, one described by the local population, if one would bother to listen. The second reality is that constructed by Western propaganda. Here, the Kurdistan Region has been portrayed as safe, secular, democratic and friendly towards the West. * At night in Erbil, I tried to watch the news. I could not find any familiar channels: RT, PressTV or TeleSUR. The Syrian army was finally liberating the city of Aleppo. Russia was providing air support. Hope was slowly returning to a country that has been totally ruined by Western, Turkish and Saudi interests and by several, directly NATO manufactured, terrorist groups. Thanks to the Syrian-Russian coalition, more than one million internally displaced people have already been able to return home. I got this information first hand, because I am based in Lebanon and work all over the Middle East. And I can testify that the coverage provided by the best alternative media outlets, such as the RT, has been consistently detailed and objective. Now, being stuck in this extremely uninformed pro-Western enclave, I was in need of an urgent update. But my hotel only allowed those official propaganda outlets of the Empire like CNN, Fox and the BBC outlets beaming their vitriolic propaganda 24/7. Both CNN and BBC were blasting visuals from the Syrian-Turkish borders. The narrative was the same on both channels: people are fleeing Aleppo, trying to cross into Turkey to save their lives. Turkey does all it can to help. Syrian and Russian gains were portrayed as a disaster, a true calamity. These two television stations are influencing billions of people worldwide, dictating how the most important events should be perceived on all continents. They are manufacturing one uniformed narrative, one dogma. As I gazed at the screen, it suddenly occurred to me that the world now has two realities: a true one, consisting of human stories and testimonies, and one hyper reality, twisted and manipulated, but increasingly dominant. No good deed, no objectively positive event could bring optimism and joy to the people of our planet, if it is against the interests of the Empire. The propaganda media would simply bathe it in filth and nihilism, as well as dark sarcasm. Images of a group of refugees at the Syrian-Turkish border, with a perfectly tailored propaganda narrative repeated again and again by the BBC announcer, are so tailored as to convince the world that the Syrian and Russian initiatives have not been saving Aleppo, the most populous Syrian city, but on the contrary, they have been destroying it! After two minutes of watching the news on the BBC, I began to feel unwell. The contrast between Reality as I have witnessed it with my own eyes, and the farce, was too great. I wondered, how those journalists and reporters who serve the Empire, can face themselves in the morning, looking into the mirror. I turned off the box and opened the RT site on my computer. It was so easy. It was still so easy! At least for me and for those who were still not contaminated! * You come to Ecuador, a country on the rise, with its brilliant public places, medical posts and endless cultural institutions, but you are soon told that the nation is corrupt and unwell. You reply that you knew it before, decades ago, when it was like Peru, racist, depressing, dirty and totally against its own people. They still insist: it is a failure; immediate change is needed! You go to Brazil, to the Amazonia. You talk to people in the jungle and in what used to be appalling urban slums. People tell you that things are now good, that they are much better off than before, with a socialist government in place for so many years. But then you turn on O Globo at night, and it is all shit once again. You are in Zimbabwe, where you are told to expect filth and misery. You come from pro-Western Nairobi where over 50% of people live in horrible slums. In Harare, Zimbabwes capital, there are almost no slums, but there is culture and public projects, as well as the highest literacy rate in the entire African continent. The city is clean. But you read the Economist and almost all other major British publications, and you are told that the country is in ruins. You go to China Everything is upside down from what you would expect, reading the Western press. In the PRC you see clearly an extremely forward-looking Communist nation, with much more intellectual and artistic freedom than what you would encounter anywhere in Europe, and also with many more possibilities. But when you return to Paris or London and speak of what you really saw, you are laughed at. Pseudo reality has won. Especially in the West, almost everyone is hooked on it, stoned by it. Humble and genuine reality is spat on, humiliated, ridiculed, and not only by the media and propaganda outlets, anymore. The great majority of those common people of the West are now submissively and self-righteously volunteering: they feel that they have to demonstrate their allegiance to the narrative of the regime. They do it, while bragging loudly about democracy, freedom and liberties in their part of the world. Paradoxically, the more brainwashed, servile and un-free they are, the louder they promote themselves as the true and only flag carriers of democracy. It all feels so fascist and hopeless! * Two realities: one genuine but beaten into silence. The other one loud, aggressive, supported by billions of dollars, but based on lies, manipulations and Machiavellian goals. To use the words of my dear friend Eduardo Galeano: What can those who still have some dignity left, philosophers, reporters, writers and filmmakers with passion for that beautiful lady called Reality, do? They can, they should, and they are obliged, to repeat again and again what is obvious even with an unarmed eye. They have to tell the truth, even if the indoctrinated masses would relentlessly spit in their faces. It is not so difficult, and it goes like this: Iraqi Kurdistan betrayed the Middle East and it is now collapsing, abandoned by its Western handlers. Syrian forces and Russia are, right now, liberating the great Arab city of Aleppo. Latin American revolutions are injured mainly from the outside, and also by those 5th columns inside their own countries. But many of them are still standing, solid. We will fight and defend them until our last breath. And we will speak about and write about them, with passion, relentlessly. Jaroslav Seifert, a Czech poet, Nobel Prize laureate and author of some of the most beautiful lyrical verses written in the 20th century, once shouted at his fellow authors: A writer is the conscience of his nation If anyone omits the truth, it could be seen as a strategic maneuver. If a writer omits the truth, he is a liar! Writers and true thinkers are obliged to defend reality: that real one, that shy and genuine one. And the truth is, there is only one reality! What the Empire and its propaganda has managed to manufacture as the second or parallel reality, is nothing less than a destructive narrative, which is there to prevent people from thinking, comprehending, and most importantly, from dreaming about a much better world that is based on humanism, truth and justice. Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: Exposing Lies Of The Empire and Fighting Against Western Imperialism .Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism . Point of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: Indonesia The Archipelago of Fear . Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter . Queen Idia, the face of FESTAC 77 was the mother of Esigie, the Oba of Benin who ruled from 1504 to 1550. She played a very significant role in the rise and reign of her son. She has been described as a great warrior, who fought relentlessly before and during her sons reign as the Oba (king) of the Edo people. To keep people in touch with history, INFORMATION NIGERIA has put together these 8 interesting facts you probably didnt know about Queen Idia 1. First Woman to earn a title from the Benin Empire as IYOBA which means The Queen mother. 2. First Woman commander [mother of the king] to have led soldiers/warrior to fight and win a war in defense of her Nation. 3. First Woman to have produced an enlightened prince (Son) who was able to relate with the Europeans in their early encounter. 4. First woman to have witnessed the early formation of churches and missionary school in Nigeria. THE HOLY ARUOSA 5. First woman to have taken up the mantle of leadership in terms of socio economic development of the Old Benin Empire, that was later invaded and burnt down by the British military on the Benin punitive expedition in 1897 to finally exile Oba Ovonramen to Calabar. A time when some of the finest bronze of Benin were made and exported to Europe. 6. First black African woman to have earned such world recognition, respect and dignity in the West African sub region. You like??? Have you ever clicked an Advert you saw on your BBM or while browsing the internet? If so, it simply means that you are a part of the new and invincible generation, in tune with digital reality. Our world is changing; theres no wisdom in denying that. The Mobile Phone is here to stay and it has become an integral part of everyones life. In fact, theres a high chance you are reading this on your own Mobile phone right now. As an Advertiser, Im sure youve compared the efficacy of Digital Media with that of Traditional media; that is, youve asked yourself which is more effective, advertising on Radio and Television or advertising on Facebook, Google and BBM? Let me help you resolve this problem with an analogy. A man wanted to travel to South Africa for a business opportunity. He had all his bags packed but still had one major obstacle before him; he had to cross the geographical distance between Nigeria and South Africa. He had two options: to fly there with an Airline or to be driven there in the most luxurious Car. After thinking hard for a few seconds, it was obvious that flying there was the more effective option. In the same way, Digital media is more effective than Traditional media; when advertising with digital media, you are flying to your business opportunities and not just driving. You get to your destination directly, without having to stop by anywhere. With digital media you get to target your market by Age, Gender, and Geographical location; you get your Product/Service to the minds of the potential Customer, directly. You place your Advert on a platform where the Customer can, not only have a view, but also take action and make purchases. Ill advise you fly, rather than drive. As the Sales Consultant for BBM Ads in Nigeria, I can assure you that the results generated from BBM campaigns supersede those generated from any other traditional and digital media platform, including Facebook and Instagram. With BBM, you get premium impressions; your Ad is only displayed when a User is scrolling through their Feeds and they get to see it in full view. On some other digital platforms, your Ad is not as clearly displayed and you get a lot of wasted impressions. With BBM, an impression is only counted when a User actually looks at your Ad, without moving his screen, for 3 seconds. The current rate is now $3.50c per thousand impressions and you will need a minimum budget of $1000 but you will be getting the best out of that money. Another major advantage that BBM Advertising has over other digital media platforms is the BBM channels. You can grow your BBM channel with little or no effort every time you run an Advertisement campaign. BBM Channels have been proven to drive more traffic to websites and blogs than Facebook Pages or Twitter handles. You can email me at: [email protected] to chat about your own BBM Campaign. You can also call me on 08166209086 Im Sales Consultant, Nigeria, for The Mobi Hunter (TMH) www.themobihunter.com Watch out for another highly effective Mobile Advertising platform called VCI. Coming soon from TMH. The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP, has vowed to reject the use of ex-militants in the implementation of the United Nations Environmental Programmes (UNEPs) report in Ogoniland. MOSOP, which is the umbrella body of the Ogoni, said the comments credited to the Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Brig-Gen. Paul Boroh (rtd) to that effect, were unsettling. According to MOSOP, the amnesty coordinator said ex-militants would be part of the clean-up in Ogoniland and that he had met with ex-militant leader, Chief Ateke Tom and other stakeholders on that. Speaking through its Publicity Secretary, Mr Fegalo Nsuke, MOSOP, in a statement in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital yesterday, described Borohs comment as part of a greater conspiracy by the Federal Government against the Ogoni. Nsuke said there was no security threat in Ogoniland to warrant the involvement of ex-militants in implementing the UNEP report as the Ogoni would cooperate with experts in charge of the programme for a successful implementation. He said: MOSOP wishes to state that there is no security threat to the Ogoni clean-up exercise, except General Boroh is instigating one, which he will need to clarify. Borohs statement is not only suspicious but corroborates our fears that the government has deliberately ignored the Ogoni environmental restoration project, citing frivolous excuses. MOSOP notes that the Ogoni people awaits the implementation of the UNEP report and will cooperate with all agencies, including security personnel, to see that the programme is successful. We are disturbed by Gen. Borohs strange security arrangements outside the Police and other relevant agencies charged with the responsibility to secure people. MOSOP is worried about the security implications of Gen. Borohs statement, especially his discussions with ex-militants like Ateke Tom, a non-Ogoni and an indigene of Okrika, who should ordinarily not play a role in the circumstance. Despite pressure from some elite to soft-pedal on the anti-corruption crusade, President Muhammadu Buhari has declared that his governments resolve to rid the country of the menace would know no bounds. Speaking at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja yesterday at a meeting with members of the diplomatic corps, Buhari said the anti-graft war would be total and relentless. President Buhari rode to power last year May on the back of campaign promises to kill corruption before it kills Nigeria. Re-affirming this position yesterday, he said because corruption in Nigeria was pervasive, it had become necessary for his government to wage a relentless war against it, warning that without so doing, it would be impossible to build a stable and prosperous Nigeria that would be at ease with itself. Building such a country will not be possible where corruption is pervasive So long as corruption holds centre stage in the affairs of Nigeria, the country will continue to suffer incalculable harm. You are witnesses to the preliminary findings that have emerged in the past few weeks from our investigations into corrupt practices in different sectors of Nigerias public service. I will leave no stone unturned in the effort to rid Nigeria of corruption. I must however, add that in doing this, we shall operate within the ambit of the law. On foreign policy, he said Nigeria could not afford to be an island unto itself. It is for this reason that the foreign policy vision which we are currently pursuing is anchored on meaningful engagement with our neighbours, the African continent and the world at large. On the Boko Haram insurgency, Mr. Buhari said when he assumed office, the insurgents were fully in control of 14 local governments in the Northeast but that today they held no territory. He added that they are now hiding in the Sambisa forest and occasionally undertake cowardly attacks on innocent citizens in soft targets. He noted that within the past eight months of his Presidency, the nation had witnessed resurgence in morale among the troops to dislodge the terrorists from their bases a feat he attributed to the changes in both the command structure and operational tactics, which brought about significant gains on the ground. He added that the military had been given specific instructions on the rules of engagement to treat captured terrorists humanely and avoid civilian casualties. President Buhari noted that the security situation in the North-Eastern part of the country had dramatically improved such that internally displaced persons were gradually returning to rebuild their homes, communities and livelihood. He said his government would spare no effort to support them with robust programmes and projects to hasten the process of rehabilitation and resettlement. The president, however, noted that his administration was quite aware that the war on terror will not, and cannot be won by military means alone. We need a soft approach that speaks directly to the human mind. Poverty and hunger do not only incapacitate, but they can lead to desperation. He said his government was also aware that poverty and marginalisation, among other factors, could easily create room for indoctrination and co-option into violent extremism. Job creation and provision of quality education are key areas that are already receiving our attention, he stated. We are also convinced that there is no alternative to democratic governance, adherence to the rule of law, respect for human rights and adherence to constitutional order. We owe it a duty not to hand down to the next generation a world that is deeply divided and threatened by nature. We are under no illusion that achieving these objectives will be easy. We are however, undaunted in our resolve to overcome. We will continue to do all we can to make life safe for our citizens and all residents of Nigeria. We are open for business. We invite those who are ready to come to invest in Nigeria. We will protect their persons as well as their investments, he stated. President Buhari further said his government would take the necessary steps to overcome new and old challenges, enhance our national unity, internal cohesion and ultimately, give our country the image that will be a pride to our people and our friends in Africa and beyond. Earlier in his remarks, the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, Ambassador Salladeen Abbas, commended Buhari for his governments fight against corruption and terrorism, Abbas, who is the High Commissioner of Cameroon to Nigeria said: In your fight against corruption, your perception in the international community is very positive. The whole world will cooperate with your government. More than 20 Iraqi civilians have been killed in two air strikes on towns held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in the west of Anbar province, military sources say. It was not immediately apparent whether the air strikes, which took place on Thursday in the towns of Heet and Rutbah, were carried out by the US-led international coalition, or Iraqi air force planes, Al Jazeeras Imran Khan reported from the capital, Baghdad. What we do know is that at least 24 civilians are reported to have been killed, including seven children and nine women, he said. We dont know yet if the air strikes were carried out by the coalition or Iraqi military. Iraqi forces and ISIL are engaged in battles across Anbar, especially around the urban centres of Ramadi which is now largely controlled by government forces and Fallujah, which is still held by the fighters. Since being pushed from the centre of Ramadi in late December, ISIL has launched near-daily attacks on Iraqi forces, especially on the outskirts of the city. The attacks continued on Thursday, with an ISIL suicide car bomber killing at least 20 members of the joint Iraqi army and Popular Mobilisation Force stationed at al-Subaihaat village, east of Ramadi. The Iraqi forces battle against ISIL is clearly continuing in areas of Iraq which were thought to be secure, Khan said. The Conference of Speakers of State Legislatures of Nigeria has condemned, in strong terms, what it termed as the purported impeachment of the Speaker of the Kogi State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Jimoh Momoh Lawal. Mr. Lawal was reportedly impeached by five members of the Assembly on Tuesday. However, in a press statement signed by the conference chairman, Rt. Hon. Ismaila Kamba and made available to journalists in Abuja on Friday, it said that the constitutional provision to impeach public officials was to check tyrannical tendencies and not to be used flagrantly without recourse to due process. The statement said in part: The conference of Speakers of State Legislatures of Nigeria condemns in strong terms the purported impeachment of the Speaker, Kogi state House of assemblu, Rt. Hon. Jimoh Momoh Lawal. The conference acknowledges that the constitution makes provision for the impeachment of a public officer as a check against tyrannical tendecies, but the constitution equally clearly provides for procedure to be followed if the impeachment of such a public officer becomes imperative. We advocate that this procedure must be followed to carry out this check on public officers. The disrespect for the rule of law in Kogi State House of Assembly should not only be frowned at, it should be condemned as an illegality that is capable of setting bad precedence. The body of a cousin of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Samuel Oki, who was kidnapped alongside Chief Inegite Nitabai Jonathan, the former presidents foster father, has been found floating on Otuoke river, two days after they were both abducted at their home in Otueke by unknown gunmen. According to Premium Times, the Bayelsa state Police spokesperson, confirmed this development. Some fishermen in Otuoke community discovered the decomposing body of 35 year old Samuel this morning. The whereabouts of 72 year old Pa Jonathan is still unknown. Source: Premium Times The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Ekiti State chapter, has described the meeting in Abuja, by some leaders of the All Progressives Congress, APC, led by a former governor of the state, Chief Niyi Adebayo, as a further confirmation that those leading the party in Ekiti are Diaspora politicians, who have lost touch with the people. The PDP, which noted that serious politicians desirous of winning elections will not hold its stakeholders meetings more than 300km away from their state, added that no amount of Abuja meetings will bring APC in Ekiti back from what it termed the land of the dead. Former Governor Adebayo had after holding a meeting on Tuesday with Ekitis APC members at the national secretariat of the party in Abuja, accused Fayose of making mockery of governance in the state. He further said the incumbent governor had turned Ekiti into a pariah state. Ekiti is being turned into a pariah state and it is unfortunate that this sort of thing is happening and that is why we who are in the opposition are putting our house in order and we believe that if we all stick together and make sure that the party is in stable state, we will be able to wrestle power back from the current governor (Ayodele Fayose) that is making mockery of our state. Reacting to the statement, the Ekiti PDP Publicity Secretary, Mr Jackson Adebayo, said that Governor Ayodele Fayose will for a very long time remain the nightmare of the APC and its self-centered leaders. From the time Fayose joined Ekiti politics till now, the only governorship election won by the APC was the one in which Fayose assisted the party, the Ekiti PDP spokesman said in a statement issued in Ado-Ekiti on Thursday. Continuing, Mr. Adebayo said: Ekiti people will no longer succumb to the selfish wish of diaspora politicians, who will only come to the State to contest elections and runaway the moment they lose or are thrown out of government. Can any serious politician be playing away game and leaving the grassroot in the hand of opponents? Isnt that the reason Fayose who eats and dine with the people will always defeat the APC as long as the space permits? As much as they tried to patch up their differences, a major stakeholder in the APC boycotted the meeting. The PDP also described the comment by the former governor that Ekiti had been turned to a pariah state as a product of a frustrated mind, saying any reasonable man would attest to the fact that the peace in the state could not be matched by any other state in the south-west. There is no state in the southwest that has been enjoying the kind of relative peace and development being enjoyed in Ekiti State today and discerning minds cant but laugh at a former governor referring to his own a state as a pariah state, he said. The outgoing Executive Secretary of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, Mr. Farouk Ahmed, yesterday, revealed that the Federal Government was considering a review of the pricing template for Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, popularly called petrol, and may effect a further reduction in the price of the commodity from April 2016. The current pump price of PMS is N86/litre at all NNPC Mega Stations while major and independent marketers are supposed to sell at an official rate of N86.50/litre. Speaking in Abuja, Ahmed, who officially handed over to the most senior officer of the PPPRA, Mr. Moses Mbaba, also disclosed that as at February 3, about one month after the commencement of price modulation, which led to the review of the pricing template of petrol, the country had saved N2.6 billion. According to the erstwhile PPPRA boss, the decision on the review of the price of PMS would be taken next month by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu after due consultations with stakeholders and based on the price of crude oil in the international market. Yes, wait till March, you will see because the minister is fair in the decision he will take; because he will take the decision pragmatically, Ahmed responded, when asked about the possibility of a likely reduction in the price of PMS. He added that due to the current state of over-recovery, the PPPRA is recovering some money from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, and oil marketers. He noted that as at February 16, 2016, over-recovery was N13.81 per litre, stating that an over-recovery of N13.81 meant that the landing cost of PMS was lower than the selling price by N13.81. However, as at the close of business yesterday, the over-recovery recorded by the country had dropped to N11.74 per litre, according to data obtained from the PPPRA website. Ahmed said in instances of over-recovery, the agency sent debit notes to every marketers that fell within that bracket to refund the excess money to the government, adding that the fund was kept in an account recently opened at the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN. He said: There has been an account launched at the CBN, managed by the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF) where the over recovery funds are deposited into. So there is no question of where the money goes to. As at February 3, 2016, the estimate in that account, because we are verifying based on what was imported, is just a small amount of about N2.6 billion. But this is just the beginning because some of them are just arriving in December, that is why the subsidy over recovery is low. Speaking further, he said The fact is that whatever money that will be put into that account, one day, which is our hope that the price of crude oil will go up, there would be more revenue inflow to the federation account. The oil sector will benefit. That excess, before you go to government for any intervention, you go to that account and pull some money and compensate. Mr. Ahmed, however, noted that the over-recovery might disappear if the price of crude oil rose by next month. In a bid to better control unruly crowds that gather during protests, police in northern India have decided to replace their modern arsenal with rudimentary weapons like slingshots and chili powder balls. The decision was made after they realised that these non-lethal options might prove to be more effective than water cannons or tear gas. It is much better than firing plastic bullets that can cause bad injuries, said Anil Kumar Rao, the Inspector General of Police in the state of Haryanas Hisar district. It will be used only in emergency cases so that we can manage minimum collateral damage. Police officers are currently being trained in the use of these specially designed locally made slingshots, learning to fire plastic balls filled with chili powder as accurately as possible. And if chili doesnt prove effective enough, they plan to switch to marbles. There has been some concern among locals that marbles fired from catapults could badly injure civilians, but Abhishek Jorwal, chief of police in the Jind district, denies this. Marbles and chili balls wont cause any permanent damage but will pack enough punch to push protesters back, he said. Officers have been instructed to use slingshots and tear gas shells, and keep (pellet) guns and bullets as the last options. Its not like we plan to use marbles on peaceful protesters, Rao added. Its only meant to control hostile people. We have to step in and take certain action when people are burning government property, cars. This is a very, very positive step a civilised cost-effective weapon. Plus it is much better than firing plastic bullets which can cause pretty bad injuries via BBC Fed up of DIY haircuts, the residents of Norman Wells, an isolated town in northern Canada, are desperately looking for a professional hairdresser. Theyve been cutting their own hair for the past two years and frankly, theyve had enough of it. Located near the southern edge of the Arctic Circle, with a population of about 800 people, Norman Wells has always been a small community with more pressing small-town problems. Food products need to be flown in, prices are higher, and sometimes the residents need to go without supplies because the planes dont come in. But they never realised that something like the lack of professional hairdressing could be a nightmare until their hairstylist moved out due to the lack of housing in town. Its been a long struggle for us, Nicky Richards, the towns economic development officer in charge of the hairdresser recruitment effort, told The Guardian. We just dont have anyone. Its something that people down south dont ever think about because they dont have to worry about it. So Richards is making the towns plight public, hoping to catch the attention of professional hairstylists who might be interested in helping them out. She says that many residents refrain from cutting their hair, waiting for a chance to travel south to get a decent haircut. Others just trust their friends to do the best they can. Women have had to resort to messy box dyes to color their own hair, while some men have actually used sheep shears to tame their messy locks. We have a couple of shaggy people around here for sure, Richards said, speaking to CBC News. I cut my bosss hair all the time. We had a friend that lived out in the bush that every time hed come in Id cut his hair. I cut my husbands hair. But I mean, its just with the clippers, Im not a hairdresser, so everybodys got the same kind of buzzed haircut. She doesnt trust herself to cut her own hair though, so she just waits until she has an opportunity to travel out of town. Whenever I get out of town, thats like the first thing, Oh my God! Im going to get my hair done! she joked. OCentral. New reports has it that Kris Jenner is worried Kanye Wests Twitter rants are taking the family down. Kanye West has notoriously been in the news all month following his epic Twitter meltdown. Kanye Wests social media tirade is alleged to have angered Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner, who is said to be worried about her son-in-laws behaviour. All this comes after a week of eccentric tweets from Kanye, ranging from taking credit for Taylor Swifts success to saying Bill Cosby is innocent, and declaring he has $53M of personal debt. New York Times Page Six reports, His Twitter rants are out of control, and Kris fears that hes taking the family down. Kris has reportedly told Kanye he needs to get a good PR management to keep him in check before he damages the Kardashian brand further. The Olubadan-in-Council has in a letter, warned Dr Alex C. Alozie to stop parading himself as holder of the title of Eze Ndigbo of Igbos in Ibadan and Oyo State to the chagrin of the Igbo elder, who protested yesterday against the letter. The letter addressed to the President General, Ohaneze Ndigbo, marked LL8co/02/16 and signed by one Oladepo Abiodun Esq read in part: Our instruction is to make it clear to you that your action and that of your group you purport to represent in Ibadan and Oyo State in general amounts to an act of insubordination, illegality and calculated attempts to cause chaos and breed a state of anarchy in the state. But, responding Dr. Anozie said, We had informed the whole world in the past of a high court judgment over the Igbo leadership tussle in Ibadan and Oyo State which favoured Dr. Alex Anozie and our association, ACDA, affiliate of Ohaneze worldwide. Making reference to the letter from the council, he said the documents referred to were documents that featured between 1997 and 2010 when most people were confused by the deceit of his opponents. While addressing newsmen at his palace in Ibadan yesterday, he said the State High Court in Ibadan had ruled on the 18th of February 2014 which no other court has vacated, that only me, Dr Alex Alozie should be paraded as Eze Ndigbo of Ibadan and Oyo State. It is quite unfortunate that most people were confused through disgruntled individuals who go about deceiving people and parading themselves against the judgment of the High court in spite of the fact that the judgment of the High Court has neither been vacated, nor have they got any stay of execution against the case. He further clarified that the title of Ezendigbo, Onyedu Ndigbo, Onyeisindigbo or Ochiigbo all mean the same thing in Igbo expression and that not withstanding anybody or group is at liberty to refer to him as any of those mentioned Igbo titles. Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of Kano State has expressed the belief that newly-appointed national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, will work for the All Progressives Congress (APC) going by his antecedents. Sheriff, a two-term former governor of Borno State and founding father of the APC before he defected to the then ruling party in 2014, emerged national chairman of the PDP on Tuesday with a vow to reposition the party towards taking over in 2019. Reacting to the vow to send the APC-led federal government packing in 2019, the Kano governor, while fielding questions from journalists at the APC National Secretariat in Abuja Thursday, described it as normal utterances of those who want to impress followers. He said, I do not wish to engage in cross fire. But I believe it is an empty threat, Looking at the antecedents, the history of the chairman himself, we all know he is a cross carpeter. He is always on the move in changing from one party to the other. Even when he was in the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) for eight years, he was working for the PDP. Even the APC started with him, and then he went back to the PDP and we were happy. I am sure in the long run, he would work for us. That is what I believe. We are happy because we believe in the long run, he would work for us. Find out his history, you will believe me. Ganduje also backed the clamour for state police in view of the current security challenges in the country. According to him, there is no better time we need the state police than now because the security at the moment requires intelligence information. It involves people who are conversant with the society, the tradition, and the culture. They are in a better position to assist in terms of surveillance, collection of information and effectiveness of operations. So, the idea of a state police is something that we need to pursue. Gov. Ganduje noted that Kano State was also committed to programmes aimed at addressing President Muhammadu Buharis campaign promises on tackling security, corruption, and economy. That is why we are diversifying our economy. We urge Nigerians to give Mr President a helping hand in order to achieve these three objectives which are beneficial to Nigerians, he said. Donald Trump, a front-runner in the US presidential race, has said it is disgraceful of a religious leader to question his Christian faith after Pope Francis made the suggestion while criticising his anti-immigration stance. In a dialogue with reporters on Thursday on a flight to Vatican City at the end of a five-day visit to Mexico, Francis said, in a reference to Trump, that a person who thinks only about building walls and not building bridges, is not a Christian. Trump, who is the leading Republican candidate in national opinion polls, has been at the centre of a number of controversies, including one over his pledge to build a wall between the US and Mexico to keep out undocumented immigrants if elected president. He has also announced plans to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. Vote, dont vote, I wont meddle. But I simply say, if he says these things, this man is not a Christian, Francis said in a response to a question about Trumps anti-immigration stance. In a statement posted on Facebook on Thursday, Trump said: No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another mans religion or faith. I am proud to be a Christian and as president I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened. Trump also said that in the hypothetical case of an attack on the Vatican by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the armed group which has seized territory in Iraq and Syria, Francis would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president. Aljazeera. The embattled National Publicity Secretary of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olisa Metuh, yesterday, begged the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja to quash the seven-count criminal charge preferred against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Metuh, who was alleged to have received N400 million from the former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd), through his company, Destra Investments Limited, prior to the 2015 presidential election, argued that the EFCC failed to link him to the charge. Instead of opening his defence to the charge as he was earlier directed by trial Justice Okon Abang, Metuh, yesterday, told the trial court that he had decided to file a no-case-submission. In the no-case-submission he filed through a consortium of four Senior Advocates of Nigeria, led by Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, the PDP spokesman prayed the court to in line with section 302 and 357 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015, discharge him and his firm on the ground that the EFCC did not establish a prima-facie case against the defendants to warrant them to be called upon to enter their defence. The case was, yesterday adjourned till February 25 for parties to adopt their written addresses. Afghan soldiers dragged two hospital patients outside a Swedish-run clinic and shot them along with a 15-year-old boy, an NGO claimed on Friday. The soldiers raided a health clinic operated by the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan (SCA) in Tangi Saidan in Wardak province late on Thursday, killing the three people, Al Jazeera has been told. The Afghan security forces barged in the clinic, misbehaved with some of our staff members and dragged out two injured patients from the health clinic along with their caretaker, the SCAs spokesman Muhammad Salahuddin Momand, said on Friday. The caretaker was a young boy, around 15 years old. All three of them were shot dead outside of our clinic. This is unacceptable. They have violated humanitarian laws. We will protest against this. There was no immediate confirmation from the army. However, Afghan officials told Al Jazeera that the hospital was located in a Taliban-controlled area and the victims were members of the armed group. The Afghan security forces raided the hospital as the members of the Taliban group were being treated there, Akhtar Muhammad Tahiri, head of the Wardak provincial council told Al Jazeera. In any case, the hospital is in a volatile area and we are doing our best to provide security to it. In Stockholm, Jorgen Holmstrom, country manager for the SCA described the attack as a gross violation of humanitarian principles and the Geneva Convention. The patients who are being treated at our clinics have the right to be protected, Holmstrom said in a statement. The SCA runs education and other development programmes in almost half of Afghanistans 34 provinces. On this day in 2005, Soldiers, Sailors and Police descended on Odioma, a village located in Bayelsa State, to hunt down a local militia leader and black magic guru who was accused of murdering twelve (12) people from Obiaku in Abia State. .. Odioma is the village where oil was found by Shell Nigeria. It was largely destroyed in February 2005, when soldiers burned buildings, killed perhaps 17 villagers and raped women, ostensibly in revenge for previous killings by local rebels. Also on this day in 2012, a bomb planted in an abandoned car exploded outside a church in the middle of a worship service in Suleja, Niger State, wounded five people amid a continuing wave of violence by a radical Islamist sect. Nigerian warplanes bombarded training camps and caches of weapons and vehicles belonging to the Islamist group Boko Haram in the northeasterly Sambisa forest on this day in 2015. Suspected Boko Haram gunmen hit the village of Ladi-Shehuri, where they killed and burned a man in his car. Soldiers from Konduga, Borno State responded and killed about a dozen of the attackers. Apple's confrontation with the FBI is about much more than encryption. In his open letter response on Wednesday to the FBI's demand that the company assist in obtaining data from a terrorist's iPhone, Apple CEO Tim Cook opened up a far-reaching debate about privacy, as well as the limits of government reach and law enforcement in a digital age. [ How Apple could let the FBI crack your encrypted iPhone. | Build and deploy an effective line of defense against corporate intruders with InfoWorld's Encryption Deep Dive PDF expert guide. Download it today! | Stay up to date on the latest security developments with InfoWorld's Security newsletter. ] Other tech luminaries have been noticeably slow to weigh in, however. TidBits makes the argument that ad-driven companies like Facebook and Twitter, whose businesses are based on having access to users' data, are loath to jump in for fear of calling greater attention to this fact. Both companies did ultimately voice support for Apple's stand late Thursday. But no company is as data-driven as Google, and its CEO, Sundar Pichai, has voiced support of Cook on Twitter, calling the judge's order "a troubling precedent." Microsoft, too, is backing Apple, albeit indirectly. Google's Pichai supported Apple late Wednesday, while Microsoft executives indicated support via tweets on Thursday. What are the CEOs of Internet giants like AOL, Yahoo, and Amazon.com waiting for? Or CEOs from tech giants like Cisco, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and EMC VMware? In one corner, Tim Cook In his letter, Cook explained why Apple could not comply with the FBI's request that it build a new version of iOS, circumventing several security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered from the San Bernardino terrorists: In the wrong hands, this software -- which does not exist today -- would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone's physical possession. The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. When it comes to the importance of encryption, Cook has the security community on his side. Backdoors, the experts say, are nothing more than security vulnerabilities waiting to be exploited by cyber criminals or foreign governments. "This is the technology equivalent to a law of physics, not some technical problem we haven't solved yet," says TidBits. Ted Lieu, one of only four U.S. congressmen with a degree in computer science, agrees. "You cannot design a technological backdoor only for the good guys, because hackers will eventually find that backdoor -- or what's more likely is the federal government will get hacked through that backdoor," Lieu told Wired, pointing to the recent hack of the FBI itself. And Cook warns: The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone. But that's simply not true. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks -- from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable. In a sign of Apple's commitment to the fight, the company has signed on attorney Ted Olson, who is perhaps best known for successfully arguing two landmark cases in front of the Supreme Court: Bush v. Gore, which decided the 2000 presidential election, and Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage in the United States. In the other corner, the FBI The FBI's long game is about more than any potential evidence on this one iPhone. While the White House insists the FBI is not asking for a backdoor to the iPhone, the fact is that, for more than a year, the government has been trying to use the All Writs Act of 1789 to force Apple to unlock encrypted phones in multiple cases. How to secure your smartphone and tablet The FBIs inability to crack a terrorists iPhone 5c shows the strong protection you can get for your private information on a mobile device. To make sure your data is safe from governments, hackers, and corporations, be sure to do the following: Upgrade to iOS 9 or Android 5 or 6 on all your mobile devices. Then turn on encryption on those devices via the security settings in Android, or simply by enabling a password in iOSs Settings. Don't back up to cloud services like iCloud or Google Drive; the government can get warrants to access those backups. Instead, in iOS back up to your PC or Mac via iTunes, with the Enable Local Backup option turned on. Now your backups are safe from prying eyes, too. Unfortunately, Android users dont have a similar option for secure, encrypted backup. Use encrypted services like Apples iMessage and OpenWhispers TextSecure where possible. SMS service from your phone company is not secured. Outside your mobile devices, use encrypted communication tools. See the options as surveyed by InfoWorld's Fahmida Rashid. --Galen Gruman, executive editor, InfoWorld Macworld makes the argument that the FBI needs this legal win. "Legal precedent is like a glacier, slowly building over time until it becomes nigh unstoppable.... It's the reason the NRA fights any attempts at gun control, since they fear a slow build, not a single small law." Perhaps even more disturbing is the precedent that a court could compel a software company to "custom-build malware to undermine its own product's security features," Kevin Bankston, director of New America's Open Technology Institute, told the Washington Post. If a court can compel Apple to do it, then it can compel other software providers as well. "Where does it end?" asked Ahmed Ghappour, a professor at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law. "Can the government use it to compel Facebook to customize an algorithm that predicts crime? It's not clear where the line will be drawn, if at all." Should Apple lose its fight with the FBI, authoritarian governments like Russia and China could also demand greater access to users' data. "Why in the world would our government want to give repressive regimes in Russia and China a blueprint for forcing American companies to create a backdoor?" said Senator Ron Wyden, who serves on the Senate Intelligence Committee. "If upheld, this decision could force U.S. technology companies to actually build hacking tools for government against their will, while weakening cyber security for millions of Americans in the process." Last year, President Barack Obama criticized a Chinese law that would force U.S. firms to provide technical assistance -- including decryption -- to Chinese authorities to help prevent and investigate terrorists. "Imagine how hollow these objections will ring if a U.S. court can order what China was trying to compel by statute," said Greg Nojeim of the Center for Democracy and Technology. The FBI has seized upon an emotionally charged instance of terrorism to push its case for access to previously secure data. The Verge points out a number of faulty premises that are making it impossible to rationally discuss the issues of privacy and encryption. Perhaps chief among them is the incessant talk by FBI Director James Comey about terrorists "going dark" -- which suggests they weren't in the dark before. Says the Verge: There's just no reason to think that the FBI is having a harder time tracking criminal activity than it did 15 years ago.... Fifteen years ago, it would have been unthinkable to order Microsoft to turn over a private file from a personal computer, or ask Verizon for a transcript of an unflagged phone call from three months earlier. But the shift to mobile has made those records seem much more accessible. ... [and] the bureau feels entitled to all that data and gets angry when companies refuse. But without the technological shifts made possible by encryption -- email, SMS, cloud storage, and so on -- most of these warrants would never be written up in the first place. The move to the cloud has made data more accessible -- and for the most part the FBI has no trouble getting access. Its hand-wringing about "going dark" glosses over the fact that law enforcement already has a ton of information at its disposal through legal means: texts, phone records, phone location histories, and the raft of social media data stored in the cloud. Apple and other tech giants have a long history of complying with court orders -- in the current San Bernardino terrorist case, it has supplied to the FBI as ordered the iCloud backups from the shooter's Apple devices, for example -- and the vast majority of government requests to tech companies are fulfilled. Still, there are those who believe the FBI should have access to all data -- in which case what they are really asking for is an expansion of surveillance power, even though there is no evidence that banning encryption or expanding government surveillance will help stop terrorist plots. "Hindsight investigations have found lots of tragically dropped leads in the run-up to recent attacks, but they've mostly been either available information that was ignored or pre-existing flags within the intelligence system," says the Verge. In every sense, this case stands to set a dangerous precedent. "The implications of the government's demands are chilling," Cook's letter concludes. "The government could extend this breach of privacy and demand that Apple build surveillance software to intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phone's microphone or camera without your knowledge." John Ashcroft, a former U.S. attorney general whose conservative social views made him a controversial figure in the George W. Bush administration, is a surprising source to find warning about government overreach when it comes to encryption and encroaching on privacy. Ashcroft wrote: The Founding Fathers recognized the importance of this balance. In no way did they favor the notion that a key to every home, diary, bank account, medical record, business plan, or investment should be provided to the Federal Government for use without the individual's knowledge. Some might suggest that the views of the Founding Fathers are irrelevant to the debate on encryption because they could not envision this type of technology. But it is dangerous to underestimate the Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson invented the wheel cypher in the 1790s. This invention consisted of a spindle of 36 wooden disks with letters carved on the outside. This simple device would provide robust encryption similar to that provided by the high-tech software that the FBI is so concerned about. Nonetheless, neither Thomas Jefferson nor any of the other Framers suggested that encryption should be banned or that the Fourth Amendment should be repealed. Instead, they opted for the balanced approach reflected in the Constitution. Fight for the Future, a digital rights group that last year organized widespread rapid response protests in support of Net neutrality, has been calling for protests outside Apple stores to demand that the U.S. government drop its request. Now's the time to speak out on privacy and the limits of government for the digital age. Lets set aside the discussion of whether or not Apple is right to fear that the court order to assist the FBI in accessing a terrorist's locked iPhone sets a dangerous precedent, and instead focus on the technology. Considering all the security features Apple has built into iOS, is what the judge asking for even possible? Ironically, there could have been a way that the FBI could get into the iPhone. Because the iPhone was issued by the terrorist's employer, a county agency, the county IT department could unlock the device for the FBI -- that is, if it had used mobile management software to manage the employee's iPhone 5c. But the agency apparently didn't, taking that access option off the table. If the iPhone in question had not been powered down, the FBI would have been able to explore other avenues as the encryption would not be as locked down, wrote digital forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski. But it was in fact powered down when the FBI recovered it. Beginning with iOS 8, iPhones, iPads, and iPad Touches are encrypted using a key derived from the user-selected passcode. This is combined with a device-specific hardware key so that Apple cant decrypt the information at all. Only the user can. What the court wants Apple to do for the FBI How could Apple break the encryption on the iPhone? It can't. But that's not what the court order is requiring. Instead, it wants Apple to remove the self-destruct mechanism that wipes the data after 10 failed password attempts. It also wants Apple to allow it to feed potential passwords via the device's Lightning port so that the FBI can automate the password guesses. That way, the FBI can use its full computing power to try thousands, even millions of passwords in hopes of finally unlocking the device -- thus, decrypting the contents. To do that, Apple is being asked to create a special version of iOS that the FBI would somehow load onto the locked devices; that replacement iOS would then turn off the autowipe feature. That's not a backdoor, but a way to disarm the front door. Is that even possible? Yes. How Apple can update a locked iPhone to remove its security protections Robert Graham of Errata Security, Dan Guido of Trail of Bits, and digital forensics expert Zdziarski all weighed in within hours of the judges order being made public. They agree that Apple can comply with Judge Sheri Pyms order that Apple provide reasonable technical assistance to assist law enforcement agents in obtaining access to the data on the subject device. What Apple would need to do is create, then boot the custom firmware on the device without affecting existing data. It knows how to do that -- it's what upgrades do. iOS requires updates to be signed by a special key, which only Apple has, using the Device Firmware Upgrade mode. But only Apple can do this safely. Although jailbreak versions of iOS also use Device Firmware Upgrade mode, they often don't work, and the FBI can't afford a failed attempt that would then brick the iPhone 5c. Before any firmware is loaded by an iPhone, the device first checks whether the firmware has a valid signature from Apple. This signature check is why the FBI cannot load new software onto an iPhone on their own -- the FBI does not have the secret keys that Apple uses to sign firmware, Guido wrote. One reason the experts believe Apple could comply with the order is that the iPhone 5c's hardware security is not as sophisticated as that in the iPhone 5s and later models. The passcode lock and autowipe features are software-based on the iPhone 5c, so they can be disabled with a software update, Guido said. The same update can also include support for peripheral devices so that the FBI doesnt have to manually key in each passcode attempt. In the iPhones 5s and later smartphones, Apple moved the passcode and encryption features from software to hardware, specifically to Secure Enclave, a coprocessor based on the A7 chip that makes the device resistant to tampering. (It's also what makes Apple Pay secure.) The key embedded in Secure Enclave handles the process for unlocking the iPhone. Secure Enclave also keeps track of incorrect passcode attempts and introduces a delay between attempts, so it responds more slowly with each failed attempt. The mechanism is designed to slow down brute-force attacks such as what the FBI wants to do. Because Secure Enclave is essentially a separate computer within the iPhone, iOS cant do anything to it. Because the iPhone 5c doesn't have Secure Enclave, its protections can be bypassed via software. But the later iPhones' hardware-based security can be defeated, though it's much harder to do so. if the FBI tries the same gambit again in the future with a more recent iPhone, it would be much more difficult because of the newer iPhones' Secure Enclave -- but not impossible, wrote Zdziarski. Guido concurs, saying that on an iPhone with Secure Enclave Apple would need to do two firmware updates: one for Secure Enclave and one for the iPhone itself. It's trickier, but possible. [After this story was posted, Apple stated that the front-door bypass technique the FBI is seeking -- replacing the iPhone's iOS with a custom version that removes the failed-password wipe protextion -- would work with any iPhone, not just the iPhone 5c, providing a way to access anyone's iPhone. The U.S. Justice Dept. offered to let Apple access the iPhone itself, so the proposed bypass version of iOS would not be provided to the government for later on other devices. Apple also claimed that the iCloud passeord for the terrorist's iPhone 5c was changed when the phone was in FBI custody, remotely by the San Bernardino County IT department that owned the phone, and thus Apple can no longer access the phone as the FBI desires even were it to build a bypass version of iOS. The county said the iCloud password change was done "at the FBI's request." Also, the county-issued iPhone 5c did not have the county's mobile management software installed, which its provider, MobileIron, would have provided the FBI the desired access. --Editor] Apple would need the iPhone to do the FBI's bidding The court order is not looking for a generic firmware update that can be used against other iPhones. Its request is narrow in scope, asking for an update customized for that specific device. And because the FBI would have to send Apple the iPhone to apply the update, the custom software would never have left Apple. Apple has argued that creating such a bypass for the iPhone's security would create a method for others to exploit the iPhone -- hackers, corporations, foreign governments, and the U.S. government alike. But if that code never leaves Apple's control, perhaps it could prevent such errant usage after all. All companies have a way to modify their own devices and software -- its like car companies having spare keys for individual cars ... they exist, said Lance James, chief scientist at Flashpoint, a threat intelligence and data analytics company. Even if that requires them to modify the firmware with a key they have, they dont have to give that software to the FBI. Cotton Futures Weaker Into Friday Barchart - 2 minutes ago Cotton prices are working with AM losses of 108 to 127 points so far for Friday. At the Thursday close futures were 18 to 89 points lower, extending the big decline from Wednesday. The 2023 crop closed... CTZ22 : 76.02 (-1.78%) CTH23 : 75.92 (-1.73%) CTK23 : 75.81 (-1.60%) Cash Market Led Thursday Cattle Trade Barchart - 2 minutes ago Live cattle futures kept a tight range on Thursday, ending the session mixed with nearby contracts higher up by 27 to 60 cents. USDA confirmed $148 trades in the South on Thursday, with Northern cattle... LEV22 : 149.775s (+0.28%) LEZ22 : 151.675s (+0.21%) LEG23 : 154.850s (+0.39%) GFV22 : 175.575s (+0.20%) GFX22 : 177.550s (-0.29%) Hogs Higher WTD through Thursday Barchart - 2 minutes ago Following 4 consecutive up days, December hogs cooled off with a 35 cent pullback on Thursday. Dec has seen 8 green candles of the past 12 sessions for a net $12.60 gain since 10/4. The other front months... HEZ22 : 87.025s (-0.40%) HEJ23 : 93.125s (+0.40%) KMZ22 : 96.875s (unch) Weakness for Corn Futures Barchart - 2 minutes ago Fridays day session is starting with corn prices down by 3 3/4 to 4 1/2 cents. Overnight the market was mostly downward. Corn futures found buyers on Thursday, pushing the market back up by 4 1/2 to... ZCZ22 : 678-6 (-0.77%) ZCPAUS.CM : 6.6775 (-0.92%) ZCH23 : 684-4 (-0.80%) ZCK23 : 684-6 (-0.76%) Bean Futures Lower for Friday Barchart - 2 minutes ago The soy futures market is red so far into the last trade day of the week. Soybean futures bounced on Thursday with double digit gains taking the back months back above $14. November closed 19 cents higher... ZSX22 : 1377-2 (-1.02%) ZSPAUS.CM : 13.3154 (-1.10%) ZSF23 : 1385-6 (-1.02%) ZSH23 : 1393-6 (-0.99%) Morning Weakness into Friday Wheat Market Barchart - 2 minutes ago Morning wheat prices are trading lower into the Friday session. Thursday wheat futures bounced back to mitigate some of early week weakness. CBT SRW futures closed 8 to 13 cents higher in the front months.... ZWZ22 : 833-6 (-1.83%) ZWH23 : 853-2 (-1.70%) ZWPAES.CM : 7.6833 (-1.93%) KEZ22 : 932-4 (-1.82%) KEPAWS.CM : 8.9006 (-1.90%) MWZ22 : 952-0 (-1.09%) Chart of the Day: Richardson Electronics - All Time High Barchart - 17 minutes ago The Chart of the Day belongs to the electric components company Richardson Electronics (RELL). I found the stock by sorting Barchart's All Time High list first by the most frequent number of new highs... RELL : 22.23 (+2.21%) One of the selling points of small liberal arts colleges is their low student-faculty ratio. Professors are often much more accessible than those at larger universities. Amherst College boasts an eight to one faculty ratio. At Bates College in Maine, meanwhile, there are 10 students for every one faculty member. In our higher education coverage, we write often about gifts from donors that create new programs and facilities on campus. To be sure, these gifts provide a critical jolt for a school. Still, drawing faculty to a school to lead these new programs is important, too. Up until recently, Bates College hadn't expanded its faculty in a decade. What changed? Well, seven Bates families recently gave a total of $19 million to the liberal arts school. The funds will create six new endowed professorships. Three of these will launch the colleges new Program in Digital and Computational Studies. The other three endowed professorships will fund new faculty positions in chemistry, economics, and neuroscience. As Bates Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty Matt Auer puts it, "These new chairs are truly a shot in the arm for all of us at Bates... for years, we have been adding programs and offerings in response to student interest and the evolution of intellectual fields, without adding the faculty to support these undertakings." Let's talk about some of the donors involved, here. The largest gift of $10 million comes from Michael Bonney and his wife Alison, who both belong to the Class of 1980. Their gift is the biggest single gift in the school's history. Michael Bonney was at the helm of Cubist Pharmaceuticals in Lexington, Massachusetts before recently joining Boston-based Third Rock Ventures. The Bonney couple has been deeply involved with their alma mater and Bonney chairs the board of trustees. I've written before about the important role that chairs and other members of a school's leadership can have on giving. What's more, the Bonney family's ties to Bates span four generations; the Bonneys are parents of three Bates graduates, and Bonney's father and grandfather all attended Bates. As Bonney says, Ive had a family association with Bates College since the 1920s, so I know where Bates is today relative to where weve been." This is a profile of the kind of donor you'd expect to give big, and it's also easy to see how this family could motivate others to give, too. Related: Now There's a Nice Goodbye: Behind a Major Gift by This Alumnus Massachusetts couple George Colony and Ann Colony are among the donors who contributed the other $9 million. The Colony couple have been involved with the parents fund at Bates, and George Colony is founder, chairman, and CEO of Forrester Research. Another alumnus donor, Darrell Crate, co-founder and managing director at Easterly Capital, is based in Massachusetts, too. While many of these donors are based in the Northeast, another alumni couple, J. Blair Frank and Tena Fishman Frank (Class of 1989), live in Los Angeles. We don't often see individual higher ed donors collaborate on one specific initiative, but it makes a lot of sense in terms of generating a big bang. We can only imagine the development legwork that went into getting all the pieces to fit together. Cubiq, an app-based business specializing in valet-storage services in Boston, is renting units from traditional self-storage operators in the market to store customer goods rather than lease warehouse space. The company, which offers by-the-bin pickup and delivery service, primarily uses 3,000 square feet of unit space rented from The Storage Bunker, but also rents three units from Public Storage Inc. and has access to 10,000 square feet owned by an unidentified moving and storage company in Ashland, Mass., according to the SpareFoot Storage Beat, an industry blog. Cubiq CEO and co-founder Michael Cappelletti believes valet (or concierge) and traditional storage models can thrive by working together. I need space, and [traditional self-storage operators] want to rent space, he told the source. We dont consider [the valet-storage model] as competitive against traditional storage providers. Cubiq revenue is driven primarily by its delivery and inventory services, along with a slight mark-up in storage costs above what the company pays self-storage providers, he said. Michael Oniskey, owner of The Storage Bunker, which operates one facility in Charlestown, Mass., and two in Medford, Mass., also believes the two business models can work in tandem. Theyre two different businesses, he told the source. Cubiq is more of a service business. Were a storage-facility company. [Cappelletti] is addressing a different market. Clem Teng, vice president of investor relations for self-storage real estate investment trust (REIT) Public Storage, told the source he was unaware Cubiq was renting space from one of the REITs facilities. While most valet-storage operators rent or own warehouse space to store customer belongings, using traditional self-storage could become more prevalent as the two business models examine ways to collaborate. For example, Livible Inc., a Seattle-based valet-storage business, recently partnered with self-storage REIT Extra Space Storage Inc. as its national retail partner. The Livible Labels app, which enables customers to print coded labels to help them manage the contents of their stored boxes, displays the nearest Extra Space location. The apps facility locator includes maps and driving directions. Through its partnership, the REIT will also sell preprinted Livible labels at its locations nationwide. Cubiq was also founded by technology and marketing entrepreneur Scott Nelson. The company launched in 2014 with backing from private equity. It provides services to the Boston metropolitan market. Investigators believe an apparent drug deal ended in a murder nearly two years ago at a Rent A Space self-storage facility in Padstow, Australia. Suspects Glen McNamara, 56, and Roger Rogerson, 72, are on trial for the May 2014 murder of Jamie Gao, 20, and video-camera footage of activity around unit 803 is central to the prosecutions case, according to the source. Jurors this week were shown 90 minutes of close-circuit television footage from various locations around Sydney that prosecutors say connect McNamara and Rogerson to the crime. Both men have pleaded not guilty in the case and are expected to pin the murder on each other, the source reported. Security footage recorded at the self-storage facility the day before Gao was killed by two gun shots to his chest allegedly shows Rogerson driving to Rent A Space and removing furniture from unit 803. Investigators believe Rogerson was preparing for a meeting the following day in which Gao was allegedly supposed to bring 2.78 kilograms of the drug ice. On May 20, 2014, video shows a white Ford Falcon driving away from McNamaras apartment. Prosecutors believe the vehicle was used to remove Gaos body from the storage unit. Footage from the storage facility shows Gao and McNamara entering the unit, followed by Rogerson three minutes later, the source reported. Later footage shows McNamara removing a silver surfboard bag from the Falcon and taking it inside the unit. McNamara and Rogerson are later seen removing the bag from the unit and placing it in the car, according to the source. Prosecutors believe Gao was murdered inside the unit and then placed in the surfboard cover. Rogersons attorney George Thomas has indicated Rogerson will testify that Gao was shot by McNamara before he walked into the unit and found Gao dead on the floor with a gun by his side, the source reported. Investigators say video footage from a Kennards Self Storage facility shows both suspects later that day purchasing a 2-ton chain block before returning to McNamaras apartment. The next day, the Falcon was captured on video leaving a parking facility with a boat in tow. An object wrapped in a blue tarp inside the boat is visible in the footage, according to the source. Prosecutors believe the suspects dumped Gaos body at sea about 2.5 kilometers off Shelly Beach, about a 90-minute drive from Padstow. The victims body was found six days later zipped inside a surfboard bag and wrapped in a blue tarp, the source reported. When police inspected the Rent A Space storage unit on May 24, it was bare, detective Sgt. Aaron Phillips told the jury. The trial is ongoing. The Tennessee Self Storage Association (TNSSA) has named Ashley Dawn, manager of the Mt. Juliet, Tenn., location for A+ Storage of Tennessee LLC, as its 2015 Manager of the Year. Its the third time an A+ Storage manager has received the award in the past five years. Betsi Jackson, manager of the companys Murfreesboro, Tenn., property, received the award in 2013; and Stephanie Tharpe, A+ senior vice president of operations, was honored in 2012. Dawn became the manager of the Mt. Juliet facility in November 2014 after the company sold its Hermitage, Tenn., property. Under her stewardship, the facility has performed so well that a new two-story structure is being built and is expected to open this spring, according to an A+ press release. Her success is based on her relationships with business leaders, friends and family, and tenants in her community, the release stated. Dawns marketing efforts include networking with local apartment managers and serving as an active member of The Mt. Juliet Chamber of Commerce. Her charitable contributions include donating free use of storage units to the Mt. Juliet Animal Shelter and the citys fire and police departments. She has also donated funds to support The Mt. Juliet Help Center, a nonprofit that provides clothing, food and other resources to residents in need. It was my honor and privilege to nominate her for this prestigious award, said Tommy Pierce, president of A+ Storage. She exemplifies on every level what a great manager is. I look forward to what she will do in 2016, and it has been my pleasure to watch this young lady blossom as a site manager. Dawn also won third place in the 2015 Loving Las Vegas Video Challenge hosted by Self-Storage Talk, the industrys largest online community and the official forum of Inside Self-Storage, which provides a wide range of information and education resources for the industry. As a recording artist, she has written, recorded and posted several self-storage song parodies on the community website. Her video-contest submission and other music videos can be viewed on Self-Storage TV. Dawn will present a seminar at the at the 2016 Inside Self-Storage World Expo, April 25-28, in Las Vegas titled, The Facts of Self-Storage Life: Things You Need to Know About Being a Facility Manager. Designed for new facility managers, the presentation will provide candid, insider advice for handling unexpected situations. Dawn is also a trade partner with Del Webb of Lake Providence, a 55-plus community, and has been involved in hosting several events there, including a Cinco de Mayo celebration and the 2015 Tailgate Party. Founded in 2003, A+ Storage operates seven facilities in Fortress, La Vergne, Mt. Juliet/Providence, Murfreesboro, Nashville, Nolensville and Spring Hill/Columbia, Tenn. In 2014, the company sold five facilities for $33.6 million. The properties were in Clarksville, Franklin, Gallatin, Hendersonville and Hermitage, Tenn. The TNSSA provides self-storage owners and managers in Tennessee with resources and information on industry-related topics such as business issues, lien laws, property taxes and more. The association also assists in promoting legislative proposals that affect the storage industry. Ashley Dawn, left, manager for A+ Storage in Mt. Juliet, Tenn., and Stacey Gorman, president of the Tennessee Self Storage Association. In October 2011 a small but loud group of mostly young people stormed Wall Street and social media to declare that they were done with big banks. The campaign gathered steam, as many Millennial movements do, on Facebook, with the creation of a Bank Transfer Day group page that has since garnered more than 50,000 fans. The founder, Kristen Christian, supplied information to followers about the differences between banks and credit unions and urged them to join the latter on November 5, using the hashtag #makeyourmoneymatter. I started this because I felt like many of you do. I was tired tired of the fee increases, tired of not being able to access my money when I need to, tired of [the banks] using what little money I have to oppress my fellow men, Christian said in a post at the time. Me closing my account all on my lonesome wouldnt have made a difference, but each of YOU standing up with me ... they cant drown out the noise well make. The movement did make a lot of noise, buoyed by intense coverage of Occupy Wall Street. Madison, Wisconsinbased trade association Credit Union National Association (CUNA) reported that the average number of new customers more than doubled in the year after the day of action. More than four years later, things are a bit quieter, but the impact can still be felt. The Bank Transfer Day Facebook page regularly posts testimonials and articles about Millennials making the switch, citing a desire for more transparency and community involvement from their financial institutions. We absolutely think there is a threat to banks market share, says Susan Sachatello, senior vice president of direct-to-consumer marketing at CUNA Mutual Group, a credit union insurance firm based in Madison. The idea that credit unions have such a strong association with values that really matter to todays Millennial population has got to be something that makes banks concerned. A generation or two ago, a sense of openness and community might have been the reasons customers loved their bank and, in particular, their favorite teller at that bank. But in the wake of the financial crisis, Occupy Wall Street and the digital revolution, and amid the largely antiWall Street rhetoric of the current presidential election, Millennials just arent feeling the love. In fact, Millennials are five times more likely than other demographic to close their accounts and leave a bank if their needs arent being met, according to credit risk software firm FICO. In its 2015-2016 National Member & Nonmember Survey, CUNA found that 28 percent of consumers ages 18 to 24 now belong to a credit union, up from 22 percent in 2013. The Millennial demographic, which includes people roughly between the ages of 18 through 34, is turning in ever larger numbers to financial alternatives. Credit unions are less focused on the commercial market than are banks, and experts say their advantage may be that they better understand the complex behaviors and needs of Millennials. The credit unions are certainly dangerous because they have proved in the past few years to be very effective at marketing, says Christopher Marinac, director of research and senior managing principal of Atlanta-based broker-dealer FIG Partners. Millennials tend to be incredibly well informed. They do their homework, and they form opinions long before you, as the financial institution, are pitching ideas to them. To really intersect, you have to kind of speak their language and be willing to help them answer the question Why do I need you? Answering that question may take more than a robust digital and mobile presence, which is where many financial institutions have focused their Millennial-luring resources. Credit unions have done this too, but some are going farther to connect with younger customers. Kansas Citybased Mazuma Credit Union has a blog called Mazumafy that focuses on all things Kansas City, not just financial information or news. Mazuma and other credit unions like Oshkosh, Wisconsinbased Verve, a Credit Union also place a major emphasis on volunteering in, and with, their communities. And some are getting Millennials even more directly involved in the process: Elevations Credit Union, which serves Colorados Front Range region, appointed Chipotle Mexican Grill treasury manager Katie Larson, a Millennial, to its board in 2008, and in 2014 she became board chair. Credit unions do pride themselves on being small, however, and the fact is that their current share of financial customers is a tiny fraction of that of banks; U.S. banks hold about 14 times more assets than credit unions, and as of the end of 2014, credit union market share was 6.7 percent, according to research conducted by CUNA. But the small gains being made by credit unions with Millennials and even the younger Generation Z are registering with major institutions, particularly at the local level and among less wealthy young people. Lower-affluent Millennials are incredibly distrustful of financial institutions, so theres a big opportunity for credit unions to play into that, says Maureen Burns, a partner in Bain & Co.s financial services practice in Boston. Those who do have some wealth, however, rely even more heavily on digital capabilities that, Burns says, can be hard for credit unions to provide at a level higher than that of major banks. Multiple industry and independent surveys show that those who do bank with credit unions say they rarely enter a branch and prefer to conduct most business online. More than fragmentation, a bigger threat to the banking industry as a whole may be Millennials tendency to forgo the traditional banker-customer relationship altogether. Insurance brokers, prepare for a new coverage need.Dronesfeared for their seeming dominion over the air and the various security nightmares they causenow have a natural predator (of sorts): the eagle. Both drone operators and enthusiasts might want to consider insurance coverage for their costly flying equipment should this oddball safety measure gimmick actually take off.Dutch security company Guard From Above has been training eagles specifically to snatch drones from mid-air. The company recently released a video demonstrating the avian predators easily grabbing the drones with nary a scratch. Guard From Above partnered with the countrys law enforcement agency to train the birds, with the hope that they would be used for actual, real-life scenarios.UK Met Police has seen the video, and is eager to jump onto the anti-drone eagle bandwagon as well.As efficient as the avian creatures are at taking drones, they are unsurprisingly rough with the equipment, as well."These birds are used to meeting resistance from animals they hunt in the wild, and they don't seem to have much trouble with the drones," said Guard From Above CEO Sjoerd Hoogendoorn.Hoogendoorn additionally noted that eagle talons are strong enough to nab most consumer-grade dronesso powerful, that the birds end up destroying the delicate equipment."The real problem we have is that they destroy a lot of drones," he remarked regarding the eagles during testing. "It's a major cost of testing."Drone enthusiasts, you have been warned. Those whose drones have been mistakenly crushed mid-flight by a bird of prey will wish they had insured their expensive equipment beforehand. Philadelphia Insurance Companies, a commercial property/casualty and professional liability insurance company for niche markets, announced the promotion of two vice presidents to senior vice president. Sam Garro is now senior vice president of Compliance and Patrick Walton assumes the position of senior vice president of Underwriting. Garro joined Philadelphia Insurance in 2012 as vice president of the Compliance Department. He has been responsible for managing the work of the various units in the department including product development, agent licensing, and underwriting audits. The Compliance Department that Garro manages oversees product development, state filing, product/system support, statistical reporting, producer appointments, underwriting audits, DMV reporting, regulatory notice issuance, and product implementation. He also is a liaison for the company in market conduct exams. Garro has worked in the insurance industry for over 27 years and also teaches workshops on behalf of the Insurance Society of Philadelphia. He is currently Mid-Atlantic regional president of the Association of Insurance Compliance Professionals. He also holds the CPCU designation. Walton joined Philadelphia Insurance in 2013 as vice president of Corporate Underwriting. He is responsible for the placement of reinsurance treaties and managing the facultative reinsurance process. He has also directed catastrophe modeling and aggregate management, quarterly property portfolio optimization updates, and the underwriting analysis unit. Walton has spent 30 years in insurance and reinsurance. He began his career as an actuary and has held various insurance and reinsurance underwriting roles with national and global insurance firms. He is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society. In operation since 1962, Philadelphia Insurance Companies designs, markets, and underwrites commercial property/casualty and professional liability insurance products and services for select industries. Philadelphia Insurance Companies is based in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, and has 50 offices across the U.S. Topics Carriers Underwriting Reinsurance U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (DN.Y.) wrote to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) urging the federal agency to expand crop insurance for barley in all counties in New York where production is possible. Currently, 28 out of 62 counties in New York have barley crop insurance. Gillibrand said in her Feb. 16 letter that there are many farmers outside these areas that would benefit from crop insurance for barley. Gillibrand said that since 2011, there has been a 72 percent increase in farm-based breweries, cideries, and distilleries in New York, which has created significant demand for barley and other small grains. In order to sustain this robust industry and improve the viability of our farms and farming communities, it is important that barley and other grains are available. A key to encouraging growers to plant these crops is to ensure that they can manage their risk with appropriate crop protection programs, she said. Topics New York Agribusiness A supplier of frozen specialty foods is facing more than $172,000 in fines after two workers at its Salina, Kan., facility suffered amputations in separate incidents and a third suffered lacerations and burns. The U.S. Department of Labors Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Schwans Global Supply Chain Inc. for three repeated, four serious and one other-than-serious safety violations on Feb. 9. Agency inspectors found Schwans exposed workers to amputation and other serious hazards. The company is a subsidiary of The Schwan Food Company, a multibillion-dollar private company that sells popular frozen food brands in North America, including Red Baron, Tonys and Freschetta frozen pizza and Mrs. Smiths desserts. The inspections that resulted in the citations found: Aug. 11, 2015: A 55-year-old worker was picking up pizza crumbs and crust that had collected around the oven when her work glove was caught in the unguarded conveyor chain and sprocket drive assembly. Surgeons had to amputate her right hand. She was unable to work for 55 days. Sept. 30, 2015: A 49-year-old employee reached into the area of the conveyor to clear a jam of pizza pans. She sustained a laceration, fractures and burns to the palm of left hand. Investigators determined safety guards were not installed on operating parts between the top and bottom conveyors. The machine should have been prevented from operating while unjamming the pizza pans. She was unable to work for 46 days following the injury. Oct. 23, 2015: A 55-year-old employee was walking under a conveyor in the new bakery area, when she reached up to get her balance. As she attempted to stand, her hand inadvertently contacted an unguarded chain and sprocket on the underneath side of a conveyor. As a result, the employees middle finger on her left hand was de-gloved and amputated. During its inspections, the agency also found other safety hazards. These included workers with personal protective equipment that did not properly fit, storage of oxygen cylinders near highly combustible material, and had exit routes that did not meet height and width requirements. The Schwan Food Company has over 13,000 employees with 1,300 of them at the Salina processing facility. Based in Minnesota, the company sells frozen foods through grocery stores, supermarkets and the food-service industry. The company has a limited time to either comply or contest the citations. Source: OSHA The state is trying to make it easier for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to gather data on wastewater disposal wells with a new digital system. Gov. Mary Fallins office announced a research grant from the Oklahoma Energy Resources Board will fund the new system that will establish a standard format for disposal well operators to report their data to the commission. The amount of the grant was not revealed. The grant is also intended to assist the commission with data collection and analysis. The announcement comes the same day the commission asked operators of nearly 250 injection wells in northwest Oklahoma to reduce by 40 percent the amount of wastewater they inject underground in an effort to reduce a recent increase in earthquakes. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Oklahoma A U.S. Army reservist from Tulsa asked to leave a gun range in eastern Oklahoma after identifying himself as a Muslim sued the owners Wednesday, the latest in a series of cases across the nation alleging anti-Islamic discrimination. The lawsuit on behalf of 29-year-old Rajaee Fatihah, an employee with the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, was filed in U.S. District Court in Muskogee against the owners of Save Yourself Survival and Tactical Gun Range in the small town of Oktaha. A sign posted on the business declared the range a Muslim-free establishment, and is similar to signs that have been placed at businesses in Florida, Arkansas, Kentucky and New York, said Brady Henderson, legal director for the Oklahoma chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the suit. Whether the sign in question says no Muslims or whether it says no coloreds or whether it says no women or no Christians or no Buddhists it is just as un-American and fundamentally it is just as wrong, Henderson said. Fatihah, who is a board member with the Muslim advocacy group Council on American-Islamic Relations Oklahoma chapter, said he went to the gun range after learning about the sign. He said the owners of the store were pleasant and welcoming until he told them he was Muslim. At that point, they started treating me with suspicion, Fatihah said. A similar lawsuit was filed by CAIR last year against a gun shop in Florida, but that case was dismissed by a federal judge who determined CAIR could not prove its members were harmed by the stores Muslim-free policy, Henderson said. Robert Muise, with the American Freedom Law Center, represented the Florida gun shop owner and now is working for Chad Neal, the owner of the Oklahoma gun range. Muise said Fatihah was denied service because he was belligerent, not because of his religion, and that the sign declaring the shop a Muslim-free business is protected free speech. The only thing the law prohibits is if somebody denies services strictly on the basis of religion, and that didnt happen here, Muise said. Fatihah denies that he acted belligerently. Claims of discrimination by business owners against Muslims have been reported in numerous states, and formal complaints have been filed with the U.S. Department of Justice regarding incidents in Arkansas, Florida and New Hampshire, said CAIRs national director, Ibrahim Hooper. Its one of those issues thats tied to the overall rise of anti-Muslim bigotry in our society, Hooper said. U.S. Department of Justice spokeswoman Dena Iverson declined to comment Wednesday on the status of the complaints. A report released Wednesday by the civil rights advocacy group the Southern Poverty Law Center suggests that anti-Islamic rhetoric is increasing and becoming more mainstream, particularly after the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California. The group noted an increase in the number of anti-Islamic hate groups from 24 in 2013 to 34 in 2014, and that number likely will increase again once data from 2015 is compiled, said Heidi Beirich, SPLCs intelligence director. My feeling is that anti-Muslim and anti-LGBT sentiment will continue to rise, said Beirich, who blamed politicians for perpetuating the fears Americans have of terrorism and the Islamic State. They point to the fact that there have been attacks by Muslim extremists, and then they foster fear connected to these attacks. Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Lawsuits USA Florida Oklahoma Gun Liability An executive who appeared unsympathetic when he spoke to the public after a chemical spill sullied tap water for 300,000 people in West Virginia was sentenced to one month in federal prison Wednesday. Ex-Freedom Industries President Gary Southern, who told reporters a day after the January 2014 spill that he had had a long day and tried to leave a news conference multiple times, also was fined $20,000 in U.S. District Court. Southern, the last of six ex-Freedom Industries officials to be sentenced on pollution charges, told the court Wednesday that he accepted responsibility for my shortcomings and oversights and that he was not the person that I was painted on television. Southern was a co-founder of Freedom Industries and had direct oversight of the Elk River facility. He was Freedom Industries chief operating officer starting in May 2009, a member of its board from March 2010 to October 2013 and became president when it was sold in December 2013. The following month, a corroded Freedom tank in Charleston leaked thousands of gallons of coal-cleaning chemicals into the water supply for nine counties, spurring a ban on tap water for up to 10 days. Residents immediately cleared store shelves of bottled water, and many restaurants were forced to close or cut back services temporarily. According to an FBI affidavit, officials had been aware of critical deficiencies at the Freedom site for more than a decade, including a cracked containment wall that let chemicals seep down a bank into the Elk River. But improvements to the wall werent made. Four others were sentenced to probation in the criminal case; a fifth also received a one-month prison term. Freedom Industries, which filed for bankruptcy eight days after the spill, was fined $900,000, although Judge Thomas Johnston said the fine was symbolic due to the companys liquidation in the other case. Southern pleaded guilty to three pollution charges and could have been sentenced to up to three years. Prosecutors dropped 12 other counts related to bankruptcy fraud. However, federal prosecutors said Southern should get a more severe punishment than the other defendants because he tried to mislead a bankruptcy court about his role with Freedom to avoid potential financial consequences of the spill. Johnston said in imposing the sentence that he put an emphasis on Southerns missteps in federal bankruptcy court and to send a message to the other Gary Southerns out there to get it right in complying with environmental laws. During a Jan. 10, 2014 news conference, Southern occasionally drank from a bottle of water and said Look guys. It has been an extremely long day. I have trouble talking at the moment. I would appreciate if we could wrap this thing up. The defense team said Southern had pneumonia and had not slept in the days after the spill. Johnston said the news conference was a public relations disaster for Freedom Industries but had nothing to do with the federal court case. The government had seized $7.3 million and a Bentley from Southern and put a lien on his Florida house, but his plea deal enabled him to get those assets back. Johnston granted a defense request to allow Southern to be flown on a friends private jet later Wednesday to his Florida home and to allow Southern to be assigned to a minimum-security facility in Pensacola, Florida. A trial in a federal class-action lawsuit is set for July, pitting affected residents and businesses against West Virginia American Water, its parent company and chemical manufacturer Eastman Chemical. In a related proposed settlement, Southern would pay $350,000. Karan Ireland, a Charleston City Council member, asked the court for the maximum-possible punishment for Southern and was disappointed by the sentence. At the same time, I have to respect the rule of law, Ireland said. I have to believe in our judicial system. I have to believe in democracy. I dont think its a waste of time. Maybe well see justice through the civil proceedings. Related: Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Topics Florida Pollution Virginia Chemicals The Florida Division of Insurance Fraud (DIF), which operates under the direction of Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater, announced the arrest of William David Rodeffer III of Folkston, Ga. Rodeffer allegedly accepted insurance premium payments from two clients for insurance policies that were never purchased. Nearly $40,000 in premium payments was paid to Rodeffer on these two policies, one of which was for workers compensation insurance. In total, nearly $70,000 in financial losses were allegedly caused by Rodeffer. Once licensed as an insurance agent in Georgia, Rodeffer was working with an agent in Georgia but moved to Yulee, Fla., when they opened a second office there. He applied for a license in Florida but was denied because of his criminal history, meaning he was not qualified to transact insurance business in Florida. DIFs investigation revealed that for nearly three years, Rodeffer allegedly continued to illegally sell insurance policies in Florida despite his denied application for licensure. It was during this time that he repeatedly accepted premium payments from two clients for policies he never purchased, meaning that customers never had coverage, DIF said. One of the clients, a 91 year-old Floridian, thought he purchased a workers compensation policy from Rodeffer. DIF said it wasnt until one of the workers under the policy was injured and filed a claim against the policy sold by Rodeffer that it was realized the policy never existed. DIF reported at least 10 premium payments were made only to find out that all those payments were kept by Rodeffer leaving the 91 year-old without workers compensation coverage and $30,000 in medical bills to cover. The second client, American Legion Post 283, was led to believe they held general liability property insurance coverage after providing multiple premium payments to Rodeffer. DIFs investigation went on to show that Rodeffer failed to obtain insurance coverage for them as well. Rodeffer is currently awaiting trial in Georgia for similar charges and had previously been charged in 2014 by the Nassau County Sheriffs Office for a separate but similar offense. DIF said its investigators believe strongly that other victims specifically senior citizens remain in Florida. DIF asks that anyone who may have conducted insurance-related business with Rodeffer, or knows any who has, to contact them. Rodeffer was booked on Feb. 9, 2016 into the Duval County Pre-Trial Detention Center with a bond of $200,024. He has been charged with one count of grand theft from a person 65 years of age or older, grand theft, scheme to defraud, and five counts of conducting insurance related business while being unlicensed. This case will be prosecuted by the Office of State Attorney Joe Licandro of the 4th Judicial Circuit and if convicted, Rodeffer faces up to 60 years in prison. Source: Florida Department of Financial Services Topics Florida Agencies Workers' Compensation Fraud Georgia San Diego, CA, February 19, 2016- Insurance Journal TV offers exclusive new video segments from Patricia Henrys interview with Carrier Management. A property/casualty insurance organization as big as Chubb has a lot of territory to cover when it comes to staying abreast of regulatory changes, new legislation, court rulings and other government developments around the world. In this interview with Carrier Management at the Property/Casualty Insurance Joint Industry Forum, Patricia Henry, Executive Vice President of Global Government Affairs, describes how her team gets it all done. https://www.insurancejournal.tv/videos/13246/ An international capital standard proposed by the IAIS is misguided and impractical, Chubbs Executive Vice President of Global Government Affairs, Patricia Henry, wrote in an article she co-authored with Chief Risk Officer Sean Ringsted for Carrier Management last year. In the eight months that followed, nothing has changed, she said during this interview at the Property/Casualty Insurance Joint Industry Forum in January. https://www.insurancejournal.tv/videos/13248/ News in late November that the U.S. Treasury and U.S. Trade Representative planned to negotiate a covered agreement on insurance with the European Union was music to the ears of Patricia Henry, Executive Vice President of Global Government Affairs for Chubb. In this interview with Carrier Management in January, she explained the key benefits for global insurers. https://www.insurancejournal.tv/videos/13252/ You can find more videos and podcasts from P/C Carrier Executives on the Carrier Management Channel on insurancejournal.tv. Topics Legislation Property Casualty Chubb (Bloomberg) -- Allianz SE, AXA SA and Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Holdings Inc. made final bids for the rights to distribute their general insurance products through CIMB Group Holdings Bhd.s branches across Asia, people with knowledge of the matter said. CIMB could fetch about $200 million from the deal, according to the people, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. The so-called bancassurance agreement will allow an insurer to distribute products through CIMB outlets for more than 10 years, two of the people said. Malaysias second-largest lender by assets has been cutting jobs to reduce costs amid a downturn in the regional business. An agreement would follow the $4.4 billion of insurance acquisitions in Malaysia over the past five years, including AIA Group Ltd.s $1.7 billion purchase of ING Groep NVs local business in 2012, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Manulife Financial Corp., Canadas largest life insurer, said in August last year it will pay S$1.6 billion ($1.1 billion) to DBS Group Holdings Ltd. to sell its insurance products in Asia for 15 years. AIA Group Ltd. agreed in 2013 to distribute its products through Citigroup Inc. branches in 11 territories from Hong Kong to Australia for 15 years. CIMB has more than 1,000 retail branches in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Cambodia, according to its website. Representatives for CIMB, Allianz, AXA and Sompo declined to comment. AXA, Frances largest insurer, has been selling assets in some developed markets and investing in faster-growing nations from China to Nigeria. Sompo, Japans third-largest general insurer, partners with Berjaya Group Bhd. to offer general insurance in Malaysia through 22 offices, its website shows. Munich-based Allianz signed a 10-year bancassurance agreement with CIMB in 2007, the year its local unit relisted on the Malaysian stock exchange. Europes biggest insurer by market value said in November it aims to generate an additional 6.5 billion euros ($7.2 billion) in annual premiums and wants to achieve annual earnings per share growth of 5 percent on average from 2016 to 2018. Get a snapshot of who we are, what were up to, and how were contributing to the global conversation about brands, trademarks, and other intellectual property. Our leadership and our membership network can help navigate, and speak to, the significant issues, trends, and legal developments impacting the profession and consumers. For media inquiries, interviews, and press passes to events: JC Darne Director, Communications & Research 212-642-1774 [email protected] Se il Coronavirus ha messo in ginocchio Paesi come Cina, Stati Uniti e Italia, quali effetti potra avere su quei Paesi dove il sistema sanitario e sempre in difficolta e dove lindigenza, la poverta, lo sfruttamento sono i protagonisti? Il rischio dei bambini in Nigeria In Nigeria la pandemia di Covid-19 rischia di trasformarsi in una grave crisi dei diritti dei bambini, dal momento che centinaia di migliaia di minori vulnerabili potrebbero essere esposti a una pericolosa combinazione di estrema poverta, malnutrizione e fame a causa del virus. Save the Children, lorganizzazione che da oltre cento anni lotta per salvare i bambini e garantire loro un futuro, teme che limpatto socioeconomico della pandemia spingera molte famiglie povere a fare di tutto per sopravvivere, distruggendo le speranze di una generazione di bambini, che potrebbero essere maggiormente a rischio di lavoro minorile, sfruttamento sessuale o matrimoni precoci per aiutare a sfamare le proprie famiglie. Save the Children esorta le autorita nigeriane ad aumentare le misure di protezione sociale come la fornitura di denaro e lassistenza alimentare per i bambini e le famiglie piu vulnerabili, per mitigare urgentemente limpatto della pandemia di Covid-19 nel Paese. Le parole del direttore di Save The Children Mentre il numero di casi positivi sale in Nigeria a 782 e il virus si sta diffondendo in diversi Stati, stiamo lavorando duramente per ridurre gli effetti negativi che tutto questo avra sui bambini piu vulnerabili, specialmente nelle comunita piu fragili. I minori sono gravemente colpiti e senza la protezione che necessitano qualora i genitori e gli operatori sanitari risultino infettati dal virus e portati via per le cure. Stiamo lavorando a stretto contatto con il governo per sostenere gli sforzi per contenere il virus e mantenere i bambini al sicuro e protetti durante la pandemia, ha dichiarato Mercy Gichuhi, direttore di Save the Children International Nigeria. Il commento del presidente del Parlamento dei bambini dello Stato di Katsina. Il coronavirus sta minacciando il nostro diritto alla partecipazione, alla protezione, alleducazione e alla vita sana. Temo un possibile aumento degli abusi sui minori poiche i bambini delle famiglie povere potrebbero rivolgersi ai ricchi della comunita col rischio di essere sfruttati emotivamente, fisicamente o sessualmente, in cambio di cibo e supporto finanziario. Ce chi si approfitta delle famiglie povere e della pandemia. Questo puo avere un impatto molto negativo e a lungo termine sui minori, ha detto Ibrahim Maharazu, presidente del Parlamento dei bambini dello Stato di Katsina. Lappello di Save the Children Save the Children lavorera con tutte le parti interessate per garantire servizi di protezione sociale piu accessibili per le persone vulnerabili, anche attraverso il potenziamento e la riforma dei programmi di protezione e di sussistenza esistenti. LOrganizzazione esorta il governo a fornire cure e protezione adeguate a tutti i bambini, soprattutto a coloro che sono rimasti orfani o soli perche chi si occupa di loro e in ospedale a causa del virus. Attraverso i programmi per assicurare una rete di sicurezza sociale, il governo dovrebbe anche fornire un reddito immediato e mezzi di sussistenza alle famiglie vulnerabili, per ridurre il rischio che la disperazione li induca a mettere a rischio i minori, in particolare le ragazze. Dobbiamo agire subito e aumentare rapidamente il sostegno ai bambini, che vivono in comunita fragili e il cui reddito familiare e insicuro. E necessaria una maggiore protezione per i minori, in particolare per le ragazze, i bambini sfollati e gli altri gruppi vulnerabili. I nostri sforzi collettivi e le azioni sostenibili nel rispondere alla pandemia dovrebbero garantire che nessun bambino venga lasciato indietro, vulnerabile o non protetto, ha aggiunto Mercy Gichuhi. Le protezioni individuali, listruzione. Difendere il futuro dei bambini Save the Children sta acquistando materiali come dispositivi di protezione individuale (DPI) e prevenzione e controllo delle infezioni (IPC) che verranno donati alle agenzie governative competenti che coordinano la risposta COVID nel Paese. Inoltre, e in corso ladattamento dei programmi esistenti di Save the Children, al fine di rispondere allepidemia di coronavirus attraverso la sensibilizzazione delle comunita e lofferta dei dispositivi di protezione e di prevenzione per il controllo delle infezioni. E importante che i bambini e gli altri gruppi marginalizzati non siano esclusi dalle attivita di risposta al Covid-19. Dovrebbero essere tenuti al sicuro ma anche consultati in merito alle adeguate misure relative allistruzione e alla protezione da mettere in atto, ha affermato Maryam Ahmed, ambasciatrice della gioventu di Save the Children International Nigeria. Save the Children, che lavora in Nigeria dal 2001 ed e attualmente presente in 12 Stati, apprezza gli sforzi del governo per realizzare diversi programmi di sensibilizzazione per educare la comunita riguardo al coronavirus e alle misure preventive, ma fa appello a tutte le parti del governo, sia a livello nazionale che locale, affinche garantiscano che le voci dei bambini siano ascoltate e che siano al centro dei piani di preparazione, risposta, prevenzione e controllo del coronavirus. La situazione illustrata da un ragazzo di 14 anni Il Covid-19 e un disastro. Ha influenzato il nostro modo di vivere e interrotto la nostra routine, inclusa la frequenza scolastica e la regolarita delle entrate. Conosco bambini i cui genitori sono piccoli commercianti che in questi giorni hanno difficolta a procurarsi il cibo. Potrebbero non essere in grado di permettersi nemmeno un pasto al giorno. Queste famiglie vivono alla giornata, non hanno scorte di cibo o risparmi su cui contare. Pertanto, il governo deve fornire assistenza finanziaria o prodotti alimentari sufficienti, che possano raggiungere le persone nellimmediato. Questo potrebbe ridurre il rischio di sfruttamento, violenza domestica e abusi sui bambini, in particolare sulle ragazze , ha detto Purezza Oriaifo, 14 anni. Impact investing and venture philanthropy might sound like the same thing, but they have several differences. For one thing, venture philanthropy has been around for much longer. The phrase was coined by John D. Rockefeller III in 1969. His idea of venture philanthropy was said to be an "adventurous approach to funding unpopular social causes. Venture philanthropy peaked in popularity in the mid-to-late 1990s. Impact investing emerged as an "ethical" investment strategy in 2007 when the phrase was coined at the Rockefeller Foundation. At the time, impact investing was defined as mobilizing large pools of private capital from new sources to address the worlds most critical problems. Venture philanthropy specifically focuses on social causes, while impact investing has a broader remit of social and environmental causes. Both generally aim for a financial return while having a positive impact on the world, but not all investments yield a financial return. Impact Investing Impact investing, with the dual goal of making a profit and creating positive social or environmental improvements, can take place in developed or emerging markets. In emerging economies, microfinance projects are popular, but impact investing also funds improving employment and education opportunities, supporting sustainable agriculture, making healthcare or housing affordable, and developing clean technology. This is often accomplished through private equity, debt, or fixed-income securities. Many large corporationsincluding Apple Inc. (AAPL), Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA), General Electric Co. (GE), and First Solar Inc. (FSLR)have stepped up to the plate to reduce the carbon footprint in their supply chain. When you see that a private or public company is taking this approach, putting some money behind that company is a form of impact investing. You can also start impact investing through a variety of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds. Impact investing is experiencing explosive growth, with assets in the sector growing to $715 billion in 2020. Venture Philanthropy Venture philanthropy is more focused on capital building than general operating expenses, and there is a great deal of grantee involvement to help drive innovation. There is also plenty of emphasis on performance measurement, with improving systems and sectors as the primary goal (as opposed to promoting individual organizations and funding individual projects). The engagement period for venture philanthropy is a minimum of three years and an average of five to seven years. Most venture philanthropy investments transact through a foundation or a private equity firm. With impact investing, there is no time frame. Its more of an as long as it takes approach. The Bottom Line With impact investing, the investor is looking to make a profit while also having a positive impact on the world's social or environmental concerns. With venture philanthropy, the goal is usually (but not always) to make a profit while making a positive social impact on the world. What Is Condemnation? The term condemnation refers to the legal acquisition of property by a local government or other private entities. A municipality often condemns a piece of property, such as a home or commercial building, either temporarily or permanently because it may be deemed unsafe or hazardous. A structure can also be condemned for acquisition under the legal doctrine of eminent domain. Owners have legal recourse to challenge the condemnation of their property or may receive fair market value (FMV) if they accept the terms. Key Takeaways Condemnation is the process a government or private entity uses to legally acquire property. Condemnation may be used to enforce housing and safety codes for abandoned or dilapidated properties. Authorities can condemn properties through eminent domain to seize property from their owners. Eminent domain allows a property to be seized for public use such as highways, railways, airports, powerlines, and pipelines. Owners may comply with condemnation orders or fight them in court. Understanding Condemnation Condemnation is a real estate term that involves the process of legally acquiring a piece of property. This procedure can be executed by local governments and private entities. As noted above, the process aims to satisfy a specific need, such as a safety or health concern or another (public) purpose. The process can be temporary until the conditions are addressed and improved. In other cases, they may be permanent, which means owners risk losing their properties under eminent domain. This happens when the government takes ownership or transfers ownership to a third party, followed by demolition and reconstruction. Orders to condemn buildings are executed by local authorities if structures are deemed unsafe for residents and may pose a threat to surrounding structures. Others may be condemned if they are a nuisance to the area, such as those that are abandoned, dilapidated, or otherwise poorly maintained. Whether they are occupied or vacant, these buildings cannot be inhabited. Owners who receive condemnation orders have two different options available to them. Those who receive orders because of health and safety reasons must remedy the situation to bring their properties up to date. Others who don't agree (with a health and safety order or an eminent domain claim), may fight it with legal action. 1875 The year that the first eminent domain caseKohl v. United Stateswas heard by the Supreme Court. Types of Condemnation The two most common situations where a government condemns a property are when its condition makes it unsafe for use or occupancy or when the government intends to take the property to convert it to some legitimate public use in a process known as eminent domain. Dilapidated or Unsafe Buildings Dilapidated or unsafe buildings are often subject to condemnation to prevent harm to occupants or neighboring structures. Local, state, and federal housing codes and safety standards may apply to any given building, and if the condition of the building violates these then the property may be subject to condemnation. This can occur due to deterioration of a property over time, or in the wake of a specific event that damages the property such as a fire, earthquake, or chemical spill. If renovations are made or the damages are repaired, the order may be lifted. But in some cases, renovations may lead to condemnation if they trigger inspections that uncover other unsafe conditions or violations, which may not have been in effect at the time of the original construction. It is important that property owners don't ignore condemnation orders as problems and costs can add up by avoiding them. Owners can rectify the situation and have orders removed by making the necessary repairs or, in extreme cases, by demolishing the property. Those who don't agree with the orders may consult a lawyer to determine their options. Eminent Domain The U.S. federal and state governments have the right of eminent domain, which allows them to condemn property and transfer the title from private to public ownership or to a private third party. The condemning authority must provide a notice of seizure and just compensation. The seizure must carry out the process for a public purpose. Authorities must appraise the property before they execute a seizure, then pay a pro tanto award, which the owner can accept without losing the right to sue. The condemning entity must provide timely notification throughout the process and issue a copy of the appraisal. Pro tanto payments are often small compared to the amount the courts ultimately award owners of the condemned property so if the property owner believes the amount offered inadequately reflects the value, they can pursue the matter in court. Condemned property owners can also challenge the legality of the seizure itself and sue for the right to keep the property as long as they can prove that the seizure is not in the public interest. These matters are generally heard by a special commissioner. If they don't agree, the property owner can challenge the commissioner's ruling. However, the condemnor can issue payment based on the commissioner's decision. As the appeal proceeds in the court, the condemnor will have the right to access the property and move forward with their project. Not all condemned property is real estate, however. Funds have been subject to eminent domain, and some legal scholars argue that governments could even seize intellectual property through condemnation. Examples of Condemnation As noted above, local officials may condemn property if it poses a threat to others. For instance, local authorities may issue a condemnation order to the owner of a rental property that has a known rodent infestation. This can pose a serious health and safety hazard to new and existing tenants. In order to remove the order, the landlord must rid the property of the rodents and ensure it is inhabitable. The most straightforward examples of condemnation via eminent domain involve land and buildings, which governments may seize to make way for a public project, such as a highway or private projects that are believed to serve the public good. For instance, a municipal government may consider building a hotel to attract business and generate tax revenue. Powerline and pipeline projects are also good examples that involve condemnation. The government gains an easement, which grants them nonpossessory rights to install and maintain the pipelines or powerlines on your property. An agreement is executed via a deed with the original property owner, who retains ownership. What Is an Example of Condemnation? If an old building has been found to be dangerousfor instance, it is at risk of collapsingit can be condemned by local authorities as it poses a threat to the public. As such, the premises will be legally off-limits and would pass into the possession of the government. Is Condemnation the Same As Eminent Domain? While the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably, there is a subtle difference. Eminent domain grants a government the right to take over a property. condemnation is the actual act of taking it over. What Is Inverse Condemnation in Real Estate? Inverse, or reverse condemnation occurs when a government takes over a property via eminent domain but then fails to fairly compensate the property owner. Here, the property owner must invoke inverse condemnation to sue the government to either return the property or become fairly compensated for its possession. Who Is Allowed to Condemn Property? A government (federal, state, or local/municipal) has the legal right to condemn a property under U.S. law. This power can also be delegated by these governments to various agencies or to private parties to act on the government's behalf. A public utility, for instance, is often delegated the ability to condemn a property in order to build out public infrastructure. 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. China has steadily accumulated U.S. Treasury securities over the last few decades. As of Q3 2022, the Asian nation owns nearly $1 trillion, or about 3.2%, of the $31.1 trillion U.S. national debt at the time. That was more than any other foreign country except Japan. U.S. debt to China comes mainly in the form of U.S. Treasury securities (bonds issued by the federal government). Some analysts and investors fear China could dump these Treasuries in retaliation and that this weaponization of its holdings would send interest rates higher, potentially hurting economic growth. This article discusses the business behind the continuous Chinese buying of U.S. debt. Key Takeaways China invests heavily in U.S. Treasury bonds to keep its export prices lower. China focuses on export-led growth to help generate jobs. To keep its export prices low, China must keep its currencythe renminbi (RMB)low compared to the U.S. dollar. U.S. debt to China comes in the form of U.S. Treasuries, largely due to their safety and stability. Although there are worries about China selling off U.S. debt, which would hamper economic growth, doing so in large amounts poses risks for China as well, making it unlikely to happen. Chinese Economics China is primarily a manufacturing hub and an export-driven economy. Trade data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that China has been running a big trade surplus with the U.S. since 1985. This means that China sells more goods and services to the U.S. than the U.S. sells to China. Chinese exporters receive U.S. dollars (USD) for their goods sold to the U.S., but they need renminbi (RMB or yuan) to pay their workers and store money locally. They sell the dollars they receive through exports to get RMB, which increases the USD supply and raises the demand for RMB. China's central bank, the Peoples Bank of China (PBOC), carried out active interventions to prevent this imbalance between the U.S. dollar and yuan in local markets. It buys the available excess U.S. dollars from the exporters and gives them the required yuan. The PBOC can print yuan as needed. Effectively, this intervention by the PBOC creates a scarcity of U.S. dollars, which keeps the USD rates higher. China hence accumulates USD as forex reserves. Self-Correcting Currency Flow International trading which involves two currencies has a self-correcting mechanism. Assume Australia is running a current account deficit (i.e., Australia is importing more than it is exporting, as in scenario 1). The other countries which are sending goods to Australia are getting paid Australian dollars (AUD), so there is a huge supply of AUD in the international market, leading the AUD to depreciate in value against other currencies. However, this decline in AUD will make Australian exports cheaper and imports costlier. Gradually, Australia will start exporting more and importing less, due to its lower-valued currency. This will ultimately reverse the initial scenario (scenario 1 above). This is the self-correcting mechanism that occurs in the international trade and forex markets regularly, with little or no intervention from any authority. China's Need for a Weak Renminbi Chinas strategy is to maintain export-led growth, which aids in generating jobs and enables it, through such continued growth, to keep its large population productively engaged. Since this strategy is dependent on exports (18% of which went to the U.S. in 2021), China requires RMB in order to continue to have a lower currency than the USD, and thus offer cheaper prices. If the PBOC stops interferingin the previously described mannerthe RMB would self-correct and appreciate in value, thus making Chinese exports costlier. It would lead to a major crisis of unemployment due to the loss of export business. China wants to keep its goods competitive in the international markets, and that cannot happen if the RMB appreciates. It thus keeps the RMB low compared to the USD using the mechanism that's been described. However, this leads to a huge pileup of USD as forex reserves for China. PBOC Strategy and Chinese Inflation Though other labor-intensive, export-driven countries such as India carry out similar measures, they do so only to a limited extent. One of the major challenges resulting from the approach that's been outlined is that it leads to high inflation. China has tight, state-dominated control over its economy and is able to manage inflation through other measures like subsidies and price controls. Other countries dont have such a high level of control and have to give in to the market pressures of a free or partially free economy. China's Use of USD Reserves China has approximately $3 trillion in total foreign exchange reserves as of Q3 2022. Like the U.S., it also exports to other regions like Europe. The euro forms the second biggest tranche of Chinese forex reserves. China needs to invest in such huge stockpiles to earn at least the risk-free rate. With trillions of U.S. dollars, China has found the U.S. Treasury securities to offer the safest investment destination for Chinese forex reserves. With euro stockpiles, China can consider investing in European debt. Possibly, even U.S. dollar stockpiles can be invested to obtain comparatively better returns from euro debt. However, China acknowledges that the stability and safety of investment take priority over everything else. Though the Eurozone has been in existence for about two decades now, it still remains unstable. It is not even certain whether the Eurozone (and Euro) will continue to exist in the mid-to-long term. An asset swap (U.S. debt to Euro debt) is thus not recommended, especially in cases where the other asset is considered riskier. Other asset classes like real estate, stocks, and other countries' treasuries are far riskier compared to U.S. debt. Forex reserve money is not spare cash to be gambled away in risky securities for want of higher returns. Another option for China is to use the dollars elsewhere. For example, the dollars can be used to pay Middle East countries for oil supplies. However, those countries too will need to invest the dollars they receive. Effectively, owing to the acceptance of the dollar as the international trade currency, any dollar supply eventually resides in the forex reserve of a nation, or in the safest investmentU.S. Treasury securities. U.S. Debt to China and the Trade Deficit One more reason for China to continuously buy U.S. Treasuries is the gigantic size of the U.S. trade deficit with China. The monthly deficit is around $37 billion, and with that large amount of money involved, Treasuries are probably the best available option for China. Buying U.S. Treasuries enhances China's money supply and creditworthiness. Selling or swapping such Treasuries would reverse these advantages. Impact of China Buying U.S. Debt U.S. debt offers the safest heaven for Chinese forex reserves, which effectively means that China offers loans to the U.S. so that the U.S. can keep buying the goods China produces. Hence, as long as China continues to have an export-driven economy with a huge trade surplus with the U.S., it will keep piling up U.S. dollars and U.S. debt. Chinese loans to the U.S., through the purchase of U.S. debt, enable the U.S. to buy Chinese products. Its a win-win situation for both nations, with both benefiting mutually. China gets a huge market for its products, and the U.S. benefits from the economical prices of Chinese goods. Beyond their well-known political rivalry, both nations (willingly or unwillingly) are locked in a state of inter-dependency from which both benefit, and which is likely to continue. The U.S. national debt as of October, 2022, stands at over $31.1 trillion. USD as a Reserve Currency Effectively, China is buying the present-day reserve currency. Until the 19th century, gold was the global standard for reserves. It was replaced by the British pound sterling. Today, U.S. Treasuries are considered virtually the safest. Apart from the long history of the use of gold by multiple nations, history also provides instances where many countries had huge reserves of pounds sterling (GBP) in the post-World War II era. These countries did not intend to spend their GBP reserves or to invest in the U.K. but were retaining the pounds sterling purely as safe reserves. When those reserves were sold off, however, the U.K. faced a currency crisis. Its economy deteriorated due to the excess supply of its currency, leading to high-interest rates. Will the same happen to the U.S. if China decides to offload its U.S. debt holdings? It's worth noting that the prevailing economic system after the WW-II era required the U.K. to maintain a fixed exchange rate. Due to those restraints and the absence of a flexible exchange rate system, the selling off of the GBP reserves by other countries caused severe economic consequences for the U.K. Since the U.S. dollar has a variable exchange rate, however, any sale by any nation holding huge U.S. debt or dollar reserves will trigger the adjustment of the trade balance at the international level. The offloaded U.S. reserves by China will either end up with another nation or will return back to the U.S. Repercussions The repercussions for China of such an offloading would be worse. An excess supply of U.S. dollars would lead to a decline in USD rates, making RMB valuations higher. It would increase the cost of Chinese products, making them lose their competitive price advantage. China may not be willing to do that, as it makes little economic sense. If China (or any other nation having a trade surplus with the U.S.) stops buying U.S. Treasuries or even starts dumping its U.S. forex reserves, its trade surplus would become a trade deficitsomething which no export-oriented economy would want, as they would be worse off as a result. The ongoing worries about China's increased holding of U.S. Treasuries or the fear of Beijing dumping them are uncalled for. Even if such a thing were to happen, the dollars and debt securities would not vanish. They would reach other vaults. U.S. Debt to China: Risk Perspective for America Although this ongoing activity has led to China becoming a creditor to the U.S., the situation for the U.S. may not be that bad. Considering the consequences that China would suffer from selling off its U.S. reserves, China (or any other nation) will likely refrain from such actions. Even if China were to proceed with the selling of these reserves, the U.S., being a free economy, can print any amount of dollars as needed. It can also take other measures like quantitative easing (QE). Although printing dollars would reduce the value of its currency, thereby increasing inflation, it would actually work in favor of U.S. debt. Real repayment value will fall proportionately to inflationsomething good for the debtor (U.S.), but bad for the creditor (China). Although the U.S. budget deficit has been rising, the risk of the U.S. defaulting on its debt practically remains nil (unless a political decision to do so is made). Effectively, the U.S. may not need China to continuously purchase its debt; rather China needs the U.S. more, to ensure its continued economic prosperity. U.S. Debt to China: Risk Perspective for China China, on the other hand, needs to be concerned about loaning money to a nation that also has the limitless authority to print it in any amount. High inflation in the U.S. would have adverse effects on China, as the real repayment value to China would be reduced in the case of high inflation in the U.S. Willingly or unwillingly, China will have to continue to purchase U.S. debt to ensure price competitiveness for its exports at the international level. Is China Increasing or Decreasing Its U.S. Treasuries Holdings? China's holdings of U.S. Treasuries peaked between 2012-2013, with a value of over $1.3 trillion. Since then, its size has been slowly declining. It dipped below $1 trillion in mid-2022 for the first time since 2010. As of Q3 2022, it stands just below $1 trillion at around $980 billion. Is China the Largest Foreign Holder of U.S. Debt? No, China is currently the second-largest holder of U.S. Treasuries, behind Japan (which holds around $1.2 trillion as of Q3 2022). Why Does China Buy U.S. Treasuries? There are several good reasons that China buys U.S. Treasuries. First, Treasuries are among the world's safest assets, making them secure and stable. Second, the U.S. dollar remains the world's reserve currency in international trade, so it allows the Chinese central bank to effectively hold dollar-denominated assets. China pegs its currency to the dollar, so it needs such assets as a way to maintain the peg. Most importantly, though, is that China receives a surplus of U.S. dollars due to the trade imbalance between the two countries, where China exports more to the U.S. than imports. But, Chinese companies and their workers need to be paid in local currency, the yuan (or renminbi). As a result, the Chinese banking system must convert dollars with the central bank, which must then do something with them. The central bank then uses those dollars to purchase Treasuries, which earn a stable return. What Would Happen If China Sold All of Its Treasuries? First, it is unlikely that China would sell its U.S. Treasuries all at once, because this would be economically painful for China and leave it holding dollars that it would need to spend or invest elsewhere. The most immediate effect would be an increase in interest rates on Treasuries, since selling so many at once would artificially depress their prices in the bond market - thus increasing their yields. If the Fed were not to react at all to such an event, it is estimated that it would increase long-term Treasury yields by 30 to 60 basis points. The Bottom Line Geopolitical realities and economic dependencies often lead to interesting situations in the global arena. China's continuous purchase of U.S. debt is one such interesting scenario. It continues to raise concerns about the U.S. becoming a net debtor nation, susceptible to the demands of a creditor nation. The reality, however, is not as bleak as it may seem, for this type of economic arrangement is actually a win-win for both nations. The television industry is in flux, and cable and satellite companies like DirecTV (DTV) and Comcast (CMCSA) have been struggling to keep up. (For more, read: DirecTV's 3 Biggest Risks.) As more people seek out entertainment content online, binge-watch shows on Netflix (NLFX) and stream content via their mobile devices, the DirecTV business model could become a thing of the past. Whats Working After the FCC approved AT&Ts (T) $48.5 billion acquisition of DirecTV, the telecom company became the largest provider of TV subscriptions in the U.S., dethroning former first-place Comcast. The company reported nearly 47 million video connections through DirectTV, DirectTV Now & U-verse in Q1 2018. AT&T and DirecTV now package phone service with satellite TV and internet service, offering customers the ability to consolidate their cable, phone and internet bills into one, enticed by special rates or discounts. Yet DirecTV faces tough competition from direct-to-consumer streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon (AMZN). DirecTVs ad campaigns portrayed the company as the cool alternative to competitors like Comcast or Dish Network (DISH), and its NFL Sunday Ticket package, which broadcasts regular season NFL games that the public can't watch on local affiliates, remains particularly popular. However, DirecTV and the NFL have been the target of several class action lawsuits over the licensing of out-of-market games. If DirecTV cant hold onto its Sunday Ticket package, it could lose one of its main selling points, making it even more vulnerable to streaming services like Netflix. Challenges Though the company merged with AT&T in 2015, DirecTV faces serious challenges ahead. The television industry is in the midst of a revolution, with "cord cutters" increasingly turning to streaming services for their entertainment. Cost is becoming a huge factor. With cable and internet bundling, households can pay over $100 a month for the services. Meanwhile Netflix charges less than $15 per month. Granted, Netflix isnt showing NFL games, but as more millennials become heads of households, DirecTVs business model may seem expensive and antiquated. After companies reported their 2017 fourth quarter results, Fortune estimated that the total number of paying TV subscribers dropped 3.4% from one year earlier. This signaled the highest rate of decline since the trend of cord cutting began in 2010. With almost 500,000 customers leaving in just the fourth quarter, about 83 million households are still subscribed. In the same article, Fortune reported estimates that approximately 13.5 million households do not currently pay for traditional forms of TV service. They also reported that 79% of households paid for traditional cable or satellite service in last year's annual survey by the Leichtman Research Group, which is down from 84% just three years earlier. The amount of households paying for traditional cable or satellite service peaked at 88% in 2010. With more consumers experimenting with an ever-increasing number of alternative options like Sling TV, Sony PlayStation Vue and HBO Now, the traditional pay-TV business model is getting left in the dust. Consumers used to consider their cable bill to be a utility cost for a service they couldn't do without. But the Netflix business model allows users to view what they want, when they want, and for relatively little money. An entire generation is getting used to that model. Netflix shares are jumping to all-time highs, while major media company stocks are on the decline. Price Hikes In June 2018, Dish network announced a $5 monthly price hike for Sling TV Orange, which remains the cheapest way to get ESPN without cable. The new price of $25 per month will apply to new subscribers immediately, and to existing ones in August. A few days after Dish's price hike, AT&T announced a $5 monthly price hike for all DirecTV Now plans from July 26 onward, raising the base monthly price to $40 for all subscribers. Cord Cutters News was the first to report the hike. All multi-channel PlayStation Vue plan prices will also increase by $5 monthly for new subscribers starting July 24, and for current subscribers after July 31, raising the base price to $45 per month, announced the company on PlayStation.Blog. The Bottom Line So DirectTV will need more than Rob Lowe commercials touting it as the cool satellite TV provider if they want to keep up with their growing and diversifying competition. The company's merger with AT&T greatly expanded its customer base and its NFL Sunday Ticket package remains a big selling point for many consumers. Still, given the apparently unstoppable rise of online streaming services and with more cord-cutting happening in homes across the country, DirecTV might need take a page out of Netflixs book in order to keep up with changing times. Oil inventories provide insight into the balance of supply and demand in the oil market, and of course influence oil prices. The relationship between supply and demand is one of the fundamental concepts of economics, and it is no more clear than comparing how the ebb and flow of crude oil inventories affect the commodity market. Key Takeaways Like most commodities, the more supply that exists, the lower its price in the market given the same level of demand. Excess oil supply is maintained in inventories, some of which are kept by governments to hold in reserve. When these amounts go up, prices tend to decline, and vice versa. Oil Inventories and Prices Crude oil prices are dynamic. While it may take time for prices of some products to balance as the market reacts to changes in supply and demand, in the case of oil, the price adjustments can be instantaneous. When oil inventories go up, traders may question the demand for oil at the current price and immediately sell their positions, causing a price retreat. When oil inventories decline, traders can take this as a signal that demand is increasing, and they may buy back into the oil market, bidding up prices. EIA Inventories The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) provides a weekly update on domestic inventories. The weekly inventory report shows how U.S. oil stocks, other than those in the strategic petroleum reserve, have changed in the prior week. This is a major market-driving data piece. Ahead of the inventories report, analysts issue projections on inventory adjustments. If the EIA's reading differs from analysts' estimates, oil prices can react dramatically. The EIA's weekly inventory report also updates total stockpile levels that can be compared to average stockpile readings from prior years. Another crucial component of the EIA's inventory data is the number of oil stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub. Oil is delivered from production areas across the United States, stored in Cushing, then transported to end refining markets. Inventory levels at Cushing reflect the pace at which the U.S. oil supply is moving from inland production areas to end refining markets. An inventory build-up indicates that more oil is being supplied than can be transported away for refining. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil prices, the major North American benchmark, are set in Cushing. Supply Effect on the Economy The oil market is unlikely to ever sit at equilibrium. Oil is a traded commodity, not just a good purchased for end use. Instead of reaching equilibrium, oil supply and demand change rapidly in unison with prices. An increase in supply suggests that sellers are willing to produce more oil at the current price than purchasers demand. In theory, to encourage demand, suppliers should reduce the price and see if more buyers come to market at the lower price point. When supply declines, it means there is ample interest from buyers at that price point. In this situation, there may be room for sellers to increase prices. The Bottom Line Oil inventories provide a crucial observation into one of the fundamentals of the overall market: the level of supply. Simply put, the level of supply influences prices. Oil prices can react immediately following the EIA's weekly inventory report if they differ greatly from analysts' expectations. Total stockpile levels are also crucial because weekly inventory adjustments are taken in the context of the overall stockpile level. If stockpiles are low and there is a huge weekly draw on inventories, prices could see a steep rise. If total stockpiles indicate a well-supplied market and weekly inventories continue to increase, oil prices could experience downside pressure. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have come a long way since the first U.S. fund, Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts, better known as spiders (SPDRs), was launched back in 1993. This first ETF tracks the S&P 500 and its popularity with investors led to the introduction of ETFs based on other benchmark U.S. equity indexes, such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq 100. From their early beginnings as equity-index trackers, ETFs have grown to encompass a huge array of investment choices, but they aren't all equal in quality. In fact, the flip side to the phenomenal growth in ETFs is that it increases the risk that some of them will be liquidated, primarily due to a lack of investor interest. And that makes it all the more important to choose wisely. Key Takeaways As an investor, buying ETFs can be a smart and low-cost strategy to build an optimal portfolio. But, with so many ETFs out there, it can feel overwhelming to select just those that fit your strategy and goals. Luckily, there are several tools out there to help you narrow down the right ETFs and to find the lowest cost, most efficient one for each asset class or index you want to own. 2:19 Click Play to Learn More About ETFs Narrowing a Wide Selection of ETFs The choices in the ETFs space include traditional index ETFs based on U.S. and international equity indexes and subindexes, and others that track benchmark indices in bonds, commodities, and futures. There are ETFs based on investing style (value, growth, or a combination of both) and that focus on market capitalization. You will also find leveraged ETFs that provide multiples in returns (or losses) based on the underlying index's movements, as well as inverse ETFs that rise when the market falls and vice-versa. There are currently more than 2,000 ETFs listed on U.S. exchanges with combined assets exceeding $5.8 trillion. As an investor, the first thing you need to do is narrow down this enormous universe of ETFs and focus on just those that will suit your portfolio and long-term investment strategy. There are many ways to do this, but you can start with an asset screener that will filter out anything you don't wantlike those riskier leveraged or inverse ETFs, perhaps. Even after you've settled on the types of ETFs you want and the general asset classes or indexes that you want to track, you still have some work to do. Competition Among Similar ETFs The ETF market has become intensely competitive. This has generally been positive for investors, as it has driven the fees associated with ETFs down toward zero, making them extremely low-cost and efficient securities. But that can also leave investors confused. If you want an ETF that tracks the S&P 500 index, you can go for the original SPDR (SPY). But there is also a Vanguard S&P 500 ETF, a Schwab S&P 500 ETF, and an iShares S&P 500 ETF. In fact, there are at least a dozen S&P 500 ETFs listed on major U.S. stock exchanges. In a bid to differentiate themselves, some ETF issuers have developed products that are either very specific in focus or are based on an investment trend that may be short lived. An example is the Loncar Cancer Immunotherapy ETF (CNCR). This esoteric ETF tracks the Loncar Cancer Immunotherapy Index and invests in 30 stocks that focus on the research and development of drugs and technology to fight cancer using immunotherapy. As for ETFs that are based on hot investment trends, examples include the recently launched Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF (BOTZ) or the Drone Economy Strategy ETF (IFLY). There's even one called the Obesity ETF (SLIM) that invests in companies in the business of fighting obesity and related diseases. Picking the Right ETF Given the bewildering number of ETF choices that investors now have to contend with, it's important to consider the following factors: Level of Assets : To be considered a viable investment choice, an ETF should have a minimum level of assets, a common threshold being at least $10 million. An ETF with assets below this threshold is likely to have a limited degree of investor interest. As with a stock, limited investor interest translates into poor liquidity and wide spreads. : To be considered a viable investment choice, an ETF should have a minimum level of assets, a common threshold being at least $10 million. An ETF with assets below this threshold is likely to have a limited degree of investor interest. As with a stock, limited investor interest translates into poor liquidity and wide spreads. Trading Activity : An investor needs to check if the ETF that is being considered trades in sufficient volume on a daily basis. Trading volume in the most popular ETFs runs into millions of shares daily. Some ETFs barely trade at all. Trading volume is an excellent indicator of liquidity, regardless of the asset class. Generally speaking, the higher the trading volume for an ETF, the more liquid it is likely to be and the tighter the bid-ask spread. These are especially important considerations when it is time to exit the ETF. : An investor needs to check if the ETF that is being considered trades in sufficient volume on a daily basis. Trading volume in the most popular ETFs runs into millions of shares daily. Some ETFs barely trade at all. Trading volume is an excellent indicator of liquidity, regardless of the asset class. Generally speaking, the higher the trading volume for an ETF, the more liquid it is likely to be and the tighter the bid-ask spread. These are especially important considerations when it is time to exit the ETF. Underlying Index or Asset : Consider the underlying index or asset class on which the ETF is based. From the point of view of diversification, it may be preferable to invest in an ETF that is based on a broad, widely followed index rather than an obscure index that has a narrow industry or geographic focus. : Consider the underlying index or asset class on which the ETF is based. From the point of view of diversification, it may be preferable to invest in an ETF that is based on a broad, widely followed index rather than an obscure index that has a narrow industry or geographic focus. Tracking Error : While most ETFs track their underlying indexes closely, some do not track them as closely as they should. All else being equal, an ETF with minimal tracking error is preferable to one with a greater degree of error. : While most ETFs track their underlying indexes closely, some do not track them as closely as they should. All else being equal, an ETF with minimal tracking error is preferable to one with a greater degree of error. Market Position: The first ETF issuer for a particular sector has a decent probability of garnering the lion's share of assets before others jump on the bandwagon. It is prudent to avoid ETFs that are mere imitations of an original idea, because they may not differentiate themselves from their rivals and attract investors' assets. In Case of ETF Liquidations The closing, or liquidation, of an ETF is usually an orderly process. The ETF issuer will notify investors, generally three to four weeks in advance, about the date when the ETF will stop trading. That said, an investor with a position in an ETF that is being liquidated still has to decide on the best course of action in order to protect the investment. Essentially, the investor has to make one of the following choices: Sell the ETF shares before the "stop trading" date : This is a proactive approach that may be suitable when the investor believes that there is a significant risk of a substantial near-term decline in the fund's price. In such cases, the investor may be willing to overlook the wide bid-ask spreads that are likely to be prevalent for the ETF, due to its limited liquidity. : This is a proactive approach that may be suitable when the investor believes that there is a significant risk of a substantial near-term decline in the fund's price. In such cases, the investor may be willing to overlook the wide bid-ask spreads that are likely to be prevalent for the ETF, due to its limited liquidity. Hold on to the ETF shares until liquidation: This alternative may be suitable if the ETF is invested in a sector that is not volatile and the downside risk is minimal. The investor may have to wait a couple of weeks for the issuer to complete the process of selling the securities held within the ETF and distributing the net proceeds after expenses. Holding on for the liquidated value eliminates the issue of the bid-ask spread. In any case, the investor will have to contend with the tax issue. If the ETF was held in a taxable account, the investor will owe taxes on any capital gains. The Bottom Line When selecting an ETF, investors should consider factors such as its level of assets, trading volume and underlying index. In the event that an ETF is to be liquidated, an investor has to decide whether to sell the ETF shares before it stops trading or wait until the liquidation process is completed, with due consideration given to the tax aspects of the ETF sale. Investopedia does not provide tax, investment, or financial services and advice. The information is presented without consideration of the investment objectives, risk tolerance, or financial circumstances of any specific investor and might not be suitable for all investors. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. It isn't a coincidence that corporate executives seem to always buy and sell at the right times. After all, the CEOs and CFOs of the world have access to every bit of company information you could ever want. However, the fact that company executives have unique insights doesn't mean that individual investors are always left in the dark. Insider trading data is out there for all who want to use it. This article will discuss what insider trading is, how we can understand insider trading, and where to find the relevant data. What Is Insider Trading? There are two types of insider trading: legal and illegal. First, let's talk about the illegal variety. Illegal insider trading is the buying or selling of a security by insiders who possess material that is still not public. The act puts insiders in breach of their fiduciary duty. As you can imagine, illegal insider trading is a definite faux pas for anyone closely involved with a company. Key Takeaways Illegal insider trading occurs when an individual within a company acts on nonpublic information and buys or sells investment securities. Not all buying or selling by insiderssuch as CEOs, CFOs, and other executivesis illegal, and many actions of insiders are disclosed in regulatory filings. Directors and upper management are not the only people that can be convicted of insider trading; anyone with material nonpublic information can be convicted if they used the information to make illegal profits. Large companies can have hundreds of insiders, which can make analyzing their buying and selling more difficult. Anybody who has material and nonpublic information can commit the illegal act of insider trading. This means that nearly anybody, including brokers, family, friends, and employees, can be considered an insider. Insider Trading That Is Illegal The following are examples of illegal insider trading: The CEO of a company sells a stock after discovering that the company will be losing a government contract next month. The CEO's child sells the company stock after hearing from their parent that the company will be losing the government contract. A government official realizes that the company will lose the government contract, so the official sells the stock. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is extremely strict with those who trade unfairly and thereby undermine investor confidence and the integrity of the financial markets. Don't think that those who place the trades are the only guilty ones. If someone is caught "tipping" an outsider with material nonpublic information, that tipster can also be found liable. Insider Trading That Is Legal An important thing to emphasize here is that insiders do not always have their hands tied. Insiders can (and do) buy and sell stock in their own company legally all of the time; their trading is restricted and deemed illegal only at certain times and under certain conditions. A common misconception is that only directors and upper management can be convicted of insider trading. The SEC considers company directors, officials, or any individual with a stake of 10% or more in the company to be corporate insiders. Corporate insiders are required to report their insider transactions within two business days of the date the transaction occurred (before the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the time frame was the tenth day of the following month). For example, if an insider sold 10,000 shares on Monday, June 12, that person must report the transaction by Wednesday, June 14. Changes in insider holdings are sent to the SEC electronically as a Form 4, which details a company's insider trades or loans. A Form 14a, also filed by the company, lists all the directors and officers along with the shared interest that they have. The kind of information found in filings is extremely valuable to individual investors. For example, if insiders are buying shares in their own companies, they might know something that normal investors do not. The insider might buy because they see great potential, the possibility for merger or acquisition in the future, or simply because they think their stock is undervalued. One of the greatest investors of all time, Peter Lynch, was noted as saying that "insiders might sell their shares for any number of reasons, but they buy them for only one: they think the price will rise." Insiders are prevented from buying and selling their company stock within a six-month period; therefore, insiders buy stock when they feel the company will perform well over the long-term. The SEC uses the Dirks Test to determine if an insider gave a tip illegally; the test states that if a tipster breaches their trust with the company and understands that this was a breach, that person is liable for insider trading. Nejat Seyhun, a renowned professor and researcher in the field of insider trading at the University of Michigan and author of the book Investment Intelligence from Insider Trading, found that when executives bought shares in their own companies, the stock tended to outperform the total market. Conversely, when they sold shares, the stock underperformed the market. Where to Find Insider-Trading Data Access to data is definitely one way in which the Internet has revolutionized investing. With the click of a mouse, anyone can find the latest insider-trading statistics for just about any public company. Here are a couple of sites that provide insider-trading data for free: Yahoo! Finance: Look up any quote on Yahoo! Finance and click on "Insiders" for a list of the latest trades. Some insider trading filings don't appear in databases until a month after the fact, but Yahoo! seems to have one of the most current data feeds. SEC EDGAR Database: While not visually appealing, the EDGAR database is where trading data is first sent. To find the filings on the SEC website, you must search for the "central index key" (CIK) for the company. The CIK is used on the SEC's computer systems to identify corporations and individual people who have filed a disclosure with the SEC. Once you have the CIK, you can search for individual filings. The Bottom Line Insider-trading data is nothing new. Investors have been making investment decisions based on the actions of insiders for decades. While the data are important, just remember that large companies might have hundreds of insiders, which means that trying to determine a pattern can be difficult. Continue, as you normally would, to complete your due diligence on a company, but also be aware of what insiders are doing. They probably know more than the rest of us. Entrepreneurship can mean many things, but ultimately, it's about paving your own path. Do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur? In this article, we're going to look at the rise of one of New York's most successful entrepreneurs, Michael Bloomberg, analyze the choices he made on the way to the top, and compare that with expert opinions on achieving entrepreneurial success. Michael Bloomberg first achieved success as a stockbroker, then as a billionaire entrepreneur, then as mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013. In 1981, he co-founded the New York-based financial information and media company, Bloomberg LP. As of May 2022, Bloomberg's net worth was around $82 billion. After putting down the company's seed funding from his own severance package from a job from which he was fired, he has retained an 88% stake in the business, which has a yearly revenue of more than $10 billion. He's also a major philanthropist and has donated more than $12 billion to a variety of causes. He owns multiple homes from New York City to London to Bermuda. 1:24 Mohamed El-Erian: Inside Track Getting Started Bloomberg got his start on Wall Street in 1966, with an entry-level job at the successful investment bank, Salomon Brothers. At Salomon Brothers, he excelled as a trader and was made a partner. But, in 1978, he was demoted to run the information technology division of the company until the company merged with the commodity trading firm Phibro. In his own words, "In 1981, at the age of 39, I was fired from the only full-time job Id ever hada job I loved." This was the company he'd worked for since graduating from Harvard Business School. The company he said he would never have left. And it was letting him go. While getting fired from a job you loved may sound like a failure, Bloomberg's termination became one of the most important steps towards achieving success. This takes us to our first key to entrepreneurial success. Key Takeaways Looking at the rise of Michael Bloomberg and the choices he made on the way to the top is one way to learn about achieving entrepreneurial success. Some of the lessons learned from Bloomberg can point entrepreneurs to adopt similar characteristics. When Bloomberg got fired with a severance check of $10 million, Bloomberg used a chunk of that money and took a risk: investing in his own company. He was also persistent, making his own luck, and found an audience to serve by consistently interviewing his potential customers. Since becoming successful, Bloomberg has also emphasized the value of giving back and has given $12.7 billion to charitable causes. Michael Bloomberg's Success Strategies Salomon Brothers gave Bloomberg a pat on the back and a severance check of $10 million and sent him on his way. But I never let myself look back," Bloomberg said of his firing, "the very next day I took a big risk and began my own company based on an unproven idea that nearly everyone thought would fail: making financial information available to people, right on their desktops." Keep in mind, this was before people had desktop computers. (One has to note, of course, that most people don't end up with $10 million severance checks after being fired. All the same, it's the risks Bloomberg took with that money instead of simply stashing it away, that are worth studying and remembering.) Take Risks and Don't Waste Time Trying to Avoid Failure Bloomberg took a chunk of his $10 million, and wasting no time at all, created a business that merged the two skills he had developed at Salomon Brothersknowledge of the securities and investment world, and expertise about the technologies that made those deals happen. He thought that if he could build a system that took information about a mass of different investment typesstocks, bonds, and currenciesand organized it, traders could use it to see investment opportunities previously hidden by too much data. In his book A Dozen Lessons for Entrepreneurs, a collection of 12 pieces of advice collected from various conversations with entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, Tren Griffin makes an important pointthat entrepreneurs must take action. Most entrepreneurs will tell you that the hardest part is starting. Griffin writes that lots of people talk a good game about wanting to leave a big company for a startup, but when the time comes, most dont do it." So Bloomberg was fired, and without a moment's rest, hired four people from his old company and began creating, then selling what would eventually become the well-known Bloomberg Terminal. He identified a major problemthe inaccessibility of investment data was preventing traders from making smart investmentsand thought of a solution. But most important, he took a risk and went all-in. Be Persistent. Make Your Own Luck This takes us to our next lesson. So Bloomberg has an idea, and he thinks it can impact the entire financial world, but no one thinks it'll catch. This is where luck comes in, but this is a different kind of luck. Bloomberg once said that "luck plays a part in success, but the harder you work, the luckier you get...Hard work creates opportunities where your resume cannot. He worked tirelessly to get his name and idea out there. When he started his company, Bloomberg would go downtown and buy cups of coffee and take them up to Merrill Lynch, his target audience, and just walk the hallways. Hi, he would say. Im Mike Bloomberg and I brought you a cup of coffee. Can I talk to you? Bloomberg kept coming back day after day, working to build relationships with potential customers. "I learned about the audience for our product and what they could really use," explained Bloomberg. "Three years after starting Bloomberg LP, Merrill Lynch purchased 20 terminals and became our first customer." If Bloomberg hadn't been persistent in talking to potential customers and understanding the market however he could, he might not have had such great success. His coffee-cup trick illustrates the importance of persistence and creating your own luck, but it also illustrates another important lesson: Find an Audience To Serve Behind every good idea is a hypothesis, a belief that your idea will be valuable to a target market. For Bloomberg, that hypothesis was that investors could make smarter investments if they had better access toand understanding ofinvestment data. He believed that technology that simplified and organized investment data would be immeasurably valuable to the investing community. And he was right. Bill Campbell, a businessman in Silicon Valley, explains: At the core of any great business is an entrepreneur who creates a value hypothesis in the first place so that core product value (a real and significant solution to a valuable customer problem) can be tested and discovered. Entrepreneurs know their product inside and out. They also know the market. Most become successful because they create something that didn't already exist, or they significantly improve an existing product after experiencing frustration with the way it worked. Remaining unaware of changing market needs, competitor moves, and other external factors can cause even great products to fail. The last two pieces of advice may seem unrelated to the entrepreneurial endeavor, but Michael Bloomberg would beg to differ. Never Stop Learning and Give Back According to Bloomberg, the most powerful word in the English language is "why." He doesn't underestimate the value of an open mind and lifelong learning. "The world is full of people who have stopped learning and who think they've got it all figured out. You've no doubt met some of them already," says Bloomberg. "Their favorite word is 'no.' They will give you a million reasons why something can't be done or shouldn't be done." Bloomberg's advice is to simply not listen to them. And certainly, don't become one of them. Finally, Bloomberg offers some wisdom on the meaning of success. "You are ultimately responsible for your success and failure, but you only succeed if you share the reward with others." After serving as New York City's mayor, Bloomberg returned to Bloomberg LP but also devoted more time to philanthropy, which had become a top priority for him. In 2019, he launched a self-funded campaign for the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Bloomberg Philanthropies uses a data-driven approach that mirrors his approach on the Bloomberg Terminal. The organization focuses on five areaspublic health, environment, education, government innovation, and arts & culture. Bloomberg has given $12.7 billion to a variety of causes and organizations. In his own words, "At the end of the day, ask yourself: 'Am I making a difference in the lives of others?'" Only if the answer is yes can you call yourself a successful entrepreneur. When commodity prices rise, there is an impact on how people travel, how goods are shipped, and how people formulate their budgets. In comparing the rise of natural gas vs. oil prices, both have an impact on the consumer. For instance, when home heating prices climb, people have to decide whether or not they can afford to turn up their thermostats. Furthermore, when various goods have become more expensive because their components also cost more, people have to make difficult choices on what to buy. The price of oil affects individual spending choices as well as the budgets of corporations and governments. It forces companies to make difficult decisions. It can even change relations between countries. Oil is perhaps the world's most important natural resource and impacts the daily lives of people worldwide. Natural gas is a fossil fuel that forms beneath the earth's surface, containing many different compounds. It's used as a fuel and to make materials and chemicals. Natural gas is found in spaces between layers of overlying rock, in spaces within formations of sedimentary rock, and with deposits of crude oil. It is often a byproduct of drilling for crude oil. Sometimes the prices of natural gas and crude oil are positively correlated, and move together, but they are often moving in response to different fundamental forces. Key Takeaways Crude oil and natural gas are two of the most important energy commodities in the world. Both are found deep underground and extracted through a variety of capital-intensive methods. When oil and gas prices rise, consumers tend to cut back on certain forms of spending such as travel. Despite their similarities, research shows that there is actually very little correlation in the price changes between these two products. Crude Oil Origins No one knows for sure how oil was created, but there are two theories that explain how the substance may have originated. The prevailing theory is that oil is a fossil fuel, meaning it is composed of dead plants and animals that lived hundreds of millions of years ago. After decomposing over the eons, the chemical compounds of the remains broke down and formed what we now call oil. Twentieth-century Russian scientists proposed another, "abiotic" theory, which suggests that oil comes from near the earth's core, where it eventually flows, much like lava, into puddles underneath the earth's crust. Finding Crude Oil Reserves Oil can be found on all of the earth's continents. Some places, like Australia, have very little, but countries that have large reservoirs of oil are key players on the world stage. After all, they are sitting on top of pools of one of the most important global resources. Oil is traditionally measured in barrels, where 1 barrel equals 42 gallons. Despite the world's massive energy usage, experts think that there are still around 1.43 trillion barrels of oil reserves left in the ground as of mid-2022. The nations that have the most oil reserves include Venezuela (300 billion bl), Saudi Arabia (266.5 billion bl), and Canada (170.8 billion bl). Middle Eastern nations round out the top 10 all with sizable quantities, but have about one-half of what Saudi Arabia has in reserves. These nations include Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. In total, the region's vast supplies of oil make them an integral part of the world economy. Canada, which has close to 171 billion barrels within its borders, has the third-largest amount of proven oil reserves in the world. However, nearly all of these reserves are located in Alberta's "sandpits," a terrain that makes the oil harder to extract from the earth than it is in other countries. However, technological innovations are expected to make extracting oil located in this kind of terrain easier. Other nations with large reservoirs of oil include Russia, Libya, the United States, Nigeria, and Kazakhstan. Refining Crude Oil Before oil can be used, it has to be broken down in a process known as "refining." After being purchased, oil is shipped to various refineries around the world. In America, many (but certainly not all) of the oil refineries are located in the Gulf Coast region, with about 43% of America's oil being produced in Texas. This is a reason why oil costs tend to fluctuate during storm season. A large hurricane, for example, puts oil supplied at the refineries at risk of destruction. Refining oil works in a relatively easy way. Crude oil is put into a boiler and turned into a vapor. From there, the vapor moves into a distillation chamber, where it is turned back into a liquid. Different types of oil are formed depending on the temperature they were distilled at. Gasoline, for example, is distilled at cooler temperatures than residual oils that are used to make products, such as asphalt and tar. After the many substances made from oil are processed, they arrive in various products to do a little bit of everything, from heating homes to powering cars. Oil Uses It makes sense that the world's biggest economies would use the most oil. America, which has the world's biggest gross domestic product (GDP), also consumes more oil than any other nation. The U.S. uses over 20% of the estimated 100 million barrels of oil produced around the world every day. The phrase "America's dependence on foreign oil" is mentioned often in the media, particularly in reference to American imports from the Middle East. However, this statement doesn't accurately tell who supplies the U.S. with oil. About one-third of all of the oil America uses comes from reserves found domestically in the 50 states. The country that exports the most oil to America is Canada, with Saudi Arabia in second. The European Union (EU) also uses a large percentage of the world's reserves, going through approximately 14.5 million barrels per day during the 2010s. Other nations that have large, established economiesJapan, Canada, and South Koreaalso rank high on the list of the world's biggest oil consumers. China is one country that may play the biggest role in world oil consumption. China currently ranks as the second-biggest oil consumer on the planet. But with its dynamic and fast-growing economy, China's usage of oil is forecasted to grow exponentially. Analysts have said that China's demand for oil grows by approximately 7.5% a year. This increased demandalong with the growing energy needs of countries like India and Brazilhas been a contributing factor in the rise of oil prices over the past few years. These countries act as the demand for the world's oil supplies. However, the way oil is priced does not reflect that of the free market. OPEC's Impact on Oil One body has great influence over the worldwide price of oil. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, more commonly known as OPEC, is a cartel made up of 13 of the world's biggest oil-producing nations, including all of the major Middle Eastern states, Venezuela, and Nigeria. According to OPEC, this cartel controls more than three-quarters of the world's known oil reserves. The major oil producers not in OPEC include Russia, Canada, and the U.S. Since the OPEC nations produce so much of the world's oil supply, they can manipulate the price per barrel depending on how many barrels per day the group will sell on the world oil market. If the group wants the price to rise in order to make more money, they can reduce the amount of oil contributed to the world market. And if they want the price to diphigh energy prices drive down demand from OPEC's consumersthey can release more barrels to the market. While Canada, Russia, America, and other producers can also increase supply, they cannot yet affect world prices nearly as much as OPEC. Types of Oil and Pricing One might assume there is only one type of oil, but that's far from the truth: There are 161 different types, each with its own consistency, chemical breakdown, and potential for use. Even though there are so many forms of oil, we typically cite only one price for a barrel. This is because oil traders have selected the most widely used types of oil to determine the price per barrel. For instance, one common type of oil found and used in America is called West Texas Intermediate (WTI). West Texas Intermediate's popularity is due to it being a "light and sweet" oil, which is easy to break down in the refining process. Since this oil is purchased quite frequently, it is used as an industry standard. Other price benchmarks are used globally. Most European nations use the Brent Blend, found in the North Sea, as their benchmark price. Another heavily used benchmark is the OPEC basket, which combines the prices of several other popular types of oil from around the world into a "price basket." And while oil can be purchased directly (in what is called the spot market), the commonly cited price per barrel does not reflect what a customer pays. Instead, the price bandied about has been sold on the futures market. In America, WTI crude oil futures are traded through the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). European oil futures are sold through Intercontinental Exchange's London branch. Globex is another popular commodities market where oil futures change hands. The Correlation Between Oil and Natural Gas There is a limited positive correlation between crude oil and natural gas prices. It seems logical there would be a positive correlation between the commodities, especially since natural gas is often a byproduct of drilling for crude oil. While at times crude oil and natural gas have had a positive correlation, the markets for each commodity are substantially different and subject to different fundamental forces. Statistical analysis shows there are periods of positive correlation, but generally, the two have limited correlation. The correlation coefficient is a statistical measure of the extent to which the price of natural gas and crude oil move together. It is also a measure of the degree to which the prices move together. The correlation coefficient is measured on a scale of -1 to +1. A measure of +1 indicates a perfect positive correlation between two asset prices, meaning the prices of the assets move together in the same direction to the same degree proportionally all of the time. A measure of -1 indicates a perfect negative correlation. This means the asset prices move in the opposite direction of each other in the same proportion all of the time. If the correlation coefficient is zero, it means there is no relationship between the two prices. The correlation coefficient is often used in the construction of portfolios by providing a statistical measure of the diversification of the assets in the portfolio. Oil and Gas Data Sources The Energy Information Administration (EIA) provides historical data for the daily correlation between commodities on a quarterly basis. This information indicates the correlation between crude oil and natural gas is falling. For example, in 2004, the average quarterly correlation between the two prices was around 0.45. This is a moderate positive correlation. In 2010, this correlation average fell to -0.006, showing there was very little relationship between the prices. In 2014, the average correlation was 0.075. This also indicates very little correlation. However, the first two quarters of 2015 show an average correlation of 0.195, which is slightly positive. Prices for both commodities generally fell during this period. However, the data shows very little correlation during the decade between 2009 and 2020, apart from some irregular quarters. The highest correlation was in the third quarter of 2005 with a measure of +0.69. The lowest correlation was in the third quarter of 2010 with a negative correlation of -0.21. In general, the correlation has been falling over time. The EIA notes this is due to the increase in shale oil natural gas production in North America and elsewhere. Natural Gas Production Natural gas production has increased dramatically with the discovery of new shale drilling technologies. Between 2007 and 2012, natural gas production from shale drilling rose by a whopping 417% and overall production increased by around 20% during the same period. Natural gas prices have shown greater volatility historically than crude oil prices, while low natural gas prices have led sectors such as the transportation industry to use more natural gas over crude oil. Production then remained stable, rising slightly year-over-year from 2012 through 2019. In 2020, amid the COVID19 pandemic, however, crude production dropped to 2013 levels. However, it quickly rebounded in 2021 into 2022. Prices and Oil Production Shale drilling technologies have also led to expanded crude oil production in North America. Daily crude oil production increased from 5.35 million barrels per day in 2009 to 6.5 million barrels in 2012. Production in 2014 grew even more to 8.7 million barrels a day. In 2019, production rose to a record 12.3 million barrels per day, with a slight decrease in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Increased production can lead to a dip in oil prices given steady demand. Since oil is sold on a global market, even concerted efforts by groups like OPEC can only influence the price modestly, and only for short periods. How Can Investors Trade Oil? Oil trades on global commodities and commodities futures markets, which are generally less accessible for individual investors. Instead, investors can invest in ETFs and ETNs that track the price of crude oil (e.g., USO) or companies that occupy the oil sector (e.g., OIH). How Can Investors Trade Natural Gas? Like oil, natural gas trades in commodities markets and often in derivative products like futures and options. Ordinary investors can instead look to ETFs and ETNs that track natural gas (e.g., UNG) or energy companies that specialize in natural gas production. Is Gasoline Produced From Crude Oil or Natural Gas? Gasoline, the fuel used in most vehicles today, is a refined product made from crude oil. Despite the shortened "gas" being used for when you're at the pump, it is different from natural gas, which you may use to heat your home, dryer, or stovetop. The Bottom Line Oil is one of the world's most important commodities. As a result, the nations that control the bulk of the world's supply have (and exercise) a great deal of power over its availability. The supply of oil in the world market has an impact on its price, and the fluctuations are passed on to consumers, especially in nations that use a lot of oil, such as the U.S. Oil prices are also determined by the quality and ease of refining. Investors have the option of investing in oil futures, which themselves have an influence on the price of oil that is reported. The oil market is quite complex, and a better understanding of how oil gets to you from the ground in all its forms will help you to understand and deal with fluctuating prices. Founded in 1999, Netspend is a popular prepaid debit card provider that serves 10 million people annually. One reason for its popularity: the accessibility of its products. You may get Netspend prepaid debit cards via participating retailers or on the company's website. Available as a MasterCard or a Visa card, the Netspend card allows for debit and automated teller machine (ATM) withdrawals (fees may apply), online account access, and payback rewards. It also offers an optional overdraft protection service for a fee. Buy Netspend From a Retailer If you are looking for retailers who sell NetSpend cards, the company's website (Netspend.com) has a list of them. In addition, the site features a handy tool that lets you search for participating retailers by entering a five-digit ZIP code or the city and state. Once you've entered that information, the tool zooms into a map of your chosen area with red circular indicators at each participating retail location. Clicking on a red circle reveals more data about that location's retailer, including the name, address and telephone number of the vendor, along with whether it charges a fee and if so the exact fee amount. You also have the option of sending the location data to a mobile phone or an email address. And if you click on "get directions," the page will open to a larger map with detailed travel instructions to your chosen location. 130,000 The number of Netspend card reload locations in the U.S. The type of retailers that sell NetSpend cards varies widelyfrom drug and grocery stores to office suppliers and travel agencies. NetSpend has partnerships with many national chains, including Office Depot, Walgreens, 7-Eleven, CVS Pharmacy, and Walmart. The card's purchase fee may range between $2.95 and $4.95; the average cost is $3.95, as is the reload fee. Prior to purchase, the vendor is required to record your name, address, and date of birth, and to see your driver license or another piece of official identification in order to comply with both NetSend's own rules and the USA Patriot Act. key takeaways Netspend's prepaid debit cards are easy to obtain. You can buy a Netspend card in person at a participating merchant. You can buy a Netspend card via the company website, Netspend.com. Buy a Netspend Card Online A most common way to get a Netspend prepaid debit card is by opening an account on Netspend.com. Along with offering sign-ups, the site describes everything you need to know about using the card, its features, benefits, and fee structure. To begin the process, click the "sign up now" button. From there, you input your name, address, and email address. You may select a "direct deposit" option or choose "none" (which you may change later). The next step requires you to create a user name, password, and a security question. Once you have completed these steps, you may log in to your account online. All applicants are guaranteed approval once the applicant's identity is proven. You will receive your new Netspend card via the U.S. Postal Service in seven to 10 business days. When your card arrives you'll need to follow the printed activation and identity-verification steps to get started. (For related reading, see "How Netspend Works and Makes Money") What Are Carbon Credits? Carbon credits, also known as carbon offsets, are permits that allow the owner to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases. One credit permits the emission of one ton of carbon dioxide or the equivalent in other greenhouse gases. The carbon credit is half of a so-called "cap-and-trade" program. Companies that pollute are awarded credits that allow them to continue to pollute up to a certain limit, which is reduced periodically. Meanwhile, the company may sell any unneeded credits to another company that needs them. Private companies are thus doubly incentivized to reduce greenhouse emissions. First, they must spend money on extra credits if their emissions exceed the cap. Second, they can make money by reducing their emissions and selling their excess allowances. Proponents of the carbon credit system say that it leads to measurable, verifiable emission reductions from certified climate action projects, and that these projects reduce, remove or avoid greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Key Takeaways Carbon credits were devised as a mechanism to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Companies get a set number of credits, which decline over time, and they can sell any excess to another company. Carbon credits create a monetary incentive for companies to reduce their carbon emissions. Those that cannot easily reduce emissions can still operate, at a higher financial cost. Carbon credits are based on the "cap-and-trade" model that was used to reduce sulfur pollution in the 1990s. Negotiators at the Glasgow COP26 climate change summit in November 2021 agreed to create a global carbon credit offset trading market. How Do Carbon Credits Work? The ultimate goal of carbon credits is to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. As noted, a carbon credit represents the right to emit greenhouse gases equivalent to one ton of carbon dioxide. According to the Environmental Defense Fund, that is the equivalent of a 2,400-mile drive in terms of carbon dioxide emissions. Companies or nations are allotted a certain number of credits and may trade them to help balance total worldwide emissions. "Since carbon dioxide is the principal greenhouse gas," the United Nations notes, "people speak simply of trading in carbon." The intention is to reduce the number of credits over time, thus incentivizing companies to find innovative ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. US Carbon Credits Today Cap-and-trade programs remain controversial in the U.S. However, 11 states have adopted such market-based approaches to the reduction of greenhouse gases, according to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. Of these, 10 are Northeast states that banded together to jointly attack the problem through a program known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). California's Cap-and-Trade Program The state of California initiated its own cap-and-trade program in 2013. The rules apply to the state's large electric power plants, industrial plants, and fuel distributors. The state claims that its program is the fourth largest in the world after those of the European Union, South Korea, and the Chinese province of Guangdong. The cap-and-trade system is sometimes described as a market system. That is, it creates an exchange value for emissions. Its proponents argue that a cap-and-trade program offers an incentive for companies to invest in cleaner technologies in order to avoid buying permits that will increase in cost every year. The US Clean Air Act The United States has been regulating airborne emissions since the passage of the U.S. Clean Air Act of 1990, which is credited as the world's first cap-and-trade program (although it called the caps "allowances"). The program is credited by the Environmental Defense Fund for substantially reducing emissions of sulfur dioxide from coal-fired power plants, the cause of the notorious "acid rain" of the 1980s. The Inflation Reduction Act The most recent development expected to affect the carbon credit market is the Inflation Reduction Act, a landmark bill signed into law on August 16, 2022, that aims to reduce the deficit, fight inflation, and reduce carbon emissions. The legislation is very focused on cleaning up the environment and includes a provision to reward high-emitting companies that store their greenhouse gases underground or use them to build other products. The rewards come in the form of significantly expanded tax credits, which have increased to $85 from $50 for each metric ton of captured carbon stored underground and to $60 from $35 for each ton of captured carbon that is used in other manufacturing processes or for oil recovery. It is hoped that these more generous credits will convince investors to make a bigger effort at capturing carbon. Previously, the tax incentive, known as 45Q, was accused of only paying enough to make easy carbon capture projects worth pursuing. Worldwide Carbon Credit Initiatives The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) developed a carbon credit proposal to reduce worldwide carbon emissions in a 1997 agreement known as the Kyoto Protocol. The agreement set binding emission reduction targets for the countries that signed it. Another agreement, known as the Marrakesh Accords, spelled out the rules for how the system would work. The Kyoto Protocol divided countries into industrialized and developing economies. Industrialized countries, collectively called Annex 1, operated in their own emissions trading market. If a country emitted less than its target amount of hydrocarbons, it could sell its surplus credits to countries that did not achieve its Kyoto level goals, through an Emission Reduction Purchase Agreement (ERPA). The separate Clean Development Mechanism for developing countries issued carbon credits called a Certified Emission Reduction (CER). A developing nation could receive these credits for supporting sustainable development initiatives. The trading of CERs took place in a separate market. The first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol ended in 2012. The U.S. had already dropped out in 2001. The Paris Climate Agreement The Kyoto protocol was revised in 2012 in an agreement known as the Doha Amendment, which was ratified as of October 2020, with 147 member nations having "deposited their instrument of acceptance." More than 190 nations signed on to the Paris Agreement of 2015, which also sets emission standards and allows for emissions trading. The U.S. dropped out in 2017, but subsequently rejoined the agreement in January 2020 under President Joe Biden. The Paris Agreement, also known as the Paris Climate Accord, is an agreement among the leaders of more than 180 countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit the global temperature increase to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) above preindustrial levels by the year 2100. The Glasgow COP26 Climate Change Summit Negotiators at the summit in November 2021 inked a deal that saw nearly 200 countries implement Article 6 of the 2015 Paris Agreement, allowing nations to work toward their climate targets by buying offset credits that represent emission reductions by other countries. The hope is that the agreement encourages governments to invest in initiatives and technology that protects forests and build renewable energy technology infrastructure to combat climate change. For instance, Brazil's chief negotiator at the summit, Leonardo Cleaver de Athayde, flagged that the forest-rich South American country planned to be a major trader of carbon credits. "It should spur investment and the development of projects that could deliver significant emissions reductions," he told Reuters. Several other provisions in the accord include zero tax on bilateral trades of offsets between countries and canceling 2% of total credits, aimed at reducing overall global emissions. Additionally, 5% of revenues generated from offsets will be placed in an adaptation fund for developing countries to help fight climate change. Negotiators also agreed to carry over offsets registered since 2013, allowing 320 million credits to enter the new market. Why Should the Levels of Carbon and Greenhouse Gases in the Atmosphere Be Reduced? Scientists at the IPCC have shown that increased levels of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere are warming the planet. This creates extreme weather changes around the world. Currently, carbon dioxide is the main GHG, and is created by burning fossil fuelscoal, oil and gas. By reducing the amount of carbon dioxide we emit, we may avoid doing further damage to our climate. How Much Does a Carbon Credit Cost? Carbon credits have different prices, depending on the location and market where they are traded. In 2019, the average price for carbon credits was $4.33 per ton. This figure spiked to as much as $5.60 per ton in 2020 before settling to an average of $4.73 in the first eight months of the following year. Where Can You Buy Carbon Credits? There are several private companies that offer carbon offsets to companies or individuals seeking to reduce their net carbon footprint. These offsets represent investments or contributions to forestry or other projects with a negative carbon footprint. Buyers can also purchase tradable credits on a carbon exchange such as New York-based Xpansive CBL or Singapore's AirCarbon Exchange. How Large Is the Carbon Credit Market? Estimates of the size of the carbon credit market vary wildly, due to the different regulations in each market and other geographical distinctions. The voluntary carbon market, consisting largely of companies that buy carbon offsets for CSR reasons, had an estimated value of $1 billion in 2021, according to some figures. The market for compliance credits, related to regulatory carbon caps, is substantially larger, with estimates ranging as high as $272 billion for the year 2020. The Bottom Line Carbon credits were devised as a mechanism to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by creating a market in which companies can trade in emissions permits. Under the system, companies get a set number of carbon credits, which decline over time. They can sell any excess to another company. Carbon credits create a monetary incentive for companies to reduce their carbon emissions. Those that cannot easily reduce emissions can still operate, at a higher financial cost. Proponents of the carbon credit system say that it leads to measurable, verifiable emission reductions. Those searching for the next of kin of immigrant Irish twins who died within weeks of each other in London believe they have found a first cousin of the Cork brothers. If confirmed as a living relative, Sean Kelly plans to repatriate the bodies of William and John Kelly, 77, to the Rebel County and bury the estranged brothers alongside their father Dennis Kelly in St. Finbarrs cemetery in Cork city. On January 29, William Kelly, more commonly known as Bill, from Turners Cross in the south of Cork City, died in Muswell Hill, north London. Following his death, his friends began the search for a living relative. Bills friend Margaret Denney had never heard mention of his family in all their years of friendship but knew that his sister Mary had also died in London a few years ago. Contacting the undertakers at Marys funeral, she discovered that not only did Bill have a brother, but a twin brother named John, who was long estranged and also living in London. They had a sister Mary who died about two years ago, she told The Irish Post. We found out through the undertakers from her funeral that there was another brother called John and we got his address to let him know Bill had passed away. Read more: Irelands oldest known twins die within two days of each other, at 95 After consulting her local parish priest, Margaret decided to visit John Kelly at his home in Archway, leaving a message with a neighbor when she received no reply at his door. The following morning, however, she received a call from the same neighbor explaining that her visit had caused him concern when realizing it was some time since he had seen John at his home. He rang me the next morning and said that he started to worry once Id left about what happened to John, she said. He told me he rang an ambulance and they couldnt gain access to the house and then the police were called and they made their way inside and found that John had died too. The bodies of the brothers were left unclaimed, lying in two separate morgues in the English capital John in the coroners office in Hornsey and Bill in the hospital mortuary in Whittington Hospital. The Kelly brothers were Born on August 27, 1938 and moved to London with their mother and sister at 18 years of age, shortly after the death of their father, but they had been estranged for some years prior to their deaths. Both have been described as reclusive and little was known about their early years in London or about any living family members who could be contacted to claim the bodies. Eager to locate the twins family and save them from a burial in a paupers grave, the London Irish community undertook a campaign to find a living relative, spearheaded by London Irish newspaper The Irish Post. With the help of the company Finders, an online campaign, and a GoFundMe page raising money to provide for a funeral, the newspaper succeeded in locating a first cousin of the twins living in Cork City. Read more: An untold story of six Irish-American brothers who fought in WWII Although unconfirmed as of yet, Sean Kelly believes the twins are sons of his uncle Dennis and that Bill had remained in contact with his own mother, writing her letters and mentioning John and their sister Mary. My uncle Dennis Kelly had three children, Jack [nicknamed John], Bill and Mary, Sean told The Irish Post. He died in 1947 and the mother and kids went over to London soon after. The genealogy organization Finders confirmed that Dennis was the name of the twins father and that he was listed as a barman on Bills birth certificate, a fact their potential first cousin also noted. They ran a place called The Oval Bar on South Main Street in the city, Sean said. I think it was shortly after my uncle died that his wife and the kids headed over to England. Sean also recalls a letter sent by Bill to his own mother (Bills aunt) in 1992 in which he wrote: I was very happy to receive your letter. Carmel was home in Fermoy, her father was having heart surgery. Thank you with all my heart for including Carmel and myself in the Friends of Knock Shrine. I know Our Lady will bless both of us. Both Jack and Mary are fine. If Finders verifies that Sean Kelly is the first cousin of Bill and John Kelly, Sean plans to return the bodies of his long-lost relatives to Ireland, laying them to rest alongside their father in St. Finbarrs cemetery in Cork city. Dennis is buried in St Finbarrs cemetery in the city here so if they are my cousins, well bury them here with him, he said. If we cant do that, well bury them in our own cemetery up the road. The funeral costs of the brothers will also be subsidized with the help of the donation page established by The Irish Post. With over $2,865 (2,000) already collected, one London Irish company has promised to double that with a further $2,865 (2,000) and the owner of The Irish Post, Elgin Loane, has donated a further $1,432 (1,000). H/T: The Irish Post The Central Park horse carriage drivers arent the only ones pleased that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasios latest attempt to banish the industry went kaput: pedicab drivers who generate much of their revenue in the park also breathed a sigh of relief because de Blasios aborted City Council bill would have banned them from operating in Central Park below 85th Street. We were totally blindsided, Dean Doherty, the owner of Leprechaun Pedicab Express, told the Irish Voice on Monday. Doherty, a native of Co. Mayo who came to the U.S. 14 years ago and now lives in Woodlawn, started his business about 12 years ago and employs 10 drivers for most of the year except for winter, when the number is four. We were never involved in anything that was going on between the horse drivers and the mayor, and all of a sudden he was trying to wipe us out, says Doherty. The pedicab and horse drivers, he adds, havent always gotten along because of the competition for business in Central Park, and the pedicab drivers, who are not unionized, feel that de Blasio was using their livelihoods as a sweetener to get the horse owners to agree to his bill: the mayor would get rid of the pedicabs in exchange for the horse and carriages having exclusive access to tourist-rich Central Park below 85th Street. Were thankful that didnt happen, but we are definitely worried about the future, says Doherty. The pedicab industry, he says, is in talks to unionize to help protect against another move against their industry. Leprechaun Express Pedicabs is one of the many licensed businesses operating in Central Park and throughout the city. Doherty says there are many Irish pedicab drivers who have passed through his companys ranks, and he makes a point of employing Irish immigrants, including many students who come for the summer on J-1 visas. Some have worked for me and gone on to start their own businesses, says Doherty, who owns 10 pedicabs and houses them in a garage in Times Square. Dohertys business also extends to Delaware in the summer where his drivers work the beaches there; his cabs and rickshaws are also available for hire for private events. Doherty himself has brought a pedicab to the last two presidential inaugurations, and to events like the Super Bowl and NASCAR races. Working Central Park accounts for roughly 70 percent of his revenue, and the average pedicab ride lasts for an hour and costs around $90, Doherty said. Many tourists also hire the pedicabs for tours throughout the city. The guys are out there all times of the year. It doesnt matter how cold or hot it is, says Doherty, who has traveled with his pedicab to 39 states and laughs that hes in very good shape from the waist down. On Sunday, when it was absolutely freezing, one of our drivers had a couple who got engaged. So we never stop working. The horses get six weeks off and dont work in extreme weather. The pedicab industry is regulated by the City of New York, and owners need to be licensed and insured. The crazy thing is if we were going to be kicked out of Central Park, we would have then contributed to the traffic problem on the streets that de Blasio always talks about, Doherty points out. Wed be all over the streets in places like Times Square. And were not allowed to use the bike lanes. It wouldnt have worked out well. Matthew 25: 35 I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. Donald Trump, 06-16-15 Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best..they're sending people that have lots of problems and they're bringing those problems. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're rapists Pope Francis, 02-18-16 "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the gospel." Trump, 02 -18-16 "Disgraceful. No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man's religion or faith. [Mexico has] made many disparaging remarks about me to the Pope. We have been through so many outrageous moments during the Trump campaign that we almost forget the most egregious of all. The attempt to sully emigrants as rapists and drug dealers. Now the pope has joined the British, French and Irish leaders in rejecting such comments. Undocumented workers contribute $12 billion to social security. If they were legalized that figure would be over $20 billion. You will never hear any comments on that from Trump. Can you imagine if such terminology as he employs was was used against Americans in a Mexican election? The outrage and splutter would fill many a Rush Limbaugh show. Read More: Trump's anti-immigration plan stirs hate in my neighborhood Finally someone with absolute stature has called out Trump. Not the Republican Party, which, however much it wants to drag its feet, has to march to his drum. Not the media, who love the ratings palooza; not the Democratic Party, mired in it's own internal battle to the death. The Pope. Here is what he told the press on his plane home after a trip to Mexico. As far as what you said about whether I would advise to vote or not to vote, I am not going to get involved in that. I say only that this man is not Christian if he said things like that.... That is an extraordinary statement from the pope, an emotional one after spending days with the poorest of the poor in Mexico. Read more: What Pope Francis' visit meant to this Irish immigrant Welcoming the stranger has been a fundamental core belief for this pope. Demonizing immigrants has been a strong undercurrent of Trumps rise to the top of the pack in the GOP. The clash was inevitable. Cardinal Dolan in New York also previously took Trump to task on his immigration policy, with a scathing op-ed. Trump may have the luck of the devil in one way. Anti-Catholicism was once rampant in South Carolina, where the notorious Bob Jones University specialized for generations in anti-Catholic anti-Pope fulminations. The viral strain of anti-Catholicism still exists. Read More: Trump's anti-Catholic rhetoric rises before South Carolina Primary In fact, so anti-Catholic are some in South Carolina that the Reverend Ian Paisley, at the height of his anti-Catholic career, traveled frequently to Bob Jones University, which gave him an honorary doctorate and praised him for calling the pope the whore of Babylon. As for Bob Jones himself, the following comment is all you need to read: "Pope Paul VI, archpriest of Satan, a deceiver and an anti-Christ, has, like Judas, gone to his own place A pope must be an opportunist, a tyrant, a hypocrite, and a deceiver or he cannot be a pope. So Trump could paradoxically benefit from the old Whore of Babylon trick by blaming the pope. Read More: Trump joins with anti-Catholic, anti-gay pastor for campaign Sometimes it takes an outsider to see clearly what Americans cannot Donald Trump would be a disaster for America and the world. Pope Francis has done the world a favor by pointing it out. The question is, are GOP voters listening? Findmypast is working in partnership with IrishCentral to share fascinating insights into your Irish ancestors. Click here to get a special half price subscription, and discover your Irish roots today! Findmypast has just added two fascinating Irish record collections that will help you add context to your ancestors lives. Ireland Statistical Surveys Ireland Statistical Surveys consists of fascinating statistical surveys produced by the Royal Dublin Society. The Society began to conduct such surveys in at the start of the 1800s with the aim of accurately portraying the realities of life in each county, particularly concerning its history, agricultural practices, politics, customs, and religion. The reports represented the first serious effort to capture and present such data and, having been conducted under direction from the Society itself, they offer solid and consistent information. Since they were created so early in the 19th century the survey are from any incredibly record of life in pre-Famine Ireland. This collection is comprised of PDF images of the surveys from 10 Irish counties; Cavan, Clare, Cork, Donegal, King's (Offaly), Leitrim, Mayo, Meath, Roscommon, and Tyrone. To study a survey in its entirety, search by title and then sort your results by image number. Then use the previous and next buttons in the image viewer to navigate through the publication. Ireland Census Reports Ireland Census Reports contains over 19,000 records compiled from census returns from the mid-1800s to early 1900s. The reports provide statistical details regarding the number of inhabitants in a given townland and cover all 32 counties of Ireland. The statistics are broken down by gender, age, or other similar categories and can help provide you with an invaluable snapshot of your ancestor's community. Both transcripts and PDF images of the original reports are included in each records. You can read a title from start to finish by searching by title and sorting by image number or by using the previous and next buttons in the image viewer to navigate through the entire publication. The collection contains 194 census reports spanning the years between 1851 and 1911. For more stories on tracing your Irish heritage from Findmypast click here. Bernie Sanders has just announced he is running in 2020 but did you know he once took an interest in Irish politics? In a letter dating from 1981, Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders calls on then-British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to end the humiliation and degrading treatment of Irish prisoners on hunger strike in Northern Ireland. It has previously been claimed that foreign policy is lacking in Sanders experience, newly revealed documents from a University of Vermont archive suggest Sanders showed an early interest in the Irish question, especially in the treatment of IRA prisoners in Long Kesh Prison, during the early 1980s. Then a newly elected mayor in the City of Burlington in Vermont, Sanders wrote to the British Prime Minister in July 1981, condemning the treatment of the H-Block prisoners who began their second hunger strike that year in protest to the withdrawal of their status as political prisoners, reports the Telegraph. The correspondence came just days after a civil rights activist from Belfast city council addressed Burlington aldermen - a talk that was strongly supported by Jane OMeara Driscoll, Sanders' future wife - and two months after the death of the most prominent of the hunger strikers, Bobby Sands. Read more: Facebook to face IRS trial for shifting profits to Ireland We are deeply disturbed by your governments unwillingness to stop the abuse, humiliation and degrading treatment of Irish prisoners now on hunger strikes in Northern Ireland, Sanders wrote in a letter sent on July 15, 1981. We ask you to end your intransigent policy towards the prisoners before the reputation of the English people for fair play and simple decency is further damaged in the eyes of the people of Vermont and the United States. The letter was cosigned by Terry Bouricius, a Burlington alderman. The 1981 H-block hunger strikes were a culmination of the effort to reinstate the status of paramilitary prisoners in the Maze prison as political prisoners, a status that had been revoked in July 1976 as part of the British governments policy of criminalization for convicted paramilitaries. As political prisoners, paramilitaries were afforded certain allowances average prisoners were not entitled to, including the right not to wear a prison uniform, the right not to do prison work, and the right to freely associate with other political prisoners. Beginning with a blanket protest (refusing to wear prison uniforms) and with a dirty protest, the campaign escalated into a hunger strike first in 1980, as seven men refused to eat, honoring the seven signatories of the 1916 Easter Rising. The second strike began in January 1981 when it became clear the British government would not meet the demands they had agreed to at the end of the first strike. The second strike resulted in a standoff between the strikers and Thatcher who refused to be swayed on the question of the political status of the prisoners. The most famous of the hunger strikers, Bobby Sands, was elected to the British House of Commons from his prison cell on April 9, 1981, before he died from starvation on May 5. Ten prisoners in total died on hunger strike before it was called off on October 3, 1981. Two days before Sanders wrote to Thatcher, the Burlington aldermen were addressed, unofficially, by Fergus OHare, a civil rights activist with a seat on the Belfast Council. Despite the claims from some aldermen that the address was inappropriate and a vote striking it from the agenda forcing OHara to speak unofficially, local media reports from the archive quote the Democratic presidential candidate as saying: I am delighted to have a member of the Belfast City Council coming here. As well as being on the mailing list of the Vermont Committee for Irish Human Rights, and among the US politicians who condemned Thatchers willingness to allow prisoners to die on hunger strike, Sanders also showed interest in the supergrass trials where paramilitaries were convicted using the evidence of informers. Again writing to express his concern in 1983, the mayor addressed, in particular, the case of Nicky Kelly, advising that the case would be reopened so that justice can be served. Other events organized by the Vermont Committee for Irish Human Rights included a meeting with Desmond Wilson, a priest from west Belfast, and an address from Irish socialist and republican political activist, who was at one point banned from the US, Bernadette (Devlin) McAliskey. Sanders is not the only 2016 Presidential candidate to be in some way linked to the Troubles or with the republican movement. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton herself has stated she was instrumental to the Northern Ireland peace process, meeting with women on both sides of the conflict, although people such as David Trimble, who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for his own role in the process, have refuted this claim. President Donald Trump has also been linked with Sinn Fein, attending a Friends of Sinn Fein fundraising dinner and shaking hands with party leader Gerry Adams in New York in 1995. Read more: Trump slams Korean film "Parasite" at campaign rally, praises Gone with the Wind H/T: The Telegraph *Originally published in Feb. 2016. A bid to overturn the ban on paying for sex in Northern Ireland will be opposed by the First and Deputy First Ministers, the High Court has been told. Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness have instructed Stormont's chief legal adviser to intervene in the landmark legal action being brought by sex worker Laura Lee. Mr Justice Maguire had been expected to rule on whether to grant leave for a judicial review but adjourned his decision until next month after a last minute intervention from Attorney General John Larkin QC. Mr Justice Maguire told Belfast High Court: "I am disinclined to create circumstances where leave is granted without matters being properly rehearsed." Northern Ireland became the first part of the UK to make paying for sex a crime when the legislation was passed last year. The Bill, championed by Democratic Unionist Assembly member Lord Maurice Morrow, means anyone caught breaking the law could be jailed for up to a year and faces a hefty fine. Previously, paid-for consensual sex was legal although activities such as kerb crawling, brothel keeping and pimping were not. The law change was welcomed by Christian organisations but prostitutes' campaigners argued that it has endangered sex workers by pushing the industry underground. Judge Maguire expressed frustration at the late notice of the intervention by the Office of First and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) and said "a clear and cogent explanation" had not been provided. "The court has been provided with scant explanation from OFMDFM was to why, as of yesterday, at very late notice, they wish to contest this application and have the case adjourned for that purpose," the judge said. The court also heard that the Department of Justice (DoJ), the only named respondent, was not opposed to the case going ahead. Barrister Tony McGleenan QC said the department had been placed in an "unusual" position because Justice Minister David Ford had opposed the legislative change when it was debated in the Assembly. However, Mr McGleenan told the court: "In our view the matter is arguable." He said the OFMDFM intervention had not been anticipated, adding that Ms Lee had "got it right by directing fire towards this department." Meanwhile counsel for Ms Lee argued the case was of "genuine importance" for all sex workers. Steven McQuitty said: "We are concerned about the late, grossly late, improper intervention from the First and Deputy First Ministers. "We say at this stage that intervention is without merit." The barrister later added: "If not improper, (it is) highly unorthodox that they should now try to intervene when the DoJ recognises the substantial importance of this case." Outside the court, Ms Lee, a high profile campaigner for better rights for prostitutes, expressed disappointment at the delay. "I am disappointed but I understand that due process must be followed and I will be returning to court on March 14," she said. "I am taking this case because sex workers are placed in danger every single day when we are compelled to work on our own. "Last week saw the absolutely horrific murder of another sex worker in Aberdeen. "She suffered a fate that dogs in the street should never, ever meet. And, in her name and in the name of every other sex worker who has died under these nonsensical laws, I will fight this case." The hearing has been adjourned until next month. A team of British officers is helping German police identify suspects after hundreds of sex assaults were reported in Cologne on New Year's Eve. Scotland Yard's so-called 'super recognisers' specialise in using CCTV to catch criminal they are officers who have a natural ability to recognise faces. EU leaders have returned to the negotiating table after 20 hours of behind-the-scenes talks as David Cameron and European Council president Donald Tusk struggled to keep Britain's renegotiation on track. The 28 leaders had initially been due to gather early in the morning for an "English breakfast" meeting to approve a package of reforms to the UK's membership, but breakfast became brunch, lunch, high tea and then dinner as opponents of the deal dug in their heels. The delays forced Mr Cameron to scrap plans to summon ministers for a Cabinet meeting on Friday evening to endorse the deal and fix a date for the in/out referendum - widely expected on June 23. The meeting would also have given the green light to Eurosceptic ministers like Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Grayling to go out and campaign for Britain to leave Europe, and put pressure on waverers like London mayor Boris Johnson and Cabinet minister Michael Gove to spell out where they stand. Sources close to Mr Gove declined to comment on increasingly widespread reports that the Justice Secretary is preparing to throw his weight behind Brexit. Acknowledging his plans had been delayed, Mr Cameron said in a message on Twitter: "Negotiations are continuing into this evening. A Cabinet meeting won't be possible tonight. One will be held if and when a deal is done." After talks which stretched through Thursday night, Mr Tusk resumed one-to-one discussions with a series of leaders, including Mr Cameron, over the course of Friday, in the hope of forging a deal acceptable to all 28 members. By the time the leaders gathered at 8.30pm Brussels time, it was not clear whether he had found a form of words which would satisfy all of them. Mr Cameron faced concerns from eastern European countries like Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia over his call for an "emergency brake" on in-work benefits for migrant EU workers to extend for as long as 13 years. And the same nations put up stiff resistance to the UK's demand to impose cuts in child benefits for offspring living abroad on 34,000 existing claimants as well as future migrants. Meanwhile, France and Austria voiced anxiety that the protections for non-euro states sought by Mr Cameron might effectively grant special status to the City of London and allow Britain to hobble future deepening of the eurozone. President Francois Hollande said France wanted ''a financial regulation system which is valid in all parts of Europe'' with no ''right of veto'' for individual countries, while Austrian chancellor Werner Faymann said the UK must not be allowed to exercise ''a blockade against genuine banking union or other deepening of the eurozone''. Speaking on France Inter radio, Mr Hollande said he had floated a proposal for the eurozone to be given its own government, parliament and budget to make it "more dynamic", whether Britain stayed in the EU or not. "I will do what it takes for the UK to stay in Europe, but it is also necessary for Europe to be able to advance," said the French president. "There can be no special status for the UK and the City of London. "The UK's interests must be taken into account, but not to the detriment of Europe." He warned that, if Britain left the EU, other member states might consider doing the same, adding: "We must avoid national withdrawals." Belgium insisted on a "no second chance" clause in the summit conclusions to make clear that the UK would not be offered a better deal if it voted to leave the EU, in the hope of reversing the decision in a second referendum. And there was opposition to Mr Cameron's call for Britain's hoped-for exemption from the requirement to seek ever-closer union, as well as changes to the relations between euro 'ins' and 'outs' to be enshrined in law by incorporation into the EU's treaties. In a surprise move, Greece's Alexis Tsipras threatened that, unless other countries promised not to close their borders to the refugees flooding into his country, he would withhold his approval from the official summit conclusions - effectively vetoing not only the UK package but also an agreement on migration hammered out in the early hours of the morning. Arriving at the summit venue after just three hours of sleep on Friday morning, Mr Cameron promised to do ''everything I can'' to finalise a ''credible'' package of reforms. But he insisted he would not sign up to an agreement which fell short of Britain's requirements. He told reporters he was ''happy to stay until Sunday'' if need be, adding he had warned wife Samantha and their children he may not be home this weekend. As the day wore on, Mr Cameron had meetings with Mr Tusk, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Polish PM Beata Szydlo, as well as his Danish, Czech and Dutch counterparts. But Czech Europe minister Tomas Prouza suggested that the UK side was not engaging in negotiations, writing on Twitter: ''As the time passes, I am more and more perplexed by the British approach of non-negotiation. Quite unorthodox, to say the least.'' In a swipe at the PM, European Parliament president Martin Schulz said: ''We must make clear that the method 'I will tell you what you must do in order for me to stay' doesn't work. ''We have to reach out to one another. I have the impression that David Cameron sees that.'' Sir John Armitt, president of the UK Institution of Civil Engineers, was the guest speaker at a forum on infrastructure hosted by Engineers Ireland. People have to be persuaded about the need for investments in water or energy capacity, for example. They need to be told we are actually doing this for our children. As things stand, investments in infrastructure are not sufficient for future needs. According to Mr Armitt, more projects could be financed by the pensions industry. However, such investments, currently, are mainly carried out by the very big pension funds based in Australia and Canada. UK schemes are not that large and would have to cooperate with each other on projects. The UK president defended Britains Private Finance Initiative, its version of Public Private Partnerships. He said the 7 billion (8.9bn) London Olympics project, which was delivered within its revised budget, had been a success because it had won widespread political support. Engineers Ireland has proposed a new super junior Ministry of Infrastructure be created to lead the roll out of infrastructure. A new national unit would be based in the Department of the Taoiseach. Mr Armitt, however, said that he was not persuaded by this proposal because such a super ministry might not be accepted by the heads of the other Government departments. The Dublin-based exploration firm said yesterday that a drilling proposal from an alliance of contractors, under a risk-sharing cost model is under consideration. It added that the alliance includes a major rig operator, drilling management and a well-service company. It also estimated the cost of such a project to be at 16m (21m) roughly half of what it would have been when oil was $100 a barrel in mid-2014. Ultimately, Providence said it remains confident of achieving farm-out deals for its two largest assets, despite ongoing market uncertainty. In an update regarding its Celtic Sea asset portfolio, the company said that farm-out discussions on Barryroe are continuing and that new data has broadened the highly-anticipated assets potential appeal from an oil prospect to a dual oil/gas play. The fresh data has highlighted significant productivity and resource potential in the eastern portion of Barryroe, where it intersects an oil prospecting licence (OPL) partially-controlled by Petronas-owned Kinsale Energy. Providence also owns 60% of that OPL and could avail of development synergies with Kinsale Energy, which has existing gas production infrastructure at its disposal. Four firms are understood to still be in the frame to partner Providence on Barryroe. The companys technical director John OSullivan said that each party remains interested and engaged on a technical level but are slow to move, commercially, due to the volatile oil price environment; suggesting some sustained levelling or recovery in prices could prompt a deal. Providence will also launch a farm-out process, next month, for its Silverback prospect in the south Celtic Sea Basin. A high risk/high reward target, currently 100% owned by Providence, the prospect is in an undrilled basin but is viewed as an attractive asset. Outside of the Celtic Sea, Providence is still working at nailing down a farm-out for its near 60% stake in acreage it co-owns with Scottish explorer, Cairn Energy, at Spanish Point off the west coast. In order for planned appraisal drilling to take place next year, Providence needs to agree a farm-out deal by this summer. Mr OSullivan said that remains the target and that financially capable parties are interested. Elsewhere, Tullow Oil saw its share price fall by nearly 11%, at one stage yesterday, after it identified a potential issue with a production vessel being used at its key asset, the Jubilee field off the coast of Ghana. In a brief statement, Tullow said that a recent inspection of the turret area of the Jubilee Floating Production Storage and Offtake vessel (FPSO), by the turret maker, SOFEC found the issue with the turret bearing. As a precautionary measure, additional operating procedures to monitor the turret bearing and reduce the degree of rotation of the vessel are being put in place, Tullow said. Commentators suggested the vessel may require maintenance and could lead to a suspension of production. However, Tullow said that it will be working with SOFEC to determine what further measures will be required; adding that oil production and gas export is continuing as normal. Tullow is gearing up for first oil flow from its much-anticipated TEN oil field, also off the coast of Ghana, during the summer. That project will boost the companys production from western African assets to 100,000 barrels of oil per day by next year. Meanwhile, Petroceltic International which is in the midst of a strategic review, expected to lead to the sale of the company has completed the sale of its Egyptian exploration assets to US utility group, Edison International, which already partners the Irish company in Egypt. The two firms first announced their sale agreement in December. Edison is buying Petroceltics shares of three Egyptian licences for a total cash consideration of $9.5m. Petroceltic has said, since early last year, that its main focus would increasingly be on the development of the Ain Tsila gas field in Algeria. Oil, yesterday, pared gains after a government report showed US crude inventories advanced to an 86-year high as imports surged. Crude stockpiles rose 2.15m barrels to 504.1m last week, according to the Energy Information Administration. Imports climbed 11%, the biggest gain since April. Prices climbed earlier (Brent was trading around $35 per barrel) as Iran cautiously supported a proposal by Saudi Arabia and Russia to freeze production at near-record levels. However, Norways central bank governor stepped up his warning on excessive use of the nations oil income as he predicted the government may need to withdraw almost $10bn from its massive wealth fund this year. The Government parties, particularly Fine Gael, have repeatedly made attracting up to 70,000 Irish workers home from abroad a key tenet of their economic plan. It had been expected that last Octobers budget would include a package of measures including tax breaks aimed at making a return home more attractive to overseas workers, but these were not included in the final raft of policies. Documents obtained by the Irish Examiner under the Freedom of Information Act show that the Coalition was considering a drastically different tax regime for returning emigrants capable of filling skills gaps in the Irish economy. In correspondence between Mr Bruton and Finance Minister Michael Noonan ahead of last years budget, the jobs minister pushed for an internationally competitive flat rate of tax of approximately 30% to woo overseas workers. This simplified tax rate, which would see workers paying a reduced rate of income tax as well as universal social charge, would make Ireland one of the most attractive countries in the world from a tax perspective, Mr Bruton argued. Given the global competition for scarce skills, the persistence of skills gaps experienced acutely by our SMEs, and our desire to attract back the many skilled Irish that have gained valuable experience overseas, it is essential that the Irish tax environment enables all Irish-based firms to attract and retain the skills necessary to propel growth and job creation, Mr Bruton wrote. We recommend the introduction of an internationally competitive flat rate of tax of approximately 30% [income and universal social charge] in order to position Ireland in the top four to five countries in terms of attractiveness and which could be easily communicated [similar to the Dutch 30% rule]. Mr Bruton made the proposal as part of a mooted Talent for Ireland scheme which a department spokesperson said would only apply where there is a key skills shortage and very limited risk of displacement. The measure has echoes of the 23% flat rate of tax advocated by Renuawhich the party has been forced to defend amid accusations that it is economically illiterate and anti-poor. Renuas policy the only flat tax rate suggestion currently being proposed by a political party was also dealt a significant blow when the Revenue Commissioners advised that the rate would have to be twice that proposed by the party. Mr Bruton suggested introducing a much narrower flat-tax regime, however, focused largely on enticing skilled workers from abroad into the domestic workforce. If introduced, it would have seen workers paying taxes under an entirely different taxation regime than the majority of the workforce and at a reduced rate. Cuts to the Universal Social Charge in last years budget reduced the marginal rate of tax to 49.5% for those earning less than 70,000; a move also advocated by Mr Bruton in his submission to the finance minister. A more competitive tax regime is essential in attracting and retaining individuals in Ireland and more generally to encourage people to remain in, or return to, the labour market, Mr Bruton wrote. Diarmuid Martins comments came as Irelands Catholic bishops advised against playing a blame game when it comes to failures of the health system. The bishops said they share the worries of many people over what will happen to them, their children, or their parents if they fall ill. They said many people have concerns on the cost of healthcare. We share the anxiety of many citizens in Ireland at the fact that there is an uncertain social climate in the country regarding vital sectors of peoples lives, especially regarding health, homes, education, security, the fostering of a solid human ecology, and international responsibility, the bishops said in a statement. Successive governments have presented a variety of solutions and in so many cases they have either failed or have not been implemented. For more election news, analysis and general banter join us HERE A blame game is not the answer. Irelands health crisis is the result of a fundamental failure of politics. Archbishop Martin said the election should not be about spinning and canvassing, but rather a chance for us all to reflect on our society and to challenge politicians. He said that like many people, he wants results rather than promises, adding that engaging in auction politics does not solve social problems. In a pre-election statement, bishops encouraged voters to engage with and challenge candidates. On the issues of crime and security, they called the recent murders in Dublin a product of criminal industry that shocked us all. It is an industry which destroys young lives daily and which fosters even broader criminality. People feel insecure in their homes both in rural and urban communities. The bishops also said there is an urgent need for new schools across the country: The real inequality in Irish schools is not religious in nature but it is the economic inequality where poorer communities and schools with a large percentage of disadvantaged children are not being adequately supported. For more election news, analysis and general banter join us HERE ITS Arthur J all the way Arthur J hes OK! Deep in what might be perceived as Healy-Rae territory, Labours Arthur J Spring (he likes the J, for John) is out on the canvass in Killarney. The nephew of Dick Spring, a former tanaiste, he likes to sing his own song. Its something children made up for him. The classy dresser with the Swedish education (he studied international business in DIT and in Sweden) and the Spring lineage looks serious, but hes a funny guy though he worries sometimes that his brand of humour will get him in trouble. Away from his stronghold of North Kerry, spring is making a rare appearance in Killarney. Theres even a barometer showing 35 degrees in one house this morning. It may well be Arthurs day and he may well be OK, if the TG4 poll on Kerry released this week, putting him ahead of Sinn Feins Martin Ferris, is to be believed. However, both will struggle at 8% and 7%, respectively, according to the poll. Arthur should not be underestimated, his supporters say. But where will the Healy-Rae transfers go? To Ferris? This is their worry. Arthur J Spring and Labour senator Marie Moloney listen to Catherine Crowe while canvassing in Killarney. Picture: Don MacMonagle For more election news, analysis and general banter join us HERE On his first general election in 2011 in the constituency of Kerry North-West Limerick, Arthur J polled 9,159 first-preference votes, just 123 votes behind Ferris, but on transfers he ended up with 12,245 around 800 votes ahead. Both were elected on the seventh count, after Jimmy Deenihan swept the boards and got elected on the first count. This time in the new constituency of Kerry, which has lost West Limerick, Arthur will most likely be fighting for the last seat along with a bunch of others, including Danny Healy-Rae, who represents the Killarney area on the council. Neither Sinn Fein nor Labour have opted for a candidate in the old Kerry South, a strategy which looks increasingly flawed. Arthur is quick to point to the old Labour tradition in Killarney and south Kerry. With him is Labour senator Marie Moloney, who runs a weekly clinic in the Siptu hall in the town and garnered 5,000 votes in the last election. Arthur Spring and Marie Moloney on the campaign trail during the week. Picture: Don MacMonagle Along with some of the towns lifelong Labour supporters, like Dan Kiely and Gene Moriarty, she is out canvassing for Arthur. The party has become a bit fragmented in recent years there is no Labour seat now in Killarney but the roots are still there, party members insist. In the heart of Killarney, just off Rock Rd, there are number ones for Arthur, even if he gets a telling off because his uncle in Fexco (Dick) did not reply to two letters on childrens issues. Teresa FitzGerald (small z, big G, she warns) is a self-taught artist who studied French and Celtic studies at UCG. Her small house is lined with books, paintings, and jars of biros for the book she is writing. Arthur bats the question about his uncle away send it to this address in future, he says, giving his own. But he is curious about her views on childrens rights. Did she not vote in the childrens referendum, he asks. Teresa tells him she voted no. A bad mom and a bad dad is better than no mum and dad. Unless theres sexual abuse, children should be left with their parents, says Teresa. She spent time in an industrial school, she adds. On his way to other houses in the Cluid development, Arthur J says old industrial school institutions, thankfully no longer exist, and the referendum was to safeguard children in the future. Nearby, Margaret Cunningham a home help and a former classmate of Moloney, has been working since 7am . Its now almost 1pm. Youre doing so much good work for the home helps and everything, says a tired Margaret. She had paid 4,000 into her pension, but you had to have the hours to get the pension, she says. Its hard work. We are looked down upon, if the truth were told, she says. Hopefully thats changing, says Arthur. There is a long discussion about the nitty gritty of home helps, their travel or journey times between clients . This is not taken into account, says Margaret, adding that the summer traffic in Killarney can be a nightmare. The confrontation and the anger of the last election is largely gone, says Arthur. There are nine new schools in Kerry which he helped deliver and 13m for Kerry General Hospital, but jobs are still the priority and more foreign direct investment is badly needed countywide, along with support for small local enterprises. He says Moloney and former Labour TD Breeda Moynihan Cronin have done a lot of work in the area. The tourism industry in Killarney, too, will be grateful for the reduced Vat rate achieved under Labour and Fine Gael, he hopes. About to depart to canvass East Kerry, Arthur J is hopeful it will pay off. I will top the poll here, he says. Its going to be a long day hell be back in Killarney to canvass again before nightfall. For more election news, analysis and general banter join us HERE Noel OShaughnessy, aged 49, from Farranferris Park, Farranree in Cork City, did have a ticket for what the court was told was the drawn game between Cork and Kerry on July 5, 2015, in Killarney and had intended going to the match but he sold it. I had a ticket, but I sold it and bought drink with it, he told Killorglin District Court. He went on a theft spree in three places, taking an iPhone as well as cash. In the Shire Pub, not far from Fitzgeralds Stadium, he took 100 and a phone, as well as the match tickets. He also pleaded guilty at Killorglin District Court where he appeared in custody on Thursday to further thefts in Killorglin and Killarney on August 15. In a Killarney store on August 15, a woman felt a tug and her bag had disappeared, said Supt Flor Murphy. The total loss was 1,165, the court was told. He had 155 previous convictions the court heard, many of them for theft. Solicitor Padraig OConnell said his client, who has three children, was a chronic alcoholic and what had occurred on the day of the Munster final was both opportunistic and mean- spirited, the solicitor said. Judge OConnor told Mr OShaughnessy he had no respect for the law. He was not working, was only in his late 40s, and yet had 155 convictions. The court was told Mr OShaughnessy had been sentenced in Ennis, Co Clare on Wednesday to five months imprisonment and was due before Newcastlewest Court in Co Limerick today. Judge OConnor convicted him on all five counts of theft and sentenced him to a total of 12 months in jail which included five months for the thefts of the tickets and cash and phone in the Shire Pub. He was also before the court on two charges of not appearing before the court and was fined 200 for this. Mr OShaughnessy said his social welfare had been cut off . Judge Sean O Donnabhain said that the accused had benefitted from a previous remand in custody and had been at the time of the crime a menace to himself and a danger to others. He has since shown signs of insight and remorse, the judge said. Gerard Harrington, who is aged around 40, from Valley View, Bilberry, Midleton, Co Cork, was given a two-year suspended jail term yesterday. He previously pleaded guilty to a charge of assault causing harm to his wife on July 10, 2015. On two previous occasions in the month before this, he made threats to kill men in his wider family and to set a house on fire. He also pleaded guilty to those charges. Judge O Donnabhain said the accused now showed signs of a more determined attitude to staying sober. Det Sgt Sean Leahy testified previously at Cork Circuit Criminal Court: His wife does not want to see him going to prison for this. She hopes there is a future with him without drink and believes he is a totally different man when sober. Jane Hyland, defending, said yesterday that the accused was severely intoxicated on the night of the assault. Ms Hyland said previously: He is appalled by what he did to his wife on the day. Det Sgt Leahy said that, in his experience of the accused, he was a completely different person when he was not drinking. On the day he assaulted his wife, he had been drinking heavily in the family home. He texted her to say that if she did not come home immediately with wine and cigarettes he would torch the house. She did not return to the family home but later he contacted her by phone in a much more conciliatory tone and asked her to come to his assistance as he urgently needed to be brought to a doctor. Believing this, his wife returned home. He asked her if she was alone. When she confirmed that she was, he punched her once in the forehead, knocking her back on to a couch, and then followed up with two punches to the face, causing her to bleed from the nose and mouth. When gardai later arrived at the scene, they found a canister of petrol in the house. The study, presented at the American Stroke Associations International Stroke Conference in Los Angeles, examined data concerning more than 72,000 women, 3,300 of them reported that they became pregnant late in life. The researchers compared their rates of stroke, heart attack, and cardiovascular death over 12 years of follow-ups with women who were pregnant at a younger age. They found that 2.4% of women who were pregnant at a younger age were at risk of ischemic stroke compared to 3.8% of women who got pregnant over the age of 40. Risk of a haemorrhagic stroke rose from 0.5% in younger mothers to 1% in older mothers. The chance of having a heart attack also rose slightly for women who became pregnant over 40 from 2.5% to 3%. Meanwhile, women who got pregnant later in life had a 3.9% risk of cardiovascular death compared to 2.3% of women who became pregnant earlier in life. We already knew that older women were more likely than younger women to experience health problems during their pregnancy, said Adnan Qureshi, lead researcher and director of the Zeenat Qureshi Stroke Institute in Minnesota. Now, we know that the consequences of that later pregnancy stretch years into the future. Women with a late pregnancy need to be aware of their increased risk and take steps to improve their cardiovascular health. And their doctors need to remain vigilant years later in monitoring these womens risk factors through physical examination and, perhaps more tests and earlier interventions to prevent stroke and other cardiovascular events. In 2014, 4% of newborns in England and Wales were born to mothers aged over 40, according to Office for National Statistics figures. As EU leaders sought to end their fragmented response to Europes biggest refugee emergency since the Second World War at a summit meeting, the legal fight with EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos took centre stage. Legal opinions will be answered by lawyers. Politically I say: well stick to it, Mr Faymann said as he entered the summit meeting. More than 1m people entered the EU in 2015 fleeing conflict or poverty. About 84,000 have entered so far this year. Overwhelmed by the numbers and frustrated by their inability to agree an effective European response, some EU countries have begun tightening border controls or putting up fences without warning their neighbours. In the latest in a series of unilateral measures, Austria said it would allow no more than 80 people a day to apply for asylum at its southern border points, as of today. Mr Avramopoulos said in a letter yesterday that Austria has a legal obligation to accept any asylum application that is made on its territory or at its border. The letter to Austrian interior minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said a ceiling on asylum seekers would be plainly incompatible with Austrias obligations under EU and international law. Ms Mikl-Leitner has said that a maximum 3,200 people a day would be allowed to enter Austria who are seeking international protection in a neighbouring country. That is an allusion to Germany which, along with Sweden, has been the preferred destination for most migrants. However, Mr Avramopoulos also warned Austria should not be allowing people to travel through the country if their aim is to apply for asylum elsewhere. Arriving at the summit, Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said he understood the reaction of countries such as Austria, but warned the end result could be the bunching-up of great amounts of people in difficult circumstances in northern Greece. While Labour wants a referendum on repealing the Eighth Amendment, Fine Gael has only committed to holding a citizens assembly to discuss the issue. Despite this, Labour has promised not only to hold a referendum but to win it and would be strongly campaigning for a yes vote. Communications Minister Alex White said he would not be delivering ultimatums but a referendum on the Eighth Amendment, which currently gives equal status to the mother and her unborn child, would be a key issue when negotiating a new programme for government. It comes as Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin called for honesty and courage from politicians on the issue of abortion. Archbishop Martin said: You cannot pretend to be a Catholic and leave aside a very vital part of Catholic teaching but the individual makes that decision. Mr White said there definitely has to be a referendum but he would not give an exact timeline as to when Labour would like to see a vote take place. The objective is to win change and to achieve change. If you set yourself that it has to be by December or it has to be March that then becomes the issue, that then becomes the stumbling block. We are often asked about redlines and deadlines and ultimatums, we are an experienced political party and our track record is there to demonstrate that, so if you look at what happened in the last five years on difficult issues like the X case, difficult issues for Fine Gael like the marriage equality referendum, we persuaded and convinced our partners in government and indeed the broader society that these were progressive changes that were worth making. Certainly we will deliver this in the early part of the next government in my view. Mr White admitted that Fine Gael and Labour share differing viewpoints on a number of issues, including the Eighth Ammendment, but believed his party can change opinions, including that of Taoiseach Enda Kenny. I know that there are many in Fine Gael who are reluctant to agree to change in this area, I witnessed many people in Fine Gael who were deeply reluctant to agree to the very limited change that was represented by the X-case legislation. I was very much aware then of particular views within Fine Gael resisting that, but we got through it. I dont want to comment directly on the Taoiseach but I think in fairness to him he changed on other issues as well. Labours Aodhan O Riordain hit out at Fianna Fails archaic view on the Eighth Amendment. Fianna Fail will give a free vote to deputies on the issue but would not initiate a referendum. At least when dealing with Fine Gael they want a process, Fianna Fail are shutting down this conversation entirely. Fine Gael have offered a process, we have stated our position quite clearly but I think Fianna Fails position on this is archaic, out of touch and that is very much the reason why they cant return to government in any form. Mr White added that he didnt have them down in my list of centre-left parties. I dont necessarily regard Fianna Fail, certainly not all of them, as centre left. I mean its the party that was essentially responsible for one of the most spectacular economic crashes in the building sector and the banking sector in modern economic history. Reacting to the archbishops comments, Mr White said the archbishop was completely legitimate in expressing his view that people be given the space to reflect on the issue. For more election news, analysis and general banter join us HERE A review of bowel screening cases at Wexford General Hospital identified 12 missed cancers, including one probable avoidable death. The societys head of services, Donal Buggy, said the review represented a personal tragedy for the 12 individuals and their families. It also represents an unnecessary failure in a system which should not have happened and from which lessons must be learned, said Mr Buggy. Around 600 patients were recalled due to issues with colonoscopies at the hospital in 2013 and 2014. Mr Buggy said almost 2,500 people were diagnosed each year with bowel cancer and about 1,000 died from the disease. The early detection of bowel cancer is vital in terms of ensuring the best possible outcome for the patient, he said. Currently, around 4,000 people have been waiting more than three months for a colonoscopy. Last year, the HSE said all patients should undergo a colonoscopy within three months of being referred. However, the health authoritys target this year was revised downwards to 70% in its service plan. Mr Buggy pointed out that over the last three years Wexford General Hospital had fallen consistently below the HSEs three-month target. It is crucial that the Irish public has access to timely and quality diagnostic tests for suspected cancers, said Mr Buggy. Anything which affects the trust of diagnostic testing for cancer patients is of paramount concern to the society. Mr Buggy said the society was continuing to monitor the situation closely. The HSE said its primary concern was to address patients concerns the review had been completed and patients and their families had been fully informed. The HSE regret any distress which has resulted for patients and all other parties, it said last night. It said the public could be assured that the authority had acted quickly to ensure the safety of services in the hospital concerned. Health Minister Leo Varadkar said there was no evidence of screening mistakes occurring anywhere else in the country and what happened in Wexford was due to human error. He said a quality assurance and systems review was needed to see what could be done to make sure that screening errors were picked up much quicker. The old Cleeves toffee-making site on Clancy Strand is earmarked for several possible uses, including an international conference centre. Denis Brosnan, founding chief executive of the Kerry Group and chairman of the Limerick Economic Forum, said Kerry Group has sold the seven-acre site to Limerick City and County Council for a knockdown price. He said: It is now up to the people of Limerick to decide what should be done with the site. Maybe an international conference centre or something for the food industry. I hope to stay around long enough to see it redeveloped and that this site will be the heart and soul of Limerick. Mr Brosnan was speaking at the annual Limerick Person of the Year ceremony in the Clarion Hotel where he was made an Honorary Limerick Person by decree of Limerick City and County Council. The overall and youngest-ever winner of the Limerick Person of the Year, however, was Katie Whelan, a 19-year-old student whose Lisas Lights campaign lit up bridges in the city to highlight suicide awareness after the death of a cousin. Katie Whelan last May stood with hundreds of others on Thomond Bridge to highlight suicide awareness. Picture: Don Moloney Meanwhile, Mr Brosnan said he was humbled by the honour, joining rugby legend Tony Ward who was last year named as the first recipient of the honorary Limerick person title. Mr Brosnan recalled that when Dell closed its manufacturing plant in the city in 2009, with the loss of 2,000 jobs, he was asked to head a taskforce. For me its so little that has been achieved, he said. Others say so much has been achieved. The truth lies somewhere in between. Mr Brosnan, who runs a stud farm in Croom with wife Joan, said the city forum he heads had seen the unification of the city and county councils into one local authority. The forum had also been to the fore in changing the fortunes of Shannon Airport. But, he said, the biggest change in Limerick in recent years was the rebranding of the city to one associated with education and culture. Receiving her award, Katie Whelan said: If somebody feels suicidal it is not the only option. There is always somebody there to listen. Mayor of the City and County of Limerick Liam Galvin said: Last May, many hundreds of people stood on Thomond Bridge with Katie and in solidarity with those who need a helping hand in their darkest days. It is my hope and belief that her project will continue to spread a message of hope and will help light a path for many people. I particularly want to commend Katie for involving the promotion of suicide awareness through education by advocating that our young people should be shown the reality of the pain that is caused for the families of those who take their own lives. George Redmond, a former assistant Dublin city and county manager, passed away on Tuesday in Connolly Hospital, Dublin, aged 92. He worked in the authorities from 1941 to 1989. The Mahon tribunal heard claims he received illicit payments to the value of one substantial house per annum for assisting developers. During the hearings, Mr Redmond at one point said: I was the council. He was questioned over how he had amassed 444,408 in cash deposits by 1998, including 246,329 in an Isle of Man account. The tribunal found he received a corrupt planning-related payment and tried to obstruct its work. However, after a 10-year legal battle it withdrew the findings on December 19, 2014, with Mr Redmond receiving his legal costs. Mr Redmond was separately convicted of criminal corruption in 2003, but six months into the sentence it was overturned. In 2008 he was re-tried on two separate corruption charges, but not convicted. The Criminal Assets Bureau arrested him at Dublin Airport in 1999, when he was in possession of 300,000 worth of cash and cheques resulting in an 800,000 settlement with Revenue. He is survived by his wife Maureen and sons David and John. THERES only ever been one McGrath linked with chants of Ooh Aah until now. Women of a certain vintage in a Carrigaline estate seem just a little thrilled to see Michael McGrath on the campaign trail. Pensioner Anne Moore is effusive in her praise for the Cork South-Central Fianna Fail candidate, who she says helped secure her a house in the Mount Rivers estate. Michael and his brother Seamus have been so good to me all through the years, she says. In fact, she had talked him up so much, her friends think were having an affair, she giggles. Around the estate, senior ladies stand in doorways, waiting for a few words with the golden-haired boy. Kathleen Donnellan shakes his hand warmly, promising to give him her number one, before making way for Michael to go inside and convince her husband, also Michael, to do likewise. For more election news, analysis and general banter join us HERE But Michael Donnellan is having none of it. I grew up in Turners Cross, I was a neighbour of Micheal Martins, so hell be getting my number one. But Michael [McGrath] understands that, he says. Michael McGrath meets John Dunne while canvassing in Mount Rivers, Carrigaline, County Cork Picture: Denis Scannell In Carrigaline Day Care centre, where 10 diners are digging into tasty-looking plates of roast chicken, spuds, and veg, Bobbie Lambe, chair of the Meals on Wheels, says Michael would also get her number one. He does a lot of work for the community, anything you ask of him, hell either get it done or put you on the right road towards getting it done, she says. Kathleen Callaghan, a nurse at the centre, announces she holds no truck with politicians at all. I dont believe a word any of them say. I mean, who in the name of God do I vote for? she asks. Finbarr OLeary, a staunch McGrath supporter, is tucking into his dinner. His chances of taking a seat are very good I think, Finbarr says. Hes a great worker, people understand that hes doing his best for mortgage holders. Finbarr, a veteran of election campaigns, thinks Fianna Fail will take two seats in the constituency (Michael and Micheal), with Simon Coveney taking one for Fine Gael. After that, its hard to call, he says, with Fine Gaels Jerry Buttimer and Labours Ciaran Lynch likely to fight it out for the fourth and final seat in what was previously a five-seat constituency. But what of Michael himself? Does he fancy his chances? It will be tough, he says. I took the fifth seat last time around. But its an intriguing battle. Is it a battle that he and Micheal Martin are fighting together? Rumour has it that neither is canvassing on behalf of the other. Michael denies this. Our directors of elections met and agreed a strategy that we can both live with. Micheal and myself have a very cordial workmanlike relationship and we are both determined to hang on to our seats, he says. Michael McGrath meets Anne Moore while canvassing in Mount Rivers, Carrigaline, Co Cork. Picture: Denis Scannell But if he doesnt? Will he return to a career in accounting or a stay-at-home dad to his seven children? Ill cross that bridge when I come to it, he says. He concedes his career, which requires him to spend three days a week in Dublin, is challenging for family life. But he says Sarah, his wife, gets terrific help from her mother, Eileen OBrien, and Michaels own mother, Marie, widowed these past 20 years, who is also highly involved in her sons election campaign, as is his brother Seamus, himself a Cork County councillor. Does Michael every tire of the endless requests for help from constituents? Apparently not. Its about public service, he says, and its very fulfilling. People raise legitimate issues, he says. If you can solve their problems, great, if not, its important to be upfront about it. But, for him, politics is more than a gra for endless problem-solving its the ability to have an influence at national level and the engagement in national debate that keep him in thrall. Every time I walk through the gates of Dail Eireann, I remind myself of how privileged I am, he says. One of his constituents, Peter O Maolruaidh, is undecided about who will get his vote. As we stand chatting at the doorway, a glorious smell wafts out. Ive roast potatoes and two lamb chops on, he says. I better go in and turn them. Hopefully weve turned you towards giving me a number one, Michael says, smooth as Paul McGrath. For more election news, analysis and general banter join us HERE Finance Minister Michael Noonan has strongly rejected claims that he did a runner from families of sex abuse victims who tried to speak to him about abuse allegations when he was minister for health. Mr Noonan yesterday dismissed a claim from a former Fine Gael councillor and chairman of the South East Health Board Garry OHalloran that the minister ran from him as he tried to discuss the abuse allegations in the South-East. The veteran Fine Gael minister is under fire amid the ongoing controversy about the mishandling of sexual abuse allegations at a foster home in Co Waterford by health officials as far back as 1995. Recent reports in the Irish Examiner have led to the establishment of a Commission of Investigation into the foster home at which a young intellectually disabled woman, referred to as Grace, was allegedly raped and subjected to horrific sexual abuse. I understand Cllr OHalloran, whom I dont know I mean Im sure I met him when I was minister because I met a lot of councillors Im not sure whether he was Waterford or Wexford but he was on in the South-East anyway and I reject his versions of events, Mr Noonan told the Irish Examiner yesterday. Mr Noonan confirmed he received representations from the foster father in 1996 when health minister around the time a decision to remove Grace from the home was overturned. We were told that the young woman in question, or young child in question, had been removed from the foster home, he said. Some weeks later, it transpired that the South Eastern Health Board officials, who had made the decision, had reversed the decision for some reason. Mr Noonan said the matter was ultimately passed on to his junior minister, Austin Currie, to deal with. Austin Currie was the junior minister with responsibility to children at the Department of Health at that time and we referred it on to him, he said. Mr Noonan also sought to cast doubt on the veracity of the abuse allegations. This is despite the Government deciding to establish a Commission of Inquiry into the goings on at the foster home, and the HSE apologising to the abuse victims. He said: As I understand it, what we have, at present, is a series of allegations that need to be inquired into. I understand theres no proof on either side. And I dont want to say anything that gets me into legal difficulty to satisfy your curiosity. Ive given you an absolute straight answer on everything I know. I cant be responsible for third-parties who make allegations about me which I refute. Mr OHalloran said that, at the 1997 Fine Gael ard fheis, Mr Noonan had arranged to meet him and some abuse victims. He has said he resigned from Fine Gael because of Mr Noonans actions. We arrived, he kept us waiting for hours, said Mr Halloran. Eventually I spotted him leaving the stage and heading for a door about 40m away, I was about 60m away and started to follow him in the direction of the door. He spotted me and ran. I then ran but he got to the door and when I arrived I was met with a cloud of black smoke as his garda driver sped away. Reacting to Mr Noonans comments last night, Mr OHalloran said he was shocked at how bare-faced the minister was in his denials. How can he deny it? Surely he cant be so bare- faced? What about Phil Hogan, who was there telling me it would all be alright? Mr OHalloran said. Also he sought to deny he knew me. What about the time in 1991 when I ran for the Seanad when he canvassed with me and had his son drive me around. After an initial query about Mr OHallorans allegations on Monday, a Fine Gael spokesperson responded on Tuesday by referencing an interview the finance minister conducted with RTE before the claims were made, adding that no additional information is available. Film-makers created foot-tall puppets and miniature sets of Dublins GPO and St Stephens Green to depict Vinny Byrnes role alongside 1916 rebel leader Thomas MacDonagh in the Jacobs biscuit factory. A Terrible Hullabaloo uses documentary recordings from 1980 when, aged 78, the former teenage Irish Volunteer recalls the dramatic events and his role in the revolution. Writer Aoife Noonan said: We took the audio from him talking about the Rising, so he narrates it himself. Hes a character you warm to. Immediately hes funny, a little cheeky oul lad. You dont really see many of his generation of old lads now. When he talked in the documentary, he said when he was arrested after the Rising by the British, they asked him what he was doing in the factory. He said fighting for Ireland, but I never fired a shot. He was a character. The eight-minute short made using 10 puppets was produced by Bowsie Workshop in Dublins Liberties. A puppet of Vinny Byrne, one of Michael Collinss hitmen, which has become a voice from the grave in a new animated film telling the story of being a 14-year-old boy soldier in the Easter Rising. Pic: Niall Carson/PA Wire It was made as part of the Irish Film Boards After 16 initiative, which asked film-makers to produce stories about the Rising, fact and fiction, which illuminate, surprise, and provoke. It premieres at the Audi Dublin International Film Festival on Sunday, with Mr Byrnes niece Theresa Croker and her daughter Dolores to attend. Mr Byrne was initially told to leave the Jacobs factory by older volunteers because of his age but made his way back in among the ranks of the 2nd Battalion and ultimately held prisoner two policemen at gunpoint. From 1919, he was said to have played a key role in The Squad, the counter-intelligence and assassin unit assembled by Collins in the War of Independence. The internal HSE audit of Transfusion Positive Ltd also identified a significant failure on the part of its two directors to maintain and retain adequate financial records. In fact, the group admitted to destroying financial records, saying it was not aware it had to maintain them. Against this backdrop, the group spent more than 90% of the 1.5m in public funding it got between 2009-2014 on overseas trips; weekends away; dining; expenses of the executive committee members/ directors; complementary/beauty therapies; and legal costs. The audit of Transfusion Positive Ltds expenditure 2009-2014 shows almost 70,000 spent on trips to Boston, Berlin, Copenhagen, and Vienna to attend health conferences mainly designed for clinicians. One Boston trip in 2009 where four directors/executive committee members attended cost 27,500. During the trip, a bill for Skipjacks Seafood Restaurant showed there were 14 guests at a cost of $1,014. There was also a bill of $155 for Martini, Heineken, and Bombay Sapphire at Bricco Ristorante Boston. - 547,000 on 36 weekends away in Ireland. These included 149,000 at Fitzgeralds Woodlands Hotel and Spa Adare, 128,000 at the Connemara Coast Hotel in Galway, and 64,000 at Vienna Woods Hotel in Cork; - 425,000 on expense claims of the executive committee and 131,00 on complementary therapies; - 58,000 on annual rent of a premises on Clanwilliam Square which the audit said was essentially used one and a half days per week. Bills totalling more than 100,000 were paid using one of the directors personal credit cards which was effectively treated as Transfusion Positives company credit card. Other examples of the type of expenditure incurred included six gift cards from Claires Accessories totalling 90; 593 on curtains; 144 on a boat sightseeing trip in Berlin; 4,000 on sweets and fizzy drinks; a Pennys receipt for knickknacks costing 301; bills of up to 864 to collect and drop stuff to hotels; 2,000 on pool table hire; and 2,000 on a physiotherapy table that was never listed among the companys assets. The auditors made 52 recommendations on foot of their findings and gave each a high rating, meaning they were designed to address a significant risk of substantial financial loss, and/or accounting error and/or major non-compliance with policies or regulations and must be immediately addressed. Transfusion Positive has agreed to implement the majority, and has done so already in some cases. The support group was set up in 1995 and formed as a company in 2002. It provides support to men, women and children infected with hepatitis C as a result of receiving contaminated blood from the State. It has about 300 members. It is currently receiving HSE funding to cover fixed costs such as rent, but is still in negotiations with the HSE regarding a 2016 service level agreement. No funding has issued for 2016 so far. In 2014, Positive Action, a support group for women given infected Anti-D by the State, had its funding pulled after a HSE audit found inappropriate and extravagant use of public funds. Norwegian Airlines confirmed last night that continuing delays by the US Department of Transportation (DoT) on its Irish subsidiarys application for a foreign carrier permit means it cannot launch the service as planned in May. The delays have also forced the deferral of its proposed Cork to Barcelona service, which would have shared airline crews and aircraft with the proposed Boston service. However, the huge low-fares airline, which has also voiced plans to launch a Cork to New York service next year, reaffirmed its commitment to introduce transatlantic flights from Cork Airport. A Norwegian Airlines spokesman said it is not ruling out the possibility of launching the Boston service before the end of this year . However, it hinges on the outcome of an arbitration process triggered by the European Commission which could take at least four months to reach a conclusion. In a statement last night, Norwegian Airlines said: Due to continued delays by the US Department of Transportation, our intention to begin flights from Cork in May is no longer possible but we still intend to start flights as soon as possible this summer. We will continue to fight for our clear and legitimate right for a foreign carrier permit and we welcome any steps by the Irish and European authorities to help resolve this issue. It is clear there is huge support for these routes so we urge the US authorities to put passengers first by finally approving our application. An airline spokesman said they are grateful for the huge support they have received from Cork Airport, the Irish authorities, and the public for its planned new routes. Not only are we fully committed to new transatlantic flights from Cork this year but we are also looking at options for further expansion in Ireland, he said. We see several interesting route opportunities from Ireland, and look forward to offering both Irish and American customers new routes, more choice, and lower fares. The news came a day after the Irish Examiner revealed that the European Commission has invoked an arbitration process in a bid to break the impasse over the airlines licence application. Norwegians Irish subsidiary, Norwegian Air International (NAI), which has been cleared by the Irish Aviation Authority to operate under the terms of the EU-US Open Skies agreement, has been waiting an unprecedented two years for a decision from the US DoT on its foreign carrier permit application. It is now the longest pending application of its kind in the DoT. The delay has been blamed on intense lobbying from US airlines and unions who are opposed to the low-cost carriers entrance into the US market. The European Commission has consistently stated that there is no legal reason why NAI can not operate transatlantic flights from Cork under Open Skies. European Transport Commissioner, Violeta Bulc, will be in Washington DC later this month for discussions with the US authorities on the decarbonisation of aviation and it is expected that the Cork-US flights issue will be addressed. Sean Kelly said the late Bill and John Kelly, 77, who were estranged and who died within months of each other, could be buried with their father in their native Cork. I was sorry to hear that they had died. My wish now is that they would be buried in a proper grave, Sean said. With their bodies lying unclaimed in separate morgues, the Irish community in North London launched an appeal to trace their relatives. Sean, from Bweeng, near Mallow in north Cork, heard their story on C103FM yesterday and came forward. The penny just dropped, he told the Irish Examiner. I would like to establish first if they had any wishes themselves to be buried in England or elsewhere. Their father is buried in St Finbarrs Cemetery in Cork, so well wait and see, but you have to look after your own. William, known as Bill, who was originally from the Turners Cross area of Cork City, died on January 29 in Muswell Hill, north London. It was only when his friend, Margaret Deeney, went in search of his relatives to inform them of his death that it was discovered that his estranged twin, John, who lived in Archway, had also passed away. The community launched an appeal through The Irish Post newspaper to find their next of kin. Padraig Grennan of genealogy specialists Finders said their researchers used a marriage cert for the twins parents, Denis Kelly from Dromohane and Katherine Murphy from Banteer, dated January 22, 1929, to confirm beyond doubt that Sean is a first cousin of the twins. Sean said he still has a 1992-dated letter from Bill, addressed to his late mother, in which he says he, Jack (his brother, John), and their sister Mary, were fine. The twins were born on August 27, 1938, and it is believed that, after the death of their father, the twins and their family moved to London, possibly in 1947. Little is known about their early years in London. Bill and John were described as quite reclusive, and Bills social worker, Elizabeth Blanch, said he suffered from mental health issues for a number of years. He worked in Marks and Spencer as a porter, but left work because of his health problems. He moved into sheltered accommodation at Cranley Dene Court in Muswell Hill in 2006, kept few personal items in it, and enjoyed a pint and the occasional bet on the horses. Ms Deeney described him as a very honest man and a devout Catholic who rarely missed Mass in Our Lady of Muswell Catholic Church, but said he rarely spoke about his personal life or family. It is believed the twins were estranged for a number of years before their deaths and that their sister, Mary, died about two years ago. Bills remains are being held at Whittington Hospitals mortuary, while Johns remains are lying unclaimed in Hornsey Coroners Office. Mr Grennan said he is now liaising with Sean and the authorities in Britain about their funeral arrangements. Almost 1,300 has been donated to a fund set up by The Irish Post to help with funeral costs. The party expressed extreme disappointment at what it called RTEs unbalanced and unfair coverage of the election in its main news bulletins on Monday and Tuesday. Sinn Fein was yesterday accused of trying to bully RTE into giving it more favourable coverage. According to an academic study conducted by former RTE reporter Kevin Rafter, now of the DCU School of Communications, the national broadcaster was targeted by a campaign orchestrated by Sinn Fein supporters that claimed the party had been under-represented on the air- waves in the last general election. It was also claimed that RTE current affairs broadcaster Miriam OCallaghan, had been the subject of online attacks by Sinn Fein supporters. As national broadcaster, RTE has to give each party a fair amount of airtime based around levels of support. In a statement to the Irish Examiner yesterday, RTE denied that Sinn Fein had been excluded from its programming. Sinn Fein have in fact featured in the following RTE programming: On Monday on Claire Byrne Live Leaders Debate, The Late Debate, Six-One, and Nuacht bulletins; on Sunday on This Week, Six-One News, Nine News, and Campaign Daily, on Saturday on One OClock, Six-One, and Nine News programmes, and Saturday with Claire Byrne, it said. Gerry Adams took part in a leader interview... on Today with Sean ORourke and was interviewed by Bryan Dobson on the Six-One News. In addition he has been invited to take part in the Prime Time Leaders Debate on Tuesday night. RTE said it does not operate a quota system on airtime. We do have airtime guides but theyre only a guide and we take everything into consideration in trying to be overall fair to all parties, it said. Sinn Fein said it was extremely disappointed with the coverage of its election campaign on RTEs television news bulletins on Monday and Tuesday. We do not accept that it was fair or balanced, a spokesman said. We will continue to work with RTE and we hope to see fair and balanced coverage going forward. For more election news, analysis and general banter join us HERE A spitting cobra and a 20cm-long scorpion were also seized but had died in transit after they were posted to Ireland from the Czech Republic, according to details released under the Freedom of Information Act. Two large zebra tarantulas, which had been cooked and prepared for human consumption, were also discovered by customs officials when they arrived at Portlaoise Mail Centre from Thailand. Other peculiar delicacies seized upon their arrival in Ireland include fried sago worms the larvae of a type of snout beetle which is native to tropical Asia. Records released by the Office of the Revenue Commissioners reveal that a kilogramme of live stag beetles was seized by customs officials at a postal centre in 2014. The insects were subsequently transferred to the Department of Agriculture. Stag beetles can grow to 12cm in length and are named after their huge jaws, which resemble the antlers of a male deer. Male beetles use these to wrestle each other when competing for mating sites or food. A Chinese pond turtle, which is considered an endangered species, and two red-eared slider terrapins were seized at Dublin Airport under the CITES Act. They were transported to Dublin Zoo. A number of dead animals were seized at Portlaoise Mail Centre, according to official documents. These included a bat skeleton posted from China, and a vintage baby alligator handbag from the US. A spitting cobra and an imperial scorpion, which is one of the largest species of scorpion in the world, were also discovered at the centre but had perished en route from the Czech Republic. Two of the strangest discoveries were the cooked and dehydrated zebra tarantulas and sago worms. Zebra tarantulas can grow as large as 13cm, and are kept as pets or eaten. There is little flesh on their legs but the head and body contain a delicate white meat, according to Thai cookbooks. Sago worms, which are the fatty larvae of the red palm weevil, can be eaten live or fried before eating. The worms are said to have a gooey texture when eaten raw, and a bacon-like taste when they are fried. Ms Collins case is an enormous one with enormous implications, her counsel John Rogers said. It was about the very hub of the financial running of the State, the gearbox whose fine synchronisation is critical to the running of the State. Her core argument is that the 2008 Credit Institutions (Financial Stabilisation) Act impermissibly gave the minister power to decide, without Dail approval, how much the banks needed to meet the regulatory requirements necessary to keep trading. It is not constitutionally permissible for the Oireachtas to empower the minister to enter into effectively unlimited commitments on behalf of the State without any, or any meaningful, constraint or oversight. This issue cannot be determined on the basis of a view, given the scale of the crisis facing the State from 2008, there was no option, Mr Rogers said in reply to Mr Justice Donal ODonnell. The 2010 notes were an appropriation of public money in breach of Article 11 of the Constitution, which deals with appropriation of public resources, he said. The Dail was given no opportunity to approve the promissory notes prior to the minister making a legally binding commitment to issue those and its elected members, including Ms Collins, TD for Dublin SouthCentral, were presented with a fait accompli. Ms Collins, accompanied by several supporters, including Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy and Idependent MEP Luke Ming Flanagan, was in court when her appeal opened yesterday against the High Courts rejection of her case. The appeal, which continues on Monday, is being heard by a seven-judge Supreme Court, presided over by Chief Justice Susan Denham, due to the importance of the issues raised. In November 2013, a three-judge High Court ruled the promissory notes issued in 2010 were validly issued under the 2008 Act and also found that Act was constitutional. Mr Lenihans provision of financial assistance via the notes did not require either a separate Dail vote or defined upper limit on that assistance, it ruled. The case concerned two promissory notes of 2010 under which the State agreed to pay some 31bn to Anglo, Irish Nationwide Building Society and Educational Building Society over 15 years to 2025. The notes allowed the institutions get emergency liquidity assistance from the Central Bank. After the winding-up in 2013 of Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, successor in title of Anglo/INBS, the Anglo note, on which 25bn was then outstanding, was converted into long-term Irish government bonds. The Supreme Court heard, following reorganisation of the finances of AIB (owner of EBS), the EBS note is no longer in existence. Mr Rogers argued the High Court had erred in finding the 2008 Act specified the necessary adequate principles and policies to render the delegation of such power to the minister constitutionally permissible. No meaningful principles and policies restrain the actions of the minister, it was argued. The High Court was told the decision to issue these promissory notes was made when the troika was putting pressure on the government to support financial institutions here, he said. While it was significant the 2008 Act said financial support shall not be provided for any period beyond September 2010, that provision was later amended and that two-year limitation became meaningless. The issuing of the promissory notes conflicted with Article 11 of the Constitution which provides all revenues of the State shall, subject to such exception as may be provided by law, form one fund and shall be appropriated for the purposes and in the manner and subject to the charges and liabilities determined and imposed by law. The court must consider what is meant by the phrase charges and liabilities determined and imposed by law, he said. The 2010 budget made no reference to a 3.1bn expected instalment payment to Anglo in March 2011, he added. The Dail could not revisit the matter later because the ministers commitment to pay the notes was made as a matter of law and could not be reversed. For more election news, analysis and general banter join us HERE It is not yet known how many vehicles are affected in Ireland. However, a spokesperson for Toyota Ireland said it should have an idea of the number today. The recall, involving 2.87m vehicles, involves Toyotas RAV4 sports utility vehicle made between July 2005 and August 2014 and between October 2005 and January of this year. The fault relates to the suspected separation of seatbelts in two accidents one of which killed a passenger in Canada. The other related to a crash in the US where a passenger was injured. However, Toyota has stressed that it is unclear if the defect was to blame in these cases. There is a possibility that, in the event of a very severe frontal crash, the lap seatbelt belt webbing could contact a portion of the metal seat cushion frame and come off, stated a Toyota email. If this occurs, the seatbelt may not properly restrain the occupant, which could increase the risk of injury. Just over half the vehicles, 1.3m being recalled are in North America, Toyotas largest single market. A total of 625,000 vehicles will be recalled across Europe, 434,000 vehicles in China, 177,000 in Japan, and 307,000 in other regions. Toyota said its dealers will fix the problem by adding resin covers to the metal seat-cushion frames in a process that will take between 30 and 60 minutes per vehicle. The condition does not occur in other vehicles, because the shape of the metal seat-cushion frame is different, it said. Last week, Honda revealed that it was recalling some 5.7m cars worldwide. The recall, which involves an estimated 5,300 cars in Ireland, involves Takata Corp air bag inflators which can explode releasing shrapnel into the car. The 5,300 cars affected here come from the Legend, FRV, Insight, Jazz, and Civic four-door models. The cars would have been made between 2005 and 2014. Geraldine Delahunty, aged 41, with an address at Convent Lawns, Kylemore Road, Ballyfermot, Dublin is alleged to have become infatuated with the broadcaster. She appeared before Judge Michael Walsh at Dublin District Court yesterday. She faces a single count contrary to section 10 of the Non Fatal Offences Against the Person Act for alleged harassment of Dublin Talks co-host Jeremy Dixon from August 4, 2014, until January 16 last year. Judge Walsh held that the case was too serious to be dealt with in the district court meaning she will face trial in the circuit court, which can impose lengthier sentences. In an outline of the allegations for the purpose of deciding jurisdiction, Garda Sergeant Gail Smith told Judge Walsh that it was alleged Mr Dixon was harassed via Twitter. It started with comments some of which were quite upsetting including one message that he would be killed. It was alleged that a number of false statements were made such as untrue claims that the broadcaster abused his wife and took drugs. The tweets could be seen by Mr Dixons 15,000 Twitter followers. It was also alleged that his home address was posted online and references made about his wife. Gda Sgt Smith said the broadcaster tried to block the poster and to prevent these tweets. However, it is alleged, the defendant created account, after account, after account, some in the injured partys name and his wifes name. It was alleged she posted pictures of the radio presenter and his wife. Mr Dixon told the court that the tweets were relentless. It affected his work because a company he did business with had been contacted to untruthfully tell them not to employ him because he takes drugs. His wife was also afraid and had also received an untrue message saying he was having an affair with a work colleague. He said it placed a great strain on their lives and his wife Sue told the court it had made her nervous and that when she was at home alone she had to keep all the doors locked. Defence solicitor Michael Kelleher said it was disclosed to gardai that his client was initially a fan but became quite infatuated over a period of years. The DPP held the case could be dealt with at district court level only if a plea of guilty were entered. However, having heard an outline of the allegations, Judge Michael Walsh held it was not a minor offence and should be sent forward for trial to the higher court. The woman, was remanded on continuing bail to appear again in March when it is expected she will be served with a book of evidence and returned for trial. The offence, at district court level, can result in a fine and a sentence of up to 12 months. However, in the circuit court it can attract a sentence of up to 10 years. Jeremy Dixon, aged 40, presents Dublin Talks from 10am to 12pm each weekday with Adrian Kennedy on 98FM, with nightly repeats at 10pm. They joined the station earlier this year after leaving FM104s Phone Show, which they had presented together for 16 years. Mr Dixon is also well known for his DJ work at nightclubs. Bonjour. My girlfriend here in Cork texted me last night and said she wanted space. I advised her to move to Ovens. Do you think I got the wrong end of the stick? Jean Claude, Lille and Victoria Cross. I can see why you might think this. Lets face it, Ovens is full of spacers. The bad news is you are getting what we like to call the bullet. I know from watching French movies how the break-up tends to play out in your country. Hes standing on the footpath. Shes throwing his suits at him from the window of their first floor apartment while smoking three cigarettes and still looking incredibly gorgeous. Sorry to be the one to tell you, but the space your girlfriend wants is right next to her, where you used to stand. See you on Tinder! (Im known as Busty in Ballinlough.) An old school pal from Scoil Mhuire sent me a friend request on Facebook. I can see from her profile that her sons only go to Colaiste Chriost Ri. They dont charge fees and its within walking distance of Ballyphehane! She must be so disappointed with the way her life panned out. Can you recommend how I might get rid of her? Yvonne, my two are in Pres but we could have afforded Clongowes, no problem. Its a common complaint. My posh cousin went to a Scoil Mhuire class reunion and ended up sitting next to someone who only had a 2012 Range Rover. Worse again, she sent her daughter to St Als. They eventually had to ask her to leave, because the embarrassment was ruining the night for everyone else. My advice is to ask your old friend over for tea. Ten minutes in, your presence should be enough to see her back out of your life. Good day to you. I was visiting Ireland last week and noticed that every programme on the television was about something called 1916. What was that all about? Viscount Squidgy De Fitz William of Berkshire, Daddy owns most of Scotland. It depends on who you ask. For some people, the 1916 Rising was so we wouldnt have to listen to people who go by the name Squidgy. For others, it was an opportunity to get a grant and make 43 documentaries for the centenary using the same four pieces of grainy footage. Cork didnt take part in the Rising because it was on a Bank Holiday Monday. Gerry and the lads were very protective of their time off. On top of that, the call to arms came from Dublin. Thats always going to meet the same response here in Cork. We will yeah, like. (Thats means no, Squidgy, in case youre wondering.) Howre oo goin on? Myself and the missus are planning a trip up to Cork. I wouldnt be too used to the roundabouts and that craic. What would be the best way to get into the city without making a clown of myself? Eddie Dickie Andy, keep going past Durrus until you come across a man who has worn the same pants for the last three years. You could use the Park and Ride off the South Link. Keep an eye out for a few Dublin couples having sex in their car. Park and Ride means different things to different people. The other downside is that youll have to go on the Kinsale Road Roundabout. I hear a man from Killorglin, who came up for a match two years ago, is still on that roundabout because he cant find the exit. He hasnt used up all the ham sandwiches and tea that he packed for the journey yet. The Kerry crowd like to make absolutely sure they dont spend a cent in Cork. Guten tag. I have just arrived to start work here in Cork. Why are there pictures of so many ugly people on all the lamp-posts? Gunther, Berlin, some of them make we nearly crash my car. Theyre not ugly, theyre just politicians. And theyre pretty good looking for Irish people. (Im weak for Simon Coveney. And not just because hes loaded.) You are going to get a lot of people calling to your door in the next few weeks. Dont be nice to them. Irish politicians are about as popular as a toothbrush in Listowel. Theyll keep hounding anyone who shows them a bit love. Until you reveal that you dont have a vote. Theyll be out the gap faster than you can say, But vot about ze potholes? Please tell me you talk like that. Im a huge fan of Allo Allo. The latest idea is to introduce a network of lockers around Europe which would make the delivery process much simpler. Your goods would be shipped to an Amazon Locker in your local area where it would be available for collection at any time with a unique code. It's a similar system to that used by Parcel Motel and one with advantages for both the retailer and the customer. For example, you won't have to worry about missing the postman at your home address and with these central locations delivery times should be massively improved. For Amazon, it's easier, cheaper and more secure than handing off to a third party. The system is already in place in the USA and UK and recent job postings suggest that Amazon is hiring staff to expand it into Europe. It's likely that Germany will be the first country to get them, as its the second biggest market for the company. We're willing to bet that Amazon won't the UK post forwarding aspect of Parcel Motel but this measure could result in even cheaper delivery prices across the site. Important progress was made at the donors conference for Syrian refugees convened in London on February 4. But much more remains to be done. The international community is still vastly underestimating what is needed to support refugees, both inside and outside the borders of the EU. To deal with the refugee crisis, while putting the EUs largely unused AAA borrowing capacity to better use, requires a paradigm shift. Rather than scraping together insufficient funds year after year, it is time to engage in surge funding. Spending a large amount of money up front would be far more effective than spending the same amount over several years. Frontloading the spending would allow us to address the most dangerous consequences of the crisis including anti-immigrant sentiment in receiving countries and despondency and marginalisation among refugees more effectively. Making large initial investments would help tip the economic, political, and social dynamics away from xenophobia and disaffection, and toward constructive outcomes that benefit refugees and the recipient countries alike. Surge funding has been used often to finance immunisation campaigns. The International Finance Facility for Immunization (IFFIm), which borrows against future government contributions to immunisation programmes, has raised billions of dollars over the past several years to ensure that vaccination campaigns are successful as soon as possible. In the long run, this is more effective than spending the same amount of money in yearly installments. IFFIm provides a convincing precedent for the current crisis. A sudden large influx of refugees can cause panic that affects the general population, the authorities, and, most destructively, the refugees themselves. The panic breeds a false sense that refugees are a burden and a danger, resulting in expensive and counter-productive measures, such as erecting fences and walls and concentrating refugees into camps, which in turn breeds frustration and desperation among the refugees. If the global community could fund large-scale, concentrated programmes to address the problem, the general public and the refugees would be reassured. A surge in spending is needed both in Europe and in frontline states such as Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. The necessary investments include an overhaul of the EUs asylum policy and improvement of its border controls. In frontline states, money is needed to provide refugees with formal employment opportunities, healthcare, and education. If life for refugees is made tolerable in frontline countries, and they believe that an orderly process is in place for gaining entry to Europe, they are more likely to wait their turn, rather than rushing to Europe and overwhelming the system. Similarly, if the refugee crisis can be brought under control, the panic will subside and the European public will be less prone to support anti-migrant policies. Jordan could provide a test case. A country of 9.5m people, it is providing refuge to 2.9m non-citizens, including 1.265m Syrians, and facing the influx of additional Syrians uprooted by Russian bombing. Syrian refugees A combination of massive upfront direct financial assistance, enhanced trade preferences, and temporary debt relief is needed. A successful programme for Jordan could demonstrate the international communitys ability to bring the refugee crisis under control, opening the way to similar programmes for other frontline states, adjusted on a case-by-case basis, depending on local conditions. The approach suggested here would cost more than EU member states can afford out of current budgets. A minimum of 40bn needs to be spent annually in the next three to five years; but even larger amounts would be justified to bring the migration crisis under control. In fact, so far, lack of adequate financing is the main obstacle to implementation of successful programmes in any of the frontline countries, particularly in Turkey. While Germany has an unallocated budget surplus of 6bn, other EU countries are running deficits. German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble has proposed a pan-European fuel tax, but that would demand either unanimous agreement or a coalition of the willing. This enhances the merits of having recourse to the EUs largely unused AAA credit. The migration crisis poses an existential threat to the EU. Indeed, with the north pitted against the south, and the east confronting the west, the EU is coming apart at the seams. When should the EUs AAA credit be mobilised if not at a moment when the EU is in mortal danger? It is not as if there is no precedent for this approach; throughout history, governments have issued bonds in response to national emergencies. Tapping the AAA credit of the EU, rather than taxing consumption, has the additional advantage of providing much-needed economic stimulus for Europe. The amounts involved are large enough to be of macroeconomic significance, especially as they would be spent almost immediately and produce a multiplier effect. George Soros is chairman of Soros Fund Management and chairman of the Open Society Foundations. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2016. Perseveration. Its a term used to describe insistent repetition of a particular response such as a word, a gesture, or a phrase, and an inability to alter course from that. I was introduced to the term recently, and it comes to mind now when I hear Taoiseach Enda Kenny repeating the mantra of keeping the recovery going and ditching the universal social charge (USC). The concept was explained to me in terms of aircraft pilots, where they focus all their attention on a single task, such as landing, and once entangled in perseveration they do everything they can to succeed in that objective, even if it is dangerous and unsafe. When caught in such a brain freeze, a person will continue to do the same thing over and over, even though that path leads to the opposite of what they want. The notion has been studied in order to assist and alter pilots singleminded thinking at times of crisis, and keep the plane from crashing. Enda Kenny No more than attempting to land an aircraft, a Government attempting to convince people they are better off hanging on to them is fairly normal behaviour. However, the direction in which this general election campaign has been going means that you have to question if, in these times of turbulence, it is the smartest approach and needs modification. There has been a variation of late, where the Cabinet members, led by the Taoiseach, have added a more warning note, telling the voters they would be very foolish indeed to turn their backs on the people who saved the economy. Listening to the tone of it, one would half expect Fine Gael to get one of those Irish Mammy tea towels made up with the phrase On your own head be it. For more election news, analysis and general banter join us HERE How effective, you have to wonder, is it to communicate with the electorate almost as you would a teenager about to do something ill-advised: Go ahead and do it if you want, but dont come crying to me with your tail between your legs when things dont work out for you. The overall truth is that no one knows what is going on politically just now, some of the best political minds that I know on all sides are scratching their heads in terms of assessing the failure of the Government to get traction for their oft- repeated message, and what they might do in the last week of the campaign to fix that. How could they possibly back away now, they wonder, from what Micheal Martin called at the debate night in Limerick the most expensive election promises ever, referring to the 4bn cost of abolishing the USC. One of the main theories is that the Government shot itself in the foot with the contradiction of presenting itself as fiscally responsible, yet promising lots of lolly. According to this line of thought the voters, in their wisdom, after all they have been through in the austerity years, are shocked. Then there was the strong performances of the three younger party leaders in the Limerick debate: Stephen Donnelly of the Social Democrats, Richard Boyd Barrett of AAA/People Before Profit, and Lucinda Creighton of Renua. Mr Donnelly did particularly well. I think people were drawn to the sense of political vision presented by him, rather than the raw pounds, shilling, and pence argument. It really is ballsy of the Soc Dems to say we actually need to retain the USC in order to properly fund public services. Following the debate, they were the name on all political lips as other parties wondered what it all meant, and how a surge of popularity for the Soc Dems could affect them on election day next Friday. Stephen Donnelly of the Social Democrats But the line of thinking that people want vision and long-term planning, rather than short-term money-in-pocket gratification, begs the notion that the Irish voter has matured enormously; that they are ahead of the Government in realising where the country should be taken in the long term. Im really not so sure about that. Perhaps they are simply sick of the sight of the people who they associate with economic pain, and even if they are some of the few experiencing signs of recovery, feel the memories remain too fresh and painful to be giving credit to the Government for what it is heralding as a massive achievement. Publicly the politicians are all talking about the great reception theyve been getting on the doorsteps, but Ive also heard them speak about not seeing as many canvassing groups as normal for a general election when theyve been out and about. Others, on the Fine Gael side, say the anger they encountered during the local election campaign is gone but that often in its place is apathy. That means they are walking away from a doorstep with no idea what way the household is going to vote. On the Labour Party front, it is hard to come to any conclusion other than it is tanking and needs some sort of miracle to recover. Unlike the apathy faced by their Coalition partners, Labour are still coping with the anger of their own supporters, a bunch that seem to have extraordinarily high standards and little time for forgiveness. Tanaiste Joan Burton is under immense pressure, and her poor performance at the Limerick debate only added to that. She dealt well subsequently with the criticism of how she waves her hands, How very telling it was, though, to see the two male colleagues who were on either side of her at the time she was being questioned on it by journalists, grab hold of one hand each as she once again went to gesticulate. Junior ministers Kevin Humphreys and Aodhain Riordain may have been laughing at the time, but it is a sign of how her party colleagues are panicked at their leaders overall performance in this campaign. There have been times over the past few years when Ive written that the Government could do with the assistance of a good psychologist or therapist to advise on how to deal with the ire that the public was feeling towards them. As already mentioned, the outright anger is gone, but something else has taken its place and they simply cant work out what. Maybe now is to time to approach Dr Eddie from Operation Transformation for a little emotional translation? But they are determined to keep going with their current approach, believing people will opt for the promise of economic stability; landing that electoral plane in the manner they had planned, even if conditions have changed. Well have to wait another week to see if that approach means a crash or a safe landing. For more election news, analysis and general banter join us HERE The cover carries a dramatic headline saying, Islamic Rape of Europe. The right-wing weekly named wSieci said it was focusing on what the media and the Brussels elite are hiding from the citizens of Europe. An editorial argued a culture of tolerance and political correctness led to the New Years Eve in the German city of Cologne and other northern European town centres. The picture invited both praise and criticism on social media while many drew comparison with Nazi propaganda. This edition also carries other controversial articles like Does Europe Want to Commit Suicide? and The Hell of Europe. In the cover article, Aleksandra Rybinska writes, The people of old Europe after the events of New Years Eve in Cologne painfully realised the problems arising from the massive influx of immigrants. The article said Islam and the West have been at war over the last 14 centuries and the world is witnessing a clash of two civilisations in the countries of old Europe. Walesa, the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, previously acknowledged signing a commitment to be an informant, but said he never acted on it. In 2000, he was cleared by a special court, which found no evidence of collaboration. Lukasz Kaminski, head of the National Remembrance Institute, said documents seized from the home of the last communist interior minister, the late General Czeslaw Kiszczak, include a commitment to provide information, which is signed with Mr Walesas name and his codename, Bolek. There are also pages of reports, and receipts for money, from the 1970s, signed Bolek. Mr Walesa, 72, in a written message from Venezuela, where he is travelling, suggested the papers were fake. There can exist no documents coming from me. I will prove that in court, he said. The 279 pages will be made public in due course, Mr Kaminski said, but historians needed time to analyse their content. Antoni Dudek, the institutes leading historian, said the impact would not be that great, unless evidence emerged that Mr Walesa continued to be an informant after he had founded the Solidarity freedom movement. Lech Walesa is the symbol of Polands struggle for freedom, he is the symbol of Solidarity, and nothing can destroy that, unless we learn that he continued that collaboration, Dudek said. According to Kaminski, five more packets of seized documents have not been opened. Prosecutors and police were also searching Kiszczaks summer house. Communism and Moscows control were imposed on Poland, and other countries in the region, after the Second World War, and were despised and opposed by most people. The rush hour car-bomb attack on Wednesday evening targeted buses carrying military personnel, killing 28 people and injuring dozens. It came as Turkey grapples with an array of issues, including renewed fighting with Kurdish rebels, the threat from IS militants and the Syria refugee crisis. It was the second deadly bombing in Ankara in four months. Prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters that a Syrian national with links to Syrian Kurdish militias carried out the attack in collaboration with Turkeys own outlawed Kurdish rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK. Mr Davutoglu also blamed Syrias government for allegedly backing the Syrian Kurdish militia. The attack came as Turkey had been pressing the US to cut off support to the Kurdish Syrian militias, which Turkey regards as terrorists because of their affiliation with the PKK. The US already lists the PKK as a terror group. However, Washington relies heavily on the Syrian Democratic Union Party, or PYD, and its military wing, the Peoples Protection Units, or YPG, in the battle against the IS group and has rejected Turkish pressure. An Arab-Kurdish alliance dominated by the YPG has made significant advances against IS and other insurgents near the Turkish border in the past week. On Wednesday, the US-backed group known as the Syria Democratic Forces launched an offensive to try to reach Shaddadeh, a major IS group stronghold in Syrias northeastern Hassakeh province bordering Iraq. Turkish artillery has been shelling PYD and YPG positions along its border in Syria, apparently concerned by a series of recent gains by the militias in the area. Any Turkish escalation against the PYD is likely to further strain ties with the US. It has been determined with certainty that this attack was carried out by members of the separatist terror organisation together with a member of the YPG who infiltrated from Syria, Davutoglu said, naming the bomber as Syrian national Salih Neccar, born in 1992. Mr Neccar, whose name sounds Kurdish, was born in the mostly Kurdish Syrian town of Amouda, near the Turkish border, according to Davutoglu. At least 14 people were held since Wednesday over the attacks, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, adding that the numbers of suspects detained was likely to increase. The leader of the main Syrian Kurdish group, Salih Muslim, denied his group was behind the Ankara attack. A woman whose baby was cut from her womb told herself she had to survive for the sake of her unborn daughter and she tried to fight back. But Michelle Wilkins said Dynel Lane continued to choke and beat her in the March 18, 2015 attack, and she lost consciousness. When she came to, she said, she was bleeding profusely from her abdomen and she made a desperate 911 call. Wilkins child didnt survive. Lane was charged with attempted first-degree murder, assault, and unlawful termination of a pregnancy. The case revived debate over the legal rights of foetuses and brought calls for a murder charge, which prosecutors said they couldnt file, because a coroner found no evidence the foetus survived outside the womb. Wilkins testified she went to Lanes home in response to a Craigslist ad offering free maternity clothes. She was almost eight months pregnant. She and Lane chatted for an hour before Lane took her to the basement to look at baby clothes. When she tried to leave, Wilkins said, Lane began hitting, pushing, and choking her. Lane then hit her over the head with a lava lamp. I just remember asking her why she was doing that, Wilkins said. She told Lane she loved her, hoping she would stop. Lane replied, If you love me, youll let me do this,and stabbed her in the neck with broken glass. In court, Wilkins glanced at Lane only briefly, when Garnett asked her to identify her attacker. Lane had no visible reaction and sat with her eyes cast downward. She was expressionless throughout the days testimony. In opening statements, defense attorney, Jennifer Beck, said Lane didnt plan the hasty, impulsive and reckless attack and never intended to kill Wilkins, despite the bloody scene. Garnett said Lane was obsessed with pregnancy and took elaborate measures to convince friends and family that she was expecting. Her longtime boyfriend, David Ridley, testified that she sent him photos of herself with a distended belly, and claimed for more than a year that she was having a boy. Lanes friends even threw her a baby shower. But Ridley said he grew suspicious when Lanes due date kept changing and she refused to go with him to see a doctor. She had told him, when they started dating, that she had had tubal ligation and could not get pregnant, so he was happy when she announced in April, 2014, that she was expecting a boy. Ridley said he planned to take Lane to a pre-natal appointment the day of the attack, but arrived home to find her spattered with blood and a baby in his bathtub. He said he picked the baby up and checked for signs of life. At a hospital, Lane told doctors she had given birth at home, but refused treatment, crying Save my baby. An exam revealed no signs that she had been recently pregnant. The city is struggling to cope with repeated closures of key road tunnels caused by crumbling concrete and years of decay. Now the Belgian capitals regional parliament has been told repairs are being held up because original construction plans have been destroyed apparently eaten by rodents. The tunnels provide vital arteries across what is often described as Europes most traffic-congested city. But for decades the plans for their construction were stored in the pillars under a motorway bridge, for want of space elsewhere. They may have been eaten by mice, the former head of the citys infrastructure agency said. Feeling the force ENGLAND: Armed police scrambled to reports of a man carrying a rifle discovered it was actually a light sabre. Devon and Cornwall Police received a call after the man was spotted near Drake Circus shopping centre in Plymouth. It was believed the man was carrying an air rifle bag and was in possession of a rifle. A local armed response vehicle unit was sent to the scene before officers established the man was actually carrying the Star Wars prop. The force later tweeted: #Police job of the day, ARV sent to male with rifle in a bag in Plymouth, only a light sabre after all. May the Force be with you! Dollar robber USA: A West Virginia man sentenced for an armed robbery in which $1 (90c) was stolen has been ordered to spend time in a correctional centre for young adults. The Herald-Dispatch reports John Bruce Chafin, 21, of Huntington agreed to a Kennedy plea on a first- degree robbery charge, which allowed him to plead without admitting guilt. Cabell Circuit Court Judge Chris Chiles sentenced Chafin to spend at least six months to two years at Anthony Centre for youthful offenders after suspending his 15-year prison sentence. Police and jail records show authorities arrested Chafin on January 13 after they say he brandished a revolver at a Barboursville man, demanding the victim to empty his wallet, which contained $1. Clumsy thief USA: Investigators in the Jacksonville Sheriffs Office in north Florida say they are searching for clumsy burglary suspect who was caught on surveillance video falling through the ceiling of a fried chicken restaurant. First Coast News reported the video shows the man crashing to the floor in a heap. Hes then seen struggling to pry open a safe under a counter, using a variety of items on hand. Skye rescued USA: A dog that spent two nights stuck in a 14ft-deep sinkhole was rescued by firefighters using a makeshift harness. Owners Ron and Megan Holmes said their golden retriever, Skye, is doing fine now despite the ordeal. Megan Holmes said she was walking Skye around an arboretum at Penn State University in State College during a snowstorm on Monday night when she let the dog off a leash and the dog seemingly vanished. Ron Holmes learned on Tuesday that the area, in central Pennsylvania, had sinkholes and found one and yelled into it. But he could hear only gushing water. The couple returned later and Skyes bark greeted them. It was the most fantastic feeling hearing her, Ron said. Skye kind of sensed what was happening and was very co operative. With some pushing and pulling, the dog was brought to the surface. It came amid concerns that doing so could open them up to targeting in an atmosphere of violence that has killed many civilians. The charity, also known by its French acronym MSF, says repeated attacks against health facilities during Syrias five-year civil war have led medical staffers to ask the group not to provide the GPS coordinates of some sites. This was the case of the makeshift clinic run by the charity in the Syrian town of Maaret al-Numan, which was hit four times in attacks on Monday, killing at least 25 people. Deliberate attacks against civilian infrastructures, including hospitals struggling to provide life-saving assistance are routine, MSF International President Joanne Liu told reporters in Geneva. Health care in Syria is in the crosshair of bombs and missiles. It has collapsed. Let me be clear: Attacks on civilians and hospitals must stop. The normalisation of such attacks is intolerable. Ms Liu said the group has no certainty about who was responsible for the strikes, but the probability was that Syrian or Russian air power was to blame. She said MSFs policy of not informing Syrian or Russian officials about the location of health facilities has become a hot topic inside the organisation. Also yesterday, the head of a UN task force on humanitarian aid for Syria said 114 big trucks delivered life-saving supplies in the previous past 24 hours for 80,000 people in five besieged areas of the country. Jan Egeland called the deliveries a first step by the task force that was set up last week following a meeting of world and regional powers known as the International Syria Support Group. He said the supplies are enough to last about a month. Egeland said the aim is to reach other main besieged areas, or areas surrounded by government or opposition forces, and hard-to-reach places within the next week. He also expressed hopes for progress in air-dropping aid to Deir Ezzor, a city which is currently under siege by the extremist Islamic State group. MSF said that since war broke out in 2011, the Syrian government has not granted permission for it to provide medical aid in the country, despite its repeated requests. Because of that, its work has been limited to areas held by opposition forces. In a new report, MSF details the toll of the conflict on civilians, based on data from 70 hospitals and clinics that it supports in northwestern, western, and central Syria. In all, 154,647 war-wounded people and 7,009 war-dead were documented in the facilities in 2015, with women and children representing 30-40% of the victims. While the data we collected are staggering, they are just a snapshot of a larger toll, said MS Liu. Those injured or dying beyond health facilities supported by MSF remain uncounted. The true situation is very likely far, far worse. The Catholic church made clear its position of opposing abortion in all circumstances after a Catholic group appealed to Pope Francis to allow Church members to follow their conscience and use contraception or to let women have abortions to protect themselves against the virus. However, the Vatican said: Not only is increased access to abortion and abortifacients [abortion-inducing drugs] an illegitimate response to this crisis, but since it terminates the life of a child it is fundamentally not preventative. Burma Burma Govt Looks to Shed Burden of US Sanctions The US should ease sanctions on Burma, Vice President Nyan Tun told US President Barack Obama at a US-ASEAN summit this week. RANGOON The US should further ease sanctions on Burma, Vice President Nyan Tun told US President Barack Obama at a US-ASEAN summit this week, according to Burmas information minister. At the Feb. 15-16 meeting of Southeast Asian leaders in California, Nyan Tun claimed that although the US has been giving economic support to ASEAN countries, Burma has received relatively little developmental assistance because of US sanctions, according to Ye Htut, as quoted in state-run media on Friday. According to Ye Htut, Nyan Tun informed participants that Burmese businesspeople still cant compete with other businesspeople [in the ASEAN region] because of sanctions. [Nyan Tun] said that [Burma] is improving politically and that sanctions should be lifted. The US said that this will depend on how the country moves forward, Ye Htut added. The United States restored diplomatic ties with Burma in 2012, after Thein Seins quasi-civilian government came to power the previous year. While economic sanctions were eased for some sectors and individuals, many businesspeople remain on the Treasury Departments Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list. US investment in Burma remains relatively low, as many potential investors are opting for a judicious approach to entering the frontier market. Still, some major American brands such as Coca-Cola, Gap and KFC have already broken ground in the country. Ye Htut made clear to the media neither which sanctions should be lifted first nor which individuals should be removed from the SDN list. Meanwhile, the American Chamber of Commerces Myanmar chapter hosted a meeting in Rangoon on Feb. 17 with leaders from the health care, manufacturing and retail sectors. Maung Maung Lay, vice chairman of the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI), told The Irrawaddy that meeting delegates talked about the limits placed on money transfers between the US and Burma due to sanctions. There are some people still on the SDN list, and most US banks dont want to take risks or waste their time, which is why transferring money is difficult. The Burma government as well as various sectors want the US to totally lift sanctions, Maung Maung Lay said. US involvement [in Burma] can bring many benefits to our country. If it lifts sanctions, other countries will feel confident about investing here. Since last year, the Chamber has been pushing for the lifting of trade sanctions on Burma, urging the US government to re-examine the sanctions list and remove some companies and individuals. This, the body argues, would create a level playing field in Burma for US companies with otherwise limited business power and that incur steep costs as a result of undergoing lengthy compliance reviews. Hope, however, may be faint in the near-term. President Obama will be busy this year. I dont see much potential for sanctions to be lifted soon, Maung Maung Lay said. President Obamas recently confirmed nominee for ambassador to Burma, Scot Marciel, said in December that he does not anticipate major changes in US sanctions in the wake of the countrys historic general election in November. I would not anticipate, nor recommend, any dramatic change, Scot Marciel said at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Marciel added that the sanctions system is somewhat dynamic and does allow for the measures to be eased if countries are deemed to have made progress. Burma CNF Calls for Chin National Day to be State Holiday The Chin National Front, one of Burmas ethnic armed groups, has called on the government to designate Chin National Day as a holiday in Chin State. Burma Eastern Shan State Villagers Flee, Fearing Wa Army Recruitment Over 100 villagers from eastern Shan States Mongyang Township leave their homes, fearing that the United Wa State Army would come to conscript them. Over 100 villagers from Mongyang Township in eastern Shan State have fled their homes this year due to rumors that the United Wa State Army (UWSA) would come to forcibly recruit them. The 105 people from Wankan and Kyaikham villages have left their homes and are now staying in another community in Mongloi village tract, according to the Mongloi village administrator, Sai Loi Kyauk. Twenty households have fled to our village since the end of January, he said. They were terrified by the rumors that Wa soldiers would come for recruitment. Locals have been providing those displaced with shelter, rice and clothing, the administrator said. We are Shan and they are ethnic Palaung, who ran from the next mountain, he said of the displaced families, referring to the Taang by their name in the Shan language. No such incident has happened before here. A UWSA spokesperson, Kyauk Shauk Hpu, told The Irrawaddy that his organization had no knowledge of the displacement or the rumors of conscription. Kyauk Kaw Arn, the head of UWSAs international relations department, also denied the allegations. The UWSA does not do any forced recruitment of our local people. The news on the state-run media is not a concrete source. There are no residents running from our area, he said. On Wednesday, the military-owned Myawaddy newspaper stated that the UWSA had been recruiting one person per household and that every man and woman over 16 years old would have to join their armed group. Mongyang Township is not under the official control of the UWSA, but their troops are known to be active in the region. The Wa army was given a self-administrated region including six Shan State townshipsPanghsang, Hopang, Mongmao, Panwai, Nahpan and Metmaaccording to provisions in Article 56(f) of the 2008 military-backed Constitution. But Wa authorities have also spoken of expanding their area of influence, citing the existence of Wa communities in other townships. Headquartered in Panghsang, the UWSA is estimated to have between 20,000 and 25,000 troops, making it the largest of Burmas many ethnic armed groups. The group signed a ceasefire with Burmas military government in 1989, but has since been involved in armed conflict with other ethnic armed groups in Shan State. Burma Hpakant Protests on Hold after Agreement Signed: Officials Protests in Kachins Hpakant Township over the dumping of mining waste have ended after authorities and resident negotiated an agreement, officials said. MANDALAY Protests in Kachin States Hpakant Township over the dumping of mining waste in the area have ended after authorities and villagers negotiated an agreement, according to township officials. However, some locals said they were not aware of the apparent settlement. Officials said that local authorities, representatives from mining companies and concerned villagers signed an agreement on Friday stipulating that the mining companies would halt the dumping of waste soil from jade mines in areas near local villages. The companies will go to the valley far away from the [village] areas to dump their mining waste. And the companies and authorities will begin reservation work on the Waikhar river, said Tin Swe Myint, an official of the Hpakant township administration office. According to locals, the mining companies also agreed that dump trucks would only pass through the villages only at night in order to prevent accidents. The locals are satisfied with the results [of the negotiations] and assured [officials] that they would cease protesting. In turn, we assured them that we will work to restore the creeks and rivers in the area as soon as possible, Tin Swe Myint added. Yet in the Lone Khin jade mining area, local protesters said that the agreement was inked without some locals knowledge. We heard that the agreement was signed between authorities and mining companies without informing us. Were now asking for another appointment with both parties so that they can explain the situation to us, said Naung Latt, one of the Lone Khin protesters. All locals knew, they said, was that the negotiations had stalled because the mining companies in the area did not agree with some of the locals requests. They said that they wont dump waste in our area, but they couldnt come to an agreement on the time constraints for when trucks could pass through the villages, Naung Latt said. Protesters said that their next appointment with local authorities and the mining companies will be in a few days, at which point they will decide if they will continue to protest. If they trick us, we will resume our protests, Naung Latt added. Protests were staged last week in three areas: Sabaw, Seikmu and Seng Taung. Protests were halted a few days later, however, when local authorities allegedly brought protesters and mining company representatives together at the negotiation table. Burma Scarred By Trafficking Abuses, Rohingya Stay Put in Camps Stories of abuse by traffickers and cautious optimism after the NLD win have caused many Rohingya to abandon plans to leave Rakhine State by boat. THET KEL PYIN, Rakhine State After Husainas 20-year-old son fled poverty and discrimination in Myanmars Rakhine State by boat, she heard nothing from him for seven months. Then, in a shocking phone call, she was told the young Rohingya Muslim was in the hands of people smugglers in Thailand, and had fallen severely ill. The only way for him to be released was to somehow find the money to pay a ransom. The man said: If you dont pay money, he will die I was so upset. How did he get into the hands of the brokers? How did he become so ill? she said, her eyes downcast while sitting in her dank and crumbling one-room temporary home in Thet Kel Pyin displacement camp, a few kilometres outside Sittwe. They found an employer in Malaysia willing to pay about $1,600 in exchange for Mamed Rohims labor. That was over a year ago and Rohim is still working to repay the debt. He only manages to send over about $50 every two to three months, which the family uses to repay their own debts. Since fleeing their home in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine State in western Myanmar from which they are now barred, the familyseven other children and an asthmatic husbandis struggling to make ends meet. But Husaina says Rohims plight continues to haunt her. Even though I want to send other children on the boat so they could find jobs, Im really worried about the brokers so I dare not, she said, as a Rohingya neighbor joined in with a similar tale. Waves of Rohingya Muslims have fled communal violence and apartheid-like conditions in Myanmar in recent years, many of them swept up in trafficking rings, some of which hold men like Rohim for ransom, making threats to their impoverished families that their loved ones will be killed. But human rights groups say there has been a dramatic drop in the number of Rohingya leaving Myanmar this year. They attribute this to a crackdown on human trafficking by countries such as Thailand and Malaysia and the political changes at home following the National League for Democracys landslide election win in November. The Myanmar government does not recognize the 1.1 million Rohingya as citizens and calls them Bengalis, to suggest they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The group is banned from travel within Myanmar and faces restrictions on access to education and healthcare. Experiences such as Husainas are common among the Rohingya, confined to the squalid displacement camps outside Sittwe. The stories are shared among residents, making many fearful of the multi-day journey. Most of the Rohingya this correspondent spoke to say they are now too scared to attempt it. There have been very few boats since the sailing season started in October and none at all this year, 2016. The key reason is that smugglers have no option for disembarkation due to Thailand being virtually closed. Another is the situation in Malaysia (where) there are regular immigration raids, Chris Lewa of the Arakan Project, a Rohingya advocacy group which tracks migration, told Myanmar Now. Malaysian police have carried out arrests of asylum seekers queuing up at the offices of the U.N. refugee agency in the last week or so, and some 2,500 Rohingya are currently held in immigration detention centres across Malaysia, Lewa said. The majority of Rohingya who arrived over the last two, three years are unregistered and jobs have become really difficult to find The community feels very vulnerable, she added. Matthew Smith, executive director of Thailand-based human rights group Fortify Rights, agrees numbers leaving Rakhine have dropped, even though it is difficult to quantify the decrease in departures due to the clandestine nature of the voyages. He warned, however, that the transnational trafficking rings have not been dismantled and are poised to resume their activities at the first opportunity. Hope Keeps Some in Myanmar Since 2012 when communal violence between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya displaced some 140,000 people, an overwhelming majority of them Muslims tens of thousands have left Rakhine State by boat. What began decades ago as a journey that would take weeks on rickety boats, has in recent years become a mass people trafficking and smuggling business. The trafficking grew to such a scale that it lead to a crackdown by Thai and Malaysian authorities last year. In Thet Kel Pyin, home to some 5,600 displaced people, most of the Rohingya who have stayed behind have now settled down to a life of daily survival and a feeling that segregation is becoming more and more permanent. Displaced teenagers now go to a high school near the camp that did not exist two years ago, and aid agencies as well as the government has set up more schools and clinics in and near the camps. Despite continued government restrictions, some Rohingya have not left because they are holding out hope for the new government led by Aung San Suu Kyis NLD, said Smith of Fortify Rights. Many Muslims in Rakhine State tell us they hope Daw Suu will usher in a better day for them. Anything, they say, will be better than the past, he said. This hope is held despite the fact that the Rakhine State parliament is dominated by the virulently anti-Muslim Arakan National Party (ANP). The NLD itself failed to field a single Muslim candidate and has refused to condemn the persecution faced by the Rohingya, who are viewed with suspicion by many in Myanmar. Sultan, 65, said the NLD government now offers the best hope for change. He says he is too old to go anywhere and refuses to countenance sending his daughters away, even though life in the camp is a far cry from his old life as the owner of three small businesses and a brick house in Sittwe. He now goes around selling 150-kyat (12 cents) tooth powder in the villages and camps, driving a motorcycle a friend has bought for him. I feel really desolate over losing our right to vote, but I have hopes that things would improve under the new government, he said, surrounded by his wife and seven daughters, the youngest of whom was just 26 days old. The Thein Sein government took away the Rohingyas last official identity papers last year, and with it their right to vote, prompting an outcry from the international community, who have been providing aid to the Rohingya. Sultan said, We are really thankful for the international community for helping us and I know we are still alive because of their help. But we want to stand on our own two feet. We just want to go back to where we were before. Tales of Abuse For others, the tales of abuse during the boat journey are a powerful deterrent. Win Naing, a 43-year-old with three young children under the age of five, said, What would my children and my wife do if something happened to me on the boat or in Thailand? I would rather die here. Kawri Mullah, Husainas neighbour, concurs. About six weeks ago, the 25-year-old father of two decided to leave the camp, desperate for a stable income that odd jobs cannot provide. But he has abandoned the plan for now after thinking it over, he told Myanmar Now. His decision was influenced by what happened to his brother-in-law, who left the camp a year and a half ago and was sold by his broker to a butcher in Thailand for $850. He left with only two packs of energy biscuits. When they reached Thailand, a butcher apparently liked that my brother-in-law looks big and strong, Mullah said. After months of no pay and little to eat, the brother-in-law ran away to find another employer, but the butcher found him, and threatened and took him away, according to Mullah. That was nearly five months ago and the last time they heard from him. He wasnt able to send any money back. Im really scared after hearing his story. How can you live like that? I have two children and a wife. Here, even if I die, I have my family near me, he said. This story first appeared on Myanmar Now. Burma Union Parliament Office Rejects Criticism of MPs Training The office of the Union Parliament issued a statement Thursday rebutting online criticism regarding this weeks induction program for newly minted MPs. RANGOON The office of the Union Parliament issued a statement on Thursday rebutting online criticism regarding this weeks induction program for newly minted lawmakers. Beginning on Monday, the five-day training course, jointly organized by the parliament, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), covered the themes of democracy, public leadership, ethics and the responsibilities of lawmakers. Parliamentary representatives from Australia, the UK, Pakistan and the Philippines were among foreign guests to share their expertise. The Union Parliament Office on Thursday criticized some posts on social media regarding the training that it labeled misleading and harmful to the reputation of the Parliament and affiliated international organizations. The Union Parliament asks people to be mindful of such negative posts, especially at a time when the authorities concerned are trying hard for a smooth transition of power and democratization, the statement read. Citing the participation of foreign guests in the training, some online users had questioned whether the Parliament was now under foreign influence. One user wrote that white men are wandering around in the Parliament, while another asked, Why [is a man from] Pakistan lecturing the Burmese Parliament? The parliamentary office said that the UNDP and IPU had been collaborating on strengthening the Parliament for the past five years. The overwhelming majority of Burmas MPs involved in the training were from the National League for Democracy, which won nearly 80 percent of contested seats in last Novembers general election. Burma Mon State Cement Plant Nearing Completion amid Ongoing Opposition A Thai-backed cement factory in Mon State is due to begin operations soon, despite local opposition over the presence of a coal-fired power plant onsite. RANGOON A Thai-backed cement factory under construction in Mon State is on track to begin operations in mid-2016, the company said this week, despite ongoing opposition from locals over the presence of a coal-fired power plant on the site. The factory in Kyaikmayaw Township, situated near the Zami Riveran important water source for at least five villages in the areais owned by Mawlamyine Cement Limited (MCL), a subsidiary of Siam Cement Group (SCG). Once operations begin, it is expected to produce 1.8 million tons of cement per year and the plant will create more than 300 direct jobs, MCL said in a statement dated Feb. 17. The cement factory is 65 percent complete, the company said, explaining that US$400 million had been invested in the undertaking that was approved by the Myanmar Investment Commission (MIC) in 2013. Locals from nearby villages, however, contend they were not consulted before a coal-fired power plant was built on the site to power the cement plant. MCL said in a separate statement released earlier this month that an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was conducted in 2013 and submitted to the MIC. The Kyaikmayaw CSOs network said it had handed a letter to MCL representatives during a meeting arranged by the firm on Feb. 10, requesting to see the EIA report. The whole country does not accept coal, said Aye Thein, the coordinator of Kyaikmayaw CSOs network. We dont need to reject [the project] if they run it with other [energy sources], but not coal. In a statement on Feb. 5, MCL set out details of the project, including the coal-fired plant. Outlined in the EIA, our facility includes an integrated cement plant consisting of a small self-use electricity utility that generates 40-megawatt energy power from coal and biomass and a 9-megawatt Waste Heat Generator (WHG) to assist in producing power, the company said. The WHG system helps lessen the dependency on electricity as well as reduces greenhouse gas emissions. However, Aye Thein said the company had not properly explained the impact of a coal-power plant, instead only emphasizing the positives of the project. He said the company informed stakeholders about some measures, including that smoke from the coal plant would be absorbed, but locals remained unconvinced. We use premium quality coal with low sulfur, standardize all processes and strictly abide by the law. In the manufacturing process, MCL utilizes technology to ensure very low emissions, meeting the highest international standards, said MCL managing director Wijit Terasarun in the Feb. 5 statement. During storage, the coal is protected from exposure to water, accounting for flood conditions. We also provide indoor storage and closed-system water management. Coal is considered an essential energy source in the industry and is well accepted as the global standard, utilized in markets across the globe. MCL said unofficial visits were made to the plant by Mon State ministers, Kyaikmayaw Township administrators and other government officials, as well as village heads, last year. The firm also said they hosted four open houses for community members to learn about the facility during 2015meetings that Aye Thein said were not widely publicized. The company invited a group of monks to Thailand for a study tour to explain the project this month. In February 2016, MCL invited 14 monks from the local community to visit The Groups cement plant in Lampang, Thailand, with similar technology and environmental preservation as the MCL plant in Myanmar, the company said. Sandar Non, a central committee member of the Mon National Party, said local villagers only found out about the coal plant when local monks were invited to preach at the site. The villagers told us [the company] never explained [about the coal plant]. They dont want this coal-power plant in their region. The company can use gas to run their plant. They will not agree to the coal-power plant, she said. A local committee from pya-taung, or Bee Mountain, region, comprised of village representatives, including local monks, has been formed to oppose the plant. The villagers are now trying to get consensus from all villages to oppose the plant, Sandar Non told The Irrawaddy. Kyi Maung Win, the general manager of MCL in Kyaikmayaw Township, would not speak over the phone when contacted by The Irrawaddy this week. Htun Naing, director general of the Mon State general administration office, said all approvals for the project had come from the national government and state authorities had no role. Burma Will Suu Kyi Give Up 59(F)? Aung San Suu Kyi is the rightful leader of Burma, but if the 2008 Constitution cannot be amended now, then the Lady will have to formulate a back-up plan. Aung San Suu Kyi is the rightful leader of Burma and should be president of the country. The charismatic National League for Democracy (NLD) chairwoman would raise the nations profile and navigate a dignified entry into the international community. The armed forces leaders, including Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, whom Suu Kyi has met three times in recent months, have no doubt reached a similar realization, but that doesnt mean she will be the countrys next president. Time is running out: if the 2008 Constitution cannot be amended now, then the Lady will have to formulate a back-up plan. It is generally accepted that the military leadership is reluctant to negotiate a waiver of the constitutions controversial Article 59(f). The clause prohibits any Burmese citizen with a foreign spouse or children from assuming the presidency, thereby excluding Aung San Suu Kyi from the position, since her two sons hold British citizenship, as did her late husband. Yet Snr-Gen Than Shwe, former regime leader and an architect of the military-drafted constitution, reportedly backed Suu Kyis political ambitions after meeting her on December 5 last year. It is the truth that she will become the future leader of the country. I will support her with all of my efforts, Than Shwe was widely quoted as saying at the meeting with Suu Kyi. There is no doubt that the former general has remained influential in shaping Burmese politics and the military. Yet the official line from both the armed forces and government is that Than Shwe no longer exercises his power in these circles. It is an interesting time indeed: top army leaders remain tight-lipped on the controversial issue of a Suu Kyi presidency. Some recent reports suggest that military leaders have expressed strong resistance to amending the constitution. But this also could be interpreted to mean that a crack has appeared in the ranks. This week, Suu Kyi held a third round of talks with army commander-in-chief Snr-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, but no details of the meeting were provided. It is confirmed that he has maintained a good relationship with Suu Kyi, but he also needs to watch his back: he knows there is military objection to her leadership. However, at their second meeting, the two sides discussed the rule of law and the ongoing process of creating lasting peace in the country. It is quite curious that both have stayed mum on the status of 59(f), but former and active army leaders have privately said that waiving or suspending the ban is unlikely. Min Aung Hlaing is rumored to be extending his tenure in the army for the next five years. Alone, he cant order constitutional change, but it should be noted that he also has 166 military MPs sitting in both houses of Parliament, known to vote as a bloc based on orders from above. First, the issue of a potential amendment would have to be discussed in Parliament. But a big hurdle remains: to amend any clause requires the support of at least 75 percent of its members. The continued quota of 25 percent military in the legislative body maintains the armys powerful political role in Burma. They are careful to preserve this privilege; in June 2015, army MPs shot down a proposal aimed to reduce the share of house votes needed to amend the Constitution to 70 percent. Time is running out as Suu Kyi and her party need to nominate candidates for a president who can take power in April. In any case, she has said that she will be above the president: her pick for the leading role will most likely be a trustworthy follower. She will have to select someone she can work with for nowsome optimists say that even if she cannot assume the role immediately, the Lady will become president sometime later this year. Local and international news has speculated about several potential presidential nominees, including Tin Oo, the former army chief; Dr Tin Myo Win, Suu Kyis personal physician; Dr. Myo Aung and Win Htein, key members of the NLDs central executive committee and Htin Kyaw, a senior party member. Suu Kyi has kept everyone guessing. Some insiders in the NLD have said that the two most likely candidates are Tin Oo and Dr. Myo Aung. A concern about Tin Oo, 89, is his advanced age, despite appearing to be in good health. If he becomes head of state in Burmas young and fragile democracy, even temporarily, he will be one of the oldest serving presidents in the world. A former military commander in chief loyal to the late Gen Aung San and strongman Gen Ne Win, Tin Oo joined the army in 1946, two years before Burmas independence. He was forced to retire in 1974 and served seven years in prison after being accused of treason by Ne Win. Released in 1980, he returned to university to study law, preparing him to later co-found the NLD. He was active in the 1988 pro-democracy uprising and remained loyal to Suu Kyi in the years that followed. Recently, he told reporters that he believed Suu Kyi should be Burmas president. Tin Oo appeared with Suu Kyi at the last campaign rally before Novembers general election. Was it a signal? Again, the respected former army chief was seen giving a speech on February 12, which is celebrated as Union Day. Now is the time to watch, rather than speculatethose with definitive analyses or answers can easily be fooled. With the exception of Suu Kyi and the NLDs inner circle, who knows if Tin Oo will become president instead of the Lady? At the end of the day, many say that the outcome is simply a matter of the countrys fate. 5 Security Challenges Facing State and Local Governments in 2016 By now Im sure youve heard about the FBIs battle with Apple. In a nutshell, the government is asking Apple to create software that will allow law enforcement to crack the encryption on the phone of the San Bernardino shooter. As eWeek stated: Unfortunately, the claims and counter-claims surrounding the order are shaping up as an all-or-nothing battle in which the government seems to be asking for the keys to Apples kingdom, while Apple is refusing to give an inch, a position that seems certain to result in a protracted legal battle. Its going to be interesting to see how this plays out. Its a question of where the intersection of personal security and national security is, and I tend to agree with those who have said that this issue will eventually land at the Supreme Court. I noticed that many within the tech community are standing in support of Apple, but I wondered what the security stance is on this issue. Based on the comments that have been flooding my inbox, security experts are mixed. For instance, Michael Harris, CMO with Guidance Software, told me via email: We support Apple CEO Tim Cooks position to oppose the FBI order demanding that Apple create a backdoor for iPhones in order to assist with the investigation of the San Bernardino shooter case. We fully support the need for the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to discover digital evidence in criminal investigations, but we believe this problem should be solved by and between the agency of investigation and forensic security experts. On the other hand, Veracodes VP of Research Chris Eng thinks the FBIs request is reasonable, stating: The issue here is not one of creating a backdoor; nor is the FBI asking for Apple to decrypt the data on the phone. Theyre asking for a software update (which could be designed to work only on that one particular phone) which would then allow the FBI to attempt to crack the passcode and decrypt the data. Such a solution would be useless if applied to any other phone. Eve Maler, VP Innovation & Emerging Technology with ForgeRock, told me in an email comment that while the request was reasonable since Farook was clearly guilty, Apple has a business model to uphold and a backdoor iOS is beyond the pale. While I personally agree with Harris when he said that as long as the use of encryption technology is a legal way of protecting user data privacy, the burden of cracking encryption codes should fall on the shoulders of forensic security experts, I think national security also sometimes trumps personal security. I know a lot of people have said that an iOS backdoor will create a slippery slope by giving hackers a new entry point. I say that hackers are already getting access to our phones and devices anyway, and Apple hasnt exactly stepped up in other areas of security in the past. My own opinion leans more in the way of the comment Lance James, chief scientist at Flashpoint, shared with me in an email: Forensically speaking and legally speaking, the Judge asked for reasonable assistance on unlocking this specific phone. Even if that requires them to modify the firmware with a key they have they dont have to give that software to the FBI. All companies have a way to modify their own devices and software its like car companies having spare keys for individual cars they exist. They dont have to provide a back door to the FBI they can provide a subkey, individual key, or Apple can take the device and unlock it and give them the data they requested. Sue Marquette Poremba has been writing about network security since 2008. In addition to her coverage of security issues for IT Business Edge, her security articles have been published at various sites such as Forbes, Midsize Insider and Toms Guide. You can reach Sue via Twitter: @sueporemba Under the terms of the agreement, Serkos new online small business booking service, serko.travel will connect to Xeros software and its customer base of more than 425,000 subscribers in Australia and New Zealand. Darrin Grafton, Serko chief executive officer said, Historically Serko has targeted the large business market, however we have now developed the technology to allow it to be used by smaller businesses who have a similar set of challenges, but far fewer resources. This is an important and exciting opportunity for us, and were very pleased to be partnering with Xero. By engaging with Xeros large customer base and ecosystem of accountants and bookkeepers, we believe we can improve a multi-billion-dollar travel market. Its innovative and long overdue, he added. The new service is expected to launch by mid-2016. To register interest go to www.serko.travel and sign up to be part of the beta program. Small businesses do a significant amount of travel and waste a great deal of time, effort and money organising trips. Serkos innovative mobile and desktop travel booking technology is estimated to help organisations save up to 20% on travel and reduce the time it takes to book a trip by enabling flights, accommodation, transfers and hire car from every possible supplier, to be booked in one place.Rod Drury, Xero chief executive officer said, Travel can be a significant cost to a business and processes around travel can be a source of frustration. Our team is excited to work with Serko on this opportunity to re-wire how small businesses manage travel, providing small businesses with capabilities usually only available to enterprise.As NZX-listed businesses, both Serko and Xero are highly respected in New Zealand and Australia and experiencing strong growth in broader overseas markets. By joining forces and approaching a real problem with the best of New Zealands technical expertise, the companies expect to be able to unlock significant value and change the way that businesses book travel. Cybercriminals are getting smarter, attack sophistication is on the rise and organisations struggle to keep pace with dissolving perimeter and diversifying platforms. HPEs Annual Cyber Risk Report 2016 has identified the top security threats plaguing enterprises over the past year. As the traditional network perimeter disappears [Cloud, BYOD] and attack surfaces grow, security professionals are challenged with protecting users, applications and data without stifling innovation or delaying enterprise timelines. This years Cyber Risk Report examines the 2015 threat landscape in this context, providing actionable intelligence around key areas of risk including application vulnerabilities, security patching and the growing monetization of malware. The report also highlights important industry issues such as new security research regulations, the collateral damage from high-profile data breaches, shifting political agendas, and the ongoing debate over privacy and security. In 2015, we saw attackers infiltrate networks at an alarming rate, leading to some of the largest data breaches to date, but now is not the time to take the foot off the gas and put the enterprise on lockdown, said Shane Bellos, general manager, Enterprise Security Products, Hewlett Packard Enterprise. We must learn from these incidents, understand and monitor the risk environment, and build security into the fabric of the organisation to better mitigate known and unknown threats, which will enable companies to innovate fearlessly and accelerate business growth. Read on for a summary of key findings. Applications are the New Battlefield While web applications pose a significant risk to enterprises, mobile applications present growing and distinctive risks. Mobile applications frequent use of personally identifiable information presents significant vulnerabilities in the storage and transmission of private and sensitive information. Approximately 75 percent of the mobile applications scanned exhibited at least one critical or high-severity security vulnerability, compared to 35 percent of non-mobile applications. Vulnerabilities due to API abuse are much more common in mobile applications than web applications, while error handling the anticipation, detection, and resolution of errors is more often found in web applications. Patch or Perish Software vulnerability exploitation continues to be a primary vector for attack, with mobile exploits gaining traction. Similar to 2014, the top ten vulnerabilities exploited in 2015 were more than one-year-old, with 68 percent being three years old or more. In 2015, Microsoft Windows represented the most targeted software platform, with 42 percent of the top 20 discovered exploits directed at Microsoft platforms and applications. 29 percent of all successful exploits in 2015 continued to use a 2010 Stuxnet infection vector that has been patched twice. Monetisation of Malware Malware has evolved from being simply disruptive to a revenue-generating activity for attackers. While the overall number of newly discovered malware samples declined 3.6 percent year-over-year, the attack targets shifted notably in line with evolving enterprise trends and focused heavily on monetisation. As the number of connected mobile devices expands, malware is diversifying to target the most popular mobile operating platforms. The number of Android threats, malware, and potentially unwanted applications have grown to more than 10,000 new threats discovered daily, reaching a total year-over-year increase of 153 percent. Apple iOS represented the greatest growth rate, with a malware sample increase of more than 230 percent. Malware attacks on ATMs use hardware, software loaded onto the ATM, or a combination of both to steal credit card information. In some cases, attacks at the software level bypass card authentication to directly dispense cash. Banking Trojans, such as variants of the Zbot Trojan, continue to be problematic despite protection efforts. More than 100,000 of these were detected in 2015. Ransomware is an increasingly successful attack model, with several ransomware families wreaking havoc in 2015 by encrypting files of consumer and corporate users alike. Examples include Cryptolocker, Cryptowall, CoinVault, BitCryptor, TorrentLocker, TeslaCrypt, and others. Actionable Intelligence and Recommendations Apps are the New Battlefield: The network perimeter is vanishing; attackers have shifted focus to target applications directly. Security professionals must adjust their approach accordingly, defending not just the edge but the interactions between users, applications and data regardless of location or device. Patch or Perish: 2015 was a record year for the number of security vulnerabilities reported and patches issued, but patching does little good if end users dont install them for fear of unintended consequences.4 Security teams must be more vigilant about applying patches at both the enterprise and individual user level. Software vendors must be more transparent about the implications of their patches so that end-users arent afraid to deploy them. Monetisation of Malware: Ransomware attacks targeting the enterprise and individuals are on the rise, requiring both increased awareness and preparation on the part of security professionals to avoid the loss of sensitive data. The best protection against ransomware is a sound backup policy for all important files on the system. Prepare for Shifting Politics: Cross-border agreements pose challenges for enterprises struggling to keep their systems secure and in compliance. Organisations must follow the changing legislative activity closely and maintain a flexible security approach. The six companiesFederated Wireless, Google, Intel, Nokia, Qualcomm and Ruckus Wireless - say they believe that CBRS will be critical to drive innovation, support new business models and spur global economic growth. The declaration by the six companies follows the move last April by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt rules for CBRS which opens 150 MHz of spectrum (3550-3700 MHz) for commercial use. With the change by the FCC, because spectrum access is actively coordinated based on priority and granular location, it becomes possible for regulators to make previously allocated spectrum available to new entrants and serviceswhile providing necessary protections for incumbent users of the band. The companies say they aim to build a robust ecosystem of industry participants and make CBRS solutions as widely available as possible, and that operators could benefit from a significantly expanded footprint and capacity on new spectrum, while subscribers could enjoy a consistent wireless broadband experienceparticularly in challenging places such as indoor locations, venues and corporate campuses.Meantime, Ruckus Wireless has said it is its intention to address the challenge of in-building cellular coverage and capacity through the introduction of OpenG technology, which combines coordinated shared spectrum, such as 3.5 GHz in the US, with neutral host-capable small cells to enable cost-effective, ubiquitous in-building cellular coverage.Ruckus plans to drive the adoption of OpenG technologywhich it says addresses a global market with an annual Total Addressable Market (TAM) of over $2 billionby leveraging its extensive enterprise channels, service provider, public venue and enterprise customer base, and its portfolio of differentiated technologies.Ruckus is demonstrating OpenG technology in collaboration with Qualcomm during the current Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2016 in Barcelona. The live trial of specific sets of 4.5G technologies known globally as or LTE-Advanced Pro or 4.5G was completed at Optus Gigasite in Newcastle. The two companies say the combination of Carrier Aggregation, Higher Level Modulation, and 4X4 MIMO achieved a peak download speed of 1.23Gbps over the air in live network conditions. Dennis Wong, Optus Networks acting Managing Director said the successful trial is a result of continued innovation and partnership between Optus and Huawei that commenced with the announcement of the world first Gigasite in 2013. And, the two companies say the continued work on 4.5G, evolving towards 5G technology, leverages on the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on joint R&D that Optus parent telco Singtel signed with Huawei in 2014.We continue to utilise our network and spectrum assets to test our network of the future and prepare for 5G. By 2020, 5G will be here and we are committed to identify ways to prepare our network to support this new technology and further improve customer experience, Wong said.James Zhao, Huawei Australia CEO said the field trial in Newcastle was a first and important milestone as a direct result of the companys local investments in R&D here in Australia.This joint trial represents a significant advance toward fulfilling Huaweis & Optus commitment to developing 4.5G technology in Australia.Tay Soo Meng, Singtel Group Chief Technology Officer said, As we work towards 5G we expect significant demand for cost-effective connection to a multitude of sensors and devices, and it is important that operators deliver new capabilities to enable the new connected ecosystem to support the growth and innovation of M2M services.Singtel continues to pursue leading technologies and is in close collaboration with industry players like Huawei as part of our 5G partnership programs. Volcan Nevado de Colima into the area designated as a national park and birded the hell out of it. If you want to see a ridiculous eBird checklist, look at ours here Chestnut-sided Shrike-Vireo. Smoky-brown Woodpecker. Transvolcanic Jay. Fucking Slaty fucking Vireo. Long-tailed Wood-Partridges calling. Crested Guans flushing from trees. There was a lot going on and I don't have any bird photos at all from it. Nerds in front of fake-looking scenery ( Volcan de Fuego aka Volcan de Colima) It was a very long, very awesome day that did not end like a normal day. No. We had been admiring the view of Volcan de Fuego all day but when we were getting ready to turn around someone noticed it was getting active. This took us all by surprise. The car was probably a mile away so we eventually decided to just not worry about it. Steve picking out hawks through the volcano ash clouds The next morning when we were heading out of town to return to other parts of the volcano we immediately saw the same thing happen. It is common. Volcanoes make for good selfie backgrounds. The location above was a random stop (I think) where the road crossed a dryish river bed where men were collecting boulders. A sign warned against stealing birds. Crossing the path were a bunch of leaf cutter ants which are so freakin cool: From the bridge I managed my first and only photos of Varied Buntings, also freakin cool. From this stop we headed to Laguna La Maria, a well-maintained park on a lake complete with a playground and domestic geese. Caroline showed her dominance to the geese whereas I got nipped by one that could smell my fear. Over a hundred Lilac-crowned Parrots were flying around when we arrived. So many Jasmines. There were some cool trails leading into the woods where I finally saw an Olivaceous Woodcreeper. Such a good photo. Around the lake there were plenty of great birds, ripe for the picking. Black-throated Green Warbler Somewhere it is stated that a good place to find Orange-billed Nightingale-Thrushes is around the picnic tables. Es verdad. What a pleasant little bird. That night we stayed in a very pink motel in Barra de Navidad, the most touristy ridiculous town we visited. It was super cheap (I want to say 500 pesos?!) and we had the top floor to ourselves which included a rooftop patio and a dead armadillo. After securing booze at the Oxxo where I was offered both blow and weed, we settled in to watch an amazing scene: thousands of Barn Swallows flying in to roost just up the street. They covered powerlines and walls and ledges and windowsills. The next morning we headed out to Playa del Oro, a favorite party spot of local teenagers. The road leading to the beach was a good one. Whiptail Citreoline Trogon From the beach we are able to scope Red-billed Tropicbirds, Black and Common Terns, and Brown Boobies. It was warm and the ocean looked deceptively soothing. Frank and Dan both wanted to get up in there. I won't speak of the events that transpired following this photo except to say that Steve had to take over driving responsibilities and Frank became Hank. There it is. The Chrysler. A Mexican miracle occurred upon returning the chrysler to the rental agency: they only charged us $80 for damages. And none of that was from the car I sideswiped that first night when I was still allowed to drive. We left the beach and headed back along the entrance road, stopping where Dan had seen a Golden-crowned Emerald earlier. This was a bird Frank had also secured when no one else was around. Amazingly, we found the emerald in exactly the place where Dan took us and we all bowed to it's fork-tailed loveliness. No photos of course. For lunch that day we dined with Brown Pelicans in Barra de Navidad and Caroline and I drank the only strong margaritas of the whole trip. From there we headed back to Rancho Primavera for our last night in Mexico. Good times!!! January 15th was arguably the best day of birding we had in Mexico. We drove up This Week in Review A weekly review of the best and most popular stories published in the Imperial Valley Press. Also, featured upcoming events, new movies at local theaters, the week in photos and much more. BANCROFT Ladies Rugby Club are sending out an SOS call in fear that their club will be forced to fold due to shortage of players. There has not been a single occasion this season where Bancroft, based in Buckhurst Way in Buckhurst Hill, have been able to field a full team of 15 players. League rules permit teams to play with 12 players but twice they have not even had that many. Skipper Marie Hopkins fears that if they lose any more they will not be able to resume next season. She said: 'The players we have are very talented and we are currently fifth out of seven teams in the London and Eastern Counties division three despite playing the whole season without any recognised props or second row players. With a full side we could be challenging at the top. 'We desperately need new players to join up. The difficulty is in getting people to give it a go. Ladies rugby gets very little good publicity and people have preconceptions about female rugby players which are just not accurate. 'We are just ordinary girls who enjoy playing sport. 'The first time I played I had to be dragged on to the pitch but once you get out there it's great fun. It's just confidence.' Last year the team, who recently beat Oxford 38-0 when both teams had 13 players, were the subject of a feature programme on Sky Television in which they were coached by England's Lawrence Dallaglio. Marie added: 'We have tried everything but we don't have the time or money to go around promoting women's rugby. We just hope that more people will give it a go.' A preview of my upcoming Conference. Business Intelligence: Chicago Illinois 21:38 Jeyvan 0 Comments Co-marketing is helpful for a business of any size, but its a necessity for small businesses. Why? Traditionally, small business might be lucky to have a small dedicated marketing department. But, more often than not, theyre sharing marketing duties with another function, like sales or accounting. That doesnt leave much time available for marketing a business, does it? Co-marketing is the process of working with another business, or group of businesses, on a marketing campaign or strategy that helps to promote all of the companies involved. By working together on promotional efforts to promote a product, service, or piece of content, all businesses involved benefit. 1. Build organic marketing Its easy to push paid marketing efforts, but small businesses are often more limited on cash flow, reducing the amount of marketing dollars available. However, when you work with other businesses to promote one another organically, a few things happen: Your marketing efforts are more efficient and cost effective, if it costs you anything at all. By building your co-marketing relationship, youre building higher-quality backlinks to your site, raising your creditability. You increase your exposure to a larger audience. By focusing on the campaign and pushing your messaging, co-marketing is doubling the manpower. For instance, a small bridal boutique may offer discounts to a local florist with the purchase of a dress at their boutique. In turn, the florist helps boost the bridal boutique by featuring the boutiques bridal gowns alongside their floral arrangements. This relationship can easily be executed with a brick-and-mortar location or an online business, aiding in creating organic marketing for your business. 2. Use edification to build each other up Edification is the process of speaking positively and with enthusiasm about someone, and then backing up your words with an action. The edification process can help you grow your network, build-up a co-worker or mentor, or even a co-marketing relationship. World Health Organization (WHO) has budgeted $56 million for the worldwide management of the fetus-deforming Zika virus, according to latest announcements by the international health organization. However, the large-sized budget would cover operations until June, according to other reports. The costs include funding of advanced vaccine development to combat the virus as well as diagnostics. It would also fund research on the pathway of the mosquito-borne virus, the announcement noted. Of the $56 million, nearly $25 million will be spent by WHO regional offices. The presence of the virus is confirmed in nearly 39 countries now, after it's first detection nearly 45 years ago. Studies have thus far identified that the virus spreads from a pregnant mother to the fetus she carries. The infected fetus is born with defects, and in extreme cases, the pregnancy itself may end in miscarriage. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has already issued an advisory for pregnant women wanting to travel to infected areas. There have been significant numbers of birth defects reported in Brazil, and other South American countries, WHO advised. Margaret Chan, the WHO Director-general said that the neurological complications have come to be recognized as a big trigger that converts mild threats into serious proportions in places where the Zika virus is prevalent. The massive budgetary outlay of $56 million that WHO has proposed to sustain the Zika Virus by June is a challenge for the international agency. Chan said that the initial funds of $2 million would come from the emergency contingency fund of the international organization. On Feb. 1, WHO declared that Zika threatens global public health as it also causes two neurological disorders- microcephaly in newborns and Guillain-Barre syndrome in paralytic patients. The WHO has said that "existing scarce evidence" of the Zika virus "indicates that there may be a risk of sexual transmission." Hence, sizable section of the budgetary spend is on research studies - whether Zika virus is transmitted in semen, or other body fluids like pregnancy fluids and more. At least four people allegedly mugged a decorated ex Marine at a McDonald's outlet in Washington D.C. last week. Authorities were still working to identify the culprits Wednesday (Feb 17). WJLA - ABC's local affiliate - reported that they taunted him before physically attacking him. The alleged victim Christopher Marquez, 30, said he was eating in the back corner in the McDonald's restaurant on Friday. He told the Washington Post that a group of teenagers came near his table and crowded around him. He claimed they asked him if he "believed that black lives matter." Marquez reportedly ignored them, at which point they started calling him racist. When Marquez got up to leave the McDonald's joint, the alleged attackers knocked him unconscious by a blow to his head. When he returned to consciousness, his trousers were torn and his wallet was gone. The missing wallet reportedly had $400 in cash, three credit cards and VA medical card among other things. Marquez could not get treated at the VA medical center because of his missing ID. According to The Daily Caller, Marquez took a taxi back to his apartment where building employees called the cops. He was then treated at George Washington University Hospital for head trauma. "I just want them to get caught, especially if they're doing this to other people," he added. "If they've done it before, they're going to do it again and hopefully they don't hurt or kill someone next time," Marquez told WJLA. Fox News was told by the D.C. Metropolitan Police on Wednesday (Feb 17) that the work of identifying the four people in the video is ongoing. Marquez, who served in the Marine Corps from 2003 till 2011. In November 2004, he was granted the Bronze Star with combat distinguishing device for valor in the battle of Fallujah, Iraq. Marquez is also one of two Marines shown carrying then-1st Sgt. Bradley Kasal out of the so named "Hell House" in a famous photograph. Marquez clarified his position on racism to The Daily Caller, saying he fought for the freedom of all Americans and served with people from a variety of diverse backgrounds, races, religions and ethnicities. The World Press Photo Contest judges have honored the organization's top prize for 2015 to a murky black-and-white image that shows the hardship of the ongoing migrant crisis issue. The picture was shot by freelance Australian photographer Warren Richardson and also won the contest's spot news singles category. The photograph is of a Syrian man passing on a child under barbed wire, trying to get the baby across from Serbia into Hungary. Its only source of light is the moon, the photographer said he "would have given their position away to the Hungarian police" if he had used a flash to light the photo, The Daily Mail reported. Richardson had not seen the picture until he returned home to Budapest and started to edit his pictures, as he needed to save his camera's battery. Vaughn Wallace, who was a jury member and also deputy photo editor for Al Jazeera America, said that the image was "incredibly powerful visually," and also said it was much nuanced. He said the photo makes you stop and look at the man who is passing on the child, and the child itself. He also commented on the presence of the barbed wire and the hands reaching out from the dark. The photo contest had 82,951 images in it, entered by 5,775 photographers. Francis Kohn, who is jury chairman and photo director at Agence France-Presse, talked about Richardson's World Press Photo of the Year as well. He remarked on its subtlety as well as the overall simplicity of the moonlight, barbed wire, man and baby. He also said he could feel the drama and hardship of the picture, and thinking about it made the image grow on him. Richardson, who is 47, covered the migrant crisis last year for many months despite not being on a paid assignment. He lived with the migrants and sometimes went without meals. He has worked internationally on important issues for over 20 years. The winning image is previously unpublished. "Grease: Live!" star Vanessa Hudgens and model/actor boyfriend Austin Butler are under investigation for allegedly defacing Sedona Red Rocks, CNN reported. The love birds are currently in a bit of hot water after a romantic Valentines' weekend in Arizona. Hudgens, who rose to fame by starring in Disney's 2006 hit "High School Musical," posted a now-deleted Instagram photo of their names carved into the rock surrounded by a heart. The carving may be located in the Red Rock District of the Coconino National Forest which could be a huge problem that comes with a maximum fine of $5000 and/or six months in jail because it is against the law to damage any natural feature or other property of the United States, according to a statement issued by a Coconino National Forest spokesman, Brady Smith. "On Monday, Feb. 15, we became aware - via medical and public reports - of an Instagram posting by Vanessa Hudgens showing a scratching or carving of a heart with two names in it on a rock that allegedly is on the Red Rock Ranger District of the Coconino National Forest," Smith stated. Until the Forest Service Law Enforcement is completed, Smith has declined to comment more on the incident. Although it's been hard for the federal officials to catch people in the act, Hudgens, as well as his boyfriend, can possibly be in trouble for posting it on one of her social media platforms. Smith also stated that carving of any kind affects the natural beauty of the area, and whenever one person does it, it encourages other people to carve, too. "I can say that the issue of people carving their names and other things in rocks in the Sedona and surrounding area is always a challenge we face, and we try to inform people about its destructive nature," he added. Breaking News: Mount Prospect Man Who Took Life Of Arlington Heights Resident Over Cannabis Gets 60 Years In Prison A new North Carolina election schedule approved by the state House would delay congressional elections by almost three months should races have to go forward under district boundaries proposed this week. The House voted 71-32 on Thursday night to shift the March 15 congressional primary to June 7. The shift is contingent on the U.S. Supreme Court refusing to block a lower court decision that prevents elections under current district lines. A new filing period under altered maps would begin March 16. The measure heading to the Senate also would eliminate runoffs for all 2016 primaries on both dates. Right now a leading primary candidate must get more than 40 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff. The House rejected a Democratic amendment shifting all primaries to June 21. Ismael Izzy Bonilla (left), the new director of Mitchell International Airport, poses with his management team in the airports main terminal: Karen Freiberg (from left), deputy airport director of finance; Tom Stastny, deputy airport director of operations; Pat Rowe, marketing and communications director; Tim Karaskiewicz, airport counsel; Jim Zsebe, airport engineer; and Kathy Nelson, airport properties manager. Credit: Michael Sears SHARE By of the Milwaukee's Mitchell International Airport is not perfect but is certainly a much better operation than some in the community give it credit for, new airport director Ismael "Izzy" Bonilla says. Almost two weeks into the job, Bonilla says there is a lot to like about Wisconsin's largest airport. "I walk around this airport and I say, 'Wow, this is not some slouchy little Podunk airport. This is a great airport,'" Bonilla said. "It has some great facilities with some great airlines here." Don't look for him to make any immediate whiz-bang changes, he said. "When I first met with my team, I said, 'One of the things I would like you to understand is that I will be making changes, but they are more evolutionary in nature than revolutionary,'" Bonilla said during an interview last week at his office overlooking the tarmac for Concourse C, which is the airport's busiest. Plain-spoken and gregarious, while also possessing the no-nonsense demeanor of someone who spent 20 years in the U.S. Air Force, Bonilla has no illusions about attracting new service to a medium-size city like Milwaukee. Mitchell is already served by the four airlines that control more than 80% of the U.S. market. "It isn't like it was 15 or 20 years ago. You are basically down to four legacy carriers and some of the low-cost carriers are starting to act like legacy carriers," Bonilla said. "It becomes harder and harder to try and attract these legacy carriers. "It is very difficult, but not impossible." Attracting more international service is a goal of Bonilla's. Mitchell's top destinations are New York; Orlando, Fla.; Phoenix; Denver; and Las Vegas. He said seeking nonstop service between Milwaukee and Miami makes sense, especially given popularity of warm weather destinations from here. Beyond that, "How can we attract some of this international traffic that right now is going to Chicago to go to Europe or Latin America?" he said. Traveled the world One way to at least get airlines' attention is to lower their cost of doing business in Milwaukee, which is part of Bonilla's long-term plan for the airport. "We have a better chance of attracting more service that way," he said. Before taking the job in Milwaukee, Bonilla was chief business development officer at Hi-Lite, a New York based global airfield maintenance service and safety company. "I traveled around the world and met with a lot of airport directors," he said. Bonilla spent 20 years in the Air Force, serving at installations around the world, and has worked in leadership positions at airports in Puerto Rico and Florida. A corporate recruiter contacted him and asked if he might be interested in the Milwaukee job. "I saw this as a very unique opportunity that I could not pass on to be in a leadership role in a medium hub airport that is growing," he said. "Any airport director would salivate at an opportunity like this." Bonilla is quick to point out that he is not alone in the new job. In addition to the airport staff, he said he plans to reach out to the business community in the state, saying business travelers play a crucial role in the success of the airport. "I want to work with our business community hand-in-hand," he said. "I want to know what their needs are. I want to know what their expectations are and work with them." Among the first business organizations he met with was the Hispanic Professionals of Greater Milwaukee. "It kind of opened my eyes. I thought I was going to be the only Latin here in Milwaukee," he said. "I went to that meeting and thought, 'Wow, there are a lot of Latinos here.'" Bonilla is a native of Puerto Rico and grew up in New York City. Taking a look at things Any operation the size of Mitchell, which handles about 7 million travelers a year, has spots where it can improve performance. "My plan is to work with my team, my stakeholders and with my leadership to make this the best medium hub airport in North America within three years," Bonilla said. That involves taking a top-to-bottom look at the entire airport operation and setting up a system of performance indicators, Bonilla said. "We are going to look at everything, from the minute you drive up to this airport to the minute you sit in that (airplane) seat and are flying out," he said. "And, that experience from when you walk off that plane to the minute you get in your car and drive out, I want to look at that. We are going to look at that and we are going to benchmark these things and find out how can we improve that experience." Stresses efficiency Precisely measuring performance and seeking to become more efficient are also goals of Bonilla's. "That's where the key performance indicators are critical to us," Bonilla said. "It gives us a snapshot of how we're doing, where we're falling short, what we are doing that's good and how can we improve it." That doesn't mean he has a goal of cutting jobs at the airport. "When you mention the word efficiency, people immediately think, 'Oh, they are going to cut jobs.' That's not it," he said. Bonilla also talked of making the airport a place where travelers actually enjoy spending time. "I believe in a sense of place," he said. "I want the people of Milwaukee or people from northern Illinois or whoever comes into this airport, when they get to this airport they feel they are at home." That includes thinking about adding amenities and perks to the facility. "Why can't we offer VIP treatment? More and more airports are doing what the airlines aren't doing anymore," he said. "Why can't we have spas here? "Why don't we do a rewards program where you use our parking garage and you get rewarded? What about a valet parking program? "We are not going to be a Changi (in Singapore) or Seoul," Bonilla added. But "we can bring some of those best practices here and make it exciting for the traveler. Instead of running from their car to the security checkpoint, hey, enjoy a little bit of what's going on here." In the meantime, Bonilla invited area residents who might have been avoiding Mitchell to think about giving it a try again. "If we start using the airport more and bypassing Chicago, the airlines are going to take notice," he said. "If you haven't given us a chance, come and check us out." Ismael "Izzy" Bonilla TITLE: Executive director, Mitchell International Airport AGE: 57 MILITARY SERVICE: 20 years, U.S. Air Force EDUCATION: Master's degree in aviation safety from Central Missouri State University; bachelor's degree in professional aeronautics from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University HOBBIES: Pilot, flies a Cessna 210; black belt in tae kwon do BUCKET LIST: Attending EAA in Oshkosh. "I can't wait for that," he said. HOMETOWN: Born in Puerto Rico, raised in New York City; looking for a house in Milwaukee metro area. BEST CAREER ADVICE EVER RECEIVED: "It was from my crusty master chief one night. He said, 'Izzy, this will do well for your career: Always remember that what interests your boss should fascinate the living heck out of you.' In a job like this, I have my immediate bosses, but overall my bosses are the community. What interests them is going to fascinate the heck out of me." By of the Harper Lee, the elusive novelist whose child's-eye view of racial injustice in a small Southern town, "To Kill a Mockingbird," became standard reading for millions of young people and an Oscar-winning film, has died in Monroeville, Ala. Lee was 89. Publisher HarperCollins said in a statement that Lee died peacefully, but did not give any other details about how she died. For most of her life, Lee divided her time between New York City, where she wrote the novel in the 1950s, and her hometown of Monroeville, which inspired "Mockingbird's" fictional Maycomb. "To Kill a Mockingbird" is often found on lists of both the greatest and most popular American novels, its reputation further enhanced by the popular 1962 film adaptation starring Gregory Peck. With its youthful narrator and its direct take on prejudice and racial injustice, "Mockingbird" is frequently taught in schools but the book's adult themes and use of racially charged language, including the n-word, have led to attempts to have it removed from curricula and classrooms. Set in a small Alabama town in 1935, Jean Louise Finch, nicknamed Scout, describes growing up with her brother, Jem, and widower father, Atticus. A principled lawyer, Atticus defends Tom Robinson, a young black man accused of raping a white woman; the trial exposes racism in the community while also subjecting Atticus and his family to abuse and danger. "To Kill a Mockingbird" won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961. When Lee visited Milwaukee in 1964 to receive an honorary degree from Mount Mary College (now Mount Mary University), she told a Milwaukee Sentinel reporter she was "hard at work" on a second novel. But the decades rolled by without her publishing another book. (She did help her friend Truman Capote, the model for Dill in "Mockingbird," with research for "In Cold Blood.") Like Boo Radley, the mystery man in her classic novel, Lee kept quiet behind closed doors for many years, to a point that rumors grew like Johnson grass around her. Born in Monroeville, Ala., Nelle Harper Lee was known to family and friends as Nelle (pronounced Nell) the name of a relative, Ellen, spelled backward. Like Atticus Finch, her father was a lawyer and state legislator. One of her childhood friends was Capote, who lived with relatives next door to the Lees for several years. (A book about Lee in 2006 and two films about Capote brought fresh attention to their friendship, including her contributions to Capote's "In Cold Blood," the classic "nonfiction novel" about the murder of a Kansas farm family. Capote became the model for Scout's creative, impish and loving friend Dill. In the novel, Dill is described as "a pocket Merlin, whose head teemed with eccentric plans, strange longings, and quaint fancies." Lee's friendship with Capote was evident later when she traveled frequently with him to Kansas, beginning in 1959, to help him do research for what became his own bestseller, "In Cold Blood." He dedicated the book to her and his longtime companion, Jack Dunphy, but never acknowledged how vital a role she played in its creation. Her re-engagement with the literary world was the biggest book event of 2015. HarperCollins described "Go Set a Watchman" as the novel Lee wrote in the mid-1950s before "Mockingbird." It featured some of the characters from "Mockingbird," but later in their lifespans. Returning home to Maycomb to visit her father, Scout struggled with issues both personal and political in her hometown and with her father. A lack of direct statements by the 89-year-old author, who had been residing in an Alabama assisted-living facility, has led to questions and rumors about both the contents of "Watchman" and whether Lee authorized its publication. Many reviewers found "Watchman" weak or disappointing, but HarperCollins reported it was the fastest-selling book in its history. The Associated Press contributed to this report SHARE The Best of Brew City is your mobile guide to going out in Milwaukee. Visit jsonline.com/brewcity and download the app for iOS or Android today. Milwaukeeans, start your engines: The 54th annual O'Reilly Auto Parts World of Wheels, the sprawling custom-car show, rolls into town Friday through Sunday at State Fair Park's Wisconsin Expo Center, 640 S. 84th St., West Allis. Customized cars and motorcycles, live music and celebrities including "The Dukes of Hazzard's" Tom Wopat and Catherine Bach are among the attractions. Admission is $16, $6 for kids ages 6 to 12 and free for children 5 and younger (discount tickets available at O'Reilly outlets). Info: wistatefair.com Friday's MAM After Dark is also MAM Silent, with the Milwaukee Art Museum's Windhover Hall turned into a Quiet Club: DJs spin music while the folks on the floor listen via special headphones. Also on the agenda: live body-art painting, an "emoji art challenge" and an appearance by the Brewcity Bruisers. Admission is $12 at the door, free for art museum members. Info: mam.org If presidents can have their own day, why not Dr. Dre? Celebrate the music of Compton's own at Dre Day Saturday (the rap mogul turned 50 Thursday) at Company Brewing, 735 E. Center St. Music, hip-hop karaoke and prizes for the best "West Coast" dressed, among other games are in store. Info:Dre Day MKE 2016 Facebook Page Check out the weekend's beer events, including the Milwaukee Public Museum's Food & Froth Fest Saturday, at Tap Milwaukee's Beer Here page: jsonline.com/beer. For more of this weekend's music highlights, check out the Upcoming Concerts section on Tap Milwaukee's Music page: jsonline.com/music. For more stuff to do this weekend, see Tap Milwaukee's events calendar at jsonline.com/events. Jacques Chaumet Jacques Chaumet grew up picking mushrooms with his mother in France. It's a tradition he still carries out today, picking and drying mushrooms during every visit. They're light, they travel well, and they always make their way back to Milwaukee with him. They're a taste of his home, incorporated into numerous dishes on the menu at his restaurant, Chez Jacques Brasserie, 1022 S. 1st St. Chaumet is quick to point out an important part of his restaurant's name: brasserie. "That means it is open all day long, breakfast, lunch and dinner," he said. "All day, every day." He initially opened a small cafe on 2nd St. in 2001. Five years later, he was forced to find a new spot. He didn't go far. He bought a building in the same Walker's Point neighborhood, where he now has a 500-square-foot kitchen. That's where he's been for the past decade, and where you'll find him most days. Chaumet, a father of two, lives in Walker's Point. Find your passion Cooking is a passion, love and dedication. It is also a lot of hard work. I think when you are going to do something that you like and enjoy, if it is your passion it is even better. It helps you to fight against all the obstacles and barriers in front of you. French beginnings I grew up with a taste for eating, drinking, growing up with my mom and grandmother in France. I went to college in the south of France, where I started working in bars and restaurants. I went to England for two years to finish my bachelor's degree in economics. I started working in restaurants in London. Then I traveled around the world working. Working his way to Wisconsin I came to the U.S. in 1993. I went to California first, stayed there for the summer, then to Florida for a year and worked in Miami Beach in a very fancy French restaurant. I worked there for a year, then to New Mexico. That's where I met someone I fell in love with who was originally from Milwaukee. Two babies later, she decided to move back home. I saw where Milwaukee was on the map from Santa Fe. I wasn't too excited, but I came around. So I guess you could say love brought me to Milwaukee. Love kept me here all these years since 1997. Lessons from a local legend When I first came to Milwaukee, I was working at Grenadier's restaurant on Broadway and Mason. That's where I learned all the tricks of running a successful place in Milwaukee, working with Knut (Apitz). Opening his own place I love to eat, I love to drink. I decided one day I should start my own place. I'm French. I'm in Milwaukee. There aren't that many French places. I miss my country. The best way to fill the gap was to start my own place. On the perks of ownership Five years of being on 2nd Street we had to move, a complicated story with my landlord. The good thing about this is that by kicking me out of his place and selling the building, I looked everywhere in Milwaukee to find a new place. I wanted to buy my own building. I looked in Bay View, the east side, downtown. I found a place right across the street from my old location. It actually was perfect. It used to be the oldest fish market in the city. Menu must-haves The first one is boeuf bourguignon. Then, French onion soup and bouillabaisse. Running a restaurant I still have one guy in the kitchen who has been with me since day one, and one person in the front of the house. Those are very important, the pillars of the restaurant. Where he takes visitors I like Brady Street, because I used to live right on Brady Street before I moved to Walker's Point. We go to Cempazuchi for Mexican food. Cheap eats I like the Thai Bar-B-Que on 35th and National. It is healthy and fresh and well done, not too much cream or butter. I know the owner, he's a nice guy. I also like El Cabrito, on 11th and Washington. Favorite French fare Leg of lamb, which my mom used to make, with flageolet beans. Then, anything with foie gras and mushrooms. Where I grew up there are a lot of mushrooms, so my mom makes all kinds of things with mushrooms. What he brings back from France Every time I go back to my mom's we go mushroom picking, for porcini mushrooms. We actually slice them and dry them. Then I get to bring them back here and that is what I use at the restaurant. We do a dish with a veal stew with porcini mushrooms, and those mushrooms are the ones from my hometown. His indulgence Foie gras. I had some for Christmas, but it is not something I can eat on a weekly basis. It is too rich, and I think you appreciate it better when you only eat it once in a while. 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. Paul T. Farr (left) pleaded guilty Friday to his role in the shooting death of 5-year-old Laylah Petersen on Nov. 6, 2014. Credit: Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office; family photo SHARE By of the One of three men charged in the shooting death of 5-year-old Laylah Petersen pleaded guilty Friday to aiding the other two. Paul T. Farr, 24, entered the plea to two counts of harboring or aiding a felon. His bail was reduced to $5,000, and he was allowed to live outside Wisconsin pending sentencing, scheduled for July 8, if he posts bail. Each conviction carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and five years of supervised release. Prosecutors say Farr drove Arlis Gordon and Carl Barrett Jr. to the area of N. 58th St. and W. Fairmont Ave. the night of Nov. 6, 2014, where they fired into the home of Petersen's grandparents, having mistakenly thought they were targeting Jacquan Howard. Earlier that day, a jury had acquitted Howard in the shooting death of a man Gordon considered his brother. According to the criminal complaint, after Laylah was killed by one of the many shots into the house, the three men, and a fourth person who was in the car with Farr, went to an apartment where Gordon and Barrett laid their guns on a table and bragged about the shooting. Despite its high profile and the offer of a $35,000 reward, the case went unsolved for nearly a year, until detectives built a case that led to charges against the three men in October. Gordon, 23, and Barrett, 20, each face counts of first-degree reckless homicide in Laylah's death. Each is scheduled for trial in June. The Milwaukee Police Department has launched an online database showing the location of the roughly 2,300 sex offenders living in the city. Credit: Screen shot SHARE By of the The Milwaukee Police Department released a new online database Thursday showing the location of the roughly 2,300 sex offenders living in the city. The website, called Offender Watch, was launched by the department's Sensitive Crimes Division and allows people to search for sex offenders in their neighborhoods. The state Department of Corrections offers a similar offender registry, but Milwaukee police officials say their version, which uses state data, is city-specific, features interactive maps and is updated in real-time. It also will help the public to see if sex offenders are in compliance with Milwaukee's 2014 sex offender ordinance, Capt. Aimee Obregon said Thursday. "We needed to have a robust database that not only allowed us to track the offenders living in the city but also allowed the people and the public to know where these people are living as well," she said. The Sensitive Crimes Division receives about 100 updates each week related to sex offenders and those updates are regularly entered into the public database, Obregon said. Milwaukee officials believe the department is the first in Wisconsin to have a local site. It cost about $12,000 to create, according to Obregon. The database can be found online at http://city.milwaukee.gov/police and clicking on "Offender Watch" under the "Information and Services" column. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) speaks at a rally on Friday in Elko, Nevada. Credit: Associated Press SHARE Good news! I read through all the presidential candidates' economic plans so you don't have to. I even came up with a handy rule of thumb to help you quickly assess everyone's ideas. Here's the rule: The more growth a candidate promises, the worse his or her economic plan probably is. Why? Not because promising bonkers growth suggests economic illiteracy, necessarily, though it might. The reason this axiom works is that promises of big growth usually signify a statistical sleight of hand legerdemath, if you will. If a candidate is making ridiculous claims about how much he'll grow the economy, he probably needs to make those claims to hide the massive deficits that his policies would create under less generous (i.e., more realistic) assumptions. Astronomically higher economic output and employment create an astronomically larger tax base, after all, which helps offset the costs of spending increases or tax-rate cuts. Take Bernie Sanders' suite of economic proposals, which include higher taxes, "Medicare for all," big infrastructure investments, free college and higher Social Security benefits. The campaign has been flogging an analysis of these proposals by Gerald Friedman, an economist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. In a glowing 53-page report, Friedman says Sanders' policies would: Raise the rate of gross domestic product growth to 5.3% per year, more than double the Federal Reserve's current long-run projection of 2%. Reduce unemployment to 3.8%, which is way below the Fed's long-term estimates of 4.9%. Restore the share of the population in the labor force back to what it was in 1999, even though the baby boom generation is much older today and so many more Americans have reached retirement age. If you don't follow economic statistics closely, these numbers may not mean much to you. Here's how I'd describe them in layman's terms: garbage. It's not just that these figures assume delusionally large effects. Some show effects that don't even point in the right direction. Consider the claims about labor force participation. If you actually think about Sanders' proposals such as completely delinking health insurance from employment, making college free and increasing Social Security benefits you'll realize they mostly would reduce workforce participation on the margin. That doesn't mean they're unworthy policy choices. Like any other choices, though, they bring trade-offs including making it easier or more attractive for Americans to not have a job. In no known universe would they have the effects Friedman predicts. Usually, Democrats accuse Republicans of partaking in this sort of voodoo economics. Jeb Bush infamously promised 4% growth, a number he seems to have pulled from thin air during a conference call. Other Republican contenders matched and even one-upped his preposterous promise, with Donald Trump offering 6% growth. Both claims were widely mocked. It's no wonder that liberal economists are frustrated that Sanders' campaign is practicing, or at least touting, similar statistical shenanigans. Four former top economic advisers to Democratic presidents wrote an open letter to Sanders and Friedman this week. One of its signatories, University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee, compared the realism of the Sanders agenda to "magic flying puppies with winning Lotto tickets tied to their collars." Sanders' campaign has responded to such critics by impugning their motives, suggesting that they're all on Team Clinton. (Friedman turns out to be on Team Clinton, too.) There's a good reason why Team Sanders like Teams Bush and Trump avoids addressing critiques of fuzzy math directly. Their economic assumptions may be laughable, but they have one serious advantage: They help make the candidates look less fiscally irresponsible. If you assume 4% growth, Bush's trillions of dollars in tax cuts suddenly cease to mar the deficit, according to his own advisers. If you assume 5.3% growth, Sanders' tax-and-spend policies may induce a budget surplus, Friedman says. Other experts, using different, more reasonable economic assumptions do not agree. Sanders' health plan alone which his campaign insists is fully paid for has an estimated shortfall of between $3 trillion and $14 trillion. For all of Sanders' disgust for Wall Street, this form of numbers-fudging is actually a well-known trick in investment banking. When putting together your pitch book for a merger, you start with the price you need the valuation to come out to, then bake in more and more generous revenue projections until you get there. And anyone who questions your numbers? Well, maybe they're on Team Clinton, too. Catherine Rampell is a columnist for The Washington Post. Email crampell@washpost.com. Twitter: @crampellCatherine Rampell is a columnist for The Washington Post. Email crampell@washpost.com. Twitter: @crampell SHARE Shuntaye Crenshaw Ozaukee County Sheriff's Office By A 23-year-old Milwaukee man was charged Thursday in the overdose death of a Concordia University student found dead in his dorm room last fall. Caleb Ford, 18, of Waukesha was a freshman at the Mequon college. He was discovered Oct. 1 by his roommate, the morning after the roommate, Ford and two other students had purchased drugs off campus in a deal Ford had arranged. On Thursday, Ozaukee County prosecutors charged Shuntaye C. Crenshaw with first-degree reckless homicide, saying he sold Ford the heroin that killed him. He is being held at the Ozaukee County Jail and is scheduled for a bail hearing Friday. According to the complaint: Ford, who had a history of drug abuse, told the three friends that he could buy them all drugs from a dealer he knew. Later on the evening of Sept. 30, he said he had made the arrangements. Ford and three others drove off campus to a dead end street off Lake Shore Drive, south of campus, where they purchased $200 worth of marijuana, concentrated marijuana oil, pills and some heroin. Ford's friends consumed their drugs in a nearby restaurant parking lot, while Ford the only one with heroin returned to his room at Wittenberg Hall. Jacob Galloway told police he went to his room about 2:30 a.m., and saw Ford with dried blood on his nose and cheeks but left him alone and spent the night in another dorm room. Galloway returned to his room at 7:15 a.m. and found Ford slumped over a desk, couldn't wake him, and then called the other friend to come there before finally notifying campus security. When police arrived, they found several signs of heroin use, including a CVS receipt for the purchase of 10 syringes. Heroin residue was found in a pen cap and on the desk. Coincidentally, Mequon police had stopped Crenshaw as he was speeding south on Lake Shore Drive at 1:42 a.m. He was ticketed for driving while suspended and speeding. His passenger, Cedric McCarty, was cited for giving a different name. Police got cellphone numbers from both men. Last month, police set up an undercover drug buy from Crenshaw in Mequon. He arrived with McCarty and sold the informant supposed heroin for $425, though some of the substance turned out to be counterfeit. Crenshaw faces a separate drug felony related to that incident. McCarty later identified Ford, in a photo, as the person Crenshaw had sold drugs to on Sept. 30. Galloway, 19, of Des Moines, Iowa, and the two other students, Lucas Eaton, 19, of Lockport, Ill., and Zachary Haen, 18, of Kaukauna, were charged in December with misdemeanor counts of obstructing an officer and possession of marijuana. Felony counts of possessing GHB, or Ecstasy, replaced those counts last month. All three are scheduled to make initial court appearances March 9. Concordia spokeswoman Gretchen Jameson said Galloway, Eaton and Haen are no longer students at the university. She said while drug abuse is not a particularly bad problem at Concordia, no university is immune. "It's a growing issue in the county though, and Concordia University wants to stand shoulder to shoulder with the community to face it," she said. 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. Deisler was later convicted and sent to prison for the crime spree. Credit: Criminal court file exhibit SHARE By of the A bill that would make lying on an application to become a licensed professional in Wisconsin a crime passed the Assembly Thursday and now heads to the Senate. The bipartisan measure was approved on a voice vote without debate. It was introduced following a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation revealing the state licensed Francis Deisler, a serial rapist and bank robber, to be a social worker. Last month, he agreed to forever give up his Wisconsin license. The bill's author, Rep. Scott Allen (R-Waukesha), said when introducing the bill that the Deisler case shocked him and revealed the lack of consequences for people who lie on an application to become a professional. Allen noted the only punishment for lying was to lose the license. On Thursday, Allen said, "I'm pleased that this bill passed the Assembly on a bipartisan vote and will turn my attention to educating senators on the bill's value." The bill would make it a class A misdemeanor to provide false information on any of the applications received by the Department of Safety and Professional Services. The department licenses more than 230 professions, ranging from barbers to doctors, and issues nearly 40,000 licenses a year. Under the bill, a conviction would carry a maximum penalty of nine months in jail and a fine of up to $10,000. The bill comes as the state begins new limited criminal background checks of a narrow portion of the state's social workers. The checks will be done on 5% or about 500 of the roughly 10,000 social workers licensed in Wisconsin. The current practice is basically an honor system where license applications ask applicants to disclose their criminal records. Regulators do not verify the answers. The background check program is a test and will be launched next year, when all state social workers' licenses are renewed. After a hearing on the bill, Allen said it was not possible to do background checks on a large swath of licenses because of the cost. He said he would be open to considering background checks for certain occupations in the future but he said it is important to make lying on the forms a crime now. The Journal Sentinel reported last June that despite Deisler spending a decade behind bars for a variety of convictions, including kidnapping and raping a 14-year-old girl, regulators in Wisconsin and two other states licensed him to work as a social worker. 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. Jason Stein of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report. Reddit Email 0 Shares By Belen Fernandez | ( TeleSur ) | No, Israel Should Not Flatten Beirut: A debate over whether Israel should commit war crimes and wipe out a city of at least 1 million people is somehow acceptable. This week, the prominent Israeli newspaper Haaretz ran an opinion piece by Amitai Etzioni, titled Should Israel Flatten Beirut to Destroy Hezbollahs Missiles? The short answer is yes but well get to that in a minute. The fact that Israel has already flattened large sections of Lebanon, in Beirut and beyond, would seem to make the articles title a bit redundant. Who, you may ask, is the fellow who has taken it upon himself to ponder this important matter? As it turns out, Etzioni is . . . a professor at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C., having formerly taught at other prestigious U.S. universities including Columbia and Harvard. Also on his CV are stints of service in the Palmach militia, which fought for Israeli independence until 1948, and the Israeli military. Etzioni begins his philosophy session with a claim from an anonymous Israeli representative in D.C. that Hezbollahs alleged stockpile of 100,000 missiles [is] now Israels number two security threat, second only to a nuclear-armed Iran. He then jumps across the ocean to a previous conference in Herzliya, Israel, where he says the Israeli chief of staff revealed that most of these missiles are placed in private homes, raising another question on top of the to-flatten-or-not-to-flatten one: If Hezbollah starts raining them down on Israel, how can these missiles be eliminated without causing massive civilian casualties? Never mind that Hezbollah has never started raining anything on Israel without serious provocation or that civilian casualties generally havent been at the top of that countrys list of concerns. According to Etzioni, some of the participants at the Herzliya conference were invited to an Israeli military base near Haifa, the amenities of which include a model Lebanese village. There the guests were treated to a demonstration of the way Israel plans to clear these missiles by Israeli soldiers dashing from building to building to find them. To Etzionis dismay, a minor breeze arrived mid-performance and blew away the grenade smoke intended to conceal the troops movements, leaving them exposed to hypothetical snipers. Given the time-consuming and likely casualty-heavy nature of the house-to-house strategy, Etzioni reasons that there must be superior option. In debating what else could be done, he mentions a recollection by someone in the visiting group that, in the 2006 war on Lebanon, Israel was charged with bombing Shia neighborhoods in Beirut in order to pressure Hezbollah to stop firing missiles. He goes on to caution, however, that many studies have shown that such bombing do not (sic) have the expected effect, nor did it in 2006 (assuming that such bombing actually occurred). Indeed, when I myself visited Shia and other varieties of Lebanese neighborhood a month after this particular war, it still wasnt clear from the ubiquitous rubbleand craters in the ground where buildings had once stoodwhether such bombing had actually transpired. 4 m #Israel cluster bombs dropped in south #Lebanon are still killing & maiming a decade later http://t.co/9twCgZdvoc pic.twitter.com/Vw306Wwj8U Joseph Willits (@josephwillits) March 29, 2015 More to the point, the fact that Israel has already flattened large sections of Lebanon, in Beirut and beyond, would seem to make the articles title a bit redundant. Upon returning to the U.S. from Israel, Etzioni says that he asked two American military officers what other options Israel has for missile eradication. And what do you know: They both pointed to Fuel-Air Explosives [FAE]. These bombs, Etzioni explains, disperse an aerosol cloud of fuel which is ignited by a detonator, producing massive explosions. And thats not all: The resulting rapidly expanding wave flattens all buildings within a considerable range. Lest we devote too much thought to the fact that this professor at a prestigious American institution of higher learning has literally just advocated for the total destruction of a considerable piece of territory, Etzioni stages a slight retreat: Such weapons obviously would be used only after the population was given a chance to evacuate the area. But this obviously fails to account for the Israeli military habit of ordering civilians to evacuate areas and then bombing them en route. And it may be news to Etzioni, but the intentional targeting of civilian areas and civilian infrastructure happens to be a war crime. Etzioni himself acknowledges that, still, as we saw in Gaza, there are going to be civilian casualties. Of course, weve also seen plenty of civilian casualties in Lebanon, where in 2006 the majority of the estimated 1,200 fatalities were not Hezbollah. During my own recent visit to south Lebanon, I spoke with a young man from a village near the Israeli border who was 13 at the time of the war and who remained in his village for the duration of the 34-day assault. He described the pain in 2006 of encountering detached heads and other body parts belonging to former neighbors, blasted apart by bombs or crushed in collapsed homes. But forget sympathy. The moral of the FAE story in Etzionis view is that, because there will inevitably be FAE-induced casualties, the time to raise this issue is long before Israel may be forced to use them presumably so that the international community can warm up to the idea of a flattened Beirut. He writes: One way this can be achieved is by inviting foreign military experts and public intellectuals, who are not known to be hostile to Israel, to participate in war games in which they would be charged with fashioning a response to massive missile attacks on Israeli high rise buildings, schools, hospitals, and air bases. There are various problems with this reasoning. For one thing, Israel takes the cake when it comes to massive attacks. For another, the obsessive portrayal of the Israelis as forever engaged in legitimate and retaliatory self-defense severely obscures reality. If you invent a country on land that doesnt belong to you and begin regularly slaughtering and otherwise harassing people, youre pretty much permanently denied the whole victim alibi. Regarding his proposed FAE public relations strategy, Etzioni concludes: In this way, one hopes, that there be [sic] a greater understanding, if not outright acceptance, of the use of these powerful weapons, given that nothing else will do. A better hope might be that such warmongering ravings were not permitted to pass as civilized analysis. Belen Fernandez is the author of The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work, published by Verso. She is a contributing editor at Jacobin magazine. Via TeleSur Image added by Juan Cole: Beirut before and after Israeli indiscriminate bombing in 2006: Reddit Email 0 Shares By Bill McKibben | ( Tomdispatch.com ) | Heres the story so far. We have the chief legal representatives of the eighth and 16th largest economies on Earth (California and New York) probing the biggest fossil fuel company on Earth (ExxonMobil), while both Democratic presidential candidates are demanding that the federal Department of Justice join the investigation of what may prove to be one of the biggest corporate scandals in American history. And thats just the beginning. As bad as Exxon has been in the past, what its doing now entirely legally is helping push the planet over the edge and into the biggest crisis in the entire span of the human story. Back in the fall, you might have heard something about how Exxon had covered up what it knew early on about climate change. Maybe you even thought to yourself: that doesnt surprise me. But it should have. Even as someone who has spent his life engaged in the bottomless pit of greed that is global warming, the news and its meaning came as a shock: we could have avoided, it turns out, the last quarter century of pointless climate debate. As a start, investigations by the Pulitzer-Prize winning Inside Climate News, the Los Angeles Times, and Columbia Journalism School revealed in extraordinary detail that Exxons top officials had known everything there was to know about climate change back in the 1980s. Even earlier, actually. Heres what senior company scientist James Black told Exxons management committee in 1977: In the first place, there is general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels. To determine if this was so, the company outfitted an oil tanker with carbon dioxide sensors to measure concentrations of the gas over the ocean, and then funded elaborate computer models to help predict what temperatures would do in the future. The results of all that work were unequivocal. By 1982, in an internal corporate primer, Exxons leaders were told that, despite lingering unknowns, dealing with climate change would require major reductions in fossil fuel combustion. Unless that happened, the primer said, citing independent experts, there are some potentially catastrophic events that must be considered Once the effects are measurable, they might not be reversible. But that document, given wide circulation within Exxon, was also stamped Not to be distributed externally. So heres what happened. Exxon used its knowledge of climate change to plan its own future. The company, for instance, leased large tracts of the Arctic for oil exploration, territory where, as a company scientist pointed out in 1990, potential global warming can only help lower exploration and development costs. Not only that but, from the North Sea to the Canadian Arctic, Exxon and its affiliates set about raising the decks of offshore platforms, protecting pipelines from increasing coastal erosion, and designing helipads, pipelines, and roads in a warming and buckling Arctic. In other words, the company started climate-proofing its facilities to head off a future its own scientists knew was inevitable. But in public? There, Exxon didnt own up to any of this. In fact, it did precisely the opposite. In the 1990s, it started to put money and muscle into obscuring the science around climate change. It funded think tanks that spread climate denial and even recruited lobbying talent from the tobacco industry. It also followed the tobacco playbook when it came to the defense of cigarettes by highlighting uncertainty about the science of global warming. And it spent lavishly to back political candidates who were ready to downplay global warming. Its CEO, Lee Raymond, even traveled to China in 1997 and urged government leaders there to go full steam ahead in developing a fossil fuel economy. The globe was cooling, not warming, he insisted, while his engineers were raising drilling platforms to compensate for rising seas. It is highly unlikely, he said, that the temperature in the middle of the next century will be significantly affected whether policies are enacted now or 20 years from now. Which wasnt just wrong, but completely and overwhelmingly wrong as wrong as a man could be. Sins of Omission In fact, Exxons deceit its ability to discourage regulations for 20 years may turn out to be absolutely crucial in the planets geological history. Its in those two decades that greenhouse gas emissions soared, as did global temperatures until, in the twenty-first century, hottest year ever recorded has become a tired cliche. And heres the bottom line: had Exxon told the truth about what it knew back in 1990, we might not have wasted a quarter of a century in a phony debate about the science of climate change, nor would anyone have accused Exxon of being alarmist. We would simply have gotten to work. But Exxon didnt tell the truth. A Yale study published last fall in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that money from Exxon and the Koch Brothers played a key role in polarizing the climate debate in this country. The companys sins of omission and commission may even turn out to be criminal. Whether the company lied to the public is the question that New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman decided to investigate last fall in a case that could make him the great lawman of our era if his investigation doesnt languish. There are various consumer fraud statutes that Exxon might have violated and it might have failed to disclose relevant information to investors, which is the main kind of lying thats illegal in this country of ours. Now, Schneidermans got backup from California Attorney General Kamala Harris, and maybe if activists continue to apply pressure from the Department of Justice as well, though its highly publicized unwillingness to go after the big banks does not inspire confidence. Heres the thing: all that was bad back then, but Exxon and many of its Big Energy peers are behaving at least as badly now when the pace of warming is accelerating. And its all legal dangerous, stupid, and immoral, but legal. On the face of things, Exxon has, in fact, changed a little in recent years. For one thing, its stopped denying climate change, at least in a modest way. Rex Tillerson, Raymonds successor as CEO, stopped telling world leaders that the planet was cooling. Speaking in 2012 at the Council on Foreign Relations, he said, Im not disputing that increasing CO2 emissions in the atmosphere is going to have an impact. Itll have a warming impact. Of course, he immediately went on to say that its impact was uncertain indeed, hard to estimate, and in any event entirely manageable. His language was striking. We will adapt to this. Changes to weather patterns that move crop production areas around well adapt to that. Its an engineering problem, and it has engineering solutions. Add to that gem of a comment this one: the real problem, he insisted, was that we have a society that by and large is illiterate in these areas, science, math, and engineering, what we do is a mystery to them and they find it scary. And because of that, it creates easy opportunities for opponents of development, activist organizations, to manufacture fear. Right. This was in 2012, within months of floods across Asia that displaced tens of millions and during the hottest summer ever recorded in the United States, when much of our grain crop failed. Oh yeah, and just before Hurricane Sandy. Hes continued the same kind of belligerent rhetoric throughout his tenure. At last years ExxonMobil shareholder meeting, for instance, he said that if the world had to deal with inclement weather, which may or may not be induced by climate change, we should employ unspecified new technologies. Mankind, he explained, has this enormous capacity to deal with adversity. In other words, were no longer talking about outright denial, just a denial that much really needs to be done. And even when the company has proposed doing something, its proposals have been strikingly ethereal. Exxons PR team, for instance, has discussed supporting a price on carbon, which is only what economists left, right, and center have been recommending since the 1980s. But the minimal price they recommend somewhere in the range of $40 to $60 a ton wouldnt do much to slow down their business. After all, they insist that all their reserves are still recoverable in the context of such a price increase, which would serve mainly to make life harder for the already terminal coal industry. But say you think its a great idea to put a price on carbon which, in fact, it is, since every signal helps sway investment decisions. In that case, Exxons done its best to make sure that what they pretend to support in theory will never happen in practice. Consider, for instance, their political contributions. The website Dirty Energy Money, organized by Oil Change International, makes it easy to track who gave what to whom. If you look at all of Exxons political contributions from 1999 to the present, a huge majority of their political harem of politicians have signed the famous Taxpayer Protection Pledge from Grover Norquists Americans for Tax Reform that binds them to vote against any new taxes. Norquist himself wrote Congress in late January that a carbon tax is a VAT or Value Added Tax on training wheels. Any carbon tax would inevitably be spread out over wider and wider parts of the economy until we had a European Value Added Tax. As he told a reporter last year, I dont see the path to getting a lot of Republican votes for a carbon tax, and since hes been called the most powerful man in American politics, that seems like a good bet. The only Democratic senator in Exxons top 60 list was former Louisiana solon Mary Landrieu, who made a great virtue in her last race of the fact that she was the key vote in blocking carbon pricing in Congress. Bill Cassidy, the man who defeated her, is also an Exxon favorite, and lost no time in co-sponsoring a bill opposing any carbon taxes. In other words, you could really call Exxons supposed concessions on climate change a Shell game. Except its Exxon. The Never-Ending Big Dig Even thats not the deepest problem. The deepest problem is Exxons business plan. The company spends huge amounts of money searching for new hydrocarbons. Given the recent plunge in oil prices, its capital spending and exploration budget was indeed cut by 12% in 2015 to $34 billion, and another 25% in 2016 to $23.2 billion. In 2015, that meant Exxon was spending $63 million a day as it continues to bring new projects on line. They are still spending a cool $1.57 billion a year looking for new sources of hydrocarbons $4 million a day, every day. As Exxon looks ahead, despite the current bargain basement price of oil, it still boasts of expansion plans in the Gulf of Mexico, eastern Canada, Indonesia, Australia, the Russian far east, Angola, and Nigeria. The strength of our global organization allows us to explore across all geological and geographical environments, using industry-leading technology and capabilities. And its willingness to get in bed with just about any regime out there makes it even easier. Somewhere in his trophy case, for instance, Rex Tillerson has an Order of Friendship medal from one Vladimir Putin. All it took was a joint energy venture estimated to be worth $500 billion. But, you say, thats what oil companies do, go find new oil, right? Unfortunately, thats precisely what we cant have them doing any more. About a decade ago, scientists first began figuring out a carbon budget for the planet an estimate for how much more carbon we could burn before we completely overheated the Earth. There are potentially many thousands of gigatons of carbon that could be extracted from the planet if we keep exploring. The fossil fuel industry has already identified at least 5,000 gigatons of carbon that it has told regulators, shareholders, and banks it plans to extract. However, we can only burn about another 900 gigatons of carbon before we disastrously overheat the planet. On our current trajectory, wed burn through that budget in about a couple of decades. The carbon weve burned has already raised the planets temperature a degree Celsius, and on our present course well burn enough to take us past two degrees in less than 20 years. At this point, in fact, no climate scientist thinks that even a two-degree rise in temperature is a safe target, since one degree is already melting the ice caps. (Indeed, new data released this month shows that, if we hit the two-degree mark, well be living with drastically raised sea levels for, oh, twice as long as human civilization has existed to date.) Thats why in November world leaders in Paris agreed to try to limit the planets temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or just under three degrees Fahrenheit. If you wanted to meet that target, however, you would need to be done burning fossil fuels by perhaps 2020, which is in technical terms just about now. Thats why its wildly irresponsible for a company to be leading the world in oil exploration when, as scientists have carefully explained, we already have access to four or five times as much carbon in the Earth as we can safely burn. We have it, as it were, on the shelf. So why would we go looking for more? Scientists have even done us the useful service of identifying precisely the kinds of fossil fuels we should never dig up, and what do you know an awful lot of them are on Exxons future wish list, including the tar sands of Canada, a particularly carbon-filthy, environmentally destructive fuel to produce and burn. Even Exxons one attempt to profit from stanching global warming has started to come apart. Several years ago, the company began a calculated pivot in the direction of natural gas, which produces less carbon than oil when burned. In 2009, Exxon acquired XTO Energy, a company that had mastered the art of extracting gas from shale via hydraulic fracturing. By now, Exxon has become Americas leading fracker and a pioneer in natural gas markets around the world. The trouble with fracked natural gas other than what Tillerson once called farmer Joes lit his faucet on fire is this: in recent years, its become clear that the process of fracking for gas releases large amounts of methane into the atmosphere, and methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. As Cornell University scientist Robert Howarth has recently established, burning natural gas to produce electricity probably warms the planet faster than burning coal or crude oil. Exxons insistence on finding and producing ever more fossil fuels certainly benefited its shareholders for a time, even if it cost the Earth dearly. Five of the 10 largest annual profits ever reported by any company belonged to Exxon in these years. Even the financial argument is now, however, weakening. Over the last five years, Exxon has lagged behind many of its competitors as well as the broader market, and a big reason, according to the Carbon Tracker Initiative (CTI), is its heavy investment in particularly expensive, hard-to-recover oil and gas. In 2007, as CTI reported, Canadian tar sands and similar heavy oil deposits accounted for 7.5% of Exxons proven reserves. By 2013, that number had risen to 17%. A smart business strategy for the company, according to CTI, would involve shrinking its exploration budget, concentrating on the oil fields it has access to that can still be pumped profitably at low prices, and using the cash flow to buy back shares or otherwise reward investors. That would, however, mean exchanging Exxons Texan-style big-is-good approach for something far more modest. And since were speaking about what was the biggest company on the planet for a significant part of the twentieth century, Exxon seems to be set on continuing down that bigger-is-better path. Theyre betting that the price of oil will rise in the reasonably near future, that alternative energy wont develop fast enough, and that the world wont aggressively tackle climate change. And the company will keep trying to cover those bets by aggressively backing politicians capable of ensuring that nothing happens. Can Exxon Be Pressured? Next to that fierce stance on the planets future, the mild requests of activists for the last 25 years seem well, next to pointless. At the 2015 ExxonMobil shareholder meeting, for instance, religious shareholder activists asked for the umpteenth time that the company at least make public its plans for managing climate risks. Even BP, Shell, and Statoil had agreed to that much. Instead, Exxons management campaigned against the resolution and it got only 9.6% of shareholder votes, a tally so low it cant even be brought up again for another three years. By which time well have burned through oh, never mind. What we need from Exxon is what theyll never give: a pledge to keep most of their reserves underground, an end to new exploration, and a promise to stay away from the political system. Dont hold your breath. But if Exxon seems hopelessly set in its ways, revulsion is growing. The investigations by the New York and California attorneys general mean that the company will have to turn over lots of documents. If journalists could find out as much as they did about Exxons deceit in public archives, think what someone with subpoena power might accomplish. Many other jurisdictions could jump in, too. At the Paris climate talks in December, a panel of law professors led a well-attended session on the different legal theories that courts around the world might apply to the companys deceptive behavior. When that begins to happen, count on one thing: the spotlight wont shine exclusively on Exxon. As with the tobacco companies in the decades when they were covering up the dangers of cigarettes, theres a good chance that the Big Energy companies were in this together through their trade associations and other front groups. In fact, just before Christmas, Inside Climate News published some revealing new documents about the role that Texaco, Shell, and other majors played in an American Petroleum Institute study of climate change back in the early 1980s. A trial would be a transformative event a reckoning for the crime of the millennium. But while were waiting for the various investigations to play out, theres lots of organizing going at the state and local level when it comes to Exxon, climate change, and fossil fuels everything from politely asking more states to join the legal process to politely shutting down gas stations for a few hours to pointing out to New York and California that they might not want to hold millions of dollars of stock in a company theyre investigating. It may even be starting to work. Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin, for instance, singled Exxon out in his state of the state address last month. He called on the legislature to divest the state of its holdings in the company because of its deceptions. This is a page right out of Big Tobacco, he said, which for decades denied the health risks of their product as they were killing people. Owning ExxonMobil stock is not a business Vermont should be in. The question is: Why on Gods-not-so-green-Earth-anymore would anyone want to be Exxons partner? Bill McKibben, a TomDispatch regular, is the founder of 350.org and Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College. He was the 2014 recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, often called the alternative Nobel Prize. His most recent book is Oil and Honey: The Education of an Unlikely Activist. Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Book, Nick Turses Tomorrows Battlefield: U.S. Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa, and Tom Engelhardts latest book, Shadow Government: Surveillance, Secret Wars, and a Global Security State in a Single-Superpower World. Copyright 2016 Bill McKibben Via Tomdispatch.com - Related video added by Juan Cole: Newsy Science from last fall: Exxon Mobil Under Investigation Over Climate Change Claims Newsy Reddit Email 2 Shares By Aaron W. Hughes | (The Conversation) | The rise of Islamic State has led to much speculation about the groups origins: how do we account for forces and events that paved the way for the emergence of the jihadist group? In the fourth article of our series on the historical roots of Islamic State, Aaron Hughes explains the amazing regional variation in Islamic practice to illustrate why Islamic State appeared where it did. No religion is unified. How Catholicism, for example, is practised in rural Italy differs from the way this is done, say, in New York city. Language, culture, tradition, the political and social contexts, and even food is different in these two places. Such geographic differences are certainly important in Islam. But also important are the numerous legal schools and their interpretations. Since Islam is a religion predicated on law (sharia), variations in the interpretation of that law have contributed to regional differences. Also significant in the modern world is the existence of other religions. Malaysia, for example, has a relatively large percentage of religious minorities (up to 40% of the population). Saudi Arabia has virtually none. This means Malaysia has had to develop a constitution that protects the rights of religious minorities, whereas Saudi Arabia has not. And its why Islam is so different in these two countries. Schools of thought There are historical reasons for this variation. Despite popular opinion, Islam didnt appear fully formed at the time of Muhammad (570-632). There were huge debates over the nature of religious and political authority, for instance, and who was or was not a Muslim. Its similarly misguided to assume that a unified teaching simply spread throughout the Mediterranean region and beyond. How Muhammads message developed into the religion of Islam complete with legal and doctrinal content took centuries to develop and cannot concern us here. What is important to note, however, is that his message spread into various (unbordered) regions. Modern nation states would only arise much later. And each of these areas was already in possession of its own set of religious, legal and cultural traditions. The result was that Islam had to be articulated in the light of local customs and understandings. This was done, in part, through the creation of legal courts, a class of jurists (ulema; mullas in Shi`ism), a legal code (sharia) and a system of interpretation of that code based on rulings (fatwas). Many local customs arose based on trying to understand Muhammads message. And these customs and understandings gave rise to distinct legal schools. Although there were originally many such schools, they gradually reduced to four in Sunni Islam Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi`i and Hanbali. While these four schools all regard one another as orthodox, they nevertheless have distinct interpretations of Islamic law. Some of their interpretations are more conservative than others. There are also a number of such schools in Shi`i Islam, as you can see from the image above. The four Sunni schools are associated with distinct regions (as are the Shi`i schools). The Maliki school, for example, is prominent today in Egypt and North Africa. The Hanafi is in western Asia, the Shafi`i in Southeast Asia and the Hanbali (the most conservative) is found primarily in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states. Fundamental differences All this legal and local variation has produced different interpretations of the religion. But despite such regional and legal diversity, many Muslims and non-Muslims insist on referring to Islam and sharia as if they were stable entities. An example might be illustrative of the extent of the differences within Islam. Many non-Muslims are often surprised to learn of the cult of saints, namely the role Sufi saints (Sufism is Islamic mysticism) have played and continue to play in the daily life of Muslims. A Sufi saint is someone who is considered holy and who has achieved nearness to God. Praying to these saints and making pilgrimages to their shrines is a way to, among other things, ask for intercession. Although these practices are not unlike the role and place of saints in Catholicism, in Islam they are much more localised. And this locally varied cult of saints played and continues to play an important role in Islamic religious life from Morocco in the West to Pakistan in the East. Devotion to the saints is believed to cure the sick, make fertile the barren, bring rain, and so on. Needless to say, such devotion is often frowned upon by more fundamentalist interpretations. While most legal schools are content albeit somewhat bothered by such practices, the conservative Hanbali school forbids cults like this. Its adherents have, among other things, destroyed tombs of saints in both the premodern and modern eras. They have also been responsible for the destruction of shrines associated with Muhammads family, such as the shrines and tombs of Muhammads wife. The Hanbali school, backed by the wealth of the Saudi ruling family, has also tried to make inroads into other areas. Those associated with this legal school, for example, have built madrasas (religious seminaries) in regions traditionally influenced by other legal schools of thought. Most fundamentalist movements in Islam, including Islamic State, have emanated from such ultra-conservative elements. The Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, for instance, are influenced by the more conservative elements of Hanbali ideology, even though they exist in a predominantly Hanafi legal environment. The goal of many of these groups, sometimes referred to as Wahhabis or Salafis, is to return to what they imagine to be the pure or pristine version of Islam as practised by Muhammad and his earliest followers. They often have strict interpretations of Islam, strict dress codes and separation of the sexes. Today, there are more than one and a half billion Muslims worldwide, making Islam the second-largest religion on the planet after Christianity. But it is a rich and variegated religion. And this variation must be taken into account when dealing with it. Most importantly, the variation cannot be papered over with simplistic slogans or stereotypes. That women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia but are in places like Malaysia tells you something about this variation. This article is the fourth in our series on the historical roots of Islamic State. Look out for more stories on the theme in the coming days. Aaron W. Hughes, Philip S. Bernstein Professor of Jewish Studies, University of Rochester This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Reddit Email 0 Shares Maan News Agency | BETHLEHEM (Maan) Over 400 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have been displaced due to Israeli demolitions during the first six weeks of this year, a senior UN official said Wednesday. Coordinator for Humanitarian and UN Development Activities for the occupied Palestinian territory Robert Piper in a statement called the number of demolitions alarming. The number of Palestinians displaced in 2016 is already equivalent to over half of the total number displaced in all of 2015, the official said. Piper called on Israel to immediately halt all demolitions in the occupied West Bank, which he said were in violation of international law. Most of the demolitions in the West Bank take place on the spurious legal grounds that Palestinians do not possess building permits, Piper said. But, in Area C, official Israeli figures indicate only 1.5 percent of Palestinian permit applications are approved in any case. So what legal options are left for a law-abiding Palestinian? The UN documented 283 homes and other structures destroyed, dismantled, or confiscated between Jan. 1 and Feb. 15, many of which were located in the Jordan Valley. The measures displaced 404 Palestinians, including 219 children. Another 1,150 Palestinians were also affected after losing structures related to their source of income, according to the UN. The destruction was focused in 41 locations, many in Palestinian Bedouin or herder communities in Area C, the over 60 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli military control. A number of demolitions carried out took place in Palestinian communities whose land has been designated by Israel as closed military zones, where military exercises have historically been carried out in effort to drive Palestinians from their land. Piper highlighted previous statements by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon that Israeli zoning and planning policies are restrictive and highly discriminatory. International law is clear Palestinians in the West Bank have the right to adequate housing and the right to receive humanitarian assistance, said Piper. As the occupying power, Israel is obliged to respect these rights, the UN official said. Repeated calls by international bodies for Israel to cease the displacement of Palestinians living in the occupied Palestinian territory have done little in the past to stop ongoing demolitions or settlement expansion onto Palestinian land. The EU earlier this week condemned Israeli policy regarding demolition and settlement expansion that the body said made the possibility for an independent Palestinian state impossible. Via Maan News Agency Related video added by Juan Cole: UN: Israel must halt destruction of Palestinian homes Reddit Email 0 Shares By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | Billionaire bigot Donald Trumps tiff with Pope Francis continued on Thursday, though Trump appears to have gotten cold feet about taking on the Pontiff toward the end of yesterday. The reason this dispute is important is that Trump cannot win the presidency with only the backing of white Protestants, and he has now alienated everyone else. As Mark Gray points out, the country has changed dramatically, so that white Protestants are no longer a majority: h/t Our Sunday Visitor Weekly US Catholics typically split 50/50 between Democratic candidates and Repubican ones in presidential elections. White Protestants split 40/60 in favor of Republicans. Everyone else, 26% of the electorate, skews heavily Democratic. Latinos have been trending Democratic, and Trump and Carson have probably pushed them further in that direction and also have energized Latino voters to come to the ballot box. Only about 25% of the 80 million US Catholics are solid Conservatives, with another 35% saying they are moderates. About 50% of Catholics vote Republican in presidential contests. h/t Pew from 2008 So the only ways a Republican can win the presidency are either to pull members of the Catholic working and lower middle class the way Reagan did, or to get a substantial Latino vote, the way George W. Bush did. After his performance this week, Trump probably has little shot at either. He is thus left with 60% of White Protestants, at most, and probably will get few votes from the other major groups if he is that standard-bearer (non-Christians include Jews, members of Asian religions, and a growing segment of people who answer none when asked their religion in polls all of them vote heavily Democratic). This would be a blow-out for the Democrats even more extensive than the 1964 trouncing of Goldwater by Johnson. The brouhaha wont affect Trump in largely Protestant South Carolina, but my guess is that the moderate swing vote among Catholics is now likely to swing elsewhere. The whole thing started when Pope Francis went to Mexico and spoke out about the plight of Mexican labor migrants to the US, complaining about the human tragedy of migrants who flee their homes for environmental reasons. Trump accused the Pope of being an agent of Mexico and said that the government there had only told Pope Francis one side of the story: He didnt see the crime, the drug trafficking and the negative economic impact the current policies have on the United States. They are using the pope as a pawn and they should be ashamed of themselves for doing so, especially when so many lives are involved and when illegal immigration is so rampant. (Actually, the evidence is that in recent years more Mexicans have left the US than have come in; and immigrants typically have a low crime rate because they are afraid of being deported). The Pope replied vigorously: Anyone, whoever he is, who only wants to build walls and not bridges is not a Christian . . . Vote, dont vote, I wont meddle. But I simply say, if he says these things, this man is not a Christian . . . We need to see if he really said them and for this I will give him the benefit of the doubt. Trump also went on the offensive, saying For a religious leader to question a persons faith is disgraceful. But Trump has been going around questioning Ted Cruzs religious faith, saying it is inconsistent for him to tell bald-faced lies and then to represent himself as a Christian And, I dont know if Trump has heard of excommunication, but it is a prerogative of the pope to, like, question peoples faith. Then Trump went medieval, shouting, If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISISs ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president because this would not have happened. ISIL has talked in its braggart way about taking the Vatican, but Italian police maintain that there is no evidence of an immediate danger to the Pope. On the plane coming back from Mexico, a reporter asked the Pope about the charge: Am I a pawn of the Mexican government? I leave that to your judgement, to the people to judge. Responding to Trumps charge of being politicized, the Pope added, Thanks be to God if that is what he said, because Aristotle defined man as a political animal: at least I am a human person. JEB! took Trumps side against Pope Francis, despite being a Catholic himself. By Thursday evening I presume someone showed Trump the above population chart, because he was talking about what a great guy Pope Francis is. But my guess is that it is too late. - Related video added by Juan Cole: AP: Pope: Trump Not Christian for Wanting a Wall VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA / TheNewswire / February 19, 2016 - MGX Minerals Inc. ("MGX" or the "Company") (CSE: XMG / FKT: 1MG) is pleased to report the Company has engaged The Lamar Corporation of Calgary, Alberta to lead the development strategy of its recently acquired Lithium Properties (see press release dated February 1, 2016). The Lamar Corporation is led by Dr. Larry Marks, a 35-year industry veteran of the oil and gas sector. Dr. Marks spent 30 years in various executive roles for Shell Canada Ltd. and various Shell Group companies, including General Manager and Vice President of Marketing and Transportation for Shell Canada. He has experience in all facets of the oil and gas business, having worked extensively throughout Canada, Asia, Africa and the Middle East in his career. While at Shell Canada, Dr. Marks implemented strategies for marketing, sales and transportation of energy and co-products in excess of more than $3 billion in annual revenue. MGX's lithium properties contain dozens of deep oil wells with significant previous production of brine from hundreds to thousands of barrels per well per day. Past production indicates very low oil production of generally less than 3% resulting in very high brine production. The project has many synergies with the oil and gas industry. MGX is focused on leveraging the massive existing infrastructure including wells, roads, power and fluids handling expertise. "We are excited to have retained The Lamar Corporation to spearhead the development strategy for our Lithium Properties," stated MGX President and CEO Jared Lazerson. "We believe the expertise, experience and successful track record of Dr. Marks and his team positions MGX as a near team producer of lithium brine and the potential to make Canada a global competitor in this area of the new energy sector." About MGX Minerals MGX Minerals (CSE: XMG) is a diversified Canadian mining company engaged in the acquisition and development of industrial mineral deposits in western Canada that offer near-term production potential, minimal barriers to entry and low initial capital expenditures. The Company operates the Driftwood Creek magnesium project located in the East Kootenay Region of British Columbia. MGX has recently received approval of a 20 year mining lease for Driftwood and bulk sampling is currently underway. For further information, please visit the Company's website at www.mgxminerals.com. Contact Information Jared Lazerson Chief Executive Officer Telephone: 604.681.7735 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking information or forward-looking statements (collectively "forward-looking information") within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information is typically identified by words such as: "believe", "expect", "anticipate", "intend", "estimate", "potentially" and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking information provided by the Company is not a guarantee of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking information as a result of various factors. The reader is referred to the Company's public filings for a more complete discussion of such risk factors and their potential effects which may be accessed through the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Copyright (c) 2016 TheNewswire - All rights reserved. HONG KONG, Feb. 19, 2016 /CNW/ - St. Augustine Gold and Copper Limited (TSX: SAU) ("St. Augustine" or the "Company") announced today that its joint venture partner, Nationwide Development Corporation ("NADECOR") has been issued its Certification Precondition from the Philippine National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP). The Certification Precondition attests that NADECOR satisfactorily complied with the process requirements under the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997 and NCIP Administrative Order No. 03, Series of 2012, otherwise known as the FPIC Guidleines of 2012 for obtaining of the free prior and informed consent of the Mansaka Indigenous Cultural Communities/Indigenous Peoples ("Mansaka Tribe") for the King-king Copper-Gold Project (the "Project"). The Certification Precondition was based on the Memorandum of Agreement ("MOA") signed by NADECOR and the Mansaka Tribe in May 2015 for the support and development of the Project. NADECOR President Conrado T. Calalang said, "Receipt of the Certification Precondition is another positive milestone towards the development of King-king. We would like to thank the NCIP for completing the review process in a timely, comprehensive manner, and look forward to continued collaboration with our joint venture partner, St. Augustine and the Mansaka Tribe." Paolo A. Villar, President and CEO of St. Augustine added, "We continue to make significant progress with the development of King-king. When coupled with the recent awarding of the Declaration of Mining Project Feasibility by the MGB and the ongoing support from the Mansaka Tribe, receipt of the Certification Precondition now paves the way for us to focus on project financing and the start of mine construction." The NADECOR - Mansaka Tribe MOA complies with the Philippine Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997 whereby the NCIP is the primary governmental agency mandated to formulate and implement policies and guidelines to promote and protect the rights and well-being of indigenous cultural communities and indigenous peoples as well as the recognition of their ancestral domain and rights. The MOA is valid for 25 years and provides a framework for how the Project will benefit the Mansaka Tribe through payment of a 1% royalty fee, as well as employment and various social development programs. More information on the salient points of the MOA can be found with the Company's announcement of July 13, 2015. The King-king Copper-Gold Project The King-king Copper-Gold Project is located in Compostela Valley in the Philippines, and is expected to recover 3.16B lbs. of copper and 5.43M oz. of gold over its 25 year mine and process life. According to the Preliminary Feasibility Study that was released on September 18, 2013, and then filed on www.sedar.com on November 1, 2013, the Project has a pre-tax NPV of $2.0 billion with an IRR of 24.8%. The estimated mineral reserves amount to 617.9 million tonnes at 0.300% total copper and 0.395 g/t gold. About St. Augustine St. Augustine (SAU.T) is a TSX-listed mining company focused on the development of the King-king Copper-Gold Project. The Project is one of the largest undeveloped copper-gold deposits in the world, and is listed as a top three-priority mining project by the Philippine government. NATIONAL INSTRUMENT 43-101 COMPLIANCE Mr. James J. Moore, P.E., Vice President Technical of St. Augustine and a qualified person under National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101") has reviewed and approved the scientific, technical and economic information contained in this news release. CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS This announcement includes certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact included herein are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve various risks and uncertainties and are based on certain factors and assumptions. 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 the Company's expectations include uncertainties related to fluctuations in gold, copper and other commodity prices and currency exchange rates; uncertainties relating to interpretation of drill results and the geology, continuity and grade of mineral deposits; uncertainties relating to the completion of a bankable feasibility study; uncertainty of estimates of capital and operating costs, recovery rates production estimates and estimated economic return; the need for cooperation of the Company's joint venture partner and government agencies in the development of the Company's mineral projects; the need to obtain further permits and additional financing to develop the Company's mineral projects; the possibility of delay in development programs or in construction projects and uncertainty of meeting anticipated program milestones for the Company's mineral projects; and other risks and uncertainties disclosed under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Annual Information Form dated March 19, 2015, and filed with Canadian securities regulatory authorities on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com. SOURCE St. Augustine Gold and Copper Limited Just glad to still be here. A Catalina Island fox gets a checkup from Dr. Julie King. | Photo: Jason Goldman In the centuries since European powers first colonized North America, only a single mammal species, the sea mink, has gone extinct. Our continent will no doubt witness another mammalian extinction, and other species have surely come close, but no mammal has been listed as endangered and then recovered as fast as the island fox. Last week, US Fish and Wildlife Service officials announced a proposal to de-list three of four island fox subspecies that were first listed on the Endangered Species Act just twelve years ago. First, some background. The island fox, Urocyon littoralis, is only found on six of California's eight Channel Islands: Santa Rosa, San Miguel, Santa Cruz in the northern cluster, and San Clemente, San Nicholas, and of course Santa Catalina in the southern group. Descended from the mainland grey fox, nobody knows exactly how the canids first wound up on the islands, but we do know it happened between seven and ten thousand years ago. Once there, life was easy for the foxes. Unlike on the mainland, the critters had no predators to worry about, and there were plenty of native skunks and mice to eat. Eventually, the foxes spread to inhabit the six islands on which they're found today, no doubt aided by humans. As so many species do on islands, the foxes would eventually shrink relative to their mainland counterparts, resulting in the adorable animals we know today. For thousands of years, the foxes flourished. And then we happened. In 1999, a survey across all six fox-bearing islands found population declines of 90 to 95 percent. There were just 15 foxes left on San Miguel and another 15 on Santa Rosa. Santa Cruz was down to just 55 foxes and Catalina had just 103, down from 1,342 five years earlier. At the time, biologists estimated that the species had a 50 percent chance of extinction over the next five to ten years. It was easy to figure out why the Catalina foxes were dying. Hundreds of people travel to and from the island each day, and on one fateful day, a raccoon would stow away on one of the boats. That raccoon carried a strain of canine distemper virus with it, a disease to which the island foxes were unaccustomed. With immune systems unprepared for the fight, Catalina's subspecies rapidly succumbed to the illness. On the three northern islands, the decline was not due to a sneaky raccoon, but to golden eagles. The introduction of feral pigs on Santa Cruz Island and mule deer and elk on Santa Rosa Island provided a study supply of prey for the hungry birds. As the islands' native bald eagles declined due mostly to DDT exposure, golden eagles (who did not eat the same tainted fish that their bald cousins dined upon) were able to establish permanent nests from which they could easily scoop up the curious foxes as well. Having evolved without predators, island foxes weren't savvy enough to escape the piercing talons of the massive raptors. Once the dire situation was discovered, a fox consortium came together, made up of all the agencies that manage lands on which the foxes are found: the Catalina Island Conservancy, the Nature Conservancy (which is in part responsible for Santa Cruz Island), and the National Park Service (which manages the rest of Santa Cruz, plus Santa Rosa, and the Navy-owned San Miguel), plus FWS. (San Clemente and San Nicholas are both owned and operated by the US Navy; while their sub-species were never listed under the ESA, the FWS and the Navy together signed a "Conservation Agreement" regarding the implementation of conservation measures to safeguard the future of these unique populations as well.) The agencies worked together to remove golden eagles from the northern islands and to remove the pigs, deer, and elk that provided prey for those eagles. They vaccinated the foxes against canine distemper virus and conducted a captive breeding program to repopulate each of the islands. Since the captive breeding program ended, the agencies have continued to work together on monitoring the islands' fox populations and re-establishing bald eagles to their historic territories. "The remarkable recovery efforts of land managers and conservation partners over the past two decades on behalf of the Channel Island fox is the reason for this historic recovery success," said Dan Ashe, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The rebound has been so successful that FWS is proposing the removal of the San Miguel, Santa Rosa, and Santa Cruz sub-species from the ESA entirely, though monitoring efforts will still occur. By delisting them, federal funding will be allocated to other species that require attention. The proposal for the Catalina sub-species involves reclassifying them from "endangered" to "threatened." Despite their impressive recovery (in 2013, Catalina had 1,852 foxes, an improvement compared even to pre-decline levels) Catalina foxes aren't out of the woods. Indeed, human activities remain a threat to the long-term survival of the charismatic mammals on the tourist-heavy island. "Conservation work is never done, especially on an Island visited by nearly one million people each year," said Julie King, Director of Conservation & Wildlife Management for the Catalina Island Conservancy. "Each year, several foxes drown in uncovered water containers, become trapped in trash cans, are injured or killed by unleashed dogs, are hit by vehicles, or die from the ingestion of rat poison or other toxins." And then there's a mysterious epidemic of ear cancer now spreading through the Catalina population. Nearly half of dead foxes examined between 2001 and 2008 had tumors on their ears, a trend that King and her colleagues are working to understand. "By being reclassified rather than delisted, these foxes will still enjoy certain legal protections from the Endangered Species Act," she adds. All sub-species will remained listed as threatened by the State of California, but that's related to their limited range and naturally small population sizes, not to any particular population decline or threat. Each agency will continue to monitor the foxes on each of the islands. The ongoing scientific research doesn't just benefit these foxes. Other endangered canids, like Ethiopian wolves or African painted dogs, suffer from similar disease epidemics but are much harder to study. Because Catalina's foxes aren't wise enough to avoid predators, they're also not wise enough to avoid the traps that researchers use to monitor them. And the same animals allow themselves to be trapped year after year, offering a long-term catalog of fox health information, something possible nowhere else in the world. Lessons learned from studying island foxes will hopefully become useful for conservationists working with other rare species. "We're lucky that we have such trap-happy animals," King says. Lee Seung GI and Ahn Jae Hyun worked together in the drama "You're All Surrounded." Now Ahn will replace his former co-star on the variety show "New Journey To The West." In this travel reality show each of the four cast members takes a character from the classic Chinese novel "Journey to the West" and personifies that character on a five-day backpacking trip that invovles playing games. Lee Seung Gi appeared in the first season of the show, playing the Buddhist monk of the novel. He traveled along with his former "2 Days, 1 Night" co-stars Kang Ho Dong, Eun Ji Won and Lee Soo Geun. The cast traveled to China for the first season and the show was a success, gaining 10 million views the first week on a Chinese video site. The cast will return to China for the second season, only Lee Seung Gi will not travel with them. He began serving his two-year mandatory duty on February 1. The second season of "New Journey to the West" is already in production. Kang Ho Dong, Lee Soo Geun and Eun Ji Won traveled to China on February 18. Ahn Jae Hyun followed a day later with producer-director Na Young Suk, who was previously responsible for producing "2 Days, 1 Night." Ahn Jae Hyun's recent drama roles include playing a vampire doctor in "Blood," which co-starred Gu Hye Sun, and playing a rookie cop on "You're All Surrounded." He also recently appeared in the drama "Snow Lotus" and in the Chinese romantic comedy film "Wedding Bible." He won a New Star award for his role in the drama "You Who Came From The Stars." The model-turned actor also has plenty of variety show experience. He's been a guest on "Happy Together" and "Korea's Next Top Model," as well as a host on "M! Countdown." "New Journey to the West" will be his first travel reality show. Lee Jong Suk will receive a bachelor's degree from Konkok University in theatrical studies, as a student of the Professional Motion Pictures Art program. His diploma will be released on February 22, but he will not participate in the commencement ceremony. On February 19, the Korean publication News1 published details regarding the upcoming ceremony. The 26-year-old actor will be issued a diploma in absentia due to scheduling conflicts involving his current filming schedule in China. "Lee Jong Suk has served [Konkuk University] with a variety of his talents, to promote donations for the school [and has] encouraged younger students each year, since his admission." said a spokesperson for Konkuk University. Lee was admitted to Konkok University in 2011 and is expected to receive an achievement award for his service as an honorary ambassador of the college. His collegiate pursuits coincided with his rise as a top Hallyu star. In September 2011, Lee received acclaim for his portrayal of An Jong Seok, in the family drama, "High Kick: Revenge of the Short-Legged." He followed with the compelling role of "Go Nam Soon" in KBS' "School 2013," opposite his real-life friend, Kim Woo Bin. Lee catapulted to widespread fame as the unlikely leading man of the supernatural series, "I Can Hear Your Voice," followed by "Doctor Stranger. In 2014, he solidified his position as a rising star after wooing Park Shin Hye in "Pinocchio." Lee is currently active in China, where he is filming the Korean-Chinese co-production, "Jade Lover." "Jade Lover" marks his first dramatic television role since "Pinocchio." His casting as the leading man of the series exemplifies his significance as a popular artist within Asia and the mainland Chinese region. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalias body was barely cold last weekend when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, drew a line in the sand: President Barack Obama, he said, should refrain from appointing Scalias successor and the Senate should wait until the American people have spoken by electing a new president to proceed with the confirmation process. Obama, who has nearly a year left in office, said he would fulfill his constitutional duty and make an appointment. Who is right? Can common ground be found? Joel Mathis and Ben Boychuk, the RedBlueAmerica columnists, debate the issue. It takes both parties - MATHIS: Heres the problem: Republicans dont believe in the legitimacy of Democratic governance. Its not that Republicans believe Democrats are simply wrong, or misguided, or even evil. Its that they believe the Constitution, if strictly applied, would render many progressive policy ideas out of bounds and off limits, at the federal level at least. The federal government should pay for armies and roads and print money, perhaps, but most other ideas are simply unconstitutional. Democrats, you may have noticed, have a number of other ideas. The increasing refusal of Republicans to grant Democrats legitimacy has been on ample display the last seven years. The persistence of the birther lie in the GOP the idea that Obama isnt a real American and is thus a usurper in the White House has been outstanding: Its chief progenitor is currently the partys presidential front-runner! Trumps success shows things have gotten progressively worse since Sen. McConnells 2009 declaration that the Republican Party would simply refuse to cooperate with Obama on any policy matter, ever. So its not shocking that McConnell and his ilk would suddenly determine that this president, in his final year of office, isnt really a president anymore. Not completely. True: The Constitution also empowers the Senate to advise and consent on judges. But I do not believe the Founding Fathers envisioned a near-total, near-permanent state of withheld consent, which is the power as it is currently practiced by the Republican Senate. Dems played game, too - BOYCHUK: Thirty years of bitter partisan division have brought us to this moment. This is not about principle and its only partly about process. It is really about the prerogatives of power. Why are Democrats acting so surprised? Theyve been playing this game forever and, until this week, theyve managed to do well at it. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, warned his GOP colleagues on Tuesday that if they deny the president his Supreme Court pick, (T)hey will ensure that this Republican majority is remembered as the most nakedly partisan, obstructionist and irresponsible majority in history. Reid must believe Americans memories are incredibly short. Otherwise, they would laugh at a cynical appeal to bipartisan cooperation from one of the most nakedly partisan, obstructionist and irresponsible senators of the modern era. Reid mastered the art of blocking Republican judicial nominees and paved the way for an aborted filibuster of Justice Samuel Alito in 2006. Its amazing what a difference a majority makes. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on! Go to form SHARE By Arla Shephard Bull SHELTON Mason Transit Authority General Manager Brad Patterson resigned Tuesday night, after being asked by the agency's board of directors to do so in lieu of termination. The resignation came after the conclusion of an investigation into Patterson. Mason Transit officials said in a news release that the investigation produced "no findings" but declined to discuss the investigation's duration, what instigated it or its nature. "It is a sensitive issue right now, and we will not be commenting further," said Christina Kramer, Mason Transit Authority's outreach manager. A settlement agreement requires Mason Transit to pay Patterson a $25,000 severance fee. The agreement "does not constitute an admission of any wrongdoing," according to the statement from MTA. "I am thankful for the opportunity I have had these past four years to serve the people of Mason County with the best rural public transit system in the nation," Patterson said in an interview. "MTA has a lot of very good people that I have enjoyed working with and, together, we have made the agency even better than it already was when I started." Patterson joined Mason Transit Authority as general manager in 2011 and shepherded the agency through the construction and opening last year of a transit-community center in downtown Shelton. "I'm very proud of being a part of building the nation's first Transit-Community Center, bringing in more public transit grant money than any other small system in the state, significantly improving MTA's safety record, initiating and growing our community outreach, ensuring its fiscal sustainability, and laying the foundation for its first strategic plan," he said. He added, "I wish the employees, board and advisory board members of MTA the very best, and I thank the riders for making MTA their first choice for mobility." Danette Brannin, Mason Transit's finance manager since 2012, will serve as acting general manager while the agency seeks a new leader. Brannin was paid around $73,174 a year plus benefits as finance manager, and during its regular meeting Tuesday, the board agreed to pay Brannin $500 more per pay period for as long as she serves as acting general manager. Patterson is on paid administrative leave until Feb. 29, the day his resignation formally takes effect. "The board is thankful the two parties could come to an agreement," said board chair Terri Jeffreys, also a Mason County commissioner. "We have full confidence that our management team and acting general manager have the skills and tools to continue to move the agency forward." SHARE By Chris Henry POULSBO A Poulsbo Middle School student was arrested Thursday morning after other students reported a potential bomb threat. The student allegedly said he had a bomb. Poulsbo police officers found the threat was not credible, according to a statement to parents from Principal Josh Emmons. "We applaud our students for quickly notifying school officials," Emmons said. "This is an excellent example of students doing the right thing." Although there was deemed to be no safety threat at the school, Washington State Patrol conducted training with bomb-sniffing dogs in the afternoon. The training decision was made after the threat, and the exercise was seen as an opportunity for the State Patrol to become familiar with the school in advance of a serious threat, Poulsbo Police Chief Al Townsend said. Emmons asked parents to speak with their children and remind them that threats can result in expulsion from school and notification of police. "Threats, even those made as jokes, disrupt the educational process and cause emotional trauma for both students and adults," Emmons said. "In today's environment, we must take all threats seriously." Anyone with questions can contact Mike Olsen, director of student support, at molsen@nkschools.org or 360-396-3093 or Townsend at the Poulsbo Police Department at 360-779-3113. SK Superintendent Michelle Reid and school district attorney G. William Shaw (standing) watch Thursday as members of the Kitsap County Canvassing Board review ballots in question. The three-person board is responsible for certifying the election. The board is (from left) County Commissioner Ed Wolfe, county Auditor Dolores Gilmore and Lisa Nickel, a senior deputy prosecuting attorney with the county Prosecutors Office. Chris Henry / Kitsap Sun SHARE By Chris Henry SOUTH KITSAP South Kitsap School District's bond for a second high school is failing by 38 votes in the most recent count, released Thursday. "Yes" votes amounted to 59.92 percent of the 18,439 eligible votes counted so far. The pass rate is more than 60 percent. All other measures from the Feb. 9 special election are passing. Since the number of South Kitsap ballots still to be counted is less than a handful, it appears the bond has failed. The Kitsap County Elections Division issued its update late Thursday, after the county's canvassing board reviewed more than 400 ballots from throughout the county that were in question. Watching the process like hawks were SK Superintendent Michelle Reid and the district's bond attorney G. William Shaw. The canvassing board meeting is open to the public. Roughly two-thirds of the challenged ballots were approved as eligible for counting by the canvassing board, which includes County Commissioner Ed Wolfe, county Auditor Delores Gilmore and Lisa Nickel, a senior deputy prosecuting attorney with the county Prosecutor's Office. Reid said the district has been contacted by voters who swear they mailed their ballots on time, and yet they are postmarked after Feb. 9. Mail from South Kitsap is sent to Tacoma for processing, according to Kyle Joyce, the elections manager. The elections office mails letters to voters whose ballots miss the deadline, with suggestions for future elections to mail ballots early, have them hand-stamped or use one of the county's drop boxes, which are open until 8 p.m. election day. Reid and the attorney argued that South Kitsap voters are being disenfranchised by the way the postal service processes their mail. Reid also complained that South Kitsap, a large, semirural area of the county, has only one drop box. Gilmore said the elections division is willing to look at possibly adding more drop boxes. There are seven throughout the county: one on Bainbridge Island, one in Poulsbo, one in Kingston, one in Silverdale, one in East Bremerton, one in downtown Bremerton and the one that serves South Kitsap, at the county administration building in Port Orchard. On the matter of ballots postmarked after the deadline, whatever the reason, the elections office's hands are tied, Gilmore and Joyce said. Out of 70 ballots that came by mail after the statutory deadline, 38 show a voter signature of Feb. 9 (on time) but a postmark of Feb. 10. The number 38 might seem to bond boosters to be the 38 votes needed to pass the bond, but it's pure coincidence. It's also likely that the 38 late ballots contain both yes and no votes. Reid said the district is considering its "next steps." "At this point, we're still not ready to concede the election," she said. "We believe the people who voted on election day prior to the pickup of the mail should have their votes counted." Reid said the district has no beef with the auditor's office. "Honestly, we're grateful for the hard work of the canvassing board and the elections office," Reid said. "Those people work hard. We're just grateful for the collaboration, and they've been very transparent with us." The canvassing board Friday will certify the election after any late-coming eligible ballots have been counted. South Kitsap ballots yet to be counted include two from people who came to the auditor's office Thursday afternoon before the 4:30 p.m. deadline to verify their signatures. Ballots from members of the military and certified overseas residents that arrive by mail Friday also will be counted, since state law allows ballots from those voters regardless of postmark, as long as they're signed by election day. Only one such ballot was received Thursday. Joyce serves on a postal service task force through the Washington Secretary of State's Office. The South Kitsap election is sure to be a topic of discussion at the group's March meeting, he said. There is no automatic recount available. The district could choose to pay for a recount. SHARE By Larry Little When I was young in the 1950s I would climb the birch tree up to the roof of the Old Sawyer Place our house on Kimball Hill near Whitefield, New Hampshire. From there I could see many of the peaks of the White Mountain's Presidential Range, most of which I first "climbed," hut to hut, on my father's back. It must have been tough for him to make those hikes with old-style canvas gear and a son likely growing heavier by the mile as he munched his M&M's. I return every few years to that hill. During each visit it's my goal to get a bit further up the Jewell Trail on Mt. Washington, where I proposed to my wife nearly fifty years ago. On my recent trips I have not only had a chance to meet with my childhood friends who still live on that hill, but I've also spoken a couple of times to Mrs. Anderson's fifth-grade class at Mildred Lakeway Elementary in Littleton, New Hampshire. In the past we spoke of places far away (Washington State or West Africa), what study focus they might find interesting and rewarding (mine was politics) and what jobs they might one day do (such as mine, an attorney). That Presidential Range is for me both a literal landscape that hearkens me back and a metaphor, especially every four years when presidential candidates must make their New Hampshire "hike." This time I returned to New Hampshire for the first week in February and stayed until the day after their primary election. A friend and I crisscrossed the state, attending five town halls, visiting several campaign headquarters from Manchester to Littleton, and on election day observing the voting in Nashua. While we missed the early voting at Dixville Notch at midnight, we tried to attend even more town halls but found they were canceled at the last minute. By and large New Hampshire voters take very seriously their responsibility to check out the candidates. Many seated or standing next to us at the town halls, or at stores and restaurants, not only talked politics, they often noted that they had attended several town halls, and all but one person I talked to said they were going to vote. Good job New Hampshire. The town halls were very well attended and the questions were varied and sometimes challenging. Being only a few feet from the candidates at the town halls and sometimes meeting candidates and their spouses gave a much more discerning perspective, quite unlike seeing them only in debates and brief media interviews. I was especially impressed with conversations I had with John Kasich's wife and Carly Fiorina's husband. I applaud the candidates who work the numerous town halls, and the investments many of them make in putting in the extremely hard work of day-in and day-out, virtually nonstop campaigning. It's not for the faint of heart. Neither is educating children. In the middle of that week I visited Mrs. Anderson's class for a couple of hours. We gathered in a circle and for about an hour we talked about what they would like to know about me, my triumphs and my tragedies, my accomplishments and my regrets. They asked the kind of probing questions that the candidates for president should be asked. I believe all of us in that circle learned much about each other. They were interested in a long-married lawyer with many grandkids. They seemed to appreciate a different life experience than they could relate to in their homes in northern New England. Then they took a test I had devised with Mrs. Anderson that stretched their knowledge in the crafts of writing and politics. At their tenth year of life many of them exhibited an amazing knowledge of novels and short stories, candidates and elected officials. After I gave each of them a small flag they broke into a spirited rendition of "It's a Grand Old Flag." Most poignant for me was that afterward Mrs. Anderson noted that the flag is a special treasure to one of the children who is a recent immigrant. Good job Mrs. Anderson. Come May, I plan to meet with our grandson's fifth-grade class in Snohomish. Having briefly been in our grandson's class for Grandparent's Day, the two classrooms are not only thousands of miles apart, but different in many respects. Yet the students are probably more alike than they are different. I am looking forward to May. SHARE Sean Jeu, St. Vincent DePaul manager So many depend on St. Vinnie's St. Vincent is still in dire need of donations. St. Vincent's has currently raised $34,300, but still need your help. We need to reach $100,000 by March 1. Our store has run off nickels and dimes for 25 years, so donate a quarter, dollar or $5. We need your help more than ever and every penny counts. I recently had a customer come up to me and ask me how the new store was going. I told him that we are working really hard to make it work. He said to me "I don't know how I would live if I didn't have Vinnie's, you guys are reasonable and I honestly can't afford anywhere else." Without these donations we will have to close and we will no longer be able to help with power bills, water, diapers, or provide reasonable priced household items. I think of the children that can't afford shoes or the number of people who have come through our job training programs who will no longer be able to have that training. This is not just a thrift store, but an organization that believes in the well being of others. My family has been part of this store since it opened in 1991, and I have seen so many people dedicate their lives to this cause. I truly feel blessed to be a part of this. But we can't let it go away. Too many people depend on us. We are asking to reach deep and please help us. Help save St. Vincent de Paul. Give to help us help others for many generations. The Knoxville Center Mall is shown in this 2013 file photo. The mall, which has long been in decline, has recently been put up for sale. (J. MILES CARY/NEWS SENTINEL) SHARE By Ed Marcum of the Knoxville News Sentinel Knoxville Center Mall is for sale, Simon Property Group, the company that manages the mall, said Friday. The company confirmed reports that the mall, at 3001 Knoxville Center Drive off Interstate 640, is for sale, but would offer no further details. Simon had owned the mall since it opened in 1984, but in 2014 sold it to Washington Prime Group Inc., which does business as WP Glimcher, and manages 119 shopping centers and malls across the country. Simon continues to manage Knoxville Center Mall, however. There are reports that New York-based Newmark Grubb Knight Frank is handling the marketing of the property, but the company did not return a call seeking to verify this. The 964,000-square-foot mall has lost tenants over the years, including Dillard's one of its anchor stores. However, the mall retains J.C. Penney, Belk, Sears and Regal Cinema as anchors. Justin Sterling, former leasing agent for the mall, said it suffers from a perception problem as people overreact to seeing stores leave, but don't notice new tenants. Sterling, who is now director of retail leasing and investment for Conversion Properties, was with Simon Property Group in 2013, when the company made a push to rejuvenate the mall. Sterling said the mall added 60,000 square feet in new tenants at that time. Nick Della Volpe, the Knoxville City Council member representing the community involved, wrote WP Glimcher in September, asking the company to put more of a commitment into the mall, which he said had not received the same attention as West Town Mall located in a more affluent part of town. While some in the community see Knoxville Center as in inevitable decline, Della Volpe said selling the mall might be a golden opportunity if the new owner has new ideas and a commitment to making the mall work. Sterling said that, while a lot of malls are in decline, some are doing quite well. Although some malls have been taking a beating from online sales, successful ones mix brick and mortar with the Internet, Sterling said. "The idea is for a complete experience so that you might be able to find a great deal online and you can go and pick it up at Knoxville Center Mall," he said. SHARE Eckart Preu By Harold Duckett There were moments in conductor candidate Eckart Preu's performance with the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra Thursday night when I had the irresistible impression of watching a Red-Crowned Japanese Crane perform his beautiful mating dance. Preu was in a love affair with the orchestra. In no way do I mean that to be disrespectful. Preu is simply an irresistible visual presence. He is tall and has a wide wingspan, both of which he used with such grace, lyricism and conducting effectiveness that he brought the music to life right before one's eyes. He crouched, raised to his tiptoes, stepped back and forth, raised and lowered his arms in flowing motions, extended his hands into the orchestra, all in lock-step with the music. When he leaned into the violins, they leaned back. There was no sense that any of this visual expressiveness was done for showmanship on the podium. It was purely Preu's conducting style. It enabled both the musicians on stage and the audience to read what was happening in the music. It was all about the music. Although the tempi of Richard Strauss' 1888 "Don Juan: Tone Poem after Nikolaus Lenau," Op. 20, written when Strauss was only 24, might have been a bit deliberating, the orchestral sound was lush and smooth, especially in the brilliant, robust playing by the horn section, led by principal horn Jeffrey Whaley. The same sense of trading pace for expressiveness also characterized Jennifer Higdon's "Blue Cathedral" and excerpts from "Suites One and Two" written by Sergei Prokokiev, taken his 1935-36 ballet "Romeo and Juliet," Op. 64. If Higdon's magical "Blue Cathedral" is anything, it transports one into a kind of Zen state of peacefulness, exemplified by the soft tinkling of the Chinese reflex bells the majority of the musicians play in the closing measures. Written as a memorial to her brother, it is a masterpiece that deserves its status as the most performed work by a living American composer. The centerpiece of the concert, of course, was Mozart's 1785 "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 20 in D Minor," K. 466, played with classical purity by pianist Alon Goldstein. Mozart wrote no cadenzas for this concerto. Hummel, Busoni and Clara Schumann all contributed cadenzas. So did Beethoven, which Goldstein chose to play in the first movement. The second cadenza was written by Goldstein himself. Beethoven admired this concerto, playing it in his own concerts and stealing parts of it for his own compositions, notably "Variation 22" in Beethoven's "Diabelli Variations." Also among its history is the claim that it was Joseph Stalin's favorite piece of music. Goldstein played it great care, not allowing the emotionalism of Romanticism to creep in, although this concerto is hailed as the harbinger of the development of the Romantic period in music. Perhaps because he was sharing the stage with a soloist, Preu kept his conducting restrained and the orchestra a cooperating partner in the back and forth with the piano. As an encore, Goldstein played the charming "Milonga," the second cancion from Alberto Ginastera's "Dos Canciones," Op. 3, written in 1938. Preu successfully blended together five sections from Prokofiev's orchestral suites taken from his "Romeo and Juliet" ballet. The powerful playing in the double basses has always seemed like the back and forth of battle music, but in the ballet, it's the back and forth of the two opposing families' assembled knights strutting around trying to intimidate each other. The suites also presented the horn section with another chance for strong, gorgeous playing, along with principal trumpet Phillip Chase Hawkins. The suites also allowed Preu a return to the expressive conducting style that makes his work so visually appealing. Whether it was out of Preu's wisdom or precaution, he chose a program of beautiful, expressive music that showcased his working style instead of the kind of music with powerful climaxes that bring audiences to their feet in roaring approval. His work certainly deserved it. Metropolitan Hilarion of Russia left little room for doubt about his priorities when he was offered a few moments to speak during the Vatican's tense Synod on the Family. "Militant secularism" was on the rise, he said last fall. Thus, Catholics and Orthodox Christians should stand united while defending the "traditional Christian understanding of the family," "marriage as a union between a man and a woman" and the "value of human life from conception till natural death." But most of all, Moscow's top ecumenical diplomat wanted to talk about martyrs new martyrs. Consider Iraq, home to 1.5 million Christians a few years ago. Today, only 150,000 remain while the rest "were either exterminated or expelled," he said. Then look at Syria, Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan, Libya and elsewhere. "We are deeply concerned about the humanitarian catastrophe ... unfolding in Syria, where militant Islamists are seeking political power," he said. Wherever jihadists "come to power, Christians are being persecuted or exterminated. Christian communities in Syria and other countries of the Middle East are crying for help, while the mass media in the West largely ignore their cries and the politicians prefer to close their eyes." It was a foretaste of the historic "airport summit" signed in Cuba by Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Orthodox Church of Moscow and all Russia. Many observers insisted that the goal of the meeting the first of its kind between Rome and Moscow was to bridge the Great Schism of 1054, which divided the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Others saw the Machiavellian hand of Russian President Vladimir Putin, seeking support for his attempts to prevent the fall of Damascus. Using a political lens, some claimed, "Pope Francis is being taken for a ride," noted Daniel Philpott, professor of Political Science and Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. "Such dynamics ... do not rob this event of its significance for the unity of the Christian church," he argued in an online commentary. "The declaration that the pope and the patriarch jointly signed reveals this stride towards unity to be broad and deep, built around some of the most important purposes and struggles of the Christian church in today's world. There is nothing anodyne or cosmetic about it." Talking with reporters after the summit, Pope Francis also played down talk about the schism. The realistic goal was cooperation on crucial issues. "If unity is to be settled through studies and theological experts ... the Lord will come again, and we will still be working on unity," said the pope. "Unity is reached by walking together. That way when the Lord does come again, he will at least find us walking together." Thus, the pope and the patriarch pledged to stand together in defense of ancient, shared doctrines about sexuality, Christian marriage and family. They mourned the fact that "millions are denied the very right to be born into the world," saying that "the blood of the unborn cries out to God." They urged Christians in Eastern and Western Europe to unite in their shared witness to Christ "so that Europe may preserve its soul." However, issues of religious liberty and persecution dominated their joint statement. It was especially painful to watch the "massive exodus of Christians" from the very lands in which "our faith was first disseminated and in which they have lived since the time of the Apostles," stressed Francis and Kirill. How high are the stakes? The pope and the Russian patriarch urged people everywhere to pray for the "providential Creator of the world to protect His creation from destruction and not permit a new world war." To be specific, Francis and Kirill stressed that their most urgent appeal was on behalf of those suffering in the Middle East and North Africa, where "whole families, villages and cities of our brothers and sisters in Christ are being completely exterminated. Their churches are being barbarously ravaged and looted, their sacred objects profaned, their monuments destroyed. ... "We bow before the martyrdom of those who, at the cost of their own lives, have given witness to the truth of the Gospel, preferring death to the denial of Christ. We believe that these martyrs of our times, who belong to various Churches but who are united by their shared suffering, are a pledge of the unity of Christians." Terry Mattingly is the editor of GetReligion.org and Senior Fellow for Media and Religion at The King's College in New York City. He lives in Oak Ridge, Tenn. SHARE Local documentary filmmakers Thomas and Julia Gentry have received some unexpected notoriety when "Good Morning America" picked up some of their footage to promote an upcoming program segment. The Gentrys own and operate the production company Electric Peak Creative (electricpeakcreative.com) in Knoxville and Nashville. Last February, they shot video of Tanzania's most visited national parks for a safari company (https://vimeo.com/120854579). Once they put all of their UAV (drone) footage together, they realized they had created a video beyond the needs of the safari company. So they did some searching for other ways to use it. A year after releasing the Tanzania aerial highlight video, a producer from "Good Morning America" contacted them about licensing the footage to promote GMA's upcoming drone broadcast from Ngorongoro Crater. This week ABC has been airing their footage on "Good Morning America" and "Nightline" as part of their promotional material for their "GMA on Safari" event scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 23. To see GMA's promotional piece featuring the Gentrys' aerial footage, go to http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/gma-safari-takes-viewers-virtual-reality-ride/story?id=36937871 Maggie Smith in a scene from The Lady in the Van. SHARE By Colin Covert "The Lady in the Van" is the story of a codependent London couple who politely loathe each other without actually being a pair. She is Miss Shepherd, a homeless gorgon with delusions of grandeur, and a long-term driveway squatter in several comedic ramshackle vehicles. He is English playwright Alan Bennett, a timid fellow who feels the impulse to strangle his caustic guest every time he offers her aid. The reality-based comedy hands the roles to the peerless Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings, who make their 15-year run of neighborly aversion into an ongoing border war delivered in classic British understatement. It's a good enough story that Bennett has written it as a memoir, a stage play and a radio drama, with Smith in the title role. Her third run as the haughty eccentric is a matter of Olympic marksmanship, hitting the bull's-eye with each scowl and droll line reading. The pair meet in a rising London neighborhood in 1973, as the introverted playwright is beginning to climb the city's creative totem pole. He offers the aged neighborhood icon a long-term parking space in front of his house. When she makes it a permanent arrangement, he is too polite to object. He's also more than a bit lonely and feeling guilt pangs at ignoring his own failing mother's increasing needs. The film follows the pair as they develop a frenemies relationship that each one wishes to control. Bennett also wishes he could balance his own imaginary doppelgangers, seeing himself divided into the Alan who writes and the Alan who lives. Jennings is enjoyable playing this two-member debate club, dual personas whose closest connection is their mutual interest in the mysteries of Miss Shepherd's past. It is a complicated saga dating back to World War II, two terms as a nun and a long-ago scandal still drawing police attention. The story grows stranger over the years, building to a final chapter where director Nicholas Hytner echoes Monty Python's "Life of Brian" with a meta-climax where Bennett's impersonator and actual self split the screen like Jennings' imaginary twins. It's a silly, far from perfect film, but uses Smith, a genuine national treasure and double Oscar winner, far better than those dreadful "Marigold Hotel" movies do. Better to see it than miss it. Anya Taylor-Joy is shown in a scene from The Witch, opening in theaters this week. SHARE By Michael Phillips Opening this week, a year after its rapturous premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, writer-director Robert Eggers' debut feature "The Witch" joins a very short list of recent horror films "The Conjuring" and "The Babadook" among them that are truly frightening, as well as insidiously assured in their style, tactics and storytelling. "The Witch" may well be a modern classic. It is exquisite period filmmaking made on a tight budget ($3.5 million), and just as the old late '70s "Superman" marketing campaign promised that we would believe a man could fly, "The Witch" makes you believe that witches are among us. Or, rather, that they were a natural, inevitable result of our early 17th century Puritanical selves. The 32-year-old Brooklyn filmmaker tells a tale of disarming simplicity in "The Witch." For reasons left tantalizingly ambiguous, a farmer (Ralph Ineson), his wife (Kate Dickie) and their five children (Anya Taylor-Joy plays the oldest) are banished from their community. They set up a harsh new life for themselves at the edge of a patch of woods, a long way from anyone else, with their goat, Black Phillip, and a grim determination to forget all they have left behind in their community, and in England before that. What they find there, on the wood's edge, is scary. Like any horror story that sticks, "The Witch" realizes true fright comes from within, as well as without. Eggers focuses intently on the family members in crisis, and in the throes of sexual urges they associate, fiercely, with sin, and the devil. Comparisons have been made to "The Shining" and "The Crucible" but Eggers, who came to directing from a background in theatrical and film production and costume design, also pulled imagery and atmosphere from his own New England childhood. "I mean, look: I wore costumes to school until I got beat up for it," Eggers says. Theater and transformation was in his blood. He visited Salem, Mass., early and often. "I've always had nightmares about witches, well into adulthood. If you grow up in a small New England town, New England's past becomes a part of your consciousness. " In school, he says, "you're taught about the Salem witch trials in a way that seems vague and unrelatable. The idea was that superstitious, simple people accused women of something abstract and demonstrably fake." But the supernatural world and the real world existed in proximity then. "In order for that time and place to be real for an audience," Eggers says, "we had to get totally into this mindset, the religious values, the way people spoke, all the physical specifics." Eggers made "The Witch" in northern Ontario. The oak clapboards for the farmhouse needed to be hand-riven. They couldn't find the trees they wanted, so they located an expert in Massachusetts to source and ship them to the set. A roof thatcher, who knew how roofs looked in the 1630s, traveled north from Virginia and did a lovely job on the set. Nothing in the design and realization of "The Witch" jumps out at you, because everything works together, subtly. The years leading up to the shoot were long, and hard: four years of research, writing and looking for financing "in between design gigs," Eggers says. "There was a year in there where there was, like, no movement. We had people interested right away in making the film for half of what we needed. But we knew what we needed to make it right." A more experienced director (Eggers won't say who) urged him to take the smaller pot of money and make the thing in a backyard somewhere. The advice went unheeded. For a first-time feature, "The Witch" boasts some exceptionally elegant and complicated camera work, and like the production design elements, you don't notice it until the cumulative effect takes hold. Eggers cites Ingmar Bergman as an inspiration; other inspirations, he says, include Stanley Kubrick and F.W. Murnau. "With Bergman, you're just into the story, and it's only afterward you realize: My God, that scene, that was one shot, seamlessly weaving from one person's subjective experience to another," Eggers says. "Obviously I'm not there yet. There's certainly a bit of 'look at my technique!' in this movie that's a little embarrassing. Whatever, I'm a first-time director. But the way Murnau, in his film theory, talks about the moving camera and how shot composition is emotional composition it's all common sense." Witches, he says, "have shaped and rattled our culture since the early modern period. The witch in that period of our history was the embodiment of men's fears and ambivalence and fantasies about women and female power. And in this male-dominated society, a witch also meant women's fears and desires and fantasies about themselves." The results provoke the highest quality anxiety of the new moviegoing year. Banjo greats Abigail Washburn and Bela Fleck blend marriage with music. SHARE By Wayne Bledsoe of the Knoxville News Sentinel Bela Fleck and Abigail Washburn are sort of banjo royalty. Fleck is known as the greatest virtuoso of the instrument since Earl Scruggs and Washburn is an acclaimed progenitor of the old-time clawhammer style. Both have helped meld the instrument into new genres. Recently, the two have blended their careers and art with their marriage. "We're really happy today!" says Washburn. Just the day before Washburn picks up the phone, the two won a Grammy for Best Folk Album of 2016 for their self-titled disc. Washburn says she attended the Grammys once before when Fleck won the 2007 Grammy for Best Contemporary Jazz Album for his album "The Hidden Lands," with this group Bela Fleck & the Flecktones, so she knew a little of what to expect. "The red carpet, when you walk in, there's all these different media outlets up and down the red carpet and most of them don't care at all about you. They'll come up with some excuse they don't want to talk with you! That's how you start the Grammys, feeling like chopped liver! Then there's a section of people hired to scream and yell when they see somebody really famous. We're not really famous, so nobody is screaming and yelling for you. So we said, 'What about us?' And they screamed for us." Washburn laughs. "It's so cool to be able to do this with Abby," says Fleck. "It's like a family Grammy. This whole project was conceived out of the desire to be with our child. We can't be a family apart through the years." The two have a son, Juno, who will turn 3 in May. Fleck and Washburn did work together in The Sparrow Quartet earlier in their relationship, but that was a group effort rather than a duo collaboration."It never really occurred to us to play together for quite a while," says Fleck. Fleck says it was prompting by Washburn's grandmother that actually made the two of them consider working as a duo. "We'd be together at Christmas and she'd say, 'You two are musicians! Play us a song!' I'd get out my banjo and Abby would get out her banjo and it would be really nice. Then her pesky grandma said, 'Hey, come play a little show at my church fundraiser for the Y!' Well, you don't say 'no' to grandma!" The two put together a program of traditional songs along with Washburn's originals. "What we discovered was that it was very easy to play a whole night together with almost no rehearsal, but we also had a fun stage rapport as a couple that surprised both of us. It was so easy and natural that we decided 'We gotta do this some day.' It just took some time to get to that 'some day.' " That was Washburn's call. "When I started dating Bela I was a new banjo player and had just joined Uncle Earl and doing my solo thing," says Washburn. "I really loved the musical conversation with Bela ... but I felt like I needed to build my musical ability and career to a point where I felt like I was able to play with Bela. That took about 10 years." During that decade Washburn's reputation grew both as a clawhammer banjo player and a musical innovator. Her albums "City of Refuge" and "Afterquake" earned particular acclaim. Both Fleck and Washburn still have plenty of outside projects in the works. Washburn will reunite with Uncle Earl later this year and plans to work with more Chinese musicians. Fleck plans to perform with Chick Corea, Chris Thile, the Flecktones and will premiere a new banjo concerto soon. However, the duo project is now the primary focus of their careers. The two just released a new EP called "Banjo Banjo." "Yes," says Fleck. "We want to keep this front and center." Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn When: 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 20 Where: Bijou Theatre Tickets: $37, www.knoxbijou.com Eric Williams Photography Shazia with Albi Belly Dance of Knoxville dances at the 2015 Tennessee Medieval Faire. SHARE By Maggie Jones of the Knoxville News Sentinel A piece of Harriman will go back in time to the Middle Ages in May and needs help transforming into Camelot. The second annual Tennessee Medieval Faire will host auditions for street characters from 2-5 p.m. on Saturdays, Feb. 20, and Feb. 27, at 125 Barrie Lane, Kingston. "Auditions consist of performing individual talents and participating in improvisational games," a release about the event said. "Experience and costumes are helpful, but not required. Auditions can also be done online by sending a short video to DarkhorseLLC@comcast.net." The festival is also seeking craft and food vendors. Medieval crafts can include leather, glass, cloth, wood and metal, and a few examples of food are turkey legs, soup in bread bowls and pastries, the release said. Vendors must make and sell their own crafts and food, and all work will be juried. Vendor applications can be found at www.TMFaire.com, and the deadline is April 1. This year's fair will portray the year 500 after the fall of the Roman Empire. King Arthur of England is fostering peace and celebrating his wedding. It will go from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturday, May 14-Sunday, May 15, Saturday, May 21-Sunday, May 22, and Saturday, May 28-Monday, May 30, at Fiske Road, Harriman. Tickets are $16.95 for ages 13 and up, $8.95 for ages 5-12 and free for ages 4 and under. Free parking is included. "Visitors can cheer on their favorite knight at the live-action jousts, laugh with comedic characters and thrill to warriors' chess," the release said. "Guests can meet King Arthur, Queen Guinevere and Merlin. People of all ages can enjoy comedy stunt shows and live Celtic music as well as join in English folk dance and games. High-quality Medieval crafts, food and beverages (including beer) will be available." SHARE By News Sentinel staff KNOXVILLE Police are investigating after three men brandishing handguns and wearing masks forced their way into a North Knoxville home during an armed robbery Thursday night, police said. The Knoxville Police Department received the report of the robbery on the 1700 block of Grainger Avenue around 11:15 p.m., according to a KPD news release from Sgt. Samuel B. Henard. Two residents and a friend were inside the home when the three suspects forced their way in, according to the release. During the robbery, one of the residents was struck in the head with a blunt object by one of the suspects, police said. That victim was taken to a hospital for medical care. The release did not specify the severity of the injury. The suspects fled the scene in a newer model four-door sedan, police said. The release did not say what was stolen in the robbery. More details as they develop online and in Saturdays News Sentinel. SHARE Jessica Ann Cox, charged with aggravated child abuse. (KNOX COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE) Jessica Cox and her attorney Marcos Garza during her preliminary hearing before Knox County Judge Tony Stansberry Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL) Jessica Cox and her attorney Marcos Garza during her preliminary hearing before Knox County Judge Tony Stansberry Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL) Mike McIntosh, husband of Jessica Cox, testified that his sons were always causing problems and lying to them during his wife's preliminary hearing before Knox County Judge Tony Stansberry Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013. (MICHAEL PATRICK/NEWS SENTINEL) By Jamie Satterfield of the Knoxville News Sentinel With her hired attorney suspended over a sex scandal involving a client, a stepmother accused of torturous abuse of her stepsons that included ice baths, starvation and handcuffing says she's too broke to hire new legal counsel. Assistant District Attorney General Ashley McDermott told Knox County Criminal Court Judge Bob McGee on Friday that Jessica Ann Cox needs a new attorney to replace Robert Vogel, whom she hired after a legally disastrous preliminary hearing more than two years ago handled by another retained attorney. The Tennessee Supreme Court earlier this month ordered Vogel suspended from the practice of law for a year for having sex with a client in a court-appointed case in U.S. District Court. Cox, who has been jailed since November 2014 in the aggravated child abuse case, has filed paperwork for a taxpayer-funded attorney, saying she has no money to hire one. At Friday's hearing, Assistant Public Defender Christy Murray said her office would need to review the witness list in the case before deciding to take on Cox's defense. If the public defender's office has represented anyone on the witness list, that would create a legal conflict of interest barring Murray from accepting the appointment. McGee set a Thursday status hearing on that issue. Cox, 39, was arrested in May 2013 after her two stepsons made a daring escape still handcuffed together from the Canton Hollow Road home she shared with the boys' father, Kenneth Michael McIntosh, and her own children. They sought help from a Farragut High School maintenance man. Prior court testimony has shown the boys had not eaten in three days. The boys, then 14 and 16, initially accused only Cox of abuse. But at a preliminary hearing in 2013 in Knox County General Sessions Court, attorney Marcos Garza sent McIntosh to the witness stand in Cox's defense, and he wound up implicating Cox and himself. A Knox County grand jury later indicted both. McIntosh, 40, has since struck a deal to testify against Cox. The case has been repeatedly delayed because of the sex scandal involving Vogel. Although Vogel knew he faced disciplinary action, he continued to represent Cox with her blessing. He remained on the case even after a hearing panel of the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility imposed a 30-day suspension of his license, which the state's high court overturned as too lenient. McIntosh's sons testified at the 2013 preliminary hearing that Cox disciplined them with all manner of torture handcuffing them to cabinets, beating them with mallets and rolling pins, burning them with cigarettes and forcing them to strip naked and get into a bathtub filled with ice cubes and cold water. Such tactics were not employed with her two children, according to testimony. McIntosh, an ex-police officer from Ohio, insisted his boys were trouble, especially the 16-year-old, whom he accused of sexually abusing other boys and killing animals. He never sought help or police intervention, according to his testimony. Instead, he testified he occasionally handcuffed the boy and made his brother keep watch. On one occasion, McIntosh said, he handcuffed the older boy to an overhead cabinet with the teen's hands stretched above his head. Like Cox, McIntosh remains behind bars. His plea deal, brokered by attorney Susan Shipley, won't be presented to McGee for approval until Cox has been tried, so the terms are not known. Noah Parsons, 6, left, explains his playground design to Ashley Williams, Blue Cross Blue Shield East Tennessee program coordinator, center, as Kaidence Rhodus, 4, looks on during Design Day at Salvation Army on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. Children put crayons to paper to help design a new playground which will be built April 15 at Salvation Army. (ADAM LAU/NEWS SENTINEL) SHARE David Plicher, 5, center, jumps for joy, after completing a worksheet listing his favorite play activities during Design Day at Salvation Army on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. Children put crayons to paper to help design a new playground which will be built April 15 at Salvation Army. (ADAM LAU/NEWS SENTINEL) By John Shearer of the Knoxville News Sentinel Nearly 20 elementary school-age children sounded a lot like they were on a playground as they happily talked and laughed late Thursday afternoon at the Salvation Army facility off North Broadway. But they were planning, not playing. These youngsters were getting a rare opportunity to be designers as well as recipients of a new playground scheduled to be built on a grassy area on the north end of the facility for children of Salvation Army clients. With the help of the nonprofit playground company, KaBoom!, and BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee Health Foundation, the playground is scheduled to be built on April 15. Thursday's meeting was the first step in the process as the youngsters who were children of residents, participants in the center's church program and children of staff members offered their input with crayons and paper. They had the typical suggestions of swings, slides and monkey bars, but one or two of the more imaginative youngsters also came up with hot tubs and rocket launch pads. "I've definitely not gotten hot tubs before, but I've had some crazy ideas," joked Bryan McNamara, the associate project manager of the Washington, D.C.-based KaBoom! and the meeting's facilitator. While hot tubs did not make the cut, adult volunteers who met after the children's meeting planned to include as many of the youngsters' ideas as were feasible into the playground. Salvation Army grant writer April Keeton, who was helping lead the second meeting and the volunteer effort, loved the process. "I think it's great that they consider the kids who are going to get to play on it," she said. "It's a novel idea." Maj. Todd Smith, the area Salvation Army commander, said a playground has been needed for the facility for some time. "The playground's important because we have a number of residents that come here," he said. "And for us to be able to provide a place where kids can come outside of the building and have a great time on very safe and well-designed playground equipment is very important for us. We're extremely excited about the opportunity." Kobe Brockman, the son of a staff member, was excited, too, but about being a part of the front end of the project and getting to help plan the playground. "I liked being able to color and design what I think a good playground should be," he said afterward. 092206general5.mc#6384 J. Miles Cary The Knoxville News Sentinel U.S. Army General Burwell Bell the U.S. Commander in Korea was the featured speaker for the Howard h. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy. General Bell a native of Oak ridge and a 1969 graduate of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga gave a presentation titled "Korea and the United States: Prosperity or Parting Ways?" After the presentation General Bell took questions from. As the U. S. military leader in Korea, Bell commands the U.S.-Republic of Korea Combined Forces Command. SHARE By John Shearer of the Knoxville News Sentinel With radical Islamic terrorism, an unstable Middle East and Russia's aggression in Eastern Europe dominating security concerns, it might be easy to wonder why the U.S. needs to keep 27,000 troops in South Korea. But such thinking would be wrong and could be a disastrous strategy, a former top American commander there said Friday in Knoxville. Speaking at the Rotary Club of Bearden's weekly luncheon meeting at Bearden Banquet Hall, retired Gen. Burwell "B.B." Bell, an Oak Ridge native, said military hostilities could erupt throughout that part of the world without the U.S. presence. "This is a World War III scenario a precipitous withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea," said the former four-star Army general, who grew up in Oak Ridge. In outlining his argument, Bell, who served as senior military commander for South Korean and U.S. military forces in Korea from 2006-08, said Russia likes to go places that seem weak, and China might become adventuresome since it supports North Korea. South Korea also historically sees Japan as an enemy. Then there is North Korea, even though the general said that country's main goal is to preserve its own regime rather than to be a conqueror of lands. South Korea or the Republic of Korea as it calls itself is a big trader with the U.S. of such products as Hyundai and Kia automobiles and Samsung and LG electronics, and its military has aided the U.S. in other parts of the world. Besides, the cost of keeping troops there is actually not much, Bell said. "It's less than one-third of 1 percent of our defense budget to keep our troops there," he said. "That's chicken feed." Bell's career also included serving as the executive officer to top Desert Storm commander Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf during the first Iraq War. After his talk, Bell said the famous general was a master tactician who was all business at work, but would occasionally loosen up away from the job. "When I wasn't officially employed with him in the headquarters, he would call me up on weekends, and he'd say, 'Let's go shoot skeet,' and I'd say, 'Yes sir,' " recalled Bell, who now lives in Ooltewah, Tenn., near Chattanooga. "And he'd say, 'Forget that sir stuff.' We would just be Norm and B.B. until we were back at work and (then) he'd be in your face and a tough guy." Greg Johnson, News Sentinel columnist. GREENVILLE, S.C. Highway 25 rolls out of the Blue Ridge Mountains into the upstate of South Carolina, not unlike so many rolling ways in the hills of Tennessee. The road to the Republican nomination for president rolls through the Palmetto State on Saturday, through Tennessee on March 1. Confederate flags flew outside a Confederate store, but a roadside sign proved prophetic: "Cranky Yankee Woodworking." Downtown Greenville buzzed before the GOP debate last Saturday. The remaining Republican presidential hopefuls were in town, including the Cranky Yankee from New York, Donald Trump. Trump leads in South Carolina. He also leads big in one of the few public polls in Tennessee. In the ironically named Peace Center in Greenville, the candidates played nice at the start, respectfully paying homage to the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died unexpectedly late last week. Then war came to the Peace Center. Asked what three questions he would ask national security experts, Trump flung red meat to his angry supporters. "What we wanna do, when we wanna do it, and how hard do we wanna hit?" Trump said, shallow stuff compared to the reality of U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio. (Disclosure: my daughter works on the Rubio campaign.) Rubio said he would ask our strategy regarding North Korea and China, about the Sunni/Shia conflict in the Middle East, the Shia Arc of Iran and the threat of the Islamic State, and said he would rebuild and reinvigorate NATO in Central and Eastern Europe to combat Russian expansionism. He enunciated more national security strategy in 30 seconds than Trump ever will, more than President Barack Obama has in seven years. Trump drew guffaws from journalists in the media center and boos from the audience when he went into madman mode, claiming like a rabid, radical leftist President George W. Bush lied us into war in Iraq. He offered no evidence, just loud, ludicrous accusations. This is the shtick of Trump bold, brash, boastful, but without substance. "I'm goin' to bring jobs back from China," Trump said. "I'm gonna bring jobs back from Mexico and from Japan where they're all every country throughout the world now Vietnam, that's the new one." But how? Nobody asked, so I went to the spin room with just that question: How are you going to bring jobs back? If I got a follow-up, I wanted to know how businessman Trump would respond to a president telling him where he could do business. Trump was a different man when the cameras were off gracious, patient, personable, totally unlike the Trump on stage. Trump bills himself a non-politician, but he worked the spin room longer and better, out-politicking the professional politicians. So which Trump is real? As Trump exited the spin room, I intercepted him in the hallway. "One more question?" I asked. "Who are you with?" he asked. "Knoxville News Sentinel," I said. "How will you bring back the jobs?" I asked. "I love Knoxville," he said, waving as he walked, the Cranky Yankee politician, off to his next show. SHARE I first wrote about school vouchers almost three years ago, and my thoughts remain very much the same. I closed then with: "Let's keep public monies in support of public schools and make them better." Since the landscape has changed a little around this issue, I thought I would chime in again. I became very concerned as a bill enacting school vouchers passed the state Senate with flying colors. I am somewhat more relieved now that it seems the heavily amended legislation will die without coming to the floor of the House. However, I was gobsmacked to read your editorial, "Compromise on school voucher bill reasonable." Really? Reasonable? Sorry, I don't agree. I recognize that, demographically, those children in "failing schools" tend to be at risk for many things, including poor education that exacerbates their problems. But any attempt to siphon public funds subsidizing these kids to move to private schools is just plain wrong-headed. To put it bluntly, this is akin to cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. While I herald Tennessee's effort in identifying failing schools, I really have to call out any effort to cut funding to them as misguided, to say the least. Your editorial notwithstanding, a compromise is not the answer. Here's one. It is so simple, it beggars reason. Once a failing school is identified by whatever standard, why not focus efforts to fix it, rather than suffocate it? As a tried-and-true answer, turn it into a community school, include parents and the rest of the community as part of the solution, and don't enact a compromise that facilitates and guarantees a death spiral of those schools. Pete Pallesen, Knoxville Starkey Korea CEO Richard Shim, center, poses with CEO and founder of Starkey Hearing Technologies William F. Austin, right, after winning the global company's Overall Business Performance Award at Di Nozze Convention Center in Wangsimni, eastern Seoul, Friday. At left is Austin's wife Tani Austin, who is also co-founder of Starkey Hearing Foundation. / Courtesy of Starkey Korea By Jhoo Dong-chan Starkey Korea, a local distributor of the U.S.-based global hearing aid maker Starkey Hearing Technologies, has won a business performance award. Starkey Korea received the 2015 Overall Business Performance Award, Friday, during a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the Korean branch's founding, according to the company. The event was held at Di Nozze Convention Center in Wangsimni, eastern Seoul. "It is a great honor to win such an award in the year that marks the 20th anniversary of Starkey Korea's founding," Starkey Korea CEO Richard Shim said during the ceremony. "Starkey Korea will continue its efforts to offer our differentiated services to customers." Along with other renowned figures from home and abroad, Starkey Hearing Technologies founder and CEO William F. Austin also participated in the event to present the award to Shim. "Starkey Korea's success has become an inspiration for other branches around the world. I am very proud of Shim," said Austin. Starkey Hearing Technologies holds an in-house business conference every year with their managing directors from across the world, during which the best-performing branches are recognized for their sales figures, managerial innovation and competitiveness. This marks the third time Starkey Korea was selected for the award, following wins in 2011 and 2013. Starkey Korea is a leading hearing aid company, which ranks top in market share, sales and customer satisfaction here. It has introduced various technological innovations under the company's slogan, "Better today than yesterday, better tomorrow than today," since its foundation in 1996. Prosecutors said Friday they have raided the offices of the local unit of Volkswagen in southern Seoul following the German carmaker's poor execution of recall orders on its emissions-faked vehicles. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said computer hard drives, documents on Volkswagen vehicles' emissions and letters exchanged with the carmaker's headquarters in Germany have been confiscated. In January, the Environment Ministry brought the case against Volkswagen Korea's head to prosecutors for failing to provide sufficient data related to its recall plan for around 125,000 emissions-faked vehicles. In November, the ministry ordered Volkswagen to recall the vehicles with emissions found to be manipulated through the defeat device. The carmaker was also asked to provide data related to how it would maintain fuel efficiency even after removing the device. Under South Korean law, those who do not abide by the recall order can be jailed for up to five years or fined a maximum of 30 million won. Prosecutors said they are planning to summon related officials from the German carmaker after analyzing the confiscated articles. (Yonhap) By Choi Sung-jin Social inequality in Korea is higher than in countries that experienced systemic changes or economic crises, a researcher said. Kim Tae-wan, a fellow at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, said so in his paper titled "Analysis of the causes of social exclusion," at an academic symposium at Seoul National University Thursday. "Social exclusion" is a concept indicating the lack of employment, health and education, and the higher its percentage goes, the wider social inequality is. Kim estimated the index by taking into account the jobless rate, the employment rate, social expenditure and income inequality, comparing Korea's level with 21 OECD member nations that also announce related figures. As a result, Korea's level of social exclusion was 34.6 percent as of 2010, higher than all the other 21 countries. It was even higher than Hungary (29 percent) and Poland (27.8 percent) that experienced systemic transition, and Greece (27.7 percent) and Ireland (27.3 percent) that suffered economic crises. On the other hand, North European welfare states, such as Sweden (15 percent) and Finland (16.9 percent), showed social exclusion levels far below the average of 22 percent. Korea's social expenditure was the lowest among the 22 countries, with 9 percent, falling far short of France's 31 percent and way below the average 24.4 percent. The nation's Gini coefficient, which shows the degree of social inequality, was 0.31, the eighth-highest. "In order to enhance social cohesion, Korea should reduce income inequality, ease the jobless rate and expand welfare spending," Kim said. Another presenter pointed out the loopholes in laws to protect non-regular workers. Professor Geum Jae-ho of Korea University of Technology and Education said the current law that calls for converting non-regular workers to regular employees in two years of hiring them is ineffective, only aggravating labor market polarization. "A comprehensive analysis, which took into account gender, age, academic backgrounds and unionization of workers, shows that the rate of conversion has even dropped since the introduction of the law to protect part-timers and contract workers," Geum said. Specifically, the conversion rate was 1.3 percent between 2001 and 2007 but it fell to 0.8 percent in 2008-2014, he said. The wage gap between regular and non-regular workers also widened. Male non-regular workers' wages were 71.3 percent of regular workers' wages in 2004 but the comparable portion fell to 63.2 percent in August 2014. That of female non-regular workers also dropped, from 88.4 percent to 75.9 percent of regular employees during the period. Age also worked unfavorably for non-regular workers. As of August 2014, the wage of non-regular workers in their 20s was 77.9 percent of regular employees, but that of 50-something non-regular workers stood at only 58.5 percent of their regular counterparts, Prof. Geum said. By Choi Sung-jin Korean banks are stepping up efforts to attract foreign clients operating in the country but have gone little beyond the first stage, financial analysts said Friday. Shinhan Bank opened the International Finance Center in Gwanghwamun, downtown Seoul, late last month, where private bankers fluent in English, Chinese and Japanese provide investment advice for foreign businesses and manage the assets of their employees. It also has guides on financial instruments translated into the three foreign languages. Shinhan is not the only domestic bank bent on diversifying its services to expat businesspeople. KEB-Hana Bank recently opened the International PB Center filled with Chinese experts. Woori Bank and KB Kookmin Bank also have jumped into businesses to manage foreigners' assets. The branches of these banks in Jeju Province have long staged fierce competition to lure Chinese investors to properties in the nation's largest resort island. "We receive several requests from Chinese investors about how they can win permanent residency through investment in real estate," a bank official said. The banks are also upgrading their services for short-term tourists, too. For example, KEB-Hana has signed business cooperation contracts with several hospitals and offered services to foreign tourists, allowing them to pay their hospital fees with money deposited in advance at the bank. Chinese visitors who have experienced difficulties proving their income to get Korean visas will benefit from the service. These new services indicate Korean banks have come a long way from the days when they remained content with the remittance and money exchange businesses, industry watchers said. "The banks' stepped-up efforts reflect the rapidly expanding expat community here and resultant growth of the market," an analyst said. The number of foreign residents totaled 1.74 million as of last July, increasing more than three times in less than a decade. In the case of Shinhan, the number of "effective customers" - foreigners who have accounts and use them for transactions increased from 390,000 in 2013 to 500,000 last year. The banks' main targets are high-income professionals, as they can contribute to their revenue and raise their corporate recognition abroad. The coming opening of the legal services market is expected to increase the number of such clients further, they said. These banking institutions, however, still have a long way to go before attracting foreigners in large numbers, as seen by their undue reliance on remittance services and meager revenue from asset management services. "In Incheon and Jeju Island, for instance, foreigners request advice for taxation and other matters, which, however, rarely leads to the purchase of financial products," a bank executive said. "That reflects foreigners still have low trust in Korean banks." The former vice president of Tokyo-based Lotte Holdings Co. on Friday said he will push for the listing of the de-facto holding company of Lotte Group on the Japanese bourse and give its shares to all employees if he becomes the new chief. Shin Dong-joo, the oldest of 94-year-old Lotte founder Shin Kyuk-ho's two sons, made the offer to win support from employees ahead of an emergency shareholders' meeting he convened to fire the current board of directors and re-elect new executives. The 62-year-old has been locking horns with his younger brother, Dong-bin, after being stripped of his executive titles at three of Lotte's Japanese affiliates in early 2015. After a months-long succession feud, Dong-bin took control of the nation's fifth-largest conglomerate last year. In a press conference held in Tokyo on Friday, Shin claimed Lotte Holdings is valued at 11 trillion won (US$8.91 billion), estimating the share price at 2.5 million won. If employees at Lotte Holdings accept Shin's offer to disband the employee shareholders association and receive 1,000 shares each, one could earn some 2.5 billion won, his advisor Min Yoo-sung said in a separate meeting with reporters in Seoul. Although the elder son claims the Lotte Group founder handpicked him as his successor, he faces an uphill battle to take control of the retail giant as he holds only about 30 percent of Lotte Holdings' shares. Without support from the employee shareholders association that owns 27.8 percent of shares, he cannot replace the current board of directors. Lotte Group immediately hit back, saying Shin's offer is "unrealistic." "(Shin's offer) is a hastily prepared gimmick to win the votes of the employee shareholder association ahead of the upcoming shareholders' meeting," a senior Lotte official said. The founder and his family members have come under fire for exerting uncontrolled power over the retail giant with a meager stake, tarnishing the group's corporate image with the nasty succession brawl. Earlier this month, South Korea's antitrust watchdog said the founder and immediate family members of Lotte Group own just a 2.4-percent stake in the companies they run, which include food, leisure, construction and chemical businesses. (Yonhap) A local court approved Friday the transport ministry's suspension order to South Korea's No. 2 carrier for the crash landing of its jet at San Francisco International Airport. The Seoul Administrative Court dismissed a suit filed by Asiana Airlines against the transportation minister seeking a revocation of the government's decision to suspend the carrier's Incheon-San Francisco route for 45 days. Asiana flight 214, a B777-200ER wide-body jet, crashed while making a landing in July 2013, resulting in three deaths and 180 needing medical treatment out of the 307 people who were on board. After conducting an investigation, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said the crash was mainly due to pilot error and that Asiana had failed to properly train the flight crew members. Still, the carrier protested against the suspension order saying it would lead to some 16.2 million won (US$13 million) in lost sales. The company is currently operating the flights after winning an injunction to postpone the execution of the order until it received a court decision on the case. Ruling in favor of the ministry, the court said one of the pilots barely had any experience flying the B777 model and the other was on his first flight as an instructor. "Considering their (the pilots') flight experience and the difficulty of taking off and landing, Asiana failed to fulfill its duty of appointing and supervising pilots," it said. The court said other factors such as loopholes in the safety measures of the plane and errors in the airport's landing guidance cannot be an excuse to justify the pilots' faults. Asiana Airlines said it will review the ruling to decide whether or not to appeal. (Yonhap) By Kim Se-jeong Prosecutors in Seoul raided Audi Volkswagen Korea on Friday as part of their investigation of the German carmaker over a device used to cheat emissions tests. The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office confiscated computer files and documents from the VW Korea unit's office in southern Seoul. It also raided the homes of executive members believed to be involved in vehicle certification, according to the prosecution. Prosecutors said they may summon other company officials after reviewing the seized materials. The raid came after the Ministry of Environment filed two complaints with the prosecution last month against Johannes Thammer, the Korean branch's executive director, and Terence Bryce Johnsson, Audi's head of overseas sales. The first complaint was filed on Jan. 19 after the automaker failed to provide a detailed report on the cause of the emissions cheating and how to rectify the situation. The report from Volkswagen was insufficient, and when the ministry asked for more details, the company did not comply, saying that it had to wait for instructions from the head office in Germany. About a week later, the ministry added two more complaints over rigging of emissions tests on vehicles sold in Korea and sales of unauthorized vehicles after the ministry had revoked its authorization. Both are in violation of the Clean Air Conservation Act which carries a sentence of up to 100 million won in fines or seven years in prison. In September 2015, Volkswagen was found to have installed a "defeat device" in its vehicles to cheat on laboratory tests of nitrogen oxide emissions levels. In Korea, the ministry conducted its own tests in November and ordered Audi Volkswagen Korea to stop selling seven of its vehicle brands and recall 125,522 vehicles. The company was also fined 14.1 billion won. When the ministry filed its first complaint, 10 Volkswagen representatives from Germany visited the ministry to explain the automaker's position regarding the recall. Addressing Friday's raid, an anonymous Audi Volkswagen Korean official said, "We have been complying with the prosecution's investigation, and we will continue to do so." Beside the ministry, the Public Welfare Committee, an NGO, also filed a criminal complaint with the prosecution over the carmaker's alleged violation of domestic law last year. The company also faces multiple civil suits from its customers. American rock band the Beach Boys will perform at Conrad Seoul Grand Ballroom on March 21. / Courtesy of Conrad Seoul By Park Jin-hai The Beach Boys, one of the iconic rock bands that dominated the 1960s and 1970s' world music scene together with the Beatles, are finally visiting Korea. Ahead of the band's first visit to Korea, March 25, Mike Love, the 74-year-old lead vocalist and songwriter for the five-member surf rock band, says he is excited to come here. "We've been to a few other places in Asia, but never to Korea, and I really don't understand why. I have always wanted to visit, and thank goodness 2016 brings us that opportunity," said Love in an e-mail interview with The Korea Times. The legendary rock band best known for worldwide hits, "Surfin' U.S.A" and "Kokomo," gained international acclaim for its distinct vocal harmonies and lyrics depicting a southern Californian youth culture and summer fun. Since their debut in 1961, the all-American band has traveled all around the world. Last year alone, the band gave 175 performances. The seven members, including Love who is the only remaining original member, will perform in Seoul. Others band members are Bruce Johnston, Scott Totten, John Cowsill, Brian Eichenberger, Jeffrey Foskett and Tim Bonhomme. Love says that despite many changes, what has always survived is the music and the multi-national appeal of the music. "We are honored to be thought of as America's Band," he said. Q. The Beach Boys remind of surf music and summer fun and still appeal to young people of today. What is the biggest charm of your time stretching music? A. I think the subject matter having to do with the beach and surfing itself, the whole lifestyle associated with it, is a feel good kind of thing. It is not about any problems or serious issues. It is about enjoying life and nature. I think that is what has to do with the multi-generational appeal of Beach Boys Music. Q. What is the meaning for you to do music as a member of a fifth-decade-old band? A. It is an honor and blessing to be able to go all over the world and perform our music. We did 175 performances last year and 20 of them were in Germany. In fact, we just got back from Germany where we attended the very prestigious Golden Kamera Awards, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award. At this point in our career after having received recognition in the Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame, American Music Awards, GRAMMY Awards, Lifetime Achievement Award and now the Golden Kamera Award from Germany, it is really remarkable thing to see that in your fifth Decade of existence as a group, we are still regarded so highly by so many people in so many places around the world. Q. Comparing with another contemporary rock band the Beatles, what is your band's strength over the English band? A. I think those people who like harmonies, vocal harmonies, are going to be naturally attracted to The Beach Boys. The Beatles have dozens and dozens of all different types of great songs. The Beach Boys' forte has always been the sophisticated harmonies. So if a person is inclined to be attracted to melodies and harmonies, then they are likely to be fond of The Beach Boys. Q. In retrospect of the past half a century, what has been the single most memorable concert you had? A. Our concert in Washington, D.C. in 1985. There was one day where we played the afternoon in Philadelphia and the papers reported 900,000 people in the streets of Philadelphia. Then that evening in D.C. there were easily 750,000 people. We played for over 1.5 million people live and in person, all in one day. It is a Guiness Book of World Record type of thing. There have been many highlights in our career, but this one is probably the ultimate." Q. Aren't you concerned that your voice now may sound different from that on your prime, disappointing audiences? A. Actually they aren't different from our original recordings. We sing all of our songs in the same keys they were recorded in and we are very focused on replicating our songs just as they were on the original recordings. There is obviously a slight difference from the studio recording to a live performance but all the parts, keys and arrangements are the same. So, there is no difference other than it is a concert rather than a studio recording. Q. What does music mean to you and your band? A. I cannot remember a time in my life when music was not a part of it. Since I was born, my mother was very into music. I grew up in a home with a Grand Piano, Organ and a Harp. Every birthday, Christmas, Thanksgiving every holiday in other words, there was a musical event at my house growing up. Music has always been a part of our lives. What was a family hobby became a profession because we were blessed with success and recording. Our first recording was released in the fall of 1961. For several years in the early 60's we had hit after hit after hit, so for 5 decades now we have been performing those songs and others. "Kokomo" was our largest selling single (1988). Beach Boys music has shown up in soundtracks to movies, commercials, TV programs (Full House). There has never been a time when The Beach Boys Music was not a part of the Soundscape. Beach Boys music is a bit of a Sonic oasis and a genre of its own. Q. Could you tell us your future plans? A. We hope to do a lot more shows with Symphony Orchestras. So, if there is a Symphony Orchestra in Seoul that would like to have the Beach Boys perform with them, we would look forward to that. Prior to coming to Seoul, we will have done two shows with the Hong Kong Philharmonic and that will be great pleasure. After we leave Korea we are going to go to Japan to do a few shows before heading back to the United States. So that is one thing that I am looking forward to doing more of... concerts with the accompaniment of various symphony orchestras around the world. Q. If you want to leave a message for Korean fans awaiting your upcoming concert? A. We are very much looking forward to our first performance in Korea and we hope it is not the last. We would love very much to return and do more concerts in Korea. It has been 5 decades since we started our Surfin' Safari and we are overdue to come to Korea. I hope it won't be our last time. The Beach Boys' concert will be at the Conrad Seoul Grand Ballroom, March 21. Ticket prices range from 195,000 won ($161) to 245,000 won, and can be reserved at www.interpark.com. Special packages including a buffet dinner at the hotel restaurant and VIP seats can be reserved at www.conradseoul-shoppingzone.com for 345,000 won. For more information, visit www.conradseoul.com or call (02) 6137-7000. Lee U-fan By Kwon Mee-yoo Artist Lee U-fan's works, currently under police investigation on suspicion of forgery, are believed to be counterfeit, said an art expert who took part in the appraisal. Choi Myung-yoon, director of the International Art and Science Institute, said he and other experts concluded after visual and scientific appraisal that all 12 paintings the police confiscated as part of a forgery investigation were fake. Choi said his institution was asked to examine the authenticity of the confiscated paintings and after appraisal using scientific equipment, determined all of them were fakes. One of the paintings in question, "From Point No. 780217," which was sold for 490 million won ($407,620) at K Auction in December 2015, came with a forged certificate of authenticity. Choi said that painting also turned out to be counterfeit. "The paintings police asked to be appraised were poorly forged the canvases were artificially worn out and the frames colored to look old," Choi said. The director added that he and the five other experts judged all the paintings as fakes just through naked-eye appraisal. "Two of them were appraised to be genuine by the Korean Art Appraisal Board in 2012," Choi added. The Intellectual Crime Investigation Squad of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency raided a Seoul gallery on suspicion of selling forged paintings of Lee last October and December. The police requested a final appraisal of the paintings by the National Forensic Service. Artist Lee released a statement regarding the issue earlier this month, saying he is the biggest victim of this scandal and would cooperate fully with the police investigation. By Choi Sung-jin North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called for the promotion and strengthening of international trust and cooperation in the peaceful research of space science and satellite launches, a state news organ said. Kim made these and other points during an awards ceremony in Pyongyang Wednesday for officials who contributed to the launch of the "Kwangmyeongseong 4" satellite, the (North) Korean Central News Agency reported. Analysts in Seoul said Kim's remarks reaffirmed his intention to fire additional long-range missiles. "The advance to vast space is our strategic goal," Kim was quoted as saying. "We should step up efforts for space development projects according to our five-year plan with renewed vigor, by launching working satellites more frequently, more rapidly and more satisfyingly." Experts said, however, Kim's address appears aimed at swiftly coping with the moves of the international community to toughen sanctions on the reclusive regime in the wake of the recent missile launch, as well as setting the scene for more launches. Despite Kim's stress on international trust and cooperation, the International Telecommunication Union has sent a warning to North Korea for failing to provide the frequency and other information about the satellite put into orbit in a widely condemned rocket launch. "We are extremely concerned and alarmed that Pyongyang has provided no information," the ITU said in a letter to the North's posts and telecommunications minister, Kim Kwang-chol, on Monday. The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a death sentence for an Army sergeant for killing five fellow soldiers in a shooting rampage near the border with North Korea. The 24-year-old conscript, surnamed Lim, killed five comrades and injured seven others by detonating a grenade and spraying a hail of bullets at a military outpost near the tensely guarded border with North Korea in 2014. After the rampage, Lim fled with the gun and ammunition in order to kill himself, but was captured alive two days later. Lim claimed the shooting was a result of bullying he faced inside the barracks, but the court did not accept his defense, dismissing the appeal. While acknowledging Lim's experience as an outcast during his school years and symptoms of a personality disorder, the top court said the soldier did not seem to have suffered from an intolerable level of agony in the barracks. "He even killed his junior comrade whom he had been getting along with by firing the rifle," the court said. In South Korea, all able-bodied men are required to serve about two years of mandatory military service as the country is technically at war with North Korea after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice agreement, not a peace treaty. As the nation's top court confirmed Lim's death sentence, he became the 61st convict on death row in South Korea. Out of the 61, four convicts, including Lim, are soldiers, according to the government. South Korea maintains the death penalty, though it has not carried out an execution since 1997. In 2007, Amnesty International categorized South Korea as a country that has "virtually abolished capital punishment." (Yonhap) By Kim Bo-eun In Korea, a notoriously sleep-deprived nation, even infants and toddlers don't get enough sleep, according to a study released Friday. Compared with babies in other Asian and Western countries, Korean babies get the least hours of sleep a day as well as have the latest bedtimes, according to a study conducted by Ahn Young-min, a pediatrics professor at Eulji General Hospital. In collaboration with a number of institutions including the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in the U.S., her team examined the sleep patterns of 1,036 Korean infants and toddlers under 36 months and some 30,000 babies in 17 countries. Asian countries included China and India, while Western countries included the U.S., Australia and New Zealand. Korean babies slept for a total of 11 hours and 53 minutes a day on average, while other Asian babies slept for 12 hours and 19 minutes and Western babies, 13 hours and 1 minute. Moreover, Koreans babies had the latest bedtime, at 10:08 p.m. on average. Babies in other Asian nations went to bed at 9:25 p.m., and those in Western nations at 8:25 p.m. The team attributed this to parents watching TV and sharing a bedroom with their children. "Many Korean parents sleep in the same room with their babies, and as they don't go to sleep until late, staying up to watch television, the babies also go to bed late," Ahn said. In fact, only 5.5 percent of Korean babies slept in a separate room from their parents, while 63 percent slept in their parents' beds and 30.6 percent slept in their parents' room but not in the same bed. In contrast, 66.2 percent of Western babies slept in a separate room, while 21.3 percent and 12.5 percent slept in their parents' rooms and in their parents' beds. The study also showed that 47 percent of Korean parents believe their children have problems with their sleep patterns but only 2.3 percent regarded this as a serious matter. The study, titled "Sleep Patterns among South Korean Infants and Toddlers: Global Comparison," was published in the February edition of the Journal of Korean Medical Science. By Jun Ji-hye Police have strengthened their guard of a North Korean defector, who serves as a ranking official at a South Korean state-run think tank, as North Korea is believed to have ordered his assassination, sources said, Friday. Since mid-January, the police have increased the number of armed guards from two to eight for the full-time protection of Ko Young-hwan, vice president of the Institute for National Security Strategy. According to the National Intelligence Service (NIS), it secured intelligence that the Kim Jong-un regime has issued an order to kill Ko. Ko defected to South Korea in 1991 after serving as a North Korean diplomat at the North's embassy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. On Thursday, Ko acknowledged that he has been targeted for assassination by the North Korean regime, saying he has been blackmailed and threatened, once even receiving a parcel containing a bloodstained hatchet. "Police told me not to move without guards," he told reporters. "Police seem to believe that there is an actual danger of attack." On Thursday, the South Korean government said the North Korean leader ordered preparations for terrorist attacks on the South, and they could be directed at North Korean defectors as well as anti-North activists and South Korean government officials. The North's Reconnaissance General Bureau, tasked with intelligence operations, has already begun preparations for disruptive acts, including terrorist attacks using poison or abducting South Koreans, according to the NIS. High-ranking government officials working in national security and foreign affairs are also included on the list of the North's targets, according to some reports. They include Presidential National Security Office Chief Kim Kwan-jin, Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo, Defense Minister Han Min-koo and Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se. Cheong Wa Dae said Friday that its National Security Council (NSC) is rigorously managing scenarios related to terrorist attacks. "The NSC is thoroughly in control of every situation related to terrorism," said presidential spokesman Jung Youn-kuk. But Jung refused to comment on whether high-ranking government officials are the target of the North's terrorism plans. The warning comes amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula over the totalitarian state's Jan. 6 nuclear test and Feb. 7 long-range rocket launch. Also on Friday, Rep. Lee Cheol-woo of the ruling Saenuri Party, who belongs to the Assembly Intelligence Committee, noted, "There is a great possibility that the repressive state could launch a cyber attack in March or April." He cited the pattern of the regime's previous actions it staged cyber attacks for one or two months following previous nuclear tests. The North paralyzed networks of South Korean broadcasters and banks through a cyber attack in March 2013 after conducting its third nuclear test earlier that year in February. Police said earlier this week that North Korean hackers sent massive amounts of spam e-mails to South Korean public organizations last month, the latest in a series of cyber attacks against the South. Meanwhile, Seoul is considering establishing an additional national-level anti-terrorism unit as part of its efforts to address rising concerns over Pyongyang's possible terrorist attacks, according to a military official. "As we prepare for the possibility of North Korea's terrorist attacks, we plan to focus on strengthening anti-terrorism organizations," the official said, declining to be named. "One of the measures we are considering includes designating an additional national-level anti-terrorism unit." Currently, the Special Warfare Command and the Chemical, Biological and Radiological Defense Command run separate strategic units to counter terrorism. Over the past few decades, the North has staged terrorist attacks against the South, including the 1987 midair bombing of a Korean Air flight that killed all 115 people aboard. Follow Jun Ji-hye on Twitter @TheKopJihye By Kim Bo-eun A Seoul court Friday supported a 45-day suspension on Asiana Airlines as a punitive measure following a crash landing in San Francisco in 2013. The Seoul Administrative Court ruled against the carrier, which filed the suit against the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) to annul the suspension. If the decision is upheld at a higher court, the carrier will have to stop operating on the Incheon-San Francisco route for the designated period. "Asiana Airlines did not train its pilots sufficiently, and this resulted in the accident," the court said. "The carrier may be subject to fines instead of suspension, but the maximum fine will be around 1.5 billion won and this is far short of the punitive effect which suspension would bring," it said. In July 2013, an Asiana Airlines passenger plane crashed while landing at the airport in San Francisco. Among the 307 on board, three Chinese passengers died and 187 were injured. The ministry accordingly imposed a 45-day suspension on the carrier for flights between Incheon and San Francisco in November 2014. The airline operates daily flights on the route. Claiming that the measure was against the interest of passengers, Asiana filed a suit in December that year calling for the suspension to be canceled, also demanding the suspension be withheld until a ruling is made. At the time, Asiana said the suspension would cause losses amounting to 16.2 billion won in sales. The court at that time accepted the demand and lifted the suspension. The carrier said it would also appeal this latest ruling. By Jun Ji-hye South Korea and the United States have agreed to focus on exerting pressure on North Korea to send a clear message to the totalitarian regime that it will gain nothing from its nuclear and missile development programs, an official said Thursday. The two nations reached the understanding during talks between deputy chief of South Korea's presidential office of national security Cho Tae-yong and Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken. The meeting took place in Washington, D.C., to discuss strategies for coping with the North and its recent provocative actions mainly the fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6 and the launch of a long-range rocket on Feb. 7. "The two countries have so far pursued a two-pillar approach of pressure and dialogue to deal with the North, but we agreed to put more focus on the pressure side," a government official told South Korean correspondents in Washington on the condition of anonymity following the meeting between Cho and Blinken. "Our purpose is to send a clear message to the North that it has nothing to gain if it sticks to its present policy." The South Korean government turned down a proposal made on Thursday by China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi to push for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and a truce-to-peace mechanism at the same time, saying, "Now is not the time for conversation." Seoul and Washington also agreed to do their utmost to produce a resolution at the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) that contains stronger and more effective sanctions against the isolated state. "There is a great possibility that a stronger resolution will be adopted this time," the official said, refusing to elaborate further on details of possible sanctions. He noted that South Korea and the U.S. will discuss unilateral measures, in addition to the U.N. sanctions, after watching the results of the UNSC discussion. During separate phone conversations with President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Feb. 9, President Park Geun-hye agreed with them on the need for unilateral measures in addition to the U.N. sanctions. It has been more than a month since the North's nuclear test in January, but the UNSC has yet to come up with a new sanctions resolution, apparently because China, North Korea's closest ally, has been reluctant to impose harsher measures on Pyongyang. Beijing's cooperation is essential to implement a meaningful sanctions resolution, as it is one of five veto-holding permanent members of the UNSC and the main provider of food and fuel aid to the impoverished North. But the official made it clear that making a decision on whether to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery to the peninsula is Seoul's sovereign right, referring to objections regarding the issue voiced by China. "The decision will be made in accordance with national security and interests," he said. "No other conditions are linked to this." The remark was construed as downplaying speculation that Seoul and Washington provoked the THAAD issue to pressure China to join hands with them on producing harsher sanctions against Pyongyang, if Beijing does not want a THAAD battery to be placed on Korean soil. "I haven't heard that the THAAD issue is linked with Beijing's participation in the UNSC discussion for sanctions," he said. China has been opposed to the THAAD deployment on the peninsula out of concerns that its radar could snoop on the country's military activities. Follow Jun Ji-hye on Twitter @TheKopJihye Lee Hahn-koo Kim Moo-sung By Kim Hyo-jin A factional feud over nominations for the April 13 general election has been escalating in the ruling Saenuri Party. Chairman Rep. Kim Moo-sung, a strong backer of the "from-the-bottom-up" nominating process, lashed out at Rep. Lee Hahn-koo, head of the nomination committee, for planning to select some candidates based on the party's recommendation. However, lawmakers affiliated with President Park Geun-hye are on Lee's side, denouncing the party leader for undermining Lee's autonomy. The clash was viewed as a power struggle between the pro-Park and the opposing faction represented by Kim. They are competing to seize control of the party through the results of the coming election, which largely depends on how many candidates from each faction will be nominated. Park's loyalists have claimed the need to include "strategic" nominations, a format used by the party to designate high-profile figures to run in vital regions for the party without internal races beforehand. Kim has pushed for a complete "from-the-bottom-up" nominating system based on public opinion to prevent Park and her aides from exerting influence in selecting candidates. Lee, a four-term lawmaker known as President Park's mentor in economic matters, assumed the post in charge of finalizing the rules concerning candidate nomination earlier this month. "I would never allow the nomination committee to step out of the boundary of the party's constitution and regulations," Kim said during a party meeting on Thursday. "Party democracy can be realized only when candidate nomination is carried out in a democratic way. This time, an attempt to wield power in putting up candidates will not exist." The remarks came after Lee presented a plan to apply the recommendation system in up to three constituencies in the entire 17 metropolitan cities and provinces. The Saenuri Party's constitution allows recommendation-based nominations for constituencies in which minorities such as women and the disabled need priority to run or candidate applicants have significantly low competitive edges. But it does not define the extent of such a rule, leaving the matter to the discretion of the nomination committee. Lee's decision to allow designated nominations nationwide drew a harsh backlash from the non-Park faction. They view the plan as de facto strategic nomination because the nomination committee, a majority of whose members are Park loyalists, will select candidates if the envisioned plan is implemented. Kim vetoed the move, saying "it is unacceptable, even if it means the party loses the election." Lee struck back, warning that Kim should stop meddling. "It seems either I or he should step down," he told reporters. "I hope he should remember that the party leader did not win nomination in the past." Amid the escalating conflict between Kim and Lee, the pro-Park lawmakers claim that the party needs to respect the committee's authority, putting weight in Lee's argument. "The party leader keeps making comments about the nomination committee's work," said Rep. Suh Chung-won, a confidant of President Park. "I'm worried his personal opinion could affect its activity." Many former presidential aides have announced their bid for parliamentary seats in the election. They are expected to vie for the ticket in the preliminary elections with incumbent lawmakers, most of whom are not Park followers. South Korea and Palestine agreed Friday to beef up their cooperation on the economic front and deepen their bilateral ties, the Foreign Ministry said. Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and the Palestinian Authority's top diplomat Riyad al-Maliki held talks earlier in the day in Seoul on bilateral issues, the Israel-Palestine conflict and security issues on the Korean Peninsula, according to the ministry. Malki arrived in Seoul on Wednesday for a three-day visit, accompanying his country's leader Mahmoud Abbas. The foreign ministry said that the two top diplomats agreed to beef up economic cooperation and spur exchanges at the government and civilian levels. South Korea asked Palestine to join the international community's move to take stern actions against North Korea over its latest fourth nuclear test and long-range rocket launch, according to the ministry. In response, Maliki expressed his support for such a move, saying that the North's nuke and missile provocations cannot be tolerated, the ministry said. Palestine has kept diplomatic ties with North Korea while South Koreahas not recognized Palestine as a state. (Yonhap) Top diplomats from South Korea and the United States met in Washington on Thursday for talks expected to focus on ways to significantly expand sanctions on North Korea in response to its nuclear and missile tests. Cho Tae-yong, deputy chief of South Korea's presidential national security office, met with Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken. Also in attendance was White House Deputy National Security Advisor Avril Haines, sources said. Upon arrival in Washington on Wednesday, Cho underscored Seoul's push for greater pressure on Pyongyang, saying South Korea hopes to work closely with the United States to force a change in North Korea's behavior so as to curb its nuclear and missile development. The two sides were also expected to discuss ways to win Chinese cooperation in adopting a strong U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Pyongyang. Chinese reluctance to impose harsh measures on Pyongyang has been the main stumbling block in the U.N. sanctions talks. Beijing has condemned the North's nuclear and missile tests but has been lukewarm about calls for a stern response. Analysts have long said Beijing fears that pushing Pyongyang too hard could lead to its collapse, instability on its border and ultimately the emergence of a pro-U.S. nation. Chinese cooperation is key to putting together any meaningful sanctions resolution and its implementation as it is one of the five veto-holding permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and the main provider of food and fuel to the impoverished North. Cho said Wednesday that the sanctions negotiations at the Security Council are moving forward under the goal of adopting a much stronger resolution than previous resolutions as China shares a broad strategic view with Seoul and Washington that the North's fourth nuclear test is unacceptable. (Yonhap) South Korea has officially questioned North Korea's qualification as a member of the United Nations during a U.N. meeting this week, citing Pyongyang's repeated violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions. South Korea's U.N. ambassador, Oh Joon, raised the question during a meeting Monday of the U.N. Security Council, saying the North pledged to accept and to uphold the purposes and principles of the U.N. as laid out in its charter when it joined the U.N. in 1991, together with South Korea. "Twenty-five years ago, the DPRK solemnly pledged to comply with the obligations of the U.N. Charter as a new member, but during the past decade, the DPRK has persistently violated all Security Council resolutions on the DPRK," Oh said, according to video footage of the meeting. He used the initials for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "This is not only a direct challenge to the authority of the Security Council, but also a contradiction to both the letter and spirit of the pledge it made. This breach of obligation by the DPRK calls into question its qualification as a member of the United Nations," he said. It was the first time the South has taken issue with the North's U.N. membership. The ambassador also said that the North has conducted four nuclear tests, and six long-range missile tests over the past decade, all in violation of its international obligations, including four separate resolutions of the Security Council. "By repeatedly violating Security Council resolutions, the DPRK has shown contempt and disregard for the functions and powers of the Security Council," Oh said. He called for the Security Council to adopt a "robust and comprehensive resolution not to let the DPRK's leadership make a mockery of it by continuing to develop nuclear weapons." "If we go on 'business as usual' with DPRK's repeated nuclear tests and missile launches, the entire world could fall prey to the DPRK's nuclear blackmail. Extraordinary threats require an extraordinary response," he said. (Yonhap) The South Korean Embassy in Beijing on Friday issued an advisory warning to its citizens living in or traveling to China to avoid eating at North Korean restaurants, citing "concerns about safety." South Korea's Foreign Ministry told its citizens this week not to visit North Korean restaurants around the world, following the North's latest nuclear test and rocket launch. "As inter-Korean relations have rapidly deteriorated in the aftermath of North Korea's Jan. 6 nuclear test and Feb. 7 launch of a long-range missile, concerns about the safety of our citizens in China are growing," the embassy said in a statement. "Those who are living in or traveling to China need to refrain from visiting North Korean restaurants or North Korea-related facilities," the statement said. North Korea is estimated to have operated about 100 restaurants in China. South Korea and the U.S. have pushed for a strong and more effective sanctions resolution at the U.N. Security Council against North Korea's latest nuclear test and launch of a long-range rocket. Still, the Security Council has been struggling in negotiations to come up with a new sanctions resolution on North Korea, because China has been reluctant to impose harsh measures on Pyongyang. (Yonhap) The South Korean government said Friday it would provide a package of measures, such as lending factory sites free of charge for a year, to minimize damage to more than 100 South Korean firms withdrawn from the joint industrial park across the border. A special government task team, headed by Lee Suk-joon, the top official in charge of government policy coordination at the Prime Minister's Office, came up with support measures for 124 South Korean companies, which had to leave behind their production lines earlier this month after Pyongyang's decision to deport them all from the Gaesong Industrial Complex. The government said it would provide companies with factory sites in the South if they are struggling to find alternative ones free of charge for the first one year and will provide such sites at a 50 percent discount for the next two years. "The government has been responding to companies' difficulties through one-on-one support services in a timely manner," said Lee during the task team's third meeting on assisting the companies. The official said the government had received 291 cases of complaints from the companies and had so far resolved 133 of them. "The government is working actively to resolve the rest," added Lee. Another support measure allows the companies to hire additional foreign workers, 40 percent more than the legal quota. The South Korean government decided to at least temporarily shut down the operation of the joint industrial complex in North Korea on Feb. 10 in response to Pyongyang's nuclear test and long-range rocket launch. A day after Seoul's decision, Pyongyang expelled all 124 South Korean firms from the joint industrial park in Gaesong. The joint industrial park was the last remaining vestige of inter-Korean business cooperation until its closure earlier this month. Around 54,000 North Korean workers were employed by 124 South Korean firms with production facilities in Gaesong. When the industrial park was closed for 160 days in 2013 in North Korea's protest against a joint military exercise between South Korean and U.S. forces here, the South Korean firms reported a combined loss of 1.05 trillion won. The firms claim their damage will be greater this time considering the growth of their business operations over the years, saying that they may even seek a lawsuit if the government refuses to compensate them for their losses. (Yonhap) South Korea is preparing for the possibility of North Korea disrupting satellite traffic navigation signals in the South to hamper the upcoming allied military exercise here, a military source said Friday. Since August 2010, Pyongyang has broadcast strong radio signals to the South three times, disrupting Global Positioning System signals in Seoul and other regions and causing mobile phones and other electronic equipment to temporarily malfunction. "We are preparing for the possibility that around the time (South Korea and the U.S. stage) the Key Resolve drills, the North will discharge electric waves to disrupt GPS signals (in the South)," the source said on the condition of anonymity, referring to the command post drills slated to begin on March 7. "Military equipment containing commercial GPS systems could be affected by the electric waves." An official at Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the communist regime has multiple GPS disruption tools with an operational range of more than 100 kilometers. Some of the South's military equipment carry commercial satellite navigation systems, which are vulnerable to the North's electronic warfare. The U.S. is known to use strictly military GPS for field operations. North Korea's "Unit 121," also known as the Cyberwarfare Guidance Unit, is known to be in charge of GPS disruption campaigns. Intelligence officials estimate that the unit has some 3,000 personnel. It belongs to the General Reconnaissance Bureau, an organization that has masterminded a series of fatal provocations against the South, including a torpedo attack on the South Korean corvette Cheonan in 2010. (Yonhap) By Kim Hyo-jin South Korea is questioning North Korea's eligibility to be a member of the United Nations in connection with its recent provocations in breach of U.N. resolutions. During a U.N. open discussion Monday on the U.N. charter's principles and goals, South Korea's U.N. ambassador Oh Joon questioned whether North Korea still has the right to be a U.N. member after reneging on membership obligations. "Twenty-five years ago, the DPRK solemnly pledged to comply with the obligations of the U.N. Charter as a new member, but during the past decade, the DPRK has persistently violated all Security Council resolutions on the DPRK," Oh said. He was referring to the North's military provocations such as its Jan. 6 nuclear test and Feb. 7 long-range rocket launch. The DPRK is the acronym of North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "This is not only a direct challenge to the authority of the Security Council, but also a contradiction to both the letter and spirit of the pledge it made. This breach of obligation by the DPRK calls into question its qualification as a member of the United Nations," Oh added. South Korea's Deputy U.N. Ambassador Hahn Choong-hee continued questioning the North's qualifications during a meeting of the Special Committee on the Charter of the U.N. the following day. It is the first time that South Korea has taken issue with the North's U.N. membership since the two Koreas jointly entered the international body in 1991. The government's move is seen as an attempt to put further pressure on the North by isolating the country from the international stage in line with its hard-line approach toward the reclusive country, according to analysts. However, they cast doubt over whether South Korea's move will pay off. "It is unlikely to happen, as suspension of U.N. membership also needs the agreement of the 15-member Security Council (UNSC) which includes China and Russia," said Lee Jang-hie, an emeritus professor of the law school at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. According to article 5 of the U.N. Charter, a U.N. member, against which preventive or enforcement action has been taken by the UNSC, may be suspended from the exercise of the rights and privileges of membership upon the recommendation of the UNSC. The "recommendation" should be made in the form of a UNSC resolution, Lee noted. Cho Chang-beom, vice president of World Federation of United Nations Associations, also said it's hardly expectable, noting other countries like Syria and Iran have reneged on U.N. obligations, but calls have yet to be made for suspension of their membership. "We can ask North Korea to respect international regulations like human rights laws because it is a member of the international community," Lee added. "It is more beneficial for us to leave the country as a U.N. member." For its part, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it will concentrate on drumming up greater support among its allies for harsher sanctions against North Korea, instead of immediately seeking to strip the North of its U.N. membership. The ministry said South Korea and the United States have agreed to work harder on making a stronger and more effective sanctions resolution in the UNSC. By Kang Hyun-kyung In the four decades since Haitai Group released Noble Wine in 1974, the first wine to be made in Korea, the share of imported wines in the Korean market has been increasing, gradually pushing out local wines. According to data from the Korea Alcohol and Liquor Industry Association (KALIA), in 2009, Korean and foreign wines had almost equal market share with 49 percent and 51 percent, respectively. In the next few years, however, the share of local wines fell steadily, and in 2013, was down to 34 percent. The production of fruit-based alcoholic beverages began to increase in the 1970s when then President Park Chung-hee encouraged breweries to make alcoholic beverages with fruit instead of rice because he believed the use of grain to make such beverages was a waste, especially amid the crop shortages. The good old days for local wines were short-lived, however. In the 1980s, when an import ban on foreign wines had been in place until 1988, wine consumption rose 10 to 30 percent annually. However, since the opening of the local wine market months ahead of the Seoul Summer Olympics, foreign wines have gradually increased their market share. Kim Jun-cheol, the founder and president of JCK Wine School in southern Seoul, said several local wineries decided to close their businesses in the 1990s after realizing that making wine was no longer lucrative. He said the high costs of property and labor pushed up the price of homegrown wines, which made them less competitive. "Suppose that local and French wines are competing in the market and their prices are almost the same. Which one would you buy? Consumers naturally opted for the French wines, and local wineries suffered as a consequence," he said. Kim was a former winemaker for Dong-A Pharmaceutical. The company had operated a 660,000-square-meter winery in the small city of Boryeong, southeast of Seoul, from 1986 to the mid-1990s, when European wines started expanding their market share in the country. "The grape varieties grown in Korea are not suitable for making wine, either," he said. "The berries here are relatively big and aren't sweet enough to produce quality wine. Winemakers had to add sugar to make sure the wines have 12 to 14 percent alcohol content after fermentation, and this negatively affects the taste. The grapes here are tasty, but they are table grapes." According to Kim, there are similarities between wine consumption patterns and stock market trends in Korea. "Wine consumption had grown by double digits in the 1980s and the 2000s when the economy was relatively good, but it fell sharply when the economy was hit hard by the financial crisis in the late 1990s and negatively affected again by the global financial crisis in 2007," he said. "When the economy goes bullish, wine consumption goes up. When the economy is bearish, so is the wine market." Kim Jun-cheol, the founder and president of JCK Wine School in Seoul / Korea Times file An agricultural chemistry graduate from Korea University, Kim applied his knowledge of fermentation and winemaking while working as a wine expert at Dong-A, where he witnessed firsthand the ups and downs of the wine market. According to Kim, then CEO Kang Shin-ho, now chairman of the company, is a wine lover. Kang was determined to expand his business into wines at a time when wine consumption was increasing by double digits. In 1986, Dong-A purchased a Daegu-based winery, which produced Korea's first fruit-based alcoholic beverage, Apple Wine Paradise, in 1969, and introduced its line of wines, Wihayeah, or Cheers in 1987. With Kang's support, Kim took a leave of absence in 1987 for one-year of professional education in winemaking at California State University at Fresno. In late 1988, when he returned home after finishing the enology program, he realized that the wine market in Korea had changed significantly during his absence. The import ban was lifted in 1988 and European wines were being sold in Korea. Dong-A also began importing wines from Europe. By the early 1990s, management had ordered him to reduce wine production, and he knew that it was all downhill from there. In the mid-1990s, the company finally decided to close its wine production, costing Kim his job. After years of struggling to find a stable job, Kim opened JCK Wine School in 2000, where he has since taught 2,500 students in numerous beginner- to master-level courses. In the past four decades since Korea's first wine was launched, three key events occurred that negatively affected local wineries and ultimately pushed them out of business the lifting of the import ban in 1988, the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the global financial crisis in 2007. The wine boom in the 1980s benefitted the local white wine brand Majuang. Launched in 1977, the local brand had dominated the market, capturing 80 percent of the market at its peak. The wine was a blend of domestic grapes and extracts of grapes imported from foreign wine-producing regions, such as Mosel in Germany and Medoc in France. Encouraged by the rapid increase in the consumption of wine, several distilled liquor breweries, such as Jinro, Kumbokju and Daesun, jumped into the wine market, only to close in the mid-1990s. Majuang, however, was able to survive the tough competition because it has been used in Catholic Masses. The annual guaranteed sales of 300,000 bottles helped the local brand stay afloat amid the influx of imported wines after 2003, when Korea's free trade agreement with Chile went into effect. Although Koreans are drinking wine more than ever before, the share of wine in the total consumption of alcoholic beverages in the country is still very low only 1.5 percent in 2013 according to the KALIA data. Beer and the distilled liquor "soju," which have always dominated the local consumption of alcoholic beverages, accounted for the rest. But wine consumption in Korea falls behind the global average. According to Kim, the average Korean drinks only one 750-milliliter bottle of wine annually, compared to the global average of five bottles. "Koreans love grain-based alcoholic beverages, and that's why beer has a much higher market share than wine. Older Koreans enjoy "makgeoli," which is made from rice. It's called a labor spirit'," he said. "Both makgeoli and beer are post-workout alcoholic drinks because people enjoy drinking them after a day's work or after exercise." The first beer brand in Korea was introduced in the 1930s, and over the decades, beer gradually replaced makgeoli. Kim remains optimistic about the growth of wine consumption, but he said the rate of growth may not be as fast as that of beer. "The Korean public in general doesn't like fruit-based alcoholic beverages. Wine consumption has gradually increased in the past decades because of an increase in wine aficionados," he said. By Ranjit Kumar Dhawan Technologies have brought about profound changes in the life of the mankind. The invention of new machines has made our work easier and faster. In the pre-modern period men used slaves and animals to perform various labor intensive jobs. The invention of steam engine brought about the First Industrial Revolution and a paradigm shift in the production of goods. The present era of globalization has also been possible due to the breakthrough in technologies. The faster and cheaper air travel, advancements in the information technology (IT) and means of communication has made the world a "global village." The boundaries of the nation-states have become irrelevant because of the technological advancements. The world wide access to information through the internet has led to the "democratization of knowledge." Through Wikipedia, YouTube, Google Scholar and various social networking sites people across the world can access information. This is bridging the gap in the field of knowledge between the developed and developing countries. Similarly, advancements in the food and agricultural science have made dramatic changes in the level of nutrition and health of the people. Mankind has won over several deadly diseases and the life span of the people has increased due to development in the medical science. The economic miracle in the Asian tiger economies such as Korea was also made possible due to the modern manufacturing techniques. Initially Korea borrowed technologies from the advanced countries and through learning and reverse engineering it became a manufacturing giant. While the Western countries took centuries to industrialize but Korea achieved the same level of industrialization within decades. Beginning with the labor intensive mass manufacturing industries in 1960s, Korea moved towards heavy and chemical industrialization in the 1970s. Within a few years Korea became one of the largest exporters of steel, ships, automobiles and other heavy machinery equipments. In the 1990s Korea adopted the technology of semiconductors and became one of the largest producers of cellphones, flat screens, computers, and other electronic equipments. This rapid economic development and technological advancements in Korea led to the dramatic changes in the country. From an impoverished Asian country to a technological power house Korea has indeed come a long way. Presently Korea is having one of the highest broadband connectivity in the world. Koreans are using IT related services in almost every aspect of their lives. After having excelled in the Second and Third Industrial Revolutions, Korea is now facing the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The fast changing technologies have thrown new challenges for the Korean economy in the recent years. Sandwiched between the technological giant Japan and manufacturing giant China, Korea is in a difficult situation. Korea's competitive edge in the manufacturing sector is now under constrain due to the rise of new low wage manufacturing hubs in Asia and other parts of the world. The changes in the technological paradigm such as use of robotics, Internet of Things (IoT) and 3-D printing is going to revolutionize the manufacturing of goods. But these changes will have massive impact on the export oriented economy of Korea. Unlike the earlier industries, the Fourth Industrial Revolution will produce lesser jobs. An entire company will be run by a handful of people. This would further increase unemployment in Korea. As a result, Korea will have arduous task of increasing job opportunities for the unemployed youths in the country. While the Fourth Industrial Revolution is increasing opportunities for some people but it is also going to take away livelihood of others. Advancements in technology have brought conveniences to our life but the sources of income have been declining. Korea will have to look for smart solutions to become successful in this new technological shift as it did in the previous industrial revolutions. The author is a Ph.D candidate at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India. His e-mail address is rkdhawan13@hotmail.com. By Park Moo-jong The cold is painful for the elderly, especially for ailing old people. This unusually cold winter is set to last for at least two more weeks. As a result, maybe, I received more news of the deaths of my friends' and acquaintances' aged fathers, mothers, fathers-in-law and mothers-in-law. As most Koreans do, I busied myself visiting funeral homes at hospitals during the months of December, January and February with a white envelope containing a 50,000 won ($42) note. At each reception room of the memorial site, my friends and I are served meals, mostly "yukgaejang" (hot spicy meat stew) and four to five side dishes, including kimchi, and of course soju and beer. Still, spring comes. And the wedding season begins. When cherry blossoms, rapes (canolas) and forsythias (golden bells) are in full bloom, my desk will be full with invitation cards to weddings, many will come through text messages to my phone these days. An invitation card means "an envelope of cash" as a "gift to celebrate the wedding and encourage the start of the new life of the young couple" and also to help pay for the cost for the ceremonies and wedding lunches or dinners for the guests. Vice versa, if the host is invited to weddings of the siblings of the guests, the same amount of money is usually given to him or her. The problem is that many of the invitation cards are from those whom the "invited" can hardly remember. To go or not to go makes the invited feel burdened. Of course, many other invitations have been anticipated for a long time. Of the invited, more than 50 percent go to weddings against their "wishes" because of personal relations and for appearance's sake, according to a report. Of the guests, some 40 percent were present at the wedding ceremony, while others were not and most of them only took meals at restaurants in the wedding hall or near it. The report by a government-financed organization shows that a whopping 80 percent of those questioned expressed negative views of "money envelopes" as a gift. But ironically enough, those who think the envelope should disappear usually send invitation cards to their friends and people they "know" for their children's marriage and continue this unpleasant practice. For those who are unable to attend the ceremony or do not want to go, the hosts of today are kind enough to send a text message of their account number to the invitees' smartphones. Many of the parents argue, somewhat jokingly, as aforementioned, that they have to send many invitations to their acquaintances in order to make up for what they have contributed to others' weddings so far. There is still a rampant misunderstanding among many Koreans that the success of a wedding largely depends on the number of guests and the amount of congratulatory money gathered. A stubborn social trend to hold the "once-in-a-lifetime" event in an extravagant and luxurious way beyond people's means, except for remarriages, is largely responsible for the flood of invitation cards. The cost of the average wedding in Korea is more than triple those in Japan, Britain and Taiwan. A Korean wedding of a middle-class family costs nearly 100 million won ($84,000), compared to the West's $20,000. The excessive costs are proved by an old saying, "The pillars of the house are uprooted after three daughters are married off." This means, of course, parents with three daughters have no other option but to go bankrupt after their children get married. Despite the persisting economic difficulties that adversely affect every nook and cranny of our society, wedding costs show no sign of going down. Two years ago, a leading newspaper launched a campaign for a "small" wedding that earned huge public support at the time. But now, two years later, it has turned out to be much ado about nothing.In many cases, a wedding ceremony in Korea is not really a family event, but a social one with more than 300 guests on average. It is still vivid in the people's memory that many so-called "big shots" in the government and political world gave their children grand wedding ceremonies with the attendance of more than 1,000 guests at six-star hotels. Such weddings caused serious traffic congestion around the hotels due to the swarms of luxurious sedans, and the amount of cash gifts was beyond the imagination of ordinary citizens. The typical scene of such a wedding ceremony features a display of more than 100 standing colorful wreaths at the entrance to the hall _ a wreath costs 100,000 won ($83). And then there is a queue of guests waiting for their turn to sign their names in the visitor's book and give the money envelope to the receptionist. Over the past decade, I presided over 51 wedding ceremonies. There are two I still remember vividly. One was a wedding of a German bridegroom and a Korean bride, who met in Germany while she was studying composition there. It was held at a middle-class hotel and the participants were around 70, half from the German side and the other from the Korean side. They cordially refused the wreaths and money envelopes. It was the most exemplary event I had ever seen. The other was held at one of the most luxurious hotels in Seoul. The ceremony itself cost 150 million won ($130,000), including flower decorations worth 40 million won ($34,000), and the participants numbered about 800. To my great regret, the couple divorced one year later. For how long must we prepare money envelopes, which are something like utility bills, to congratulate weddings or to pay tribute to the deceased? Park Moo-jong is the standing advisor of The Korea Times. He served as the president-publisher of the nation's oldest English daily after working as a reporter for the paper since 1974. He can be reached at moojongh@ktimes.com or emjei29@gmail.com. By Stephen Costello In the wake of South Korea's closure of the Gaesong Industrial Complex (GIC) in North Korea, the DPRK responded by freezing the complex's assets and expelling the remaining ROK managers. Reading the reactions in the US press, one would conclude that the action by the South was overdue and justified, that the North's nuclear and missile tests were un-provoked provocations, and that there is not, and never really has been, an opportunity to decrease tensions and increase security through dialogue and deals. When deals were broken, it was always the fault of North Korea, never the US or ROK, and for reasons that are unfathomable or "unpredictable." Most importantly, the DPRK was never motivated by strategic interests, and in any case those interests have never overlapped with those of the US and ROK. The conservative mainstream view in current US and ROK policy debates toward Korea and Northeast Asia is both a real "consensus" and a false one. It's real in the sense that it reflects a broad group of the most prolific and quoted go-to commentators that one can easily find. It's not a coincidence that those views are government-friendly, at a time when the US has perhaps the most closed and paranoid administration since Richard Nixon, and the ROK is increasingly embarrassed by an administration that is seen as anti-democratic and divisive. But it's a false consensus because it overlooks many of the most experienced, thoughtful and insightful specialists now writing. In identifying and promoting this pretend consensus, quality is devalued and non-diplomatic language is prized. The obvious and well-known benefits of analytical approaches and cool heads are often ignored. Perhaps most importantly, the current majority mainstream view toward profound and important developments in this region ignores a longstanding, raging debate in the US and ROK about very different analyses, goals and policies. This debate demonstrates clearly how political, ideological and dumbed-down so much of this discussion has become. Of course in order to cover up these motivations, the reasons given for opinions, reportage and research are variously security, protection of allies or the "homeland," and the promotion of a fantasy diplomacy in which countries "pay the price" for "defiance," are "punished" for disobedience, and opponents are compared to horses, children and worse. The North Koreans are probably best at this, but the South Koreans and Americans are getting pretty good at it too. The preference for "correct thinking" has been evident in statements and coverage surrounding the closing of the GIC. If one looks, however, other voices are clear and consistent. Alternative analysis and proposals continue to be articulated by experienced players and analysts. Only by finding them will readers appreciate how deliberate and political choices by elected leaders have helped create the present low point, and how different leaders would choose different approaches. When North-South discussions and cooperation do resume, new projects will spring up, going beyond the scope of Gaeseong. The GIC was always an initial test of cooperation, never intended to grow, or even exist, beyond the work and determination of the North and South leaderships to keep it alive. It was also part of a multi-pronged engagement plan, which itself sought to change incentives, security/fear calculations, and goals. It outlived Kim Dae Jung, Kim Jong Il and Roh Moo Hyun. It survived the Bush policy reversal and most of Obama's embrace of the Bush regional view. The remarkable thing is that it survived as long as it did, without the understanding or support of ROK leaders since 2008. It's a tribute to their timidity and lack of any defensible approach that those leaders did not have the courage to shut it down until now. The fact that the current President has done so, just when Seoul's naive and implausible treatment of both North Korea and China has been exposed, is perhaps an appropriate ending to a project that was modern, post-Cold-War, and in some ways ahead of its time. President Park's embrace of failed US policy, after increasingly being viewed here as pro-China and disloyal, should erase all doubt that she ever imagined South Korea as a middle power or more independent regional actor with its own interests. And of course the Gaesong Complex will not go anywhere. It will most likely be used in various ways by the military, according to early DPRK statements until other presidents tackle the job of North-South rapprochement, and the logic of using it as part of tension-reduction once again becomes clear. It's ironic that the GIC's establishment in 2004 closed off the most useful route for the North to attack the South. That example, along with a long catalogue of freezes, delayed weaponization opportunities, and budding government and civilian exchanges, were always conveniently ignored by opponents of the GIC. Many claimed the GIC and "engagement" in general were reciprocated with "nothing." Now we will learn again what has just been lost, how valuable it was, and why such a broad range of leaders has advocated comprehensive North-South cooperation for so long. But as Kim Dae jung insisted for decades before he became President in 1998, the South can never interact successfully with the North until it embraces a domestic politics of inclusion, accepts opposing views and political opposition, and graduates beyond the suffocating restrictions of anti-communist ideology. Stephen Costello is a producer of AsiaEast, a Web and broadcast-based policy roundtable focused on security, development and politics in Northeast Asia. He writes from Washington, D.C. He can be reached at scost55@gmail.com. By Sah Dong-seok How would it be if people gave a grade to the performance of the 19th National Assembly at a time when the end of its four-year tenure is only months away? There is no question that the unicameral legislature would flunk, regardless of whether they support the ruling party or the opposition. Not a single day seems to have passed quietly during the past four years without the major parties confronting each other over the passage of one contentious bill or another, as the Assembly failed to function properly. Numerous bills related to the benefit of the people have been stalled, and those concerning terrorism and North Korea's human rights have faced similar fates. Many bills that should have been passed without fail for example, a bill on the electoral map with less than two months remaining before the April 13 general election have often been stuck amid fierce partisan bickering. Lurking behind all this ugly paralysis of the Assembly is the law governing the operation of the legislature, which is often called the National Assembly Advancement Act. The law, which was amended in 2012, introduced "ideal'' clauses with the good intention of operating the Assembly based on dialogue and compromise, with the lofty spirit of honoring the opinion of the minority. So a stalled bill can be designated as a fast-track item and be put up for a vote only after three-fifths of the lawmakers on the relevant standing committee consent to it. The law also strictly restricts the Assembly speaker's authority to send a bill directly to a vote without first going through deliberation at the committee level. Now the speaker can exercise such power only when a national disaster or a national emergency hits the country or there is an agreement among the rival parties. Ironically enough, it is none other than President Park Geun-hye who played the first fiddle in introducing the controversial provisions. Highly encouraged by the resounding victory of her ruling Saenuri Party in the parliamentary elections in April 2012, she pushed for the revision of the then National Assembly Act despite opposition from her colleague legislators, including Rep. Kim Moo-sung, the party's current chairman. With the prospect for the December presidential election that year murky, Park, then the governing party's strongest presidential contender, must have felt the urgency of impressing voters with the implementation of "new politics.'' However, her short-sightedness has dogged the first female head of state continuously. The revised act has almost banished violence from the Assembly hall over the past four years, making it possible for the legislature to escape the stigma of the "animalistic Assembly.'' Instead, it put the Assembly into a vegetative state as bills sponsored by the government and the ruling party, which commands 156 seats in the 300-member legislature, have often been blocked by the opposition. And no one appears free from criticism with respect to the frequent parliamentary gridlock under the revised Assembly act. President Park should have paid more attention to dialogue and communication with the opposition, given the supermajority rule, but she has not. The main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK) also deserves blame for sticking to opposition only for opposition's sake. Public sentiment about the law has changed a lot. At first, the people's support for it was enormous amid the glaring cause for kicking melees out of the legislature. With people fed up with its habitual paralysis, however, more have opted to have the law revised again. An opinion poll of 1,013 adults released by KBS earlier this week found that 56.1 percent of respondents supported amending the current law, more than double the 28 percent who wanted it to be maintained. In January 2015, a group of ruling party lawmakers filed a petition with the Constitutional Court, arguing that the supermajority rule goes against the Constitution that stipulates a simple majority rule for ordinary voting. The top court opened its first hearing on the petition last month, belatedly, but it is unclear if it would reach a verdict anytime soon, given its intrinsic reluctance to meddle in the affairs of the legislative branch. The governing Saenuri Party submitted a bill to amend the controversial law, proposing to empower the speaker to take a legislative bill directly to a vote when the majority of incumbent lawmakers approve it. But the passage of this bill seems all but impossible, considering the speaker's stubborn refusal to take it directly to a vote. Speaker Chung Ui-hwa instead presented a compromise that would ease the requirements for the fast-track legislation. Under the revision, the speaker can introduce a bill to be voted on only with a simple majority. He also proposed shortening the time needed to process a fast-track bill to a maximum of 75 days. Given the MPK's strong opposition to the revision, none of these proposals seem feasible now. Yet it is clear that our political experiment with "advancing the National Assembly'' has failed. The current law must be revised in such a way as to ensure the normal operation of the Assembly before the term of the 20th Assembly begins. China's Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, proposed talks for a peace treaty between the United States and Pyongyang. Wang's proposal was spurned by South Korea and the U.S. immediately, which see it as a ploy by Beijing to save it from global pressure for siding with its client state even after North Korea acted against global peace by conducting nuclear and long-range missile tests. At a deeper level, Wang shot himself in the foot by repeating the North's hashtag, joined by Beijing, in their communist-era policy of removing the U.S. military from the South before trying to take it over together. This is also another gaffe by the top Chinese diplomat who, in a parochial Chinese way, called the South a U.S. vassal for trying to bring in missile interceptors against the North's ballistic missile threat. Wang may save face, however, if he can update his offer on two accounts as we suggested in the Jan. 17 editorial ( http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2016/01/137_195613.html ). Since it is the North that is suffering from a crisis of confidence after making uncalled-for provocations, any negotiations for peace with the regime should be started with the North's first act to make the other parties South Korea and the United States feel it is trustworthy. Such an act needs to include its declaration of a total moratorium on its nuclear development and missile tests. By doing so, the North may be able to prove that it is serious about peace and help convince the international community it is not using the talks merely for propaganda purposes. Secondly, the North should allow outside inspectors to look into its nuclear and missile facilities so that all facilities and related materials can be completely accounted for. The North quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and technologies, and expelled the monitors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Thirdly, Seoul should participate in any dialogue through and through as a main party that would be a signatory, when and if there is indeed an agreement. The North claims that the South did not sign the 1953 truce for the Korean War and thereby is not qualified to participate in the peace treaty. A better way is to have the U.S. and China serve as guarantors for the peace deal to be adhered to. Finally, both China and the North should not insist on the withdrawal of U.S. troops now stationed in the South as a precondition for any peace deal. Rather, it would be better to leave the possibility open for their continued presence until the parties concerned reach a consensus. China has gone back on its word that it is only interested in peace by supporting the rogue state and its loose cannon, Kim Jong-un. Its top diplomat may help undo the disappointment the world feels toward his country by upgrading his offer that has a real chance of a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula. South Korea is bracing for any possible terror attacks from North Korea, an official said Friday. "The presidential office of national security is thoroughly in control of every situation related to terror," presidential spokesman Jeong Yeon-guk told reporters. Still, he declined to comment on whether National Security Adviser Kim Kwan-jin or other South Korean officials are included on North Korea's alleged hit list. South Korea believes that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered intensified preparations for terror attacks on South Korea, Kim Sung-woo, chief presidential press secretary, told reporters on Thursday. The warning came amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula over North Korea's nuclear test and long-range rocket launch in recent weeks. Police said earlier this week that North Korean hackers sent massive amounts of spam emails to South Korean public organizations last month, the latest in a series of cyberattacks against the South in recent years. North Korea has a track record of waging cyber attacks on South Korea and the United States in recent years, though it has flatly denied any involvement. North Korea also staged terror attacks against South Korea in the past few decades, including the 1987 midair bombing of a Korean Air flight that killed all 115 people aboard. (Yonhap) An artistic rendering of KT's booth to be installed in the "Innovation City" hall during this year's Mobile World Congress (MWC), which will run from Monday to Thursday. / Courtesy of KT Korean firm joins with Ericsson to test 5G tech By Kim Yoo-chul BARCELONA, Spain KT plans to highlight its superfast wireless technology beyond 4G at this year's mobile expo here, the telecommunications company said Friday. KT, Korea's No.2 mobile carrier and dominant fixed-line operator, said the move by leading tech companies is to grow Internet of Things (IoT)-driven businesses as their "next something" for future growth. It also said fifth-generation-equivalent (5G) wireless technology is crucial to new levels of IoT interaction. "Tech companies are talking about new applications, such as connected vehicles, transport architecture, networks for disaster prevention, and we believe 5G technology is the only option to impact the IoT," said Yoon Jong-jin, a senior KT vice president, who is also head of the company's public relations office. Yoon said because KT is on track to preview 5G services at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics as its official telecom partner, it plans to promote its 5G capabilities with some of the company's key business partners during the convention. KT has contracted with Mobile World Congress organizers to rent a bigger space than last year to display its services and products in the "Innovation City" center. Under the theme of "Global 5G Leader," KT will demonstrate a prototype of its new wireless technology and services that will make their official debut at the Winter Olympics. CEO Hwang Chang-gyu will attend the show and check the latest trends in the telecom industry. He will also introduce overseas business partners to business ideas submitted by Korean startups funded by KT, according to the company. But unlike last year, Hwang will not appear as a keynote speaker, though he plans to unveil the company's updated business strategies at a lunch meeting with Korean media on Feb. 23. Swedish telecom giant Ericsson is backing KT's move to sharpen its 5G capabilities, announcing early Friday that it has reached a downlink speed of 25 Gbps in a live demonstration of its 5G radio prototype using MU-MIMO. Ericsson said it conducted tests with KT and NTT DoCoMo of Japan, which is the second-biggest shareholder in KT. MU-MIMO is short for multi-user, multiple input, multiple output. The company also uses advanced beam tracking, which is required in millimeter wave bands to ensure enhanced performance and mobile reliability throughout the network. KT officials said the development of 5G will encompass an evolution of existing 4G-based LTE and the addition of new radio access technologies, often at higher frequencies. "This is why network reliability and stability is crucial," Yoon said. "With beam tracking, because beams could come from multiple transmission points, devices using the technology will ensure reliable connections." KT will take on its domestic rival SK Telecom for prowess in 5G-based wireless technology during the show, as the two are battling over the 5G standard, which will be decided sometime in 2018. SK plans to hold a session to demonstrate its 20 Gbps 5G prototype technology at its booth on Feb. 22 and to exhibit real-time multimedia services, such as virtual reality and holograms, all of which will be operational within the 5G technology frame. K-hip-hop mega stars Dynamic Duo are crossing the Pacific and fans in both eastern and western Canada are getting in on the fun. Dynamic Duo members Choiza and Gaeko already confirmed their U.S. Grand Carnival tour for mid-March, but it looks like the pair will finish out their jaunt in the western hemisphere with a trip north. The "BAAAM" rappers will land on Canadian soil at the end of next month for shows in Toronto (3/26) and Vancouver (3/27). Fans in Toronto can check Dynamic Duo out at the Danforth Music Hall while those in Vancouver can catch them at the Vogue Theater. Both dates will include DJ Friz as their special guest and concert DJ. In an interview with MyMusicTaste, the concert organizers for Dynamic Duo's U.S. leg of the tour, Choiza built the hype up for Grand Carnival. "Our shows will be killer," he said. "We guarantee that you're gonna go in so hard that you won't have any energy left when you get home." "We're gonna get really crazy," he added. Tickets for Dynamic Duo's Canadian leg of the tour will go on sale on Feb. 25, while tickets for the concerts in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and Los Angeles are available now through MyMusicTaste. Japan can't seem to get enough of iKON! The YG Entertainment group's tour is drawing in fans from all across Japan following their chart-topping "Welcome Back" album. In the midst of their round-Japan tour, iKON most recently rocked Japan's new concert mecca Budokan on Monday, Feb. 15 with 13,000 fans in attendance. "Thanks to you guys, we were able to hold a concert in Budokan just a month after our debut in Japan," iKON members told Japanese fans, as reported by the Korea Times. On the whole, the Japanese arena tour, iKON Japan Tour 2016, is expected to attract 146,000 fans in total. iKON will continue on their Japanese tour with a stop in Kobe for two nights on Feb. 21 and 22. A little under a week after that, the group will head back to Korea for, iKONCERT 2016 Showtime Tour in Daegu and Busan. The SLFP does not condone the continuation of the Emergency Regulations (The Public Security Ordinance) more than a day necessary Read more This article appears in the February 19, 2016 issue of Executive Intelligence Review. Kesha Rogers: Mobilize the American Peopl e T o Restor e a Visio n of th e Future! [PDF version of this article] Feb. 12 On Lincolns birthday, February 12, 2016, former Democratic Congressional nominee Kesha Rogers was the featured speaker on the LaRouche PAC weekly webcast. Rogers, from Houston, Texas, is famous for her Congressional campaigns that called for the impeachment of Barack Obama and the revival of NASA. She was introduced by LaRouche PAC leader Matthew Ogden. Schiller Institute Matthew Ogden: To begin with, we have the responsibility to take a step back and look at the much bigger picture. We have a responsibility of leadership, as an organization, and as a movement which involves the viewers of this Webcast tonight. That responsibility of leadership requires us to go far beyond these immediate challenges, to look into the future, and to imagine what mankind can be, what mankind must be, and to take the necessary action to bring that future into being. The recent attention to the incomparable genius of Albert Einstein that has been forced upon us by a very interesting outcome of an experimental investigation that has just had results that were reported yesterday, forces us to consider, however, not just the outcome of that experiment, but to consider what mankind as a species is capable of, and what the identity of mankind as a species must become in a self-conscious way. Man Is Not an Earthling This is something that were going to take up in much more detail a little bit later in the broadcast tonight, but what we begin to consider, is that the space program as we knew it from President John F. Kennedy and others, is the necessary ingredient of a mission of any civilization which is worthy of representing mankind as a species on this planet. Mankind must not be a creature of the Earth. Man is not an Earthling. Mankind must be a creature of the stars! He must learn, both physically and mentally, how to navigate that wide ocean which is outer space. He must come to know what he does not know. He must come to understand the inner workings of the Galaxy which he is an integral part of, and also other galactic systems. And, he must come to know his role as a species within that complex of galactic systems which comprise the universe as we know it today. In doing so, man affirms his nature as a species completely unique among all species. Mr. LaRouche was emphatic that the insights of Vladimir Vernadskyand his understanding of the noosphere, and of the uniqueness of the human mind and the human species as a whole, setting mankind apart from the animalsare something which very few people understand today, but were the result of a very crucial investigation into the nature of the human race. Coincidentally, Vladimir Vernadsky and Albert Einstein were direct contemporaries. Einstein: Library of Congress We made great leaps, giant leaps, in this direction of man as a galactic species, not an earthbound species, with our landing of men on the Moon during the Apollo project of the 1960s and 1970s, and through other great accomplishments of that era. To a certain extent, the legacy of that era has continued along certain trajectories. But since that time, when the mission of man leaving this planet was a professed mission of the United States government itself under the figure of John F. Kennedy, since that time, our progress in that direction has been moving backwards, compared to where we should have been, where we should have come by now, had we continued that directionality, and especially compared to what other countries, most notably China, have now accomplished and are committed to accomplishing further in the very near future ahead. Where There Is No Vision As President John F. Kennedy was wont to say in several of his speeches, where he quoted Scripture, Where there is no vision, the people perish. That is absolutely true today. That is what the last 50 years of a backwards progress have brought us, as an American peopleas weve presented repeatedly over the past several weeks in this webcastand as a trans-Atlantic system, where we face an absolutely dire economic, social, and military crisis today. NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Collection Our job here this evening, is to take the necessary steps to restore that vision, and there is nobody more qualified to do that, in my opinion, than my good friend Kesha Rogers. Kesha Rogers: Thank you, Matthew! Well, I think what youve laid out, and also in the discussions we had with Mr. LaRouche, one thing thats important to point out is, this is the level of discussion which is absolutely critical to revive the educational and human commitment that has been lost in our society. The real question is, when were dealing with the space programand this is whats not being discussed in any of the political debates or in the space community itselfthis question of what is the nature of man and what is the responsibility to understand the mind of man as different from any other species, animal species, out there. The Nature of Man Ive gone to a number of events in the NASA community with certain representatives of the space community. You have a discussion where people want to talk about innovation or something of that nature; but whats missing right now, is that theres no real discussion of the principle of true discovery, of the principle of true creativity. If youre going to get back to the foundation of what our space program truly represents, then that has to be the focal point of what is understood and what we are fighting for. Looking at the space program, one of the things that is extremely important right now, is that what has been a dividing line, is this very question of what is the nature of man. Its not about money; its not about what projects are more reasonable or will actually work better; it is what is the destiny of mankind to discover and to do what has never been done before. I love the remarks by Mike Griffin, former NASA Administrator, who I believe made them in 2006, working under the [George W.] Bush Administration, who demonstrated the idea that mankind has always committed itself to doing that which is going to leave something behind for the children, grandchildren, next generations, like the building of great cathedrals. We think about Brunelleschi or Charlemagne, those individuals who played a significant role in creating something that they werent going to be able to see themselves, that they may not be able to participate in; but they knew that their responsibility was to actually create for the future. I think thats the ultimate question right now. What has been done in the progress of human society has been done with the intention of creating for the future. Zeus versus Prometheus When you remove the conception of the future, you deny that human beings have the ability to determine or act upon that future, as was the understanding of the fight between Zeus and Prometheus. Prometheus had a higher conception, that mankind can know, and not only know, can act on and create the future. How do we do this? We do this through discovery. We do this through understanding that human beings dont have to live like their fathers and grandfathers before them, like the beavers before them. We can create new discoveries! Thats what were finding, which has been essential in understanding what the space program brings us; in the understanding of the new principles that were put forth in developing the beautiful ideas that foster the creation of such wonderful and beautiful cathedrals, that mankind not only just enjoys, in terms of aesthetic beauty, but also which have created the ability to master science that had never been known before. Thats what the space program represents! The same idea is recognized when you look at music, what great Classical composition truly represents. The fostering of our society has been, always, to take the discoveries of mankind to the next level, to a higher conception, to a higher principle of mankind. The space program represents not just a program in itself, but what is the destiny of mankind. Krafft Ehricke I want to reiterate the beautiful example, again, of Krafft Ehricke, because I think this gets at the truly beautiful and fundamental conception as to why we have to have a space program. It is only for those very reasons, of the conception of what is the destiny of mankind, what is our responsibility. This is what we should be addressing in our educational systems; that, as Ehricke explained, The concept of space travel carries with it enormous impact, because it challenges man on practically all fronts of his physical and spiritual existence. The idea of traveling to other celestial bodies reflects to the highest degree the independence and agility of the human mind. It lends ultimate dignity to mans technical and scientific endeavors. Above all, it touches on the philosophy of his very existence. What we have to address, in terms of looking at what has been lost in the space program, is that very conception of touching on that which is human, and identifying that in which only mankind has the ability, based on our creative powers, created in the image of the Creator, to be able to participate. We have taken that away. We have taken away, through the actions of the last two administrations, through a policy of capitulation to Wall Street and a bankrupt financial system, the idea of our mission, as China has clearly set it forward. The paradox is that we have been denied access, through the insanity of certain Congress members and people who have taken away the potential for human beings to collaborate on discoveries that are going to impact all of mankind, by denying the access of NASA per se to work with China, when we had a clear understanding that nations had to work together if we were going to address the problems on Earth facing mankind, and that they were going to be addressed through making discoveries that would benefit all mankind. What Type of Future? So thats what we have to address right now. Can we get back to that understanding once again? What is going to be our direction? What type of future are we going to create for society and civilization? I think what we are seeing coming down the pike, a continued escalation toward war and chaos, means that we have a clear dividing line in front of us. This is extremely important: What the space program represents gives us a commitment again toward restoring the direction of mankind, and doing that which is our responsibility and intention to do. This article appears in the February 19, 2016 issue of Executive Intelligence Review. Prometheus in the T wenty-First Century [PDF version of this article] These are edited excerpts from Lyndon LaRouches dialogue with the LaRouche PAC Policy Committee on Feb. 8. Host Matthew Ogden: You have a quadrupling of the NATO expansion, the troop presence, and the advanced hardware on Russias border. You have the admission by top leading economists in Europe that this entire economic system is on the verge of disintegrating, and people are even talking about a debt jubilee, cancelling the debt. And youve got the fact that theres a very clear recognition of your leadership when it comes to shutting down Wall Street and reinstating the full Franklin Roosevelt program. Lyndon Larouche: One of my favorite sports. [laughter] Its become that. I didnt intend that to happen, but it did happen. Despite all my fervid intentions not to do that. But it is of that nature. We have to understand a lot of things, but most of all, we have to understand exactly what the world is like. Because whats happening now is that most of the nations which are trans-Atlantic nations, are actually in the mud right now. Theyre not performing well; quite the contrary. The options are concentrated largely in Russia, China, and their immediate friends. The British Empire is the cause of this general problem which the whole planet has been going through for a very long time, thats the thing thats dangerous, and thats the thing weve got to destroy. But then in the process of destruction, weve got to try to see how many parts of the human species can be rescued from this. You take, for example, California and the population of California, including the students and the young people. In general, theyve been destroyed, and the youth especially. And therefore, we recognize that China, Russia, and a few others, are well-organized to accomplish something, whatever the difficulties may be that they run into. But the point is that the United States, its people, the Americas in general, they are actually in a degenerated condition, and other parts of the world are also, with people who are running away from parts of the planet, dying at a great rate, great batches, all these things. Therefore, I think whats interesting for us, is that we do know what is happening in terms of the Eurasian area, the Eurasian population is progressive. The drive is against that from Europe, or from the trans-Atlantic area; and therefore, our problem is, we have to on the one hand, make sure that this one factor, the Eurasian factor, that that is kept as protected. And then weve got to put the leverage on to cure the other parts of the planet, which are in terrible and deteriorating condition, accelerating rates of degeneration. And so, these I think are two of the practical questions: What is good? What can be good? And what is very bad, and could be worse?. . . . Kesha Rogers of Houston, Texas: I would start from what Lyn presented last night to members of the organization (lead editorial of EIR No.7), in terms of the discussion we had, from the standpoint of FDR as the image of leadership, because most of the population has no conception of what the idea of a productive society looks like. And this gets to the heart of the flaw in education, the corruption of our education system. It gets to the heart of what has been done in the takedown of our space program. But I think that what should really be emphasized throughout, is that what youre fighting for is the defense of the human mind. Thats whats being targeted right now. And yet most people look at the space program as just a thing in and of itself, to protect certain programs, or so that people who have certain specialties will get money for their specialties, over other specialties. But once again, a national mission has to start with a higher conception of the fight for the human mind. And this is something that Mr. LaRouche has been addressing, you have been addressing for quite some time, from the standpoint of: Look at what we have done in terms of our ability with, say, the Mars Curiosity mission, that everyone got extremely excited about. This showed a new direction for mankind. And China is developing it even further, from the standpoint of the idea that the extended sensory apparatus of the mind of man would be able to go out into the distances of space, without particularly having to send human beings there. But you have a different conception of what these instruments are, and what are the data that its bringing back, showing to the population how it is actually bettering our understanding as human beings of the universe that we live in. One thing that I really want to put a focal point on, from the standpoint of the fight to defend NASA, is first of all, that we have lost touch with the idea of what NASA represents in terms of a fight to really protect the identity of the human mind, and what it really is supposed to represent. Im reading about and investigating a powerful lady by the name of Henrietta Leavitt. And Ive mentioned her before. Theres not a whole lot of work out there about her. Theres a book called, Miss Leavitts Stars. The idea is that she gets to this very point. She was a lady who was really spectacular in her discovery, because her discovery was not made from the standpoint of sending humans out into space, but from the standpoint of how far the mind can go, and how much the mind can discover, from the standpoint of understanding relationships. She made the discovery that by measuring the brightness and the period of pulsating stars we could determine the distances of stars and galaxies that later led to the overturning of the prevailing notion that our galaxy, the Milky Way, was the only galaxy out there, which was not true. And her discoveries helped us to better understand that. But more, her discoveries helped us to understand that we have a lot to learn about the universe we live in, and that only the human mind can help us to make that discovery. And thats just an example of what we can accomplish with the space program. And it also is an example of the fact that China is committed to doing that, and we can use that as an example, and get the United States back on that track. But once again, there has to be a national mission, and it has to be a mission centered around that type of identity. The Two Systems Cant Coexist LaRouche: In practice the area which is controlled, largely by Russia and China, and the nations which are now coming together grouped around them, are the only thing of any significance in a group or large-scale significance, which is going to do any good for mankind. In a sense, what you have to get rid of, is the trans-Atlantic community. Now, that doesnt mean youre going to eliminate the people, but it means youre going to eliminate their habit. And thats the only way youre going to do it. As a matter of fact, the only way you can get a healthy population on this planet is by crushing what we have in the trans-Atlantic region. Youve got to clean it up! You can talk and say, well, are we going to help cure people of their disease? How can you cure a person, when their life is based on their disease? And thats the point. You get things in Germany, for example. You have a complicated state of mind among the German population, because the German population is one of the least diseased in particular, of the trans-Atlantic community. There are reasons for that, but there also are reasons because the Germans were treated as pariahs on the basis of the Hitler phenomenon. It was just an arbitrary thing. The French system is a system thats rotten to the core! Yes, there are people there who are decent people among the French, but the system stinks! Its evil! And it spreads the evil, its spread it into Germany! Thats how the evil got back into Germany: It came by way of the British, the British by way of the French. So the French system is one of the chief instruments for the destruction of the minds of people in the trans-Atlantic community, especially in Europe. And you see this all over the place. So, we are going to have to actually, not wait and say cure people of their bad habits, that kind of thing, as we know from experience, doesnt work very well. When people get into bad habits, they generally defend the bad habits first. And they comment on the subject afterward. No! We are in a situation where we are ready for a global war. That doesnt mean its going to happen that way; it means that the condition of life in the trans-Atlantic community has reached such a nature, which is a British-dominated nature. Its British; and thats Satanic. So were in a situation where we are going to come to something which is tantamount to the edge of a war, a general war throughout the planet. Because you cannot have the two systems coexisting. You cannot have the kind of system that the British Empire represents in the trans-Atlantic community, at the same time that youre trying to rebuild an economy in Eurasia. So the conflict is going to be very tough. Perhaps even disastrous. But thats where we are right now. . . . A New System for Mankind LaRouche: Lets take the case of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire: What were looking at is a phenomenon very much like that, which is happening throughout the trans-Atlantic area. What we saw in the case of the Roman Empire was that this thing never cures itself. It was always evil. It was never purified. Only population reduction resulting from its policies made the disease of the empire less manifest. Were now in a situation which is comparable to the fall of the Roman Empire. What is the Roman Empire? Well, implicitly its the trans-Atlantic community, and the trans-Atlantic community is ready to go to Hell. And the point is, dont worry about that, dont try to save it. If you try to save the Roman Empire, if you read the Roman legacies and so forth, you find that didnt work very well at all. They got killed! Therefore, the point is, youre going to get an extermination of a policy, a mental case of outlook, which is going to be comparable to the decline of the Roman Empire. And as I say, the British Empire is the new Roman Empire, and the problem is that the British Empire, which includes the United States, still does mean the United States! Thats whats happened to the United States; it happened immediately with the beginning of the United States as a nation. The destruction was massive: most of the Presidents of the United States were actually enemies of the United States; most of them were! And thats why the problem keeps coming back, and still does. This is the Roman Empire, the Roman Empire model. And youve got the Eurasian model now, the resuscitation of China, and what Putin has done on his part. He was inspired on this thing. Remember, as Ive mentioned a number of times, his family, Putins family came from an area which was a concentration of death, because of the location of the battles there [Leningrad, now St. Petersburg]. And Putin has managed to be a factor in bringing about a strengthening of both China and Russia, to save Russia. And examine what the implications are; and what Ive seen from the areas I used to poke around in, you know, in India and so forth, areas which I was working in. And what were seeing is that this area, this Eurasian area contains within it elements which are the basis of creating or recreating a new system for mankind. And what the result will be, the characteristic built into this thing, the characteristic is, the space program. What do we mean by the space program? Well, not the space program the way the idiot thinks about the space program, but the space program as a reflection of the fact that mankind is getting wise. With the new Chinese far-side-of-the-Moon operation, mankind is getting wise to the reality that mankind on Earth is not the power that rules Earth; but rather, there is a force beyond that, which controls the achievement of space, and that means that mankind is a creature that lives in space. And its in that area, that domain, and the activities and development in that domain, which is the future for mankind. The important thing here is, you have to just take a little, short trip and think about it. What does this mean? And right now, the new Moon project is probably the key to bringing this idea not only into whats happening in China right now, but for the entire human species. But were going for a change in the species characteristics, from what had been traditional and what is going to emerge, now, from the new change. And so therefore, the idea, if you want to do something good, look at that. Dont ask what somebody says, well, I think that that is this; I think that that is that . . . Thats no good! The problem is that mankind has been a failure, but why has mankind been a failure? Not because of mankinds inherent nature. But because of his corruption. . . . Mankind Has To Change LaRouche: Einstein. Einstein was a unique figure in history during his generation. He was unique. That is, the scientists around him were failures, and those who would follow in the footsteps of those failures, are still failures; and theyve become worse failures than they were before. So mankind has to change. This is the thing I keep reminding people, from time to time, that mankind has a mission in the Universe, and it does not lie in some local area or some local scheme. Its like a harvesting process, that mankind is able to find in their own hands, like they have the right seeds, and get the right seeds in the process, and then the process of natural development of mankind proceeds, as being located within the Solar system. Now, thats not an extraordinary thing; its true! And Einstein is an example of exactly what that means, that is, his record, his legacy represents that. What was the difference with Einstein, what was the difference? Well, youve got two cases of his categorical discoveries, that these things introduce something. Then he died. Well, I dont know who to blame for his dying; but the problem is, his approach to science was killed! And you have people who are actually decent scientists, but theyre stuck on the implications of this thing. And we have a mission, and to me the mission is very clear: Weve got to get rid of the legacy which we cling to, like desperate people. And you have to understand that what people say is practical is what is evil. You want a definition of evil? Be practical! . . . They Want an Explanation LaRouche: You can use the term God, but I think that when people use those terms, they get trapped into a misunderstanding of what the whole meaning is. Look, whats the nature of mankind? What makes mankind different than any animal, what? Unique. What is it? Its the power of creativity. Now, what is this power of creativity? This can be expressed in a childs mind, in the question of the development of that mind. Because in the course of mankind, each generation of humanity should be making an original contribution to the future of mankind. And thats the intention here. So people say, God will do this, God will do that. Wait a minute, buddy! Whos this God that youre talking about? I mean, anybody that you know, personally, that you have worked with personally on this thing? Of course not! The problem is, they want to come out with an explanation. They want to create an image, an image of a Creator in whose existence they dont believe. That is, they dont believe in it in practice. Because they are not a person who has been generating creativity for mankind. And therefore, Einstein is very important for this, because heres a man whos an example by his life, by his work, and he was a creative person. What did he create? He created people! Well, didnt they already live? Yes! But what was the difference with the ones that worked with him? Under his influence, theyre quite different! Mankind is not waiting for birth out there, as such. Mankind is waiting to discover what mankind already has. The idea is that the human individual is able to create a power of creativity in the human being! And thats not something that dumps on you; thats something that comes from the process of your existence. And if you can achieve that progress, thats the proof of creativity. And the idea, the creativity which lies beyond the past, that is what the truth is. People say were going to inherit this, were going to inherit that no. Mankind as a species, develops within the body of mankind, the aptitude of creating creativity beyond anything that any living mind has heretofore done: the creativity of the individual. And its when you understand this, which has been my particular emphasis, thats what makes the difference. The human species is the only species we know of, which can voluntarily create a new state in the universe. All this other stuff, this substitute, Oh this is my explanation, my explanation, this is my opinion.. . . Its nonsense! The question is, mankind is unique in the Solar system, in the system as we know it. Mankind is unique, and the point is, if you dont get your children to grow up a little bit and become smarter and so forth, then youre working for Satan. We have a lot of those, like Trump, for example. [laughter] Michael Steger of San Francisco: Well, Lyn, implicitly, youve just taken the discussion to the area of what is your unique contribution to this whole idea, which is to make clear in a more scientific way the role of Classical music and composition in shaping the question of scientific thought in the human mind. It was understood, but yet really hadnt been made conscious; maybe you have more to say. But that seems to be where weve taken the discussion now. The Baby Genius LaRouche: It can be taken further, obviously, thats presumably an approximation. But no, the idea of mankind, inherently inherently within mankind, within the body of mankind, of people, mankind; that is where the creativity lies. You get a little baby started, and the baby functions, and the baby becomes a little genius as they call it; and you say, that is a creative force, that kind of creativity in the individual human being, as from a child, from a very young child who is fortunate enough to be able to develop a real force of creativity. You take the greatest, most creative people we know of in history, and they stand out for that. Keplers an example of that. Keplers a perfect example of that. And so, he was a genius; he died on the field of battle, but he wasnt fighting. He was just not getting fed; those were the conditions he was living under. But his discovery was unique! What he discovered on the question of the Solar system was unique! What we should be looking for is those things which are unique acts of creativity, and the promotion of them, and the development of the appreciation of them! And thats where the weakness lies, that we dont do that. We want an explanation, like a ready-made explanation. We dont have the force inside us to force ourselves to create something which is an absolutely new idea, which never came to any other person before. Never! And thats what youre looking for. And Einstein is a model of this kind of existence. Megan Beets of the LaRouche PAC Science Team: If you go back to what you brought up in the beginning about education, and you were just referencing the child, youre really discussing a process of play, of creative play; and in the child it takes one form, and in the adult it takes a slightly different form, which is what youre saying, the creation of something new which has never occurred before. LaRouche: Well, Ive had children, and Ive watched this, and Ive watched people at an earlier age in this sort of thing, and Ive seen it. We used to get fascinated by babies, you know, young babies, because you would see them doing something like that; you would see them doing something which was absolutely original; they would look at something and they would discover something. It was often silly, and this and that, but it was unique! And the very fact that it was something new which the child createdthe parents didnt do that, the child did; or the environment for the child. And therefore, this process in mankind which is unique to mankind, is the real principle of humanity. And when people dont do that, they fall out of the category of being useful. But this process, the universe obeys the principle, which is the same principle. The universe behaves according to that principle; thats how the whole system works anyway. Without that it doesnt work! Diane Sare of Manhattan: You know, in music, they go to great lengths to discourage creativity, and theres also a great deal of confusion people have today between creativity and what they call innovation. But I was just thinking, Furtwangler discussing why people love certain symphonies, where theres clearly a quality of Beethovens Fifth Symphony or Ninth Symphony, or certain pieces that have survived hundreds of years, and others that have fallen by the wayside; so that even in a dark age, theres something which is recognized as a certain unique quality which is accessible to the human population. LaRouche: Well, I think mankind has never, generally, with some rare exceptions, understood the truth about mankind. They always say, the baby was born or so forth, and that was what did it; but that wasnt what did it. It was a process, because the baby being born is a vehicle which may be a source within mankind as a community, of the development of the creative powers. And its the creative powers of the human mind which distinguish mankind from all other known living creatures. Rachel Brinkley of Boston: And so, history which seems to be a continuous process to many is more like Planck and Einstein would have viewed it, that there are characteristic changes, like supernovae, which actually are important; its the burst of activity, not the continuous wave of activity which actually defines the process. LaRouche: Thats the idea of having children, you know. The real motive of that. That since you have not produced enough creativity, yourself, go have a baby, and make sure that that baby makes an accidental discovery or what appears to be an accidental discovery; and you watch this child, and you say, this kids smarter than I am! [laughter] This is the way it all works! You see it, I mean, youll see it; a child coming in and making a statement which is actually a statement of a discovery that the childs mind has made! Thats the fun. So the question of creativity means that the whole system of the Solar system and beyond, is essentially dominated by these events, the same events which are the events who are characterized by the system, as a whole. Its there! The question is, what do you want to do? You want to create people who are creative. You want to be able to create babies, which are themselves creative in an original way. And you see that: Einstein was, for example, a good example of this, if you take what we know of his history, that human creativity is a unique matter; it is what really should dominate and control the history of mankind. And the problem is we then try to play around with games and tricks; it doesnt work. Einstein was against Satan. Thats the issue; it was Einstein. Oh, hes the guy who that hated Satan, taught him algebra. Filippo Brunelleschi Rogers: That is an interesting image, though, that you painted on this question of the baby being born as the source of creativity, because if you think about, it puts a whole different conception on the idea of, for instance, not just the human born child, but, I would say, the Baby Jesus. And that being a real source of, what is this idea of creativity that has been given to mankind? And I dont have a full idea about it, but that was just something I was thinking about, when you said that; and it brings forth this conception of looking at what Cusa was thinking about in his investigations from that standpoint in the De Docta Ignorantia [Learned Igorance. 1440]. But thats the first conception that came to my mind when you were saying that: Is this idea of this conception of the creativity from the standpoint of Christ being born into humanity and bringing forth this idea of what is the access of creativity to humanity? LaRouche: Take the case of Brunelleschi. Now, Brunelleschi was actually a unique person. And the discoveries that were made by him. He made them! And the people who were supposedly his rivals would sit there, foaming at the mouth, or something like that, and they would just sit there, because they couldnt make an invention. Wikimedia Now, we know that in the course of history there are people who seem to be unique in their ability to make these kinds of discoveries, that is discoveries of new principles, as opposed to the application of a known principle. Education at its best is the development of a known discovery of principle. But there are some people who are a little more creative and actually made creative discoveries as a matter of character. He was that: Brunelleschi. And you see, the Renaissance comes out of Brunelleschi, the Renaissance as it emerged. There were earlier forms of Renaissance. So what happens is, you find one person, like Brunelleschi who made greater discoveries than anyone in his lifetime, and from earlier! And there were people like that, in a similar way in earlier parts of history, the knowable people. So what you should search for is those kinds of cases where people do become original creators, and you want to understand how that works. And you may not make a discovery, but the discovery may make you. And thats the principle. You want a creation of people who can be creative. The other side of course, is the fact of what is evil. Obama is pure evil. You know, whatre you going to do? Get rid of him: Hes evil. He is Satanic, explicitly Satanic. So therefore, the question is weve got to eliminate Satanic influences inside our society. I think Trump is a failure as Satanic. Hes nasty, hes got all the disgusting characteristics you could possibly want. And yet, hes only a Trump. He steals a lot, tries to steal. But I think he has to beg more often than steal. This is the thing I keep saying repeatedly on these occasions: What is the nature of mankind? And mankind is a creative force unto itself; it is not something else. And the object is to get an environment in which you get more people who are actually truly creative. How do you do that? By protecting them as much as possible from the bastards who try to mold them. And our job is to do as much as we can to contribute to that process. PRESS RELEASE Were Insolvent, Puerto Rican Officials Declare; Debt Moratorium on the Table Feb. 17, 2016 (EIRNS)Following yesterdays release by the Puerto Rican government of the Consolidated Annual Financial Report (CAFR) for fiscal year 2014, top-level government officials announced very simply that the island government is "insolvent," and is considering a moratorium on payments due on May 1 and July 1, among others. "The Commonwealths management believes that there is substantial doubt as to the ability of the primary government" and other governmental entities "to continue as a going concern," the report warned. In an interview yesterday with radio WUNO, Finance Secretary Juan Zaragoza put it this way: "If, by insolvent, we mean were unable to make debt payments when theyre due, yes, we are insolvent." In a press conference yesterday, Primera Hora reported, Chief of Staff to Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla, Grace Santana, said that the emergency measures under consideration "will affect the rights of creditors and the payments due in May and July 1." The Government Development Bank (BGF) has $422 million coming due May 1, and the government and several agencies combined must pay $2 billion on July 1, $805 million of which are General Obligation (GO) bonds, which carry a constitutional mandate of payment. The CAFR, whose release Sen. Orin Hatch (R-UT) demanded to see, to determine whether Puerto Rico was being sufficiently "transparent" about its finances, confirms "the critical nature of the crisis," said BGF president, Melba Acosta; but, she emphasized, as did Santana, under no circumstances will public employees be fired, or their wages reduced, because this would worsen the crisis. She added, however, that if Puerto Ricos financial situation doesnt improve in the immediate future, it may be necessary to place some public agencies in receivership. Whatever measures are required to guarantee continued essential services, will be taken, she admonished. Gov. Garcia Padilla issued a statement yesterday accompanying the release of the CAFR, again demanding that Congress act and grant the Commonwealth bankruptcy protection and the ability to restructure its debts. At a White House seminar with Puerto Rican labor and business leaders yesterday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew also urged Congress to act swiftly. Taiwan has been a democracy since the 1980s, but in the decades after World War II it was under one-party rule or rather military dictatorship by the Kuomintang. In the novel Green Island, 14 years in the making, Shawna Yang Ryan tells the story of this tortured era through the struggles of one family that lives through it all at enormous cost. The unnamed narrator is the youngest child of the Tsai family, born Feb. 28, 1947, the day of the horrendous massacre that marked the beginning of martial law in Taiwan. The novel follows her across six decades, tracing her youth in Taiwan, her life in the U.S., and her visits home as an American citizen. Two weeks after her birth, her father is taken away for speaking against the government, one of a vast number of dissidents fallen victim to the Kuomintang. The disappearances were an island-wide secret we would not know for decades that the dead measured in the tens of thousands. Advertisement Unlike the many martyrs, who are memorialized as heroes, the father survives. He returns home after a 10-year absence a broken man, and the long-hoped-for reunion is sad and uneasy. The narrator has no memory of this stranger (I stared at his damaged teeth until my mother snapped at me to keep eating); his long-suffering wife finds that "[w]aiting had been easier. She had considered only happy endings, which this is not. His very survival becomes a mark of dishonor because it is assumed to have come at a cost. Ryan paints a chilling, convincing picture of Taiwan during the years of authoritarian rule. Speech, of course is limited even if no one believed the lie, they could do nothing but shut up and take it and write thinly veiled poems and make thinly veiled films and write thinly veiled songs. The whole country existed in metaphor. The regime encourages citizens to spy on each other and report every hint of dissidence. The Tsais are forced into impossible situations, weighing betrayals against betrayals. Even after she immigrates to the States, where she arrives dizzy, the past wiped away by an ocean, the future unfurling like an unexploited continent, the narrator finds herself followed by the long arm of martial law when she and her husband harbor an infamous political refugee. Thirty years after her fathers arrest, with her daughters to protect, she is forced to make the decisions that will define her own life. Green Island is an ambitious book a historical novel, a family saga, an immigrant tale and it manages to achieve its most sweeping goals. It is less successful on a granular level. The personal moments lack the power of the political. Some of the relationships are unconvincing the narrators marriage, in particular, invites little emotional investment. A strange last act in 2003, years after democracy wins the day feels tacked on and saccharine, and the SARS scare offers a less compelling backdrop than Taiwans White Terror. The prose is also uneven. There are lovely moments (The world reverses, and through the breaks in the clouds and for hours and hours, the blue ocean) but several awkward ones as well (Like a snake eating its tail, they talked in circles, working up to a fever pitch.) The narrator has an unfortunate tendency toward grand pronouncements: The world does not happen the way we lay it out on paper: one event after another, one word following the next like a trail of ants; In a way, werent they all widows selling black market cigarettes? To be fair, Green Island is a grand project, even with its imperfections. It stands as a tribute to the flawed survivors of Taiwans history, the men more complicated than martyrs the families whod had to relearn the hardships of the everyday. Cha is the author, most recently, of the novel Dead Soon Enough. :: Green Island Shawna Yang Ryan Knopf: 400 pp., $26.95 A Southern California congressman and two other representatives are calling for an investigation of Shell Oil over whether it deceived the public on climate change at the same time it was preparing its business operations for rising sea levels. In a Feb. 17 letter to U.S. Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch, the three members of Congress said growing evidence suggests there may have been a conspiracy between Shell, Exxon Mobil and potentially other companies in the fossil fuel industry. U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) sent the letter along with Rep. Peter Welch of Vermont and Rep. Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania, both Democrats. Advertisement See the most-read stories this hour >> Their letter cites an investigation published by the Los Angeles Times that reported that in 1989 Shell Oil announced it was redesigning a long-term, $3-billion natural gas platform in the North Sea to deal with rising sea levels from global warming. Despite this and other incidents, the congressmen noted, Shell apparently decided to fund climate deniers. Reporters for Columbia University Energy and Environmental Reporting Fellowship, in partnership with The Times published reports based on internal company documents suggesting that during the 1980s and 1990s, Exxon, as it was known then, used climate research as part of its planning and other business practices. But the company simultaneously argued publicly that climate-change science was not clear cut. The nonprofit InsideClimate News also published several stories based on the documents. California Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris is investigating whether Exxon Mobil repeatedly lied to the public and its shareholders about the risk to its business from climate change and whether such actions could amount to securities fraud and violations of environmental laws. New Yorks attorney general also is investigating the oil company as a result of the published reports. As members of the Oversight Committee, we now ask that Shell also be investigated for intentionally hiding the truth about climate change and embarking on a massive campaign of denial and disinformation, the letter states. Shell spokesman Curtis Smith responded to the letter by saying that Shells public position on climate change and the challenge CO2 poses is well known and can be documented for over a decade through publications such as the Shell Annual Report and the Shell Sustainability Report. Recognizing the climate challenge and the role energy has in enabling a decent quality of life, we continue to pursue and advance constructive dialogue on this topic as the challenge is one for all of society. For more energy news, follow Ivan Penn on Twitter: @ivanlpenn. ALSO FBI searches home of San Bernardino terror gunmans brother L.A. files $20-million lawsuit against Da Vinci Apartments developer over huge downtown fire In a major shift, bullet train will start in Bay Area, not L.A., officials say A year after announcing he would partner with the Los Angeles Times on a race- and identity-focused news venture, journalist Jose Antonio Vargas on Thursday announced plans to launch the project independently. Hes now seeking to raise $1 million for the #EmergingUS venture through journalism crowdfunding site Beacon, which will match up to $500,000 in donations. In a video released Thursday, Vargas said the media business lacked diversity and that he was starting this to declare independence from a media infrastructure that does not represent us. Advertisement See the most-read stories this hour >> The media, they like to think that, Oh, theres a black story, theres a Latino story, theres an Asian story, theres a gay story, Vargas said in the video. Theres a huge disconnect between the people who are working in American newsrooms and the people they are trying to represent. Vargas and former Times Publisher Austin Beutner announced the partnership last February, and a formal launch was planned for September. But Times owner Tribune Publishing fired Beutner on Sept. 8., prompting a reconsideration of the venture. It really forced me to think about what made sense for EmergingUS, Vargas told The Times on Thursday. #EmergingUS was conceived as a video-heavy news site that would focus on race, ethnicity and identity. Vargas said the only difference now is that it will be a stand-alone entity. Times spokeswoman Hillary Manning said in a statement Thursday that the company has agreed to transfer assets developed for the project to Vargas but could not disclose financial details. We have enjoyed collaborating with Jose and wish him every success with #EmergingUS, she said. Vargas also declined to discuss any financial details of the split. A former Washington Post reporter, Vargas rose to national prominence in 2011 when the New York Times magazine published an essay in which he revealed he had been brought to the United States illegally as a child. james.koren@latimes.com Twitter: @jrkoren ALSO Op-Ed: Jose Antonio Vargas: Im not an alien Victim killed in Hollywood Freeway crash was a Los Angeles Times employee Tribune Publishing, Digital First Media bid to buy bankrupt O.C. Register A court order requiring Apple to create a way to help law enforcement get access to a terrorists smartphone amounts to an unprecedented stretch of an antiquated law one that is likely to spark an epic fight pitting privacy against national security, legal scholars said Thursday. Typically, law enforcement has filed for warrants under seal, and courts have issued orders under seal, to protect the confidentiality of ongoing criminal investigations. But a federal judge in New York decided last fall to unseal portions of such a case. It revealed that Apple had turned over information to law enforcement about 70 times in recent years, according to the government, based on court orders citing an obscure 1789 law called the All Writs Act. The act, passed in the judiciarys infancy, allowed courts to issue orders if other judicial tools were unavailable. Advertisement Join the conversation on Facebook >> This weeks court order was different from those issued in the past, however. It requires Apple to create new software, experts said, not provide technology already at hand. This is a new frontier, said Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at Stanford Law Schools Center for Internet and Society. I know of no other statutory provision that would arguably create an obligation for device manufacturers to help out the government. Apple may not have fought orders in the past because it was easy for Apple to give the data, she said. But the architecture of the phones changed, she said. This is about Apple creating a new forensic version of its software to do the job the FBI wants it to do. Apple was caught off guard by the governments decision to go public with its request. Legal experts said the government probably decided to file publicly because it wants a debate on the issue framed by a case that poses strong emotions and fears. The company has hired Ted Olson and Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., two of the lead lawyers who successfully challenged Californias previous ban on same-sex marriage. They are expected to argue the order violates constitutional provisions as well as the All Writs Act and would create bad public policy. Law enforcement has relied on a 1977 Supreme Court ruling that said the All Writs Act could be used to compel New York Telephone Co. to provide technology to enable investigators to track calls being made in a gambling operation. The phone company was a heavily regulated public utility and already had the technology, key differences from the Apple case, experts said. UC Irvine School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky said a carefully drafted federal law giving law enforcement the right to get around encryption in certain compelling situations probably would be constitutional. But he doubted a court could force a company to write software. You cant subpoena or get a warrant for something that doesnt exist, he said. The case, which will be heard in the magistrates courtroom next month, will then go before a federal district judge. If appealed, the case will be heard by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and possibly the U.S. Supreme Court. Although the case could be fast-tracked, Chemerinsky said the Supreme Court probably would not want to hear one that poses such novel issues without a hearing by an appeals court. Context is everything, he said. I dont think the courts have the authority to tell someone to write software, but if the reason is to prevent a dirty bomb from exploding tomorrow, the context would matter a lot. David OBrien, senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, said Apple is likely to argue that the governments demand would place an unreasonable burden on the company. But the government can counter that public safety is at stake. Its a case of domestic terrorism, an attack that resulted in the death of more people than any other case since 9/11, OBrien said. There are a lot of emotions behind this that are fueling the governments argument of why we should make an exception this one time. USC law professor Valerie Barreiro agreed with other experts that the governments request was unprecedented. The All Writs Act says it cannot be used in a way that is not harmonious with the principles of the law, she said. As it goes through the appellate process, I do not think the order will stand, said Barreiro, interim director of the law schools Intellectual Property and Technology Law Clinic. In the New York case, U.S. District Magistrate Judge James Orenstein balked at ordering Apple to unlock a customers smartphone. He wanted to know first whether the assistance sought by the government was technically feasible and whether the proposed order would be unduly burdensome. Apple had the technology to give the government, but the criminal defendant in the case later confessed and opened his phone for investigators. Both Apple and the government have asked Orenstein to rule anyway. See the most-read stories this hour >> In an order last fall, Orenstein noted that the White House and Congress have considered updating a law to require technology companies to provide the means of entering encrypted smartphones but have not reached a consensus that such action is warranted. Congress has failed to act on concerns expressed by the Justice Department and the FBI about the lack of such legislation, Orenstein wrote, and several of its members have introduced legislation to prohibit exactly what the government now asks the court to compel. Lee Tien, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said as the California case progresses, the public may learn much more about law enforcement getting court orders to force tech companies to help the government defeat privacy barriers. A lot of this stuff does not see light of day, said Tien, who added that he has spoken to Apple about filing an amicus brief in the case. I dont know that there arent 17 other cases where the DOJ has gone to judges and got what they wanted regarding Google or Samsung. He said the fact that prosecutors havent asked to seal the filings in the current case indicated that the government, as much as Apple, wanted a public debate over the necessity or propriety of ways around phone encryption. You make it a campaign issue and candidates weigh in, feel like they have to support the FBI against Apple, he said. By making it public, more people may have to take a stand, win or lose in the courts. In a report issued in November, the Manhattan district attorneys office said there were 111 cases in the preceding year in which prosecutors werent able to access a phone for which they had obtained a search warrant. The devices were running the latest Apple operating system with enhanced encryption. The cases included homicide, sexual abuse of a child and sex trafficking, according to the report. The result will be crimes that go unsolved, harms that go unanswered, and victims who are left beyond the protection of the law, the report said. With the new encryption, smartphones have become even more inaccessible for law enforcement than peoples homes or bank vaults, the report said. It argued that companies cooperation would not lead to repressive regimes demanding the same access to commit human rights violations. If Apple and Google were to cater to the whims of repressive countries, it would be because they chose to do so, not because they were forced to, the report said. Stanfords Granick said Apples position probably would prevail eventually. I dont think we are prepared, for a variety of reasons, to say to all our industries that they are going to have to create forensic tools for the government, she said. maura.dolan@latimes.com Twitter: @mauradolan victoria.kim@latimes.com Twitter: @vicjkim MORE ON APPLE VS. THE FBI High-profile attorney Ted Olson joins Apples fight against FBI terror probe Court order in San Bernardino case could force Apple to jeopardize phone security Apple opposes order to help FBI unlock phone belonging to San Bernardino shooter As hackers prove time and again that they can and will invade our digital lives, Apple Inc. has strengthened its security system to make its services nearly impossible to penetrate even for top cops. Those seemingly airtight protections are great for the companys millions of customers, and rival device makers have rushed to emulate Apple. But as tech companies build virtual fortresses, authorities are mounting a battle to make sure the tech industry doesnt completely shut them out as it contends Apple has done by making its iPhone impossible for the FBI to crack. At the heart of the issue is encryption, a way to secure a digital file by scrambling its contents so that it can be read only by someone who has the key. Tech firms are increasingly encrypting their software, and Apple has been at the forefront. Advertisement SIGN UP for the free California Inc. business newsletter >> But sealing off the personal information of customers extends to everyone the good guys and the bad guys. Thats uncharted territory for tech companies, government agencies and consumers, leaving everyone struggling to figure out how far, exactly, encryption protections should extend. We need privacy and security, and frankly Apple has done a better job than most, said Mark Mollineaux Pollitt, adjunct professor at Syracuse University and former director of the FBIs Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory Program. We shouldnt punish them for doing that. We should find a way to broaden that and make that more effective, but we have to realize there are instances where we have to breach that security to protect all of us. But not everyone sees it as a gray area, where exceptions can be made for extreme cases like terrorism or child pornography. This week, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook took a defiant stance, saying his company would fight a court order in the San Bernardino terror investigation that asks the company to develop, for the first time, software that would allow authorities to circumvent the passcode on the encrypted phone. Apples decision isnt without critics, who say courts should be the arbiter of where the line is drawn. Apple is obstructing the course of law enforcement and effectively aiding terrorists, said Vivek Wadhwa, a corporate governance fellow at Stanford University. They changed the technology, so they have to keep up with the ability to unlock the device if the government asks them do it. Thats not unreasonable. As it is, the FBI is publicly admitting that it is locked out, said Jeff Kelley, an iOS developer at software firm Detroit Labs who builds apps for iPhones, iPods, iPads and Mac OS. If youre Apple, you couldnt ask for a better ad for iPhone encryption. Thats a nightmare for the FBI. The agency wants to retrieve whatever resides on the iPhone 5c of Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the two slain shooters who killed 14 people in the Dec. 2 attack. But the smartphones iOS operating system is locked by a numeric passcode, likely four digits long. The FBI potentially has only 10 guesses before the phones contents self-destruct. Older versions of the operating system provided ways for Apple and even law enforcement to access at least some contents on the phone, even if it was password-protected. For example, older iPhone models were susceptible to unlimited password guessing. In other cases, Apple held a master key, and authorities could ship the company an iPhone and get a DVD or hard drive back with the data from it. But Apple, in effect, threw away its master key when it deployed a new version of iOS in 2014. Farooks phone runs one of the newer iOS versions. Join the conversation on Facebook >> Adding to the FBIs problems is that Apple is judge, jury and executioner when deciding what software runs on an iPhone: An app or program wont work without a special signature from Apple. The set-up is aimed at stopping viruses or malware from infecting iPhones, and it also gives Apple latitude to ban apps it doesnt want to support, including for competitive or cultural reasons. Thats significantly more control than Google exercises over smartphones running its open-source Android operating system. Many Android phones support so-called unsigned programs, providing one of the key doors through which law enforcement has been able to extract data from locked phones. About 80% of the worlds smartphones run Android, and about 15% run iOS, according to various estimates. In general, hardware makers have been making stricter security settings a default on their devices. But while those measures and more have deflected thieves, they left room for law enforcement to acquire data when needed. Not so with Apple. Besides encryption, the company in 2013 introduced Touch ID, a fingerprint scanner that allows users to unlock their phones by pressing their fingers on the devices home button. This weeks court order requires the FBI and Apple to work in tandem to develop a tool that preserves the data on Farooks phone while allowing an app devised by the FBI to input an unlimited number of passcodes until it guesses the right one. That has never before been seen, said Kevin Bocek, vice president of threat intelligence and security strategy at cybersecurity company Venafi. Apple has very aggressively maintained security, and this is the way the government is going to get around it. Generating the new software for the FBI wouldnt be trivial, but its certainly doable, experts said. Apple would need to make the special code run on the iPhones short-term memory to ensure it doesnt tamper photos, text messages and other potentially critical evidence, said Dan Guido, chief executive of security start-up Trail of Bits. The code would get rid of the barriers that normally arise when someone tries too many times to guess a users passcode. Last, it would have to include a funnel for automated guessing, freeing the FBI from manually entering potentially tens of thousands of numeric combinations. Even though its technically capable of carrying out the FBIs orders, Apple and its supporters reject the notion that this would be a one-time thing. Jonathan Zdziarski, one of the top experts on iPhone security, said the work doesnt end there. If Apple ends up creating a tool, it would need to be tested, including by outside forensic specialists, to stand up to legal scrutiny if evidence retrieved from the phone is ever used in court. That vetting process could drag on for months and risks exposing the tool to people with malicious intent. Theres fear that once a safe-cracking tool is developed, law enforcement agencies from all over the world will repeatedly request its use. Theyve brought a phone that would be easy to justify developing a tool for a terrorists but it will be much easier for a court to compel Apple to use it in the future once its out there, Zdziarski said. Apple could update iOS to stop the tool developed for Farooks iPhone from working on other ones by requiring consumer consent to run it, but the precedent of making it is irreversible, technologists say. You can rationalize it, these are known bad people, this is a known domestic terrorism case and its one iPhone, said Oren Falkowitz, chief executive of security firm Area 1 Security and a former director of technology and data science programs at U.S. Cyber Command. But it has implications for all technologies across the globe. We have to be doing more to strengthen the security of the Internet ... or well suffer consequences, ... greater than whatever information might be on this one phone. paresh.dave@latimes.com tracey.lien@latimes.com Twitter: @peard33 and @traceylien MORE ON APPLE VS. THE FBI High-profile attorney Ted Olson joins Apples fight against FBI terror probe Court order in San Bernardino case could force Apple to jeopardize phone security Apple opposes order to help FBI unlock phone belonging to San Bernardino shooter Authorities investigating the shooting in San Bernardino that killed 14 people in December -- the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. since 9/11 -- recovered three cellphones belonging to the assailants. Two of them had been destroyed, while a third one found in the shooters vehicle was locked by a short, numeric passcode. The FBI wants to hack into that Apple iPhone 5C, which was shooter Syed Rizwan Farooks work phone from the San Bernardino County Department of Health. Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, died in a firefight with police hours after the attack. Authorities and Apple Inc. held discussions for about a month about ways to unlock the device, coming up with no amicable solution. It is the tech giants policy to require law enforcement to obtain search warrants or subpoenas before aiding in investigations. That prompted the FBI to seek a court order requiring Apples assistance, which a U.S. magistrate granted Tuesday. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cooks public vow to fight the order set off a worldwide debate about whether technology providers should be able to protect users data so securely that law enforcement is effectively shut out from ever getting it. Senior Apple executives underscored Friday that they have no intention of backing down. Federal prosecutors and Apple also separately disclosed new details about what transpired privately in the weeks leading up to their very public legal battle this week. Heres a look at some of the key points in the battle. Apples software deters the FBI from attempting to guess Farooks passcode. The FBI potentially has only 10 guesses before the phone's contents self-destruct, and time delays are imposed between incorrect guesses to discourage rapid-fire attempts. Adding to the FBI's problems is that Apple is judge, jury and executioner when deciding what software runs on an iPhone: An app or program won't work without a special signature from Apple. The set-up is aimed at stopping viruses or malware from infecting iPhones, and it also gives Apple latitude to ban apps it doesn't want to support, including for competitive or cultural reasons. This hinders the FBI from developing its own tool to get around the passcode issues. ( Infographic: How the iPhone's security measures work) The FBI wants a way to easily guess Farooks passcode. This week's court order requires the FBI and Apple to work in tandem to develop software that preserves the data on Farook's phone while allowing an app devised by the FBI to input an unlimited number of passcodes until it guesses the right one. It marks the first time Apple has been ordered to develop software that would allow authorities to circumvent the passcode on an encrypted phone. (Read the full story: Apple CEO says helping FBI hack into terrorist's iPhone would be 'too dangerous') Generating the new software for the FBI wouldn't be trivial, but it's certainly doable, experts said. The code would get rid of the barriers that normally arise when someone tries too many times to guess a user's passcode. And it would have to include a funnel for automated guessing, freeing the FBI from manually entering potentially tens of thousands of numeric combinations. Tashfeen Malik, left, and Syed Farook at OHare International Airport in Chicago on July 27, 2014. (U.S Customs and Border Protection) Apple is refusing a court order because it says honoring the warrant sets a dangerous precedent. "Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help [investigators]," Cook wrote this week. "But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create." (Read the full story: Apple opposes order to help FBI unlock phone belonging to San Bernardino shooter) There's fear that once a safe-cracking tool is developed, law enforcement agencies from all over the world will repeatedly request its use. The magistrate in the San Bernardino case directed Apple to target its software to only Farooks phone, but swapping the unique identifier of his device for someone elses could be simple as long as Apple lends its signature, computer forensics experts said. Apple could update iOS to stop the tool developed for Farook's iPhone -- if it is eventually created -- from working on other ones, or by requiring consumer consent to run it, but the precedent of making such a workaround is irreversible, technologists say. "If this decision is upheld, it would mean the FBI could get a judicially mandated back door into any device to get access to its content, and it would mean a weakening of encryption in all those devices," said Gregory T. Nojeim, director of the Freedom, Security and Technology Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology. Apple's decision isn't without critics, who say courts should be the arbiter of where the line is drawn. "Apple is obstructing the course of law enforcement and effectively aiding terrorists," said Vivek Wadhwa, a corporate governance fellow at Stanford University. "They changed the technology, so they have to keep up with the ability to unlock the device if the government asks them do it. That's not unreasonable." Others have similar opinions. (Read the full story: In San Bernardino, where terrorists struck, residents debate FBI vs. Apple) The FBI says its about this one phone. Security experts think its a bigger deal. Investigators are hoping the data on the iPhone will help answer several questions that have persisted since the shooting. It remains unclear why Farook left a bag with several pipe bombs in the conference room where he and his wife opened fire, why the bombs were not detonated, or if the couple were plotting other attacks. Additional evidence also could prove valuable in the case against Enrique Marquez Jr., a friend of Farooks, who has pleaded not guilty to buying two rifles used in the shootings and providing material support for terrorists and other crimes. Location data on the phone, among other pieces of information, could also help investigators answer questions about the couples movements during an 18-minute gap in the FBIs timeline of their actions following the shooting. Oren Falkowitz, chief executive of security firm Area 1 Security and a former director of technology and data science programs at U.S. Cyber Command, is among those who said the order has ramifications beyond this one case. "We have to be doing more to strengthen the security of the Internet ... or we'll suffer consequences ... greater than whatever information might be on this one phone, he said. (Read the full story: Battle lines drawn over encryption as Apple rebuffs FBI) IPhone encryption has already thwarted many cases. The Manhattan district attorneys office said it has been locked out of 176 Apple devices, or about 26% of the 670 Apple devices its lab has checked out since October 2014. The cases included homicide, sexual abuse of a child and sex trafficking, according to the report. "The result will be crimes that go unsolved, harms that go unanswered, and victims who are left beyond the protection of the law," the report said. SIGN UP for the free California Inc. business newsletter >> Prosecutors have harshly criticized Apple, accusing it of refusing to comply to protect its brand. Federal prosecutors contended in a motion Friday that the company was not above the law and could easily help the government unlock one terrorists smartphone without undermining anyone elses privacy. Apples current refusal to comply with the court's order, despite the technical feasibility of doing so, instead appears to be based on its concern for its business model and public brand marketing strategy, prosecutors wrote in a filing asking the court to compel Apple to immediately aid the FBI. Prosecutors on Friday also sought to downplay the issue of encryption technology in the terror case, arguing that the software its seeking from Apple amounts to an innocuous update. The company regularly issues updates that modify settings, the court filing said. (Read the full story: Feds slam Apple, saying it could easily help unlock iPhone and is 'not above the law') With Farook dead and his employer, which owns the iPhone, consenting to the search, using the requested software would not invade anyones privacy and wouldnt undermine encryption, prosecutors contend. An additional safeguard is the phone would need to be in Apple or authorities' possession for the proposed tool to work, according to the company. This court should not entertain an argument that fulfilling basic civic responsibilities of any American citizen or company -- complying with a lawful court order -- could be obviated because that company prefers to market itself as providing privacy protections that make it infeasible to comply with court-issued warrants, prosecutors said. In addition, the federal government reiterated its stance that Apple has the means to fulfill the court order. As of Wednesday, the company was still weighing how complicated it would be to develop such a tool for the FBI. At no point has Apple ever said that it does not have the technical ability to comply with the order, or that the order asks Apple to undertake an unreasonable challenging software development task, prosecutors wrote Friday. On this point, Apples silence speaks volumes. Legal scholars say the FBIs argument is an unprecedented stretch of an old law. "This is a new frontier," said Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society. "I know of no other statutory provision that would arguably create an obligation for device manufacturers to help out the government." UC Irvine School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky said a carefully drafted federal law giving law enforcement the right to get around encryption in certain compelling situations probably would be constitutional. But he doubted a court could force a company to write software. "You can't subpoena or get a warrant for something that doesn't exist," he said. The foundation for the order is a 1789 law called the All Writs Act. The act, passed in the judiciary's infancy, allowed courts to issue orders if other judicial tools were unavailable. Apple has turned over information based on the All Writs Act to law enforcement about 70 times in recent years, according to the government. Law enforcement has relied on a 1977 Supreme Court ruling that said the All Writs Act could be used to compel New York Telephone Co. to provide technology to enable investigators to track calls being made in a gambling operation. The phone company was a heavily regulated public utility and already had the technology, key differences from the Apple case, experts said. (Read the full story: Apple-FBI fight over iPhone encryption pits privacy against national security) The legal battle is expected to kick off next month. The case, which will be heard in the magistrate's courtroom next month, will then go before a federal district judge. Apple has until Feb. 26 to file its initial arguments in the case. If appealed, the case will be heard by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and possibly the U.S. Supreme Court. Apple has hired Ted Olson and Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., two of the lead lawyers who successfully challenged California's previous ban on same-sex marriage. They are expected to argue the order violates constitutional provisions as well as the All Writs Act and would create bad public policy. Fulfilling the government's demand would place an unreasonable burden on the company, they could contend. Law enforcement had easier access to iPhone data previously. Older versions of the iPhones iOS operating system provided ways for Apple and even law enforcement to access at least some contents on the phone, even if it was password-protected. For example, older iPhone models were susceptible to unlimited password guessing. In other cases, Apple held a master key, and authorities could ship the company an iPhone and get a DVD or hard drive back with the data from it. But Apple, in effect, threw away its master key when it deployed iOS 8 in 2014. Farook's phone runs one of the newer iOS versions. Alternatively, the government has sometimes been able to get iPhone data through an iCloud backup. But iCloud doesnt store all the data on the phone, and in Farooks case, the FBI argues he intentionally disabled the iCloud function six weeks before the shooting. Any communications during that time that may be linked to the shooting, as well as location data that might help the FBI map the movements of Farook and his wife before and after the attack, are accessible only through the phone itself, the government said. Also a problem: Within 24 hours of the shooting rampage, the phones owner possibly Farooks employer, the San Bernardino County public health department reset the password to Farooks iCloud account to access data from the backup, according to Apple and federal officials. That means the iCloud password on the iPhone itself is now wrong, and it wont back up unless someone can get past the phones passcode and change it. The issue was discovered after Apple engineers sent to Southern California to work with the FBI struggled to trigger an automatic backup, Apple said. When iCloud is enabled, iPhones automatically sync with the cloud if they are charging and are connected to a familiar Wi-Fi network. (Read the full story: Apple and feds reveal San Bernardino shooter's iCloud password was reset hours after attack) Apple executives and security experts also are unsure about whether Farook disabled the backup function. Among the possibilities: An iPhone operating system update Oct. 21 could have disrupted iCloud settings; the iCloud storage space could have been full; or Farook may never have returned to a location where the automatic backup would have been activated. The iPhone 5C does not have a Touch ID fingerprint sensor, removing another possible key to the phone. Getting data off Android phones is often easier. Google exercises minimal control over smartphones running its open-source Android operating system. Many Android phones support so-called unsigned programs, providing one of the key doors through which law enforcement has been able to extract data from locked phones. Devices such as Cellebrite and software such as EnCase aid the effort. FBI Director James Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats to America and its allies, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on Feb. 9. (Molly Riley / AFP/Getty Images) Lawmakers and the FBI are pushing for a permanent backdoor into all cellphones, but cybersecurity experts say backdoors could create problems for U.S. tech companies who do business in places like China and Europe. Recently, FBI Director James Comey, Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch and other national security leaders met with representatives from Google, Apple and Facebook in San Jose to try to find common ground that would help investigators gain crucial information about possible terror plots without compromising the privacy of the companies customers. Although the tech industry says it wants to help, it's reluctant to give away private information and data to government agencies, arguing that doing so fosters user distrust and raises the risk of hacker attacks. When it comes to doing business abroad, tech companies are being squeezed on both sides: If they dont give up access to user data, they risk angering governments. But if they are perceived as selling products that arent secure, consumers wont buy them. And that hurts the all-important bottom line. If Apple is forced to comply, it could bolster recent efforts by countries such as China to curb its citizens privacy in the name of national security. This completely undermines privacy overseas and if the administration thinks this precedent wouldnt be used by China, Russia and others then they are in serious error, said Nicholas Weaver, a senior researcher at the International Computer Science Institute at UC Berkeley. Should an iPhone belonging to a suspected terrorist from Chinas fractious Xinjiang province require decryption, Beijing, along with popular opinion, wouldnt afford Apple the ability to argue its case like its doing in the U.S. Cook is leading the charge, but several tech CEOs are backing him. Cooks hard-line stance on privacy could define his legacy at Apple and set the tone for the way big corporations deal with big government at a time when so much of our lives unfold on the devices we use every day. How far Cook is willing to take the fight is being tested on a national level now. (Read the full story: Tim Cook's stance on privacy could define his Apple legacy) Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai and Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey have tweeted supportive responses. Jan Koum, chief executive and co-founder of mobile messaging app WhatsApp, backed Cook in a Facebook post. Facebook itself issued a statement Thursday afternoon that did not mention Apple or Cook by name. Several other tech companies and their leaders have said nothing, or have talked about encryption and security in more general terms. Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL each signed joint statements made by larger tech company associations, but spokespeople for those companies said Thursday that the firms would not comment beyond those statements. (Read the full story: Apple vs. the FBI: Facebook, Twitter, Google, John McAfee and more are taking sides) Encryption could become a presidential election issue. GOP front-runner Donald Trump said he was floored that Apple had not volunteered to aid the FBI. "Who do they think they are?" he asked on Fox News this week. Speaking to reporters in South Carolina, Sen. Marco Rubio said he hoped the tech giant would voluntarily comply with the government's request, but acknowledged the court order is far from a simple issue. A Pew Research poll last year found 54% of Americans disapprove of the U.S. government's collection of telephone and Internet data to help fight terrorism. Times staff writers Brian Bennett, Paresh Dave, Maura Dolan, Victoria Kim, Tracey Lien, Julie Makinen, David Pierson, James Queally, Joel Rubin and Richard Winton contributed to this report. IN DEPTH: Battle lines drawn over encryption as Apple rebuffs FBI Apple-FBI fight over iPhone encryption pits privacy against national security In San Bernardino, where terrorists struck, residents debate FBI vs. Apple Apple CEO says helping FBI hack into terrorist's iPhone would be 'too dangerous' Apple opposes order to help FBI unlock phone belonging to San Bernardino shooter Tim Cook's stance on privacy could define his Apple legacy Apple vs. the FBI: Facebook, Twitter, Google, John McAfee and more are taking sides Chat with me on Twitter @peard33 Its a battle that on its face appears to pit one of the biggest tech companies in the U.S. against the countrys most powerful law enforcement agency. But the outcome of Apples standoff with the federal government over encryption could reverberate across the world, giving authoritarian governments reason to expand surveillance and challenging the U.S. tech industrys ability to compete globally, technology experts and lawmakers say. Apple is resisting a federal judges order that it build special software to unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorist attackers. Advertisement See more of our top stories on Facebook >> But if the company is forced to comply, it could bolster recent efforts by countries such as China to curb its citizens privacy in the name of national security. This completely undermines privacy overseas and if the administration thinks this precedent wouldnt be used by China, Russia and others then they are in serious error, said Nicholas Weaver, a senior researcher at the International Computer Science Institute at UC Berkeley. The White House has told Beijing that it has major concerns about its new counterterrorism law, a somewhat vague piece of legislation that may require American companies to hand over encryption keys and provide backdoor access to their computer systems. This is something that Ive raised directly with President Xi, President Obama told Reuters last year. We have made it very clear to them that this is something they are going to have to change if they are to do business with the United States. Those demands will be harder to make if the federal government succeeds in getting Apple to give up its fight, according to one of the Senates leading voices on technology policy. This move by the FBI could snowball around the world, said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a member of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Why in the world would our government want to give repressive regimes in Russia and China a blueprint for forcing American companies to create a back door? Doing so, the senator said, wouldnt just result in further suppression of individuals in those countries, but also a rise in theft of U.S. trade secrets. It would be the go-to option for securing information, Wyden said of a decryption key. Apple has already reportedly agreed to comply with some Chinese security checks to ensure its devices arent accessible to U.S. authorities, but its unclear how far that goes. The company, which did not respond to a request for comment, has been accused by Chinese state media of giving up user data to U.S. intelligence agencies. Chief Executive Tim Cook remains adamant it has never provided a back door for any government agency. China is particularly treacherous territory for the Cupertino, Calif., company. Its currently Apples second-largest market, responsible for more than a fifth of its revenue, and is expected to grow. However, its complicated by an opaque legal system and a nationalistic sentiment that could turn on foreign companies deemed unsupportive of Chinas interests. Should an iPhone belonging to a suspected terrorist from Chinas fractious Xinjiang province require decryption, Beijing, along with popular opinion, wouldnt afford Apple the ability to argue its case like its doing in the U.S. Apple has recourse to fight the request through an independent judiciary and Tim Cook feels confident that he can argue publicly against the U.S. government request without fear that Apples business will be materially damaged by a retributive government, said Bill Bishop, an entrepreneur and leading China watcher formerly based in Beijing. Technology companies have long struggled to balance security and privacy with the demands of foreign governments. Yahoo was admonished by U.S. lawmakers nearly 10 years ago for outing Chinese dissidents through their email accounts. SIGN UP for the free California Inc. business newsletter >> Microsoft, the target of an anti-monopoly probe in China, recently announced a joint venture with a Chinese firm to supply a customized version of its Windows 10 operating system aimed at tackling rampant piracy of its software there. BlackBerry continues to negotiate with the government of Pakistan after it rebuffed an order to provide customer emails and chats. And authorities in Brazil briefly shut down Facebooks WhatsApp messaging app last December for not cooperating in a criminal investigation. The service was quickly returned after a public outcry. When it comes to doing business abroad, tech companies are being squeezed on both sides: If they dont give up access to user data, they risk angering governments. But if they are perceived as selling products that arent secure, consumers wont buy them. And that hurts the all-important bottom line. Forrester Research estimates American cloud computing firms will lose global sales of up $180 billion by the end of this year because of the chilling effect of Edward Snowdens National Security Agency leaks in 2013. If American smartphone brands are thought to be compromised, it wouldnt just hurt Apple, but also Google (now Alphabet Inc.), whose Android mobile operating system is used on more than 80% of the worlds smartphones, according to Gartner. You could see a similar effect here where customers say they dont want to buy Apple because who knows when theyd be forced to turn over information to the U.S. government, said Jan Dawson, chief analyst at Jackdaw Research. The reality is that it will affect all these companies including Apple, Google and Microsoft. Chinese companies have also been met with resistance in the U.S. Huawei, one of Chinas leading technology and telecommunications firms, has failed to make inroads in America after a congressional committee declared the company a security threat in 2012 because of its ties to the Chinese military. Weaver, the researcher at UC Berkeley, said if the FBI wins its battle with Apple, the NSA could soon make similar requests through the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. That would set a precedent for other spy agencies, including those run by U.S. allies such as France and Israel, to place sweeping demands on tech companies to give up customer data. This particular request to [decrypt an iPhone] is remarkably reasonable, but the precedent it sets is disastrously bad, he said. Follow me on Twitter: @dhpierson Julie Makinen in The Times Beijing bureau contributed to this report. ALSO How an Apple passcode has foiled the FBI Battle lines drawn over encryption as Apple rebuffs FBI Should Apple unlock the San Bernardino terrorists phone? Tell us what you think This may be the moment of #OscarsSoWhite, but one Los Angeles artist prefers to imagine it as the year of #OscarsSoBrown. Since 2011, Linda Vallejo has transformed found bits of Americana -- a Bobs Big Boy statue or figurines of Elvis and Gary Cooper from High Noon -- into more Mexican-ized icons with careful applications of brown paint. Big Boy therefore becomes Muchachote, Elvis becomes El Vis and Cooper is turned into El Vaquero de High Noon. Now the artist has released a series of painted images that address the Oscars lack of diversity -- depicting Audrey Hepburn as Aurora Hernandez and Cate Blanchett as Catarina Blancarte. Advertisement She has even created one work in honor of Paul Muni, the Hungarian-born actor who wasnt Latino but played one in the movies: the disbarred lawyer Johnny Ramirez in the 1935 Bette Davis vehicle Bordertown. With a coat of paint, Vallejo transforms Muni into Pablo Mundial. Hollywood wants it all white? Vallejo laughed recently. Well, guess what? We want it all brown. Vallejos series, done in partnership with UCLAs Chicano Studies Research Center, which will archive the images and host them on its website (chicano.ucla.edu), is a humorous, biting nod at the lack of a Mexican American presence. Ive been a film buff forever, Vallejo said. I love films. I love the Academy Awards. I get all excited about it. But I think that the Mexican American story is not being told. There are a lot of great scripts and screenplays that have been coming out of the black experience. ... But the Mexican American story, its sort of this sidebar. Certainly, when it comes to Latinos, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has a pretty lousy track record. The last time a Latino won the lead actor award was more than half a century ago -- in 1950, when Puerto Rican actor Jose Ferrer took home the statuette for playing the title role in Cyrano de Bergerac. No Latina or Latin American actress has ever won for lead actress. And the last Latina to win the supporting actress award was Rita Moreno -- in 1961. The most recent Oscar awarded to a Latino actor was to Benicio del Toro in 2000, who won the supporting actor award for his role in Traffic. Like everybody, I read the front page of the L.A. Times about the Oscar nominations and I thought, We have to be able to do something, said Chon Noriega, a professor of cinema and media studies at UCLA, who also oversees the universitys Chicano Studies Research Center. There has been a lot of indignation and a lot of calls for change. And there have been changes, incremental changes, at the academy. But I wanted to do something that could change the way people look at things rather than simply arguing them down. So he reached out to Vallejo about doing a few of her Make Em All Mexican works inspired by the Oscars. Vallejo, who first launched the project five years ago by painting the characters in a vintage Dick and Jane childrens storybook, says the extreme nature of what she does never fails to ignite a conversation. Sometimes people are like, Why did you make them so dark? she said. And I say, Brown is brown. Thats how people see you no matter what color you are. Its about making it really obvious, Noriega said. By changing the color, it profoundly upsets not just what is in front of you, but the ideas of popular culture that you carry inside of you. For the series, titled For Your Consideration: Make Em All Mexican, Vallejo even takes on the iconic Oscar statuette itself, rendering it in silky shades of chocolate brown. Those pieces reference a long-running Hollywood legend that Mexican actor and director Emilio El Indio Fernandez served as a model for designer Cedric Gibbons creation of the statuette back in 1928, when the Oscars were first launched. As the story goes, Mexican actress Dolores del Rio recommended Fernandez to Gibbons, who needed a well-built nude model for the design. A spokesperson for the academy, along with a fact sheet on its website, said that no live models were used in the fabrication of the statuette. But it is unknown whether Gibbons may have used figure studies to create an early rendition of the Oscar for the first issue of the academys magazine in 1927. The possibility that the Oscar is Mexican is irresistible to Vallejo: This image of beauty, of refinement -- people pick up Oscars and they are like They are soo beautiful. Which means that come Academy Awards night on Feb. 28, there may be at least one Mexican on stage: A small naked one in the hands of a teary best actress. For more on Linda Vallejos For Your Consideration: Make Em All Mexican series, log on to ucla.chicano.edu. Find me on Twitter @cmonstah The poster, rendered in black and gray with a hint of red shows, a school bus disappearing into a dark plume of storm clouds, leaving bloody trails on the road behind it. A second poster depicts a charcoal-drawn skull on burnt notebook paper. Yet another has words etched into sand on a beach, the message as ephemeral as the wind that will blow it away: Where are the Ayotzinapa students? The posters are an outcry by artists from 13 countries in response to the 2014 kidnapping in Iguala, Mexico, of 43 students on their way to a political protest. The government says the 43 young men from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers College were rounded up and killed by corrupt local authorities working with a drug cartel; a report by an international human rights group disputes details of the purported massacre. Bodies have not been found, and families of the victims are seeking answers. See more of Entertainments top stories on Facebook >> Advertisement Shortly after the students went missing, noted Mexican activist and artist Francisco Toledo sent out a call through museums, universities and cultural organizations for original poster art giving voice to the tragedy. He received more than 700 responses from artists as far-flung as Denmark, Poland, Lebanon, Cuba and Argentina, with the largest number of entries coming from Iran. Forty-three of the posters formed the exhibition Carteles de Ayotzinapa at Mexicos Museum of Tolerance. The exhibition, which traveled throughout Mexico and Latin America, now will open in Los Angeles. Four local arts organizations dedicated to social justice the Social and Public Art Resource Center, better known as SPARC, plus the Center for the Study of Political Graphics, Art Division and Self-Help Graphics & Art have banded together to bring the exhibition, renamed Ayotzinapa: A Roar of Silence, to Los Angeles for its U.S. debut Feb. 18. It then will move on to the Netherlands and France. Its to keep the awareness of what occurred and to keep the memory of the young men alive, says Marietta Bernstorff, a visiting resident curator at SPARC who oversaw the L.A. exhibit. And also to put a little bit of pressure on the Mexican government to resolve this and find answers for these parents. The collaboration came about after the Center for the Study of Political Graphics in Culver City decided to purchase a set of the 43 posters for its permanent collection. The center was referred to Bernstorff, who knows Toledo and helped the center purchase the posters from Toledos arts library and cultural center, Instituto de Artes Graficas de Oaxaca. Because the Center for the Study of Political Graphics doesnt have an exhibition space, Bernstorff suggested that it collaborate on a show with SPARC. Meanwhile, Self Help Graphics was already putting together an exhibition of local art in response to the Iguala events as well as to racism and police brutality closer to home. Art Division had been mulling programming ideas that would broach some of these issues. Bernstorff roped them in as well. Were building threads of unity in order to survive, Bernstorff says, because were all small organizations, with similar struggles. We dont survive alone, we survive as a unit. The Center for the Study of Political Graphics will lend its set of Ayotzinapa posters to all three organizations for separate, sequential exhibitions. The 43 posters along with 43 handmade white kites, each bearing the face of one missing student will show at the Duron Gallery at SPARC through late March; Arts Division will exhibit them in April, then Self Help Graphics in May and June. Each staging of the exhibition will include programming, such as lectures, films and additional art. SPARC, coincidentally located in a former Venice police station, will display a handmade cotton quilt by San Francisco artist Yolanda Guerra. Each of the missing students faces is embroidered onto the fabric around the saying: Ayotzinapa: They tried to bury us. They didnt know we were seeds. And SPARC will screen a Vice News documentary, The Missing 43: Mexicos Disappeared Students, as well as a minimalist film by Michael Nyman, Witness 43, with haunting music and images related to the Iguala kidnapping. Art Division, an arts education nonprofit in MacArthur Park and founded by painter Dan McCleary, will pair the poster exhibit with a film screening and guest lecturer. Self Help Graphics asked local street artist Vyal One to paint a mural on the side of its East L.A. building for the opening of the poster exhibition. Its also staging 43: From Ayotzinapa to Ferguson, featuring 43 original artworks paintings, prints, installation pieces and performances that are in response to the kidnapping of the Mexican students or the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo. Memorial processions will take place on the day the poster exhibition travels to its next venue. The framed artworks will be transported in vehicles, but 43 students from UCLA, Otis College of Art and Design and other local schools will carry symbolic banners as they walk, take Metro or ride buses across the city. A traditional Oaxacan band will march along with them. Bernstorff says she hopes the coordinated events bring attention not just to the Iguala tragedy but also to the greater issues of government corruption and police violence worldwide, particularly against men and women of color. In this way, Ayotzinapa: A Roar of Silence is as much about the Ferguson incident and the #BlackLivesMatter movement as it is about Iguala. Were using that tragic incident as an example, but its not only about Mexico, its something going on all over the world, a crime against humanity, Bernstorff says. You cannot kill or eliminate anyone just because a police officer or government feels like it, to have a civilized society. Self Help Graphics included its broader exhibition to punctuate that point, says the organizations associate director, Betty Avila. Were living these parallel lives on both sides of the border, Avila says. Theres a police state here as well; were not that different. During his recent visit to Mexico, Pope Francis denounced violence, corruption and drug trafficking, but he didnt publicly address the Ayotzinapa issue or meet with the victims families, even though theyd requested a meeting. The families plan to send Francis a document with information about their case. Another goal of the Ayotzinapa exhibit, Bernstorff says, is to inspire artists to create works of substance and political protest as opposed to art thats simply aesthetically pleasing. I think its important to really think about what the art is and maybe get away from what we tend to see at all the art fairs, which can be superficial. You can do great aesthetics, but it doesnt mean you cant say anything socially or politically, she says. Debra J.T. Padilla, the executive director of SPARC, said shes proud that her group has sat outside the arts for arts sake paradigm. That has a role and purpose, she says, but weve been very diligent in our 40 years to amplify things that people might want to hear and be unapologetic about that. Three exhibits, staged by four organizations, rolling out over about 16 weeks they all amount to an arts festival of protest. Its also a statement about arts unity in the city, say the organizers, who are splitting the cost of the show. Were all organizations that have stood the test of time in a challenging art environment, Padilla says. How fast we put this together, working together, it speaks to the power of the whole rapid-response idea. It all started with Toledo, 75, who received his countrys National Prize for Arts and Sciences in 1998. His Instituto de Artes Graficas de Oaxaca is putting together a book of 100 posters from the original submissions. Its set to come out at the end of March and will be available at SPARC and Self Help Graphics. The Oaxaca institute is giving some poster and kite proceeds to the families of the 43 victims to help their search for answers. Theres been much interest in the exhibit touring throughout California, says Carol A. Wells, the Center for the Study of Political Graphics executive director. Its of extreme interest to the population of California, which has so many people from Mexico, Wells says. And its a human rights issue that could happen to anyones kids, so its universal. Art, she says, is the most powerful social justice tool in the world. A gun at your head can change how you act, but it cant change your heart, Wells says. Art not just visual, but poetry and theater has the ability to change your heart and your mind, to expand your consciousness. Its been central to every viable movement for social change throughout history. For protest, for education, for historical memory. And thats what this is about. ------------ Ayotzinapa: A Roar of Silence Where: Debuting at SPARC, the Social and Public Art Resource Center, 685 N. Venice Blvd., Venice When: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays Admission: Free Info: (310) 822-9560, sparcinla.org deborah.vankin@latimes.com The Abell Auction Co. not only has sold the estates of many Hollywood stars, its auctions attracted many a legend. Lucille Ball used to sit in the front row at our Sunday sales, noted Abell CEO Don Schireson, who began working at the auction house with his father in 1977. Julie Christie used to come, Buddy Hackett. Phil Everly came in he used to buy rugs. Leslie Caron also frequented the auctions. I was so infatuated with her when she would walk in, I would, like, bump into posts, joked Abells executive vice president, Howard Zellman, who has also worked at Abells since the 1970s. Advertisement SIGN UP for the free Classic Hollywood newsletter >> But these days, Zellman said, celebrities rarely frequent the weekly Thursday and quarterly Sunday auctions; theyre not as involved as past generations were in picking out their decor. As Zellman points out, today celebrities buy what the decorators want them to buy. The auction house was founded in 1916 by Russian immigrant Abraham N. Abell in the West Adams area near Western Boulevard. But one entire building complete with historical records went up in flames during the 1992 riots. The Abell family owned a building in Commerce and moved in three weeks later. Among the items the auction house has sold over the years include: Loretta Youngs Palms Spring estate featuring personal and studio stills as well as correspondence. The Laughlin Park Estate of Cecil B. DeMille, which featured museum quality Italian Renaissance furniture and rare books. The furnishings of Barbara Stanwycks estate. The Steinway grand piano Gene Autry used when composing Here Comes Santa Claus. A Yamaha grand piano owned by Gene Kelly. We have had a lot of estates over the years of major and minor stars, Zellman said. I think the major reason we get them is that we are very discreet. Not everyone wants it plastered all over that this was their linen hamper. On a recent hot morning, workers were loading furniture and other items that had just been purchased into cars, trucks and SUVs. And inside, the weekly Thursday auction was in full swing with a nice crowd sitting in folding chairs bidding on items while other regulars perused the sofas, pottery, dishes, jewelry, tables, art work and even a Steinway piano that were being sold that day. We sell about 900 to 1,000 pieces each week, Schireson said. Most of the buyers come to the auction house in Commerce every Thursday to buy items for resale, EBay or to use in staging homes and condos that are for sale. There is one guy who is here every week and buys for someone in Pennsylvania, Schireson said. Abells quarterly auction is on Sunday and highlights items from the estates of Oscar-winning actor David Niven and Emmy Award-winning Sam Simon, the writer-producer-director and co-creator of The Simpsons. Simon, a prominent animal rights activist, died last year at age 59. Proceeds from auction will go to the Sam Simon Charitable Giving Foundation. The items in the weekly auction appeal to people who come in week in and week out, Schireson said. We have things here that might appeal to someone in France and someone in China or someone in New York. Interested parties can also bid online. Theres a different mindset back East, Schireson noted. People can sell things back East we cant sell here. We can sell midcentury modern and contemporary here, but a lot of antiques sell better in New York and Europe. susan.king@latimes.com ------------ Select items from the Sam Simon estate and their estimated worth: Dale Chihuly blown glass chandelier estimate: $100,000-$150,000 Auguste Rodin: Le Grand Penseur estimate: $80,000-$100,000 Cecil Beaton photograph: Untitled estimate: $1,000-$1,5000 Jill Greenberg photograph: revelations (from End Times) estimate: $3,000-$4,000 Marc Friedland thought something was missing from the Academy Awards ceremony. He watched for years as the Oscar statuette was often wordlessly handed to the recipient, a moment that was oddly anticlimactic. Friedland, whose Marc Friedland Couture Communications company has for 30 years designed custom stationery and invitations, noticed how much more fanfare surrounded the opening of the mystery envelope that contained the winners name. Channeling his trademark style and friendly salesmanship, Friedland approached the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2011 with a plan to turn those ordinary envelopes into extraordinary icons. The academy was using nice stationery, but it wasnt a keepsake. It was nothing to write home about, he said. The hardest part was getting someone to understand that this really commemorates that pin-dropping moment of achievement. He had only to remind them of the ceremonys two most famous phrases: The envelope, please and The Oscar goes to . Advertisement OSCARS 2016: Full coverage | Complete list of nominees | #OscarsSoWhite: The boycott, reaction and more | Awkward Oscar moments | Oscars quiz | Awards season database | Top nominee photos | Ballot Now the historic moment when a nominee transitions to a winner has a thick, shimmering, gold and red lacquer document worthy of the occasion. The 6-by-9-inch set weighs 4 ounces and is adorned with a red seal and satin ribbon. The card looks like a deluxe diploma for a graduate of a Hollywood glamour school. At his Mid-City studio weeks before the balloting ended, Friedland had readied neat stacks of the Oscar cards and envelopes to be labeled with the 121 nominee names and 24 award categories. Creative Director Marc Friedland is photographed at his studio in Los Angeles where they make the famous Oscar envelopes for the Academy Awards show each year. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) Handcrafted of metallic, matte gold paper, the envelopes are individually die-cut and hand-folded. For beauty and security, the exteriors are engraved with a gold-on-gold, almost holographic repeating image of a tiny Oscar statuette that functions like a watermark. The interiors shine with a vivid red lacquer that is hand-stamped with gold-leaf, repeating imprints of the Oscar statuette. Sizable labels on the envelopes front and back flap list the award category in type large enough for a presenter and cameras to read easily. The labels are so prominent because of the pressure and the anticipation of 1 billion people watching. We designed this to make it almost 100% foolproof. We want no one to pick up the wrong envelope, Friedland said. Marc Friedland holds the card that is placed inside each Oscar envelope. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) The ecru nominee cards, mounted on a gold-framed, red-lacquered backing, are engraved with the lead-in script: And the Oscar goes to . The envelope flap is secured with a sticky adhesive seal thats more forgiving and predictable than sealing wax, which crumbles with age. To ease the card from the envelope, the edges may be waxed. The nominee cards are made with traditional, turned-edge, bookbinding techniques, which is why they feel like the cover of a weighty hardback. Some of the techniques are very old-world, Friedland said. The textural golden Oscar statuette on the cards is created by a hand-carved die. To capture a feel of Hollywoods golden age, Friedland created a proprietary typeface inspired by the modern lines of architect Richard Neutra. As an additional security measure, Friedland creates three sets of nominee cards and transfers 72 unstuffed envelopes and 363 cards to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting firm that has been counting Oscar ballots since the 1935 ceremony. To prevent names of winners from leaking, the academy began using lined, opaque envelopes sealed with wax in 1941. The vote tabulation and envelope stuffing are conducted with security worthy of a spy caper. The accounting firm divides ballots among teams that count only a portion of each category. Only two PricewaterhouseCoopers partners, Brian Cullinan and Martha Ruiz, know the identities of the Oscar winners before the envelopes are opened live on stage. Martha and I know the winners, and we are the only ones to stuff the winning card into the envelope for each of the 24 categories, said Cullinan, PricewaterhouseCoopers lead partner for the academys account. The firm will start tabulating votes when the polls close at 5 p.m. Tuesday. Marc Friedland is photographed at his studio in Los Angeles where they make the famous Oscar envelopes for the Academy Awards show each year. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times) In an undisclosed location, the partners tabulate votes and stuff two sets of winning envelopes, partly as another security measure and also to aid the shows flow. Stationed with their signature briefcases on opposite sides of the stage, either Cullinan or Ruiz can dispense envelopes to presenters. At the end of the evening, each accountant will have given out about half of the envelopes. And the third set? There is no third set sitting somewhere that has the winning cards in the winning envelopes, Cullinan said. However, the remaining, unstufffed envelopes and nominee cards are shipped to a second secret location, just in case some disaster prevents access to the completed sets. After the ceremony, unused cards and envelopes are destroyed by an industrial document-destruction company. We have never ever, ever used that third set. Its completely as a backup, Cullinan said. Armed bodyguards will accompany the accountants, who travel separately to the ceremony, and stay with them until the final envelope has been handed out. As an additional level of security, Ruiz and Cullinan memorize the winners. When we seal the envelopes, there is no piece of paper where the winners names are written down, Cullinan said. Thats why the printer of the cards doesnt know who won, ever, said Cullinan. But Friedland is proud to know this: Those envelopes are now part of Hollywood history. calendar@latimes.com Risen, the biblical epic arriving in theaters during Lent to get audiences hyped for Easter, plays as fascinating counter-programming for one of Februarys other auspicious releases. The film puts a grimily modern lens on the Resurrection story of Jesus, with a Roman tribune (Joseph Fiennes) discovering salvation in Christ. Directed by Kevin Reynolds, it arrives just a few weeks after the bow of the Coen brothers classical Hollywood tribute, Hail, Caesar!, in which George Clooney plays an actor playing a Roman tribune who finds salvation in Christ. Risen has an everything old is new again feel, harking to the time when sword-and-sandal religious epics ruled the studios, while also freshening up a familiar Bible story with the grit and wry humor of contemporary historical properties. See more of Entertainments top stories on Facebook >> Advertisement Youre probably already familiar with the Easter story, and thats one of the issues with Risen you know where things are going, so its hard to sustain patience while the incredulous characters play catch up. Fiennes is tribune Clavius, who answers to scheming Roman bureaucrat Pilate (Peter Firth), a man overly concerned with the optics of his political career. Clavius and his men carry out the brutal realities of Pilates word, inured to the violence of crucifixion and disposal of bodies. One victim, whom they call the Nazarene, just wont die, so they finish the job, and with Pilates approval, allow his loved ones to give him a proper burial, sealed in a tomb. The Jewish rabbis offer predominantly political reasons for the seal he claimed he would rise again, so they want to make sure his disciples dont steal the body. Pilate wants to contain any Messiah figures that might threaten his station. So when the corpse goes missing, Clavius & Co. set off on a process of CSI: Jesus, tracking down every disciple, friend and follower, unearthing fly-ridden corpses, turning Jerusalem topsy-turvy at Pilates behest. Its an original and inventive way to illuminate the well-known story, bringing a sense of rotting-flesh reality to this whole resurrection business. It also ensures that this Nazarene was absolutely deader than dead, his reappearance a true magical miracle. This is the case when Clavius meets Yeshua himself a beatific and groovy Cliff Curtis, and his tribe of merry men. Because Risen doesnt dare push biblical boundaries, the only way in which it feels compelling or fresh is in the way that it rebrands this content. The messages and meaning remain the same, but the style and tone are modified for an audience accustomed to the bloody, dusty visages and sweeping landscapes of something like Game of Thrones. Risen, as written by Reynolds and Paul Aiello, sacrifices the far more interesting political intricacies and machinations to dwell on a touchy-feely representation of Jesus Christ replete with sunrises and moonbeams. The concept of unwavering faith in Yeshua is the driving message throughout Risen, but in upholding this moral, it fails the cinematic story. Theres no nuance to these characters, who spout vague spiritual truisms and hokey one-liners punctuated with unrelenting grinning and group hugging. Thats why! exclaims a punchy Bartholomew, as Yeshua embraces a leper, no other explanation needed, or offered. Risen is a fascinating cultural artifact, but as a film, its destined for no glory greater than as an appropriate cable rerun on Easter. ------------ Risen MPAA rating: PG-13, for biblical violence including some disturbing images Running time: 1 hour, 47 minutes Playing: In general releas Walsh is a Tribune News Service critic. There are plenty of characters from Game of Thrones who would fit right in at a baby shower. Sansa, for one, at least before her recent stint as a goth, would be a natural for tiny baby clothes and terrible party games. Margaery would likely have a smirkily good time. Daenerys would almost certainly be the perfect party guest, so long as shes kept away from the fireplace. It seems less likely that Melisandre, the red priestess, would be at the top of anyones invitation list, but thats exactly what makes the sketch on Thursday nights episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers so funny. Without a doubt, theres no way this sketch would work without the magnificent and surprisingly hilarious performance by Dutch actress Carice van Houten. Her attempts at small talk, as well as her strained take on smiling make it one of the best late night clips in ages. Thats high praise for a sketch that revolves around the relatively basic premise of Melisandre attends Seth Meyers baby shower. Advertisement But Melisandre brought more than just laughs to the sketch set at a baby shower for Seth Meyers and his expectant wife, Alexi Ashe even going so far as to make reference to the questionable death of Jon Snow at the end of Season 5. When Melisandre mentions that shes pretty sure Jon Snow is dead, Seth follows up with, Pretty sure hes dead? to which she hesitantly deadpans, Well, at least thats the way it was left. Watch all the bizarre laughs of the Red Baby Shower below. Follow me @midwestspitfire MORE: HBO close to deal for Seasons 7 and 8 of Game of Thrones Review: Biblical epic Risen, starring Joseph Fiennes, flaunts a Game of Thrones style 6 excuses you no longer have to avoid Game of Thrones If you keep up with the food magazines, Im guessing you know about the original Aburiya Raku, even if youve never quite made it out to the place. Its the loud, informal Japanese restaurant in Las Vegas tiny Chinatown, nearly as famous for its foie gras rice bowls and beef liver sashimi as it is for its fanatical following of chefs. A paragraph about its grilled rice balls and Kurobuta pork cheeks often finds its way into articles otherwise devoted to the resort-based outposts of famous French chefs, as if to prove the writer knows theres culinary life outside the hothouse conditions of the Strip. If you are a certain kind of food person, it is impossible to imagine a trip to Vegas without at least one after-midnight visit to Mitsuo Endos cheerful izakaya. When a West Hollywood branch of Aburiya Raku was announced last year, it was hard to know what to think. Before the restaurant opened in Las Vegas, there wasnt much in the way of serious Japanese food in that city; in some parts of Los Angeles, it is easier to find sushi than a cheeseburger. L.A. goes to bed earlier than Vegas. And while there have always been decent sushi bars in West Hollywood, the area is pretty far from the Japanese strongholds in Little Tokyo and the South Bay. But when you walk into the new restaurant, it feels less like Las Vegas than like Japan, framed in rustic dark wood, dominated by its open kitchen, banging the traditional-instrument Japanese pop occasionally known as sham rock. There is a bit of the vibe of a private club: the hostess is apt to be a bit chilly until she determines that you really do have a reservation. The sweet, leafy aroma of Japanese charcoal hangs in the air. Like any decent izakaya, Aburiya Raku has a bit of a learning curve. There is a wood-framed menu, one side listing the cold and hot dishes that will probably make up most of your meal, the other, the roster of items from the grill. There is a long, illustrated list of cold sake, most of which will be new to you I kind of liked the Three Dots, whose vaguely autumnal fragrance went nicely with grilled meats. (The server comes over with a selection of sake cups from which to choose, which is a nice touch.) After you sort of figure out what you might want for supper, another server drags over a whiteboard on which the days specials will be scrawled: maybe a hamburger steak, served in a sizzling vessel with a sticky mushroom-soy glaze; maybe grilled orbs made from chopped shrimp and vegetables; oysters; and almost certainly a list of fish including, unfortunately, the inevitable (and severely threatened) bluefin tuna. And you order too much. You always order too much. The leisurely paced meal stretches out for hours. And against all odds, you are happy. Advertisement Aburiya Raku may not be the best izakaya in the Greater Los Angeles area top five, Im guessing but it is a place you want to be. So you try a tatami sardine salad, which is a little like a Caesar salad garnished with crunchy mats made from dried sardines; and a plate of tempura-fried ice fish, which might remind you of wispy French fries with eyes; crunchy asparagus wrapped in bacon; live scallops sauteed with butter and soy; or a bowl of the vinegary Japanese pickles called sunomono. Home made agedashi tofu, deep-fried style, served with bonito-based broth. (Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times) The kitchen has a small sub-specialty in firm, house-made tofu with the consistency of fresh cheese, drained like ricotta in woven baskets and served plain (sprinkle it with a bit of finely ground salt flavored with green tea) or as agedashi tofu, delicately fried and served in broth. My favorite is probably the oyaji, which apparently means something like old-dude style, served with a mass of wilted mustard greens and what I can only describe as the Japanese equivalent of Spicy Chile Crisp, the crunchy Chinese condiment. If you order a whole fish from the specials board, say a sea robin or the firm-fleshed grunt called isaki, it will be served first as sashimi, with a dab of freshly ground wasabi and a bit of pickled chrysanthemum as palate cleanser, and later fried, its crisp skeleton arching above a jumble of fried filets. You could probably make an entire meal at Aburiya Raku out of nothing but meat and fish cooked on the charcoal grill: chunks of chicken breast wrapped in thin, crisp sheets of its own skin; chewy bits of Kurobuta pork cheek; meltingly rich slivers of pig ear; beef dabbed with wasabi or duck breast sweetened with a few drops of balsamic vinegar. Youll probably want the slab of salmon belly, skin blistered and crunchy, served with grated daikon and marinated salmon roe. You will definitely want the tsukune: fluffy meatballs of ground chicken formed into the shape of Louisville Sluggers. At which point it is probably time for grilled rice balls in broth with super-tart ume, or possibly a bowl of the delicate egg custard flavored with a bit of foie gras, sluiced with an inch of hot broth, topped with a slice of grilled duck breast and served with a matful of iced fresh noodles to dip into it. The sushi bar at Aburiya Raku. (Glenn Koenig / Los Angeles Times) Its not on the menu, but the best possible ending to a meal at Aburiya Raku may be the kamameshi, a kind of wet Japanese pilaf cooked in a heavy iron pot with salmon and herbs, a dish that is simultaneously filling and refreshing. If you forget to ask for it at the beginning of the meal it takes 40 minutes to cook you can always console yourself with the green tea creme brulee. jonathan.gold@latimes.com :: Aburiya Raku The noted Las Vegas Japanese izakaya opens an outlet in West Hollywood. LOCATION 521 N. La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood, (213) 308-9393, raku-grill.com PRICES Tofu $4-$12.50; salads $9-$17; cold dishes $6-$15; hot dishes $5.50-$12; robata skewers $3-$20; special dishes often more. DETAILS Open 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. Mon.-Sat. Credit cards accepted. Beer, wine and sake. Valet parking. RECOMMENDED DISHES Oyaji tofu; fried ice fish; butter-sauteed scallop; salmon belly; cold udon with foie gras egg custard; kamameshi; green tea creme brulee. Carlos Salgado is on a mission to reclaim the tortilla. Its a working-class ingredient, says the chef, and here in the U.S. we havent typically assigned a lot of value to it. The 36-year-old chef-owner of Taco Maria, the Mexican restaurant in Costa Mesa that The Times Jonathan Gold named No. 2 on his 2015 list of 101 best restaurants, is standing in a storage closet at his parents restaurant, La Siesta, in Orange. He opens a waist-high container and scoops out a handful of ink-colored corn kernels. This is maize, says Salgado, not sweet corn. Specifically, its a blue conico variety grown in the highlands near Atlacomulco in the state of Mexico and the sole ingredient (aside from water) in Salgados tortillas at Taco Maria. He cracks open another bin containing a white chalqueno variety, points out the variation in kernel size and plucks out bits of cob and husk. Advertisement Chef Carlos Salgado uses blue maize corn from Mexico for his tortillas at Taco Maria in Costa Mesa. (Christina House / For The Times) The walls of this oversized closet are lined with 25-pound bags of Mexican maize, some of it blue, some white and some red all imported by Jorge Gaviria of Masienda, the New York-based purveyor of non-GMO, landrace maize from Mexico. (Landrace refers to open-pollinated cultivars that have been carefully selected through seed saving to excel in a specific environment.) Salgado and Gaviria met in 2014 when Salgado was on a quest for superior tortillas and Gaviria was developing relationships with small maize farmers in rural Mexico. Both had worked in high-end kitchens Salgado as a pastry chef at Coi in San Francisco and Commis in Oakland; Gaviria as a cook at Maialino in New York where careful sourcing of ingredients is the norm. Gaviria also spent time working on a 1,000-acre farm in Italy, an experience he credits with opening his eyes to micro-supply chains. He went on to apprentice with Dan Barber at Blue Hill Stone Barns in New Yorks Hudson Valley, where in 2013 he witnessed the G9 Chefs Summit, a yearly meeting of the worlds top chefs. There, Brazilian chef Alex Atala described his work bringing indigenous ingredients from the Amazon to an urban context. That blew my mind, Gaviria says. A worker prepares balls of masa for pressing by hand to order at Taco Maria. (Christina House / For The Times) Tortillas are pressed by hand to order and cooked on a grill at Taco Maria. (Christina House / For The Times) Inspired by the experience, Gaviria was determined to apply the same ethos to corn. He began with the simple idea of opening a tortilleria he is quick to admit that he had no idea how difficult tortilla production is but was stymied by the lack of access to quality maize used for tortilla production. Everyone was using the same Yellow 2 commodity corn from Monsanto, Pioneer or Dow, Gaviria says. I had a feeling that there was something else out there. Eventually Gaviria found CIMMYT, the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, which introduced him to farmers growing landrace maize in Oaxaca, Jalisco, Michoacan and the state of Mexico. Gaviria quickly recognized that in order to give these subsistence farmers incentives to increase productivity, he had to create a market. So he put the tortilleria on hold and approached Mexican chef Enrique Olvera, who was about to open his first New York restaurant, Cosme. Olvera, whose Mexico City restaurant Pujol currently ranks No. 16 on San Pellegrinos list of the Worlds 50 Best Restaurants, agreed to buy whatever Gaviria could import for the opening of his new restaurant. The deal propelled Masienda into the import business and cemented Gavirias reputation as the go-to guy for delicious, dependable, quality maize from Mexico. There is no real infrastructure in Oaxaca to handle what these farmers need, says Gaviria of the subsistence-based farmers. The only reason they grow this against all economic odds is because it tastes fantastic. See the most-read stories in Life & Style this hour >> There are more than 3 million smallholder farmers tending rain-fed plots of maize across Mexico, the majority of which cultivate landrace varietals. So far, Masienda works with 5,000 of them, guaranteeing sale at a fair price and distributing the corn to chefs such as Olvera and Salgado. Last year the company imported 80 metric tons of landrace maize. This year it is committed to 400 metric tons (imagine 20 tractor-trailers) destined for restaurants as far away as Topolobampo and Frontera Grill in Chicago and Hija de Sanchez in Copenhagen. Gaviria also plans to expand his business to include beans and to finally fulfill his tortilleria dream with two tortilla production facilities north of the border this year. Chicken mole taco made with almonds, queso fresco and dates, garnished with criollo cilantro at Taco Maria. (Christina House / For The Times) Here in Southern California, word has spread to Boyle Heights, where Francisco Ramirez of La Princesita Tortilleria nixtamalizes Masienda maize a process during which the corn is cooked in an alkaline solution to release the hull, soften the kernel and increase nutritional value to prepare masa and tortillas for customers such as chef Ray Garcia of Broken Spanish and B.S. Taqueria, and Eduardo Ruiz of Corazon y Miel. At $5.25 for three dozen tortillas, compared with $1.20 for non-GMO conventional tortillas, the cost remains a major hurdle for most buyers, but Ramirezs goal is to make Masienda more accessible to Angelenos. In Orange County, Salgado orders 50 25-pound bags at a time to keep up with the 1,200 pounds of masa Taco Maria produces each week. Salgados masa operation occupies a small footprint of the kitchen at La Siesta, his parents restaurant, where Carlos grew up eating Mexican American food and the industrial corn tortillas that he seeks to change. A mixture of Masiendas blue conico corn, water and limewater bubbles on a single-burner stove, perfuming the restaurant. After 12 hours of cooking, the corn will be drained, rinsed and fed through the custom-built, granite stone grinder that occupies another corner of the kitchen. This process happens once a day, producing 200 pounds of masa each session. (Until nine months ago, Salgado was orchestrating this process himself, sometimes leaving mid-service at Taco Maria to drive the eight miles over four highways to grind corn at La Siesta in Orange.) Standing over the grinder, Salgado remembers testing his first batch of tortillas in the La Siesta kitchen. I gave the first one to my dad and he was visibly moved. His father, who grew up in Guerrero, said he hadnt tasted anything like it in 40 years. In Costa Mesa, the cooks at Taco Maria prep for dinner service. That nights menu features white sturgeon smoked over almond wood and swaddled in one of Taco Marias blue corn tortillas an ode to the smoked marlin tacos of Baja. In other courses, the masa shows up in Mexican dumplings called chochoyotes and Salgados blue corn atole, a creamy mixture of blue corn masa and charred strawberry jam that is often served as a final course of Taco Marias tasting menu. Salgado tastes the atole, which is thick, warm and tinged lavender from the mixture of blue corn masa and strawberries, and lets out a satisfied sigh. Tastes like liquid tortilla. food@latimes.com High-tech equipment capable of scanning faces and reading irises for the first time is being used at a U.S. land border to verify the identities of foreigners leaving the country. U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspectors are now screening pedestrians crossing into Mexico at Otay Mesa. We want to know when a person comes into the country, and we want to know when they leave, said Charmaine Rodriguez, assistant port director at Otay Mesa. The test, which began last week, is part of an effort that uses biometrics to crack down on the use of fraudulent documents and track foreigners who remain in the United States with expired visas. Through the end of April, all pedestrians leaving San Diego through Otay Mesa will be screened, but only foreigners will have their identities documented through iris scans and facial recognition technology. Advertisement Biometrics measure a persons unique physical characteristics, through methods that include the reading of fingerprints, irises and facial bone structure. CBP has been verifying travelers identities through fingerprints since 2004. The biometric testing responds to a longstanding demand by Congress that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security track the departure of foreigners who enter the country with non-immigrant visas but remain in the country after the expiration date. A 2006 study by the Pew Hispanic Center estimated that visa overstays made up as much as half of the countrys undocumented population. Except for sporadic checks for guns, bulk cash and stolen vehicles by CBP, those crossing into Mexico rarely submit to U.S. inspections. Until now, there has been little scrutiny of pedestrians leaving the country through Otay Mesa either by U.S. or Mexican authorities. CBPs southbound U.S. inspections at Otay Mesa separate crossers into two categories: U.S. citizens and non-U.S. citizens. U.S. citizens with passport cards or other radio-frequency identification documents that can be read by machines are being asked to swipe their cards before crossing thus recording their departure through biographic information. The biometric testing applies to most non-U.S. citizens ages 14 to 79. Some will be asked to look at a camera as they walk through, while others are being directed to a machine that reads their faces and irises. The images are matched to a database that CBP has been collecting since December of foreigners crossing northbound at Otay Mesa. According to CBP, 9,000 pedestrians a day cross into the United States through the Otay Mesa Port of Entry, while about 6,000 leave the country. Rodriguez said that anyone found to have overstayed their U.S. visa will be processed on a case-by-case basis. Inspectors would use our normal processing for a person who has overstayed their visa. It might be a simple annotation versus a more formalized process. If results are successful, the testing will not immediately be duplicated at other border crossings, Rodriguez said. There will be a rather extensive review of the data, that could take several months, she said. Id say this is a limited test in a limited environment. What works here is not going to work all across the southern border, or ultimately if we end up using it on the northern border. sandra.dibble@utsandiego.com An attorney for the man accused of murdering 10 young women over a period of decades in South Los Angeles tried Thursday to poke holes in the work conducted by the countys chief medical examiner, who reviewed autopsy reports of the grisly slayings. Questions about the autopsies were raised as testimony continued in the trial of Lonnie Franklin Jr., who prosecutors allege is responsible for a series of murders committed by a serial killer dubbed the Grim Sleeper. Franklin faces 10 counts of murder in the killings of nine women and a 15-year-old girl spanning more than 20 years. He also faces one count of attempted murder. Advertisement Franklin, 63, has pleaded not guilty. For a third day in the downtown Los Angeles courtroom, family members were subjected to the gruesome coroners photos of their loved ones and detailed discussion of their fatal injuries, prompting some to walk out of the courtroom. Besides the gentle tapping of his feet, Franklin sat still, rarely glancing toward the witnesses or to the photos of victims projected on a screen next to him. Defense attorney Seymour Amster grilled Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner Mark Fajardo about his analysis of autopsy reports of some of the victims, beginning with Debra Jackson, a 29-year-old waitress who was discovered in 1985 shot in the chest in an alley. She is believed to be the serial killers first victim. On Wednesday, Fajardo testified that he had reviewed autopsies conducted by medical examiners who have since died or are unable to testify. Amsters questioning focused on whether Fajardo could be certain in his analysis without personally conducting the autopsies, and whether the documents he reviewed were properly maintained and corresponded correctly to the victims. For instance, Amster asked if Fajardo had any way to confirm that the medical examiner who conducted an autopsy verified the identity of the body by toe tag. In some cases, that information was written in a report. In others, it was not, Fajardo said. Fajardo, who has been county coroner since 2013, repeatedly stated that he could only rely on the documentation and photographs provided to him. Under questioning from Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman, Fajardo said that its common for the coroners office to have representatives testify about the work of their current and former colleagues. The office is the largest and busiest in the country with 28 doctors performing 9,000 autopsies a year; its not always possible for the deputy medical examiner who conducted an autopsy to testify about his or her work, he said. There was no evidence in his reviews that any of the bodies were misidentified, and documents related to each of the cases had the correct, unique identification number, he told the court. On Wednesday, guided by Silverman through decades-old documents, Fajardo testified that seven of the victims died from gunshot wounds to the chest, one was strangled and another suffered both strangulation and gunshot wounds. Fajardo also testified that the trajectory of the bullets was consistent with the victims sitting in the passenger seat of a vehicle while their assailant sat in the drivers seat. That is the method Silverman has alleged Franklin used in the killings. Jurors briefly heard testimony from Antonio Lorca, a retired coroners investigator for the county, who recounted arriving at an alley near Gage and Vermont avenues on the morning of Aug. 10, 1984. There he saw the decomposing body of a woman sprawled on her back under a red carpet, he said. He could find no identification on the woman, so he called the coroners office and was told she would be marked as Jane Doe 59, the 59th unidentified female body found in the county that year. She would eventually be identified as Debra Jackson. Lorca is expected to resume testimony on Friday. Twitter: @sjceasar ALSO College student killed by train may have been distracted by his cellphone Family of man killed in Pomona shooting sues ex-LAPD officer and L.A. Man charged in brutal attack on fan at Dodger Stadium last year Facing high construction costs and political opposition in Southern California, the state has decided to build the first 250-mile section of the California bullet train from the Kern County line to San Jose instead of Fresno to Burbank. The reversal by the California High-Speed Rail Authority would delay the arrival of high-speed rail for Southern California, which was originally planned as the end point for the projects initial operating segment. Southern California officials have said building the segment to Burbank could be a major economic benefit for the region, provide commuters 15-minute rides to the Antelope Valley and create a convenient link to both the Central Valley and future high-speed trains to Las Vegas. Advertisement The shift to the Bay Area will help the California High-Speed Rail Authority hold down costs and expedite construction of the system, which is already two years behind schedule, according to details of the new plan released Thursday. The change would also avoid expensive tunneling and viaduct construction through the geologically complex Tehachapi and San Gabriel Mountains, where several potential routes have been proposed through the Angeles National Forest. Those options have generated political opposition in communities that border the forest. The high-speed rail authority said shifting to the Bay Area will allow it to have the initial segment operating by 2025, earlier than planned, which will make the project attractive to private investors that would help fill holes in funding. Rail officials also say the latest cost estimate for the entire 500-mile project has been reduced from $68 billion to $64 billion, well below the $98-billion projection from several years ago, but still far above initial estimates of less than $40 billion. Though high-speed rail would arrive later in Southern California, project officials said about $4 billion will be invested in the rail corridor between Burbank and Anaheim to improve conventional train lines and prepare the area for bullet train service. In addition, the authority announced it would seek an additional $2.9 billion in federal funding to continue work on the route to Bakersfield and to San Francisco. Interested in the stories shaping California? Sign up for the free Essential California newsletter >> The plan represents a transition from planning and initial construction to being able to stand up and say we have federal funding, bond money, cap and trade revenue, and that those funds are sufficient for us to build, open and operate the first real high-speed rail leg in California, said Dan Richard, chair of the high-speed authority board of directors. Despite the route shift, Hasan Ikhrata, executive director of the Southern California Assn. of Governments, said the high-speed rail project is still committed to investing in Southern California, including billions to improve conventional rail systems. We have said all along that whatever happens or how it happens doesnt matter as long as high-speed rail invests in Southern California, Ikhrata said. This does not mean that investment here is going to stop. High-speed rail will still get down here in some fashion. Others agreed but still had mixed feelings about the new plan, which did not spell out exactly when the system will reach the L.A. area. Its disappointing, said Don Sepulveda, executive officer for regional rail for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Still, the California bullet train has accumulated so many financial, legal and political challenges over the last two years that the new business plan will need some miracle cures. Join the conversation on Facebook >> The effort will have to find billions of dollars in construction funding that doesnt exist, find a way to fulfill or untangle difficult political promises made to keep the project alive and discover fixes to legal requirements that are strangling the progress. This project is nonexistent, said Quentin Kopp, a former Superior Court judge, state legislator and a past chair of the high-speed rail authority board. There is no private investment. So what they are doing is just whistling Dixie and somehow hoping the public can be fooled. It is over except for the waste of taxpayer money. Kopp said the project is a far different proposal today from what was called for in a successful 2008 ballot measure that provided more than $9 billion in bond funding for the project. What they have done in effect is destroy my intentions and those of the voters of California, he said. The pressure on the agency has grown significantly in recent weeks, after it disclosed that the initial construction work in the Central Valley is $260 million over budget and after news that the states agriculture industry is sponsoring a proposition to transfer $9 billion of rail bond money to water projects. The project is at an important juncture, said Martin Wachs, an emeritus UCLA professor and one of the nations leading transportation experts. It is a time when critics are vigorous in their opposition and there remains important policy decisions that must be addressed. The largest challenge is the gap in financing, and this is the time when it has to be addressed in a serious way by the state. The rail authority must find answers to myriad other challenges as well, say lawmakers, transportation experts and watchdog groups. The new business plan will have to address an earlier decision to reduce speeds and capacity in the Bay Area by sharing tracks with freight trains and commuter rail cars. It will also have to address the issue of bringing service all the way to Anaheim, which is mandated by state law but has been lingering in uncertainty for years. Finally, it will have to prove that if the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco system is built, it can serve millions of passengers without an operating subsidy, as required by state law. Democrat Jim Frazer, chairman of the Assembly transportation committee, said he wants the business plan to show that the entire project is on solid ground and that when it is completed it can operate without a subsidy. I would have to see what has been spent and where they are at, he said. I need to see the business plan to make sure the project is on track. Rod Diridon, a former rail authority chairman, said the project needs to persuade private investors to jump in with financing. The business plan, he noted, is a sketch that private investors are going to fill in. In the short term, there is no question that the high-speed rail authority is ready. dan.weikel@latimes.com Twitter: @LADeadline16 ralph.vartabedian@latimes.com Twitter: @RVartabedian ALSO College student killed by train may have been distracted by his cellphone State officially declares Porter Ranch-area gas leak capped, but uncertainty remains L.A. files $20-million lawsuit against Da Vinci Apartments developer over huge downtown fire Good morning. It is Friday, Feb. 19. The rivalry between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates will soon be on Broadway in Nerds. Heres what else is happening in the Golden State: TOP STORIES Trains tracks Advertisement The first leg of Californias bullet train will be built in Northern California, not in Southern California as originally planned. High construction costs and political opposition were cited as primary reasons for pursuing the San Jose to Bakersfield line rather than the Fresno to Burbank section. The latest cost estimate for the 500-mile project is $64 billion. Los Angeles Times Leak sealed State officials say the massive gas leak in Porter Ranch has come to an end. The announcement means thousands of families must prepare to move back home. Gas crews are now tasked with inspecting the 114 other wells at Aliso Canyon. I know there is nothing that I can say that will change the past, but I know that measurable actions actually speak louder than words, said Dennis Arriola, president and chief executive of Southern California Gas. Los Angeles Times Fight is on Many of the top tech firms in Silicon Valley appear to be siding with Apple in its battle with the FBI over a court order requiring the computer giant to help with the San Bernardino terrorism investigation. In a sign of how the case could be historic, Apple has hired Ted Olson and Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., two of the lead lawyers who successfully challenged Californias previous ban on same-sex marriage. One expert called the showdown a new frontier. Los Angeles Times DROUGHT AND CLIMATE Snowy weather: The snow has returned to Northern California, leaving experts cautiously optimistic that this could turn around the state drought. Last year, the area had just 5% of the normal water content. Were way ahead of last year, and its only going to get better, said Janet Tuttle, who runs Donner Ski Ranch. Los Angeles Times Boom. Crash: How much snow are the Sierras getting? Well, an avalanche hit a bus and sent it 30 feet into a house. SFGate Unsafe conditions: A Pacifica apartment building was torn down Thursday by crews who wanted to get to the property before the elements did. Bluffs there have been slowly eroding. The demolition was new, but the commotion was not, considering the three apartment buildings have been endangered and slipping closer to oblivion for years. SFGate L.A. AT LARGE DWP reform: Mayor Eric Garcetti says he supports using the ballot to reform the Department of Water and Power, but he doesnt like the proposed measure backed by some members of the L.A. City Council. Mainly, Garcetti said he believes the mayor should have the ability to hire and fire the utilitys general manager and its commissioners. I think this is a once-in-a-generation chance. Im sick of the studies, and its time to take action for the ratepayers, Garcetti said. Los Angeles Times Housing proposal: Developers who want to be exempted from the citys zoning and planning laws could be required to build affordable housing under a new ballot measure proposal backed by the L.A. County Federation of Labor. The measure could appear on the Nov. 8 ballot. That would put it in competition with a second measure that seeks a temporary moratorium on mega-developments. Los Angeles Times Old Hollywood: Preservationists are celebrating the architectural gems of Hollywood. Its a neighborhood thats now seeing unprecedented development, and a recent presentation drew more than 100 to the Egyptian Theatre. They had come to hear about buildings demolished in the name of development and about others left standing but ruined by changes that had stripped away their essence. Los Angeles Times POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT Drinking water: Columnist Robin Abcarian went to Stockton, where environmentalist Erin Brockovich had just swept through town to warn residents about their water supply. The visit, however, brought about more political than scientific facts. Los Angeles Times Security measures: Sen. Ted Cruz believes Apple should absolutely help FBI agents unlock a cellphone used by the terrorists who killed 14 people in San Bernardino last December. I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can protect ourselves from terrorism and also protect our civil rights, he said. BuzzFeed CRIME AND COURTS Negligence alleged: The developer of a downtown Los Angeles apartment complex that burned to the ground in 2014 was sued by the city of Los Angeles Thursday for $20 million. The City Attorneys Office accused Geffrey H. Palmer and his company of failing to have an appropriate fire plan in place. The 75,000-square-foot development was still under construction when it was destroyed in a fire allegedly set by a 56-year-old taxi driver. Los Angeles Times Sentencing recommendation: The U.S. Attorneys Office is recommending that former state Sen. Leland Yee spend eight years behind bars for felony racketeering. Authorities also want him to have three years supervised release and a $25,000 fine. He is scheduled to be sentenced next week. Sacramento Bee CALIFORNIA CULTURE Young and free: Meet the generation of Chinese rich kids who are making Los Angeles, Vancouver and other cities their playgrounds. It reflects the globalization of wealth and how excess feels like reality TV in many cultures. The New Yorker Millions on the line: Who bought a winning lottery ticket in Chino Hills? California Lottery officials say they dont yet know who the lucky ticket holder may be. Is it you? The winning numbers were: 04-08-19-27-34, and the Powerball number was 10. Daily Bulletin Fire fall: These pictures make it look as though fire is flowing down the Horsetail Fall in Yosemite National Park. KTLA CALIFORNIA ALMANAC San Diego will be partly sunny with a high of 67 degrees. Los Angeles will be mostly sunny and 67. In Riverside, it will be sunny and 69 degrees. Sacramento will be cloudy and rainy with a high of 59. There will be rains and clouds in San Francisco, with a high of 59. AND FINALLY Todays California Memory comes from Ronald Stone: My earliest memory of California was a cross-country road trip when I was 9 years old during the summer of 1976. My Grandma was driving along the coast from Southern California to the Peninsula of the San Francisco Bay Area. I remember a highway high above the rocky Pacific Coast. At one place on the highway, several meters above the rocky shore, part of the outer lane had collapsed. As we continued slowly past, on the left I could look almost directly down below to waves crashing against the rocks at the base of the cliff. If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. Send us an email to let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.) Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Alice Walton or Shelby Grad. Im Davan Maharaj, editor of the Los Angeles Times. Here are some story lines I dont want you to miss today. TOP STORIES Think Different: Behind Apples Legal Fight Advertisement In the late 1990s, Apple used the slogan Think Different in its ads. That could also be applied to its battle with the FBI pitting privacy against national security. Experts say this weeks court order differed from those issued in the past, in that it requires Apple to create new software, rather than providing technology already at hand. Of note: The companys legal team includes two lawyers who successfully challenged Californias ban on same-sex marriage. Tell us on Facebook: Should Apple help the FBI? Trump and the Pope Throw It Down In a campaign filled with firsts, this ranks right up there: Pope Francis took a jab at Donald Trump, saying, A person who only thinks about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. And the candidate jabbed right back: For a religious leader to question a persons faith is disgraceful. Trump has feuded with President Obama, Jeb Bush, Megyn Kelly and Rosie ODonnell, to name just a few, so why not the pope? Looking at the numbers, it probably wont hurt him. Do You Want to Build a Snowman? In L.A., youd never guess it in a couple of days, itll be sunny and near 80 degrees again but up in Northern California, El Nino has brought the snowpack back to 94% of normal. Thats great news for the resorts in Lake Tahoe. Will it also be good news for the drought? Read on to see why we wont know until April 1. A Supreme Battle Test Obamacare. Immigration. The debt ceiling. Are these past battles between President Obama and GOP lawmakers indicative of what will happen in the fight over a new justice for the Supreme Court? Democrats think if the White House stands firm, the opposition will crack indeed, a few have said its too soon to rule out an Obama nominee. Republicans say its a false comparison and predict Americans will agree with them. Meanwhile, here are some candidates the president may consider. Track Change for the Bullet Train The would-be California bullet train is facing high construction costs, political opposition and legal entanglements. Now, its trying to take the path of lesser resistance: Rather than building the first segment from Fresno to Burbank, the state is now planning to run it from the Kern County line to San Jose. Heres why that wont solve all of its problems. CALIFORNIA -- L.A. files a $20-million lawsuit against the Da Vinci Apartments developer after a huge downtown fire. -- The Porter Ranch gas leak has been permanently capped, state officials say. -- L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti says he supports letting voters decide on overhauling the leadership of the Department of Water and Power. -- Sentenced to prison, teenage parachute kids deliver a warning to adults in China. NATION-WORLD -- American warplanes hit multiple ISIS targets in Libya overnight. -- The Democrats and GOP presidential candidates held competing events. Heres what happened. -- Critics of South Dakotas transgender bathroom bill are threatening to boycott the state. -- Peter Santilli, charged in the Oregon standoff, is among a new breed of journalists. -- Seizures of illegal drugs soar in China; most suspects are farmers and unemployed. -- Bill Cosby demands settlement money back from his accuser in a sex assault case. HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS -- Kenneth Turan: The Oscars revolution has been messy, but diversity in storytelling deepens the art and enriches us. -- How the new horror film The Witch brings the 17th century to life. -- The Jordanian film Theeb made an arduous journey to an Oscar nomination. -- A poster exhibition stopping in L.A. gives voice to Mexicos missing 43 students. -- Donald and Kiefer Sutherland finally play father and son in the western Forsaken. -- Why Adeles Grammy Awards disaster was just what we wanted. -- New ABC President Channing Dungey is the smartest person theyve got. BUSINESS -- How far should data encryption go? -- Members of Congress call for an investigation of Shell over climate change. -- Why airlines frequent-flier programs are rewarding big spenders. SPORTS -- A close look at the Angels as spring training begins. Plus: The Dodgers Andrew Friedman explains the grand plan. -- The Lakers Byron Scott defends his coaching style. -- The Zika virus could add to the stress level of Olympians headed to the Rio Games this summer. WHAT OUR EDITORS ARE READING -- The ups and downs of teen bloggers on Tumblr. (The New Republic) -- When Allen Ginsberg wrote a poem about Bernie Sanders. (Forward) -- Behind the scenes at LA18, a TV station that caters to Asian American viewers. (Los Angeles Magazine) -- The man who made the Moka espresso maker famous is buried in a replica coffee pot. (CNN) ONLY IN L.A. What has three legs, is named B-337 and runs? A bobcat, the first three-legged specimen caught by National Park Service biologists in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. The plan is to track B-337 and study her along with 336 others in the area. Read on for more about her earless kitten and to see video of her release back into the wild. Please send comments and ideas to Davan Maharaj. The malware ransom attack on Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center which prompted the facility to pay a $17,000 ransom in bitcoin to the hacker who seized control of the hospitals computer systems is part of a larger problem that is generating outrage. The hospital attack has prompted a California state senator to propose making it an extortion crime for a hacker to infect a computer system with so-called ransomware. Last year, a small police department outside Boston paid a $500 ransom after an attack by hackers. A similar payment was made by a sheriffs department in Maine. Advertisement The cyberattack is made when a malware program engages as soon as a victim clicks on a compromised website. The virus then locks the victims computer. In warning about the problem several years ago, local law enforcement said computers often display a fake message purporting to be from the FBI or Department of Justice, claiming that the users Internet address has been associated with child pornography sites or other illegal activity. The malware program tells users they can unlock their computers by making a payment through a money card service. The assault on Hollywood Presbyterian occurred Feb. 5 when hackers using malware infected the institutions computers, preventing hospital staff from being able to communicate from those devices, Chief Executive Allen Stefanek. The hacker demanded 40 bitcoin, the equivalent of about $17,000, he said. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> The malware locks systems by encrypting files and demanding ransom to obtain the decryption key. The quickest and most efficient way to restore our systems and administrative functions was to pay the ransom and obtain the decryption key, Stefanek said. In the best interest of restoring normal operations, we did this. The hospital said it alerted authorities and was able to regain control of all of its computer systems by Monday, with the assistance of technology experts. Stefanek said patient care was never compromised, nor were hospital records. Sen. Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) introduced legislation this week that would stiffen penalties against hackers, with those convicted of ransomware schemes receiving up to four years in prison. Nearly every day we read in the news about data breaches and online criminal activity, Hertzberg said in a statement. We must be clear that we will not tolerate this kind of conduct, and that using modern tactics to engage in age-old thuggery of ransom and extortion do not change the seriousness of the crime. Top hospital officials called the Los Angeles Police Department last week, according to police Lt. John Jenal. Laura Eimiller, an FBI spokeswoman, said the bureau has taken over the hacking investigation but declined to discuss specifics of the case. Law enforcement sources told The Times that the hospital paid the ransom before reaching out to law enforcement for assistance. Phil Lieberman, a cybersecurity expert, said that while ransomware attacks are common, targeting a medical institution is not. I have never heard of this kind of attack trying to shut down a hospital. This puts lives at risk, and it is sickening to see such an act, he said. Health management systems are beginning to tighten their security. The attack forced the hospital to return to pen and paper for its record-keeping for a time. The 434-bed short-term acute care hospital on Vermont Avenue is owned by CHC of South Korea. For SoCal crime & investigations follow me on Twitter @lacrimes ALSO Apple CEO says helping FBI hack into terrorists iPhone would be too dangerous The futile fight to save Autumn, a 1-year-old victim of gang violence in Compton Sentenced to prison for assault, teenage parachute kids deliver warning to adults in China The parents of the man allegedly killed in Pomona by an off-duty Los Angeles police rookie filed a lawsuit Thursday against the city and the former officer. The parents of Salome Rodriguez Jr. allege that Henry Solis subjected their son to excessive force, unreasonable search, and assault and battery, according to the complaint. The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court and also alleges Solis and his employer, the city of Los Angeles, violated Rodriguezs civil rights. Advertisement The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages. Read the latest Essential California newsletter >> Solis, 28, has been charged with murder in the killing of Rodriguez, 23. Authorities allege Solis, who was off-duty at the time, fatally shot Rodriguez after a fight outside a Pomona bar. He has pleaded not guilty and is being held in a downtown Los Angeles jail in lieu of $10-million bail. The lawsuit filed by Lidia and Salome Rodriguez alleges that the two men encountered each other near 3rd and Main streets in the predawn hours of March 13, 2015, and had an altercation in which Solis identified himself as an LAPD officer. Solis pointed his department-issued gun at and detained Rodriguez, who eventually fled on foot, according to the suit. Solis chased Rodriguez and ordered him to stop, then pointed his gun and opened fire, the suit says. Rodriguez was struck four times; he was pronounced dead at a hospital. Rodriguez did not threaten Solis, who had no reasonable basis to open fire, the complaint says. The lawsuit alleges that the city is liable for the acts of their public employees and that Solis was acting under the color of law as a police officer of the LAPD. The city was aware of various instances where [Solis] unnecessarily and recklessly drew his firearms, and the city failed to take action to discipline him, according to the complaint. Rob Wilcox, a spokesman for the L.A. city attorneys office, declined to comment on the suit. On the day after the shooting, Solis did not show up for work, and Pomona detectives later publicly identified him as a person of interest in the killing. Police said he ditched his Volkswagen Jetta a few blocks from the site of the slaying and called his father for help. Victor Solis drove with his son 800 miles to El Paso, and escorted him across the border into Mexico, authorities said. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck swiftly fired the rookie officer, who had spent nine months with the department following about six years with the Marines. After a two-month manhunt, authorities apprehended Solis in Juarez, Mexico, where he was hiding among relatives. A federal jury convicted Victor Solis, 53, in June 2014 of making false statements to the FBI. He was sentenced to three years of probation. Henry Solis is next scheduled to appear in court for his criminal case on March 25. An attorney for Solis could not be reached for comment. For breaking news in California, follow @MattHjourno. ALSO Two people are killed in police shooting in Santa Ana Police officer and suspect are taken to hospitals after shootout in Santa Ana Knife-wielding man shot dead by LAPD in Van Nuys was suspected in stabbing, police say Ex-Disney star Orlando Brown has denied charges that he attacked his girlfriend in the parking lot of the Torrance Police Department headquarters, then brought methamphetamine into jail. Brown, who played Eddie Thomas on the Disney Channel show Thats So Raven, pleaded not guilty last month to battery, possessing methamphetamine for sale, bringing the drug into jail and resisting arrest, according to the Los Angeles County district attorneys office. He is scheduled to appear in court on March 28 to set a preliminary hearing. In several videos that were posted to Instagram on Thursday, Brown denied that he attacked his girlfriend or possessed drugs. The videos had been posted publicly, and then were later made private. Advertisement Police, Brown said, patted me down at least about three times before I went inside. Nobody, nobody found nothing on me. I am telling the truth. He also took shots at the media. Right when I find peace of mind, TMZ says its ridiculing time, he said. Brown was arrested about 11:20 a.m. Jan. 17. He and his girlfriend were driving through Torrance and stopped in the parking lot outside the police station, where they were seen arguing, Sgt. Paul Kranke said. At some point during the argument, a witness saw Brown attack his girlfriend, Kranke said. Officers were sent to talk to Brown, who refused to leave the vehicle, Kranke said. Police eventually removed him from the vehicle and placed him under arrest. Brown was also wanted on a warrant for grand theft. As officers were booking Brown into jail, they searched him and found drug paraphernalia and methamphetamine, Kranke said. Because the quantity of methamphetamine was large, police believe Brown may have been selling it. Last months arrest wasnt Browns first run-in with police. Brown, a Los Angeles County native, recently starred in the film Straight Outta Compton and has appeared in Major Payne. For breaking news in California, follow VeronicaRochaLA ALSO $17,000 bitcoin ransom paid by hospital to hackers sparks outrage San Jose cop who taunted Black Lives Matter protesters on Twitter gets job back Salaries higher for Los Angeles County Fair Assn. executives as financial losses mount The nonprofit association that runs the Los Angeles County Fair paid its top executive more than $1 million in total compensation in 2014, the fifth straight year the organization reported financial losses, newly obtained records show. After The Times reported in November that chief executive James Henwood Jr. collected nearly $900,000 in pay and benefits in 2013, state and county officials criticized the compensation as excessive and ordered audits of the Fair Assn. See the most-read stories this hour >> Since then, federal tax returns filed by the association show that Henwood was paid even more in 2014 $1,045,088 in salary and benefits, a 17% increase. The figure included about $443,000 in bonuses. Henwoods total compensation has risen 90% since 2009, the last year the Fair Assn. finished in the black, the tax records show. Bottom line worsens at L.A. County Fair Assn. Since 2009, gains have turned to losses. Four executives who report to Henwood the Fair Assn.s chief financial officer and its vice presidents for operations, sales and branding received total compensation ranging from about $313,000 to $455,000 in 2014, according to the records. The Fair Assn. reported a loss of $3.44 million in 2014, its largest amount of red ink since 2010. Figures for 2015 are not yet available. Henwood, 69, a former Orange County mall manager who has led the association for two decades, said the pay levels are appropriate and the losses reflect money reinvested into the Pomona fairgrounds, known as the Fairplex. GRAPHIC: Look at the pay of the Fair Assn.'s highest paid executives Stephen Morgan, a member of the associations governing board, which approved the compensation amounts, said the panel believed the salaries and bonuses were justified because of the complexity of the organization. He noted that the association runs several other enterprises beside the annual fair, such as a hotel and conference center and a vocational program for high school students. Jim does have higher compensation than fair managers do, because hes much more than a fair manager, said Morgan, who is president of the University of the West in Rosemead. We wanted to pay him enough so he wouldnt be looking at other opportunities that would come to him. Some elected officials said the salaries and bonuses are out of line. Salary and bonuses shoot up for top executive Though more people in California have been falling sick with the flu in the past few weeks, the season so far is proving milder than in recent years. Experts suggest several reasons: the available vaccine is a good match for the flu strains going around, the virus may not be spreading rapidly because of unusually warm weather, and the outbreak might not have peaked yet. In the middle of it all, its hard to know where we are: whether were in the eye of the storm or the storm has passed, said Dr. Robert Schechter, medical officer with the immunization branch of the California Department of Public Health. Advertisement The last three flu seasons peaked in December, but February is the most common peak of the season, which can run through May. Since the beginning of this season in October, 16 Californians under age 65 have died of the flu, according to data released Friday. At this time last year, there had been 29 deaths and two years ago, 243 deaths. But theres another possible explanation for the low case numbers: Influenza B. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> Viruses A and B infect people each winter flu season, but B strains typically cause less severe illness. This season so far, 45% of Californians diagnosed with the flu had been infected with Influenza B, compared with 6% last year, and 7% the year prior, according to state data. A similar trend has been seen nationally, with 32% of Americans diagnosed with flu this season testing positive for Influenza B, compared with 6% and 9% in the previous two years, respectively, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When a less severe flu strain is circulating, fewer people who are infected may be captured in the numbers, because they arent sick enough to go to the doctor. To be reported in the state flu numbers, a patient must be officially diagnosed by a physician and have a sample sent in for testing. Overall, the cases that are reported, whether mild or severe, are the tip of an iceberg, Schechter said. Each year the numbers we hear about are just a small proportion and ... its quite likely that that proportion may vary from year to year. Interested in the stories shaping California? Sign up for the free Essential California newsletter >> The state data released Friday also show that the percentage of people in California showing up at clinics and outpatient settings with the flu increased last week over the previous week. Some local hospitals also report that cases appear to be increasing. Together, Long Beach Memorial Medical Center, Community Hospital Long Beach and Miller Childrens & Womens Hospital Long Beach confirmed 60 flu cases last week, compared with an average of 27 during each of the three previous weeks. As of the first week of February, there had been seven influenza deaths in Los Angeles County so far, compared with 36 last year. Dr. Laurene Mascola, chief of the acute communicable disease control program for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, was reluctant to weigh in on whats been seen so far. As the saying goes, she said, if youve seen one flu season, youve seen one flu season. Right now were just happy its a mild season, she said. Because new strains havent emerged this season, the available vaccine includes the circulating strains and is providing strong immunity, she said. Plus, people may retain some natural immunity if they got sick from the same strains last year. Public health officials recommend that everyone over 6 months old get a flu shot. It takes about two weeks for the vaccine to begin offering protection. Follow @skarlamangla on Twitter for more health news. ALSO Driver suspected of DUI crashes into guardrail; hand severed $17,000 bitcoin ransom paid by hospital to hackers sparks outrage San Jose cop who taunted Black Lives Matter protesters on Twitter gets job back Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Thursday that he would support efforts to place a ballot measure before voters overhauling the leadership of the Department of Water and Power, joining a growing chorus of public officials who say institutional change is needed at L.A.s perennially unpopular public utility. In an interview with The Times, Garcetti whose promises to reform the DWP were at the center of his 2013 mayoral campaign said he would support new governance rules aimed at preventing political meddling in the utilitys operations. However, he stopped short of embracing the full slate of reforms suggested by other lawmakers. The campaign was about this. Ive been focused since Ive been here on modernizing a utility that serves its ratepayers that does things cheaper, faster, better, greener, he said. I think this is a once-in-a-generation chance. Im sick of the studies, and its time to take action for the ratepayers. Advertisement Garcetti said he would like to look for ways to loosen restrictions on the DWP stemming from the citys ponderous civil service code, which slows the hiring process and makes it difficult to compete with private-sector utilities trying to recruit the same workers. He said he also favors the creation of a professional board to oversee the department full-time, rather than the part-time commission of political appointees who now do the job. Yet on the crucial question of that boards independence, Garcetti appears to be on a collision course with other reform advocates. The mayor said he should retain the power to hire and fire board members, as well as the departments general manager. That arrangement, which mirrors the status quo, would be unacceptable, City Councilman Felipe Fuentes said. Fuentes, seconded by Council President Herb Wesson and Councilman Mitch OFarrell, proposed a ballot initiative last month that would rewrite the city charter to give the utility greater independence. While its details have not been finalized, the measure which probably would go before voters in November would create an independent, full-time board to oversee the utility and remove mayoral and City Council oversight of most department operations. Fuentes, who chairs the councils Energy and Environment Committee, has not yet specified whether the board would be elected or appointed. In either case, Fuentes said Thursday, board members shouldnt be vulnerable to firing by the mayor or council. He said preserving elected officials ability to remove the general manager and board members would perpetuate the kind of political interference his proposal is meant to remedy. Interested in the stories shaping California? Sign up for the free Essential California newsletter >> The bottom line for me is that the current system doesnt work, Fuentes said. Like many of the controversies that preoccupy L.A. City Hall, the topic of DWP governance reform can seem arcane. At its core is the question of whether the departments loathed bureaucracy would function better if it were overseen by a management team independent from the whims of the citys elected leaders. Unlike private and some other public utilities, the department currently operates under the control of the mayor and City Council. As a result, many low-level decisions on the departments technical operations and contracts must go through City Hall. Questions about the DWPs structure have grown more urgent as a series of scandals have buffeted the department since Garcetti took office. Among them have been the revelation that a pair of questionable nonprofit groups affiliated with the departments powerful employee union received $40 million from the utility, and the botched rollout of a new billing system that miscalculated many Angelenos bills. In July, the consumer group J.D. Power & Associates ranked the DWP last among large Western power providers in its annual customer satisfaction survey. (Despite such setbacks, the department is currently seeking to raise water and power rates.) In December, City Controller Ron Galperin released a report by consultants stating that because of DWPs unusual structure no single entity has enough insight into or authority over department operations and finances to hold it fully accountable. Garcetti cautioned that governance reform shouldnt be carried so far as to sever the utilitys accountability to city elected officials, who are in turn accountable to voters. Its exactly the right kind of oversight that you elect people to do, Garcetti said of his ability to appoint and remove top utility officials. People elect me to make sure the chief of police is the right chief of police. They elect me to make sure I have the right person running the airport. The leadership of the DWP, he said, shouldnt be protected from the same accountability. The councils Rules Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on a DWP ballot measure Friday. Twitter: @petejamison ALSO In a major shift, bullet train will start in Bay Area, not L.A., officials say L.A. files $20-million lawsuit against Da Vinci Apartments developer over huge downtown fire Medical examiner defends analysis of autopsy reports in Grim Sleeper trial California officials in charge of workplace safety voted down a proposal Thursday that would have put condoms on porn actors, heeding the call of scores of industry officials who said doing so would force them to make films nobody would watch. The state Division of Occupational Safety and Healths Standards Board voted the measure down when only three members supported it, Cal/Osha spokeswoman Julia Bernstein said. Four yes votes from the seven-member board were required for passage. The vote was 3-2 in favor, with one member absent and one board position currently open. The board will now begin considering a new worker-safety measure for the porn industry, Bernstein said. Advertisement Board members appeared influenced by the dozens of porn industry representatives who filed to the dais during a public hearing in Oakland, California, to argue forcefully but politely that adopting the condom measure would either destroy their multibillion-industry or force it underground. Doing the latter, they said, could make it more dangerous to performers by eliminating safeguards such as the industrys requirement that actors be tested every 14 days for sexually transmitted diseases. I know you guys work really hard and have our best interests at stake, but we need you to work with us to find a solution, said porn actress SiouxsieQ, who also reports on the industry for various publications. When you criminalize sex work in any way, you make it more dangerous. Mike Stabile, a spokesman for the industry trade group the Free Speech Coalition, said after the vote that pornographers hope they can work closely in the future in crafting safety requirements that the industry can accept. He didnt say what those might be. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation has lobbied Cal/OSHA for years to adopt workplace safety standards specifically for the porn industry that are similar to what it has for other businesses. Although disappointed by Thursdays vote, foundation spokesman Ged Kenslea said his organization was impressed that porn representatives said they recognize a need for some sort of regulation. He added his group would be interested in working with them to achieve that goal. Under the 21-page proposal Cal/OSHA rejected, so-called engineering controls such as condoms must be used by actors engaging in sex to reduce the risk of transmitting HIV and other diseases. Movie producers would also be required to pay for medical visits, treatments and other health-care costs for their performers. The problem, several speakers said, is that a large segment of their audience loses interest in a film when they see actors with condoms. Others said that if the rules were put into effect, Cal/OSHA inspectors could also eventually begin ordering actors to use safety goggles and dental dams, adding no one would want to see a film with that equipment. Although the new provisions rejected made no mention of goggles or dental dams, they would have required sex workers, like those in the medical industry, ensure that their eyes are protected from being infected by blood-borne pathogens. Industry officials worried that without goggles that could have meant the end to any explicit oral sex scenes. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation has argued for years that the condom requirement was long overdue and that while it might not prevent transmission of all sexually transmitted diseases it would be far more effective than the industrys 14-day STD testing requirement. MORE: Get our best stories in your Facebook feed >> One of those in favor of it, former actor Derrick Burts, has said he became infected with HIV while making porn films despite the testing protocol. Condoms are already required for films made in Los Angeles County, thanks to an AIDS Healthcare Foundation-sponsored ordinance that voters adopted in 2012. Meantime, the group has placed a similar measure on the statewide ballot for November. This will only energize us in preparing for that November ballot, Kenslea said of Thursdays outcome. Hoy: Lea esta historia en espanol ALSO Mayor Eric Garcetti says he will back a ballot measure to reform the DWP L.A. biologists study three-legged bobcat B-337 and her earless kitten L.A. files $20-million lawsuit against Da Vinci Apartments developer over huge downtown fire One after another, scores of people who make porn films for a living pleaded their case to California workplace safety officials: Dont force condoms or safety goggles or other devices designed to stop the spread of sexually transmitted diseases on them because those devices will simply stop people from watching porn films and soon theyll have no jobs at all. All of us are here for the same reason. We want to keep California workers safe, porn actress SiouxsieQ, who also reports on the industry for various publications, told the state Division of Occupational Safety and Healths Standards Board during a public hearing Thursday. But adopting regulations specifically requiring the use of condoms and other safety measures that audiences dont like would only keep people from watching films and destroy a multibillion-dollar business that employs thousands, she and dozens of others told the board. Advertisement The panel, which had been poised to approve the measure, eventually voted it down when only three members gave their support. Four yes votes from the seven-member panel were required for passage. The vote was 3-2 in favor, with one member absent and one board position currently open. The panel will now begin considering a new worker-safety measure for the porn industry, said Cal/OSHA spokeswoman Julia Bernstein. Board members appeared influenced by the large number of industry representatives, ranging from actors to writers to directors, who argued forcefully but politely during five hours of testimony. If the proposed regulations didnt destroy their multibillion-dollar industry, they said, they would likely force it underground. Doing that, they added, could be even worse for performers by eliminating existing safeguards such as the industrys requirement that actors be tested every 14 days for sexually transmitted diseases. I ask you not to approve this policy that will endanger me and my colleagues, porn actress Maxine Holloway said. Join the conversation on Facebook >> Mike Stabile, a spokesman for the industry trade group the Free Speech Coalition, said after the vote that pornographers hope they can work closely in the future in crafting safety requirements that the industry can accept. He didnt say what those might be. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation has lobbied Cal/OSHA for years to adopt workplace safety standards specifically for the porn industry that are similar to what it has for other businesses. Although disappointed by Thursdays vote, foundation spokesman Ged Kenslea said his organization was impressed that porn representatives said they recognize a need for some sort of regulation. He said his group would be interested in working with them to achieve that goal. Under the 21-page proposal Cal/OSHA rejected, so-called engineering controls such as condoms must be used by actors engaging in sex to reduce the risk of transmitting HIV and other diseases. Movie producers also would be required to pay for medical visits, treatments and other healthcare costs for their performers. The problem, several speakers said, is that a large segment of their audience loses interest in a film when they see actors with condoms. Others said that if the rules were put into effect, Cal/OSHA inspectors eventually could begin ordering actors to use safety goggles and dental dams, adding that no one would want to see a film with that equipment. Although the proposed provisions made no mention of goggles or dental dams, they would have required sex workers, like those in the medical industry, to ensure that their eyes are protected from being infected by blood-borne pathogens. Industry officials worried that without goggles, that could have meant the end to any explicit oral sex scenes. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation has argued for years that the condom requirement was long overdue and that while it might not prevent transmission of all sexually transmitted diseases, it would be far more effective than the industrys 14-day STD testing requirement. One of those in favor of it, former actor Derrick Burts, has said he became infected with HIV while making porn films despite the testing protocol. Condoms are required for films made in Los Angeles County, under an AIDS Healthcare Foundation-sponsored ordinance that voters adopted in 2012, and foundation officials maintain that under existing Cal/OSHA workplace safety laws, it is clearly implied they are also required. The measure that was rejected would have specifically stated that requirement with the word condoms. Meantime, the group has placed a similar condom measure on the statewide ballot for November. This will only energize us in preparing for that November ballot, Kenslea said of Thursdays outcome. ALSO San Francisco State University bans hoverboards Feds strike back at Apple, say firm misleads in public battle over terrorists iPhone Predator may been targeting college-age Asian women near UC Berkeley, police say Any San Francisco State University students who thought theyd look cool commuting to class on a new hoverboard might want to consider hoofing it. The university recently announced that it was imposing a hoverboard ban, and that violators now faced a $58 fine, a citation or confiscation of the device, according to university spokesman Jonathan Morales. The university takes the safety of all students, faculty, staff and visitors very seriously, he said. This step was taken in light of the ongoing safety and fire hazard concern with these devices and to maintain a safe campus community. Advertisement See more of our top stories on Facebook >> Morales said warnings would be issued first, with stiffer penalties to follow. The ban was issued more than a week before the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a letter Thursday to all hoverboard manufacturers, importers and retailers, asking them to comply with safety standards. Increasingly, public safety agencies nationwide have reported fires linked to the devices. The commission reports that overheating batteries have sparked at least 52 fires and caused more than $2 million in property damage. In Los Angeles, the dangers associated with hoverboard fires prompted Metrolink to ban the devices from all of its trains. Other groups have also made moves to ban the devices. In December, Delta, United, American and British Airways prohibited passengers from packing hoverboards on their planes. Now the commission has requested that all lithium ion battery products used in hoverboards must meet test requirements. Any hoverboards that do not meet safety standards will be considered defective. Self-balancing scooters that do not meet these voluntary safety standards pose an unreasonable risk of fire to consumers, Acting Director Robert J. Howell of the Office of Compliance and Field Operations said in the letter. Students are prohibited from using the self-balancing scooters on all walkways, pathways, pedestrian ramps, patios, stairs and any gathering areas with foot traffic only. Along with issuing warnings, university police will hand out copies of the schools policy to all offenders. Morales said the warning period is part of an educational campaign to make sure all students, possibly even some professors, are aware hoverboards are no longer welcome on campus. The hoverboard joins a growing list of transportation devices that are already banned on campus. Devices already forbidden on campus grounds include bicycles, skates, scooters, skateboards, roller skates, in-line skates and other similar wheeled devices. For breaking news in California, follow VeronicaRochaLA ALSO L.A. city attorney sues to stop Speed Weed from delivering marijuana Feds strike back at Apple, say firm misleads in public battle over terrorists iPhone Predator may been targeting college-age Asian women near UC Berkeley, police say A San Jose police officer who fulminated against Black Lives Matter and Ferguson protesters via Twitter has been given his job back after the city fired him last year, officials said. An independent arbitrator reinstated Phil White, the San Jose Police Department announced in a statement issued Thursday. He will be assigned to administrative duties and will assist in rolling out the departments body camera program, officials said. While the City and Department disagree with the Arbitrators conclusion, we respect the process and will move forward with reinstatement, Acting Police Chief Eddie Garcia said in a statement. Advertisement In October, the Police Department confirmed that White was no longer working for the city, but declined to elaborate on the reason for his departure. Police officers who successfully complete probation can appeal any discipline imposed on them, Garcia said. In those instances, an officer may have an arbitrator decide whether the discipline should have been imposed. The department recognizes that the individual character and excellence of each department member reflects upon the department, the police chief said. Therefore the department will continue to expect each of its members to maintain a high ethical standard and provide equitable treatment for all its citizens. White was placed on leave for his tweets, which came at the height of nationwide protests stemming from the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> At the time, thousands of protesters were demonstrating over the deaths of unarmed black men by white police officers. On social media, protesters used the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter -- an organized movement founded by three women. White deleted his tweets, but they were captured by BuzzFeed and the San Jose Mercury News. One read: Threaten me or my family and I will use my God given and law appointed right and duty to kill you. #CopsLivesMatter By the way if anyone feels they cant breathe or their lives matter Ill be at the movies tonight, off duty, carrying my gun. The cant breathe in Whites tweet referred to Garners last words before he died after a New York police officer took him to the ground with a chokehold. After Garners death, protesters chanted, I cant breathe. At the time, then-Police Chief Larry Esquivel publicly condemned the tweets and the San Jose Police Officers Assn. said Whites tweets were disrespectful. Offensive, disrespectful and inappropriate social media comments have no place in the public discourse surrounding the tragic loss of life from recent officer-involved incidents, the unions statement read. For breaking news in California, follow VeronicaRochaLA on Twitter. ALSO Driver suspected of DUI crashes into guardrail; hand severed $17,000 bitcoin ransom paid by hospital to hackers sparks outrage Ex-star of Disneys Thats So Raven denies charges he attacked girlfriend, brought drugs into jail A new campaign opposing Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsoms proposed ballot initiative to toughen Californias gun laws accuses the Democrat of shamelessly exploiting the San Bernardino terrorist attacks to win support for the measure and advance his own campaign for governor. The California Rifle & Pistol Assn. on Friday morning will suggest in an email campaign that Newsom is trying to take away the constitutional rights of gun owners and render millions of legally purchased firearms useless. Former San Francisco Mayor and gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom thinks he can become Governor by shamelessly exploiting the San Bernardino attacks and the fear that flowed from those attacks, the campaign, called the Coalition for More Civil Liberties, says in an email being sent Friday to potential supporters of its effort. Advertisement He has responded by promoting a frightening and self-aggrandizing ballot initiative that bypasses the Legislature and that would, if passed by voters, limit your ability to choose how best to defend yourself, it adds. Richard Grenell, spokesman for the opposition campaign, said the effort includes a diverse group of supporters, not just gun rights groups. Among the co-chairs is Los Angeles Deputy Dist. Atty. Michele Hanisee, president of the Assn. of Deputy District Attorneys, and technology executive Chris Cheng. Gavin Newsom wants you to believe gun owners are all old white guys. This is a diverse group, Grenell said, noting that both he and Cheng are gay. Grenell previously worked as a spokesman for four U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations during President George W. Bushs administration. Newsoms proposed initiative, called the Safety for All Act, would require background checks for ammunition purchases and ban possession of large-capacity magazines. To qualify for the November ballot, Newsom must get petition signatures from 365,880 registered voters in the state. So far, proponents already have collected 25% of what they need. The measure would need a simply majority of the vote to be approved. Cheng, who formerly worked at Google and as a sport shooter was a champion on the History Channels Top Shot program, criticized Newsoms proposal as casting a broad net that disproportionately impacts law-abiding citizens. The Newsom initiative is a terrible idea driven by an anti-gun ideology that will have zero impact on public safety, he said. Newsom introduced the measure in October, almost two months before Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik burst into the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino and opened fire, killing 14 people. Newsom since has mentioned the attack when discussing the rash of mass shootings in the United States and the need for stricter gun laws. Because the devastating violence, the mass shootings none of it will end until we stand up to the NRA and pass gun safety reform for our communities, Newsom said in an email to supporters days after the attack. California has some of the toughest firearms laws in the country. Buying, selling and manufacturing large-capacity magazines is illegal in the state, but possession of them is still allowed. Under Newsoms measure, owners would be required to sell them to a licensed firearms dealer, take them out of state or turn them over to police. California voters continue to support increased gun control measures. According to a Field Poll released in January, 57% of voters said they believed it was more important to impose greater controls on gun ownership, compared with 38% who said protecting the rights of Americans to own guns was more important. Field Polls conducted since 1999 found nearly the same result. phil.willon@latimes.com Follow @philwillon on Twitter for the latest news on California politics ALSO: Newsom launches gun-control push On gun control, Newsom seems to be following Bloombergs lead Updates from Sacramento Opponents of a bill that would prohibit transgender students in South Dakota from using the bathroom of their choice are taking aim at the states $3.8-billion tourism industry. Activists this week used #HiFromSD, a Twitter hashtag created by South Dakotas Tourism Department, to criticize lawmakers for advancing legislation the activists believe would lead to bullying and discrimination, the Argus Leader newspaper reported. Republican Gov. Dennis Daugaard is considering whether to sign the bill passed by lawmakers that would require transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to their sex at birth. Advocates say the bill is meant to protect the privacy of students, but opponents say the legislation is discriminatory. Advertisement Join the conversation on Facebook >> Dave Woodside, of Bear, Del., told the newspaper that his family plans to visit Mt. Rushmore and the Badlands in August but will book accommodations outside South Dakota if the transgender bill becomes law. Anything I can do to apply a little bit of pressure on the situation, I will do, he said. The effort to pressure Daugaard by highlighting potential tourism losses mirrors similar efforts in Indiana and Arizona, both of which recently saw backlash from bills that were criticized as discriminatory. Tony Venhuizen, Daugaards chief of staff, said Thursday that South Dakota has heard talk of tourism boycotts in the past when controversial issues cropped up but that weve never seen a very tangible outcome from that kind of talk. He said the governor hasnt yet received the bill or reached a decision about it, but plans to talk to people on both sides of the issue. Top officials at the state Tourism Department didnt respond to phone messages from the Associated Press or the Argus Leader. Nicole Ratzlaff, owner of a bed and breakfast in Sioux Falls, said she doubted the transgender legislation would put a dent in the number of visitors coming to the state. I see that more as a bullying tactic, Ratzlaff said. ALSO Latinos seek answers from Sanders and Clinton in Las Vegas Manny Pacquiao posts Bible verse that states gay people should be killed Change in bullet train construction plans will delay rail lines arrival in Southern California When a group of armed men took over a wildlife refuge in Oregon on Jan. 2, the story was broken by a right-wing YouTube talk show host named Peter Santilli. With two dogs in his back seat, Santilli, 50, had driven from Cincinnati to Burns, Ore., to support and cover a protest against the conviction of two local ranchers for burning federal land. But that day, the normally loquacious Santilli, who had broadcast a call for fellow patriots to join the protest in Oregon, seemed jittery on his live-stream show. He muttered jeez to himself before delivering word of what was about to become one of the biggest stories in the country. Advertisement Theres a group of individuals right now at the Malheur [National] Wildlife Refuge. OK, there is a federal building that a group of individuals are going to take over, said Santilli, publicly marking the start of a weeks-long occupation that would end with one protester dead, many arrests and a final dramatic standoff with the FBI. This is 1,000% an injustice. If this can happen to me, it can happen to any member of the media. Peter Santilli, YouTube talk show host, in a jailhouse phone call Then, Santilli said, If I had known about this, I would have tried to talk those people out of doing it. Santilli had suddenly found himself tangled in the divergent roles of supporter, journalist and dissenter so tangled that three weeks later the federal government arrested him. He stood accused of being responsible for the same standoff Santilli says he was trying to stop and trying to cover as a journalist protected by the 1st Amendment. Santillis case in Oregon has drawn a similarly tangled response from the Oregon chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which was concerned about the free-speech implications of his case but also openly wary of the armed protest Santilli nonetheless appeared to continue supporting. There is no doubt that when Pete Santilli gets in front of the camera he is politically polarizing and, to many, downright offensive. He challenges government authority through brazen, political statements, ACLU of Oregon legal director Mat dos Santos wrote in a note. But does he pose a real threat? The stakes grew higher Wednesday when Santilli, a former longtime Hesperia, Calif., resident, was also indicted in Nevada, where he covered and allegedly participated in and urged on an armed standoff outside Las Vegas in 2014. In both cases, the government accuses Santilli of going beyond the boundaries of traditional journalism to criminally defy the government and put federal agents lives at risk with the help of his tens of thousands of YouTube subscribers. Both indictments show Santilli calling for more protesters to come to the scene, at times getting cozy with the key players involved, who are now also under arrest, or getting confrontational with federal officials. Santilli and his supporters say that he was not armed and that the government is retaliating against him for constitutionally protected viewpoints. This is 1,000% an injustice, Santilli said in a jailhouse phone call uploaded to YouTube. If this can happen to me, it can happen to any member of the media, especially you independent media journalists, you alternative media journalists. Santilli is a part of a new wave of activist-journalists who, empowered by social media, have taken up the tools of journalism but not the traditional restrictions of journalism, and who have courted danger as a result. In Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, protesters streamed live front-line video of their standoffs with riot police that was watched around the world, but which also put them at risk of arrest by defying the officials ordering them to clear the scene. In Texas, antiabortion activists made undercover videos about Planned Parenthood that they called investigative journalism, but which opponents called misleading and which led a grand jury to indict them on charges of using fake identification and violating organ-trafficking laws. The antigovernment protests out West have come with their own array of advocate-journalists like Santilli, including one activist, Gavin Seim, who, by phone, broadcast exclusive audio of the final surrender of the Oregon occupiers last week. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> Its a whole culture these guys bring a whole bunch of breaking news; they help out mainstream media, said Santillis broadcast partner and partner in life, Deb Jordan, who traveled with him to Burns. If they get shut down, it would really be detrimental to everyone concerned, all of media. Santilli grew up in Latham, N.Y., and lived in Hesperia for 20 years before moving to Ohio last February, according to court filings. He has spent several years doing crowd-funded news and talk shows. In what Jordan said was Santillis first role as a field reporter, Santilli broadcast from the 2014 standoff between Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and officials who had come to seize his cattle from federal lands. An indictment said Santilli suggested we stand and fight to the absolute death to get the federal government out of Nevada, telling listeners on April 8, 2014, If youre in Nevada and can legally carry, get weapons out there, OK? The next day, the indictment says, Santilli traveled to Nevada and threatened an FBI agent while trying to claim self-defense, telling the official, I dont believe in firing a single bullet unless in absolute defense and its legal and constitutional. Santilli later told the official, If you make the decision to go face-to-face and someone gets hurt we are going to hold you responsible, the indictment says. I came here to allow you to prevent a scenario where someone gets hurt. The indictment accuses Santilli of being part of a group that intercepted a Bureau of Land Management convoy and threatened law enforcement officers at the scene, later boasting on-air, We were serious about stopping the convoy.... We want BLM to always retreat because we will always outnumber them. BLM officials ultimately backed down from the armed standoff with Bundys hundreds of supporters, but they arrested Bundy for the standoff this month when he flew to Oregon to support two of his sons, who had been arrested for the wildlife refuge standoff. Although Santilli had been staying at a hotel in Burns, he was among those arrested Jan. 26 as federal officials captured the protests leaders but not before breaking the news of the arrests on YouTube. At the time he was detained, he was trying to reach the refuge to clear out the remaining occupiers. Federal officials once again zeroed in on Santillis ambiguous role, noting that he had continued to broadcast calls for protesters to come to Oregon and had spoken out against the mainstream media at a news conference with the occupations leaders. I think right now theyre throwing a bunch of stuff against the wall to see what sticks, so I guess well have to see how this plays out, Jordan said Thursday. But most important, Jordan said, his role as a reporter is being challenged here in both cases. Twitter: @MattDPearce ALSO Latinos seek answers from Sanders and Clinton in Las Vegas Manny Pacquiao posts Bible verse that states gay people should be killed Change in bullet train construction plans will delay rail lines arrival in Southern California Hillary Clinton has done just about everything right ahead of Saturdays caucuses in Nevada. She began organizing early, visited the state repeatedly, hired some of its most talented political professionals and cultivated broad support from organized labor, Democratic leaders and the partys grass roots. But Clinton made one glaring mistake: She failed to take Bernie Sanders seriously enough. Advertisement Most crucially, she allowed him to dominate the television airwaves in the state starting in December and continuing through his momentum-building performances in the first two presidential nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. Now Clintons once-sizable lead in voter surveys has all but vanished, and both sides are bracing for a close finish. Nevada has become a highly contested race and could either be Clintons firewall or Sanders proving ground, said Rebecca Lambe, a top strategist for Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who has not taken sides. It is far too soon to talk in terms of political life and death, or other such melodramas. But a loss in Nevada, which once seemed almost inconceivable, would do grave harm to Clinton and establish the Vermont senator as more than a charmingly irascible distraction en route to her certain nomination. Even a close Sanders finish could raise strong doubts about Clintons candidacy, especially if he manages to cut deeply into her presumed base among Latino, black and Asian American voters. In a last sprint Friday, Clinton sought to bolster her support among women and Latinos. Appealing to both, her latest TV spot featured a scene from a meeting last weekend in East Las Vegas, where Clinton hugged a young girl who was afraid her parents would be deported. Let me do the worrying, Clinton said. Sanders took his populist message to rural Nevada. He spoke Friday at a town-hall event in Elko, calling for a higher federal minimum wage and free college tuition two hallmarks of his campaign. This is not a radical idea, he said. Nevada has none of the storied history of Iowas caucuses or New Hampshires primary. But the vote here could go much further than either of those contests in shaping an increasingly unpredictable fight for the Democratic nomination. The only other time Nevada mattered this much in the primary season was in 2008, the first time it held its early caucuses, when Clinton and Barack Obama fought to a split decision; Clinton won the popular vote while Obama edged her in the delegate count. As in other early states, the fight here is less about delegates there are only 43 at stake, out of nearly 2,400 needed to win the nomination than expectations and perception. Had Clinton handily carried both Iowa and New Hampshire, the fight for the nomination would have essentially ended, even if Sanders continued campaigning. But Sanders nearly beat Clinton in the Iowa caucuses, and then won New Hampshire in a landslide the next week. Each of those setbacks came with caveats, however, or at least a rationale that Clinton and her supporters could use to explain away concerns. Iowa is overwhelmingly white and its Democrats have a broad progressive streak, which helped the more liberal Sanders. New Hampshire borders Vermont, giving Sanders an advantage as a next-door neighbor. That is why, even though many were stunned by the size and breadth of Sanders New Hampshire victory, there was nervousness but not full-fledged panic within the Democratic establishment, which strongly leans in Clintons favor. Nevada is different. This vast desert state was supposed to be Clintons fail-safe, or firewall, decisively stopping the Sanders conflagration before the flames spread. Clinton country is how Dina Titus, the congresswoman from Las Vegas and a supporter of the former first lady and secretary of State, describes it. Bill Clinton, running as a different kind of Democrat which is to say a relative moderate carried the state both times he ran for president. Hillary Clinton took vestiges of his support and remnants of her 2008 political organization and bolstered them by hiring veterans of Obamas successful campaigns here. She also enjoyed a huge advantage over Sanders in name recognition and, it was believed, an enormous edge among minority voters, who have been Clinton loyalists going back to her husbands years in the White House. That is why the stakes have grown so high. Already facing doubts about his electability, a poor showing would send Sanders limping into the primary next weekend in South Carolina, where he is already the underdog, and after that the sprawling set of contests stretching nearly coast-to-coast on March 1. For most Nevadans, the caucuses will be an afterthought; only a small fraction of eligible voters are expected to turn out on a sunny Saturday afternoon. But the outcome could go a long way toward determining whether Clintons firewall holds, or the Sanders insurgency blazes on brighter and stronger than before. Follow @markzbarabak for national & California politics MORE ON CAMPAIGN 2016 Hillary Clinton faces one problem she didnt expect: Money Latinos seek answers from Sanders and Clinton in Las Vegas Trump and Pope Francis clash over immigration, another extraordinary campaign twist A judge on Friday sent the Texas teenager who used an affluenza defense in a fatal drunken-driving wreck to adult court, raising the possibility that he could get jail time for the 2013 crash that killed four people. Ethan Couch was 16 at the time of the crash. During his juvenile trial, a defense expert invoked the term affluenza while arguing that Couchs wealthy parents had coddled him into a sense of irresponsibility. Fridays ruling means the now 18-year-old Couch could face up to 120 days in jail, then finish his 10-year probation. But if he violates his probation during that time, he could get up to 10 years in prison for each of the four people killed in the accident. Advertisement Among those attending the hearing was Sergio Molina, who was riding in the back of Couchs pickup and was left paralyzed by the wreck. He can only communicate by blinking his eyes. Molina attended with his mother and brother, Alexander Lemus, who said that what he wanted from the Couches was that they pay. Whats 120 days in county? Lemus asked. Thats nothing. We need help. They have so much money, they need to pay. The judge ordered that the case be transferred before Couch turns 19 in April. He remains in custody. Couchs attorney, Scott Brown, did not fight the transfer. Although he has not explained the strategy, the punishment could have been greater if the judge had kept the case in the juvenile system. Staying in juvenile court could have set off a series of hearings to determine whether Couch violated his existing probation, which potentially could have led to 10 years in adult prison when Couch ages out of the juvenile system at 19. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> By having the case transferred to the adult system, Couch will not face the possibility of a lengthy prison term unless he violates probation in the future. He may, however, face up to several months in the county jail. After the hearing, Brown said he would not request any specific terms of probation for Couch. A hearing to set the probation terms has not yet been scheduled. Couch and his mother, Tonya Couch, disappeared in December, as prosecutors investigated whether he had violated his probation. They were later found in Mexico and deported. Ethan Couchs blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit for adult drivers when he rammed a pickup truck into a crowd of people trying to help a stranded motorist on the side of a road near Fort Worth. The probation sentence handed down by a juvenile court judge outraged prosecutors, who had called for him to face detention time. Authorities believe that Ethan and Tonya Couch fled to Mexico in early December, after an online video surfaced that appeared to show the teenager at a party where alcohol was being served. Drinking alcohol would be a violation of his probation. Mother and son were apprehended on Dec. 28, in the resort city of Puerto Vallarta. Tonya Couch, 48, was quickly deported; after being returned to Texas, she was released on bond with a GPS monitor. She is charged with hindering the apprehension of a felon. Her son initially fought deportation but later dropped the fight and returned to Texas in late January. He was being held at the Tarrant County Jail. ALSO Cliven Bundys bizarre ranching practices include neglecting cattle, Justice Dept. says Critics of South Dakotas transgender bathroom bill are threatening to boycott the state Activist-journalists in the Oregon standoff and elsewhere push boundaries and court danger With the social event of the year quickly approaching, Linda Leyendecker Gutierrez took a moment to assess one of her latest creations. Look at that darn dress! she said. It just makes my heart beat! The 18th century-style dress, an elaborate affair of dark blue iridescent two-tone velvet with a red cross thread, aqua embroidery and lace, would soon have a starring role in an only-in-America extravaganza in this Tex-Mex border town: the Society of Martha Washington Colonial Pageant and Ball. Advertisement Its a rite of passage in which about 13 mostly Latina teenage debutantes reenact revolutionary history in bejeweled, hoop-skirted period dresses. Girls come in here and they leave like butterflies. Linda Leyendecker Gutierrez Most of the gowns are designed by Leyendecker Gutierrez, a former debutante whose south Texas oil and ranching family has participated in the pageant for five generations and traces its roots to Patrick Henry and Martha Washington herself. She estimates that since she took over for another dressmaker in 1974, she has designed gowns for more than 500 girls. On this day she was doing the final fitting for Katie Beckelhymer, a 17-year-old high school senior. Leyendecker Gutierrez operates out of a few studios, each housed in a historic home. This one is so full of mannequins, the real debutante must have her final fitting in the foyer. Katie stood still as two assistants strapped on a corset, hip cage and petticoat, then lowered the dress into place. This is a masterpiece! exclaimed her grandmother Anna Haynes, 79, a retired high school teacher, from a seat in a doorway. The ball was two weeks away, on Feb. 19. Leyendecker Gutierrez bent down to fluff a layer of pale lace at the bottom of the dress. Is it too short? she wondered aloud in Spanish, blue eyes darting behind oversize black glasses. She directed her assistants to tug the skirt down as she paced in her leopard print wrap, diamond earrings and matching diamond and emerald salamander brooch possibly from the collection of the Duchess of Windsor. Dressmaker Linda Leyendecker Gutierrez explains the artistry behind the gowns she creates for the Society of Martha Washington Colonial Pageant and Ball. She crafted this gown for 17-year-old Katie Beckelhymer. At 73, Leyendecker Gutierrez is still limber enough to drop and crawl under the gowns like a mechanic under a chassis, tinkering with the undergarments and trains. Katies grandmother has seen her do it, and calls her an acrobat. Before the ball, she will be backstage making final adjustments for the girls in her purple and black Christian Siriano couture gown. (The Project Runway star is a fan of hers, having visited her studios.) But today, there will be no last-minute alterations. She had a vision of this dress last year, inspired by Katies tall, shapely figure, and now that vision had been fulfilled. I didnt see French rococo exactly, but that lace was the biggest inspiration, she said, fingering a delicate sleeve edged with froth. The kid pulled it off. Leyendecker Gutierrez sees potential in the debutantes, called las Martas or beldades beauties. Girls come in here and they leave like butterflies, she said. The high-ceilinged rooms of the studio were filled with photographs and populated with mannequins resplendent in dresses from years past. Theres a chartreuse gown her daughter, also a former deb, wore three years ago when she played the role of Martha Washington. Her granddaughters gown shone with ornate Louis XV shell patterns rendered in glittering gray pearls and Swarovski crystals. The pageant is one in the most traditional sense: not a competition but a reenactment of a scene from the Revolutionary era. Young men, also in colonial garb, escort the debutantes. The Society of Martha Washington was founded in 1939 as an auxiliary to the Washingtons Birthday Celebration begun here in 1898. Leyendecker Gutierrezs grandfather, Thomas Aquinas Leyendecker, played the first George Washington in 1905; her father played the part in 1957. By the time she was presented three years later, the ball was held at a local Air Force hangar, the only site large enough for the crowds. She later married her escort, as her two sisters wed theirs, a not uncommon occurrence. In the weeks leading up to the ball, the girls take classes on how to dance, walk, bow and manage stairs, no small feat in dresses that weigh nearly as much as they do. Debs have to be invited to join the society, and dresses are expensive, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars. Some families save for years for a new dress, or to have Leyendecker Gutierrez rework heirloom dresses. She helped five sisters in one family refit the same gown. Among those she designed for this year: local U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellars daughter, petite and raven-haired, whom she fitted in bronze French silk lame with purple accents. The opulence of the event is a stark contrast to the poverty on the border. Across the river, cartels have invaded their Mexican sister city of Nuevo Laredo. Wealthy families on both sides have moved north. They flock to the Washingtons birthday celebration, which now attracts more than 400,000 to events all month long, including a border bridge ceremony, jalapeno festival and air show. But the debs remain the centerpiece, riding floats in a parade where crowds applaud as they pass, calling for them to lift their skirts to reveal funny shoes, often bedroom slippers and cowgirl boots. After Katies fitting, Leyendecker Gutierrez met Pete Mims, this years George Washington, at his familys Border Foundry Restaurant and Bar, and recalled the stir her grandfathers performance caused. He crossed the Rio Grande depicting the crossing of the Delaware! We should do that this year, Mims wife, Leslie, suggested. Not unless you want the Zetas on the back of the boat! Leyendecker Gutierrez said, referring to the Mexican cartel that has battled to control Nuevo Laredo. Imagine how life in Laredo has changed. Just then, another debutante approached, gushing. Catarina Benavides, 18, wore her black hair long and loose over a society T-shirt from 2010, the year her aunt played Martha Washington. Leyendecker Gutierrez had reworked an heirloom gown for Benavides. They pulled up a cellphone video of the dress, the original pale pink and baby blue panels of velvet and duchess satin over tulle peaking out from the new tapestry skirt outlined in pale gold. Weve added so much, you wouldnt even recognize it, the older woman said, pointing to a subtle beaded design in front: the Benavides family crest. I put it on there for her father, she said. The teenager beamed. Its not clear who Leyendecker Gutierrezs dressmaking heir will be. For now, she is concentrating on the near future, which is booked. I have dresses for next year Im already making petticoats, she said. I know the debs for the next five years. I mean, people get born and theyre calling me from the hospital. For news from the Southwest follow @mollyhf on Twitter. Bill Cosby is demanding that the accuser in his criminal case repay a confidential sex-abuse settlement because she cooperated with police who reopened the case and arrested him last year. Cosby filed a sealed breach-of-contract lawsuit this month that said the settlement barred Andrea Constand from voluntarily discussing the case with law enforcement. The suit said Constand had no legal duty to cooperate with Pennsylvania authorities because she lives in Canada. The interviews she and her mother gave to investigators last year were therefore voluntary and violated the settlement terms, the suit said. Advertisement Join the conversation on Facebook >> Despite being under no legal obligation to discuss any aspects of the events and allegations, ... and despite being expressly prohibited from disclosing such information to anyone, Andrea Constand volunteered to participate and disclosed such information to the district attorney and others, Cosbys lawyers wrote in a redacted suit filed Thursday. Cosby faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of sexually assaulting Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. He has not yet entered a plea, but his lawyers have vowed to clear his name. Constand, 43, is now a massage therapist in Toronto. His lawsuit against her also names her mother and lawyers as defendants because they also cooperated with Montgomery County authorities last year. The suit accuses them of inviting media coverage or making public statements about the case. Constands lawyers have said the agreement has a provision that allows them to speak to law enforcement about the case. Any such prohibition would amount to obstruction on the part of the lawyers who drafted the document, lawyer Dolores Troiani testified this month, when Cosby first appeared in court for a pretrial hearing in the criminal case. Cosby, 78, filed the sealed breach-of-contract suit Feb. 1, a day before that hearing. His lawyers then were ordered to file the redacted version of the suit. The lawsuit is the actors latest counterattack against complaints from dozens of women that he drugged and molested them. He has filed defamation suits against accusers in Springfield, Mass., and Los Angeles and through lawyers has called at least some of the accusations discredited. The lawsuit filed against Constand seeks the repayment of the still-secret settlement he paid her in 2006, plus interest. He also seeks damages from Constand, her mother, her two lawyers and the parent company of the National Enquirer, which has published numerous stories on the case. Cosby, the lawsuit said, has suffered serious and irreparable harm and should be compensated by damages to be proven at trial. Troiani declined to comment Thursday on behalf of herself or Constand. However, in filing a response to Cosbys bid to keep the case sealed, she and partner Bebe Kivitz said they want to defend the lawsuit in public to respond to charges that they engaged in unethical or potentially criminal acts. Cosby is requesting the court permit him to make accusations and statements regarding the underlying settlement while restricting the ability of the public to scrutinize those accusations, their response said. The suit accuses Constand of unjust enrichment from the settlement. The amount of the settlement has never been disclosed. ALSO Apple vs. FBI is epic fight over privacy and national security Obama OKs new sanctions against North Korea for nuclear program Trump and Pope Francis clash over immigration, another extraordinary campaign twist The highest court in Maryland has agreed to hear appeals in the trials of five of the six Baltimore police officers charged in the Freddie Gray case, preventing any lower court proceedings from moving forward for the foreseeable future. The Maryland attorney generals office, representing the Baltimore states attorneys office, had petitioned the Court of Appeals to bypass the lower-level appeals process and expedite a review regarding questions over whether Baltimore Police Officer William G. Porter can be compelled to testify against other officers while still facing his own charges. Porter was ordered by Circuit Judge Barry G. Williams to testify in two of the officers cases Officer Caesar Goodson Jr. and Sgt. Alicia White and Porters lawyers have been seeking to overturn the decision. In the three other cases of Officers Edward Nero, Garrett Miller and Lt. Brian Rice prosecutors failed to convince Williams that Porter is a necessary witness, and they are seeking to overturn that decision. Advertisement See more of our top stories on Facebook >> The Court of Appeals decision to take the cases means that all lower court proceedings including the pre-trial motions hearing scheduled for Friday in Neros trial, which was set to begin Monday with jury selection are canceled. In petitioning the Court of Appeals to take up the cases, the attorney generals office wrote that all five cases should be reviewed because they provide an appropriate vehicle for this court to consider the application of [the state immunity statute] from all sides. At issue is whether the states immunity statute can protect Porters right against self-incrimination. Attorneys for the state argue Williams applied the immunity statute differently in the two instances being appealed, and asked the court to resolve the issue before Marylands witness immunity scheme fails to function as the legislature intended. In orders handed down Thursday, Chief Judge Mary Ellen Barbera agreed that the high court should consider the cases, but outlined separate legal questions for the court to consider in the two cases appealed by Porter and the three appealed by the state. In the Goodson and White cases, Barbera wrote, the question at hand is: Does the states immunity statute provide Porter sufficient protection against self-incrimination to allow his testimony to be compelled to the stand? NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >> In the Nero, Miller and Rice trials, Barbera wrote, there are two questions at hand. The first is: Does the states immunity statute require a court to order compelled, immunized witness testimony after verifying that the statutory pleading requirements of the prosecutors motion to compel have been met, or does the statute instead permit a court to substitute its own discretion and judgment as to whether compelling the witnesss testimony may be necessary to the public interest such that the court may deny a prosecutors motion to compel even if the motion complies with the statutes pleading requirements? The second is whether the circuit courts order denying the States motion to compel Officer William Porter to testify is appealable i.e. whether the order is a final judgment or an interlocutory order subject to appeal or an order appealable on any other basis? Oral arguments in all five of the cases will be heard on March 3, Barbera ordered. There is no date by which the court must rule in the cases, though Barbera has made it a goal of the court to hand down rulings during the same term. The current term ends in September. Twitter: @rectorsun ALSO: A quick guide to the people and groups Donald Trump has insulted Bill Cosby demands settlement money back from accuser in sex assault case Trump and Pope Francis clash over immigration, another extraordinary campaign twist Justice Antonin Scalias flag-draped casket was carried up the marble steps of the Supreme Court on Friday in a somber procession that began a day of ceremony and tribute to one of the courts most influential members. Scalias eight Supreme Court colleagues, his family and nearly 100 former law clerks watched solemnly as Supreme Court police placed the casket on a funeral bier first used after President Abraham Lincolns assassination. The Rev. Paul Scalia, the justices son and a Catholic priest, said traditional prayers. You have called your servant Antonin out of this world, he said. May he rest in peace. Advertisement Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony M. Kennedy and Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., attend a private ceremony in the Great Hall of the Supreme Court where late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia lies in repose in Washington. (JACQUELYN MARTIN / AFP/Getty Images) A 2007 portrait of Scalia by artist Nelson Shanks was displayed nearby. In it, the justice is shown surrounded by images representing important moments and influences in his life, including a framed wedding photograph of his wife, Maureen. She, their nine children and three dozen grandchildren were present. Before Scalias body arrived, his former clerks formed two lines down the court steps and across its marble plaza. A few wiped away tears after the casket arrived. The clerks will take turns standing vigil by their former boss throughout the day and night in a tradition most recently observed after the 2005 death of former Chief Justice William Rehnquist. The doors to the court chamber, where Scalia had served for nearly 30 years, were open at the east end of the hall. Black wool crepe hung over the entrance, and Scalias courtroom chair was draped in black. After a private ceremony for family, friends and justices, Scalias casket was on public view from 10:30 a.m. until 8 p.m. The line of people waiting to pay respects stretched for nearly a block just before the public was allowed in. Rhaleta Bernard of Queens, N.Y., where Scalia grew up, had been visiting Washington with her husband, Kelvin. They changed their bus tickets in order to pay respects. Bernard said Scalia believes in interpreting the law, not making the law. I want another Scalia, said Bernard, a reading specialist. I dont think theres another one, though. A small memorial outside the Supreme Court includes jars of applesauce, a package of paper bags and a pile of fortune cookies--a nod to the colorful language he used in biting dissents. (Jessica Gresko / AP) Outside, fans of the former justice created a small memorial at the bottom of the court steps, leaving two jars of applesauce, a package of paper bags and a pile of fortune cookies a nod to his biting dissents last year in the courts gay marriage case and its ruling rejecting a challenge to President Barack Obamas healthcare law. Scalia had called the ruling in the healthcare case pure applesauce. He compared the gay marriage majority opinion to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie and said he would hide his head in a paper bag if he ever joined such an opinion. President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama planned to pay respects later Friday, while Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, were to attend Scalias funeral Mass on Saturday. The Mass, open to family and friends, will take place at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. Burial plans have not been released. One hundred and eighty law clerks line the stairs in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in anticipation of the arrival of Associate Justice Antonin Scalias casket at the court building on Friday. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) Scalias sudden death complicated an already tumultuous election year. His death gives Obama a chance to replace the conservative stalwart with a more liberal successor who could tilt the ideological balance of the court for decades to come. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other GOP leaders have said a replacement should not be named until the next president takes office. Obama has pledged to pick a replacement in due time and challenged Republicans to hold a vote on his nominee. Scalia was found dead on Saturday in his room at a remote Texas hunting resort. The 79-year-old jurist was appointed to the court in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton each pledged Thursday night to make immigration reform a top priority if elected president and to act unilaterally if Congress refused to go along with plans to legalize the status of millions in the country illegally. As president, I will do everything I can to pass immigration reform and a path to citizenship, Sanders said at a televised Democratic town hall, held two days before Nevadas first-in-the-West nominating contest. Pressed on how quickly he would move on the issue, the senator from Vermont replied, Im not a dictator here; it has to do with a little bit of cooperation from the Congress. Advertisement Moments later, Clinton sought to one-up her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, telling a woman in the same audience that she would act immediately as president to repeal a law that requires those caught living in the U.S. illegally to wait from three to 10 years before returning. It makes no sense, it breaks up families, it is burdensome, Clinton said to a round of applause. Were going to end it. The forum, sponsored by MSNBC and the Spanish-language network Telemundo, was devoted to issues of concern to the Latino community, with Sanders and the former secretary of State appearing back-to-back. After winning a coin toss, Sanders appeared first. With audience questions in Spanish and English, the forum gave the candidates a platform to expand their appeal beyond the largely white electorates in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. Clinton, who in 2008 opposed drivers licenses for immigrants in the country illegally, explained her change of heart since her last run for president. Back then, it was a state-by-state determination, and Im happy that most states have understood and moved in the right direction, she said. The former first lady also went on the attack when asked about Sanders criticizing former President Bill Clinton for his record on Wall Street deregulation, the North American Free Trade Agreement and strict welfare rules. Clinton said the average income rose for African American and Latino families more than it did for others as part of a broad economic rebound during her husbands presidency. She then faulted Sanders for calling President Obama weak and disappointing. Maybe its that Sen. Sanders wasnt really a Democrat until he decided to run for president, she said. He doesnt even know what the last two Democratic presidents did. The audience booed loudly. Sanders spent most of his decades in politics as a political independent before seeking the Democratic Partys nomination, though he has always caucused with Democrats in Congress. It happens to be true, Clinton continued. And I got to tell you, I look at our last two Democratic presidents were they perfect? No. No person is. But Ill tell you what: I would take the two of them over any Republican anytime, anywhere. Immigration dominated the two-hour event. Asked to explain his vote against a 2007 immigration reform bill something Clinton has criticized him for Sanders cited a provision to allow guest workers into the country that he found unacceptable and almost akin to slavery. He pointed out that several major immigrant rights leaders also opposed the bill on those grounds. I dont want to see workers in this country exploited, Sanders said, noting he backed a 2013 immigration bill that he considered much improved. That bipartisan measure passed the Senate but stalled in the House. Sanders later denounced Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump, saying he was scapegoating Latinos and Muslims. The senator also said he was appalled at efforts by Republicans to delegitimize the president by suggesting he was born, like his father, in Kenya. Sanders mentioned his own father had immigrated from Poland. Gee, whats the difference? he asked. Maybe the color of our skin. Both candidates were also asked about other matters, including Apple refusing the FBIs request to extricate data stored on a cellphone used by the attackers in the San Bernardino massacre. This is a very complicated issue, Sanders said, noting the need to balance security concerns with individual privacy rights. Frankly, I think there is a middle ground that can be reached, he said in a response echoed later by Clinton. Neither explained how theyd resolve the conflict. Sanders was also asked about his criticism of Obama and former President Clinton. He said he believed that overall Obama has done an outstanding job but that he differs with him on some issues, including the administrations proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact with Asian nations. Sanders suggested the deal would hurt American workers. He listed his main disagreements with Bill Clinton, but allowed that overall hed done a pretty good job as president. Later, he revised that to a good job. It should be no surprise, Sanders added, that a senator would disagree with a president of his own party, noting how difficult it is to shepherd lawmakers on Capitol Hill. He then motioned to Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who was seated in the Las Vegas audience and smiled in return. michael.finnegan@latimes.com mark.barabak@latimes.com Twitter: @finneganLAT, @markzbarabak Times staff writer Kurtis Lee contributed to this report from Las Vegas. When Hillary Clinton arrived at Caesars Palace near midnight one night this week after a day of campaigning in Chicago, she made a brief detour before heading to her hotel room. Hi, everybody. How are you? Clinton asked as she entered a basement room where a handful of housekeepers working a late-night shift folded linens and towels. I appreciate all the work you do. Whenever I come in, I appreciate it. TRAIL GUIDE: All the latest news on the 2016 presidential campaign >> Advertisement Those housekeepers members of Culinary Local 226, the states largest union, which is predominantly Latino are part of a crucial component in Clintons effort to win Saturdays Nevada caucuses. Clinton has taken selfies and shaken hands with cooks, maids and cocktail waitresses inside the break rooms of nearly half a dozen hotels along the Strip this week in a last-minute push to boost turnout among Latino voters and to blunt the efforts by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders to make inroads among minority Democrats. The Latino vote will be decisive in the caucuses, said Andres Ramirez, a local Democratic strategist who is supporting Clinton, and that means turnout among members of the union. It could shape how this presidential primary is ultimately decided, Ramirez said of the caucus. The union itself is not endorsing a candidate in the primary after an ugly fight in 2008 when it backed then-Sen. Barack Obama. Clinton still managed to win the popular vote in the state, but Obama had an edge in the delegate total. Last month, Culinary Union leaders scolded Sanders campaign after accusing some of his staffers of impersonating members of the union in an effort to gain access to its members. Sanders campaign officials expressed regret over the incident. SIGN UP for the free Essential Politics newsletter >> This week, both Clinton and Sanders visited a Culinary Union picket line over healthcare costs for employees. Healthcare plans are an issue of concern for many union members in Nevada. In interviews, Culinary Union leaders have expressed disdain for the so-called Cadillac tax in the Affordable Care Act, a 40% levy on certain generous employer-sponsored health coverage plans, which is set to take effect in 2020. Both candidates have said the provision should be repealed. It could shape how this presidential primary is ultimately decided. Andres Ramirez, a local Democratic strategist, on Latino turnout in Saturdays Nevada caucuses But Clinton has sought to cast doubt on Sanders credibility with unions. Speaking at an outdoor rally before Laborers International Union members on Thursday night, she basked in the support shes received from nearly two dozen powerful national unions. Its because Ive worked for them, because Ive fought for them, she said. Clinton added, Im no Johnny- or Janie-come-lately, when it comes to outreach and support of unions. Sanders, who spent Friday far from Las Vegas, with rallies in Elko and Sparks, Nev., has benefited from the support of National Nurses United, which has held several rallies in support of his candidacy across Nevada this week. And Culinary Union members such as Edwin Valles, a cook at Jerrys Nugget Casino, said hes supporting Sanders because of his tuition-free college plan. For a lot of kids, that would be a dream come true. Maybe I could then be able to go to school, Valles, 24, said. Hes caught my attention because he talks to the youth. Valles said Sanders is more representative of the middle class. Thats what I am, and thats who he is appealing to, said Valles, who will vote in his first caucus Saturday. In Valles conversations with co-workers and friends, Clinton is not mentioned perhaps evidence of a generational split as Sanders appeals to younger voters. Shes not known, he said of Clinton. At least the people I know dont know her, he said. Follow @kurtisalee for political news. MORE ON CAMPAIGN 2016 Heres why political pros are scratching their heads over Nevada Will Nevada caucuses be Clintons firewall or Sanders proving ground? In Nevada, the Great Recession still casts a long shadow over political campaigns Hours after the White House found itself with an unexpected Supreme Court vacancy to fill, Democrats could scarcely believe the political gift they thought Senate Republicans had handed them: an immediate vow not to confirm any new justice put forth by President Obama. Veterans of past battles with GOP lawmakers whether over Obamacare, immigration or the debt ceiling saw a familiar pattern developing: Republican hard-liners pushing their party leaders toward what looked to be an untenable position that eventually could crack amid political pressure and internal strife. Whether history repeats itself will determine whether Obama succeeds in making a third appointment to the nations highest court one that could tip the ideological balance for the first time in generations. Advertisement For now, Democrats believe that they have the upper hand and that Republicans are already beginning to splinter. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska was the latest Republican to say Obamas nominee should get a hearing. That followed statements this week by Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) that Republicans should not rule out a justice until the nominee is named. Get more national political news and the latest from Campaign 2016 >> Such statements indicated a break from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who said Saturday immediately after Justice Antonin Scalias death was announced that Obama shouldnt even make a nomination but should leave the choice to his successor. Other Republicans went further, calling upon the GOP-controlled Senate to refuse to hold confirmation hearings on the presidents nominee. Republicans will not be able to sustain this position, Vice President Joe Biden told Minnesota Public Radio. The Republicans are absolutely, thoroughly, totally irresponsible, said Biden, who as a former Senate Judiciary Committee chairman played a starring role in the 1991 confirmation battle over now-Justice Clarence Thomas. Democrats say they are confident that if they remain unified, they will be able to push McConnell to give the presidents nominee a hearing and a vote. Theres no daylight between any part of the caucus on this, said one senior Democratic congressional aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the situation candidly. So you start from a position of unity where the Republicans are divided. Each day there is one or two other people who hedges their support for McConnell, or flat out backs off of it. Democrats say Republican leaders have frequently embraced tough positions, only to later back down. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> In 2015, just months into the new Republican-controlled Congress, a band of conservatives insisted that it would not approve any funding for the Department of Homeland Security until the president reversed an executive action to defer deportations for up to 4 million immigrants in the country illegally. Days before a feared departmental shutdown, the agencys budget was approved without any restrictions. In 2013, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) pushed the party into a budget standoff over demands to defund Obamacare. After a 16-day government shutdown, a spending bill was approved that included funds for the presidents signature healthcare program. Republicans bore most of the blame for the shutdown. Democrats cite similar examples, including threats to end funding for Planned Parenthood that only produced battles between the GOPs conservative and establishment wings while Democrats stood united on the sidelines. Weve seen this movie before.... When the hard right doesnt get its way, their immediate reaction is shut it down, and Sen. McConnell marches in lockstep. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), the third-ranking Senate Democrat Weve seen this movie before, said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), the third-ranking Senate Democrat. The bottom line is very simple: When the hard right doesnt get its way, their immediate reaction is shut it down, and Sen. McConnell marches in lockstep. Thats what happened in 2013 when the Republican leadership tried to shut down the government. Theyre doing it today with their attempt to shut down the Supreme Court. Republicans reject the comparisons, and predict Americans will agree with their position. They point to a poll released Thursday by CBS News that indicates the country is largely divided on the question of whether Obama should be allowed to make a choice. Forty-seven percent said the next justice should be appointed by Obama while 46% said the choice should be left for whoever is elected in November a statistical tie. If Democrats think Republicans are going to face intense pressure to cave, then they have not met our base, one GOP strategist noted, also speaking on condition of anonymity. Don Stewart, a spokesman for McConnell, said the majority leaders position had not budged. His bottom line is there shouldnt be a nominee until we have a new president, period, Stewart said. Republicans may also believe that they hold a better hand against the White House this time because, unlike in legislative battles, they have the power to call a confirmation hearing and their disapproval of a Supreme Court nominee would not be subject to a presidential veto. McConnell will discuss strategy with members when the Senate returns Monday night, Stewart said. Stewart also said it was House Republican leaders not those in the Senate who have had difficulty living up to their threats. He noted that McConnell had vowed that there would be no government shutdown this year, and had lived up to that promise. Republicans, however, appeared to be struggling to coalesce around a united message. Grassley, who on Saturday called for Obama not to make an appointment and then a few days later suggested he would reserve judgment until the president announced his choice, appeared to return Thursday to his original position that there should be no nominee during an election year. Even if Republicans ultimately relent and allow a nominee to be brought to a vote, recent history suggests it would be an uphill battle to confirm the choice. Democrats hold only 46 seats in the Senate, including two independents who caucus with the party, and 60 votes would be needed to overcome a likely filibuster. Only nine Republican senators voted to confirm Obamas first Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, in 2009. And just three of those nine senators Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Susan Collins of Maine and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina continue to serve today. Elena Kagan received just five Republican votes in 2010. michael.memoli@latimes.com MORE Kamala Harris: I do not wish to be considered for the Supreme Court Choose carefully: The next president could shape the Supreme Court for decades Battle over Scalias seat feeds perception that Supreme Court is less neutral and more partisan What do trains, limousines, electric rates, gas pipelines, water delivery and Internet service have in common? Crazy as it sounds, the California Public Utilities Commission regulates all of them. And, many believe, not doing a very good job of it. Discontent with the PUC and its commissioners has been brewing since a gas pipe ruptured in San Bruno in 2010, tearing up a neighborhood and killing eight people. The explosion exposed safety failures by Pacific Gas & Electric and an unhealthy coziness between commissioners and the utilities they regulate. Legislators have been trying to upgrade the commission ever since, to no avail. Last year, Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed six bills that would have required the PUC to be more transparent in its dealings. Then natural gas started leaking from an underground storage facility in Aliso Canyon above Porter Ranch, and again the PUC appeared to have dropped the ball. Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Glendale), chairman of the Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee, has seized the moment with a plan to bypass the governor and go directly to voters to reform the PUC. Advertisement Actually, reform is a bit of understatement. Although the text of the bill is still being drafted, Gatto said earlier this month that he wants to break up the commission and have the Legislature redistribute its responsibilities among various state agencies. Taxis and Uber would go to the Department of Transportation, for example, and telecommunications to a second agency and power and water to a third. Theres an attraction to such a straightforward separation of widely divergent regulatory assignments: no more time wasted dickering about who should conduct background checks on Uber drivers while pipelines go uninspected. But Gattos proposal goes too far and could undermine a century of consumer protections. The PUC grew out of the California Railroad Commission, which was supposed to be a check on the Southern Pacific Railroad Companys monopoly on rail and transportation, but instead sank deep into the railways pocket. Californias reform-minded governor Hiram Johnson could have disbanded the hated railroad commission, but he chose instead to strengthen its independence so that it wasnt as beholden to politics as the Legislature. A few years later, Johnson expanded the scope of the commission to take in other monopolies of the day water, power and telecommunications. The PUC can still be a force for good for consumers. Just in recent months, [it] voted against utility proposals to jack up electric rates and gut incentives for solar rooftops. In 1984, the Legislature improved the structure again by creating what is known now as the Office of Ratepayer Advocates, an independent arm of the commission that represents consumers when the PUC sets utility rates. Last year the office said it saved ratepayers $5.3 billion by pushing back against increases sought by utilities. If the PUC were dismantled, then consumers might lose this important advocate. In fact, for all its failings, the PUC can still be a force for good for consumers. Just in recent months, the PUC has voted against utility proposals to jack up electric rates and gut incentives for solar rooftops. The structural independence of the PUC has been both a strength and a weakness. Because it is a quasi-judicial board as opposed to a legislative body, commissioners are allowed to communicate privately with the utilities and lobbyists. This arrangement has fed suspicions that regulators are doing the utilities bidding. Indeed, former PUC President Michael Peevey is under criminal investigation for his back-channel communications with Southern California Edison while the PUC was determining how much ratepayers would have to cover of the costs of closing its San Onofre nuclear plant. Theres no question that the PUC needs fundamental change, and no question the governor has been more of a hindrance than a help. The commissions exemption from the states open meeting laws allows for a culture of collusion and ought to end. And the gifts and junkets that commissioners enjoy at the cost of the utilities must be curtailed as well. There may be other reforms needed to ensure the commission serves the publics interest effectively. The causes of the PUCs failings and how to fix them are what the Legislature ought to be exploring in depth before it moves to dump the PUC altogether. It may well be that Gattos extreme proposal is a method of motivating the governor to support reform at the PUC. If that works, then great. But this is one bluff that ought not make it to the ballot. Lets fix whats broken with this independent agency, not throw it out. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook Within hours of the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell disgracefully and cynically erected what seemed to be a solid wall to prevent President Obama from selecting Scalias replacement. But this week, cracks began to appear in that wall. Despite McConnells assertion that the next president should get to fill the vacancy, some Republican senators have indicated that they might be open to hearings on an Obama nominee a scenario Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley refused to rule out and others said they might be willing to hold a vote. Meanwhile, retired Justice Sandra Day OConnor a Ronald Reagan appointee who was a Republican politician before she ascended the bench said unequivocally that Obama should make a nomination. We need somebody in there to do the job and just get on with it, OConnor added. We hope the wall will continue to crumble. Continued defiance by the Republicans is not only counter to the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution, but it would harm the court in two ways. The obvious short-term harm inflicted by delay would be to deny the court the full complement of justices necessary to resolve important legal issues, creating the possibility of 4-4 votes that would resolve particular cases but not set national precedents. But a prolonged vacancy caused by partisan obstruction would also hurt the court more deeply by reinforcing the impression that the justices are politicians in robes. Advertisement Earlier this month, Chief Justice John G. Roberts told an audience in Boston that he and his colleagues dont work as Democrats or Republicans. But assurances like that will lose all credibility if a well-qualified nominee is denied fair consideration just because he or she is nominated by a Democratic president and the Senate is controlled by Republicans. The notion that Republicans are justified in failing to consider an Obama nominee just because the president is in his last year of office is laughable. Nor is Republican rejectionism justified by the fact that Senate Democrats in the past have blocked or failed to act on qualified judicial nominees chosen by Republican presidents. In truth, both parties in the Senate have engaged in what has become the political equivalent of the war between the Hatfields and the McCoys, but this blood feud hurts the courts and shames the Senate. It has to end at some point. Why not now? Barack Obama, as a senator from Illinois, voted against [then-candidate John] Roberts and participated in an attempt to filibuster the nomination of Samuel A. Alito Jr. Some would argue that, despite Roberts assurances, the Supreme Court is in fact a political body and that the replacement of Scalia by a Democratic appointee would jeopardize decisions they hold dear, such as Citizens United and rulings upholding an individual right to keep and bear arms. Similarly, some Democrats concerned about a threat to precedents they supported notably the Roe vs. Wade ruling legalizing abortion have opposed Republican nominees in the past, including Roberts, because they wouldnt make it clear that they would respect those decisions. For instance, Barack Obama, as a senator from Illinois, voted against Roberts and participated in an attempt to filibuster the nomination of Samuel A. Alito Jr., who was nevertheless confirmed. Obama now frets that judicial confirmations have become just one more extension of politics, and says that the standard that should govern judicial nominations including the one he plans to make to replace Scalia is that you make sure that a well-qualified candidate is able to join the bench, even if you dont particularly agree with them. Thats not what he did for Roberts and Alito, but it is correct nevertheless. Obama recognizes, of course, that some nominees with whom he shares a general legal philosophy will be more acceptable to a Republican-controlled Senate than others. Although Obama wouldnt commit to nominating a moderate, Vice President Joe Biden said this week that the president was unlikely to pick the most liberal jurist in the nation and put them on the court. McConnells wall of opposition should collapse under the weight of its unreasonableness. Obama can help the process along by putting forward a nominee whose integrity, intelligence and judicial temperament will make it hard for Republicans to vote no. What do you think? Weigh in on Facebook >> Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook When the World Health Organization declared the Zika virus a global emergency, it also claimed that the disease was tied to increased cases of microcephaly in babies. A day later, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, which actively promotes the view that access to abortion is a matter of human rights, was putting pressure on countries in Central and South America to change laws that protect prenatal children from violence. Other abortion rights activists seized on this new moment of opportunism. The blog ThinkProgress described it as The Zika Virus Unlikely Silver Lining. Slates feminist XXFactor blog sounded hopeful that Zika would be Latin Americas rubella moment recalling that, in the 1950s, rubellas association with birth defects began to make otherwise illegal abortion palatable in America. Amnesty International talked of the devastating consequences of antiabortion laws. Planned Parenthoods international arm exploited the news to develop a special Zika virus fundraising campaign. Abortion is a crude response to the possibility of microcephaly. Advertisement This is a remarkable response, not least because the link between Zika and microcephaly has not yet been established. The WHOs website cautioned that no scientific evidence to date confirms a link between Zika virus and microcephaly. Colombian officials reported 3,177 pregnant women infected with Zika with no evidence that the virus has caused even a single case of microcephaly. Two physicians organizations, in Argentina and Brazil, suggest that a pesticide could be the cause instead, noting that Zika has a long history in Latin America without an association with birth defects. Even if a connection is established, abortion is a crude response to the possibility of microcephaly. The prenatal test for the disease ultrasound may not find evidence of it until the third trimester. Thats well after the baby can feel pain and live outside the womb, and past the point when a majority of those who identify as pro-choice are willing to accept abortions. (All prenatal tests, but especially those early in pregnancy, have a significant failure rate.) Furthermore, the prognosis for a child with microcephaly can vary widely as a Brazilian journalist who has microcephaly pointedly reminded the world in a report from the BBC. It isnt difficult to understand why Latin Americans might be resentful of groups such as he U.N., Amnesty International and the International Planned Parenthood Federation and their long-standing attempts to impose foreign moral and legal principles onto those who think differently. In the U.S., only a few antiabortion groups have raised objections to what could easily be seen as yet another example of neocolonialism, or worse, as a new eugenics. Why so little reaction? It may be that the eugenic impulse is so deeply embedded in U.S. culture that we dont even recognize it. As early as 1909, Indiana passed eugenic compulsory sterilization, a law infamously upheld by the Supreme Court in an opinion that concluded by saying three generations of imbeciles are enough. Nor was this an unpopular position. A Fortune magazine poll in 1937 found that 2 in 3 Americans supported forced sterilization of mental defectives. Margaret Sanger, founder of an organization in 1921 that would become Planned Parenthood, insisted that the imbalance between the birthrate of the unfit and fit was the greatest present menace to civilization. This sort of thinking is still expressed in the United States, though in a different form. According to Arthur Caplan, founding head of the bioethics program at New York University, more than 85% of parents who learn through prenatal testing that a fetus has Down syndrome terminate the pregnancy. This despite studies that find children with Down are actually happier than those who are normal and that families with such children are also disproportionately happy. These facts, however, are not always shared with patients when physicians describe the possibility of having a child with Down syndrome. Medical ethicists have long worried about the language used by physicians when they speak to parents about genetic testing and abortion. Disability advocates argue that directive and ableist language has played a significant role in the 85% abortion rate. Many of us have heard tearful or even rage-filled accounts from parents who were strongly advised not to simply have prenatal tests but also to abort if the tests came back positive. In response, disability rights groups have led the way in passing laws requiring the medical community to end these unethical practices and to give their patients the actual data on positive outcomes. Perhaps this is the beginning of a much-needed organized resistance to our impulse toward eugenics. But as the shameful reaction to the Zika outbreak demonstrates, we still have a long way to go. The practice of discarding the vulnerable when they become inconvenient is precisely what Pope Francis has criticized about our contemporary throwaway culture. Francis insists we give priority to the most vulnerable among us, not the most productive. Indeed, if someone is seen by others as a burden this is the first sign that we should give them special attention and care. The rush to advocate for abortion as a response to the Zika virus is grounded in ignorance and expedience. If these organizations were actually interested in helping people with Zika rather than exploiting the outbreak for a broader agenda they would have held their fire until we know more. They also would have done more to wrestle with the views of the disability-rights community. Instead of arrogantly insisting that developing nations must change their laws to suit someone elses ideology, abortion proponents and the media would be better served by taking a critical look at the dark tendency here and elsewhere to turn to eugenics as a solution to a problem like Zika. Charles C. Camosy is associate professor of theological and social ethics at Fordham University. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook As expected, the Federal Communications Commission proposed a new approach Thursday to the 20-year-old federal requirement that cable-TV customers not be compelled to rent a set-top box from the local cable provider. And judging from the hyperbolic reaction by the cable industry and its allies, the FCC may be onto something. Heres a typical comment. In a letter to the leaders of the congressional committees that oversee the FCC, executives of 17 video programming companies warned that if the proposal is adopted, Google will be able to strip-mine our creative work for free, while collecting valuable data on users viewing history and monetizing it through ads. The programmers are referring to the ability that Google (or any other company) would have under the proposed rule to offer a new version of the cable programming guide, potentially with personalized advertising. As they put it, Third party device-makers will be allowed to unbundle licensed video streams from TV providers, repackage these shows and movies into their own devices and services, and generate revenue from advertising and data collection without having to negotiate with us for licensing rights or pay any licensing fees. Advertisement (With some luck, the programmers show the same concern for viewers privacy on their own websites.) The heart of this battle is how well Netflix, Hulu and other Internet programming will be integrated into the TV channels and video-on-demand services offered by cable. Freely translated, their complaint is that a company that offers a competing set-top box (or other navigation device, whatever hardware or software form that might take) might decide to offer a comprehensive version of the program guide that pulls in content from the full gamut of online services, then comes up with innovative ways for users to discover what they might want to watch. And thats threatening to programmers whove developed a symbiotic relationship with the current pay-TV oligarchy. The pay-TV industry trots out a similar argument in opposition to a la carte pricing of cable networks. Niche programmers argue that if the public isnt forced to buy their channels in order to obtain access to more popular fare, theyll wither and die. But think about that for a minute: Isnt that another way of saying that consumers should be forced to pay for something they dont want in order to serve someone elses interests? And the whole strip-mining argument is precious close to specious. Television set manufacturers already offer program guides for over-the-air channels, and nothing stops them from larding their guides with personalized ads and paying nothing to the programmers. Thats because the programmers already are getting paid by advertisers and pay-TV operators. So why should a company offering an alternative to the cable box have to split with programmers the revenue it collects from coming up with a guide that leads viewers to their programming? The answer seems to depend on how powerful the programmer is. Major ones such as Disney argue that they negotiate over channel position, bundles and the like with cable operators, so they should be able to do the same with any company in the signal path. But cable operators have to negotiate because they need licenses from programmers in order to retransmit their work. Under the FCCs proposal, the competing suppliers wont be impinging on the programmers copyrights; theyll simply be enabling people to pick which of the retransmitted programs (all of which theyre paying for, if theyre cable channels) they want to display. Minor programmers, meanwhile, fear that the companies that want to compete with the cable box would skim ad revenue out of the TV ecosystem, diminishing the value of their shows to cable operators and presumably their share of the monthly cable fees. The assumption here is that TV ad revenue is a zero sum game, which has some truth; advertisers have been putting more of their money into Facebook and other digital venues and a declining share into TV. But isnt that more of a threat to networks with a broad audience than to niche channels that attract a more specific demographic? By the way, the real impetus for the proposed rules isnt the commission, its Congress. In the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress required the FCC to adopt rules to assure the commercial availability ... of converter boxes and related equipment from manufacturers and retailers not affiliated with a pay-TV provider. But despite repeated efforts, the fully competitive market sought by lawmakers never emerged, and aside from TiVo, the major brand names in consumer electronics gave up trying to offer rival cable-TV set-tops. The notice of proposed rulemaking that the commission issued Thursday by a party-line 3-2 vote, as has become this FCCs norm on big issues calls for a more technologically agnostic approach than the commissions previous attempt. In essence, it would require cable operators to make three feeds available in a standardized format: their video programming (i.e., their channels), as well as information specifying the access and usage limits on the programming (e.g., what channels the customer is paying for, and whether a particular channel allows recording). It also would require them to support at least one standardized approach to protecting the programming against piracy. Again, the heart of this battle is how well programming from the Internet Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Vudu, Sling TV, Amazon Prime and many more obscure sources will be integrated into the linear TV channels and video-on-demand services offered by cable. Today, cable operators have near-complete control over that issue, enabling them to make their own services more prominent in the programming guide they offer than other services content, if they even acknowledge those services at all. In the typical home, viewers have to switch TV inputs and guides, in some cases multiple times, in order to see all their options. The FCCs proposal would allow a company to present all programming through a single interface. In other words, the proposal would expose every network and show on cable to more direct competition from even more sources. And giving consumers an alternative to the protective bubble that programmers and cable operators have constructed could, indeed, make it harder for some programmers to survive. But that would happen only if other programmers and box-makers come up with something more compelling than cable offers today. Email Jon Healey Follow Healeys intermittent Twitter feed: @jcahealey To the editor: The U.S. Supreme Courts landmark 1989 opinion on the use of force in Graham vs. Connor is often misunderstood. What is considered a reasonable use of force by police is not static. (Police officers should help write, not shun, new use-of-force standards, Feb. 16) For example, Tasers were not widely available when the court issued its opinion; they are now commonly used as a less-lethal option when dealing with combative suspects. Whether an officers use of force was objectively reasonable includes examining what resources, such as a Taser, were in use even if the technology or tactic did not exist at the time of the Supreme Courts decision. The standard set forth in Graham is not permissive, as some argue, but rather it enables a robust, objective analysis of dynamic and sometimes deadly encounters. Moreover, many police agencies, including the Los Angeles Police Department, go beyond what is required under Graham by looking at the tactics used before, during and after the incident to ensure that strict department policies and procedures were followed. Advertisement Reasonableness, like all legal concepts, is subject to interpretation. If applied correctly, it enables a police agency to promote and enforce policies that both protect the public and reflect the capabilities of modern policing. Arif Alikhan, Los Angeles The writer is director of constitutional policing and policy at the LAPD. Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook Investigative files involving police shootings and sustained misconduct by officers would be made public under legislation proposed Friday to lift the veil of secrecy and restore public confidence in law enforcement. State Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) proposed the change to bring California in line with 10 other states, including Texas and Florida, that provide public access to investigative details, findings and disciplinary actions when officers are found to have acted improperly. The public has a right to know when officers apply deadly force and when serious cases of misconduct have been confirmed, Leno said. Failing to disclose such important information can fuel mistrust within our communities and threaten public safety. Advertisement Join the conversation on Facebook >> He cited several police shootings throughout the country that have been caught on videotape and raised public outrage. The bill seeks to increase access to records that has been restricted by state law and further limited by court decisions. Lenos bill would require public access to records from all investigations into uses of force, including shootings, that result in deaths or serious injury. The records would be open even if the officer eventually was found to have complied with a departments policy. The LAPD releases summaries of the findings in such cases, but Leno said the public has a right to see the entire report, including information on an officers previous uses-of-force and disciplinary history. Other departments do not even provide a summary of findings in officer shootings, according to Peter Bibring, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. Investigative records and findings also would be made public, under the legislation, in cases where officers are found by their department to have engaged in misconduct that violates the legal rights of the public, including sexual assault, lesser uses of force, planting evidence, racial profiling and unlawful arrests. In addition, the bill would require records to be released when departments find an officer engaged in job-related dishonesty. The legislation also would allow police and sheriffs departments to open hearings to the public when officers appeal disciplinary action and when citizen complaints are heard. Also, citizens who file complaints against the police would be given information including whether the complaint was sustained, the factual findings and any discipline imposed or corrective actions taken. George Gascon, the district attorney for San Francisco County, said the failure to make police disciplinary records public contributes to the feeling that police departments are hiding something, even when they are not. The measure faces an uphill battle, with opposition expected from powerful police unions. A similar bill in 2007 died in a legislative committee after dozens of peace officers testified to lawmakers that permitting public access to police disciplinary files would endanger lives. The Times later reported that law enforcement advocacy groups were unable to identify a single case in which an officer had been harmed because of the release of such information. Those states (that open records) have not seen an increase in threats to officers, Leno said at a San Francisco press conference. With greater public access, public trust follows. The California Peace Officers Assn. plans to review the proposed bill before taking a formal position, but its president, Sacramento Sheriff Scott Jones, raised privacy concerns Friday about releasing information on citizen complaints. To require disclosure in every case would be unfair in a process by which an agency is required to take and investigate complaints and its officers have little or no control over any complaint that may be made against him or her, or the resultant investigation, Jones said. Leno cited a 2014 poll that found 30% of Americans believe that law enforcement nationwide is doing a good or excellent job of holding officers accountable for misconduct. Only 10% of African Americans felt that way, according to the poll by the Pew Research Center. A separate survey last year found that nearly 80% of Californians believe the public should have access to the findings and conclusions of sustained police misconduct, Leno noted during a news conference at the Hiram W. Johnson State Building. The measure is supported by the California State Conference of the NAACP, the California Newspaper Publishers Assn. and the Conference of California Bar Assns. MORE POLITICS NEWS California safety board rejects condom requirement for porn films Opposition campaign launched against Gavin Newsoms gun control initiative Nancy Pelosi wont pick sides, but praises Bernie Sanders for attracting young people Saturdays Nevada Democratic caucuses provide an unusual experience for campaign reporters -- a contest where we have no clue about the outcome. In most races, polls provide at least a rough gauge of where the candidates stand. Theyre not always completely reliable, but their track record is a lot better than many people think. Except in Nevada. Good afternoon, Im David Lauter, Washington Bureau chief. Welcome to the Friday edition of our Essential Politics newsletter, in which we look at the events of the week in the presidential campaign and highlight some particularly insightful stories. Advertisement For a host of reasons, which Mark Z. Barabak expertly explained, Nevada has a history of unreliable polling. And the problems of predicting a caucus, in which turnout is extremely low and voter history negligible, make all the polling uncertainties worse. You can following along Saturday as we post live results, speeches and analysis from both Nevada and South Carolina on Trail Guide. Whats indisputably true is that the Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders campaigns have treated the race as a close contest with extremely high stakes, as Barabak explained in his analysis of the race. If Sanders can win in Nevada, he will puncture the Clinton campaigns confidence that her standing among minority voters will trump his appeal to white liberals. Conversely, a solid Clinton win would quiet the growing anxiety many of her supporters have felt since the pasting she took in New Hampshire. The need to settle those fears has grown more urgent, because of a problem Clinton never anticipated: Her campaign cant raise enough money. Read Evan Halpers explanation of the depth of the money problem and what Clinton is trying to do about it. The problem, though, as Cathy Decker diagnoses, is that Clinton is out-of-phase with the times. Shes a policy expert at a time voters want raw passion, an establishment figure in a year for outsiders. She may well stabilize her campaign this week, but even if she does, this will be a difficult year. On the other side of the race, the Republican contest in South Carolina appears more predictable: Anything short of a win by Donald Trump with about 30% of the vote would constitute a major upset. The big question, as Noah Bierman explains in his summary of the South Carolina race, is who comes in second -- Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas or Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida? Rubio got a boost this week when Gov. Nikki Haley endorsed him. But some polls already indicate that bump has started to fade, as they often do. Trumps ability to dominate the news through his long-distance fight with Pope Francis may have hastened that fade. Think Trump will suffer from the quarrel with the pontiff? Maybe some day, but not now. Tell the pope to take a hike, one Trump supporter in South Carolina told Bierman. The safe bet is that Trumps supporters will stay with him. For more on the solidity of Trumps support, check out this story by Bierman and Lisa Mascaro, which features a quote that has become an instant classic: Were voting with our middle finger, John Baldwin, a used-car dealer, told us. The last six polls in the state show Jeb Bush trailing. A bad showing on Saturday could be the end for his campaign. If you had bet on that outcome nine months ago, when the campaign got underway, you could have won quite a sum. While we wait for the results, here are a few other excellent stories worth a read: Sanders often denounces outside groups that try to influence elections. But he has several that back him, most notably the nurses union, as Kate Linthicum describes. Linthicum also took a detailed look at the generational split among Latino voters, with older voters backing Clinton and younger ones increasingly siding with Sanders. How far that split goes could determine Saturdays outcome in Nevada and influence several other contests down the line. Finally, few states were hit as hard by the Great Recession as Nevada was. As Chris Megerian reports, the recessions effects continue to shape the way voters in the state view their choices. That wraps up this week. My colleague Christina Bellantoni will be back Monday with the weekday edition of Essential Politics. Until then, keep track of all the developments in the 2016 campaign with our Trail Guide, at our politics page and on Twitter at @latimespolitics. Send your comments, suggestions and news tips to politics@latimes.com. State officials formally declared the Aliso Canyon gas leak capped Thursday, but uncertainty remains about the future of the facility and the residents who live around it. The capping of the leaking well ends four months of foul air that sickened many Porter Ranch residents and forced thousands to flee their homes. Crews reached the leak last week and injected heavy fluids and then cement to seal it. Residents who moved out of their homes were notified by phone, text and email Thursday morning that they had eight days to vacate temporary housing that Southern California Gas Co. has been paying for. By early Thursday, residents of 1,800 households had returned to their homes, said Gillian Wright, vice president of customer service for the utility; 5,774 households remain in temporary housing. Advertisement An estimated 4,000 reimbursement checks were to be issued Thursday to residents who incurred expenses related to the leak, she said. Some residents have said they are glad to return home; others worry about the long-term safety of their San Fernando Valley neighborhood if the Aliso Canyon facility remains in operation. Interested in the stories shaping California? Sign up for the free Essential California newsletter >> Its woken the community up to the fact that there are dozens of other wells, said Randall Bell, an appraiser who is working with attorneys to determine what may happen to property values in Porter Ranch. Now the community is wide awake to that issue. The gas company is facing investigations by the state attorney generals office and the Los Angeles city attorneys office, dozens of lawsuits for economic damages, and the possibility of environmental fines connected to the wells release of an estimated 80,000 metric tons of mostly methane gas into the atmosphere. The company also faces four criminal charges from the L.A. County district attorneys office for failing to report the release of hazardous materials and discharging air contaminants. The company has pleaded not guilty. Dennis Arriola, president and chief executive of Southern California Gas, said the company would develop a plan to mitigate the damage the leak did to the environment. To the residents of Porter Ranch and the surrounding communities, I want to tell you I recognize the disruption that this gas leak has caused to your lives, Arriola said. I know there is nothing that I can say that will change the past, but I know that measurable actions actually speak louder than words. Gas officials had been prevented by regulators from injecting gas into the storage field while SS-25 continued to leak. Now that the leak has been stopped, crews will inspect the other 114 wells on the Aliso Canyon site. Each well could take as long as 20 to 30 days to inspect and test, depending on how much equipment and how many trained workers are available, according to gas company officials. Guidelines for those inspections were released by state officials Wednesday night. New gas injections will not be allowed at the facility until those inspections are completed. However, the utility is allowed to withdraw gas. Last month, the Public Utilities Commission ordered the company to reduce the level of working gas at Aliso Canyon to 15 billion cubic feet. The gas company will be required to do a full inspection and testing of the other wells at Aliso Canyon before injections can resume. State authorities will continue to investigate the cause of the leak, which was first reported Oct. 23. The Public Utilities Commission has taken over control of that well site. Were ramping up an independent and very comprehensive investigation at the site, said Michael Picker, president of the commission. Now that the well is closed and the leak is sealed, we have actually taken control of the site to preserve evidence. The state commission is also tracking the costs associated with the leak. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Southern California Gas Co. estimated the leak has cost $250 million to $300 million so far. The utility is insured for at least $1 billion. As residents return home in the days and weeks ahead, attention will turn to the full scope of the damage done. Chief among their concerns are the effects that the leak will have on property values and residents long-term health. Public health officials have assured residents the noxious fumes posed no permanent health risks. The interim health officer for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Jeffrey Gunzenhauser, said that if residents come home and dont smell any odors and dont have any symptoms, it is safe to stay. Join the conversation on Facebook >> The South Coast Air Quality Management District and the California Air Resources Board will continue to monitor the air in the coming weeks, looking at the levels of four pollutants: methane, which is not considered toxic to humans but is a potent greenhouse gas; mercaptans and hydrogen sulfide, which at extremely low levels can cause ailments including headache and nausea; and benzene, a known cancer-causing compound. My conclusion is that all the levels that weve looked at are below health levels of concern, so we do not anticipate that there will be any long-term health effects in the community, Gunzenhauser said. On Thursday, lawmakers and activists said that though they were glad the leak had been capped, there was still much work to do. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks) called for tough new regulations for the other 114 injection wells at the 3,600-acre underground natural gas storage facility, which is among the nations largest. The gas company has said that many of those wells are aging, corroded and mechanically damaged. Sherman, in a statement, called for subsurface safety valves on each well and round-the-clock monitoring that could be viewed online by the public. He said the Aliso Canyon facility should remain closed until we know it is safe. We should not be declaring victory, as the Aliso Canyon facility and the negligence of Southern California Gas Co. continue to pose a threat to the community, Sherman said. Environmental activists are calling for the permanent closure of Aliso Canyon. Matt Pakucko, president of the community group Save Porter Ranch, said in a statement that residents have suffered long enough and shouldnt be subjected again to a similar disaster. It is unacceptable to allow SoCal Gas to reopen this facility, he said. alice.walton@latimes.com | @TheCityMaven hailey.branson@latimes.com | @haileybranson louis.sahagun@latimes.com | @LouisSahagun ALSO In a major shift, bullet train will start in Bay Area, not L.A., officials say Members of Congress call for investigation of Shell over climate change L.A. files $20-million lawsuit against Da Vinci Apartments developer over huge downtown fire Five people who bounced back from heart maladies and served as an example for others during their recoveries were honored at Dignity Health Glendale Memorial Hospital on Thursday. Now in its 21st year, the annual Kings and Queens of Hearts event once again recognized patients who not only got healthy again, but stayed in good condition with the help of the hospitals cardiac fitness center. NEWSLETTER: Get the latest headlines from the 818 straight to your inbox >> About three to five times a week patients who recovered from a heart attack or major heart surgery showed up at the facility to exercise. But as Hospital President Jack Ivie pointed out, the fitness center is about more than just getting on a treadmill. Part of the healing process is not just getting to exercise, its meeting other people in the program, other people who are further along than you in the healing process, he said. Its that networking and connecting in this program, thats where the acceptance begins. 1 / 6 Dignity Health Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center gave Bill Van Rooy as Young the Heart award at the 21st annual King and Queen of Hearts event at the Glendale hospital on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. Every year two kings and two queens along with a Young at Heart person are honored. (Raul Roa / Staff Photographer) 2 / 6 Dignity Health Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center crowned their kings and queens (l-r: Young at Heart Bill Van Rooy, senior King John Houy, senior Queen Rose Marie Steel, junior King Rudy Donofrio and junior Queen Ricardina Astoquilla) at the 21st annual King and Queen of Hearts event at the Glendale hospital on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. Every year two kings and two queens along with a Young at Heart person are honored. (Raul Roa / Staff Photographer) 3 / 6 Dignity Health Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Centers cardiac rehab therapist Jamie Phillips, left, crowns senior queen Rose Marie Steel, right, at the 21st annual King and Queen of Hearts event at the Glendale hospital on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. Every year two kings and two queens along with a Young at Heart person are honored. (Raul Roa / Staff Photographer) 4 / 6 Dignity Health Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Centers cardiologist Lawrence OConnor spoke at the 21st annual King and Queen of Hearts event at the Glendale hospital on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. Every year two kings and two queens along with a Young at Heart person are honored. (Raul Roa / Staff Photographer) 5 / 6 Dignity Health Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Center honored Rudy Donofrio with the junior King award at the 21st annual King and Queen of Hearts event at the Glendale hospital on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. Every year two kings and two queens along with a Young at Heart person are honored. (Raul Roa / Staff Photographer) 6 / 6 There was a large crowd gathered for the Dignity Health Glendale Memorial Hospital and Health Centers 21st annual King and Queen of Hearts event at the Glendale hospital on Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016. Every year two kings and two queens along with a Young at Heart person are honored. (Raul Roa / Staff Photographer) That acceptance is understanding that theres no cure for a major coronary event; instead, one has to modify their life to be more healthy. Ivie spoke at the fitness center before a crowd of a few dozen people, including this years king and queen honorees. Ricardina Astoquilla was named junior queen, while Rudy Donofrio was crowned junior king. The titles of senior king and queen went to John Houy and Rose Marie Steel, respectively. Steel had an angioplasty last year and said she was not a fan of exercise. Michelle Galanti, manager of the fitness center, said Steel was stubborn in the beginning, but she quickly became committed to staying well. Coming in three times a week, it was like a job, Steel said. I would get on the treadmill and I thought, the faster I walk, the quicker the 15 minutes would be over. My family and friends made me change my mind that I have to live healthier and I want to be here for my family. Houy said hes been exercising his entire life. In fact, he was a professional ballet dancer, so he was shocked when he first ended up in the hospital almost two years ago. I exercised every day of my life. I had no idea I was going to have a heart attack, he said. I didnt know if Id be able to exercise again, but [the fitness center staff] really nursed me back to health. The last person to be recognized for the day was Bill Van Rooy, who was the annual Young at Heart honoree. He had an angioplasty in 1980 and other cardiovascular procedures over the years, sticking with Dignity Health Glendale Memorial Hospital, and he stills stops by to work out. -- Arin Mikailian, arin.mikailian@latimes.com Twitter: @ArinMikailian Not every theater production begins with a field trip to the far reaches of Alaska. For the director and four cast members of They Dont Talk Back, a play by Frank Henry Kaash Katasse, a journey to a remote Tlingit fishing village somehow seemed essential. The play is the newest production from the Native Voices series at the Autry National Center, which has hosted the Native American theater program since 1999. The programs goal of cultural immersion led to a five-hour ferry ride outside of Juno to a village of 200 people, said Randy Reinholz, who leads the series and is directing the play. NEWSLETTER: Stay up to date with whats going on in the 818 >> By the time They Dont Talk Back opens March 2 at the Autrys Wells Fargo Theatre, all the cultural details will be as accurate as possible. We worked with language experts, he added. There is Tlingit language, Tlingit dancing, theres Tlingit songs, theres a pantomime based on traditional performance and aspects of Tlingit culture. Reinholz compared the plays central story to the traditional City Mouse and Country Mouse, where a city cousin returns to the family village with all his trappings and attitude against the backdrop of grandparents raising their grandchildren. All is not well, with parents suffering from substance abuse, and a military veteran father who is still shaken with PTSD from his tour of duty in the first U.S. war in Iraq. The grandsons there and its as simple as him learning what love is, what a family is, he explained. Its a very tough environment the geography of a small fishing village. Reinholz, a descendant of the Choctaw tribe, co-founded the Native Voices program with his wife Jean Bruce Scott in 1993, while teaching at Illinois State University. After a career working in theater and television, it was his first work with Native American theater. I realized the reason I havent been involved is there really isnt much going on, he said. That led to: why not? And you see if you can make a difference. The program was created to develop and produce new works for the stage by Native American, Alaska Native and First Nations playwrights, according to the Autry. For the Native American writers who have developed their work through the program, having a production of their play in Los Angeles with professional actors and stage production can be an important boost. Like anything, its a step in a career, said Reinholz. I think it can be empowering to have a greater audience see their work and interpret it back to them. Our audiences are very vocal. Its great to hear the feedback and see people engaged at that level. Audiences who have been drawn to the program are about 35 percent Native American, Reinholz estimated. The rest represents a wide range of backgrounds and interests. A friend put it well: Hey, the audience looks like Los Angeles! said Reinholz, who notes that the Los Angeles area is known to have the largest urban population of Native Americans anywhere about 200,000. The new play is also the first production Reinholz has personally directed since 2009. His increasing duties as an administrator at San Diego State has meant less time to devote to directing. So this has been a real treat, Reinholz said of working on Katasses play. This particular production has great moving images and a really sophisticated soundscape. Its exciting to direct and work with a writer and get his vision of what it should be. -- What: Native Voices at the Autry Presents: They Dont Talk Back Where: Wells Fargo Theatre, Autry National Center, 4700 Western Heritage Way; in Griffith Park. When: Preview performances March 2 and 3, 8 p.m.; regular performances March 4 to 20, Thursday through Saturday, 8 p.m.; also Saturday and Sunday, 2 p.m. More info: (323) 495.4252; theautry.org -- Steve Appleford, steve.appleford@latimes.com Twitter: @SteveAppleford While state officials plan to make a significant investment and continue planning for the section of the California bullet train system that would end in Southern California, they are now proposing to build and open a northern section first. The California High Speed Rail Authoritys initial operating segment had been expected to end in Burbank before eventually reaching Anaheim, but officials said in a telephone conference Thursday that a new draft business plan, which the authority is required to produce every two years, proposes to start with a Bakersfield to San Jose segment instead. NEWSLETTER: Stay up to date with whats going on in the 818 >> Dan Richard, chairman of the authority board, and Jeff Morales, the authoritys chief executive, both said the reason for flipping the switch to the northerly section was financial. Its just longer and more expensive to get to L.A., Richard said. Looking at the available funds, we just couldnt. We couldnt get there. The Central Valley to Silicon Valley segment can be built, opened and operated with foreseeable funds, they said, and would better comply with 2008s Proposition 1A bond program. That means it would operate at the required speed and could be operated without a subsidy, they said, and its expected to be operating by 2025. Completion of the system from San Francisco to the Los Angeles Basin is still expected by 2029. The plan also proposes seeking $2.9 billion in federal funds for work to reach from San Francisco, which they said would generate an additional $4.7 billion in operational revenue for the system. Officials also plan to have dollars flowing for an investment in the Burbank-to-Anaheim segment this year, part of a $2-billion expansion of the rail systems scope in the busy corridor where Metrolink, Amtrak and freight trains operate. That work, expected to involve grade-separation work necessary to incorporate high-speed rail, made possible after estimates of the total projects costs were revised down from roughly $68 billion to $62 billion, based on experiences the authority has gained during the past two years. With the expanded scope, the new total estimate is roughly $64 billion, Richard said. As evidence of the continued commitment to Southern California, Morales pointed to the authoritys approval this week of a resolution to provide up to $15 million in funding for a project to integrate high-speed rail at Los Angeles Union Station. The southerly segment, particularly from Palmdale to Burbank, for which several routes have been proposed, would involve engineering and environmental challenges, such as possible tunneling under the Angeles National Forest. Residents in northern parts of Los Angeles County have aggressively criticized the proposed routes from Palmdale to Burbank as likely to endanger or destroy communities or natural resources along their paths. Environmental studies and engineering work for those proposed routes will continue under the new business plan, Richard said, so that, should funding for additional work become available, the authority will be poised to begin construction as soon as possible. Morales said the new plan, which officials stressed is in draft form and will be open to public comment and hearings over the next 60 days, reflects what would be the prudent thing. This is all about doing everything we can with the available funding and then positioning ourselves to get the rest of the system delivered, he said. -- Chad Garland, chad.garland@latimes.com Twitter: @chadgarland Ten Years Ago The La Canada Flintridge City Council approved a plan to develop Southern California Edison property on Foothill Boulevard at Indiana Avenue as a passive park. Twenty Years Ago La Canadan Bruce Taylor was putting the finishing touches on Taylors Steak House, a transformation of the former Sparr Restaurant in the 900 block of Foothill Boulevard in La Canada. His parents, H.B. Tex and Margie Taylor started Taylors Tavern, later renamed Taylors Steak House, in Los Angeles in 1953. Since 1970, the first Taylors has operated in the mid-Wilshire District. Thirty Years Ago Someone broke into a science classroom at Crescenta Valley High School over a weekend in February 1986 and stole a 2-foot-long baby alligator. School officials notified law authorities that someone entered the classroom through a window to liberate the reptile. Forty Years Ago Armed with paint and brushes, members of the Oe Con A Pe Ya Horizon Club of Camp Fire Girls at La Canada High School and their younger counterparts Discovery and Bluebird troops gave the fire hydrants on Foothill Boulevard a face-lift. The art project, completed in early 1976, was held to get the community into the spirit of the nations Bicentennial Celebration. The winning entry was a hydrant on the sidewalk in front of La Canada Presbyterian Church that featured a Colonial era woman with a lace cap, created by Tina Cervin, Denise Sirri and Candy MacBurney. Fifty Years Ago Plans were announced for the first leadership prayer breakfast to be held in the community. The event, to be held at the La Canada Country Club, was sponsored by 72 men under the chairmanship of Jack D. Samuelson. Samuelson said it would be a localized version of the Presidential Prayer Breakfast held annually in Washington, D.C. Sixty Years Ago Louis Zamperini, whose autobiographical book Devil at My Heels, had just been released, was the guest speaker at a dinner meeting of the Junior Department at Church of the Lighted Window (today known as La Canada Congregational Church). The former World War II prisoner of war and Olympic distance runner became a Christian evangelist. Compiled from the Valley Sun archives by Carol Cormaci. After a long negotiating period, officials at Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy have reached an agreement with the neighborhood group calling itself Protect LCF over the terms of future expansion plans at the La Canada campus. School officials worked with the group, creating a list of conditions pertaining to traffic, parking, alcohol service on campus and the number of special events, according to an FSHA release issued Tuesday night. Under the deal, neighbors planned to support future construction plans as well as an increase in the enrollment cap from 385 students to 425, approved by the Planning Commission in a special Feb. 8 meeting. NEWSLETTER: Stay up to date with whats going on in the 818 >> This agreement further emphasizes our commitment to continue to be a good neighbor and moves us one step closer to the fulfillment of our vision for modernizing our campus, said FSHA President Sister Carolyn McCormack in the release. The agreement stipulates that the school maintain a traffic management plan, create a supplemental parking lot to contain overflow during events and restrict the number of large events to 20 per year. At 17 of those events, only beer and wine shall be served, restricting full alcohol service to only three events per year. Additionally, minor school-wide events of 500 or fewer attendees shall be limited to four per month, the release states, and conditions of the agreement will be revisited in one- and five-year intervals. We are pleased to have reached this important agreement with FSHA that truly balances the needs of the school and the community, John Pridjian, a member of Protect LCF, said in a statement. FSHA is a great institution with strong values, and having a continued, positive relationship with the surrounding neighborhood will ensure its continued success. -- Sara Cardine, sara.cardine@latimes.com Twitter: @SaraCardine C.J. Wilson plotted his left hand at eye level, his right a foot below. His left hand would play the part of baseballs $189-million luxury-tax threshold in this demonstration, he said. His right would represent the Angels payroll. He then raised that hand quickly and brought it to an abrupt halt one inch below his left. Theres a number there, and they stay right at that level, the Angels left-hander said Thursday at Tempe Diablo Stadium. Theyre comfortable here. They dont go there. Advertisement So, Wilson said, he was not surprised that the Angels did not sign a prominent free agent in the off-season to stay below the limit. And he said that did not hurt his confidence in the roster that is starting to assemble for spring training. Manager Mike Scioscia began his 17th season in charge of the Angels and expressed that same certainty, despite the widespread apprehension the rest of the sport has aimed at their 2016 chances. Whether people think were a fluke or the next best thing to sliced bread, it doesnt matter to us, Scioscia said. Two years ago we won 98 games, and nobody expected us to win 98 games. Last year we won 85, and people probably felt we were going to win 95. Im confident in this team. Thursday was the Angels unofficial first day of spring training. Pitchers and catchers arrived to take physicals. Many threw to each other. Friday, it begins in earnest, with everyone on the field. All position players report by Tuesday, and the first full-squad workout will be Wednesday. To confirm his confidence, Scioscia compared the current roster to those of several years past. The small-ball style of the 2002 World Series-winning team went unmentioned but understood. He guaranteed that his team will make more contact on offense than in 2015, and predicted more depth. We will have a more versatile, deeper look than we had last year. There is no doubt, he said. I think were retooled in a little different way than weve seen the last couple years. I think well resemble a lot of the things that we did well for a long time, not relying so much on four guys hitting the ball out of the park. Nearly 25% of the Angels 2015 runs were scored via home runs from Mike Trout, Albert Pujols and Kole Calhoun. We feel like we have a very solid core, Wilson said. Its just a matter of: How does [designated hitter C.J.] Cron hit? How does [new third baseman Yunel] Escobar play? Those are big factors. Because, obviously, Albert, Trout and Calhoun have established themselves as known quantities. Now its a matter of, what are the other guys? The issue is the same to Scioscia, only framed differently. He said he is focused on finding the best way to orient the lineup around Trout, who watched his RBI chances decrease by more than 10% last season. Fifty-four fewer runners were on base when he batted in 2015 as compared to 2014, and he drove in 90 runs, 21 fewer than in 2014. I dont even know how he got to 90 RBI, Scioscia said. His chances just were not there. But, Scioscia said, he is intent on batting Trout third in the lineup, a strategy he switched to last June. While batting Trout second would get him roughly 18 more plate appearances over a full season, the manager believes more men will be on base for Trout if he bats third. That choice was the only one Scioscia was willing to confirm Thursday. He wouldnt address likely lineup possibilities or his opening-day starter, but he did say Trout would be his No. 3 hitter. From 2002 to 2009, Kylie Schuyler of Laguna Beach was helping to set up schools in Cambodia. As the schools opened, she noticed that the classrooms would fill up but with male students only. Locals told her that girls were kept home to work. So she and fellow community service workers began paying the girls families $10 a month so they could afford to have their daughters leave work and attend school. Schuyler eventually moved back to Orange County but longed to help more girls develop social-emotional and life skills. Advertisement So in 2011, she established Global Girls Leading Our World, also known as Global G.L.O.W., to help girls from low-income families in vulnerable communities, perhaps where gangs and drugs are prevalent, gain literacy skills and consistent mentoring relationships to develop self-esteem and resilience. Its at the organizations worldwide headquarters in a cozy, reconfigured home in downtown Santa Ana, where girls in grades 5 to 12 and mentors, recruited from local universities meet after school and participate together in writing poetry and other works, playing music and delving into photography and art. I knew those girls in Cambodia werent the only ones who needed help, Schuyler said one afternoon in the G.L.O.W. home. I knew I could help here. She and the mentors hope to help the girls, ages 10 to 16 and largely from Santa Ana, find their voices, their hidden talents and their inner strength. During a recent visit to the Laguna Beach venue [seven-degrees], six teens from Global Girls Leading Our World, at the invitation of the womens wellness retreat Mindful Her, read poems they had written. The girl-power spirit was palpable. One day I will surprise you. One day, I will own the spotlight. One day I will conquer my fears. In beginning her group, Schuyler, who has a Ph.D. in psychology, reached out to the executive director at El Sol Science & Arts Academy of Santa Ana, a dual-immersion charter school located across the street from the G.L.O.W. house. She shared how she wanted to offer a structured after-school and out-of-school mentoring-based programs that gave girls an outlet for creative self-expression in a place where they could connect with and respect one another. Last fall, the house extended its programming to Santa Ana residents from El Sol Elementary, Bowers Kidseum, KidWorks and Carr Intermediate School, among others. Orange Countys Second Harvest Food Bank joined the effort by providing healthy meals at the house. Shalom Reguerin, 18, of Santa Ana is a Global G.L.O.W. mentor. The Santa Ana College student said that during her senior year of high school, she was shy and had not been involved in too many school activities. After learning about Global G.L.O.W. and visiting the house, she said she was inspired to work with girls who could benefit from added guidance. It was kind of scary because you get this sense of responsibility, Reguerin said of becoming a mentor. Today, the center that Schuyler founded to empower at-risk girls who have limited resources, operates throughout the U.S., Africa, Asia and Central America. The organization also is in collaboration with its New York-based nonprofit partner LitWorld, through The HerStory Initiative, which helps improve the lives of girls around the world through storytelling, literacy and mentorship. Next for 25 of the local Global G.L.O.W. girls and mentors is a United Nations event in March, where women will share their stories of discovering their lifes meaning. I just realized the way things are done is saying, Yes, lets figure it out, Schuyler said. Lets just say Yes. Whatever you decide to do and put your mind to it, it can happen. Global G.L.O.W. will host a reception Feb. 24 for women who are interested in the organization. For more information, email lori@globalgirlsglow.org. Religious tradition runs deep in this ancient city in the heart of Indonesia. The countrys oldest Islamic university and one of its most influential Muslim charities are located here. In the city center, an ornate 18th century palace complex is home to one of the worlds last surviving Muslim dynasties. Even healthcare here is often linked to faith; several of Yogyakartas leading medical centers are operated by Islamic charities. Yet religious hospitals and clinics in Indonesia, the worlds most populous Muslim-majority country, do something that would be unthinkable at most religiously affiliated medical providers back in the U.S. They dispense contraceptives, including IUDs, birth control pills and condoms. Some even perform sterilizations. Advertisement See more of our top stories on Facebook >> In the U.S., many religious institutions are locked in an acrimonious fight with the federal government over birth control that is set to go before the Supreme Court next month. Elsewhere, by contrast, faith-based groups are increasingly linking arms with governments and health officials in a global effort to expand access to birth control. This week, even Pope Francis connected family planning and health, saying contraceptives could be used to prevent pregnancies in places where the Zika virus, which has been linked to birth defects across Latin America, is spreading. Anything related to sex is controversial or uncomfortable, but with maternal and child mortality still so high in many parts of the world, people have become much more willing to work on this issue, said Mona Bormet, program director for Christian Connections for International Health, a leading U.S.-based consortium of Christian aid organizations. The unmet need is just huge. The health needs are driving a revolution worldwide in family planning. World Vision, a multibillion-dollar evangelical Christian aid group based in Southern California, is now helping governments ensure dependable supplies of contraceptives. In West Africa, Muslim, Catholic and Protestant leaders recently formed a partnership to exchange information on promoting family planning in their religious communities. A team of doctors perform a vasectomy at the Nur Hidayah medical clinic outside Yogyakarta, Indonesia. (Noam N. Levey / Los Angeles Times) In Indonesia, where international faith-based organizations gathered in January ahead of a global family planning conference, a group of Muslim scholars has endorsed vasectomies as a form of birth control. The family planning campaign comes as global health officials scramble to save the lives of more than 300,000 mothers who die annually from complications of pregnancy and childbirth. Although maternal mortality rates have dropped by nearly half since 1990, deaths remain very high in many poor nations, driven in part by unintended and high-risk pregnancies. And progress has stagnated in some places. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, a mother is nearly 40 times more likely to die in childbirth than in the U.S., according to World Health Organization figures. If we were able to provide family planning services to all the women in the world who want them, we would prevent more than 50 million unintended pregnancies every year, said Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, head of the U.N. Population Fund. Widespread health coverage would also prevent 15 million unsafe abortions, Osotimehin said, noting unsafe procedures are a leading cause of death among pregnant women in many poor countries. Enlisting religious groups in family planning campaigns has been a delicate task, as faith leaders have historically been wary of efforts to limit family size. Modern contraceptives, some of which are seen as inducing abortion, have been even more controversial. As a result, some family planning advocates steered clear of local religious leaders. People are afraid of stirring up opposition, said Katherine Marshall, senior fellow at Georgetown Universitys Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. Even now, resistance from the Catholic Church in the Philippines and in Latin America has slowed family planning efforts in those places. And opposition from Muslim clerics in Iran, Pakistan and other Islamic countries remains a major barrier. With progress slowing in many countries, advocates are now engaging churches, mosques and other faith-based institutions with messages that harmonize family planning with traditional religious teachings, including those that encourage procreation. Both Islam and Christianity, for example, stress the importance of providing for children and ensuring their health and well-being, precepts that religious scholars cite in support of policies that allow families to plan how many children to have and how closely to space to space the births. There is this misperception that modern forms of contraceptives are inconsistent with faith, said Susan Otchere, who directs family planning programs for World Vision. We find that when we give people facts about how family planning relates to healthy timing and spacing of pregnancies and how that impacts the health of mothers and children in terms of nutrition, education, even family income ... then there is an aha moment. The effort is paying dividends. NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >> In Senegal, for example, contraceptive use among women in several communities increased dramatically following an education campaign that relied heavily on Muslim religious leaders, according to the Gates Foundation, which helped support the initiative. In East Africa, similar gains were recorded following an initiative by the Christian Health Assn. of Kenya, which represents hospitals run by Protestant churches. And in Indonesia, leading Islamic organizations are frequently credited with helping deliver huge family planning gains in the 70s and 80s, during which time the countrys birth rate dropped in half, making Indonesia an international model. At the time, leaders of those organizations issued fatwas, or religious rulings, stating that birth control was permissible. Today, the countrys universal health insurance system, created in 2014, provides Indonesians with coverage for all modern forms of contraception, including IUDs, birth control pills and hormone implants. Outside Yogyakarta, on a stretch of highway surrounded by rice paddies, the Islamic Nur Hidayah medical clinic schedules vasectomies for men such as Istamar, a 52-year-old father of two, who was getting the procedure after his wife had an adverse reaction to an IUD. I came for her, Istamar explained as he waited on a wooden bench next to the check-in counter staffed by a pair of young women in traditional religious head scarves. Indonesias health reforms havent eliminated all barriers to family planning, particularly for adolescents. The insurance program only provides contraceptive coverage for married Indonesians, for example, reflecting persistent objections to premarital sex. Not far from the Nur Hidayah clinic, the Al-Mahali Islamic boarding school offers students a regular class on reproductive health, featuring discussion of reproductive anatomy, sexually transmitted diseases and the risks of pregnancy. But contraception remains strictly off-limits. And across Indonesia, abortion is illegal, except in emergencies. Amin Abdullah, a leading Muslim scholar and family planning advocate who once headed the Islamic University of Indonesia in Yogyakarta, said reaching young, unmarried people with family planning must be a higher priority. But, he cautioned, that will only be achieved if the effort involves faith leaders and links contraception with broader messages about health. It is impossible to ignore religion, Abdullah said. This is the culture. Reporting for this story was supported by a fellowship from the United Nations Foundation. noam.levey@latimes.com Follow @noamlevey on Twitter ALSO U.S. airstrike destroys Islamic State training camp in Libya In India, a coconut picker takes work hazards in stride Drug seizures soar in China; most suspects are farmers and unemployed Pandurang Naik scales the equivalent of several mid-rise buildings in an average workday, only without a staircase or ladder. He picks coconuts from the palm trees that dot Indias western coastal state of Goa. Clad in shorts and a dirty tank top, Naik, 64, examines each roughly 50-foot tree meticulously before embarking on his ascent. A rope tied around his legs helps anchor him to the tree and an ax hangs from his waist like a police officers revolver. With a firm grip around the rough tree trunk, he climbs upward. His hands and legs move alternately, in perfect sync with one another. His biceps and calf muscles flex with every movement. Advertisement Upon reaching the top, Naik whips out the ax. One by one, coconuts fall to the ground with a thud. Then he begins his descent, and it is on to the next tree. Its nerve-racking to watch Naik at work, but he is hardly troubled. He has spent 40 years climbing up and down these trees, which blanket the 65-mile coastline of Goa and peek out from every corner of this relaxed state. Naiks movements seem subconscious, like a plane on autopilot. He spends about 25 minutes on every tree before moving on to the next, climbing about 20 trees a day. The only time he wont climb is during the annual monsoon, when the wet tree trunks make his already dangerous job almost impossible. NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >> For all the risks, Naik does not own a single tree. He is summoned by farmers who grow coconuts, or contractors who trade in the fruit. Often Naik buys up the coconuts he plucks and sells them from a small shack near a highway, cutting them open on the spot for patrons to sip the refreshing water. I am not educated, says Naik, who charges about $1.50 per tree. This job has been passed on to me by my forefathers. Coconut plucking is an old profession in Goa, and the only way that coconuts are harvested in the state, but the trade is disappearing. Many of Naiks colleagues have quit after sustaining serious injuries. I have never slipped, Naik says with a grin. But Naik says the profession doesnt command respect in modern Goa. The younger generation spends more time in school, or looks for other work, he says. His son works as a driver, while Naik struggles even to store a phone number in the cellphone his son bought him. I will continue to climb as long as my body allows me to. Pandurang Naik My son did not even try to do this job, Naik says. He is scared. Moreover, nobody is willing to accept a coconut picker as a groom these days. Naik has had to raise his rates, meaning contractors call him less frequently. Laurence Fernandes, a local landowner who has many palm trees, says it has become economically prohibitive to hire coconut pickers. At times, we end up paying him more than what we would earn by selling coconuts, he says. Some vendors in Goa sell coconuts imported from the neighboring state of Karnataka. See more of our top stories on Facebook >> The state government of Goa began a program two years ago to train young coconut pickers, in a bid to revive the dying tradition. Pickers get a salary of about $225 a month, plus medical insurance and incentives. But officials say few are willing to sign up. The government has also come up with a device to ensure greater safety. It is made of steel pipes and a safety rope that works like a harness. But Naik does not use it, saying it doubles or even triples his work time. The device is not going to encourage youngsters to take up the job, he says, and the old-timers do not need it. When he is not climbing trees, Naik and his son work on their four acres of farmland. His son has demanded he give up the dangerous job, and Naik acknowledges that with his sons income as a driver and their fairly decent rice crop he could probably retire. But I do not want to depend on anyone for money, he says. And this is the only thing I can do. I have spent my whole life doing this. I will continue to climb as long as my body allows me to. Parth M.N. is a special correspondent. ALSO Drug seizures soar in China; most suspects are farmers and unemployed Obama says hell make historic trip to Cuba and plans to press Castro on human rights Election day in Uganda: Tear gas fired, opposition leader detained, social media shut down Taiwanese authorities asked a close ally of the Dalai Lama, as well as a U.S.-based activist for Chinas Uighur minority, not to attend a forum on religious freedom in Taipei this week because their presence might irritate mainland Chinas Communist leaders, the events sponsors say. U.S.-based representatives of Taiwans government persuaded Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer and Lobsang Sangay, prime minister of Tibets Buddhist government in exile in India, not to apply for visas in December, said Bob Fu, the founder of China Aid, an American nonprofit that is co-sponsoring the forum. To talk about Chinas religious freedom situation, if you dont mention the Tibetan and Uighur minorities, a discussion of religious freedoms is incomplete, Fu said from the forum in Taipei, which opened Thursday with 99 participants from 26 countries. The whole application process feels political. Advertisement Beijing regards representatives of the Tibetan government in exile and Kadeer as separatists, and routinely pressures other countries not to host or meet with them. Taiwans Foreign Ministry and immigration agency said they had no information about what their offices in the United States might have told potential visa applicants. We have no way to comment; all we do is process the visas, a National Immigration Agency spokesperson said. Though Tibet and the Uighur homeland of Xinjiang are under control of mainland Chinese authorities, Taiwan has had de facto independence from mainland China since 1949. But Beijing still claims sovereignty over the island. The commonalities among these three contested regions have sparked significant interest in Taiwan about figures such as Kadeer and Sangay. But outgoing Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, who is leaving office in May after eight years, has tried to foster closer ties with Beijing after six decades of icy hostilities. The Dalai Lama retired as head of the Tibetan government in exile in 2011, giving up leadership to the democratically elected Sangay. The Dalai Lama abandoned calls for Tibetan independence in 1979, embracing instead a middle way in which Tibetans would enjoy autonomy and freedom of religion and speech under Chinese rule. Kadeer, meanwhile, has taken a similar stance, speaking out on human rights issues in Xinjiang and campaigning for self-determination for the largely Muslim region. Many Uighurs and Tibetans say Chinese officials restrict their religious practices as well as their language and customs. In early February, a foundation in Taipei representing the Dalai Lama said it too was told by Taiwanese officials that Sangay should avoid this weeks forum. Taiwan is in a tough spot because of pressure from China, thats the reason, said Bari Dawa Tsering, director of the Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He declined to say which agency gave the word. Of course we hoped Sangay could do this. But Taiwan is small and right next to China, so their stance is not to add any new trouble, he said. Shortly after Ma took office, the Dalai Lama visited Taiwan in 2009 to console survivors of a typhoon that sparked serious mudslides and killed about 700 people. China warned Taiwan then that the visit could damage relations, but the two sides put the matter behind them on the way to signing a series of landmark economic pacts. Kadeer was invited to Taiwan later that year by a musician but denied entry. This time, Kadeer was rejected along with Dolkun Isa, a Uighur activist who escaped China in 1997 and is now a German citizen. Mas Nationalist Party administration fears that to let Dolkun Isa and Rebiya Kadeer enter Taiwan will affect the understanding it has reached with Beijing, Dilxat Rexit, a spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress, said Friday. Mas Nationalist Party roundly lost elections in January, and in May he will be replaced by Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party. Beijings adding of pressure has had the result of refusing them entry, and proves that Taiwans policy depends on Beijings complexion, he added. I hope in the future the Democratic Progressive Party government can reject Beijing. Jennings is a special correspondent. ALSO Latinos seek answers from Sanders and Clinton in Las Vegas Manny Pacquiao posts Bible verse that states gay people should be killed Change in bullet train construction plans will delay rail lines arrival in Southern California The tortured effort to bring about peace talks in the Syrian civil war suffered yet another setback Friday when a session scheduled for next week was delayed indefinitely. Friday was also supposed to be the deadline for the start of a cessation of hostilities negotiated by the United States and Russia so that urgently needed humanitarian aid could be delivered and a broader settlement negotiated. The warring parties never really expected the cease-fire would take hold, and the deadline passed with no halt in the fighting. The Syrian army has made new advances in a number of areas in the central province of Homs as well as Latakia province near the Turkish border, the Syrian state-run news service SANA reported Friday. Advertisement Join the conversation on Facebook >> Combat operations also continued in parts of Aleppo province, where Russian warplanes have repeatedly bombed positions they claim are terrorist hideouts but that the U.S. and much of the West say are hospitals and neighborhoods, killing many civilians. A pro-opposition monitoring group, the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, with a network of activists on the ground in Syria, reported rebels battled government forces in a number of neighborhoods in Aleppo, Syrias largest city, which has been split between the government and the opposition since 2012. The United Nations special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, told a Swedish newspaper that peace talks scheduled for Feb. 25 in Geneva would not take place. We need real talks about peace, not just talks about talks, De Mistura said. Now the Americans and Russians must sit down and agree on a concrete plan on the cessation of hostilities. The envoy previously suspended the first effort to bring the warring parties to the negotiating table Feb. 3 because in part of the continued Russian bombing and prevention of aid deliveries. And it was unclear whether that U.S.-Russian meeting which De Mistura alluded to, of the so-called cease-fire task force. would occur Friday as planned, also in Geneva. The Russian delegation at one point said the meeting had been canceled; the U.S. delegation denied that, saying there merely had been a delay. State Department spokesman Mark Toner said, as night fell in Geneva, there was still hope a meeting would happen, and that preliminary smaller sessions involving some but not all parties were ongoing. NEWSLETTER: Get the days top headlines from Times Editor Davan Maharaj >> Obviously, its taken a little while to get to this initial meeting; were still not there yet, Toner said in Washington. Syrian pro-government forces, backed by hundreds of Russian airstrikes, launched an offensive earlier in February to deny the rebels access to strategic supply routes between Aleppo and Turkey. The gains by the regime of President Bashar Assad have provoked fears of a full siege of the opposition-controlled section of Aleppo, which is currently supplied by one major highway only a few miles away from government positions. The basic uncertainty about the proposed cease-fire is that it would allow both the U.S. and Russia to continue airstrikes against terrorists. For the U.S., that means the extremist Islamic State; but Russia claims to bomb terrorists who in fact are part of U.S.-backed rebel groups. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also noted Turkey had continued its approximately week-long shelling of a predominantly Kurdish militia, the Syrian Democratic Force, which operates in northern Aleppo. The group, which receives U.S. support to battle Islamic State militants, has recently made inroads against them in the area. Turkey, however, views the Syrian Kurdish forces as the Syrian proxy of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, with whom it has fought a punishing insurgency war for more than three decades. The Turkish government has vowed to stop any advances made by Kurdish forces in Syria even if that demands an incursion across the border by Turkish army units. On Wednesday, a suicide bombing in the Turkish capital, Ankara, that killed 28 people was blamed by the government on the PKK. Responsibility for the attack was later claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, a splinter group described by Turkish media as having links to the PKK further complicating the jumble of forces fighting in the region with competing and conflicting agendas. The rising tensions have soured relations between Ankara and Washington, which has resisted Turkish demands to create a no-fly zone in northern Syria. A pro-government Turkish newspaper, Daily Sabah, exhorted the Turkish government to act more aggressively in the wake of Wednesdays bombing. Enough is enough. Wednesdays attack should be a tipping point in Turkeys Syria policy, wrote the papers editorial board on Friday. Unless our allies are willing to take meaningful action and distance themselves from terrorist groups, Turkey will have no choice but to protect its interests. The tensions are also propelling Turkey and Russia on an ever-more-perilous collision course. Russia on Friday called for an urgent Security Council meeting to protest Turkeys actions, urging that Ankara cease any actions that undermine Syrias sovereignty and territorial integrity. Bulos is a special correspondent. Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson in Washington contributed to this report. ALSO U.S. airstrike destroys Islamic State training camp in Libya Video of a dead city: This is what Syrias devastation looks like Pentagon tells Russian military of U.S. special forces location in Syria The Pentagon has told the Kremlin where about 50 U.S. special operations forces are working in northeast Syria to ensure they dont come under Russian attack, a U.S. commander said Thursday. The disclosure by Lt. Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., commander of air operations against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, suggests a thaw in the communications freeze between the U.S. and Russian militaries, which are backing opposing sides in Syria. The Defense Department did not disclose the precise location of U.S. troops to Russias Defense Ministry, Brown said, but asked that Russian warplanes avoid airstrikes in the general area. Advertisement The Russians have honored the request so far, he said. Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said Russia formally requested the forces location and it was provided by geographic areas, not pinpoint locations. He would not say when the Russians made the formal request. There are some areas we have talked to them about and thats really where we have some of our coalition forces, particularly as you look around at northern Syria, Brown said in a teleconference from Al Udeid air base in Qatar with Pentagon reporters. The Pentagon sent the elite team into northern Syria late last year to help train and advise Kurdish guerrillas fighting Islamic State. The U.S. troops do not take part in the fighting. The U.S. has condemned Russias bombing in Syria, which the Obama administration says is intended to prop up Syrian President Bashar Assads forces against an array of rebel groups. Warplanes from the United States and a handful of other nations focus only on targeting Islamic State, chiefly in eastern Syria. The U.S. and its allies have accused the Russians of bombing civilians and hospitals around the city of Aleppo in an effort to gain territory before a cessation of hostilities is scheduled to begin Friday. Officials said some airstrikes targeted rebel-held neighborhoods in Aleppo, hitting schools and hospitals run by Doctors Without Borders, an international aid group. The attacks cast a shadow on commitments made by world leaders who forged the ceasefire plan, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition watchdog group, said warplanes belonging to Russia bombed a hospital in the town of Maaret Numan in Idlib province. Until now, the Pentagon has said its only contact with the Russian military in Syria was a joint set of rules designed to ensure pilots did not mistakenly fly into or fire on one another in the skies above Syria. That agreement marked a modest breakthrough between the two militaries, which had stopped talking because of Russias 2014 annexation of Crimea and its continued involvement in the Ukrainian civil war, which the U.S. opposes. Beyond that, the Pentagon has denied coordinating with the Russians. In October, the Pentagon said it would send about 50 U.S. special operations commandos to Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria. Pentagon officials said they did not inform the Russians then because the troops would be far from the war zones, mostly to the south and west, where Russian forces were active. Follow @wjhenn for military and defense info. Two U.S. F-15 fighter jets carried out an airstrike in northwestern Libya early Friday that destroyed what the Pentagon described as a Islamic State training camp for several dozen foreign fighters and a senior terrorist operative, U.S. officials said. We obliterated the camp, said a U.S. official who discussed the raid on condition of anonymity. Were still assessing the casualties at this point, but we hit what we were aiming at. We feel confident that this was a successful strike, Peter Cook, the Pentagon spokesman, told reporters. These particular fighters posed a threat to interests in the region, to Libya, and to the United States overall. Advertisement The predawn attack, launched from Lakenheath Air Base in Britain, comes after weeks of mounting pressure on the White House to attack Islamic States growing footprint in oil-rich Libya, the only country other than Syria and Iraq where it controls territory. National security experts warn that an Islamic State sanctuary in Libya could give the Sunni extremist group another launching pad for terrorist assaults in Europe and North Africa. U.S. drones and spy satellites had spent weeks focusing on the walled compound outside the coastal town of Sabratha, about 50 miles west of Tripoli, another official said. The aerial images, coupled with other intelligence, heightened U.S. concern that the militants were preparing to launch a cross-border attack. The Sabratha Municipal Council, the local government, said on its website that at least 41 people were killed in the bombing, many apparently as they slept. The compound was rented by non-Libyans, including Tunisians, and machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers were found in the rubble, the website said. The Pentagon said the attack specifically targeted Noureddine Chouchane, a veteran Islamic State operative who allegedly played a key role in terrorist attacks last year in neighboring Tunisia. The first, in March, killed 23 people at the National Bardo Museum in Tunis, and another in June killed 38 at a seaside resort in Sousse. Chouchane, who is from Tunisia, was also responsible for moving foreign fighters from Tunisia into Libya, according to the Pentagon. The only previous U.S. airstrike in Libya against Islamic State was in November, when F-15 fighter jets killed a commander known as Abu Nabil. Officials said he was responsible for the video last year that showed militants beheading 21 Egyptian workers, all Coptic Christians, along the Mediterranean coast of Libya. Islamic State has found fertile ground in Libya, which has had no functioning central government since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing campaign helped a popular uprising oust Moammar Kadafi in 2011. Competing factions have fought a low-level civil war since 2014. Islamic State has taken advantage of the power vacuum, attacking oil fields and installations, hobbling a major source of income. A U.S. intelligence estimate this month concluded that group has about 5,000 fighters in Libya, double the official estimate last fall. The U.S. military, along with British, French and Italian special forces, has been monitoring Islamic State movements in several Libyan cities, including the militants stronghold of Sirte. The White House has resisted calls from some aides and Congress members to escalate the U.S. military role to counter the potential threat, although Fridays attack suggested at least a modest shift in that policy. I think this is the beginning of what will be a broader pattern of operations in the country in which the U.S. will strike, while being extremely careful about targeting, Anthony Cordesman, a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan Washington think tank, said Friday. At a news conference Monday after a summit with Southeast Asian leaders, President Obama appeared to suggest U.S. raids in Libya are likely to increase. With respect to Libya, I have been clear from the outset that we will go after ISIS wherever it appears, the same way that we went after Al Qaeda wherever they appeared, Obama said, using another name for Islamic State. We will continue to take actions where weve got a clear operation and a clear target in mind, he said. As we see opportunities to prevent ISIS from digging in, in Libya, we take them. ALSO Latinos seek answers from Sanders and Clinton in Las Vegas Manny Pacquiao posts Bible verse that states gay people should be killed Change in bullet train construction plans will delay rail lines arrival in Southern California A baby dolphin recently died tragically at a beach in Argentina after people paraded it on the shore for photos. At the Santa Teresita beach resort in Argentina, a huge crowd of tourists gathered around a baby dolphin that was taken out of the water to have pictures taken with. However, the young mammal immediately overheated, as evidenced by its thick fatty skin. The dolphin shortly died and its body was simply left by the beachgoers on the sand. Some tourists continued taking shots of the dead dolphin afterwards. Several photos emerged online, showing groups of people wanting to touch and take selfies with the La Plata dolphin. One tourist was holding the dolphin up for others to see, and there were several hands reaching over to touch it. The La Plata dolphin, also known as the Franciscana dolphin, should be returned to the water by tourists immediately if they spot any on the beach. Its thick fatty skin regulates its body temperature so it is especially prone to dehydration and death if it is out of the water. There have been reported incidents of dolphins being taken out of the water to be displayed and photographed by tourists. The Argentinian Wildlife Foundation was prompted to publicly announce about how La Plata dolphins are sensitive animals. These are categorized as a "vulnerable" species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (ICUN) with only about 30,000 of them remaining worldwide. These are only located along the Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay coasts. The dolphins prefer to swim near the beach, where they may be easily caught. Their habitats have also been negatively affected by fisheries. The Franciscana dolphin is among the smallest cetaceans with a very long beak and rounded forehead. It is hard to locate it in the wild because it stays away from boats. The dolphin usually swims alone but may also go in groups of up to 15. The creature usually roam in waters below 30 meters and is preyed upon by killer whales and sharks. They may move near the beach to feed on crustaceans, fish and squid. Tourists have to be more vigilant in protecting the La Plata dolphins. More updates and details are expected soon. The campaigns and supports of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are preparing to engage Latinos and immigrants supporters as Nevada caucus weekend approaches. DREAMers Supporting Sanders Immigrant rights youths announced a grassroots effort to mobilize Latino and Latino millennials to support Sanders. The effort, known "LatinX Millennials for Bernie," engages young Latino volunteers to increase support for the Vermont senator ahead of this Saturday's Nevada caucus. In a statement about the new committee, the Sanders supporters believe he differs from Clinton in that "his platforms are not driven by corporate insiders or the results off the latest polls but rather they are inspired by real people, real families." "Most public servants today no longer serve the needs of the people, rather cater to corporate interests. This compassionate grassroots movement is about putting the needs of everyday people first, and through these advancements, better our community, our country, and the world," said committee member and DREAMer Jose Manuel Santoyo. The support comes from the DRM Action Coalition, an organization comprised of Latino youths championing for immigration rights and reform, which was previously led by DREAMers Cesar Vargas and Erika Andiola, both now working for the Sanders campaign. Clinton's New Immigration Ad As Latino millennials and DREAMers canvass in Nevada, a state with a growing Latino population, the Clinton campaign released a new television advertisement titled "Brave," which has aired in the state. The footage reportedly took place during a campaign stop in Las Vegas last weekend. The one-minute advertisement includes an account from a 10-year-old child, and she fears that current U.S. laws will deport her immigrant parents. She told Clinton that her parents received a letter of deportation, and as she starts tearing up, Clinton summons her. The former secretary of state tells the girl that she's "going to do everything I can so you don't have to be scared and you don't have to worry about what happens to your mom or your dad or somebody else in your family. Clinton says the 10 year old is brave but must also be brave on behalf of her parents. The latest campaign efforts for both Democratic presidential campaigns come as Clinton and Sanders will compete in their third primary contest in Nevada. As Latin Post reported, the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) Education Fund analyzed that more than 194,000 Nevada Latino voters are expected to cast their vote during this presidential election year. So far, Clinton won the Iowa caucus, while Sanders won the New Hampshire primary. __ For the latest updates, follow Latin Post's Michael Oleaga on Twitter: @EditorMikeO or contact via email: m.oleaga@latinpost.com. With the economy picking up, more Americans are looking for new jobs and joining new companies. Workers have many things to look forward to when joining a new company like increased salary, but there are other important factors they must keep in mind when starting a new job. This year, 21 percent of workers plan on leaving their companies and heading to new positions, a CareerBuilder survey found. That is a 5 percent increase from the previous year. When taking a new job, it is important for workers to focus on several factors, with salary being just one among many. Compensation Of course workers want to know what they will be paid, and it is important to negotiate salary. Workers should know what the appropriate salary is for the position they are seeking. Based on the worker's experience level, a salary may be fair or inappropriate. "Ask for what you believe you're worth, but do some research,'' said Andy Decker, senior regional president for global staffing firm Robert Half. "Use tools like Indeed.com that have postings. Look at jobs in your area to see what jobs are paying. Come prepared with stats." During the recession, employees were simply happy to have jobs. This led to many employees seeing their wages stagnate with no raises available for several years. As the economy improves and the number of jobs increases, workers can expect better opportunities for raises and bonuses. During the job offer process, questions like "Is there a sign on bonus?" and "Are there performance evaluations that result in raises?" are perfectly acceptable. Benefits and Other Expenses Salary is important, but so are the benefits provided and additional variables workers could face. Maybe the worker's new job is downtown with limited parking. Negotiating a parking reimbursement plan into the benefits would help the worker keep expenses down. Benefits are very important for workers. When looking at a job offer, a worker needs to make sure she is satisfied with the benefits, or else negotiate for better options. The worker can ask for higher 401(k) match or for the employer to require less employee contribution to her health insurance plan. Work-Life Balance Workers want flexible schedules or the ability to telecommute. Workers should ask their employer if they can work from home on certain days, or arrive later in the morning and stay later in the evenings occasionally. During the offer process, workers can ask about the business needs of the company and ask if a flexible schedule is possible. Get It in Writing If workers are successful with negotiating their salaries, benefits, schedules and other factors for their new jobs, they need to make sure to get these conditions in writing. Workers should ask the employer to edit the offer letter to include the agreed additions. If the employer will not put the agreements in writing, workers should email the hiring team and inform them of everything that was agreed upon during negotiation. With top GOP presidential candidates Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio all calling for an end to so-called sanctuary cities, the future of safe havens for undocumented immigrants has become a core policy issue in the upcoming election. Sanctuary cities follow certain procedures in order to shelter undocumented immigrants from immigration officers and deportation. In general, these municipalities do not permit police or municipal employees to ask about someone's immigration status. According to the Center for Immigration Studies, there are over 300 cities, counties and states currently considered sanctuary cities. Random Death Fires up the Right Awareness of sanctuary cities hit the nation on July 1, 2015, when a 32-year-old woman named Kathryn Steinle was shot and killed in San Francisco by an undocumented immigrant named Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez. Upon his arrest, it was revealed Sanchez had been deported back to Mexico on five different occasions. Sanchez admitted to repeatedly coming back to the U.S. for work, and he knew San Francisco was a sanctuary city where he would be safe from immigration. Trump, who had just announced he was running for president, immediately seized the incident as an opportunity to say that Steinles murder was proof that the U.S. needed to secure its border. "Nobody else has the guts to even talk about it. The American people deserve a wall," Trump said. Fellow Candidates Follow Trump GOP presidential hopefuls, from Jeb Bush to Ben Carson, all came down on sanctuary cities as part of their platforms. Marco Rubios official campaign site outlines his plans to cut off federal funding for sanctuary cities and allocate those funds to local governments. Ted Cruz spoke out against sanctuary cities while talking to Foxs Greta Van Susteren. In a clip provided on his official site, Cruz links the problem of immigration to the actions of liberal mayors who refuse to follow the rule of law regarding the deportation of undocumented migrants. According to Cruz, The Democratic Party supports illegal immigration." Democrats on Deportation However Democrats feel about illegal immigration, both Hilary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are both for protecting sanctuary cities. In the aftermath of Steinle's murder, Xochitl Hinojosa, a spokeswoman for Clintons campaign, restated the candidates commitment to sanctuary cities. "Hillary Clinton believes that sanctuary cities can help further public safety, and she has defended those policies going back years," Hinojosa said. Sanders' immigration policy makes it clear the candidate rejects recent criticism of sanctuary cities. His campaign site indicates that, if he were elected president, he would seek to strengthen relationships between immigrant communities and local law enforcement in order to respect the constitutional rights of immigrants. Wisconsin Cracks Down on Sanctuary Cities As Immigration Reform reports, the Wisconsin Assembly just passed legislation that would penalize local governments for maintaining policies that prevent officers from reporting the immigration status of anyone charged with a crime. AB 450 says that if a judge finds a city in violation, state aid could be reduced by between $500 and $5,000 for each day the sanctuary policy remains in place. The measure will now go to the Senate. Around 20,000 Latinos gathered at the state Capitol on Feb. 18 to protest the bill. A spokesman for the Madison police department said the crowd was peaceful and respectful. Zeus Rodriguez, a protester from the group Hispanics for Leadership, said the bill was motivated by the drastic stance against migrants on the right. "This is the type of unnecessary red meat bill to satisfy the Trumpkins," said Rodriguez. Donald Trump went on the defense after Pope Francis suggested the Republican presidential front-runner "is not Christian" because of his anti-immigrant proposals and rhetoric. Pope Criticizes Trump On Immigration On Wednesday, the Pope criticized Trump over his harsh policy on immigration reform, which includes building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian," Francis told reporters when asked about Trump's campaign. "This is not in the gospel." When asked by a reporter if an American Catholic should vote for the billionaire businessman, the pontiff said he would not give advice. "I am not going to get involved in that. I say only that this man is not Christian if he says things like that," he said. He then referred to Trump directly, saying, "We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt." Trump Fires Back In response, Trump fired back at a campaign rally in South Carolina on Thursday, telling his supporters the Pope "said negative things about me because the Mexican government convinced him that Trump is not a good guy. He actually said that maybe I'm not a good Christian or something. It's unbelievable." Trump added that it "is really not a nice thing to say." Trump, who has also vowed to deport millions of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. if he wins the White House, also released a statement, saying that the Islamic State would love to have the Vatican as its "ultimate trophy." "If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS's ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened," reads the statement. Trump Says He's Proud of His Faith The real estate mogul also said it is "disgraceful" for the leader of the Roman Catholic Church to question his faith. "I am proud to be a Christian and as President I will not allow Christianity to be consistently attacked and weakened, unlike what is happening now, with our current President. No leader, especially a religious leader, should have the right to question another man's religion or faith," Trump said. At another point in the statement, Trump suggested that the Mexican government was "using the Pope as a pawn." Later on Thursday, Trump's social media director and senior adviser Dan Scavino argued that Francis was being hypocritical, since the Vatican is surrounded by protective walls. Presidential aspirant Bernie Sanders is gaining a growing support from the Latinos, according to his campaign staff, Arturo Carmona. Who is Arturo Carmona? Arturo Carmona, 37, is one of Sander's campaign staff. He was part of a Latino group that is dedicated to youth and online organizing. Sanders campaign believes that Carmona's background in civil rights and community organizing will help him do this job. They are confident that Carmona will be an asset in addressing issues affecting the Latino families Carmona served as the executive director of Presente.org. The group is critical to Pres. Barack Obama's immigration policies and they target Democrats for voting against deportation relief for illegal immigrants. Carmona is shaking up the Latino support for Hillary Clinton, who won Nevada's Latino vote 2-1 in 2008. Late Campaign in Nevada a Disadvantage Carmona admitted that they started at a disadvantage. However, he believes that they still have room for makeup because of the great support of thousands of volunteers not only in Nevada but also all over the country. He also disclosed that it is challenging to introduce Sen. Sanders to Latinos and other communities of color because he is not a national figure. Moreover, he came from Vermont, where there are only a few Latinos. Hopeful for Latino Support When Carmona introduced the senator to Latinos, they were interested in him. They find the politician passionate and articulate. In fact, even Clinton's supporters are now considering El Bernie. Carmona talked to a lot of Latino parents and older folks and he learned something that raises their confidence. "A lot of them said, 'I was supporting Hillary.' But you know what? There's no loyalty to Hillary ... They're like. "Let's give 'El Bernie' a second chance," he said. Growing Latino Support Carmona admits that their figure is low with African-American company and with Latinos because these people are unaware of them. However, the current number motivates them and they are experiencing progress in public polling numbers. "We've been making tremendous progress as it relates to Latinos. It's going to be neck-and-neck overall, thanks to the increasing Latino support- we're going to do really well with the younger Latino voters," Carmona said. Carmona Reassures Latinos of Sanders' Credentials Carmona stressed that Sanders has good and consistent records to a lot of issues, including Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and immigrants' right movement. Carmona's Message to the Youth He is encouraging the youth to never lose the fire in whatever they do and wherever they are. He reminds them that there will always be pressure. He added that the people need to challenge the status quo for their community to progress and be represented adequately. Luis Gutierrez, Julian Castro and other well-known members of the Latino community are endorsing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The support could prove very vital in the upcoming Nevada caucuses on Saturday, Feb. 20. "Hillary Clinton is different. I was proud to endorse her because she is the rare loyal candidate who has been fighting for us her entire career," Gutierrez wrote in an opinion piece. The Illinois Representative is famous even to young Latinos that influence the race between Clinton and rival Bernie Sanders. Housing Secretary Castro said that Sanders will continue to let the Latino community down while he is sure that Clinton will be fighting for them. The 41-year-old Mexican-American is one of the possible vice presidential candidates. The Latino Victory Fund that was co-founded by actress Eva Longoria and former San Antonio, Texas Mayor Henry Cisneros also endorsed Clinton. Cisneros was the housing secretary under Bill Clinton and the second Latino mayor of a major city in the U.S. "In Bill Clinton's era we had the longest economic expansion in American history that lowered poverty rates and lowered unemployment rates and increased small business formations and improved people's succession to college," Cisneros said. Clinton on Immigration Ad The former first lady launched a new advertisement for Nevada when she consoled a 10-year-old girl whose parents in danger of being deported. Clinton looks very emotional in the ad while putting her arms around the girl. "I'm going to do everything I can so you don't have to be scared, and you don't have to worry about what happens to your mom or your dad or somebody else in your family," Clinton said. She has focused on immigration issues during her campaign in Nevada where 30 percent of the population is made up of Latinos. Sanders also made the same promises regarding immigration, but his campaign is focused on attacking Clinton's own immigration plan. Nevada Split Between Clinton, Sanders In the latest poll, 48 percent of Nevada is supporting Clinton, but she has a very slim lead over Sanders. The former secretary of state is a popular candidate among women and immigrants for her foreign policy, health care and race relations. Sanders, on the other hand, is the likely choice for people concerned with the economy as well as members of middle-class families. The senator Vermont is also leading in the national poll conducted by FOX News with 47 percent over Clinton, who got 44 percent. Donald Trump causes a stir in the Latino community due to his inappropriate remarks. Will his rhetoric strengthen the Latinos to vote? Trump Against The Latinos Many Latinos were disappointed and even angry to Trump's anti-Latino remarks. In one of his statements, the presidential candidate stated that Mexico is smart and cunning to send the bad people from their country to the U.S. because they do not want to pay and look after them. Aside from calling the immigrants bad, he went further and called them rapists and killers. "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best," Trumps said. "They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." Latino Groups In Action Latino groups are now looking for ways to help Hispanics exercise their political muscle following the derogatory remarks from presidential hopeful Trump and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Cristobal Alex, president of the Latino Victory Foundation, thinks that the anti-immigration policies backed by the two men will help mobilize Latinos. On Wednesday, nine organizations gathered in Washington to outline plans how to mobilize millions of Hispanic voters. They are determined to make their presence be felt in the presidential primary votes, particularly in Nevada and South Carolina. Latinos in Nevada Against Trump Arpaio, who endorsed Trump, did not expect how their rhetoric would affect the candidate's presidential bid. However, he felt that their run will not be smooth in Nevada. Maria Teresa Kumar, president and CEO of Voto Latino, believes that the American Latino community in Nevada has a significant influence on the election. She stressed that they will participate. Arpaio Still Positive With Trump Arpaio revealed that he did not observe any movement or campaign against Trump in the Hispanic community. He felt that they would not vote in the primary. Latinos Against Arpaio Arpaio concedes that his position against illegal immigration has been controversial that it draws many activist groups against him. Alex said that Trump attacked their community on the first day of his campaign. However, the county sheriff has attacked and damaged the Latino community for years. Ben Monterroso, executive director of Mi Familia Vota, shared the same sentiments, adding that Arpaio attacked their community without enforcing the law but by discriminating them. Monterroso believes that Trump and Arpaio did it because they think they do not need the Latinos and that they will not participate. However, they could be wrong because as what Monterroso said, "There is no presidential candidate that can get the White House without the Latino vote." Hillary Clinton's new advertisement promises deportation relief to undocumented immigrants living in the United States. The emotional commercial features a young Latina girl, Karla Ortiz, worried about her parents being deported. Showcasing her mother and grandmother side, Clinton assures the 10-year-old child sitting on her lap that she doesn't have to worry about her family being sent back to the country they came from. "I'm going to do everything I can so you don't have to be scared and you don't have to worry too much about your mom or your dad or somebody else in your family," the Democratic presidential candidate said. She also urges the girl to be brave. "Let me do the worrying. I'll do all the worrying, is that a deal?" Clinton added in the video. "I'll do the worrying; I'll do everything I can to help, OK?" Watch the ad below. The young Ortiz hopes that Clinton will be the next U.S. president because she believes that the candidate can help the country's immigrant community. Deportation Relief Plans The unveiling of Clinton's new ad took place at the same time that her biggest rival Bernie Sanders' campaign deployed a group of Dreamer supporters. These people cannot vote in this year's presidential election but will ask others to attend Sanders' caucus on Saturday. Clinton has proposed immigration relief that goes further than Barack Obama's executive action. The former secretary of state plans to develop deportation relief to other undocumented immigrants in the U.S., especially those who are parents of Dreamers. Obama's effort, which is currently being reviewed in court, only attempts to grant legal status to parents of U.S. citizen and children who are legal residents. Immigration Stance Clinton is being criticized for her immigration stance in the past. She previously said that children from Central America that arrived at the U.S. border in the spring and summer of 2014 should be sent back to their home countries. She eased her tone since then, saying that she supported deportation before but opposes the raids now. Sanders' supporters, however, continue to challenge Clinton's statement. "I made it very clear that those children needed to be processed appropriately," Clinton said this month. "But we also had to send a message to families and communities in Central America not to send their children on this dangerous journey in the hands of smugglers." Clinton called the Obama administration's deportation raids in January as "inhumane." The raids have fueled fears among the immigrant community and outcry from congressional Democrats who are against the current administration's stance. Three Chinese students at a California school were sentenced to prison for physically assaulting two fellow Chinese students. According to a statement from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, 20-year-old Yunyao Zhai, considered as the ringleader, was sentenced on Wednesday to spend 13 years in state prison. Her co-defendants, 19-year-old Xinlei Zhang, got six years, and Yuhan Yang, also 19, was sentenced to 10 years. Their sentences are based on how big their roles were in the assault. Before the sentences were given, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Thomas C. Falls compared the trio's crimes to William Golding's 1954 novel "Lord of the Flies." The book was about British boys who got stranded on an uninhabited island. Isolated from civilization and with no adult supervision, the boys descended into violence, chaos and devastation. The Crime Zhai, Zhang and Yang brutally attacked another girl, 18-year-old Yiran "Camellia" Liu, in an ice cream parlor in Rowland Heights, California. Liu was there to settle a disagreement with another teenage girl about an unpaid dinner bill. The girl arrived accompanied with others, overpowering Liu. The victim was slapped and kicked, burned with lit cigarettes and was forced to kneel and wipe cigarette butts and ice cream smears off the floor. The group then took Liu's cellphone and car keys and drove her to a nearby park. Once there, she was forced to remove her clothes. While she was naked, the attackers burned her nipples, hip, and chest with cigarettes. Some of the victim's hair was chopped off by the group with scissors. The victim was then forced to eat her hair. According to authorities, the assault lasted for five hours. When the attack was over, they forced Liu to give three of the girls a ride in her own car. She complied because she was terrified to disobey them. The statement from the District Attorney's Office said that on Jan. 5, Zhai, Zhang and Yang all pleaded no contest to felony counts of kidnapping and assault. Two days before assaulting Liu, Zhai and Zhang also attacked a 16-year-old girl in Rowland Heights. 'Parachute Kids' The perpetrators and victims were labeled as "parachute kids," teenagers who are sent to study in the United States by well-off Chinese parents. Their parents remain in their homeland, while the students live with American families. Zhai, Zhang and Yang all asked for forgiveness for their actions, blaming the lack of supervision that affects plenty of "parachute kids" in the U.S. Zhai said that living with too much freedom in the country affected her negatively and that she became lonely and lost. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton made their final pleas on national television to attract voters, particularly Latinos, ahead Saturday's Nevada caucus. Bernie on the Issues From Las Vegas, Sanders was the first to take on questions from diverse questionnaires and moderators Jose Diaz-Balart and Chuck Todd. Sanders received several questions on immigration, as promoted and expected by broadcaster MSNBC. Sanders said immigration reform is a top priority, but did not set a time frame on acting on it, stating, "I'm not a dictator here" since such progress requires cooperation with Congress. Sanders defended his votes on Senate immigration reform bills. In 2007, he voted against then-Sen. Ted Kennedy's, D-Mass., comprehensive immigration bill. The Vermont senator explained the 2007 bill was not a perfect bill and a number of pro-immigration rights organizations, such as the AFL-CIO and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) even opposed the bill. He did vote in favor of the 2013 Senate comprehensive immigration reform bill, which did pass the Senate but was never picked up in the House of Representatives. Sanders said the 2013 was a better bill compared to the 2007 legislation. While the reform has yet to pass Congress, Sanders said his immigration platform is to lift the 11 million undocumented immigrants from the shadows, but it is a job for Congress. He did stand by his platform to even go beyond President Barack Obama's immigration executive actions if Congress fails to act on reforms. The town hall was also a unique opportunity for the Vermont senator, who has described himself as a "Democratic socialist," to distinguish his view of socialism compared to the Latin American countries of Cuba and Venezuela. "I'm not looking at Venezuela, I'm not looking at Cuba -- I'm looking at countries like Denmark, Sweden," said Sanders, adding that his single-payer health care plan will not negatively affect the quality of medical care. Sanders also criticized Republicans, namely Donald Trump, for comments negatively affecting Latinos, immigrants and Muslims. He told a questionnaire in regards to Islamophobia, "People can disagree about immigration and immigration reform. But it is absolutely unacceptable to me that in the year 2016 we have people like Donald Trump and others trying to gain votes by scapegoating people who may be Muslims or people who may be Latinos." In regards to the minimum wage, an issue many Latinos consider important, Sanders maintained his support to increase wages to $15 per hour, although acknowledged that minor price increases may occur such as the price of a hamburger. Hillary on the Issues Perhaps the main headline from Clinton's portion of the town hall is her sudden and staunch stance to introduce legislation on immigration reform within her first 100 days, if elected, in the White House. She also reiterated her platform to even go beyond Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) immigration executive actions. "I will go further if it's at all legally possible. I will make this a big political issue," Clinton said, also noting she wants to repeal the three- and 10-year bars affecting returning immigrants and provide college vouchers for DACA beneficiaries. Clinton was asked to release transcripts of paid speeches she's delivered to private groups, such as Goldman Sachs, "I am happy to release anything I have whenever everybody else does the same because everybody in this race, including Sen. Sanders, has given speeches to private groups. Everybody else does the same because every other candidate in this race has given speeches to private groups, including Sen. Sanders." She defended herself from Wall Street connections, saying, "I was a candidate who went to wall street before the crash. I went to them and said you are wrecking our economy. I now have the most effective and comprehensive plan to deal with the threat that wall street poses." In regards to the minimum wage, Clinton hasn't changed her mind on supporting the $15 minimum wage. Clinton favors increasing wages to $12 per hour with states and cities having the right to increase wages further, citing New York and Los Angeles. National Committees on Clinton/Sanders Prior to the Democratic Party's town hall, the Republican National Committee (RNC) released a new 50-second advertisement specifically targeting Clinton and her immigration stance. "Hillary Clinton's extensive record of flip-flops and political expediency on immigration fails to persuade Latinos that she can be trusted. The only constant when it comes to Hillary Clinton is that she will do or say anything to get elected," said RNC Hispanic Media Director Ruth Guerra. On the other side of the aisle, Democratic National Committee (DNC) Communication Director Luis Miranda, as expected, praise the Democrats' town hall, which competed against a Republican presidential town hall on CNN. "The competing Democratic town hall offered an entirely different perspective, one in which both candidates focused on how to expand opportunities to ensure everyone in America has a fair shot, and everyone plays by the same rules. And while the Republican candidates said they would continue to stand in the way of fixing our nation's broken immigration system, our Democratic candidates made it clear they understand the impact of Republican obstructionism, not just on families torn apart but also on our economy, which benefits from their hard work," Miranda said in a statement. __ For the latest updates, follow Latin Post's Michael Oleaga on Twitter: @EditorMikeO or contact via email: m.oleaga@latinpost.com. Two new studies suggest that a clot-busting drug used for heart attacks and non-bleeding strokes has the potential to decrease the death rate among patients with hemorrhagic stroke. Researchers learned that the powerful clot-busting drug, popularly known as tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) might help patients with hemorrhagic (bleeding) stroke. Two new studies were presented on Thursday at the stroke association's annual meeting in Los Angeles suggest that tPA has a role to play in treating bleeding stroke. First Study: tPA Vs Saline The first study involved 500 patients with intraventricular hemorrhage. They treat these patients with either tPA or saline through a brain catheter. They followed the patients for five years after their treatment from 2009 to 2015. The scientists learned that the death rates among patients who received tPA decreased by 10 percent. They were also one-third lower than the casualty rate in the saline group. Eighteen percent with larger clots -- greater than 20 ml of pooled blood who received tPA had positive results than those who took saline. Moreover, 79.8 percent of patients given with tPA had 80 percent clot removal and 90 percent of them had more than double their chance of survival. "When we entered into the trial, we knew very little about how this therapy ought to be used, in whom it should be used, and whether it was safe," said Dr. Issam Awad, a professor of surgery at the University of Chicago in a press release. "We now have clear data on how best to implement the procedure, and for at least a group of patients, we know it can nearly double the likelihood of a favorable outcome." Second Study: Directing tPA to Brain Researchers led by Dr. Daniel Hanley, who is from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, learned that directing tPA at the brain's ventricles -- fluid-filled cavities decrease the death rate from bleeding stroke by 10 percent. tPA cleared the blood that pooled in the brains of people with intraventricular hemorrhage. This technique has a good safety profile with similar or even lower rates of brain infections or serious side effects compared to standard treatment, Hanley's team reported. tPA For Bleeding Stroke Initially, many believed that using tPA to treat bleeding stroke is counterproductive. However, the results of the two studies showed otherwise. "Contrary to belief, infusion of clot-buster drugs into the brain improved outcomes in patients with a brain bleed -- this is counterintuitive, as one would not think that infusing a clot-buster drug would be appropriate and safe," said Dr. Paul Wright, chair of neurology at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y. The experts note that the results of the two studies have not yet been published in a per-reviewed journal and until then it is considered preliminary. Ted Cruz had a huge victory in the Iowa caucuses, potentially making him the first Hispanic U.S. president. However, the candidate believes that he does not deserve the description. One of the reasons I'm a Republican is because we treat people as individuals. ... When I ran for Senate in Texas I didn't run as: 'Vote for the Hispanic guy, Cruz previously said. Rafael Edward Cruz was born in 1970. His father was born in Cuba, but Teds family generally spoke only English in the house. As a boy, he had the nickname Felito, which usually made him the center of jokes since it rhymed with several corn chip brands, like Doritos and Cheetos. When he was 13 years old, Ted decided to change his name, which upset his father. His father reportedly would not call him by his new name in the years that followed, although the former is now helping in his campaign. Ted confessed that his Spanish is still lousy. He could only muster a few simple Spanish words during his campaign appearances. Cruz said that he was the son of an immigrant who escaped oppression, which is why he values freedom and understands how vulnerable it is. He added that several Hispanics in the U.S. are tired of being taken for granted and stereotyped by the Democratic Party. The Effects of Alienating the Latino Community Cruz may be criticized by other Hispanics in the presidential race by moving away from his cultural heritage, as well as his stance on building a border wall between U.S. and Mexico, immigration and stopping citizenship by birthright. During the GOP debate between Sen. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz earlier in February 2016, the former attacked Cruz for not being able to speak Spanish. Alfonso Aguilar, Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles president, stated that Cruz does not fundamentally understand the Latino community. Cruz was also criticized for being against legalizing undocumented immigrants. Civil rights activists claim that Cruz and Rubio have turned against their own. They added that they will not vote for someone merely because he is of Latino origin, but will pick someone who can stand up for them and their values. Many Latinos alleged that Cruz failed to consider his own heritage and the matters that affect thousands in their community. Cruz further worked with conservatives like Iowa Rep. Steve King, which can also be deemed as an act of alienating the Hispanic people. Although Cruz may have had success in the predominantly white states of Iowa and New Hampshire, he is bound to struggle in Nevada on Feb. 23, 2016, since 28 percent of the population is Latino. Of all the people Donald Trump attacked thus far during his eight-month presidential campaign, none have elicited a stronger reaction than his criticism of Pope Francis. The Republican front-runner concluded Thursday night's CNN town hall by first, wryly, telling Columbia, South Carolina primary voters "the pope is a wonderful guy." Thursday morning, the pontiff told reporters Trump's plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border is un-Christian and goes against the Gospel. Trump then called the Vatican ISIS's "ultimate trophy." "I didn't think it was a good thing for him to say, frankly," Trump said, referring to the wall he would force Mexico to construct. "Somehow the government of Mexico spoke with the pope, they spent a lot of time with the pope, and by the time he left he made a statement." CNN anchor Anderson Cooper read a portion of Pope Francis' message clarifying that he isn't advocating people to vote one way or another, for or against Trump, only to keep in mind his lack of Christian values. The real estate mogul cited the pope's comments by reminding voters "he's got an awfully big wall at the Vatican." "I don't like fighting with the pope," Trump said, toning down on his initial reaction. "I think that he heard one side of the story, which is probably by the Mexican government. He didn't see the tremendous strain that the border is causing us with respect to illegal immigration, with the drugs pouring across the border." Trump praised Pope Francis as someone he greatly respects, but wishes Francis would consult American citizens before criticizing the country's border security measures. Bullying Candidates and Countries Asked about a cease-and-desist letter sent to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Trump chalked it up to "something I will do on occasion." He didn't hint at possible litigation, but did say Cruz "has a problem with the truth." Trump cited various examples: an attack ad featuring an interview Trump had with Tim Russert over a decade ago, a photoshopped picture of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio shaking hands with President Obama, and mailers Cruz's campaign sent to Iowa caucus-goers grading them on who they voted for. Trump added that the Canada-born candidate is already facing another lawsuit, possibly referring to an Illinois case on Cruz's eligibility scheduled for Friday. Cooper asked Trump if his rhetoric - igniting the birther argument, among other candidate's he's attacked - makes him a bully. "I'm not a bully at all," Trump said, citing his strong personality and business acumen. Cooper followed up by asking if, as president, he would treat countries he doesn't agree with similarly. "Yeah maybe to China to stop ripping us off. I'd send them to Mexico. And when I say cease-and-desist, maybe it's equivalent. Maybe I do it with my mouth." Blaming George W. Bush for ISIS The night's most contentious moment came when an undecided attendee asked Trump why he believes former President George W. Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. "I'm not talking about lying, I'm not talking about not lying. Nobody really knows why we went into Iraq," Trump said, backtracking on vehement allegation he made during last weekend's GOP debate. "It was not Saddam Hussein that knocked down the World Trade Center." The attendee pressed Trump to give a concise answer. "So you think the president of the United States, George W. Bush lied? I'm just giving you another shot," he asked. Trump said it may have been the worst a decision a president has ever made. "The war in Iraq started the whole destabilization of the Middle East," he replied. "It started ISIS. It started Libya. It started Syria. That was one of the worst decisions ever made by any government at any time. In all fairness, Bush made the decision." "Barack Obama, as bad as he is - and he's bad - and he got us out the wrong way." Cooper gave Trump one last chance to answer yes or no, to which Trump said he would have to look at some documents. Jeb Bush Embraces his Latino Family Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's underperforming campaign may see a boost with Hispanic voters heading into next week's Nevada caucus after he openly embraced his Latina wife and completed a full sentence in Spanish. "SI quieres hacer esta entrevista en Espanol, los hemos," Bush told Cooper. Bush confirmed that his family almost exclusively speaks Spanish at home, calling it an advantage in his life. "We have a bicultural relationship and it brings a diversity and a joy," Bush said. "It adds a lot of vitality to my life." As he's done with the other Republican hopefuls participating in CNN's town halls, Cooper asked the candidate how he met his wife, Mexico-born Columba Bush. Bush said they will celebrate their 42-year anniversary next week, having met in Leon, Guanajuato, Mexico as teenagers. "I tell people my life can be divided in a lot of ways, but the most important way, perhaps, is A.C. and B.C. - you know, Before Columba and After Columba," Bush said. "And the After Columba part of my life has been a lot better. I'm a lot better person because of it as well." After an agreement has been reached by Central American leaders, thousands of Cuban migrants are finally moving into the United States after being stranded in Costa Rica for three months. The immigration crisis started Nov. 15, 2015 when Nicaragua shut down and refused to let migrants headed to the U.S. pass through its borders. As a result, thousands of Cuban migrants hoping to enter the U.S. were stuck in Costa Rica. Thousands of Cubans were immediately taking advantage of special U.S. immigration privileges previously accorded to them, as the relationship between the two nations is expected to be severed soon. Costa Rica Complained About Lack of Help From Neighbors Since November 2015, San Jose has been accommodating the stranded individuals and helping them proceed to the U.S. by providing direct flights to Mexico and indirect travel routes via Guatemala and El Salvador. From Nov. 15 to Dec. 18, 2015, Costa Rica allowed close to 8,000 temporary visas for the Cuban migrants. The issuance of visas ceased when Costa Rica alleged that its neighbors, El Salvador, Guatemala and Belize, were not helping in the crisis and that Costa Rica had already exhausted its resources in accommodating the migrants. President Solis suspended participation in the group until he observes that their neighbors are also exerting measures to alleviate the current migration crisis. Solis previously warned migrants not to come to their territory or risk deportation. Agreement Among Central American Leaders Reached In January 2016, the first batch of the 8,000 stranded Cuban migrants successfully traveled from Mexico to the U.S. Central American leaders agreed to deal with the thousands of Cubans staying in shelters and transport them to El Salvador and then to Mexico. They were allowed entry to Mexico for humanitarian reasons and were reportedly treated well. At present, Cubans are only required to set foot on American soil to enter the country. Nicaragua frowned upon the U.S. policy for triggering massive migration. Several of those who successfully entered the U.S. shared their joy and excitement in overcoming the ordeal. In February, about 4,100 Cuban migrants are still in Costa Rica as they wait to be transferred to the U.S. Costa Rican President Luis Guillermo Solis stated that he hopes that all Cubans will successfully travel to the U.S. in a few weeks. The International Organization for Migration offered options for Cuban migrants to travel at their own expense. Those who cannot afford the trips will be aided by the Costa Rican government. Efforts to transfer the remaining Cuban migrants is still ongoing. More updates and details are expected soon. China is boosting its financial investments and relations with Latin America, while the U.S. is withdrawing aid. The global giant has been investing billions of dollars in Latin America in the past few years. In 2015, Chinese banks forwarded loans to Latin American governments amounting to almost $30 billion. In 2014, $10 billion was infused by Chinese banks to the region. In 2012 and 2013, China loaned $7 billion and $14 billion, respectively. China further offered funding worth $35 billion that Latin American countries can use for various infrastructure projects. What were seeing is a proliferation of Chinese finance in Latin America, said Margaret Myers, a director at Inter-American Dialogue, a non-profit organization based in Washington. China Filling the Void Left by the U.S. The investments were made after the U.S. failed to provide government and private investments in Latin America in the past three years. U.S. foreign aid to Latin America and the Caribbean has steadily been declining since 2012. The total was $1.8 billion in 2012 and then dropped to $1.6 billion the following year. In 2014, American investments amounted to $1.4 billion and then further decreased to $1.3 billion last year. In 2015, American investors withdrew $700 million from the region. In 2014, Chinese exports to Latin America amounted to $130 billion, compared to $6 billion in 2000. Chinese President Xi Jinping also promised to invest $250 billion in the region in the next 10 years. Aside from sending financial support, China has also been boosting its relations with Latin America. In 2015, it was the first time that China was host to all Latin American presidents visiting Beijing. Recently, China also turned into the No. 1 trade partner of Chile, Brazil and Peru, moving past the U.S. Chinas Plans for 2016 At present, the U.S. has more of an economic presence in Latin America, compared to China. In 2014, U.S. exports were three times more compared to Chinese exports to Latin America. However, China is doubling down in its investments and threatening to remove America from the top position in the region. Ilan Berman, vice president at American Foreign Policy Council, stated that the Chinese are aiming to gain strategic power and influence in the region to establish dependence. So far, American influence has already lessened due to the active efforts of China. China continues to strengthen its position in the region in 2016. While the Latin American economy recently struggled due to political instability and low prices of commodities, China had actively been giving aid. On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission moved forward on its plan to unlock cable boxes so that third parties, likely in the technology industry, can manufacture their own platforms without compatibility issues. The initiative may revolutionize how consumers access pay TV, but part of the FCC's next step will also look at barriers to distribution that the new rules could break, which could help Latino producers find their audiences. This week the cable box went another step towards becoming an open, unlocked platform. The FCC voted on Thursday 3-2 to move forward to the public comment stage of its notice of proposed rulemaking on the issue. Part of this exploratory stage includes taking a close look at the barriers to distribution that independent and diverse video content producers face on cable systems and elsewhere. The vote moves forward on rule changes that would free the cable TV box from cable companies. Consumers generally tend to rent cable boxes from their providers, and besides cloud-connected Comcast's X1 platform that is slowly rolling out to parts of their market, cable boxes tend to be slow, old, and have software interfaces that remain relatively unchanged for years. Under the new rules, cable companies would agree on a technological standard for their TV content that third-party technology industry players could access and work with, creating a larger competitive marketplace that Wheeler believes would bring innovation to the industry and more choice to consumers. Will the FCC Dig Deep on Diversity & Access? But more so, if the FCC takes full account of the barriers to distribution that smaller producers face, especially Latinos and other people of color, the new rules it implements around the cable industry might help those producers get better access to cable TV audiences, which would help diversify an industry that currently struggles with homogeneity. The FCC's proposal for unlocking the cable box has generated controversy, but mostly from industry players. It looks like the move would be good for consumers, no matter what, but will it be good for Latino producers? The National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC), an organization that advocates for Latinos in media and draws attention to issues that keep Hispanics from succeeding in TV, Hollywood, and other media, certainly hopes so. "At the heart of each item considered by the FCC today is a simple proposition: pay-TV companies must be responsive to their customers, particularly those who have been historically underserved. Consumers typically want choice, innovation, lower prices, and content that meets their needs," wrote NHMC president and CEO Alex Nogales in a statement released to Latin Post late Thursday. "By moving to open up the set-top box market to competition and take the first step towards exploring barriers faced by diverse content creators, the FCC is examining two critical pain points faced by consumers and video programmers alike," he added. "Communities of color have long experienced barriers to both producing and consuming diverse, culturally relevant content," concluded Nogales. "We thank Chairman Wheeler, Commissioner Clyburn, and Commissioner Rosenworcel for their favorable votes and strong statements of support today." The organization has joined with other media advocates to issue a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler urging the FCC to move forward with the proposal, stating, "It would benefit free expression and diverse content by creating a new way for creators to reach consumers, while spurring innovation by bringing the same openness to the video device market that has benefited smartphones, PCs, and other areas of consumer electronics." Pushback From Cable Industry & Conservative Latino Group Meanwhile, the FCC's proposal will result in the government picking winners and losers, particularly favoring Google, argues the cable industry -- as well as the Hispanic Technology and Telecommunications Partnership (HTTP), who spoke to Wired on the issue. "This is a gift to Google to give them access to the information that is moving away from them in the marketplace," said National Cable and Telecommunications Association lawyer Paul Glist. He argues that Google has been losing ad dollars to consumers increasingly using apps instead of search to find content and information. And if Google had access to create its own set-top box, it could find a new way to insert ads into its own programming. The ostensible advantage Google might gain if the rule change goes through would hurt, not help Latino producers and other independent, small networks with niche audiences. "They're asking us to trust Google?" argued Rosa Mendoza, Executive Director of HTTP. "All of us know about their diversity record. The only people that are going to benefit from this are Silicon Valley companies." Good or Bad? You Tell Us! What do you think? Does Google stand to benefit more than Latino producers and consumers, or is it high time that cable TV customers have more choice in the platforms they use to navigate their favorite programming? Let us know in the comments! Rumors have spread that Tim Daly who portrays the role of Henry McCord will be leaving "Madam Secretary" Season 2 after airing its upcoming 15th episode. Also, CBS has released the official plot description for episode 15 'Right of the Boom' and the recap of previous episode 14 'Left of the Boom' is made available here for fans who have missed to watch it. Rumor has it that Tim Daly who plays Henry McCord will leave "Madam Secretary" Season 2 after the 15th episode. Daly finally addressed the said issue via NY Post, "I though there were many places for Henry to go. I told series creator Barbara Hall it would be a problem for me if I wasn't used. There were a lot of areas of the human condition I still wanted Henry to explore. Barbara assured that they have plans for me and I have to wait for my character to make some progress in the storyline." This speculation swirled online when fans started to wonder if Henry will die after the explosion and uranium poisoning in Eastern Europe during the last week's episode 14, "Left of the Boom". As for the official plot synopsis of episode 15, Spoilers Guide reveals that Elizabeth McCord (Tea Leoni) rushes to find answers to President Conrad Dalton's (Keith Carradine) many questions about how the shocking event on the U.S. Soil occurred. For a quick recap of "Madam Secretary" Season 2 Episode 14 "Left of the Boom", Breathe Cast reported that Elizabeth tracked down the culprits behind the uranium poisoning in Eastern Europe. At the same time, she prevented the disassembling of arms in Saudi Arabia which was apprehended by two American teenage girls who intended to join a terrorist group. "Madam Secretary" Season 2 Episode 15 is entitled as "Right of the Boom". The forthcoming episode is slated to premiere on Sunday, February 21, 2016 at 8:00 p.m. exclusively on CBS. "Madam Secretary" is an American political drama TV series created by Barbara Hall and executively produced by Lori McCreary and Morgan Freeman. The success or failure of a transgender bill sent to the office of the South Dakotan governor could impact its $3.8 million tourism industry. The proposed bill says that transgender students in South Dakota should use public toilets that are aligned with their chromosomes and anatomy acquired at birth or seek other accommodation in a school. With a vote of 20-15, South Dakotan Legislators passed this bill, effectively sending to the office of Governor Dennis Daugaard for final approval or sudden veto. As a response, opponents of the bill outside the Mount Rushmore state announced that they would no longer avail of the state's vaunted tourism features if the bill is passed. According to the Argus Leader, some of the 13.8 million tourists who frequent South Dakota tweeted and posted on their social media sites that they would cancel their trips should the bill succeed. One of the more vocal protesters, Matthew Barcus, coordinator of sexual and gender diversity at Pennsylvania's Bloomburg University, made a plea to his alma mater the University of South Dakota: oppose the bill publicly or forefeit his donations. Meanwhile, South Dakota industry officials and businessmen alike have expressed skepticism about the supposed financial backlash caused by the tourism boycott of transgender supporters. Some have called the move "a bullying tactic." Discrimination is one of the core issues that lie at the controversy surrounding the bill. Accoring to the Pop Herald, the bill was prompted by a recent federal ruling that said that prohibition of a person from using the bathroom of the gender he identifies with is a form of discrimination. Arguments currently fly back and forth between the bill's opponents and its supporters. Those who champion the bill say it protects student privacy, while those who stand against it say it exposes vulnerable children to bullying and bigotry. CNN says that the governor's office has issued a statement saying it will meet with representatives from both sides, such as the Center for Equality, before making a final decision. A controversial tax law that will prevent workers from getting their pension when they retire, has been delayed on Thursday by South Africa's cabinet after the country's union federation threatened to do a strike. A threat by South Africa's biggest union federation has delayed the implementation of a tax law, according to minister in the presidency Jeff Radebe. The law, which was meant to prevent retiring employees from using their pension money once they leave employment, has now been tagged to take effect on March 1, 2018 instead of March 1 this year. It has been reported that South Africa's economy has already been struggling due to the slow progress from the commodities section, and the new tax law is aimed to help solve that concern. Aside from the economic slowdown, the nation is anticipating a major drought, with stocks almost being placed to "junk" labeling. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), has expressed their support over the threat of protest by the African National Congress (ANC) party, and the Associalted of Mineworkers and Construction Union in case the new law will take effect. "It is apparent that despite the extensive consultation processes which were embarked upon before the law was passed, that rose concerns still exist and that those concerns have to be addressed urgently," said Radebe, in a report by Yahoo. The National Treasury supports the new law that states fund members will only be given one third of their pension money in a lump sum upon retirement. Currently, retired employees can withdraw their entire pension savings. Upon taking effect, the new law will allow pensioners to purchase the rest of their money in annuities. Cosatu did say that the protest will still push through since the law should not exist at all. "[It gives the government the right to dictate to workers how and when they should access and spend their deferred salaries in the form of pensions," said Cosatu, in a report by The Daily Mail. Article paru sur le site du Vanguard au Nigeria... Evidemment, je pourrais trouver beaucoup a redire concernant les faits presentes dans cet article, qui sont incomplets ou faux a bien des egards. L'ecrasante machine a propagande des capitales occidentales finit par contaminer meme les intellectuels africains les plus lucides. Mais la toile de fond neocolonialiste que depeint l'auteur etant relativement fidele a la realite, je m'abstiendrai de protester. :-) Bernard Desgagne IMMEDIATE past president of Cote d Ivoire, Laurent Gbagbo was on January 28, 2016 hurled before the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague charged with crimes against humanity. He had already spent five years in jail awaiting trial by a court that ordinarily has no jurisdiction to try him as the ICC is not the court of first instance. The ICC is a court of last resort trying only cases national authorities cannot or will not prosecute. This is not the case with Gbagbo whose wife, Simone has already been tossed into a 20-year jail, and son, Michel, to five years imprisonment. If Ivorian courts could try and sentence the Gbagbo family, they can try him also. The timing of his arraignment was perfect; it was the same time Gbagbos former colleagues; African Heads of State were gathering in Addis Ababa for the annual African Union Summit. The prosecutor said the specific charges against Gbagbo and 44-year old Charles Ble Goude are four; murder, rape, inhumane acts, and persecution. The fact is that this is essentially a political case and Gbagbo is a Prisoner of War who was captured on April 11, 2011 by the combined forces of rebels, French and United Nations troops. The Ivorian Question which sees Gbagbo in the ICC today, is primarily a colonial problem; the colonialists in their hunger for territory did not bother about the peoples of the colonies especially their historical, trade, political, linguistic, cultural ties. They simply imposed boundaries. For instance in dividing up states like Burkina Faso, Cote dVoire and Ghana, they cut the same peoples into different countries. So Kwame Nkrumah for instance had part of his family in Nkroful sliced to French Cote d Ivoire and the other to English-speaking Ghana which gave rise to some Ghanaians claiming that this symbol of African unity was not a Ghanaian. In what is now the north of Cote dIvoire, a lot of nationalities coalesce and before the colonial boundaries were put up, there was free movement of people. After independence, founding president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny was able to manage the National Question, but not so his successor Henri Konan Bedie. In 1995, Bedie excluded those he claimed are not full Ivorians from the presidential elections, thereby disqualifying Alassan Ouattara whose parents are from the north, and are alleged to be Burkinabes. In the crisis that followed, General Robert Guei in 1999, overthrew Bedei. In the elections of October 2000 where the academic, Gbagbo stood against the dictator, Guei claimed victory, but a mass protest swept him off, installing Gbagbo who was believed to have won. When the Supreme Court subsequently disqualified Quattara on the basis that he is not a Ivorian, civil war ensued with the north breaking away and setting up capital in Bouake. French troops were accused of intervening. A peace accord was signed in January, 2003 but with the rebels refusing to disarm, Gbagbo ordered air strikes against them. However, France, claiming that six of its soldiers were killed in the air strikes, took out the Ivorian Air Force, destroying its fleet. Once again, the West showed that its sympathy laid with the rebels and Ouattara. But why is it against Gbagbo ? First, France regards Cote dVoire its fiefdom; while Boigny and Bedie were not opposed to this, Gbagbo was. Secondly, Gbagbo was an academic and Pan Africanist who rejected the continued subjugation of his country and the continent. In contrast, Ouattara is a pro-IMF/ World Bank politician who would not stand up to France. A new peace accord on March 4, 2007 between President Gbagbo and the northern rebel New Forces led by Guillaume Soro paved way for elections in November 2010. The President of the Electoral Commission announced results in the headquarters of the opposition candidate, Quattara, declaring him the winner with 54 percent of the votes. Gbagbo went to the Constitutional Court which held that elections in seven departments of the north were rigged, cancelled them and declared Gbagbo returned with 51 percent. Both Gbagbo and Quattara were sworn in as presidents of the country. The UN Security Council recognised Quattara. Personally, I felt Gbagbo should concede, but opposed the plan of the West to intervene militarily. In my January 7, 2011 piece in VANGUARD Newspapers titled MILITARY OPTION WONT WORK IN ABIDJAN I wrote : Although the Gbagbo group should be condemned for tearing up the election results, but ECOWAS and the African Union ought to give more ear to Gbagbos demand for a recount of the ballot. I do not have any doubt that a military intervention will result in a dreadful bloodbath of Africans. Another danger is that the military option is likely to result in the dissolution of the Ivorian armed forces and the police; the security implications for the country will be quite immense. If this happens, the core of the new armed forces is likely to be made up of the rebel army . This means that there will be serious ethnic and religious schism in the new military whose officer corps will be northern and Muslim. The military option was preferred; French and UN troops joined the rebels to sack the government. In the process, atrocities were committed by both sides who targeted opposing ethnic groups. But only the Gbagbo group is being prosecuted or persecuted; the victorious rebels are free. Targeting Gbagbo and his millions of supporters has not ceased. Hauling him before the ICC is merely a devise to take him permanently out of the Ivorian equation. Gbagbo is like a cockroach in the gathering of cocks; how can he be innocent, and how will the ICC realise that jailing him will hurt national reconciliation in Cote dVoire ? What the country needs is national reconciliation, not a show trial. A country where all citizens will be equal, not one in which a part feels conquered. In keeping Nelson Mandela in South African jail, the Apartheid system was able to turn to him for assistance in national reconciliation, Cote dvoire should be able to do the same thing, not leave their former president in the hands of foreigners. A 36-year-old Bethlehem man faces drug charges after he came to an officer's attention during a landlord-tenant dispute, city police said in court papers. Anthony John Piro Jr. is facing drug charges after being arrested in Bethlehem. (Courtesy photo | For lehigvalleylive.com) Anthony John Piro Jr., of the 500 block of West Fourth Street, had left by 5:02 p.m Wednesday when an officer arrived at the address, but authorities knew Piro had an outstanding warrant in a receiving stolen property case, police said. The responding officer got a photo of Piro and showed it to another officer who, about 50 minutes after the initial call, spotted Piro in front of the building where he rents a room, police said. Officers, arresting Piro on the warrant, searched his jacket pockets and found eight clear plastic bags with green vegetation that field tested as marijuana, seven green plastic bags with a clear rock-like substance that field tested as amphetamine, one bag with a white powdery substance that will take further testing to determine what it is, two clear plastic bags with a clear rock-like substance, one clear bag with a "Yin Yang" imprint containing a clear rock-like substance, one corner-tied bad with a clear rock-like substance, 10 packets of Suboxone Sublingual Stripas, $3,826 in cash, 12 empty green plastic bags and one yellow glass smoking pipe with residue, police said. In a book bag, Piro had two digital scales, a yellow smoking pipe and knives, police said. After Piro was advised of his rights, he told an officer he found the drugs in the street and the money belonged to a friend, police said. Upon searching Piro's room, hypodermic needles, smoking pipes, a metal spoon with residue, a digital scale with 100-gram calibration weight and a clear plastic bag with a white powdery substance were found, police said. Piro was arraigned at 8:10 a.m. Thursday before District Judge Robert Hawke on two counts of possession with intent to deliver drugs, two counts of possessing a controlled substance and one count of possession drug paraphernalia, court papers say. He was sent to Northampton County Prison in lieu of $50,000 bail, court papers say. He remained jailed on Friday morning, online records show. A preliminary hearing is tentatively scheduled 9 a.m. March 3 in District Judge Nancy Matos Gonzalez's South Side Bethlehem court. Piro was also arraigned on Nov. 28 charges of receiving stolen property, driving with a suspended license, possession of a controlled substance and two vehicular violations, court papers say. Bail in that case was set at $15,000, court papers say. The preliminary hearing on those charges is tentatively the same time and date as the other one, but in Senior District Judge Joseph Barner's court on Steko Boulevard, court papers say. Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. A Freemansburg officer did all he could do -- including deploying a Taser -- to keep Ricardo Nuno from driving drunk, but it wasn't enough, according to police. Ricardo Nuno (Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com) Once the 60-year-old Bethlehem man finally successfully fled from Patrolman Robert Wieder, Bethlehem police stopped his car 10 minutes later and Wieder was able to arrest him at 4:09 p.m. Thursday, police said. The incident began at 3:50 p.m. with Wieder in the office of the Freemansburg Storage Depot in the 800 block of Peach Street, police said. The officer dealt with Nuno during a previous incident at that location and smelled "a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from Nuno," police said. Nuno left the facility and got into a red 2002 Ford Escape and began to drive off, police said. Wieder pulled over the SUV and asked Nuno if he had been drinking, police said. Nuno responded that he had two beers at home before coming to the storage company, police said. Nuno failed subsequent field sobriety tests and an initial breath test showed the presence of alcohol, police said. Wieder told Nuno he was under arrest, but Nuno "started to become physically aggressive," pushing the officer, police said. Nuno called his daughter and said he hopes "she feels good about this because now he is being arrested for DUI," police reported. Nuno then walked away from the officer and tried to get back in the SUV, police said. The officer tried to grab Nuno by the hand, but Nuno got into the Ford, police said. As Wieder told Nuno to stop and get out of the vehicle, Nuno started the engine, police said. Wieder shot Nuno with a Taser but it "did not make a sufficient connection to incapacitate Nuno," police said. Nuno drove south through the parking lot of 434 Clearview St. toward Tolstoy Street, as the officer ran alongside, holding Nuno's left hand through the open door of the SUV, police said. Wieder finally let go and Nuno sped out of sight, police said. Within minutes, Bethlehem police had Nuno pulled over and Wieder responded to make the arrest, police said. Nuno was arraigned before on-call District Judge Robert Hawke on charges of fleeing an officer, resisting arrest, DUI and DUI high rate (0.10 to 0.16), court papers say. Nuno was sent to Northampton County Prison in lieu of $15,000 bail. He remained in jail as of Friday afternoon, online records show. A preliminary hearing is tentatively scheduled 9 a.m. March 3 in Senior District Judge Joseph Barner's Stefko Boulevard court in Bethlehem. Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. David Bermudez The only man charged in a violent, 2012 home invasion in Lower Saucon Township was taken into custody, authorities said. David Bermudez, 37, of Bethlehem, was arraigned Feb. 18, 2016, on seven felonies in the break-in at the home of Dominic and Jodi Albanese while the couple and their four children were home. (Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com) Northampton County's sheriff credits cooperation on the local, state and federal levels in the arrest of a suspect in a violent home-invasion robbery in Lower Saucon Township. U.S. Marshals on Feb. 4 arrested David Bermudez, 37, of Bethlehem, in the Bronx, New York, and he was arraigned on multiple felonies Thursday. While under investigation by Lower Saucon police and a Northampton County grand jury, Bermudez was also wanted on a bench warrant issued last June for violating probation on a simple assault charge from June 2012 in Bethlehem, Sheriff David Dalrymple said Friday. The month after being charged in that case, Bermudez along with three co-conspirators allegedly broke into the home of Dominic and Jodi Albanese on July 11, 2012, in the 2500 block of Woodlawn Road in the township. The Albaneses were home, their four children asleep upstairs, when one of the four suspects demanded a safe, accusing Dominic Albanese of taking "money that doesn't belong to you." Albanese was beaten unconscious and his wife ordered to disrobe, and multiple shots were fired during the incident that ended when the intruders left in the family's minivan with valuables and electronics, authorities said. Dominic Albanese had been embroiled in a dispute over the Lower Saucon property dating to 2011, with the land's mortgage-holder Carin Radogna and her husband, Michael Radogna. No one other than Bermudez has been charged in the incident, and one co-conspirator reportedly killed himself last year. A call for comment to the Radogna home went unanswered. With the township and grand jury probes active, Northampton County sheriff's Deputy Brian Budraitis looked into locating Bermudez on the bench warrant, Dalrymple said. Budraitis with assistance from Pennsylvania Parole Agent Tim Budgeon developed a possible address for Bermudez in the Bronx. Budraitis and Budgeon both serve on the U.S. Marshals Service Lehigh Valley Violent Fugitive Task Force, and contacted the marshals' New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force about the address -- leading to Bermudez's arrest earlier this month. "This is the strength of the Marshals Service and the strength of our participation, is they were able to force-multiply," Dalrymple said. "It was just a great job by Deputy Budraitis and Parole Agent Budgeon." In addition to Marshals Service, state parole agents and sheriff's deputies, the task force also includes Pennsylvania State Police, Dalrymple said. "It's a great, cooperative effort and it really bears fruit," the sheriff said. "They do a great job. We're proud to, and very happy to, be a member and a partner to take part in this. "That's our focus, to really address the violent fugitives, to have a positive impact on the community." Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Victim allegedly lured to stabbing by drug deal, not fight From left, Tyrik J. Adams, Kentaya Queenasia Whitaker and Patrick W. Price were arrested in an attack Feb. 11, 2016, on an 18-year-old in Bethlehem that left the victim with a stab wound to his chest. Authorities said they were looking for alleged co-conspirator Semanje Brunson, as well, on charges in the incident. (Courtesy photos | For lehighvalleylive.com) A victim who was hospitalized after being beaten and stabbed in a Bethlehem brawl was lured to the attack by a promised marijuana deal -- not a fight as previously suspected by police, according to court records. Patrick William Price, 22, of the 1500 block of Jeter Avenue, on Feb. 16 allegedly sent the male victim a text message asking if he wanted to sell him some marijuana, police said. Price told the victim to meet him on the porch in the 500 block of Ontario Street. The men knew each other from past occasions, according to police. The victim was driven to the area by two women and when he got out of the vehicle, he shook hands with Price, records said. Bethlehem police said Feb. 18, 2016, they were looking for Semanje Brunson in connection with a Feb. 11 stabbing. (Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com) A few seconds later, a handful of males and a female emerged. Semaje Brunson, 17, of the 1100 block of Livingston Street in Bethlehem, pointed a sawed-off shotgun to the victim's head and another unidentified man, said, "Run your pockets," according to police. The victim was brutally beaten by the three men and female who continued to kick and punch him even after he fell to the ground, police said. Kentaya Queenasia Whitaker, 19, of Bethlehem, the female, then allegedly stabbed the victim in the chest with a black folding knife. She then said to the victim, "Are you good,"records said. The two women who brought the victim to the confrontation then transported him to Lehigh Valley Hospital in Salisbury Township, where he is listed in critical condition, according to police. Police on Feb. 12 searched the home of Whitaker in the 500 block of Ontario Street and allegedly seized a shotgun with a 14-inch barrel, a folding knife with blood on the blade and a large plastic bag of marijuana. Tyrik J. Adams, 20, of Bethlehem, Whitaker's brother, told police in an interview from Northampton County Prison the men conspired to rob the victim of the marijuana. He took part in the beating, along with Price and Brunson. Police initially thought the victim was brought to Ontario Street for a fight. The victim on Feb. 11 had been arguing with Adams, 20, on the social media app Snapchat. Police believed the two then agreed to meet on Ontario Street for a fight. Price was arrested Wednesday for his role in the crime and arraigned before District Judge Robert Hawke, who set bail at $100,000. He is charged with two counts of robbery and aggravated assault. Adams is charged with aggravated assault, robbery, prohibited offensive weapon, possession of marijuana and two counts of conspiracy. Whitaker is charged with aggravated assault, robbery, prohibited offensive weapon, prohibited possession of a firearm and two counts of conspiracy. Online records show Price, Adams and Whitaker are being held in Northampton County Prison. Brunson remains on the lam and city police have described him as armed and dangerous. Brunson will be charged as an adult with aggravated assault, robbery and firearms charges, police said. Anyone with information about his whereabouts should contact the Bethlehem Police Department at 610-865-7187 or Bethlehem detectives at 610-865-7162. Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @pamholzmann. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Karl Stirner, the visionary artist whose admiration for Easton sparked an arts renaissance in his adopted hometown, died Thursday. He was 92. Karl Stirner in 2013. (lehighvalleylive.com file photo) Stirner, an internationally acclaimed sculptor, inspired dozens of artists with his friendship, honesty and passion for the truth, friends said. "He wasn't just bending metal," said Easton artist Berrisford Boothe, a longtime friend. "He understood the role of the artist. "The reasons people make art is because their life has exposed them to experiences and phenomena that they have to translate," Boothe said. "Karl collected all this work but he also knelt in front of it every day. He was the highest-order artist in town." Mayor Sal Panto Jr. confirmed Stirner's death early Friday afternoon. "He was a dear friend to many and a favorite son of our city who will be greatly missed," Panto said in a statement. In tribute to Stirner's contributions, Panto said, the Easton flag in Centre Square will be lowered to half-staff until Monday afternoon. The American flag already is at half-staff due to the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Stirner is memorialized in Easton by the Karl Stirner Arts Trail that opened along the Bushkill Creek in 2011. The 2.5-mile-long trail connects Third Street with the Simon Silk Mill redevelopment project along 13th Street. Sad news to share today. Easton and an international arts community mourn the loss of Mr. Karl Stirner. The Friends of... Posted by Friends of The Karl Stirner Arts Trail on Friday, February 19, 2016 He was among a few well-traveled artists who discovered Easton years ago, made it his home and encouraged others to follow. His wife, Easton District Judge Gay Elwell, died in December 2012. Jim Toia, director of community-based teaching at Lafayette College's School of Visual Arts, said Stirner's advocacy and passion for Easton served to attract artists from multiple disciplines. "Karl is and always will be an icon in this community as a true artist and staunch supporter of the arts in general," said Toia, who joined Lafayette in 1997 and is chairman of the Karl Stirner Arts Trail. "He was a believer in Easton as an exceptionally rich arts community and he had everything to do with making it as rich as it is today." Arrival in Easton Stirner's main medium was iron. He maintained a Ferry Street studio that became a haven for other artists and hummed with the work of Stirner's grinders, drills and torches. He came to Easton in 1983. Born in Germany, his family immigrated to the U.S. in 1927 and settled in Philadelphia. He left school at age 17 to master blacksmithing and metalworking and became a self-taught sculptor. He taught at the Tyler School of Fine Art at Temple University, the Moore College of Art, Philadelphia College of Art and Swarthmore College. Friends said it was only natural that Stirner would become a teacher -- something that stuck with him until the very end. "In the beginning I had to work my ass off. I had to stay one step ahead of the students," he said in a 2000 interview. "I taught sculpture, jewelry making, painting. Being in charge is a responsibility. I was a teacher then but I've always been a doer." Stirner was a World War II veteran, serving with the U.S. Army in New Guinea and the Philippines. In Easton, he transformed an old warehouse and sewing factory at 230 Ferry St. into the Easton Arts Building -- a studio, gallery and living space that became a new beacon in an industrial city whose heyday had passed. Stirner pioneered the growth of an arts enclave. In the mid-1980s, it was Stirner who approached Easton officials with the idea of holding an artists' loft seminar to promote the city's inexpensive real estate, large open studio spaces and architecture. It attracted more than 100 suitors, Panto said. "There were other artists who came before him, but Karl stepped it up about five rungs on the ladder," Panto said. "Today we are truly a blossoming artists' community thanks to people like Karl." A humble man His three children recalled him as a strict but loving patriarch. "We were very lucky to be raised by this very rare individual," said Heather Stirner Nutting, who moved back to Easton six months ago to be near her father. Noelle Stirner said her father blew away his cardiologist's expectation by living and working into his 90s. She said her father was passionate about showcasing the city to other artists but humble about taking the credit for the city's turnaround. Stirner is also survived by a son, Jonas Stirner. Karl Stirner speaks during news conference for the groundbreaking of the Karl Stirner Arts Trail in April 2011. (lehighvalleylive.com file photo) Anthony Marraccini, who has co-run Connexions Gallery since 2003, said Stirner's influence was enormous. He took an interest in Marraccini's career even though he had a world-class reputation and Marraccini was just a young man with dreams. "He could have been anywhere else in the world but he chose here," Marraccini said. "He was a major force for developing the arts in Easton," said city artist Isadore Laduca, who teaches at Northampton Community College. Laduca was also taken under Stirner's wing. He noted Stirner's productivity even into his 90s. Stirner's legacy is evident in the multiple galleries and art-friendly businesses in the Downtown. "For a town of 27,000 people, there's a ton of art," Marraccini said. Ashton Funeral Home is handling funeral arrangements, which were incomplete Friday. Family members said they expect a memorial will be held next week. Boothe, a painter and digital artist who teaches at Lehigh University, recalled Stirner as a towering figure who was unpretentious and warm. He met Stirner in the 1980s after graduating from Lafayette College and they became close friends. Other artists joked that Stirner was the "art pope" of Easton as they sought out his blessings and advice in their personal and professional lives, Boothe said. His presence was powerful yet he maintained a humility that invited people, he said. "You could always be exactly who you needed to be with him," Boothe said. "I have never met anyone else in my life who could occupy space and at the same time -- out of his grace and kindness of heart -- both be there and disappear so you could see yourself." Supervising reporter Rudy Miller contributed to this article. Jim Deegan may be reached at jdeegan@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @jim_deegan. Find lehighvalleylive on Facebook. Steven Karr Steven Karr (Courtesy photo) Steven Karr spent the last 25 years as a clinical social worker. The 53-year-old Williams Township resident's certification was bolstered by a graduate degree from New York University. But his future in social work was obliterated the day he pulled out a gun and pointed it at two strangers in Easton. Karr admitted Friday he pointed the gun at Cheyenne Vinais, who was in her early 20s, and her brother, Sergio Vinais, on Oct. 23, 2015, at the Easton bus station. "To be honest, it was stupidity. It was poor judgment," Karr told Northampton County Judge Samuel Murray. Karr was sentenced to two to 18 months in Northampton County Prison plus two years of probation. He's eligible for immediate parole since he's already served four months. Assistant District Attorney Richard Pepper said Karr was driving drunk when he pulled up to the bus station on South Third Street. Karr ordered the young woman to get into his car, he said. She refused and got her brother to confront Karr. That's when he pulled out the gun, Pepper said. "They're terrorized," Pepper said, earlier saying, "They feel he's dangerous." Karr admitted he was drunk and that he pulled out the gun, but said he just said, "What's going on?" to the girl when her brother got aggressive and told him to leave her alone. That's what prompted Karr to pull out the gun, according to Karr. Either way, Karr's actions were irresponsible and bizarre, the judge said. "It's a very odd case, Mr. Karr," the judge said. Karr acknowledged he will lose his license as a social worker as a result of his plea to simple assault, making terroristic threats, reckless endangerment and drunken driving. "We're all fortunate that neither the victims nor any of the bystanders were lawfully armed," Pepper added. "Otherwise we'd be dealing with a homicide." The judge agreed waving a gun around on the street is a serious matter. "We just can't have that type of behavior in our society," he said. Karr said he has worked Perth Amboy General Hospital, for Catholic Charities in Phillipsburg and most recently in Bucks County. He plans to move to South Carolina when he is paroled. He has a veterinarian friend who has offered him a job consoling the owners of pets that have to be euthanized. He said he doesn't need a professional license to perform that job. Defense attorney Matthew Potts said it's rare to have someone commit his first crime at age 52. "How and why this happened, I don't know," Potts said. "I don't think we'll see this happen again." Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook. UPDATE: K-9 was right: Heroin found in car in Easton crash, cops say (VIDEO) A teenage driver fleeing a traffic stop Thursday afternoon on the border between Easton and Wilson Borough crashed into a parked car before he and his passenger ran off, Easton police said. Police caught the 17-year-old male driver after a brief foot chase, but the passenger had not been located as of Thursday night, police Inspector Salvatore Crisafulli said in a news release. No one was reported injured in the crash just after 4 p.m. at South 15th and Spruce streets, and police said there was no public safety issue with the passenger on the lam. City police Lt. Steve Homoki and his K-9 dog, Jax, checked the exterior of the car, and Jax's reaction was enough to give police probable cause to impound the vehicle and get a warrant to search it, police said. "There's no doubt about that one," Homoki said just after the dog finished barking and scratching at the doors and trunk of the Toyota Avalon. Homoki immediately gave the dog his section of old firehose as a reward for doing his duty. The 17-year-old, whom police did not identify because he is a juvenile, will be charged through Northampton County Juvenile Court with fleeing and attempting to elude police, resisting arrest, driving under suspension, reckless driving, accidents involving damage to unattended vehicles or property and criminal mischief. Easton police detectives observed the driver commit a traffic violation in the area of South 15th and Ferry streets and activated their vehicle's emergency lights directly behind the sedan near South 16th and Spruce streets, in neighboring Wilson Borough, the release states. The border between the municipalities is 15th Street. The driver fled east through the 1500 block of Spruce Street and crashed as he rounded the turn south onto South 15th Street, police said. The car crashed into an Oldsmobile Alero owned by Charles Nunez, a resident of that block of Spruce Street on the Easton side for 14 years. He was food shopping when he got a call from his daughter about the crash, he said. "This is what I came home to," Nunez said as police investigated the incident. This marked the second time in four years the Nunez family had one of its cars parked on the street damaged in a crash. The first time was in January 2012, on the Wilson Borough side, and the driver was never apprehended, leaving Nunez's insurance to cover the totaled car, he said. Thursday's crash followed a similar incident last week nearby in Easton, in which a driver fled a traffic stop and abandoned his car as he ran off, before being caught nearby. Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. gracedale-promo-140.jpg An annual state survey noted zero deficiencies for Gracedale for two years in a row. (File photo) For the second year in a row, Gracedale Nursing Home passed a state survey with zero deficiencies noted. The Pennsylvania Department of Health performs annual surveys for all nursing homes statewide. This year and in 2015, the Northampton County-owned facility in Upper Nazareth Township passed with flying colors, but that has not always been the case. A 2014 survey noted multiple deficiencies, including a major issue with the nursing home's hot water. Left unaddressed, those deficiencies could have meant a loss of Gracedale's operating license. If the state revoked the license, the residents would have had to relocate, about 800 employees would have lost their jobs, and the county would have been out tens of millions of dollars, according to county Executive John Brown. Brown said he put together a team, spearheaded by county Deputy Director of Administration Cathy Allen, to analyze each department and find what needed fixing. In fewer than 90 days, Gracedale passed a follow-up survey and the improved performance has continued since then, Brown said at a news conference Thursday at the nursing home's chapel. Brown lauded the efforts by the Gracedale staff and county officials who have participated in assuring two years with zero deficiencies. "A first for Gracedale and a rarity in the nursing home industry, especially for a nursing home the size of Gracedale," Brown said. Gracedale Administrator David Holland said he estimated that nursing homes across the state might typically see an average of about seven deficiencies each year on their surveys. Many of the other nursing homes house 100 to 120 residents, whereas Gracedale houses 671 residents, making it one of the largest nursing homes in the state. The larger the facility, the harder to maintain fewer deficiencies, which makes Gracedale's two-year record even more outstanding, Holland said. Holland stood at a podium at the news conference backed by representatives of the various departments at the nursing home. He thanked the nursing staff, food services providers, maintenance staff, laundry staff and everyone else who comes to work each day to help the residents. "The residents are the reason I come to work every day and the reason the people behind me come to work every day," Holland said. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. ppl Smoke stacks of the Montour power plant, a coal-fired plant in Washingtonville, Pa., owned by Allentown-based PPL. ( Photo courtesy of PPL) We agree with The Express-Times in its praise for Pennsylvania's progress toward compliance with EPA's Clean Power Plan despite the Supreme Court's decision to temporarily pause the rule ("Supreme Court Turns back the clean air clock," Feb. 14). This preparation sets the state up for future compliance while also putting Pennsylvania on a path towards an electricity system that is secure, clean and affordable. In fact, implementing the Clean Power Plan can provide savings for ratepayers compared to projected energy costs in 2030. The state has already made strong progress. Act 129, which the Legislature wisely passed in 2008, and state regulators recently extended, has promoted energy efficiency programs that have resulted in a net benefit of over $4 billion in energy savings for Pennsylvanians. What's more, we are growing an advanced energy economy now employing 57,000 people at more than 4,200 companies in the state. As Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John Quigley has said, "What the Clean Power Plan is calling for is really good business." He's right, and we applaud Gov. Tom Wolf and Quigley for their leadership on this issue. Matt Elliott Interim Executive Director Keystone Energy Efficiency Alliance KEEA Energy Education Fund Philadelphia Family and friends of Jennifer Rowe gathered Thursday night to share memories of the former Phillipsburg woman and hope that one day they may have answers about her disappearance. Jennifer Rowe, 46, went missing two months ago Washington County, Virginia. She has family in the Phillipsburg area. (Facebook photo | For lehighvalleylive.com) Rowe, 46, was last seen Dec. 3 near her home in Saltville, Virginia, about 17 miles north of the border with Tennessee. Authorities believe she fell into the north fork of the Holston River and for nearly two weeks searched a 19-mile stretch in the southwest corner of the state. Detective Brandon Tweed, of the Washington County, Virginia, Sheriff's Office, said this month that the search is planned to resume when the weather improves. Thursday night's vigil was held in the Jersey Hose Fire Co. parking lot on South Main Street in Phillipsburg. "We ask all friends and family to come and share memories of this wonderful women," the event's Facebook listing said. "We need to all pray together that one day will we all receive answers about what happen to this beautiful mother, sister and friend." Rowe's 27-year-old daughter, Heather Monteiro, of Phillipsburg, started the Facebook group Missing Jennifer Rowe. "She would not just vanish," she told lehighvalleylive.com last week. "Something had to (have) happened to her and someone out there knows." Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @type2supernovak. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook. Entertainment / Music by Staff reporter Zanu-PF cancelled a fund-raising musical gala for President Robert Mugabe's 92nd birthday celebrations due to poor planning by the organisers.The gala, that was scheduled to take place at the Harare International Conference Centre (HICC) on February 12, was being organised by the Zanu-PF youth league.Zanu-PF secretary for youth Pupurai Togarepi refused to comment on the aborted concert."I was not part of the organising team hence I am not the right person to comment," said Togarepi.Well-placed sources told the Daily News that the ruling party was forced to pull the plug on the gig after it became apparent that it was doomed to flop.One of the sources, who declined to be identified, said the majority of the artistes that the organisers claimed would perform at the event - including Suluman Chimbetu - were not even aware of the concert.Suluman was not immediately available to comment on the matter but his publicist Joe Nyamungoma said he had no knowledge of the gig."I was not aware of this musical gala," said Nyamungoma.Veteran organiser of State musical galas - Retired Major Anywhere Mutambudzi, who is director of Urban Communications in the ministry of Information, Media and Broadcasting Services, was also not privy to the abandoned Zanu-PF musical gala."The State was not aware of such a musical gala but we were happy that some people were being innovative in trying to organise such high profile gigs. Everyone is allowed to use President Robert Mugabe's name in good and transparent projects," said Mutambudzi.Initially, Patson Chimbodza of Chipaz Promotions had been tasked to organise the music gala on February 6 but lack of resources led to the postponement of gig. Waterways Ireland has been accused of impeding activity on the Grand Canal at Sallins through the imposition of fees and charges. Waterways Ireland has been accused of impeding activity on the Grand Canal at Sallins through the imposition of fees and charges. Labour Senator John Whelan, a Labour candidate in the last General Election, said WI must be sent back to the drawing board with their proposed new canal bye-laws, if these important inland waterways are not to be turned into disused and derelict backwaters. Sen. Whelan has made direct submissions to Waterways Ireland on their draft new canal bye-laws and raised the issue repeatedly with the Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Jimmy Deenihan. While Minister Deenihan was unable to extend the consultation process on the new regulations, he has assured me that all the submissions and my concerns will be taken into account before he signs any new-bye-laws into law, he said. He added: I cannot fathom how anyone could have contrived the draconian, punitive and prohibitive regime of charges, rules and fines for users of the Grand and Royal Canals. Waterways Ireland should be thinking up ways of encouraging activity on the canals rather than impeding it. New mooring fees, heavy-handed regulation and exorbitant charges for house boats will have a detrimental effect on access and boating, he said. A Newbridge dad will stage a band night next Thursday to raise money for his sons new wheelchair. A Newbridge dad will stage a band night next Thursday to raise money for his sons new wheelchair. Dylan McLoughlin, 13, has muscular dystrophy, a degenerative condition which is taking away his mobility. The teenager is in first year of secondary school in Edenderry. He is getting too big for his current wheelchair, on which he is totally reliant. The new wheelchair, which has to be customised for his body type, will help him stand and give him the independence to do simple things such as make a cup of tea. His dad, Liam Hughes from Piercetown, and mum, Brigid McLoughlin from Carbury, have been told that the customised piece of equipment will cost 17,000. The State have put 10,000 towards it, and we have to come up with the rest of it. They just said that the funding wasnt there, with all the cutbacks, Liam told the Leinster Leader. But Dylans parents have already suffered an upsetting setback in their fundraising efforts. Brigids home was broken into last week by thieves believed to be looking for cash raised for the cause. Fortunately, they left empty handed, as the money had been lodged in the bank, and nothing else in the house was touched. Meanwhile, Liam has organised a fundraising night which will take place in Swifts of Newbridge on Thursday, November 22, to help meet the cash shortfall for the wheelchair. Local acts including Kym Kelly from Newbridge, Colm Carroll, Zak Moran, Daniel Brereton, Shane McGrath, Chris Brosnan, The Gypsies, Simon Sweeney, and many more, have agreed to take part for free to help raise money for Dylan. There will also be a raffle on the night with great prizes on offer. The 6 entry fee, charged between 9pm and 11pm, will go straight towards the wheelchair fund and it also includes entry into the nightclub afterwards. Kym Kelly has helped me a lot in putting the night together. Fair play to Damien Gleeson from Swifts, who has been brilliant and Swifts are donating a prize as well towards the raffle, said Liam. Id ask everyone to come out to show their support and the earlier they get in on the night, the better it is for Dylans wheelchair fund as well. Liam said that they are determined to have the chair by January. Other fundraising efforts included a bagpack in Dunnes Stores in Newbridge last week. Id like to say a massive thank you to Rita and Angela in Dunnes Stores who let us do the bag packing, which was a massive help. And thanks to all the groups who said they would take the time out and play in Swifts for free, said Liam. There will also be a collection bucket inside the door at Swifts on the night for those who want to donate but cant attend the night. Liam is no stranger to fundraising as he did a sponsored walk to Cork last May in aid of Enable Ireland, whose facility in Naas Dylan has attended since he was a toddler. There were daggers, promises and disruptions at the Love Leitrim hustings chaired by Johnny Gogan in the Bee Park Centre, Manorhamilton last Saturday night, February 13. Thirteen candidates turned up and the crowd saw allegations and counter-allegations in what at times was like a competition on who was the best anti-fracking candidate in the room. But the meeting had to be cut short due to a small number of protestors at the event. Protestors refused to allow the discussion to continue at the hustings, which resulted in Chairman, Johnny Gogan, closing the meeting prematurely. Dr Aedin McLoughlin, Good Energy Alliance Ireland (GEAI) told the Leitrim Observer, I am very upset that a small number of protesters seem to consider public meetings to be an opportunity for anarchic disturbances for their own sake. Dr McLoughlin said the greatest threat to Ireland from fracking at present is the proposal to commence drilling in North Belfast. This week, was not even mentioned or discussed. She said before the subject was introduced, the event was disrupted and the event ended in disarray due to protestors. Deputy John Perry (FG) reinforced his total opposition to fracking on the night. Cllr Declan Bree (Ind) warned the audience of believing promises and reminded those in attendance of the broken promises that some candidates had made in relation to cancer services. He noted his recent motion to have a ban included in the Sligo County Development Plan that was voted down by sitting FF and FG councillors. Independent Cllr Marie Casserly took the opportunity to inform the crowd of the latest European Parliament vote to ask member states not to authorise any new fracking. In relation to the EPA study into fracking, Deputy Tony McLoughlin (FG) claimed that Minister Joe McHugh expressed that they would not be going ahead with Phase 2. Cllr Martin Kenny (SF) alleged that Fine Gael were carrying out political stunts stating the coincidence that on the day the election was called that the study was stopped adding he would not trust that. The stakes were raised when candidates were asked would they resign if fracking came in and Tony McLoughlin said if fracking came in it would be over my dead body. Senator Susan O'Keeffe (Lab) said that if it came in it can proceed without me. Finbarr Filan (Renua) and Leslie O'Hora (Green Party) also outlined their opposition to fracking. Before the meeting was adjourned a discussion on TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) was covered where Senator Marc MacSharry (FF) said he had large concerns concerning it and how it would threaten farming. Nigel Gallagher (AAA-PBP) who supported the 'Stop the Study' campaign in the Dail strongly voiced his opposition to TTIP. Eamon Murray (Ind) who has attended meetings of Love Leitrim to contribute his time to the anti-fracking movement said he too opposed TTIP. Last week Infrastrata, an oil/gas company issued leaflets to all houses in North Belfast that they intend to come on site in Woodburn Forest this week and start drilling an exploratory well over a mile deep. The site is 400 yards from a water reservoir serving 2,000 houses in Carrickfergus without a Waste Treatment Plan in place. News / Local by Sukulwenkosi Dube A WOMAN who killed a newborn baby that she had from an extra-marital affair to escape her husband's wrath, has been sentenced to two years in prison.Blondie Moyo gave birth to a baby boy while she was alone at her homestead in Nopemano Village in Bulilima District.She dumped the child in a Blair toilet and told her relatives that she had given birth to a stillborn baby.Her aunt discovered the baby, who was still alive on the following day.The baby died three days later while admitted to Plumtree District Hospital.Plumtree magistrate Livard Philemon convicted Moyo on her own plea of guilty to infanticide.He sentenced her to 24 months and suspended six for five years on condition that she does not within the period commit an offence of a similar nature.Philemon said Moyo had committed a serious offence which deserved a custodial sentence.Moyo who is a mother of three other children, told the court that she decided to kill her new baby as he was born out of the wedlock."I fell pregnant by another man and my husband told me point blank that he didn't want to see that child in his homestead. He had also told me on several occasions to abort the pregnancy."When I gave birth I knew that as long as I kept the baby, there wouldn't be peace in the house. That's why I decided to get rid of my baby in order to please my husband and escape his wrath," she said.Moyo begged the court for leniency, saying she had three children and was looking after her 92-year-old grandmother.She added that circumstances had compelled her to commit the offence.Prosecuting, Jane Phiri said Moyo left for South Africa sometime in 2014 in search of greener pastures. She returned pregnant in July 2015 and continued to live with her husband."On November 2 last year around 5PM, she gave birth to a baby boy and dumped him in a Blair toilet. She then advised her aunt, Primrose Nleya, that she had a miscarriage which caused her to give birth to a still born baby. She added that she had dumped the dead body in a toilet pit."Moyo was taken to Tokwana Clinic where she was further referred to Plumtree District Hospital. On the following day Nleya proceeded to the Blair toilet to check on the dead body," said Phiri.She said Nleya heard the baby crying from the Blair toilet pit.The matter was reported at Madlambuzi Police Station.Phiri said the baby was admitted to Plumtree District Hospital where he died on November 7. How to Buy Abortion Pills Online: A Step-by-Step Guide Medication abortion is incredibly safe and highly effective, but figuring out how to get it online can be daunting, depending on where you live. SOFTWARE company Kneat Solutions, which is based in Limerick, has announced news of an international investment, which will create 30 new jobs. Kneat, which is based at Castletroy Park Business Centre, has entered into a transaction agreement with a listed Canadian company Fortune Bay Corp. The deal, the company said in a statement this Friday morning, represents an initial cash injection of 5.5m with more expected and will create 30 new jobs, doubling staffing numbers at the company. Kneat, which is headquartered in Limerick with an office in Philadelphia, said it was an exciting opportunity to access new markets and increased financial resources to grow and scale its business. Recruitment is already underway for the new roles, including experienced software developers, testers, pharmaceutical process specialists and business development managers. Kneat is a leading provider of software solutions for the global life sciences, healthcare and other regulated industries. We are excited to take this important step in capturing the rapidly growing market for compliance related document and data management software for regulated industries, said Eddie Ryan, CEO of Kneat. In acquiring access to increased financial resources and entry into a lucrative marketplace, we can accelerate our international growth plans. We launched our first solution in 2014 initially targeting validation applications for the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, and can now count several blue-chip biotech and pharmaceutical companies as clients. Our software is also applicable to other industries such as oil and energy, aviation, nuclear and automation where good data management, good documentation practices and regulatory compliance are highly valued. As we enter this next chapter in our companys history, I would like to acknowledge the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through Enterprise Ireland, whose support in growing our business has been invaluable. The deal will create a new listed Canadian software company. Kneat shareholders will own 68.7% of the resultant merged entity and the current Fortune Bay shareholders will own the remaining 31.3%. The new company will retain the Kneat name and Eddie Ryan will remain as CEO. While its stock will trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange, its key operations will remain in Ireland with an increasing sales and support capability in the United States. The deal is also expected to attract future investment as the company looks to fast-track its growth in new international markets and is expected to be supported by further imminent growth-led investment. COUPLES who had booked weddings at the Aherlow House Hotel in Tipperary are breathing a sigh of relief with news that their deposits will be honoured by the new owners. Several Limerick couples had contacted the Limerick Leader after the sudden closure of the 29-bed hotel, nestled in the picturesque Galtee Mountains, which had left some 40 couples, who were due to hold their weddings there, in limbo, as well as the potential for job losses. However, Grant Thornton, as receiver for the property, has confirmed this Friday that it has agreed the sale of the Aherlow House Hotel to Adrian Shanagher, an experienced hotel operator based in Dublin. The sale secures the employment of all 47 former employees of the hotel and ensures the availability of the venue to wedding couples who had booked weddings in 2016, 2017 and 2018. Grant Thornton said the new owner was committed to honouring all future weddings that were booked with the previous tenant company and has confirmed that he will offer couples full credit against their future wedding cost in Aherlow House Hotel for any deposits they lost with the previous operator, Auburn Hotels (Aherlow) Limited. Mr Shanagher is expected to immediately begin an investment and refurbishment programme at the property and expects to reopen to guests and patrons on March 3. We are delighted to have purchased Aherlow House Hotel and secured the future of the hotel for employees and wedding couples alike. The hotel is an important local employer and we look forward to serving our local patrons and supporting the local community, said Mr Shanagher. We appreciate that there has been a huge amount of uncertainty in the last week for everyone concerned and are confident this marks a new chapter for the Hotel. We intend to invest heavily in the hotel so that it can provide the highest standard of hospitality to our guests and patrons into the future. The location of the hotel in the Glen Of Aherlow is stunning and we are proud to be custodians for the next chapter of its history, he added. A Limerick bride-to-be who contacted this newspaper during the week when news of the closure emerged, said she had been forced to change her dream wedding venue and feared that the couple might not see their deposit of 1,750 returned to them. It was only by word of mouth that we found out about the hotels closure, said Karen OHalloran, from Galbally, who booked the venue in January of last year. She and her groom to be, John Fogarty, from Thurles, were due to celebrate their marriage in the hotel in July, after paying the full deposit last August, but have now been forced to change the venue during peak wedding season to another location in Tipperary. It has been very stressful, she told the Limerick Leader. The consensus from everyone weve spoken to, those who had booked their weddings there, is that they just want their money back. People feel burnt by the experience and dont want to go back there. It just leaves a bad taste in your mouth, when youve been looking forward to it for so long. The scenery is beautiful in Aherlow. I was bridesmaid for my cousins wedding there, and were from the locality, and all along you have a picture of your big day built up in your mind. It was our dream wedding. The 1,750 deposit is a lot of money, its from our life savings really and we really hope well get it back. I was so afraid of anything else going wrong that I picked up my wedding dress last week, she said. Tom Crosse, of GVM auctioneers in Limerick city, was handling the sale in association with the receiver, and had said he remained hopeful that there would be a positive outcome for all concerned soon. It is expected that the hotel was to be sold for a fee in the region of 600,000. The hotel was leased by Auburn Hotels (Aherlow) Limited from receivers Grant Thornton in 2011. A 1m facelift for Bunratty Castle and Folk Park will enhance the visitor experience for the growing numbers attending the attraction, according to the Shannon Group. The body, which operates the 15th century castle and neighbouring folk park through Shannon Heritage, has confirmed that Bunratty is to undergo a major upgrade, with an extended retail store, a new cafe, an extended entrance and refurbished admissions building. The build will enclose and cover the existing courtyard area at Bunratty Castle and Folk Park and create a state of the art retail store and cafe, along with a new entrance and admissions hall, said Andrew Murphy, chief commercial officer of the Shannon Group. The store will offer a high end giftware range of contemporary Irish products. The cafe will of course be open to the public and you dont have to pay an admission fee to Bunratty it is open to local traffic. We hope it will create an additional lunchtime dining option in Bunratty and enhance the visitor experience to the area. Construction has already started on the upgrade, with workers on site. The upgraded facility is also set to house a design gallery to assist and promote emerging talented Irish designers. Group Head of Retail Darren Smyth said it would provide an exciting opportunity for upcoming young Irish designers to showcase their brands to an international audience at the new state of the art retail store. We will be incorporating an Irish design gallery to help promote up-and-coming talented Irish craftspeople. In addition to stocking their brand, we will incorporate an information panel on the craftsperson beside their products. One of the key objectives behind the investment and design is that the new store would showcase the best of contemporary Irish products, including the work of talented local artisan crafts people in addition to the very best Irish products. Among the new elements will be a state of the art jewellery store, the rolling out of the recently launched Mr ORegans food emporium at Shannon Airport, plus a range of Irish clothing, including such well-known brands as Carraig Donn and Avoca. Shannon Heritage recently announced an increase of over 8% in visitor numbers for 2015. Overall, it saw seven day time and four evening attractions across Clare, Dublin, Galway and Limerick draw 692,000 visitors last year, with day visitor attractions up over 11%. Included in that was a 22% increase year on year in visitor numbers at King Johns Castle, with over 104,000 visits to the site. It is gearing up also to open a new 10m GPO Witness History visitor attraction on OConnell Street in Dublin in time for the 1916 centenary commemorations at Easter. SUPPORTERS of Willie ODea are being asked to give their second preference vote to Education Minister Jan OSullivan to stop Sinn Fein councillor Maurice Quinlivan winning a seat. The SF candidate is widely regarded as a serious threat to the chances of Labours Jan OSullivan retaining the seat she has held in the city since 1998. With Mr ODea not having a running mate in the city, the Leader understands he has instructed his army of canvassers to encourage people to continue their preference by opting for Ms OSullivan. A source close to the former Defence Minister said: You can certainly say that, yes, when the claim was put to them. It comes as Cllr Quinlivan appears to be tightening his grip on a Dail seat, with bookmaker Paddy Power shortening his odds from 1/3 at the start of the week to 1/10 now. There is no way Willie would feel that Limerick would be well served by Maurice Quinlivan and Sinn Fein, the Fianna Fail source added. There is no love lost between Mr ODea and Cllr Quinlivan following the affidavit controversy in 2010 which led to the Fianna Fail TD resigning his seat at Cabinet, and the pair reaching an out-of-court settlement. This was over comments Mr ODea made linking Cllr Quinlivan with a brothel in the city in comments to a Limerick Leader journalist. The allegation was false. Mr ODea is expected to comfortably take either the first or second seat in the constituency, increasing his 2011 vote of 6,956 in the process, thanks in part to a less hostile climate for Fianna Fail than that faced by the party last time. His home parish of Kilteely is now included in the city constituency. While Finance Minister Michael Noonan will most likely take the other of the first two places, the third and fourth seats in the city are less predictable. It has been widely expected that they will be between Cllr Quinlivan, Minister O'Sullivan and Fine Gael's Kieran O'Donnell, with supporters of all three fighting hard as the campaign enters its final week. Anti-Austerity Alliance (AAA) councillor Cian Prendivilles campaign is developing late momentum, with his odds falling to as low as 5-1 in recent days, before being eased back out to 8-1 this Wednesday by Paddy Power. Some pundits have suggested that, for the first time in living memory, Limerick City could elect two left-wing deputies. Speaking at the launch of Labours education policy this week, Ms OSullivan said she would welcome any transfers. I am in a battle with Maurice Quinlivan, there is no doubt about that. But I believe the contribution I have made as government minister, and what I can make in future is an awful lot more important for Limerick than a voice that is talking about a lot of negative things, and not proposing anything positive for Limerick. Cllr Quinlivan said: I would not be surprised at anything Willie ODea does. Thats all I would say about that. But he added: Id appeal to people, if they cannot give me their number one vote, to give me their number two vote or next highest preference. Id encourage people to vote for Sinn Fein as we can deliver for people and make Ireland a fairer and better place. Meanwhile, Cllr Prendiville said the latest Red C poll which puts Fine Gael on just 26% emphasises that both Fine Gael and Labour can lose seats in Limerick City and one of them could go to the AAA. Few can now deny the momentum behind our campaign, he said. With 29% of the people looking to Independents and Others, as well as the fantastic response Richard Boyd-Barrett got in the [RTE] debate on Monday, it is clear there can be a political revolution in Limerick. The threat to Ms OSullivans seat from Sinn Fein was even raised this week by An Tanaiste, Joan Burton, who told the Limerick Leader: The question is: who is going to do more for Limerick? Jan O'Sullivan with her record on schools, or somebody who is going to basically have to start from scratch. Jan O'Sullivan has delivered for Limerick, and I am confident progressive voters will vote Labour for Limerick. According to Paddy Power, Mr Noonan remains favourite to top the poll with odds of 1/80, Mr ODea is second favourite, at 1/50, while Cllr Quinlivan is now stands at 1/10, which means the bookie believes he is now best placed to take the third seat. Mr ODonnell is available at 1/3, with Ms OSullivan priced at 8/11. Twenty-one candidates will chase seven seats across the Limerick City and Limerick constituency. In the county Limerick constituency, Independent councillor Emmett OBriens well-financed and high-profile campaign continues to gather momentum. It has been suggested in some quarters that there could be a return to the 2002 scenario where two Fine Gael TDs slugged it out for the final seat in the old Limerick West constituency. If that were proven correct, it would see sitting TD Patrick O'Donovan and Cllr Tom Neville, son of the retiring TD Dan Neville, fighting it out with Fianna Fail TD Niall Collins already seen as over the line. Betting odds come with a health warning, and reflect betting activity rather than voter sentiment. They are not predictions. A Paddy Power spokesman, for example, revealed that Cllr OBrien has been the subject of a significant gamble. Two punters, one in Davis Street and one in the Roxboro shop have got stuck into him with numerous four figure bets, he said. Where punters money goes in the next few days will speak volumes on where this third seat goes and we will be keeping a very close eye on the shop business in particular, the spokesman added. Polling day is next Friday, February 26. For more general election coverage, see pages 4-10 News / Local by Blessing Gondokondo A Chikanga bishop has been dragged to court by a former congregant who is seeking a protection order against him.Bishop Simbarashe Mayambuko is accused of barring Helen Mushuma who is in love with Pastor Frank from talking to him.Helen wants the court's protection against Bishop Mayambuko.Yeukai Chigodora presided over the case.Mushuma told the court that Bishop Mayambuko was harassing her."Your Worship, the bishop is harassing me by barring me from talking to my boyfriend, a pastor in the church who impregnated me," she said. "He has been telling me to go and commit suicide or go and tell the story to The Manica Post. I am being harassed by him. I need an order against the bishop so that I can talk to my boyfriend without him interfering, Your Worship."Bishop Mayambuko did not refute the claims, saying he was protecting his pastor.He accused Mushuma of threatening to take the pastor's property for resale to raise money for the upkeep of her unborn baby."I am in charge of the family (church), so it is my responsibility to look after them and avoid situations where the media is involved," he said. "Since Pastor Frank is my child, he is staying at my second wife's house. She is a threat to my home as well, Your Worship. I did what I did because Frank told me that he does not love her. She wanted to take his property and resale it for what she called pregnancy maintenance. I refused to let her do that. I don't think there is a law which allows one to maintain pregnancy," said Bishop Mayambuko.The order was granted in favour of Helen.Chigodora told the bishop not to harass Helen or interfere in her relationship with Pastor Frank. News / Local by Staff Reporter The drought situation has triggered a sharp rise in the prices of maize and small grains in Bulawayo.According to ZBC, some enterprising people are getting maize from Zambia and other countries for resale back in Zimbabwe.At Renkini market where prices of maize, sorghum, millet, groundnuts, sunflower and beans normally range between US$3 and US$5 per bucket prices have gone up by 200%.The traders are getting the maize from Zambia and how they get it is another story as the northern neighbour has reportedly banned the exportation of grain.While these products are available all year round, it is the issue of prices that confirms the law of supply and demand with the rise in maize prices being testimony - the product is in short supply.Meanwhile, kapenta fish is in limited supply pointing towards overfishing and a general decline due to the receding water levels in major rivers such as the Zambezi and the drying of some dams. 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. News / National by Stephen Jakes An MDC -T official Chalton Hwende has said President Robert Mugabe is a leader of the G40 faction that is why the war veterans were beaten by the police during their demonstration in Harare on Thursday.The police descended on the war vets sending them scaring for cover through the using of water canons and baton sticks.They were protesting against the G40's move to oust the war veterans from the ruling party."Mugabe Robert is the leader of G40 War Vets are being beaten and teargassed in Harare. I still maintain that Ngwena is finished and those in Zanu PF must accept Grace as their new leader," Hwende said. The loss beyond a win Peter Brook's new play 'Battlefield' returns to the Mahabharat, this time to explore its terrifying warning /news/talking-point/the-loss-beyond-a-win-111651819579867.html 111651819579867 story After three decades, Peter Brook, perhaps the greatest living playwright in the English language today, went back to the Mahabharat for his latest stage production. Battlefield is simultaneously an apt and wildly incongruent companion piece to Brooks breathtaking 1985 production The Mahabharata. The latter was an epic 9-hour production. Arrows rained over the skies, a burning chariot wheel tumbled across the stage, making that masterpiece one of the canonical works of modern stagecraft. Battlefield is, essentially, three men and a woman on a stage of umber and ochre contemplating warfare for just about an hour. The scene adapted for this play occurs at the end of the epic battle for the Kuru lands, when the Pandavas have won. The good king Yudhisthira wonders why, after this titanic battle between vice and virtue that the virtuous have won, victory feels like a defeat. He is accompanied on stage by Kunti, Dhritarashtra and an actor playing several victims. The fifth person on stage is musician Toshiyuki Tsuchitori, drawing a succession of sombre moods and bitter emotion from a small traditional Japanese drum. Indeed the austerity of the production is of such emotional intensity and narrative centrality that it may as well be the sixth, and lead, actor. After a critically-acclaimed run at Londons Young Vic theatre which began earlier this month and ends on 27 February, Battlefield will move to Mumbai and engage with an audience that has previously taken umbrage at Brooks appropriation" of the great Indian epic. Why go back to the Mahabharat again? I asked. In an interview with the Financial Times in 2014, Brook had mentioned how, after The Mahabharata, he had been inundated with offers to produce other epics. But he had refused. He didnt want to become known as the epic guy". And yet here is Battlefield. After all these years and years of reading the Mahabharat and learning it and talking to people about it and going to India and talking to wise people and ordinary peopleI came to the conclusion that it is exactly in the Indian tradition. What isnt in the Mahabharat exists nowhere. It is not a slogan. It is truth." Brook says that while there isnt any shortage of epics in the worldHomerian, Gaelic, Germanicnone of them is as universal as the Mahabharat. The only one that comes close is the Bible, if you put the Old and New Testaments together". While there is only one truth," Brook explains slowly, in carefully formed sentences, there are numerous interpretations of this. The Bible, the Quran, Buddhist textsand there is the Tao. The Tao is at the other end of the spectrum. That analyses everything and in the end says that there is nothing." There is an element of this in the Mahabharat too, Brook says. That when all is done, all that is left is silence. Thirty years ago, Brook says, the Mahabharat, this epic that every child in India knew, had decided to make itself known to the whole world. And we were merely the servants fulfilling this destiny." Many Indians, in an anti-colonial" spirit, as Brook puts it, didnt like that. In the August 1988 issue of the Economic And Political Weekly, Rustom Bharucha described the 1985 epic play as a blatant (and accomplished) appropriation" that presented non-Western material within an orientalist framework of thought and action, which has been specifically designed for the international market". They said, This is ours. What are you doing? For which I had a very good answer," Brook remembers. Brooks response to these charges of appropriation was to point to Shakespeare. People were thrilled to take this work, the only English work of comparable scope, and translate it into so many languages." Surely the Mahabharat, then, was worthy of such propagation? We did whatever we could. Nine hours is nothing to tell the story of the Mahabharat. But today the play has taken it to so many places all over the world." Since then, Brook says, he has resisted the temptation to take on other epic projects. Instead he became engrossed in something that he says is as universal and as all-encompassing as the Mahabharatthat little bit of flesh inside a box of bone" called the brain. Brooks last play before Battlefield was The Valley Of Astonishment, a similarly minimal exploration of synaesthesia. Before that, in 1993, he had staged The Man Who, based on Oliver Sacks collection of neurology case studies, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat. The New York Times called The Man Who a hypnotizing work that was as spare and tightly constructed as his 10-hour Mahabharata was winding and discursive". But what led him to make the Battlefield? Brook says that he and his collaborators, especially life-long partner in crime and co-director Marie-Helene Estienne, began to look at the Mahabharat in the way that scientists look at the atom. Look closely enough and you will find new wondrous things. Brook found a response to the modern obsessions with winning. Victory is a defeat. Simple lines. Businesses want to win. Politicians want to win. The Americans want to defeat Isis (the Islamic State network) and win. But what does all this mean? Victory is a defeat. The Mahabharat has a terrifying warning. What happens after this terrible war of destruction? Which is a very modern war of destruction where millions die. Kurukshetra is a forewarning of Hiroshima. But what happens afterwards?" Brook says he wants Battlefield to make leaders today think like Yudhisthira and Dhritarashtra. What happens now? How do we move on? We cant just retire and say our job is done." And it is this contemplation of victory as defeat that Brook wishes to explore in his play. Reviewers and interviewers have also seen the play as a response to misfortune in Brooks own lifeNatasha Parry, his wife of 64 years, died in 2015. While praising the play highly, some reviewers have found that Battlefield offers no solution and that it induces an acceptance of fate", to quote The Guardians Michael Billington. That is perhaps Brooks point. Unlike the Bible, which promises redemption to some and damnation to others, the Mahabharats greatest message perhaps is that redemption doesnt matter at all. The idea is not to win at life, but to live it well. This is at once simple and infuriatingly confounding. Like the epic itself. Battlefield will be staged from 5-12 March, 7pm, at Tata Theatre, National Centre for the Performing Arts, Nariman Point, NCPA Marg, Mumbai (66223724/66223754). Tickets, 500- 5,000, available at the venue and on in.bookmyshow.com Inside Napa Valley wineries: part I An Indian winemaker gets the best out of California terroir /food/drink/inside-napa-valley-wineries-part-i-111651819278339.html 111651819278339 story At the Nicholson Ranch, the entire process from planting the grapes to bottling the wine is done in-house. Photo: Shoba Narayan. Nicholson Ranch was the last stop on Day 1. By then, Platypus Wine Tours had taken a group of us wine tourists to three Napa Valley wineries in California. Buena Vista, because it was the oldest; Robledo, because it was the first to be owned by a migrant Mexican worker; and Peter Cellars, because it was a one-man show by a transplanted Brit. Everywhere, we paid the $15 (around 1,020) tasting fee to swirl and sip aromatic Merlots, austere Pinot Noirs, buttery Chardonnays and refreshing Pinot Grigios. Most of these wines never make it to the marketthey are sold in-house to tourists like us. Our tour bus reached Nicholson Ranch around 5pm. This winemaker is Indian," said our guide, Andy. Inside the tasting room, several glasses had been laid out. A cheerful young man talked about the winemaking process. Unlike many Napa wineries that buy grapes or subcontract the winemaking process, Nicholson Ranch is an estate" winethe entire process from planting the grapes to bottling the wine is done in-house. The owner, Deepak Gulrajani, graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and worked in finance before founding the winery along with his ex-wife, whose family owned the land. The vineyards were planted in 1996. Four years later, he had the wine caves dug. Between 2000-03, he took over the entire process from vine to wine. The undulating hills allowed Gulrajani to create a gravity-flow" winery, built over multiple levels to take advantage of gravity rather than pumps or equipment to get the grapes from the vines to the wine-crush to the barrels in the caves. Gulrajanis wines are terrific and I am not just saying that because he is Indian. We carried a glass of his delicately layered Pinot Noir outside. Situated between the Napa and Sonoma valleys, the estate high up on a hill offered sweeping views. The evening sun ricocheted off the yellow mustard plants that alternated with the chocolate-coloured grapevines that were dormant, awaiting the bud break" that would start the next wine cycle. Songbirds dipped in and out of the flowers; a gentle breeze caused the yellow mustard to sway; the sun warmed our backs. The Pinot Noir was throwing out scents of berries and spicesla dolce vita. They say Pinot Noirs are the hardest to grow, but really, it could apply to any varietal. Blame it on Sideways. The movie and its famous monologue about this haunting" and ancient grape caused Merlot sales to drop after its release. Today in California, Sonoma Valleycloser to the water and cooler as a resultgrows cool-climate grapes. Napa Valley, between two mountain ridges, is famous for its Cabernet Sauvignon wines, with alcohol levels getting higher and higher. Worried that I would be sozzled by days end, I did the only thing I could over several days of wine tours. I sipped and spat out the wine in the dump buckets" that were lined atop the counters. The pleasure of wine is through the nose and the mouth, I rationalized; from the aromas it exudes and the mouth-feel. You dont have to swallow. Katsuyuki Tanaka, one of the worlds most respected wine tasters, is a teetotaller. Yountville is the prettiest town in Napa. We stayed at Vintage Inn, because it was more reasonably priced than the Calistoga Inn that all our friends recommended. I asked two of the Platypus guides where to dine in Yountville and both said Bottega, where its a little easier to get a reservation than its more famous neighbour, The French Laundry. The restaurant was packed on a weekday night. Unlike many fine-dining restaurants, we didnt get artfully arranged vegetables that left us hungry. The sommelier, Amgad Wahba (of Egyptian descent), poured us some of the best wines we tasted on the tripmost of them, except a Barolo, from Napa. Chefs these days balance the dishes so well that the old adages about drinking a muscular wine with a steak and a light wine with a salad dont necessarily hold true," he said, comforting this vegetarian. Next to Bottega restaurant is the V Wine Cellar. I walked in and got talking to Bruno, a Frenchman who works there. When asked about the best labels in Napa, he and his colleagues named Screaming Eagle", which retails for $2,000 a bottle. Heidi Peterson Barrett, who got this wine its reputation, is a cult figure in Napa. The daughter of a wine pioneer, she created the first Screaming Eagle wine that got 99 points from wine critic Robert Parker. That, coupled with limited production, drove up its prices. V Wine Cellar does wine tastings for $75, where they pour wines from excellent vineyards along with cheeses from Cowgirl Creamery. Those in the mood can top it off with a cigar in their patio. I triedunsuccessfullyto get Scott Lewis, the proprietor, to pour me a glass of Screaming Eagle. He shared a wine he was developing for the Indian market. It was infused with peaches, chillies and cloves. I didnt like it. This is the first of a two-part series on Napa Valley wines. Shoba Narayan hopes to meet Heidi Barrett and drink a Screaming Eagle at some point. She tweets at @ShobaNarayan and posts on Instagram as shobanarayan. Write to her at thegoodlife@livemint.com Also read | Shoba Narayans previous Lounge columns. News / National by Stephen Jakes The Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Saviour Kasukuwere has approved new allowances for Local Authorities in Zimbabwe.Harare Residents Trust reported that the Mayor of Harare gets $ 1250; Deputy Mayor $840; Committee Chair - $560; Councillor-$550."The money is paid every month from the rates account. Service delivery is getting bad by the day. Councillors are not holding ward feedback meetings, yet these councillors are disrespectful of residents," said the trust. "The question is: Do the councillors deserve any increase in their allowances from residents? The people who have to pay their rates are mostly unemployed, pensioners who go for months without being paid, and overburdened with estimated bills." News / National by Walter Nyamukondiwa Kariba District is set to get a weather station and develop early warning systems for disaster preparedness and management under a $500 000 grant from the World Bank.The $500 000 grant from the World Bank Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction and support from the Danish Red Cross is expected to capacitate local communities in Kariba to develop coping mechanisms to deal with emergencies and disasters.It also seeks to trigger community initiated climate change mitigation measures.Most villagers in the flood prone areas around Lake Kariba survive through fishing and were often caught off guard by waves and strong winds while carrying out their activities on the Lake.Speaking at the launch of the Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation programme in Kariba on Wednesday, Mashonaland West Provincial Affairs Minister Faber Chidarikire said the programme would help build safer and resilient communities."The new project we announce here is anchored on three key objectives which are to work directly with the vulnerable and affected people and to provide them with adequate knowledge in relation to their local risks," said Minister Chidarikire."It also seeks to inspire them (local communities) to find their own solutions to manage hazards and reduce exposure and vulnerability, in close dialogue and co-ordination with local government and other key local stakeholders."The programme will be implemented by the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society and it will cover areas such as Gache Gache, Mola, Negande and Chalala.Minister Chidarikire hailed the programme, saying community involvement and the programme management process will provide useful information for future Government programmes.The programme will bring together the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, the Department of Civil Protection, the Meteorological Services Department, the Zambezi Watercourse Commission and the Red Cross.ZRCS secretary-general Mr Maxwell Phiri hailed the Government for providing unhindered humanitarian space."It is through such working together that we can make Zimbabwe a better place for all," he said."On behalf of the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society, I would like to thank the Government of Zimbabwe for the unlimited humanitarian space we continue to enjoy."Mr Phiri said the people-centred programming will champion community owned programmes that are not only focused on emergencies, but development.It will see use and provision of SMS messaging facilities to disseminate information on disaster in and around Lake Kariba.Radio communication will also be provided to circumvent the poor roads and long distances which hinder flow of information.The weather station will provide timely weather forecast to warn people not to get onto the lake when there is a possibility of bad weather. Kariba district is experiencing some of the worst effects of climate change characterised by high temperatures and low rainfall.The programme will also seek to reduce water borne diseases. Using nanostructured glass, scientists at the University of Southampton have developed a way to store data for billions of years. Copies of the Magna Carta, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the King James Bible have now been digitally stored on a piece of glass known as a "Superman memory crystal" that has the capacity to save huge amounts of information for up to 13.8 billion years, researchers say. Using a method of laser etching, researchers at the University of Southampton, in the United Kingdom, archived these documents, along with Isaac Newton's scientific treatise "Opticks," on coin-size pieces of glass. These tiny discs can survive for billions of years at temperatures of 374 degrees Fahrenheit (190 degrees Celsius). And at room temperature, they can last virtually forever, the researchers said. "It is thrilling to think that we have created the technology to preserve documents and information and store it in space for future generations," Peter Kazansky, a professor at the university's Optoelectronics Research Centre, said in a statement. "This technology can secure the last evidence of our civilization; all we've learnt will not be forgotten." [Science Fact or Fiction? The Plausibility of 10 Sci-Fi Concepts] Kazansky and his colleagues first reported their "5D data storage" in 2013 at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics in San Jose, California. The researchers use fematosecond lasers, which are lasers that produce very short pulses, to inscribe information in nanostructured dots that are 5 micrometers apart. These nano-size etchings polarize light that travels through the glass. A combination of a polarizing lens and an optical microscope is all that is needed to "decode" the message, the researchers said. The 5D moniker refers to the 3D positioning of the nanostructures as well as their size and orientation. In 2013, the researchers recorded a 300-kilobyte text file, but the capacity of a single glass data disc is 360 terabytes (1,000,000,000 kilobytes), they reported. The discs are stable up to 1,832 degrees F (1,000 degrees C). Southampton researchers gave the copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a gift to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in early February, part of the closing ceremony of that organization's Year of Light initiative. The scientists call the glass the "Superman memory crystal," a nod to memory crystals in the "Superman" films and comics. According to the university, the researchers are now seeking industry partners to further develop the technology. Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. A 3,000-year-old wooden wheel that dates back to the Bronze Age was found during an archaeological dig in Peterborough, in Britain. A 3,000-year-old wooden wheel has been discovered in the remains of a prehistoric town that collapsed into a river in east England. Archaeologists said the Bronze Age wheel is the largest and best-preserved of its kind, dating back to1100-800 B.C. Measuring about 3 feet (1 meter) across, and with its hub still intact, the wheel was unearthed during a dig at the Must Farm site in Peterborough, according to an announcement from Historic England, a heritage organization that is partly funding the excavation. "This remarkable but fragile wooden wheel is the earliest complete example ever found in Britain," Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England, said in a statement. He added that the discovery expands the understanding of the technological sophistication of people living in the region 3,000 years ago. [In Photos: Amazing Ruins of the Ancient World] Must Farm, which was first discovered in 1999, has been described as "Peterboroughs Pompeii." Pompeii was a Roman city that was destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79. Ash from that volcanic eruption left the town extraordinarily well-preserved, with elaborate murals and graffiti still intact on the walls of its buildings. Like Pompeii, the Must Farm site was frozen in time through catastrophe. The Bronze Age wheel is the largest and best-preserved of its kind, dating back to 1100-800 B.C. (Image credit: Cambridge Archaeological Unit) The circular wooden houses of the Must Farm site were built on stilts above a river channel, the old course of the River Nene. But a devastating fire caused the dwellings to plunge into and become preserved in the sandy water below, archaeologists said. In addition to finding the wooden houses, excavators uncovered some rare items that might not normally survive in the archaeological record: a wooden platter, wooden utensils, clothing made from the fiber of lime trees and even jars containing the remains of food, perhaps abandoned when the fire broke out, the researchers said. The Must Farm was partially excavated in 2006, but the site is currently undergoing a larger, 1.1-million ($1.58 million U.S.), eight-month excavation. The archaeologists said they plan to dig trenches across nearly 12,000 square feet (1,100 square meters) of the site. They're currently about halfway done with the project, according to Historic England. In another clue that people of this era were quite savvy about transportation, eight Bronze Age boats were recovered from the same river in 2011. The newly discovered wheel suggests the people at the Must Farm site traveled to and had ties with the dry land beyond the river. Technically, the new find isn't the oldest Bronze Age wheel found in Britain. That distinction still belongs to the Flag Fen wheel, which was found at a nearby site and dates back to about 1300 B.C. However, that artifact is less complete than the newly discovered wheel and is smaller, at about 2.6 feet (0.8 m) in diameter. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. News / National by Stephen Jakes The ROHR Zimbabwe (Restoration of Human Rights) has rapped the war Veterans in Zimbabwe for declaring their support for President Robert Mugabe and his wife whom the organization described as the most corrupt leaders."War veterans are supporting Robert Mugabe , the most corrupt human being ever created on this earth," said the organisation. "It does not take a rocket scientist to know that the First Lady is in partnership with her husband. Snakes pointing fingers at each other, let's wait and see, it's not game over yet."This was after War Veterans minister Christopher Mutsvangwa and members of his "suspended" Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association (ZNLWVA) executive on February 14 this year blasted First Lady Grace Mugabe, Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko and Zanu PF national commissar Saviour Kasukuwere for allegedly abusing State resources by holding whirlwind countrywide tours to prop up their G40 faction.They also declared that they were in full support of Mugabe despite the fact that his wife was unleashing vitriol attack on them. To the editor: About four weeks ago a very upset male letter writer resentfully posted the number of abortions performed in the United States last year at several hundred thousand. According to some belief systems, these appalling numbers are tantamount to "murder of innocents." A number of pregnancies, however, are a result of child abuse and incest, topics which the letter writer did not address. While employed in San Antonio, we examined an 11-and-a-half-year-old pregnant child. She had been raped by a neighbor. The physician opined that the pregnancy could not come to term due to her physically immature body structure. He recommended abortion, otherwise the girl would die. On another occasion, a U.S. Navy corpsman advised me of a 14-year-old who arrived at the military hospital at full-term pregnancy. Her family had hidden her, taking her to the emergency room only when she went into labor. The ER doctor immediately sent her to surgery for a Caesarian section. The baby survived, the teen mother died. Upon interrogation, the police were summoned when it was determined that the girls uncle was the babys father. Many people sanctimoniously accuse women of loose morals when they inadvertently become pregnant or seek abortion. Some imprecisely allude to Margaret Sangers 1920s pioneering campaign for birth control, accusing her of promoting "eugenics." Similarly, persons object to age-appropriate sex education, the use of contraceptives, or the administration of the "morning after pill" on moral grounds. Regardless of moral stance, the reality of the high number of these clinical procedures reflects a high demand for terminating or preventing unwanted pregnancies. I am just a man and definitely not a saint in the eyes of religious believers, but I pose this question to thinking citizens: Knowing the reality that very high demand for abortion will not cease, what would abortion opponents suggest? Please answer sincerely; knowing full well that outlawing, praying or wishful thinking will not end the procedure. Sincerely, Carlos Valle, Jr. News / National by Stephen Jakes Mount Darwin West MP Barnwell Seremwe (ZANU-PF) has pleaded with the president Robert Mugabe to ensure the construction of more hospitals and clinics in his constituency amid revelations people were traveling more than 20 killometres to access health facilities.Speaking in parliament Seremwe said hailed Mugabe for good leadership."People from Mount Darwin West are very proud of what the President is doing for us. We have been without proper leadership for quite some time, but now that we have a new Member of Parliament, we say thank you to His Excellency, the President for making us choose such a leader," he said. "We are also very happy because my constituency did not have a road, but now we have a road. We are very much pleased by what His Excellency, the President is doing in the constituency."He said the roads are good and there are no potholes."Travelling is now smooth. I also ask the President to look into our problem in health institutions. People travel long distances seeking for treatment up to 20 kilometres and this is forcing some people to die in their homes with no treatment," he said. "We also ask His Excellency to sanction the exhumation of Hon. Ndoda's remains from Bindura to be put at the Heroes Acre, a status which she deserves. We also support the War Veterans and all the fighters who fought for the Liberation of the country. We are solidly behind our party Zanu PF and we promise that whatever election is going to be held, there is going to be a 100% sweep of all the seats that will be contested for, just as we did when I was elected."He said they also thank His Excellency and urge him to keep on working hard for his people."May I also direct my request to the Minister of Agriculture that Minister may you please give farming inputs to farmers on time instead of giving them after the onset of the rainy season," he said. News / National by Staff reporter Three Zanu-PF youth league members allegedly forged the signature of Harare provincial secretary for finance, Dumisani Chipango, and solicited for about $18 000 donations since 2014.Innocent Nyamuronda (33), Tawanda Sarari (24) and Timothy Mtanga (28) appeared before Harare magistrate Ms Rumbidzayi Mugwagwa. The trio from Mufakose in Harare is facing nine counts of fraud.Mugwagwa remanded them to March 18 on $100 bail each. As part of their bail conditions, Mugwagwa ordered each to surrender their passports, to report every Friday at CID Frauds and to reside at their given addresses.The prosecutor Sebastian Mutizirwa, alleged that the trio designed a request for donations letters in the name of Zanu-PF Harare Province Youth League.In the letters, the accused endorsed their People's Own Savings Bank (POSB) account number 500000494921 Causeway branch. Nyamuronda allegedly forged Chipango's signature or undersigned some of the letters himself. Community, Charity & Cause, Press Releases By Allison Gayne Published: February 19 2016 Award-winning audiologist Rebecca Kooper was recently appointed to Bethpage-headquartered nonprofit ACLD's Board of Trustees. Bethpage, NY - February 18th, 2016 - Adults and Children with Learning and Developmental Disabilities, Inc. (ACLD), a leading Long Island based not-for-profit agency devoted to supporting the pursuit of an enviable life for children and adults with autism, learning and other developmental disabilities, is proud to announce the appointment of Rebecca Kooper of Long Beach to its Board of Trustees. An ACLD Community Trust Trustee since 2012, Ms. Kooper is an educational audiologist who has worked with a range of institutions including Mercy College, the Center for Hearing and Communication, and the Lexington School for the Deaf. She is certified by the American Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA) and previously served as coordinator for Audiological Services for Nassau BOCES. Ms. Kooper maintains a private practice that provides consulting services to school districts and cochlear implant centers throughout Long Island and New York City. She has also served on the boards of the New York State Speech and Hearing Association and the Long Island Speech and Hearing Association. In addition, shes spoken about caring for a sibling with special needs on Telecares Family Comes First. Initially becoming involved with ACLD through her brother, who is a resident of ACLDs Residential Program and of whom she became legal guardian of following the death of their parents, Ms. Kooper has been an active member of ACLDs Family Association Council. Through her new role as ACLD Board Trustee, she plans to continue her work in building connections between the organization and the siblings of those with special needs. We are thrilled to have Rebecca on ACLDs Board of Trustees, said Joseph J. Ortego, ACLD Board of Trustees President. She has tremendous passion for our mission, and the sibling perspective she brings is of great value to our agency as well as the individuals and families we serve. A recipient of several honors including the Cheryl DeConde Johnson Award for Best Practices in Educational Audiology and the ASHA Foundations Roland J. VanHattum Award, Ms. Kooper earned both her bachelors degree in communications and masters degree in audiology from SUNY Buffalo before receiving her doctor of audiology degree from Central Michigan University. She also holds a law degree from Pace University School of Law. For information about ACLD visit www.acld.org. About Adults and Children with Learning and Developmental Disabilities, Inc. (ACLD) Adults and Children with Learning and Developmental Disabilities, Inc. (ACLD) was founded in 1957. The 501(c)(3), not-for-profit agencys mission is to provide opportunities for children and adults with autism, learning and other developmental disabilities to pursue enviable lives, increase independence and foster supportive relationships within the community. ACLD employs more than 1,100 people and operates 77 different program sites including group homes and apartment programs across Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Service programs include early childhood services, day habilitation, residential alternatives, vocational training and job placement, recreation programs, respite, family support services, Medicaid service coordination, and medical and behavioral health services. Local News, Crime, Business & Finance, Press Releases By Long Island News & PR Published: February 19 2016 Schumer: Walmart Can Help Rollback IRS Impersonation Scams Uptick On LI; Scam Warnings Should Greet LI Walmart Customers Long Island, NY - February 19th, 2016 - U. S. Senator Charles E. Schumer, today, revealed new details about an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) impersonation scam hitting LI seniors hard. The Senator reveled recordings obtained by his office that show specific, unsavory tactics employed by the scammers who have been calling LI residents. Schumer talked about the uptick in complaints to his LI office and says that in some instances the scammers are directing LI residents, to the closest Walmart, to immediately complete a fraudulent money transfer, purportedly to the IRS. "This IRS impersonation scam continues to spread like wild fire and its looking to burn our seniors on Long Island, said Schumer. Scammers are unfortunately using Walmart as an unwitting go-to store when carrying out these fraudulent transactions and thats why Im urging Walmart to do everything it can to warn customers of this IRS impersonation scam so that it can be avoided. The scammers who perpetrate this hoax lie to vulnerable people, browbeat and intimidate them, dupe them into wiring them money and steal their hard-earned savings. If Walmart can play a role in helping to prevent any more from falling victim to this scam, they should do so. Schumer, today, asked Walmart to instruct its employees staffing or helping to process money transfers to warn customers of the IRS scam, and to install signage, warning of the scam, in LI Walmart stores. This scamwhich has cost victims about $30 million nationallycontinues to plague many, including seniors on Long Island. On the scam calls, individuals posing as IRS agents claim that the person owes thousands of dollars to the IRS. Scammers threaten that if an amount is not paid right away the person on the other end of the call could soon be arrested or forced to appear in court, a tactic that seniors are often especially vulnerable to. Schumer said that constituent stories and news reports from targets of the scam across the country indicate that Walmart may be a go-to store used by the scammers. He said that Walmart should help warn customers before money transfers are made, while stressing the fact that they too are a victim here. The Senator also detailed requests he has made with the FBI and money transfer companies as a result of the scams prevalence. Schumer was joined by AARP of LI and LI residents who have received these calls. Just last week, Schumer also called on the FBI to redouble its efforts in New York, given the recent uptick in constituent calls to his New York office. Residents called concerned by an increase in scam attempts against them. Earlier this month, New York State law enforcement and other officials warned of a disturbing surge in this specific IRS impersonation phishing scam. Schumer says there could be an escalation in scamming because of tax season and that is why the FBI should move fast to identify the source of the nefarious calling scam and shut down the operation, holding accountable the perpetrators, if possible. Schumer has also called on money transfer companies to better protect consumers by issuing a specific warning about this scam. Schumer says that federal action along with action by Walmart could better help eliminate this scam, which is the largest impersonation scam of its kind in U.S. history, according to Treasury Department investigators. This IRS impersonation scam has been targeting people across the country, including many on Long Island. According to the IRS, thieves posing as IRS agents have been conning victims out of their own money. The scammers demand that the victim pay a phony bill worth thousands of dollars. Then the scammers threaten their victims by saying that if the money is not paid back immediately they will be arrested, have to show up in court, or be deported. The scammers urge their victims to send the money via wire transfer or prepaid debit card by going to their nearest Walmart. Schumer played an audio recording of a scammer speaking to an individual about how to transfer the money using a person-to-person payment form at Walmart. Schumer also noted that, often times, the scammers leave urgent callback requests on answering machines. The calls always appear to come from U.S. area codes, often times from the Washington D.C. area. However, they are masked with a fake caller ID numbers and are often coming from overseas. Schumer today said that if someone receives a similar threat, the IRS is urging people to hang up immediately and call the Treasury Inspector General of Tax Administration (TIGTA) at 800-366-4484 to report the threat. As of January, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) received approximately 896,000 scam reports since October 2013. Over 5,000 victims have collectively paid nearly $26.5 million dollars as a result of the scam. The Consumers Union has estimated that $350 million is lost by Americans to phone scams each year. Schumer's office has received an increased number of calls from constituents who have received threatening phone calls from the IRS scammers. The following is a transcript of a real message left to one of Schumers constituents: "Hi. This message is intended to contact you. My name is Dennis Kwaid and I'm calling regarding an enforcement action executed by the U.S. Treasury and requires serious attention. Ignoring this will mean an intentional attempt to avoid judicial appearance before a magistrate judge or a grand jury or a federal or criminal offense. My number is 805-823-0402. I'd like you to cooperate with us and help us help you." 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 News / National by Staff reporter Sithembiso Nyoni Small-to-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) minister has blasted the Local Government ministry, headed by Saviour Kasukuwere, for encroaching into her portfolio by announcing a ban on housing co-operatives.Nyoni yesterday said that the so-called ban recently announced by Local Government deputy minister Christopher Chingosho was "null and void", adding housing co-operatives remained legal entities.Nyoni's remarks further exposed the inherent policy discord in the Zanu-PF government. News / National by Staff reporter First Lady Grace Mugabe has ruffled the feathers of senior Zimbabwe Defence Forces commanders by her stinging direct attacks on Vice President Mnangagwa and military service chiefs at a time tensions are running high within the security forces over President Robert Mugabe's intensifying succession battle.Military sources say the situation has been exacerbated by Mugabe's secret manoveures to remove ZXDF commander General Constantine Chiwenga from his position for interfering in Zanu PF's succession politics and backing Mnangagwa who is locked in a war of attrition with Grace. News / National by Staff reporter Jonathan Moyo Higher Education minister yesterday turned up in the National Assembly and attracted interjections from opposition legislators who chanted "Twitter" at him.Mabvuku-Tafara MP James Maridadi (MDC-T) asked Moyo to explain his statements on Twitter, alleging that Information ministry secretary George Charamba ordered the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation to remove Stem advertisements and to respond to reports of discord with the Primary and Secondary Education ministry over the programme.Moyo simply said there was no contradiction between the two education ministries. He later angered MPs by ridiculing their questions and telling them what they should have asked him.Nelson Chamisa told the minister not to extend his twitter stunts in the Parliament. Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda chided Moyo and asked him to address the MPs' concerns without provoking them. News / National by Staff reporter Zanu-PF 'wars' have escalated to new levels with war veterans leader Francis Zimuto describing First Lady Grace Mugabe as a stepmother.Zimuto, whose Chimurenga nom de guerre was Black Jesus, has dared First Lady Grace Mugabe, telling her she was just a "young girl", whose behaviour was "unmotherly" and in sharp contrast to her predecessor, the late Sally.Zimuto said Grace should "ship out and go home to cook for her husband, instead of meddling with the army, war veterans and the party"."We all know what is killing our party, but most are afraid to say it. But some of us are war veterans and will say it as it is," Zimuto said."The late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo's wife was an orderly woman, even the late Vice-President Simon Muzenda's wife, Maud, is very humble and you would not think she was married to someone who was second-in-charge of the country."We had President [Robert] Mugabe's first wife, Sally, who was very down-to-earth and died like that. Why is she (Grace) challenging the powers of our President in public?"Zimuto told a Zanu-PF provincial co-ordinating committee meeting: "Tell her that, 'Mother, go home, sit down and cook for your husband'. We expect that someone who is the President's wife should behave motherly. When I look at Grace, she is a young girl, calling her First Lady is not our culture because she is even younger than me. Young girl, you got it wrong."Zimuto said Zanu-PF and war veterans were inseparable."We should not be afraid of her, but respect her. I am like a first born to Mugabe," he continued."You hear people singing Zezuru unconquerable, and she is clapping, where do you get it from? A First Lady dancing to tribalistic tunes, have you ever heard of things like that? Is it a crime that I was born in Masvingo? I did not apply to be born in Masvingo. What of others who were born mid-air in airplanes?"This sets the stage for a bruising showdown between two rival Zanu-PF factions after both sides yesterday said they were spoiling for a fight, amid fears the clashes could degenerate into civil unrest.Tension between the two factions - the ambitious G40, believed to be aligned to First Lady Grace, and another sympathetic to Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa - heightened last Friday when Grace publicly accused the VP of plotting Mugabe's ouster.This came as Mnangagwa's supporters, comprising Masvingo war veterans and the Save Zanu-PF Campaign group, urged Grace to be content with being Mugabe's wife and Women's League secretary and stop meddling in issues outside her jurisdiction.Addressing journalists in the capital yesterday, Save Zanu-PF Campaign national co-ordinator Godfrey Tsenengamu challenged Grace to stop abusing her position as Women's League secretary to publicly dress down senior party officials."Don't force us to confront you as a politician that you have become and as secretary for women's affairs, for it is that position that is giving you the right to address party gatherings and not because you are the President's wife," he said."This is not a threat, but a promise and you know we can do that and we expect change at your next rally."Tsenengamu accused Vice-President Phelekezela Mphoko, Higher and Tertiary Education minister Jonathan Moyo and Zanu-PF national commissar Saviour Kasukuwere of misleading Grace and fanning factionalism."We love you (Grace) and genuinely support you as our secretary for women's affairs in the party and pledge our genuine support for the Women's League of the party Zanu-PF," he said."Without saying much, can you be reminded that you are not the party or a State authority, as you claimed at your rally in Chiweshe recently, because in 2013, we elected President Robert Mugabe to the office of the State Presidency."At the party congress in December 2014, we elected President Mugabe to be the party president and first secretary and you as secretary for women's affairs and that authority vested in the President in either capacities, as the one centre of power cannot be abused by a mere secretary for women's affairs."A doctor's wife is not a doctor and cannot undertake surgical operations, just as the kombi driver's wife cannot use her husband's driving licence to drive on (public) roads."But in Mutare, Zanu-PF deputy youth secretary Kudzai Chipanga said his charges were ready for a fight with war veterans leader Christopher Mutsvangwa's group and party youths sympathetic to Mnangagwa's faction.Chipanga told party youths in Mutare that he was ready to take the fight to War Veterans minister Mutsvangwa and his followers' doorsteps if they continued savaging Grace."If we say let's go to war today, how many war veterans are there? They are very few. We constitute 65% of this country, but there are two people who are intimidating us," Chipanga said, describing Mutsvangwa and war veterans secretary-general Victor Matemadanda as "sickening rabble-rousers"."It's high time for youths to put your structures in order to defend the President. So be ready, and we are going to call you when the time comes. Who are Mutsvangwa and Matemadanda? They are not going to do anything, we will give them a 100-metre race and they will fail to run. They are sick with sugar (diabetes) (sic)."Manicaland acting youth chairman Mubuso Chinguno also said they were ready to defend Grace and threatened unspecified action on party youths sympathetic to the Mnangagwa faction.In a related matter, Manicaland Provincial Affairs minister Mandiitawepi Chimene, who claimed she had assumed the war veterans' top post after reportedly ousting Mutsvangwa, addressed a Press conference in the capital, where she accused her predecessor Mutsvangwa and his executive of planning to bus in people to Harare to demonstrate against their ouster. Ansar al Islams branch in Syria is fighting against Kurdish forces in the Ashrafiyeh neighborhood of Aleppo, the largest city in the country. The Peoples Protection Units (YPG), the main Kurdish faction in northern Syria, controls the nearby neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsud. Four photos released on Ansar al Islams Twitter feed document the clashes. They are captioned: Repulsion of a progression attempt from the PKK and Jaysh al Thuwar militias and regime forces towards Ashrafiyeh neighborhood in Aleppo. The photos show jihadists taking up positions within a building and firing on Kurdish fighters. Ansar al Islam calls the Kurds PKK as the YPG is the military wing of the the Syrian Democratic Union Party, which is connected to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Jaysh al Thuwar, or Army of Revolutionaries, is a coalition of several former Free Syrian Army units and has reportedly joined the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed coalition. The Kurdish YPG is also a member of the SDF alliance. Ansar al Islam is an al Qaeda-linked jihadist group that was originally founded in northern Iraq in 2001. The main Iraqi faction of Ansar al Islam has suffered from defections to the Islamic State and has largely been forced underground. However, it continues to operate in Syria alongside the Al Nusrah Front, al Qaedas official branch in Syria, as well as other jihadist and rebel groups in the north. Photos released by Ansar al Islam: 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. The Sabratha municipal council released several photos, including this one, purportedly showing the aftermath of todays airsrike. Source: Libya Al Hurra TV. The US military launched an airstrike in Libya earlier today targeting an Islamic State training camp near Sabratha and a jihadist named Noureddine Chouchane, according to the Pentagon. Chouchane, a Tunisian who is also known as Sabir, is a senior facilitator for the Islamic State in Libya and associated with the training camp. The Tunisian government has named Chouchane as a suspect in the March 18, 2015, deadly attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunis. More than 20 people, mostly foreign tourists, were killed in the assault on the Bardo Museum. There has been some confusion over who was responsible for the massacre. The Islamic State quickly claimed credit, but Tunisian authorities blamed members of the Uqba bin Nafi Battalion, which is part of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). If Chouchane was involved in the Bardo killings, then his role is further evidence of the Islamic States culpability. Chouchane may have also played a part in the July 2015 shooting spree at a beach in Sousse, Tunisia. The Pentagon says Chouchane has facilitated the movement of potential Islamic State-affiliated foreign fighters from Tunisia to Libya and onward to other countries. The Defense Department also suggests that Chouchane could potentially be involved in planning external attacks on American interests in the region, in addition to recruiting new members for Abu Bakr al Baghdadis global operation and establishing bases in Libya. According to officials contacted by The Long War Journal, the US government has become increasingly concerned about the Islamic States ability to plot attacks in the West and against American interests from its base of operations on the Mediterranean coast. It is possible that Chouchane was involved in such plotting, but that has not been confirmed. Initial reports in the aftermath of the bombing say that dozens of people were killed. The identities of those killed have not yet been verified. The US has targeted senior leaders of both the Islamic State and al Qaeda inside Libya on several occasions since the fall of Muammar al Qaddafis regime in 2011. On Nov. 13, 2015, the US killed Wissam Najm Abd Zayd al Zubaydi, also known as Abu Nabil al Anbari, in an airstrike. Zubaydi, an Iraqi national, was a longtime al Qaeda operative and the senior ISIL [Islamic State] leader in Libya, according to a statement by the US military. He is thought to have served as the lead executioner in the February 2015 massacre of Coptic Christians on the Libyan coast, although there is some uncertainty concerning his putative role in the murders. The Islamic States so-called Libyan province launched an offensive in early January named after Sheikh Abdul Mugirah al Qahtani, which is likely one of Zubaydis several aliases. The operations targeted oil facilities and towns in northern Libya. [See LWJ report, Islamic States Libyan province launches new offensive.] In mid-June 2015, the US bombed a location in Libya where Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran al Qaeda operative, was suspected of meeting with other jihadists. Months later, according to The Washington Post, US officials are still not certain of Belmokhtars fate. Al Qaeda has, for the most part, acted as if Belmokhtar survived. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) issued a statement saying Belmokhtar is alive and well. Al Murabitoon, another al Qaeda group operating in North and West Africa at the time, also denied that he had perished and released a statement in August 2015 naming Belmokhtar as its overall emir, or leader. In December 2015, Ibrahim al Qosi, an ex-Guantanamo detainee who is now an Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leader, referred to Belmokhtar as if he is still alive and praised him for bringing Al Murabitoon and AQIM together in a merger. These statements are not definitive, however, and the jihadists have not released a proof of life audio or video message from Belmokhtar himself. American troops captured Abu Anas al Libi, who was wanted for his role in the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and suspected of leading al Qaedas network in Libya, during a raid in October 2013. Al Libi subsequently died in US custody as he was awaiting trial. Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for 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. News / National by Staff Reporter President Robert Mugabe has issued a stern warning to the war veterans leader, Christopher Mutsvangwa for misleading war veterans and the nation at large by calling for an unsanctioned meeting which, however, flopped on Thursday after police intervention.In a State of the Nation Address at State House in Harare today, Mugabe castigated Mutsvangwa for organising an illegal demonstration without informing the party leadership and government."Mutsvangwa did not inform me, the VPs or security ministers about the war veterans meeting. We take exception to that, he (Mutsvangwa) has acted in a manner we describe as irresponsible, completely irresponsible," said President Mugabe.Mugabe, who is also the patron of the war veterans association apologised for the ill-treatment of war veterans some of them who were unfortunately tear-gased by the police, saying the blame lies squarely in their chairman and minister (Mutsvangwa)."People were naturally hurt or at least they had this water from cannons come on their bodies and teargas as well. Mutsvangwa bears responsibility for inviting war veterans to an illegal meeting, he abused his authority as Minister in the gravest way possible, we take exception to that," the President said.He however, demanded that Mutsvangwa as the Minister of War Veterans should explain his intended hidden agenda to mobilise such a demonstration without following proper channels."Mutsvangwa being a Minister cannot at the end, after police have taken action against an illegal meeting, complain that he was ill-treated," President Mugabe said.Mugabe said the party and government will not hesitate to take action against Mutsvangwa's unbecoming behaviour which he described as a disgrace to the nation.President condemns party dog fightsPresident Mugabe also condemned the dog fights that have rocked the revolutionary party over the past few weeks saying the so-called G40 and Lacoste factions should shut up."Those who say we are G40 or Lacoste shut up, stop dividing the party," said President Mugabe.President Mugabe, who was flanked by the two vice presidents, Cdes Emmerson Mnangagwa and Phelekezela Mphoko, did not mince his words as he condemned the so-called two factions, adding that quarrels based on tribalism and regionalism should stop forthwith.He said Zimbabweans are sons and daughters of the soil and such issues of tribalism and regionalism are not part of our culture saying the leadership of the ruling party and government condemns such uncalled for behaviour.President Mugabe called for oneness and urged all Zimbabweans to guard against western machinations which are aimed at dividing the nation."War veterans must unite. The ministry will remain, but we don't want confusion," said President MugabeMeanwhile, President Mugabe has praised the youths for their preparations of the 21st February Movement celebrations to be held in Great Zimbabwe next week in Masvingo.He said he is happy with the venue, adding that the forthcoming celebrations should be marked with unity, peace and stability amongst the youths and the elders.Mugabe implored the youths to avoid abusing drugs and urged them to respect the elders for the good of the party. 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. Canary Santa Barbara Offers 'Dog Days of Winter' Package Canary Santa Barbara, downtown Santa Barbara's Kimpton property and the only hotel in Santa Barbara that does not charge a pet fee for your furry friend, is offering a new Dog Days of Winter' package.As part of the package, your pooch will get the VIP treatment and will be welcomed with water and biscuits upon arrival and greeted by the hotel's Director of Pet Relations, Wiley. But waitthere's more to wag the tail about! A custom Canary Santa Barbara dog dish, a bag of treats, a dog magazine, paw-fect turn-down service where your pooch's bed will be fluffed and made while you're out exploring, as well as bottle of wine (for you!) are all a part of the package. If you and your companion are craving a little adventure, you can Ruff it with Santa Barbara's beautiful walking trails, dog parks, and the infamous beach boardwalk perfect for exploring together. If you're looking to have a night out on the town (minus your pooch), Canary will connect you with local pet care services, giving you peace of mind that your pooch is in good hands, so your evening is carefree.For the ultimate treat, you can spoil your pooch with a California Canine gift basket from Santa Barbara Gift Baskets containing chew toys, dog treats, and a water bowl for an added $45.Visit website: Mighty 5A Tour Launches All-Inclusive Luxury Experiences at Utah's National Parks Showcasing first-class dining and accommodations at the region's finest hotels, the Mighty 5 Tour offers unique guided hikes through each of Utah's Mighty 5 National Parks: Arches, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce and Zion. Pampered from arrival to departure, guests are attended to by a full-time, concierge and travel in a custom Mercedes Benz Sprinter van.Also distinguishing the Mighty 5 Tour are the services of company founder, Mike Coronella. A foremost authority on the desert southwest, Coronella personally guides each hike, allowing participants to discover myriad wonders rarely seen by park visitors. An expert outdoorsman and award-winning guide, his resume includes authoring The Hayduke Trail: A Guide to the Backcountry Hiking Trail on the Colorado Plateau, teaching college photography and serving as a member of Grand County (Utah) Search and Rescue."Utah's national parks boast awe-inspiring beauty, so we created an all-inclusive luxury experience for people who may not want to rough it' while taking in the grandeur," says Coronella. "It's always exciting to see first- and old-timers alike marvel at the spectacular views after an unforgettable hike.The Mighty 5 Signature Tour ($7,800 per person) is a 10-night, nine-day journey departing from St. George, Utah on the 2nd and 17th of April, May, September and October. The six-night, five-day Mighty 5 Summer Tour ($5,200 per person), offered in June, July and August, also visits all five parks and offers similar accommodations and dining experiences. St. George is serviced daily by Delta Airlines and United Airlines, and less than a two-hour drive from Las Vegas.Utah's Mighty 5 Parks are Arches National Park, where travelers enjoy watching the sunrise at an impossibly thin standalone arch surrounded by a sandstone bowl; Canyonlands National Park, also known as the "Island in the Sky" for its 1,000-foot elevation above the river valley; Capitol Reef National Park, famous for its ancient petroglyphs (artistic rock carvings); Bryce Canyon National Park, a collection of coral-hued rock hoodoos; and Zion National Park, featuring The Promised Lands' beautiful assortment of waterfalls in The Emerald Pools.For more information or to book, visit News / Regional by Staff reporter The opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday alleged that its Matabeleland South provincial secretary for security, Elliot Shelton, was abducted by suspected State security agents in Gwanda on Wednesday and has not yet been accounted for.The Tendai Biti-led party claimed Shelton was abducted at Pakama business centre by six unidentified men, but strongly believed to be in State apparatus, who were driving two white double-cab vehicles without registration numbers.PDP secretary-general Gorden Moyo said they had reported the matter at Jahunda Police Station in Gwanda, but national police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba yesterday said they did not have the report. Apple is challenging a federal court order to help access an iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terrorist attack, claiming that doing so would create a dangerous precedent. Now, other tech companies and politicians are publicly debating whether Apples dead-set protection of user privacy is justified and whether the FBI has a right to enter peoples iPhones via a backdoor to ensure national security. Shortly after Apple CEO Tim Cook posted an open letter detailing Cupertinos refusal, tech leaders, presidential candidates, and other public figures began taking sides. Here are some of the key (if not kooky) testimonies in the court of public opinion. Facebook On Thursday, the social media giant issued a statement acknowledging the essential work authorities do to keep us safe, but Facebook also pledged to fight aggressively against government efforts to curtail the security of tech products. We condemn terrorism and have total solidarity with victims of terror. Those who seek to praise, promote, or plan terrorist acts have no place on our services. We also appreciate the difficult and essential work of law enforcement to keep people safe, the statement reads, as posted on USA Today. When we receive lawful requests from these authorities we comply. However, we will continue to fight aggressively against requirements for companies to weaken the security of their systems. These demands would create a chilling precedent and obstruct companies efforts to secure their products. Steve Wozniak The Apple cofounder spoke to CNBC on Thursday about Apples recent privacy fight against the FBI. Im not intimately involved in the fight, but Im definitely against [the court order], Woz said. I dont think that the phone should have backdoors. I believe that Apples brand recognition and value and profits is largely based on an item called trust. Woz was later asked on what side Steve Jobs would have been and ended up talking about Jobss onetime close encounter with the FBI. [Jobs] was a vegan. He cared about people Once we have artificial intelligence doing the searching, can we trust it? I think [Jobs] would have gone for the privacy. One time we talked to the FBI. They came into Apple and notified us how to watch for all these Chinese spies that were going to try to get our IP, and [Jobs] asked the FBI, We do the same thing, right? And the FBI guy said, No, we dont. Google CEO Sundar Pichai Pichai took to Twitter to praise Cook for speaking out against the FBIs demands. Forcing companies to enable hacking could compromise users privacy, Pichai wrote. 1/5 Important post by @tim_cook. Forcing companies to enable hacking could compromise users privacy sundarpichai (@sundarpichai) February 17, 2016 Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Dorsey took to Twitter to share Cooks letter and express his support for Apple. We stand with @tim_cook and Apple (and thank him for his leadership)! https://t.co/XrnGC9seZ4 Jack (@jack) February 18, 2016 Donald Trump I agree 100 percent with the courts. In that case, we should open it up, Trump told Fox & Friends, as reported by Politico. I think security, overall, we have to open it up and we have to use our heads. We have to use common sense. Somebody the other day called me a common-sense conservative. We have to use common sense. Trumps comments, which were the subject of The Macalope this week, also included a critique of Apples stance. Who do they think they are? They have to open it up. Edward Snowden Snowden posted on Twitter that Apples fight against the FBI is the most important tech case in a decade. And that it was rather ironic for people to have to rely on a private company like Apple to defend their rights. Snowden is currently living in exile in Russia to avoid facing prosecution in the U.S. for leaking government documents. The @FBI is creating a world where citizens rely on #Apple to defend their rights, rather than the other way around. https://t.co/vdjB6CuB7k Edward Snowden (@Snowden) February 17, 2016 John McAfee The antivirus software developer wrote an op-ed in Business Insider offering the FBI his help hacking the iPhone in questionbecause asking Apple to do it would be the equivalent of publishing our nuclear codes, apparently. With all due respect to Tim Cook and Apple, I work with a team of the best hackers on the planet, McAfee wrote. I would eat my shoe live on national television if we could not break the encryption on the San Bernardino iPhone. This is a pure and simple fact. McAfee then offered to hack into the iPhonefor free!and claimed that it would take his team exactly three weeks. If you accept my offer, then you will not need to ask Apple to place a back door in its product, which will be the beginning of the end of America, he added. WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum Koum shared Cooks open letter on Facebook, saying he couldnt agree more with Apples stance on privacy and its efforts to protect user data. We must not allow this dangerous precedent to be set, Koum wrote. Today our freedom and our liberty is at stake. Back in December, WhatsApp was banned from Brazil for a day after the Facebook-owned messaging service refused to comply with court orders regarding a criminal case. Mark Cuban The entrepreneur published his take on Business Insider commending Apple for doing the exact right thing. While the FBI is attempting to be very clear that this is a one-off request, there is no chance that it is, Cuban wrote. This will not be the last horrific event whose possible resolution could be on a smartphone. There will be many government agencies that many times in the future will point to Apples compliance as a precedent. Once this happens, we all roll down that slippery slope of lost privacy together. If you think its bad that we cant crack the encryption of terrorists, it is far worse when those who would terrorize us can use advanced tools to monitor our unencrypted conversations to plan their acts of terror. If you think its bad that we cant crack the encryption of terrorists, it is far worse when those who would terrorize us can use advanced tools to monitor our unencrypted conversations to plan their acts of terror. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) Sen. Cotton issued a statement criticizing Apple for choosing to protect a dead ISIS terrorists privacy over the security of the American people. The Senator believes that creating a backdoor is not just about preventing terrorism, but that they could also be used by authorities to fight other crimes. Talk about a slippery slope According to Sen. Cotton, the fact that Apple is fighting the court order explains why its quickly becoming the company of choice for terrorists, drug dealers, and sexual predators of all sorts. Marco Rubio The Republican presidential candidate believes that Apple should voluntarily comply to the court order because being a good corporate citizen is important, however he admits that this is a complicated issue. If we passed a law that required Apple and these companies to create a backdoor, one, criminals could figure that out and use it against you, Rubio said on CNN. And number two, theres already encrypted software that already exists, not only now but in the future created in other countries. We would not be able to stop that, so there would still be encryption capabilitiesthey just wouldnt be American encryption capabilities. Were going to have to figure out a way forward working with Silicon Valley and the tech industry on this. There has to be a way to deal with with this issue that continues to protect the privacy of Americans but creates some process by which law-enforcement intelligence agencies could access encrypted information. I dont have a magic solution for it todayits a complicated new issue. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) Sen. Feinstein from California went on PBS NewsHour and argued that Apple should produce the information to the FBI based on a probable cause warrant. Sen. Feinstein also argued that the iPhone in question was owned by the San Bernardino County, which has given its permission. If Apple denies the request, Sen. Feinstein, the vice chair of the Senate intelligence committee, said she would draft a bill to change the laws and force Apple into compliance. We are in jeopardy if you cannot, through proper evidence submitted by a probable cause warrant, be able to open these systems, Sen. Feinstein said. Congressman Ted Lieu (D-CA) Los Angeles County Congressman Lieu issued a statement arguing that the government cannot compel Apple, or any other private sector company, to become an arm of law enforcement. Can the government force Facebook to create software that provides analytic data on who is likely to be a criminal? This court order also begs the question: Where does this kind of coercion stop? Congressman Lieu wrote. Can the government force Facebook to create software that provides analytic data on who is likely to be a criminal? Can the government force Google to provide the names of all people who searched for the term ISIL? Can the government force Amazon to write software that identifies who might be suspicious based on the books they ordered? Congressman Lieu is only one of four computer science majors in Congress, and he helped draft the ENCRYPT Act of 2016, in response to states introducing bills to ban the sale of encrypted smartphones. Opinion / Columnist Not preparing for a future: Zimbabwe's gross domestic savings and percentage of GDP Odd one and going the wrong way: Zimbabwe's gross domestic savings compared to peers David Mutori is a pro-democracy activist who is frustrated with politicians abusing their positions by duping people. He believes that Zimbabweans underestimate their individual responsibilities and potential to determine their future. He writes in his personal capacity and can be contacted on mutorid@gmail.com. Ben Paradza is a pro-democracy activist and interim vice-president of Zimbabweans United for Democracy (ZUNDE). Contact him at info@zunde.org There is appalling madness going on in Zimbabwe at the moment, the country has literally lost its socio-political and economic compass. Zimbabweans and the international community watch with astonishment as policy discord is normalised in our once great nation. The disparity of the views being expressed by senior government officials is shocking. What's worse, President Robert Mugabe who is the country's Chief Executive does not bother trying to clarify his government's policies, assuming he still has the capacity to do so. Instead, the President seems to be enjoying the policy catfights and the bruises as ministers outdo each other in the retrogressive game of policy inconsistency.The president's lack of policy leadership - a trademark of his misrule, has left his lieutenants fighting each other and making fools of themselves. Lunatic views are being peddled to gullible audiences as policy' by what can only be described as opportunist ministers trying to make themselves relevant as they claim to understand the President's views better than everybody else. The discord has virtually made it impossible for any serious investor to make long term investment in the country one reason why investors want to get their return as quickly as possible and get out as we saw in at Chiadzwa.In government, the monumental madness keeps rearing its ugly head. Quite often, we hear of things uttered by government ministers that just do not make sense. According to Zimbabwe's Minister of Youth, Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Patrick Zhuwao, Zimbabwe does not need Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)' and suggesting otherwise is ungodly' or unpatriotic'. The Youth minister goes on to suggest that those who advocate for FDI are denouncing President Robert Mugabe and interfere with the boy Minister's portfolio. They are also agents of regime change. While the minister has his right to express himself including peddling senseless views or simply exposing his sheer ignorance, his warped view on FDI must not go unchallenged.In this day and age, a government minister of a country that is supposed to be a member of the international community of nations brings us shame if he stands up in front of the world to say such nonsense. I hope he is not ignorant to the extent of not realising that each time his uncle gallivants all over the world looking for multimillion -dollar deals with the Chinese, that is Direct Foreign Investment he will be desperately hunting for.That he has always returned home empty-handed is more about the iniquity of his policies than irrelevance of FDI. More likely than not, this is just a desperate attempt on Zhuwao's part to make himself relevant. Even patriotic diehards agree that Zimbabwe desperately needs investment and is ill prepared to cherry pick. Contemporary economies have made it necessary that every country including China and the USA needs both domestic and foreign investment to grow. Economic growth that is tittering at the bottom after shrinking by more than 40%, unemployment that is estimated at around 90% and tight liquidity in the country suggest that Zimbabwe should be the last country to utter such nonsense. The country desperately needs investment, now.Economies need investment to create future productive capacity and replace old equipment and machinery. Such investment is a key determinant of future economic growth and investment is either domestic or foreign. The foreign' and domestic' is a description of where the investment comes from. Even inflows from the Zimbabwe diaspora if channelled to investment fall under FDI.If Patrick Zhuwao agrees that his uncle's government desperately needs to improve people's livelihoods, he must accept that Zimbabwe's economy needs to grow to increase the size of the economic cake. His views against FDI, suggests that the nephew minister believes that Zimbabwe's domestic investment is large enough to spur the much needed economic growth. The problem is that Zimbabwe's domestic investment is woeful, or more aptly, awful. If anything, most of the local players are nothing but "subsistence and speculative investors", including the youthful and uninformed minister whose ascendancy to the ministry was more of a result of family relationship than merit. There are several Zimbabweans in and out of Zimbabwe who could do a much better job, only if they were Mugabe's nephews or nieces!There are a number of variables that can be used to measure domestic investment and one of them is called gross domestic savings' which is usually measured as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Calculated as a percentage of income, gross savings is the amount of money that an economy sets aside after total consumption (consumption today versus consumption tomorrow), in other words the amount of money that we set aside to ensure that we have a better future.There is general agreement that what we save today has impact on future economic growth. Some countries have great tradition of saving others are not so great. One country with a great record of gross domestic savings is China which saves approximately 50 cents out of every dollar they make. Much closer to home, not long ago, Botswana had more than 30 billion Pula stashed in foreign reserves. The benefits of those many years of saving are now there for anyone to see. On the other hand, Zimbabwe's gross savings record is very poor. Chart 1 below shows Zimbabwe's gross domestic savings as a percentage of GDP for 40 years since 1975 (source: world bank). We have included figures that cover previous 'sanction periods' for readers to judge for themselves the sanctions mantra.The chart shows that Zimbabwe is consuming more than what it is producing and this has been the case for more than a decade. While Zimbabwe is not the only country with negative gross domestic savings rate, the difference is that other countries actively encourage foreign investment to stimulate economic growth.Zimbabwe's negative savings rate contrasts sharply with its neighbours. Chart 2 below compares Zimbabwe to her neighbours.A situation where gross national savings are negative and the country cannot attract investment from abroad points to a doomed future. In that process, the economic cake keeps diminishing. Mugabe's incompetent nephew, Patrick Zhuwao, believes that he can keep enlarging his own slice of the dwindling cake and has the audacity to make shameful utterances against FDI. Unfortunately, this means that everyone else gets smaller slices of a shrinking economic cake. One of the results, as we have seen over the years, is a terribly corrupt society where the entire nation is grossly impoverished with a few connected men and women living Hollywood lifestyles, albeit on borrowed time!So Zhuwao, our beloved country cannot afford the tyranny of the misinformed. If you cannot appreciate simple or basic economics, you would benefit the nation more by giving the platform to propagate investment policy to those who understand the policy issues at hand. You are disrespecting, patronising your audience and stunting the mental growth of the youth that ironically, your job is to nurture. We as a nation are getting fed up by all the institutional madness' that seems to be contaminating our environment everywhere we go at the moment.If the world's major economies continue to have appetitive for and sound policies to attract FDI, what is Zimbabwe to turn its back on what is required to get it working again? In simple terms, FDI is like blood transfusion; if your own system has run out of the capacity to produce blood or you have lost so much of it, you can only survive if there are stocks from blood donors in a blood bank. Only a mental patient, like Patrick Zhuwao, would refuse blood transfusion when seriously in need and against medical advice. The comatose Zimbabwean economy critically needs some transfusion and life support to prevent total collapse. It only takes a challenged, myopic and patronised mind like Patrick Zhuwao to think otherwise. Opinion / Columnist I read a story from my home province of Manicaland that was quite disturbing on two fronts. Firstly the behavior of the youths who abducted the Vapositori members was indeed very deplorable. However, the author of that story was equally despicable for he tried to politicize an issue that deserved seriousness.The Daily News issue of 12 February 2016 reported that a spirit medium and nine alleged Zanu PF youths kidnapped and assaulted 30 members of the apostolic sect in Mutare. Whoever did that bigoted brutality, the point still remains that it was very bad.Zimbabwe is a democratic country that upholds fundamental human rights and freedoms. Religious liberty is enshrined in the constitution of Zimbabwe. It is one of the countries in the world in which people have absolute freedom to worship.According to our constitution, everyone has the right to freedom of conscience, which includes freedom of thought, opinion, religion or belief; andfreedom to practise and propagate and give expression to their thought, opinion, religion or belief, whether in public or in private and whether alone or together with others.Therefore, the accused tramped on the rights of the apostolic faith sect members. The constitution goes further to postulates that no one may be compelled to take an oath that is contrary to their religion or belief or to take an oath in a manner that is contrary to their religion or belief. The accused are alleged to have forced their victims to take some snuff. It was a gross breach of the rights of the members of the apostolic faith sect. That is horrible!The whole drama paints a picture of a country with warring religions. The apostolic members were persecuted for their religious beliefs which do not respect the imagined sacredness of some places such as the Murahwa Hills. Why should they be forced to revere things they do not believe in? They must be allowed to worship in their own way no matter how illogical it may seems to be and those that believe in spirit mediums must mind their own spiritual business.We are told that that the victims were forced to sing liberation songs, another violation of their rights. However, the fact that they were forced to sing liberation war songs does not save as evidence that the youths were Zanu PF. The singing of the liberation war songs could be the basis upon which the reporter deduced his warped conclusions. Were these youths labeled as Zanu PF youths in the magistrate court? Did they produce their affiliation or membership cards?The reporter carried a good story which, however, was marred by his attempt on politicking. Everybody who sings a liberation war song is Zanu PF. Really? This is a myopic thinking least expected from a newsman.What makes the reporter believe that the apostolic faith members were not Zanu PF, more so after noticing hordes of them at Zanu PF gatherings? There are some people and institutions who now believe that any victim belongs to the opposition while perpetrators of violence are Zanu PF. That is wrong.This is the same mentality that informs their reaction to national election results. Any election that Zanu PF prevails is stolen and controversial. Even where senior officials such as Tendai Biti had to concede a clean defeat, these people always force the defeated to refute the results.What happened in Murahwa Hills was pure petty fights over spiritualism- more like African Traditional Religion versus Christianity. Zanu PF has no preferred religion and this why the constitution accommodates all forms of religion. Within that party, there is a great chunk of its membership that belongs to the apostolic faith and at the same there are those who are ardent believers of spiritualism. Zanu PF is a hotchpotch of members from all religions.Such accusations of violence and violations are meant to tarnish the good image of the revolutionary party. Even the fights over girlfriends in pubs are politicized and the victims and victors in those fights are assigned to political parties accordingly.Even if the ten were Zanu PF members, what they are accused of has nothing to do with Zanu PF. Its not political, just as the case of a Chitungwiza man (who happened to be a Zanu PF member), who axed his colleague to death. Sensational headlines which suggested a political violence were awash in our media.Zanu PF never sent the ten to abduct people; neither does it condone violence of any nature amongst its cadres.Everybody belongs to a social group, it, therefore, becomes very unfair to link whatever one does to a social group he belongs to. The ten probably belongs to more than one social groups but the reporter conveniently linked them to their suspected political parties. Why they didn't link them to their churches for instance.Only last week, Jestina Mukoko's Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) concocted a report in which Zanu PF was ranked as the most violent political party in Zimbabwe. It was a ploy to soil the repute of Zanu PF. Zanu PF does not wink at violence. Opinion / Columnist With events in the ruling party Zanu PF taking a new twist everyday, Zimbabwean President RG Mugabe has been placed in a tight corner and face to face with the moment of truth.It is the President's decision which is going to shape the future of Zimbabwean politics. With two factions on each other's throats, the G40 led by his wife Grace Mugabe and supported by well known criminals, corruption kings and tribalists. The group is believed to be protecting its corrupt financial gains and also cementing the Zezuru influence on Zimbabwe. On the other hand is Team Lacoste the group allegedly led by Mugabe's deputy and feared revolutionary ED Mnangagwa. This group is supported by war veterans, youths, students, a part of the women's league and a part of the security sector. This group is regarded as the reformed Zanu PF who now want to pave way for a none corrupt and democratic Zanu PF. The group is also believed to be fighting against the dominance of one tribe in Zimbabwe.However the two groups are loyal to one man, Robert Mugabe, though recent events suggest that team Lacoste are now seeing the light and openly challenging Mugabe to protect his legacy before its too late. First were the war veterans, followed by Masvingo Province and now the wave is spreading across students, women, youths and ordinary citizens. Whilst many had written off Mnangagwa after the First lady's Chiweshe rally which is now referred to as "The gathering of fools". Many were fairly shocked by the fighting spirit and resilience of Team Lacoste. Even the opposition is admiring from a distance and might consider taking advantage of the political instability for their own benefit.The man centripetal to this whole drama, Robert Mugabe, has no choice than to make a choice. Either to support his wife Grace Mugabe and her gang of thieves or to Support his Revolutionary allies and the Ordinary masses. Supporting Grace implies the expulsion of his long.and loyal son Emmerson Mnangagwa who single handedly appointed him as President in 2008 after everyone had betrayed and deserted him. However Mugabe knows that the expulsion of Mnangagwa would be a Sarajevo incident which might pave way to his own downfall. Highlights of the past events this week clearly showed Mugabe that the people are willing to Support him with Mnangagwa than with Grace. Also in Mugabe's mind is the dilemma of dealing with an opposition that would be made up of Morgan Tsvangirai who has the support of none Zanu PF members, Mujuru who is supported by Western Nations, Biti who has the brains and possibly Mnangagwa who has the power and tactics.This is the dilemma that Robert Mugabe comes face to face with. He cant do without Emmerson Mnangagwa. Whilst some might believe Kasukuwere matches Mnangagwa politically, if truth be told Kasukuwere is no politician, he is just a stone age bully enjoying the benefit of having iron weapons in the stone age. His tactics are outdated and his style is old fashioned. He can't win an election for Mugabe in the same way Mnangagwa did in 2013. Kasukuwere' s tactics actually work more against Mugabe than for Mugabe. On the other hand Mugabe cannot trust Jonathan Moyo. The man has his on mission which is directed from Washington and Mugabe knows that. Jonathan Moyo is after Mugabe himself hence Mugabe cannot do without his trusted bodyguard Emmerson Mnangagwa. Mugabe knows that Mnangagwa can take on anyone. Whilst Moyo is smarter academically Mnangagwa is the intelligent one.The people have said No to Grace, Masvingo has said No to tribalism, The students have said No to dictatorship, The Youths have said No to thieves and gays, the liberation Veterans have said No to spies and the people have spoken. This is the Dilemma of Robert Mugabe. He has a choice to make, A or B. NOTE: Click any picture to enlarge. Got to love these flowers. Spring in July. The gang heading down the last push to our camp. Can't get enough of these Camp 1 - Granite Canyon - North Fork. Found nice existing tent sites. North Fork Granite Creek is just past the guys Camp visitor - seemed a bit tame. As we headed down to our campsite, I am certain we were all starting to contemplate what was going on in our lives. I know I was and I know some other life changing shit was hitting the gang too. I had just started as project manager on a new government contract with the Navy's SPAWAR group. I did not know it at the time but I would be put through many sleepless nights as I tried to make my client happy. It seemed that every turn I made was not the one that they wanted, even if it was the right turn to make for the project. After winning my client a prestigious Navy award for excellence in environment deployment and implementation - they didn't seem to care. The relationship soured further. It was like being in a dysfunctional family (aren't they all really?) and I was trying to please two parents; no matter what you do, it is not good enough. This was my first bad experience with government contracting and it was a tough one. Sometimes you just have to do what the client wants regardless - the customer is always right as they say - even if the jeansmake you look fat. I am happy to have returned to the private sector - dealing with people of reason and compassion.Anyhow - sorry for the digression again - but that was my frame of mind and that is why it is so important to get away with the real people in your life. I was thrilled to be out with the guys. Whitey, Flyrod and I completed our Lost Coast trip in 2011 and came away bonded. Having "Sugar" on this trip added a nice input to the rhythm of the hike; he was contemplating a move to FL with his company. Whitey had the "miracle" twins on the way, and Flyrod had some personal shit to deal with too. So it was therapy for all.We made camp easily and it was early in the afternoon; that was just fine - good first day. It gave us some time to sit around and veg while getting our kit sorted and dinner ready. The campsite was incredible. It was just up from the North Fork of Granite Creek - the outflow of Marion Lake and gave us good water for dinner. Oddly enough, and I will probably mention this on another post, but the next day a guy and his girlfriend hiked past us on the way to Marion Lake where we later observed/caught/spied them swimming naked in the lake. I am really glad our water filter was used for the dinner water that night - just saying.Dinner that night was Orzo pasta with Chicken. It is an easy dish and tastes fantastic. We were all hungry and like our last trip - I personally did not want freeze dried powder crap. Some of you may enjoy that - not me.Go here next - Teton Crest Trail -Part 6 or back to beginning - Teton Crest Trail - Part 1 Nicaraguan Tourist Agency selects Damen CSD350 dredger for 200 km internal waterway project. A contract has been signed by EPN, the Nicaraguan Port Authority, and INTUR, the Nicaraguan Tourist Agency, with the Damen Shipyards Group for the delivery of a CSD350 Cutter Suction Dredger. The dredger is to be operated by EPN on a project to create and maintain a 200 km inland channel running along a section of Nicaraguas Caribbean coast. This is the first Damen CSD to be purchased by INTUR, and is designed for heavy-duty operations with a production capacity of 2000 m/h to a depth of nine metres. It will be operated by Empresa Portuaria Nacional (EPN), the national port authority, which already manages a number of Damen vessels and has a close relationship with INTUR. The CSD350 will be the fourth vessel delivered to EPN over the past year; with a Stan Tug 2608, another CSD350 and a CSD250 all recently beginning operations in Nicaragua. The CSD350 will be deployed on an ambitious project to create a continuous 200 km channel running parallel to the sea between Bluefields and Bilwi, connecting the north and the south of the country. The existing waterway is a mix of rivers, lakes and some manmade channels running through lagoons and mangrove swamps. However, the rivers and lakes require dredging and the channels need to be completed. In addition, midway along the channel near Karawala, a completely new waterway of around 22 km will be created to link the northern and southern sections. Once completed, the new channel will enable larger and more comfortable boats to use the route and so encourage the local tourism industry. The coast is renowned for its beauty and biodiversity, and a series of environmental studies have been undertaken to ensure minimal impact on the local plants and wildlife. An environmental management plan has been created for the project and it will be overseen by a government management team to ensure full compliance. As an example of the care being taken over conservation of the environment, the dredging spoil will be used to construct a series of islands which will then be planted with trees to provide additional natural habitats. Once the channel has been dredged along its full length by the new CSD350, the dredger will be used to maintain it. The vessel is scheduled to arrive in Nicaragua at the beginning of April, equipped with all the necessary equipment, including a 1000 metre pipeline, to operate in this very remote area. Were very pleased to be supplying another Cutter Suction Dredger to Nicaragua, said Pieter Becker, Damen Sales Manager for Central America. The close cooperation between INTUR and EPN has been a major factor in this success. Built to the same specification as the other CSDs in the EPN fleet, the dredger will provide a proven and cost-effective solution to INTURs dredging requirements. U.S. Marines with the Combined Arms Company and members of the Norwegian Army took to the firing line as part of their integration during a live-fire exercise in Rena, Norway, Feb. 18, 2016. The Marines are conducting this training to improve their abilities in cold weather environments. U.S. Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Kyle Lloyd, the master gunner for the tanks of Combined Arms Company, said After pulling the tanks out of the caves, we zeroed all the weapon systems to prove they would be ready if ever needed. The M1A1 Abrams Tanks were joined by the Norwegian Leopard 2 Tanks as the Marines zeroed their weapon systems. Lloyd talked about the integration and working alongside the Norwegian Army, They know they can rely on us and we can rely on them. The mix of forces provided insight into different capabilities as well as similarities. It is important for us to train with our allies and see how the equipment works in this environment, said Norwegian Army 1st Lt. Nagnus Babsvik, the tank platoon commander with Telemark Battalion. This week, we have shown an American tank platoon how we operate." While in Rena, the Marines conducted an ice driving course, testing their maneuverability skills on the icy Norwegian terrain. We dont get this kind of training on Camp Lejeune, said Lloyd. Driving in the snow and hills is something we never do at Camp Lejeune, being out there and learning how to drive in very slick conditions was fun to do. The Combined Arms Company is comprised of multiple vehicles with multiple capabilities, including amphibious assault vehicles, M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks and light armored vehicles. If we were ever to be a combined unit, we all know the limitations and capabilities of the weapon systems that we have. Wed have the same idea of how we train and how we fight, said Lloyd. Telemark Battalion operates in this environment quite frequently, said Babsvik. Its a good thing that the Marines can come here and learn from us. The Marines and Norwegian Army are working together as part of Exercise Cold Response, a joint NATO and allied country exercise comprised of 12 countries and approximately 16,000 troops. More Media U.S. Marines and sailors with the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade partnered with Norwegian Army soldiers in order to enhance each others field medical skills in preparation for Exercise Cold Response 16 Feb. 17. About 10 of the Marines and sailors make up the shock trauma squad, which is designed to provide backup medical treatment to wounded service members when hospitals and surgeons are not readily available. Were having the Norwegians bring in casualties, which range from a mass casualty incident to hypothermia. Its testing our readiness to see how well we can perform as a second echelon of care, said Hospitalman Sean Mack, a corpsman with 2nd MEB. Though the shock trauma squad does not possess the capabilities of a hospital, the service members can allow an additional 24 hours of survival time to the injured. Theyre dressing up the Norwegians to where the wounds look real, were ripping open gear, were getting hands-on experience, said Mack. This training helps because its what saves lives. While the Marines and sailors performed notional medical care, the Norwegians also provided feedback and shared their own skillsets. I think small details make a huge difference, said Capt. Bengt Haraldrast, a nurse in the Norwegian Army. When [the U.S.] uses our materials and methods and we know they have the same standards, we can work well together. The U.S. and Norwegians are conducting multiple bilateral training events in the weeks leading up to Exercise Cold Response 16, including live-fire ranges, vehicle maneuverability in icy terrain and cold weather survivability. The medical part in this exercise is always important, said Haraldrast. Giving the soldiers in the exercise the confidence they can fight on and heighten the morale because they know the medical facility will always be there for them. Working with different nationalities builds that partnership and fosters their faith in our medical capabilities, said Mack. Cold Response is a biennial training exercise which brings together 12 NATO allies and partner nations and more than 16,000 troops to enhance joint crisis response capabilities in cold weather environments. More Media Marines with 2nd Law Enforcement Battalion prepared future security operations during site security operations training at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C., Feb. 17. The Marines went to Forward Operating Base Hawk to participate in a scenario, which involved supporting a critical infrastructure, said Cpl. Ian R. Seely, a marksman observer with 2nd Law Enforcement Battalion. The scenario involved a civilian control point where the Marines had to make sure the people coming in and out didnt have any weapons or were trying to leave with any top secret documents. Having the Marines out here is important because they need to familiarize themselves with spotting small discrepancies while exercising good communication skills, said 1st Lt. Mitchell Whitney, the 1st platoon commander of Bravo Company, 2nd Law Enforcement Battalion. Marines with 2nd LEB are expected to conduct law and order operations in order to enhance the security environment and promote the rule of law in support of Marine Air Ground Task Force operations. The key is to always stay alert and beat complacency since were working with a lot of civilians, said Whitney. This was the first opportunity for Whitney to evaluate his platoon out in the field, allowing him to watch them go through different scenarios and supervise their progress throughout the three-day event. The Marines trained to handle a spectrum of situations, including scenarios involving petty fights inside the facility to a hostage situation by an armed civilian. The training is valuable because it teaches Marines the key skills that are going to save them both [state side] and in combat by recognizing the signs before something bad happens, said Seely. The training also increases morale, enhances our capabilities and lessens our limitations as a whole. More Media Global economic growth has gotten a bum rap for most of this expansion. In most folks' estimation, the US is just barely holding up the rest of the world (especially Emerging Markets) and the specter of recession-or worse-looms. Yet in recent years, investors have given one country the benefit of the doubt: Japan. We always thought it was unwarranted, as the structural economic reforms required to invigorate Japan's stagnant economy never materialized. Growth has been choppy, and Japan's GDP contracted in Q4, underscoring the country's economic struggles. We don't believe these are likely to abate any time soon, disappointing investors who hold out hope for the Land of the Rising Sun. According to the Cabinet Office's first estimate of GDP, Japan contracted at a -1.4% annualized rate in Q4 (-0.4% q/q), mirroring Q2's decline. One of the biggest detractors: private consumption, which fell -3.3% annualized. Imports, a key indicator of domestic demand, dropped -5.6% annualized, while exports declined -3.4%. The lone positive was business investment, which rose for a second straight quarter at 5.7% annualized, though we wouldn't get too excited considering this very bouncy gauge has been negative in 8 of the past 16 quarters.[i] Japan did eke out meager growth for calendar year 2015, but 0.4% growth hardly set the world on fire. Though private capex rose 1.3%, private consumption dropped -1.2%. Imports rose just 0.2%, while exports gained 2.7%, though that figure should carry an asterisk as it is mostly a currency translation phenomenon. In volume terms, exports fell -0.9%, and imports fell -2.8%. Bleakness continued in January, when export volumes fell -9.1% y/y and imports fell -5.1% y/y. Though government consumption rose 1.1% in 2015, much of it was from a big fiscal spending package at the beginning of the year-yet another case of fiscal stimulus failing to provide a lasting boost. Efforts to revive a flagging economy through fiscal and monetary stimulus have produced lackluster results for years now. At the start of his term, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced a three-pronged attack to revitalize Japan: fiscal stimulus, accommodative monetary policy and hard-hitting structural reforms-the much-ballyhooed "Abenomics" program. Officials quickly launched the fiscal and monetary arrows but dragged their feet on reform, and the Abe era[ii] hasn't altered the economy's overall trajectory. (Exhibit 1). Exhibit 1: Japanese GDP Annualized Growth, Quarter-Over-Quarter Since 2005 Source: Cabinet Office, as of 2/16/2016. Since Abe took office at the end of 2012, Japan has contracted in 5 of 12 quarters-not exactly a ringing endorsement of Abenomics.[iii] Consider monetary stimulus. The BoJ's greatly hyped "quantitative and qualitative easing" (QQE) weakened the yen, theoretically making Japanese exports cheaper abroad. Policymakers hoped this alleged boost to exporters would spill over to the rest of the economy, boosting growth as they plowed profits from currency translation into new production lines and product development. Now, exports did get a temporary boost. But this was primarily in value terms, reflecting yen weakness rather than a meaningful boost in demand. Volumes-which show the amount of actual stuff getting moved-struggled. (Exhibit 2) That big production boost never happened, as producers preferred to hold prices steady abroad and pocket the extra profits from currency translation, rather than cut prices to raise sales volumes and ramp up production lines and product development. Exhibit 2: Year-Over-Year Japanese Exports, Value vs. Volume, Since 2013 Source: Trade Statistics of Japan, Ministry of Finance, as of 2/16/2016. And after export volumes spent much of 2015 in negative territory, values followed toward the latter half of the year as the yen began strengthening-further evidence growth was a currency translation phenomenon, not an actual, lasting economic boost. Yet many still hold a high opinion of QQE's alleged stimulating effects on markets. Sentiment and expectations were high once Abe took office in 2013, as investors anticipated the new prime minister would revitalize Japan after 15 years of stagnation. Though Abe talked up reforms, he passed little, instead papering over the cracks with more stimulus. Yet many investors interpreted the stimulus measures as precursors to reform, sometimes causing sentiment to swell. Now, with more signs the economy is flagging, the BoJ may resort to yet more stimulus-the BoJ and Governor Haruhiko Kuroda have shown a preference to change investor expectations through surprise and unconventional monetary policy. However, we believe the result would be the same-sustainable economic growth won't return without meaningful reform, especially with negative rates needlessly taxing the banking system. Despite some incremental reform progress, Abe has barely scratched the surface. Small achievements include: the first nuclear power plant restart last year (in the works for two years); a new corporate governance code, which aims to shake up the old guard in Japan, Inc.; and signing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade pact that will cover about 40% of the global economy if ratified and enacted. And outsiders may finally be penetrating Japan, Inc.'s bubble, as a Taiwanese electronics manufacturing company is close to taking over a big Japanese tech company-with the government's blessing, which would end a long history of the government artificially propping up failing conglomerates.[iv] These are all nice positives, but surface-level. For instance, there is no guarantee TPP becomes reality as politics in the 12 participating countries might get in the way. Even if TPP goes live, phase-in periods are lengthy-Japan gets 16 years to reduce its beef tariff, for example, which isn't exactly radically freer trade. The long-insulated agriculture industry has protected about 70% of 586 products from becoming tariff-free in the TPP. Japan's byzantine labor code and immigration policy remain largely untouched. Though these types of reforms won't reverse Japan's fortunes immediately, they would lay the groundwork for a much more competitive, dynamic economy. Making these reforms a reality requires political capital-a limited resource. Throughout his tenure, Abe has decided to use his on issues like controversial national security legislation and scrapping the Constitution's anti-war clause rather than taking on powerful vested interests (e.g., Japan's agriculture lobby). The pro-reform camp has also taken a big hit after Akira Amari, the minister for economic revitalization and one of Abenomics' chief architects, recently resigned amid a corruption scandal. In his place, Abe appointed former environment minister and Liberal Democratic Party secretary general Nobuteru Ishihara to the position. However, it is difficult to envision Ishihara making an immediate positive impact as it takes time for a new minister to navigate the landscape and learn the ropes. In our view, this sudden change likely hinders reform progress even more. Though we remain pessimistic about its economic prospects, a weak Japan needn't take down the rest of the global economy. Since early 2009, Japan has had three technical recessions (defined as two or more consecutive quarters of economic contraction). Yet the global expansion has continued apace. Growth from other parts of the world-the US, UK, most of the eurozone and the many Emerging Markets that don't rely on commodity exports-is strong enough to overcome the laggards. While Japan may continue claiming sustainable growth is right around the corner, we suggest investors look elsewhere for investment opportunities. Latest Turkey Ankara Blast: Terrorism or False Flag? Put nothing past fascists running Turkey, led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a megalomaniacal international outlaw, a lunatic capable of anything to further his Ottoman empire delusions. False flags are perhaps the oldest dirty trick in the book, a longtime US tradition, dating from at least the mid-19th century, 9/11 the mother of them all. Theyre used because they consistently work - able to incite fear and enlist public support for planned aggression and crackdowns on civil liberties, the public manipulated to believe state policies harming their well-being make them safer. Theyre easy marks to be fooled every time. On Wednesday, a powerful blast rocked central Ankara, the nations capital, during the evening rush hour - killing at least 28, injuring dozens more. Turkish officials said the attack targeted a bus convoy carrying military personnel. It occurred near parliament and other regime buildings. They werent affected. Two buses were destroyed, passengers in them killed or injured. No one claimed responsibility so far. The regime-controlled Yeni Safak broadsheet said Syrian refugee Salih Necar, supposedly IDd by his fingerprints (a likely farfetched allegation), carried out the attack. The publication provided no credible evidence or its source. An unnamed senior regime security official blamed Kurdish militants for the attack. Are Necar, PKK and YPG freedom fighters being used as convenient patsies? Will Erdogan use Wednesdays incident to justify continued brutal attacks on Turkish Kurds, largely affecting civilians, along with escalating cross-border shelling into Syria, targeting YPG fighters? Hours after the attack, he went on the offensive, bellowing (t)hose who think they can steer our country and our people away from our goals by using terrorist organizations will see that they have failed. He vowed to strike Turkeys enemies in Syria or elsewhere - claiming the right of self-defense at any time, any place or any occasion, the ravings of a madman. He imposed a media gag order, giving regime authorities control of the message and images reported. Ankara is on high alert, civil liberties virtually suspended since deadly blasts last October killed over 100, injured hundreds more. Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) co-chairman Salih Muslim Muhammad denied Kurdish involvement with Wednesdays incident, spurious accusations he rejects. It remains to be seen what Erdogan intends next. Escalating cross-border shelling into Syria, initiating reported plans to annex a 10km secure strip inside its territory, along with perhaps launching a ground operation would up the stakes hugely - risking possible war with Russia. America calls the shots in Syria and regionally. Erdogan does nothing belligerent without US permission or complicity. Will neocon lunatics making or influencing policy in Washington turn a madman loose, letting him risk starting WW III? By Stephen Lendman http://sjlendman.blogspot.com His new book as editor and contributor is titled Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III. http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html He lives in Chicago and can be reached in Chicago at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday through Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national topics. All programs are archived for easy listening. 2016 Copyright Stephen Lendman - 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. EU Commits Suicide as BrExit Referendum Leave Vote Looks Inevitable Today the European Union looked down the barrel of a gun and then pulled the trigger, as the self interest of individual nations prevailed, and most evidently by the Visegrad-4 (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Czech Republic) that continued to put short-term greed ahead of long-term economic and political commonsense leaving David Cameron to emerge Friday Chamberlain style waving a piece of paper of "Reforms in Our Time". For some reason the dozen or so eastern european block nations led by Poland imagine that the British electorate are just as naive or stupid as their own recently emerged from totalitarianism electorates, a fatal mistake that will come back to haunt the eastern block nations as they once more face the consequences of the Russian bears designs on pieces of their territories as a fatally wounded European Union starts to fragment. And even at this late stage refuse to budget an inch, instead the EU last master plan concocted by the euro-crats is to introduce a new clause that following a REMAIN vote there CANNOT be a SECOND UK EU referendum. The significance of this is that whatever is agreed today can be be voted down by the European Parliament AFTER the referendum, so NOTHING will be implemented and so today's agreement really is WORTHLESS. So today will go down in history as marking the start of the end of the European Union that I have often warned could unravel quite quickly following a BrExit vote - 23 Sep 2015 - Poland, Czech, Slovakia and Hungary Refugee Hypocrisy After Flooding UK with 4 Million Economic Migrants The bottom line is that the migration crisis as did just a few weeks ago the euro debt crisis illustrate that the European Union is BROKEN and is trending towards an apocalypse of sorts the magnitude of which cannot be discerned at this point in time. So this is a wake up call for the people of Britain to vote to LEAVE THE E.U. before it starts to disintegrate in unpredictable and probably very violent ways! Whilst there will be much chaos from the now inevitable collapse of the European Union, especially for the blinkered eastern block nations, nevertheless Britain both due to its geography, not being in the euro-zone and being the first to leave the sinking european union ship should be best insulated from all that is likely to follow as the European Union starts to first unravel and then rip itself apart. My recent video illustrates the core reasons of why Britain will likely choose FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY over the bureaucratic and undemocratic alternative trend towards a German-centric European superstate. https://youtu.be/-oYS6X-63cU Whilst my earlier video covered the key points of David Cameron's failures to negotiate anything of value that in large part amounted to nothing more than a smoke and mirrors exercise that was always destined to fail. https://youtu.be/MF3QLhoxkwQ Ensure you are subscribed to my always free newsletter (only requirement is an email address) for the following forthcoming analysis - US Interest Rates 2016 US Dollar Trend Forecast Stock Market Trend Forecast 2016 US House Prices Forecast 2016 and Beyond Gold and Silver Price Forecast 2016 By Nadeem Walayat http://www.marketoracle.co.uk Copyright 2005-2016 Marketoracle.co.uk (Market Oracle Ltd). All rights reserved. Nadeem Walayat has over 25 years experience of trading derivatives, portfolio management and analysing the financial markets, including one of few who both anticipated and Beat the 1987 Crash. Nadeem's forward looking analysis focuses on UK inflation, economy, interest rates and housing market. He is the author of five ebook's in the The Inflation Mega-Trend and Stocks Stealth Bull Market series that can be downloaded for Free. Nadeem is the Editor of The Market Oracle, a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication that presents in-depth analysis from over 1000 experienced analysts on a range of views of the probable direction of the financial markets, thus enabling our readers to arrive at an informed opinion on future market direction. http://www.marketoracle.co.uk 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 trading losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors before engaging in any trading activities. Nadeem Walayat Archive 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. Comments mydan 20 Feb 16, 19:48 Influence on the market I wonder how the brexit referendum will influence the global markets and currencies this year. It could be a major blow for the British financial markets. It is possible that people out of fear decide to stick together with the rest of Europe, despite all the abuse and tribulations. Similar to Greece, England will fold to the EU. Ego and the U.S. Presidential Primaries Like millions of Americans in the middle of February I have the flu. Unlike millions of Americans I have a deadline. Forced to stay at home, sucking Vitamin C drops, I have read newspapers, listened to radio, and watched television as a source of diversion. Dominating the media is the campaign for the presidency. In Iowa, all of the candidates went to fairs, restaurants, and anywhere there was any sign of carbon-based organic life to grab votes. Because hogs and corn stalks havent yet been granted the right to vote, the candidates resorted to talking with humans, and making sure that everyone got more useless swag than the presenters at the TV awards shows. The newspaper reporters were doing their best to report interactions between candidates and humans; the TV reporters were reporting on the polls. Very few were asking the tough questions.When the votes in the caucuses were finally decided, Hillary Rodham Clinton barely edged Bernie Sanders on the Democratic ticket. However, it was a victory for Sanders who was getting single digit acceptance a few months ago; for Clinton, it was a hit in the head that she needed to revitalize her campaign.For the Republicans, Donald Trump, as expected, continued spewing insults at his rivals, shouting about immigrants and building something along the U.S.Mexican border that would make the Great Wall of China look like a picket fence. Sugar-coating his own rhetoric, he somehow convinced Iowans that America was no longer great, but in his hands, which were holding up his ego, he would make America great again. One of his solutions was he would bomb the shit out of them. He never explained how he was going to do that with a nation and military that he thought wasnt so great. Nevertheless, Iowa Republicans swooned over his carnival squeals and delivered him a blue ribbon victory.Minutes after the election results were announced, the candidates, trailed by a horde of byline hungry reporters, began their rapid descent upon New Hampshire, where they shampooed, rinsed, and repeated their assault upon anything with a heartbeat. The Republicans increased their attacks on President Obama, renewed attacks on Hillary Clintons e-mails, and erroneously called Bernie Sanders a Communist. Underlying their vitriol for Democrats was a pile of vitriol of each other, invoking the legacy of Ronald Reagan while grossly violating his 11th commandment that Republicans should not be attacking each other. For Clinton and Sanders, their own debate was more like a sharp discussion of issues rather than personal attacks. When the votes came in, Trump again got the plurality, but Ohio Gov. John Kasich surprised the media and the poll analysts by coming in second. Two candidates dropped out of the race; the rest scrambled their positions and staff trying to figure out why they no longer were second or third, and what to do to body-slam Trump who was scoring points by pretending to be an extreme conservative by launching an even greater fusillade of insults at what he believed were a bunch of wannabe losers.By the time the candidates and reporter menagerie made it to South Carolina, Sarah Palin and Donald Trump were basking in a love fest while Nikki Haley, governor of the third state in the primary shuffle declared her support for Marco Rubio and not Jeb Bush. To account for that insult, the former Florida governor brought in the heavy artilleryhis father, the 41st president and his brother, the 43rd president, a reminder to the voters that the Bush genetic markers called for another Bush to surround the White House.Somewhere during the campaign, the candidates stopped long enough to pretend they were in a legitimate debate. For the Republicans, it was a case of Trump vs. The Other Guys, all of whom seemed to be trying to get media attention. Sometime between the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries, Supreme Court associate justice Antonia Scalia died. Within minutes, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell declared he would block any nomination that President Obama presented for confirmation. The other Republican leaders and presidential candidates picked up the message and ran with it, declaring that a president in the his final year should not nominate a Supreme Court justice, fearful that any nominee would be a liberal whose presence on the Court would turn it from a 54 conservative majority to a 54 liberal majority. Barack Obama, backed by most elected Democrats, said he was still the president and would fulfill his constitutional responsibility to make nominations.By the time the gaggle of reporters and whats left of the candidates limp into Super Tuesday, March 1, the public will be burdened by the last of the presidential swag and hoping that everyonecandidates, on-air reporters, and bloviatorsgetlaryngitis.As for me, hopefully my flu will be over and Ill be able to find amusement in something other than a flush caused by high volume egotistical hyperbole laced with half-truths and statements, all of which are enough to inflate my blood pressure. [Dr. Brasch is author of Unacceptable: The Federal Governments Response to Hurricane Katrina , the first major book that looked at the causes, problems, and effects of the storm. He and Rosemary Brasch, two years before Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, had written a series of articles that predicted the United States was not prepared for a major disaster.] [Dr. Braschs current book is Fracking Pennsylvania, which looks at the impact of fracking upon public health, worker safety, the environment, and agriculture. The book--available at local bookstores and amazon. com--also looks at the financial collusion between politicians and Big Energy.] By Walter M Brasch PhD http://www.walterbrasch.com Copyright 2015 Walter M Brasch Walter Brasch is a university journalism professor, syndicated columnist, and author of 17 books. His current books are America's Unpatriotic Acts , The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina , and Sex and the Single Beer Can: Probing the Media and American Culture . All are available through amazon.com, bn.com, or other bookstores. You may contact Dr. Brasch at walterbrasch@gmail.com Walter Brasch Archive 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication. HOLLYWOOD, Calif.Amber Lynn brings on a varied array of guests to her LA Talk Radio Show Rock'N'SeXXXy Uncensored today. Tonight on the show, which air at 7 p.m. PST, comedian Tanya Estrada is back Amber Lynn's RNSU guest co-host. Estrada has been touring with Last Comic Standing comedian Adam Richmond, and the stand-up performer can also be seen in Marilyn Manson's latest music video, "Metestopheles." Estrada will join host Amber Lynn in welcoming this week's special guests. One is Sonia Pizarro Lopez, a reality star from the Tru TV series Operation Repo, who has been the subject of much media attention over a rumored incident involving a wallet filled with $3,000. She will be revealing the truth in her interview on RSNU. RNSU is proud to present this week's music guest, Dino Cazares, guitarist of the awesome industrial metal group Fear Factory; he'll be discussing the band's latest album, Genexus, which was named album of the year, by OC Weekly. The band just returned from shows in Ireland and Scotland. During its upcoming U.S. tour with Soilwork, kicking off in March 2016, Fear Factory will be performing the album Demanufacture in its entirety as well as new material. Also the founder of the metal bands Divine Hershey, Asesino and Brujeria, Cazares is often identified by his fast-picking rhythm guitar technique that has led to the distinctive machine-gun style identifiable in the music of Fear Factory. Cazares will be live in the studio along with Sonia Pizarro Lopez, RNSU host Amber Lynn and co-host Tania Estrada. Fans can call in during the show at (323) 203-0815 to win autographed memorabillia and swag. The show runs this Thursday, February 17, at 7 p.m. PT/10 p.m. ET on LATalkRadio.com and Stitcher.com. Visit the RNSU Blog at Rock-N-Sexxxy-Uncensored.com for guest updates, photos, news. If you miss the show, download it at iTunes. Follow on Twitter: @RockNSeXXXyU and @XXXAmberLynns. The Martinsville Planning Commission is supporting a developers efforts to turn an old warehouse uptown into a 60-unit apartment complex. The commission makes recommendations to Martinsville City Council on land-use matters. Following a public hearing, the panel voted unanimously on Thursday to recommend that property at 49-51 Lester St. be rezoned for commercial use, which would enable Sylvan Road Partners LLC to develop the apartments. The sites currently are zoned for heavy manufacturing. Commission Chairman Tim Martin did not participate in either discussion or the vote because his family owns adjacent property. He sat in the audience and turned control of the meeting over to Vice Chairman Joseph Martin. The council will consider approving the rezoning after it holds its own hearing at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. The approximately 93,000 square-foot building was a pin factory in the early 1900s and a novelty furniture factory around the 1930s before it became a warehouse for American of Martinsville. Sylvan plans to buy the building from its current owner, First United Methodist Church. A few years ago, Sylvan developed the Martinsville Lofts apartment complex in the former Martinsville Novelty Co. building on Rives Road when the firm was known as Landmark Development Corp. Sylvans owner, Linwood Davis, showed the commission photos of the lofts and other apartment complexes that the firm has developed in former industrial properties in North Carolina and Maryland. They have a proven track record and are a most reputable developer, said Jeb Bassett, a representative of the church. Bill Manning of Barnett Commercial Realty said the building has been up for sale for 25 months. The only other major interest shown in the building has been by someone interested in growing hydroponic tomatoes there, he said. He indicated that he thinks the apartment complex would be more worthwhile for the community. Davis said Sylvan plans to spend about $11 million to redevelop the building. Energy-efficient appliances would be installed in apartments, and the highest quality materials and techniques would be used in construction, he said. Monthly rents would range from $375 for an apartment with one bedroom to $530 for a three-bedroom unit, he estimated. Because tax credits are to be used toward the construction, income restrictions would apply to renters, according to Davis. Under federal housing laws, potential occupants with Section 8 housing choice vouchers would have to be treated like anyone else applying for a tenancy, he said. However, he pledged that the apartments would not be so-called public housing aimed at low-income households. Background checks would be done on applicants, who would have to prove they have incomes, he told the commission. They would be high-quality apartments designed for the general population, he said after the meeting. Davis believes there will be a demand for the apartments, which would be near the uptown walking trail and businesses. The industrial look and proximity to stores and restaurants is what people look for today when they seek to rent apartments, he said. And, the complex will really help spark revitalization uptown, he predicted, because stores and restaurants will want to locate there because they will feel certain that people living nearby would become their customers. I feel well only be on the winning side, said commission member James Crigger Sr., noting that he believes the firm did a good job in developing the Martinsville Lofts. Davis presentation showed that other firms would be involved with Sylvan in developing the apartments. They likely would form a new partnership called Lester Street Lofts or something similar, he said. In Defence of Marxism is committed to safeguarding your privacy. At all times we aim to respect any personal data you share with us, or that we receive from other organisations, and keep it safe. This Privacy Policy (Policy) sets out our data collection and processing practices and your options regarding the ways in which your personal information is used. This Policy contains important information about your personal rights to privacy. Please read it carefully to understand how we use your personal data. We may update this Policy from time to time without notice to you, so please check it regularly. The provision of your personal data to us is voluntary. However, without providing us with your personal data, you will be unable to (as appropriate): contact us; subscribe to our mailing list; subscribe to any of our publications; or receive information about In Defence of Marxism. We collect information about you: (1) When you give it to us DIRECTLY You may give us your personal data in order to subscribe to a newsletter or publication, when you contact us by phone, email or post, when you sign a petition / statement, and/or when you donate money to us. (2) When you give it to us INDIRECTLY Your information will also be provided to us when you follow us or otherwise interact with on or via Twitter, when you like and/or join our page on Facebook or interact with us in other ways on or via Facebook. (3) When you give permission to OTHER ORGANISATIONS to share it or it is AVAILABLE PUBLICLY We may combine information you provide to us with information available from external publicly available sources. Depending on your privacy settings for social media services, we may also access information from those accounts or services. We use this information to gain a better understanding of you and to improve our communications and fundraising activities. (4) When you visit our WEBSITE We use cookies to identify you when you visit our website. Please refer to our Cookies Policy for details on the way our use of cookies affects your personal data. What information do we collect? We may collect, store and use the following kinds of personal data: (1) We will typically hold your name and contact details, including telephone number, location, and e-mail address. However, we may request other information where it is appropriate and relevant, for example: Your bank details or debit/credit card details (if making a donation). (2) any communication preferences you give; (3) information about your computer and about your visits to and use of this website including your IP address, geographical location, browser type, referral source, length of visit and number of page views; and/or (4) any other information shared with us as per clause 1. Do we process sensitive personal information? Applicable law recognises certain categories of personal information as sensitive and therefore requiring more protection, including political opinions and trade union membership. In limited cases, we may collect sensitive personal data about you. We would only collect sensitive personal data if there is a clear reason for doing so; and will only do so with your explicit consent. How and why will we use your personal data? Personal data, however provided to us, will be used for the purposes specified in this Policy or in relevant parts of the website. We may use your personal information to: (1) Enable you to subscribe to our hard copy publications; (2) Send you information about our work, campaigns, organisations and any other information, products or services that we provide (this will not be done without your consent); (3) Provide you with the services, products or information you have requested; (4) If you request, put you in touch with other supporters in your area (who have also provided such consent); (5) Handle the administration of any donation or other payment you make via credit/debit card, cheque, standing order or BACS transfer; (6) Collect payments from you and send statements and/or receipts to you; (7) Conduct research into the impact of our activity / campaigns; (8) Deal with enquiries and complaints made by you relating to the website or us in general; (9) Make petition submissions to third parties, where you have signed a petition and the third party is a target of the campaign to which the petition relates; and/or (10) Audit and/or administer our accounts. Supporter Analysis Google Analytics We may use some of your personal information to analyse our digital performance, for example to see how our website can be improved to help us achieve the purposes set out in section 9 below, to record how you are using our website or to assess the popularity of different articles / campaigns. For more information on how we use your personal information in relation to Google Analytics, please view our cookie policy by clicking this link cookies policy You can opt-out of the collection of information for such purposes here: http://www.aboutads.info/choices Communications, updates, fundraising Where you have provided appropriate consent, we will contact you by telephone and e-mail, with targeted communications to let you know about our events and/or activities that we consider may be of particular interest; about the work of In Defence of Marxism; and to ask for donations or other support. Donations and other payments All financial transactions carried out on our website are handled through either: PayPal (Europe) S.a r.l. (PayPal), a third party payment services provider. We recommend that you read PayPals privacy policy (available at https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/ua/privacy-full?locale.x=en_GB ) prior to effecting any transactions with us through PayPal; or GoCardless Ltd (GoCardless), a third party payment services provider. We recommend that you read GoCardlesss privacy policy (available at https://www.gocardless.com/legal/privacy) prior to effecting any transactions with us through GoCardless. We will provide your personal data to PayPal / GoCardless only to the extent necessary for the purposes of processing payments for transactions you enter into with us. We do not store your financial details. Childrens data We do not knowingly process data of any person under the age of 16. If we come to discover, or have reason to believe, that you are 15 and under and we are holding your personal information, we will delete that information within a reasonable period and withhold our services accordingly. Security of and access to your personal data We endeavour to ensure that there are appropriate and proportionate technical and organisational measures to prevent the loss, destruction, misuse, alteration, unauthorised disclosure or of access to your personal information. Your information is only accessible by appropriately trained staff and volunteers. We may also use agencies and/or suppliers to process data on our behalf. We may also merge or partner with other organisations and in so doing transfer and/or acquire personal data. Please note that some countries outside of the EEA have a lower standard of protection for personal data, including lower security requirements and fewer rights for individuals. We may transfer and/or store personal data collected from you to and/or at a destination outside the European Economic Area (EEA). Such personal data may be processed by agencies and/or suppliers operating outside the EEA. If we transfer and/or store your personal data outside the EEA we will take reasonable steps to ensure that the recipient implements appropriate measures to protect your personal data. Otherwise than as set out in this Privacy Policy, we will only ever share your data with your informed consent. Your rights Where we rely on your consent to use your personal information, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. This includes the right to ask us to stop using your personal information for direct marketing purposes or to be unsubscribed from our email list at any time. You also have the following rights: (1) Right to be informed you have the right to be told how your personal information will be used. This Policy and any other policies and statements used on our website and in our communications are intended to provide you with a clear and transparent description of how your personal information may be used. (2) Right of access you can write to us to ask for confirmation of what information we hold on you and to request a copy of that information. Provided we are satisfied that you are entitled to see the information requested and we have successfully confirmed your identity, we have 30 days to comply. (3) Right of erasure as from 25 May 2018, you can ask us for your personal information to be deleted from our records. (4) Right of rectification if you believe our records of your personal information are inaccurate, you have the right to ask for those records to be updated. (5) Right to restrict processing you have the right to ask for processing of your personal data to be restricted if there is disagreement about its accuracy or legitimate usage. (6) Right to data portability to the extent required by the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) where we are processing your personal information (i) under your consent, (ii) because such processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are party or to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contact or (iii) by automated means, you may ask us to provide it to you or another service provider in a machine-readable format. To exercise these rights, please send a description of the personal information in question using the contact details in section 15 below. You can also unsubscribe from our email list by sending a blank email to news-unsubscribe@marxist.com Where we consider that the information with which you have provided us does not enable us to identify the personal information in question, we reserve the right to ask for (i) personal identification and/or (ii) further information. Lawful processing We are required to have one or more lawful grounds to process your personal information. Only 4 of these are relevant to us: Personal information is processed on the basis of a persons consent Personal information is processed on the basis of a contractual relationship Personal information is processed on the basis of legal obligations Personal information is processed on the basis of legitimate interests (1) Consent We will ask for your consent to use your information to send you electronic communications such as newsletters and and fundraising emails, and if you ever share sensitive personal information with us. (2) Contractual relationships Most of our interactions with supporters are voluntary and not contractual. However, sometimes it will be necessary to process personal information so that we can enter contractual relationships with people. For example, if you subscribe to one of our publications, or purchase merchandise online. (3) Legal obligations Sometimes we will be obliged to process your personal information due to legal obligations which are binding on us. We will only ever do so when strictly necessary. (4) Legitimate interests Applicable law allows personal information to be collected and used if it is reasonably necessary for our legitimate activities (as long as its use is fair, balanced and does not unduly impact individuals rights). We will rely on this ground to process your personal data when it is not practical or appropriate to ask for consent. Achieving our purposes These include (but are not limited to) promoting socialist policies Governance Internal and external audit for financial or regulatory compliance purposes Statutory reporting Publicity and income generation Conventional direct marketing and other forms of marketing, publicity or advertisement Unsolicited messages, including campaigns, newsletters, and fundraising appeals Analysis, targeting and segmentation to develop and promote or strategy and improve communication efficiency Personalisation used to tailor and enhance your experience of our communications Operational Management Maintenance of suppression files Processing for historical, scientific or statistical purpose Purely administrative purposes Responding to enquiries Delivery of requested products or information Communications designed to administer existing services including subscriptions, administration of petitions and financial transactions Thank you communications and receipts Maintaining a supporter database and suppression lists Financial Management and control Processing financial transactions and maintaining financial controls Prevention of fraud, misuse of services, or money laundering Enforcement of legal claims Reporting criminal acts and compliance with law enforcement agencies When we use your personal information, we will consider if it is fair and balanced to do so and if it is within your reasonable expectations. We will balance your rights and our legitimate interests to ensure that we use your personal information in ways that are not unduly intrusive or unfair in other ways. Data retention The length of time each category of data will be retained will vary depending on how long we need to process it for, the reason it was collected, and in line with any statutory requirements. After this point the data will either be deleted, or we may retain a secure anonymised record for research and analytical purposes. In the event that you ask us to stop sending you direct marketing/fundraising/other electronic communications, we will keep your name on our internal suppression list to ensure that you are not contacted again. Policy amendments We keep this Privacy Policy under regular review and reserve the right to update from time-to-time by posting an updated version on our website, not least because of changes in applicable law. We recommend that you check this Privacy Policy occasionally to ensure you remain happy with it. We may also notify you of changes to our privacy policy by email. Third party websites We link our website directly to other sites. This Privacy Policy does not cover external websites and we are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those sites. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of any external websites you visit via links on our website. Updating information You can check the personal data we hold about you, and ask us to update it where necessary, by emailing us at webmaster@marxist.com Contact We are not required by law to have a Data Protection Officer however we have a Data Protection Manager. Please let us know if you have any queries or concerns whatsoever about the way in which your data is being processed by emailing the Data Protection Manager at webmaster@marxist.com For the past several months there have been persistent reports in the media about the possibility of a coalition between the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and the main bourgeois opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), at local government level. Now the leadership of the EFF have confirmed that discussions have taken place. However, if a cooperation agreement between the EFF and the DA on the electoral plain is struck and a popular front becomes a reality, it could deal a blow to the future prospects for the Fighters and put them on the path opposite to which society is moving. The Sunday Times reported that discussions between several opposition parties are taking place ahead of the local government elections. According to the paper the leader of the EFF, Julius Malema, has called for coalitions of opposition parties after this years local government elections in municipalities where the African National Congress (ANC) fails to win an outright majority. The proposal is that the elections will be contested separately, and where an opposition party wins more than 50% of the votes, then no coalitions will be formed. Only in instances where the ANC fails to win more than 50% of the vote will a coalition of opposition parties be formed to keep the ANC out. Based on previous voting patterns, in at least three key metropolitan areas - Nelson Mandela Bay, Tshwane, and Johannesburgthe ANC might fall below 50% in this years local government elections. This would open up the real possibility of a coalition government of opposition parties. Although there exist a host of opposition parties, they are extremely small and very fragmented. In essence, only the DA and EFF are big enough currently to pose any kind of electoral challenge to the ANC at local government level. This is not the first time that a proposal for a coalition between the DA and the EFF has been proposed. Already in July last year Malema said publicly that the EFF will be open to working with opposition parties in the forthcoming local government elections. In an interview with Reuters, Malema confirmed this and called on a grand coalition of parties. South Africans must shoot warning shots now, through their votes . . . It is an opportunity now for South Africans to show the ANC that they are tired; that the ANC should begin to take them seriously, ahead of the national elections in 2019, Malema said. Class balance of forces The immediate reason why the DA would consider such a coalition is because it is stagnating. This is rooted in its origins in the former Progressive (later United) Party, the former liberal wing of the regime under apartheid. With the demise of the National Party, the ruling party under apartheid, the DA has grown to the extent that it has by absorbing the conservative Afrikaner petit-bourgeoisie which formed the National partys support base. But now the DA has reached a ceiling as the vast majority of blacks, even many from a petit bourgeois background, still associate it with the apartheid regime. Therefore, the party is struggling to get the support of the black masses in sufficient numbers to pose any kind of threat to the ANC. By forming a coalition with the EFF, the DA is seeking legitimacy amongst the black workers and youth. This confirms the favourable balance of forces towards the working class. For the past two decades the bourgeoisie were forced to rule society through the leadership of the ANC. But the crisis of capitalism has to a great extent eroded the unrivalled political authority which the ANC leaders enjoyed in the past. Now the former liberation movement is facing declining support due to a falling economy, high unemployment, mismanagement of public resources, corruption scandals involving President Zuma, and a widening gulf between rich and poor. In the final analysis, this is due to the ANCs pursuit of out-and-out capitalist policies over the last two decades. Having abandoned its liberation-era policies of nationalisation of the economy, and by striking a deal with the capitalists which kept the system intact, the ANC accepted responsibility for managing the crisis of capitalism. This was not what the majority of the supporters of the ANC were fighting for. For the masses, the fight for democracy was a fight for an end to poverty, hunger, and want. It was a fight for jobs, housing, and a better life. Instead, only a small layer at the top of the former liberation movement has benefited. For the vast majority, nothing fundamental has changed. Over the last period the anger which has been building up has resulted in the fragmentation of the ANC along class lines. The biggest manifestation of this was the crystallisation of forces to the left of the ANC - the EFF, on one hand, and the metalworkers union, NUMSA, on the other. This is an extremely important phenomenon and signifies the moving of society to the left. Both organisations have rejected the ANCs National Development Plan and are insisting on the implementation of the Freedom Charter. Both NUMSA and the EFF are very radical and have received mass support from large sections of society. NUMSA is one of the fasted growing unions in the world, and the EFF has completely dominated the discussions in parliament since the last national elections and are often at the forefront of public debates. With the collapse of the authority of the ANC leaders, the capitalists realise that it is no longer possible for for these leaders to hold the working masses back. This poses a grave danger to the bourgeoisie because the masses are moving through channels which the capitalists have no control over. On the other hand, their own forces, like the DA, possess even less legitimacy than the leaders of the ANC in the eyes of the workers. The EFFs militant and radical rhetoric has provided an outlet for some of the anger which had been building up in society, especially amongst the youth. Seeing this, a section of the bourgeoisie now considers the possibility of containing the rise of EFF by channeling their healthy militancy into the death trap of popular front politics. Fault lines in the DA The new DA leader, Mmusi Maimane, has not ruled out the possibility of an electoral coalition involving the EFF. Our focus as the DA right now is to achieve the best possible result in next years municipal elections which includes retaining Cape Town, winning Tshwane, Nelson Mandela Bay and bringing the ANC below 50% in Johannesburg. We will consider the matter of coalitions if applicable after the election results are declared, he said last year. The reason for his cautious approach is that the DA itself is divided on the issue. Before the 2014 national election, former leader Helen Zille was unequivocal that the DA would not be willing to work with the EFF. I wish to state categorically that the DA will not enter into a coalition with the EFF under any circumstances. A coalition with the EFF would be unworkable given the huge ideological gulf between our parties. The fact is that the ANC and the EFF are two sides of the same corrupt coin, she said. However talk of a coalition is causing contradictions between the liberal and conservative wings of the party. The conservatives are aghast at the possibility of a coalition with the EFF. The DA is an alliance between conservative Afrikaner petit-bourgeois elements who derived their land, wealth, and privileges from the forceful dispossession of the black masses, and the liberals who own the biggest share of the countrys economy. The very idea of working with the EFF, a party which is seen as standing for the nationalisation of the strategic sectors of the economy and the expropriation of land without compensation, is anathema. The danger for Maimane is that pursuing a coalition with the EFF forcefully could be counter-productive, repelling a section of his conservative base. What Malema wants Malemas first goal in the local elections is to beat the ANC wherever he can. He has flatly rejected any suggestion of a coalition with the ANC. Although he is contesting the local elections on their own merits, his real aim is to use it as a springboard for the 2019 national elections in which he hopes to strike a heavy blow to the ANC. But there is also a broader and more overarching goal which determines all his actions. Malema believes that it is possible to reconcile the divergent interest of capitalist society with the radical programme of the EFF. In other words, he believes that it is somehow possible for the working class to achieve its aims and to peacefully coexist with the capitalists - all that is needed is to convince them. This explains the series of meetings between a range bourgeois elements and the leadership of the EFF over the last few months. These includes meetings with business executives in the United Kingdom recently. In turn, many business leaders, executives, directors of commerce and industries, etc., were all too keen to meet the EFF leadership. Many of them have adapted themselves to the situation and have sought to change their approach to the EFF over the recent period. Seeing that their demagogic rhetoric against the EFF is not working (and in fact is having the opposite effect), a section of the capitalists are changing their tune by pretending to seek a better understanding of the EFF. Clearly, these people have decided that it would be much more prudent to keep your enemy close and to co-opt it into the running of capitalist society. That is co-opt it into the attacks against the living standards that the system and the capitalist class demands. On his recent trip to the UK, Malema expressed his idea of coexistence and social peace in a number of forums. Whilst in Oxford Malema proposed the idea of employees shareholding schemes as a solution for both capitalists and workers. We need to put more money into the pockets of the workers. Its the most practical way of redistributing the wealth in South Africa. It will do away with industrial action. Why would workers go on strike if they knew last year that each one of us got R60,000 through dividends and were told if we double up (production) well get R120,000. No-one will sleep! When a union leader comes to mobilise for strikes, theyll say no, a strike will jeopardise our dividends. Imagine they get bonuses and dividends and you tell them to go and strike, you will be speaking a foreign language to them, they will never agree to go into unnecessary industrial action", he said. This idea is nothing new and many capitalists agree with this. Actually it has been been implemented in South Africa on a number of occasions. Kumba Iron Ore introduced a whole package of these schemes recently. But whereas the company paid out the dividends last year, this year it laid-off thousands of workers due to the collapse of global commodity prices. This shows that such schemes are not a solution because it does not go beyond the system of capitalism which is responsible for the crisis. The only result it has is to put more economic pressure on the workers in order to exploit them more. But while Malema is trying to convince the capitalists of his plan, the only reason they take him seriously is the masses that he is mobilising. An example of this was when he led a mass march of 50,000 people through central Johannesburg. The aim of the march was to present a list of demands to key bourgeois institutions like the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, the Reserve Bank and the Chamber of Mines. For the masses, the march was an opportunity to express their hope, frustrations and aspirations through the channels which the EFF was providing and which they hope are summarised in the list of demands the party handed over to the representatives of the capitalists. Malemas radical measures, mass mobilisation and rhetoric is clearly gaining an echo amongst the angry and frustrated masses. But whereas the masses do not necessarily read the smallprint of programmes, memoranda and lists of demands, the same cannot be said of the capitalists. After the march, Peter Bruce, a key strategist of Capital and former Business Day editor wrote a column in which he analysed the twenty-three demands which the EFF handed to the Reserve Bank. He wrote: For capitalism to survive here, it has to be more inclusive. We must somehow democratise the way we create and spread wealth. Try as you might, there is no other way. And the good thing about the march, for me at least, is that the poor want in to the system, not to break it. How lucky can you get? If Julius were sensible, hed get a group of retired business leaders to help him craft a new economy both they and he could live with. His approach is very revealing and typical of a section of the more far-sighted representatives of Capital. First he praised Malema for emphasising the need to focus on the economy and then he tried to flatter Malema into a compromise by pretended that that could serve the interests of both sides - something Malema also believes. But the capitalists do not believe a word of this. Although this sly bourgeois tried to placate Malema by saying that some of the demands are useful, he essentially poured cold water over them by calling them playing to the gallery and naive. On the other hand, Maimanes approach to the continuation of further talks is also revealing. He has set down very strong parameters, namely, adherence to the the countrys constitution (which protects property rights), commitment to a free market economy, non-racialism, and professionalism. (Daily Maverick 1/2/2016). This would mean that any party which aligns itself with the DA would inevitably have to abandon any socialist policies. This is typical of how a popular front works - the bourgeois insists that the working class organisation water down its programme while keeping its own programme intact. But it is also a reflection of the irreconcilable interests of working class and the capitalist class. This strong stance has hardened relations lately. At a news conference on February 4th, Malema emphasised that any coalition agreement must be based on the EFFs programme. At first glance this would sound like a strong rebuff to the DA. But this is at odds with what Malema and the EFF has said from the beginning when he suggested that an agreement must be based on contractual relationships and annual targets. This suggests that Malema is vacillating, or at least giving serious consideration to the possibility. Moreover, Malema is insisting that his first priority is to unseat the ANC wherever he could in the local elections. But the only way this could happen in the metropolitan areas is precisely to form a coalition with the DA since neither party is strong enough at this stage to unseat the ANC on its own. Orientate toward the working class The Sunday Times article says that what was being discussed was a united front. This is incorrect. A united front is a front of working class organisations. The DA is not a workers organisation. It is the main party of the capitalists, with adherence to the market economy enshrined in its constitution. What is being proposed is not a united front, but a popular front. A popular front has nothing to do with revolutionary politics. It is a policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie. The answer does not lie in deals with the capitalists, but by orientating towards the working class. Currently there is a massive class division in the ANC between the leaders, bureaucracy, careerists, and capitalists at the top, and its working class base. The formation of EFF itself is an outcome of this division. This working class base has moved in the opposite direction to the leaders, and they have often been at the forefront of the explosive growth of strikes and community protests over last few years. The majority of these protests have taken place at the local government level and have centred around the non-delivery of houses and the cut-off of basic services like water and electricity. Many of these protests have also taken place in poor areas in the Western Cape where the DA is the governing party. Should the EFF align itself with the DA in some local governments, it runs the risk of being chained to capitalist policies like the user-pay principle, which is being used by the ANC and DA governments at the local level. This would mean that the EFF would share culpability for the cutoff of basic services to poor communities, which is its base. This will severely curtail future prospects for the EFF. Of course, a deal between the EFF and the DA is by no means a forgone conclusion. Nor is it a certainty that if a deal is reached, that it will hold. As we have explained, the DA bureaucracy is mindful of the implications if they force a deal through against the consent of the more short-sighted and conservative base. The situation is so delicate for the DA leaders that they risk plunging the party into a deep crisis which could even lead to a split. Such an outcome would push the balance of forces even more in favour of the working class. But neither should the EFFs flirtation with popular frontism be downplayed. With the bourgeoisie alarmed at the situation and looking for a way out of the crisis of their system, it is not for the Left to give them any life-lines. South African society is moving to the left. The mass outrage by workers over recent attacks on workers pensions which were signed into law by Zuma is the latest indicator of this. However, the attacks against living standards, the rising inequality and the falling living standards in South Africa are not caused by this or that corrupt politician. The ANCs main weakness is not the personality of individuals leading it, but the fact that they have accepted the boundaries of the capitalist system. Thus they have also accepted to carry out the attacks that the system requires. The task of the left, therefore, is not to form alliances with capitalists whose interests are tied to the preservation of the system. But to fight alongside the working class to overthrow them. The EFF grew to be the mass force that it is by its militancy and robust nature and by expressing the revolutionary anger of the South African masses against the ills of capitalism. The only way to satisfy their aspirations is to concentrate this struggle by unifying the working class against the ruling class as a whole. Instead of a front with the DA it should therefore put forward a united front with NUMSA, the radical metal workers union. At its historic special congress in 2013, NUMSA announced a process for the establishment of the Movement for Socialism. Recently it is expressing this idea more explicitly and is now openly talking about forming a workers party to destroy the capitalist system. If the new party was to materialise it would be a huge step forward for the South African working class. A bold, decisive and resolute lead of by the powerful metalworkers union on the political front would cut across all the countervailing factors which are bedevilling South African society. The central role it plays in the production process, the political authority it possesses, coupled with its greater working class influence, will pull all other layers of the working class, as well as all the wavering elements of the petit-bourgeoisie, behind it. This would have major revolutionary implications and it is these forces which are the natural allies of the youth and poor who support the EFF. South African capitalism is in an acute crisis. The bourgeois is increasingly alarmed at the situation. This causes divisions between them. At the same time they are beginning to look for ways to shackle the workers movement. In trying to do this, they are causing even further divisions among themselves. On the other hand, the working class has flexed its muscles over the recent period. Other layers, such as the students, have been drawn into the struggle. South African society is now preparing for a level of class struggle never before seen. A unity of the EFF and NUMSA on a revolutionary programme of nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy under the democratic control and management of the working class would galvanise the anger of the masses and become the largest political force in South Africa. This in turn could prepare the way for a socialist revolution in the country sending shockwaves throughout Africa and beyond. EUROPE Matthew Anders returns to the camera as a horny and still dashingly handsome daddy with an insatiable appetite for twink ass and dick. Slurping and sucking on dark haired Danny Monteros dick (recently signed to CockyBoys) the two soon spread the word that an orgy is in order. Calling around, they hit up Kayden Gray, who may have been mid fuck with tiny Cory Prince. Kayden and Cory are in, and with more joining along the way, its a chill-out without much chill as boy after boy join the ranks and put that sofa to the test! With French fucker Nathan Hope and blonde Kamyk Walker being the first to arrive with Danny, Cory and Matthew, these two soon shoot their loads, just in time for more to fill the void, and who better than Kayden Gray returning with pals Lyle Boyce and Ross Drake taking up the rear. Directed by Blacky Mendez, known for his cinematic features under the DreamBoy brand, its his first turn at Dads Fucking Lads. Available on DVD, HD, and SD Downloads from EurocremeStore.com For more information Daddys Orgy or any other Eurocreme Production, access to our press site and online image / info repository, please contact [email protected] Jon Lal just wants to help a fellow entrepreneur out -- and in this case it's Kanye West. The CEO of Boston-based BeFrugal, a coupon and deals website, has offered to bail the hip hop star out of $53 million in personal debt. And Lal said he's completely serious. So serious that he sent West a letter via FedEx and Twitter on Thursday, bought him an airline ticket to Boston and booked him a local hotel room -- the Comfort Inn in Revere -- for a meeting. He also sent West proof that he actually has the funds. Lal, 47, said it's less about the music and more about entrepreneurial spirit. "I'm an entrepreneur and so is Kanye," Lal said. "He is a talented musician. His track record speaks for itself." Lal said the seven-year-old privately-backed BeFrugal has more than 2 million users every month who visit the site. He declined to disclose revenue for the company, but said he has 25 employees. In the letter to West, Lal said that while he doesn't have $1 billion "to fund your ideas, I can help get you out of debt. I will invest $53 million in you ... the amounts released in 10 percent increments." Lal said as part of his financing package, West would have to "create music and art that is a positive to society and enriches people's lives." He also said West's music and projects "should generate sufficient cash flow to earn an appropriate return on the $53 million investment." Lal also said that West should reign in his spending: "No $40,000 fur coats or sending your personal assistant to Milan to shop for you. My CFO will audit your lifestyle and review all your expenses." "Please be nice to Taylor Swift," said Lal at the end of his letter. "My daughters love her." Lal previously spent time founding tech company Winferno Software and, before that, in investment management. Four of those years were at Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co. LLC (GMO), an investment firm with offices in Boston, London, Sydney and San Francisco. BOSTON - The FBI has doubled it's reward for any information leading to the arrest of the "Incognito Bandit," a man who has robbed five banks around Boston since last September. During each of the robberies, the suspect wore a dark hooded sweatshirt, dark pants, gloves, sunglasses, and a face mask. He used dark colored socks to cover his shoes. In each of the robberies, the suspect demanded cash from the tellers and brandished a semi-automatic handgun before fleeing the bank. The suspect is believed to be an African-American male in his 20s. He is approximately 5-feet-8-inches to 5-feet-11-inches tall and has a slender build. "What's most concerning to the FBI is the Incognito Bandit's increasingly brazen and violent behavior," said Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Boston Division. "During his last few robberies, the suspect has directly threatened the tellers with a semi-automatic handgun. In the interest of public safety, we need anyone with information about this individual to contact us immediately. We want to put a stop to these robberies and prevent anyone from getting hurt." The individual is alleged to be responsible for the following robberies: September 5, 2015 at approximately 12:32 p.m., Citizens Bank, 6 Russell Street, Woburn, Massachusetts October 16, 2015 at approximately 1:00 p.m., Winchester Savings Bank, 108 Medford Street, Arlington, Massachusetts January 15, 2016, at approximately 5:50 p.m., TD Bank, 305 Second Avenue, Waltham, Massachusetts January 25, 2016, at approximately 9:51 a.m., South Shore Savings Bank, 1538 Turnpike Street, Stoughton, Massachusetts February 2, 2016, at approximately 11:28 a.m., Enterprise Bank, 674 Boston Road, Billerica, Massachusetts Anyone with information should call the FBI Boston Division's Bank Robbery Task Force at 1 617-742-5533. Tips can also be electronically submitted at tips.fbi.gov. WEST SPRINGFIELD Not many kids would want to hang out in school during their February school vacation. But a peek into the one room schoolhouse at Storrowton Village in West Springfield proved that an intrepid few didn't mind. Storrowton Village Museum offered its annual "A Day Away in the Past" winter school vacation program and 5 youngsters took the opportunity to learn about life in the 1800's. Dressed in clothing of that period, the students designed a pattern for a quilt square, built wooden boat models, dipped candles in hot wax and sat for a lesson in the schoolhouse. And that was just the first half of the day. As Dennis Picard, director of Storrowton Village Museum said, "The kids don't even know they're learning. They just think they are having a good time". CHICOPEE Ryan Romano's dream job was always to combine his love of animals with the police work he has been doing for 19 years. But the Chicopee Police Department has always had a K9 officer in Joseph Brunelle, so Romano just stuck to regular crime work and also joined the community policing bicycle patrol. That all changed this year when the city increased the number of patrol officers, going from 106 to 115. That will allow the department to add a second K9 officer. When Romano heard of the addition, he jumped at the chance to work with a dog. "The city ordinance calls for two K9 units on the department but we haven't had the manpower until now," Police Chief William R. Jebb said. The last time the city had two K9 officers was more than 20 years ago. In a perfect world, Jebb said he would like to expand the number to three officers with trained dogs so there is one of each shift. For now he is working out specialized shifts for the two to ensure the K9 officers will be working when they are most needed. "I will use our crime statistics to determine the best times to have them on," Jebb said. The startup costs of adding a second K-9 officer, including the $7,000 price of buying the dog, will be funded with a private $25,000 Stanton Foundation grant the city received. Jebb thanked the foundation for its continued support to fund K9 law enforcement programs. The two dog officers are technically going to be considered their own bureau in the Police Department and will patrol the entire city, going where they are needed. They no longer will be assigned to fill in on a regular patrol to replace someone who is on vacation or out sick, said Michael Wilk, public information officer for the Chicopee Police Department. While details are still being worked out on how the dog officers will be best used, Romano is bonding with his new dog, who is named Kane at the suggestion of his wife and daughter. "I have shepherds myself, I love dogs but this is still all new to me," he said. Last week, he and his trainer, Dwane Foisy, a master K9 trainer and member of the Berkshire County Sheriff's Department, drove to western Pennsylvania to select his new partner. There were a dozen dogs, all which were about a year old and bred in Czech Republic. Romano said he quickly connected with Kane, and Foisy gave him the OK after making sure the dog would have the basic ability to work with police. Kane is a male sable German Shepherd born in December 2014. For now, the two are bonding using a practice that keeps the dog away from most people and other animals. Romano said the dog will live with his family, but currently is being separated from his two other German Shepherds. Eventually, Kane will have an insulated dog house with a fenced-in run and mainly stay outside except in the cold. "He rides along with me at work. He is in the car with me in a crate so he can get used to everything," Romano said. That includes things like the sound of handcuffs and the police radio. They are also attending weekly classes with Foisy just to learn a few basics such as the best ways to use the leash and harness before the full-time training starts, Romano said. At the same time, Romano said, he is learning commands in Czech. His trainer said it will be less confusing to the dog to use the language he understands best. The next step will begin on March 28 when Romano will join with two other new K9 officers from different departments to start a 10-week training program with Foisy. The classes will teach the dogs and officers all the basics of patrolling. Some of the skills include tracking missing people, protecting officers and crowd control. There will also be a lot of obedience training, Romano said. Police dogs are often also trained in a specialty, and Kane will later learn how to sniff out narcotics, he said. Once he is trained, Romano will respond any time an officer needs him. That could be for tracking a suspect who ran from police or to sniff out drugs if a patrolman stopped a car and has probable cause to believe there are drugs inside, he said. The two will also be used in a wide variety of other ways including school locker searches and community policing, Romano said. "It is a lot of work but it was always my dream. I always wanted to be a K9 officer," he said. "It is a calling. You have to want to do it." day.jpg Students from the Five Colleges will be observing International Mother Language Day and a gathering at UMass Sunday. (Submitted) AMHERST - About 60 students from the Five Colleges and community members will be coming together Sunday afternoon at the University of Massachsuetts to celebrate International Mother Language Day and the Bengali history. The date represents the day in 1952 when students demonstrating for recognition of their language, Bangla, as one of the two national languages of the then Pakistan, were shot and killed by police in Dhaka, the capital of what is now Bangladesh, according to the United Nations website. "This is to remember that history," said Sumera Ahsan Rachana a graduate student who helped organize the event that will feature food, music, a reading, poetry and speeches. The Bangladesh Student Association called Jatra has organized the event. "International Mother Language Day is based on our struggle for the freedom of expression in our language Bangla while we were under Pakistani rulers," Tulip Chowdhury, a community member wrote in an email. She will be reading at the celebration, Rachana said. "Ultimately the issue became bigger and with other discrimination resulted in the 1971 war of independence and we became Bangladesh." While there are only a handful of Bengali students at UMass, there are more at the other campuses, said Rachana. She said anyone who wants to attend should send her an email at sahsan@educ.umass.edu for an invitation. AMHERST - Students and staff with the Five Colleges are being advised to avoid the UMass campus while the campus in under a shelter-in-place order as police investigate a reported gunman in a Southwest dormitory. Officials with Amherst and Hampshire College in Amherst, Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley and Smith College in Northampton sent out alerts to campus to avoid the UMass campus until things there are sorted out. A shelter-in-place order was enacted for the UMass campus shortly after 6 p.m. after reports surfaced of two suspicious men, one of whom appeared to be armed with a gun, were seen in Pierpont Hall in the Southwest Residential Area. Police were continuing to search the area for the suspects. Everyone on the campus was directed to stay indoors. The campus sent out a notification just after 7 p.m. that the shelter in place order was still in effect, and that it applied to the entire campus. This is a developing story. More information will be added as it is known. PHILADELPHIA Adult feature dance agency The Lee Network presents Eva Lovia at Cheerleaders Philadelphia on February 19 and 20. The adult star will perform multiple dance routines each night during her headlining performances. Cheerleaders is located at 2740 S. Front St. in Philadelphia, PA 19148. The Digital Playground contract star brings her feature dance show to the City of Brotherly Love for the first time. She will be available for lap dances, fan photos, and autographs between performances. "I am so excited to dance for the first time in Philly this weekend and meet my fans on the East Coast, exclaimed Lovia. I grew up in Upstate New York, so coming back to the North East feels like home, and I can't wait to put on an amazing show and give my fans the opportunity to take a piece of me home with them, via my Fleshlights and DVDs!" With its upscale clientele and the hottest entertainers in the area, Cheerleaders Philadelphia is the ideal club for Evas Philly dance debut, said Tony Lee of The Lee Network. Eva's star power has been steadily rising over the last two years and shows no sign of stopping. It is only right that she should now be feature dancing at Philadelphia's number one gentleman's club it was an obvious match for us to make. We at Lee Network have little doubt that this will become a regular stop for her." For more information about Eva Lovias appearance at Cheerleaders Philadelphia, the clubs VIP amenities and more, call 215-467-1980. SANTA CLARITA, Calif.With the release of Shots Americas luxury brand Vive, the manufacturer debuted an impressive marketing campaign which has reached more than 30 million people to date. Vive is about to take their campaign to the next level: In collaboration with Harmony, Vive has its own complete window display, showcasing the brand to the streets of London and their international visitors. For two months, Vive will be in a starring role and create more brand awareness. The Harmony store is located at 103 Oxford Street, in the center of London. As one of the best store locations in Europe it has on average 200 million passersby per year, With this in mind, the Shots in-house design team has come up with an eye-catching 3D structure for the store window, that will surely draw the attention of passing consumers. At the front of the construction there will the various VIVE designs presented on a stand. The lighting from within will make sure that it even stands out at night. To see the display, visit HarmonyStore.co.uk. For more about Vive, visit ShotsAmerica.com. Store ownersboth birck-and-mortat and onlineinterested in displaying a similar setup can contact their sales manager. LOS ANGELESStephanie Berman, creator of the Semenette an d POPDildo, will be a guest on the popular pegging podcast Ruby Ryders Pegging Paradise on Sunday, Feb. 21. I have been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to talk with Ruby and am so excited at the opportunity, says Berman. With the launch of the new toy, the timing couldnt be better to introduce POPDildo to the pegging worldand I cant think of anyone better than Ruby to help me do so! Im confident that with Rubys passion and expertise, coupled with the unique features that POPDildo provides, we are going to bring something quite unique to the pegging community. The inventor of the innovative ejaculating dildo, who recently teamed up with German pleasure products manufacturer Fun Factory to introduce its second iteration, POP by The Semenette/POPDildo, will be discussing how the product can enhance the experience for pegging enthusiasts around the world. By incorporating Fun Factorys pleasure-focused shape, built for G-spot or prostate play, with the technology of the original Semenette, and allowing for the use of both bodily and nonbodily fluids, POPDildo is a novelty product for consumers from a wider variety of communities. Originally designed as a tool for making at-home insemination more intimate, POPDildo has quickly found a fan base in people excited by its potential for play. I was immediately captured by not only her ingenuity and innovation, but her passion as well, Ryder said of her first meeting with Berman. I had been asked by no less than three of my podcast listeners about the existence of a high-quality ejaculating dildo. Until Stephanie, one didnt exist! Im thrilled to have a chance to talk with her, and look forward to discussing the ways her POPDildo can fill a need in the world of pegging. Stephanie Bermans interview on Ruby Ryders Pegging Paradise will be broadcast in full on Sunday, February 21 on iTunes.apple.com. Ruby Ryders name is synonymous with peggingthe sexual practice in which a woman penetrates a mans anus with a strap-on dildo. Her sites, Ruby Ryders Pegging Paradise and Pegging: 101, explore the physical, emotional, and psychological aspects of pegging, including information on how to talk with your partner, equipment, techniques, myths and misconceptions, success stories, and much more. Her very popular podcast, launched and regularly updated since June 2012, is offered for free through iTunes and numerous podcast apps; Ryder is also a sought-after educator on the topic of pegging, holding consultations, workshops, and speaking on panels across the country. POPDildo is available for purchase directly at POPDildo.com; North American and international retail partners who carry POP are listed in the sites FAQ section, which is updated regularly. Retailers and distributors interested in carrying POPDildo may email [email protected] Advocates for gender parity like to argue that equality is not just about fairness, but also about better business results. New data from the Peterson Institute for International Economics and EY bolsters that case. The groups analyzed results from 21,980 global, publicly traded companies, in 91 countries from various industries and sectors and showed that having at least 30% of women in leadership positions, or the "C-suite," adds 6% to net profit margin. by Jenny Anderson Full Story: http://qz.com/612086/huge-study-find-that-companies-with-more-women-leaders-are-more-profitable/ A bill that would authorize the states largest utility to create a fund to pay for the eventual shutdown of two coal-powered electricity plants in Montana easily passed the Washington State Senate on Wednesday. Senate Bill 6248, which is being closely watched in Montana, passed by a vote of 42-7, and it now heads to the State House for consideration. The bill was amended to remove any provisions calling for the closure of two older coal-fired plants located in the company town of Colstrip, Montana. By NICHOLAS K. GERANIOS Full Story: http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/ap_news/montana/state-senate-passes-bill-involving-colstrip-plants/article_336f3b95-c6c0-55dd-b92e-9536ca5024f0.html Educating physicians is an important mission for the University of Idaho. The Association of American Medical Colleges is concerned that current physician training may not produce enough doctors to meet the national needs in the 21st century a concern I share. Idaho ranks 49th in physicians per capita. In a state with a critical need for physicians, understanding how medical education is delivered is necessary for making informed decisions about the future of such programs in Idaho planning for smart and sustained growth. By Chuck Staben Full Story: http://www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article61190487.html Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan is on a two-day tour of Moscow to meet with his counterparts about the signing of a new $8 billion arms contract, according to Irans state-controlled media. Iranian leaders are said to have provided Russia with what they call a shopping list of various arms and military hardware. The visit by Dehghan is expected to speed up a number of key arms deal[s] between the countries, according to Irans Fars News Agency. Iran wants to purchase more sophisticated anti-aircraft missile systems and also a new cadre of warplanes, according to the report. The new deals will be in addition to several outstanding arms and military contracts that have already been signed between Iran and Russia. Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday called for establishing a Palestinian state within the pre-1967-war borders amid efforts by Beijing to assert its economic and political clout in the Middle East. Addressing the Cairo-based Arab League, Xi said the Palestinian problem should not be marginalized. China supports the peaceful process in the Middle East [and] the establishment of a Palestinian state with its capital being eastern Jerusalem, he added through an interpreter. The Chinese president had arrived in Egypt Wednesday as part of a regional tour that has already taken him to Saudi Arabia. Iran will be the final stop in his three-nation trip. [my emphasis] Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh. blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work as well as a big vote to follow our good friend Kay Wilson on Twitter. . ..Abu Yehuda..19 February '16..This may be the worst short-term consequence of the Iranian nuclear deal of all:The troubling part is not that Iran will improve its military capabilities, although of course that will happen in a few years as the arms are delivered and integrated into the Iranian forces. But its what happenswhich is worrisome: Iran becomes Russias best customer in a very profitable industry.The same will be true of other countries. Germany and France sent delegations to Iran for dealmaking before the ink on the deal was dry (except that there wasnt any ink nothing has been signed except the various documents required to free up at least $100 billion in frozen Iranian funds and to remove sanctions on Irans oil industry). Iran is also expected to buy weapons from China. These deals will give Iran the ability to pressure its suppliers for political favors.Ive argued that Israel needs to reduce its dependence on the US for military hardware and should develop relationships with countries like Russia, China and (as Caroline Glick recently suggested) India. But this will be more difficult if it becomes important to those countries to keep the Iranian regime happy. Its already happening The relationship between Israel and the US, which seems to be getting worse all the time, may suffer even more. Recently, the huge General Electric Company sent the head of its oil and gas division to Iran to explore business opportunities.In international business/politics, the customer is always right and the big customer gets big influence. Usually its expressed by behind-the-scenes lobbying, but in 1973 oil companies doing business in the Arab world went public , with Texaco, Chevron, and Mobil all publicly calling for a change in US Middle East policy.After the war began, the oil companies lobbied US President Nixon against resupplying Israel (fortunately, fearing that Israelwould be driven to use nuclear weapons, he did not follow their advice). Will GE and other American companies be pressured to support Iranian goals once commerce with Iran becomes an important part of their business? How could they not?Under the present addict/pusher arrangement, Israel lacks the leverage it would get if there were competition for its business. Israel receives military aid from the US and then is required to use it to buy arms from US companies (and not only weapons things like boots, which once were produced by Israeli businesses , are imported from the US).It doesnt have clout with the Americans either. For example, Israel wanted access to the source code for the F-35s computer systems, so that it could modify and improve it. The US refused. Not only does this significantly slow the process of integration of the new aircraft with Israels systems, but it raises the specter of possible back doors into the code which might enable the US to track or even force the plane down.Think about it. How hard would it be to implant a routine in the aircrafts software that would provide a position report to an American satellite every few seconds? What if the airborne computer could receive a command to disable certain weapons systems? Or the engine? Or even be instructed to do so automatically when, say, the Iranian border is crossed? This isnt science fiction its a lot easier than many of the things a flight computer has to do.After the Iran deal was signed, the administration promised Israel that it would be compensated with additional aid. Israel wanted to use it to buy F-15SE aircraft and bunker busters, but according to Caroline Glick , the US refused and told it to buy more F-35s instead.Iran has been given multiple gifts by the Obama Administration, from billions of dollars up front to permission to ultimately build nuclear weapons (and the de facto ability to build them now without getting caught). It was considered Israels number one threat even before the deal, and the deal only made it stronger, militarily, politically and psychologically.Israel, on the other hand, has been hamstrung by the US. The administration interferes when Israel is forced to defend itself from attack by the Iranian proxies on its borders, prevents it from obtaining the weapons it would need to attack Irans nuclear facilities, subjects it to constant diplomatic pressure over the Palestinian issue, and now with the recent decision to enforce a rule demanding special labeling for goods produced over the Green Line joins Europe in encouraging BDS, in practice if not in words.$3 billion is a lot of money, but unlike the $100 billion that the nuclear deal has made available to Iran, it comes with so many strings attached that we would be better off without it. 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 Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, February 18, 2016 Wearables may soon be able to disconnect themselves from being tethered to smartphones and begin to act on their own. This has long been one of the promises of The Internet of Things, where each device or sensor will be independent and also connected via the cloud. On the eve of the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, a new standard already in some mobile devices has just been introduced as part of the GSMAs Consumer Remote SIM Provisioning initiative. The SIM specifications from the leading mobile industry group will encourage device manufacturers to create a new generation of lighter, mobile connected devices that are more suited for wearable technology products. The significance is that this will enable consumers to remotely and independently connect devices such as smart watches and fitness trackers to a mobile network. The new devices will use smaller chips that dont require as much space as a typical SIM card, which already are tiny, but still with the security built in. The key is that wearable devices then will be able to operate independently of a smartphone, with their own subscriptions (not sure yet how fees and billing will ultimately evolve). It also means wearables can get smaller, so that fitness trackers can shrink in size and smartwatches can focus more on fashion design. The new standard already has wide industry support, with backing from many major companies, including AT&T, Verizon, Apple, Sony, Samsung, Vodafone, Deutsche Telecom and Sprint. The general idea is that a consumer would activate their new wearable device with a wireless carrier, much like a new smartphone is activated. The things of The Internet of Things are starting to be their own thing. by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, February 18, 2016 Bill Cosby is suing one of his accusers and the National Enquirer for breach of contract relating to a legal settlement originally reached in 2006. It involves sexual assault accusations that are now at the center of a new criminal case against Cosby. Cosbys lawyers apparently filed the civil lawsuit in an attempt to delay that criminal case. Earlier this month, Cosby filed a lawsuit against Andrea Constand, her mother and two lawyers, and National Enquirer publisher American Media Inc. He accusing them of sharing details of Cosbys deposition in a previous civil lawsuit, in violation of confidentiality agreements signed in 2006. Previously, in 2005, Constand had accused Cosby of drugging her with pills and alcohol before sexually assaulting her at his Philadelphia home in 2004. After then-District Attorney Bruce Castor declined to bring criminal charges against Cosby, Constand filed a civil lawsuit against Cosby, which was subsequently settled out of court. As part of the out-of-court settlement, Constand signed a confidentiality agreement promising neither party would talk about any details of the case. The National Enquirer was threatening to publish a damaging expose, based on allegations by another woman, Beth Ferrier, which would have included information from Cosbys deposition in the Constand case, where he admitted drugging other young women for sex. However, the Enquirer and Cosby reached an agreement, whereby Cosby would give the tabloid an exclusive detailing what he portrayed as Constands extortion attempt, in return for the tabloid dropping the story based on Ferriers accusations. After the story accusing Constand of extortion was published in 2005, in 2006 Constand sued American Media and Cosby for libel. The new case was once again settled out of court, with a financial settlement along with renewed confidentiality agreements. Last year, following similar allegations by dozens of other women, the Constand case came under renewed scrutiny, fueled by details of Cosbys 2005 deposition, which were published in The New York Times despite the confidentiality agreements. Lawyers for a number of other accusers suing Cosby for defamation have also demanded that American Media release details of the deposition, which was subsequently unsealed as part of the criminal investigation. Facing criminal prosecution for aggravated indecent assault, a second-degree felony, Cosbys lawyers argued that he had received a promise from Castor that the case would never be prosecuted. However, the new District Attorney, Kevin Steele, countered by arguing that he is not bound by this promise, and a judge allowed the preliminary criminal court filings to proceed earlier this month. Just before this setback, Cosbys lawyers filed the lawsuit against Constand and the National Enquirer, apparently hoping to use the lawsuit alleging breach of contract to silence Constand and her lawyers, or at least delay the criminal case. Constands lawyers have testified in the criminal case under subpoena. Cosby faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted. by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, February 18, 2016 The Federal Communications Commission voted 3-2 today to move forward with a controversial plan for new cable box rules that would let people more easily watch TV on smartphones, tablets and other devices. The vote sets up a battle reminiscent of the recent fight over net neutrality regulations. Cable companies adamantly oppose the proposal; consumer groups back the move, as does Google and the Silicon Valley lobbing group Internet Association. For now, the "unlock-the-box" initiative is in an early phase: The agency voted today to approve a "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking" for regulations enabling Google and other companies to develop boxes that can access pay-TV programs. The FCC says those regulations will give consumers new options to access pay-TV through devices and apps. advertisement advertisement FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has repeatedly said that new options could save consumers significant costs. Currently, around 99% of pay-TV subscribers rent at least one set-top box, at an average price of $231 per year. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts), who supports the proposal, quickly praised the FCC's move, stating that it will "help ensure that consumers are not captive to high video box leasing fees forever." Walter McCormick, president of the industry group USTelecom, just as promptly denounced the agency, predicting the FCC "will inevitably straightjacket innovation and harm competition, neither of which will serve the public interest. When Wheeler first unveiled the plan, the cable industry said it wasn't necessary because consumers can already stream many programs to tablets and smartphones via apps. Several days ago, the cable industry came out with its newest argument against the rule change: It will compromise users' privacy, because the FCC can't require Google and other third parties to follow the same privacy rules as cable and satellite companies. "The Chairmans approach creates a gaping hole in consumer privacy where none exists today, and leaves our personal viewing histories at the mercy of vast businesses built almost entirely on mining, exploiting, and profiling our personal data," the cable group Future of TV Coalition said Monday. "It would be the biggest step backwards for consumer privacy ever enacted by the FCC." It's worth noting that despite the cable industry's apparent condemnation of data mining, the cable and telecom industry also opposes any attempts by the FCC to restrict their ability to track broadband users for ad-targeting purposes. The FCC counters that it may require Google or other device and app developers to certify that they comply with similar privacy rules as cable and satellite providers. -- though whether those certifications will be enforceable is another question. The FCC will accept comments on the proposal for at least several months, and could vote on it by the end of the year. by Philip Rosenstein , Staff Writer, February 19, 2016 Tomorrow is a significant day in both the GOP and Democratic primaries. The difference from the two early contests of Iowa and New Hampshire is that we now have tangible proof that the nominations of Donald Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders should be treated as real possibilities. The primary in South Carolina and caucuses in Nevada on Feb. 20, will either further complicate the races, like Iowa and New Hampshire have, or offer clarity, particularly in the GOP contest. Record turnout is expected in the South Carolina Republican primary. Commenting on the prediction, Larry Sabato, director of UVAs Center for Politics, stated: Never before has there been such a crush of national TV attention nor so many dynamic, polarizing candidates. One of those polarizing candidates, Trump, is widely expected to win big. FiveThirtyEight gives him an 81% chance of winning the primary. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio has a good shot at picking up a strong third place behind Cruz, with the well timed endorsement from Gov. Nikki Haley. advertisement advertisement The GOP race has been itching to winnow down to three candidates, despite the six-man field already feeling pretty undersized. Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz come to South Carolina with the two highest delegate counts, 17 and 11, respectively. Rubio is a close third with 10. Jeb Bush, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Dr. Ben Carson each has 5 delegates or fewer. South Carolina has 50 delegates up for grabs, the highest count yet. Momentum, such an important factor in generating excitement around a candidate and helping to inspire actual votes, will be crucial leading up to March 1. That's when 11 states go to the polls to pick a party nominee. Bush will hope for an exceptional showing in South Carolina to have even a whisper of a shot come Super Tuesday. Kasich wont be in South Carolina on primary day; one can guess what his campaign is expecting to happen there. On the same day, Democrats will be in Nevada, vying for a total of 35 delegates. As far as delegate counts go, Hillary Clinton is miles ahead with the 400+ super-delegates, who have already pledged their support to the former Secretary of State. Sanders, however, is quickly closing in on Clinton in national polls, and a win in Nevada will further fan the Bern. Polling in Nevada itself looks like Iowa, where the candidates were in a dead-heat. RealClearPolitics polling average has Sanders at 46.3 and Clinton at 48.7. by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, February 19, 2016 A federal judge signed off this week on a deal that requires LinkedIn to pay $13 million for allegedly misappropriating users' identities by sending email invitations to their friends. The final version of the settlement calls for the social networking service to pay around $20 each to approximately 440,000 users, according to court papers filed earlier this month. Koh also awarded the attorneys who brought the case $3.25 million in fees. U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh in the Northern District of California wrote that the deal was acceptable for several reasons, including the "risks, expense, complexity, and likely duration of further litigation." Koh added: "Any litigation outcome would be subject to potential appeals, which would have (at best) substantially delayed any potential recovery." advertisement advertisement She noted that the $13 million total settlement is larger than other privacy settlements, including Google's $8.5 million settlement of a lawsuit accusing it of leaking the names of people who use the company's search engine. Koh's decision to grant the deal final approval resolves a lawsuit dating to September of 2013, when a group of LinkedIn users accused the company of violating the federal wiretap law by hacking into their email accounts, in order to harvest their friends' addresses. The users also alleged that LinkedIn misappropriated their names and identities by sending a series of three email invitations to their friends. The users acknowledged that the company asked them for permission to grow their networks, but said the service gave only cryptic disclosures before harvesting email addresses and sending invitations. Koh narrowed the case in 2014, when she rejected the hacking claim on the grounds that the users agreed to transmit an initial email invitation to their friends. But she allowed the consumers to proceed with claims regarding the two follow-up emails. The settlement also requires LinkedIn to revise some of its prior practices. Among others, LinkedIn will change the disclosures it makes when asking people to grow their networks via the automated Add Connections feature. Now, the company will explicitly state that its Add Connections tool imports people's address books. LinkedIn also will let people who use Add Connections wield more control over which contacts receive the automated invitations and follow-up emails. by Larissa Faw , February 19, 2016 Clemens Food Group has appointed LevLane as its AOR for its Hatfield Quality Meats and Farm Promise pork brands following a four-month review. The incumbent was Allebach Communications, Souderton, Pa. LevLane will be responsible for brand planning, creative, media and social. The creative will include both consumer-targeted and trade-oriented, specifically institutional, supermarket and restaurant messaging. This account switch comes as the family-owned meat brand is prepping expansion plans. The company, based in Hatfield, PA (not far from Philadelphia) is constructing a new facility in Coldwater, MI so that it can extend its service area farther west. First work from Philadelphia-based LevLane breaks in spring of this year. Selection was managed by Clemens Food Group Director of Marketing John Masotta, and LevLane landed the business largely due to its "multidisciplinary and ROI-oriented approach, with its emphasis on the nexus of strategic planning, branding, engagement and analytics," according to the company. by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, February 19, 2016 Among its many other heinous innovations, the terrorist group and self-proclaimed caliphate Islamic State has pioneered the use of social media for propaganda and recruiting purposes but its success may prove fleeting, as social media companies like Twitter are now aggressively identifying and shutting pro-ISIS accounts. Thats according a new academic paper, titled The Islamic States Diminishing Returns on Twitter, published by researchers at the George Washington University Program on Extremism. By tracking the number and activity of thousands of Twitter accounts associated with ISIS supporters, the researchers found that the social network has succeeded in holding the overall number of accounts and followers flat, while some of the most persistent ISIS supporters have suffered major disruptions: Over time, individual users who repeatedly created new accounts after being suspended suffered devastating reductions in their follower counts. advertisement advertisement Program on Extremism fellow J.M. Berger stated: Suspensions have a measurable effect in suppressing the activity of ISIS networks on Twitter. Occasional large-scale suspensions, such as we saw after the Paris attacks, have dramatically reduced the size of ISIS presence on social media, and a lower level of routine suspensions hold the network flat in between these events. The data also suggests that repeated suspensions are so disruptive that they deter ISIS supporters from using Twitter in the long term. On that note, the researchers found that Network and individual declines persisted even when suspension pressure eased, suggesting that suspensions diminish activity in ways that extend beyond the simple removal of accounts. Earlier this month Twitter announced that it had shut down around 125,000 accounts associated with ISIS since the middle of last year. Last year a report from the Brookings Institution estimated that there were around 46,000 ISIS supporters using Twitter at that time, many of whom create multiple accounts after being shut down to counter the social networks policies. Twitter, Facebook and other big social media platforms have been working with national governments to disrupt terrorist propaganda and recruiting on their networks. In January the White House dispatched top national security officials to Silicon Valley to enlist tech companies support in these efforts. by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, February 19, 2016 Last October, White House officials retreated from the idea that tech companies should be required to create "back doors" that would allow authorities to defeat encryption techniques. Now that a dispute about encryption between Apple and the FBI has erupted in court, four Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are reminding everyone that the Obama administration had good reasons to stop pressing for back doors. Properly understood, strong encryption is our best defense against online criminals -- including terrorist organizations," Reps. John Conyers (Michigan), Jerrold Nadler (New York), Zoe Lofgren (California) and Shiela Jackson Lee (Texas), stated Thursday. "It is the backbone of the Internet economy and vital for the protection of both free expression and privacy." The lawmakers are responding to the widely publicized news that U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym in the Central District of California ordered Apple to build software that could help the authorities defeat encryption on an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. advertisement advertisement Apple is challenging that order in court. The company has no realistic choice, given the far-reaching ramifications of Pym's ruling, which could have a devastating impact on online security. Twitter, Facebook and Google have all expressed support for Apple, as have digital rights advocates like the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Among other arguments, Apple CEO Tim Cook arguing that once this type of software is created, it could be used to hack anyone's device. That concern is shared by many online security experts. "Once Apple creates a bypass, the methodology will be analyzed, studied and exploited by sophisticated criminals at first, and then by others," the think tank Future of Privacy Forum writes. "There may or may not be any useful clues on the iPhone of the San Bernardino killers, but it is for certain that many criminals in the future will find data they want on the iPhones of consumers, if an exploit is created to bypass passwords, encryption and other protections." The organization adds that one result of Apple's strong encryption is that iPhone theft rates dropped by as much as 50% in some cities after the company introduced its current digital locks. Daniel Weitzner, former White House deputy chief technology officer for Internet policy, made the same point last November, in a Washington Post column written after the terrorist attacks in Paris. "Even if we think we have an exceptional access solution for Apple or Google to deploy, we have to imagine whether its tolerable for it to end up in the hands of bad actors," he wrote. "This puts both users and Internet companies in the impossible position of either compromising basic human rights or forgoing access to the worlds largest markets such as China and Russia." The Democratic lawmakers backing Apple add that requiring the company to hack an iPhone would threaten "the trust of millions of customers" and place U.S. technology "at a significant disadvantage abroad." Apple is expect to file papers challenging Pym's order by next Friday. Increasing health care providers' level of concern about prescription drug abuse in their communities may be an effective public health tool in fighting America's prescription drug abuse epidemic, according to a study by researchers from the School of Public Health and the Department of Sociology at Georgia State University. The researchers found concern about prescription drug abuse may affect providers' practices. "Our research suggests that a number of health care providers already have voluntarily begun to change their prescribing and dispensing practices in ways that may be reducing the supply of scheduled prescriptions in communities," the researchers said. The study results are published in the Pain Physician Journal in a report titled, "Concern about the Expanding Prescription Drug Epidemic: A Survey of Licensed Prescribers and Dispensers." The study's lead author is Dr. Eric Wright, a professor with appointments in Health Management & Policy and Sociology at Georgia State. Prescription drug abuse is an epidemic in the United States, posing the greatest risk to white men and rural residents, according to the report. The cost associated with abuse of opioids -- one kind of prescription pain medication--reached nearly $56 million in 2007 and has likely increased, the report noted. The researchers surveyed nearly 6,000 doctors, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, dentists and pharmacists in Indiana about their views and practices related to addictive prescription drugs. The majority of those surveyed indicated they were very concerned about community prescription drug abuse, but a minority of responders -- mainly dentists -- indicated they were relatively unconcerned, the researchers found. "This research underscores the critical importance of engaging health care providers fully in public health efforts to reverse the course of the prescription drug epidemic," the report concluded. Many hospital patients were protected from a dangerous bug and at least 96 years of life will be saved each year, said Professor Nicholas Graves from QUT's Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI). Professor Graves conducted an NHMRC-funded evaluation of the National Hand Hygiene Initiative in 50 Australian hospitals across all states and territories from 2009 to 2012, published this week in PLOS ONE. The initiative promoted the 'five moments of hand-hygiene' to highlight critical times for health workers to wash their hands to control infection. It was found to be effective overall but it was an expensive programme costing around $2.9 million each year, Professor Graves said. He said the National Hand Hygiene Initiative aimed to curb hospital-acquired infections and improve safety in hospitals. "We know that healthcare costs are spiralling upwards and that we will never have enough money to fund all the prevention and treatment we would like," Professor Graves said. "Health economists look at the cost-effectiveness, or value for money, of health interventions to identify where health dollars are being used efficiently. "An example is that we know pregnant women should not smoke, but spending millions of dollars trying to convince a small number of women to stop could be a waste of money. "The same money might achieve better value elsewhere in the health system, like preventing children from getting diabetes. "Similarly, the national hand hygiene program has to stack up when compared to other health program we might like to fund." For this evaluation the extra costs of the national hand hygiene program were calculated and compared to the extra years of life gained. "Health economists use the concept of 'life years gained' to assess the health benefits of competing programs," Professor Graves said. "We look for programs that provide extra years of life at the lowest cost, and we should pick the bargains first if we want to get the biggest bang for our health buck. "The extra $2.9 million bought us only 96 years of life for the whole country, this is about $29,700 per life year gained. "The cost effectiveness of the initiative varied across the states. Queensland, for example, got better value for money where it cost only $8,988 per life year gained, because infection rates were higher and therefore the initiative was more effective. "But in Western Australia, where infection risks were already very low there were no cases prevented yet almost $600,000 was spent for nothing. "A similar story emerged for Tasmania where no cases were prevented and $250,000 was spent. In the ACT where 10 cases were prevented it cost $1,030 per life year gained, and this was a true bargain. "We can see that The National Hand Hygiene Initiative worked, but it was quite an expensive way to generate health benefits." Professor Graves said other research that had evaluated a variety of interventions for prevention, screening, diagnosis, and treatment had shown life years could be gained for $18,720, and a large number of programs cost under $10,000 per life year. "These findings suggest the National Hand Hygiene Initiative is effective but expensive. Policy makers could take note of the variability between states and tailor hand-hygiene campaigns to the local conditions." QUT is one of five Australian universities that have come together to form the Australian Technology Network of Universities (ATN). As world leaders grapple with containing the Zika virus, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa provides valuable lessons for how to respond to infectious disease epidemics, according to a policy report published by researchers at Princeton University and the Wellcome Trust. Rebuilding local health care infrastructures, improving capacity to respond more quickly to outbreaks as well as considering multiple perspectives across disciplines during decision-making processes are among the key recommendations the authors propose. The report, which was published in Science, states the World Health Organization (WHO) must again become the respected global health body with a clear mandate to provide global health leadership. This can only be made possible with binding commitments from the international community alongside an ability and willingness of WHO to lead, the researchers conclude. Based on an international conference held in Dublin, Ireland - "Modern Plagues: Lessons Learned from the Ebola Crisis" - the report was written by Janet Currie and Bryan Grenfell, both based at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust. Farrar was a keynote speaker at the event, and Currie and Grenfell served as panelists. "We hope that the Ebola crisis will provide the impetus to change the ways in which we prepare for and respond to epidemics, especially as new threats like Zika virus continue to emerge," the researchers wrote. The researchers' recommendations are as follows: Advertisement He said the National Hand Hygiene Initiative aimed to curb hospital-acquired infections and improve safety in hospitals."We know that healthcare costs are spiraling upwards and that we will never have enough money to fund all the prevention and treatment we would like," Professor Graves said."Health economists look at the cost-effectiveness, or value for money, of health interventions, to identify where health dollars are being used efficiently."An example is that we know pregnant women should not smoke, but spending millions of dollars trying to convince a small number of women to stop could be a waste of money."The same money might achieve better value elsewhere in the health system, like preventing children from getting diabetes."Similarly, the national hand hygiene program has to stack up when compared to another health program we might like to fund."For this evaluation, the extra costs of the national hand hygiene program were calculated and compared to the extra years of life gained."Health economists use the concept of 'life years gained' to assess the health benefits of competing programs," Professor Graves said."We look for programs that provide extra years of life at the lowest cost, and we should pick the bargains first if we want to get the biggest bang for our health buck."The extra $2.9 million bought us only 96 years of life for the whole country; this is about $29,700 per life year gained."The cost-effectiveness of the initiative varied across the states. Queensland, for example, got better value for money where it cost only $8,988 per life year gained, because infection rates were higher and, therefore, the initiative was more effective."But in Western Australia, where infection risks were already very low there were no cases prevented yet almost $600,000 was spent for nothing."A similar story emerged for Tasmania where no cases were prevented, and $250,000 was spent. In the ACT where 10 cases were prevented it cost $1,030 per life year gained, and this was a true bargain."We can see that The National Hand Hygiene Initiative worked, but it was quite an expensive way to generate health benefits."Professor Graves said other research that had evaluated a variety of interventions for prevention, screening, diagnosis, and treatment had shown life years could be gained for $18,720, and a large number of programs cost under $10,000 per life year."These findings suggest the National Hand Hygiene Initiative is effective but expensive. Policy makers could take note of the variability between states and tailor hand hygiene campaigns to the local conditions."QUT is one of five Australian universities that have come together to form the Australian Technology Network of Universities (ATN).The study is published in the journalSource: Eurekalert Advertisement Alexander A. Parikh, MD, MPH, FACS, Associate Professor of Surgery at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn., led the study; its results were presented at the Southern Surgical Association meeting in Hot Springs, Virginia, in December 2015. Pancreatic cancer is the fourth most common cause of cancer death in the United States, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with an estimated 48,960 new cases per year.Although surgical resection offers a potential cure, most patients have locally advanced or metastatic disease at diagnosis. Consequently, only 10 to 15 percent of patients are candidates for a potentially curative operation. Even among patients whose disease has been successfully resected, recurrence is common. Between 50 and 90 percent of patients have recurrences, and most of these patients die because of their disease. Because of the high incidence of disease recurrence, adjuvant therapy is given routinely after surgery for pancreatic cancer.Adjuvant therapy typically involves systemic chemotherapy given with or without chemoradiotherapy. A six-month course of chemotherapy is considered to be standard. The role of adjuvant chemoradiation, however, is often used at the discretion of the treating physician, and is usually recommended for patients who have signs of local disease advancement, such as positive lymph nodes or positive surgical margins. Dr. Parikh noted that this study is the first to examine the relationship between adjuvant chemotherapy and chemotherapy plus radiation on the patterns of disease recurrence and overall survival after primary surgical resection of pancreatic cancer.It was conducted by the Central Pancreatic Consortium (CPC), which includes nine academic medical centers that treat high volumes of patients with pancreatic cancer. "Individual institutions may differ slightly in the way they treat pancreatic cancer patients. When we do a collective, multicenter study, we decrease those differences and can provide insights that reflect the majority of what good pancreatic cancer care in America is," he said.The researchers assessed the patterns of disease recurrence in three groups of patients: those who underwent a surgical procedure alone, those who had adjuvant chemotherapy, and those who had radiotherapy in addition to chemotherapy. Patients were followed for a median period of 18 months. Dr. Parikh explained that a previous study by CPC a few years ago found that radiotherapy did not affect survival in certain groups of patients. "The goal here was to determine how adjuvant therapy affects disease recurrence."When controlling for several associated factors, adjuvant chemotherapy led to a 29 percent improvement in overall survival when compared to surgery alone while chemoradiation did not significantly improve survival. The incidence of local recurrence was significantly decreased by both chemotherapy (41 percent) and chemoradiation (49 percent). The incidence of distant recurrence was significantly lower only after chemotherapy (26 percent).It was not affected by chemoradiation. "Unless we get better evidence to show that radiation helps in resected pancreatic cancer, we believe adjuvant therapy should be confined to chemotherapy after surgery," Dr. Parikh said. Dr. Parikh pointed out that while delivering adjuvant chemoradiotherapy, physicians significantly reduce the amount of chemotherapy that is administered. "All patients should get at least six months of chemotherapy. If there is a role for chemoradiotherapy, it should not be given at the expense of giving less chemotherapy," he concluded.Source: Eurekalert Advertisement In addition to seeing wide variation in how and when PICCs are used, the researchers also found variation in how often patients experienced the complications such as blood clots and infections that are known to be associated with PICCs. Although most complications were minor, some were more dangerous.The findings, published inuse data from the Michigan Hospital Medicine Safety Consortium or HMS. The organization pools data from participating hospitals to spot issues important to the safety of hospitalized medical patients, and then shares data with hospitals to find ways to improve care and protect them.These findings shed new light on just how variable the use of PICCs is, and just how much room there is for improvement and standardization."While PICCs have many benefits and important uses in hospitalized patients, their advantages must be balanced against risks," says Vineet Chopra, the paper's lead author and an assistant professor of internal medicine at the U-M Medical School.The researchers looked at the detailed records of 3,201 patients who received 3,378 PICCs over a period of 14 months, and followed up with over half of them by phone.The first sign that PICC use varied widely was the percentage of all patients treated at hospitals that received one. At some hospitals, as few as 2.5% of patients had a PICC placed. However, at others - it was more than 8%. This variation between hospitals couldn't be explained by how sick the patients were - or by whether the hospital was large or small, urban or rural, or affiliated with a medical school.Because PICCs carry risks as well as benefits, they're generally thought of as devices meant to be used longer than a week in people who need IV medication or nutrition, or many blood draws. But nearly one in four of the PICCs inserted during the review period were removed within five days - and potentially - other devices with lower risks may have been used in many cases.Since PICCs are inserted in the arm and include a delivery tube that extends deep into the heart of the body's circulation system, they can act like a highway for infectious organisms to get access to the bloodstream, and can cause blood to clot around them. If a clot breaks off and travels into the body, it can block blood flow to the limb or even the lungs.These complications, called CLABSIs, DVTs, VTEs and PEs* for short, can be catastrophic. Even lesser complications, like a kinked delivery tube or an infection where the PICCs break the skin, can be hazardous.Just as there was wide variation in PICC use between hospitals, complication rates varied widely. And no one complication was most common across all hospitals.One key finding of the analysis is just how often serious, potentially life-threatening complications occur with PICCs. About 5% of patients developed a DVT or PE. Just over 1% of patients developed a CLABSI. A few dozen more had their PICCs taken out because medical teams suspected they might be developing a CLABSI."One way of preventing complications and ensuring the appropriate use of PICCs is by following evidence-based recommendations for use," says Chopra. But until recently, those didn't exist.Last fall, that changed with the publication of MAGIC, a guideline for IV device use created by an international panel of professionals, members of HMS hospitals and a patient. It's available online for free to any medical team at improvepicc.com/magic. All 51 hospitals in HMS are assessing how to incorporate MAGIC into their clinical decision making processes to guide their use of IV devices. And all are now collecting data and reviewing PICC practices to improve care for their patients. Because 5 of the 15 authors came from HMS hospitals, they are uniquely able to apply MAGIC to their sites.Chopra said, "MAGIC has the potential to be a game-changer when it comes to IV access. Hospitals in HMS have started to consider using components of this tool to improve decision-making when it comes to PICCs. One hospital has already had a substantial drop in short-term PICC use through use of MAGIC."Source: Eurekalert 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. The following are some of this week's reports from the MEMRI Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM) Project, which translates and analyzes content from sources monitored around the clock, among them the most important jihadi websites and blogs. (To view these reports in full, you must be a paying member of the JTTM; for membership information, send an email to [email protected] with "Membership" in the subject line.) Note to media and government: For a full copy of these reports, send an email with the title of the report in the subject line to [email protected]. Please include your name, title, and organization in your email. EXCUSIVE: Shi'ite Militia In Iraq Threatens Rocket Fire On U.S. Embassy In Baghdad Media outlets in Iraq have reported that Kataeb Sayyid Al-Shuhada, an Iran-backed Shi'ite militia which is one of the organizations that make up the Popular Mobilization Forces, has issued a communiqu in which it threatens to fire rockets on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. According to the report, the threat comes in response to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's demand that Hizbullah and the Iraqi militias (meaning Shi'ite Iraqi militias) withdraw from Syria, otherwise "they will be targeted by everybody." EXCLUSIVE: Top ISIS Writer Asks Twitter, Telegram To Halt Their Suspension Of Jihadi Accounts; Challenges Them, As Well As Anti-ISIS Groups, To Counter-Argue On February 12, 2016, Mu'awiyya Al-Qahtani, aka Ibn Al-Siddiqqah, a prominent writer and supporter of the Islamic State (ISIS), published an article calling on the founders of Twitter and Telegram to stop suspending pro-ISIS accounts and to instead counter the ISIS message and let people decide for themselves. EXCLUSIVE: A Look At Text And Image Sharing Services Used To Publish ISIS Content The Islamic State (ISIS) releases daily a stream of materials online, including written statements, pictorial reports, video and audio productions, as well as various printable materials, among other things. The pictorial reports typically consist of a series of images with a title and brief introduction, presenting aspects of ISIS's activities and military operations. More often than not, these reports are graphic in nature and include, for example, the execution of spies and graphic images of combatants killed by ISIS. EXCLUSIVE: Canadian ISIS Fighter Active On Twitter, In Contact With Canadian And American ISIS Supporters Via his Twitter account, a Canadian ISIS fighter gives his followers a glimpse into life in the Islamic State. His first tweet was on February 3 2016, and so far he has posted a couple of photos from Syria, including one of a leaflet dropped by the coalition in Raqqah aimed at deterring the local residents from supporting ISIS. He also communicates with other pro-ISIS supporters from Canada, and from the U.S. EXCLUSIVE: British ISIS Fighter Ordered Off Social Media By ISIS Launches Facebook Account A British ISIS fighter was very active on a host of social media platforms, including Twitter, Tumblr, and Telegram, until he was ordered, on January 8, 2016 by the ISIS Media Center, to shut down his Telegram channel and cease all social media postings. He shared the message he had received from the Media Center telling him to relinquish his social media presence; the message sternly warned: "We will continue to closely follow your activities, and any further violations will come with serious repercussions and will be dealt with swiftly." EXCLUSIVE: WARNING-GRAPHIC IMAGES: On Facebook, Trinidadian ISIS Fighter Chronicles Life In The Islamic State A fighter from Trinidad and Tobago on Facebook is an Islamic State (ISIS) fighter currently residing in Syria. He does not reveal much personal information, but does list his birthdate as December 25, 1990. Photos he has posted include the aftermath of airstrikes, snow in Syria, and the mutilated bodies of ISIS victims. At the time of this writing, he has 62 Facebook friends. It should be noted that on November 5, 2015, ISIS's Al-Raqqa province released a video titled "Those Who Believe and Made the Hijrah," showcasing ISIS recruits from Trinidad and Tobago; however, it is not possible to tell whether he was among them. EXCLUSIVE: Exploring The Islamic State's Online Radio Broadcast Network The Islamic State (ISIS) launched its official radio broadcast network Al-Bayan in 2014. Al-Bayan, which broadcasts mostly religious content and reports about ISIS's military operations, has been an integral part of the group's information apparatus. EXCLUSIVE: ISIS Video Shows Attack On Oil Facilities In Libya's Oil Crescent On February 14, 2016, the information bureau of the Islamic State's (ISIS's) Al-Barqah Province in Libya released an eight-minute video titled "The Sheikh Abu Al-Mughira Al-Qahtani Raid," which documents an ISIS attack in early January 2016 on oil facilities in the Ras Al-Anuf and Sidra area in Libya's "oil crescent." 'Islamic State In Libya' Telegram Channel Spreads 'Awareness Of The Expansion' Of The Caliphate In Libya On November 6, 2015, the Telegram channel "Islamic State in Libya" was launched. The channel's description reads: "This is to give the awareness of the expansion of the khilafah and more so it in Libya." The channel, which currently has 318 members, disseminates official photos of ISIS productions filmed in Libya in addition to unofficial personal photos which fighters appear to have taken themselves. The channel also shared the stories of two slain fighters, one from Nepal and another from Nigeria, and a Western fighter calling himself Ali Al Foutawi recounted some of his battle experiences. ISIS To Aleppo Rebels 'Make Way For Us To Fight The Regime Army, If You Fight Us The Blood Is On Your Heads' On February 13, 2016, the Islamic State (ISIS) launched an information campaign targeted at the residents and armed opposition in the Aleppo region, which in recent days has faced a ground offensive by pro-Assad forces backed by Russian air power. The campaign's main thrust is to encourage members of rival armed-rebel groups to join ISIS and rely on it as the sole element capable of fighting back against Assad's forces. ISIS supporters have been waging the campaign in recent days under the Twitter hashtag "Messages to the People of Aleppo." English-Speaking Jabhat Al-Nusra-Affiliated Fighter In Syria Asks For Donations On Twitter An English-speaking fighter on Twitter, who is supposedly based somewhere in the vicinity of Latakia Governorate in Syria, is promoting, via his Twitter account, a secure email service called Tutanota for anyone wanting to send funds. ISIS Claims Responsibility For Attack On Military Base In Yemen On February 17, 2016, the media office of the Islamic State (ISIS) in Aden/Abyan province in Yemen released a statement claiming responsibility for today's attack on the Ras Abbas military base in Aden. Along with the statement, which was posted on the leading ISIS-affiliated jihadi forum Shumoukh Al-Islam, the group released a photo of the attacker, whom it identified as Abu Issa Al-Ansari. ISIS Spin On ISIS Fighters' Mass Renunciation Of The Organization's Governor In Yemen: It Is Part Of Al-Qaeda 'Conspiracy' To Infiltrate ISIS, Bring It Down From Within In recent weeks, a new chapter in the ongoing feud between Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS) is being written. The new developments began when members of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) revealed on social media that dozens of ISIS founders and senior figures as well as rank and file members in the organization's Yemen branch had renounced ISIS's "governor" (wali) in Yemen, appointed by ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, and refused to accept his leadership. Shortly thereafter, AQAP operatives leaked internal ISIS documents about the mass renunciation and about the events that followed. In Issue 8 Of 'Dar Al-Islam,' Widow Of French ISIS Fighter Eulogizes Her Husband, Instructs Fellow Jihad Wives In Proper Attitude The eighth issue of Dar Al-Islam, the French-language magazine of the Islamic State (ISIS), includes a eulogy for veteran French ISIS fighter Abu 'Umar Al-Faransi, written by his wife, Umm 'Umar, who is also French. Abu 'Umar appeared in a November 17, 2015 ISIS video in which he praised the Paris attacks; he was killed sometime after this, presumably while fighting in Syria. Issue 8 Of ISIS French-Language Magazine 'Dar Al-Islam' Features Martyrdom Wills Of Three Paris Attackers On February 07, 2016, the Islamic State's (ISIS) Al-Hayat media center released the eighth issue of the French-language magazine Dar Al-Islam. The magazine prominently features the "martyrdom wills" (wasiyah) of three of the Paris attackers. These statements, provided after the operational success of the Paris attacks, are especially significant for ISIS supporters and serve as strong recruitment and motivational tools for. The attackers call for more Muslims to join ISIS, insisting on the obligatory nature of jihad against the West and its allies. They also address their ISIS brothers in arms, urging them to be steadfast and to continue their sacrifice for the cause. ISIS French Magazine Provides Religious Justifications For The Paris Attacks On February 7, 2016, the Islamic State (ISIS) Al-Hayat media center released the eighth issue of its French language magazine Dar Al-Islam. For an overview of this issue's content, see MEMRI JTTM report Issue 8 Of ISIS' French Magazine 'Dar Al-Islam' Presents Religious Justification For Paris Attacks, Threatens More Terror To Come. AQIM Video Shows Training Camp, Claims Victory Over France In Mali On February 13, 2016, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM ) released a 14-minute video titled "From the Depths of the Sahara - 2". The video that was distributed on the organization's Telegram channel and Twitter account shows AQIM members training at the Abu Hasan Al-Rashid base and mainly touts its victory over France. 'Ansar Alkhelafa Europe' Forum Resumes Function Following 'Sustained DDoS Attack From Kuffar' A few days ago, the Ansar Alkhelafa Europe (AKE) forum returned to normal function online following several weeks of inactivity. The absence, according to one of the forum's administrators, was due to a "sustained" DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack against the forum. Tablighi Jamaat Barred From Educational Institutions In Pakistan's Punjab Province Islamic revivalist network Tablighi Jamaat has been banned from educational institutions in Pakistan's Punjab province according to an Urdu website. Rana Sanaullah, the Law Minister of Punjab province, confirmed that the ban is not on the Tablighi Jamaat's activities outside educational institutions. "The government has not banned the Tablighi Jamaat. Rather, the ban is only on the Tablighi Jamaat's entry into educational institutions because some terrorists had joined the Tablighi Jamaat." The full text of this post is available to subscribers. Please login or register to request subscription information from MEMRI Icon of the "21 New Martyrs of Libya" by Egyptian-American artist Tony Rezk The Islamic State (ISIS) and its former masters, now bitter rivals, in Al-Qaeda are excellent haters. And they work very hard to translate that hate into actual violent action against certain groups of people. But they differ slightly in their immediate priorities. Both groups demonize and exalt violence against Jews (as disparate groups like Hizbullah, Hamas and even the supposedly more respectable Fatah also do), but ISIS also prioritizes violence against Shi'a Muslims, whether in the Syrian or Iraqi governments or Shi'a worshippers in places like Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. And Al-Qaeda has often called for prioritizing attacks against the West, especially the U.S., over targeting local religious minorities. As for targeting Christians, ISIS has made a very public fetish of destroying Christian symbols and sites, uprooting historic communities, and killing Christians as it gained territory in Iraq, Syria and Libya. But the group also did this when it was still publicly a member in good standing of Al-Qaeda (2003-2014). Both groups seem to harbor a particular hatred for the largest single Christian denomination in the Middle East and North Africa, the Coptic Orthodox Church, the "Patriarchate of Alexandria and the See of St. Mark." Most of the history of the autochthonous Coptic Church under Islam is not much different than that of other Christian communities under Islamic rule. Communities were both favored and persecuted under that rule, varying according to political and personal circumstances.[1] One can see what one wants to see and find both real human flourishing and tolerance, and discrimination, brutality, and oppression during those 14 centuries.[2] Given the relatively large number of Copts in Egypt and the rise of Salafi jihadism in the country in the 1970s, it was probably to be expected that these takfiri groups - in many ways precursors to Al-Qaeda - would target Egyptian Christians in addition to government officials. Robbing a Christian-owned shop and killing its owner was at least as laudable as killing a local policeman, and more profitable. While some clashes were part of the historic fabric of localized sectarian violence in rural Upper Egypt, these new Islamist groups also gave the violence a new scope and justification. The irony is that, of course, Egyptian Christians always had very little influence or power under the succession of military-led governments that ruled the country since 1952. But from the time of President Sadat to this day, Copts were not only to be frequent subjects of Islamist murder and robbery, but of ideologically motivated vilification.[3] As Gilles Keppel has richly documented, in the discourse of the various Salafi Islamists proliferating in Egypt from the 1970s, Copts were either recalled as the happy and contented dhimmis of legend or scorned as the ungrateful, coddled, and too-powerful "Crusaders" of today.[4] As the Egyptian government largely crushed the terrorist Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya in the 1990s, anti-Coptic incitement went international with the rise of Al-Qaeda and its core of veteran Egyptian jihadis mostly drawn from the Egyptian Islamic Jihad organization (EIJ). Both EIJ and Al-Gama'a drew at least some of their key leaders from the older Muslim Brotherhood.[5] While the term Islamophobia has become extremely fashionable in the past few years, this phenomenon does not seem to have affected the deep desire of many Muslims to enter the Western lands where it supposedly flourishes. The outbreak of open and unashamed violence against religious minorities in the Middle East by Salafi-jihadis, including against Christians, has now accelerated into a flood of desperate people seeking to flee the Middle East. But while this overall anti-Christian violence is always wrong and objectionable, Coptophobia seems special, in that it also happens where there are actually no Coptic communities in existence. The Islamic State of Iraq, on its way to become the ISIS of today, actually had an Egyptian as its ostensible leader from 2006 to 2010, during a key period of its history.[6] But Abu Ayub Al-Masri was already dead when the Islamic State, under the now infamous Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, launched an attack in October 2010 against Syriac Catholic worshippers at Baghdad's Sayedat al-Najat Church. Iraqi Christians had been targeted for years, but this attack included a new twist. Among the claims made by the organization was that the bloody operation, which killed many Iraqi women and children, was in revenge for the Coptic Church's alleged imprisonment in one of their "monasteries of infidelity and churches of polytheism" of two Egyptian women who supposedly had converted to Islam.[7] The case of Camilia Shehata and Wafa Constantine, alleged Muslim converts, or battered wives, or merely women with marital problems, whose cases were used by Salafi activists to incite sectarian violence, would appear repeatedly as an excuse for homicide against individuals having no connection with these two women.[8] The Baghdad operation was "in revenge" even though both women are still alive. The claim of "Copts abusing Muslim women" was sensational and important enough to already have prompted angry video comments by Al-Qaeda leader Al-Zawahiri and one of his key lieutenants, Abu Yahya al-Libi.[9] Such a charge had been a staple of local anti-Coptic pogroms for many years.[10] Now it had gone viral and global as part of the language of the international jihadist movement. While innocents were killed in Iraq and the Al-Qaeda leadership based in Waziristan called for action, Copts were targeted in a bloody Christmas suicide bomber attack in January 2011 that killed 23 and wounded almost a hundred in Alexandria, Egypt.[11] As often happened in Egypt, the claim of responsibility was unclear, but the attack came at a time of extreme political turmoil and of anti-Christian agitation, including claims by a prominent Islamist politician, Muhammad Salim Al-Awa, that Copts were storing weapons in churches and monasteries in order to establish a "Coptic State."[12] The more extreme Al-Zawahiri had made similar claims.[13] Regarded as a thoughtful Islamist leader, Al-Awa would receive 1% of the vote in the 2012 Egyptian presidential elections, and was featured positively in a recent interview on Sunni-Shia solidarity on Hizbullah-controlled Al-Manar TV.[14] Still other allegations were that the Egyptian Government had manipulated Islamist terrorists to carry out the operation.[15] The language used against Copts, and the specious justification for violence, were similar to that used against other ethnic and religious minorities throughout history, involving wild-eyed allegations of disloyalty, violence, sexual impropriety, arrogance, and conspiracy.[16] And as happened in so many pogroms and massacres in the past, including in the Middle East, the offending minority was to be "punished" collectively.[17] Violence against Copts would continue during Egypt's turbulent transition, and spike at the time of the overthrow of the government of Egyptian President Muhammad Morsi in July 2013, with dozens of churches torched and generalized violence throughout the country.[18] The Islamist discourse blamed the Coptic community for much of the ongoing turmoil and for the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood government.[19] Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya leader Assem Abdel Maged was only one Islamist leader castigating the Egyptian Army for siding with "religious, political, and social minorities."[20] The emphasis is rather significant. Rather than suggesting a frightened and marginalized minority throwing in its lot with the military, it is the military that throws in with the religious minority. As extreme as the sectarian violence and language in Egypt has become, it is certainly part of a broader spectrum of local conditions and tensions existing in that country for years, albeit exacerbated by political struggle and the rise of Islamists over the past 50 years. More unusual is how Coptophobia, as with the 2010 Baghdad church attack, has been internalized among non-Egyptians. Having used Copts as a prop in 2010, the Islamic State brought them center stage in February 2015. The 20 Egyptian Coptic Christians and one Ghanaian Christian beheaded by the Libyan branch of ISIS in an English-language (with Arabic subtitles) video sent multiple messages. ISIS video: "We will conquer Rome, by permission of Allah, as promised by our Prophet" The message had an obvious Egyptian context: These were "followers of the hostile Egyptian Church," and the killings were "in revenge for Camelia and her sisters." But the murder of these migrant laborers is also nestled into a larger context of an ISIS war against Christianity.[21] It is a "Message Signed with Blood to the Nation of the Cross."[22] The English-speaking leader of the massacre boasts that "we will conquer Rome," and that the blood of the infidels is mixed with seawater just as that of Osama bin Ladin was. He also refers to the 2014 beheadings of Westerners in northern Syria, near Dabiq, the Armageddon of Islamic prophecy.[23] And, in a further eschatological reference, he mentions the foretold Second Coming of Jesus Christ (in Muslim end-times tradition) and his "breaking the cross, killing the swine, and abolishing jizya (humiliating poll tax traditionally paid by non-Muslims under Islamic rule). Al-Jazeera interview with Jabhat Al-Nusra Emir Abu Muhammad Al-Julani While ISIS's sectarian discourse is often derided even by many Muslims as extreme, a different attempt at whitewashing jihadis featured a jibe against Coptic Christians. Al-Jazeera's May 2015 interview with Abu Muhammad Al-Julani, the Syrian head of ISIS's bitter rival Jabhat Al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda's branch in Syria, portrayed the organization uncritically.[24] Correspondent Ahmed Mansour, himself an Egyptian Islamist, asked Al-Julani about the organization's treatment of religious minorities, including Christians. Al-Julani answered that his organization would not blame Syria's Christians "for what the Americans or the Copts have done."[25] What a remarkable statement, equating some sort of community-wide guilt to an Egyptian religious minority on a par with the alleged misdeeds of the world's superpower! ISIS Tripoli has continued to regionalize anti-Coptic violence in a 13 minute video released in February 2016.[26] The two Egyptian ISIS members called on their countrymen to abandon other Islamist groups and protest efforts and join the Islamic State. They described Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, who has made several high-profile efforts to promote religious tolerance and reach out to Copts,[27] as "the ape, pig, slave of the Cross and guardian of the Jews." Against a backdrop of a photograph of Al-Sisi with Coptic Pope-Patriarch Tawadros II, the speaker says: "Fight and kill them, from their Great Priest (Tawadros II) to the most pathetic one." A second speaker calls for Egyptians to "terrorize the Jews and burn the slaves of the Cross." And while there hasn't been a second beheading video of Coptic Christians to date (the second video was of Ethiopian Christians[28]), at least seven more Egyptian Christians are missing in Libya.[29] With the modern poisonous discourse about Coptic Christians closing in on half a century, Islamist Coptophobia is clearly here to stay. The deadly actions of the Islamic State and the toxic rhetoric of contemporary politicians like Abdel Maged and Al-Awa, coupled with the traditional, localized prejudice of past centuries, have contributed to creating a deadly environment for Egyptian Christians. And what was once an Egyptian story is now a regional one, as Islamists outside the country spread the message on social media. The fact that some apologists for Egyptian Islamism seek to talk about individual "unwise and immoral" Coptic leaders or activists does not detract from the deep, naked bigotry at play here directed against a threatened community of millions of innocent people.[30] *Alberto M. Fernandez is Vice-President of MEMRI. Endnotes: 'Homeland', the nerve wrecking American political thriller, will soon find its desi adaption for the Indian audience. Howard Gordon, the showrunner of the two original US series, has already revealed his plans for the Indian version of Homeland. If the rumours are to be believed, then Nikhil Advani, the director who is basking in the glory of success after his film Airlift garnered raving reviews, has been roped in for the production of the show. Facebook The plot will apparently be based on the life of two Indian soldiers, who will probably be played by Purab Kohli of Rock On! fame and Satyadeep Misra. The story will begin with these two men returning home after a long war in Kargil and being pursued by a RAW agent who believes that they have aligned with a rival agency. Sandhya Mridul will play the role of Satyadeeps wife,who moves on in life with his brother, post his absence.The yet-to-be-titled Indian version of Homeland is still in its native stage and the shooting might begin in April. The main concern for the makers will, however, be the treatment of the series as the original series has a very strong fan base in India. So it is important that expectations are met. Facebook Homeland, which has originally been adapted from an Israeli series created by Alex Gansa and Howard Gordon, is a story about US Marine Nicolas Brody, who returns home after eight years in captivity in Iraq. Carrie Mathison, a central intelligence agency officer, follows him unofficially as she suspects him to be a traitor for the nation. Review: Spotlight is investigative journalism at its best. You wouldnt know that when the film begins with its first shot inside a police station in the 70s. But over the next two hours, you will find out how journalism really works. A single witness leads to multiple sources, seemingly hidden details in plain sight take on new meaning and the hopes and fears of an entire community rise and fall with the ongoing investigation. What investigation you ask? Well, in 2001, The Boston Globe newspaper conducted a Pulitzer-Prize winning investigation into paedophile priests and the Church of Bostons active role in covering for these priests. What the investigators did not know was that they had opened a Pandoras Box and similar cases of abuse by priests from across the world were reported after Boston Globe published its damning report. In Tom McCarthys brilliantly told movie, the entire case falls under the purview of the spotlight team at the newspaper that writes investigative reports after months of research and corroboration. This team, comprising of Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), Matt Carroll (Brian dArcy James) and led by Walter Robinson (Michael Keaton) find a new editor Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) asking them to investigate the Boston Church. Baron comes upon this fact in his papers column that nobody pays attention to with explosive claims in which a lawyer Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci) claims that the Archbishop of Boston did nothing to stop a priest named John Geoghan who was sexually abusing children. That first scene in Spotlight will suddenly make sense to viewers at this point. The real beauty of the movie, however, is the way the spotlight team takes down the Church. While Rezendes goes after the lawyer Garabedian and the court to unseal locked documents, Pfeiffer begins talking to victims and the Churchs top attorney. Matt Carroll comes up with ingenious ways to further the investigation by going into records while Robinson keeps it all together and pursues the big source from the Churchs side to corroborate their findings. The team takes up the case reluctantly but once the pieces start falling in place, the entire weight of the church and powerful lawyers who protect them falls on the team. They must also conduct their investigation as secretly as possible so as not to allow any other newspaper to cover the story. Not only that, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks the team has to disband their investigation as the terrorist attack takes precedence over their ongoing reportage. While it is common for filmmakers to visually show child abuse in order to shock the audience, McCarthy shows remarkable restraint and lets the investigation and witnesses describe what being abused really feels like. Not only that, even after the reports publication the movie does not show Cardinals being arrested en masse or guilty lawyers being taken to the courthouse. Instead, a sobering few slides detail other places from across the world where child abuse claims by priests were reported after the 2002 publication of the Boston Globe article. The cast shines through in their roles with not a single flawed performance to speak of and as the credits go down you realise that the movies greatest strength was telling its story just like an investigative reporter would without any sign of flash and pomp. It is in the running for six Oscar Awards, one of them being a well-deserved Best Picture nomination. Whatever you do, do not miss Spotlight. Watch the trailer here - What he didn't have, authorities say, was a medical license few 18 year olds do. Now the Florida teen is charged with practicing medicine without a license and theft after he allegedly performed an exam on an undercover agent and took almost $3,500 from an 86-year-old woman seeking treatment for stomach pain. He's also accused of stealing three checks from her that he cashed for almost $2,800. Love-Robinson was released on $21,000 bail on Wednesday, one day after his arrest. "Those are just allegations," he told The Associated Press in a brief phone interview. Love-Robinson called a Wednesday night news conference and arrived a half hour late. He would only say that his attorneys are working to resolve the charges and that he hopes the community will pray for him. He declined to answer any questions. According to Palm Beach County sheriff's reports, an undercover agent went to Love-Robinson's office, The New Birth New Life Medical Center, on Tuesday. He was wearing a white lab coat with a stethoscope draped over his neck. The agent told him that she was suffering from a sore throat, lethargy and sneezing. He took her temperature and used the stethoscope to check her lungs and heart and told her she was suffering from allergies and should take an over-the-counter medication. He told her he was a doctor of homeopathic medicine, the report said, and explained that he had a medical doctor on staff to prescribe antibiotics. She signaled other detectives who entered the office and arrested him. Detectives also cited the case of Anita Morrison, who filed a complaint alleging Love-Robinson had come to her house five times in December after she contacted him online to treat her for stomach pains. He told her she suffered from arthritis and sold her vitamins, charging her $3,494 that she paid by check. During one visit, she told detectives, she became ill, and Love-Robinson called an ambulance to take her to the hospital. He recommended that she not take her purse, so she gave it to him and asked him to lock up her house. After her release, she found her bank account had no money. Investigators said Love-Robinson had forged three checks from her account. Morrison did not immediately return a message left on her voicemail. A website for Love-Robinson's medical practice says he specializes in naturopathy, a system of medicine based on the healing power of nature that avoids the use of surgery and drugs. It is not a licensed medical specialty in Florida and cannot be legally practiced in the state. Its practitioners do not attend traditional medical schools. Love-Robinson's website says he is a "well rounded professional" who bases his treatments on "physiological functions and abnormal conditions on natural laws governing the human body." The site says he accepts 19 health insurance plans, plus Medicaid. Three insurance companies contacted by AP said they had no dealings with him. The site also says he speaks French and lists his age as 25. The Palm Beach Post and South Florida Sun Sentinel reported that Love-Robinson had been stopped last year at a hospital while wandering the halls wearing a lab coat and stethoscope. He was then 17. On a separate religious-themed website, Love-Robinson says he is an ordained minister with the Universal Life Church, having done a doctoral thesis that "explored the paradoxical nature of certain Christian doctrines and the implications for the rationality of Christian faith." The Universal Life Church is an Internet-based church that will ordain anyone 13 or older who fills out a short form. "Dr Love-Robinson is now and (sic) advocate for ULC and all Associations in which he represents and intends to bring much good to community one blessing at a time," his profile says. CASS CITY Baker College officials have announced that the college will transition from a quarter format to a semester format beginning fall 2017. A traditional academic year is a nine-month period composed of either quarter- or semester-based coursework. As a quarter-based institution, Baker College currently offers three quarters of coursework, each typically 10 to 12 weeks in duration, along with a summer session. The semester calendar will offer two 16-week semesters of coursework and a 12-week summer session. The trend in higher education is certainly a semester schedule, especially in Michigan, stated Bart Daig, Ph.D., Baker College System president and CEO, in a news release. Our students will gain many benefits when our schedule aligns with the majority of higher education institutions. He noted the following student benefits: Longer-term internships that will provide additional real-world training. Availability during traditional college breaks for summer and holiday employment. Entering the job market at the same time in the spring as most other college graduates. Greater ease of transferring credits and enrollment to and from other institutions of higher education. The new schedule also better aligns with high school calendars. It allows for additional opportunities to collaborate with high schools and for enhanced support of Baker Colleges many existing high school dual-enrollment, direct-credit and early middle college initiatives. A transition committee has created a detailed implementation plan that provides a transparent and seamless process for students, faculty and staff. Of high importance in this transition is to not disrupt the academic progress of current students, stated Denise Bannan, Ph. D., Baker College System vice president for academics. It will be cost- and time-neutral for them. Advisors will ensure that this will not increase the cost to complete a program nor will it increase a students time to graduation. Annual tuition fees and financial aid on the semester calendar will remain comparable to those on our present quarter calendar. For information, visit www.baker.edu or follow Baker College on Twitter, @bakercollege, or on Facebook, www.facebook.com/bakercollege. B-1 Lancer bombers will be out of the mix indefinitely for the air campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the top air commander in the region said Thursday. Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., commander of U.S. Air Forces Central Command, said that the four-engine B-1s, especially valued for their long-range capabilities and heavy bomb loads of precision-guided munitions, had been rotated back to the U.S. for upgrades, mainly to their cockpits. "The B-1s have rotated out" but "we have plenty of capacity with other platforms," Brown said in a video briefing to the Pentagon from his headquarters at Al Udeid airfield in Qatar. "We lose maybe a little flexibility" by not having a bomber that "can carry as many weapons as it can," he said. "We are able to cover that. We knew this was coming so we postured ourselves." Brown did not give a timeline for the return of the B-1s but said, "They will return to the mix. They will be back, I fully expect it." Brown said the air campaign was intensifying against what he called "Daesh," an Arabic derogatory for ISIS, and he rejected charges that U.S. or coalition aircraft may have been responsible for recent airstrikes in northwestern Syria that hit several hospitals and schools. "There are only two people flying in that area -- the Russians and the Syrians," Brown said of the strikes that the Doctors Without Borders aid group said killed at least 25 at a hospital it supported. "I can guarantee you that it wasn't the coalition," Brown said. Brown did not respond directly when asked whether U.S. helicopter search-and-rescue teams were occasionally positioning themselves on the ground near areas where the U.S. planned airstrikes to come to the aid of downed pilots if needed. Search-and-rescue helos and teams were based in Turkey, Iraq and Kuwait, Brown said, but "We are able to go out and we posture ourselves" for the possible rescue of downed pilots. "We do we posture a bit more" as airstrikes increase, he said. Brown also confirmed that he was relying on F-22 Raptors, the Air Force's most advanced fighter, to use their advanced sensors to lead the way for airstrikes to reduce vulnerability to ground fire. "We're still using F-22s across Iraq and Syria. That decreases some of our risk," he said. In response to recent calls from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others for creation of a no-fly zone over Syria, Brown echoed the previous statements of U.S. officials that a no-fly zone posed too many risks of escalating the conflict. Enforcing a no-fly zone would "be difficult to do and take away from my priority mission" of combating ISIS, he said. In addition, to enforce a no-fly zone "you've got to be willing to shoot somebody down," Brown said. -- Richard Sisk can be reached at richard.sisk@military.com. Related video: A decorated Army sergeant who protected an Afghan boy from a child molester could find out any day whether his actions will end his career in the military. Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland, a Green Beret with an 11-year Special Forces career, was stationed in Afghanistan in 2011 when the boy's mother came to him and said she'd been beaten and her son raped by a local police commander. Martland and another soldier summoned the police official and, when the man laughed at them, threw him off the base. Martland and Daniel Quinn were both disciplined for their actions. Last year, amid military cuts, the Army Human Resources Command recommended Martland be discharged in part based on his disciplinary record, but an official decision by U.S. Army brass is expected by March 1. "Charles did the right thing in Afghanistan by standing up to a child rapist and corrupt commander, and now it's the Army's turn to do the right thing and reverse the decision to expel him from the service," said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-California, whose office has been assisting Martland. "Permitting Charles to continue serving is in the best interest of the Army and the nation." Supporters mounted an online petition backing Martland and separately, 93 members of Congress have called for an investigation into the military's silence in the face of rampant sexual abuse of children in Afghanistan. While Quinn left the military voluntarily, Martland, who graduated in 2006 from Special Forces Qualification Course, has always seen himself as a lifer. After a deployment to Iraq in 2008, he deployed to Afghanistan in January 2010 as part of a 12-man unit. He and his team found themselves fighting large numbers of Taliban militants in the volatile Kunduz Province. Martland was awarded a Bronze Star with Valor for his actions. According to one evaluation, he also was praised by Gen. David Petraeus, then commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan. The 2011 incident occurred at the remote outpost where Martland was stationed. The 12-year-old boy and his mother showed up at camp, and the boy showed the Green Berets where his hands had been tied. A medic took him to a back room for an examination with an interpreter, who told them the boy had been raped by a man identified as Afghani Police commander Abdul Rahman. Rahman allegedly beat the boy's mother for reporting the crime after learning that they went to the Army outpost. This led Martland and team leader Daniel Quinn to confront Rahman. According to reports of the incident, Rahman confessed to the crime and laughed it off. This led Martland and Quinn to shove the smug police official to the ground. Rahman reported the incident to another Army unit in a nearby village, which led to Quinn and Martland being pulled from their assignments. One year ago, the Army conducted a "Qualitative Management Program" review board and called for Martland -- among thousands of other soldiers with prior disciplinary issues -- to be "involuntary discharged" by Nov. 1, 2015. Martland appealed the decision and a final ruling on his discharge has been delayed until now. With the deadline rapidly approaching, other legal advocates have come to his aid, and even garnered over 300,000 signatures in a petition calling for the decision to be overturned. "After acting to protect a child from sexual assault from an Afghan commander, SFC Martland was punished and could be kicked out of the military at any time," said Jay Sekulow, of the American Center for Law and Justice. "What's equally disturbing are reports that the military has allowed Afghanistan forces to sexually abuse young children on U.S. bases." -- Perry Chiaramonte is a reporter for FoxNews.com. A desperate hunt for "highly dangerous" radioactive material is on in Iraq, where officials fear it could be used to make a "dirty bomb" if in the hands of ISIS, according to a government official in Baghdad. The material, stored in a case the size of a laptop, disappeared from a storage facility near the southern city of Basra in November, Reuters reported. It was in the possession of Houston-based oil industry contractor Weatherford, according to a document obtained by the news agency. The document describes "the theft of a highly dangerous radioactive source of Ir-192 with highly radioactive activity belonging to SGS from a depot overseen by Weatherford in the Rafidhia area of Basra province." Weatherford officials said SGS was responsible for safeguarding the material. "Weatherford has no responsibility or liability in relation to this matter because we do not own, operate or control sources or the bunker where the sources are stored," the company said in a statement to Reuters. "SGS is the owner and operator of the bunker and sources and solely responsible for addressing this matter." The report comes on the heels of news that the Islamic terrorist organization has chemical weapons that it has used on the Kurds. A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said officials are "aware of reports," but deferred to Iraqi government. A spokesman for Iraq's environment ministry told Reuters he could not discuss the issue due to national security concerns. A Weatherford spokesman in Iraq also declined to comment. The missing material is used to test flaws in pipelines in a process called industrial gamma radiography, and was owned by Istanbul-based SGS Turkey, according to the document and officials. A senior environment ministry official based in Basra, who declined to be named as he is not authorized to speak publicly, told Reuters the device contained up to 10 grams of Ir-192 "capsules," a radioactive isotope of iridium also used to treat cancer. The material is classed as a Category 2 radioactive source by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and could be lethal for someone exposed to it for a period of hours. Reuters could not say how potent the material is, which would depend on its strength and age. In the past, quantities of Ir-192 have vanished in the United States and other countries, raising concerns of a "dirty bomb," or a conventional explosive paced with lower-grade nuclear material. Even a lower-level radiation bomb could cause widespread panic and fear, said Ryan Mauro, adjunct professor at Clarion Project, a U.S. think tank that tracks terrorism. "Shaping headlines is essential to ISIS' jihad, and beheadings, explosions and most brutal acts have become stale," Mauro told FoxNews.com. "A dirty bomb attack would be major news, regardless of how many immediate casualties occur. "It also leads to ongoing media coverage of the victims' conditions from the radiation exposure because audiences will want to know what actually happens if this were to happen where they live." A security official told Reuters the perpetrators may have known what they were doing, noting there were "no broken locks, no smashed doors and no evidence of forced entry" at the facility. A spokesman for Basra operations command said army, police and intelligence forces were working "day and night" to locate the material. Besides the risk of a dirty bomb, the radioactive material could cause harm simply by being left exposed in a public place for several days, said David Albright, a physicist and president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. "If they left it in some crowded place, that would be more of the risk. If they kept it together but without shielding," he said. "Certainly it's not insignificant. You could cause some panic with this. They would want to get this back." On Tuesday, U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper confirmed that ISIS has manufactured and deployed mustard gas in Iraq and Syria. Clapper did not elaborate on where and when the chemical attacks occurred, though there has been mounting evidence the terror group was experimenting with chemical weapons. "[The Syrian government] has used chemicals against the opposition on multiple occasions since Syria joined the Chemical Weapons Convention. ISIL has also used toxic chemicals in Iraq and Syria, including the blister agent Sulfur mustard," Clapper said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Fox News previously reported on ISIS' potential experimentation with chemical weapons. Photos taken by the Kurds in northern Iraq last summer and reviewed by Fox News showed burns and blistering on skin following exposure to "odorless, colorless" agents absorbed through the clothing. The former U.S. Navy SEAL known for killing Osama bin Laden said he supports women serving in elite special operations units as long as they can meet the standard. Robert O'Neill, who claimed credit for firing the deadly shots that killed the al-Qaida leader during a covert U.S. raid into Pakistan in 2011, appeared on Fox News on Feb. 16 to discuss the Pentagon's recent decision to open all direct combat jobs to women. "I've operated with women; they have actually come with us on operations," O'Neill said. "We use them a lot for some of the searching of women and children, cultural-sensitivity type stuff." O'Neill was referring to a select group of highly trained women who served on the Special Operations Command Cultural Support Team. The pilot program was designed to train women and have them serve with special operations direct-action units so they could gather battlefield intelligence by talking to Afghan women in situations where male soldiers had been unsuccessful. The program, outlined in "Ashley's War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield" by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, has been praised by high-ranking special operations leaders as highly successful. "There is definitely a place for women; there are certain types of intelligence and reconnaissance type stuff where women and men working together is better," said O'Neill, a decorated combat veteran who served with United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group, known as SEAL Team 6. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter opened all direct combat jobs to women last fall, giving them the green light to serve in infantry and special operations units. The controversial decision has opened up a heated debate, resulting in many critics predicting that military standards will be lowered to help women succeed. O'Neill said he has heard this concern from many of his friends still serving in SEAL units. "They are concerned about it. ... The tendency will be to lower the standards to try to get the politically correct thing going, but I do have people who are in agreement with me that if they do not lower the standards ... they should get a shot," O'Neill said. Most of the men who try out for Navy SEALS don't make it, and an even greater number of women will most likely not make it, O'Neill said. "If a woman can make it through that training; it's the hardest military training in the world -- Navy SEALS -- if she can make it, then she deserves a shot," he said. O'Neill's first-person account of the May 2, 2011, raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was detailed in the TV special, "The Man Who Killed Osama bin Laden," which aired on the cable news network in 2014. O'Neill said that having women serve in these elite units could have a psychological effect on the enemy. "I know that these Islamic fighters -- they don't fear death, but they do fear Hell," he said. "And if they are killed by women, they go to Hell, as far as they know, so I'd like to say 'lock and load ladies.' " -- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com. Related video: